I would like to be an atheist...

Originally posted by divegeester
Do you think Woog-Booga's belief structure accurately represents what modern day theists associate with?

You can of course take the piss a bit, but assume (despite appearances) that you are talking to a reasonably rational and at least averagely educated person.

PS: we can negotiate on the coconut-husk thong in another thread.

First, note that I made an edit to my post above that threshes out my conclusion a bit more.

Do you think Woog-Booga's belief structure accurately represents what modern day theists associate with?

Not in the particulars, but when you get down to it latter-day theists ultimately resort to magical thinking.

You can of course take the piss a bit, but assume (despite appearances) that you are talking to a reasonably rational and at least averagely educated person.

Not sure what "take the piss a bit" means, exactly. My beloved Wooga-Booga's more sophisticated analog, the modern Christian, is more often than not only slightly more educated in the sciences. The modern Christian may accept volcanic eruptions as scientifically explainable, but still has a hard time stomaching other ideas with strong empirical data to back them up, such as biological evolution, a planet over 4 billions years old, and the Big Bang.

PS: we can negotiate on the coconut-husk thong in another thread.

I'm not selling mine. As soon as I get tenure it's coming out of the closet.

Originally posted by JS357
The transition to atheism from theism usually includes a period of anti-theism, as people do not like having been fooled.

The same can be said of the transition in the other direction.

Nobody likes being fooled. 🙂

Originally posted by pyxelated
The same can be said of the transition in the other direction.

Nobody likes being fooled. 🙂

It's not quite the same though. Atheists make no positive claims (and they don't generally assert gods do not exist Reveal Hidden Content) Consequently they are not actually fooling anyone; merely expressing rational arguments as to why one should think twice about believing in some god or other.

Originally posted by pyxelated
The same can be said of the transition in the other direction.

Nobody likes being fooled. 🙂

Yes, but the theist turning atheist has this ready-made institution to attack, and ready targets in theists dropping by trying to save him or reminding him he's flammable. Besides, the atheist turning theist has good news to enjoy. So I think the newly atheistic is more vocally bitter than the newly theistic.

Originally posted by JS357
Yes, but the theist turning atheist has this ready-made institution to attack, and ready targets in theists dropping by trying to save him or reminding him he's flammable. Besides, the atheist turning theist has good news to enjoy. So I think the newly atheistic is more vocally bitter than the newly theistic.

Sure, the new theist gets his 70 virgins. Who wouldn't want that.

Originally posted by divegeester
I am a theist and I would like to be an atheist; or more accurately, I would like to revert to being an atheist.

The arguments put forth in this forum by atheists, has convinced me that this is the rational place to be.

What should I do next please?

Thanks.

Edit: this is a theoretical question of course.

It's not a procedure. Atheists don't gather together to provide social support in the way religions do. There are some atheist organizations you can contact and hang out with them if you want. Most atheists don't "do anything" to "be atheists". Atheists don't have a Bible...or churches...etc.

Atheism is the absence of religion, and it can be awfully lonely.

Originally posted by Agerg
It's not quite the same though. Atheists make no positive claims (and they don't generally assert gods do not exist [hidden]though they may demonstrate particular gods are logically infeasible or impossible...no problem for the theist who holds God is "above logic" though)[/hidden]) Consequently they are not actually fooling anyone; merely expressing rational arguments as to why one should think twice about believing in some god or other.

Well, not that I have time to get into an involved discussion of this (there are reasons I haven't been posting much this week), but...

debate differs from reality. To keep the map/territory analogy from another thread going, philosophy--which is invariably conducted in some language--is a necessarily imperfect map of reality. However, reality is real, and it may or may not correspond to the things we are able to talk about. This is why the Eastern approach provides an interesting contrast to the Western; reality far exceeds our ability to describe or analyze it. BUT IT IS THERE. We are here. Why?

The answer "no reason" has religious consequences (because of the kind of beings we are) just as much as any positive answer. I don't have the time to go more deeply into that now; I wish I did, I might learn something... intellectual progress for me usually comes about because I have to defend some point I had more-or-less just lazily accepted before.

IMO the story of Wooga-Booga is amusing nonsense, to anybody who thinks about it for more than a minute or so... if that kind of thing satisfies some people that they are right, they really need to investigate the real "opposition" a little more deeply. 🙂

Originally posted by JS357
Yes, but the theist turning atheist has this ready-made institution to attack, and ready targets in theists dropping by trying to save him or reminding him he's flammable. Besides, the atheist turning theist has good news to enjoy. So I think the newly atheistic is more vocally bitter than the newly theistic.

Not sure how quickly, or fully, that realization hits most people. I wasn't particularly bothered by it when I was an atheist.

And the new theist's news is not necessarily all good. "What? You mean I have to give all this stuff up if I want to live forever?" Admit it, being flameproof has its advantages 🙂

But basically, I think your point is good. When you get down to brass tacks, at least the theist has some hope that there is something better than what we see all around us, and that we have a shot at it. Being an atheist, and staying one, must require Stoic courage and steadfastness.

But psychology and truth are in the end two different things, even if they are intimately related 🙂

Originally posted by pyxelated
IMO the story of Wooga-Booga is amusing nonsense...

Of course it is, because it's a laboratory-grade distillation of the fraud that underlies the totality of all Western religious dogma, which typically is leavened by other ingredients to make it more palatable to modern sensibilities (quaint parables, rituals, traditions, elaborate places of worship, and proselytizing literature that plays shell games with logic)

Originally posted by Soothfast
Of course it is, because it's a laboratory-grade distillation of the fraud that underlies the totality of all Western religious dogma, which typically is leavened by other ingredients to make it more palatable to modern sensibilities (quaint parables, rituals, traditions, elaborate places of worship, and proselytizing literature that plays shell games with logic)

So... you equate Western religious dogma and Pacific-island shamanism?

Okay. Fundamentalism at work, I guess. 🙂

Originally posted by pyxelated
So... you equate Western religious dogma and Pacific-island shamanism?

Why not?

But no, I'm merely supplying my own quaint parable that tries to convey how the reasoned atheist may argue "against" theistic (or magical) thinking merely by presenting an alternate explanation for some phenomenon that does not involve invocation of the supernatural. The atheist does not operate in quite the same way as a Jehovah's Witness knocking on doors.

Originally posted by divegeester
I am a theist and I would like to be an atheist; or more accurately, I would like to revert to being an atheist.

The arguments put forth in this forum by atheists, has convinced me that this is the rational place to be.

What should I do next please?

Thanks.

Edit: this is a theoretical question of course.

P = God exists.

If I understand you, you believe P and live your life accordingly but would rather believe not-P and live your life accordingly. But, if you believe P after your studies on the topic, then presumably the evidential reasons/considerations you have surrounding the question of P have led you exactly there. So it's not clear you can undergo the revertion you want without coming into new evidential reasons/considerations that would serve to tip the balance the other way. If the evidence really suggests to you that P is the case, then you should be true to that (not that you may have much choice in the matter).

What you could do, however, is choose to undertake projects that you have reason to think might eventuate in your coming to believe not-P, though it is not at all clear that this will actually end up having the desired effect. For instance, dine with smart persons who believe not-P. Or read arguments that are decent toward the conclusion not-P. In this case, you could try Mackie's The Miracle of Theism.

Originally posted by Soothfast
Why not?

But no, I'm merely supplying my own quaint parable that tries to convey how the reasoned atheist may argue "against" theistic (or magical) thinking merely by presenting an alternate explanation for some phenomenon that does not involve invocation of the supernatural. The atheist does not operate in quite the same way as a Jehovah's Witness knocking on doors.

I think this really boils down to where we have to accept "magical" thinking.

The little Chesterton essay I posted a while back makes an important point here. Nobody--theist, atheist, whoever--starts at an advantage in argument. We all accept things without proof. No exceptions. If we made no assumptions we'd never be able to argue. Logical argument cannot begin with proof; we must take some things as given, or we'll never even get started.

You posit, if I read you right, that religious thought necessarily involves accepting "magical" (i.e., irrational) assertions. I counter that atheists' premises are just as "irrational," in the sense of being unproven or at least non-self-evident, as anything certain theists accept without proof.

Math provides a good analogy here--every number that's rational is real, but the rationals are clearly a subset of the reals--and the difference is transcendental 🙂

Originally posted by Soothfast
...but instead provide simpler or more plausible explanations to phenomena that do not require invocation of a cheat (i.e. God) that essentially short-circuits scientific inquiry and causal chains.

Originally posted by Soothfast
The modern Christian may accept volcanic eruptions as scientifically explainable, but still has a hard time sto ...[text shortened]... ack them up, such as biological evolution, a planet over 4 billions years old, and the Big Bang.

Are you and sonhouse cousins or something?

You both seem to have this conviction that Christians are some sort of backwards hillbilly folk who are unimaginative, unintelligent and uneducated.

I'll grant you that some of the posters in this forum seem to have lived up to this notion, but I'm not one of them.

I believe everything modern science has established as fact, that is, "other ideas with strong empirical data to back them up", and yes that includes "biological evolution, a planet over 4 billion years old, and the Big Bang". That also happens to include such ideas as the scientific method, quantum mechanics and relativity. I have no problem with black holes or a universe more than 13 billion years old. Furthermore, I have absolutely no problems squaring these things with my beliefs.

So please, lighten up on characterizing Christians as extras on the set of "Deliverance", okay?

Originally posted by pyxelated
Not sure how quickly, or fully, that realization hits most people. I wasn't particularly bothered by it when I was an atheist.

And the new theist's news is not necessarily all good. "What? You mean I have to give all this stuff up if I want to live forever?" Admit it, being flameproof has its advantages 🙂

But basically, I think your point is good. W ...[text shortened]... hology and truth are in the end two different things, even if they are intimately related 🙂

In a sort of Pascal's wager sort of way, the theist is giving up finite pleasures and following a sometimes demanding way -- not in order to get; I won't suggest it's so crass -- with the solace of both current approval by God, and eternal reward of being in God's blissful presence. The approval of a supremely important figure and the promise of immense reward can steel a soul against quite a bit of deprivation.

I guess I do dwell on the psychology and sociology of theism and atheism, more than I dwell on the objective truth of the claims they advocate. But in taking up dive's pretend question, I'd say it's an area to be explore by anyone who is on the bridge between theism and atheism and is deciding which way to go.