The first rule of atheist club…
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Oh, sure… That figures. 
My passport is expired and I’m not much for getting up that early in the morning. See? Doing everything you can to keep me out of the meetings. I KNEW it. 
First rule of atheist club mun…
What meeting, what club, who said that?
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The problem is when we are in Wales everything leeks…
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You’re not wrong, my extension roof and my new central heating boiler both leaked this week…tis the season to be jolly…fah la la la laaaa, la la la laaa….
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I live in a semi-detached, turn of the century property with bay windows. When we moved in 35 years ago, we had a shed load of DIY to do but worse than that, on Christmas Day (our first Christmas here) the bay literally started to split from the living room, it was pissing down and water was pouring into the room so you can probably imagine the scene. To say my wife was not happy would be the understatement of last century… we’d just started to come out of the DIY phase and then everything went pear-shaped.
Anyway, I hope you can get your extension and boiler sorted soon.
UK Atheist
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Or as a friend of mine was wont to say, “Merry f___ing Christmas”.
Boiler’s done thank you, extension can wait. I’ working away so most things get put on hold for now.
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Why? I think I evolved. I came from a very dysfunctional family but we did go to church, for whatever that was worth. I’d go into the sordid details but that’d take up too much time and space.
I don’t know that I ever factually believed in any god but I tried desperately to. Today I’m not really sure when I decided it was all a bunch of bunk after all the years of watching how others were living their lives, saying one thing and doing another. A bit of a common sense thing? Maybe, not a hundred percent sure. I’ve come to believe that religion is like a government, they tell you how things will be done, charge you money for their services, then a lot of them don’t live by their own rules . Something kinda like that anyway. A bit of an aside. I use profanity, not vulgar but just to emphasize the point I’m trying to get across. So anyway, I had this friend one time, very religious, who would say to me that profanity hurt her ears and I so much wanted to say to her that using the god-word and the pray-word, maybe those hurt my hurt my ears. I never would have said that to her, not in a million years but I wanted to. Anyway, I believe how I believe and I’m very comfortable with it.
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I was FORCED to evolve, but evolve I did, lol. Welcome to the forum Willow.
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Thank you and good morning or whatever time of day it is where you are.
Right, I wanted to believe, I wanted to fit in; but I just can’t take religious stories seriously. Christianity was an embarrassingly obvious scam to me by the age of 6. The story sounds like it was written by a crackhead trying to beg for money.
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When it comes to you, and other people I know, including my wife, I’m green with envy. It never occurred to my six year old self that my parents, teachers and mentors didn’t know what they were on about.
It appears that some lucky people (single digit percentages by my estimate) come with bullshit filters pre-installed. I wish I had been one of them. But I was probably in my mid twenties before I seriously questioned the faith in ways that were fatal to it. And it took another ten years (and significant levels of self-inflicted personal pain) to bring myself to officially and irrevocably forsake it.
I don’t waste time beating myself up about it, but having the kind of insight your describing at the tender age of six … that would have come in, shall we say, handy.
I am not so sure it is so much insight as courage. I knew somewhere deep down it was horseshit, but was afraid to admit it to myself, much less to anyone else. Because that would have been the sin of sins – the sin of doubt.
By the time I was a teen, every time I would attend church I would come home with intestinal cramps, literally sick to my stomach. My body was trying to tell me something because when I quit attending church, I was never thusly troubled again. Yet even then I preferred to identify as a backslider than as an apostate.
What a total waste it all was!
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You probably didn’t need that kind of insight at that age, while my life depended on it.
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That’s true, it wasn’t life or death at the time. But down the road it cost me a soul-crushing marriage from hell because the scope of my spouse selection skills was “just marry a good Christian girl™ and everything will work out”. The bill for Stoopid always comes due sooner or later.
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Have been reading/responding to a lot so sorry for the slow reply– I’ll do a separate thread on consciousness without matter, that at least there’s enough evidence for it that it wouldn’t be unreasonable for people to think it’s possible. As far as my personal beliefs, it’s not only a long story as to why I believe what I believe in, but I generally don’t see the point in explaining it to atheists. If one doesn’t believe in consciousness without matter, a basic requirement for contemplating which beliefs one should have regarding deities and/or spirits, then it would feel like a waste of time to explain beyond that. I see this point as foundational.
People can have personal experiences that are evidence enough for themselves to believe, so I don’t think everyone is going along to get along–although I agree with you that there’s definitely a portion that are. There will be people who do not share these experiences because they think they won’t be believed (and there’s no requirement for people to believe them), but it doesn’t mean their own beliefs lack evidence.
More accessible forms of evidence, like the Jeffrey Long study on the afterlife I mentioned in another post, may not convince everyone of consciousness without matter but I would argue provides evidence for people to build beliefs off of. I’ll be starting a separate thread on this.
There isn’t much to respond to because I never argued the things you’re trying to debunk (Pascal’s Wager/ Christian God…etc)
The only thing I’ve tried arguing in response to some of the posts is that it’s not unreasonable to believe in consciousness without matter…or at least that it’s not in the same category as fantasy creatures like a dragon or the tooth fairy. But I’m going to do a separate thread on it so happy to debate that there with you.
False comparison, the testimonies in regards to an afterlife come from an organized study that put in measures for credibility. Not even close to witch trials where a group of people who knew each other can collaborate and fool the locals.
And whether people like it or not testimony will always be used as a form of evidence in courts and scientific studies. Their level of credibility is where people weigh in how much it should affect decisions and also what call to action should be made.
In regard to a call to action, asking people to consider the evidence of afterlife based on testimonies from a study, is such a far cry from murdering someone based on someone’s testimony and the comparison of the two doesn’t really pass as a legitimate reason to disregard the study.
Scientists, lawyers, use testimonies all the time for direction, starting points, and to look for patterns so I’m not sure why people would disregard testimony as a tool.
Anyways, starting a separate thread on consciousness without matter for those interested.
Completely agree. I’m not asking anyone to believe in anything – my argument at the very least is that these testimonies, that were done through an organized study and given measures for credibility, indicate there is something to investigate. And the results indicate something even more to investigate as patterns were picked up. And so I would further argue that to put this in the same category as mythical creatures is unreasonable.