Ok, this forum is dead so I’m going to spark it up a bit, or at least I’ll try.
First of all when believing in God you have the choice to accept him into your heart, but prior to this I’m arguing there was no ‘choice’(singular) involved. In fact there is no choice involved I believe in atheism. I believe this through the reasoning that nobody is ever changed their position on this belief after one argument, after one thing someone said, even though it may have had great effect. The fact is things happen, slowly, through time. So it’s not exactly ONE choice, but possibly MANY choices. You follow? Just as many small choices can lead you to become something different.
So my point is this. The decision of believing in God is made through many small choices and thus possibly doesn’t seem like a choice, the process of atheism is made through many small choices, and thus doesn’t seem like a choice, because most of us feel it should be just a few or one big choice that has done this. For those that are agnostic, the process is moving toward one or the other, maybe back in forth. So I will conclude that someone can become something else through the process of many small choices they make. Such as I believe an atheist can become theist if they accept many small things about theism over time to finally it becomes all they accept, or mostly accept, and then fully accept. I’m probably just stating the obvious here, but I felt this needed to be discussed. So what are you thoughts? Suggestions? Your views?
And just to let you know I feel I am agnostic right now, weak agnostic. After my one week atheism of denial I’ve never fully recovered and after my thoughts that Christianity’s feelings of God’s presence could have been brainwashing and thus I’ve quit much of my walk with God. Now it seems nothing happens when I pray, I feel nothing, nothing seems to get above the ceiling. I’m not proud of this anyway, nor do I think this is right, but I’m just going through a stage right now. I’m not doubting the mechanism of theism, for I find it very logical, reasonable, intellectual. I find atheism less reasonable, less trusting, and I am a gulible person, Im inclined to trust. But still that isn’t the point, I don’t believe anyone wants to be atheist so there’s no need in arguing for it
There is a certain logic to your argument and indeed many people choose to follow Christ, or follow something else, or nothing, after making a series of small choices.
However, biblical Christianity focusses on ONE choice, and one choice only. Namely, are you going to follow Christ or not? If NOT then you are not a Christian no matter what else you might feel you are drifting towards or away from. If YES, then the small choices you make in the rest of your theology are essentially irrelevant.
I have heard some atheists say they want to believe, but they don’t think it’s a choice. Perhaps what they mean is that they need evidence and see none. This is related to Kingdaddy’s post about the “primer” – they dont have it. It is, after all, belief in God. Then they will see all the evidence in the world. So religion seems to me peculiar in that it promotes this ability to choose whether or not to believe when you only get the “evidence” once you do. This makes it highly suspect in my view.
Also bound up with your post might be the issue of responsibility with respect to the “choice”. Given the innumerable influences we endure in either direction (especially as children), it can be extremely difficult to change. Maybe this is too deterministic?
I understand what you mean. Forgive my presumptuousness, but I suspect your open-mindedness is bad for your faith. If you want to continue your “walk with God”, you better stamp it out quick! It’s hard changing one’s outlook on the world when current beliefs are so comforting. This is what I guess underlies your “logical, reasonable” theism versus “less trusting” atheism.
About wanting to be atheist: some might say they are more interested in what is true than what they want.
Your argument is logical enough, but your assumption that most pagan people or indeed most conservative thiests (who’ve had their beliefs drilled into their naive brains from early childhood) have ever logically considered a serious philosophically driven choice concerning the existence or non-existence of God is wrong. For the majority ignorance probably is bliss, most people don’t trouble themselves so much over such things.
In reply to your final comment, if you desperately want to see something you will probably see it even though it’s not there, that’s a purely psychological trend, watch these ghost hunter programmes, it’s chilling to see how far the people will go to literally convince themselves that they have witnessed a supernatural occurence.
I think looking at what the fundamental choices really are will help simplify everything.
IMO;
All the little choices have the same root on one side and this is the same for the other side. I believe there are two sides in every human as there is a struggle to serve yourself and hurt someone else in the process, or, you put your feelings secondary to others and sacrifice something for the sake of another. If there are other scenarios I would like to hear them because I cannot think of any.
In my mind there are only two choices considering this idea.
#1 Accept the truth of this reality, i.e. You can not make someone Love you or change other people, only yourself and the way you deal with things. IOW, submit to the natural laws and obey.
By accepting the actual Truth and these Laws you can see and identify those things that follow the natural laws and there is no confusion on what is the correct choice or how to react. This is where you get the Primer, humble acceptance that the Truth is above you.
#2 Fight the obvious truth of reality and all the laws of nature and physics and attempt to make your own truth tailored to fit your desires. This is what the majority of man starts out doing and most still do unto death. This is pure relativity and is a life time of pain IMO.
Example:
I lie about something I did and got caught, but still insist that I didn’t do it in an attempt to out-will someone else or confuse them with some doubt that I didn’t actually do it.
This of course is a classic lie and the foundation of all choice, we either accept the Truth that is above and beyond us,……… or we make our own (lie). All of this is driven by self desire, we lie because of selfishness, or we accept Truth because of abasement and acceptance that our desires are not what is most important.
Just my opinion based on all that I have observed after I have received this so called Primer.
“I don’t believe anyone wants to be atheist so there’s no need in arguing for it”
Fogive me if I have misunderstood you, but as it stands I find this statement ridiculous and somewhat insulting. Clearly, many people want to be atheists and are comfortable and happy having arrived at that life conclusion. It is because many others are content to be sheep, yet not to let others stray from the flock, that arguing for atheism is, in the eyes of the happy atheist, unquestionably necessary.
Furthermore, given that atheism is usually a reaction to the lack of reason found in theism, and that most religions and much theism appeals to ‘faith’, it is interesting that you find the former “less reasonable”.
And to the main topic of the post, I do not think that choice enters the discussion. Belief is not a voluntary act. I cannot choose to believe that there is not a wall in front of me, that I can fly, etc. I can formulate sentences stating as much, but they not necessarily reflect my actual beliefs.
First of all, this entire post seems to be a lie to try to prove a point. I don’t believe for one second you are going through a spiritual illness, nor could I be convinced otherwise with a simple internet forum. Now, on with the show.
Even theists who aren’t religious agree their belief in God isn’t reasonable or rational. A safe argument would be that your belief is beyond reason, at least then you can’t be proven wrong.
If this is true, it is only so for a very small, select percentage. Most believe in God because their parents told them to, not through conscious choice.
I certainly would stop being atheist if there was even one shred of evidence, be it logical or tangible, for a Judao-Christian God, or any kind of God for that matter. Truth be told, ain’t no such animal. But what would be required to get somebody to stop believing God is an excellent question. Truth be told, ain’t no such animal in most cases. Such is dogma.
That probably because you don’t have the Primer which means you don’t believe in Absolutes. All of this makes a perfectly faceted logic without contradiction if you consider that there is an Absolute for reference.
I challenge you to find any contradictions or plot holes.
OK, what about serving yourself and not hurting someone else in the process? If you tell me that sitting at home reading is hurting someone else in the sense that I am not out saving lives, I will ask you to stop being facetious. I wouldn’t be serving myself well, by the way, if I went around hurting people mostly because of the subsequent guilt.
In any case, it doesn’t follow from your division that we have to choose between “submit to the natural laws and obey” and “relativity”. And it certainly doesn’t follow that the choice is between obedience to the Christian God and immorality. I suspect this underlies your thinking, not that you spell this out – we have to read a lot into your posts to get something out. You just throw out these wild claims simplifying human existence down to childish dichotomies and wonder why people find your posts unreasonable.
If only I had the Primer and, therefore, the belief in Absolutes. Damn my irreligious stupidity.
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I believe in God because I have proven to myself that there is a God. Nobody else can prove it for me. You can have access to this God experience but only you can experience it, nobody else.
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And once you experience God, you cannot stop believing God. But remain an atheist until you desire and will yourself to know God and prove to yourself that there is a God. Who knows, God may reveal Himself to you. But do not accept and believe it is God until your doubts are erased and it is very clear to you that it is indeed God. You will know.
Perhaps many of you can understand this. My Faith in God is not that of a choice, it’s pure certainity. And i’m only saying I believe whether I want to or not. Even though I still question his existence at the same time I pray and tell God that, which is not exactly questioning his existence. That’s what Faith is. Just as maybe many of you have faith in Atheism, to even think of praying is mere ludicrous, and it should be that way. I think I understand atheists more now than ever. But again my argument stands, everything is a choice, but made easier from smaller choices, once they start to add up the bigger choices don’t really seem like choices anymore.
Serving your self without hurting someone else is not a problem, eating my dinner would fall into that category. However, if I killed someone because I was hungry and took their food then that would be immoral and a sin by any definition. Personally I don’t see what the problem is with such a simple idea, there are no plot holes and the proof is in the pudding of the reality of cause and affect. Immorality and sin is about intent, not content. You can be wrong or mistaken and not sin. The Golden Rule is the sole reference for immorality and we all have it and recognize it at one point in life. The axiom of this would be as I already stated, if I put my desire above your physical wellbeing then I am guilty of an immoral sin.
No, the problem is that you are reading into it what you want it to mean, I’m purposely being simple and have no deep hidden meanings or agendas here, read it like a child would and it should make sense if you can get past my poor grammar.
BTW, you forgot to mention how my explanation of inner division does not follow, nor did you mention what it didn’t follow. Also, I never mentioned the Christian God, that’s your self made projection and stumbling block.
That’s because I believe it to be simple, should I lie to suit you? If a child cannot understand the fabric and meaning of life then the creator did a poor job, no?
Why don’t you and others just test this simplicity and see if you can get a contradiction or find any inconsistency? If you and others are as smart as you imply this should be easy, hell you could make a game out of making me contradict myself and laugh it up. What better entertainment for those who come to these forums to show off their intellectual muscle and prove how much smarter and well read they are then others.
You could just correct me if I’m wrong, do you believe in Absolute?
Using the word “faith” there suggests you don’t know atheists so well. I would guess 99% of atheists acknowledge that it isn’t possible to disprove God’s existence. They do not have faith that he doesn’t exist. They are technically agnostic, but live under the assumption he doesn’t exist in the same way you do for celestial teapots and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. We are talking about a personal God here: one that listens to prayers and such.
You like going off on tangents don’t you? You asked for another “scenario” because you couldn’t think of one. I gave you one. Now you say this scenario “is not a problem”. The point is your dichotomy was too simplistic. There are many “sides” to human beings.
OK, let’s start at the beginning. What do you mean by the “Laws”, “Primer”, “Truth” and “Absolute”. Please spell these out seperately to us with “no deep hidden meanings or agendas.” I don’t understand them.
My main point was that the absolute versus relative dichotomy (I’m assuming that’s what you meant by #1 and #2, though clearly #1 has religious undertones) doesn’t follow from your supposed inner division. Let’s leave this aside and deal with the above issue becasue it is at the heart of this.
Your faith permeates your every sentence. I can’t believe you don’t have God in mind in this topic and pretty much any other.
It seems to me you use this interchangeably with God. Depending on what you mean, I probably believe in neither.
Why is this a tangent, it a real world example to make my point more clear, what part of this example does not directly deal with your question? What do you mean by I asked for a scenario because I couldn’t think of one, where did I ask for a scenario and where did I imply that I couldn’t think of one? What’s wrong with being simplistic?
How many trunks does a tree have? All things have a singularity and source IMO; I boil things down to their source and show examples as to why I think that is their source. Like my example of Sin, all sin is of selfishness, thats the trunk or root of it, see. Why deal with the affects of the problem, proper troubleshooting says to look at the source or the weakest component first, and then deal with all of the superfluous stuff second.
“Laws” refer to all the laws of physics, nature and cause and affect.
“Truth” with the capitol “T” means Absolute Truth, not some man made truth. Example; I cannot walk through a solid wall, that is a Absolute Truth and is not man made. One day my body will die, that is an Absolute Truth. These Truths can not be jacked with, you must stop fighting and trying to change what you cannot, that was my point.
“Absolute” is the source of all physical matter.
You could call it a God, but first you would have to show that it is intelligent and sentient. I’m not going that far yet, I prefer to lay down a foundation and get a common ground established before I go off hog wild into my specific ideas of God, it’s caused too much trouble in the past.
Let’s simplify and see if we can get on the same page before we go any further. My ideas could be completely wrong, but they are far from convoluted.
It’s hard changing one’s outlook on the world when current beliefs are so comforting. This is what I guess underlies your “logical, reasonable” theism versus “less trusting” atheism.