Atheism is abnormal human behavior

[Givemeareason]

Most of us have.
No.  And atheists don't "believe in nothing" as you really should know.

Yep.  I sure do.

[Givemeareason]

[quote auth I am noiior=Munch link=topic=7575.msg1075329#msg1075329 date=1432304948]
Why? Explain why its better in your own interpretation.
[/quote]

The way I have come to look at life, Munch, when I am no longer here to do the job, somebody else will be.

[Draconic Aiur]

Abnormal behavior is thinking a invisible man in the sky is real. That's fucking crazy, in fact religious people need to go to a mental ward. Which is 99.9% of the world's people.

[Feral Atheist]

The realization there is no God is not really very profound.  And identifying as an atheist is not either.  It is usually a transient view for most of us on the way to believing something else just as ridiculous. 

Agreed!  I look at my atheists views (never a theist, never believed in any god) as just common sense. 

Yea, as a small kid, I kinda bought into the Santa thing, and even my atheist dad really left me wondering about Santa.  When I went to bed on Christmas Eve, there was nothing in the house, yet when I woke up in the morning, there was a tree, stockings, gifts, and one year I remember well a train board and electric train setup and running.  Jeeze, the poor man must have never went to bed to accomplish that.

But that was love, a very loving atheist parent (theists heads are spinning, but that is their issue). 

I have read the horror stories from people raised in a uber religious home, and it is the worst kind of child abuse short of sexual abuse I could imagine.  And the religious "programming" often is started before potty training is attempted.

[Givemeareason]

Agreed!  I look at my atheists views (never a theist, never believed in any god) as just common sense. 

Yea, as a small kid, I kinda bought into the Santa thing, and even my atheist dad really left me wondering about Santa.  When I went to bed on Christmas Eve, there was nothing in the house, yet when I woke up in the morning, there was a tree, stockings, gifts, and one year I remember well a train board and electric train setup and running.  Jeeze, the poor man must have never went to bed to accomplish that.

But that was love, a very loving atheist parent (theists heads are spinning, but that is their issue). 

I have read the horror stories from people raised in a uber religious home, and it is the worst kind of child abuse short of sexual abuse I could imagine.  And the religious "programming" often is started before potty training is attempted.

Well I was a lot less disapointed when I found there was no Santa than when I got baptized only to discover there was no god. :-)

[Givemeareason]

well, please by all means enlighten us as to what can possibly be "more ridiculous" than gods that man has created by the thousands.

How about just me? :-)

[SoldierofFortune]

contrarily, atheism is default behavior. an new-born baby is an atheist.
family teach religion.

[Odoital778412]

I dunno about contrivances and rationalizations.  In the ancient past, very few people in one's community knew much of anything about the natural world, and most of what was known was shrouded in myth.  You didn't come into much contact with other cultures, so you're unlikely to know much of other religions.  And openly rejecting the tribe's myths was pretty much a death sentence.  So yeah, not a favorable environment for religious skepticism.
Well, yeah.  Obviously, our world is part of a larger cosmological picture.  But the $64,000 question is whether or not that root cause is some sort of divine entity.  I'm decidedly skeptical on that.

That might have been the case, but the point I was making is that now we have myriad ways of rationalizing and contriving all kinds of exits from one belief and entry into another.  And while they can be an example of dropping a false belief for something that more closely responds to reality, it certainly doesn't have to be.  It's rather like the old Dawkins' quote that "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist."  So Darwin's theory gave atheism some level of scientific plausibility and therefore respectability that it probably didn't have before.  Today, given our level of knowledge, there are all kinds of ways of exiting one view and adopting another.  The proliferation of knowledge leads to a proliferation of views, not because all of the views are true, but because we often prefer to believe things for other reasons apart from their veracity.

With regard to your other comment, I think the evidence is likely on the side of the divine entity.  Due to the fact that the Universe itself came into being at a point in the finite past, you don't have a lot of options.  That Universe that began either came into being from nothing and by nothing, or it came into being from something and by something.  The first statement is a violation of our repeated and uniform experience as human beings.  Generally speaking, or as a rule, things to not pop into being from a state of non-being.  In addition, I actually like the simple deductive argument, which I'm sure you're well aware of:

1) Whatever beings to exist has a cause.
2) The Universe began to exist.
3) Therefore the Universe has a cause.

Are there objections to the argument?  Sure there are.  Even if that statement is 100% true, I expect a certain number of people to object.  Having said that, I'm persuaded that it's true, and I've not heard or seen an objection that has been persuasive enough to unseat that reality in my mind.  I'm further persuaded by the kind of world that I live in that the cause involved is likely transcendent and personal.  There are of course logical and philosophical reasons behind that, but I think that it's much more plausibly true than the alternative.

[Odoital778412]

What are 'contrivances and rationalizations'???  I'm not an atheist because it is more 'comfortable'--actually it is a little less comfortable than claiming theism of some sort.  I do recognize my environment--and myself--as the result of a greater cause.  That 'cause' however is not divine in any way, shape or form.  Atheism is simply the rejection of a belief in any god.  That is not hard, in the least, to affirm.  You can believe in fairy tales if you wish--I chose not to.  Pretty easy.

I don't know.  They are probably different for everyone.  If you don't believe that there is a God, how or why would believing something you believe to be untrue be comforting?  What is a greater cause?  Why is it not divine in any way, shape or form?  Yeah, that's one definition I've heard of atheism, though it's not the only one people use.  In your case though, isn't your rejection based upon something?  I actually don't think that verdict is in with regard to whether or not the existence of God is a fairy tale.  Quite the opposite in fact.  But I've heard that kind of thing a lot, and it always makes me a chuckle a bit.  I always think, wouldn't it be funny if the idea of their being no God ended up being the ultimate fairy tale?  I tend not to put it in those terms personally though.  While most of the atheists I meet tend not to be overly serious about their knowledge, facts, and largely rhetorical objections to the supernatural and Christianity; I know that there are some who are.  They are, so far as their knowledge and understanding go, actually convinced that the facts are on their side.  For that reason, I try to avoid talking in terms of fairy tales and the like.  Differences of opinion with regard to our interpretation of the facts is one thing.  But dismissing an alternative interpretation of the facts as something like mere fairy tale is further than I can usually go.  After all, I was a history major in college, and it's not hard to find a lot of intelligent people who made mistakes and were wrong regarding their interpretation of the facts.  Just out of humility, I have to leave open the possibility that I'm wrong and they're right.  It's part of the reason that I choose to expose myself to forums such as this.  You can see from the comments the kind of abuse that a person like myself has to take, simply for the privilege of interacting with other human beings who happen to believe differently than myself.  Why else would I do that, if it weren't in part, to test what I believe and see if it stands up to scrutiny?

[Odoital778412]

Indeed originally there was no belief at all. Religion was invented by man. How that developed is pretty easy to see in the history of humanity.

I agree, many false religions have been created by mankind.  However, I think that such creations were, in part, a result of their moral intuitions.  In other words, even the simplest human beings with the slightest amount of knowledge could still recognize self-evident truths or obvious realities.  For example, every human being probably assumes, because it's so basic, that they came from someone and somewhere.  It's not hard to make this same connection to other things like your environment, the world, etc...

What? Really, what does that even mean? Contrivances and rationalizations is what humanity adapted in order for religion to flourish, not the other way around. Have you even studied the history of religions?

Rationalization (also known as making excuses) is a defense mechanism in which controversial behaviors or feelings are justified and explained in a seemingly rational or logical manner to avoid the true explanation, and are made consciously tolerable â€" or even admirable and superior â€" by plausible means.

Contrivance is a thing that is created skillfully and inventively to serve a particular purpose.

Actually, I have.  My background is in History, philosophy of religion, religion & theology.  So yeah, and I agree that a lot of false religions have been created.  Religions can be rationalizations just like anything else, including atheism.  That's why you want to be very careful when deciding what you believe.  You want it to correspond to reality and cohere together or make sense of itself in that reality.

No, most humans hope that life has a greater purpose that what reality shows them. We call it wishful thinking, or to some irrational beliefs.

I agree in part, in that people "feel" that there is a greater purpose or reality than just this life.  We feel it when children are born, when we see apparent needless or gratuitous suffering, and when we lose loved ones.  You can call our intuitions wishful thinking, but labeling it as such won't necessarily make it so.

Enabled? By enabled do you mean afforded an education beyond the 4th grade?

No. Enable means to give (someone or something) the authority or means to do something.

Built in intuitions? What horse crap is that?

It means that sentient human beings possess inborn faculties that we tend to take for granted but nonetheless exist.  I cannot continue to define each word for you though.  Look into epistemology...specifically, pick up a few books written by Alvin Plantinga.

Atheism doesn't need affirmation, it is the default case. Do you not notice the millions of churches and the like that are built to help keep the affirmation of religion indoctrination? Now, look around……...see any ones for atheists?
Man…talk about a whack-a-doodle sentence

Of course!  I see them all over the place.  But atheists are in the business of freeing themselves from the shackles of organization, so I don't see them setting up a church of atheism.  Instead they just write books, attempting to convince everyone else to join them in their atheism.  I would point you toward Peter Boghossian's A Manual for Creating Atheists.  Maybe one day they'll set up buildings for you.  I don't know, but I guess it's something for you to shoot for.

But the question really is, why would atheism be the default position?  Surely you'd need other information to get you to atheism first.  And do we know that its foundation is correct?

[aitm]

But the question really is, why would atheism be the default position?  Surely you'd need other information to get you to atheism first.  And do we know that its foundation is correct?

You jest. Children are not born religious, they have to be taught. They are by default "non-believers" in a god.  That kind of stupidity has to be taught and continued to be pounded into their brain so they can grow up to be irrational like you. 

That the gods and their demands always seem to fit neatly into the cultures that they rule over do not seem even a little convenient to you? That the hundreds of gods now deemed myths but at one time were quite real does not impact your opinions that man has invented all the gods? That you can actually read your babble and not come away feeling like a damn idiot is laughable when you turn around and suggest to someone else, "how do we know that its foundation is correct?"  That's some funny shit there. Well maybe not funny, more like sad, really sad that all your efforts go into contorting your logic to convince yourself that you have not been taken for a fool. Well, it will be a never ending battle for you. Every day something new challenges the old goat herder story and once again you are forced into mental contortions to get your logic to continue you believe you are correct because the embarrassment of being wrong in not an option.

[Mike Cl]

You jest. Children are not born religious, they have to be taught. They are by default "non-believers" in a god.  That kind of stupidity has to be taught and continued to be pounded into their brain so they can grow up to be irrational like you. 

That the gods and their demands always seem to fit neatly into the cultures that they rule over do not seem even a little convenient to you? That the hundreds of gods now deemed myths but at one time were quite real does not impact your opinions that man has invented all the gods? That you can actually read your babble and not come away feeling like a damn idiot is laughable when you turn around and suggest to someone else, "how do we know that its foundation is correct?"  That's some funny shit there. Well maybe not funny, more like sad, really sad that all your efforts go into contorting your logic to convince yourself that you have not been taken for a fool. Well, it will be a never ending battle for you. Every day something new challenges the old goat herder story and once again you are forced into mental contortions to get your logic to continue you believe you are correct because the embarrassment of being wrong in not an option.

Yeah, this thought that religion (insert which one depending upon what area of the world one is born in or into what culture) is the 'default' position is really a boat load of arrogance, if you think about it.  With the way he worded the question he is basically saying---'My religion is so important and obviously the Truth, that even a newborn knows it, and that makes me so important--atheists, however, have to be taught to hate the Lord from day one.  If they just stop the hating, they will see.  I know The Truth!'  All Odoital knows is that from age 3 he was a believer.  So, he has his entire soul (not that that concept is real) dedicated to making that fact real and accurate.  Above all else, that belief has to be the Truth.  If it is proven to him that belief is false, then his entire emotional and psychological world comes tumbling down.  He cannot let that happen.  Hence, he has to stop coming here.

A phrase that the christians utter, makes me shake my head every time I hear it.  And I hear it a lot in christian circles:  There, but for the grace of God, go I.  They utter it when the are made aware of a tragedy or something bad happening to somebody else.  If you think about it, they are really saying--God loves me and graces me, but not you--I wonder what you did to make God angry at you?  Words come out of their mouths with any thought attached to them.

[Odoital778412]

You jest. Children are not born religious, they have to be taught. They are by default "non-believers" in a god.  That kind of stupidity has to be taught and continued to be pounded into their brain so they can grow up to be irrational like you. 

That the gods and their demands always seem to fit neatly into the cultures that they rule over do not seem even a little convenient to you? That the hundreds of gods now deemed myths but at one time were quite real does not impact your opinions that man has invented all the gods? That you can actually read your babble and not come away feeling like a damn idiot is laughable when you turn around and suggest to someone else, "how do we know that its foundation is correct?"  That's some funny shit there. Well maybe not funny, more like sad, really sad that all your efforts go into contorting your logic to convince yourself that you have not been taken for a fool. Well, it will be a never ending battle for you. Every day something new challenges the old goat herder story and once again you are forced into mental contortions to get your logic to continue you believe you are correct because the embarrassment of being wrong in not an option.

I agree that falleness is our default position, but specifically, atheism?  I don't think so.  Merely not being religious doesn't make someone an atheist.

[SGOS]

Yeah, this thought that religion (insert which one depending upon what area of the world one is born in or into what culture) is the 'default' position is really a boat load of arrogance, if you think about it.  With the way he worded the question he is basically saying---'My religion is so important and obviously the Truth, that even a newborn knows it

Yes, it is arrogance (IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT), but Christians, at least those who show up here DON'T THINK ABOUT IT.  Everything they believe about themselves is part of their indoctrination.  They believe that belief in their specific God, the one they were taught is their God, is the default, because it has never occurred to them to think otherwise.  They believe they are humble having great humility, because that is what they are told Christians are, and it has never occurred to them to think about it.  They don't understand that believing they are specially created by a god, in that god's own image no less, is not an obviously arrogant perception, because it has never occurred to them to think about it.  It's called "indoctrination."  Certain memes useful to the perpetuation of the religion are drilled into them so thoroughly that it never occurs to them to think otherwise.

[Mike Cl]

Yeah, this thought that religion (insert which one depending upon what area of the world one is born in or into what culture) is the 'default' position is really a boat load of arrogance, if you think about it.  With the way he worded the question he is basically saying---'My religion is so important and obviously the Truth, that even a newborn knows it, and that makes me so important--atheists, however, have to be taught to hate the Lord from day one.  If they just stop the hating, they will see.  I know The Truth!'  All Odoital knows is that from age 3 he was a believer.  So, he has his entire soul (not that that concept is real) dedicated to making that fact real and accurate.  Above all else, that belief has to be the Truth.  If it is proven to him that belief is false, then his entire emotional and psychological world comes tumbling down.  He cannot let that happen.  Hence, he has to stop coming here.

A phrase that the christians utter, makes me shake my head every time I hear it.  And I hear it a lot in christian circles:  There, but for the grace of God, go I.  They utter it when the are made aware of a tragedy or something bad happening to somebody else.  If you think about it, they are really saying--God loves me and graces me, but not you--I wonder what you did to make God angry at you?  Words come out of their mouths with any thought attached to them.

Well, I guess I was wrong about Odoital--he did not leave us.  Which is fine with me. :)