Indoctrination

[Spongebob]

Oh, it took about 15 years between the time I first read the Bible through cover-to-cover and stopped being a Pentecostal to realizing I had become an atheist. I was in my early forties when I knowingly met my third atheist. In my youth I thought Ayn Rand was right about a lot of things but close-minded for not believing in God, now it's more like I think God was one of the few things she got right.

OK, so similar religious half-life as me then.  I imagine you likely had it much worse being Pentecostal.  I was Baptist and knew some Pentecostals.  We thought they were the crazy ones.  I also had my Ayn Rand phase.  That was largely due to the Rush music based on her books, which led to me looking into that.  Thankfully it was short lived.

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If you are ok with that, then continue what you are doing.

Well it's not like I have much of a choice. I'm not much of an intellectual powerhouse. You're right about me not caring about objective information. My mind is very fluid/adaptable. I don't take society's defintion of things as the final word, in any case.

That's a cop out.  You always have a choice.  I'm no genius.  Few people I know are.  Your education is not limited to your IQ, it's limited to your determination to be educated versus accepting things on face value.  As I explained before, I had very different views when I was younger due to the face that I was indoctrinated into religion.  That didn't stop me from reading and learning from other sources and expanding my education to the point that I could dismiss much of what I was taught as a Christian.

Saying your mind is "fluid" is nonsense.  It doesn't mean anything.  You mind is no different than other human unless you are describing something like autism or mental illness.

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I really have to wonder why some people mentally shirk religion in favor of atheism.

You don't have to wonder.  All you have to do is ask.  This is where your cop-out philosophy fails you.  Your are too lazy and incorrigible to even ask people about themselves and so you just prefer to make up shit that is complete nonsense.  That's great troll behavior.

[Simon Moon]

As soon as someone is able to meet their burden of proof to demonstrate that at least one god exists, I will no longer be an atheist.

Yeah this is just disingenuous. No amount of proof would be good enough for you. You fancy being an atheist too much.

So, you know me better than I know, myself. Talk about disingenuous...

I do not fancy being an atheist, I may, however fancy myself being a skeptic, though. It is my contention, that atheism is the natural result of correctly applying skepticism to the god claim.

I care if my beliefs are true, or at least likely to be true. We know the most consistently reliable method for accomplishing that goal. I want to have the most true beliefs as possible, and the least amount of false beliefs as possible. What I can't understand is why everyone does not want that?

I am completely opened to being convinced of any existential claim. I will accept the existence of gods, ghosts, alien abductions, telekinesis, etc, etc, as long as there is demonstrable, repeatable, falsifiable evidence to support them.

Without evidence for the existence of gods, what should be my justification to believe they exist?

The problem here is, not that my bar is set too high, it is that yours is set too low. And you can't even demonstrate the reliability of your 'method' you use to come to your beliefs. As far as I have been able to tell from your time here, is that you have no rhyme or reason for the things you believe, and the things you disbelieve.

[Spongebob]

@Ahriman Saying you don't understand why someone would choose atheism over theism is not much different from saying you don't understand why someone would choose Southern Baptist over Methodists, or some other religious modality.  Most people in the world are raised with some religious modality and a large percentage of those people are indoctrinated.  As they get older and gain experience and knowledge, they often find fault with their familial religion and seek out some other religion that they feel better explains reality.  You even admitted to this yourself!  You admit to being an apostate.  You admitted that you no longer believe in an afterlife.  So you are again being extremely hypocritical because you are saying its ok to make those changes in your beliefs but hey, I draw the line right HERE and anyone who goes past it is crazy.  That's foolish thinking.

[zebo-the-fat]

As soon as someone is able to meet their burden of proof to demonstrate that at least one god exists, I will no longer be an atheist.

Yeah this is just disingenuous. No amount of proof would be good enough for you. You fancy being an atheist too much.

If someone can show me something that happens which cannot possibly be explained in any other way than "gods did it" that would probably be proof enough. Not happened yet though

[Spongebob]

Yeah this is just disingenuous. No amount of proof would be good enough for you. You fancy being an atheist too much.

If someone can show me something that happens which cannot possibly be explained in any other way than "gods did it" that would probably be proof enough. Not happened yet though

The bold text here is certainly a possibility for almost anyone.  If you are so invested in a given worldview that you refuse to accept new information, then you are being tenacious about it, meaning rejecting new information because it appears to conflict with your accepted reality.  This is where being a strong skeptic comes in handy.  It's good to question things, especially things you really like or really believe in.  Its good to practice this concept so you don't lose perspective.  So long as you do that, you won't be disingenuous.  But in the case of the god question, its just such a huge question to contemplate.  I would honestly say that my views on supernatural beings have changed more times than I can count.  I've no full reversals, but there have certainly been numerous alternate paths.  I couldn't return to a conventional Christian worldview any more than I could accept the idea that Thor creates thunder when he's made at us.

[Mister Agenda]

I am extra skeptical of my own beliefs when I realize they coincide with what I would like to be true.

[Jehanne]

Please read the definition of "indoctrination" and explain how I am indoctrinated with "scientism".

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And also how you know this.  You don't know anything about me, so how can you know this?

I know you're a bleeding heart Liberal type, that's all I need to know. People like you will swear up and down that God cannot be real yet you live in a society that was founded on godly principles. Science is your master, whether you understand it consciously or not.

[The Architect Of Fate]

I know you're a bleeding heart Liberal type, that's all I need to know. 

Someone's political position has nothing to do with their belief in God 

People like you will swear up and down that God cannot be real

You have quote of Sponge saying that there CAN'T be a god ? 

 yet you live in a society that was founded on godly principles.

No he doesn't and even if he did that doesn't mean a god exists 

 Science is your master, whether you understand it consciously or not.

Bare Assertion

[Astreja]

I really have to wonder why some people mentally shirk religion in favor of atheism.

No evidence for gods that's up to our standards.

[Ahriman]

I really have to wonder why some people mentally shirk religion in favor of atheism.

No evidence for gods that's up to our standards.

Nah, there's got to be more to it than that.