s5o8

Here is a question that has been occupying my mind for some time:
What will it take to change your mind 180% ?
If you are a theist, what will it take to make you an atheist?
If you are an atheist, what will it take to make you a theist?
What proof will convince you?

I am not sure of exactly what it would take for me the change my mind, I use to think that it will take a profoundly personal experience/encounter with “god” to convince me of it's existence, something I can experience with al my senses. Now I am starting to believe that it would have to be a more public display of it's existence and divinity.

JerryM

We get this question a lot, and I've been asked this by theists many times. I tell them (assuming they're Christians, which they usually are) that even though I'm an atheist, I'm a "Calvinist" atheist. That is, I think that if there is a God, whatever happens must be in accordance with his will. Therefore, if it's part of God's will that I should become a believer, then eventually I will be, and God will arrange the conditions that will effect my conversion. And if this never happens, then it just wasn't meant to be. It's all in God's hands. Occaisionally someone will try to argue the non-Calvinist doctrine, but usually that shuts them up.

Darth Dane

Here is a question that has been occupying my mind for some time:
What will it take to change your mind 180% ?
If you are a theist, what will it take to make you an atheist?
If you are an atheist, what will it take to make you a theist?
What proof will convince you?

So this question is actually only relevant for eitehr theists or atheists.

I am not sure of exactly what it would take for me the change my mind, I use to think that it will take a profoundly personal experience/encounter with “god” to convince me of it's existence, something I can experience with al my senses. Now I am starting to believe that it would have to be a more public display of it's existence and divinity.

What if all you can experience right now, Is the experience of God? The fact that you are alive, and can experience light, sound, touch, taste, smell, thoughts.

Do you experience Life with all your senses?
What if it Is God you are experiencing?




DD - Love Spliff

Jet Grind

I would need a logically justifiable argument. All the arguments that I've heard for the existence of God boil down to the argument from ignorance or some "God of the gaps". Present me with some real scietific evidence of God then I will believe.

Nonsense, this is a typical theist cop-out. I'm startuing to wonder why you're even bothering to post on this board Dane.

Jobar

Darth, most people do not consider 'God' to be synonymous with 'universe'. The pantheistic view is not the monotheistic view. (Note: I'm not disagreeing with you here, just pointing out that most believers in God consider him to be separate from and superior to the world we call reality.)

Certainly, beliefs can change. Many of the skeptics here were once believers- raised in the faith, often enough. So it certainly is possible to make a 180 degree change in religious thinking.

I do notice, after having been on this forum for quite a while now, that we see few-to-none changing from atheist to theist, and increasing numbers switching the other way. Individual reasons for this switch are varied- I would guess that the primary one is that the world we see is incompatible with an all-powerful and all-merciful God. For me to reverse my own unbelieving stance, I would have to see some reason why a powerful and benevolent being would want to make a world which looks, acts and feels precisely like a world which self-designs, and grows and dies uncared for.

DarkBronzePlant

(I assume s5o8 meant 180 degrees )

For me, it's plain and simple. Credible evidence of the existence of a god would sway me to believe in one. It's hard to say right now what that evidence would be. But it certainly is not, as Darth Dane suggests, the fact that I am alive and can experience things. Because if that is evidence for god, then it is evidence for allah as well. And Zeus. And Ra. As well as the sheer absense of any god or diety.

Pyrrho

Darth Dane—what, exactly, do you mean by the term "God"?

Suppose I were to tell you that you are experiencing "sliviness", and that is what enabled you to have sensations. Wouldn't you want me to be a little clearer about what I was talking about? After all, one could say that the reason why someone can experience things is because one is alive and has a brain connected to sense organs. Being "alive" is not some magical ingredient or substance: it is simply a process (or set of processes), just like fire is a process rather than a "thing" or substance. Primitive people believed that fire was a substance, but it is simply the rapid oxidation of a substance, which is a process. You being alive is simply a process (of set of processes), involving things like your heart beating, etc.

So, what do you mean by the term "God"? (If you can't define your term, then you literally do not know what you are talking about.)

quartodeciman

Some alterations in my neural paths, stored memory engrams and brain chemistry will do it. In short, you don't just start believing/disbelieving stuff; you have to LOVE IT!

quart

Mageth

Well, I did switch from theism to atheism about 3 years ago. What led me to switch? Serious questioning an examining of the evidence. In the end, I concluded (despite Darth Dane's reasoning) that the evidence I'd once accepted without questioning wasn't enough to justify god-belief.

What would it take to convince me that there is a god? Similar to JerryM's comments, my typical answer to this question is, if there is a god, she would know what it would take to convince me and, if she's interested in me knowing she exists, she will provide that evidence. If the evidence is not provided that will convince me, I must conclude that 1) there is no god or; 2) if there is a god, that god is not interested in convincing me of its existence.

Mageth

Darth Dane:

What if all you can experience right now, Is the experience of God? The fact that you are alive, and can experience light, sound, touch, taste, smell, thoughts.

Do you experience Life with all your senses?
What if it Is God you are experiencing?

So God = Life? Then dispose of the god label and just call it life.