# I don't know what I believe anymore



## catwizard

I was raised in a conservative christian household. I considered myself a christian until probably around age 18 (22 now), though started questioning my beliefs around age 14 or 15.

I considered myself an agnostic for a short time, then identified as atheist until recently. I unfortunately fell into the "i'm an atheist, religious people are stupid. I'm so much more intelligent and enlightened, blah blah blah..." But I've recently been thinking about how little I actually know. Why am I so trusting of what is taught in schools, published in journals, and spouted on the news? I so blindly followed science as if the scientific community is so morally pure and can't be swayed by money and government influence. Scientists can be wrong, could be pushing an agenda, and who knows what else. They can be just as corrupt as anyone else.

Sure, I'll probably go along with whatever the current scientific beliefs are, as it's probably a better explanation I have, and the best way to function in society where it's widely accepted as true, but I have to wonder if it really is true.

Then I wonder if truth is really something that can be known, and if it can be known, does it really matter? People may say they'd rather accept the world as it really is than live in a delusion, but sometimes the delusion is more appealing. Kind of a red pill or blue pill kind of thing. A friend of mine posed the question that if I were given the chance to live in a perfect virtual world where I would be happy, but not know that I'm living said virtual world, would I go for it if I were guaranteed to be happy? or would I choose to live in the current reality where I am not happy?

Sometimes I still have thoughts that I used to have as a christian, I tend to think "oh, that's nice" when I meet a christian, feel uneasy about occult symbols and stuff (though occult stuff is fascinating to me), cringe when someone says like Jesus Christ as a swear word or other swear words like that. I don't feel comfortable with swearing. I don't like devil costumes or anything like that. Though I know there's nothing actually wrong with them, I still feel weird about it.

Basically I'm questioning truth, reality, and by own worldview... I don't know if this makes any sense or not. I'm just confused I guess.


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## gopherinferno

this is all i believe


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## Telliblah

Well you can't know anything for sure, really. In the end you have to figure out by yourself what things to believe in. Choosing a practical approach to reality might be preferable though. I figure doubting everything all the time gets pretty draining after a while.

Although that drained feeling might just be an illusion created by the mind control ray that the lizard people living in your wall built to keep you from finding out that they're stealing food from your fridge.


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## WhiteSheep

It must be very hard to alter the beliefs one was taught as a kid. All I can say is that by embracing science as the prism through witch to view the world you will be in sinc with most of modern, western society. I think in North America and Western Europe Christianity is on the defensive. I remember that my grandmother, who died a few years ago at the age of 101, began to doubt her literal belief in the bible in the last decade of her life and it caused her a lot of grief. 

I don't think the world view of atheism is all that bad. I've been pretty sure, not positive but pretty sure, that I just vanish when I die. That's really not so bad, especially to people with social anxiety like us. All our troubles and unhappiness are over.


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## Wings of Amnesty

Well I believe the bible says 'by their fruit, you will recognize them.' Yes, it is true that scientists can be bought, humans can be corrupt, and lies can be published. It's also true, that the scientific facts and theories which say the Earth can't be only 6,000 years old are the same theories that enable me to have a GPS on my phone. The theories that say we evolved rather than being created in our current state are the same theories that allow me to receive the medical care that I do.


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## WhiteSheep

One of my favorite parts of being an atheist is that I am free to say that Christianity is just a religion, one among hundreds. Christians have to prove, at least in their own minds, that Christianity is THE religion, and then somehow explain all the others. The most ignorant can say that other religions are the tools of the devil, but that close minded approach loses credibility when anyone who has actually traveled to India, or China, or Japan can easily see that altruism, self-sacrifice, and good will are not the sole property of those who believe Jesus died for their sins.


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## mattmc

Religious people aren't stupid. They just have tunnel vision. Churches can't write the Bible but they can tell you what to focus on and give you apologetics.

For example, they teach that Jesus is nice. Now if I said to someone that they could either follow me or I would beat them raw I would be seen as a sick, cruel individual. But when Jesus does it's totally cool.

_"The servant who knows the master's will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows.__"_

_"I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled!

_- Luke 12: 47, 49

The implied idea is "might makes right", which translates in religious terms to, "God is better than all of us and we deserve any punishment he thinks to give."

The church contextualizes all this and says, hey, God should torture you, because you suck, regardless who you are you flat out suck. But he's decided not to hurt you if you worship him! How wonderful he is!

It's not hard to compare this to an abusive relationship. You're continually told you have no worth outside of God. That you are an utter failure who is so lucky that God is willing to overlook your flaws.

I'd be fine if people preached a genuinely loving God. One that wasn't backing intolerance and fear-mongering. Many Christians think that is the God they are preaching. I used to think so myself. Then I saw the cracks in the supposed "love".


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## eukz

You don't have to be an ******* and pretend to be smarter than the rest in order to be an atheist. That's one huge stereotype there.

I think there's nothing more pure and natural than being an atheist. You don't get to complicate yourself from all the religous dilemmas. Going to Hell and being a 'bad' person for not believing are ancient inventions. Religions were just created in the past because of the fear of unknown, and now we're living different times.

Just chillax and forget there's a god threatening you if you don't adore him. :wink2:


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## drjohnsn

Science can absolutely be wrong. The thing is, though, that it is science that is used to show other science is wrong. Religion just can't pick up that ball.

Regarding questioning your religion, I'll pull out the reversed Pascal's wager: What is more likely, that there is a god who demands that you believe something is true without having evidence and will send you to hell otherwise, or that there is a god that only respects critical thinking and will send you to hell otherwise?


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## WillYouStopDave

This is actually a pretty good sign. Though I would say being raised in a conservative Christian family is really not the worst thing in the world. At least as long as it isn't one of those unbelievably rigid households where you can't breathe and they literally suffocate you with their religion. 

Really, it could be worse. Not knowing what to believe is good for you and bad for you at the same time. Since some amount of faith in something tends to help a lot of people move on with other things. Even if the faithful are entirely wrong about everything they are usually less distracted with questions about the unknown. Yeah. Some people call that ignorance but if you're not being paid to solve every mystery of the universe and being, why torture yourself with it?

The problem is it takes actual belief to cause faith and you can't believe in something you don't believe.


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## fonz




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## likeaspacemonkey

Completely makes sense, and I relate to it excluding the Christian household and thoughts.

Science will never fully explain the world we live in. We'll only get practical knowledge and ever so slightly less vague approximations of knowledge until we inevitably go extinct. We'll never run out of questions. There's a whole lot of room for beliefs, call them spiritual or otherwise. Just say you're agnostic, or atheistic about all man-made gods if you want to avoid the classic self-righteous atheist "correcting" you.


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## peace_love

I totally understand. I grew up religious too (I guess in reality most people have), and I fell away as I got older, because of the questions in my mind that I didn't have answers to. I believed that religion must be false, because you can't really prove to me that God is real and the things in the bible actually happened. Even to this day, I don't necessarily believe in God (when I say God I mean a specific God, like Jesus or Allah etc), but believing in a 'higher power' is somewhat comforting, so I do believe in A God. Anyway, I feel like I can go on and on, so I will just stop here.


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## WhiteSheep

I think history has shown that humans have a psychological predilection to worship. Every society that I am aware of has developed some sort of religion. For atheists in modern western society, scientists are more or less our priests. I believe in the big bang theory, but I'll never understand the physics behind it. It that really so different than the illiterate peasantry of the middle ages listening to a Latin mass? Of course, I am a little biased, science doesn't demand that you believe it. Your not a sinner for disagreeing with its pronouncements, you are just wrong.


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## livetolovetolive

catwizard said:


> I was raised in a conservative christian household. I considered myself a christian until probably around age 18 (22 now), though started questioning my beliefs around age 14 or 15.
> 
> I considered myself an agnostic for a short time, then identified as atheist until recently. I unfortunately fell into the "i'm an atheist, religious people are stupid. I'm so much more intelligent and enlightened, blah blah blah..." But I've recently been thinking about how little I actually know. Why am I so trusting of what is taught in schools, published in journals, and spouted on the news? I so blindly followed science as if the scientific community is so morally pure and can't be swayed by money and government influence. Scientists can be wrong, could be pushing an agenda, and who knows what else. They can be just as corrupt as anyone else.
> 
> Sure, I'll probably go along with whatever the current scientific beliefs are, as it's probably a better explanation I have, and the best way to function in society where it's widely accepted as true, but I have to wonder if it really is true.
> 
> Then I wonder if truth is really something that can be known, and if it can be known, does it really matter? People may say they'd rather accept the world as it really is than live in a delusion, but sometimes the delusion is more appealing. Kind of a red pill or blue pill kind of thing. A friend of mine posed the question that if I were given the chance to live in a perfect virtual world where I would be happy, but not know that I'm living said virtual world, would I go for it if I were guaranteed to be happy? or would I choose to live in the current reality where I am not happy?
> 
> Sometimes I still have thoughts that I used to have as a christian, I tend to think "oh, that's nice" when I meet a christian, feel uneasy about occult symbols and stuff (though occult stuff is fascinating to me), cringe when someone says like Jesus Christ as a swear word or other swear words like that. I don't feel comfortable with swearing. I don't like devil costumes or anything like that. Though I know there's nothing actually wrong with them, I still feel weird about it.
> 
> Basically I'm questioning truth, reality, and by own worldview... I don't know if this makes any sense or not. I'm just confused I guess.


A belief of god and cutting-edge science will always be compatible. Belief in god does not have to imply a belief in religion at all.


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## ugh1979

livetolovetolive said:


> A belief of god and cutting-edge science will always be compatible. Belief in god does not have to imply a belief in religion at all.


Why then do you think most of those who do said cutting edge science don't believe in a god?

Of course people don't have to believe in any religion to believe in a god, but how then do they define a definition of what god is? Do they just make one up themselves? I've heard a few non-religious people who to all extents and purposes use the word god as another word for the universe, and don't believe it's anything like the personal concious entity as per traditional Abrahamic religions.

Typically the more people discover about the workings of the universe (such as those learning about or doing cutting edge science), the more redundant the concept of a god becomes. There often ceases to be any requirement or point for the existence of one.


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## Phthalo blend

I was also raised in a conservative Christian household and have since become an atheist. I relate in a big way to the lingering affects of that upbringing, like the cringeworthyness of swearing or the uneasy feelings to imagery which are opposite to those old values. You can't be told as a child that such things are bad and not carry some of that into adulthood. I myself get the warm fuzzies with regards to a lot of the things I was taught or involved in as a kid that were based around Christianity. It sticks with you.
As for what to believe, I tend to think that we can only really go based on what we know or have a great amount of evidence for. Science is going to produce some things that turn out to be false but we know it's false because we learn more. In my mind, religion stalls out by having one story from which you can't deviate. In short, if you don't have a good reason for believing something, don't. Who knows what we/you will know in the future. If you have doubts, look into them, it's normal. Just don't follow a group or worldview if it doesn't make sense to you.


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## livetolovetolive

ugh1979 said:


> Why then do you think most of those who do said cutting edge science don't believe in a god?
> 
> Of course people don't have to believe in any religion to believe in a god, but how then do they define a definition of what god is? Do they just make one up themselves? I've heard a few non-religious people who to all extents and purposes use the word god as another word for the universe, and don't believe it's anything like the personal concious entity as per traditional Abrahamic religions.
> 
> Typically the more people discover about the workings of the universe (such as those learning about or doing cutting edge science), the more redundant the concept of a god becomes. There often ceases to be any requirement or point for the existence of one.


The guys who do cutting edge science are the guys who come up with the breakthroughs. The fundamental breakthroughs that others simply build on.

Who are the guys that came up with these breakthroughs? Who are most celebrated for their genius even after all this time? Guys who believed in god.. Einstein, Newton, Davinci. And I would be willing to bet that the next Einstein will also believe in god.


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## ugh1979

livetolovetolive said:


> The guys who do cutting edge science are the guys who come up with the breakthroughs. The fundamental breakthroughs that others simply build on.
> 
> Who are the guys that came up with these breakthroughs? Who are most celebrated for their genius even after all this time? Guys who believed in god.. Einstein, Newton, Davinci.


Talk about cherry picking! There have been hundreds of Nobel Prize winning atheist scientists who have made amazing breakthroughs, and you've made a typical theistic fallacy of saying because certain notable scientists in previous centuries believed in god it must mean there is something to it. Those are all men of their time, and especially in the times of da Vinci and Newton, belief in god was pretty much ubiquitous. Ironically, people like Newton who sought to use science to prove the existence of their god paved the way for the Enlightenment and the removal of god being the answer to numerous important and fundamental questions.

Newton was ultimately hoisted by his own petard! 

Also, you do know that Einstein didn't believe in a personal Abrahamic type god yeah? In fact he called such beliefs childish.



> And I would be willing to bet that the next Einstein will also believe in god.


I highly doubt it. It's a minority of eminent scientist that believe in god, so we can expect them to be at the forefront of most great new breakthroughs, and the number of theist scientists is always dropping, as with the general public.



> Studies have found that a general "connectedness with god" is associated with lower levels of education. Prof. Kyung reports the findings of many studies into religion and intelligence, and the chart on the right is my reproduction of the first chart on one of his pages, taken from data in a Scientific American article (1999). 39 studies since 1927 have found that the more educated a person is, and the higher one's intelligence, the less likely someone is to hold religious beliefs. It shows that those with a degree in science are less than half as likely to believe in God as the general populace, and eminent scientists are nine times less likely.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Source


Note those stats are for the US, which has a bizarrely high rate of religiosity compared with pretty much every other developed country, so you can at least half those figures, if not more for the rest of the countries that produce leading scientists.

I'm not saying you can't be scientist and believe in god, as that term is very slippery and can be as vague as Einstein's beliefs on god for example, which as I said are nothing like Abrahamic concepts of god, and/or there might be no crossover between their work and their theistic beliefs.

However, the bottom line is that scientists are far more likely to be analytical thinking people rather than intuitive thinking people, with the former typically being atheist and the latter often theist, so chances are the 'next Einstein' (what ever that means), won't believe in a concept of god, never mind the Abrahamic concept of god.


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## catwizard

Phthalo blend said:


> I was also raised in a conservative Christian household and have since become an atheist. I relate in a big way to the lingering affects of that upbringing, like the cringeworthyness of swearing or the uneasy feelings to imagery which are opposite to those old values. You can't be told as a child that such things are bad and not carry some of that into adulthood. I myself get the warm fuzzies with regards to a lot of the things I was taught or involved in as a kid that were based around Christianity. It sticks with you.
> As for what to believe, I tend to think that we can only really go based on what we know or have a great amount of evidence for. Science is going to produce some things that turn out to be false but we know it's false because we learn more. In my mind, religion stalls out by having one story from which you can't deviate. In short, if you don't have a good reason for believing something, don't. Who knows what we/you will know in the future. If you have doubts, look into them, it's normal. Just don't follow a group or worldview if it doesn't make sense to you.


i don't really think any religion makes enough sense to me to follow. closest i can get to describing how i feel about things is solipsism (though not quite so extreme). maybe i read too many weird theories, creepypasta, and think too much about existence, parallel universes, and talk to my philosophy nerd friend too much. though really part of me hopes that i'm really just asleep and living in a nightmare and will wake up to a pleasant reality at any moment... or that maybe i'm in a coma and will die soon


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## catwizard

WhiteSheep said:


> It must be very hard to alter the beliefs one was taught as a kid. All I can say is that by embracing science as the prism through witch to view the world you will be in sinc with most of modern, western society. I think in North America and Western Europe Christianity is on the defensive. I remember that my grandmother, who died a few years ago at the age of 101, began to doubt her literal belief in the bible in the last decade of her life and it caused her a lot of grief.
> 
> I don't think the world view of atheism is all that bad. I've been pretty sure, not positive but pretty sure, that I just vanish when I die. That's really not so bad, especially to people with social anxiety like us. All our troubles and unhappiness are over.


well i pretty much just live life under the assumption that science is accurate and what's taught is true, because it just makes it easier to function in society. and those things may change, and i'll adapt for that. it could all be wrong. i could be dreaming right now, but it just makes life easier to go with the flow, i suppose you could say. kind of realizing that it doesnt really matter so much what i believe. at least i dont live with the fear of going to hell and ruled by a strict moral code from thousands of years ago. dont have to deal with all that, so that's nice.


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## livetolovetolive

ugh1979 said:


> However, the bottom line is that scientists are far more likely to be analytical thinking people rather than intuitive thinking people, with the former typically being atheist and the latter often theist, so chances are the 'next Einstein' (what ever that means), won't believe in a concept of god, never mind the Abrahamic concept of god.


Scientists tend to be analytical thinking people, I agree. But the big breakthroughs come from people who use that ability in tandem with their intuition. Intuition lets people use more power of their mind, namely the parts they do not have conscious control over. Analysis is all about conscious deliberation. In some people this ability is significant and far-reaching, but it is always limited. Intuition doesn't require control and it extends deep into the darkness of the unconscious... very far-reaching.

Harnessing that ability allows people to make some very, very distant associations that would otherwise be invisible. Associations that simply wouldn't happen using the intellect alone, because the human intellect is just too limited. They get a feeling using their intuition, then use their intellect to shine some light on what exactly inspired the feeling. These are the scientists who make the unexpected breakthroughs and change things that the purely analytical scientists can only analyze and build on after the fact.


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## ugh1979

livetolovetolive said:


> Scientists tend to be analytical thinking people, I agree. But the big breakthroughs come from people who use that ability in tandem with their intuition. Intuition lets people use more power of their mind, namely the parts they do not have conscious control over. Analysis is all about conscious deliberation. In some people this ability is significant and far-reaching, but it is always limited. Intuition doesn't require control and it extends deep into the darkness of the unconscious... very far-reaching.
> 
> Harnessing that ability allows people to make some very, very distant associations that would otherwise be invisible. Associations that simply wouldn't happen using the intellect alone, because the human intellect is just too limited. They get a feeling using their intuition, then use their intellect to shine some light on what exactly inspired the feeling. These are the scientists who make the unexpected breakthroughs and change things that the purely analytical scientists can only analyze and build on after the fact.


Everyone uses intuitive thinking (the primitive part of the mind), but some people use intuitive thinking plus advanced analytical thinking, which is more mentally taxing, hence why some people don't have the intellect to do it.

An idea can spring from intuition, but it needs analytical thinking in order to develop it into a scientifically valid hypotheses and ultimately theory.

Hence why it's those that have the analytical type brains that make the great discoveries and deliver them in a suitable manner.

Getting back to the scientists you originally quoted, da Vinci, Newton and Einstein, do you honestly believe they were just insightful intuitive thinkers but didn't also have great analytical abilities? (i.e. traits found in typical good scientists)


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## drjohnsn

Water sucks! Gatorade's better!


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## livetolovetolive

ugh1979 said:


> Getting back to the scientists you originally quoted, da Vinci, Newton and Einstein, do you honestly believe they were just insightful intuitive thinkers but didn't also have great analytical abilities? (i.e. traits found in typical good scientists)


Of course not. But their intuition is extremely well developed. In regards to the unexpected discoveries that seem to come from nowhere, advanced intuition is paramount. The scientist has a distant intuition and uses his analytic ability to follow up. In regards to the original 'scent' of the idea, intuition is almost exclusively to thank. The more developed is their intuition, the more distant is their associations and typically the more profound is their work.

Analytic ability is of course the primary skill, but arguably more important for the profound discoveries is intuition.. only for its role in leading the scientist toward the profound idea in the first place. In terms of science that is relatively inconsequential and derivative, analytic ability is mostly all that is required. And that ability is in far more abundance in scientists if you were to somehow ratio it with intuition.

But the scientists I listed, if you could ratio it, would be far more balanced in terms of those abilities compared to a typical scientist. And that is the distinction of genius. They have struck a balance in their minds that lets them see things no one else saw. Then the typical scientist that you refer to analyzes their ideas and builds on them. But without that huge leap of intuition, the typical scientist wouldn't be able to work on those ideas. They are forever refining the status quo. Einsteins and Newtons redefine the status quo because they are the seers who have mastered their intuition and use it in tandem with their substantial analytic ability. They are the seers the progress science, and for whatever reason we want to speculate, the fact remains that they were believers of god (no, not religion: god. Speculating on what that belief entailed is pointless, but they did believe it.)


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## ugh1979

livetolovetolive said:


> Of course not. But their intuition is extremely well developed. In regards to the unexpected discoveries that seem to come from nowhere, advanced intuition is paramount. The scientist has a distant intuition and uses his analytic ability to follow up. In regards to the original 'scent' of the idea, intuition is almost exclusively to thank. The more developed is their intuition, the more distant is their associations and typically the more profound is their work.
> 
> Analytic ability is of course the primary skill, but arguably more important for the profound discoveries is intuition.. only for its role in leading the scientist toward the profound idea in the first place. In terms of science that is relatively inconsequential and derivative, analytic ability is mostly all that is required. And that ability is in far more abundance in scientists if you were to somehow ratio it with intuition.
> 
> But the scientists I listed, if you could ratio it, would be far more balanced in terms of those abilities compared to a typical scientist. And that is the distinction of genius. They have struck a balance in their minds that lets them see things no one else saw. Then the typical scientist that you refer to analyzes their ideas and builds on them. But without that huge leap of intuition, the typical scientist wouldn't be able to work on those ideas. They are forever refining the status quo. Einsteins and Newtons redefine the status quo because they are the seers who have mastered their intuition and use it in tandem with their substantial analytic ability. They are the seers the progress science, and for whatever reason we want to speculate, the fact remains that they were believers of god (no, not religion: god. Speculating on what that belief entailed is pointless, but they did believe it.)


I said everyone uses intuitive thinking to different degrees, but not everyone is inclined to use analytical thinking as much.

It seems we agree that great science can come from great intuition combined with great analytical thinking, but the latter is what makes contemporary great scientists unlikely to be believers in god, as a scientist with poor analytical abilities won't get far.


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