What I mean is this: when an atheist makes a claim about his/her own beliefs, do you accept that he/she really believes that? Note that belief does not imply certainty.
For example:
I don’t believe God exists.
I don’t believe the Bible is an accurate historical document (in general- though it does have some historical value).
I don’t believe Satan exists.
I believe that evolution is the best explanation for the diversity of life on this planet.
I don’t believe we go to any sort of afterlife when we die (though I’m not close to certain on this one- by definition, we have no data on what the “experience” of death is like).
Do you accept that I really do believe/not believe the above statements?
For those curious, this comes from the fact I’ve been witness to a sort of incredulity among some believers- some seem to think atheists hate God/Jesus, or hate the Bible, or are very angry at God, or something like that- they don’t seem to accept atheist’s claims even about their own beliefs/lack of beliefs. I’m most curious in seeing if anyone responds to this post in the negative (and then I’m interested in a discussion with that individual)- I really want to find out why someone might not believe it when an atheist makes a claim about their own belief.
I almost always believe atheists when they highlight the points you listed in the OP. I almost never believe religious folks when they’ve claimed to witness some “miracle” or “message from above”. I’m not saying that the religious people are lying, but rather just being victimized by others or by their own subconscious issues.
I believe people that claim to be atheists. I tend to be skeptical of people who claim to be pagans, as often they’re really lapsed Catholics. The last one I met, though, turned out to be genuine.
Unfortunately, I think this is wrong (or a wrong reading of the OP).
I believe (heh) man has an impulse to attribute things he has no control over to a supernatural force. Whether this is innate or learned is irrelevant–is most societies (er, Western societies I should say given my limited experience) the default answer is some sort of combined superstitious/religious outlook. Professing not to believe in some sort of God or otherwise is making an incredible claim.
Why is a theist’s claim that he believes incredible? That a god exists is an incredible claim, that someone believes that a god exists isn’t.
On the other hand, atheists have little reason to lie about our lack of belief, since we mostly don’t get brownie points for it - except in certain subsets of people. On the other hand, there is a lot more incentive for someone to lie about being a theist, because of social and family pressures. For instance while George Washington went to church with Martha, he never took communion and the true extent of his belief is unclear. Ditto Lincoln.
I’m not asking about the claim itself- just whether the individual is honestly stating what they believe (or don’t believe). While I asked about atheists, it’s probably valid to extend my question to whether people take a theist’s statement (about actually believing in God/Jesus/the Bible/whatever) as true.
I suspect half of all professed believers don’t actually believe. I assume they are culturally religious, and merely enjoy some of the fellowship aspects or rituals of their church or synagogue. So, for any one “believer” in particular, I have a high level of doubt.
As an atheist I have been disbelieved. I do not believe in any gods, but at least a few people have told me that is impossible. You HAVE to believe in something, how else could the world even exist without some kind of god? They are very sincere and I am apparently a liar trying to make some kind of point.
I’ve never thought about it in terms of a proportion but just from talking to theists, I’ve observed that a great many don’t appear to have any sincere belief in god. They were raised to believe in god and never seriously questioned it. Never giving any critical thought to the metaphysics of it or to the morality of it.
There’s plenty of theists who clearly are really sincere in their belief, too. I don`t mean to disparage true believers. Just pointing out that a whole lot of theists don’t seem to actually be true believers.
I am a non-believer. Sometimes, when I hear a youngster say “I don’t believe in God” I will discount his claim a little. I might think he is just mad at his parent’s religion for some reason or he may be trying to get attention or he may just be trying the idea on for size. I think religious people are the same. How do they know that I have thought long and hard about my non-belief? For all they know, I could just be trying to get a rise out of them. People, like my great aunts, who rarely ever talk to non-Christians really do have a hard time wrapping their minds around the idea of existing without a God.
On the other hand, when someone tells me they believe, I secretly think “they haven’t spent much time thinking about things then.” So I guess I don’t believe theists.
Long answer, I try to make such judgements about the credibility of someone’s statements of belief based upon evidence independent of what that belief is. I’ve seen plenty of atheists who come across as very genuine in their statements of belief, and I’ve seen some who don’t. Similarly, I’ve seen many religious/spiritual people who come across as sincere and many who don’t. That is, I’ve seen people who more or less believe one thing in their heart, emotionally, experientially, whatever, and another thing intellectually, and there’s a conflict and one is winning out, but not enough to put away the other side. And, for the sake of fairness, I’ve seen examples of both belief in God and atheism in both winning and loses aspects and both emotional and intellectual ways of belief.
There’s a few reasons for this. For one, some people’s beliefs and experiences are just so convincing to them that it’s difficult for them to understand how someone can possibly hold a different view honestly. For someone who has had a very real religious experience, they just can’t understand how someone just doesn’t see what is obvious to them and, by the same notion, I’ve seen atheists incredulous in understanding how someone can experience something so obviously not religious as religious. As an extension of that, having a hard time believing that someone could really experience something so differently, there has to be an explanation for why someone doesn’t believe, and anger is usually the goto explanation. Of course, it doesn’t help that there’s the trope that someone was raised religious, had some tragic experience, and then came out of it believing God doesn’t exist.
That all said, I do believe in God, and most of the atheists I’ve known personally strike me as genuine. But at the same time, I’ve known two who struck me as people who really weren’t convinced, often very quick to anger about the topic, and seeming to espouse contradictory beliefs, where they’d claim they believed God didn’t exist, but then say something else that had his existence as an underlying premise of their logic. And, again to be fair, I’ve also known some pretty by the book religious people who had similar reactions and seemed to be holding onto their faith by sheer force of will, perhaps because they believe that good people have to believe in God or they’re scared of hell or something, and didn’t actually strike me as genuinely believing.
But really, that’s really a lot more about self-denial, one’s personal assumptions, and a false dichotomy than really anything specific to religion. Hell, at times, I’ve been on several sides of that equation. And I’ve seen the same sort of thing happen with other self-defining, controversial topics like politics too.