Which was first: Atheism or Religion?

[bennyboy]

So we're back to...

Atheist: "I'll believe it when I see it."

Theist: "I'll see it when I believe it."

Precisely. One side is about intellectual honesty despite one's biases, the other side is about strongly conforming to one's biases.

I think accusations of dishonesty are going too far. There are definitely powerful experiences that could be called religious, and there is enough consistency in them for them to be meaningfully discussed by religious or spiritual people.

There are two separate issues here: one is that many atheists may not have had the kinds of experiences that religious people are talking about. The other is the issue of attribution. Given that people of different religions have similar experiences but vastly different explanations and mythologies by which they explain them, what can we infer? That the religion is the linguistic embodiment of the feelings, and that the feelings are therefore not the fulfillment of the religious beliefs. In other words, a literal belief in the Bible or any other religious doctrine is foolish.

But being wrong is not always being dishonest.