Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee

@lerlo Right?!

Sorry, I can't find any dictionary definition of unsure equaling worried

@lerlo I was consulting my gut, not the dictionary.

@UpsideDownAgain Hear, Hear .. Hip, Hip .. Chin, Chin.

@jlynn37 I have no idea what you mean by that but it made me laugh.

@UpsideDownAgain It is just a method to express a heartily agreement.

@jlynn37 Ah, good to know.

what, no prize?

@lerlo Perhaps you can consider your prize is being able to have and to freely express your opinion.

@jlynn37 Well I didnt know you were recording all my opinions, at least I know who to contact if I forget one. Mind telling me how you discerned any opinion from the post? I'm pretty sure you don't know how I voted.

only if you don't believe

My path was nothing like any of those 3.

Religion can be left/dumped/grown out of in many different ways. Many more than listed here. As a youngster I asked questions. The answers I received were usually incoherent, absurd, or unacceptable. Native intelligence is what kept me from being hooked. I also remember wondering why the other kids couldn't see it.

The above posts are correct. There are far more than three avenues to atheism. Rationalism, thinking for myself, and logic for me.

@StarvingArtist @evidentialist @skeptic70 @lerlo @Sierra4 @synergy @Kafirah Its time for a little crash course in human psychology.

[psychologicalscience.org]
[singularityhub.com]

Here is the TLDR, humans are not rational decision makers. Our choices are heavily influenced by emotion, environment, and other random factors. Our conscious experience seems to runs contrary to that, but this is because our conscious mind receives information from the subconscious mind through an "interpreter" that makes sense of the raw information.

Humans are not rational, we rationalize our choices and decisions after the fact.

"I bought a lottery ticket, because I thought I would win"
"I don't eat meat, because meat is destroying the planet"
"I voted for Trump, because he is a good candidate"
"I didn't vote for Trump, because he is not a good candidate"
"I am an Atheist, because there is no god"

These are all examples of rationalization. There is always a deeper reason to why people do what they do, and it isn't always perfectly coherent and rational. There is no logical answer to the question: "Is there a god?" No amount of science or logic can ever prove or disprove this, it's outside of what we are capable of understanding.

For everyone who believes that Science, rationality and higher learning was your key to becoming Atheist, I can say with a fair amount of confidence that you fall neatly into the 2nd category, of those who desire the conquering of religion.

@Happy_Killbot Have zero desire to conquer any religion. It is all just silly fairy tales. If someone wants to believe, then let them. I do not proselytize. To each their own.

@Happy_Killbot -- Not a surprise nor a revelation. Also, these observations do not preclude the presence of rational thought. They merely indicate what should be reasonably obvious to any thinking individual. Is the point you are hoping to make that there is a subconscious element to every thought?

@evidentialist I'm not saying that rational thought doesn't exist, just that any major decision, including the one to become atheist is driven more by emotion than most people are willing to admit, both to themselves and others.

@Happy_Killbot
I still like @StarvingArtist post. Short and true. In my humble opinion.

@Sierra4 These two are not mutually exclusive. Quite the opposite in fact.

Why does someone desire to learn about anything?

Why would learning about ancient history and science ever exclude the possibility of the existence of something totally unrelated?

How can we say that we understand something when it has only been explored for two and a half sentences?

It is the realization that there is nothing there to control or truly learn that results in anger and the desire to cause religion suffering.

Also notice how you say "I still LIKE" which kind of goes to prove my prior point. You understand, or rather feel like you understand StarvingArtist's point of view, so you rationalize that it must be correct, because the other point of view, which rationally you have to conclude could also be correct, is very profound and foreign to you.

@Happy_Killbot Not sure why you tagged me in that, but okay, I guess...

Pretty much my experience. When you get over the don't question GOD part and face the fear and get over it you realize that's it pretty much the Wizard behind the Curtain saying pay no attention to the man behind the Curtain

Yes!

God never makes the claim of existence according to our definition, not anywhere. Swing anna miss, sweetie.

@bbyrd009 which god “sweetie?”

Regardless, how can a nonexistent thing make a claim? My unicorn claims existence, prove me wrong!

@Marcie1974 Except for the people who, as one comment suggested, were/are mad at god and then "abandoned god." That to me is different than not believing god exists--hence the reason for the poll.

@Marcie1974 oh, my apologies, i'm from the deep south, bad habit with the sweetie thing i guess. God makes no claims of "existence: having objective reality or being" anywhere, that i am aware of? Allah doesnt, and YHWH doesnt, and Krishna doesnt?

And contrary to some beliefs here, you are entitled to your opinion. Perhaps you are the biased one

i hear this "existence" argument a lot, and fwiw YHWH never claims to "exist" anywhere, according to our definition. Religion is roundly and repeatedly condemned in the Bible, and if you were so stupid as to go into religion for a perspective of God wadr that is strictly on you. The OT is a record of the failure of religion, yeh?

@bbyrd009 "I AM that I am; tell them I AM has sent you" (God to Moses, supposedly). Sounds like a pretty strong existence claim right there.

So you're going the tired route of claiming there's a difference between faith / belief and religion. The "religion of one, so its not really religion" routine. Or maybe it's the "religion vs relationship" route. Or the "man reaching up to god vs god reaching down to man" route.

It all gets codified into tribal dogmas (religion) in the end. Whether it's the Holy Roman Church or Bedside Baptist or just little old you telling people what's true and what's false, it's all the same.

@mordant "Sounds like a pretty strong existence claim right there." at first, yes, but if you read the whole passage and then read our common def of "exist: have objective reality or being," another truth begins to become evident imo. The AM part is almost universally read as like a title, which anywhere else Am would be sufficient for that, and almost never read as EMPHATIC, and so the rest of the passage is discounted and misunderstood. So, and i know this is strange ok, but i believe in God, or Allah, or Krishna, doesnt matter imo as these are strictly concepts, but i do not believe God "exists," nor were the authors nor "God" trying to forward that pov?
The arg being that as soon as one insists upon God's "existence," like "believers" do, one will also manufacture the essences of Existence onto God, Old White Guy in a White Robe and a Big Beard, etc. An interesting corrollary here is that you will never find a "believer" who actually has any "belief" whatsoever in God's existence! They all hold that to be an Absolute Truth, and it cannot even be debated?" At least until they read that passage and some of Job with me, wherein we almost always get to see who Satan really is too

@mordant "So you're going the tired route of claiming there's a difference between faith / belief and religion." Samaritans were considered evil and not accepted then, but we are told to "go and do likewise." And there is no judgement for beliefs in the Bible, as most believers tacitly demand? Who also conflate faith and beliefs right away, in their efforts to attain heaven after they have died. Yet no one has ever gone up to heaven, and there is only One Immortal, which no believer will appreciate you Quoting either. You and your sons will be here with me is the assurance to believers (who will not accept it) that all go to the same place.
We mostly proceed from the pov of the Bible that believers have disseminated, see, and we do not ever hear these parts of the Bible, but when the OT is realized as a record of the failure of a religion, and John Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth ("John Doe from out of Nowhere," searchable btw) as two guys sticking two big Middle Fingers straight up in the air at The Man, then wisdom is no longer hidden from the wise. These were not religious or even pious ppl, these were rebels on the run from the law? And religious ppl are "the wise" as far as the Bible is concerned (idiots, iow) he who says he knows does not yet know

@mordant "It all gets codified into tribal dogmas (religion) in the end. Whether it's the Holy Roman Church or Bedside Baptist or just little old you telling people what's true and what's false, it's all the same." well, it does if you do that, yes. But now see what you have said becomes the reasoning for why the truth must be hidden: nations of ppl grow to a point where they demand a king, ppl want to be led, "sheep" iow, and so if one wants to "believe" that they might say some Magic Words in a mortgaged building they call "church" to a guy who has made a deal with the king (501, 6, c3, 6, 1023, 6) and then they will go up to heaven after they have died (mithraism), they can certainly do that, but they will be made to be hypocrites by their own Manual, see. Leave the camp, come out of her, my people, scapegoat, it's all in There ok, just in code. "Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power." see, just what you want too right, if you focus on the end, practical part and ignore the big, flowery, meaningless part at the beginning?
Iow you are exactly correct, most ppl will do what you say, and you now have a means for IDing those types and being advised accordingly? Bc trust me the authors of the Bible consider them idiots. Anarchy is not Chaos.

"Who told you that you were naked?" yup