Agnostics “R” Us...

“Elmer - My Man !!!”

Said like a fearless atheist brother.
(And I flatly refuse to stop picking my nose.
It’s my life - and it’s my nose!!)

 

Ahhh jeez, I thought if I brought out nose picking that you would at least confess that sin my son...

 

Some good discussion here. It’s good to question things. We all have our reasons to believe or not to believe. What’s great here is I have yet to see people attacking each other so that’s a nice change of scenery.

 

Christianity is much easier to understand if one grasps the following:

Our lives/bodies are not our own.

God tells us what we can, and what we cannot do.

Our possessions are not our own. Whatever we give or take is not our own.

God has exclusive ownership over everything.

People do not accept this, so they are in the constant state of "rebellion" (which is the result of the "original sin" and passes from generation to generation).

Because everyone is in a state of rebellion and thus have not achieved moral perfection, at death everyone would be judged and condemned (this is the "bad news"). Good and bad deeds are not weighed on a scale. (Note, our lives continue after death.)

However, some people want to repent and be forgiven, they want their slate completely wiped clean.

Here is the "Good News".

Jesus said (paraphrased): I will bear your wrongdoings and will wipe your slate clean. Do you accept this/me (which includes repentance)? (Free will.)
(Note, this response is not an option: Yes, please please wipe my slate clean, but I do not want to/won't accept you.)

Above is the traditional Protestant teaching. Catholic teaching is not based on "grace alone" and thus is different.

 

I see you have swallowed the book, hook, line and sinker.

I will make an assumption here.

At what age did your indoctrination begin, or am I wrong?

 

Hello Lilah,

I appreciate your efforts to make Christianity more understandable. I can imagine Christianity is important to you. I figure it became important to you most likely because people you know, like, trust and maybe love first saw to it that you learned these things about God in general and Jesus in particular. I am glad these ways of thinking make life for you maybe more understandable and easier. I myself have often wished I had the understanding of my childhood when I was in a Catholic school in the care of loving parents, caring teachers (nuns and lay teachers) who protected me from harm and educated me in the ways they were taught since they believed it was correct. It was a nice "bubble" to live in at the time in the USA of the 1950s. I had little if any capacity to think critically until I was maybe 12 or 13.

Unfortunately, these same people who were probably well-intentioned made a mistake with me early on. They taught me to read and value education. As I grew through my reading and education I began more and more to be able to expand my horizons and think critically. If one does that it is very hard to be a Catholic or any form of Christianity when one really delves into it. In fact, one has a hard time to logically continue to believe in God at all. One has to take a "leap of faith" leaving reason to believe in God. The term "leap of faith" became famous after first being used by the 19th Century Christian philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. To me it can get real simple. I have not been willing to take that "leap of faith" and abandon rationality for the irrational certainty of belief of any religion I have learned about to this point in my life in my seventies. Thus I live in the uncertainty of being an atheist of the agnostic type pretty clear that nobody can possibly know one way or the other about what we call God.

Don't take what I write too seriously or you too could think your way out of your current position and a position like mine is not always a comfortable one.

End rant he says with a smile.

 

@Henry Orlando FL, Soren Kierkegaard is one of my favourite writers. It's interesting how he makes philosophy and faith understandable to both believers and agnostics alike. Another like that is G.K.Chesterton. An atheist work colleague and myself used to enjoy discussing his writings together.

Then of course there's C.S.Lewis but he might be too "orthodox" for some of you ;-)

G. K. Chesterton Quotes

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.

The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.

A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.

If there were no God, there would be no Atheists.

The Bible tells us to love our neighbours, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people.

 

Just want to say not everyone chooses religion because they are brainwashed. I grew up Jehovah's witness questioning everything as a kid. There was a long period where I had no faith and only recently I decided to dive back in. I've had some experiences in between that made me want to pursue it again. I want to educate myself on the religions out there and overall just want to be a better person (outside religion).

 

Keep an open mind and do not judge!

 

I try not to... even though I do lol.

 

Thank you for saying that. At the end of the day, none of us knows anything with 100% certainty. Even Richard Dawkins admits that.

A person's beliefs, whatever way they may lie, may be the one thing giving them hope to hang onto each day, especially with this stuff we all have to go through here. We should (and we mostly do) go gently when pondering over those beliefs.

 

Interesting and informative Mister Muso. I had not run across Chesterton before. Likely because he is British and I am in the US. Of course, Kierkegaard is of world renown as I am sure you know. Then I don't read Christian apologists either so maybe it is because of that. I do like the quotes and see he was known as good at that and great as a public speaker thus very popular in his lifetime. I read up about him here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton

 

I’m with you all the way Henry, but you would probably have guessed that by now.

 

Indeed so Jazzer. Thanks for the support, thanks for making this thread possible, and the many chuckles from your efforts by posting the cartoons.

 

My pleasure buddy.

 

Whether religion is ‘a going concern’ or not,
it is important to me to ‘de-horrify’ its impact on life.

 

Thank you very much gentlemen for answering the questions.

Are there any other atheists or agnostics that would be willing to weigh in on this question?

 

Sure. My thoughts:

1) There are no 'reasons'. Belief in a God(s) is faith based, and you either have that faith or you don't. I could no sooner believe in God than a Christian could disbelieve in God. That's why religious discussion - although interesting - is ultimately pointless; you cannot force faith into someone, and you cannot force it out. Atheists reiterating that there is no proof are correct, but missing the point entirely; there isn't supposed to be proof.

2) The only reason to object to a person of faith, in my opinion, is if they are using their religion to negatively impact others. The Bible is contradictory, subjective and very open to interpretation. How people interpret its teachings speaks to their own personal sense of morality, and is not representative of the entire faith.

 

Well said.

 

Nonbelievers want special "signs" and are no different from Jews two thousand years ago. Similarly, the Gentiles believed the Gospel was too simple, and wanted more reasoning/wisdom. Belief requires faith as there are no "signs" (except for those who present at the actual events) and no clear-cut logical explanations. But, outside of clear "evidence" and logical reasoning, there is the spiritual realm of life and intuition which atheists completely disregard.

 

I mean, if the price to pay for not believing is burning in hell for eternity, yeah, a sign would be kind of nice. The God that punishes us because our brains require scientific evidence to believe something is pretty much just a projection of a human narcissist.

 

Hello Lilah,

I am wondering why you are in this thread? Are you here to convert? Do you want to debate the issue? Are you interested in exploring the possibility that the spiritual realm you write about may not be everything you think it might be? If I am going to respond I want to be sure I understand what you are looking for so I can hit the spot with a response.

Henry

 

This whole thread is Christian bashing (cartoons included), which is fine. I don't intend to participate actively but I do intend to clarify a few things if the comments become too egregious/erroneous.

 

Thanks for the response. OK, I think I understand.

I do agree with you that to believe in God and any particular religion one has to take what Kirkegard called a "leap of faith" into the realm of belief where there is no evidence other than one's individual "spiritual life and intuition...".

Now an atheist would ask where does that spiritual life and intuition come from? One might say God. One might also say well maybe it comes from somewhere else and let's look into that possibility.

Epictetus (a Greek philosopher of the first century AD) looked into it and said that no matter what happens in life it is not what happens but what one thinks about what happens that creates a person's feelings and behavior. Three steps:

1. Something happens.
2. One has thoughts or beliefs about what happens (usually learned in childhood but not always).
3. Then one has feelings or behavior as a result of the thoughts and beliefs.

Thus when one experiences a "spiritual life" or "intuition" that is something that happens. Then one has to process what that happening means which requires thoughts and beliefs (in humans with religion, mostly those thoughts and beliefs come from childhood training but not always). Then the feelings and behavior occur as a result.

What a Christian might think or believe about what occurred and what an atheist might think or believe occurred would be different with neither being "right" or "wrong"... just different. Then of course both of them could be "wrong" and it could be something entirely different is "the truth".

Another way an atheist might think about "spiritual life and intuition" is from studies of how the human brain works. The work of neurologists, neuropsychologists and neuroscientists. If you are interested in learning more about that "argument" then see here:

Wikipedia: Neuroscience of Religion

You could "...clarify a few things..." just in general, a few more things that you think are missed by atheists as you did with the post where you said:

"...there is the spiritual realm of life and intuition which atheists completely disregard."

I would be interested in what things you think atheists have missed in the accurate point of view in the matter.

Enjoy,
Henry

 

I disagree.

It was listening to, and involving myself in religious debate that helped me to sort out the ‘thorny’ question of ‘faith’ - in my own mind.

I was formerly floundering.

I would like to thank my mentors:
Darwin, Dawkins and Hitchens.

 

I suppose what I meant is that there is no point in trying to convert others through debate.

But I'm also surprised that it's possible to have an intellectual discussion with yourself about something that I think very much 'comes from that heart'. To me, it would be like trying to talk yourself into falling in love with someone.

This is the point that I think people like Dawkins miss. I love his other books - he writes beautifully - but I found 'The God Delusion' underwhelming. He was trying to 'intellectualise' people out of having faith by showing there is no proof of God and that the God in the Bible says and does terrible things - well, everyone knows that.

Most understand that the Bible is man made and incredibly flawed. That's why it gets reinterpreted constantly to match our own personal morality. Some Christian scholars argue that the Bible never mentions Hell, for instance. Some assert that it mentions it constantly. Others say Hell wasn't meant to be a physical place, but refers to the 'hell' of being far from God's love.

That fact is, God predates the Bible, and faith goes beyond proof, so how will discussing it in these terms convert anyone?

You talk very interestingly in this thread of how you were terrified of Hell as a child because you knew you didn't really believe - I wonder if, like me, no amount of exposure to church or religious scripture could actually have made you a believer, deep down. I myself tried very hard to be a Christian - didn't work.

 

The name of the thread is Agnostics-"R"-Us. If I went into a church for the purpose of clarifying that the Earth isn't 5000 years old and that God isn't some white dude with a gray beard, I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be well-received.

 

I don’t belong in this thread, I accidentally clicked on it, read a few posts and felt I need to comment.

Never have I needed my faith more as when I got tinnitus in 2017. Destroying my silence I find myself begging to God to guide me and give me hope as I yearn to feel his presence; something that at one time came easily for me now leaves me feeling as though he deserted me.

God helps the weak, and tinnitus have definitely made me weak. I pray for myself and everyone else with this devastating condition.

Amen.