“Chimpanzees, some dog species and even scrub jay and crows have beliefs. Humans are not the only ones who have beliefs; animals do too, although it is more difficult to prove them than with humans.”
" Humans are not the only ones who have beliefs; animals do too, although it is more difficult to prove them than with humans. Dr. Tobias Starzak and Professor Albert Newen from the Institute of Philosophy II at Ruhr-Universität Bochum have proposed four criteria to understand and empirically investigate animal beliefs in the journal Mind and Language. The article was published online on 16 June 2020."
“Religious behaviour in animals”
"Animal faith is the study of animal behaviours that suggest proto-religious faith. Whether animals can have religious faith is dependent on a sufficiently open definition of religion. Thus, if by religion one means a “non-anthropocentric, non-anthropomorphic, non-theistic, and non-logocentric [behavioural and ritualistic] trans-species prototype definition of religion”,[1][2] ritual behaviour can be interpreted in the actions of chimpanzees, elephants, dolphins and other animals.
The study of proto-religions in modern animals is relevant to the study of the development of religion in modern humans and their recent ancestors."
You are a little too quick to make sweeping generalisations about “all animals”, since your unevidenced claim is already being contradicted by some research studies. While there is a lot more to understand your hubris is misplaced.
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[quote=“X0B35, post:67, topic:4105”]
- Can you show me how to identify male dogs from among female dogs?
You’ve mixed a religious reply with a gender identity reply.
I never did get an answer before this clown was banned for creating multiple accounts, but why would anyone imagine making a personal choice to disbelieve something would not result in a lack of that particular belief?
- I was born lacking a belief in any deities.
- Ipso facto I was born an atheist.
- I have never seen any objective evidence or rational argument that any deity exists or is even possible, and thus I still lack belief in any deity or deities, ipso facto I remain an atheist.
It’s not that hard to grasp surely?
Not only is it not a personal choice to disbelieve, it appears to, not be a personal choice to believe. Can I choose to believe in a god thing? How would I go about doing that? I can’t make it 30 seconds into a Christian book or video without spotting the fallacy. So, I can choose to turn off critical thinking. Admittedly, I can ignore my critical observations and not respond as I do in social situations but that is nowhere near the same as altering what is happening inside my head.
With that said, we still know that education is the bane of religion. Aside from a person professing agnosticism or atheism due to some traumatic life event or unevidenced alternate belief systems (Which are not actually atheism or agnosticism in my opinion.) being educated, reading the bible, knowing the arguments for gods, understanding the basic fallacies of logic, and being willing to research Biblical and Christian claims, would be the number one cause behind atheism.
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