So I occasionally wander to another theology forum, and found this encouraging from one of their resident atheists,
I’d just like to explain the five main reasons why I changed my mind about religion.
5- Many of my foundational arguments were much weaker than I had suspected. was initially convinced that the Bible was plagiarised from Pagan myths, filled with scientific errors (true) and bad morality. Whilst I never outright denied the existence of Jesus (nor did I believe the Catholic Church taught the Earth was flat or that Hitler was motivated by Christianity, or that Christianity was unevocqually pro-slavery), I did believe elements of his story were taken from earlier pagan deities such as Mithras and Krishna (I was aware that the Horus stuff was a load of BS however). I later of course discovered this was completely wrong.
4- Realising atheists do not have the monopoly on truth, as they think they do. This is linked to the first point. Thanks to Tim O’Neill, Ben Stanhope and others I have realised the hypocritical promotion of junk historical theories by almost the entire movement. Whilst it does not convince me of God, it certainly means that I will never again associate my self with the movement of New Atheism.
3- I do see evidence for some form of design. I find it hard to see how the laws which govern the universe could have came about through naturalism.
2- Christianity and Judaism are the only two religions I have seen which give some form of explanation for ‘why’ God would go through the trouble of creation. After reading John Walton’s Lost World, I’m convinced it is to function as a temple to him.
1- Perhaps the most important reason for me is realising how foundational Christianity is to liberal, western values. New Atheists do not like to hear it, but our ideas on Liberty, Dignity and Equality do have a greater basis in Christianity than anything else. I’m in no way suggesting that you can’t be good without God, you can, but we can’t expect everbody to intellectually rationalise things. I feel as though eventually, as western countries lose their foundational values through secularism, we will inevitably turn to chaos.
There you go, that is the reason why 2017 was the year I changed my mind, probably for good.
5- Many of my foundational arguments were much weaker than I had suspected. was initially convinced that the Bible was plagiarised from Pagan myths, filled with scientific errors (true) and bad morality. Whilst I never outright denied the existence of Jesus (nor did I believe the Catholic Church taught the Earth was flat or that Hitler was motivated by Christianity, or that Christianity was unevocqually pro-slavery), I did believe elements of his story were taken from earlier pagan deities such as Mithras and Krishna (I was aware that the Horus stuff was a load of BS however). I later of course discovered this was completely wrong.
4- Realising atheists do not have the monopoly on truth, as they think they do. This is linked to the first point. Thanks to Tim O’Neill, Ben Stanhope and others I have realised the hypocritical promotion of junk historical theories by almost the entire movement. Whilst it does not convince me of God, it certainly means that I will never again associate my self with the movement of New Atheism.
3- I do see evidence for some form of design. I find it hard to see how the laws which govern the universe could have came about through naturalism.
2- Christianity and Judaism are the only two religions I have seen which give some form of explanation for ‘why’ God would go through the trouble of creation. After reading John Walton’s Lost World, I’m convinced it is to function as a temple to him.
1- Perhaps the most important reason for me is realising how foundational Christianity is to liberal, western values. New Atheists do not like to hear it, but our ideas on Liberty, Dignity and Equality do have a greater basis in Christianity than anything else. I’m in no way suggesting that you can’t be good without God, you can, but we can’t expect everbody to intellectually rationalise things. I feel as though eventually, as western countries lose their foundational values through secularism, we will inevitably turn to chaos.
There you go, that is the reason why 2017 was the year I changed my mind, probably for good.
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