r/askanatheist

I’m an atheist, but it’s not something I think about much and doesn’t really affect my views of other people I meet day to day who are religious, although I do confess I am very against a specific type of white American Christian mega-church going kind of religiosity. But I do admire and am friends with a lot of people who are Jewish or Muslim, and a few Christians as well. I do think religion is irrational but all humans are irrational in some way and anyone who believes that everything they do, think, and believe is perfectly rationally is suspect.

My dad, however, while he’s always been an atheist, has fallen really deep into the atheist-media content rabbit hole in retirement. While this is much much preferred to the folks whose parents get into Q anon and right wing nut job conspiracies, he’s become extremely biased against anyone who’s religious at all. He doesn’t want a doctor whose religious, and has said things like religious doctors can’t treat patients as well, he’ll make snide comments about anyone I’m friends with whose religious, he spends a lot of time listening to old Christopher Hitchens debates or reading Dawkins. Once he learns someone is religious, he’ll completely dismiss anything else they have to say as worthless because they believe in something irrational.

Does anyone else have experience with this? What did you do?

I know part of this might be religious trauma on his part from a catholic upbringing, but the fact that anyone, no matter Jewish, Muslim, or Christian is suddenly completely discounted wholesale in his book is disconcerting to me.

I couldn't think of a better way to make the title a question than the above. My actual question I want to know is just "Why?" but apparently that is too short for a title. Essentially I would like an atheist to explain why these beliefs are not incongruent with each other please. Preferably one who believes them. I'll take any atheist's answer though.

I know not every atheist holds these beliefs, but In my experience talking to atheists it is very common for atheists to hold the beliefs that:

1. morality is subjective and epistemically grounded in the collective moral opinions of people in society,
2. that there are moral truths that apply to people regardless of the beliefs of those people, and
3. that these beliefs do not lead to nihilism being true.

The thing I find odd is that their explanation for why their beliefs do not lead to nihilism are the exact logical structures used to argue for Nihilism on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. So if there is an atheist who can explain why this seemingly common set of beliefs is considered to be congruent and logically valid instead of logically incongruent I would appreciate it.

Some reference points for the discussion from the SEP article on moral skepticism:

The definition of Nihilism is described as

"Moral Nihilism = Nothing is morally wrong.

Moral nihilism here is not about what is semantically or metaphysically possible. It is just a substantive, negative, existential claim that there does not exist anything that is morally wrong.Since smart and knowledgable people do take moral nihilism seriously and even argue for it (Mackie 1977, Joyce 2001), moral nihilism cannot be dismissed as readily as Descartes’s deceiving demon."

And the common logical structure I see Atheists use to explain why morality applies to people without nihilism being true is found describing why moral nihilism is true here:

"Moral nihilism by itself is enough to be contrary to common moral beliefs, but it is not explanatory. To make their argument more forceful, therefore, moral skeptics usually add some explanation of why people hold moral beliefs that are false (just as the story of Descartes’s deceiving demon is supposed to explain why we hold false perceptual beliefs). The most popular explanations of our moral beliefs refer to evolutionary and social advantages of holding certain moral beliefs, especially when these moral beliefs are shared throughout society. Shared moral beliefs can facilitate social coordination and cooperation even when they are false (much as a shared non-moral belief that my neighbors will in fact catch and punish me if I ever steal from them will reduce theft and increase trust, even if this belief is false and I actually could get away with stealing).

When bare moral nihilism is supplemented with an explanation of why people would hold common moral beliefs even if they were false, this conjunctive skeptical hypothesis can be called explanatory moral nihilism. Moral skeptics can then argue that explanatory moral nihilism forestalls any refutation. Since moral nihilists question all of our beliefs in moral wrongness, they leave us with no starting points on which to base arguments against them without begging the question at issue. Moreover, their explanations of our moral beliefs predict that we would hold exactly these moral beliefs, so the truth of its predictions can hardly refute explanatory moral nihilism. If this trick works, then it fits right into a skeptical hypothesis argument.

This argument is clearest when it is applied to an example. If nothing is morally wrong, as moral nihilists claim, then it is not morally wrong to torture babies just for fun. So, according to the general standard above, one must be able to rule out moral nihilism in order to be justified in believing that torturing babies just for fun is morally wrong. But one cannot rule out moral nihilism if one would hold the same moral beliefs even if they were false, as claimed by the explanation embedded in explanatory moral nihilism. "

For deterministic atheist only.

I am what is in the title. But I just find it interesting?

Morals.
People often get mad when a person does something.
Such as burning a house down.
But they don’t get mad when lightning does it? Or when the earth quakes and destroys it?( “dont get mad” I simply mean that they don’t actively begin to yell at the clouds or the earth at its actions, of course you’d be upset your house is gone)
It’s all just physical processes that hold nobody responsible.
But when a human does it, why? Why so special? It’s all determined. X lead to Y, and to Z, and now they’re burning your house down, why have an issue with it?

But something I really want to focus on is the brain tumor example.
Often times people think, including myself that if a person has a brain tumor or something that makes them illogically think, they shouldn’t be held morally responsible (or at least, AS responsible). I don’t blame them for it, but if they don’t have the brain tumor, then suddenly they are morally responsible? But there’s no difference, a healthy arsonist and one with a brain tumor both, under this worldview, are just going along with physical activity involving chemical reactions in the brain.
Why does introducing one additional physical cause suddenly transform an otherwise morally responsible physical process into a morally excused physical process?

(If you think that an insane arsonist should still be held morally responsible that’s fine, but this often times still applies to much smaller crimes too)

I feel like moral responsibility implies one could do otherwise.
And I feel like simply stating there are no objective morals (morals are subjective) doesn’t solve this issue.

I was wondering, if other people are deterministic atheist out there, what is your response to this “issue”.

How do you folks cope with all the anxiety from how the world keeps getting progressively worse with every passing day?

Pretty soon, we'll be living with my devoutly catholic mother in law for at least a year. We already know what we'll tell her if she tries to talk to him about religion, but what would you tell a child that young? Really wanting to keep the peace while also conveying to him that what she believes is bizarre.

There's so many more religions in the world now, but as atheists, which is the "worse one for you guys"

TLDR: if life is irrelevant, all feeling is just chemicals, how do you cope?

I was thinking about everything that we deem to be moral and amoral, but knowing that a child getting tortured is temporary and knowing that without the child holding a living memory of the events, it effectively did not happen (akin to the tree falling in a forest theory), transferring this logic to us, we die inevitably, knowing that no matter what happens, who we befriend, hurt, or anything in between, none of it changes the lifespan of a human and the inevitability of you being forgotten, bound to irrelevance. And I know you guys twist that into something about that being liberating or something like that, but how can that work when every action you make is (according to your own logic) a series of predisposed trial and error judgements made over your life, and something like falling in love for the first time is merely just a set of neurological chemicals designed to make you reproduce. I firmly believe atheists just haven’t thought about this, but I want to hear some sort of rebuttal. Sorry if this is inarticulate I can’t put this into words very well.

Yahweh certainly has some spectacularly vindictive moments. The Bible contains stories of divine destruction, plagues, collective punishment, executions, genocidal warfare, and severe punishments for disobedience. The Flood alone is difficult to reconcile with the image of a deity whose primary characteristic is gentle compassion. Then there are episodes such as Sodom and Gomorrah, the plagues of Egypt, the destruction of Korah's rebellion, and various commands concerning warfare and apostasy.

But Jesus isn't exactly the harmless hippie version of God that popular Christianity sometimes presents.

Jesus talks repeatedly about judgment, punishment, exclusion, hell, damnation, and the destruction of those who reject him. Matthew 25 contains the image of the wicked being sent into eternal punishment. Matthew 10:28 speaks of God destroying both body and soul in Gehenna. Jesus curses a fig tree for not producing fruit, overturns tables in the Temple, calls religious opponents hypocrites and vipers, and repeatedly warns people about judgment.

And then there's Revelation—assuming we attribute its portrayal to Jesus through the Christian identification of Jesus with the divine figure of the New Testament and the imagery surrounding his return. The returning Christ isn't exactly portrayed as peacefully handing out participation trophies. He's depicted as a cosmic judge arriving amid war, destruction, and apocalyptic judgment. If God is perfectly loving, why is eternal punishment necessary? If punishment is necessary, what exactly makes it perfectly just? If Jesus is the embodiment of divine love, why does his preaching contain such severe warnings about judgment? And if Yahweh and Jesus are ultimately the same God, as orthodox Christianity insists, then the supposed contrast between the "angry God of the Old Testament" and the "loving God of the New Testament" largely collapses. I find the concept of divine authority itself more interesting than deciding which biblical character wins the Vindictive God Olympics.

Yahweh has the Flood.

Jesus has eternal punishment.

At this point, I'm inclined to let the two of them argue it out while I sit safely outside the courtroom asking why the judge is also the plaintiff, the prosecutor, the legislature, and the person who wrote the rules in the first place. So which one of these "loving beings" is truly the worst?

Having walked the Left-Hand Path for over 35 years, I frequently encounter theists attempting to "bring me into the light." Whenever I ask them for concrete backing, the responses are usually evasive: "the message itself is the evidence" or "faith requires no proof."

Coming from a practice (Satanism) where proselytizing is considered foolish and strictly prohibited, I find this ability to argue for a deity without tangible proof fascinating. It raises a core question for me: Is trying to convert others without empirical evidence inherently amoral, or just epistemologically flawed?

I always appreciate the unconventional perspectives on this Sub, so I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

So I saw a story from a guy about how he was worried about money, took shrooms, felt a feminine presence, then went out to his porch and saw a statue of the hindu goddess of wealth.

It made me very anxious, because I have ocd/anxiety and it made me wonder if hinduism was true. It's such a huge coincidence. He said there were roofers working on his house that day, but that they were only outside the house, never in the attic. I'm so confused.

I can't say that I would. I can't love and worship a god who created an entire system where people go to hell for not living to his standards, or simply not believing in him.

Would I fear going to hell after I die? Yes, I would. But there's no fooling God, even if I did pretend to love and worship him.

Just wondering what you guys experienced are.

I was Protestant for 22 years, got really into debate and apologetics until realizing it was all bullshit around the age of 25. I don’t really know how common that is, I don’t know any other atheists in my real life. Literally. Every single one of my friends or family members are either Protestant or “spiritual”.

What about you guys?

I guess not asking questions is in the philosophy of Euro/Judeo-Centric Abrahamic religion (Judaism is iffy). Still, as somebody who is not of that tradition, I was always confused as to why atheists use an Abrahamic worldview to interpret all religions, when, for example, people of Dharmic religions say that Dharma isn't religion but just a way of life. For example, I'm Jain, and we're encouraged to ask questions and go to our gurus, parents, and teachers if we are uncertain about something. Nobody forces us to believe anything; that is between you and god. Along with that, there is the principle of anekantvada/many-sidedness.

No hate to anybody in the community, after all, we're all fighting against adharma.

Fyi: I'm against those who force religion down your throat and those who evangelize.

In the United States, data from the Pew Research Center shows that people who specifically identify as atheists are predominantly white (around 75% to 77%), alongside being disproportionately young and male.