arguments for atheism

[bilby]

So, because humans are bad at changing their minds... We shouldn't work to get better at it?

It's a trained skill. You are proposing letting people get off without training it.

No, I am proposing that people should avoid attempting something they are unskilled at, without adult supervision.

People who don't know how to drive shouldn't be encouraged to just hop in a car and get out on the highway, for the same reason that people shouldn't be encouraged to believe any random shit rather than just admitting ignorance.

The difference being humans literally cannot function without belief before they are roughly 15-16 and usually not even for many years after that, if ever.

I know from personal experience that that's simply not true.

My parents (both atheists) decided when they had children that they wouldn't lie to them. (it was the late '60s).

If they didn't know, they said so.

I never believed in any supernatural entities of any kind. When I went to school, I was astonished to discover that other kids thought santa was a real individual who brought gifts. I was even more astonished to discover that adults thought jesus was a real individual who answered prayers.

Belief in the broadest sense might be necessary. But belief in stuff known not to be real assuredly isn't.

This is kind of like Health and Human Development classes and sex: you cannot prevent belief, at best you can (and must, if you want good outcomes) educate people in the application of process based skepticism.

Operation in a model vacuum is always going to fuck you over, and attempting to produce a model vacuum for believers is just going to get you nowhere.

You can rail all you like about why people shouldn't believe in god or whatever, but the fact is, the universe itself is agnostic about whether it was created, as the nature of creation is external and trivial metadata, and all we have is the data itself. There is no way to selectively argue FOR atheism over "gnostic agnosticism", the latter of which states that the universe is created by all things that instantiate it, and none of them; that the data, given an absence of the accessibility of wider context, just doesn't encode an answer.

To that end, there is little to offer, by atheists, to theists, which will free them of their shackles that bind them to the book.

This is why I'm always arguing that "If there is a god, he wrote the relationships which require ethics of wise actors for their own sake, and if there isn't a god, those relationships are still no less real and applicable to the aforementioned actors". It doesn't take a position on god but rather a position on the facts of the universe: being good to each other works, and regardless of whether that's by intent or merely a requirement of any universe that operates in a way describable by math (and these are not mutually exclusive...), We should probably pay heed and "do what works".

Your premise is false, so your conclusions are irrelevant.

 

[Jarhyn]

The difference being humans literally cannot function without belief before they are roughly 15-16 and usually not even for many years after that, if ever.

I know from personal experience that that's simply not true.

My parents (both atheists) decided when they had children that they wouldn't lie to them. (it was the late '60s).

If they didn't know, they said so.

I never believed in any supernatural entities of any kind. When I went to school, I was astonished to discover that other kids thought santa was a real individual who brought gifts. I was even more astonished to discover that adults thought jesus was a real individual who answered prayers.

Belief in the broadest sense might be necessary. But belief in stuff known not to be real assuredly isn't.

This is kind of like Health and Human Development classes and sex: you cannot prevent belief, at best you can (and must, if you want good outcomes) educate people in the application of process based skepticism.

Operation in a model vacuum is always going to fuck you over, and attempting to produce a model vacuum for believers is just going to get you nowhere.

You can rail all you like about why people shouldn't believe in god or whatever, but the fact is, the universe itself is agnostic about whether it was created, as the nature of creation is external and trivial metadata, and all we have is the data itself. There is no way to selectively argue FOR atheism over "gnostic agnosticism", the latter of which states that the universe is created by all things that instantiate it, and none of them; that the data, given an absence of the accessibility of wider context, just doesn't encode an answer.

To that end, there is little to offer, by atheists, to theists, which will free them of their shackles that bind them to the book.

This is why I'm always arguing that "If there is a god, he wrote the relationships which require ethics of wise actors for their own sake, and if there isn't a god, those relationships are still no less real and applicable to the aforementioned actors". It doesn't take a position on god but rather a position on the facts of the universe: being good to each other works, and regardless of whether that's by intent or merely a requirement of any universe that operates in a way describable by math (and these are not mutually exclusive...), We should probably pay heed and "do what works".

Your premise is false, so your conclusions are irrelevant.

And you would be wrong, now not just about reality but about yourself too. Just because you didn't believe in gods, or devils does not mean that the mode of your early operation was not belief. You believed your parents. You believed in their rules and their reasons. You believed in the metaphysics they offered.

Now, whether your beliefs were solid, or not, that's another matter. But don't pretend that you had the reason to know, to understand, at that point. You believed in a reasonable worldview as much as I, at that age, believed in an unreasonable one.

Your premise is false, so your conclusions are irrelevant.

 

[ideologyhunter]

And you would be wrong, now not just about reality but about yourself too. Just because you didn't believe in gods, or devils does not mean that the mode of your early operation was not belief. You believed your parents. You believed in their rules and their reasons. You believed in the metaphysics they offered.

That's a ridiculous assumption -- as if one size fits all in human psych. Here's my case: I started reading Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian at age 12. I could follow most of Russell's points easily; that's hardly bragging, as anyone who reads the book knows that Russell's style is conversational and lucid. As for faith in my parents, I'd grown up witnessing their non-stop argument (which went on for 53 years, until his death) and I knew that on many points, they were full of shit. Yeah, I was a cynical kid, one of legions, and Russell's attitude thrilled me. There were nonbelievers who didn't for a minute succumb to reverence for some text because it was "holy". Faith was not a tonic chord in my life, then or now. (I wish to confess that I was one big brat, as well, but, since there's no hell, I'm just going to forget about those early behaviors.)

 

[Wiploc]

I started reading Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian at age 12. I could follow most of Russell's points easily; that's hardly bragging, as anyone who reads the book knows that Russell's style is conversational and lucid.

I was thrilled by Russell's simple clarity. I kept thinking, "That's what I believe, but I could never have said it that clearly."

I mentioned Russell to my father who said he couldn't read Russell, too difficult.

Turned out, his first and only Russell book had been Principia Mathematica.

 

[southernhybrid]

I never told my own son what to believe, but I did mildly expose him to religion, including having no objections to him attending religious function with his father, who was a Baha'i. I even read him Bible stories from time to time, without ever telling him I was an atheist. I did that because I wanted him to think for himself and come to his own conclusions. When he was 15, I asked him if he believed in a god. He chuckled and said, "No". I laughed and said, "Neither do I'. I stopped believing in Santa at age 4, but it took me a bit longer to rid myself of the evangelical Christian beliefs that had been forced on me as a child. It's interesting that when I asked my mother if Santa was real, she asked me what I thought. I told her that I thought Santa was pretend. She told me I was correct, but when I questioned the existence of god at age 19, she ran from the room crying.

As one of the former posters here used to say, God is Santa for adults. If you give that some thought, it does make sense. Some of us need to believe that a magical entity is looking over us, who knows when we are naughty and when we are nice. That is why I don't expect religion to ever vanish. I just hope that it becomes less dogmatic and more tolerant of those who don't believe.

That's not an argument for atheism. It's just an example of how children can sometimes be more rational than adults.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I never told my own son what to believe, but I did mildly expose him to religion, including having no objections to him attending religious function with his father, who was a Baha'i. I even read him Bible stories from time to time, without ever telling him I was an atheist. I did that because I wanted him to think for himself and come to his own conclusions. When he was 15, I asked him if he believed in a god. He chuckled and said, "No". I laughed and said, "Neither do I'. I stopped believing in Santa at age 4, but it took me a bit longer to rid myself of the evangelical Christian beliefs that had been forced on me as a child. It's interesting that when I asked my mother if Santa was real, she asked me what I thought. I told her that I thought Santa was pretend. She told me I was correct, but when I questioned the existence of god at age 19, she ran from the room crying.

As one of the former posters here used to say, God is Santa for adults. If you give that some thought, it does make sense. Some of us need to believe that a magical entity is looking over us, who knows when we are naughty and when we are nice. That is why I don't expect religion to ever vanish. I just hope that it becomes less dogmatic and more tolerant of those who don't believe.

That's not an argument for atheism. It's just an example of how children can sometimes be more rational than adults.

When we were raising the brood we put them through all the Roman Catholic paces up to their Confirmation. We wanted them to have an appreciation of cultural religion and also keep things peaceful with a traditionally very religious extended family. They're not religious today although the one child who experienced bipolar disorder still believes lots of unevidenced claims and is a trumper. Not surprising really as stories about gods are the same thing as stories about election fraud. An unevidenced claim is an unevidenced claim. It's just an organic brain issue.

 

[Jarhyn]

And you would be wrong, now not just about reality but about yourself too. Just because you didn't believe in gods, or devils does not mean that the mode of your early operation was not belief. You believed your parents. You believed in their rules and their reasons. You believed in the metaphysics they offered.

That's a ridiculous assumption -- as if one size fits all in human psych. Here's my case: I started reading Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian at age 12. I could follow most of Russell's points easily; that's hardly bragging, as anyone who reads the book knows that Russell's style is conversational and lucid. As for faith in my parents, I'd grown up witnessing their non-stop argument (which went on for 53 years, until his death) and I knew that on many points, they were full of shit. Yeah, I was a cynical kid, one of legions, and Russell's attitude thrilled me. There were nonbelievers who didn't for a minute succumb to reverence for some text because it was "holy". Faith was not a tonic chord in my life, then or now. (I wish to confess that I was one big brat, as well, but, since there's no hell, I'm just going to forget about those early behaviors.)

It is a ridiculous assumption that we are children before we are adults? That we are not born with the tools to understand and that these must built, painstakingly, over time?

If that is the case I would assert I have an obligation to be ridiculous! Because that would make my statement ridiculously accurate.

Quit with your personal mythology wherein you hand-wave away your own childishness, as if anyone COULD just pop out a fully rational adult.

I think someone needs to reexamine Piaget.

 

[ideologyhunter]

It is a ridiculous assumption that we are children before we are adults? That we are not born with the tools to understand and that these must built, painstakingly, over time?

If that is the case I would assert I have an obligation to be ridiculous! Because that would make my statement ridiculously accurate.

Quit with your personal mythology wherein you hand-wave away your own childishness, as if anyone COULD just pop out a fully rational adult.

I think someone needs to reexamine Piaget.

In your post #195 you assert: "...humans literally cannot function without belief before they are roughly 15 - 16 and usually not for many years after that, if ever." That is what I called ridiculous. It's a generalization in a field (human psych & development) where generalizations are just plain overreach. There are kids quite a bit younger than 15 who have well-defined bullshit detectors, who are well ahead of the herd, who talk back to the nuns or the Sunday school teachers when they're fed the standard pablum of religious instruction for the young. You'll also find these kids wanting to analyze the rules their parents impose; challenging the adages or sweeping generalizations they hear from adults; wanting to know the why of things, independent of brattishness (although, God knows, some of these same kids are colossal brats.) Yes, I'm saying there are kids with a constant, skeptical bent -- and often they model the respect and mental attitudes they acquired from their parents. Not every parent lays Santa Claus or God or euphemisms for biology on their kids. These kids have the heady experience of reasoning things out. Are they typical of the mass? Nope. Are they to be found in every large public school in America? Yep. I am guessing you haven't run into them. They're a trip. One of my cousin's kids married a man who, as a teen, reasoned his way out of faith and deconverted his parents. That narrative thrills me.
Your assumption about people up to "15-16" simply leaves out the kids who are ahead of that curve. That's all I'm saying.

 

[Wiploc]

Originally Posted by blastula

To be more clear, I mean atheists who claim to not have any more certainty about it than that, that they ONLY lack belief and don't claim to believe or know anything stronger than that, AND who then also make statements about theism that imply much greater certainty against it than they explicitly admit to.

I wonder if you're confused. I'm not aware of such people.

...

If you actually have examples of people who make the contradictory claims you speak of, I'm happy to look at them. But my suspicion is that either people have been unclear while trying to make two separate points in one conversation, or that you have misunderstood.

But the people I am talking about will deny being strong atheists.

Do we have some of these people here? If so, point me at them. I'd like to see if they're real, or if this is a misunderstanding.

*BUMP*

And let me open it up. Does anybody here know of anyone here or elsewhere who meets Blastula's description?

 

[abaddon]

*BUMP*

And let me open it up. Does anybody here know of anyone here or elsewhere who meets Blastula's description?

I don't remember any such. Actually it surprises me that anyone takes "lack" as implying uncertainty.

I lack belief in gods because I'm not a theist. If I didn't lack belief in gods, I'd be a theist.

I lack belief in gods and believe all gods are imaginary only.