Okay, you want my reasoning, here you go;
Can we even speak of clear and distinct ideological borders among atheists, agnostics, and theists? Absent any commonly accepted scientific proof of the existence of God (or gods), we must consider that the labeling is based on an individual's personal interpretation.
I think that’s combining being deliberately obscure with a statement of the bleeding obvious. “Labeling is based on an individual's personal interpretation” is a statement of fact more than anything else. As for “clear and distinct ideological borders among atheists, agnostics, and theists”, well, you can bog ANY debate down in semantics if you want to bad enough. Look at Clinton and his semantical wriggling over the meaning of ‘is’.
If we define “god” as the creator who has power over our fate, then we can usefully define theist (someone who believes in god), atheist (someone who does not believe in god) and agnostic (someone who doesn’t know if there is a god or not). If “god” does not conform to the above definition, one can reasonably argue that the whole god thing is not really that important, as if “god” is not our creator and has no power over our fates, then it’s just a species of intelligent extraterrestrial.
The question of why people choose atheism is interesting to me from both a psychological and theological standpoint. One thing that is interesting about atheism is that it usually is a choice and not something that is commonly incurred from one's parents. I think that there are several probable motivational factors and more than one may exist for any particular person.
I think what you mean is that “for someone born at the time I was born and in the place I was born, atheism is usually a choice and not something that is commonly incurred from one's parents”. Basing any assumption based upon your individual background and extrapolating against the world renders that extrapolation invalid whenever it is applied to someone without your background.
This is true even if it is a difference of detail (being raised believing in a different type of god and/or a different number of gods), rather than a substantial detail (not believing in god). Your statement also side-steps cultural issues, such as you having far more freedom to choose to be an atheist in the Western world than in a culture where religious belief is more homogenous. Your language is also hideously loaded. You use “incurred” to describe a child being bought up an atheist, which gives a clear indication of your own opinion, as normally “incurred” is used to describe a negative consequence of an action. Nice to know you approach this debate with an open and impartial mind. ;-)
Perhaps the most common reason for choosing atheism is not a personal conviction that God doesn't exist, but rather a negative reaction against religious practices one observed (or was forced into) as a youth. I am not surprised at all that many exJWs became atheists. I wonder if many of these people are really atheists, but rather "areligionists" and are more closer to agnosticism than atheism.
Oh god, another one. Without wishing to be rude, I am so heartily tired of pious hand-wringing by theists who are so convinced of their own beliefs they have to become apologists for atheists by making out that atheists are really opposed to religion and have only stopped believing in god because they are, for want of a better word, sulking. I have to put up with it from my parents and put a nice smile on, I don’t have to put up with it from anyone else.
It is offensive to me as it would be to you if I said that theists only keep on believing in god because they are too intellectually and emotionally weak and too educationally deficient to comprehend and cope with the fact there is no god. Those are observations, not criticisms, but more of that later.
Of the atheists on this board, and on similar boards, I cannot think of one who is an atheist because they are suffering a “negative reaction against religious practices”. They may well be suffering a “negative reaction against religious practices”, but this is in addition and very much secondary to a disbelief in the existence of god based upon logical and/or scientific reasoning. Thus your statement “Perhaps the most common reason for choosing atheism is not a personal conviction that God doesn't exist” is demonstrably false unless you can provide some proof for what is otherwise an unsupported and offensive opinion.
Another cause for a choice of atheism is the Problem of Evil. Also known as the Problem of Pain (C. S. Lewis) and the Problem of Disorder. The existence of evil is, as described in the _Handbook of Christian Apologetics_, "the only apparent proof of atheism". And while I know the theist answer to this (I am a Roman Catholic), I have yet to come across a simple, easily phrased answer.
I love the quote you give. “The only apparent proof of atheism”… the arrogance of it is sublime. If fails to even consider that god is as much of a theory as evolution, with the noticeable difference of having no supporting evidence whatsoever, other than the belief of theists. This is not proof; Santa Claus will never exist, no matter how many children believe in him.
Another reason for choice of atheism is the fear that theism may be true, complete with a promise or threat of judgment in the afterlife. Likewise, a fear of no survival of death could lead to theism. But is either fear a justification of belief or disbelief?
That whole argument is spurious, at least as far as I am concerned. The details of a belief, the expectations of after-life or whatever, are secondary to the establishment of existence of a god. And being an atheist because of “fear that theism may be true” is nonsensical. Find me one atheist who actually believes that!
Maybe more than a few people, perhaps those who could not be accused of having a low opinion of their personal intellectual talents, are atheists because, in their view, many or most theists are stupid, low-class, and gullible.
You fail to distinguish between observations and criticisms – see I said we’d get back to that. I can honestly say I have not had one argument about evolution with a creationist who displayed anything more than High School level of knowledge of the Biological Sciences or a parroted repetition of higher level arguments. I have had dozens of arguments with creationists, so it is not just my sample size speaking. That doesn’t mean that they are stupid, it just means they might not have the educational background to fully appreciate the arguments being made. Thus I can observe this as a characteristic of creationists, without making any criticism of them or their intelligence, credulity or decency.
Hell I used to be a creationist when I was a JW. Does that mean I got suddenly got smart and became an evolutionist? No, it means I got myself a decent Science education and realized even the most hopeful vague pseudoscientific creationist waffle does not really work.
And, no, I have not changed the argument from god to evolution. Please SPARE me ‘Intelligent Design’.
If god didn’t make us or cause us, he’s got no right to direct or control us.
If god made or caused us, then, well, even without the evidence supporting evolution there are logical proofs within the Biological world showing that if we were made we were made badly. Look at your shins. Look at your spines. He could have given us a decent bipedal chassis instead of reworking a quadruped chassis! And be thankful you are not a female Hyena; they copulate and give birth through a psedopenis that is actually a massively enlarged clitoris. Ouch! First birth mortality rate reaches 30%!!! Bad design, completely explicable in evolutionary terms.
If god is the same person that set the general moral standards of the Judaeo/Christo/Islamic faiths, then he designed or caused us to have a body set up to break these moral laws. If a man is absent from his regular sexual partner for a number of days, when he has sex with her (I don’t know if this works for gay guys, thus the ‘her’) he will produce FAR more sperm than usual when he has an orgasm, even if he has masturbated inbetween times. It’s like his body is attempting to flush any sperm from other guys away. Yet we are meant to be monogamous. Logical proof that the Judaeo/Christo/Islamic god doesn’t exist, from the bodies it is meant to have made!! It’s also more-or-less proved that many sperm are actually anti-sperm sperm, more suited to acting as blockers for other guys sperm that allow the running back to make the touch down for the home team, so to speak. Again, high level ‘design’ feature contrary to the logic of the Judaeo/Christo/Islamic god.
If we were caused, it was by a joker who caused us to have a mind that can set rigorous demands of proof and then left nothing approaching this proof as evidence for their existence.
So god is either an incompetent creator, or a trickster god who makes belief a leap of faith in a direction contrary to that indicated by our intellect? Pfff!
I wonder how many "strong" atheists are out there. By this I mean those that have examined the evidence and arguments and are convinced beyond all doubt that God does not exist or cannot exist. I know the the late Isaac Asimov was one of these and he was an intelligent, well-read author, but I think he was wrong.
If I am the second you’ve found, well, you haven’t been looking, you’ve just been making fatuous assumptions.
Likewise, how many "strong" agnostics are out there? Here, a strong agnostic is one who claims that we cannot decide the question. I think that the late Carl Sagan was one of these. It is arguable that Albert Einstein was close to this position when he suggested that "the Good Lord" was "infinitely subtle".
Agnostics are intellectual chicken shits. Sad but true, harsh but fair.
Logically it is ludicrous to suppose god would leave its existence a question of faith, especially if that god purports to be a loving god and has requirements for our behaviour, with penalties for not conforming to those requirements.
If god has no requirements for our behaviour, then its existence is curiosity value only, and again the lack of proof bespeaks the lack of god.
If god does exist, then it is an asshole playing games. There is no other logical conclusion. Either that or god is something so far removed from the Judaeo/Christo/Islamic concept of god as to render the term god meaningless for the purposes of meaningful discussion.
So, those are my thoughts – sorry if they are disjointed, I’ve been at work whilst writing this on and off while I’ve been at my desk, so it might be a bit bitty.
You go on to say, in a subcequent post "I restate my claim that atheism or agnosticism is a choice, or a personal decision".
Yes? And? So? What? Does that make it less valid than the vast majority of peiople who believe what they believe through the inertia of their upbringing rather than any specific attempt on their part to find a way?
Religion is far more often FORCED upon someone than aheism, so your point her is also uncertain.
I also find your asking for arguements curious.
You are making claims for the existence of something based upon a book.
If I would make claims for the existence of Gandalf, or Bilbo Baggins, or any character from a book, it would be beholden upon ME to prove that they existed outside of the imaginary space afforded by the book.
You would seem to be in a similar situation. Why do you believe in god? What are your arguements? From where I stand the tooth fairy is more convincing...
Keep on rocking in the free world...
