Ask an atheist

[Leoreth]

Then I assume you admit to the possibility that my God is real?

You've just made the logical jump from "any kind of God" to "your God".

 

[cardgame]

I have one question to all local atheist: Were you raised a an atheist, or have you "deconverted" at some point along the way?

Deconverted around the age of 12-14 by the internet.

 

[MikeL49NYVI]

It's not a very complex story. The tradition that I was raised in included having a personal relationship with Jesus, and we nurtured our ability to commune with the holy spirit. Over time, I realised that other people could not tell that they were NOT communing with the holy spirit, and I also realised that my communing with the holy spirit was not true (and no one else could tell). So, I knew that our tradition was lacking in certain ways. What really astounded me was that other people just couldn't tell that their beliefs (the specific beliefs) were bunk. I kept thinking there was something I was missing, so I did not apostate, but migrated to different Christian traditions.

So, the fact that people couldn't tell their personal relationship was false, was (and continues to be) big.

Thanks for taking the time to answer, and sharing. It is very interesting to read. I think that every individual has a unique story to tell, and they all have value.

I have discussing the evil question on another post, no need to repeat myself here. But I am curious about what I just quoted you about. Maybe I am reading you wrong, (a problematic fact of e-mails and postings) but it reads to me that you were not finding what you expected to find in your early Christian tradition.

So, because of that you came to the conclusion that everyone else was wrong because of your experience. And that they were either lying, or just blinded, again because of what you had concluded. I guess I don't understand that it only works one way.

In other words, if many around you claim to have a certain spiritual experience, and you do not, why is it not possible that you may have missed something, or perhaps just not got to that place yet? If you were not told at the time, you should have been, that Jesus deals with each of us as individuals, according to who and what we are. For instance, God never had to help me find a way to quit smoking, I never took it up. Drinking on the other hand was a different matter.

Also, and I would be surprised if this had never came up: There are 3 lists in the NT concerning spiritual gifts and manifistations of the Holy Spirit within our lives. The Bible is very clear that not everyone has all, or even the same gifts, or sets of gifts. There are entire chapters in Romans and 1st Cor. devoted to this subject. It is a basic foundation of the Christian experience, and a solid proof to a believer of what has happened within him. If you were not shown or taught that, someone messed up.

Rereading your post, I see that you did indeed think something was missing, and went to other traditions. Fair enough, but you still reached the conclusion that since something didn't work for you, it was therefore false for everyone else. And then took that to become a condemmanation of all of Christianity, and God's very existance. I guess I just do not see how you should have gotten to that place.

 

[JollyRoger]

I have one question to all local atheist: Were you raised a an atheist, or have you "deconverted" at some point along the way?

I am a Southern Baptist atheist.

 

[Japanrocks12]

deconverted

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I have one question to all local atheist: Were you raised a an atheist, or have you "deconverted" at some point along the way?

Being born in Eastern Germany, I was born into a German region where many people are not religious to begin with, including my parents. As a consequence, religion wasn't an issue of interest, except traditions like Christmas where we once went to Church - but such influences lacked any spiritual dimension. Later on I came to concern myself with religion on my own terms, by talking to friends and thinking about it - but never saw much merit to it, though at first I was more open to the idea than I am now. Because over years - as my understanding of the human condition, human history and logic increased - also my understanding of religion and why people make use of it increased. And that sealed the deal for me. Though I also would like to add that I think I gave other religious people a fair chance to argue for their faith and explain to me why it makes sense to them. But in the end it always arrived at a point where people would just turn their back on making sense and finished with a statement like "I just know".
So one can say I moved from neutrality to being an agnostic to being an atheist.

 

[Fr8monkey]

Never really believed, despite being dragged (unwillingly) to church.

I was the one in Sunday school that asked all the embarrassing questions.

 

[Zack]

Let's get something clear on definitions.

Agnostic:

–noun
1.
a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as god, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.
2.
a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study.

Atheist:

–noun
a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.

Key word being "disbelieves." While an atheist certainly can actively believe there is no god(s), typically an atheist is simply someone who lacks belief.

People who have changed going one way or the other, and why. But if it is not to personal, I'd like to know more

Exposure to the internet and other views. The arguments against the likelihood of God's existence (Christian God here) were more convincing than the ones for his existence. Basically, I became an atheist when I realized my answer to the following question:

If I hadn't been brought up in this religion, would I believe it for even a second?

And so an agnostic atheist was born.

 

[_random_]

The Christian god typically suffers from several logical contradictions which render him impossible,

Such as?

 

[Zack]

Such as?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence_of_God#Arguments_against_the_existence_of_God

I don't agree with "impossible," I would say "highly unlikely."

 

[Hitti-Litti]

The Christian god typically suffers from several logical contradictions which render him impossible

Why do you assume that something like a god would need to be logical? If god is omnipotent, it's possible for it to exist while suffering from logical contradictions. After all, it's god, earthly laws of logic don't need to apply to him.

 

[Truronian]

Such as?

- The omnipotence problem: can god create a so heavy that he cannot himself lift it?
- The omni-benevolence + omnipotent + evil problem: why would an all-powerful, all-good allow evil to exist
- The omni-benevolent + evil problem: Why would an omni-benevolent creator create evil?
- The hell problem: why would an omni-benevolent god allow for hell to exist?
- The problem of Biblical contradictions: If the Bible is divinely inspired and all true, why does it contain inconsistencies?

Not all Christian belief systems have these problems; indeed some have none of them (for example, they do not consider God omni-benevolent/omnipotent).

Why do you assume that something like a god would need to be logical? If god is omnipotent, it's possible for it to exist while suffering from logical contradictions. After all, it's god, earthly laws of logic don't need to apply to him.

If god can suffer from logical contradictions, then he can both exist and not-exist at the same time. A neat solution.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Atheists are convinced that there is no god, of any description. Agnostics don't know if there is any god of any description. Or, in some case, don't care if there is a god.

Being convinced doesn't mean you claim to have absolute knowledge. I'm convinced my car is still parked outside. But until I go and look, there's no way to know. I'm convinced there is no God, but I cannot say I know there is no God since it's non-existence is impossible to prove. So how does that not make me an agnostic atheist?

And if someone doesn't care if there is a God, does that person believe in it? Nope. So that makes that person an atheist. Agnostic is not mutually exclusive from theists or atheists.

 

[Hitti-Litti]

If god can suffer from logical contradictions, then he can both exist and not-exist at the same time. A neat solution.

So in the end, everyone is right? Sound like Bahá'i to me.

 

[Truronian]

So in the end, everyone is right? Sound like Bahá'i to me.

Everyone is wrong and right.

 

[Hitti-Litti]

Everyone is wrong and right.

Sounds like quantum mechanics to me. God = a quantum computer?

 

[El_Machinae]

Thanks for taking the time to answer, and sharing. It is very interesting to read. I think that every individual has a unique story to tell, and they all have value.

I have discussing the evil question on another post, no need to repeat myself here. But I am curious about what I just quoted you about. Maybe I am reading you wrong, (a problematic fact of e-mails and postings) but it reads to me that you were not finding what you expected to find in your early Christian tradition.

So, because of that you came to the conclusion that everyone else was wrong because of your experience. And that they were either lying, or just blinded, again because of what you had concluded. I guess I don't understand that it only works one way.

In other words, if many around you claim to have a certain spiritual experience, and you do not, why is it not possible that you may have missed something, or perhaps just not got to that place yet? If you were not told at the time, you should have been, that Jesus deals with each of us as individuals, according to who and what we are. For instance, God never had to help me find a way to quit smoking, I never took it up. Drinking on the other hand was a different matter.

Also, and I would be surprised if this had never came up: There are 3 lists in the NT concerning spiritual gifts and manifistations of the Holy Spirit within our lives. The Bible is very clear that not everyone has all, or even the same gifts, or sets of gifts. There are entire chapters in Romans and 1st Cor. devoted to this subject. It is a basic foundation of the Christian experience, and a solid proof to a believer of what has happened within him. If you were not shown or taught that, someone messed up.

Rereading your post, I see that you did indeed think something was missing, and went to other traditions. Fair enough, but you still reached the conclusion that since something didn't work for you, it was therefore false for everyone else. And then took that to become a condemmanation of all of Christianity, and God's very existance. I guess I just do not see how you should have gotten to that place.

I guess I should mention that about 8 years of my life are compressed into that paragraph. I'm familiar with the Christian apologetics on the topic, and various ideas on how the gifts of the Spirit work
We can only be honest with ourselves. I realised that my old beliefs were false, and I noticed that more and more of my Christian culture was engaged in self-reinforced post-hoc justifying. People just couldn't tell that it wasn't God talking to them. All the talking points could be terribly sophisticated on the surface, but they weren't correct. And, as I became more intelligent (or wiser), I'd notice that the more intelligent church members would support the less intelligent church members in their delusions. (Obviously, a more intelligent person can recognise logical errors or errors in reasoning more easily than a less intelligent person.) It was a self-reinforcing system that they're in. It doesn't lead to more truth over time, just a better system of explaining away the failure.

Like I said, it was 8 years. Imagine you were raised amongst people who believed in the horoscope. If you finally said, "hey, this is bunk", then there's only so long that you'd wade through their increasingly sophisticated apologetics, finding each to be wrong (but causing others to be deceived), before you'd realise that the whole system just wasn't true.

 

[Leoreth]

I recently saw a map for the question "do you believe a God exists" in Europe and the Czech republic scored lowest. Can anyone explain? "Commies did it" can't be all to it, if one looks at Poland.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Czechia is the Kingdom of Devil in Europe's Heart, like I always said.

Plus in Poland, like in Ireland, religion was closely connected with the motive of national liberation.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I recently saw a map for the question "do you believe a God exists" in Europe and the Czech republic scored lowest. Can anyone explain? "Commies did it" can't be all to it, if one looks at Poland.

I remember reading about that, but frustratingly am no able to remember anything solid. I believe it was connected to getting busted by the Catholic Church in the past, before the SU. There is a conclusive explanation out there in any case.