RE: If you were ever a theist...
December 30, 2015 at 4:52 pm
(This post was last modified: December 30, 2015 at 4:58 pm by Simon Moon.)
(December 30, 2015 at 4:14 pm)Deidre32 Wrote:(December 30, 2015 at 3:48 pm)Cephus Wrote: I decided that if Christianity was true, it ought to stand up to critical scrutiny. It didn't.
But, then it wouldn't be called 'faith.' ^_^ But, yes I hear you.
I heard an interesting commentary from an atheist last year who said that he chooses to hope in reality, in humanity, not in something he cannot see or may never see. He said, there could be a god but there very well may not be, why hope in one?
And back then, I agreed.
My own faith journey was an experience that happened, a few months ago...and it changed everything. It wasn't that I was longing for church, or prayer, or Jesus or any of that. It was truly a happening, if you will. I know I must sound like one of those people who come back from being in the woods, proclaiming to have seen Big Foot. lol
It requires faith perhaps to believe that it was something not to be explained as a natural occurrence. But, would it fail Occam's Razor, I don't know. lol
Faith and the belief in something 'supernatural' ...it defies logic, doesn't necessarily mean that the believer is illogical.
I've read through all of your stories, and will come back to them when I can today. I appreciate them very much, it helps me see where you once were, and how you arrived to where you are.
You say this as if faith is a virtue.
Faith is not a path to truth. As far as I can tell, it is no different than gullibility.
The majority of humanity believes in different gods than you do, with equal amounts of faith. Yet, their faith has lead them to the "wrong god belief" according to Christians. And from the view of an outsider, I have no way to tell who, if any, is correct.
Curious that when you returned to a god belief, it turned out to be the one you were raised in, in a country where Christianity is the dominant god belief. What a coincidence, right?
My own journey is like this.
I was a born skeptic. Unless a claim is accompanied by supporting: demonstrable evidence, reasoned argument and valid and sound logic, I withhold belief for that claim.
About the age of 15 or so, I came to the realization that I was not examining my god beliefs with the same level of scrutiny as other existential claims and supernatural claims. As soon as I did, I discovered that they did not hold up. In order to maintain my intellectual honesty, I could no longer hold on to my god beliefs.
EDIT: I had a quick romance with deism, then pantheism. But as soon as I figured out what I was calling "god" was just the universe, I dropped those beliefs.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
