Dear Atheists

[Edward John]

As to why I am agnostic and an atheist, my answer is about the same for both. I've seen no reasonable evidence for any god claim. If anyone ever has something like that, I am open to changing my mind. So far nobody has had anything convincing for me. If a god does exist, I'm sure it could change my mind. Either it does not want to convince me or it is not there at all. The only reason I was a Christian before was because I was raised to be one by my parents.

Very interesting, thank you. I'm sure you were a christian at one point and I do not doubt it; unless you do, in so much as your parents raised you that way without your say. Have you ever experienced God in your life? What was that experience like when you were a Christian? How do you interpret it now?

Best Wishes-

Are you a Catholic christian?

Your arguments for God makes sense. However the problem is anyone can believe in God Satan believes in God. My point is you need to convert to the Catholic Christian faith and in the one, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic church of which outside there is no salvation. If you want to be saved you need to be a Catholic, now am not saying you are going to hell because I don't know if you are innocently ignorant or deliberately ignorant.

[AceBoogie]

Dear Atheists,

A warm welcome from a friendly Christian who is interested to hear from you and is willing to listen deeply. I respect you so much, you have courage of your convictions and are truly free thinkers in a complicated world. One thing I don't understand is your constant rejection of God. Does that mean that your standards aren't met with the right definition of God? In classical Christianity God wasn't debated like it is today. One may ask back then "does God exist? "Well Yeah, I mean of course!".

Thank you for your respect I suppose. What do you mean constant rejection of god? In my day to day life I barely ever think about any mythological deities, maybe with the exception of when I'm interacting with fellow atheists on this forum. Besides that, I usually don't think or talk about any god or gods. It never comes up in conversation with most people I interact with. I feel no need to talk about it... The same way I don't feel the need to discuss the nonexistence of vampires or unicorns. What do you mean about the definition of god? What do my 'standards' have to do with a supernatural being? Standards for what? And so what if god wasn't debated like in 'classical Christianity,' whatever that means? Just because a large number of people accepted something as fact once upon a time does not give said thing any more or less validity.

Lets get the Definitions of God right because I mean it in a plural sense, I do believe in multiple definitions. It could be the ground of being, a transcendent being wholly apart from the Universe but immanent and involved in the Universe. But how do you see God or feel him? Feeling is the key word and synonymous with personal experience. Let's forget about Christianity for a minute and look at wider cultures in our beautiful world traditions. Mystics though out the ages have practiced deep contemplation, meditation, and prayer. They have all reported findings that are so important when once experienced, may be one of the most life changing phenomenon we can have. Neuroscience is trying to understand prayer and meditation at the level of the brain so it's very much in concordance with evidence. Now the question is how creative are you going to be? Are you going to use your experience in prayer or meditation to link or confirm your experience or contact with God in Christ and believe he is Lord? Or Allah? It's up to you to interpret your experience in the confines of a religion or no religion at all, which is fine too.

I don't know if I've seen that definition of god in any dictionary, did you just make that up? Also, deep contemplation and meditation CAN have some real world effects on the human mind, but prayer? Not so much.  And to say that one can interpret their experiences with meditation and such differently illustrates that there is no ONE TRUE answer to explain all of these experiences. I have had amazing LSD trips that have completely changed the way I see the world. Does that mean the experience had anything to do with god? No, it doesn't. Meditation can produce some amazingly intense experiences and I actually practice meditation myself from time to time. But a connection with a god? I don't think so.

The reason I'm a Christian is because I feel the presence of God and that is evidence. The second is I believe he historically existed but I don't believe he said everything the same way as reported in the gospels. I don't even think he considered himself God. Why am i placing so much importance in the presence of God in my life? I think because it correlates directly to the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Disciples had a strong experience of the Lord after his death that he is a living reality in the present. But the reality they experienced was so strong that it was a "divine reality" being one with God and at the right hand of God.

First hand experience of a god is not evidence of anything. Also, the historical evidence for Jesus' existence is shaky at best. You say you place importance on the presence of god in your life because it correlates with the resurrection of the lord jesus christ. Well so what? What does that even mean? How do you know if the disciples even existed, let alone whether or not they had an experience of 'the lord?'

Many of these experiences were visions or revelations. I don't believe in a physical or literal resurrection: as if the corpse of Jesus letter-to-letter transformed to another body. What are visions? I think it's unfair to classify them as hallucinations as if its a drug induced thing. But in a vision you can see a person, for example a passed away relative. You can see them and hold them and even talk to them. They can talk back and tell you things. Because the disciples had physical contact with the real Jesus in his real body when he was living on earth, I believe their memories of him telling them things was re introduced in their visions and experience: so I can imagine they're memory off shooting and repeating the phrase " I love you Peter" for example in the vision. So the Lord would have said that twice to Peter. Once in real life and once in the vision.

There is no reason to believe that 'visions,' religious or otherwise, are anything BUT hallucinations. If you went to a psychologist or psychiatrist and told them you had visions of jesus or heard god in your head they would probably diagnose you with schizoaffective disorder or schizophrenia.

People might say well they're just visions, its just a experience they had why hold it to such high self esteem? Because anybody who's had a experience or a vision doesn't say "it's only a vision". It's rock solid fact, and it creates reality. And its one of the most important things they will ever remember even in their dying breath.

Thank you so much for reading, I hope you Always stay blessed and think of Good.

Best Wishes

P.S I hope this doesn't come across as proyselytizing.

I have had VERY intense hallucinations from different hallucinogenic drugs. Hallucinations that have changed, even to this day, how I think about myself and the world around me, but I will be the first one to tell you that they WERE JUST HALLUCINATIONS. Nothing more.

You sound just like every other christian and bring nothing new to the table.

[Simon Moon]

I figured it out by having the moral standards of the 21'st century. Slavery is not okay back then or now. I also don't believe in circumcision, stoning, executions, , or the atonement of sins. That is. I don't believe it's moral For God to sacrifice his son for my sins and yours so we can all get to heaven. I say God and his son because I think they're separate beings but part of the God-head. Don't be fooled by the idiom, were just talking Christian theology. (You don't have to accept the language)

in other words, you used your own, evolved senses of empathy, reciprocity, cooperation to retroactively apply it to the parts of the Bible you don't like. Got it.

If you are able to judge, and rightly so, that slavery, circumcision, stoning, etc were and always will be immoral, why worship a god that specifically sanctioned them?

So, if you don't believe there is a reason or morality for Jesus' sacrifice, why call yourself a Christian? If any one thing can be considered fundamental to all forms of Christianity (at least that I am familiar with) is the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus.

Believe me, I am happy that you do not try to justify the immoral actions of the 'Yahweh' character in the Bible.

I think for the resurrection, eschatology is a important word and that i think means the end of violence in this world. It means God please help us, Lord fix the world. But how are Paul and Jesus stating that this world is going to get fixed? They do it in different languages. Jesus claims the kingdom of heaven is here. He is not saying that it is in the future or coming soon but that it's happening now and we are called to join or partake. Another word is Participatory Eschaton. I think Jesus learned God is not violent and he's not going to supernaturally change the world with the wave of his hand. But we have to join God and humans together and participate together to fix this mess. Paul is stating it differently by stating The Resurrection has begun.

Sorry to inform you, but you are ignoring a lot of passages in the Bible that completely disagree with you.

The algorithm is in the writing itself. It's very complicated to understand the Bible because the Bible authors don't agree with each other. The writing and the context of that time period has to be understood to understand the Bible. Writing as you know takes place with metaphors, and idioms, similes, and figurative language in general.

Yes, it shows all the signs of being a group of texts that came about completely sans the input of a deity, and all the signs of being purely a creation of human beings.

Without the circular logic of already being believer, there is no 'special way' of reading the Bible. Confirmation bias is all you have.

[The Grand Nudger]

@PETE_ROSE Hi PETE, thanks for the welcome brother. But can i just say your response is almost the same as to what more traditional Christians say: you know the ones we all hate. Just Kidding, Good folks. What they will say is I'm not a true Christian and say I created my own religion or i add and subtract from the Bible.

You have to believe the "christ" part to be a christian. It's a title and not a name.  His name wasn't -actually- Jesus H. Christ.  

That part simply -is- supernatural.  You can add and subtract just about anything else from the story, and ofc christians do that..that's how they ended up with so many sects, but if you don't go in for the "christ" bit, you're not a christian in any meaningful sense. Matter of simple definition. Christians aren't people who believe that a guy named jesus existed, or that some of the stories in the bible have some sort of truth component to them. Plenty of atheists, and people of other faith traditions think that. It doesn't make -them- christian either.

[ParagonLost]

Hello there

My position on gods is very simple. I don't care. They can exist or not exist, makes no difference to me.

Can you tell me why I should care?

Hey Rob.

There is one reason that you might be interested in it; that neuroscience is engrossed in. That various mystics try to explain but fail. And the general public are so confused that they mistake it for a faith, a dogmatic principle, or an unreasonable assumption. In fact they don't understand it in so much as even Daniel Dennet the philosopher, thought of it as something without evidence.

Here's the catch. You have to be born with it or try to develop it through meditation or prayer. After you experience it, that divine reality is what mystics call God. So it's more of a attitude you develop or a temperment. William James, the great psychologist talks about it in his book: The Varieties of Religious Experience. In it he describes ineffability, something that defies expression or explanation of the contents. Undefinable. A subjective experience but based on evidential insight. The next reason is a ideational quality or conceptive. It's a feeling but it's so much more beyond. It turns the experience into a state of knowledge, a kind of comprehension. It does this because your mystical experience is receiving revelation, presage, but whats strange is this experience has a hold of you it has authority. Power and control. But mystical states have impermanence. They don't last long, this is why i believe the Lord Jesus Christ appears to the disciples but the next instant he disappears!

[Crossless2.0]

Hello there

My position on gods is very simple. I don't care. They can exist or not exist, makes no difference to me.

Can you tell me why I should care?

Hey Rob.

There is one reason that you might be interested in it; that neuroscience is engrossed in. That various mystics try to explain but fail. And the general public are so confused that they mistake it for a faith, a dogmatic principle, or an unreasonable assumption. In fact they don't understand it in so much as even Daniel Dennet the philosopher, thought of it as something without evidence.

Here's the catch. You have to be born with it or try to develop it through meditation or prayer. After you experience it, that divine reality is what mystics call God. So it's more of a attitude you develop or a temperment. William James, the great psychologist talks about it in his book: The Varieties of Religious Experience. In it he describes ineffability, something that defies expression or explanation of the contents. Undefinable. A subjective experience but based on evidential insight. The next reason is a ideational quality or conceptive. It's a feeling but it's so much more beyond. It turns the experience into a state of knowledge, a kind of comprehension. It does this because your mystical experience is receiving revelation, presage, but whats strange is this experience has a hold of you it has authority. Power and control. But mystical states have impermanence. They don't last long, this is why i believe the Lord Jesus Christ appears to the disciples but the next instant he disappears!

If the fruits of meditation and prayer are subjective experiences that defy expression or explanation (which I don't doubt), then how can any mystic justify adopting any label -- Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Taoist, etc. -- rather than simply adopting Wittgenstein's maxim: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. It seems like the only truly honest approach.

It seems to me that you are arbitrarily shoe-horning Jesus into a situation that doesn't require him at all.

[ParagonLost]

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Very interesting, thank you. I'm sure you were a christian at one point and I do not doubt it; unless you do, in so much as your parents raised you that way without your say. Have you ever experienced God in your life? What was that experience like when you were a Christian? How do you interpret it now?

Best Wishes-

Are you a Catholic christian?

Your arguments for God makes sense. However the problem is anyone can believe in God Satan believes in God. My point is you need to convert to the Catholic Christian faith and in the one, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic church of which outside there is no salvation. If you want to be saved you need to be a Catholic, now am not saying you are going to hell because I don't know if you are innocently ignorant or deliberately ignorant.

Hey Edward, Satan doesn't Worship God, I do.

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"The most beautiful and profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religion." - Albert Einstein

I think this was why Einstein didn't consider himself a Atheist. Or In any religion for that matter.

[Simon Moon]

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"The most beautiful and profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religion." - Albert Einstein

I think this was why Einstein didn't consider himself a Atheist. Or In any religion for that matter.

When Einstein talked like this, he was almost always referring to the awe he experienced while pondering the universe. Nothing supernatural.

I can guarantee that the feeling I get when I take my 15" telescope out away from city lights and look at deep space objects, is the same one Einstein is talking about.

But it doesn't really matter. Just because he was an enormously brilliant person, does not give him any more insight into the 'mystical' than anyone else. So, your post reeks of argument from authority.

But I'll go ahead and add this Einstein quote:

"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can change this for me"

The only thing I disagree with, is that, the Bible stories are not honorable.

[ParagonLost]

Hey Rob.

There is one reason that you might be interested in it; that neuroscience is engrossed in. That various mystics try to explain but fail. And the general public are so confused that they mistake it for a faith, a dogmatic principle, or an unreasonable assumption. In fact they don't understand it in so much as even Daniel Dennet the philosopher, thought of it as something without evidence.

Here's the catch. You have to be born with it or try to develop it through meditation or prayer. After you experience it, that divine reality is what mystics call God. So it's more of a attitude you develop or a temperment. William James, the great psychologist talks about it in his book: The Varieties of Religious Experience. In it he describes ineffability, something that defies expression or explanation of the contents. Undefinable. A subjective experience but based on evidential insight. The next reason is a ideational quality or conceptive. It's a feeling but it's so much more beyond. It turns the experience into a state of knowledge, a kind of comprehension. It does this because your mystical experience is receiving revelation, presage, but whats strange is this experience has a hold of you it has authority. Power and control. But mystical states have impermanence. They don't last long, this is why i believe the Lord Jesus Christ appears to the disciples but the next instant he disappears!

If the fruits of meditation and prayer are subjective experiences that defy expression or explanation (which I don't doubt), then how can any mystic justify adopting any label -- Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Taoist, etc. -- rather than simply adopting Wittgenstein's maxim: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. It seems like the only truly honest approach.

It seems to me that you are arbitrarily shoe-horning Jesus into a situation that doesn't require him at all.

I practice Theistic Mysticism, I see and imagine Jesus as imagery and he is incarnate in my mind and experience. You might see this as communication not meant to be literary taken or a stylistic device. The experience is so strong that one walks away taking it literally and not for granted. Not unless of course you are aware that's it's not literal. (Some people don't know the difference or make a distinction.)

In Theistic mysticism God is not creation, he is the opposite. He is not created , this is why Christians believe there is no infinite regress, ergo; who created God.
This is why experience is so important it has the power to convert. And i don't mean convert your religion, I mean just change your mind about experience and what you used to think it was is now radically different. There's different kinds of mysticism and you can be creative and see which one works for you.

[Crossless2.0]

If the fruits of meditation and prayer are subjective experiences that defy expression or explanation (which I don't doubt), then how can any mystic justify adopting any label -- Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Taoist, etc. -- rather than simply adopting Wittgenstein's maxim: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. It seems like the only truly honest approach.

It seems to me that you are arbitrarily shoe-horning Jesus into a situation that doesn't require him at all.

I practice Theistic Mysticism, I see and imagine Jesus as imagery and he is incarnate in my mind and experience. You might see this as communication not meant to be literary taken or a stylistic device. The experience is so strong that one walks away taking it literally and not for granted. Not unless of course you are aware that's it's not literal. (Some people don't know the difference or make a distinction.)

In Theistic mysticism God is not creation, he is the opposite. He is not created , this is why Christians believe there is no infinite regress, ergo; who created God.
This is why experience is so important it has the power to convert. And i don't mean convert your religion, I mean just change your mind about experience and what you used to think it was is now radically different. There's different kinds of mysticism and you can be creative and see which one works for you.

You see and imagine Jesus. Interesting. What does your image of him look like? By chance, does it resemble a figure in a Renaissance painting? Did you pick his face out of some news footage of Palestinian protesters? Does he resemble Judd Hirsch? I like to imagine Jesus looking like Lenny Bruce. What does it even mean to "see and imagine" Jesus, since we don't know what the guy actually looked like (one of those unimportant and uninteresting things the Gospel writers didn't bother to mention)?

I buy the idea that meditation and prayer can lead to altered states of consciousness that can feel intrinsically valuable to the practitioner. But it still sounds to me like you're illegitimately shoe-horning Jesus into your experiences, rather than "Jesus" being the driver of the experiences and their contents.