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Why I am an Atheist

An explanation of the things I learned over the years that led me to become an atheist

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An explanation of the things I learned over the years that led me to become an atheist

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20 Dec, 2007
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peter_g100 25 days ago

Interesting, but betraying a surprisingly cursory familiarity with Christian beliefs for someone who claims to have been quite religious and planned to become a priest.

I think the vociferously anti-evolutionary subgroup of Christianity is particularly associated with US fundamentalism, and is certainly not intrinsic to Christian belief per se.

On the other hand, if I understand Mycos correctly -- and many of his criticisms of your paper are valid -- his objection that you omitted discussion of a supposed argument by religionists that they have a monopoly on morality is probably one of the paper's strengths. I have heard people from various religious backgrounds make that assertion, but it is certainly far from an orthodox position among, for example, mainstream evangelicals.

An yway, it is good that you put your thinking into a coherent form, as that is always a useful step in either consolidating or reviewing our thinking. I use that word in order to avoid saying, "...reviewing our beliefs" on the basis that belief is a widely misunderstood and often ill-defined concept, both by theists and by atheists.

Mycos 25 days ago

But you left out the most compelling evidence and the one that religionists are desperately clinging to, thinking it the one area that even the more rational believe they have a monopoly. I'm speaking of "morality" of course.

Unfortunately for them, ethics are the result of natural selection working on a species that has taken the group approach to surviving vs the elements. This approach mandates they adopt a pattern of behavior unique to such species. They are geared toward "getting along" or cooperating, even risking their own lives (hence genes) to save the life of other members of the group. Humans are not the only species to do this, as much as theists wish it was. Reciprocal altruism has been observed in many species taking the group approach (wolves, apes), but not in solitary species like bears, solitary wasps, Republicans, or the Lone Wolves of the Homo spp., Libertarians.(in contrast to leftists, who see the value of cooperative - or "civilized" behavioral patterns.

Considering that the region of the brain where higher social behaviors (like empathy) are located is the cerebral cortex...and that since this is also the most recent to evolve, then one could also infer that sharing and caring for others is reflective of the most highly evolved members of the species, with selfishness and militarism being primitive throwbacks. And indeed, the latter behaviors are generated in the amygdula and other lower brain regions that evolved shortly after they crawled out of the oceans. .

Mycos 25 days ago

...leading them to believe that either (a.) These gods once lived and behaved as recorded but by all the evidence available by today's standards at least, must have passed away sometime during The Enlightenment OR (b.) They never did exist, but were only the naive imaginings of ancient peoples having no way of determining if we all rode around mounted on the back of a giant turtle whose wanderings are the reason the lights stuck into the Vault of Heaven, (or Osiris' Butt-Cheeks, Manitu's Big 'Uns, etc. etc.) appeared to move around everr sooooo slowwwwlllyy.....

Looking around today and noting man's potential for self-delusion, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, we have elected to go with choice (b.).

Mycos 25 days ago

....Or that this coherent data set is all mere coincidence... Or really just some gigantic plot between us all to keep the data straight in case the Grand Inquisitor shows up in the faculty lounge at MIT some day soon....is so ridiculous an idea that the fundamentalists who say these things would die of shame (thus showing that natural selection is still busy pulling weeds!) if they had any idea how ridiculous such claims are.

Primates are not our closest relative, we ARE primates.

Many aspects of evolution behave according to random events. Natural; selection, by it's very definition, is not random, but a selective process.

Species do evolve in response to their environment. Individual organisms (eg. a *particular* cat or dog) do not acquire or lose any physical features.... /beyond/ living and dying which has a profound impact on their ability to pass on their genes (mate) ;-)

The transitional fossils thing is correct, but greatly understated. Every fossil is a transitional fossil because every species is in a state of transition at all times. Evolution is a dynamic event that never stops. WE are transitional species, and no doubt many of us will become fossils.

~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~

God "speaking things into existence" is NOT a testable claim, which is why religious dogma is NOT science, never can be science, and is such a preposterous lie for the I.D claimants to make. Even as a philosophical debate, "God as a creator" is easily recognized as an invalid, irrational argument based on a 'reducto ad absurdum' infinite regression characteristic. This is a variation of the Homunculus argument, one that has been declared "Lame ! " since it was first postulated.

And finally, agnostics DO believe that there's "something" out there that may or may not be pulling the heavenly puppet-strings, but they're not entirely sure what form - if any - it takes. They're wishy, washy theists IOW.
Atheists otoh, DO NOT believe that any supernatural being exists now or in the past. WE base this on the simple rationalization that if a god were to exist, then it *must* be natural. If you don't believe me, ask a theist whether they think their belief in god is supernatural. They will tell you that it is the most natural thing they can think of. In fact, they can't think of things being any other way. Atheists...taking a fair amount of pride in being as rational and learned as they /usually/ are...have often times read about the subjects they expound on, including the texts pertaining to the both the contemporary (called "religion") and historical (called "mythologys") superstitions. They quickly assess how these gods behave according to the believers who wrote/write about them, and the utter lack of similar activity emanating from these supernatural beings today, leading them to believe that either (a.) These gods once lived and behaved as reco...

Mycos 25 days ago

Although an atheist myself, I have to take issue with several claims being made about the nature or religion, of science and evolution.

The Epic Of Gilgamesh isn't the oldest writing known. it's certainly one of the oldest tales, legends or myths (whatever you prefer) to survive from so long ago, but writing systems predate Gilgamesh.

That the Bible implies the Sun revolved around the Earth isn't correct. They had no idea that the Earth was a planet or that the sun was a distinctly separate phenomenon that would continue doing what it does whether or not the Earth was even here for it to "revolve around". They had no concept of stars as being distant suns like our own, perhaps with planets that might revolve around them as well (or vice versa <g>) at all. The "vault of heaven" was thought to be varying distances, but at most a matter of only kilometres (using our metrics) away. "Light-years" would have been thought ludicrous to them /even if/ a hypothetical circumstance existed that would allow us to attempt to try and explain the concepts involved to them.

This brings up the Mithra reference which I have seen reproduced repeatedly in similar forums.
How is it possible that a god that predates the calendar your using have been born on that date? If you are assuming that this is simply when the winter solstice occurs hence that day regardless of the calendar used, then the assumption that it falls on the 25th is wrong --- regardless. It is true that many "pagan" rites observed celestial events and that many Christian holidays were placed on the same day for various reasons. Easter, Astarte, estrogen, eggs and fertility rites all have this tendency of the Church to thank for the form of present day Easter. But aside from that, almost all the traits you assign to Attis and Dionysus are pure nonsense.

EVOLUTION
< br/>Your definition of "Theory" is wrong if you believe the the mechanics of the solar system are theory. They are not. The earth's orbit around the sun has been theorized, the laws it operates under have been tested, refined, and finally, empirically observed. This leaves Copernicus's theory as to how it /may/ happen far behind.
But so too has Darmin's "theory" of evolution. Although we cannot empirically observe millions of years of time, we can see ample evidence of what took place over that stretch of time. But the "clincher" is that we have a concordance of data from so many unrelated areas of science (nuclear physics, paleontology, molecular biology, zoology, geology, etc. etc. etc. ) that the sheer astronomically remote possibility that these sciences would all somehow come together into a coherent explanation *at this one intersection between them all*... then branch back off into their individual areas again with scientists producing mountains of data that has no bearing on evolution at all..... Or that ...

Paulish 23 Apr, 2008

Incredible document. I love what you write, I would read more if you ever wrote more.