I Believed in God Then Atheist Then Believe in God Again Then an Atheist Again
Many atheists think that their atheism is the product of rational thinking. They utilise arguments such every bit "I don't believe in God, I believe in scientific discipline" to explain that testify and logic, rather than supernatural belief and dogma, underpin their thinking. But only because you believe in evidence-based, scientific inquiry – which is subject to strict checks and procedures – doesn't mean that your mind works in the aforementioned way.
When you ask atheists near why they became atheists (as I practise for a living), they often point to eureka moments when they came to realise that religion simply doesn't make sense.
Oddly perhaps, many religious people actually have a similar view of disbelief. This comes out when theologians and other theists speculate that it must be rather sad to be an atheist, defective (every bit they recollect atheists do) so much of the philosophical, upstanding, mythical and aesthetic fulfilments that religious people have access to – stuck in a cold world of rationality simply.
The science of atheism
The problem that any rational thinker needs to tackle, though, is that the scientific discipline increasingly shows that atheists are no more rational than theists. Indeed, atheists are but as susceptible as the side by side person to "group-remember" and other non-rational forms of noesis. For example, religious and nonreligious people alike can end up following charismatic individuals without questioning them. And our minds frequently prefer righteousness over truth, as the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has explored.
Even atheist behavior themselves have much less to do with rational inquiry than atheists often recall. We now know, for example, that nonreligious children of religious parents cast off their beliefs for reasons that have little to do with intellectual reasoning. The latest cerebral research shows that the decisive factor is learning from what parents do rather than from what they say. And then if a parent says that they're Christian, just they've fallen out of the addiction of doing the things they say should matter – such as praying or going to church building – their kids simply don't purchase the idea that religion makes sense.
This is perfectly rational in a sense, but children aren't processing this on a cognitive level. Throughout our evolutionary history, humans have oftentimes lacked the time to scrutinise and counterbalance up the evidence – needing to make quick assessments. That ways that children to some extent merely absorb the crucial data, which in this case is that religious belief doesn't appear to matter in the way that parents are saying it does.
Even older children and adolescents who actually ponder the topic of faith may not be budgeted information technology as independently as they retrieve. Emerging inquiry is demonstrating that atheist parents (and others) pass on their beliefs to their children in a similar way to religious parents – through sharing their culture equally much every bit their arguments.
Some parents take the view that their children should choose their beliefs for themselves, but what they and so practise is laissez passer on certain means of thinking well-nigh religion, similar the idea that religion is a matter of choice rather than divine truth. It's not surprising that almost all of these children – 95% – cease up "choosing" to be atheist.
Science versus beliefs
Merely are atheists more likely to encompass scientific discipline than religious people? Many belief systems can exist more or less closely integrated with scientific knowledge. Some belief systems are openly critical of scientific discipline, and recollect it has far too much sway over our lives, while other belief systems are hugely concerned to larn about and respond to scientific knowledge.
But this departure doesn't neatly map onto whether you are religious or not. Some Protestant traditions, for example, see rationality or scientific thinking as primal to their religious lives. Meanwhile, a new generation of postmodern atheists highlight the limits of man knowledge, and see scientific noesis equally hugely limited, problematic even, especially when it comes to existential and ethical questions. These atheists might, for case, follow thinkers like Charles Baudelaire in the view that true knowledge is but found in artistic expression.
And while many atheists do like to think of themselves as pro science, science and technology itself tin sometimes be the ground of religious thinking or beliefs, or something very much like it. For instance, the rise of the transhumanist movement, which centres on the belief that humans can and should transcend their current natural country and limitations through the employ of engineering, is an example of how technological innovation is driving the emergence of new movements that take much in common with religiosity.
Even for those atheists sceptical of transhumanism, the role of science isn't only almost rationality – it tin can provide the philosophical, ethical, mythical and aesthetic fulfilments that religious beliefs practise for others. The science of the biological world, for example, is much more a topic of intellectual curiosity – for some atheists, it provides meaning and comfort in much the same manner that belief in God can for theists. Psychologists show that belief in scientific discipline increases in the face of stress and existential feet, only as religious beliefs intensify for theists in these situations.
Clearly, the idea that being atheist is downwards to rationality alone is starting to look distinctly irrational. Merely the expert news for all concerned is that rationality is overrated. Man ingenuity rests on a lot more than rational thinking. Every bit Haidt says of "the righteous mind", we are actually "designed to 'do' morality" – even if we're not doing it in the rational way we think we are. The power to make quick decisions, follow our passions and human action on intuition are also of import homo qualities and crucial for our success.
Information technology is helpful that we have invented something that, unlike our minds, is rational and evidence-based: science. When we need proper testify, scientific discipline can very frequently provide it – equally long equally the topic is testable. Chiefly, the scientific evidence does non tend to back up the view that atheism is near rational thought and theism is about existential fulfilments. The truth is that humans are not like science – none of us get by without irrational action, nor without sources of existential meaning and comfort. Fortunately, though, nobody has to.
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Source: https://theconversation.com/why-atheists-are-not-as-rational-as-some-like-to-think-103563
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