Hello to everyone

[Wryetui]

As my title says. I will introduce myself, my name is Alex, I am 18 years old, I am from Romania though I lived in Spain many years and I am currently studying at the Faculty of Orthodox Theology of a romanian University. I am in my first year.

The reason of why I am here is because I am very interested in psychology, that is, the study of people's minds (even if the original word means "soul") and I am very interested in studying what my brothers think, why they act like they act, and so on. I am currently interested in the atheist position. I considered myself an atheist for many, many years. Even if I was just an adolescent, I loved to read philosophy, and some writers eventually led me to atheism. I couldn't longer consider myself an atheist due to some particular event and started studying Patristic philosophy, which I believe is the higher form of it, and Neoplatonism. I am interested in the cause, the origin of the atheism of the people, on the nature of it, on the effects that has on the person, on the consequences that may or may not have and on a possible conclusion I can trace from there.

Greetings.

Welcome, Wryetui! I hope you like it here and make interesting contributions. I'm going to write you a little essay that I hope you find helpful to what you're looking for.

I was a devout Pentecostal who was inspired to read the KJV Bible cover-to-cover by my faith. Alarmed, I read the modern English Living Bible version in hopes that the King's English had somehow confused me. It had not, it actually said those things. That didn't make me an atheist, but I was not longer a Christian. I thought there was still a Creator; but no longer believed the Bible was inspired by that being.

I was a less devout but equally convinced believer in what is now often referred to as 'woo'. Bigfoot, the Lochness Monster, ghosts, ancient aliens, alien abductions, ESP, men staring at goats...I believed it all. I didn't start becoming skeptical until I was around 19 or 20, when a group of teenagers proved the Duke University ESP studies had faulty protocols, and when the protocols were corrected, their positive results for ESP disappeared. Up to then, I believed those studies had proven ESP beyond a reasonable doubt. I began to doubt other things I had been accepting uncritically. Regarding God, I went so far as to consider myself an agnostic.

I was in my mid-thirties before I started identifying as an atheist, though. I was in college and happened to take Introduction to Religion and Logic 201 the same semester. My professor was Orthodox Christian, and he was convinced logic and evidence were on his side. Throughout the semester, I observed him saying things that I was learning were fallacious in the Logic class; and about the Burden of Proof. I also learned about possible naturalistic explanations for the origins of the universe in a science class. Up to that point, I had basically kept a space in my head for God because you can't prove there's no such thing as God, and I didn't want to be close-minded like those atheists. My religion prof said he wasn't going to cover atheism in his course, because it's self-contradictory (he used an analogy about a God-detecting machine and having to search the whole universe before you could say there's no God; but I noted with fridge logic that a device like that would disprove an omnipresent God the first time it was turned on if it didn't detect anything). Since I realized the reason he gave for not covering it was not logical; and I was curious because he wasn't going to cover it, I checked out a book from the library called The Case Against God, by George Smith.

It was quite a volume, but the main thing I learned from it that changed my mind about considering myself an atheist was that certainty in the non-existence of God was not a requirement to be an atheist, any more than utter certainty in the existence of God is required to be a theist. I already didn't have any remaining positive belief in God and I realized I am an atheist.

It was like a weight was lifted. Apparently it was costing me some kind of mental energy to hold that place in my mind open for God when I wasn't aware of any good reason to truly think God is real.

Thank you for sharing your history with us. I would have to know if he was an Orthodox Christian for real or was just a christian that called himself orthodox, but not a member of the Church. Also I would need to know what logical fallacies did he commit and so on.

I never believed anything without questioning, I did not have the luck of growing up in a religious household, even if my parents were Orthodox, they did not practiced it too much. The road to the faith was a lonely road to me, I had "moral" support but no one really helped me, I had to taught myself, but under the firm guidance of God.

[robvalue]

Hello, welcome to the forum

Thanks for telling us a bit about yourself.

The first thing to realise about the "atheist position" is that there isn't one, there are just people who share a lack of belief in deities. The reasons for this can be anything, and any further beliefs belong to each individual.

[Mister Agenda]

Thank you for sharing your history with us. I would have to know if he was an Orthodox Christian for real or was just a christian that called himself orthodox, but not a member of the Church. Also I would need to know what logical fallacies did he commit and so on.

I never believed anything without questioning, I did not have the luck of growing up in a religious household, even if my parents were Orthodox, they did not practiced it too much. The road to the faith was a lonely road to me, I had "moral" support but no one really helped me, I had to taught myself, but under the firm guidance of God.

You're welcome. I don't want to turn this into a debate, which would be more appropriate to have in a separate thread in a different section of the forum; but he was actually a member of the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Columbia, SC. For some reason, in that period of my life, I ran into a number of Orthodox Christians, most of whom I considered friends, so I was in a position to know something about his authenticity. I'm a little surprised that it was the first thing you questioned. It's uncommon for Christians who aren't Orthodox to claim they are Orthodox here in the USA.

It was about 20 years ago, so I can't remember everything he said that struck me as fallacious at the time in detail; but his God detecting machine thought experiment stands out; and so does shifting the Burden of Proof (if others can't prove God does not exist, it is reasonable to believe that he does) and argument from ignorance (if you can't explain the origin of the universe and I can because I know God did it, that means my position is stronger).

This is not intended to put you down; but I have noticed that atheists who were never indoctrinated into religion when they were young are far more likely to become theists later in life than atheists who had to think their way out of their indoctrination. My whole journey to atheism can be summed up as learning to think critically about my own beliefs. Now that I have, at least to an extent somewhat exceeding the average; it's going to take evidence and sound reasoning to make me change my mind again. Or revelation, if there's a God; he, she, it, or they are welcome to revelate me.

[JesusHChrist]

Greetings Wryetui!

If you stick around, it could be a wild ride for you.

Probably a good thing. No, definitely a good thing.

[brewer]

Welcome.

[RozKek]

Welcome, you seem like someone who makes a good debate.

[Ben Davis]

from the UK.

Since we've already started a discussion, I thought I'd welcome you and offer you some tea & biscuits.

[ignoramus]

Ben? What drugs did you put in the biscuits!


Hehe

( how's those diapers going?) You'd be a expert by now!

[Goosebump]

[Ben Davis]

I swear, I didn't put anything in the biscuits, not even the brownies 

The nappies go messily, thanks for asking. In fact, now that he's on a 50/50 (solid food/milk) diet, the amount of spillage is reduced but the overall volume is increased. It doesn't leave me a lot happier, to be honest