Do you wish there's a god?

[The Grand Nudger]

To me, the problem has been the denial that we have reasons. 

(Though it's also been kind of funny. I've been insisting that the atheists posting here are thinking people whose brains are not baby-brains. And for this, I'm accused of being anti-atheist. As if some people want to claim that we are NOT thinking people and we DO have baby-brains.)

That may be a problem for you, but it just wasn't an issue for my five year old self. Many things have changed since then, but my being an atheist simply isn't among them. No reason that I may possess today can truthfully be described as the reason for my atheism, because that state of belief preceded the possession of any reason I might offer.

Do you understand?

There simply is no reason or belief to explain or defend with regards to that state of belief. It is an irreducible fact of who I have always been. I can give you reasons why, much later in life, I became a gnostic - but that won't explain my atheism. I can give you reasons why, later in life, I rejected christianity, but that doesn't actually depend on my gnosticism -or- my atheism, nor can it explain either, nor is the rejection of christian theology a sufficient reason or cause for atheism, despite it's necessity.

[Mister Agenda]

I dont' see why a small child can't reject God without rationally evaluating the concept.

I've been clear all along that I'm not talking about small children. I'm NOT talking about babies, rocks, lizards, children raised by wolves, or people in a persistent vegetative state.

Are you saying that you honestly just don't get the category difference between a child capable of rejecting the claims of theists and remaining an atheist into adulthood; and a baby, rock, lizard, children raised by wolves, or people in a permanent vegetative state?

[Acrobat]

When I talk about childish arguments this is the sort of thing I mean. It is the mindset of a toddler.

I am not joking there is litterallya stage of brain development where people look for reasons for things to exist.

In the mind of a two year old fish live in the sea, therefore the sea is for fish to live in, if there is a thing with a purpose then obviously there was a purpose giver...

Most people outgrow this and realise that fish live in the sea because that is how they have evolved to be. However some people stay in a childlike mentality and that's one of the reasons for religion.

You’re right about one thing. That we perceive a reality as product of purpose, that it possess a meaning, and that recognition is observed even in toddlers, even among those not raised in a children’s home.

But it’s false that most people outgrow this perception, when in fact this perceptions just matures and grows as we get older. The only people that don’t believe this are a minority, the handful of atheists, most of whom don’t even deny that it’s true, they just claim to lack a belief in it, while avoiding committing to any sort antithesis view, like nihilism.

I also don’t think, thoughtful people, would see teleological statements such MLK “The Arc of the Moral universe” as childish, or the various beliefs that drove the civil rights movements, that where built on unwavering beliefs in such a telelogical moral order. Or at least the antithesis beliefs, or lack of beliefs among unbelievers on such concepts, don’t appear anymore adult like.

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What god is made of?
How god does his godding?
Where did it exist before the universe/time existed?

What do any of those questions, have to do with any of the beliefs or claims I made here?

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Poetic as all that is, it’s still a mere assertion.

Either it's true, or its antithesis is true.

It seems to me that your typical atheist or unbeliever, refrains from one view of the other, lacks a belief one way or the other, unable to commit to one view or the other, in a perpetual state of know nothingness limbo.

In my view one ought to consider both views, a reality that signifies something, and one in which it's all sound and fury signifying nothing, and ask themselves which of these view makes better sense out of their experience of life and reality, their moral perceptions, conceptions of meaning, etc...., and I think the more one honestly reflects on the question, rather than avoid it, it starts to become evident that it does appear to be about something.

[The Grand Nudger]

Unless that something is a god, it doesn't matter to atheism.  It's truth or antithesis is, therefore, irrelevant to atheism.  

I think that you might communicate any of the notions you floated better, but I don't disagree, and yet this doesn't produce god belief.  Others, who do believe in god, can and do disagree with the same.

There seems to be a pattern in your thinking. You equiviocate between beauty and what is right just as you equivocate between meaning and gods. Just as before, the simple fact that people can and do distinguish between the two is all that would be required to demonstrate that this is a poor argument. I find it highly unlikely that it's actually what informs you on that subject. It may surround some other supposition, but in and of itself it doesn't produce god beliefs.

What you're likely to experience as "the typical unbeliever" is, more than anything else, a response to the typical believers claims. They may have other thoughts on the issue but what would the opportunity be for you to hear them? Even more specifically, you might have more in common with the "typical unbeliever" than you think. If the typical unbeliever was raised religious..and they were....they will have been indoctrinated to these same claims you make (and those you don't voice - the ones likely informing you here)...hell, even if they weren;t raised with those claims they form the basis of popular tradition and thinking...so, rejecting, for example, that there are gods..but being taught to believe that value and meaning in the sense described can only come from those gods..very much can and does lead a person to then reject that sort of value and meaning.

Baby, bathwater.

\When you talk about value and meaning as indicators of gods, you must, necessarily, be talking about godvalue and godmeaning. Atheists don't have godvalue and godmeaning in their lives, lol, regardless of how much value or meaning they have in their lives.

You'e not actually talking to people who don't believe in value or meaning, you are talking to people who don't believe in gods.

[LadyForCamus]

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Poetic as all that is, it’s still a mere assertion.

In my view one ought to consider both views, a reality that signifies something, and one in which it's all sound and fury signifying nothing, and ask themselves which of these view makes better sense out of their experience of life and reality, their moral perceptions, conceptions of meaning, etc...., and I think the more one honestly reflects on the question, rather than avoid it, it starts to become evident that it does appear to be about something.

I don’t understand what your argument is. You hope that life has objective meaning, therefore, it does? I’m sure you can see what’s wrong with that.

[LadyForCamus]

I have zero problem committing to existential nihilism.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's more to the effect that he thinks that it does have meaning.  If that were his argument, that he hoped life had meaning therefore he believed in gods, it would reduce god belief to the avoidance of some sub-optimal conclusion.

Not that it matters, since atheists and theists can both agree and disagree in relation to each other on either side of that claim.

(it's just that he's missing the second half of his own silly argument - an appeal to his ignorance and lack of imagination, ala "I think that life has meaning and is about something, but how could that BEEEEE if not for fairies???!!???" )

[Belacqua]

I've been clear all along that I'm not talking about small children. I'm NOT talking about babies, rocks, lizards, children raised by wolves, or people in a persistent vegetative state.

Are you saying that you honestly just don't get the category difference between a child capable of rejecting the claims of theists and remaining an atheist into adulthood; and a baby, rock, lizard, children raised by wolves, or people in a permanent vegetative state?

Not at all. And I don't know how you'd get that from my post.

If a child hears, evaluates, and rejects religious claims, then he's using his mind and he has reasons. Good reasons or bad. 

Do these reasons stay the same, after he's learned more? I should hope not, as little kids don't really understand much theology.

[Acrobat]

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In my view one ought to consider both views, a reality that signifies something, and one in which it's all sound and fury signifying nothing, and ask themselves which of these view makes better sense out of their experience of life and reality, their moral perceptions, conceptions of meaning, etc...., and I think the more one honestly reflects on the question, rather than avoid it, it starts to become evident that it does appear to be about something.

I don’t understand what your argument is. You hope that life has objective meaning, therefore, it does? I’m sure you can see what’s wrong with that.

No I don’t hope that life has such meaning, no more than you hope it’s meaningless. It just that does, or at least from my perspective. That the arguements for existential nihilism, make less sense of our experience of reality.

[LadyForCamus]

I don’t understand what your argument is. You hope that life has objective meaning, therefore, it does? I’m sure you can see what’s wrong with that.

No I don’t hope that life has such meaning, no more than you hope it’s meaningless. It just that does, or at least from my perspective. That the arguements for existential nihilism, make less sense of our experience of reality.

In what ways does it make less sense?