A not intended to be inflammatory question, bun fighters not welcome

[MrsWinklepicker]

I am an atheist, I didn't choose to be, it's just that fundamentally I believe there is no God. I have been exposed to Christianity but it makes no sense to me the idea of there being a God (in the same way as I guess it makes no sense for Christians the idea of there not being a God).

What I don't understand is that if there is a God (I guess I'm talking about the Christian God) how has he created me as incapable of believing in him? I am not exercising my free will, it's just that given the proven facts, my brain will not take the leap of faith required to believe in God. My point is that it's not a choice, you either believe or you don't. I could go to church every week and join in with prayers etc but it wouldn't change my beliefs. It seems a little unfair if Christianity is correct (or indeed any other religion) and I am excluded!

Can anyone explain this to me?

[FaithLoveandGrace]

Hi MrsWinklepicker

I'm not sure I can really explain tbh but ive been where you are now. I was an atheist up until around 3 years ago and even though I wanted to believe in God, I just couldn't get my head around the facts (or rather what I thought were the facts) and it actually upset me a bit that I couldn't believe. Fast forward several years and my faith has developed massively. To me I can no longer imagine life without God in it.

Feel free to not answer but can I ask what it is that makes you so adamant there isn't a God? Perhaps I can answer better if there's something in particular preventing you from believing. FWIW, I don't think anybody is excluded but rather that we've not yet had the opportunity to draw closer to him or perhaps that maybe we just struggle to get our heads around it. From my point of view, I thought too much about the facts and what I thought christianity was rather than what it actually is and trusting that God loves me regardless of how I may be feeling on any particular day.

[bigbluestars]

We are all born atheists- it is the default posistion.

There are lots of inconsistencies reragding faith though- like why god obly lets believers into heaven and exludes good people who by accident of birth may never have heard of him.
THe other is how christians can worship a god who murders commits gross acts of violence, condones slavery, racism, is mysoginist, arrogant, angry, vain and a person you would avoid in every day life.

Or why did he create a world which allows organisms like ebola to kill children.

But christianity is a hotch potch of poorly put together ideas and constructs, and apart from being emotionally contagious is not up to logical analysis.

[niminypiminy]

Mrs Winklepicker, I was an atheist - brought up an atheist, lived most of my life among atheists, and spent many years full of incomprehension and scorn at any kind of religious belief.

And then God came and got me. I didn't want to believe - I spent years resisting God, resisting the idea that I could believe in him - but in the end he was too insistent, too much, well, there. I couldn't deny it any longer.

It was a long journey, and a hard one. I had to re-examine all my ideas, all my attitudes and beliefs, and subject them to severe critical examination. At the end of it I was forced to conclude not only that atheism didn't match my experience, but that it didn't satisfy me intellectually, emotionally or spiritually.

[capsium]

You question whether belief is a choice, OP. I believe it is because we are all capable of making assumptions, we have expectations. Life would be very difficult without them, we would never be able to exercise any forethought. So ultimately I have made a decision to assume God is true. This thought is very exciting to me.

I remember the first time I really seriously questioned what I had been told about God was in my teens. I then saw a documentary that dealt with biblical archeology. It dealt primarily with evidence from the Egyptian tombs and temples and matched what was depicted there with biblical events. This was very compelling to me. Then I thought 'What if it is all true?'. The idea excited me.

I studied literature. I've always been interested in narrative. I love old writings and oral traditions. I find it amazing how it can connect us across the centuries to ancient cultures. Romans 10:17 says,

"So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."

I could easily be interested in the Bible just because it contains some very old writings but the above quote shows how hearing Christ preached can change a person on a conscious and subconscious level. It has changed me.

[nightshade]

In every questioning atheist is a believer on the verge of being born...

[Marshy]

I don't think that's the case nightshade amd I find that assumption on the part of 'believers' to be very irritating. Atheists are questioning. It goes with the territory of being rational thinkers.

[ragged]

I think one of the theological positions is that OP has succumbed to Satan's temptations rather than seen the light, Satan is nearly as powerful as God after all, and that you do have a choice (the same people would probably say that gay people have a choice to reform their ways).

Most "my God is the only one and any other condemns you to eternal damnation" people agree that if you truly never had a chance to be exposed to their faith that God will let you have a bye. But even one brush with their true faith should have been enough, otherwise, and those opportunities are almost always there. There's a let-out clause for small children too, usually.

(I'm descended from Preachers, btw).

[Marshy]

I also don't understand how 'severe critical examination' of ideas, attitudes and beliefs can lead to belief in god. For me it does completely the opposite.

[capsium]

Marshy do you assume,then, one person's critical examination is superior to another's? How do you decide between them?

[niminypiminy]

My experience of atheists (so, my family, many of my friends and nearly all my work colleagues) is that their beliefs and attitudes are largely unexamined and have not, in general, been subject to severe critical re-examination. Your experience may, of course be different, Marshy, but that is mine. And since I'm an academic, I value reason, research and informed thinking - and it was reason, research and informed thinking that persuaded me that atheism was not intellectually, morally or spiritually satisfying.

[Marshy]

I'm not assuming superiority one way or the other. I guess the quality of the critical analysis will vary between individuals as will the conclusions reached.

I don't think atheism is particularly satisfying but it is inescapable for me. I derive satisfaction from other things

[capsium]

Why do you think atheism is 'inescapable' for you, Marshy? You said you don't find it particularly satisfying, so this suggests this is not a position you take by conscious choice.

[boxoftissues]

I find aethism satisfying and empowering. I am in sole charge of my destiny. My aethism has helped me get through some very tough times indeed. The solution to my problems was entirely within my hands. I could not and would never entrust my life, my choices, my outcomes to any other being.

[Marshy]

It is absolutely by conscious choice because I have thought about what I do and don't believe and have come to the conclusion that God doesn't exist.

I was raised in a benignly c of e family and only really examined those assumptions about the existance of god when I went to university and beyond into my adult life.

It doesn't make sense to me to derive satisfaction from an absence of something ie absence of belief in god. I prefer to view my life more.positively than that.

[Marshy]

I don't believe I am in sole charge of my destiny but I do know that my destiny isn't in the hands of god.

I have recently had experience of a life threatening condition. My destiny was in the hands of my surgeon.

[PausingFlatly]

niminypiminy, that's interesting that that's your experience. My experience has been that some believers like to assume atheists must have never examined their beliefs and attitudes - and are happy to tell them so.

I and many friends have been on the receiving end of this arrogant, presumptious and factually wrong assumption.

It particularly happens during missioning drives. I don't know if such missioners have any idea of the number of seriously pissed off people they leave in their wake. They haven't changed those people's opinions of belief - because those were carefully thought out before the missioner ever came on the scene - but they've changed people's opinion of [insert believers in question] to thinking they are arrogant twerps with a superiority complex. It's even more damaging to their cause when the belief is one that supposedly values humility.

So I would be careful how you tread, and make sure you actually know what someone thinks rather than just assuming it.

[GotToBeInItToWinIt]

I agree OP. My mind is far too logical to make that leap. I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I will never believe in God. So why would God create me with that mind, if he was real?

[PausingFlatly]

And I'm absolutely not saying that to be in any way bunfighty. It's an issue that I have observed to cause real bad feeling against the belief being touted. And the missioners just seem so oblivious.

[Fairenuff]

This is a bit like the could God create a rock that was too heavy for him to pick up question isn't it.

I think the idea of a Christian God is becoming outdated because we now understand the history behind the Church of England, for example. It was man-made to suits the needs of a particular man at the time. Nothing to do with faith.

The religious writing, written by men, controlled by men and enforced by men just relate to the patriarchal society at the time. Now things are changing, those beliefs are less convincing to people who think about them.

[Marshy]

Yes to that pausing.

[capsium]

So why 'inescapable', Marshy, if you are atheist, by conscious choice, as you say, you can equally choose not to be, can't you?

[Marshy]

Err...well the only way I could do that capiscum would be to say 'these are the conclusions that my rational thinking has lead me to but I'm just gonna disregard that and 'believe' anyway'

That is never going to happen

[capsium]

Do you consider it more rational, being an atheist, than believing in God, Marshy, why?

[Marshy]

Of course it is! Reasons are more numerous than I can be bothered to list.

Can you tell me what rational line of thinking convinces you of the existance of god?

[FurryDogMother]

I have asked myself a similar question, MrsWinklepicker - and then laughed at myself for being so illogical. Faith by definition is the belief in something with no evidence to support that belief - if there was evidence there would be no need for faith! If you can't bring yourself to believe in something in the absence of any evidence for its existence, then I think that's perfectly reasonable. Trying to find logic in the inherently illogical is an exercise in futility. The best answer I can come up with is that we are all free to choose to embellish reality in whatever way we like - but that doesn't, and won't, change the objective nature of that reality. Gods are created by humans, not the other way around, and that would explain why you end up tying yourself in knots trying to rationalise the irrational.

I'm not using 'irrational' in a perjorative way here, I mean it as the opposite to 'that derived through reason' - it's an option open to everyone, as is Orwellian doublethink and cognitive dissonance :)