However, I have seriously considered and continue to consider the cases that are made for these things, and I still doubt. Also, I have what seem to me to be good reasons to believe the things I do. I have reasons to doubt and reasons to believe, just like you or anyone else does. I doubt the things that I believe in the sense that I scrutinize them, but they have stood up to scrutiny for me so far. Skepticism is reasonable up to a point, but at some point, doubt becomes unreasonable, and even unlivable. Where should my doubt end? Should I doubt the existence of the external world, the existence of other minds, the existence of the past, the truth of the mathematical statement 1+1=2, the logical law of non-contradiction, the reliability of my own senses and rational faculties, and even my own existence? If I have good reasons to believe these things and I have good reasons to believe God exists, why should I seriously doubt it?
Are you equating 1+1=2 with God exists? Odd.
If you have the same faith in 1+1=2 as in "God exists" then I'm afraid you will remain deaf to arguments and will indeed be beyond doubt. I'm sad to hear this, but hey, you can't win them all. Still, you made an effort to respond to me, so I'm still going to address your post, if only for argument's sake.
Besides promoting atheism, I also enjoy discussing religion.
I have considered this, and off the top of my head, it fails to explain a couple of things:
1. If the Romans moved the body, they knew where it was, and could have put a stop to this whole resurrection nonsense right away, by simply producing the body. Why didn't they?
I don't know, but I can think of a hundred reasons right off the bat. Mass grave, they burnt it, during the time it didn't look as if this Christianity thing was more than an annoying sect. It took more than 100 years before it actually took of, and they merely considered it an annoying sect at the time.
2. It doesn't explain the post-mortem appearances, or the conversion of others to belief in the resurrection, or the belief in the resurrection itself. The post-mortem appearances occurred to large groups of people all at once, as well as to people who had unfavorable attitudes toward Jesus. Hallucinatory experiences would not have produced belief in resurrection from the dead, perhaps they would have caused them to believe they were having a vision of Jesus in the afterlife, but this is different than Jesus being bodily resurrected. After all, the disciples had a vision of Moses and Elijah, and it didn't cause them to believe either of them were risen from the dead.
And all you have is Paul's word for this. So, are there any sources outside of the Bible which speak of this truly remarkable event?
Who is to say he didn't simply make it up?
Also I have other reasons for believing in Jesus's teachings and the existence of God, both of which increase the probability of the resurrection occurring.
This shouldn't turn into a debate about the resurrection of Jesus, but I have reasons for believing that satisfy me, that are stronger than those for believing something else, which is all that matters.
Yes, the enemy of doubt is satisfaction in current believes. Again, as some Christian preachers often said to me, "You can lead a horse to water ..."
(Note, I always found this to be horribly condescending, so I straight away apologize for using it. But I just couldn't resist. Flesh is weak, I'm sure you'll understand
I do think that people should question their beliefs. And yet I do question them (and will continue to) and I remain quite convinced. What now? What am I doing "wrong" that causes me to believe these ridiculous and nonsensical things?
You are still influenced by your preconceived notions. I do not believe you are judging the evidence fairly, but rather with a predetermined outcome in mind.
Which is not wrong per se, mind you. Just not the kind of thing I am promoting.
A couple things about doubt and atheism:
I shouldn't have said my beliefs are based on doubt. Rather I should have said that all my beliefs entail doubt. If I believe x, it entails that I doubt -x. Belief cannot be established upon doubt. The only kind of view that can be established on doubt is an agnostic view, namely, "I don't know whether or not God exists." Doubt does not establish the belief that "God does not exist," which is a claim to knowledge about a particular state of affairs, just like the claim "God does exist."
Not this again
Atheism does not say: "God does not exist" that is a subset of atheism. Atheism means a lack of believe in a Deity. Since Deities often require absolute faith in many religions, promoting doubt would certainly help promoting atheism. And if the collateral damage would be agnostic theism, I'm fine with that. It's my favourite kind of theism.
It's also the kind of theism I will not argue against, because often it recognizes that their claims are not based on scientific evidence, but rather personal experience. This is the kind of theism that recognised that faith and faith alone is responsible for their believes. Once you start making claims against scientific observation to strengthen your believes, I always find that evidence of lack of faith. You can see this quite clearly with Young Earth Creationists, who do not seem to have any faith at all, since they claim the existence of God is scientifically provable.
Neither of these claims can be firmly established upon doubt. Thus, going around telling people to doubt the existence of God will only lead them to uncertainty about God's existence, not to the belief that God does not exist. Do you advocate that people that believe that God does not exist should doubt this belief, just as those who believe God exists should doubt their belief?
Yes I do.
First and foremost I want people to make up their own mind. Sauron made an excellent post which makes my point better than I could have.
That's not doubt. That's a determination to disbelieve.
What you want to do is have a positive question like, to pic from the top of your list "How did the universe evolve into the state it's in today?" Then some figure of authority gives you an answer. DOUBT IT! here you'll get two answers, one from science and one from your preacher. Doubt both. Ask your preacher to understand why he says what says. And study science to understand it's methods, and the specific evidence behind in the cosmological and geological evolution of the world around us. Once you understand, and only once you understand, then you have to decide the limits of the scientific method and the bible both. Decide, but keep skeptical, for now you know the limits of the approach and evidence.
There's a really important step there: if you don't agree with someone, then you have to understand why they think so before you can confidently dismiss them. I think a lot of people could stand to learn this.
I advocate questioning of all beliefs, but this is not the same as doubt. I can question my beliefs by wondering what good reasons there are to believe them and still not doubt them. Questioning beliefs can lead to doubt or it can lead to believing something more strongly.
Well, that's fine of course. And we disagree there. Which is also fine Still I am curious. You have already outlined in your first reply the reasons you have for not believing a host of things (The "I doubt" list)
Do you have a positive reason to believe in God? (A negative reason being for instance: the universe could not have formed naturally, that is impossible.)
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