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And you would be correct....The Pirahã, a small tribe of Amazonian Indians in central Brazil had no knowledge of God until a missionary showed up...
their language and culture is rooted in the present, and based directly on personal experience.
it includes seeing and hearing messages from the "beings who live above the clouds" which were not visible or audible to the visiting American linguist
again....direct experience of the Divine
"They require evidence based on personal experience for every claim made....Everett reported one incident where the Pirahã said that “Xigagaí, one of the beings that lives above the clouds, was standing on a beach yelling at us, telling us that he would kill us if we go into the jungle.” Everett and his daughter could see nothing and yet the Pirahã insisted that Xigagaí was still on the beach"
What utter nonsense! I'd wager that if you take a new born baby and isolate it for it's entire life from human contact, it would grow up with no god-belief whatsoever.
If a newborn is completely isolated... Would it not die from dehydration, starvation, and exposure? Complete isolation means just that.
...and I would wager that when they found them they had no concept of gods.
Well they'd be dead so....
And we are talking infants, meaning speech hasn't developed, so there's another issue in communication. No speech patterns and dead.
Do you use sonar? The navy would be really interested in that skill set. Or you could apply for the aqua man position in the upcoming jla movie. You'd get to work with gal gadot.
...and I would wager that when they found them they had no concept of gods.
Or they might. Or in some kind of invisible being that either protects or threatens them or one of each. Because I am pretty sure these are instincts hardwired into our genes.
Tzaph above (I believe) made the point about the wozzit ..Piranha?..Indians that they DID have some spirit beliefs and perhaps the deconversion was just one of those (often happens either way) that was just waiting to happen and Everett just needed an 'excuse' to Let Go....
The god -(or spirit) instinct isn't enough to make a child a theist, though. At most some instinctive fears and hopes. To make that any kind of god -concept requires indoctrination.... I'll say it again. In-doc-trin-ation..with Theeism. And formal religion of any kind requires a whole lot more of it.
Without that, the atheist baby would remain atheist, to all intents and purposes. That of course plays into the hands of Theist apologists since NOT bringing up the kid as a God -believer would mean (according to the Believers) they had been indoctrinated with atheism.
That is hairy balls, of course since a non -believing kid allowed to grow up without being taught god -belief is no more indoctrinated than a kid being born without any knowledge of stamps (in a world of e -mail) growing up without any knowledge of stamps is NOT being indoctrinated with a 'philosophy' of not collecting stamps.
Sure I can. I tune it out all the time. You felt indoctrinated and made a conscious choice. Fantastic.
My priest convinced my mom to allow me to find my own way at 12.. and 28 years later I made a conscious in reverse.
Different strokes for different folks based on their own life experiences.
But it doesn't speak to the validity of the perception of the claims about the life experience.
My point is that one can ignore what others believe through "life experiences" until that belief causes danger or harm to others, as many beliefs do these days, i.e. suicide bombers.
But it doesn't speak to the validity of the perception of the claims about the life experience.
My point is that one can ignore what others believe through "life experiences" until that belief causes danger or harm to others, as many beliefs do these days, i.e. suicide bombers.
Agh... The appeal to the ridiculous. I'll worry about that as much as I expect to win the powerball.
Some would contend your concern with others beliefs bring harm to others, or yourself.
Sure I can. I tune it out all the time. You felt indoctrinated and made a conscious choice. Fantastic.
My priest convinced my mom to allow me to find my own way at 12.. and 28 years later I made a conscious in reverse.
Different strokes for different folks based on their own life experiences.
And the thing is not a single atheist or agnostic here would deny you the right to have your beliefs and your opinion on your experiences .
It is some theists here that get butt hurt and angry that their personal experiences aren't automatically and without reservation accepted as solid evidence of God , and try to turn simple disagreement and non acceptance of subjective experience as evidence into persecution , combativeness , and intolerance .
And yet it is the same people who are in effect saying "you MUST believe my experience " who want to claim those that simply disagree with them are the intolerant ones . The theistic persecution complex isn't found solely within the ranks of the Bible literalists .
Revisit the OP. The subject is the fact that some theists can't stand the fact that there are those who choose not to accept their proclamations on God, inspired by the very words of some theists here . We see this still in these later posts .
Last edited by wallflash; 07-19-2016 at 05:28 AM..
Thanks. I hoped someone would save me a reply. I'll just add that stymie has a point. You can argue "Harm" from either side. It is essentially the "What if you're wrong?" argument. Being Right would excuse a lot of harm even if it didn't remove the harm altogether.
In the end it comes down to "How do we know which claim is right?"
Reason and evidence. And we have already seen who has the best of the debate and who has to revert to Faith as a reason to believe. And Faith is the worst reason to believe of all the reasons.
That is why Stymie's personal experiences and the reasons why he "Found God" are no valid reasons at all.
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plays into the hands of Theist apologists since NOT bringing up the kid as a God -believer would mean (according to the Believers) they had been indoctrinated with atheism. 
