Why I Feel People Choose Atheism
As I begin this post I want to make something clear, if you are an atheist I have no desire to convert you from atheism by force of will or even with logic. I provide my views on Deism and other beliefs for those that have interest in it. I simply am examining all belief systems here, atheism is in fact a belief system, in fact I consider it a religion. A religion that believes in chance and mechanics vs. spirit.
Personally I feel that the question of why some people choose to believe in nothing, is an interesting thing to examine. The reality is about 16% of the total world population by best estimates are not affiliated with any religion at all. Yet only 2% are actual atheists as in they believe in no higher power, no creator or architect of the universe. So even the vast majority of “non believers” still believe in some sort of a “God” like intelligence. That would be 14 of 16 or 7 out of 8, simple math says that is 87.5% of NON BELIEVERS are still not atheists.
One must only conclude than that the atheist is not just a minority but a statistical anomaly. I personally think as a Deist this is because as we are part of the creation we intrinsically know there is something more to the universe than mechanics and random chance. The atheist therefore has to override this inherent knowledge and apply a certain logic to do so, almost like the fictitious Vulcan does with emotions in the fantasy world of Star Trek. So that leads to the question of why?
Let me start out with a concept that should pacify the atheist I have thus far offended, it could simply be because they are right. The reality is we don’t know that God exists, we have surmised it so as Deists solely via logic and our examination of the universe and the creation. As Deists there is no risk of hell for lack of faith, so we must be open to the possibility however so slight, that we could be wrong. I don’t think I am wrong, but no believer in any faith, including atheism thinks they are wrong, if so they would not believe what they do. So let us just say, may be it is because they are right, but if not, then why?
I would say it is a direct reflection of the failure, lies and deception of revealed religions. Like I said yesterday, atheists are generally intelligent, very much so. Some of my favorite people and most intelligent contemporaries are atheists. So when such people are told if you do X you go to hell but you can do X and if you say certain words and believe certain things you go to heaven, well they know that makes zero sense. When they see churches taking money from people and claiming to do “Gods work” frankly it makes them sick.
When they see people denying not just components of but the entire concept of evolution they see it as denial of fact, and frankly it is. When fossils are explained by some fringe members of Christianity as “God creating the illusion of age to test our faith”, they see it for the madness that it is. When they are told God destroyed all life with a flood, they know it is nonsense because it makes no sense to kill a child for his parents deeds and know that no just God would do such a thing. Just keep the list going, it is why so many of us left organized faiths, walked a path that eventually led us to Deism.
So why do atheists walk strait past the simple belief in a higher power of some sort all the way to the concept of “there is no God, there is no higher power, things are what we see and nothing more”. I think many are so sickened by the twisted components of religion they simply throw out the baby with the bath water. They want it all gone from their lives, no more fake guilt, no more lies, no more period, they just want freedom and see any faith as a false burden or a false promise.
I think though many don’t realize Deism exists, what it is or understand it as an option. When I speak to most atheists I find first that most are really agnostics, they doubt the existence of God, if pressed though they do not 100% deny the possibility of a higher power, very few actually go that far. They realize just as I do that since we don’t actually know, that any of us including them, could be wrong. Yet even if they have heard of Deism, they don’t understand what it is or how it benefits someone.
I’ve been asked questions like, “so what does a Deist have to do”?
To whit I have simply responded, “a Deist believes in a higher power, an intelligence that is behind the design of the creation, that is all they don’t have to do anything, it is something you believe, not something you do”.
Another question is often “so what happens to bad people when they die”?
I simply say I don’t know but whatever it is it is likely not much different than what happens to a “good person”. I figure either we simply return our energy to the creation or we have a consciousness, I am not sure which. If we don’t it doesn’t matter, if we do likely a “bad person” would end up with some sort of self assessing but there is no fires of hell, no gates of heaven, just what ever is, well, is.
Discussions like this with atheists never leads to instant conversions, and frankly unlike many on fire born agains for us that isn’t the goal at all. It is just a logical discussion of belief. I’ll tell you what though, 9 times out of 10 these answers are not what the atheist expected, most have never even considered such as an option before. Which always leads me to ask, if you have never considered something before, why would you just write it off? Would you do so with any other compelling and interesting or important part of life? The answer to those questions are almost always, “you shouldn’t” and “no”.
I mean in short, I think many choose atheism for the same reason we choose deism. Organized faith simply makes no logical sense when fully examined devoid of programmed belief systems (benevolent brain washing). I just think quite often, the atheist is simply not aware that a choice in the middle exists. That one can believe in a higher power, a creator and not have any religious obligations and not be required to throw logic to the wind.
I just don’t think most have ever considered that faith is not a binary code, where 1 is religion and 0 is no faith at all. That there is an option that accepts that so many things in the universe are so perfectly designed that something must have done it or frankly it must be something in itself, that one can acknowledge higher existence without defining it or worshiping it.
For God to exist doesn’t require that it need or even desire our worship, I think most atheists don’t even consider that.
But again, I could be wrong.
I agree with some things that u say there are faults in the bible and I’m not deist but I’m pretty close I believe in heaven and hell but not any religion. When u said the thing about the flood it seems u lack sufficient evidence to use this, god flooded the world because god allowed angels breed with humans creating nephilim which are giants or literally people like hercules in the stories just the of the corruption of power these beings could use. Eventually god decided he wasn’t happy with the world and its evil and decided to flood it. But then again the bible is basicly a mistranslation of the Jewish one
So you are still saying your God MURDERED all the children of the world because he was unhappy with HIS OWN MISTAKE? Sorry but Jewish, Apocryphal or Christian you can keep your bible. I see the bible as what it is a book of myth blended with history and astrological symbolism. This movie end up in 911 conspiricies (likely wrong) and discussing the monetary system (very accurately by the way) but starts with how religion is used to control people.
If you watch the first third you will see exactly how the bible was created, where it simply rips off other cultures and be left with one conclusion, the Bible is nothing but an astro literary hybrid, nothing more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrHeg77LF4Y
Every religion is based off another basicly, the bible is an incomplete morphed book of what the catholics and Jewish leaders wanted it to bee they changed it they took things out of it they basicly desecrated there own religion. Well myth is what makes people people i suppose, i wont say the bibles real and i wont say the bibles fake because i Really dont know geuss its the agnostic in me So again I agree with with u on a lot of terms, but I also disagree that on a lot of things and i tend not to get my info from YouTube not always the best source lol
I apologize if that sounded offensive your obviously an intelligent person but different perspectives always tend to disagree on things
I also think that some people choose atheism as a matter of pride. Not all but I’ve met plenty of atheists who are extremely prideful. I’ll use an example from my experience I was hanging with friends and a person I was unfamiliar with asked me out of random after a small conversation, if I believed in god, I replied yes. I got like a 20 minute lecture about how god can’t exist. This has happened to me a few times so I guess I say they are all like that. Or perhaps they originally had faith but a bad circumstance like death of a loved one or so on and couldn’t believe in a god that could be so cruel…….typical movie scenario. Just possibilities nothing more they could of just one day stopped believing. I also believe belief in a god in programmed into us. I know someone who’s parents are atheist but there daughter isn’t.
Yeah the christian god murdered everyone that pretty much sums it up he’s done it more than kinda. And I agree religion was used to control people as has always will. But that’s not nessicarily a bad thing it probably saved a lot of lives back in the day. I’ve studied quite a few different religions I can’t say there wrong or right cause I really don’t know I have my own beliefs and am not a part of any religion the only religion I do have a problem is with Buddhism maybe I’m wrong about this but I have a problem believing a man upsest with food has been what they call enlightened although I respect the beliefs of them just not the Buddha variable
There is no way Religion has saved more lives than it has claimed. Um Crusades? Um Holocaust? Um have you read what has been going on in Africa for the past two decades? You do know the Balkan wars were about religion right? The Inquisition?
The list is miles long and covers not just Christians and Muslims by the way.
There is a saying, “as long as there has been God, there has been killing in his name”.
True but u also have to think about all the lives from the past and over the years yes its kills thousands and thousands and thousands of people but its also saved thousands and thousands of people, if religion didn’t kill people mankind would of found another excuse to do so, and the Holocaust wasn’t exactly about religion, The basis for Nazi antisemitism—prejudice against or hatred of Jewish people—was the Nazis’ distorted worldview of human history as racial struggle. The Nazis falsely considered the Jews to be a race. They incorrectly believed Jews had a natural impulse, inherited through generations to strive for world domination, and that this goal would not only prevent German dominance but would also enslave and destroy the German “race.” The Nazis believed that all of history was a fight between races, which would culminate either in the triumph of the superior “Aryan” race or in its total extinction. As a result, Nazi leaders considered the death of all Jews to be a precondition necessary for the survival and the eventual dominance of the so-called “German-Aryan” race. According to the Nazis, the Jews, as an “inferior” race, would use their supposed control of world finances and of world mass media to support Communist uprisings and to encourage other “inferior” races to overwhelm and triumph against Nordic-Germanic races.
I agree with you. I was born as a christian then ended up being an atheist too, because I didn’t even know that deist does exist. But then I got to know about deist and yea I’ve been a deist for 2 years til now.
I talked to many atheists too, many of ’em are my friends and I shared a lot of things with them. one of them ever asked me the questions
1. So if you believe in God, then where is God?
2. How can you believe and sure that the universe is one of a proof for the existence of God when you didn’t even see God when HE made the universe?
3. If everything has its creator and can’t make itself then who creates God?
I didn’t really know what to answer lol. so, what do you think is the best answer for that questions?
I am pretty sure that atheist are aware of deism and view it as a non-committal stepping stone to atheism.
My own view on the subject is that “I don’t know and neither do you”, establishes my position. There are neurogenic hypotheses to explain the pervasive propensity to conclude that a universe creator exists, but to my satisfaction such explanations fail to establish that those theories exclude deism. As such I am open to arguments that god does or does not exist. I want to hear new and old ideas and establish scientifically (via reproducible evidence in accordance to the scientific method) and/ or philosophically (Via deductive reasoning based on the pool of information that seems most understandable and likely).
The real reason to take an atheist position is that it is
1. Scientifically the easiest to support based on current available evidence.
2. Because it is makes a statement that you reject the notion of creation beyond the forces of nature currently understood–And thus the religion that was forced upon them.
3. Overstepping assumption here but: many seem to homosexual and again find the rejection of their existence from their faith and respond in kind by rejecting that their could be a god at all, citing reason 1 to justify their position.
4. Politics: Liberals tend to choose the term atheist rather than agnostic or deist and organize into groups supporting their chosen position where they are socially accepted and can organize as such.
Ultimately, Atheists, deist and agnostics probably believe the same thing. The shades of grey are the extent to which one excludes or rejects the possibility of alternate hypotheses.
Well, you’d be wrong, I don’t even really need examples. To say that “I am pretty sure that atheist are aware of deism and view it as a non-committal stepping stone to atheism.” Would assume there is some central atheist authority making sure the locations and contact information of all atheists are known and all are informed of everything pertaining to other religions.
Most atheists are for what ever reason people that don’t believe in God, very few are part of any “group of atheists”. So there is no reason for the average atheist to be any more or less aware of deism then any other person.
The most common question I get from a person when I say, I am a Deist, is “what is a deist”, it is every bit as common from the atheist.
The most common view of Deism I get from the few who know of Deism is “the clock maker God” version you learn as one line in a comparative religion class. That definition is false by the way, it is actually a slanderous definition from the fundamental Christian movements of the 18-19th century. Hence even the 10% of people I talk to with knowledge that Deism exists seldom know what Deism is at all.
True Deism actually became quite a popular movement in the late 18th and early 19th century. As we had moved past jailing and killing people for what the fundamentalist calls a heresy, slander was used instead.
Deism is not about a clock maker god that wound up the universe and left it to itself and never was.
So again most people, atheist or not either have no idea the word deist exists or don’t know what it even means.
There are actually atheists churches nowadays
I am surprised at your quoted statistics. Where I live most of my peers never grew up with religion and are atheists. I personally am an atheist, but some would say that I am an agnostic. Thing is, I truly think there is no god, but I am at awe in nature and the universe itself. If I was given absolute proof of a god, I wouldn’t reject it. Does that make me an agnotic? No. An agnostic says “I’m not sure if there is a god or not”. An atheist says “I do not believe in god with the information I have available and will only reconsider if you give me proof that a god exists”. Those two are not the same. Anyone that absolutely says there is a god or isn’t a god is closed minded. The atheists I know, are not that unreasonable, including myself. But don’t kid yourself, I am convinced there is no god. It would take strong evidence to sway that conviction otherwise. That does not make me an agnostic.
Well call this confirmation bias.
Typo. Most of my friends grew up without religion and are atheists.
I would like to know how you logically come to the conclusion there is a god? Just because something exists does not mean that something even harder to explain created it. I understand that a singularity created the universe, but why call it a god? The singularity is just a process, and one that I suspect may happen often in the multiverse. It is very a possible it is a natural process. We do not need the term god to explain this. I guess my real issue is with the term god itself. God as a concept has created so many problems as it takes away personal responsibility. I’d prefer that the term just goes away. Let’s just call it the universe, for what it really is.
How I went form Christian, to agnostic, and then to deist. I was brought up Christian, but even since I was a child my reason constantly kept poking at me telling me something wasn’t right with this form of believing, so I finally ended up leaving it at around 18 and became agnostic. Not many years later I was laying in my bed one night, and came to a conclusion that there was more or less endless possibilities for there to be a creator than the one possibility of there not being a creator. I found myself looking for what it was called to simply believe in god, that’s when I found the site for deism, the site only strengthened my belief, and learning some of the most intelligent people were in some form or another deist, intellectuals such as Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Isaac Newton, George Washington, Neil Armstrong, Thomas Jefferson, and Voltaire, it sparked my interest, and began my quest for wisdom. it’s not hard to believe there is more to this universe and beyond than what meets the eye from our tiny little planet. We have very little knowledge at the moment of other worldly things such as other dimensions, spirituality, etc. I do have some friends who are atheist and never have heard any of them make a good enough point that made reasonable sense to deny a god all together, other than the ones who can’t grasp what it is to be eternal( something without a beginning and without an end). I’ll use the meaning of eternal itself to make a simple explanation of what it is to be eternal. the meaning of eternal always meant eternal it never gained it and it will never lose it, the only thing it gained was the sound of the word we gave it. I’m not looking for an argument from anyone so please respect that. I am merely posting some of my life history and thoughts, petty as it may seem to some. Thanks for the read.
Very insightful comment and a very common way people come to deism. Thank you for commenting and for reading this blog.