Red Hot Pawn's Spirituality Forum: 2013 Poll

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
What are the short and longer term benefits of being an atheist?

To understand the answer, you need to rephrase the question:
What are the short and longer term benefits to throwing off the God delusion?
I suggest you read some books on the topic eg The God Delusion or God is not Great.
http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/anti-religion
You will find plenty of arguments for why religion is bad for the world.

Originally posted by googlefudge
You are still not getting it.


I lack a belief in gods not because I think it will benefit me, although it does.

I lack a belief in gods because I don't think they exist and don't think it's a good
idea to believe in the existence of things that don't exist.


What people believe about reality influences their decisions.


I believe that a ...[text shortened]... of atheism, You don't believe in gods that don't exist, with everything
that comes with that.

"You are still not getting it." -googlefudge

Doing my best with information that's all new; please be patient.

What people believe about reality influences their decisions." -googlefudge

I'd be interested in knowing what you 'believe' about reality.

Originally posted by twhitehead
To understand the answer, you need to rephrase the question:
What are the short and longer term benefits to throwing off the God delusion?
I suggest you read some books on the topic eg The God Delusion or God is not Great.
http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/anti-religion
You will find plenty of arguments for why religion is bad for the world.

Thanks for the recommendation.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Thanks for the recommendation.

I bought and read The God Delusion based on recommendations in this forum. Prior to this forum I had never heard of Richard Dawkins or his book. Also prior to reading that book I was generally neutral towards religion, ie I was an atheist but didn't see much harm in theism, I had a sort of live and let live policy. I only objected to extremism such as suicide bombers, the troubles around Israel and the attempts to teach creationism as science in the US.
However the above book convinced me that religion has far reaching negative effects on individuals and on societies. It wasn't just arguments made in the book, but rather the fact that it made me think about it more and analyze my own experiences in more detail.