Author: Mahmudur Rafei (Page 5 of 9)

My interest on this topic began when I first interacted with an atheist face to face. I always perceived belief in a creator as a self evident truth and something every single person believes in. In the beginning, this ideology felt somewhat intimidating because when you interact with people of other faiths you have similarities between them and your religion, the most apparent similarity is the belief in a Creator, of course by leaving aside the characteristics of that Creator. When interacting with atheists it seemed that you did not have much to talk about or to relate to because they deny the main premise that a God exists. So that is when my interest in studying the atheist worldview began. I haven’t completely delved into to this topic and I hope to learn more through this research with the research question being “Why do people deny a Creator?”
By conducting my research I expect to find arguments from both sides about denying and affirming that a Creator exists. Also to be fair in analyzing what both parties have to say. I also expect to find counterarguments from both sides and observe how they respond to each other’s arguments. I hope to find out what other ideologies do atheists subscribe to and what do they feel their purpose in life is. Is it just to life life to the fullest or they have some other goals to pursue? I also hope to reach a certain conclusion by conducting this research and not merely presenting views from both sides.
I am open to everything that challenges my assumption of belief in a Creator being a self evident truth. If I find information that goes against this assumption I will definitely challenge it and will research further into this matter.
In the digital era, genres like Youtube and internet forums might be very helpful and there are many debates between both sides on these platforms. Although there is a downside which is that anyone could write whatever they want on internet forums without having any credibility but I will still try to use good sources. In regards to Youtube I have seen some prominent Athiest figures have debates and discussion with theists and hope I can find accurate information from this platform. Of course, books and articles are a top priority and I hope to gain accurate information from them in order to craft a successful research paper.

Topic: Why do people deny a Creator?
K-Know: All I know about the topic is that there are a group of people who call themselves Atheists which include lay people and even academics who say that they deny the possibility of there being a creator who created this whole world and fashioned human beings. I have heard some people say that they have emotional reasons for denying the divine. Also some theists mentioned that many atheists are closet agnostics who just need some good proof to believe in the Divine. Also inside Atheism there are many subgroups who differ from each other
W-Want: What I hope to find out is the reason why they deny a Creator and the arguments they put forth to substantiate their claim. Also how theists respond to these arguments and provide their point of view. Why do these people want to differ from the majority of people around the world who believe in a Creator? Who introduced the idea of disbelieving in a Creator? Why are some Atheists so certain in their belief that there is no God? How can they have much certainty in this important aspect of life which pertains to everyone’s purpose in life?
L-Learn: I learned some of the reasons why atheists don’t believe in a Creator, the first one was contradictory religious teachings, likening of Gods to human beings in certain religions, existence of evil in the world, religion is just blind faith, Science says that everything is material and there is nothing that’s supernatural, a basic reason is, there is no good reason to believe in God and people can still live moral lives without God. These are some of the reasons I found.
+-Still want to know: If someone responds to all of these arguments then do atheists have other reasons to provide for not believing in a Creator? What are the respinses of theists against these arguments? Is there a middle ground between atheists and theists where they can coexist peacefully without each of them attacking the others way of thinking? I also want to find out why someone defects from religion and takes up atheism is it because of certain aspects of the religion or they found out that a God actually does not exist and studied proofs for disbelieving in a Creator. I am extremely curious about this topic and still want to know more when I start the research

Mahmudur R. Rafei
Blog Post
One thing that I was truly interested in when I was a kid was the concept of the mind and conscience, I would always wonder if everybody thought and experienced the world the same way I did. I would think about what others thought when they were alone and how they got about with their lives, the questions that came to their mind and how they experienced the world around them. Of course I am still interested in this topic and wish to understand this concept in order to understand myself better and also the people around me. Learning about this topic was a gradual process and I got to understand other peoples’ point of view through interacting with them. My brother who used to be very close to me and still is would talk to me about matters pertaining to daily life even though I was a gullible little kid. He would talk to me about his experiences and I in turn would question him about them. I ould also try to relate to it and try to understand his position on those matters. This gave me hope and made me realize that I could relate to other people not in every single aspect of life but in most and in matters we differed we could discuss about them.
Over the years my curiosity faded due to the fact that my generation was bombarded with a plethora of different gadgets to distract us from the main purpose of life, but recently I came across a topic called “the hard problem of consciousness” which sparked my old interest in this topic. I aim to learn more about this topic in future by reading books or articles on this topic. The educational system did not play any part in providing me with answers about this question because I did not seek answers for this question. As a kid I did not know how to properly express myself so asking such psychological questions was out of the window. Although over the years certain phrases have helped me understand this topic, phrases like “put yourself in others shoes” which is to emphathize with others and how they feel about certain issues. Also how one person described the topic of consciousness to me by using an example of a strawberry, how it would taste if I ate it and how much pleasurable that experience is for me but how it could be different to others and at the same time neither of us would know what the other person experienced when they ate that strawberry.