So I'm 23. I've grown up in a Christian family, and I'd say my parents forced it down my throat...well, they encouraged me to go to sunday school and church workshops throughout my life. Didn't really think much of religion. I started playing cards at 19. I'm also a science major (biology). In these 4 short years, I'd say I'm pretty close to becoming an atheist, but I'm still not 100% sure. I just don't really know why, I guess my arguement is...

"There's no proof of God existing. I've taken genetics classes, biology classes, ect, and it seems to make perfect sense to me that after life was sparked on earth, evolution could turn one cell into 7 billion+humans and millions of other species."

The only baffling this is the complexity of even the DNA replications and translation system in single celled organisms. It's almost like a language, and it's a bit hard to figure how that came to be without an intelligent designer behind it. Other than that, I just think it's perfectly logical for life on Earth to have come about without there being a God. But like I said, I wouldn't call myself an atheist just yet...

And I've also been playing poker for a while, and I noticed something: How different I've become from my parents (who are committed Christians) in thinking...An important lesson I've learned in poker is there's no benefits in believing in superstitions or thinking "I'm feeling lucky, so based on this I'll make this play". It's based 100% on rational, logical, emotionless thinking.

My dad was talking about gambling once (he actually doesn't know I play cards often, but if he did he wouldn't have a problem because he used to know I played alot) and he's a very very devout Christian. I forget exactly what he said but he was saying something along of the lines of "how lucky you were on a previous event affects how lucky you'll be in the very next event". That's something any poker player knows is completely erroneous.

Thoughts? Anyone else have a story kinda like mine? Are you guys atheist or do you believe in a God? Has poker changed you?

My head hurts.

Sorry, I meant my parents are Christian. And my Dad doesn't think gambling is a sin, many religions don't actually.

Pretty much my life story with only a few different things. My dad would probably get really mad if he found out I was "gambling". My major is biochemistry and I am 22. Other than that, I feel pretty much the same way you do.

Can you elaborate? Are you referring to logical proofs or evidence in general? Something else?
You're not baffled by the origin of life?

Anyway, the argument "I don't understand how this could happen, therefore I understand how it happened" is a case of bad reasoning.

Went through pretty much the exact same process. Im 24 now, and have completely not only let go of Christianity, but also the idea of atheism, agnosticism, and every other "idea". It's certainly overwhelming at first, but you'll be fine.

Similar story to others. If you are interested in atheism itself, there is a really good show many people enjoy called "The Atheist Experience". There are many videos of those on youtube. One of the hosts, Matt Dillahunty is my favorite host because he himself was once a fundamentalist Christian who studied to be a minister and his position is very similar to me and many atheists out there. This show always makes me think and I enjoy watching it live on Sundays on Ustream. There are also plenty of books out there that are worth reading, many cool youtube atheists who have done incredible job creating videos on atheism, theism, specific religious dogmas , etc. My favorite youtube atheist are :

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheraminTrees
http://www.youtube.com/user/QualiaSoup
http://www.youtube.com/user/DarkMatter2525
http://www.youtube.com/user/DonExodus2
http://www.youtube.com/user/philhellenes

wut
gskowal, how do you rank the other hosts on TAE? I have

1. Matt Dillahunty
2. Matt Dillahunty
.
.
.
Infinity. Others

AronRa is pretty kick ass when he's been on.

Personally, I don't think the other hosts I've seen are any good, Matt Dee in particular bothers me. He's just vicious and bad at arguing... Matt held his own against TAG, which is kind of hard to do if you ahven't studied it.... the other hosts don't seem to have really investigated many theistic arguments beyond the most simplistic ones.

I believe in God. Poker hasn't changed me.

Wow, homes, if a ****ing card game changed your entire WORLDVIEW and belief system, I must say you must've had some weak faith to begin with, brah.

Is that somehow supposed to be a bad thing? You act like you're measuring out yours and OP's penises and remarking on how much bigger yours is.

I think what's important here is the card game sparked a change in his way of thinking. It was a factor that led to his intellectual development. I would think that generally when someone thinks rationally about one area of life, he/she is able to apply that to other areas of life.

Do you have a reason to believe that an intelligent being is responsible for DNA replication?

2. Traci Harris

Jeff, Martin, and Russel are fairly good too IMO. I'm indifferent on Jen. In fact, I think Don is the only one for whom I don't particularly care, and mostly it is because he comes off as fairly condescending to me a lot of the time.

I forgot about her...yeah she's decent.
Have you seen Matt's fiancé? She's new but from what I've seen also pretty good. Matt's just so good I "practice avoidance" (shoutout to rize) on clips that don't feature him.

Yeah Beth seems good, though she has only been on twice IIRC.

I think , Tracie Harris, Jen Peeples and Russell Glasser are decent, Tracie probably the best one out of those 3, but they are pretty much on the same level to me.. Obviously Matt owns everyone.. lol


btw.. I saw some old videos with Ashley Perrien and I think he was pretty good also..

I think the way probabilities work and are impervious to divine intercession does indeed constitute an argument against theism, but I would also note that our own Aaron W., who is a theist who forcefully defends his views, was also, at least in the past, an extremely successful limit hold 'em player. And he attained that through mathematical rigor, not prayer. So obviously not everyone sees the connection.

Yeah Ashley was good.

Welcome to the internet. Enjoy your stay.

Everything on the internet is about dick size.

Correct. Problem is - and I'm not saying that this is what you mean here - is that there's an implicit assumption that faith is inherently irrational.

Yeah, OP was insufficiently committed to primitive fairy tales he'd been brainwashed into believing as a child, how weak of him.

Well, it's too bad if that's the case for you.

I think what the OP is expressing is that he thinks (correctly) that good poker players tend to be characterized by an evidence-based approach to the game. It isn't surprising that if you see that work in one area that you might think an evidence-based approach would work in others, such as religion. So, yeah, he is rejecting faith as a good epistemological strategy. What's wrong with that?

people seem to be entirely fine working in fields that require evidence and scientific reasoning all the time yet believe in god. It is very weakly causal at best.