Is not beliving in a god denying your humanity?

del88

Hi
After a friend passed away 2 weeks ago I've been giving a lot of thought to the whole idea of believing in god..
I've probably been an atheist/agnostic since the age of 12 and have been fairly vocal on the subject...
So a question that I can't seem to put right in my head is by not believing in a god am I denying my humanity.
I presume every one here is human and that most people except that 99% of early civisation belived in some sort of god...so by not believing in god are we denying a hardwired evolutionary urge to belive in god...thus denying our humanity???

Ickle Magoo

I'm so sorry you lost your friend. When I've lost people close to me it really makes me very aware of my mortality -and often my atheism too. I think believing in heaven or an after-life is very comforting when we're grieving for someone - perhaps the atheist stance is too painful to contemplate when emotions are so raw?

I've never believed in a God, so I don't think I am denying something. As a little kid I bombarded my parents with questions about God and dying and how it all fitted with the religions I knew about, I just could not get my head around it all.

Past civilisations have believed all manner of things and those ideas changed, gained popularity, evolved, lost popularity, disappeared and so on. For as long as their has been established belief systems there have been heretics, tho it used to be much more dangerous. Perhaps as religious bodies have lost power and control, theism is now more of a preference rather than a societally enforced necessity?

Daftendirekt

del88 wrote: »

Hi
After a friend passed away 2 weeks ago I've been giving a lot of thought to the whole idea of believing in god..
I've probably been an atheist/agnostic since the age of 12 and have been fairly vocal on the subject...
So a question that I can't seem to put right in my head is by not believing in a god am I denying my humanity.
I presume every one here is human and that most people except that 99% of early civisation belived in some sort of god...so by not believing in god are we denying a hardwired evolutionary urge to belive in god...thus denying our humanity???

Sorry to hear about your friend, OP. That has to be tough.


But to answer your question: no, we are not denying our humanity.

The human brain has a lot of weird hard-wired urges that we ignore for the most part. Have you ever seen a face in the clouds? Or in the shadows? Ever looked at a piece of completely abstract art and made out the impression of a person? Ever heard what sounded like whispering, only to discover it was the wind blowing through a keyhole?

I could go on, but my point is, the human mind has a powerful in-built pattern recognition software. Belief in a deity may be an aspect of this, or it may be something completely separate. But you certainly aren't denying any aspect of your humanity by only using this software when it's necessary, and not taking the information it feeds you too seriously.

del88

Cheers for the replies.

I kinda feel like i want to argue against both your points but in fairness they both make a lot of sense...

I think that our minds evolved so we could survive being attacked by wild animal,so we could hunt and gather from the land ..to live in small social groups and probably to worship a god of sorts..

It's a bit like finding out there no santa...gald to know the truth but aware that the world is not as magical as you thought...

extrinzic

With the demise of the certainty of god, much of what we believed about certainty in the world perished. It was once assumed that man had an essential quality, bestowed on him by the truth, or god. With the rise of science, much has been made of genetic differences between species, and race. People have questioned if there is such a thing as humanity, a unifying characteristic the is unique to all men. Something that we can point to and say with certainty, "this is why every man should be equal."

Personally, I have no problem with people being different. If we acknowledge such a thing as humanity, we can do this for ourselves, without god. Our humanity can be founded in respect for others, and if we are to respect others, we can expect to be respected in return. This is, in my humble opinion, the surest way to respect ourselves.

If I can put my finger on one trait that seems to me to be characteristic of human nature, I would put it on our ability to doubt. Doubt is all we have my friend, else we would never question our faith in ourselves, and consequently, we would never grow. I'm sorry for you and your friend.

Daftendirekt

del88 wrote: »

Cheers for the replies.

I kinda feel like i want to argue against both your points but in fairness they both make a lot of sense...

I think that our minds evolved so we could survive being attacked by wild animal,so we could hunt and gather from the land ..to live in small social groups and probably to worship a god of sorts..

Think about this for a minute. Obviously, these behaviours evolved because this was the best way to ensure our survival at the time. But this was just a necessity, not an intrinsic part of our experience of humanity.

Am I right in thinking you haven't been attacked by wild animals recently, or that you don't live as a hunter-gatherer, or that you live in a fairly well populated area (like most people)? But do any of these factors add or take from your humanity?

These behaviours may have served a purpose at one stage, but we've moved on since then. In fact, you could say we've evolved to live in huge social groups, make our living from the economies we've created, and to question the superstitions that we once used to try and make sense of the world.

It's a bit like finding out there no santa...gald to know the truth but aware that the world is not as magical as you thought...

While Christmas may never be the same again once Santa vanishes from the scene, this doesn't have to be the case with life in general.

Have you read any scientific literature? We live in a beautiful and terrible universe, and nothing attests to this more than the wealth of scientific knowledge we've accumulated (or should I say 'begun to accumulate'?). Even a not-too-in-depth study of biology or physics will reveal the universe to be a far more mysterious and miraculous place than belief in any deity could ever hope to make it.

ChocolateSauce

If believing in god is human, then humanity isn't all its cracked up to be. You could say equally that violence and hate are very human traits, but it doesn't mean their absence is a bad thing.

pixiegaga

So sorry about your friend OP hope you are doin ok...
i'm also a vocal atheist but only when challenged i always stand my ground...even accidentely changed my best friends views and her moms not happy with me now that she refused to go to mass...:o
i think your 'post' implies your friend was religious or believed in a god and this is what is making you think this way..
honestly i am very very biased on the subject but i think it isnt denying our humanity one bit we are all human no matter what our beliefs, if we have this hardwired evolutionary urge to belive in god than why are we asking these questions in the first place? id say go with this instinct or intuiotion that you have had about this subject since you were 12... you cannot force yourself to believe something you just dont believe in...if you were brought up like most irish families...getting 'god' stories shoved at you from the age of ...3 and still dont believe there is a reason