Why are you are an atheist

Originally posted by twhitehead
I disagree. Gods or other supernatural entities are common beliefs throughout the world, but the concept of a single God is not so common and has largely spread from one single source. The need for explanations and the subsequent imagining of hidden intent behind life's happenings is endemic to mankind, but not the concept of God. The God concept is just ...[text shortened]... maginings. Astrology is another popular one. Where I come from Witchcraft is a very popular one.

I agree.

People have a tendency to 'magic thinking' and of 'anthropomorphism' and of human centred instead
of universe centred thinking.

And so we think of the Earth as the centre of the universe, and believe that everything revolves around
us and wonder at how 'perfectly' the world seems to suite us etc etc.

This tendency leaves us open to belief in gods or god... But doesn't always or necessarily lead to it.

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
abstract

You keep using that word... I do not think it means what you think it means.

Originally posted by googlefudge
You keep using that word... I do not think it means what you think it means.

I'm not surprised that you'd think that.

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
I'm not surprised that you'd think that.

Well it's true, and I like to believe true things, which makes my believing that pretty unsurprising.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Well it's true, and I like to believe true things, which makes my believing that pretty unsurprising.

I'm not surprised that you'd think that.

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
I'm not surprised that you'd think that.

I think the ToO bot has hit a recursive loop.

Originally posted by googlefudge
I was born an atheist*, with two atheist parents, in the largely secular UK, where I have
remained an atheist my entire life.

I remain an atheist because I believe in only believing things for which there is sufficient
evidence to justify that belief.

There is no evidence that any gods exist, and plenty of evidence that all the claimed gods
a ...[text shortened]... nd society into believing in the god/s of whichever religion is popular in that area/region.[/i]

I therefore do not believe in the existence of any gods [which makes me an atheist] and I also
go farther and believe in the lack of gods [which makes me a strong atheist] and indeed for
many claimed gods [such as the Judeo-Christian god] I would claim to know that those gods
do not exist [which makes me a gnostic atheist with respect for those gods].

You mentioned believing in things for which there is sufficient evidence to justify that belief.

What evidence do you have for the belief that there is no God, specifically the Judeo-Christian God, the God of the bible... as you claim?

I understand the position (what I would call the default position) of not believing in God for what you would call lack of 'proof', I don't know that I have come across a claim that there is proof of no God. Thanks

Originally posted by yoctobyte
What evidence do you have for the belief that there is no God, specifically the Judeo-Christian God, the God of the bible... as you claim?

It depends on the particular description. Some descriptions I have come across are incoherent and thus cannot logically exist. Most descriptions include certain claims about what we would expect to see, certain effects that God should have on the universe. Because of this, a lack of such effects is evidence that the described God does not exist.
An example of this is the claim that God is good, loving and all powerful. The observation that avoidable suffering exists in large amounts is strong evidence that no such God exists.

Originally posted by twhitehead

Where I come from Witchcraft is a very popular one.

Hogwarts?! 😲

Originally posted by yoctobyte
[quote]I therefore do not believe in the existence of any gods [which makes me an atheist] and I also
go farther and believe in the lack of gods [which makes me a strong atheist] and indeed for
many claimed gods [such as the Judeo-Christian god] I would claim to know that those gods
do not exist [which makes me a gnostic atheist with respect for thos ...[text shortened]... of 'proof', I don't know that I have come across a claim that there is proof of no God. Thanks

I understand the position (what I would call the default position) of not believing in God for what you would call lack of 'proof', I don't know that I have come across a claim that there is proof of no God. Thanks

I would call it the default position too. 🙂 The position of lacking belief in any claim is always the default from which
you shouldn't move unless you are presented with sufficient evidence one way or another to justify doing so.

This is a topic I have covered before, but is a difficult one to do on an internet forum.
It's much much easier to argue for a lack of belief in gods, than it is to argue [for a belief in the lack of] gods.
Because the latter requires justification which is really hard to present on an internet forum.

The short version is this...

We know from our increasing scientific understanding of ourselves and the universe we inhabit that:

The universe in it's present form started ~13.8 billion years ago.
That our solar system formed in that universe ~4.5 billion years ago, with the Earth forming shortly
after that. And that this solar-system is but one of ~200~400 billion in this Galaxy and that this
galaxy is but one of a few hundred billion galaxies in the visible universe.
That life formed on Earth some few hundred million years after it's formation and then spend a
few billion years as simple celled life forms before complex life arose largely by evolution by natural
selection.
That complex life existed for many hundreds of millions of years in a myriad different forms before
the first humans evolved.
That creatures we would recognise as modern day humans existed for a few hundred thousand years
at least before we had the beginnings of civilisation form. And that it then took ~10,000 years to get
to the present [a cosmic blink of the eye].
We know that our minds, our conciousness is a product of the physical workings of our brains, and that
these brains and these capabilities slowly evolved over those hundreds of millions of years that complex
life has existed. And that we have no souls or spirits animating us beyond the physical workings of the
matter that makes us and the natural forces that act on that matter.
We know that these brains while capable of rational thinking are beset by biases and heuristics and modes
of thought that are not logical or rational and lead to making predictable mistakes, mistakes that lead to
magical thinking and anthropomorphizing forces and creatures and that this coupled with our social and
storytelling nature naturally leads over time to the creation of myths and legends and spirits and ghosts and
gods and religions.
We can track through history and indeed prehistory [as well as by studying cultures and civilisations still
around today] the development of such ideas and the slow formation of different religions. We can see
them getting invented through time. And their borrowing ideas and themes from each other, and merging
and splitting.
We can analyse those religions and determine that the beliefs are not true, and/or contradictory, and/or
not supported by evidence or reason.
And we have discovered probability theory that enables us to determine how likely particular proposed
explanations are a-priori and given the available evidence.

Taken all together, what we have is solid evidence we came to be via natural and non-sentient processes
in a universe that has either existed in one form or another for eternity, or came about itself through natural
and non-sentient processes.
We have solid evidence that we have no souls or spirit, and that there is consequently no such thing as an
afterlife of any kind.
We have solid evidence for mankind inventing religions and supernatural beliefs for completely understandable
psychological reasons. And evidence that the claims of these mutually contradictory [and indeed frequently
internally contradictory] religions and superstitions are in fact wrong, and not just unsubstantiated.
And we can determine that the probability of any god existing and being the 'cause' of the universe and ourselves
[let alone there being one that guards an afterlife] is so tiny a-priori and given the evidence that it's not reasonable
to believe it to be true and is indeed reasonable to believe [or even claim to know] that it's not true.

Basically the whole of science, and the world view it has built and is building, contradicts and acts as evidence
against the claims of religions. So the really short answer is 'because science and Bayesian probability theory'.

I recognise that this isn't convincing as it requires years of study/education to get all the necessary theory and
evidence and you have to accept the premises of scientific skepticism and rationality on top of that before you
could find this argument convincing. That doesn't mean it's wrong, just not particularly effective at changing peoples
minds.

EDIT: fixed typo.

Originally posted by twhitehead
It depends on the particular description. Some descriptions I have come across are incoherent and thus cannot logically exist. Most descriptions include certain claims about what we would expect to see, certain effects that God should have on the universe. Because of this, a lack of such effects is evidence that the described God does not exist.
An examp ...[text shortened]... ion that avoidable suffering exists in large amounts is strong evidence that no such God exists.

This too.

Although this is expressly about specific gods as opposed to gods in general...

The other thing I should mention is that you also do need some form of definition of what a god
is before you can talk about whether or not one exists.

I have a working definition of what constitutes a god [which would include all versions of the
Christian god] which I use when talking about this topic. If you move beyond that definition then
we are no longer talking about the same thing and the same arguments may not apply.

Originally posted by Ghost of a Duke
Hogwarts?! 😲

Not the English children's version, but magic none the less. Most of my friends when growing up could relate at least one personal experience where they believed magic was involved. And these were also Christian children mind you but did not attribute the goings on to God. People can hold more than one mythology at a time.

Originally posted by googlefudge
It's much much easier to argue for a lack of belief in gods, than it is to argue for a lack of belief in gods. Because the latter requires justification which is really hard to present on an internet forum.

Or rather because you got the wording wrong in the latter. 🙂

Originally posted by twhitehead
I was born an atheist, then subsequently brought up as a Christian then at about the age of 12 I realised it just didn't make sense. It wasn't because of some 'negative experience' with religion. It was because I realised it wasn't true.

What didn't make sense, and how did you realize it wasn't true?

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
What didn't make sense, and how did you realize it wasn't true?

Christianity didn't make sense. It was over 30 years ago, and I don't recall the exact details.