RE: Question For Fellow Atheists...
January 8, 2017 at 11:37 am
(This post was last modified: January 8, 2017 at 12:21 pm by Autolite.)
Quote:I'd like to ask Auto if he visits religious forums ...
No, not really. I checked one out once, but only because I was curious. I wouldn't dream of ever seriously trying to convince a die-hard Theist that they're wrong about their beliefs. I've argued with Theists on a very limited basis on-line, but the purpose was indirect. I was hoping to cause any lurkers such as Agnostics or 'weak' Theists just to think. Other than that, I see debating directly with a Theist as just venting really...
Quote:I think some people are naturally sceptical and are constantly questioning things, and some people are comfortable taking things as they are presented. If you're in the former category, it's going to take a lot of very aggressive indoctrination to subdue you enough so that you don't think your way out of it.
I think one of the best explanations that I've heard for Theism came from James Randi (IIRC). He calls it the "need to believe" implying that Theism fills an emotion driven need. We all think using a combination of logical driven thought processes and emotion driven thought processes. Some people will allow their emotion driven thought process to 'override' their logic driven thought process and visa-versa. When emotion overrides logic you get Theism. When logic overrides emotion you get Atheism. This would explain why otherwise rational and intelligent folks can also be Theists. But why one would allow their emotion to override their logic to such an extreme as Theistic belief is still a mystery to me.
This may sound somewhat extreme, but it might also be interesting to consider that intelligence and mental stability are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Nobel Laureate Professor John Nash (A Beautiful Mind) could be an example of this. Nash was evidently brilliant but he was also delusional. At least Nash was smart enough to know that he was nuts...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Forbes_Nash_Jr.
Quote:I'd suggest you read "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins.
Perhaps I should do that. I started the book about a-year-and-a-half ago but I put it down after getting about a quarter of the way through. It's still here on the top shelf staring down on me as I type this...
