Because it can’t truly be proven that there either is or isn’t a god / gods.
You can laugh at people for believing in a god, but at the same time I’m willing to bet you can’t prove that there there isn’t one.
In my mind, atheism makes just as much sense as religion - they are both total assumptions based on incomplete data. Agnosticism is the only sensible way.
You don’t need proof where science doesn’t have any either. The beginning of creation remains a mystery. There is currently no explanation for the motion of the masses that collided, or the source of the matter. If science can hypothesize the events leading to the Big Bang, so can religion.
Science tests hypothesizes and never claims they’re true until there’s mountains of evidence to indicate so.
Religion on the other hand takes a book written by bronze age goat herders and claims it to be true, damn the evidence stacked against it and contradictions within.
You’re making large assumptions. There are more religions than you know. The way one practices also may not be familiar to you. You’re demonstrating intolerance through ignorance. Maybe you should be asking questions in this post about religion, or abstain if you’re not interested in understanding it.
Are you familiar with Baruch Spinoza? His take is fascinating. His higher power did not concern itself with the fates of mankind, but is responsible for the lawful harmony of existence. It also does not discount or displace science in any way.
Are you familiar with Baruch Spinoza? His take is fascinating. His higher power did not concern itself with the fates of mankind, but is responsible for the lawful harmony of existence. It also does not discount or displace science in any way.
That’s basic deism but I would disagree and say it does conflict with science. Science is evidence-based, if you claim something exists you must present evidence to support it. I can’t just claim there’s a 5-ton diamond in my backyard and say “trust me bro”. Nobody would believe me, so why should anyone believe in any god without evidence?
All religion is untested made up nonsense, no exceptions.
If you make it up without evidence, it can be thrown out without evidence. Athiests make no claims, there’s nothing to throw out.
The real answer to these questions is “we have no idea”, everything else falls under russel’s teapot.
Are you this arrogant in condemning everything you don’t understand?
If you truly believe “you have no idea,” then how can you be sure every religion is wrong without understanding them?
I do understand that it is something people made up without any evidence.
I am this arrogant about anything without evidence, if you present evidence, then I have a reason to believe.
Here are a few reasons people believe:
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Meaning and Purpose: Religion can offer a framework for understanding the universe and our place in it. It can provide answers to big questions about life, death, and morality.
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Community and Belonging: Religious communities can provide social support, a sense of belonging, and shared values. This can be especially important during difficult times.
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Comfort and Hope: Religion can offer comfort in times of grief or hardship. It can also provide hope for the afterlife or a better future.
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Tradition and Identity: Religion can be a core part of a person’s cultural heritage or family identity. People may feel a connection to their ancestors or cultural background through their faith.
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Ethics and Morality: Many religions provide a moral code that guides people’s behavior. This can be helpful in making decisions about right and wrong.
I don’t believe, but I can see why people stick with it and don’t look beyond it. You can get all these things without religion, its just not something that’s taught/passed down in the same way as religion is. Additionally, deconstructing is very difficult. You’re raised to believe something to be real and you’re expected to just drop it and step out of Plato’s cave? You’d look like a madman to any friends/family who aren’t willing and ready to step out and look around.
Also, it can depend on certain other factors.
My partner and I had a difficult conversation recently about how we plan to handle her brother when her mother passes.
Her mother is obviously religious and raised him religiously Christian.
He is a sweet man with a severe developmental disability. Things literally take a very long time for him to learn. He still acts like a teen and he’s pushing 40. That’s not his fault, that’s just life. We love him.
The thing is though…
We don’t believe in religion, but we also think that when his mother finally passes, it would not be wise to try to turn him from Christianity.
He struggled and still struggles years later due to the passing of his father. The idea of being able to see his father in heaven is big to him.
At one point, he panicked because he was playing DOOM 2016 on his game console, and he asked my partner (his sister) if he was going to go to hell for playing it. She reminded him that the Doomslayer kills demons and loves bunnies and reminded him the themes of the game say demons are bad, even if the game itself is violent.
We don’t think it’s worth it to try to break his brain when he’s over 40 and his mom finally passes. Hell, she’s in good health, he could be over 50 when it happens. He has a learning disability and it would literally be unfair to him to try to force a change in belief on him at such a late stage with such a disability.
It’s not worth it to wreck his mental health so we can feel better about being “truthful” with him. We’re focusing on trying to relate healthy interpretations of Christianity to him.
Come on, this list of reasons was written by an LLM
The one point I can really agree with is the meaning and purpose part. I’m not religious and the whole what happens after death part really fucks me up quite a bit. It’d be really damn nice if I could just go “I’ll go to Heaven” and be done
Personally I don’t see what the afterlife has to do with your purpose or sense of meaning in this life. For me, I figure my purpose is whatever I find fulfilling in life while hopefully helping others do the same. Anything that comes after that is a bonus.
As a large language model, I cannot endorse any one religion
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Maybe you haven’t noticed it, but many people are deeply irrational.
They are taught about it from childhood and many of us don’t questions stuff we’ve learnt in our childhood.
Education fails to instil scientific temper in them
Lack of proper mental health awareness and support.
The origins of the universe have still not being scientifically explained.
Cargo cult atheism has gotten to the point where people now confidently believe we have evidence of things which we do not.
Cargo cult atheism
Could you expand further on this? It’s not a term I’m familiar with.
Atheists religiously repeating the word “science” long enough that they trick themselves into believing they have explained the origins of the universe. And thus there is no reason for anyone to believe in God.
Certainly science has achieved a lot. However we are no closer to explaining the origins of the universe as before. As the origin has not been explained why is everyone somehow so confident in the falsehood of a creator?
Agnosticism (not being sure about a creator) is totally fine. However Atheists have a weird obsession about being absolutely certain of something they cannot prove an their alternative for. Atheism runs on pure faith that “science will figure it out in the future”. It is a religion in itself.
The “largest minds” of Atheism are all too often based on pure emotion. As we find with Richard Dawkins, the man so smart that he can explain the universe away… and also believes Israel is not committing Genocide in Gaza.
https://raseef22.net/english/article/1095904-et-tu-dawkins-you-refuse-religion-but-support-israel
Your explanation reveals a misunderstanding of the terms, both of science and atheism.
If I may, could I suggest you would be better served by learning about what science is, and also, particularly in this case, just asking atheists what they think and what they mean by the terms they use.
This isn’t a put down, I genuinely think you would be better served by doing so.
I wish you well.
Atheism is certainty of the nonexistence of a creator.
As clearly demonstrated in this thread by people certain of their atheism so much you would be hard pressed to find a religious person so arrogant in their beliefs.
Atheism is certainty of the nonexistence of a creator.
This is wrong. The only thing required to be an atheist is lacking a belief in theistic claims. You don’t need to make the claim that God doesn’t exist, and most atheists don’t.
The only thing we’re certain of (not absolutely, but fairly certain) is that theists haven’t met their burden of proof.
That’s called Agnosticism.
Atheism means you are certain that god does not exist.
You highlighted the A without any understanding of what the prefix a- means. It means not, or without.
I’m not a theist because they haven’t convinced me of any theistic claims. I don’t claim no gods exist. I just don’t know of any gods that exist, therefore I am without theism. A-theism.
For the same reasons they always have.
The year has little to do with it. The only things we’ve really undeniably progressed in over the past century are scientific knowledge and the level of technology. Existential philosophy hasn’t exactly made breakthroughs recently, to my knowledge.
Each person still needs to find their own answer to the fundamental questions of “why am I here” and “wtf is death and how do I deal with it”.
Our mechanical, scientific understanding of reality provides fairly depressing answers to these questions. Religion? Sunshine and roses.
Also, on a more practical factor: childhood indoctrination and cultural inertia. Most people are raised in religion and they find it “good enough”, so religion continues.
The year has little to do with it
The irony. Why exactly does the entire world accept the current year as being 2024? What are we 2024 years away from?
You have a cult following around celebrities and you are surprised by religion which is older than you?
The difference is we have evidence that celebrities exist
You are dumb so I am going to explain to you so you can understand why this is actually a counterexample that you just gave yourself. Irrationality is what’s the most important problem here. Celebrities can talk about absolute random and insane shit and people will believe them 100% and pretend their words are the words of god. You can prove it’s bullshit 100% and people will still believe it.
