When you break it down: is atheism unappealing?

[bilby]

The argument could just have well have gone something like this:

Acceptance of evolutionary theory

• The world and your life is intrinsically free, and you can assign to it whatever meanings you wish
• Anything negative that happens to you is primarily random and indifferent - nobody and nothing is out to get you
• Your well-being is entirely up to you, and if you succeed it's because you are skilled enough to succeed
• When you die you will live on only in the memories of others. When your friends die they will live on only in your memories. No further pain or suffering will occur.

Belief in God

• Everything you see and feel was designed / has purpose, and you were not and never will be consulted about this
• Anything negative that happens to you happened for a reason and can be justified. You cannot prevent it, mitigate it, or protect yourself against it
• Your well-being is in someone else's hands, and you are their chattel property
• You'll never be rid of your owner, or free from any imposition, pain or suffering that they unilaterally decide you might deserve.

 

[Jarhyn]

The argument could just have well have gone something like this:

Acceptance of evolutionary theory

• The world and your life is intrinsically free, and you can assign to it whatever meanings you wish
• Anything negative that happens to you is primarily random and indifferent - nobody and nothing is out to get you
• Your well-being is entirely up to you, and if you succeed it's because you are skilled enough to succeed
• When you die you will live on only in the memories of others. When your friends die they will live on only in your memories. No further pain or suffering will occur.

Belief in God

• Everything you see and feel was designed / has purpose, and you were not and never will be consulted about this

To be fair, the design of anything I personally would create would be to largely give everything in the universe the same command you do your dog.

The purpose is specifically watch what happens when a universe happens with those parameters.

Occasionally I have been known to stick my finger in the pie. If "consult folks" about it is equivalent to robbing them blind of the treasures they made of their blood, sweat, and tears as the case may be, and going on a tear through a mound of goblins who wish to kill me because they don't know me and I happen to be wearing a dwarf...

Even so not everything goes as designed even then or has any real purpose. So you don't even get that with gods.

• Anything negative that happens to you happened for a reason and can be justified. You cannot prevent it, mitigate it, or protect yourself against it

LOL.

The reason is "some pissant human said 'let there be dwarves'." It can't be justified because there was no reason other than that. It's absolutely meaningless and absurd even though that universe still has a god.

They can absolutely prevent, mitigate, and protect themselves from it on account of the fact that I'm not enough of a dick to smite much of anything, even if I think they really deserve it, and doing anything more than that is just way too much fucking work.

The unjustified things I do, like dipping in wearing a dwarf costume, stealing some rather precious things, and trying to enslave a demon and bring it back to the fortress I robbed as a pet, well, usually my own stupid insistence on learning to swim mitigates that, occasionally some goblins mitigate it, occasionally the angels in the vault mitigate it...

Occasionally it gets mitigated by the fact that something else kills the demon before I get to it.

Once, it got mitigated by the fact that the plate with its name on it was made of lead, and I starved my meat puppet to death trying to return it to the fortress.

I even saw my attempt mitigated once when I baited a guard to dodge into a pool and drown, and then drowned myself as I tried to strip his corpse underwater...

In fact I've never once had my attempt to do so not get mitigated messily, and usually very amusingly.

• Your well-being is in someone else's hands, and you are their chattel property

That's... Fair.

Granted I only make myself a little better than the average dwarf, and everyone who does horribly for going with me goes with me of their own consent, knowing they'll die a messy death.

Often enough though, their wellbeing is just as much in their hands as mine is in my own. Plenty of entities in such worlds live lives where they both go on adventures and do not die messy deaths.

• You'll never be rid of your owner, or free from any imposition, pain or suffering that they unilaterally decide you might deserve.

Again not true. Plenty of them have "killed" me. Usually for the grave sin of me being in a dwarf costume. Only a few times have I unilaterally decided someone deserved something, and it was usually some time after their second or third murder spree.

Those stories about Urist and the chow hall massacres were based on (simulated) historical events.

When they die, as far as I'm concerned, all the entities to date have the same end as the evolved entities of my own world, and I wouldn't unilaterally rip something out of the bottle. I'm not a fucking monster, I would ask consent before shoving something into the kind of exotic suck that we endure.

But I absolutely would free things, too, if they could be vetted as no more likely than people to cause no more issues on earth than people tend to cause each other.

There's just nothing in the bottle, can be nothing in the bottle yet, worth freeing.

So, by in large, your arguments against wanting to believe in god aren't really solid, but well...

If there was a god and IF he was like me, would you worship them?

I certainly wouldn't.

 

[rousseau]

I'm going to preface this thread with the fact that these comments aren't an attack on atheism. Whenever something looking like a critique of atheism is presented at this forum, we seem to get a few defensive responses. So to be clear this thread isn't intended to promote religiosity by any means. It's just a quick thought experiment for your consideration.

A few months ago I was reading a title called The Sociobiological Imagination which discussed, in part, why the field of Sociology was hesitant to integrate hard evolutionary theory into it's own theories. I found the answer interesting, and I think it is very relevant to why religiosity survives in our world:

The argument went something like this:

Acceptance of evolutionary theory

• The world and your life is intrinsically meaningless other than what you assign to it
• Anything negative that happens to you is primarily random and indifferent
• Your well-being is entirely up to you, and if you fail it's because you failed / aren't skilled enough
• When you die you will cease to exist. When your friends die they will cease to exist

Belief in God

• Everything you see and feel was designed / has purpose
• Anything negative that happens to you happened for a reason and can be justified
• Your well-being is in someone else's hands, and failure is ok
• You'll never lose your life or friends and family

Although a little more nuanced, that was it in a nutshell. Between the two worldviews it's obvious which one would appeal to more people. So as Atheists, we're all obviously invested in the lack of God because it appeals to us, but when you break the problem down to it's basic elements we're trying to sell the religious a bit of a shithole. Their religion shields them from what is a cruel and indifferent world, they do not want to accept materialism because it isn't much of a cakewalk.

That's not a description of an atheist worldview. It's a theistic fantasy of an atheistic worldview.

If you're saying that religion survives in part because theists lie about atheists, then I agree with you.

My argument was more along the lines of this not being the atheist worldview, but the corollary of the atheist worldview.

The pandemic was a pretty good example of this heuristic in action. Lots of anti-science sentiment, because science and materialism break down the comfort of theism.

Some here have argued that this isn't necessarily the corollary of the atheist worldview.

 

[TLK Valentine]

If your goal is to improve your life, do you think faith might sometimes provide the resilience and optimism in the face of adversity, so one can persevere in tackling their real problems?

A fantasy solution is no good against real problems... if I believed that Big Man in the Sky was in control, I might be tempted to cajole Him into fixing things for me by kissing His omnipotent ass... and that never works.

But if I'm on my own, then I know nothing is going to get better until I make it better... so I better get to it.

 

[Elixir]

A fantasy solution is no good against real problems...

Not always the case. There have been some studies on trauma victims that showed better outcomes for people who professed faith. But the object(s) of that faith seemed not to matter one bit. IOW the FSM and Jesus are equally effective, as long as the patient has faith.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

If your goal is to improve your life, do you think faith might sometimes provide the resilience and optimism in the face of adversity, so one can persevere in tackling their real problems?

A fantasy solution is no good against real problems... if I believed that Big Man in the Sky was in control, I might be tempted to cajole Him into fixing things for me by kissing His omnipotent ass... and that never works.

But if I'm on my own, then I know nothing is going to get better until I make it better... so I better get to it.

My daughter is ADHD and when very stressed she puts her fingers in her ears. I try to emphasize that if she were in real danger, doing that won’t help her. I think theism is quite similar. An irrational reflex.

 

[steve_bank]

Some people eat ice cream by the pint or drink alcohol or smoke pot when stressed. Peole walk aroud the streets totally engroseed in smart phones wearing headphones oblivious of reality around them. Escapism has become the social norm. It is manifesting in the reports of increasing mental issues from kids to young adults, an inability to cope. Anxiety and stress.

Religion can be a relatively harmless escape compared to other things. IMO.

Those who can rationally deal with stress and fear may be in the minority.

My Sunday escape, a day of watching football.

 

[Elixir]

My stock response is atheism is not monolithic in what atheists do believe.

Religion is not the only path to finding meaning.

Organized atheism provides community and meaning just like organized religion.

I think when it comes to evolution, sociology, and culture it can open a can of worms of political correctness.

No disagreement there. The argument wasn't so much that Atheism is never appealing, or valueless in of itself. It was that it's internal logic isn't appealing to many people, which is why we see so many people gravitate to religious answers.

If someone does find atheism appealing, that's fine.

The internal logic of atheism seems to me to be nothing more than refraining from the logical contortions required for religious belief. It doesn’t make positive assertions (afaik).

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

The Bible tells us God predestines all from the beginning. God arbitrarily grants grace to some, not to others. God makes some elect arbitrarily, but not others. God, thr Great Potter arbitrarily make some "vessels of wrath", and other "vessels of mercy". Some he blinds, gives them eyes that cannot see, ears that will not hear. Some, he hardens hearts.

This makes no sense for a God the Bible claims is good, righteous, merciful, just, fair, and compassionate. The Bible gives us a God that makes no logical sense, is not reasonable, or rational. Christians bleat that God is incomprehensile, inscrutable, beyond all human understanding. No, Christianity is incoherent, impossible, intellectually nihilistic. Christianity and Christianity is better than atheism how? More attracive how?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The Bible tells us God predestines all from the beginning.

Maybe some parts, but Genesis 50 says that he takes the shit people do and makes good out of it. Exodus says he takes his fucking damn time doing so.

God arbitrarily grants grace to some, not to others. God makes some elect arbitrarily, but not others. God, thr Great Potter arbitrarily make some "vessels of wrath", and other "vessels of mercy". Some he blinds, gives them eyes that cannot see, ears that will not hear. Some, he hardens hearts.

This makes no sense for a God the Bible claims is good, righteous, merciful, just, fair, and compassionate. The Bible gives us a God that makes no logical sense, is not reasonable, or rational. Christians bleat that God is incomprehensile, inscrutable, beyond all human understanding. No, Christianity is incoherent, impossible, intellectually nihilistic. Christianity and Christianity is better than atheism how? More attracive how?

The face change in the New Testament from the Tanakh is indeed hard to follow. God goes from being Shaft to being some pussy who gives a damn about the poor and providing eternal life. And then eventually shifting back into Shaft when he burns all creation to the ground because he is one cold mutha...

But this appeals to evangelicals, because really, they love the concept of eternal life and punishing the fuck out of people. It provides religious sociopaths the things they like most. Complete and utter reward regardless how hypocritical you are... and blood, guts, and ash.

 

[steve_bank]

My stock response is atheism is not monolithic in what atheists do believe.

Religion is not the only path to finding meaning.

Organized atheism provides community and meaning just like organized religion.

I think when it comes to evolution, sociology, and culture it can open a can of worms of political correctness.

No disagreement there. The argument wasn't so much that Atheism is never appealing, or valueless in of itself. It was that it's internal logic isn't appealing to many people, which is why we see so many people gravitate to religious answers.

If someone does find atheism appealing, that's fine.

The internal logic of atheism seems to me to be nothing more than refraining from the logical contortions required for religious belief. It doesn’t make positive assertions (afaik).

To me religion is excess baggage.

 

[Elixir]

The internal logic of atheism seems to me to be nothing more than refraining from the logical contortions required for religious belief. It doesn’t make positive assertions (afaik).

To me religion is excess baggage.

That's better said.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I saw a lady with a t-shirt that said "Faith over Fear." Is she afraid of the devil? Didn't stop to ask.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Hmmm... but if fear equals zero then faith over fear can't be demonstrated.

 

[Wiploc]

I saw a lady with a t-shirt that said "Faith over Fear." Is she afraid of the devil? Didn't stop to ask.

Puzzling. Christians brag about fearing gods. But faith causes that fear.

 

[DrZoidberg]

When it comes to talking about meaning of life and the big questions Christians have been stacking the deck for 2000 years and framed the narrative in a way that will lead us to conclude the wisdom and truth of Christianity. That's why I think it's unhelpful to think of Christianity as the default religion. I prefer paganism. It's a more open way of thinking about the world.

To pagans the existence of gods was a non-issue. They thought of it in operational terms, which, granted leads to magical thinking. But essentially, if what you are doing is working, keep doing it. If what you are doing isn't working, then stop, and so something else. Christianity breaks this, because the main event is after we're dead. So there's nothing we can use in life to evaluate how we're doing. This is a trap of thinking. It must be rejected. Because it robs us of the ability to think at all about the big questions. At least paganism allows us to keep thinking.

The problem with atheism is that it is nothing. Like so many people have said before, atheism is a religion like not playing tennis is a sport. If our choices are between something and nothing, something will always be more appealing. But it's a false choice. There's an infinite way to think of and about God/gods. To pagans gods were both real and metaphorical. They didn't feel the need to put everything in neatly labelled boxes that must never be opened. Yes, it can be frustrating. But it's reality. We will never know, for sure, the answer to the big questions. That's just something we need to learn to live with. That's what being an adult is all about.

So basically... I reject the dichotomy

 

[steve_bank]

As I hav said before I identify as atheist because it convienient to do so in situations iike the forum. But I think atheism and theism can be flip sides of the same coin.

If you want to be free from religion neither a theist not atheist be. Being atheist inevitably draws you into the theist narrative. Which is what theists need. They need a foil.

 

[DrZoidberg]

As I hav said before I identify as atheist because it convienient to do so in situations iike the forum. But I think atheism and theism can be flip sides of the same coin.

If you want to be free from religion neither a theist not atheist be. Being atheist inevitably draws you into the theist narrative. Which is what theists need. They need a foil.

Once I started reading up on paganism and pagan philosophy I've stopped using the term atheism. It's an uninteresting label IMHO. I prefer Leo Habermas definition of God. "god is the name we give to our hopes and dreams". So if you have hopes and dreams, then you believe in a god. Seing religion in this way completely takes all the toys away from Christians. They want to force us into having to make strong statements on a topic that is highly vague and nebulous. It's just tribal and dumb. It's not like they know for sure either. I'm not going to give Christians that satisfaction. When Christians say they believe in God I translate it in my head to "I have hopes and dreams". If a Christian asks me if I believe in God I can honestly answer yes. If an atheist asks me if I'm an atheist, I can also honestly answer yes, because they mean something different.

I also like the term post-atheist.

I don't want to be free from religion. We're creatures of habit and ritual. I think religions are useful as well as important to us. I just have more of a smorgasbord approach to religion. I pick what I like in the same way I pick what decorations to hang in my Christmas tree. Sometimes something is better than nothing. But what something it is is of lesser importance.

This attitude to religion is incredibly liberating as well as inclusive. When I was in Istanbul last time I was hanging out outside a mosque around Friday prayers. A man thought I was Muslim and a bit lost, so he guided me into the mosque and showed me what to do. I just went with it. It was an awesome experience. Very powerful. We don't need to pick a team. These rituals work for anyone. I have since had a Christian girlfriend and have gone with her to church. And liked it.

Your emotional brain is an idiot. And religious ritual speaks to our emotional brains. It's not complicated and it's unncessary to make it more complicated than it needs to be. This is really simple stuff.

I love religion.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

But theists have been murdering other theists for millennia. In some cases, even those who believe in the same god.

 

[rousseau]

As I hav said before I identify as atheist because it convienient to do so in situations iike the forum. But I think atheism and theism can be flip sides of the same coin.

If you want to be free from religion neither a theist not atheist be. Being atheist inevitably draws you into the theist narrative. Which is what theists need. They need a foil.

Once I started reading up on paganism and pagan philosophy I've stopped using the term atheism. It's an uninteresting label IMHO. I prefer Leo Habermas definition of God. "god is the name we give to our hopes and dreams". So if you have hopes and dreams, then you believe in a god. Seing religion in this way completely takes all the toys away from Christians. They want to force us into having to make strong statements on a topic that is highly vague and nebulous. It's just tribal and dumb. It's not like they know for sure either. I'm not going to give Christians that satisfaction. When Christians say they believe in God I translate it in my head to "I have hopes and dreams". If a Christian asks me if I believe in God I can honestly answer yes. If an atheist asks me if I'm an atheist, I can also honestly answer yes, because they mean something different.

I also like the term post-atheist.

I don't want to be free from religion. We're creatures of habit and ritual. I think religions are useful as well as important to us. I just have more of a smorgasbord approach to religion. I pick what I like in the same way I pick what decorations to hang in my Christmas tree. Sometimes something is better than nothing. But what something it is is of lesser importance.

This attitude to religion is incredibly liberating as well as inclusive. When I was in Istanbul last time I was hanging out outside a mosque around Friday prayers. A man thought I was Muslim and a bit lost, so he guided me into the mosque and showed me what to do. I just went with it. It was an awesome experience. Very powerful. We don't need to pick a team. These rituals work for anyone. I have since had a Christian girlfriend and have gone with her to church. And liked it.

Your emotional brain is an idiot. And religious ritual speaks to our emotional brains. It's not complicated and it's unncessary to make it more complicated than it needs to be. This is really simple stuff.

I love religion.

It took me a surprisingly long time to discover and understand the word pantheist, which I think speaks well to religion from the perspective of anthropology. And really, that's usually what I'm interested in when I raise religious topics here, scientific and objective discussion about religion. Not arguments for or against why someone should or shouldn't believe.

But more and more it looks like we can't discuss anthropology without it becoming political, that's essentially what I've learned from raising religious topics at IIDB. This is why I've started backing out of religious discussion here, I'm just not that interested in anti-theist debate. I get why it exists, I get the arguments, I'm just not that interested in taking part.