Why did you turn away from God?

[headheart]

<snip> But you never know.

You seem to be in a receptive state of mind, and God knows perhaps you will yet be surprised by joy.

[RBerman]

I understand your position here but I recognise it (as do you) as a position of faith. That is, You have faith that God is good and wise no matter what His actions as related in the Bible appear to be. For me as an 'outside' I must read and evaluate the actions of God in the Bible just as I do any other portrayal of God in any other sacred literature. You have decided not to 'pass judgement' on the Biblical God but I suspect that hasn't stopped you passing judgement on other versions of God found elsewhere.

Yes, you are quite correct. I judge other portrayals of God against the one in which I have chosen to put my trust.

[RBerman]

No. What we must then decide is whether we ought to believe everything that the men who wrote the Bible believed about God. The only daring involved in that is daring to do our own thinking instead of letting certain other people do it for us.

See post #102. The Bible's reliability is an article of faith for Christians, not a theory that we seek to prove or disprove. Is that a problem? We all take some position as an article of faith.

[headheart]

But I do agree with your underlying premise. God, as depicted in the Bible, regularly does things that can make us say, "Huh?" We then must decide if we dare put ourselves in the position to attempt to pass judgment on God.

I have great hesitation in passing judgment on God. I have little hesitation in passing judgment on a particular description or account of God.

Fair enough. But if I accept the Bible as an authority (as I do) and I judge that the Bible teaches some specific thing (e.g. that God treats Adam as the federal head of mankind, resulting in judgment upon the whole race), then I consider that the end of my "passing judgment" upon what God is like, and the beginning of my trusting God that he is good and wise.

I understand your position here but I recognise it (as do you) as a position of faith. That is, You have faith that God is good and wise no matter what His actions as related in the Bible appear to be. For me as an 'outside' I must read and evaluate the actions of God in the Bible just as I do any other portrayal of God in any other sacred literature. You have decided not to 'pass judgement' on the Biblical God but I suspect that hasn't stopped you passing judgement on other versions of God found elsewhere.

Yes, you are quite correct. I judge other portrayals of God against the one in which I have chosen to put my trust.

I can appreciate your decision not to pass judgement on God, but what about when it comes to the matter of endless torment? ( without being dishonest )

'Let me say at the outset that I consider the concept of hell as endless torment in body and mind an outrageous doctrine, a theological and moral enormity, a bad doctrine of the tradition which needs to be changed. How can Christians possibly project a deity of such cruelty and vindictiveness whose ways include inflicting everlasting torture upon his creatures, however sinful they may have been. Surely a God who wold do such a thing is more nearly like Satan than like God, at least by any ordinary moral standards and by the gospel itself .... Does the one who told us to love our enemies intend to wreak vengeance on his own enemies for all eternity? As H. Kung appropriately asks, "What would we think of a human being who satisfied his thirst for revenge so implacably and insatiably?" .... [E]verlasting torment is intolerable from a moral point of view because it makes God into a blood-thirsty monster who maintains an everlasting Auschwitz for victims whom he does not even allow to die.'

Pinnock, "The Destruction of the Finally Impenitent," 246-47, 253. Similarly, Michael Green, Evangelicalism Through The Local Church (Nashville: Nelson, 1992), writes of this "doctrine of such savagery" (73)

By constrast, John Stott, who like Pinnock defends conditional immortality, does so with much more caution:

'I find the concept [of eternal conscious punishment in hell] intolerable and do not understand how people can live with it without either cauterizing their feelings or cracking under the strain. But our emotions are a fluctuating, unreliable guide to truth and must not be exalted to the place of supreme authority in determing it. As a committed Evangelical, my question must be -- and is -- not what does my heart tell me, but what does God's word say?

Edwards and Stott, Essentials

Sincerely,
Eric J. Sawyer

[little_monkey]

I disagree, it depends on how you define 'existence.'

Can you give one that ISN'T circular?

The investigation and understanding of our reality does not end here, unless you are a hardcore materialist and atheist, but it is a good starting point.

Isn't that speculation?

[shunyadragon]

Can you give one that ISN'T circular?

simply the physical existence that we can investigate using objective methods. To define things in this way would not be circular.

Circular would be a type of philosophical argument where the premise of the argument defines the conclusion. The only conclusions based on objective methods is the falsification of hypothesis and theories and determining their predictability.

Isn't that speculation?

No, check your definition of speculation.

[little_monkey]

simply the physical existence that we can investigate using objective methods. To define things in this way would not be circular.

I guess you can't.

No, check your definition of speculation.

Speculation = Reasoning based on inconclusive evidence.

[shunyadragon]

I guess you can't.




Speculation = Reasoning based on inconclusive evidence.

OK definition. Not speculation. I prefer 'A conclusion, opinion, or theory reached by conjecture.' The objective methods used to understand our 'physical evidence' is not based on 'reasoning based on inconclusive evidence.' It is based on a process of falsification and predictability which avoids conclusions based on inconclusive evidence or conjecture.

Just a comment on the the thread title.

Atheists and most agnostics do not turn away from something they do not believe in. It is like being in a universe where there is claimed to be something beyond what we can know objectively. It may be out there anywhere. You could not possibly turn away from it.

[Doug Shaver]

The Bible's reliability is an article of faith for Christians

Meaning what? Meaning you say to yourselves, "On this particular issue, we can't be wrong"?

When you say to skeptics, "The Bible is reliable," are you, at that moment, infallible?

[apophenia]

"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought
as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

1 Corinthians 13:11


The roots of my "coming to godlessness" are buried in my childhood and adolescence
and I no longer clearly remember. I know that like religious conversion, deconversion can
range from instantaneous conversions, occurring over a short period of time -- whether
provoked by a cause (a book, an experience, a person) or not -- to deconversions that
reflect a slow accumulation of influences and evidences over time (science, theological
paradox, emotional reasons, and so on). I can't help but wonder if the bias in this poll
towards "instantaneous deconversions," provoked or not, represents a seeming similar
bias in the nature of conversions to belief in God -- the phenomenon of being "born again"
is paradigmatic in this sense. We see less evidence (or at least less representation)
of people who came to a belief in God as a result of "a slow accumulation of evidences
and reasons for the belief in this specific God". One important exception may be the
case of children, who slowly over years of education and behavior shaping by figures
of unquestioned authority, are led into belief by the acceptance of evidences which they
are either incapable of evaluating critically, or unwilling to because of disincentives. Slowly
over the years, an evidentiary base accrues -- not because it is true, but rather because
it has not been properly evaluated during the process of acquisition. If this is the
case, then belief becomes susceptible to the acquisition of, and application of
the critical faculties to those beliefs. In this case the loss of God results from the
fact that the initial belief was innocently in error, but nature corrected herself.

The point I wish to emphasize is that it may be naive to assume that the
processes of leaving the faith mirror those of entering the faith. The fervent
conversions that occur at an old fashioned revival meeting appear to lack
a corresponding atheistic conversion experience.

I also agree with the above regarding the questionable phrasing of the adoption
of disbelief as a "turning away". Keep in mind that de/conversion includes change
from belief to disbelief, but also moving from on belief to another (e.g. trading
Yahweh for Vishnu). Regardless, "turning away" indicates motion relative to
something. First, the processes which lead to the tipping point wherein faith
is lost are seldom relative to God; is embracing skepticism a motion relative to
God; is the acquisition of critical thinking skills "turning away from God"; is
scientific education; is studying philosophy? The other problem is that
de/conversion is a result of the "disappearance of God" from one's beliefs,
whether this is because of absence, or loss of visibility (apathy, confusion,
over-abundance of believables) -- there is no longer something relative to
which we can move. The result is less a turning away than it is the filling
of a vacuum with something else; nature abhors a vacuum. Turning away
from (a) god yields to turning toward something else (a belief, or another god).
It is a useful observation that conversions are a much more common occurrence
than previously assumed, though most conversions consist of moving from
one conception of God [denomination] to another; it is also worth noting that, iirc,
the percentage of deconversions to atheism as a result of scientific evidences
is only something like 14% [I'll try to locate the study and post a link].

A final note is that when theists look to explain deconversion, they tend to
overlook their own experience. Apostasy and doubt are neither a movement
away from God [except in the kabbalistic sense in which sin/evil are a reflection
of distance from God], nor are they intentional acts. Moreover, frequently
doubt and apostasy come upon us unbidden, unprovoked. Another relevant
experience is that of heresy -- heresy results from the embrace of beliefs
which no longer contain God [e.g. Gnosticism, Marcionism]; de/conversions
can occur from the embracement of ideas which are incompatible with, or
do not include God. When the beliefs in one's head became inconsistent
or incoherent, something has to give.

One last point is a problem of biology. Different factors, pathological and
normal, create enhanced sensitivity to finding meaning in religious things.
As a person with a mood disorder, I am acutely aware that I have gone
through episodes wherein the truth of a particular religion seemed
abnormally compelling. Lasting a few days to a few weeks, these types
of experience can wreak profound changes to a person's belief structure,
and they come totally unbidden. There is a neurological disorder where
"the perception of things as being religiously significant" is on permanent
overdrive. (Could this explain the Old Testament prophets? Maybe.)
I know that I personally have nearly converted to Buddhism multiple times.

Even as a person who constantly monitors my own behavior
(a skill required of living with a mood disorder; a learned behavior), I was
unaware that I was in such a period of heightened sensitivity while it was
going on. I can see where a person of normal insight might be "biologically
induced" into a religious conversion. We're all aware of similar such effects
where altered states are concerned, yet fade quickly after the state passes.
How many people convert under unusual circumstances only to quickly lose
interest once the moment passes. Who among us has not had a profound
late night discussion about God -- does lack of sleep contribute to the apparent
profundity? (Witches on trial during medieval times were commonly deprived
of sleep for long periods of time, the frequent result being a full confession.)

The point is that religious perception is conditioned by reason, but it
is also conditioned by biological forces which we do not control, and
may be largely unaware of. Insight into the source of our emotions and
behavior varies widely from person to person, and also among the different
facets of behavior within oneself.

Da. I'm done for now.

[apophenia]

Originally posted by Laffy_taffy Let's say someone asked you the question "do you believe in god."? If you cannot answer affirmatively "yes, I believe in god", then you are by definition an atheist in regards to belief.

Nonsense. If someone asks if you believe a dog is living in the house next door, you could say "I don't know." That doesn't mean by definition you believe no dog is there. It just means you don't know.

This is a compelling objection except for the fact that it equivocates on the meaning of atheism. Laffy_taffy used
one definition (absence of belief in a god), and you used another (denial of the existence of gods); this is the
standard difference between weak atheism and strong atheism. You may be right that agnostics do not qualify
as strong atheists, but your argument doesn't really address the charge of weak atheism among agnostics.

[apophenia]

The Christian god-excuse me-the Jewish god-supports one people above all others in the Old Testament, which indicates that Jehovah was a tribal god originally and was simply given a new role by the founders of Christianity, who didn't want their religion to look like any other Johnny-come-lately cult. The founders tacked their scant scribblings (the NT) onto Jewish holy writings (the OT) and-presto-they had a thick, ancient book of authority they could wave around in front of illiterate, credulous people's faces as the "Word of God" to give themselves and their cult a bogus credibility.

I'm not sure I can swallow this whole but I think there is a real sense in which Judaism, Christianity,
Islam, Baha'i faith (debatably) are nothing more than variations on a theme, all believing in a supreme
divine presence but differing on the details of the nature and history of the progressive revelation
of the presence/god's truth. Each maintains that they hold unique claim to a monopoly on truth,
but re your sense, derive credibility from their shared core, with the truth of Judaism supporting
the truths of Christianity, Christianity those of Islam and so on. It works in reverse too.

One thing I think many believers may be unaware of is how fractured Christianity is. It's common to
think only in terms of Protestant and Catholic, but the faith is divided into many such factions differing
on which books they believe are canon and core theological ideas. They range from all the denominations
of Protestantism, to Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox, Samaritanism, Ethiopian Orthodox and probably
many that I'm not aware of. The landscape of Yahweh/Allah development is littered with cults which
split from the main stream and then specialized in isolation. In (gG)od belief, schism appears to be the
norm and not the exception.

[apophenia]

Though I am not going to go into detail here, I will never forget her words. 'I prayed that my Daddy would come back, and he never did, so I don't believe in God any more.' It's a reasonable enough conclusion, and pretty hard to explain that God does not answer certain prayers, for some of the reasons, in point 3 & 4.

I may be a heathen but I think perhaps the ultimate reward of prayer is that it brings us closer to god,
rather than that it brings about the fulfillment of our desires.

Then again, I haven't thought about it much, and read even less of what is written in the Old and New Testament.
I am a prayer theology novice.

[apophenia]

So you made your argrment deliberately circular.

Nevertheless only existence is self existent, nothing else is self existent. Do you agrree or disagree?

This kind of ties in with some free will talk on another thread. According to the cosmological argument for God,
God is the only uncaused cause -- all other existents being contingent on a prior cause. However many free will
theorists contend that the choices we make are not the product of deterministic causes. The action of our will
causes things, but it itself is not caused. There is a blurring of categories here, but this kind of undetermined
determiner seems to be not a unique property of God.

Positing that the universe is an uncaused cause seems at first gander to be as ad hoc a solution to the
problem of existence as that of God as an uncaused cause. But there may be a more plausible rationale.
I'm not sure of the physics, but in terms of modern cosmology, it is believed that the universe is finite
but unbounded. This means that while there is no "end of the universe", there is not an infinite amount
of universe. In general relativity, time is just another dimension; if time is finite but unbounded like the
other dimensions, there may be no "before the beginning of time" and yet only a limited amount of
time has passed.

My physics knowledge is limited to watching Nova on PBS, so I may be totally whack on this.
I would be delighted to hear an informed opinion on this.

[Roy]

You could have fleshed out your first point, 'I looked' a bit more.
It's exactly where 1 John 1, Luke 1 and Romans 1, begin.

Allow me to illustrate my point, by presenting you with some words, in the contemporary language form, ....for you to 'look' at. ( Please do not regard this as a Bible pounding exercise. )

Eric,
I already know that lots of other people believe that a god exists. I also know that their beliefs are sufficiently incompatible that most of them must be mistaken. Pointing to the opinions of one of those groups as evidence of the existence of a god is futile. I've also already read most of the bible, so you're not showing me anything I haven't already taken into account.

If that wasn't a bible pounding exercise, what would be?

Roy