Nonbelievers, what do you hope will come of discussing Christianity (on this board)?

[patrick]

I’ve got a feeling you’ve mistaken me for someone else. If I had a penny for every time a theist told me I were an agnostic, or something other than atheist because I do not fit into the convenient agenda box they decided all atheists are supposed to fit into….. well let’s just say I would have lots of pennies. Because this has happened to me countless times, I am the last person to try and do this to someone else; I am not the type of person to tell someone else they are anything other than what they claim to be.

Thanks for the response. For what it's worth, I consider you an agnostic atheist, meaning it seems you don't believe in God because you don't think there's enough evidence, and until there is you default to atheism. But yeah, reading this it seems I was mistaken about you advocating that position for others.

There are people on this forum I enjoy talking to. Yes; I do have interest in the various ways people believe, and I find that quite interesting; but I also believe when people get a chance to interact with those they disagree with, a lot of the misconception get cleared up. I was surprised at how many people believed that because I have no religious faith, I had no reason (other than the law) to refrain from committing every atrocity imaginable. Yeah I’ve heard people say this, but I just assumed they were just being melodramatic; but as absurd as this sounds, there are actually people who believe this way. Though there are a few people on this board who hate me, there are some who I get along with quite well and we’ve had some very constructive conversations. I made no attempt to change their minds on religion (not that I could even if I tried), but they will tell you; even though we disagree, we’ve had some very good discussions.

I see. That would explain a lot. I think it's unfortunate that atheists are demonized in that way, as I think we all have a sense for what's right and wrong regardless of what other things we believe. And I'm glad to hear you're enjoying your time here -- that's a great reason to stick around in my book.

As a general rule, I like having my beliefs challenged; that’s the only way you can grow. Not just religious beliefs, but political, Philosophical, moral, whatever it is that I believe, I like discussing with those who disagree with me. For a political conservative person to only look at Fox News and refuse to look at Progressive stations like MSNBC, he is doing himself a disservice. For the Progressive person to only look at MSNBC and refuse to look at conservative stations like Fox News, he is doing himself a disservice. To “coddle” yourself by surrounding yourself with those who agree with you will prevent you from growing so when you get out into the real world, away from your friends, the minute your beliefs are challenged you will be ill prepared, and your arguments will fall apart like a house of cards, because the only thing you will know about your opponent will be what your coddling friends tell you; which will probably be far from the truth.

I relate a lot to this. I find it much easier to argue my own point of view and have others question it for me than to have to do all the doubting of it myself. While I do like to hear what others who share most of my beliefs think, I also like hearing from people who don't share them too. So even though I've questioned your motives here, your criticism of what I say is more than welcome.

[patrick]

Why I dont believe, as in detailed response to all reasons why others do believe in your god?

What are you asking for?

Well, for example, if I were going to go to a skeptics forum, I'd be interested (mostly) in finding out why some find a particular belief I have to be irrational. Some other Christians might be motivated to try evangelizing, but I get the impression in this day and age that most nonbelievers just feel like the view they already hold explains enough -- in other words, even if they were convinced Christianity were a reasonable position, they wouldn't change their own beliefs so much as see both ways as being valid.

So I'm asking less about why you don't believe and more about why you frequent the board. It's a bit of a personal question -- you may have just been curious one day about something and then found you liked arguing with the people here, but then it also could be something like practicing how to better explain your position when put on the spot by pushy Christians -- so I don't blame you if you decline.

[Audie]

I'm not sure I've asked Audie. Or perhaps I did and it was left a bit in the air, or I forget.

What do you believe best describes you: Atheist or Agnostic ?

I dont look at it the way you do. I am not a negative something defined on terms of degrees of
accepting your belief.

Im just me, a normal person. You are afflicted with godism. Im no more an "atheist"
than you are an achickenpoxist or an agschistosomiasisist

Oh yes, that's right. You assert a Negative Atheism.

Spoken as positive g_ddist.

[Storyteller]

I agree with you so far. If you are not personally convinced the arguments for Christianity are good enough, there's no reason you should share those beliefs.

Thank you. Happy to see we agree on something

I get the impression, though, from your discussions on this board that you're implicitly arguing that Christians should be Agnostics -- i.e. that they ought to claim that they don't know anything when it comes to matters such as the Bible. If so, that would be a positive argument, and I'm curious what your reasoning for that might be.

I’ve got a feeling you’ve mistaken me for someone else. If I had a penny for every time a theist told me I were an agnostic, or something other than atheist because I do not fit into the convenient agenda box they decided all atheists are supposed to fit into….. well let’s just say I would have lots of pennies. Because this has happened to me countless times, I am the last person to try and do this to someone else; I am not the type of person to tell someone else they are anything other than what they claim to be.

For other nonbelievers, I'm curious what you're seeking. I'm half-wondering if most here aren't just trying to better explain why they don't believe -- which is perfectly valid, as Christians tend to evangelize, but would be good to know.

There are people on this forum I enjoy talking to. Yes; I do have interest in the various ways people believe, and I find that quite interesting; but I also believe when people get a chance to interact with those they disagree with, a lot of the misconception get cleared up. I was surprised at how many people believed that because I have no religious faith, I had no reason (other than the law) to refrain from committing every atrocity imaginable. Yeah I’ve heard people say this, but I just assumed they were just being melodramatic; but as absurd as this sounds, there are actually people who believe this way. Though there are a few people on this board who hate me, there are some who I get along with quite well and we’ve had some very constructive conversations. I made no attempt to change their minds on religion (not that I could even if I tried), but they will tell you; even though we disagree, we’ve had some very good discussions.

As a general rule, I like having my beliefs challenged; that’s the only way you can grow. Not just religious beliefs, but political, Philosophical, moral, whatever it is that I believe, I like discussing with those who disagree with me. For a political conservative person to only look at Fox News and refuse to look at Progressive stations like MSNBC, he is doing himself a disservice. For the Progressive person to only look at MSNBC and refuse to look at conservative stations like Fox News, he is doing himself a disservice. To “coddle” yourself by surrounding yourself with those who agree with you will prevent you from growing so when you get out into the real world, away from your friends, the minute your beliefs are challenged you will be ill prepared, and your arguments will fall apart like a house of cards, because the only thing you will know about your opponent will be what your coddling friends tell you; which will probably be far from the truth.

I have a feeling there are others who also like having their beliefs challenged as well. I’ve had people tell me that as a result of our discussions their faith has been strengthened.
So to answer your question; “why am I here?” For the sake of discussion; and though I do have my share of “haters” there are people on this forum I enjoy talking to.

Ken

Can I please put my hand up as one of those who enjoy talking to you?

Although we disagree on a few things (mainly the existence of God) we agree on a lot of things too and every single conversation we have had has been fun, illuminating and respectful. It`s nice to talk to people who believe diffrerent things, gives you a chance to examine what you do believe.

Do I want to "convert" anyone? Depends how you define convert I guess. If someone came to Christ through something i said, or did, I would be absolutely ecstatic that God worked through me like that but it`s not the first thing I think of, I just enjoy trying to figure out why people think like they do.
I`m glad non believers are allowed on here, it makes for some interesting debate and keeps things fresh, and personally for me, being fairly new to Christ it`s great fun to test my faith and discover exactly what I do believe.

Oh, and just for the record, I think to claim that atheists can have no morals because they don`t believe is, imo, utterly ridiculous.

I think, sometimes, we Christians (and others) forget that we all have free will. Who are we to say that non believers are wrong? (We all know they are but does it really need to be said? )

Personally, I found it quite hard to fully commit to Christ, to actually really believe. It wasn`t an instant thing, more a gradual realisation that Christ is, and was, what I have been looking for all along. A large part of that was reading the stuff on here so it is possible.

[Kurieuo]

I'm not sure I've asked Audie. Or perhaps I did and it was left a bit in the air, or I forget.

What do you believe best describes you: Atheist or Agnostic ?

I dont look at it the way you do. I am not a negative something defined on terms of degrees of
accepting your belief.

Im just me, a normal person. You are afflicted with godism. Im no more an "atheist"
than you are an achickenpoxist or an agschistosomiasisist

Oh yes, that's right. You assert a Negative Atheism.

Spoken as positive g_ddist.

Err... yeah, ok.
Take a read of The Presumption of Atheism and you'll see.
Should be easy to find online.

[Audie]

Why I dont believe, as in detailed response to all reasons why others do believe in your god?

What are you asking for?

Well, for example, if I were going to go to a skeptics forum, I'd be interested (mostly) in finding out why some find a particular belief I have to be irrational. Some other Christians might be motivated to try evangelizing, but I get the impression in this day and age that most nonbelievers just feel like the view they already hold explains enough -- in other words, even if they were convinced Christianity were a reasonable position, they wouldn't change their own beliefs so much as see both ways as being valid.

So I'm asking less about why you don't believe and more about why you frequent the board. It's a bit of a personal question -- you may have just been curious one day about something and then found you liked arguing with the people here, but then it also could be something like practicing how to better explain your position when put on the spot by pushy Christians -- so I don't blame you if you decline.

I very seldom run across a pushy Christian. If a JW or Mormon, say, comes to the door I just speak Chinese to them, and they leave soon enough.

I was on a trans pacific flight with a pushy one, and that could have been unpleasant, but I got out my tablet, put earphones in my ears, and ignored him.

There are said to be three topics, politics, sports and religion. I dotn care for sports, and politics, seldom of interest. Some religious ideas are interesting,
there is a program "On Being" aired on NPR that always has interesting people, discussing faith and religion.

Looking for interesting new ideas here proves to be rather thin soup.
I've struck up acquaintance with two or three people who see the world very differently than I, but with whom I feel a kinship, a safe person to talk to.

Sometimes I like to see just how far off the rails some people can go, trying to make their conclusion-before-study fit the reality around them, really any extreme pov. Its a sort of sociology.

Too, if things are too peaceful and quiet in my life I have to stir things up. Terrible habit! Sometimes a forum provides a harmless venue for jumping up and down and getting all excited.

How about this...Why do you care what I do or think?

[Audie]

I'm not sure I've asked Audie. Or perhaps I did and it was left a bit in the air, or I forget.

What do you believe best describes you: Atheist or Agnostic ?

I dont look at it the way you do. I am not a negative something defined on terms of degrees of
accepting your belief.

Im just me, a normal person. You are afflicted with godism. Im no more an "atheist"
than you are an achickenpoxist or an ag

Oh yes, that's right. You assert a Negative Atheism.

Spoken as positive g_ddist.

Err... yeah, ok.
Take a read of The Presumption of Atheism and you'll see.
Should be easy to find online.

I looked at it, its just news of the obvious. So..?

Are you a positive schistosomiasisist? Or a negative?

Do you feel powerful waves of confusion at being asked this?

[Kurieuo]

I dont look at it the way you do. I am not a negative something defined on terms of degrees of
accepting your belief.

Im just me, a normal person. You are afflicted with godism. Im no more an "atheist"
than you are an achickenpoxist or an ag

Oh yes, that's right. You assert a Negative Atheism.

Spoken as positive g_ddist.

Err... yeah, ok.
Take a read of The Presumption of Atheism and you'll see.
Should be easy to find online.

I looked at it, its just news of the obvious. So..?

Are you a positive schistosomiasisist? Or a negative?

Do you feel powerful waves of confusion at being asked this?

I feel Audie waves of confusion.

[Audie]

What is an Audie-wave? Maybe you are thinking Alpha waves? Or, worse, p-waves.

Shake your head, or maybe take deep breaths.

Then Ommmmmm and when philosophy tries to raise its wavy head, grim and importunate as it may be, just let it go, exhale, let it go.

THEN maybe you can grapple with what is important here:

Are you a positive, or negative Schistosomiasisist?

It matters a lot more than most things discussed here.

[Kurieuo]

What is an Audie-wave? Maybe you are thinking Alpha waves? Or, worse, p-waves.

Shake your head, or maybe take deep breaths.

Then Ommmmmm and when philosophy tries to raise its wavy head, grim and importunate as it may be, just let it go, exhale, let it go.

THEN maybe you can grapple with what is important here:

Are you a positive, or negative Schistosomiasisist?

It matters a lot more than most things discussed here.

Ow... my head is starting to hurt.
I find you and your philosophy here confusing.
If there's a wave that suits you then it's a dumper.

You're just a positive multiuniversist who believes unintelligence caused everything,
including the very intelligent and deeply hurt lady I "see" before me writing here.

I believe I matter, my kids matter and you really matter.
Everything we do, has been done or happens in life matters.
I'd be lying to myself if I said that I could consistently believe nothing really matters.
Therefore it is actually more coherent for me to believe God exists.

[Audie]

What is an Audie-wave? Maybe you are thinking Alpha waves? Or, worse, p-waves.

Shake your head, or maybe take deep breaths.

Then Ommmmmm and when philosophy tries to raise its wavy head, grim and importunate as it may be, just let it go, exhale, let it go.

THEN maybe you can grapple with what is important here:

Are you a positive, or negative Schistosomiasisist?

It matters a lot more than most things discussed here.

Ow... my head is starting to hurt.
I find you and your philosophy here confusing.
If there's a wave that suits you then it's a dumper.

You're just a positive multiuniversist who believes unintelligence caused everything,
including the very intelligent and deeply hurt lady I "see" before me writing here.

I believe I matter, my kids matter and you really matter.
Everything we do, has been done or happens in life matters.
I'd be lying to myself if I said that I could consistently believe nothing really matters.
Therefore it is actually more coherent for me to believe God exists.

Now I dont feel like bantering.

[patrick]

There are said to be three topics, politics, sports and religion. I dotn care for sports, and politics, seldom of interest. Some religious ideas are interesting,
there is a program "On Being" aired on NPR that always has interesting people, discussing faith and religion.

I can relate to this, albeit perhaps from a different starting point. I found myself drawn to spiritual ideas before I identified as a Christian and would still be interested in Christianity even if I change my mind about it later.

Looking for interesting new ideas here proves to be rather thin soup.
I've struck up acquaintance with two or three people who see the world very differently than I, but with whom I feel a kinship, a safe person to talk to.

Sometimes I like to see just how far off the rails some people can go, trying to make their conclusion-before-study fit the reality around them, really any extreme pov. Its a sort of sociology.

Too, if things are too peaceful and quiet in my life I have to stir things up. Terrible habit! Sometimes a forum provides a harmless venue for jumping up and down and getting all excited.

That's fair. And those all sound like good reasons to me. Thanks for sharing.

How about this...Why do you care what I do or think?

Well there's a number of little reasons, but the main one is right now I'm in the middle of digesting a lot of information about Christianity, and I'm pretty sensitive to allowing myself to get too biased. So I've been trying to find reasonable, alternative points of view, but I find for the most part most nonChristians either don't very well understand Christianity or don't care much about what it tries to get at. And I thought the atheists that frequent this board might be an exception.

I've only come into Christianity in the past few months, and there's a few notions of it I have that most Christians would probably have a hard time agreeing with. I'm currently of the opinion, for instance, that while the core teaching of Christianity might be true, there's some cultural baggage that may be weighing it down towards stagnation. I don't know any language other than English (yet), so my options for seeing around Western culture itself are a bit limited, but I thought starting a dialogue in this way might be a means of doing so.

Also, I was originally drawn to consider Christianity because a few Christians on this board seemed more authentic and patient when it came to their philosophy than most people I'd seen, of any belief. Most people tend to sit back and poke holes in philosophies they don't agree with, offering nothing of their own. And even if they claim to offer their philosophy, either their actions suggest they believe really something else, or their philosophy seems rather shallow to begin with.

So I'm pretty interested in understanding where you, and everyone else, is coming from. It helps a lot to put things into context.

[Kurieuo]

What is an Audie-wave? Maybe you are thinking Alpha waves? Or, worse, p-waves.

Shake your head, or maybe take deep breaths.

Then Ommmmmm and when philosophy tries to raise its wavy head, grim and importunate as it may be, just let it go, exhale, let it go.

THEN maybe you can grapple with what is important here:

Are you a positive, or negative Schistosomiasisist?

It matters a lot more than most things discussed here.

Ow... my head is starting to hurt.
I find you and your philosophy here confusing.
If there's a wave that suits you then it's a dumper.

You're just a positive multiuniversist who believes unintelligence caused everything,
including the very intelligent and deeply hurt lady I "see" before me writing here.

I believe I matter, my kids matter and you really matter.
Everything we do, has been done or happens in life matters.
I'd be lying to myself if I said that I could consistently believe nothing really matters.
Therefore it is actually more coherent for me to believe God exists.

Now I dont feel like bantering.

[Audie]

What is an Audie-wave? Maybe you are thinking Alpha waves? Or, worse, p-waves.

Shake your head, or maybe take deep breaths.

Then Ommmmmm and when philosophy tries to raise its wavy head, grim and importunate as it may be, just let it go, exhale, let it go.

THEN maybe you can grapple with what is important here:

Are you a positive, or negative Schistosomiasisist?

It matters a lot more than most things discussed here.

Ow... my head is starting to hurt.
I find you and your philosophy here confusing.
If there's a wave that suits you then it's a dumper.

You're just a positive multiuniversist who believes unintelligence caused everything,
including the very intelligent and deeply hurt lady I "see" before me writing here.

I believe I matter, my kids matter and you really matter.
Everything we do, has been done or happens in life matters.
I'd be lying to myself if I said that I could consistently believe nothing really matters.
Therefore it is actually more coherent for me to believe God exists.

Now I dont feel like bantering.

Is that something that can be said in words?

[Audie]

There are said to be three topics, politics, sports and religion. I dotn care for sports, and politics, seldom of interest. Some religious ideas are interesting,
there is a program "On Being" aired on NPR that always has interesting people, discussing faith and religion.

I can relate to this, albeit perhaps from a different starting point. I found myself drawn to spiritual ideas before I identified as a Christian and would still be interested in Christianity even if I change my mind about it later.

Looking for interesting new ideas here proves to be rather thin soup.
I've struck up acquaintance with two or three people who see the world very differently than I, but with whom I feel a kinship, a safe person to talk to.

Sometimes I like to see just how far off the rails some people can go, trying to make their conclusion-before-study fit the reality around them, really any extreme pov. Its a sort of sociology.

Too, if things are too peaceful and quiet in my life I have to stir things up. Terrible habit! Sometimes a forum provides a harmless venue for jumping up and down and getting all excited.

That's fair. And those all sound like good reasons to me. Thanks for sharing.

How about this...Why do you care what I do or think?

Well there's a number of little reasons, but the main one is right now I'm in the middle of digesting a lot of information about Christianity, and I'm pretty sensitive to allowing myself to get too biased. So I've been trying to find reasonable, alternative points of view, but I find for the most part most nonChristians either don't very well understand Christianity or don't care much about what it tries to get at. And I thought the atheists that frequent this board might be an exception.

I've only come into Christianity in the past few months, and there's a few notions of it I have that most Christians would probably have a hard time agreeing with. I'm currently of the opinion, for instance, that while the core teaching of Christianity might be true, there's some cultural baggage that may be weighing it down towards stagnation. I don't know any language other than English (yet), so my options for seeing around Western culture itself are a bit limited, but I thought starting a dialogue in this way might be a means of doing so.

Also, I was originally drawn to consider Christianity because a few Christians on this board seemed more authentic and patient when it came to their philosophy than most people I'd seen, of any belief. Most people tend to sit back and poke holes in philosophies they don't agree with, offering nothing of their own. And even if they claim to offer their philosophy, either their actions suggest they believe really something else, or their philosophy seems rather shallow to begin with.

So I'm pretty interested in understanding where you, and everyone else, is coming from. It helps a lot to put things into context.

For sure we come from such different places and are travelling different roads.

What does "spiritual" mean?