I remember the first day I felt cold radiating from some dry ice in a restaurant where I worked. I am scientific enough to know that cold does not radiate; it is merely a gap in what otherwise is a nearly uniform blanket of infrared radiation. Because of that immersion, I had never sensed “heat” unless it stood out from the background, which also was “hot” but not distinguishably so.

In choosing to believe or disbelieve some sort of God, many people — atheists included — have a preconception of what it means and then, failing some “test”, conclude that god does not exist, when in fact what does not exist is YOUR god that you have invented just for this purpose.

In other words, a “straw man” god. You decide that God would not allow killing and starvation anywhere on the planet, and then you observe starvation and killing, and conclude that God does not exist. Well, for sure the kind of god that would not allow starvation and killing does not exist. That’s a simple logical exercise but not very useful.

Once a person has felt “radiated cold” you then become aware of “universal heat” or nearly universal heat. So it is with whatever God happens to actually be. I can feel this ambiance *almost* everywhere and it is the “almost” that provides the clue of its existence.

So for most practical purposes, Brijesh might as well be exactly correct — people are free to act, or not, free to do good or evil AS IF there were no God because he’s not very often going to intervene and never conspicuously.

Even so, I encourage people to open their minds and sense what is indeed real; for if there’s some sort of God, there’s also some sort of the enemy of God, and that’s when you are more likely to feel the “radiating of cold” and then you’ll be a believer.

There is no god, and that is fucking depressing. This means we’re ants at the world’s will.

Really?
There are exactly 0 scientists that would not ridicule this nonsense statement. The irony is that you have to be blatantly unintelligent to believe in “intelligent design”. Or paid by a religious corporation of course. Both categories are hardly scientist. They are either ignorant or marketing stuntmen or both. Not scientist.

@Brijesh: Washal has made a very interesting point about religion defining a set of rules against which you judge yourself. Think about how the religion evolved. It basically started as a set of rules to stop one human to commit crime against a fellow human to maintain the well being of society in general. Now in those early days, there wouldn’t have been a court to punish the guilty. So an imaginary, all powerful, omnipresent being was created to install fear in the hearts of all. This feeling of what’s right and what’s wrong which you talk about has its roots in the set of rules defined by world’s religions. I agree that you don’t need the fear of God today to do what’s right. But for someone who would stay away from crime only because he is afraid of getting caught and is not smart enough to understand that we live in a closed world where your deeds always come back to affect you, the fear of God is indispensable to make him behave.

Thanks for your insightful comment. And I apologize if you found me rude in any of my previous comments. I just had a discussion with one of my friend who is a true believer in Christianity and how she hates atheists like me. You described atheists as a religion. Just to clear myself, I don’t belong to any group or any activity against people who believes in God. Atheism is just something what I believe in. I am not implying my thoughts on anyone or I am not against anyone.

Now, here is what I think of our existence. We all evolved during billion years. Nobody created us. We evolved by nature. Out planet earth evolved. It took billion years in the process and we are still evolving. We created our civilization. We as human, distinguished between the good and the bad. We, as humans, have feelings, we become happy or become sad. We know what makes us happy and what makes us sad. Based on that, we created rules on what is right and what is wrong. Something that makes people’s life hard and unbearable is considered wrong and we avoid doing those things. Like murder or robbery.

It just feels good to do right things to other people just because I want to; rather than doing right things to people just because God’s fear to punish me or just for the sake of going to heaven. It just doesn’t feel right to being selfish in doing good things, and just doing it just because it is instructed that way in some book. In the 3rd paragraph on the comment above you asked “what is the purpose of doing good deeds”. And the answer is to make other people smile and give them a reason to feel good. Give them a reason to pass that smile along to another human, just to make them all feel its worth living in this world. We species are alone here on this 3rd planet from the sun, we have to be united and be happy. There is no time in defining different Gods for different people and fight over that.

I encourage you to see these two videos,
1) My spirituality as an atheist -> http://brijux.com/2010/03/09/there-is-no-god-but-there-is-this-un-named-force/
2) Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan -> http://brijux.com/2010/03/29/carl-sagan-pale-blue-dot-what-we-really-are/

And just out of curiosity, how do you know that I am an Engineer. Do I know you personally?

What is religion, but a set of laws defined by the creator for the created. Atheism is also nothing but a sort of religion, only defined by the created for the created. That my friend is where the fault lies.
If I ‘create’ a hand-watch, I will define with what parameters it will be read, how it will be used and how is it supposed to function. Another person cannot define these parameters for ‘my’ watch.(you are an engineer, you will hopefully understand this)
The same is true for the creator of life.

You believe yourself to be very well behaved. How did you reach that conclusion. Did you judge yourself against a set of rules or was it how you wish to describe yourself for self-satisfaction.(You only avoid doing things which ‘seem’ un-human). A robber believes himself to be correct, a murderer believes himself to be correct (e.g. The US administration believes itself to be correct for the decades long sanctions on the Iraqi children – read Margaret Thatcher).
However, in the court of law a murderer or a robber is in the wrong (the US govt. will be judged in the ‘supreme’ of all courts).

It is true, there is not enough time in this world. That’s why we must do as much good as possible which will help us in the next world.
However if there is no hereafter ( as I understand is your belief), then what is the purpose of doing good deeds? What is to stop me from robbing someone, when I am not accountable to anyone after my death. You may be doing good, because of the kind of experience you have had in life, or the environment you had or the upbringing of your parents. But then that cannot be generalized to everyone. Everyone has problems in life, who is to stop/guide them from taking a wrong turn in life.

Why do you think God will not punish you ?
Think this way.He is in no hurry to punish you. You cannot run away from him in this world of the hereafter (even if you disbelieve in him). After death you are to reach him.He would have to worry if you weren’t reaching him after death. He has given man free will in this world. The judgment for man and his actions awaits him in the hereafter. (there are cases, where God decides to punish a person in this world-read Saddam Hussein)