If Atheism is to be taken in the broadest sense, which is the
lack of belief of a god or deity, I would consider myself to be an
atheist. Yet, let it be note that atheism is a very generalised
group and not all people within in holds the same set of
philosophy. I may not be religious, but that does not mean I avoid
religious texts. I read the Bible, Buddhism Sutras, and other
religious texts for purpose of knowledge curiousity and to extract
whatever philosophical reasonings that make senses to me.
Davidche posted scientific theories that seeked to explain the
world's creation and I believe that he hold skeptical views of
these theories. These theories are not without their loopholes and
are certainly not proven theories. Yet I see science not as a
religion nor a set of belief but an attitude. This attitude can be
illustrated by Davidche's previous post on the Steady state theory
and the big bang theory. Both theories are rivals and a much larger
group subscribe to the former until new evidence was uncovered to
provide better backup for the latter, subsequently the same group
of supporters for the former chosed to subscribe to the latter
instead. The attitude displayed here is that they are willing to
change their convictions according to the evidence available. Most
religious believers however, are willing to stay with their beliefs
even in the absence of evidence. Scientist seek to "know" based on
facts, while religious believers seek to "believe" based on
faith.
This is certainly not to say that all religions do not have
evidence to provide for their theories. Davidche had mentioned that
he had evidence supporting Christianity. I would only have
preferred that he listed down the evidence or inform other forumees
such as me, of the sources of these evidence. Perhaps we can
discuss the authencity and reliability of these sources; maybe on
another thread to prevent hijacking the current one.
On the purpose of life. As an atheist, or rather simply as me, I
would rather no have my purpose of life being dictate by another,
mortal or not. But I also do not agree with the accusation that
Christian's purpose in life had been dictated by their religion.
After all, they had simply subscribe to a set of life principles
willingly and are normally able to unsubscribe it without much
trouble. They are therefore, not being dictated, but simply
following a set model. However, when an atheist do not subscribed
to any religious pretext, it is not that we do not have any
purposes in life. We simply write our own life manual instead of
purchasing a ready written one. Personally, my purpose in life
adopt a partial utilitarian approach and seek to maximise the
happiness of those around me, family, friends, relatives, kinsmen,
fellow humen, all other life form, generally in that order. But
like all self written manual, it will constantly need
refining.
On a sidetrack issue, I cannot help but observe that a common
attitude of emotional arrongance appears to be displayed by a
number of the forumees subscribing to this topic. It appears that
my fellow forumees enjoyed downplaying each other, if they hold
different views, by use of emotionally filled words. Pardon me, but
is it not the purpose of a discussion forum to be an exchange of
reasons rather than display of emotions and passions? Perhaps we
can all work together to make the forum spaces a little more
mentally challenging rather than emotionally challenging.
