Am I an athiest?

[R. LeBeaux]

. . . a tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true.

A reasonable explanation for the lunacy of the Teabaggers and UFOlogists. Would you agree?

[Interbane]

I agree, but I think there is no single cognitive bias that can be singled out as the cause. But I think confirmation bias is a necessary component. I also think that none of us are perfect at controlling it, even the most introspective of us.

Another necessary component I see is illogical or alogical reasoning. Fallacies and non-sequiturs are at the root of many false beliefs. I think this may have to do with the efficiency of heuristics. We use 'rules of thumb' in our reasoning all the time, and in many cases these shorthand methods are illogical or non-sequitur. Yet people appeal to the popularity of these heuristics in defense of their beliefs, as if they trump logic.

Also motive. In many cases, the motive is little more than the 'feeling of certainty' that we all have. Many people don't realize that their conviction is a feeling, and it is a feeling that can be applied to false beliefs. That feeling is the very thing immunizing them from critically examining a belief. Confirmation bias follows from the feeling of certainty, because to have that feeling diminished or stamped out is uncomfortable. It's a carrot on a stick that causes us to perpetuate the feeling, like sex, drugs, or gambling, but more subtle. To confirm the belief is to perpetuate the associated emotion(conviction/certainty).

Some people are more susceptible to the mental addiction of various vices. I often wonder what the underlying neurochemistry is. If I remember, there are a few neurotransmitters associated with pleasure and reduced pain. Perhaps a sex addiction has the underlying associated problem of a dopamine deficiency. I'm sure the real reasons are much more complex. The point I'm trying to make is that there is variety amongst a population with regards to the neurochemistry that is behind addiction. Some people may simply be unable to resist the lure of the feeling of certainty, as silly as that sounds. I do believe there is some truth to it, because I can feel the lure within myself.

But I agree, teabaggers are all sheeple following the words of Pastor Glenn Beck.

[(author) Katelyn]

I am done. I'm not taking it anymore. Chris, please remove my account. Oh, by the way, God does care about babies who die. He takes them to Heaven. When a baby dies they go straight to Heaven, b/c they do not know that they have done anything wrong. When a baby cries for no reason, just b/c they want to be held, or throwing a tantram, they don't know that that is sin, they have no knowledge of sin. So how can they pay for a sin they have no knowledge of? No, God does not have a fragile ego. He is mighty and all-powerful, so anything could happen to you when you mock him. I'm just saying. Here is a little story that I think applies to all of y'all: A college professor stood up on his chair and said, "If God really exists, then knock me off this chair". Nothing happened and he said, "See, I'll give it a couple more minutes".

An army vet stood up, punched the professor in the face and knocked him off the chair, and then sat back down.

The professor said, "What did you do that for?" The vet said, "GOD was busy protecting my buddies still fighting for your right to say and do stupid stuff like this, so HE SENT ME. so true. there are men fighting overseas so you can have the freedom to say stupid stuff like that. Also this one i love: A little girl wanted to know what the United States looked like. Her Dad tore a map of the USA from a magazine and then cut it into small pieces. He told her to go to her room to see if she could put it together. After some minutes she returned and handed the map correctly fitted and taped together. The Dad was surprised and asked how she had finished so quickly. She said, "On the other side was a picture of Jesus and when I put him back then our country just came together. I love that one too b/c its true as well. if we put Jesus back in our country and in schools, then who knows. maybe the economy will be better and everything will be fine again.

[johnson1010]

I am done. I'm not taking it anymore.

Katelyn, you are taking this all way too personally. And that is your problem. It's what keeps you from understanding the facts of the situation.

Pray to jesus on that.

When a baby cries for no reason, just b/c they want to be held, or throwing a tantram, they don't know that that is sin, they have no knowledge of sin.

A baby's cry is sin? Praise Jesus.

No, God does not have a fragile ego... He is mighty and all-powerful, so anything could happen to you when you mock him. I'm just saying.

Take a look at the things you are typing Katelyn. God's ego isn't fragile. Yet, if a lowly person on some internet forum denies his existence, he just might smite them? And again, you threaten us with god's punishment.

Here is a little story that I think applies to all of y'all: A college professor stood up on his chair and said, "If God really exists, then knock me off this chair". Nothing happened and he said, "See, I'll give it a couple more minutes".

Despite this being a fantasy tale, the moral is relavant. God does nothing. Why?

An army vet stood up, punched the professor in the face and knocked him off the chair, and then sat back down.

Christian believers, when their belief is challenged, return challenge with disproportionate hostility. And you are proud of the actions of this soldier, Katelyn?

The actions of believers do not equate to the veracity of their beliefs. The nazi's were certainly effective in murdering people, but that doesn't mean the reasons they had for murdering were right.

"GOD was busy protecting my buddies still fighting for your right to say and do stupid stuff like this, so HE SENT ME.

God is not busy protecting anybody. They die in scores over there, and it most certainly is not to protect our freedom. America hasn't fought a true war to protect freedom in decades. What we HAVE done is maintained our hegemonic control of a good portion of the world through military action which secures valuable resources and deprives them to our rivals.

They aren't fighting for freedom over there, Katelyn. They are fighting for SUV's.

The soldiers are blameless, of course. They volunteered to protect our country. Then they have been abused by the government to secure the interests of corporate giants. Those lives were lost for no good reason, Katelyn. A few surgical operations would have netted us Bin Laden in no time. That is what they should have done. And that would have been a real fight to avenge the country. It's what had to happen in the end anyway, and we could have saved ourselves much.

A little girl wanted to know what the United States looked like. Her Dad tore a map of the USA from a magazine and then cut it into small pieces. He told her to go to her room to see if she could put it together. After some minutes she returned and handed the map correctly fitted and taped together. The Dad was surprised and asked how she had finished so quickly. She said, "On the other side was a picture of Jesus and when I put him back then our country just came together. I love that one too b/c its true as well. if we put Jesus back in our country and in schools, then who knows. maybe the economy will be better and everything will be fine again.

no it will not. It will be worse because you will have people gathering in arenas, buying overpriced hotdogs and gouged by inflated softdrink prices where everybody sits around and just WISHES for the economy to recover, instead of doing something to fix it.

Theocracies have always resulted in inevitable oppression and the united states would be no different. that is why the founders worked so hard to ensure that the united states would not be a country founded on any religion. As explicitly noted in several of their writings. See the link i provided earlier.

This is a cute story, Katelyn, but meaningless. There could have been a picture of barney on the back of that map, or pokemon, or garfield the cat. Any recognizable picture would have sufficed. She could have pieced together a DNA double-helix, or a fundamental mathematic proof with no knowledge of what it was by doing the same.

Guess what? This is another phony emotional appeal through a quaint story which is told in such a way to give the illusion of deeper meaning.

You need to take off your blinders, Katelyn. You are going to keep running into this when you jump into a conversation with both feet and start spouting nonsensical flag-draped cross-waving gibberish and try to pass that off as compelling argument.

[TPNiedermann]

To me, as a lifelong atheist, being an atheist is not a rejection of faith or religion as such, but a rejection of rigid belief. Most people regard faith and belief as the same. They are not. You can have faith and not believe in God. This sounds strange, but it is a long-standing theological argument and seems particularly relevant today, where people of different religions seem hell-bent on exterminating each other all over the world. These are believers, who have created for themselves an exclusive universe, where all those outside are in some way not human (or "unclean" as some of them put it) and deserving of annihilation.

A belief by definition is an acceptance of something as fact. The problem comes when beliefs become rigid, set in stone adn incontestable by reason or contradicting facts. (Think about all the trouble Columbus had convincing people the Earth was round--even though the Greeks had figured it out 2000 years before). Such believers have defined their beliefs in a rigid, immutable way that tolerates no variation. And they routinely exclude "unbelievers" and discriminate against them. Such people tend to be in constant conflict with others, or at least this is what history would seem to suggest.

A person of faith, on the other hand seeks to include others in a bond of faith, or trust, to reduce tensions and crate a situation where people live in harmony, not conflict. But God is not required for this, only faith in others. From this grow common bonds of morality and law, leading to stable, peaceful societies.

I write about this a lot. My latest book is "The Words that Created God: An Atheist Reveals the True Meaning of the Ten Commandments." In it, I talk about how faith is created (we are not born with it) and show how the secular, pagan origins of the Ten Commandments actually have little to do with God and a lot to do with created viable human societies. It can be found on amazon.com.

[johnson1010]

Good post, TPN.

To me, beliefs can be broken up into (at least) two categories.

Belief from confidence, and belief from faith.

Confidence being an expectation built on past experience, evidence and extrapolation to the future. Faith being an expectation held in defiance of past experience and evidence.

In the case of "faith in your fellow man" i suppose without getting too specific that would require some faith, vs. just confidence. But then, i do not believe in all my fellow humans. Some of them merit confidence, and others you can expect to misbehave. Of course, that's a function of their individual histories, and not a broad stroke assesment of reliability.

Welcome to the board!

[(author) Katelyn]

I would like to say one last thing and I'm done. For good. To deny there is a God, you have to accept there is one. Try to figure out what I mean before commenting. Thank you and goodbye.

[Interbane]

There's no need to accept one first. Knowledge of the concept, such as knowing about Zeus, does not mean you treat the concept as factual.

[(author) Katelyn]

@ Chris. is there any way you can remove my account. or at least take my email off were i no longer get emails. plz thanks

[nomsisa]

Two eleven year old boys played baseball in the street . A ball flew high over one boys head.. he ran backwards to catch it , right into an oncoming truck. He was killed instantly.
At the boy's funeral, a priest tried to comfort a grieving mother:
"It was God's Will," the priest said.
The mother:
"His death had nothing to do with god's will, my boy was not looking before he ran."

I share mother's belief.