Athiests, Your thoughts on this?

Question

Are theists delusional because they are brainwashed, have a lack of common sense or is it somthing else, unintelligent etc? I've been pondering why someone would believe in something so insane, and for the life of me it makes no damn sense at all. What gives???

Sorry if this any cult members find this question offensive. Didn't mean it to be. O-well you have to forgive me anyway. lol

Answer 1

They were taught early on not to question anything; that everything adults tell them is the truth and never question what was being fed to them as far as religious beliefs. As adults though, I don't know. I think they're Just Plain Nuts....

Answer 2

Your logic is flawed. Who said it didn't make any sense? You? What is your authority? Because you don't understand something that you can't explain? Broaden your mind. Very illogical thinking. You need to take some instruction on how to really argue your case intelligently. If you have ever watched the Discovery channel about other galaxies, the stars, etc. you will see MANY things that absolutely cannot be explained, but yet they happen. To have an intelligent discourse, prove your theory, that is, that because you cannot explain how something exists, it doesn't exist. Can you prove the inner recesses of the mind, how without any reasoning whatsoever, just the comprehension of something that freaks you out, causes a strange goose-bumpy feeling on your arms and the back of your neck, that is very trite and small example, but I am sure, that if stretched your mind, just a little, that you could think of something much more unexplainable. You might want to start with ancient civilizations.

Answer 3

From the time the human brain was developed far enough along for people to be able to contemplate their own existence - and their mortality - it has been a pretty fearful thing to think about actually "going pop" at life's end - just, suddenly, nothing. I think it was just natural human inventiveness and ingenuity to come up with something that could be generally disseminated and make everybody feel a whole lot better. You start teaching your children that you really don't DIE when you die, but go on to live in a different form, for ever and ever. This all seemed to spark a solution to another problem. The elders of a given human community told everybody that there was a mysterious invisible superbeing who made them and created the whole world and the stars and the moon and the sun and all that other good stuff. This mighty, all powerful "god" had a set of rules that everybody had to follow so that the whole community might live and interract in great harmony. How to get everybody to obey the rules? If the Elders (who were of course always just that... older than everyone else......) said "because we say so" every young buck, and smartass would sooner or later say "Oh yeah, and if we don't want to, what are ya gonna do about it?" Noooo problem. The elders had the obvious solution. "God told us to tell you that if you don't obey his rules, when you leave this earth, instead of going to live with him in a wonderful place called Heaven, where you will be happy and contented for ever and ever, he has another reeeeally horrible place all set up where you will get tossed, and there you will spend eternity groaning, moaning, wailing, gnashing your teeth and screaming in agony in a mighty lake of fire.
Generation after generation after generation, of course, one bunch of elders succeeded the last bunch, and they added a bit more to the origianal story, and embellished it more and more elaborately, and generation after generation of young children would be fed the latest edition of the whole thing. Thousands of years later, here we are, listening to the very latest version, which has now become very very elaborate indeed and very complicated. Human groups broke of and went in many different directions, and different elders came up with brand new versions which became the different religious denominations. Naturally, each denomination was told that theirs was the "right one" and all the others were false, and if you followed any of them you wouldn't get your wonderful reward in heaven, but you sure would go to that other nasty place. For millions and millions of humans now walking around this planet, it still works. They believe it in every grizzly detail. BUT, something tells me that with the advent of this new internet technology which gives us humans for the first time in our history a chance to a ctually communicate back and forth with waaaaaay more people than we ever could have hoped to in the past, things are going to begin changing dramatically.
In the meantime, some of us have always been able, somehow, to escape the brainwashing of our childhood. Our minds got out of the cage and found a way to soar, freely, and without the chains that still bound most others to those old stories. I feel blessed to be one of those who found a way to leave that cage, and fly, and be the owner of my OWN mind, and the master of my OWN thinking and believing, and not be the slave of what others would have preferred to force into me from the earliest age, when a fresh new mind is like a sponge and tends to sop up whatever older people feed into it. Whenever I asked the simple one word question "why"? and nobody seemed able to give me an answer that made a lick o'sense, I set it aside and privately labelled it "suspicious", because I always felt somehow that when a person really knows the answer to a question, he is able to give it in a way that makes sense, and reason. I suppose I had a built-in recognition of when I was being fed a load of waffle. I never did like waffles, with or without syrup.

Answer 4

I can tell you that I am not brainwashed, lack no common sense, and am not unintelligent. I do not believe in intelligent creation. I do support the Big Bang, and the research that continues, I know what abiogenesis is, better than most folks. I understand evolution, I am a Biologist, a Human Biologist. I have studied the comparative anatomy of vertebrates, structural evolution, and even theology, and different mythological structures. After studying, learning, and seeing all that I have, I do believe that life is more than the sum of its parts. There are things yet unexplained, magical. These things will be explained, and new questions will be asked, new magic will be found and it, in turn will be explained. I believe that there is more than human, beings that posses powers far greater than our own. I believe these beings have the same origin we do and are not apart from our universe, but part of it, subject to its laws. Most of these beings care nothing for humans, the way most humans care nothing for ants. They do exist, maybe on another plane of time and space, maybe on another planet. I don't pray to them, they just are. What I do worship, is the wisdom of our ancestors, what they struggled with, what they learned, and what they have done for us. I seek to gain that wisdom, I commune with them, not talking with them, talking with myself, trying to understand what they knew and what their point of view would have been. I am not insane, I have a deep spirituality, and deep knowledge and am trying to have deep wisdom.

Answer 5

Perhaps they are scared of death. Or want a reassurance that they are living a good life. Maybe they need a guide to their life because they feel lost without it. Or they believe that their church stands for a good institution trying to help people.

All are reasonable except the last one. Theism isn't directly harmful, it is a church promoting hate of anyone not giving them money or doing things their way. I'd have no trouble with theists if their churchs didn't do this.

Answer 6

Theists might be as delusional as atheists... who can tell?? That depends on who is speaking...

Have a religion (either one) or not have a religion is a matter of individual intuition. Each one of us hear about many things and we follow what our intuition tells us to follow. We "believe" in what we feel is right for us, according to our own experiences in life. Therefore, nobody is wrong by having or not having a religion.

My religion is Spiritism.

Peace!

Answer 7

That might be a little offensive, but I know what you mean. I think about it some times, trying to figure out how someone could believe it, but for the life of me, I cannot come up with a rational explanation. It truly blows my mind.

Answer 8

Partially it's because most grew up in a Christian society/ neighborhood/ household/ whatever. Also, read this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1864748,00.html
http://science.slashdot.org/science/07/03/04/1925246.shtml

Apparently, people are hard-wired for religion, which is the only thing that makes sense when you think about it. Why else does every single culture that has ever existed have a religion?

Answer 9

Some people like certainty, others prefer the simple approach, to some it is a comfort, to others a crutch. Some have no doubt questioned the available evidence and come up with a different answer to me.

it happens

Answer 10

In the USA, most people are raised Christian, and most of them stay that way. In order to end up an atheist, you must challenge one of the more basic cultural assumptions in our society.

Beyond that, I think there are many ideas in Christianity that people find appealing... paradise, eternal life, vengeance on enemies, a peaceful protector spirit.