Why I'm an atheist
Feb. 28th, 2007 12:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sarahmichiganThis 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.
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.
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no subject
Date: 2007-03-01 03:03 pm (UTC)I don't know that believing or not-believing in the divine has any kind of goal; in a sense, that question doesn't even make sense to me. In terms of effect, I think belief or non-belief has a lot less effect on what people do than we'd like to think. I think good people use God as an excuse to do good and bad people use religion to justify they bad things they do. I think they'd still be good (here, "good" meaning something like "following the golden rule") even if they lost their belief in deity.
I'm glad you're enjoying the discussion, but I'm actually tiring of it a bit; I was putting up the "Why I am a..." posts more for my own reference than to start a philosophical debate. I've done the debates over and over both in college courses and in other settings with believers, and I just tend to get tired of it eventually. I don't mean to say you're doing anything to bother me in particular, and I don't want to be rude, but I'd just rather move on from this discussion at this point.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-01 03:13 pm (UTC)It sounds like your original assertion -- that, all things being equal, your instincts just tell you that God/supernaturalia is just a silly idea -- is the essence of it. I can totally go with that, because (as said above), in matters of improvables, that's really all we've got to go on.
Sorry if it wore you out -- i didn't intend to kick off a debate that would strain anyone. Just wanted to throw ideas around. Folks who have opinions/beliefs different than mine but who i also respect are a great source of new ideas and growth for my own philosophies.
Be well!