Any atheists here who were once believers?

(Q) said:
Yes, that is exactly what I expected you to say, showing me you don't have a clue what Communism is all about. Although I was a foreigner, I lived under Communist Regime for an entire year.
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Well we discussed about communism before , and you did not tell me your experience , I really would like you to share with me .
 
I don't care what anyone 'practices' or believes. The thread was in asking about believers who have transitioned to a different belief. If you wish to share your faith view, that's great. Just be polite and respectful.
 
C C said:
As mentioned somewhere else, I'm probably only now "atheist" in a behavioral [not an intellectual and inner feeling of certainty] context -- just reflexively living as if that were the case. That is, not expecting an afterlife, not expecting a higher agency that is interested in me or anyone else, not deeming an invisible "listener / observer" to be hanging around, etc.

During any transition phase I went through, I suppose I did weather it with a kind of militant scientism. The latter not as any dead-on synonymous reference to positivism, but treating science / naturalism as a kind of ideological worldview rather than methodology. Which made any transition of my own fairly comfortable since I was simply replacing one set of beliefs and governance with another (i.e., "nature" simply became the new "god" in the sense of retaining laws[1] that regulated the cosmos but minus the unnecessary personhood). Immanuel Kant's philosophy later helped me find a kind of neutral or epistemic agnostic stance, realizing that I had never yet truly gotten to or validated some metapyschological reality or immutable truth with a capital "T".

I'd surely also be classifiable as an apatheist, in addition to whatever else. From the standpoint that even online atheists seem far more interested in religion than I am. In contrast I rarely reply to religious threads or visit religious-topic forums (as evidenced by my extremely late appearance here), and have little interest in persuading anyone away from such or maintaining a driving or persistent enmity / disgust about these Abrahamic faiths. Even my earlier days on the web of futilely trying to correct creationists in regard to their misrepresentations of evolution, was abandoned for the most part when I eventually realized what a waste of time it was; spending three or four weeks working on a potential "client", just to have them snap right back to their original inflexible stance in the end.

I might even still be "Christian" in the sense of Thomas Jefferson, dispensing with the supernatural elements but retaining some kind of philosophical / moral / cultural connection with it. As the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia once put similar: "I feel that I'm enclosed within a Christian framework so huge that I don't believe it's possible to escape it, it's so much a part of the western point of view. [...] I was raised a Catholic so it's very hard for me to get out of that way of thinking. [...] I just don't like the exclusivity clause. [...Regarding God...] Whether it's personal - whether there's a point of view in there, or whether we're the point of view, I think is up for discussion. I don't believe in a supernatural being."[2]

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[1] Paul Davies: "...the very notion of physical law has its origins in theology. The idea of absolute, universal, perfect, immutable laws comes straight out of monotheism, which was the dominant influence in Europe at the time science as we know it was being formulated by Isaac Newton and his contemporaries. Just as classical Christianity presents God as upholding the natural order from beyond the universe, so physicists envisage their laws as inhabiting an abstract transcendent realm of perfect mathematical relationships. Furthermore, Christians believe the world depends utterly on God for its existence, while the converse is not the case. Correspondingly, physicists declare that the universe is governed by eternal laws, but the laws remain impervious to events in the universe. I think this entire line of reasoning is now outdated and simplistic. We will never fully explain the world by appealing to something outside it that must simply be accepted on faith, be it an unexplained God or an unexplained set of mathematical laws. Can we do better? Yes, but only by relinquishing the traditional idea of physical laws as fixed, perfect relationships."
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/jun/26/spaceexploration.comment

[2] http://malfalfa1.tripod.com/​
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As always, your thoughts are insightful, and you give me much to think over. While I’ve been ‘on the fence’ and gradually departing my former belief system over the past couple of years…making this ‘transition,’ if you will…is a new experience. I sense a peace about your post, and in your life—thanks for sharing. It just helps me be able to identify with others; maybe that’s a natural human ‘need.’ I don't know. :eek: To have others understand what we might be going through, without judgment.

Thanks so much.
:)
 
wegs said:
I don't care what anyone 'practices' or believes. The thread was in asking about believers who have transitioned to a different belief. If you wish to share your faith view, that's great. Just be polite and respectful.
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wegs when I first started posting in the religion and the poems section you seemed to be a "free" Christian, but over the last 3 months you gradually revealed that you were in fact an atheist.

I would like you remain a Christian, so I am posting here in an effort to show you atheism is not the true way. I know it will be near impossible but my life depends on it.
 
Robittybob1 said:
wegs when I first started posting in the religion and the poems section you seemed to be a "free" Christian, but over the last 3 months you gradually revealed that you were in fact an atheist.

I would like you remain a Christian, so I am posting here in an effort to show you atheism is not the true way. I know it will be near impossible but my life depends on it.
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Science, and our ability to measure things, is putting pressure on the world's world view. If you can't measure it, it doesn't exist. But nobody really acknowledges, or is even aware of the paradox, that the laws of physics and the physics constants themselves exist in a non physical sense; yet they are very real. Science cannot create it's own universe out of nothing. Science is very much dependent upon what is already here (matter, energy, observed laws and constants). A big bang out of nothingness still needs God to create the laws-constants, and to implements the laws and constants of this space-time.

But science has so far brain-washed a lot of people into believing that observations and math are on par with creating universes. Would anybody like to argue that they are?
 
Robittybob1 said:
wegs when I first started posting in the religion and the poems section you seemed to be a "free" Christian, but over the last 3 months you gradually revealed that you were in fact an atheist.

I would like you remain a Christian, so I am posting here in an effort to show you atheism is not the true way. I know it will be near impossible but my life depends on it.
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I feel like I've landed in a foreign land. :( I experienced criticism all my life from non believers when I was in the faith, and now...I get criticism from believers, now that I have changed my belief. Lol funny no?

If I could put into words how I feel, it would be that I'm ok with not knowing, that doesn't mean I shut out the possibility of God to exist.
I just don't believe in what I used to. I don't believe in manufacturing a god in my head, anymore. That's how I view it for me. I don't intend to speak for anyone else but me.

I'm ok until it comes to people who judge me for my choice. This choice has been in the making for a while. I started this thread asking a question ...not meaning to offend...and the judgment began.

It's not right. You know? I'm just sad that there are all these divisions between us all in this life. I have always believed in live and let live. Why do people care so much? In general I mean. I never knew what atheists went through when I sat on the other side of the table.
:(

Walk a mile ...and all that jazz.

Thanks for your concern ... :eek:
 
Robittybob1 said:
wegs when I first started posting in the religion and the poems section you seemed to be a "free" Christian, but over the last 3 months you gradually revealed that you were in fact an atheist.

I would like you remain a Christian, so I am posting here in an effort to show you atheism is not the true way. I know it will be near impossible but my life depends on it.
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This is one of the biggest reasons religion takes criticism. It isn't enough for you that you believe, that you'll be getting whatever rewards your deity promises you in the afterlife, you actually have to insist that everyone else believes it, too. Here you're attempting to guilt wegs into believing in your god, which probably ranks behind only "by force" as the shittiest way to change someone's mind. Is that how you want to be known? As a manipulator?

A suggestion: Back off.
 
For reasons known only to some cosmic intelligence, there are genes that put a flag on each of us, a flag of what we love and a flag for what we will fight for.
 
Mazulu said:
Science, and our ability to measure things, is putting pressure on the world's world view. If you can't measure it, it doesn't exist. But nobody really acknowledges, or is even aware of the paradox, that the laws of physics and the physics constants themselves exist in a non physical sense; yet they are very real. Science cannot create it's own universe out of nothing. Science is very much dependent upon what is already here (matter, energy, observed laws and constants). A big bang out of nothingness still needs God to create the laws-constants, and to implements the laws and constants of this space-time.

But science has so far brain-washed a lot of people into believing that observations and math are on par with creating universes. Would anybody like to argue that they are?
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I think once you have an education, and a proper understanding of science, then you'll be qualified to have a discussion on these subjects. Until then, you're just running off at the mouth.

If you directed this energy and zeal toward learning about the subjects you're so obsessed with, you'd probably be a happier person, and less prone to these idiotic notions.
 
wegs said:
I feel like I've landed in a foreign land. :( I experienced criticism all my life from non believers when I was in the faith, and now...I get criticism from believers, now that I have changed my belief. Lol funny no?

If I could put into words how I feel, it would be that I'm ok with not knowing, that doesn't mean I shut out the possibility of God to exist.
I just don't believe in what I used to. I don't believe in manufacturing a god in my head, anymore. That's how I view it for me. I don't intend to speak for anyone else but me.

I'm ok until it comes to people who judge me for my choice. This choice has been in the making for a while. I started this thread asking a question ...not meaning to offend...and the judgment began.

It's not right. You know? I'm just sad that there are all these divisions between us all in this life. I have always believed in live and let live. Why do people care so much? In general I mean. I never knew what atheists went through when I sat on the other side of the table.
:(

Walk a mile ...and all that jazz.

Thanks for your concern ... :eek:
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Thanks wegs for this is me too "I just don't believe in what I used to. I don't believe in manufacturing a god in my head, anymore. That's how I view it for me." But I do still follow Jesus.
 
Before I accept going to heaven, I'm going to make it plain that I'm not singing hymns all the time.
 
Balerion said:
This is one of the biggest reasons religion takes criticism. It isn't enough for you that you believe, that you'll be getting whatever rewards your deity promises you in the afterlife, you actually have to insist that everyone else believes it, too. Here you're attempting to guilt wegs into believing in your god, which probably ranks behind only "by force" as the shittiest way to change someone's mind. Is that how you want to be known? As a manipulator?

A suggestion: Back off.
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You can continue in your evil ways all I care.
 
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