If so what caused the shift in your belief?

sorry my bad, kindly unquote me

ednut1: my experience of living in uk from 2005 to 08, convinced me d god dey preach dont exist, all d white churches were all locked even on sunday,der tv programs also convinced afta watchin sex change, stem cell, ivf etc, and afta analysing all d supastory in d bible u will wake up. they rarely prayed yet der progress, while in our savage nigeria, we are ntin but pretenders, pastors, piticians all using god to scam and fool pple, since i stop prayin, i still achieved all my objectives and got to understood dat, to nature we are no diffent from animals in cloth

sorry let me clarify I mean are there people who went from thinking there was no God to believing in the existence of a God?

ednut1: my experience of living in uk from 2005 to 08, convinced me d god dey preach dont exist, all d white churches were all locked even on sunday,der tv programs also convinced afta watchin sex change, stem cell, ivf etc, and afta analysing all d supastory in d bible u will wake up. they rarely prayed yet der progress, while in our savage nigeria, we are ntin but pretenders, pastors, piticians all using god to scam and fool pple, since i stop prayin, i still achieved all my objectives and got to understood dat, to nature we are no diffent from animals in cloth

How can an adult write like this
Smh...

okeyxyz:

How can an adult write like this
Smh...

Bros, your pedantry is a little annoying. You're a grammar nazi, despite not being particularly good with it. Fine, we get it.

Do you have problems translating metaphors, etc? That is, do you interpret everything literally? You might have aspergers if you do. And that's not an insult, newton and quite a few top scientists probably had aspergers and they did just fine. In fact, it's a bit of a fad for engineers to claim they are aspies

Op. You are going to be quite disappointed.

Light has a healing and liberating effect, both physically and mentally.
Darkness brings fear, light brings assurance.

It would be rare to see the light and then go back to the darkness.
Once you jettison the notion of god, you also throw away his twin brother, the devil.
And once you are rid of those two, you begin to take responsibility for your life and actions,you think big and walk tall with self-assurance.

I cannot imagine that anyone would climb down into the dark pits of religion after tasting the freedom to think.

wiegraf:
Bros, your pedantry is a little annoying. You're a grammar nazi, despite not being particularly good with it. Fine, we get it.

Pedantry?? it's not surprising that I come-across to you like that, since you are too "liberal-minded" to "enforce" any useful habit. The guy I referred to obviously has no problem with grammer or whatever, rather he seems to be lacking in self-confidence that he adopts the writing manner of kids because he thinks it's "cool & hip". But you are too scared to rise & challenge him, you let it slide and the bad habit continues. So what do you do besides labeling people?("grammar nazi" is quite funny ) If that's the way he communicates with his friends, then it's non of my f##king business, but if he's writing to strangers on an open forum, then the least he could do is write properly.

wiegraf:
Do you have problems translating metaphors, etc? That is, do you interpret everything literally? You might have aspergers if you do. And that's not an insult, newton and quite a few top scientists probably had aspergers and they did just fine. In fact, it's a bit of a fad for engineers to claim they are aspies

I couldn't care less what these "scientists", "geniuses" and "celebrities" claim to have. Why are they not content at being normal people with great ideas? but no! they don't want to be normal, they want to be regarded as "special" thus making silly claims: I have aspergers, I have autism, I have OCD, blah blah blah... I'm rather unimpressed that you fall for these claims so much that you use them as references. Of course some of these disabilities comes with special gifts, but when these "disabilities" become fads, then you know they'd lost their true values.


But let's not digress the thread, @OP asked: Are There Any Converted Atheists On Nairaland? I'm quite interested to know how it goes. Is there any of your former atheist friends or foe you can refer to this thread?

okeyxyz:

Pedantry?? it's not surprising that I come-across to you like that, since you are too "liberal-minded" to "enforce" any useful habit. The guy I referred to obviously has no problem with grammer or whatever, rather he seems to be lacking in self-confidence that he adopts the writing manner of kids because he thinks it's "cool & hip". But you are too scared to rise & challenge him, you let it slide and the bad habit continues. So what do you do besides labeling people?("grammar nazi" is quite funny ) If that's the way he communicates with his friends, then it's non of my f##king business, but if he's writing to strangers on an open forum, then the least he could do is write properly.

Too scared to rise to him? Read through my posts then explain to me where you get this notion. I don't complain because I can get his meaning, easily. This isn't a fully formal setting in case you've missed that. Not to mention mobile devices and such. You rarely have anything to offer other than a silly complaint over dotting letters and what not. A lot of the time unnecessarily, that is being a pedant. You also seem to have some comprehension problems. Does every.little.thing need to be spelled out to you? Do you require diagrams as well?

okeyxyz:
I couldn't care less what these "scientists", "geniuses" and "celebrities" claim to have. Why are they not content at being normal people with great ideas? but no! they don't want to be normal, they want to be regarded as "special" thus making silly claims: I have aspergers, I have autism, I have OCD, blah blah blah... I'm rather unimpressed that you fall for these claims so much that you use them as references. Of course some of these disabilities comes with special gifts, but when these "disabilities" become fads, then you know they'd lost their true values.

Compression problems again? What does this have to do with anything? Btw, you seem to imply I think it's cool to be an aspie, where do I do that?
When a person has been tested and verified to have aspers, I believe it would be silly to say otherwise, no?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_autism_spectrum_disorders

Note how many of these are in academia or computing. For those that cannot be tested but fit the bill, newton, cavendish etc, when experts recognize patterns in their behavior as aspie-like, you think their claims are irrelevant?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_speculated_to_have_been_autistic

I'm saying get your head checked as there's a good chance you might be one. And there's nothing wrong with being one

Edited

wiegraf:
Too scared to rise to him? Read through my posts then explain to me where you get this notion. I don't complain because I can get his meaning, easily. This isn't a fully formal setting in case you've missed that. Not to mention mobile devices and such. You rarely have anything to offer other than a silly complaint over dotting letters and what not. A lot of the time unnecessarily, that is being a pedant. You also seem to have some comprehension problems. Does every.little.thing need to be spelled out to you? Do you require diagrams as well?

LWKMD!! I said it before: you are a "fanatic clown"

But seriously, a mobile phone seems to be the only acceptable reason for him not to write properly. I did also say He obviously has no "grammar or whatever" issues(How did you miss that? don't tell me you have dyslexia now), all I want him to do is to complete his words, to stop "butchering" them, especially when on a forum with strangers. simple good manners. My point is I see something that is not proper and I point it out and that's the only way I can make a positive impact on the other person or at least make him think. If you are against this, then let's just agree to disagree. nothing wrong with that either.

okeyxyz:

LWKMD!! I said it before: you are a "fanatic clown"

But seriously, a mobile phone seems to be the only acceptable reason for him not to write properly. I did also say He obviously has no "grammar or whatever" issues(How did you miss that? don't tell me you have dyslexia now), all I want him to do is to complete his words, to stop "butchering" them, especially when on a forum with strangers. simple good manners. My point is I see something that is not proper and I point it out and that's the only way I can make a positive impact on the other person or at least make him think. If you are against this, then let's just agree to disagree. nothing wrong with that either.

*smh*
Brah, where do I say you claim he has grammar issues? How do you come to the conclusion that I have dyslexia? And there was nothing funny in that post, so how did I become a 'fanatic clown'....

wiegraf:

*smh*
Brah, where do I say you claim he has grammar issues? How do you come to the conclusion that I have dyslexia? And there was nothing funny in that post, so how did I become a 'fanatic clown'....

wiegraf:
You rarely have anything to offer other than a silly complaint over dotting letters and what not. A lot of the time unnecessarily, that is being a pedant. You also seem to have some comprehension problems. Does every.little.thing need to be spelled out to you? Do you require diagrams as well?

Okay.., Maybe you were being sarcastic but it turned out to be funny to me, So I laughed
And you are a "fanatic clown" because "funny" seems to come naturally with your writings.

okeyxyz:

wiegraf:
You rarely have anything to offer other than a silly complaint over dotting letters and what not. A lot of the time unnecessarily, that is being a pedant. You also seem to have some comprehension problems. Does every.little.thing need to be spelled out to you? Do you require diagrams as well?

Okay.., Maybe you were being sarcastic but it turned out to be funny to me, So I laughed
And you are a "fanatic clown" because "funny" seems to come naturally with your writings.

I'm not sure if I should let you go... For now....

wiegraf:

I'm not sure if I should let you go... For now....

by the way, are you a female? (or hermaphrodite at least? )
You argue like a man(And i'd always assumed you were) but there's a feminine doggedness about you. You tend to demand clarity on any innuendos or suggestive word/phrase.

okeyxyz:

by the way, are you a female? (or hermaphrodite at least? )
You argue like a man(And i'd always assumed you were) but there's a feminine doggedness about you. You tend to demand clarity on any innuendos or suggestive word/phrase.

I could be, why?

Edit: we're waaaaayyyyy off topic now

.

okeyxyz: .

Was that supposed to be some sort of insult?

We are strangling this thread. I'd really like to revive it.

So what would make an atheist believe in a God? Isn't nature and life too intelligent to be without purpose?
Granted, the gods of mainstream christianity and other religions don't make much sense but are also absent imo.
Is it that you think: there is absolutely no possibility of there being a God or is it that the Gods of mainstream religions simply do not exist? Therefore if there is one out there, then we just don't know him/her yet?

^^^
Way too far with this!

You both have your reasons and it is noted.

Move on "pals"

let the thread be.

^^___^^
hehee, dats an agnostic. Dats me.

Without a doubt, all religions are man made. Well, obviously I haven't gone through all religions, but you get the point.

As for a god, evidence to back up that proposition, philosophical even, is virtually non-existent. For instance, I don't think nature and life are 'too intelligent' like you suggest. Obviously that alone would take us down rather different paths. Very unlikely any sort of god exists, let alone a personal one. If one does show, I'll gladly reconsider my position based on evidence etc. That's not happening though

Reverting to religion? No. I do not have spiritual needs. In fact, I personally disdain most things related to spirituality, so it's unlikely I'll turn to religion for some sort of solace, etc...

Is it possible there's a person or people who knows the absolutely truth about right and wrong while the rest of the world "languishes" in ignorance? If so, then such person/people has got to be at-least the true servants of god.

And isn't the reason there's "no evidence" of god because we are simply measuring the wrong qualities and values of a god? are we not simply projecting our human values and expecting this god to conform to them? He fails to comply and therefore we conclude that he does not exist. I agree he does not exist in those values, not that he does not exist at all.

And the values you currently project about God, how were they informed?
A bright light in your room? The Bible?


And I agree completely with wiegraf. All religions are man made.

okeyxyz: Is it possible there's a person or people who knows the absolutely truth about right and wrong while the rest of the world "languishes" in ignorance? If so, then such person/people has got to be at-least the true servants of god.

And isn't the reason there's "no evidence" of god because we are simply measuring the wrong qualities and values of a god? are we not simply projecting our human values and expecting this god to conform to them? He fails to comply and therefore we conclude that he does not exist. I agree he does not exist in those values, not that he does not exist at all.

Absolute truth about what? There are always going to be subjective matters. For those obviously there's no such thing. 'Right' and 'wrong' already pose a problem.
Even for objective, there are so many contradictions, paradoxes and what not that I find it hard to believe that there will be some model of the universe that would be completely true, in all respects. Recently I was reminded of godels incompleteness theorem, I certainly don't get it, but it seems to say some things cannot be proven within any given model. You'd have to form a complementary model to prove those assertions, or something like that.
And of course your 'true servants of god' is a little ambiguous, as I don't get what you mean by god. But I think you imply basically whichever group is absolutely correct, yes? Sentient god or not? Then depending on the nature of your 'absolute' then you could be correct.

For your second paragraph, anthrophormizing god is one of the reasons a personal god seems a particularly ridiculous notion to many atheists, true. But also note that if 'god' cannot be understood, then there's no point trying to obviously. Most anti-theists do explore all sorts of notions, not just the personal ones, and tend to find many versions of god rather untenable. Keeping an open mind is not the problem here

muskeeto2: And the values you currently project about God, how were they informed?
A bright light in your room? The Bible?


And I agree completely with wiegraf. All religions are man made.

and i thought you were suppose to be reading your books so that you dont fail your exams?
*sigh*

truthislight:

and i thought you were suppose to be reading your books so that you dont fail your exams?
*sigh*

Weekend... lol..

muskeeto2:
Weekend... lol..

you have been falling your hands with your recent post.

truthislight:

you have been falling your hands with your recent post.

muskeeto2: And the values you currently project about God, how were they informed?
A bright light in your room? The Bible?

Yes, The Bible!!!
The bible "speaks" truthfully about god, the problem is majority who profess the truth of the bible do so based on their own human-values, whereas this same message of the bible claims to be separate and unmixable with our values.

And I agree completely with wiegraf. All religions are man made.

of course all religions are man-made, does that invalidate the truth(if any) of such religion? Frankly this is a silly argument for anybody to hold against a religion. Is there any knowledge/truth/revelation that is not delivered by man(thus, man-made)? Shall we say the internet's claim to connecting people across the globe is false simply because it's man-made? The delivery of such a knowledge may be by man but the principle which governs it is discovered, not invented, and this is the same message of religion: to point man to a (super)natural principle for salvation/righteousness or whatever.

like i said: silly!! argument.

wiegraf:
Absolute truth about what? There are always going to be subjective matters. For those obviously there's no such thing. 'Right' and 'wrong' already pose a problem.
Even for objective, there are so many contradictions, paradoxes and what not that I find it hard to believe that there will be some model of the universe that would be completely true, in all respects.

absolute truth about the right way of attaining peace with yourself/nature/god or whatever your religion/philosophy promises.

A common fallacy is to say that: if a method or principle is subjective, therefore it cannot be true. I agree it may not be scientific but to say it cannot be true is just terribly flawed. Take an example: some people need to be in the right frame of mind in order to perform a challenging task. of course you cannot be in their minds to know what's going-on, but these guys perform their different rituals, then go on to give their best performances. There may not be scientific data to evaluate what just happened but the results are there for all, the results that could not have been achieved had these guys not been allowed to practice his ritual first. some need to "psych" themselves up, some say prayers, some listen to particular music, read a verse of the bible/koran, some "shack-up"(I know I do ), etc

Recently I was reminded of godels incompleteness theorem, I certainly don't get it, but it seems to say some things cannot be proven within any given model. You'd have to form a complementary model to prove those assertions, or something like that.
And of course your 'true servants of god' is a little ambiguous, as I don't get what you mean by god. But I think you imply basically whichever group is absolutely correct, yes? Sentient god or not? Then depending on the nature of your 'absolute' then you could be correct.

Yes, every proof has a model. This is the same as rules, do's and don'ts, values etc, and every proof promises an outcome for either conforming or not conforming to the "model". Now if two or more people propose different models to the same truth/outcome, surely there must be one that is perfect(relative to others) and produces the best result/performance. does the fact that such a winning model cannot(yet) be objectively evaluated by the rest of the participants invalidate the perfect results?

For your second paragraph, anthrophormizing god is one of the reasons a personal god seems a particularly ridiculous notion to many atheists, true. But also note that if 'god' cannot be understood, then there's no point trying to obviously. Most anti-theists do explore all sorts of notions, not just the personal ones, and tend to find many versions of god rather untenable. Keeping an open mind is not the problem here

God may not hold the same values as us dosen't mean he cannot be understood. God simply calls for discipline in order to attain his worthiness, thus the term "worship", meaning: you'd have to go besides & beyond your-values to become compatible with god. The problem with god simply lies with his worshipers(not their fault) who do not have the understanding, therefore misrepresent him.

okeyxyz:

Yes, The Bible!!!
The bible "speaks" truthfully about god, the problem is majority who profess the truth of the bible do so based on their own human-values, whereas this same message of the bible claims to be separate and unmixable with our values.

Proof of the bible's speaking truthfully?
Bible scholarly critics easily have field days showing you the contradictions and that fires cannot talk, authorship issues, etc. The cream of the crop to me though is the OT in which god, the message and claims are just....

okeyxyz:
of course all religions are man-made, does that invalidate the truth(if any) of such religion? Frankly this is a silly argument for anybody to hold against a religion. Is there any knowledge/truth/revelation that is not delivered by man(thus, man-made)? Shall we say the internet's claim to connecting people across the globe is false simply because it's man-made? The delivery of such a knowledge may be by man but the principle which governs it is discovered, not invented, and this is the same message of religion: to point man to a (super)natural principle for salvation/righteousness or whatever.

like i said: silly!! argument.

Heh heh heh, your claim here is they weren't designed by man, rather god created religious truths and man was just discovered them. Shame on you for using such a cheap trick. In essence religions are divinely inspired, perhaps stamped with the approval of some deity. Let me ignore most of the silly notions (which show distinctly human faults) religions espouse, do you have any evidence to support their divine origins?

wiegraf:
Proof of the bible's speaking truthfully?
Bible scholarly critics easily have field days showing you the contradictions and that fires cannot talk, authorship issues, etc. The cream of the crop to me though is the OT in which god, the message and claims are just....

The only proofs of Truth are subjective. The facts may be staring you in the face for a billion years, until you decide to consider/investigate it's logic or validity, it'd never be a truth to you.
As per the bible scholars and their contradictions, they can only debate the validity of sources and contexts, they don't debate the message. The Bible(and religion) is a message and it takes the truth/understanding of god to receive it.

Heh heh heh, your claim here is they weren't designed by man, rather god created religious truths and man was just discovered them. Shame on you for using such a cheap trick. In essence religions are divinely inspired, perhaps stamped with the approval of some deity. Let me ignore most of the silly notions (which show distinctly human faults) religions espouse, do you have any evidence to support their divine origins?

The evidence is in the message of the bible, and the fact that bible principle(to them that understand) demands conformity to natural laws is proof that nature validates god & vice-versa.

okeyxyz:

There only proofs of Truth are subjective. The facts can be staring you in the face for a billion years, until you decide to consider/investigate it's logic or validity, it'd never be a truth to you.
As per the bible scholars and their contradictions, they can only debate the validity of sources and contexts, they don't debate the message. The Bible(and religion) is a message and it takes the truth/understanding god to receive it.




The evidence is in the message of the bible, and the fact that bible principle(to them that understand) demands conformity to natural laws is proof that nature validates god & vice-versa.

Very

I'll just leave it at that, as this wasn't supposed to be one of those threads, and believe it or not I have no interest in 'converting' people or anything similar. Plus I really should get to work.