Question for agnostics and/or atheists

sonnyboy

I've just recently declared my agnosticism to myself and to one other person in my life. I don't necessarily consider myself an atheist because I believe there very well may be some higher power or non carbon based entities in existence with 'godlike' abilities. Who can say for sure?

My question is, do you still find yourself secretly believing in God? By secretly I mean that a part of your brain won't let him go, although the rest of your being thinks that he most likely doesn't exist.

Does this feeling ever pass? God-belief has been so instilled within me that it seems impossible to let it go completely. Some may believe that this is God's way of letting me know that he exists, and others may say that this is due to years of brainwashing. Whatever it is, the guilt of rejecting the Judeo/Christian god is there whenever I mention it. I keep thinking, "What if I'm wrong about this and he one day confronts me with it?"

GetBusyLiving

I know what you mean sonnyboy. That type of irrational stuff wears off somewhat over time though. For me the biggest thing is taking the time to be grateful for what I have and realizing that if there is a God or God's, its simply outside of the realm of our understanding to box it in. If its there and it wanted us to know, it would present itself. Keeping things positive and setting goals was the biggest thing for me in getting over the conditioning.

GBL

xmj12

I consider myself agnostic and to some degree think there could be some higher power but I really don't know. After years of being made to feel guilt about everything while in the jehoover mindset, it is a relief to me to not have those feelings now. But I may not be typical in that. A few friends I know that have left still have religious feelings and attend some type of service so I guess it varies. I do not worry about some god ready to rub out someone just because they don't follow a presribed dogma of some type. If there is some kind of afterlife I would hope I would judged on something more than just hours spent at a meeting or bugging people at their homes.

doogie

Whatever it is, the guilt of rejecting the Judeo/Christian god is there whenever I mention it.

i just look at it like, if you believe in god(s), you're a theist. if you don't, you're an atheist. for me, atheism wasn't a label i aspired to, it was the only one that fit. (i hate labels anyway. people judge the label rather than the person) the more i learn and the more i see, the more convinced i am that there is no proof or evidence that requires god(s) to exist. therefore, i don't believe in him/her/it.

this is one of those things i always laugh about. people tend to shy away from the term 'atheist' in favor of 'agnostic' thinking that it is perhaps a more open-minded version of the atheist. agnostic just means that you don't know what you believe. being an atheist does not mean that you have shut the door, case closed, there is DEFINITELY NO GOD. atheism just means that you don't believe in god. its implication is that should evidence present itself in His favor, an atheist's stance will change. (which is probably the exact reason some label themselves 'agnostic')

rebel8

I don't necessarily consider myself an atheist because I believe there very well may be some higher power or non carbon based entities in existence with 'godlike' abilities. Who can say for sure?
My question is, do you still find yourself secretly believing in God? By secretly I mean that a part of your brain won't let him go, although the rest of your being thinks that he most likely doesn't exist.

I consider myself a Humanist. I believe 100% the christian god does not exist, although I have no proof of that and recognize I may be wrong. I believe the theory of intelligent design is probably true but accept that intelligent design is not the same thing as belief in the christian deity.

I hope there is a power greater than humans who will use it to do good; I just don't think he/she is all-powerful + all-good + all-knowing. He/she may possibly not even be alive any more. We just don't know. For that reason, I focus my energies and attention on being a good person and leading a worthwhile life instead of discovering and complying with the wishes of a deity (or the wishes of the deity as interpreted by humans). If evidence of his/her existence ever comes to light, I will be glad to. In the worst times, I've hoped an all-powerful being would come to my rescue and prayed in case he/she exists. I just didn't expect it.

stevenyc

sonnyboy,

You might find some reading of Dr. Michio Kaku of interest. This guy holds the Henry Semat Professorship in Theoretical Physics at the CUNY and was one of the co-founders of string theory.

He's written quite a bit on advanced civilizations and there 'God like' appearance. He's taken the work of Nicolai Kardashev on advanced civilization types I, II, and III and expanded on it.

Here's a link to his site.

http://www.mkaku.org/articles/physics_of_alien_civs.shtml

steve

tetrapod.sapien

hey sonnyboy,

i think agnosticism is an honest position. some would say that it is basically just a PC version of weak atheism, but whatever, it's a neutral position. and it's a good place to start looking at the world from again, after long years of not being neutral and honest (as a dub). and your in good company: i always like to point out that, when cornered, carl sagan said he was an agnostic.

which leads me to my point. self education (i'm not implying that your not!), is the best way, IMO, to get over the emotional god-belief side of your life. you don't have to go to school for it, but just read read read. anthropology, biology, cosmology, philosophy, logic, secular history, paleontology, secular archaeology. learning about us as a species, from a secular view point, will help you put into perspective where you fit on the continuum, and it's a small spot for us all! but, it also helps you put traditional deities in their place on the continuum too, which may do a lot to help you with this emotional aspect. to see them as creations of ancient desert tribe people, might help you to say: "wait a second. i'm a modern human. i am not going to be held emotionally hostage by some ancient tribe any more."

well, it helped me anyways,

best wishes, and congrats,

TS

tetrapod.sapien

Dr. Michio Kaku

Check_Your_Premises

"What if I'm wrong about this and he one day confronts me with it?"

I don't think a just God could blame you if you read His book, and just didn't get it....

....if you exercised due diligence in seeking Him out.

Furthermore, I think salvation is nothing more than recognizing we live in a world that has rebelled against Him, and deciding you don't want to be apart of that rebellion anymore. Jesus took care of the rest.

I used to be an agnostic, so I understand the questions you are asking. I recommend "Mere Christianity" to you. It was written by C.S. Lewis, and explains some of the ideas that moved him from atheism to Christian.

Markfromcali

If you just take a step back you see that this kind of discussion is always focused on what you believe, but it never really acknowledges the obvious fact that it's all about belief.

Another thing is while people do acknowledge that there's a matter of labels, beyond or before that there is the matter of identifying with that particular pattern of thought - even if you attribute no label to it. There can be that certain mental tension even if you did arrive at this point in a more or less natural progression. Now of course we use our minds to navigate through life, but that is very different from being identified with it.

Let me put it this way: Just because you have a particular thought pattern, what makes that something about you? Most people think mind-control is a matter of what you think, or how much conditioning there is, but I say it's really about who you think you are. After all, if you don't think of yourself as one of Jehovah's Witnesses, (not on some shallow level where you declare in words "I no longer consider myself a JW", but when there is no identification whatsoever) what impact will all that JW information in your mind have on your life? It would be just a bunch of data floating around at best. And yet that tendency to identify with a particular way of thinking is what persists, despite a change of content. If you can let identification itself go, that will be a real change.

Question for agnostics and/or atheists

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