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I can't believe this. Seriously. Just yesterday, I was thinking of starting a thread asking this same question. I don't really have the time to post much of a response today, but I do think the question is worth asking.
When we're children, we're told about Santa Claus and we buy into the story hook, line, and sinker. Sooner or later, an older child starts teasing us and telling us how stupid and gullible we are to believe such nonsense. While there may be a short-lived feeling of shock, dismay and even betrayal, we get over it. We realize that Santa Claus is just a myth and we move on. So why, when atheists start teasing us and telling us how stupid and gullible we are to believe such nonsense as the existence of a Higher Power, do so many of us refuse to give up that belief? There has to be something more to a belief in God than there is to a belief in Santa Claus.
Absolutely there is more at stake: Gifts under an eternally-lit tree in heaven versus an eternity of unremitting agony.
Quite a bit more at stake for those who believe thusly.
I can't believe this. Seriously. Just yesterday, I was thinking of starting a thread asking this same question. I don't really have the time to post much of a response today, but I do think the question is worth asking.
When we're children, we're told about Santa Claus and we buy into the story hook, line, and sinker. Sooner or later, an older child starts teasing us and telling us how stupid and gullible we are to believe such nonsense. While there may be a short-lived feeling of shock, dismay and even betrayal, we get over it. We realize that Santa Claus is just a myth and we move on. So why, when atheists start teasing us and telling us how stupid and gullible we are to believe such nonsense as the existence of a Higher Power, do so many of us refuse to give up that belief? There has to be something more to a belief in God than there is to a belief in Santa Claus.
It is far stranger than that, Katz . . . because the beliefs in God are weighed down with some of the most absurd, irrational and asinine beliefs ABOUT God . . . and still they persist. To me and obviously to you . . . they are evidence that the compulsion to believe is sourced in the presence and existence of God. But to others, they are seen as simply mental aberrations or disorders.
Believing in God makes for a good security blanket for adults who need it. Atheists like me, like to value REALITY over security, superstition and delusion.
It is far stranger than that, Katz . . . because the beliefs in God are weighed down with some of the most absurd, irrational and asinine beliefs ABOUT God . . . and still they persist. To me and obviously to you . . . they are evidence that the compulsion to believe is sourced in the presence and existence of God. But to others, they are seen as simply mental aberrations or disorders.
What is interesting is how soon the topic is turned from why do people believe in God to "Why don't they?" (following text deleted because I haven't had my coffee..)
I originally posted about 'well poisoning' but that was unfair. The belief in the existence of God IS often seen as a mental aberration or disorder. But I believe that it is a much more natural thing with a natural origin than just the brain acting up. I am sure that it is an instinct like the ones that have us adulating our leaders, marching after a Flag and never mind about how we act when a passable specimen of the opposite (or sometimes the same) sex shows up.
God - belief is an instinct. I know you don't agree and neither will Katspur, of course. But I'm merely saying what I think - and you know that I have good reasons for thinking it.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 06-16-2015 at 04:19 AM..
What is interesting is how soon the topic is turned from why do people believe in God to "Why don't they?" (following text deleted because I haven't had my coffee..)
I originally posted about 'well poisoning' but that was unfair. The belief in the existence of God IS often seen as a mental aberration or disorder. But I believe that it is a much more natural thing with a natural origin than just the brain acting up. I am sure that it is an instinct like the ones that have us adulating our leaders, marching after a Flag and never mind about how we act when a passable specimen of the opposite (or sometimes the same) sex shows up.
God - belief is an instinct. I know you don't agree and neither will Katspur, of course. But I'm merely saying what I think - and you know that I have good reasons for thinking it.
Interesting hypothesis. I will take that a step further; maybe a genetic trait? A lot of us non believers who were raised in the church never really believed. We quietly hoped and prayed (yes prayed with a lot of intensity) for some sign or to be filled with faith and it never happened. We became adults and the world became more accepting of people with no faith, so we finally came out and said we don't believe.
So you may be right. Not all of us are born with the ability to believe in things without evidence or despite evidence to the contrary no matter how many times those things were repeated to us in our formative years.
I think it will be lighter there, we will walk on our own legs and eat using our mouth.
But everyone knows it is impossible! We can only eat through our umbilical cord!
I am sure it is possible. I can imagine it.
But no one has ever come back from there. Therefore life simply ends with birth. Life is a suffering in darkness!
No, you are wrong. After birth we will see our Mother and she will take care of us.
Oh! Do you believe in Mother? And where do you think she is?
She is everywhere around us, we are inside her and we can not live without her.
Nonsense! I have never seen any Mother, so there is no Mother at all.
And I believe in Mother with all my heart. In silence I hear her singing sometimes, I can perceive her. She loves us. Our life after birth is going to be beautiful. That is my belief.
~ Author Unknown
Cute and inventive.
But a pretty poor analogy once you get away from the cuteness of it.
Interesting hypothesis. I will take that a step further; maybe a genetic trait? A lot of us non believers who were raised in the church never really believed. We quietly hoped and prayed (yes prayed with a lot of intensity) for some sign or to be filled with faith and it never happened. We became adults and the world became more accepting of people with no faith, so we finally came out and said we don't believe.
So you may be right. Not all of us are born with the ability to believe in things without evidence or despite evidence to the contrary no matter how many times those things were repeated to us in our formative years.
Undouibtedly religion is massively down to nurture - as regards the particular manifestation of the religious instinct. The religious instinct is innate - I would say undeniably so. In past discussions it is clear the religious think so, too. But they think it is an instinctive knowledge of a real being existing outside of themselves. I postulate (and I would be astonished if nobody else was thinking along the same lines) that it is an evolved instinct. And if so, like all others, it evolved because it aids in the survival of the individual, the group, and the species.
Cute and inventive.
But a pretty poor analogy once you get away from the cuteness of it.
Indeed it is a false argument. It is one of a set of analogies of the 'Nobody believed in powered flight...' kind.
Specifically it takes something we know is true and makes those who have or had no knowledge of it - say before Columbus discovered America, the Wright brothers' flight was validated or indeed unborn babies having no knowledge of the outside world - and effecively make them look ignorant, stupid and denialist.
The refutation is in Cold fusion. Nobody denied the claim outright, but they had doubts about it. What would have been wrong would be to accept it as true without proof. In the end the doubts turned out to be correct and cold fusion was debunked.
It is right to doubt powered flight before you know it is true, America before it is discovered and the outside world before you see it.
What is wrong is to demand belief in something not yet proven, something with no validation and especially something where the supposed evidence for is looking flimsier all the time.
What is even more wrong is to deny what HAS been validated - like the evolution of species, the unreliability of the Bible and the invalidity of the claims of the various churches and religions to have authority.
Posting that little analogy was of great value - but not in the way intended. Correctly understood, it blows the claims of religion and God -belief out of the water.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 06-16-2015 at 06:22 AM..
Absolutely there is more at stake: Gifts under an eternally-lit tree in heaven versus an eternity of unremitting agony.
Quite a bit more at stake for those who believe thusly.
ETA: Much easier to ditch a belief in Santa.
Katz, there is your answer.
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