Ask a former atheist

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

Your secret is safe with me.

It's no secret lol

You're just trying to make me feel bad for the occasional insulting remark. (Well played sir, well played.)

Nope. You're pretty awesome.

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Are you ok with it being possible that God does not exist, or is that a super scary prospect to you? I mean, isn't it the comfort that you get out of your beliefs that really matters most? Whether heaven is actually real or not, it never ceases to be real for believers because they never find out they're wrong when they die. The way I look at it, there's not much real difference between heaven actually being real, and a person merely having the belief that heaven is real. If a religious person dies believing in heaven, that means that heaven is real for their entire existence, and never stops being real, because they just never find out.

Lol I mean, sure that's a nice question but c'mon what you're describing is impossible to actually happen it's meaningless to even explore that. It's like saying.."if God says tomorrow it's okay to kill, will you do it?" that's a unfair question because look at God's will or objective morality it never changes so what good is it to imagine something will change when it can never change. It's like saying "if the gravity of earth suddenly triples tomorrow will you or will you not consider gravitational theory false" - > "well yeah obviously" - > "aha so gravitational theory is false". I don't think your question has any effect on a religious belief but it can be used to gauge my mental toughness, I would say I wouldn't find it bearable if God ceased to exist.

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Let's hear it 🙂

God didn't put it there.

lol

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Do you believe it is possible that in certain instances the protected status of this sub forum can be open to abuse?

This sub forum doesn't have a protective status. It has some guidelines, guidelines that I didn't make but are there for a reason. I think what you mean by "certain instances" is "when a theist(like myself) makes a thread" and what you mean by "abuse" is "I can't troll this theist". I don't make the rules bro, if you want changes you're much better off asking the admins.

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* I had a experience. Not sure if I can call it "near death experience" but I could've died but I didn't, I was saved. Sorry I can't say what it was but at that time I thought I would die but it felt unnatural like someone wanted to save me.

I get the feeling, and won't deny how remarkable certain experiences/observations can be to the point that something possibly supernatural may be happening instead of just sheer coincidence. But why jump to God for explanation rather than just think this is a mystery what happened to you and you don't know what is behind all this but it's nevertheless remarkable? For all you know, it could be extraterrestrial aliens that saved you, or demons, or super AI from the future, or other powerful beings that aren't necessarily omnipotent.

Demons would want me dead, aliens are a product of our imagination, super AI from the future is just a concept we made up for a movie, I don't know what other powerful beings are. I see your point, I could've attributed what happened to any other thing but why did I attribute it specifically to God, right? I think the reason is because of what I felt at that moment, I didn't feel a demon going "mwahaha" I felt a father helping out a child, I felt God. That's what I FELT and we don't feel things in a vacuum, so something must've happened that triggered that feeling. I can't really provide hard evidence if that's what you're asking.

[Succubus]

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Do you believe it is possible that in certain instances the protected status of this sub forum can be open to abuse?

This sub forum doesn't have a protective status. It has some guidelines, guidelines that I didn't make but are there for a reason. I think what you mean by "certain instances" is "when a theist(like myself) makes a thread" and what you mean by "abuse" is "I can't troll this theist". I don't make the rules bro, if you want changes you're much better off asking the admins.

 
I'm glad you asked, I was referring to this:

I'm the only atheist gone back I know, though it's not a rare phenomenon. Most people have either been believers all their life and some turned atheist at some point and never went back, of those that went atheist 99% didn't even bother looking at different arguments regarding theism and atheism, the majority of their reasoning is "if I say **** you God nobody will smack me in the head so I can say that", one of the smartest atheist I knew I asked him to explain to me why and he went "uh well you see religion is real right? But uh the uh god is um fake".

You know nicely that if you had posted this in any other forum you would have been jumped on.

[GrandizerII]

Demons would want me dead, aliens are a product of our imagination, super AI from the future is just a concept we made up for a movie, I don't know what other powerful beings are. I see your point, I could've attributed what happened to any other thing but why did I attribute it specifically to God, right? I think the reason is because of what I felt at that moment, I didn't feel a demon going "mwahaha" I felt a father helping out a child, I felt God. That's what I FELT and we don't feel things in a vacuum, so something must've happened that triggered that feeling. I can't really provide hard evidence if that's what you're asking.

Great, so it ain't necessarily God then. At least not in any concrete sense. You just don't know what it is exactly, but you can call it "God" if you choose.

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

Demons would want me dead, aliens are a product of our imagination, super AI from the future is just a concept we made up for a movie, I don't know what other powerful beings are. I see your point, I could've attributed what happened to any other thing but why did I attribute it specifically to God, right? I think the reason is because of what I felt at that moment, I didn't feel a demon going "mwahaha" I felt a father helping out a child, I felt God. That's what I FELT and we don't feel things in a vacuum, so something must've happened that triggered that feeling. I can't really provide hard evidence if that's what you're asking.

Great, so it ain't necessarily God then. At least not in any concrete sense. You just don't know what it is exactly, but you can call it "God" if you choose.

To be clear what I felt was something that I have associated with God. Obviously I can't know for 100% but that's what I felt at that moment. I don't know if I can explain it further or better because it was a feeling though sorry

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This sub forum doesn't have a protective status. It has some guidelines, guidelines that I didn't make but are there for a reason. I think what you mean by "certain instances" is "when a theist(like myself) makes a thread" and what you mean by "abuse" is "I can't troll this theist". I don't make the rules bro, if you want changes you're much better off asking the admins.

 
I'm glad you asked, I was referring to this:

I'm the only atheist gone back I know, though it's not a rare phenomenon. Most people have either been believers all their life and some turned atheist at some point and never went back, of those that went atheist 99% didn't even bother looking at different arguments regarding theism and atheism, the majority of their reasoning is "if I say **** you God nobody will smack me in the head so I can say that", one of the smartest atheist I knew I asked him to explain to me why and he went "uh well you see religion is real right? But uh the uh god is um fake".

You know nicely that if you had posted this in any other forum you would have been jumped on.

I'm sure you're glad, my only answer should be "no" but if I stop at that others will think there's truth to what you said. So I'll explain.

That post I made was a reply to this post:

Ask a former atheist: why, you know one?

So first of all I was not having that conversation with you. Second of all in my reply(the one you quoted) I was talking about atheists I know irl as a reply to Whateverist. He knew that and people that were part of the conversation also knew that, either you're mistakenly taken it out of context because you were not part of the conversation or you're purposely doing it(if that's the case I don't appreciate it). Look at what Aroura posted after:

Is that really the smartest atheist you know? Did you mean IRL or including online people? And are those the same arguments you see, for instance, on these forums?

My reply:

It is the smartest atheist I know irl, I have encountered even smarter ones(the ones around here not Americans) online but not nearly as advanced as the people in this forum, it is for example very easy to win debates with atheists on social media sites. Atheism is not a huge thing around here, only a small group of young rebels and otherwise older weird types are atheists around here(no offense to atheists in this forum). We are family oriented mostly but I can understand how a individualistic culture can draw people towards atheism.

If you thought I was talking about atheists here you are wrong. This is what I said about atheists in this forum:

but not nearly as advanced as the people in this forum

You know nicely that if you had posted this in any other forum you would have been jumped on.

No. You are implying that I purposely posted it specifically in this sub forum with the intention of not getting jumped. Again, you were not part of the conversation that's why you think that or someone is deliberately trying to mislead you. Secondly there's no way I could've known Whateverist would ask me that question and plan in advance to post in this specific sub forum to not get "jumped", you feel that because you were not part of the conversation or you're just being silly.

[Pat Mustard]

Were you ever atheist? Because what you're coming up with now is simply parrotting far right evangelical mischaracterisation of atheists.

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

Were you ever atheist? Because what you're coming up with now is simply parrotting far right evangelical mischaracterisation of atheists.

Of course I was a atheist. No idea what you meant by mischaracterisations of atheists.

[Succubus]

Were you ever atheist? Because what you're coming up with now is simply parrotting far right evangelical mischaracterisation of atheists.

Of course I was a atheist. No idea what you meant by mischaracterisations of atheists.

...of those that went atheist 99% didn't even bother looking at different arguments regarding theism and atheism...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Why did you go back to being a theist

I had a feeling someone would ask this glad it was you CL. The reason I went back was because of 2 reasons:
* I had a experience. Not sure if I can call it "near death experience" but I could've died but I didn't, I was saved. Sorry I can't say what it was but at that time I thought I would die but it felt unnatural like someone wanted to save me.
* It made me think a lot. I looked at my life vs how my life used to be when I used to be a regular church goer. I didn't like where I was at and I felt like the life I got shouldn't be wasted. So I went back to church at night so no one would see me to listen to our pastor, hearing him speak brought back a lot of memories and gave me courage to take that final step. I think all of this got triggered from that one moment when I was quite literally saved, it felt like someone was telling me "don't die yet I have faith in you". I just couldn't remain the same after that.

Thanks for the question!

You had an hallucination and talked yourself into believing it "meant something." Sad.

[The Grand Nudger]

Were you ever atheist? Because what you're coming up with now is simply parrotting far right evangelical mischaracterisation of atheists.

Of course I was a atheist. No idea what you meant by mischaracterisations of atheists.

Just another unfathomable coincidence, I guess?  The kind that you don't believe in anymore..strangely enough.

@Wolo
LOL.....that Pool says the things pool says has nothing to do with ever having been an atheist, or now being a believer..if either is actually true. It's more to do with the Things Pool Says™. Learn the language before you go down the rabbit hole.

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

Of course I was a atheist. No idea what you meant by mischaracterisations of atheists.

...of those that went atheist 99% didn't even bother looking at different arguments regarding theism and atheism...

You're just trolling at this point. How many times do I have to tell you I was talking specifically about people I know personally irl (like my friends). Atheists in this site are some of the most awesome people ever, I learned about 95% of things I know regarding atheism(how to debate, logical fallacies etc) from here. If you seriously think I wouldn't just say "you guys are just lame" if it were true you don't know me very well, I don't say that because it's not true. If you're still not convinced...keep being unconvinced don't expect me to explain this again.

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I had a feeling someone would ask this glad it was you CL. The reason I went back was because of 2 reasons:
* I had a experience. Not sure if I can call it "near death experience" but I could've died but I didn't, I was saved. Sorry I can't say what it was but at that time I thought I would die but it felt unnatural like someone wanted to save me.
* It made me think a lot. I looked at my life vs how my life used to be when I used to be a regular church goer. I didn't like where I was at and I felt like the life I got shouldn't be wasted. So I went back to church at night so no one would see me to listen to our pastor, hearing him speak brought back a lot of memories and gave me courage to take that final step. I think all of this got triggered from that one moment when I was quite literally saved, it felt like someone was telling me "don't die yet I have faith in you". I just couldn't remain the same after that.

Thanks for the question!

You had an hallucination and talked yourself into believing it "meant something." Sad.

No GS, if it was a hallucination it would be different. What happened was real. If it happened to you you'd do the same thing.