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I am religious and believe in free will

71 (27.7%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

114 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (23.8%)

Total Members Voted: 251

[Strongpoint]

I have long since decided that my religious beliefs are immune to logic and thus I will never deconvert. There is no atheist argument that can convince me to, because I believe religion and secular stuff must be kept fully separate-- and that separation includes rationality. I apply it to science or beliefs opposed to Christianity however, in fact I am proud to be a skeptic.

Such a pure and honest example of special pleading.

[MaxTheFox]

Yeah I am up front about it unlike some others.

[Loud Whispers]

Happy Easter; I thank God for every holiday I can sleep

[Schmaven]

I have long since decided that my religious beliefs are immune to logic and thus I will never deconvert. There is no atheist argument that can convince me to, because I believe religion and secular stuff must be kept fully separate-- and that separation includes rationality. I apply it to science or beliefs opposed to Christianity however, in fact I am proud to be a skeptic.

Personal experience is hard to disprove.

[Frumple]

Eh... is it? I've hallucinated plenty of the course of my life, congenital stuff means it's literally my baseline state of existence. Personal experience is really easy to disprove, especially when you're entirely aware it wasn't particularly real. Human brain glitches real easy.

[Schmaven]

That's very true, appearances can also be deceptive, and often my own opinions are quite unreliable.

Edit:

Personal experience is hard to disprove for certain things.

[hector13]

It’s why reliance on eyewitness testimony is so chilling for the legal system.

Elizabeth Loftus has done a lot of work on it; I’m pretty sure she was among the authors of the paper that found changing the descriptive verb in a car crash (such as “crashed”, “collided”, or “touched”) resulted in people changing how fast they recall the vehicles going in a pre-recorded car crash the week before.

[Schmaven]

Still though... If you definitely know your brother of your whole life, and you watch him steal your car; there is no mistaking that fact no matter how much time passes (alzheimer's not withstanding).

[Frumple]

Lot more than dementia, some of it as simple as poor lighting and a similar build, never mind actual cognitive impairment of some sort due to intoxication or something neurological, or eye problems of some sort. Human sensory interpretation just... flat fabricates a lot, we've found, even when it's in otherwise good shape.

I've mistaken random people for folks I lived with for well over a decade, just due to not being particularly close yet -- probably only three or four times in my life between them all, but it's happened more than once.

It's understandable how much trust folks put in their own senses -- you kinda' have to, to some degree, just to live -- but... past a certain point, that trust is probably unwarranted. It's definitely something I've internalized as true after hallucinating nonstop for the last 30+ years, heh, but it's just as true for folks that don't have conditions causing outright hallucinations. Just not as easy for them to notice.

[Strongpoint]

I have long since decided that my religious beliefs are immune to logic and thus I will never deconvert. There is no atheist argument that can convince me to, because I believe religion and secular stuff must be kept fully separate-- and that separation includes rationality. I apply it to science or beliefs opposed to Christianity however, in fact I am proud to be a skeptic.

Personal experience is hard to disprove.

It is not about personal experience. It is ignorance. As is a desire to ignore knowledge. She basically said "I decided that I'll keep believing even if proven wrong. "

You know, if Jesus will come to me tomorrow and have a chat with me proving his magical divine nature, I will consider that it may be an elaborate fake, a hallucination, or even games of some other supernatural entities but I'll have to change my assumed probabilities of things being true.


My personal problem with people who claim personal experience with supernatural of any kind is not even the possibility of hallucinations or another glitch of a human brain. How do they know which supernatural they felt? What is their methodology to determine if they had a chat with Jesus or Satan playing Jesus? Or perhaps it was Zeus or Ra? Or some small spirit.

[Schmaven]

I meant more the sort of personal experience like 'the more I look for good qualities in others, the more kindly I regard them' than 'Thor showed me his hammer'

[Strongpoint]

I meant more the sort of personal experience like 'the more I look for good qualities in others, the more kindly I regard them' than 'Thor showed me his hammer'

Do you mean something like "I feel good being a Christian therefore Christianity is true"?

[Schmaven]

I meant more the sort of personal experience like 'the more I look for good qualities in others, the more kindly I regard them' than 'Thor showed me his hammer'

Do you mean something like "I feel good being a Christian therefore Christianity is true"?

I don't know much about Christianity to be honest.  What I mean is that the spiritual teachings I have applied in my life have worked, and work repeatably, so for me, those teachings are true and effective.  No one can convince me they don't work for me, because I have personally experienced them work over and over.  The mechanism by which they function however is certainly up for debate.

[MaxTheFox]

Ah, the thing is: I'd stop believing if it was really disproven (somehow). But it can't, so the only way to convince me to deconvert would be non-objective arguments. And since I made up my mind on my ideology and philosophy by now...

[Strongpoint]

I don't know much about Christianity to be honest.  What I mean is that the spiritual teachings I have applied in my life have worked, and work repeatably, so for me, those teachings are true and effective.  No one can convince me they don't work for me, because I have personally experienced them work over and over.  The mechanism by which they function however is certainly up for debate.

Or you persuaded yourself that they work and have a heavy confirmation bias.

And of course, some of the ancient wisdom do work. Suff like "if you are acting like a jerk towards others you will suffer" is true but there is no need for the supernatural to explain it.

Ah, the thing is: I'd stop believing if it was really disproven (somehow). But it can't, so the only way to convince me to deconvert would be non-objective arguments. And since I made up my mind on my ideology and philosophy by now...

God-creator as a concept can't be disproven*, soul and afterlife can't be disproven but Christianity and its dogmas? Why exactly can't it be disproven? What makes it immune to disproval? Besides - "I won't accept any proof because of magic"?


*I'll never understand why what is asserted without evidence should not be dismissed without evidence and requires any disproval