It's triggering so much anxiety

Argument from consciousness.

The hard problem of consciousness remains unsolved to this day. Despite thousands of years and great minds coming and going. While we understand the mechanisms of the brain better now with integrated information theory and global workspace theory it still doesn't explain why there is someone home at all or why someone is John but not Ana. I would say consciousness is the closest thing to magic/sorcery.

Time makes no sense. People tell us that billions of years and events have occurred before our births but from my perspective I have 'always' been here. How can both be simultaneously true? It seems to me like the only way both can be true is if you invoke magic and just throw logic out the window and point to a god who can apparently do it. Really sit and think about this one for a second. Why has your existence always felt so immediate and now? yet people tell us that a very long time had to pass before our births came up. It just doesn't add up.

We know how things behave based on physics but it is unclear if they could be different. Every time I read a fantasy book, it's hard to imagine these stories aren't happening anywhere. In computer simulations we can change physics to whatever we want. It is unclear if physics in our world is set in stone. I would say that a creator setting those parameters is worth exploring.

Evolution seems to be something of a final nail in the coffin for creationism for many atheists. But shouldn't Mars have life too? why only Earth? Mars sits in the goldilocks zone. And we know from waterbears that life can simply adapt no matter how harsh the environment. Gee it's almost like the developers really wanted us to be alone.

Why are we human? chickens outnumber us, fishes outnumber us, many species outnumber us but yet I'm supposed to believe that I just lucked out as a human? or is there some divine/magic sorcery at play here?

Am I convinced of God? no but because reality fails to make sense in many ways it leads me to believe that some sorcery/magic is likely at play here. And if sorcery/magic are real then God becomes possible too. This isn't God of the gaps. This is "I don't have faith that everything will make sense to us some day so any explanation is free game at this point"

Atheists say that all theists are as atheistic as them

For example there are 4000 gods and theist believes in one god and atheist 0 . The atheist says that you are almost as atheistic as me just that i believe in one less god than you do but this creates a loophole

That's like saying as a single man says to a married guy I am also married just that I have one less wife than you so you are also almost bachelor as me

And this is not to deny that theist sees other 3999 gods the same way as atheist does , this can be true

And I feel there is less of a difference between 2 people who believes in 4000 gods and 1 god

Respectively

Than compared to 2 people who believe in 0 and 1 god respectively it's not about quantity here

Hey everyone,

I hope everything is going well

Im reflecting on why I started believing in god again after becoming an atheist for a long while.

Funny enough, though, despite all the philosophical debates and reasoning and whatnot. The one HEAVIEST reason why i was like:"damn, yes, god exists" is the strangest one you may hear. Yet im sharing it with you regardless.

There's this girl I've been in love with for a while now. I've known her for 3 years, and im planning to get married to her soon enough. And she's genuinely the definition of "goodness."

Dont get me wrong, im not putting way too much expectations on her to be the perfect person and the perfect partner. She's meeting a standard too high to even set.

I've known her through her ups and downs and saw all sides she has to offer. And I'm left at the end of the day thinking:"There's no way I could have ever met her if an all good god didn't exist."

It may sound strange to you, and it is strange im not gonna deny it, call it a logical fallacy call it an appeal to whatever. I made peace with atheism long ago, but meeting her literally made me believe this can't be anything less than God at work.

God bless you all.

I feel that I know God exists but I’m slightly agnostic about Christianity

I used to go to a Christian youth hub which honestly had the opposite effect and made me rebel (in a very teenage spirit) against all forms of Christianity.

Long story short, they were filled to the brim with the kind you make fun of as a teenager. Gullible, innocent, dumb and sheltered mama's boys that just make you cringe.

As soon as I stopped believing, all hell broke lose in my life for 7 years and almost every single deadly sin disrupted my life severely.

-Wrath. This is a biggy, during covid I couldn't stop throwing tantrums about how I couldn't meet people and socialise and that I was stuck in for pretty much 2 years during lockdown. I constantly threw tantrums at home, even broke things because I couldn't control my wrath.

Even after covid, my wrath continued somewhat by just insulting people for no reason, even people who cared about me, It ruined some family as well as work relationships, sick I know.

Gluttony. I started smoking (weed even) like crazy, drinking a lot, eating like a pig. All of this made me do shit I regretted as well as some adverse effects on my lungs.

Sloth. I was lazy in literally everything, always did the bare minimum to pass my exams, always did the bare minimum not to be fired in work, It really prevented me from progressing the way one is intended to progress.

Lust. I only saw girls and later women as sex objects and nothing else. EVERY SINGLE WOMEN I laid eyes on made me think about one thing and nothing else. I never crossed any boundaries but obviously this didn't translate well to meaningful friendships.

Envy. Another biggy, always getting jealous of people on social media living (seamingly) more interesting lives than me not making me grateful for the things I have (and I had a lot trust me before these sins nearly ruined my life)

The only sin that I wasn't really affected by was greed I guess, mostly stemming from the fact that I learned that money doesn't buy happiness through life experience.

Anyways thank you for listening and I would wish to return to the path of light more.

I’m christian and I’m wondering what made you guys leave atheism just a question

I’ve been on this sub quite a bit and it seems to be a lot more respectful then other religion discussing ( r/debatereligion, r/Christianity, ext) I’m wondering if there are any subs like this.

Was it the loss of friends? Doubts? A new change in routine? For me it was honestly being hated by the same community I was in for years. Before converting, I was bisexual and atheist, and after converting.. well.. the same community that claimed to "love all" told me pretty bad things.

What about you?

hiya! i’ve battled with my religious beliefs for my whole life, having had many phases of entirely rejecting the catholicism that was forced upon me, finding it again on my own, and eventually returning to the staunch atheism which i now feel completely intellectually convinced of. i have read the bible, read much scholarship on both the christian and atheist sides of the debate.. hell i’ve even started watching the chosen, and i feel very confused. if someone asked me what i believed, i would say with 100% intellectual conviction that a personal god does not exist. i know every argument against gods existence, and so many things make it seem truly impossible to me. 1) the fact that physical changes in the brain cause differences in behaviour raises huge issues for me. if everything is material, the existence of a soul is impossible. and putting the soul aside, it would be completely immoral for god to judge us based off what is essentially the determined outcomes of physical, neuronal configurations in our skulls. 2) the geography argument is really big for me. i cannot understand why god would privilege certain individuals over others in placing them in circumstances that would determine with 90% accuracy their chance of salvation through the faith of their community. 3) people believe in so many religions around the world. uncontacted tribes will worship a plane which flies above them if that’s the closest thing to a heavenly experience they encounter. it seems to be a natural psychological feature for human beings to crave meaning and purpose. why should christianity be the correct religion, if there is one at all? and how do we reconcile the personal religious experiences of christians when muslims, hindus, jews etc all report the same exact experiences in their own respective places of worship and reflection? 4) and this is the biggest thing for me: i do not understand how an all loving god could condemn anyone to hell, even the most evil and barbaric people on the planet. it seems vengeful, irrational, and - given its eternity - completely disproportionate to any sin anyone could ever commit, let alone a ‘sin’ as minor as disbelief, given that’s all that’s required to put someone there under the christian doctrine. yes, i KNOW the biblical answer to this question and it seems pretty damn stupid to me too. original sin as a concept has never made sense to me. god made us, he could’ve made us without the inclination towards grave sin. and the sins of my great great great (and many more great) grandparents surely shouldn’t be my cross to bear (pun intended)

however, as i said, my conviction is completely intellectual. i still feel a personal draw towards christianity. i feel like i know jesus. i feel an urge to pray in times of distress, and i often feel god watching me and it feels comforting to me. i think about the miracle of life - how a whole new human with consciousness can be created in the womb of a woman, knitted (to use the biblical terminology) together from the atoms and nutrients inside of her body. it’s so amazing that i exist and i have consciousness. and that the world is so beautiful and intricate and physics is so perfectly aligned. how do i overcome my doubts? is it right for me to intellectually suppress myself to find faith- i feel like doing that just confirms all my prejudices against religious people. that they’re just convincing themselves of something they know isn’t true for personal comfort. ive tried to go to church and read the bible and be a christian so many times, but my deep knowledge of hitchens and dawkins just keeps tugging at me from the back of my mind and i just can never truly believe!!!

if anyone has gone through a similar crisis - HELP!!!! 🤣

Sikhism: They fallow there teachings really well, they do a lot of charity, and they just overall have a really positive effect on Society. Their uniforms are also really very cool.

Buddhism: similar to sikhs they are very are simply very kind and caring people. Also I admire the Buddha and his teachings.

Taoism: probably my favorite religion (aside from mine) they are welcoming from my experience. Like they other 2 religions I mentioned here they are very virtuous and it is very fun to study their theology.

(sorry for bad English)

Interesting interview about belief in God with alternative rock musician/singer Billy Corgan, the frontman of the band Smashing Pumpkins. The interview gets interesting around the 5:36 mark where Corgan rhetorically asks, "how do you know God is real?" On a related note, I met him many years ago and got his autograph. To be honest, I didn't even know he believed in God until this interview. In fact, I thought he was an atheist or agnostic based on his lyrics dating back to the 1990's and 2000's. It's a trip to find out some of the singers and musicians I listen to (i.e. Ozzy Osbourne, Rob Halford from Judas Priest, Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails, etc.) actually believe in God and in some cases are actually quite religious or spiritual.