A Question For Atheists.

[DioneTheDiabolist]

When and how did you decide that you didn't believe in god?

By the way, what I just posted....by "You have been very helpful in explaining to me why some atheists are very hostile to religion and God etc and to Christians." I mean all of you who have posted. Thank you for taking the time to reply to my posts. I wish I could explain my self better.

I'll clarify my Bible point. I'm an atheist who has been told a few times by Christians to read the Bible with an open mind and that this would help me become a Christian.

I've read the Bible (my Bible knowledge is quite good from a religious upbringing), and rather than bringing me closer to God, it has left me questioning what people see in it that they would recommend others read it as a path to belief. People often mention the Old Testament as a turn-off but that can be thought of as rules for a primitive society, Jesus moves us away from that etc. Things that really got me were in the New Testament. Jesus refusing to help a Canaanite woman as she wasn't Jewish until she said that even dogs get scraps under the table. That's not nice, however you look at it. And in Acts, there's the bit where the husband and wife sell their own land and don't give all of the money to Peter and say they have. Because of this they both drop down dead. That obviously never happened, so why is it in the Bible? To threaten people to give all their money to the church? It's some sort of warning isn't it, and again, not a nice one. Those bits particularly jarred with me.

If you already have faith, then I suppose it helps you gloss over those bits or look on them more kindly (greyhound what you said here about reading a love letter makes sense). I don't think of it in terms of giving you skills to interpret the Bible, more rose-tinted spectacles.

Well put, noble. Definitely enough content in the Bible that pretty much anyone can find enough stuff which fits with their already existing world view (e.g. If you are against homosexuality, there's bits to support that, or if not, then there's bits to support that too) and enough poetic licence to ignore or 'interpret' the other bits which are less agreeable to the individual.

On top of that, there are enough different denominations of Christianity that you can find one which fits well enough with how you like to read the bible pretty much anything from literalists to atheists.

In fact, when you think about it like that, the bible and the various churches are exactly as you'd expect them to be if they were based on man made fiction. It doesn't matter how much faith you have or which bits of the story you want to believe are true, there'll be a church waiting to take your annual fees or your loose change. It's possibly one of the greatest triumphs of human entrepreneurialism (if that's a word!)

Yes, it would be hard to make up a religion from scratch right now with more inconsistencies, loopholes and versions than the bible has.
Presumably it is pretty obvious how religions first started. Primitive man invented them to explain the world around him. Then over the centuries, across the world,loads of religions come and go and then along comes Christianity, which is apparently for some reason the first and only one that's 'true' (according to a dodgy, inconsistent book written by a load of random blokes donkeys' years after Jesus' lifetime). Really?
The only reason anyone can give for believing this is 'faith' - which is surely shorthand for 'I have decided I want to believe this' (because I am lonely/afraid of death/was brought up by Christians/fancy a new direction in my life/feel really guilty about something/want to appear good and pious/am pretending to believe because I think the church community is a Good Thing. Surely not because it is actually really true.

Not for me it isn't.

italiangreyhound it's precisely the idea that god guided anyone to include all those terrible verses about how he commanded genocide, infanticide, rape and pillage that makes me think that if god was in any way real he would also be very terrible. As a set of myths however they fit right in with a lot of other ancient traditions of vengeful irrational gods who made life pretty awful for their followers and their enemies alike. A way to explain why life was nasty for many really.

The religious members of my family do the 'god lives by different rules' 'bible is all about interpretation' etc and it just means that we can't ever talk about anything to do with faith/religion because we have no common ground to share really. I approach life from a human standpoint and they approach it from a religious one.

Thing is, a lot of people who have the 'woo gene' (there does appear to be some sort of genetic component to whether or not you are prepared to believe in nonsense stuff for which there is no proof) and find that they need or want some sort of 'spirituality' in their lives don't subscribe to the mainstream bullshit because they can't cope with the patriarchal aspects/the racism/the misogyny/the homophobia. So they trot off and cobble together something from a different set of myths that suits them - usually some sort of panthieism eg Wicca or 'Native American' stuff (please note, I am not intending to be rude about Native Americans and their mythology, just about the modern-day hippies who appropriate bits of it and generally get most of it wrong). So my question is: if you want to believe in gods, why can't you pick nice ones?

"Faith is a conviction not a rational choice"

How else are we supposed to be convinced of anything, if not through a rational and logical process? Abrahamic God hypothesis has no proof whatsoever and is hence not convincing. Therefore, we are not convinced and it is difficult to think of the ones who are convinced by these tales as terribly intelligent.

"if you want to believe in gods, why can't you pick nice ones?"

They can't, because they have been indoctrinated at an early age into accepting their parents' mythology as The Truth.

Ah, the religion is indoctrination from a young age gambit. Sadly it doesn't always work out like that. I'm a Christian, I chose to be one when I was an adult after a childhood without religion. As much by rational inquiry as by faith conviction.

And I know several atheists who were raised that way by their parents and who have not challenged the assumptions they were brought up with.

SGB - I think you are seriously overplaying the racism/misogyny/homophobia etc. in mainstream Christianity. How many churches have you been to in the last five or ten years, and how many people did you get to know well in those churches? If the answer to these is very few and very few then I would query where you are getting your evidence from. The media? My own parish church is racially mixed, generationally mixed, has both genders fully involved and is no more homophobic than society in general. Perhaps I was lucky in stumbling across it. Do tell me where your first hand evidence is from, so I can avoid those congregations.

Nobody said it always works out that way. However, it is my answer to SGB' question "If they want to believe in Gods, why can't they choose nice ones?".

If you have another answer, let's hear it.

While we are at it, I would also like to hear what you mean by "rational inquiry" though which you have found God as an adult, since by definition it means we should all be able to come to the same answer if only we follow your logic.

Rosieres, do you think it's a coincidence that rational enquiry led you to adopt the majority religion of this country? (assuming you are in Uk).

I wouldn't assert that one person's rational inquiry will lead everyone to the same answer. It certainly isn't the case in many academic disciplines - philosophers are very good at being rational while coming to completely different conclusions. Much reasoning will also be based on reflecting on your experiences, which vary from person to person.

But without going into extremely long posts, the reason why I believe that there being a God is more likely than there not is based on the following grounds:

1. The fact that something (i.e. the universe) exists rather than doesn't exist, particularly as it seems that the universe had a start point (going from not-existing to existing). In short, the cosmological argument.

2. My take on the nature of ethics, that we all pretty much operate assuming that at least some ethics exists in an objective sense, i.e. some actions are good or bad no matter how human brains perceive them. I haven't met anyone yet who can consistently maintain the view that all ethics are merely subjective, usually if I posit coming round and burning their house down they tell me that would be wrong, even if I sincerely believed it to be morally neutral and could persuade a majority in society to back me. If there is such a thing as objective ethics (and we all pretty much live as if there were) we have to ask ourselves the ontological question of where such ethics come from, particularly if they are rooted outside human brains. The most obvious solution is that there is some external entity (because that would satisfy the objective criterion) which is intelligent (in order to make a decision on the rightness or wrongness of an action) and which is concerned enough about how we act to make such a decision (why else would it impose such objective ethics on us?). Which coincides with aspects of the theistic interpretation of God. Note that I do not say that this argument backs up any particular Christian or other religious set of ethics. Just that if you have at least one ethical stance which holds no matter how human beings perceive it (i.e. is objective) then you have to explain how that comes about.

3. From a specifically Christian point of view, and quite apt given that tomorrow is Easter, is the argument that the existence and expansion of the early church is best explained by the first disciples sincerely believing that Jesus was resurrected. In brief, those who followed Jesus saw him killed, which should have been the end of the movement. But they went on to take the message that he had risen and took that out far and wide from Jerusalem. They held this view in spite of persecution, they held it even though some were executed for believing it. So you can be pretty sure that they really believed it. But the early church was a nuisance for the Roman and Jewish authorities in Jerusalem. If they wanted to stop the early church dead in its tracks they would have produced a dead body and said "here is your Messiah, time to go home". From my delving into the evidence the most reasonable account of why the early church was so energised is that something happened that convinced the disciples that Jesus had risen, and no one was able to provide any counter evidence, even though many people would have wanted to. This is basically a historical argument, rather than a philosophical one.

4. The experiental point has to be brought in. I, like many Christians, will speak of having a sense of God in my life. I know that this is highly subjective, and it is not something I would use to try and persuade someone else, and I certainly wouldn't use this to try and force Christian thinking into the public sphere (e.g. through laws on specific issues). In fact, I probably wouldn't try and force Christianity on others through public institutions anyway, but particularly not with a subjective argument such as the experiential. But in many other areas of our life we take our intuitions and personal exeriences and they drive our decisions, and I believe it is valid to do so here. For example, when I chose to get married I was acting on a hunch that my DP was someone I would want to share my life with for the rest of our days. I couldn't logically prove that that was the case. The question of marrying or not is outside the realm of scientific method (I could have said to DP that I would need to spend a few decades with some randomly selected control partners first, just to check my hypothesis, but I don't think it would have gone down too well!). But some questions are important in life and need to be handled with the best evidence and intuitions that we have available. Deciding to marry someone is one, deciding to follow a faith is another. We won't necessarily make a perfect choice, one that has been 100% indubitably proven, but that doesn't mean we should make no choice at all. Rather we make the best choice that we can at the time, and be gentle and respectful to others who choose differently to us.

5. Another factor was thinking about the ontological nature of God, particularly reflecting on the work of the philosopher Paul Tillich. Tillich argued that God was not one object amongst many in the universe, who could be added to the set of all possible things. Rather God was the ground of being, that which created the possibility of things to exist. So all the arguments about celestial teapots or flying spaghetti monsters miss the point - that's not the sort of thing I am talking about when I talk about God (although I accept that many Christians do, and end up tied in knots as a result). As the ground of being, God is in the capacity for all things to exist. Therefore God (as defined in this way) is necessary for existence, rather than one object that potentially exists. I don't agree with everything Tillich says, but I think he is on to something to challenge us about what we think we are talking about when we use the word "God".

6. One final influence would be that I recognise that my philosophy has to be open-ended. This might be a post-modern reaction against closed systems of knowledge which assume everything can be neatly boxed up and understood in their entirety. I would not be able to make the bold, perhaps arrogant, statement that my understanding of the world and existence was total and complete, and therefore anything occuring outside my system of understanding was by definition wrong. I remain committed to the ongoing exploration of what is real and true, whether through science, the humanities, philosophy, theology, personal experience or whatever. I believe that in encountering the truth I am somehow experiencing more of the nature of God. I think it is good theology to humbly accept that we cannot contain God within our limited mental capacity, and therefore whatever we say about God has to be temporary, provisional and come with warning labels. That said, Kierkegaard had something to say about the importance of making a decision on the evidence that you have, a "leap of faith" as he put it, and that just drily analysing and dissecting will only get you so far in life. And so I recognised that it was possible to make a commitment of faith, while having to keep an open mind because we will always encounter more data that will challenge, support, confound, twist and enlarge that faith as we go through life. And it is an ongoing, open process. I believe Andre Gide once wrote "Respect those who search for truth, doubt those who find it" (I paraphrase from memory, but I hope it illustrates my point).

So, to try and sum up on what was a much longer post than I intended... the world exists, whatever is involved in it existing is something that I understand as God. We live as though ethics were objective, and that implies something external to ourselves to guarantee them, again pointing towards something a bit like many theistic accounts of God. While we could argue all day about particular historical accounts from the 1st Century CE, the passion and dynamism of the early church cannot be refuted, along with the inability of hostile authorities to contain it. Something drove those early disciples, which (for me) points to the likelihood of the resurrection account having something about it. I also have internal, subjective experiences which orient me towards a theistic outlook. They may not orient you that way, but your experiences are yours and mine are mine, and we should respect that. We also need to be very careful about what we mean when we throw the word "God" around, because what you think I mean and what I think you mean may not be the same thing. And finally, there needs to be some agreement on whether our understanding of truth has to remain open-ended or can be a closed system. If you subscribe to an open-ended system (as I do) then you leave open the possibility that there is more out there than you currently understand, and you need to be committed to listening to others (who are a potential source of greater understanding of that truth) and have humility to acknowledge that you could be wrong.

I hope that shows something of the journey I have been on in moving into faith and believing in God. There is a lot more to it that I have written here, and the above is the more intellectual/academic aspect of it. I suppose to really understand how people believe you have to walk in their shoes, and not just work through a series of logical propositions.

All the best,

Rosieres.

Noblegiraffe - I recognise the importance of committing to a particular faith and the benefits that derive from it. I acknowledge that if I was born in Sri Lanka I would probably be a Buddhist. I don't see any contradiction there. I do not believe that my Christianity negates the sincerity of another persons faith, rather I see difference as an opportunity for growth. Point 6 in my overlong post replying to Cote DAzur hopefully explains this.

And in case anyone asks, yes I have studied faiths other than Christianity. But being a Christian is a lot easier in the UK (43 churches in my town, no Buddhist temples or Muslim mosques), and the Christian tradition is big enough for me to walk my journey within, while respecting others who follow a different path.

Sounds like you are Christian for convenience, but actually what you believe does not tie in with Christianity as otherwise you would believe in God as an entity who answers prayers rather than a force for facilitating stuff in the world.

I think what's happened here is one of two things. Either you DO believe in a prayer answering god and you've adjusted your account of your beliefs for this debate because you think it's a stronger argument, or you do not believe in a prayer answering god, therefore not Christian, but you want to feel like you belong somewhere which is why you came to faith later in life.

Interesting post, Rosieres - I have grappled with the same questions that you raise and yet I remain an atheist! Point 3 is one in particular I have spent a lot of time on.

One thing that confused me about your point 2 was the house burning example. If I believe that you burning my house down is wrong, but you and the majority believe that it is morally neutral, then isn't that ethically subjective? Depending on whose house?

I'm more agnostic than atheist (though I find the existence of a deity to be highly unlikely). And I never believed in a God, it always seemed unnatural to believe in it to me. Spent a long time trying to figure out where my beliefs fitted wrt religion. Until I realised I could never be a part of a religion which believed in some almighty creator.

Roseries - when you say:
"I don't agree with everything Tillich says, but I think he is on to something to challenge us about what we think we are talking about when we use the word "God"."

I think you sum up a lot of the problem that atheists have with religion. God as a concept isn't something that any two Christians (or people of any other faith probably) would experience or understand to be the same thing, if they even claimed to have any proper understanding of what 'god' was at all.

Unless of course some human comes along and clearly 'defines and explains' it (which is impossible) and gets everyone to agree with them.

So what possible moral authority can such a nebulous concept have?

I think a lot of what we understand to be 'human ethics' is simply pragmatic behaviour evolved from living in societal groups. Don't shit on your neighbour's doorstep, especially if he's bigger than you.

Am not sure I ever really believed. I just went along with it until I had the confidence to.say thanks but no thanks.

Sometimes I do envy the serenity it seems to bring to people's lives. Then I come back to reality and am glad I don't inhabit that kind of world.

Human ethics largely boil down to 'do as you would be done by'. It is obvious why this inclination would be an advantageous behavioural trait for a social species (and is not limited to humans).

Rosieres: Well, duh. Every human society has come up with rules about it being a bad idea to burn your neighbour's house down, which surely suggests to a rational mind that EVERYONE KNOWS that burning other people's houses down is naughty. And counter-evolutionary.Houses are useful and should not, on the whole, be burned down. Only human beings are basicaly a bit tribal, so all the myth systems and superstitions they have come up with tend to include a clause about it being OK to burn the enemy's houses down. Because the enemy don't have the same imaginary friend. At least people who decide to burn their enemies' houses down for non-superstitious reaons are honest about it.

nooka I don't know why the exact books in the Bible were included. There could be theories I could put forward ranging from because God wanted them all in there to some of them are there by mistake etc. I also don't think they need to be taken literally.

It is unlikely to make a lot of sense or be of much interest but this website might be of interest just in that it tries to put some perspective onto the genocide discussion. I am not saying I agree with it, I am just offering it to anyone who is interested. I am not attempting to convert you to my way of thinking or trying to defend God, I don't think God needs me to defend him/her. I just think as you mentioned me in your post I would reply.

www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2009/06/did-god-commit-genocide-in-the-bible/

Just to clarify, although I am sure many do not need this, many Christians are kind and loving and are not in favour of violence or genocide etc. I am aware there are many bigoted and confrontational Christians and I don't feel it is right for us all to be tarred with the same brush. I am not asking for special treatment, I just would rather be veiwed for my own actions rather than those who are preofessing the same religion as me but are behaving very differently.

Solidgoldbrass I wonder which religions would be consdered 'nice' by people who do not believe in God at all. I do totally get where you are coming from.

I chose to become a Christian, I was not brought up as one. My experience of my faith is that it has helped me to be more caring and compassionate. For me, my faith is nice, that is not to say I will agree with all Christians, or that I think all Christians will be nice. But I do belive Jesus is nice and if I did not I woudl struggle to follow him.

Lizzyday you said "God as a concept isn't something that any two Christians (or people of any other faith probably) would experience or understand to be the same thing, if they even claimed to have any proper understanding of what 'god' was at all."

To anwer that, if I may, from a Christian perspective, I would say that certainly I do have an understanding of God and I am seeking to increase my understanding of God.

Even thinking about life from the perspective of athiests is helping me to refine my understanding of God, so thank you for that.

I would say that no two people are the same, we are all unique, and we all experince life uniquely to us. Yet in spite of that uniqueness we learn to love each other, our families, our spouse/partner etc, to care for people quite far away who we may never even meet, and so to co-exist.

I often wonder if people see the same blue, that I see when I look at (for example) the mumsnet banner, or the same red of the flag of Japan etc. When we listen to music do we hear it the same as others, we will never know. Yet can we together enjoy music, enjoy colours etc, I would say yes. Amd I think that although there are huge differences in the way that Christians perceive God for many of us there is something that links us together.

I know for me that the idea of 'by your fruits you shall know them' sorry that is a Bible quote but I can't think what the right way to say it in an idiom would be! But basically, when I meet loving kind people who know Jesus I feel a connection. If I met someone filled with hate and anger who claimed to know Jesus I would not feel that connection. And I know, because I have been around someone like that, and I felt it was very sad indeed. I am not sure if I am making sense, it's late!

But I wanted to reply, because as a Christian I spend a lot of time connecting with God and I connect with other Christians even though we do not agree on every single point of belief.