Transworldly Depraved

Some of the emotional motivations for atheism or scepticism toward religion that I have heard or read recently include:

• The desire to play the "spoiler"
• The desire to shock
• A desire to feel different or special
• A sense of being rebellious
• Antipathy toward groups which one judges to be hypocritical and self-righteous
• A desire to feel emotionally strong in not needing comforting beliefs.
• A desire to be thought original
• The desire to belong to a like-minded group of people who flatter one another by making fun of people whose opinions differ from those of the group
• The desire to be one of a small group of enlightened ones who bravely struggle against the superstitions of the masses

Can anyone think of any additional purely psychological motivations which might cause some people to be atheists?

(I am not claiming that all atheists base their beliefs on purely emotional grounds. Though I might be subject to self-deception, I am an atheist and I do not believe that I am influenced to any significant degree by any such reasons. However, it seems to me that most atheists are like most theists in that their reasons for being atheists are mostly nonrational.)

Andrew_theist

Hello Devnet,

Theistic religions have the element of reward and punishment according to people's deeds, lifestyles, faiths and so forth. The believer is promised a carrot for doing God's will, and a stick for disobeying. …

First I agree with you about PASCAL’s Wager. If God is indeed the seer into men’s hearts I am sure he will see through the charade of playing the game. All of your counter arguments here are basically straw men. Or let me put it this way I would never use the arguments you put forth here.

This is an inverse result of the Argument from Design and refers to biological evolution. The oft-made complaint that evolution makes "mere animals" out of us is far outweighed by saying that the Intelligent Design prospect makes machines out of us. We are, accordingly, God's machines, designed to serve him, very much like the computers that we build. It's a degrading concept. I prefer to be an animal.

If God made us it is quite evident He is not forcing us to serve like automatons. If we are mere animals where does your concept of degrading come from?

Then the Wonder of Nature, far from being reflective of God's worthiness of worship, is just a pompous show of "look how great I am". In contrast, Blind Watchmaker Creation (ie evolution) is simply stunning in its concept of how meaningful complexity could arise without plan. This is truly wonderful.

As you mention these are emotional appeals. The real issue is the truth of the matter. To me this is one of the greatest rationalizations of the atheist. How could one not be suspicious that something is behind the creation of the universe? Imagine if you were trapped in a desert parched and starving. Then you stumble across a tent by a pond with your favorite food and beverage carefully laid out. After enjoying you indulge your imagination that it was just coincidence that all this was laid out. Even if I rejected the notion of God altogether I would find it intellectually challenging to fantasize that things such as universes pop into existence and happen to be the right sort that produce sentient beings.

Argumentum contra dictationem

Yeah there are still a few hell and brimstone preachers around.

In the question of God, which most people think about some time in their lives, it appears that no-one really has an idea of Him except from various writings which all claim to be His words…

This argument is a terrible reason to be an atheist. The three major religions Judaism, Christianity and Islam believe in a creator God and then part ways on the particulars. So the significant issue is whether there is any God or not. If not then none of them are right so who cares. If there is, at least one of them could be right and the others are at least partially right. Which is still better than being completely wrong.

I agree the turn or burn arguments are no reason to think there is a God.


For sprited but friendly discussion Please visit<a href="http://pub22.ezboard.com/bgwnn" target="_blank">Challenging Atheism</a>

emotional

</strong>

No, I don't think Pascal's Wager is an isolated case. It's definitely a prominent symptom, but it's only a part of the whole thing which I call theistic Pascalians, or better, reward/punishment promises. The arguments aren't strawmen at all. Theists often brag about their spiritual superiority over the materialists, and this argument shows that there is nothing of the kind. Theism is tainted with reward and punishment, which makes it a business, not a spiritual system.

</strong>

No, but the purpose of our creation is still to serve Him, even though we have free will to disobey. Any sort of creation in order to serve the creator is degrading to the creation.

</strong>

We're special animals, like all animals are. Birds are special in that they have wings, dogs have a special capability of smelling which we can't hope to match, and humans are developed in the brain. We are special; we're just not the special.

</strong>

Didn't I state so at the start? Those arguments aren't meant to prove anything.

</strong>

Of course there must be something behind the whole affair, but what makes you think the theistic answers are true? The scriptures of theistic religions have errors in natural fact, so they might well have errors in metaphysical matters as well. And they really do: the omni-max, personal, loving, rewarding, punishing God they talk about simply doesn't exist, as is evident from indiscriminate fate everywhere, all the time.

</strong>

This is a paradox, you know? I mean, theists constantly speak about how incomprehensible God's ways are, yet you know so much about God's method of creating that you can conclude surely that it cannot have been by naturally selected chance. This is quite audacious of a human like you. Better, then, to begin with a clean slate: throw the scriptures into the mythbin, and investigate what's put in front of you. You want to seek for God? Fine. After a goodly time of seeking for God, you'll realize that He doesn't exist.

</strong>

There needn't be any living human preachers. The scriptures are themselves the preachers. One of the goals of naturalism is to cancel out the idea that Scripture is anything more than mythology.

</strong>

The argument is a good one for atheism, for reasons I have already said umpteen times: the whole idea of the omni-max prayer-hearing, just, merciful, vengeful, loving (etc) God is totally irrational and contrary to all evidence, and the only thing that sustains it is the magical music of Scripture, the strange attraction of petrified words. If you stop evaluating everything from a scriptural point of view, atheism naturally follows. At least as a practical way of life.

(edited to fix faulty tags)

[ January 26, 2002: Message edited by: devnet ]</p>

Jayhawker Soule

That has not been my experience. Why do you think so?

Ted Hoffman

Devnet,
I agree, your "arguments" can serve as emotional appeals against theism.

bgponder

Andrew_theist says:

What's so tough about merely accepting that four-dimensionality (three of space and one of time) contains all of its own possible configurations, and the rise of sentience is one of them? Sentience is part and parcel of the universe that just is.

Note: I originally said--LOL!! It's obvious that even if you are rejecting the "notion of God altogether" (Not! hint: that's your fantasy), you are presupposing the notion of teleological purpose in saying that this universe produces sentient beings.

...and I realize that it was prejudicial of me to assume that Andrew_theist was using "produce" in the sense of "to bring into existence by intellectual or creative ability" rather than simply "to cause" or "yield". If he was not using the word in the first sense I stand corrected and apologize. However, I hold to the remainder of the post as it is not post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Peace and red-faced cornbread, Barry

[ January 26, 2002: Message edited by: bgponder ]</p>

Transworldly Depraved

ReasonableDoubt:

You asked:

This is based on my own personal observations in participating in many religious debates and discussions.

In any particular discussion, it seems that more often than not an atheist will make obviously fallacious arguments. The only factors that might blind a person to such arguments is either stupidity or some sort of emotional motivation. Also, it seems to me that many atheists frequently object to claims by theists that they would not object to in any other set of circumstances.

Also, it seems that most attention is directed to the "arguments" and "reasoning" of christian fundamentalists and that, in general, the most zealous atheists are former christian fundamentalists. I am not saying that there are no atheists who interact with more sophisticated forms of theism, but it seems that the latter get much less attention. If a person's goal is intellectual discussion then christian fundamentalists would get much less attention.

Just because a person is an atheist that does not automatically confer intelligence or rationality upon them. The atheism/theism debate is a very tendentious area.

Anyway, that is the way I see it.

Jayhawker Soule

In my opinion, if a person's goal is intellectual discussion then unsupported stereotypes are a hindrance.

Transworldly Depraved

ReasonableDoubt:

You wrote:

I agree. So I do not stereotype anyone. I do not assume anything particular about any specific atheist or theist that I meet. I am simply reporting what has been my experience.

One question: Has it been your experience that most christians that you have engaged in discussion acquire and maintain their religious beliefs as a result of careful reasoned thought or as a result of some emotional factors?

Synaesthesia

I don’t think I would be an atheist if I didn’t have the sense of curiosity that I do and the apostasy process certainly would have taken longer had I been in a state of utter bliss during my teenage years. At least in my case, the emotional and intellectual reasons are inextractably tied up together. I propose that this is true to some degree in all cases, that our emotive situation and our knowledge are directly related to each other and to the conclusions we draw.

Transworldly Depraved,

You bring up an interesting question. Although we frequently accuse other people of holding their beliefs just because of their upbringing, I doubt that very many people go through life without thinking to some extent about the reasons for their philosophy. They may not be able to explain or effectively argue it but they, just like atheists, have reasons.

In my mind, the sheer fact that every single Theist has made one or more mistakes in evaluating the support for their philosophy suggests strongly that this is true for every single Atheist. Now the atheist’s conclusion specifically regarding God may even be right (hence by bayes theorem are more likely] to have a better understanding of other aspects of epistemology), but inevitably some aspects of their understanding of the world are flawed and/or incomplete, perhaps drastically.

Now I do not believe this only for the reason stated above - obviously we all have extensive corroborative evidence of human fallibility- but the idea I wanted to express grew around it as a sugar crystal grows in super-saturated sugar water and I could not conveniently extract it.

Regards,
Synaesthesia

[ January 26, 2002: Message edited by: Synaesthesia ]</p>