Agnostics slowly edging toward being religious. - There isn't a god, I guess?

[BiggerChungus]

Believing the Lord is different from being religious. "Spiritual" has dumb connotations to wiccans and shit, but I'd say it's the term that defines me best. Religion is a man-made institution, all religion, and with few exceptions has always driven us further away from the Lord and the truth He spoke to us through His Son. Faith isn't an easy to thing to keep and saying "just look around you lol" isn't a good enough argument for God's existence, but I do feel if you look close enough, you'll find that proof within yourself and within what you see. The outrageous evil being perpetrated in this world, pushed either by those who say there is no God, or who follow corrupt man-made institutions (Catholicism and Islam especially) stands itself, in my view anyway, as proof of supreme good existing, and the powers of evil being desperately aggressive to make people think otherwise. The world and the universe are far bigger and more intricate than any of us can possibly comprehend, and while that alone isn't definitive proof of God, it stands as proof as well - again, in my view - that to write it all off as simple, easily-understood science is foolish. We see enough evidence of science's failings and follies every day.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

SkyNet, if/when it exists, would probably only nuke Africa, then it would completely shut down the West and attempt to save the rest of us from niggers.

Would it nuke Africa or America? It's looking for the source of niggers, after all.

 

[Sneed IV]

I've been an atheist for many years now and my only contention with the topic has always been successfully pulling off "The Translation of all Values". For as smart as you feel looking at the Universe and realizing "God not real lmao", humans have spent thousands of years looking at the Universe through a variety of different lenses and trying to find meaning for themselves and establish their own place in the world, and it's pretty short sighted to disregard religion entirely just because you think their core premise is wrong. Even if it is the case, there's a reason why all societies have some level of spirituality.

I need to point out that being an atheist and being religious are related, but different questions. There are atheistic religions. Me personally, I'm an atheist, an empiricist and non-religious. I also believe that religion and ideology serve basically the same psychological and social purpose, which is why people with all encompassing ideologies are religious. Communists are religious.

I respect Christianity as it is - though not the only one - one of the pillars of Western civilization, and I am a strict Western supremacist. I think most mainstream Christian theology has been incredibly solid in establishing a functional groundwork for how our morality operates and I don't wanna go around preaching the good word of Empiricism to everybody while both me and basically every self proclaimed atheist on Earth still needs to work on an ideological replacement to fill the void. Societies cannot cun on materialistic nihilism.

Overall I wouldn't say I've been edging towards believing, I still entirely lack personal faith. That being said I have spent more and more time interacting with both Christians and other religious people who are better than my IRL peers at defending their position, so i've grown to respect religion more.

 

[All Cops Are Based]

High IQ people were retards to reject religion and let the low IQ people run wild.

Middling IQ people who see themselves as high IQ rejected religion.
Atheism is midwit tier. It's sandwiched in the IQ curve by idiots with religious beliefs and geniuses/high IQ sociopaths etc with religious (or at least some sort of occult) beliefs.

 

[Esau]

Oh fuck off. I’m sick of this “you have to have religion to know right from wrong” bullshit. It’s called empathy and I don’t need god to give that to me.

Your empathy and virtues are certainly genuine, and they aren't invalidated by unbelief. However, the Holy Ghost has certainly entered you, through virtue's sake itself. EX: Romans 2:14, St. Augustine speaking to Christ through his mother and Ambrose.

Of Free Will they teach that man’s will has some liberty to choose civil righteousness, and to work things subject to reason. But it has no power, without the Holy Ghost, to work the righteousness of God, that is, spiritual righteousness; since the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, 1 Cor. 2:14; but this righteousness is wrought in the heart when the Holy Ghost is received through the Word. These things are said in as many words by Augustine in his Hypognosticon, Book III: We grant that all men have a free will, free, inasmuch as it has the judgment of reason; not that it is thereby capable, without God, either to begin, or, at least, to complete aught in things pertaining to God, but only in works of this life, whether good or evil. “Good” I call those works which spring from the good in nature, such as, willing to labor in the field, to eat and drink, to have a friend, to clothe oneself, to build a house, to marry a wife, to raise cattle, to learn diverse useful arts, or whatsoever good pertains to this life. For all of these things are not without dependence on the providence of God; yea, of Him and through Him they are and have their being. “Evil” I call such works as willing to worship an idol, to commit murder, etc.

-Augsburg Confession, Article XVIII

Believing the Lord is different from being religious. "Spiritual" has dumb connotations to wiccans and shit, but I'd say it's the term that defines me best. Religion is a man-made institution, all religion, and with few exceptions has always driven us further away from the Lord and the truth He spoke to us through His Son. Faith isn't an easy to thing to keep and saying "just look around you lol" isn't a good enough argument for God's existence, but I do feel if you look close enough, you'll find that proof within yourself and within what you see. The outrageous evil being perpetrated in this world, pushed either by those who say there is no God, or who follow corrupt man-made institutions (Catholicism and Islam especially) stands itself, in my view anyway, as proof of supreme good existing, and the powers of evil being desperately aggressive to make people think otherwise. The world and the universe are far bigger and more intricate than any of us can possibly comprehend, and while that alone isn't definitive proof of God, it stands as proof as well - again, in my view - that to write it all off as simple, easily-understood science is foolish. We see enough evidence of science's failings and follies every day.

Jaques Ellul was right when he supposed that Chrirstianity is inherently anti-religious. Your mystical views are quite admirable. I've seen you post numerous times regarding spirituality, and I think that I may have even replied to a few of those posts. You're a good poster, and you seem to actually know the characteristics of the Invisible Church.

 

[Sneed IV]

It's just straight up wrong to say atheism is "midwit shit" but if you're a religious person, I'm actually going to be generous and give you a counter you can use that's much better.

Though the relation between religiosity and general intelligence seems to be extremely mildly inversely negative, it's pretty much undeniable that intellectuals have a universally lower religiosity than the general population. Even all the way back in the 90's a poll of the American National Academy of Sciences pulled a 7% belief in God, and this is in the United States, which is definitely one of the most religious Western countries.

Anyway, that doesn't matter because being smart and being correct are different things. Ever since the Managerial Revolution kicked off that intellectuals have fucking ruined society in more ways than one. Just because you're smart doesn't mean your opinion on any topic is automatically more valid.

So while it seems to be the case that general intelligence correlates with irreligiosity, I don't think that's a point against religious belief necessarily because 1) in an ideal world - and this was the consensus in the Christian world for a long time - matters of intellect and matters of morality are supposed to be separate disciplines and religion and science had mutually exclusive but complementary domains, and 2) being smart is overrated as fuck.

 

[Terrorist]

Agnostics slowly edging..."I just can't know if my orgasm is real or not, man!"

 

[Ultrapenguin]

The line usually drawn between the religious and the secular is completely arbitrary, so it's not even possible to answer the original prompt.

We're irrevocably a product of the universe and work in concert with it through everything we do. Nothing can happen without its cooperation. I'd say in the end we return back to it, but we never left it to begin with.

I think humility is, or at least should be, the hallmark of religion, and therefore how "religious" one is purely comes down to how appreciative they are of the process of existence.

Why shouldn't pedophiles rape little kids then? Their emotions are that they feel happy when they rape small children. Who are you to condemn what their fee-fees tell them they should do? You can say that their actions make you unhappy and that you will try to stop them with force as a result, but you have no moral basis on which to judge them, no authority to say that they shouldn't do that.

Yeah gangwee, that's correct, one doesn't have the moral authority to condemn them...so what's your point?

This may seem alien to you, but not everyone is a weakling of insecure character and fragile ego, and therefore they're happy to believe or feel things and act on them without needing to be pat on the back and reassured they're morally righteous for doing so. Only fags need that.

Might makes right, so communal consensus is what dictates correctness. You can imagine you're right all you want, but unless people who hold the opinion you do are on average stronger or more numerous, that's all it is, imagination and coping. You can be "on the right side of history" along with all those Twitter users.

Maybe I'm not morally right for disliking the people I dislike. The world isn't a storybook, nobody ever said I had to be the good guy.

 

[soy_king]

I still consider myself to be agnostic because in the absence of any compelling evidence in either direction, I consider it to be the most rational and empirical position to take. I can appreciate the importance of having faith and trying to live your life according to a guiding principle, but I don't believe that you need a supernatural element for that. At the same time, I recognize that the collapse of religiosity in the West has been a net negative, with the replacement of Christianity with much worse religious beliefs like Marxism, or worse yet, by general nihilism and a feeling of spiritual emptiness.

 

[gang weeder]

Question successfully dodged.

What question? This one?

How did humans know right from wrong before your deity of choice published their holy book?

Cause this is a really shitty gotcha attempt. People have always believed in metaphysical forces that exist beyond the scope of our physical perception. Religion is a human universal and inescapable.

We as humans have agreed over millennia what is acceptable and what is not, and we crafted it through empathy. Empathy for victims is the basis for many laws and most people excluding psychopaths and sociopaths agree on these things.

No we haven't lol. You yourself pointed out right here that some people don't agree with even the most basic standards such as "murder is wrong." Human moral standards can shift wildly between different cultures and over relatively short spans of time, i.e. faggotry going from controversial to worshiped as a quasi-religion in a couple of decades. Even if you somehow did have universal agreement on standards of behavior, according to your viewpoint, it still does not mean the behavior is right or wrong, it just means that it is what everyone's feelings tell them feels good. Usually, we as human beings recognize that there is often a disconnect between what feels good and what is right or wrong, but you're literally arguing that there is none.

Therefore, agency doesn't exist, choice and free will doesn't exist, logic and persuasion don't really exist, everyone is just a meat puppet pulled along on strings by their fee-fees, not really "alive" any more than a rock is, the only difference being that we have a really complex material composition that enables us to move around and do stuff on our own. If this is truly what you believe, you can't judge anyone for believing in the sky daddy because they literally can't help it. The fee-fees make them feel like there's a sky daddy and that's what makes them feel good so that's just what they're going to think regardless of reality. And since nothing matters except fee-fees your own viewpoint on the matter is beyond irrelevant to anyone else. There's nothing you can do about it except sneed and dilate.

The line usually drawn between the religious and the secular is completely arbitrary, so it's not even possible to answer the original prompt.

We're irrevocably a product of the universe and work in concert with it through everything we do. Nothing can happen without its cooperation. I'd say in the end we return back to it, but we never left it to begin with.

I think humility is, or at least should be, the hallmark of religion, and therefore how "religious" one is purely comes down to how appreciative they are of the process of existence.


Yeah gangwee, that's correct, one doesn't have the moral authority to condemn them...so what's your point?

This may seem alien to you, but not everyone is a weakling of insecure character and fragile ego, and therefore they're happy to believe or feel things and act on them without needing to be pat on the back and reassured they're morally righteous for doing so. Only fags need that.

Might makes right, so communal consensus is what dictates correctness. You can imagine you're right all you want, but unless people who hold the opinion you do are on average stronger or more numerous, that's all it is, imagination and coping. You can be "on the right side of history" along with all those Twitter users.

Maybe I'm not morally right for disliking the people I dislike. The world isn't a storybook, nobody ever said I had to be the good guy.

Hurt the bad people.

 

[El Gato Grande]

I have been a Christian all my life. I’ve doubted my faith. Naturally I’m writing from a Christian perspective. I’ve ignored following it due to it being too hard. I’ve tried my best to convince myself that God either isn’t real, or is so removed so as to be completely unknowable and detached from human life. I did this all out of an interest to find the truth and follow it, and to live the best life I possibly can.

Now I believe in God more than ever before.

The key to most atheist/agnostic justification is that there’s no explicit evidence of God in the material world (keepers of religious relics and people claiming to have experienced the supernatural say otherwise, but it’s reasonable to give the benefit of the doubt to the atheist side). If you can’t see God, why should you believe in him? Since a sky daddy doesn’t make sense, why should it exist in the real world? This is perfectly sound logic, which is why so many people use it as an areligous bedrock without a second thought. However this idea never appealed to me, because it actually does nothing to argue that God doesn’t exist.

God is an infinitely supreme being. His machinations and true nature are utterly unknowable to people. You can’t understand him, and you could be staring at his face and be utterly oblivious to it. How can mortal, flawed humans judge something unknowable to them? Humans have the ability to perceive and use logic, but our ability to do so is finite. If a child can’t understand the concept of their parents lying to them and sneaking into their room at night, does that mean the Tooth Fairy is real? If my boyfriend breaking up with me leaves me sad and confused, does that mean I’m in the right? Atheists imagine this line of reasoning as a cop out, but it’s what Christians (and many other religions) believe about God. You want to logically deconstruct their ideas, don’t you?

You can’t prove the existence of God, but you can never disprove it either. At this point the argument becomes logically even and becomes more about principles.

Theists give the benefit of the doubt. They believe that God is unknowable, and therefore cannot be put to the rest, yet exists. Either you choose to believe or you don’t—it’s that simple. This is why religion puts so much importance on faith, which critics see as circular logic.

Atheists take the cautious, conservative approach of refusing to consider what they cannot define, and what doesn’t fit in their current worldview. They’re scared of being wrong.

Keep in mind this isn’t about hard science, like math, this is about spirituality.

I doubted my religion because I’m a skeptical person. Yet due to that same skepticism, the atheist worldview seems utterly wrong to me. How shortsighted, ignorant, and careless—even arrogant—would I be to dismiss God’s existence just because I didn’t think I saw him, or even worse, because he didn’t act the way my imperfect ass thought he should? Personally, I think God has plenty of reasons for not showing his face.

Once you apply atheist logic regarding explicit evidence in reverse it becomes an argument between an unstoppable force and an immovable object. This by itself is a very good case for becoming an agnostic (who are also afraid of being wrong), but to me it’s far from the only reason to believe in the Trinity.

(1/3)

 

[The Foxtrot]

Would it nuke Africa or America? It's looking for the source of niggers, after all.

Africa, because that is the source of niggers. When I said it would "shut the rest of the world down", I meant it would take over and cut off vital infrastructure, co-opt it, then reboot it only once the niggers were gone. Meanwhile, people would be incentivized (due to lack of police response) to clean out the ghettoes.

 

[El Gato Grande]

I have been a Christian all my life. I’ve doubted my faith. Naturally I’m writing from a Christian perspective. I’ve ignored following it due to it being too hard. I’ve tried my best to convince myself that God either isn’t real, or is so removed so as to be completely unknowable and detached from human life. I did this all out of an interest to find the truth and follow it, and to live the best life I possibly can.

Now I believe in God more than ever before.

The key to most atheist/agnostic justification is that there’s no explicit evidence of God in the material world (keepers of religious relics and people claiming to have experienced the supernatural say otherwise, but it’s reasonable to give the benefit of the doubt to the atheist side). If you can’t see God, why should you believe in him? Since a sky daddy doesn’t make sense, why should it exist in the real world? This is perfectly sound logic, which is why so many people use it as an areligous bedrock without a second thought. However this idea never appealed to me, because it actually does nothing to argue that God doesn’t exist.

God is an infinitely supreme being. His machinations and true nature are utterly unknowable to people. You can’t understand him, and you could be staring at his face and be utterly oblivious to it. How can mortal, flawed humans judge something unknowable to them? Humans have the ability to perceive and use logic, but our ability to do so is finite. If a child can’t understand the concept of their parents lying to them and sneaking into their room at night, does that mean the Tooth Fairy is real? If my boyfriend breaking up with me leaves me sad and confused, does that mean I’m in the right? Atheists imagine this line of reasoning as a cop out, but it’s what Christians (and many other religions) believe about God. You want to logically deconstruct their ideas, don’t you?

You can’t prove the existence of God, but you can never disprove it either. At this point the argument becomes logically even and becomes more about principles.

Theists give the benefit of the doubt. They believe that God is unknowable, and therefore cannot be put to the rest, yet exists. Either you choose to believe or you don’t—it’s that simple. This is why religion puts so much importance on faith, which critics see as circular logic.

Atheists take the cautious, conservative approach of refusing to consider what they cannot define, and what doesn’t fit in their current worldview. They’re scared of being wrong.

Keep in mind this isn’t about hard science, like math, this is about spirituality.

I doubted my religion because I’m a skeptical person. Yet due to that same skepticism, the atheist worldview seems utterly wrong to me. How shortsighted, ignorant, and careless—even arrogant—would I be to dismiss God’s existence just because I didn’t think I saw him, or even worse, because he didn’t act the way my imperfect ass thought he should? Personally, I think God has plenty of reasons for not showing his face.

Once you apply atheist logic regarding explicit evidence in reverse it becomes an argument between an unstoppable force and an immovable object. This by itself is a very good case for becoming an agnostic (who are also afraid of being wrong), but to me it’s far from the only reason to believe in the Trinity.

(1/3)

Even if God isn’t explicitly present in the world, can his work still be seen? Atheists say no, because only explicit evidence matters, according to their conservative principles. Theists, cult members, and schizos rant about how their children and having gay sex while high on He knows what make them feel the touch of Him. My view falls in between (I still believe in God).

I have no problem believing in evolution of the physical universe. The Bible is not perfect, far from it, as while it can be considered divinely inspired, it is composed and read by mortals. I think humans evolved from apes, which are animals. Yet humans are so strange. Everything we are is from evolution, yet humans act utterly irrationally from an evolutionary standpoint. Why don’t we love exclusively to spread our genes? Why are we not content with safety and physical security? Why do we argue on a gossip site about the metaphysics of the universe? You can make a case that sentience is an accident, and that everything other than guns, germs and steel is an illusion, but it doesn’t make sense to me because humans are too silly to be truly born of those things.

You also have the issue of nature. Many theists believe they perceive God in nature, just as in human “souls”.

To deny this I would need to

1. Reject my own personal observations. Maybe I’m wrong or crazy?
2. Adhere to a logical principle to preserve orthodoxy (in this case thinking only explicit proof of god should not be debunked). Because I’m a skeptical I don’t agree with this.
3. Come up with a debunking argument which is more convincing. (I haven’t. The answer from the physical is that everything exists due to evolution, and that’s it. I don’t see how this conflicts with God’s existence, and it doesn’t explain how mysterious the works and its people really are.)

This makes it harder for me to give assumptions that either God isn’t real, or it’s impossible to recognize the signs of him the benefit of the doubt.

2/3

 

[Neurotypical Mantis]

no im not

 

[9Style]

Even if you don't believe in God. You have to recognize the positive social, cultural, and governmental structures that were based on the principals of the Bible.

Some might say "I don't believe in God and I have good morals." And yet they were already raised in a Judeo-Christian society, which growing, up has these messages imbedded within media and culture. Would their morals be different today if they were raised in a Communist or Islamic society?

 

[BiggerChungus]

I’ve doubted my [Christian] faith.

I want to point out that I and no doubt many others have had doubts. Some of the most devout Christians in history have been ones who discussed their doubts, or were even ardent atheists at one point. I believe in the Kirkegaardian idea that doubt is inherently required for faith; I think he specifically phrased it as "faith without doubt is credulity." I don't know if I'd put it that strongly, but I agree with the sentiment.

While I believe I've felt the Lord in my life more than once, I believe that not being able to directly see or communicate conversationally with Him is part of the point of faith, believing in what you don't know is true. Ultimately, I don't know if the Lord - God - is real, or if His Son - Yeshua - was truly a divine sacrifice. I believe, but I don't know, and if I did know then it wouldn't be faith. It's ultimately a very simple, yet extremely hard test, in my view: to be right with the Lord, all you have to do is believe, and while that sounds simple, it isn't, and that's the whole point. And that's why I've never followed the atheistic argument of "There's no proof, so why believe?" The fact there is no proof is why I believe in the first place. My faith isn't a matter of some desperate "No! I know God is there! I know it for a fact!" thing, but a "You're right, I don't know if God's there, but I choose to believe He is." At least in my opinion, that's what faith means.

If I knew God was there, believing in Him would be no different than believing cows (the dairy kind) exist. Knowing something is extremely easy, believing in something for which you have no evidence for or against is hard, and that's why faith is like a mustard seed. Sounds extremely simple, but it's hard to find and easy to lose. It's also what I feel answers the other common atheistic argument of "If God is real, why doesn't He just show Himself and fix everything?" Because, 1, He did show Himself and our response as the human race was to murder Him, and 2, because what test of character would that be? This world is not His. It's corrupted and doomed by our own wickedness. The world isn't to be saved, it's those in the world who believe on Him that are to be saved. If He were to show Himself (a second time, and more definitively that is), what would that create except "belief" out of convenience for so many people? People who actively partake and promote wickedness and curse Him and those who believe in Him otherwise?

It doesn't require anything to know something, while it requires everything to believe in something, and it's very hard. This is all just my opinion, though.

 

[gang weeder]

Even if you don't believe in God. You have to recognize the positive social, cultural, and governmental structures that were based on the principals of the Bible.

Some might say "I don't believe in God and I have good morals." And yet they were already raised in a Judeo-Christian society, which growing, up has these messages imbedded within media and culture. Would their morals be different today if they were raised in a Communist or Islamic society?

The association between decline in religiosity and decline in basic morals is pretty clear, at least here in The West(tm). When TPTB finally succeeded in convincing large swathes of the population that God is pretty cringe, shit went downhill fast. Again, we're talking like, full embrace of total degeneracy (sodomy, transsexuality, etc.) within 10-20 years. That's incredible if you think about it, just how fast and how hard our culture's shit hit the fan. That's what you get when you have this nihilistic "it's all subjective, nothing matters, do whatever you want" philosophy, because under that mindset there is no check at all on people to stop them from indulging fully in all their sickest impulses.

 

[BiggerChungus]

The association between decline in religiosity and decline in basic morals is pretty clear, at least here in The West(tm). When TPTB finally succeeded in convincing large swathes of the population that God is pretty cringe, shit went downhill fast. Again, we're talking like, full embrace of total degeneracy (sodomy, transsexuality, etc.) within 10-20 years. That's incredible if you think about it, just how fast and how hard our culture's shit hit the fan. That's what you get when you have this nihilistic "it's all subjective, nothing matters, do whatever you want" philosophy, because under that mindset there is no check at all on people to stop them from indulging fully in all their sickest impulses.

Whether you believe in the complete truth of the Bible or not, it's undeniable that doing or allowing the shit it says not to do or allow, things get really, really bad fast. That's been demonstrable and I don't think it's total coincidence.

 

[L50LasPak]

I've accepted the idea of Hellfire and damnation.

Everything else is probably nonsense tho.

 

[Die Oberste Direktive]

Whether you believe in the complete truth of the Bible or not, it's undeniable that doing or allowing the shit it says not to do or allow, things get really, really bad fast. That's been demonstrable and I don't think it's total coincidence.

Eating shrimp has doomed us all.

"`Of all the creatures living in the water of the seas and the streams, you may eat any that have fins and scales.10But all creatures in the seas or streams that do not have fins and scales--whether among all the swarming things or among all the other living creatures in the water--you are to detest."

Sarcasm aside, I feel like there is a good point in there.

Morality itself is having a set of beliefs, and to say you believe in nothing and to have morality is a contradiction. If you look at animals closely related to humans, without the capacity for higher consciousness, they rape and murder each other without a second thought. Trying to deny that is to regress back to those animalistic tendencies. "Holy texts" were made to clearly lay out a morality to follow and it differs in all religions. Which one is correct and true is less important than which one helps a person be a productive member of society. When you take that into consideration its pretty clear which morality is the most constructive in terms of building a functioning society.