Is it possible for a Religious person to go full circle and become atheist

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Ah yes - but a man born blind has never gained his sight… (John 9)

Ah yes - but by now, there will be a stench… (John 11)

Ah yes - but Father Abraham! If someone goes to them from the dead, then they will believe… (Luke 16)

Isn’t it strange how we also hear about such phenomena almost exclusively in relation to prayer, saints, etc… But it’s still just barely enough not to compel assent. Almost like it was designed that way… Always having the theophany be in the midst of a cloud, or confusion of some kind, or hidden away.

As to your other post, I don’t even know what to say. You have to put in the effort on your own to build a base to start the discussion - I gave the link to the primary work of that alleged neanderthal St. Thomas and indicated the places to start looking. That’s a nice start - or try the Summa contra gentiles, it is an easier read.

-K
 
But if someone did, it would be a big deal - the witnesses would do things that would really only be explicable if they really at least believed their own story (like martyrdom) - and then we can ask ourselves how they could possibly be confused (did Jesus have a twin? no - Thomas “the Twin” verifies this with the wounds) - mass hallucination? Implausible, for various reasons, Etc.
 
If a person has had Faith - they know God Exists.

People with little faith can indeed stop believing that God exists…

Better to be an “atheist” than one who purposely opposes God… ?
 
That people may believe they experienced something I have no doubt. That is not the same as them actually experiencing it.
 
RolandThompsonGunner said:
Of course. I think the largest single religious group in the United States is Catholics, followed by ex-Catholics. People leave the faith all the time. It’s sad, but it happens. Of course it’s not clear how many of those who left were actual practicing Catholics in the first place as opposed to nominal ones.
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They think that they have left the Catholic Church.
Baptism is a one-way ticket.
There are two kinds of Catholic.
Those in a State of Grace and those in mortal sin.
 
Nobody ever said they were the same… point is, you would then have to explain the error. Can you, in the case of Jesus? Choose any miracle you want… we can take a look.
 
I simply don’t accept the Gospels as eye witness accounts. I no more have to prove them false than I do Mohammed receiving the Qu’ran from the Angel Gabriel. The textual history of the Gospels is problematic, and since I know the dead don’t rise and leprosy doesn’t spontaneously heal, and incidents of demonic possession are actually much more mundane and sadder incidents of mental illness, I regard claims in the Gospel as being exaggerated or outright invention by Early Christians. Clearly a lot their counterparts among Jews at the time had the same view, as they didn’t become Christians upon hearing these fantastical stories of loaves and fishes, demon possessed pigs and dead men coming back to life.
 
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Then you have the problem of lying (and that is glossing over the claim about authorship… which is problematic… see Bauckham’s excellent book on the topic). Why would people invent such a lie, go to their death propagating it in poverty, and how could their witness be so integrated and insightful, to the conversion of so many who could get the other side of the story so easily?

Your a priori assumptions are utterly unhelpful, for what it’s worth… The whole point is that these things are abnormal. Otherwise, who cares? But excluding such things before considering the evidence is, well, silly.

Sheen tells a story of a friend who did an exorcism in Vietnam (I am friends with an exorcist… the phenomena are usually like in the story from Sheen, sometimes more exotic, sometimes less)…

Fatima is also good, or Vianney, or Lourdes… all quite recent and well studied. And coincidentally all French! (Though we can multiply non-French examples…)
 
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One can spread incorrect claims without being a liar. I just simply don’t believe the Gospels as evidence, neither Fatima or any other claims. Believers will see what they want to see.
 
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Then they must be confused… less plausible than a lie theory. Or, the third and least plausible option, we are radically misunderstanding the text.

There’s a fourth option, which is that the witness is good, and we understand it.
 
We know enough about the problematic nature of human memory (and why eye witness testimony is so risky) that I don’t feel I have any issue in rejecting your final option.
 
Well then I give up. Eye witness testimony is no good.

You are free to have such a ridiculous opinion… an opinion which is based on the witness of others about memory.
 
I didn’t say it’s no good. I said it’s problematic. It’s why police, when they question witnesses about an incident, separate them as quickly as possible. Our brains are quite adept at integrating various sources of information into memory, even other people’s versions, without us being consciously aware.

I don’t want to appear that I’m mocking your faith. I’m not. I am not trying to convert anyone. I actually have a very deep respect and interest in Christianity, and in Catholicism in particular. I just don’t find the specific claims of miracles compelling, nor do I find the underlying theology of a personal god compelling either.
 
I don’t think you are mocking anything but what is reasonable… It’s not reasonable to exclude the miraculous simply because it is not natural. It’s a form of begging the question.

The invitation stands to discuss a miracle from the Gospels. If a mother can remember what she was wearing, what the weather was, what the time was, etc., when each of her children were born, it’s pretty reasonable to suspect that John is remembering the 7 miracles in his Gospel correctly. And he almost certainly wrote the text directly.
 
Yes recursion with the linguistic and logical abilities it enables is a uniquely human trait. Before responding to this simply to deny it, please research it.
 
Btw “emergentism” for our rational faculties (I saw upthread) doesn’t work. It’s an old idea and I’d recommend looking up the late Jaegwon Kim for further details on how it fails as an attempted solution to the mind–body problem.
 
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. A 1,900 year old holy book doesn’t rise to that level, for me.
 
I gathered that. You are still left with the three options… The authors are liars, idiots, or we just don’t understand what they are saying at all. Give some consideration to that… It is not a small point. You will find that the existence of the claims themselves, in the context of the actual witness (I.e. martyrdom… and other miracles) is pretty extraordinary evidence.

Later…
-K
 
You’re creating the false dilemma, not me. I think they were people that lived in a superstitious age, and claims of miraculous healings were much more believable.
 
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