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I can see things from a Christian's perspective and from a non-Christians's perspective. It's very interesting (to me) to be able to see it both ways, it enriches my understanding of the way things are.
I was a strong believer in God at one point, a Baptist, who accepted Pentecostals as brothers, just with different ideas. One side of my family was more religious and the other side was more spiritual (more open minded). I think I was a mix. As I was growing up (in maturity) I was leaning more towards spiritual side of things. I know how the world is perceived through the eyes of a Christian.
I believed it 100%. So that when I "learned" that Christianity is not THE reality, I was shocked.
I did not become an atheist though. So I admit, I have no idea how it feels to not believe anything about the afterlife or the world beyond the five senses.
However, since I became a non-Christian, I do know how it feels for a non-Christian to hear a Christian talk. Sometimes I feel like laughing. I am not trying to put anyone down, I am just trying to say that it's amazing to have been on both sides and to one day realize how funny it sounds what Christians are saying. I mean when I was a Christian, I had no idea that things sound this way to a non-Christian ear. I took myself seriously and when I spoke, I thought I was reaching them, I thought I was making them think. But when I hear from here, from this side, I am thinking to myself: you are wasting your breath, you don't even realize that this sounds silly.
Well, ok, Paul did cover this in his writings. He said that God's truth sounds like foolishness to a non-believer. He was right.
Paul also said that it's impossible to convert a backslider back to God. It's not true in all cases, but it's of course true in some (and in my case). God's truth (so to speak) doesn't make sense anymore, it does sound like foolishness. So I am just testifying, in case someone wanted to know how it feels.
Although, I must add here, that true non-Christians, who never have been Christians will not even understand why Christians are saying this, so to them it sounds like true nonsense. But because I've been on that side, I still remember how it sounds through a Christian ear. So I really get what Christians are saying and where they are coming from. I really get what they are feeling and "seeing". It's just that I also now see that it doesn't make sense from another perspective. So now I really see why non-Christians are not believing it at all, why they are not "biting" on the hook.
Someone would say: but it's not true, some do convert.
And here is what I was going to say in the first place. To me, having observed different religions and non religious people, having been religious myself and having left that particular point of reference... now it seems like reality is a 10000000 piece puzzle, but each belief system has like 100 pieces and is thinking that they know reality. They understand it. Even though they see only a tiny bit glimpse of it.
Does anyone have this overwhelming feeling of how huge reality is and how it's impossible for people to know it and understand it because we know so little?
And each belief system takes this huge puzzle and simplifies it into 100 little pieces and thinks that they got it now.
And they don't even realize that each person's brain is like a whole another world and its decisions and thinking is different from each other (even if they do live in the same church). There are SOOOOOO many differences, so many different variations.... That it becomes silly when someone simplifies it so much.
It's like living in one tiny room all my life and then walking outside and climbing onto the mountain and seeing all the world beneath... It's just sooo huge. It's like I am realizing that my brain is like an old fashioned dial up connection and here I am trying to download a 2 hour movie.... I don't know if anyone tried it, but it doesn't work, it just stops in between (although I don't know why). It feels like a brain is this tiny little bottle with this little opening and you can only put little drops of information into the bottle through this tiny opening... but imagine that you need to pour a lake of information into it... Good luck.
I see both sides of any issue, to a fault, believe it or not. It's only in my crusty old age that I am getting past struggling to be "fair" to everyone, and have learned that calling a spade a spade is okay.
Reality is indeed huge, and there are significant parts of it that we will probably never have satisfactory answers to ... and in some cases, answers of any kind.
Any belief system by nature tries to simplify all of reality in a way that can be digested and apprehended by a single person in a single lifetime. Many, perhaps most forms of religion are closed systems that provide superficially satisfying answers to the unanswerable. Science, by contrast, is an open system that refrains from explaining the inexplicable but provides a framework for approaching real answers in the presence of adequate substantiating data. It promotes economy, simplicity, and patience in the search for truth -- even at the expense of lacking false comforts that we frail humans often prefer.
I can see things from a Christian's perspective and from a non-Christians's perspective. It's very interesting (to me) to be able to see it both ways, it enriches my understanding of the way things are.
I was a strong believer in God at one point, a Baptist, who accepted Pentecostals as brothers, just with different ideas. One side of my family was more religious and the other side was more spiritual (more open minded). I think I was a mix. As I was growing up (in maturity) I was leaning more towards spiritual side of things. I know how the world is perceived through the eyes of a Christian.
I believed it 100%. So that when I "learned" that Christianity is not THE reality, I was shocked.
I did not become an atheist though. So I admit, I have no idea how it feels to not believe anything about the afterlife or the world beyond the five senses.
However, since I became a non-Christian, I do know how it feels for a non-Christian to hear a Christian talk. Sometimes I feel like laughing. I am not trying to put anyone down, I am just trying to say that it's amazing to have been on both sides and to one day realize how funny it sounds what Christians are saying. I mean when I was a Christian, I had no idea that things sound this way to a non-Christian ear. I took myself seriously and when I spoke, I thought I was reaching them, I thought I was making them think. But when I hear from here, from this side, I am thinking to myself: you are wasting your breath, you don't even realize that this sounds silly.
Well, ok, Paul did cover this in his writings. He said that God's truth sounds like foolishness to a non-believer. He was right.
Paul also said that it's impossible to convert a backslider back to God. It's not true in all cases, but it's of course true in some (and in my case). God's truth (so to speak) doesn't make sense anymore, it does sound like foolishness. So I am just testifying, in case someone wanted to know how it feels.
Although, I must add here, that true non-Christians, who never have been Christians will not even understand why Christians are saying this, so to them it sounds like true nonsense. But because I've been on that side, I still remember how it sounds through a Christian ear. So I really get what Christians are saying and where they are coming from. I really get what they are feeling and "seeing". It's just that I also now see that it doesn't make sense from another perspective. So now I really see why non-Christians are not believing it at all, why they are not "biting" on the hook.
Someone would say: but it's not true, some do convert.
And here is what I was going to say in the first place. To me, having observed different religions and non religious people, having been religious myself and having left that particular point of reference... now it seems like reality is a 10000000 piece puzzle, but each belief system has like 100 pieces and is thinking that they know reality. They understand it. Even though they see only a tiny bit glimpse of it.
Does anyone have this overwhelming feeling of how huge reality is and how it's impossible for people to know it and understand it because we know so little?
And each belief system takes this huge puzzle and simplifies it into 100 little pieces and thinks that they got it now.
And they don't even realize that each person's brain is like a whole another world and its decisions and thinking is different from each other (even if they do live in the same church). There are SOOOOOO many differences, so many different variations.... That it becomes silly when someone simplifies it so much.
It's like living in one tiny room all my life and then walking outside and climbing onto the mountain and seeing all the world beneath... It's just sooo huge. It's like I am realizing that my brain is like an old fashioned dial up connection and here I am trying to download a 2 hour movie.... I don't know if anyone tried it, but it doesn't work, it just stops in between (although I don't know why). It feels like a brain is this tiny little bottle with this little opening and you can only put little drops of information into the bottle through this tiny opening... but imagine that you need to pour a lake of information into it... Good luck.
What an interesting post. It reminds me of myself at teenage...don't mean to imply you are underdeveloped - as a Lifetimer, I was thinking about this stuff early on.
I decided that no one religion could be the Right one, so any god had to be the god of all religions. So I was an (irreligious) agnostic right away.
If you are in that position, the huge number of possibilities do seem to come down to that - perhaps, perhaps not.
It was a thing to wonder about, but not a thing to worry about, so I think one can just regard it as an interesting academic puzzle and not get too wound up about it - that's if you have got past the stage of believing that, if there is an afterlife, you need to be very careful to pick the religion that is issuing the genuine admission -tickets.
I am an unbelieving agnostic. You can be a believing one. If you are cool with the idea that it is an academic belief and doesn't really affect your life, then perhaps that may take the pressure off.
Don't know if that helps at all.
P.s perhaps a note about the sheer size of the universe. You may have been getting at that idea too. Newton said that he was like a child on a beach, picking up a shell or pebble here or there, while the unknown ocean stretched before him.
I tend to be half -full about this. instead of fretting about the massive ocean of unknowns out there, I am immensely thankful that we have the means to find out some truths instead of just guess.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 12-30-2014 at 06:44 PM..
I feel like adding from my perspective (since I am not an atheist) that science-only people are a bit religious in the way they accept and not accept certain things. Just like religious people, only related to different things. I think that people who consider everything will learn the most.
But then again, I am biased because of my own perspective and experiences. So I just say the conclusions of my mind.
And sometimes I think: well, I know that my conclusions are just a product of my personal experiences, biased and filtered by my perspective and who I am. And different people will reach different ones depending on their situation. So why should I even say them?
I am starting to think that I am perceiving myself as a "whole" when I should be perceiving myself as a smaller part of the whole. As individuals, we are really one sided. So we have to start living in awareness of the collective mind. It's the collective mind that will learn the most. It's the one which includes religious perspectives, non religious perspectives and everything in between. And as parts of that one mind, we need to be who we are. We all serve our own purpose. Our individual conclusions - is how the Collective Mind knows itself and learns.
I am sure there is a way that we (individually) benefit from the collective knowledge of the Mind. So all those Christians (and the rest of the types) running around, producing experiences and learning from them - it enriches the Mind and so therefore it must enrich us individually in some way, maybe indirectly.
Well,I suppose I'm biased, too, as I 'translate' those terms into an accusation of closed -minded scientific bias and a reference to the sum total of human knowledge. In fact it turns out to me more of a suggestion that we are all somehow telepathically contributing to a shared collective unconsciousness Wisdom.
I say that the view of science as closed -minded is a false one. If it does not take the supernatural claims seriously, it is because they do not produce verifiable evidence that they are real and true.
Prayer, Homeopathy, acapuncture, astrology and prognostication have been tested and the results do not seem to suggest a significant indication that these things work. If they do, as in the Placebo effect, then studies are made to find out how it works.
The religious -supernatural case rests purely on the inability of science to explain this or that effect. That merely means that we can't explain it - yet. It does not provide evidence - let alone proof - of anything supernatural, let alone religious, going on.
This is what collective human wisdom is, even if collective humanity don't seem to understand it or trust it, and (regrettably) seem to prefer superstition, quack nostrums, fortune -tellers and deluded diviners (1).
Anyone can believe what they want. A god is possible. A human collective consciousness is possible. But anyone expressing such a belief in public is going to have to expect to be called on it. And if evidence is lacking, belief and distrust of science with its over emphasis on what can be proved rather than what cannot be disproves, is not going to be enough to make that belief credible.
If then you were to say frankly that it was what you believed but there was no real proof and it was accepted that there was no good reason for anyone else to believe it, then we would have no quarrel.
It is only ever the making of claims with the implied suggestion that others ought to believe it, too, never mind that doubters are somehow in the wrong for not believing it, that causes a descent of critics. Like a ton of bricks.
(1) there are many tales, claims and anecdotes of diviners finding water (mainly) but in fact anything goes - even doing it from a map! But when tested, it totally failed to work even on bottles of water under a couple of inches of sand.
And here is what I was going to say in the first place. To me, having observed different religions and non religious people, having been religious myself and having left that particular point of reference... now it seems like reality is a 10000000 piece puzzle, but each belief system has like 100 pieces and is thinking that they know reality. They understand it. Even though they see only a tiny bit glimpse of it.
Worse yet, I suspect that 99 of those 100 aren't really pieces of the puzzle after all.
Worse yet, I suspect that 99 of those 100 aren't really pieces of the puzzle after all.
That sounds awfully like 'This is the puzzle and it is a picture of reality, not of a postulated God.'
'This 100th piece does not fit. It comes from a different puzzle.'
The analogy breaks down of course since the 99 pieces are validated and the 100th is speculative. and of course your analogy was back to front as we have the 99 pieces and one that does not fit (1)
You may prefer another analogy.
(1) unless the analogy had the 99 pieces as unknowns (an unknown puzzle with an unknown picture) in which case the 100th piece is our validated piece of a puzzle wuth a picture we can guess at in a limited way. That really leaves no parts of a puzzle that is God. It is either reality or Unknowns.
That sounds awfully like 'This is the puzzle and it is a picture of reality, not of a postulated God.'
'This 100th piece does not fit. It comes from a different puzzle.'
The analogy breaks down of course since the 99 pieces are validated and the 100th is speculative. and of course your analogy was back to front as we have the 99 pieces and one that does not fit (1)
You may prefer another analogy.
(1) unless the analogy had the 99 pieces as unknowns (an unknown puzzle with an unknown picture) in which case the 100th piece is our validated piece of a puzzle wuth a picture we can guess at in a limited way. That really leaves no parts of a puzzle that is God. It is either reality or Unknowns.
Okay ... if your purpose was to show me how ignorant I am, I guess you've succeeded because I have no idea what you are talking about.
My point was that I suspect that many (and in some cases most) of the things religions tell us about God are wrong.
Okay ... if your purpose was to show me how ignorant I am, I guess you've succeeded because I have no idea what you are talking about.
My point was that I suspect that many (and in some cases most) of the things religions tell us about God are wrong.
Ah, then your confusion is excusable as I failed to understand your comment on the analogy.
In that case we have three choices:
Pick one of the religions
Pick none of the religions but believe there is a god
Don't believe there is a god.
Slice it where you like, god -belief is at best based on the contention that there must be some Intelligence behind it all. That is debatable.
At second best it is just based on a Feeling, taken as experience of God. That really brings us back to the belief in a god and all the religions have wrong information about it. That is, 99 pieces of the puzzle do not come a puzzle showing God.
If then you were to say frankly that it was what you believed but there was no real proof and it was accepted that there was no good reason for anyone else to believe it, then we would have no quarrel.
It is only ever the making of claims with the implied suggestion that others ought to believe it, too, never mind that doubters are somehow in the wrong for not believing it, that causes a descent of critics. Like a ton of bricks.
I agree. But for some reason I can't yet start doing that, prefacing each discussion with "this is what I believe in and it has no proof". Maybe it's because I am assuming that most discussions are based on opinions and not on facts anyways? (and when it's a fact someone needs to quote a research that proved it or something?) Or maybe because nobody else is doing either?
I am unsure when I'll start doing it (even though I THINK that I think that it's a good idea). This makes me think that our body sometimes has a mind of its own.
And that our consciousness is more like a mirror (replay of actions, a way for us to see what we just did and a way to predict what we will do in the future).
Because sometimes we don't want to do something (consciously) but we end up doing it next time anyways. It feels like it takes some time (sometimes more than a few months) before the rest of the body/mind system catches up with this conscious decision and actually starts to act it out. Ok - This is all just my thinking...
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- as a Lifetimer, I was thinking about this stuff early on. 
Does anyone else feel this way?
