Atheists: Do you EVER have doubts?

[UsAll]

Originally Posted by orogenicman

And that's a bad thing, because?

Originally Posted by Hueffenhardt

I have tons of questions, but no doubts. There is so much we don't know. But, I don't think the answers will be found by assuming a god did it. Our questions should motivate us to conduct more research and learn about the research that has already been done. And where there is a void in our knowledge, we should not plug "god" in the gap, but simply acknowledge we don't yet know.

Most of the so-called "evidence" for god that some believers tout really boils down to the believer saying, "Well, how else can you explain it, if it was not god?" That is a question, not an answer. "It", whatever "it" may be, is not explained by citing god. Why? Because no mechanism has been exposed by which god made "it" happen. If you asked me to explain how a magician caused a table to levitate, and I answered you by saying, "the magician did it," you'd rightfully say that is no explanation at all. You want to know how he did it - step by step.

So, if you ask me to explain how else I could explain some miraculous recovery from cancer, some fulfilled prophecy, some feeling of ectasy and love that washed over you while in prayer, if it was not God, I'd respond that I don't know, but I might have a few guesses, and then I'd tell you that you have not explained the phenomenon by crediting God either because you haven't told me the step by step process by which he did it. So, really, we are in the same boat, neither one of us having the explanation, and neither of us having any evidence of god's existence.

Though I'm sure you already know this, I am saying this for those that read this and may not know it:


The boldfaced sentence in the paragraph above (in your quote) is what is referred to in philosophical discourse as "the argument from ignorance". That is: "I can't figure out any other possible way that it can be, so therefore I will plug in this supposition that closes the gap and achieves parsimony for me". That is not how the established "rules of evidence" in courts of law (in Britain and America, in particular) or in the court of science operates. What that person did, at best, was establish a HYPOTHESIS (in this case, the so-called "God Hypothesis"). And it remains a hypothesis (and nothing more than that) unless affirmative and conclusive evidence either validates or invalidates it (i.e., REAL evidence . . . evidence that truly functions as evidence).

[pandaundercover]

Personally, no. I feel like I've got it all "too figured out" to doubt my belief that there is no God or spirits. I'm TOO into psychology and the human mind to be able to ignore all that I do know, and just "have faith." And even IF some grand proof came along someday to prove a God does exist, I still wouldn't see the point in worshiping it.

[Tantalust]

Originally Posted by pandaundercover

I'm TOO into psychology and the human mind to be able to ignore all that I do know, and just "have faith."

I hear you, I find the mechanisms of religious brainwashing quite fascinating.

[TRANSPONDER]

I agree. While going over and over the same logical instructions about what to believe and what not is just like explaining to a line of shoppers how to use the checkout machine, the ongoing exploration of how and why people believe and justify those beliefs and how they reconcile human understanding with reality is quite fascinating.

[rifleman]

[

QUOTE=Tantalust;24401521]I hear you, I find the mechanisms of religious brainwashing quite fascinating.

[/quote]

The church and those fascinating websites do have it down, indeed, to a fine art and organization. That's because they have taken several centuries to study (and selectively discipline and/or punish, often taken to the extreme..) the human mind, it's built-in fear of the unknown, and it's constant search for a stable warm-feeling and secure perspective. The prophets ensured they'd covered all of the bases in their imaginative stories, and then modified all of it to suit, and to correct the initial & obvious contradictions.

Thus those who have achieved what they perceive as a state of peaceful grace are sorely troubled by those of us who do not require such immature molly-coddling and "there there.." pats on the psychological head.

Two different sub-species, as I've posited previously. Intellectually, we cannot therefore "mate". A lion mating with a cheetah? (More like a lordly lion trying to mate with a feral polecat, IMHO. But hey; it's a free country, right?)