What kind of atheist converts to a theist?

[9Westy9]

I can't see how a true thinking atheist could turn to theism.

and I'm sure that (some) theists would say the same

 

[LuisDantas]

If that is the case their can be only one true logic no? And if you are not following that particular thought pattern than you are not following logic.

That is true, but only if the premises, goals and models are consistently the same. Which in practice is so rare as to be almost unheard of.

Objective logic would mean that it would be the same for everyone, so if you are not coming to the same conclusions based on the same evidence than one person would have to be logical, and the other person would have to be illogical no?

That is one possible reason as well.

Who decides who's being logical, and whose not being logical? What is your criteria for who is logical and who is not? But I most definitely agree that logic is a difficult thing for a human being to maintain.

Personally I find Wittgenstein a good author on this particular matter.

Which theory of quantum gravity is logical?

All of them that happen to be supported by available evidence. And at least hypothetically also any that happen to have not been considered yet.

Scientific theories are not a matter of choosing the one true option. That is, they are not so until and unless no other viable options can be found.

Quantum loop gravity or string theory? Which model would you argue would be more attuned to reality?

I personally would argue neither, due to an utter lack of qualifications. But in principle it is a simple matter of keeping those that are not yet falsified and letting go of those that are.

If logic is objective then one group would have to be illogical because the interpretations of the evidence have led them to adapt different models as a starting point.

Why? Lacking information to make an informed choice does not make the choice itself illogical.

Indeed, but what makes the choice in premise and models illogical?

Presumably a failure to be logical earlier on. There may be other reasons.

Notice that it is not always possible to make a logical choice of premise and models, or even an illogical one; adequate information may be simply unavailable.

In other words does logic change because your looking at something from a different angle than someone else?

Logic itself does not. But given different premises and models, the logical path and conclusion often do, as is to be expected.

So logic is adapted for the public, and I don't think that language or emphasis can create a difference between string theory and quantum loop gravity as a explenation for quantum gravity, because if one of the theories is proven to be true than the other will not be true at least in the application of quantum gravity, and I would argue that both of the groups of people studying these particular avenues would be logical.

Is there any particular reason why you attribute that divergence to a lack of objectivity of logic itself as opposed to a lack of needed information?

For good or worse, agreement is a poor indicator of logical reasoning.

What is your definition of logic? Because I percieve that statement to indicate that logic is subjective.

Yes, that is a common perception, but IMO an hurried one.

Logic is often personal even when well-implemented, and that may well appear to indicate that it is also subjective. It has become a sad cliche that many people truly believe that having one's own free-styled "logic" is a basic civil freedom or something.

Logic is hardly that accomodating, and we collectively pay a huge price for commiting such a silly mistake.

 

[LuisDantas]

Theism is actually intriguing. I suppose a person who was initially athiest at first might find theism an interesting experiment. A new experience.

Certainly. A pity that it is so difficult to discern general trends for such a situation.

 

[JiSe]

Having been raised namely as a Christian, then at tender age of 15~ shaking that off into Atheism, and at the age of 20 something converting back into Christianity after strong religious experiences. And later back into Atheism. Here are what I think was behind it.

1) Strong religious experience, which I now believe to be "a trick" of brain. Having never before felt anything similar it felt impossible to deny that there was something larger "out there".

2) While having said experiences having devout Christians around and associating their love and friendship with the positive feelings from said experiences, and into framework of their faith.

And what lead out again was studying how brain works, and being able to recreate similar experiences with proper prepping using clearly untrue basis, and thus debunking the evidence from these experiences. And after that deconstructing rest of the belief structure.

 

[Willamena]

I can't see how a true thinking atheist could turn to theism, its like realizing your teddy bear isn't real, and then pretending he is.

Do you believe that a thinking conservative could turn into a liberal? A person's beliefs change with the information at hand--clinging to old beliefs is what's "pretend."

 

[Revoltingest]

So you think logic is objective? If it is, why do so many philosophers and scientists who base the entirety of their thought proccess on logic, come to different conclusions?

Logic itself isn't the problem. People adopting different premises will arrive at different conclusions.
But more significant is the fact that most of us don't ever employ logic at all. Take this heathen as
an example.....I see no evidence for gods, so I don't believe in them. See! No logic is required at all.

 

[Walkntune]

I believe to just lean on logic over emotional intelligence is to cause a separation in oneself that keeps one from being whole and creates a void that can only be filled when one understands the importance of allowing reason and our emotions to function in harmony rather than choose one over the other.I believe man is still driven by a flight or fight response and not by logic. Some scientists like Einstein and Tesla relied a great bit on intuition as a tool for their scientific reasoning. Love is still unexplained though.

 

[Willamena]

So you think logic is objective? If it is, why do so many philosophers and scientists who base the entirety of their thought proccess on logic, come to different conclusions?

They have different information at hand.

 

[Nooj]

i self-identified as an atheist. now i self-identify as a theist.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I think that almost all atheists who convert to theism were not atheist due to a rational, in-depth analysis of theism.

You think wrong.

 

[ChristineES]

What is so strange about an atheist switching over to theist? My mother did it- she was an atheist for nearly 30 years before she became a theist. She was a strong atheist, too. Sometimes a person needs to think outside of what they would do in the same situation- so thinking "I don't see how an atheist could become a theist since I would never do that" wouldn't work for another person.

 

[RedJamaX]

i self-identified as an atheist. now i self-identify as a theist.

Can you describe the event, or events, and or realizations or experiences in your life that lead you to be a theist? Can you also define the parameters of your atheism... why were you an atheist to begin with?

 

[RedJamaX]

You think wrong.

My hypothesis is based on the conversion stories that I am familiar with. And in "almost all" of those, the atheist who switched to being a theist was not originally an atheist due to an analysis of theism. In fact, most of them were atheist for primarily one of two reasons.. either a lack of exposure to theism, or out of retaliation of some sort (either to their parents, their childhood or some disappointment from their previous theist view).

That said... what do you know of the subject? Were you an atheist at one time?

 

[LuisDantas]

What is so strange about an atheist switching over to theist?

From my personal perspective, it is just unlikely.

Many of us had to deal with a lot of pressure to be theists in the first place.

Once it has been established that we would rather not pretend beliefs that we do not have, it is not all that usual for the belief to establish itself after all. Sure, it may happen and does. But pretty much everything goes against it.

My mother did it- she was an atheist for nearly 30 years before she became a theist. She was a strong atheist, too. Sometimes a person needs to think outside of what they would do in the same situation- so thinking "I don't see how an atheist could become a theist since I would never do that" wouldn't work for another person.

No doubt.

 

[ChristineES]

From my personal perspective, it is just unlikely.

Many of us had to deal with a lot of pressure to be theists in the first place.

Once it has been established that we would rather not pretend beliefs that we do not have, it is not all that usual for the belief to establish itself after all. Sure, it may happen and does. But pretty much everything goes against it.




No doubt.

I agree it is unlikely to happen. But unlikely doesn't mean impossible.

 

[LuisDantas]

I believe to just lean on logic over emotional intelligence is to cause a separation in oneself that keeps one from being whole and creates a void that can only be filled when one understands the importance of allowing reason and our emotions to function in harmony rather than choose one over the other.

True enough. But hardly a clear reason to switch from atheism to theism.

I believe man is still driven by a flight or fight response and not by logic. Some scientists like Einstein and Tesla relied a great bit on intuition as a tool for their scientific reasoning. Love is still unexplained though.

Do you think there is some sort of clear divide between reason and emotion?

 

[RedJamaX]

What is so strange about an atheist switching over to theist? My mother did it- she was an atheist for nearly 30 years before she became a theist. She was a strong atheist, too. Sometimes a person needs to think outside of what they would do in the same situation- so thinking "I don't see how an atheist could become a theist since I would never do that" wouldn't work for another person.

It confused me at first because of my particular experience in converting from theist to atheist. Based on my particular path, I do not see how anybody could go through what I did and then switch back to being a theist.

But I can definitely understand how somebody can switch from atheism to theism. I wasn't posing the question in the post as a pretentious assumption... I was just curious about other people's experiences and to see if my guess made sense.

Now in your mother's case, I'm curious, to what end was she an atheist... Why did she not believe in a god to begin with... did she study or hold any interest in science at all, what did she think about that, what about ancient history and the development of civilization... What were the reasons for her conversion to theism? Those are all pieces to the hypothesis I presented.

I didn't mean it as a blanket statement to suggest that there's no way an atheist could become a theist... that would be a ridiculous claim.

 

[ChristineES]

It confused me at first because of my particular experience in converting from theist to atheist. Based on my particular path, I do not see how anybody could go through what I did and then switch back to being a theist.

But I can definitely understand how somebody can switch from atheism to theism. I wasn't posing the question in the post as a pretentious assumption... I was just curious about other people's experiences and to see if my guess made sense.

Now in your mother's case, I'm curious, to what end was she an atheist... Why did she not believe in a god to begin with... did she study or hold any interest in science at all, what did she think about that, what about ancient history and the development of civilization... What were the reasons for her conversion to theism? Those are all pieces to the hypothesis I presented.

I didn't mean it as a blanket statement to suggest that there's no way an atheist could become a theist... that would be a ridiculous claim.

Sorry, I misunderstood a bit- but, at the same time, I didn't see your question as pretentious at all.

I was never sure why my mom was an atheist. She said she began to doubt God when she was 11 years old and read some stuff about the Holocaust (which also gave her lifelong nightmares which she still has to this day, 60 years later). I am sure that the Holocaust might have caused a lot of people to begin to doubt God. She also had some personal grief- the death of her 6-month-old baby son in 1963, also contributed to her doubt. She believed in the historical Jesus, though, as a "good man".

 

[Sir Doom]

So we have all heard, read, watched, or experienced for ourselves, the stories of people who have converted to, and/or from, being an athiest, and sometimes back again. To be honest, the first time I heard of an atheist converting to theism, I was baffled... I had converted from thiesm to atheism my self, and I coulndn't possibly fathom how I could ever switch back. I thought it was just some theistic manipulation of the truth in order to provide more "prais to the glory of god". But I think I understand what's really going on. Based on all of the stories I have heard (or otherwise), I have a general hypothesis about atheists who convert to, or back to theism.

I think that almost all atheists who convert to theism were not atheist due to a rational, in-depth analysis of theism. I'm not supposing what may have been their source for being atheist, just that it was NOT a concious and deliberate decision against being a theist due to a rational, in depth approach to theism. I am making a point to say "in-depth approach" because... a theist who used to be an atheist, but their atheism was simply because they were raised in an atheist family and was always told "there is no evidence for god", could claim a "rational approach". While that claim "is" rational, it's no where near the same level as a fomer theist who was raised theist, and battled with the cognative dissonance for years while examining the scriptures, evidence, history, etc... and finally coming to the conclusion that their belief in god is unsubstantiated.

Agree, disagree? Does my hypothesis make sense?

EDITED:

I also wanted to add, that MOST of the "Atheist to Theist" conversions I have heard of involved some sort of traumatic event in their life. Possibly suggesting their conversion was emotional... out of fear or a need for comfort??

It is an interesting hypothesis and not altogether untrue or unfounded, certainly.

For myself, I began as a Christian and that went south due to a singular event. The gravity of this at the young age that it happened caused a severe backlash of hatred against any and all theism. I viewed theism (as you must admit many atheist do) as nothing more than lunacy, idiocy, deception, delusion and/or just plain old ignorance.

Once I grew up a bit and began to carve my place in this reality, I realized first that the entire world is not full of ignorant, delusional, liars, idiots and lunatics. And second that the world IS full of theists. When I realized how stupid it was to look down on a vast majority of the populace for a single event in my own life, I decided I needed to step back and take a more honest look at what I believed. Things happened, thoughts were thunk, explorations were explored. Now I'm back to being theist again. I like to think its a much more rational belief than I had before, and I thank my former atheist self for illuminating the utility of such an approach.

Now, I won't say my experience is necessarily frequent, but I can say that the irrational hatred of theism IS very frequent among those that go from theist to atheist. Especially among those that are newly 'converted'. And especially among those that are young. I don't think that atheism is necessarily irrational, but I think that it frequently is. And I believe that this may account for a large chunk of those that 'revert' to theism.

 

[Willamena]

My hypothesis is based on the conversion stories that I am familiar with. And in "almost all" of those, the atheist who switched to being a theist was not originally an atheist due to an analysis of theism. In fact, most of them were atheist for primarily one of two reasons.. either a lack of exposure to theism, or out of retaliation of some sort (either to their parents, their childhood or some disappointment from their previous theist view).

That said... what do you know of the subject? Were you an atheist at one time?

What does "an analysis of theism" entail?