Why I'm an atheist

[sarahmichigan]

This is going to be kind of anti-climactic since I've been thinking on it for a while and leading up to it, and yet it's going to be short. But here goes.

I'm an atheist because I think the burden of proof is on those who believe in ANY kind of supernatural phenomena. As far as I can tell, material, natural explanations explain the world and how it works and how it came into being just fine.

To me, positing a Higher Being (especially the more specific you get about what this being is like) to explain things is like saying that tiny black fairies contort their bodies to show the time on my digital watch rather than relying on naturalistic, material explantions about electricity and such.

Now, I understand why some people have an intuition that there just MUST be something bigger than us that created the world. That's fine, and I can understand that. (I have trouble figuring out, sometimes, how people go from "some higher being" to "my specific sect or doctrine," but that's another subject.) However, I don't have that intuition.

I remember when I was taking philosophy courses at Western Michigan University, and sometimes the professor would ask, "What's your intuition about that statment or assertion?" This was in the context of many philosophical arguments, not just ones about the existence or non-existence of God. I remember thinking, "Intuition?! This is supposed to be a philosophy course, and not a New Age class about how to fine-tune your ESP."

But really, when it comes to belief in a higher being of some sort, I think a lot of us are going off our gut feeling. My gut says that only the material world exists, and there isn't anything "super" above the natural world. Any weirdness that can't be explained by science can usually be explained by psychology.

Comments

[guttaperk.livejournal.com]

A good and reasonable post.

Most people, whether deist or atheist, are less reasonable in their expression.

Two questions, though:
(1) Your post implies that the main (if not the only) function of religion is to explain natural phenomenon. Is that really your belief?
(2) What place (if any) do you think intuition should have in philosophy or religion?

cheers

adrian.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

Two questions, though:
(1) Your post implies that the main (if not the only) function of religion is to explain natural phenomenon. Is that really your belief?

No. The main reason I bring this up is that when you have a discussion between theists and atheists/agnostics, one of the first and main points brought up is something like, "But how can you look at the world and believe that there's no creator?" or "How did the world get here if there's no god?"

The main functions of religion, as far as I can tell, seem to be helping people make sense of the world, helping people figure out how to make good decisions, and creating a sense of community.

(2) What place (if any) do you think intuition should have in philosophy or religion?

Some place. As much as I'm a supporter of learning logical deduction and induction and learning to spot fallacies, I also think that intuition is important in most spheres of our life. I don't necessarily think intuition equals illogical though; I think we often have intuition about things that very well may have a logical/scientific explantion, but we just don't have a grasp on that logical/scientific explantion yet.

Not sure if I'm making sense here...

[pstscrpt.livejournal.com]

I think we often have intuition about things that very well may have a logical/scientific explantion, but we just don't have a grasp on that logical/scientific explantion yet.
And it doesn't need to be fuzzy, either. I remember when I was in geometry in tenth grade, I could say that an angle was, say, 25 degrees long before I could explain how I knew that.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_earthshine_/]

...I also think that intuition is important in most spheres of our life. I don't necessarily think intuition equals illogical though; I think we often have intuition about things that very well may have a logical/scientific explantion...

Yes... definitely. I agree on two counts:

1) Insert my post on "irrationality as the axiom" here. :) Our intutions can be perfectly great in realms where either (a) we need not ask others to sacrifice the "shared space" of logical thought, or (b) we ask others and they don't mind doing so. The key is realizing that we're asking.

2) I've heard many theories that intuitions/emotions are "shortcuts" of cognitions -- constructs made by the brain to prevent having to fully process everything we perceive and thereby enabling higher overall capacity. Sometimes our intuitions can be very accurate. Again, the key to responsibly handling them is to keep them in check, especially in realms where we need to "share the space" with others, and therefore ought go back to the common ground of logic.

[arkaycee.livejournal.com]

RE: (1) -- I liked the term Richard Dawkins used for Intelligent Design -- "Proof by Astonishment" (I *think* I have that right -- read his The Ancestor's Tale a few months back).

The idea is, "if I can't imagine how someone could do something, a Supreme Being must have done it."