by hamilcarr 50 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
The anecdotal evidence in support of atheism is the acquired knowledge of human ignorance, past and present.
The gods never really existed after all but the human imagination most certainly did.
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."
Atheism needs no proof. Those making an assertion (God's existence) are required to provide proof. If I assert that extraterrestrial aliens live among us, then I must provide proof in order to convince others. It's not up to those who don't believe me to proove that I'm wrong.
Atheism is not a belief, a faith, or a way of life. It is simply a lack of belief. If someone is convinced of God's existence by having a person epiphany of some sort, that is not sufficient evidence for others. After all, that someone did not him/herself believe in God until having some sort of subjective, personal experience. Why do those who have had such an experience think that it should be sufficient proof for someone else?
With me (and I imagine most Athiests) it isn't a one-time 'event'. It's a learning that there is extreme evidence that supports that there is no god. For most here on the board leaving the WTS caused us to question everything we believe from the ground up, and we learned that religion, and the manuscripts they are based on, are all man-made.
A somewhat different idea (because it has little to do with evidence), yet possibly related to what hamilcarr may have in mind (because it is susceptible of narrative expression, i.e. anecdotal in a sense) is that (subjective) faith can outgrow "God". Iow, the step from theism to (this particular kind of) atheism is not experienced as a loss of faith/belief but, to the contrary, as the mere dropping of a word and notion which has come to be felt as inadequate.
If the shift from theism to atheism is merely the dropping of a word, then how come I lost my divine friend who I believed made sense of everything? How come my world became utterly meaningless from that time on and I have been drifting, I know not where, ever since? I don't think God was a word to me, he was the lens through which the whole world, consisting of words, could be understood and acted upon.
If the shift from theism to atheism is merely the dropping of a word
I like to think of it as gaining a letter.
Slimboy says,
Plus my life made a lot of sense when I believed God was watching over everthing. Even the most insignificant daily event was coloured by my belief that there was a God, and that he was in some sense 'with' me in my life. Now existence seems to me to be a random collection of events with no course or purpose. We can of course seek to inscribe them with our own meaning, but this is temporary, like patterns in the sand at low tide. There is no enduring meaning to anything. It's a bit depressing, but happily daily life preoccupies me most of the time and I tend not to think about it.
That's why your belief has not proven to be evolutionarily successful, as it has little power of motivation. :-))
Survival of the fittest meme, baby.
Randy
sbf: "If the shift from theism to atheism is merely the dropping of a word, then how come I lost my divine friend who I believed made sense of everything?"
You're not an atheist, sbf. You still believe in God, but also believe you have become estranged from him/her/it (or whatever concept you have of God). If you need the idea of "God" in order that everything make "sense," you're a long, long way from atheism.
After quite a few times praying to God for guidance and direction.
I find myself in trying, desperate situations.
It's hard to believe someone who loves and cares about me would put me in the situations and
jams I end up in.
For all practical purposes, I could be considered an atheist.
Because the God I believe exist wont help me or us, at best I can describe him as conciousness.
Rather than call myself an atheist, I now call myself gnostic, or a beliver in the occult.
Those 2 words give me an understanding that is palatable and makes more sense to me
than the idea that we evolved from amino acids.
But in the end that belief is not a hole lot different than being an atheist. Because the God I
believe in is not going to do anything, he just watches and maybe provides the energy. and ingredients.
But in my gnosticm I do believe in reincarnation, which is preferable to me.
I cant criticize anyone who is an atheist based on God's lack of performance, invovlment or giving a damn.
An interesting video on the subject of evidence
