I have renounced atheism: I now believe in God!

by Awakened at Gilead 42 Replies latest jw experiences

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  Deputy Dog

  A @ G

  Your god is what you worship.

  Look's like Calvin is right.

  Someone has an active idol factory.

  From this we may gather that man's nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols. . . . So it goes. Man's mind, full as it is of pride and boldness, dares to imagine a god according to its own capacity; as it sluggishly plods, indeed is overwhelmed with the crassest ignorance, it conceives an unreality and an empty appearance as God.

  To these evils a new wickedness joins itself, that man tries to express in his work the sort of God he has inwardly conceived. Therefore the mind begets an idol; the hand gives its birth. . . . Daily experience teaches that flesh is always uneasy until it has obtained some figment like itself in which it may fondly find solace as in an image of God. In almost every age since the beginning of the world, men, in order that they might obey this blind desire, have set up symbols in which they believed God appeared before their bodily eyes. (Institutes of the Christian Religion I.XI.8)

  John Calvin
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  White Dove

  What does belief in atheism mean? Never knew it was a thing to believe in.

  Actually, everyone believe in it because they believe that there are some people who are atheists.

  No one denies the existence of atheists.

  We all believe!

  lol

  (I'm an atheist of sorts if you are talking about the gawd of the Bible).
• 

  UnDisfellowshipped

  White Dove,

  Anything that you believe takes "belief" or "faith."

  If you believe that the God of the Bible does not exist, then you have a "belief."

  You are putting "faith" or "trust" in the belief that this God does not exist, and that you will not be accountable to Him.

  Also, for those who believe that no Intelligent Designer exists, their "beliefs" must include that the Big Bang (an effect) either (1) had no cause, or (2) was caused by something non-physical, yet non-intelligent, or (3) some sort of theory that the Universe has always existed and has always been going through cycles of different Big Bangs.
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  ziddina

  "A@G,

  In the attempt to better understand your beliefs and viewpoints, do you mind me asking specifically what it is about Yahweh that you find to be "a joke"? ...."

  OOOO! OOOOOOO! Lemme have a go at that question!! [frantically waving hand in air...]

  First of all, WHICH "god" are you referring to?? There are, in fact, at LEAST three different 'gods' in the bible... At least two in the Old Testament, and a drastically revamped version in the New Testament.

  Within the time period of "Homo Sapiens" - which dates back approximately ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS, according to most anthropologists - a MULTITUDE of deities arose.

  Prior to that time, and OVERLAPPING with HOMO SAPIENS, there were the "Neanderthals" - whose existence dates from TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS ago up to around THIRTY THOUSAND years ago - and, incidentally, whose existence overlapped the period of Homo Sapiens' existence - and to an extent, whose territories overlapped somewhat, too. In fact, some anthropologists postulate that Neanderthals remained in existence as recently as TWENTY THOUSAND YEARS ago - and may have gone extinct due to Homo Sapien's aggressive behavior - OR may have actually interbred with Homo Sapiens...

  Oh, and there's also some evidence that Neanderthals had the ability to carry on human speech, much as "Homo Sapiens" - so-called 'modern' humans - do...

  There's "Homo Erectus", who roamed the earth around TWO MILLION years ago up to around TWO to THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND years ago - and different specimens of this group vary from a stocky build, to a VERY modern-looking [i.e., anatomical similarities to Homo Sapiens...], slim build.
  
  These proto-humans - "Homo Erectus" - are the peoples who produced the "Acheulean" tools and artifacts, ESPECIALLY the "Acheulean" Goddess. Thorough research has been performed on the statuette, and it was determined - by microscopic observation of very deliberate scrapings and tool marks - that the "Acheulean" Goddess statuette was a piece of lava that had a 'human' resemblance that was FURTHER MODIFIED by ancient proto-humans to take on and strengthen its humanistic, feminine form...

  The "Acheulean" Goddess has herself been determined to be AT LEAST 232,000 years old, and MAY be as old as 800,000 years...

  And as I've always said, the TRUE deity of this planet - IF there is one - WON'T be found in the YOUNGEST deities - those "Johnny-come-lately", plains and desert-dwelling, Bronze Age Middle Eastern sheepherders' "gods" are SO far from being in competition for the "rulership" of the planet, that there is no contest...

  Unless - UNLESS - you take the position that RELIGION itself EVOLVED....

  Which opens up another can of worms...

  Zid
• 

  notverylikely

  lack of beleif in god does not constitute a belief. It's more like "the evidence does not support that conclusion".
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  UnDisfellowshipped

  Lack of belief in an Intelligent Designer for the Universe equals belief in something else causing the Big Bang.
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  VoidEater

  Lack of belief in an Intelligent Designer for the Universe equals belief in something else causing the Big Bang.

  Er, no.

  I feel no compulsion to believe anything whatever about the big bang. I am very comfortable just saying, "I dunno."

  Why make stuff up without evidence?
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  bohm

  Undisfellowshipped: Like the flying spaghetti monster? Everyone can agree that talking about what caused the universe is interlectual cowboy land and not a very factual discussion. But the problem is that one has to connect the God-hypothesis to the Yahweh-hypothesis, and then one run into all sorts of nastities like A@G pointed out (feeling down? Kill some babies!).
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  UnDisfellowshipped

  VoidEater,

  Okay, being an agnostic is always a possibility as well.
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  Awakened at Gilead

  Snakes: Did the FSM strike Toni with lightning for disbelieving?

  Megs: LOL - gotcha!

  Leo: I used someone elses pics, music, and video (all with permission), then mashed together with free Windows Live Movie Maker.

  Lisa: I've got the FSM, can you send me the car?

  UnDfD - VoidEater is describing a common atheist position, not agnosticism: As atheists, we recognize that we do not have the answers to all the questions - unlike theists, who insist that their particular god has given them all the answers already. The point of the FSM is to indicate that there is no proof for the claims made about him, just as there is no proof about the claims made for any other god. No belief is required to recognize that we as yet do not know something. That being said, the answers may be knowable, and that is what science is searching for. Finally, if you postulate that "God" caused the big bang, then you must explain the origin of god. If you say "he always has existed", then why can't you say that about the matter that has expanded in the big bang?