Re: New Newbie on the Forum

[marcelhs]

Hello Everyone, my name is Marcel, 25 years old. I grew up in Jakarta, Indonesia, as christian, but become an atheist after more than 15 years of reading and learning, which finalized by learning about philosophy of Religion in my college. I like to read histories, especially Roman and World War Histories. I also enjoy good political relation books (The Clash of Civilization, The Day of Empire, etc.). My greatest hero is Robert Green Ingersoll, so visionary, so advanced, so convincing. We need people like him all around the world.

Now, about my believe. Actually, philosphically I am an agnostic since I am sure by definition God is far greater than any of our mind and logic if He/She/It exists, but I believe God is not exist due to moral and intellectual reasons.

By definition God is omniscience, therefore God is infallible.
By definition God is also omnipotent.
By definition God is also personal, and God also interferes all events in the world.
If God exist, none of our action is free. All events in this world happens due to God's permission.
Therefore, there the responsibilities is not in our hand. It is in God's hand. There is no right or wrong, there is no sin, there is no freewill.

I refuse to believe it. I believe we responsible for all our doing, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I believe we must be punished if we do wrong. Punishment become unfair if we never responsible for any of our action.

Therefore I choose to believe "There is no God." It is the most defendable moral and intellectual position for me.

I join this board to find good and intellectual discussions about moral questions, science, etc., not dogmatic discussion which one side threatened to send me to hell once disagreement arised. Looking forward for interesting discussions with all of you!!

[curiosityandthecat]

Welcome, and good to have you.

[joeactor]

Great intro... very nice to meet you!
JoeActor

[McQ]

Welcome to the forum, Marcel. Glad to have you here. Thank you for the background information. It must be difficult being either christian or agnostic in Indonesia!

[marcelhs]

Welcome to the forum, Marcel. Glad to have you here. Thank you for the background information. It must be difficult being either christian or agnostic in Indonesia!

You're welcome McQ. The difficulty of becoming an atheist already start from the smallest community: my own family. My father, who is a liberal christian has no problem with that, so does my younger brother. On the other hand, I need time to persuade my mother, a conservative christian, to accept the fact that there is nothing wrong in becoming an atheist.

It is very tough for her. She keep saying "I want you to believe in any God, whether it is Allah, Buddha, or any God, it is far better than becoming an atheist." Fortunately, in the end of the day I manage to persuade her after a long and energy consuming discussion. That is my own mother who know me deeply and personally, now imagine the public opinions for atheist.

Main problem for atheist in Indonesia: the public think all atheists are communists. We need to clear that one, but who dares to do that? I suspect anyone who dare to do it will be ostracized, treated as pariah ...

[Whitney]

marcelhs, welcome to the forum.

Main problem for atheist in Indonesia: the public think all atheists are communists. We need to clear that one, but who dares to do that? I suspect anyone who dare to do it will be ostracized, treated as pariah ...

Atheist and commie are often tied together by believers in America too...they bought into the propaganda of the Red Scare and refuse to let go.

I don't know which would be easier to correct:  The idea that atheists are not typically communists.  -or-  Get people to realize the philosophical views of communism aren't really that bad; it's just that it doesn't work in practice because people are greedy.