{"id":1492,"date":"2013-05-15T02:29:16","date_gmt":"2013-05-14T16:29:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/?p=1492"},"modified":"2013-05-15T02:29:16","modified_gmt":"2013-05-14T16:29:16","slug":"how-do-you-deal-with-doubt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/?p=1492","title":{"rendered":"How do you deal with doubt ?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adam asks:<\/strong>
\nSince you became an atheist, have you ever doubted atheism? Yes, that’s a funny combination of words.
\nDo you still keep it in your head that there may (with a reasonable probability) actually be a god out there, we just don’t know yet? Or has that thought ever crept in? If so, please share your thoughts, and how you moved past them to be in the state you are now.<\/p>\n

Jake answers:<\/strong>
\nThe simple answer is, I’m not sure of anything. I always leave room for the possibility that I may be wrong. Sometimes, I have experiences from which my old theist way of thinking kicks in and I ask myself ” Is that god? ” Then I realize what’s happening and I ask myself, ” Why would that be god? ” and I come back to my senses. <\/p>\n

I think everyone needs a healthy dose of skepticism. I try to always look at things as objectively as I can. Obviously I don’t always succeed ( who does? ) though I try anyway. This is why I’m an atheist\/agnostic. It’s the agnostic side that keeps me in check, even about my atheism. Since agnosticism deals with knowledge, it reminds me that I don’t ” know ” unless I have evidence, and even then, I could still be wrong. Some things of course I don’t need to doubt. Like Santa Claus, or Jesus. There’s enough contradictions in the stories, along with enough evidence to show how the stories were created to know that Santa and Jesus can’t be real. So it’s not hard to discard them. However, there could be a god out there that I’ve never considered, so I leave room for the possibility, despite the low probability. <\/p>\n

The point is, keep an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out. Keep searching, but remain skeptical. <\/p>\n

Let’s throw the question out to the comments, as atheists, what do you do with doubt ?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Adam asks: Since you became an atheist, have you ever doubted atheism? Yes, that’s a funny combination of words. Do you still keep it in your head that there may (with a reasonable probability) actually be a god out there, we just don’t know yet? Or has that thought ever crept in? If so, please … Continue reading “How do you deal with doubt ?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-text"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pB6tr-o4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1492"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1494,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1492\/revisions\/1494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}