As some others have said, others on LW (like myself) were not always non-theists. Feel free to reach out if you'd like to discuss or need/want support. Thinking these thoughts and living as a heavily-doubting theist is extremely challenging and draining, from my experience. I was consumed during my initial questioning and ultimate de-conversion. I read and thought day and night, felt sick, alienated, lonely, etc. I wrote some posts here if you'd like to take a look:
One of the more direction-changing thoughts I had (independently and prior to finding out the concept already existed) was what John Loftus claims "The Outsider Test for Faith (OTF)." Basically, if you weren't already a subscriber to some religion, X, could you be convinced of it? Similarly, why are said miracle claims un-convincing even in the least to someone who doesn't already share your religious tradition?
I had a different twist on that. My natural inclination when researching (say, which tool to buy or which method is best) is to force myself to be agnostic to all of them and then research to see which is the most convincing. Say, googling "Milwaukee vs. Dewalt router" or "Milwaukee routers suck/are great" and "Dewalt routers suck/are great" to see what I find. I pay attention to Amazon 1-2 star reviews to look at their content. I started wondering why this shouldn't work for religion. Everyone in my religious community was suggesting that I should "have faith seeking understanding." This always struck me as "believe that you may believe more strongly." I wanted to know why the one thing that mattered the very most in the world shouldn't hold up to the same test I put my financial purchases through.
In addition, I wondered why the Bible, God's inspired book, failed to convince so many others who surely were aware of it. Assuming Christianity was true meant that other religions were false/lies/invented (by humans). Measly human minds creating stories out of thin air have been able to sway more than half the world away from God's official word?
Probably doesn't sound all that great re-writing it, but this was a pretty mind-blowing thought to me back then, and was a definite contributing factor to my ultimate deconversion. Sure, there's apologetics to counter it, but they have to work fairly hard to speculate about God's motives for not being more clear.
As others have stated outrightly or alluded to, toss in whatever apologetic ammunition you'd like and it still works pretty well. Some biblical prophecy, miracle, perfectly fitting theological aspect about Christ, etc. seem amazing to you? Why doesn't it to the nearest Muslim, Hindu, Scientologist, or Mormon? And why do things like reading golden plates from a hat or being embodied alien spirits seem so ridiculous as to not even warrant a fair shake when Christians hear them?
Long time lurker, but I've barely posted anything. I'd like to ask Less Wrong for help.
Reading various articles by the Rationalist Community over the years, here, on Slate Star Codex and a few other websites, I have found that nearly all of it makes sense. Wonderful sense, in fact, the kind of sense you only really find when the author is actually thinking through the implications of what they're saying, and it's been a breath of fresh air. I generally agree, and when I don't it's clear why we're differing, typically due to a dispute in priors.
Except in theism/atheism.
In my experience, when atheists make their case, they assume a universe without miracles, i.e. a universe that looks like one would expect if there was no God. Given this assumption, atheism is obviously the rational and correct stance to take. And generally, Christian apologists make the same assumption! They assert miracles in the Bible, but do not point to any accounts of contemporary supernatural activity. And given such assumptions, the only way one can make a case for Christianity is with logical fallacies, which is exactly what most apologists do. The thing is though, there are plenty of contemporary miracle accounts.
Near death experiences. Answers to prayer that seem to violate the laws of physics. I'm comfortable with dismissing Christian claims that an event was "more than coincidence", because given how many people are praying and looking for God's hand in events, and the fact that an unanswered prayer will generally be forgotten while a seemingly-answered one will be remembered, one would expect to see "more than coincidence" in any universe with believers, whether or not there was a God. But there are a LOT of people out there claiming to have seen events that one would expect to never occur in a naturalistic universe. I even recall reading an atheist's account of his deconversion (I believe it was Luke Muehlhauser; apologies if I'm misremembering) in which he states that as a Christian, he witnessed healings he could not explain. Now, one could say that these accounts are the result of people lying, but I expect people to be rather more honest than that, and Luke is hardly going to make up evidence for the Christian God in an article promoting unbelief! One could say that "miracles" are misunderstood natural events, but there are plenty of accounts that seem pretty unlikely without Divine intervention-I've even read claims by Christians that they had seen people raised from the dead by prayer. And so I'd like to know how atheists respond to the evidence of miracles.
This isn't just idle curiosity. I am currently a Christian (or maybe an agnostic terrified of ending up on the wrong side of Pascal's Wager), and when you actually take religion seriously, it can be a HUGE drain on quality of life. I find myself being frightened of hell, feeling guilty when I do things that don't hurt anyone but are still considered sins, and feeling guilty when I try to plan out my life, wondering if I should just put my plans in God's hands. To make matters worse, I grew up in a dysfunctional, very Christian family, and my emotions seem to be convinced that being a true Christian means acting like my parents (who were terrible role models; emulating them means losing at life).
I'm aware of plenty of arguments for non-belief: Occam's Razor giving atheism as one's starting prior in the absence of strong evidence for God, the existence of many contradictory religions proving that humanity tends to generate false gods, claims in Genesis that are simply false (Man created from mud, woman from a rib, etc. have been conclusively debunked by science), commands given by God that seem horrifyingly immoral, no known reason why Christ's death would be needed for human redemption (many apologists try to explain this, but their reasoning never makes sense), no known reason why if belief in Jesus is so important why God wouldn't make himself blatantly obvious, hell seeming like an infinite injustice, the Bible claiming that any prayer prayed in faith will be answered contrasted with the real world where this isn't the case, a study I read about in which praying for the sick didn't improve results at all (and the group that was told they were being prayed for actually had worse results!), etc. All of this, plus the fact that it seems that nearly everyone who's put real effort into their epistemology doesn't believe and moreover is very confident in their nonbelief (I am reminded of Eliezer's comment that he would be less worried about a machine that destroys the universe if the Christian God exists than one that has a one in a trillion chance of destroying us) makes me wonder if there really isn't a God, and in so realizing this, I can put down burdens that have been hurting for nearly my entire life. But the argument from miracles keeps me in faith, keeps me frightened. If there is a good argument against miracles, learning it could be life changing.
Thank you very much. I do not have words to describe how much this means to me.