RE: Atheism and OCD
May 3, 2014 at 2:30 am
(This post was last modified: May 3, 2014 at 2:35 am by Coffee Jesus.)
(May 2, 2014 at 6:00 pm)darthbarracuda Wrote: I guess a lot of this is that so many people believe in god, specifically YHWH.
Observation: a lot of people believe in God.
Explanation: God exists and communciates with us.
What other explanations could account for your observation?
Threat of Violence. Throughout history, people were forced to convert to Christianity with the threat of execution.
Correlation between religiosity and fertility. You can look this one up on NIH.gov.
Peer pressure.
The idea that Christianity is a source of morality or spiritual pleasure -- an idea that seems to bring certain unbelievers back to religion when they have children.
Bad Logic. You acknowledge that there are unpersuasive, illogical arguments for theism. If these arguments are still spread around by proselytizers, they must work at least occasionally. This shows that many people are persuaded by illogical arguments.
Psychological Problems. People having psychotic or manic episodes may think that God is talking to them. They really believe it too!
What's more is that all these explanations draw on what you already know. The hypothesis that they believe God exists because God talks to them is totally unnecessary. Furthermore, the sheer number of believers is of no consequence, unless you have actually calculated the expected impact of these known variables. Until you do that calculation, you cannot determine that the number of believers suggests that there are or aren't other unknown variables at play, such as God talking to people.
