To FORMER atheists

[Carl]

AnAtheist

If I want to be 20 years old again, that is never going to happen, regardless of how much desire I put into that wish.

On the contrary. Age is a state of mind, as you will find out when you arrive at my age!

 

[WhatIf]

AnAtheist:

What I want, does not change the facts.
If I want to be 20 years old again, that is never going to happen, regardless of how much desire I put into that wish.

I didn’t quite follow you here. If you want for something that is possible then desire does make a difference. Atheism or theism is possible, so I didn’t quite follow you. Can you explain a little? I don’t think people actually choose atheism, but it can be difficult because of learned prejudices to become Christian even when you’ve been “inspired” somehow to be Christian because of being labeled as a brain-washed unintelligent Christian. So, an atheist can fight off becoming Christian unknowingly. I spent many nights struggling with this during RCIA since I have a family of non-believers and was afraid of their reaction.

 

[Lisa_N]

WhatIf:

I didn’t quite follow you here. If you want for something that is possible then desire does make a difference. Atheism or theism is possible, so I didn’t quite follow you. Can you explain a little? I don’t think people actually choose atheism, but it can be difficult because of learned prejudices to become Christian even when you’ve been “inspired” somehow to be Christian because of being labeled as a brain-washed unintelligent Christian. So, an atheist can fight off becoming Christian unknowingly. I spent many nights struggling with this during RCIA since I have a family of non-believers and was afraid of their reaction.

I do think sometimes atheism is a very deliberate choice. My mother was raised a Baptist farm girl who shocked her parents by her interest in science. She was allowed to go to college but required to live in a Baptist “dorm” for lack of better description. So much of her life was extremely insular and sheltered.

As she worked on her degree and learned about experimentation, empirical methods, and the necessity to reproduce the same results to provide proof of a theory; I think she applied the very same standard to the religion she’d learned from early on. Since she was unable to prove the existence of God with a bunsen burner and test tubes, she dismissed God as the rantings of her parents (interestingly both had college degrees quite unusual at that time). IOW my mother LEARNED to be an atheist through exposure to the scientific method and application of the same standard for any religion.

I suspect though that it is harder to make a conscious decision to believe. We’re such linear thinkers in this culture that I just don’t think people can be talked into religion in the same way they can be talked OUT of it by using scientific standards.

Just curious if any believers here were convinced by some argument to believe or if more of us had some kind of “Road to Emmanus” type experience.

Lisa N

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

wolpertinger:

Assuming the philosophical materialists are right (and I believe they are), these things could be proven on a purely physical level. Whether we will ever know enough about our brain’s workings to deliver such a proof is an open issue at this time.

What is to stop theism being a matter of body chemistry ?​

The brain seems to to be at the bottom of all this belief or non-belief.

This seems to be relevant to this thread:

shef.ac.uk/~phil/staff/owens/AKRASIA.htm ##

 

[Carl]

Just curious if any believers here were convinced by some argument to believe or if more of us had some kind of “Road to Emmanus” type experience.

For me it was a combination of both. The head and the heart work together for true conversion.

The head has to come to grip with all those objections that *reason * puts in the way as stumbling blocks to faith. Foremost among those objections is the notion that everything about God, including His existence, must be rational, or it cannot be true. Such an objection would be the one raised by Thomas Edison when he said that he found no scientific evidence to prove the existence of God. As if knowledge of God would be subject to the techniques and standards of a scientific laboratory. My own logical preparation for faith was assisted in part, at least, by G.K. Chesterton’s masterful The Everlasting Man. Chesterton helped me see that a humble sense of unsolvable Mystery is required before we can approach God in any meaningful way. Without accepting the condition of such Mystery, we would be falling into the fatal trap of supposing that we are on a par with God. This was the lure of the Serpent when it tempted Eve to believe that she could become as knowledgeable as God by eating of the forbidden fruit.

The heart is converted too. For many this happens through a Road to Emmaus type event. For myself it was the death of my earthly father with whom I had always had a confused and painful relationship. In His mercy, at the moment when I needed Him most, He came to my rescue … the Father who created me and bore all my own pain with me in His magnificent death and resurrection. This was a gift of consolation from which I could not shrink. I could not throw it back in His face and live the life of the ultimate ingrate.