(May 19, 2015 at 4:45 pm)nicanica123 Wrote: ... Because from what I am concluding, belief in god and the supernatural seems to be a byproduct of human emotions not the cause
I think that is basically true (though I think it is poor reasoning that gets one to follow one's emotions for belief formation). However, once one makes a misstep in one's reasoning and set of beliefs, one tends to build on the error, making things go further astray. This is where religion can make matters worse, when one has selected a false religion (and, logically, at most, one religion could be true; the rest must be wrong, since they disagree with each other). For example, if you screw up and start believing that the Koran is divinely inspired, then you are likely to do and believe all sorts of stupid things due to what is written in that book. The same can be said of the Bible, believing that a bunch of ignorant primitives had some special knowledge, so you then start believing the foolishness inside that book (or, more properly, set of books).
But if it makes you feel any better, I have met numerous deluded fools who were atheists. Just because one has avoided belief in the Easter Bunny, that does not make one a genius. One can still be wrong about everything else.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
