Atheism, nature or nurture?

[Peterkin]

33 minutes ago, Genady said:

I know some - very few - people like these and I think, "If only you were not religious, we could've been friends."

Now, so would I think that way. When I was much younger, the lines - and knives - were not so firmly drawn. We had some fundamentalists of every stripe in Toronto, but most of the people I knew didn't advertise their belief or go out of their way to insult the people who didn't share it. All that politicization in the US has spilled over, and of course with the mess NATO helped make of the Middle East, that's all over Europe now. People are defensive and offensive and the whole subject is toxic. 

[Genady]

11 minutes ago, MigL said:

The literal definition of 'atheist' is "a person who does not believe in the existence of god or any gods", according to Merriam-Webster.

Can that person prove that ''fact' with any observation or evidence ?
Of course not.

So 'atheism is also a 'belief', until Genady, or anyone else, can prove otherwise.
( claims that he was born a non-believer notwithstanding )
 

This has been cleared several posts ago, the word has been replaced by "areligionism", and the question of the OP has been focused on anti-religious feelings.

[MigL]

My apologies then ...

[iNow]

Atheist. A+theist. Not+theist. 

It’s right there in the word. Not theist. Just happen not to believe in god(s). 

MigL - You’re conflating that far more common form with a far less common form called “hard atheism.”

As opposed to regular atheism where gods just aren’t accepted as valid, hard atheism is the Active belief that there are no gods. That’s what you’re arguing against, perhaps bc it’s an easier target?

Beliefs in deities exist along a spectrum really, but it’s also irrelevant since the OP meant “against religion” (and didn’t even mean that it turns out they just meant “against the popular ones”). 

Edited February 17, 2023 by iNow

[Ken Fabian]

I do think that human propensity to dream, often vividly with powerful emotions attached combines with the unbounded waking human imagination to see patterns in a complex world that aren't necessarily there. It leaves a lot of room to believe almost anything. Especially imagining some kind of willful intent in natural phenomena.

Having common beliefs can unite a group and provide some social cohesion. Having shared beliefs may be more important than the substance of those beliefs.

 

4 hours ago, Peterkin said:

Attempts (at indoctrination in atheism) have been made on quite a large scale in the USSR and China.

I'm inclined to see Communist indoctrination as practiced by Soviets and China as more like religion than not, replacing belief in God with belief in Marxism and the Socialist State, up to and including deifying their leaders - eg Mao as like the Sun and the people as sunflowers that (must) always look towards the great leader. Avowedly Atheist and anti-religion but employing the trappings of religion; to my mind these haven't been good examples of atheist societies. Other beliefs are competition.

Some people see Buddhism as different - no Gods. But for many of them there are deities and they all have supernatural beliefs.

 

Edited February 17, 2023 by Ken Fabian

[geordief]

So the title of the thread should be changed to."Anti-theism ,nature or nurture"

Rather confusing  otherwise.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitheism

 

"I'm not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful."

 

Christopher  Hitchens 

Edited February 17, 2023 by geordief

[Ken Fabian]

4 hours ago, Peterkin said:

If you don't know it, you aren't one - you couldn't even be agnostic or ignostic without holding some opinion on the matter of god(s). You can't be a Muslim or utilitarian or vegetarian without knowing it. You have to be aware of your convictions and beliefs in order to name them.

I suspect the most common kind of not belief in God(s) is not thinking about it. I considered that atheist - but is that agnostic?

[geordief]

16 minutes ago, Ken Fabian said:

I suspect the most common kind of not belief in God(s) is not thinking about it. I considered that atheist - but is that agnostic?

That seems to me a  de facto belief that there are more important matters to occupy one's time.

(It is only when these seemingly  quaint belief systems infringe upon one's political freedoms  that mindset becomes a kind of head in the sand)

Edited February 17, 2023 by geordief

[iNow]

19 minutes ago, Ken Fabian said:

I suspect the most common kind of not belief in God(s) is not thinking about it. I considered that atheist - but is that agnostic?

No. Theism or atheism are positions of belief. Agnosticism is a position of knowledge. 

One can be an agnostic theist or an agnostic atheist (lack certainty), but calling oneself agnostic usually means you’re an atheist without the courage to just say so. 

[Genady]

55 minutes ago, geordief said:

So the title of the thread should be changed to."Anti-theism ,nature or nurture"

Rather confusing  otherwise.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitheism

 

"I'm not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful."

 

Christopher  Hitchens 

Some posts ago I said that I'd change it to 'areligionism', if I could. Maybe, anti-religionism, but with a caveat, thanks to @iNow, that I'm talking only about religions with which I am personally familiar. It has to be so, because the OP is about a personal 'phobia'.

I don't like 'antitheism' as it is described by the wikipedia link and by Hitchens.

1 hour ago, Ken Fabian said:

I suspect the most common kind of not belief in God(s) is not thinking about it.

Maybe the difference is between 'not believing in God' and 'not having a belief in God'. The former is atheism. What is a name for the latter? 

[joigus]

The question is extraordinarily complex. Some people are OK with organised religion, but would cross the street when they see a lone 'nutter' preaching. Other (religious) people see both (any) other religion and atheism as a ticket for eternal damnation. Still other people are extremely intolerant of anybody who understands life in a different way, let alone if they have a different belief system, so not primarily having to do with religion...

Some of these factors can be intesified by a genetic condition, or because of the way the person has been raised... Or in spite of the way the person has been raised. Educational strategies backfire sometimes.

Extreme stress, a really hot day or a room packed with people can lower your tolerance level considerably. 

From what I know of cognitive science, the experts are continually trying to trace correlations between subtle --and not so subtle-- effects such as these.

So complexity, complexity, complexity. The best bet is to try to elucidate correlations, I suppose.

--Funny. I've just posted this and I get an ad from a chiromancy service. Coincidence or cookie-incidence? LOL

[sethoflagos]

5 hours ago, Genady said:

Anyway, my question in OP was not about a definition of 'atheist.' It was about feeling of dislike / distrust / suspicion / ... toward religious people by a non-religious person.

By the age of seven, I'd developed a deep interest in geology and palaeontology and started reading every book on these subjects I could lay my hands on. This inevitably led to the question 'Why are all the adults I know lying to me?' Not nature or nurture. Just logic. 

[iNow]

1 hour ago, Genady said:

Maybe the difference is between 'not believing in God' and 'not having a belief in God'. The former is atheism. What is a name for the latter? 

I’m not sure I see the distinction you’re making and see one as a subset of the other. 

Perhaps you intend to reference apatheism?

[mistermack]

In my own case, up to the age of about ten-ish, all of my nurture was full-on Roman Catholic religious indoctrination. It's pretty intense, although not particularly opressive. I didn't really question it, although I might have vaguely wondered why everything was hidden and nebulous. 

Then one day, my brother said to me, "what if god doesn't exist?" and I said, "what do you mean?" and he said "well, have you ever seen him?" and withing hours, I had stopped believing. Or maybe I never did believe properly, but never bothered to question it. But after that moment, it was clear to me that the poeple telling me about god had no way of knowing if it was true. They were taking it on faith, and I wasn't prepared to. So I became an atheist, in spite of a heck of a lot of nurture. 

So there's no way I could agree that atheism is down to nurture. 

A very slight bit of nurture might be that I was taught to think logically at school, in science and maths classes. To question why fact A and fact B might lead to fact C. Or eliminate C. 

I guess that comes into it, but not enough to class atheism as a product of nurture. 

I think Richard Dawkins and others have done a good job of exploring why our ancestors were inclined to be religious. I don't remember the exactl arguments, but I'm sure that I absorbed a good bit of it, into my own thinking on the subject. 

I don't class atheism as a firm belief that there is no god. My own atheism gives the god scenario a remote chance of being true. Very very remote, but not zero. And that matches Dawkins thinking, and it probably owes a lot to his writing on the subject. I love the clear concise way he puts it into words. He's one of the world's top thinkers and communicators, for me.

[John Cuthber]

I'm not sue r the question is well defined.

Imagine growing up with nobody ever mentioning God.
Until someone tells you that (they think) God exists or that He does not exist , you can't hold the position of not believing in that God.
Equally, you can not say that you do believe in Him.

It's like asking if you believe in a fungus that makes ants go mad.
Until you heard of the idea of such a fungus, you can't say that you do, or that you do not, believe in it.

Can you tell me if you believe in GRUGFLUNT?

 

 

[iNow]

1 minute ago, mistermack said:

I don't class atheism as a firm belief that there is no god

Most don’t. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism
 

Quote

Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities.[1][2][3][4] 

Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist.[5][6] 

In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.[1][2][7][8] 

 

[Genady]

53 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

By the age of seven, I'd developed a deep interest in geology and palaeontology and started reading every book on these subjects I could lay my hands on. This inevitably led to the question 'Why are all the adults I know lying to me?' Not nature or nurture. Just logic. 

My road started differently, but perhaps was the same at the end. I grew up not having any religious adults around. God and religion were not in the picture. By the time I started interacting with religious people, at 9-10, I had enough knowledge and critical thinking to see that they are lying.  

The trust in facts and logic over words and stories is common for both ways. Maybe this trait has some roots in nature. 

19 minutes ago, iNow said:

I’m not sure I see the distinction you’re making and see one as a subset of the other. 

In the words of your quote above, I meant a distinction between "the position that there are no deities" on one hand, and the other two on the other, i.e., "a rejection of the belief that any deities exist" and "an absence of belief in the existence of deities."

 

edit: x-posted with @mistermack's post about his road and a similar message.

Edited February 18, 2023 by Genady

[Peterkin]

3 hours ago, Ken Fabian said:

I suspect the most common kind of not belief in God(s) is not thinking about it. I considered that atheist - but is that agnostic?

Depends on the environment. If you refuse to think about it because expressing any hint of disbelief might be hazardous to your health, you may be a closet atheist. If you don't think about it, simply because it isn't around, not claiming your attention, doesn't seem to matter, you're probably agnostic. You won't know which until you do think about it. (Might not take too much of your time)

Edited February 18, 2023 by Peterkin

[mistermack]

I think the nature/nurture dichotomy is a false one anyway. It doesn't have to be either/or. 

I would argue:-      atheism : Nature and nurture. 

[Peterkin]

13 minutes ago, mistermack said:

I would argue:-      atheism : Nature and nurture

I would argue back: it doesn't exist in nature - only in human minds.

But I also agree: some people have temperaments and proclivities (which afaik have not been isolated, identified and catalogued) that make them more susceptible to belief, while others are by nature more inclined to skepticism. So, the first type of personality would become extremely and happily devout in an environment that rewards unquestioning faith and the second type would ask questions, annoying their religious mentors, which would earn them disapproval and hasten their alienation. So, character, intelligence, imagination, early environment, the caregivers, access to information and experience all play parts.

1 hour ago, joigus said:

So complexity, complexity, complexity.

 

Edited February 18, 2023 by Peterkin

[mistermack]

One thing I think is important to bear in mind, is that the Relgions are not just one simple invention. Most are doctrines that have been studied, pored over and shaped by some very clever, even brilliant people, with the intention of giving them maximum appeal. What people found hard to swallow has been very quickly discarded, and that which people are attracted to has been copied and adopted from thousands of other tales. 

So what we have now is as appealing as a chocolate cake, filled with sweet cream, drizzled in honey and topped with chopped wallnuts. It's designed for maximum appeal. 

[geordief]

8 minutes ago, mistermack said:

One thing I think is important to bear in mind, is that the Relgions are not just one simple invention. Most are doctrines that have been studied, pored over and shaped by some very clever, even brilliant people, with the intention of giving them maximum appeal. What people found hard to swallow has been very quickly discarded, and that which people are attracted to has been copied and adopted from thousands of other tales. 

So what we have now is as appealing as a chocolate cake, filled with sweet cream, drizzled in honey and topped with chopped wallnuts. It's designed for maximum appeal. 

Our enemies have honied voices 😀

Edited February 18, 2023 by geordief

[iNow]

28 minutes ago, mistermack said:

So what we have now is as appealing as a chocolate cake, filled with sweet cream, drizzled in honey and topped with chopped wallnuts. It's designed for maximum appeal. 

But with very little nutritional value plus the likelihood of serious illness after consuming too much

20 minutes ago, geordief said:

Our enemies have honied voices 😀

And silver sonnets, rainbowed rituals, and hot steaming hymns. 

[Peterkin]

41 minutes ago, mistermack said:

It's designed for maximum appeal. 

like cigarettes.... But when you listen the very crude pitch of televangelists who own Lear jets and mansions next door to the Trumps, you have to wonder whether those clever men wasted their efforts; whether flares and trumpets aren't an easier sell. 

[dimreepr]

On 2/17/2023 at 11:59 AM, Genady said:

In reference to another ongoing thread in this forum, I don't have any feelings about homosexuals and their activities. But I have feelings about religious people. I dislike their religious activities and I feel uncomfortable socializing with them. I'm quite sure that being religious is learned. But what about being an atheist?

Depends on the teacher, none of which were God's...

Being an atheist, doesn't have to mean that you don't believe in Jesus, Mohamed etc... 😉