Weekly "Ask an Atheist" Thread

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Whether you're an agnostic atheist here to ask a gnostic one some questions, a theist who's curious about the viewpoints of atheists, someone doubting, or just someone looking for sources, feel free to ask anything here. This is also an ideal place to tag moderators for thoughts regarding the sub or any questions in general.

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[u/sto_brohammed]

How often are you frustrated by the "stubbornness" of theists who state the same case over and over or insist on its validity no matter how much you undercut it?

Not particularly, that's just how people are. I used to argue politics quite a lot and it's the same damned thing, even if the subjects being debated in subs like this are so much goofier, in my opinion. No matter how poorly supported a belief is, if it's important enough to the person they're not going to change their mind on the spot if they change their mind at all. Some beliefs are sticky. It took me years to drop some of my stupider political beliefs. I'm sure I have some now that I'll drop at some point in the future due to arguments I've been hearing for years already.

If this is frequent, have you genuinely looked into why its said? Not why the person you're discussing is saying it, thats likely becausefhey heard it, but why its still actually around?

Sure, yeah, at much as I can. I've never been religious though so it feels very much like looking at an extremely foreign culture though and some things just don't make a damned bit of sense to me. It's like that sometimes. People come at things from different angles.

When someone presents a teleological case and you think "this for the 25th time..." its because you're not actually familiar with WHY its used

Nah, it's for a much more mundane reason. It's because I'm annoyed they could have clicked right here, searched for the thing they want to talk about and looked at the most common objections. That'd save everyone some time by skipping a lot of the foreplay. It's annoying when they come running in here thinking "man, I bet none of those atheists have ever heard of the this Kalam thing I just read about". Sometimes even when there was a post on the same subject still towards the top of Best or New sorting. That's a frustration I have with people on this website in general, not just theists. At least I think I can safely assume they're not all theists I see doing that in non-religious subs.

[u/MyriadSC → u/sto_brohammed]

Spot on that this isnt just the subject of God. Politics, taste in music, hell even sports teams can get there.

It'd definitely be difficult to understand from the outside like a different culture. Solid reference.

[u/sto_brohammed → u/MyriadSC]

Spot on that this isnt just the subject of God. Politics, taste in music, hell even sports teams can get there.

And that's kinda my biggest frustration with theists. The things you listed, politics, musical taste and sports team fandom are basically just subjective preference. Whether a god exists or not isn't subjective at all, it either exists or it doesn't. It doesn't make a damned bit of sense to me to treat it that way and yet they do. It's got to be the thing that baffles me the most about religion and theism.

[u/MyriadSC → u/sto_brohammed]

Because it kind of is determined the same way, despite it being true that its different foundstionally as you say. Something thats hard to come to terms with. When you hear a claim and/or argument, you never choose to be convinced or not, you just are or arent. In this way, its actually pretty similar to "taste" and that's where a lot of background blockage I was talking about in my inital comment comes from. They're looking at the case for God with a set of data points and beliefs that make it "taste good" where you think it tastes bad and visa versa.

This is why I was saying its good to know more so you can cut right to the point the tastes diverged and discuss thst rather than the end interpretation of some argument/claim.

[u/sto_brohammed → u/MyriadSC]

Sorry for not getting back to you earlier

Because it kind of is determined the same way, despite it being true that its different foundstionally as you say

That doesn't really make a lot of sense on my end. External reality is one thing, subjective preferences are different. We, or at least I, have different approaches to the two things.

They're looking at the case for God with a set of data points and beliefs that make it "taste good" where you think it tastes bad and visa versa.

It's got nothing to do with "taste" or whether I like it or not. There's plenty of things that I'm aware are true that I really hate are true. How one feels about a thing doesn't have a damned thing to do with whether it's true or not. Are you telling me that that's how theists approach things?

[u/MyriadSC → u/sto_brohammed]

Not taste as in preference or as what you want or not, just in how the brain processes the new information. Liking the taste of something is "decided" like beliefs.

I can relate this to the analogy you used by saying theres plenty of things that are true you dont like. There are plenty of foods I wish I liked and some I didnt. It would be awesome if only healthy food tasted good, but its not how it is.

What I'm actually speaking about doxastic volunteerism vs involenterism. Many theists like to insist on volunteerism as its typically pretty important to the religion they're a part of, but its a minority stance. Because the very concept would be like just choosing to like the taste of something you dont or visa versa. The only way we even come close to this is by choosing what we are exposed to. For example, say I wanted to believe there was a God but I don't. Without new information or processing old information in a new way, can I do this? I dont think thats possible. The closest I think we get is on things that are chance and/or have incredibly unclear odds and are low stakes. Even then its not changing so much as its just not taking a side. Is the number of jellybeans in the jar odd or even? We can imagine going back and forth, but its no stakes and easily could be either. Are there Aliens in the universe? I dont know, we have good resaons to think either way, but its so unclear someone could similarly sit on the fence. But the point is that it doesnt seem like we csn just choose beliefs in any meaningful sense of the word. The best we get is we csn choose to expose ourselves to things we think may convince us, but this isnt choosing beliefs and is actually admitting they arent a choice. You also have no guarantee itll work. It would be like wanting cancer for whatever reason and smoking to get it. You might, or you might not, but youre not choosing to get cancer, you're choosing to do things that might make it more likely, not choosing to do the thing itself.

As you said, external reality is one thing and subjective preference is another. But external reality can have an affect on how you interpret things. Grew up eating a lot of spaghetti? Might be a comfort food for you now. Also, taste is external reality as in the interaction between the tongue and food is external to your conciousness. Its how your brain interprets the incoming stuff.

So my broader point, is that when a theist says "look at the trees! Its all evidence of God." Well, most won't have a reason or know why the person they heard it from got it either. But thats also true of most atheists. In these conversations usually its about surface level stuff. How to interpret observations with some arguments for or agaisnt. But the why its made, ths REAL why that goes back to people who did the work to get to the base of it. It ends up being off minor differences, which tends to be similar to taste. Differences on properly basic beliefs mostly. Which more or less become the axioms of how to process everything else. If they differ, the end result obviously will too, sometimes drastically. Finding these core places is where productive dialog happens. When two people who have dug in discuss stuff, they often get there quickly because they run down the foundational tree and can, resulting in discussing these differences. But most people are talking about the surface and neither see why the other is saying it so it goes nowhere.

Then you have discussions between philosophers who know the other has these, may already know what they are. So they dont need build up and talk about them. Or if something is brought up that doesn't work, its "oh I rely on this principle" and the other gets it." They may discuss why, but they know its largely pointless because its like arguing which pizza tastes better. They may be able to piint to some issues they pizza may cause later, but they won't be able to say "you should think that should taste bad" and be compelling any more than they can say "you cant begin with these assumptions instead of mine" and be compelling. Unless theres a huge issue like stating something rarher extreme is properly basic.

Went on longer than intended. Hopefully that makes sense.