Religious experiences

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66 comments, last by cr88192 10 years, 5 months ago

Some things that puzzle me about religions and anti-religions are:

1. Why atheists spend so much time coming up with ideas to disprove the existence of God? That actually transform them into negative believers. If God exists or not there is no need for believers or anti-believers, we don't matter.

2. If God doesn't exist you must highly consider life to be automatically generated in the universe. The universe is homogenous, the same events repeat everywhere, so you should have life everywhere. But I haven't found a person that doesn't believe in God that still believes in aliens, instead most of the people that believe in God also believe in the contrary solution for life as well.

3. People that believe in a good God spend way more time thinking on an evil God. Specially modern Christian religions seem to be founded either on Satan or the Apocalypse, bad entity and bad events.

Religions and anti-religions doesn't make or destroy God.

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1. Why atheists spend so much time coming up with ideas to disprove the existence of God? That actually transform them into negative believers. If God exists or not there is no need for believers or anti-believers, we don't matter.

Atheists are negative believers, it's the very definition of atheism: one which rejects the existence of a higher power, deity, God, etc... were you thinking of agnosticism? There is an important difference. So obviously atheists are going to come up with ideas to disprove the existence of God for the exact same reasons that believers are going to come up with ideas to prove the existence of God, in endless debates and heated discussions, yet never truly reaching one another.

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Personally I am atheist I was very religous up until about 10, around that age I started to question things but held on to the belief because I wanted to and rationalized my decision despite how rediculous it seemed to me by telling myself "Well doctors and scientists and other people who are much smarter than a 10 year old kid believe in god, so they're probably right." At the time I didn't know how many scientists were atheist.

I usually avoid all discussion of religon because I just don't care enough, but everyone seems to be pretty civil here so what the hell.

Sometimes I consider myself agnostic, just because of the fact that I'm aware that I have less than 1% of the knowledge required to make such a claim as that there is/isn't a god. I guess technically I am agnostic because I don't deny that gods existence is possible, how the hell would I know? But I usually just say I'm athiest because the people I'm talking to will interpret that closer to my actual beliefs than if I told them I was agnostic

I normally don't like writing much about this topic on the internet, and personally find it kind of awkward, but oh well.

when I was younger, I was more like "don't know, don't care", neither leaning strongly towards belief or disbelief in these areas.

did note eventually that I cared some about morals though, not so much arguing specifics, but more sort of a general "there is a right, there is a wrong, people should do things that are right and avoid doing things that are wrong" sense (which generally aligned pretty well with traditional views).

eventually started looking into religions some, more or less all of them at once, stumbled into some areas which sort of "went terribly wrong".

initially I saw it more as an information-gathering and experimentation exercise, trying to resolve first-hand "what was the case", and "stuff got scary".

ended up going with Christianity (more specific "generic non-denominational Protestantism, I guess"), as it best matched my general beliefs and existing general moral beliefs, and with the various possibilities was generally the "safest bet".

like, while it is hard to really be certain what is correct, it is at least easier to rule out what is "most likely not correct" (basically, all the obviously "weird" stuff...). even within the landscape that is "Christendom" there are things that basically scare me off (like, I find that I prefer to stay well clear of people like Charismatics and Pentecostals, as it looks a bit too much like the things that scared me away from the other religions...).

I still seem to float sometimes between "believing with a sense of conviction" and "hell if I know".

and, sometimes floating around in the area that is morals and doctrine, sometimes seeing it from inside the system, and sometimes externally as if it were all a big system (more similar to how one sees things like code and file-formats, like as a big collection of information, largely itself isolated from whether or not it is "real"). sometimes "getting into it" and other times "burning out on it".

like, my natural "reality" is not based on absolutes, but rather seemingly a big network of various pieces of information, and it is hard to really have any conviction that anything in particular is "fact" (more "seems most likely the case at the moment").

then I am left to realize if I look "outwards", my external reality then becomes more about responding to whatever comes up, when it comes up, often as it is seen via the lens of whatever seems right or wrong or good/bad, and finding that often my personal beliefs about the greater universe have little bearing in an immediate sense, vs seeing the "here and now" mixed with responding to various people and the events in their lives (people doing good and bad things, and good and bad results coming to them resulting from their actions, ...). (*4)

and, while a person can go and engage in bad behavior, often all it will do is bring bad results, and I am left to think "how can it be good for people to promote or try to justify behaviors which seemingly do little beyond bring bad consequences on those who do them?...". (like, even ignoring the "greater truths", there is such a thing as a self-destructive lifestyle... and things that may come back to bite one later...).

(like "greater reality" vs "does it effect what I am doing right now?" or "can I eat it?" or similar...).

*4: don't need supernatural explanations or "crazy rules" here, consequences of actions will typically come on their own, much like heavy smoking and drinking leading to health problems (like, it doesn't seem like such a strange thing to assert that if a person "parties hard" on a regular basis, sleeps around with whoever comes along, ... then consequences may come along as a result... and they will have no one to blame but themselves...). like, using some discretion "just makes sense" IMO.

nevermind an of mine absence of much ability to really come up with any satisfactory answer on morals:

the more conventional moral-language explanations tend to not make much of any real sense to me personally (*1);

my personal attempts to come up with systematic explanations are "weak" and don't usually go over well if I try to explain them (can be explained as "philosophical language word soup", "an informal set of algorithms", or by comparing it to traditional economics and accounting theory, *2).

*2: "egoistic pragmatic utilitarianism" was one term used to describe it (as a meta-ethical model, basically avoiding the traditional problems/instabilities of more traditional "altruistic utilitarianism" by assuming that each actor in the system evaluates the model individually and from the perspective of maximizing their own personal benefits from relationships and interactions with other). alternatively it could be compared with classical economics with elements of accounting thrown in. it seemed to sort of work (as an predictive model), but tends to go over "like a lead brick".

*1: it is sad when trying to read this stuff almost wish they were rather reading a EULA or something...

(luckily, at least doctrine tends to be a little better in the "at least it basically makes sense" thing...).

then, there is all the stuff which seemingly goes beyond my abilities to really understand, ... ("meta" stuff...).

sometimes this then gets worrying, like maybe I "should" understand a lot more of this stuff, but ultimately I don't, and for better or worse, I am limited to what sorts of stuff I understand.

but, what stuff I do understand, can basically be taken at face value.

sort of like, I don't really understand math that well either, but to what extent it is relevant to the task at hand, it can be used...

like, if you know the basic behavior of various operators, and how to do basic algebra-type stuff, good enough (it is rare to see a problem that goes much beyond the capabilities of high-school level algebra), and my seeming inability to make any real sense of what a "set" actually is or what it does or how it works, has rarely effected much...

(sort of like trying to make sense of the whole "love" thing, both in the religious and interpersonal relationships sense...).

then on the other side of the debate, there is lots of people who seem to have little better to do than sling insults or assume that "Christian"=="Young Earth Creationist" or similar (when not everyone is a YEC, like, some of us more lean towards things like "guided evolution" and similar), or people claim that all religious people hate science, or whatever...

sadly, to some extent it mostly boils down to "cross ones' fingers and hope for a good outcome"...

yeah, hardly a shining example of piety it seems...

but, if a person can accept things like the Nicene Creed and similar at face value, maybe it is at least a starting point...

2. If God doesn't exist you must highly consider life to be automatically generated in the universe. The universe is homogenous, the same events repeat everywhere, so you should have life everywhere.

Welcome to Fermi's paradox.

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2. If God doesn't exist you must highly consider life to be automatically generated in the universe. The universe is homogenous, the same events repeat everywhere, so you should have life everywhere.

Welcome to Fermi's paradox.

possibly, but there is another factor:

as-is, at present, most of this "everywhere" is very far away, and thus any alien life can't be confirmed or denied (via observation).

(ignoring claims of UFOs and conspiracy theories and so on...).

more likely it is identifying if anything is alive on other planets around in this solar system (microbes, ...), and if some more distant planet has lots of critters (or a civilization), there isn't really any good way to know.

however, whether or not this life exists may not say that much, since there isn't much to say life *doesn't* exist elsewhere, and otherwise it may boil down largely to a probabilities game (as-in, if the chances of complex life existing is statistically rare, so chance encounters are uncommon or unlikely...).

though, it has turned out that apparently planets are pretty common at least, so there is at least this is a starting point...

2. If God doesn't exist you must highly consider life to be automatically generated in the universe. The universe is homogenous, the same events repeat everywhere, so you should have life everywhere. But I haven't found a person that doesn't believe in God that still believes in aliens, instead most of the people that believe in God also believe in the contrary solution for life as well.


I don't believe in a personified god, but I'm willing to believe in aliens. I haven't seen any, and I'd wager they're EXTREMELY far away, but I can't say with conviction whether they exist or not.

Humans have had a strong tendency (which appears to be questioned more and more recently) to believe themselves unique and special as intelligent life forms. I think that's pretty pretentious, especially considering how common malfunctioning brains are these days.

1. Why atheists spend so much time coming up with ideas to disprove the existence of God? That actually transform them into negative believers.


Atheists are negative believers, it's the very definition of atheism: one which rejects the existence of a higher power, deity, God, etc...

You're both confusing atheism with anti-theism. Atheists say there is no evidence for gods so there's no point in believing in them. Anti-theists say they believe there aren't any gods despite not having any proof.

No gods for me. I find the idea of a god really, reeeaaaaally ridiculous. Specially the one of a god that watches over us, that loves us, cares for all of us, and bla bla bla. It's just something that seems so out of touch with everything. It's like an insta-rationalization machine.

I was never able to relate with such things.

same here. Grew up in a protestant family in Italy (that makes them pretty serious about religion because it's a minority).. was intrigued by the question during my early teen years but then quickly became annoyed by it.. It's still beyond me how supposed logical people involved in things like software developing can consider something like believing in holy ghosts and spirits seriously.. but hey, that's the world we live in, hopefully it'll get better.

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I've been raised semi-catholic. Meaning I was baptized at the age of 6 because the priest refused to do it when I was born, since my mother wasn't a virgin when she married.

Tell me about zealots.

Now, that other priest was shocked that my soul would be lost (eh?), so insisted in doing it anyway when I was 6. It's beyond my comprehension why God would care whether some presumed pedophile pours water over your head or not, or how doing such can prevent your soul from getting lost (where would I lose it anyway?). Either God exists and loves us all, or it doesn't exist, then the water won't do any good either. Makes you wonder what happens to children who die during birth.

Unsurprisingly, my parents taught me the religious stuff without putting much effort into the having-to-believe part and without putting any effort into the being-hypocrite-on-sunday part. We had religion in school, and I did all that church stuff you're supposed to do as a child to become a good christian.

In summary, I'm not opposed to the idea of "God" or the idea of "some god" for that matter. In fact, while I sincerely hope that there is one (because obviously I'll die some day), I do have difficulties believing that there is a god in this world, or a god that cares for that matter. With so much evil, it's hard to believe there is a good force overlooking and guiding us. You'd think God would eventually crush the pharisees, but this hasn't happened in several thousand years.

I'm OK with people "doing religion" (even though I perceive that as somewhat naive), as long as they leave me alone with their ideas and values. It's their decision what they do in their free time. Unfortunately, most of the time they don't leave you alone.

Besides, I do consider "god" and "religion" two entirely separate things. Religion is a system conceived by vicious people to suppress the simple-minded and to exploit man's natural fear of death and oblivion. It has nothing to do with a god or that god's will, even though the priest will tell you so.

Religion is a service contract that you pay for, which you can neither verify nor enforce. They tell you that if you do your prayers and behave, and if you regularly pay money to the priest (so the priest can live in luxury and doesn't need to work), then God will give you the afterlife when you die. Except there is no way of knowing, and if it turns out to be a false promise, there's nothing you can do about it any more. The church has been successful with this con for 2000 years.

It's no coincidence that in every medieval painting, the peasant was depicted as a starving leper and the priest was always the guy with chubby cheek and a bottle of wine in one hand, and a leg of mutton in the other. The pope would be eating from golden plates, none less pompous than the king's. Love thy next, truly. Care for the needy.

In my experience, the most religious people are usually the most vicious, too. And no, I'm not talking of muslim terrorists (though they, too, are a good example of the evil that religion is doing).

I've seen people, and not just once, who go to church every sunday and sing their chorals and appear as "good christians", except... well except when they should be good christians. The same people who are so chaste and pious will fuck their secretary at work and beat their step-daughter. The same people who sing in church will conspire against other people (who are their next in church) and give wrong testimony just to get a promotion in their stead. The same people who preach generosity will steal from others (e.g. cheat on social security) and not even feel guilty about it. The same people who preach love-thy-next will buy cheap products which are made from exploiting Black Man in Africa and will buy bottled water stolen from the same people. Of course those are just Africans, so they don't count, do they.

The same people who "love their next" will shun their next if he believes in the wrong god (or in the same god, but with a slightly different interpretation).

I'm not even talking about people who should really know better, such as pedophile priests (which isn't a very singular thing) or bishops who spend upwards of 30 million of euros of money designated to feed the needy for their own private residence. But hey, who gives a f... about the needy.

And don't get me started on the Bible, or the "word of God" as it's usually called. The word of God, assuming there is one, couldn't be any more remote than from what's written in the Bible. Plus, the zealots will take the Bible literally when it fits their purpose, and claim that it needs "interpretation" otherwise. Twist it any way you like, yay.

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