Hello everyone. I am, currently, a strong agnostic. However, I am always interested in improving what I know, do and believe in order that I might adopt the most reasonable philosophy possible. Therefore, I ask you if you have a really good reason why I might reconsider what I believe. I would love to hear reasons for changing my mind - it is something that, perversely, I take much pleasure in doing!
To help you along, here are my current beliefs summarised (but badly!):
1. I am a materialist. That is, I do not believe that there is anything other than the material world. I do not believe in the supernatural or the spiritual, nor in gods, magic or souls.
2. My ethics are broadly utilitarian. That is, I judge my actions according to the level of harm and benefit derived from performing them. I also use (and I think the idea was first put forward formally by Kant) the principle that I call "if everyone did it". When we perform some actions, the harm done is so minor that it does not really matter if one person does it (so utilitarianism fails to stop you doing it), but "if everyone did it" then the world would be harmed very greatly. So I do not perform such actions as littering, shoplifting, wasting water etc. My ethics are also partly informed by the sense of morality hammered into me by parents, teachers, and (IMO) the rigours and necessities of survival (ie evolution).
3. Because I am a materialist (see #1), I accept the latest scientific theories as the best possible explanations for the way the world works and its origins. Questions unanswered (or unanswerable) by science I either answer with pure reason or mark as "unknowable". Note that I do not "believe" scientific theories, but am merely *convinced* by them.
4. My general philosophy as regards other people's behaviour is, "live and let live"; ie I am a libertarian. So long as no-one is harmed by your actions and you are capable of making rational decisions, you should be free to do as you wish. It would be nice if everyone were as morally upright as me (see #2), but human nature seems to dictate that most people will not think so hard about their ethics as I do.
And those are all the salient points as regard my belief system. I now make a request of you when you proselytise for your various beliefs:
If you are an evangelical, Protestant, fundamentalist Christian, please think your answers through VERY carefully. I have been arguing with fundamentalists for a very long time on the Internet and am well versed in (and indifferent to) most of the standard arguments from that group. I am quite tired of people trashing evolution because "it is just a theory", or telling me that Christianity is ONLY about having a personal relationship with Jesus, and everything else that is promulgated by poorly-educated and immature Christian fundamentalist debaters. Everyone should think their answers through carefully, of course, and be sure that they are well-structured and properly written, but this group IN PARTICULAR should take care.
Thankyou for your time. Please respond!
Hey, what's up. I'm a pagan (not wiccan, just pagan). I think that a person would have a very hard time changing your mind, since you understand your beliefs so well, and since your rationalism is so well thought out.
I disagree with you on one point only. I believe in spiritual experiences, a god, and possibly other spiritual beings. But my god is not the Christian God, because I do not feel that the Christian God is possible. Simplified, the Christian beliefs turn on four principals: 1) God is all-good (or god is love), 2) God is all seeing, 3) God is all powerful, 4) Evil exists. These four prinicpas CANNOT exist at the same time. An all-good, all-seeing, all-knowing God could not allow all of the evil that exists in the world today. It would hurt him too much to see so much undeserved suffering. I also find it hard for an all-good god to say that suffering is deserved because of a sin in a garden thousands of years ago.
Someone cannot say that evil does not exists, because its presence is so obvious in so many ways. Therefore, one of the principals of god must be untrue. I choose to believe that god is not all-powerful, which makes me a very bad Christian, indeed...Which is why I'm not one.
Can you see that there is even a slim possibilty that an all-good, all-knowing, but not all-powerful God might exist? Have you ever researched the Zoroastrian god? Because it was when I researched Zoroastrianism for a school paper that I acutally completely gave up my Christianity (after years of questioning why it didn't make sense).
I won't try to change your beliefs, and I don't want to, because it's against what I believe. However, if you really want to challenge your beliefs, think on those four things with an open mind. With how well your understand your beliefs though, I doubt that you will find any more truth in what I've said. But it is interesting to think about, isn't it?
...Other than that, I can find no argument for your other three listed beliefs. I hope that was at least mildly interesting to read, lol.
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(My response in a later response to the thread. Thankyou for sharing your ideas!)
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