Why do some people prefer to be atheists?

[aclausen]

Endorsed by the fact that human rights are based on Christ’s teaching that we all have the same Father in heaven and should treat everyone as our brothers and sisters. There is no other rational basis for the principles of liberty, equality and, above all, fraternity. We would be related solely by an accident of birth and have no moral obligations whatsoever. If only matter exists nothing matters!

This seems to ignore the fact that the majority of humans are not, in fact, psychopaths, and that the vast majority of human beings, like pretty much all social animals, are wired for cooperation and some degree of altruism.

 

[tonyrey]

Endorsed by the fact that human rights are based on Christ’s teaching that we all have the same Father in heaven and should treat everyone as our brothers and sisters. There is no other rational basis

Being “wired” is not a rational basis for human rights. We are not wired to co-operate with everyone and “some degree of altruism” reveals a proviso which doesn’t exist in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Not surprisingly one of the main contributors was Jacques Maritain, a renowned Catholic philosopher…

 

[Solmyr]

If you didn’t choose to be an atheist you weren’t responsible for “your” decision. It was thrust upon you and you’re not justified in claiming it as yours.

Just like I did not “choose” to be a believer when I was very young. I was exposed to the idea of God when I had NO critical skills, when I accepted unquestioningly what I was told. Only later did I start to question those concepts, and when I saw the logical discrepancies (glaring contradictions) I started to question what I was told before I could develop critical skills.

But there was no conscious deliberative choice, when I “decided”… from now on I will be an atheist. You still don’t get it, that such decisions happen in the subconscious, which is not available to the volitional decision making.

You just happened to be a cog in the machine of nature and your atheism has no rational foundation…

Oh, but it is very rational. It is based upon the LACK of evidence for the “divine”. Just like I do not believe in leprechauns, precisely because there in no evidence for their existence.

There is no guarantee that it wasn’t the result of the way you have been conditioned by living in a secular society dominated by materialist propaganda and by your subconscious desire to be independent of a higher authority…

I would suggest to stop “sickoanalyzing” me. You are not qualified.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

But there was no conscious deliberative choice, when I “decided”… from now on I will be an atheist. **You still don’t get it, that such decisions happen in the subconscious, which is not available to the volitional decision making. **
Oh, but it is very rational. It is based upon the LACK of evidence for the “divine”. Just like I do not believe in leprechauns, precisely because there in no evidence for their existence.

I would suggest to stop “sickoanalyzing” me. You are not qualified.

All decisions in life are volitional. It’s true they are formed in the subconscious mind, but they are consciously volitional.

So I’ve been through your experience of finding out one day that I had ceased to be a Catholic and had become an atheist. Surprise!

Then, twenty years later, one day I was in for another surprise when I woke up to discover that I was still a Catholic after all. Surprise! But the consciousness of both decisions was not merely forced upon me. I had to consent to the changes in my life, and act through those changes. What brought me around to the second surprise was the gradual dawning realization that in my youth as really was not a very good thinker, nor was I able to open my heart to the love of the Father.

I am not sickoanalyzing you. Try not to be so defensive and just listen for a change to what other people have been through. Unless you are already omniscient, you might learn something through other people’s experiences.

Or not.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

And, believe it or not, I wasn’t always an atheist, and didn’t really cross that threshold until my late teens or early 20s. I did start having significant reservations about my particular sect’s (not Catholic, to be clear) theological claims in third grade. It just took another decade or so to gain the intellectual tools to understand and express my growing skepticism.

The timeline for my adventure in atheism was similar to yours. Adolescence is for many budding atheists the time of rebellion, and Who more impressive to overcome than you-know-who?

 

[Solmyr]

All decisions in life are volitional. It’s true they are formed in the subconscious mind, but they are consciously volitional.

If I have ever seen an oxymoron, this was it. A “subconsciously formed conscious volition”… Whew!

 

[Aloysium]

If I have ever seen an oxymoron, this was it. A “subconsciously formed conscious volition”… Whew!

Another someone proposed: “a neurologically emergent conscious volition.”

Actually, psychodynamic analysis is based on that idea. You may wish to rethink your position.

 

[tonyrey]

If you didn’t choose to be an atheist you weren’t responsible for “your” decision. It was thrust upon you and you’re not justified in claiming it as yours.

Do **all **your decisions occur in the subconscious?

You just happened to be a cog in the machine of nature and your atheism has no rational foundation…

Oh, but it is very rational. It is based upon the LACK of evidence for the “divine”. Just like I do not believe in leprechauns, precisely because there in no evidence for their existence.

Alleged lack of evidence for one explanation is not a rational basis for an alternative explanation. Nothing shall come of nothing!

There is no guarantee that it wasn’t the result of the way you have been conditioned by living in a secular society dominated by materialist propaganda and by your subconscious desire to be independent of a higher authority…

I would suggest to stop “sickoanalyzing” me. You are not qualified. .

“There is no guarantee” points to a possibility not a fact! Can it be discounted? It seems to fit into the theory that we are all “hardwired”

 

[tonyrey]

Another someone proposed: “a neurologically emergent conscious volition.”

Actually, psychodynamic analysis is based on that idea. You may wish to rethink your position.

Neat!

 

[Solmyr]

Do **all **your decisions occur in the subconscious?

No. And I never said that.

Alleged lack of evidence for one explanation is not a rational basis for an alternative explanation.

But the lack of evidence for the “divine” is just icing on the cake. The positive evidence is already overwhelming.

“There is no guarantee” points to a possibility not a fact! Can it be discounted? It seems to fit into the theory that we are all “hardwired”

A possibility for which there is no evidence can safely be discounted. You have no idea what lead me from being a believer to an atheist. So your insinuation that it was my subconscious desire to disregard the “authority”, it was not just an unfounded assumption, and since it was an insult aimed at my intellectual integrity I reject it in the strongest possible terms. ***** ** ***** ****** *****!!! Too bad I am not allowed to print it out explicitly.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

A possibility for which there is no evidence can safely be discounted.

Very good. So, absent any evidence, you can safely discount the possibility of a multiverse.

If no multiverse, how do you explain the creation of the universe, if not by God?

You do know the universe was created?

 

[tonyrey]

*Do **all ***

I asked you that question to ascertain whether you believe being conscious is the source of free will. Isn’t it possible we are impotent spectators of events? You seem to believe we can lose our faith but not acquire it? Is that true?

Alleged lack of evidence for one explanation is not a rational basis for an alternative explanation.

But the lack of evidence for the “divine” is just icing on the cake. The positive evidence is already overwhelming.

The positive evidence is certainly overwhelming for our thoughts and perceptions but there is no such certainty about what we infer from our perceptions. You don’t seem to realise we cannot get out of our minds and have **direct **knowledge of physical reality. We are all in the egocentric predicament whether we like it or not.

“There is no guarantee” points to a possibility not a fact! Can it be discounted? It seems to fit into the theory that we are all “hardwired”

A possibility for which there is no evidence can safely be discounted. You have no idea what lead me from being a believer to an atheist. So your insinuation that it was my subconscious desire to disregard the “authority”, it was not just an unfounded assumption, and since it was an insult aimed at my intellectual integrity I reject it in the strongest possible terms. ***** ** ***** ****** *****!!! Too bad I am not allowed to print it out explicitly. No. And I never said that.

A possibility applies to all of us including me, not just you! The “insult” exists in your imagination… I agree that our freedom is limited but you believe it is “VERY” limited which makes one wonder why we have any freedom at all in your scheme of things. Isn’t physical energy the sole form of energy? Doesn’t the idea of will power violate the law of conservation of energy?

 

[aclausen]

Very good. So, absent any evidence, you can safely discount the possibility of a multiverse.

If no multiverse, how do you explain the creation of the universe, if not by God?

You do know the universe was created?

I don’t know that for a fact. Maybe it’s always existed in some form.

 

[CasusPacis]

Hello!
I haven’t made my way through the whole thread yet, but I was fascinated by the topic and wanted to join the discussion.

I may not be an atheist, but as an Apathetic Agnostic/apatheist, I feel like a lot of the issues commonly attributed to atheism may also fall to me to help explain.

Not to mention that I’ve had my issues and arguments with the establishment of atheism as well. I no more identify with organized atheism than organized christianity.

Which is to say I do a great deal, because true understanding of human beings of all beliefs is my passion and calling, but I personally belong to neither.

 

[987mk]

I prefer to be an Atheist, because believing a specific God is real, well that just isn’t reasonable in my view.

I used to believe, but then I stopped.

I’m fine with it.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I don’t know that for a fact. Maybe it’s always existed in some form.

The absence of evidence for an eternal universe was established long ago when astronomers accepted the Big Bang.

 

[aclausen]

The absence of evidence for an eternal universe was established long ago when astronomers accepted the Big Bang.

Except that all Big Bang cosmology says is that the observable universe was once very dense and very hot. It does not say it is universal to all regions of the universe.

 

[CasusPacis]

The absence of evidence for an eternal universe was established long ago when astronomers accepted the Big Bang.

That’s one of those weird ones.
As someone who isn’t a creationist, the proof of the Big Bang really does nothing more for us than show what happened. We know that’s how the universe started, but we have literally no conception of whether time or space were existent before or without the universe we exist in, or if there are other universes, etc.
We know That’s what happened, but we don’t really know what That was, which is frustrating, but given we figured out something that happened billions of years ago as a species with only a handful of millenia of civilization, that’s still pretty impressive.

It’s certainly not the reason I’m not a believer, at least.

 

[Solmyr]

Very good. So, absent any evidence, you can safely discount the possibility of a multiverse.

I discount it.

If no multiverse, how do you explain the creation of the universe, if not by God?

You do know the universe was created?

No, I don’t know that the universe was “created”. The universe simply exists. It did not “come” from “nothing”. The principle of “whatever has a beginning, must have an external cause for its existence” is nonsense.

 

[Bradski]

The absence of evidence for an eternal universe was established long ago when astronomers accepted the Big Bang.

The Big Bang only says that what we experience as the universe now started at some point. There is nothing to say that the universe existed in some other form ‘on the other side’ of the Big Bang.