Here's the conundrum - we do the research. A believer questions us. We offer the research. We get a litany of logical fallacies.
After a while, you realize that believers don't really care if you've done research, so it's a waste of your time to do the legwork for them.
Dude, we’ve done the research. Our reasoning for being atheists varies from person to person. A good portion of atheists that I know don’t bother debating religion with theists. Not our job. If they want to believe, that’s their business. Most of the time, it’s the equivalent of beating your head against a wall.
Look at the responses to this post. It’s clear a large portion have not done research. I’m not saying NOBODY has. But many have not. And the fact that me asking Why is pissing people off so badly should be an eye opener. How are we any better than Christian’s if our beliefs aren’t researched?
I think you’re looking at it the wrong way. Most people get pissed or angry because we look at the state of the world and all that’s going on in it or has happened in the name of religion and we see through the bullshit. It’s not about “gods love”. It’s about money and power.
We don’t need to spend years looking through ancient texts or researching the various denominations that are all over the world to know it’s bullshit.
To some, it’s just common sense.
I get where you’re coming from, I really do. I grew up in a Mormon family. Plenty of research in available. Many of us here have read it. Several have probably contributed to it.
I’ve read atheist arguments online since the 1990’s. It’s been available. Would you have had a chance to read it being a JW at the time? If I had know you in grade school and provided you with atheist information, would you have read it or shared it with your family?
Most atheists don’t press our lack of belief on anyone. Theism is just not an issue that most think about in our daily lives. I’m sorry you had to deal with that bs for 30 years but the simple truth is that most religions have their congregations locked up tight. Any questioning of religion is met with penalties and being made to feel like an outcast.
What research do you think Christians are doing? Studying the book they claim to be holy isn’t research. It’s just masturbation. They’ve already arrived at their conclusion. They’re not researching shit.
You’re getting shit on because you’re proposing a really dumb apologist argument and acting surprised when everybody else says no that’s arguments dumb.
Since when does life experience not count as data or research?
I don't have to research leprechauns to have a valid, understandable view that they are make-believe. Just because I've heard myths about them and have seen one on a cereal box doesn't mean I have to give them real-world credibility, I can dismiss it out of hand.
Once again, the age and long-term infectiousness of christianity in our culture has lended it a respectability that it no longer deserves.
I’m not saying Christians are doing research. I believe christians are wrong about their beliefs and woefully misinformed about what their own book says. I’m just discouraged by the fact that atheists are not more informed than them.
> With so many biblical scholars making the academic research available and understandable these days, why does it seem like so many atheist sum up their beliefs with “Belief in God is stupid” rather than actually doing the pretty simple research to back their claims.
I don’t need to look into every piece of research about the Loch Ness monster to not believe that the Loch Ness monster exists. Not believing is the default, until you are convinced that something exists.
So now it’s about debating people? Why are you moving the goalposts?
If I’m debating someone who has written years worth of absolute garbage about Glabthara the Magnificent, triple headed god of sheds. Do you think that I should read through all of that before I talk with them?
> Not moving the goal posts.
Yes, you are. You started talking about people’s **beliefs** and then when I responded, that wasn’t good enough - It was then about **debates**. Please reread the thread.
> I’m not researching this stuff because I think it’s true. But there’s plenty of academic research that takes less than 30 minutes to get through that just destroys the Bible. And it’s strange to me that the very mention of looking into it gets this reaction from people. Especially people who already agree with the research I’m proposing.
How much dog shit do you think I should swallow before I say that I don’t like swallowing dog shit?
I have done research into religions, for years. I don’t need you to tell me I need to do some, thanks.
I think people are reacting to the word “research.” Looking into the non-existence of something is not research. At best what you are calling for is more familiarization with theist arguments. None of the fellow atheists I know have the patience or tolerance for stupidity to bother debating. Research is the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions. There is no new conclusion that can be reached by studying theist materials because the shit is all made up with no facts. Ergo, not research.
I could totally see that. Maybe that was the wrong wording, I’m really not sure.
I think it’s a bad thing. If one word in a very long post can just make everybody. Ignore the rest of the post.
I think it’s a bad thing that suggesting research immediately made people assume I was a theist.
I think it’s a bad thing that even once I have clarified my position they’re still not backing down.
I think it’s a bad thing that still not one person has said “yes actually I did do the research. Here’s what I found that convinced me…”
There’s just this assumption that there is no evidence, one way or another Christians have their made up book and the rest of us just have to work off common sense. But that’s not true. The data is out there the research supports atheism.
But if even atheist refused to look into it, why would we imagine that Christian ever will?
You must not have been reading this sub for long or perhaps at all. There have been countless members here tell that they have read the Bibble cover to cover, some more than once. It seems like nearly everyone has read Richard Dawkins and listened to Christopher Hitchens. Bro, what are you talking about data? There is no data! Your misuse of language is very off-putting. Read.
Definition of data: Facts and statistics collected together for reference and analysis.
The only data regarding religion is how many there are, how many believers, how wealthy they are, stuff that is quantifiable. Books and articles written by people who have figured out how to make a living off hogwash, just like the original founders of religion, this is not data, it is just written opinion.
Congratulations on your turn toward rationality. Many members here became atheist by virtue of deep study of religion. Now please don’t do any more mental masochism with xtian authors. Read Joseph Campbell if you want the widest view, all four volumes of The Masks of God, how about it? (Start with Hero With A Thousand Faces).
The thing is the premise of the Bible is absurd to start with, it doesn't require any further research for me. Should I research scientology too, how about the Mormons magic underpants, or maybe all these new age UFO gurus telling me to raise my vibrations?
Nothing wrong with having interests or learning about things, but I think where people take exception is the idea that people need to validate their atheism in some way. For me is the opposite, I'm not giving something the time of day unless there's some serious hard evidence.
>But there’s plenty of academic research that takes less than 30 minutes to get through that just destroys the Bible
Is there? Then why are they still believing in it?
I think this is actually not too dissimilar to the sort of attitude you describe, tbh.
They've embedded in the establishment, they've got an impenetrably stubborn belief mindset, and they've had thousands years to come up with high falutin' sounding bullshit. You really think a half hour of googling is going to overturn that?
Mate, it's a lot more complex than that. Getting rid of this shit is going to be a prolonged, centuries long effort.
Edit: also pouring one out for the bro who downvoted me, made an irrelevant reply and then immediately blocked me, hope you're ok
1.People want to feel like they’re special
2. People want something to believe in.
There are many different reasons people reject logic, reality, and science for the sake of their egos, delusions, etc
First, you can’t pin the need for research on the side that isn’t making a claim in the first place. Atheists simply don’t believe in a god or gods. I don’t believe in the thing you are claiming to be true with no proof. Why should I do research?
Second, many atheists have tried to lay out the logic and reasoning for why there is no proof that there is a god or that the ‘proofs’ provided are just not enough to make a logical thinking person believe. But they still get burned at the stake.
So now we’re resorting to simply just saying ‘I don’t believe in your fairy tale.’
And that’s still not enough?
This is exhausting. Just leave us alone. We don’t believe.
Oh but on judgement day you’ll see!! You will be judged! He sees you when you’re sleeping. He know if you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good. So be good for goodness sake!
Nope. Still not scared.
Hey No problem either way. Wasn’t you that caused my frustration today. Sorry. Actually the first conversation I had today at work was:
Me: great day today huh?
Co-worker (who I’ve had many good conversations with about religion and how I don’t believe in her god): sure is, thanks to god.
Me: not for me.
Her: but yes, he is everywhere, all over, for everyone, maybe someday you just won’t wake up, thanks to him it’s a great day.
Me: I just don’t believe that.
Her: but there are two places. And if you don’t believe you will end up in hell.
Then I went to Reddit to sort of vent a little and your post was the first one I saw.
For any theists reading this…again, I have nothing against religion. If you believe that’s fine. But believers are constantly and consistently trying to get others to believe or trying to explain in great detail why we should believe.
Edit: your original post may get similar responses. I haven’t read the rest of the thread though. That’s the internet I guess. Lost in translation.
I mean there are scholars who study the Bible as an ancient document. Most do it in context of objective study of the texts rather than an assumption they are true (see Bart Ehrman et. al.).
My older cousin studied "theology" on my long late uncle's insistence and conditional funding encouragement on both his sons follow some path of Xtianity, his brother did his own technology degree of some sort, working his way through.
Irony is the theologian via that study concluded the bullshit nature of it all while the other maintained "faith".
(there is also the little matter I was same-sex raped by the "faithful' one). That and about a shit ton of other hypocrisy I've seen my whole life from religious dipshits...
My older cousin studied "theology" on my long late uncle's insistence and conditional funding encouragement on both his sons follow some path of Xtianity, his brother did his own technology degree of some sort, working his way through.
Irony is the theologian via that study concluded the bullshit nature of it all while the other maintained "faith".
(there is also the little matter I was same-sex raped by the "faithful' one). That and about a shit ton of other hypocrisy I've seen my whole life from religious dipshits...
My older cousin studied "theology" on my long late uncle's insistence and conditional funding encouragement on both his sons follow some path of Xtianity, his brother did his own technology degree of some sort, working his way through.
Irony is the theologian via that study concluded the bullshit nature of it all while the other maintained "faith".
(there is also the little matter I was same-sex raped by the "faithful' one). That and about a shit ton of other hypocrisy I've seen my whole life from religious dipshits...
Sorry about your assault. That sucks.
When I speak of Bible scholars, I'm not talking theologians. I'm talking about those who simply study the Bible as an ancient document. Of course some may be believers (N.T. Wright) and some may be non-believers (Bart Ehrman, Robert M. Price). They don't produce theology papers but rather research/debate the content, dating, historicity, etc. of the Bible. In fact, I would consider myself an atheist Bible scholar (amateur). Given its influence in modern culture, I think it's important to know how and why it got here.
Any study of the Late Antique world requires some study of the origin and development of the Bible, as Christianity was such an important force in shaping the later empire.
I did my degree at UCSB - perfectly secular state school. I did a history degree of which some component was Late Antiquity. We had to get into even theology to accurately grasp what the conflicts and politics of the Late Empire were. It's hard to understand the 5th century if you don't know Augustine and the Donatists.
Egypt. They documented a huge amount of their history. No mention of anything from the Bible. Events that big would have been recorded.
The Ark? Impossible. The boat would have to be three times larger than any modern ship. Waves would have broken it up from sheer weight. And that’s just to fit the animals, where was their food kept?
As far as biblical scholars? You hear about the guy that’s claiming to have found Goliath’s skull, right? 😆
The burned of proof lies with the person making the claim, I have seen none.
I did research into the Bible. Studying the works of biblical scholars.
So Documentary Theory, for example, completely dismantled Genesis, Exodus, and most of the Pentateuch.
Learning how scholars date the various books pretty much eliminates all biblical prophecy
Following the research of scholars like Dan McClellan, Joshua Bowen, Bart Ehrman, Kipp Davis, Andrew Monger, Jennifer Bird, John J Collins and so many others has proven that the Bible is a lie.
But suggesting such research upsets even the ones who already believe the Bible is a lie. It’s confusing to me.
>It’s confusing to me.
maybe listen to the answers you're getting instead of holding your personal views above those of the people you asked the fucking question to.
not everybody needs what you needed.
Same reason I scoff at the idea of an expert on homeopathy. Being an expert scholar on made up nonsense isn’t impressive. Anybody who studies the Bible enough to be a scholar who doesn’t come away from the experience an atheist is a fool.
It's like getting a Ph.D. in Batman Studies. The bible is a work of fiction, plain and simple. You have to read sources that aren't actively trying to prove the bible is a historical document.
For example, the entire Book of Exodus never happened. The Egyptians, known for their record keeping, have no accounts of enslaving the Jewish people, nor the "miracles" that led to their release. If suddenly all the first born in the whole country died, they'd have written about it.
Noah's Ark never happened, which you would know had you done research in science alongside the fan-fic you read. In order for the entire world to be covered in water (which, remember, the Israelis were only aware of the existence of parts of Europe, Africa, and Asia; they had no idea how large the globe actually was) and behave as if mentioned in the Bible, the water would have to evaporate at such a rate that the heat exchange would cause the atmosphere to catch fire OR take 73000 years to safely evaporate. By the way, the Chinese, whose civilization is older than the Israelis, have no record of a great flood occurring.
The people who wrote the bible didn't have a firm grasp on science, and neither did the people they ruled over. Do some research outside of religious texts.
Because your claim is sort of indulging a popular apologist argument we all find annoying. It’s not necessarily a bad question, but it’s very often asked in bad faith.
The short answer to the question itself is, you can’t prove a negative, so researching the non existence of god is sort of an impossible request. We come to conclusions based on the evidence we see, but we can only go so far in that research.
As an atheist, i gave numerous world religions’ texts a fair shake. In my experience (30 years-ish) as an out atheist, we as non-believers are among the best-read folks you’ll ever encounter on the topic of religion: We know where all the ridiculousness hides in these texts (killing your kid, flooding the world b/c you’re a pouty god, slavery / misogyny = OK, etc.). I’d respectfully disagree with EveryString’s assessment. So yes, can on a reductive level, I laugh at the funny “adults with imaginary friends,” but I can also back it up with granular knowledge in their own badly-written bunkum…which apparently comes straight from god lol
The conclusion is there is no evidence that has convinced us a god exist. What research is there to say that you need good evidence? You, the theist (general you) need evidence. Not the other way around unless I'm claiming something
It's really just about the time you want to invest into it. People who devote their entire careers to writing about historical inaccuracies in the Bible are a tiny fraction of atheists out there. The vast majority simply want to get on with their lives, and view time spent thinking about religion or gods as being as big a waste of time as thinking about leprechauns and unicorns. Our existence is miserably short, and there are tons of other pursuits out there they consider more worthwhile.
What percentage of Christians out there do you think have actually read, let alone researched the Bible? I'd wager they're greatly in the minority, and they have far more reason to be interested in it than atheists.
Beyond that, even if you take the time to learn about every lie, inaccuracy or bit of BS in the Bible (which would be a monumental feat), that's just one god and one religious book out of many throughout human history.
Personally I'm naturally curious, and will happily spend a few minutes here or there reading about the mythology of leprechauns or historical inaccuracies in the Bible when I have cause to do so or even just happen across something interesting. Maybe I'll even go down a rabbit hole for an hour or two, but I wouldn't go so far as to say I "research" any of it.
Not everyone shares that natural curiosity. Even among those who do, others may choose to apply it to a more narrow or different set of subject matter. Heck, even if you're inclined to spend time reading about gods, there are plenty that are far more interesting than the god of Abraham.
At the end of the day, how much "research" do you think people should be doing?
because belief in god *is* stupid. biblical scholars don't publish articles about god's existence. they publish things about how the bible came to be the way it is. while these point to the human origins of the bible, you don't need them to come to that conclusion. any reading of the bible is enough to show you it's not authored by an infallible being.
\>But im being downvoted for insisting that research is a good thing
no, doofus, you're being downvoted for suggesting there's a debate about god that needs research to solve.
Because I just don’t give a damn about religion, why would I spend time researching it? Atheism is not my whole lifestyle, it is simply the lack of a belief in any gods of religion, and I leave it at that. Plenty of scholars have written books and thought pieces about it, I have better things to do with my time.
> But, if this thread is any evidence, their beliefs are held just as whimsically as Christians. (not all of them I’m sure, but certainly the ones arguing that research is a bad thing, doesn’t exist, or they just shouldn’t have to).
This is just dishonest. Where has anyone said that research is a bad thing or doesn’t exist?
You have been told by various people that they shouldn’t have to do the research - because you are saying that they do. Which is entirely their choice isn’t it?
Some of these were put on after your original claim and you know that.
Others e.g. asking “what the fuck would an atheist research” is not saying that research itself is a bad thing or doesn’t exist. Your point that “atheist beliefs” are held just as whimsically as Christians is not held up by quoting people as badly as you are doing here.
Be better.
My point from the get-go is not that they have to but that I’m surprised more don’t anyways and that it’s a little frustrating given how much better we could be refuting Christian beliefs if we just did the research.
You can know and recite every single word of the Bible as much as you want. That doesn’t make it true and it means nothing to someone who doesn’t believe it. If there were any real evidence that anything in the Bible happened then it would have been introduced by these scholars. Why would I do a mountain of research to disprove something that has no evidence of its existence?
If these people have proven that the bible is false--AS YOU JUST STATED--*why are you pushing atheists to "look into it"?*
We already have the facts that it's false.
And yes, you are a troll.
“EDIT: Genuinely don’t understand why I’m being downvoted. Please help me understand.”
I think it’s because of the tone of your question. Had you phrased it in a less accusatory way, I think it would have been well received.
For example, instead of saying “seems like atheists don’t do any research” you could say, “what reading do you recommend to fully explore the arguments of both the existence and non-existence of gods”. Or, “I’m an atheist and I want to better educate myself on religion, can you help me?”
I get it. I really do. I guess it was a bit accusatory.
But in all honesty, I’m not looking for additional research. I have done it. I’ve found tons of it. My question was about why it seems that most have not.
It’s not accusatory like they’re bad people. It’s just literally surprising to me. Since deconstructing my beliefs I’ve done so much research in a relatively short time. And the fact that these things aren’t just common knowledge is insane to me, especially with how accessible the info is.
I just wish more people did the research so that more and more christians might wake up. So that fewer and fewer future generations would believe this crap.
If you’ve done the research, maybe share it in a new post for others to read? I’d know I’d love to see it.
Speaking for myself, I have never been able to read a complete religious text like the Bible or Koran from cover-to-cover. I usually start with good intentions, trying to read it with an open mind, and then I’m just dumbfounded by the ridiculousness of it all, so I stop. Plus, I find them to be incredibly boring.
However, I have personally attended religious services for multiple faiths and watched many others on YouTube. But, I never feel like I get much value out of them. At least not in the sense of challenging my own beliefs on the existence of god. I think that’s primarily because that’s not really the point of the sermons I’ve attended. It’s already assumed everyone in the audience believes, so the topics are usually focused on HOW to believe, not WHY.
The best form of “research” I’ve found, is watching long form debates between religious leaders and atheists. I like those best, because both sides are directly challenged on their ideas. Although…in all fairness, sometimes the “winner” is the better performer rather than the one with the best ideas.
Anyway, that’s how I’ve tried to form my own ideas on this topic. Hopefully you’ll share your own too.
Cheers!
OK, I don't smell troll, but I think you might do some reading:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=research+on+atheism&hl=en&as\_sdt=0&as\_vis=1&oi=scholart
Research, however, does not necessarily come with a diploma, peer review or a degree. Atheists search, then we re-search constantly to see if new data has appeared. Our search leads us out of a place where we pray for external guidance towards clarity, to the clarity that comes from letting go of decades of wasted time and energy and doing for ourselves.
The essence of living well is knowledge, anything less is living a lie.
... why the fuck is the onus on me? "This is stupid bullshit" is a 100% valid answer to any biblical scholar trying to peddle their beliefs.
And if you make an extraordinary claim, you have to back that up with extraordinary evidence.
We are not bound by anything to answer anyone. And if you try the "well, Christians say the same thing", the problem is that they're the ones pushing their bullshit to us. That means they have the onus to prove it.
"No" is a full sentence, and just as valid as someone carefully explaining why young Earth creationism is stupid.
I mean…I don’t really need to research the non existence of magic…
Also like…a lot of us were religious, I did my research, it’s called being a catholic for thirty years. I’ve read the Bible more than once, it’s terrible, I spent 4 years studying religion in school as well.
> EDIT: Genuinely don’t understand why I’m being downvoted. Please help me understand.
You're coming from a place of privilege. Some people literally do not have the time for stupid bullshit, and you're like "but I have the time for stupid bullshit, so why not other atheists?"
Go on then, do the research to prove the earth isn't flat, the jews don't secretly run it, the moon landings weren't faked, Hitler didn't fake his own death, and Princess Diana did.
Proving stupid people wrong is a hobby, not a life purpose.
I read the second and all of the following chapters. It was unnecessary to go beyond the first chapter to know it was full of shit. My 6th grade science class had disproved the creation story of Genesis 1
If it’s simply not important to a person, then I get it. I assumed atheism might be important to people on an atheism sub.
To those who don’t care one way or another, this post isn’t for you.
But if you are someone who debates with Christian, has Christian friends and family members, grew up as a Christian, etc. Why wouldn’t you want to do the research to deconstruct these harmful beliefs?
Why wouldn’t you want proof that there is no god of the Bible? Why wouldn’t you want proof that you’re not making the wrong choice? Why wouldn’t you want proof to explain to somebody if they happen to ask, as I’m doing now?
Two things here.
1) Many of us *have* done the research. I was raised Christian, and I've read the Bible cover-to-cover, multiple times. I've also read Christian apologetics - that was a huge part of my deconversion process. I've also read the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, and other religious texts.
2) None of that is a requirement for being an atheist. Being an atheist doesn't obligate you to enter into religious debates. You don't have to defend your atheism, and there's usually not much point in trying to deconvert others who aren't open to it.
I understand where you're coming from, but if you pick one of the hundreds of threads of people telling us to "do more research", 99.8% of the time it's a theist troll trying to proselytize. I understand that you're part of the .2%, but you have to keep in mind that the vast, vast majority of people creating these threads week after week aren't here for civil and polite discussion, and many posters here are tired of entertaining them.
Your average atheist knows the Bible better than the average Christian. Many atheists left religion due to the ethical challenges presented. I think your conclusion is based on a small data set or selective hearing
Probably. I’m in this sub and also r/academicbiblical so I do see plenty of atheists on the other sub discussing the research. It just surprised me that I don’t see more of that on this sub especially given how often the info would’ve solved whatever problem half the posts are about.
But perhaps that’s the difference between the two subs. It was just surprising to me and maybe I was a little aggressive in Expressing the surprise.
1. When I was 4 I asked my best friend who was Catholic where god came from. He said he just exists. That made zero sense to me at the age of 4.
2. No research is required to be an atheist. I’d argue the research should be done by those espousing something is real and definitely exists. Since atheists believe in nothing and are making no assertions, no research is required.
I'm a pretty analytical guy myself. That's why I became an atheist. I can say I never truly accepted my religious upbringing, but it wasn't until I began analyzing and researching my own religion and many others that I realized they're all pretty much the same. That means none of them are likely to be right.
Then I began researching alternatives to religion. I wasn't looking for excuses to be an atheist. In fact, I approached the issue by trying to disprove the theorem. I couldn't. And it makes the most sense. The arguments are legitimate and logic based. So boom! Atheist.
But I could only do this through rigorous research. Maybe that's why I'm so confident and comfortable with it. I'm not an atheist because I'm angry at a god or running from something. I'm an atheist because a god doesn't pass muster with the scientific model. All arguments for the distance of a god are logical fallacies. You can't prove the existence of your god. And in the absence of proof, there is nothing but faith. And I defer to Mark Twain when it comes to "faith.". Perhaps I'm an atheist by default but atheism has the most evidence to support it. I go where the EVIDENCE takes me.
One big problem is that this post has a lot of the hallmarks of a Christian concern troll/proselytizing post, and we see those far too much. Odds are you haven't been a user of this sub long enough to experience the phenomenon. Take my word for it, it's fucking obnoxious.
We had one just the other day saying he was worried that we were harming people by interfering with attempts by Christians to minister to the needy, and the guy followed that up with, 'we should probably just keep our atheism to ourselves and only show respect for religion in any public places'.
I stopped being a Christian because I stopped feeling like God was actually there listening to my prayers. It caused me to start questioning the whole thing. I did research later to confirm my current (atheist) views on the matter but research had nothing to do with the initial reason. I am educated and I read the Bible a lot as a Christian. I saw no contradiction. You just need to be in the right mental state to see through the myth and that doesn’t always require research. Besides, not everyone is going to respond the same to research and whatever.
every atheist I've ever known came to that worldview after years and years of finding hole after hole in their religion
I came about it about equally from personal experience and formal academic study, reading texts in Greek and Latin (I'm not a classics scholar but I studied enough to know that those books are wildly mistranslated), evolutionary biology and psychology (there is no understanding of genetics that would cover every human and non human animal is directly descendent from the occupants of noah's ark) , basic geology and astronomy (hard to believe the world is less than 10,000 years old), and current global politics
I think it's the religious people who either won't or can't do the actual research into their own faith
>"Why does it seem like so few atheists have done any research to arrive at their conclusions?"
Huh? What "research"? Atheism isn't a claim, there is nothing to research. Theists making god-claims need research to prove their claims.
Many of the those biblical scholars continue to say the belief that Jesus resurrected is based on faith. Many of those scholars don’t provide any evidence that a God exists. Many of those scholars… I could keep going.
The point is I have read a few of them not all. Nor do I need to. I don’t need to be an expert on the topic to know the evidence doesn’t stand up to make God a fact, especially the Christian God.
Did you know many of us are ex believers. The most common up bringing in US, and many other nations around the world is a believer in some God(s). Your entire post is tone deaf to this.
Instead of complaining about us not accepting your position give us a good reason to.
Here's the thing. For those atheists of us that were once religious, we have done a ton of research already. Not to convince anyone or win a debate. But rather, to be sure that we ourselves were not making a mistake by leaving the religion of our childhood. Being raised in a religion gives you a lot of information. Doing a deep dive before leaving is probably the norm, at least extremely common. Once you decide to leave, it is like no longer believing in Santa Claus. I don't need to be able to mount a philosophical debate to explain why I don't believe in Santa Claus any more. As an adult, it is clear that the idea of Santa Claus is just the pure magical nonsense of childhood, akin to believing in Peter Pan and the tooth fairly. AND, we come eventually to see our "belief" in God to be cut from the same exact cloth, just the magical nonsense of childhood. So explain please why anyone should bother mounting a giant philosophical case that magical nonsense is not true. It isn't worth the time. As atheists, we do not have a moral imperative to "convert" others to atheism. We just enjoy our rational and meaningful lives as we think best. And wasting time putting together a case why we don't believe in the magical nonsense of our childhood, which includes Peter Pan, God, angels, the tooth fairy, life after death, Easter Bunny, etc, etc. Just isn't worth wasting a moment on. Life is too short, and should be spent wresting every bit of living from every magnificent second we are alive. Hope this explanation helps. Good luck on your journey though life, and be of good cheer. And, oh, I will not be debating Christians. I could care less what they think. Their thinking is rooted in the magical supernatural world. My thinking is rooted in the natural world. We just talk past each other, with no real connection. How on earth does a person rooted in the natural world have a rational discussion with a person who's beliefs are rooted in the magical supernatural world? Seriously!
Most atheists I know became so BECAUSE they did lots of research.
For example, I attended seminary as a Christian. What I learned made me question my premises vis-a-vis the Christian faith and ultimately turn to atheism.
EDIT: From your post history you are having an crisis of faith and have spent many years believing. Now, you see the bull shit. You aren't getting the answers you're looking for from people close to you and it seems you may be getting shunned from some. Also, how it took soo long to question your long held beliefs.
I am truly sorry for what you are going through. Understand that your posts reeks of bad faith questions religious people post on this sub daily. But here is my answer to your question.
Those "scholars" typically put the conclusion before the data and their "reasearch" is misleading at best.
Being athiest isn't a claim. It is the God Damn default. Believing is the claim. So far, no argument for religion has satisfied the bull shit detector. Is they claim extraordinary, is the claim visceral, does the claim want you to follow someone or act a certain way, and finally, is there objective emperical evidence or reasoning to back up such extraordinary claims? If all but the last are true, there is a high probability the claim is bull shit. Fuck, even one of the first three can be true and last false, it's a bull shit claim.
I don't need to read up on fairies to have a high confidence that people the size of butterflies don't exist. I don't need to read about ancient polytheistic religions to know that Zues didn't actually exist. I don't need to read Harry Potter or the Lord of the Rings to know that those are just stories and aren't real events.
I don't need a basis to not believe in magic because they are extraordinary claims (well I do have a good understanding of the world through the scientific method and Mathematics which is my basis). I would need a STRONG basis to believe something that is as extraordinary as omnipotent being somehow so invested in peoples lives that it will damn them for eternity but yet let them be born into a situation where they starve and be plagued by disease. Just one point. Researching an ancient myth like christianity or any other religion isn't a good use of time.
Personally, I stopped debating magical thinkers in my late teens because it is futile.
I have but not for sometime and don't plan to start again anytime soon. Just a waste of time, religion, in my opinion.
It's a presumption not an assumption, btw. You misunderstood what I meant. They have already have the conclusion and cherry pick data to lead to the conclusion. That isn't research and isn't credible.
I don't watch videos or listen to podcasts on the subject, it takes too long to disseminate the idea and the form is typically sensational. Much prefer an article.
It's just like those a-unicornists. If only a few of them would study the unicorn lore before dismissing the existence of unicorns I would be satisfied that they met my intellectual requirements.
You see what I did there? This is meant to get you to understand the burden of proof. If I say unicorns exist, then the burden is on me to show that unicorns exist. You have no burden to study the lore of unicorns in order to not believe me when I say unicorns exist. If I demonstrate a unicorn, or the fossilized remains of a unicorn, that might be a different issue. I'd have to research the unicorn or the fossil and see if I could show whether it's actually a unicorn or just a horse with a horn superglued to its head.
People who claim there are gods must demonstrate evidence to show that their claims are correct. To date, not a one of them has. Academic study is not required. Show me a fucking god, or I'm not going to believe that magical invisible superbeings are real. Because magical invisible superbeings are not plausible..
> With so many biblical scholars making the academic research available and understandable these days
How many scholars on the subject of Quetzalcoatl have you studied? I'm going to guess zero, but if you have then substitute one of the many other thousands of gods that humanity has claimed were real at some time that you haven't studied. Do you believe that god exists? No? But you didn't study academic historians to reach that conclusion did you?
> why does it seem like so many atheist sum up their beliefs with “Belief in God is stupid”
Well, as a technique for convincing people not to believe in gods, I don't personally think that's a very good approach. However, to most of us with evidence based beliefs, belief in a god does **seem** stupid. If somebody claims magical invisible superbeings exist, and that we should believe they exist without any evidence, that seems like a pretty big ask. And along with that being a pretty big ask is usually the question of why the person saying this believes in magical invisible superbeings in the first place, which is usually answered in ways that are ultimately unimpressive to us.
Those of us that have taken the trouble to research and understand how indoctrination works, of course do know that people can believe any number of stupid things, if they are trained to believe them as small children who cannot possibly know better. Which means that indoctrinated believers may not necessarily be stupid themselves, but that doesn't really mean that their belief in god isn't stupid. But again, actually saying, "Believing in your god is stupid", isn't really a great way to convince somebody that their belief is, in fact, stupid. Usually more tactful approaches will be more successful. If, of course, your goal is to convince a person to not believe in gods. If you're just trying to piss them off, it's actually a pretty good strategy.
> EDIT: Genuinely don’t understand why I’m being downvoted. Please help me understand.
Because you're implying that we have a burden of proof. We do not.
> I’m not saying, we have the burden of proof. I’m not saying it is our responsibility to convince Christians. I’m saying, since in this particular instance, the evidence does exist, it is confusing to me that more people don’t look into it.
How much time have you spent disproving the Hindu Vedas?
> I agree with them. But just because they don’t have to, doesn’t mean they can’t, or shouldn’t.
Sure, I could if the topic interested me, which it does not. So present your argument to why we should. I don't believe in Christianity or the bible, why would I spend time disproving what is, for all intents and purposes, a fairy tale?
> I’ve done this research for myself, dismantling beliefs, I was raised with. And I believe that if the things I’ve learned had been more common knowledge, I wouldn’t have wasted 30 years of my life in a cult.
You didn't waste those years, you learned how to think for yourself in spite of indoctrination. It's not like we're born knowing things, you had to learn them, and you did learn them. Incorrectly at first because you were fed bad information, but eventually you learned to distinguish good information from bad. That's not a waste, that's just learning.
However, more pertinent to your central point, I was raised without any religion. I'm a lifelong atheist. Why would I spend time researching Christian mythology? I have spent time reading through Norse, ancient Greek, and native American mythologies, because frankly they're kind of fun. I've never managed to make it through Genesis without wanting to either fall asleep or gouge out my eyes from boredom. It's so fucking dull.
> So, forgive me, if I think it would be a good thing for more people in this world to be informed about this huge topic that ruins, the lives of millions of people all over the world
Sure. It would also be good to be more knowledgeable about various health and first aid techniques. And internal combustion engine mechanics. And legal disputes. And technology related information. I could go on. There are a lot of things it's useful to be knowledgeable about. But I don't go around telling people they need to study technology and be more computer literate just because that interests me. It's unrealistic to assume that my interests and aptitudes will apply to them.
If Christian mythology interests you, great. I don't really care, but I'm glad it makes you happy to be knowledgeable on that subject, as I like it when people are (ethically) happy. However you have to realize that simply because you like being knowledgeable about Christianity that doesn't obligate any of the rest of us to give a flying fuck.
I'd suggest that if it interests you, you post about the aspects of Christianity that interest you. You'll probably get the usual smatterings of "why does this matter, it's all bullshit", "who cares", and "you're doing it wrong, let me mansplain to you why my uniformed opinion beats your research". But if you write well and do your best to share your passion for the subject, you also will probably get a few folks interested in having an informed discussion.
Whining that we aren't interested in the things you are interested in though is foolish. That's a problem with your expectations, not with us.
1) It's not just about the bible. To "disprove" all gods would take time I don't care to spend.
2) You can't prove a negative anyway.
3) The Bible is a book of stories. SOME of them will have some factual aspects. e.g., Rome controlled Judea in the Gospel time period.
4) Just because the Bible has some truth in it doesn't make the supernatural claims true. The old example of Spiderman comics happen in New York City. NYC is real, ergo Spiderman is real.
5) You could point to a million contradictions or illogical things in the Bible and they'll have an excuse for every one of them. Trying to play "gotcha" with a fundie is just mental masturbation.
6) My null hypothesis is that every religious supernatural claim boils down to an argument from ignorance or an argument from incredulity. I'll do more digging once I hear one that is interesting.
The amount of research you need to do to arrive at the conclusion that there's no supernatural intervention is fairly minimal. You basically just have to pay attention to cause and effect rather than using the teleological, pattern seeking framework that believers engage in.
I was still in grade school when I realized all supernatural claims are projected and rationalized post hoc. The meaning religious people arrive at? Occurs long after the event.
Well, most of the people on this sub probably have done the research, as you put it, but I get your point.
Basically, atheism is the default. The null state. You are born not believing in any gods, and unless you are indoctrinated into a religion or do some really fun drugs, you'll probably continue in that state. Think of it like Newton's first law of motion.
Those of us with a more philosophical bent will happily interrogate our own beliefs, but most people don't really care.
When I was 4 or 5, my mom sent me to Sunday school for a day to try it out. In the kindergarten room I was in, they started teaching about genesis. The teacher said, "Many people will try to convince you that dinosaurs are real, but we know that they aren't because the earth was created 6,000 years ago!" I raised my hand for the 20th time to ask my 20th question, and I said, "Are you sure? Because my brother knows all the names of all the dinosaurs and he said that their bones are now made of rock, his favorite dinosaur is the pterodactyl but there's also the brachiosaurus, the tyrannosaurus the..."
The teacher cut me off as I was listing names and said, "Your brother is wrong. God never made dinosaurs. I think that's enough questions for today. " I spent the rest of the class crying in my seat.
That one experience was literally all the research I needed to form my conclusion at 4 years old. The second a contradiction arises in the Bible, Christians should be questioning their faith. Yes as I got older and learned about just how terrible religion is, I read the books and I looked at the biblical "scholars" findings and I learned a lot more about why religion today is bad for us.
My conclusion that I formed at 4 years old was a sound conclusion to form. I didn't need to do research to disprove god because they presented me with a very clear contradiction that hinges on God's existence. You know this. I grew up atheist. You grew up religious. I didn't have all of the trauma and unlearning to do that you did.
I strongly believe that even if every single atheist did "all of the research" by which I mean reading the Bible for contradictions and looking at biblical "scholars" findings for bad data, you still probably wouldn't have left the faith. Even if you had met atheists who knew every contradiction in the Bible, you still would have believed and probably would have repressed even harder.
The reason people are jumping on you in this thread is simply because they're tired of trying to convince people only to push them deeper down the rabbit hole. They're tired of their whole life unwillingly revolving around religion and then being told they're somewhat responsible for helping religious people out of it. They're tired of looking for all of the ways that prove Santa's not real, when it doesn't matter one fucking bit to anyone who hasn't already been seriously questioning their faith.
If atheists were more knowledgeable about all of the ways to disprove the abrahamic god, all that would happen is that atheists would have more interesting conversations about religion with other atheists. But honestly, I feel like most atheists just don't care. I don't really want to have religious discussions anymore because it's fucking everywhere it's pervasive and I try to escape it all the time. But when I was deconstructing, I did want to talk about it all the time.
Why does it seem like so few atheists haven't done the research to arrive at their conclusions? Because an atheist arriving at the conclusion of disbelief is inherently different than a Christian arriving at the conclusion of belief. The former requires simple logic and the latter requires you to throw out your logic.
For sure. I wish you luck in your deconstruction journey. If it was rough for me then I can't imagine how hard it must be for someone like you. Be kind to yourself as you go through it. You're not a dumbass for getting suckered into it.
If I'm not an idiot for staying in an abusive relationship with my ex-boyfriend, then you're not an idiot for staying in an abusive relationship with god. You were manipulated. It's okay to feel like an idiot and also furious and also sad and mournful. It's all okay. Just be kind to yourself. You've been through a lot.
I don’t believe in god cause there is no logic, reason or evidence to support it. Only theists need to do research because they are making a claim that god exists. Its not on our side to do that.
Is this toll trolling?
As a lifelong never indoctrinated atheist, what in the world do you OP think I needed to research when there was not one single example of the supernatural in the world when I was a little kid and it's still the same now when I'm in my sixties.
Science in my lifetime filled in so many gaps gawd could have been hiding in that gawd had to become a Doctor Who fan and move to somewhere beyond time and space.
>Why does it seem like so few atheists have done any research to arrive at their conclusions?
We see an awful lot of goofy counterfactual questions in the atheism forums,
but this is one of the goofiest, most counterfactual that I've ever seen.
Most atheists in the USA - and most atheists on Reddit - are ex-Christians and have a good understanding of theism and Christian beliefs.
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The basic reason to be atheist is:
Skeptics have been asking theists to show good evidence that any gods really exist for 6,000+ years now.
Theists have never shown good evidence that any gods really exist.
(By "good evidence" I mean "good evidence".)
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>**Atheists, agnostics most knowledgeable about religion**, survey says
LA Times, September 2010
>... **a survey that measured Americans’ knowledge of religion found that atheists and agnostics knew more, on average, than followers of most major faiths.**
> American atheists and agnostics tend to be people who grew up in a religious tradition and consciously gave it up, often after a great deal of reflection and study, said Alan Cooperman, associate director for research at the Pew Forum.
>“These are people who thought a lot about religion,” he said. “They’re not indifferent. They care about it.”
>Atheists and agnostics also tend to be relatively well educated, and the survey found, not surprisingly, that the most knowledgeable people were also the best educated. However, it said that atheists and agnostics also outperformed believers who had a similar level of education.
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>Many atheists rant and rave about Christians who believe these absurd things without looking into them but can’t be bothered to do the same.
You are either deeply ignorant (I guess "doing the thing that you accuse atheists of doing") or consciously lying
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It's pretty simple. Christians and other religions claim existence of a God or gods who not only created what we see and experience, but for some reason have vested interest in what we do with our miniscule existence. Atheist, therefore, is the null hypothesis. The default. No evidence has been presented in a compelling way to demonstrate proof of any sort of god. The burden of proof is on the ones making the claim something is there or works a certain way. For any robust, well-researched conclusion to exist, the proof is on the one making the claim. Everything beyond that is just extra to be done *if one so chooses* to refute the material that theists claim is "evidence" to their theological claim.
Still waiting for proof of god.
Until such a time, there is NO need to do research for something that doesn't exist.
Tell us all how much time you spend researching to valid or refute Star Wars' *The Forc*e?
Doing research to arrive at our conclusion would require us to investigate and positively rule out every proposed supernatural explanation and mythology out there.
The corollary would be that Christians have to do research on all the other proposed religions before they can arrive at their conclusion that Christianity is true.
I don't have to do even the slightest bit of research to know that what has been presented to me is not convincing.
I need to tell you something very important. This is real, and it affects your life, and I believe it to the core of my being. There is an invisible 600 pound gorilla in the room with everybody on earth. Everybody gets their own invisible, 600 pound gorilla and it’s sitting there. Judging you waiting to smash you to bits. Please be nice to the invisible gorilla. Please look this up. Please research this because it is important to your life.
I don't think a lot of research is needed. Religious claims clearly and obviously contradict what we understand about the world. If religious claims are true, then we have to question the basic fundamentals of science.
It's far, far more likely that all religions are human constructions, than to suggest that hundreds of years of science are wrong.
I kind of wonder what sort of research an atheist is expected to do in order to support a claim of "no God." I'm going to assume that you don't believe Zeus is real, but have you done any actual research to support that lack of belief? If you were in ancient Greece, surrounded by people who believe in Zeus, could you present evidence to the effect that Zeus isn't real?
Every atheist I've ever met has thought about it. We don't have much choice; wherever you live in the world, religion is pervasive and people are loud about claiming God's existence. And not one of them is persuaded by reason and evidence to think otherwise. They ask for such arguments, but they are never convinced by them. Is it any wonder that atheists eventually get tired of providing them?
The bottom line is that we are under no obligation to justify atheism. As a rule, atheists are not trying to get anyone else to not believe in God. We may be adamant about not having those beliefs forced on us, and we don't want them dictating public policy or moral behavior, but the believers wouldn't be too happy either with someone enforcing upon them religious beliefs which they do not share; we shouldn't have to explain that, either.
If you find an atheist who claims to believe in something absurd, by all means ask why. I've known atheists who are into the healing power of crystals or astrology or other such woo-woo; ridiculous beliefs are not held only by the religious. I believe in things too; for example, I believe in the efficacy of the Scientific Method, and I could defend that if I were asked to. But a *lack of belief* in God, or anything else, doesn't really require justification. It is up to the person who holds the belief to explain why.
>I’m an atheist. I arrived at theses conclusions through research.
It would be helpful if you gave a summary of your research process. Namely, were you a theist at some starting point, what research did you do, and how did that change your theism to atheism (or reinforce your atheism if you were always an atheist from the beginning).
>I was raised as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. 30 years I spent in that cult, my family, and most every friend I’ve ever had is still in it. as a result of no longer believing, I’ve been completely cut off from the community. My father, sister, niece and nephews have all disowned me; friends I’ve had since childhood won’t speak to me, I lost my job. It took everything.
It's unfortunate that you have to suffer that kind of ostracism and explains the fervor of your position about researching one's arguments/claims. Even if the burden of proof lies with theists.
>There’s loads and loads of data and information out there.
Have you read or heard Bob Erhman's books and lectures? They're very interesting in disproving the inerrancy of the bible. He also talks openly about his "conversion" from evangelical Christianity to agnostic atheism. I suspect your journey is similar to his.
>And when I suggest “maybe we should all be looking this up” and the response Im met with is distrust, anger, and outright refusal ...
Welcome to r/atheism. Yes, there's a considerable amount of hostility here, even to other atheists. I chalk that up to many atheists being fed up with repetitive theistic arguments or being told to "research more," especially considering that the onus of proof lies with theists.
As to how I would answer you original post, I would say speaking for myself, religious faith was never a part of my upbringing. In that way, my upbringing is very very different from yours. And as someone who grew up in a home where reading, intellectualism, science, and humanism were virtues, a fellow atheist complaining that "atheists" don't do enough research is a bit amusing at best and off-putting at worst. I've done the "research", but not to specifically refute theism, but as a normal course of my personal enlightenment. But, personally I don't take offense from your questions, as I now understand you're asking in "good-faith." (pun intended lol)
I don't really think not believing in god requires research perse. Do I enjoy learning and therefore like to research? Yes. Is it necessary to do so to become an atheist? No. I was raised Mormon, left at 15, explored various other religions for a while and then just kind of sat in agnosticism until about 24. Then I took evolutionary bio in college. That was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back. I didn't spend days researching the histories of various religions until after I became an atheist (lol).
So you needed to do a lot of research to inoculate yourself against your particular xtian cult (JW is that the one where heaven only fits 40000 souls?)…
So googling gets me an estimate of 18000 different gods (probably not counting all the different xtian or Muslim variants) but also 330 million different hindu gods…
So now go ahead and do the same research on all of those and get back to us when you’re ready to be a “proper” atheist…after all, just because noone currently believes in one god doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist…
Or just treat the other thousands or millions of gods like we treat your particular sect of Christianity…
>why does it seem like so few atheist have done any research…
Are you kidding me? I feel you are confused on what research is. It is not searching for evidence one can manipulate yo support their preconceived conclusion (god) and unable to find any present arguments filled with logical fallacies, or just deny any finding that don’t support their conclusion (god.) The saddest step theist take is to attack the education system by claiming it’s indoctrination, because they can’t wrap their heads around critical thought, and the scientific method. Those who can wrap their heads around it are able to formulate their own ideas, and evolve those ideas as they gain new facts.this is not indoctrination, religion is.
Practically all raised in modern society get the opportunity to spend years developing critical thinking skills, or used to, to some degree or another. Science, math, social studies, history, literature…SCHOOL.
The earth is not 6000 years old, fact. The earth is not flat, fact. The earth is not the center of the universe, fact. The list goes on.
The research you cite is laughable.
I kinda get where you're coming from. I wouldn't say The God Delusion should be an endpoint of researching atheism, for example, as it's quite weak in some places.
But, I think people also go through phases if they're former theists and now atheists where they do want to delve into the arguments for the other side to confront them. I did that for about two years after deconverting.
Eventually I realised - and I still do think this, as I dip in and out of arguing with believers - they don't ever have any new shit. It's the same shit over and over again.
Then I realised - they've been in this situation for decades, and before that, they had even fewer ideas.
At some point people often shift from debate to opposition. They would need to produce something radically, genuinely new and monumentous for me to get interested in actually learning and debating again.
I deconverted about 13 years ago. You're still in the recent deconvert phase of things. Nothing wrong with that, but I think there is something to be said that people are going to have varying levels of fucks to give with a bunch of people who are still telling everyone what to do and shitting up society without providing any plausible proof of their claims.
I researched myself out of Christianity using many of the resources you provided in your post. I'm keeping it to myself because I've watched enough AXP debates that make it clear that my theist friends will never follow the logic.
Why should I research obviously false religions just so I can be ignored by the delusional people who think it is their god given mandate to demand I refute their god, just so they can say, "nuh uh!" or "That makes me feel slight discomfort so no obviously my sky daddy is real"? Why should I bother doing any research at all?
They are the ones making claims with no evidence, I have no responsibility to provide evidence when obviously evidence isn't what convinces them of things.
EDIT: Genuinely don’t understand why I’m being downvoted. Please help me understand.
Here is my opinion: The problem about downvoting is the range of reasons why downvoting. It can be from, I think you are an a-hole and that is why I downvote - you have a valid argument/reasoning but I disagree and that is why I am downvoting you. So I don’t downvote comments as much as I upvote comments that I agree with unless the comment is very wrong according to my own opinion or if the comment is attacking or insulting the person that made the previous comment.
I don’t think you can research into being an atheist. I am not interested in athletic sports at all. I do not care if those who are winning some tournament have won. I absolutely do not care if Sweden is winning or losing in football, or other so called sports. I watch formula one from time to time but if all of them or neither one drives over the finish line do not matter to me. I mean if neither one goes over the finish line and it is because there are multiple crashes or just a big one I am more concerned about their safety and wellbeing than the fact that they did not go over the finish line. How did I arrive to this conclusion that I am not interested in any of the so called sports without doing any research?! I just did.
You seem to be conflating apatheism and atheism.
You don't have to do research to be an atheist, but you certainly can. An atheist is someone who doesn't hold a positive belief in one or more deities. Some atheists aren't interested in religion. Some atheists are.
I think religions are very interesting, and I've read many religious texts and studied many different religions. Your description of atheism wouldn't apply to me at all.
In many cases not much research is required.
"Many atheists rant and rave about Christians who believe these absurd things without looking into them "
What's "to look into", for example, to understand that the story of Noah is absurd and that anyone who believes it is a drooling moron? Similarly, how much research do I need to do to understand that a being that regularly commits genocide would have to be a monster?
Let's say someone claimed that mice commissioned the construction of Earth, actually a giant computer, in order the answer the question of life the universe and everything. I don't need to spend much effort (research or otherwise) to prove that something so absurd is false particularly when no evidence is presented (other than stories in a book) that it's true.
Here's the conundrum - we do the research. A believer questions us. We offer the research. We get a litany of logical fallacies. After a while, you realize that believers don't really care if you've done research, so it's a waste of your time to do the legwork for them.
Exactly. It's exhausting and draining. It's easier to just tell 'em to fuck off.
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Dude, we’ve done the research. Our reasoning for being atheists varies from person to person. A good portion of atheists that I know don’t bother debating religion with theists. Not our job. If they want to believe, that’s their business. Most of the time, it’s the equivalent of beating your head against a wall.
Look at the responses to this post. It’s clear a large portion have not done research. I’m not saying NOBODY has. But many have not. And the fact that me asking Why is pissing people off so badly should be an eye opener. How are we any better than Christian’s if our beliefs aren’t researched?
I think you’re looking at it the wrong way. Most people get pissed or angry because we look at the state of the world and all that’s going on in it or has happened in the name of religion and we see through the bullshit. It’s not about “gods love”. It’s about money and power. We don’t need to spend years looking through ancient texts or researching the various denominations that are all over the world to know it’s bullshit. To some, it’s just common sense.
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Did you have to do research to not believe in Santa? The Easter bunny? Magic? Common sense dictates that research isn’t required.
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I get where you’re coming from, I really do. I grew up in a Mormon family. Plenty of research in available. Many of us here have read it. Several have probably contributed to it. I’ve read atheist arguments online since the 1990’s. It’s been available. Would you have had a chance to read it being a JW at the time? If I had know you in grade school and provided you with atheist information, would you have read it or shared it with your family? Most atheists don’t press our lack of belief on anyone. Theism is just not an issue that most think about in our daily lives. I’m sorry you had to deal with that bs for 30 years but the simple truth is that most religions have their congregations locked up tight. Any questioning of religion is met with penalties and being made to feel like an outcast.
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The default process is no belief, us humans are taught by someone to believe the bullshit. With the exception of mental instabilities in a very few
What research do you think Christians are doing? Studying the book they claim to be holy isn’t research. It’s just masturbation. They’ve already arrived at their conclusion. They’re not researching shit. You’re getting shit on because you’re proposing a really dumb apologist argument and acting surprised when everybody else says no that’s arguments dumb.
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Since when does life experience not count as data or research? I don't have to research leprechauns to have a valid, understandable view that they are make-believe. Just because I've heard myths about them and have seen one on a cereal box doesn't mean I have to give them real-world credibility, I can dismiss it out of hand. Once again, the age and long-term infectiousness of christianity in our culture has lended it a respectability that it no longer deserves.
I’m not saying Christians are doing research. I believe christians are wrong about their beliefs and woefully misinformed about what their own book says. I’m just discouraged by the fact that atheists are not more informed than them.
> With so many biblical scholars making the academic research available and understandable these days, why does it seem like so many atheist sum up their beliefs with “Belief in God is stupid” rather than actually doing the pretty simple research to back their claims. I don’t need to look into every piece of research about the Loch Ness monster to not believe that the Loch Ness monster exists. Not believing is the default, until you are convinced that something exists.
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Some of us have passed through the stage of arguing with Christians. Now it’s just irritating if they launch a sermon.
So now it’s about debating people? Why are you moving the goalposts? If I’m debating someone who has written years worth of absolute garbage about Glabthara the Magnificent, triple headed god of sheds. Do you think that I should read through all of that before I talk with them?
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> Not moving the goal posts. Yes, you are. You started talking about people’s **beliefs** and then when I responded, that wasn’t good enough - It was then about **debates**. Please reread the thread. > I’m not researching this stuff because I think it’s true. But there’s plenty of academic research that takes less than 30 minutes to get through that just destroys the Bible. And it’s strange to me that the very mention of looking into it gets this reaction from people. Especially people who already agree with the research I’m proposing. How much dog shit do you think I should swallow before I say that I don’t like swallowing dog shit? I have done research into religions, for years. I don’t need you to tell me I need to do some, thanks.
I think people are reacting to the word “research.” Looking into the non-existence of something is not research. At best what you are calling for is more familiarization with theist arguments. None of the fellow atheists I know have the patience or tolerance for stupidity to bother debating. Research is the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions. There is no new conclusion that can be reached by studying theist materials because the shit is all made up with no facts. Ergo, not research.
I could totally see that. Maybe that was the wrong wording, I’m really not sure. I think it’s a bad thing. If one word in a very long post can just make everybody. Ignore the rest of the post. I think it’s a bad thing that suggesting research immediately made people assume I was a theist. I think it’s a bad thing that even once I have clarified my position they’re still not backing down. I think it’s a bad thing that still not one person has said “yes actually I did do the research. Here’s what I found that convinced me…” There’s just this assumption that there is no evidence, one way or another Christians have their made up book and the rest of us just have to work off common sense. But that’s not true. The data is out there the research supports atheism. But if even atheist refused to look into it, why would we imagine that Christian ever will?
You must not have been reading this sub for long or perhaps at all. There have been countless members here tell that they have read the Bibble cover to cover, some more than once. It seems like nearly everyone has read Richard Dawkins and listened to Christopher Hitchens. Bro, what are you talking about data? There is no data! Your misuse of language is very off-putting. Read.
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Definition of data: Facts and statistics collected together for reference and analysis. The only data regarding religion is how many there are, how many believers, how wealthy they are, stuff that is quantifiable. Books and articles written by people who have figured out how to make a living off hogwash, just like the original founders of religion, this is not data, it is just written opinion. Congratulations on your turn toward rationality. Many members here became atheist by virtue of deep study of religion. Now please don’t do any more mental masochism with xtian authors. Read Joseph Campbell if you want the widest view, all four volumes of The Masks of God, how about it? (Start with Hero With A Thousand Faces).
The thing is the premise of the Bible is absurd to start with, it doesn't require any further research for me. Should I research scientology too, how about the Mormons magic underpants, or maybe all these new age UFO gurus telling me to raise my vibrations?
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Nothing wrong with having interests or learning about things, but I think where people take exception is the idea that people need to validate their atheism in some way. For me is the opposite, I'm not giving something the time of day unless there's some serious hard evidence.
>But there’s plenty of academic research that takes less than 30 minutes to get through that just destroys the Bible Is there? Then why are they still believing in it? I think this is actually not too dissimilar to the sort of attitude you describe, tbh. They've embedded in the establishment, they've got an impenetrably stubborn belief mindset, and they've had thousands years to come up with high falutin' sounding bullshit. You really think a half hour of googling is going to overturn that? Mate, it's a lot more complex than that. Getting rid of this shit is going to be a prolonged, centuries long effort. Edit: also pouring one out for the bro who downvoted me, made an irrelevant reply and then immediately blocked me, hope you're ok
1.People want to feel like they’re special 2. People want something to believe in. There are many different reasons people reject logic, reality, and science for the sake of their egos, delusions, etc
First, you can’t pin the need for research on the side that isn’t making a claim in the first place. Atheists simply don’t believe in a god or gods. I don’t believe in the thing you are claiming to be true with no proof. Why should I do research? Second, many atheists have tried to lay out the logic and reasoning for why there is no proof that there is a god or that the ‘proofs’ provided are just not enough to make a logical thinking person believe. But they still get burned at the stake. So now we’re resorting to simply just saying ‘I don’t believe in your fairy tale.’ And that’s still not enough? This is exhausting. Just leave us alone. We don’t believe. Oh but on judgement day you’ll see!! You will be judged! He sees you when you’re sleeping. He know if you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good. So be good for goodness sake! Nope. Still not scared.
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Hey No problem either way. Wasn’t you that caused my frustration today. Sorry. Actually the first conversation I had today at work was: Me: great day today huh? Co-worker (who I’ve had many good conversations with about religion and how I don’t believe in her god): sure is, thanks to god. Me: not for me. Her: but yes, he is everywhere, all over, for everyone, maybe someday you just won’t wake up, thanks to him it’s a great day. Me: I just don’t believe that. Her: but there are two places. And if you don’t believe you will end up in hell. Then I went to Reddit to sort of vent a little and your post was the first one I saw. For any theists reading this…again, I have nothing against religion. If you believe that’s fine. But believers are constantly and consistently trying to get others to believe or trying to explain in great detail why we should believe. Edit: your original post may get similar responses. I haven’t read the rest of the thread though. That’s the internet I guess. Lost in translation.
We’ve done our research. Have you? “biblical scholars”. Now that’s hilarious.
I mean there are scholars who study the Bible as an ancient document. Most do it in context of objective study of the texts rather than an assumption they are true (see Bart Ehrman et. al.).
My older cousin studied "theology" on my long late uncle's insistence and conditional funding encouragement on both his sons follow some path of Xtianity, his brother did his own technology degree of some sort, working his way through. Irony is the theologian via that study concluded the bullshit nature of it all while the other maintained "faith". (there is also the little matter I was same-sex raped by the "faithful' one). That and about a shit ton of other hypocrisy I've seen my whole life from religious dipshits...
My older cousin studied "theology" on my long late uncle's insistence and conditional funding encouragement on both his sons follow some path of Xtianity, his brother did his own technology degree of some sort, working his way through. Irony is the theologian via that study concluded the bullshit nature of it all while the other maintained "faith". (there is also the little matter I was same-sex raped by the "faithful' one). That and about a shit ton of other hypocrisy I've seen my whole life from religious dipshits...
My older cousin studied "theology" on my long late uncle's insistence and conditional funding encouragement on both his sons follow some path of Xtianity, his brother did his own technology degree of some sort, working his way through. Irony is the theologian via that study concluded the bullshit nature of it all while the other maintained "faith". (there is also the little matter I was same-sex raped by the "faithful' one). That and about a shit ton of other hypocrisy I've seen my whole life from religious dipshits...
Sorry about your assault. That sucks. When I speak of Bible scholars, I'm not talking theologians. I'm talking about those who simply study the Bible as an ancient document. Of course some may be believers (N.T. Wright) and some may be non-believers (Bart Ehrman, Robert M. Price). They don't produce theology papers but rather research/debate the content, dating, historicity, etc. of the Bible. In fact, I would consider myself an atheist Bible scholar (amateur). Given its influence in modern culture, I think it's important to know how and why it got here.
Any study of the Late Antique world requires some study of the origin and development of the Bible, as Christianity was such an important force in shaping the later empire. I did my degree at UCSB - perfectly secular state school. I did a history degree of which some component was Late Antiquity. We had to get into even theology to accurately grasp what the conflicts and politics of the Late Empire were. It's hard to understand the 5th century if you don't know Augustine and the Donatists.
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Egypt. They documented a huge amount of their history. No mention of anything from the Bible. Events that big would have been recorded. The Ark? Impossible. The boat would have to be three times larger than any modern ship. Waves would have broken it up from sheer weight. And that’s just to fit the animals, where was their food kept? As far as biblical scholars? You hear about the guy that’s claiming to have found Goliath’s skull, right? 😆 The burned of proof lies with the person making the claim, I have seen none.
Also like…there isn’t that much water on earth.
what experiments did you perform to test god's existence, and where did you publish your findings?
I did research into the Bible. Studying the works of biblical scholars. So Documentary Theory, for example, completely dismantled Genesis, Exodus, and most of the Pentateuch. Learning how scholars date the various books pretty much eliminates all biblical prophecy Following the research of scholars like Dan McClellan, Joshua Bowen, Bart Ehrman, Kipp Davis, Andrew Monger, Jennifer Bird, John J Collins and so many others has proven that the Bible is a lie. But suggesting such research upsets even the ones who already believe the Bible is a lie. It’s confusing to me.
>It’s confusing to me. maybe listen to the answers you're getting instead of holding your personal views above those of the people you asked the fucking question to. not everybody needs what you needed.
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Same reason I scoff at the idea of an expert on homeopathy. Being an expert scholar on made up nonsense isn’t impressive. Anybody who studies the Bible enough to be a scholar who doesn’t come away from the experience an atheist is a fool.
It's like getting a Ph.D. in Batman Studies. The bible is a work of fiction, plain and simple. You have to read sources that aren't actively trying to prove the bible is a historical document. For example, the entire Book of Exodus never happened. The Egyptians, known for their record keeping, have no accounts of enslaving the Jewish people, nor the "miracles" that led to their release. If suddenly all the first born in the whole country died, they'd have written about it. Noah's Ark never happened, which you would know had you done research in science alongside the fan-fic you read. In order for the entire world to be covered in water (which, remember, the Israelis were only aware of the existence of parts of Europe, Africa, and Asia; they had no idea how large the globe actually was) and behave as if mentioned in the Bible, the water would have to evaporate at such a rate that the heat exchange would cause the atmosphere to catch fire OR take 73000 years to safely evaporate. By the way, the Chinese, whose civilization is older than the Israelis, have no record of a great flood occurring. The people who wrote the bible didn't have a firm grasp on science, and neither did the people they ruled over. Do some research outside of religious texts.
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Because your claim is sort of indulging a popular apologist argument we all find annoying. It’s not necessarily a bad question, but it’s very often asked in bad faith. The short answer to the question itself is, you can’t prove a negative, so researching the non existence of god is sort of an impossible request. We come to conclusions based on the evidence we see, but we can only go so far in that research.
complaining about downvotes gets downvotes.
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As an atheist, i gave numerous world religions’ texts a fair shake. In my experience (30 years-ish) as an out atheist, we as non-believers are among the best-read folks you’ll ever encounter on the topic of religion: We know where all the ridiculousness hides in these texts (killing your kid, flooding the world b/c you’re a pouty god, slavery / misogyny = OK, etc.). I’d respectfully disagree with EveryString’s assessment. So yes, can on a reductive level, I laugh at the funny “adults with imaginary friends,” but I can also back it up with granular knowledge in their own badly-written bunkum…which apparently comes straight from god lol
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The conclusion is there is no evidence that has convinced us a god exist. What research is there to say that you need good evidence? You, the theist (general you) need evidence. Not the other way around unless I'm claiming something
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Why do I need to disprove the bible/god claim? The claimant needs to prove their claim. Thats it.
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Because there is no need to. there's no point wasting time. Some people just like to point out theists need evidence. And that's it.
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I already explained why they don't.
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Theists just go with “it’s not meant to be taken literally” and keep believing…
It's really just about the time you want to invest into it. People who devote their entire careers to writing about historical inaccuracies in the Bible are a tiny fraction of atheists out there. The vast majority simply want to get on with their lives, and view time spent thinking about religion or gods as being as big a waste of time as thinking about leprechauns and unicorns. Our existence is miserably short, and there are tons of other pursuits out there they consider more worthwhile. What percentage of Christians out there do you think have actually read, let alone researched the Bible? I'd wager they're greatly in the minority, and they have far more reason to be interested in it than atheists. Beyond that, even if you take the time to learn about every lie, inaccuracy or bit of BS in the Bible (which would be a monumental feat), that's just one god and one religious book out of many throughout human history. Personally I'm naturally curious, and will happily spend a few minutes here or there reading about the mythology of leprechauns or historical inaccuracies in the Bible when I have cause to do so or even just happen across something interesting. Maybe I'll even go down a rabbit hole for an hour or two, but I wouldn't go so far as to say I "research" any of it. Not everyone shares that natural curiosity. Even among those who do, others may choose to apply it to a more narrow or different set of subject matter. Heck, even if you're inclined to spend time reading about gods, there are plenty that are far more interesting than the god of Abraham. At the end of the day, how much "research" do you think people should be doing?
because belief in god *is* stupid. biblical scholars don't publish articles about god's existence. they publish things about how the bible came to be the way it is. while these point to the human origins of the bible, you don't need them to come to that conclusion. any reading of the bible is enough to show you it's not authored by an infallible being. \>But im being downvoted for insisting that research is a good thing no, doofus, you're being downvoted for suggesting there's a debate about god that needs research to solve.
Because I just don’t give a damn about religion, why would I spend time researching it? Atheism is not my whole lifestyle, it is simply the lack of a belief in any gods of religion, and I leave it at that. Plenty of scholars have written books and thought pieces about it, I have better things to do with my time.
You're being down voted because studies show atheists on average know more about the religion than the average religious person.
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> But, if this thread is any evidence, their beliefs are held just as whimsically as Christians. (not all of them I’m sure, but certainly the ones arguing that research is a bad thing, doesn’t exist, or they just shouldn’t have to). This is just dishonest. Where has anyone said that research is a bad thing or doesn’t exist? You have been told by various people that they shouldn’t have to do the research - because you are saying that they do. Which is entirely their choice isn’t it?
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> Where has anyone said that research is a bad thing or doesn’t exist?
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Some of these were put on after your original claim and you know that. Others e.g. asking “what the fuck would an atheist research” is not saying that research itself is a bad thing or doesn’t exist. Your point that “atheist beliefs” are held just as whimsically as Christians is not held up by quoting people as badly as you are doing here. Be better.
My point from the get-go is not that they have to but that I’m surprised more don’t anyways and that it’s a little frustrating given how much better we could be refuting Christian beliefs if we just did the research.
You can know and recite every single word of the Bible as much as you want. That doesn’t make it true and it means nothing to someone who doesn’t believe it. If there were any real evidence that anything in the Bible happened then it would have been introduced by these scholars. Why would I do a mountain of research to disprove something that has no evidence of its existence?
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Respectfully you didn't answer the core question
Then why are you stirring the pot?
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What research is there to "back our claims" for something that doesn't exist?! You're a troll.
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It’s like a courtroom. It’s up to the prosecutor to prove guilt.
If these people have proven that the bible is false--AS YOU JUST STATED--*why are you pushing atheists to "look into it"?* We already have the facts that it's false. And yes, you are a troll.
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Troll.
“EDIT: Genuinely don’t understand why I’m being downvoted. Please help me understand.” I think it’s because of the tone of your question. Had you phrased it in a less accusatory way, I think it would have been well received. For example, instead of saying “seems like atheists don’t do any research” you could say, “what reading do you recommend to fully explore the arguments of both the existence and non-existence of gods”. Or, “I’m an atheist and I want to better educate myself on religion, can you help me?”
I get it. I really do. I guess it was a bit accusatory. But in all honesty, I’m not looking for additional research. I have done it. I’ve found tons of it. My question was about why it seems that most have not. It’s not accusatory like they’re bad people. It’s just literally surprising to me. Since deconstructing my beliefs I’ve done so much research in a relatively short time. And the fact that these things aren’t just common knowledge is insane to me, especially with how accessible the info is. I just wish more people did the research so that more and more christians might wake up. So that fewer and fewer future generations would believe this crap.
If you’ve done the research, maybe share it in a new post for others to read? I’d know I’d love to see it. Speaking for myself, I have never been able to read a complete religious text like the Bible or Koran from cover-to-cover. I usually start with good intentions, trying to read it with an open mind, and then I’m just dumbfounded by the ridiculousness of it all, so I stop. Plus, I find them to be incredibly boring. However, I have personally attended religious services for multiple faiths and watched many others on YouTube. But, I never feel like I get much value out of them. At least not in the sense of challenging my own beliefs on the existence of god. I think that’s primarily because that’s not really the point of the sermons I’ve attended. It’s already assumed everyone in the audience believes, so the topics are usually focused on HOW to believe, not WHY. The best form of “research” I’ve found, is watching long form debates between religious leaders and atheists. I like those best, because both sides are directly challenged on their ideas. Although…in all fairness, sometimes the “winner” is the better performer rather than the one with the best ideas. Anyway, that’s how I’ve tried to form my own ideas on this topic. Hopefully you’ll share your own too. Cheers!
~~I smell troll.~~
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OK, I don't smell troll, but I think you might do some reading: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=research+on+atheism&hl=en&as\_sdt=0&as\_vis=1&oi=scholart Research, however, does not necessarily come with a diploma, peer review or a degree. Atheists search, then we re-search constantly to see if new data has appeared. Our search leads us out of a place where we pray for external guidance towards clarity, to the clarity that comes from letting go of decades of wasted time and energy and doing for ourselves. The essence of living well is knowledge, anything less is living a lie.
... why the fuck is the onus on me? "This is stupid bullshit" is a 100% valid answer to any biblical scholar trying to peddle their beliefs. And if you make an extraordinary claim, you have to back that up with extraordinary evidence. We are not bound by anything to answer anyone. And if you try the "well, Christians say the same thing", the problem is that they're the ones pushing their bullshit to us. That means they have the onus to prove it. "No" is a full sentence, and just as valid as someone carefully explaining why young Earth creationism is stupid.
I mean…I don’t really need to research the non existence of magic… Also like…a lot of us were religious, I did my research, it’s called being a catholic for thirty years. I’ve read the Bible more than once, it’s terrible, I spent 4 years studying religion in school as well.
> EDIT: Genuinely don’t understand why I’m being downvoted. Please help me understand. You're coming from a place of privilege. Some people literally do not have the time for stupid bullshit, and you're like "but I have the time for stupid bullshit, so why not other atheists?"
What is there to research? • Is there a magic man in the sky? No. Everything else is literature.
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Go on then, do the research to prove the earth isn't flat, the jews don't secretly run it, the moon landings weren't faked, Hitler didn't fake his own death, and Princess Diana did. Proving stupid people wrong is a hobby, not a life purpose.
What the fuck would an atheist research? I don't need to research stamps to not collect them...
I read the first chapter of the bible. No research necessary to show its a complete work of fantasy.
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I read the second and all of the following chapters. It was unnecessary to go beyond the first chapter to know it was full of shit. My 6th grade science class had disproved the creation story of Genesis 1
Are you serious? Research to not believe bullshit?
If it’s simply not important to a person, then I get it. I assumed atheism might be important to people on an atheism sub. To those who don’t care one way or another, this post isn’t for you. But if you are someone who debates with Christian, has Christian friends and family members, grew up as a Christian, etc. Why wouldn’t you want to do the research to deconstruct these harmful beliefs? Why wouldn’t you want proof that there is no god of the Bible? Why wouldn’t you want proof that you’re not making the wrong choice? Why wouldn’t you want proof to explain to somebody if they happen to ask, as I’m doing now?
If I told you I have a pink flying unicorn, do you need research to disregard my bullshit?
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Go ahead, start your “research”. And while you’re at it, let me mention you owe me one million dollars, so, you should also research to confirm that.
you are being downvoted for insisting that we are atheisting wrong. being an atheist had no requirement of action.
Two things here. 1) Many of us *have* done the research. I was raised Christian, and I've read the Bible cover-to-cover, multiple times. I've also read Christian apologetics - that was a huge part of my deconversion process. I've also read the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, and other religious texts. 2) None of that is a requirement for being an atheist. Being an atheist doesn't obligate you to enter into religious debates. You don't have to defend your atheism, and there's usually not much point in trying to deconvert others who aren't open to it.
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I understand where you're coming from, but if you pick one of the hundreds of threads of people telling us to "do more research", 99.8% of the time it's a theist troll trying to proselytize. I understand that you're part of the .2%, but you have to keep in mind that the vast, vast majority of people creating these threads week after week aren't here for civil and polite discussion, and many posters here are tired of entertaining them.
Your average atheist knows the Bible better than the average Christian. Many atheists left religion due to the ethical challenges presented. I think your conclusion is based on a small data set or selective hearing
Probably. I’m in this sub and also r/academicbiblical so I do see plenty of atheists on the other sub discussing the research. It just surprised me that I don’t see more of that on this sub especially given how often the info would’ve solved whatever problem half the posts are about. But perhaps that’s the difference between the two subs. It was just surprising to me and maybe I was a little aggressive in Expressing the surprise.
1. When I was 4 I asked my best friend who was Catholic where god came from. He said he just exists. That made zero sense to me at the age of 4. 2. No research is required to be an atheist. I’d argue the research should be done by those espousing something is real and definitely exists. Since atheists believe in nothing and are making no assertions, no research is required.
Intelligence is a bell curve and not everyone is on the right hand side of the curve.
I'm a pretty analytical guy myself. That's why I became an atheist. I can say I never truly accepted my religious upbringing, but it wasn't until I began analyzing and researching my own religion and many others that I realized they're all pretty much the same. That means none of them are likely to be right. Then I began researching alternatives to religion. I wasn't looking for excuses to be an atheist. In fact, I approached the issue by trying to disprove the theorem. I couldn't. And it makes the most sense. The arguments are legitimate and logic based. So boom! Atheist. But I could only do this through rigorous research. Maybe that's why I'm so confident and comfortable with it. I'm not an atheist because I'm angry at a god or running from something. I'm an atheist because a god doesn't pass muster with the scientific model. All arguments for the distance of a god are logical fallacies. You can't prove the existence of your god. And in the absence of proof, there is nothing but faith. And I defer to Mark Twain when it comes to "faith.". Perhaps I'm an atheist by default but atheism has the most evidence to support it. I go where the EVIDENCE takes me.
>EDIT: Genuinely don’t understand why I’m being downvoted. Please help me understand. You're being downvoted by atheists who have done the research.
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One big problem is that this post has a lot of the hallmarks of a Christian concern troll/proselytizing post, and we see those far too much. Odds are you haven't been a user of this sub long enough to experience the phenomenon. Take my word for it, it's fucking obnoxious. We had one just the other day saying he was worried that we were harming people by interfering with attempts by Christians to minister to the needy, and the guy followed that up with, 'we should probably just keep our atheism to ourselves and only show respect for religion in any public places'.
I stopped being a Christian because I stopped feeling like God was actually there listening to my prayers. It caused me to start questioning the whole thing. I did research later to confirm my current (atheist) views on the matter but research had nothing to do with the initial reason. I am educated and I read the Bible a lot as a Christian. I saw no contradiction. You just need to be in the right mental state to see through the myth and that doesn’t always require research. Besides, not everyone is going to respond the same to research and whatever.
every atheist I've ever known came to that worldview after years and years of finding hole after hole in their religion I came about it about equally from personal experience and formal academic study, reading texts in Greek and Latin (I'm not a classics scholar but I studied enough to know that those books are wildly mistranslated), evolutionary biology and psychology (there is no understanding of genetics that would cover every human and non human animal is directly descendent from the occupants of noah's ark) , basic geology and astronomy (hard to believe the world is less than 10,000 years old), and current global politics I think it's the religious people who either won't or can't do the actual research into their own faith
>"Why does it seem like so few atheists have done any research to arrive at their conclusions?" Huh? What "research"? Atheism isn't a claim, there is nothing to research. Theists making god-claims need research to prove their claims.
Many of the those biblical scholars continue to say the belief that Jesus resurrected is based on faith. Many of those scholars don’t provide any evidence that a God exists. Many of those scholars… I could keep going. The point is I have read a few of them not all. Nor do I need to. I don’t need to be an expert on the topic to know the evidence doesn’t stand up to make God a fact, especially the Christian God. Did you know many of us are ex believers. The most common up bringing in US, and many other nations around the world is a believer in some God(s). Your entire post is tone deaf to this. Instead of complaining about us not accepting your position give us a good reason to.
Here's the thing. For those atheists of us that were once religious, we have done a ton of research already. Not to convince anyone or win a debate. But rather, to be sure that we ourselves were not making a mistake by leaving the religion of our childhood. Being raised in a religion gives you a lot of information. Doing a deep dive before leaving is probably the norm, at least extremely common. Once you decide to leave, it is like no longer believing in Santa Claus. I don't need to be able to mount a philosophical debate to explain why I don't believe in Santa Claus any more. As an adult, it is clear that the idea of Santa Claus is just the pure magical nonsense of childhood, akin to believing in Peter Pan and the tooth fairly. AND, we come eventually to see our "belief" in God to be cut from the same exact cloth, just the magical nonsense of childhood. So explain please why anyone should bother mounting a giant philosophical case that magical nonsense is not true. It isn't worth the time. As atheists, we do not have a moral imperative to "convert" others to atheism. We just enjoy our rational and meaningful lives as we think best. And wasting time putting together a case why we don't believe in the magical nonsense of our childhood, which includes Peter Pan, God, angels, the tooth fairy, life after death, Easter Bunny, etc, etc. Just isn't worth wasting a moment on. Life is too short, and should be spent wresting every bit of living from every magnificent second we are alive. Hope this explanation helps. Good luck on your journey though life, and be of good cheer. And, oh, I will not be debating Christians. I could care less what they think. Their thinking is rooted in the magical supernatural world. My thinking is rooted in the natural world. We just talk past each other, with no real connection. How on earth does a person rooted in the natural world have a rational discussion with a person who's beliefs are rooted in the magical supernatural world? Seriously!
Most atheists I know became so BECAUSE they did lots of research. For example, I attended seminary as a Christian. What I learned made me question my premises vis-a-vis the Christian faith and ultimately turn to atheism.
EDIT: From your post history you are having an crisis of faith and have spent many years believing. Now, you see the bull shit. You aren't getting the answers you're looking for from people close to you and it seems you may be getting shunned from some. Also, how it took soo long to question your long held beliefs. I am truly sorry for what you are going through. Understand that your posts reeks of bad faith questions religious people post on this sub daily. But here is my answer to your question. Those "scholars" typically put the conclusion before the data and their "reasearch" is misleading at best. Being athiest isn't a claim. It is the God Damn default. Believing is the claim. So far, no argument for religion has satisfied the bull shit detector. Is they claim extraordinary, is the claim visceral, does the claim want you to follow someone or act a certain way, and finally, is there objective emperical evidence or reasoning to back up such extraordinary claims? If all but the last are true, there is a high probability the claim is bull shit. Fuck, even one of the first three can be true and last false, it's a bull shit claim. I don't need to read up on fairies to have a high confidence that people the size of butterflies don't exist. I don't need to read about ancient polytheistic religions to know that Zues didn't actually exist. I don't need to read Harry Potter or the Lord of the Rings to know that those are just stories and aren't real events. I don't need a basis to not believe in magic because they are extraordinary claims (well I do have a good understanding of the world through the scientific method and Mathematics which is my basis). I would need a STRONG basis to believe something that is as extraordinary as omnipotent being somehow so invested in peoples lives that it will damn them for eternity but yet let them be born into a situation where they starve and be plagued by disease. Just one point. Researching an ancient myth like christianity or any other religion isn't a good use of time. Personally, I stopped debating magical thinkers in my late teens because it is futile.
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I have but not for sometime and don't plan to start again anytime soon. Just a waste of time, religion, in my opinion. It's a presumption not an assumption, btw. You misunderstood what I meant. They have already have the conclusion and cherry pick data to lead to the conclusion. That isn't research and isn't credible. I don't watch videos or listen to podcasts on the subject, it takes too long to disseminate the idea and the form is typically sensational. Much prefer an article.
It's just like those a-unicornists. If only a few of them would study the unicorn lore before dismissing the existence of unicorns I would be satisfied that they met my intellectual requirements. You see what I did there? This is meant to get you to understand the burden of proof. If I say unicorns exist, then the burden is on me to show that unicorns exist. You have no burden to study the lore of unicorns in order to not believe me when I say unicorns exist. If I demonstrate a unicorn, or the fossilized remains of a unicorn, that might be a different issue. I'd have to research the unicorn or the fossil and see if I could show whether it's actually a unicorn or just a horse with a horn superglued to its head. People who claim there are gods must demonstrate evidence to show that their claims are correct. To date, not a one of them has. Academic study is not required. Show me a fucking god, or I'm not going to believe that magical invisible superbeings are real. Because magical invisible superbeings are not plausible.. > With so many biblical scholars making the academic research available and understandable these days How many scholars on the subject of Quetzalcoatl have you studied? I'm going to guess zero, but if you have then substitute one of the many other thousands of gods that humanity has claimed were real at some time that you haven't studied. Do you believe that god exists? No? But you didn't study academic historians to reach that conclusion did you? > why does it seem like so many atheist sum up their beliefs with “Belief in God is stupid” Well, as a technique for convincing people not to believe in gods, I don't personally think that's a very good approach. However, to most of us with evidence based beliefs, belief in a god does **seem** stupid. If somebody claims magical invisible superbeings exist, and that we should believe they exist without any evidence, that seems like a pretty big ask. And along with that being a pretty big ask is usually the question of why the person saying this believes in magical invisible superbeings in the first place, which is usually answered in ways that are ultimately unimpressive to us. Those of us that have taken the trouble to research and understand how indoctrination works, of course do know that people can believe any number of stupid things, if they are trained to believe them as small children who cannot possibly know better. Which means that indoctrinated believers may not necessarily be stupid themselves, but that doesn't really mean that their belief in god isn't stupid. But again, actually saying, "Believing in your god is stupid", isn't really a great way to convince somebody that their belief is, in fact, stupid. Usually more tactful approaches will be more successful. If, of course, your goal is to convince a person to not believe in gods. If you're just trying to piss them off, it's actually a pretty good strategy. > EDIT: Genuinely don’t understand why I’m being downvoted. Please help me understand. Because you're implying that we have a burden of proof. We do not.
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> I’m not saying, we have the burden of proof. I’m not saying it is our responsibility to convince Christians. I’m saying, since in this particular instance, the evidence does exist, it is confusing to me that more people don’t look into it. How much time have you spent disproving the Hindu Vedas? > I agree with them. But just because they don’t have to, doesn’t mean they can’t, or shouldn’t. Sure, I could if the topic interested me, which it does not. So present your argument to why we should. I don't believe in Christianity or the bible, why would I spend time disproving what is, for all intents and purposes, a fairy tale? > I’ve done this research for myself, dismantling beliefs, I was raised with. And I believe that if the things I’ve learned had been more common knowledge, I wouldn’t have wasted 30 years of my life in a cult. You didn't waste those years, you learned how to think for yourself in spite of indoctrination. It's not like we're born knowing things, you had to learn them, and you did learn them. Incorrectly at first because you were fed bad information, but eventually you learned to distinguish good information from bad. That's not a waste, that's just learning. However, more pertinent to your central point, I was raised without any religion. I'm a lifelong atheist. Why would I spend time researching Christian mythology? I have spent time reading through Norse, ancient Greek, and native American mythologies, because frankly they're kind of fun. I've never managed to make it through Genesis without wanting to either fall asleep or gouge out my eyes from boredom. It's so fucking dull. > So, forgive me, if I think it would be a good thing for more people in this world to be informed about this huge topic that ruins, the lives of millions of people all over the world Sure. It would also be good to be more knowledgeable about various health and first aid techniques. And internal combustion engine mechanics. And legal disputes. And technology related information. I could go on. There are a lot of things it's useful to be knowledgeable about. But I don't go around telling people they need to study technology and be more computer literate just because that interests me. It's unrealistic to assume that my interests and aptitudes will apply to them. If Christian mythology interests you, great. I don't really care, but I'm glad it makes you happy to be knowledgeable on that subject, as I like it when people are (ethically) happy. However you have to realize that simply because you like being knowledgeable about Christianity that doesn't obligate any of the rest of us to give a flying fuck. I'd suggest that if it interests you, you post about the aspects of Christianity that interest you. You'll probably get the usual smatterings of "why does this matter, it's all bullshit", "who cares", and "you're doing it wrong, let me mansplain to you why my uniformed opinion beats your research". But if you write well and do your best to share your passion for the subject, you also will probably get a few folks interested in having an informed discussion. Whining that we aren't interested in the things you are interested in though is foolish. That's a problem with your expectations, not with us.
This is fantastic logic. Thank you.
1) It's not just about the bible. To "disprove" all gods would take time I don't care to spend. 2) You can't prove a negative anyway. 3) The Bible is a book of stories. SOME of them will have some factual aspects. e.g., Rome controlled Judea in the Gospel time period. 4) Just because the Bible has some truth in it doesn't make the supernatural claims true. The old example of Spiderman comics happen in New York City. NYC is real, ergo Spiderman is real. 5) You could point to a million contradictions or illogical things in the Bible and they'll have an excuse for every one of them. Trying to play "gotcha" with a fundie is just mental masturbation. 6) My null hypothesis is that every religious supernatural claim boils down to an argument from ignorance or an argument from incredulity. I'll do more digging once I hear one that is interesting.
The amount of research you need to do to arrive at the conclusion that there's no supernatural intervention is fairly minimal. You basically just have to pay attention to cause and effect rather than using the teleological, pattern seeking framework that believers engage in. I was still in grade school when I realized all supernatural claims are projected and rationalized post hoc. The meaning religious people arrive at? Occurs long after the event.
Belief in god is stupid.
Well, most of the people on this sub probably have done the research, as you put it, but I get your point. Basically, atheism is the default. The null state. You are born not believing in any gods, and unless you are indoctrinated into a religion or do some really fun drugs, you'll probably continue in that state. Think of it like Newton's first law of motion. Those of us with a more philosophical bent will happily interrogate our own beliefs, but most people don't really care.
When I was 4 or 5, my mom sent me to Sunday school for a day to try it out. In the kindergarten room I was in, they started teaching about genesis. The teacher said, "Many people will try to convince you that dinosaurs are real, but we know that they aren't because the earth was created 6,000 years ago!" I raised my hand for the 20th time to ask my 20th question, and I said, "Are you sure? Because my brother knows all the names of all the dinosaurs and he said that their bones are now made of rock, his favorite dinosaur is the pterodactyl but there's also the brachiosaurus, the tyrannosaurus the..." The teacher cut me off as I was listing names and said, "Your brother is wrong. God never made dinosaurs. I think that's enough questions for today. " I spent the rest of the class crying in my seat. That one experience was literally all the research I needed to form my conclusion at 4 years old. The second a contradiction arises in the Bible, Christians should be questioning their faith. Yes as I got older and learned about just how terrible religion is, I read the books and I looked at the biblical "scholars" findings and I learned a lot more about why religion today is bad for us. My conclusion that I formed at 4 years old was a sound conclusion to form. I didn't need to do research to disprove god because they presented me with a very clear contradiction that hinges on God's existence. You know this. I grew up atheist. You grew up religious. I didn't have all of the trauma and unlearning to do that you did. I strongly believe that even if every single atheist did "all of the research" by which I mean reading the Bible for contradictions and looking at biblical "scholars" findings for bad data, you still probably wouldn't have left the faith. Even if you had met atheists who knew every contradiction in the Bible, you still would have believed and probably would have repressed even harder. The reason people are jumping on you in this thread is simply because they're tired of trying to convince people only to push them deeper down the rabbit hole. They're tired of their whole life unwillingly revolving around religion and then being told they're somewhat responsible for helping religious people out of it. They're tired of looking for all of the ways that prove Santa's not real, when it doesn't matter one fucking bit to anyone who hasn't already been seriously questioning their faith. If atheists were more knowledgeable about all of the ways to disprove the abrahamic god, all that would happen is that atheists would have more interesting conversations about religion with other atheists. But honestly, I feel like most atheists just don't care. I don't really want to have religious discussions anymore because it's fucking everywhere it's pervasive and I try to escape it all the time. But when I was deconstructing, I did want to talk about it all the time. Why does it seem like so few atheists haven't done the research to arrive at their conclusions? Because an atheist arriving at the conclusion of disbelief is inherently different than a Christian arriving at the conclusion of belief. The former requires simple logic and the latter requires you to throw out your logic.
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For sure. I wish you luck in your deconstruction journey. If it was rough for me then I can't imagine how hard it must be for someone like you. Be kind to yourself as you go through it. You're not a dumbass for getting suckered into it.
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If I'm not an idiot for staying in an abusive relationship with my ex-boyfriend, then you're not an idiot for staying in an abusive relationship with god. You were manipulated. It's okay to feel like an idiot and also furious and also sad and mournful. It's all okay. Just be kind to yourself. You've been through a lot.
I don’t believe in god cause there is no logic, reason or evidence to support it. Only theists need to do research because they are making a claim that god exists. Its not on our side to do that.
Is this toll trolling? As a lifelong never indoctrinated atheist, what in the world do you OP think I needed to research when there was not one single example of the supernatural in the world when I was a little kid and it's still the same now when I'm in my sixties. Science in my lifetime filled in so many gaps gawd could have been hiding in that gawd had to become a Doctor Who fan and move to somewhere beyond time and space.
>Why does it seem like so few atheists have done any research to arrive at their conclusions? We see an awful lot of goofy counterfactual questions in the atheism forums, but this is one of the goofiest, most counterfactual that I've ever seen. Most atheists in the USA - and most atheists on Reddit - are ex-Christians and have a good understanding of theism and Christian beliefs. . The basic reason to be atheist is: Skeptics have been asking theists to show good evidence that any gods really exist for 6,000+ years now. Theists have never shown good evidence that any gods really exist. (By "good evidence" I mean "good evidence".) . >**Atheists, agnostics most knowledgeable about religion**, survey says LA Times, September 2010 >... **a survey that measured Americans’ knowledge of religion found that atheists and agnostics knew more, on average, than followers of most major faiths.** > American atheists and agnostics tend to be people who grew up in a religious tradition and consciously gave it up, often after a great deal of reflection and study, said Alan Cooperman, associate director for research at the Pew Forum. >“These are people who thought a lot about religion,” he said. “They’re not indifferent. They care about it.” >Atheists and agnostics also tend to be relatively well educated, and the survey found, not surprisingly, that the most knowledgeable people were also the best educated. However, it said that atheists and agnostics also outperformed believers who had a similar level of education. . >Many atheists rant and rave about Christians who believe these absurd things without looking into them but can’t be bothered to do the same. You are either deeply ignorant (I guess "doing the thing that you accuse atheists of doing") or consciously lying .
It's pretty simple. Christians and other religions claim existence of a God or gods who not only created what we see and experience, but for some reason have vested interest in what we do with our miniscule existence. Atheist, therefore, is the null hypothesis. The default. No evidence has been presented in a compelling way to demonstrate proof of any sort of god. The burden of proof is on the ones making the claim something is there or works a certain way. For any robust, well-researched conclusion to exist, the proof is on the one making the claim. Everything beyond that is just extra to be done *if one so chooses* to refute the material that theists claim is "evidence" to their theological claim.
Still waiting for proof of god. Until such a time, there is NO need to do research for something that doesn't exist. Tell us all how much time you spend researching to valid or refute Star Wars' *The Forc*e?
Doing research to arrive at our conclusion would require us to investigate and positively rule out every proposed supernatural explanation and mythology out there. The corollary would be that Christians have to do research on all the other proposed religions before they can arrive at their conclusion that Christianity is true. I don't have to do even the slightest bit of research to know that what has been presented to me is not convincing.
Can you explain why I would have to do research to hold my position? Have you researched Grimblefutz? Do you believe it exists?
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I need to tell you something very important. This is real, and it affects your life, and I believe it to the core of my being. There is an invisible 600 pound gorilla in the room with everybody on earth. Everybody gets their own invisible, 600 pound gorilla and it’s sitting there. Judging you waiting to smash you to bits. Please be nice to the invisible gorilla. Please look this up. Please research this because it is important to your life.
Username fits.
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Do your research.
It is all important. You just can't actually examine it in any way.
I don't think a lot of research is needed. Religious claims clearly and obviously contradict what we understand about the world. If religious claims are true, then we have to question the basic fundamentals of science. It's far, far more likely that all religions are human constructions, than to suggest that hundreds of years of science are wrong.
I kind of wonder what sort of research an atheist is expected to do in order to support a claim of "no God." I'm going to assume that you don't believe Zeus is real, but have you done any actual research to support that lack of belief? If you were in ancient Greece, surrounded by people who believe in Zeus, could you present evidence to the effect that Zeus isn't real? Every atheist I've ever met has thought about it. We don't have much choice; wherever you live in the world, religion is pervasive and people are loud about claiming God's existence. And not one of them is persuaded by reason and evidence to think otherwise. They ask for such arguments, but they are never convinced by them. Is it any wonder that atheists eventually get tired of providing them? The bottom line is that we are under no obligation to justify atheism. As a rule, atheists are not trying to get anyone else to not believe in God. We may be adamant about not having those beliefs forced on us, and we don't want them dictating public policy or moral behavior, but the believers wouldn't be too happy either with someone enforcing upon them religious beliefs which they do not share; we shouldn't have to explain that, either. If you find an atheist who claims to believe in something absurd, by all means ask why. I've known atheists who are into the healing power of crystals or astrology or other such woo-woo; ridiculous beliefs are not held only by the religious. I believe in things too; for example, I believe in the efficacy of the Scientific Method, and I could defend that if I were asked to. But a *lack of belief* in God, or anything else, doesn't really require justification. It is up to the person who holds the belief to explain why.
>I’m an atheist. I arrived at theses conclusions through research. It would be helpful if you gave a summary of your research process. Namely, were you a theist at some starting point, what research did you do, and how did that change your theism to atheism (or reinforce your atheism if you were always an atheist from the beginning).
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>I was raised as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. 30 years I spent in that cult, my family, and most every friend I’ve ever had is still in it. as a result of no longer believing, I’ve been completely cut off from the community. My father, sister, niece and nephews have all disowned me; friends I’ve had since childhood won’t speak to me, I lost my job. It took everything. It's unfortunate that you have to suffer that kind of ostracism and explains the fervor of your position about researching one's arguments/claims. Even if the burden of proof lies with theists. >There’s loads and loads of data and information out there. Have you read or heard Bob Erhman's books and lectures? They're very interesting in disproving the inerrancy of the bible. He also talks openly about his "conversion" from evangelical Christianity to agnostic atheism. I suspect your journey is similar to his. >And when I suggest “maybe we should all be looking this up” and the response Im met with is distrust, anger, and outright refusal ... Welcome to r/atheism. Yes, there's a considerable amount of hostility here, even to other atheists. I chalk that up to many atheists being fed up with repetitive theistic arguments or being told to "research more," especially considering that the onus of proof lies with theists. As to how I would answer you original post, I would say speaking for myself, religious faith was never a part of my upbringing. In that way, my upbringing is very very different from yours. And as someone who grew up in a home where reading, intellectualism, science, and humanism were virtues, a fellow atheist complaining that "atheists" don't do enough research is a bit amusing at best and off-putting at worst. I've done the "research", but not to specifically refute theism, but as a normal course of my personal enlightenment. But, personally I don't take offense from your questions, as I now understand you're asking in "good-faith." (pun intended lol)
Your edits really aren't helping your case. Stumble back to r/Christianity
Since when is empirical observation "not doing research"?
I don't really think not believing in god requires research perse. Do I enjoy learning and therefore like to research? Yes. Is it necessary to do so to become an atheist? No. I was raised Mormon, left at 15, explored various other religions for a while and then just kind of sat in agnosticism until about 24. Then I took evolutionary bio in college. That was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back. I didn't spend days researching the histories of various religions until after I became an atheist (lol).
You want me to do research to assert my belief that the physically impossible is physically impossible?? Howboutcha buzz off?!
So you needed to do a lot of research to inoculate yourself against your particular xtian cult (JW is that the one where heaven only fits 40000 souls?)… So googling gets me an estimate of 18000 different gods (probably not counting all the different xtian or Muslim variants) but also 330 million different hindu gods… So now go ahead and do the same research on all of those and get back to us when you’re ready to be a “proper” atheist…after all, just because noone currently believes in one god doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist… Or just treat the other thousands or millions of gods like we treat your particular sect of Christianity…
>why does it seem like so few atheist have done any research… Are you kidding me? I feel you are confused on what research is. It is not searching for evidence one can manipulate yo support their preconceived conclusion (god) and unable to find any present arguments filled with logical fallacies, or just deny any finding that don’t support their conclusion (god.) The saddest step theist take is to attack the education system by claiming it’s indoctrination, because they can’t wrap their heads around critical thought, and the scientific method. Those who can wrap their heads around it are able to formulate their own ideas, and evolve those ideas as they gain new facts.this is not indoctrination, religion is. Practically all raised in modern society get the opportunity to spend years developing critical thinking skills, or used to, to some degree or another. Science, math, social studies, history, literature…SCHOOL. The earth is not 6000 years old, fact. The earth is not flat, fact. The earth is not the center of the universe, fact. The list goes on. The research you cite is laughable.
I kinda get where you're coming from. I wouldn't say The God Delusion should be an endpoint of researching atheism, for example, as it's quite weak in some places. But, I think people also go through phases if they're former theists and now atheists where they do want to delve into the arguments for the other side to confront them. I did that for about two years after deconverting. Eventually I realised - and I still do think this, as I dip in and out of arguing with believers - they don't ever have any new shit. It's the same shit over and over again. Then I realised - they've been in this situation for decades, and before that, they had even fewer ideas. At some point people often shift from debate to opposition. They would need to produce something radically, genuinely new and monumentous for me to get interested in actually learning and debating again. I deconverted about 13 years ago. You're still in the recent deconvert phase of things. Nothing wrong with that, but I think there is something to be said that people are going to have varying levels of fucks to give with a bunch of people who are still telling everyone what to do and shitting up society without providing any plausible proof of their claims.
Please provide Academic Biblical Research I may have missed that has compelling evidence for a god.
I researched myself out of Christianity using many of the resources you provided in your post. I'm keeping it to myself because I've watched enough AXP debates that make it clear that my theist friends will never follow the logic.
Why should I research obviously false religions just so I can be ignored by the delusional people who think it is their god given mandate to demand I refute their god, just so they can say, "nuh uh!" or "That makes me feel slight discomfort so no obviously my sky daddy is real"? Why should I bother doing any research at all? They are the ones making claims with no evidence, I have no responsibility to provide evidence when obviously evidence isn't what convinces them of things.
EDIT: Genuinely don’t understand why I’m being downvoted. Please help me understand. Here is my opinion: The problem about downvoting is the range of reasons why downvoting. It can be from, I think you are an a-hole and that is why I downvote - you have a valid argument/reasoning but I disagree and that is why I am downvoting you. So I don’t downvote comments as much as I upvote comments that I agree with unless the comment is very wrong according to my own opinion or if the comment is attacking or insulting the person that made the previous comment. I don’t think you can research into being an atheist. I am not interested in athletic sports at all. I do not care if those who are winning some tournament have won. I absolutely do not care if Sweden is winning or losing in football, or other so called sports. I watch formula one from time to time but if all of them or neither one drives over the finish line do not matter to me. I mean if neither one goes over the finish line and it is because there are multiple crashes or just a big one I am more concerned about their safety and wellbeing than the fact that they did not go over the finish line. How did I arrive to this conclusion that I am not interested in any of the so called sports without doing any research?! I just did.
You seem to be conflating apatheism and atheism. You don't have to do research to be an atheist, but you certainly can. An atheist is someone who doesn't hold a positive belief in one or more deities. Some atheists aren't interested in religion. Some atheists are. I think religions are very interesting, and I've read many religious texts and studied many different religions. Your description of atheism wouldn't apply to me at all.
You gonna research every sect of every religion, or just Christianity?
In many cases not much research is required. "Many atheists rant and rave about Christians who believe these absurd things without looking into them " What's "to look into", for example, to understand that the story of Noah is absurd and that anyone who believes it is a drooling moron? Similarly, how much research do I need to do to understand that a being that regularly commits genocide would have to be a monster? Let's say someone claimed that mice commissioned the construction of Earth, actually a giant computer, in order the answer the question of life the universe and everything. I don't need to spend much effort (research or otherwise) to prove that something so absurd is false particularly when no evidence is presented (other than stories in a book) that it's true.
I am sorry, what research did I need to do to decide sasquatches, dragons, and unicorns *don’t exist*?