God and the problem of sincere disbelief

[CousinChimp]

I really related to this article, I think many of you will too. I've tried so hard for so long to maintain an increasingly shaky faith, but I never thought it wasn't genuine or that I'd wind up agnostic. I planned to endure until the end but over a decade or so the evidence just hasn't been adding up.

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-29/god-and-the-problem-of-sincere-disbelief/8378108

[♦ Fuego ♦]

Very good article. The giant ad-hominem of the scriptures became evident to me while writing about my deconversion. The apostles Peter and Paul go into detail about how vile and awful are those that are unbelievers, while contrasting them with the pure, clean, wonderful believers that shine like stars in the darkness. It becomes a type of racism, which is just another way of building a mental cage for believers to keep them from wanting to escape. The whole pull of the bait-and-switch gospel is promise after promise of glorious wonderful yummy Heaven and the dismal torturous rejection and pain of Hell. None of it exists, but it sounds so good during the sales pitch that countless millions have bought in and stayed, many going on to become salesmen (missionaries and preachers). Once hooked, it is difficult to give up the promises for reality.

[LifeCycle]

Thanks for posting. Liked it!

[MOHO]

Good article, Chimp.

 

Thanx for sharing...

[DarkFlash]

I thought it was great and mirrored myself for a while until I saw things for what they were not too long ago, so much thanks for introducing that to all of us. Though. .in tying this in with Margee's Forgive Me topic and also leading up to what everyone else here has said i'm sure in similarity, I feel that if his existence were of a true hit confirm from then to visiting post-modernism, don't you think that. .in him being the 'all-knowing' would he put us on a sudden stoppage from making these profiles, verbally saying what is in mind which, I think could have always been avoidable with that shred of proof, just undergoing these sudden changes y'know? Religious fear was all the more revealed to me after skimming through what you gave to us in that link and made it so clear that with time will our disbeliefs and realism cause those roots to eventually dissipate as they should. And again, will I say that an expectancy from the all-powerful was there for some of us years, weeks, days, during those moments of crisis, anytime and when you see nothing but yet, you're still given nothing but one excuse after the next do you end up like that guy who gave us such an awesome article. Like him am I the only possibly atheist in my family as well. Is it welcomed? By far it is. Again CousinChimp, thank you.

[skysoar15]

Yeah I've been at odds about it too. At the end of the day, Christianity is built solely on a bunch of promises. Everything is conveniently invisible.

 

One good argument people try to use is the invisibility of electricity and wind, but the effects of those have been proven.

 

Regardless, I'm not sure a heaven that includes a God who would let his faithful followers leave is a God worth serving IF he is real. I've had a deadbeat dad before. I don't need to spend my days trying to figure out another one.

[Insightful]

Great article!   This part describes how my believing wife thinks about me PERFECTLY:

"For a lot of Christians, disbelief is a moral failing... For many Christians, people don't come to be agnostic or atheist after genuine searches for the truth. Instead, lack of faith comes from deliberate ignorance and wilful denial"

 

And this section describes me and my deconversion EXACTLY:

"More and more, I came to realise that the unbelievers I'd come across hadn't rejected faith because they wanted to remain ignorant or they felt Christianity threatened their immoral lifestyles. Instead, they'd looked at the evidence and concluded it didn't add up.

What's more, their pursuit for the truth wasn't just intellectual. They wanted to live their best lives and make the world a better place. Many would describe their journeys as spiritual."

 

Thanks again.

[Riversong]

Thanks for posting!  I relate to a lot of it. Especially in realizing that non-Christians are not sin-loving heathens or bitter God-haters. I think people are all trying to get through this life. I wish christians were able to get through it without harming others with their guilt/shaming/fearmongering techniques. 

[rjn]

"Wilful denial"? Why would anyone - knowing the consequences of disbelief - wilfully deny God, if they truly believed in him, deep down? That argument is so stupid.
 

Some people come here feeling totally broken. They tried to keep their faith alive for years, in spite of their doubts. They did not want to deconvert, it just so happens that they ended up in that camp after being dragged out, kicking and screaming, by the doubts they've kept locked up inside of them for years.

 

I'm far from a perfect human being, and do a lot of stuff that fundies would deem "sinful", but the fundamentalists that keep insisting that people disbelieve because they "want to sin" are beyond stupid. Again, why do something that you believe will lead to horrendous consequences?

[★ Citsonga ★]

20 minutes ago, rjn said:

"Wilful denial"? Why would anyone - knowing the consequences of disbelief - wilfully deny God, if they truly believed in him, deep down? That argument is so stupid.
 

Some people come here feeling totally broken. They tried to keep their faith alive for years, in spite of their doubts. They did not want to deconvert, it just so happens that they ended up in that camp after being dragged out, kicking and screaming, by the doubts they've kept locked up inside of them for years.

 

I'm far from a perfect human being, and do a lot of stuff that fundies would deem "sinful", but the fundamentalists that keep insisting that people disbelieve because they "want to sin" are beyond stupid. Again, why do something that you believe will lead to horrendous consequences?

 

Exactly. It's rather insulting for them to claim that we would be stupid enough to knowingly subject ourselves to eternal torture just so we can rebel against God for a little while. That is beyond stupid.

 

I also did not want to deconvert. Although I hadn't had doubts pent up for years like some others (I was a True Bleliever^TM), once the doubts did set in, they were serious issues for me. As I researched in an effort to boost my faith, the problems with Christianity became insurmountable. I did not rebel; I did not choose to leave the faith; instead, my eyes were reluctantly opened to the truth that Christianity is mythology.

 

If I had wanted to indulge in "sinful" behavior, then that's what I'd be doing. Yet, I simply work and take care of my family and try to live the best life that I can. Just because we no longer believe in mythology does not make us bad people.

 

[L.B.]

Willful denial, indeed.

 

I would honestly give ANYTHING to get the last year obliviated (Potter fans will get it) from my mind if it were possible.

 

I never WANTED to abandon an entire worldview and nearly 20 years of commitment to a belief that my life and my choices mattered on a cosmic level in a 'war' against the 'powers and principalities'.

 

I never WANTED to be totally alone, with no friends - not one person has reached out since I left church and started on the path to total rejection of my former convictions.

 

I never WANTED to loathe the times when I have to accompany my wife to events where her Christard friends (she is still a convinced TrueBeliever™) will be - I don't even like having to pick her up or drop her off someplace for fear that I will get spotted and have to make small talk, which I hate anyway. With my luck, I'd get stopped by someone who just then realized they hadn't seen me in nearly a year - and they'd ask why.

 

I never WANTED to let go of the safety-blanket of pseudo-mystical 'prayer' and 'answers to prayer' - I wanted to believe that my thoughts about myself and my circumstances had some sort of power to reach the attention of an invisible Man in the sky someplace.

 

I'd love to wake up tomorrow morning totally deluded again and as if nothing had been different for the last year.

 

I'd love to have a tearful, trembling-hands 'testimony' to my wife and her friends about how 'the lord' had reached my stony heart at last and brought me back to the fold in love and mercy.

 

I'd love to break into song and go rushing back into the social cocoon of narrow, ignorant, biased certainty.

 

But it's not true - any of it, so I won't, because I can't.

[MariaShanks]

Yeah... I think Christians always think that when you've become an atheist, you then become immoral and evil... I think that's why our family are always worried and they will try their best to de-convert us, because they think we have now become very evil and will end up in hell... I actually think I've become a better person since I de-convert officially in May this year...and my mum, who is a devout Christian surprisingly did not turn all preachy on me... I just said to her, well, let me be in my own journey to find out about the truth...she can pray for me if she believes that her God is omnipotent and can really save me  and she only said: well, I hope you find what you're looking for in this journey... Since then, she's been sending me some biblical related article and I would reply with counter argument atheist way... and in the end, we always agree to disagree... I'm so lucky that mum did not go ballistic over this... I'm still respectful toward her belief and never try to preach my atheism to her either...

 

[Anushka]

Extremely good article. Thank you for posting.. I wish I left Christianity earlier. I left Christianity at 27, that is just a few months ago. 

Listen to Dan Barker in Youtube - an atheist who used to be a strong Christian.

Even my mom believes and says people who don't have God/religion are immoral. I hate hearing that.

The church that my parents go to in UK fasts every October for 3 weeks and prays for the UK. They have been doing this for years. Still there are rapes and terrorist attacks in the UK. That shitty fasting prayer doesn't work,does it? People in that church fast every SINGLE month for a few days.

When they pray for the UK, what they are really doing is praying for the GODLESSNESS in UK to end- for example, unmarried couples kissing in public,living together before marriage,atheists. These are their biggest problems, not crime in the country.

I hate all the people in that church. They make me so angry with their teaching and preaching and fake compassion.

[♦ Fuego ♦]

One of my first over-the-top churches I visited was in Brighton/Hove in the UK. They sponsored the preacher that I then promoted for the next decade until I found the amazing miracles he claimed were only in his imagination. Fasting seemed to be a big part of what they thought would get god's attention, tying it to all kinds of miracles and of course the much sought after "presence of God" even though he is supposed to live inside of every believer. They simply tout their mighty god and fasting as though it were all really happening, equating their faith with reality. I didn't realize how tiring that was until I had come out of the church, and the invisible war went silent, no more battling demons with my faith and prayers, no more calling on a useless deity that "loves" me but can't seem to actually do anything, no more making up excuses for his inaction, no more "just trust".

[BobCu]

On 3/29/2017 at 9:11 AM, CousinChimp said:

I've tried so hard for so long to maintain an increasingly shaky faith, but I never thought it wasn't genuine or that I'd wind up agnostic.

Agnostic is not good enough. If you want to be normal person you need to be 100% certain the Magic Man is not real.

 

You just need to understand this simple logic: Magic is not real therefore magic god fairies are impossible.

 

I suggest visit this place, a 7 year old blog with more than 3,000 posts. The blog is about reality and why all religious fantasies are bullshit. It's at this place and by the way I own it: http://darwinkilledgod.blogspot.com