Scientists discover that atheists might not exist, and that’s not a joke

[TransientResponse]

Some passages:

<<ROOTS OF ATHEISM

 

...Albert Einstein, who had a life-long fascination with metaphysics, believed atheism came from a mistaken belief that harmful superstition and a general belief in religious or mystical experience were the same thing......

 

Similarly, Charles Darwin, in a meeting with a campaigner for atheism in September 1881, distanced himself from the views of his guest, finding them too “aggressive”... >>

Full Article

Edited June 11, 2016 by TransientResponse

[Strange]

What a sloppy piece of writing.

 

 

 

While this idea may seem outlandish—after all, it seems easy to decide not to believe in God—evidence from several disciplines indicates that what you actually believe is not a decision you make for yourself. Your fundamental beliefs are decided by much deeper levels of consciousness, and some may well be more or less set in stone.

 

Does anyone "decide" to believe in god or not? Surely, the whole point about belief is that is not something you can choose.

 

 

 

“They point to studies showing, for example, that even people who claim to be committed atheists tacitly hold religious beliefs, such as the existence of an immortal soul.”

 

There is no contradiction there. You don't have to believe in a god to believe in a soul. (And some people believe in neither. But even if everyone has some level of irrational belief that, again, has nothing to do with atheism.)

 

 

 

We all have them, and encounter them often in the form of interior monologues. As we experience events, we mentally tell a non-present listener about it.

 

Not everyone does. But, again, this has absolutely nothing to do with atheism.

 

And so on and so on. (His comments about Einstein and, even more so, Darwin are bizarrely irrelevant.)

 

I give it a D-. An interesting idea, really badly presented. Maybe the author doesn't know what the word "atheism" means.

Edited June 11, 2016 by Strange

[Greg H.]

Speaking as an atheist, I can tell you we exist. Any other hypotheses I can shoot down for you this evening?

[John Cuthber]

Well, the first grammatical and logical errors occur in the first sentence "WHILE MILITANT ATHEISTS like Richard Dawkins may be convinced God doesn’t exist, God, if he is around, may be amused to find that atheists might not exist."

Pronouns referring to God take capital letters in English so if God does anything then He does it rather than he does.

And, since God is omniscient, He won't find anything- he already knew it, and that's before you get to the issue of the fact that, logically, he already knew that we do exist.

 

The first factual error I spotted was here

"While this idea may seem outlandish—after all, it seems easy to decide not to believe in God"

and that's just the third sentence.

So, what we have here is an example of stuff that's just plain wrong.

 

If this line

" Your fundamental beliefs are decided by much deeper levels of consciousness, and some may well be more or less set in stone. "

popped up on Wiki, it wouldn't belong before someone pointed out that it's so "weasel worded" as to be meaningless, and, as far as it does say anything, it's plainly wrong since people change their faith.

[TransientResponse]

It is a metaphor to say that "they don't exist" I think some takes it too serious.

The article claims some weak or responsive grounds in atheism. Every atheist should not take it as for theirselves, as if it is for their "atheistic case".

Moreover, in the article, it is referred to "their less known motivations" and possibly "historcially-politically bacgrounds". Or something like that. You put in...

Edited June 17, 2016 by TransientResponse

[Moontanman]

It is a metaphor to say that "they don't exist" I think some takes it too serious.

 

The article claims some weak grounds in atheism. Every atheist should not take it as for theirselves, as if it is for their "atheistic case".

 

Moreover, in the article, it is referred to "their less known motivations" and possibly "historcially-politically bacgrounds". Or something like that. You put in...

 

 

I am an atheist, I hold no belief in anything supernatural. Gods, souls, angels, demons, fairies, elves, ghost, or anything else not part of the natural world. I do not believe these things because there is no empirical evidence they exist. I am most importantly a sceptic, I could no more choose to believe or disbelieve in those things than I could believe I can fly by flapping my arms. Your assertion is nonsense your assertions about Einstein and Darwin need a citation, you simply asserting them as true is as meaningless as me asserting that the flying spaghetti monster loves you...

[Greg H.]

you simply asserting them as true is as meaningless as me asserting that the flying spaghetti monster loves you...

But he does love you, and his noodly appendages yearn to embrace you in the one true faith.

[disarray]

The converse claim to this thread's declaration is that most (if not all) worshippers 'deep down' (aka, in the back of their minds) don't really believe in God (and thus are atheists). One might suggest as evidence that people still react to the death of loved ones in a tragic manner, as if they don't really believe that the deceased will go to heaven.

 

Of course, I don't believe in such wild generalizations as the claims that either all atheists really believe in God or that all theists really don't.

 

So in the absence of any conclusive or convincing way to support or refute either of these claims, my interest would be to examine just why people would make either claim.

 

The generalization that there are no real atheists is a similar to the claim that all people, even serial killers and torturers, deep down have a conscience, know what is wrong, have troubled souls, feel bad about the "evil" things they do, etc.

 

Ultimately, such claims. I would suggest, are inherently biased and "rigged"....A subtext assumption is, for example, that we are all characters in the divine drama, e.g., going back to Adam and Eve...hence, the assumption that we all have souls that deep down realize that they were created by God, that God has given us all a conscience, that there are such things as absolute moral truths (as perhaps decreed by God) that we all deep down know are true, that we are all lost souls who deep down know that we are never really getting back home until we accept, for example, Jesus's forgiveness, God's grace, etc..

 

Thus, we have the saying that "there are no atheists in foxholes" or "there are no atheists on their deathbed". Once one accepts that assumption, one automatically tends to acknowledge the Christian (or some religious) worldview in general and its eschatological presumptions in particular.