I’m an atheist because I was born that way.

[cleanhippie]

Why I am an atheist – Robert Light

I’m an atheist because I was born that way.

My parents were not church-goers, but I was christened in the local Church of England, because that’s what my family did. My mother, in particular, was quite happy for me to be given enough information about the church to “make up my own mind”. When I was old enough, I went to Sunday School. I don’t remember particularly liking it or disliking it, but I didn’t have to go too many times before my parents let me stop.

I remember being given a illustrated book of Bible stories when I was about 8 or 9. I liked the stories, and read them a few times. But all the time, I had this feeling that said: “But it’s not true. It’s just made up. Why would people believe in this?”

--snip--

Now, I can back up my feelings with all sorts of logic and rationality, and lots of information that I have learned at Pharyngula and through the writing of Dawkins, Hitchens and so on. But I still think that I was just plain born as a non-believer.

Robert Light
Australia

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/10/25/why-i-am-an-atheist-robert-light/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

---------------------------------------------------------------------------


We are ALL born atheist. It's the default position.

[Speck Tater]

1. That's right! I'm an atheist because GOD made me that way! nt

[cleanhippie]

2. Okay

[Speck Tater]

14. Don't worry about the self-contradictory nature of that statement.

I also don't believe in astrology, and everybody knows that a common characteristic among us Virgos.

[ChadwickHenryWard]

16. I'm pretty sure that Taurans.

Whenever I tell an astrology-believer that I don't follow that stuff, I always get told "You must be a Taurus." This I always affirm. I was born under Capricorn.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. I'm an atheist because I was born that way. I am fourth generation atheist but that's not why I'm

continuing the tradition. I sincerely tried religion and it really just didn't answer my questions. I've adopted a combination of ethical culture, humanism, unitarianism, freethought, and atheism.

[cleanhippie]

5. Sounds like you are sharing my wave.

:fistbump:

[no_hypocrisy]

7. I "believe" I am.

To adopt any philosophy, I believe in being informed about all the choices, and do a process of elimination rather than making a beeline for one as the ultimate "Truth". Some people can, but I just couldn't.

:hi:

[RaleighNCDUer]

10. My 'beeline' had me going from generic sunday school christianity

to 'who cares' to agnosticism to atheism to Lutheranism to Judaism and back to atheism.

Like Mulder, I WANTED to believe. It would have made life so much simpler if i didn't have to find answers for myself, but in the end I was constitutionally incapable of believing the unbelievable.

[no_hypocrisy]

11. Interesting. I too WANTED to believe. Went to Friday night services when others

were partying. Thought I could become a Jew by sheer will. It doesn't work that way.

I began to realize that religion "wasn't taking" when I traveled through Europe in 1979. I visited synagogues trashed by Nazis, even visited Dachau Concentration Camp. I didn't feel more Jewish. I felt distanced by the day. I also realized to be truly observant, you couldn't stay Jewish because of the survivors' guilt of the Holocaust.

I make a clean break in the middle of Yom Kippur services in 1984. I sat there, mindlessly intoning responses to the Prayer Book and realized that there was no God listening and I wasn't repentant. My attitude was and remains "only sincere need apply". I don't condemn the faithful; I just know I'm not one of them.

[NMMNG]

4. As was I

I was indoctrinated into religion along the way, but I grew out of it and returned to my natural state.

[Tikki]

6. I certainly never caught the spark that brings people...

to their knees in a devotion.
I care about humans and all of Nature and admire most Science.
I try to be kind.


Tikki

[rurallib]

8. I would probably still be a Christian of sorts

had all the damned evangelicals keep pushing and pushing their crap.
They forced me to actually look at what I had been so half-heartedly claiming as true.
When it came to digging deep into their beliefs, I found no "there" there.
So having been raised catholic, having been to more services than 99% of Americans (a figure I just made up) I came to atheism.
What a great day it was when the revelation hit.

I must say, most of the adult role models from my youth didn't seem to really believe either. Of the priests we had in our town, half were pursuing little boys, a couple young women one had a great love for money. None were very much believers.
My parents went through the motion, but I doubt they believed much.

[Scuba]

9. I was brought up in the church by a skeptical family....

... and became a confirmed atheist by 15 or 16.


Nothing I have seen, heard, read or dreamed about since has given me the slightest inclination to believe in a "supreme being".



Anyway, if there is a "god", he/she is sure worthy of being worshiped. Perhaps that is why religious people are always praying - to let "god" know what he/she has gotten wrong.

[saras]

12. It's like being blind. If you don't HAVE the experiences, you won't feel the need to explain them.

I'm blind to fashion - I mean REALLY blind. I dress like others, badly, because I look at others and try to dress like them. I know by now that if I do anything according to my own tastes, people will stare and comment, and I won't be able to tell why unless they tell me. I know people who are blind to music - they can not, even after decades of listening, pick out a recording with two basses playing from a bunch with only one bass, or hear how many voices are singing in a small group. I know people who are utterly incompetent with the entire physical world, as though they see the whole thing through a thick fog - that moves, glows, talks to them, and becomes tangible, forming new objects behind their back when they aren't looking. They never fix anything, they break things all the time, they shouldn't drive, and they only survive - and thrive; they're often wealthy people - because most of the work of our society is simply people talking to each other, primate politics and intellectual planning, which they're both gifted and well-trained at.

I'm not suggesting that any religion has good explanations, but it exists partially because some people have experiences, and because other people want certain experiences. And for other reasons, of course, temporal power being high among them. But: as long as we don't admit that some people have experiences others don't, and any theory of humanity has to explain them all, not just the middle of the bell curve (which you aren't, by the way), we're not going to get a theory of humanity that actually works. Others have an equally good argument to exclude science from the human norm. As they put it, people everywhere tell stories. The West is the only place that claims their stories are universal, and they find that offensive.

Modern pharmaceutical psychology is as rigid, dogmatic, and WRONG as behaviorism or eugenics were, and for the same reasons. They are social control mechanisms, not scientific theories. They USE science better than their predecessors, but then so does everyone else. Just go and ask your shrink what what they can do to make you more inspired, creative, patriotic, rebellious, and ethical - say you want to go join OWS but don't really feel up to it, though you're perfectly competent in your daily life. That's a perfectly reasonable goal for psychiatry - how helpful are they?


Regarding religion, you should sit down sometime and talk to people who have had spiritual experiences all their life, manage them as competent functional adults, and are as dissatisfied as you are with the explanations offered by institutional religion (hint - most of them are). See what common ground you can find.

Personally I think it's the "alpha male" archetype that's more damaging to human progress, and the "god" archetype only causes real trouble when it's overlaid with the alpha male. It's the alpha male that says that YOU have to do something because god told ME something. It's the alpha male that says YOU can't think because I'M doing the thinking and decision-making, and this is where it makes us stupid. God without the alpha male is more like psychedelics or the Sikh 'the creator and the creation are one'.

We are not all born the same. We are not even born so similar to each other that we can understand each other without long, hard work. That's MY default position.

[ChadwickHenryWard]

17. Wait, what?

Just go and ask your shrink what what they can do to make you more inspired, creative, patriotic, rebellious, and ethical...

That is not what a psychiatrist does. That is like going up to a welder and demanding that she replace a car's spark plugs, sand and stain a dresser, or proof-read your dissertation. Welders don't do that; they fasten metals together by applying heat. Asking them to fix other unrelated problems is inappropriate and fruitless. Psychiatrists treat scientifically recognized mental illnesses with medicine. That is why the position requires both a psychology degree and a doctorate in medicine. The ailments they treat must be empirically recognized as mental illnesses, and the treatments the prescribe have empirically been shown to work. This is why the things you listed are not within the purview of psychiatry - lacking inspiration, creativity, etc, is not empirically recognized as a medical ailment. Just because you personally might feel that there is something wrong with an individual who lacks one or more of these traits does not mean that there is empirically, medically, something wrong with that individual.

[Silent3]

38. It's not at all like being blind.

Blind people can easily accept that sighted people have an ability which they lack. While the blind may never truly appreciate what the experience of seeing is like, they aren't often left in doubt that sight exists and that other people have it, even if they don't.

Some religious and "spiritual" people wish to pretend that they have some kind of "spiritual sense" that other people do not. They want others to accept that this sense is just another sense like sight, that some people have and some people don't. The problem is that, unlike what sighted people can do for blind people, people with this alleged "spiritual sense" can't prove this supposed ability in ways which are clear, accessible to others, and consistent.

I don't think many blind people petulantly deny that other people can see, imagining that the whole "seeing" thing is just a trick or a game or a conspiracy. When skeptics doubt the "spiritual sense" of believers, however, for some reason that kind of imagined petulance is high on the list of excuses given for why skeptics won't accept the supposed evidence, if any, offered by believer's for their supposed "spiritual" abilities.

[humblebum]

13. "We are ALL born atheist. It's the default position." - what a load

of crap!

"lots of information that I have learned at Pharyngula" - kinda like learning about racial tolerance from David Duke's website.

[cleanhippie]

15. Yawn.

Your posts are boring.

[NMMNG]

20. I'm sure you were born

with a Bible in one hand and a crucifix around your neck. But the average person was born with no god beliefs, and only developed them when they were indoctrinated into them.


Nice to see you haven't lost your flair for conflating atheists with the KKK. I thought you said elsewhere you didn't do that sort of thing.

[humblebum]

22. What does the subject of being born atheist have to do with the KKK.

And as far as being atheist from birth, that is absolutely ridiculous.

[NMMNG]

29. "What does the subject of being born atheist have to do with the KKK."

Maybe you could tell me. You're the one spouting off about atheists and David Duke.

[darkstar3]

21. LOL

Tell me about tolerance, please! Tell me how you know anything about it when you can't tell the difference between atheists. Tell me how you know anything about it when you state flatly that atheists in power will commit mass murder.

People should study your posts as evidence of Poe's Law.

[humblebum]

23. Poe's Law - yet another common atheist retort, used when all else fails.

We have been down this road of born atheist before, and time after time the idea is debunked. And, that too is a common atheist retort, namely, that we are all born atheists. I would counter that by suggesting that there is an a priori tendency for people to automatically display an awareness of a supernatural existence. That indeed is what has proven to be true in study after study of remote, isolated groups of people. If they had born atheists, nothing resembling religious inclinations would appear.

In any case, to say that humans are born atheists is nothing but hypothesis.

[darkstar3]

24. LOL

"debunked"...oh, you're funny. Developmental psychology and sociology have clearly shown that human beings are not only born atheist, but have a tendency to gravitate to authoritarianism. You keep thinking you've successfully debunked something, 'bum, and the rest of us will continue living in reality.

:rofl:

[humblebum]

25. Atheism is a learned behavior. nt

[darkstar3]

26. Atheism is the lack of a belief in any gods.

We know that belief in gods is a learned behavior, so the opposite of a learned behavior would be...?

(Hint: etanni. ;))

[humblebum]

27. You "know" nothing of the sort. nt

[Goblinmonger]

36. So why don't we see examples of children

born into Catholic homes that are immediately Jewish? If religion were innate, wouldn't that be the case? Still waiting for your study that shows children are born with religion.

Damnit, sorry darkstar, I gave away the answer.

[humblebum]

39. And you will keep waiting because I never made that claim.

However, there does seem to be an innate, or an a priori, propensity to look for a supernatural reason for being.

[Goblinmonger]

41. Shoot me that study. n/t

[cleanhippie]

30. Wait, what? Atheism is now a "behavior"?

Wow, a new low, even for you.

And you wonder why you are not taken seriously.

[NMMNG]

40. Much like gay is a behavior

They teach that sort of thing in some churches. :eyes:

[Pacifist Patriot]

88. Oh this one's good. Could you be more specific?

What exactly is atheistic behavior?

[LeftishBrit]

28. Studies show that children, from infancy, expect a *cause* for things

If they are exposed to the concept of God, they will attribute things to God. If they are exposed to other explanations, they will use these.

It is true that most cultures have some sort of religion; but not all of them have a God. Some have multiple gods. Some worship/have worshipped their ancestors. Some worship/have worshipped natural objects, notably the sun. Some worship/have worshipped their rulers ('Emperor Worship'). Some, such as Buddhism and Taoism, have a rather more abstract spirituality.

[NMMNG]

31. There's also a tendency for children to have imaginary friends

Usually they grow out of it.

[Goblinmonger]

32. Please, show me ONE study

that shows that children are born with religion. ONE.

[Deep13]

18. Me too.

I found xtianity to be pretty ghastly when I was very small. nails, hell, floods--WTF? I went along with it because I did not realize yet that my parents were capable of lying to me.

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Goblinmonger]

33. Not really OT, but kind of...your OP title makes me think of this...

Born like this
Into this
As the chalk faces smile
As Mrs. Death laughs
As the elevators break
As political landscapes dissolve
As the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree
As the oily fish spit out their oily prey
As the sun is masked
We are
Born like this
...

http://www.agonia.net/index.php/poetry/13892906/Dinosauria,_We

Probably my favorite poet. Certainly a consistent top 5. There is a lot in this poem that resonates with the atheist experience.

[onager]

34. There they are!!! Get the torches and pitchforks!

[Goblinmonger]

35. I think the one on the right with it's bare ass in the air is trotsky n/t

[ZombieHorde]

44. That picture is awesome. I love it. nt

[Glassunion]

37. Atheism turns out to be too simple.

If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning...

[NMMNG]

42. Um, what?

:shrug:

[cleanhippie]

43. Wait, what?

[Glassunion]

45. It is the same as

If there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

:toast:

[NMMNG]

46. And that has what to do with not believing in gods?

:shrug:

[cleanhippie]

47. "If the whole universe has no meaning" -- Who claimed that?

Who said it has no meaning?

I guess I just don't understand what you are getting at or how it relates to the current topic.

[rug]

48. What meaning does it have?

[trotsky]

49. MeaningS.

It has as many meanings as there are sentient beings within it.

[rug]

50. So, it means what you think it means?

Sounds somewhat subjective, if not intutive.

[trotsky]

52. Everyone's idea of the meaning of the universe is by definition subjective.

Even if you think your god has determined it.

[rug]

54. Is there any evidence supporting any of those ideas?

[trotsky]

58. That your god is what gives the universe meaning?

No.

[rug]

60. A question is not an answer to a question.

That's ok. I already know the answer, deflection notwithstanding.

[trotsky]

61. It isn't?

Maybe next time you should ask a better question.

[rug]

62. Maybe you should answer a direct question that has an uncomfortable answer.

Instead of trying a weaselly avoidance.

[trotsky]

64. BWAH HA HA HA HA HA HA

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

You first!

[rug]

68. I see that's the best you can do.

Hint: rolling around on the floor is not an improvement over weaselly.

[trotsky]

70. And neither are your one-liners.

When you start behaving the way you are asking me to, I'll be happy to return the favor.

[rug]

73. I doubt it.

Evidence compels me to doubt it.

[trotsky]

76. Yup, you are correct to doubt your ability to change your behavior.

The evidence is compelling indeed.

[rug]

78. QED.

[trotsky]

83. Indeed!

:hi:

[rug]

84. Ibid.

[cleanhippie]

51. Not sure that is has one, but the poster I replied to implies that someone has made a claim

For the record, IMO, "the universe" has whatever meaning each one of us decides to give it.


But thats irrelevant to what I asked the poster above.

[rug]

53. So, are you claiming it has no meaning or that you're agnostic?

[cleanhippie]

55. I think I was pretty explicit in my view on the subject above.

[rug]

56. Ok, not sure.

Without knowledge.

[cleanhippie]

63. Hmmm, did you read my entire post?

[Glassunion]

59. It was claimed with the statement "We are all born Athiest. It's the defalt setting"

If the universe was created not by a creator, but instead by simple chance, it has no purpose or meaning behind it. Sure the individual can create their own meaning to their universe, however the universe itself outside of the Atheist has no meaning at all.

My own personal argument against a creator was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. My problem however was how had I got this idea of just and unjust? I cannot call a line crooked unless I have some idea of what a straight line is.

What was I comparing this universe with when I determined it is cruel or unjust? If the whole universe was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the universe, find myself in such a violent reaction against it?

Of course I could have given up on my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own creation. But if I did that, then my argument against a creator collapsed as well. For my argument depended on saying the universe was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies. So, in the very act of trying to prove that a creator did not exist (in other words; that the whole of the universe was senseless) I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality namely my idea of justice was full of sense.

[NMMNG]

65. Find me an atheists who claims the universe "happened by simple chance"

You won't. That "happened by simple chance" nonsense is what creationists claim is the position of atheists and those who support evolution.



My own personal argument against a creator was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. My problem however was how had I got this idea of just and unjust? I cannot call a line crooked unless I have some idea of what a straight line is.


The universe isn't "cruel and unjust". It just is.


Of course I could have given up on my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own creation. But if I did that, then my argument against a creator collapsed as well.

God exists because you can't bend the universe to your will?

[Glassunion]

66. Then educate me on how you feel the universe came to be

If not by chance.

Just some notes on what my perspective is...

I believe in science and its method.
I believe in the theory of evolution.
I'm not a creationist.
God does not exist because I cannot bend the universe to my will.

[NMMNG]

67. There are a number of theories

The Big Bang is the most popular one. Some posit the universe has always been here. There are several more recent theories as well. But none of them claim it all happened "by chance".

[Glassunion]

69. Your description defines chance.

I have been discussing meaning. If you look at the big bang alone. You have all of the matter of the universe, compressed into a singularity where suddenly at one moment all of everything we know burst into existence 13 some billion years ago. That theory has no meaning(purpose) behind it. It simply is a random series of events that brought us from that moment to now.

I don't disagree with the big bang theory. However, I feel that there is something with meaning(purpose) outside of it that set everything into motion. To me, the mathematics behind our universe are too perfect to be born of a random series of events. The science that we discover is seemingly endless, yet bound by a set of rules(physics) that are constant.

[darkstar3]

71. You need to read more on the Big Bang Theory.

"one moment" is such a ridiculous statement regarding this theory that it shows you haven't read much about it.

Also, the idea that there can only be purpose or random chance is a fallacy known as false dichotomy.

[Glassunion]

77. I can always read more.

There is no hot cup of tea or a book large enough to suit me.

""one moment" is such a ridiculous statement regarding this theory that it shows you haven't read much about it." Please do enlighten me as to how there was not a moment where the singularity stopped being a singularity and expanded over a 13 billion year period into our known universe. Everything in existence has to begin existing at one moment or another.

"Also, the idea that there can only be purpose or random chance is a fallacy known as false dichotomy." This leaves me asking what are the other options if we remove purpose or chance(without purpose)?

[darkstar3]

82. Well look at you move the goalposts and redefine terms.

Compare and contrast these statements:

First: "suddenly at one moment all of everything we know burst into existence"
Second: "the singularity stopped being a singularity and expanded over a 13 billion year period"

There is no universe in which those two statements are equivalent in the English language.

And the opposite of purpose, or "without purpose", is not chance.

When you move goalposts and redefine terms like this, you make it tedious to have a discussion.

[Glassunion]

85. The second statement was a further explanation of he first for clarification.

"You have all of the matter of the universe, compressed into a singularity where suddenly at one moment all of everything we know burst into existence 13 some billion years ago." does not mean that in a sudden flash we went from a singularity to having a McDonalds on every corner. However from your comment in the following post you seemed to take it that way. If I was unclear I am sorry for not conveying my thought clearly. Hence my clarification. When I said everything we know, I was referring to all of the matter, energy and physics that make up our modern universe. Again I apologize for not being clear.

Chance: Noun - A possibility of something happening. Verb - Do something by accident or without design.
Synonyms: occasion - opportunity - hazard - luck - fortune - fortuitous - accidental - random - haphazard - casual - risk - happen - hazard - venture - occur - gamble

Purpose: Noun - The reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists. Verb - Have as one's intention or objective
Synonyms: aim - intention - object - intent - goal - end - intend - mean - propose - plan - contemplate - design


Can you help me understand how the Athiest views the creation of the universe, if it is not by chance?

[darkstar3]

86. The "Big Bang" wasn't really a bang.

It was a period of rapid expansion that some scientists have postulated took possibly even millions of years. That was my point. There was nothing sudden about the Big Bang. Now, on a geologic or universal timescale, it looks nearly instantaneous, but there was no moment in which the universe as we know it simply winked into existence. That was why I said you hadn't read up on it, because even the most basic explanations that I have read involve the phrase "a period of rapid expansion". "Moment" and "sudden" have no place in an explanation of the Big Bang.

The rejection of the idea of a deity does not preclude the universe being created by events, or even by Q-like (as we would understand them) beings that exist beyond our space-time. There are a myriad of hypotheses out there which are purely secular and offer possibilities just as legitimate, if not moreso, than a creator as has been portrayed by religion. These hypotheses include M-theory, string theory, the infinite universe cycle hypothesis, just to name a few.

Let me put this another way: The "atheist view" on the beginning of the universe, if it's even possible to refer to such a thing, is "I don't know, but I'm going to keep looking."

A note on style: there is simply no reason to capitalize the word atheist.

[Glassunion]

87. I understand that the big bang was not a "bang" so to speak.

If you go back, you'll see where I used the term expansion. We were all taught the theory in school as being referred to as a big bang. But most likely it was a quick expansion where space itself expands(some say faster than light) away from its center and all matter inside has been accelerating away from that point since in a ginormous expansion.

Personally I feel that there is an intelligent design behind the creation of the universe. Please don't confuse that with thinking that I'm going to run to creationist museum where they have displays of humans and dinosaurs living together. I personally think that is a sham, where religion is lying and trying to shoehorn science to fit their idea of their religion.

If I was wrong in assuming that the atheist does not believe or hold the possibility of a higher intelligence having a hand in the creation of the universe I'm sorry. Please understand that I have very, very rarely wandered into the RT forum. I normally avoid discussions surrounding religion, even with those that agree with me as they usually end in passionate arguments that accomplish nothing. I'm hoping by poking around here that I may have a greater understanding what others believe. I'm not here to change my mind, but to better understand others.

[NMMNG]

72. Basically for the universe to have "meaning"

There had to be "somebody" behind it? Why does the universe have to have a purpose? Does it make you feel better to think, for example, that some being out there created it as a big playground for humans? Or that this being made it as his little playset that he populated with living toys?

[rug]

74. Therefore, you hold it has no meaning.

Other than what any individual, with no evidence at all, ascribes to it.

[NMMNG]

79. Yes

Meaning is a human concept. Accordingly nothing can have any meaning other than what humans ascribe to it.

[Glassunion]

75. To your questions.

Basically for the universe to have "meaning" there had to be "somebody" behind it? Yes

Why does the universe have to have a purpose? It does not.

Does it make you feel better to think, for example, that some being out there created it as a big playground for humans? I do not think that.

Or that this being made it as his little playset that he populated with living toys? I do not think that either.

[NMMNG]

80. If that makes you feel better then go with it

:shrug:

[Glassunion]

81. It does not make me feel better. It's just the way I see it.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

57. Original Sin DESTROYS people, young and old.

Original Sin is the most pernicious doctrine of the Western World.
I refuse to put up with some stupid preacher telling me I am inherently evil. Yeah, we all make mistakes, but we are not inherently evil at a young age. I refuse to set foot in any church except a Unitarian Universalist, which is not Christian.


Christianiity is a blood-obsessed faux-cannibal death cult.

Life-denying and a fairy tale to boot.

Original sin is a made up problem. Substitutionary atonement is a made up solution to a made up problem.

It's like "Everybody has dandruff" and the answer is "This Jesus Shampoo".

Dandruff is original sin, the shampoo is Jeebus.