RE: Reasons for belief
June 22, 2014 at 5:20 pm
(This post was last modified: June 22, 2014 at 5:22 pm by Logisch.)
(June 22, 2014 at 12:54 pm)Arthur123 Wrote: Good afternoon, I was genuinely curious to hear from you guys what reason(s) you have for believing in atheism or agnosticism. This is not supposed to be an exhaustive thread but rather which arguments you find effective and compelling and perhaps the circumstances that ultimately lead to your conclusion. Please don't respond (though I grant you have every right to do so) religion is dumb only dummies believe in that. Im more interested in a civil explanation of the specifics of your reasoning and foundation for your beliefs.
Kindest regards,
This is a rather fundamental misunderstanding of the stance. Atheism is a lack of belief in a god or gods. I don't have convictions for my lack of belief in unicorns, just as I don't have convictions for my lack of belief in a god or gods. To say, "What is your reason for not believing xyz." is to not acknowledge the burden of proof. If I say, "I believe unicorns exist and I can prove it." the burden of proof is on me to prove the unicorn exists. You do not have to prove me wrong if you are skeptical. I am the one who has to prove it to you as I am proposing and asserting the existence of the unicorn. If you don't believe, consider yourself an aunicornist. What is your reason for believing in a lack of belief in unicorns? That particular proposal sounds.... silly, to say the least.
Regarding coming to my stance on the existence of a god or gods, when I could no longer reconcile my previous beliefs with my current understanding of reality, I came to the realization that I had no reason to believe in them. At one point I decided to approach my religious beliefs with skepticism and research them. I was eventually left with the choice of, "I either care about what is true and pursue that, or I look for something that allows me to maintain my beliefs." I chose to pursue valuing that which is true over that which simply sounds good to me. It led me away from religion and I eventually admitted that I had no good reason to believe in a god or gods.
However, I'm not a gnostic. So my position is not, "There is no god." or "there cannot be a god." but rather, "I think it's an unknowable, unanswerable question." and also a potentially worthless question that only distracts from understanding reality.
There was never one specific thing that ultimately led me away. There was many things. Things that challenged my morals, things that challenged my understanding of the world around me, things that challenged my previous adopted ideas, things that challenged my ability to rationalize things properly and things that challenged my ability to think critically. There is no single silver bullet to dropping someone's religious beliefs.
A support system is a support structure and the foundation of that structure has to crumble piece by piece, pillar by pillar, until it cannot hold the weight anymore.
