FreeThinkerNZ Posted August 24, 2014 Share Posted August 24, 2014 I think you are right though. The Bible God and Hell reeks of human character traits and methods. There is no god. The human brain is hard wired to negotiate. We evolved to use bargaining as a survival tool. It is even a stage in our grief process. When somebody feels out of control they will want to bargain with some entity that is in control even if one does not exist. We do not like to deny our instinct. So when our loved ones die, when we get seriously ill, when our ship is caught in a storm, or when we lose our keys and will get fired if we are late we strike a bargain with powerful forces that have control over these things. We create gods. Nearly every culture for the last 50,000 years has created gods. That is very strong evidence that creating gods is human nature. This is a very useful explanation, or way of looking at it. Is there a book or a thinker that you could refer me to for more information about this bargaining phenomenon? I would like to learn more about it. How does/did bargaining function as a survival tool? Dawkins talks about this in The God Delusion. If you Google "theory of mind" or search that on youtube, you'll find stuff. Thanks, Orbit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JadedAtheist Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 I think my name might hint towards my thoughts I would be on the more militant side of things than most though I guess. I would very much like to see organized religion purged from this earth, but how much I desire this depends on the mood I'm in when you catch me I wouldn't have as much of an issue with it if religious people didn't cram it down other people's throats and try to force the rest of the world to conform to their religious beliefs. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator TheRedneckProfessor Posted August 25, 2014 Super Moderator Share Posted August 25, 2014 More than anything, I would classify myself as an apatheist, because I don't really care if a god exists or not. Beneath that, I would also consider myself atheist because I reject the claim that a god or gods exist due to the profound lack of evidence to support such a claim. As to how I went from believing to rejecting, I think there was a small part of me that always knew it was hogwash; so I'm not really sure I ever "believed". I think it was more like pretending to believe to the point of actually believing I believed, if that makes any sense. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VacuumFlux Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 Atheist. I suppose there's a small chance that some vast, ground-of-being sort of consciousness exists, but the facts of the world as I understand them make the most sense to me from a materialistic point of view. So I am fairly confident that Ultimate Reality is made up of itty bitty non-sentient things, and that sentience and consciousness come from huge numbers of those things being arranged in incredibly complex patterns, and them interacting with each other. But if the material universe can give rise to our consciousness, I suppose there's a faint chance that it could also produce something god-like. But so far, all my spiritual experiences can be explained as all "in my head", so if there is a god-like thing out there with an existence separate from us, I have yet to meet it. On the other hand, as long as I keep the previous paragraph in mind, I do sometimes find it useful to think of the world in a Jungian/animistic way. My brain's just really good at finding patterns (whether they exist or not) and attributing Mind to things (whether they actually have one or not), so why not find ways to turn that to my advantage? I mean, we still teach kids the Bohr model of the atom because it's useful, even though it's such a simplification of reality that it's wrong. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted August 25, 2014 Super Moderator Share Posted August 25, 2014 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deidre Posted August 25, 2014 Author Share Posted August 25, 2014 buttism.jpg Silly florduh is silly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aggie Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 Agnostic is my label of choice. Perhaps its partly tied to my dogmatic Christian past. I am always faced with the reality that for a good chunk of my life I believed the ridiculous... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deidre Posted August 25, 2014 Author Share Posted August 25, 2014 Agnostic is my label of choice. Perhaps its partly tied to my dogmatic Christian past. I am always faced with the reality that for a good chunk of my life I believed the ridiculous... We all did. But...the good news, is now we don't. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deidre Posted August 25, 2014 Author Share Posted August 25, 2014 Atheist. I suppose there's a small chance that some vast, ground-of-being sort of consciousness exists, but the facts of the world as I understand them make the most sense to me from a materialistic point of view. So I am fairly confident that Ultimate Reality is made up of itty bitty non-sentient things, and that sentience and consciousness come from huge numbers of those things being arranged in incredibly complex patterns, and them interacting with each other. But if the material universe can give rise to our consciousness, I suppose there's a faint chance that it could also produce something god-like. But so far, all my spiritual experiences can be explained as all "in my head", so if there is a god-like thing out there with an existence separate from us, I have yet to meet it. On the other hand, as long as I keep the previous paragraph in mind, I do sometimes find it useful to think of the world in a Jungian/animistic way. My brain's just really good at finding patterns (whether they exist or not) and attributing Mind to things (whether they actually have one or not), so why not find ways to turn that to my advantage? I mean, we still teach kids the Bohr model of the atom because it's useful, even though it's such a simplification of reality that it's wrong. Thanks for sharing your view. What a neat explanation. I could sit and read all of your stories all day, everyone. Lol So many parallels between all of us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparklingphoenix Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 I never really believed in hell except to say that man rewards and punishes so it would seem fitting that he would dream up a paradise for all the worthy people and an eternal dungeon for all the bad. Why would a creator of the universe act petty like man? Then I think if there is a god and he does operate like that, do I want to spend eternity with him? Lol To butt in on the conversation, >.< I had similar thoughts. Part of my deconversion was seeing god act like a petty jealous human in the bible, and that made me think that god was just a human creation. Even if the Christian god was real, I think he's a dick, and he would prove me right by sending me to hell (if there were one). If there is a god who created the world I don't really see why it would need my worship. Well said. I've always viewed the god of the bible as being limited. He has limits of what he will tolerate and is constantly moody and insecure. So much so that he incessantly plots ways of destroying his own creation. He is threatened by mankind? When we break it down like that, it's just a flimsy house of cards. And you see it for the farce it is. Hard to believe we followed this religion, right? lol Yes that was another thing that confused me and pushed me towards leaving Christianity. God just had people killed for his own purposes which were probably the motives of human beings using god to justify their actions. I couldn't rationalize why god would kill people if he specially designed every human being and loved everyone. The way I saw it, the Christian god isn't that different from the Greek gods in that they both have very human qualities, like you said, getting jealous and being moody and destroying things on a whim. He sounds like an abusive and temperamental father. So everything just fell apart. When I finally realized all this I felt so embarrassed that I had believed it up to that point. Whenever I think about how I used to tell my unbelieving friends about god I want to crawl in a hole. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roadrunner Posted August 26, 2014 Share Posted August 26, 2014 Atheist. Astronomy and social psychology gave deism a huge blow. Then history and biology put the nail in the coffin. Think about it. We have a planet in our solar system spinning on its side. That's not order. That's a battlefield. Meanwhile we are here on earth killing each other. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deidre Posted August 26, 2014 Author Share Posted August 26, 2014 Atheist. Astronomy and social psychology gave deism a huge blow. Then history and biology put the nail in the coffin. Think about it. We have a planet in our solar system spinning on its side. That's not order. That's a battlefield. Meanwhile we are here on earth killing each other.This is fantastic. So well put! It's signature-worthy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neverlandrut Posted August 26, 2014 Share Posted August 26, 2014 I think you are right though. The Bible God and Hell reeks of human character traits and methods. There is no god. The human brain is hard wired to negotiate. We evolved to use bargaining as a survival tool. It is even a stage in our grief process. When somebody feels out of control they will want to bargain with some entity that is in control even if one does not exist. We do not like to deny our instinct. So when our loved ones die, when we get seriously ill, when our ship is caught in a storm, or when we lose our keys and will get fired if we are late we strike a bargain with powerful forces that have control over these things. We create gods. Nearly every culture for the last 50,000 years has created gods. That is very strong evidence that creating gods is human nature. This is a very useful explanation, or way of looking at it. Is there a book or a thinker that you could refer me to for more information about this bargaining phenomenon? I would like to learn more about it. How does/did bargaining function as a survival tool? Besides bargaining with other humans who have the power to do you harm, I'm not sure I can offer an answer. But I think it began when humans became self aware. Our ancestors then realized that they were dependant on forces beyond their control: the sun, rain, weather patterns, the health of crops, movement of herds, other people's cooperation, etc. It's very understandable that they would have looked for a way to control or influence these forces to be good to them. They attempted to influence them like they would influence a fellow human, by offering gifts (sacrifices), telling them how great they are, promising them things (bargaining), etc. Not to mention humans are naturally curious and crave explanations for things. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LifeCycle Posted August 26, 2014 Share Posted August 26, 2014 Going from Christian to Atheist is a scary process. From the Christian perspective, the term, "Atheist" conjures images of Satan worshipping, cannibals. So even after you discard the faith or the faith discards you, it's not like we naturally want to run toward our enemy and embrace them. It just takes time. For me, it took time to really grasp that there are no deities (according to evidence) in the sense of other god-like entities but once I finally concluded that the evidence points in that direction, the "Atheist" label was easy. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neverlandrut Posted August 26, 2014 Share Posted August 26, 2014 Going from Christian to Atheist is a scary process. From the Christian perspective, the term, "Atheist" conjures images of Satan worshipping, cannibals. So even after you discard the faith or the faith discards you, it's not like we naturally want to run toward our enemy and embrace them. It just takes time. For me, it took time to really grasp that there are no deities (according to evidence) in the sense of other god-like entities but once I finally concluded that the evidence points in that direction, the "Atheist" label was easy. I definitely relate. I was afraid of the atheist label until I came to understand what it really means, one who holds no belief in god(s). Also, understanding burden of proof and the difference between "atheist" and anti-theist helped. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deidre Posted August 26, 2014 Author Share Posted August 26, 2014 Going from Christian to Atheist is a scary process. From the Christian perspective, the term, "Atheist" conjures images of Satan worshipping, cannibals. So even after you discard the faith or the faith discards you, it's not like we naturally want to run toward our enemy and embrace them. It just takes time. For me, it took time to really grasp that there are no deities (according to evidence) in the sense of other god-like entities but once I finally concluded that the evidence points in that direction, the "Atheist" label was easy. What a great point. Agreed. When I was a Christian, I had atheism pegged all wrong. Like you say, it seemed like an enemy of religion. But now as an atheist, it's really just about indifference to it all, living life with meaning as you see it. Not as the Bible or someone else sees it. Live and learn. Thanks for your insight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bayard Posted August 26, 2014 Share Posted August 26, 2014 Curious for those who have deconverted, do you still believe in a god or would you "categorize" yourself as an atheist? If you're an atheist, how did you go from believing in the existence of a deity to not? Just curious, look forward to hearing your stories. Atheist. All things considered I was atheist growing up, had my "religious phase" in college, and am now back to atheism. Reflecting back, I'm not sure that I ever really believed. As a Christian I never had any spiritual feel-good experiences and it always felt like I was trying to convince myself God existed. I was practical about my faith and decided action (being a good person) was more important than belief. Then I realized I didn't need Christianity to be a good person, and Christianity (besides making very little logical sense) was doing me more harm than good anyway, so I left. That's more or less my deconversion story. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themonkeyman Posted August 27, 2014 Share Posted August 27, 2014 I hope to follow in the Pathway of Polotinus and his concept of 'The One' and then everything radiates from this. I must stress 'The One' is not YAHWEH he would be considered 5 levels lower under / Demigods or Demiurge. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deidre Posted August 27, 2014 Author Share Posted August 27, 2014 Curious for those who have deconverted, do you still believe in a god or would you "categorize" yourself as an atheist? If you're an atheist, how did you go from believing in the existence of a deity to not? Just curious, look forward to hearing your stories. Atheist. All things considered I was atheist growing up, had my "religious phase" in college, and am now back to atheism. Reflecting back, I'm not sure that I ever really believed. As a Christian I never had any spiritual feel-good experiences and it always felt like I was trying to convince myself God existed. I was practical about my faith and decided action (being a good person) was more important than belief. Then I realized I didn't need Christianity to be a good person, and Christianity (besides making very little logical sense) was doing me more harm than good anyway, so I left. That's more or less my deconversion story. Hai Pari! Why did you try to convince yourself that a god existed? Just curious on that point. I like your comment that u realized you didn't need Christianity to be a good person. It doesn't make anyone a good person frankly. It just makes already good people label themselves "Christian." Or so it seems. lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deidre Posted August 27, 2014 Author Share Posted August 27, 2014 I hope to follow in the Pathway of Polotinus and his concept of 'The One' and then everything radiates from this. I must stress 'The One' is not YAHWEH he would be considered 5 levels lower under / Demigods or Demiurge. I'm unaware of this, I need to do some research. Sounds interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bayard Posted August 27, 2014 Share Posted August 27, 2014 Curious for those who have deconverted, do you still believe in a god or would you "categorize" yourself as an atheist? If you're an atheist, how did you go from believing in the existence of a deity to not? Just curious, look forward to hearing your stories. Atheist. All things considered I was atheist growing up, had my "religious phase" in college, and am now back to atheism. Reflecting back, I'm not sure that I ever really believed. As a Christian I never had any spiritual feel-good experiences and it always felt like I was trying to convince myself God existed. I was practical about my faith and decided action (being a good person) was more important than belief. Then I realized I didn't need Christianity to be a good person, and Christianity (besides making very little logical sense) was doing me more harm than good anyway, so I left. That's more or less my deconversion story. Hai Pari! Why did you try to convince yourself that a god existed? Just curious on that point. I like your comment that u realized you didn't need Christianity to be a good person. It doesn't make anyone a good person frankly. It just makes already good people label themselves "Christian." Or so it seems. lol Hi Deidre I don't know... like many others I guess I wanted the comfort and security of believing in some higher power, that everything happens for a reason, even the bad stuff. I wanted to believe God existed because the alternative was too scary at the time: that there is no grand metaphysical design behind the universe, that my relatives and ancestors and great minds throughout history had constructed their lives around a lie. So, in high school/early college I became convinced with the help of apologists like GK Chesterton and CS Lewis that Christianity really was the Truth*, and at that point it was just a matter of figuring out what denomination to join. History has always been my passion so I chose the branch of Christianity that's been the most consistent throughout history in its dogma, teachings, and practices. I figured Truth would never need to change and if Christ brought the Truth, the Early Church was the closest to that Truth, and the Orthodox Church was closest to the Early Church, since it has preserved their teachings and practices more so than any other denomination (for example, in their veneration of the patristics/Early Church fathers). Sorry for the long explanation. If my last post was my deconversion story, I guess this is my conversion story! *capitalized to illustrate how it's used in Orthodox theology, to denote holiness, like "God" or "Church" 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VacuumFlux Posted August 27, 2014 Share Posted August 27, 2014 Atheist. I suppose there's a small chance that some vast, ground-of-being sort of consciousness exists, but the facts of the world as I understand them make the most sense to me from a materialistic point of view. So I am fairly confident that Ultimate Reality is made up of itty bitty non-sentient things, and that sentience and consciousness come from huge numbers of those things being arranged in incredibly complex patterns, and them interacting with each other. But if the material universe can give rise to our consciousness, I suppose there's a faint chance that it could also produce something god-like. But so far, all my spiritual experiences can be explained as all "in my head", so if there is a god-like thing out there with an existence separate from us, I have yet to meet it. On the other hand, as long as I keep the previous paragraph in mind, I do sometimes find it useful to think of the world in a Jungian/animistic way. My brain's just really good at finding patterns (whether they exist or not) and attributing Mind to things (whether they actually have one or not), so why not find ways to turn that to my advantage? I mean, we still teach kids the Bohr model of the atom because it's useful, even though it's such a simplification of reality that it's wrong. VacuumFlux, This is fascinating. (Any time I see "Jung/ian," I pay closer attention.) Do you see an analogy between the Bohr model of the atom as an oversimplification, and religion's view of reality -- particularly the Christian model of the trinity? That is, just as quantum physics reveals what constitutes matter and what's beneath the atom, Jungian thought reveals what constitutes spiritual and psychological reality and what's behind and inside "God". Do you see a reasonable analogy in general between quantum physics and Jung's theory of archetypes? I noticed that suggesting the model of the atom being analogous to the model of the Christian trinity comes close to a panentheist view. I don't mean that. I'm feeling a bit deja vu, recalling some of what you posted on another thread. Thanks, Human I don't know, the trinity never made much sense to me even as a christian. I prayed to "God" or "Lord" as a powerful inhuman non-gendered spiritual entity, and never really got into praying to Jesus. I figured that they were all the same anyway, so what difference does it make? I now find more use from the Bodhisattvas or polytheistic pantheons, where you've got deities that are much more specific. Praying to a singluar Omnipotent Force just made me give up on doing any work myself and hoping for magic, while the more narrow deities leave me with ideas about actions I can take to improve the situation. I tend to prefer the Bodhisattvas because they're more like pure ideals; the polytheistic gods tend to have some unethical human traits that I'd prefer not to emulate. I think... stories have power, but like various scientific models, some are closer to the truth or more useful than others. I've seen christianity work for other people but it never worked well for me. Simplified scientific theories tend to be more generally useful than that; if you're going with the idea that religious stories help people to understand themselves, then humans are so individual that I wouldn't expect one set of stories to be universally useful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neverlandrut Posted August 27, 2014 Share Posted August 27, 2014 Going from Christian to Atheist is a scary process. From the Christian perspective, the term, "Atheist" conjures images of Satan worshipping, cannibals. So even after you discard the faith or the faith discards you, it's not like we naturally want to run toward our enemy and embrace them. It just takes time. For me, it took time to really grasp that there are no deities (according to evidence) in the sense of other god-like entities but once I finally concluded that the evidence points in that direction, the "Atheist" label was easy.I definitely relate. I was afraid of the atheist label until I came to understand what it really means, one who holds no belief in god(s). Also, understanding burden of proof and the difference between "atheist" and anti-theist helped.Neverlandrut, I'm still trying to understand the difference between them. Is an "anti-theist" view actually the presence of a belief which asserts or insists that there are no gods? That of course contrasts to atheism which is simply the absence of any and all beliefs that there are gods (and by extension all types of supernatural beings?). Is "anti-theism" what some people mean when they refer to "militant atheists" or "fundamentalist atheists"? So, in this sense, atheism and anti-theism are opposites. Also, I see now that people often misunderstand atheism to mean what anti-theism is (an actual belief against God and gods); and they therefore mistakenly call anti-theism "atheism." I use the coin analogy to keep it clear in my thinking. Heads would be anti-theism, the presence of a belief against God. And tails would be atheism, the absence of a belief for (or even against) God. Human That's pretty much it. Anti-theism is the position that religion is bad and/or harmful. You could call it militant atheism. It is fundamental opposition to religion. Atheism, itself, is not necessarily antagonistic to religion. I do consider myself anti-theistic in some respects, but not all. I can't deny the great social benefit people can get from religion, which is a good thing in itself. Although, many doctrines, I believe, are harmful. The doctrines of hell and vicarious redemption are among those. I list vicarious redemption because it leads one to believe that all they have to do is trust in Jesus and ask for forgiveness, and this absolves them of responsibility for their actions. All the while, everyone else who does take responsibility for their actions but simply fails to believe the "correct thing" are not forgiven. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bayard Posted August 27, 2014 Share Posted August 27, 2014 That's pretty much it. Anti-theism is the position that religion is bad and/or harmful. You could call it militant atheism. It is fundamental opposition to religion. Atheism, itself, is not necessarily antagonistic to religion. I do consider myself anti-theistic in some respects, but not all. I can't deny the great social benefit people can get from religion, which is a good thing in itself. Although, many doctrines, I believe, are harmful. The doctrines of hell and vicarious redemption are among those. I list vicarious redemption because it leads one to believe that all they have to do is trust in Jesus and ask for forgiveness, and this absolves them of responsibility for their actions. All the while, everyone else who does take responsibility for their actions but simply fails to believe the "correct thing" are not forgiven.Well said. I'm anti-theist in the respect that I think the world would be better off without organized religion, but also recognize the constraints in removing it. In many places, Russia for example, the church fills gaps that would otherwise be filled by NGOs and government welfare programs, but that don't exist or are too inefficient. History has shown that outlawing religion or removing it suddenly, as happened during the Bolshevik Revolution, has the opposite of the intended effect. Finally, the genetic/evolutionary component in religious belief needs to be better understood before successful anti-theist programs can be developed- the de- or anti-indoctrination campaign will take place mostly in science classes, but our scientific knowledge of the religious phenomenon needs to be expanded before we get there. It's possible we may never shake off religion fully due to our natural disposition towards it. Being ex-Christians, I think we can all empathize with the appeal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreeThinkerNZ Posted August 27, 2014 Share Posted August 27, 2014 Hard/strong atheism is sometimes confused with anti-theism. Hard/strong atheism is the belief that no gods exist, as opposed to soft/weak atheism, which is the lack of belief in gods. Anti-theism is separate from atheism. You can be atheist without being anti-theist. Anti-theism is opposition to theism/religion. I am happy to just be called an atheist, but to be accurate, I am an agnostic soft/weak atheist and anti-theist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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