what I find hardest to understand is people who go from atheist to religious.

Do we actually know how many people this applies to, though? I know some people trot out the famous so-called examples like C.S. Lewis (who, by his own admission, prior to conversion to Christianity actually seems to have been a dystheist rather than an atheist). I'd be surprised (but delighted) if there were any reliable statistics.

Shaker wrote:

katja z wrote:

Sciwoman wrote:If you never believed, it's probably hard to understand how belief can take over everything, including your mind. But that is what happens. The true believer looks at the world differently and thinks differently from the person who believes in belief or the nonbeliever.

Actually, what I find hardest to understand is people who go from atheist to religious. I can imagine that if you're brought up that way, you believe - but what must happen in your head to acquire that belief as an adult?

Some colossal mental upheaval like a bereavement, I'd imagine. George Santayana put it best when he said that belief in the supernatural is the desperate wager of a man at the lowest ebb of his fortunes.

I can imagine a traumatic event gives you reasons to WISH these things were true. But believing them? Can you persuade yourself to believe something because you wish it were true? Probably yes, but I still don't get how.

OTOH, such an event could just as well be taken as a confirmation that there really is no god/no reason to worship god even if there is one.

Shaker wrote:

what I find hardest to understand is people who go from atheist to religious.

Do we actually know how many people this applies to, though? I know some people trot out the famous so-called examples like C.S. Lewis (who, by his own admission, prior to conversion to Christianity actually seems to have been a dystheist rather than an atheist). I'd be surprised (but delighted) if there were any reliable statistics.

I doubt there are any stats on that, and considering how vaguely many people (especially nonatheists) define "atheism" I wouldn't rely on them anyway.
What's a dystheist?

katja z wrote:I strongly suspect that if you never believed as a child, you probably just can't imagine what such a belief would feel like. You just don't have the mental space where to fit this idea. I know I don't.

Goldenmane, I know what you're talking about - at some point I wished I could believe because I somehow got the idea that it would make things easier for me, but I very quickly found out that I might just as well try seeing with my ears, or growing another pair of hands.

Or, in my case, being a fucking wizard, essentially. Wouldn't it be great to be able to throw lightning around, part seas, and condemn those who disagree with us to eternal torment?

Actually, no, it fucking well wouldn't. It would suck arse. You'd never fucking learn anything, for a start, like how to actually exist in the real world without super-powers. But yes, I see your point. Welcome to the Oasis.

Shaker wrote:

what I find hardest to understand is people who go from atheist to religious.

Do we actually know how many people this applies to, though? I know some people trot out the famous so-called examples like C.S. Lewis (who, by his own admission, prior to conversion to Christianity actually seems to have been a dystheist rather than an atheist). I'd be surprised (but delighted) if there were any reliable statistics.

From what I have seen on various forums, the stories of most of those who claim they were atheists before becoming believers don't ring true. They label themselves as former atheists, in most cases, because they say the they used to hate god - hardly the action of an atheist. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I doubt it happens as often as people claim it does.

What's a dystheist?

Somebody who believes in a god, but who believes that god to be positively and actively malignant, downright cruel or evil even*. Lewis somewhere speaks of being "very angry with God for not existing" in his so-called atheist years. Well, somebody who's angry with God isn't an atheist

*A position which I don't believe for a second but which, I have to say, seems to have rather more going for it than standard omnibenevolent theism.

Goldenmane wrote: Wouldn't it be great to be able to throw lightning around, part seas, and condemn those who disagree with us to eternal torment?

Actually, no, it fucking well wouldn't. It would suck arse. You'd never fucking learn anything, for a start, like how to actually exist in the real world without super-powers.

Exactly.

Welcome to the Oasis.

Thanks!

Thanks Shaker. I agree, he was no true atheist!

What I find unbelievable is that there are people who appear to be rational who believe in magic such as "an ordered universe just happen to exist, either eternally or without a cause".

There are dozens of arguments showing that belief in God is rational (from Maydole ontological argument to Koons cosmological argument), what is it exactly that is so irrational about Christianity? Once you accepted the existence of God, then there is no reason to adhere to naturalism, and it's perfectly rational that God would take the human form to show His love to His creation.

And, yes, people truly believe. Or else they wouldn't be willing to die for their belief, or they wouldn't dedicate their life to their belief.

thedistillers wrote: what is it exactly that is so irrational about Christianity? Once you accepted the existence of God

Its this bit.

What I find unbelievable is that there are people who appear claim to be rational who believe in magic such as "a ordered universe supernatural personalistic entity just happens to exist, either eternally or without a cause".

Fixed that for you.

Shaker wrote:A superb article by philosopher Jamie Whyte which beautifully encapsulates exactly what I've also always felt.

I am not shocked....

I'm intellectually aware that people claim to believe in gods - I've just never accepted the fact that they actually really, genuinely and sincerely do so.

I think you need to factor in the immense amount of time and effort that religious institutions invest in maintaining those beliefs. Quite often this is done by making the alternatives to God belief so terrifying that people never abandon their God beliefs.

I mean, how many times do people trot onto forums like this one and spout the whole; "Without God there is no right and wrong," and haven't the slightest understanding of the implications of their own supposedly superior moral system.

EDIT: Typos & clarity

thedistillers wrote:What I find unbelievable is that there are people who appear to be rational who believe in magic such as "an ordered universe just happen to exist, either eternally or without a cause".

What the fuck are you babbling about? A magical creator beastie would be making a magical world where incantations and mysterious sigils could (and would) do magical shit, making it rain or causing someone to have a desire to suck your cock anytime you wanted, or turn worthless apologetics into gold.

If you throw a fucking stone, and expect it to hit a target, you are accepting that there is pretty much no other option: there are fundamental ways in which shit happens, and there is no reason to think that some cosmic cunt in the sky is laying down laws.

What the fuck do you think would happen if magic was a factor? Shit would be flying all over the place, propelled by all sorts of wishful fucking thinking. The number of times people have thought nasty things about me, I'd be fucking dead, rotting in some cheap hell, retrofitting it with aircon and antigrav.

Here's my challenge to you: Throw a fucking stone, and demonstrate (rigorously) that it didn't behave according the predictions of physics. You can even pray for it.

Oh, and the whole "don't test God" thing? Don't even bother. It's fucking weaker than my first newborn piss-stream, which at least doused my mother.

thedistillers, if you think you have good arguments that belief in god is rational, start threads on them and let's see if they hold water. I must say though that those I've seen up till now always disappointed me.

I share Shaker's doubts about whether many believers really believe, but only as far as the UK, Belgium, Netherlands & a few other countries are concerned. In the US there are so many believers, especially in rural states, that we must give them the benefit of any doubt for being sincere because their beliefs are mutually supported.

Of course a lot of older people retain the beliefs they had from their youth, when those beliefs wern't challenged much, so as they die off, it will be interesting to see (although I doubt whether I'll be around to see it) how many genuine believers there are left in say 30 years time. In view of the Catholic Church's continual stream of scandals. perhaps this change to it being 'difficult to believe' will happen first and most dramatically in Ireland, Italy and other countries where a big proportion of believers are Catholics.

Sciwoman wrote:As a former believer, I can tell you that people really do believe all of it.

Edit: That number may be falling. However, there are still enough who sincerely believe it (to varying degrees) to keep religion thriving.

This. My Mom is Pentecostal. She has felt the presence of "God". That means she used to work herself into a state of absolute hysteria and start speaking in tongues. Facts and evidence are irrelevant because she "knows". Point out that other people of other religions have similar experiences and that's fine because Satan can deceive people. Their experiences are manufactured by the devil or by themselves, unlike her 'true' experiences of working herself into a frenzy. She grew up in the rural south in the 1930s and 1940s.

I think with every generation, educated people more and more want to believe than do believe. Their beliefs are a big mixture of juryrigged nonsense to deal with modern knowledge. But as long as there is a good supply of uneducated people indoctrinating their children so that they are locked in by the time they would have been old enough to step back and see how ridiculous it is and that there's no actual evidence for what they believe, its too late for many.

That's one of the biggest reasons why this garbage of getting Creationism and ID into schools is so dangerous. The other dangerous thing and more prevalent is teachers intimidated into not teaching evolution for fear of the wrath of angry, uneducated parents.

Two analogies for religious belief:-

Belief in your country. All countries have committed most heinous acts. ("Really, Ted?" "'Fraid so, Bill." "Sucks, dude!") Just about all of us know this. But many believe their nation is fundamentally decent, beneath it all. The Winston Churchill brand of national mythologising.

Belief that X artwork is a masterpiece. Not just in a measurable, technical sense, but something indefinable that goes beyond that. Feeling that Brahms or Beethoven touch an objective and awesome truth in their composition; or that a Rothko is more than whorls of colour on a canvas.

Not a believer myself, but that's my take.

As a former Catholic, I can honestly say that belief is sincere until it is challenged.

For example, living in a Catholic family and in a Catholic community, going to a Catholic school, Catholicism was the only belief system I understood (I knew that some people had other systems, but I also was under the misguided belief that every other system included a god). I believed because everyone else believed and because everyone else believed, I thought it must be true. I mean, how could everyone be wrong?

It's this kind of mutual belief that fosters the notion that you must be right. The more people you know who believe as you do, the stronger your faith is simply because everyone agrees with you. In everyday life this also holds true - awards voted on by a committee; the general perception that Messi is the greatest footballer in the world right now; even in science, the statement that the "majority of the scientific community agree" (although this is of course based on evidence): these are all examples of situations where everyone has reached the same conclusion as you and this strengthens your conviction.

When I was faced with the prospect that there might not be a god, it genuinely frightened me. I remember waking up in the middle of the night in tears because of the idea that there might not be an afterlife - moreso because I would lose my parents after they die. There are two ways I have seen believers react to oppposition to their faith - fear and anger. I experienced fear and I'd imagine fear is more common when one discovers an alternative on their own.

However it is when a believer discovers this opposition and entertains it as a possible truth, that their beliefs become insincere. When it occurred to me that there was no reason to believe what I did, my belief became a lie - oh sure, I tried to believe, I wanted to believe but in reality I didn't. My personal experience was affected by the thought that nobody didn't believe and that also frightened me, I was afraid of segregation. Then I discovered that there were people who didn't believe and I pretty much threw away the faith facade.


So people do believe sincerely but I think it is only because they have widespread support in their faith or because they have failed to consider the alternative.

trubble76 wrote:People don't necessarily want the right answers, they just want answers, and religion gives them all the answers they want.
Pascal's Wager probably plays a big part too.

Yes when people get angry at their beliefs being challenged to the point of almost (and sometimes not even almost) sticking their fingers in their ears, its clear that they are engaging in wishful thinking and being forced to even think about reality terrifies them. Of course, some are very uneducated and really think God/ no God is a 50/ 50 proposition and cannot comprehend that it isn't or that some abtract deist concept of God is not the same thing as their god that has a whole book full of mythological assertions that aren't supported by the evidence that would be there were they true.

IrrationalSkeptic wrote:So people do believe sincerely but I think it is only because they have widespread support in their faith or because they have failed to consider the alternative.

Powerful post, thanks for sharing that.

Widespread support is definitely a factor, even if it's just the comfort that comes from belonging to a tight-knit community. Bertram Russell's famous teapot analogy sums up nicely how things that are, on their face, absurd, gain credence through popularity.

For some religious believers, though, it goes beyond that. Their faith has survived vigorous challenge from alternatives, and isn't depended on for companionship. It's what they honestly believe to be true.

thedistillers wrote:What I find unbelievable is that there are people who appear to be rational who believe in magic such as "an ordered universe just happen to exist, either eternally or without a cause".

Anything that as yet has an undiscovered may appear like magic to the ignorant, including God.

thedistillers wrote:There are dozens of arguments showing that belief in God is rational (from Maydole ontological argument to Koons cosmological argument), what is it exactly that is so irrational about Christianity? Once you accepted the existence of God, then there is no reason to adhere to naturalism, and it's perfectly rational that God would take the human form to show His love to His creation.

You are absolutely correct, once you believe in God's existence and presumably his ability to perform miracles then anything goes. Splitting the moon in two or turning water into wine is a piece of piss and I have a few glasses of that in my time.

thedistillers wrote:And, yes, people truly believe. Or else they wouldn't be willing to die for their belief, or they wouldn't dedicate their life to their belief.

Shaker wrote:I'm intellectually aware that people claim to believe in gods - I've just never accepted the fact that they actually really, genuinely and sincerely do so.

Dan Dennett suggests in Breaking the Spell, Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, that it is a belief in belief that keeps religion going which seems to be your point.

John