Questions for Atheists

Knowledge3 said:

I want to interview the atheist/infidel crowd and discover the fundamental basics in your belief or lack of belief(s).

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Sure, but this is probably the wrong place for this

1)What are some primary reasons for your lack of belief?

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You seem to be under the mistaken impression that one needs a reason not to believe.

2)Does the field of science & evolution play a role?

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No

3)What are some other factors that lead to your conclusions?

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The whole thing sounds like a scam.

4)And what is your favorite god in the system of gods/mythology to use as an example?

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Currently I'm partial to the FSM.

1)What are some primary reasons for your lack of belief?
Lack of evidence, discovery that the interpretation of Christianity I grew up believing was false, parsimony, see no need to force faith on myself.

2)Does the academic nature of science & evolution play a role?
Played, as part of said discovery

3)What are some other factors that lead to your conclusions?
Similarities of world mythologies, past and present, viewed throught a Campbellian filter of conotation verses denotation.

4)And what is your favorite god in the system of gods/mythology to use as an example?
As an example of what? If by this you mean which god am I 'a-' to I would say the Judeo-Christian god, by dint of it being the one most commonly worshipped, and being the god of those (family, aquaintances, etc.) who insist that I am wrong and doomed to hell.

Knowledge3 said:

1)What are some primary reasons for your lack of belief?

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Grand total of 0 thing pointing towards the existence of a God. A gazillion things pointing against the existence of the gods of Christianity/Islam/etc.

Knowledge3 said:

2)Does the academic nature of science & evolution play a role?

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Yep. Although "evolution" certainly isn't the most important part.

Knowledge3 said:

3)What are some other factors that lead to your conclusions?

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For example.. there are billions of believers, from many different religions. People from all religions claim to have spiritual experiences (getting awnsers from their specific God, etc..). To an outsider, these spiritual experiences are obviously something that is just a function of the human mind, since people from different religions experience it.

Knowledge3 said:

4)And what is your favorite god in the system of gods/mythology to use as an example?

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The Christian God, as described by Young Earth Creationists. Gotta love an all powerfull, all knowing, all loving Being, who tries to create a "perfect" creation, <bleeps> up, ends up sending billions to eternal suffering, orders the slaughtering of thousands of babies in Numbers 31, intentionally decieves His "children" by making the earth look billions of years old, sends His children to Hell for believing the earth is billions of years old, inspires a Holy Book that is the Absolute Truth that contradicts itself in every second sentence, and has been interpreted in a thousand different ways (and ofcourse, you'll get sent to Hell if you have interpreted it wrongly).

etc.

Knowledge3 said:

1)What are some primary reasons for your lack of belief?

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I grew up in an atheist family so I didn't even have a conception of God (or gods) until later. When I finally encountered religion, I found it on par with the Tooth Fairy et al. (something invisible that you believe in but later grow out of it).

Knowledge3 said:

2)Does the academic nature of science & evolution play a role?

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Not really, I'm not a scientist anyway. But knowledge that gods have traditionally been invented to explain phenomena that later turn out to be natural does.

Knowledge3 said:

3)What are some other factors that lead to your conclusions?

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The number of different religions. I really don't see how one could rationally pick the right one. Their arbitrariness. To me, the Greek pantheon is just as believable and no more absurd than the Christian God. It's better reading though.

Knowledge3 said:

4)And what is your favorite god in the system of gods/mythology to use as an example?

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I tend to stick to Greek mythology since it's the one I know best. Zeus is usually the first one to pop into my mind as an example. And the IPU, of course.

Howdy!

1)What are some primary reasons for your lack of belief?
I generally didnt find a literal reading of the Bible defensible, especially not on scientific grounds. I tried a philosophical approach, but so many philosophical gods were utterly contradictory in nature. My approaches to resolve these contradictions lead to a god that I created was virtually in my own image, valuing all of the same things I valued when there was logically no reason for me to do so - in trying to make the most sense of God, I created a concept that was so impersonal that it was virtually no different from God not existing at all.

I learned quickly that virtually all of the Gods of religion are so obviously anthromorphic that they were created in the minds of human beings, and that the Gods of philosophy are so abstract that no one seriously believes in them. Basically, the belief in God faded away as if it were nothing more than a superstition.


2)Does the academic nature of science & evolution play a role?
I suppose it helps in a trivial sense, because although the sciences say nothing about the existence of any gods, the universe looks and acts exactly like an atheistic universe is expected to look and act.

I guess it would also be meaningful that if God created the universe then certainly we could find evidence of his involvement, but we dont. In this way, we really lack a good reason to suspect that God exists at all.

One of the things I usually come back to is the idea that many people say that God cannot be detected scientifically, but I always take this be very unusual: on what basis is a belief in God defensible if there is no way to verify his existence, as opposed to say belief in other unverifyable things such as "turtles all the way down" theory"? There isnt any.

And of course, there is always the appeal that God exists to explain our mysteries, but a God-of-the-gaps really isnt a god at all, and in fact I'd say that pointing out what science "hasnt explained" is anti-God because eventually if God exists only in the gaps and those gaps get smaller and smaller everyday, you'll soon have no god at all.


3)What are some other factors that lead to your conclusions?
Among other things, I dont feel like I've lost anything for being an atheist, as if the belief in God was gratuitous in the the first place.

At the same time, there is the shoddy nature of creationist science. As I mentioned before, I was unable to defend God scientifically, and its compounded by the fact that creationist literature is never presented in an academic setting except as perhaps as a psychological curiosity. I've also got a philosophy background, and I can readily see that the philosophy used by the church was so amateur that I wondered how anyone could take it seriously (I gleaned this opinion after reading C. S. Lewis and being woefully unimpressed). The worst part about this was the fact that the science and philosophy never changes, the same "2nd of thermodynamics" and "evolution = religion" garbage has been repeated over and over and over again without any evidence of progression, without any new information being developed.

Finally, there was the contribution that I had to give up my intuitional understanding of the universe. For a long time, I struggled with "how does something come from nothing", but then several years ago I realized that there is no reason to suspect that my intuition should have anything to do with the universe, because almost always my intuition is hopelessly wrong. I learned that so many things in the universe contradict intuitional expectations, such as fact that the speed of light is constant in all frame of references, the fact that mass and energy are the same thing, the fact that electricity and magnetism are the same force, that space is infinite and bounded simultaneously, and an innumerable number of other phenomena. Some of these things seem logically contradictory, but that only serves to illustrate the shortcomings of our intuition, and I would imagine that "something cant come from nothing" is yet another false intuitive belief that is vastly oversimplified in light of the science of today and the future.


4)And what is your favorite god in the system of gods/mythology to use as an example?
Yahweh, in fact on other boards I use the name Yahweh as my username, and I plan to get a vanity place for my car reading "YHWH". He's dynamic, emotional, occasionally wrathful, and very very human.

Followed by Yahweh, I'd probably say I like the god created by H. P. Lovecraft, because in general I'm a cynic and I find something morbidly fascinating about Lovecrafts world where conflicts are indifferent to suffering rather than the cliche "good triumphs over evil" that appears in most English literature.

1)What are some primary reasons for your lack of belief?

The lack of empirical evidence.


2)Does the academic nature of science & evolution play a role?

No.

3)What are some other factors that lead to your conclusions?

My life has not changed in any way since becoming an atheist.

4)And what is your favorite god in the system of gods/mythology to use as an example?

I am most familiar with the Judeo-Christian God, so that is naturally the one I typically use as an example. I also like the Flying Spaghetti Monster and Iggy the Magic Elf.

This one needs a little agnostic flavor. Hope you don't mind.

Knowledge3 said:

1)What are some primary reasons for your lack of belief?

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I am waiting for reasons to believe.

2)Does the academic nature of science & evolution play a role?

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Only tangentially, as others have said. Science has shown how gullible humans can be, and how societal pressures factor into our beliefs. Science removes biases, and when religions are stripped of biases they are lacking.

3)What are some other factors that lead to your conclusions?

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Just thinking about it. I have nothing against religion, it just isn't for me.

4)And what is your favorite god in the system of gods/mythology to use as an example?

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Grew up in a christian home, so the christian God would be the most obvious. If I were to pick another belief system I would pick Hinduism. Their myths beat the pants off of those found in the Bible.

1)What are some primary reasons for your lack of belief?

Short answer: Christianity.
Long answer: I was brought up with Christianity. I went to church, and to catechism classes. I was confirmed. But I guess I never really completely believed in it all. I knew I was supposed to believe, and I went along with it, but... it never really made sense. Eventually I realized I was an atheist.

2)Does the academic nature of science & evolution play a role?

Not really, no. Even when I considered myself a Christian, I never found science in general or evolution in particular to be irreconcilable with what I was taught about religion. I wasn't raised to believe that Genesis was meant to be taken literally. In fact, in high school, before I realized my atheism, I remember being utterly floored to discover that there were kids in my class who didn't accept evolution, and honestly believed in "Adam and Eve." I was completely astonished.

3)What are some other factors that lead to your conclusions?

Mostly stuff that would belong more in the General Apologetics forum. As I said, I was never taught to see Genesis as a literal account. Also, the realization that I didn't need to believe in any gods to make my life work.

4)And what is your favorite god in the system of gods/mythology to use as an example?

As a Classics geek, I enjoy referencing the Greek pantheon. I'll also splash a little Norse, Egyptian, or whatever I happen to think of at the time. Quetzalcoatl is cool. I'm also a fan of deliberately-invented beings like the IPU. The Flying Spaghetti Monster is starting to gain popularity as well. I've also picked up the habit of swearing by Cthulhu.

Knowledge3 said:

I want to interview the atheist/infidel crowd and discover the fundamental basics in your belief or lack of belief(s).

Click to expand...

Oh goodie, yet another opportunity to jabber on about why I happen to lack any sort of faith.

1)What are some primary reasons for your lack of belief?

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The usual. Logical fallicies, a self-contridictary holy book, complete and utter lack of evidence, that sort of thing.

2)Does the academic nature of science & evolution play a role?

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Well, scientific evidence that's, for all intents and purposes, the polar opposite of what the bible states, might have something to do with it

3)What are some other factors that lead to your conclusions?

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Because I attended a Catholic school, I grew up examining my faith in a critical enviroment. This led to questions my teachers, family, and local clergymembers couldn't answer. As a result, I lost my faith.

Let that be a lesson to those who seek to put God back in schools.

4)And what is your favorite god in the system of gods/mythology to use as an example?

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Thor, definatly Thor.

Knowledge3 said:

I want to interview the atheist/infidel crowd and discover the fundamental basics in your belief or lack of belief(s).



1)What are some primary reasons for your lack of belief?

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I have seen no convincing logical argument nor sufficient evidence to convince me that a deity likely exists.

2)Does the academic nature of science & evolution play a role?

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No.

3)What are some other factors that lead to your conclusions?

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Hell, problem of suffering

4)And what is your favorite god in the system of gods/mythology to use as an example?

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I like Athena - war and wisdom is pretty cool. I also like Cthulhu and Ariock (sp?) as dark deities from fiction - along with Om from Small Gods.

Most here have already covered what I was going to say, but I'll put in my $.02 anyway.

1)What are some primary reasons for your lack of belief?

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For me, Atheism is a default position. I've always been one, even though as a very young child I did possess what Gordon Allport would call an 'extrinsic' faith; that is, I was only Christian because my parents were. As I grew older I realized that I had never believed at all. The Bible stories I learned in my grandmother's strict Independent Babtist church never made sense. Even my mother's more liberal Babtist church teachings posed problems for me. I can now imagine my slight 6-year-old self adorning an oddly puzzled look when my Sunday school teacher got around to telling us about Noah's ark and Jonah being swallowed by the whale.

In hindsight, I also notice differences between myself and my younger sister. She's the type that used to say anything was possible, and that "humans could even fly" with God's help; I was always the one who told her that humans could never fly on their own - it was impossible. At the time, I was confusing myself because my parent's teachings told me that yes, humans could do anything with God's help. But my reason was telling me just the opposite.

Before anyone makes assumptions, my Atheism is not the typical 16 year old rebellion against my parents. In fact, I try to refrain from discussing my Atheism with my parents. My mom calls me a disgrace.

Oddly enough, I love being an Atheist. It seems to be such an intellectually honest position. My stance is that I will continue disbelieving until a valid reason to believe comes along. I've never seen a reason yet.

2)Does the academic nature of science & evolution play a role?

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I'm not quite sure what you mean here. I'm a scientifically-motivated person, so science is a central part of my life and way of thinking. So far science has proved to be the best method for discovery on earth. It's as simple as that.

3)What are some other factors that lead to your conclusions?

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There are plenty. I've never seen, heard, or had any reason to believe that any other world besides the natural one exists. So why should I believe?

4)And what is your favorite god in the system of gods/mythology to use as an example?

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Classical mythology is the most interesting to me. There are so many gods that anyone can relate to at least one of them.


Anyway, you might get better results if you placed this thread in the General Apologetics forum.