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And your story is echoed by many others on this forum over the years. Zhatz, mordant, thrill, pcamps and several others whose nicknames escape me at the moment, have talked about "un-fundamentalizing" themselves during adulthood -- often by first lurking, then participating in forums like this.
But just because people agree on something does not make it true; either side. Takes real evidence not just personal claims.
Unfortunately all people use such in support or against all views, religious or secular. Usually shows either no real knowledge or a desire to keep knowledge from surfacing.
I hear you and perhaps mostly true, but I don't think it right to say "all" people do the same thing...
I am forever calling out straw man arguments, and I like to think I don't use those sorts of tactics to justify my opinions in any case. At the same time, I often point out that confirmation bias reigns and I have a lot of respect for how powerful that bias can be, so I try to check myself as often as possible to better maintain objectivity as much as possible. For the sake of truth and nothing but the truth...
Do you still believe in God? If not still a Christian, what? Please explain what sort of comments or argument caused you to change your belief over these four years. If you are one of the exceptions to the rule, of most interest to me is WHY you changed your core belief(s)...
Okay, well I don't know how to make this short so, if you're really interested you'll have to sludge through this:
I was a believer in an inerrant, infallible Bible: the "Word of God" -- God's message to humanity. I had been taught (and believed) all my life that, essentially, the Bible was proof that God existed, and if it wasn't perfect in all ways, there was no reason to believe in God. When I first started participating on Christian forums in my late 30's, early 40's, and was faced with the realization that not all bible believers actually believed the same things and could make a case for why they believed differently than I did, that was a rude awakening . People were making all kinds of seemingly sound arguments for their understanding of things, and it was terribly confusing because many made sense (biblically speaking), depending on how you looked at it. How to know what was true? But I was still convinced that it was my issue, not an issue with the Bible: if I just came to understand it properly I would finally know THE truth.
So I prayed and studied and prayed and studied obsessively. It was a matter of eternal life or a fate worse than death, after all. I finally came to what I thought was THE truth, and I embraced Christian Universalism. Only, I still had to deal with the fact that every Christian I talked to could make a case for what they thought was THE truth according to the bible, and there were even some Christians who didn't think the Bible was inerrant (gasp). It seemed more and more that the bible expressed contradicting messages, and it was just a matter of what lens one looked through.
Eventually (and I don't remember what the tipping point was), it simply dawned on me that the bible was neither inerrant nor infallible. I promptly and immediately lost all faith not only in Christianity, but in God, period. After all, my ingrained, indoctrinated belief since infancy, as I said, was that no inerrant Bible = no God.
I was an atheist for a couple of years. It wasn't a good fit. There were things about that world view that didn't make sense to me, either. I began being open to the possibility that, if there was a God, I had to find a way to start with as clean a slate as possible and allow myself to be patient and see what revealed itself to me. Now I'm what Trans would consider a believer in sortaGod. I'm convinced there's more than meets the eye. My underlying faith in love as foundational to Life (aka God, in my mind) makes everything else peripheral (in other words, interesting to think about, but not something to be fearful about getting wrong). And if people don't like me having that faith and want to convince me I'm going to hell, or that I'm just a wishful thinker, because I don't agree with their view of things, that's not my problem.
I hear you and perhaps mostly true, but I don't think it right to say "all" people do the same thing...
I am forever calling out straw man arguments, and I like to think I don't use those sorts of tactics to justify my opinions in any case. At the same time, I often point out that confirmation bias reigns and I have a lot of respect for how powerful that bias can be, so I try to check myself as often as possible to better maintain objectivity as much as possible. For the sake of truth and nothing but the truth...
But just because people agree on something does not make it true; either side. Takes real evidence not just personal claims.
You mean "real evidence" like an ancient book of myths, parables, legends and guesses authored and edited by hundreds of anonymous, long-dead primitive men?
You mean "real evidence" like an ancient book of myths, parables, legends and guesses authored and edited by hundreds of anonymous, long-dead primitive men?
I call that evolution. Now if we could just keep the fundy-think type's grubby paws off of our reasoning for changin-ing.
Okay, well I don't know how to make this short so, if you're really interested you'll have to sludge through this:
I was a believer in an inerrant, infallible Bible: the "Word of God" -- God's message to humanity. I had been taught (and believed) all my life that, essentially, the Bible was proof that God existed, and if it wasn't perfect in all ways, there was no reason to believe in God. When I first started participating on Christian forums in my late 30's, early 40's, and was faced with the realization that not all bible believers actually believed the same things and could make a case for why they believed differently than I did, that was a rude awakening . People were making all kinds of seemingly sound arguments for their understanding of things, and it was terribly confusing because many made sense (biblically speaking), depending on how you looked at it. How to know what was true? But I was still convinced that it was my issue, not an issue with the Bible: if I just came to understand it properly I would finally know THE truth.
So I prayed and studied and prayed and studied obsessively. It was a matter of eternal life or a fate worse than death, after all. I finally came to what I thought was THE truth, and I embraced Christian Universalism. Only, I still had to deal with the fact that every Christian I talked to could make a case for what they thought was THE truth according to the bible, and there were even some Christians who didn't think the Bible was inerrant (gasp). It seemed more and more that the bible expressed contradicting messages, and it was just a matter of what lens one looked through.
Eventually (and I don't remember what the tipping point was), it simply dawned on me that the bible was neither inerrant nor infallible. I promptly and immediately lost all faith not only in Christianity, but in God, period. After all, my ingrained, indoctrinated belief since infancy, as I said, was that no inerrant Bible = no God.
I was an atheist for a couple of years. It wasn't a good fit. There were things about that world view that didn't make sense to me, either. I began being open to the possibility that, if there was a God, I had to find a way to start with as clean a slate as possible and allow myself to be patient and see what revealed itself to me. Now I'm what Trans would consider a believer in sortaGod. I'm convinced there's more than meets the eye. My underlying faith in love as foundational to Life (aka God, in my mind) makes everything else peripheral (in other words, interesting to think about, but not something to be fearful about getting wrong). And if people don't like me having that faith and want to convince me I'm going to hell, or that I'm just a wishful thinker, because I don't agree with their view of things, that's not my problem.
I was happy to 'sludge' through that interesting post. I reckon that you Sortagoddists and atheists are on the same page in everything but whether our agnosticism results in probably is, or no reason to believe it.
Regrettably this feeling that there is a cosmic mind watching over us , which is more than just 'more than meets the eye' - we know there is but this is Unknown, not evidence of a cosmic mind - is a huge divider between those who believe because of feelings and those who don't because feelings in the head are not really evidence.
It is as you say, not your problem, but it is too often a problem for atheists because out lack of buy -in to sortagod is taken as a persona affront by the sortagoddists, because they have invested personalFaith in this idea.
But, if they have Been Atheists and given up Church and Bible, they have nothing to argue with other than First cause and ID arguments plus funny feelings, none of which are valid. So they have nothing left but totry tomake a case by attacking unbelievers as violently as Right wing fundamentalists.
This is a problem for us and serious one, because this Sortagoddism, which isn't really anything much to argue about becomes the fuel for toxic attacks on atheism (usually picking on "New" atheist as though trying make changes was all wrong) and from people who really ought to be with us.
I was happy to 'sludge' through that interesting post. I reckon that you Sortagoddists and atheists are on the same page in everything but whether our agnosticism results in probably is, or no reason to believe it.
Regrettably this feeling that there is a cosmic mind watching over us , which is more than just 'more than meets the eye' - we know there is but this is Unknown, not evidence of a cosmic mind - is a huge divider between those who believe because of feelings and those who don't because feelings in the head are not really evidence.
It is as you say, not your problem, but it is too often a problem for atheists because out lack of buy -in to sortagod is taken as a persona affront by the sortagoddists, because they have invested personalFaith in this idea.
But, if they have Been Atheists and given up Church and Bible, they have nothing to argue with other than First cause and ID arguments plus funny feelings, none of which are valid. So they have nothing left but totry tomake a case by attacking unbelievers as violently as Right wing fundamentalists.
This is a problem for us and serious one, because this Sortagoddism, which isn't really anything much to argue about becomes the fuel for toxic attacks on atheism (usually picking on "New" atheist as though trying make changes was all wrong) and from people who really ought to be with us.
Relax, Trans. When was the last time you saw me attacking someone for being an atheist?
Relax, Trans. When was the last time you saw me attacking someone for being an atheist?
I am guilty. I don't care what people believe. I do care about how they believe. "Personal emotional feelings" are not proof of anything. atheists or theists wise.
"Personal need" and the need to push that need, over science data, on others, hidden by a statement of belief about god (for or against) is still just somebody selling a personal need over how the universe works.
I am not a fan of that. I don't much care if I wear the same t-shirt colors and have "atheist" on it.
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