Is Unbelief Possible?

[tor]

I've been an atheist my entire life. I've never once had a belief in any sort of deity,

[Alex K]

Beliefs can be true and false. The message you are looking at exists and if you believe it you're right.
If I say that I own a spaceship and you believe it that belief is false.

Yea! Exactly, I guess that's the direction of the idea I'm looking for. If belief is unreliable, why believe in anything at all? Why not choose to surpress your belief or suspend it?

In some instances, we cannot quite suspend belief completely if we want to act, but I think it makes sense to suspend belief in some instances. For example, if I roll a die, I do not have any preconceived ideas how many eyes it's going to be, I seriously suspend any belief in possible results. Now that's the extreme case because we know all outcomes are roughly equally likely, but it's also still kinda true for other things in real life. It's ok to say "I don't know".

There was a related discussion on a different thread where discipulus wantet to school us silly atheists and tell us that we are all really faith based, because we have to have faith in rationality and the scientific principle, which cannot be "proven" to be reliable using science, because if science is not reliable, it could give you a false positive on itself... well you get the idea.

My reply (slightly edited) was thusly:

You meant to say: hey, but you use the scientific method to find whether the scientific method is reliable (aha!). And I say: in a sense that is correct, for what I can check is self-consistency of its findings. It cannot in principle be possible to prove it correct in any way because there is the possibility of solipsism. However, the scientific method is not an artificial construct entirely separate from our everyday experience, it is a slight formalization of the mode of operation in which you live your life. To deny it on grounds of our inability to prove its validity from first principles therefore has the profound consequence of sliding into solipsism. The hypothesis "the scientific method is unreliable" is unfalsifiable, but living your life accepting it means denying the reality of your life. You can do it, but there is no reason to do it. Now I understand that you can't actually want to accept it (the hypothesis of unreliability), because you are arguing with us. Thus, you want not only to reject it, given that we reject it as well, you call this move faith-based. In a philosophical piggy back, you then declare that 1. we are no better than the theists, 2. because we live faith based lifes. The latter is true, but almost trivially so, as we are forced to make working assumptions in order to act (the point of your schtick is calling those faith)- the former is not, for you either make a huge unnecessary additional assumption for which there is no evidence in the sense of the scientific method which you already accept, or you want to take theism as the alternative, in which case you deny all of reality and this conversation does not take place.

Your next stop from here is presuppositionalism, have fun

Emphasis mine. duh.

[fr0d0]

I believe in God because it works for me and I can trust that it will continue to do so. I don't see how anyone can believe in anything unreliable. How does that work? First you need to trust that it works.

Some unreliable people exist. Unreliable cars exist. Unreliable organizations exist. Plenty of unreliable things do exist.

Yeah. And as a result, you can't trust them. You don't _believe_ that they'll function as you'd like them to.

[Neo-Scholastic]

You're addressing a bunch of atheists. Atheism is by definition unbelief. What answer do you think you will get?

Up until you start to support that believe by calling religious people delutional, saying the bible is full of contradictions, or that your life will has meaning. Your lack of belief entails other actual beliefs. Not making a choice is still a kind of choice. Maybe atheism isn't technically a belief but it is a stance many here defend. Once you start to defend that stance you lose all credibility saying you 'just' or 'simply' don't believe.

[MindForgedManacle]

....Of course people can not believe in things. Do you believe in the existence of thing X whose existence cannot be proven or refuted? I highly doubt that you do.

Further, you can have reasons for not believing in something, and still sensibly call that unbelief. If I don't believe in unprovable-irrefutable thing X, my reasons for unbelief can be because I reject that any such thing can exists, or perhaps that even if such a thing can exist I have no good reason to accept that it does in fact exist.

[Alex K]

Example: Alien life. I think it is more likely than not that alien life exists somewhere in the observable universe, because it is so big. So let's say I believe in it, weakly. I don't feel like withholding judgment completely, but I am not strongly convinced. I don't have an agnostic fetish like some who get off on refusing to say anything on a topic where there is little data.

[ThePinsir]

I believe that plants turn sun light into sugar.
I believe that exploding stars create heavy elements.
I believe that Hydrogen atoms each have 1 proton.
I believe in things that are supported by evidence.


I do not believe in any gods.
I do not believe in fairies.
I do not believe OP asked a good question.

[Mudhammam]

Up until you start to support that believe by calling religious people delutional,

Well, come on, you people believe there is an evil spirit named Satan whose purpose is to go around and deceive people, that Jesus died as a sacrifice to save mankind, and then floated into the sky, and that by saying the magic words you enter a portal after death that returns you to your friends and family. Nothing delusional about that though.

saying the bible is full of contradictions,

That's more of an observation one makes when they read the Bible.

or that your life will has meaning.

What could be more meaningful than life?

That' Your lack of belief entails other actual beliefs.

I believe I'm taking a shit right now, typing this message, and that I really exist in a world full of other people. Not quite comparable to drinking the kool-aid.

Not making a choice is still a kind of choice. Maybe atheism isn't technically a belief but it is a stance many here defend. Once you start to defend that stance you lose all credibility saying you 'just' or 'simply' don't believe.

Ah, the false equivalency set up by believers to make themselves feel more justified in their childish role-playing. Yes, I defend the stance that irrational ideas held beyond a reasonable doubt are inherently dangerous.

[Mister Agenda]

(Just to preface my question, I'm a Christian, but I don't force my beliefs on anyone. I think that people have a right to believe whatever they want, and no religion or perspective should ever be forced on anyone. That said, healthy and honest discussion is what I hope to spark here in my post).

To me, belief seems to be unavoidable. If you stand for it, and will take it to your grave, you are putting belief into it. It doesn't matter what you believe, at all. Because no matter what, the end is death. The end is the same for everyone, and its high risk to believe in anything, something or nothing, or to not even be sure. It's all risk. I guess my question is, is it possible to get rid of belief, and if so, is it ultimately a desireable option?

If by belief you mean 'hold something to be true', then it is impossible to get rid of belief as long as there are people, and it wouldn't be desireable to do so. The most we can hope is to have as many as possible of the beliefs that we do have, be correct.

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I guess I didn't communicate my thoughts properly. Thanks for your patience!

What I'm getting at is this: From what I've been told from religious people (which is why I'm not asking them this question) Atheism "believe" there is no God. But that this is still some form of belief even if it is a lack of belief, or a disbelief that god is real because you're putting trust into what you know to be true. Does that make better sense?

Think about what you're saying: not believing is believing. Is that really the route you want to be on?

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Yes! Thats exactly what I mean! Is belief a bad thing though? Like, if I shouldn't believe in one thing, doesn't that make belief an (for lack of a better word) "illusion"? Or bad? And should I avoid it all together?

Most of us don't think believing is a bad thing. Most of us think believing things for bad reasons is a bad thing.

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I like hat definition a lot. But if I can play devil's advocate for one question: Why are humans capable of faith if it is to be discourage? In other words, why is it that faith is a natural thing every human has the ability of engaging in, and yet it bad? And if so, how does one surgically remove faith?

It's a survival trait for young children to accept what their elders say as true, especially in a world where there really are crocodiles at the watering hole waiting to eat you.

It's not bad, it's still important, we still need our children to be like sponges when it comes to learning. But we should be careful what we teach them.

And it's reasonable to expect adults to be a little more discerning about what they'll believe.

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You're addressing a bunch of atheists. Atheism is by definition unbelief. What answer do you think you will get?

Up until you start to support that believe by calling religious people delutional, saying the bible is full of contradictions, or that your life will has meaning. Your lack of belief entails other actual beliefs. Not making a choice is still a kind of choice.

You'd think if all those things were entailed by our lack of belief, we would each exhibit those behaviors, woudln't you?

If you find yourself saying things like 'not making a choice is a choice' as more than an aphorism but literally, you may want to stop and think about what you're saying for a minute.

Maybe atheism isn't technically a belief

But you desperately, desperately want it to be so there's not much you won't say to try to make it into one.

but it is a stance many here defend. Once you start to defend that stance you lose all credibility saying you 'just' or 'simply' don't believe.

Case in point.

[Rampant.A.I.]

There are a range of beliefs about reality, and religious belief is not the same as epistemologically justifiable true beliefs.

Empirically verifiable beliefs are of a different quality than beliefs formed by conjecture, and from experience of real world events. Believing the sun will appear to rise in the east and set in the west does not require the same type of "faith" religious people argue it does.

We know why it appears to do this, and we know it would take some sort of catastrophic improbable galactic event we would likely survive to change it.

Other beliefs are not as justified, and religious beliefs rely entirely on faith in the absence of evidence.

Religious beliefs in the existence of God are in no way comparable to beliefs formed from a foundation of empirical evidence.