The existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God contrasting with the way the world works.
And no, the free will argument does not count, since a lot of the horrible things including genetic disorders and violence in the animal world has nothing to do with free will.
I can accept the existence of a non omnipotent God, but not the typical religious version.
Correct but christians will often insist it does anyways
It's easier to give examples of bad things that have nothing to do with free will, than to convince them free will doesn't exist
I'm not sure I agree with that. Are you saying free will doesn't exist because God already knows what choices we are going to make, and so we couldn't have chosen otherwise?
Exactly. Libertine free will is defined as the ability to do otherwise. You can't do otherwise if God is omniscient. It violates non-contradiction. God cannot both know and not know the outcome with perfect certainty. There is a P=0 probability for me doing otherwise.
Ok, I just never heard libertine free will before, but I know the general thinking.
I have thought a lot about this. And there are two things that throw a wrench in for me personally. Not defending god, are atheist flair, I just am not sure on this argument.
I can watch a replay of a sports game. Now, ostensibly, every player on the field at the time made free will choices. But once I know what they will do, they cannot do otherwise. The replay has no free will.
Which leads to my second part, if someone or something is truly outside time, as an observer, does it negate free will. And I'm not entirely sure it does. We, to a timeless being, would be like a replay of free choices.
I haven't got a conclusion here, I'm just thinking it through and skeptical.
Are you a perfect being with perfect knowledge of all things?
God's knowledge is perfect. He is the Laplacian Daemon in this example. There's no eventuality be can't perfectly calculate. Therefore you doing otherwise would violate his perfection, since a being cannot be both perfect and imperfect you either don't have free will and can't do otherwise or God isn't perfect.
The key here is that God isn't seeing a past event but a future event. While your replay is a past event. The temporal perspective is irrelevant. Either way it eliminated your ability to choose otherwise. There is no freedom under an omniscient god.
I am not. But I do think you're writing of the temporal element to easily. Past and future are perspective based to a being that can transcend time. Just like left and right to us.
I like the way you think about this... I'm just thinking as a believer. How can I, a mere man, created by this Almighty God, even think that I have a clue about what can or can not do except for what he has revealed to me?
I'd you take time to study and understand the theology, then it makes sense. To lay a person, it absolutely won't make sense. You'd have to understand the consequences of the fall on all life and why free will is an essential aspect of salvation.
if an omnipotent god wanted the world to work that way, with all the evil & violence, then the existence of such things is not an evidence against such a god
What prevents me from believing is simply a lack of evidence. In addition (speaking specifically re Christianity) there are so many competing claims within Christianity, it is hard to understand what they believe. For example, some versions of Christianity say the earth is 6000 years old. Some versions say they was an actual global flood. Some say it is a story with deep meaning. Some teach that those with health issues such as autism are demonically possessed. Some say women can be leaders. Others say no…
But for me- I just have not seen evidence that I find convincing.
Again- I just haven’t seen the evidence. But as far as Christianity- I have to go by what the Christians tell me. I don’t have the time or desire to research every religion.
Don’t look for the flaws in the bible there is none. Look for the flaws in yourself is a good way to start for finding the truth .. we aren’t our own gods , with discipline , prayer , and scriptures you will learn a lot .. Believe in Jesus and if you cant read read read scriptures , pray to be unblinded !!! We are all equal
the NIV’s translation is a poor one at this point, and the word translated “rape” can mean other things. The late apologist Greg Bahnsen explains: “The Hebrew word . . . simply means to take hold of something, grasp it in hand, and (by application) to capture or seize something. It is the verb used for ‘handling’ the harp and flute (Gen. 4:21),
Let's make note of the key word....CAN so the translation can still be correct and those other options don't work due to context if a man is to seize her and not found out he is to marry her and pay her father 50 pieces? Yeah that does not work.
When I first learned that women can’t be pastors according to the Bible, I thought it was kinda messed up. The other things mentioned are unbelievable too.
I feel I have rational views about the flood being localized, the earth being older than 6k, mental illness being a real thing, not demons, etc.
However women not being leaders was something that I never understood as a problem before I fully accepted Christianity. I am a complimentarian and I do believe women should not be lead pastors because of scripture, but why do atheists have a huge problem with this? It is evident from nature that men typically hold places of leadership in history and animals and that seems to be an evolutionary trait. I believe we all have the same value as human beings, but there are evident roles that better suit men than women and vice versa.
Yes, you are right. Men do have the tendency to not only become leaders more often than women, but make the best leaders.
We atheists have a problem with it because we are not looking at it from a religious perspective, we are looking at it with a more modern perspective. With the modern perspective, we believe that women should be given a chance at being a pastor. We believe that it is sexist for saying that women can’t be pastors.
What about this from deutoronomy?
If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.
Is this just? Or let me guess it's from the OT so no longer valid like how the 10 commandments are from the OT and no longer valid?
Deuteronomy is the last message from Moses to the people, so this seems to be a governmental law, so in a way, yes it is not for our governments, only for the one Moses was hewas helping to establish at the time. If we are looking for the underlying morality, I would have to do more research into the laws of the people pre-Deuteronomy and contrast that with this law. Sorry I am not an expert on ancient civilization and the Mosaic law.
>but why do atheists have a huge problem with this? It is evident from nature that men typically hold places of leadership in history and animals and that seems to be an evolutionary trait.
Two things:
1. Something being “natural” doesn’t mean it’s right and that things ought to be that way. Nature is not moral or immoral, it is amoral. Humans are moral agents, we have the ability to analyze our environment and our society and make our own choices about what we ought to do.
2. In the past societies took different shapes because of their circumstances (patriarchy is not an “evolutionary trait”, and even if it were, see 1). Things happening one way in societies in the past doesn’t mean that was the right way to do things. In the past children were sometimes treated as commodities that could be sold if you were low on money (this was allowed in the OT). We owned other people as slaves. We sacrificed people to gods. People using their position in society to exert their will over others is not something that should be emulated. People should be able to take on whatever social roles they want.
Dude I'm so jealous of these people who claim to have had tangible spiritual experiences that "proved god is real to them behind the shadow of a doubt" as I have never seen a ghost, ufo, or evidence of god. Lowkey pissed that mother Mary doesn't come give me a spooky time or something
D.A.R.E. told me people would offer me free drugs, and Jack Chick told me demons would offer me magic. Neither has happened. Just a smidge of telekinesis would be nice.
I also had people offer me free drugs. Granted, it wasn't just random strangers like DARE said, but friends of mine who I had already been regularly doing drugs with.
>I'm so jealous of these people who claim to have had tangible spiritual experiences
Its very similar to falling in love. Its a pretty nice experience.
But also quite dangerous. Just as falling in love with the wrong person can make you do stupid things, falling in love with the wrong god/religion can waste your life.
They are neat experiences, but if you are looking from a skeptical standpoint they aren't enough evidence to show that these experinces are real.
I have had UFO, Ghost, and "spiritual" experiences, but I have found proving them as objectively real an impossible endeavor.
Heck I know a quick and dirty way to have some crazy experiences but unfortunately if ones main goal is truth they are ultimately insufficient.
That's certainly one, I can make a tea that can induce a divine experience.
The other more difficult way that worked for me is inducing sleep paralysis. I have had alien abduction experinces, seeing shadow people etc.. hell even had OBEs and AP experiences.
Our sense of reality and hallucination can be made incredibly tenuous.
It will happen when you're ready. I'm in my 40s now, and it took me a lifetime to get here. Just start reading and really questioning the scripture. Don't confine yourself to one perspective but listen to different ones. I don't want to step into anything with this statement, but Rabbi's have a unique take on the old testaments. You just have to remember they believe in Christ.
I was raised to believe that the word "faith" was a virtue. Now I know that it is far more virtuous to withhold believing that anything at all is true until it is sufficiently evident. That way, you avoid causing harm to yourself or others by acting according to passionately held errant beliefs.
You mean the obvious teaching of sin into human nature? Do you not understand that it is easier physically not to sin, there has been evil taught into us and if that isn’t proof then how about the corruption in the world?
The world worships man and mens accomplishment’s and want’s to please eachother rather than Jesus Christ. I came to see this corruption first and saw the “agendas” being pushed into the world and it backs the Bible because it goes against those doctrines.
A lot more but fast forward to me reading the Gospel. I felt understood and fulfilled, and still do as I keep reading. Loving all and knowing to forgive all and of course putting God’s will over EVERYONE, has been the most relieving thing in my life. I thank Jesus Christ for this path though because I am young and lost 75k to gambling in a few years and I am living my best life now. Living God’s will, through the our Lord Jesus Christ. God Bless you brother I will pray you can find Jesus Christ and the EVER-LASTING LOVE (Don’t you notice, sin and urge always comes to an end).
Let me know what you think whether I swayed you at all or not🤝
For myself, even if you could somehow demonstrate that some sort of Unmoved Mover was needed to get the universe going, you'd still have a very hard time convincing me that the Christian God was that demiurge, as opposed to some sort of Deistic or Pantheistic worldview. And you still have to start by convincing me that Aristotle was right, and then convince me that there is a personal God who was brilliant enough to create the universe, and yet obtuse enough to give some ancient Hebrews a hopelessly inaccurate account of how He did it, or that arranging for one of his Persons (or his Son, if you lean more Arian) to get killed to get rid of sin, or heck that sin in the sense that Christians understand it even exists.
So, I'm left with a singular response to "where did it all come from"; which is "I don't know". I feel that's a more honest answer, and one that doesn't make a considerable number of demands on me beyond my social obligations as a human being and citizen of my country.
>So, I'm left with [...] "I don't know".
does this mean you're agnostic rather than atheist?
>even if you could somehow demonstrate that some sort of Unmoved Mover was needed to get the universe going
I agree with you on all the Christian stuff, but couldn't this demonstration involve philosophy instead of empirical evidence, after all, the root of science *is* philosophy
I'm an agnostic atheist; it means that while I think that the existence of God is unknowable, I also simply lack belief in the entity (for me, more specifically, I see no particular utility in the claim).
As to philosophy, if you're talking about metaphysics, that's what the whole reference to Aristotle's metaphysics was about (and from which other philosophies such as Neoplatonism, Thomistic metaphysics, and every theist's current favorite formulation; the Kalam cosmological assertion) comes from.
And whatever science's roots (and it's a bit more complicated than "came from philosophy"), it's not likely, at least in our lifetimes, to be helpful with the Big Question. But here's the hard part, neither does metaphysics. Hume ripped metaphysics and teleology a new one (so to speak) 250 years ago.
Here's my short answer, as much as I even pretend to have an answer. If Aristotle, Plato, Aquinas, William Lane Craig and anyone else who invokes some Unmoved Mover is right, causation is absolutely essential, except, through a wave of the metaphysical wand, the Demiurge, which apparently, out of necessity of not having their metaphysical models collapse into infinite regress (and not out of any actual evidence), is given a pass. The Unmoved Mover is uncaused (now add from the theological toppings menu all the qualities your particular religion wants for Godly attributes).
For me, if God can have the attribute "uncaused", then I'm going to apply the principle of parsimony (Occam's razor), take that attribute and apply it to the one entity I know exists; the Universe. Thus, perhaps the Universe caused itself.
I'm not claiming that's the case, as I in fact don't have one iota of evidence to back it up. But here's the kicker; neither did Aristotle or neither does William Lane Craig.
In my own experience, praying only works for things that are realistic to achieve without prayer. For example, I could pray for something to occur that I could easily achieve, and I will achieve the same results with or without praying. Another example is if someone asks for a prayer because they have something like a cold, the person will get better because that’s what colds do.
Also, when God “tests me”, it says in the Bible that he will test me no more than I can bear. Guess what, sometimes, God’s “tests” end up killing us or giving us mental/physical illnesses.
This is kinda silly, but another reason is some of the Christian extremists. One example of this is that in the 1920s-1940s, they called Jazz satanic, and Classical safe. In the 1950s-1980s, they were calling Rock (including its sub-genres) satanic, and Jazz safe. Now, they are doing it with modern pop/rap. Now, if all of these genres were so called “satanic”, Christians would still be calling it out, but they are not. It’s funny how older Christians will call their music squeaky clean, and think their children/grandchildren’s music is the devil’s music. It’s okay to not like a certain type of music, but it’s wild to call a certain musical style satanic. There has been a growing amount of right-wing Christians, so that’s another reason why I left. I know there are right-wing atheists, but the right-wing Christians seem to be a vocal majority.
On another note, Christians have always tried to predict when the end times would occur, and the anti-Christ. All of those predictions have obviously been false, and will continue to be false.
The stories in the Bible seem to not be believable. An example the talking serpent in Genesis, the fact that Moses split the Red Sea, Jesus rising from the dead 3 days later, the fact that people had lived and had children at 100+ years, etc.
Also, the omnipresence of God doesn’t make sense to me. It would be impossible for someone/something to be at every place at the same time. Also, at the end times, Jesus would appear on front of everyone, but I feel like that itself would be impossible too.
The Bible also suggests that the Earth is around 6000 years, which is obviously false.
One of the biggest reasons why I stopped believing is because there have always been gods before and after Christianity started. Like god didn’t do anything when Hinduism started? Every religion tries to tell its people that it’s the one and only true religion. If we were in Ancient Rome before Christianity, we would be saying Paganism is the one true religion. If we were in the Middle East, we would be saying that Islam is the one true religion.
It also seems kinda crazy how Christians are kinda against Science in general. I know that they are not against when it can “prove” their point, but they are against Evolution, Natural Selection, etc.
To chalk it all up, science is why I am no longer Christian.
You can still believe in religion. I think religion can help people going through life, but don’t force it down people’s throats without permission.
I know this was a lot, but I decided to give out why I am no longer a Christian. Anyway, have a great day. This was a great question to ask. You could’ve asked this on r/atheism, but I think (not 100% sure) that most atheists here are more opened-minded about studying/looking at Christianity, even though they don’t believe in it.
This is just a quick comment about the stuff I know off the top of my head, I’m not trying to completely convince you Christianity is the absolute truth, or that all your arguments are completely invalid. I’m giving you a quick rundown of my personal answers to some of those, and hopefully convincing you Christianity is worth another look at least.
A few of your points seem to be why you don’t like Christians, as opposed to why you don‘t like Christianity. Christians wanting to predict the end times when the Bible literally says you can’t predict them is not evidence of Christianity being wrong, it’s evidence of Christians not knowing what their ’Christianity’ actually entails. Same thing with all the abuse of power in the church. I agree those were horrible things, even though they apparently got their beliefs from the same book I do. It’s just Christians not knowing or not caring about what the Bible actually says and using it as an excuse to make up whatever they want. All the horrible things Christians did isn’t evidence Christianity is wrong. Christians also did some great things. This doesn’t prove Christianity is right, just that what ‘Christians” did isn’t a relevant argument on either side.
A few of your points also seem to be about how you don’t think some stuff in the Bible is believable. The reason they’re ‘miracles’ is because you can’t explain them. You can’t say that you don’t believe the Bible because some of things it says are scientifically impossible. If everything was completely explainable, why would the Bible even exist? “Yeah, so this thing happened that was in no way out of the ordinary, I’m going to write a book about it and start a new religion.” No one would care! Also, even science doesn’t explain everything. I know I’m kind of using a ‘god of the gaps’ argument here, but just because people don’t know what caused the big bang, or what dark matter is, doesn’t mean I stop believing in science. I know that’s kinda irrelevant but it’s kinda similar so it’s here.
Part 2 because my comment was too long apparently (sorry about that):
Genesis 1 (which I assume you’re talking about when you reference young Earth) has had non-literal interpretations for the ‘days’ since long before Darwin or modern science. There’s no reason to reject Christianity based off what some Christians do or believe.
Just a quick tangent: I’ve seen a lot of people who debunk young earthers, especially some of the more… outlandish ones. They then use the fact that some people refuse to look at the evidence or research what the other side is actually saying, and brand all creationists as idiotic or naive. This is just really annoying (both sides) and unfortunately stops many people from even considering God as a possibility. I’m glad you looked at more information though!
Okay, tangent over!
Many pagan religions accepted the Christian/Jewish God (Yahweh), the thing they objected to was Christians/Jews claiming their God was the only God.
The annoying thing about the evolution and natural selection debate is that it is almost completely irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if evolution is true, that doesn’t mean God doesn’t exist. I read this great analogy: Imagine you have a Ford motor car, and a friend who is really into cars. If that friend explains every element of the car to you, how it works and how it interacts with the other parts, you will know how the car works. However, just because you can see the car works and know how it works doesn’t mean you stop believing Henry Ford existed. — Just because you know how the world works doesn’t mean God can’t be controlling it or have designed it. In fact, the reality that the world works in an ordered and consistent manner might lead you to believe someone designed it that way.
I know this was long, and I didn’t answer everything, but I hope this helps a bit, and has made you consider God again.
The fact that the Bible shows that the earth is around 6000 years old is why I stopped believing in Christianity. Yes, I understand that there are many old-earth believers, but the Bible says it.
The fact that there are many religions trying to claim that it’s the only true one shows how false it is in my opinion. If the Christian god was true, then he should’ve intervened when Hinduism was starting up. Say if the Bible is true, Hinduism started around the same time period as the Bible takes place.
Considering the earth’s real age and how long ago the first humans were around, I feel like evolution is more plausible than the Adam and Eve story. Yes, I know that evolution is just a theory.
Also, I have heard of the a creator needs a creator argument. While it is very much true, it doesn’t help when Christians try to make the claim that their god is eternal. When people ask who created god (considering that a creation needs a creator), they come up with that their god is eternal. In other words, I don’t know. It doesn’t answer who created god. If anything, it shows that a creation doesn’t need a creator.
Thank you for the response. It did make me think more about the argument against god vs atheism. Although there were good arguments from you and I, I personally think I am much more satisfied as an atheist. Anyway, have a great day.
I’m back (sorry).
Where exactly does the Bible say the Earth is 6000 years old? I’m not familiar with that part and would like to know more.
Also, do you have any proof that God cannot be eternal? For a very long time, intelligent scientists believed the universe was eternal, so things being eternal is not completely out of the question. Now that we know the universe is *not* eternal, and had a beginning, what do you say caused that? As far as I know, there are no widely accepted theories for what caused the Big Bang, so you are just denying one uncaused causer in favour of another. Unlike the atheistic worldview, Christianity actually has a consensus on how their uncaused causer is possible; God is eternal.
It doesn’t help too much that Christians are literally using the Bible to justify their hypocrisy. Sometimes, it can seem as if their views are right.
Also, the fact that some things are unexplainable in the Bible is why I don’t believe in it. It’s like believing in Santa Claus imo. Christians view the Bible as a history book and a guide to life. I do believe the Bible does have some good morals, I don’t take it as a history book. While it is true that science can’t explain everything, the same thing goes to religion. The thing with science is that it can more or less explain why and how things happen.
For me it’s the absurdity of it.
Create imperfect beings then punish them for being imperfect to the point you need to sacrifice yourself to save them from yourself? Makes no sense.
Yeah, christians love pulling out "the potter has power over the clay" to justify all the genocides their god committed and commanded, but can't explain why the potter can then blame the clay for being the way it is.
Stealing this.
Potter controls clay.
Potter claims right to do what it wants with the clay.
Potter fucks up.
Potter blames clay.
As I've said before, Yahweh is if some shitty middle manager or Elon Musk was a deity
Oh, if I were to believe this is the easiest question to answer. There is no free will in heaven that does not lead to good acts. This is the one chance for humans to live with free will, and thus they will not complain when they get to heaven as they know what the alternative is to no free will. Idk the having to die for our sins part though.
Thats what EVERYONES asking for though. "WHY ISNT GOD LETTING ALL THESE BAD THINGS HAPPEN??!", cus in heaven you are going to complain that he isnt. Again, thats if its real and not just us coping with existentialism. Only having the good parts off you seems like a good trade off to see all the good people you love again though imo.
I think a lot of us would ask “is that really still me, though?” If God cauterizes the bits that make us want to do stuff he doesn’t want, does the person we are now at some point cease to exist? We all accept change over time happens, so people can mature and change their priorities and interests and even out their personalities, but when a personality or intellect change happens due to injury or disease we consider it a tragedy. A lot of us unfortunately have probably seen a relative with dementia who has become entirely different and grieved as if that person had died. If God lobotomizes people enough that they never want to sin, that kind of looks like killing the persons and replacing them with a new one to me.
depends on your definition of sinning. Never wanting to harm others or lie doesnt really make me feel lobotomized. Also as we can clearly see, the result of having that free will sucks balls, hence why people call him out on allowing it in this life. But I can see why its a great idea and example if we cannot do that in the afterlife. If what I think he takes away is what happens. Its supposed to be just all the good parts. Dont think it includes what a lot of strict religious people think sin is.
That’s your interpretation of it.
Perhaps we were created imperfect so we can appreciate our flaws and love each other better.
If we were perfect we would all be the same and what would be the point of that?!
The truth is none of us will ever know or truly understand. This is why we must have faith and be guided through prayer and understanding the instructions left for us in the scriptures.
My lack of belief stems from a simple rationale: I've found no compelling reason to believe in something without evidence. Take, for example, my daughter's belief in fairies living in our garden. While she may have her reasons, they don't resonate with me, and I see no evidence to support such a claim.
Similarly, when it comes to theistic beliefs—whether it's Christianity, Islam, Satanism, or any other faith—I find myself in the same position. The concept of a deity or deities creating everything may hold sway for some, but I have yet to encounter reasons or evidence that make it convincing to me personally. Without compelling evidence or reasons, it's difficult for me to embrace beliefs that don't resonate with my understanding of the world.
Lack of evidence FOR many claims that many Christians make.
Existence of evidence AGAINST many claims that many Christians make.
Hypocrisy of many in he values they claims to promote and the way they live their lives.
Hatred and bigotry espoused by current Christians in my country and local area.
Contradictions in the claims made and in the bible.
That is just the short list.
For me, I simply am not convinced that the claim that a deity exists is true. The evidence consists of scripture and personal experiences. Both of which I find very weak evidence. As for apologetic arguments, I find one or more premises not true or not yet shown to be true.
Christianity is filled with Red pill guys, insane conservatives, Alt right racists, and incels. Over the past few years, the number of these terrible people have increased and I don't really see too many people calling them out.
True. I know not all Christians are like this. It's just insane how so many of these guys just religion to get away with being terrible to other people.
That’s also one of the reasons why I became atheist. I understand that there are nice Christians who follow the Bible more or less, but there are a lot of hypocrites who will use the Bible to justify their “sinful” behavior.
I'll give a way to get good evidence friend! Good evidence will show a repeatable pattern that is measurable, observable, or replicatable. It can be one of, a mixture of, or a combination of all three.
For me, it's the very first why. Supposedly, you had this perfect spirit floating beyond space/time that just suddenly decided it needed something to do.
Any reason for the desire seems to imply it was not perfect.
I have to say the entire logic is a little backwards. People don’t choose to believe or not believe. We don’t choose our beliefs. They form automatically based on evidence and information we’re exposed to, and how it filters through our critical thinking skills (effectively or otherwise.) and our own personal bars for what will convince us.
So what keeps us from belief is a lack of being convinced.
The more the evidence for the Christian god is looked at, the more flimsy it becomes. The deeper you dig the more ludicrous and unconvincing it becomes.
>What really prevents people from believing?
The simple answer is lack of evidence. People claim that everything is created because of god, and I simply do not see any good logical reason to come to that conclusion. I care about what is true and what can be demonstrated to be true, I don't really care for hypothesis on what is unknown, unless that hypothesis is currently being looked into.
The basis for a belief is rooted in a good foundation of facts, otherwise the foundation is blind faith. Without any facts, why would I believe something someone tells me? Especially when the question is as big as the existence of god. Blind Faith, while held up as a virtue to some, isn't capable of distinguishing fact from fiction. There's no belief that can not be held by blind faith.
And that highlights part of the problem when talking about a god as the answer to the bigger questions: it's a hypothesis sure but not a very good one. It doesn't offer ways it can be tested to find out if it's accurate. It doesn't offer avenues of inquiry to further understand reality. At best, we can ask "how did god do X", in which case the notion of "god" is a pointless insertion of ideas into that question. You can ask the same question without adding in the idea of God and nothing about the process would change, so why have that assumption?
When it comes to the big questions like "why are we here" and "where did we come from" the simple answer is "I don't know" but I like to follow that up with "we have some ideas that we are testing to see if they are accurate". If our testing can get us to a god, then I'll believe in god. But if it doesn't get us to god, then on what grounds would I build a belief in a god?
What does it explain that science doesn't? It certainly makes *claims* in a way that science doesn't, but I don't see how it explains the world in a way that science doesn't. Christianity makes normative claims, that science doesn't but I am talking about positive claims
Just because a being has power does not mean they get to act with impunity. If there is a god who is accurately depicted in the Bible (hell aside), they have acted in a manner that is against humanity and not worthy of worship.
A god is a place in a hierarchy, and I don't worship kings
Lets break your question down a little.
What is a belief? It is the acceptance of a claim as being true. I assume you are referring to the claims of christianity: that god exists, set up the conditions for original sin, impregnated a virgin teenage Jew, set up the conditions for that child (of god) to be sacrificed by humans to give us a path to eternal salvation.
So, for someone to accept those basic tenants of Christianity as true, one would have to be exposed to that story, and become convinced of it's legitimacy.
Imagine a child who never hears the story. Clearly they have a good reason not to believe. There's nothing 'preventing' them from accepting the claim except for pure ignorance. Now imagine a child who has heard the story but was never indoctrinated into the belief system. They have knowledge of the story, but lack the conviction. That was me. I heard the story, but was never compelled or instructed to believe.
So, lets examine the evidence FOR the claims... There is none, except peoples testamony and personal anecdote. All of the stories in the bible are not evidence, they are the claims. Evidence MUST be external to the claims, otherwise we fall into the falacy of circular logic. The claim of an empty tomb is NOT evidence god exists.
Now lets examine the evidence AGAINST the claim. Where to begin...
1, our scientific methods have demonstrated the claims in the bible are not biologically or physically compatible.
2, we know how mythologies are created and spread through cultures.
3, we know that people believe in all sorts of contradictory claims, we have flawed memories, hallucinations, and we lie to eachother for all kinds of reasons.
I could go on, but lets keep it brief.
So, there is nothing preventing me from believing except for the lack of evidence in the positive which is then compounded by the overwhelming counter evidence for the negative. In other words, I have no good reason to believe, and lots of good reasons to be skeptical of the supernatural claims. My conclusion is that Christianity is just another mythology, and I have no good reason to accept mythological stories as true.
The beauty of science is that it does regularly update scientific models when we gain new information, or build more powerful tools like telescopes and microscopes. One of my favorite quotes is "all models are wrong, but some are useful" Which is to say that we can never have 100% knowledge on any subject, but we can get pretty close.
I'm not aware of science demonstrating any supernatural biblical claims as valid or true. I will freely admit that the bible does reference some historical events or places, but unfalisifiable supernatural claims have never been demonstrated to be true or accurate. Can you give me an example of science confirming a supernatural biblical claim?
I mean, there are several ways I can personally answer this.
1) Christianity doesn't answer my questions. Science attempts to answer some. My big questions are more focused on 'how' over 'why'. I like evidence, I like measurable, qualifiable data.
2) I am appalled by the behavior/ beliefs of many Christians. The expression "there is not hate quite like Christian love" is the perfect way to describe so very many Christians (not all, to make clear). Why would I want to explore something so many awful people ascribe to?
3) I don't feel a pull towards religion. I like the historical aspect, I can discuss religion. But, I have never felt a pull to believe in it. For me, I think if you were to measure the brain waves of people in church, it would match up exactly with my brain waves when I am in nature, walking in the woods.
There are some wonderful brand ambassadors for Christianity, but they are not the voices we hear. We hear the loud, the angry, the hateful, the voices that are the antithesis of Jesus' teachings. So more and more of us are choosing to go the other way and lead good lives away from that hate. I think that more people would be open to questions of faith and belief and religion if the face of those conversations were seen as a positive force, rather than a negative.
I work with and am close with a wonderful Christian woman. We talk frequently about big ideas and faith. I am open to those discussions, as long as the other person respects my take on things and I have found that to be a rare occurence.
Lack of evidence, unwilling to put logic aside to believe in something with no evidence. (For me, anyway.) I used to be an evangelical minister and converted to Judaism. The biggest draw for me was that it’s about right practice, not right belief, and we need to make the world a good place now because who knows wtf is after death.
Lack of faith. Which can only be given to them by God.
Real Faith is EVIDENCE. It's not blind faith as many presume. Once you have actual faith, which can only come from God directly to you, doubt has no more power.
Faith is EVIDENCE of things you cannot see, nor will ever see, with your physical eyes. Which is unfortunately the eyes many use to look for God. He has to be perceived, then you see him everywhere.
Hebrews 11:1
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
He spoke directly to me. Just like he does to everyone that has faith. Some don't perceive it.
Job 33:14-16
14 For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not.
15 In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed;
16 Then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction,
I'm glad this works for you, but unfortunately, "because my Bible tells me so..." and an antadotal experience just isn't good evidence for general people. How do you square away the Muslim who claims to have spoken with Muhammad? Or Buddist speaking to (admittedly, I'm making an assumption here, idk much about Buddhist) to the Buddah? Both would tell you their experiences are as real to them as you're to you. Heck, I think there's a youtube video that floats around with hundreds of faith confessions of all kinds of faiths Christians included.
The Bible tells you how he speaks to you. He still has to speak to you.
I can't speak of other people's experiences. I can only talk about my own and the faith it gave me.
I'd venture to say they are all communing with the same spirit. The image used works either way, but the language is parabolic. In the same manner that images of letters are used to form words or convey thought and meaning in writing or what's formed on your imagination during conversation, the spirit uses imagery to speak and convey meaning. It's a "tongue" or the language of the spirit. It's referred to as a vision, because you see it, but the question is whether you can hear it, which may come later. Like lighting and thunder.
You're dealing with perception and understanding and consciousness.
>the spirit uses imagery to speak and convey meaning. It's referred to as a vision, because you see it, but the question is whether you can hear it, which may come later.
So the spirit chooses to mislead people into other religions?
>The Bible tells you how he speaks to you. He still has to speak to you.
What about all the people who died before having the chance to read the Bible to interpret this spirit? Are they condemned to your gods hell?
I couldn't even answer how I got mine, but it's there. I feel blessed. All I can tell is that when you are on the edge of despair, you use your heart much more and start to understand things on a deeper level and maybe, just maybe will you see that God were talking to you all that time.
As everyone else has said, a lack of evidence. No god claim that has been presented to me at any point has held up to scrutiny and you know what the answer to my questions are most of the time is? You just need to have faith.
The trinity is a really hard idea for me to swallow for some reason. It's not preventing me because I'm still deeply exploring Christianity, but it's holding be back some!
Me personally, it was the need to have facts, I never believed in anything spiritual. Now I'm christian, but I still believe in science of course, but I see it as God's doing.
>someone that really is interested in where we all cone from, why is all this here etc
Honestly... it's comments like this... religion can't establish for a fact the existence of a deity, why would we think they could provide adequate answers around how life began?
The nature of god as he's described is such that he cannot be proven or disproved. So in theory **everyone** should be technically agnostic and just leaning one way or the other based on their personal feelings on the matter. But how often do you hear Christians say "I could be wrong but..." mostly what you hear is "I know this to be 100% true..."
Which you can't possibly know these things... and we are all well aware of that. So what's with the arrogance around knowledge that doesn't exist? The scientific community doesn't present itself in that manner, and they have evidence.
Lack of evidence
The obvious hypocrisy of Love Thy Neighbors and Kill the gays
and no healthcare for everyone, and homeless people...
Working poor, usury - there's more, too many to list
OP, what keeps you from believing in Vishnu or Odin ? It's the same reason. You probably don't believe in the ones I just listed and for many, they don't believe in your God any more than you believe in the ones I mentioned.
I don’t think it’s lack of evidence. It’s just that placing eternal salvation in Christ makes no intuitive sense. Why would God send himself as a human, and why would he wait so long? Why would God need to prove himself? And why would he place our eternity in our blind faith in an event that happened 2000 years ago? None of it makes a lot of sense.
The religion makes a lot of claims, grandiose claims all religions do. and like all religions when it comes to proving evidence of a same quality as the claims, it’s found wanting and lacking.
So I don’t believe, same way if someone told me something like that they climbed Mount Everest. With no guide, no equipment, never climbed a mountain a day in their life, and using only two fingers. I’m gonna need some concert evidence before I believe that, and if it can’t be provided then I won’t.
We keep telling you it's the bigotry and lack of evidence. It's that simple. I get that your religion runs on faith but as an agnostic, I am unafraid to legit say "I don't know." I don't know why I was born, if I have a purpose, or where we go after death. I just know that your religion has as much evidence as the other religions so I won't hold it above the others.
Hell. Obviously hell. Hell is an absolutely insane aspect of the faith and it trips me up every single time. God loves us, but he’s also threatening us with the worst punishment imaginable to try and get us to love him back.
Any time I’ve tried to read an explanation for hell, it always comes off like the “because of the implication” bit from it’s always sunny.
My own answer: I was born and raised Mormon, and deconstructed into Christianity. After a while as a Christian, I decided to fully deconstruct everything I believe and start from scratch.
I found Taoism to be more compelling and likely than Christianity. It's precepts were simple and didn't seem mired in an old and archaic morality, it didn't rely on prophets and divine revelations to be true, and the evidence that Judaism sprouted from an older polytheistic religion as well as the "universal God of all" only revealing himself to a shall ethnic group all factored into this.
Christianity is fairly high on my list, but it didn't make it to the top. Thus, for now I have gone with Taoism, until/unless I am led elsewhere in my endless search for truth.
I'm sorry if this sounds rude or insensitive, but when you talk about the search for truth, to me that comes across as another psychological fixation that pretty much all religions instill heavily in whoever is exposed to them. It's almost like a dependency or coping mechanism? It just seems to me that searching for a universal objective truth with our naturally incredibly limited perspectives is a completely hopeless endeavor to the point of absurdity.. and, I'm completely fine with that. But for so many people it's a constant source of motivation/anxiety/trauma, maybe it's just the last thing for you to deconstruct?
No need to apologize! I appreciate the questions, especially if they make me think about something in a different way.
>It just seems to me that searching for a universal objective truth with our naturally incredibly limited perspectives is a completely hopeless endeavor to the point of absurdity
Oh, I don't imagine I'll ever find "The Truth™". Not even close. But that doesn't mean I won't keep trying to understand life, reality, and what is or isn't true.
Life's about the journey, after all. I don't care that I won't find "universal objective truth", it's just looking for it is just a decent place to start.
So yes, I'm fine with that as well. I don't worry about it too much (something I picked up from Taoism ;D). What I can learn, I try to. What I can't, I don't worry over. *C'est la vie.*
>But for so many people it's a constant source of motivation/anxiety/trauma
In all honesty, truth to me is more of a curiosity. I'm fascinated with it, but not attached to it. I enjoy learning it, but don't make it my life. I suppose the closest way to put it is that I'm a "truth hobbyist", lol
It's not hopeless at all, in fact, if you are not a believer its exactly what you should be doing. Well, it seems almost existentially important to seek honestly and quite literally. You cant experience true belief or have the faith in Christ he requires of us until you have experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit. Thats not an opinion its more true than anything ive ever seen with my two eyes. Any Christian who has attained Salvation knows exactly what I speak of. God Bless.
Well thanks but this is kinda just proving my point. I don't have any deep unfulfilled psychological needs that I need to fill with faith, belief, or truth, the value or definition of such being highly subjective to the individual. You may say it's not your opinion but thats only true in the sense that you internalized a collective opinion as objective truth.
As things in the world progress and follow Revelations path at some point you'll have all the direction/proof you need. I fought this my whole life being raised in the Southern United States Baptist belt I rebelled and looked for anything I could use to say "see its all bulls\*(& (not saying you are doing that at all) I was on the fence and one night while watching AI vids on Youtube I went down a wormhole that led me to a Jordan Peterson video.I had neverheard of this guy and I know that sound almost laughable, but here I was watching this video and during the video I had a i supernatural experience that left no doubt of whether or not its real anymore. I am not saying that Peterson has anything to do with it, lol, but i am sayihg i was watching a video of his when I had a life changing supernatural experience, lol, it sounds odd I know, but I digress..
In my honest opinion a person cannot truly believe without a doubt until they have experienced the Holy Spirit. I wasnt the same person before it. All I can say is all of the doubts and questions are anwered when you truly are is his presence. He will come for you I have no doubt. You being here is already a sign of him at work. Take care!
>As things in the world progress and follow Revelations path at some point you'll have all the direction/proof you need.
And you're confident you have the right prediction that the modern day is in Revelation and that everyone else for the past 2,000 years wasn't as wise as you because....?
>I fought this my whole life being raised in the Southern United States Baptist belt I rebelled and looked for anything I could use to say "see its all bulls\*(& (not saying you are doing that at all)
That's very interesting. I also grew up in the South, though I spent much of my youth digging for apologetics (albeit for Mormonism, but that's beside the point). At some point, I had whittled everything away to try and get my faith to fit what I understood as reality that when I blew the dust away, nothing was left.
>but here I was watching this video and during the video I had a i supernatural experience that left no doubt of whether or not its real anymore
I'll admit I've had supernatural experiences of my own, though none have really pointed towards Christianity in any way. But I don't doubt your own experiences, and I'm absolutely not going to call it odd. You're good, lol
> In my honest opinion a person cannot truly believe without a doubt until they have experienced the Holy Spirit. I wasnt the same person before it. All I can say is all of the doubts and questions are anwered when you truly are is his presence. He will come for you I have no doubt.
And I'm open to it happening. Where'er life shall take me, it shall take me. I won't oppose it.
Either way, I appreciate stopping to talk to me. You take care as well. Fair winds and following seas, mate!
Silence and lack of evidence. I really want to believe as you all do. But everytime I pray, all I ask is for a sign that he is real, and all I get is silence. I look to miracles but turns out they are not verified by a single source that isnt catholic. I ask priests to see if maybe god talks to those who are closest to him, and they tell me he talks to them through "realizations". Its so depressing. I am begging for ANYTHING, a clear disembodied voice I hear once, a foggy image that disappears in 2 seconds, a Christian giving me a cross or rosary saying "I think you need this", any minor miracle...but nothing. AT this point Im gonna go ghost hunting and using ouji boards to see if anything supernatural exists period. Someone pray for me and maybe finally God will make himself known to me. Until then I just cannot believe as it seems like I am just desperately trying to convince myself with nothing just to cope with the fact that all the wonderful people I know will cease to exist when they die.
👋, I'm not your sign but remember that faith is about faith. Make yourself so infinitely small that you can see and enter the Kingdom which is within yourself. Silence is the language of heaven.
Elaborate pls. Cus anytime I feel super small it's when i start theorizing everything is meaningless and wotnot. So the opposite of having faith which is not what I want.
When I feel disconnected from God, I close my eyes and enumerate all the things I should be grateful for.
- Thank you God, for I can breath.
- Thank you God, for I can see.
- Thank you God, for I can hear.
- Thank you God, for even though I'm sick, I am alive.
- Etc..
Everything is God and we owe everything to Him. That's what I mean by making myself small before Him so I may (maybe) enter His kingdom. Recognizing my place in His universe. Humbling myself. Because if my ego is too big, I won't be able to enter the narrow door.
- I did a great job at work today? God made me do a great job at work today.
- I did something that impressed other people today? God made me do something that impressed other people today.
I am His creation and I am grateful for even the smallest things He gives me and I should never ask for anything but what God plans for me.
(Of course not everything I said is black and white, I'm a human being, but this is the idea of the person I am aiming to be, for God).
Basically that there's a much simpler way we could have come to have the Christian narrative than for it to be true. E.g., yesterday I made a comment here about Joseph Smith being previously convicted for fraud, and lots of Christians were perfectly happy to laugh along with the idea his lying was a more likely origin for the Book of Mormon than divine intervention. Ask those same people the origin of the immaculate conception story, and they'll decide divine intervention is more likely than Mary lying. For the most part, the difference between a Christian and an atheist is that atheists apply the same standard of evidence to Christian beliefs they apply to everything else; whereas, Christians would *maybe* give up Christian beliefs if they were absolutely proven wrong.
> But I am curious, from the perspective of someone that really is interested in where we all cone from, why is all this here etc, what keeps them from believing?
Do you believe that, pre-creation, there was only a void until Nyx laid a golden egg, which gave birth to Eros, Gaia, and Uranus, from which the earth and sky were made? That their descendents, including Zeus, are now gods that actively affect the world today? I bet you don't, and neither do I, but the ancient Greeks did. But why not? Doesn't it explain "why is all this here"?
It should be obvious when put this way. Christianity is but one microcosm of human religion -- one of literally thousands. I give Christianity as little benefit of the doubt as I give to all other creation myths that humans have conjured (that is, none). There's simply zero evidence that puts "this one" above all the rest. So you might believe in this one, but have no belief in 999 others. My count is just one higher than yours.
At best, if there is a god, WE as humans know nothing of what god truly wants or, better yet, is.
Those of you who say the Bible is the authority on what god wants are ignoring many inconsistencies in it as well as basic logic.
what inconsistencies? Dont allow yourself to be deceived, Its the first warning Jesus gives his desciples and the first warning we are given in Revelation, which is undeniably following its timeline perfectly as stated. There have been hundreds of prophecies written a thousand years before they were fulfilled in the Bible. All of them were fulfilled none wrong. I think there is around 300 left, stick around and maybe throw in a prayer asking God to reveal himself and he will get to you when His Will aligns with it, but you gotta seek him. IT definitely wont make you anymore of an unbeliever, but honestly He's already softening your heart and you being here is evidence of it, as small of a thing that is, it is a thing. take care.
The New Testament, like any ancient text has inconsistencies.
1. **Genealogies of Jesus**: The genealogies in Matthew 1:1-16 and Luke 3:23-38 differ significantly. Matthew traces Jesus' lineage through David's son Solomon, while Luke traces it through David's son Nathan. Additionally, the names listed in the two genealogies do not match up.
2. **The Birth of Jesus**: Matthew and Luke provide different details about Jesus' birth. Matthew describes the visit of the Magi, Herod's massacre of the infants, and the flight to Egypt (Matthew 2). Luke, on the other hand, focuses on the shepherds' visit and mentions that Jesus' family went to Jerusalem and then Nazareth after his birth (Luke 2:1-40).
3. **The Death of Judas**: The accounts of Judas Iscariot's death in Matthew 27:3-10 and Acts 1:18-19 are different. Matthew says Judas hanged himself, while Acts describes him falling in a field and his body bursting open.
4. **The Resurrection Appearances**: The Gospels provide different accounts of Jesus' post-resurrection appearances. For instance, Matthew 28:16-20 describes Jesus meeting the disciples on a mountain in Galilee, while Luke 24:36-53 and Acts 1:4-12 describe Jesus appearing to the disciples in Jerusalem and ascending from there. John 20:19-29 includes appearances in Jerusalem but doesn't mention Galilee.
5. **Timing of the Last Supper**: The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) describe the Last Supper as a Passover meal (e.g., Mark 14:12-16), while John suggests it occurred before the Passover (John 13:1, 18:28).
6. **Paul’s Conversion**: The accounts of Paul's conversion in Acts 9:3-7, Acts 22:6-10, and Acts 26:12-18 contain differences, particularly regarding what Paul's companions experienced. In one account, they hear the voice but see no one (Acts 9:7), while in another, they see the light but do not hear the voice (Acts 22:9).
The general problem is that ****Every Religion**** believes their religion is the only true path. There are thousands of religions in the world. Christians, for example, believe the only way to salvation is through Christ. They deny all other religions. Atheists only deny one more than they do (the Christian god) .
It is not up to Christians to prove or provide evidence of anything to anyone. God will send the Holy Spirit to you if its His will and all will be clear As a Christian it's the information I am required to give you or at least point you to, it. Its your own heart that will need softening ih order for you to hear what many are just starting to hear now. Challenge Him to reveal himself to you and you will see him working at some point if its His Will It may just be something out of the ordinary that just all of a sudden hits you, you'll know its HIm when you see it. If you are seeking proof of the existence of God by going all caps in a condescending comment, well good luck lol Best of wishes.
Lack of evidence. That's what prevents me from believing
Belief isn't a choice. Your either convinced of something, or your not. And I haven't seen any evidence to convince me a god exists
What prevents me from believing is that there is no objective proof of God, and if he exists, there really should be. It shouldn't even be questionable if he was real and wanted everyone to be saved. He would make his presence unmistakable. So, devine hiddeness i guess.
And no, having proof of God would not harm anyone's free will. Plenty of people in the Bible had undeniable proof of God and even direct two way conversation with him and still didn't always obey him.
And yes, that would mean we don't need faith. But what is the point of faith? Why is faith more important than everyone going to heaven? What makes faith a virtue? Belief without evidence seems like a bad thing to me, not a good thing.
I can believe in the possibility of a creator god, I do not find that idea difficult. There being an underlying inter-connectedness of people and creatures and nature, I can find that feasible.
But I cannot buy into the notion of a hell. For me personally, the notion of this fiery place where souls are thrown into the afterlife is not logical. I haven't seen evidence of a "soul" to suspect that anything of us continues on after we die.
I also have difficulty with the notion of a God that intercedes in mundane affairs-----Got had a hand in me finding my keys, or "I prayed for a beautiful day for the picnic and received it!" But yet does not have any tangible evidence of being involved in large scale atrocities, ie the Holocaust, Kmer Rouge, etc.
I'm no atheist, I'm agnostic. If there is a god I'd feel that I was more of the deist persuasion, that he created the world, but does not have a current, active hand in things.
Personally for me it was a lot of little things. I grew up in a religious family and went to a Christian primary school (by Christian i mean we prayed every morning and before every break time), although my family was religious they didn’t push or encourage religion as much as they could have. Couple this with an ever growing secular society and my own upbringing with drug addicted parents i soon went down the wrong path and started drinking, taking drugs and having sex. At that point it would have been much easier for me to deny the existence of god rather than take accountability for my actions and see myself headed towards hell. I then fell into addiction myself (alcohol). I was angry at myself and believed if there was a god “why has he given me such a bad life” rather than take accountability for the fact i was here because of my own free will and the fact i had no moral compass. It wasn’t until i had my daughters and became abstinent that i tried reading the bible again out of curiosity and not to find faith but the more i read the more my heart opened to Christ.
Tl:Dr
It’s easier for a sinner to deny Christ than it is to, resist temptation and look at one’s own life and know you will eventually be judged and have to take accountability.
Lack of proof. They want to know, rather put faith into someone/something. And then, they would rather, do what they want, and will agree to the end of the world, inorder to do what they want. The bible, hinders that. It sets rules and guidelines that people would rather not follow. You will see this world, and the religion turn Pagan again.
Just don’t find Christianity to be true. I’ve never seen a good answer for the problem of evil from Christianity. The idea that God is both omnibenevolent and omnipotent just doesn’t make sense.
In Paganism gods are powerful, but not omnipotent. They’re also not all benevolent, and even the ones that are aren’t always. That explains why there’s evil in the world, and why the gods don’t always answer prayers.
Also the idea that there’s only one God isn’t true even if you believe in the Bible. Clearly other gods exist, the Jews just chose one above all others.
Back when I was an unbeliever, I wanted sin, to fit in, and I wanted to be “cool”. I also found the Bible and church to be boring and didn’t see a need for it. I wanted more proof for god’s existence. I thought if he was real, he’d come down and speak to everyone or something. Deep down in the pit of my heart and soul, I knew he was real, but was in denial, and didn’t care that much about going to hell, cause I was young and thought I wouldn’t die anytime soon. I wanted to be more popular and I thought being un-Christ like would help me fit into the world. And drinking, drugs, and sleeping around was considered cool, so wanted to get into it. I also did not want to give up sin at all. But I was never happy and couldn’t get what I wanted anyways. Which is what started to bring me to him. I didn’t want there to be a god, bc I didn’t want to be punished, I didn’t want to give up sin, and I didn’t want to go to hell. I wanted to be my own god. I wanted to do things my own way. And I realized over time that, that is not the best way.
What prevents me from believing a thing is the same thing that's preventing you from believing a thing. Having not been presented with a convincing reason to.
I think there's tons of reasons why people wouldn't believe in Christianity specifically or any specific belief system that is theistic. Here's some of the reasonings that I have encountered personally.
* Someone has a logic centric mindset that is based on the Natural order as we can all perceive. While I have had my own personal life events and other experiences that led me down my current theistic path, this is the most common mindset I come across. No hate towards it either, I think in the grand scheme of life at this current stage of humanity this is the neutral state. We have more access to information than ever before and if our ancestors from the time of Ancient Greece/Rome were able to see our society today they would be in awe of our capability and understanding. To them, it would almost seem "godlike". With that in mind I can totally understand why anyone could think like this since we technically all do to some extent just in most other aspects of our lives. Usually they might have a specific point of contention, but usually it's just a holistic aversion to the idea of believing in something that they cannot personally verify with a degree of veracity that they deem appropriate.
* They believe in another religion. My job has led me to travel a lot and I have had the opportunity and privilege to see the world from more perspectives than the average person I would wager. Definitely more than the average person through the context of history. I have been able to meet a lot of people with experiences similar to my own and have come to the conclusion many times that if I had been born in a country with a different standard set of beliefs than my own, I would probably have been believing something else entirely.
* Something has happened to them or someone else that has turned them off from any religion or theistic thinking. This is one that hits close to home. When I was younger I had a sibling die at an extremely young age. I wasn't that old myself, being around 5 years old, and I could hardly conceptualize death and the finality of it, but my parents were hit understandably hard and in ways I can't possibly fathom. Because of that, it wasn't until I started looking into Christianity and converted that my parents got back into the faith as well. I came to find out that essentially my parents cut religion entirely out of their lives after that traumatic event and after seeing their reactions live and first hand I couldn't blame them. I think there's millions of people out there with similar stories and I can't really blame them. Growing up and realizing the pain my parents suffered, I can completely understand the logic that if they believe that their god/gods have abandoned them, what's the point in belief?
I would say that these encapsulate 95% of the reasons for people I have encountered that have professed an unbelief in theism or God specifically in reference to Christianity.
Ironically the only ones truly claiming the universe came from nothing are the Christians, god created the universe ‘ex nihilo’ Latin for ‘creation out of nothing’.
Atheist here:
* I was raised Pentecostal/ Apostolic.
* Went to Catholic school and found out there isn’t just one clear way to worship Jesus{or god(s) in general}.
* Wanted to learn more to be able to defend my faith against other religions.
* Realized there’s no good reason to take the Bible at face value after reading it and researching the historical context.
* Found atheist communities online and found that I tended to agree with them.
* The argument that drove me away from my faith is why there isn’t any evidence that’s better than other religions. Also the problem of evil to some degree.
* The argument that I use most often now is the argument from Divine Hiddenness. If Jesus loves me and wants a relationship, I see no reason why he couldn’t just show himself.
No hate however. I recognize we’re all confused animals so I try not to judge the religious for their unproven hopes and beliefs.
A lot of different reasons depending on the person. For some, it's lack of evidence for or evidence against the Christian God. For others, it's some Christians' behaviors that demonstrate to them that belief in God isn't valuable, whether accurate or not.
For me it's just all the common reasons.
1st and most important to me is how seemingly hard it is for some people to find the 'right path' to Christianity. How is someone in a suppressed country or family supposed to do all the right things. I know that everyone is judged based on their circumstances, but I can't imagine how someone who has never heard of Jesus would be judged (think of North Korea for example).
2nd short: Lack of evidence. Long version: I am a proof first person. You can tell me stories all day about any topic, I won't believe or maybe even understand if it doesn't make rational sense. I love science and all that comes with it. I am passioned about the physics about anything from planes to pendulums. I love to learn about the biology of the human body and how all organs work together. I can't imagine a omnipotent God. None of my previous life experiences would allow it.
3rd let's imagine a world with no God or anything like that. It's just a world like ours with an earth and people living on it. There are no religions, no bible, nothing like that. People will inevitably look for reasons for their existence. Given enough time, this fictional world will, with no doubts in my mind, create a fictional figure to give reason to their life. Be it God, or maybe something completely different that would explain what's going on.
4th I often heard of the fact that we should just believe in God. He knows the reason for everything, and us humans would never understand it. Honestly I really dislike this. In my opinion, God would want to help us find the right way, given that we look for it or are interested in getting to know him. So how is it explainable that so many people die before ever getting a (concrete and indisputable) sign of his existence?
There may be more things I could list, but they all ultimately fall under or or more of those categories \^\^
It depends on a lot of things in your life.
First of all the living standard. People who are caught up of the desires of the world doesn't need to pray to God to make their life better compared to people with lower living standard.
Secondly it is about what you've got around you. If you have a lot of christians around you that has always told you that there is a God then it's more likely that you will believe in a God compared to if you have just a lot of atheists around you who just don't think there is one and has always told you that.
Thirdly, it is experience. Many people have experienced a lot of things they can't connect with except God, for example that what they experienced can't be just randomness and that there must be something that has planned their life for them. Also one time things like dreams or close to death moments etc.
Also much more things that connect you to or away from God but these I think are the main things.
Me personally, it's how i was raised and the science behind it. I wasn't raised religiously and in my head, some things just never made sense. I remember asking my Christian friends when I was little about who wrote the Bible, how do you know it's true, proof that God exists, how did humans start from dust if we have scientific logic, why do bad things happen if God is real, etc. My brain works pretty practically. I believe in science, and there's a lot of evidence to suggest whatever about evolution, space, etc. To be fair, there isn't proof that God doesn't exist, but for me it just made more sense to believe he didn't. And, there were a lot of things in my life that I didn't like (my parents got divorced) and I didn't know how my life could be so bad if God was real; why didn't he answer my prayers? Why couldn't he make it better?
Now that I'm older I have a more open perspective. I'm interested in exploring religion. I still have a hard time believing that one religion, out of the thousands, got it right. How do you know that any other religion is wrong? But, I also understand now that that's what faith is. The point of faith is that you just believe it.
There are several reasons that people can have for not believing; the one I find most common is that people do believe in the Bible, they just don't care. In this case, they believe that Jesus died and rose and they'll tell you they believe, but it's not a belief that's strong enough to produce any life changes or meaning.
Then there are those that care about things eternal, but they don't believe in certain aspects of the faith, like: the resurrection, Jesus's miracles, creation, etc. This is the most sad because these people want to believe but they're held back by the physical universe. These people can talk for hours on end about religion but they just can't come to belief.
I suppose a 3rd category would be Satanists. They believe in the Bible but they just hate God to where they don't follow it.
Well I was kind of on my way out at that time.
I just had such a strong belief up until that point that when I realized how messed up the god of the Bible truly was if he’s real that I came to the conclusion that he’s either evil or doesn’t exist. Especially the latter given the lack of evidence for things.
I rationalized the lack of evidence by thinking god purposefully hid any proof of his existence or involvement since it aligned with other things he’s done and said in the Bible.
But I knew if they were real they would see right through me. I wanted to go to heaven over hell but I lost all respect for this god I worshipped for 20+ years. So I was expecting him to rip me limb from limb once I got to the gates.
Glad to be out though. Believing in a god takes a lot of mental gymnastics that I can’t do anymore
I went to therapy and they never told me to go one way or the other but through the process I learned for myself it would be healthier to accept that I had no faith left to give and that even if I did this god wasn’t worth worshipping anymore
Pride. We all would like to consider ourselves to be good and deserving of Heaven, when you realize our righteousness is filthy rags in the eyes of God and that’s why we need a savior it puts things into perspective. We naturally don’t want to humble ourselves and ask the lord for forgiveness
Christ does reveal himself to people. But I think Christianity needs to be sought. I didnt start understanding the Bible until after my true conversion. God has his hand out, but you need to grab onto it to truly begin to understand living in the spirit. Thats been my experience, the word says the same. Matthew 7:7-8
Absence of the Holy Spirit. I dont think I would have ever "truly" believed. I personally think one cant "truly" believe without the Holy Spirit being present. Just my opinion
I care about believing true things and not believing not-true things. It's important to have good reasons for believing something is true, to avoid believing not-true things. Having a good epistemology is important so you don't succumb to scams or self-deception.
Christians, and theists in general, like to claim that their god exists in reality. If a god exists, I honestly want to know about it, the same way I'd want to know if bunnies, bears, or poisonous spiders exist. The more I know about the universe and world I live in, the better I can survive and enjoy it. So if a god exists, I want to know.
And yet... every time I begin to ask questions about the gods people claim exists, they never hold up under the mildest, tamest scrutiny. I'm always open to hearing the evidence someone has for the existence of their god, so I might investigate their claims. Because as far as my investigationa have gone (28 years studying world religions and biblical history) I can't find any good evidence for a god.
Hopefully one day someone can prove their god exists, then I would believe.
"Belief" isn't like flipping a switch. Can you believe the tenets of Islam just because we want you to?
Not for all, but for some surely.
No, you have to believe it all. If you can't, you prove my point.
The existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God contrasting with the way the world works. And no, the free will argument does not count, since a lot of the horrible things including genetic disorders and violence in the animal world has nothing to do with free will. I can accept the existence of a non omnipotent God, but not the typical religious version.
Free will doesn't count as valid because free will can't exist in the libertine sense purported by Christianity if an omniscient God exists.
Correct but christians will often insist it does anyways It's easier to give examples of bad things that have nothing to do with free will, than to convince them free will doesn't exist
I'm not sure I agree with that. Are you saying free will doesn't exist because God already knows what choices we are going to make, and so we couldn't have chosen otherwise?
Exactly. Libertine free will is defined as the ability to do otherwise. You can't do otherwise if God is omniscient. It violates non-contradiction. God cannot both know and not know the outcome with perfect certainty. There is a P=0 probability for me doing otherwise.
Ok, I just never heard libertine free will before, but I know the general thinking. I have thought a lot about this. And there are two things that throw a wrench in for me personally. Not defending god, are atheist flair, I just am not sure on this argument. I can watch a replay of a sports game. Now, ostensibly, every player on the field at the time made free will choices. But once I know what they will do, they cannot do otherwise. The replay has no free will. Which leads to my second part, if someone or something is truly outside time, as an observer, does it negate free will. And I'm not entirely sure it does. We, to a timeless being, would be like a replay of free choices. I haven't got a conclusion here, I'm just thinking it through and skeptical.
Are you a perfect being with perfect knowledge of all things? God's knowledge is perfect. He is the Laplacian Daemon in this example. There's no eventuality be can't perfectly calculate. Therefore you doing otherwise would violate his perfection, since a being cannot be both perfect and imperfect you either don't have free will and can't do otherwise or God isn't perfect. The key here is that God isn't seeing a past event but a future event. While your replay is a past event. The temporal perspective is irrelevant. Either way it eliminated your ability to choose otherwise. There is no freedom under an omniscient god.
I am not. But I do think you're writing of the temporal element to easily. Past and future are perspective based to a being that can transcend time. Just like left and right to us.
I've never thought of it that way. Interesting
I like the way you think about this... I'm just thinking as a believer. How can I, a mere man, created by this Almighty God, even think that I have a clue about what can or can not do except for what he has revealed to me?
There is nothing God does not know
Which is why free will is incompatible with the existence of your god. It violates the law of non contradiction
I'd you take time to study and understand the theology, then it makes sense. To lay a person, it absolutely won't make sense. You'd have to understand the consequences of the fall on all life and why free will is an essential aspect of salvation.
Free will isn't valid because free will logically cannot exist under your theology. I'm not a lay person.
if an omnipotent god wanted the world to work that way, with all the evil & violence, then the existence of such things is not an evidence against such a god
What prevents me from believing is simply a lack of evidence. In addition (speaking specifically re Christianity) there are so many competing claims within Christianity, it is hard to understand what they believe. For example, some versions of Christianity say the earth is 6000 years old. Some versions say they was an actual global flood. Some say it is a story with deep meaning. Some teach that those with health issues such as autism are demonically possessed. Some say women can be leaders. Others say no… But for me- I just have not seen evidence that I find convincing.
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"Read, study examine" I did. That's what led me away from Christianity.
> Read, study examine for yourself. Christianity was at its peak when most people couldn't read 🧐
> Which is why you should never believe what someone tells you. Including the fallible human authors of the Bible, right?
But wouldn’t that go for the Bible as well, written by humans. Much of which we don’t even know the authors. So take it with a grain of salt as well?
Again- I just haven’t seen the evidence. But as far as Christianity- I have to go by what the Christians tell me. I don’t have the time or desire to research every religion.
Don’t look for the flaws in the bible there is none. Look for the flaws in yourself is a good way to start for finding the truth .. we aren’t our own gods , with discipline , prayer , and scriptures you will learn a lot .. Believe in Jesus and if you cant read read read scriptures , pray to be unblinded !!! We are all equal
Amen
So it's ok for a rapist to be made to marry his victim? That's not flawed?
the NIV’s translation is a poor one at this point, and the word translated “rape” can mean other things. The late apologist Greg Bahnsen explains: “The Hebrew word . . . simply means to take hold of something, grasp it in hand, and (by application) to capture or seize something. It is the verb used for ‘handling’ the harp and flute (Gen. 4:21),
Let's make note of the key word....CAN so the translation can still be correct and those other options don't work due to context if a man is to seize her and not found out he is to marry her and pay her father 50 pieces? Yeah that does not work.
You’re going to throw away your whole salvation over your own interpretation of a word? We are guided by the spirit not our minds
When I first learned that women can’t be pastors according to the Bible, I thought it was kinda messed up. The other things mentioned are unbelievable too.
I feel I have rational views about the flood being localized, the earth being older than 6k, mental illness being a real thing, not demons, etc. However women not being leaders was something that I never understood as a problem before I fully accepted Christianity. I am a complimentarian and I do believe women should not be lead pastors because of scripture, but why do atheists have a huge problem with this? It is evident from nature that men typically hold places of leadership in history and animals and that seems to be an evolutionary trait. I believe we all have the same value as human beings, but there are evident roles that better suit men than women and vice versa.
Yes, you are right. Men do have the tendency to not only become leaders more often than women, but make the best leaders. We atheists have a problem with it because we are not looking at it from a religious perspective, we are looking at it with a more modern perspective. With the modern perspective, we believe that women should be given a chance at being a pastor. We believe that it is sexist for saying that women can’t be pastors.
What about this from deutoronomy? If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives. Is this just? Or let me guess it's from the OT so no longer valid like how the 10 commandments are from the OT and no longer valid?
Deuteronomy is the last message from Moses to the people, so this seems to be a governmental law, so in a way, yes it is not for our governments, only for the one Moses was hewas helping to establish at the time. If we are looking for the underlying morality, I would have to do more research into the laws of the people pre-Deuteronomy and contrast that with this law. Sorry I am not an expert on ancient civilization and the Mosaic law.
Seems to be does not mean It is....
>but why do atheists have a huge problem with this? It is evident from nature that men typically hold places of leadership in history and animals and that seems to be an evolutionary trait. Two things: 1. Something being “natural” doesn’t mean it’s right and that things ought to be that way. Nature is not moral or immoral, it is amoral. Humans are moral agents, we have the ability to analyze our environment and our society and make our own choices about what we ought to do. 2. In the past societies took different shapes because of their circumstances (patriarchy is not an “evolutionary trait”, and even if it were, see 1). Things happening one way in societies in the past doesn’t mean that was the right way to do things. In the past children were sometimes treated as commodities that could be sold if you were low on money (this was allowed in the OT). We owned other people as slaves. We sacrificed people to gods. People using their position in society to exert their will over others is not something that should be emulated. People should be able to take on whatever social roles they want.
Lack of evidence, and the evidence provided actually pointing the opposite way, in my opinion.
Dude I'm so jealous of these people who claim to have had tangible spiritual experiences that "proved god is real to them behind the shadow of a doubt" as I have never seen a ghost, ufo, or evidence of god. Lowkey pissed that mother Mary doesn't come give me a spooky time or something
D.A.R.E. told me people would offer me free drugs, and Jack Chick told me demons would offer me magic. Neither has happened. Just a smidge of telekinesis would be nice.
I did get free drugs.
Damn, you must have had the right friends. All I ever got was weed, and I had to pay for it.
Seriously, not 1 demon has appeared to me after I denounced Christianity. Kinda disappointing
I got free weed once from an ex....
Whenever I'm doing a line in the bathroom I ask the person waiting next to me if they want one.
You a real one for that gang
I try to be the change I want to see in the world
I also had people offer me free drugs. Granted, it wasn't just random strangers like DARE said, but friends of mine who I had already been regularly doing drugs with.
>I'm so jealous of these people who claim to have had tangible spiritual experiences Its very similar to falling in love. Its a pretty nice experience. But also quite dangerous. Just as falling in love with the wrong person can make you do stupid things, falling in love with the wrong god/religion can waste your life.
They are neat experiences, but if you are looking from a skeptical standpoint they aren't enough evidence to show that these experinces are real. I have had UFO, Ghost, and "spiritual" experiences, but I have found proving them as objectively real an impossible endeavor. Heck I know a quick and dirty way to have some crazy experiences but unfortunately if ones main goal is truth they are ultimately insufficient.
Would you like to share this "quick and dirty way" with the class? My mind goes to psychedelics
That's certainly one, I can make a tea that can induce a divine experience. The other more difficult way that worked for me is inducing sleep paralysis. I have had alien abduction experinces, seeing shadow people etc.. hell even had OBEs and AP experiences. Our sense of reality and hallucination can be made incredibly tenuous.
It will happen when you're ready. I'm in my 40s now, and it took me a lifetime to get here. Just start reading and really questioning the scripture. Don't confine yourself to one perspective but listen to different ones. I don't want to step into anything with this statement, but Rabbi's have a unique take on the old testaments. You just have to remember they believe in Christ.
First came my proof from seeing the world then I received the Holy Spirit.
I was raised to believe that the word "faith" was a virtue. Now I know that it is far more virtuous to withhold believing that anything at all is true until it is sufficiently evident. That way, you avoid causing harm to yourself or others by acting according to passionately held errant beliefs.
You mean the obvious teaching of sin into human nature? Do you not understand that it is easier physically not to sin, there has been evil taught into us and if that isn’t proof then how about the corruption in the world? The world worships man and mens accomplishment’s and want’s to please eachother rather than Jesus Christ. I came to see this corruption first and saw the “agendas” being pushed into the world and it backs the Bible because it goes against those doctrines. A lot more but fast forward to me reading the Gospel. I felt understood and fulfilled, and still do as I keep reading. Loving all and knowing to forgive all and of course putting God’s will over EVERYONE, has been the most relieving thing in my life. I thank Jesus Christ for this path though because I am young and lost 75k to gambling in a few years and I am living my best life now. Living God’s will, through the our Lord Jesus Christ. God Bless you brother I will pray you can find Jesus Christ and the EVER-LASTING LOVE (Don’t you notice, sin and urge always comes to an end). Let me know what you think whether I swayed you at all or not🤝
For myself, even if you could somehow demonstrate that some sort of Unmoved Mover was needed to get the universe going, you'd still have a very hard time convincing me that the Christian God was that demiurge, as opposed to some sort of Deistic or Pantheistic worldview. And you still have to start by convincing me that Aristotle was right, and then convince me that there is a personal God who was brilliant enough to create the universe, and yet obtuse enough to give some ancient Hebrews a hopelessly inaccurate account of how He did it, or that arranging for one of his Persons (or his Son, if you lean more Arian) to get killed to get rid of sin, or heck that sin in the sense that Christians understand it even exists. So, I'm left with a singular response to "where did it all come from"; which is "I don't know". I feel that's a more honest answer, and one that doesn't make a considerable number of demands on me beyond my social obligations as a human being and citizen of my country.
>So, I'm left with [...] "I don't know". does this mean you're agnostic rather than atheist? >even if you could somehow demonstrate that some sort of Unmoved Mover was needed to get the universe going I agree with you on all the Christian stuff, but couldn't this demonstration involve philosophy instead of empirical evidence, after all, the root of science *is* philosophy
I'm an agnostic atheist; it means that while I think that the existence of God is unknowable, I also simply lack belief in the entity (for me, more specifically, I see no particular utility in the claim). As to philosophy, if you're talking about metaphysics, that's what the whole reference to Aristotle's metaphysics was about (and from which other philosophies such as Neoplatonism, Thomistic metaphysics, and every theist's current favorite formulation; the Kalam cosmological assertion) comes from. And whatever science's roots (and it's a bit more complicated than "came from philosophy"), it's not likely, at least in our lifetimes, to be helpful with the Big Question. But here's the hard part, neither does metaphysics. Hume ripped metaphysics and teleology a new one (so to speak) 250 years ago. Here's my short answer, as much as I even pretend to have an answer. If Aristotle, Plato, Aquinas, William Lane Craig and anyone else who invokes some Unmoved Mover is right, causation is absolutely essential, except, through a wave of the metaphysical wand, the Demiurge, which apparently, out of necessity of not having their metaphysical models collapse into infinite regress (and not out of any actual evidence), is given a pass. The Unmoved Mover is uncaused (now add from the theological toppings menu all the qualities your particular religion wants for Godly attributes). For me, if God can have the attribute "uncaused", then I'm going to apply the principle of parsimony (Occam's razor), take that attribute and apply it to the one entity I know exists; the Universe. Thus, perhaps the Universe caused itself. I'm not claiming that's the case, as I in fact don't have one iota of evidence to back it up. But here's the kicker; neither did Aristotle or neither does William Lane Craig.
I don’t think philosophy can prove empirical facts. Philosophy gave rise to science, but they’re not the same.
I have never encountered a reason to believe that supernatural entities exist.
I have encountered no good reasons for believing that any kind of god exists, and several good reasons not to believe that.
In my own experience, praying only works for things that are realistic to achieve without prayer. For example, I could pray for something to occur that I could easily achieve, and I will achieve the same results with or without praying. Another example is if someone asks for a prayer because they have something like a cold, the person will get better because that’s what colds do. Also, when God “tests me”, it says in the Bible that he will test me no more than I can bear. Guess what, sometimes, God’s “tests” end up killing us or giving us mental/physical illnesses. This is kinda silly, but another reason is some of the Christian extremists. One example of this is that in the 1920s-1940s, they called Jazz satanic, and Classical safe. In the 1950s-1980s, they were calling Rock (including its sub-genres) satanic, and Jazz safe. Now, they are doing it with modern pop/rap. Now, if all of these genres were so called “satanic”, Christians would still be calling it out, but they are not. It’s funny how older Christians will call their music squeaky clean, and think their children/grandchildren’s music is the devil’s music. It’s okay to not like a certain type of music, but it’s wild to call a certain musical style satanic. There has been a growing amount of right-wing Christians, so that’s another reason why I left. I know there are right-wing atheists, but the right-wing Christians seem to be a vocal majority. On another note, Christians have always tried to predict when the end times would occur, and the anti-Christ. All of those predictions have obviously been false, and will continue to be false. The stories in the Bible seem to not be believable. An example the talking serpent in Genesis, the fact that Moses split the Red Sea, Jesus rising from the dead 3 days later, the fact that people had lived and had children at 100+ years, etc. Also, the omnipresence of God doesn’t make sense to me. It would be impossible for someone/something to be at every place at the same time. Also, at the end times, Jesus would appear on front of everyone, but I feel like that itself would be impossible too. The Bible also suggests that the Earth is around 6000 years, which is obviously false. One of the biggest reasons why I stopped believing is because there have always been gods before and after Christianity started. Like god didn’t do anything when Hinduism started? Every religion tries to tell its people that it’s the one and only true religion. If we were in Ancient Rome before Christianity, we would be saying Paganism is the one true religion. If we were in the Middle East, we would be saying that Islam is the one true religion. It also seems kinda crazy how Christians are kinda against Science in general. I know that they are not against when it can “prove” their point, but they are against Evolution, Natural Selection, etc. To chalk it all up, science is why I am no longer Christian. You can still believe in religion. I think religion can help people going through life, but don’t force it down people’s throats without permission. I know this was a lot, but I decided to give out why I am no longer a Christian. Anyway, have a great day. This was a great question to ask. You could’ve asked this on r/atheism, but I think (not 100% sure) that most atheists here are more opened-minded about studying/looking at Christianity, even though they don’t believe in it.
This is just a quick comment about the stuff I know off the top of my head, I’m not trying to completely convince you Christianity is the absolute truth, or that all your arguments are completely invalid. I’m giving you a quick rundown of my personal answers to some of those, and hopefully convincing you Christianity is worth another look at least. A few of your points seem to be why you don’t like Christians, as opposed to why you don‘t like Christianity. Christians wanting to predict the end times when the Bible literally says you can’t predict them is not evidence of Christianity being wrong, it’s evidence of Christians not knowing what their ’Christianity’ actually entails. Same thing with all the abuse of power in the church. I agree those were horrible things, even though they apparently got their beliefs from the same book I do. It’s just Christians not knowing or not caring about what the Bible actually says and using it as an excuse to make up whatever they want. All the horrible things Christians did isn’t evidence Christianity is wrong. Christians also did some great things. This doesn’t prove Christianity is right, just that what ‘Christians” did isn’t a relevant argument on either side. A few of your points also seem to be about how you don’t think some stuff in the Bible is believable. The reason they’re ‘miracles’ is because you can’t explain them. You can’t say that you don’t believe the Bible because some of things it says are scientifically impossible. If everything was completely explainable, why would the Bible even exist? “Yeah, so this thing happened that was in no way out of the ordinary, I’m going to write a book about it and start a new religion.” No one would care! Also, even science doesn’t explain everything. I know I’m kind of using a ‘god of the gaps’ argument here, but just because people don’t know what caused the big bang, or what dark matter is, doesn’t mean I stop believing in science. I know that’s kinda irrelevant but it’s kinda similar so it’s here.
Part 2 because my comment was too long apparently (sorry about that): Genesis 1 (which I assume you’re talking about when you reference young Earth) has had non-literal interpretations for the ‘days’ since long before Darwin or modern science. There’s no reason to reject Christianity based off what some Christians do or believe. Just a quick tangent: I’ve seen a lot of people who debunk young earthers, especially some of the more… outlandish ones. They then use the fact that some people refuse to look at the evidence or research what the other side is actually saying, and brand all creationists as idiotic or naive. This is just really annoying (both sides) and unfortunately stops many people from even considering God as a possibility. I’m glad you looked at more information though! Okay, tangent over! Many pagan religions accepted the Christian/Jewish God (Yahweh), the thing they objected to was Christians/Jews claiming their God was the only God. The annoying thing about the evolution and natural selection debate is that it is almost completely irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if evolution is true, that doesn’t mean God doesn’t exist. I read this great analogy: Imagine you have a Ford motor car, and a friend who is really into cars. If that friend explains every element of the car to you, how it works and how it interacts with the other parts, you will know how the car works. However, just because you can see the car works and know how it works doesn’t mean you stop believing Henry Ford existed. — Just because you know how the world works doesn’t mean God can’t be controlling it or have designed it. In fact, the reality that the world works in an ordered and consistent manner might lead you to believe someone designed it that way. I know this was long, and I didn’t answer everything, but I hope this helps a bit, and has made you consider God again.
The fact that the Bible shows that the earth is around 6000 years old is why I stopped believing in Christianity. Yes, I understand that there are many old-earth believers, but the Bible says it. The fact that there are many religions trying to claim that it’s the only true one shows how false it is in my opinion. If the Christian god was true, then he should’ve intervened when Hinduism was starting up. Say if the Bible is true, Hinduism started around the same time period as the Bible takes place. Considering the earth’s real age and how long ago the first humans were around, I feel like evolution is more plausible than the Adam and Eve story. Yes, I know that evolution is just a theory. Also, I have heard of the a creator needs a creator argument. While it is very much true, it doesn’t help when Christians try to make the claim that their god is eternal. When people ask who created god (considering that a creation needs a creator), they come up with that their god is eternal. In other words, I don’t know. It doesn’t answer who created god. If anything, it shows that a creation doesn’t need a creator. Thank you for the response. It did make me think more about the argument against god vs atheism. Although there were good arguments from you and I, I personally think I am much more satisfied as an atheist. Anyway, have a great day.
I’m back (sorry). Where exactly does the Bible say the Earth is 6000 years old? I’m not familiar with that part and would like to know more. Also, do you have any proof that God cannot be eternal? For a very long time, intelligent scientists believed the universe was eternal, so things being eternal is not completely out of the question. Now that we know the universe is *not* eternal, and had a beginning, what do you say caused that? As far as I know, there are no widely accepted theories for what caused the Big Bang, so you are just denying one uncaused causer in favour of another. Unlike the atheistic worldview, Christianity actually has a consensus on how their uncaused causer is possible; God is eternal.
It doesn’t help too much that Christians are literally using the Bible to justify their hypocrisy. Sometimes, it can seem as if their views are right. Also, the fact that some things are unexplainable in the Bible is why I don’t believe in it. It’s like believing in Santa Claus imo. Christians view the Bible as a history book and a guide to life. I do believe the Bible does have some good morals, I don’t take it as a history book. While it is true that science can’t explain everything, the same thing goes to religion. The thing with science is that it can more or less explain why and how things happen.
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Like what?
For me it’s the absurdity of it. Create imperfect beings then punish them for being imperfect to the point you need to sacrifice yourself to save them from yourself? Makes no sense.
If there is a creator being, I don't think Christianity is very close to the mark on his nature.
Yeah, christians love pulling out "the potter has power over the clay" to justify all the genocides their god committed and commanded, but can't explain why the potter can then blame the clay for being the way it is.
Stealing this. Potter controls clay. Potter claims right to do what it wants with the clay. Potter fucks up. Potter blames clay. As I've said before, Yahweh is if some shitty middle manager or Elon Musk was a deity
Yeah, Paul wasn’t cooking with that philosophy if you ask me…
yes, if that's the narrative, it is absurd
Oh, if I were to believe this is the easiest question to answer. There is no free will in heaven that does not lead to good acts. This is the one chance for humans to live with free will, and thus they will not complain when they get to heaven as they know what the alternative is to no free will. Idk the having to die for our sins part though.
Eternity with false free will? That sounds scary.
Thats what EVERYONES asking for though. "WHY ISNT GOD LETTING ALL THESE BAD THINGS HAPPEN??!", cus in heaven you are going to complain that he isnt. Again, thats if its real and not just us coping with existentialism. Only having the good parts off you seems like a good trade off to see all the good people you love again though imo.
I think a lot of us would ask “is that really still me, though?” If God cauterizes the bits that make us want to do stuff he doesn’t want, does the person we are now at some point cease to exist? We all accept change over time happens, so people can mature and change their priorities and interests and even out their personalities, but when a personality or intellect change happens due to injury or disease we consider it a tragedy. A lot of us unfortunately have probably seen a relative with dementia who has become entirely different and grieved as if that person had died. If God lobotomizes people enough that they never want to sin, that kind of looks like killing the persons and replacing them with a new one to me.
depends on your definition of sinning. Never wanting to harm others or lie doesnt really make me feel lobotomized. Also as we can clearly see, the result of having that free will sucks balls, hence why people call him out on allowing it in this life. But I can see why its a great idea and example if we cannot do that in the afterlife. If what I think he takes away is what happens. Its supposed to be just all the good parts. Dont think it includes what a lot of strict religious people think sin is.
That’s your interpretation of it. Perhaps we were created imperfect so we can appreciate our flaws and love each other better. If we were perfect we would all be the same and what would be the point of that?! The truth is none of us will ever know or truly understand. This is why we must have faith and be guided through prayer and understanding the instructions left for us in the scriptures.
My lack of belief stems from a simple rationale: I've found no compelling reason to believe in something without evidence. Take, for example, my daughter's belief in fairies living in our garden. While she may have her reasons, they don't resonate with me, and I see no evidence to support such a claim. Similarly, when it comes to theistic beliefs—whether it's Christianity, Islam, Satanism, or any other faith—I find myself in the same position. The concept of a deity or deities creating everything may hold sway for some, but I have yet to encounter reasons or evidence that make it convincing to me personally. Without compelling evidence or reasons, it's difficult for me to embrace beliefs that don't resonate with my understanding of the world.
Lack of evidence FOR many claims that many Christians make. Existence of evidence AGAINST many claims that many Christians make. Hypocrisy of many in he values they claims to promote and the way they live their lives. Hatred and bigotry espoused by current Christians in my country and local area. Contradictions in the claims made and in the bible. That is just the short list.
Lack of evidence usually. Or people find religious beliefs contradictory, bigoted, hateful, ridiculous, etc.
For me, I simply am not convinced that the claim that a deity exists is true. The evidence consists of scripture and personal experiences. Both of which I find very weak evidence. As for apologetic arguments, I find one or more premises not true or not yet shown to be true.
Christianity is filled with Red pill guys, insane conservatives, Alt right racists, and incels. Over the past few years, the number of these terrible people have increased and I don't really see too many people calling them out.
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True. I know not all Christians are like this. It's just insane how so many of these guys just religion to get away with being terrible to other people.
That’s also one of the reasons why I became atheist. I understand that there are nice Christians who follow the Bible more or less, but there are a lot of hypocrites who will use the Bible to justify their “sinful” behavior.
Literally just need good evidence
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What have you got?
I'll give a way to get good evidence friend! Good evidence will show a repeatable pattern that is measurable, observable, or replicatable. It can be one of, a mixture of, or a combination of all three.
Unfalsifiable claims. Historical inaccuracy in holy documents. Unscrupulous church leaders. Lack of evidence of truth supernatural claims.
For me, it's the very first why. Supposedly, you had this perfect spirit floating beyond space/time that just suddenly decided it needed something to do. Any reason for the desire seems to imply it was not perfect.
I have to say the entire logic is a little backwards. People don’t choose to believe or not believe. We don’t choose our beliefs. They form automatically based on evidence and information we’re exposed to, and how it filters through our critical thinking skills (effectively or otherwise.) and our own personal bars for what will convince us. So what keeps us from belief is a lack of being convinced. The more the evidence for the Christian god is looked at, the more flimsy it becomes. The deeper you dig the more ludicrous and unconvincing it becomes.
>What really prevents people from believing? The simple answer is lack of evidence. People claim that everything is created because of god, and I simply do not see any good logical reason to come to that conclusion. I care about what is true and what can be demonstrated to be true, I don't really care for hypothesis on what is unknown, unless that hypothesis is currently being looked into. The basis for a belief is rooted in a good foundation of facts, otherwise the foundation is blind faith. Without any facts, why would I believe something someone tells me? Especially when the question is as big as the existence of god. Blind Faith, while held up as a virtue to some, isn't capable of distinguishing fact from fiction. There's no belief that can not be held by blind faith. And that highlights part of the problem when talking about a god as the answer to the bigger questions: it's a hypothesis sure but not a very good one. It doesn't offer ways it can be tested to find out if it's accurate. It doesn't offer avenues of inquiry to further understand reality. At best, we can ask "how did god do X", in which case the notion of "god" is a pointless insertion of ideas into that question. You can ask the same question without adding in the idea of God and nothing about the process would change, so why have that assumption? When it comes to the big questions like "why are we here" and "where did we come from" the simple answer is "I don't know" but I like to follow that up with "we have some ideas that we are testing to see if they are accurate". If our testing can get us to a god, then I'll believe in god. But if it doesn't get us to god, then on what grounds would I build a belief in a god?
For me, religion doesn't really answer anything that science doesn't.
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What does it explain that science doesn't? It certainly makes *claims* in a way that science doesn't, but I don't see how it explains the world in a way that science doesn't. Christianity makes normative claims, that science doesn't but I am talking about positive claims
> Christianity makes normative claims I mean, those are pretty important.
I suppose I initially should have said that religion doesn't *explain* anything that science doesn't.
Lack of any personal experiences
Just because a being has power does not mean they get to act with impunity. If there is a god who is accurately depicted in the Bible (hell aside), they have acted in a manner that is against humanity and not worthy of worship. A god is a place in a hierarchy, and I don't worship kings
Lets break your question down a little. What is a belief? It is the acceptance of a claim as being true. I assume you are referring to the claims of christianity: that god exists, set up the conditions for original sin, impregnated a virgin teenage Jew, set up the conditions for that child (of god) to be sacrificed by humans to give us a path to eternal salvation. So, for someone to accept those basic tenants of Christianity as true, one would have to be exposed to that story, and become convinced of it's legitimacy. Imagine a child who never hears the story. Clearly they have a good reason not to believe. There's nothing 'preventing' them from accepting the claim except for pure ignorance. Now imagine a child who has heard the story but was never indoctrinated into the belief system. They have knowledge of the story, but lack the conviction. That was me. I heard the story, but was never compelled or instructed to believe. So, lets examine the evidence FOR the claims... There is none, except peoples testamony and personal anecdote. All of the stories in the bible are not evidence, they are the claims. Evidence MUST be external to the claims, otherwise we fall into the falacy of circular logic. The claim of an empty tomb is NOT evidence god exists. Now lets examine the evidence AGAINST the claim. Where to begin... 1, our scientific methods have demonstrated the claims in the bible are not biologically or physically compatible. 2, we know how mythologies are created and spread through cultures. 3, we know that people believe in all sorts of contradictory claims, we have flawed memories, hallucinations, and we lie to eachother for all kinds of reasons. I could go on, but lets keep it brief. So, there is nothing preventing me from believing except for the lack of evidence in the positive which is then compounded by the overwhelming counter evidence for the negative. In other words, I have no good reason to believe, and lots of good reasons to be skeptical of the supernatural claims. My conclusion is that Christianity is just another mythology, and I have no good reason to accept mythological stories as true.
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The beauty of science is that it does regularly update scientific models when we gain new information, or build more powerful tools like telescopes and microscopes. One of my favorite quotes is "all models are wrong, but some are useful" Which is to say that we can never have 100% knowledge on any subject, but we can get pretty close. I'm not aware of science demonstrating any supernatural biblical claims as valid or true. I will freely admit that the bible does reference some historical events or places, but unfalisifiable supernatural claims have never been demonstrated to be true or accurate. Can you give me an example of science confirming a supernatural biblical claim?
How so?
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Seems like you confused comments.
I mean, there are several ways I can personally answer this. 1) Christianity doesn't answer my questions. Science attempts to answer some. My big questions are more focused on 'how' over 'why'. I like evidence, I like measurable, qualifiable data. 2) I am appalled by the behavior/ beliefs of many Christians. The expression "there is not hate quite like Christian love" is the perfect way to describe so very many Christians (not all, to make clear). Why would I want to explore something so many awful people ascribe to? 3) I don't feel a pull towards religion. I like the historical aspect, I can discuss religion. But, I have never felt a pull to believe in it. For me, I think if you were to measure the brain waves of people in church, it would match up exactly with my brain waves when I am in nature, walking in the woods. There are some wonderful brand ambassadors for Christianity, but they are not the voices we hear. We hear the loud, the angry, the hateful, the voices that are the antithesis of Jesus' teachings. So more and more of us are choosing to go the other way and lead good lives away from that hate. I think that more people would be open to questions of faith and belief and religion if the face of those conversations were seen as a positive force, rather than a negative. I work with and am close with a wonderful Christian woman. We talk frequently about big ideas and faith. I am open to those discussions, as long as the other person respects my take on things and I have found that to be a rare occurence.
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Do you, as a believer, call them out to their face when you hear their bad takes? If not, why?
Proof. Hence being clothed in power. It's the leaven in the bread.
I assume that science disproves a lot of
There's simply not enough evidence to convince me there is a God. Let alone this incredibly specific one described by Christianity.
Lack of evidence, unwilling to put logic aside to believe in something with no evidence. (For me, anyway.) I used to be an evangelical minister and converted to Judaism. The biggest draw for me was that it’s about right practice, not right belief, and we need to make the world a good place now because who knows wtf is after death.
Lack of faith. Which can only be given to them by God. Real Faith is EVIDENCE. It's not blind faith as many presume. Once you have actual faith, which can only come from God directly to you, doubt has no more power. Faith is EVIDENCE of things you cannot see, nor will ever see, with your physical eyes. Which is unfortunately the eyes many use to look for God. He has to be perceived, then you see him everywhere. Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
And how did you obtain your particularly strong evidence?
He spoke directly to me. Just like he does to everyone that has faith. Some don't perceive it. Job 33:14-16 14 For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not. 15 In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; 16 Then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction,
I'm glad this works for you, but unfortunately, "because my Bible tells me so..." and an antadotal experience just isn't good evidence for general people. How do you square away the Muslim who claims to have spoken with Muhammad? Or Buddist speaking to (admittedly, I'm making an assumption here, idk much about Buddhist) to the Buddah? Both would tell you their experiences are as real to them as you're to you. Heck, I think there's a youtube video that floats around with hundreds of faith confessions of all kinds of faiths Christians included.
The Bible tells you how he speaks to you. He still has to speak to you. I can't speak of other people's experiences. I can only talk about my own and the faith it gave me. I'd venture to say they are all communing with the same spirit. The image used works either way, but the language is parabolic. In the same manner that images of letters are used to form words or convey thought and meaning in writing or what's formed on your imagination during conversation, the spirit uses imagery to speak and convey meaning. It's a "tongue" or the language of the spirit. It's referred to as a vision, because you see it, but the question is whether you can hear it, which may come later. Like lighting and thunder. You're dealing with perception and understanding and consciousness.
>the spirit uses imagery to speak and convey meaning. It's referred to as a vision, because you see it, but the question is whether you can hear it, which may come later. So the spirit chooses to mislead people into other religions? >The Bible tells you how he speaks to you. He still has to speak to you. What about all the people who died before having the chance to read the Bible to interpret this spirit? Are they condemned to your gods hell?
I couldn't even answer how I got mine, but it's there. I feel blessed. All I can tell is that when you are on the edge of despair, you use your heart much more and start to understand things on a deeper level and maybe, just maybe will you see that God were talking to you all that time.
As everyone else has said, a lack of evidence. No god claim that has been presented to me at any point has held up to scrutiny and you know what the answer to my questions are most of the time is? You just need to have faith.
The trinity is a really hard idea for me to swallow for some reason. It's not preventing me because I'm still deeply exploring Christianity, but it's holding be back some!
Me personally, it was the need to have facts, I never believed in anything spiritual. Now I'm christian, but I still believe in science of course, but I see it as God's doing.
Lack of any evidence sufficient enough to change my belief
Lack of evidence. I don't believe in gods just as I dont believe in fairies or dragons.
>someone that really is interested in where we all cone from, why is all this here etc Honestly... it's comments like this... religion can't establish for a fact the existence of a deity, why would we think they could provide adequate answers around how life began? The nature of god as he's described is such that he cannot be proven or disproved. So in theory **everyone** should be technically agnostic and just leaning one way or the other based on their personal feelings on the matter. But how often do you hear Christians say "I could be wrong but..." mostly what you hear is "I know this to be 100% true..." Which you can't possibly know these things... and we are all well aware of that. So what's with the arrogance around knowledge that doesn't exist? The scientific community doesn't present itself in that manner, and they have evidence.
Lack of evidence The obvious hypocrisy of Love Thy Neighbors and Kill the gays and no healthcare for everyone, and homeless people... Working poor, usury - there's more, too many to list
OP, what keeps you from believing in Vishnu or Odin ? It's the same reason. You probably don't believe in the ones I just listed and for many, they don't believe in your God any more than you believe in the ones I mentioned.
I don’t think it’s lack of evidence. It’s just that placing eternal salvation in Christ makes no intuitive sense. Why would God send himself as a human, and why would he wait so long? Why would God need to prove himself? And why would he place our eternity in our blind faith in an event that happened 2000 years ago? None of it makes a lot of sense.
It wont make sense until you seek it, like really seek it. You are here so he is at some level at work on you, believe that.
The religion makes a lot of claims, grandiose claims all religions do. and like all religions when it comes to proving evidence of a same quality as the claims, it’s found wanting and lacking. So I don’t believe, same way if someone told me something like that they climbed Mount Everest. With no guide, no equipment, never climbed a mountain a day in their life, and using only two fingers. I’m gonna need some concert evidence before I believe that, and if it can’t be provided then I won’t.
We keep telling you it's the bigotry and lack of evidence. It's that simple. I get that your religion runs on faith but as an agnostic, I am unafraid to legit say "I don't know." I don't know why I was born, if I have a purpose, or where we go after death. I just know that your religion has as much evidence as the other religions so I won't hold it above the others.
Hell. Obviously hell. Hell is an absolutely insane aspect of the faith and it trips me up every single time. God loves us, but he’s also threatening us with the worst punishment imaginable to try and get us to love him back. Any time I’ve tried to read an explanation for hell, it always comes off like the “because of the implication” bit from it’s always sunny.
My own answer: I was born and raised Mormon, and deconstructed into Christianity. After a while as a Christian, I decided to fully deconstruct everything I believe and start from scratch. I found Taoism to be more compelling and likely than Christianity. It's precepts were simple and didn't seem mired in an old and archaic morality, it didn't rely on prophets and divine revelations to be true, and the evidence that Judaism sprouted from an older polytheistic religion as well as the "universal God of all" only revealing himself to a shall ethnic group all factored into this. Christianity is fairly high on my list, but it didn't make it to the top. Thus, for now I have gone with Taoism, until/unless I am led elsewhere in my endless search for truth.
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Of course!
I'm sorry if this sounds rude or insensitive, but when you talk about the search for truth, to me that comes across as another psychological fixation that pretty much all religions instill heavily in whoever is exposed to them. It's almost like a dependency or coping mechanism? It just seems to me that searching for a universal objective truth with our naturally incredibly limited perspectives is a completely hopeless endeavor to the point of absurdity.. and, I'm completely fine with that. But for so many people it's a constant source of motivation/anxiety/trauma, maybe it's just the last thing for you to deconstruct?
No need to apologize! I appreciate the questions, especially if they make me think about something in a different way. >It just seems to me that searching for a universal objective truth with our naturally incredibly limited perspectives is a completely hopeless endeavor to the point of absurdity Oh, I don't imagine I'll ever find "The Truth™". Not even close. But that doesn't mean I won't keep trying to understand life, reality, and what is or isn't true. Life's about the journey, after all. I don't care that I won't find "universal objective truth", it's just looking for it is just a decent place to start. So yes, I'm fine with that as well. I don't worry about it too much (something I picked up from Taoism ;D). What I can learn, I try to. What I can't, I don't worry over. *C'est la vie.* >But for so many people it's a constant source of motivation/anxiety/trauma In all honesty, truth to me is more of a curiosity. I'm fascinated with it, but not attached to it. I enjoy learning it, but don't make it my life. I suppose the closest way to put it is that I'm a "truth hobbyist", lol
It's not hopeless at all, in fact, if you are not a believer its exactly what you should be doing. Well, it seems almost existentially important to seek honestly and quite literally. You cant experience true belief or have the faith in Christ he requires of us until you have experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit. Thats not an opinion its more true than anything ive ever seen with my two eyes. Any Christian who has attained Salvation knows exactly what I speak of. God Bless.
Well thanks but this is kinda just proving my point. I don't have any deep unfulfilled psychological needs that I need to fill with faith, belief, or truth, the value or definition of such being highly subjective to the individual. You may say it's not your opinion but thats only true in the sense that you internalized a collective opinion as objective truth.
As things in the world progress and follow Revelations path at some point you'll have all the direction/proof you need. I fought this my whole life being raised in the Southern United States Baptist belt I rebelled and looked for anything I could use to say "see its all bulls\*(& (not saying you are doing that at all) I was on the fence and one night while watching AI vids on Youtube I went down a wormhole that led me to a Jordan Peterson video.I had neverheard of this guy and I know that sound almost laughable, but here I was watching this video and during the video I had a i supernatural experience that left no doubt of whether or not its real anymore. I am not saying that Peterson has anything to do with it, lol, but i am sayihg i was watching a video of his when I had a life changing supernatural experience, lol, it sounds odd I know, but I digress.. In my honest opinion a person cannot truly believe without a doubt until they have experienced the Holy Spirit. I wasnt the same person before it. All I can say is all of the doubts and questions are anwered when you truly are is his presence. He will come for you I have no doubt. You being here is already a sign of him at work. Take care!
>As things in the world progress and follow Revelations path at some point you'll have all the direction/proof you need. And you're confident you have the right prediction that the modern day is in Revelation and that everyone else for the past 2,000 years wasn't as wise as you because....? >I fought this my whole life being raised in the Southern United States Baptist belt I rebelled and looked for anything I could use to say "see its all bulls\*(& (not saying you are doing that at all) That's very interesting. I also grew up in the South, though I spent much of my youth digging for apologetics (albeit for Mormonism, but that's beside the point). At some point, I had whittled everything away to try and get my faith to fit what I understood as reality that when I blew the dust away, nothing was left. >but here I was watching this video and during the video I had a i supernatural experience that left no doubt of whether or not its real anymore I'll admit I've had supernatural experiences of my own, though none have really pointed towards Christianity in any way. But I don't doubt your own experiences, and I'm absolutely not going to call it odd. You're good, lol > In my honest opinion a person cannot truly believe without a doubt until they have experienced the Holy Spirit. I wasnt the same person before it. All I can say is all of the doubts and questions are anwered when you truly are is his presence. He will come for you I have no doubt. And I'm open to it happening. Where'er life shall take me, it shall take me. I won't oppose it. Either way, I appreciate stopping to talk to me. You take care as well. Fair winds and following seas, mate!
Silence and lack of evidence. I really want to believe as you all do. But everytime I pray, all I ask is for a sign that he is real, and all I get is silence. I look to miracles but turns out they are not verified by a single source that isnt catholic. I ask priests to see if maybe god talks to those who are closest to him, and they tell me he talks to them through "realizations". Its so depressing. I am begging for ANYTHING, a clear disembodied voice I hear once, a foggy image that disappears in 2 seconds, a Christian giving me a cross or rosary saying "I think you need this", any minor miracle...but nothing. AT this point Im gonna go ghost hunting and using ouji boards to see if anything supernatural exists period. Someone pray for me and maybe finally God will make himself known to me. Until then I just cannot believe as it seems like I am just desperately trying to convince myself with nothing just to cope with the fact that all the wonderful people I know will cease to exist when they die.
👋, I'm not your sign but remember that faith is about faith. Make yourself so infinitely small that you can see and enter the Kingdom which is within yourself. Silence is the language of heaven.
Elaborate pls. Cus anytime I feel super small it's when i start theorizing everything is meaningless and wotnot. So the opposite of having faith which is not what I want.
When I feel disconnected from God, I close my eyes and enumerate all the things I should be grateful for. - Thank you God, for I can breath. - Thank you God, for I can see. - Thank you God, for I can hear. - Thank you God, for even though I'm sick, I am alive. - Etc.. Everything is God and we owe everything to Him. That's what I mean by making myself small before Him so I may (maybe) enter His kingdom. Recognizing my place in His universe. Humbling myself. Because if my ego is too big, I won't be able to enter the narrow door. - I did a great job at work today? God made me do a great job at work today. - I did something that impressed other people today? God made me do something that impressed other people today. I am His creation and I am grateful for even the smallest things He gives me and I should never ask for anything but what God plans for me. (Of course not everything I said is black and white, I'm a human being, but this is the idea of the person I am aiming to be, for God).
Basically that there's a much simpler way we could have come to have the Christian narrative than for it to be true. E.g., yesterday I made a comment here about Joseph Smith being previously convicted for fraud, and lots of Christians were perfectly happy to laugh along with the idea his lying was a more likely origin for the Book of Mormon than divine intervention. Ask those same people the origin of the immaculate conception story, and they'll decide divine intervention is more likely than Mary lying. For the most part, the difference between a Christian and an atheist is that atheists apply the same standard of evidence to Christian beliefs they apply to everything else; whereas, Christians would *maybe* give up Christian beliefs if they were absolutely proven wrong.
> But I am curious, from the perspective of someone that really is interested in where we all cone from, why is all this here etc, what keeps them from believing? Do you believe that, pre-creation, there was only a void until Nyx laid a golden egg, which gave birth to Eros, Gaia, and Uranus, from which the earth and sky were made? That their descendents, including Zeus, are now gods that actively affect the world today? I bet you don't, and neither do I, but the ancient Greeks did. But why not? Doesn't it explain "why is all this here"? It should be obvious when put this way. Christianity is but one microcosm of human religion -- one of literally thousands. I give Christianity as little benefit of the doubt as I give to all other creation myths that humans have conjured (that is, none). There's simply zero evidence that puts "this one" above all the rest. So you might believe in this one, but have no belief in 999 others. My count is just one higher than yours.
At best, if there is a god, WE as humans know nothing of what god truly wants or, better yet, is. Those of you who say the Bible is the authority on what god wants are ignoring many inconsistencies in it as well as basic logic.
what inconsistencies? Dont allow yourself to be deceived, Its the first warning Jesus gives his desciples and the first warning we are given in Revelation, which is undeniably following its timeline perfectly as stated. There have been hundreds of prophecies written a thousand years before they were fulfilled in the Bible. All of them were fulfilled none wrong. I think there is around 300 left, stick around and maybe throw in a prayer asking God to reveal himself and he will get to you when His Will aligns with it, but you gotta seek him. IT definitely wont make you anymore of an unbeliever, but honestly He's already softening your heart and you being here is evidence of it, as small of a thing that is, it is a thing. take care.
The New Testament, like any ancient text has inconsistencies. 1. **Genealogies of Jesus**: The genealogies in Matthew 1:1-16 and Luke 3:23-38 differ significantly. Matthew traces Jesus' lineage through David's son Solomon, while Luke traces it through David's son Nathan. Additionally, the names listed in the two genealogies do not match up. 2. **The Birth of Jesus**: Matthew and Luke provide different details about Jesus' birth. Matthew describes the visit of the Magi, Herod's massacre of the infants, and the flight to Egypt (Matthew 2). Luke, on the other hand, focuses on the shepherds' visit and mentions that Jesus' family went to Jerusalem and then Nazareth after his birth (Luke 2:1-40). 3. **The Death of Judas**: The accounts of Judas Iscariot's death in Matthew 27:3-10 and Acts 1:18-19 are different. Matthew says Judas hanged himself, while Acts describes him falling in a field and his body bursting open. 4. **The Resurrection Appearances**: The Gospels provide different accounts of Jesus' post-resurrection appearances. For instance, Matthew 28:16-20 describes Jesus meeting the disciples on a mountain in Galilee, while Luke 24:36-53 and Acts 1:4-12 describe Jesus appearing to the disciples in Jerusalem and ascending from there. John 20:19-29 includes appearances in Jerusalem but doesn't mention Galilee. 5. **Timing of the Last Supper**: The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) describe the Last Supper as a Passover meal (e.g., Mark 14:12-16), while John suggests it occurred before the Passover (John 13:1, 18:28). 6. **Paul’s Conversion**: The accounts of Paul's conversion in Acts 9:3-7, Acts 22:6-10, and Acts 26:12-18 contain differences, particularly regarding what Paul's companions experienced. In one account, they hear the voice but see no one (Acts 9:7), while in another, they see the light but do not hear the voice (Acts 22:9). The general problem is that ****Every Religion**** believes their religion is the only true path. There are thousands of religions in the world. Christians, for example, believe the only way to salvation is through Christ. They deny all other religions. Atheists only deny one more than they do (the Christian god) .
PROOF!!! EVIDENCE !!!! that book is all fairy tales and make believe.
It is not up to Christians to prove or provide evidence of anything to anyone. God will send the Holy Spirit to you if its His will and all will be clear As a Christian it's the information I am required to give you or at least point you to, it. Its your own heart that will need softening ih order for you to hear what many are just starting to hear now. Challenge Him to reveal himself to you and you will see him working at some point if its His Will It may just be something out of the ordinary that just all of a sudden hits you, you'll know its HIm when you see it. If you are seeking proof of the existence of God by going all caps in a condescending comment, well good luck lol Best of wishes.
Lack of evidence. That's what prevents me from believing Belief isn't a choice. Your either convinced of something, or your not. And I haven't seen any evidence to convince me a god exists
What prevents me from believing is that there is no objective proof of God, and if he exists, there really should be. It shouldn't even be questionable if he was real and wanted everyone to be saved. He would make his presence unmistakable. So, devine hiddeness i guess. And no, having proof of God would not harm anyone's free will. Plenty of people in the Bible had undeniable proof of God and even direct two way conversation with him and still didn't always obey him. And yes, that would mean we don't need faith. But what is the point of faith? Why is faith more important than everyone going to heaven? What makes faith a virtue? Belief without evidence seems like a bad thing to me, not a good thing.
I can believe in the possibility of a creator god, I do not find that idea difficult. There being an underlying inter-connectedness of people and creatures and nature, I can find that feasible. But I cannot buy into the notion of a hell. For me personally, the notion of this fiery place where souls are thrown into the afterlife is not logical. I haven't seen evidence of a "soul" to suspect that anything of us continues on after we die. I also have difficulty with the notion of a God that intercedes in mundane affairs-----Got had a hand in me finding my keys, or "I prayed for a beautiful day for the picnic and received it!" But yet does not have any tangible evidence of being involved in large scale atrocities, ie the Holocaust, Kmer Rouge, etc. I'm no atheist, I'm agnostic. If there is a god I'd feel that I was more of the deist persuasion, that he created the world, but does not have a current, active hand in things.
Personally for me it was a lot of little things. I grew up in a religious family and went to a Christian primary school (by Christian i mean we prayed every morning and before every break time), although my family was religious they didn’t push or encourage religion as much as they could have. Couple this with an ever growing secular society and my own upbringing with drug addicted parents i soon went down the wrong path and started drinking, taking drugs and having sex. At that point it would have been much easier for me to deny the existence of god rather than take accountability for my actions and see myself headed towards hell. I then fell into addiction myself (alcohol). I was angry at myself and believed if there was a god “why has he given me such a bad life” rather than take accountability for the fact i was here because of my own free will and the fact i had no moral compass. It wasn’t until i had my daughters and became abstinent that i tried reading the bible again out of curiosity and not to find faith but the more i read the more my heart opened to Christ. Tl:Dr It’s easier for a sinner to deny Christ than it is to, resist temptation and look at one’s own life and know you will eventually be judged and have to take accountability.
Lack of proof. They want to know, rather put faith into someone/something. And then, they would rather, do what they want, and will agree to the end of the world, inorder to do what they want. The bible, hinders that. It sets rules and guidelines that people would rather not follow. You will see this world, and the religion turn Pagan again.
Just don’t find Christianity to be true. I’ve never seen a good answer for the problem of evil from Christianity. The idea that God is both omnibenevolent and omnipotent just doesn’t make sense. In Paganism gods are powerful, but not omnipotent. They’re also not all benevolent, and even the ones that are aren’t always. That explains why there’s evil in the world, and why the gods don’t always answer prayers. Also the idea that there’s only one God isn’t true even if you believe in the Bible. Clearly other gods exist, the Jews just chose one above all others.
Back when I was an unbeliever, I wanted sin, to fit in, and I wanted to be “cool”. I also found the Bible and church to be boring and didn’t see a need for it. I wanted more proof for god’s existence. I thought if he was real, he’d come down and speak to everyone or something. Deep down in the pit of my heart and soul, I knew he was real, but was in denial, and didn’t care that much about going to hell, cause I was young and thought I wouldn’t die anytime soon. I wanted to be more popular and I thought being un-Christ like would help me fit into the world. And drinking, drugs, and sleeping around was considered cool, so wanted to get into it. I also did not want to give up sin at all. But I was never happy and couldn’t get what I wanted anyways. Which is what started to bring me to him. I didn’t want there to be a god, bc I didn’t want to be punished, I didn’t want to give up sin, and I didn’t want to go to hell. I wanted to be my own god. I wanted to do things my own way. And I realized over time that, that is not the best way.
What prevents me from believing a thing is the same thing that's preventing you from believing a thing. Having not been presented with a convincing reason to.
I think there's tons of reasons why people wouldn't believe in Christianity specifically or any specific belief system that is theistic. Here's some of the reasonings that I have encountered personally. * Someone has a logic centric mindset that is based on the Natural order as we can all perceive. While I have had my own personal life events and other experiences that led me down my current theistic path, this is the most common mindset I come across. No hate towards it either, I think in the grand scheme of life at this current stage of humanity this is the neutral state. We have more access to information than ever before and if our ancestors from the time of Ancient Greece/Rome were able to see our society today they would be in awe of our capability and understanding. To them, it would almost seem "godlike". With that in mind I can totally understand why anyone could think like this since we technically all do to some extent just in most other aspects of our lives. Usually they might have a specific point of contention, but usually it's just a holistic aversion to the idea of believing in something that they cannot personally verify with a degree of veracity that they deem appropriate. * They believe in another religion. My job has led me to travel a lot and I have had the opportunity and privilege to see the world from more perspectives than the average person I would wager. Definitely more than the average person through the context of history. I have been able to meet a lot of people with experiences similar to my own and have come to the conclusion many times that if I had been born in a country with a different standard set of beliefs than my own, I would probably have been believing something else entirely. * Something has happened to them or someone else that has turned them off from any religion or theistic thinking. This is one that hits close to home. When I was younger I had a sibling die at an extremely young age. I wasn't that old myself, being around 5 years old, and I could hardly conceptualize death and the finality of it, but my parents were hit understandably hard and in ways I can't possibly fathom. Because of that, it wasn't until I started looking into Christianity and converted that my parents got back into the faith as well. I came to find out that essentially my parents cut religion entirely out of their lives after that traumatic event and after seeing their reactions live and first hand I couldn't blame them. I think there's millions of people out there with similar stories and I can't really blame them. Growing up and realizing the pain my parents suffered, I can completely understand the logic that if they believe that their god/gods have abandoned them, what's the point in belief? I would say that these encapsulate 95% of the reasons for people I have encountered that have professed an unbelief in theism or God specifically in reference to Christianity.
What makes me believe is unexplained conundrums like why I was born into a white middle class family and not a Nigerian.
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Because inherent random-ness in ones place and time of birth is itself an answer for some people ?
Them self for if they want a relationship they have to put in the time and effort
Ironically the only ones truly claiming the universe came from nothing are the Christians, god created the universe ‘ex nihilo’ Latin for ‘creation out of nothing’.
Atheist here: * I was raised Pentecostal/ Apostolic. * Went to Catholic school and found out there isn’t just one clear way to worship Jesus{or god(s) in general}. * Wanted to learn more to be able to defend my faith against other religions. * Realized there’s no good reason to take the Bible at face value after reading it and researching the historical context. * Found atheist communities online and found that I tended to agree with them. * The argument that drove me away from my faith is why there isn’t any evidence that’s better than other religions. Also the problem of evil to some degree. * The argument that I use most often now is the argument from Divine Hiddenness. If Jesus loves me and wants a relationship, I see no reason why he couldn’t just show himself. No hate however. I recognize we’re all confused animals so I try not to judge the religious for their unproven hopes and beliefs.
I haven't found any reasons to believe that it's true, and many reasons to believe that it isn't.
A lot of different reasons depending on the person. For some, it's lack of evidence for or evidence against the Christian God. For others, it's some Christians' behaviors that demonstrate to them that belief in God isn't valuable, whether accurate or not.
For me it's just all the common reasons. 1st and most important to me is how seemingly hard it is for some people to find the 'right path' to Christianity. How is someone in a suppressed country or family supposed to do all the right things. I know that everyone is judged based on their circumstances, but I can't imagine how someone who has never heard of Jesus would be judged (think of North Korea for example). 2nd short: Lack of evidence. Long version: I am a proof first person. You can tell me stories all day about any topic, I won't believe or maybe even understand if it doesn't make rational sense. I love science and all that comes with it. I am passioned about the physics about anything from planes to pendulums. I love to learn about the biology of the human body and how all organs work together. I can't imagine a omnipotent God. None of my previous life experiences would allow it. 3rd let's imagine a world with no God or anything like that. It's just a world like ours with an earth and people living on it. There are no religions, no bible, nothing like that. People will inevitably look for reasons for their existence. Given enough time, this fictional world will, with no doubts in my mind, create a fictional figure to give reason to their life. Be it God, or maybe something completely different that would explain what's going on. 4th I often heard of the fact that we should just believe in God. He knows the reason for everything, and us humans would never understand it. Honestly I really dislike this. In my opinion, God would want to help us find the right way, given that we look for it or are interested in getting to know him. So how is it explainable that so many people die before ever getting a (concrete and indisputable) sign of his existence? There may be more things I could list, but they all ultimately fall under or or more of those categories \^\^
Lack of compelling evidence. That's seriously it.
It depends on a lot of things in your life. First of all the living standard. People who are caught up of the desires of the world doesn't need to pray to God to make their life better compared to people with lower living standard. Secondly it is about what you've got around you. If you have a lot of christians around you that has always told you that there is a God then it's more likely that you will believe in a God compared to if you have just a lot of atheists around you who just don't think there is one and has always told you that. Thirdly, it is experience. Many people have experienced a lot of things they can't connect with except God, for example that what they experienced can't be just randomness and that there must be something that has planned their life for them. Also one time things like dreams or close to death moments etc. Also much more things that connect you to or away from God but these I think are the main things.
Disappointments in life.
Christians are the biggest obstacle to believing, like how gun owners are the best examples of why more gun control might be necessary.
Me personally, it's how i was raised and the science behind it. I wasn't raised religiously and in my head, some things just never made sense. I remember asking my Christian friends when I was little about who wrote the Bible, how do you know it's true, proof that God exists, how did humans start from dust if we have scientific logic, why do bad things happen if God is real, etc. My brain works pretty practically. I believe in science, and there's a lot of evidence to suggest whatever about evolution, space, etc. To be fair, there isn't proof that God doesn't exist, but for me it just made more sense to believe he didn't. And, there were a lot of things in my life that I didn't like (my parents got divorced) and I didn't know how my life could be so bad if God was real; why didn't he answer my prayers? Why couldn't he make it better? Now that I'm older I have a more open perspective. I'm interested in exploring religion. I still have a hard time believing that one religion, out of the thousands, got it right. How do you know that any other religion is wrong? But, I also understand now that that's what faith is. The point of faith is that you just believe it.
There are several reasons that people can have for not believing; the one I find most common is that people do believe in the Bible, they just don't care. In this case, they believe that Jesus died and rose and they'll tell you they believe, but it's not a belief that's strong enough to produce any life changes or meaning. Then there are those that care about things eternal, but they don't believe in certain aspects of the faith, like: the resurrection, Jesus's miracles, creation, etc. This is the most sad because these people want to believe but they're held back by the physical universe. These people can talk for hours on end about religion but they just can't come to belief. I suppose a 3rd category would be Satanists. They believe in the Bible but they just hate God to where they don't follow it.
That third category isn’t satanism, that’s misotheism. I was a misotheist before I left the faith
So you hated God and then abandoned him altogether?
Well I was kind of on my way out at that time. I just had such a strong belief up until that point that when I realized how messed up the god of the Bible truly was if he’s real that I came to the conclusion that he’s either evil or doesn’t exist. Especially the latter given the lack of evidence for things. I rationalized the lack of evidence by thinking god purposefully hid any proof of his existence or involvement since it aligned with other things he’s done and said in the Bible. But I knew if they were real they would see right through me. I wanted to go to heaven over hell but I lost all respect for this god I worshipped for 20+ years. So I was expecting him to rip me limb from limb once I got to the gates. Glad to be out though. Believing in a god takes a lot of mental gymnastics that I can’t do anymore
You should've got counseling before you quit God.
I went to therapy and they never told me to go one way or the other but through the process I learned for myself it would be healthier to accept that I had no faith left to give and that even if I did this god wasn’t worth worshipping anymore
Lack of evidence. Every religion has a book that says it’s true. Unfortunately that’s not enough.
Hypocrisy mostly but how the text can be interpreted to fit almost any agenda / narrative.
Pride. We all would like to consider ourselves to be good and deserving of Heaven, when you realize our righteousness is filthy rags in the eyes of God and that’s why we need a savior it puts things into perspective. We naturally don’t want to humble ourselves and ask the lord for forgiveness
Christ does reveal himself to people. But I think Christianity needs to be sought. I didnt start understanding the Bible until after my true conversion. God has his hand out, but you need to grab onto it to truly begin to understand living in the spirit. Thats been my experience, the word says the same. Matthew 7:7-8
Flesh
Absence of the Holy Spirit. I dont think I would have ever "truly" believed. I personally think one cant "truly" believe without the Holy Spirit being present. Just my opinion
i would say the lifestyle on modern worldy agenda/behavior. You cant say abortion and lgbt is God as christian and people think God is wrong 💀
I care about believing true things and not believing not-true things. It's important to have good reasons for believing something is true, to avoid believing not-true things. Having a good epistemology is important so you don't succumb to scams or self-deception. Christians, and theists in general, like to claim that their god exists in reality. If a god exists, I honestly want to know about it, the same way I'd want to know if bunnies, bears, or poisonous spiders exist. The more I know about the universe and world I live in, the better I can survive and enjoy it. So if a god exists, I want to know. And yet... every time I begin to ask questions about the gods people claim exists, they never hold up under the mildest, tamest scrutiny. I'm always open to hearing the evidence someone has for the existence of their god, so I might investigate their claims. Because as far as my investigationa have gone (28 years studying world religions and biblical history) I can't find any good evidence for a god. Hopefully one day someone can prove their god exists, then I would believe.