Why the hostility?

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Heredity doesn't automatically mean biological heredity. The truth is that the great majority of people get their religion from their parents.



Tell that to a Muslim kid in the Middle East. Even in the US it isn't exactly easy to "come out of the closet" when your parents are deeply religious. I hate the idea that my relatives are going to worry about me if I tell them the truth. I have yet to be completely honest with my family. I still play Christian when I’m with them because I don’t want to hurt them.

Plus I don’t think anyone really chooses their beliefs. I know I can’t choose what I believe. I didn’t decide to believe what my parents taught me. As a child you tend believe whatever your parents teach you. It’s automatic. I also never chose to abandon my Christian faith. It just happened. I couldn’t force myself to believe something that just didn’t seem real to me. Christians never seem to get this when I talk to them. How can God punish someone for having a skeptical nature? This is what I hate about religion.


This doesn’t make any sense. Sure there’s a lot of people that mock religion, but I don’t consider that the same as social pressure. Social pressure is the fear that your friends and family will not accept your skepticism.

I think it was Ben Franklin that said something to the effect that "god would far more respect a thinking doubter than a blind follower".

If God exists, then he made us be curious and capable of thought. the real sin would be to refute that. Question EVERYTHING.

Its an aspie prerogative anyway!

I believe it was Descartes who said something to the effect of "God made me a rational being before a Christian"

Experiment. Belief is a cognitive act.
That's what i did anyway. I decided to give it a chance, to see what it felt like. I "experimented". That is considered to be a reasonable way to gain knowledge of the world.

What I did: I started by saying to myself, half aloud/under my breath, but clearly, "I believe in god". I promptly fell about laughing. Well, actually i didn't; i just found myself saying internally "yeah, sure, right, .." etc. So i repeated the statement, and again found myself smirking at how ridiculous such a belief was.

But i wanted to see what believing in god felt like, so I carried on, to see what happened. When I repeated it for the sixth or seventh time I got an effect. There was a different result.

The first thing was that I felt light suddenly. Lighter.

The next thing was that the inside of my mind seemed suddenly much much bigger. There was lots and lots of extra space. Whereas my head has had tendency to feel very cluttered, filled, stuffed to the brim, crowded , etc, this new sensation was one of huge spaces, of almost another dimension.

And I felt suddenly as if i was a child saying, in rebellion, in naughtiness, in jubilatory glee, "I believe in fairies". And I found myself smiling.

There have since been other effects. But those were the first results of my thought experiment. So many people seem to think that to believe you need to have proofs etc. It's not true. You just need to decide it might be useful/interesting/important.

Last edited by ouinon on 06 Mar 2008, 3:58 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Agree.
I have had the same experience; It is really weird. Previously the bible might aswell have been the ravings of a lunatic, or the most boring history book ever written, or a book of advanced computer programming, for all the sense it made to me. It was utterly rebarbative, and repellent. Since deciding to believe in god it's as if I've been given the key.
Like with films/books i hated when younger, and then suddenly found myself loving.

Maybe I’ll retract slightly. I should only speak for myself. I am fairly certain that <I> can’t choose sincere beliefs – at least not outside of being tortured or brainwashed.

I honestly tried to believe in Christianity for the first 15 years of my life. My brain was just not capable of the feat. It always felt phony no matter how hard I tried. I could claim that I believed in god, and even engage in theological debates, but my faith was never on the same level as my beliefs in reality. It was always on the level of my childhood belief in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy.

What level were they on? Genuine curiosity. Because that's what surprised me most about belief in god in the first few weeks, that it felt so like belief in fairies. Wonderfully irreverent. Escaping from the cage of the sensible, the "rational", the reasonable, the predictable and provable, the eminently adult and respectable. Belief in god was like thumbing my nose at every establishment on earth. And still is.

Which doesn't stop me being able to think and ask questions.

Last edited by ouinon on 06 Mar 2008, 4:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm glad I was never taught to believe in St Nick or I'd probably reject God via association too. My mom was the only Christian in my life until dad died and she remarried. If I hadn't seen my dad die and come back to life, I probably would have not been a Christian. I did question how deeply I believed when I was a teenager, but from the historicity of the Bible and studying the Creation-evolution issue from various sources I have decided that theologically the best stance is to be a YEC and that there will eventually be no final conflict between pseudo/quasi-scientists and the Bible and that Natural Revelation and Historical Revelation will one day speak with one voice. To some degree they already do, but it will be much better when there is more certainty to rest on. I look forward to then, although some may not.

Sorry, the FACTS show YEC to be absolute BS.

Oh and the fact that a person can be a science major and yet be a creationist, let alone a YEC nut is deeply disturbing...

Thank you for your opinion. I already know the facts of the issue. It's the assumptions you use to interpret them that matter. Facts and "evidence" don't have their own voice. That you find it disturbing that a YEC can be the top of their class and obtain Ph.D(s) from reputable institutions is nothing new on your side's lot. Talkorigins used to say that there were none that were "real" scientists. Now they are saying the majority of scientists don't hold their views. Argument by definition and appeal to majority, mixed in with plenty of ad hominem arguments and attacks. Really sickening is your lot, and that is one reason why you hold no ground with me.

i went through "the born again christian phase" only because i was more afraid of where i'll end up after i die. i finally figured out that if any kind of carrot & stick of fear is used by a religion it isnt a religion god made, but rather men made and isnt worth my freaking time or my mental healths and frankly, i never heard god talk to me when i was born again. and i prayed. alot

Last edited by richardbenson on 06 Mar 2008, 4:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Are you being serious this time?

I've wondered about the people before the Cross, but I think that those who accepted the prophecies about the coming Messiah would be considered saved in God's sight even though they weren't perfect. Sorry about being rude to you sometimes and I'll work on not being so. I'm far from perfection too, but my confidence is in Christ and not in my own works.

yes im being serious this time. i figure if there is a god, and he wants to punish me forever because i dont live a certain way, at the very least he is an extemely stubborn individual. maybe he has arseburgers. also wouldnt you THINK for a second that if god wanted everyone "saved" and "with him" he would make it so any steps needed to get there would be crystal clear and fool proof? i would think so, obviously he doesnt want everyone in heaven

If I were sentenced to damnation for my very nature, I'd deliberately endure it, if only to prove that god is a dick.

Can I force you to be my friend??? Even if I listed all the reasons to be and it was clear cut, does that mean a thing? No. You still have decisions to make and they have consequences. Is a judge stubborn just because he wont bend the law in your favor? No. This Judge offers that either you accept an option of His making and go free, or you pay the penalty for your own crimes. Are you the Lawmaker who decides what is right or wrong? If Providence should direct that I should know enough that I believe and with confidence, yet you believe not the testimony of me or others why should you blame God? Who are you to determine how He should act? I pray that God would undeniably reveal Himself to you as He has to me.

im not here to determine how anyone including, how god should act. frankly i dont know how you can take anything in the bible seriously. how do you know god is real? does he "talk" to you? obviously i admire your faith parakeet but im not going through the nitemare of repenting only to sin again, oh no. its one thing to use an analagy of a judge, its another to actually see god in a judges robe. once that happens then i will try to do my best to live according to his ways. until then something pretty darn miraculous is going to have to happen, and it appears as god liked doing the miraculous in the past so why not now? this is kindof like the attitude creationist have reguarding dinosuars. "the bones were put here all over the earth by god to test my faith!" oh please.

thanks for praying for me but i doubt jesus will ride up on a harley and take me to tucson rock&gem show

although i did start praying recently to jesus about my lease situation and it was answerd. so i dont know if this was a coicidence or an actual answer to my prayer.