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imageThis article came about as Courtney of Godlessmom.com had been contacted by a christian college student who was doing a research paper on atheism.

Please find the original article by Godlessmom here :-

Questions For Atheists From A College Student

and as Courtney kindly offered us the chance to  answer the same set of questions, I decided to accept and you will find my answers below.

1. Why are you an Atheist?

Because there is no proof any gods exist.

2. Have you ever believed in a higher power?

Nope

3. If so, did something traumatic happen to make you stop believing?

Nope. I’ve never believed in any of the deities.

4. If not, why did you stop believing?

I Was born an Atheist and after studying various belief systems I never had the inclination to need a theistic belief.

5. What do you think happens to us when we die?

Your heart stops, you expire, you die, you decompose and become as Sagan said ‘star stuff’

As i once said on twitter, you don’t pass over, pass on, pass into or pass out! You die… The End

6. Without believing in a higher power, where do you think we get our morals from?

Scary question… why you may ask?  Because  you are saying you get your morality from the Bible, a faulty model.

Human morality has grown out of primate society. Morality awareness is a human trait, but many social animals have been known to exhibit moral sentiments. All social animals have to restrain and alter their behaviour for group living to work. To put it succinctly morality pre-dates religion

7. Where did the universe come from?

This is a question for scientists. I do however suggest you read “The Grand Design’ by Stephen Hawking who says ‘ we don’t have all the answers yet‘. He goes on to say

to understand the universe at the deepest level, we need to know not only how the universe behaves, but why

Why is there something rather than nothing?

Why do we exist?

Why this particular et of laws and not some others?

This is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. As Hawking’s says he will attempt to answer the above questions and unlike the answer given in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, ours won’t be simply ’42’ nor will it I suspect be an intelligent designer.

8. Whats your views on Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens?

Wonderful writers, orator’s and Atheist’s. However, let us not restrict ourselves to three men let us read up on scientists, historians, astrophysicists etc.

9. Do you consider yourself as a weak atheist or a strong atheist?

This question always puzzles me, I assume you mean agnostic atheist versus gnostic atheist? I was born an atheist and I have no need to search any longer for a mythical being. I am also not searching for a pink unicorn or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

The question we should ask is, are there any strong theists right? If you cannot confirm he exists you must all be agnostics?

10. How can you prove god doesn’t exist?

As the great Hitchen’s once said

“That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence

Let’s flip the coin and ask how do you know which god you think exists? How did you disprove the other 4999?

11. Do you believe in miracles?

Nope. I also don’t believe Santa brings presents or the tooth fairy plants  money under our pillow each time we lose a tooth.

Miracles have time and again been proven to be hoaxes and you can check that out on the internet.

12. Do you have a support group/system?

A support group for living a life, my family, friends and the amazing community  I have found blogging and on twitter.

13. Do you try to get others not to believe?

Nope. Like most atheist’s we are fascinated by theist’s and the reasons they still believe what they were told to as children. No one can be shown reality they have to find it for themselves.

14. Do others tend to view you differently when they discover you’re an Atheist?

This question I guess is more for Atheist’s in the US. In Europe you can go through your whole life and never known if some of your friends believe in any of the gods or not. To be honest I think Europe is the opposite of the US, theist’s keep quiet as they are embarrassed to admit they believe in ancient mythologies.

I assume everyone is an Atheist until they tell me otherwise.

15. Do people tend to try to convince you that your views are wrong?

I find the American theist community on twitter are usually  angry when it comes to sharing their religious world view. They love to tell us all about the fact we should be saved or we go to hell. We always find this amusing as  heaven/hell Is their mythology and has no relevence to rational people.

Of course occasionally we get the JW’s and Mormon’s at the door but it takes all of two minutes to realise they are clueless and they run away quite quickly.

16. How does your family view your beliefs. Are they supportive?

All my family are atheist’s, my extended family and most of my friends. As I said earlier if they are theist’s they don’t tell me. I know of none that go to church apart from my close twitter Sis Frankie and our differences don’t affect how close we are.

17. What are your views on Madelyn O’Hair?

Im sorry I have never heard of her.

For me regardless of whether someone believes in any of the deities what matters most is they live productive lives and don’t try to force their religious beliefs on others or restrict human rights because of lack of belief, their sexuality, Ethnicity etc

We have one life lets live it…

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