Diogenes is a literate gentleman - I would never insult him in that way.
When I was 14 I was a good religious boy who went to shul more than I had to. However when I read the introduction to the Bible that was used as part of 12th grade English, my nagging doubts about it became clear. Even worse, later I had to give up my belief in the Davidic empire given the evidence, and empire that I had always considered a crowning achievement of my ancestors.
The mystical., emotional and intuitive all come from within our minds, and when I say that I am not denigrating them in the slightest. How boring things would be if our minds were unable to find beauty in the physical world. However, all the things that we see as beautiful were there long before there was anyone to see them. Is a rainbow less beautiful to one who understand the physics behind it as opposed to one who sees the hand of God? I don’t think so. Strictly speaking I don’t see anything as mystical, but I do see them as emotional and intuitive. Theists and atheists don’t have to be different in this respect.
The one place we are different is in purpose. I have no problem with the universe just being. I’m curious as to the mechanisms through which it was created, but if these started from pure randomness I have no objection. In my experience this disturbs theists. You many not know the cause, but you feel uncomfortable with the notion that there isn’t one. My wife is a weak deist for this reason.
If religion is wish-fulfillment, I think that a purpose is the base wish common to all.
Religion is internalizing your training as a child. Your parents teach you, you go to church, you go to classes and you read the religious tomes. We can not wonder why people are religious. They are trained that way.That is why most peoples defense of religion is so bad. Muslims think you are crazy not to believe in Allah. Jews think you are uneducated if you don’t follow Jehovah. Perhaps we should not be allowed to inculcate our children. They should be brought up with no religion until they are old enough to make an intelligent decision of their own. About 30 years old would be right.
Not true at all, actually. If your are born into it, you are supposed to follow the rules, otherwise you should be a good person but are excused. You are aware that converts are not solicited, and are in a sense discouraged, right?
That’s a stereotype that’s been painted on with an exceedingly broad brush. It fails to take into account the fact that a great many people change their religious beliefs in the course of their lives — including atheists becoming theists and theists becoming atheists. Heck, I don’t hold to the religion that I was raised in, so you can’t pin my religious beliefs to mere “training as a child.”
A lot of skeptics like to declare that people who espouse religious beliefs must surely do so because they were raised that way. This gives them a convenient platform from which they can look down on religious people, cluck their tongues, and congratulate themselves for their own superiority.
Very ,very few people change their religions. That is dead ass wrong. That is why you notice someone who does.
Yes ,you raise them into your religion when they are young. I guess all religions realize how much more effective it is. I suppose you should read about the religious schools around the globe. Apparently you are unaware of them. Want to see St. Christopher where i wasted a lot of my youth hours. I was in classes with lots of kids taking plenty of religious classes.
What? No. Most people do take on the religion of their parents, and if not, then the dominating religion of their culture. This is just an observation behind the psychology of religion, not a reason to bash people.
And it’s certainly not something you’d invent to look down on people. If anything, going with the flow when you are surrounded by, and expected to adhere, to a certain religion amoreliates the folly of your choice. Someone who (hypothetically) grew up in the absense of religion and then later decides to embrace it is more worthy of being looked down upon.
Of course they do. Nobody denies that. By the same token, someone who is raised an atheist will tend to remain atheist.
The claim made by gonzomax was decidedly more extreme. He specifically said, “Religion is internalizing your training as a child. Your parents teach you, you go to church, you go to classes and you read the religious tomes.” The fact that non-religious people do become religious, and vice versa, show that this is an overly broad claim. Religion can result from one’s upbringing, but it is not logically equivalent to “internalizing your training as a child.”
What you said is an observation. It is not the same as what gonzomax said, though.
I think you’d be surprised. Most people don’t, but I’ve known far too many who did change their religions. “Very, very few” is an exaggeration at best.
But for the sake of argument, let’s grant that statement. The point remains that because people DO change their religions – indeed, a substantial number, even if they’re relatively few – it is a gross generalization to say that religion is simply “internalizing your training as a child.” That’s the sort of thing that people say when they’ve already made up their minds about these poor, unthinking people who have not embraced the wonders of atheism.
I like what you have to say, so I want to make sure you understand that I mean no disrespect, but I think you’re kidding yourself here. What you’re describing is some kind of alien agnosticism. It’s not really a-alienism.
You either believe there are aliens, believe there aren’t aliens, or you escape the question by claiming you don’t know. Don’t know=agnosticism.
I honestly believe atheists try way too hard to avoid admitting they believe there’s no god because they don’t want to be accused of having a religious belief of some kind. I think that’s silly. I don’t believe in god. It’s that simple. I’m open to evidence that would prove there is a god, but none is around, so for now, I don’t believe in god. That’s not a religious belief, it’s a rational one. If somebody wants to say I’m religious about it, I can dismiss them a nutty and move on. I don’t care what they think. Most people who want to believe that about me do so because they think it protects their own position somehow. I find it hard to take people very seriously on this subject if they, themselves, believe in some kind of deity.
On a semi-related note, I think it’s hilarious that if a religious person hears something scientific that they believe somehow supports their religious views, they’ll pull it out to add credibility to their claims. However, if they want to denigrate an atheist or a scientific outlook, they call them a religion. What does that say about their true regard for both science and religion? When it comes to truth, which has really won in the court of public opinion?
lol
I suppose these questions depend on the specific person you’re talking about, but I think it varies. My impression is that most people who say they ‘know’ there’s no god have heard Dawkins or Dennett or someone talking about it and have made up their mind without thinking it thru for themselves, or have misunderstood these speakers’ outlook (took it to the extreme). Some could be saying it because that’s the only way they can reconcile all the ‘evil’ they perceive in the world. Or perhaps they say it just to piss of theists. I really don’t know. It’s certainly something I’d never say.
You just said “atheists try way too hard to avoid admitting they believe there’s no god” and then twice said you don’t believe in god, yet never admitted you believe there’s no god. That’s a little ironic, no?
No, “don’t know” doesn’t equal atheism. Atheism doesn’t mean, “I don’t know,” it means "right now, I can’t know. It’s a position that we don’t have the data, not just that I personally can’t decide.
For all practical purposes, I think it’s safe to say that most atheists (including me), operate on the assumption that there are no gods, and have no expectation of ever discovering that gods exist. That still stops short of a categorical assertion that gods can’t possibly exist. It is highly, highly improbable that gods exist, and (to me), it’s not worth any serious consideration, but technically, I can’t say the possibility is absolute zero. The same is true of unicorns and the flying Spaghetti Monster too, though.
I’ve never read Dennet, but if they were persuaded to atheism by Dawkins, then they would know that even he avoids the categorical assertion that gods (like fairies and unicorns) can’t possibly exist.
Um, no. If I say I don’t believe in god, I’m admitting I believe there’s no god. If I say it twice, I’m admitting it twice. The whole point is that I don’t think there’s a difference (only a mild distinction) between “I don’t believe in god” and “I believe there’s no god” as I’ve been saying all along in this thread. Both net out to the same thing.
If someone asks you, “Is there a god(s)?” you can answer one of three basic ways: yes, no, or I don’t know. If you answer no, you’re essentially saying, I don’t believe so or I believe not.
It’s like you’re trying to claim that when it comes to the subject of god belief, your brain lives in a vacuum.
It’s a semantic difference, at best, and one that, when clung to, most likely has a similar comfort payoff to that or many religious beliefs. Clearly, the belief (that it’s not a belief) is important to you.
Saying stuff like “clear is not a color” or “baldness is not a hairstyle” doesn’t save a person from the fact that they either accept or reject propositions, and that is the basis for what they believe.
But few people claim they know about gods in the theory of knowledge sense. Even theists say they believe on faith not knowledge, and I’m sure you’ve heard the claims that God does not show himself because knowing is somehow bad. Agnosticism is just the inability to know. Since we can certainly prove that aliens exist (but not that they don’t) I don’t consider myself an alien agnostic, or a god agnostic.
Why use a perfectly good term in a way where it is redundant with another good term. That isn’t to say that agnosticism isn’t used in the way you say, but we atheists say that this is because the term “atheist” has been used as almost a curse, and the theists who write dictionaries define it in such a way as to make it philosophically absurd. Atheism has also been used for those denying the favorite god of the speaker, as when Teddy Roosevelt called Tom Paine a dirty atheist, which he most certainly was not.
I think the problem here is that when religious people believe they do not believe provisionally. I believe (provisionally) that there are no gods, for reasons I’ve already described. However that does not preclude changing my belief if more data arrives. I’ve done that kind of thing all the time in my research, so I’m comfortable with it. Theists get very hidebound. Fundamentalists, definitely, but also many moderates, who are fine with huge chunks of the Bible not being correct, but get very prickly when you question their core beliefs. I don’t consider the fact that I believe that no gods exist any more a religious belief than that I believe no unicorns or dragons exist. (Fire breathing variety.)
Most people would say religion, even as they use science, because they have no idea of how science works or why it works. Or that the court of public opinion has nothing to do with truth.
Oh, atheists can be as much fuzzy thinkers as theists. It behooves atheists to educate their fellow non-believers also. Being right is not as good as being right for the right reasons.
So what… you haven’t rejected it? Or have you somehow “passively” rejected it? The only other options are that you’ve never heard of it or thought about it.
It’s comments like this that make me wonder what you have invested in non-belief (as a semantic construct).
It’s both, or at the very least, it’s the starting point and the current point (with the endpoint to be determined at the point of death).
Are you trying to claim you’ve never considered theism? It sure seems like you have… a lot, in fact.
That’s a different question. That is a question about knowledge, and the only reasonable answers are “yes” (for someone convinced God chatted with him or showed him his backside) or “I don’t know” for the rest of us. The question “Do you believe there is a god or gods” is a different one entirely.
I was about to ask you what makes you not believe there are no gods, but it almost sounds like you do believe there are no gods. Remember, belief is absolute and depends only on the evidence at hand.
Irrelevant. If someone asks you, “do you believe in god(s)?” and you answer “no”, that doesn’t mean the asker now understands that you believe no gods exist. I’ve had enough discussions on the topic to understand this is so. This is the reason there are qualifiers like strong and weak atheism.
No, it’s not. Like the example I gave earlier, I don’t believe you are wearing white socks but I don’t believe you are not wearing white socks.
It’s important enough for me to type here because I don’t like being told I must have a belief in something when I mustn’t. Telling me I’m doing this out of a comfort payoff is just cheap.
Rejecting a position isn’t a belief. That simple. I reject that you are wearing white socks right now but I don’t believe you aren’t.
I’ve never seriously considered theism as real possibility, no. I’ve never been shown any reason to. Have you ever considered that elves might exist? I’m interested in religion, and in religious history, but my interest is historical, sociological and psychological,. It’s never been grounded in any belief that gods might actually exist.
I completely agree with everything you’re saying here (I’m an atheist too, after all). It seems to me the difference between us is that I happen to think there’s a massive meaning gap between saying, “I believe there’s no god” (an assumption) and “gods can’t possibly exist” whereas you think they mean the same thing (at least, that’s the message you’ve conveyed in this thread).
Oh, I know Dawkins does that. The problem isn’t with the Dawkins, it’s with the people who take what he has to say to extreme conclusions he doesn’t mean.