Atheism is a belief (Why Atheists don't believe part 2)

What I meant was that when you are a wee child you do not have any codified beliefs at all.You will of course wonder about where you came from an why you are alive at all and how big is the universe but the concept of a god does not spring magically into mind.It took thousands of years of civilization to move from a pantheon to a single god. There is no set belief format pre installed in our heads. We have a varying level of information verasity confidence that we need to aquire before we accept concepts but that is it.You start off with no informationa and have to assess every peice of data you recieve.We start out lives with nothing to believe in because our brains (untill we achieve the Theory of Mind) are incabable of imagining anything that implies a consciousness outside of our own.As toddlers we can shut our eyes to hide form people.When Bagpuss goes to sleep, all his friends go to sleep.It is not untill about 3 or 4 years (sometimes never) old that we can even entertain the notion that there may be a consiousness that is not our own.The default position as early as we can get (the start of grammatical language aquisition and the end of infantile amnaesia) is of no belief in anything that is not you.Some toddlers have issues with where they (their bodies) end and the rest of the world begins (this can be seen in some autistic adults).The default position could be seen as there being no consciouseness other than the toddler and this certainly precludes gods and spirirts.Once the child cottons on to the fact that it is not the only thing real in the universe it has the capacity to learn about gods and spirits and make a value judgement.This is a positve choice to alter the default state.

Guess I can see why not believing in the xian god seems strange if you accept the bible as fact. If I believed it was fact I too would believe in the xian god.As it stands when I was exposed to the bible as a wee child and youg adult, it just did not add up.As a hypothesis it failed my tests. What more can I say? Please see my above post to Phat (#226) re: being born with no belief in anything other than your own reality. I think it pretty much counter what you have posted here.

Prove it. Says who?
I not only accept your decsion about it, but embrace it. There seems to be some kind of mistake in thinking that I am Jesus or something.I have every right to hate, it's my nature to hate things.
I can even be righteous in hating certain things.
I am a sinner like the rest of us.

We are going back over 20 years now, but it was mostly science classes, and most likely not all. But it was the general attitude of most, and left me to figure it out about God.Couple that with the joke that is religion sometimes, and I had to return to my "default postion" (j/k) of being agnostic.

BTW, you spelled remedial, atheistic, and surrounded wrong.Well way back in Message 191 I made the assertion "Another pre-programmed response that they must teach in college these days."I did not mention your family, you did.You have no clue if I am a loving caring Christian, you don't know me from a hole in the wall. No wonder you haven't found God. You seem to be confused. Around here we do not attack the person (which you seem to be doing a lot of) we attack the subject, it's part of the forum rules. It would serve us all a little better if you would keep your emotions out of it.Now all this has been entertaining for sure, but you'll have to prove there is no God, or prove that you have never heard about, or felt there was a God, in order for atheism not to be a belief.Let's stay on topic here.I'll ask you another question, what is beyond our known universe?Edited by riVeRraT, : typing error

Let's put it this way.
"If God exists" then every one of these silly little comments about God not existing could be considered dogma.I am not making an assertion that every atheist uses it.Does dogma have to be a written rule?

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Let's put it this way.
"If God exists" then every one of these silly little comments about God not existing could be considered dogma

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Except for the fact that you didn't include any such comments in your original point, and the fact that the truth of a beleif has nothing to do with whether it is dogma or not.

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I am not making an assertion that every atheist uses it.

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It is belief, not use that makes a dogma. A dogma is an article of faith not a commonly-used argument.So let's ask again. How does your making up the idea that college professors commonly ask "Prove that God exists" establish the existence of an "atheist dogma" when it isn't true and there is no reference to anything that could be reasonably considered a dogma ?And this time please address the actual question isntead of resortign to non-sequiturs

At what age are we talking about, because as a child I was afraid of many things that just diod not exist. It sprang into someones mind, but I agree, not everyones mind, is a possibility, hence the default position of atheism or "true atheist". It's difficult to say exactly what happened throughout the history of man, and why all those other gods existed. Sure there is lot's of evidence, but there is much missing also. I cannot say with any authority, other than what the bible says that originally we knew where we came from. But my "belief" is not based on that. It's one of those things I am dying to ask God. I do not agree with that. I have memories from when I was 1.5 years old.But the bible explains that we are to be born again. It explains that we are first born of the flesh, then born of the spirit. Which kind of goes along with what your saying. Probably the reason why children automatically go to heaven.So I agree with what your saying, and I find truth in it. I think it matches what Jesus taught us, which I also find truth in.But I also think that we were created to worship God. This is a default position that comes to be realized when we reach our state of consiousness.Atheist look for this, and what they see is not convincing enough to believe in it, so they believe there is no God.

Let me clarify.The bible exist, that is fact.I did not believe in it first, I just read it.
After I had my experience with the Holy Spirit, I can believe in it. In an instant it became very clear to me. Well me either. Especially when I compared what I read with the behavior of those who claim to be followers. I blamed religion for years. Now I realize that religion has nothing to do with God, it's made by, and run by man.I think focusing just on what Jesus taught is the best start.

Well this is one definition of dogma:An authoritative principle, belief, or statement of ideas or opinion, especially one considered to be absolutely true.This doesn't describe atheism at all?

Then, naturally the toddler will tend to inherit their parent’s worldview, and included in that is their Parent’s religion.The God or Gods you believe in is, in the majority of cases, simply a matter of to whom you were born. As an Atheist I have a hard time reconciling ”Truth’ and religion, when what god you believe is the ”One True God’ is usually made through accident of birth.If you were raised by Christian parents, think on this. Had you been born to Muslim parents instead, you would be praying to Allah instead of Jesus.If you are one who claims to have had an epiphany that confirmed your religion to you, then in this alternate universe, your epiphany would have simply confirmed Allah as undeniably real.If Belief in any one god is as flimsy and arbitrary as this then that is a very weak foundation to assert absolute truth for any of them.For me Atheism is a belief. I believe that the God/s do not exist. It has to be a belief as I cant actually prove it to be 100%true. But the lack of solid evidence in the God/s’ favour (and not through lack of people looking) makes me reasonably confident in my belief. There is the big difference between a Theist and an Atheist:The majority of Atheists would honestly state:
I Freely admit that my belief in the non-existence of the God/s could be wrong. As I can’t prove 100% their lack of existence it would be dishonest of me to say other wise. Though I firmly and resolutely BELIVE that the God/s do NOT exist, IF I was to come across some evidence that was UNDENIABLE, that proved the existence of the God/s then I would have to re-adjust my world view accordingly. You would be hard pressed to get the majority of Theists to honestly state:
I Freely admit that my belief in the existence of the God could be wrong. Though I believe God to exist, it would be dishonest of me not to acknowledge as a human I am not infallible. Though I firmly and resolutely BELIVE that the God/s Do exist, IF I was to come across some evidence that was UNDENIABLE, that undermined his existence, then I would have to re-adjust my world view accordingly. That, either way you slice it, is the difference between Atheistic , and Theistic belief.

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Well this is one definition of dogma:

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An authoritative principle, belief, or statement of ideas or opinion, especially one considered to be absolutely true.

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You will note that it doesn't say anything about the truth of the dogma. Thus it supports my point. Also I asked you to answer my question without non-sequiturs and you have not done so.Now as to whether your question as to whether the definition fits atheism or not, firstly I will point out that this discussion is using a wide definition of atheism which includes simply not taking a stance on whether a God exists or not. This clearly does not fit. Even if we take a narrower definition which requires taking the idea that God does not exist I would have to question whether it would fit - where is the "authority" that makes it "authoritative".

Humans clearly display infantile amnaesia. Our brains are not as developed as other mammals at birth. The neural growth spurt stops at about 9 months after birth (we have several neural growth spurts).There then follws a period where we react to stimulus but we do not have the neural apparatus to remember this time. Memory typically kicks in at the age when we aquire language. Only after this time can we effectively be said to have beliefs.But to have a belief about an external consciousness you need a Theory of Mind. At 1.5 years you did not have this. You mis-understand. You may well have memories from that age but you would be an amazing individual if you had Theory of Mind at that age. If you had memories at that age I predict you were an early talker. This would conflict with what I hear from other xians. Pretty unfair if you lived in a time/location that never is exposed to xian doctorine don't you think?

Of course I believe the bible exist.I do however, on the balance of the evidence I have been exposed to conclude the information contained therin to be an interesting work of fiction, most likely with some veins of truth, exagerated in the style of any folk lore tail that was recorded many years after the events depicted.Try reading Homer or Mallory and you will see what I mean.Edited by Larni, : Deleted scenes, Theatrical Trailer, Interactive Menu, Scence Selection.

Then my best guess is that you have misremembered. Most scientists would consider it a part of their professional ethics, that they should not raise religious questions in a science class. They might answer questions from a student, but would normally be clear that they are expressing opinion rather than scientific knowledge.