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Do you think that one "chooses" to become an atheist or is it more like they always were but only realized it?

If you accept the statement "there is no god, therefore religion (Christianity, etc) is false" as true, then the argument can be made that you weren't really a Christian because Christianity is not real.
For example, you think you are an alien and call yourself an alien, then realize that that belief was false and now call yourself a human. You didn't choose to be a human, you only realized you were one.

Sorry if it is confusing.

AnnaMD 5 Dec 28
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73 comments

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9950913208 WhatsApp

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Hello love fil

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We are born without a belief in God. We are told there is a god. We are told there is also, Santa, the Easter bunny and angels. We later find out that Santa and the Easter bunny are not real. We ask, "Why the fuck did you lie to me"? We are told, "because it was cute"! We say "Fuck you". Later, we realize that if they lied to us about Santa and the Easter bunny, they are probably lying about God and the angels. We ask them. They tell us, "No, those are real". Suddenly we realize we are dealing with lunatics.

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Children are born tabula rasa. They learn about logic as their brain develops through experiences either trial and error or pattern recognition (which has to do with memory). The thing with religion is that it is taught to some from birth or others who are adept at compartmentalizing their minds.

What you're saying does make sense as it is about self actualization (what are you/who are you etc)...

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I don't think that you can choose to believe anything. I think you are convinced . For good reasons or bad. Even if my life depended on it I couldn't force myself to believe something that I was convinced was false.

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I did not choose logic, i think a series of unfortunate events made me recognize it

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Well the point is to never be content with any answer until u have sufficient evidence.

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Good question! I think if we say that a Christian is a person that believes in Christianity at that particular time they are a Christian at that particular time. If they choose another competing world view, then they cease being the former and become the latter. And if they change again the same thing.

To me it circles back to the problem of labeling people. We’re much more accurate in my opinion when we ditch labels and describe actions, thoughts, beliefs, etc. So replace the Christian label with “person who believes in Christianity” and the original label-definition problem disappears and we gain a better understanding with what’s going on with that person.

Do you agree? Thoughts?

Acree Level 4 Jan 27, 2019

No you are wrong...we all have labels we were named at birth and too many baby boys were sexually mutilated painfully ....muslim teen girls by the millions are sexually mutilated worse than baby boys.. .believe in is a non-sequitur.....we walk in doors not needing beliefs ABOUT doors because doors exist and alleged gawds are just gibberish non-words used to label people....Atheism liberates religion harms...rational people choose freedom delusional people remain loyal to their perpetrators forcing faith upon them as children

@GreenAtheist, thanks for the reply. That’s a lot unpack so I’ll try be brief.

“We all have labels we were named at birth...” - I’m not saying labels don’t exist or that other people don’t use labels for other people, I’m saying labels are not useful when we want truly understand who someone is in the way the OP was asking about.

“Atheism liberates religion harms” - I strongly disagree, belief or non belief in religion is itself morally neutral. An easy counterpoint is someone choosing not believe in god for reasons outside healthy skepticism like, say, intense nationalistic pride. He can still carry out any number of horrific attricities upon people with all the zealous ferver of a religious person. Instead of pleasing his chosen god he kills, maims, terrorizes people protect his fanciful ideas about his motherland that must be purified of all non-believers. For reference, see Russian history.

Conversely, a person who believes in some particular faith can still maintain a solid moral compass, choosing any passages that align with his already compassionate nature where he truly seeks to help others.

My main point is people, for the most part, fit their interpretation of religion around their existing world view. Already think minorities should be protected? No problem, there are passages for that. Think they should be ostrociaed? Easy, there are passages for that too.

I think you’re better off making the argument that religion constrains openmindedness about seeking truth. In terms of morality I think people following religion pull out their shopping carts and take what they like from passages and leave on the shelves what they don’t. That’s the easiest explanation of why so many religious people can’t agree on so many key topics.

“Rational people choose freedom...” you’re begging your own question here, where your supposition and your conclusion are the same. And again, using labels like this ‘rational people’ is a wildly gross oversimplification of whole groups of people. Use of labels weakens arguments. A person can be rational in some areas like their work but irrational in personal relationships. So is that person rational or irrational? It’s a bad question because labels are bad argumentative constructs.

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As soon as I was "aware" I didn't believe in any kind of God, it was forced upon me by school and I was sent to Sunday school needless to say that didn't last long ? they don't like it when you ask questions they can't answer and don't do as your told, Lilith is no longer spoke of in the Bible but she was actually Adams first wife as I'm sure some will know.

We're all aliens just because we choose to label ourselves as human has no bearing on that, well I say we choose but let's face it we're told we're human.

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Everyone who has ever lived was an atheist until they were indoctrinated into whatever religion dominated their region or family.

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For one thing, we all are born with no religion embedded in our brain. It's indoctrination what take us there and eventually some will choose to bail out

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I was sent to Catholic school because my Mom was Catholic and both my parents wanted us kids to get a good education. I was questioning everything and getting myself in trouble from VERY early on.

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This assumes like so much of hardcore Atheism that lack of proof is proof of lack. For me it is more lack of proof is irrelevant when it comes to the reasons and motivations of the faithful. They as a rule do not particularly care about proof of God. The ones who seem too like Creationist "Scientists" are simply using their position as a way to bolster the faithful and dupe the possible converts. I think people chose to become Atheist for reasons very similar to choosing any system of thought. Something about it appeals to them. Here is a better question. How many of you chose Atheism as a result of or in response to religion? Can Atheism exist without a God to not believe in or to mock/refute? Does one become Atheist to refute or defy their negative experience with religion? Is Atheism as a movement solely the realm of outcast and heretics? Not that I think that is a bad thing but were does it go from here? As for Christianity not being real? The results of Christianity as a force in the world is far greater then the results of Atheism. Belief in something by its very nature is not about the truth of it rather what it as a thought process helps you achieve. Children have imaginary friends to deal with trauma and what can be a very scary new world. People build mental homes to store and collect information and make it easier to retain and recall information, memories or partition traumas as a way of dealing with them. None of these are real in a physical sense but their results are very much real. That too me is the ultimate question; what is the result of the action, influence, organization etc. If someone constructs a God in their mind to explain the unexplainable or as a aid in moral action who are we to call that wrong? And as for the negative actions of Christianity we should certainly rail against them but not through mockery, violence or insults. Rather we should ask hard questions and try hard to educate the young and the doubters among the rabid faithful. And we should respect those who's faith is personal and does good works as long as they are based in reason and thought not dogma, bias, hatred etc.

Quarm Level 6 Jan 15, 2019

No, what it assumes is that proof is definitively impossible when dealing with opinions, be they opinions of religious nature or political in nature or whatever. Opinions are, by definition---'I'll say it again---not provable. They can be rendered more valid by supporting facts and valid reasoning, but never proven true or false. Facts, on the other hand, can be proven true or false. That is just the way it is; that is not just my opinion. To believe otherwise is to be blind to the nature of reasoning.

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It makes perfect sense. I never would have thought of myself as religious if I have been taught from birth that that was what I am (was) and what I'm supposed to be (have been). In other words, if given the chance, I never would have chosen religion for myself. After giving it a proper think, I began to see how ridiculous it all was and dropped it like a bad habit (which it was). Therefore it could be days that I had reverted back to my natural state after a long stint of pretending to be something I wasn't. Story of my life, really. Almost completely paired down to nothing but the real me now.

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I think both are possible, different people have different paths towards choosing a belief. Some things you can feel convinced about from a young age, calling yourself an Atheist as soon as you know what the term means.

Personally I just had a large helping of scepticism which made me pay a little lip service but not really believe even when I was young.

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I believe it depends at what age you became truly curious and if you always asked shy questions, or if you started at an older age

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For me it was an awakening as I always had doubts in catholic school. I just could not accept what the priests and nuns were preaching s it seemed contradictory. I later found out it was.Everyone takes the words of the bible to make the case they believe in.

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There is a choice of abandoning the deep sentimental relation that we have with religion. In most of people it is there since childhood, it became an element of the self already, that is why even with massive logical arguments in favor of an agnostic/atheistic view of the world, many can't do the leap.
On this sense is a choice, you need to choose to abandon or even to fight against this sentimental connection.
Many choose to not do it and simply become a nominal religious (they say that they are, but in real they don't give a shit about it).
But of course, before this choice comes, one can learn about the falacies and logical flaws, rebel against obvious unethical moves of religions, be abused and get angry with it or any other way that will put this choice in front of them.

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No. .....All people, species are born hatched sprouted et cetera Atheists. ....zero people choose as infants to be brutally painfully strapped to a board and have their penis prepuce flesh clamped and scalpeled off then bleed for days with betadyne and urine soaked diapers searing the pain again and again. ...no child chooses to be threatened with hell nor bribed with heaven before entering the real world of Head Start or kindergarten. ...the gibberish sounds gott gawd gods in any language ARE NOT WORDS nor referents without objects. ...all such lies are forced upon us by fake dictionaries cults TV radio preachers and abusive families. ...our Atheism and Feminism is our birthright and patriarchal criminal theocracy is hell for real

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I think a case can be made that way. If you discover existentialist, highly self-aware introspection and objectivity at a young enough age, you will more easily find that you are philosophically aligned to be a freethinker, dispelling the myths as you hear them. Others have to go along long before they divorce themselves from ideology, and I wonder at what age they really learn to think for themselves. My theory is that the age at which you first practice honest, non-egotistical consciousness determines the amount of resistance you require before you truly think for yourself.

Well said.

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Even though there is no god, Christians are still a thing. And realizing you are not an alien doesn’t preclude the existence of aliens.
But I don’t think anyone decides to not believe in god when they do.

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No one chooses. We are born without religion and are forced into it by our parents/environment. I was lucky enough to realize this when I was a child

Pc716 Level 2 Jan 8, 2019

Finally a real man like myself telling the truth about violent faiths. ..good job guy !

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I feel like obviously atheism is the “default “ we are born with. Nobody becomes religious until they are taught their particular god’s dogma. But once you have been indoctrinated it is incredibly difficult to escape

Essie Level 6 Jan 8, 2019

John Lennon sang twice "it's easy" all you need is love" and IMAGINE, it's easy if you try, no hell below us above us only sky

...or until you witness something you have absolutely no words to describe and not the intellectual capacity to understand.

@Lilith
I am a person that is obviously not as intelligent as my brilliant older sibling.

I learned at an early age to accept my inability to understand some things immediately. I became accepting, if not comfortable, in my ignorance. A long list of questions accumulated. I was constantly curious.

Later, in Junior High, I took a lesson in Fallacies and Logic. It really helped to cut away confusion. Thereafter, I was not only asking for advice, but prepared to listen sceptically.

I have found answers to most of my questions. I am unwilling to "make up" answers for the rest.

Most acquaintances think me wise or intelligent. It took a lot of work. I still think my brother is a genius.

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I think you may be overthinking it a little. I imagine there exists many motivations for becoming an atheist. For me, I was 19 and in college and an Intro to Philosophy class got me thinking. I realized there was a bigger world and the old explanations just were not working. Need to change my paradigm. Voila! That was 45 years ago.

For others it may be the result of a bad experience that made them question their previous beliefs. Lots of reasons.

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I still feel like this statement is invalid because you are Christian by believing you are one or by believing Christ is your savior versus just believing you are physically an alien. Christianity just requires an active belief which can't be examined physically while claims of being an alien can so I don't think those two things are equivalent in comparison, but you do choose to be an atheist just like you choose to be Buddhist (to an extent).

You combine the knowledge that you have with how you think life works which creates your life philosophy (or religion), but with any new knowledge or outlooks you can believe in a different religion and identify yourself within that religion. This means that you did identify or associate yourself within that religion regardless of a change of opinions at a later time or if the belief was disproven. Beliefs don't have to be true; they are only beliefs........ Sorry for running on...

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