Raf

We're exploring what it means to exist, and our ability to bring things into existence by consensus. You exist, as do I. You can choose not to believe in me, but that doesn't change the fact I exist. Agency might not have been the best word choice on my part. A chair doesn't have agency, but its existence does not depend on whether I believe in it or acknowledge it. Some things exist purely because we acknowledge them (a social contract, laws, national boundaries, property lines). Other things exist regardless of whether we acknowledge them (chairs, tables, rocks, rivers, anthropogenic climate change). And some things don't exist no matter how many people believe them, acknowledge them, etc (Santa Claus, the health benefits of superoxygenated water, voter fraud on a scale large enough to affect the outcome of a national election). I believe God falls in the third category, not the first or second. If we were to insist on placing him in the first category, then He can affect laws and mores. He can establish societal norms. He can tell us what words we can and cannot say. He can tell us which day of the week is okay to pick up sticks. He can tell women how to dress and men whether they can marry another man or multiple women. But the moment you insist that he belongs in the second category, you will learn very quickly he belongs in the third.

I don't want to go off on a tangent about what it means to exist unless it is relevant to your thread. So, since you brought it up, I'll err on the side of "it's relevant." It is true that national boundaries do not exist. Neither do property lines. "Ownership" doesn't really exist. Why can't someone else just get in my car and drive off with it? But ownership and property lines, and national boundaries, are part of a social contract (which also does not exist) that we recognize in order to maintain order. Humans are a social animal, and societies are governed by written and unwritten rules that have developed over millennia. We recognize boundaries that do not exist in any objective sense because without those boundaries, the social contract starts to crumble. My house is mine. It's not my neighbor's. Social contracts evolve over time as the population's knowledge evolves. The more we know about the world in which we live, and about the differences in society, the more we adapt our social contract. We don't ban polygamy because our scriptures do. Our scriptures ban polygamy because we do. When we permitted polygamy, so did our scriptures. Some of our scriptures still allow polygamy. Some say our scriptures do, too! Religion, every religion, is an attempt to codify that social contract at a specific moment in time, with the goal of preserving it for all time. That's why you can have a Bible that takes slavery for granted and doesn't condemn it as an evil. Our society did not condemn slavery until many, many years (centuries) after the Christian scriptures were completed. Now we read freedom into scriptures that never condemn slavery. Anyway, that's another tangent. My point is, I agree that national boundaries don't exist, but we bring them into existence by drawing and recognizing them. And we can erase them just as easily. Gods are different in that regard because they have agency. You can't merely acknowledge them into existence by agreement anymore than you can acknowledge my third son into existence by agreement (I only have two sons. That I know of. Another tangent. That was a joke). You and I can agree that there is a God, that his name is Yahweh, that He bans this and commands that. And by our agreement we can craft a society. But anyone coming from the outside is under no obligation to acknowledge that God or his rules because he is not real. Look at the Western Hemisphere. It had TONS of boundaries that were simply not recognized by the European settlers who came here. "But look! These are our boundaries! They exist!" Whatever, I claim this land for Spain, for England, for Holland, for Portugal. But what about the boundaries? The reality that they don't exist except by mutual agreement comes into sharp focus. And when was the last time you watched a Star Trek series where they talked about the national boundaries of the planets they visited? I don't think the aliens of Independence Day gave a hoot about our national boundaries. Or our gods. Because they don't exist except by mutual agreement.

Atheism does not hold that individuals are "central." Central to what? If you answer that, I may have an answer that applies to myself, but I cannot say it applies to anyone else, and my answer would not necessarily flow from the fact that I do not believe in any god. Maybe I think family is central, or our social order is central. I don't know what you MEAN by central. And maybe it's not individuals. Maybe it's individuality that's central. "Denial of submission/relationship to any gods since they are not scientifically real." I quibble with the wording here. We don't "deny submission to or a relationship" with any gods. Rather, we reject the argument that any particular gods exist, and therefore see no need to submit to them. I feel the same way about Yahweh that most Christians feel about the angel Moroni. Yeah, I'm sure SOME Christians believe Moroni was a devil spirit who deceived Joseph Smith, but I would venture to say that most think Smith just made the whole thing up. You wouldn't say most Christians deny submission to the authority of the Book of Mormon. That presumes the book has authority to be rejected. So what would be more accurate? Try: Atheism (in the West): A rejection of arguments for the existence of a God or gods, rendering their worship moot. Often (but not by definition) accompanied by a belief that religions are misleading at best and divisive/dangerous/sinister at worst. Often (but not by definition) accompanied by a humanistic approach to society, the belief that our problems, to the extent they can be solved, can only be solved by the fine tuning of a social contract that elevates reason/rationalism and empathy above individual advancement. Since these are all brief summaries not intended to be comprehensive or explore every aspect of extrapolating from the implications of each worldview, I'll just stop there.

You're welcome

That's because it sucks.

Rambo?

The Legend of Billie Jean Christian Slater Untamed Heart

Yabba Dabba Doo Hi Fred.

You're presupposing your conclusion in your premise. "Beliefs are found in the unconscious." Respectfully, that is not true of all beliefs, and it's absurd on its face. Beliefs can be dependent on the information you have, and greater information can and should change beliefs. A child believes in the tooth fairy because parents fed that story. Greater information leads to a change in the belief. It's not because their subconscious never believed it. It's because they received or considered more information.

Sounds like the thread's run its course and is now officially about anything.

Although I have been more active than usual, I still hesitate to answer for fear that I will just let the thread wither while you wait for me to post a new clue. Hence my hints.

Well THAT was a giveaway

Good idea. Not that I don't love the topic, but yeah, it is different

Correct

Either that or Endgame

I really love the direction this thread went in. I remember talking about how non-Trinitarians could learn from Trinitarians about the reverence that is Biblically due to Jesus Christ, while Trinitarians could learn from non-Trinitarians about Christ's obedience, commitment and sacrifice. Each side holds a position that can enhance the other side's appreciation for the truth! I thought about that reading T-Bone's post, and I am so glad that my perspective (not taking credit for it, just that I agree with it) can help you appreciate the quality and value of life in the now, or as you called it, the urgency to appreciate life right now. I guess on the flip side of that, while I can't say to my kid "in heaven you won't have autism," I can "think big" in terms of finding something, some hope beyond hope that there's a solution that we can have here and now. The analogy doesn't quite hold up, but the heart does. Believers see a future free of heartache and pain. I see the urgency of bringing it to pass sooner rather than later. Love it. And sometimes that desire to see things from a perspective you do not share is the first step to changing your mind, your mindset, your worldview... your thought.

"It goes on forever! Six bloody minutes!" "I pity your wife if you think six minutes is forever." *** "I want you to shake the freak tree and invite anyone who plops to the ground! Dwarfs and giants, magicians, Zulu tribesmen. contortionists, fire eaters, and priests. We're going to need to confess."

It is not. The main characters are all British. It is not a comedy.

It is not

"Please tell your father [in sign language] it's nice to meet him." "I have." "Well then, thank him for the lovely birthday cake." "I have." "Then tell him his daughter's an EPIC shag." "He can read lips."

Thank you for the input, all. Let me add something from a more positive approach: You know all those people who believe they could never have improved their lives, conquered their demons, achieved their goals and ambitions, quit drugs, quit being violent, quit drinking, reformed, renounced a life of crime, ALL those people who say they could NEVER have fixed their lives without God? Atheists believe you fixed your life without God. And we're f-ing proud of you in a way that we cannot express without picking a fight. But when you give God the glory for the change YOU made happen, we might nod politely, but in our hearts we're thinking: You Rock! P.S. You found your own damn keys and parking spot.

Yes, Bolshevik. That is correct. But there's a subtlety to it. There are those who believe a conversion experience is only possible in one direction. "Oh sure, you can go from atheist to Christian, because that's how it's supposed to work. But to go from Christian to atheist? No way! I have no choice but to question the genuineness of your Christian faith. No true Christian could ever turn away." That's nonsense. More accurately, it's a defense mechanism to protect people of faith from even having to consider whether the departing Christian might have a point. Easier to shrug off the loss of a not-true-believer than it is to weigh the argument he presents and put your own faith to the test. Why, "the test" itself is anathema! And yes, it goes the same in reverse: Some atheists can't stand the idea that a real atheist might be persuaded that there is a God, that His name is Yahweh, and that He was incarnated/represented/expressed/whatevered as the man Christ Jesus. Not a real atheist. Except, of COURSE a real atheist could come to that conclusion. The question in each case is HOW? And let me add, there are WAY too many Christians who like to say "I was an atheist too" when, in fact, they were not. You can hear it in their testimonies. They'll say things like "I hated God because He allowed such and such to happen." That's not how atheists would talk about it. We don't hate God anymore than Christians hate Odin. But "I was an atheist" makes a much better testimony than "I always believed in God because my parents told me He was real but they didn't teach me how to worship Him the way THIS COOL CHURCH GROUP did!" I can tell you that my earliest memories relate to the Kingdom Hall and the conviction that there is a God, Jesus is His Son and that the Bible is His Word. To me, until who knows when, the ONLY question about God was not whether He existed, but who got the Bible right! Had I started my quest with the mental ability to even consider whether this God story was fundamentally true, it might have changed my life. I thought critical thinking meant comparing what people said about God to what God said about Himself. It never even occurred to me that "what God said about Himself" was the mother of all presuppositions resulting in reasoning that circled and circled and circled until the tank refilled. But none of that means an atheist can't convert to Christianity, or vice versa. Of course they can. It happens all the time. Sometimes the change is precipitated by a "significant emotional event." Sometimes the change precipitates significant emotional events. I humbly submit that significant emotional events are too ubiquitous to identify as either a cause or effect of such a change, and it's probably more accurate to say the relationships between changes and events is symbiotic. Then again, Rocky may be completely, 100 percent right without equivocation. After all, he did allow for exceptions, and our only disagreement is over how prevalent those exceptions are.

I think my main point was that beliefs, worldviews, etc. can all fall under the general category of "thought" without damaging the point I was trying to make. T-Bone, thank you. Rocky, in the Law of Believing thread there was an implication that "truth be known" people who walk away from Christianity probably were never really believers to begin with. This thread was supposed to explore what it takes to change your mind. Your contribution has been priceless.

Rocky, I chose not to quibble with this summary of my position. The idea is what was important here, not the word choice. If you would like to be more precise in recognizing that changing a worldview is far more complex than a "thought," I would certainly agree with you. But I don't need to parse that in order to make my overall point: changing your [word we're arguing about here] can BE the significant emotional event rather than BEING CAUSED/PRECIPITATED BY such an event.

You're correct. I think you said ME specifically and I thought it was safe to extrapolate. You might not even have meant me, come to think of it. But my observation is off what you said, not who it was directed at.