Religious Questions from Atheists or Agnostics

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
221

[quote]H factor wrote:
It is also better to believe in something magical up there than to not believe.
[/quote]
Why?

I was loosely raised Baptist. Even though I was baptized via submersion at 13, I always had niggling feelings that none of it made sense for me, even at a young age. The “story” just didn’t ring true. I am now approaching 50 and am at peace without religion. It plays no role in my life and hasn’t since my formative years. My husband and I are raising two teenagers without religious influence. They are excellent students and good people with a strong moral fabric in terms of caring for fellow humans. But none of that is rooted in religious teachings. It would seem disingenuous to me to use religion as a basis for moral teachings when I myself am not a believer.

222

[quote]kpsnap wrote:

[quote]H factor wrote:
It is also better to believe in something magical up there than to not believe.
[/quote]
Why?

I was loosely raised Baptist. Even though I was baptized via submersion at 13, I always had niggling feelings that none of it made sense for me, even at a young age. The “story” just didn’t ring true. I am now approaching 50 and am at peace without religion. It plays no role in my life and hasn’t since my formative years. My husband and I are raising two teenagers without religious influence. They are excellent students and good people with a strong moral fabric in terms of caring for fellow humans. But none of that is rooted in religious teachings. It would seem disingenuous to me to use religion as a basis for moral teachings when I myself am not a believer.[/quote]

It makes certain things easier like death. Religion plays no role in my life or my fiances life. In fact we are both annoyed by the people around us who constantly attempt to judge others based on their lack of religion. Her boss is a diehard Catholic who consistently talks about people in negative ways based on her religion.

I completely agree with the moral things. I consider myself a “better” person than the vast majority of religious people I have met in this area. I don’t take things from other people. I don’t cheat on my fiance. I don’t use drugs. I volunteer my time at different places. I work harder than most of the people in this area who live by the “good book.”

Believing in something magical gives people all sorts of reasons for the horrific things that happen. “God needs an angel” when a baby dies. “She’s in a better place.” “I know mom is smiling down on me from above.” Religion makes a lot of people feel better about life which is why I said it is better in that sense to believe than not believe.

I cannot make myself believe nor can I make myself think anything but “yeah, that’s not true” when someone says God needs an angel.

223

[quote]AceRock wrote:
If I asked God for the answers to my questions, and I did not receive an answer, then what?

I prayed. I begged. I screamed. I went to church. I read the Bible. I would love faith, it seems nice. As it luck would have it, I don’t have it.

Now what? What does that leave me?[/quote]

Impatient.

224

[quote]doogie wrote:

[quote]H factor wrote:

[quote]doogie wrote:

This is me, even down to being raised a Methodist.[/quote]

I “believed” for a long time simply because I never took the time to even consider or question it. We said prayers at dinner. Prayers right before bed. And I read the Bible cover to cover more than once.

I think we were a pretty typical religious family. We didn’t do anything crazy really. Now that I’m older I realize my parents struggle somewhat with their faith. Most of their children are not big followers of the Methodist faith now most of us losing some of that once we went to higher education. Older brother is a professor, sister is a doctor, other sister runs a hospital and little brother works in pharmaceuticals. Diverse backgrounds, raised the same way, and came to generally the same conclusions once we got out of high school.

I started questioning it late in high school. Then in college I questioned it more and more. I tried to ignore that voice in my head. I tried to ignore things I read counter to what I was taught growing on the internet. As I was presented a bigger body of evidence counter to what I was raised to believe I reached a point where I no longer “bought it.”

I don’t feel above people simply because I quit buying it, but I feel as if sometimes the faithful don’t believe that someone can actually not have faith. I honestly CANNOT do it unless I fake the role like an actor would. [/quote]

I can completely relate to all of this. In high school another kid at a leadership camp gave me a copy of THE AGE OF REASON. That alone didn’t send me down the road to damnation, but it definitely sowed the seeds. My sister somehow still believes, but I don’t think she’s ever actually questioned her faith. I’d never put her in that situation, because in so many ways I’m jealous that she still has it.

In the end, even sitting with my pastor, the only answers to my questions have been a version of “You just have to have faith.” Where can I buy that?[/quote]

The Age of Reason is one of the greatest gifts given to a theist. It asked great questions. It required great minds to go to work. It’s a beautiful thing. It raised great questions, it provided little in the way of answers. But the questions were important and still are.

If your faith is shaken by simple questioning, it probably wasn’t all that strong in the first place. Or it’s based on something very shaky. If you think of faith in the terms of magic tricks and miracles, then it’s very easy to fall away.
If you are proposed questions and you don’t seek the answers, you never really cared that much.

225

[quote]H factor wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]H factor wrote:

Somehow I think if a higher power exists he can tell if someone is just hedging a bet by faking faith right? [/quote]

Yep.[/quote]

Ironically when I first heard Pascal’s Wager I thought…“exactly! Why would anyone take the risk of hell when you can just believe in God?!”

Freshman philosophy class. My wavering on faith didn’t last much longer as I explored the irrationality of that notion and others.

If this can be fixed in me I have no idea how. [/quote]

Whose irrationality? I think atheistic rational is pretty shaky. From nothing BAM! something for no reason? Or wait, even better ‘We don’t know, but we know there’s no God.’ That doesn’t seem rational to me at all.

However, I don’t want to turn this into yet another philosophical discussion. There are subjects where that discussion is taking place already. They are laborious as hell.

This is how I see it:
"Pope Francis then proposed a very practical example: “If you happen to be with an atheist who tells you that he does not believe in God, you can read him the whole library, where it says that God exists, and where it is proven that God exists, and he will not believe”. However, he continued, “if in the presence of this same atheist you witness to a consistent, Christian life, something will begin to work in his heart”. And “it will be your witness that brings him the restlessness on which the Holy Spirit works”.

I could provide you a library of logical proofs for the existence of God, you wouldn’t give one tiny damn no matter how solid they are. The language of Christian dignity and love speak volumes higher than even rock solid logic.

226

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]H factor wrote:

Somehow I think if a higher power exists he can tell if someone is just hedging a bet by faking faith right? [/quote]

Yep.[/quote]

God can tell a faker…

227

[quote]kpsnap wrote:

[quote]H factor wrote:
It is also better to believe in something magical up there than to not believe.
[/quote]
Why?

I was loosely raised Baptist. Even though I was baptized via submersion at 13, I always had niggling feelings that none of it made sense for me, even at a young age. The “story” just didn’t ring true. I am now approaching 50 and am at peace without religion. It plays no role in my life and hasn’t since my formative years. My husband and I are raising two teenagers without religious influence. They are excellent students and good people with a strong moral fabric in terms of caring for fellow humans. But none of that is rooted in religious teachings. It would seem disingenuous to me to use religion as a basis for moral teachings when I myself am not a believer.[/quote]

A non-religious life is easy.

228

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]kpsnap wrote:

[quote]H factor wrote:
It is also better to believe in something magical up there than to not believe.
[/quote]
Why?

I was loosely raised Baptist. Even though I was baptized via submersion at 13, I always had niggling feelings that none of it made sense for me, even at a young age. The “story” just didn’t ring true. I am now approaching 50 and am at peace without religion. It plays no role in my life and hasn’t since my formative years. My husband and I are raising two teenagers without religious influence. They are excellent students and good people with a strong moral fabric in terms of caring for fellow humans. But none of that is rooted in religious teachings. It would seem disingenuous to me to use religion as a basis for moral teachings when I myself am not a believer.[/quote]

A non-religious life is easy.
[/quote]

What would you know about it?

229

H Factor echoes my personal beliefs on this subject in many ways. Some other posters here, as well.

At age 6 my older brother died a long, drawn out death to cancer of the brain at age 8. I was raised Catholic, but that event shook the foundation of my parents’ faith and they were unenthusiastic participants from then on. Losing your first born can do that to you. The seed of doubt was planted in my little head at too young an age, and I was made to endure 13 years of Catholic schooling, all the while struggling with what seemed to be so easy for most everyone else around me - faith.

It reached a point in my teenage/early adult years where I actually hated the concept of the Christan God for allowing this to happen to us, or for making this happen to us (“God’s will”, as they told me when he died). It wasn’t until later in my twenties and thirties that I accepted the fact that God worship was not in the cards for me and, to the best of my ability, I have let it go.

As a father of 2 kids now, my wife, who is religious, struggles with my beliefs, or lack of faith in God. I don’t participate in church or religious activities with her and the kids despite her protests, but I don’t stop them either. If such belief helps you get through life, then who am I to stop it? Hell, at times I wish I were able to have such comfort. Like it has been said here before, it is easier to have faith than not.

230

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]kpsnap wrote:

[quote]H factor wrote:
It is also better to believe in something magical up there than to not believe.
[/quote]
Why?

I was loosely raised Baptist. Even though I was baptized via submersion at 13, I always had niggling feelings that none of it made sense for me, even at a young age. The “story” just didn’t ring true. I am now approaching 50 and am at peace without religion. It plays no role in my life and hasn’t since my formative years. My husband and I are raising two teenagers without religious influence. They are excellent students and good people with a strong moral fabric in terms of caring for fellow humans. But none of that is rooted in religious teachings. It would seem disingenuous to me to use religion as a basis for moral teachings when I myself am not a believer.[/quote]

A non-religious life is easy.
[/quote]
Interesting takeaway from my statements.

I actually see it the other way. Those with faith have built-in comfort that there is purpose and meaning and ultimate reward. Despair is a pretty damn dark place without belief in a deity and the afterlife. Strangely, my moral fabric is probably more intact than most religious people I know. I lead a ridiculously conservative life with a very strong built-in moral compass. I like to believe that it is our acts that define us. Not our association with a religion or lack thereof.

231

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]kpsnap wrote:

[quote]H factor wrote:
It is also better to believe in something magical up there than to not believe.
[/quote]
Why?

I was loosely raised Baptist. Even though I was baptized via submersion at 13, I always had niggling feelings that none of it made sense for me, even at a young age. The “story” just didn’t ring true. I am now approaching 50 and am at peace without religion. It plays no role in my life and hasn’t since my formative years. My husband and I are raising two teenagers without religious influence. They are excellent students and good people with a strong moral fabric in terms of caring for fellow humans. But none of that is rooted in religious teachings. It would seem disingenuous to me to use religion as a basis for moral teachings when I myself am not a believer.[/quote]

A non-religious life is easy.
[/quote]

Is the goal of religion to make life harder? It seems like there’s lots of ways to make life harder if that’s what you are looking for.

232

[quote]kpsnap wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]kpsnap wrote:

[quote]H factor wrote:
It is also better to believe in something magical up there than to not believe.
[/quote]
Why?

I was loosely raised Baptist. Even though I was baptized via submersion at 13, I always had niggling feelings that none of it made sense for me, even at a young age. The “story” just didn’t ring true. I am now approaching 50 and am at peace without religion. It plays no role in my life and hasn’t since my formative years. My husband and I are raising two teenagers without religious influence. They are excellent students and good people with a strong moral fabric in terms of caring for fellow humans. But none of that is rooted in religious teachings. It would seem disingenuous to me to use religion as a basis for moral teachings when I myself am not a believer.[/quote]

A non-religious life is easy.
[/quote]
Interesting takeaway from my statements.

I actually see it the other way. Those with faith have built-in comfort that there is purpose and meaning and ultimate reward. Despair is a pretty damn dark place without belief in a deity and the afterlife. Strangely, my moral fabric is probably more intact than most religious people I know. I lead a ridiculously conservative life with a very strong built-in moral compass. I like to believe that it is our acts that define us. Not our association with a religion or lack thereof.[/quote]

I only based it on what you said and you painted a pretty rosy picture. I don’t know your life, or the depth or fabric of it.
And as you said, you have a ‘very strong built-in moral compass’. That came from somewhere.
So I don’t know what you actually believe, but you believe in something. I don’t think your the judge jury and arbitrar of said moral compass, otherwise you could just change it, rather than adhere to it.
So clearly your beliefs are more complex than you lead one. I figured as much, which is why I said what I said. My goal was to extract that emotion from you. So yes, it was loaded and done on purpose, but I meant no harm.
I just figured there was more to the story than you let on, and so there is.

233

From my understanding a lot of the moral laws are about germ avoidance.

Pathogens trigger disgust (avoidance mechanism). Disgust influences sexual, religious, political values.

234

[quote]jjackkrash wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]kpsnap wrote:

[quote]H factor wrote:
It is also better to believe in something magical up there than to not believe.
[/quote]
Why?

I was loosely raised Baptist. Even though I was baptized via submersion at 13, I always had niggling feelings that none of it made sense for me, even at a young age. The “story” just didn’t ring true. I am now approaching 50 and am at peace without religion. It plays no role in my life and hasn’t since my formative years. My husband and I are raising two teenagers without religious influence. They are excellent students and good people with a strong moral fabric in terms of caring for fellow humans. But none of that is rooted in religious teachings. It would seem disingenuous to me to use religion as a basis for moral teachings when I myself am not a believer.[/quote]

A non-religious life is easy.
[/quote]

Is the goal of religion to make life harder? It seems like there’s lots of ways to make life harder if that’s what you are looking for.
[/quote]

No. The goal of religion is and should be to love God and our neighbors. Sounds so simple, yet we fall so short. Looking at us, you’d think good religious people never heard of such a thing.
We do a lot of things right, but self-righteousness and passing judgement is where the religious fall short the most often. Ego is the most difficult thing to keep in check.

235

[quote]Souldozer wrote:
H Factor echoes my personal beliefs on this subject in many ways. Some other posters here, as well.

At age 6 my older brother died a long, drawn out death to cancer of the brain at age 8. I was raised Catholic, but that event shook the foundation of my parents’ faith and they were unenthusiastic participants from then on. Losing your first born can do that to you. The seed of doubt was planted in my little head at too young an age, and I was made to endure 13 years of Catholic schooling, all the while struggling with what seemed to be so easy for most everyone else around me - faith.

It reached a point in my teenage/early adult years where I actually hated the concept of the Christan God for allowing this to happen to us, or for making this happen to us (“God’s will”, as they told me when he died). It wasn’t until later in my twenties and thirties that I accepted the fact that God worship was not in the cards for me and, to the best of my ability, I have let it go.

As a father of 2 kids now, my wife, who is religious, struggles with my beliefs, or lack of faith in God. I don’t participate in church or religious activities with her and the kids despite her protests, but I don’t stop them either. If such belief helps you get through life, then who am I to stop it? Hell, at times I wish I were able to have such comfort. Like it has been said here before, it is easier to have faith than not.[/quote]

It doesn’t sound like you don’t believe in God, rather your mad as hell at God. I don’t blame you. I couldn’t relate to your story, have no way of knowing how I would feel in your shoes.
The ‘problem of evil’ is not well understood by anybody.
I am sorry about your brother, I can’t imagine the hell you and your family went through. Fat load of good that does, I know, but I am sorry. I really hate it when kids suffer.

236

Agreed. Those who haven’t been without faith have a hard time speaking about how easy it must be. I’ve laid out why I think faith is much easier than not. I am not mad as hell at God because I don’t believe God exists and it doesn’t make sense to be mad at something that isn’t real. If God does exist I have a couple of things I would like to say to him about the way he goes about his business!

237

[quote]pat wrote:

It doesn’t sound like you don’t believe in God, rather your mad as hell at God. I don’t blame you. I couldn’t relate to your story, have no way of knowing how I would feel in your shoes.
The ‘problem of evil’ is not well understood by anybody.
I am sorry about your brother, I can’t imagine the hell you and your family went through. Fat load of good that does, I know, but I am sorry. I really hate it when kids suffer. [/quote]

To clarify, I said I went through a questioning phase (early childhood), hatred phase (teenager/20’s), and now I’ve let it all go. Just took a damn long time to figure out what was wrong with me and why my experience just wouldn’t allow me to assimilate into the Christian society I was brought up in. I tried, I really did.

Now, I simply believe that a higher power exists that we don’t understand and religion is mainly just talk among men (people, that is). It is an attempt to explain the unexplainable, and I don’t view it as wrong as long as no one gets hurt by the message or the process.

238

[quote]therajraj wrote:
From my understanding a lot of the moral laws are about germ avoidance.

Pathogens trigger disgust (avoidance mechanism). Disgust influences sexual, religious, political values.

[/quote]

The Israelites avoided contact with bodily discharge , menstrual blood, dead bodies, contagious skin diseases, mould and mildew etc. sounds like a good idea to me.

There were two distinct types of impurity.
Those mentioned above we’re ritual impurity and we’re only temporary. Moral impurities involved great sin that could even bring destruction on Israel - idolatry bringing Nebuchadnezzar’s invasion and the
Babylonian captivity. This lasted 70 years and nearly led to the genocide of all the .Jews. In a few days the story of their saviour by Ezra is celebrated on the day of Purim.

See ask a sensible question; get a sensible answer.

239

Ha! Not mine.

240

[quote]Souldozer wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

It doesn’t sound like you don’t believe in God, rather your mad as hell at God. I don’t blame you. I couldn’t relate to your story, have no way of knowing how I would feel in your shoes.
The ‘problem of evil’ is not well understood by anybody.
I am sorry about your brother, I can’t imagine the hell you and your family went through. Fat load of good that does, I know, but I am sorry. I really hate it when kids suffer. [/quote]

To clarify, I said I went through a questioning phase (early childhood), hatred phase (teenager/20’s), and now I’ve let it all go. Just took a damn long time to figure out what was wrong with me and why my experience just wouldn’t allow me to assimilate into the Christian society I was brought up in. I tried, I really did.

Now, I simply believe that a higher power exists that we don’t understand and religion is mainly just talk among men (people, that is). It is an attempt to explain the unexplainable, and I don’t view it as wrong as long as no one gets hurt by the message or the process.[/quote]

Maybe it is, maybe just all talk and nobody knows. I enjoy the talks though. I think the process is very interesting. The questions are good, the answers are good… I don’t think any real honest person claims to know it all. But I do believe there are right answers and I believe we know some of them.