Hi guys, thank you for your questions. Since you both asked why I left my faith I will start with ixoye_8's questions and then get to that.
By faith I do mean belief in a God or any supernatural elements to the universe.
I was a Christian, yes. I was raised in the Lutheran church. I attended Sunday School and vacation Bible study in my childhood and completed the requisite classes to be confirmed in the Lutheran church when I was a teenager. I was very active for many years. I am now 22 and left when I was maybe 17. I continue to read the Bible. Even if you don't consider it a historical message or the absolute word of God, it is one of the most important works ever written (from a cultural/literary perspective).
Leaving my religion didn't happen all at once like it does for some. When I was in my early teens I started questioning the idea of a church. I thought it was bizarre that we were expected to celebrate God en masse. I was convinced that I could do so just as effectively in my own house. I was still devoted to the Christian God, I just became skeptical of organized religion. It's not that I thought it was suspicious, I just didn't understand what its purpose was.
Later on, I became somewhat suspicious of the Bible. I'm not going to point out contradictions in the Bible because I think that's taking cheap shots; There is something in the Bible everyone can use for their own purposes. Ultimately though, this was the beginning of the end. It sort of opened the floodgates. The first thing I said to myself was "it seems rather unlikely that the world in 6,000 years old, as the Bible claims it to be". Then things sort of started to unravel in my hands. If I considered one part of the Bible untrue, then it seemed odd to me that I should accept the rest of it 'on faith', if you'll excuse the expression.
Ultimately, I decided that "why not believe it?" was the wrong question. "Why believe it?" seemed to me the rational way to consider things. I don't have a good reason for not believing in unicorns. I cannot prove that they don't exist. They may be invisible, they may be incredibly rare. To me that's not a good reason to assume that they DO exist. If you came to my house and informed me that there was a unicorn in my backyard, I would look out the window and say "no there is not". If you were to ask me why I don't believe that there was one out there, I would tell you that I don't see one. You could tell me that he was invisible, you could tell me he galloped away. And you may be right. But I still would still be skeptical that this was the case.
There are some Atheists that think that they know FOR SURE that there is not a God. I am not one of them. In the above example, I would not be able to say at 100% certainty that the unicorn was not there. I would, however, be able to say that there's no basis on which for me to suspect that he had been, and I was therefore maybe 99.99% sure he was not. This is the way I feel about God. Can I prove that he doesn't exist? Certainly not. I can't prove that God doesn't exist any more than I can prove unicorns don't exist than I can prove that there is not a teapot orbiting the Earth than I can prove Johnny Depp is not taking a nap under your futon at this very moment. However, I am deeply skeptical that any of these things are true.
Ultimately, to me, Atheism is the default. No one has said "Here's why you SHOULD believe that there is a God" and given me a satisfactory answer. Even if they had convinced me that there is a God, I daresay they would next have to answer why I should believe in the Christian god or Muslim god or whatever faith they were advocating and that this would be an even more difficult task.
I hope I'm not misunderstood. I'm not saying that a logical person can't rationally arrive at religion. I'm not that conceited. I believe that people should arrive at their own conclusions. I simply think that every human being must follow their OWN logic and I saw fit to follow mine, and this is where it lead me.
So, Ixoye_8, I will take you up on your offer and ask you a question of my own. For what reason do you believe in God? And why your God specifically?
Hi there Matt! I find your posts quite interesting. I am a Christian, once an Atheist, and I'm a man who prides myself on being openminded. I also do not believe that there is absolute proof for anything available to mankind (except that one can 100% acknowledge their own existence i.e. I think, therefore I am).
Ultimately, to me, Atheism is the default. No one has said "Here's why you SHOULD believe that there is a God" and given me a satisfactory answer. Even if they had convinced me that there is a God, I daresay they would next have to answer why I should believe in the Christian god or Muslim god or whatever faith they were advocating and that this would be an even more difficult task.
You hit the nail on the head brother, and I couldn't agree with you more. Honestly, if you grew up on a tropical island with no outside or cultural influences, why even consider the possibility that a creator existed, or that anything was created at all? So yes, I completely agree that Atheism is the default, and the first question that any religious pilgrim must ask is if there exists a higher power at all. That belief
must be affirmed before any other questions can be firmly answered.
That being said, I think it's logical to conclude that the existence of God cannot be conclusively proven to exist or not to exist 100%.
During my pilgrimage (if you'll indulge the archaic reference) towards defining truth, I decided to establish the agreed concepts that creationists and non-creationists agree on. Then I decided to examine the opposing arguments and follow each argument to conclusion to see which would pull more weight logically.
For better or for worse, right or wrong, I've come to believe in the authenticity of the Bible. I realize that
anything that anyone believes (aside from believing in one's own existence)
must be partially based on assumption, including my own beliefs. Here are some of the reasons why I believe the things that I do:
I have observed that nature seems (by my own perceptions) to be much too complicated and advanced to have come together through evolution, no matter how long it had to accomplish these tasks. I have assumed that my perception is clear while examining nature.
I also noticed that unbiased historical records seem to indicate some prophetic/supernatural events that are in line with the Bible
. I have assumed that those historical records (and the authors that reported them) are trustworthy.
I've noticed that there seems to abound records about the incredible feats of power and prophecy that Jesus reportedly performed. Some records seem to merely make mention of it, while others condemn his power as sorcery. Curiously enough though, I have never found records that claim that he did not have power. To believe this evidence, I am forced to assume that documents denying Jesus' power were never found, mentioned, or they were destroyed if they existed. We also must assume that the historians who authenticate the documents that assert his power were trustworthy to authenticate them.
Probably the most fascinating thing for me was noticing that certain (seemingly far fetched, unorthodox, and previously un-provable) scientific principles are noted several times in the Bible, which is presumably agreed upon to be dated long before these principles were actually proven. This evidence requires us to assume that these scientific principles truly were unknown until they were reportedly discovered recently, or that the Bible didn't get extreeeeeeemly lucky. For me, this type of evidence is the easiest to believe, although I understand that other people will feel differently on the matter.
So anyways, now that you know a bit about me and my beliefs Matt, I do have one question for you......
I realize that every action that we take in life is motivated by desire and emotion. So which desire and/or emotion is driving you to prompt questions in a Christian forum? Please know that this question is out of curiosity only, and is not baited or pointed.
