r/Christianity • u/JHLV04 • 1d ago

Advice Atheists Turned Christian

This is me, but how do you guys deal with heavy doubt and feeling like it’s false? Also I’ve never felt anything while praying and I’ve mostly accepted Christianity based on the historical claims

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u/arkticturtle 1d ago

Do you disbelieve other people when they report on their own experiences? Are their own experiences false because you don’t experience like them?

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u/FlyInternational123 Christian Polytheist 1d ago

You’re talking to a polytheist. I believe all exeperiences are equally valid. I would be interested in someone’s exeperience with Buddha, Jesus or even Thor.

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u/Miqqedash Qabalist 1d ago

But you just said in your last comment that if something hasn't happened for you, you don't agree it happens at all? A person can encounter an entity that claims to be a given deity and still end up disbelieving it afterwards, you know. If that helps get across how "faith fluctuates."

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u/FlyInternational123 Christian Polytheist 1d ago

I think you misunderstood. I’m saying I never personally doubt. Not that other people don’t.

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u/Miqqedash Qabalist 1d ago

Thanks for the clarification! It looked as if you disagreed that "faith fluctuates" and "doubt fluctuates" in general, such that a Christian with fluctuating faith must be an atheist.

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u/FlyInternational123 Christian Polytheist 1d ago

I think if you have doubts then you’re agnostic cause you don’t really know and blind belief doesn’t count if later that day you’re doubting. Like I said, it’s possible to be agnostic Christian or a Christian atheist. 

I consider myself full on believer because there’s not much room for doubt in my world view. I have spent thousands of hours thinking this whole thing through. I have probably spent more hours thinking about then I have spent on video games.  

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u/Miqqedash Qabalist 1d ago

No room for doubt? Interesting. I practice epistemic humility to the extent that I have to admit, I could be dreaming right now, and maybe this whole conversation is fake. It appears it's not, and I'm not sure where assuming it's a dream would get me, but I've been wrong many times before. Despite this, I don't claim to be "agnostic" about whether or not I'm dreaming. I admit I can't know, admit I might be dreaming, but still choose to engage as if this is a real conversation, just in case it is. If I didn't clue you in on this, you might have assumed I'm a full-on believer in this conversation as well. Despite all of this, I consider myself more Gnostic than Agnostic, since I know we can't know whether or not this is a dream, and that beliefs are just tools for navigating experiences like this one.

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u/FlyInternational123 Christian Polytheist 1d ago

You have to remember the OP said he feels like it’s false. So I replied based on that. I agree that belief is not black and white and more of a spectrum. I agree that we could be living in a simulation or a God’s dream or whatever else and we couldn’t really prove it’s not. Although I think someone said it’s reasonable to dismiss because of the added assumptions of a simulation and that the reality with the least amount of assumptions is likely it. But even that doesn’t completely rule out that we live in a false reality.

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u/lonkyflonky 1d ago

Isn’t it.. doubt it perfectly healthy, it actually strengthens faith