# Premiss: "Atheism" is for people who can't handle "Religion". **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 11, 2012, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premiss-atheism-is-for-people-who-cant-handle-religion/609199 "2012-01-11T19:47:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premiss-atheism-is-for-people-who-cant-handle-religion/609199/81 "2012-01-11T22:35:39Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Because there has never been evidence of a supernatural event. Prayer does nothing, for instance. Since it is the duty of the person making the assertion to back it up via citation, I hereby ask you to provide citations and proofs that there has ‘never’ been any evidence of a supernatural event. Otherwise your assertion is nothing more than opinion and has the same value. ---
**Author:** ![mishagoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ea666f/32.png) [@mishagoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mishagoe)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premiss-atheism-is-for-people-who-cant-handle-religion/609199/82 "2012-01-11T22:38:22Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > The evidence is overwhelmingly against the claims of the various religions of the world even being _possible_, much less true; and if it was treated like any normal belief that means “religion is false” would be perfectly acceptable. Instead for religion we are supposed to apply a standard of knowledge that can only be achieved in pure mathematics. You mean the stories in the various religious text didn’t happen the way they claim? Probably true. Are you saying because the stories range from “not completely true” to “outright unbelievable”, that there is no truth to be found in any religion? You dismiss outright the underlying existential spiritual truth that these myths reference? ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premiss-atheism-is-for-people-who-cant-handle-religion/609199/83 "2012-01-11T22:40:42Z")
To the OP: you are aware that there are atheists that are members of organized religion, right? Surely they are not afraid of religion since they are actively involved in it. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premiss-atheism-is-for-people-who-cant-handle-religion/609199/84 "2012-01-11T22:40:48Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Since it is the duty of the person making the assertion to back it up via citation, I hereby ask you to provide citations and proofs that there has ‘never’ been any evidence of a supernatural event. > > Otherwise your assertion is nothing more than opinion and has the same value. You’ve been here since 2002 and you _still_ try to pull this hoary old trick? You know it’s been done before, and you _know_ what the response is going to be, so why do you do it? ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premiss-atheism-is-for-people-who-cant-handle-religion/609199/85 "2012-01-11T22:47:43Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Since it is the duty of the person making the assertion to back it up via citation, I hereby ask you to provide citations and proofs that there has ‘never’ been any evidence of a supernatural event. > > Otherwise your assertion is nothing more than opinion and has the same value. Okay, you don’t even understand basic concepts involved in reasoning. Think hard about this: How can I prove a lack of evidence? I would have to show you every piece of data in the universe and you would have to parse through it. Think hard again: If you are claiming that there is evidence, all you need to do is provide it. I can’t provide the evidence that there isn’t a Santa Claus. I can’t provide evidence that there isn’t an invisible, intangible zombie behind you right now. I can’t provide evidence that there is no Zeus. You are asserting that there is evidence for a God, you need to provide it. I’m the one saying that the burden hasn’t been met, you’re the one saying it has. Show me or admit you’re wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premiss-atheism-is-for-people-who-cant-handle-religion/609199/86 "2012-01-11T22:48:47Z")
> [@mishagoe](#): > > You mean the stories in the various religious text didn’t happen the way they claim? Probably true. Are you saying because the stories range from “not completely true” to “outright unbelievable”, that there is no truth to be found in any religion? You dismiss outright the underlying existential spiritual truth that these myths reference? _Spiritual truth_ is a meaningless statement. ---
**Author:** ![FixMyIgnorance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7feea3/32.png) [@FixMyIgnorance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FixMyIgnorance)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premiss-atheism-is-for-people-who-cant-handle-religion/609199/87 "2012-01-11T22:50:08Z")
Every single religion thread devolves into this. Every single time. I always wonder if there is some way to break the pattern. ---
**Author:** ![mishagoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ea666f/32.png) [@mishagoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mishagoe)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premiss-atheism-is-for-people-who-cant-handle-religion/609199/88 "2012-01-11T22:50:09Z")
> [@Jas09](#): > > To the OP: you are aware that there are atheists that are members of organized religion, right? > > Surely they are not afraid of religion since they are actively involved in it. Ok, what you say and I’ll add to that the instant assumption that religion means Judeo/Christian, when there are many others around the world. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premiss-atheism-is-for-people-who-cant-handle-religion/609199/89 "2012-01-11T22:52:50Z")
> [@FixMyIgnorance](#): > > Every single religion thread devolves into this. Every single time. > > I always wonder if there is some way to break the pattern. Because religious people are unwilling to say, “There is no evidence for my beliefs, but I still believe them.” That would kill any religion thread, because you can’t argue about it. The problem is that religious people don’t want to admit there is no evidence, so they pussyfoot around it and try to pretend they have the answers, but won’t dignify the question with a response. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premiss-atheism-is-for-people-who-cant-handle-religion/609199/90 "2012-01-11T22:54:05Z")
> [@raindog](#): > > But that statement is made repeatedly, and often; both implicitly and by association. As far as I can tell, this still has nothing to do with what I was saying to **mishagoe**. So I stand by what I said: “We don’t know” isn’t incompatible with atheism. Since atheism is just the lack of an active belief in gods, they’re entirely compatible. Some atheists go further than this, but **mishagoe** is wrong to divide things neatly into two diametrically opposed beliefs. It’s more complicated than that, though a lot of people try to make it a black and white issue. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premiss-atheism-is-for-people-who-cant-handle-religion/609199/91 "2012-01-11T22:59:39Z")
> [@raindog](#): > > The ghost of DtC lives on. > > In MB atheism “There is no proof of a God”, and “There is no God” are qualitatively the same statement. > > Will any of you own up to your faith? > > _Any of you?_ Proof that God does not exist. No faith required: 1. God is the perfect being Who inspired the 66 Books of the Holy Bible as His inerrant Word. 2. The 66 Books of the Holy Bible are not inerrant–they [contain](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%203:23-24&version=NIV) [contradictions](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%201:15-17&version=NIV), and therefore cannot be free of error. 3. Therefore the being in step 1–the Inspirer of the Bible as His Inerrant Word–does not exist, since the said Inerrant Word does not exist. Well, that’s one down. 1. Huitzilopochtli is the god who makes the Sun rise, requiring the hearts of sacrificial victims to give him strength to continue doing this. 2. No one’s heart has been cut out in sacrifice to Huitzilopochtli in centuries, yet the Sun continues to rise. 3. Therefore the being described in step 1–the god who must draw strength from the hearts of human sacrifices in order to keep making the Sun rise–does not eixst. OK, that’s two down. I can also do “the being who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent”, or even “the being who is omnipotent and omniscient”, not to mention “the being who is omnipotent and omniscient and was ‘incarnated’ as a human being”–at least, I can to _my_ satisfaction. You may argue my reasoning is faulty, but that doesn’t make it “faith”. Of course, there are probably going to be definitions of God or gods which cannot be so disproven. (“God is like, this cosmic _Purpose_, and like, Love, and stuff, that I totally felt this one time when I dropped acid.”) Regarding those entitites, I suppose I’m agnostic. But I still don’t necessarily believe they _do_ exist either. After all, I don’t consider it a leap of faith to NOT believe in a teapot orbiting the Sun, just because no one has carried out an exhaustive astronomical survey of all objects orbiting the Sun down to the 6-inch level. You could say I’m only I’m an a-knowledge-of-space-teapotsist rather than an a-space-teapotsist, but the dictionary (which is _never_ wrong!) says that an a-space-teapotsist “believes that there is no teapot orbiting the Sun”–and, gee, I admit it sure seems _unlikely_, but I also have to admit, we still haven’t done that exhaustive astronomical survey of all objects orbiting the Sun down to the 6-inch level–but the dictionary (which is _never_ wrong!) **also** says that a-knowledge-of-space-teapotsists say we _cannot ever know_ if there is a teapot orbiting the Sun, to which I can’t help but respond that if we sent a space probe out there and it actually _found_ a teapot orbiting the Sun, this would be a pretty silly (and rather rigid) position to take. And then there are the smart-asses who say that all the teapots ever made are on Earth, and _Earth_ is orbiting the Sun, so therefore there _are_ teapots orbiting the Sun. To which I reply :rolleyes:, which is still not “faith”. ---
**Author:** ![mishagoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ea666f/32.png) [@mishagoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mishagoe)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premiss-atheism-is-for-people-who-cant-handle-religion/609199/92 "2012-01-11T23:05:43Z")
> [@FixMyIgnorance](#): > > Every single religion thread devolves into this. Every single time. > > I always wonder if there is some way to break the pattern. If you don’t like the term spiriutal truth then how would describe the experience of feeling that there is more to this world than the mechanical grinding along of a really big machine? The way I see it you can either say the whole notion is bunk, which I guess you did say, or you can accept that not everyone experiences the world as just a really big machine grinding along until it just sort of fades into the coldness of infinit space. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premiss-atheism-is-for-people-who-cant-handle-religion/609199/93 "2012-01-11T23:09:27Z")
> [@mishagoe](#): > > If you don’t like the term spiriutal truth then how would describe the experience of feeling that there is more to this world than the mechanical grinding along of a really big machine? I think if you stop describing life in such incessantly negative terms, the whole “there has to be something more!” concept doesn’t seem like such a big deal. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premiss-atheism-is-for-people-who-cant-handle-religion/609199/94 "2012-01-11T23:10:59Z")
> [@mishagoe](#): > > If you don’t like the term spiriutal truth then how would describe the experience of feeling that there is more to this world than the mechanical grinding along of a really big machine? Sounds to me like just a, well a feeling. An idea, an emotion. I get the same thing when I listen to music - feelings, ideas and emotions, that is. It’s a personal thing, not proof of anything supernatural; which is kind of a prerequisite for “spiritual truth.” ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premiss-atheism-is-for-people-who-cant-handle-religion/609199/95 "2012-01-11T23:12:52Z")
> [@mishagoe](#): > > Atheism is an escape hatch for those of us who are uncomfortable with the notion that the world we exist in is infinit and essentially un-fathomable by us puny humans. In Atheism we can hide our fears behind the belief that eventually all questions can be defined in mathematical relationships and a well stacked table of fundamental particles and forces. The fact that we aren’t there yet is simply because we’ve just barely begun the enterprise, but someday we will fathom our existence in every possible detail, leaving no question unanswered, complete masters of our existence and our future. > > Agree/Disagree ? Complete disagreement. I’m not ‘escaping’ from anything at all, and I am certainly not uncomfortable with not knowing everything there is to know about the universe. In any event, pretty much all the religions I’ve heard of are primarily systems that establish moral codes. Anywhere they attempt to address the origin of things, it seems done mainly to provide an authority legitimizing the given moral code. It’s perfectly fine, for me, to accept elements of a given moral code as useful without having to buy into assumptions of magical deities or clearly absurd explanations of how reality was formed. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premiss-atheism-is-for-people-who-cant-handle-religion/609199/96 "2012-01-11T23:13:00Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > Proof that God does not exist. No faith required: > > 1. God is the perfect being Who inspired the 66 Books of the Holy Bible as His inerrant Word. > 2. The 66 Books of the Holy Bible are not inerrant–they [contain](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%203:23-24&version=NIV) [contradictions](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%201:15-17&version=NIV), and therefore cannot be free of error. > 3. Therefore the being in step 1–the Inspirer of the Bible as His Inerrant Word–does not exist, since the said Inerrant Word does not exist. Or the people who claimed it was inerrant are in fact, flat out wrong. ---
**Author:** ![mishagoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ea666f/32.png) [@mishagoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mishagoe)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premiss-atheism-is-for-people-who-cant-handle-religion/609199/97 "2012-01-11T23:15:09Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > **mishagoe** is wrong to divide things neatly into two diametrically opposed beliefs. It’s more complicated than that, though a lot of people try to make it a black and white issue. Yes that would be wrong, but I had to start somewhere. I experience this from the other angle. Any attempt to take spiritual experience at face value and discuss it seriously is mostly doomed and outright dismissed as being delusional. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premiss-atheism-is-for-people-who-cant-handle-religion/609199/98 "2012-01-11T23:15:41Z")
> [@mishagoe](#): > > If you don’t like the term spiriutal truth then how would describe the experience of feeling that there is more to this world than the mechanical grinding along of a really big machine? The fact that you experience something does not necessarily mean that that what you experienced correlates with reality. We experience dreams and hallucinations, yet we acknowledge that dreamscapes and hallucinatory landscapes are not real places. Spiritual experiences are real mental states, obviously. The question is how you justify linking them to a hypothetical supernatural reality. What evidence do you have that spiritual experiences aren’t merely another quirk of the brain? Personally I find that my awareness of our aloneness in the universe sharpens my appreciation for the beauty of the human experience. If there is going to be meaning at all in the universe, it’s our job to CREATE it. ---
**Author:** ![mishagoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ea666f/32.png) [@mishagoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mishagoe)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premiss-atheism-is-for-people-who-cant-handle-religion/609199/99 "2012-01-11T23:18:03Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I think if you stop describing life in such incessantly negative terms, the whole “there has to be something more!” concept doesn’t seem like such a big deal. Ok, I’ll stop. There is something more. ---
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premiss-atheism-is-for-people-who-cant-handle-religion/609199/100 "2012-01-11T23:19:24Z")
I studied philosophy and history at university. I’ve always thought that history was a better indication that religion is totally bunk. The story of the human history of the world shows our ancestors making it up as they go along! No need to get into (not very complicated) philosophy to undermine religion… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premiss-atheism-is-for-people-who-cant-handle-religion/609199.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premiss-atheism-is-for-people-who-cant-handle-religion/609199.md?page=6)