(April 15, 2015 at 1:45 pm)Homeless Nutter Wrote: Really? So what about someone who grew up without ever hearing about religion, god, or evidence for, or against those? Surely - they would not have a belief in god, because that's not something anyone is born with. And the strength of evidence would be completely irrelevant. Would you say they "believe" there's no god, even if they don't have the concept of "god"?
Just because some f***-wits decided to make up some sh*t and inform me about it at some point, means now I have to make up another "ideology", in order to reject it? That's not logical. What can be asserted without proof can be rejected without proof, as Hitchens stated.
What if I say - I am God Almighty and you all need to bow down to me? Is your lack of belief in my godliness just another ideology? And if some fool decides to obey me - does that put him/her on equal ground with rationally thinking people, who'd reject my proposition out of hand? I think not.
Everything any one of us knows is a "belief", if you want to put it that way. Which makes the word "belief" useless. If we're going to call lack of belief a belief, then we need to find a new word for what gullible people do when they blindly accept without proof anything, that happens to be emotionally pleasing for them, or is forced upon them under threat.
You seem to be equating belief with ideology.
Regardless, think of this way. It's a lack of belief that rests upon a belief, because the foundation for your lack of belief is to believe the evidence is unconvincing.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell
