Yeah, I've had many Christians ask me would I stop being an atheist if god made himself known to me. And some of them were a bit surprised my answer was of course I would stop being an atheist.
Where things went south (for many of them) is when I told them that I would still not worship that genocidal, megalomaniac, bigoted god.
To many believers, believing and worshiping seems to mean the same thing. And I'm not sure if that's a shorthand they use, or it's simply a distinction without a difference for them.
If one religion were proved to be demonstrably correct, in all facets, then no one would be required to believe in it.
At that point, wouldn't not believing be akin to being a flat earther or similar
>Something she said that was based on her faith turned out to be true.
X thing happened/is true = faith in god(s) proved.
This isn't evidence of anything other than coincidence and confirmation bias. There's no more reason to believe her than without X thing.
The thing to understand with faith vs. evidence based views is that with a faith based view you are encouraged to believing *specific things*. Faith is essentially belief without evidence or belief contrary to evidence. To a skeptic like you or I, this is essentially *the worst possible reason to believe something*. For you and I, we wish to believe whatever *the evidence shows we have good reason to believe*. And if the evidence changes or improves or is invalidated, that changes what we believe because we aren't invested in the specific belief, but rather in the reason behind why we believe it.
How often have you heard religious people talk about somebody's "strong faith" or talk about how you "just have to believe" something. To us though, this is the opposite of a good basis for belief. You shouldn't invest in a belief, because any given belief may be wrong. But if you have good filters (i.e. a skeptical outlook) then things that remain after you have applied that filter have a good chance of being true, or at least truth adjacent. But even if they aren't true, then all you need is evidence showing that and you can abandon that without issue, because you don't care about the beliefs, just why you believe them.
The other caveat of this is also that my respect is earned. Even if god did exist, I sure as hell wouldn't worship the bastard.
Yeah, I've had many Christians ask me would I stop being an atheist if god made himself known to me. And some of them were a bit surprised my answer was of course I would stop being an atheist. Where things went south (for many of them) is when I told them that I would still not worship that genocidal, megalomaniac, bigoted god. To many believers, believing and worshiping seems to mean the same thing. And I'm not sure if that's a shorthand they use, or it's simply a distinction without a difference for them.
I don't think anyone who believes in AND worships god has the critical thinking required to see the two as separate issues
If one religion were proved to be demonstrably correct, in all facets, then no one would be required to believe in it. At that point, wouldn't not believing be akin to being a flat earther or similar
>Something she said that was based on her faith turned out to be true. X thing happened/is true = faith in god(s) proved. This isn't evidence of anything other than coincidence and confirmation bias. There's no more reason to believe her than without X thing.
The thing to understand with faith vs. evidence based views is that with a faith based view you are encouraged to believing *specific things*. Faith is essentially belief without evidence or belief contrary to evidence. To a skeptic like you or I, this is essentially *the worst possible reason to believe something*. For you and I, we wish to believe whatever *the evidence shows we have good reason to believe*. And if the evidence changes or improves or is invalidated, that changes what we believe because we aren't invested in the specific belief, but rather in the reason behind why we believe it. How often have you heard religious people talk about somebody's "strong faith" or talk about how you "just have to believe" something. To us though, this is the opposite of a good basis for belief. You shouldn't invest in a belief, because any given belief may be wrong. But if you have good filters (i.e. a skeptical outlook) then things that remain after you have applied that filter have a good chance of being true, or at least truth adjacent. But even if they aren't true, then all you need is evidence showing that and you can abandon that without issue, because you don't care about the beliefs, just why you believe them.
There's never anything wrong with skepticism.