What do Atheist Believe?

[Heyo]

Pirahã people - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

They do/did believe in spirits, so as mentioned, perhaps one of the paths that led to the God belief.

:informative:

 

[Mock Turtle]

So is stupidity not natural?
Do you understand what the problem is? Humans are in the natural world and they are natural. So how do they do as per cause and effect, cause something unnatural as an effect? Please explain that.

More than natural.

I can't explain, unless one views any concept produced by any human as being natural, even if such couldn't exist. And I don't know enough about physics and all the rest to assert anything like this.

I believe it is natural to believe in a God because it is the easiest of the options to believe. It takes more effort in fact to become an atheist in my view. But it is about as natural to have the God concept as having none, and I believe that the latter will not occur in babies because of all that goes on around them - so there is my meaning as to not being natural (to the baby).

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

More than natural.

I can't, unless one views any concept produced by any human as being natural, even if such couldn't exist. And I don't know enough about physics and all the rest to assert anything like this.
...

Do you understand what a concept is and how it exist?

 

[HonestJoe]

I am actually wanting to get some ideas because I am interested to know if atheism is an experience of a general lack of belief.

Atheism isn't an "experience". It is the destination, not the journey. Anyone who doesn't believe in the existence of any god or gods is an atheist, regardless of how or why they reached that position. The reasoning for their lack of belief could be entirely irrational, contradictory or incomplete, they would still be atheist.

It seems to me that in order to be a cognitive atheist, you must disallow belief altogether as how can any belief support the demands of concrete evidence or proof? Is there a way to reconcile a reasoning behind any belief?

Atheists don't necessarily demand concrete evidence or proof though. Some do, but that doesn't define atheism.

As it happens, I personally would expect some level of definitive evidence to accept any of the multiple specific theological beliefs various people have proposed throughout history (which would typically require evidence against most of the others). In the absence of any such evidence (or indeed, a definitive hypothesis), not believing in any particular god strikes me as the most rational conclusion. Note that isn't the same as definitively denying the possibility of the existence of some kind of god, just no reason to definitively believe in any specific one.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Do you understand what a concept is and how it exist?

I'm sure you are going to show I don't.

But I'm orff now. tara!

 

[Heyo]

It seems to me that Atheists are most concerned with proof. Not only that they typically want it handed to them on a silver platter served by an angel from heaven. I mean don't get me wrong, all of us would probably love for that to happen, but what I am curious to know is: Is there anything that Atheist believe in? I mean, does an atheist live life expecting everything to be explainable.... factual.... proven? Is there anything, metaphysical or physical, that they actually believe in or do they just rely on their concrete proof and knowledge? If they do believe in something... anything? Why? I'm curious.

Atheists believe anything and everything - except that there is/are a god/gods. At least the colloquial atheists. They don't have a position or philosophy/belief system.
I identify as an Agnostic (philosophically, not mere colloquially) but I'm also an atheist by definition.
My beliefs (I prefer to call them axioms) are:
1. Reality is real.
2. The universe is orderly.
3. The universe is knowable.
I can't prove those but no formal system is without axioms and these seem to be without inner contradiction and pretty parsimonious. Everything I think to know or assume about the world has a foundation in these three axioms.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I'm sure you are going to show I don't.

A concept is a word that has no observable property. That is the short dirty version.
E.g. a word is a concept for its meaning, that is a sign and its referent in some cases.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Atheists believe anything and everything - except that there is/are a god/gods. At least the colloquial atheists. They don't have a position or philosophy/belief system.
I identify as an Agnostic (philosophically, not mere colloquially) but I'm also an atheist by definition.
My beliefs (I prefer to call them axioms) are:
1. Reality is real.
2. The universe is orderly.
3. The universe is knowable.
I can't prove those but no formal system is without axioms and these seem to be without inner contradiction and pretty parsimonious. Everything I think to know or assume about the world has a foundation in these three axioms.

This is a start, though I could nitpick knowable as for the idea of the whole of the universe including human behavior.

 

[Twilight Hue]

It seems to me that Atheists are most concerned with proof. Not only that they typically want it handed to them on a silver platter served by an angel from heaven. I mean don't get me wrong, all of us would probably love for that to happen, but what I am curious to know is: Is there anything that Atheist believe in? I mean, does an atheist live life expecting everything to be explainable.... factual.... proven? Is there anything, metaphysical or physical, that they actually believe in or do they just rely on their concrete proof and knowledge? If they do believe in something... anything? Why? I'm curious.

Why believe when facts speak for itself?

 

[Exaltist Ethan]

I'd contend that the lack of belief in God doesn't make you an atheist, it just makes you unaware of religion. Atheism is the disbelief in God. Atheists can believe in ghosts, aliens, magic, anything but God. Most atheists tend to reject all supernaturality, but atheism is not synonymous with apistevism, which is the rejection of all faith and the supernatural.

 

[Jacob Samuelson]

Why believe when facts speak for itself?

How do facts speak for itself?

 

[Jacob Samuelson]

Atheism isn't an "experience". It is the destination, not the journey. Anyone who doesn't believe in the existence of any god or gods is an atheist, regardless of how or why they reached that position. The reasoning for their lack of belief could be entirely irrational, contradictory or incomplete, they would still be atheist.

Atheists don't necessarily demand concrete evidence or proof though. Some do, but that doesn't define atheism.

As it happens, I personally would expect some level of definitive evidence to accept any of the multiple specific theological beliefs various people have proposed throughout history (which would typically require evidence against most of the others). In the absence of any such evidence (or indeed, a definitive hypothesis), not believing in any particular god strikes me as the most rational conclusion. Note that isn't the same as definitively denying the possibility of the existence of some kind of god, just no reason to definitively believe in any specific one.

If you were to consider God to be a variable in which has no rational definition, yet at the same time cannot definitively deny the possibility of the existences of some kind of god, is it because this possibility doesn't meet your expectations? What specific expectations are you looking for? Visitation? Miraculous unexplainable occurrences? Why doesn't the Earth and its vast variety of species and intricacies meet your expectations, where it would most non-atheists?

 

[Jacob Samuelson]

I believe in my children and husband.

I believe the sun will rise on the morning

I believe all sorts of things for which there is falsifiable or verifiable evidence including thst some religious folk are really quite ignorant and hateful.

Are you using belief as if they do not or might not exist? Or are you using it like you trust in their integrity as people? Do you believe your children will always be your children or your husband will always be your husband? Or are their roles finite? Believing the sun will rise on the morning is a great belief, especially since we know the sun could instantaneously send a solar flare that would wipe out the whole world before we would even see it happen. So if your belief is built on verifiable evidence that these things will or will not happen, why is not simply truth? Why say you believe in something when it is a known fact? And if it is not a known fact? What makes you prefer a unknown fact over the other?

 

[Nimos]

It seems to me that Atheists are most concerned with proof. Not only that they typically want it handed to them on a silver platter served by an angel from heaven. I mean don't get me wrong, all of us would probably love for that to happen, but what I am curious to know is: Is there anything that Atheist believe in? I mean, does an atheist live life expecting everything to be explainable.... factual.... proven? Is there anything, metaphysical or physical, that they actually believe in or do they just rely on their concrete proof and knowledge? If they do believe in something... anything? Why? I'm curious.

I don't think there is any difference between atheists and theists in regard to what they believe and don't, except when God(s)/supernatural is used as the most likely explanation.

Atheists in general have no issue with things not being explainable and will often refer to theists using the God of gap argument to fill in stuff that atheists for instance have no problem simply saying that we do not know.

But just as theists will draw logical conclusions about things not related or believed to be related to the supernatural, so do atheists but simply extend this to these things as well and will demand proof for the supernatural.

 

[Jacob Samuelson]

Well, I stopped when I was a professional soldier and heard a sermon by our regimental priest that God loved us and he blessed us and our weapons in the name of God as to killing our enemies.
But that is just me.

I can see why this would be conflicting. So instead of believing in a God that would protect you against your enemies, You took the moral weight off of that deity and put it on an immoral government that wanted you to kill people in the name of the country? If you didn't stop your belief, what physical change would it have produced? Would you have not killed anyone? Would it be less immoral? Would you leave your employment as a soldier? It doesn't seem like you stopped believing in God, you just didn't believe in how He was used, which I can understand.

 

[osgart]

I don't see uniform beliefs among atheists. I think most atheists question everything they deem as being important. I have religious convictions that don't include God. I'm never above questioning my own beliefs. And I'm never above questioning my own convictions about things.

Beliefs to me are not knowledge claims. It's one thing to know something is true, and quite another to believe something is true. I have the highest degree of confidence that Gods can be known not to exist.

If a God does exist no one really knows anything about that God. Every God I've ever come across shows themselves to be human inventions.

I define Gods as having power and authority over life, and the natural world. Supernatural occurrences have never been witnessed.

Myself I see knowledge comes through observation, experiment, logical deduction, and interpreting our own experiences correctly. I don't buy into divine revelation. No one has ever defeated the problem of tragedy, suffering and of evil and disaster.

There's nothing perfect nor ideal about the human plight.

 

[John53]

I am actually wanting to get some ideas because I am interested to know if atheism is an experience of a general lack of belief. It seems to me that in order to be a cognitive atheist, you must disallow belief altogether as how can any belief support the demands of concrete evidence or proof? Is there a way to reconcile a reasoning behind any belief?

It should be fairly easy to understand.... I'm not sure what your religious beliefs are but I imagine you don't believe in every God, atheists feel exactly the same as you feel about those Gods you don't believe in.

 

[Aupmanyav]

I mean, does an atheist live life expecting everything to be explainable.... factual.... proven? Is there anything, metaphysical or physical, that they actually believe in or do they just rely on their concrete proof and knowledge? If they do believe in something... anything? Why? I'm curious.

Yeah, it should be explainable with unequicable evidence. Personallly, I believe only in space/energy correlation, everything springs from that. The correlation and its cause is not sufficiently well-explained. Science is trying to find answers for what we do not know.

 

[Twilight Hue]

How do facts speak for itself?

What do you mean? Facts are pretty obvious hence the all well known quote.

 

[Ella S.]

It seems to me that Atheists are most concerned with proof. Not only that they typically want it handed to them on a silver platter served by an angel from heaven. I mean don't get me wrong, all of us would probably love for that to happen, but what I am curious to know is: Is there anything that Atheist believe in? I mean, does an atheist live life expecting everything to be explainable.... factual.... proven? Is there anything, metaphysical or physical, that they actually believe in or do they just rely on their concrete proof and knowledge? If they do believe in something... anything? Why? I'm curious.

I'm an atheist. The answer is different depending on which atheist you speak to.

I believe many things. I believe that I exist. I believe there was dawn this morning and will be dawn again tomorrow. I believe the earth is a sphere, that the moon orbits the earth, that the earth orbits the sun, and so on. These all have logical arguments/"proofs" to support them, yes. Each of these is a belief that is justified by the data that I have available to me, being the most likely conclusions that can be extrapolated from the relevant facts.

I don't expect everything to be explainable, but I only believe in what I think I can concretely prove. I don't think that my proofs are absolute, unchanging truth, though. I am amenable to change my position in the face of new information or superior logic. However, I try my hardest to not believe in anything without a logical reason to do so based on my knowledge.

The word for this that I've heard is "apistevism" but I've also heard it referred to as "faithlessness" and "scientific skepticism." Personally, though, I see it as an extension of modern rationalism, which is my epistemology.

I'm not a rationalist due to being an atheist, though. I am an atheist due to being a rationalist. My rationalism lead me to adopt the position of gnostic atheism. Atheism is just one small facet of my larger worldview, in the same way that theism is only a small part of Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, etc.