[Serious] Why are you an Atheist?

[The Architect Of Fate]

I meant that nonreligious people tend to judge entire religions by very superficial criteria.

Or you judge that we judge entire by very superficial criteria.

[Succubus]

I meant that nonreligious people tend to judge entire religions by very superficial criteria.

For example?

[Alex K]

The mechanism at work can be observed in the Lab over the period of a few years and is understood theoretically. In the long term, you can observe evolution after the fact through the fossil record and genetics.

Yes I agree there is some evidence for sure. I haven’t seen the data on laboratory experiment you speak of. Maybe you could enlighten me.

There are many, the most famous is Lenski's E. coli experiment.

[brewer]

I meant that nonreligious people tend to judge entire religions by very superficial criteria.

Unfortunately, religion(s) have supplied the nonreligious with the criteria.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

That's kind of an odd assessment. I don't support the death penalty for anyone for anything.

Boru

I meant that nonreligious people tend to judge entire religions by very superficial criteria.

Isn't that what you're doing?

Boru

[Mister Agenda]

New to this site and actually atheism. I’m here to know more about atheism and how people convert to it.

A person who has never been taught to believe in the supernatural and never came to accept it will remain an atheist. Someone who came to believe in at least one supernatural deity and lost that belief becomes an atheist by default, atheism is the state of not holding a belief that any God or gods are real. A theist becoming an atheist is more like deconverting from their previously-held belief. Atheism is just one opinion on one particular topic, not a religion or worldview in itself. It's just like theism in that regard. If all you know about someone is that they're some kind of theist, that only tells you one thing about them. Same if all you know about someone is that they're an atheist. Once you've found out someone is an atheist, a good follow-up question might be to ask what moral philosophy they most agree with, since that seems to be a point about atheists that's of great interest to theists; but bear in mind that just as there are thousands of different religions that a theist could be, there are many moral philosophies an atheist might have. In the West we do seem to often converge on Humanism, though.

My questions are below. If you have time please take a moment to help me understand more of the atheist view.These questions are intended for those who espouse the atheist view but if you are from another belief system feel free to answer.

There isn't an 'atheist view' just as there isn't a 'theist view'. A theist can be a member of any religion or have their own thing, the only requirement is that they believe in some sort of God or gods. The only thing all atheists have in common is that they don't believe in any gods. They can literally believe in anything else, even astrology and ghosts. If you take nothing else from the replies you get, I hope you understand that there is no such thing as an 'atheist view', atheists have many views and actually only a small percent are related to their atheism.

What do you consider as prime reality?

Actual reality.

What is the purpose of history or does it serve a purpose?

Knowing what has already happened is often useful, and provides context for the present and future; IMHO

How did human existence begin?

The same way the existence of every other species began, biological evolution. The line between our nonhuman and human ancestors is very fuzzy, and very subjective. Language, tool use, even art, aren't exclusive to humans; but I suggest that when we were developed enough in those areas to have a culture that routinely built on the past to improve the human condition, we were definitely human.

What is morality?

The dictionary provides an adequate definition that it's a system of values and principles of conduct. That definition works for me.

Where do you decide what is right and wrong?

That's an odd phrasing, open to a lot of interpretation. I'm going to assume 'how' will lead to an answer more like what you're really looking for than 'where'. I use conscience, empathy, knowledge, intuition, and reason to decide what is right and wrong. Those are all anyone really has in their toolkit to decide right and wrong.

What do you believe in with absolute certainty?

Math, I suppose, within the framework of a given mathematical system you can arrive at conclusions that must be true; like 12+32=44. There's a saying that proof only applies to alcohol and math. The best I can do with anything else is 'justified acceptance'. I accept that reality is real, but I also accept that I can't prove that; but I believe my acceptance of the reality of reality is justified.

Thanks in advance.
Max

You're welcome. I hope that was helpful.

---

That's kind of an odd assessment. I don't support the death penalty for anyone for anything.

Boru

I meant that nonreligious people tend to judge entire religions by very superficial criteria.

Hmm. I don't agree that 'are its claims true?' is a superficial criteria at all.

[maxolla]

Yes I agree there is some evidence for sure.  I haven’t seen the data on laboratory experiment you speak of.  Maybe you could enlighten me.

Evolution occurs frequently, that's why you need a different flu shot every year.

I believe you are referring to mutation not evolution.

---

Yes I agree there is some evidence for sure. I haven’t seen the data on laboratory experiment you speak of. Maybe you could enlighten me.

There are many, the most famous is Lenski's E. coli experiment.

It seems like a better term for these observed changes would be mutation not evolution.

[Mister Agenda]

Yah, mutation, natural selection, what have they got to do with evolution?

[maxolla]

[quote='maxolla' pid='1947007' dateline='1576184035']
New to this site and actually atheism. I’m here to know more about atheism and how people convert to it.

A person who has never been taught to believe in the supernatural and never came to accept it will remain an atheist. Someone who came to believe in at least one supernatural deity and lost that belief becomes an atheist by default, atheism is the state of not holding a belief that any God or gods are real. A theist becoming an atheist is more like deconverting from their previously-held belief. Atheism is just one opinion on one particular topic, not a religion or worldview in itself. It's just like theism in that regard. If all you know about someone is that they're some kind of theist, that only tells you one thing about them. Same if all you know about someone is that they're an atheist. Once you've found out someone is an atheist, a good follow-up question might be to ask what moral philosophy they most agree with, since that seems to be a point about atheists that's of great interest to theists; but bear in mind that just as there are thousands of different religions that a theist could be, there are many moral philosophies an atheist might have. In the West we do seem to often converge on Humanism, though.

My questions are below. If you have time please take a moment to help me understand more of the atheist view.These questions are intended for those who espouse the atheist view but if you are from another belief system feel free to answer.

There isn't an 'atheist view' just as there isn't a 'theist view'. A theist can be a member of any religion or have their own thing, the only requirement is that they believe in some sort of God or gods. The only thing all atheists have in common is that they don't believe in any gods. They can literally believe in anything else, even astrology and ghosts. If you take nothing else from the replies you get, I hope you understand that there is no such thing as an 'atheist view', atheists have many views and actually only a small percent are related to their atheism.

What do you consider as prime reality?

Actual reality.

What is the purpose of history or does it serve a purpose?

Knowing what has already happened is often useful, and provides context for the present and future; IMHO

How did human existence begin?

The same way the existence of every other species began, biological evolution. The line between our nonhuman and human ancestors is very fuzzy, and very subjective. Language, tool use, even art, aren't exclusive to humans; but I suggest that when we were developed enough in those areas to have a culture that routinely built on the past to improve the human condition, we were definitely human.

What is morality?

The dictionary provides an adequate definition that it's a system of values and principles of conduct. That definition works for me.

Where do you decide what is right and wrong?

That's an odd phrasing, open to a lot of interpretation. I'm going to assume 'how' will lead to an answer more like what you're really looking for than 'where'. I use conscience, empathy, knowledge, intuition, and reason to decide what is right and wrong. Those are all anyone really has in their toolkit to decide right and wrong.

What do you believe in with absolute certainty?

Math, I suppose, within the framework of a given mathematical system you can arrive at conclusions that must be true; like 12+32=44. There's a saying that proof only applies to alcohol and math. The best I can do with anything else is 'justified acceptance'. I accept that reality is real, but I also accept that I can't prove that; but I believe my acceptance of the reality of reality is justified.

Thanks in advance.
Max

You're welcome. I hope that was helpful.

---

Thanks, that was concise and to the point. I would say that all of this makes good sense. I agree that certainty is illusory at best. Some discussion has taken place here about evolution vs creation theory. It seems obvious to me that belief in either theory takes a degree of faith. What say you?

[Mister Agenda]

Thanks, that was concise and to the point. I would say that all of this makes good sense. I agree that certainty is illusory at best. Some discussion has taken place here about evolution vs creation theory. It seems obvious to me that belief in either theory takes a degree of faith. What say you?

You're welcome, moxolla. It's a serious thread and I tried to make my answer serious as well.

I think with the way you use the word 'faith', you've fallen into a fallacy of equivocation or at least seem to be setting one up. The word 'faith' has multiple meanings, and the way it's used for religious belief is quite different from the way it's used in ordinary matters. The best way to avoid the fallacy is not to use the same word to mean different things. In the religious sense, faith is the strong belief in God or the precepts of a religion based on spiritual apprehension rather than conventional evidence. In the everyday sense, faith is strong trust or confidence in someone or something. Usually in the everyday sense, such faith is based on observation and evidence; like noticing chairs usually don't break when you sit on them and having confidence that the next chair you sit on won't break either...it could, but your confidence level is high enough that you'll take that relatively miniscule chance of failure.

So if you want to be pedantic, a person who is familiar with biological evolution and the evidence for it who accepts that it's the best scientific explanation we have for the diversity of life we observe and that reams of knowledge we have about life would have to be wrong in order for the theory to be wrong, then yes, in the most trivial sense, that person could be said to have faith that the theory of biological evolution is mostly correct (we're still refining it based on new information all the time, the totality of the theory is mind-boggling complex, while the basic ideas are simple). But if you then switch to talking about faith in God, that's equivocation.

For clarity and honesty in communication, around here we usually reserve 'faith' for religious matters and 'accept' for established and well-supported scientific theories. The tendency of some theists to conflate the two senses has made some atheists in these parts wary of even using the words 'faith' or even 'believe' about something they hold as probably true as they've come to expect someone from our theist population to try to twist what they're obviously saying into the religious sense of the words.