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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   5127 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 24, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Does anyone else occasionally feel that Christianity is real and Jesus is the Lord? I grew up somewhat Christian going to church but my parents stopped making me go around 14 and I quickly became an atheist. However, throughout my life there have been moments (very short) where I believe in Christ. Tonight was one where my fiance and I watched a beautiful choir in a beautiful church and as I held her hand I felt God. I felt Jesus and his sacrifice.

Of course, intellectually I know this is nonsense Christianity has been proven to not be true and just a superstition but there is something about it that draws me back so close to almost believing it.

Yep. I had moments like that over my life, they slowly increased as I learned more about Christianity and started to take Him seriously. Now I do believe that Christ is the Lord, although I’m occasionally still wracked with doubt.

I think the key is that the intellect isn’t often the best way to live life or make big decisions. Living from the heart seems to work better, at least for me.

I've had those moments occasionally, when I was younger. Now my daydreams are filled with AGI.

Does anyone else occasionally feel that Christianity is real and Jesus is the Lord?

Yes. I am a Christian and know that Jesus is Lord, the living God, who died to save us from our sins and rose again, who was born on the first Christmas as a baby born of the Virgin Mary and is literally present in the Eucharist for the salvation of all men.

Of course, intellectually I know this is nonsense Christianity has been proven to not be true

No, it hasn't. You can claim evidence for Christianity has been brought back to unfalsifiable claims; I can point to falsifiable claims that Christians will point to, although I acknowledge that eg the tilma of Juan Diego isn't a slam dunk argument even if no one has managed to disprove it and that the core claims are unfalsifiable even if I think that the balance of evidence and arguments weighs in favor. I'm not aware of anything that has disproven Christianity, although probably a few specific sects staked their existence on falsifiable claims.

and just a superstition

That's not what a superstition is. A superstition is a specific belief about how the world operates(eg if you break a mirror you'll have seven years of bad luck) which is rooted in magical thinking.

Nope.

There's a nigh infinite number of ways to approach this. I would recommend perhaps starting at the beginning of the fabulous Secret History of Western Esotericism podcast (https://shwep.net/). Christianity did not evolve in a vacuum. It's a part of western thought with roots dating back to pre-Socratic philosophy. It may benefit you to have a more complete picture of how it came to be and the issues that early Christian thinkers like Origen and Augustine wrestled with. There are as many different Christianities as there are Christians, and there is almost certainly a Christian path that is true for you.

Oh, to return to the time when delving into a site like this doesn't require engaging in countless hours of the inferior activity of listening instead of a considerably smaller time of the superior activity of reading.

Amen brother. Amen.

Does anyone else occasionally feel that Christianity is real and Jesus is the Lord?

I mean, I'm a Christian so I would say I feel that more than occasionally. ;)

Christianity has been proven to not be true and just a superstition

So far as I'm aware, no such proof exists. The general reasoning I see given for atheism isn't "Christianity is proven false", but "Christianity isn't proven true and so one should assume it is false until proven otherwise". The two positions are very different, with different implications on how you should think.

Let's do a little thought experiment. Suppose you saw a unicorn on the street today. If unicorns are proven to be impossible, then you are probably hallucinating and should see a doctor. But if it's merely the case that we don't believe unicorns exist until we have proof they do, congratulations cause you just proved unicorns exist. That's why the distinction between "proven false" and "unproven, assumed false for now" matters. In the former, evidence for the false proposition can safely be considered faulty. In the latter, evidence for the proposition can potentially show that the proposition is true after all.

Back to Christianity, that means that if you feel you have reason to believe in it (which I'm not saying you do, only you can decide that), then you shouldn't set aside those reasons because "eh it's proven false, it's just superstition anyway". Instead, you should follow up on those reasons and see where it takes you. Maybe it changes your mind, maybe not, but it seems to me that it's worth investigating just to see what happens.

Personally, I would encourage you to continue to seek the truth as best you can. YMMV, but my own experience has led me to believe the wisdom of "seek and you will find". I spent many years being atheist/agnostic, and at times I despaired that I would ever be able to resolve the questions I had inside. But in time, God led me to the answers I wanted in a way that I could accept. Now looking back on it all, yeah the path was winding and at times dark. But given who I am, and how I see the world, it probably couldn't have worked any other way. So while the journey was long and tiring (mentally), it was my journey and I'm grateful for it. And it's not over yet, of course.

I hope you find the answers you seek, man. Even if you wind up deciding "yep it's all bunk", I hope you're able to have the peace of having found those answers. Good luck, and Merry Christmas!

But if it's merely the case that we don't believe unicorns exist until we have proof they do, congratulations cause you just proved unicorns exist.

No, you are still vastly more likely to be suddenly hallucinating in comparison to meeting mythological creature that nobody had found any evidence for hundreds of years. The same can be said about attributing internal feelings to hypothetical unseen all-powerful being and not some mundane neurological reason.

On the other hand, if I see a unicorn in the street, and the neighbor tells me yep, that’s what it is, and neither of us have been drinking, and the pack of neighborhood children run over and pet it, and they say it’s a unicorn…

Unfortunately, no.

Christianity has been proven to not be true

That would be quite a feat.

I don't. Perhaps that is because I don't go to ceremonies designed to cause such a feeling.

There are anecdotes of people who thought they were reasonable and strong-priored enough to resist cult indoctrination going to cult indoctrination sessions and buying them hook, line and sinker.

This essay of Greg Egan might help you.

I generally believe it but also fairly frequently have doubts. I still consider Christianity to be undoubtedly useful even when I’m really not certain if it’s true, so I try to keep practicing regardless.

I became an atheist around 8 at the same time I stopped believing in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Then when I was a teenager, I tried to believe in God because I wanted to believe there was a powerful being I could pray to who would solve my problems, but I just couldn't get past the ridiculousness of things like Jesus walking on water of magically multiplying fish. It just seemed so stupid that I every time I tried to take it seriously, I felt like a fool. I do like the aesthetics of church and mass (though I hate standing and kneeling), but I just can't bring myself to believe things that go against reason.

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