Thankfully, there is no evidence for any God's existence. You might as well fear Voldemort.

(January 5, 2016 at 2:15 pm)excitedpenguin Wrote: I find it surprising that you met atheists who thought of Christians as subhuman. I, myself, think religion is a sort of mental illness, in the most outstretched sense of the word, and that people suffer from it to different degrees, most of them I think to a lesser degree, which is very good and we couldn't coexist in today's world otherwise. I'm talking about genuine belief here. I'm sure there are a lot of religious people who only identify as such but don't really experience anything spectacular because of it. But I wouldn't for one second classify religious people as second-class citizens or anything of the sort. As far as I'm concerned, they are my fellow human beings and I would much rather seek out the potential for rationality and correctly applied compassion in them then the more troubling parts that make the world a worse place than it needs to be. I hope you appreciate my comment, as you asked for our opinions.

Welcome and I hope you find here a community to your liking, where you can continue on this journey of self-discovery and truth-seeking.

I think the reason I thought atheists were this way is probably because I mainly ran into them under circumstances that pitted my worldview against theirs.  Even now, I watch videos on Youtube and look at the comments beneath and find atheists abusing people who are just like I used to be.  Sometimes I will comment that they should be spending their time trying to educate and have constructive dialog with people, because this would have been very beneficial to me at the time.  Instead, I was mocked and derided, which only made me more staunch in my position.  As a Christian, I tried to engage atheists in rational discussion.  As an atheist, I try to engage theists in the same way.  I think people are more reasonable than we give them credit for when engaged constructively, but just attacking them seems to trigger some tribal instinct that causes them to revert to "PROTECT" mode.  In fairness, Christians are as bad, and there were times as a believer that I found myself siding with the atheist against nasty theists.  I've awakened to the fact that there are good people and crapholes, and whether or not you're a person of "faith" seems to be irrelevant in that equation.

(January 5, 2016 at 1:39 pm)Old Baby Wrote: Christianity (more specifically, Pentecostalism) became my reality before I was old enough to think for myself.  This was the reality branded on my young mind by the people who loved me.  They were my parents.  They would never intentionally hurt me.  They were acting for my benefit, so that I would be with them for eternity.  I had no reason to doubt them or the hundreds of other adult authority figures who I saw gathering at church every week.  Aside from that, there was the very real terror that preachers and Sunday school teachers instilled in my mind about that place that all people would go to who did not follow the bible and live good Jesus-led lives.  This is why I have no tolerance for those atheists who deride Christians like they are some kind of subhuman disease.  While it's true that they might have a disease, they aren't the disease itself, but merely victims who don't realize they need a cure.

Well put and welcome.

(January 5, 2016 at 2:49 pm)Old Baby Wrote:

(January 5, 2016 at 2:15 pm)excitedpenguin Wrote: I find it surprising that you met atheists who thought of Christians as subhuman. I, myself, think religion is a sort of mental illness, in the most outstretched sense of the word, and that people suffer from it to different degrees, most of them I think to a lesser degree, which is very good and we couldn't coexist in today's world otherwise. I'm talking about genuine belief here. I'm sure there are a lot of religious people who only identify as such but don't really experience anything spectacular because of it. But I wouldn't for one second classify religious people as second-class citizens or anything of the sort. As far as I'm concerned, they are my fellow human beings and I would much rather seek out the potential for rationality and correctly applied compassion in them then the more troubling parts that make the world a worse place than it needs to be. I hope you appreciate my comment, as you asked for our opinions.

Welcome and I hope you find here a community to your liking, where you can continue on this journey of self-discovery and truth-seeking.

I think the reason I thought atheists were this way is probably because I mainly ran into them under circumstances that pitted my worldview against theirs.  Even now, I watch videos on Youtube and look at the comments beneath and find atheists abusing people who are just like I used to be.  Sometimes I will comment that they should be spending their time trying to educate and have constructive dialog with people, because this would have been very beneficial to me at the time.  Instead, I was mocked and derided, which only made me more staunch in my position.  As a Christian, I tried to engage atheists in rational discussion.  As an atheist, I try to engage theists in the same way.  I think people are more reasonable than we give them credit for when engaged constructively, but just attacking them seems to trigger some tribal instinct that causes them to revert to "PROTECT" mode.  In fairness, Christians are as bad, and there were times as a believer that I found myself siding with the atheist against nasty theists.  I've awakened to the fact that there are good people and crapholes, and whether or not you're a person of "faith" seems to be irrelevant in that equation.

I'm guessing you met them in places like the youtube comment section, facebook or some other social site.They tend to bring out the worst in people.

Even on this forum you tend to see the dark side of some people from time to time, at least here you can figure out why someone is acting the way they are.

Great story, O/B.  Welcome to the light side of the force.

(January 5, 2016 at 2:23 pm)AFTT47 Wrote:

(January 5, 2016 at 1:39 pm)Old Baby Wrote: I wonder if I'm just missing something and if I'm going to die one day and meet God, who's going to tell me, "You missed it, fella."

If there is a God like that then he is unjust and we're all screwed - including the people who believe in him and kiss his ass. How can you trust an unjust God to not turn on you on a whim? How could you be in his presence without being horrified, knowing that here is an all-powerful monster with a bad temper, one who tortures souls for eternity for the 'sin' of being wrong about religion?

Yes, think about that one a minute.  There are more than 5 BILLION people on this planet right now, who are members of other religions - - and their "sin" was to be born in India, where their parents were Hindu . . . in Japan, where their parents were Buddhist . . . in Saudi Arabia, where the family was Muslim . . . or even in Iceland, where nearly 100% of the population is atheist.  How about the Dalai Lama?  Doesn't he seem like a great guy?  But nope - 5 BILLION people, who, if you believe like the xtian fundies do, are going to fry forever.  

We were xtians because our parents were xtians.  The majority of the people on the planet think xtians got it wrong.

(January 5, 2016 at 1:51 pm)robvalue Wrote: I can't imagine how weird it must have felt to have woken up... I've never been through it myself, having not been indoctrinated. Congratulations on working hard and seeking the truth. Like you say, the truth need not fear investigation. The field of apologetics is the most dishonest "discussion" I've ever seen. It's mind meltingly awful and painful to watch. It's only aimed at placating believers, who won't look closely enough to see it's all hogwash.

As someone who used to participate in the apologetics thing, I don't necessarily believe that guys like William Lane Craig are charlatans, as some atheists insist.  It's more plausible for me to believe that they are simply brain washed.  I can remember coming up with arguments that I felt were ironclad.  I still feel they are pretty ironclad, so long as I start with a presupposition and cherry pick the evidence I need to support them.  Thing is, I didn't even realize I was doing this at the time.  My belief was that the bible is true, therefore the evidence that can be manipulated to demonstrate Creation is true, and any evidence that seems to conflict is simply misinterpreted.  I could not conceive of the notion that the King James Bible might not be inerrant, because that was branded on my mind by the people I loved and trusted before I was mature enough to reason.  After "waking up", it became clear to me that I had been in the process of awakening for at least 5 years without even realizing what was happening.

(January 5, 2016 at 2:49 pm)Old Baby Wrote:

(January 5, 2016 at 2:15 pm)excitedpenguin Wrote: I find it surprising that you met atheists who thought of Christians as subhuman. I, myself, think religion is a sort of mental illness, in the most outstretched sense of the word, and that people suffer from it to different degrees, most of them I think to a lesser degree, which is very good and we couldn't coexist in today's world otherwise. I'm talking about genuine belief here. I'm sure there are a lot of religious people who only identify as such but don't really experience anything spectacular because of it. But I wouldn't for one second classify religious people as second-class citizens or anything of the sort. As far as I'm concerned, they are my fellow human beings and I would much rather seek out the potential for rationality and correctly applied compassion in them then the more troubling parts that make the world a worse place than it needs to be. I hope you appreciate my comment, as you asked for our opinions.

Welcome and I hope you find here a community to your liking, where you can continue on this journey of self-discovery and truth-seeking.

I think the reason I thought atheists were this way is probably because I mainly ran into them under circumstances that pitted my worldview against theirs.  Even now, I watch videos on Youtube and look at the comments beneath and find atheists abusing people who are just like I used to be.  Sometimes I will comment that they should be spending their time trying to educate and have constructive dialog with people, because this would have been very beneficial to me at the time.  Instead, I was mocked and derided, which only made me more staunch in my position.  As a Christian, I tried to engage atheists in rational discussion.  As an atheist, I try to engage theists in the same way.  I think people are more reasonable than we give them credit for when engaged constructively, but just attacking them seems to trigger some tribal instinct that causes them to revert to "PROTECT" mode.  In fairness, Christians are as bad, and there were times as a believer that I found myself siding with the atheist against nasty theists.  I've awakened to the fact that there are good people and crapholes, and whether or not you're a person of "faith" seems to be irrelevant in that equation.

I don't classify people like that, at least not in this case. I think they are just people, and they all have their reasons for their different behaviours. You'll find atheists even here who can be nasty to theists, and I too find that to be a problem sometimes(from a pragmatic pov), but I also know it's coming from a good place and it can at times be, at least partly justified, even if it doesn't really help anyone but the bunch of atheists who mock a theist for his stupid, arrogant remarks. You have to keep in mind that atheists are very much discriminated in many parts of the world, including the more civilised parts. You'll often find a Brit is more likely to be understanding and an American to be more prone to lash out against theists, and this is understandable when you look at their cultural differences. An atheist in America is one of the least trusted minorities and is treated very badly, albeit in a superficial sense, not in the violent sense. You'll seldom find an atheist fear for their lives in a progressive country. But in the U.K. you're more likely to be thought of as weird if you say you're particularly religious, than if you're an atheist, as in much of the rest of Western Europe, for that matter.

I, myself, am from a deeply religious country in Eastern Europe, and yet I didn't have much trouble for being an atheist and I know for example my father had a friend who's an atheist, and so on. It's not that big of a deal, although I surely think it's still a problem, but that's a talk for another time. I'm both extremely anti-religion and antitheist, to the point where I think it's one of the most concerning problems of our times, and very understanding of religious people. I understand them, and I'm very sympathetic with them, but that's the more reason to want to help them, and sometimes a more blunt approach can be necessary to shake someone up. It's not the same with everyone, though.

Old Baby: I agree, it is hard for me to tell. Personally, I do think WLC knows full well his arguments are fallacious, he is quick to point out the same fallacies anyone else makes; yet his actual underpinning belief is probably true. But I can't know for sure. The brainwashing may just be so strong that he blots out his own fallacies, assuming the conclusions must be correct. I can only have an opinion about each one. Some I think are simply misguided, and do think their arguments make sense. He could be one of those people, I suppose.

It's been hard for me to understand the theistic mindset having never been one, I've tried my best to learn about it. I've made some progress, but have a ways to go yet.

He is particularly dishonest I find though, as he intentionally argues for an entirely abstract deistic god the whole time, then tries to shoe-horn in his personal version right at the end before anyone has the chance to object. This is not the tactics of someone interested in arriving at the truth.

Quote: I don't necessarily believe that guys like William Lane Craig are charlatans, as some atheists insist.  It's more plausible for me to believe that they are simply brain washed.

There is an old observation that says 'in order to lie effectively you have to know the truth.'  I don't think they believe their snake oil is a miracle cure for anything.  It merely fattens their bank account by relieving suckers of their money.