I have no idea why this is. I am not even convinced that God is not real, and I was indoctrinated early into Catholicism, so I guess there is a slight reluctance to let it go. However, every time I hear someone mention "church" or talk about religion, I cannot help but feel like I need to downplay it or I feel slightly agitated when it is mentioned. I am not sure why. I don't think I even have a justified reason in feeling so, does anyone on this site relate to that?
Going off of that, I am still not fully sure what to categorize myself as. I am not convinced fully that there is a creator or intelligent thinking agent. However, I am also not fully sure that this isn't the case. I think that the majority of supernatural claims are anecdotal, and we basically need to rely on texts/personal experiences from very long ago. Ex: the Bible, the Quran, etc. At best, we have anecdotes. We don't even know who wrote these passages/stories, so while some things can easily be dismissed, the aspects that can't are still to be taken with a grain of salt.
Today, we have charlatans, modern "prophets" who claim that they have had religious experiences that may prove their religions, and disprove others. Some claim they have actually personally spoken with God, others claim in other states that they have met other deities, but again, these are peoples' stories, and we basically have to take their words for their experiences if we want to believe them. Even if it turned out someone did have a supernatural experience, it would be foolish to believe them without investigation.
So, now I am not fully sure whether I should consider myself an agnostic, an atheist, a theist, etc.I don't mind the idea of the world being materialistic (I am aware what I want means nothing), but I still don't feel fully comfortable crossing the line between atheism and agnosticism. What am I?
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Hello Ratburn,
It sounds like you are being pulled in many different directions which is very much normal, especially when going against the grain. Going against the "norm". The most important thing in taking any step is to take that step towards something better, you will do this with research and collection of knowledge. You should look around the internet and YouTube and you can see many arguments in every conceivable direction. For a decent show you can see a lot of your questions have the potential of being answered by watching The Atheist Experience on YouTube. It shows the panel, both atheists and "normal citizens" call in and ask questions and expand your search. Remember, no-one has the answers, we are all very different, have different drives and different needs. Also look into discussions featuring, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, both fantastic and well educated aerators, Bill Nye if you are looking for something smart with a little humor mixed in. Look at Monty Python's movies, George Carlin was fantastically brilliant and very much an atheist. Good luck.
We all are designed to strive to obtain answers and look for ways to figure out the best way to obtain safety. It's built in, this need. And we are given the answers from our parents and those around us and we trust what we are told for how could your parents and those around you be wrong about something seemingly so important? It takes work to take your next step. Not bad work, but good work. You need to look at what other people say and when something strikes you, you need to look into it so you can find something cogent to believe in. We are taught that we are basically and figuratively small. To leave your belief, no matter how strong and ingrained, in a god, is to finally realize that Santa Clause isn't the one who provides your happiness at Christmas, it's the people who love you. But with the story of Santa you immediately see that there is no Jolly Fat Man and you see that it is those who pushed the notion on you in the first place. With losing a god you need to look to fill this space lost. You were taught repetitively that X,Y and Z is the way and all else wrong. Black and White. Now you need to look into what is around you and see that life is very much gray. Read one of the lovely books on the subject, especially by those mentioned earlier in the previous paragraph.
Make the search what makes you happy. Think of it as searching within society for the secrets they don't want you find, make it a game to gain the knowledge that makes life more livable for you.
I will caution you religion and beliefs that cause strong emotional feelings are especially persuasive. Look at the world and all around it in the nearly infinite space of all around us. Find what makes you happy, think about that happiness for what it is. When we feel good like a romantic situation, a hug, a feeling of accomplishment, love, some form of success, we are flooded with Oxytocin, a hormone. This evolved in us and is what is really making us feel good. We are driven towards comfort and safety and the hormone Oxytocin. Yes, this can be found in sex, but that lasts for quickly ticking seconds, just a quick wave. That warm rush of good feelings where all is really beautiful. Then it's gone, but with love the Oxytocin can flow around all interactions. Find what makes you feel the Oxytocin in you. Everyone has their own individual thing that gives us the good feeling. Don't search for the answers in the plethora of other religious opportunities. Realize that you can feel good and work towards that thing. Caution here, don't go mistaking the invincibility feeling of Adrenaline for the good feeling of Oxytocin. Adrenaline is caustic to you. It's good for the near superpowers it affords you but there is a systemic cost. You can't live your life on Adrenaline and all too often we are placed there by our life's situation. This again is individual. Look towards the truly good feeling that we all crave.
I will end with somewhat of a parable, "If you can give Oxytocin to someone around you it has the potential of impacting all around you". If you walk into a store and you start off by looking at the person behind the counter, give them some eye-contact and a smile and say "Hello!". Use "Please" and "Thank you", give them a little love. You have no idea what has lead the person standing in front of you to be standing in front of you. If you can give them just a hint of happiness, what again all around us are looking for, this has the potential of brightening the days of everyone around this person. It even has the potential of coming back to you, for the next time when you walk in and give another smile and at least a "Hello", they will connect you to the feeling you gave them, and will in turn give it back to you. A self fulfilling profligacy?
Good luck with moving forward and check the sources, make sure what you are putting your trust and time into is factual and not just premise,
wgusapukc
Interestingly, Wgusapuke, oxytocin is found in lynch mobs and terrorists, too. We've grown used to calling it the hug hormone, but it's more like the tribe hormone. Makes in-groups do horrendous things to out-groups and feel fine and righteous about it. All for one and one for all. A dangerous little chemical, oxytocin.
First: You are certainly not alone. More and more of the religiously affiliated are feeling embarrassed, unjustified, and are attempting to play down their religious convictions. Most, like you were indoctrinated at an early age and have not done any sort of research at all into that which they profess to believe or why they believe it. (Here is a great little history lesson for you; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IPAKsGbqcg How Jesus Became God
The more you know, the less likely you are to feel confused, embarrassed or unjustified in anything.
There is only one question you need to ask yourself. Do you believe a god exists. There are only two answers, Yes or No. If you respond 'Yes" you are a theist. If you respond "No" you are atheist. There are many brands of theists and atheists. There are no brands of being in the middle. You either think there is some sort of controlling and creating being or you do not.
NOTE: This does not mean that you believe there is no controlling being. The position of atheism is not one 'against religion" (Yes many atheists are against religion, myself included, however, it is enough just to realize religion has not met its burden of proof to be atheistic.)
Imagine a jar of pennies. You look at the jar and you tell me that the number of pennies is odd. (That God is real.) I tell you that I do not believe you. Does that mean I believe the number of pennies to be even? Or course not. It only means that I do not think your claim has sufficient evidence supporting it. You have not courted the pennies. You don't have magical intuition. I did not see you weigh the pennies. Your claim is not validated and so I do not believe it. The same is true for the Religions of the world. They make all sorts of claims that can not and have not been validated in any way. It is enough not to believe the claims to be considered atheist. Even if you assert "Well their might be a god out there someplace, I just don't see any evidence for it." You are an atheist. Atheists are people who do not believe religious claims. It's just that simple.
Should you be agnostic or Atheist? You have made a category error in asking this question. The two things are unrelated. Agnostic has to do with what you can Know. Gnosis is knowledge. Agnostic means without knowledge. You can be a Christian agnostic or an Atheist agnostic. I would assert that everyone is actually agnostic as there is no good knowledge supporting the idea of a god.
Agnosticism is what you know to be true. Atheism is what you believe to be true. Many of our beliefs are based on knowledge but obviously not all of them. Religious beliefs are based on "FAITH." There is no position and nothing at all in this world that can not be believed based on 'FAITH." Faith is not, nor has it ever been, a path to truth.
So. You do not call yourself an "Agnostic" or an "Atheist." You call yourself an "Atheist" or a "Believer." You may be an agnostic atheist and accept the idea that religion has not met its burden of proof. You may be an Agnostic Christian and believe in god for no other reason than it just feels right to you. You can not be an Agnostic or an Atheist,
@Cog
Wow. Never heard it explained that way. Thank you for that great insight.
@Ratburn: "I am not even convinced that God is not real"
Call it atheism or agnosticism, the chances of any god existing are vanishingly small for several reasons. First, there's no real and direct evidence, despite millennia of searching. Second, even Christian apologists have to resort to twisted and false logic to "prove" their god. Third, science is steadily explaining all of the things once attributed to gods, such as storms and earthquakes. Fourth, there are so many different and mutually exclusive religions. You can't disprove any of them conclusively, so why would you allow just the Christian god the benefit of the doubt?
Finally, even assuming that there is a god, do you think this omnipotent, omniscient being wants to be worshiped in the Catholic way, the Anglican way, the Orthodox way, or even the Mormon way? All of the churches have built complex collections of mumbo-jumbo, fancy-dress, chants, and idols.They even tell us that god cares whether or not we have sex, and with who, and whether or not we have foreskins. It literally defies belief. And the people who came up with all this garbage "know" more about god than any of us. They are our leading god experts. Just look at them.
Very strong arguments Algebe, thanks for your response. It's true that time and time again, people's arugments and theories in favour of religion are disproven. While we don't have all answers and probably never will, you are predominantly correct.
You state that even Christian apologists have to resort to twisted and false logic to "prove" there God exist. But you don`t convey what these reasons and shortcomings are that you disagree so vehemently with. Please be specific here. thank you billy
@Agnostic believer: "You state that even Christian apologists have to resort to twisted and false logic"
These have all been discussed countless times here. Take one example. The universe had a beginning. Nothing in this world begins without a cause. Therefore the universe had a cause. That cause is god.
We don't know that the universe had a beginning. That's controversial. Before you can use that as a premise, you need a separate proof just for that statement. Even if you can prove that the universe had a beginning, it's a giant leap of non-logic to call that cause "god". And even if we accept that god started the universe, we're still left with the question of who or what started god.
All of the apologist arguments are similarly flawed. Look them up and think for yourself.
well nobody started God he always existed. he is outside the known universe his time is different then our 24 hour day. Please don`t limit God .i t`s mainstream among scholars that the big bang started it all over 13.8 billion years ago. And as far as I concerned it was God Almighty. Also the apologetic polemic from design proves that God exist just look at the constants if say the law of gravity is off by a miniscule amount then we could never have life.
@Agnostic believer: "well nobody started God he always existed."
That's what you believe. And these apologist arguments ultimately rest on shaky foundations of belief. Where did you get that information about god's time zone? It's not mainstream that the "big bang started it all". The Big Bang theory only deals with the evolution of the universe from when it is was a few billionths of a second old. It doesn't address the actual origin. You have no grounds for claiming "it was god almighty."
The argument from design is nonsense, whether applied to cosmology or biology. Ultimately it's an expression of vanity. Do you really think the entire universe was configured by an act of cosmic will to allow human beings to exist? We aren't the reason for that configuration. We're the product of it. If the laws of physics were slightly different, we wouldn't be here talking about it. It's as simple as that.
@Algebe,
this is exactly the "conversations" I was referring to between atheists and theists. All theists ever say is "the universe needed a cause, but God doesn't need a cause because He is out of space and time".
@Agnostic Believer
Oh boy, you need to stay tuned for my thread coming soon: Epistemological Failures of Apologists part 2. There I will illustrate precisely why the cosmological series and the Teleological series of arguments are fallacious and wrong.
And then, once you know, you can use something else. It'll be great.
@agnostic believer
"You state that even Christian apologists have to resort to twisted and false logic to "prove" there God exist. But you don`t convey what these reasons and shortcomings are..."
Here's a few:
1. "God is Good. We know because he told us so". apologetic
i) Okie dokie, but which divine revelation about his omnibenevolent nature are we to use? What he revealed to the Jews? Or what he revealed to the Christians? How about the Muslim revelations? I ask because the three monotheisms alone contradict each other wildly, to the point of causing a great deal of bloodshed to this very day. Someone was martyred minutes ago somewhere for believing the "wrong" revelation. The diversity of religions this entity created reeks of gratuitous evil to me.
2. "God must allow evil, because without evil there can be no good" apologetic
i) I've had a really good day out. Lot of laughs, lot of fun, lot of love. I don't need to have had a really evil day out with a lot of tears, pain, terror and hatred - I don't need to find myself the main course at a cannibals picnic, for instance- to know I've had a really good day out, so I don't need evil to recognise good.
ii) I love my son unconditionally. I would give my life for him. I don't need to hate someone unconditionally to the point of wanting to take their their life to know how deeply I love my son.
3. "Evil is the consequence of human free will. It is out of god's hands" apologetic.
i) And yet, God overrode Pharaoh's free will and hardened his heart repeatedly. Ten times in all. Interestingly, there are no Bible verses about god softening anyone's heart.
ii) And here's the Skeptic's Annotated Bible on god deciding who goes to Heaven and who goes to Hell.
It has nothing to do with your conduct, nothing to do with free will - it's predestined by god. Nothing you can do about it. You could lead the life of a saint and you're still gonna burn. Predestination was Roman Catholic doctrine for a millennia or so. The Protestant Reformation came up with the idea of entering Paradise through Good Works because they felt burning in Hell for eternity for ordinary, everyday sins was a little harsh. Of course, one group still burns in Hell for eternity according to some Christians- anyone who isn't a Christian. Non-belief in Christianity is the ONLY sin you can't atone for. Catholics and Anglicans have dropped that doctrine like the ugly hot potato it is. Seems the faithful didn't care for it and some stopped showing up at god's get togethers. I'm not sure what they believe now. One Catholic tells me atheists and those who backed the wrong horse (faith) just stay dead, but others say they go to Heaven. Who knows? I guess whatever belief makes god palatable is what the individual of faith goes for.
"What the Bible says about Free Will
God determines who is going to heaven ...
"And as many as were ordained to eternal life believed." -- Acts 13:48
"For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate.... Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified." -- Romans 8:29-30
"Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." -- 2 Timothy 1:9
"He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will." -- Ephesians 1:4-5
"God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation." -- 2 Thessalonians 2:13
and who is going to hell.
"God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned." -- 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12
"For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation." -- Jude 4
There's nothing you can do about it.
"For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth. .... For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction." -- Romans 9:11-22"
4. "There is no problem of gratuitous evil because no evil is gratuitous. God has a reason for everything. We just can't see the Greater Good" sceptical theist apologetic.
This one's increasingly common in apologetics. Theists seem to think all their Christmases came at once when they came up with this answer to gratuitous evil. Sooner or later they'll notice all that's in their Christmas stocking is a lump of coal. More on that later.
i) For 200,000 years - most of human history - each generation of parents had to watch their children die on an industrial scale. 30% to 50% of children died before their fifth birthday. I call that gratuitous evil because:
a) What sin could all those dead children possibly have committed? How the hell does their free will come into it? Were they just a means to an end?
b) What were the parents supposed to learn from this? What possible sin could the parents have committed to deserve this? They were powerless to stop it.
c) if the point was for our species to acquire the knowledge about sanitation and medicine ourselves so we could prevent infant mortality on this scale, why did god withold this knowledge acquisition from us for 200,000 years? He's had no problem delivering divine inspiration or revelation about eating shell fish or pork, or ogling your neighbour's wife's ass, so why not this? It was pretty important to us, after all - far more important than knowing not to eat oysters or ogle the neighbour's wife's ass, surely? It makes the 4th Commandment a little superfluous too: why bother telling kids to honour their parents when half the kids will be dead before they turn five anyway? And why were his earthly representatives- his priests and clergy - THE obstacle in the way of acquiring this knowledge? Isn't he supposed to love us? How can anyone knowl lthis and not call it gratuitous evil? How can anyone know this and think god gives a toss about them or any other human being? How can anyone believe god is Good?
ii) Komodo dragons are apex predators. They prey on a variety of animals. One prey animal is the water buffalo. The komodo dragons lie in wait for the water buffalo, ambush it and bite it. The bite is a deadly poison, but it takes days and days to work. The water buffalo takes off after being bitten and the komodo dragons track it. Days after, when the water buffalo is finally so sick and weak and pain racked from the bite it can't defend itself, the komodo dragons move in for the kill. They tear the water buffalo apart, eating it alive.
Now, komodo dragons preying on water buffalo isn't gratuitous evil, it keeps water buffalo numbers at sustainable levels. The poisonous bite isn't gratuitous evil in itself, it's necessary for the kokodo dragon to bring down such large prey. The days it takes the poison to work isn’t gratuitous evil in itself, it gets the komodo dragons away from the herd and keeps the rest of the herd safe. But I argue the suffering the poison causes is a very gratuitous evil indeed.
a) why couldn't the poison work by weakening the water buffalo without it suffering so much? It could be a euphoric, for instance, so the water buffalo doesn't eat and weakens, but feels - well - euphoric, for the days it takes the poison to work.
b)Why couldn't the water buffalo's final moments be in a state of poison induced unconsciousness where it can't feel a thing?
c) in fact, why couldn't it be dead? Days of euphoria than a superfast, painless brain embolism?
d)Why did god chose such a horrible, painful death for the water buffalo? Did it sin? Does it or other water buffalo have moral lessons to learn that can only be taught this way? How does this barbarity serve the Greater Good?
Now I know theists in general don't much care about the relationship other species have with god. "Only humans are made in god's image...blah, blah, blah", but I'm an agnostic atheist Humanist, and I care a great deal. Gratuitous evil is gratuitous evil in my book, and if I'm made in god's image it must be in his book too, so wtf?
And finally, the lump of coal in the theist apologist's Christmas stocking:
iii) If there is no such thing as gratitious evil and every evil under the sun is allowed by god to further god's Good ends, nothing's off the table. God can mislead us. He can deceive us. He can flat out lie to us. We have no way to know the difference. We can't trust god. Everything we think we know about right/wrong, good/evil goes out the window. It would certainly explain all those different religions with all their different claims, wouldn’t it? God can - and a quick check of the Bible and a little religion comparison soon establishes he does- tell us anything he feels like at the time. It doesn't matter that he constantly contradicts himself. It doesn't matter those contradictions got people burnt at the stake hundreds of years ago or beheaded five minutes ago - we just don't understand his Plan. It would certainly make you rethink the whole definition of "good", wouldn’t it, if god can use any evil means he likes to get the results he wants and call it "good"?
So if the sceptical theists are right, their personal god could be a psychopathic sadomasochist in the middle of a milennia long episode of psychosis who couldn't tell the truth to save himself. How would we know? We can't take his word for it, because there's no such thing as gratuitous evil, so he has no obligation to tell the truth, does he? All that guff about loving us could be a lie, too - it certainly fits reality. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism - all could be Divine Lies- hoaxes- perpetrated by god for some Greater Good we couldn't possibly imagine. Perhaps that Greater Good is for a another intelligent species he created in a galaxy far, far away? A species he favours. Perhaps we are their live entertainment - a very long movie, somewhere between a comedy, the Hunger Games and the odd episode of Supernatural? Or perhaps this other species isn't fearful enough and the movie's called You're Next?
Hope that helps, agnostic believer.
Ratburn,
Why do modern intelligent people believe in ancient ethnocentric Asian religious fairy tales? Is it because they think that those ancient people actually interacted with assorted deities or is it because people are just basically superstitious twits that are afraid of what lurks in the dark recesses of their still primitive minds?
Think about the Moses story in the Bible. He was supposedly a pocket buddy of the Yahweh God character and had the mission to convert all of the local yokels in his clan. He did all sorts of miracles to show that he was legit and some were super impressive, such as parting the Red Sea and leading the mob to safety on the other side. But if such spectacular events occurred the local yokels were not impressed. They wanted to return within five minutes to their comfortable hovels in Egypt.
Now tell me if you had witnessed such events wouldn't you have been a true believer? They were not impressed and wanted to have freedom of religion so they demanded a new God. Moses went bat shit crazy and slaughtered thousands of them. That shows that the most effective way to maintain the herd of believers is through fear and violence. Kill all of the malcontents and the fence sitters will fall in line. King Asa did the same thing later on. Some muslim sects do it today.
The Bible gives clear directions for proving that Yeshua was real. All that's necessary is to do what he said a true believer can easily do. Walk outside and tell the nearest tree to uproot itself and to jump into the nearest body of water. If it does that without any help then Yeshua is real. But guess what? Not one person in the past 2,000 years has ever had enough faith in the character to do that. So the result is that not one of the billions of people who have claimed to believe in Yeshua actually believes in the fairy tale. Everyone has simply been faking it to avoid getting killed by the fanatics.
So what do the fanatics get from the charade? They gain money, power, and status and get to wear fancy clothes and don't have to do any real work. Moses and his brother Aaron were masters of this con and wrote the book on it. The good thing about the Protestant sect is that anyone can open up his own store and get in on the gravy train. The Catholics and Mormons and several other groups have closed shops so people have to join their guilds and work their way up the ranks. The muslims also use that business model but they force people to display their membership by public displays. The Jews are similar.
So, when you see a person who can command a tree to uproot itself and to jump into the nearest body of water you will see the only person in human history to have ever believed in Yeshua (Jesus). Until then everyone is bull shitting.
Hi Ratburn. I'm new to Atheist Republic and joined the forum just to answer you.
Firstly, I'm not sure where you are, but I'll go out on a limb and guess the US since you find yourself in a community where people go to church and talk about church. Of course it's normal to feel agitated and uncomfortable hearing about church and religion as though it's a necessary, normal part of every day life while you're doubting the existence of god itself. I'm Australian and we haven't been a nation of churchgoers for 50-60 years, so I'm a little luckier than you on that score. I can't remember the last time going to church came up in a conversation with anyone- "no religion" is the biggest belief category here.
As for what you are, all I can say for sure is your knowledge position is agnostic. I know this because you told me so - you don’t know there is a god, but you don’t know there isn't. As for your belief position, I have no idea what it is from what you've said, but I can offer you a few possibilities to look at and see if one fits:
1. agnostic theist
An agnostic theist doesn't KNOW whether or not a god/creator/supreme being or force exists, but BELIEVES it probably does and it has a personal interest in the agnostic theist's health, happiness and well being. An agnostic theist may not call this entity or force god - they might call it The Universe, for example- but if they believe the entity or force loves them personally , they are an agnostic theist. This personal relationship is the key to theism. Agnostic theists in general claim a reciprocal personal relationship with the entity.
2. agnostic deism
An agnostic deist doesn’t know if whether or not a god/creator/supreme being or force exists, but believes it probably does and it is totally indifferent to the agnostic deist and everything and everybody in the universe. It’s neither good nor evil, it just is. It created the universe and moved on. It has no interest in us at all. We can be naughty or nice, it makes no difference to it. It's a little like a good house builder - it built a good, sound house- what we do with it and how we make it a home is entirely a matter for us. The agnostic deist's god never looks at the house again - it could have been bulldozed for all it knows.
3. agnostic atheist
An agnostic atheist doesn’t know if there's a god/creator/supreme being or force, but believes there probably isn’t one of any kind. No agmostic theist entity who created the universe and cares about us personally, no agnostic deist entity who created the universe and is completely indifferent to it, no entity at all.
I won't bother going into pantheistic beliefs since you come from a monotheistic background.
@Sushisnake
thanks for your thoughtful and detailed answer. I am actually from Lithuania, which is a very Roman Catholic country, similar to Poland. I appreciate all the descriptions you gave me. I shall look into them.
All the best and welcome to this forum!
Ratburn
You're very welcome, Ratburn. Best wishes for the journey. Where ever you find yourself at the end, the trip's well worth it, I swear.