(January 30, 2013 at 5:31 pm)salty Wrote: Just because you have not experienced an atheist thinking this way, doesn't mean it does not happen. There are plenty of people that have desired a "God moment" and it hasn't come, therefore they decided that God was not real (disbelief when God does not show himself). This tends to happen when God doesn't save a family member from death or stop something from happening, like cancer or sexual abuse. The people I spoke to over several years seemed to be victims of something, my mother is a social worker, so I have spoken to some very different people and heard many experiences where God should have saved them, but since he didn't, they no longer wanted to think of him as anything but false. And what can you do in that situation, but understand their pain and hope for a way to show that you have had a very different experience with God, whether your perception is deemed correct or not, it's okay to share, and it's okay for someone to deny God. Everyone chooses for themselves.
Kind of proving my point here. Experience by itself and without a proper examination of preconceptions is not a very good basis for belief or disbelief in god.
(January 30, 2013 at 5:31 pm)salty Wrote: In addition, preconceptions are formed at a young age by various things, culture, family, personal opinion and lets not forget, experiences. Changing a preconception is something someone would need to sit down and really work on, they would have to desire to change, that's why there would have to be some kind of life changing experience behind the re-evaluation of someone's preconceived notions.
Not really. I chose to examine my beliefs and preconceptions without ever feeling it to be necessary or there being any life-altering experience behind it.
