"The Causes of Atheism"

Originally posted by RJHinds
Evilution is a figment of your imagination.

The Moron Instructor

What was the point in that?

I mean seriously, I know you are a nutcase who doesn't believe in reality.
Everyone here knows that.

You don't have to keep proving it by posting completely pointless off topic posts
in every thread to remind everyone.

Originally posted by JS357
I wonder how many books/articles have been written titled "The causes of (X)" where (X) is something that the author approves.

Originally posted by JS357
I wonder how many books/articles have been written titled "The causes of (X)" where (X) is something that the author approves.

“All I know is that I am not a Marxist.” -Karl Marx

The post that was quoted here has been removed

Then again, 'reasonable default assumptions' can get you into trouble. I mean, I assumed you were a woman because you said you were. Now it appears I may have been wrong.

Originally posted by googlefudge

That sounds like 'macho posturing' to me.

And therein lies the problem.

And I don't think anyone here doesn't know what your opinion change was
based on. The wrongness and offensiveness of the posts being mainly a
figment of your imagination. If you think I have misunderstood you...
It's Nothing to how you misinterpreted me.

As I said. Pot. Kettle. Black.

Googlefudge, let me ask you, "Are you ever, EVER wrong?"

You SAY you sometimes are, but I have never seen an admission of it in this forum. Ever.

Even when shown to be wrong.

Originally posted by Suzianne
Googlefudge, let me ask you, "Are you ever, EVER wrong?"

You SAY you sometimes are, but I have never seen an admission of it in this forum. Ever.

Even when shown to be wrong.

Yes I am sometimes wrong and If you haven't seen me admit to a mistake
here on the forums that's simply because you haven't been reading all my
posts. [no criticism there]

However I admit to mistakes when either I spot the mistake or someone
proves me wrong. I have never not admitted to being wrong when someone
has convinced me I am wrong.
There are however plenty of times where people have said I'm wrong where
I disagree. This is presently one of those times.

EDIT: Also, if you want to claim that I don't admit to being wrong when I am
'shown to be' [proven to be] wrong, then I want examples where you think that's
happened and not some vague generic claim.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Yes I am sometimes wrong and If you haven't seen me admit to a mistake
here on the forums that's simply because you haven't been reading all my
posts. [no criticism there]

However I admit to mistakes when either I spot the mistake or someone
proves me wrong. I have never not admitted to being wrong when someone
has convinced me I am wrong.
Th ...[text shortened]... wrong, then I want examples where you think that's
happened and not some vague generic claim.

No, I proved it. You just don't want to admit it for whatever reason.

Your claim about why you aren't wrong was weak and lame.

But still you don't want to admit it.

And because of that...

I guess I'm done here, there's just no use.

The post that was quoted here has been removed

No, forget it, you can't change what's happened.

None of us can.

There's only one person who can, and he won't.

Crying over it is useless. It's over.

Originally posted by Suzianne
No, I proved it. You just don't want to admit it for whatever reason.

Your claim about why you aren't wrong was weak and lame.

But still you don't want to admit it.

And because of that...

I guess I'm done here, there's just no use.

You and I have very different definitions of the word prove.

If you don't want to argue the point that's fine.

Just don't claim a victory you never earned.

If you can't be bothered to fight your corner then you can't blame anyone
but yourself if others don't accept your arguments.

Originally posted by googlefudge

Seriously? Have you even picked up on the fact that what you took
issue with in my post wasn't even written by me?

Yes of course I did. You were quoting and responding to [and implicitly agreeing with] D64.

Yes it is. It's unfortunate that your reading comprehension skills are
sub-par.

You have yet to demonstrat ...[text shortened]... to prove it, and at the moment it's not me you are proving has sup-par reading
comprehension.

Let's see:

In a post I quoted D64 as saying the following:
"I would say that it upset me, but I don't believe that the man who said it
should be beaten up (which Googlefudge said he would like to do) for it."

You pitched a hissy fit and responded in part:
"I never said I would beat him up. I didn't say he should be beaten up...
Again, I suggest reading what I write more carefully and try to avoid inserting meanings and intentions that are not actually there."

Seems like it would have made much more sense for you to have responded to D64 rather than me. It made even less sense that your response was worded as if I had said it. Seems to have made no sense for you to have read what you did into D64's statement.

Suzianne responded to your post by explaining that it made no sense for you to have read what you did into D64's statement.

I broke down D64's statement into the simplest terms possible to explain what I thought she meant.

D64 confirmed that I understood the intended meaning of her statement correctly. Seems that Suzianne also understood D64's statement correctly.

So far as I know, you're the only one who didn't understand the intended meaning of D64's statement. D64 understood it. Suzianne understood it. I understood it.

Seems D64 was able to successfully convey her intended meaning.

Seems that you were the only one who didn't understand D64's intended meaning.

You've been trying to back pedal and/or "save face" since your initial response to my post. If you remain true to form, I imagine that you will continue to do so.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
[b]The Causes of Atheism Written by James Spiegel January, 2010.

"Jones’s fascinating book, Degenerate Moderns, continues Paul Johnson’s line of inquiry into the personal conduct of modern intellectuals. However, Jones does much more to show the connection between the academic theories of the scholars and their sexual perversity specifically. Th ...[text shortened]... hp?option=com_content&view=article&id=469:the-causes-of-atheism&catid=96:bonus-content&Itemid=80[/b]

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
"The Causes of Atheism Written by James Spiegel, January 2010.

The Will To Disbelieve

"Let’s review my account of atheism to this point. In the previous chapter, we noted the “biblical diagnosis” of atheism as resulting from a hardening of the heart (Ephesians 4:18) and the suppression of truth by wickedness (Romans 1:18). In this chapter we have considered Paul Vitz’s thesis that a broken relationship with one’s father is often involved in this process. But this is at most a necessary condition, not a sufficient condition, for atheism. It appears that the psychological fallout from a defective father must be combined with rebellion—a persistent immoral response of some sort, such as resentment, hatred, vanity, unforgiveness, or abject pride. And when that rebellion is deep or protracted enough, atheism results.

An especially devastating form of rebellion is chronic sexual misbehavior. Historical studies by Paul Johnson and E. Michael Jones corroborate Aldous Huxley’s claim that the desire to justify one’s immoral sexual practices has motivated many scholars to embrace cultural relativism and religious skepticism. Some noteworthy scholars have even gone so far as to fabricate data and otherwise transgress scholarly standards to win support for these views, which permit or even encourage yet more immoral indulgence. This is a formula, if ever there was one, for producing “a depraved mind” (Romans 1:28), as the Apostle Paul puts it, which is capable of even “exchang[ing] the truth of God for a lie” (Romans 1:25).

But what of the role of the will when it comes to atheism? Recall Paul Vitz’s emphasis on freedom when it comes to moving toward or away from God. Recall also Huxley’s remark that “We don’t know because we don’t want to know. It is our will that decides how and upon what subjects we shall use our intelligence.” Although Vitz and Huxley have little else to say on the subject, there are good reasons to emphasize this point. One great American scholar who would affirm this emphasis is William James, the nineteenth-century Harvard philosopher and champion of human free will.

William James was one of the most fair-minded intellectuals in modern history. He seemed wired to resist extremes and deal even-handedly with every perspective. This quality served him well at a time and place in American history that was rife with extremes, from the emotional tumult of religious fanaticism to the cool-headed skepticism of scientific empiricism. Meanwhile, somewhere in the middle was James, applying a pragmatic method of analysis to every question under the philosophical sun. No doubt it was in part because of James’s gift for fair-mindedness that he was invited to present the 1901–02 Gifford Lectures on that most controversial of all subjects—religious experience. These lectures, published as The Varieties of Religious Experience, became a classic text and over a century later remain the definitive psychological treatment of the subject. Perhaps what is most remarkable about James’s study is that, despite his empirical bent, he not only remained open to the veracity of the hundreds of reports of spiritual encounters chronicled in his research, but he actually concludes by noting his belief in the supernatural:

"The further limits of our being plunge, it seems to me, into an altogether other dimension of existence from the sensible and merely ‘understandable’ world. Name it the mystical region, or the supernatural region, whichever you choose. So far as our ideal impulses originate in this region . . . we belong to it in a more intimate sense than that in which we belong to the visible world." James’s openness to the supernatural irked his fellow pragmatists, most notably his hardcore naturalist colleague John Dewey, who remained a firm atheist until the end. But it wasn’t only positive evidence for the supernatural that persuaded William James. There was a more basic psychological insight that drove him. James argued that there are significant truths in life,many of them practical in nature,which cannot be seen or understood until one believes. Likewise, one may willfully refuse to believe certain truths, even when there is strong evidence for them.

James makes his point using the illustration of a mountain climber who is unsure as to whether he can make it safely across a difficult pass. If he succeeds, he will go on to safety. But if he fails, death awaits. Can he make it? He will never know either way until he actually ventures. James makes a similar point about many philosophical issues, where the evidence alone is inconclusive. The lesson he draws is that faith is practically necessary. He concludes: “In the average man . . . the power to trust, to risk a little beyond the evidence, is an essential function. . . .We cannot live or think at all without some degree of faith.” James’s insight on the practical necessity of faith points to the crucial role played by the will and personal desires when it comes to belief. One of the absurd dogmas of the modern period—which, alas, remains alive and well in the academy today—was that the will is or, at any rate, can be perfectly neutral when it comes to the formation of belief. As a master psychologist, James saw the foolishness of this notion. In his short but influential essay, “The Will to Believe,” James explains how this is especially the case when it comes to belief in the reality of moral values. He declares, “If your heart does not want a world of moral reality, your head will assuredly never make you believe in one.”

More than a century after these words were penned, James’s insight is not very controversial, especially in our postmodern intellectual milieu, which prizes the diminution of reason in the formation of beliefs. But, of course, the new atheists are anything but postmodern. In fact, they are fierce modernists who regard the scientific method as the final tribunal of all truth claims. To them, James’s thesis about the will to believe (or to disbelieve) is no doubt bothersome. How much more so, then, must be the words of fellow atheists who confess this psychological dynamic in themselves when it comes to God. Recall the candid reflections of philosopher Thomas Nagel: “I want atheism to be true. . . . It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God, and, naturally, hope that I’m right about my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.” Nagel is to be commended for his honesty, though it is a shame that as a philosopher he should so blatantly subjugate his quest for truth to his personal desires. One can only wonder why he doesn’t want the universe “to be like that.”

There is also the popular author and educator Mortimer Adler, who recognized that the nature of religious belief is such that it “lies in the state of one’s will, not in the state of one’s mind.” Adler rejected religious commitment because it “would require a radical change in my way of life, a basic alteration in the direction of day-to-day choices as well as in the ultimate objectives to be sought or hoped for. . . . The simple truth of the matter is that I did not wish to live up to being a genuinely religious person.” Happily, Adler did not reject the faith his entire life but converted to Christianity in his eighties.

Recently Slate editor David Plotz provided another confirmation of James’s thesis. Reflecting on his reading of the Old Testament, Plotz says, “How do I as a Jew cling to a God who seems to be so unmerciful so much of the time and so cruel so much of the time? That’s very troubling.Do I want such a God to exist? I don’t know that I do.” In one sense, Plotz’s point is quite understandable. Who wants to believe in an unmerciful and cruel deity? But notice his apparent willingness to reject belief even if such a deity does exist. This is a conscious choice on his part and another case in point when it comes to the will to deny God. To the frank testimonies of these intellectuals we can add many of the cases chronicled by Johnson and Jones that well illustrate the “will to believe”—or, in this case, the will to disbelieve—when it comes to God and religious faith.

Atheists ultimately choose not to believe in God. But, as we have seen, this choice does not occur in a psychological vacuum. It is made in response to deep challenges to faith, such as defective fathers and perhaps other emotional or psychological trials. Nor is the choice made in a moral vacuum. Sin and its consequences also impact the will in significant ways (as will be discussed further in the next chapter).These moral-psychological dynamics make it possible to deny the reality of the divine without any (or much) sense of incoherence in one’s worldview.This constitutes the general pattern of the rejection of God and all things religious.

Therefore, however much an atheist scholar, celebrity, or layperson might insist that his or her foundational “reason” for rejecting God is the problem of evil or the scientific irrelevance of the supernatural or some other “rational” consideration, this is only a ruse, a conceptual smokescreen to mask the real issue—personal rebellion. Admirably, some thinkers, such as Nagel and Adler, have admitted that their spurning of faith is based in the will, not reason. Most atheists refuse to admit this. However, as we will see shortly, there are factors involved in the psychology of atheism that make it surprising that anyone would recognize their own will to disbelieve." (4 of 4 excerpts)

https://www.apologetics.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=469:the-causes-of-atheism&catid=96:bonus-content&Itemid=80