Why I am an atheist

by Awakened at Gilead 129 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

leavingwt

Nowhere does he claim to have had a meaningful encounter with God or a relationship with him. Frequently he mentions his struggle with the God idea and his anger toward what he understands God to be. That's far from being the person who truly wants to know God and to understand why he thinks and acts as he does.
I cannot argue with the conclusions that you have drawn unless I can understand your definitions of (1) a meaningful encounter with God and (2) a relationship with God are.
If you have concluded that it is impossible for someone to become an atheist, after having had a "meaningful encounter" or a "relationship" with God, then our discussion may have reached an impasse.
Please be assured that I hold no animosity towards believers.
-LWT
fjtoth

leavingwt,
I cannot argue with the conclusions that you have drawn unless I can understand your definitions of (1) a meaningful encounter with God and (2) a relationship with God are.
A dictionary and a thesaurus will define "meaningful encounter" and "relationship." They are terms that don't require a lot of explanation.
Humans can know God as easily as they can know another human. But it won't happen if a person's mind is closed or he wishes to know God only on his own terms.
If God is not the person or entity we expect or want him to be, our search for him will result in a dead end.
Damocles

fjtoth,
I am on my second glass of scotch and it was a really miserable day at work, so I hope I don't offend. (Good news, I have a job, bad news, the job) and you seem a congenial person for such a conversation.
I read what John Loftus wrote about his experience and those of others who reject belief in God. Nowhere does he claim to have had a meaningful encounter with God or a relationship with him. Frequently he mentions his struggle with the God idea and his anger toward what he understands God to be. That's far from being the person who truly wants to know God and to understand why he thinks and acts as he does.
If we make up our minds as to what God ought to be, he becomes our own creation, not who and what he actually is.
I apologize, I don't know Loftus at all.
The matter of experience is hard for me. I can think and discuss maybe half a dozen times that I have laid myself open to god and asked for his help and direction. Whether that was genuine or not is hard for anyone else to judge, but in retrospect it seemed real to me. Afterwards, I have always felt good, refreshed and energized, yet it seems to me that the response from god has been laggardly. I can remember a particular time late at night in a small church in a wayward place at a time when doors needn't be locked. It was a profound experience. Yet, the specifics were lacking. Yes I felt enlightened, but to what end.
I became a JW on the basis of one such an emotional experience. The religion appeared to me to satisfy both the emotional relationship needs but the concomittant need for definitive action. In the end though it didn't satisfy.
For myself, the final analysis is related to the utility of the belief. This is an inherently pragmatic approach. I argue that I simply cannot prove the existence of god. I must decide my belief. That belief is directly related to my benefit from the belief and my judgement of the probabilities. If it is low probability of truth (i.e god exists) but high benefit, I may believe. If it is high probability but low benefit, I may believe. If it is low probability and low benefit, I likely will not believe. Such is my case after some 50 odd years thinking and operating on the subject. I judge the probability of the existence of the god of the bible as quite low. I judge the benefit of such belief as even lower, hence I do not believe in the god of the bible.
Am I correct? I surely don't know and frankly doubt whether I will know before I die. But in the end I judge that the belief or lack of belief has very little impact on my immediate life and life concerns.
leavingwt

A dictionary and a thesaurus will define "meaningful encounter" and "relationship." They are terms that don't require a lot of explanation.
Humans can know God as easily as they can know another human. But it won't happen if a person's mind is closed or he wishes to know God only on his own terms.
If God is not the person or entity we expect or want him to be, our search for him will result in a dead end.
I am willing to agree to disagree.
-LWT
fjtoth

Damocles,
Perhaps an illustration will help in understanding why God's "response" appeared "laggardly."
When I first started studying computers, I was awed by the subject. I studied books on how to use various programs to the point where friends considered me an expert. Now and then I was called on to repair a computer or to show why a certain application didn't seem to do its job. I enjoyed the flattery, but inside I knew I was merely a dummy. I was winging it as I attempted to do what friends had asked.
I often wished I had the expertise of those who wrote the books I read and of those I met at computer exhibitions in Toronto. I knew that could only become possible if I continued to apply myself and, as it were, made a religion of computer technology.
Most people dabble in "God" as I dabbled in computers at the start. I ran into problems that tended to discourage, and a person with lesser interest would have given up. Most people go only so far in their quest for God. They may get a lift from it in the beginning, but if they don't get satisfactory answers to troublesome questions right away, and the quest becomes more difficult than the time and energy they want to devote to it, they give up. Or they complacently flatter themselves that others occasionally come to them with a Bible question or two.
Many persons deeply involved with computer technology can't get enough of it. Bill Gates claimed a few years ago that he reads several books a week in order to keep up with all the advances being made. That's the sort of thing that happens to a person who has truly found God.
I'm not talking about so-called "God experts," persons who profess to have all the answers when it comes to God, the Bible and Christianity. Nor do I mean persons like many Baptists and JWs who can quote Bible passages by heart. I'm talking about those who humbly acknowledge that they still have so much to learn -- persons who realize they won't have all the answers until they meet God face-to-face in another realm of existence.
Some may feel this pertains merely to emotional experiences. And yes, emotion is involved, just as it is in a love for technology and all the wonders that it opens up to the human mind and soul. But knowing and understanding God requires far more intellectual exertion than it does getting used to all the emotional joy and satisfaction it brings. A man married to a woman may find great joy in his relationship with his wife, but the joy won't last long if he fails to spend the time and energy it takes to get to know his wife and womanhood intellectually. Enjoying God similarly requires mental application.
shamus100

But knowing and understanding God requires far more intellectual exertion than it does emotional joy and satisfaction.
Why? You would think someone as smart as 'god' would have the brains to make a book that actually made sense, and didn't mimick every other so called holy book out there. (not to mention greek mythology)
God is, at best, the worst writer ever. My niece can write better than him.
fjtoth

shamus,
Why? You would think someone as smart as 'god' would have the brains to make a book that actually made sense
All you're telling me is that God isn't what you want him to be. In other words, you want a god of your own making, not the God who is out there and waiting with open arms for you to accept him as he is.
God is, at best, the worst writer ever.
As far as I know, the only thing God ever wrote in human language is "The Ten Commandments." Many people see them as well written. Of course, the Bible tells us that an angel was the actual writer, an angel who was called "God" and "Lord" because he represented and spoke -- and wrote -- for God. ( Acts 7:38, 53 )
Anybody who looks down on the Bible as the worst book ever written has never read it for himself. I say that on the basis of what the following have said:
Abraham Lincoln: "I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man. All the good from the Savior of the world is communicated to us through this book."
W. E. Gladstone: "I have known ninety-five of the world's great men in my time, and of these eighty-seven were followers of the Bible. The Bible is stamped with a Specialty of Origin, and an immeasurable distance separates it from all competitors."
George Washington: "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible."
Napoleon: "The Bible is no mere book, but a Living Creature, with a power that conquers all that oppose it."
Daniel Webster: "If there is anything in my thoughts or style to commend, the credit is due to my parents for instilling in me an early love of the Scriptures. If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect its instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity."
Thomas Carlyle: "The Bible is the truest utterance that ever came by alphabetic letters from the soul of man, through which, as through a window divinely opened, all men can look into the stillness of eternity, and discern in glimpses their far-distant, long-forgotten home."
John Ruskin: "Whatever merit there is in anything that I have written is simply due to the fact that when I was a child my mother daily read me a part of the Bible and daily made me learn a part of it by heart."
Charles A. Dana: "The grand old Book still stands; and this old earth, the more its leaves are turned and pondered, the more it will sustain and illustrate the pages of the Sacred Word."
Thomas Huxley: "The Bible has been the Magna Charta of the poor and oppressed. The human race is not in a position to dispense with It."
W. H. Seward: "The whole hope of human progress is suspended on the ever growing influence of the Bible."
Patrick Henry: 'The Bible is worth all other books which have ever been printed."
U. S. Grant: "The Bible is the sheet-anchor of our liberties."
Horace Greeley: "It is impossible to enslave mentally or socially a Bible-reading people. The principles of the Bible are the groundwork of human freedom."
Andrew Jackson: "That book, sir, is the rock on which our republic rests."
Robert E. Lee: "In all my perplexities and distresses, the Bible has never failed to give me light and strength."
Lord Tennyson: "Bible reading is an education in itself."
John Quincy Adams: "So great is my veneration for the Bible that the earlier my children begin to read it the more confident will be my hope that they will prove useful citizens of their country and respectable members of society. I have for many years made it a practice to read through the Bible once every year."
Immanuel Kant: "The existence of the Bible, as a book for the people, is the greatest benefit which the human race has ever experienced. Every attempt to belittle it is a crime against humanity."
Charles Dickens: "The New Testament is the very best book that ever was or ever will be known in the world."
Sir William Herschel: "All human discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose of confirming more and more strongly the truths contained in the Sacred Scriptures."
Sir Isaac Newton: "There are more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history."
Goethe: "Let mental culture go on advancing, let the natural sciences progress in ever greater extent and depth, and the human mind widen itself as much as it desires, beyond the elevation and moral culture of Christianity, as it shines forth in the gospels, it will not go."
Satanus

ftoth
"A man married to a woman may find great joy in his relationship with his wife, but the joy won't last long if he fails to spend the time and energy it takes to get to know his wife and womanhood intellectually. Enjoying God similarly requires mental application."
Yes, i used to give thought to my wife, lots of attention, consideration, treat her the way she wanted. 'Corse, i don't/never had a wife. Doesn't stop me from thinking about her, though. Kinda like you and your imaginary god. I used to also give god lots of attention, as a jw, and then, as a christian. Did meditation on him. He wasn't what i was taught, or wanted. Heck, he wasn't even there, even though i wanted him to be. But, like the wife i don't have, so is the god that is not.
S
fjtoth

satanus,
. . . your imaginary god. . . . he wasn't even there, even though i wanted him to be.
Mock and scoff all you want. You can't possibly know what I know for sure any more than you can tell me what the surfaces of Pluto and Jupiter are like, no matter how much you wish you knew. You have no idea how many planets there are yet to be discovered, but as our knowledge and insights improve you may get to know in due time. In the meantime, it's just plain silly for you to say the existence of such planets is merely "imaginary" and that you know for sure that they aren't there. That's just how silly it is to say God is imaginary and not there. Only a person who thinks far more of his own intelligence than he is qualified to think would say such a thing.
Damocles

fjtoth,
Now on the third glass of scotch and no supper..so vinas veritas and even more sincere apologies for possible offense.
To be succinct, you seem to argue that because I come to a differenct conclusion from you then I must not have been as sincere as you, as diligent in studying as you or as receptive to the truth as you (you being the broad plural not the specific singular). It is possible that I have been as diligent in my studies, open to god's grace, and receptive to the holy spirit but have concluded differently than you do.
It is not that I am not unsympathetic to your argument. My daughter who will not speak to me makes the same argument. Dad, you were not sincere, you did not appy yourself, you were not humble and did not accept god's direction...and what is her proof? That I do not agree with her. In other words, she is so absolutely convinced that she is right, that the only way I can be wrong is that I refuse to see the clear evidence right before me. It is not allowed that I have done the studies, sincerely looked at the evidence...and disagreed. There must be another factor involved.
I suspect that is your argument. Unless I agree with you, I must not have done the correct investigation in the correct way. Sorry to disappoint, but in fact it is common for us each to take the same facts and come to very, very different conclusions. Sincerely and honestly.

Why I am an atheist

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