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Why Atheists Don’t Really Exist

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
"God is not merely understood as some distant Deistic First Cause but, rather, of a God who cares, a God who judges and a God who might punish. Deep in our bones we are intrinsically theistic."
I have a different understanding of the tendency to project a father figure into the sky who is just like Daddy - powerful, intelligent, observes behavior and judges, rewards and punishes it. Deep in our bones, we were children first. We believed in magic. We believed by faith (uncritically). Our morality was based in seeking reward and avoiding punishment. And we feared Daddy.

But we can mature past that. We can learn to reason and to become autonomous moral agents.
“Even atheists seem to fear a higher power. A study published last year found that self-identified nonbelievers began to sweat when reading aloud sentences asking God to do terrible things (‘I dare God to make my parents drown’). Not only that, they stressed out just as much as believers did.”
And I would have a similar reaction, but that doesn't define a theist or a magical thinker. It's a gut reaction from the depths of more primal brain centers, but it doesn't lead to action or a god belief, and I would have it if the comment were, "I dare *you* to drown my parents." I just did. I didn't like writing that, but I did, because my neocortex makes the decisions, not my reptilian brain, and it understood that the words do nothing and were useful in making a point.

Theists are often threatened these days by growth of irreligiosity in the West, and like to keep the numbers for such people appear artificially low. It's damaging to them that people see atheism normalizing. It's not that long ago that self-identifying atheists were generally considered to be immoral such that they weren't allowed to adopt, teach, coach, or serve on juries, which helped the church retain its membership, but that's all gone, and atheism is going mainstream in the States and already has in much of Europe and the English-speaking countries around the world, and it seems to me that the effort to diminish the magnitude of this defection by making their numbers appear smaller.

This may motivate the claims that atheists deny the existence of gods, and if you merely don't believe in them, you're not an atheist - you're an agnostic.

Once, if you criticized or defied the church publicly, you could expect a severe backlash. Hence the burning of heretics, inquisitions, and even the Scopes trial. But today, atheism is respectable, various intellectuals have written best sellers on it, atheists are appearing everywhere in the popular culture (Carlan, Maher, Gervais), the church is routinely depicted unfavorably in entertainment media, and so it's organized religion fighting to remain relevant, which includes keeping atheism appearing irrelevant as best it can.
An elderly lady friend of mine said that when real trouble knocks on our door, everyone prays for help regardless of whether they claim to believe or not.
That's fear speaking - not a change in belief. If the atheist prays under duress, it will be for comfort, and will generally begin, "If you're real ... "
The ego of modern people “fear” being held by a strong religion.
I think you have it backward. It's the absence of fear that characterizes atheism. Many simply have no need for a god belief or religion. They've become comfortable with unanswerable questions, with the knowledge that consciousness may be extinguished with death and that there may be no afterlife, that nobody is watching over us or loves us that doesn't live on the surface of the earth, and that each of us can be the measure of what is true and what is good. Once you're there, what does religion or a god belief have to offer?
 
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Heyo

Veteran Member
You have to resort to violence to prove your existence?
Only for people who insist on tangible evidence.

If you can read this, you should know that there is an entity which goes under the moniker "Heyo" on RF.
Is that proof enough for you or are you asking for a brick to the foot?
 

RestlessSoul

Well-Known Member
Prove to whom? As you and René said, cogito ergo sum will serve as an axiom since no more strict demonstration except one's personal sense of self is available.

I have three axioms, three assumptions, which are assumptions because they can't be shown to be correct without first assuming they're already correct ─ that a world exists external to me, that my senses are capable of informing me of that world, and that reason is a valid tool. And on that basis I've grown up, had adventures, married, raised three kids, have grandkids, have had my share of grief, my share of success and failure, have very little to complain about overall, and suspect that I'm following a script that evolution has placed, to a greater or lesser extent, in everyone's head, including mine.


Are you suggesting that only those who share your perception and your beliefs, are capable of doing all the practical everyday things you’ve done? Because that clearly isn’t the case.
 

Colt

Well-Known Member
I have a different understanding of the tendency to project a father figure into the sky who is just like Daddy - powerful, intelligent, observes behavior and judges, rewards and punishes it. Deep in our bones, we were children first. We believed in magic. We believed by faith (uncritically). Our morality was based in seeking reward and avoiding punishment. And we feared Daddy.

But we can mature past that. We can learn to reason and to become autonomous moral agents.

And I would have a similar reaction, but that doesn't define a theist or a magical thinker. It's a gut reaction from the depths of more primal brain centers, but it doesn't lead to action or a god belief, and I would have it if the comment were, "I dare *you* to drown my parents." I just did. I didn't like writing that, but I did, because my neocortex makes the decisions, not my reptilian brain, and it understood that the words do nothing and were useful in making a point.

Theists are often threatened these days by growth of irreligiosity in the West, and like to keep the numbers for such people appear artificially low. It's damaging to them that people see atheism normalizing. It's not that long ago that self-identifying atheists were generally considered to be immoral such that they weren't allowed to adopt, teach, coach, or serve on juries, which helped the church retain its membership, but that's all gone, and atheism is going mainstream in the States and already has in much of Europe and the English-speaking countries around the world, and it seems to me that the effort to diminish the magnitude of this defection by making their numbers appear smaller.

This may motivate the claims that atheists deny the existence of gods, and if you merely don't believe in them, you're not an atheist - you're an agnostic.

Once, if you criticized or defied the church publicly, you could expect a severe backlash. Hence the burning of heretics, inquisitions, and even the Scopes trial. But today, atheism is respectable, various intellectuals have written best sellers on it, atheists are appearing everywhere in the popular culture (Carlan, Maher, Gervais), the church is routinely depicted unfavorably in entertainment media, and so it's organized religion fighting to remain relevant, which includes keeping atheism appearing irrelevant as best it can.

That's fear speaking - not a change in belief. If the atheist prays under duress, it will be for comfort, and will generally begin, "If you're real ... "

I think you have it backward. It's the absence of fear that characterizes atheism. Many simply have no need for a god belief or religion. They've become comfortable with unanswerable questions, with the knowledge that consciousness may be extinguished with death and that there may be no afterlife, that nobody is watching over us or loves us that doesn't live on the surface of the earth, and that each of us can be the measure of what is true and what is good. Once you're there, what does religion or a god belief have to offer?
Lazy is more like it, activist atheists are spiritually lazy and have no respect for the creator. What effort they do muster is spent in attempting to undermine the faith of religious people. What a sorry kind of individual that is!

If you were truly "comfortable" then why waste time on "religious forums"? Is atheism that boring?


IMOP From my religious book:

5:5.4 Moral conduct is always an antecedent of evolved religion and a part of even revealed religion, but never the whole of religious experience. Social service is the result of moral thinking and religious living. Morality does not biologically lead to the higher spiritual levels of religious experience. The adoration of the abstract beautiful is not the worship of God; neither is exaltation of nature nor the reverence of unity the worship of God.

5:5.5 Evolutionary religion is the mother of the science, art, and philosophy which elevated man to the level of receptivity to revealed religion, including the bestowal of Adjusters and the coming of the Spirit of Truth. The evolutionary picture of human existence begins and ends with religion, albeit very different qualities of religion, one evolutional and biological, the other revelational and periodical. And so, while religion is normal and natural to man, it is also optional. Man does not have to be religious against his will.

5:5.6 Religious experience, being essentially spiritual, can never be fully understood by the material mind; hence the function of theology, the psychology of religion. The essential doctrine of the human realization of God creates a paradox in finite comprehension. It is well-nigh impossible for human logic and finite reason to harmonize the concept of divine immanence, God within and a part of every individual, with the idea of God's transcendence, the divine domination of the universe of universes. These two essential concepts of Deity must be unified in the faith-grasp of the concept of the transcendence of a personal God and in the realization of the indwelling presence of a fragment of that God in order to justify intelligent worship and validate the hope of personality survival. The difficulties and paradoxes of religion are inherent in the fact that the realities of religion are utterly beyond the mortal capacity for intellectual comprehension.

5:5.7 Mortal man secures three great satisfactions from religious experience, even in the days of his temporal sojourn on earth:

1. Intellectually he acquires the satisfactions of a more unified human consciousness.
2. Philosophically he enjoys the substantiation of his ideals of moral values.
3. Spiritually he thrives in the experience of divine companionship, in the spiritual satisfactions of true worship.
 
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RestlessSoul

Well-Known Member
Only for people who insist on tangible evidence.

If you can read this, you should know that there is an entity which goes under the moniker "Heyo" on RF.
Is that proof enough for you or are you asking for a brick to the foot?


In England we sometimes say “Are you talking to me, or chewing a brick?”
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Wouldn’t live there for all the tea in China, as my old mum would say. But each to their own.
As I earlier acknowledged, some people
prefer lesser countries for personal reasons.
Tis good that they're where they want to be.
I don't want everyone living here.
We have enuf people...the country is full.
 

lukethethird

unknown member
And it’s not always easy for a spiritually inclined person to live in a culture immersed in materialism and the love of money.

The answer i believe, is not that we demand other people should think like us, but rather that we learn to accept them as they are.
I don't accept religion nor should I be expected to.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
Christianity is the single greatest influence on western culture, so it's not easy for atheists having to live within a culture that is immersed in superstitions about invisible gods and such.
Americabis an exeption in the West. The rest aren't thos Christian.
And I'd say the Greeks have had a bigger influence, followed by Rome. And of course wealth.
 
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