BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Atheist Atheist, Agnostic, or Theist? Why?

I am skeptic about something unless I am convinced by the quality and believability of the sources. That is, I am skeptic when I find myself unable to trust the sources that state that X is true. I have several friends that I know are not delusional, that have experienced unexplainable events (re: ghosts or manifestations of events that have no reason. I have seen what I consider to be credible video and picture evidence of paranormal events. From those trusted sources, I look at the credibility of sources and evidence shown, and make up my mind on this one subject. Belief that a persons essence might still be around after their body dies does not equate that there are gods out there.

In other words, I AM skeptical of everything until proven otherwise.

I have had an un-explainable event happen too me but I make no assumptions what it actually means.

I haven't had people that I know and trust tell me they have spoken with the dead AND if I did I would still have to see it for myself. I have a couple dead relatives that would need to come forward and have a word, its that simple.

I find it alot more believable that your loved ones can contact you then all the flight of fancy that some people believe about religion. The religion I was raised in says that a gaurdian angel goes everywhere with you, he leaves you at the door if you enter a place you should not be in, like a pool hall, a movie theatre, etc. I wonder where he was when I had that horrible accident that I almost died in, nowhere near any of the places where he was supposed to leave my side. Maybe I wasn't praying hard enough...maybe I wasn't good enough, maybe my angel was on vacation, looking the other way, recharging his wings...now doesn't that sound absolutely rediculous??

I can't embrace any of it, dead souls talking to the living, angels floating over my shoulder until I see it, speak to them, experience their force field as it were. My Father passed away in 1999, all he would have to do is come and speak to me, there are any number of things he could say that I would know it was him. The same with an angel, any number of things he could do to make my way easier that I would know it was that good old guardian angel.

Then again, I am the kind of person who would probably assume it was auditory and visual hallucinations WAY before I would believe it was a gaurdian angel and my Father speaking too me from beyond the grave. I would probably commit myself for observation to the local psyche ward before I would become a believer in such unlikely things.

I have a family member who WANTS to believe in every insane thing out there, the crazier it is, the more she wants to embrace it. She believes in the dead talking with us, she is a christian, she believes aliens walk the earth...(she has been watching a little too much sci fi channel I believe). She asked me what I would do if an alien ship landed on my front lawn. I would dial 911 and ask them to get me away from my daughter because I had clearly gone nuts.

Think about it, how many times a day does a human being decompensate and start having auditory halluncinations and having visual halluncinations. I think you would be surprised how often that happens. AND the person it happens to, is not normally aware they are not real, its called having LOW insight into your own condition and many mental health problems are like that. People who have been fine their WHOLE life can pop up and display some pretty extreme symptoms. I think some religions actually encourage this insanity in their followers, it makes it alot easier to accept the beliefs of that religion. Why do you think The Church of Scientology is SO against psychiatric medication for their followers?

Well, I have anecdotal evidence of precognition -- and rationally, I have a hard time understanding how a person could have foreknowledge in this way, but -- it was family. My grandparents have both had significant precognitive events in their lives (they are now deceased, btw), my mother has had some. Too many to be mere coincidence. (My grandfather used to read tea leaves until he foresaw his mother's death. I suspect the tea leaves were a way for him to focus this ability -- my mother often said that she would usually see a dog or a horse, he would point out what he saw, and she could see that... kind of like looking at clouds, I think.)

My grandmother had Dreams (and dreams, too, as we all do) -- she could always tell the difference between a significant Dream and a "silly" dream like we get.

A couple were somewhat amusing. Once she and my mother both Dreamed of rushing water. Later that day, the water main in the house broke -- and yes, there sure was rushing water! They knew that those were different kinds of dreams before the water main broke. I suspect my dh thinks it is just coincidence, but that sort of thing happened far too often to be coincidence.

There's a lot we don't know about physics, a lot we don't know about the human brain, just too much we don't know. My grandmother (my main experience with this, as she lived with us when my grandfather died) couldn't control her Dreams, didn't LIKE having them (she was a Christian, and it was contrary to her religious beliefs), but had them, none-the-less.

So, if I had regular psychic experiences, I would be inclined to belief them. (I have not had the same experiences first hand.) Could there not be a gene for a tendency to these abilities, (or more likely, a number of genes), and many may suppress the ability, many others truly don't have it (a color blind person may really want to see colors, but never will - yet generally believes the rest of us that they are there).

Similarly, if an alien landed in my yard -- well, hey, way cool! But I can't imagine that the universe has only one planet populated, and I find it hard to image that we are the most advanced in the universe, so an alien landing is not inconceivable to me. And, thus far, I've never had any mental instability....

Of course, if it happened on October 31st or April 1st, I might look for tricks!

I had something happen to me when I was in high school. I was BARELY 16. We lived in Texas, it was Christmas break so no school the next day. It was evening and my best friend asked me if I could come and sleep over at her house. I had only been there once before and it was in an area I had NEVER been too other then that one time I had been to her home.

I asked my parents if I could go and they said yes. What they did not realize is the streets were covered in a thin sheet of ice. I was not aware of it either until I pulled out of the driveway and slid all over the place. Texas doesn't have enough sanding equipment to do anything but the bridges, your on your own the rest of the time.

If my brain had been engaged, I would have turned around and pulled back in my own driveway, called my friend and told her I could not come due to the weather. BUT being a brain donor teenager, I decided I wanted to go anyway. I had never slept over at her house and I wanted to get away from home.

I crept along all the way up the highway, hoping and praying the entire time nothing bad would happen. I made the turn off to her house, went up this road, then started to panic because I didn't remember exactly where the turn off was. I literally had NEVER been down that road past the turn off, had no idea what was there. It was an area with little light, rural to say the least.

I knew I had to turn left, I was driving along, thinking the turn off was at the top of the hill. Thats when I saw it...a sign with my last name on it with an arrow pointing down the road to the left that was at the top of the hill. I knew once I got on to that road I would be fine because it was gravel and there wasn't enough ice to make a gravel road slippery or at least I hoped not.

Understand, I have only heard of one person with my last name, spelled the SAME way, who was not related too me. My assumption was that my friends Father had put it there for me, he was known to be something of a trickster. It looked like he had somehow come out and attached that sign to another one already standing there.

I turned down the road and made it there fine AND the gravel wasn't slippery at all. I thanked him for the sign when I got there and he looked at me like I was NUTS. He had not put a sign there. I even asked his wife when he was not around and she said he had not left the house between the time that I had been on the phone with my friend and when I had arrived. My friend confirmed this as well.

I told them what I had seen. They were perplexed but had no idea how it had gotten there. We were up EARLY the next morning, my friend had to get too her job so we left around 7am. The sign was gone. I had told her I would point it out when we got there, there was nothing to point out.

I later did a little research, there was NO ONE by that last name, that spelling or any other listed as living in that town or the surrounding area, never mind down that particular road. I later drove down that road looking to see if there were any other signs or maybe a mail box with my last name on it but never found anything.

Of course the people I stayed with were VERY religious and literally believed my guardian angel had made me see that sign and that maybe some horrible fate awaited me if I had missed that turn off. I can still see that sign in my memory...I didn't imagine it. Was it a coincidence? Did some loved one who had passed on put it there to help me, OR like the fundies think was there a winged entity following me on my trip AND placed the sign there for me to find?

If it was the angel I have to wonder where he was when I was almost killed in a car accident some years later, a heads up then would have been NICE. That was 15 years ago and I still can't drive down that road.

The answer is I have no idea. The only logical explanation is that someone of the same last name just happened to be visiting someone on that road the SAME night that I was going. AND someone got there to remove the sign the next day. Until someone shows me another LOGICAL explanation, thats all I can believe.

I don't see your experience with the flooded basement as evidence of anything but coincidence. You had a dream about rushing water and only after your basement flooded did you make the assumption of precognition. If your basement had not flooded you would have forgotten the dream like you have forgotten the thousands of other dreams that never led to anything. You state that this happens far too often to be dismissed when in actuality it does not happen often at all because you only notice it when its a coincidence.

This is similar to the full moon lunacy that ER workers and police talk about. My wife has colleagues in the ER who swear that they get all the "wackos" during a full moon. In fact when they get a few "wackos" and notice its a full moon then they remember it. When its not a full moon it is quickly forgotten. This becomes a self fulfilling prohecy because invariable somebody comes to work and says "its a full moon tonight, we will probably see lots of "wackos"" Then everyone notices when the first one comes in.

As for your experience Lisa, it is far more likely that your mind was playing tricks on you. You were driving alone at night on an unfamiliar country road and the weather was not very good. You are driving slowly straining to see beyond your headlights and you think you see something that is not there. To top it out you ended up turning exactly where you thought you were supposed to turn. I would be much more impressed if you had been redirected to another location altogether.

I am quite certain that not one of these stories is capable of claiming the million dollar JREF paranormal challenge. A challenge that the likes of skammers like Sylvia Brown and Uri Gellar are afraid to take.

"Coincidence is the science of the true believer." -Chet Raymo

I recommend everyone who believes any of this stuff read The Demon Haunted World by my hero Carl Sagan.

I've had some experiences and premonitions (not as traumatic and life-changing as that, however!) that I could not explain logically, with a reasonable doubt.

Do I believe that there are mysteries energies/so-called "other planes of existence" that the human mind does not understand? Yes.
Do I believe that humanity will ever explain all of these strange events/energies? No.
Do I accept that I will never understand every strange, mysterious event? Yes.
Does it bother me that I don't know the cause of said events/energies? No, because I accept that the unknown is ALWAYS a possibility.

What it comes down to is this:

I accept the possibility of the unknown unknowns. I accept that there are forces out there that we are not in control of. Just because I have belief in those unknown forces existing does not mean that I believe ALL unknown force ideas thrown at me. I only believe those which I can prove, or have proven to me, in a logical manner to my own satisfaction, exist beyond a reasonable doubt. In that respect, that is where the concepts of God and religion fail my tests.

My biggest issue with trying to comprehend the mind of a believer is that I JUST CAN'T. I've tried for years, but I just can not understand it. My mind runs into a "illogic wall" (for lack of a better word) that I can't make get past. I can not rationalize that particular POV. In order to try to keep my own sanity, I just made the simple statement to myself that I never will understand it, so I move on.

The dreams were deemed "significant" BEFORE the water main broke, discussed between them, which is why I don't view them as coincidence. And that was just ONE example, not the dozens and dozens that we experienced over the years. My grandmother ALWAYS could tell a Dream (significant -- I could always hear the capital D in her voice) from a dream (inconsequential.)

But, I'm not ascribing any SUPERnatural power as the root of these events, but looking to find a valid scientific reasoning behind them.

And, given the weirdness (if you will) of string theory, which posits 11 dimensions, of which we apparently only view 3, there could be reasons for things that seem hard to explain deep in physics.

The question: How did you come to this conclusion? Has your attitude hardened or softened through the years?

I'm new to this forum. Actually, I'm pretty new to admitted atheism. I grew up mostly Catholic. Threats from my mother to attend church on Sundays and so on... all sorts of fun stuff. I dabbled in religion (going with friends to services where people spoke in tongues, where I really felt like the odd one out) then converted to Mormonism in college (now there's a church that has the whole "pull them into the fold" thing down to an art form). Then dabbled in Wicca (or is it Wiccan-ism?). Now I am none of the above.
I just can't bring myself to believe in God. I do believe that people fight far too much in the name of religion. I believe that ethics do not equal religion, and vice versa. I also believe that I can raise my children morally and with kindness, but without having to feel obligated to any church or God (or Goddess, for that matter).
I have a friend who is very Christian. She is also one of the few people I know who really adheres to the principles of her particular religion. She's a good human. She doesn't understand my atheism, but continues to be my friend (and occasionally tries to get me to attend church, but since I moved to another state that has ceased. Thankfully). I guess I'm just looking for a safe place to be myself. To be an unbeliever and not be looked down upon.
I want to raise my children to be kind, ethical, decent humans. But I don't want them to feel obligated to worship a nonexistent God. My husband is also atheist. We are absolutely agreed in our determination to raise our children to question authority and draw their own conclusions.
My attitude has definitely hardened over the years. I was much more accepting of the possibility of God/Goddess/Supreme-being-of-some-sort until just a few years ago. Now I am absolutely comfortable in my belief that we humans need to take full responsibility for our actions and the consequences. I really think that the idea of some supreme being out there gives humans the idea that they can be cruel toward each other and still seek forgiveness and "salvation."
I know now that I have always been a non-believer. But I also know that I did, at one point, act the part of believer to fit in to a world that doesn't accept non-believers in order to have a "family."
Now I know that being true to myself and what I really believe is more important than faking it in order to belong. Took a long while, but I am comfortable in my own skin now. I don't have to fake it any more.

"The question: How did you come to this conclusion? Has your attitude hardened or softened through the years?"

I was raised in a religious family, from a very young age I thought it sounded rediculous. As I got older, it was all I could do to keep myself from saying "bollox" when they would go on about it.

I just never felt like they did.