Do people spiral into atheism after being angry skeptics?
You first doubt the existence, but you soon realize how stupid people are when they talk with you about religion, and argue with you about your devils advocate stance, that you soon become bitter? And become a bitter atheist?
I feel like this right now. I know i’ve never liked bitter cold atheists, but I can understand how they can get there.
Felix brings up a good point. The only thing that annoys me more than an ignorant theist is an atheist who is so for no reason whatsoever. Maybe because it’s more convenient to fit their lifestyle if they don’t have to worry about Biblical or the Quran’s moral structure.
I first because a peaceful atheist, and this was after five years of being agnostic. What caused me to be more bitter towards religious belief (and keep in mind, it is the BELIEF I am bitter towards, not the people, and sadly for many it is difficult to separate the two) was realizing how destructive it can be, not to mention that it’s just blatantly false.
Enslaving people under lie, regardless of whether or not it makes them feel better, in my books is counterproductive in many ways.
I’m not an atheist, but I know what you mean. I denounced my religion because of contradictions and irrationalities in the doctrine. My views on religion have changed since then. I’m not anti-religion so much as anti-dogma; I can’t stand people who uphold religious law without questioning why they follow it.
I hate it all. I hate how every orthodox belief is also a natural pyschological occurance. I hate not knowing forsure either way.
After getting finally pissed at my Christian friend for not understanding my point of view on skepticism or even about understanding atheism… I went off on him, and everything he said… we’ll I don’t believe that, its all about jesus man, I’d say thats a cop out I just don’t know answer is what that really is. I said some hurtful things to him… He got pissed… Then I finally got on a mello level and stopped telling him, and started asking him why some people want to believe but can’t, and even that kind of faith isn’t the faith to be saved as declared from the bible. And I further asked… why is it good people who just can’t grasp the God concept, or have grown up with another religious concept are going to go to hell? And after a bunch of these questions; he started tearing up.
In fact he started crying, and he had drank alot that night anyway. I had bashed him for being christian but getting drunk, and if God would appreciate that, and I tore him down to be a hypocrite. I think thats another reason why he started crying… I still don’t know forsure, in fact we still haven’t brought that weird moment up…
But i was heart broken as well to see my best friend crying, and it hurt me so much to see the effects of my own words that I too had to go in the bathroom and cry.
I know all of this sounds pathetic, but even in that humble position of crying I was in the other night, after seeing how bad I hurt someone, I still was pissed that the big question does this to people.
I don’t care if God exists or not, I hate his methods with a passion.
First of all, it doesn’t sound pathetic. Religious belief is an extremely emotional attachment, so it should be no surprise that usually the only two reactions from religious folks are anger or hurt / resentment, as opposed to happiness and joy when the subject is tested.
Secondly, I went through a militant atheist phase, where I was trying to convince everybody, including my girlfriend, but when I realized that people don’t believe it because it’s rational or logical, I realized rational and logical discussion of the subject doesn’t change their mind.
It’s a belief that is instilled with most folks from childhood, and as somebody else pointed out on the forums, it’s an arational belief. It didn’t require them to think about it, and they didn’t believe it despite the evidence, they believe it because they were taught that at a young age.
I know it’s hard, as I mentioned before, to respect the person without respecting the belief, but love is really all we’ve got in this world, so spreading the atheist message with angst, frustration, etc., won’t get you very far, and will make your message look even worse.
After you’ve gone through all the blah blah blah of is- isn’t. you finally arrive at possible - probable. There is no 100% knowing of anything, so one must always allow for possible, but that said, what is probable? And here one can make peace with hard agnosticism (or soft atheism, your choice) Take any religion you like. Look at the claims made, the dogma of certainties, and ask yourself: Given what we know through our examination of the universe, is what this (fill in name) religion represents probable? What is the likelyhood that it mirrors reality? There is no perfect system of knowing, there is only our assessment of what is likely, what is plausible, what is probable.
Does the Christian God exist? Does the God of any religion exist? Well, it is always possible, but is it probable?
Of course it is. Theism, a theism close to Christianity, is very probably true. More likely than atheism or any other alternative I’ve been exposed to.
And since when does either a limitation in exposure to alternatives or a predisposition to accept the supernatural as truth on your part make the idea of theism true for anyone else?
Straw man. I am not proposing that theism is probable on the grounds that my exposure is limited or on the grounds that my predispositions are thus-and-so. I am proposing that theism is probably on as-yet-undisclosed grounds, awaiting tentative’s indication that he actually wants to hear them.
I fully understand theism as a result of social evolution. In that sense, theism was not only probable, but inevitable. But from a cosmological perspective, I find absolutely nothing suggesting anything even remotely probable about the existence of any god in any form.
Feel free to make your case, and if you can show me something I haven’t considered I’ll be happy to look at it.
Glad you asked. The probability of Christian theism is based on three major directions. The history, the present culture, and the philosophy behind it. On historical grounds, you have the fact that Christian theism is an extension of a theistic tradition that preceded it by thousands of years- that is, it has precedent. Christianity is at root a reaction to faithfully recorded miraculous events that validate those pre-existing claims, as well as deepen them into a new understanding. So what you have is, a presently existing Church that is the continued reaction to miraculous events, that have their explanation rooted in an already well-established tradition. That's a solid case historically. What we know about Christ is as least as reliable as anything else we know about the ancient world, moreso than much of it.
In present culture, there's evidence as well. Theism isn't the sort of thing limited to quacks and weirdos- it's a sophisticated position that appeals to many walks of life, has educated and credible supporters that express the proper amounts of credulity and intellectual rigor in other regards, and presents a coherent way of living that has intuitive appeal as well as producing acceptable results. Present culture is probably the weakest grounds of support, it mostly goes to show that the odds of theism being true isn't easily disregarded, not that it's particularly high.
On the philosophical level, you have Swinburne and others who have argued very well that the origins of the universe being wrapped up in a being like God are much higher than the universe being atheistic. Not only are their arguments for the odds of theism being rather high, but there's also good arguments for the odds of atheism being rather low- materialism in general has serious epistemological problems.
You can see this for yourself by looking at the strongest competitors to theism. Materialist pragmatism, epistemological nihilism (nobody knows anything) and the New Age embracing of paradox (things can be a and not-a at the same time) are all systems that render questions like the one you asked ("What's the chances" nonsensical. What works has nothing to do with what's likely. If we know nothing, then there's no such thing as 'likely', and if we embrace paradox, then everything is likely, I suppose.
So, within the boundaries you set when you asked your question- assuming there are such things as probabilities, and that one being high or low is connected to our reliable evaluation of evidence- theism is the strongest thing going.
I don’t understand why some people believe in God any more than I understand why others don’t. If you’re angry at God then can you even be an atheist? Wouldn’t you have to believe in him in order to be angry at him? Or do you mean that you’re just bitter toward the people who sell religion? I find that with all my bitterness toward the world, the best way for me to move about is to ignore the entire notion of God/no God alltogether. I just think the whole God debate is moot.
To what “precedent” are you’re referring? Can you describe the forebears of Christian theism (beyond its Hebrew origins, that is).
…what miraculous events?
If you don’t have a scientific explanation for an eclipse, it’s God?
Or would it be…don’t tell me…Jesus rising from the dead?
Perhaps you can see a difference between these two types of “miracles”?
(If not, I can throw into the mix the Virgin Mary’s image forming on a slice of toast.)
I’ll have to respectfully ask, “WTF?” We know more ‘in a reliable way’ about Jesus Christ than we do about “the ancient world”? What are you talking about, biblical literalism? It’s written about in there, and “there” is an old book, therefore It’s real?
Man, I been down this road with you before (as have we all); and by now I can walk around the potholes with my eyes closed.
This is your evidence? Somebody who has a college degree thinks god is real…therefore god is real? Somebody who’s capable of using logic and rigor “in other regards” also believes in a god, therefore it must be true? Why? Because they’re capable of switching logic and rigor on and off, but in a very credible way?
It’s really not that sophisticated. No offense to general humanity or Kansans, but if it were all that sophisticated, then it would’ve gone the way of the dodo bird.
Of course, the other side of the coin is that as we enter new realms of technological and scientific understanding at a rapidly increasing pace, the tales of magic passed down to us by Iron Age (or is that “Bronze”? ) folk become less credible. As far as the rate of Joe Schmoes believing in something Joe Schmoes choose to call god, that goes up and down. It’s up a little now in the West most likely because of fear and fearmongering by Christian-backed politicians. That and perhaps Josephine Schmoe’s construction of a modern god that is so loose as to be not so different from a New Agey “Oneness with the Universe”. That way she can still watch “Desperate Housewives” and not feel like she’s going to hell.
Oh? What’s he claiming the odds to be exactly? Let me take an uninformed guess: 50-50?
Once I know the answer to my previous odds-related question, perhaps this will just fall into place, as well.
Why would this be the case, when we learn increasingly more about what is likely from observing the world around us? A world which, by the way, as revealed by science, does not support a belief in the supernatural.
And what is “embracing paradox”, anyway? Is that a form of religion?
Well parsed, Uccisore, well parsed (“I’m only abiding by the boundaries you set when you asked your question, therefore if what I say doesn’t actually make much of a case, then it’s your fault for constraining me in the first place.”)
I must say, that was overwhelmingly convincing. Praise the lord.
The Hebrews are the forebearers of Christian theism, so I guess I don’t understand the question.
There’s a difference of degree. The sky growing dark and Jesus’ Resurrection are both miracles. They are both examples of things that a materialist cannot accept, and therefore look for other explanations. The difference in degree is that with the sky growing dark, an eclipse provides that alternate explanation rather well (even though we have no idea what day Jesus’ death occured on to validate whether or not there was an eclipse), whereas with the Resurrection you’re stuck with bad explanations like “Maybe it was all made up” or “maybe He laid in a tomb not dead for three days”. The Resurrection is the ‘greater’ miracle because the materialist has to grasp for more obvious straws to explain it.
First of all, calling the Bible ‘a’ book demeans us both if we’re going to talk about history. Do you want to discuss like an adult, or do you want to be cut loose to get away with stupid comments like that? The Bible is a collection of books of various events from various perspectives (that is, a set of corroborating evidence) that happens to be bound together as one title for your convenience. Anyways, what my comment means is that we have more evidence that Jesus said and did the things Christians attest to Him than we have evidence that Julius Cesar was assassinated, or that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare’s plays, or on and on and on. Looking purely at the historical evidence (relative to historical evidence we accept for other things), Jesus existence and history of his life is historical and is considered as such by most historians. We dispute the miraculous parts, again, because of previous philosophical beliefs that obligate us to.
In our very first conversation you demonstrated quite well that you don’t get the difference between an evidential argument and a deductive one. No need to prove it all over again. Suffice to say, yes the credibility of theists counts towards the likelihood of theism being true.
On the continued assumption that you want to be treated like an adult , I’ll ignore ad hominems from you from this point forward. I hope that leaves me with something to respond to.
No, around .65-.75 likelihood of God’s existence over atheism, actually. Low enough so as to not be near 1, but higher substantially higher than atheism so as not to be near .5 either. Call it .7.
Why would what be the case? That more and more scientists are embracing pragmatism instead of a traditional understanding of truth? You’d have to ask them, but I suspect a casual interest in philosophy has something to do with it.
And no, the embracing of paradox is emphatically not a form of religion, as the New Agers who do so will emphatically tell you they are not religious (though spiritual). What they mean, again, you’d have to ask them.
Ucc, I’ll try to stay in your order and not repeat what Ingenium has already said.
Faithfully recorded? Or perhaps faithfully copied error? Miraculous events whose veracity is dependent on tradition? Todays scientific explanation is yesterdays’ miracle. I’m sorry, but I see nothing that historically proves anything. Simply repeating the wrong thing over and over for centuries doesn’t somehow make it right or more credible. And this is true of any system of explanation, not just religion.
I’ve already conceded that God and religion was and is a social construct. But just as in history, error repeated over and over doesn’t create validity in the cosmological underpinnings of what we can know.
As for Swinburne, I question his ‘argued very well’. His Principle of Testimony comes to mind. If an individual of good intent declares an experience of, X, then this should be accepted as truth for lack of other explanation. Swinburne, as all theists, makes the common error that they have to make in order to support there theistic point of view. Anything not explainable is by default, God. The fact that no system, including or especially science has complete knowing does not mean that a God is the only other possible answer.
I’m not sure what you mean by “reliable evaluation of evidence” because I see no reliable ‘evidence’ being presented.