The Religion of Atheism

You see? Holding the beliefs that you claim to hold without understanding logic and the following implications, you are forced into stupid positions

 

logic does not include mental masturbation like what you are putting out here, you either have proof or you dont, and you dont, so I dont bite.
You ramble on about logic and have not produced so much as one syllogism or logic chart all we are getting from you is
When you ave proof let me know.

 

What are you, an asmurfist? Cultures the world over believe in little people, which are obviously all really smurfs.

 

So just admit you are trolling, you can't be that dumb

 

I suggest you look in the mirror.

 

Dang.. but, if you were trolling, at some point you would mount a more logical defense right? This sort of thing doesn't get you anywhere. But then if you suddenly got smart we'd get suspicious... But prior to this point wouldn't you say something reasonable to string us along? What advantage is there to just being so obtuse and irritating that everyone just stops taking to you? But then if you're trolling, maybe being irritating is the fun part? And, I guess some of us keep interacting... I don't know, this is a tough one. But you can work the internet right? So you have to be smarter than this. But then so can my 3 year old nephew.. but he's smarter than this. So you have to be troll... Right?

 

I lack disbelief, I am a theist.

 

Atheism is a religion!


Jae C. Hong / AP

Attendees sing a song at the Sunday Assembly, a godless congregation founded by British comedians Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans, on Nov. 10, 2013, in Los Angeles.

While evangelical Christians are known for celebrating faith in God at mega-churches, now atheists are celebrating their lack of faith in God in a “mega-church” setting.

http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/11/11/atheists-embrace-megachurch-style-services/

 

In Atheists We Distrust

Subjects believe that people behave better when they think that God is watching over them

Atheists are one of the most disliked groups in America.

Will Gervais at the University of British Columbia recently published a set of studies looking at why atheists are so disliked. His conclusion: It comes down to trust.

It wasn’t just the highly religious participants who expressed a distrust of atheists. People identifying themselves as having no religious affiliation held similar opinions.

Gervais and his colleagues discovered that people distrust atheists because of the belief that people behave better when they think that God is watching over them.

This belief may have some truth to it.

Gervais and his colleague Ara Norenzayan have found that reminding people about God’s presence has the same effect as telling people they are being watched by others: it increases their feelings of self-consciousness and leads them to behave in more socially acceptable ways.



Starting MegaChuches wont help!

US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health

J Pers Soc Psychol. 2011 Dec;101(6):1189-206. doi: 10.1037/a0025882. Epub 2011 Nov 7.
Distrust is central to anti-atheist prejudice.
Gervais WM1, Shariff AF, Norenzayan A.
Author information

Abstract
Recent polls indicate that atheists are among the least liked people in areas with religious majorities (i.e., in most of the world). The sociofunctional approach to prejudice, combined with a cultural evolutionary theory of religion's effects on cooperation, suggest that anti-atheist prejudice is particularly motivated by distrust. Consistent with this theoretical framework, a broad sample of American adults revealed that distrust characterized anti-atheist prejudice but not anti-gay prejudice (Study 1). In subsequent studies, distrust of atheists generalized even to participants from more liberal, secular populations. A description of a criminally untrustworthy individual was seen as comparably representative of atheists and rapists but not representative of Christians, Muslims, Jewish people, feminists, or homosexuals (Studies 2-4). In addition, results were consistent with the hypothesis that the relationship between belief in God and atheist distrust was fully mediated by the belief that people behave better if they feel that God is watching them (Study 4). In implicit measures, participants strongly associated atheists with distrust, and belief in God was more strongly associated with implicit distrust of atheists than with implicit dislike of atheists (Study 5). Finally, atheists were systematically socially excluded only in high-trust domains; belief in God, not authoritarianism, predicted this discriminatory decision-making against atheists in high trust domains (Study 6). These 6 studies are the first to systematically explore the social psychological underpinnings of anti-atheist prejudice, and converge to indicate the centrality of distrust in this phenomenon.
PMID:22059841
DOI:10.1037/a0025882

authoritarianism is one of the several false gods atheists worship at their megachurches during Sunday services.

 

Psychology Today

Research reveals some of the emotional factors involved in disbelief.

It often is assumed that belief in God, or lack thereof, is based upon intellectual reasoning. For instance, some atheists argue that God is unlikely to exist because of Occam’s razor, a logical principle basically stating that, all things being equal, the view most likely to be true is the one with the least assumptions. Only in the past couple of years have psychological scientists turned their attention to non-intellectual factors that may influence unbelief.

For example, in research published last week by the American Psychological Association, two studies were conducted on relational and emotional factors that may influence those holding atheistic or agnostic views. In both studies, for instance, research participants rated, on a scale from 0 to 10, the extent to which they were influenced by “experiences of disappointment, anger, hurt, alienation, mistrust, or other negative feelings focused on God; seeing God as cruel, uncaring, or punishing.”

In the first of two studies, 171 American adults were asked about their reasons for nonbelief, as well as emotions they felt toward a god or gods that they hypothetically imagined, and various indicators of negative emotionality. Results showed that 54% of those who self-reported that they were atheists or agnostics indicated some relational and emotional reasons for nonbelief. In the second study, 72% of 429 American adults who expressed some level of atheism or agnosticism endorsed similar reasons. In both studies, the extent to which research participants revealed relational and emotional reasons for nonbelief was associated with various indicators of negative emotionality, such as trait anger, psychological entitlement, and fearful / preoccupied attachment styles.

This new research is consistent with the results of earlier research showing that 44% of atheists self-reported that at least some of their doubts, or at least some of their decision not to believe in God, were due to emotional reasons. These individuals, whom the researchers called “emotionally engaged atheists,” were more characterized by negative emotionality, as well as stronger negative reactions to stressful events, compared with non-emotionally engaged atheists.

 

This world contains many strange and unique creatures of amazing diversity and ability, he could indeed match the later criteria.

 

You dont find it a bit ironic that not even atheists trust atheists?

Looks like many atheists are atheists because of mental disorders and hatred for that mean ole God that they dont believe in.

I lack disbelief, I'm a theist.

 

So, if you were trolling, that's a lot of work to copy and paste a bunch of stuff that doesn't help make your point. Although it's just copy and paste. And maybe there's a crazy person repository where some immoral preacher posts this stuff for gullible sheep who can't think very well. In both cases, you would refuse to answer simple questions that illustrate how ridiculous your position are. In one case to keep the game going. In the other to avoid having to face the obvious massive flaw in your faith in god. But then why are you here at all? If you are going to cover your ears and scream at all the proof that you are wrong, and just yell crazy rantings that will never be persuasive to anyone, why not just bury your head in private? Why bother us with your rambling?

 

Yeah, and just after I posted that last comment, it crossed my mind that it is a third option that is most likely, which is severe mental issues. If that's the case then I feel kind of bad, and this wouldn't be fun anymore.

 

I am not a neoatheist

Doesnt anyone read the scientific and psychological abstracts I posted?

I hear that neoatheists dont have too many friends and seem to be haunted by God delusions.

 

Many believe things such as Autism and other so called "Mental deficiencies" are actually just natural rewiring of neural synopsis to evolve the species into a new direction, it may very well be we are witness to the birth of something of a failed natural mutation in the experiment of humanity. Or he might simply be dumb.

 

but I just told you I am not a neoatheist

Doesnt anyone read the scientific and psychological abstracts I posted?

I hear that neoatheists dont have too many friends and seem to be haunted by God delusions.

 

Neoatheists really should read the abstracts and articles I post on the subject instead of endlessly trolling their same ole debunked drivel

 

No actually you have never responded in any way that could concievably be considered a thoughtful or rational response. Probably because you can't and you know the analogy is valid.

 

You mean reasons like you see a family member or a friend suffer from a disease and know that the concept of a king and caring god is just pure bullshit. Sounds like a rational relational and emotional reason to me.

I always get a big chuckle when one of the few survivors of some mass disaster gives god credit for saving them and doesn't bother to ask where god was when all the others suffered snd died.

 

You are not going to get a straight answer from Kokomojojo.

Instead you will get a page full of unrelated rants.

 

Here is the actal abstract from the American Psychological Article:

Abstract
Can people who do not believe in a god or gods still be influenced by past or present emotional reactions to the concept of a deity? We asked self-labeled atheists (Study 1) and individuals holding atheistic and agnostic views (Study 2) to rate the extent to which their nonbelief was based on negative past relational experiences or negative current views regarding the character of a hypothetical god or gods. Among nonbelievers who reported some history of relational emotion toward or from a god or gods (76% in Study 1, N = 171; 89% in Study 2, N = 429), relational reasons for nonbelief were endorsed by more than half of participants (54% in Study 1 and 72% in Study 2). Among participants with a history of emotion surrounding a god or gods, self-reported importance of relational reasons for nonbelief correlated with other indicators of negative, but not positive, attitudes and past experiences regarding a god or gods. Importance of relational reasons for nonbelief also correlated with other personality factors that tend to interfere with relationship quality, including insecure adult attachment styles, entitlement, and trait anger. Non believers reported that relational reasons for nonbelief were far less important than intellectual reasons for nonbelief. However, these findings suggest that, for some nonbelievers, negative relational experiences with or conceptions of gods are seen as a somewhat important reason for not believing in gods. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)

You might note the following sentence:" Nonbelievers reported that relational reasons for non belief were far less important thsn intellectual reasons for non belief" To put it simply looks like the editorial or whatever that was you posted from Psychology Today was at best deliberatly missleading and was deliberatly trying to overexaggerate the effect of emotion n the god decision.

 

Here is an article from Scientific American

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-critical-thinkers-lose-faith-god/

Why are some people more religious than others? Answers to this question often focus on the role of culture or upbringing. While these influences are important, new research suggests that whether we believe may also have to do with how much we rely on intuition versus analytical thinking. In 2011 Amitai Shenhav, David Rand and Joshua Greene of Harvard University published a paper showing that people who have a tendency to rely on their intuition are more likely to believe in God. They also showed that encouraging people to think intuitively increased people’s belief in God. Building on these findings, in a recent paper published in Science, Will Gervais and Ara Norenzayan of the University of British Columbia found that encouraging people to think analytically reduced their tendency to believe in God. Together these findings suggest that belief may at least partly stem from our thinking styles.

Gervais and Norenzayan’s research is based on the idea that we possess two different ways of thinking that are distinct yet related. Understanding these two ways, which are often referred to as System 1 and System 2, may be important for understanding our tendency towards having religious faith. System 1 thinking relies on shortcuts and other rules-of-thumb while System 2 relies on analytic thinking and tends to be slower and require more effort. Solving logical and analytical problems may require that we override our System 1 thinking processes in order to engage System 2. Psychologists have developed a number of clever techniques that encourage us to do this. Using some of these techniques, Gervais and Norenzayan examined whether engaging System 2 leads people away from believing in God and religion.

For example, they had participants view images of artwork that are associated with reflective thinking (Rodin’s The Thinker) or more neutral images (Discobulus of Myron). Participants who viewed The Thinker reported weaker religious beliefs on' a subsequent survey. However, Gervais and Norenzayan wondered if showing people artwork might have made the connection between thinking and religion too obvious. In their next two studies, they created a task that more subtly primed analytic thinking. Participants received sets of five randomly arranged words (e.g. “high winds the flies plane”) and were asked to drop one word and rearrange the others in order to create a more meaningful sentence (e.g. “the plane flies high”). Some of their participants were given scrambled sentences containing words associated with analytic thinking (e.g. “analyze,” “reason”) and other participants were given sentences that featured neutral words (e.g. “hammer,” “shoes”). After unscrambling the sentences, participants filled out a survey about their religious beliefs. In both studies, this subtle reminder of analytic thinking caused participants to express less belief in God and religion. The researchers found no relationship between participants’ prior religious beliefs and their performance in the study. Analytic thinking reduced religious belief regardless of how religious people were to begin with
In a final study, Gervais and Norenzayan used an even more subtle way of activating analytic thinking: by having participants fill out a survey measuring their religious beliefs that was printed in either clear font or font that was difficult to read. Prior research has shown that difficult-to-read font promotes analytic thinking by forcing participants to slow down and think more carefully about the meaning of what they are reading. The researchers found that participants who filled out a survey that was printed in unclear font expressed less belief as compared to those who filled out the same survey in the clear font.

These studies demonstrate yet another way in which our thinking tendencies, many of which may be innate, have contributed to religious faith. It may also help explain why the vast majority of Americans tend to believe in God. Since System 2 thinking requires a lot of effort, the majority of us tend to rely on our System 1 thinking processes when possible. Evidence suggests that the majority of us are more prone to believing than being skeptical. According to a 2005 poll by Gallup, 3 out of every 4 Americans hold at least one belief in the paranormal. The most popular of these beliefs are extrasensory perception (ESP), haunted houses, and ghosts. In addition, the results help explain why some of us are more prone to believe that others. Previous research has found that people differ in their tendency to see intentions and causes in the world. These differences in thinking styles could help explain why some of us are more likely to become believers.

Why and how might analytic thinking reduce religious belief? Although more research is needed to answer this question, Gervais and Norenzayan speculate on a few possibilities. For example, analytic thinking may inhibit our natural intuition to believe in supernatural agents that influence the world. Alternatively, analytic thinking may simply cause us to override our intuition to believe and pay less attention to it. It’s important to note that across studies, participants ranged widely in their religious affiliation, gender, and race. None of these variables were found to significantly relate to people’s behavior in the studies.

Gervais and Norenzayan point out that analytic thinking is just one reason out of many why people may or may not hold religious beliefs. In addition, these findings do not say anything about the inherent value or truth of religious beliefs—they simply speak to the psychology of when and why we are prone to believe. Most importantly, they provide evidence that rather than being static, our beliefs can change drastically from situation to situation, without us knowing exactly why.

 

Nope. What Jester says is that it is just as rational to believe in god as to believe in the Easter Bunny or Unicorns or Leprechauns or men fom mars or any of the other creations of the human imagination. You cannot prove any of them do not exist either but I doubt you would argue for their existance.

Your whole fallacy is that the existance of god is equally probable to the non existance of god when we know that god is a figment of man's imagination. Is it possible that man has imagined without any evidence something that might turn out to exist? Of course, but the chances are small. Maybe someday on some planet we will discover a unicorn that is exactly as our imagination has concieved of it but till then I go with Unicorns don't exist. And I go with god doesn't exist either.

 

How do you prove that something doesn't exist to your satisfaction? Maybe you could provide a proof that something ( pick anything you want) doesn't exist.