Why you disbelieve in any deity(s)

This is the root of the issue…
A person might decide that they value a deity belief more than anything, deeming the behavior of belief “worth it”, in terms of risks versus rewards. Seeing nobody can quantify a deity’s non-existence, any debate only relieves the believers cognitive dissonance…thus strengthening his belief. The dogma of most religions, adds to the relief of cognitive dissonance, for the same reason.

Most people want to hold the belief that they make good choices. When a purchase turns out badly, due to contradiction, it conflicts with their previously-existing belief about their decision-making abilities…and they have to act on that awkward feeling in attempt to validate their original belief/decision. Religious dogma, does exactly that for them, allowing them to continue with that original choice. IMO super-naturalism, is the glue that binds and thus, validates their belief. In so, the risk versus reward, plus supernatural beliefs, combines to make a formidable defense for said religious belief, quieting their cognitive dissonance…allowing continued support of their original choice.

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I realized that it is about epistemology.

I agree, and if one sets a different standard (as theists do) for some beliefs over others in order to ring fence those beliefs, then the bias makes the result meaningless.

For instance in your example. which again I agree with:

I’ve even seen people who are otherwise Atheists that believe other crazy things like some conspiracy theories or convert to a religion.

If anyone is prepared to believe such things based on anecdotal or subjective “evidence” then what is their basis for disbelieving anything?

If their claim on reality is not measurable and falsifiable it gets tossed out. I’m amazed how so few people really understand this.

Again I agree, but I suspect the reason is that this realisation is counter intuitive, as are methods like science and logic of course. Once their value has been understood one cannot go back, but religions are structured in such a way they are inherently biased against such methods. Even world renown scientists seem able to maintain belief in the absence of objective evidence, for core concepts that are unfalsifiable. They would laugh at such obvious bias in any other context, yet seem able to avoid cognitive dissonance when doing this for their religious beliefs. See Francis Collins here for a prime example.

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Can I disbelieve in something that was not there in the first place? Sounds strange to say I do so. On the other hand, I have no issue at all disbelieving the claims being made by theists concerning their unfounded mental constructs of deities. I have seen nothing at all evidencing a deity that goes beyond an assertion or mental construct. I certainly do not believe in the invalid, fallacious claims being asserted by theists regarding the existence of God or gods.

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Imagine you’re a detective investigating a crime–construction of a universe without a permit. You round up a bunch of witnesses and start interviewing them. The first thing you find is that there are no direct eyewitnesses to the event. All the witnesses are giving you second-, third- or 100-hand hearsay accounts. Then you find that their accounts of the same event are wildly different. It was done by one old man who took six days. It was done by an immortal gang who were subsequently overthrown by their children and grandchildren. Each time they tell their stories, they become more and more elaborate and detailed. They even give you dates and times.

While you’re interviewing the latest crazy-eyed witness, you hear a ruckus in front of your police station. The witnesses have formed into rival groups are are massacring each other over minor differences in their wild stories. You shake your head sadly and conclude that maybe no crime was committed at all. Maybe the universe was an accident. You decide to wait for saner minds to provide real information.

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True story! To me this is a great example of a bad epistemology. So many Christian apologists works use what I would call the “criminal justice method” of trying to prove their god true. It’s really a tool to make a guess about truth for the sake of society and obviously shouldn’t be used for the universe at large. The criminal justice method didn’t give us the law of gravity, help cure any diseases, or get us to the moon because that wasn’t what it was designed for.

We have this unfalsifiable thing we want people to believe, but we have no evidence for it. But wait, we have this witness! So we now will “prove” this witness is right and then have “faith” the unfalsifiable things exist. Of course, we can’t trust any of the other 4000 witnesses. Their unfalsifiable claims are silly, but ours are worth believing in. So we’ll build this case so that people will see that god is real beyond a shadow of a doubt. I picked these people to be in my jury, and they believe it, so it must be true.

Agreed, no doubt. I think they either don’t understand it, don’t want to apply it to things they care about, or they don’t want to change.

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If I was to provide a full exposition on the reasons for my not bothering with mythological magic men, this post would become a complete book in its own right. But, in the interests of providing relevant information, I’ll reprise a somewhat shorter exposition from the old version of the forum - why The Children’s Encyclopaedia made me an atheist at the age of six. :slight_smile:

The Children’s Encyclopaedia (Unintentionally) Made Me An Atheist

I’ll step in here and present a brief exposition of my reasons for not treating unsupported mythological assertions uncritically as fact, in the manner that so many mythology fanboys do. I’ll start by stating the obvious - namely, it’s precisely because mythological assertions are completely bereft of support, that I regard them as intrinsically discardable, in accordance with the proper rules of discourse, which, sadly, the typical pedlars of apologetics here not only regard themselves and their assertions as exempt from, but seem to take a perverse delight in deliberately flouting. Quite simply, anyone who thinks regurgitating the very same mythological assertions that are completely bereft of genuine evidential support, or peddling lame apologetic fabrications that an astute five year old would point and laugh at (in my travels, I’ve encountered many such examples), will make me regard their mythologies as anything other than mythologies, is in for a rude awakening.

Indeed, it’s precisely because I’ve spent a good part of my adult life learning how rigorous discourse is conducted, in the empirical sciences and pure mathematics, that I regard apologetics as beneath contempt, even before seeing some of the more ludicrous examples thereof being peddled as if they constituted some spectacular brand of “wisdom”. As a consequence of that background, and the relevant observational data provided in quantity by the usual suspects, I take the view that said individuals wouldn’t recognise rigorous discourse if it backed an M1A2 Abrams main battle tank into their ribcages. In particular, pedlars of the fatuous “design” assertion manifestly have no idea what is required, to convert that assertion into something other than the product of their rectal passages, and no, I’m not going to spoon feed the usual suspects and do their homework for them - if they can’t work out the requisite details from first principles as I have, then I’m not going to given them the easy ride they manifestly seek on the matter whenever this issue arises.

Then of course, we have the fact that the mythologies so beloved by these individuals, are manifestly untrustworthy, courtesy of the fact that they contain risible errors of an elementary variety. If your mythology was written by people who were too stupid to count correctly the number of legs that an insect possesses, a fact discernible by an astute five year old, or written by people who thought genetics was controlled by coloured sticks, then I am under no obligation to treat seriously any of the fantastic claims for these mythologies as purported “sources of wisdom” from the usual suspects. That’s before we cover such farces as the “global flood” nonsense, or the “Fall of Man” drivel that is a crock to anyone who understands the most elementary principles of both ethics and jurisprudence, or the manner in which the “creation myth” assertions are completely ass-backwards with respect to actual scientific discoveries. Anyone who thinks that these assorted instances of rampant idiocy constitute “fact”, are less deserving of serious consideration than my tropical fish.

All of the above, of course, constitute substantive reasons for discarding the requisite assertions, even before we recognise that belief, as practised by mythology fanboys, is nothing more than uncritical acceptance of unsupported assertions, and as such, is a grave offence against the rules of proper discourse that should invalidate any appeal thereto in various species of tiresome apologetics, which at bottom, I regard as nothing more than the attempt to conjure wish-fulfilment fantasy into existence by the deployment of sophistical elisions treated as magic spells. And all of this, yet again, is before we consider the instances of discoursive duplicity that are routinely observed to be a part of the mythology fanboy modus operandi.

But, there is more, and as an insight into that expansive vista, I shall now provide the following.

In the decade that I have been observing, and in some instances, countering apologetic duplicity from the usual suspects, I have learned so much about the progress scientists have made in fields such as evolutionary biology and cosmological physics. I am fortunate to live in an age, where I can collect and digest at leisure, hundreds if not thousands of scientific papers, documenting in meticulous detail the research work of the authors, and I can perform this gathering of knowledge with no more effort than it takes to press a mouse button a few times. Of course, the real hard work starts when one reads the papers in question, but I was fortunate enough to have a truly wonderful science education, dispensed to me by an utterly stellar collection of teachers, the like of which I fear we may not see again for generations. The gift they bestowed upon me, enabling me to scan extant research and understand that research, is quite simply priceless. The benefits thereof transcend any mere, vulgar monetary calculation.

At this juncture, some might assert that I ought to offer some token of gratitude to the miscreants, who provided the motivation to labour diligently in this vein in order to destroy their canards. This is to miss the point entirely, namely, that if said miscreants had been given the power to convert their febrile and sleazy fantasies into policy, the ability to perform said diligent labour would have been denied to me, and the education I received would have been killed at source. That diligent labour is, in a sense, a repayment of the debt I owe to those stellar teachers, and those researchers, who toil honestly to keep the light of knowledge and understanding burning brightly, and who in some cases amplify that light to supernova levels of brilliance.

As a corollary, I regard the maintenance of proper discourse, as a small but necessary duty, in order to be a part of that preservation of illumination, even though my part may seem insignificant alongside the contributions of the true giants in the requisite fields, upon whose shoulders I gratefully sit. I will almost certainly never be a candidate for even a minor award, let alone anything as prestigious as a Nobel, but the work of those thus exalted, and the blood, sweat and tears they shed whilst treading the long path to that recognition, should be compelling stories of real achievement we pass on to our children, exhorting them to follow their example. Alongside their endeavours and their findings, the assertions of mythology, and the sometimes farcical nonsense peddled therein by the authors thereof as purportedly constituting historical fact, wither in impotence and inadequacy by comparison.

This much became obvious to me at just six years of age, even if I was then unable to expound the thought in the prose I now deploy. At that age, I had access to The Children’s Encyclopaedia, a ten volume work edited by one Arthur Mee. His project aimed to provide a repository of knowledge, compiled by some of the best scholars and pedagogical experts extant in his day. But at this juncture, it must be said that in my case, his wish for that project failed in one respect. Mee, typically Edwardian in outlook and approach, wanted his work to the the basis upon which the generation of fine, upstanding Englishmen, avowed disciples of God, King and Country, was to be accomplished - his work was quite clearly intended to be a training manual for the Sons of Empire.

He failed in that aim, because he made one fatal mistake.

He arranged his ten volume opus, in such a manner that direct comparison could be made between science and religion.

The science sections, obsolete though they may be in the present era, were written in compelling style, a style that presented a message that I, as a child, lapped up eagerly. Namely, that one didn’t have to accept uncritically the words of the authors, that their material was as they claimed it to be, but instead, one could go forth oneself, and experiment in order to find out for oneself that the facts in question were genuine, observable facts. The message in those science sections was clear: the wonders of Nature await you - go forth and embrace them. Telescope and microscope in hand, the universe is yours. How wonderfully inspiring was that!

The religion section, by contrast, was dismal. “Here are some assertions, treat them uncritically as fact”, was the message arising from those pages. It was almost as if Mee secretly and perversely wanted to undermine his stated mission, by making it so easy to observe that dismal contrast. On the one hand, pages that exhorted their readers to go forth and learn with passion and vigour, on the other, pages that effectively said “don’t bother asking questions”. It should not be difficult to deduce which of those pages I paid most attention to!

Quite simply, those pages made science a thing of majesty and glory, the rocket that would take me to the stars, whilst religion looked more like prison. And I was able to make that determination at six years of age, thanks to Arthur Mee.

My message to the mythology fanboys is this. You have missed out on so much genuine knowledge. What has been kept from you, and denied to you by the pedlars of mere mythology, should make you regard their actions as criminal. You have been offered trinkets and baubles as a pathetic substitute for the keys to the cosmos. In short, you have been robbed of a rightful inheritance.

Take the first steps now to seek reparations for that robbery.

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Well, I’m a little late to this party, but might as well toss my two cents into the hat now while I have a chance…

My Christian indoctrination never made any sense to me… N… E… V… E… R. I was raised in the middle of The Bible Belt, in a Christian family (primarily Baptist, with a bit of Methodist tossed in for good measure), in a small town Christian society. Even so, from the time I was able to understand what the Sunday school teachers and the preachers were saying every Sunday I was hauled into church (around 7 or 8 years old), I always found myself walking away more and more puzzled with what I was taught about God/Jesus/Satan/heaven/hell. This confusion and bewilderment only increased the more I learned in school as the years passed. Thing is, I was always “academically advanced”, and I recall I always seemed to have a deeper insight to many things more so than most other kids my age. Despite all my misgivings about Christianity, however, I was raised to be obedient, respectful, and trusting in regards to my elders. Therefore, that is how the concept of Satan, hell, and NEVER questioning the “Word of God” got so deeply implanted within my psyche.

As such, I spent a vast majority of my life having my logic/reason/rationale in a state of almost constant battle with the Christian dogma that was planted in my brain at such a young age. It made me miserable, and (even worse) it muddled my thinking so much at times that it caused me to make more than a couple of terrible decisions during various times when a clear head would have saved myself and others from a great deal of mental/emotional agony. Took me over 40+ years of my life to finally escape that debilitating struggle that always plagued my conscious. And, thankfully, since then my mind and thinking have been more clear and relaxed than ever before.

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All you need now is a heart. :wink:

I jest of course…

I feel something of a fraud listening to some of these life stories, as my own childhood indoctrination into religion was mild by comparison, and never really took.

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I do not believe in any deity because all of their supposedly divine texts are littered with the fingerprints of man.

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Not to worry, if I recall correctly, my story is even more mild than yours when it comes to religious indoctrination. While my dad was not atheist, my mom was, and for the most part my dad was rarely around, (his work involved a lot of travel.) And as he got older he got less and less religious for the most part, stopped going to church, etc.

The major part being of course, that during my most vulnerable childhood years, I got very little exposure to religion, except in obviously fictional stories that I would read. I never struggled at all to become atheist, I always was, even before I could understand the terms/definitions fully.

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I also consider myself fortunate that I was raised in a very 'soft" form of christianity. The United Church of Canada leans heavily towards only the positive stuff, and does not promote the fear and control I see other unfortunates experienced.

I did not live, nor can I truly be in the shoes of those who suffered. But the pain and suffering is apparent.

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David, Sheldon, Logic

Your experiences are what I’m doing for my boys… allowing them a childhood (their own magical thinking) without forcing an adult’s “magical” thinking on them as a form of truth.

@Whitefire13

…please explain the mini church in your back yard please…

:smiling_imp: :thinking: :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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What better place to tell the nasty petty sadistic vindictive deity of the bible and koran to fuck right off? :wink: :sunglasses:

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@Sheldon
@Whitefire13

Ok, she paints it up nicely, inserts a video camera in it, opens it to the public as the smallest single use prayer venue on earth, when someone comes in to pray and kneels on the pew, it automatically locks the door, turns the camera on, spins the crucifix upside down and triggers a satanism tape…we could air the vid’s here on AR. :smiling_imp:

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Indeed.

My journey from rabidly- Irish-Catholic-obnoxious- little prig to atheist took 20 years. It began when I actually read the bible and began to notice some of the more fatuous catholic beliefs for the nonsense they are. EG the virgin birth, infallibility the pope and the unshakeable belief masturbation is a mortal sin. I mean,it’s one of the few things in life at which I have truly excelled. :crazy_face:

All religions and are definitely man made. Imo, without exception, every religion reflects the people who invent it and the individuals who practice it.

As for ‘an urge to the divine’, I’m not convinced this is 100% man made. I say this because some form of religious belief is virtually universal. It certainly meets some important human needs.*** I also suspect religion may have some evolutionary value, but I can’t prove it.

One of my favourite graffito: “Religion: Man’s attempt to communicate with the weather” (anon)

***such as; addressing the fear of death, giving the illusions of a meaning of life and of control, over life. Traditionally, religion has given a sense of community and the protection that can entail. Even today, there are countries in which religious belief can be a matter of life and death . I don’t just mean Saudi Arabia and other small Arab countries. Other countries include parts of Africa and India.

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Is Falsifiability a scientific theory ? It is a term that is used voraciously by atheists when discussing a First Cause- Creator - God and it is used as some kind of litmus test for evidential debate .

TheFlyingPig Is Falsifiability a scientific theory ?

It’s a scientific term, a scientific theory is a broad explanation of a naturally occurring phenomenon. Something is considered unfalsifiable if there is no way to falsify it, even were it to be false. In scientific parlance such ideas are described as not even wrong, because an idea that can be shown to be wrong expands our knowledge, whereas unfalsifiable ideas do not, and are therefore meaningless. Like claiming each of us is shadowed by an invisible fairy, undetectable in any empirical way.

it is used as some kind of litmus test for evidential debate .

Well again an unfalsifiable claim cannot be falsified even if it is false, thus it teaches us nothing, it is a meaningless claim. Of course this doesn’t mean that rationally the claim ** we are each of us shadowed by an invisible fairy** is false.

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When I was first wrapping my head around this (I had been raised the opposite, to have “faith” and this was evidence) I just simply approached it as proving myself “wrong” first (again, right/wrong, black/white thinking).

This is only an application to my life. So if I want to invest- I pick a product/company I like, then I come at it as a “bad investment” choice. If I can’t find sufficient reason or evidence, then I proceed.
The opposite of that is choosing the company you “like” and then finding all the reasons or evidence of it being a “good” investment.
Confirmation bias kicks in and you ignore or filter out what could make it bad.

Indeed.

Nor does it mean that there is not an invisible old guy with a white beard, who made everything, sitting in the sky with a list of things you musn’t do. THAT is why I’m an agnostic atheist ; I simply do not know.

This is for me a critical aspect in the most bizarre claims. Such as the one above . It is up to the person making the claim to provide proof. Not up to me to disprove a claim.***

So today my position is: You believe in god(s)?How nice for you. You want me to share your beliefs? No problem. I will be thrilled to do so.----the instant you prove to me your god exist—I maintain that god cannot be argued into or out of existence.


***See Russell’s teapot:

Russell’s teapot is an analogy, formulated by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making unfalsifiable claims, rather than shifting the burden of disproof to others.

Russell specifically applied his analogy in the context of religion.[1] He wrote that if he were to assert, without offering proof, that a teapot, too small to be seen by telescopes, orbits the Sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars, he could not expect anyone to believe him solely because his assertion could not be proven wrong.

Russell’s teapot is still invoked in discussions concerning the existence of God, and has had influence in various fields and media.

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