What makes somebody atheist and not a theist?

[sun rise]

Most people 'start out' with no beliefs. The religious beliefs of their parents are downloaded some time later, before the child has developed any firewalls or ability to reason or think critically.

Most people, babies, start out with little if any thought of any kind. And thinking critically is not limited to atheists. Two examples, the second with a "how to":

Critical Thinking in Religious Education​

The Importance of Critical Thinking in Religion​

But How Do I Practice Critical Thinking?

• Ask questions
• Learn logic and reasoning skills.
• Study your religion and others.
• Study opposing views
• Study related fields in both the sciences and philosophy, including the philosophy of religion.
• Find reasons for your beliefs that satisfy not only you but would be persuasive to others.
• Seek the truth, whatever it may be, regardless of what you wish or hope to be true.
• Don’t just bash other views or defend your own.
• Seek not only to criticize but to understand.
• Humbly acknowledge when you are wrong.

 

[Heyo]

Theres actually been several studies to find that over the years.

To find what exactly? Invisible friends? Attributing agenticity to non-living entities? Superstition?
Journalist love to trivialise findings and sometimes a god-damned particle becomes a god particle.
Scientists avoid the word god as it has no agreed upon definition.

 

[sun rise]

Scientists avoid the word god as it has no agreed upon definition.

That's a logical fallacy because many scientists are religious. Many.

List of Christians in science and technology​

this list does not include scientists who are members of other religions.

 

[Heyo]

Hmm, I've heard this argument a fair number of times and now might not be the best time to address it but I'm gonna anyway. There is no "default" position when you're born, that's a complete misnomer.

With how many god believes is a human born?
If the number of gods you believe in is zero, you're an atheist.

At least by the most inclusive definition of atheist. You'll have to fight that out with the atheists who insist on that definition. You might reject that definition and call a newborn a "none" or "unbeliever" or any moniker that denotes the same.
The fact remains that humans are not born with any belief.
Most have the capacity for superstition (though not all).

 

[Heyo]

That's a logical fallacy because many scientists are religious. Many.

List of Christians in science and technology​

this list does not include scientists who are members of other religions.

And now show me list of scientific papers that include the word "god".
Scientists may be religious but god is not a subject in science.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

To find what exactly? Invisible friends? Attributing agenticity to non-living entities? Superstition?
Journalist love to trivialise findings and sometimes a god-damned particle becomes a god particle.
Scientists avoid the word god as it has no agreed upon definition.

It's that we appear to be inclined to hold religious beliefs.

 

[sun rise]

And now show me list of scientific papers that include the word "god".
Scientists may be religious but god is not a subject in science.

True. God by definition is non-material and the material world is the subject of science. But there is an active field called neurotheology where the research is focused on the impact on the brain of religious belief. And there are people who research NDEs Doctor Who Studied 5,000 Near-Death Experience Cases Claims There Is Life After Death but that is of course not about God since life after death does not necessarily involve the divine.

 

[Valjean]

No, a child is born, one free from any sort of label or tag where it comes to this subject. What happens further down the line is something else but to say that theists are "made" pretty much leads to a cul de sac of any meaningful conversation.

You believe a child would become a theist spontaneously, without any enculturation?

 

[Hockeycowboy]

What makes somebody atheist and not a theist?

Teaching that God burns & torments people in fire.

That no doubt helped to start the movement in countries under Christendom’s control.

 

[Valjean]

Most people, babies, start out with little if any thought of any kind. And thinking critically is not limited to atheists. Two examples, the second with a "how to":

Critical Thinking in Religious Education​

The Importance of Critical Thinking in Religion​

But How Do I Practice Critical Thinking?

• Ask questions
• Learn logic and reasoning skills.
• Study your religion and others.
• Study opposing views
• Study related fields in both the sciences and philosophy, including the philosophy of religion.
• Find reasons for your beliefs that satisfy not only you but would be persuasive to others.
• Seek the truth, whatever it may be, regardless of what you wish or hope to be true.
• Don’t just bash other views or defend your own.
• Seek not only to criticize but to understand.
• Humbly acknowledge when you are wrong.

This sounds good, but I never see it. People on RF have been asking for reasonable, objective justifications for religion -- specifically theism -- since the forum began. I have yet to see anyone produce tangible evidence justifying a belief in God.
If you can provide some, we'd certainly be interested.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

I was a good little monotheist at one time. Then I was an atheist for a little while. Then I learned about joining the gods (dark side).


Can't beat 'em.................

Anakin Skywalker, reborn!

 

[Valjean]

That's a logical fallacy because many scientists are religious. Many.

List of Christians in science and technology​

this list does not include scientists who are members of other religions.

"Logical fallacy?" What fallacy is that?

Leading scientists still reject God - Nature

www.nature.com

"Our chosen group of “greater” scientists were members of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Our survey found near universal rejection of the transcendent by NAS natural scientists. Disbelief in God and immortality among NAS biological scientists was 65.2% and 69.0%, respectively, and among NAS physical scientists it was 79.0% and 76.3%. Most of the rest were agnostics on both issues, with few believers. We found the highest percentage of belief among NAS mathematicians (14.3% in God, 15.0% in immortality). Biological scientists had the lowest rate of belief (5.5% in God, 7.1% in immortality), with physicists and astronomers slightly higher (7.5% in God, 7.5% in immortality)."

 

[Hockeycowboy]

But How Do I Practice Critical Thinking?

• Ask questions
• Learn logic and reasoning skills.
• Study your religion and others.
• Study opposing views
• Study related fields in both the sciences and philosophy, including the philosophy of religion.
• Find reasons for your beliefs that satisfy not only you but would be persuasive to others.
• Seek the truth, whatever it may be, regardless of what you wish or hope to be true.
• Don’t just bash other views or defend your own.
• Seek not only to criticize but to understand.
• Humbly acknowledge when you are wrong.

This is good.

I plan on using it later, if you don’t mind.

 

[Heyo]

"Logical fallacy?" What fallacy is that?

Leading scientists still reject God - Nature

www.nature.com

"Our chosen group of “greater” scientists were members of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Our survey found near universal rejection of the transcendent by NAS natural scientists. Disbelief in God and immortality among NAS biological scientists was 65.2% and 69.0%, respectively, and among NAS physical scientists it was 79.0% and 76.3%. Most of the rest were agnostics on both issues, with few believers. We found the highest percentage of belief among NAS mathematicians (14.3% in God, 15.0% in immortality). Biological scientists had the lowest rate of belief (5.5% in God, 7.1% in immortality), with physicists and astronomers slightly higher (7.5% in God, 7.5% in immortality)."

And yet, not one of those meet the (arbitrary) threshold of 95% for a consensus.

 

[Valjean]

It doesn't, God is the conclusion.

Of what argument or set of facts?

 

[Secret Chief]

That definition is accepted by almost no atheist today, and specifically denied by current atheist organizations.

What is Atheism?

Atheism is one thing: A lack of belief in gods. It is not an affirmative belief that there is no god nor does it answer any other question about a person.

www.atheists.org

So newborns are atheists by this definition then? If so I consider that utterly ridiculous. You might as well say a foetus is an atheist. Or a haploid cell. Oh, wait, they are...

 

[Secret Chief]

Valid point, but it presumes atheism a considered ontological opinion, rather than a de facto lack of belief.
Either definition is reasonable, but most atheists today prefer the simple, lack-of-belief position.

Until I'd participated in these two threads on atheism I could have been forced at gun point to say "OK I'm an atheist" but now I have seen claims that newborns and (seriously) rocks are atheistic I would reject (if such is what atheism includes) the assertion of me being an atheist on the grounds that I consider there is NO default position at birth and a lump of rock has NO philosophical position on an issue (and that atheism IS a considered, cognitive position). I consider myself, in some ways, to be different than both a newborn and a rock.


I think at the next religious education school lesson (in the philosophy & ethics dept) that I'm in, I'll raise the idea of rocks being atheistic to see what the teacher and the pupils make of it.

"Atheists are described as people who..."
"Atheists believe..."
--->
- Religious Studies KS3: A is for Atheism

(This video was played to a class I was in last term).

Frankly, I'm gobsmacked. Or to put it another way, this has been enlightening.

 

[Secret Chief]

Hmm, I've heard this argument a fair number of times and now might not be the best time to address it but I'm gonna anyway. There is no "default" position when you're born, that's a complete misnomer. People are no more "born" an atheist than they are theist or any other "ist" or any similar terms. The only way such terms hold any kind of meaning is to accept that they're arrived at once cognitive development has reached a certain stage where independent thought is in the equation. I'm not an atheist and nor do I subscribe to any 'organized religion', nor was I was indoctrinated into the position I am now which is supposedly contrary to the "default" one you posit I was born with. These things are rather more nuanced and complex than soundbites and rhetoric.

My thoughts entirely.

 

[Secret Chief]

Most people, babies, start out with little if any thought of any kind. And thinking critically is not limited to atheists. Two examples, the second with a "how to":

Critical Thinking in Religious Education​

The Importance of Critical Thinking in Religion​

But How Do I Practice Critical Thinking?

• Ask questions
• Learn logic and reasoning skills.
• Study your religion and others.
• Study opposing views
• Study related fields in both the sciences and philosophy, including the philosophy of religion.
• Find reasons for your beliefs that satisfy not only you but would be persuasive to others.
• Seek the truth, whatever it may be, regardless of what you wish or hope to be true.
• Don’t just bash other views or defend your own.
• Seek not only to criticize but to understand.
• Humbly acknowledge when you are wrong.

Come on, how is a rock supposed to do all this?

 

[Valjean]

Until I'd participated in these two threads on atheism I could have been forced at gun point to say "OK I'm an atheist" but now I have seen claims that newborns and (seriously) rocks are atheistic I would reject the assertion of me being an atheist on the grounds that I consider there is NO default position at birth and a lump of rock has NO philosophical position on an issue (and that atheism IS a considered, cognitive position). I consider myself, in some ways, to be different than both a newborn and a rock. I think at the next religious education school lesson (in the philosophy & ethics dept) that I'm in, I'll raise the idea of rocks being atheistic to see what the teacher and the pupils make of it.


Frankly, I'm gobsmacked. Or to put it another way, this has been enlightening.

Is your lack of belief in the glatnufeths of Sirius 3 a philosophical position, or just a lack?

Based on the fact that I just made them up, I'm guessing it's just a lack, like the lack of belief of an infant who's never heard of God, but I understand your point, and have read similar arguments from respected intellectuals. I just use the term more broadly and literally, as do most of the atheists I'm aware of.