Many, if not most, Intelligent Theists, have very good reasons for believing as we do.
You see, this is the sort of statement that requires evidence for me to take seriously.
I freely admit that most, if not all, of my reasons for believing are based on evidence which can not be shared.
Why can they not be shared? (You can - I think - understand why I am unlikely to accept your gods given those two statements, can't you?)
You have your reasons for believing as you do, and I have reasons for believing as I do.
The difference between my reasons and yours, of course, are that mine are out there, for anyone to put to any test, at any time. And if my cherished beliefs fail a test, I have no choice but to re-think my beliefs.
Just as an example, I used to believe that the "oscilating universe theory in cosmology (Big Bang, expansion; expansion slows, stops and everything falls back in on the centre, to the Big Crunch, only to start all over again). I liked that theory a lot - it allowed for an eternal, recurring universe and dispensed with the need to explain how it started in the first place (or so it seemed to me).
Sometime within the past 5 years or so, though, scientists have discovered that instead of being slowed down by gravity, the expansio of the universe is in fact speeding up.
So much for my favourite theory.
Being wrong hasn't made me a deist, but it has made me put a giant question mark in a place where I had had a tentative answer.
Which is why I am so fond of the scientific method. When a theory is wrong, someone is going to come along with a better test or a better idea and show that it's wrong, sending us all back to the drawing board to try again.
At any rate, I'm glad we agree about the indoctrination thing. I really do firmly believe in the right of an adult to believe whatever their experience of life tells them is true - and really don't believe that telling children "Because I say so!" is a legitimate answer to anything (with the obvious example of telling a 2 year-old not to play in traffic and other age-dependent concepts).
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dancing_serpent
Re: I wish I Could be an Atheist Sometimes
Date: 2007-02-27 02:21 am (UTC)You see, this is the sort of statement that requires evidence for me to take seriously.
I freely admit that most, if not all, of my reasons for believing are based on evidence which can not be shared.
Why can they not be shared? (You can - I think - understand why I am unlikely to accept your gods given those two statements, can't you?)
You have your reasons for believing as you do, and I have reasons for believing as I do.
The difference between my reasons and yours, of course, are that mine are out there, for anyone to put to any test, at any time. And if my cherished beliefs fail a test, I have no choice but to re-think my beliefs.
Just as an example, I used to believe that the "oscilating universe theory in cosmology (Big Bang, expansion; expansion slows, stops and everything falls back in on the centre, to the Big Crunch, only to start all over again). I liked that theory a lot - it allowed for an eternal, recurring universe and dispensed with the need to explain how it started in the first place (or so it seemed to me).
Sometime within the past 5 years or so, though, scientists have discovered that instead of being slowed down by gravity, the expansio of the universe is in fact speeding up.
So much for my favourite theory.
Being wrong hasn't made me a deist, but it has made me put a giant question mark in a place where I had had a tentative answer.
Which is why I am so fond of the scientific method. When a theory is wrong, someone is going to come along with a better test or a better idea and show that it's wrong, sending us all back to the drawing board to try again.
At any rate, I'm glad we agree about the indoctrination thing. I really do firmly believe in the right of an adult to believe whatever their experience of life tells them is true - and really don't believe that telling children "Because I say so!" is a legitimate answer to anything (with the obvious example of telling a 2 year-old not to play in traffic and other age-dependent concepts).