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People that claim something as fact, when in reality they have no way of proving or disproving it, are just ignorant, in my opinion. I believe in God, personally. But I don't claim it as fact that He exists.
Agnosticism is the only rational position. But there's no evidence for a god or gods; belief is due to indoctrination and wishful thinking. There's also the pesky human tendency to read agency into inanimate, mechanistic processes. That plays a role in supernatural belief as well.
So, agnostic atheism it is for the intellectually honest among us
What I see is high levels of anxiety, depression, and suicide amongst our teens. Levels that were unthinkable 20 years ago. Mainly this is caused by social media. https://healthcare.utah.edu/healthfe...d%20behaviors.
Or what about AI? Sure ChatGPT is fun to use right now, and surely has some positive effects. But, as usual, they need to keep making it bigger and more powerful. What happens when it is smarter than us? https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...scious-or-not/
My list of how progression is killing our society could go on and on, but I don't have time to sit here and type it all out. But I will say that I long for the days before technology has ruined us as a species. I'll take my flip phone and go talk to my neighbor.
I'm 37, and I use a flip phone. I'm typing this post on a smartphone that a friend bought for me a couple years back (at the time, we planned on going into business together, and he insisted that I have a smartphone), but I never paid my bill for it, and I merely use it to access the internet at the bookstore I go to on a daily basis
Despite my little experience with this, my elder family members have talked about God and Christianity and church now more than they ever did when I was growing up.
In fact, my late grandmother's only regret was that she wished she hadn't made excuses for most of her life to not go to church. One of her last requests of me was to find myself a good church and to "not be like [her]" in that regard.
I'm still working on finding the "right" denomination and church, but I fully intend to honor her request.
Personally, I'm becoming more religious as I get older. I've always believed in a god, because it made perfect sense to me. And I've had "experiences" (and that's as far as I'll elaborate on it) that happened exactly, as I later found out, as written in the Bible. So, I therefore believe in the God of the Bible. The rest is still a work in progress!
Agnosticism is the only rational position. But there's no evidence for a god or gods; belief is due to indoctrination and wishful thinking. There's also the pesky human tendency to read agency into inanimate, mechanistic processes. That plays a role in supernatural belief as well.
So, agnostic atheism it is for the intellectually honest among us
In my case, it's definitely not wishful thinking. I came to be a believer when I was 27. I was drunk just about everyday and ruined so many relationships in the process. I know I needed a change. I decided to walk into a non-denominational Christian church one random Sunday morning. Changed my life forever.
So I don't view it as wishful thinking. I've felt God enter my soul. My entire outlook on life has changed for the better. For me, believing in a power bigger than myself has been a freedom I hope everyone gets to experience.
I obviously have no way of proving his existence, but my belief comes from personal experiences in my life.
What I see is high levels of anxiety, depression, and suicide amongst our teens. Levels that were unthinkable 20 years ago. Mainly this is caused by social media. https://healthcare.utah.edu/healthfe...d%20behaviors.
Or what about AI? Sure ChatGPT is fun to use right now, and surely has some positive effects. But, as usual, they need to keep making it bigger and more powerful. What happens when it is smarter than us? https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...scious-or-not/
My list of how progression is killing our society could go on and on, but I don't have time to sit here and type it all out. But I will say that I long for the days before technology has ruined us as a species. I'll take my flip phone and go talk to my neighbor.
Everyone is somewhat apprehensive about AI, but the genie is out of the bottle, and now is the time to develop it responsibly.
Is social media misused? Sure, but it's a tool - you can do anything you want with it, including becoming addicted to it.
In my case, it's definitely not wishful thinking. I came to be a believer when I was 27. I was drunk just about everyday and ruined so many relationships in the process. I know I needed a change. I decided to walk into a non-denominational Christian church one random Sunday morning. Changed my life forever.
So I don't view it as wishful thinking. I've felt God enter my soul. My entire outlook on life has changed for the better. For me, believing in a power bigger than myself has been a freedom I hope everyone gets to experience.
I obviously have no way of proving his existence, but my belief comes from personal experiences in my life.
You don't think your desire to change played some subconscious role in whatever it was you experienced at that non-denominational Christian church?
I was religious for the first 18 years of my life (and genuinely so, not just nominally), so I've experienced belief and all that it offers. Quite honestly, I was happier as a believer than I have been in my 19 years as an atheist. Now, correlation not equaling causation is statistics 101, but I would say that losing faith caused me anxiety that had lasting, permanent-as-of-now psychological effects. That said, intellectual honesty is not about believing what we wish were true, it's about what the evidence, or lack thereof, dictates.
One time a couple summers ago, a Muslim recent college grad stopped me in a local park and asked if I'd be interested in discussing personal beliefs about the existence of god. He had a camera set up on a tripod nearby; he planned on filming the conversation and putting it on YouTube. We talked for about an hour, half of which was successfully recorded. I forget a lot of what was said, but one thing I remember telling him is that I'm an empiricist. Which I am, but I've never declared that 'in real life' before or since. There's going to have to be compelling proof for me to believe something. If I do believe in something with inadequate supporting evidence, I want that inadequacy to be pointed out, demonstrated if I'm for whatever reason blind to it. I've been this way ever since I chose to major in philosophy in college, and it's how I'll remain for the rest of my (lucid) life.
Believing in god is exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, with such a mindset.
Now, granted, there have been a few cases in physics where theoretical knowledge has preceded observation. The Higgs boson is the most famous case. It was known to be necessary to exist, but for a while it wasn't directly observed. These rare exceptions serve to prove the empiricism rule--the scientists at the Large Hadron Collider still wanted empirical proof, even though the Higgs boson's existence was 'known' beforehand
Last edited by Matt Marcinkiewicz; 04-11-2024 at 09:04 AM..
As I've gotten older - now in my 60s - I've moved increasing away from religious thought and ways, even though I've never been religious. I've just become more isolated within myself, and stand by my views and beliefs formed and fine-tuned over decades. They've stood up to the test of time and review.
People - as they age - in general become more accepting and even welcoming of death. But that's not a religious matter; just a natural acceptance of the life and death for all creatures.
As for the thread topic, one confounding consideration here is whether people get more religious as they age or whether people of prior generations were just more religious to begin with. The latter is certainly true in the US, and even if Baby Boomers and whatever's left of the Greatest Generation have gotten less religious over time, they'd still be more religious than millennials and Gen Z.
ETA: Oops, forgot about the Silent Generation (perhaps fittingly so, given their label). They're the ones who were born between 1928 and 1945, thus falling between Boomers and the Greatest Generation
Everyone is somewhat apprehensive about AI, but the genie is out of the bottle, and now is the time to develop it responsibly.
Is social media misused? Sure, but it's a tool - you can do anything you want with it, including becoming addicted to it.
Teens (especially young ones and preteens) who have access to social media don't have the mental capacity to only view it as a tool. It's part of their life, everyday from sun up to sun down. Maybe for you it's a tool, but for many youngsters it's much more than that. And it's ruining lives.
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