How I rationalize my atheism

[joe1776]

Occam's razor is not just "simpler is better". It is better described as "The explanation that requires the fewest unsupported assumptions is better".
It is a tool to be applied to arguments or claims, not to art or food or holidays or whatever.

You are correct. However, we should note that OR is sometimes misused as a device to allow jumping to a conclusion between two possibilities, neither of which can be proven.

It's properly used when it helps decide which hypothesis should be tested first.

 

[F1fan]

Atheism is unsupported,

Non-theism is rampant. Even theism itself is non-theistic where it comes to other religions. To Christians Hindus are non-theists since they don't accept Christian ideas. But Hindus are very much theists.

but theism is supported through both the experiences of humanity and a reasonable look at the universe and what exists in it.

Theism as a human and social behavior is supported only as far as social and peer pressure influences how other people behave. Theism itself is no factual, so in logic and debate theism is NOT supported.

It is theism that does not need justification even though it is justified,

Theism doesn't have to be justified with evidence and that is because it is justified through social pressure to conform to cultural/religious norms.

and atheism is only justified by the imagination of atheists who think (with no support) that a God is unnecessary and unsupported.

Given the lack of evidence for any gods a person who resists and rejects social pressure to adopt religious norms do have a certain courage and intellectual integrity. Atheists have no choice but to reject religious concepts sine they cannot be shown to be true.

Showing an atheist that there is a creator is an attempt to bring meaning where none exists.

False, atheists have vast amounts of meaning as anyone else. But you wise an important point, theists do adopt religious concepts for social meaning. But this is just one the of social meaning, and meaning in life. There are many forms. A city rooting for a sorts team is another form of social meaning.

This social meaning is an undercurrent for the self. Veople need to work and achieve to feel personal meaning and significance in their life. Not all have talent or drive to do this and rely heavily on their social or cultural identity, like being religious. This suggests a sort of insecurity, and a traffic for the self as it is unable to set goals worthy of the self.

And it is after all the alternative to an unnecessary and unsupported denial of a belief.

This illustrates how a person cannot control the power and influence of social conformity over the self. You try to suggest the self has no freedom over popular religious belief, but the fact that atheists exist shows you are wrong. This might reflect on a theist's insecurity that much more because they are trapped in their religious framework, like a prison, and won't allow themselves out.

 

[Kharisym]

First of all, I'm a female homo sapien, although some think based on my posts I suppose, that I'm a male. (I'm not.) I think under the circumstances that if I WERE a male I'd hesitate to crochet, although I've read that some men do crochet. I think it's laudable.
I find directions in magazines sometimes hard to follow -- some of my relatives used to go to classes with expert teachers making sure they did the right thing. I never did that. Right now though i don't have too much time to crochet. Although I would like to.
Speaking of counting, I have certain items I have to count and by the time I get to 30 I get lost and have to go back again.
One of my relatives is a research scientist, and in a way I think I would have enjoyed the particularities of research, but maybe in the future. There is so much to learn in life that can be enjoyable. Now there's not that much time. Take care.

Ah.. I hope my post didn't read as me assuming your gender. I apologize if it did, that wasn't my intent.

Forgive me if I go beyond the tenor of this thread, but some of your statements encourage a reply from me. I am glad you said we cannot know anything about what's outside our universe, that makes sense to me. YET people do conjecture how it was formed, based on, I suppose their sense of logic and probabilities regarding energy. I say energy because I'm likening it to mass and density. But who knows? Maybe it's not and some better educated person here can straighten that out.

The challenge is that right now we have no mechanism of measuring anything outside our universe. This isn't to say that we won't someday have that ability, and so there is still value in trying to form ideas about what's outside. If we do establish a means of getting some kind of information from outside our universe, all the theories we've got regarding the extraverse will suddenly become very important. The argument in my OP is dependent upon a lack of knowledge and as soon as we start getting knowledge then it collapses.

 

[KWED]

Atheism is unsupported,

Atheism doesn't need "support" because it is a non-position in the face of claims that are themselves unsupported.
The "support" for atheism is the complete inability of theists to present any evidence or rational argument for god.

but theism is supported through both the experiences of humanity and a reasonable look at the universe and what exists in it.

Nonsense. We know the human mind can produce experiences that are entirely imaginary yet seem very real to the subject.
What we know about the universe does not support the idea of a supernatural designer - especially not the one described in Abrahamic scripture. That god has been effectively disproved.

 

[dybmh]

Occam's razor is not just "simpler is better". It is better described as "The explanation that requires the fewest unsupported assumptions is better".
It is a tool to be applied to arguments or claims, not to art or food or holidays or whatever.

So, if existence is a work of art then Occam's razor wouldn't apply. Same for the story of our lives.

 

[Tinker Grey]

So, if existence is a work of art then Occam's razor wouldn't apply. Same for the story of our lives.

Good thing those aren't works of art.

 

[dybmh]

Good thing those aren't works of art.

That's a subjective opinion.

 

[Tinker Grey]

That's a subjective opinion.

As is the idea that existence is a work of art.

As such, it is therefore possible that OR still applies to existence and lives.

N.B., existence isn't a thing. It's a category into which we place things that are real.

 

[dybmh]

As is the idea that existence is a work of art.

So it's a draw OR may apply or not.

 

[Tinker Grey]

So it's a draw OR may apply or not.

Correct.

 

[Kharisym]

So it's a draw OR may apply or not.

Correct.

Perhaps try and use OR to establish whether the default position should be existence as a work of art or not?

 

[dybmh]

Perhaps try and use OR to establish whether the default position should be existence as a work of art or not?

It still seems like a subjective opinion to me. What objective facts tip the balance for you?

 

[wellwisher]

I was brought up in the Catholic Church. After I was Confirmed at age 13, I decided to became more of an atheist.

My choice to become an atheist was not so much about being against God or my religion. I simply want dto overcome inhibitions created by my religious teachings. I was approaching this with psychology, which was easier to do, from a more godless atheist POV.

For example, the Church would teach no sex before marriage. I did not wish to be a hypocrite, so I felt I needed to leave the high road team, and join the low road team, that used relative morality to justify any choice. But I never went too far, but I kept my eye on the high road, as I walk the low road. I tread to be a good person. I was still spiritual looking for what was common to all, but wanting a more a secular view.

I returned closer to religion in my late twenties. This decision was connected to unconscious mind research I was doing on myself; explore the collective unconscious to gain first person data. The research had reached a point there it was getting scary due to dissociation and unconscious inductions that would induce the fear of going insane. It was good data, but I was getting over my head in the deep water. I could be conscious in dreams and sometimes the dreams would continue after I woke.

During one scary experience, I could feel shear terror in my body but my mind was calm. I remembered the power of prayer. After a few Our Fathers and Hail Marys, the fear in mu body subsided, and I was able to regain my objective observational point of view, as a scientist, so I could analyze the imagery. I realized that prayer was like a shield and my reason was like my sword as I explored the caves off my psyche. After that I had no more fear and could ride out the intensity.

Religion is about the IT of the brain and consciousness with prayers like command lines to the archetypes. These worked in these unique places I had opened. Not much later I read the Bible from cover to cover, highlighting for bible prophesies. This induced a new stage of research, that became like a mystical psychosis, connected to prophesy symbolism; update in the operating system.

Now I consider myself somewhere in the middle between science and religion, theism and atheism. I try to merge the two which gives me a unique POV. I tend to side with religion mostly because it takes the tougher road, walking in faith instead of data.

 

[Kharisym]

It still seems like a subjective opinion to me. What objective facts tip the balance for you?

Oh, that was me stirring the pot. Hence the emoji. It would be a really interesting discussion, but not one I want to take up right now. I'm actually wearing pretty thin and will cut back on these forums this week.

 

[dybmh]

Oh, that was me stirring the pot. Hence the emoji. It would be a really interesting discussion, but not one I want to take up right now. I'm actually wearing pretty thin and will cut back on these forums this week.

OK, thanks for the conversation and an interesting topic.

 

[KWED]

So, if existence is a work of art then Occam's razor wouldn't apply. Same for the story of our lives.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Perhaps try and use OR to establish whether the default position should be existence as a work of art or not?

Either existence sprang into being spontaneously with no agency, no purpose and no intent; billions of years later conscious beings emerged, through the undirected interaction of elements and forces governed by precise, intelligible laws (which themselves emerged entirely at random, without purpose and without agency).

Or creation has a creator, whose purpose included the emergence of conscious beings capable of wondering at it’s glory.

 

[Brian2]

Non-theism is rampant. Even theism itself is non-theistic where it comes to other religions. To Christians Hindus are non-theists since they don't accept Christian ideas. But Hindus are very much theists.

Yes Hindus are very much theists unless you are a Hindu who is an atheist.

Theism as a human and social behavior is supported only as far as social and peer pressure influences how other people behave. Theism itself is no factual, so in logic and debate theism is NOT supported.

I could say the same for atheism.

Theism doesn't have to be justified with evidence and that is because it is justified through social pressure to conform to cultural/religious norms.

Yet theism has evidentiary support in the form of the experiences of humans and in reasoning about the universe.

Given the lack of evidence for any gods a person who resists and rejects social pressure to adopt religious norms do have a certain courage and intellectual integrity. Atheists have no choice but to reject religious concepts sine they cannot be shown to be true.

If theists also know that theism cannot be shown to be true but choose to be theists, then atheists do have a choice.
I could put that choice as a choice between something with no evidentiary support and something with evidentiary support.

False, atheists have vast amounts of meaning as anyone else. But you wise an important point, theists do adopt religious concepts for social meaning. But this is just one the of social meaning, and meaning in life. There are many forms. A city rooting for a sorts team is another form of social meaning.

I suppose you are purposely avoiding what I said.

This social meaning is an undercurrent for the self. Veople need to work and achieve to feel personal meaning and significance in their life. Not all have talent or drive to do this and rely heavily on their social or cultural identity, like being religious. This suggests a sort of insecurity, and a traffic for the self as it is unable to set goals worthy of the self.

Getting our meaning and self esteem from being loved and important to the creator of the universe is an absolute thing and is not the same as the meanings that can come from the world.

This illustrates how a person cannot control the power and influence of social conformity over the self. You try to suggest the self has no freedom over popular religious belief, but the fact that atheists exist shows you are wrong. This might reflect on a theist's insecurity that much more because they are trapped in their religious framework, like a prison, and won't allow themselves out.

This might reflect your experience and I congratulate you on breaking out of prison. I know also that I can break out, but choose to stay where I am and see where I am as the true freedom.

 

[Brian2]

Atheism doesn't need "support" because it is a non-position in the face of claims that are themselves unsupported.
The "support" for atheism is the complete inability of theists to present any evidence or rational argument for god.

There is plenty of evidence and rational argument for God but never enough if someone wants complete certainty.

Nonsense. We know the human mind can produce experiences that are entirely imaginary yet seem very real to the subject.
What we know about the universe does not support the idea of a supernatural designer - especially not the one described in Abrahamic scripture. That god has been effectively disproved.

What is it that is known about the universe which does not support the idea of a supernatural designer?
How has the Abrahamic God been effectively disproven?

 

[KWED]

There is plenty of evidence and rational argument for God but never enough if someone wants complete certainty.

1. I don't need complete certainty, merely a reasonable possibility.
2. There is no evidence that even suggest go may be a reasonable possibility.

What is it that is known about the universe which does not support the idea of a supernatural designer?

Every known explanation does not require a supernatural designer. If a supernatural designer is claimed, there should be some evidence for it.
I guess it could have designed the universe to look like it wasn't designed.

How has the Abrahamic God been effectively disproven?

Because claims made by/about it have been shown to be wrong.