An Experience I Thought of as Impossible

[WhitewaterWoman]

How can Atheists, who appear to worship their own intellect, understand "a peace that surpasses all understanding"? They are delving into areas they have no experience of, thus they can have no understanding of. This is not to say that dogmatic relgious people do, but those you have one or more inner experiences are not going to be able to "prove" that that experience happened. It seems that Athiests often use a scientific lens in an arena that most of "science" hasn't caught up to yet.

Well said.

 

[c flat]

@andrew-notfunny Really glad to hear that. I'm a bit tired right now and can't quite find the words I want, but I think you'll find peace and hope in religion that you can't anywhere else.

 

[All-Rounder]

Very christian of you. One thing you must understand is that atheists are all human, and all different like you are and the rules we have are based on much more empathy and less vengeance, hatred and judging than portrayed and exemplified in religion. We accept more evolution and welcome difference and new things\ideas as we are not stuck in studying and following medieval times that teach slavery to humanity. If God or any other arrogant mythical or non mythical person who claims divinity orders us to kill we won't do it but we'll think.

You think that you only possess feeling due to blind faith but before religion was invented, in the paleolithic era humans as social beings had feelings and developed a sense of not killing eachother and other rules otherwise humans would of wiped themselves out. And a dog which doesn't serve deities has feelings, how could you say that needing proof for our true belief of the provenience of matter would make us callous to other people. Quite the opposite, we aren't bound to tradition and can study and accept feeling in all its colors. So before you go on and say we're callous or less, just think about our humanity and our stronger relationship with humans as opposed to putting myth first, which religion often requires and disroots people from reality, family and life and in its path empathy toward the living.

Our laws nowadays don't tolerate medieval stuff like punishing or torturing the children for the parents' wrongdoings, so perhaps Religion is not the key to fairness nor to empathy. But circular thinking is a deep loop and a tough one to get out of, I know because I had to pry that villain of humanity off of me myself, that has been pushed upon my child brain, a brain much too young to make decisions. Now that's truly backhanded and cruel to do to children and not present the full picture and let them think for themselves.

 

[Neri]

Very christian of you. One thing you must understand is that atheists are all human, and all different like you are and the rules we have are based on much more empathy and less vengeance, hatred and judging than portrayed and exemplified in religion. We accept more evolution and welcome difference and new things\ideas as we are not stuck in studying and following medieval times that teach slavery to humanity. If God or any other arrogant mythical or non mythical person who claims divinity orders us to kill we won't do it but we'll think.

You think that you only possess feeling due to blind faith but before religion was invented, in the paleolithic era humans as social beings had feelings and developed a sense of not killing eachother and other rules otherwise humans would of wiped themselves out. And a dog which doesn't serve deities has feelings, how could you say that needing proof for our true belief of the provenience of matter would make us callous to other people. Quite the opposite, we aren't bound to tradition and can study and accept feeling in all its colors. So before you go on and say we're callous or less, just think about our humanity and our stronger relationship with humans as opposed to putting myth first, which religion often requires and disroots people from reality, family and life and in its path empathy toward the living.

Our laws nowadays don't tolerate medieval stuff like punishing or torturing the children for the parents' wrongdoings, so perhaps Religion is not the key to fairness nor to empathy. But circular thinking is a deep loop and a tough one to get out of, I know because I had to pry that villain of humanity off of me myself, that has been pushed upon my child brain, a brain much too young to make decisions. Now that's truly backhanded and cruel to do to children and not present the full picture and let them think for themselves.

This seems like a strawman argument. I don't think anyone here is demonstrating circular thinking. If you could point to the actual argument you are refuting, perhaps it could be understood who and what, you are referring to?

 

[All-Rounder]

Spirituality is still seen as a safeguard against extreme immoral acts, study shows
The World Today /
By Thomas Oriti
Posted Tue 8 Aug 2017
An elderly woman holds rosary beads.
Jane Caro says it's hard to comprehend how religion continues to be so closely attached to morality.(ABC News: Jean Edwards)


Who would you trust more, a person who says they're religious or someone who identifies as atheist?

Key points:
3000 people in 13 secular and highly religious countries across five continents surveyed
Even atheists tended to think non-believers were more likely to commit immoral acts
Results did not suggest atheists actually commit evil acts any more than believers
The answer it appears, according a study published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, is that even though we live in an age of terrorism and religious conflict, people are almost twice as likely to believe atheists are responsible for "extreme moral violations".

Researchers surveyed more than 3,000 people in 13 countries across five continents, covering both secular and highly religious parts of the world.

Which means even fellow atheists tended to believe that non-believers were more likely to commit immoral acts.

"We wanted to see whether people are implicitly equating religiosity, or being a believer in God, with moral behaviour," Dr Ilan Dar-Nimrod, from the School of Psychology at the University of Sydney, said.

The researchers asked what people thought about a person who displayed "gross immoral behaviours" including mutilating animals and murdering and mutilating homeless people.

"Would they consider that person more likely to be an atheist — or a person who doesn't believe in God — or a religious believer?" Dr Dar-Nimrod explained.

In the survey the participants were asked whether the perpetrator was a teacher, or whether they were a teacher who is an atheist — thus avoiding asking directly whether they were a believer or not.

"We were trying to just look at how likely it would be for a person to actually endorse some sort of ... grossly immoral behaviour, with a person that is actually a believer or a non-believer," he said.

Atheists do the right thing 'because it's the right thing to do'
The end results come as a surprise to some atheists, with social commentator Jane Caro saying they flew "in the face of history".

She said it was hard to comprehend how religion continued to be so closely attached to morality.

"It is interesting that people still … associate morality with the idea of punishment and reward," Ms Caro said.

Ms Caro said it struck her as "fairly infantile" that people behaved well purely out of fear of going to hell and the hope they would get into heaven.

"The atheist knows there's no external end-of-life reward or punishment for doing the right or the wrong thing.

"They do the right thing because it's the right thing to do — and that actually is a more mature morality."

'This highlights a prejudice against non-believers'
However the results did not suggest that atheists actually committed evil acts any more than believers.

In fact, it pointed to what it called a "prejudice" against people who said there was no God.

And according to social researcher Hugh MacKay — who describes himself as a Christian Agnostic — that prejudice is growing.

A stock photo shows a young man leaning against a brick wall and holding a Bible.

"The prejudice against atheists is probably hardening as they become, or [are] perceived — courtesy of various prominent figures — more hard-spoken and more hard-line, and specifically, more anti-religion," he said.

"As opposed to just being an atheist, which is saying 'I don't believe in God' — that's not a ground for attacking religion or attacking anything.

"But because they have become more aggressive, inevitably they are attracting the sort of prejudice that people who have religious beliefs, or who try to encourage others who adopt their religious beliefs, attract."

He said the finding that atheists themselves tended to agree with the hypothesis was "slightly puzzling".

"But I guess it's to do with the fact that there are hard-line atheists, and quieter, softer atheists," he said.

"The quieter softer ones who just want to say 'Look it's not a big deal for me, I'm just an atheist, move on, what's for lunch', compared with the hard-line atheists who are really wanting to be militant about it."

Michael Boyd, vice president of the Atheists Foundation of Australia, said it revealed a misapprehension about what atheism itself really is.

"It's really just a profession of a non-belief in gods or spirits," he said.

"Once that issue is out of the way, then that's the end of atheism as far as a person is concerned.

"The rest of their life is just like anyone else's, and probably similar to the vast majority of people who would call themselves religious, but really don't follow their faith at all."

How does this change how we understand morality?

A. Scientific evidence suggests that humans (and even their primate cousins) have innate moral predispositions, and religion is a reflection rather than the cause of these predispositions. However, our results show that people around the world still carry deeply-ingrained biases when judging the moral attributes of others.

Q. Does this tell us anything about the purpose of religion in society?

A. Religion has been so successful in the course of human history partly because it functions as a public signal of conformity to group norms, and that is because it involves arbitrary rather than functional rules and behaviors. For example, hunting, fishing, or trading like everyone else is the logical thing to do and offers directly observable benefits (food on the table and money in the bank). But going to church, fasting, or memorizing the Bible are costly signals of commitment to the norms of the community. Reliance on such signals has been crucial for the formation and maintenance of the first large-scale societies, in the absence of reliable secular institutions, and this evolutionary heritage is still with us today.

Then you can lie to yourself and ignore science and evidence, belittle it, but I will believe you up to the point you use it, the next post you make, the next hospital you use, the next medicine you take. It's easy to claim you're not living in society or reality but truth is you're among all this. And if you stopped using scientific evolved stuff you would suffer, your life would be medieval. I would not encourage humans to disregard science and live in the wild, for the growth of their empathy.

And I'll just go ahead and repeat the first thing "even though we live in an age of terrorism and religious conflict, people are almost twice as likely to believe atheists are responsible for extreme moral violations".

And the biggest opposers of religion are religious actually.

 

[All-Rounder]

As for going in circles... As believers we made a lot of excuses to continue believing, such as, the immorality of the Bible and its characters is okay and they are entitled to be immoral because they're sacred.

As an example when humans are claiming they're sacred and God speaks through them and abusing followers because of this bias in the brain. People look at the divinity claim and are not allowed to judge it and even if they have found it ridiculous, cannot question the word of God because he somehow operates in a way to confuse, mysterious ways, but ppl get tricked over and over again with this loophole. There is no progress in this thought pattern, no solution in this sort of thinking. You can allow yourself to think and get out of the loop.

Then "cherry picking" I consider a big thing like science is wrong but it's right when I need it. The bible is right but when God performs forced abortions and mass killings I choose to ignore it as an example of justice because it's convenient to ignore some and accept some. And with the proof of the eve story as being fake which there is massive proof for evolution of species to give birth to humans, ignore, the ressurection myth is true because I want it to be (although it never happens in reality,) people don't up after they've been killed the way Jesus has, to avoid gore.

 

[All-Rounder]

This seems like a strawman argument. I don't think anyone here is demonstrating circular thinking. If you could point to the actual argument you are refuting, perhaps it could be understood who and what, you are referring to?

You mean that you can have blind faith in God regardless of what he does and how he contradicts himself without circular arguments, and be of integral morality and empathy, but not distinguish it from a divine example, it makes zero sense to me because I have a standard for all, not double standards, one for divinity and one for humans. (And I categorized myself as well within it otherwise I would be practicing hypocrisy)

And even though I renounced the God belief I still have my moral standards for believers. Right is right, wrong is wrong.

 

[Neri]

You mean that you can have blind faith in God regardless of what he does and how he contradicts himself without circular arguments, and be of integral morality and empathy, but not distinguish it from a divine example, it makes zero sense to me because I have a standard for all, not double standards, one for divinity and one for humans. (And I categorized myself as well within it otherwise I would be practicing hypocrisy)

And even though I renounced the God belief I still have my moral standards for believers. Right is right, wrong is wrong.

I'm still not sure what you are referring to?
You're reaction has me wondering if you've been through some religious trauma.
I'm not an organized religion follower.
To me, "God" is love, and is "Prime Creator" that we are all an aspect of.
You could change the word "God" for "Love" with me and maybe we could be on the same page?
I don't think being an Athiest automatically makes you a "bad" person, any more than I think being a religious person makes you a "good" person. Evidence clearly refutes any such claims.
I prefer to think for myself and ask questions than accept anyone else's worldview as mine, so I've never been part of any organized faith. Each to one's own, I say.

 

[All-Rounder]

I'm still not sure what you are referring to?
You're reaction has me wondering if you've been through some religious trauma.
I'm not an organized religion follower.
To me, "God" is love, and is "Prime Creator" that we are all an aspect of.
You could change the word "God" for "Love" with me and maybe we could be on the same page?
I don't think being an Athiest automatically makes you a "bad" person, any more than I think being a religious person makes you a "good" person. Evidence clearly refutes any such claims.
I prefer to think for myself and ask questions than accept anyone else's worldview as mine, so I've never been part of any organized faith. Each to one's own, I say.

I'm surprised you haven't heard of the charities atheists are up to, designed for healing the religious past of non believers. The impact religion has on our lives and seeing others go through it is traumatic, and it takes a different form on Atheists' paths ahead with the biases religious people spread. It's hard work but we're getting there.

It's the equivalent of believers believing we're going to hell, if you will, why wouldn't we feel anything faced with the realization?

 

[All-Rounder]

"You could change the word "God" for "Love" with me and maybe we could be on the same page?"

Unlikely it can be compared much, same page would probably be a stretch, I don't think of love as a religious act, I don't devote my love to someone I don't believe in or put the creature before someone I can validate exists and needs me, I don't love because I believe it's wrong not to, and right to pursue it in all cases. I don't have previous stories that don't express humanity and the animal reign about "love" and I don't apply it to express a sense of social conformity, I might oppose society and conformity if it's not doing the right thing for humans or for animals. Love is more than a feeling and love is innate in humans, not the gift or a link to an expected world beyond, but a link of the humans to each other and their world.

But like I have been religious and a believer and I still have a religion I practice, but it's a secular religion. If you're interested I wrote about it here:
Post in thread 'What's your religion?' What's your religion?

There is statistically less chance to divorce if someone is an atheist, that should say something about atheism in general.

 

[NB79]

Very christian of you. One thing you must understand is that atheists are all human, and all different like you are and the rules we have are based on much more empathy and less vengeance, hatred and judging than portrayed and exemplified in religion. We accept more evolution and welcome difference and new things\ideas as we are not stuck in studying and following medieval times that teach slavery to humanity. If God or any other arrogant mythical or non mythical person who claims divinity orders us to kill we won't do it but we'll think.

You think that you only possess feeling due to blind faith but before religion was invented, in the paleolithic era humans as social beings had feelings and developed a sense of not killing eachother and other rules otherwise humans would of wiped themselves out. And a dog which doesn't serve deities has feelings, how could you say that needing proof for our true belief of the provenience of matter would make us callous to other people. Quite the opposite, we aren't bound to tradition and can study and accept feeling in all its colors. So before you go on and say we're callous or less, just think about our humanity and our stronger relationship with humans as opposed to putting myth first, which religion often requires and disroots people from reality, family and life and in its path empathy toward the living.

Our laws nowadays don't tolerate medieval stuff like punishing or torturing the children for the parents' wrongdoings, so perhaps Religion is not the key to fairness nor to empathy. But circular thinking is a deep loop and a tough one to get out of, I know because I had to pry that villain of humanity off of me myself, that has been pushed upon my child brain, a brain much too young to make decisions. Now that's truly backhanded and cruel to do to children and not present the full picture and let them think for themselves.

People usually has some disdain for atheists even if they are not believers because atheists cut their spirituality down, we have a soul and spirit inside that needs spirituality its not just some cultural thing.

 

[Neri]

"You could change the word "God" for "Love" with me and maybe we could be on the same page?"

Unlikely it can be compared much, same page would probably be a stretch, I don't think of love as a religious act, I don't devote my love to someone I don't believe in or put the creature before someone I can validate exists and needs me, I don't love because I believe it's wrong not to, and right to pursue it in all cases. I don't have previous stories that don't express humanity and the animal reign about "love" and I don't apply it to express a sense of social conformity, I might oppose society and conformity if it's not doing the right thing for humans or for animals. Love is more than a feeling and love is innate in humans, not the gift or a link to an expected world beyond, but a link of the humans to each other and their world.

But like I have been religious and a believer and I still have a religion I practice, but it's a secular religion. If you're interested I wrote about it here:
Post in thread 'What's your religion?' What's your religion?

There is statistically less chance to divorce if someone is an atheist, that should say something about atheism in general.

I'm going to start training under a Shaman soon that might give you a slight idea about my "religious" affiliations, however, I had a very powerfully loving and amazing experience of Yeshua on my 28th birthday, which changed me forever, so I'm not exempt from the Judeochristian worldview either. .

 

[c flat]

@All-Rounder Two things:
1. Your stance against religion is rooted in a flawed understanding of spirituality and God, as well as a conflation of religion itself with the religious. You get out of religion what you put into it.
2. This isn't the place to discuss this; somebody shared a spiritual experience with us here and you've come over to debate it. If you'd like to debate, that's fine, but please don't hijack every Christian thing you see so you can declare it incorrect or amoral.

@andrew-notfunny, my brain is functional this morning, and I know exactly what you're talking about, I've experienced it myself. I've struggled with faith since I converted a few years back. it's difficult for me to accept some of the things I've experienced firsthand; I'm generally very rational and there's a part of me that doesn't want to accept any of these things.

This isn't a symptom of deception or dysfunction; countless people have found truth in Christianity since its conception. I can plainly see you're struggling and having a hard time, and— I don't mean to preach here; I'm certainly in no position to anyway— I want you to know that God will be with you through this, you will make it, and you will be a better person for it. God bless you my brother.

 

[All-Rounder]

People usually has some disdain for atheists even if they are not believers because atheists cut their spirituality down, we have a soul and spirit inside that needs spirituality its not just some cultural thing.

Yes because Christians love to speak out of their a**. They can bring me proof of a soul and then we'll talk. If a person drops real things then the person can no longer argue reality and logic. Can't argue spirits into reality, need proof for that.

If they wanna believe in Santa Claus they can go ahead but shouldn't look at me like I'm the one who doesn't have an understanding of the world we live in and of proof and evidence. It's dishonest because these are the means we have that discover the world.

 

[All-Rounder]

I'm going to start training under a Shaman soon that might give you a slight idea about my "religious" affiliations, however, I had a very powerfully loving and amazing experience of Yeshua on my 28th birthday, which changed me forever, so I'm not exempt from the Judeochristian worldview either. .

Don't let me guess cause I don't want to hear the stuff again about how amongst a ton of people getting through what you did, you were the only one saved. I'm not good at math either but this is a wrong bias to me. And that's to ignore the arrogance of the claim of being the one and only mortal God saved.

For the fun of it, just what exactly was the unexplainable miracle? But don't take me too much off the ground by surprise, I prefer my sanity.

 

[All-Rounder]

@All-Rounder Two things:
1. Your stance against religion is rooted in a flawed understanding of spirituality and God, as well as a conflation of religion itself with the religious. You get out of religion what you put into it.
2. This isn't the place to discuss this; somebody shared a spiritual experience with us here and you've come over to debate it. If you'd like to debate, that's fine, but please don't hijack every Christian thing you see so you can declare it incorrect or amoral.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

Claim number 1 is wrong and also bias-based. An atheist can be a former dedicated believer, and besides assuming I was not taking my religion seriously and not even knowing what my religion stood for you went ahead make additional assumptions.

Claim number 2 that my atheism is a direct dispute of religion. My atheism got put on the line the first thing I spoke about my beliefs, and after getting attacked by your fellow proteges, some religious people, for being an atheist, all with being immoral all you do is blame me for debating when I'm spreading information on atheism and you are mad because the misinformation isn't gaining weight. Well, thanks for nothing.

Allow me a question, and take a specific religion. Given in a Christian church, and each member of a Christian household, the interpretations of the Bible are different, how do you know yours are more rightly interpreted than other people's, and why should an Atheist's interpretation be held to the standard no religious one is, given to be just like yours? Why did you tolerate other religions and Atheism you did not, when they contradict your own, they can't all be true, or all in agreement to your beliefs.

 

[Hypnalis]

@Neri

There are simple answers to all of your rhetorical questions.

I'm not going to answer them for the moment, but I'd like something in exchange: mutual respect and politeness between people with different beliefs.

OFC there are impolite people on both sides. They should be ignored, not emulated.

Between the rest, why attack the beliefs and the individuals that hold them? Polite disagreement is fine, but straw men are not (e.g. claims about what people can/can't understand).

 

[Neri]

@Neri

There are simple answers to all of your rhetorical questions.

I'm not going to answer them for the moment, but I'd like something in exchange: mutual respect and politeness between people with different beliefs.

OFC there are impolite people on both sides. They should be ignored, not emulated.

Between the rest, why attack the beliefs and the individuals that hold them? Polite disagreement is fine, but straw men are not (e.g. claims about what people can/can't understand).

There is nothing attacky in saying that people's experience is neither provable or disprovable via "science".

 

[All-Rounder]

There is nothing attacky in saying that people's experience is neither provable or disprovable via "science".

If a theory is correct, shouldn't it be able to be tested?

 

[All-Rounder]

"Scientific evidence is evidence that serves to either support or counter a scientific theory or hypothesis,[1] although scientists also use evidence in other ways, such as when applying theories to practical problems.[2] Such evidence is expected to be empirical evidence and interpretable in accordance with the scientific method. Standards for scientific evidence vary according to the field of inquiry, but the strength of scientific evidence is generally based on the results of statistical analysis and the strength of scientific controls.

A person's assumptions or beliefs about the relationship between observations and a hypothesis will affect whether that person takes the observations as evidence.[3] These assumptions or beliefs will also affect how a person utilizes the observations as evidence. For example, the Earth's apparent lack of motion may be taken as evidence for a geocentric cosmology. However, after sufficient evidence is presented for heliocentric cosmology and the apparent lack of motion is explained, the initial observation is strongly discounted as evidence."

Scientific evidence - Wikipedia

Some things can be believed to be some way by people, but the evidence may show something different happened.