For real I don't think anyone would want to argue about something they don't believe in. Believers argue about what they believe in which is their god. So why do many like arguing about a god they don't believe in/lack the belief in? Hey I'm with you in lacking the belief but I can't figure out why so much time is wasted arguing about what's not believed in.
Am I missing something?
Yes. For starters, why skeptics are here. You're an unbeliever. What are you doing here? Probably not arguing about gods. Neither am I or most other skeptics. I argue against faith, including god beliefs, but always why it's wrong for me - why I reject it. I don't care if others believe in gods. And I argue against anti-scientism.
You've already been given answers about secularists opposing theocratic tendencies in organized, politicized religions, and I agree with that. That's my definition of antitheism, incidentally. It's not an action against theists, or even their religions, but against their religion's cultural hegemony and political power.
I participate in these discussions for a variety of good reasons.
First, it's an excellent opportunity to improve one's critical thinking skills by constructing sound arguments and evaluating the arguments of the believers, as well as seeing how they use evidence and what they consider evidence.
I've had occasion to reexamine what I mean by words like atheist, god, truth, evidence, reality, faith, objective, knowledge, supernatural, and existence. Basic philosophy.
Also, it an excellent opportunity to survey a broad range of people and their thinking for years with many, and especially how religion and faith-based thought in general affects their thinking and beliefs. It's not just their religious beliefs that are interesting, but their other faith-based beliefs such as regarding vaccines. That's just as interesting and useful as the religious discussions. I'm constantly gaining new insights here. It was this year that it finally dawned on me that most of those not skilled in critical thinking don't know what it is or what it can do epistemologically. It's not that they'd like to be able to do it better, but just don't have the skills or the means to acquire them, or even that they consider it unnecessary, but that they don't even know what it is.
That becomes apparent from the comments that indicate that many people think all opinions are arrived at the same way, the way they do it, and that therefore no opinion is better than any other. People who understand the value of critical thinking but don't feel qualified to do it understand that experts actually know more than they do, and will take a vaccine because experts recommend it even without being able to understand the data they are basing their informed opinions on. These are the knowingly unknowing, who recognize the knowingly knowing and heed their counsel. The other group, blissfully unaware of any of this, are what I have come to call the unknowingly unknowing. It's helpful to understand that many people fall into this category before trying to discuss anything with them. They become offended when you tell them that they are wrong, which one can understand if he recognizes that they really do believe that all opinions are just guesses, and that theirs are as good as any other.
As a result, one change I've made in my approach to faith-based thinkers like theists is to not ask for evidence, but to simply declare that they have none. Yes, I might say that some day to somebody who actually produces some, and eat crow, but I'll take that chance. It hasn't happened yet. The value there is that leaving posts asking for evidence often just get ignored. Then, if I want to make the point that no evidence was offered, it's another post about a topic already run from and likely forgotten. I'd rather resolve the matter right there. No reply to that claim means more than ignoring a request for evidence. I can then say not just that the other failed to provide evidence, but that he didn't because as predicted, he couldn't.
I've also learned not to provide evidence for such people. They don't really care about it. They don't look at it or discuss it. I've come to understand that this is posturing to pretend that the faith based thinker cares about evidence that he would already have if he were sincere, and also to reject whatever was offered as if it were inadequate because a person committed to not being convinced wasn't. I just tell them this, and send them packing to Google, offering to discuss whatever they learned there and brought back to the thread. Anybody care to guess how often that's happened?
I also learned a lot about human nature here discussing the vaccine thing, and I didn't like what I saw. In thousands of words from unvaccinated people posting here, I never saw a single mention of responsibilities, just rights, and just their rights. Nor did I ever see a single word showing any interest in what concerns the vaccinated. If just once I had read, "I realize that you find me a threat to you in my unvaccinated state, and that you think people like me are being irrational and allowing the pandemic to smoulder hotter and longer than necessary, but you need to understand that I'm afraid, too - of the vaccine. I just can't give you what you want. I'm sorry."
But that never happens. All I've seen is more language about themselves and the rights they claim with no acknowledgement that they also have responsibilities, that others also have rights at odds with the ones they claim for themselves, or that the other people have a legitimate concern. I hadn't realized how many such people there are out there. With about 1/3 of eligible Americans
still unvaccinated, I have to assume that I just described a huge swathe of Americans.
I've also learned from witnessing the degree of atheophobia we see among the faithful, and the way that such people get their information about atheists. Not from the worlds or observed behavior of the unbelievers they see. I don't think I've gotten one to understand what atheism means to most atheists, or that most atheists don't deny the existence of a god, or that we aren't here trolling and attacking their beliefs. So many have simply decided that we are immoral top to bottom. They've been taught that, but not by observing atheists. It's a second reason to be antitheist - to oppose the institution propagating that bigotry.
Anyway, plenty of good reasons to be here, including reading fellow skeptics' arguments, but arguing about the various gods that believers believe in isn't one of them. You're right. That would be a waste of time not only because it would be impossible to make any headway against a faith-based confirmation bias, but because it really doesn't matter. I've said repeatedly that if my neighbor wants to dance around a tree in his back yard at midnight baying at the full moon while shaking a stick with a chicken claw nailed to it in order to center himself and give his like meaning, that's fine, as long as he keeps the noise down. I might ask him how he came to his beliefs, but I'm not going to argue with him about them, or even ask about his god, if any. He'll likely sense that I don't agree, which he is free to understand as me telling him he's wrong or stupid - theists have a tendency to see disagreement as attack and have an emotional response to it, so it's probably best to confine that activity to the Internet, where such feelings don't manifest as feuding neighbors, workplace squabbles, or family rifts.
And it's the same here on RF. I never try to talk others out of their beliefs. I simply explain mine, why I believe them, and why I don't believe what they do. I've commented several times on these threads that I don't think most people in the last third of their lives are capable of a major shift in their worldview. I did it at 20 when I became a Christian, which was easy, and again at 30 when I returned to atheism, which was much more difficult and disorienting, but I still had the time and the resources to reshape my mental landscape. I believe that if I could pull that rug out from somebody in his 60s or above, that it would likely be harmful, since it's really too late to benefit from a religion-free life. I think his choice to believe by faith was a mistake, as was mine, but at this point, trying to correct it is also a mistake. Faith is right for him now. Let him have his God if it helps him.
I see very few theists arguing with each other about gods they don't believe in.
They're mostly arguing with one another about doctrine and who's a true believer. Also, theist are frequently arguing against a strict empiricist epistemology, pushing back at those who require evidence and rigor in thought, using words like materialism and scientism in a derogatory sense. They call science the skeptic's god, and argue against that instead of deities.
