wegs:
Okay, fair enough. I guess the issue (for me) is that you have to be honest with yourself as to why you want to have a discussion with me about my faith. If it’s tantamount to “shooting fish in a barrel” for you, then I’ll pass.
That's never why I post about religion here. Although no doubt many religious posters here might beg to differ, I'm actually not on a crusade to convert people to atheism. I believe that atheism is the only truly rational position to take on religion, but I'm very well aware that even saying something as straightforward as that can easily be taken as an insult by believers.
The thing is: if believers are really comfortable in their own reasons and/or their faith that their God is real, their religion is true, and the rest of it, then there's no need for them to get defensive when I say that I believe something different. If I'm wrong, and there are good, rational reasons to be a Christian, say, then no believer should be intimidated by my implication that any belief in God is irrational. They should already have a good response as to why it's rational and I'm wrong.
I appreciate also that the "winner" of a debate isn't always the person with the best arguments. It is sometimes just a case of who is a better or more experienced arguer. I've had a lot of experience debating things with theists, so I can understand the "shooting fish in a barrel" worry that some might have.
What actually interests me in discussions about belief in God is not the "scoring points" part of it, or trying to convert anybody. I fully appreciate that people are rarely swayed from their religious beliefs by rational arguments, at least if they are made in the midst of a heated discussion. Mostly, in that kind of situation, people tend to double down on their beliefs, for the time being.
Atheists typically arrive at atheism on their own. For some, there can be one particular thing that flips them over from religion to atheism. For many others - myself included - it is not just one thing that does the trick, but rather exposure over time to certain ideas, methods and ways of thinking about the world.
Exposure to atheist thinking (really just a particular type of critical or skeptical thinking) is not something that happens automatically, especially in societies like the United States where religion is the norm. I enjoy interacting with religious people who aren't regularly exposed to ideas like the scientific method or how to evaluate claims critically, because it is an opportunity to open somebody's eyes to a potentially more enriching worldview. I try to plant some seeds, to model what it means to think critically. It might be months or years later that those seeds bear fruit, if they ever do. But when they do, it means that somebody gets to step out of the darkness of superstition, and
that is a step that has benefits that go beyond dropping belief in a specific god or other religious belief.
Apart from my desire to try to help people by educating them, I am also fascinated to examine the reasons why people believe the things they believe - whether it be gods, or aliens, or the Loch Ness Monster, or that being gay is "bad". Usually, I find that people don't have much insight into why they believe those kinds of things, because they don't have good frameworks for deciding what kinds of things they should believe in and which things they should reject. It's very often a matter of social influences rather than rational thought.
To summarise: if you follow my posts, you'll notice that I typically ask people a lot of questions about their beliefs. The most important one is almost always some variant on "How do you know that you're right?" Perhaps surprisingly, a lot of people don't put nearly as much thought into that one as they should. The reasons I ask questions are twofold: (1) to find out what they are thinking, how they are thinking about it, and (if possibly) why they are thinking it; and (2) to prompt them to maybe consider a different way of thinking about it.
All of the above might sound like I think I have all the answers - that I'm an arrogant know-it-all who thinks he is better than other people. That is probably a non-uncommon stereotype that religious people, in particular, have about atheists. It is also, worryingly, a very common view that lots of people have today about people who are well educated (which needn't mean formal education, by the way). But I don't claim to have all the answers. I could be wrong about
anything I believe, potentially. What I strive for is to have good reasons for my beliefs. As a podcaster I listen to regularly says "My aim is to believe as many true things as possible and to disbelieve as many false things as possible". For that, we need some good methods for weeding out the true things from the false things.
I’ve stated why I’ve come to faith a few years back on here (after identifying as an atheist for some time) and I recall the replies going from mockery to trying to dismantle my beliefs. That’s not really a discussion, is it? I wasn’t trying to convert people lol - I mistakenly thought it was a discussion.
I appreciate that there are plenty of people who have different aims to me when they engage in discussions about religion. There are a lot of people out to score points. There are a lot of overconfident atheists who don't necessarily know much about what they are talking about when it comes to religion or beliefs. Atheism can be a political stance for some, and so we see that there are some "keyboard warriors" out there (and in here, on sciforums). But the same can be said for many evangelical religionists, too.
It can be difficult on this forum to moderate religious discussions which certain atheists only join so they can post "But God doesn't exist. The bible is rubbish. You're indoctrinated!", no matter what the actual topic is supposed to be. Those kinds of "belief wars" are pointless, in the absence of any context, evidence or reasons. Nobody is ever going to convince anybody to change their beliefs if all they do is to repetitively assert that the the beliefs are false, with no argument or evidence, no matter what the topic of discussion is.
Not that you’re going to mock etc (not your style, from my observations) but your tone seems to suggest that you already know all the answers I’ll provide as to why I’m a believer. (I don’t presume to know why you don’t believe in God, for example. Not all atheists/theists think alike.)
Believe me: I wouldn't waste my time asking if I thought I already knew what you would say. I'm honestly interested to find out what you believe and why. In your case, it's interesting to me that you used to be an atheist, too, because I don't really understand how somebody could move from a considered atheist position to a religious one.
I was a Christian myself, until I wasn't any more, so I do have some experience of what it is like to think in a "theistic" way. It took me quite a long time to shake off my own "indoctrination", even though I had certain advantages. My country is nowhere near as religious as the United States. My family has never been hard core about religion. I was interested in science from a very early age and I studied science at university. I discovered skepticism and critical thinking as a "movement" when I was a teenager, although at that time it primarily had a small following in the US and practically none in Australia. I went to a school where regular attendance at church was compulsory.
I didn't think I needed to expand on that, but...
