i am an atheist.
i arrived at this juncture in my life despite not wanting to.
when i first met the witnesses at 22 i was a seeker looking for answers to the question of life - in other words, prime cult target material.
But where did religion get the idea of God from?
That is a great question, Tammy. At least some of those who have studied the earliest human societies have speculated that humans created gods to explain the natural phenomenon they could not understand and that ritual practices to please those gods soon came about, followed by the creation of laws written in stone and at this point mankind had created religion. The idea of god came first.
i am an atheist.
i arrived at this juncture in my life despite not wanting to.
when i first met the witnesses at 22 i was a seeker looking for answers to the question of life - in other words, prime cult target material.
"All religions are false" does not equate to "There is no God."
Also legitimate. But it might equate to "there is probably no God", and the rest follows.
i am an atheist.
i arrived at this juncture in my life despite not wanting to.
when i first met the witnesses at 22 i was a seeker looking for answers to the question of life - in other words, prime cult target material.
but for me, the realization that the WT had, as you said, "played a hand in closing the door" was the hand that cracked it back open, if just a bit.
I acknowledge the legitimacy of that realisation, Agonus. There are those who have come to recognise the Watchtower as something of an anti-Christ, or at least a manifestation of evil that does real harm to individuals, but they have been able to hold onto their faith. There really is no need to abandon one's faith in God when one abandons one's faith in the Watchtower, but retaining one's faith in the cold new light of reality can be much more difficult than letting it go.
i am an atheist.
i arrived at this juncture in my life despite not wanting to.
when i first met the witnesses at 22 i was a seeker looking for answers to the question of life - in other words, prime cult target material.
I don't think JW's create atheists as much as breaking free from the cult mindset makes one hypervigilant against other cult-like programs that religions in general practice. (Anony Mous)
Atheists are not created by anybody. (Trevor)
the Watchtower Society actually isn't responsible for "making" me an atheist... (Ziddina)
I can't really argue against any of your sentiments. If we are truly free to make up our own minds, only we are responsible for becoming what we become. But creation of self does not occur in a vacuum. Many Jehovah's Witnesses believe what they believe because their parents believe what they believe. It is fair to say that they are not entirely responsible for what they are and that the Society has played a hand in creating their mindsets. In a broader sense, most people who profess to be Christian happen to have been born into environments that embrace Christianity. Had they been born in Afghanistan they would almost certainly profess to be Muslim. Yes, someone who becomes atheist or agnostic after having abandoned a previous faith in god is a little different, but more likely than not his transformation is a consequence of many inputs, some of them direct and purposeful, some entirely accidental. My association with the WTBTS caused me to examine faith at a much deeper level than I would have otherwise. This I cannot deny. Without that particular influence I might reasonably expect to have settled into some sort of pragmatic agnosticism - believing in things for which there is strong scientific evidence, like the evolution of species, but leaving the door open for there having been some kind of divine influence. The Watchtower played a hand in closing the door.
i am an atheist.
i arrived at this juncture in my life despite not wanting to.
when i first met the witnesses at 22 i was a seeker looking for answers to the question of life - in other words, prime cult target material.
Oh, and as to Antony Flew, I looked him up. Turns out he was another philosopher. He used philosophy to convince himself that there is no god and then used philosophy to convince himself that there is a god. As a consequence he was the second recipient of the Phillip E. Johnson award from the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, not exactly a rousing endorsement from the scientific community. The first recipient of the Philip E. Johnson award was Philip E. Johnson, on the basis of his founding of the wedge strategy for Intelligent Design, which has been as soundly debunked as Flew's arguments have been. Regardless, Flew did not become a theist, he became a deist who perceived that god is unknown to any established religion. If you believe in Yahweh, he would have told you that you are mistaken.
See Victor Stenger, 'Flew's flawed science', Free Inquiry 25: 2, 2005, 17-18; www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=stenger_25_2
i am an atheist.
i arrived at this juncture in my life despite not wanting to.
when i first met the witnesses at 22 i was a seeker looking for answers to the question of life - in other words, prime cult target material.
Like Jeff, I too would embrace god if he manifested himself in some unmistakable way - and by that I mean a way that is unmistakable to me personally. It's not that I think I'm special, because I realise how terribly insignificant I am. And perceiving god in a daffodil doesn't count, because I look at a daffodil and I see a product of natural selection. I might cite the resurrection of my parents as a good example of something unmistakable to me personally. Do that, god, and I will prostrate myself before you, but I will still wonder why it was necessary for them to die so horribly.
While I acknowledge that there is a small minority of scientists who are also theists, I have yet to see any of them put forward a solid scientific argument for the existence of god. While their arguments have at time masqueraded as scientific - I cite for example the multiple failed attempts to demonstrate ID - in the end they are all without exception philosophical, and philosophy does not constitute observable, measurable evidence, as convincing as it can be. A good example of the phenomenon is Bertrand Russell's revelation as a young man that the ontological argument for the existence of god was sound. Himself a Nobel prize winning philosopher and agnostic, he would come to realise that he had been merely caught up in a philosophical paradox. In 1946 he would write:
"The real question is: Is there anything we can think of which, by the mere fact that we can think of it, is shown to exist outside our thought? Every philosopher would like to say yes, because a philosopher's job is to find out things about the world by thinking rather than observing. If yes is the right answer, there is a bridge from pure thought to things. If not, not."
A philosopher, as has been defined by others far more intelligent than I am (including philosophers themselves), is someone who won't take common sense for an answer. It is in some ways a compliment. In others an acknowlegement that what they have to say exists only in thought and what exists only in thought cannot be observed and measured and, therefore, does not constitute evidence.
i am an atheist.
i arrived at this juncture in my life despite not wanting to.
when i first met the witnesses at 22 i was a seeker looking for answers to the question of life - in other words, prime cult target material.
Hang in there, NRFG.
We all perceive doors opening in different ways, OTWO. You saw the light about the Society and then you kept going. Are we not saying the same thing? Regardless, I am not excusing myself. I have no regrets being where I am. I am merely acknowledging what helped get me here.
Anyone else besides Antony Flew? Never heard of him. Odd that he labels himself the world's most notorious atheist.
good night, all.
everyone has different views about life after death and whether or not it is a possibility.. as jehovah's witnesses, we were always taught that there is no life after death, that this is the only life we have now and that the wages of sin is death.. .
what are your views on life after death?.
.
There is no question that people find comfort in hope. Others find it in demonstrable truth. The two are not necessarily the same. The only sure happiness is happiness achieved in this life. If your happiness depends on you looking forward to happiness after you die, then it could be that all you have is hope and it might just be better for you not to expose yourself to evidence that has the potential to dash it. Your path through life is yours alone and no-one, me included, has a right either to push you off or to bind you immobile. It is up to you to find your way.
i am an atheist.
i arrived at this juncture in my life despite not wanting to.
when i first met the witnesses at 22 i was a seeker looking for answers to the question of life - in other words, prime cult target material.
So what happens when you find out evolution is false? Do you give up on life alltogether?
I have never heard of anyone after having done the requisite research who has, as you put it, found out that evolution is false. I have, however, heard of many who have come to a conclusion that belief in the god of the bible is false and the only possible explanation for the existence of the various forms of life on the planet is evolution through natural selection. You must otherwise believe in magic, and belief in magic belongs to the braying infancy of our species.
Just because religion is false, this is not proof that God is false.
But there is also no proof that he isn't false. There is, in fact, no proof at all that he even exists. All there is is faith, and faith is not proof of anything at all. Faith can move mountains, or move people to fly passenger jets into skyscrapers or to blow themselves up in a crowded bus terminal, but it can never prove the existence of god, only the existence of faith. Still not thinking.
everyone has different views about life after death and whether or not it is a possibility.. as jehovah's witnesses, we were always taught that there is no life after death, that this is the only life we have now and that the wages of sin is death.. .
what are your views on life after death?.
.
You should consider TV evangelism, godrulz. Lots of money in it.
