I have a PhD in STEM. I started believing in my late 20s in graduate school. Readings that were influential included: accounts of high profile scientists who were also believers (e.g., Freeman Dyson), Tolstoy's "Confession", poets like William Blake and thinkers like Simone Weil, philosophers like Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard, and apologetics from C.S. Lewis and GK Chesterton.
My motivation to read any of this was downstream of some other internal feeling that I couldn't shake and slowly began to gnaw at me in my 20s -- that what I could sense around me (or sense at all) couldn't be all that "is". I suppose one way to phrase this is that I became increasingly disturbed by my inability to answer fundamental "where?" or "why?" questions (e.g., "why did the Big Bang happen?", "where is the singularity?", etc.). The standard retorts that some things are simply mysteries didn't satisfy me. Instead I started to suspect that much of what I thought was "territory" was actually just various "maps" that people have created in their minds to help navigate the territory. Around this time I stumbled onto Immanuel Kant's antinomies and realized that many people had thought along these lines in the past. Once I was on this trail, I've never strayed.
Natural scientist by education and degrees and raised in implicitly atheistic soviet family in my pursuit of truth I started noticing more and more evidence of the world picture without God not making much sense and fundamentally incomplete, flawed in many ways. Also it is heavily pushed down modern western people’s throats with very little real scientific support for its foundational claims.
Also noticing people pursuing their own agenda and manipulating others with “atheism” religion.
A lot of thinking, logical reasoning and a sprinkle of personal unusual experiences eventually made obvious for me that there is much more to all this than meets the eye. And there must be some deity.
Nobody knows for certain what or who he is, but world with him is much more credible model of reality than without. And by definition he can’t be “proved” so I believe in him technically, though it feels like I know.
Also on a personal note (as you see from many comments here) - many so called atheists are arrogant people (in same way as religious radicals), while most true believers I met are more humble about their faith. Though it is definitely a biased perspective. But still Id rather be associated with best religion thinkers (like for example vast majority of mideveal thinkers that shaped our modern civilization) rather than with so called atheists who tend think they are the center of the universe.
Humans have been inventing gods since the beginning of time as a way to control/exploit the masses or soothe the over active mind.
There are thousands of dead religions, but this round of current popular religions has hit the nail on the head... right?
A truly powerful and kind super being would not allow child abuse, cancer, famine, or rape to happen. Even if there is a god, I don't want to worship something that allows those things to happen.
Also, the term god is relative. To an ant, we are gods. Any sufficiently advanced being would appear god like to us. Should ants worship us given how little we care about them?
For every moment of beauty that must prove God's existence, there are an equal number of atrocities that must prove God's absence. We just don't see them as often, because humans hide that sort of stuff from polite society.
It's far more healthy to accept our mortality and short lifespan, packing it with things that make us happy. Masking your fears of death with a religion is a mistake.
Rather than devoting my life to worshipping something which may or may not reward me in the next life, I plan to spend my time doing and feeling positive things (because they feel good).
If I had to pick a religion, I think I'd choose Buddhism. It just seems like a good way to be peaceful.
I do see, mostly from Americans, self introductions of the form "I'm so and so... and I love Jesus" in contexts that have nothing to do with religion. I've never had anyone bring up their atheism or agnosticism in that way in a non-religious context.
Have you ever encountered the atheist version IRL? Not just in internet bickering?
Maybe it was regional - I wouldn't know which region they were from off the cuff.
My family is mostly C of E and I don't recall any of them ever bringing up religious topics with third parties unprompted, so it did strike me as pretty weird.
The god does not need to have a concept of human suffering. Just like gravity does not know how it feels to be crushed under a big rock that just fell on you.
Grew up in the faith, but never made it my own. I fell away for some years after I left home, with psychedelics, and ‘free’ sexuality before I realized that I had been desperate to fill an emptiness and the find answers to the plaguing questions that plagued me of who I was and what I was for and why I should continue living. It took a night of experimentation in witchcraft to snap me to the realization that if there WAS a god, maybe it was possible that it could be the God that came to be with us as man. “If he is there, if he is all powerful and loving, then surely you will let me know you are there, that you are Truth, because that is what I have been searching for“ was the essence of the prayer that night and the rest is history.
I have an M.Sc. in the earth sciences. I loved learning previously about the beautiful and intricate interplay of factors across discrete systems in our physical world and, from the start of my reversion, I have looked for something that I can’t accept in the teachings of the Catechism of the Catholic Church that is logically inconsistent or incoherent within an all-encompassing view of reality, physical and otherwise… something I can unequivocally view as bullshit so that I don’t have to believe it, so I don’t have to impose upon myself everything that would be entailed if religion were indeed all true.
Instead, The book has instead been wonderfully illuminating and found it to be a great primer for learning about the spiritual and human side of our metaphysical reality.
Regardless of religion, creed, or motto, it is human to seek the truth and understand it.
I’m all for the truth, or even anything resembling the truth.
You can choose to study physics, or sociology, or how the human body works, or the mind, and how to fight diseases etc.
Questions bigger than that seem too big to me, but if trying to find an answer to those questions makes people feel good and/or live good lives, why not?
I ate mushrooms 10 years ago and it made me realize how little humans really know about existence, despite how confidently some people assert that there's no god. I didn't directly communicate with god or anything, but in some way the experience broadened my mind to be less dismissive about the idea of a higher power.
The fact that the brain can trip should be taken as evidence that, when the supernatural happens, a better explanation is someone's brain is tripping, and the supernatural isn't actually happening.
Yes, but couldn't you then apply the same materialistic approach also to pain for example and explain it away as just some brain activity? Yet people live as if the experience of pain is real and modify their behaviour to avoid it. No one thinks their own pain isn't real.
But also yes, psychotic people too feel like they are really being followed by CIA which an outside observer can recognize as a delusion.
But why should this even be either-or? Why couldn't it be that the brain is tripping and the supernatural is also happening? I think mushrooms probably can trigger the brain into a state that can happen other ways too (fasting, long meditations, experiences of supreme beauty, the overview effect, near-death experiences etc.) These brain states are probably what religions are on about and why they have even appeared in the first place.
My experience was that the brain state I was in was very unusual and made me more humbly appreciate more the mystery of all being and in that state disproving the existence of god through logical arguments seemed like such a silly human endeavour, as if a termite is trying to gnaw on a temple. Like, "Sure, go ahead?" (and I'm not bashing logic, I too rely on it every day)
I outgrew atheism but for me it’s been a process. I think this ongoing “wrestling with God” is an essential feature. Atheism for me was a stopping of thought, a conclusion or an end. Belief in a creator, for me, raises so many questions, it is a beginning or an opening of thought. Life is much better having moved on from the simpler view, and that evidence reinforces the value of that shift for me.
Don't know if I believe in God in the typical sense of the word (specifically the traditional idea of omnipotence), but I do think it's quite logical to assume there is some form of higher power. The idea that human beings are the end-all to reality, the highest form of consciousness and most powerful being, just seems hopelessly self-centered to me.
When did this happen? Probably in college when I studied philosophy and realized that the typical atheist arguments from Dawkins etc. were not taken seriously by actual thinkers.
I haven’t read enough of their work but I think whitehead / the process philosophers are probably on the right track.
Arrogance, self-centeredness, "militancy" (laughable when applied to elderly armchair thinkers who call for no-one's death) are all criticisms of humans and have nothing to do with objective reality.
But while we're looking at it,
> The idea that human beings are the end-all to reality, the highest form of consciousness and most powerful being, just seems hopelessly self-centered to me
It is hopelessly self-centered to claim that they were made in God's image.
It is hopelessly self-centered to claim that He made the world just for us, and put us above all animals.
It is hopelessly self-centered to literally centre the Earth, and have the Sun rotate around us.
The atheist position is that there's nothing special about us. We're a growth on a wet rock that's nowhere in particular in space. We lucked out with opposable thumbs and language and have been burning through our resources ever since. No intervening supernatural third party is coming to rescue us.
> a growth on a wet rock that's nowhere in particular in space
Atheist don’t think life is special, let alone miraculous is a good reason to reject atheism. A better way to live is to see everything as special, worthy of deeper inspection because the glitter of divinity sparkles everywhere one looks for it. Think of how that orientation drove so much of our scientific discoveries. Is it really bad to think of oneself as a little bit special (yet prone to sin from which we are too animalistic to extricate ourselves from). Perhaps you are the one who is too self aggrandizing in your sense of certainty about what is alas unknowable in the typical sense?
> It is hopelessly self-centered to claim that they were made in God's image.
Much less self centered than assume we’re developed from a mud on our own, without any external intervention.
> It is hopelessly self-centered to claim that He made the world just for us, and put us above all animals.
Not a bit more than think that we’re ultimate authority to judge and decide who is above who
> It is hopelessly self-centered to literally centre the Earth, and have the Sun rotate around us.
Geometrically it is an arbitrary choice of the coordinates system. Cosmologically and historically it was only an intermediate view held by many nations regardless of their religious views. Generally, the Earth is a truly unique planey unless found otherwise.
> Much less self centered than assume we’re developed from a mud on our own, without any external intervention.
No. "From mud" is strictly less egocentric than "in God's image" for any possible interpretation.
> Not a bit more than think that we’re ultimate authority to judge and decide who is above who
No such thought necessary.
> Geometrically it is an arbitrary choice of the coordinates system.
It is absolutely not. Have a quick peek into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferent_and_epicycle. If you put Earth in the middle, then all the other planets move along squiggly lines and do not travel on the clean ellipses prescribed by gravity. Atheists joke about 'why not intelligent falling?' in response to 'intelligent design', which I think is a bit much. But yeah, put us back in geocentrism and you do need something like intelligent falling to fill in the gaps.
I really don't get the point of comments like this. You didn't engage with anything I wrote in a meaningful way and instead just used the opportunity to blather on about your own opinion. Just like the top voted commenter in this topic, who clearly didn't read the initial question.
Reminder to self: never discuss religion on HN, you won't get any intelligent answers.
1. Maybe I was unclear. To me the idea that human beings are somehow the most intelligent life form in existence, is only an idea that can come from a very self-obsessed mind. This is a common attitude for people, as a society species wide thing. So I find the typical atheist attitude toward “higher powers” to be very lacking. Agnosticism is a much more rational position.
2 and 3: I’m not going to answer these for you, just google it for 5 minutes or ask an LLM. No one with knowledge of the philosophy of religion takes the New Atheists very seriously. They were pop culture writers with mostly bad or oversimplified arguments.
Reading Christian mystics, Orthodox apophatic theology. It's correct and all very real despite the language they use. Zen etc is a better starting point, achieve kensho then go read the New Testament and watch your brain meltdown.
I started believing at 4 years old when going to a christian school, then stopped believing a few years later when I realised I couldn’t see any proof of any god watching, planning or influencing the world in any way at all…
Lecturer in Cybersecurity. I started to believe in God in my late teens, 40 years ago. I was at a party and a friend told me he had become a Christian. As I slept on a sofa in the party house I prayed, “Jesus, if you are out there, will you come into my life”.
Christian belief tends to follow by being told about God through colleagues, friends and family. Becoming a follower follows study of the Scriptures and disciplines such as prayer.
Some HNers may see belief as less intelligent. At 54 I can guarantee there are men and woman out there more intelligent than yourself who believe in God. My most intelligent, unbelieving Professor friend, would agree with me on this point.
I think it depends on how you define god. Personally, I believe in pantheism. It's a philosophical stance which equates god to the universe and nature itself. It's hard not to believe in something that actually exists.
Almost every human being started believing in god(s) because they were introduced to the idea by their parents or other family members or teachers in stories and rituals and songs, usually long before they had the capacity to focus on objects more than two feet away. Every human society I’ve ever visited is saturated with the trappings of some religion or another, often many, and the messages and symbols of history’s many mythologies resonate in everything from the architecture to the money.
Those who don’t believe are usually the ones who have changed their minds, not the other way around. It’s not surprising that some number of those change their minds again.
What could be more reasonable than to worship the source of all heat life and light in this world? Unfortunately I grew up in the wrong era/continent for that.
Why? Thats harder to answer. Because my parents told me about Jesus, and the Holy Spirit opened my heart to receive it. I didn't weigh the evidence. My eyes were opened and I "saw". The "why" is ultimately that I was pursued. My heart was changed and I was given faith. I wasn't smart enough and definitely didn't pursue him on my own. That's the best thing about it.
Why is "God did it" a better answer than "it just happened" ? If you prefer the "God did it" you then have to account for where God came from and end up with a set of answers that could just as easily be applied to the universe itself. Believe what you want, but this isn't some kind of gotcha.
what’s the difference between “god did it” and “it just happened”? you’re just hand waving over the question of “how did it just happen?”. matter just magically appeared?
Will concede that, if you can get from "there is no proof of not-god" to supporting any claim about the nature of reality according to faith or scripture.
I built a more solid foundation for life after discovering spirituality in my mid 30s, but I still do not believe in a God the way religious people do. The existence of a prime mover from which the universe expanded (pretty difficult to refute) doesn't require my worship.
The first few chapters of Alan Watts' "The Way of Zen" opened a completely new world to me outside of rationality which I sorely was ignorant about, and I desperately needed. Having a spiritual perspective from which to view the world is probably the most valuable part of the religious experience. The fantasies people have over the centuries built on top, I really can do without.
I had an atheist phase when I was like 15. Probably lasted until my early 20s. I blame that on Carl Sagen, Richard Dawkins, et al. I obsessively read science books, and all of these smart people were telling me there isn't a God. They made sense; I believed them.
I think around age 20-21, I read Descartes' Meditations on Philosophy, which forced me to evaluate all of my beliefs about existence. Digging further into other philosophers (and religions), I realized there's not a whole lot I really know... about anything.
Eventually, I came to the belief of there being a creator, although who or what this creator is, I have no idea.
Yeah it’s funny to compare yourself now when you touched some real thinkers and real wisdom and years ago when you thought charlatans like Dawkins were worth trusting :)
Because modern so called atheists is a popular religious cult of its own, they tend to cancel anyone challenging it, because of lack of better arguments.
It is my understanding that we don't really know how this is pronounced and that this is just another instance of the Tetragrammaton [1] that is normally rendered as LORD with a few exceptions like this. This could just as easily be Yahweh instead of Jehovah.
Chalk this up as one more disagreement between believers (that they really should have settled by now, given their interactions with an unbiased, omniscient third-party)
Because of divine simplicity,
the absolute maximum of perfection logically excludes the possibility of more than one.
if there were two gods, they would have to differ from each other in some way. But a being that is pure act (without any potentiality) and absolutely simple (not composed of parts) cannot have any accidental differences. They could only differ in their very “whatness” (essence). However, if they differ in essence, then one has a perfection the other lacks. The one lacking that perfection would not be absolutely perfect, and therefore would not be God. Thus, you cannot have two beings each claiming to be the maximum of being.
My understanding of God is not “one more thing in the universe that explains an earlier thing.” It is closer to God as the ground of being itself: the reason anything exists at all, including matter, energy, spacetime, causality, and whatever laws describe them.
No argument there, but “in nature everything has an opposite” is just as illogical; many things have no opposite, thus it’s not “at least two” it’s zero asshole gods in a nihilistic atheistic universe, one asshole god in a true monotheistic universe, one neutered god and one not-quite god representing the bit that’s been neutered off in a false monotheistic universe, one good god and one bad god in a morally balanced duotheistic universe (looks identical to the zero god(s) option), or a variable number of variably asshole gods in a polytheistic universe.
For me it was that the implications of atheistic materialism contradicted basic empiric knowledge. Atheistic materialism is an onthologic monism, the ultimate implication of it is that nothing can be defined since everything is a continuum. yet we can discriminate concrete objects and things. No essence can be defined in Mat-Ath, When I was an atheist I argued that the essence of things can be defined in their composition and geometry (arrangement) of constituent parts. But that is a weak argument since "objects" constantly lose atoms and gain new ones. Think about the atoms you lose and gain through all your life (throwback to the greek boat paradox)
Ultimately it was that in MatAth the person could not be defined, yet we are persons. Also the concept of specie was broken too, every animal would be its own specie.
Then I realized that atheists have no explaination for quantum probabilities, i thought that for God to not exist everything had to be explainable with mechanisms. But when we measure the spin of a particle, whether is spin up or spin down, there is a 50/50 perfect chance? what mechanism makes the choice? There is none, and atheists have no answer other than "thats just how the universe works, period" I realized that since there is no mechanism the only thing that remains to explain it is Will, and if there is will there is a person behind that will.
So? Better to not be able to explain something, than a glib "god did it".
> atheists have no answer other than "thats just how the universe works, period"
I've never heard an atheist say anything like this. Or a physicist. They're more likely to say "that's how it appears to be. We don't know why. It's a bit of a mystery."
> Better to not be able to explain something, than a glib "god did it".
There is some theory that true randomness can be explained by some hidden behavior not yet known to man. Some local hidden variables not existing or something...
So in that case, yes, god did it. Or that is what God is, and by definition can be supernatural...
I have a PhD in STEM. I started believing in my late 20s in graduate school. Readings that were influential included: accounts of high profile scientists who were also believers (e.g., Freeman Dyson), Tolstoy's "Confession", poets like William Blake and thinkers like Simone Weil, philosophers like Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard, and apologetics from C.S. Lewis and GK Chesterton.
My motivation to read any of this was downstream of some other internal feeling that I couldn't shake and slowly began to gnaw at me in my 20s -- that what I could sense around me (or sense at all) couldn't be all that "is". I suppose one way to phrase this is that I became increasingly disturbed by my inability to answer fundamental "where?" or "why?" questions (e.g., "why did the Big Bang happen?", "where is the singularity?", etc.). The standard retorts that some things are simply mysteries didn't satisfy me. Instead I started to suspect that much of what I thought was "territory" was actually just various "maps" that people have created in their minds to help navigate the territory. Around this time I stumbled onto Immanuel Kant's antinomies and realized that many people had thought along these lines in the past. Once I was on this trail, I've never strayed.
Natural scientist by education and degrees and raised in implicitly atheistic soviet family in my pursuit of truth I started noticing more and more evidence of the world picture without God not making much sense and fundamentally incomplete, flawed in many ways. Also it is heavily pushed down modern western people’s throats with very little real scientific support for its foundational claims.
Also noticing people pursuing their own agenda and manipulating others with “atheism” religion.
A lot of thinking, logical reasoning and a sprinkle of personal unusual experiences eventually made obvious for me that there is much more to all this than meets the eye. And there must be some deity.
Nobody knows for certain what or who he is, but world with him is much more credible model of reality than without. And by definition he can’t be “proved” so I believe in him technically, though it feels like I know.
Also on a personal note (as you see from many comments here) - many so called atheists are arrogant people (in same way as religious radicals), while most true believers I met are more humble about their faith. Though it is definitely a biased perspective. But still Id rather be associated with best religion thinkers (like for example vast majority of mideveal thinkers that shaped our modern civilization) rather than with so called atheists who tend think they are the center of the universe.
I don't subscribe to God.
Humans have been inventing gods since the beginning of time as a way to control/exploit the masses or soothe the over active mind.
There are thousands of dead religions, but this round of current popular religions has hit the nail on the head... right?
A truly powerful and kind super being would not allow child abuse, cancer, famine, or rape to happen. Even if there is a god, I don't want to worship something that allows those things to happen.
Also, the term god is relative. To an ant, we are gods. Any sufficiently advanced being would appear god like to us. Should ants worship us given how little we care about them?
For every moment of beauty that must prove God's existence, there are an equal number of atrocities that must prove God's absence. We just don't see them as often, because humans hide that sort of stuff from polite society.
It's far more healthy to accept our mortality and short lifespan, packing it with things that make us happy. Masking your fears of death with a religion is a mistake.
Rather than devoting my life to worshipping something which may or may not reward me in the next life, I plan to spend my time doing and feeling positive things (because they feel good).
If I had to pick a religion, I think I'd choose Buddhism. It just seems like a good way to be peaceful.
Q: How can you tell if someone is an atheist?
A: Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.
I do see, mostly from Americans, self introductions of the form "I'm so and so... and I love Jesus" in contexts that have nothing to do with religion. I've never had anyone bring up their atheism or agnosticism in that way in a non-religious context.
I've lived/traveled all over the Bible belt and I can't remember that ever happening even once. I'm sure it does happen but never seen it.
Have you ever encountered the atheist version IRL? Not just in internet bickering?
Maybe it was regional - I wouldn't know which region they were from off the cuff.
My family is mostly C of E and I don't recall any of them ever bringing up religious topics with third parties unprompted, so it did strike me as pretty weird.
> super being would not allow..
The god does not need to have a concept of human suffering. Just like gravity does not know how it feels to be crushed under a big rock that just fell on you.
> The god does not need to have a concept of human suffering
It does if it wants me to devote my life to worshipping it.
> So, for those who believe [...]
Grew up in the faith, but never made it my own. I fell away for some years after I left home, with psychedelics, and ‘free’ sexuality before I realized that I had been desperate to fill an emptiness and the find answers to the plaguing questions that plagued me of who I was and what I was for and why I should continue living. It took a night of experimentation in witchcraft to snap me to the realization that if there WAS a god, maybe it was possible that it could be the God that came to be with us as man. “If he is there, if he is all powerful and loving, then surely you will let me know you are there, that you are Truth, because that is what I have been searching for“ was the essence of the prayer that night and the rest is history. I have an M.Sc. in the earth sciences. I loved learning previously about the beautiful and intricate interplay of factors across discrete systems in our physical world and, from the start of my reversion, I have looked for something that I can’t accept in the teachings of the Catechism of the Catholic Church that is logically inconsistent or incoherent within an all-encompassing view of reality, physical and otherwise… something I can unequivocally view as bullshit so that I don’t have to believe it, so I don’t have to impose upon myself everything that would be entailed if religion were indeed all true. Instead, The book has instead been wonderfully illuminating and found it to be a great primer for learning about the spiritual and human side of our metaphysical reality.
Regardless of religion, creed, or motto, it is human to seek the truth and understand it.
I’m all for the truth, or even anything resembling the truth.
You can choose to study physics, or sociology, or how the human body works, or the mind, and how to fight diseases etc.
Questions bigger than that seem too big to me, but if trying to find an answer to those questions makes people feel good and/or live good lives, why not?
I ate mushrooms 10 years ago and it made me realize how little humans really know about existence, despite how confidently some people assert that there's no god. I didn't directly communicate with god or anything, but in some way the experience broadened my mind to be less dismissive about the idea of a higher power.
The fact that the brain can trip should be taken as evidence that, when the supernatural happens, a better explanation is someone's brain is tripping, and the supernatural isn't actually happening.
Yes, but couldn't you then apply the same materialistic approach also to pain for example and explain it away as just some brain activity? Yet people live as if the experience of pain is real and modify their behaviour to avoid it. No one thinks their own pain isn't real.
But also yes, psychotic people too feel like they are really being followed by CIA which an outside observer can recognize as a delusion.
But why should this even be either-or? Why couldn't it be that the brain is tripping and the supernatural is also happening? I think mushrooms probably can trigger the brain into a state that can happen other ways too (fasting, long meditations, experiences of supreme beauty, the overview effect, near-death experiences etc.) These brain states are probably what religions are on about and why they have even appeared in the first place.
My experience was that the brain state I was in was very unusual and made me more humbly appreciate more the mystery of all being and in that state disproving the existence of god through logical arguments seemed like such a silly human endeavour, as if a termite is trying to gnaw on a temple. Like, "Sure, go ahead?" (and I'm not bashing logic, I too rely on it every day)
I outgrew atheism but for me it’s been a process. I think this ongoing “wrestling with God” is an essential feature. Atheism for me was a stopping of thought, a conclusion or an end. Belief in a creator, for me, raises so many questions, it is a beginning or an opening of thought. Life is much better having moved on from the simpler view, and that evidence reinforces the value of that shift for me.
Don't know if I believe in God in the typical sense of the word (specifically the traditional idea of omnipotence), but I do think it's quite logical to assume there is some form of higher power. The idea that human beings are the end-all to reality, the highest form of consciousness and most powerful being, just seems hopelessly self-centered to me.
When did this happen? Probably in college when I studied philosophy and realized that the typical atheist arguments from Dawkins etc. were not taken seriously by actual thinkers.
I haven’t read enough of their work but I think whitehead / the process philosophers are probably on the right track.
Arrogance, self-centeredness, "militancy" (laughable when applied to elderly armchair thinkers who call for no-one's death) are all criticisms of humans and have nothing to do with objective reality.
But while we're looking at it,
> The idea that human beings are the end-all to reality, the highest form of consciousness and most powerful being, just seems hopelessly self-centered to me
It is hopelessly self-centered to claim that they were made in God's image.
It is hopelessly self-centered to claim that He made the world just for us, and put us above all animals.
It is hopelessly self-centered to literally centre the Earth, and have the Sun rotate around us.
The atheist position is that there's nothing special about us. We're a growth on a wet rock that's nowhere in particular in space. We lucked out with opposable thumbs and language and have been burning through our resources ever since. No intervening supernatural third party is coming to rescue us.
> a growth on a wet rock that's nowhere in particular in space
Atheist don’t think life is special, let alone miraculous is a good reason to reject atheism. A better way to live is to see everything as special, worthy of deeper inspection because the glitter of divinity sparkles everywhere one looks for it. Think of how that orientation drove so much of our scientific discoveries. Is it really bad to think of oneself as a little bit special (yet prone to sin from which we are too animalistic to extricate ourselves from). Perhaps you are the one who is too self aggrandizing in your sense of certainty about what is alas unknowable in the typical sense?
> It is hopelessly self-centered to claim that they were made in God's image.
Much less self centered than assume we’re developed from a mud on our own, without any external intervention.
> It is hopelessly self-centered to claim that He made the world just for us, and put us above all animals.
Not a bit more than think that we’re ultimate authority to judge and decide who is above who
> It is hopelessly self-centered to literally centre the Earth, and have the Sun rotate around us.
Geometrically it is an arbitrary choice of the coordinates system. Cosmologically and historically it was only an intermediate view held by many nations regardless of their religious views. Generally, the Earth is a truly unique planey unless found otherwise.
> Much less self centered than assume we’re developed from a mud on our own, without any external intervention.
No. "From mud" is strictly less egocentric than "in God's image" for any possible interpretation.
> Not a bit more than think that we’re ultimate authority to judge and decide who is above who
No such thought necessary.
> Geometrically it is an arbitrary choice of the coordinates system.
It is absolutely not. Have a quick peek into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferent_and_epicycle. If you put Earth in the middle, then all the other planets move along squiggly lines and do not travel on the clean ellipses prescribed by gravity. Atheists joke about 'why not intelligent falling?' in response to 'intelligent design', which I think is a bit much. But yeah, put us back in geocentrism and you do need something like intelligent falling to fill in the gaps.
I really don't get the point of comments like this. You didn't engage with anything I wrote in a meaningful way and instead just used the opportunity to blather on about your own opinion. Just like the top voted commenter in this topic, who clearly didn't read the initial question.
Reminder to self: never discuss religion on HN, you won't get any intelligent answers.
I will try harder to connect the dots more explicitly.
Do you think an idea being 'self-centered' has any bearing on whether that idea is true or false?
What are the typical atheist arguments from Dawkins, etc.?
Why are they not actual thinkers?
1. Maybe I was unclear. To me the idea that human beings are somehow the most intelligent life form in existence, is only an idea that can come from a very self-obsessed mind. This is a common attitude for people, as a society species wide thing. So I find the typical atheist attitude toward “higher powers” to be very lacking. Agnosticism is a much more rational position.
2 and 3: I’m not going to answer these for you, just google it for 5 minutes or ask an LLM. No one with knowledge of the philosophy of religion takes the New Atheists very seriously. They were pop culture writers with mostly bad or oversimplified arguments.
Reading Christian mystics, Orthodox apophatic theology. It's correct and all very real despite the language they use. Zen etc is a better starting point, achieve kensho then go read the New Testament and watch your brain meltdown.
I started believing at 4 years old when going to a christian school, then stopped believing a few years later when I realised I couldn’t see any proof of any god watching, planning or influencing the world in any way at all…
Lecturer in Cybersecurity. I started to believe in God in my late teens, 40 years ago. I was at a party and a friend told me he had become a Christian. As I slept on a sofa in the party house I prayed, “Jesus, if you are out there, will you come into my life”.
Christian belief tends to follow by being told about God through colleagues, friends and family. Becoming a follower follows study of the Scriptures and disciplines such as prayer.
Some HNers may see belief as less intelligent. At 54 I can guarantee there are men and woman out there more intelligent than yourself who believe in God. My most intelligent, unbelieving Professor friend, would agree with me on this point.
I think it depends on how you define god. Personally, I believe in pantheism. It's a philosophical stance which equates god to the universe and nature itself. It's hard not to believe in something that actually exists.
Almost every human being started believing in god(s) because they were introduced to the idea by their parents or other family members or teachers in stories and rituals and songs, usually long before they had the capacity to focus on objects more than two feet away. Every human society I’ve ever visited is saturated with the trappings of some religion or another, often many, and the messages and symbols of history’s many mythologies resonate in everything from the architecture to the money.
Those who don’t believe are usually the ones who have changed their minds, not the other way around. It’s not surprising that some number of those change their minds again.
Started at, idk, 2yo because everyone around me believed. Stopped at 18yo once I was old enough to actually understand reality.
At 18 years you don't understand shit.
Which god?
I’m a fan of Ra the sun god.
What could be more reasonable than to worship the source of all heat life and light in this world? Unfortunately I grew up in the wrong era/continent for that.
Wagyl FTW here.
Once you've climbed a tree or cliff face and fallen free into the embrace of Wagyl's creation you'll not see the world in the same way again.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagyl
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djEqLRdqScM
Joe Pesci
I was told to when I was a toddler, but by the time I turned 12 or 13, I had outgrown the phase.
When? I was a kid...7ish.
Why? Thats harder to answer. Because my parents told me about Jesus, and the Holy Spirit opened my heart to receive it. I didn't weigh the evidence. My eyes were opened and I "saw". The "why" is ultimately that I was pursued. My heart was changed and I was given faith. I wasn't smart enough and definitely didn't pursue him on my own. That's the best thing about it.
That's the only honest answer I can give.
There is absolutely no god(s). It is a false fabrication of the human mind.
I think there is god because there is absolute randomness. One can call that God, and by that definition God created everything.
There are monsters with human faces though. A great many.
what created the universe?
Why is "God did it" a better answer than "it just happened" ? If you prefer the "God did it" you then have to account for where God came from and end up with a set of answers that could just as easily be applied to the universe itself. Believe what you want, but this isn't some kind of gotcha.
what’s the difference between “god did it” and “it just happened”? you’re just hand waving over the question of “how did it just happen?”. matter just magically appeared?
You’re just hand waving over the question of “How did god just happen?” God just magically appeared?
See? It's a crap argument.
Same thing that created numbers.
Don’t know, but religions created to reign in the masses probably don’t explain it.
There were many religions before the Abrahamic ones.
how does religion being wrong disprove the existence of god?
Will concede that, if you can get from "there is no proof of not-god" to supporting any claim about the nature of reality according to faith or scripture.
No one needs to disprove, because no religion has ever had proof of an existence of a god(s).
I built a more solid foundation for life after discovering spirituality in my mid 30s, but I still do not believe in a God the way religious people do. The existence of a prime mover from which the universe expanded (pretty difficult to refute) doesn't require my worship.
The first few chapters of Alan Watts' "The Way of Zen" opened a completely new world to me outside of rationality which I sorely was ignorant about, and I desperately needed. Having a spiritual perspective from which to view the world is probably the most valuable part of the religious experience. The fantasies people have over the centuries built on top, I really can do without.
I had an atheist phase when I was like 15. Probably lasted until my early 20s. I blame that on Carl Sagen, Richard Dawkins, et al. I obsessively read science books, and all of these smart people were telling me there isn't a God. They made sense; I believed them.
I think around age 20-21, I read Descartes' Meditations on Philosophy, which forced me to evaluate all of my beliefs about existence. Digging further into other philosophers (and religions), I realized there's not a whole lot I really know... about anything.
Eventually, I came to the belief of there being a creator, although who or what this creator is, I have no idea.
Yeah it’s funny to compare yourself now when you touched some real thinkers and real wisdom and years ago when you thought charlatans like Dawkins were worth trusting :)
Sure is! It's a bit cringe to think about myself from back then.
We got pretty heavily downvoted here, lol. Really, I don't understand why.
Because modern so called atheists is a popular religious cult of its own, they tend to cancel anyone challenging it, because of lack of better arguments.
Using his name instead of his title/position helps. https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Psalms-83-18/
It is my understanding that we don't really know how this is pronounced and that this is just another instance of the Tetragrammaton [1] that is normally rendered as LORD with a few exceptions like this. This could just as easily be Yahweh instead of Jehovah.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragrammaton
Or maybe you're not allowed to!
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-tetragrammaton/
Chalk this up as one more disagreement between believers (that they really should have settled by now, given their interactions with an unbiased, omniscient third-party)
Ahh, as in “om namah Shivaya” then?
I fail to see how.
Why the limitations to one God?
Because of divine simplicity, the absolute maximum of perfection logically excludes the possibility of more than one.
if there were two gods, they would have to differ from each other in some way. But a being that is pure act (without any potentiality) and absolutely simple (not composed of parts) cannot have any accidental differences. They could only differ in their very “whatness” (essence). However, if they differ in essence, then one has a perfection the other lacks. The one lacking that perfection would not be absolutely perfect, and therefore would not be God. Thus, you cannot have two beings each claiming to be the maximum of being.
Couldn't you suppose these gods had the same one-many property as the Trinity and say that it's whole essence is perfect?
If you need a god to explain where the universe came from, induction would like a word with you
My understanding of God is not “one more thing in the universe that explains an earlier thing.” It is closer to God as the ground of being itself: the reason anything exists at all, including matter, energy, spacetime, causality, and whatever laws describe them.
Then explain evil
There are more gods. Others are in charge of other universes...
Loaded (and begging) questions are a fundamental part of circular reasoning.
Occam's razor ("Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity")?
I mean, God, isn't one enough? Honestly, it's too much for me!
Let's settle on having three then.
(If you had just one, it would look pretty silly calling himself father and praying to himself.)
By that argument zero is sufficient.
In nature everything has a opposite or opponent. That would make at least two.
Show me the opposite, or the opponent, of a black hole.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_hole
I said show me, not point me at a hypothetical entity with no known pathway to reified existence.
> hypothetical entity with no known pathway to reified existence.
More realistic than god.
> More realistic than god.
No argument there, but “in nature everything has an opposite” is just as illogical; many things have no opposite, thus it’s not “at least two” it’s zero asshole gods in a nihilistic atheistic universe, one asshole god in a true monotheistic universe, one neutered god and one not-quite god representing the bit that’s been neutered off in a false monotheistic universe, one good god and one bad god in a morally balanced duotheistic universe (looks identical to the zero god(s) option), or a variable number of variably asshole gods in a polytheistic universe.
For me it was that the implications of atheistic materialism contradicted basic empiric knowledge. Atheistic materialism is an onthologic monism, the ultimate implication of it is that nothing can be defined since everything is a continuum. yet we can discriminate concrete objects and things. No essence can be defined in Mat-Ath, When I was an atheist I argued that the essence of things can be defined in their composition and geometry (arrangement) of constituent parts. But that is a weak argument since "objects" constantly lose atoms and gain new ones. Think about the atoms you lose and gain through all your life (throwback to the greek boat paradox)
Ultimately it was that in MatAth the person could not be defined, yet we are persons. Also the concept of specie was broken too, every animal would be its own specie.
Then I realized that atheists have no explaination for quantum probabilities, i thought that for God to not exist everything had to be explainable with mechanisms. But when we measure the spin of a particle, whether is spin up or spin down, there is a 50/50 perfect chance? what mechanism makes the choice? There is none, and atheists have no answer other than "thats just how the universe works, period" I realized that since there is no mechanism the only thing that remains to explain it is Will, and if there is will there is a person behind that will.
> atheists have no explaination for ...
So? Better to not be able to explain something, than a glib "god did it".
> atheists have no answer other than "thats just how the universe works, period"
I've never heard an atheist say anything like this. Or a physicist. They're more likely to say "that's how it appears to be. We don't know why. It's a bit of a mystery."
> Better to not be able to explain something, than a glib "god did it".
There is some theory that true randomness can be explained by some hidden behavior not yet known to man. Some local hidden variables not existing or something...
So in that case, yes, god did it. Or that is what God is, and by definition can be supernatural...
> the ultimate implication of it is that nothing can be defined since everything is a continuum.
What does this even mean?
That entire post, run through ChatGPT, gets summarized as “WOO!!!!”.
Not sure the fourth big bang was necessary.