Minority atheism

Originally posted by JS357
Maybe you've already said what you make of it. A summation is requested.

What is it you don't understand about that sentence - sorry I'm not with you.

Originally posted by karoly aczel
How many fence-sitters are there or those prone to polaristic change?

How many goto church or fill in "christian" on their surveys who dont really believe it?

Great question; apparently not many. There are a lot of posts in this thread talking about Christianity and religion; be careful not to confuse a persons adherence to a particular "religion" with theism. Are you a theist or an atheist?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theism

Originally posted by divegeester
Yes it's a somewhat rhetorical position I agree; however it remains that if atheism was a clearly attractive mind-set then more people would hold to it.

Yes, but it's not an attractive mindset. It's much more attractive to believe there is life after death, that we are part of a grand design or that there is someone out there looking out for us. When close members of your family die, it's comforting to think you will see them again. That this is not the end. All of that is more attractive (to me, at least) than the implications of atheism.

But that has no bearing on what is true. However, it has a bearing on how many people believe what.

Originally posted by divegeester
Great question; apparently not many. There are a lot of posts in this thread talking about Christianity and religion; be careful not to confuse a persons adherence to a particular "religion" with theism. Are you a theist or an atheist?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theism

Can we not subscribe to deism, pandeism, pantheism or even 'spiritual deism'?

Why does everyone who believes in a God(s) have to subscribe to theism?

Originally posted by Palynka
Yes, but it's not an attractive mindset. It's much more attractive to believe there is life after death, that we are part of a grand design or that there is someone out there looking out for us. When close members of your family die, it's comforting to think you will see them again. That this is not the end. All of that is more attractive (to me, at least) t ...[text shortened]... at has no bearing on what is true. However, it has a bearing on how many people believe what.

Interesting point. Perhaps we should drop the word 'attractive' for something else - I'm not sure what that descriptor would be. I think it is actually harder to "believe" in something for which there is no (or at least little and debatable) evidence.

Perhaps I could contend as an ex-atheist myself, that believing in God is a harder mental position to hold than not believing?

Originally posted by divegeester
Interesting point. Perhaps we should drop the word 'attractive' for something else - I'm not sure what that descriptor would be. I think it is actually harder to "believe" in something for which there is no (or at least little and debatable) evidence.

Perhaps I could contend as an ex-atheist myself, that believing in God is a harder mental position to hold than not believing?

I think we can agree then that theism is hard to believe. 😀

Originally posted by divegeester
Perhaps I could contend as an ex-atheist myself, that believing in God is a harder mental position to hold than not believing?

I think it very much depends on the person and their education, culture, society etc.
For me certainly, believing in God would be impossible with my current experience and knowledge. It would require deliberate self delusion, something I do not think I could achieve nor would be motivated to try to achieve.

Originally posted by rwingett
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-religious

As many as 1.1 billion people, or 16% of the world's population are considered non-religious. That's more than any religious group other than Christianity and Islam. The number who self-identify as atheists is small, true, but there is good reason to think that number is under-reported and is likely quite a bit higher.

You are forgetting India. A nation of 1.21 billion people out of which about 85% are Hindus. Taking adult Hindus to be about 65% of the total 1 billion Hindus,these 650 million are theists almost to a person. The no. of atheists in adult Indian Hindus is extremely small may be about a hundred thousand or so. There is a Rationalist Society of India,true,but its members and other non member atheists cannot be more than the figure quoted above. Young people in India i.e. bet.18 to 30 years old fervently and unashamedly believe in God.

Originally posted by Proper Knob
Can we not subscribe to deism, pandeism, pantheism or even 'spiritual deism'?

Why does everyone who believes in a God(s) have to subscribe to theism?

I'm not entirely clear what all these terms actually mean, to the believer that is. However a bit of quick research indicates that holding these beliefs is still very much on the side of ID (in the general sense) of the universe - the core spiritual identity of a person believing in something creative and powerful outside of the big-bang and evident laws of physics; therefore a person describing themselves as being in one of these groups you term in your post would still class themselves as opposed to the concept of atheism.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I think it very much depends on the person and their education, culture, society etc.
For me certainly, believing in God would be impossible with my current experience and knowledge. It would require deliberate self delusion, something I do not think I could achieve nor would be motivated to try to achieve.

This is really interesting to me - the idea of deliberate self delusion. I fully accept that for you this is the case (i.e.you cannot believe without deliberately deluding yourself which of course is impossible)) but for me not so. I converted (for want of better word) from atheism to theism but I am still completely cognisant of how I used to think about theism before the conversion - it's not black and white.

I accept that I may be deluded but it is not deliberate. I am also aware that I may be allowing myself to be deluded, that is not deliberate either. I have personal reasons why I "believe" in my God; I feel empowered to believe if that can make any sense?

Originally posted by divegeester
Great question; apparently not many. There are a lot of posts in this thread talking about Christianity and religion; be careful not to confuse a persons adherence to a particular "religion" with theism. Are you a theist or an atheist?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theism

I'm a non-dualist.

But if
I had to pick between theism and athiesm, I'd pick an orange.
The reason for this is because thats is the best way I could convey my "answer". (I simply cant have a universe just with a God or just without a God. I think life and the universe is more complicated than that and should only be reduced to terms like "theistic" for children and beginners.)

Originally posted by karoly aczel
I'm a non-dualist.

But if
I had to pick between theism and athiesm, I'd pick an orange.
The reason for this is because thats is the best way I could convey my "answer". (I simply cant have a universe just with a God or just without a God. I think life and the universe is more complicated than that and should only be reduced to terms like "theistic" for children and beginners.)

So you prefer to be incoherent and snide at those that aren't. Well done.

Originally posted by divegeester
Yes it's a somewhat rhetorical position I agree; however it remains that if atheism was a clearly attractive mind-set then more people would hold to it.

Why do you think Atheism claims to be more attractive than theism? If being attractive was the goal then many people find religion very consoling and it enables them to avoid hard questions or to accept the harsh brutalities of their lives without despair. From the 19th Century debate about the Death of God has been characterized by immense anguish.

But face it, most religion is challenging and difficult to live up to. It is hard to find evidence of the qualities of religion in the behaviour of the majoirty of its practitioners. To take one example only, if the posters on this site spent less time on blatant Islamaphobia and more time demonstrating the Christian values that are offered as being superior, it would be a healthier place to debate.

Originally posted by Palynka
I think we can agree then that theism is hard to believe. 😀

For a person who believes only in scientific evidence,Theism is possibly hard to believe in. There is no scientific evidence in the form of a laboratory experiment nor by way of Logic for the existence of God. Science and Logic ,although powerful tools, do not and cannot explain or prove everything. The atheist may very well ask himself why the existence of God cannot be deduced from the universal feeling of Love that all living beings feel for each other( and not only for those belonging to their own species ),why we Humans feel so much attracted by Beauty abundantly present in Nature and the Universe around us. We must not let our ego come in the way of opening up of our minds to concepts not explainable by Science. We must not delude ourselves by repeating circularly that everything in Human behaviour is explainable by theory of Evolution. If we start thinking that in that manner we will be closing our minds and indeed will be on the way to our extinction as a species !

Originally posted by rvsakhadeo

There is no scientific evidence in the form of a laboratory experiment nor by way of Logic for the existence of God. Science and Logic ,although powerful tools, do not and cannot explain or prove everything.

If science and logic (Logos?) cannot prove or disprove the existence of God, it does not follow that science cannot explain everything - it just follows that God is not capable of being proved or disproved.

The atheist may very well ask himself why the existence of God cannot be deduced from the universal feeling of Love that all living beings feel for each other (and not only for those belonging to their own species ), why we Humans feel so much attracted by Beauty abundantly present in Nature and the Universe around us.

Well what is this saying? Can the existence of God be proved in this way or not? If it can, then your earlier remark is falsified (God can be proved after all).

I agree that it is possible to feel a universal love for all living beings. I do not agree that this feeling is universally felt. There are many places and times in history when it would seem plausible to believe the opposite and indeed that is reported, with people turning to religion as an escape from what seems to be universal violence and injustice. In short, some have this feeling and many aspire to it, but it is not universally shared and it is not easily attainable.

When, however, I personally enjoy this feeling it does not lead me to a belief in God. It leads to a belief that it is possible to feel this way and desirable to aspire to it more often and to share it more widely.

We must not delude ourselves by repeating circularly that everything in Human behaviour is explainable by theory of Evolution.

The mechanics of my bicycle are not explainable using the theory of evolution. It does not attempt or claim to explain everything. It attempts to explain the variation of species. In order to do that it requires long time periods, which were made conceivable through Lyell's geological theories, which gave the planet a vastly longer time frame than allowed for in the Bible (though not, for example, in the Vedic scriptures of India).

Science conflicts directly with specific claims made in the Bible and in other religious scriptures. There comes a point when those religious claims have to be jettisoned because they do not survive the evidence.