cablescavenger
Well-Known Member
Cheers Christine. What was the driver for the theism?
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How old were you when you stopped being atheist?
- Thread starter cablescavenger
- Start date
cablescavenger
Well-Known Member
lol. Bit of a range there. Do you mean somewhere between 2 and 16 you became a Christian?
cablescavenger
Well-Known Member
It might be a loaded question, but it is an honest one.
Atheism is lack of belief, so everyone is born atheist and most will become religious later on. My question is trying to find out how old were they when they took up theism and what was the driver behind it.
Was it parents, teachers, peers, school, Sunday school etc
cablescavenger
Well-Known Member
Are you saying you don't remember a time when you didn't believe? If you were three I assume it was your parents?
cablescavenger
Well-Known Member
Gharib
I want Khilafah back
I disagree
i thought so.
(edit) on second thought, you better take that back. lol
Last edited:
dyanaprajna2011
Dharmapala
How young was I when I first accepted theism? One of the earliest memories I have was around the age of four, when I asked if someone in my family could buy me a bible. I don't recall anyone in my family ever discussing religion, my parents certainly weren't believers; my mom has never been a believer, and my dad, not until later in his life. So I don't really know where the desire came from. But I became an atheist just about a year and a half ago, at 31 years old. But I don't really think of myself as an atheist, more of an agnostic, or rather, an apatheistic agnostic, in other words, I think that we cannot know whether a god exists or not, and I don't really care if one does. Based on the knowledge we have, in my way of thinking, if a god does exist, the most that we can say about it, is that it's probably deistic.
Gjallarhorn
N'yog-Sothep
No. That was the length of my theistic experience.
cablescavenger
Well-Known Member
ahhh, thank you. I thought you weren't religious but didn't want to assume it.No. That was the length of my theistic experience.
cablescavenger
Well-Known Member
Lol.i thought so.
(edit) on second thought, you better take that back. lol
Is that true then? People of the Muslim faith believe their children are born Muslim? Is it in the Qu'ran?
cablescavenger
Well-Known Member
Don't be too downhearted, it can happen to anyone, even me Gulp!trying to refute the claims of theists and some of that mumbo jumbo infected my brain and got me hooked.
cablescavenger
Well-Known Member
Atheist is lack of belief. So if you you are not aware of a God, or don't believe in a God then you are atheist.
Agnostic is you do not know if God does or does not exist. To be agnostic you have to be aware of the concept of a God. Since a baby has no such awareness they will be without belief and therefore atheist.
cablescavenger
Well-Known Member
Can someone explain this exchange to me? I don't follow...
I have asked when someone stopped being atheist and became religious, in other words people are born without belief.
Willamena sees this as a loaded question implying anyone who answers it admits they were once atheist.
Willamena has responded by using her own version of a well known saying "Have you stopped beating your wife?" Where if you answer either "Yes" or "No" then by implication you are admitting you once beat the wife.
The difference between the question I have put forward and the one Willamena suggested is that mine is true. Everyone would have been without belief in a God when they were young and before they found religion.
That said, Willamena is correct in that I did choose the words and put them there on purpose.
I am not suggesting for a second all people are atheist, but I do think it important to recognise that atheism is just a default position and not one of bad people. Some will move on from that position and choose a religion some won't.
Draka
Wonder Woman
I think you have that backwards. Since one would have to at least know of a concept of god in order to state that they don't believe in it, one would have to have knowledge of at least one deity concept before one could be atheist. You can't reject that which you don't know about. To be agnostic one has no stance one way or the other in belief of deity, whether they have knowledge of the choices or not. So therefore, a baby would be agnostic.
Kathryn
It was on fire when I laid down on it.
Atheist is a lack of belief in a diety/Supreme Being/whatever you want to call it.
I said I do not ever recall a time, from my earliest memories, that I didn't believe in a Being outside and "over" all creation, and my memories start at about age 2.
Since we can only offer conjecture about what infants know and don't know about the origins of life, neither of us can say with any certainty whether or not humans are born atheists.
One thing is for sure - infants could tell us things we know nothing about, if they could talk.
Gharib
I want Khilafah back
both the Qur'an and hadith mention it:
[30:30] So direct your face toward the religion, inclining to truth. [Adhere to] the fitrah of Allah upon which He has created [all] people. No change should there be in the creation of Allah . That is the correct religion, but most of the people do not know.
Narrated Abu- Huraira: Allah's Apostle said, "No child is born except on Al-fitra (Islam) and then his parents make him Jewish, Christian or Magian, as an animal produces a perfect young animal: do you see any part of its body amputated?" Then he rec 'The religion of pure Islamic Faith (Hanifa),(i.e. to worship none but Allah), The pure Allah's Islamic nature with which He (Allah) has created mankind. Let There be no change in Allah's religion (i.e. to join none in Allah's worship). That is the straight religion; but most of men know not..." (30.30) (Book #60, Hadith #298)
I have two problems with the assumption that humans are born atheists. First, and more importantly, it appears inaccurate. New studies show that it's more likely that humans are predisposed towards a basic animism, and our penchant for ascribing agency and purpose to things is well known. Because of these things, we might very well be predisposed to inherently believing in some sort of god concept.
My second problem is that to describe infants as atheists really seems to suck any meaning out of the word. Regardless of whether you wish to define atheism as a "lack of belief" or not, at least have the courtesy to refrain slapping labels on children until they are old enough to form beliefs themselves, and understand what they are.
