Also, I hate that style of debating where what ultimately wins is not the truth but simply the more talented debator, which in this case is clearly you Aldebaran.
And if that’s chikening out then I guess I am a chicken.
dangermom
I just plain don’t understand intelligent adults who convert to religion from atheism.
I don’t mean religion is about fear. I think there is an element of fear in it for many people yes, on a subconscious level.
As someone who was brought up in a “post christian” mostly atheistic society I find the whole idea of religion baffling. It baffles me how people can trully (I mean deep down, not just choosing) believe there is an all powerful being who created the world and all it’s living things, and possibly also believe this happened roughly 4000 years ago and that there was a man born on this earth who could perform miracles, and these people can at the same time claim to be intelligent, when the overwhelming evidence presented to them is against these beliefs.
Have you believers seen god? What was it like? can you prove you saw him/it and that it wasn’t just a product of your imagination?
You don’t see god. You feel it, experience it. It is like… it is like being moved by a kind of music without words. There is nothing to logically make you emotional, but it can convey the most tremendous happiness or sadness you have ever felt. Other people listen to the same music and hear nothing, get bored, or dislike it. Maybe they study it too intensely and it loses the emotion. Maybe they just don’t like that type of music.
For instance, the musical artist I am listening to now is considered an “acquired taste.” She is an independent artist, and will enver be mainstream. I’m not one of those who insists on indie artists or anything - it is just that her music isn’t for very many people. She isn’t a very technically “good” singer or musician - she can even be considered bad in some spots. But to me, and a subculture of others, it is some of the most intense, moving music ever.
Right. You’re a product of your society. Several hundred years ago, or in a different country, you would have thought differently. Not that the rest of us aren’t also societal products to some degree or another, but how much learning have you really done about religion? For example, relatively few Christians really believe that the earth was created 6000 years ago (I think that’s what you’re referring to, yes?). But it seems to me that your understanding is really rather shallow. You haven’t got that much basis for your opinion, having spent your life in an atheistic society and apparently not having done much beyond that.
Now, as for evidence of God having created the Earth, and the existence of Christ, and having seen God, and all that, religious people simply see it much differently than you do. I’m not sure that this thread is the place for that discussion, though. Perhaps later tonight.
Believe it or not I have experienced what you describe. And I probably can’t rationalise it, but i makes no sense to me to attribute it to god. or to describe it as a religious experience.
You make a good point here, that I can understand, because I too feel moved and euphoric sometimes by music that others would feel nothing for.
But I attribute that to the ability of the human brain to create these feelings. To me it originates within, not without (not with god).
In other words I believe any experience that others put down to being a religious experience or a ‘meeting with god’ to me is a product of the human brain and nothing more.
(I hope I am making as much sense as I think I am because I am not entirely sober right now)
Oh, I wasn’t attributing the musical experience to god - I was saying that the act of experiencing them is similar. There is nothing logical or phsyical about it - it just… is. Some people experience it, others don’t. Some experience it with a different “kind” of music, which is like another religion. Just like the music moving you so much makes no sense, and there is nothing that says it should, it does. You don’t need to know anything about the physiology about it, or about how music is composed to best appeal to you - it just does, and is. Knowing more about it could make you enjoy it less.
Years ago I would have thought differently? Probably true. But as time passes human understanding become more accurate. Or in the past human understanding was less accurate.
More than I can usefully use to articulate my position.
I have spent my life in an atheistic society which gets daily news and information about a religious society. Thus I have been able to see the forest witout the trees being in the way, which is often the best way to see it. P.S. I will be the first to admit that I am shallow. I can’t help believing almost totally in the non-existence of god.
I’d like to know how they see it then.
So, because you “plain don’t understand” and it “baffles” you that some intelligent people choose religion—what? They don’t exist? They must not be that intelligent? What? Because you don’t “understand,” that must mean that it can’t be so?
I know someone (well, more than a few people) who “can’t understand” how certain races are equal to other races. It’s just not a real to them. They can’t grok it. They will cite a lifetime of antectotal experiences that confirm, to them, their conclusions. You’re reminding me a little bit of them right now.
WHat?! I didn’t say it can’t be so, did I? If anything I KNOW it is so. All I am saying is I don’t understand it.
Looks like you are calling me a racist. How dare you?
Really?
And my experience is that logic rarely plays much of a role in people’s rejection of religion. Consider the large number of people who dismiss theism on the grounds that “There are no absolutes!!!” (an eminently self-refuting statement) or “There is no right or wrong!” (again, self-refuting).
Yosemite didn’t call you a racist. She (right? 
said that that line of thinking was similar to racism - basically, that “I can’t comprehend how this can be and nothing can convince me otherwise”
I have honestly never heard of “there are no absolutes” as a reason to reject theism. Or “there is no right or wrong” for that matter.
OK, fine. It sure doesn’t sound like you believe that, but fine.
If I wanted to call you a racist, I would have called you a racist (well, probably in the Pit). But I didn’t do that, did I? Not even remotely. Because this discussion has nothing to do with race, and as far as I know, you haven’t made any statements about race on this thread. So why, exactly, would I accuse you of being a racist?
My point is that a lot of people have fixed opinons based on their own biases and find anything that conflicts with that bias rather incomprehensible.
And on preview, what Aldeberan said.
Look. I don’t mean to create enemies over this. And if I have offended anyone or have been ignorant I sincerely apologise.
I will probably always believe that a god of any kind doesn’t exist and that the current state of affairs is the result of a combination of some simple physical rules combined with a bloody heck of a lot of years.
Correct.
I was an atheist, then Christian, then agnostic, then atheist, then vaguely pagan. Needless to say, I’ve done a lot of thinking and spiritual discovery. None of it has had squat to do with “logic” - it has to do with what I’ve felt and experienced and known and learned.
For the record, the man who brought me into Christianity was a very brilliant scientist and teacher I had. One of those men who is as wise as he is smart - and he was very smart. I asked him some very tough questions about religion and science. He’s the one who taught me that they work together, not against each other, and that religion is outside of science… He’s the one who taught me that religion is based on love and emotion, not on anything physical. If you don’t understand all of that, you aren’t going to understand religion at all. If you base your world on what you see and touch instead of feel and think, religion isn’t for you.
He also taught me critical thinking, scientific theory, and everything else. He taught me that, unlike certain Dopers have alleged recently, they can co-exist perfectly well.
I don’t think you made any enemies. It is just hard to converse with someone when you say an object is a cube, and they say it is a sphere.
The problem I find with most atheists (er, not “problem”… you know what I mean) is that they think “god” has some physical, measurable existence. This isn’t even true for Christians. 
As discussed in the thread on hell, it is being in the “presence of God” - not standing in a room before him, but being on the same “plane” as him. I don’t agree with this, but I understand (roughly) what they mean by it.
FWIW I have never thought that believers think of god as a physical presence. I have always understood that they/you think of him as spiritual, and on some other level than physical reality.
When I ask what the experience of seeing god is like. I am asking the person to describe as best they can what they percieve is happening, or what it feels like. all the while knowing that it’s not likely to be anything like they are meeting a real physical person in front of them.
Closest I can tell you is - the same emotion you get hearing a song or looking at a beautiful piece of art, only more intense. “Seeing” god is like to sight as smell is to touch - completely unrelated. It is a different sense altogether. Emotional, instead of physical, though. There just aren’t words to describe it O_o
Um, the root of “Christian” is “Christ” – who (last I checked) was physical and measurable. Care to elaborate?
Christ was a physical manifestation of a spiritual being. Which simply means that Christians believe that God is capable of taking a physical form, not that God is necessarily physical or measurable.
As far as the OP is concerned, my lack of intelligence has nothing to do with my religion. 