Gemma Therese

Sidewinder,

Early 30s is very young. When you look back at your beliefs during this time when you are in your 40s, 50s, and 60s, (and not just religious beliefs, also political, social, personal, etc) you will find you have changed A LOT.

MrDarwin

Are you speaking from experience, Gemma Therese? Are we to assume you are 70-something? How have your beliefs changed?

Gemma Therese

Yes, I am speaking from experience, and yes, my beliefs have changed.

I used to be quasi-conservative, then very liberal, now I am middle of the road, but lean conservative.

I was raised Roman Catholic, then became atheist but after study, thought, and consideration, I am Roman Catholic again.

MrDarwin

Thank you, Gemma Therese.

I am 40 and while I think I've changed a bit over the years, and expect to change some more, I have been an agnostic for over 20 years and don't really see that changing. But the more find out about the Bible and Christianity the less I believe they give us anything approaching a true description of whatever God(s) might be out there.

Gemma Therese

McDarwin,

I wasn't trying to say as you get older, you become theist / Christian. I was just saying, you change a lot.

sidewinder

Gemma: I have no problem with this idea. Human life is (or should be) constant change and growth. I'm certain that my beliefs will change as I progress through life. But, like Darwin, I don't see myself ever converting to Christianity. I know the tenets of the Christian religion very well and I have a solid knowledge about the writings in the Holy Bible. I'm perfectly willing to be called an agnostic because in a sense all atheists should be agnostics. I mean that as far as being willing to continually search for truth. I'm perfectly willing going forward in my life to examine any evidence for the claim that Christianity is the one and only true religion. But, at the same time, religious believers should be willing to subject their beliefs to criticism and be honest and objective about how their beliefs stand up to criticism. On that note, have you thoroughly investigated the claims of Islam to ensure that the claims of Islam are wrong? Have you read the Qur'an? How about even the denominations within Christianity which claim to be the one and only true church? Have you investigated all their claims to ensure that you belong to the one and only true church?

And yes, I'm sorry that you were hurt by my extreme comment but I hope that you can see the point behind it.

[ June 03, 2002: Message edited by: sidewinder ]</p>

Liquidrage

This is quite common.

Forgive my assumption but Pasquale's Wager doesn't change fiction to fact.

It is quite common for anyone near death to *find god*

I mean, if you know you;re about to die (or it's getting close at least) what does reality matter? What does pride matter? What does truth matter? All that matters is covering one's own ass as best as possible. I see nothing wrong with that.

Samhain

Well, I have personal problems with that myself if one does not admit the fact. If one admits, at least to oneself, that they truly just are "Covering their ass", then I don't see it as a problem. The problem lies within concious self-deception. Decieving oneself into believing that they have found "Truth" or what have you through their last-minute conversion to theism. Immortality is something everyone wants, but few theists are humble enough to admit that that is what they are truly after (as I would say that some are truly just after a happy immortality, but not theists universally).

David M. Payne

OK Gemma, fair enough, I applaud you for admitting the truth, the free will argument isn’t in the bible. So lets take the obvious next step, who made the free will doctrine up? Was it God? That is what you say in your post above, isn’t it? Where might we find his word on this, if not in the bible? If it was “created” or “discovered” by some saint or Pope etc, who was it, and did they get the argument directly from God and just pass it on to the rest of us? Or did it nebulously appear out of thin air one day a long time ago? Perhaps it was created to deflect the argument of Gods moral responsibility for /inability to prevent, evil, here:
“In a formulation of the problem attributed to the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270 BC) (see Epicureanism), either God can prevent evil and chooses not to (and therefore is not good) or chooses to prevent it and cannot (and therefore is not all-powerful).” (From MS Encarta)
Can you site a source for this doctrine that has been used to excuse God from all evil done in his name?
I even more humbly await you enlightenment on this question. Hopefully you will be the first theist here to produce an authoritative reference for this doctrine.

David

[ June 03, 2002: Message edited by: David Payne ]</p>

Ion

Not me Gemma.

I am 43, and I am consistently implementing over time what I was dreaming of my teen-age years: living in California, US (I was born in Romania, studied Engineering in France, became a Canadian), having a scientific profession, active in physical exercise, and more still to come.

Physically I also haven't changed yet that much since my 20s.