Beer Baron said:The main thing that interested me here was all the anti-gay marriage hysteria, which oddly enough almost completely disappeared when the world didn't end on June 28, 2015.schmendeler said:
You've been scarce lately. Hanging out with the cool kids now?
OP I think you may not be fully self-aware in proclaiming you were a "devout" Catholic. By being devout, that implies you were fully in line with the Church's teachings, which come directly from Christ himself, along with being frequently exposed to and instilled in the graces that He has to offer through the sacraments. Had this been true, you would have viewed leaving His Church as hard to imagine, at least that's how I think of it. What led you to all of a sudden stop going to Church?champagnepapi said:
Any Atheists on the board that care to share why they crossed over?
I haven't been to church in 4 years after years of being a devout Catholic. And frankly I don't miss or feel bad at all. Perhaps I was in the wrong house of God growing up and never fully understood my faith? I'm starting to question it all...
This is a beautiful post.k2aggie07 said:
Right. What makes me bummed is that the tricky thing about experience is you have to have it. Every agnostic or atheist in this thread has been soured on a posit they've identified as either Christianity or Religion in general. This is, no doubt, based on adverse experience or possibly a poorly structured experiment / belief system (analogous to not controlling a variable or conflating observed phenomena). My personal belief is that my posits are correct, but this is not because I was told they were facts -- I rejected those earlier posits, just like you did. But my posits are correct, for me, because of affirming experience.
It's really difficult to share these affirming experiences. That's a sad difficulty.
In my opinion, belief differs from faith in that faith is manifested into action. If you believe something, but that belief does not impact your behaviors or priorities, then you have no faith in your belief.Quote:
First, I would suggest there is a difference between intellectual belief and faith. Just as there is a difference between knowledge and Knowledge, the proper noun denoting some kind experience with Actual Reality (i.e., God) rather than a posit.
This is my vote for post of the year. Super funny. Very true.k2aggie07 said:
It's allturtlesmodels, all the way down.
Doesn't matter if they're emotional or physical turtles, measured by how we perceive temperature, light, mathematical data sets or feels. Still turtles.
I will be a 100% believer in this the first time I experience a clipping error IRL. I think that all the pieces of evidence are there and lined up pretty well.TexAgs91 said:k2aggie07 said:
That's a cop out, unless you're not willing to say that anything is real including yourself.
You may have seen articles recently that say that it's far more likely that we live in a simulation than the real universe. So who knows?
I felt very much the same way, and that was why I remained in Christianity for so long.Quote:
The ideas and morals taught by Christianity are so self-evident as divine in my opinion, especially considering the time and environment that they were taught in, that the message of Christianity is evidence that the God in the Bible is real.
Unfortunately, people are simply broken. People will use whatever power they have to get what they want, whether consciously or unconsciously. I hate this about people.Eliminatus said:
Hopefully the above isn't too jumbled to understand. I have a hard time trying to quantify my beliefs onto paper. But there it is. The misuse of religious power and motivations that I have seen in my life are why I am an atheist/agnostic.
ETA: Another core reason for my stance is the sheer rigidity of most theological frameworks, i.e. there is only one path, one god, one goal, one answer, etc. I have always been a very open thinker and this type of thinking I have always naturally rebelled against.
I take exception to this argument. I think that you grossly under-estimate that amount of questioning that most serious Christians go through as part of their lives. You constantly paint Christians with this steroetype, and, in my experience, it just isn't true.Texaggie7nine said:
The blinders comment is quite accurate. The most Christians read their bibles, they do so with an unquestioning faith in the truthfulness of the book. Their only question is their understanding of it and what it really means. And when they read things that they feel really speaks to them, they use that as evidence of the book really being God's word.
To truly analyze the bible you would have to approach reading it with the question of, is this really the word of God?
I disagree with this premise. Christianity does not collapse for me if the Bible is not inerrant.JJMt said:
Many of us former skeptics have done just that and concluded that, yes, it is really the word of God. Back in college I realized that Christianity had two pillars supporting it - the historical reality of Jesus Christ (with all that means, i.e., death, resurrection, son of God, etc.) and the trustworthiness of the scriptures. If either pillar were false, then Christianity would collapse.
After investigating both issues, I came to the conclusion that there is overwhelming evidence for the existence of both pillars. Not proof, since there's no proof of anything except possibly in mathematics. But there is enough evidence for me to feel confident that the faith I've come to hold is extraordinarily reasonable.
But I suspect that you're right - two people can look at the same evidence and reach different conclusions. We are all quite different personalities with different emotions that drive our conclusions, and different methods of filtering, assessing and weighing evidence.
This is such and interesting take. Christianity is something that is better for the ignorant masses, no? Glad it exists, but not convinced it is real.Texaggie7nine said:
That is why I am so glad christianity exists and that so many believe it.
If the overall outcome makes humanity better off, what difference does it make if the foundation is based on made up myth?
Well, I will say that I don't believe that you have to be a real intellectual to be a real believer :PQuote:
Perhaps non denominational, Presbyterian and baptist aren't the best places to find real intellectual believers but that is where most of these experiences came.
I can't speak for non-denoms or Presbyterians, but I have seen a lot of what you said in the baptist denomination. Certainly that is painting in an overly broad brush, but I did run into a lot of dismissing of challenging questions during my time in the baptist denomination. A good example was an email I had sent to my dad about some questions/challenges I had re: Christians and the state. My dad had forwarded to his pastor, who responded with "Your son is a thinker, but let me tell you where he's wrong...." and then he simply proceeded to cut/paste Romans 13:1-7. It was such a dismissive response.Quote:
Perhaps non denominational, Presbyterian and baptist aren't the best places to find real intellectual believers but that is where most of these experiences came.
Quote:
Would you agree that the positive impact that Christianity has had on humanity is evidence that should be considered?
BusterAg said:This is a beautiful post.k2aggie07 said:
Right. What makes me bummed is that the tricky thing about experience is you have to have it. Every agnostic or atheist in this thread has been soured on a posit they've identified as either Christianity or Religion in general. This is, no doubt, based on adverse experience or possibly a poorly structured experiment / belief system (analogous to not controlling a variable or conflating observed phenomena). My personal belief is that my posits are correct, but this is not because I was told they were facts -- I rejected those earlier posits, just like you did. But my posits are correct, for me, because of affirming experience.
It's really difficult to share these affirming experiences. That's a sad difficulty.
Unfortunately, sharing our affirming experiences will never have the same impact on others as they originally had on us.
But the reverse is true too, no? We are often blinded by how someone could disagree with us based on how impactful our adverse experiences were on our own posits. Describing these actions / arguments is not going to have the same impact.
This was a very real factor for me. It basically came to a head. If I REALLY believed the Bible and what was taught by my pastors than I was a horrible person for not dedicating every second of my life to saving souls from the horrible fate of hell. Either I believed it and followed through or I didn't believe. I had only those 2 options. So I delved.Quote:
If you think Christianity is absolutely true, then what excuse does any Christian have to do anything with their life other than dedicated every waking second to saving as many people as possible.
This was a huge thing for me too!kurt vonnegut said:
One posit I hold close is this: Human life has value.
If you think Christianity is absolutely true, then what excuse does any Christian have to do anything with their life other than dedicated every waking second to saving as many people as possible. And if you think Islam is absolutely true, then what excuse does any Muslim have to do anything with their life other than dedicate every waking second to saving as many people as possible. And if you are God, what excuse do you have to do anything with your existence other than save as many people as possible. And If God is batting in the .300s because most people just don't know or just haven't had the right experiences. . . . . what's he actually doing? Relying on imperfect you to teach stubborn me the truth? Expecting me to filter through mountains of ancient philosophy and supernatural claims to accept the correct truth. I'm not that smart, God. Smarter people than me have studied philosophy and theology and ancient religions, and spirituality and they've landed all over the damn map.
Quote:
But, all this begs the question as to why God did such a lousy job ensuring the most people would go to heaven
I fully agree with the sentiments above about basically having to commit nearly every minute of your life to evangelism if you truly believe in hell.Quote:
Edit: and all this is pretty depressing to come to terms with. I really hope heaven does exist. I really hope hell does not exist
No. It is not at all evidence that Christianity is reflective of reality.Quote:
Would you agree that the positive impact that Christianity has had on humanity is evidence that should be considered? Obviously not proof, but not, in my opinion, something that should be overlooked.
Aggrad08 said:
I never understood, even as a christian, the comfort with which some people have of "condemning" (verbally) others to hell and thinking nothing of it. Or even worse, seeming to enjoy the idea, a "they'll get theirs" attitude. I think such an attitude probably arises out of not having anyone in your family or social group who isn't a believer. The idea of someone you love suffering terribly can really make the notion hit home. It's stops being an evil "them" and starts being a him or her.
Jarrel04 said:
"If we knew God existed then we wouldn't need faith."
It's not some huge mystery... humans are tribal.kurt vonnegut said:Aggrad08 said:
I never understood, even as a christian, the comfort with which some people have of "condemning" (verbally) others to hell and thinking nothing of it. Or even worse, seeming to enjoy the idea, a "they'll get theirs" attitude. I think such an attitude probably arises out of not having anyone in your family or social group who isn't a believer. The idea of someone you love suffering terribly can really make the notion hit home. It's stops being an evil "them" and starts being a him or her.
I would venture a guess that all of us understand what it feels like to want to be right about something so that you can rub it in the other guys face, so to speak. And while its not exactly fair to equate that to a religious person relishing the idea of someone suffering damnation - I wonder whether it is / to what level it is part of the appeal of certain religions. I dare so most believers would deny this suggestion, but I think its clear its part of our nature.
Atheists are plenty guilty of thinking this way too, but it seems relatively innocuous to smirk at the idea of nothing happen after a Christian dies when compared to smirking the idea of a non-religious person suffering Hell or being forever separated from God (if that is how they see it).
I'm reminded of a Charles Darwin quote here. He said something like he doesn't understand how anyone wishes Christianity to be true. Because if it is true, lots of his family members and close friends will be eternally punished.Aggrad08 said:I fully agree with the sentiments above about basically having to commit nearly every minute of your life to evangelism if you truly believe in hell.Quote:
Edit: and all this is pretty depressing to come to terms with. I really hope heaven does exist. I really hope hell does not exist
I never understood, even as a christian, the comfort with which some people have of "condemning" (verbally) others to hell and thinking nothing of it. Or even worse, seeming to enjoy the idea, a "they'll get theirs" attitude. I think such an attitude probably arises out of not having anyone in your family or social group who isn't a believer. The idea of someone you love suffering terribly can really make the notion hit home. It's stops being an evil "them" and starts being a him or her.
