What Makes People NOT believe In God? (Atheists Come!)

Kara wrote:

I had a whole post planned. Even made notes. But you have forced me to a lesser-thought-out post, Snood.

I read not too long ago about the odd phenom of Why people act against defense of the self. This story rose out of an incident on some bridge when a jumper began his dive. A bystander grabbed onto him and held on. Any sane survivalist would have let go after micro-seconds, but the Helper held on, even as he was being dragged over the bridge rails by the weight of the jumper. What explains this? Who knows. Do we all know instintively that, if a member of the community dies, we all die? Is this in our instincts, causing us to react spontaneously to one-of-us diving off a bridge?

I have other thoughts and will post later.

What's your point, Kara? I said that it wasn't a genetic given that men will act selflessly. Your pointing out that there are exceptional individuals does not negate what I said.

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Firstly I'm not an atheist, I'm agnostic. Yet I'm only agnostic in general. When it comes to specific religions, e.g. christianity, I do have an opinion. Every religion I've ever heard of or encountered is inconsistant, illogical and proves itself false by the time it's finished explaining itself. So I don't believe in any of those that I've currently encountered. Since this eliminates a fair chunk of the most dominant religions I'm usually considered as an atheist.

I think I've basically answered your question. I'm an "atheist" because no religion is as convincing or cogent as scientific explanations.

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Snood, my point was that there might be a love-my-neighbor gene built into people, although the gene might exist to aid our survival as a species. I do not believe, as you do, that selfless actions are exceptional. One might come to your conclusion because goodness doesn't get written up in the media. We hear only about the spectacular, grisly, and murderous actions of some few; unlike you, I consider these instances exceptional.

I believe that one's reason can take him to goals for living that include do-unto-others, avoid lying and cheating, do not take a life except in self-defense, and right on down the line. The ten commandments were probably around for millennia before they were codified and attributed to god. They make sense for any family, community, and nation that is trying to survive and work for the best of the group.

I do not believe that one needs god to be good. One can get to the good and to truth, and thus to action derived from these concepts, from one's own mind. However, if you believe that you need god to be good, then that is where you find your strength. There are many ways that different people come to rectitude...how can you, or I, deny that a person can become good in differing ways from ones you or I adhere to?

Anti-Buddha, I think I understand your post. My mother-in-law was totally non-religious, if you can use religious to refer to formal sects and dogmas and the like. She believed in god or a creator, vaguely, but thought that most of the unneccessary agonies of the world were caused by organized religion and its hidebound adherents. Yet, she lived a life of goodness and selflessness that I ponder today, eight years after her death.

You say that no religion is as convincing as a scientific explanation. Well, no religion that I know of tries to convince by scientific method. One must make a leap of faith, leaving behind the scientifically proveable and moving on to the realm of the imaginable and then on to the unimaginable, which is seen as the world that we cannot comprehend. It is full of wonder and beauty and offers comforts that this hard world grants to no one but Bill Gates and a few others. (Not serious here. Gates has done more with his money for the good of the world than most folks I read about.)

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Listening here. Kara is verbalizing my thoughts, but I remember having other thoughts. Just checking in.

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I really had no choice in choosing my God. It was forced on me, by my parents, just like it was forced on you by your parents(most likely). I saw this awesome episode of X-Files that said something about some scientific theory, that was very anti-God. I thought, "What? God might not be real?", and I just kinda stewed for a while.

Then about 2 years later I was sort of dying inside. I wanted to believe so much, but I just could, and I felt like a piece of **** because of it. I kept telling myself that I should just believe in order to make my family, friends, and such happy. But it is so f'n hard to just believe.

Then, one night I was crying and I said, "Satan, if you show yourself right now, I will give you my soul.". No show, and I didn't know why. Certainly he would show if the prize was my soul, right? Unless of course, he isn't real. Which would mean God isn't real either. Once I accepted that fact I didn't cry anymore. As I grew and learned stuff, my Atheism only strengthened.

I realize that God makes some people happy, but it only made me manically-sad.

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What makes people not believe?
to me, it is a failure to have a belief jump, a kind of desiring thought impulse.

Personally, I'm over those, and don't jump for anyone's interesting construct.

I wish you all well, but also wish people could get out of a belief in god box, from time to time, to reequilibrate without that organizing point of view.

This is not to knock your beliefs - but an intimation of the difference in viewpoints.

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Osso and other thread participants,

I just read a good piece by Natalie Angier, the science writer, about raising her child as an atheist. This article discusses many of the things we have been talking about. It is too long to patch in, but here is a link:

Natalie Angier

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Kara wrote:

Anti-Buddha, I think I understand your post...She believed in god or a creator, vaguely

Similar situation but I dont believe in a god or creator. I just aknowledge that my small view of the universe isn't sufficient to determine if one exists or not. But it is enough to judge specific proposals.

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Yet, she lived a life of goodness and selflessness that I ponder today

Why is that such a mystery? I don't need any religion to act in what I believe is a moral way.

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Well, no religion that I know of tries to convince by scientific method.

A good sign that they're fictitious stories with no evidence and little basis in truth if you ask me. Very few people enter battles that they know they will lose.

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One must make a leap of faith, leaving behind the scientifically proveable and moving on to the realm of the imaginable and then on to the unimaginable, which is seen as the world that we cannot comprehend.

You mean like moving onto the imaginable realms of planets and stars, then move on to the incomprehensible and unimaginable dance of quantum particles or the interactions of time, space and the eleven other dimensions that maths and physics have discovered? No wait, that's science.

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It is full of wonder and beauty

Yeah, "some god magically waved his hand" is so much more wonderful than the intricate mysteries of the universe like the atoms of our bodies being forged in the fires of dying suns millions of years ago.

Let's face it, religion and science switched universes at some point. The "imaginative" religious people have a universe in which everything was just made by god five thousand years ago, no reason why he just wanted to, a universe in which questioning is forbidden, and a universe in which the Earth is all there is, a universe in which a sea parting is the idea of something amazing.

The "dull, earthly" scientists have a universe that's 15 billion years old, with more stars out there than we can even imagine. A tangled web of thousands of creatures developing not all at once by magic, but developing in a million different tales of struggle against adversity. A universe in which the Earth we see around us is the tiniest fragment of what exist and in which the stars visible to us are like a handful of sand at the beach.

I could go on for hours comparing the two, but I trust I've made my point.

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ossobuco wrote:

What makes people not believe?
to me, it is a failure to have a belief jump, a kind of desiring thought impulse.

Well, there is evidence for a god gene which makes people more likely to believe in something, but the gene does not determine what you believe in so people with this gene might end up believing in UFOs and aliens instead of God.

Personally, I was put off religion by having it shoved down my throat and not just shoved down my throat but having it rammed home repeatedly.

Every Christmas, I would be taught about Christ's birth with the same questions, same passage readings, same colouring exercises (same with Easter and Pentecost too). I'd be given the same Bible year in, year out, until I didn't know what to do with them all. (In the end, I just left them all at school, never to take them back home). I'd be taught Genesis over and over and over and over...

To me, religion is only a tool of how we should live. It tried to give us an explanation of how everything came to be, but let's face it, it didn't really do a good job at that. (In fact, I have this sneaking suspicion that religion is even failing in its attempt to guide us in how to live, judging from some of the religious nutcases that make a bad name out of the majority, more level-headed Christians, Muslims etc.)

How can you believe in something you cannot prove or disprove the existence of? It requires blind faith, but blind faith is dangerous.

Just look at the people of Waco, just look at the people that blindly followed Hitler.

How can we be sure that the so-called God of the Bible is not in reality, the Devil? What if his messages of peace and good-will to others is merely to disguise his true nature? How can we trust him and what reason do we have to trust him? How can we know that he hasn't lied to us all this time and that he hasn't done anything but lie?

I cannot find the answers to those questions and until I do, I will always give the following answer to the question, "Do you believe in God?"

I cannot believe in God because I cannot prove he exists, however, I cannot disprove his existence either, so I cannot fully disbelieve in him.

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theantibuddha wrote:

Kara wrote:
Anti-Buddha, I think I understand your post...She believed in god or a creator, vaguely

Similar situation but I dont believe in a god or creator. I just aknowledge that my small view of the universe isn't sufficient to determine if one exists or not. But it is enough to judge specific proposals.

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Yet, she lived a life of goodness and selflessness that I ponder today

Why is that such a mystery? I don't need any religion to act in what I believe is a moral way.

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Well, no religion that I know of tries to convince by scientific method.

A good sign that they're fictitious stories with no evidence and little basis in truth if you ask me. Very few people enter battles that they know they will lose.

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One must make a leap of faith, leaving behind the scientifically proveable and moving on to the realm of the imaginable and then on to the unimaginable, which is seen as the world that we cannot comprehend.

You mean like moving onto the imaginable realms of planets and stars, then move on to the incomprehensible and unimaginable dance of quantum particles or the interactions of time, space and the eleven other dimensions that maths and physics have discovered? No wait, that's science.

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It is full of wonder and beauty

Yeah, "some god magically waved his hand" is so much more wonderful than the intricate mysteries of the universe like the atoms of our bodies being forged in the fires of dying suns millions of years ago.

Let's face it, religion and science switched universes at some point. The "imaginative" religious people have a universe in which everything was just made by god five thousand years ago, no reason why he just wanted to, a universe in which questioning is forbidden, and a universe in which the Earth is all there is, a universe in which a sea parting is the idea of something amazing.

The "dull, earthly" scientists have a universe that's 15 billion years old, with more stars out there than we can even imagine. A tangled web of thousands of creatures developing not all at once by magic, but developing in a million different tales of struggle against adversity. A universe in which the Earth we see around us is the tiniest fragment of what exist and in which the stars visible to us are like a handful of sand at the beach.

I could go on for hours comparing the two, but I trust I've made my point.

You are intentionally placing all religion into a rigid view of the world in order to jest, and not out of personal ignorance, correct?

Dauer

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You are intentionally placing all religion into a rigid view of the world in order to jest, and not out of personal ignorance, correct?

Actually I was mostly commenting on judeo-christian fundamentalism there, which I overgeneralised as religion in general. Wasn't paying too much attention to my choice of words there. No, not out of personal ignorance. Mythology is one of my more knowledgeable fields.

However, no religion that I know (and this includes quite a few) creates so much wonder, mystery and amazing things as science has. The fact that certain religions deign themselves to accept some or all of the facts of science doesn't change the fact that they are bland in comparison.

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antibuddha,

This may be my personal bias and you can of course ignore everything I say, but I take issue with the term judeo-christian because the two religion are extremely different both in how they approach the text (and this goes for the most Orthodox parts of Judaism as well) and how they approach the human condition. There is a wikipedia entry on the term:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judeo-christian

and that goes over most any problems I might have with it.

Since I am posting in this thread, as I see it, I don't understand why science and relgion have to be at odds with each other. Are you saying that all religions, in all of their sects and denominations, have doctrines that violate or curb the laws of science?

Dauer

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dauer wrote:

This may be my personal bias and you can of course ignore everything I say

Of course, as may you with mine.

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I take issue with the term judeo-christian

Then you'll be really annoyed that I was mentally including Islam Wink

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because the two religion are extremely different both in how they approach the text (and this goes for the most Orthodox parts of Judaism as well) and how they approach the human condition.

That's like objecting to the term Europe because France and Germany speak different languages. They're different to one another but share more in common than Judaism does with Asatru, Shinto, Animism or Buddhism. Hence a group identifying name. It's just hierachical classification.

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There is a wikipedia entry on the term:

Just read it.

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Since I am posting in this thread, as I see it, I don't understand why science and relgion have to be at odds with each other. Are you saying that all religions, in all of their sects and denominations, have doctrines that violate or curb the laws of science?

That's a fair question. Try not to be offended by the answer, I admit it may just be my own personal biases.

Imagine this. Great artists, not only gifted with exceptional talent but taking a lifetime to master the skill create masterpieces that are collected by an art gallery. Then some proud father comes along to the gallery with some fingerpainting his son did in his first art class. The picture is no better than any other 4 year old's work and thus the art gallery turns it down.

Yes the picture has emotional meaning to the father and family, perhaps even to others who remember drawing such things as children or have children of their own. Perhaps the art gallery could include the child's art because it says something about human nature and the development of art.

But just because that picture is meaningful to a lot of people and some use can be brought out of comparing it with actual art work, doesn't make it equal to the art work done by professionals.

Likewise Science is a challenging proffession with strict regulations that requires great men to devote their entire lives to it. Religion may be meaningful to many people and we can learn a lot about human nature and the development of science by comparing the ignorant ideas of religion to genuine science. Yet that doesn't mean religion is the equal of science or should be included within the collected body of scientific work.

This isn't to say that the father can't hang the picture up on his own fridge or that people can not draw personal comfort from their own religious beliefs. But religion has no place within rational science or enshrined in our society. That kind of influence is what lead to the spanish inquisition, the crusades and witch burning.

Religion, if its stories are well written enough, may have a place in literature. Otherwise they have no place within the body of education.

That's my position Wink

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antibuddha,

so are you saying that all religions, all of their sects and denominations, assert that their religion teaches scientific truths about the nature of the universe? It still seems you are generalizing.

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That's like objecting to the term Europe because France and Germany speak different languages. They're different to one another but share more in common than Judaism does with Asatru, Shinto, Animism or Buddhism. Hence a group identifying name. It's just hierachical classification.

Yes, but saying Judeo-Christian implies Jews had a role in the Inquisition other than that of victims. It makes no sense. The Judeo-Christians did not force Jews into ghettos. The Christians did. The two groups are entirely separated by not only their doctrines but also by the very different roles they have played in the history of the Western world.

Dauer

edit: And commonly the term is used to describe Christianity, even in situations where it clearly does not apply to Judaism. "Judeo-Christianity views abortion as murder." "Judeo-Christians condemn all others to hell." "Judeo-Christianity's ideals are pacifist and so they should stop fighting wars." "Judeo-Christianity helps each man recognize his sinful nature."

All of these statements are fallacious. The Christian moral majority would come into conflict with Orthodoxy on a number of issues. Judaism and Christianity are no more alike than Judaism and Islam. I would assert there are greater similarities between Judaism and Islam than Judaism and Christianity.

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The biggest single problem most people have with religion is normally called the problem of evil, which to me is a piece of a bigger problem, i.e. what exactly do you mean by omnipotence? How does an omnipotent and presumably well-meaning God allow all the grief in our world?

My basic answer to that is that the spirit world and ours are "orthoganal" to one another and, in our age of the world, are severely divided, so that even communication is generally impossible. And that while God might well be omnipotent within the realm he inhabits, his powers within our own physical world are severely limited if he has any powers here at all. The good news seems to be that we spend 60 - 90 years here on average and then the rest of time there; having it the other way around would be bad.

In past ages of course, there was communication between the spirit world and our own, which is what prophets and oracles were about and did for livings.

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Great posts here. Back after thinking.

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dauer wrote:

so are you saying that all religions, all of their sects and denominations, assert that their religion teaches scientific truths about the nature of the universe?

Yes they do. Definitionally. It's a truism. A religion is a belief system and must make claims, otherwise it doesn't exist. Even socratic wisdom makes claims about the universe, in that it claims you can not know anything about the universe. (I sometimes wonder if Socrates appreciated the irony of that position).

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It still seems you are generalizing

As much as the english language perhaps, which appears to be the institution you disagree with. Not me.

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Yes, but saying Judeo-Christian implies Jews had a role in the Inquisition other than that of victims.

Well they did create christianity.... a somewhat integral role since if they'd kept their plagiarised sumerian epics to themselves the inquistion would never have occured. They invented many of the specific sins which people were tried and punished for. Frequently by the self-same death that was suggested within levitican law, albeit it the torture itself and repentance towards jesus was christian invention.

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It makes no sense. The Judeo-Christians did not force Jews into ghettos. The Christians did. The two groups are entirely separated by not only their doctrines but also by the very different roles they have played in the history of the Western world.

<parody>THE CHRISTIANS?! How dare you insinuate that protestants were involved. That was the catholics. You're generali.... </parody>

*Gives you a look*... have I made my point?

Entirely? You may wish to rethink your usage of that word. That they are somewhat seperated in doctrine and activity is perhaps fact. (moreso activity than doctrine). Yet remember that a jew, a christian and a muslim can all sit around discussing religion. They can talk about God, Satan, the angels, demons, heaven... hell? (not too sure on Jewish stance there, can you enlighten me?)... abraham, the messiah, king david, moses, the flood.

If you threw a... let's say buddhist... in there. Suddenly NONE of those concepts are represented within his religion. He doesn't have a god, barely has a satan, only kind of has angels and demons, doesn't have heaven, doesn't have hell, not familiar with abraham, the messiah, king david, moses or the flood.

That they share a great commonality is undeniable. Hence they are given a group name in religious heirachical taxonomy. Much like islam includes sunni and shi'ite, like christianity includes catholic and protestant.

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edit: And commonly the term is used to describe Christianity, even in situations where it clearly does not apply to Judaism. "Judeo-Christianity views abortion as murder." "Judeo-Christians condemn all others to hell." "Judeo-Christianity's ideals are pacifist and so they should stop fighting wars." "Judeo-Christianity helps each man recognize his sinful nature."

Once again YOU are generalising now. By using the group name christianity you are perpetrating the same heinous offence against the diaspora of christian sects that I inflicted upon the judeo-christian religions. If you can not avoid performing it yourself, I trust you see and understand the utility of group names and classifications.

Perhaps people occasionally use these group names incorrectly (as perhaps I did). In said cases you are well within rights to correct their USAGE of these names. Yet without group naming in our language each quantum unit of time, space and matter would have to be individually named and invoked. The accuracy that would provide does not compare to the (forgive me) "quantum leap" in the difficulty of speaking our new language.

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All of these statements are fallacious. The Christian moral majority would come into conflict with Orthodoxy on a number of issues. Judaism and Christianity are no more alike than Judaism and Islam.

Hence why I include Islam within the Judeo-christian family. You did read that in my previous post, didn't you?

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I would assert there are greater similarities between Judaism and Islam than Judaism and Christianity.

And I would agree. That however is irrelevant as I include Islam in the judeo-christian family (albeit not the name) as I mentioned previously.

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I always thought they were called the "Abrahamic" religions.

Maybe that's what has dauer confused...

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theantibuddha wrote:

Yes they do. Definitionally. It's a truism. A religion is a belief system and must make claims, otherwise it doesn't exist. Even socratic wisdom makes claims about the universe, in that it claims you can not know anything about the universe. (I sometimes wonder if Socrates appreciated the irony of that position).

There's a difference between asserting some basic understanding (or lack of understanding) the universe and contradicting science.

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Yes, but saying Judeo-Christian implies Jews had a role in the Inquisition other than that of victims.

Well they did create christianity....

Judaism did not create Christianity. Creating something implies taking an active role, which is not the case. Christianity broke away from Judaism. If it had remained a part of Judaism, its understanding of morality would have continued to evolve as Judaism's understanding did. But they broke off and were stuck with a very old text that did not continue to grow.

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a somewhat integral role since if they'd kept their plagiarised sumerian epics to themselves the inquistion would never have occured.

And if the Sumerians never wrote the epics the Inquisition would never have occurred. What's your point?

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They invented many of the specific sins which people were tried and punished for.

Show me an example. By the time of Jesus it was understood differently than it was taken by the Inquisition. There are very specific laws about capital punishment, and some of them are delineated specifically in Torah, like the need for two or more witnesses, that a witness found to have spoken falsely will have the same penalty as the one they condemned, that the one who convicts another will personally have to carry out the death penalty if it is found to fit (as a deterrant) but the Inquisitors conveniently ignore most of these mitzvot.

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<parody>THE CHRISTIANS?! How dare you insinuate that protestants were involved. That was the catholics. You're generali.... </parody>

*Gives you a look*... have I made my point?

No. You haven't. Judaism and Christianity are entirely dissimilar. That Christianity borrowed Jewish texts and used them in a way they would not be used within Judaism is not the responsibility of Judaism. If you read a little you will learn. And then you will be in a position to accuse. But as far as I can tell you, like many others, know almost nothing about Judaism.

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Entirely? You may wish to rethink your usage of that word. That they are somewhat seperated in doctrine and activity is perhaps fact. (moreso activity than doctrine). Yet remember that a jew, a christian and a muslim can all sit around discussing religion. They can talk about God,

No they can't, because a Christian believes in a Trinity while a Jew believes in a One immaterial, genderless, transcendant God or a panentheist God. A Jew could more easily relate to a Hindu or a Buddhist about God than a Christian.

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Satan,

In Judaism HaSatan is not evil and is just doing the will of God by testing us. But he plays a very minor role and is rarely discussed, if ever. There is no duality, no "evil God." God makes peace and creates evil.

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the angels,

Angels in Judaism do not have free will. They simply do the will of God. They don't have wings and harps. People don't become angels when they die. On one level it can be understood that there are no angels and they are just man's attempt to put a face on the forces that come from God, as God Himself is beyond such representations (although not beyond metaphorical anthropomorphisms.)

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demons,

Huh?

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heaven...

The details of the afterlife in Judaism are aggadic (non-legal) and so even among the Orthodox there's no real enforced belief, although there are some general ideas. There may be a place like heaven, but we really can't know anything about it and it's not worth talking about because this life is the one we are living.

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hell? (not too sure on Jewish stance there, can you enlighten me?)...

No hell in Judaism. According to one possible understanding there is a place like purgatory where people go before they go to a place like heaven, but this is not a bad place as it is a place of personal transformation.

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abraham,

Well they did steal our texts so some of the faces will be the same. But the stories are often understood much differently.

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the messiah,

There is no parallel in Judaism for the Christian concept of messiah. In Judaism a person could not be a thing to worship, or serve as an offering. God could not be llimited in time or space. HaMoshiach according to the traditional view will be a person, a great leader who will bring world peace. There's a little more to it that, but basically this is just a person. More modern views would say that it's really just an ideal or that it's something that man can achieve by working together or that it's entirely incorrect.

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king david,

Same as with Abraham. They took our books.

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moses,

Same

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the flood.

The flood could be understood very differently in Judaism, even mystically. It would also in any of the liberal movements most likely not be taken as history. And the liberal movements dominate Judaism.

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If you threw a... let's say buddhist... in there. Suddenly NONE of those concepts are represented within his religion.

That's incorrect.

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He doesn't have a god,

But Ayn Sof parallels his views of non-dualistic reality. Even in non-mystical Judaism, God's presence, the Shechinah (indwelling presence) fills all of creation.

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barely has a satan,

Same goes for Judaism.

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only kind of has angels and demons,

Same goes for Judaism

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doesn't have heaven,

Judaism is undecided about the afterlife except that there is one (although this belief is not enforced, as Judaism is not a faith-based religion)

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doesn't have hell,

More in common! I think I'll start calling these overlaps "Judeo-Buddhism."

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not familiar with abraham, the messiah, king david, moses or the flood.

These are all trivial things. A Jew doesn't even need to believe in any of them.

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That they share a great commonality is undeniable.

I'm denying it. Christianity has more in common with Mithraism than it does with Judaism.

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Once again YOU are generalising now. By using the group name christianity you are perpetrating the same heinous offence against the diaspora of christian sects that I inflicted upon the judeo-christian religions.

Not at all. They call themselves Christians. It's Christianity. Jews don't call themselves Judeo-Christians.

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If you can not avoid performing it yourself, I trust you see and understand the utility of group names and classifications.

So call it Judeo-Christian-Islamic or Abrahamic. Judeo-Christian suggests a special relationship between judaism and Christianity that does not exist.

Dauer

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Just starting to catch up with the long posts.

For believers and doubters, both, this is an interesting piece:

My Pilgrimage from Atheism to Theism

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What Makes People NOT believe In God? (Atheists Come!)

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