How I Told My Family I Was an Atheist

How did you tell them? Here's what Luke wrote. It's good!

4 comments:

John said...

I remember when I fell away and told my mom I was going atheist. She didn't really care. She's always let me make my own mind up about these things. My dad was a little happy because he's an atheist himself. He's always ridiculed me for being a Christian. As for the rest of my family they never talk about God so, I'm not sure where they stand.

Manifesting Mini Me (MMM) said...

Reason and evidence are invaluable tools in debunking idolotry -

John said...

Hi MMM!

I would agree with that in part. But I see reason and evidence for the existence of God. The evidence for God may not be strong enough for proof. As I've said before the evidence for God can be rationaly resisted but I think God can reveal Himself through the evidence. Not that evidence is needed. There is no evidence for evidentialism. I take God to be a properly basic belief. A belief that is part of the foundation of my beliefs. I go along with the Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga. I take "God Exists" to be part of the foundation of my belief structure so that no rational evidence is necessary.

The evidentialist will usually say that one is rationally justified in believing a proposition to be true only if that proposition is either foundational to knowledge or is established by evidence that is ultimately based on such a foundation. But like I said above there is no evidence for the evidentialist belief that one must have evidence for one's belief in order to be rational. Like Plantinga I ask why can't the proposition "God Exists" be part of the foundation? The response by the evidentialist is that a belief must be self-evident or incorrigible to be properly basic. While I agree that such propositions are properly basic I don't think they are the only beliefs that can be properly basic. Take the propositon that states only beliefs that are self-evident or incorrigible are properly basic. This very proposition isn't self-evident or incorrigible therefore it can't be properly basic. Moreover, there is no evidence for such a belief.

It seems to me that God has given me an awareness of Himself that doesn't depend on theistic arguments or evidence. It seems to me that God has constructed me in such a way that I have naturally formed the belief under appropriate cicumstances. Belief in God can be held if it is formed by properly functioning cognitive faculties that are functioning the way God designed them to in the appropriate environment.

This is different than what is called fideism or blind faith. Since it is produced by properly functionig cognitive faculties it is therefore among the deliverences of reason.

stamati anagnostou said...

MT: "But like I said above there is no evidence for the evidentialist belief that one must have evidence for one's belief in order to be rational."

Nietzsche rebuts this best: "I fear we are not getting rid of God because we still believe in grammar."

MT: "It seems to me that God has given me an awareness of Himself that doesn't depend on theistic arguments or evidence. It seems to me that God has constructed me in such a way that I have naturally formed the belief under appropriate [circumstances]. Belief in God can be held if it is formed by properly functioning cognitive faculties that are functioning the way God designed them to in the appropriate environment."

And if your cognitive faculties are not functioning properly? Or, are your cognitive faculties not functioning properly if you arrive at the conclusion that God is not a properly basic belief? Furthermore, it may be beneficial for you to have been imbued with a natural sense of God, yet other people are not. I for one have always strained to believe in God, when I did believe.

I find presuppositionalism(sp?) to be a rather strange epistemological tool. Whereas we require evidence for almost everything else, we just have to assume that God is real, and furthermore, that the Christian god is real. I really do wonder why folks like Craig and Plantinga worry about making the faith out to be reasonable, when by their own definitions it isn't; it apparently relies on personal divine revelation. What seems more reasonable to me is that these people were converted at a young age for unreasonable reasons and then sought to support those reasons with some kind of philosophy based on observable evidence. Personally, I have a hard time feeling that those two really take the word 'truth' seriously.

MT, I'm sorry your dad ridicules you. That shit sucks. I certainly used to feel that way too, but at least in my case it wasn't really true. And being an atheist in a crowd of believers has made me the target of a lot of insults- moreso than I ever got as a Christian. I'm not comparing, but saying that there are always those people. Always.