Why do people become atheists?

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Reba said:
If a person is truly saved, no one, not even the person himself/herself, can "unsave" that person.

Saved people can become backslidden or carnal. They can also have doubts and "feel" unsaved. But they cannot become unsaved.
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Does that mean I am still saved even if I don't believe? Or does it mean I wasn't really saved? That is judging deconverted people as "never really saved." Deconverted people like me had real belief that they were saved. Saying that they were not really saved is looking down on and putting down how they truely believed before. Picking out a verse that a god supposely had written is still judging because one has to actively get the verse and show or tell it to people.

Plenty believed so strongly that they never thought they would deconvert. Like those people, you said that you believe that you would never deconvert. People who said that very thing had deconverted. There are plenty of places online with such stories.

There are verses that say it is possible to become unsaved. Here's a Christian reply that says yes it is possible from within. The verse in John says no man can remove a believer from the Father's hand, that's an external influence.

The Christian memeplex has verses like this to make people think that they would never leave Christianity. It is not an unexpected feature of a successful memeplex. Such verses in the bible causes an automatic bias if somebody believes that the bible is true. They would have to believe those verses too. The verses act as a filter to filter out any thoughts about actually deconverting. They block out anything that could threaten the integrity of faith. This meme keeps people under the control of the memeplex by causing them to think that nothing could cause them to lose faith, which causes them to keep filtering what they see in the world to put things into religous terms such as actions by their god or Satan. If it cannot be put into their version of Christian terms, it is ignored.

A preacher told me that some branches of Christianity believe that people cannot become unsaved and other branches believe that people can.
 
RedFox said:
Not all atheists are nonspiritial. There are atheists who are Buddhists, Taoists, liberal Quakers, Unitarian Universalists and Jews.
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Um... No. An atheist is not only someone who does not believe in G-d, but completely denies the possibility that a higher power exists. Therefore, none of the above mentioned groups would be considered atheists. Not believing in Jesus as your savior does not make you an atheist, it makes you a non-Christian.
 
XBGMER said:
I don't believe in hell nor heaven
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If so, you do not believe Jesus' spoken Words.
I believe that the person shall go to the person will be reincarnate flesh and blood again after the death..
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Unscriptural! It is your theory, not the Bible.
 
RedFox said:
That is not the only reason people deconvert. Many deconverted for other reasons like those. The page linked to at the beginning of this thread says that its writer deconverted because what religion claimed to offer didn't make sense, so it ended up offering nothing, so there was no reason to believe anymore. The process of deconverting can be painful for those who were strongly religious before, but what starts it is not always something painful.
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Sorry for veering off of the exact subject why you posted it, but I just have to point out something strange about the first link you gave me. I've seen atheists claim no non-theist would ever try to convert a believer. Then what's up with the last paragraph on that page? Sure looks like the statement of an atheist who's aiming at converting people...
 
Rose Immortal said:
Sorry for veering off of the exact subject why you posted it, but I just have to point out something strange about the first link you gave me. I've seen atheists claim no non-theist would ever try to convert a believer. Then what's up with the last paragraph on that page? Sure looks like the statement of an atheist who's aiming at converting people...
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Is this the paragraph you are asking about? It's the last one on the about.com page.

The question "Why don't you believe?" is a request for justification from the nonbeliever; the response "I haven't seen any good reason to bother believing" returns the need for justification back to the believer where it belongs. Too often, believers fail to realize that their position is the one which needs defending and perhaps this can help them begin to understand that.
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This paragraph is to tell believers that if they are the ones making positive claims, they must be the ones giving evidence because the default is nonbelief in something. We do not need to come up with reasons not to believe in the countless possible things like a giant and wise pink creature in a space station orbiting Alpha Centauri, a ball of icky green slime buried 1000 feet under your backyard or a treasure chest full of books that will change your life lying at the bottom of Verona Rupes on Miranda. None of them are physically impossible, but we don't believe such positive claims because we have no evidence for any of them. Atheists don't bother believing those as well as claims that believers make because there is not enough evidence.

It does not look like something meant to deconvert believers, but a reminder that people who make positive claims are resposible for giving enough evidence if they want people to believe them.
 
ayala920 said:
Um... No. An atheist is not only someone who does not believe in G-d, but completely denies the possibility that a higher power exists. Therefore, none of the above mentioned groups would be considered atheists. Not believing in Jesus as your savior does not make you an atheist, it makes you a non-Christian.
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The only thing theism and atheism are about belief or nonbelief in gods, which can be generalized to any possible god or as applied to particular gods, like the ancient Romans calling Christians atheists because they did not believe in the Roman gods.

Certain types of Buddhism view Buddhas as being spiritual, but not as gods. Taoists believe in spiritual forces like Ying and Yang, and can consider them to not be gods. There are liberal Quakers who follow the teachings of Jesus, but do not believe in gods. Some Unitarian Universalisms consider themselves to be atheists. There are Jews who are cultural Jews and atheists.

Not all higher powers are considered to be gods. An atheist is somebody who does not believe in gods. That does not prevent them from believing in other kinds of higher powers. An example would be Ying and Yang.

Not all atheists completely deny the possiblity of gods or other higher powers. Here's a page explaining the terms strong and weak atheists.
 
How atheists see Religion and God

I didnt want to go off topic in Cheri's thread but this is in response to Pyo Pyo's comments about Atheists and how they view things.

I found this statement from an atheist website...

They claim that they perceive a mode of being superior to your existence on this earth. The mystics of spirit call it 'another dimension,' which consists of denying dimensions. The mystics of muscle call it 'the future,' which consists of denying the present. To exist is to possess identity. What identity are they able to give to their superior realm? They keep telling you what it is not, but never tell you what it is. All their identifications consist of negating: God is that which no human mind can know, they say--and proceed to demand that you consider it knowledge--God is non-man, heaven is non-earth, soul is non-body, virtue is non-profit, A is non-A, perception is non-sensory, knowledge is non-reason. Their definitions are not acts of defining, but of wiping out." [Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged]

This man is saying the same thing about how to know which religion to choose...

Whenever the subject of religion is being discussed, there is always one nagging question which can never be answered. Which religion do I chose? Adhering to a doctrine or set of beliefs purely because they are native to the region in which you were born makes little sense. The accident of birth should never dictate what you choose to believe. This discussion leads to another natural question that must be asked, “Of what use is false religion?” If that is the real question, then the answer is that a false religion is useless and you must choose the correct religion. This statement leads to yet another question, “Which religion is real?”


atheists.com - A Theist's Thoughts on Religion
 
:ty: shel90 for respecting my thread. That means a lot to me. :)

And for Atheists's views I don't believe anything they say because they don't provide me facts that God is not real. :)
 
Cheri said:
:ty: shel90 for respecting my thread. That means a lot to me. :)

And for Atheists's views I don't believe anything they say because they don't provide me facts that God is not real. :)
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No problem

That's fine...when it was mentioned in your thread, I got curious to see how they see things.
 
Thank you :) Yupp exactly, what else word than "God" should Atheist use?
 
shel90 said:
I just found that one man's article interesting cuz he is saying the same things that many of u debated about how we can know which religion is correct. Very interesting read.

This is more of how they see things..

Thanks for letting me know about your link..:)
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Herzlich Willkommen :)

It´s long and debate thread but worth to read... I re-read those link, I provided here... I was like wow and laugh because I said something bit different than I posted in my thread at years ago about atheists. It look like that I don´t know much about atheists until I learn a lot about them... Now I know what it is about... :lol:
 
shel90 said:
Probably science...I am still learning. :dunno:
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Yupp I am sure most of Atheist believe into the Envolution, but actually for my question, I was pointing to my post in Cheri's thread that I was trying to explain why Atheist use the word "God".

Also, btw, I am a nontheist as Buddhist ;)

Liebling:-))) said:
Interesting thread.

Some of you are newbie and should learn why the people become atheists - check my thread.

http://www.alldeaf.com/christianity...iefs/27095-why-do-people-become-atheists.html
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Your thread is good one! Thank you for sharing :)
 
Liebling:-))) said:
Herzlich Willkommen :)

It´s long and debate thread but worth to read... I re-read those link, I provided here... I was like wow because I said something bit different than I posted in my thread at years ago.
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I am reading it now..that was before I joined AD. :)
 
PuyoPiyo said:
Yupp I am sure most of Atheist believe into the Envolution, but actually for my question, I was pointing to my post in Cheri's thread that I was trying to explain why Atheist use the word "God".

Also, btw, I am a nontheist as Buddhist ;)

If they say another word, then nobody would know what they are talking about and since "God" is an universally accepted word to describe him, maybe they are following the majority?



Your thread is good one! Thank you for sharing :)
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Yea,, I like Liebling's thread. :)
 
Herzlich Willkommen :)

Please re-read what I just edited to add something more at my last post before your post... :lol:
 
Audiofuzzy convinced me that I am an AGNOSTIC in my thread. Interesting..

All what I know is beleive in reality.
 
shel90 said:
If they say another word, then nobody would know what they are talking about and since "God" is an universally accepted word to describe him, maybe they are following the majority?
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*nods agreement* Probably...

Yea,, I like Liebling's thread. :)
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Me 2 ;)
 
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