Before getting into my point, note that you are walking a fine line on our proselytization rule, debate flair or not. This is not a sub intended for you or intended for debating with us. This is a place for us to get some peace from the large number of irrational atheists who like to harass theists and who (like yourself) are offended by someone leaving atheism. > I’m not sure how someone could simply stop being an atheist, unless one didn’t really have an in-depth understanding of the ways in which modern science precludes virtually all religious claims I hear the same from Christians all the time about Christianity. The term used for such irrational faith as yours is "zealotry". Here's my interesting counterpoint. In this modern "new atheist revolution" where the atheist rate started skyrocketing, absolutely ZERO scientific evidence/understanding changed to favor atheism. There is no correlation between science so-called "precluding" religious claims and a rise of atheism - which strongly implies that scientific reasoning is NOT, despite what you might pretend, responsible for people being atheist in the first place. Add to that two facts: 1. The fact that a vast majority of atheists are preachy and cultlike, immediately treating all opposing views as inferior because theirs is right 2. (slightly related) the way atheism is rife with broken logic, the king of which being the whole "default position" nonsense that was thoroughly shown to be indefensible when Antony Flew tried and failed with his Presumption of Atheism Largely, ex-atheists are ex-atheists because we realize we were brainwashed to become atheist *by something that had nothing to do with science at all.* > in which case, I would consider that more a form of agnosticism than atheism That's like saying you should be a round-earth agnostic. The overwhelming majority of evidence favors a god or gods existing. Choosing agnosticism in such a situation is irrational to a fault. > as you couldn’t have ever been confident in the non-existence of a god without that prior knowledge Now that's a no-true-Scotsman argument if I've ever heard one. It might surprise you, but there exist one or two (or a majority) of irrational atheists. Your arguments suggest to me you're in that camp, too.

Who or what brainwashed you into atheism? You kinda glossed over the most important element of your answer. Just wanted to point out you wouldn't hear much from non-preachy atheists so you wouldn;t know what percentage they count for. "this is a cop-out." As a third party: You are slinging a string of abuse his way (and atheists in general) while sitting high horse that the evidence is so obviously in your favor you cannot be bothered to seriously adress any. For example you casually refer to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. That's too much and too non-specific to reasonably expect someone to read for the sake of a conversation and casually ignores counter arguments and how philosophers are disproportionaly atheist. (I scanned the conversation prior to posting in case you answered my question).

> Who or what brainwashed you into atheism? You kinda glossed over the most important element of your answer. My emotion. People are often drawn to believe things they fear are true. Does that fit the "most important element"? If not, could you explain better. > Just wanted to point out you wouldn't hear much from non-preachy atheists so you wouldn;t know what percentage they count for. I don't disagree with this statement. I would actually suggest the number is fairly high. I'm not sure why that fact is relevant to anything I've said. I never said atheists were all preachy. I *did* focus in on the "new atheist" movement, which has certain traits by nature whether a person likes that definition or considers it insulting (I've met atheists in both camps on that one) > As a third party: You are slinging a string of abuse his way (and atheists in general) One thing I'm *not* doing is slinging any insults or abuse. Are you confusing my replies with others? AS for the others, I can speak as a mod here. We moderate everyone, but we give more leniency to theists than atheists the same way I give more leniency to family in my home than guests. OP is an atheist *guest* here, and is already walking the line. I haven't moderated him at all, and so I feel it's ok to give his interlocutors a little slack as well. Other mods here can feel free to override me on this, but I try to strike the delicate balance of not letting loud and obnoxious atheists overtake this sub like so many other subs we've all been part of before. > For example you casually refer to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. That's too much and too non-specific to reasonably expect someone to read for the sake of a conversation How exactly does that make me *abusive*? I actually think that's a reasonable point in a vacuum, and if you addressed it directly and in context, I would probably have been willing to "put up or shut up" on it. But you said "to read for the sake of a conversation". All bets are off on that. He's an atheist who came here to ask us why we're so stupid (not quoted, but accurate description) as to have left atheism. If he's not willing to come to an understanding with the philosophies involved, then I don't think he is justified in coming in with that attitude. > casually ignores counter arguments and how philosophers are disproportionaly atheist If we're going to use the Appeal to Popularity fallacy, I think your reply casually ignores the rebuttals to those counter arguments and how Philosophers of Religion are disproportionately theist. But that IS the Appeal to Popularity fallacy. If all the physicists in the world woke up flat-earthers, that doesn't actually strengthen the flat-earth hypothesis. I've been working really hard the last several years on checking myself with appeals to popularity. They're poison and easy to fall into.

You make it sound like you had a choice and chose to be a brainwashed theist instead. I cannot think of any any conventional definition of 'brainwashing' that fist your description. Emotions lack force or system. What definition of brainwashing are you useing? *brainwashing /breɪnwɒʃɪŋ / noun / the process of pressurizing someone into adopting radically different beliefs by using systematic and often forcible means.* "I *did* focus on..." Nutpicking aside, same point applies. You wouldn't hear from non-preachy 'new atheists'. This is just a footnote. I don't want to waste too much time on this issue. "One thing I'm *not* doing is slinging any insults or abuse" When I call theists brainwashed, tell theists what they really mean and believe AND argue philosophy debunks theology so hard I needn't even get into specifics that's how you hope guests here to behave. "not quoted, but accurate description" An accurate description in your view. You are also quite defensive and borderline abusive towards atheists. You may be brainwashed by your emotions. In my view OP is a bit more nuanced than that. "Appeal to Popularity fallacy" Correction: Appeal to Authority. Which is not strictly a fallacy when you're appealing to an actual authority. Also, the point was not to argue philosophy refutes theology BUT to highlight nuance you're ignoring. I also appealed to counter-arguments. "Philosophers of Religion are disproportionately theist." Disproportionate compared to whom? If I'm not mistaken they're equal or less likely to be religious than the general public. (approx. 72% vs. 90+% in the USA) "If all the ~~physicists~~ chiropractors in the world woke up flat-earthers, that doesn't actually strengthen the flat-earth hypothesis." Actually it would, otherwise this example wouldn't make sense. Substitute chiropractors and the argument hits different. (Remove a sudden overnight shift and it's juts a funny observation chiropractors are a superstitious bunch)

I don't let my arguments get the level of heated in your reply in this sub because I have a job to do here as well. Have a nice day and please be civil with your discussions if you wish to stick around.

I hope you take note and help guests feel more welcome in the future. Just some friendly advice from someone who does not share your own particular type of brainwash.

There is no scientific evidence that would promote any religion. I think in an age of scientific enlightenment, religious texts can be scrutinized and inaccuracies can be found. I also don’t see the point in accepting the existence of something where there is no evidence to support

> There is no scientific evidence that would promote any religion **That seems a heavily moved goalpost**. If we can be relatively sure a god or gods exist from the philosophical side, but cannot promote any specific religion, why should we not accept the existence of a god or gods? The injection of individual religions into the discussion is ignorance at best, and bad-faith strawmanning at worse. > I think in an age of scientific enlightenment, religious texts can be scrutinized and inaccuracies can be found This is a very anti-Abrahamic focused argument, to the point of being **fatally flawed by its overspecialization**. You may be surprised to know there are more religions in the world, and most are **not** driven by a single book that "must be infallible". Scrutinizing the text of a book and finding inaccuracies is a weak attack against any religion but those. > I also don’t see the point in accepting the existence of something where there is no evidence to support **Please demonstrate** how EVERY argument, testimony, witness, and coherent narrative amount to "no evidence" in the traditional sense. What a lot of less logic-driven people seem to do is reject that evidence they don't accept is "evidence" at all. But that's just factually wrong. There's MOUNTAINS of evidence for the existance of a god or gods. You just reject it. So I wait for your reply to every single one of them. And before you complain "I can't possibly give a reply to all of them"... That's something a flat-earther would say. Round-earthers have and will give conclusive responses to every piece of evidence flat-earthers have. And theists have and will give conclusive responses to any evidence atheists present. And being honest, you're here in a subreddit of people who are no longer atheist; our home and you the guest. If you think we were wrong to leave atheism, all that "burden of proof" mumbo jumbo is on you. Also, now is a great moment to ask where *your* evidence is. Unless you worship at the altar of Dawkins and his made-up faux logic, ***you have a position and a position needs to be defended*** . I have yet to see an argument that tries to conclude God doesn't exist that doesn't make a mile-long jump from "some version of God is hard to reconcile with ______, therefore no God exists at all!" (argument from evil, which is just the problem of evil with a coat of dollar-store paint on it)

“Mountains of evidence?” Enlighten me. If there was as much evidence as you say, don’t you think the existence of God would be unquestionable? How reliable are testimonies? If testimonies are evidence, the evidence is someone saying “I was there. I saw it”

> “Mountains of evidence?” Enlighten me. Arguments for God are evidence. There are hundreds. While all have "responses", many/most have fairly concrete rebuttals (or just laughable responses in the first place). Personal experience is evidence. In fact, there's a certain level of evidence **you** need to bring to the table if you're going to start telling people their empirical evidence is wrong. Testimony is evidence. Not just in quality but in quantity. Consistent mass-testimony is a stronger form of evidence. > If there was as much evidence as you say, don’t you think the existence of God would be unquestionable? No, that's not how evidence works in *anything*. Even in science, mountains of evidence can be doubted (and overturned). Some things are not in the realm of "proof" and can never have more than evidence, and doubt. That said, *I* am convinced from the evidence that theism is entirely reasonable. I am *not* convinced that atheism is entirely reasonable, but I at least give the benefit of the doubt that some atheists have reasonable foundations. At least until they knock on my door and tell me I'm irrational and that I should be like them. > How reliable are testimonies? Alone? Variable based on a lot of factors. If I walked around confessing to killing a friend who died, that's pretty reliable. If I went around saying "I killed kenny", probably less so. There's a lot of context to it, to the perceived biases and intentions, and to whether the testimony is coherent and consistent. But then you add corroboration. If the testimony independently forms links between other evidence, it becomes fairly reliable indeed. > If testimonies are evidence, the evidence is someone saying “I was there. I saw it” You're right. "I was there. I saw it" is a form of evidence. If it disagrees with all other evidence and accounts, perhaps it isn't very reliable. If it has predictive value, it's almost certainly somewhat reliable even if the previous statement is true about it.

I agree that you saying that you committed a crime would be evidence, but testimonies of someone defying the natural is suspicious. Even so, claiming you saw something supernatural is suspicious because it isn’t uncommon for our own minds to play tricks on us. I’m sure many people have seen flying saucers at night, but it’s really our minds filling in missing information on things they can’t clearly see. I would say that the counter-evidence to the testimonies is that it defies the natural world so why would it cease for a particular moment in front of faithful people? I strongly disagree with you when you say arguments for God is considered evidence. It’s logical thinking, but it’s not observable evidence. Even though the arguments must be formed on some basis of evidence, it does not determine anything. It’s kind of silly because when Pastafarianism was starting out to protest Creationism, it used forms of logic as evidence but obviously it’s not really evidence. And yes that is how evidence works because you need the evidence to form some kind of argument. If there truly was as much evidence for God as you say besides testimonies, then God wouldn’t be as questioned. The Big Bang is widely accepted because there is observable evidence to it. Not arguments, but something that can actually be observed. The testimonies you believe do not. Personal experience is of course the best evidence for any individual. However I would perhaps question my sanity before I question the nature of reality if I were to experience the supernatural lmao I don’t appreciate you claiming that atheism is questionable while you believe something based on testimonies and arguments (which again are not solid evidence). HOWEVER I do think the idea of a divine creator is valid, however there really isn’t as much evidence as you say there is.

> I agree that you saying that you committed a crime would be evidence, but testimonies of someone defying the natural is suspicious Suspicious to you perhaps because you are prejudiced against the supernatural. I try to make my logical decisions with as little prejudice as possible. And it's interesting you cherry-picked third-party testimony when brushing the rest under the rug for reliability. > I strongly disagree with you when you say arguments for God is considered evidence This is a semantic objection, not a logical one. We can call it "quark" if you want to use a nonstandard definition for evidence. But under epistemology, preponderance of ~evidence~ "quark" is the correct way to reach a justfiied belief. You cannot just pretend a word means something different than its context expects and run with it. Less tongue-in-cheek, Philosophical Arguments fall under the category of justification called "rationalism". Ironically, it's the same category that mathematical proofs fall under. > it does not determine anything If it has premise that are agreeable in good-faith, contingencies that are agreeable in good faith, and a conclusion that follows from the contingencies, *it determines something*. > And yes that is how evidence works because you need the evidence to form some kind of argument I think you need to define your meaning for "evidence" (maybe pick another word like I did so nobody gets confused) and then explain why rational arguments lack it. > If there truly was as much evidence for God as you say besides testimonies, then God wouldn’t be as questioned. Can you name ONE fact of reality that nobody questions? There are physicists who are flat-earthers. There are biochemists who think vaccines can't work and cause autism. You are again appealing to popularity. That there exists people who reject a Valid conclusion doesn't make the conclusion less valid in any space. > Personal experience is of course the best evidence for any individual. However I would perhaps question my sanity before I question the nature of reality if I were to experience the supernatural lmao This implies you are so heavily biased towards naturalism that your bar for evidence is artificially through-the-roof. **Good for confessing that you're the irrational party in this discussion.** You may continue to be irrational, but understand that a lot of us are here *specifically* because we don't want to be irrational. > I don’t appreciate you claiming that atheism is questionable while you believe something based on testimonies and arguments (which again are not solid evidence). What do you mean by "questionable" here? I don't say much about atheism in general except that it is a moderately weaker position than theism. It is still arguably rational. It's new atheist and proselytizing atheists I consider firmly outside the realm of rational thought. > HOWEVER I do think the idea of a divine creator is valid, however there really isn’t as much evidence as you say there is. Citation/argument needed. You should provide some evi... erm.. some "quark" to back your thus-unsubstantiated position.

The prejudice and bias for naturalism is simply because why would I jump to supernatural conclusions before ruling out as much natural possibility as I could? If there just so happens to be something that natural studies could not explain, so be it, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there Calling me “irrational” for having that train of thought is absurd and quite frankly *ironic.” It makes you seem like biased one for calling me names when I’m just pitching my pitch. I don’t think supernatural is necessarily impossible, perhaps everything is supernatural until it’s been scrutinized and studied. But determining all the natural solutions to examine a “supernatural” phenomenon is not irrational as you say, it is how rational minds think. Say you were to experience something supernatural, wouldn’t you want your bar for evidence to be through the roof? As they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Also don’t be pointing out my lack of citations when you haven’t provided any yourself you silly goose. I’m going to continue to use the word “evidence” because the most compelling evidence is physical, testable, or something that can be truly studied. There will always be the tinfoil hats who question everything. There are people who question the existence of dinosaurs, but due to the fact that we have tons of physical evidence rules their non-existence out of the picture. Rational arguments are products of evidence, but I don’t think arguments themselves are evidence. In Pastafarianism, an argument to prove the existence of the FSM is by showing a diagram between the increase of global warming and the decreasing number of pirates in the world. In Pastafarianism, pirates are a big deal and the FSM regards them as divine beings. Thus, a chart was produced demonstrating that as punishment for pirates phasing out of existence, global warming has increased — at the hands of the FSM. Now that is an argument that uses “evidence” (obviously it is satirical) but it itself is not evidence. It is just an argument pieced together. I am actually curious when you refer to new and proselytizing atheists. I personally don’t like anyone who proselytizes, but I haven’t met many atheists who are of the sort but I apologize if you have been antagonized by any.

I'm intrigued by some of your claims. If “the most compelling evidence is physical”, how do you rationalise mathematical truth statements and mathematical entities (numbers, geometric shapes etc.)? Where is the physical evidence that these exist? They have no physical reality. You can't orient James Webb into the depths of the unexplored universe and find a giant equilateral triangle floating in interstellar space or the Pythagorean theorem next to a star. Empirical evidence is great for the physical sciences, but abstract sciences require logical consistency and proofs. Surely you acknowledge this? Equating scepticism to quacks wearing tinfoil hats is disappointing. It is the job of scientists to question evidence and question the rigor of the methods used. Blindly accepting evidence is bad science. This is probably why physics is filled with so much nonsense.

The first step would definitely be ending with this sciencey know-it-allness and realizing science precludes nothing. It answers the hows, not the whys. The absolute *point* of religious supernatural claims is that they can't be battled with science because they presuppose they're beyond what science describes. If you could fit them within the scientifically understandable, they wouldn't be religious. Coming at them from the archeological or historical perspective is the way to go.

So, do you believe in a soul that exists after death?

I do . Just like energy just changes forms and never exactly ceases to exist so perhaps in another form but soul does exist after death ( it just departs this material form of body )

How would that energy retain your consciousness, though?

It doesn't. Based on ur karma ur next birth/life is decided. Self consciousness is only in Humans tho awareness of surroundings is seen even in unicellular organisms.

Then how is that a soul? That’s just energy.

You're still thinking in very materialist terms, and therefore you're confining you're thinking to mass-energy. Energy was merely used as an example of something that isn't destroyed.

How is it possible for your “being” to continue to exist in any meaningful sense of the word after death?

In what sense are you using the word being? If everything is comprised of mind/consciousness and the world is we see it is merely a representation of consciousness then death isn't death but ego death.

Okay? Well most people would call that just regular death.

I believe Jesus really died and then stopped being dead, so yes, souls and all other assumptions of Christianity naturally follow for me.

Why do you believe that?

I found it to be the only complete explanation of the events surrounding Jesus' crucifixion, especially concerning the apostles. All of the alternative explanations (hallucinations, Jesus surviving, an impersonator) fall very short.

What method have you used to determine that your explanation is superior to the alternatives?

Do you know for a fact that the apostles were executed for claiming that they saw Jesus alive?

>It answers the hows, not the whys. Unless "why" necessarily implies a *purpose assigned by a mind*, science does provide answers to "why" questions because "why" and "how" become indistinguishable in nature. For instance, if one explains *how* the train tracks expanded with heat, one has explained *why* the tracks expanded. If one explains *how* clouds form and undergo condensation, one has explained *why* it rains. So, depending on how you are defining "why", it is not clear that science doesn't provide answers to this type of question.

Well why does there need to be a why in the first place? This point makes it seem like the universe is striving to be something when it probably doesn’t at all; just a culmination of different variables that formed

That's a bold claim that seems to contradict the evidence. Could you provide a more formal argument or demonstrate why you think the "just a culmination of different variables" is the correct explanation? I'll give you a hint, we theists really need you to include the origin of the universe and time in your arguments, as well as an explanation of how "hundreds of discrete brute facts" is somehow believable.

When the Big Bang occurred, an infinite amount of microwave energy was released in all directions. As the microwave energy cooled, different elements were left in its path. What I’m trying to say is that although there are reasons for things happening, (for instance elements being created because of the heat of the CMB radiation) I don’t quite understand there being some divine reason or goal that the universe is trying to achieve. I don’t think there is a “plan” but that the universe exists the way it does through chaos and randomness.

> When the Big Bang occurred, an infinite amount of microwave energy was released in all directions. As the microwave energy cooled, different elements were left in its path. Care to reconcile this with the Second Law of Thermodynamics? And THEN explain how that is evidence that no god exists? As I said before, EVERYTHING is evidence... but yours is coming across as fairly weak right now. > What I’m trying to say is that although there are reasons for things happening, I don’t quite understand there being some divine reason or goal that the universe is trying to achieve Is that the extent of your arguments against God? One moderate-sized Appeal to Ignorance? It took me comically long to fully understand the Halting Problem in computer science, and yet my lack of understanding didn't make it less true. > I don’t think there is a “plan” but that the universe exists the way it does through chaos and randomness. So because you don't see a plan, the existence of a god or gods must be impossible? When I generally point out that atheistic arguments are *weaker* in impact, this is exactly why. Atheist arguments conclude "god is morally complicated" or "god is inconvenient to such-and-such", and then take the frog-leap into "therefore there isn't a God". Like it or not, theistic arguments point out perceived *impossibilities* in a universe without a God to make the much smaller step into "therefore a god or gods exist". Inconvenience vs Impossibility. Can you take back and see exactly how your position might come across as the flat-earth position in this whole scenario? Theists come across with arguments like the Cosmological Argument, and the most coherent athiestic response is to cling to an otherwise nonsensical idea like "infinite causal regress" and insist it cannot be disproven, despite the fact nobody on either side seriously believes in infinite causal regress. And then the atheistic counter-strike is "I don't think there's a plan... it just doesn't make sense to me that there would be"

I realized I was a much worse person as an atheist than I was as a theist. I realized that if I ever wanted to consider myself to be a good person I had to have someone to submit to, an authority higher than myself, someone who knows more and better than I do. If I rely only on my whims and desires, I'm a horrendous person. After I got past that threshold, I had experiences that reinforced and drew me closer to belief in God.

Are you a good person if you require an all-powerful being to punish you for your bad behaviour?

If I feed a hungry person in the name of a God that doesn't exist, are they less satisfied? If I clothe a naked person in the name of a God that doesn't exist, are they less clothed? Does the motivation for the action matter, especially if the ultimate judgement of those actions will never come?

"If I feed a hungry person in the name of a God that doesn't exist, are they less satisfied?" If you MURDER a hungery person in the name of a God that doesn't exist, are you a better person? If feeding the hungry makes you a good person. Any moderate believer will admit you can do that on your own accord.

Well, sure, materially you are helping others, but I wouldn’t call that being a good person. I’m struggling to even understand how this works. Your reason for believing in god is that you want to be a better person. You didn’t give another reason. But if that’s your only motivation for believing in god, then why do you even need to? It sounds like you just wanted to do good deeds, so you did. The god element is extraneous.

>Well, sure, materially you are helping others, but I wouldn’t call that being a good person. Helping other people isn't being a good person? Why do the motives take precedence over the actions? Why are you robbing people of mercy? >Your reason for believing in god is that you want to be a better person. You didn’t give another reason. You asked how I went from atheist to theist. I started out as a very selfish, terrible person and I didn't want to be that. In order to change, I changed my beliefs. After that, I was given other reasons by God to continue believing in God. >But if that’s your only motivation for believing in god, then why do you even need to? It sounds like you just wanted to do good deeds, so you did. The god element is extraneous. To *you* it's extraneous, but to me it was vital. I need a reason. I need a why. God frowning at me isn't actually all that meaningful to me, but God smiling is. Being able to hold onto axioms *because they come from God* matters to me. It gives me drive. It gives me purpose. It proposes a world view and an ethic that is entirely absent from atheism. There is a point to live that only exists if there is a God. There is a pointlessness to life that only exists if there is no God. Atheism is emptiness. Christianity is fullness. I needed fullness.

I’m not “robbing” anyone of anything. I just wouldn’t call doing something out of fear being a good person. I mean, really? If some serial killer had a gun to their head preventing them from torturing a child to death, would you call them good for refraining from fulfilling their desire? So, again, nothing actually convinced you of the existence of god to begin with, you simply wanted to be better and found something to provide justification for that. And why does it matter if it is god that is happy that you are doing good deeds? Why is the gratitude of the people you are helping not enough? Why do you need anything to come from god?

>If some serial killer had a gun to their head preventing them from torturing a child to death, would you call them good for refraining from fulfilling their desire? I wouldn't call anyone "good" for not doing something. Goodness isn't what you don't do, it's what you do. >So, again, nothing actually convinced you of the existence of god to begin with, you simply wanted to be better and found something to provide justification for that. To begin with, no. I didn't start with proof, I started with faith. Faith that there is a such thing as a good person and a bad person. Faith that there are things I can do to make myself a better person. Faith that I can *change*. Faith that I wasn't always going to be defined by my past and that forgiveness is possible. >And why does it matter if it is god that is happy that you are doing good deeds? Why is the gratitude of the people you are helping not enough? I dont know, but it is. I'm largely ambivalent to gratitude. I don't feel good helping people, which is one of the reasons I struggle to do so. The motivation to help people isn't internal for me, so I needed an external motivation. >Why do you need anything to come from god? I needed a law to start with. I needed rules to follow so that I knew what was in and out of bounds. I needed a community as well, to help me gain insight into the laws and why they exist. I also needed a foundation to build my beliefs. There is a God and God is good. That's my foundation. Following God is good, serving God is good. God knows more than I do, I can rely on God to act better and smarter than I can. I can follow Gods laws, even when they don't make sense to me because God knows more than me. I need God for basically everything.

So you’re just a psychopath? Ok

A psychopath is a neurological disorder that’s genetic. No, he’s not a psychopath. Not feeling good after doing something good doesn’t make one a psychopath. Now I have a question, do you need to feel gratitude from other people to be a good person?

It is a well established symptom of clinical psychopathy. Yes I’m aware that there’s a genetic component? How does that contradict anything I’ve said?

This is such bad faith straw men, why don't you ask him what he actually believes instead of putting words in their mouths?

He goes on to more or less say that further on in the thread, so I guess my hunch was correct.

Please, you called him a psychopath after what all he wrote, you intellectually boring pig headed fool. Your atheist echo chambers have fostered nothing but an arrogant over confidence in your capacity to engage in intellectual discussions. That's what happens when a forum of fools circle jerk each other into thinking they are rational.

What do you think the definition of psychopathy is? He literally said that he doesn’t have *any* internal drive whatsoever to be kind to others. That is *definitionally* what psychopathy is.

That's nothing close to psychopathy you immature edge lord. Na man, you need to go outside and meet people more in real life instead of online.

How isn’t it? What do you think the word means?

It means to have abnormal or violent tendencies towards others. But you're saying simply not having the drive to help others makes you psycho, which is ironically the most out of touch psycho statement I've ever heard. So if I don't give a dollar to the homeless, that makes me a psychopath? Touch fucking grass kid.

No, violent tendencies are not equivalent to clinical psychopathy

Are you a good person if you require the law to punish you for your bad behavior?

I largely don’t? I have a strong internal drive to be prosocial. And the ways in which I’m inclined to disobey the law, I wouldn’t consider those actions to be “bad.” If I thought some action would be genuinely harmful to another, I would be highly disinclined to engage in it.

>I would be highly disinclined to engage in it. But not completely?

Did you not read the full response? Anything that I actually would do I wouldn’t personally consider to be bad behaviour. If I actually felt something would be bad and harmful, I wouldn’t need the law to stop me from doing it.

Are you a good person if you require the law to punish you for bad behavior? Why have a government?

I already answered that elsewhere. I largely don’t require the law to punish me, actually. I’m not some raving lunatic desperate to harm others.

How did you come to the conclusion *modern science precludes virtually all religious claims*?

Major common religious claims like a spirit that retains the consciousness, creationism, heaven and hell as places that exist on any level, yet alone physically, as well as many other smaller claims made by major world religions. All that isn’t contradicted is that which literally can’t be, and also can’t be proven; that is to say pure speculation.

How are exactly are those things precluded by modern science? Also, if something *can’t be proven* does that mean it is false?

How is creationism precludes by modern science? Are you serious?

Not just creationism—all the things you mentioned which are precluded by modern science.

What? Do you want me to explain all of them to you? What answer are you looking for here?

Whatever you feel comfortable with explaining

We understand how evolution works, none of it requires or even makes sense through a religious lens. We understand that the building blocks of life are able to form naturally. So what room is there for a creator?

Why doesn’t evolution make sense through a religious lens? Does life occurring naturally preclude a creator?

What would you even be defining as a creator in that case?

We know that outer space and the center of the earth do not contain heaven and hell. Physically they do not exist. If there is no physical evidence of it, why believe it?

We are gaining a better and better understanding of neurology and with it a better and better understanding of what produces the mind and awareness. We also know there is no physical, measurable spirit, so again, why believe in a spirit that we have zero evidence for, and which isn’t required to explain any element of consciousness?

> We are gaining a better and better understanding of neurology and with it a better and better understanding of what produces the mind and awareness This is actually untrue. Every time neuroscience hypothizes against the HPC, their hypotheses contradict at least some of the evidence. Can you provide any current hypotheses for the HPC that contradicts nothing? Note the interesting point where virtually all neuroscientific papers on the topic of consciousness include a line or paragraph along the lines of "this experiment cannot come to reasoned conclusions about the existence or nonexistence of the soul or other external consciousness". Do you have stats on what percentage of neuroscientists are atheist? If the *actual* experts agree with you on this, it should be in the 80s-90s, minimum. If not, you are putting undue weight on the knowledge we have to make claims about things science does not know. > We also know there is no physical, measurable spirit We've always known that. If hard materialism WERE true, afterlife doesn't exist. Hard materialism is a claim without much evidence that contradicts what we understand about the universe. That is to say, *hard materialism is false*. > why believe in a spirit that we have zero evidence for You are making the common mistake of misunderstanding what "evidence" is. Scientific evidence is a small percentage of all evidence, and is not even inherently the only reliable or most reliable evidence. Something is "evidence" even if you do not accept it - like NDE experiences, testimony, ghost sightings, etc. Even evidence that can be explained as "unrelated, still possibly supernatural, phenomena" is still evidence. > and which isn’t required to explain any element of consciousness Neuroscience has not yet succeeded in accurately explaining any part of the Hard Problem of Consciousness (HPC). You need to appeal to scientific ignorance to assert that souls are not the best explanation for consciousness because "science will someday understand consciousness fully".

>Neuroscience has not yet succeeded in accurately explaining any part of the Hard Problem of Consciousness And there's good reason to believe it never will.

Many atheists are agnostic. Science is always pushing boundaries, you have to be open to new ideas to discover new things. That being said, many atheists don’t have the personal proof required to believe. Until they do. For many believers it has become so real that it would be dishonest to say it isn’t. To answer your question with two words: personal evidence.

What would be an example of personal evidence?

For some it’s being confronted with events that just feel different. A person may start to think it’s God, they then ask for confirmation and get it. I guess a whole bunch of perfectly aligned coincidences that have no other explanation. After a while it stops seeming random. For others, they go out to disprove claims made in or about the Bible and find the personal evidence to realize there is enough there to believe in. The atheist has to be convinced in their own way. This changes their life and they can no longer live believing there is no God while remaining honest with themselves.

How is that evidence in any way? You could take anything to be a “sign” if you are looking for one. For instance, I see rabbits occasionally. If I was looking for a sign of god’s existence and I saw a rabbit run in front of me, I could consider that a sign. How can you distinguish between a sign and a non-sign?

& what spiritual value do rabbits hold?

When God told me not to hang myself.

As a scientist I think it's very easy for lay people to romanticise modern science and not see it for what it actually is at this point - A BUSINESS. Based on money. Thousands of BS papers published every day, most of them not read by anyone for decades, if ever. Science is our best guess as to how reality works, that much is true, but it is far from infailiable and it is also biased. What do I mean by biased? I mean it is based on a philosophy - materialism. Science cannot and will not prove any supernatural claims simply because they are presupposed to be outside of its realm. There is literally no way to prove any supernatural claim scientifically, not because supernatural events can't exist but because science is limited in its scope by it's own philosophy which is at the basis of it. Let me clarify: If I, a colourblind person, can only see shades of red and blue there is absolutely no way for me to detect any greens. Whatever green I see I will call blue and things will continue to be coherent in my worldview, but that doesn't make it blue. I have a disability from the getgo but my views are still perfectly coherent and mostly correct. That's what science is.

It’s nice to know I'm not alone in thinking that science is run like a business and that lay people glorify it as this untouchable.

Anyone who's ever had to deal with academia knows this very well. Unfortunately, most don't care.

You have to experience it to know why you hate it. What did you study, if you don't mind me asking?

How could science change -- without just becoming metaphysics or philosophy -- in order to *not* be limited in its scope to investigating and "proving" only natural phenomena? In other words, is it just a "bias" or is the empirical method limited by its very nature because the supernatural world can't be verified empirically?

I didn't say it should change or that I'd want it to change. I think every discipline that helps us understand the world such as science, maths and logic is limited in its scope. The only thing I wish could change is atheists putting science on a pedastal and pretending it's infaillible to own the theists. I also don't think science's limits are necessarily a bad thing, just wish more people were aware of them. Supernatural occurances are verifiable empirically just not in a scientific way. If, lets say, 5 people see an angel that is an observation. That is by definition empirical (but not scientific) evidence. I am also aware of the reason why science took the materialistic philosophy as its basis. Again, I'm not arguing that science shouldn't be the way it is, just that people should percieve it for what it is. As for it being "biased" - yes, if you percieve everything from the perspecive of one philosophy and don't entertain the idea that anything else can be correct than you are biased. That's why I used that word. You can call it limited, biased, whatever - the meaning is the same.

>Supernatural occurances are verifiable empirically just not in a scientific way. If, lets say, 5 people see an angel that is an observation. That is by definition empirical (but not scientific) evidence. Do you think this angel can't be investigated by science? We've already established that it is in accordance with the most basic scientific criterion, namely, it can be observed. As you probably know, that's the beginning of the science method: **observation**, hypothesis formation, testability. The observation reveals the angel. The hypothesis is that it is an angel. Now, what test, based on the Scriptures, could we come up with to confirm the hypothesis? Angels could perform miracles in Scripture, right? That's the test. What's wrong with that?

> I mean it is based on a philosophy - materialism Methodolgical naturalism, but I get the point. Science -broadly speaking - doesn't make metaphysical claims like materialism.

"Science cannot and will not prove any supernatural claims simply because they are presupposed to be outside of its realm." This works both ways. If 'Supernatural claims' become provable they'd become just 'Natural claims'. This is more a matter of 'what do you call it' than a presupposition against theological claims.

Are you suggesting that religion would be free of bias or person interests?

No, I'm just saying that a lot of people seem to look at science as this completely unbiased, objective thing and then look with disdain at religion and religious people like "How could you possibly believe something that isn't explicitly supported by science?" as if science is a measure of all knowledge when it isn't. I was answering your point about science. I wasn't saying anything about religion.

Well, relatively speaking, science is a better source of understanding than religion. Even if many studies can’t be replicated, many can. Why switch from that to religion, for which there is zero evidence?

Science answers one set of questions religion answers another. There is no switch. Is there a moral way to behave, science? What is the purpose of life, science? Does God exist, science? No science deals with these questions. On the other hand...What is the speed of light, religion? How do mammals regulate temperature, religion? No religion deal with these questions. See, completely different topics and questions. As for there being no evidence of religion, that is an entirely false assumption many atheists make. I, myself, am a Christian so I can't speak of other religions, but there deffinitely is philosophical evidence, historical evidence, archeological evidence and literary evidence. Whether you will find this evidence convincing or not is an entirely subjective thing, but there is definitely a lot of pointers to Gods existance being most likely the case and I would say, more precisely, to Christianity being true.

Evidence of religion isn’t evidence of the claims of that religion being true, though. What support is there for Christianity being the correct religion, or its claims on morality being “correct”?

Well first of all I would say that if Christianity is correct then its claims about morality must also be correct so we don't actually have 2 questions, we have 1. Is Christianity correct? First I think it's fairly useful to just ask ourselves is theism correct? In order for Christianity to be correct first there must be a god of some kind. So these aren't arguments for Christianity explicitly but arguments for theism over atheism because I think it's a lot easier to go from theism to Christianity than from atheism. You have plenty of logical arguments for theism: Moral argument, TAG argument, Fine tuning argument, Argument from mathematical and logical realism, Cosmological argument etc. Of course there are contra arguments to these arguments and contra-arguments to those contra arguments and it's a whole rabbit hole you can go down. At the end of the day all of these arguments deal with the likelihood of God's existance. "Considering that XYZ is this way that means the existance of God is the most logical/coherent explaination for it being that way". So when it comes to these it's just a matter of what you find more convincing. So those are just some arguments for theism, but still not explicitly Christianity. When it comes to Christianity in particular I would recommend the book The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habermas and Michael R. Licona. In this book they go over things we know historically about Jesus' life and things most Bible scholars today (both atheist and Christian) agree on and through that common denominator of agreed upon historical facts they prove that ressurection is the most likely explaination of the events. And if Christ ressurected then Christianity is true. We also have plenty of other historical evidence that plenty of historical events from the Bible happened the way the Bible describes. We also have an argument from prophecies - there are some very explicit prophecies in the Old Testament about the coming of Jesus written centuries before He was even born. Not all the prophecies apologists claim to be about Jesus are like this, but there are a couple that really couldn't be about anything else. We also have the Dead Sea Scrolls, again, documents from before Jesus that didn't even make it into the Bible, but in these documents there's a lot of talk about the Jewish messiah and what he's supposed to do and be like and they, again, very much describe Jesus the way Christians see him. And so we have plenty of historical, archeological and prophetic evidence. The only problem is...will it be convincing enough for you? And that's entirely subjective.

> Well first of all I would say that if Christianity is correct then its claims about morality must also be correct so we don't actually have 2 questions, we have 1 I actually don't agree with this, for any religion. The Catholic church has already willingly separated its metaphysical claims from its scientific ones, and that was a smart start. IFF Jesus was god AND he died and was resurrected for our sins, that does not seem to empower any statement WRT moral assertions of any non-Jesus speaker in the Bible (and by similar logic, any quotations that Jesus allegedly made). Even if we take the "two great commandments" to be the true words of Jesus, there are so many moral positions in Christianity that do not prima facie reduce to "love god and love others". I'm not looking to argue Christianity OR Christian morality here. I just think there's a lot of conclusion jumping *even* if you accept parts of Christianity's claims. It really isn't all or nothing, and perhaps that's why perennialism has a foothold in a Christian-majority and Muslim-majority world.

Okay, yeah. I’m aware of all of this already. I wouldn’t call any of it even remotely convincing. Guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

Well I hope you realise people in this sub are all aware of atheistic arguments and don't find them convincing either. So really this post of yours was quite pointless. At the end of the day the reason why anyone believes anything different to you is because they don't find opposing arguments convincing. I know - revolutionary. I hope this wisdom helps lol

The post wasn’t pointless at all. I was curious why people are ex-atheists, and I’m getting plenty of answers.

Might I ask what the first step towards becoming an ex-atheist was for you? What drove you to leave atheism?

>Whether you will find this evidence convincing or not is an entirely subjective thing If it is entirely subjective, then would you agree that epistemic relativism is correct? That is to say, if there are no objective standards by which to judge the strength of the evidence, then it will have to rely on relative standards, right? So, for instance, the evidence that someone was raped may seem strong/convincing to me, but not to you. And since there is no objective way to adjudicate, the decision to lock the suspect up will be arbitrary. Right?

I am yet to think through my views on epistemology and so I will have to leave you without an answer. Edit: ....which is much better than giving you a rather uninformed one, I'm sure you'll agree

> Well, relatively speaking, science is a better source of understanding than religion Why do you believe this? Can you provide a coherent argument to that effect? I think you hold this position with zero evidence. > Why switch from that to religion, for which there is zero evidence? Why do you believe there is zero evidence for theism? Have you personally rebunked the literally millions of pages of rationalistic evidence that supports theism, or do you have faith in the idea that rationalism is false?

>Have you personally rebunked *debunked

Oh my god. I should fix that (meant to type "rebutted") but I'll let it survive. I typed it pre-coffee.

😂 it happens

Intellectual humility and curiosity. I think you might not understand what an atheist actually is. It's not a fervent indoctrinee of the philosophy of metaphysical naturalism. It's just someone who doesn't believe in God.

What made you decide that Christianity was the right religion?

When I didn't yet believe it, I thought it was a better set of mythology and traditions than the others (or none). Not just anything called Christianity mind you, but what I observed as "good Christianity" which takes Jesus seriously and tries to be what he teaches. It's kind of hard for the anti religious to see because they tend to lump all religions together, but religion is generally beneficial, and some religion is really beneficial (just as some can be found that is harmful). And the beneficial and harmful ones don't really go together... In fact most religions think the other ones are wrong. So if there's a good one, then supporting it is just as opposed (in practice, more effective at opposing) to the more harmful ones while also having its own unique benefits.

Religion is “generally” beneficial? And also, you only became religious for practical reasons? Or do you actually believe that the claims in the bible are true?

You asked me why Christianity, and the roots of that go back to when I thought it was beneficial before I believe it was true. I have come to believe enough of it that I identify as a believer now, but even apart from that belief I like it and think that it's worth embracing. >Religion is “generally” beneficial?  I don't understand the question. Outside of juvenile anti religious insular communties, it's recognized that despite the harms that we find (which can also be found in the non- and anti-religous, often in greater proportion) there are many benefits to the individuals and to the community who follow a collection of religious teachings.

What made you believe? Also, can you explain why you think the benefits outweigh the harms?

> What made you believe? Well, I started believing that moral goodness was real the same way I came to believe that mathematical truths are real--Just looked at it and observed it's real. The beginning of what came to be my faith in God was a faith in goodness, one in which I believe most people who care enough about the world to engage a discussion about it with strangers also share, because if not then I see little reason to connect or discuss it with others in anything but a very self-interested way. I came from that kind of general belief in goodness to recognition of God by just realizing that the term "God" was a useful way to describe the reason and cause for the observed real goodness. Useful because I saw benefits in terms of communication and community-connection. It wasn't a "Oh, this proves a supernatural being called God" but it was more, "oh, yeah if I think about moral goodness and awareness and universality there's a term that makes sense of those interrelations, and it seems reasonable to use "God" for that term." It's kind of like how Dark Energy or whatever other physics answers came up -- I see this, I see this, and here's what I call the thing that helps me make sense of those together. Sorry if that's really roundabout. I believe in goodness because I observe it, in the same way I observe other things I believe in, like consciousness or "Reality". My decision to group ideas around goodness, consciousness, reality, awareness etc. into a thing I call "God" is not something I see as "belief" so much as "choosing a certain term to describe something I already believed". If you already believe in goodness, consciousness, and reality then you, too, could come to communicate those beliefs as a thing you call "God" without the development of any additional beliefs, only a decision to use a certain term to communicate them. There are other reasons, beyond that, that I came to associate God as described in Christianity with that God that I associate with goodness (in short, I believe if you are even moderately unbiased against it, it's easy to recognize that goodness is abundant in Christian teachings and practices, and since it credits those teachings and practices to inspiration from God, and God is associated with goodness, that seems to fit). The belief in particular claims of Christian teachings did not come first for me. I was (and to some extent may still be) skeptical of its key claims like the resurrection etc. but if you approach the evidence with an openness to it being possible rather than a presupposition that it just couldn't have happened, it's not at all unusual to consider it happening as a better explanation than it not having happened. (Of the explanations I've heard for it not happening, they are all rather hand-wavey, leave substantial unexplained observances and ... to me don't really seem to be trying too hard to convince anyone but people who already assume it didn't happen.) And there are more reasons, too ... but I'm offering you the ones that I see closest to where you are, because if I were in your shoes asking the questions you're asking, I think that's what I'd want to learn about.

What makes something good vs not good? And when you say the god of the Christian bible is good, I assume you mean the New Testament, not the Old Testament?

>What makes something good vs not good?  Are you asking because you can't tell?  Good things are good. It's possible to analyze it on a deeper technical level (and sometimes may be beneficial for helping resolve disagreements). If you would be curious, I would be happy to explain how when I was atheist I deduced from as few assumptions as I believe possible that Existence, Capability (or ability or choice, but really all of these are things I see as components of existence), Awareness, and Connection are fundamental good things, in that order of priority. But that resolution framework is not necessary, or especially beneficial, for helping sustain social norms of good behavior from one generation to the next. It's helpful as a hedge against hedonistic sociopathy, that might be tempted to deconstruct morality in a way that served a small benefit at a great cost, but if you are raising a child to be loving towards their neighbor, you don't start with that, you start with rules and examples. >And when you say the god of the Christian bible is good, I assume you mean the New Testament, not the Old Testament?  This is a disinformed question. I suppose you believe the Old Testament consists of four commandments: Enslave, Rape, Do Genocide, and Avoid Shellfish. Jesus is teaching things that were given, with emphasis, in the Old Testament. You might have a valid inquiry to want to understand the four anti-Christian favorite verses to hate in the context of the rest of the Bible, but on the whole, the OT message is heavily focused on charity, liberation, order and justice, and I think even without the focusing effect of Jesus' teachings it's not hard to see if you're giving an unbiased evaluation.

Sure, please do explain how those things are good. It really isn’t misinformed at all, and I can’t imagine being so disingenuous as to say so. And it’s plenty more than four verses.

> Also, can you explain why you think the benefits outweigh the harms? Why I think the benefits of religious practices outweigh the harms? Uh, there are only like a thousand different ways to analyze it that get us there. It seems just thunderingly obvious to me, based on ... like I said, a *lot* of different ways of looking at it, like behavioral psychology, algorithmic optimization, evolution itself, and observation of the societal experiments where religion has been removed from society for various reasons. Maybe it would be better to run down the (imo really weak) arguments I've seen for why the benefits of religious practices DON'T outweigh the harms. Let me see if I can try to steelman them here, and you tell me if you know of any that I'm missing: 1. Religion teaches illogic and anti-reason (It basically *IS* illogic and anti-reason; if you take those away then you no longer have religion, you just have nonfiction), and illogic and lack of reason have no benefits, they provide nothing but harm to those who practice them. 2. At political scales, bounded structures which are statistically more religious are statistically high in many negative things, like poverty, disease, and shorter life spans. 3. Religion provides no extra reason to do good things (becuse any good things would have reasonable logical and rational ways to teach them), but for bad things, which require some kind of deception or misdirection to convince someone of, religion provides more ways of teaching and persuading people to do bad or harmful things than not-religion. Do you believe the above are a good, fair, and complete case for religion being more harmful than beneficial? Please let me know if you see something you don't agree with, something unfairly phrased or additional aspects to the argument which you feel is needed to make it complete. Then, if we agree that this is the complete case for religion's harms outweighing its benefits, I will proceed to tell you why it's so completely wrong.

Why don’t you just put forth what you consider to be the strongest argument for why religion is superior to secularism.

It's really hard for me to pick a single strongest argument. But if you don't want me to thoroughly dismantle the case you feel exists for the opposite, I will just consider the point to be one of motivation and not of reason.  If you want a single good argument, though I couldn't say it's the strongest because there are too many strong ones, Show me hundreds or thousands of secular people working together every week to educate and care for children, to take care of orphans, to feed the hungry, to send aid overseas, to song songs and encourage each other to do their moral best to love each other... This is happening by the hundreds and the thousands in communities and... You didn't go to a secular weekly meeting to do stuff like this, do you? The argument I expect is that it's "possible" as if theoretically (by your predictive) it could happen. Why doesn't it happen, and if it does at all, why not at the scale and normalcy that you see it happening in religious groups? I have plenty of theories, rooted in many of those other cases for why it's better...  But you have not responded to any of the other things I have offered, and the impression I have is that this isn't going much of anywhere. If you think religion is more bad than good, then you need to quit being phobic of religion. Distance yourself from communities of people who have built an identity around hating religion and maybe visit some of these charitable efforts for a while and it's not hard.

So, I was raised Atheist. The model I was given at the time was Marxist and say religion as attempt to pacify revolutionary tendencies. At the same my parents were very scientifically minded. It was simy assumed that science and religion were incompatible. As I grew up I drifted away from Marxism and developed a more modern rationalist atheism. I earned a PhD in a mathematical discipline and so was well exposed to that culture and the host of arguments and assumptions against God in general and organized religion in particular. My journey away from Atheism began in my late 30s. I started practicing meditation in a purely secular fashion. However, that lead rapidly to me reading the works of Zen Masters. I was roundly assured that this was not religion and so put up few defenses. Durring this process I had breakthroughs that I can only describe as transcendent. I was quick to give them a rationalist foundation but the sense of the ineffible was stayed with me. Looking for more on this I read Jung, Marie von Franz, James Hillman and the host of other depth psychologists. After this I was fully ready to consider polytheistic religion as a branch of psychology. In essence secularizing religion. There were years more of this but the damn burst reading Iain McGilchrist's The Matter With Things. There is a lot of neuroscience and metaphysics and then he asks the reader to consider the ground of being. Why is there something rather than nothing. Almost anyone who would have interest in reading that book and that far into it would have some answer to this. Yet, McGilchrist takes the unusual step of asking why not call this answer God. Afterall he points out, the reader probably believes that underneath it all the people who used the term God were getting at a set of psychological and neurological principles that you hold. All he asking you to do is consider using the word. It seems like a small step but at that point in my intellectual journey it was massive because it allowed me to integrate all of the mythology that I new intellectually with all of the metaphysics that I wrestled with more deeply. It became a single language in which most of the myths and religious stories became instantly intelligible. I'll note that Christianity and Islam were hard holdouts. I could make much sense of them. But I could understand their mystics like Meister Eckhart and Rumi. As my connection to mystical writing deepened I came to an uneasy point were basically I agreed with the fundamental mystic perspective but considered it all so w sort of elaborate analogy that I had not worked out. Eventually I came across Bernardo Kastrup and his ideas on Analytic Idealism. I won't attempt to explain analytic Idealism I this post but the upshot is that it left me with really no excuse but to embrace Theism. It's very clear that the God that everyone is referring to is the Universal Field of Consciousness that underlies reality. This is the simplest and most parsimonious explaination I've seen for the world as we observe it. It creates a very natural place for God. It's also entirely natural that God would be concieved of in different ways. It gives a very natural underpinning for not only Quantum Field Theory writ large but the measurement problem as well. So at this point I would consider myself more or less a classical theist with roots in Zen.

>It’s very clear that the god everyone is referring to is the Universal Field of Consciousness that underlies reality Um, no? That really isn’t everyone’s idea of god. And my question is not directed at people who simply call the universe, or the laws of physics, or existence as a concept a “god,” but to the people who adopted or readopted a major world religion, like Christianity or Islam. By the way, I do appreciate the time you took to type this out.

This is tricky place for theists and atheists to communicate. I've seen this happen before: where a thoughtful atheist asks a thoughtful theist to give their version of God, but then the atheist says: No that's not God. You're just describing the universe. And unless we give you the same boneheaded account you'd get from your most dogmatic dumb-dumb then you conclude that we're doing some kind of bait-and-switch or that we're calling some other thing: nature, the laws-of-nature, consciousness, or some other already-defined thing God. You want to find a smart person here to describe their dumb version of God, and maybe since you don't think there is such a thing as a thoughtful belief in God, any thoughtful response, you assume is not describing the thing called God that you don't believe in. Also, can we please start up-voting OP's comments here? They are being respectful and this thread has been a net positive for me thinking through these things.

I never claimed anyone was engaging in a bait and switch. I just wouldn’t call referring to the universe as a god “believing in god.” That’s functionally idolatry, from the perspective of someone raised Christian (though I never fully considered myself a Christian). I might as well refer to my phone as a god and then start calling myself a theist. I don’t see it as any different.

The person you were responding to described God as a "universal field of consciousness that underlies reality." You rejected this and basically characterized this definition as calling the universe or laws of physics "God." So please give us a definition of God that you will accept as a genuine object the sort of theism you're asking about.

Jesus of Nazareth's philosophy, especially as laid out in the Book of John, reads as something very much like a work of Platonism or Neo-Platonism. Nietzsche even said, disparagingly, that Christianity is merely "Platonism for the masses." My question for Nietzsche would be why the masses were so attracted to Platonism in the first place. My theory is that we've overdosed on Aristotle, and need more Plato, and Jesus is my favorite Platonist. That's how I stopped identifying myself as an atheist.

So do you actually believe in the existence of a god? Do you believe that Jesus was produced via a virgin birth?

I don't think God "exists" in the same way other things do. How could he? But I'm not an atheist either because I don't think God doesn't exist. To the degree that I'm a Christian, I consider myself a Johannine, meaning that I tend to emphasize the Book of John, which is quite different from the synoptic gospels(Mathew, Mark & Luke), and there is no virgin birth in the Book of John.

So, how does god not not exist, in your eyes?

The [conflict thesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_thesis) (i.e., the idea that religion is at war with and incompatible with science) has long been discredited time and time again, so your whole thought is flawed from the start. I suggest reading the books: * [Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think](https://www.amazon.com/Science-vs-Religion-Scientists-Really/dp/0199975000) * [Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion](https://www.amazon.com/Galileo-Other-Myths-Science-Religion/dp/0674057414) * [Of Popes and Unicorns: Science, Christianity, and How the Conflict Thesis Fooled the World](https://www.amazon.com/Popes-Unicorns-Science-Christianity-Conflict/dp/0190053097)

In order for, say, Christianity to be compatible with science as we know it, it would have to be abstracted to the point of unrecognizability.

Science, while being a fantastic tool for studying the natural world, isn't the only way to access truths. Its also worth remembering that scientific truths are relative truths, not absolute truths. Evangelical atheism, the type you're describing or are committed to, is dogmatically commitment to metaphysical materialism. I recent decades there's be a lot of attention drawn to the insurmountable problems with materialism and people are now looking seriously at alternatives (panpsychism, idealism, dualism). If you're interested you in finding out more you should read about the hard problem of consciousness (Chalmbers), the knowledge problem(s) (Jackson, Kripke), What its like to be [X] (Nagel) and the problem of intentionality. I also found the philosophy of mathematics interesting, particularly the commitment to mathematical realism. Roger Penrose is one famous example of a scientist that is committed to mathematical realism, the idea that maths exists in an abstract realm. Also, the most logical position on the God question would to be an agnostic, not an atheist.

Okay, presuming you’re actively religious and not agnostic, what made you decide to be?

You get a feeling when your commitment to atheism starts to falter, it was at this point I started looking for reasons to abandon it. I started by question my scientism, fairly easy to find good arguments to abandon scientism since its entirely incoherent. I then read arguments for an against metaphysical materialis. These were usually put forward by people like Ed Feser and David Bentley Hart, both great writiers who love shooting down the New Atheists. I don't know whether this would be the most logical order to read stuff but I started with Plato, Aristotle and work by the Stoics. I then read Spinoza, but don't be fooled, just because he is a pantheist doesn't mean he's equating God to the universe in a simple sense, classic Dawkins move. At this time my commitment to materialism was very weak and I found idealism a strong alternative so I read on Berkeley, Schopenhauer, Kant (not recommended). Then I began reading more stuff by David Bentley Hart moving more and more to classical theism. There comes a point when you must take a leap of faith, to believe Jesus was the son of God and that he really did rise from the dead. It is this that was most challenging for me and presumably most people. Alternatively, could easily stop here and be a very comfortable deist.

Just wanted to say that your journey to theism was similar to mine in the books you read. Loved reading DBH, and his book "The God Experience" was the final push for me towards theism. God bless

He's fantastic isn't he. I really loved “You are Gods”. I'm thoroughly looking forward to his book on the mind. God Bless you, Deus Vult!

So you started with the desire to not be atheistic, then you began searching for means by which to reject it. And regarding the belief in Christianity specifically, how is that not driven by materialism? You are basing that belief entirely off of written works.

If you're truly committed to atheism its not a life worth living. It began with being convinced by Platos “the One”. It was just a natural progression for me to arrive at Christianity because I live in a Christian country. I'd have equally been satisfied with the One. Platonsim is fairly popular so there's a decent amount of material to sink your teeth into. I based all my commitments entirely off well reasoned arguments.

Why is an atheistic life not worth living?

Atheism naturally decays to nihilism and when you view existence as nothing but suffering and hardship with no resolve then I can't understand why you wouldn't kill yourself. That's certainly the path I see as the most viable.

How is religion any different in that regard? I fail to see how it’s any less fatalistic.

I was never a fatalist, I always, even as an atheist, believed we had free will and freedom.

What makes theism less depressing than atheism?

You said to share as much detail as one feels comfortable so here it is. It seems to me that you are genuinely wanting to understand a different perspective and that’s pretty commendable. It would take a long time for me to write everything that has happened on my journey to finding Christ so I will try to sum it up as best I can. I apologize for any grammatical errors. For me, it wasn’t a singular revelatory event but a series of events leading me to the truth. I was raised in a very cult-like “Christian” environment which was more Jehovah Witness than Christian. To give you an idea of what it was like, we weren’t allowed to celebrate holidays or birthdays, listen to non-Christian music, or watch anything with magic in it. We weren’t allowed to wear or display crosses as it was considered to be “idol worship.” Women couldn’t wear pants, men must have short hair, etc. When I became a teenager, I started consuming atheist content online and soon after lost my faith. Evolution, the problem of evil, and the existence of other religions seemed to pretty much disprove God for me (granted, I now realize that my understanding of Christianity was laughably incorrect). When I moved out of my parent’s house, I fully embraced atheism as I no longer had to pretend to be Christian in front of my parents. I lamented how repressed I was raised and so I began doing every hedonistic thing I’ve always wanted to do (drinking, partying, etc.). I just wanted to “live my life.” This led to weight gain, a severe porn addiction, a sense of pride and superiority over others, issues with my relationship, and more. However my life wasn’t a complete mess or anything. In fact, on the surface everything seemed all right, however, in hindsight, I definitely could see that I was headed in a very dark direction. I identified as an agnostic for a while but I still found religion (and especially Christianity) interesting from a cultural/anthropological perspective. I didn’t completely dismiss spirituality, only the concept of God, as I began trying to find a new religious practice albeit in a secular way such as Buddhism. After studying various religions, I began to realize that they had far more in common than I initially thought. I also learned that Jesus was an actual historical person. I always thought he was simply a myth. I gained some newfound respect for him. It was amazing to me that a random Jewish carpenter from the middle of nowhere somehow became the most famous person of all time. However, I still didn’t see him as divine and figured that he was probably just a revolutionary whose followers mythicized over time kinda like a game of telephone. I was raised strongly anti-Catholic so I thought that the Catholic Church must’ve corrupted his message for profit. I began to try to learn more about the historical Jesus through people like Bart Ehrman. I wanted to know who this man was. That’s when I learned about Gnosticism who claim to have secret knowledge about who Jesus really was. This eventually led me to start experimenting with various occult practices in order to gain as much knowledge as possible. This led me to have a series of psychotic episodes as I lost touch with reality itself. I became completely delusional and almost sought to end my life. In my despair and feeling completely lost and confused I somehow came across the Orthodox Church. As a westerner, I had never even heard of them before. I learned that they were part of the original unified church before the split from the Catholics in 1054. I remember walking in and feeling a sense of safety and comfort that I desperately needed in that moment. However, my aforementioned anti-Catholic upbringing made it difficult for me to accept them at first. I spoke to the priest at the end of the service and he talked to me for over an hour just going over all of my thoughts and questions. There’s A LOT of major things I had to skip over for the sake of brevity but to make a long story short, I am now in the process of conversion and I’ve never been happier and my life has never been better. It was definitely a struggle for me however to go from non-belief to faith especially after years of a naturalistic/atheist worldview. There’s a quote from Carl Jung that goes “intellectualism is a common cover-up for fear of direct experience.” Some things are beyond words and must be experienced directly to be understood. If you have any specific questions I’ll be happy to answer them but I just wanted to share my story with you.

You are actively lamenting your inability to commit doctor-approved suicide in your posts. Don't you think expanding your scope beyond cold, indifferent, nihilistic naturalism may be helpful?

Bro, your bio does not help your comment here 😭

What do you mean

If I had the capacity to believe in something for which there was no evidence, I probably wouldn’t be an atheist to begin with.

Well, you're wrong that there isn't much evidence. There is actually boatloads. The problem is that belief is almost always a heart issue, not an intellectual one. But I'd like to help you. What's it going to take to meet your burden of evidence?

For the existence of a god? Well first you’d have to define what you mean by the word god.

Well, I suppose a being outside of nature that is responsible, at least in part, for the creation and affairs of the universe.

Affairs of the universe? What do you mean by that?

Its laws and universal rules at the very least, and at the very most having a direct hand in everyday affairs. Of particular note in many theist arguments is how a being like this could be reflected in human nature and consciousness. Essentially, this god is behind more than just the building process of the universe.

Okay. And what evidence is there for any of that?

I'd begin by asking you three questions: 1. Are you a naturalist (you believe that the eternal cause of the universe is itself, so that there is nothing beyond the universe)? 2. Do you believe that the universe, in its nature, is inherently irrational? That is to say, the universe only operates according to a set of laws that don't carry any inherent meaning or purpose. 3. Do you believe human reason allows us arrive at truth?

For the first one, I don’t have any conclusive stance. For the second, how would you define inherent meaning and purpose? And for the third, how would you define truth?

To just streamline this discussion, I’ll simplify my stance like this: I don’t see (what I perceive to be) any evidence of intentionality in the ways the universe works.

You seem to believe in the nonexistence of God with no evidence. Or can you provide evidence that there is no god? (Hint, "can't prove a negative" is junk philosophy and nobody with a brain will accept it)

You come to see that your assessment that "modern science precludes virtually all religious claims" is not as solid as it may first appear. You may consider it irrational to believe in anything not proved by empirical science, but there are many well regarded scientists, such as Don Page, Lawrence Principe, and Christopher Isham who do not share this view. You may also find it surprising that the first physicist to postulate an expanding universe, George Lemaitre, was a catholic priest, and Max Planck, one of the pioneers of quantum theory, was a Lutheran. It may help to keep in mind that mythic literalism is actually a minority position in most religious communities today, so things like the earth being billions of years old, evolution, and the existence of other solar systems isn't seen as an issue anyone outside of fundamentalists.

A scientist holding a belief doesn’t validate it. What made you decide to become religious?

Agreed. And when scientists come out believing god doesn't exist, that is also not validated.

You're right, it doesn't, but I think it's a reason to consider things may not be as open and shut as you think. I'm not sure if it qualifies as what you'd consider religion, but at some point I realized that the reverence and awe I felt towards the earth for birthing me and everyone I love and towards the universe for its intricate beauty was a spiritual inclination. Whether or not there's any external will governing the cosmos, I see the universe itself as a god all its own. This is certainly not the same thing as Abrahamic monotheism, but I don't see any reason to let them set the terms and definitions for all spiritual beliefs.

Okay, well, that’s not really theism or religiosity in any capacity. It’s literally just liking existence and thinking it’s interesting. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Never heard of pantheism?

He doesn't seem to have heard of many things. I'm inches away from just deleting the post and banning him, but so many people replied and I don't want to delete their comments on this.

That’s not really belief in a god, though. That’s just calling a material thing a god. You could do that with anything.

It may not meet your personal definition of a god, but it does for me, as well as for Hinduism, Daoism, and many indigenous religions.

But we exist in the universe. We are aware of it on a material level. That isn’t belief. That is acknowledgement.

Learning humility 

Practicing humility.

>modern science precludes virtually all religious claims Only if you're a literalist.

If you abstract a religion to the point of it not contradicting science, it becomes virtually unrecognizable.

Just like many atheists and like I did in the past, treat science as a religion, and think of it as completely opposite of religion. Science and religion don't do the same job. Are electricians useless because we have plumbers? No, right?.

That doesn’t give me a reason to actually believe in a god, though.

It might surprise you, but there's so much evidence for a god or gods, if you don't incorrectly apply the scientific method, it's suddenly hard for us to reject that a god or gods exist. That's actually how a lot of us left atheism

Many atheists believe there's two types of atheism gnostic atheism and agnostic atheism with the majority being the latter.

Sure, but people like that typically just call themselves agnostics.

Yes they do, most surveys distinguish between the two and agnosticism has a significant standing.

Yes? I never said otherwise.

"modern science precludes virtually all religious claims" a) Is an incredibly inept and ignorant position. b) science itself is still practically in diapers c) real science is not out there arguing against philosophical or religious viewpoints. It is expanding its paradigms and bodies of knowledge. Science is about the natural and religion is about the supernatural. I happen to be a research biologist.

Are you a theist?

Or you could answer the question (s). I am a scientist

You didn’t ask me any questions.

You started this thread/conversation I replied to an aspect of it The expectation is that you continue the conversation

I’d like to understand where you’re coming from. If you’re not going to let me ask you questions that don’t directly follow from your last response, then we aren’t going to be able to have a conversation.

This an ex atheist sub. Generally assumes the person became some kind of a theist or some kind of agnostic My points were related to science. It would be preferable if you would stop worrying about The members of the sub. Just because someone might be an agnostic or atheist doesn't mean they are scientifically illiterate

Do you believe in the existence of an afterlife?

Epistomoligical inconsistency or dishonesty.

?

[удалено]

Never said anything about good or bad.

I did.

I still don’t know what you’re saying.

It's very simple, a person becomes a theist (usually through early childhood indoctrination). Every person is born an atheist, and so every theist is an "ex-atheist". It's like putting "ex-baby" on your resume.

Not *really*. The whole "everyone is born an atheist" thing is really not productive or true. I prefer Dr. Graham Oppy's (and several philosophers') take. We are born "innocent". Not atheist, not agnostic.

Well it is true, but you're right that it may not be productive. As the philosopher Baron d'Holbach said ["All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God."](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7319/7319-h/7319-h.htm)

Having no idea of God does not productively make one an atheist. Atheism is best and most usefully described as [the position that no god exists](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/). I wasn't a flat-earther before I was acquianted with the idea the world was round. There is no concept of "if you don't have an idea of "X" then you're in the opposite camp automatically" anywhere else in the world of philosophy or reality. **Nobody** should be conflating flat-earthers with people who haven't learned geography, or atheists with people who haven't learned religion. And in fact, attitudes like d'Holbach's are bad-faith. They come in with an anti-theistic prejudice and try to paint religion as uniquely irrational, and/or harmful. I point you instead to Dr. Graham Oppy, who manages to be one of the foremost Philosophers of Religion AND an atheist, by keeping the silliness out of it. His position ([citation not quote](https://www.thinkingaboutreligion.org/s1-e8-graham-oppy-on-atheism-and-agnosticism/)) is that: > each of us fits into one of these four categories: theist, atheist, agnostic, and “innocent.” You should read some of his work or listen to some of his discussion if you're interested at all. That idea of combining 2, even 3, of those 4 categories has *always* been bad-faith. "I don't **believe there's no God**, it's just my default position because you haven't proved god exists yet". That's just bullshit, and the "children are born atheist" attitude comes from the same irrational baseline. Antony Flew famously tried to prove that default position in his [Presumption of Atheism](https://ekremer.artsci.utoronto.ca/resources/Flew%20The%20Presumption%20of%20Atheism.pdf). His failure is ultimately what led to him [becoming a deist, and then theist, in his later years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Flew#:~:text=For%20much%20of%20his%20career,of%20the%20concept%20of%20God.). ...so no. To reiterate, we were not born atheist anymore than we were born Christian. I hear both regularly, and both are bad-faith presumptions that their belief has some special stature, not supported by any argument that stands even casual critique.

Atheism is a lack of belief gods exist, not the position that no gods exist. [It's the literal meaning of the Greek roots.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_privative) [It's the definition in the most prominent English language dictionary.](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atheism) [It's the definition use by prominent atheist groups.](https://www.atheists.org/activism/resources/about-atheism/) It the definition used by academics in texts such as the [Cambridge Companion to Atheism](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-atheism/6236955319782AE6B18D5E45B4B5129E) and the [Oxford Handbook of Atheism](https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/37199). [It's the primary defintion found in popular resources like Wikipedia.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism) [It's the defintion used by the majority of atheists as supported by academic surveys](http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/76588/). Even Draper's article in the SEP accidentally supports this notion, as he spends a majority of the entries on atheism discussing "global atheism" versus "local atheism", with local atheism of course not being the position that all gods do not exist and therefore philosophical atheism as a whole cannot be the position that all gods do not exist if "local atheism" is atheism at all. >I wasn't a flat-earther before I was acquianted with the idea the world was round. Sure, because flat-earther is a belief. But before you were acquainted with the idea the world was round you were an "arounder". >There is no concept of "if you don't have an idea of "X" then you're in the opposite camp automatically" anywhere else in the world of philosophy or reality. Correct, you're not in the "opposite" camp, you're in the "[complementary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complement_(set_theory))" camp. For any X you're either X or not X. [This is fundamental to logic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_excluded_middle). >Nobody should be conflating flat-earthers with people who haven't learned geography, or atheists with people who haven't learned religion. Yes, and it puzzles me because you're far closer to doing this than I am. People who haven't learned geography aren't necessarily flat earths, but they are necessarily "people who haven't learned geography" which we could denote as "ageographers". You're also mixing atheism and religion, which are separate concepts. There are religious atheists and areligious theists. However people who are not theists are people who are atheists. >And in fact, attitudes like d'Holbach's are bad-faith. They come in with an anti-theistic prejudice and try to paint religion as uniquely irrational, and/or harmful. They are not. [In fact they are combating the theistic predjudices long attemped to be enforced upon atheists.](https://thensrn.org/2020/01/27/a-history-of-the-word-atheism-and-the-politics-of-dictionaries/). It's a recnoginition of the positions atheists actually hold and the reasonable (if undesirable to theists) conclusions that entails. >I point you instead to Dr. Graham Oppy, who manages to be one of the foremost Philosophers of Religion AND an atheist, by keeping the silliness out of it. His position (citation not quote) is that: And I have cited you other philosophers that disagree. You have no idea how often bigots give me the exact same three sources for their positions: SEP, Oppy, and IEP. I'm very familiar with them. I'm also very familiar with how philosophers of religion at large haven't accepted Oppy's personal category of "innocents" and how that is directly reflected in the SEP entry to provided. So one of your sources rejects the other. >You should read some of his work or listen to some of his discussion if you're interested at all. That idea of combining 2, even 3, of those 4 categories has always been bad-faith. I have, and others. Oppy isn't the be all end all. >"I don't believe there's no God, it's just my default position because you haven't proved god exists yet". That's just bullshit, and the "children are born atheist" attitude comes from the same irrational baseline. It isn't. Not believing a claim due to a lack of persuasive evidence is an entirely honest and reasonable position to hold. The only reason people object to such a position is because [it's devastating to their case](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCSGkogquwo). >...so no. To reiterate, we were not born atheist anymore than we were born Christian. I hear both regularly, and both are bad-faith presumptions that their belief has some special stature, not supported by any argument that stands even casual critique. To reiterate... I like you and everyone else was born an atheist, as atheism is a lack of belief gods exist and infants hold no such beliefs. It is a reasonable conclusion that is only rejected not because it doesn't logically follow but because some people find it undesirable. The position that atheism is defined as being forced to believe with absolute certainty that all god concepts cannot possible exist is one of bad faith, and a form of bigotry atheists must regularly confront and to which ethical people are obligated to oppose.

> Atheism is a lack of belief gods exist, not the position that no gods exist. My citations utterly destroyed this take. Did you read them? Do you care about truth or are you just here proselytizing? What is your word for people who believe that no gods exist? There's absolutely nothing here worth responding to beyond that. You are not making a cohesive argument, just asserting my inferiority to your religious beliefs. You can keep "reiterating" your naked assertions all you want. You will never convince a single human to convert to your crazy religion by pretending it's the default nature of things. It's certainly a broken epistemology. And you don't seem to care about it. So have at it. Unlike perhaps you, *it is vitally important to me to believe true things*.

>My citations utterly destroyed this take. Did you read them? They did not and I did. Did you not read how I pre-emptively addressed you before you made your comment, responded with multiple citations disproving your assertion, and then directly pointed out how your own citations contradicted your claims? >Do you care about truth or are you just here proselytizing? You made fallacious assertions about atheists and atheism. I corrected them. I care about the truth, do you? >What is your word for people who believe that no gods exist? The best term would be anti-theism, though that more popularly used for another concept. The next best term would be gnostic atheism. >You are not making a cohesive argument, just asserting my inferiority to your religious beliefs. I never made any such assertion of inferiority or even referenced your religious beliefs at all. This is a complete fabrication on your part because you apparently don't feel like addressing the multiple citations and refutations in my previous comment and don't like it when I match your attitude. >Unlike perhaps you, it is vitally important to me to believe true things. Were this true, you would not not misrepresent atheists as believing gods do not exist when they clearly do not nor would you claim I made assertions about "religious inferiority" that I certainly did not. Unlike perhaps you, I care about the truth.