Atheism is a delusion - I'm not just saying this, I'm serious!

[Keith_]

So it sounds like you were one of those atheists who thought you knew what a god was and that no such thing existed.  Was it your experience that most atheists you knew then were like you?

Yes.  Prior to about 2008, the New Atheism was essentially non-existent and atheism was almost invariably a intellect-driven affirmative belief rooted in scientific or philosophical knowledge, and almost always included a strong commitment to naturalism.  When I joined the forum, atheists were typically interested in offering arguments to support their beliefs.

-Keith

[john doe]

So it sounds like you were one of those atheists who thought you knew what a god was and that no such thing existed.  Was it your experience that most atheists you knew then were like you?

Yes.  Prior to about 2008, the New Atheism was essentially non-existent and atheism was almost invariably a intellect-driven affirmative belief rooted in scientific or philosophical knowledge, and almost always included a strong commitment to naturalism.  When I joined the forum, atheists were typically interested in offering arguments to support their beliefs.

-Keith

Interesting.  I guess I've been an atheist since around 1965.  I've never read a book by the new atheists nor would it occur to me to do so.  I'm not hostile toward belief in gods and I find the phenomenon to be worthy of interest if only because of how pervasive and long standing it has been.  Nonetheless, to the degree I really know what the idea of a god is supposed to be, I don't find I harbor any such belief.  The best I can do is imagine that 'God' is something potentially within the consciousness of every human being.  It is one possible way consciousness can be wired.  In my own sense of self I acknowledge there is more to me than is under my own control and which is, in some respects at least, wiser than I am.  When I reflect on a thing I am still and will wait patiently for any insight which might be bestowed.  I am appreciative and respectful of whatever this is - how can one not be?  But so long as gods are understood as beings outside of ourselves without whom nothing would exist then I guess I don't have any belief in that sort of thing.

[Keith_]

So it sounds like you were one of those atheists who thought you knew what a god was and that no such thing existed.  Was it your experience that most atheists you knew then were like you?

Yes.  Prior to about 2008, the New Atheism was essentially non-existent and atheism was almost invariably a intellect-driven affirmative belief rooted in scientific or philosophical knowledge, and almost always included a strong commitment to naturalism.  When I joined the forum, atheists were typically interested in offering arguments to support their beliefs.

-Keith

Interesting.  I guess I've been an atheist since around 1965.  I've never read a book by the new atheists nor would it occur to me to do so.  I'm not hostile toward belief in gods and I find the phenomenon to be worthy of interest if only because of how pervasive and long standing it has been.  Nonetheless, to the degree I really know what the idea of a god is supposed to be, I don't find I harbor any such belief.  The best I can do is imagine that 'God' is something potentially within the consciousness of every human being.  It is one possible way consciousness can be wired. 

Though I was not interested in and seldom contemplated God, I was very interested in having well-founded rational beliefs, but there were certain problems I could not solve. My knowledge of my own consciousness is  case in point. Material objects are not aware of themselves and rearranging matter could not cause something beyond matter like consciousness to occur.   "Consciousness is a conspicuous obstacle to naturalism that relies on the resources of the physical sciences"¹.  Consciousness, evidence we all have, defeats the scientism of Dawkins and Harris outright - a core belief held widely by those in the popular internet atheist.

Another contradiction I compartmentalized as an atheist is the problem of existence. Science teaches us to follow casual regressions back to to their origins, leaving us with a dead end where the laws of physics break down. Science, though a wonderful and powerful tool for understanding natural order, but the findings of science include showing that simple questions about origins are beyond its reach.  Science does not provide us with a complete account of the reality we see around us. The unanswered questions include simple ones such as consciousness and all questions about our origins.

To avoid allowing the encroachments of religion in public education were educated to avoid reasoning about or examining fundamental and important topics about who we are as if such questions were of no importance. But if we don't know who or what we are, where we came from, or why we are here, we don't know ourselves.

Being content with atheism requires a remarkable blunting of human curiosity and our desire to know who we are. What I see atheists expressing isn't a lack of belief of about gods, it's an apathy so entrained into our thinking that the lack of interest is mistaken to be a lack of evidence. To keep religion out of education the education systems operate as if life's most important questions, the questions religions seek to answer,  have no importance and do not warrant our attention. Accepting that this is true is to accept a belief, even if is not recognized as such.

In my own sense of self I acknowledge there is more to me than is under my own control and which is, in some respects at least, wiser than I am.  When I reflect on a thing I am still and will wait patiently for any insight which might be bestowed.  I am appreciative and respectful of whatever this is - how can one not be?  But so long as gods are understood as beings outside of ourselves without whom nothing would exist then I guess I don't have any belief in that sort of thing.

I think what you said is this. You perceive something more in yourself than what is available to your senses. It may influence you at times, but calling it god or attributing actions to it would be to exceed the available data.  The idea of gods as existential beings and attributing actions such as creation is unconvincing, and if I understand  such an idea is probably strikes you as lacking sufficient merit to warrant serious consideration, your are essentially neutral.

Do I seem to understand?

-Keith

1. Atheist Thomas Nagel - Mind and Cosmos p35

[john doe]

Difficult stuff to talk about as it always is when qualities of consciousness come up.  But I think you've got it.  I don't think the move from the internal sense of something apart from and more than the me which is under my control to an external cosmic creator god is warranted.  I just have to admit that I don't know what or where this 'other' may be that one senses within but I see no justification to think that it is anywhere 'out there'.  If I don't know where it comes from then I can't accept that anyone else does either.  I don't believe there were covens of elites who did know this.  I don't believe there are any holy books whose authors knew this.  Bottom line, if I don't know, then I'm in no position to recognize who is in a position to know.  And I'm not going to substitute a hunch or a hope for the pure mystery of it.  Either it will tell me or I won't know but I will accept no substitutes.

So what does that leave?  I think it leaves a phenomenon of consciousness which supports and grounds belief in gods or God construed in many different ways.  I'm not going to say that every formulation of gods is equal, but I don't know that they aren't.  Even left as a mystery it is pretty darned interesting and in my experience something which adds value to my life.  I don't need to know in order to reap some benefit.

More than anything else I want to understand what I can of this life, but I have no appetite for short cuts and no confidence in experts.  I'm not unhappy. 

Sorry this is quick and less thoughtful than your reply but the wife and I are in the middle of doing taxes here and this 'bathroom break' has been suspiciously long already.  I may come back and address some particulars of your post in more detail when I can.

[john doe]

So it sounds like you were one of those atheists who thought you knew what a god was and that no such thing existed.  Was it your experience that most atheists you knew then were like you?

Yes.  Prior to about 2008, the New Atheism was essentially non-existent and atheism was almost invariably a intellect-driven affirmative belief rooted in scientific or philosophical knowledge, and almost always included a strong commitment to naturalism.  When I joined the forum, atheists were typically interested in offering arguments to support their beliefs.

-Keith

Interesting.  I guess I've been an atheist since around 1965.  I've never read a book by the new atheists nor would it occur to me to do so.  I'm not hostile toward belief in gods and I find the phenomenon to be worthy of interest if only because of how pervasive and long standing it has been.  Nonetheless, to the degree I really know what the idea of a god is supposed to be, I don't find I harbor any such belief.  The best I can do is imagine that 'God' is something potentially within the consciousness of every human being.  It is one possible way consciousness can be wired. 

Though I was not interested in and seldom contemplated God, I was very interested in having well-founded rational beliefs, but there were certain problems I could not solve. My knowledge of my own consciousness is  case in point. Material objects are not aware of themselves and rearranging matter could not cause something beyond matter like consciousness to occur.   "Consciousness is a conspicuous obstacle to naturalism that relies on the resources of the physical sciences"¹.  Consciousness, evidence we all have, defeats the scientism of Dawkins and Harris outright - a core belief held widely by those in the popular internet atheist.

I agree that scientism is a quick and loose response to the idea of god belief.  However I also find it facile to jump to the conclusion that materialism cannot underlie consciousness.  Inorganic material objects certainly seem unlikely to be self aware but organic 'objects' [aka subjects] largely do display consciousness to some degree.  In the case of human beings, don't we routinely infer consciousness to everyone regardless of their views on materialism and god belief?  But while organic processes support all the examples of conscious beings we will ever find on this world, that does not mean consciousness reduces to neuronal and hormonal activity.  "Supporting consciousness" is not identical to "make up consciousness".  When we subjects describe our consciousness we never mention the nitty gritty organic processes which make it possible; instead we properly describe our experience of consciousness which if it is something we are doing we never know how it is we're doing it.

Another contradiction I compartmentalized as an atheist is the problem of existence. Science teaches us to follow casual regressions back to to their origins, leaving us with a dead end where the laws of physics break down. Science, though a wonderful and powerful tool for understanding natural order, but the findings of science include showing that simple questions about origins are beyond its reach.  Science does not provide us with a complete account of the reality we see around us. The unanswered questions include simple ones such as consciousness and all questions about our origins.

Questions of our origins may be simple to construct but they are anything but easy to answer.  Questions of consciousness are neither easy to compose nor answer.  But these are called the big questions for a reason.  Why do you think it isn't proper for science to admit its limitations and therefore not pursue certain questions?  In fact there are scientists interested in consciousness as well as in origins.  But the truth is they have not been able to thoroughly answer the question of where we came from.  I assume we evolved from simpler life forms over eons of time and that, prior to that, through complex but pervasive conditions inorganic matter became organic material which then through natural selection evolved into ever more adaptive life forms over incredibly long periods of time.  But even the inorganic material that had to be available for organic molecules to form required a longer history of star creation and destruction to form elements heavier than hydrogen and helium.  All of that was set in motion by the notorious big bang which I accept probably did occur between 10 and 20 billion years ago.

Do I consider that a thorough account of our origins?  No, I don't.  It is sketchy at best.  The transition from inorganic to organic forms involves a lot of hand waving and assumptions, admittedly.  But is the theory that a still more complex being who just happens to have always existed just whipped everything up out of nothing at his cosmic watchmaker's bench?  While tying into traditional origin stories, is that really that much more thorough?  I obviously don't think so.  Anyone who claims to know what happened 20 billion years ago is exaggerating.  Scientists don't know.  Theologians don't know.  No one knows.  It is a mystery.  Scientists like the smartypants Krause are fond of overstating their case but many theologians are equally guilty.  Agnosticism regarding origins is the only honest position to take.  From there all opinions are on equal footing depending on whose paradigms one is following when seeking to explain the observations one finds most important.

To avoid allowing the encroachments of religion in public education were educated to avoid reasoning about or examining fundamental and important topics about who we are as if such questions were of no importance. But if we don't know who or what we are, where we came from, or why we are here, we don't know ourselves.

But would you really want to leave it to public education to handle your kids understanding of the big questions?  I wouldn't.  Even if non secular traditions were included, which ones would those be?  Who decides?  But it is fair criticism to call out educators who follow Krauss' example and imply that no mention is made of the big questions because they don't matter or are just silly.

Being content with atheism requires a remarkable blunting of human curiosity and our desire to know who we are. What I see atheists expressing isn't a lack of belief of about gods, it's an apathy so entrained into our thinking that the lack of interest is mistaken to be a lack of evidence. To keep religion out of education the education systems operate as if life's most important questions, the questions religions seek to answer,  have no importance and do not warrant our attention. Accepting that this is true is to accept a belief, even if is not recognized as such.

From where I sit it is the desire to think we already know who we are which blunts human curiosity, and blind adherence to religious tradition lends itself to that as much as does scientism.  If our epistemic position doesn't allow us (at least yet) to know who we are, then we have to allow ourselves to ponder the mystery as we find it without jumping to rash conclusions on either side.

In my own sense of self I acknowledge there is more to me than is under my own control and which is, in some respects at least, wiser than I am.  When I reflect on a thing I am still and will wait patiently for any insight which might be bestowed.  I am appreciative and respectful of whatever this is - how can one not be?  But so long as gods are understood as beings outside of ourselves without whom nothing would exist then I guess I don't have any belief in that sort of thing.

I think what you said is this. You perceive something more in yourself than what is available to your senses. It may influence you at times, but calling it god or attributing actions to it would be to exceed the available data.  The idea of gods as existential beings and attributing actions such as creation is unconvincing, and if I understand  such an idea is probably strikes you as lacking sufficient merit to warrant serious consideration, you are essentially neutral.

Do I seem to understand?

-Keith

Yes and I mostly already responded to this part.  I don't necessarily object to calling the part which is more than what is available to sense data God.  It is IMO what underlies the pervasive and long standing history of god belief.  The only thing I object to is connecting this internal apprehension of 'God' to the traditional template of a literal creator of the cosmos.  Perhaps there is a sense in which the cosmos as we experience it is put together at a more basic level of consciousness.  Evolutionarily you hear scientists speak of our reptilian brain stem being covered over by our mammalian brain and then that being capped by a still more enlarged prefrontal cortex in at least our case.  In some sense our reptilian brain is still flooding our brains with hormones which induce fight or flight and basic survival.  Likewise our mammalian brain still knows how to move through the natural world in pursuit of mates and the good life.  But the development of the conscious mind which has made all our hypothetical ruminations possible has created a condition in which we are able to call into question almost anything.  This modern condition is created in a sense by the autonomous activity of the other brain forms still active but at an unconscious level below that which we most identify with. 

[pat1911]

It is quite obvious that many atheists are intelligent and lucid people who think very deeply about the nature of reality by incorporating as much available data as they can into their conclusions.

Citation needed.

There are plenty secularists online that are not deluded. I can find links if you feel a Google search parameter is too difficult.

I would agree with this. But for every reasonable secularist, there is a Dawkinist. And no Dawkinist is reasonable, nice or well grounded in their beliefs.