My Problem With Faith

[ParkCungHee]

* Religious faith (from now on simply "faith") is irrational; it is not based on reason but emotional needs and experiences.

This is a terrible reason to dislike religious faith. Art, Literature, Romance, Friendship, Appreciation of Natural Beauty, Civilization Forums and more are based not on reason but on emotional needs and experiences.

 

[Brighteye]

I found the OED definition enlightening on the subject of faith:
Most theologians agree that faith is necessary for their religion, and that faith is 'more than mere intellectual assent'.
Intellectual assent is all, and the best, that I can give. If there were something else, but I could tell that it was not rational to assent in a different way, my mind would dominate whatever other means of assent there could be.
Religions require people who do not recognise the primacy of rationality in our lives, whether implicitly or explicitly. This is an essential feature of religion; a necessary, but not necessarily sufficient, condition.
It is this condition that makes religions an evil and a negative influence in the world. It doesn't matter how nice a religion is, or how much charity it inspires: the means do not justify the ends, and we should be teaching people to be sensible as well as good.

A Christian might well say that the holy spirit inspires faith in god directly and such a force can bypass our normal filters and strike deep into our core being. It has no need for words or text. In our weakness we believe the words or text are the medium when they are in fact not.

Christians have said this to me. And I have asked "Why evangelise?" If the holy spirit is necessary for faith, it's hugely arrogant to think that you can control God's actions by trying to fill people with the holy spirit.

BTW, since you are a person without faith, how would you come to the conclusion that you know anything at all about it? It seems logical to me that your lack of it makes you among the least qualified to talk about it.

Lack of experience does not prevent understanding. This is one of the central features of a mind: that it can imagine situations that it has not experienced. It's probably one of the driving features of the evolution of minds.

"Relying on science is the easiest way to avoid looking for Truth."
I also put mine in quotes so it would appear that I was quoting some famously intelligent person.

Yes, I do like it when in a debate about what is truth someone decides to assume his definition and then points out that the other's reasoning about truth leads to the wrong conclusion.
And I love it when the same thing crops up in arguments about other things too. Fills me with joy at the advanced state of the human mind.

"Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all." -- G.K. Chesterton
I actually quoted somebody.

Faith is more than mere intellectual assent, not just an absence of certainty.

You have just answered the "What is the source of knowledge" question differently than some others do. The more narrowly you answer that question, the more limited your choices in answering other questions.

The more widely you answer that question, the more inaccurate your subsequent answers will be.

I believe this is exactly what religion is about: religious people have some sort of personal evidence, good or bad, and they ahve every reason and right to believe because of it. They can't communicate that evidence to others, but it doesn't mean it were not valid for them.

Thank-you for an interesting post.
I believe that personal evidence for faith is still best explained using the rational mind. It seems to me far more likely that if I were to have a religious experience it would be due to hallucination or involuntary drug use rather than the existence of God.

Faith is not mutually exclusive to logic and reasoning. Faith merely involves admitting that human is reasoning limited by human reasoning, and admitting that there are things one will never know nor understand.

/threadcontribution

Theologians disagree. They say that faith is more than mere intellectual assent... in this case admitting that you don't know things. Humanity doesn't like uncertainty, and rather than admitting the hard truth that much is uncertain, some people fill in the gaps with God.

If I conducted a poll and found that 90% of people believe Faith is necessary for Logic, Science, History, Reading, Catching the Train in the Morning, winning in TF2, and enjoying chocolate, this would still be not true, or at least, you would still have no reasonable evidence that it is true.
In fact, there are many religious belief systems not rooted in faith.

But of the religious people in the world, the vast majority are members of religions that explicitly state, or agree with the statement, that faith is necessary.

Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. ..The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid.

Man should learn to cope with the mystery that actually exists, rather than create one mystery in order to fill the rest with a false certainty.
It is this difference that makes religion antithetical to science. An essential feature of science is accepting uncertainty: that the latest theory fits the evidence best, but that the evidence can be improved and the theory changed; that observations with no well-accepted theory are not by their nature unknowable mysteries, but simply unknowns.
Religion caters to and supports mankind's instinct to deny uncertainty, to assert that everything is controlled (even if not by us) and to treat statements as certainly true or false, without any notion of probability.

It is the discomfort caused by uncertainty, for example, that helped economists and bankers cause the financial crisis: they relied on economic models and risk hedging models that made assumptions that they could not grasp as being mostly or partly true. They came to treat these models as law, and the models failed.

If people could only learn to imagine a standard deviation of 'likelihood of truth' with every empirical assertion, rather than a binary classification system, we'd have be much more advanced in dealing with many things, from the economy, through biased media reporting and into religious preaching.

 

[Winner]

This is a terrible reason to dislike religious faith. Art, Literature, Romance, Friendship, Appreciation of Natural Beauty, Civilization Forums and more are based not on reason but on emotional needs and experiences.

You didn't read the whole post, did you?

 

[useless]

Watching Atheists trying to explain what faith is, is very painful to watch. That is all I am going to say, since I would be wasting my by looking at the contributions so far. I certainly understand why Plotinus does not "debate" many religius threads, since there is no point at time in "debating" in them.

Since like emotions, faith and how it is interpreted is different for everyone. That doesn't mean however, you shoudn't explain it. It also means, it isn't always valid, compared to science or fact.

 

[Greizer85]

I found the OED definition enlightening on the subject of faith:
Most theologians agree that faith is necessary for their religion, and that faith is 'more than mere intellectual assent'.
Intellectual assent is all, and the best, that I can give. If there were something else, but I could tell that it was not rational to assent in a different way, my mind would dominate whatever other means of assent there could be.
Religions require people who do not recognise the primacy of rationality in our lives, whether implicitly or explicitly. This is an essential feature of religion; a necessary, but not necessarily sufficient, condition.
It is this condition that makes religions an evil and a negative influence in the world. It doesn't matter how nice a religion is, or how much charity it inspires: the means do not justify the ends, and we should be teaching people to be sensible as well as good.

Why is it bad to be irrational as long as you don't hurt anyone else? Are you saying that the religious mindset compromises people's logic in other matters? I'd say that's not the case; most religious people can live with contradictions quite well, or compartmentalize 'religious logic' and ordinary logic within their minds.

Lack of experience does not prevent understanding. This is one of the central features of a mind: that it can imagine situations that it has not experienced. It's probably one of the driving features of the evolution of minds.

If you have not been to the top of a clouded mountain, it's rather hard to imagine the view that opens from there.

Man should learn to cope with the mystery that actually exists, rather than create one mystery in order to fill the rest with a false certainty.
It is this difference that makes religion antithetical to science. An essential feature of science is accepting uncertainty: that the latest theory fits the evidence best, but that the evidence can be improved and the theory changed; that observations with no well-accepted theory are not by their nature unknowable mysteries, but simply unknowns.
Religion caters to and supports mankind's instinct to deny uncertainty, to assert that everything is controlled (even if not by us) and to treat statements as certainly true or false, without any notion of probability.

As long as religion is not allowed to mingle with science, we're ok then. If you mean we should 'cultivate a logical mindscape' in everyone, I disagree vehemently. Most rigorously logical people I have met were arrogant and terminally boring. While the religious yahoos are always at the very least interesting, if at times ridiculous or even dangerous with their weird views. Antonin Artaud sums my view up pretty well in these quotes:

"Noone in Europe knows how to scream anymore."

"The race of prophets is extinct. Europe is becoming set in its ways, slowly embalming itself beneath the wrappings of its borders, its factories, its law-courts and its universities. The frozen Mind cracks between the mineral staves which close upon it. The fault lies with your mouldy systems, your logic of 2 + 2 = 4. The fault lies with you, Chancellors, caught in the net of syllogisms. You manufacture engineers, magistrates, doctors, who know nothing of the true mysteries of the body or the cosmic laws of existence. False scholars blind outside this world, philosophers who pretend to reconstruct the mind. The least act of spontaneous creation is a more complex and revealing world than any metaphysics."

If people could only learn to imagine a standard deviation of 'likelihood of truth' with every empirical assertion, rather than a binary classification system, we'd have be much more advanced in dealing with many things, from the economy, through biased media reporting and into religious preaching.

"Undaunted, slightly ridiculous, unbelievably fatheaded - and yet at the same time
curiously noble - as he fights forward... Mankind, we salute you!" -Jean Shepherd

Don't get me wrong - I agree with you in principle, and as long as such a state of mind wouldn't stifle peope's mad creativity (which may be possible). However I don't think it will ever happen, and imo it's a good thing if we don't try it for a while. Why not? No reason. If you must know, my gut told me so. With some advice from my heart. My God, it feels good to be human (pun intended)!

 

[Ayatollah So]

1. Instead of proof, I'd like to use word "evidence".
2. There's evidence for everyone, and evidence for singular person.
3. The idea of first principle is simplistic.

Nicely done.

It's tricky to discuss the interpretation of "religious" experience. There's no preset algorithm for deciding what's a reasonable interpretation. But that doesn't mean that everything goes, either.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Well, the concept of God is required in the same way that time is required, for starters. That doesn't give 'God' any divine properties in itself, but that's the reason for labelling it and attempting to learn about it. The bit where it does become religious (and where it does invariably become labelled 'God') involves the leap of faith to believing that this force has more than just physical aspects, but more existential and philosophical attributes.

Alright, the power does not have to be deliberate if one wishes to believe in a not deliberate power. Granted.
Still every religion I know about promotes faith to divine powers which are deliberate simply because having faith in a not deliberate power will give you nothing to gain by.

 

[Angst]

There is a number of points you present that are inaccurate, and some of them render your argument somewhat transparent.

- Due to your logic, something is religion as soon as it is unprovable. You prematurely define religious faith as a belief in something that has no empirical proof. While I see that point, i might add that that is the worldview of the atheist or the agnostic; only things that are true are true, other things remain lies, or elves. This is a logical thought, I won't poke you on that! The thing is, I consider myself religious, and I by no means believe in ghosts and I don't take responsibility for whatever shape afterlife has - I'm basically agnostically religious, but details aren't necessary since those are details that I don't care much to present to you at this point. My religion is by all means based upon logic. Agnostics and atheists, however, have the silly idea that as soon as something is proven, it can't be religious anymore; but since religion, per definition, is rather a worldview than something that spits science in its eye, that argument does not keep itself alive. Religion is not faith in something that can't be proven; your religion is simply how you think the world is shapen.

- Also, you prematurely assume religious people have some predefined rituals and beliefs in religious texts, which is extremely narrow-minded, especially since you attempt to tear down all religious points based upon the traditional Christian's faith in the Bible. Please don't do that. Religions aren't Christianity; Christianity is a spiritual worldview, below the umbrella of "religion" which simply defines different sorts of world view.

- This isn't an argument against you; I respect you for not bringing up the silly argument that religion should be abolished, resulting in no more religious wars - Well, I won't enter that argument right now, since I get so easily upset by people being so damn narrowminded. Thanks for that, anyways.

- Also, for everyone out there; agnostics are the way forward. Atheists are silly.

 

[Defiant47]

It seems that try as I might, I still can't understand faith. The process is much too complex for me to address in one broad stroke. I might think I know what's going on, but obviously I can't get at the heart of it. At least not without experiencing it myself, which I never will due to my firmly ingrained strong-agnostic beliefs. For now I shall respect others' religious beliefs just as I would my own: hard or impossible to explain, but makes all the sense in the world in my mind. (not that I didn't before)

It is remarkable how much more constructive the discussion can be when one addresses things from a less confrontational manner... and without any preconceived notions.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Religions require people who do not recognise the primacy of rationality in our lives, whether implicitly or explicitly. This is an essential feature of religion; a necessary, but not necessarily sufficient, condition. It is this condition that makes religions an evil and a negative influence in the world. It doesn't matter how nice a religion is, or how much charity it inspires: the means do not justify the ends, and we should be teaching people to be sensible as well as good.

Uhh, I hate to tell you this, but humans are not primarily rational creatures. We use reason to solve problems, but generally ignore it in our daily lives. People who let reason dominate are generally seen as cold, calculating and often insane. Irrationality is a huge part of being human and it is what enables us to get along.

Christians have said this to me. And I have asked "Why evangelise?" If the holy spirit is necessary for faith, it's hugely arrogant to think that you can control God's actions by trying to fill people with the holy spirit.

I am not a Christian, but I think that they might tell you that the Holy Spirit moves them to tell others about their faith. The outcome is left to God.

Lack of experience does not prevent understanding. This is one of the central features of a mind: that it can imagine situations that it has not experienced. It's probably one of the driving features of the evolution of minds.

But that is only half the story. Reason can provide the objective view of things, but it can never provide the actual experience of a participant. That is the perpetual dilemma of an anthropologist who is studying a culture. An objective outsider can only understand up to a point. Only when they lose their objectivity and join in the rituals and daily life of a culture can they get the complete picture, but then they have lost their objectivity. You can never understand a peyote based culture if you avoid taking the drug, and once you take it, you can never be objective because the drug experience will influence your opinions. Observation and thought cannot provide actual experience.

Yes, I do like it when in a debate about what is truth someone decides to assume his definition and then points out that the other's reasoning about truth leads to the wrong conclusion.
And I love it when the same thing crops up in arguments about other things too. Fills me with joy at the advanced state of the human mind.

Yes, that was fun. It is part of our irrational self that jumps up and says: "Opportunity knocks! Let's play!" Imagine a world without it.

The more widely you answer that question, the more inaccurate your subsequent answers will be.

I was not talking about a broad answer, just a broader field in which to find answers. It is false to assume that all answers get better with more precision. In fact it is quite common to find that what once was a precise answer is soon found to be "wrong" as more precise tools are used. Is there a precise answer for "What is pi?" The precision required is relative to the question asked. Science is a way to be precise, but not to find answers to the largest and most compelling questions we ask about life.

Precision is typically even less useful in dealing with people. As humans we are experts at guessing and estimating and intuitively knowing things. That is how we live our lives and do our daily tasks. With the exception of mathematically or scientifically related items, recognition usually comes from our irrational side. We respond to passion and spontaneity and see the predictable as something not to get excited about.

Theologians disagree. They say that faith is more than mere intellectual assent... in this case admitting that you don't know things. Humanity doesn't like uncertainty, and rather than admitting the hard truth that much is uncertain, some people fill in the gaps with God.

Again you are mistaken. Humans like certainty in things that can have an impact on their personal wellbeing. Inmost other things, we love surprises and guessing and the drama of not knowing how something will turn out; don't you watch sports, read books, listen to music, or try to talk to pretty girls?

If people could only learn to imagine a standard deviation of 'likelihood of truth' with every empirical assertion, rather than a binary classification system, we'd have be much more advanced in dealing with many things, from the economy, through biased media reporting and into religious preaching.

If people could only be robots or computers and programmed to follow a set of decision-making instructions, just think how happy the world would be. I guess you'd rather have a world dead to passion, music, art, happiness and love. That my friend, is truly sad.

 

[Brighteye]

What is the case and what we strive for can be different things. I agree that humans are primarily irrational creatures. I think that we should strive to change that to what I'd call something better.

And not dead to passion. Just more dead to it. It's a hobby, like arts.
As for happiness, I find more joy in truth. Or, as you might see it, my personal scientific version of the truth.

 

[Birdjaguar]

What is the case and what we strive for can be different things. I agree that humans are primarily irrational creatures. I think that we should strive to change that to what I'd call something better.

And not dead to passion. Just more dead to it. It's a hobby, like arts.
As for happiness, I find more joy in truth. Or, as you might see it, my personal scientific version of the truth.

Goals are good things!

 

[ParkCungHee]

You didn't read the whole post, did you?

I wasn't addressing the rest of the post. I'm saying this point in itself is terrible. My thoughts on/the correctness of the other points has nothing to do with the fact that something being based on emotional desire rather then rational need is not a bad thing by any means.

 

[notyetsuperman]

1.
Faith is not a calculated risk. Faith is acting in the present based on an absolute knowledge of what the future promises.
Example: Calculated Risk.
Save money for retirement.
Risks: You could die before reaching the age of accumulated and untouched wealth. The money could be stolen or lost by any number of means including failure to grow. ...and others.
Evidences of Rewards: A proven track record over both short (ie financial reports) and long term (generations of accumulated wealth).

In faith there is no risk, there is only surety.

You began the thread recognizing you don't believe in faith and instead only live on calculated risk. You are not alone.

2.
Science measures the physical realm. It's one greatest flaw is that it is a man made measuring tool and it is only able to measure things man is capable of seeing. Science will never be able to prove the existence of some super-natural being. In short, science can only measure the effects of a spirit and never the spirit itself. Because the spirit (if it were real) would exist outside the physical (scientific) realm.

Science should still be appreciated. It provides many answers for the state of the physical world, but understand it's limitations. The scientific evidence will always be viewed through the lenses of ones belief system (world view, etc). This allows one to form a belief in the root cause of these evidences.

Evidence Example:
Lightning:
Science: Molecules built up a charge and it ignited into this flash of light (and energy).
Spiritual: Zeus shot lightning bolts.
Both witness the same evidence, lightning. And both could have occurred. Suppose Zeus chooses to operate within the physical confides of Earth.

Science may be the end all solution for answering questions about the physical world. But if a spiritual realm exists, it's time for another measuring device.

3.
Is it possible to measure the spiritual realm? The answer is within you.

Why does One hunger? The body wills itself to live on Earth. If the body didn't hunger, it's quite possible One would forget to eat - and then die.
Why does One question existence post death? One spirit wills itself to live in the after life.
Both forces drive the human soul. The body, to survive Earth. The spirit, to survive the after life.
Perhaps, mans very desire to know more about the unknown is a clear indicator that something has wanted to make itself known!

4.
Is it possible that God is real? And having known that He exists, Man has chosen to reject Him. Or perhaps there are those who sleep easier at night by convincing themselves He is not anywhere. Yes that's easier. But that would not be truth ... and after all as seekers of science isn't that what we want? Truth.

God is not in hiding.
Why does man suggest He isn't there?
Rather having seen and known Him,
Men reject Him and live with out a care.

Not wanting to put up a fight
I shrug my shoulders and cry.
Later shouting "My life you can not have,
at least not now, but maybe when I die".

So let's not try denial.
It's truth that we must seek.
And having found it I do not like
this God, my ending is rather bleak.

So dear friends, come drink with me.
Let's live in truth but have our fill.
For living on Earth we shall enjoy
and burn in hell we will.

I'm on the forums for the first time today. I intended to read about Civilization.

 

[warpus]

Science measures the physical realm. It's one greatest flaw is that it is a man made measuring tool and it is only able to measure things man is capable of seeing.

Dude, pass me your x-ray vision.

 

[Brighteye]

God is not in hiding.
Why does man suggest He isn't there?
Rather having seen and known Him,
Men reject Him without a care.

Not wanting to put up a fight
I shrug my shoulders and cry.
Later shouting "My life you can not have,
at least not now, but maybe when I die".

So let's not try denial.
It's truth that we must seek.
And having found I do not like this God,
my ending is rather bleak.

So dear friends, come drink with me.
Let's live in truth but have our fill.
For living on Earth we shall enjoy
and burn in hell we will.

I'm on the forums for the first time today. I intended to read about Civilization.

Welcome to Civfanatics!
As many poems as you can post.

 

[Holycannoli]

1.
Faith is not a calculated risk. Faith is acting in the present based on an absolute knowledge of what the future promises.
Example: Calculated Risk.
Save money for retirement.
Risks: You could die before reaching the age of accumulated and untouched wealth. The money could be stolen or lost by any number of means including failure to grow. ...and others.
Evidences of Rewards: A proven track record over both short (ie financial reports) and long term (generations of accumulated wealth).

In faith there is no risk, there is only surety.

You began the thread recognizing you don't believe in faith and instead only live on calculated risk. You are not alone.

2.
Science measures the physical realm. It's one greatest flaw is that it is a man made measuring tool and it is only able to measure things man is capable of seeing. Science will never be able to prove the existence of some super-natural being. In short, science can only measure the effects of a spirit and never the spirit itself. Because the spirit (if it were real) would exist outside the physical (scientific) realm.

Science should still be appreciated. It provides many answers for the state of the physical world, but understand it's limitations. The scientific evidence will always be viewed through the lenses of ones belief system (world view, etc). This allows one to form a belief in the root cause of these evidences.

Evidence Example:
Lightning:
Science: Molecules built up a charge and it ignited into this flash of light (and energy).
Spiritual: Zeus shot lightning bolts.
Both witness the same evidence, lightning. And both could have occurred. Suppose Zeus chooses to operate within the physical confides of Earth.

Science may be the end all solution for answering questions about the physical world. But if a spiritual realm exists, it's time for another measuring device.

3.
Is it possible to measure the spiritual realm? The answer is within you.

Why does One hunger? The body wills itself to live on Earth. If the body didn't hunger, it's quite possible One would forget to eat - and then die.
Why does One question existence post death? One spirit wills itself to live in the after life.
Both forces drive the human soul. The body, to survive Earth. The spirit, to survive the after life.
Perhaps, mans very desire to know more about the unknown is a clear indicator that something has wanted to make itself known!

4.
Is it possible that God is real? And having known that He exists, Man has chosen to reject Him. Or perhaps there are those who sleep easier at night by convincing themselves He is not anywhere. Yes that's easier. But that would not be truth ... and after all as seekers of science isn't that what we want? Truth.

God is not in hiding.
Why does man suggest He isn't there?
Rather having seen and known Him,
Men reject Him and live with out a care.

Not wanting to put up a fight
I shrug my shoulders and cry.
Later shouting "My life you can not have,
at least not now, but maybe when I die".

So let's not try denial.
It's truth that we must seek.
And having found it I do not like
this God, my ending is rather bleak.

So dear friends, come drink with me.
Let's live in truth but have our fill.
For living on Earth we shall enjoy
and burn in hell we will.

I'm on the forums for the first time today. I intended to read about Civilization.

Very interesting.

And this thread is surprisingly well-mannered. I'm going to add my own brief thoughts: Faith is internal, cannot be taught, cannot be passed on to others, and often cannot be explained. It's just a deep knowing. For Christians like myself, we give people the Good News, but it's up to them what they do with it.

There's just no way to explain to someone with no faith what faith is. There's no way to explain what that deep feeling inside and closeness to God feels like. You can tell them that it's there, that He wants them to feel the same thing, but you can't force it or explain it in scientific terms. And it's getting harder and harder with the growing atheist movement and the hedonistic culture of the past few decades. People don't want to know, it's easier and more fun not to.

And if you disagree with me, then you're probably a racist.

 

[GenMarshall]

And if you disagree with me, then you're probably a racist.

You need to sig that .

 

[warpus]

Very interesting.

And this thread is surprisingly well-mannered. I'm going to add my own brief thoughts: Faith is internal, cannot be taught, cannot be passed on to others, and often cannot be explained. It's just a deep knowing. For Christians like myself, we give people the Good News, but it's up to them what they do with it.

There's just no way to explain to someone with no faith what faith is. There's no way to explain what that deep feeling inside and closeness to God feels like. You can tell them that it's there, that He wants them to feel the same thing, but you can't force it or explain it in scientific terms. And it's getting harder and harder with the growing atheist movement and the hedonistic culture of the past few decades. People don't want to know, it's easier and more fun not to.

And if you disagree with me, then you're probably a racist.

Of course you could describe it - to the extent you could describe being in love. It wouldn't fully encompass exactly what you are feeling, but it would give a decent general overview of how it affects you.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

You can tell them that it's there, that He wants them to feel the same thing, but you can't force it or explain it in scientific terms. And it's getting harder and harder with the growing atheist movement and the hedonistic culture of the past few decades. People don't want to know, it's easier and more fun not to.

I'm an atheist, but I can only speak for myself. And I will because this hits quite close to home as someone who has tried quite intensively to 'know'. It would have been quite a lot easier for me, in the community I grew up, to pretend to have faith, than be honest to myself and the people around. For a long time I have thought there was something wrong with me (until it got replaced by the certainty there is ) that I was 'doing it wrong' so to speak. At some point in my life I someone told me, how can you try to love something. Love does not keep appointments. It either comes to you or it doesn't. Pretending it does is many times worse than admitting it didn't. Two reasons. Someone who pretends and convinces himself will stop looking, second pretending to have something like Faith in God which means the world to the people around you belittles their Faith. I think that addresses the easier and unwillingness to know. Now to the fun part. Drat, that's a bag of vipers right there. Do you think it's fun that the consequences of your and other people's actions are not handled by an ultimate good being? That having to accept that people who do wrong as often get rewarded as punished. Fun. How about I have no convictions that the people I have already lost and the people I am going to lose are gone forever? That there isn't an afterlife where I get to hang out with them again?

For all the reasons I am an atheist, it being easier and more fun than being a theist is completely opposite of the truth. When you make the conscious decision to be or become an atheist, there are quite a few rather unpleasant facts of life you will have to face. There are a lot of things which become a hell of a lot easier when you accept God and/or religion into your life and other things more difficult obviously. This rather condescending notion that atheist are taking the easy way out is ridiculous.

edit: I gave a question (to all). Since God works in mysterious ways, is it impossible that my atheism fits into his intentions for me? I know people have given God a lot of characteristics which would frown at my atheisminess, but what if this is a trial for me to judge my honesty? I of course don't believe in this, but since there is no scientific way to figure this out, why is this less likely than believing God is quite upset with me being honest towards myself and others?