But seriously . . . atheism?

[Raineyrocks]

I have struggled with so many of these issues and questions and I'm still trying to find my "walk" spiritually. Most of the time when anyone asks what I am (and I know they mean religion), I say I am Lorraine, who are you? I've also said I have a name for my very own religion and it's called Confusion.  Alot of the baptists I knew in Maryland didn't like my answer very much but some were okay with it, I just hated that look of concern like, Oh no, she's headed for the fire pit, and we have to save her.  I have spoken with a lot of religious clergy and I have excellent questions and there not a "trap" for them they were just my real questions that bothered me especially about the bible, most pasters, preachers, whatever they are all called from different religions and when they couldn't answer my questions I almost always got the proverbial answer, "it comes down to faith", that answer never settled right with me. It's like going to a doctor and when they really didn't know what was wrong with you they'd say it must be a virus, instead of simply saying, I don't know what's wrong with you. Do you know what I mean?
If anyone is interested in some of my questions just ask and I will share but I don't know if anyone wants to turn this post into a "biblical Q&A so I won't get into all of that unless it's okay with you guys/gals.  Anyways this 1 one paster out of the many said to me, "you know what, I've always had the same questions as you and I don't even have the answers for myself so I can't give them to you."  I respected his answer more than any of the others. He eventually quit being a pastor and went his own way and the baptists from his church talked about him in a judgemental way which is directly against what they are supposed to do according to their own statements and beliefs about the bible.
I think my main problem is religions and the bible's contradictions.  I feel a "god prescence" many times but I do wonder if it is wishful thinking and I don't know.  I was raised partly with a strict catholic grandmother, my mom would try every religion she could every other month and in a way that was a blessing because I don't believe I've been brainwashed by a controlling religious parent but I still get scared if I start to think there is no god because I was raised that there is.
So anyways I wonder how much of our beliefs have to do with influences when we were growing up, it makes it difficult to know what to believe or not believe.
Can anyone share a god experience or should it be started under a different post?  I'm open to anyone's experiences as I don't have a firm belief in anything and I like to hear other people's thoughts on this.

[Caleb]

I had many, many issues to resolve before I got to where I am today, as a Christian.  The single thing that helped me the most to reconcile faith and rationality was to drop the insistence that the Bible must be the dictated word of God.  Like you said, most of my problems were with the Bible.  I don't think I ever felt like an atheist (because I never saw how anyone could make a dogmatic assertion that it could be proved that God doesn't exist, and I also felt that the problems of existence and consciousness were problems that atheism couldn't even begin to address,) but I certainly didn't feel like I had any belief in God either.  Then, I felt an incredible pull towards Christ.  I don't know, really, how to explain it.  I think it has to be experienced.  I can only say that I know what the call of Christ is.  I resisted it hard, but it was another will not my own. 

I had several long talks with a Southern Baptist pastor, on problems related to the Bible that were in my way to responding to the call of Christ.  Finally, he gave up trying to convince me of the Bible's infallibility, and told me, "Christ said that if your very eye stumbled you, to cut it out and throw it away.  If the Bible is stumbling you that much, then give up on the idea of reconciling it as infallible, and just believe it to be accurate history.  After all, the men who wrote it believed it enough to die for it. Did they see Christ risen or not? It's hard to believe they would die for a lie.  So even if it isn't infallible, can you accept it as historically accurate? Then let Christ guide you."  That approach, more than anything, has helped to resolve my difficulties.

Caleb

[MaineShark]

My statement is rubber and yours is glue; whatever you say about it bounces off of it and sticks to yours!   

But seriously, if you're going to say that leprauchans and ghosts and tiny reindeer above your head may exist, then sure, say that a god might exist.  It seems like that might be consistent.  But, it's a meaningless statement in practicality.  You don't change your behavior to reflect the possibility that there are reindeer tapping on your head, because there is no physical evidence for it.  In other words, your agnosticism as concerns reindeers on your head may as well be rational disbelief.  The same standard should be applied to the question of the existence of a god.  If you want to call that agnosticism, go ahead; call it Philism if you want.  I call it atheism.  I say "Unless proven otherwise, these reindeer atop my head don't exist; or, at the very least, I'm going to act as though they don't exist, which shows that at a root level I donb't believe they exist."  Just so long as you are consistent . . . .

You don't get to call agnosticism, atheism.  They are two different things.

Atheism means that you believe, as a matter of doctrine, taken on faith, that there is no god.  That's what the word means.

I don't find the notion of tiny reindeer to be likely, so I don't let it change my day-to-day life, but I do not say that they don't exist.  That would be utterly irrational.

Joe

[Tom Sawyer]

Wow who knew not believing in a god would be such a hot topic. 

I don't know if there is a supreme being, but I read they estimate 100 billion gallaxies in the observable universe. Talk about making you feel small.

I think for me... feeling a reverence for things bigger than myself (and my ego) fill the place of worshipping a diety.

We may be starting to understand the how of the universe, but that leaves open the why. If the parameters of physics around the big bang had been slightly different... the mass would have collapsed back in fairly rapidly or blown apart so strong as to not develop the "organization" we see.

On top of this the "life force" that developed... out of matter and energy... well, awe is the only reaction I can muster.

[Dreepa]

I don't know if there is a supreme being, but I read they estimate 100 billion gallaxies in the observable universe. Talk about

And about 100billion stars in each galaxy..... how crazy are those numbers.

[Raineyrocks]

Caleb,  thank you so much for sharing that with me!  

I remember one time I didn't know what to say to my son during a difficult situation and I asked God to help give me the words to say to help him and as I was talking to my son, the words that came out of my mouth were things I would've never said myself and it really helped the whole situation. I feel that God does exsist but could it be wishful thinking, then again what about my statement above, who did help me to speak such kind, wise words?
As far as the bible goes, it has been tampered with so much, there are many different versions with different words and puncuations, scrolls have been left out and certain scrolls were "man picked" by religious panels to be put in.  The Catholic bible has 6 ( I think) extra books in it but not the KJV and others.  Also I don't understand why we are taught that we have to go through Jesus to be able to have a relationship and communication with God if they are 1 in the same. The answer to that question from pastors is; Jesus shed his blood for our sins and we have to accept Jesus so our sins can be washed away because God can't communicate with us as unforgiven sinners.  If Jesus and God are supposed to be 1 in the same then I shouldn't have to use Jesus name to get to God, right?  The bible in my experience seems like God had multiple personalities, he told Moses in the 10 commandments, Thou Shall Not Kill, then commands people to go out there and kill people and take the young girls in the village (can't remember what chapter or verse but I can find it if you want me to) for their own (to me that means sexually), kill lambs for sacrifices to get forgiveness for your sins, ect.  Also if Satan turned vein and evil before he was cast out of heaven, who created his evilness, it would've had to be God so is God part evil too?  Why would God want to create "us" because he was lonely, I thought God was totally complete, why would he need our love and company?  These are just a couple of things that bother me about the bible and I mean no disrespect to your beliefs at all; these are just my questions.
I have prayed before and asked for help in understanding the bible and it has never happened.  In fact everytime I've read the bible I give up on believing in everything so I just stay away from reading it now.  I do think the bible has some historical content but so do other books, the bible has some good teachings, there are alot of things going on that could correlate to the book of Revelations but they also correlate to some of Nostradomas's writings.
I wonder sometimes if  people need to believe in God to have a hero that's going to save us from this bad world or if we were conditioned as children to believe, I don't know, I really don't. As I've said other times I can feel God and it is a beautiful experience and seems very real but is it just wishful thinking?  Alot of people in Maryland would ask me what I was, (meaning religion of course) and I would just say I am Lorraine and I have a religion name confusion, I would get that, oh no she's going to go to hell unless we save her look.  Out of all of the pastors I've spoken with there was this one pastor that I asked some of my questions to and he said , "I don't have the answers to those questions, in fact they are some of my own questions too."  He ended up leaving the pastoral career and the baptists from his church did nothing but judge and talk badly about him, which is supposedly directly against what their bible tells them to do.  I am pretty sure I will never find a religion that I can accept for myself. So anyways I apologize for making this post so long but I just really don't know what to believe.

[Raineyrocks]

Wow who knew not believing in a god would be such a hot topic. 

I don't know if there is a supreme being, but I read they estimate 100 billion gallaxies in the observable universe. Talk about making you feel small.

We may be starting to understand the how of the universe, but that leaves open the why. If the parameters of physics around the big bang had been slightly different... the mass would have collapsed back in fairly rapidly or blown apart so strong as to not develop the "organization" we see.

On top of this the "life force" that developed... out of matter and energy... well, awe is the only reaction I can muster.

Did you ever watch the movie, The Ninth Configuration?  I know it's just a movie but there was an astronaut in the move that ended up in a mental asylum after going out into space because he got so scared that there was no God and in such a huge vastness of space we were all alone.  I won't go into the ending or anything in case you ever do watch it if you haven't but I could really understand how that astronaut in the movie felt.  And I love your statement about understanding the hows of the universe but what about the why, I doubt we'll ever have that answer.  I'm starting to realize it's a waste of my time asking, why anymore. 

[Braddogg]

I have no idea what all the tohubohu and hullabaloo is about.

Believing in God has nothing to do with evidence, only faith.

If evidence proved God's existence, then faith would be unnecessary. Why would He ever desire to nullify the necessity of faith before the apocalypse (the revealing)?

Credere est videre. Believing is seeing.

Is the question of God's existence the only place where you use blind faith as a basis for decision making?

[Braddogg]

I've found several different ways of literally experiencing God as an atheist. Each one works on its own, without the others:

1. Completely forgive a most egregious transgression. Especially if the physical or emotional pain are impossible to forgive, God will shine His love upon you like nothing you've ever felt before. It is unmistakable.

or

2. Fast and pray. This works if the heart is open to finding the truth, regardless of prior judgements or feelings. Prayers must be made in sincere love and can be for family, friends, enemies, or anyone else. You can literally feel His love emanating from within yourself, and you wonder where the love is coming from.

or

3. Give your entire heart to God and permanently align yourself with Him. ABC: Admit your need for God's forgiveness and guidance, Believe in Him and His forgiveness, and Confess Him before others.

These are God?  Why must they be God?  For example, fasting weakens the body and praying is so much like meditating that the result might be tapping into the subconcious rather than tapping into an infinite divine benevolent omnipotent being. 

[jgmaynard]

I don't know if there is a supreme being, but I read they estimate 100 billion gallaxies in the observable universe. Talk about making you feel small.

Here's a calculation that started with Carl Sagan and I expanded.......

The number of stars on a moonless night is somewhere between 5-10,000 - that's about the number of grains of sand in a small handful of sand.

The number of stars in our galaxy is about 400 billion. That's about the number of grains of sand in two dumptrucks full.

The number of stars in the known universe is greater than the number of sandgrains on all the beaches in all of the world.

Feel bigger now? Didn't think so.

JM

[eques]

I don't know if there is a supreme being, but I read they estimate 100 billion gallaxies in the observable universe. Talk about making you feel small.

Here's a calculation that started with Carl Sagan and I expanded.......

The number of stars on a moonless night is somewhere between 5-10,000 - that's about the number of grains of sand in a small handful of sand.

The number of stars in our galaxy is about 400 billion. That's about the number of grains of sand in two dumptrucks full.

The number of stars in the galaxy is greater than the number of sandgrains on all the beaches in all of the world.

Feel bigger now? Didn't think so.

JM

I think you skipped something...?

Did you mean "the number of stars in the known universe" for that last line?

[jgmaynard]

Oopsy! 

[eques]

Oopsy! 

That's alright!  I'm just an infintesimal speck on a random quark within the solar system of a grain of sand.

And I'm probably not even that big, eh? 

[Tom Sawyer]

Kind of puts the "Decider" in perspective... He ain't even the wart on the ass of our planet.

[Tom Sawyer]

Some really cool images of the cosmos... billions and billions
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html