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

The problem here is that you accept anecdotal evidence: in this case the Bible.It is from this document that the tenents of your faith spring.I would argue that a dyed in the wool atheist simply does not accept this arbitary collection of writings as factual.We are born with no concept of the xian god. We learn about it, we examine whether the balance of evidence would support the hypothesis that your god exist and we regect or accept it.I woulds argue that people who do not believe in gods and demons and spirits and all manner of superstitious thought (JP Sartre called it Magical Thinking I seem to recall - my Psychology comes back to me in fits and starts ) are only willing to accept more reliable and valid (in the scientific sense) data than believers.I contend that believers also stop at 'godidit'.Why atheist don't beleive is because 'godidit' is an inadequate conclusion.I beleive 'godidit' is a ridiculous conclusion untill I see a reason not to.Anyones default position on belief in your god is non belief untill they are exposed to evidence. Then anyone will hold that evidence up to scrutiny and make a choice.If you chose to change the default position from non belief you are making a positive choice and must be able to justify that choice (if only to your self).If you chose not to alter your default position, this is an omission of action and need not be justified.

Damn striaght.Non-belief in the supernatural is an omisson of action. We learn all kinds of stuff in life and cling to what we like to believe is true.Unless we rely on evidence we may as well believe in anything.

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

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

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

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

Is this not the position of the agnostic? As a desription of a theist I concur.However my point was that the default position of every human being is that of non-belief in religious doctorine and that we make an active choice by ascribing to a religion. Someone who is not religious only needs to make a chice about religions he has been exposed to.You are right that a child bought up exposed to a pure xian culture would only be capable of being a xian or not xian.No indoctorination, no xian (or what ever).

Woah there! just spotted this: Does this not answer to OP?

I stand corrected.

Rat, please google Theory of Mind. You will see how irrelavent that sentence is.

I stand corrected and no appologies needed mate

No, this default position (when we are first conscious) of no belief in supernatural entities.People who do not believe in such things either never have (because there was no compelling reason to change the default position) or have changed their default to 'belief in the supernatural' and then through experienced reasessed that change (from the default position of no belief in th supernatural) and made a choice not to.You have two answers to the OP 'Why Atheists don't believe?'1: There is no change in the default position re: belief in the supernatual which is initially 'there are no gods'2a: There is a change to the default position re: belief in the supernatual which is initially 'there are no gods' and one chooses to believe there are supernatural entities in the universe e.g. xian god.2b: This belief is then reasessed and found wanting and the default position is re-aquired.How does this not answer the OP?

Incorrect.You do not have to be aware of something to not believe it is true. The default state needs no a priori concepts to have no belief in gods.Having no concept of xian doctorine means you have no belief in the xian god.That is to say when we are toddlers (at default) we have no knowledge and cannot be said to believe or disbelieve. There is no preprogrammed knowledge in humans.We may only choose to alter that default position when we are exposed to concepts.How many time do I have to repeat this?