Any atheists here who were once believers?

[(Q)]

That is a HUGE problem for atheists.

No, it is a huge problem for you.

You have all rejected my explanation of a spiritual realm of which the big bang was a natural event.

Of course, it is ridiculous nonsense based on myth and superstition.

So that just leaves the act of creation to GOD.

Perhaps, for you, but not for us.

Now I have been arguing that God is some creative power in the cosmos, but you have all poo poo'ed that idea.

Of course, because your argument is fueled by myths and superstitions.

So if you reject my idea, then that just leads you back to the God of the Bible.

Maybe for you, but not for us.

You can complain all you like that such a bronze age God is a tyrant, even cruel. But nobody ever said that God couldn't be those things. I understand Christianity to argue that whatever God says is right, is right. If you disagree with God, well, ...

We disagree with you because you are the one making the claims.

 

[(Q)]

He sent me to be a fisher for men, but the places he showed me to fish in were like sewers and drains. Also there were visions of saving people from the likes of garbage dumps. My mission is to save the lowest of the low. That doesn't mean hopeless, but grubby in the eyes of God.
You might not understand that, but Sciforums would be pretty bad in God's eyes. You know what it is like here. You'd be like me. You seem to have the people here in your heart too.

Wow, your superiority complex is overwhelming, please seek professional help immediately.

 

[Sarkus]

Is there any area where this principle doesn't apply?
...
Of course it is. How else do you think people learn to like coffee and cigarettes, how else do they keep doing what they do?

You're equating belief in god to taking (addictive) substances that one can merely choose not to indulge in???

I don't think this circularity can be escaped.
Of course, I'd love to escape it, epistemic autonomy is a much sought-after ability, but I don't think we have it.

Why does one need epistemic autonomy merely to avoid holding beliefs. One merely chooses not to believe, while on a practical level one might accept something as true without needing to commit to believing it necessarily is so.

I find it odd the way some secularists adopt Descartes...

How so?

That's what I'm saying.

To me, "I exist" is equally self-evident as "Others exist", and I can't imagine thinking just one, and not the other.

I find that surprising given that it requires assumptions, such as that you are not a brain in a jar etc, that solipsism does not hold etc.
Perhaps you are working with a different understanding of what it means for something to be self-evident, but to me it is that which I hold as true without recourse to anything else other than that thing.
I can't see how "others exist" falls into that category.

That sense that something is off, wrong, bad, that there's discomfort. That's something all people seem to have, much of the time.

I admit it is a sense that we might have, some more than others, but I would consider it far from self evident. How do we know that the feeling is valid without having it confirmed by non-self evidence?
This other evidence is not required for "I exist".

 

[James R]

Jan Ardena,

Pardon me butting into questions you put to other people, but I have some questions of my own. You asked:

I understand that your were a Christian?

Did you believe in God, or did you believe in your idea of God?

How would somebody go about working out an answer to that question? Surely everybody who believes in God believes in their idea of God? How could they not?

And how does one know if one's idea of God is right or wrong? Nobody has perfect knowledge. You can read all the scriptures you want and you'll never be sure that you have the right idea of God.

Later, you asked:

What made you realise you believed in God, not just an extension of the idea of God you believed in??

See, I'm confused. What exactly is the difference between believing in God and believing in one's idea of God?

How can anybody know they believe in God and not just in some idea of God?

Then you asked:

If you believed in God, why are you now an agnostic?

Presumably, he stopped believing in God. What's so difficult about that?

Did you actually believe in God, or did you just go along with something?

Isn't believing in God just going along with something?

Nobody comes to God without being aware that there's an idea of God out there.

Did you believe in Him because you heard about Him, or did you believe in Him Despite what you learned??

Are you implying that it's better to believe contrary to the general opinion, as a general principle? Or what?

So you believed in an idea of God, an idea that was taught to you, and then at some point you decided that what you were taught wasn't real?

----

Ok, let me try this in a different context. Suppose we take a hypothetical topic such as belief in apples. I say I don't believe in apples, but I used to. So you presumably ask:

Did you believe in apples, or did you believe in your idea of apples?
What made you realise you believed in apples, not just an extension of the idea of apples you believed in??
If you believed in apples, why are you now an apple agnostic?
Did you actually believe in apples, or did you just go along with something?
So you believed in an idea of apples, an idea that was taught to you, and then at some point you decided that what you were taught wasn't real?​

So I reply:
How can I tell the difference between believing in apples and believing in my idea of apples?
I'm not sure I ever realised I believed in apples, as opposed to the idea of an apple. We can only ever believe ideas. We don't experience things directly.
Perhaps I became an apple agnostic because there just wasn't any convincing evidence that apples actually exist. What's wrong with that?
Doesn't everybody who believes in apples just go along with the idea of apples?
Yes, I believed in the idea of apples. I was taught to call a certain thing "apple", and I believed that such a thing existed in the world. Then at some point I decided that it didn't. So what?

----

Okay, so if after some time you came to the conclusion that God is unlikely to exist due to lack of evidence, what was it you believed in? And are you implying that what you believed is the same as what everyone else who believes in God, believes?

Lots of people have different conceptions of God, but there are certainly common features to beliefs in God. Just like beliefs in apples.

But if you believed in God, how can you now not believe in God? Unless it was an idea of God you believed in, one which requires materialistic processes to determine it's validity? In which case an argument can easily be made to show that you never believed in God, but an idea of God which was concocted, first by your church, and accepted by your parents.

What do you mean by "materialistic processes" here?

Are you saying that God doesn't need to ... like ... actually exist as a matter of fact in the material world? That this isn't, or shouldn't be, important to belief in God?

Again, do you think that your idea of God, and reasons to believe in that God, is the same as everyone else's, and to add, does that God corroberate with the God in the scriptures?

That's a loaded question that can only be answered "No", isn't it?

It's obvious that everyone does not share the same belief in God or Gods, or the same idea of God or Gods.

Yes you can, but that doesn't explain how you can believe in God, not just believe He exists, but believe IN HIM, then not believe in Him based on puny speculative reasoning and information (by comparison to believing in God). I'm just suggesting that you were fed the wrong information, followed up on it, and came away from it, meaning you believed in an idea, not God.

What's the difference between believing in God and believing IN God, apart from the scary capital letters?

Is it like you're supposed to be one with God, or something mystical like that? Is it that believing "IN" properly makes you special, Jan? Is that it?

If you wish to make the priori assumption that all belief in God is, and can only be delusional, such that every person in the history of the world who believe(d) in God is delusional because of your own experience, then this is an assumption that you're going to struggle given the testimony that those claim to have a different experience to you. Feel free to try.

Correct. But it doesn't have to be an a priori assumption, does it? We can look at the evidence for and against, for instance.

Also, it doesn't have to be based on one's own experience alone. We can look at the evidence for and against, for instance.

That would be an easier version to prove: one supported by the evidence. But a harder straw man to slay, admittedly.

Yet every two-bit explicit atheist cites the notion that it is possible to believe in the atheist philosophy of darwinism, because the Catholic church claims that it does. (lighthearted poke)

I think you'll be hard pressed to find an atheist who believes in evolution because the Catholic church says she should. (lighthearted riposte.)

You say you believed in God, but you remained separate to God. You were prepared to believe in Him on your terms, on the condition that He tick all the boxes of enquiry. He didn't, so you stopped.

If God's not separate from yourself, what are you believing in? Yourself? That's not a big stretch, is it?

And on whose terms are we supposed to believe in God? Gods? How do we know God's terms? And what are they?

Did you realise that God was the origin of everything in nature?

That's an easy one for a standard Christian, Muslim or Jew, isn't it? God is supposed to have created the world. You don't realise that, you're taught it in bible class, in church, etc. It's part of the dogma.

 

[wynn]

Not a very sound test.

Wasn't intended to be one.

And you provide an eery example, as usual ...

 

[wynn]

You're equating belief in god to taking (addictive) substances that one can merely choose not to indulge in???

No, I'm giving an example of self-reinforcing beliefs.

Why does one need epistemic autonomy merely to avoid holding beliefs.

One needs epistemic autonomy to avoid the problem of circularity and self-referentiality.

One merely chooses not to believe,

I don't think this is possible.

while on a practical level one might accept something as true without needing to commit to believing it necessarily is so.

Eh? That's absurd.

How so?

The man composed his philosophy with the desire to come up with the proof that the Catholic Church is the only right one. And yet so many people, many secularists and atheists, resort to his idea of "I think, therefore, I am" as their springboard into a godless outlook.
If a man says in the introduction to his work that he wants to prove God, then I'd think twice about applying his arguments to show that God doesn't exist or isn't necessary.

I find that surprising given that it requires assumptions, such as that you are not a brain in a jar etc, that solipsism does not hold etc.

No, not in everyone's mind.

I suppose that someone who has invested considerably into Western philosophy and culture will hold some of its ideas sacred, axiomatic, or absolutely needing to be addressed, so for them it indeed seems like a requirement to solve the whole quicksand of solipsism, brain in a vat scenarios etc. before they can claim with any kind of certainty that they exist or that others exist.
But someone who lives in some other culture, doesn't. A man in some Amazonian tribe finds it just as self-evident that he exists as well as that others exist - and he has no clue that there even could be such a thing as solipsism or brains in vats.

Perhaps you are working with a different understanding of what it means for something to be self-evident, but to me it is that which I hold as true without recourse to anything else other than that thing.
I can't see how "others exist" falls into that category.

They key is that you "I hold it as true". And in your particular case, the existence of others doesn't fall into this category, but for other people, it does.

It's a matter of attachment, of being so attached to particular thoughts that one cannot do without them, takes them for granted.

I admit it is a sense that we might have, some more than others, but I would consider it far from self evident. How do we know that the feeling is valid without having it confirmed by non-self evidence?
This other evidence is not required for "I exist".

I guess I've never had enough attachment to solipsism to seriously consider this. Although I've thought and talked a lot about solipsism.

 

[Robittybob1]

Wow, your superiority complex is overwhelming, please seek professional help immediately.

Superior to fish in the gutter. Would you eat fish caught in a sewer? It didn't feel superior to me. What about marlin fishing in the deep blue sea Lord!

 

[Jan Ardena]

Sarkus,

It's not that ''I'' see it as puny. It's puny in comparison to the dissemination of knowledge from God (if you believe in Him).

How so? If one can not reason to arrive at knowledge then one is left in the sole realm of revelation - and since I have not received any from God, should He exist...

It seems you didn't mind reasoning the the shirt of God's back, stipping Him of His Divine attributes, creating a scenario for yourself where it became impossible to know Him through reason, then claimed to be an agnostic.

There is an abundance of revelation, in the form of scripture, and in the form of great souls (like Jesus Christ for example). There are instructions on how to develop ourselves to be able to recieve the revelations, for every type of person. There is information about how the material world was created, information that we will never know by our own limited means. What more do you want?

You said: but if God exists it is surely what He gave me to work with., but yet you use you aparatus to reason Him out of existence, or to the sidelines. You have a brain, five senses, and a body to act with. What more do you want?

Grand cycle of "believe to believe": "You will believe if you believe, and in order to believe you have to believe..."
Once you are out of that circle you see it for the circle it is, and how it is self-perpetuating with no actual substance beyond what one wants to give it for themselves.

If you approach the situation as it really is, ie, you don't know anything, and what you think you know is subject to serious limitation and error, then there is no need to believe without knowledge. The trouble is, you think you have something to bring to the table, IOW, you are proud of the feeble, puny information you hold.

As I said, you believe in your idea of God, not God.

Difference?

Already stated.

It is evidence, just not that I can rationally attribute to the existence of God.

Why not? What other kind of evidences do you expect?

And do I mean only scientific evidence? No. But I can not honestly answer what other might suffice until it is presented.

In other words you've talked yourself out of belief in God, because you know better than God, and if He exists, it is for Him to come to you personally despite Him giving you every oppotunity in this form of life to come to Him.

I do not claim that everyone is delusional. To be delusional the belief must be demonstrably false. I am agnostic... I do not consider God, if He exists, knowable - and thus it is not delusional to believe.
However, I do consider that it would be irrational for me to hold belief in something that I consider unknowable.
Because I now consider God unknowable, and thus no longer hold the belief that God exists.

Same as above.

Further, if God does not exist then God could not have been actual regardless of whether I believed in Him or not.

Meaning God, and scriptures were all made up, and every person who believes in God, and professes to experience God, is lying, or, delusional? And the minority who explicitly claim that God does not exist, or that there is no physical evidence of God's existence (despite their arguments having nothing to do with the actual definition of the object of theism), is somehow correct?.

My belief in God does not alter the reality.
Therefore it is meaningless to say that "God must have been actual" without it also meaning "I thought it was real at the time".

You were thoughtful enough to derobe Him of His Divine attributes, and render Him non existent, so something was actual. What was it?

Interpretation of scripture would be the main clothing...

What intrepretation? You do realise that for someone wanting to learn more about God, and the methods that one can use to develop the right state of mind/consciousness, scripture is the main source. And yet here you are reducing it to ''clothing'' then dismissing it outright. That's like taking the air out of a room and asking the inhabitants to find another way to survive.

I.e. believe it, and you'll believe it.

More like, clear your mind of noise, and proceed to learn.

Not to realise: if God is real then He exists irrespective of interrogation or investigation. But unless one is capable of identifying fallacies or inconsistencies in what one is told, one will be ignorant of the truth but forever merely abide by what one is told.

Like all knowledge, it is learned through personal experience. We separate oursleves from God (or we think we do), so if you are told something, then that thing should manifest itself within you (in some way) for you to realise that there is truth in what was told. It is not possible to believe something without some kind of reference, and that reference has to be in the form of experience, because that is the only way to know something. If God is real, then you will experience Him, and you will be able to understand that this is a stage of God realisation either through scripture, or testimony. The scientific method of obtaining knowledge is different because we cannot experience biology, paleontoloy, cosmology, etc....
The mistake you appear to be making, is in thinking that one can know God exists without having to experience Him, meaning, like cosmology, biology, etc, He cannot be experienced.

That is their belief (that they have realised it). Whether they have realised it or not I consider intrinsically tied to the unknowability of God.

No. They have realised it. Why do you have to put your spin on it?
Do you think it is possible to ''know'' a first cause?
Do you think it even matter whether or not you ''know'' a first cause?
Once again you, in your own mind, have reduced God to a first cause, a principle. You have deemed His Divine attributes to be mere clothes, making it so that there is no way you can ever know Him. And now you make statement like ....

...but if God exists it is surely what He gave me to work with.

I can only say that in the absence of revelation from God,

I questioned the validity of the clothing that my religion was giving god, and thus stripped away the clothing.

It only gets complex if you insist that anyone who subsequently drops their belief in God never actually had belief in God, as you're trying then to fit a square peg into a round hole... but since I don't insist on it, it is relatively simple - and certainly not unique.

No. It's possible to drop your belief in God, because we have a free will. The reason we are on this materialistic treadmill is due to us wanting to Lord it in the first place.
Subsequently the memory of our original position became a distant memory, to the point where we forgot who and what we are.

If you believed in God, and come away saying God doesn't exist, then you never believed in God in the first place. An atheist is a person who does not believe in God, meaning he/she can still believe God exists but choose not to believe in Him.

jan.

 

[Robittybob1]

.....
So you believe in God merely to hold on to the belief that you will meet loved ones again? Do you not think that atheists also wish this was true?
But no matter how hard we try, we just can't choose to believe... and certainly not through some wishful thinking that you highlight.
Plus, once you accept that death is the end then such issues (that rely on life after death for their emotional impact) become moot.

Sarkus - tell me are you a Christian or an atheist or what? Define you belief to me please?. For I am trying to understand from what perspective you are asking me these questions.
This was the point I was making to wegs "Do you not think that atheists also wish this was true?"
For to wish that was true one would have to become some sort of believer and so forth.
But when you coldly say "Plus, once you accept that death is the end then such issues (that rely on life after death for their emotional impact) become moot." I tend to think one can only say that if you are an atheist or some sort of unbelieving Christian. So what are you? Please.

 

[Sarkus]

Sarkus - tell me are you a Christian or an atheist or what? Define you belief to me please?. For I am trying to understand from what perspective you are asking me these questions.

I was a Christian. I am now an agnostic atheist. I do not have the positive belief that God exists, but I do not go so far as to say I believe that He does not, although I live my life as though there was no God. With regard God, and most other things, I try to steer clear from belief of this order.

This was the point I was making to wegs "Do you not think that atheists also wish this was true?"
For to wish that was true one would have to become some sort of believer and so forth.

One wouldn't need to be a believer to wish it was true. I wish many things that I know can't come true - that deceased friends had never died etc.
One needs to be a believer to hold that it is true

But when you coldly say "Plus, once you accept that death is the end then such issues (that rely on life after death for their emotional impact) become moot." I tend to think one can only say that if you are an atheist or some sort of unbelieving Christian. So what are you? Please.

I am me, cold or otherwise.

 

[elte]

Wegs, I observed your wondering if you ever believed. Returning to parallels I see in your and my lives, I think you did believe. So, looking back on my past, I realize that I didn't have any doubt about God until freshman year in a Catholic high school. I thought God was real. The irony of the story is that the more that I learned about God, the more my doubt increased. My dad, who was often referred to as "Brother ______" was describing one of his ministees as having "blind faith" because she knew little from the Bible. My guess is her faith was about the strongest of all.

Religion was the thing of most importance to my dad. That might be one aspect where there might have actually been no parallel between your and my belief stories. I don't know if you ever mentioned that type of thing--someone in your life who was really, really into Christianity. However, I think the general thing that I am proposing--that you did believe up to an approximate certain age--applies. That's just my strong guess, though.

 

[wegs]

Wegs, I observed your wondering if you ever believed. Returning to parallels I see in your and my lives, I think you did believe. So, looking back on my past, I realize that I didn't have any doubt about God until freshman year in a Catholic high school. I thought God was real. The irony of the story is that the more that I learned about God, the more my doubt increased. My dad, who was often referred to as "Brother ______" was describing one of his ministees as having "blind faith" because she knew little from the Bible. My guess is her faith was about the strongest of all.

Religion was the thing of most importance to my dad. That might be one aspect where there might have actually been no parallel between your and my belief stories. I don't know if you ever mentioned that type of thing--someone in your life who was really, really into Christianity. However, I think the general thing that I am proposing--that you did believe up to an approximate certain age--applies. That's just my strong guess, though.

Thanks elte. Yes, there are parallels here. I was on the fence in doubt for a while but when my friend died who was an atheist and no one could answer the "hard" questions, I really slipped away.

It was gradual (coming to terms with the fact that I didn't believe the bible to hold literal truths within it) and my friend's death that sort of gave me a nudge away from spirituality.

For some reason though, over the past say two months, I have felt a pull to really examine Buddhism. I have been intrigued with a few aspects of it for years, so maybe I should just read about it to gain a full understanding of it.

The world is our oyster, right? Thanks, elte for sharing and kudos to you for making some tough choices in your life.
It's not an easy road, some days.

 

[Sarkus]

No, I'm giving an example of self-reinforcing beliefs.

Then you misunderstand... to be consistent with what I am referring to you would only be able to start drinking coffee or smoking if you already like the taste of coffee, or like smoking. With belief in God, to enter the circle I refer to, one must already believe.

One needs epistemic autonomy to avoid the problem of circularity and self-referentiality.

Or one merely identifies and avoids such things when one discovers them.

I don't think this is possible.

Taken out of context it wouldn't be.

Eh? That's absurd.

No it's not, unless you are of the opinion that not believing in X is logically consistent with believing in not-X.
For example, if someone says that there is a baby trapped in a car and they need our help... one can either accept the person's word, go with them and act according to that belief; or one can believe that they are not telling the truth, and act accordingly; or one can choose not to believe they are lying or telling the truth, but from a practical point of view consider it worth going with them and seeing what the real situation is. This last situation is where one does not believe, but one accepts the person's word from a practical point of view. Actions are mostly consistent with the situation where one believes, but the thought-process is vastly different.

The man composed his philosophy with the desire to come up with the proof that the Catholic Church is the only right one. And yet so many people, many secularists and atheists, resort to his idea of "I think, therefore, I am" as their springboard into a godless outlook.
If a man says in the introduction to his work that he wants to prove God, then I'd think twice about applying his arguments to show that God doesn't exist or isn't necessary.

Since when is considering "I exist" to be the only self-evident thing in any way using his arguments??
One can start from what one considers the same self-evident truth without leading to the same conclusion.
But perhaps you intend to throw the baby out with the bathwater?

No, not in everyone's mind.

Clearly.

I suppose that someone who has invested considerably into Western philosophy and culture will hold some of its ideas sacred, axiomatic, or absolutely needing to be addressed, so for them it indeed seems like a requirement to solve the whole quicksand of solipsism, brain in a vat scenarios etc. before they can claim with any kind of certainty that they exist or that others exist.
But someone who lives in some other culture, doesn't. A man in some Amazonian tribe finds it just as self-evident that he exists as well as that others exist - and he has no clue that there even could be such a thing as solipsism or brains in vats
...
They key is that you "I hold it as true". And in your particular case, the existence of others doesn't fall into this category, but for other people, it does.

It's a matter of attachment, of being so attached to particular thoughts that one cannot do without them, takes them for granted.

It is clear, then, that we work from different ideas of what it means to be self-evident. It's not enough to merely take/accept/believe something as true, but it actually has to be true. And since you can not show someone else is conscious, rather any "proof" is limited to consistent brain activity, then it can not be self-evident that anyone else is conscious.
It can be, though, if you work from a different concept of "self-evident".

I guess I've never had enough attachment to solipsism to seriously consider this. Although I've thought and talked a lot about solipsism.

And in what way do you think I might have "attachment to" solipsism?

 

[wegs]

Agnosticism and Buddhism--this is interesting.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-david-dubois/is-buddhism-agnostic-_b_1425026.html

 

[Mazulu]

Agnosticism and Buddhism--this is interesting.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-david-dubois/is-buddhism-agnostic-_b_1425026.html

wegs,
What if the answer to everything was meditation?

 

[Billy T]

Agnosticism and Buddhism--this is interesting. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-david-dubois/is-buddhism-agnostic-_b_1425026.html

Mildly so to me, but this comment on it was - could serve as my creed:

"... Buddha: “Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers andñ elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” ..."

 

[wegs]

wegs,
What if the answer to everything was meditation?

Truth be told, I do miss the contemplative attribute of prayer. Even though my stance on God is "I don't know if he exists or not," I remember feeling "centered" in prayer.

Do you meditate, daily?

Mildly so to me, but this comment on it was - could serve as my creed:

"... Buddha: “Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers andñ elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” ..."

It's so perfect, isn't it? Wow.
From what I know of Buddhism, I feel like it just seems to "make sense," logically and morally, to me. It requires much discipline. I think it would create a heathy mindset over time in learning how to "detach" from the tangibility of this life. I have much to learn about it but I'm willing.

If you had to label your faith views, would you say you are agnostic?

 

[Mazulu]

Truth be told, I do miss the contemplative attribute of prayer. Even though my stance on God is "I don't know if he exists or not," I remember feeling "centered" in prayer. Do you meditate, daily?

I meditated today after my TaeKwonDo workout. It's the first time in many months. I think meditation revitalizes the mind, at least that's what I experienced. I also meditated on what one of the characters said in the movie Never Back Down 2, The Beat Down. To paraphrase, he said that anger narrows your mind; and that you want to make your opponent angry because it narrows his mind.

Do you think that's true?

 

[spidergoat]

We don't have minds.

 

[Mazulu]

We don't have minds.

???What???