Atheists, does it irk you that Christians are so sure of their beliefs? (virtual, Revelation)
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.
There are many reasons why I don't believe there is a god (I don't claim to be certain or know there is no god, because such a thing is unknowable). I did not "give up" on believing in a god because Mormonism isn't true. Obviously, a god could still exist even though Mormonism isn't true.
I won't go into all of the reasons why I don't believe there is a god as it would be off topic, but there is at least one way in which my experiences as a Mormon did inform my disbelief in a god. While I was a Mormon, god was very real to me. I truly believed I had a very close relationship with god. I conversed with him daily. I leaned on him for comfort. I poured out my heart to him. I loved him. I shared my hopes and dreams, my concerns, and pled for help to overcome my weaknesses. I felt his powerful and wonderous love. He gave me direction in my life. I loved pondering on him. My relationship with him was as real and as strong as the most intense relationships other Christians believe they have with him (as much as one can tell through the inadequate words we use to try to describe that personal relationship).
Well, through that most intimate relationship I had with god, I felt god confirmed to me on many occasions that Mormonism was true, that Joseph Smith was his prophet, that the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price were true scripture, literally true in every way. I believed God had told me that the Book of Abraham was exactly what Joseph Smith claimed it was, namely, a translation of ancient Egyptian papyri that were written by the prophet Abraham by his own hand. I later came to find out that the Book of Abraham is nothing of the sort and could not be considered such by any stretch of creative apologetics. So, something I believed god had told me turned out to not me true. Not only that, but presumably, many other Mormons, including Mormon leaders, who also have this intense relationship with god that I believed I had, also believed god had told them the very same thing that I now knew was not true. So, at minimum, there are many people, who all believe they have a very real relationship with the creator, who cannot tell that what they believed to be a communication from god was false. There are many possibilities after that: maybe the relationship is real, but some communication is true and some is false and people can't tell the difference, maybe some people have a true relationship and other people don't but think they do, etc. But, one possibility is that everyone who believes they have a personal relationship with god could be wrong, no matter how real the relationship seems to them.
Now, I won't, in this thread, go into the rest of what took me from that possibility to where I am now estimating the probability of a god existing as very, very low, but that is one way in which my relationship with god as a Mormon contributed to me considering that god might not exist even though many people are convinced they have a personal relationship with him.
I relate most strongly to your dilemma, Hueff . . . but I approached my experiences from the polar opposite position. I had ZERO belief in God and was absolutely certain that the nonsense promoted by the various religions was complete hokum. You, however, had completely "owned" the hokum in Mormonism and used those precepts and doctrines of men to filter your experiences and translate them into false confirmations of absurdities. I had to spend decades trying to explain to myself what was made unmistakably true to me personally . . . God exists. I had to satisfy myself that I was not delusional and that there is some scientific basis (and eventually scriptural in the "spiritual fossil record") for the predominance of religious speculation and belief about God in the human species.
I succeeded in my quest . . . but you have withdrawn into solipsism and denial because you misinterpreted your experiences driven by the false precepts under which you interpreted them. You have lost all faith in your own judgment and experiences . . . cutting off the right brain input to your understanding. It is very sad to see and is just another of the myriad evil outcomes religions in their retention of ancient ignorance and superstition have perpetrated upon the human Spirit. Peace,
Mystic
I've accepted that most people are not logical or all that bright, that is why most people in the world have a religion. I think it annoys me but its just one of the things that annoys me out of many, like how ignorant people are about politics, the greedy nature of man, greedy politicians. There's not much you can do about any of those things, humans are just funked up.
Slight reading comprehension problem . . . I started with an unmistakable experience in deep meditation . . . not a baseless premise.
That is worse. Not better. People have visions - hallucinations - dreams - and more all the time. You just decided what it meant up front - explaining it with a baseless premise - then spent decades verifying it to yourself. Again: Confirmation bias much?
Slight reading comprehension problem . . . I started with an unmistakable experience in deep meditation . . . not a baseless premise.
Meditation and/or sensory deprivation. When the brain lacks external stimulation to form perceptions, it may form hallucinatory perceptions....Hallucinations are false or distorted sensory experiences that seem real and may be seen, heard, felt, and even smelled or tasted, yet are generated only by the mind....
So again, in all honesty, does it just irritate the heck out of you that Christians are so sure of their belief in God?
Yes. That is annoying. When you get to a certain level of understanding in the scientific realm you learn to be wary of anyone who claims to have absolute knowledge about anything. All too often these claims are the result of having overlooked something, making certainty somewhat of a luxury of fools. With theists of all stripes this "certainty" comes at the high cost of ignorance about so many other things. I do not envy them.
I relate most strongly to your dilemma, Hueff . . . but I approached my experiences from the polar opposite position. I had ZERO belief in God and was absolutely certain that the nonsense promoted by the various religions was complete hokum. You, however, had completely "owned" the hokum in Mormonism and used those precepts and doctrines of men to filter your experiences and translate them into false confirmations of absurdities. I had to spend decades trying to explain to myself what was made unmistakably true to me personally . . . God exists. I had to satisfy myself that I was not delusional and that there is some scientific basis (and eventually scriptural in the "spiritual fossil record") for the predominance of religious speculation and belief about God in the human species.
I succeeded in my quest . . . but you have withdrawn into solipsism and denial because you misinterpreted your experiences driven by the false precepts under which you interpreted them. You have lost all faith in your own judgment and experiences . . . cutting off the right brain input to your understanding. It is very sad to see and is just another of the myriad evil outcomes religions in their retention of ancient ignorance and superstition have perpetrated upon the human Spirit. Peace,
Mystic
No, he just hasn't allowed himself to be fooled twice.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
Slight reading comprehension problem . . . I started with an unmistakable experience in deep meditation . . . not a baseless premise.
Correct. The meditation came first, the baseless premise came afterwards.
Mystic, give it up - we have had you sussed for the last couple of years. You can't bamboozle us.
Correct. The meditation came first, the baseless premise came afterwards.
One can actually pinpoint what the baseless premise was with Mystic. He cites three criteria for determining whether a meditative experience is an experience of something real or imaginative: 1) immutability, meaning he can't willfully change the experience (like one can sometimes with dreams), 2) consistency, and I cannot remember the third one right now. But, his baseless premise is that if these characteristics are present in a meditative experience, then the experience is of something genuine and real.
It is baseless because the premise has never been established or tested. One would first have to independently know that an experience was of something real before one could test whether those criteria reliably identify real ones from imaginary ones. And one would have to run multiple trials of this. But, the problem is there is no way to independently (meaning without using those criteria) know that a meditative experience is of something real. And without that one can never test whether those criteria are accurately identify experiences of something real versus experiences of something imaginary.
One can use meditative experiences as inspiration for making hypotheses about how things work, but logically, they could never be sufficient to allow one to declare they know something about the nature of reality.
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.
Peace,
