I find that element of belief very intriguing. Religions that preach the importance of truth still reject science in favor of traditional dogma, even though their own sacred book warns against it.
It seems clear that there is an emotional attachment to certain beliefs. Based on my own experience I tend to think that people confuse their religious beliefs with their concept of god. IOW, rejecting certain aspects of their beliefs is connected emotionally to rejecting god and elicits a subconscious defense mechanism.
I also believe an individual’s sense of worth or acceptance by others in a group can affect how they deal with contradictory information. If they are willing to embrace doubt about certain traditional beliefs they risk rejection by their group.
I think people are afraid that by rejecting certain aspects of their belief , their entire belief system will collapse and they have to come to accept the fact that isn’t true. You don’t have to accept turning water into wine to value the teachings of Jesus. You don’t have to dismiss the possibility of god or something beyond physical death just because you reject Jesus rising from the dead.
Perhaps it has something to do with people’s ability to compartmentalize individual aspects of belief, or their lack of that ability.
I’ve mentioned before that the Bahai, have a fairly progressive approach in that they teach all religion is simply an imperfect attempt by mankind to be understand and commune with God, and that there can be no division between science and religion since truth is truth. Even though they have their traditions they stress overall growth and development of mankind as a whole. education, peace, justice, values.
[aside] Layman here also, with an abiding interest in neuroscience – cosmo, considering your apparent interest in the conscious and subconscious minds, and reason and emotion, etc., have you read any of these?
Well, here’s the very first definition I got from googling:
Note that the only definition that even implies uncertainty is the fourth one which is clearly not the relevant definition here.
And the other definitions include words like “conviction” and “faith”, and the mention of religion.
So we have a term that I argue is not even meaningful in the first place, and now you wish to broaden it. If “belief system” grows to encompass all mental processes, then sure, we all view the world via a “belief system”.
Firstly, I know plenty of people who have clearly given no thought to spiritual matters, but maybe things are different here in Britain.
Part of the issue I have with “belief system” is that it is often depicted that people begin with opinions on the meaning of life, on morality etc, before they can live their lives. I think this is incorrect: living our lives comes naturally to us, and asking the big questions is something many people don’t bother to do, or don’t dwell on.
In my own case, prior to having sufficient information / maturity to evaluate the God claim, before I even knew what the word “atheist” was, I didn’t have a belief in god.
So you keep asserting.
Actually I do think I can defend my position on that matter with data. However, it’s well off-topic here, so I won’t do so unless pressed.
I didn’t broaden it or alter it in anyway based on your objection. I elaborated on my meaning and it appears that now you understand , you agree.
Maybe you should stop assuming what people mean by a certain term and ask for clarification. did someone say people begin with opinions? Not I. I thought it was clear that people come to their belief system through environment, and experience, as well as whatever influence genetics have.
No need to go on a tangent in a long thread.
It seems clearly impossible to me to know how society might have developed without religion. Any guess would seem to have no serious merit no matter how much you flesh it out.
But how do you explain this response:
“This contradicts the view that you have a belief of a fixed set of entities,..”
Given that my post didn’t say or imply anything even remotely close to this.
That’s why I was gracefully assuming Mijin did not read my post rather than the worse alternatives.
It sounds like you think that there is no distinction between an idea that has been considered and a conclusion reached and logged away in one’s consciousness vs an idea that one has not even considered.
Is this correct?
Consider the following:
A person that has never been exposed to the idea of a god - I would personally classify this as non-belief only, not belief that god doesn’t exist
A person that has been exposed to the idea of god and has decided, for whatever reason, that it is incorrect and that god does not exist - I would classify this as both non-belief about the existence, and belief as to the non-existence
A person that has been exposed to the idea of god and has decided, for whatever reason, that there is not enough information available to come to a conclusion - I would classify this as a belief about god, but I would not say it is a belief in the existence of god or a belief in the non-existence of god, it is a belief (as in part of this persons world view) “about” god’s existence, but not strictly a belief “in” the existence or non-existence
I think belief is actually even more complicated than the options above. I don’t think belief translates to a set of facts stored in our heads. I think there is some of that going on, but I also think that when we dredge up a position about a particular topic, there can be an almost instant application of input to our internal model of the topic at hand and the result is in many cases what we consider to be “belief” even though it is not explicitly stored as a fact in our brain.
If someone asked whether there was a living cow in the bowl, the answer requires very little if any calculation, and it seems like we would be limiting the use of the word “belief” if we did not include that fact in the set of beliefs, even before the question gets asked. We could define “belief” to be only those things that have been consciously concluded, but that doesn’t quite feel satisfactory.
In that case not believing in Unicorns after someone tells you about them is a “belief” as well, and the word has lost all relevance as to how it intersects with religious beliefs.
It absolutely hasn’t lost any relevance–why would it?
Inasmuch as I ever think about unicorns in our world, I believe that they don’t exist. That is, I believe I know the exact number of unicorns that have walked on our planet: zero. I believe I can name every location where a unicorn has ever walked: ______. I believe I can describe the height of every unicorn: _____ meters at the shoulder. And so on. My beliefs are fractal.
And I’m not 100% certain, but for sufficiently defined unicorns, I’d be willing to bet significant money that I’m right.
That’s very different from what I believe about Keith Smith of Poughkeepsie, NY. I have no beliefs about his existence. I don’t believe I can tell you how many Keith Smiths live there, or where Keith Smiths walk there, or how tall Keith Smith is.
A belief in a negative is very different from a lack of belief in a positive.
Sure, but that isnt atheism, Its more like anti-theism. Lots of atheists ascribe to this because we feel that religious practice is harmful. This would be true whether a god existed or not. Likewise it is possible to be an anti-theist while holding a belief in god(s).
Anti-catholicism is a subset of this, as is the feeling of most muslims towards Christians in general. “You are doing it wrong!”, or more simply, “You are doing wrong!”
Some atheists even practice religion. I know an atheist Jew that considered becoming a rabbi. Crazy? No, he likes the structure and traditions.
You are just playing semantic games. The OP obviously meant something different when he referred to Athiests insisting atheism is a “non-belief”. The “beliefs” that Christians and other religious people hold about their religions are different than “I believe I will have some cake”, or “I believe you”, or “I believe the world is round”.
I believe there is no God; I operate under that assumption without considering that it might not be true. In the same way I believe that if I drop a rock it will fall down, not up. If you trivialize the word “belief” to just mean something that one considers true, then of course Atheism is a belief. But what does that say about the nature of Atheism vs. the nature of religion?
There is no Atheist canon, no Atheist system of beliefs, and no schools that teach the complex rules associated with Atheism.
Are you sure he wasn’t talking about your apple and orange, and your lack of banana?
No. The distinction is simple: one has been considered, one hasn’t. But if the conclusion is that there is no evidence for something, then the result is the same. Lack of belief in that something. And sure, language makes it possible for lack of belief to be phrased as belief in the lack. But that’s a word game, and we can all play those: If a man had his hands cut off would he have any more fingers than a man who’d been born without hands?
I view all of the above as unnecessarily complicated.
Just to clarify on this, because it’s getting tiresome: I covered two different interpretations of what your point was. One of these interpretations was correct: that we can add “beliefs” about the world sometimes via analysis / introspection.
(Which btw is a point no-one would dispute. I had even mentioned the same thing myself earlier).
The other interpretation was apparently incorrect. Well, no problem, I never claimed that was your point.
I can’t speak for sh1bu1, but I’ve already pointed out that one definition of belief implies faith.
I think it is this definition that some wish to be attached to atheism: that it’s a faith. And that it’s ultimately inspired by emotion, not logic (note there have been several instances upthread of attaching emotion to belief).
It seems more like the natural evolution of mental emotional and spiritual maturity that we see reflected in a better, but still far from perfect society.
Do you mean to say that their beliefs do not have data or logic to back them up and that is the difference? It may be true, but it doesn’t change what the word “belief” means and if that is the distinction you want made then it seems a different word really needs to be used (I’m not sure which word it is, but something other than belief).
That is what the word “belief” means (generally) and it’s hardly trivializing it to use the term correctly.
It doesn’t really say much of anything about the nature of Atheism vs the nature of Religion, why does it need to?
Getting tiresome? You didn’t even respond to my post until now.
Ok.
Belief vs Faith
If someone wants to imply faith, they should use that word instead of belief because the term belief encompasses a lot more than just faith. That would be an error of communication.
Yes it’s the same if you are only interested in a subset of the individual’s beliefs. But there is a significant difference if you are interested in all of the beliefs the person holds.
Ok, so you think that under all circumstances Atheism represents a lack of belief in god and never represents an active belief that god doesn’t exist?
I assume you realize immediately that I can give 2 real life examples, 1 is a person that simply lacks a belief in god due to lack of exposure, and 1 that actively believes there is no god after careful consideration.