What do Atheist Believe?

[RestlessSoul]

I promise you that I am not consciously choosing to "deny the sunlight." I genuinely do not see it, and every attempt theists have made to show me it just comes across as irrational or baseless. I'm still waiting for one to demonstrate the existence or truth of what they're talking about, but it has yet to happen.

At this point, I'm starting to give up the search. I imagine if there really was good, demonstrable evidence for theism or the "Great Reality," it would have come up in a conversation by now. It hasn't. I just get nonsense.

You have to find a connection to God for yourself, no one else can do it for you. But it’s not so difficult, others have walked the path before you;

“Deep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there. For faith in a Power greater than ourselves, and miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives, are facts as old as man himself.

We finally saw that faith in some kind of God was a part of our make up, just as much as the feeling we have for a friend. Sometimes we had to search fearlessly, but He was there. He was as much a fact as we were. We found the Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that He may be found.”

- Bill W.

 

[Ella S.]

You have to find a connection to God for yourself, no one else can do it for you. But it’s not so difficult, others have walked the path before you;

“Deep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there. For faith in a Power greater than ourselves, and miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives, are facts as old as man himself.

We finally saw that faith in some kind of God was a part of our make up, just as much as the feeling we have for a friend. Sometimes we had to search fearlessly, but He was there. He was as much a fact as we were. We found the Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that He may be found.”

- Bill W.

What a thought-stopping cop-out

 

[RestlessSoul]

What a thought-stopping cop-out

Now you're getting it.

Stop thinking for a while, silence the restless chatter of your monkey mind, and perhaps you'll begin to understand your true nature.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Arguing for the non-existence of everything is not the same as arguing for the existence of God.

Well, I am so much as skeptic that I can think about the world in an everyday sense without using the concept of existence.
I do a variant of non-metaphysics and non-ontology for which I don't use existence and non-existence.
To me you can believe in existence, but you can't do without it just as God or that the universe is physical.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I don’t actually think most atheists include their atheism in their self-identity. That would be a bit like you including a lack of belief in, say, unicorns, in your self-identity:

“Hello, my name is X and I don’t believe in unicorns.” Is not something I’d expect to hear from someone introducing themselves.

Humbly,
Hermit

Yes, you are right. They include positive views of in effect correct knowledge for what the world really is.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

What a thought-stopping cop-out

Well, yes and no. I would use different words and don't claim e.g. He and view miracle in a non-theistic sense, but yes, I do get it.

 

[Hermit Philosopher]

Yes, you are right. They include positive views of in effect correct knowledge for what the world really is.

Hi Mikkel, how do you mean?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Hi Mikkel, how do you mean?

Well, forget atheists. Some atheists irrelevant for being atheists, becasue we are talking about something else than being atheists are positive in what they can say is the correct knowledge, rationality and what the world is. For the latter e.g. the universe is physical and they know that and that is the only rational way to understand the world/universe.

Never claim that is the view of atheists. It is not. It is something where there is an overlap with them being atheists.

 

[viole]

Ok. So why can't you say you KNOW theists are wrong? Why use 'belief'?

Keep me out. I know theists are wrong. For I am gnostic atheist.

Ciao

- viole

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Keep me out. I know theists are wrong. For I am gnostic atheist.

Ciao

- viole

Yeah, you are as funny as some theists.

 

[LuisDantas]

It seems to me that Atheists are most concerned with proof. Not only that they typically want it handed to them on a silver platter served by an angel from heaven. I mean don't get me wrong, all of us would probably love for that to happen, but what I am curious to know is: Is there anything that Atheist believe in? I mean, does an atheist live life expecting everything to be explainable.... factual.... proven? Is there anything, metaphysical or physical, that they actually believe in or do they just rely on their concrete proof and knowledge? If they do believe in something... anything? Why? I'm curious.

There is literally nothing uniting all or even most atheists beyond the very minor matter of disbelief in the literal existence of any deities.


How we came to that conclusion, how aware we are of our own atheism, how important it is and whether it leads to any sort of motivation are separate matters that can go in all kinds of directions.

However, people who self-identify as atheists tend to occur in certain (mostly Abrahamic) social contexts - because the self-identification would be unnecessary and meaningless otherwise.

Of those, many won't go out of their way to declare themselves openly for various reasons.

So from the start you may be dealing with a non-representative sample of us atheists.

I will advise you not to assume that we generally care whether any form of deity exists, nor that there is a clear preference on the matter even in specific subgroups. We are not even always more skeptical than those around us.

At the end of the day, atheism is just a particular, specific yet vague epistemological and aesthetical stance.