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Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world

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My problem with atheism (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 months ago by platypus_plumba@lemmy.world to c/atheism@lemmy.world

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First of all, I have more in common with atheists than religious people, so my intention isn't to come here and attack, I just want to hear your opinions. Maybe I'm wrong, I'd like to hear from you if I am. I'm just expressing here my perception of the movement and not actually what I consider to be facts.

My issue with atheism is that I think it establishes the lack of a God or gods as the truth. I do agree that the concept of a God is hard to believe logically, specially with all the incoherent arguments that religions have had in the past. But saying that there's no god with certainty is something I'm just not comfortable with. Science has taught us that being wrong is part of the process of progress. We're constantly learning things we didn't know about, confirming theories that seemed insane in their time. I feel like being open to the possibilities is a healthier mindset, as we barely understand reality.

In general, atheism feels too close minded, too attached to the current facts, which will probably be obsolete in a few centuries. I do agree with logical and rational thinking, but part of that is accepting how little we really know about reality, how what we considered truth in the past was wrong or more complex than we expected

I usually don't believe there is a god when the argument comes from religious people, because they have no evidence, but they could be right by chance.

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[–] platypus_plumba@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's what I do, I dismiss the claim. But just because their claim doesn't make sense to me I won't assume they are wrong.

If something doesn't make sense to me, doesn't mean that thing doesn't make sense. If something makes sense to me, it doesn't mean it makes sense. If there's no evidence to prove something, doesn't mean that thing is false...

I just feel my place in the universe is pretty far away from absolute truths. I prefer the humble route of just saying "I just don't really know, do I'd rather not believe based on emotions or shallow perceptions".

[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 1 points 2 months ago

That's what I do, I dismiss the claim. But just because their claim doesn't make sense to me I won't assume they are wrong.

If you still assume that the claim might have merit, you explicitly haven't dismissed the claim. You may not live like it might be true, but if you don't assume it's wrong either you haven't really dismissed it.

If something doesn't make sense to me, doesn't mean that thing doesn't make sense. If something makes sense to me, it doesn't mean it makes sense.

You don't have to consider all things you do not understand to be false. You have to ask yourself if something could be true. This involves a number of subquestions, one of which might be "does this make sense to me", but it doesn't have to be the defining factor. Quantum mechanics doesn't make a whole lot of sense to most people, but you don't see a mass rejection of QM for that reason.

I just feel my place in the universe is pretty far away from absolute truths. I prefer the humble route of just saying "I just don't really know, do I'd rather not believe based on emotions or shallow perceptions".

You might argue humble, I might argue a sense of naivety. There's a whole lot of things we can say about the universe with pretty absolute certainty. For the concept of god, we have about zero reasons to assume he exists and a whole lot of reasons why he probably doesn't. In that situation I can't in good conscience maintain the position that science is wrong about everything and god does exist. The dismissal of evidence pointing towards the absense of a god comes across to me as arrogance rather than humility, though I'm fairly certain that's not where your position comes from.

Did you try the thought experiment? What things do you know? What constitutes the line of knowing vs believing for you? Would you believe that an alien version of RuPaul could be at the center of the moon, because we haven't checked there? Would you consider it even possible or would you dismiss the claim? And if you dismiss it, what makes this claim truly any different from the claim that god might exist?