Agnosticism and Origins

Finding out that the tooth fairy, santa claus, the easter bunny, and the boogyman were just stories Probably about the age 4 or 5. It is not a matter of believing or not believing. I learned about
evolution in high school. The evidence points to it. It is testable,
and can be demonstrated in the lab. Well, A and B are only mutually exclusive points there. I would say that A,C, and D are accurate.

One of the things you 'insisted' on is that it be the 'CHristian' God.Just imagine.. god does exist.. but does not meet the criteria for the
"Christian God". Is that being still god?

(Note that for this post, I'm talking solely about the Christian God)

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What was the biggest thing that caused you stop believing in God?
When did you stop believing in God?

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I was raised in a relatively secular environment in New Jersey and never attended church, but that didn't keep me from having a childish belief in God (don't get me wrong; by "childish belief" I mean a belief based on "My friends said this" or "I heard that", not that faith in general is childish). And I never really knew the God of the Bible and about Jesus and whatnot until I was around 11 - I just knew Him as the all-mighty being who you prayed to, basically. Like others have said (though in a different form, I guess), it wasn't so much that I stopped believing in God as I never believed in Him in the first place.I won't say that I didn't have some irrational reasons in the process - I was bothered by the assertions of so many Christians, for example, that non-Christians were immoral and that Christians were moral (keep in mind that at this point I was in a conservative, fundamentalist Texas town). Nothing turned me away from God more in my teenage years (at this point I was just beginning to get the whole story, so to speak) than the ignorant comments of some people I knew - one that particularly stands out in my mind is, while talking about slavery in English class in 8th grade, someone said, "So all types of people had slaves? Even Christians?" It wasn't a particularly bad comment, but it just struck me as so arrogant to assume that Christians were automatically better people. So, though I regret the origins of it now, I can honestly say that a large part of my "conversion" came from a rebellious teenage spirit striving to remove itself from such people. (As I recall, my best friends in middle/high school were mostly atheist druggies (who never tried to tempt me into drugs, I might add) and people who went to church just because their parents made them. All good people, I might add.) So at this point it was largely irrational reasons ("I don't believe what Christians are saying, so I don't believe Christianity") that drove me. As well, on a more personal level, I never really bought into the "God works in mysterious ways" explanation for what appeared to be contradictions in what He said and did. This kind of goes in both rational and irrational; it at first was because Christians I knew used it so often to "explain" inconsistencies, but also it seems to be a common tactic in general when no other explanation appears in the Bible for a specific event.When I began to know more of the Bible and philosophy in high school, the first rational reasons (that is, reasons based on the actual tenets of Christianity, not upon how Christians acted) began to appear. Specifically, the main reason why I don't and can't believe in the God of the Bible today is because I can't believe that a loving, benevolent God would send millions of people who strived to live good lives to Hell simply because they believed the wrong thing. It is my belief that one cannot control one's beliefs, so this was and is a heavy blow against the God of the Bible in my mind. Also, I simply cannot accept that thought of sin is considered sin enough to keep one out of Heaven. To me, actions are more important than thoughts - everyone is tempted from time to time; it's how one reacts to such temptations that should matter. Again, this is because I believe that one cannot control one's thoughts; what loving God would send people to Hell for thinking the wrong thing when they always were moral in action? (Side note: Does anyone know if there is a thread on thought being considered sin? I've been meaning to propose one... every time I read a Billy Graham column, for example. )I understand that many believe that God is pure and that even the thought of sin makes us unpure and unfit for Heaven, but I simply cannot see a just God condemning us for what is beyond our control.There are many other reasons (the roundabout ways He has of doing things that an omnipotent being should easily be able to do, the reasons for placing the Tree in Eden in the first place, etc.) but they are not as major to me as the above.

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When did you start believing in evolution?

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(Sidenote: Here, the theory of evolution was never even taught in my Biology class! ...That's partially why I post much more in "faith" sections than "science" sections, I simply never learned that much and so only observe so that I can learn, rather than making a complete fool of myself. )I actually started to accept evolution long after I found (for the more "rational" reasons above) that I no longer believed in God. I can't remember much, just that I kind of stumbled onto a creationist website and it was so obvious that they were "quote mining" and using "straw men" that I decided to look into the debate some more, just to find out what it was about. From there I became very interested in the subject matter and, well, here I am. It would be somewhat irrelevant for me even if I had been taught about evolution earlier. While I believe many scientific discoveries to be further evidence against the God of the Bible (as taken literally), they aren't as important to me as the theological issues I've mentioned. I am logic-driven as a person, I think, but I also do believe in things that can't be proved. For example, I believe in an afterlife (or reincarnation) simply because I cannot imagine not existing; there's not evidence, but it is that simple to me. Might be a Sperry left/right brain thing, I always was pretty equal on both (I have a great imagination that I absolutely love and tend to like writing and sketching, but I'm also very good at math or - though I have no technological training - figuring out how the "mind" of a computer works; likewise, I had a tendency to adapt and learn quicker than most other students in school, but I'm completely absentminded and have a weak short-term memory, especially for names).

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Do you think God: a) probably does not exist b) probably does exist c) is unknowable d) it doesn't matter

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Again, pertaining only to the God of the Bible - I'd have to say A is the only one that really applies to me. As far as some of the other gods I've researched (in trying to examine all beliefs objectively), I'd say A or C*, depending.*That is, that it is impossible to know if a god exists or not, not to be confused with "God's ways are unknowable".

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If God should exist, how would you feel about him?

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The fundamentalists' God? I don't know if I could hate Him - I've been trying for so long to convince people that atheists don't hate God, we just believe differently (since people often base their views of atheists on the rebellious teenagers who claim they hate God and are atheists, even though the two are almost opposites in a way), it's kind of hard-coded into my brain. Sounds odd, but it's true... More likely, I would feel pity. A being who has unlimited power and might very well believe it is doing the right thing... but so often is driven by its emotions that it simply ends up acting as someone evil would. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, they say. It seems to me that, emotions considered, the God of the Bible is less of a god, and more of a human with great power, if that makes sense.On the other hand, from what I understand of jar's beliefs from his posts or what I know about Buddhism, I would be joyful upon meeting a god who was accepting and just enough to not judge on one's uncontrollable mind.Sorry for the long post; I'm often accused of being long-winded online (in great contrast to in person: I have problems speaking and generally remain quiet unless something *really* needs to be said, so I guess online I tend to let it all out often).

Wow, I have a lot of posts to reply to... sorry if they are short.Thank you for your reply. Not at all, I enjoyed reading your story.

I have a hard time imagining a God existing and having done what he's done without the characteristics of the Christian God.

Thank you for your reply Ifen. I believe: "All scripture is God-breathed and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness, that the man of God might be matured, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." "The word of God is alive and powerful sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and the spirit, the joints and the marrow, and is a critic of thoughts and intents of the heart."I have to admit that "doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness," does not include gaining scientific knowledge. There are things I question about the both scientific and religious paradigms and the connections between them.... I've got a lot of different ideas floating around in my head right now... lol I generally agree with this, but I give language and understanding a little more credit than you do.

Thanks for the recommendation. I read a good short little book recently called, "The Luminous Web" written from a more Christian perspective, but it made me realize that myself and other Christians are guilty of trying to force God's actions into the unexplainable or the audacious. I do agree about keeping the door of knowledge open. After participating in this thread, I only realize how much I don't know about anything.

Thank you for your response. Unless he(they) allowed us to. Oh don't worry about that, I don't think anything could ever stop me from believing in God.

Hangdawg,Thanks for the reply. I know you give it more credit than I do. This is one of the most fundamental areas of difference I suspect between the western and what I have been calling the eastern viewpoints and approaches to religion and spirituality.Wittgenstein is a western philospher of course and there is Alfred Korzybski and really think of the assumptions of modern physics, all of these point to the limits that our systems of representation have in dealing with what is true.Our ego function relies to a great degree on language and I think that is what makes language so important to our sense of security. Language and mathematics are wonderful systems that certainly aid our interactions with the world in culture and technology. But looking at the universe, quantum mechanics, gravity, etc it is obvious to me and using a deistic language here, that God did not use language to construct the universe. God might have used mathematics though.Yet these religious stories were written by peoples who had only a rudimentary concept of arithmetic and some geometry. Language was a big deal to them and my assertion is they projected this back on to the universe.lfen

I see what you are saying...What I am thinking, I guess, is that the only way we can really truly think and learn is with words. When you think in your mind, you usually think in terms of vocabulary and sometimes even grammatical structures. I think language is important in imparting knowledge and understanding to us, but there comes a point when we metabolize that knowledge into wisdom that words do fail. When we completely re-shape our perceptions with knowledge metabolized into wisdom, many times language fails to describe our perceptions. I agree... many times passages in the Bible will ascribe a human characteristic or emotion to God in order to impart some knowledge about Him to others... however this knowledge is incomplete. It must be metabolized in the Spirit in which it was written, God's Spirit, in order to be properly translated into the un-utterable meanings (groanings of the Spirit), or the ideas that words fail to completely communicate.