Any atheists here who were once believers?
- Thread starter wegs
- Start date
If blind faith is all you have to offer, then you should better say nothing.
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
Fair enough, so you prove that belief in God will bring one peace of mind and don't resort to blind faith.
Why do you presume that peace in one's life can only stem from worshipping a god? If atheists/agnostics live their lives in genuine service to others, if they have found purpose and meaning in life, why would you presume they are not at peace? I know atheists who seem very fulfilled and content in their lives, and same for religious people. I know religious people who don't seem at all fulfilled nor content in their lives, and same for atheists. General statements for either camps would be misleading. Worshipping a god may have value to you, but you are not a drone. The sum total of how content you are or not, stems from your own choices--even if those choices are a byproduct of you worshipping God.
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Seattle
Valued Senior Member
What exactly is worshiping God doing for you? What exactly is you worshiping God doing for God?
That was just a statement of your own personal faith. Religions are all different, even if you don't want them to be.''God'' and ''gods'' are two different categories, even if you don't want them to be.
There is, and can only be, One God.
jan.
Atheists want us to give up our God and give up our soul. I say, speak for yourself. If you don't have a soul, that's you. I have a soul. Other believers have a soul. Atheists claim that they don't, that they are philisophical zombies. I say: so be it.
jan, that is a nonsensical question. It's simply a tautology rephrased as an inquiry. Essentially you have asked:
''How does the concept of God in the Bible differ from any other [biblical]
How is it possible to form an intelligent reply to this redundancy? Are you incapable of rephrasing your question or illustrating with an example?
Definition of Scriptoral
Scrip"tur*al (?; 135), a. Contained in the Scriptures; according to the Scriptures, or sacred oracles; biblical; as, a scriptural doctrine.
Scrip"tur*al (?; 135), a. Contained in the Scriptures; according to the Scriptures, or sacred oracles; biblical; as, a scriptural doctrine.
- Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
Give up your god and you will find you still have a soul. A soul isn't necessarily a supernatural concept, it's just the essence of who you are, what makes you human. Religions destroy that by substituting memorized rules for true spontaneous human morality.
As I am not a theist nor arguing in favor of belief in God, your request does not apply.
Now tell me: How can one find peace of mind without worshipping anything?
Traditional Buddhism offers a way to peace of mind, and it is not theistic; but it does involve reverence. You're saying you can top that and do away with all the worship (reverence) altogether?
I'm all ears.
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Other scriptures, you know, like the Koran, the Bhagavad-gita etc.
Are you in any way suggesting that there is no discernible path, no principle by which one could act in order to find happiness?
That the quest for happiness is a matter of trial and error that everyone has to figure out for themselves, from scratch?
I think most atheists would settle for theist ceasing trying to convert them and know a few who have come to my POV, expressed by links and text here:
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...ce-believers&p=3123339&viewfull=1#post3123339
Read also a few of my post made after that one, if not clear what my POV is.
I don't know of even one Atheist who claims to be a "philisophical zombie." You saying that probably indicates you don't know what philisophical zombies are. Many atheists may think they are complex biological machines (as philisophical zombies also do) but they KNOW they feel pain, etc. for other "qualia" and philisophical zombies KNOW they do not; They know that they only have "pain behavior" available to display when a human would fell pain, etc.
So what is the magic formula for consciousness? ...which is nothing if not the ability to experience pain (pleasure). If we take a bunch of nociceptors, and wire them together into a neural network, will it become a consciousness that experiences pain all the time?
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
Not to answer for Wegs but basically "yes". We are all educated by our culture and therefore are all given advice on what may make us happier, more content.
There doesn't have to be a formalized ideology. Some people (apparently) just need for there to be rules and some don't.
I know two people who are intelligent and who could complete a project if you gave them one. One of them is very anal-retentive and they don't do well without specific instructions. If you give them specific instructions they will complete the task perfectly.
The other person will complete the task with minimal instruction once the scope of the project is explained to them.
One is more creative and is a better person to use when the rules aren't known and the other one is better to use when the rules are known and the task is tedious to most anyone else.
It's that way in philosophical life as well. Some can figure out how to lead a fulfilling life with just the cues given by their culture and some need a formalized regime.
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
Yes, just do it.
You can be respectful and have awe (nature) but you don't need to worship anything.
That is the "64, thousand dollar question," (for the young - from an old early TV show) but one aseptic of consciousness is awareness, both of the environment, your body and your "self." (Again quotes used to be clear not speaking of your body but your psychological structure.) My linked to post ONLY speaks of and to some extent, explains perceptions, in way consistent with many facts (which the standard POV can not explain or even is inconsistent with). I suspect the RTS of my theory includes conscious aspects - qualia, like pain and pleasure as means to encourage behaviors that help send your genes down into the next generation. I.e. they evolved as benefiting the specie.
Not necessarily. If this information can effect appropriate behavior, then it probably would only make a "philosophical zombie." Consciousness and its qualia I think evolved over a long (million years at least) sequence of trial and error developments not very likely to be built in on the first try with "a bunch of nociceptors, wired together into a neural network."
Problem being neural networks require a "training set" (problems with their correct solutions) and we don't know the "correct solution" we call consciousness so have no "training set" for the neural network to learn on how to be conscious.
Another closely related difficulty is we would have no way to tell the neural network: "No you are not conscious - try something different." You can only tell that you yourself are conscious, but not that I (or anyone else) is. - We could all be "philosophical zombies." Philosophical zombies of course all tell you if asked: "Yes of course I'm conscious. I feel pain. Did you not hear me scream when I was burned?" In philosophy, this is often called "The other minds" problem - I.e. do any other minds actually exist. At present, that they do, can only be assumed, not proven.
So consciousness is not something that can be detected directly. All we have to go on is the existence of our own consciousness. Part of the definition of consciousness is awareness, but just because something reacts to my presense doesn't mean it has consciousness. I can run my fingers across a circuit board while it's on, and the circuit is aware of my added inductance because it's output on the oscilloscope changes.
There is also the bizarre possibility that electronic devices really are experiencing consciousness, even if they have no free will. Do my broken boards suffer? Do my high frequency circuit boards feel stress. Human consciousness is tied to biochemical feedback loops. So do molecules experience consciousness?
I want to ask why consciousness is so pre-occupied with life after death of the physical body. But it's probably more of a sore subject for those who don't believe. I had thought about making some comments about dark matter. If it's charged and it's stable, maybe another form of chemistry might emerge.
No, I think there are principles and discernible paths that one can choose in order to find sustainable peace and happiness. But, I don't personally believe one's path to peace needs to be defined by or confined to spirituality, faith or religion.