(May 9, 2016 at 11:30 am)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote:(May 9, 2016 at 11:11 am)Emjay Wrote: It's not like this for me all the time, just occasionally. Most of the time I operate from a much more positive position like you of asking what possible reasons there are to believe - and there aren't any that come to mind, but since I have this Christian baggage occasionally I have doubts. But it's only because I have knowledge of the religion that I haven't 'unlearned' (not sure if you can unlearn anything per se)... I don't have similar doubts about any of the countless other religions I have no knowledge of. So it's just the doubts that come from the fact that once something is posited it exists in a sense to be disproved.
I'm afraid atheism (or, more accurately I should say "a secular worldview") isn't going to ever free you from doubt because 1) social programming you received in religious ideology is deeply entrenched in your thought-processes, and must be actively recognized (not always possible) in order to be overridden by your rational brain, and 2) there's no such thing as freedom from doubt when you're a rationalist, since doubt is the inherent basis of all skepticism.
It's the people who claim to know, 100%, without universally-demonstrable evidence that supports that degree of certainty, whom you should fear most in this world. Freedom from doubt is the mark of a zealot.
Thank you, what you say makes a lot of sense
This is why I am so opposed to religious indoctrination in children... that all these belief systems are essentially implanted without their knowledge or consent... and then you're lumbered with them forever after. And like you say, they can only be rationally overridden if they are first brought to the surface... leaving a whole web of interconnecting ideas festering beneath the surface and influencing your thinking when it shouldn't be.
