About that atheism thing…

[Jedidiah]

As some friends and fellow TOLers have noticed, some of whom have sent me messages asking about it (thanks! ), and for others who have yet to notice but who knew what I previously believed: I no longer consider myself a Catholic nor a theist.

As to what lead to this change, it had been some time in the making, reaching a tipping point about a year and a half ago. But the short of it is that I don’t see the hand of an all loving, knowing and powerful God at work in the world or what is said to be his Church; rather, I see a God who does his hardest to remain hidden and everything unfolding in a way that one would expect if such a God was not active in the world or simply didn’t exist. I find myself in an universe in which no process attests to God's activity within it.

As my faith in God, the supernatural and the Catholic Church waned, I came to a point where I realised that I was not being honest with myself if I continued on that path. The lack of evidence for God and for the supernatural reality entailed by the beliefs I was holding by faith lead to an internal conflict that kept piling up and by the end I came to realise that I was holding on to the faith due to an emotional attachment to it and not because I still believed in it. But there was no integrity to be found in that setup and I got nothing but cognitive dissonance out of it; so I let go.

While I am an atheist now, I do not consider myself a strong/militant atheist, that is, I don’t make the claim that I know for a fact that God does not exists. Nor do I have a penchant for bashing God or religion. Rather, my disbelief arises for the most part from a lack of evidence and this lack of evidence leads me to think the existence of God or the supernatural is unlikely and I thus live my life as if it doesn’t exists. But as new evidence can always emerge which can change one’s mind, I do not adopt the strong/militant stance as some atheists do.

I wasn’t sure at first what to write for this OP, my original idea was to write a longer post detailing everything but I opted instead for not writing an essay and for leaving things a bit less formal and open, letting the thread unfold by itself and then ride along with it.

The above is condensed for the sake of brevity but I’d be willing to expand on it. So, yeah, I’d be open to discuss things and answer any questions you may have about this change. Hopefully it can be done in a friendly, conversational and respectful manner :cheers:


Evo

So you've boldly decided to do nothing, that takes real courage ! :singer:

The real question is, if you can imagine that you're wrong, that all through your calculations and figurings, somewhere you forgot to carry a one; how does God feel about you right now, doing what you're doing? You're not only thinking that He doesn't exist, you're out here telling other people about it ! Isn't that temptation, for those who maybe are considering spiritual suicide like you -- aren't you telling them to jump ? How happy is God with you right now, if you're wrong, Evo ? Can you imagine that ?

I ask from concern. I walked away from Him when I was younger, but He brought me back, and He even made it easy -- God let me imagine Him proudly pleased with me, so that I never experienced any guilt or shame at all, and lived in complete freedom from Him, which is what I wanted to know about -- what's it like for the others' side ? These folks live robust lives, always following their bliss, chasing happiness and contentment -- and whatever else suits their fancy ! What if there is no God ? I'm missing out ! I thought.

I wasn't. You're missing out right now, in letting your flesh do what it does best -- make a mess out of something really nice.

 

[Totton Linnet]

As some friends and fellow TOLers have noticed, some of whom have sent me messages asking about it (thanks! ), and for others who have yet to notice but who knew what I previously believed: I no longer consider myself a Catholic nor a theist.

As to what lead to this change, it had been some time in the making, reaching a tipping point about a year and a half ago. But the short of it is that I don’t see the hand of an all loving, knowing and powerful God at work in the world or what is said to be his Church; rather, I see a God who does his hardest to remain hidden and everything unfolding in a way that one would expect if such a God was not active in the world or simply didn’t exist. I find myself in an universe in which no process attests to God's activity within it.

As my faith in God, the supernatural and the Catholic Church waned, I came to a point where I realised that I was not being honest with myself if I continued on that path. The lack of evidence for God and for the supernatural reality entailed by the beliefs I was holding by faith lead to an internal conflict that kept piling up and by the end I came to realise that I was holding on to the faith due to an emotional attachment to it and not because I still believed in it. But there was no integrity to be found in that setup and I got nothing but cognitive dissonance out of it; so I let go.

While I am an atheist now, I do not consider myself a strong/militant atheist, that is, I don’t make the claim that I know for a fact that God does not exists. Nor do I have a penchant for bashing God or religion. Rather, my disbelief arises for the most part from a lack of evidence and this lack of evidence leads me to think the existence of God or the supernatural is unlikely and I thus live my life as if it doesn’t exists. But as new evidence can always emerge which can change one’s mind, I do not adopt the strong/militant stance as some atheists do.

I wasn’t sure at first what to write for this OP, my original idea was to write a longer post detailing everything but I opted instead for not writing an essay and for leaving things a bit less formal and open, letting the thread unfold by itself and then ride along with it.

The above is condensed for the sake of brevity but I’d be willing to expand on it. So, yeah, I’d be open to discuss things and answer any questions you may have about this change. Hopefully it can be done in a friendly, conversational and respectful manner :cheers:


Evo

Hi Vokesy

How can you say God remains hidden? He is in clear view in Jesus, you see God exactly as He is....everyone who comes to Him is received.

But people do not come to Him, they stop short, they are taught to stop short...I was brought up Catholic, I know it.

I remember asking "how come Abraham spoke to God and God answered?" and they say "no, no now we must come to the priest"

Did the people come swinging incense? with lighted candles? chanting liturgies?

These are all man's idea of how God must be approached. Come calling on Him, like they did in the bible...it is YOU who is hiding.

 

[Town Heretic]

I am personally more concerned with which, given the evidence, best approximates the truth; not with a wager.

I'm not wagering. This life is reason enough to embrace faith and relation.

I don’t because I don’t have a pessimistic outlook about life.

Yet you chose the nihilist's part without necessity.

I recognize that this is the one life I have and I look forward to the next day to try and continue making the most out of the brief time I have on this earth.

Rather, this is at least one life and potentially more. And making the best of this life should include the context that can best do that.

An interpretation which would be missing the point. I get that Christians are usually unable to imagine a happy and fulfilled life without their God and an afterlife, it doesn't mean, of course, that everyone shares this sad view.

"Sad view" is an interesting choice of word, evo. You've spoken, I think, to a faith that didn't seem to embody relation, the daily walk and experience of God. You mentioned that Catholicism didn't emphasize that as you experienced it. I think you missed part of your church and should, again, read Brother Lawrence on the point. But I think that want was the fault in the rock of your faith that caused both the schism and dissonance and I believe whole heartedly that it's a thing that can and I hope one day is corrected.

And such I have done, I just don’t happen agree with the approach you seem to take to decide the matter.

Then fault my reasoning. I invite that, contextually.

I wasn’t claiming that the universe as a whole is sentient or that it fights for it’s existence or that it values things. We are and we do; as I said, we give a point to the process.

Or we recognize and respond and in any event we chose a context that undermines the point and process or elevates.

Doing something like that would be to sacrifice personal integrity and honesty. I can’t make myself believe anything in that manner.

Telling yourself anything else would be dishonest is contrary to reason and objective demonstration, Evo. There's no necessity, you can and are making yourself accept something that isn't objectively, demonstrably so or inevitable. The only real question is why are you?

What you are proposing is basically a form of Pascal’s Wager; where I should ignore what I believe to be true and embrace what I believe to be false, on the hope that some allegedly better life awaits me after my time on this earth ends.

I always reject Pascal as short sighted and I've been consistently talking about the here and now and the enjoyment and appreciation of that and how the context within which we consider the moment must color the moment. Faith isn't merely about pie in the sky in the sweet by and by. It's about the very real present and how we meet it.

Or the reality of the larger moment is the specific religion of the person. Which is very much what seems to determine what experience is had, the experience itself not being the evidence of the religion but rather the result of it.

Again, men can experience a thing and will then, invariably, filter that experience through their experience and come up at odds with the next fellow standing by in the midst of that experience.

So at best you can ask, is the experience misunderstood or is it real? And not being able to objectively settle the truth of that you are back precisely in the position of making that contextual choice and with the same reasons at the root. And so my argument against the choice you have made. There's nothing in it that can meet the alternative and it isn't more arguably true.

They speak to certain psychological desires that emerge from our evolved faculties, doesn’t necessarily means there is anything supernatural about them.

Well, it does or it doesn't and back to square one.

The same type of experiences can be had outside religion and can be intentionally induced on individuals by different means.

And a fellow under the knife can be made to smell flowers that aren't present in the operating room. And yet there are flowers, if not in that room.

Understanding that we are imperfect mediums is precisely why the ability to test and verify such extraordinary claims is so important.

And we're back to the empirical test that can't be set out, let alone met.

If what I said would count as evidence in my previous posts doesn’t satisfies. Then I doubt I could meet such a challenge when you seem to have set things up for it to be untestable and unfalsifiable; where any demand for demonstrable evidence would just be seen as speaking to one’s own desires.

If it doesn't settle the question objectively then what else, rationally, can it be said to be? I'm not arguing for the existence of a genie, by way of. I'm not arguing for the existence of something that I can encompass, only approach through faith and the revelation of both the Word and the experience of relation.

It is assumed because figuring it out is precisely what we have done in science across history. That prospect is what drives further research and investigation.

Rather, we have determined some part of the mechanism of things. It doesn't follow, except as a proposition of faith, that everything follows that principle. In fact, reasonably, it cannot.

:e4e:

 

[elohiym]

If you witnessed that with your own eyes, then all the accompanying miracles that followed, would you willingly be subject to the Mosaic law?

If you didn't witness all that with your own eyes, would you willingly be subject to the Mosaic law?

If you wouldn't, why would they? We know they did because they had children and passed on the law, and claimed what their fathers before them claimed was true.

As I said in my previous post, the numbers of the Exodus as recorded in the Bible seem to be questioned by modern scholars ...

Why should "modern scholars" be believed, and why believe one over another?

... and there seems to be a lack of evidence outside the Bible for the event.

What qualifies as evidence? If I took you to an alleged site of the Red Sea crossing, then we traveled the alleged route of the Israelites and found a bitter spring of water, then traveled further and found twelve springs and seventy palms, would that be enough evidence for you? Would you just say it was coincidence? What if we traveled further and I showed you a mountain that was darkened as if it had been burned, and then I showed you in that same place a split rock where it looked like water flowed out? Would that be sufficient evidence?

Using that same reasoning you are using here one could ask the same questions for any given social contract with religious undertones across history.

Sure. I can ask them to you, too, but I already know the answer: you would not subject yourself to a burdensome religion without evidence, which is why we are having this discussion.

All such accounts of people experiencing and subjecting themselves to the Egyptian, Norse and Pagan Gods; the Muslims to Allah, the Mormons to Joseph Smith, etc.

Compared to the law of Moses, you believe those are burdensome religions? I don't. Were any of those religions based on eye-witness events and genealogies of multiple witnesses (with descendants living to this day)? I don't believe so.

Tradition can transmit on equal manner both true and false beliefs. Just because it is passed down it doesn't means it is true nor does it prevents it from being embellished along the way; which is what seems to have been the case with the oral tradition from which the text of the Exodus emerged.

Do you believe Moses was a real person? You claim you believe Jesus was a real person, and he seemed to believe Moses was a real person.

 

[zippy2006]

Doing something like that would be to sacrifice personal integrity and honesty. I can’t make myself believe anything in that manner. What you are proposing is basically a form of Pascal’s Wager; where I should ignore what I believe to be true and embrace what I believe to be false, on the hope that some allegedly better life awaits me after my time on this earth ends.

While I don't necessarily subscribe to the view of Pascal and TH, I don't think you have correctly represented it.

The idea is that there are some beliefs that are not demonstrable. Rationality does not push us to believe or disbelieve such things, and yet we must inevitably make a decision; neutrality is impossible. Given the fact that rationality is unable to settle the matter, we (rationally) turn to the criterion of happiness.

The fact that you should ignore what you believe to be true and embrace what you believe to be false is accidental. The heart of it is the idea that your assignment of truth values to this question is rationally unjustifiable. The question is: can we turn to hope and happiness once rationality has come up short? :think:

On pages 176 and 177 of Introduction to Christianity Ratzinger quotes part of the passage from Pascal I quoted earlier. He goes on to say:

In this curious passage, this much at any rate is right: the mere neutral curiosity of the mind that wants to remain uninvolved can never enable one to see--even in dealing with a human being, and much less in dealing with God. The experiment with God cannot take place without man.

(Just to be clear: you are disagreeing with TH on whether your atheism is--or any atheism can be--rationally justified. His argument will make no sense until you grant the premise that atheism, while not necessarily false, is not rationally justified.)

 

[elohiym]

The oldest copy we have of Exodus is WAY younger than the time that it is said to have taken place, and well after all involved were long dead.

Do Shakespeare's original manuscripts exist? No.

In that case it would only take one man to write it and say it's true, probably from a telephone game type of oral history in which many facts were changed or lost.

What evidence do you have that Shakespeare actually wrote his plays as John Heminge and Henry Condell published them? They claimed previous publications "were abused with diverse, stolen and surreptitious copies, maimed, and deformed by the frauds and stealths of injurious impostors..."

Not to mention that it would not be tens of thousands like you said, but over 2,000,000. With people leaving in a line that could be 10 abreast and stretch for 150 miles after plagues that included the slaughter of all Egypt's first borns, you would think that the Egyptians, who were also good record keepers of their history, might have mentioned it somewhere.

Sir Alan Gardiner, an authority on Egyptian history and advocate of a revised Egyptian chronology believes: "What is proudly advertised as Egyptian history is merely a collection of rags and tatters."

Under a revised chronology, what little we know about Egyptian history appears to line up with the accounts of Genesis and Exodus. You can read this article for more information: Egyptian history and the biblical record: a perfect match?

Mentioned in the article is an Egyptian papyrus in the Leiden Museum in Holland which reads:

… Plague stalks through the land and blood is everywhere … Nay, but the river is blood. Does a man drink from it? As a human he rejects it. He thirsts for water … Nay, but gates, columns and walls are consumed with fire…Nay but the son of the high-born man is no longer to be recognized … The stranger people from outside are come into Egypt … Nay, but corn has perished everywhere…Everyone says ‘there is no more.’​

 

[Spectrox War]

As some friends and fellow TOLers have noticed, some of whom have sent me messages asking about it (thanks! ), and for others who have yet to notice but who knew what I previously believed: I no longer consider myself a Catholic nor a theist.

Evo

You might be interested to read this thread before you take seriously what Town Heretic writes:

http://www.theologyonline.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4098813#post4098813

 

[Town Heretic]

Given I'm an OSASer I'm more disappointed than worried. Concerned because I think you're making a mistake that could be influencing younger Christians who might have looked to your example and might then be shaken by this portion of it... Disappointed for you and what you've missed and will continue to miss for a while.

When I hear anyone tell me about an accumulation of evidence or want that leads toward apostasy there is without exception a point of shifting trust from God to our own desires for Him and expectations of. I don't by that mean to imply that the former adherent lacked a love for God or that their profession of faith was in any part false.

Edit: I should have said a shift from the notion of the object of God to another notion. And thanks to Spectrox on the point, even if he didn't mean to be helpful.

That people involved in the struggle of life find stepping away from that restive and even liberating is no real surprise, nor should it be mistaken for ease or liberation. A well treated prisoner of war may find the experience preferable to combat, but it remains a captivity.

As for evidence about a particular God being present and loving, I experience that in relation on a daily basis and have since the day of my conversion. I also see it watching God move through those who love him...and when I note declared adherents being something else I understand what's at the root of it and what isn't. There are many forgiven of much who then go about shaking down others and we know what's waiting for them...a hard correction and unhappiness in the meantime. Because the dissonance in life on the point is always found between where our limited understanding and short sighted natures move us and where God and joy and peace are actually found.

You're probably familiar with Brother Lawrence. I think he had it about right. We only really get ourselves in trouble when we rest in ourselves instead of the cornerstone. I hope your apostasy is a breath before the plunge and I look forward to welcoming you back to the front lines within the context of this life.

 

[rainee]

You mean Keanu Reeves? Not really
I’m a tall, white, blonde type; have a rather marked european look, even more so than my father from whom that particular lineage comes.


Evo

Hi Evo
A marked European look, you say? Hmmm...


You mean you look kinda like Napoleon Boneaparte?
Or Genghis Khan? Or Marco Polo? Or maybe TobyMac?
(See the vid I posted on music thread if you don't know him)

Curiouser and curiouser, Evo

 

[Evoken]

Thanks for answering NY previous questions. One more - do you believe that it takes the entire universe to create an apple? [emoji14]

Is that you, Carl Sagan? Seems like an oddly phrased question and a twist of this Sagan quote: “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe”.

In any case, as we don’t have an example of an apple being created, I take it you mean to produce. In that sense your question essentially becomes: “does it takes an environment in which an apple can be produced, to produce an apple?”. Well...I suppose, sure


Evo

 

[Evoken]

The real question is, if you can imagine that you're wrong, that all through your calculations and figurings, somewhere you forgot to carry a one; how does God feel about you right now, doing what you're doing?

What if in your own calculations you forgot something and Allah is the true God? Or Ahura Mazda? Or Zeus? To be honest, I am no more concerned about that than Christians are with respect to the vast number of deities they have personally concluded do not exist or are not the true God. I don’t live my life thinking about how a deity I don’t believe exists may or may not feel about what I am doing.

You're not only thinking that He doesn't exist, you're out here telling other people about it ! Isn't that temptation, for those who maybe are considering spiritual suicide like you -- aren't you telling them to jump ? How happy is God with you right now, if you're wrong, Evo ? Can you imagine that ?

Well, as I said, as an atheist I don’t think about these things but if such a God exists, he is more than welcome to speak his mind and let me know how he feels

I ask from concern. I walked away from Him when I was younger, but He brought me back, and He even made it easy -- God let me imagine Him proudly pleased with me, so that I never experienced any guilt or shame at all, and lived in complete freedom from Him, which is what I wanted to know about -- what's it like for the others' side ?

I appreciate your concern but I didn’t grow up as a Christian. My shift towards unbelief is not driven by a curiosity to see what it is like on the other side, as would a Christian who was sheltered from that side all his life. I know what it is like and I lived on that side before eventually becoming a Christian as I noted in some of my previous posts in this thread.

You're missing out right now, in letting your flesh do what it does best -- make a mess out of something really nice.

I respect your perspective that you felt you were missing out by abandoning the Christian faith but for me it is the reverse as holding on to it gave me nothing but cognitive dissonance.

Thanks for your post, :cheers:


Evo

 

[Evoken]

Intermission: Sorry for the long delay in getting back to you guys. Things were rather tight as far as time goes over the last week. Plan to get into the rest of the posts soon enough

 

[rainee]

Intermission: Sorry for the long delay in getting back to you guys. Things were rather tight as far as time goes over the last week. Plan to get into the rest of the posts soon enough

You're fired.
We are looking for a new atheist.

 

[Evoken]

How can you say God remains hidden? He is in clear view in Jesus, you see God exactly as He is....everyone who comes to Him is received.

What you are saying here is something that people of other religions can and do say about their respective deities and prophets as well. I know you believe this, Totton, that one can pray and talk to him like a regular person; that one can think about him, meet him in the scriptures, place one’s trust in him, conform one’s life to his will, go to church to praise him, etc; and that from this a certain personal relationship emerges. The thing is that I don’t see any evidence which indicates that this relationship isn’t one sided.

But people do not come to Him, they stop short, they are taught to stop short...I was brought up Catholic, I know it. I remember asking "how come Abraham spoke to God and God answered?" and they say "no, no now we must come to the priest"

Well, to be fair, this is not an accurate representation of what Catholics believe. The Catholic is allowed to pray directly to God and in the Eucharist they believe Christ becomes literally present body, soul and divinity and that they come to meet him in the sacrament. So it is not like one is prevented from coming to God in Catholicism.

Come calling on Him, like they did in the bible...

Oh, I did, but there comes a point when you realise there really is no one on the other end.

Thanks for your post, :e4e:


Evo

 

[Evoken]

You're fired.

Oops...:chuckle:

 

[rainee]

Darn*...:chuckle:

Yep we are thinking of sending a form to Uberpod1

*altered for the good of all - as only a Christian would do - and yes we know that it is aggravating, we don't like it either - but we just can't help ourselves sometimes

 

[rainee]

And you can forget it MrDeets, a whip is all that is waiting for you, brutha

 

[Evoken]

*altered for the good of all - as only a Christian would do - and yes we know that it is aggravating, we don't like it either - but we just can't help ourselves sometimes

Ah, changed the word in the post for something else, sorry

 

[Evoken]

TH, I’ll narrow things down and focus on what I think are the most relevant points.

Then fault my reasoning. I invite that, contextually.

Whether or not you think that your context gives hope and meaning has no bearing on whether it is true. So it is a red herring to focus the discussion on evaluating the hope and meaning this context is said to provide without first determining it’s truthfulness in light of the evidence.

You can only affirm that there is no rational way to determine this if, as you do, you refuse to clearly flesh out and define this context (like not defining things beyond the finite vs the infinite) thus leaving this context ambiguous and untestable/unfalsifiable in principle.

But the Christian faith involves more than what you are presenting. It has at it’s core an interventionist God with a set of attributes that entail certain testable and empirical things about the world. It makes claims and teaches certain things that can be verified. It has a book which is said to be divinely inspired and which makes claims about the world that can be verified as well. So, contrary to what you are saying, an empirical test for the Christian faith can be set out and such I have done in some posts in this thread.

Telling yourself anything else would be dishonest is contrary to reason and objective demonstration...

You can only ask me why if you ignore what I expressed in the OP and in some of my subsequent posts. You can only suggest what you did if you ignore how it is that people come to hold or discard beliefs. It doesn’t seems to matter to you whether this context which you are proposing is true or not. You are essentially telling me that if I see reason, science and my own personal experience pointing one way, that I should ignore that and go the other way because I somehow own it to myself to “hope” for more. I disagree, I think I own it to myself to embrace what judging by those methods I mentioned I can conclude to be true beliefs.

What you are proposing relies on an epistemology which is not truth finding. It is a method which leads to the relativism with regards to truth and the embracing of an untestable and unfalsifiable position that you seem to be expressing here. I know you object to the word fideism so we may call it pure faith, but that is very much what it amounts to. Suffice it to say I don’t accept such an epistemology.

Again, men can experience a thing and will then, invariably, filter that experience through their experience and come up at odds with the next fellow standing by in the midst of that experience.

You are assuming that they are all experiencing one particular thing, God, specifically the Christian God. But that doesn’t follows from the evidence but is rather something imposed upon it. The object of these personal experiences are as varied as the experiences themselves. From angels, to animals, to aliens, to the self, to gods, to dead relatives, to some fundamental fact of reality, to nothingness, etc; the object of these experiences and what people take them to mean do not converge on anything when considered as a whole. Rather they are contradictory and basically cancel each other out. So saying that they are all experiencing a God and in particular the Christian God doesn’t follows from the evidence and is quite arbitrary.

Absent an objective method for verifying these experiences, this line of evidence remains very poor and unreliable. It is essentially no different than the claim made by many theists that they believe God is real because they feel his presence in them.

And we're back to the empirical test that can't be set out, let alone met.

Rather, we are back to a lack of unambiguous demonstrable evidence for the existence of God and the supernatural in general and the Christian God in particular. One of the main reasons why I am an atheist.

Have a good one, :cheers:


Evo

 

[MrDeets]

THIS WHOLE THREAD
Evo

You're an encouragement. Thanks for posting this.