If you were ever a theist...

[Simon Moon]

All of a sudden, feeling very sad atm. I wish there was less judgement from both atheists and theists. Always seems like I'm the odd girl out...when I left Christianity, I was questioned by Christians, when I turned back...I'm questioned by atheists. Idk.

The reason why I questioned you earlier in the thread, is because, if you found a good reason to return to your theistic beliefs, I want to know about it. It wasn't to put you in a tough spot, it was to discover if your beliefs were rational and evidence based enough for me to also believe them.

As I previously stated, I am passionate about having as many true beliefs as possible, and as few false beliefs. If you have, what I would consider good reasons, as far as I can tell, you wouldn't need faith. 

My main reason to continue to participate in these discussions, is to determine if there is some belief that I don't currently hold, that I should.

I just wish someone could tell me why a god would want people to believe on bad evidence, despite all the good evidence to the contrary.

[Natachan]

Why the tension?

Well for me personally when o first came out as an atheist I was very much in the way you would describe as accomidating. Not a firebrand. I thought we could all coexist without hurting each other. And for the most part this is true. Most xtians I meet (and ALL the Muslims I know) are nice people who are respectful of me and my disagreement. We don't discuss our differences.

HOWEVER:

I no longer have the amicability towards belief I used to. Why? Because I saw the harm dogma can have. I worked in a store and I had a disagreement with another guy there. I didn't question his God, I only stated that I thought his dismissal of evolution was wrong. When he got more into it I told him why, presented him with my reasons.

Guy keyed my car and slashed my tires.

Another woman who knew I was an atheist was a minister who held a part time job at a store I worked at. She filed false reports with my manager and tried her hardest to get me fired. I had to jump through a bunch of hoops to prove the claims false.

Why did these people do this? Because of their adherence to a toxic dogma.

If these beliefs had no bearing on their actions, if no harm came from them I would simply say, "I disagree" and we would move on. And for most people I still do. But if they start acting on or pushing this toxic dogma I will push back against it. And any idea should be open to discussion.

[Brakeman]

Why do you fear public analyzation and critique? Are you emotionally bonded to your perception? Why? Why would you feel more comfortable unless you were avoiding a harsher truth?

Is this supposed to cause me to want to share? 

Actually no. I wouldn't expect that. If you really had found any significant evidence of god that was rational and logical, you would have told us already just like any other theist. It would be on the six o'clock news.
What I'd hoped you would share is why you suddenly felt emotionally bonded to a god idea when you have seen us debunk so much "Garden of Eden, Noah's Ark, God the loving caring god, and other relevant christian topics on this forum. It would seem to me that going back to theism now would be an extreme example of god of the gaps when you only believe the gaps.

If  you really did experience contact or found rational evidence of a real god, why would you let us go to hell because you won't share it with us? Do you really want all of us to be tortured for all eternity? Wouldn't that be akin to a christian not following jesus' command to spread their witness? Sure, we would grill you about it but if it withstood scrutiny as truth, it could save so many souls here. This is an atheist forum where we are full of members that are yet unconvinced of the god claims and we share daily our reasons for being unconvinced, taking more out of the possible fold for jesus. I can't imagine a better target group that needs to hear of convincing evidence of god's reality.

If you are sure the spiritural event was solid evidence givent to you by god, but private, why wouldn't he give me, or Min, or Rob the same or similar evidence events? Why are you better than me? Why does god love you better than Rob? Do you know?

I don't doubt your sincerity for a moment and your good heart shows in many of your caring sympathetic comments you have made on this board. I don't want to hammer you at all over your change, it's your right to believe in anything and for any reason. I am notoriously curious, but please don't share anything you don't want to. I just want you to assure us that you are being true to yourself and are not just afraid to face life without your security blanket. I say this because I do like you and want to offer help of rational analysis along with the other great minds found on this forum. If, as I asked, you are emotionally bonded to the theistic perception and  don't want your thought structure second guessed, then you probably wouldn't want to post anything about your re-conversion events.

 We curious cats will still be stuck to wonder why the emotional bond to theism and why the refusal to share your witness as commanded by jesus?

[Whateverist]

The place where the mystic, intuition toward faith worries me is when it goes to ground in established dogma.  I'll cop to honoring those sorts of intuitions.  But I never will cash them in for off the rack, religious beliefs.  Creator god, after life and moral arbiter are not roles I'm casting for in my life.

This is it. The heart of the issue. The issue of submission to a Guiding Lord through appointed Guides, is something you have to want for proofs and evidence to become effective per my belief.

---

As a Deist,  I tried my best to reason myself into morality. I felt like I could not know a lot of things, being blurry, but even if I felt something was wrong but didn't know it to be wrong, as long as there was no clear indication it was, I was free to do it if I desired so.

I then wanted to become more of new age person, looking for spiritual guides in the realm of the unseen, to guide me, but that they weren't of a specific religion or dogma. However then rational discourse over this whole issue began to take place. I haven't even talked about most of those reasons here. The Quran deals with so much angles proving religion of God. 

If you don't come with the spirit of 1:6 "Guide us the straight path", all reminders or signs in the soul, that point to the truth of God, his holy names, his signs within us, the connection of his lights and glories and his name/face with us, etc, have no avail.

There is a verse in Quran that says that to not be like a certain people who forgot God, so God made them forget themselves/their souls.

Perhaps I am going about this wrong.

I will try to clarify my position more clearly in the future.

---

I feel like I'd understand you better if I understood the bolded sentence.  If I understand you correctly, you may be right.  A 'proof' as you use the word may turn on the audience being in a closed system (like math and logic) of a uni-culture with a common tradition regarding the 'sacred'. Perhaps it is because that is condition is fading away that the appeal of such attempts to persuade too is also fading.

[Mystic]

I feel like I'd understand you better if I understood the bolded sentence.  If I understand you correctly, you may be right.  A 'proof' as you use the word may turn on the audience being in a closed system (like math and logic) of a uni-culture with a common tradition regarding the 'sacred'.  Perhaps it is because that is condition is fading away that the appeal of such attempts to persuade too is also fading.

The heart needs to be sincere to God and in search of tranquility in a path of devotion to the treasured Being. If it is apathetic, it will not care to perceive the truth. If it is averse to it, it will reject evidence. It must be willing to submit to it, or otherwise will reject the signs that it's really up to the heart to perceive. It will even if reminded, close it's submission to the truth of it, and act as it's not true or evident or manifest. If it's prideful towards the path of submission, it will mock it. The uncleanness I believe is the source of doubt in God. It must be somehow stopped from controlling the belief of the soul, only then can we begin the quest to purify ourselves and root it out.  I would say knowledge of God and perception of signs, has to be accompanied by love of the beauty of God and her Names.

Love of God to lovers of God helps them reach out and connect to the source, realize their connection, and increase in seeing power of her light and majesty.

Anyone who remembers God and is not in awe of by her majesty, essentially lacks faith in Her. It cannot be simply an intellectual acknowledgment of her existence.

All arguments for God will make use of spiritual truths, in which, it's up to the heart to perceive. If the heart acts averse it will close it's eyes to the reminder of the holy spirit and face of God in the soul and ignore the command of God in the soul.

[*Deidre*]

Is this supposed to cause me to want to share? 

Actually no. I wouldn't expect that. If you really had found any significant evidence of god that was rational and logical, you would have told us already just like any other theist. It would be on the six o'clock news.
What I'd hoped you would share is why you suddenly felt emotionally bonded to a god idea when you have seen us debunk so much "Garden of Eden, Noah's Ark, God the loving caring god, and other relevant christian topics on this forum. It would seem to me that going back to theism now would be an extreme example of god of the gaps when you only believe the gaps.

If  you really did experience contact or found rational evidence of a real god, why would you let us go to hell because you won't share it with us? Do you really want all of us to be tortured for all eternity? Wouldn't that be akin to a christian not following jesus' command to spread their witness? Sure, we would grill you about it but if it withstood scrutiny as truth, it could save so many souls here. This is an atheist forum where we are full of members that are yet unconvinced of the god claims and we share daily our reasons for being unconvinced, taking more out of the possible fold for jesus. I can't imagine a better target group that needs to hear of convincing evidence of god's reality.

If you are sure the spiritural event was solid evidence givent to you by god, but private, why wouldn't he give me, or Min, or Rob the same or similar evidence events? Why are you better than me? Why does god love you better than Rob? Do you know?

I don't doubt your sincerity for a moment and your good heart shows in many of your caring sympathetic comments you have made on this board. I don't want to hammer you at all over your change, it's your right to believe in anything and for any reason. I am notoriously curious, but please don't share anything you don't want to. I just want you to assure us that you are being true to yourself and are not just afraid to face life without your security blanket. I say this because I do like you and want to offer help of rational analysis along with the other great minds found on this forum. If, as I asked, you are emotionally bonded to the theistic perception and  don't want your thought structure second guessed, then you probably wouldn't want to post anything about your re-conversion events.

 We curious cats will still be stuck to wonder why the emotional bond to theism and why the refusal to share your witness as commanded by jesus?

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a Christian at work one day, we were in the kitchen and the topic of belief came up, and he said something that I thought was poignant. He said that back when Jesus walked the earth, and performed miracles right in front of people's faces, many still didn't believe that He was of a supernatural realm. They still scoffed, and many didn't follow Him. Some did follow Him, but many didn't. And He was right there, in their midst. Now, this time last year and for a few years, I didn't really believe that Jesus existed as what the NT states as such. For me, I felt Jesus may have existed, but as a human...historically. Perhaps. And then I even let all that go, and didn't give much thought to it all. 

So, for me to share in detail all that happened to get me to change my mind and gravitate back to Christianity...would you sincerely believe me that I truly had such an encounter? Probably not. And you know what the Bible is about, I wouldn't be telling you anything new. And you don't believe in a deity of any kind just the same. So, my 'witness' is meaningless, and if you are being honest...most likely you would like for me to 'come to my senses,' and realize that what happened wasn't of a supernatural realm. Which is fine, this is an atheist website, and I respect it. I came here when I wasn't a believer, and this was the first website that I discovered, and have stayed e-friends with a few people, and so I return from time to time.

Jesus told His followers...to go to villages and preach the Gospel, that is true...but He said to shake the dust from their feet if those villages didn't accept the Gospel. Not to spend time struggling to get people to believe, but to plant a seed and go on. You know what Christianity teaches, so it is up to you to follow it or not. Do I believe you will go to a place called hell if you don't? No, I don't. My beliefs aren't wrapped up in looking at what others are doing or not doing, but rather, what my faith means to me, and how it has moved me. How I can use my life in a positive way for others. For me, I give that credit to God, for you...if you move people in a positive way, you don't give the credit to God. That's honestly the only difference between us...

Well, there's other differences, but...lol You know what I mean. I hope this makes sense.

[*Deidre*]

Is this supposed to cause me to want to share? 

If you are sure the spiritural event was solid evidence givent to you by god, but private, why wouldn't he give me, or Min, or Rob the same or similar evidence events? Why are you better than me? Why does god love you better than Rob? Do you know?

You never know, maybe God has ....but it requires you to believe that what maybe you felt/experienced, was Him.

[Cephus]

But, and I'm just generalizing here so don't take it personally, but a lot of people seem to think that all they have to do is believe and pray and sit around waiting for something to happen and when it never does, they just make excuses for not believing enough, or God having a plan or some other such nonsense.  We come right back to hope being generally useless without action and action does all the work.  What's the point of hope if you actually have to make things happen?

So yeah, I don't hope things get better, I get up off my butt and make things better and encourage others to do the same.  I really see no point for God in the mix because God doesn't demonstrably exist, nor does God ever seem to do anything worthwhile.

Your worldview is very different than mine, Cephus. Even when I identified as an atheist, I hoped in humanity, in plans taking shape, in people coming through, etc. But, this didn't mean I was inert. What a different life it would be like, to go through it without feeling the need to hope. Interesting.

Yeah, if we actually had rational people who made intellectual decisions without regards to mindless emotionalism, we might actually get somewhere on this planet.  Imagine that.

[robvalue]

Just some random musings I find people's motivations fascinating.

I'm quite interested in the reasons people choose to be part of a religion, even if they consider it is "true". I find the whole concept of worship bizarre. I wouldn't worship a god, or anything else, and I can't understand what a god could possibly get out of it.

Even if the religion contains loads of amazing advice, the advice has been given already. There's nothing new. I can learn lots of wisdom from a book and then move on, without feeling the need to have some sort of relationship with the author.

As far as "thanking God" goes, I'd have thought the amount of thanks that is appropriate to give would be proportional to the effort expended. God seems to be described as requiring no effort whatsoever to create everything (although the bible does actually paint a different picture).

[Catholic_Lady]

Do you have an example of paper coming out of someone's foot?  

No?  Instead the only 'supernatural' experiences are "God helped me find my car keys!"  "God helped me find a job!"  "God did all sorts of stuff that have many other explanations"

I like how theists make all kinds of assumptions about Atheists.  Do you really think none of us ever believed that God did things?  My husband used to believe that God spoke to everyone.  He felt that God did it in the only way he could.  When I told him I was an atheist, we'd sometimes discuss god, and any objections I brought up, he'd say that god wasn't some wizard, and that it took him millions of years to create the earth (He believed that six days mean Six of God's days, and not six earth days).  He really believed that God talked to people, and that he tried helping people in the way he could.  What got him to turn to Atheism was when I brought up that his idea of god was nothing like the bible's idea of God.  And that his idea of god had no backing.  I wasn't trying to convert him.  We'd just discuss it sometimes.  That's when he said he never considered that.    He long believed that god talked to people.  But that was more hope than fact.  

I think some theists never really ask themselves questions about their own beliefs.  Like with my husband when he was a Christian, I'd ask him questions about Noah's ark, and he never had any answers.  He was honest, at least.  He'd tell me he never really gave it much thought about how many animals there would have to be on the ark, or that Noah would have to take care of the animals, or why there's no evidence of Kangaroos ever being anywhere other than Australia.  I should note that I asked him questions because I was less sure of my (lack of) belief than I am now.  I wanted to find out if there was a god.  Because I had trouble believing.  Now I'm comfortable not believing because of lack of evidence.  What most theists call evidence isn't really evidence, and the examples given are comparable at all.  I mean paper coming out of someone's foot?  Call me when that actually happens.

The thing is though, you're making assumptions too. On this very post.