Are we born atheist?

PopePalpatine

Funnily enough, Stalin used the Orthodox Church as a "patriotic organisation" after the Soviets were drawn into WWII. Afterwards, the Orthodox Church was tolerated by the Soviets.

Akrasia

jank wrote: »

See, there ya go. Assuming that I meant spirituality = religion/god when I did not. One can be spiritual but not believe in 'god'.

Does one have to believe in 'spirits' to be 'spiritual'

It's just wordplay.

People use 'spiritual' in all kinds of different contexts. When a rationalist uses it, he/she almost always places it in inverted commas to indicate that rationalists can have a pseudo spiritual feeling of awe and wonder, but not attribute this to any 'higher' power/force/plain of existance/soul.... etc

Everything we experience is generated internally through our brain and nervous system. Everything. We react to external (and internal.. it's complicated) stimulus, but all of our own sensations, feelings, emotions, thoughts, visions, ideas, dreams etc are generated inside of ourselves. The fact that we can replicate these feelings by changing the chemical composition of our brain (ie, doing drugs) ought to be more than enough proof for anyone who doubts that these are not supernatural experiences.

The fact that we can 'feel spiritual' is an emotion that may have an evolutionary benefit, or it may be some kind of accident of nature, a byproduct of other cognitive systems that do provide evolutionary advantages

True in the West, not true in the East or Middle East though so the jury is out on that one.

It really is true, but I suppose this does depend on how you define 'quality education'.

If you consider that an islamic school that has good maths and reading scores but also incorporates religious studies into every aspect of the curriculum, then you might find that the more 'education' you get, the more strongly you believe in islam. On the other hand, if you consider quality education to be one that promotes self learning, critical thinking and is not dogmatically indoctrinating the children into one specific religion...

A little presumptuous and high minded don't you think? As if you, one person knows what questions all the religious people in the world ask. This 'we know better, listen up stupid' type of rhetoric from peacocking atheists is just another way for them to look down on others.

I have watched dozens and dozens of debates about religion, I have read hundreds of essays and apologetics,

I have personally spoken with loads of people about religion including priests and theology graduates and fundamentally, one of the main reasons they keep going back to religion is because of 'why' questions. ' Why questions are extremely useful at understanding complex processes and untangling chains of events, but we get very easily mixed up when we conflate cause with purpose.
Good question - Why does the butterfly have a long tongue? Because of evolution.
meaningless question - Why is 2+2 = 4? (because it just is, it's a fundamental aspect of nature, it can be no other way)

Why' questions in the religious context have an unstated premise. That there is a 'meaning and a purpose' behind everything. It's begging the question. It implies that there is agency so you can not answer the question without invoking agency.

It is very different to ask 'how did life start' to 'why did life start'
How can be answered by science, but 'why' does not necessarily have an answer
As soon as you are happy to accept the fact that there is no purpose to life, life is just a happy (sometimes) accident of nature, then you will never be troubled with the silly questions and lets get on with understanding how things actually are, because doing this, can enable us to live better lives

jank

pauldla wrote: »

You are conflating religion with Christianity there, Jank. The links you provide do not support your argument that previously atheist countries are becoming more religious, they show that the numbers professing Christianity are increasing. The contemporary rise of Christianity in China is inarguable (and worrying for the powers that be); the argument that religion in China is on the rise is much more complex and nuanced (did it ever really go away?)

Well Mao through the use of terror and laws banned religion. Just take a trip to Tibet to see the destruction the People's Army wreaked on Tibetan Buddhism. Even Chinese Confucianism didn't escape from the cultural revolution.



Therefore it is difficult to get 'official' statistics on the growth of religion.

Protestant Christianity has been the fastest growing religion in China. When the CCP took power in the mainland (excluding Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau) in 1949, there were no more than one million Protestant Christians. Following decades of suppression and eradication, the CCP admitted in an official document released in 1982 that there were about three million Protestant Christians. Since then, estimates have varied. The Party-State has insisted on some very low-end estimates, suggesting about 23 million Protestant Christians in 2010; others—including missionary organizations outside China but also a reported internal document of the CCP—have made higher estimates, suggesting as many as 100 to 130 million in 2010. The Pew Research Center’s Report of Global Christianity, after carefully comparing the various estimates and reasoning through survey findings, reports that there were about 58 million Protestant Christians and 9 million Catholics in China in 2010. I think this is a more prudent estimate that may be used to make projections of future growth.

http://www.slate.com/bigideas/what-is-the-future-of-religion/essays-and-opinions/fenggang-yang-opinion

Anyway, what religion were these people before they became Christian? Would you classify Taoism and Confucianism as a religion or a philosophy? It is a fair question but then it pertains to the OP. Are people atheist before they are born? Well, no.

China is becoming more open (slowly) and more prosperous (quickly) yet that does not explain why such a rapid growth in Christianity and religion. It is not enough to just say that they are being exploited by 'bad missionaries and priests'.

Shrap

jank wrote: »

Well Mao through the use of terror and laws banned religion. Just take a trip to Tibet to see the destruction the People's Army wreaked on Tibetan Buddhism. Even Chinese Confucianism didn't escape from the cultural revolution.


Therefore it is difficult to get 'official' statistics on the growth of religion.

It's not, however, difficult to understand that any place that religion has been repressed by rule of law, it will spring back up good as new as soon as those laws are lifted. Therefore it's not particularly revealing to see an increase in a religion in a place where it has been illegal to follow a religion and now it isn't.

robindch

jank wrote: »

Well Mao through the use of terror and laws banned religion.

Any time I hear of the suppression of religion in China, the Taiping Rebellion springs to mind:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion

While I don't like religions being suppressed by the state, one can understand the state's reluctance to leave religion grow unchecked.

BTW, why is the Taiping Rebellion so little-known in the West? I only heard about it a few years ago and yet it seems to have been the most vicious, lethal civil war the world has ever seen...

weisses

You are born free


Labeling from all sides happens shortly after

jank

Akrasia wrote: »

It's just wordplay.

Which you happily started to engage in when you 'fixed my post'.

Akrasia wrote: »

It really is true, but I suppose this does depend on how you define 'quality education'.

South Korea says no.

Akrasia wrote: »

If you consider that an islamic school that has good maths and reading scores but also incorporates religious studies into every aspect of the curriculum, then you might find that the more 'education' you get, the more strongly you believe in islam. On the other hand, if you consider quality education to be one that promotes self learning, critical thinking and is not dogmatically indoctrinating the children into one specific religion...

Moving the goal posts I see. Tell me is the Middle East more prosperous and more educated than 100 years ago or not. The answer is obviously yes. Is the Middle East more fundamental now or not? Yes I would argue. It is not as black and white to say that if you are wealthy with a 3rd level degree you become more atheist. Bit more nuanced than that.

Anytime I pass a Hillsong bus that is full of Asians (who would be well educated and prosperous by the way) and who would probably have had no real upbringing in Christianity from their Asian born parents, I wonder to myself if our western european born grandkids will be flocking back to religion in a similar manner in 50 years time when their forefathers have all but abandoned it.

People seem to think that this is the last chapter of human based religion where the next few generations will all become robotic atheist vulcans or communists. This story will evolve and change much like all else.

Akrasia wrote: »

As soon as you are happy to accept the fact that there is no purpose to life, life is just a happy (sometimes) accident of nature, then you will never be troubled with the silly questions and lets get on with understanding how things actually are, because doing this, can enable us to live better lives

Sounds a bit like a religious sermon tbh 'Believe is Jesus/Atheism and you will never be unhappy and troubled again by life'.

I remember I saw a slogan on the Atheist Ireland website that read something like 'Reason, logic, Happiness' Ugghhh. I see subsequently they got rid of it.

You may find to your surprise that people are quite happy to be asking those why questions that you may find annoying. Again, quite presumptuous of you to think what is best for everyone else.

jank

robindch wrote: »

While I don't like religions being suppressed by the state, one can understand the state's reluctance to leave religion grow unchecked.

Of course people's individual's lives are much better off when the state knows what best for them.

swampgas

robindch wrote: »

BTW, why is the Taiping Rebellion so little-known in the West? I only heard about it a few years ago and yet it seems to have been the most vicious, lethal civil war the world has ever seen...

Probably because we know so very little about the history of the East in any case. For example, how many people know about the Nanjing Massacre? I didn't until I lived in China for a while.

It works the other way too. I remember a particularly striking episode in China. The company I worked for were doing some personal development program that involved a story from a holocaust survivor. Many of my Chinese colleagues simply didn't know much (if anything) about the holocaust, or about Nazi Germany. So a colleague, born in China, but having lived in Europe for many years, explained it to them like this: the way the Nazis treated the Jews was similar to how the Japanese had treated the Chinese ... apparently this was considered to be an accurate analogy.

Quite the eye-opener for me at the time.

robindch

jank wrote: »

robindch wrote: »

While I don't like religions being suppressed by the state, one can understand the state's reluctance to leave religion grow unchecked.

Of course people's individual's lives are much better off when the state knows what best for them.

I've never really liked celery, but kumquats are nice.

How do you feel about them? Kumquats, I mean.

lazygal

robindch wrote: »

I've never really liked celery, but kumquats are nice.

How do you feel about them? Kumquats, I mean.

Can you put them on a pizza?

robindch

lazygal wrote: »

Can you put them on a pizza?

That should be left up to a discussion between the pizzaiolo and the consumer and not mandated by the state :eek:

smacl

robindch wrote: »

Any time I hear of the suppression of religion in China, the Taiping Rebellion springs to mind:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion

While I don't like religions being suppressed by the state, one can understand the state's reluctance to leave religion grow unchecked.

BTW, why is the Taiping Rebellion so little-known in the West? I only heard about it a few years ago and yet it seems to have been the most vicious, lethal civil war the world has ever seen...

It is a part of history I'm keen to read up on myself, having gone over a fair bit of the opium wars and the boxer rebellion among others. From memory pauldla recommended some worthy tomes; must look them up again. In terms of body count, the three kingdoms period is also right up there, as was the warring states period.

"The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been"

Akrasia

South Korea says no.

South Korean stats on religion are unreliable due to the highly political nature of ethnic religions in S. Korea. The indigenous religions are recorded on the census as 'no formal religion. The stats look like people are moving from atheism to christianity, but actually, they're moving from paganism and shamanism to christianity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misin_tapa_undong

Moving the goal posts I see. Tell me is the Middle East more prosperous and more educated than 100 years ago or not. The answer is obviously yes. Is the Middle East more fundamental now or not? Yes I would argue. It is not as black and white to say that if you are wealthy with a 3rd level degree you become more atheist. Bit more nuanced than that.

Anytime I pass a Hillsong bus that is full of Asians (who would be well educated and prosperous by the way) and who would probably have had no real upbringing in Christianity from their Asian born parents, I wonder to myself if our western european born grandkids will be flocking back to religion in a similar manner in 50 years time when their forefathers have all but abandoned it.

People seem to think that this is the last chapter of human based religion where the next few generations will all become robotic atheist vulcans or communists. This story will evolve and change much like all else.

All of the most robust studies that I have seen demonstrate a strong correlation between increasing education, and reducing religious practise.

Some studies show that in certain religious communities, extra education results in greater religious participation, but this is because in these communities, the education is primarily a religious education. It is dishonest to try and argue against the general principle that education drives people away from religion by pointing at the graduates of a seminary and saying 'these people have just finished an 8 year third level course, and they're quite religious"

Education that includes religious indoctrination is obviously not what I was talking about

Sounds a bit like a religious sermon tbh 'Believe is Jesus/Atheism and you will never be unhappy and troubled again by life'.

That's not what I was saying at all. People torture themselves asking 'Why does god allow evil in the world' or 'Why did god forsake me' or any number of other questions about the motivations of their chosen deity. If you accept that there is no purpose in the universe, you never have to worry about this again. And instead of wasting time wondering why god is such a b*stard, we might get on with fixing our own problems ourselves wherever possible.

I remember I saw a slogan on the Atheist Ireland website that read

something like 'Reason, logic, Happiness' Ugghhh. I see subsequently they got rid of it.

I'd agree with you, if that was on their site then it's cringeworthy. Atheism cannot bring happiness any more than god can.

You may find to your surprise that people are quite happy to be asking those why questions that you may find annoying. Again, quite presumptuous of you to think what is best for everyone else.

People can be happy doing all kinds of pointless things. If it makes them happy and doesn't harm anyone else then that's fine.

The belief in god isn't all sweetness and light though. Imaging that you 'know' what the creator's 'purpose' for all of us is, tend to ruin other people's lives. The people who think that gay marriage is not part of 'gods plan' because the reason 'why' god created man and woman was to breed together and glorify god. The reason why we do not allow terminally ill people to end their lives on their own terms is because 'god doesn't want us to take our own lives'.......

And there are all those other people who drive themselves mad trying to make sense of a tragedy in their lives and how god could allow such a thing..... Anyone who seriously thinks they can reconcile the existence of evil as well as an omnipresent omniscient, omnipotent perfectly good being who loves us is on a one way road to madness.

pauldla

jank wrote: »

Well Mao through the use of terror and laws banned religion. Just take a trip to Tibet to see the destruction the People's Army wreaked on Tibetan Buddhism. Even Chinese Confucianism didn't escape from the cultural revolution.

No argument from me on the anti-religion aspects of Chinese government; indeed, it's a well-documented tradition going back thousands of years. Yet the Chinese constitution has allowed freedom of religious practice (under the guiding hand of the state, of course) since at least the early 1950's.

But I'm taking issue with the glib (and sorry, it is a glib assessment) of 'atheist countries becoming more religious'. My first objection would be...

Therefore it is difficult to get 'official' statistics on the growth of religion.

...well, you bet me to it. Very hard to get solid stats. Which makes your original comment questionable, to say the least.

The second objection I'd have is....

Anyway, what religion were these people before they became Christian? Would you classify Taoism and Confucianism as a religion or a philosophy? It is a fair question but then it pertains to the OP. Are people atheist before they are born? Well, no.

...damn, you bet me to it again. Discussing religion in China requires one to tread very carefully, for they have always had an ambivalent relationship with the Gods (respect the gods but keep them at a distance, to paraphrase Confucius); and even the most ardent Communists can, for example, be found burning Hell Money or getting in a sweat over Feng Shui. Are these religious practices?

What do we mean when we say China is an 'atheist country', anyway? They officially recognize five religions. Can we call them atheist because of the madness of the Cultural Revolution? If so, could we also call it an 'anti-education country' because they closed so many schools at that time?

China is becoming more open (slowly) and more prosperous (quickly) yet that does not explain why such a rapid growth in Christianity and religion. It is not enough to just say that they are being exploited by 'bad missionaries and priests'.

China is becoming more open? This is why they've been cracking down on everything recently from 'unpatriotic art' and 'foolish buildings' to VPNs, why the reported number of attacks on foreigners has been increasing, and why there is an exodus of anybody with enough mullah (and connections) to get themselves to New Zealand or Canada?

Gosh, you're determined to push this 'rise of religion' line, even though you admit yourself that there are no figures of worth (not that official figures are of much worth, anyhow). The rise of Christianity in China, on the other hand, is an interesting phenomenon, and indeed one that cannot be subscribed to 'bad missionaries and priests' (and I'd like to know the fool who suggested it can be).

Incidentally, the poster you quoted says something along the lines of 'break down/overthrow the old world to help build the new world' (or something like that). There IS a little Buddha in the corner of the poster though.

Peregrinus

What is an "atheist country" anyway? There is no country in the world where every citizen and every resident is an atheist. I think the only meaningful definition would have to be a country in which the governing authorities favour atheism and encourage, pressure or compel there citizens to be atheists, or at least to profess to be. Obviously in this sense a country can be more or less atheist, and the degree of official atheism can change over time.

I suggest China is an atheist country in this sense. Yes, the constitution guarantees freedom of religion and the law accommodates at least some religions to at least some extent. On the other hand, the Constitution affords a privileged role to the Communist Party, and the Communist Party favours atheism and requires its members to (profess to be) atheist. I'd say there's a structural preference in there which justifies the statement that "China is an atheist country", at least as a shorthand for a country which prefers its population to be atheist and encourages them to be so and penalises them to some degree if they aren't.

And, prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the same could have been said of the Soviet Union and of most Eastern European countries.

And its from here, I think, that the notion that "religion is on the rise in formerly atheist countries" mostly comes. And it's my impression that this is, broadly speaking, true.

And it's not surprising. If we accept - and I imagine everyone on this board would accept - that religious identification can be influenced by societal and cultural factors, there's no reason to think that theistic identification can be sustained by social and governmental approval, but atheistic identification cannot. If the government encourages and favours atheists and atheism in various ways, you'd expect people to respond to that in much the same way as if the government was favouring any other religious position. And when the government stops doing that - e.g. when the Berlin Wall comes down, when the Communist Party loses power and status - then you'd expect a corresponding decline in identification with atheism; the factors which sustained it are no longer there. And that's pretty much what has happened in Eastern Europe over the past 20 or 30 years.

Not uniformly, of course. If anything, religiosity in Poland has fallen] over this period, and levels of atheism in the Czech Republic remain anomalously high, by comparison with neighbouring countries. But the general trend is there, and it's not surprising, except perhaps to those people - if they exist - who take theistic identification to be motivated by fear, ignorance or the quest for personal or social advantage, but assume that atheistic identification is invariably the outworking of a courageous and dispassionate search for truth and personal integrity.

Akrasia

I don't think atheism comes from

the outworking of a courageous and dispassionate search for truth and personal integrity.

I think that as people learn critical thinking skills, it becomes impossible to believe in the innumerable contradictions and downright silly dogmas attached to religion.

People and societies don't go straight from theist to atheist. They go through stages. Religious belief a hundred years ago was much more rigid and dogmatic than it is today.

As people become better able to assess the claims of their religion, they start rejecting them piece by piece. The most ludicrous religious practises fall away first (prohibiting contraception, the idea of limbo for unbaptised babies, prohibitions on divorce and universal condemnation of women who become pregnant outside of religious sanctioned marriage etc)

Many people drift from conservative christianity, to 'a la carte' christianity where people cling onto a vague belief that 'something' is out there and there is some kind of 'afterlife' and these people practise religion for the social and cultural benefits more than theological beliefs.

People can stay on this phase of belief for their whole lives, but these people are going to put less emphasis on teaching their chilren about religion than their own parents did, so children of the 'a la carte religious' will grow up without the baggage their parents inherited and so they will find it easier to approach the question of god with an open mind, and there will be less peer pressure on them to believe.

If it wasn't for the fact that Irish schools are dominated by the catholic church, there would be hundreds of thousands of children who would grow up barely knowing the first thing about the christian god other than what they studied in history or 'classics' classes at school.

challengemaster

Peregrinus wrote: »

What is an "atheist country" anyway? There is no country in the world where every citizen and every resident is an atheist. I think the only meaningful definition would have to be a country in which the governing authorities favour atheism and encourage, pressure or compel there citizens to be atheists, or at least to profess to be. Obviously in this sense a country can be more or less atheist, and the degree of official atheism can change over time.

Why does the government have to encourage and pressure citizens to be anything? What a countries citizens choose to do is a different story. Forced indoctrination of atheism is almost as bad as religious indoctrination.

When most people say country, they mean sovereign state.

wiki wrote:

a sovereign state is a nonphysical juridical entity that is represented by one centralised government that has sovereignty over a geographic area. International law defines sovereign states as having a permanent population, defined territory, one government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states.

IMO an atheist country is one which has not based it's constitution, government and its running on religious views.

Michael OBrien

Peregrinus wrote: »

What is an "atheist country" anyway? There is no country in the world where every citizen and every resident is an atheist. .

I have never found the term atheist to be applicable to states or countries. Since atheism is not an ideology, the idea that it can be adopted by a country as one is nonsense. It would be far more accurate to say that you may have an anti-theist society that actively prefers atheists over theists.

I disagree with your standard for any religious label for a country, in that EVERY citizen must identify as matching that ideology. That cannot ever be verified as true, even in polls, making any statement of religious or non religious identity of a country meaningless. Heck there are atheists in Saudi Arabia, one of the most strict theocracies around, otherwise they would not have to outlaw it.

China is not an atheistic society, it is a selectively pluralistic society which accepts several forms of religion while rejecting or discriminating against others. There is no society that conforms with any simplistic definition of adherence. There are muslim run states that are similar on the other end of the spectrum where they accept multiple religions as long as they are monotheistic. This is more for political and social stability than any real religious mandate, if we are being honest, although the religious element is used to sustain it and give it credibility.

I do agree that being atheist does not necessary mean you have come through a long intellectual journey. That is indeed bull.
There are atheists that have little to no deep intellectual grounds for their stance and there are atheists that put years of effort into working out spiritual issues and studying science and so forth. The position offers no preconceived merit by itself.
There can be theists that have put a great deal of effort into their position as well, and while I would disagree with them on their conclusions, I find it dangerous to polarise people by generalising to the extent that some atheists (and theists) do.
There are some incredibly stupid and delusional theists, but there are also some very intelligent, if a bit misguided, ones.

Akrasia

challengemaster wrote: »

Why does the government have to encourage and pressure citizens to be anything? What a countries citizens choose to do is a different story. Forced indoctrination of atheism is almost as bad as religious indoctrination.

You're right, That's why the vast majority of atheist activists prefer secularism where the state stays out of the religion debate entirely and does not discriminate in favour or against any religious attitude (excepting those abhorent religious practises that constitute violent and oppressive criminal behaviour)

mister gullible

We are born with no baggage... Oh except for 'original sin' :rolleyes:

Brian Shanahan

robindch wrote: »

BTW, why is the Taiping Rebellion so little-known in the West? I only heard about it a few years ago and yet it seems to have been the most vicious, lethal civil war the world has ever seen...

Mainly because it didn't happen in the west. And also at the time it was simply considered one group of barbarians going out and slaughtering another group of barbarians. Hence no publicity at the time, and no subsequent embedding in our collective consciousness here in the west.

jank

Akrasia wrote: »

South Korean stats on religion are unreliable due to the highly political nature of ethnic religions in S. Korea. The indigenous religions are recorded on the census as 'no formal religion. The stats look like people are moving from atheism to christianity, but actually, they're moving from paganism and shamanism to christianity.

Moving goal posts, again. Can you link evidence to back your claim?

Akrasia wrote: »

Some studies show that in certain religious communities, extra education results in greater religious participation, but this is because in these communities, the education is primarily a religious education. It is dishonest to try and argue against the general principle that education drives people away from religion by pointing at the graduates of a seminary and saying 'these people have just finished an 8 year third level course, and they're quite religious"

You have kind of talked around the point I have made without refuting any of it. The middle east is more prosperous, more educated and more technologically advanced than 100 years ago, yet from the outside they are more religious than before. Certainly no one would claim that they are turning their backs on religion like we in the West. That is because they are not the West. Equating what has happened in the West and saying that this is going to happen in the rest of the world is naive and without foundation. Invading Iraq should have taught us that.

Akrasia wrote: »

That's not what I was saying at all. People torture themselves asking 'Why does god allow evil in the world' or 'Why did god forsake me' or any number of other questions about the motivations of their chosen deity. If you accept that there is no purpose in the universe, you never have to worry about this again. And instead of wasting time wondering why god is such a b*stard, we might get on with fixing our own problems ourselves wherever possible.

You are thinking of this from a purely one sided way. Like it or not a belief in God for many people is hugely enabling and makes many people happy. It may have been mentioned that some studies show that religious people live longer than non religious people, probably due to the time in prayer spent meditating, lowering blood pressure.

Akrasia wrote: »

I'd agree with you, if that was on their site then it's cringeworthy. Atheism cannot bring happiness any more than god can.

I am sure a google will bring it up but yes, hugely ironic by AI.

Akrasia wrote: »

People can be happy doing all kinds of pointless things. If it makes them happy and doesn't harm anyone else then that's fine.

Agreed 100%

Akrasia wrote: »

The belief in god isn't all sweetness and light though.

Agreed but you have to accept that a non-belief in god is not all sweetness and light either. Belief or non-belief is no panacea.

Akrasia wrote: »

Imaging that you 'know' what the creator's 'purpose' for all of us is, tend to ruin other people's lives. The people who think that gay marriage is not part of 'gods plan' because the reason 'why' god created man and woman was to breed together and glorify god. The reason why we do not allow terminally ill people to end their lives on their own terms is because 'god doesn't want us to take our own lives'.......

That may be one reason of many. There are other non religious reasons to not allow this but that is another topic.

Akrasia wrote: »

And there are all those other people who drive themselves mad trying to make sense of a tragedy in their lives and how god could allow such a thing..... Anyone who seriously thinks they can reconcile the existence of evil as well as an omnipresent omniscient, omnipotent perfectly good being who loves us is on a one way road to madness.

Where are all these billions of mad people so. You make it sound as if religious people are some sort of neurotics who can't sleep or relax because the big questions cannot be answered. Highlighting a tiny tiny fraction of a population and say that this represents them all is deliberately misleading.

Peregrinus

challengemaster wrote: »

Why does the government have to encourage and pressure citizens to be anything? What a countries citizens choose to do is a different story.

I agree - governments don't have to pressure citizens either to be religious or to be atheist, and in fact shouldn't. Nevertheless many governments have done one or the other.

challengemaster wrote: »

Forced indoctrination of atheism is almost as bad as religious indoctrination.

"Almost"? :rolleyes:

challengemaster wrote: »

IMO an atheist country is one which has not based it's constitution, government and its running on religious views.

Well, I'd call that a "secular state". A secular state would be indifferent as between belief and unbelief, which is not really a characteristic of atheism. I'd reserve "atheist state" for states which actively promote atheism, like China today or the former Soviet Union and its satellite states. But I don't think we need quibble about definitions, as long as we make our meaning clear. And I think the claim that "religion is on the rise in formerly atheist countries" is probably referring to formerly atheist states in that, more limited, sense.

mrkiscool2

A baby cannot comprehend how to move it's own limbs in a coherent fashion, never mind deliberate whether or not it believes in a God! Yes, Atheism is an absence of faith in a deity but to have an absence of faith you have to know that other people belief in a deity. If God hadn't been invented/revealed himself (keeping the religious people happy) then atheism wouldn't exist as their would be no deity to not believe in. So no, we are not born as atheists.

Peregrinus

mrkiscool2 wrote: »

A baby cannot comprehend how to move it's own limbs in a coherent fashion, never mind deliberate whether or not it believes in a God! Yes, Atheism is an absence of faith in a deity but to have an absence of faith you have to know that other people belief in a deity. If God hadn't been invented/revealed himself (keeping the religious people happy) then atheism wouldn't exist as their would be no deity to not believe in. So no, we are not born as atheists.

Or, at least, babies are atheist only in the rather limited sense that, say, carrots are atheists - they both lack any belief in god.

To describe someone as atheist is not meaningful unless you are talking about someone who could be a theist. As Sartre points out, there isn't any choice unless you can make a choice.

mrkiscool2

Peregrinus wrote: »

Or, at least, babies are atheist only in the rather limited sense that, say, carrots are atheists - they both lack any belief in god.

To describe someone as atheist is not meaningful unless you are talking about someone who could be a theist. As Sartre points out, there isn't any choice unless you can make a choice.

That was pretty much my point.

Again, you can't be an Atheist if no-one in the world believes in a God. You have to be able to comprehend that a God could exist and then dismiss that idea to be an atheist.

Peregrinus

mrkiscool2 wrote: »

That was pretty much my point.

Again, you can't be an Atheist if no-one in the world believes in a God. You have to be able to comprehend that a God could exist and then dismiss that idea to be an atheist.

In theory you could be atheist in a world in which no-one believes in a god. You could have a world in which everyone contemplated the possibility of god but then dismissed it.

But you can't be an atheist (in any meaningful sense) if you lack the capacity to contemplate the possibility at all. Which rules out babies and carrots.

challengemaster

Peregrinus wrote: »

"Almost"? :rolleyes:

Indeed, almost. Whilst atheism is defined as "a lack of belief in god(s)", I have yet to come across anyone that blindly believes this. It is always a standpoint backed up by logic and reasoning. Because of that I can't see any way where the indoctrination of something based on logical thought is on par or worse than something based on woo/faith.

Akrasia

jank wrote: »

Moving goal posts, again. Can you link evidence to back your claim?

2012 Gallup poll - 15% of S. Koreans are 'convinced atheists'. It is totally inaccurate to say that atheists are becoming religious in S.Korea. What is happening is that people are moving away from traditional animist beliefs into the global organised religions.
The link below also shows all the other points that I have been making, (ie the link between education and wealth, and religiosity)

http://www.wingia.com/web/files/news/14/file/14.pdf

TRENDS SINCE 2005: Religiosity drops by 9%, while atheism rises by
3%.
There is a notable decline across the globe in self-description of
being religious. WIN-Gallup International had carried out exactly
the same poll seven years ago in 2005. The global average of the
39 countries polled in both waves shows Religiosity Index dropped
by 9% during these seven years. Most of the shift is not drifting from
their faith, but claiming to be ‘not religious’ while remaining within
the faith. There is however a rise of 3% in atheism as well (see table
3, 4 ahead)

First people become less religious, then they stop believing, then they call themselves atheist.

A 9% move from religious to not religious is a massive shift in only 7 years.