Why Are You an Atheist or a Believer?

[Landlord]

I wouldn't trust anything from a website with 'conservative' in the name enough to use it to wipe.

[NUance]

I’ve posted several times in this thread, but it occurred to me that I never answered the OP’s question: Why Are You an Atheist or a Believer?

I was raised Baptist. My parents dutifully dragged me to Sunday school and church nearly every Sunday while I was growing up. My faith in God stems largely from that, and from an experience I had as a teenager in which I was imbued with the Holy Spirit. But this isn't the thread for that topic. I talked about that experience a while back in this thread. LINK

btw, I am not a Baptist any longer (which is probably obvious from my drinking, smoking, former drug use, beliefs in creation, etc. lol). This is nothing against the Baptist church. It’s more about my own beliefs. I researched various denominations and settled on one that is closer to my own beliefs in God and religion.

[Scratchtown]

Google it. CNN had a bit on it

[ZRod]

Google it. CNN had a bit on it

I read the chain of linked articles as well as a googled Forbes article. Don't fool yourself. These aren't claims from an "independent" source, and there isn't even a published paper yet. Nobody will comment in the affirmative but all agree that the claims are very difficult to make with the accuracy they were made. I'd like to see what the paper will say, but I doubt it will have sound reasoning.

[ZRod]

btw, I am not a Baptist any longer (which is probably obvious from my drinking, smoking, former drug use, beliefs in creation, etc. lol). This is nothing against the Baptist church.

 

The difference between Baptists and Catholics is that Catholics say hi to each other at the liquor store.

 

Coming from someone raised catholic

[Enhance]

I believe in God, I just don't believe in a lot of things the Bible says about God because it is a human creation. I also, personally, don't use the Bible as a way to determine right or wrong. I was never told to do anything because the Bible said so - I was taught to do things because they were the right thing to do. Obviously, those teaching by my elders may have had religious foundations, but it was never forced at me from a religious standpoint.

 

For these reasons, I also personally don't believe that any supernatural powers have any real affect on our day-to-day lives. I think human beings are generally left to their own devices, though, I do believe there is some type of force pulling us along in ways we don't understand, perhaps influencing our decisions in very specific moments. Is that God? Is that something that we do ourselves? I don't know how to answer it.

 

Plus, think about the size of the universe and our place in it. We're miniscule - like the smallest flake of skin on the human body. There may be no other lifeforms like us in out there (though, that seems like a pretty big waste of space). We may have a 100% wrong interpretation of what powers are out there. But, that's why it's faith - that's why it's belief. It doesn't require physical proof if you believe it in yourself. I had a hard time accepting this when I was younger and largely judged people who were very religious because of it - how do you know God is real? Why don't you need proof?

 

I think a lot of people go through this at one point. I have found that my mind and body is at peace knowing there has to be something that made us who we are. I choose to believe it's a higher power - God. I just don't believe what a lot of humans say about God.

[TGHusker]

Interesting letter written by an atheist to WLC. The writer feels trapped in his nihilism and finds atheism not an answer he wants to accept or live by nor can he accept 'faith' as an alternative at this point. He is an intelligent guy obviously caught in the struggle between 2 world views. Interesting read and response from WLC.

 

 

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/you-have-ruined-my-life-professor-craig

[BigRedBuster]

Interesting letter written by an atheist to WLC. The writer feels trapped in his nihilism and finds atheism not an answer he wants to accept or live by nor can he accept 'faith' as an alternative at this point. He is an intelligent guy obviously caught in the struggle between 2 world views. Interesting read and response from WLC.

 

 

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/you-have-ruined-my-life-professor-craig

 

Interesting....

 

His struggle between Atheism and Nihilism is something I can relate to and a part of why I am a Christian.

[TGHusker]

A. N Wilson article, former atheist friend of Dawkins and Hitchens and well read novelist explains his path away from faith and the road back.

 

 

http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2009/04/conversion-experience-atheism

 

 

Final words of the article:

 

I haven't mentioned morality, but one thing that finally put the tin hat on any aspirations to be an unbeliever was writing a book about the Wagner family and Nazi Germany, and realising how utterly incoherent were Hitler's neo-Darwinian ravings, and how potent was the opposition, much of it from Christians; paid for, not with clear intellectual victory, but in blood. Read Pastor Bonhoeffer's book Ethics, and ask yourself what sort of mad world is created by those who think that ethics are a purely human construct. Think of Bonhoeffer's serenity before he was hanged, even though he was in love and had everything to look forward to.

My departure from the Faith was like a conversion on the road to Damascus. My return was slow, hesitant, doubting. So it will always be; but I know I shall never make the same mistake again. Gilbert Ryle, with donnish absurdity, called God "a category mistake". Yet the real category mistake made by atheists is not about God, but about human beings. Turn to the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - "Read the first chapter of Genesis without prejudice and you will be convinced at once . . . 'The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life'." And then Coleridge adds: "'And man became a living soul.' Materialism will never explain those last words."

[strigori]

This will probably be pretty long.

 

I am an atheist. I was raised Lutheran, church many Sundays and confirmation as the Lutherans call it, Catholics call it Catechism. I have always had an analytical mind, and annoyed the hell out of my mom with "why?" and that is where things start. Asking "why?" in any of the parental free teaching, which is nearly everything outside of the services, got me more of a shame and derision response from whomever was 'instructing' than an attempt at a real answer, at best the response of "God/the Bible said so" to at worst making me feel stupid for asking a question. Over 20 years ago, and I vividly remember a heavy focus on the 5000 year old earth, and being a kid who loved all things ancient or prehistoric, this clashed heavily with school science classes, or any library books on the subjects. So sitting silently was generally the better option. After all, I had a tendency to get in trouble at school for talking too much, and at that age authority figures are pretty much all the same.

 

When the confirmation classes started, the focal point of the teaching changed. The overwhelming amount that I remember from those was a heavy focus on how bad, wrong, and evil sex or sexual desire was. There were whole worksheet exercises about the kinds of things that were sins, basically any sex, or sexual thought, that was not for the express purpose of procreation, was going to send you to hell. Now these classes are very carefully timed to be right about the time most kids enter puberty, then you get weekly sessions telling you how much of a sinner you are. Its a fantastic way to screw up the head of a boy who is just starting to notice girls. And with the whole concept of Original Sin (for those who are not aware, it is the teaching that Jesus was free of sin due to his immaculate conception that was, by definition, free of sex, all other humans are born through sex, therefor carry the sin of Adam and Eve and are thus condemned to burn in hell from birth unless first baptized and later endless repenting) it lead to some mental damage I didn't get sorted out for years. The Abrahamic religions have a very sick obsession with the demonization of sex in general, regardless of which of the three one is a member of.

 

Now, unlike most people who go through daily life and don't tend to think about the quite frankly sick indoctrination they were subjected to growing up, at 20 I ended up on an overnight shift, doing a job that required no real mental ability, and coworkers who were all substantially older than me, and had absolutely nothing to talk about with. So, my mind wandered. And I started going deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole, following mental issues where I kept asking "Why do I respond like this?" "Why does this thought or that thought immediately pop into my head in some situations?" "Why do things I see and read not add up with what I was taught?" The answers to my questions all led back to the indoctrination. Trying to answer my questions with things that would be said through a pastor's sermon, or what was in the Bible, did not pass muster to me. Because it was written in an old book, and forced upon people for centuries did not work for me. The endless circular logic did not work for me. Things written in the old book, came across as simply wrong and morally untenable to me. The more I read and the more I learned, only one option was eventually left for me. The religion I was raised in was nothing more than a two thousand year old powerplay. I have long ago left my faith behind, and I am a better human being for doing so.

[Enhance]

I enjoyed reading your take on religion, strigori. For awhile, it's very similar to how my mind processed the idea of faith.

 

To be brutally honest, religion at it's very core is a means of subjugation. You can approach this from a few angles: 1) accept the control and follow it 2) deny the control and ignore it or 3) find some type of middle ground or acceptance with it. The Bible and the teachings of Jesus Christ are, at their foundation, designed to make us live our lives in a way that is acceptable for entry intro Heaven and the after-life. Or, more honestly, is designed to make us live a way the people in charge would like us to live.

 

This, too, is where I draw issue with religion. The Bible is a human creation and has thus been manipulated by our influences, but, I don't think any reasonable person considers the Bible to be the complete work of a God. It's impossible. There's proof that whole segments have been left out of the Bible and edited to fit the whims of the higher-ups hundreds of years ago.

 

But, in my opinion, there is value in the Bible's themes. Not killing, not cheating on your significant other, treating your neighbors with kindness, etc. Yeah, it may come from a religious document, but that doesn't have to mean it's invaluable. Of course, I'm not saying you think this. By this point, I'm just talking to the masses.

 

I guess the point I'm making is what I mentioned above - I don't believe what the Bible says about God, Jesus, or any of it is 100% factual, but the writings are lessons. Stories to prove a point. And, if anything, they're stories that showcase the ability of humans to create great atrocities and also beautiful actions. My belief in God is that there is something out there that started our lives. We didn't just pop out of thin air. Is it a God, or some cosmic influence? No one can answer with 100% certainty. But, for reasons I mentioned above, I believe there is some power out there that began the universe and led to the human race. I refer to that power as a God, even though he may not be a robed figure with a beard like we sometimes believe him to be.

[zoogs]

Well said, from both of you. I'd agree that the Bible is a human creation -- which is not to say the lessons contained therein are worthless. Many of them are quite good. I just think they aren't proprietary to religion. Belief in a cosmic creator of unknowable nature is something that can be held quite separate from religion -- which again, isn't bad, it just seems human and should be taken as such. Many other human creations and schools of thought are treated with great reverence even thousands of years later.

[BigRedBuster]

So, again, you have a problem with religion, not necessarily the thought of a higher power (God) who created us.

To me, that is different than being an atheist.

[zoogs]

Is it? I don't believe in God -- hence, I would be atheist. But theism =/= religion. To be (let's say Muslim) doesn't just mean a belief in God. It means a subscription to one particular human tradition as exclusively divine.

[Landlord]

Is it? I don't believe in God -- hence, I would be atheist. But theism =/= religion. To be (let's say Muslim) doesn't just mean a belief in God. It means a subscription to one particular human tradition as exclusively divine.

 

 

I think BRB is saying something different and also true, but this is a good point. I know atheists who are more, in a sense, religious, than I am.