Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
As a former atheist, I recognize quite clearly that sin is fun, and I did not want to get involved in religion and submit to God.
I doubt that you were a former atheist, just a rebel against the constrictions of religion.
Quote:
So, yes--some of it is simply because an atheist chooses not to believe.
This tends to confirm my doubts.
Quote:
Having said that, the reason you choose not to believe is because you are in the same condition every man is born into -- your heart is deceitfully wicked (as was mine). God had to regenerate me so I could believe. If he hasn't regenerated you, it's quite easy to see why you don't believe.
This nonsense is directly out of the Christian dogma playbook. Our animal nature, the source of all our carnal drives, is simply indiscriminate. It does not have the capability to discriminate between good and evil behavior. So it cannot be "deceitfully wicked." It simply seeks to protect our survival and increase our pleasure, period. We have to discriminate for it because we KNOW the difference between good and evil.
I was an atheist because there literally was nothing that remotely led me to believe that a God as described in the religions actually existed, period. After my encounter, I realized that I was using the wrong criteria. What human beings believe or do not believe ABOUT God has no bearing whatsoever on the EXISTENCE of God because my experiences tell me there IS one. Our best and worst attempts to describe or understand God are irrelevant to God's existence.
I'd be surprised if you would admit it. How about we just leave it as "that was a good one" and
maybe acknowledge that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones and move on.
That's funny....no, I'll go with your first one....''that was a good one''....and move on.
I gave you my personal experience. As an atheist I wanted to sin, and I avoided discussion and belief in God.
Quote:
Originally Posted by skepticratic
That's unacceptably dishonest of you to say.
As a Christian currently, you now think that as an atheist you wanted to sin. As an atheist, that's not what you wanted. As an atheist, you probably just chose not to believe. You fell in with religion and have found a new narrative to spin that, but don't pretend that when you were an atheist you woke up every day like 'what sinful think will I do today.'
I can't help wondering what exactly Visio means by 'wanting to sin'? As an atheist I can make no connection. I don't want to sin (although apparently thinking about women is a sin for some reason). I don't want to harm anyone (in fact, I try to protect others from harm - like gays from persecution by fundamentalists). Even when misguided 'evangelicals' bother me while I'm paying for a street-side meal with my lady friend, I refrain from telling them where to go and how to get there (and teaching them new words they won't find in the bible). I am very polite in declining them. Almost gentlemanly. Even my thoughts are relatively pure - I only think "give me strength before I swear this irritating idiot all the way to hell". That's not a sin is it? Even it was was, I don't care! At least I don't have thoughts of rearranging their faces.
So what is this sin that is so much fun? Tell it to me so that I may know it too.
Do theists really believe that the only reason atheists and agnostics don't believe is because they want to sin?
That they want to sin, or do not want to be held accountable, or some variation on this. Yes I genuinely do believe some significant minority of theists genuinely do believe this. That we are all believers really, we just reject that belief in favor of sin. How many of them there are, I could not tell you.
But I think there is also a significant minority of theists who trot it out when cornered in debate because they know it is a trope that will be a guaranteed red flag to a bull, that can create a rabbit hole tangent they can deflect the rest of the conversation down.
Which of those groups is the larger? I could not presume to tell you that either alas.
But there are other tropes that are common too and comically you got one in the very next post after your OP.............
Quote:
Originally Posted by victorianpunk
There are two kinds of people I can never hope to understand: People who had happy childhoods and loving families, and people who don't believe in SOMETHING.
........... which is the trope that atheists who do not believe in god therefore do not believe in ANYTHING. And once again I think there is some small but significant group who genuinely believe that.... and another group who trot it out because they think it will push peoples buttons and illicit a reaction.
Quote:
Originally Posted by victorianpunk
I just don't get not having ANYTHING to worship.
Who says they don't? You? Your evaluations of what atheists want, think and believe in the past have been matched in their distorted inaccuracies only by JeffBase and few others. If I can be said to "worship" anything for example it would be Human Discourse and the shared exploration of "idea space" in the pursuit of finding out what is true.
For many other atheists however it is not that they have nothing in their life that they worship........ so much as it is life ITSELF that they worship. So your inability to see what they are worshiping is a genuinely good application of the phrase "not seeing the wood for the trees".
It reminds me of a phrase used by a girlfriend when asking to go for a long walk in the woods. When asked "Whats the point in just walking there and back when you are not going anywhere" she replied with "The Journey IS the destination".
5 words which I think sum up the world view of quite a few atheists in our world on life and worship.
Quote:
Originally Posted by victorianpunk
Life without a God to worship would just seem pretty dull to me.
To you. While over on this side of the table a life so dull that you have to make things up to improve it is one I would have ended for myself long ago. I find plenty in life, without having to make things up, to pursue, enjoy, and motivate me at every level from physical to emotional, and from mental to spiritual. That you can not without the application of fantasy..... well you have my sympathy. But I would be surprised if this is not rooted in your ongoing rejection of... and at times outright hatred for........ human interpersonal relationships.
This is not another thread about the evidence or lack thereof for a god, so let's please not waste time going there . This is about some statements I routinely see here suggesting that the reason atheists and agnostics don't want to believe in God is because they want to sin. Which makes no sense in and of itself . But I want to directly address this oft repeated statement .
Do theists really believe that the only reason atheists and agnostics don't believe is because they want to sin?
Can theists truly not grasp that some people simply see no evidence of a God , and certainly none that might want a person to follow a particular faith, and see no point in believing in something like this without solid evidence ?
On what basis would a theist who believes this claim that someone like Stephen Hawking just wants to sin ? What evidence would a theist have that Sam Harris's atheism is rooted in a desire to pretend God doesn't exist so he can sin without guilt ? What about Dan Barker , a former Pentecostal preacher who decided he no longer believed ? What evidence would a theist have that Dan Barker left the faith so he could sin at will?
Is the concept of simple disbelief in invisible and silent supernatural beings really this hard to grasp , that theists have to resort to these kinds of allegations ?
It would be a silly accusation to claim people don't believe in God cause they want to sin.
As a former atheist, I recognize quite clearly that sin is fun, and I did not want to get involved in religion and submit to God.
If you were worried about to "submitting to God," how were you an atheist? Atheists (by definition) don't believe there is a god to submit to in the first place.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vizio
So, yes--some of it is simply because an atheist chooses not to believe.
Is belief a choice? I don't choose to believe that the sun exists, rather I am "forced" to believe that the sun exists because of overwhelming evidence. My belief in the existence of the sun is involuntary.
Based on your quote above, it sounds like you already believed in the Christian God (even while you identified as an atheist) but were in some kind of denial. It sounds like you were "dragged kicking and screaming" toward Christian Theism. Many atheists have the opposite experience: they are raised in Christian (or other) Theism, but are "dragged kicking and screaming" out of it by cognitive dissonance, an inability to buy into the miracle claims, bad experiences, etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vizio
Having said that, the reason you choose not to believe is because you are in the same condition every man is born into -- your heart is deceitfully wicked (as was mine). God had to regenerate me so I could believe. If he hasn't regenerated you, it's quite easy to see why you don't believe.
It's not possible for you to admit that some people leave theism for rational reasons. If you did, your whole belief system crumbles. So you have elaborate dogmas to explain why people don't believe: desire to sin, "hating God", predestination for damnation by God, demon possession, a deep flaw in character, etc.
If you were worried about to "submitting to God," how were you an atheist? Atheists (by definition) don't believe there is a god to submit to in the first place.
I can see the (somewhat tortured) process by which a believer arrives at this ... you will doubtless recall that Paul said even the heathen are "without excuse" because god is made manifest through creation itself. I think these kinds of statements plus the concept of conscience allow a believer to assume that what is, to them, unthinkable and taboo (denying god's very existence) is something that unbelievers surely realize at some level but pretend they don't have this revelation because of some ulterior motive. And the most obvious ulterior motive to their way of thinking would be "rebelliousness", a desire to sin. Close behind would be "anger at god" or "hatred of god" because some aspect of the cosmic candy machine didn't produce for us.
These conclusions seem foregone to them because they can't even begin to get their minds around the concept that even someone like myself who was steeped in dogma from a very young age, or even from the cradle, could come to a place of genuine and honest disbelief that is so settled that it is not a source of second-guessing oneself even a little. Nevermind that it can be source of great peace and release from tormenting cognitive dissonance. I would in fact be FAR more likely to be "angry at god" if I were still a believer. But they can't understand that. Never mind; it doesn't really matter.
The reality is that the abstraction of the Christian understanding of reality works well enough for many people and is very familiar, comforting, and a source of much social reciprocity from like minded individuals. The abstraction leaks, but not enough for it to completely collapse. And if you are incurious and/or authoritarian, even the leaks don't perturb you much or at all.
I have always said that people don't change unless the pain of not changing is greater than the pain of changing. I came to a place where I suffered more trying to prop up my religious faith, which was clearly and obviously not accurately explaining my reality or predicting outcomes, than I suffered in leaving the faith. I was helped along by fortuitous circumstances -- for practical purposes for instance I did not have to deal with the pushback of immediate or extended family, and other factors had already accustomed me to the loss of Christian fellowship.
Leaving one's faith, particularly for unbelief, is a very major and highly personal decision and arguably it SHOULD be protected by various nontrivial barriers -- what we sometimes jokingly call the FundAShield(tm).
I am far less interested in the quixotic enterprise of coaxing contented believers away from their faith, than in just being present for people who are READY to make their exit and arguing against the more controlling believers who want to interfere with people doing what they need to do for themselves. Also, in planting the seeds of freethought in people's brains, one must realize that just as per Jesus' parable of the sower, some seeds will fall on fertile soil, some will not -- but a certain percentage of even the most strident fundamentalists we engage with here, will eventually find the seeds of reason sprouting, despite themselves.
The solution to ignorance and fear is always education and facts. I just put the facts out there, and trust that some of them will bear fruit down the road.
As a former atheist, I recognize quite clearly that sin is fun, and I did not want to get involved in religion and submit to God.
So, yes--some of it is simply because an atheist chooses not to believe.
Having said that, the reason you choose not to believe is because you are in the same condition every man is born into -- your heart is deceitfully wicked (as was mine). God had to regenerate me so I could believe. If he hasn't regenerated you, it's quite easy to see why you don't believe.
What about Baal? Why won't you submit to Baal? Why do you choose to not believe? Which sins are you reluctant to give up in order to submit to Him?
Location: In a little house on the prairie - literally
10,202 posts, read 7,926,708 times
Reputation: 4561
Quote:
Originally Posted by GoCardinals
In my opinion, one of the reasons why some atheists/Agnostics don't believe in God is that they don't feel the need of God in their lives.
And if they think it works for them, then so be it.
It's like if a person is not thirsty, so he doesn't care what water is, or whether water exist or not.
That may be a partial truth, but whether or not the person who isn't thirsty does or doesn't care about water, the person who IS thirsty can show that water really, really exists. In fact, the thirsty one can pour some excess water on the one who is not, and that person will get wet, will feel the water, will see the water and will get dry.
The person who believes in a god can not present that god to a non-believer in any fashion.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
