If you have any suggestions, please leave them!
Choosing to subscribe to this topic will automatically register you for email notifications for comments and updates on this thread.
Email notifications will be sent out daily by default unless specified otherwise on your account which you can edit by going to your userpage here and clicking on the subscriptions tab.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
Log in or create an account to join the discussions on the Atheist Republic forums.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
FREE E-BOOKS
Get the book "Why There Is No God" and one more book for FREE!
Sign up below for the Atheist Republic Newsletter to get the books.
Record Your Message!
Record your voice here for it to be aired on the Atheist Republic Voicemails Podcast.
Send us your views and opinions, your personal stories, messages of support, comments on recent news, or any comments you would like to share about your part of the world.
Note : By clicking record you are allowing us to broadcast your message on any of our platforms.
Affiliate Disclaimer
Links to atheist related books, shirts and movies and other atheism related products are affiliate links.
All proceeds will go to keeping the Atheist Republic website up and running; providing resources, advocacy, community tools and encouragement to atheists all over the world.
I think i actually take many things that are possitive from several religions and beliefs. I even take the possitive from satanism. So you should never rule out reading about any religion at all. Some of them have valuable aspects to them for sure.
I agree with Trevor here, The more you know! I have been an atheist for a long time and still read about religions. There are good things to take from the knowledge of just about any religion you can think of so why not you never know one day I just might find that religion or experience that stands out and makes me some sort of believer, I doubt it, but I'm not ruling out the possibility that it could happen. However as an atheist I think this is something that could and should be only through my own decision, and as such I would not push my belief on others even if I did one day find a religion that was right for me. Also I doubt I would believe wholeheartedly in what any one religion put forth.
I guess I would have to point to Buddhism. Buddhism tells you to make your own decision and not to believe what you are told just because the person telling you is the teacher.
Buddhism gets the most respect from me when I compare what I know about Buddhism to all the other religions I have looked into, but I have not spent enough time on Buddhism to speak with confidence on the subject.
Actually I take a lot from several religions and I'm agnostic. I believe in some of the commandments of the christian bible, also the satanic bible has valuable information. Buddhism is filled with great information to lead us to a peacful mindset too.
But they are all flawed individualy and this is why I take the best from each in order to become a better human being.
Exactly, you don't have to try a religion to learn about it. Through increasing ones knowledge about how they all things work religious beliefs or what not, people can become better humans.
I'm curious. What positive values does the satanic bible teach?
Anton Lavay was a very interesting person to learn about and his books are filled with much valuable information that can be used by many people regardless of their beliefs. It is filled with many ways to use psych and sexuality to your advantage for example. I goes into the effects names can have on an individual there is to much to really start listing it Anton dedicated his life to this cause. Because he was the head of the satanic church and wrote the Satanic Bible you can imagine good Christians stay away from his works as they are sacrilege. I encourage you to to go to the library and read up on this stuff. Knowing your situation as you put forth earlier on these forums I would not recommend taking these books home.
I say learn about all of them and then make your decision. The worst problem is when people become atheists without even learning about religion and the reasons why so many people follow them. Once you educate yourself, you can make a true choice. If you just decide to becom an atheist without doing any research you are just an idiot.
Um, no. Assuming that atheists must be the ignorant ones is hogwash. Virtually all of us came from some sort of religious background, and many of us, having rejected what we were taught as children, have explored other faiths, before finally realizing that they all have fatal flaws. Even Buddhism involves reincarnation. Atheists generally know more about religion than the religious.
My wife is a devout Buddhist, and I go with her to the Temple when she wants to make merit. In other words pray and ask for blessings.
This is where I have trouble: The Buddha said he was not a God just an ordinary mortal and people should not worship him...but they do, all of them are busy praying to him in exactly the same way that other faiths pray for things they want...even asking for winning lottery numbers!!
Its a shame that it's gone that way. In his book The God Delusion Richard does not consider Buddhism as a religion, but I believe he is wrong. It's a gentle non threatening faith, but nevertheless a faith no different from Christianity. They treat it just the same and they all believe in an afterlife in so much as they will be reborn. They also believe very strongly in spirits and ghosts, to the extent that it's difficult to sell a house here once it has been lived in as it might be possessed by evil spirits. Most Thai's but new homes and old ones stay empty for a very long time because of this!
By making merit (giving money or food to the monks in the local temple) people who do bad things can be absolved of sin in the same way a catholic does in a confessional.
Don't be sucked in by thinking this is not a religion ...it is
I would recommend pantheism Pantheism is the belief that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent God, or that the universe (or nature) is identical with divinity. Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal or anthropomorphic god.---taken from wikipedia
Hmmm, this is interesting and kind of along the lines of my own belief but I guess I have difficulty with the term God being included at all, it to masculine to debated as to say it is loose of a term. I believe in nature, the universe, science and energy but not a God or Goddess that exist inside or outside of it all. It could be alive and perhaps even conscious on some level but this is nothing I know for a fact and I won't even begin to pretend to.
I never believed in god and never practiced any religion. But it was interesting for me whether any religious people can influence me ''into'' their religion, and I acquired some religious friends: orthodox christians and adventists of the seventh day, and they never managed to make a religious believer out of me. I became even more atheistic in my views after the friendship with those people ended.
I sometimes have an open ear for spiritual topics like chakras, crystals, meditation, etc. I haven't learned enough to speak on the topic but at times I view it as a religious-like because some people are so wrapped up in it. I've met some "looney" spiritual people (according to my standards) but ultimately find the subjects nice to learn about and not domineering like most religions. Albeit many spiritualists I have met lack skepticism which is disappointing at times.
I think you should learn about all ofthem because this will give you a much larger perspective of things.