Personal Experiences that Led you to your Atheism

[Red Celt]

I started out with trying to say that a baby has the emotional stance of a believer. You didn't acknowledge my spelled out change of viewpoint at all, but went on with sophistery about the the term (a)theist, so I thought "let's have it your way then"

Church, scripture and theism are secondary. The only valid of your points is "does he have a God" You say no. I say how do you know that? And please define what "have a God" means.

A baby doesn't have the emotional stance of a believer. A baby is acting on animalistic needs: hungry? Cry. Uncomfortable full-nappy? Cry. Over time, the shapes that it sees (parents' faces) are associated with good things happening (the cessation of the need to cry) and comforting. During all of this, the baby has no concept of godhood, does not worship its parents, so it cannot therefore be described as theistic. The parents-as-gods concept is such a clumsy and back-arsed way of looking at the relationship.

How do I know that my dog has no gods? He doesn't know what gods are. I mean, you can claim that he does, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs. Until you can provide such a thing, I'll happily keep to his default state of a lack of theism. Which makes him an atheist. Unless you can prove otherwise.

[Rum]

An addition point to my brief story earlier. When I was growing up and a 'take it for granted/laissez fare sort of Christian I was never asked to accept a religious position over a scientific or rational one. I had a liberal and enlightened education and was taught to think critically. As a result the belief in god I had, such as it was was pretty much the 'god of the gaps'. It hedged me into a corner ultimately - to the big bang where scientific explanations ran out of steam!

Ultimately of course one can't think past that event, if indeed it happened. But why invoke a god there just because we don't yet know how all that happened.

[MiM]

A baby doesn't see itself as a separate being from it's mother (or at least this is what most psychologists claim). Being (or becoming) a part of something immensely strong and powerful (a deity) is not inherent to many theistic beliefs?

[MiM]

Or to try to be clear. I have real difficulties in understanding how the "God meme" could have been so successful, unless it was the psychological continuation of the relationship between an infant and its caretakers.

[Pappa]

I've mentioned my path several times, but here's a version I posted almost a year ago:

I'm an atheist because my parents didn't indoctrinate me with religion, and it all seems pretty silly when you view it from the outside. They didn't bring me up as an "Atheist" either. Religion was almost never mentioned at home because it was a thing of no consequence or significance. When I was old enough to spend time thinking about it all in my teens, I dabbled with Buddhism for a bit while I was seeking answers to the big questions, I read about lots of religions and some philosophy... but deities and spirituality still seemed very silly and improbable. So I continued just not believing in any of it as before. I only began self-identifying as an atheist about 5 years ago when my son came home from school saying, "God made all the trees and butterflies" and I discovered that schools in England and Wales are obliged by law to foist Christian worship on the kids unless the parents actively opt their children out. It was a massive shock to me, and seemed like such an anachronism. Since then I've been a Militant Atheist very much like this one.

[Red Celt]

A baby doesn't see itself as a separate being from it's mother (or at least this is what most psychologists claim). Being (or becoming) a part of something immensely strong and powerful (a deity) is not inherent to many theistic beliefs?

If a wheel is inherent to the concept of a car, does that mean that a wheel is a car?

I really can't see where you're trying to go with this, nor what your motive is for doing so. Are you an atheist? If you're a theist, I can see why your approach might be comforting to you. If you're an atheist, you might be finding solace about "finding" atheism later in life and are a bit peeved about life-long atheists having got there before you. If this is just an exercise in alleviating your ego, then... by all means, stick with the concept that babies are theists.

And I'll go with "agree to disagree", if it makes you happy/happier.

[tattuchu]

I guess the moment I became a firm non-believer, if there ever was a moment, was when I was a kid and looked up to sky and prayed. I never really believed in God but I figured what the hell, it's possible. Why not pray and see what happens? The whole god concept always seemed pretty silly to me, but I thought I should at least give a chance. So I gave it a chance. And of course nothing happened, nothing at all. I asked God if he existed, and there was no response. I asked for some kind of sign, in case direct answering wasn't the sort of thing gods did anymore. There was no sign. There was nothing. So I just shrugged and figured, okay, so there's nothing.

[Red Celt]

Or to try to be clear. I have real difficulties in understanding how the "God meme" could have been so successful, unless it was the psychological continuation of the relationship between an infant and its caretakers.

To fully answer would take too long (I'm just about to go offline), but the short version is that we (as children) look for simple answers. We look for patterns and identify (at an early age) cause-and-effect. If a toy suddenly moves, someone moved it. In the natural world, our infant brains expect the same kind of patterns. Thunder and lightning? Who is causing that? Beliefs are stop-gaps for knowledge. In the absence of knowledge (which is the basic description of children), we hold to beliefs and readily accept the idea that "God is moving his furniture around" or "God is crying" when we see rain.

Theistic parents tend to fill a child's head with nonsense. Atheistic parents tend not to.

Gods are the result of conscious self-aware minds that have the knowledge to make connections and see patterns, but lack the knowledge to fully answer those questions. This is a human thing, not a non-human animal thing (which is why I have such confidence in the idea that other animals don't have gods). It is part of the curse of the evolutionary path.

[rachelbean]

I guess the moment I became a firm non-believer, if there ever was a moment, was when I was a kid and looked up to sky and prayed. i never really believed in God but I figured what the hell, it's possible. Why not pray and see what happens? The whole god concept always seemed pretty silly to me, but I thought I should at least give a chance. So I gave it a chance. And of course nothing happened, nothing at all. I asked God if he existed, and there was no response. I asked for some kind of sign, in case direct answering wasn't the sort of thing gods did anymore. There was no sign. There was nothing. So I just shrugged and figured, okay, so there's nothing.

That was exactly like my experience with Santa Clause (my parent's told me he was just make believe)

A short version of my own story is posted here from 2 1/2 years ago:
http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... st#p376086

[SteveB]

I guess the moment I became a firm non-believer, if there ever was a moment, was when I was a kid and looked up to sky and prayed. i never really believed in God but I figured what the hell, it's possible. Why not pray and see what happens? The whole god concept always seemed pretty silly to me, but I thought I should at least give a chance. So I gave it a chance. And of course nothing happened, nothing at all. I asked God if he existed, and there was no response. I asked for some kind of sign, in case direct answering wasn't the sort of thing gods did anymore. There was no sign. There was nothing. So I just shrugged and figured, okay, so there's nothing.

That was exactly like my experience with Santa Clause (my parent's told me he was just make believe)

A short version of my own story is posted here from 2 1/2 years ago:
http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... st#p376086

Dar's a good thread.

[MiM]

Or to try to be clear. I have real difficulties in understanding how the "God meme" could have been so successful, unless it was the psychological continuation of the relationship between an infant and its caretakers.

To fully answer would take too long (I'm just about to go offline), but the short version is that we (as children) look for simple answers. We look for patterns and identify (at an early age) cause-and-effect. If a toy suddenly moves, someone moved it. In the natural world, our infant brains expect the same kind of patterns. Thunder and lightning? Who is causing that? Beliefs are stop-gaps for knowledge. In the absence of knowledge (which is the basic description of children), we hold to beliefs and readily accept the idea that "God is moving his furniture around" or "God is crying" when we see rain.

Theistic parents tend to fill a child's head with nonsense. Atheistic parents tend not to.

Gods are the result of conscious self-aware minds that have the knowledge to make connections and see patterns, but lack the knowledge to fully answer those questions. This is a human thing, not a non-human animal thing (which is why I have such confidence in the idea that other animals don't have gods). It is part of the curse of the evolutionary path.

Yes, yes, any book by Dennett (or a plethora of others) will tell you that. But there is more to religion than overblown pattern recognition: unitedness, consolation et.c.. Some of those may be transferences of our infant/childhood emotions don't they? I really don't think we have any deep differences of opinion, but I'll be ok to agree to disagree with you, if we cannot write in ways that are understandable to each other.

BTW I've been an atheist for as long as I can recall having the cognitive concept of God (in your book that means I was born an atheist, and never faltered) , so your tries at ad hominem falls rather short.

[Red Celt]

BTW I've been an atheist for as long as I can recall having the concept of God (in your book that means I was borne an atheist, and never faltered) , so your tries at ad hominem falls rather short.

Well, seeing as how ad hominem is to attack the person instead of their position and not to attack the person as well as their position, there was no ad hominem involved. Even then, that isn't what I was doing. I was trying to seek a motive for your position. We all have motives. We rarely act in a motiveless manner.

[MiM]

BTW I've been an atheist for as long as I can recall having the concept of God (in your book that means I was borne an atheist, and never faltered) , so your tries at ad hominem falls rather short.

Well, seeing as how ad hominem is to attack the person instead of their position and not to attack the person as well as their position, there was no ad hominem involved. Even then, that isn't what I was doing. I was trying to seek a motive for your position. We all have motives. We rarely act in a motiveless manner.

My motive here is seeking things I can believe to be true. No more no less. I do believe that cognitively an infant is an atheist (that is pretty obvious), but if we look aside from that, and go into emotions etc. the picture becomes much more blurred. So the general absolute stance made by many atheists, that infants are atheists, and nothing else is, in my opinion, oversimplified.

[HomerJay]

To further clarify the differences between weak and strong atheism,<stuff>.

1. A lack of belief in god(s)
2. Belief in the lack of god(s)

They are not the same. They deserve separate consideration; they deserve separate definitions. 1 = weak atheism (our natural state). 2 = strong atheism (a chosen state).

Whoa!

Some serious claims here, firstly are you saying that conscious decision equates with strong atheism, that you can't choose weak atheism?

That needs some serious justification.

Although we can save the bother if we erase the distinction between weak and strong atheism.

The supposed difference between the two is the strength and nature of the truth claims they are making.

Weak atheism only makes a subjective statement, the truth of which may reasonably be known only to the speaker.

The second appears to make a truth claim about the world out there that could be tested independently.

But is strong atheism really making such a strong truth claim?

Does the statement God Does Not Exist solve the problem of monotheism v polytheism, does it recognise every possible predicate god(s) could have? does it address every possible personal god of 4 billion believers? Does it distinquish god and not god?

Nope the credence of strong atheism is of little importance except to theists, it makes no special claims about belief, nor even about god.

It's simply a canard erected by theists who think the non-falsifiability of God gives them special powers.

[Red Celt]

It's simply a canard erected by theists who think the non-falsifiability of God gives them special powers.

I think that you misunderstand what I said.

It wasn't created by theists. It was created by a very large community of atheists (alt.atheism) nearly 20 years ago.