(October 14, 2015 at 2:50 pm)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote: We understand what you mean, but you need to look at the fact that well over half of us started out as believers.
If all atheists were simply never religious, you might be able to argue that atheism was the result of a refusal to consider the possibility of a god.
But that's just not the reality of it. Even for those who never believed, they understand the concept. They just never found the evidence plausible. For those of us (self included) who did believe, we finally saw that the story we had swallowed in order to start believing in the first place was just too flawed, and we realized that our belief was a matter of deluding ourselves via that story. It's the same way kids stop believing in Santa Claus. When they realize the presents under the tree are actually hidden on the top shelf of mom's walk-in closet, then they put the pieces together and realize it's just a story told to make little kids behave. It doesn't mean they refused to be "open to the possibility", they just recognize the BS at last, and grow up.
Exactly this.
Playing Cluedo with my mum while I was at Uni:
"You did WHAT? With WHO? WHERE???"
