A Christian is like a little boy who really thinks Sky daddy is his actual father, that a literal virgin woman can give birth. But as he grows up, he realizes he can control a woman via her “duties”. But in his pride and hurt for believing in a mystical diety with no proof he maintains this absurd position, dismissing science and using excerpts from the Bible to sustain his delusion. That is until he deconstructs.
Christians aren’t dumb. They just don’t know sky daddy doesn’t exist yet. They just refuse to Acknowledge the Bible is stories written by man, instead believing in some twisted version concocted to line pockets of preachers and push vile political policies that control people not like them.
I’m probably more agnostic-leaning than atheist. I consider myself open-minded enough to consider the possibility of a God existing, but all the available evidence seems to point to it not existing. Or if it does exist, it’s definitely not like the loving God that Christians have tried to popularize.
What the person is describing sounds more like projection, as I assume many Christians stay on as being Christians out of sheer momentum. They realize that something isn’t right with their teachings, but falling out of the cult would mean social isolation, and for some people that’s almost like a death sentence. So they stay on as Christians, desperately trying to convince themselves that they’re in the right, that their Church and their faith are “the Truth”. Deep down though they feel trapped and stay with it because that’s all they’ve ever known.
This is actually atheist. Atheism as a label pertains only to the question of “Are you convinced a god exists”, if the answer is no - you’re atheist.
If you are convinced of a god, but feel your reasons are bad, that’s where agnostic would apply.
The history of the term “agnostic” is as a deliberate way to make leaving religion harder, and you continuing to use it incorrectly perpetuates the stigma and social costs.
You can help people in horrible, abusive, situations, and join millions of us in doing so, just by using the term atheist correctly. Incidentally, being more precise in your language is also super useful, and gives loads of new and better ways to convey information.
the 2 words answer different questions, Theist vs Atheist: do you believe in god? Gnostic vs Agnostic do you know you are correct?
Gnostic Theist: There is a god and I know he is real
Agnostic Theist: I believe in god, and faith is enough proof
Agnostic Atheist: I don’t believe in god, but don’t think that it can’t be proven that it doesn’t exist.
Gnostic Atheist: I know there is no god, like I know there is no Santa Clause.
Antitheist: God is a lie and religion is poison.
I agree. I’ve just not had any luck with presenting this while trying to convey the point to someone who identifies as agnostic. It kind of requires the recipient to already be sold on the concept of precise language, and be ready to ignore their own connotations with each of the terms. Which to my experience is rare.
I find most agnostic people are cowards that want both sides to leave them alone. They’re usually okay with religious bigotry as long as it doesn’t affect them personally.
In my experience they’re more afraid of being an atheist because it has strongly negative connotations from their time in religion. There’s a kneejerk reaction to the label and so, while they are atheist and don’t believe, they hang into the agnostic label to feel more comfortable.
That’s certainly what I did for quite a while after deconverting.
Oh for sure, I see them as the religious equivalent to “enlightened centrists.” I’ve literally heard people complain that atheists and Christians are equally annoying because they won’t stop talking about it.
Yes, I’m sorry that I don’t want their church making reproductive choices for my wife, I do understand how that’s the same as letting you know the root cause of our political divide. My bad.
To me, I’ve seen how Douglas Adams described his own atheism, and that’s just not for me.
Adams described himself as a “radical atheist”, adding “radical” for emphasis so he would not be asked if he meant agnostic. He told American Atheists that this conveyed the fact that he really meant it.
I certainly lean towards atheism, but I can’t say with 100% certainty that a God can be ruled out. God could still be a complete asshole who likes torturing his creations, or more like a Lovecraftian Eldritch god who doesn’t even register our existence, those are still possibilities.
Then what point is there to calling them a god? Leaving the possibility open to their existence is logical, it doesn’t mean you can’t highlight the improbability.
I think Terry Pratchett highlights this well in Disc World with his atheists. They deny gods are real in a world where gods clearly exist and manifest physically. When the inverse is true it borders on insanity.
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Nah, it’s a mental trap of some mental mechanisms creating a “religious feeling” (quite effective a few 100k years ago), seeking explanations and mental shelter, ignoring contrary evidence. Alltogether know as cognitive dissonance. Sadly, this forms their mind and not only affects their religious belief but the politics too.
Agnostic too. I believe it’s more likely a creator does exist— but doesn’t interact, and I think I know the most-likely reason why. I’ll also say I grew up Baptist, and I am preeeetty sure the reason they Christians don’t question their nonsense is because the idea of questioning their faith only to end up in hell is terrifying. I was terrified until my early 20s. You join because social and/or family, you stay because you’re afraid.
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It might be the viewpoint of some atheists, it’s not really a unified thing, it’s just the position of questioning if there is a god.
It is also a poisoned straw man of a religious mind, deeply dishonest and manipulative.
In the case of the deadbeat father, you can look around and see that most other children have two parents, and you can reasonably conclude that you should too. When looking closer you’ll notice that not all children have fathers though, and with even further study you’ll learn that some children don’t even need a father (IVF only requires a donor, cloning not even that), and you can reasonably conclude that you probably had a father, but can’t never be totally sure.
In the case of the god claim, we’ve never seen any god, nor anything needing a god, and upon closer study, we even find that there’s almost no room for a god to act within. It’s not just that it’s a deadbeat god, no one has ever seen any god, nor evidence or need of one, and that’s where the oop position becomes delusional.
We have however found many mechanisms for which the mind would like to invent a god, we can even reliably make a mind invent a god, and we’ve also found many god claims to have been disproven. If you’d met a person who’d been provably wrong on every important point they’ve ever claimed, would you believe them to be right about the next claim? When would you start asking them to do the homework to prove their claim before listening to the next one?
There’s a relatively little-used term that perfectly describes you: apatheist. Someone who doesn’t care enough to make a decision about how they feel about religion. I’m mostly in the same boat - I just simply have other things I need to care about more
This is actually already covered by the term atheist. An atheist is simply someone not convinced there is a god, regardless of reason.
Agnostic is a weasel term and literally means “without knowledge”. Formally it means that you are convinced, but can’t provide justification. A brilliant term for times when not believing would get you lynched, but language has evolved in the last couple of centuries.
Dunno if we really need more terms. Agnostics don’t necessarily care a ton about the decision.
I am an apatheist because if a God existed, I can’t see how that knowledge would change my day-to-day life in any way.
Pretty ironic position considering the entire religion hangs on Mary’s parthenogenesis.
Classic religious projection
This as many other theist arguments fails by basically starting with assumption “Let there be God. Then …”. You can put it in front of it and it becomes obvious what’s the problem.
The same way I could say “Let there be unicorns. Then a person denying their existence is just delusional”
Yes it’s a riff on Descartes’ “proof” that the chair in front of him existed by first having to prove that God exists.
God is a perfect being. Beings have to exist to be perfect, therefore God exists. This is classic question begging. Using this logic you can define things into existence. There exists a perfect Lemmy client without any bugs. The client must exist to be perfect, therefore the client exists.
All things aside, an absent father is not a father. Maybe he’s a biological donor, but that doesn’t make him a father or parent.
Isn’t that just Deism?
Deism is the idea that something universally powerful put existence into motion then never interacts with it again.
TIL I’m a Deist
Oh boy, this thread is definitely going to be full of tolerant viewpoints
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Shutup babigens
