Atheists/Agnostics - any chance you'd believe under duress?

[revots33]

I watched the original Dutch version of "The Vanishing" recently (which did not have the happy ending the American remake did). Anyway it's an old movie so I doubt I'm giving much away to say the protaganists end up buried alive.

This to me is probably one of the most frightening scenarios I can imagine. Imagine someone buried you alive, tied up, with no chance to escape, but with enough air to survive until you die of thirst or some other way. So you are left there in the darkness awaiting your death. It got me wondering if I would "find" god in such a horrific situation. Wouldn't it almost be necessary that I would? The only other alternative would be insanity I think.

I suppose you could substitute any horrific scenario for being buried alive if you're not claustrophobic. (like those 2 stranded divers in the film "Open Water" for ex.) Isn't it a pretty good possibility that all the rational objections to god would go out the window under this kind of duress, when nothing but the hope of another life and a higher power can alleve the psychological torture?

[kerowo]

If someone's belief system is thought to be so rigid it can never change then why do we even bother to discuss it on this board or anywhere else? Being able to change your mind isn't a sign of weakness or hypocracy, being unable to change your mind is a far worse thing.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
It got me wondering if I would "find" god in such a horrific situation. Wouldn't it almost be necessary that I would? The only other alternative would be insanity I think.


[/ QUOTE ]
What's your distinction between believing in something just because of fear and insanity.

chez

[luckyme]

I've been in enough 'should/could be dead' situations of a wide variety that my family thinks it'd be a good book, perhaps "what's trying to kill this guy". Not once, not one whiff of it, and I was raised theist.
If I don't believe now and I'm aware I'm going to die one day, where would the 'aha' factor come from just because I am dying?
There should be some conversions in the field from some of the 'don't really think there is a god, except at funerals' types, but they don't have an active non-belief rather more of an indifference.

Isn't there a book 'Atheist in foxholes' or some such, as well as deathbed descriptions of some famous atheists/agnostics. The evidence seems to be 'no conversion' and if one has been intellectually honest with themselves during their life it's hard to see how there would be.

luckyme

[luckyme]

[ QUOTE ]
If someone's belief system is thought to be so rigid it can never change then why do we even bother to discuss it on this board or anywhere else? Being able to change your mind isn't a sign of weakness or hypocracy, being unable to change your mind is a far worse thing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Changing your mind because you are scared you equate with changing your mind because of sound argument. hmmmmm?
BOO !

luckyme

[Duke]

If you'd really "find god" just because you got scared, just cut out the middle man and believe now.

[SNOWBALL]

I must be a terrible atheist, because last year I was flying in really bad turbulence, and I started praying. Whoops!

Praying calmed me down, but while I was doing it, I was also thinking that it was strange and hypocritical, and I knew the whole while that I didn't actually believe.

I like praying. Even if there isn't a god, it can still be a unique psychological experience with pleasant consequences. I don't imagine that the consequences are external. Maybe it's the way my mind is programmed to do deep meditation, because I was raised christian.

I've actually prayed since then, but I don't really imagine that I'm praying to a personal god. It's more like I'm talking to something I imagine inside myself. Maybe I should do it more often, and see if it has overall positive benefits for my mental state.

[revots33]

[ QUOTE ]
If you'd really "find god" just because you got scared, just cut out the middle man and believe now.

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL well I guess that's why I was trying to find an extreme example of overwhelming fear combined with abject hopelessness. Obviously simply being scared is not going to do it.

I don't know how I'd react, I doubt anyone does unless they've been through it. Were there any athiests in the WTC who started praying before they jumped to their deaths? Maybe so, and I don't think that makes them cowards or insane. It's probably a psychological defense mechanism like any other, hence the phrase "no athiests in foxholes". It is an effort to grasp hope where there is none. Don't the poorest countries with the most povery, hopelessness, and despair often tend to be the most religious? I don't think that's a coincedence.

[SNOWBALL]

[ QUOTE ]
It is an effort to grasp hope where there is none. Don't the poorest countries with the most povery, hopelessness, and despair often tend to be the most religious? I don't think that's a coincedence.

[/ QUOTE ]

"Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and also the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

To abolish religion as the illusory happiness of the people is to demand their real happiness. The demand to give up illusions about the existing state of affairs is the demand to give up a state of affairs which needs illusions. The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of the vale of tears, the halo of which is religion.

Criticism has torn up the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man shall wear the unadorned, bleak chain but so that he will shake off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man to make him think and act and shape his reality like a man who has been disillusioned and has come to reason, so that he will revolve round himself and therefore round his true sun. Religion is only the illusory sun which revolves round man as long as he does not revolve round himself.
"



From The Introduction to Contribution To The Critique Of Hegel's Philosophy of Right by Marx (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/df-jahrbucher/law-abs.htm)

That translation isn't very good. /images/graemlins/frown.gif

[goodgrief]

Praying to the God who has quite obviously turned his back on you is pathetic, however, assuming in such a situation that you would also do other pathetic things, such as begging your kidnapper to help you, it wouldn't be surprising that you'd start to pray in those circumstances. It's on the same level as wetting your pants out of terror, isn't it?

[mjkidd]

Sure, why not. I'd have nothing to lose, and my plan would be to try and trick God into believing that I've repented so I can eek my way into heaven at the last minute.

[kerowo]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If someone's belief system is thought to be so rigid it can never change then why do we even bother to discuss it on this board or anywhere else? Being able to change your mind isn't a sign of weakness or hypocracy, being unable to change your mind is a far worse thing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Changing your mind because you are scared you equate with changing your mind because of sound argument. hmmmmm?
BOO !

luckyme

[/ QUOTE ]

Why does the reason matter? If someone is in a jam and finds god and it calms them, big deal. If they then change their mind back when not in danger I could see making a big deal out of it, but otherwise? Meh.

[bocablkr]

Not for me - I was once on what I thought was my death bed and never once thought about God.....

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
Sure, why not. I'd have nothing to lose, and my plan would be to try and trick God into believing that I've repented so I can eek my way into heaven at the last minute.

[/ QUOTE ]
Sounds like a very bad plan. Believing won't change whether god exists or not and if he does then honesty is more likely to be +ev than attempting a trick.

chez

[revots33]

[ QUOTE ]
If someone is in a jam and finds god and it calms them, big deal. If they then change their mind back when not in danger I could see making a big deal out of it, but otherwise? Meh.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think, in the "buried alive" scenario I described, that if the athiest-turned-believer was somehow rescued, he almost certainly WOULD stop believing again pretty quickly. His belief is based on fear and the hopelessness of his situation, once that's gone the need to believe is gone also.

[revots33]

[ QUOTE ]
Not for me - I was once on what I thought was my death bed and never once thought about God.....

[/ QUOTE ]

So out of curiosity (this goes to luckyme also), there was no fear of death or sense of hopelessness on your part?

[Duke]

Yes, there are some people who will do whatever it takes to make themselves feel good in times of fear. Yes, there are other people who realize that really wanting something to be true doesn't make it so.

[bocablkr]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Not for me - I was once on what I thought was my death bed and never once thought about God.....

[/ QUOTE ]

So out of curiosity (this goes to luckyme also), there was no fear of death or sense of hopelessness on your part?

[/ QUOTE ]

I actually fear death more now than at that moment. You are slipping in and out of consciousness so you aren't really lucid. However, fearing death doesn't mean I would suddenly start believing in someone I find impossible to exist. I wouldn't start believing in Santa Clause either.

[PairTheBoard]

This reminds me of the lines spoken by Al Pacino in the movie, "The Devil's Advocate".
--------------------------
Pressure.

It changes everything. Pressure.

Some people, you squeeze them,
they focus.

Others fold.
---------------------------

So the Foxhole question is,

"Is God the Focus or the Fold?"

Sort of depends on your point of view.

PairTheBoard

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
Yes, there are some people who will do whatever it takes to make themselves feel good in times of fear. Yes, there are other people who realize that really wanting something to be true doesn't make it so.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm both of these and they cancel each other out. /images/graemlins/frown.gif