{"id":46,"date":"2014-09-19T21:17:35","date_gmt":"2014-09-20T02:17:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oddlysincere.com\/?p=46"},"modified":"2025-02-14T21:59:02","modified_gmt":"2025-02-15T03:59:02","slug":"what-i-dont-believe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oddlysincere.com\/?p=46","title":{"rendered":"What I (don’t) believe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What follows is most of an email I sent to a friend today. I’ve talked about my very-nearly-reversal on faith\/religion before. When I read this again, though, I decided that it’s pretty close<\/em> to the best job I’ve ever done explaining my position (particularly to an audience of believers). So, I decided to post it on my web log (which, probably most importantly, syndicates to my Facebook<\/a> page). This will likely be a big ol’ batch of “knew that already” to most people, but I think there’s good info there for people who are sincerely curious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep in mind that I (as always) reserve the right to do anything I damned well please to any content that shows up on my blog. That being said, you can probably tell that me and said friend don’t agree. I’m posting this anyway, though. I’m quite tolerant of dissenting viewpoints, as long as my impression is that those beliefs are being shared for some purpose other<\/em> than simply to show me that I’m “wrong” (and\/or to explain what’s “right”). Newsflash: I already agree that I don’t know everything, and I think that’s the biggest thing that’s happened to me since I was a card-carrying believer: I’m okay<\/em> with not knowing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The point of this isn’t<\/em> to convince anyone to change his\/her mind. The point is to clearly and plainly express my<\/em> own<\/em> beliefs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okay. disclaimer out of the way. I’m going to quote from the email now. I won’t<\/em> be using the “blockquote” tag, because that apparently prevents me from being able to italicize<\/em> text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

I’m struggling quite<\/em> hard right now with my past assertion that I have no<\/em> desire to change your mind. I’ve realized that’s not completely<\/em> true. What is<\/em> true is that I don’t relish the thought of creating conflict. I realize there is such a thing as “healthy debate”, but that depends on both parties being willing to be convinced to change their own minds. While that’s technically<\/em> true for me, the kind of argument that would convince me is something that I think every believer would say, “isn’t the way God works”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, please understand that the text below is not intended as an \u201cattack\u201d. It\u2019s merely the only way I know how to express what I believe in the presence of the huge<\/em> \u201cgulf\u201d between me and a believer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to them, it\u2019s a case of me not being willing to believe what they think is\u00a0obvious<\/em>. My mind goes back to\u00a0Mandy Patinkin<\/a>\u2018s line (as\u00a0\u201cInigo Montoya\u201d<\/a>) in\u00a0The Princess Bride<\/em><\/a>: \u201cYou keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.\u201d While I\u00a0completely<\/em>\u00a0agree that it\u2019s possible for someone to \u201crefuse to see\u201d something that\u2019s \u201cobvious\u201d to most people, the thing they refer to as \u201cobvious\u201d invariably requires <\/em>that the listener already believes in God<\/em>. Basically, the things they identify as reasons for believing in God are dependent upon a belief in God.\u00a0I\u2019ll take \u201ccircular logic\u201d for $1000, Alex.<\/a>\u00a0I think that the primary problem is that my state of non-belief isn\u2019t\u00a0remotely<\/em>\u00a0similar to what most believers are used to dealing with. We live in a world where my belief in a creator is all but\u00a0assumed<\/em>, and my background as a former Christian makes that even more<\/em> likely. I\u00a0try<\/em>\u00a0to be like someone who has no prior knowledge of God (mostly because I have no reason [other than the desire for comfort] to believe in what I was taught), and I\u2019m\u00a0very\u00a0<\/em>skeptical about any \u201ctruths\u201d which do not flow\u00a0directly\u00a0from<\/em> things I can observe myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a matter of fact, every believer that has been willing to talk to me on that level has said (in effect) that there is no such evidence<\/em>. They\u2019ve said that belief in God requires<\/em> a \u201cleap\u201d beyond the logical. My opinion is that someone who created my brain and is \u201call-knowing\u201d should know what would convince me. The fact that I haven\u2019t experienced anything<\/em> that convinces me of such a being\u2019s existence says that 1) I\u2019m incredibly<\/em> unobservant, 2) that being doesn\u2019t exist<\/em>, or 3) that being has specifically chosen<\/em> not to reveal him\/her\/itself to me. I think my life so far has been a demonstration<\/em> that 1) isn\u2019t true. If it\u2019s 3), then this being is such an incredible<\/em> asshole that I don\u2019t want anything to do with him\/her\/it. The resulting action is also equivalent to 2) being true. Finally, 2) is also the simpler <\/em>answer, so I choose it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what that \u201ctranslates to\u201d for most believers is an unwillingness to be convinced. If you don\u2019t see it that way, then I would be quite<\/em> willing to continue the conversation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What follows is most of an email I sent to a friend today. I’ve talked about my very-nearly-reversal on faith\/religion before. When I read this again, though, I decided that it’s pretty close to the best job I’ve ever done explaining my position (particularly to an audience of believers). So, I decided to post it on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,9],"class_list":["post-46","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-non-belief","tag-deep-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oddlysincere.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oddlysincere.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oddlysincere.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oddlysincere.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oddlysincere.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/oddlysincere.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":536,"href":"https:\/\/oddlysincere.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions\/536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oddlysincere.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oddlysincere.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oddlysincere.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}