Hello atheistforum

[Mister Agenda]

Nice to meet you, ex-bro. What led you to be an atheist?

Skepticism, I suppose. I stopped believing in ESP, alien visitation, Bigfoot, Nessie, and ghosts before I stopped believing in God. It was just the result of applying the same standards to all my beliefs.

The things I listed as evidence are not the basis of my faith. They are simply what got me in the door. God gives me daily revelation. It would take an omnipresent, omnipotent, omnibenevolent being to work what He has wrought in my life.

How do you know that? Were you so messed up that only a being that speaks universes into existence could account for the improvement in your situation? Do you get information about distant galaxies only an omnipotent being could find out? What the heck are your criteria for determining that something you are in (effectively) psychic contact with is omnipresent, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent?

God gives a general revelation in His creation of His eternal power and Godhead, so that everyone is faced with His existence, and a special revelation of His Son Jesus Christ. My faith is based on the tangible and experiential relationship I have with Jesus Christ. That's what Christianity is about. My faith isn't based on feelings; that isn't faith, that is emotionalism. It is based on knowing God personally.

In a way that can't be objectively demonstrated. Why on earth would you expect someone to take your word for all that? Anyone could claim the same thing, which is a lot of unfalsifiable stuff that sounds very grand.

You also seem to indicate that Christianity was invented, like a conspiracy. Even skeptical historians believe that the apostles were convinced that Jesus rose from the dead.

Do you think other religions were inspired by God? If not, how do you think they got started?

Therefore, according to your theory, they would have had to accidently create this ingenuous brainwashing tool that you postulate. Doesn't seem very likely, does it?

What invention? The tools to start a religion have been lying around for millenia. Mormonism is one of the fastest-growing religions and it didn't take a genius to come up with the charismatic leader becomes a legend in his own time formula. It doesn't require conspiracy, just a good meme, like 'everybody you know will suffer an eternity of torture if you don't convince them Jesus was the son of God'. You don't even have to read 'Brainwashing for Dummies'. David Koresh and that Heaven's Gate guy weren't geniuses. They were just charismatic and deluded, and delusions can be catching, especially in situations where you isolate your followers from their friends and families.

People are belief machines, they can be convinced of almost anything under the right circumstances. We connect the unconnected by instinct all the time. Your team won when you wore a particular jersey? Wear it next time and maybe it will help them win again! There's a reason why the fundamental basis of science that has enabled us to make so much technological progress in the last few hundred years is finding ways to keep experiments from being influenced by human bias. We are incredibly easy to fool, especially by ourselves.

As I said, it's not the basis of my faith, but I do think its pretty remarkable. People spend tens of thousands of dollars on psychologists and self-help programs over years of time to achieve the same results I did (or never) in a few months with no effort, and that with a few different issues at the same time.

Most of psychotherapy is just listening to the patient and giving good advice on how to deal constructively with problems, many of us are lucky enough that we don't have to shell out $75 an hour for someone who can do that for us. Even an imaginary friend can make us feel better. Countless people are comforted by what they think are the ghosts of dead loved ones and feel guided by them and helped by talking to them. I'm happy you got good results, but not amazed by it. It isn't remarkable. I acknowledge that faith in a higher power helps some people change their lives and get through things, but I also acknowledge that it doesn't seem to make any difference who or what they think the higher power is. I do have a reservation about that, though: I haven't observed that people who don't believe in a higher power have more trouble getting through things and improving their lives than people who do, my impression that faith can be helpful could well be bias based on hearing a lot of anecdotes to that effect.