Question For Fellow Atheists...

[Brian37]

Hello, welcome

I'd recommend checking out this video, it gives an idea of how people end up the way they do. I share your bewilderment, and being a part of this forum has been a journey for me towards trying to understand the mindset of theists.

Thanks for that.  I recently watch a Richard Carrier video about the history of christianity.  In the Q&A segment near the end, a lady asked why there are so many Atheists when there are so many more others who seem to be instinctively drawn into and cling to Theism.  Richard didn't have a pat answer and suggested that there are likely multiple reasons and factors.  The gist seems to be that the Atheists' mind just works different and the psychologists quiet haven't yet figured out exactly why...

Yes we do know why. I'd suggest you read "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. 

Two other books as well both by Victor Stenger, "God The Failed Hypothesis" and "The New Atheism". All three go into the scientific reasons biology wise and and science wise. 

The God Delusion explains in evolutionary terms where the "god of the gaps" is coming from. It literally stems from life not having the time always to slow down and pragmatically compare and test and observe what is going on.  Our brains evolved with neurological pathways based on our perceptions and while we do have the ability to figure things out, in antiquity we simply gap filled. Much like a dog will falsely bark at a reflection in the mirror. Or like a deer will challenge it's reflection in a window. 

Gap filling is evolutionary, even now as you read this, your brain like a computer, is observing things even when you are not deliberately thinking about it.

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'Catholic Lady' thinks I'm narrow minded. I don't believe in leprechauns, unicorns or the Tooth Fairy either so perhaps she has a point...

To be fair to her, unfortunately a majority of 7 billion of our fellow humans think like this. What she doesn't get, that Muslims and Jews and Hindus and Buddhists ect ect don't get, is that we are not closed minded. If our species never questioned social norms, our species never would have left the caves.

What the Church did to Galileo was closed minded. What the Church did to non Christians was closed minded. What theocracies like Iran and Saudi Arabia do to Christians and minority Muslims, what Sunnis do to Shiites, what Hindus do to anyone who kills a cow, that is closed minded. 

CL, it isn't close minded one bit to ditch old claims. It isn't hard for you to say slavery was bad, that was justified by religious people. It isn't hard for you to reject ISIS is it? 

CL, Autoite isn't being narrow minded. Ditching old claims and the willingness to be wrong and the willingness to want to find scientific fact is how we now have modern medicine, how we landed an object on Mars. Why we have GPS, and why we are trying to find cures for AIDS and cancer.

We aren't trying to in the least suggest religion be forced out of existence by use of violence one bit. But if you talk about it with us CL why should you fear us being blunt with you? 

Take his quote above, and replace leprechauns or unicorns or Tooth Fairy with other deity claims you rightfully reject.

"I don't believe in Allah"
"I don't believe in Yahweh"
"I don't believe in Apollo"
"I don't believe in Horus"
"I don't believe in Bhrama"

Your having the same fear of being wrong as other people with other religions. The only difference between the atheist and the theist is that we reject one more god claim than you do. Figure out why you rightfully reject all other claims, then you can understand why we reject your claim as well.