Belief... or lack thereof

[Randy_Carson]

I can’t, in all honesty, make that claim, no.That’s why I’m on the agnostic camp.
However, it’s a working assumption… I lead my life under the assumption that no god whatsoever exists, and that includes God. That’s why I’m in the atheist camp.

Hence the “agnostic atheist” label I put in the OP.

Well, that strikes me as odd.

We usually live our lives based, in part, upon what we believe to be possible even if only remotely possible. Examples?

Term life insurance.
Automobile insurance.
Going to the grocery store for milk and toilet paper when a snow storm is forecast.
Prepping (stockpiling food, water and weapons) when ISIS promises to destroy your country.

We could agree on many other examples of steps people routinely take to prepare themselves for possible future events.

Now, death is a certainty. That is a given. But you also concede the possibility that God exists, and if this is true, then it is also possible that a personal judgment awaits you at the end of this life.

I’m not insisting that these things are absolutely certain, but only that they are possible.

Consequently, doesn’t it make MORE sense to live your life under the assumption that God DOES exists? Especially in light of the consequences of having guessed wrong?

 

[pocaracas]

nothing in this case being whatever matter was before it was matter. whether a thought, idea, potential. etc.

Well, that’s the thing… we don’t know.
Current QCD has shown that it is possible for particles to come out of empty space, the so-called vacuum fluctuations… maybe that’s the mechanism that triggered the Big Bang… maybe not…
But it does provide a potential which requires no thought or idea to have happened.
Actually, maybe atoms aren’t all that different from “nothing”: newscientist.com/article/dn16095-its-confirmed-matter-is-merely-vacuum-fluctuations

 

[pocaracas]

Can you please tell me what the difference is between this Conscious Entity who created the Universe and the God of the Philosophers?

If only I knew what the God of the Philosophers is…
Care to share?

 

[pocaracas]

Hi ericc

Whatever state you think you are in and you tag it to be not a belief, you are actually saying you do not feel that the statement is real and true. So we should ignore your statement on the states you find yourself in then?

Then what exactly is it that you are asking people to “pick apart” then? If you are just stating a fact that “you are in a state of atheism” then there is nothing to discuss. It is like making a statement “that color is black”. But if you are inviting discussion on something about atheism or agnosticism, then set up a premise or something to facilitate the discussion.

Pick apart the ideas that arise from that state, perhaps?
Pick apart the reasoning that I make using that state as a starting point…

Why do you believe that assumption in the first place since you have no basis for your assumption? Are you in a habit of believing stuff with no basis?

Why do I believe in the assumption of God’s non-existence? I wouldn’t put believe in there, but whatever…

Why should I assume God’s existence?
If I start from the simplest possible point, that of complete ignorance, I will be ignorant of any god. Hence I wish to come to know about God in the same way that mankind came to know about God, in the first place. Not through the faulty medium of other people’s testimony…
Is that possible?

And you have no evidence to back that up and it serves as another opinion again. And since when does one need to have physical access to God? If you have no experience with God, why do you think that is a requirement?

How then did the concept of God come into people’s minds?
Surely, it must have done so, at some point in humanity’s evolution, right?

 

[Randy_Carson]

I answered this to Randy, yesterday.
I cannot make the claim that God does not exist… it’s practically impossible to ascertain that with certainty.
Just like it’s practically impossible to ascertain that Darth Vader didn’t exist, a long time ago in a galaxy far far away… he may have… we can’t tell.
But we lead our lives under some assumptions of practical value: Darth Vader and the Force are products of a human mind, fiction, and are not depicting reality, so no, Darth Vader never existed anywhere is our working assumption.
For me, it seems that the Catholic God and all other gods are products of human minds and are not depicting reality. My actions arise from the assumption that no gods exist.

But intellectually I know I can’t make that claim with certainty.

Correct. You can’t make that claim with certainty because you have not had any direct experience of God. Or so I must guess.

However, many (though not all!) theists HAVE had direct experience with God and are certain that He exists. And many of these would be happy to share that experience with you. Some have even written books to talk about their experiences.

In fact, some time back, a few people were so certain of their experience of God that they wrote books that we now call “gospels” and were willing to suffer and die rather than deny what they knew - not what they believed - to be true.

Since even skeptics (like Bart Ehrman) accept the testimony of these historical authors and records to varying degrees, it seems reasonable to examine the evidence carefully to determine for yourself whether the claims of theism are more likely to be true than false.

 

[pocaracas]

Hi Randy

Well, that strikes me as odd.

We usually live our lives based, in part, upon what we believe to be possible even if only remotely possible. Examples?

Term life insurance.
Automobile insurance.
Going to the grocery store for milk and toilet paper when a snow storm is forecast.
Prepping (stockpiling food, water and weapons) when ISIS promises to destroy your country.

We could agree on many other examples of steps people routinely take to prepare themselves for possible future events.

You’re talking about possible events that can be very real and can impact our lives very much.

Life insurance is a way to keep our loved ones financially unburdened, should we come to some untimely demise. It happens, death… people die and leave loved ones behind. It is recorded to have happened… actually, it is happening on a daily basis and some newspapers are expert at showing us this.

Automobile insurance is another great example of preparing for an unexpected bill due to some accident. Car accidents are also a daily occurrence… sadly, some are even fatal to the occupants. I can’t wait for everyone to be riding in autonomous vehicles - no more road-rage, no more drunk drivers, no more lack of civility, no more lack of attention, no more senseless killing just when going from point A to B.

Buying supplies when the weather forecast (which is getting more and more reliable by the…decade) is grim, seems like the correct attitude. Even if the forecast is wrong, you’ll have supplies and won’t need to go to the store so soon.

ISIS have shown to be brutal people. If they promise to take your home, you either fight or flee.If you decide to fight, you need material to wage, at least, a fair fight… no use in sticking around if you have only sticks and stones…

All stuff based on prior information of the consequences - recorded historical consequences.

Now, death is a certainty. That is a given. But you also concede the possibility that God exists, and if this is true, then it is also possible that a personal judgment awaits you at the end of this life.

I’m not insisting that these things are absolutely certain, but only that they are possible.

Consequently, doesn’t it make MORE sense to live your life under the assumption that God DOES exists? Especially in light of the consequences of having guessed wrong?

The consequences that are not recorded in history?.. I don’t think my life will have much to lose if I ignore consequences to me after my death.

Besides, it’s not just the Christian God that holds the possibility of existence… it’s all of them, even the ones that haven’t surfaced on people’s minds yet. How am I going to cover all those bases? How am I going to live under the assumption that they all exist? Some are downright exclusive!

 

[Randy_Carson]

Why should I assume God’s existence?
If I start from the simplest possible point, that of complete ignorance, I will be ignorant of any god. Hence I wish to come to know about God in the same way that mankind came to know about God, in the first place. Not through the faulty medium of other people’s testimony…
Is that possible?

I’m not convinced we start from a position of complete ignorance. As Paul wrote, all of creation speaks to us of a Intelligent Designer. And the universal ideas of what is right and wrong, fair and unfair, point toward a source of objective morality.

Moreover, while you may desire to START from a position of ignorance with regard to theology, are you content to REMAIN in that same position? Feigning ignorance has its advantages, doesn’t it?

But would you take that same approach in any other field of study?

Would you begin your study of mathematics, biology or medical science from a position of complete ignorance? Would you reject the “faulty medium of other people’s testimony” regarding the effectiveness of penicillin or the laws of gravity? If so, then you must re-create every experiment ever conducted in the advancement of knowledge in the confines of your own laboratory.

Or…and I’m just throwing this out for consideration…perhaps you might want to “stand on the shoulders of giants” who have gone before so that you might see even further.

Why do you feel this approach to be inappropriate with regard to understanding God?

 

[pocaracas]

Correct. You can’t make that claim with certainty because you have not had any direct experience of God. Or so I must guess.

However, many (though not all!) theists HAVE had direct experience with God and are certain that He exists. And many of these would be happy to share that experience with you. Some have even written books to talk about their experiences.

You don’t say…
I wonder how many such experiences classify as “in their heads”…

In fact, some time back, a few people were so certain of their experience of God that they wrote books that we now call “gospels” and were willing to suffer and die rather than deny what they knew - not what they believed - to be true.

Were they really?

Since even skeptics (like Bart Ehrman) accept the testimony of these historical authors and records to varying degrees, it seems reasonable to examine the evidence carefully to determine for yourself whether the claims of theism are more likely to be true than false.

Can you tell me what it is that those skeptics accept about those testimonies and what they don’t accept?

 

[Randy_Carson]

Besides, it’s not just the Christian God that holds the possibility of existence… it’s all of them, even the ones that haven’t surfaced on people’s minds yet. How am I going to cover all those bases? How am I going to live under the assumption that they all exist? Some are downright exclusive!

You’re not obligated to cover **all **those bases. You’re only looking for the one that is most correct.

Examine the leading candidates (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc.) and decide for yourself which of these is the BEST candidate.

We do this every day.

For example, the police investigating a murder begin by developing a list of suspects and narrowing it down to the person they believe to be guilty of the crime.

Would that suspect then appeal to the judge by saying, “The police have disbelieved in the guilt of all the other suspects…can’t you disbelieve in just one more than they do?”

So much for the atheist mantra, “I just don’t believe in one more God than you.”

 

[Randy_Carson]

Can you tell me what it is that those skeptics accept about those testimonies and what they don’t accept?

Of course I can.

But why take my word for it? You can read Did Jesus Exist? by Bart Ehrman for yourself.

Might be the best $15.00 you ever spend.

amazon.com/Did-Jesus-Exist-Historical-Argument/dp/0062206443

 

[pocaracas]

I’m not convinced we start from a position of complete ignorance. As Paul wrote, all of creation speaks to us of a Intelligent Designer. And the universal ideas of what is right and wrong, fair and unfair, point toward a source of objective morality.

That source may not be what you expect it to be…
There are simple ways to account for a desire to social stability within social species of animals. The same can apply to humans.

Moreover, while you may desire to START from a position of ignorance with regard to theology, are you content to REMAIN in that same position? Feigning ignorance has its advantages, doesn’t it?

Feigning ignorance is alright to induce other people into explaining the full reasoning that got them to a particular conclusion.
That may bring out any potential problem hiding in that reasoning, or any lacking detail in my understanding of a particular step in the reasoning.

I’ll have to remain ignorant about God until the reasoning is clear. Thus far, I haven’t found it to be so clear… it appears clouded by emotion and possible self-delusion.

But would you take that same approach in any other field of study?

Would you begin your study of mathematics, biology or medical science from a position of complete ignorance? Would you reject the “faulty medium of other people’s testimony” regarding the effectiveness of penicillin or the laws of gravity? If so, then you must re-create every experiment ever conducted in the advancement of knowledge in the confines of your own laboratory.

First day of mathematics in college: show that 1 is different from 0.
Yeah… we kind of had to learn everything from scratch.
We then accept a particular form of relating the results of successful experiments, so we don’t have to waste time and money re-creating them. Yes, we must believe in some testimony, but it’s controlled, which helps weed out biases. Sometimes, a few do get through and wrong conclusions are upheld as true. With some luck, they are eventually challenged and corrected.

Or…and I’m just throwing this out for consideration…perhaps you might want to “stand on the shoulders of giants” who have gone before so that you might see even further.

Why do you feel this approach to be inappropriate with regard to understanding God?

I’m all for understanding God…
I just don’t believe that such an entity exists as an independent party that operates upon this Universe and upon every single human being.

It seems to be indistinguishable from an entity which was thought up by people and is kept “alive” in people’s minds.

 

[pocaracas]

You’re not obligated to cover **all **those bases. You’re only looking for the one that is most correct.

Examine the leading candidates (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc.) and decide for yourself which of these is the BEST candidate.

We do this every day.

For example, the police investigating a murder begin by developing a list of suspects and narrowing it down to the person they believe to be guilty of the crime.

Would that suspect then appeal to the judge by saying, “The police have disbelieved in the guilt of all the other suspects…can’t you disbelieve in just one more than they do?”

So much for the atheist mantra, “I just don’t believe in one more God than you.”

Hehe… crimes do require a human intervention.
And first, you must establish that it was a crime and not…some accident or some suicide…
You want me to establish that I do have a life after death that needs thinking about and then you present me with this God as the most likely entity that is in charge of that life after death.
Well… I await the crime, before I go out to find the criminal.

 

[ericc]

I have to start remembering your names.
Hi ericc!

“Arrive at their religion”… from a prior state of non-belief? Surely it happens.
From a prior state of belief in some other religion? Surely it happens even more. Why would that be?

Because you have better access to better information? Or encountered a better teacher? Or because of a spiritual experience? You can’t simply assume folks with upgraded information remain in a state of stasis. Information comes in at all times, in all sorts of places, from all sorts of people or medium.

Come now… I’m not talking to college age… I’m talking younger, much younger less than 10.
Those parental influences stick.

Certain things , not all things. Adulthood changes certain perspectives.

Really? You’re asking that? Don’t you know? I was taught that in history class way back in 7th grade.

And you think your history class in 7th grade tells you everything? Don’t tell me as you continue schooling, that information that was fed to you as a kid remain unchanged? Those are all highly filtered information. If you making decisions and judgement based on 7th grade stuff, I’m really sorry for you. That must be a pretty broken education system. And if the Education Department is staffed by “hostile” staff, do you think you will get an objective syllabus? If you are unsure, read books from both sides. If you have genuine questions, ask your questions here. Some of the folks are really knowledgeable about lots of things. I am not in their league. I am pretty layman.

Why so many billions of muslims believe what they believe?
Caliphate-wide implementation - the whole Saudi peninsula was practically forced into accepting it… then it spread to North Africa, the rest of the middle-east, Turkey… Indonesia. They had guns, blah blah blah…

I can’t say for their religion. I am not muslim. Christianity got a pretty bad bashing by them during those times. Even now, some of those countries are pretty intolerant of other faiths.

Why do you say that?

Because it doesn’t reflect real evidence. It doesn’t have explanatory power in macroevolution. It explains microevolution though. It can not cope with high complexity. You can read Darwin’s Doubt by Stephen Meyer, Michael Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box and William Demski’s books on Intelligent Design to get an idea why it is so difficult for Darwin to defeat the odds of mutation and gradual change. Life and its components are too complex for Darwin’s theory to handle. During his time, there wasn’t enough information on genes, DNA, RNA, electron microscope and other technologies for him to consider their implications on his theory.

It’s my own observation…
Most people get there through parental trust… emotional connection.

Which at the most is a very small sample data set conditioned by the people around you. So that is not a reliable indicator for the population. Are there such people? Sure, but not enough to generalized. There are just too many different sorts that God calls.

Yes, many people do things one way, many people do things in another way… I merely pointed to examples of some common ways. Surely they don’t cover all bases and are contradictory in some instances.

But you made a sweeping statement that religion is based upon base desires. If you have stated that some people may be driven by base desires, I’d have granted you that. Hence I need to correct you on that. Otherwise you could have taken that to be an assent to your sweeping statement.

There you go again… non-belief is a belief?

See above. Perhaps you can come up with something easier to grapple with. E.g.

I don’t believe what I believe OR

I believe in my non-belief

Just lay out some premises on what you think is true and the reason for your current state of mind. Something like A, therefore B. We’ll drop the use of the word belief (if we can avoid that word) to make you feel better so that you don’t feel you are being boxed in by such words.

Perhaps there is a more complete Pascal’s wager, where the “choice” is not between non-belief and belief in the Christian God, but rather… between non-belief, belief in the Christian God, belief in the Jewish God, belief in the Muslim god, belief in the Hindu gods, belief in the ancient Egyptian gods, belief in the ancient Greek gods, belief in the ancient Roman gods, belief in the Norse gods, belief in Maya gods, belief in Aztec gods, belief in animal spirits, Chinese Shen, etc, etc, etc, etc…
Which to choose? decisions, decisions, decisions…

The Pascal Wager is a true bet for higher payoff. Except that the stake was not monetary. I think you will find if the stake had been monetary, you wouldn’t have objected to the method. Perhaps Pascal formulated it for his gambling friends, in a language they clearly understood.

Which God to choose? That is secondary for an atheist. The first thing to overcome is self-pride. If you are a genuine seeker of truth, you will find God. Seek and you shall find. If you don’t seek God, you will not find him. Hence, the first step to overcome is self. Like any person that you wish to get to know, you will find everything about him. You don’t start by digging up all negative reviews from hostile sources. It is guaranteed you will not find a fair and balance review. You should be getting information from people who has experience interacting with the guy, not from those that deny his existence. Those without experience truly can say nothing of substance. (which I have on occasion reminded you)

 

[pocaracas]

Of course I can.

But why take my word for it? You can read Did Jesus Exist? by Bart Ehrman for yourself.

Might be the best $15.00 you ever spend.

amazon.com/Did-Jesus-Exist-Historical-Argument/dp/0062206443

Dammit… I’ve only read “Jesus, Interrupted” and “The Lost Christianities”, by Bart.

Besides concluding that a historical person called Jesus existed, what else did he say?
Can you summarize, please?

 

[pocaracas]

Hi ericc

Because you have better access to better information? Or encountered a better teacher? Or because of a spiritual experience? You can’t simply assume folks with upgraded information remain in a state of stasis. Information comes in at all times, in all sorts of places, from all sorts of people or medium.

Certain things , not all things. Adulthood changes certain perspectives.

Yes… people can change… a bit.

And you think your history class in 7th grade tells you everything? Don’t tell me as you continue schooling, that information that was fed to you as a kid remain unchanged? Those are all highly filtered information. If you making decisions and judgement based on 7th grade stuff, I’m really sorry for you. That must be a pretty broken education system. And if the Education Department is staffed by “hostile” staff, do you think you will get an objective syllabus? If you are unsure, read books from both sides. If you have genuine questions, ask your questions here. Some of the folks are really knowledgeable about lots of things. I am not in their league. I am pretty layman.

Well, I did get to read about it a bit further elsewhere… so I don’t think my 7th grade history teachings were all that wrong. Very simplified, yes. But wrong… no.

I can’t say for their religion. I am not muslim. Christianity got a pretty bad bashing by them during those times. Even now, some of those countries are pretty intolerant of other faiths.

Yes they are… and they weren’t just a few decades ago… Something happened before I was born that set them on this path…
It’s sad.

Because it doesn’t reflect real evidence. It doesn’t have explanatory power in macroevolution. It explains microevolution though. It can not cope with high complexity. You can read Darwin’s Doubt by Stephen Meyer, Michael Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box and William Demski’s books on Intelligent Design to get an idea why it is so difficult for Darwin to defeat the odds of mutation and gradual change. Life and its components are too complex for Darwin’s theory to handle. During his time, there wasn’t enough information on genes, DNA, RNA, electron microscope and other technologies for him to consider their implications on his theory.

Perhaps Darwin’s theory is indeed no longer the theory that explains the evolution of life on Earth…
Hey, what do you know? it’s not!
They now call it Modern Evolutionary Sythesis and it takes into account a bunch of mechanisms by which evolution can work… also considering DNA and RNA. Maybe you need an update? (that wiki link is a nice place to start)

Which at the most is a very small sample data set conditioned by the people around you. So that is not a reliable indicator for the population. Are there such people? Sure, but not enough to generalized. There are just too many different sorts that God calls.

yeah… but I did say usually.
Actually, I am under the impression that, for all religions, the primary means of transmission of the belief is indoctrination of the young. Maybe it’s because of this studies like this: home.snu.edu/~hculbert/ages.htm
They even make my life easy when they say “This data illustrates the importance of influencing children to consider making a decision to follow Christ.”

How does such “influencing” work?..

But you made a sweeping statement that religion is based upon base desires. If you have stated that some people may be driven by base desires, I’d have granted you that. Hence I need to correct you on that. Otherwise you could have taken that to be an assent to your sweeping statement.

If you go back there, you’ll see that the “base desires” remark was one possible mechanism of how to get people to accept a religion. One in a pool of more than one. Meaning it wasn’t a sweeping statement applicable to every single believing individual. I do try to kep myself from that sort of statements… but I can slip up and let one of those out… It seems I didn’t, this time.

See above. Perhaps you can come up with something easier to grapple with. E.g.

I don’t believe what I believe OR

I believe in my non-belief

Just lay out some premises on what you think is true and the reason for your current state of mind. Something like A, therefore B. We’ll drop the use of the word belief (if we can avoid that word) to make you feel better so that you don’t feel you are being boxed in by such words.

I believe my senses to convey largely reliable information about the real world. I know that they are limited and believe I’m aware of those limits.
I believe that certain machines can aid our senses to probe the real world far beyond our limits.
I believe our brains are complex machines which can generate thoughts, store data and information and can think based on this stored data and on the sensory (name removed by moderator)uts it gets, even if those (name removed by moderator)uts are enhanced by extra machinery.

I believe human psychology hasn’t changed much from 100.000 years ago… it must have changed a bit… but not much.
And those base desires must have been present in those people from long ago.

Therefore, it would not be too much of a stretch of the imagination to think that those people, somehow, came up with the concept of the afterlife… the concept of ancestors looking after the living… the concept of a hierarchy in the afterlife… the concept of a ruler of the afterlife realm, the concept that this realm was created by this ruler…
[cont.]

 

[pocaracas]

[cont.d]

The Pascal Wager is a true bet for higher payoff. Except that the stake was not monetary. I think you will find if the stake had been monetary, you wouldn’t have objected to the method. Perhaps Pascal formulated it for his gambling friends, in a language they clearly understood.

Which God to choose? That is secondary for an atheist. The first thing to overcome is self-pride. If you are a genuine seeker of truth, you will find God. Seek and you shall find. If you don’t seek God, you will not find him. Hence, the first step to overcome is self. Like any person that you wish to get to know, you will find everything about him. You don’t start by digging up all negative reviews from hostile sources. It is guaranteed you will not find a fair and balance review. You should be getting information from people who has experience interacting with the guy, not from those that deny his existence. Those without experience truly can say nothing of substance. (which I have on occasion reminded you)

Why would I wish to get to know a person that I don’t even know exists?

Did you know that psychology, once again, works against you. “Seek [God] and you shall find [Him]” is a psychological pitfall… How should such seeking be accomplished, if God is immaterial? Just think about Him? Think a lot? Talk to people who are already convinced they found Him? Keep getting positive reinforcement for the notion that you can find Him? Repeat, Rinse, repeat?..
That’s the perfect recipe for self-deception.
I’m not sure I’d want to go down that rabbit hole and into wonderland. It doesn’t seem honest.

 

[You]

Well, that’s the thing… we don’t know.
Current QCD has shown that it is possible for particles to come out of empty space, the so-called vacuum fluctuations… maybe that’s the mechanism that triggered the Big Bang… maybe not…
But it does provide a potential which requires no thought or idea to have happened.
Actually, maybe atoms aren’t all that different from “nothing”: newscientist.com/article/dn16095-its-confirmed-matter-is-merely-vacuum-fluctuations

but space is a product of the big bang…

 

[pocaracas]

but space is a product of the big bang…

Is it really?
How would anyone know that?

 

[HelenRose]

So I’m an atheist, yippee!

What does that mean?
The dictionary typically provides two possibilities, one of them does apply quite nicely: a person who disbelieves Some will call this simply “agnostic”, “agnostic atheist” or “weak atheist”… I don’t care… For me, I’m just atheist.

I’ve been in a few threads on this forum and some of them have veered a bit off-topic (can’t take all the blame for it, but some is certainly on me ) so those threads ended up closed.
I’d like this thread to be one where we can discuss any detail concerning how this disbelief of mine affects any particular aspect of life, of how I view the world, of how I envision that which is, as far as I am aware, unknown… and even that which is unknowable…

There are also some people in this forum who seem to operate under a few misconceptions about atheists, so I’d like to address them… Here’s one:

• All-mighty Lady-Chance-did-it: If no God creator of the Cosmos made all this and provided that mighty initial spark for life, then chance must have done it - no purpose, no intent, no reason… Or something like this, right?
  Well, I prefer not to be so bleak, but ultimately, yes… Under the assumption that no God exists, there seems to have been no consciousness that somehow started the Universe. Mind you, we, human race, don’t know how the Universe came into being. We can trace it back to the big bang… well, almost to the Big Bang and then our known physics becomes unsuitable, so the real answer is “I don’t know”, actually, no one knows. If anyone claims to know, they’re making it up. Any claim of divine revelation is also seen as making it up.

So, provided no God is available, why do people believe in them? How did that happen?
Sadly, written history starts at a time when religions already exist, so we don’t have any way of knowing the answer to this question.
We can try to reason it out, using the few pieces left behind for archaeologists to find, mingling them with known psychological traits shared by most humans (and likely shared with those humans who started the belief in spiritual entities).
Bah… we can never know the particulars, but my general guess is that, at some point, the frustration of not knowing many answers to questions that were burning their early curiosity-ridden minds led them to speculation… from wild speculation told over a campfire to a story which feels like it’s conveying the reality of things would go but a few generations, if any at all.
And then… just build upon it. The evolution of religions… it seems there are books written on that subject… (no, I didn’t read that… I arrived at that conclusion independently). It does make some sense, seeing as Christianity itself is clearly an evolution of the Judaic model.

With this, my mind is satisfied as it allows for everything that we see and experience to be caused by natural means.

Feel free to pick my atheism apart… I welcome you!

I don’t pick apart any one’s beliefs. Atheism is your belief and I respect that.

I love to talk about my faith with people who are interested. But, why argue? There is no point in it at all.

 

[You]

Is it really?
How would anyone know that?

well… …you would ask the scientists …space expanded from an infinitley small point or singularity