[ExI] Atheism

[William Flynn Wallace]

On Tue, Aug 7, 2018 at 10:18 AM, SR Ballard <sen.otaku at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think that the reason you keep getting these arguments are because its
> what people have been taught to reply with by well meaning teachers and
> personalities.
>
> I think that many authentically religious people (not people who are
> members for social reasons) have very different actual reasons for their
> personal belief. Generally, I think people either believe just because they
> have an unshakable nagging feeling it is true, or because they have had
> personal religious experiences, or both.
>
> However these things are extremely private, and very sensitive. For many
> religious people, these are some of their most foundational ideas about the
> world as well as being extremely emotional. People don’t want to open up
> because the fear and pain of ridicule is very sharp.
>
> Emotionally and mentally it is mush safer to offer up these cookie cutter
> “non-answers”, though I don't think people consider it consciously.
>
> I don’t know that I would say that I’m “religious” per se, but I do,
> against what all the logical parts of my mind say, believe extremely
> strongly in “higher powers”. I think that people like myself (I’m also very
> prone to superstition) are just generally inclined towards supernatural
> belief even in spite of our own common sense. I know it’s logically dumb
> but I just can’t help myself.
>

Well, you are far from the only one.  To me, metaphysics makes no sense at
all (I am an INTJ), but clearly it does to many people, now and in the
past.  Many primitive tribes depended on the tribes staying together etc.
and following (really believing, not just giving lip service) the tribe's
religion.  Psychology of religion is not one of my areas to say the least,
but Ill bet that there are many studies out there asking why people give up
their religions and why people start being religious.  I would not be a bit
surprised if part of it were not genetic.  I would also be surprised if
some people did not hear or read about some famous person who was an
atheist and think that if that person doesn't believe, i don't think i
should either.  Who am I to judge?  Mark Twain may have had some influence
on me.  I was a fairly strong Christian early in life, but read Twain, some
about origins of the Bible, people about whom it was said that they were
born of a virgin, educated their elders, did miracles like raising from the
dead - check out what was said about Hercules.

A large part of religion seems to me to be about hero worship, which is
part of why I posted that question.

bill w

>
>
>
> On 05/08/2018 22:07, Spike wrote:
>
> When dealing with religious people, there is a line of reasoning I find
> very common: life without religion is pointless, meaningless, etc, because
> it has no significant long term… anything.  So, they choose to believe
> because it gives life meaning.
>
>
>
> A related line of reasoning hold that only religion offers a basis for
> morality, and a life without morality would harm others, so… they choose to
> believe in order to avoid harm to
>
>
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