Motivation for Belief

[Diogenes]

On this forum we frequently see claims that "atheists hate God" or otherwise have some kind of self interest in their lack of belief. We hear things like 'There are no atheists in foxholes' and many similar claims that describe personal motivations for belief or lack of belief.

Four years ago I lost my best friend to cancer, 'a man of infinite wit.' R______ was a friend, perhaps the only friend I could share certain personal thoughts and types of humor with. He made me laugh. We brought out the creative best in each other. I would dearly love to know there is a heaven where we would be reunited.

More recently I lost a close relative [not ready to disclose]. His death at age 48 seems impossible. I understand now why a first reaction to a loved one's death is denial. Our memories are so vivid, so real, the death seems wrong... unbelievable. My reaction, anyone's reaction, is to want to reverse that death or to see that person again, to see them in heaven. You get together with other loved ones and, over and over you all say, "I wish D_____ could be here (or be in heaven) to see how loved he was... deeply loved."

The atheist, the naturalist, the nonbeliever loves his friends, his children, his wife as much as anyone else does. When that person is lost in death, the last thing anyone wants to believe is that they are irrevocably gone, gone forever. I submit that the naturalist, atheist, nonbeliever wants desperately to believe he will be reunited, that the one lost will be returned or at least that they know how much they are loved.

The question for debate is: What motives or self interest are involved in either following a religious belief or in not believing in a god or in the supernatural?

[TRANSPONDER]

The question for debate is: What motives or self interest are involved in either following a religious belief or in not believing in a god or in the supernatural?

"Why does the unbeliever refuse the instinct to believe in a soul, God and afterlife when they come face to face with the reality of death?"

All excellent questions. I believe a major component in rejecting Christianity are emotional reasons, like Diogenes illustrated.

Gary Habermas discusses about emotional doubt in:

We know all about the emotional element in belief. Emotionally, there are more reasons to adopt a religion than not. It takes skepticism, which is a rational reaction, not an emotional one, to doubt so much as to go against the norm and not adopt a religion.

Also while I have posted videos myself, I think you should explain the case you are trying to make, not leave it to the video to do the work for you. Especially one from a habitual Christian propagandist.

[otseng]

We know all about the emotional element in belief. Emotionally, there are more reasons to adopt a religion than not. It takes skepticism, which is a rational reaction, not an emotional one, to doubt so much as to go against the norm and not adopt a religion.

No, skeptics make decisions based on emotions as well, including decisions to reject Christianity. We see this when people undergo severe pain or have a close person go through suffering. They cannot reconcile their view of God with what they experience and doubt the existence of God.

Also while I have posted videos myself, I think you should explain the case you are trying to make, not leave it to the video to do the work for you. Especially one from a habitual Christian propagandist.

Habermas is a "habitual Christian propagandist"? More correctly, here is how Wikipedia describes him:

Gary Robert Habermas (born 1950) is an American New Testament scholar and theologian who frequently writes and lectures on the resurrection of Jesus. He has specialized in cataloging and communicating trends among scholars in the field of historical Jesus and New Testament studies. He is distinguished research professor and chair of the department of philosophy and theology at Liberty University.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Habermas

I'm addressing the question, "What motives or self interest are involved in either following a religious belief or in not believing in a god or in the supernatural?"

In the video, Habermas talks about emotional doubt and is primarily addressing Christians. He differentiates between factual doubt and emotional doubt. And emotional doubt is very real.

"you don't know my old man used to beat me all the time"
"you don't know the verbal abuse I had for my mother"
"you don't know what happened to me as a child I was abused"
"you don't know what my boss is like"
"I had cancer and I thought I was going to die and it drove me nuts"

These things have an affect on belief and are examples of emotional doubt.

He also talks about how to deal with emotional doubt, "This might be the most revolutionary thing you hear next to the gospel. This could be the most life-changing thing you've ever heard that's not salvation. It's not spiritual in fact. Non-Christians can do it as well as you."

[TRANSPONDER]

We know all about the emotional element in belief. Emotionally, there are more reasons to adopt a religion than not. It takes skepticism, which is a rational reaction, not an emotional one, to doubt so much as to go against the norm and not adopt a religion.

No, skeptics make decisions based on emotions as well, including decisions to reject Christianity. We see this when people undergo severe pain or have a close person go through suffering. They cannot reconcile their view of God with what they experience and doubt the existence of God.

Also while I have posted videos myself, I think you should explain the case you are trying to make, not leave it to the video to do the work for you. Especially one from a habitual Christian propagandist.

Habermas is a "habitual Christian propagandist"? More correctly, here is how Wikipedia describes him:

Gary Robert Habermas (born 1950) is an American New Testament scholar and theologian who frequently writes and lectures on the resurrection of Jesus. He has specialized in cataloging and communicating trends among scholars in the field of historical Jesus and New Testament studies. He is distinguished research professor and chair of the department of philosophy and theology at Liberty University.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Habermas

I'm addressing the question, "What motives or self interest are involved in either following a religious belief or in not believing in a god or in the supernatural?"

In the video, Habermas talks about emotional doubt and is primarily addressing Christians. He differentiates between factual doubt and emotional doubt. And emotional doubt is very real.

"you don't know my old man used to beat me all the time"
"you don't know the verbal abuse I had for my mother"
"you don't know what happened to me as a child I was abused"
"you don't know what my boss is like"
"I had cancer and I thought I was going to die and it drove me nuts"

These things have an affect on belief and are examples of emotional doubt.

He also talks about how to deal with emotional doubt, "This might be the most revolutionary thing you hear next to the gospel. This could be the most life-changing thing you've ever heard that's not salvation. It's not spiritual in fact. Non-Christians can do it as well as you."

Yep. Christian propagandist. However that's irrelevant; the case he makes is relevant. Thank you for presenting it here. I don't think that atheist doubt is emotional. It is rational and based on 'miracles don't happen'. Virgin birth, walking on water and raising people from the dead don't happen, or that's the common perception. So they doubt even if emotionally they want to go on believing. Many do remain theist even if they can no longer believe the Bible.

Now,I can't read your mind, but I might suggest that you are have not gone through deconversion through doubt, so you may not know just how those pesky doubts pile up and undermine belief or how it is rational, not emotional.

Since you posted a video, I shall and it sets out the deconversion of one who wanted to keep on believing, but couldn't, and from Rachel Slick to my old opponent SA Seeker, being unable to resist doubt and question is the way it happens, not an emotional reaction.

[brunumb]

No, skeptics make decisions based on emotions as well, including decisions to reject Christianity. We see this when people undergo severe pain or have a close person go through suffering. They cannot reconcile their view of God with what they experience and doubt the existence of God.

What you describe seems to me more like the onset of skepticism in the believer who is beginning to experience failure on the part of the god they believe in. The majority of non-believers reached their position without having a prior belief in gods, so the emotional aspect and rejection you speak of has not been in play.

[otseng]

Yep. Christian propagandist. However that's irrelevant; the case he makes is relevant. Thank you for presenting it here. I don't think that atheist doubt is emotional. It is rational and based on 'miracles don't happen'. Virgin birth, walking on water and raising people from the dead don't happen, or that's the common perception. So they doubt even if emotionally they want to go on believing. Many do remain theist even if they can no longer believe the Bible.

Now,I can't read your mind, but I might suggest that you are have not gone through deconversion through doubt, so you may not know just how those pesky doubts pile up and undermine belief or how it is rational, not emotional.

Since you posted a video, I shall and it sets out the deconversion of one who wanted to keep on believing, but couldn't, and from Rachel Slick to my old opponent SA Seeker, being unable to resist doubt and question is the way it happens, not an emotional reaction.

Sure, there exists atheists that reject Christianity purely on rational grounds. But there are also atheists that reject Christianity on rational and emotional grounds. One evidence of this is the atheists continual use of mocking when arguing against Christianity. Why your use of labeling Habermas as a "propagandist"? Why the use of "Chesus" instead of Jesus? These are emotional arguments involving mockery, not logical arguments. It is extremely rare for me to encounter an atheist that can debate solely on rational grounds and not resort to mocking.

As for the claim 'miracles don't happen', this is an assumption, not a fact.

Actually, I am quite sympathetic to the mindset of atheists. I can understand why they view Christianity as backwards and intellectually lacking. This is one of the reasons I set up this forum in the first place. It's my small attempt to show it is rational to believe in Christianity on logical grounds.

I'm also sympathetic to skeptics asking questions and getting bad answers from the church. Unfortunately, the state of the current church is very anti-intellectual. Most people in the pews don't even read the Bible, much less study it. Church leaders are not trained in apologetics so they give dumb answers.

The problem with answering these questions is it takes hard work to answer them. Who really has the time to provide such answers and who has the patience to listen to the answers? Since we're now reduced to giving 15 seconds answers to this TikTok generation, it's practically impossible to answer the skeptical questions about the Bible. Even now, I'm discussing the authority of the Bible and it's been 1.5 years. and we've only scratched the surface in all the subtopics we've covered so far.

[TRANSPONDER]

Yep. Christian propagandist. However that's irrelevant; the case he makes is relevant. Thank you for presenting it here. I don't think that atheist doubt is emotional. It is rational and based on 'miracles don't happen'. Virgin birth, walking on water and raising people from the dead don't happen, or that's the common perception. So they doubt even if emotionally they want to go on believing. Many do remain theist even if they can no longer believe the Bible.

Now,I can't read your mind, but I might suggest that you are have not gone through deconversion through doubt, so you may not know just how those pesky doubts pile up and undermine belief or how it is rational, not emotional.

Since you posted a video, I shall and it sets out the deconversion of one who wanted to keep on believing, but couldn't, and from Rachel Slick to my old opponent SA Seeker, being unable to resist doubt and question is the way it happens, not an emotional reaction.

Sure, there exists atheists that reject Christianity purely on rational grounds. But there are also atheists that reject Christianity on rational and emotional grounds. One evidence of this is the atheists continual use of mocking when arguing against Christianity. Why your use of labeling Habermas as a "propagandist"? Why the use of "Chesus" instead of Jesus? These are emotional arguments involving mockery, not logical arguments. It is extremely rare for me to encounter an atheist that can debate solely on rational grounds and not resort to mocking.

As for the claim 'miracles don't happen', this is an assumption, not a fact.

Actually, I am quite sympathetic to the mindset of atheists. I can understand why they view Christianity as backwards and intellectually lacking. This is one of the reasons I set up this forum in the first place. It's my small attempt to show it is rational to believe in Christianity on logical grounds.

I'm also sympathetic to skeptics asking questions and getting bad answers from the church. Unfortunately, the state of the current church is very anti-intellectual. Most people in the pews don't even read the Bible, much less study it. Church leaders are not trained in apologetics so they give dumb answers.

The problem with answering these questions is it takes hard work to answer them. Who really has the time to provide such answers and who has the patience to listen to the answers? Since we're now reduced to giving 15 seconds answers to this TikTok generation, it's practically impossible to answer the skeptical questions about the Bible. Even now, I'm discussing the authority of the Bible and it's been 1.5 years. and we've only scratched the surface in all the subtopics we've covered so far.

I can only say that every atheist who has been a 'thinking'atheist (as distinct from those who have never troubled to think about it) that I have ever heard talk, spoken to, interacted with or read their stories, have reasoned their way out of it. The only possible emotional reaction was perhaps Darwin who became atheist, not through evolution -theory (it was the way God did it) but the death of his daughter. Even then it led to doubts about why God should do or allow such a thing. I think the burden of proof is on the Theist to show that atheists stay or become atheist because of emotion. Even if that was the case, they can reason good reasons why, as I'm sure you will know. Emotion, like bias, doesn't matter. The strength of the explanation matters.

Did I write Chesus? It was not intentional. I'm sorry if you don't like my use of propagandist. Anyone who argues religious apologetics is a propagandist in my book. I'm an atheist propagandist. I don't deny it. I didn't know the forum was yours. Thanks for giving atheists a forum to talk on and letting us stay here even while showing that it is not rational to believe in Christianity on logical grounds.

You may have a point about quick and easy answers. At least there are discussions where more effort is put into making better explanations. Even then, Christian apologists love their quick and easy ones: 'The disciples would not die for a lie', 'Jesus is attested to by extra - biblical writers', 'no morality without God', 'Newton believed in God'. It took quite a lot of discussion to counter these quick and easy ones. To which the Christian apologists put in the required effort for a rebuttal. You will probably be familiar with the immense amount of effort made to support the nativity - story. I may say with all false modesty, that nobody else (that I know of) has plugged the gap of the 'empty governorship' in the time of Herod or noticed that Joseph apparently intended to return to Judea (no doubt Bethlehem) on return from Egypt. Though on the former forum, a colleague did a job I couldn't do - prove that Herod died in 4 B.C not 3 B.C or even later.

And that, as they say, is that, and not the best Christian apologist can, I would argue, debunk that, only ignore it, or do the quickest and easiest of the quick and easy: 'you have to have faith'.

[otseng]

Did I write Chesus? It was not intentional.

Evidently you didn't even watch the video that you had posted.

I'm sorry if you don't like my use of propagandist.

Well, this is not the only example where you've used mocking, personal attacks and derision before. If need be, I can point those out as well.

Thanks for giving atheists a forum to talk on and letting us stay here even while showing that it is not rational to believe in Christianity on logical grounds.

After all these years, I've still been waiting for any good logical argument against Christianity. Please point to where anyone has done this. Note, I'm not talking about non-doctrinal issues (which atheists love to bring up), but major doctrinal issues.

The question still remains, why can't most atheists argue on purely rational grounds (and not resort to fallacies and personal attacks) if they insist it is purely logical grounds they reject Christianity?

[otseng]

What you describe seems to me more like the onset of skepticism in the believer who is beginning to experience failure on the part of the god they believe in. The majority of non-believers reached their position without having a prior belief in gods, so the emotional aspect and rejection you speak of has not been in play.

Even if it is onset, emotional doubt would still be a contributing factor to the rejection of Christianity.

As for non-believers that have not even thought about or experienced Christianity, these are not really part of the discussion. Neither emotions or logic have been in play since no decision has been made either way.

[TRANSPONDER]

Did I write Chesus? It was not intentional.

Evidently you didn't even watch the video that you had posted.

I'm sorry if you don't like my use of propagandist.

Well, this is not the only example where you've used mocking, personal attacks and derision before. If need be, I can point those out as well.

Thanks for giving atheists a forum to talk on and letting us stay here even while showing that it is not rational to believe in Christianity on logical grounds.

After all these years, I've still been waiting for any good logical argument against Christianity. Please point to where anyone has done this. Note, I'm not talking about non-doctrinal issues (which atheists love to bring up), but major doctrinal issues.

The question still remains, why can't most atheists argue on purely rational grounds (and not resort to fallacies and personal attacks) if they insist it is purely logical grounds they reject Christianity?

Ah I see.Yes I know that the video had the child mishearing 'Jesus'. Why have a go at me about it? You should be less touchy. We atheists have had to develop pretty thick skins. It does not make you look good to try to play the 'Oh you atheists are so rude' card.

The forum has been full of good reasons not to credit Christianity or any theism. I have not noticed AquinasforGod about. The Ontological argument was knocked down pretty soundly. I have had a few discussions with you, too. I recall that we did the resurrection and, on the inerrant' thread, the Flood (your hydroplate theory), the Hyksos were the Hebrews (or partially so) and recently the Shroud. I think that you must honestly concede that I gave as good as I got, even though I was bullied out of the discussion when I pointed up problems in your arguments. I can see this going the same way. But it's you began pointing the accusing finger.

[otseng]

Ah I see.Yes I know that the video had the child mishearing 'Jesus'. Why have a go at me about it? You should be less touchy. We atheists have had to develop pretty thick skins. It does not make you look good to try to play the 'Oh you atheists are so rude' card.

Uh, how was I touchy or even rude? I was simply stating that you evidently did not watch the video because you did not recognize the "Chesus" reference.

I think that you must honestly concede that I gave as good as I got, even though I was bullied out of the discussion when I pointed up problems in your arguments. I can see this going the same way. But it's you began pointing the accusing finger.

Another example of a fallacious argument. I did not bully you out of the discussion. If need be, I can provide all the posts where it is actually you that made personal attacks and by your own admission you bowed out of the debate.