What do Atheist Believe?

[Jacob Samuelson]

When you stop believing in God

Completely? How does someone stop? Is it a choice? Is it an event? Do you need proof of something? Take Santa Clause. Is it when you see your parents putting presents under the tree? Is it because your friends told you? Is it because the claims of reindeer pulling a sleigh all around the world in a single night seemed ridiculous? For God, what did that look like?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Completely? How does someone stop? Is it a choice? Is it an event? Do you need proof of something? Take Santa Clause. Is it when you see your parents putting presents under the tree? Is it because your friends told you? Is it because the claims of reindeer pulling a sleigh all around the world in a single night seemed ridiculous? For God, what did that look like?

Well, I stopped when I was a professional soldier and heard a sermon by our regimental priest that God loved us and he blessed us and our weapons in the name of God as to killing our enemies.
But that is just me.

 

[PureX]

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

1. I can't know they are wrong.
2. What would be the point of telling them they're wrong when I can't know it or prove it, myself?
3. What's the point of my believing they're wrong when I can't know it or prove it even to myself?
4. What IS the point of atheism, again?

 

[PureX]

If there were no proposals as to what any God constituted (as to any existence), would there be any atheists? Given that such almost always comes from some religious text.

People that disagree with religious texts are not technically atheists. Unfortunately, most of them are too ignorant to realize that, so they keep calling themselves atheists, anyway.

 

[Mock Turtle]

People that disagree with religious texts are not technically atheists. Unfortunately, most of them are too ignorant to realize that, so they keep calling themselves atheists, anyway.

So God or gods appear naturally in the human mind? I think not, and usually such ideas do come from parents and such, and usually during schooling. Some just seem to slowly cast this off or don't ever have it if the parents are careful enough. And where else would anyone come across any properties of any God or gods other than from religious texts?

 

[Jacob Samuelson]

I'm not sure why you find this so hard. Everyone can list propositions they believe and ones they don't believe. As @mikkel_the_dane said at the start, an atheist is one who doesn't believe in deities. That tells you almost nothing about what else they believe or don't believe. Some may be physicalists and have a worldview in which only those things for which there is objective evidence are real. Others may observe the religions of the world and their commonalities and come to conclusion they are the result of human psychology rather than being true. Others again may simply see no reason to trouble themselves with the issue at all. (I knew someone like that at university.) But they may believe plenty of other things of course, from political ideologies to the effectiveness of acupuncture. There's nothing about atheism that implies any particularly sceptical cast of mind, though some indeed are natural sceptics.

It is hard because from my understanding Atheism is entirely weighted on rejecting claims made by people's beliefs, typically supported by an idea that there is no physical proof therefore impossible or unreasonable to believe in deities. What I am trying to see is if that same scrutiny is placed in all belief systems outside of deites? If there is a belief structure in other things, why are those things believable and not God? I only ask because for theists the implied hierarchy of belief is God, because this life is finite and God the answer to death and therefore the most important belief to consider. If Atheist also have beliefs in anything, why is are those things more important to allow into their belief structure but not God? It seems all atheists have to reason to not believe in God, but it doesn't answer to me why they choose one belief over another?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Atheism is a statement about what one believes? So what I believe you are saying is, in order to be an atheist you must believe that God does not exist? It seems everyone here is saying it is the lack of belief in God. So who is more correct?

No, atheism only means that one has a lack of belief i n a God. Both hard atheists and soft atheists lack a belief in a God. Hard atheists believe that there is no God.

Let's say that you have three friends. One you trust implicitly. Another is right about half of the time. The third lies all of the time, but you still like him. For the middle one I would neither believe or disbelieve what he claims. I would lack a belief in what he says. That is what soft atheism is like. Give me some evidence or a logical reason and I can change my mind about a belief.

 

[exchemist]

It is hard because from my understanding Atheism is entirely weighted on rejecting claims made by people's beliefs, typically supported by an idea that there is no physical proof therefore impossible or unreasonable to believe in deities. What I am trying to see is if that same scrutiny is placed in all belief systems outside of deites? If there is a belief structure in other things, why are those things believable and not God? I only ask because for theists the implied hierarchy of belief is God, because this life is finite and God the answer to death and therefore the most important belief to consider. If Atheist also have beliefs in anything, why is are those things more important to allow into their belief structure but not God? It seems all atheists have to reason to not believe in God, but it doesn't answer to me why they choose one belief over another?

OK, well, from my post perhaps you can see where you were going wrong. You are assuming all atheists are committed philosophical physicalists. That's simply not the case, as my other examples show. The chap I knew at university simply was not interested in metaphysics at all.

 

[Subduction Zone]

People that disagree with religious texts are not technically atheists. Unfortunately, most of them are too ignorant to realize that, so they keep calling themselves atheists, anyway.

Or you may be ignorant of what an atheist is. There is always that possibility. But it sounds as if you might be trying to make a build a bit of a strawman here.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

So God or gods appear naturally in the human mind? I think not, and usually such ideas do come from parents and such, and usually during schooling. Some just seem to slowly cast this off or don't ever have it if the parents are careful enough. And where else would come across any properties of any God or gods other than from religious texts?

Of course god beliefs appear naturally. How could they not when all that exists is nature? Where *else* would it have come from, before generations started passing it down?

 

[Apostle John]

I used to be an atheist. In retrospect I can see I believed in the unbelievable. Not wishing to light the blue touch paper for other atheists to start ranting but as an atheist I personally would babble endlessly to Christians in my family and anyone that tried to evangelise me that science had all the answers. Thankfully I’m an awakened born again Christian and can now see this is a fantasy belief.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Of course god beliefs appear naturally. How could they not when all that exists is nature? Where *else* would it have come from, before generations started passing it down?

They still had to be passed to babies and children though. They didn't just miraculously appear in their minds. As does the majority of religious belief - being instilled into receptive minds. And the origins might have come from agency, etc., so even if such was 'natural' it was an error - an original sin in fact.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

It is hard because from my understanding Atheism is entirely weighted on rejecting claims made by people's beliefs, typically supported by an idea that there is no physical proof therefore impossible or unreasonable to believe in deities. What I am trying to see is if that same scrutiny is placed in all belief systems outside of deites? If there is a belief structure in other things, why are those things believable and not God? I only ask because for theists the implied hierarchy of belief is God, because this life is finite and God the answer to death and therefore the most important belief to consider. If Atheist also have beliefs in anything, why is are those things more important to allow into their belief structure but not God? It seems all atheists have to reason to not believe in God, but it doesn't answer to me why they choose one belief over another?

You are asking questions about in the end the philosophical positions of a given human combined with their culture and personal experience.
Now that has nothing to do with atheism as such. Rather again that is epistemology, logic, morality and metaphysics.

Now there are several ways to deal with what you post about. But in the end that is not about atheism. That is about the actual given worldview a person has.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

They still had to be passed to babies and children though. They didn't just miraculously appear in their minds. As does the majority of religious belief - being instilled into receptive minds. And the origins might have come from agency, etc., so even if such was 'natural' it was an error.

No ethics or philosophy, sociology or culture appears magically in children's minds, but that doesn't mean they don't arise naturally in populations.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

They still had to be passed to babies and children though. They didn't just miraculously appear in their minds. As does the majority of religious belief - being instilled into receptive minds. And the origins might have come from agency, etc., so even if such was 'natural' it was an error.

Yeah, but is the error natural or supernatural?
OMG, errors are unnatural and proof of God. You have solved it.

 

[Mock Turtle]

No ethics or philosophy, sociology or culture appears magically in children's minds, but that doesn't mean they don't arise naturally in populations.

What on earth is 'naturally' meaning here, when whatever we get to learn or just accept comes from how we interact with others - usually the caregivers, peers and all the rest of society. We might have some inbuilt nature as to morals - from the current evidence - but mostly everything else comes from how we are brought up, and our inbuilt nature. How far are you going to go back to show where these things you quoted arose?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

What on earth is 'naturally' meaning here, when whatever we get to learn or just accept comes from how we interact with others - usually the caregivers, peers and all the rest of society. We might have some inbuilt nature as to morals - from the current evidence - but mostly everything else comes from how we are brought up, and our inbuilt nature. How far are you going to go back to show where these things you quoted arose?

They come from God. The first humans don't come from nature. They appeared in Africa as done by God. Your thoughts and culture come from God in the end.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

What on earth is 'naturally' meaning here, when whatever we get to learn or just accept comes from how we interact with others - usually the caregivers, peers and all the rest of society. We might have some inbuilt nature as to morals - from the current evidence - but mostly everything else comes from how we are brought up, and our inbuilt nature. How far are you going to go back to show where these things you quoted arose?

Everything that exists in nature is natural. That's not a value judgement, and ascribing 'natural = good and unnatural = bad" is the very definition of a naturalism fallacy.

God beliefs arose naturally because they could not have arose any other way. It isn't as though every theist on every corner of the continent only heard about God's from their parents, whose ancestory mysteriously gotthe idea somehow unnaturally.

The notions of gods have rose independently multiple times through multiple cultures in many many variations. There wasn't just one zeitgeist. And of course, they all arose naturally from a physicalist view because that's all there is.

That doesn't mean it's factually correct, lots of factually incorrect beliefs are still natural conclusions many humans come to. (I.e. the global incorrect view that our sun is yellow.)

But it does mean it's natural.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Everything that exists in nature is natural. That's not a value judgement, and ascribing 'natural = good and unnatural = bad" is the very definition of a naturalism fallacy.

God beliefs arose naturally because they could not have arose any other way. It isn't as though every theist on every corner of the continent only heard about God's from their parents, whose ancestory mysteriously gotthe idea somehow unnaturally.

The notions of gods have rose independently multiple times through multiple cultures in many many variations. There wasn't just one zeitgeist. And of course, they all arose naturally from a physicalist view because that's all there is.

That doesn't mean it's factually correct, lots of factually incorrect beliefs are still natural conclusions many humans come to. (I.e. the global incorrect view that our sun is yellow.)

But it does mean it's natural.

But more than likely this notion (a God) is a refined version of whatever went before - the animism, agency assigned to certain events, multiple gods, etc., so how exactly natural is that? More like just evolving conceptions. So the God concept isn't that natural I would assert - given it wouldn't fly into a babies brain - without aid.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

But more than likely this notion (a God) is a refined version of whatever went before - the animism, agency assigned to certain events, multiple gods, etc., so how exactly natural is that? More like just evolving conceptions. So the God concept isn't that natural I would assert - given it wouldn't fly into a babies brain - without aid.

So where did it come from if not natural brains and their cognition? Who gave the aid if not other natural humans?