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Atheist and the nativity

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  • Person_one
    Person_one Posts: 28,884 Forumite
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    daska wrote: »
    surely the difference is simple? A theist chooses to believe in god/s. An atheist chooses to believe that there is no god/s. An agnostic accepts that there is a possibility that something might or might not exist but refuses to commit themselves because there is no proof.


    Its even more simple than that. There is no need to mention choice or reasoning in the definitions.

    A theist believes in one or more deities, usually a particular religion.

    An atheist does not believe in any deities or religion.

    An agnostic believes that it is impossible to know if there are any deities or not.
  • peachyprice
    peachyprice Posts: 22,346 Forumite
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    I think our beliefs or non beliefs come largely from our upbringing and probably mostly from our parents, as well as friends, education, society etc as we growing up.

    I think you can decide to stop believing and live your life according to evidence, but I don't think you can decide to believe in something you don't.

    I'm not so sure that our beliefs do come from our upbringing. For example, I do not believe in the moon landings, never have, never will, no matter what 'evidence' is put before me, I just can't believe.

    This has nothing to do with my upbringing, education or society. I don't know how my parents feel, I know my husband strongly opposes my view (so much so that it's a taboo subject in our house as we just cannot find a middle ground) and it's always been taught as fact. But to me it's just not viable. Same as god.

    Some people who have been non-believers do 'find' god though, I wonder what happens to make them believe? As there can be no evidence to change their mind, why to they decide to believe in something they didn't?
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  • GracieP
    GracieP Posts: 1,263 Forumite
    Person_one wrote: »
    Ok, so you can pick which bits of the bible and which aspects of Christianity you wish to acknowledge and live by.

    All Christian religions do that. There isn't a single 'pure' one in terms of following the words of Jesus. Once Constantine I converted to Christianity the whole of the religion had to be made palatable to the Romans and great lengths were gone to ensure that the entirety of Christianity would be unified under one belief system. Councils of bishops and canons of the church, alongside Roman (later Byzantine) rulers, picked and chose exactly which gospels they wanted to follow and which to discard. In particula,r the time of the first seven ecumenical councils, between the 4th and 8th centuries, are very indicative of this.
  • robpw2
    robpw2 Posts: 14,044 Forumite
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    Person_one wrote: »
    Ok, so you can pick which bits of the bible and which aspects of Christianity you wish to acknowledge and live by.

    Please show a bit more tolerance towards people who wish to celebrate Christmas despite not believe in the Trinity etc.
    hang on , i pick and choose which bits of the bible , i think youll find so do those who have issues with gays ..


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  • Person_one
    Person_one Posts: 28,884 Forumite
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    robpw2 wrote: »
    hang on , i pick and choose which bits of the bible , i think youll find so do those who have issues with gays ..

    Well, quite.

    I'd have thought someone who understood that would be a bit less judgemental towards somebody wanting to celebrate Christmas despite not being a practicing Christian.

    After all, the early Christians picked and chose which bits of the old winter festivals they wanted to incorporate into their new one.
  • The_One_Who
    The_One_Who Posts: 2,418 Forumite
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    Person_one wrote: »
    Please show a bit more tolerance towards people who wish to celebrate Christmas despite not believe in the Trinity etc.

    As far as I am aware the concept of the Trinity does not appear anywhere in the Bible. It was created by Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century, I think.
  • I'm not so sure that our beliefs do come from our upbringing. For example, I do not believe in the moon landings, never have, never will, no matter what 'evidence' is put before me, I just can't believe.

    This has nothing to do with my upbringing, education or society. I don't know how my parents feel, I know my husband strongly opposes my view (so much so that it's a taboo subject in our house as we just cannot find a middle ground) and it's always been taught as fact. But to me it's just not viable. Same as god.

    Some people who have been non-believers do 'find' god though, I wonder what happens to make them believe? As there can be no evidence to change their mind, why to they decide to believe in something they didn't?

    Oh really? Why don't you believe in the moon landings?

    I suspect people who "find god" (where do they find him?) base that on some kind of experience that they attribute to god, it is usually after a low point in their life, a lot of charities are associated with monotheistic religions (there are fianncial perks associated with this I think) and therefore a person down on their luck may find themselves "saved" by a group with heavy religious overtones, necessarily vulnerable people will be far more suggestible.

    I don't expect they would say that they "chose" to believe though, I expect they would talk of a revelation of some kind, perhaps a vision or realisation brought on by the combination of circumstances I described above.
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  • robpw2 wrote: »
    hang on , i pick and choose which bits of the bible , i think youll find so do those who have issues with gays ..

    Of course you do, as do they, you are both hypocritical in that sense in equal measure.

    As you are obviously already relying on your own human morality, why bother with the Bible and Christianity at all?
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  • Person_one
    Person_one Posts: 28,884 Forumite
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    As far as I am aware the concept of the Trinity does not appear anywhere in the Bible. It was created by Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century, I think.

    See, its all bits and pieces thrown in here and there.

    No reason why any one group or person needs to have a monopoly on anything labelled as vaguely 'Christian'.
  • babymoo
    babymoo Posts: 3,187 Forumite
    This thread has made very interesting reading I must say.

    I genuinely do not know what I believe and what I dont believe. I was brought up by two loving parents who don't know what to believe but I went to a CofE primary school and a catholic school. I was christened as a baby because I was very poorly and my parents wanted to do something to protect me if I hadn't made it.

    I grew up never really going to church other than when school has organised it. I whole heartedly believe in santa, tooth fairies etc for a long time. I can't remember when I stopped believing if I am honest. When I was 8 I decided one sunday morning I was going to go to my local church service just to see what it was all about. After that one Sunday I went to church every Sunday morning until I was 14. I became quite a big believer. My parents still weren't sure but were more than happy with the fact that I had chosen this path, they discussed it with me and never told me I was wrong. I remember the day I stopped believing was the day after the 9/11 attacks as I came to the conclusion that no god would ever allow this to happen, I was diagnosed with more health problems in that year aswell and again decided that no god that I had learnt about would allow all this to happen to me and my family.

    I have a family friend who I have known for 18 years who comes from a family of devout christians. Their faith has never waivered and I have been to church with them a few times, and the strength of their beliefs actually scare me sometimes. There is no wiggle room for them at all. I regularly have really rather good debates with my friend and his family and whilst my friend accepts that I am not sure on what I believe and I can debate with an open mind he still believes that I am wrong and his family can get a bit annoyed by the fact that I do question their beliefs, not because I want to change their mind I just want to understand where their faith comes from. I was once told by his mum that "God allows bad things to happen to people so people appreciate the good stuff". Now to me that was a bit of a carp response and it just made me laugh which slightly offended her.

    My brother was brought up the same as me, only he had no beliefs until he turned 21 and then got himself baptised and now has a very strong belief in christianity. We were brought up that to celebrate any holiday or occasion such as christmas or even halloween, trick or treating in particular, that we had to understand the reasoning behind it so our parents taught us all sorts of different cultures and ideas and beliefs. They didn't believe any of them themselves but figured that we shouldn't celebrate without knowing what we are actually celebrating.

    Now I realise that christmas can be celebrated for many reasons whether you go with jesus being born or any of the other mentioned reasons to celebrate the 25th December that are in this thread but I believe there is no harm learning about any of these. I made my own opinions and I hope that one day my children will do the same thing. I would never stop them learning about any religion or faith or belief and they can take on any belief they want to. What I will impress on my children however is that it is TOTALLY their choice to have whatever faith they so wish if they want one at all.

    Sorry my post has been a lot longer than I intended it to be.
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