think i'm becoming an atheist

by rather be in hades 43 Replies latest jw friends

  • Witness My Fury
    Witness My Fury

    For me, I go where the evidence leads, ..not emotion, group think or propaganda. It requires effort to find it, but it's worth it and it is a continuing journey of discovery.

    I went from believer (with doubts about WTS) to agnostic as I like to be fair and as already said, it's difficult to prove a negative. However as Sol has already said, it IS totally clear that YHWH was a human contruct just like all the other gods, in fact the OT was mostly redacted, rewritten spin to push a new monotheistic agenda from the Yahwists in the time of Josiah, the Genesis account never happened, the flood never happened, Moses and the exodus never happened (as described in the bible, but the Hyksos may well be the basis for the tale) the wandering in the wilderness never happened, the blitzkrieg military campaign of Joshua never happened, etc etc

    The fact that Jesus believed in Noahs flood, is telling, but not in the way the WTS spins it, that 'if Jesus believed it you should too'... no, it means the opposite. Jesus was just another deluded man who believed the old myths and legends of man.

  • Chariklo
    Chariklo
    Voila ! I have proved a negative.

    Philosophically speaking, isn't that impossible, Phizzy?

    http://www.ozarkia.net/bill/anarchism/Fallacies.html#Proving%20a%20Negative

    For me, I go where the evidence leads, ..not emotion, group think or propaganda. It requires effort to find it, but it's worth it and it is a continuing journey of discovery.

    Witness, that is pretty well my own point of view.

  • Phizzy
    Phizzy

    Chariklo, I admit I am no Philosopher, but I find the practical real life stuff fairly easy to understand, my Piggy Bank is more in that vein than Schrodingers Cat.

    I agree with the other comment too, I asked a street-preaching BA Christian a few weeks back how he got from his claim of Intelligent Design, which I did not dispute with him, but could have, how he got from there, to "Bible God". strange he suddenly turned away from me and accosted other passers by, I waited for an answer, but did not get one.

  • Black Sheep
    Black Sheep
    i wish one did though and i'd wish he wasn't a dick hole like jehovah

    I've never felt the need for any Godfella. Even as a kid, gods just seemed like crutches for the weak to me. That Jehovah 'dick hole' that my parents needed was my least favorite character. Between them and Him, they managed to turn me into a right nutjob.

    Realising that there weren't any bi-polar murderous space critters reading my thoughts when I fondled my willy in the night was a gift from the gods.

  • cantleave
    cantleave

    Being an antheist is not belief system, it is a conclusion drawn by lack of falsifiable evidence.

    Congratulations on beginning to think!

  • jemba
    jemba

    Ha ha Blacksheep, hilarious.

  • Kool Jo
    Kool Jo

    What is this poster talking about?!?!?!?!

    Prayer does work...let me give two (2) real life personal experience...then perhaps your attitude will change!

    1. I use to pray that noboby would come to the doors when I was out in FS...and guess what...it worked, finished an entire set of apartment buildings in no time because nobody was home.

    2. As a part of my "fade" I always thought it would be good to move away from home...so I prayed that I get a job where I'd either travel a lot or be moved away from home...so I prayed....and guess what??? I'm miles away from home wih a job that requires traveling!!! So much for a job that would allow me to put "spiritual things" first...

    But on a more serious note, I understand what you're experiencing....when the truth about the "WTBS" really soaked in, it was like starting all over again to questions we all ask...so I prayed that the real truth about life, God ect be made known to me...but nothing happened...

    Kool Jo

  • rather be in hades
    rather be in hades

    thank you all for the responses.

    at one point, i was fairly agnostic. yet i believed in god. maybe i could say i believed in god, but wasn't sure? or i was an agnostic who leaned towards believing in god?

    either way i was screwed up. but for the most part, i'd tell people i don't know if there is a god. i can't prove or disprove it, bt in my head, i was fairly convinced there was a god.

    don't juudge me, i grew up thinking some old farts in brooklyn could be god's hand but make mistake after mistake :P

    i guess i didn't know what i believed and i didn't REALLY think abot it. i was too far in my misery to really be it wasn't ntil my grandmother started dying from cancer that it started coming to the forefront of my mind. i was watching her die and i was really hoping she'd be somewhere nice after. i'd like to see her again, especially after how my family knew the day she passed that that was the end and they didn't even call me to let me say goodbye. it's fucked up.

    now as for disproving god, logically, it jst no longer makes sense.

    first let's assume god exists and that he created the universe, maybe even just allowed evoltion to happen and all that jazz. at the very least, he did a pretty damn good job of making everything fit together. not only does it work on its own, but we can manipulate the rules and laws within the universe to do amazing things. 20 years from now i'll be in my flying car. you heard it here first.

    so if we assume there is a god, let's look at some things:

    let's take the monotheistic religions. several different religions, all believing there is only one god, with slight variations. all of these religions pray. now, if there is a god who created the universe and the laws within it, god has to be a smart fellow. i mean, einstein has nothing on him bc einstein only discovered relativity, god MADE it. now if people half as intelligent as einstein can figure out what babies are trying to say when they make ZERO sense, and they can nderstand that a baby is trying to say their name when what comes out the baby's mouth is pure nonsense, then srely god can figure out that whether someone is praying to yahweh, god, jesus (i mean...some people do think jesus is god), jehovah, god, allah, i dunno what god is called in judaism...but that, surely he knows to pick up the phone and at least listen to the voice mail.

    but he never really answers, or at least it's extremely inconsistent and the prayers he IS answering make no sense.

    someone in something like sudan, prays for some water so as not to die of thirst, or some food so as not to die of hnger. and no answer. that's not a frivolos prayer, that's a prayer of life and death. someone in a concentration camp begs god for mercy, again...life and death, yet no answer.

    someone prays for a winning lottery ticket and boom, there ya go. seriously? or, i remember hearing stories about missionaries who prayed for food and managed to live off i forget what. somehow those prayers were answered. why not the person in sudan though? why not the person in the concentration camp? surely any idiot would answer the life or death ones first. that's like a fire dept saying, "how about we save the kitten in the tree, then go save the orphans in the burning high rise projects with bars on the windows."

    then let's take the polytheistic religions. people were/are praying to many gods and they have the whole gamut covered. god of rain, god of harvest, god of fertility, you name it. who knows...maybe there's a god or saint for penis enlargment. thankfully i've never had to pray for that. whew!

    so all these prayers, no consistency, everything is extremely arbitrary and that in and of itself makes no sense. either god got the ball rolling and disappeared ages ago, or god doesn't exist.

    i'd bet that if we were to run a poll abot the types of prayers asked, the "responses" and the seriousness of the prayers, we'd get some very arbitrary numbers. i didn't pay attention, but if i remember right, the null hypothesis can determine whether something is false or not? i forgot the rules for that though.

    either way, when i started thinking about all these prayers, it kinda hit me...it's looking more and more like god simply doesn't exist.

  • NewChapter
    NewChapter

    It looks like you are giving this a lot of thought RBIH. That's important. It's an important question---it deserves the best answer possible.

    It seems that many questions that religion used to answer, and therefore god belief, are being answered more thoroughly and effectively by natural means. We've made a great deal of progress when we set gods aside as the answers. Keep asking the questions.

    NC

  • InterestedOne
    InterestedOne

    rather be in hades wrote:

    i wish one did though and i'd wish he wasn't a dick hole like jehovah

    I agree with Hitchens who said:

    "it’s an excellent thing that we have absolutely no reason to believe any of it to be true."

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