Originally posted by divegeester How many atheists are there here who were at one time 'Christian' or brought up in a 'Christian environment'?
Any other transition is of interest too...
I think the word "atheist" is inappropriate and should be abandoned, as it defines someone by what s/he is not, and it presumes some common (typically Western) agreement on what theism is. It all seems to center around whether God is a person. Nonetheless I imagine that most mainstream theists would regard many of my comments and reactions to be those of an atheist.
My dad was a devout Catholic and my mom converted from Presbyterian to marry him. I was a believing RC from when I was first told the Christian stories by my parents and teachers, until about age 14 when it started to evaporate like many other childhood beliefs. I went to mass 6 days a week during the school year till 9th grade, and was an altar boy. In Catholic HS we studied Aquinas's proofs, apologetics, etc. etc. I TX'd to a public school as a sophomore. College did exactly what they warned about -- secularized me.
Originally posted by JS357 I think the word "atheist" is inappropriate and should be abandoned, as it defines someone by what s/he is not, and it presumes some common (typically Western) agreement on what theism is. It all seems to center around whether God is a person. Nonetheless I imagine that most mainstream theists would regard many of my comments and reactions to be those of an at ...[text shortened]... public school as a sophomore. College did exactly what they warned about -- secularized me.
That's a good point. One I've thought about myself. What would you call someone who believes in a non-theistic notion of god? Someone like a pantheist? Some would claim that pantheism is synonymous with 'atheism.' That's a position I used to hold myself. But now I think the terms may just be inadequate.
Originally posted by divegeester How many atheists are there here who were at one time 'Christian' or brought up in a 'Christian environment'?
Any other transition is of interest too...
I've personally seen 3 guys go from being 'loose christians' to either becoming buddhist or hindu (hare krsnas).
I dont think they were really serious about spirituality until they had some sort of life-changing event.
I've know 2 people to become JW's only to renounce their faith only to take it up again after the JW's were sent back to their place to re-convert them.
These 2 people were real messed up and in need of anything that was better than the crazy lives they had up until then.
I dont know of anyone who had turned christians, and asking my 16 yr old about it , (the next gen), she confirmed that there was not one person she knew amongst her friends who had become christian, despite coming from christian up bringings.
Again, there is absolutely no agreement as to what "god" means.
I would say that their are more categories of spirituality than rwingett would have us believe. Even christians can be drastically opposed to each others view.
It seems to me that either you come across spirituality in some form ,(books, people,etc.), and suddenly realize that it is an issue you have not addressed and thus proceed to call yourself whatever from then on , OR, you can have a personal spiritual experience and quickly realize that true spirituality defies all categories and tags.
That these things are not important, and thus leave yourself open to more people when discussing spirituality.
I am in the latter category and have proceeded to call myself "hindu" so as to explain things a bit more efficiently to some posters, rather than a "nothing" which I had called myself before. But really, these things need to be quickly worked out and then moved on from.
Experiencing doubt is definatley one of the by-products of becoming a "spiritual person".
The more doubt, the more faith one needs...
Originally posted by FMF Does that include Dasa? He talked of being brought up as a Christian and arriving at his Veda beliefs by way of a stint as an atheist.
No, absolutley not. I dont know Dasa outside of rhp.
Despite us living in the same cities.
Originally posted by stellspalfie i think being an atheist is almost as bad as being a believer. i lean towards atheism because of my love of science and because of the total lack of evidence towards the existence of god. but i also know that of this moment there is nothing to say god doesnt exist. my main frustration on this forum is people saying they are 100% sure that their god is the true god. so i know that if im an atheist 100% then im a hypocrite.
We could a new start new forum, imagine how productive and free flowing the debates would be if nobody had already made their mind up.
Originally posted by rwingett No. That is incorrect. Many people would have you believe that to be an atheist means that you claim to 'know' that god doesn't exist. That, or course, is nonsense. Even Richard Dawkins doesn't claim to know that. There are only two types of people in the world: theists and atheists. And everyone who is not a theist is, by definition, an atheist (without th ...[text shortened]... ur head up high and proclaim yourself to be an atheist in a loud and determined voice.
Agnosticism is the view that the truth value of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable.[1][2] Agnosticism can be defined in various ways, and is sometimes used to indicate doubt or a skeptical approach to questions. In some senses, agnosticism is a stance about the difference between belief and knowledge, rather than about any specific claim or belief. In the popular sense, an agnostic is someone who neither believes nor disbelieves in the existence of a deity or deities, whereas a theist and an atheist believe and disbelieve, respectively. In the strict sense, however, agnosticism is the view that human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify the belief that deities either do or do not exist. Within agnosticism there are agnostic atheists (who do not believe any deity exists, but do not deny it as a possibility) and agnostic theists (who believe a deity exists but do not claim it as personal knowledge). (courtesy of wikipedia)
I think you might be an evangelical athiest but I.m an agnostic so I cant be absolutely sure.
Originally posted by rwingett No. That is incorrect. Many people would have you believe that to be an atheist means that you claim to 'know' that god doesn't exist. That, or course, is nonsense. Even Richard Dawkins doesn't claim to know that. There are only two types of people in the world: theists and atheists. And everyone who is not a theist is, by definition, an atheist (without th ...[text shortened]... ur head up high and proclaim yourself to be an atheist in a loud and determined voice.
What is nonsense is to decide to change the meaning of words because you decide so.
please read my post quoting bertrand russell's view on atheism/agnosticism...
Originally posted by shorbock What is nonsense is to decide to change the meaning of words because you decide so.
There is nothing inherently wrong with changing definitions, as long as all are agreed on the new definition (or at least know what it is in a given context) so as to avoid miscommunication.
please read my post quoting bertrand russell's view on atheism/agnosticism... My understanding of "atheist" is "not having a positive belief in God". In this sense, I would disagree with Bertrand Russell's view (in the quote) that one must deny the existence of any god or call oneself agnostic.
I would use agnostic when I think there is at least a reasonable possibility that something is so. I am agnostic about the existence of life on Mars. However, my beliefs about the existence on Mars of something that I have not even thought about, are nonexistent (equivalent to a form of atheism) and equally my belief about the existence of Santa Claus on Mars is somewhat negative ie I am very sure he isn't there, yet I cannot prove it (also equivalent to a form of atheism).
Originally posted by divegeester How many atheists are there here who were at one time 'Christian' or brought up in a 'Christian environment'?
Any other transition is of interest too...
Another point to be made on the general subject is that the atheist is not in a position to define the deity whose existence is under discussion. There is little point in an atheist's dreaming up an entity whose existence violates some necessary condition of existence -- or violates some courtroom or debate society criterion such as reasonable doubt or preponderance of evidence -- if there are no believers in the existence of that entity to begin with.
Based on my own experience I think that "positive atheism" -- the assertion that there is no deity -- is a phase of non-theism that people go through, particularly those people who were theists. On the other side of the transition they do not concern themselves a whole lot with proving other people's gods to be nonexistent, or demanding proof from such theists. The remaining concern I would endorse, is vigilance concerning the separation of church and state. Church-state separation should be of equally high concern to theists, but there are many theists who would welcome the intrusion of their religion into government.
Christian to atheist?
18 Feb '12 01:32
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