Starspun

I have a hard time understanding this statement; not it's meaning, but it's conclusion.

me: toxic waste is bad.
someone else: no it isn't....
(probably not the best analogy)
This kind of thinking get's under my skin. I don't know how else to explain it.

I purposefuly said 'most' people because I knew not all did, but, how far off am I on this statement. How can one live their life without re-examing it during the adult stage? I can see irrational people nottaking a nice long look, but, are there THAT many irrational people, or, is there something more?

Christopher Lord

I think it could also have something to do with family alligance. Some people feel they need to hold the same beliefs as their parents since that is the 'right way'.

I know this is the psycology behind one of my brothers accepting the jesus myths (at least since the last time I talked to him about this).

This could be explained in evolutionary psycology terms as well. The children have an instinct to follow their parents since obviously whatever the parents did led to children.

Perhaps there may actually be a gene that predisposes some to be more observant towards their parents way of doing things. Being atheist is recessive

Theli

I don't think there is any logic or philosophical argument that the majority of people knows and that has somehow illuded us atheists.
Such an argument would have resurfaced really fast. Especially here.
I think of religions as fastfood. People want their world to make sense, they want there to be meaning to things. They want guidence and directions (to a degree). And religions has that in a pretty package that is easy to adopt to.
It doesn't require much deep thoughts. I'm not saying that religious people doesn't think these thoughts, but it is not required.
You don't have to cook your own meal.
I have noticed that when religion is brought up on other forums (not intended for religious discussions) people don't seem to know why they believe what they believe.
I suppose the perhaps largest reason to the 90% is religion's influence on our society and culture. In everything from our vocabulary (for god's sake) to our holidays (holy days?).

A very unfortunate quality of religion.
It's much easier for leaders to round up people and direct them to the leaders personal goals if they include the word "god".
BTW, how often do you hear a political leader say that god has told him to do something, but he disagreed with god and want the people to do the opposite?
For someone to disagree with god, he must be a schizo.

Shadowy Man

A lot of religious types I've talked to don't think of religion as lies or that they are only believing lies in order to put purpose in their lives and feel good. Most of them actually see reasons to believe, whether they be well thought out (in the case of one or two theists I know) or not.

For example, if someone reads a horoscope or a description of their personality based on their "sun-sign" and it sounds like it is right on, they may tend to believe there is something to this astrology thing. (And trust me, as an astronomer I have to explain the difference between astrology and astronomy far more often than I would like.)

It is when people don't think about the reasons they believe something that bothers me. I think for a lot of people the reason they believe is because they were raised to believe and haven't really ever seen a need to question it since then; especially if they continue to reside around and interact with other believers.

I would imagine that atheists, especially those who were raised with any decent amount of religious upbringing, tend to be analytical, introspective people to start with. These types tend to question their reasons for anything, not just belief in a god(s).

[ July 16, 2002: Message edited by: Shadowy Man ]</p>

Arrowman

Well, it used to be 98%! So it's coming down!

(In Australia for example, the current "Christian" percentage per the latest census, is about 68%. 100 years ago it was 98%)

Religion propagates itself. And people generally want it - they want certainty, hope for an afterlife etc.

Each generation is brought up in the religion of its parents, many if not most people really don't bother about it too much and just continue to accept the belief in God which they were taught as a child, even if they're not strong churchgoing Christians. And in every generation, a few (like you and I) slip the net!

So I think the "90% and falling" figure isn't all that scary.

I do think it is legitimate to ask yourself, as you have done, "Why am I in the minority? Am I missing something? Should I think about it / question my beliefs?" It's not argument ad populum to consider the fact that you are in a minority on any issue, and question yourself because of that.

But on the other hand there's nothing wrong with recognising that only a small proportion of the population really, really thinks critically about these things. It's not related to intelligence - it's critical thinking. Look at how many people believe in astrology (I believe it's something like 48%).

In other words, be comfortable with (and thankful for) the fact that you are in a minority of people who think deeply and critically on these matters. Minorities can be right!

nogods4me

well first of all, worldwide I would question that 90% figure. Check out adherents.com. and secondly, while a large percentage certainly believe in something, they hardly believe in the same thing. 2% believe this, another 6% something else, etc, etc.

Buffman

<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=44&t=001112" target="_blank">http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=44&t=001112</a>

Jul 13th
01:20 PM
03:25 PM
06:45 PM

Jul 15th
12:05 AM
12:37 PM
04:55 PM
05:04 PM

I agree with "Shadowy Man" although I would add "meaning and direction" to his "purpose."

I agree with Arrowman about the necessity to apply a critical thinking process to our questions/analyses/conclusions(beliefs).

However, until we accurately understand how the human Brain and Mind work in the manner that they do, we can only guess at why some folks are religious and some are not. Unfortunately, few of us have the desire, qualifications, time or means to follow-up on our guesses. That is just as true for the atheist as it is for the theist.

The theist believes that all the answers can be found in a faith in the supernatural. Why work (think) when everything is already clearly laid out. The unknown is known. Chaos is already ordered. Faith disciplines fear. The world of the atheist contains unknowns, chaos and fear. How can an atheist possibly find purpose, meaning and direction out of that kind of random universe?

However, neither the theist nor the atheist truly understand how their own Brains and Minds work. Thus, how can they appreciate how the universe works? One damn step at a time. That's how! And on two fronts simultaneously. The one between our ears and the one over our heads. (Just one more of my ranting opinions.)

Stephen T-B

I apologise for the inordinate length of this, and while the first two sections may not seem relevant to the question being asked, they do have some bearing on what is being discussed.

1. It is the nature of belief to tempt believers into confusing the reality of their belief with the reality of what they believe in.

A thing becomes a subject of certain knowledge, as opposed to belief, when its existence is not disputed
Thus it can be said that we know trees exist. They can be felt, seen, heard, smelt, climbed, cut down, burned. A non-believer in trees would discover his mistake the moment he walked into one.
Conversely, gods, fairies, goblins and other such entities are not subjects of certain knowledge for the very reason that their existence is open to dispute.

This is the cause of much trouble.


2 . The believer perceives the truth and cannot comprehend why that identical truth is not self-evident to everyone else. No one argues about the nature of the Eiffel Tower; about its dimensions, its form of construction or its shape, so why should there be any discussion about the nature of god which, in the believer's mind, has the same indisputable reality?

The fact that there is discussion and often violent disagreement is not because holders of differing opinions are being wilfully contrary but because the mind's construct of a god is just that and has no external reality. The function of religious leaders, therefore, is to fix the god of their belief by precise definition so that their followers have a shared idea of what to believe in.
The followers' duty is to accept that definition, even though it conflicts in some small degree with their own.
Indeed, by overcoming this conflict they know they are being obedient. A significant sacrifice is being required of them, and "obedience" and "*sacrifice" being esteemed elements in much religious teaching, they are therefore rewarded with a sense of worthy achievement. This in turn intensifies their loyalty to the leader and commitment to the creed being propagated and which they embrace.
(It also hands the religious leader a unique form of control, a fact which secular rulers have been quick to exploit.)
If the conflict becomes too great, however, cohesion is broken and schism results, often followed by the violent antagonisms which arise between people who know the truth but cannot agree what it is.
The intensity of feeling which engulfs believers in these circumstances derives from the fact that belief is a function of the mind, and cannot be imposed on someone who resists it. When two believers know the truth, and know that the other's version of it is dangerously false, the scene is set for bloodshed.
This may happen within a homogeneous national community, but more often it occurs between rival communities, and then the different belief systems serve as tribal badges under which any atrocity is sanctioned by nothing less than the supreme deity.
A plea for rational judgments when religions are in conflict is futile.
Religious belief, when significantly influential in an individual’s life, is not a rational process; it is delusional, the only connections between the real world and the imagined world of the believer being spurious or fortuitous.
We saw an example of this when the Americans sent in a force to rescue embassy hostages being held by Iranian Fundamentalists. Their transport aircraft crashed in the desert, the rescue mission was aborted, and the Ayatollah attributed it all to Allah.
We scoff, but the British do exactly the same thing when they refer to the "miracle of Dunkerque."
The purpose of such miracles is to provide "evidence" of divine intervention, but there is a paradox here because although believers constantly look for evidence to prove the reality of what it is they believe in, if it were unambiguously supplied, belief would be extinguished by knowledge, and the believer's need to believe would be thwarted.

3. The development of the power to reason and the concomitant awareness of death and the precariousness of the individual human's existence disposed primitive man to invent over-arching immortal beings from whom he might seek protection
These deities could on a whim wreak death and destruction but were amenable to bribes. Extraordinary beings indeed, they demanded extraordinary gifts and since none was more precious than life itself, the practice developed of animal and human sacrifice.
It persists to this day, easily surviving a development in which the great company of diverse gods was condensed by the Jews into their Yahweh and his heavenly consort - a much-shrunk pantheon which would be further reduced to a single, almighty god.
The Christian version of this god stopped demanding blood sacrifices after the death of Jesus, being satisfied henceforward by the symbolic sacrifice of a devotee's life, and the actual sacrifice of worldly wealth in the form of tithes and other material gifts. Modern Judaism, evolved within Christian cultures after the Diaspora, also ceased to require blood sacrifices.

4. Religious belief remains strong and ubiquitous because it performs a number of still-relevant functions.
It addresses deep-seated insecurities by claiming the ability to put all-powerful beings on our side; it stimulates emotions which some people find highly pleasurable; it seems to explain unsettling imponderables like When did it all begin? What are we here for? and Why do we die? it supplies an exciting, mysterious, highly-attractive dimension to otherwise prosaic, cause-and-affect ruled lives, it gives the individual the rewarding sense of being special to a supernatural and an almighty being, and it satisfies the yearning to serve, this being a deeply-embedded element of our psychological make-up as a social animal and arguably associated with the requirement among all such animals to cooperate with each other and to a greater or lesser extent subordinate purely selfish interests to those of the community.
In this context it is worth mentioning a less widespread impulse but one which nevertheless derives from the same historical background: the need, within strictly hierarchical social systems, to obey. Religion in most of its manifestations is also hierarchical and holds out the promise that obedience shall receive due recognition and reward.
By placing themselves at the heart of religion and by acting as a conduit between the people and their gods, the priestly caste has exerted a sometimes malign influence which has inflicted immeasurable misery upon humanity.

5. While unbelievers are doomed to muddle along in a state of bewildered confusion, people with a religious commitment can declare that they know what is going on, and why.

6. The problem is that belief in deities is the result of emotional or psychological impulses which have absolutely nothing to do with rational thought. Bridging the two requires a form of reasoning which, however it be disguised, is illogical and inevitably incoherent.

excreationist

A lot of it comes from Ken Ham (from AiG) style reasoning:

<a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1316.asp" target="_blank">from an AiG article</a>:
Anyway, when I became a creationist, the basis of my faith was a belief that the world was about 6000 years old. When I came to believe that the world was much older than 6000 years old (see <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=42&t=000600" target="_blank">this thread</a>) it became no longer logical to believe in the God of the Bible. I has in University at the time, studying science, and I didn't think that God was needed to explain life and the universe. So I gave up the Christian faith and theism/deism altogether. I still sometimes like to pretend that various Bible characters existed/exist in my discussions here though since the Christian/O.T. world-view is quite interesting... (I've learnt so much about the Bible - it is kind of like being a "Trekkie" who doesn't believe that Star Trek is real)

[ July 17, 2002: Message edited by: excreationist ]</p>

atheistdave

<strong>Additionally, I think religion and belief in deities is a strong component of much of human nature.</strong>
Probably a quick, but wrong, fix for our natural curiosity. Humans want a quick and easy answer to everthing, even when it's not possible.

<strong>It seems there is a minority that is deprogrammed from the mainstream, which includes you and me.</strong>
Some yes, but many, like myself, were never programmed to begin with.

Dave

[ July 17, 2002: Message edited by: atheistdave ]</p>