Why Do People Become Atheists?

So what would constitute as proof for you.

 

Proof

There would have to be empirical evidence. Basically, an idea that is testable and can be proven through the scientific method.

 

Interesting. So what is the method again?
I know you must identify the problem.

 

Six Steps...

The Scientific Method is a six step approach which helps bring better accuracy to an idea you've presented.

* Ask a Question
* Do Background Research
* Construct a Hypothesis
* Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
* Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
* Communicate Your Results

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_scientific_method.shtml

 

Thanks I'm gonna look into this.

 

You could try using the method to prove there is a God, but the problem is that it stays pretty much in the first and second steps since it cannot be tested.

God, in a nutshell, is more of a philosophical idea than something to be proven through evidence. And even God, or the definition of it, varies in many ways.

 

I agree with this, and science provides many avenues for discovery which neither require you to see nor to touch the object of examination directly. For example: we need not watch grass grow to understand that it does, rather than believing the explanation that when the grass is out of sight, a man comes by and replaces each short blade of grass with a longer one, and one could also watch a time lapse video of grass growing; although the Earth's atmosphere blocks a great deal of radiation that isn't visible light, a distant star may be examined from beyond the Earth's atmosphere using machines which can relay the data of high frequency radiation, such as gamma rays.

Following from my previous statement, science does not conclude with personal feelings of how plausible something is based on some unquantifiable model. If past methods were not enough to verify molecular and atomic theory, atoms and molecules can now be touched and arranged with machines.

(an arrangement of xenon atoms imaged with a scanning tunneling microscope)

(a pentacene molecule; the top image represents an image generated directly with an atomic force microscope, while the bottom image is a useful model for delineating the geometry of carbon and hydrogen atoms, such as that you would find in a reference book)

Firstly, I would like to refute your suggestion that it is easier to believe in nothing. In another statement in this thread, you cited the massive following of religion over the course of human history for evidence of its legitimacy. Atheists are a minority in the developed world. With what that implies, it follows that it is more work to come to the conclusion that refutes what is commonly accepted as true. It is, however, easier to ignore data which are determined to be false, and therefore never be tasked with the quandry of ruminating excessively over the possibility of what is false being true. That is, unless you are human, and we know that beliefs are often inherited and assumed before one is mature engough to think reasonably about their legitimacy. This is why, among academics, it is important not only what conclusions you assert, but how you reach them. I am referring to the difference between acquiring knowledge for oneself, and thereby taking resposibility for it, or simply echoing the conclusion of someone you trust. In this case, we can agree that some people are lazy. It might also be impractical to assert that everyone must be a scientist in order, for example to believe in the consensus that oxygen is real and thereby be a gnostic oxygenist (understanding the reality of oxygen to be represented by facts).

Secondly, I would like to suggest another problem with how theists/deists such as yourself approach atheists with skepticism. This is by suggesting that atheism is a belief or a religion. As an atheist, I do not "believe in nothing" as you believe in a deity. I am absent of belief. This is like the number '0,' which represents an absence of quantity. You might consider that we are all born knowing nothing, and that humans have a similar set of physical tools for examining the world. Science represents investigations which can be made using these tools, while religion is the institutionalization of that which is merely abstract. This concept is so very important.

Finally, you have touched on an elementary dillemma between agnostic atheists and gnostic atheists and agnostic and agnostic theists. Agnosticism, contrary to it's common misuse, is not a word which referes to belief or non-belief (belief being a binary concept with two possible states). It is a word which explains knowledgeability. An agnostic atheist does not believe in god and asserts that such an entity is not knowable (a-gnostic) in order to be proven. A gnostic atheist does not believe in god and asserts that such a thing is fact. The term applies similarly for theism.

So, when you contrast between what you say is the easier "belief in nothing" and, as you said "indulging in" (indulging suggests gratification) the unknowability of god's existence, it sounds as though you are contrasting atheism and...?...agnostic atheism (between non-belief and non-belief), or are you in favor of agnostic theism (belief in the unknowable)? In the latter case, this is terribly irrational. How can something be believed in while being, by definition, unknowable?

You should consider that we are all atheists by default, as a person is born with no knowledge of gods. This is not an excuse for ignorance, however. I learned that pigs are mammals by dissecting them, and I understand that the concept of mammal refers to observable physical characteristics. You learned about the concept of 'God,' I think, in a manner similar to how I learned about Rumplestilskin, who is somewhat less popular. How much should we ruminate over the two myths before we arrive at a consensus that to assert their existence is absurd? Is it objectionable to ignore Rumplestilskin, for whose existence there has been not a shed of proof, and focus on what can be related through empiricism rather than spend a life using the unknowability of his non-existence to argue in favor of his popularity? That would be absurd.

 

To answer the titular question, I have always been an atheist. I was extremely skeptical of God as a child. However, this was complicated by the fact that I was raised in a home of Christians and had no one to assist me in exploring my skepticism, or provide honest answers to my questions. On the contrary, it was constantly refuted. Like most children, I was quite concerned with being accepted and experiencing the virtues of religion which I had been taught. At thirteen years of age, I acknowledged my error entirely. I was attending morning mass at school when I stated the conclusion to myself, then turned to the person next to me and said, "I'm an atheist."

 

All I will say in response is that "God" in the popular sense, an overbaring father figure who judges every move you make and who cares only about human beings out of all creatures created, does sound absurd. The belief in a grand designer who/that made everything and responds to different kinds of energy movement doesn't sound absurd to me. We as people just have a hard time allowing the concept of this and that opposed to this or that. Meaning all theories can comingle to achieve an ultimate answer.
And as I've said before lack of evidence proves only that there is still more data to obtained. at one point all data pointed to the idea that the earth was flat or that the earth was the center of earth. We didn't have the instrumentation to prove otherwise but there were those amongst us who believed differently and proved it. So when it comes to the idea of God I believe we're only at the beginning of understanding. Its critical that we stay open minded.

 

That's a stupid analogy. The reason we know that grass grows is that we've perceived it.

 

May I ask you if you put Love it this category as well then?
Just curious.

 

Well, it depends on the definition of love or the cause of it. Love, from a biological standpoint, is triggered through the dopamines within the brain. The chemical reactions to something which stimulate the person indefinitely is what drives someone to act out on love.

From a psychological standpoint, it's basically the biology of an individual and what we perceive. Secondly, love may not be tangible, but the concept of it can be acted upon, albeit under different circumstances. Love of oneself, family, friends, and life. That's something of a concept which is seen and explored through other.

 

That is horribly inadequate. Tell me how you perceived it, then you may explain to botanists the intricacies of your magic, and why scanning electron microscopes are not necessary for investigating growth on a cellular level. There are obvious exceptions, which I suggested, but you clearly missed the point that science has the capacity to trace a specific and verifiable path to knowledge rather than deciding that it is sufficient to say "We know because we perceived it to be so," which is the essence of arguments provided by religious apologists.

 

It is also worthwhile to expound upon the fact that science seeks to constantly improve its explanations, while as BigBrotherWise indicated, any explanation or argumentation concerning gods fails in the very incipient stages.

Continuing with the analogy, perhaps one day you decide to meditate on a plant, in order to see it growing before your eyes, or perhaps you experience the occasion a flower blossoming. This may in fact be such a common experience that many people may consider it to be common knowledge that plants grow, but as an individual, your experience has added nothing to the compendium of scientific knowledge. Thus, to this day, ever more complex technology is used to expand on these elementary concepts, so that we can provide more sufficient explanations than "We know grass grows because we perceive it."

 

I think the more important thing to focus on is that even though we have the instrumentation to measure and observe grass growing doesn't mean it was doing so before and won't be doing so after. I think the same logic can be applied to the God concept. The absence of proof in and of itself doesn't absolutely prove the falsehood of existence.

 

I don't mean that we watched it constantly and saw that it grew. I mean that we noticed that it becomes longer, and that it grows back if we cut it off. That's included in "perceive". You're analogy is retarded.

 

No, you are retarded.

Would that match your rhetoric? If there is something wrong with what I said, perhaps someone else can explain more specifically on your behalf, especially since you seem to think I should have anticipated what you would later provide as an explanation for what you meant. Also, I didn't say that you indicated "we watched it constantly grow and saw that it grew." I was providing an example of how something might be perceived through a direct experience, since you failed to do that. The example was for the purpose of contrasting with what can be verified between different people using the aforementioned tools that allow us to perceive the world around us, facilitating scientific method.

All you have done by modifying your original statement and providing an example of scientific experimentaion, is help to explain my point. What I perceive is that when you said my analogy was stupid for the reason that we obviously perceive grass growing, you were so easily seduced by the simplicity of the concept of grass growing that you failed to understand what I was saying.

But, perhaps the misapprehension is still mine, in which case I look forward to your illuminating reply, something to the effect of "No, you are retarded."

 

God is something that you can't see or touch. Comparing belief in God with knowledge about grass is ridiculous. Grass is something that we can see, touch and study. We can do all sorts of tests to find out how grass works, what it's made of, etc. We can't do that with God. Thus, your analogy is retarded.

I reread the original post I quoted. You're right, we don't need to stand by and watch the grass to know that it's growing, but if we were newborns with no knowledge of anything at all and encountered grass for the first time in our lives, we'd had to do that. God can't be proven in any way at all, so comparing belief in God with understanding of grass is retarded.

(And no, you don't match my rhetorics, since I never said that you were retarded, I just said that your analogy was retarded.)

 

Why is that?

 

Why is what?