If We All Became Atheists?

[Mock Turtle]

If atheism were appealing to the masses, you wouldn’t have to promote it.

Something missing here methinks. Like for a start, the majority of people get their religion as children and hence don't have a say as to such. Something other than the religion they get might be more appealing if they did actually have a choice as to this. Anticipating your next - why don't they change later then, when they have the choice? Well possibly many don't actually have much of a choice, given the cultural pressures or simple peer pressure. And possibly few will be up to the task of assessing all the other various options or just can't be bothered.

 

[Balthazzar]

That approach would need "deities" to have a coherent meaning. What is it?

Personally, I've only ever been able to define what a deity or a god is by listing specific gods: Thor is on the list, but Superman isn't; the divine messenger Mercury is on the list, but the divine messenger Gabriel isn't; ruler of the underworld Hades is on the list, but ruler of the underworld Satan isn't, etc.

There doesn't seem to be any coherence to what is or isn't a deity as far as I can tell, but you'd need it if someone were to reject "deities" as a category.

Superman was made up entirely, but maybe inspired by other elements. Thor may have been a real person whose life was exaggerated, which is nothing new. The same may be true for Mercury, and Gabriel IS on the list, but defined by term differently. The ruler of hades is on the list and I'm guessing has many names in association, but Satan isn't. This is likely due to the fact that Satan is simply a term that is defined as adversary, which we have many of in life.

 

[PureX]

I was a christian for 18 years and I did not choose to become an atheist. What unconvinced me was realizing the evidence that convinced me god was real was flawed in many ways. I could no longer believe, it was not a choice.

Bob met a woman named Sarah, and they 'hit it off'. And as he get to know her better, over time, he realized that she is everything he wants in a life-mate. She's fun and funny and smart and pretty and so on ... so he falls in love with her. And he is very happy.

One day Bob accidentally discovers that Sarah is going out with other men, and is having sex with them, and has been lying to him about it all along. Bob is shocked, and furious, and heart-broken, as most anyone would be. The woman that he believed in, and fell in love with, turned out not to be who he believed and loved her to be.

So now Bob hates Sarah for not being the woman he had believed her to be. And he blames the deception entirely on her. And of course he could never love her now, after having discovered that she had done this to him.

But the real truth of the matter is that Bob COULD CHOOSE to forgive Sarah. He could choose to take part of the responsibility for the deception on himself; ... for seeing only what he wanted to see, and for not seeing any other possibilities. For only caring about who Sarah was TO HIM, and never wondering about who Sarah is to herself.

Bob actually had a lot of options he could have chosen besides just hating and blaming Sarah. But he wasn't looking for those other options. Just as he wasn't looking for any other versions of Sarah. Bob says and believes that he had no choice once he discovered that Sarah was lying to him. But no matter how intently he believes that, it will never really be true, Because there were always other options. And just because he ignored them, and never even considered them, doesn't mean they didn't or don't exist. Or that he could not have chosen one of them, instead.

Perhaps if Bob had not been such a narcissistic 'black and white' thinker, he would have been able to see Sarah more realistically in the first place. And then avoided all this hate and heart-break. But he didn't. Mostly because he believes he couldn't. Even though he could've.

We have to see the choices before we can choose one of them. refusing to look for them does not mean they are not there.

 

[Heyo]

To all those who think babies can't be atheists, please apply a little (Aristotelian) logic.
In Aristotelian logic, we have the principle of the excluded middle, i.e. someone is either a theist (believes in at least one god) or not. So, everyone who isn't a theist is automatically an atheist, which includes babies.
On the other hand, is a stone an atheist? With the above definition, we can argue that applying either atheist or theist to a stone would be a category error, as per definition, you'd have to be a person for the quality to apply to you, it can't be used on non-persons.

 

[PureX]

Theism is programmed into the human experience.

Religions are what result from that theistic experience.

The atheist wants to reject theism by rejecting the religions that result. But religion is not theism and theism is not religion. So rejecting religion does not negate theism.

Think of it like music and dance.

People dance in response to how the music they hear makes them feel. Dance is the physical manifestation of the human experience of hearing music.

But music and dance are not the same things. The latter follows from the former. And stopping people from dancing will not negate the reality of our experience of hearing music.

The atheists says, "But I cannot hear the music, so the dancing is nonsense!".

Sorry, but that is because you are not listening.

 

[Quintessence]

Pros - humans stop conflating theology with religion, humans go extinct and no longer exist
Cons - humans are extinct and no longer exist

 

[Mock Turtle]

Pros: Might remove one reason to kill or abuse others.
Cons: Plenty of other reasons to kill or abuse others.

But the latter issues might be able to be worked on, whereas the religious stuff, not so much - given history and the present.

 

[RestlessSoul]

To all those who think babies can't be atheists, please apply a little (Aristotelian) logic.
In Aristotelian logic, we have the principle of the excluded middle, i.e. someone is either a theist (believes in at least one god) or not. So, everyone who isn't a theist is automatically an atheist, which includes babies.
On the other hand, is a stone an atheist? With the above definition, we can argue that applying either atheist or theist to a stone would be a category error, as per definition, you'd have to be a person for the quality to apply to you, it can't be used on non-persons.

I think this illustrates a failure of binary logic - it's very rarely the case that that something either is or is not. With the Tetralemma, for any logical proposition there are not two but four possibilities to any proposition P;

1. P is affirmed
2. P is negated
3. Both P and not P
4. Neither P nor not P

The logical response to the proposition "babies are atheists" is 4. above; a baby neither is nor is not an atheist.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Superman was made up entirely, but maybe inspired by other elements.

We can find plenty of entirely made-up gods in fiction. They're still gods even though they're fictional.

 

[Clizby Wampuscat]

Bob met a woman named Sarah, and they 'hit it off'. And as he get to know her better, over time, he realized that she is everything he wants in a life-mate. She's fun and funny and smart and pretty and so on ... so he falls in love with her. And he is very happy.

One day Bob accidentally discovers that Sarah is going out with other men, and is having sex with them, and has been lying to him about it all along. Bob is shocked, and furious, and heart-broken, as most anyone would be. The woman that he believed in, and fell in love with, turned out not to be who he believed and loved her to be.

So now Bob hates Sarah for not being the woman he had believed her to be. And he blames the deception entirely on her. And of course he could never love her now, after having discovered that she had done this to him.

But the real truth of the matter is that Bob COULD CHOOSE to forgive Sarah. He could choose to take part of the responsibility for the deception on himself; ... for seeing only what he wanted to see, and for not seeing any other possibilities. For only caring about who Sarah was TO HIM, and never wondering about who Sarah is to herself.

Bob actually had a lot of options he could have chosen besides just hating and blaming Sarah. But he wasn't looking for those other options. Just as he wasn't looking for any other versions of Sarah. Bob says and believes that he had no choice once he discovered that Sarah was lying to him. But no matter how intently he believes that, it will never really be true, Because there were always other options. And just because he ignored them, and never even considered them, doesn't mean they didn't or don't exist. Or that he could not have chosen one of them, instead.

Perhaps if Bob had not been such a narcissistic 'black and white' thinker, he would have been able to see Sarah more realistically in the first place. And then avoided all this hate and heart-break. But he didn't. Mostly because he believes he couldn't. Even though he could've.

We have to see the choices before we can choose one of them. refusing to look for them does not mean they are not there.

I am not sure how this applies to my post. We can choose lots of things. I have only claimed that we cannot choose to believe something we are convinced is not true by evidence. We need new evidence or a different way we evaluate the evidence to be convinced to change our minds. This is what happened to me as to my god belief.

You have not answered this question I have asked many times. Can you choose to believe the moon is made of cheese?

 

[SalixIncendium]

If all would become atheists, I believe humans would eventually regress to animal level. This doesn't mean atheists are all animal level, only that it would lead to that, because atheism doesn't raise spirit to achieve greater things than what can be seen. Some would obviously think it is good, I would not like that.

All humans are "animal level," because all humans are animals.

 

[Heyo]

I think this illustrates a failure of binary logic - it's very rarely the case that that something either is or is not. With the Tetralemma, for any logical proposition there are not two but four possibilities to any proposition P;

1. P is affirmed
2. P is negated
3. Both P and not P
4. Neither P nor not P

The logical response to the proposition "babies are atheists" is 4. above; a baby neither is nor is not an atheist.

You don't have to throw out the baby with the bathwater (pun intended).
Just like I did with the stone, you have to re-categorize.
The original proposition is "there is a god". Aside from my usual argument that that isn't a statement since "god" is undefined, that statement can only be true or false, the excluded middle applies.
A theist is someone who affirms the statement. The excluded middle still applies, as the negation is "someone who does not affirm the statement".
You can now argue that "babies are atheists" would be a category error, as they are unable to affirm or deny.

 

[PureX]

We can find plenty of entirely made-up gods in fiction. They're still gods even though they're fictional.

All gods are fictional. That does not, however, mean they are not actual.

 

[SalixIncendium]

Nonsense -- no child is born thinking of anything like a Santa Claus, and doesn't even consider such a notion until told there is one -- and the same with gods.

Atheism is a philosophical position only in the category of philosophy of religion -- and if there were no religion, there would be no philosophy of it.

Nonsense.

I don't disagree with what you said. I just wanted you to see how it feels when someone calls what you say nonsense.

 

[Clizby Wampuscat]

Theism is programmed into the human experience.

Religions are what result from that theistic experience.

The atheist wants to reject theism by rejecting the religions that result. But religion is not theism and theism is not religion. So rejecting religion does not negate theism.

Think of it like music and dance.

People dance in response to how the music they hear makes them feel. Dance is the physical manifestation of the human experience of hearing music.

But music and dance are not the same things. The latter follows from the former. And stopping people from dancing will not negate the reality of our experience of hearing music.

The atheists says, "But I cannot hear the music, so the dancing is nonsense!".

Sorry, but that is because you are not listening.

My life experience say to me this is not true. Deconverting from a belief that I held for many years was not easy and I certainly did not want to have it happen at the time. My life was turned upside down and would have been easier for me to just keep believing. I tried hard to listen to god and try to keep my belief.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Theism is programmed into the human experience.

Religions are what result from that theistic experience.

The atheist wants to reject theism by rejecting the religions that result. But religion is not theism and theism is not religion. So rejecting religion does not negate theism.

Think of it like music and dance.

People dance in response to how the music they hear makes them feel. Dance is the physical manifestation of the human experience of hearing music.

But music and dance are not the same things. The latter follows from the former. And stopping people from dancing will not negate the reality of our experience of hearing music.

The atheists says, "But I cannot hear the music, so the dancing is nonsense!".

Sorry, but that is because you are not listening.

So when did our ancestors start listening?

 

[Secret Chief]

To all those who think babies can't be atheists, please apply a little (Aristotelian) logic.
In Aristotelian logic, we have the principle of the excluded middle, i.e. someone is either a theist (believes in at least one god) or not. So, everyone who isn't a theist is automatically an atheist, which includes babies.
On the other hand, is a stone an atheist? With the above definition, we can argue that applying either atheist or theist to a stone would be a category error, as per definition, you'd have to be a person for the quality to apply to you, it can't be used on non-persons.

Fair enough. I genuinely cannot recall who claimed it but I have previously been told on RF (by a self-identified atheist) that yes a rock is an atheist. I think it was said with a straight face.

 

[PureX]

I am not sure how this applies to my post. We can choose lots of things. I have only claimed that we cannot choose to believe something we are convinced is not true by evidence.

But all you are saying here is that you cannot choose to believe something that you have already chosen not to believe. I agree. But I am pointing out to you that this is ALL YOUR CHOICE. Your "evidence" is just your justification for the choice you made. It's 'circular' reasoning. "I believe it is so because the evidence says it is so" - "The evidence says it is so because I believe the evidence is so".

"I believe that having no evidence that Bigfoot exists is evidence that Bigfoot does not exist". See? ... You are choosing both the evidence and the conclusion. This is circular reasoning. It's like saying, "I believe that God wrote the Bible because the Bible says that God wrote it and I believe what the Bible says. You are choosing both the evidence (the Bible) and the conclusion (that God wrote it) and then using the conclusion to justify the evidence, and the evidence to justify the conclusion.

We need new evidence or a different way we evaluate the evidence to be convinced to change our minds. This is what happened to me as to my god belief.

We need to step outside the prison cell of our own circular reasoning. No evidence of Bigfoot is just no evidence. It supports no conclusion. If we believe that no evidence proved there is no Bigfoot that is purely our choice. The Bible is not the evidence of it's own divinity unless we choose to believe that it is. The point here is that our belief is not reality or truth. It is simply our choosing to hold some idea up as being reality and truth.

You have not answered this question I have asked many times. Can you choose to believe the moon is made of cheese?

It's a stupid question. Please stop asking it.

 

[F1fan]

A lack of belief is an opinion.

I disagree where it comes to critical thinkers who can’t form a positive opinion about religious claims due to them lacking evidence. They are further deemed implausible since their supernatural nature is something that isn’t observed as real.

Believers csn form positive opinions because they aren’t following evidence nor reasoning. Whatever they think is true and valid comes from a non -rational approach.

 

[PureX]

So when did our ancestors start listening?

No one knows when we humans became capable of perceiving/conceiving (experiencing) the divine within nature. But the evidence of our having these experiences goes back as far as the evidence of human existence. It was already happening when we chose to bury our dead. And to bury them with the tools they would need to survive in an "afterlife".