I grew up very mildly culturally Christian in a country where that or wishy/washy Christian is the norm. I remember meeting some other kids who believed God was everywhere and asking my mom about it, but not much about her answer and it didn’t lead me to a belief or much thinking about the question at age 7. I generally spent a lot more time worrying about a real issue, the infinity of space.
My 5th grade teacher said in Christianity class (which was still a thing in the Norwegian School system in the 80s, I mostly experienced it as a history class with a weird obsession with one small region) that the bible wasn’t a book one read from one end to the other, which I took as a challenge. I read two thirds of the old testament. After that I was an avowed a-christian agnostic. If there was a deity, it definitely wasn’t that guy and the supporting material was all nonsense.
I gave it some more thought in my early twenties along with looking into the evidence or lack thereof for spoon bending, psychics, dowsing rods etc. which moved me towards Atheism.
And today I’d classify myself as as certain a non-believer I could possibly be. There is overwhelming evidence that most elements of religion and belief in the supernatural are products of known psychological phenomena. There’s overwhelming evidence that it persists without solid evidence, or even in the face of evidence to the contrary. And faced with zero reason to pick one contradictory belief over all the others to get to any belief, I am convinced that the right answer is no belief in religion and the supernatural.
I too am a theological noncognitivist, but I strongly disavow being any flavour of atheist.
However, the OP did ask for people who are sure in their beliefs, and I am sure of the incoherence of the concept of deity theists talk about, so that speaks to the OP anyway.
In another thread I claimed to be atheist (as that was correct-enough for the thread). However, technically I’m not an atheist as I don’t pretend to know if there is or is not a God (first problem is to define the word “God” in a sensical manner… good luck), nor am I an agnostic as I don’t even pretend to know if evidence for him does or does not exist. I very confidently do not know.
I’d rather not give the technical name of my philosophical belief system, as it has a lot of undeserved negative societal connotations.
I used to be a Christian, but now I am not. Mainly because I discovered that Christianity isn’t useful for me. It didn’t make me more happy, better at relationships, a better person, and it has no predictive power. I am not “sure” of my beliefs (or dis-beliefs) in the sense the OP means, instead I believe in what I find useful. What makes me happy, what helps predict the future, and my current beliefs seem to be acceptably good at both.
Tomorrow I may discover that Buddhism is more useful belief for me. I would then consider exploring it an interesting adventure. I wouldn’t care if it is “true” or “correct” (I have no idea what that even means). Instead, I would explore if believing in it makes me happy and successful. (relative to other set of beliefs I’ve held in the past).
Thanks. I think we have enough responses from atheists/agnostics by now (the comments from the atheist side outnumber the Christian side about 40 to 1 so far.)
I’m pretty sure no gods exist because there’s no compelling evidence of any, and it seems pretty obvious to me that today’s religions are just more superstitions.
Atheist just means you don’t have a belief in a god or gods. It isn’t a question of “knowing” anything or being certain that there no god.
I’m an atheist and I’m not certain that there is no god. By my usage you are an atheist.
That is the way that pretty much every atheist I know uses the term. There are some people that want to feel a bit special and argue about what they want to be called but the simple fact is that if you simply lack a belief in a god or gods then to 99% of atheists that I’m aware of, you are an atheist.
Normally I hate to get into semantics, but on the atheism thing it’s important because there are different meanings of the word and people tend to talk past each other.
“Man on the street” definitions
atheism = someone sure there is no god
agnosticism = someone not entirely sure whether god exists or not
theism = belief in God
Original, or formal definitions
theism = belief in god
atheism = lack of belief in god
gnosticism = claim to have knowledge
agnosticism = lack of claim to have knowledge
And this is one of those situations where the popular usage is far less useful than the formal definition of these words. So although it’s normally the case that language is defined by use, this is one of those situations where the original definitions are important to keep since the popular definitions don’t encompass or fully elucidate all the possibilities.
For example, the vast majority of atheists IME are agnostic atheists: they don’t claim to know there are no gods. (though, like me, they may put the likelihood below that of santa claus existing).
I, for one, am not “so sure”; and I have learned to be suspicious of those who are.
Just to take this one recent response as an example of easy it is to challenge “sureness”: But how are you sure that there’s no compelling evidence? Doesn’t that just kick the can further down the road? And how can you be sure that there would be compelling evidence (of whatever sort you’re thinking of)?
How do you get from “it seems pretty obvious to me” to “I’m sure”?
Sorry, I feel the need these days to always add that qualifier.
If I was going purely by logic, I’d be agnostic. I’m not though. I have a sense, a feeling that there is a God, and I think Christianity feels right. Red letter Christianity is about as specific as I get. I don’t think the bible is inerrant, and I don’t think much of it was meant to be taken so literally.
As to the OP, sure isn’t a good term. I think it feels right, I’ll go with it. I acknowledge that what I feel is right is not proof of what is correct. If I’m wrong, I can live with that. I don’t try to force my views on anyone.
And I didn’t claim to be a full blown non believer. I just said I saw no evidence to prove God’s existence. I don’t claim to have knowledge, so I’m sceptical. That makes me agnostic by any definition.
I could have (and was about to) write something very similar.
I’m ostensibly a Methodist these days – at least, I’m a member of a UMC church, but that’s because I like my particular congregation. I didn’t grow up as a Methodist (I grew up Catholic, in fact), and I’m not particularly wedded to Methodist doctrine. I’m politically and socially liberal, and I think that working towards social equality and love for all (which my church does) is very important.
In regards to the OP – “what makes me so sure?” – as @bdgr says, and at least one other theist has already said, I’m not so sure. I’m not a Fundamentalist Christian, so I don’t believe that the Bible is inerrant and literally true. I don’t feel that other faiths are “wrong”, simply because they aren’t Christianity (or even Methodism).
In some senses, I think I’m probably more of a Christian deist than anything else: even if Jesus was not the Son of God, his teachings can be a good guide for living in a way that is kind, respectful, and loving of all people. I don’t feel that Christianity, or religion as a whole, is the only way to accomplish that, and it distresses me that there are many people who use the cloak of Christianity (or other religions) to discriminate against, harm, and kill other people.
Theistic ≠ Christian. A reminder rather than an assertion of anything that anyone participating doesn’t already know (including Velocity, for sure), but please let’s all keep it in mind. There’s a difference between “That Which Isn’t Atheist or Agnostic” and “That Which Embraces Christianity”. Likewise “We’ve heard a lot from the atheists and agnostics” shouldn’t really be juxtaposed with “outnumber the Christian side”, per se.
If you are brainwashed your entire life into believing something, and someone tells you there’s no evidence for your belief that doesn’t mean you are wrong, only that scientists can’t see the “evidence” right in front of their noses. All you have to do is read the Bible. The “truth” is right there in black and white.
There are scores (hundreds?) of religious cults around the world that have no problem convincing people they are the truth. Logic has nothing to do with it.
In that vein: I’m a Jew, but I wouldn’t score particularly high on a “what makes me so sure” test either; as far as I can tell, I get by just fine without bothering to be, uh, sure.
I’m not sure what exactly it takes for an entity to be a “God.” If all it takes is to have amazing powers that verge on omnipotence, then I’m a deeply skeptical agnostic, and if such a god did exist, I think it’s a lot likelier to be Nyarolathotep the Crawling Chaos than Yahweh.
If it takes omnipotence and omniscience and omnipresence and omnibenevolence, then I’m as sure as I am of anything that “God” doesn’t exist. These traits cannot exist in the universe we know without contradiction.
But I hedge my bets based on monkeyhood. I am, like y’all, a trumped-up mostly-bald primate, doing my damnedest to make sense of this bonkers world around me. There’s nothing I’ll say for sure, not even that there’s nothing I’ll say for sure. All I can do is be mostly sure.
And I’m mostly sure that no God I’ve heard of, except the most mystical sorts of “God is love” definitions, has any compelling evidence about its existence.
