A question for Christians AND atheists

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Clearly humans descend from the animal order, yet clearly we are no longer animals. Yet the objectivist or the "realist" view denies this and purports, basically, that we are animals. That I do not like nor accept.

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Riddick,


Again, that is the issue (re-phrased) that all atheists face in one way or another. We are animals, we have like all species distinguishing characteristics, one of which is our reflexivity, our ability to juggle with abstractions, which contribute to the determination of our behaviour. But to infer anything supernatural from that is too big a step, unwarranted by any possible evidence.

However that recognition may be sufficient to discover a meaning to your life, or make it up. without having to rely on the concept of an absolutely immoral god(s) to guide your choices.

I've only read half the thread and I came a little late, but here's another perspective FWIW.

My parents were always christian (congregationalists) and they dragged me to church more sundays than they let me sleep in, but I was never that interested. It was during high school when I started asking questions about the world myself that I started to begin to develop personal beliefs.

Two main factors lead me to begin calling myself a christian, one is hearing a version of christianity that is actually somewhat reasonable, and the second is having what i can only describe as an experience of God.

The reasonable version of christianity is not very smiliar to the one that it seems most people rejected when they decided to become athiests. Babies dying of SIDS doesn't have to mean there is no God nor does it have to mean it is God's will that those babies die. When I learned that some people read The Bible as a history of a people's evolving understanding of their relationship with God, rather than as the divine, infallible word of God, I started to see that there is a lot of wisdom in the book. I started to see the punishments that were foretold not as God's wrath, but rather as the real consequences of living inconsistently with God's wisdom.

The experience of God happend when I was visiting Israel with my church youth group in the summer after my junior year of high schoool. I went on the trip reluctantly, because my parents wanted me to and because my sort of girlfriend was also going, but it ended up being quite a spiritual experience.

The moment that stands out is when I was baptized in the Jordan river (I would call this the moment I became a christian, I was baptized as I child but that had nothing to do with my personl motives so I don't think it meant much). Anyway, as I was fully submerged in the Jordan I felt this overwhelming feeling of connectedness. It felt like the water, the trees, all the people around me were just flowing through me. This connectedness is what I call God - this is what I would be referring to if I were to say that God is everywhere.

I agree with the athiests that is very hard to believe in the white beard big man up stairs image of God.

[hmkpoker]

A friend of mine went to Israel last year and said he's thinking about moving there; he said it was hard to describe, but the land felt like a "node." (we're both RPG geeks; a "node" refers to a wellspring of spiritual energy) I'd really like to make the trip one of these days.

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What caused you to believe in Christianity?

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Going to church and listening to sermons about the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

This is a personal, perhaps too personal, account of my conversion to atheism. If it's a little melodramatic, that's probably cause I've had a few beers.

I'm a recently converted atheist. As a youth I was a devout Christian raised in a Protestant household. I didn't just numbly follow church teachings, I had a very close and sacred relationship with God at certain points in my life. There were times when I felt without a doubt that Someone up there existed.

After my fundamentalist youth I broke from strict Christian teachings. Instead, I felt that all religions had something to say about God and gave similar guidelines for life. I studied Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism, and after it all I thought I was gaining spiritual understanding. I felt that Christianity was only a limited version of Truth and as I explored further I came to believe in a different God. I couldn't describe this Being but I felt for certain It existed. I saw all religions as just man's way of explaining what was evident in the human spirit. For me, no hell could exist and life could not be as meaningless as Christianity makes it out to be. Therefore, I did consider the Hindu cycle of life as a possible posthumous explanation.

Anyway, I've gotten off topic, but I'm trying to explain the evolution of my thought, if anyone even cares. By this point I had started reading philosophy, and Nietzsche was one philosopher who always struck me as fascinating. I had read him when I was religious and had failed to see the strength of his arguments. I had also failed to seriously consider evolution, and the psychology of my faith. The latter is the biggest reason I am an atheist now. I had to think very carefully about what religion was doing to my psyche.

During every hard time in my life I would always turn to God. But in my healthiest and most vibrant times, God was only in the deepest recesses of my mind. But as time ticked and life got harder, God would keep moving up to the forefront of my mind, so that eventually I could not allow myself any healthy or fun times. I was focused only on the negative aspects of life. There is no question in my mind that religion did this to me. It Forced me to be compassionate; if I was enjoying myself I thought of others who weren't as fortunate. And because of this miserable state I was in, I wanted everyone else to have to feel the same way. I thought it was the Right thing to do, and all should do it.

As a result, I thought all life was meaningless suffering. People say religion offers an explanation for this. To me now, religion as an explanation is absurd. It's a crutch, nothing more. And it nearly killed my desire for life. It made me a weak and pathetic individual, incapable of participating in the affairs of daily life. I was very depressed for a long time. Finally, after realizing that there is no God I can live a fruitful life.

Faith and religion were invented by people who felt the same weaknesses I did and we all do from time to time. It's comforting to think there is an all-knowing being out there. It's not reasonable, though. I'd rather live honestly than blissfully. Then again, my religious days were anything but blissful.

As I say, thank God there isn't one.

I take it you are an unfettered, unapologetic capitalist?

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Faith and religion were invented by people who felt the same weaknesses I did

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Factually incorrect.

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I'd rather live honestly than blissfully.

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It's unfortunate that you suffered from depression, but certainly you must know there are plenty of Christians who live honest and blissful lives.

[imported_luckyme]

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Faith and religion were invented by people who felt the same weaknesses I did

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Factually incorrect.

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Actually, all the evidence is that since recorded history people have pretty much had the same emotions, relationship problems, ambition, greed, love, whatever. I've alway enjoy reading Ancient Greeks complaining about how teenagers of the day are not of the quality of 'our' generation. Very contemporary.
Even what little we can glean from prehistoric people, same-old same-old seems the order of the day.

[Lestat]

<font color="blue">but certainly you must know there are plenty of Christians who live honest and blissful lives. </font>

I don't know how. Don't you find it sad that your god is going to torture over 80% of the people on the planet to an eternal hell of suffering? Is EVERYONE you know and love going to be with you in heaven? How can you lead a blissful life while knowing that your blacksheep sibling, a sinful friend, an ex-lover will be burning in hell for all of eternity?

These are some of the things that depressed me about Catholicism. The god they portrayed didn't seem very loving to me. He seems to enjoy burning people at altars, committing mass murders by flood, killing innocent first borns, etc. And yet with this knowledge, and all this future suffering you manage to lead a blissful life?

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I don't know how. Don't you find it sad that your god is going to torture over 80% of the people on the planet to an eternal hell of suffering? Is EVERYONE you know and love going to be with you in heaven? How can you lead a blissful life while knowing that your blacksheep sibling, a sinful friend, an ex-lover will be burning in hell for all of eternity?


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There's that liberal usage of the word "know" again. I don't know the answers to any of those questions, nor am I a Catholic. I manage to make it through my day without thinking much of Hell.

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Faith and religion were invented by people who felt the same weaknesses I did

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Factually incorrect.

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I think you misinterpreted my philosophical/psychological meaning. I'm exploring the individual's motivations for religious thought. An insightful book on the subject is Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality.

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I'd rather live honestly than blissfully.

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It's unfortunate that you suffered from depression, but certainly you must know there are plenty of Christians who live honest and blissful lives.

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I do not know any Christians who I would call intellectually honest. That's not to say there aren't any out there. But Christianity lends itself to ignorance since faith is a necessary requirement, not to mention the fear it instills in those who would otherwise question it. Such brilliant safeguards the bible put into place! To be an atheist takes courage and the ability to be brutally honest with oneself. Admittedly, most people aren't capable of this.