Athiests and Agnostics, your decisive moment

[ImmortalFlame]

Well there are somethings that can be tested by our logic and knowledge.

For example, if someone says he is hearing a physical sound he is wrong.

If someone says that I almost died today but God saved me, at that moment I felt that there is God who I asked help , I think that might be interesting.

That's a good example of a personal experience, yes.

Well okay, how about your personal experience? do you trust it ?

Not on its own. If I experience something personally that I cannot explain, I try to find some way to see whether it could have been the result of my brain playing tricks on me. For example, I once experimented with Wicca, and had what I considered to be a direct, physical experience with Wiccan magick. After only a short while, however, I concluded that what I experienced was purely the result of my brain, rather than a result of supernatural, Wiccan magick.

 

[Sabour]

I see atheists everywhere!!!!!

Well I didn't see that much atheists till I came here. I think I know why.

But surprisingly the answers don't confirm what I thought the reason was. So I guess I will keep it for myself.

 

[Revoltingest]

Here is the source Children are born believers in God, academic claims - Telegraph

I am not saying he knows about prophets, I am saying that he believe the all what he observes is created by God. God as one.

There are many academics, & they make many diverse claims. So we shouldn't accept something as factual simply because one makes a claim. You might even find some who say the opposite. Where does that leave us? Well, as some of us have said here, we have never believed, so this particular academic's claim is utterly debunked.
A related issue is that even if it were true, it still wouldn't prove the existence of gods. It would only show a propensity to believe. Perhaps this conferred an evolutionary advantage, eh? But we also see that many believers discard the supernatural beliefs of their youth. This too neither proves nor disproves.

 

[Sabour]

Is it that difficult for some people to accept atheism as the very natural occurrence that it is?

Well considering that every person has his own thinking and way of approaching things, I can't imagine that I would be an atheist.

I am not going to lie to you, I was very surprised that there is this high rate of atheism and I said how come. Later I understood the reason.

But still I didn't find anyone explicitly saying the reason I had in mind.

Perhaps I was wrong

 

[Gordian Knot]

OneAnswer said "If someone says that I almost died today but God saved me, at that moment I felt that there is God who I asked help , I think that might be interesting."

No, not so much. It stems from a human trait, don't know the technical name, where seeming extraordinary events happen. It only seems extraordinary because the one that survived a disaster can make that claim. There are thousands of people who also asked for God's help but did not survive.

Same thing when one has a premonition and it comes true. Seems extraordinary, until one stops and thinks of all the hundreds of times one had a premonition and nothing happened.

 

[Sabour]

I don't think people are born one way or another. Having worked with children for a long time, I believe they don't actually believe much at all, religion wise. Yes, they can parrot their parents. (or not if parents don't care either way) but they really don't have the ability to think about such abstractions as God.

I think the idea behind that is that they think there is something unseen behind all the things they observe.

The influence of parents and surroundings come in a latter stage.

At puberty, all that changes, (they garner a new ability called formal thought') and then they start to analyse the experiences, or try in some way to understand them. Then friends, parents, their environment, but also their experiences do have influence. So there may be a ha! moments, or a ha! periods, and these may allow them to make a personal conclusion one way or the other.

Agree.

So there may well be a decisive moment in there somewhere, but to say one conclusion is right or wrong for everyone, based on your personal conclusion, is a bit presumptuous, in either direction.

Well about that we are discussing the existence of God.

God neither exists nor doesn't exist. If we have opposite answers it does mean that someone is wrong.

So the idea that someone of us is wrong is already given and whether I explicitly say it or implicitly doesn't make a difference.

After all we are debating.

 

[Sabour]

I'm a theist but I don't believe everyone is born believing in some god. I don't think we're born believing in anything. Luckily, my Gods don't give a damn if you believe in Them or not. They have no problems with atheism and don't need anything from humans, anyway. They're not petty and narcissistic. In fact, I think They probably encourage atheism at some points if They view it as conducive to human empowerment and enlightenment. I've experienced losses of faith and non-belief at various points in my spiritual journey and I know I've come out all the better for it. Atheism can be a very useful tool. So I am sympathetic to atheists and support them.

I just wanted to say that I read your comment. Thank you for your time to reply.

There are things I can't answer to in the comment. I hope you understand.

 

[Ouroboros]

How come you said you didn't believe in God at all and then you said now you know that God is everything.
Anything that I am missing?

30 years as a Christian.
10 years as an atheist.
1 year as a Naturalistic Panentheist (sexed up atheism with hints of spirituality).

 

[Aristophanes]

Here is the source

I am not saying he knows about prophets, I am saying that he believe the all what he observes is created by God. God as one.

Dr. Barrett is a man that sees what he wants to see. There is no evidence that children are predisposed to believe in gods. Only that children see patterns, which is true of all humans. Dr. Barrett takes this as a sign that children recognize intelligent design. He is not saying they conceptualize gods. He seems to think that this recognizing of patterns will lead to the natural conclusion that gods exist. I have my doubts. Most mythical gods are concepts are developed over hundreds or even thousands of years. Typically starting out as something simple and mundane than over the course of generations develop into deities. As far as throwing children on an island forming belief in a deity: I think that notion is aided by a want for it to be true. However, I would agree if children are not educated they will end up believing some imaginative but ultimately untrue things.

If you want to know, my parents did not believe in teaching religion. I grew up with little exposure to it. I never thought about gods, intelligent design, where it all came from or anything of the sort. I was busy climbing trees and making mud pies. Children simply do not care about such things, those are the thoughts of adults.

 

[Sabour]

POE. We do not know, but that is not the reason to accept existence of any God or Goddess. Science is working on that.

Science will never have an answer to that question.

 

[Alceste]

Like what?



What about your experiences, didn't you find one makes more sense to you then the other?




Didn't catch on your final 3 sentences. What did you mean by experiences

Bible stories were not believable for me. Noah's Ark, the global flood, the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, miracles, virgin birth, resurrection, etc. None of it was believable. I don't remember working that out, but I do remember working out the impossibility of Santa claus at around 5 by trying to mathematically figure out how fast he would have to be moving to visit billions of people in a single night.

No, none of the experiences of any of the religious people I knew made any more sense to me than the others.

My own experiences are not worth getting into here, but in general involved a personalized fusion of ritual magic and qi gong to focus my intentions. The effects seemed to be an extremely high level of synchronicity, non-linear temporal perception and a sense of being very, very engaged in the world.

 

[Sabour]

The assumption that people "become" atheist and/or agnostic as opposed to having always been (at least until being taught about the concept of god) always sounded odd to me.

Am not sure I understand your stand?

That... is just not really at all obvious, to put it mildly.

Everything has an order. It is that simple.

I dont know if you read this, but I gave an example like if you throw rocks ten times and person A came to study the positions.

If you threw them randomly in the ten times, than "A" will be clueless if he tried to observe their movement.

But if you took time to arrange them in a certain pattern when you throw them, then "A" would know the pattern and be able to predict the next position of the rocks.

Whoa there. Why would anyone need a reason to rule out the existence of God as a "possibility"? You are assuming an awful lot of unlikely things at once, 0ne-answer!

Because it is the only explanation of things.

Maybe it is due to a Muslim upbringing, I don't know. Word got me that Muslims generally believe (and teach and are taught, I must assume) that all people are born Muslim and therefore theistic.

You are right.

"Born muslims" means that they are born as believer in God. It doesn't mean that they automatically know everything about Islam.

That, I must say, is completely unsupported by facts far as I can tell, and a very unfortunate belief in that it clouds understanding of what both theism and atheism truly mean. Even more important is that such a belief implies actual meanings to theism and atheism that just aren't there. They are both actually very unimportant, of very little consequence except those created by social reaction and expectations.

Well I didn't want to repeat what all people on this forums discuss like why God exists and what are the proofs because I think you all dealt with that. And what did you mean by implying meaning to atheism and theism?

If you do, then I don't expect anyone will convince you otherwise.

If you're hinting that I don't listen and consider things, than you are wrong.

Actually, I rarely see someone on this forums answering questions directly. I don't know if this is because of confusion or not. But I tend to be as clear as possible when I answer questions. Why is that? Because things are clear to me.

I approach everything with an open mind. And I make sure to take a look outside the box every while.

 

[Sabour]

Someone else covered the first point, but to reiterate - it's exactly my point that the idea of all religious-based spiritual/personal/emotional experiences being true is absurd. Thus, these experiences are unreliable as they lead different people to contradictory conclusions.

Just let me be clear about the part concerning experiences.

Religions origin is not from experiences developed and wrote. The origin is from the scriptures. It is not like you form it over time by personal experiences.

And on the knowledge point, I do indeed think it should be a warning sign to people of any religion or creed to be told free inquiry is a bad thing.

What is your definition of free inquiry ?

 

[Sabour]

That's a good example of a personal experience, yes.

Did you ever had such experience ?

Not on its own. If I experience something personally that I cannot explain, I try to find some way to see whether it could have been the result of my brain playing tricks on me. For example, I once experimented with Wicca, and had what I considered to be a direct, physical experience with Wiccan magick. After only a short while, however, I concluded that what I experienced was purely the result of my brain, rather than a result of supernatural, Wiccan magick.

Well okay for me you trust your personal experience. Because I consider that taking time to think and reflect is part of that experience.

 

[Sabour]

There are many academics, & they make many diverse claims. So we shouldn't accept something as factual simply because one makes a claim. You might even find some who say the opposite. Where does that leave us? Well, as some of us have said here, we have never believed, so this particular academic's claim is utterly debunked.
A related issue is that even if it were true, it still wouldn't prove the existence of gods. It would only show a propensity to believe. Perhaps this conferred an evolutionary advantage, eh? But we also see that many believers discard the supernatural beliefs of their youth. This too neither proves nor disproves.

Well considering your second part, I do believe that if all children were born as believers, that is a sign worth considering.

But I guess that can't be tested.

 

[Sabour]

OneAnswer said "If someone says that I almost died today but God saved me, at that moment I felt that there is God who I asked help , I think that might be interesting."

No, not so much. It stems from a human trait, don't know the technical name, where seeming extraordinary events happen. It only seems extraordinary because the one that survived a disaster can make that claim. There are thousands of people who also asked for God's help but did not survive.

Same thing when one has a premonition and it comes true. Seems extraordinary, until one stops and thinks of all the hundreds of times one had a premonition and nothing happened.

The problem in that is that these words come out of the mouth of the atheists themselves and not only believers.

 

[Uberpod]

It is said that if a child left to grow alone with his set of beliefs, he would grow up to believe in the existence of God.

I don't believe the kids stranded in the Blue Lagoon built a church. They had sex and birthed a child, but did not create a god. I do believe religion is a cultural phenomenon and superstition is a likely misunderstanding of the feeble-minded

 

[Sabour]

30 years as a Christian.
10 years as an atheist.
1 year as a Naturalistic Panentheist (sexed up atheism with hints of spirituality).

Interesting, when would you start considering Islam

I am kidding, you were a Christian for 30 years, and I am 24 years old.

Anyways what made you leave Christianity ?

 

[Sabour]

Dr. Barrett is a man that sees what he wants to see. There is no evidence that children are predisposed to believe in gods. Only that children see patterns, which is true of all humans. Dr. Barrett takes this as a sign that children recognize intelligent design. He is not saying they conceptualize gods. He seems to think that this recognizing of patterns will lead to the natural conclusion that gods exist. I have my doubts. Most mythical gods are concepts are developed over hundreds or even thousands of years. Typically starting out as something simple and mundane than over the course of generations develop into deities. As far as throwing children on an island forming belief in a deity: I think that notion is aided by a want for it to be true. However, I would agree if children are not educated they will end up believing some imaginative but ultimately untrue things.

If you want to know, my parents did not believe in teaching religion. I grew up with little exposure to it. I never thought about gods, intelligent design, where it all came from or anything of the sort. I was busy climbing trees and making mud pies. Children simply do not care about such things, those are the thoughts of adults.

Whenever I see the word theory, I don't take it as a afact, although it may be correct.

So I can't argue on your first point. There is nothing to prove.

But as I understood, religion holds back from education?

 

[Ouroboros]

Interesting, when would you start considering Islam

LOL!

Well, I do consider all religions containing concepts that are useful to some degree here and there, so eventually I probably will study Islam a bit more. The result most likely will be a amalgam of views that fit. The Bible tells us to listen to everything, but only take what's good. I think that's a good guideline, but hard to follow.

I am kidding, you were a Christian for 30 years, and I am 24 years old.

You're just a kid!!!

I have a 24 year old son. Actually, I have 5 kids. The oldest turned 26.

Anyways what made you leave Christianity ?

I never felt like I left it, but rather that it left me. The image I had of God from my upbringing and different churches, preachers, books, etc, didn't fit my experiences. We had a terrible accident and my family got hurt. In my search to understand God better, I lost my Christian faith. So for 10 years, I was an unbeliever and very anti-religious. Now, I think I've calmed down a bit and finding some middleground that works. In a sense, I consider myself an atheist still, and yet spiritual and have a "god" view that fits me better, and fits science (in my opinion).