Atheist, agnostic, ignostic or any variation of those...

[tataraperz]

Just as a heads up, this thread is just for sharing our life experiences with others, and while i expect everybody to post their motivations and beliefs, i wouldn't like to see any debating in here.

According to wiki, i fall under Apathetic agnosticism/Ignosticism...

In my case, living in a country where almost everyone is roman catholic and coming from a family of catholics, i soon grew tired of it. I could not stand how much of two-faced catholic people are...

At young age i started questinoning myself for why to be catholic... it bothered me that fathers MADE their children become catholic, and how they put ideas in their heads since kids. I think this is a very bad tradition, which makes kids grow up into adults who blindly believe in the religion they have been shown, and that quickly put aside people who questions or opposes them.

In fact, people here are so untolerant about religion that in all the years i've been thinking and beliving the way i do, i have never told anyone that i do. I believe the feeling may be the same as being gay and "going out of the closet".

It sickens me just to think about it, people here don't care about anything and do terrible things everyday and don't even bother themselves with thoughts about their gods. They only come to their god when they are in need. It makes me laugh how the regular attendees to "Sunday Lectures" are in it's majority Old people. And at the same time makes me feel pity for them the way they think that by devoting their last years of life to their god will make up for the bads they've done.

You will only see people praying when they have someone in the hospital, you will only see them in churches when they are desperate and don't have anything else to recur to. Makes me sick to live in the middle of so much hipocrisy.

before anyone calls it out, yes i am generalizing. No i am not traumatized, i live happily. Just had to put that out about how i think of an aspect of my society.

[Zzyzx]

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. . . I realized that even though I could certainly conceive the idea of a deity, I had no reason to actually believe it . . .

That was quite a profound realization for a seventeen year old -- one that seems to escape many who are far older -- and probably consider themselves wiser.

[Lux]

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. . . I realized that even though I could certainly conceive the idea of a deity, I had no reason to actually believe it . . .

That was quite a profound realization for a seventeen year old -- one that seems to escape many who are far older -- and probably consider themselves wiser.

Thank you, Z To be fair, not all 17-year-olds had an agnostic upbring like I did, I doubt I would have questioned religion from a young age if I hadn't been encouraged to be skeptical (is that ironic?).

[Darias]

Questioning belief/opinion isn't a weakness of faith, its a reality all of us have to deal with, religious or otherwise.

But when we question most things in life we look for evidence, logic, common sense. If my math equation doesn't work, I go back to the equation and work thru the numbers. If my lawnmower doesn't start, I go thru the mechanics of it. But if my God faith becomes doubtful, I sing a song or engage in ritual. Do you not understand the disconnect in that?

Do you not understand that because God is not physical, looking for physical evidence as proof of Him is not logical? As such, using physical evidence as proof that He doesn't exist is just as pointless.

Belief in God, aka Theism, is just as much of an unsubstantiated belief/opinion as Atheism is, because physical evidence is irrelevant in both cases.

I've heard many times that Atheism is simply a lack of belief in gods. But I've heard many Atheist claim "there is no God," or "gods are not real." Obviously, if you lack a belief in any god, it logically follows that you believe gods are not real and do not exist. And if that is true, than it logically follows that "there is no god."

Of course there are many types of non-theists out there who are more or less agnostic or ignostic who don't make such claims, but the fact is, people do all the time.

I liken theism to an idealistic belief in love.

When one gets right down to it, love is simply a human abstract based upon emotions, chemical processes and drives in the brain that compel us to do all sorts of things for the person of our affection. Eventually this emotional experience and drive for intimacy, which is deeply seated in the drives of the primitive brain saturated in dopamine, turns into a devotion that is not laced with emotion at all -- such as working to get money to pay for food and a house, etc.

We attribute this phenomenon to love. But apparently, in light of the physical data. Love does not exist. Can we therefore conclude that love is non-existent in the world? No. Because the chemical phenomenon that occurs in the brain is definitely something; love is real. It is a part of what makes us human -- another abstraction. Human is just a life form -- yet another abstract distinction created by human beings. For in reality, everything is simply various assemblances of strings. And we don't even know what strings are exactly.

Evidence, and logic reduce everything to its principle components, ultimately leaving us with nothing but strings, as stipulated by the String Theory, which is based upon mathematics alone - not actual evidence.

So is idealism and abstraction wrong? No it's not. All of it is belief and opinion; human constructions which we create to help us cope with the phenomenon around us.

The same is true for the idea of God.

Why would you even hang out with Holy men who consider the evils of masturbation an issue worth of any discussion?

First. They aren't holy men. One of them is slightly older than me. The other is about a decade older. Regardless of their particular doctrinal convictions, they are good people. I guess you could even say I'm friends with one of them. Our group spent a day a few months ago in a city working for Habitat for Humanity. We basically took apart non-functioning washing and drying machines for their components, so they could be sold to help build homes for people who otherwise couldn't buy their own place.

Why do you attribute 'healings' to BibleGod and prayer when there is absolutely no evidence of cause and effect? Is this not the same process as rabbits feet and black cats?

1.) I didn't say there was anything metaphysical that took place.

I don't know if that's a miracle or an error on the judgment of the doctor, but whether dad would have recovered or not, depending on God for my help -- for my motivation -- for my comfort and strength to carry on no matter what...

2.) Logic and math told us that most people take a year or longer of being paralyzed in a bed before they recover from GBS. In the very least, my father defied all odds. It's a statistical miracle if anything.

There are other reasons that could have attributed to his extraordinary recovery.

First. We live in a time where it's possible to keep a person alive if they become paralyzed and unable to breathe, eat, or talk. If my father had been born in an earlier time, he would be dead today. Therefore, recovery was a possibility because of modern medicine.

Second, my dad was in relatively good health at the time he contracted GBS. But not well enough that this would explain fully why he recovered so quickly.

Third, my mom was with him nearly every day. I visited him as much as I could, as did my sister. He was surrounded with family and friends. If not for the insistence of my mom, he would have been shipped to a hospital 14 hours away from where we lived. That would have been detrimental to his health, because he would have been extremely lonely.

Forth, his faith in God motivated him to keep going, despite his depression brought on by circumstance and side effects of medications. He listened to worship music for hours. He prayed and spent time with God, and that gave him the hope to get better.

Nothing miraculous had to happen. His attitude and sheer force of will (another abstraction) galvanized him to not only recover but to strengthen himself as his paralysis wore off. His belief in God and entire mental dependence upon Him no doubt affected his emotions in a positive, hope inducing way.

So, in this sense, "your faith has healed you." seems to be more or less a factor in his recovery.

Had my father not had any of those things, either the machines to keep him alive, relative overall health, family and friends, hope, or faith or whatever, or anything that could have affected his motivation and will -- he might still be in the hospital, if not dead.

His whole experience made him appreciate life even more. And, for him, he believed it brought him closer to God.

[SteveC]

So, the breaking point I think was around the age of 14, when I realized it was ok to not need a god. I didn't think of myself as an atheist right away, I went back and forth between deism and agnosticism for a while, and then via the influence of an internet stranger I realized that even though I could certainly conceive the idea of a deity, I had no reason to actually believe it, and from that point on I've considered myself an agnostic atheist. I was 17.

Why do hold onto the agnostoc perspective. Are you hoping to find god?

[tataraperz]

Do you not understand that because God is not physical, looking for physical evidence as proof of Him is not logical? As such, using physical evidence as proof that He doesn't exist is just as pointless.

Belief in God, aka Theism, is just as much of an unsubstantiated belief/opinion as Atheism is, because physical evidence is irrelevant in both cases.

...

Evidence, and logic reduce everything to its principle components, ultimately leaving us with nothing but strings, as stipulated by the String Theory, which is based upon mathematics alone - not actual evidence.

So is idealism and abstraction wrong? No it's not. All of it is belief and opinion; human constructions which we create to help us cope with the phenomenon around us.

The same is true for the idea of God.

I don't think there's something wrong with wanting evidence. What i think is wrong to do is devoting to something with lack of evidence to back up that what you are doing is right.

And for string theory, i think it is much more of a debatible topic, because even if it's a mere theory based on no real evidence but only in a mathematical model, it proposes a theory about something that we are sure exists.

For religious beliefs, opinions or theories, we are speculating about something we don't know exists.

[Lux]

Why do hold onto the agnostoc perspective. Are you hoping to find god?

No. Even back when I was actively trying to find god I never felt the connection theists speak of, and I've been doing pretty good without it for 20 years and counting.

The reason I add agnostic to atheist is to illustrate the fact that I do not know if god exists, nor do I think I can ever know it. I don't know if any gods exist, but I don't believe they do. That is my position.

[SteveC]

Why do hold onto the agnostoc perspective. Are you hoping to find god?

No. Even back when I was actively trying to find god I never felt the connection theists speak of, and I've been doing pretty good without it for 20 years and counting.

The reason I add agnostic to atheist is to illustrate the fact that I do not know if god exists, nor do I think I can ever know it. I don't know if any gods exist, but I don't believe they do. That is my position.

I'm not sure if there's a god, I believe most atheists would say the same. My philosophy is, let god reveal himself. If god prefers to be irrelevant, then I'm going to leave it that way.

[Zzyzx]

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If god prefers to be irrelevant, then I'm going to leave it that way.

Excellent perspective. Thank you.

If one or more of the thousands of proposed "gods" is/are real and have desires to be worshiped or whatever, it is their responsibility to make their wishes known to mankind -- not just select people who are "chosen" (or think themselves such) and not through garbled writings of anonymous storytellers from the age of ignorance two thousand years ago.

If a "god" will properly do "his" part, I will do mine. As I said about an outstanding commanding officer in the military fifty years ago, "I'd follow him into the face of hell because he knows far more than I do" (and if we were to come back it would be due to his abilities, not mine). I'd feel the same about a competent "god" (but not the character presented in bible tales as emotional, indecisive, egocentric and homicidal -- and perhaps not very bright for a supposedly "omniscient" being).

[tataraperz]

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If god prefers to be irrelevant, then I'm going to leave it that way.

Excellent perspective. Thank you.

If one or more of the thousands of proposed "gods" is/are real and have desires to be worshiped or whatever, it is their responsibility to make their wishes known to mankind -- not just select people who are "chosen" (or think themselves such) and not through garbled writings of anonymous storytellers from the age of ignorance two thousand years ago.

If a "god" will properly do "his" part, I will do mine. As I said about an outstanding commanding officer in the military fifty years ago, "I'd follow him into the face of hell because he knows far more than I do" (and if we were to come back it would be due to his abilities, not mine). I'd feel the same about a competent "god" (but not the character presented in bible tales as emotional, indecisive, egocentric and homicidal -- and perhaps not very bright for a supposedly "omniscient" being).

From what i can read i suppose you are or were in the military. I got a personal question which i wouldn't be offended at all if you decided not to answer:

How did you felt when you were sent out in a mission? I mean, did you had the same opinion about god since then? How did you cope with the pressure of something happening to you when out in the field? belief in any god, thoughts of loved people, drugs? I understand that when we face scary or very difficult situations we often prefer to believe that something bigger than us exists, be it destiny, something watching over us, or whatever we might imagine.

[Lux]

I'm not sure if there's a god, I believe most atheists would say the same. My philosophy is, let god reveal himself. If god prefers to be irrelevant, then I'm going to leave it that way.

I absolutely agree. I think that if an omnipotent being wants me to worship it, it'll make that clear to me in some way. Seeing as no such thing has happened, I will continue down the non-believer road for now.