# Atheists: Why are you so sure of your non-belief? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 19, 2010, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-are-you-so-sure-of-your-non-belief/543777 "2010-06-19T15:24:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-are-you-so-sure-of-your-non-belief/543777/81 "2010-06-20T04:00:25Z")
> [@mutantmoose](#): > > Whether god can affect things here on earth is irrelevant to the question of whether he exists. But it’s not. If there is no discernible difference between X and Y then they are the same. So if you postulate that there is a god that does not interact with our universe in any way then it is the same as the god not existing. For example: let’s say that everything in the universe is being multiplied by 1 constantly. There is no difference between that happening and it not happening, so stating that “everything in the universe is being multiplied by 1 constantly” is not useful. Let’s look at another example: suppose God laid out a set of moral principles, but there is no way for man to ever know what they are. That is just the same as there not being a set of moral principles. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-are-you-so-sure-of-your-non-belief/543777/82 "2010-06-20T04:05:14Z")
> [@x-ray\_vision](#): > > So, while you were thinking of going into the ministry you were without access to information outside of your family and village and weren’t smart enough to use a keyboard, or drive? 😉 Well oddly enough, it’s when I did start to see that there were other religions, and that their adherents were every bit as sure they were right, and that neither they nor me had any objective way to determine which of us were right, that things clicked. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-are-you-so-sure-of-your-non-belief/543777/83 "2010-06-20T04:19:41Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > Fair enough. But when I get to the point that you are and I sail on the ocean, look down from a hilltop, or watch a mother care for her child, I am supposed to think that this all just happened? By a quirk? That doesn’t seem reasonable to me. It seems that there is a higher order above us that guides us. It “seems” that way to you? Well, that’s that then, isn’t it? Say no more. Why bother starting this thread if your aim was to engage in nothing more than Round #2,547,431 of “My subjective, unsubstantiated belief is better” > [@jtgain](#): > > It would be like a society of worms that live underground. They only know the dirt and the area around them. I’m sure that the “atheists” in the worm community would think (if they were sentient) that this 100 sq foot parcel of land was all that there was and that since there is no evidence of anything beyond it, then there is not anything else. No, it would be nothing like that. > [@jtgain](#): > > I’m not putting you all down, but I can’t come around to atheism. You make the mistake of assuming we care. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-are-you-so-sure-of-your-non-belief/543777/84 "2010-06-20T04:22:55Z")
> [@](#): > > But when I get to the point that you are and I sail on the ocean, look down from a hilltop, or watch a mother care for her child, I am supposed to think that this all just happened? By a quirk? That doesn’t seem reasonable to me. It seems that there is a higher order above us that guides us. How can you look at a scene like that and not believe in Odin the All-Father? ---
**Author:** ![Mrs.Cake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2acd7d/32.png) [@Mrs.Cake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mrs.Cake)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-are-you-so-sure-of-your-non-belief/543777/85 "2010-06-20T04:23:43Z")
Well, I am absolutely sure of my atheism due to my total absence of belief in any supernatural deity. The lack of evidence merely tells me that I am not crazy to be an atheist. ---
**Author:** ![mutantmoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a87d85/32.png) [@mutantmoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mutantmoose)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-are-you-so-sure-of-your-non-belief/543777/86 "2010-06-20T04:39:24Z")
> [@whorfin](#): > > testing whether > (1) they are as open about the IPU, or the IFBD, as they ask us to be about gods > and > (2) if the answer to (1) is “no”, whether there is some way to rationally distinguish god and the IPU–to make it rational to keep an open mind as to gods, but not as to IPU. Maybe we’re talking at cross purposes. I’m fully willing to accept I’m wrong but I still don’t quite understand. The rational distinguishing point between the unicorn and god is that one exists within the confines of the known laws of earth and one exists outside of them. So comparing a unicorn to god doesn’t get you very far. You’re not comparing like for like. I’m just saying it’s a bad metaphor. > [@](#): > > That’s what you’re trying to do in the post I reply to, and it’s a noble effort, but it is, at base, futile–because, as the one asserting the invisible fire-breathing dragon in my garage, I can (and will be happy to) assert that my invisible fire-breathing dragon has any attribute you claim makes gods distinct from my IFBD. Your dragon lives on earth though. So that’s two things you’re asking us to believe. First that you own an invisible fire breathing dragon and secondly that it lives in your garage. That’s two things - one that you own an impossible creature and two that it violates the laws of earth physics. Belief in god only requires one of them - impossible creature. It doesn’t have to violate the laws of physics here on earth. > [@DanBlather](#): > > But it’s not. If there is no discernible difference between X and Y then they are the same. So if you postulate that there is a god that does not interact with our universe in any way then it is the same as the god not existing. > > For example: let’s say that everything in the universe is being multiplied by 1 constantly. There is no difference between that happening and it not happening, so stating that “everything in the universe is being multiplied by 1 constantly” is not useful. > > Let’s look at another example: suppose God laid out a set of moral principles, but there is no way for man to ever know what they are. That is just the same as there not being a set of moral principles. I don’t really get the necessary connection between the existence of god and him interfering. Seems like two different questions. Maybe to us on earth the result is the same but cosmically who knows? ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-are-you-so-sure-of-your-non-belief/543777/87 "2010-06-20T04:46:25Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Are Space Ninjas a belief you’d be willing to admit are as likely as God? If not, why not? I believe in Space Ninjas! > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I think some people get a lot of comfort from the fact that so many other people seem to think its plausible. Perhaps religions just fills some basic psychological need that most of us have and that account for the large number of people with faith but most people have more faith in religion than pink unicorns. I’m not sure what you’re saying here. Are you saying that gods are more plausible than unicorns or Space Ninjas because a greater number of people believe in them? ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-are-you-so-sure-of-your-non-belief/543777/88 "2010-06-20T04:50:20Z")
> [@mutantmoose](#): > > M > I don’t really get the necessary connection between the existence of god and him interfering. Seems like two different questions. Maybe to us on earth the result is the same but cosmically who knows? So you think there might be a god that doesn’t interfere with our universe, is not observable in any way, and it makes no difference as to whether he exists or not, does not explain anything about our universe (except to add one more turtle), and provides no moral guidance. And you are going to waste time on this possibility despite the fact that you can not know the difference between you being 100% right and 100% wrong. Why not consider the possibility that there is a pink dragon that is outside the universe, but might affect us “cosmically”. Who knows? ---
**Author:** ![whorfin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/6f9a4e/32.png) [@whorfin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whorfin)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-are-you-so-sure-of-your-non-belief/543777/89 "2010-06-20T05:08:43Z")
> [@mutantmoose](#): > > Maybe we’re talking at cross purposes. I’m fully willing to accept I’m wrong but I still don’t quite understand. The rational distinguishing point between the unicorn and god is that one exists within the confines of the known laws of earth and one exists outside of them. So comparing a unicorn to god doesn’t get you very far. You’re not comparing like for like. > I’m just saying it’s a bad metaphor. It’s not a metaphor at all. It is a hypothetical–and one that, I’ll point out, people seem to be taking the long way around not to address. Even if it is harder to believe in the fire-breathing dragon than in god, the argument being rebutted doesn’t have anything to do with strength of evidence–it is the argument that we must keep an “open mind” where there is no evidence. \*\*The hypothetical asks if this is still true for things other than gods. \*\*That’s not a difficult question, it doesn’t turn on the precise details of the unicorn or dragon, and I honestly don’t understand why people making the “open mind” argument aren’t even trying to rebut it–it just suggests they have nothing. > [@](#): > > Your dragon lives on earth though. Sez you. How do you know where my garage is? You may think garages are only on earth, just as I think “gods” are only supernatural beings that influence human affairs. You want to redefine “gods” in a way that makes them even harder to disprove, I’ll do the same for my dragon. > [@](#): > > So that’s two things you’re asking us to believe. First that you own an invisible fire breathing dragon and secondly that it lives in your garage. That’s two things - one that you own an impossible creature and two that it violates the laws of earth physics. You may argue that being in my garage means it has to exist within the confines of the known laws of earth. That’s three assumptions by you: first, that you know the laws, second, that they apply to my dragon, and third, that my garage is on this planet. None, I contend, are accurate. Well, fine. If you want me to be precise, my garage is actually in another dimension. It’s actually pretty cool. Problem solved. > [@](#): > > Belief in god only requires one of them - impossible creature. It doesn’t have to violate the laws of physics here on earth. This goes back to my earlier point about the assertion of a “god” that doesn’t affect the earth. I would contend that calling such a being a “god” goes against every single part of the meaning inherent in the term “god.” More importantly, if that’s how you’re going to define “god”, I define my invisible incorporeal fire-breathing dragon to live in my garage in another dimension (not bound by the laws of earth). That gets you back to the same problem–having to answer whether it’s rational to keep an open mind about god, and not about my dragon. More broadly, you seem to be missing the point of the hypothetical. The point is that for any rational distinguishing point, I will just change my dragon to match. THERE IS NO RATIONAL DISTINGUISHING POINT. The dragon is a hypothetical I’m creating. Quibbling with its attributes is useless, since those attributes are whatever I say they are. The point of the hypothetical is to point out that the “open mind” argument fails because there are so many things that one could, hypothetically, keep an open mind about the existence of. Nobody making the “open mind” argument seems willing to address the other things they’d have to keep an open mind about. Such as invisible fire-breathing dragons. > [@](#): > > I don’t really get the necessary connection between the existence of god and him interfering. Seems like two different questions. Well, let me take a crack at this. Let’s postulate a creature, who doesn’t exist in this reality, and doesn’t (and hasn’'t) interfered with or affected our reality in any way. You seem to be happy to call that “god.” I question that belief. For example, how do we distinguish between “god” and “fred”, with fred being a creature who exists in some other plane of existence, and doesn’t affect this one in any way ? It also makes it utterly irrelevant if you keep an open mind to that creature or not. It doesn’t (and can’t) affect our reality. (since if it did, it’d have to violate the rules of physics to do so). ---
**Author:** ![Heavy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/22d042/32.png) [@Heavy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heavy)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-are-you-so-sure-of-your-non-belief/543777/90 "2010-06-20T05:24:34Z")
> [@Mrs.Cake](#): > > Well, I am absolutely sure of my atheism due to my total absence of belief in any supernatural deity. The lack of evidence merely tells me that I am not crazy to be an atheist. I used to say the same thing ten years ago before I started believing.I was absolutely sure I was right then as I’am now. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Sr\_Siete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@Sr\_Siete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sr_Siete)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-are-you-so-sure-of-your-non-belief/543777/91 "2010-06-20T05:37:30Z")
Couple of things: There is no _“supernatural”_ because **nature** is defined as _“everything that exists”_ and science as its study. If God exists, it automatically becomes part of nature. Sure, it would be pretty hard to apply any method to understand a being that can make up its own laws of physics if it feels like it, but that still wouldn’t make it outside science, just very complex. Agnosticism is the complete and absolute belief in the principle of uncertainty, that God is unknowable. An atheist makes no such claim. To wit: **Theist:** I believe in Santa Claus. He watches me and puts me in the “good” or “naughty” list and then brings me presents accordingly at Christmas. **Agnostic:** The question of the existence of the being known as Santa Claus cannot be answered definitively, therefore I won’t even try. **Atheist:** Sure, everything may be possible, I guess, but… **COME. ON.** You are both shitting me, right? ---
**Author:** ![PBear42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PBear42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PBear42)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-are-you-so-sure-of-your-non-belief/543777/92 "2010-06-20T06:14:04Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > Fair enough. But when I get to the point that you are and I sail on the ocean, look down from a hilltop, or watch a mother care for her child, I am supposed to think that this all just happened? By a quirk? That doesn’t seem reasonable to me. It seems that there is a higher order above us that guides us. > > It would be like a society of worms that live underground. They only know the dirt and the area around them. I’m sure that the “atheists” in the worm community would think (if they were sentient) that this 100 sq foot parcel of land was all that there was and that since there is no evidence of anything beyond it, then there is not anything else. > > I’m not putting you all down, but I can’t come around to atheism. Interesting. So, where in prior threads (I’m talking about a year or so ago) you appeared to be a weak atheist, you now appear to be a weak theist. I doubt your position has changed, but I’m pretty sure you made no statement like this in the earlier threads, at least not those in which I participated. What you have outlined here is basically the cosmological argument, the argument from design and/or the argument from wonder (or awe). Why atheists (as ordinarily defined) don’t find these persuasive is, I suspect, well known to you. If not, a little Google time would fill in the gaps fairly quickly. In any event, to reiterate what was explained to you many times in the earlier threads and here, atheism (as ordinarily defined) isn’t about certainty or proof. It’s an epistemological system in which belief is premised on evidence. Without evidence, no belief. Depending on how one defines terms, this also could be called agnosticism, but that’s not general modern usage. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-are-you-so-sure-of-your-non-belief/543777/93 "2010-06-20T06:50:58Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > So the consensus seems to be, “With all of the available data at my disposal, I have not seen evidence of the existence of a God/gods, therefore I do not believe there is one/any” > > How is this different from agnosticism? The difference is the conclusion you draw. An atheist looks at this dearth of evidence and says “Therefore God does not exist”, while an agnostic does the same and says “Therefore we don’t know anything about God”. It’s the difference between concluding that invisible unicorns don’t exist, and concluding that we have no way of knowing whether they’re pink or blue. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-are-you-so-sure-of-your-non-belief/543777/94 "2010-06-20T07:17:13Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > Fair enough. But when I get to the point that you are and I sail on the ocean, look down from a hilltop, or watch a mother care for her child, I am supposed to think that this all just happened? By a quirk? That doesn’t seem reasonable to me. It seems that there is a higher order above us that guides us. This is the Argument from Ignorance. “I don’t understand how this happened, therefore God must have done it!” > [@](#): > > It would be like a society of worms that live underground. They only know the dirt and the area around them. I’m sure that the “atheists” in the worm community would think (if they were sentient) that this 100 sq foot parcel of land was all that there was and that since there is no evidence of anything beyond it, then there is not anything else. No, it would not. The equivalent to atheism for these worms would be to assume that the soil extends infinitely in all directions. And they would not be wrong to do so, because (this is the important bit) picking the right answer by complete chance makes you no better than picking the _wrong_ answer by complete chance. Only picking the answer that best complies with the existing evidence and Occam’s Razor is reasonable. If God descends from the heavens in a chariot of light tomorrow, that won’t change the fact that the religious were idiots to believe in Him before He presented Himself. > [@mutantmoose](#): > > Invisibility is impossible according to the laws that pertain here on earth. No it isn’t. Invisibility is trivial: photons in approximately equals photons out. How you achieve this is irrelevant. Your other assumptions are equally unfounded. ---
**Author:** ![Snag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Snag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snag)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-are-you-so-sure-of-your-non-belief/543777/95 "2010-06-20T10:01:17Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > I guess this is a question, but it will quickly turn into a GD, so I’ll just start it here. > > I see many on the board who are proud atheists; there is no God/gods, afterlife or souls. I wonder how you are so sure. My first guess would be that since you have seen no evidence of such a thing, then you don’t believe. Fair enough. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. > > Would you not have to concede that if there were something supernatural “out there” that your human mind would not know of such a thing? I can understand agnosticism, but I can’t grasp how one could say definitively that there is nothing beyond our mortal existence. Atheism does not by and large claim absolute certainty. Anyone who uses the scientific method as a standard of truth realizes that - at this time and unlikely to change - there is no any kind of deterministic universe at the most basic level of matter and energy. The scientific approach never expects to prove anything although mountains of certainty about a thing amount to the truth. Some things may be more likely to happen than other things, but the most outlandish improbability could happen once in a quadrillion times. Godel and Turing , demonstrated that some mathematical problems may not be solvable. Yet we have an awesome understanding of the basics of how the general laws of physics behave. Again, we have predictive math that sometimes is true out to 9 or 10 decimal places consistently. Thus we have a very high confidence that nature works entirely on its own and it systematically does so without any outside help or interference. There is none to be seen. So the likelihood is that there are no gods, at least none that are willing to submit to testing and measurement. Sure some atheists will insist that they have perfect knowledge that there are no gods but those few are as wrong as anyone who claims perfect knowledge of anything including the existence of gods. The only real difference between atheists and agnostics is that atheists consider it possible that one day, science with the math to support it may bring about actual evidence that will demonstrate one way or the other. It may take 100 years, it might take 10,000 but who’s to say it isn’t possible? Frankly, I believe it would be much more likely that omniscient gods would be crossed off the list as we see nothing and it would require extraordinary evidence of a god to prove it. But I think it may be possible that some far off descendants might see a resolution to the question. Agnostics don’t think it could ever be possible to know, despite holding some kind of certainty about uncertainty. Suspecting that we could never be sure of knowing anything, really, they suggest that we simply don’t know anything at all. They know about not knowing. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-are-you-so-sure-of-your-non-belief/543777/96 "2010-06-20T10:25:06Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > Would you not have to concede that if there were something supernatural “out there” that your human mind would not know of such a thing? I can understand agnosticism, but I can’t grasp how one could say definitively that there is nothing beyond our mortal existence. Why would I concede that any more than I would concede that there might be an invisible three headed alien following me around, watching everything I do? Of the two options, this is far _far_ more likely. But for all practical purposes, if no one has ever been able to detect these aliens, has no theories about how one might be able to detect them, there’s no evidence that there was ever an alien on the planet, etc. then I’m no better to believe that there are invisible three-headed aliens following me than to believe that there are invisible four-headed aliens following me. I have no reason to think that I’m a computer simulation, that I’m the dream of some super-intelligent being, nor that our universe exists as one quark in the makeup of a giant multi-dimensional space rhinoceros. All of these possibilities are still more likely than that a giant bearded man popped out of nothing, created the universe, and has been whispering to the occasional Wise Man that he particularly wants us to worship his greatness. But without any reason to believe any one of them and knowing that there are billions of possibilities to explain all of existence, I’m happy enough to say that what can be demonstrated to exist exists and what can’t be doesn’t. If you want to believe in invisible bearded men, space rhinoceros, or three-headed aliens, then that’s fine by me, but until it’s up to you to say how one might prove the existence and present evidence to that extent. At the moment, the _only_ evidence for religion is that people say that they “feel” something. But given that people who “feel” this something are 99% exclusively composed of those who were raised to do so, this isn’t terribly compelling. Once you consider human abilities at self-delusion and the existence of mental illness, drugs, and herd behavior not to mention that some people “feel” God whereas others “feel” an entire pantheon of gods, aliens, or spiritual rocks, that evidence becomes meaningless. Agnosticism and atheism aren’t mutually exclusive it’s also worth noting. Admitting that something is theoretically possible makes one an agnostic, but not believing that it is the truth makes one an atheist. It is theoretically possible that there is a jolly fat man who wears all red living at the North Pole. I don’t believe there is, though. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-are-you-so-sure-of-your-non-belief/543777/97 "2010-06-20T10:58:55Z")
Before I start my replies, I’d just like to point it out to people advocating the “atheists are people who positively assert that God could not possibly exist” viewpoint would disqualify Richard Dawkins from being an atheist. Are you cool with that? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > What if they all have it wrong. What if we are all two dimensional blind men trying to describe a 3 dimensional elephant? It would be difficult for them to comprehend, but there must be some evidence that they’re witnessing that 3d elephant, right? Otherwise why create a belief to explain it? There is no equivelant evidence about god. > [@](#): > > I think some people get a lot of comfort from the fact that so many other people seem to think its plausible. Perhaps religions just fills some basic psychological need that most of us have and that account for the large number of people with faith but most people have more faith in religion than pink unicorns. Of course. The fact that we equate popularity with plausibility is one of the big reasons religions exist. It’s also one of the reasons that pretty much every culture has sprung up with their own religion. You would expect, in the absense of an actual god, that people would form religion - and how does that look any different from our real world where even believers think there are 100 false religions and one real one? People need religion. Death is unsettling. Not understanding how the world works is unsettling. In the old days when we didn’t understand how our solar system works, it was comforting to think of a sun god travelling across the sky. Now that we can explain that little mystery, it has dissapeared from religion. But we’ll never have a satisfactory answer about death. “Uh, yep, you’re dead, sorry” will always be unsettling to most people and hence there will probably always be a need to find a way to alleviate it. Religion can still exist for that basic reason. The fact that people have all the motivations in the world to create religions even if god doesn’t exist is further evidence of the case. Or, more accurately, it’s a way to argue against the premise of "billions of people are religious, and they can’t all be wrong!’ > [@](#): > > And I think that is a reasonable position but on this board it seems to be open season on anyone who is religious. I am a fairly rational person and I realize that my religious faith is not grounded in facts but I believe nonetheless, I can’t help it. A lot of people in the world feel the same way, are we all suffering from an incredibly prevalent psychosis? Yes, it’s a delusion. It’s a socially acceptable delusion because it’s so widespread and popular, but if you want to look at it logically there’s no reason to give it special priviledge in our society. We’re pretty hostile on this board to people who think 9/11 was an inside job, that magnetic bracelets will cure your cancer, etc. This is a board dedicated to the eradication of ignorance. While not being universally brilliant, it’s one of the smartest, most rational places on the interwebs. Why wouldn’t we be hostile to religion? > [@](#): > > Its more than dismissing it as lacking proof, its actively saying that those who have faith are fooling themselves and might as well believe in pink unicorns. Yes. There’s no evidence that magnetic healing bracelets work, so I can hold the position both that they don’t work and that people who believe they do work are, at best, misguided. You are essentially asking for special treatment for no reason. I think you understand why we would all dismiss people who believed in silly things, except your particular sacred cow silly thing. That we must treat with respect for some reason even though it has no more evidence or plausibility than any of the other things. Can you tell us why we should d othat? > [@](#): > > I take it you don’t believe the stuff they say in the bible, huh? It would certainly qualify as one of the biggest hoaxes ever perpetrated. The bible was written by people with an agenda long after the supposed events had taken place. It has been translated and interpreted dozens of times. It has explanations for how the world works which are obviously false. How could anyone reasonably regard it as proof of anything? > [@](#): > > Science frequently requires reproducable results. We understand how lightning works but are usually unable to predict exactly where lightning will strike, we are unable to predict when earthquakes will occur. I think its a bit arrogant to believe that we understand enough about the way things work to rule out something that man has believed almost since he could think. You can make specific claims about the world. God does this, God did that. We can test those things. Did God create the earth in its current shape spontaneously? No, the geological record shows us that the planet was gradually formed and changed a lot over billions of years. Did god create all life at the same time spontaneously? No, we have a very solid idea on the way life started and gradually developed. Does god interene in our world, say, to cure the diseases of his faithful? No, we could very much quantify if people who followed a certain religion had spontaneous recovery at a greater rate than everyone else. Even if we didn’t understand how god worked, we could see his work in action. > [@jtgain](#): > > Fair enough. But when I get to the point that you are and I sail on the ocean, look down from a hilltop, or watch a mother care for her child, I am supposed to think that this all just happened? By a quirk? That doesn’t seem reasonable to me. It seems that there is a higher order above us that guides us. Ok, so how do you think a world which was a natural phoenomina would work? Would mothers not love their children? Would there not be pools of liquid for us to sail? Would there not be scenic views from hilltops? Tell us what you think a world resulting from natural forces would look like, and how you can tell therefore that our world is not the result of natural forces. > [@mutantmoose](#): > > Your dragon lives on earth though. So that’s two things you’re asking us to believe. First that you own an invisible fire breathing dragon and secondly that it lives in your garage. That’s two things - one that you own an impossible creature and two that it violates the laws of earth physics. Belief in god only requires one of them - impossible creature. It doesn’t have to violate the laws of physics here on earth. Unless you are advocating for a non-interventional god that has never interacted with our planet, then god does violate the laws of earth physics. When he parts the red sea. Or when he talks to people using a booming voice out of thin air - what is generating those sound waves? When he performs all the various miracles - that’s interacting with our world in a way that would violate the laws of physics on earth. If you are supposing a non-interventional god that lives in another dimension that never has an effect on us on earth, of what possible use is that belief? What do we gain by believing in such an entity? I really wish that religious people believed in this hypothetical non-intervenionist vague deist God that they always bring to these arguments. If they did, there’d be no “god orders you to do this” or “god wants you to kill these infidels because…” or “god thinks women should shut up and be your property” stuff, because this vague god they create for the pedantic, rhetorical sake doesn’t demand anything from his believers. He couldn’t. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-are-you-so-sure-of-your-non-belief/543777/98 "2010-06-20T11:18:44Z")
For those of you who believe there is a god that set everything in motion, and is also a spiritual parent, has it ever occured to you that “he” might be sick of you clinging to his robes and might prefer you to go forth exploring on your own? ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-are-you-so-sure-of-your-non-belief/543777/99 "2010-06-20T12:20:58Z")
Loads of replies in this post. > [@jtgain](#): > > I see many on the board who are proud atheists; there is no God/gods, afterlife or souls. I wonder how you are so sure. My first guess would be that since you have seen no evidence of such a thing, then you don’t believe. Fair enough. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Why do we keep running into this? _Atheism_ is a position on what you’re prepared to _believe_ or accept as fact. _Agnosticism_ is a position on what you (can) _know_. > [@](#): > > Would you not have to concede that if there were something supernatural “out there” that your human mind would not know of such a thing? I can understand agnosticism, but I can’t grasp how one could say definitively that there is nothing beyond our mortal existence. Practically all atheists here _are_ agnostics. Most of them do accept that there might exist deities that we just don’t have enough/any evidence for. But practically; if there is “something ‘out there’” and we can’t/don’t know about it - especially if we’ve tried for thousands of years to find evidence for it - then it’s very reasonable to assume it has no influence in “the real world” and the correct behaviour is act as if it’s not there; including using the common short hand of asserting it ISN’T there. _That’s_ atheism. > [@Tethered\_Kite](#): > > A mind decided is no longer a rational mind. Doesn’t science demand that we continue to remain open to possibilities? On both sides of the fence? You forgot about the “evidence” bit. And the usual acceptance that logically inconsistent things can’t exist. In short, by far the majority of atheists are willing to reconsider, but you’ll have to come up with more than “but.. but.. there _might_ be magical ice cream tomorrow”. > [@jtgain](#): > > So the consensus seems to be, “With all of the available data at my disposal, I have not seen evidence of the existence of a God/gods, therefore I do not believe there is one/any” > > How is this different from agnosticism? Agnosticism just says we can’t be/aren’t sure. What you’re describing is atheism (lack of belief). > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I’m pretty sure there are at least some posters that think that claim that when we die thats the end. No part of us survives death, there is nothing beyond the physical universe as we know it. Yeah. And we can’t be 100% certain about that. So what? There’s no evidence for it whatsoever. > [@](#): > > This is a good point. And many religions make it relevant by saying that there is some sort of cause and effect between what happens here and what happens there. Please tell my why all claims of cause and effect are in the one direction where we can’t test any of it? For all the stuff in the Bible about god speaking to people in burning bushes and stuff like that, he’s been awfully quiet last couple of thousand years. > [@](#): > > Its more than dismissing it as lacking proof, its actively saying that those who have faith are fooling themselves and might as well believe in pink unicorns. IMHO you’d be _better_ off believing in invisible pink unicorns (if only because they’re a lot more logically consistent than most deities). However, the actual _point_ in these IPU arguments is that the evidence is exactly the same for them as for any deity. Most believers prefer to act insulted when you point that out, though. > [@](#): > > Science frequently requires reproducable results. We understand how lightning works but are usually unable to predict exactly where lightning will strike, we are unable to predict when earthquakes will occur. I think its a bit arrogant to believe that we understand enough about the way things work to rule out something that man has believed almost since he could think. Science tells us that a particle has some % chance of decaying within a certain time-frame, yet it also tells us that we will never be able to predict when exactly that will happen. Does that mean we can’t say anything about the existence of gods? Why should we address the god question last? > [@mutantmoose](#): > > Reading through this thread, a fairly common meme is - well I don’t believe in fire breathing dragons in my garage/invisible pink unicorns therefore I don’t believe in God. > > Are they really equal as comparative terms? YES! > [@](#): > > God _may_ be a fictional human invention but his powers are not limited by what pertains here on earth because he exists in a different realm. And so do the invisible pink unicorns. Hey, that was _easy_! ---
**Author:** ![Blackberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blackberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackberry)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-are-you-so-sure-of-your-non-belief/543777/100 "2010-06-20T13:15:06Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > What drives me nuts are people that reject religion, but hold on to some ill-defined, untestable supernatural _something_. If something is outside of our universe, and it can not be observed or measured in any manner, and it has no real effect on anything in our universe, and one can make no predictions based on it’s existence, and it wouldn’t really have any effect if it did exist, then I think one can make that one last leap and say it’s existence is indistinguishable from not existing. That would be me :o Part of that IS because I can’t bear to think there’s really nothing else, I’m sure. But not all. I don’t get the basis for having specific beliefs about a god, because where do they come from? It just seems so arbitrary (and IS, obviously, since people have come up with so many different, conflicting specifics). However, I don’t think it’s an irrational position to think that that it’s fairly likely that there is some kind of higher power. There are things about the universe that we don’t know now, but might one day know. But then there are things that we’ll NEVER be able to comprehend, like the idea of an infinite universe. Our minds are not capable of grasping the concept. So clearly there’s something going on that is going above all our heads, and always will. What it is, I have no idea. So then you guys say, why does it matter then, if it’s that abstract and unknowable? Well, it doesn’t really make a difference in my daily life or my moral code or anything. But I do like to think there’s a possibility of some sort of afterlife. Maybe it’s something we can’t even imagine, like infinity. Maybe it’s pink unicorns. Maybe it’s nothing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-are-you-so-sure-of-your-non-belief/543777.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-are-you-so-sure-of-your-non-belief/543777.md?page=6)