Reply #133: Very interesting discussion in this thread [View All]

I will say for myself that I am a former Christian, now agnostic, but not an atheist. I would consider myself to be just on the believing side of agnostic. Actually, I am probably closest to being a deist. There are several websites about deism, which are easy to find, and which I discovered a few months ago.

lxv35's posts are right to the point as to why I, personally, have trouble with atheism. I, personally, have a hard time believing that our reasoning ability, and our sense of things like truth, beauty, goodness, justice, right and wrong, etc. are not rooted in some reality, perhaps a personal reality, higher than ourselves and the natural universe. I have a hard time accepting these good things as being only a result of chemical processes in our brain. I like the arguments of C. S. Lewis along these lines in some of his books.

On the other hand, I at one time took Christianity seriously, and I feel I gave it an honest try, and I found that it did not help me at all to better deal with any source of pain, frustration, or unhappiness in my life. And I have never had any kind of experience which has confirmed for me the reality of God, or anything that might be considered supernatural.

And I cannot accept the Christian teaching which implies that anybody who misses out on accepting Jesus Christ in this lifetime, for whatever reason, is going to be condemned to hell for all eternity. Even if I accept Christ for myself, say for fire insurance as much as for any other reason, I absolutely cannot live with having to worry about others being "saved" or "unsaved", and having to tell people about Christ motivated by such a belief.

That being the case, I understand where the atheists are coming from.

As I said earlier, I would consider myself to be closer to being a deist than probably anything else. They believe in using reason. They especially reject any alleged divine revelation. Any alleged revelation from God is considered to be at best second-hand and hearsay. And it is believers in the revealed religions who, in the name of their God, consider anybody who does not accept their particular revealed religion to be an infidel, and that seems to be closely related to what Sam Harris is saying.

I definitely want to accept uncertainty; that seems to be essential. The biggest danger seems to come from those who are absolutely certain in their beliefs.