I don't want to be an atheist

[ippy]

There's no reason why they should, Ippy. But there is a world of difference between 'followers of' and 'believers in'.

 "there is a world of difference between 'followers of' and 'believers", yes and I've often noticed that on this forum usually where someone is on a looser and the only way out, as they try, is to try splitting hairs on the semantics, now where have I seen that most recently? 

ippy

It's a huge difference: followers of Christian ethics don't necessarily believe that Jesus walked on water or that God is real, but they do (probably) believe that you should 'love thy neighbour'.

That's a massive difference.

O.

I do agree with you there, love thy neighbour, in spite of their rather strange ideas.

ippy

[Gonnagle]

Dear Rhiannon,

Why a garden, Gonners? Why not the wilderness, the mountains, the oceans, the thicket and the desert? No gardener necessary, just nature shifting, creating and recreating itself.

Why!!

Dear Outrider,

To us it is complicated, but I suspect ( me personally ) that in the very far future, we will say, bugger, that simple, what were we thinking, and God ( whatever God is ) will say, yep, first take an old washing up bottle, and  some sticky backed plastic

Gonnagle.

[Outrider]

To us it is complicated, but I suspect ( me personally ) that in the very far future, we will say, bugger, that simple, what were we thinking, and God ( whatever God is ) will say, yep, first take an old washing up bottle, and  some sticky backed plastic

Gonnagle.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic miracles, to paraphrase Mr Clarke.

O.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Outrider,

And to paraphrase Prof Cox and his wooonders of the universe, "it is a miracle we are even here".

Gonnagle.

[ippy]

Dear Outrider,

And to paraphrase Prof Cox and his wooonders of the universe, "it is a miracle we are even here".

Gonnagle.

Yes Gonners it does look that way, where it looks like it is in fact a miracle we are even here", but then any old story can easily be made up to incorporate that lot.

ippy

[Aruntraveller]

Dear Trent,

Just faintly, well let me insult you a little more, do you not think that the person who calls himself Trentvoyager is unique, I do, as I find all Posters on here unique, tell me, why is this, why in all this world could I search and never find another Trentvoyager, oh! I could find someone who has the same tastes, likes the same music, even if you had a twin he would still not be Trentvoyager, why!! is that not a terrible insult you lovely man.

Atheism, I just don't get it.

Gonnagle.

Well right back at ya.

Christianity - I just don't get it.

As I have said before were you born in India you would more likely than not be Hindu and be just as unable to get Christianity as you are currently unable to get atheism. Why the religious don't get the localism of religion and the implications of that I shall never know.

I still don't get why you think I am not capable of appreciating the uniqueness of everything around me. In fact I have often thought that for the religious it can be an easy way out to hold to the line that it's Gods creation all around us - as it negates the responsibility of having to find out WHY.

Religion in so many ways has been, and continues to be, a block on the progress that we need to make as a race. Religion holds us back. That you and many other religious people cannot see that simple fact does not make it any less true.

[Rhiannon]

Dear Rhiannon,

Why a garden, Gonners? Why not the wilderness, the mountains, the oceans, the thicket and the desert? No gardener necessary, just nature shifting, creating and recreating itself.

Why!!

Dear Outrider,

To us it is complicated, but I suspect ( me personally ) that in the very far future, we will say, bugger, that simple, what were we thinking, and God ( whatever God is ) will say, yep, first take an old washing up bottle, and  some sticky backed plastic

Gonnagle.

Why what?

[Gonnagle]

Dear Trent,

Well right back at ya.

Christianity - I just don't get it.

As I have said before were you born in India you would more likely than not be Hindu and be just as unable to get Christianity as you are currently unable to get atheism. Why the religious don't get the localism of religion and the implications of that I shall never know.

I still don't get why you think I am not capable of appreciating the uniqueness of everything around me. In fact I have often thought that for the religious it can be an easy way out to hold to the line that it's Gods creation all around us - as it negates the responsibility of having to find out WHY.

Religion in so many ways has been, and continues to be, a block on the progress that we need to make as a race. Religion holds us back. That you and many other religious people cannot see that simple fact does not make it any less true.

No argument here old son, if I was born in India and walked into a Temple, but I was born in Glasgow ( thankyou God ) at a time when Temples were not to be found, then maybe, but I have walked with Jesus for a long time ( sometimes stumbling ) but I am like the originator of this thread, Christianity is my home not my prison ( yes I know Rose is not a Christian ) I can find wisdom in other religions.

Uniqueness, why I find it fascinating, science ( but I do find the fingerprint of God ) no two snowflakes are the same, how the hell do they know, no two fingerprints are the same, how the hell do they know, but science tells me this.

But I do catch a glimmer of this uniqueness in us ( we are made in Gods image ) art, music, dance, each person appreciating or bringing something totally unique to it ( and if you ever saw me dance, but there are bigger horrors in this world )

And I could go on, the list is endless, why I ask "WHY".

As for religion holding us back, we need something in place, if not religion sticking its oar in, then what, man thinks he is so intelligent, he is not

Gonnagle.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Rhiannon,

Just agreeing with you, why a garden, and it is a garden.

Gonnagle.

[Rhiannon]

Dear Rhiannon,

Just agreeing with you, why a garden, and it is a garden.

Gonnagle.

But a garden needs a creative mind, and if our garden has been created by this mind it's been created with a lot of suffering to which the gardener doesn't turn his/her attention to resolve.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Rhiannon,

My answer ( my opinion ) I don't want it all handed on a plate, that for me stops me growing, but the stock answer, why do babies get cancer, why even bloody cancer, I just don't know.

Gonnagle.

[Outrider]

Dear Rhiannon,

My answer ( my opinion ) I don't want it all handed on a plate, that for me stops me growing, but the stock answer, why do babies get cancer, why even bloody cancer, I just don't know.

Gonnagle.

See, this is one of the places where I struggle. I can't grasp a situation where you can have a vivid enough imagination to conceive of a god, yet not vivid enough to conceive of a world where such things don't need to happen, and if they don't need to happen yet the god you conceive of makes a world where they happen anyway... To say 'I don't know' is a fair enough answer to the problem of evil, but only if it's a fair enough answer to 'is there really a god'?

O.

[Rhiannon]

I don't want it on a plate either, but nor do I want my kids to have had the loss of a playmate as their first experience of death. If women are designed so childbirth can result in recto-vaginal fistulas then the designer is a sadist.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Rhiannon and Outrider,

To answer both your questions I would need to tell you what is God, a description, another, I just don't know.

What I can tell you through personal experience is that Our Lord walks with me every step of the way, but to know this feeling, this certainty, you would need to walk in my shoes and yes sometime I do tell God to go and take a run off a high dyke, and no that is not a woman in high but comfortable shoes.

Gonnagle.

[Rhiannon]

What makes you think I didn't once have exactly the same certainty that you do, Gonners? I didn't want to be a priest because I liked the floral blouse/dog collar combo.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Rhiannon,

Sorry but you have baffled me, how you got from my post to me questioning your journey.

Gonnagle.

[Rhiannon]

Dear Rhiannon,

Sorry but you have baffled me, how you got from my post to me questioning your journey.

Gonnagle.

Not at all, I was just saying I can imagine how you feel because I once felt the same. Time was when I couldn't understand any other way of living and would never have believed I could lose my faith.

[Rhiannon]

What makes you think I didn't once have exactly the same certainty that you do, Gonners? I didn't want to be a priest because I liked the floral blouse/dog collar combo.

Interesting.

So you were quite into it then?

🌹

The only reason I didn't go through with the selection process for the priesthood was that I found out I was pregnant.

[Jack Knave]

Rose, am an atheist but I'm with you on this one.

For me atheism is the rejection of the various Gods as stipulated and defined in many of the religions, specifically the monotheistic ones, as they have intellectualized to the nth degree the archetypal elements of the psyche and hence produced rubbish. I do not reject the numinous and other aspects of the psyche and the unconscious which is where our original elements of religion came from. Your experience, as outlined in my thread, is of the latter.

The psychological acceptance of the unconscious allows for the openness you wish for, but also broader aspects if one wishes.

[Rhiannon]

What makes you think I didn't once have exactly the same certainty that you do, Gonners? I didn't want to be a priest because I liked the floral blouse/dog collar combo.

Interesting.

So you were quite into it then?

🌹

The only reason I didn't go through with the selection process for the priesthood was that I found out I was pregnant.

Yes that would keep you very busy 😀

Just found out my ordained best friend's son is going to become a vicar ( the whole family is very very religious although they are accepting of other paths unless they involve the occult) .

He's a bit of an enthusiastic chap and I have been watching some of his Facebook entries with a growing sense of unease.

Before we moved away, I had about 15 years of challenging his mum on aspects of Christian belief.

I can see me getting into the same with her son 


I did go to church for about ten years, and met some lovely people and I enjoyed the sense of community, but really only learnt I'm not a Christian ( which I really knew anyway)  I just have a respect for the ethical lessons of Jesus minus the theology.

I could have just as easily shared a church building with a Catholic, a Jew, a Hindu, a pagan, an Athiest, a Sikh etc. altogether and been happy to find ethics and direction  in common.

Just me I suppose.

I think if someone has a faith then it's important to engage with the beliefs and practices of others, if only to understand. It's a shame your friend still has the old 'everything's ok apart from the occult' attitude that I'd had drummed into me. I can't go into details but once someone gave me some very good advice and I ignored her because a Christian friend said she was into the occult and was 'led by the devil'. It's superstitious claptrap.

[ProfessorDavey]

All too often (at least on the Internet ) being an Athiest seems synonymous with being closed and narrow minded and seeing any deviation of opinion as "irrational "

I don't aim to close my mind in that fashion.

It would be like wearing shackles.

Sometimes it's not so much about believing something but of being able to keep an open mind about a variety of things. 
 

Atheists at least on the Internet, don't seem to be able to do that.

Everyone is different I suppose. Not everyone is cut out to be an atheist.

The idea of being an atheist does nothing for me.

Xxxxxxxxxx

I know being an atheist is supposed to just mean no belief in gods but often comes across as being closed to considering other possibilities.

I thought it might be interesting to open a thread to explore the idea that being an atheist now seems to mean closing your mind to things not already supported by science.

Does anyone else feel being an Athiest involves closing your mind to interesting questions? Wider than those involving gods?

Not everyone wants to be an atheist, not everyone is cut out to be an atheist.

I'm not.

How do others feel?

Do some feel being an atheist is like putting shackles on your brain and limiting your inquiry into " life the universe and everything?"

Quite the reverse.

When I came to recognise that I didn't believe in god in 1989 is was like my eyes, ears, the rest of my senses being opened. Up to then it was as if I was looking at the world through a prism, through a window with imperfect or dirty glass. That prism being a mythical god. Once I removed god from the equation I could see the world directly, clearly, as if a veil had been removed.

Now I am sure others will have different experience, but this is mine. So rather than atheism putting shackles on my mind, it has removed them. Rather than my atheism closing my mind, it has opened it.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Prof,

Except to the possibility that there is a God, but then atheists only dismiss man's interpretation of God, our feeble attempts to try and imagine the unimaginable.

Gonnagle.

[ProfessorDavey]

Dear Prof,

Except to the possibility that there is a God,


Gonnagle.

Why is it any more a sign of a closed mind not to accept the possibility that there is a god than not to accept the possibility the there isn't a god. Surely each are equally closed.

And actually I doubt that most atheists are of that mind - there is a difference between belief (or lack thereof) and knowledge. I do not believe in the existence of god or gods, I do not know that they don't exist. I remain open to the possibility, but until or unless there is evidence to convince me I will likely continue not to believe in their existence.

but then atheists only dismiss man's interpretation of God, our feeble attempts to try and imagine the unimaginable.

But surely one of the most feeble attempts of man to explain the unexplained is to invent a god and then ascribe 'goddidit' to things we don't understand.

The mature approach is to accept there are things we currently don't understand and work hard to try to understand them.

[Shaker]

I do not believe in the existence of god or gods, I do not know that they don't exist. I remain open to the possibility, but until or unless there is evidence to convince me I will likely continue not to believe in their existence.

You've the advantage of me there, then, since in the context of gods I can't even see how the concept of possibility applies, personally. Possibility has to be grounded in something concrete - something, however minuscule, that we already know - to make any sense.

For example, I can have a pretty well informed conversation about the possibility of life on other planets because both terms in the discussion - life and other planets - have some substance. I know what it would mean to discover life on a different planet based on my pre-existing knowledge of and familiarity with life on this one. This is completely unlike the situation with gods - I've never encountered one and have absolutely no knowledge of any (not least because those who purport to believe in such things are notoriously poor at defining them concretely), so that when I'm asked if I'm open to the possibility of gods the standard response from me is that the concept of possibility doesn't even apply. What is it that I'm supposed to think possible, exactly?

[Nearly Sane]

You've the advantage of me there, then, since in the context of gods I can't even see how the concept of possibility applies, personally. Possibility has to be grounded in something concrete - something, however minuscule, that we already know - to make any sense.

For example, I can have a pretty well informed conversation about the possibility of life on other planets because both terms in the discussion - life and other planets - have some substance. I know what it would mean to discover life on a different planet based on my pre-existing knowledge of and familiarity with life on this one. This is completely unlike the situation with gods - I've never encountered one and have absolutely no knowledge of any (not least because those who purport to believe in such things are notoriously poor at defining them concretely), so that when I'm asked if I'm open to the possibility of gods the standard response from me is that the concept of possibility doesn't even apply. What is it that I'm supposed to think possible, exactly?

Yes, this pretty much sums up my position as well. If the definitions we get given of god are either in my view logically contradictory or meaningless then the concept of possibility cannot be appllied any more than the possibility of jupremangandi existing.