How do I respond to this, regarding atheism?

Question

"everyone starts as an inherent atheist with the LACK of belief… meaning the inability to believe which again is false."

I know he's incorrect here. He simply makes this assumption (based on what I have no idea).

What's the best way to go about responding? Thanks.

He's argued earlier that one isn't born atheist.

And if that WERE the case, he makes the assumption that one has the inability to become a theist.

I'm not arguing that we are born atheists. I know that.

I'm arguing against his idea that atheists are incapable of becoming theists.

Answer 1

No, everyone is born with a sense that there is some higher moral authority, God.

Lost in the hullabaloo over the neo-atheists is a quieter and potentially more illuminating debate. It is taking place not between science and religion but within science itself, specifically among the scientists studying the evolution of religion. These scholars tend to agree on one point: that religious belief is an outgrowth of brain architecture that evolved during early human history. What they disagree about is why a tendency to believe evolved, whether it was because belief itself was adaptive or because it was just an evolutionary byproduct, a mere consequence of some other adaptation in the evolution of the human brain.

Which is the better biological explanation for a belief in God -- evolutionary adaptation or neurological accident? Is there something about the cognitive functioning of humans that makes us receptive to belief in a supernatural deity? And if scientists are able to explain God, what then? Is explaining religion the same thing as explaining it away? Are the nonbelievers right, and is religion at its core an empty undertaking, or a misdirection, or a vestigial artifact of a primitive mind? Or are the believer’s right, and does the fact that we have the mental capacities for discerning God suggest that it was God who put them there?

In short, are we hard-wired to believe in God? And if we are, how and why did that happen?

Read more at:

See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/magazine/04evolution.t.html?ei=5090&en=43cfb46824423cea&ex=1330664400&pagewanted=all

God reveals Himself to everyone in the world around us.

This is explained from the following:

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.
2. Evil exists.
3. Therefore, objective values exist. (Some things are really evil.)
4. Therefore, God exists.

Even pagans know “that what the law requires is written on their hearts” (ROM 2:15) if we honestly consult our hearts, we will find two truths: that we know what we ought to do and be, and that we fail to do and be that.

Answer 2

I've heard that everyone starts as an atheist because we have to be told what a god is. But the second part is wrong - young children have incredible imaginations, so strong they are able to convince themselves something is real when they know it is not. No one is better at suspending disbelief than children. How else does a rock become a jewel, a stick become a sword, a shadow become a monster, empty air in a cup become delicious tea?

Children believe what is false every day. This is a blatantly incorrect statement.

Answer 3

Obviously someone came up with the idea. The trick is to figure out why. A newborn infant is not necessarily aware of itself, let alone God. It must learn the idea of other and self, dependence, independence and relationship. ( That's why infants in orphanages who are never held have terrible problems relating to other people when they grow up.) By experiencing the loving protection of adults, an infant feels secure enough to both bond and individuate. Without that care, development is severely inhibited.

God is the solution to an out-of-control life. The more helpless one feels in one's environment, the more one needs a way to control it. If it doesn't exist, it will be created, just for the sake of psychological peace. (That is how superstition and sympathetic "magic" develop, by imitating the problems, the victim bargains with the powers behind the danger.) People who feel relatively in control of their life are less likely to feel a need for supernatural explanations and resources. This doesn't affect the validity of the idea of God, merely the person's interest in discerning it.

The infant is an "a-theist" in the most fundamental sense of the word. He's not "anti-theist", he simply has no concept of "God". He's too busy trying to figure what that fuzzy patch of beige in the blue background means and whether it's "real" or not. Belief in God must be taught, and demonstrated by allegorical experience. Even the Biblical patriarchs had to be introduced to God by a personal revelation. Paul was a Christian catcher before his vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus. So "teaching" God is not in itself an indictment of God's existence.

Turning back to our newborn, it takes many months for an infant to believe in the permanence of object. (If you hide something, it no longer exists!) It takes at least six to eight years to develop the beginnings of abstract thought. (Everything that exists must be material, even God.) So their capability to understand "God" changes as their mental capacity develops.

I don't quite know what "inability to believe which again is false" means. It's a little garbled. I guess it means inability to believe what can't be verified. Small children can believe in all sorts of unverifiable things, as long as they are affirmed by a trusted authority, such as Mom or Dad. Verification is not their issue. They may not understand in the same way but unless they have an experience of being deceived, they trust the source. Doubt simply does not occur to them. That's how innocence works.

Answer 4

I do not know what the "meaning the inability to believe which again is false" portion refers to. It might make more sense in the full context.

However, the first part of the claim is true. People are not born with a belief in a god. They have to be taught to believe in a god.

Answer 5

sure everyone is born with more or less a blank slate, and thus we are born without a belief in god. however, that does not mean we are born with a disbelief either. by the time a baby leaves the womb till it's old enough to speak, it's been bombarded a million times over with what the parents think are right for the baby. trust in one's parents is another issue which steers a person in the religion direction they go into in their formative years. how often do you hear a 5 year old his or her parents they're wrong for teaching him/her that there is a god?

Answer 6

You are born with a lack of a belief in a God, because you're born with no knowledge of a God. You need to be TAUGHT that there is a God. Which God you wind up believing in depends simply on who you're born to, and who's teaching you. (Usually the same people.) If you were never told about a God, then you still wouldn't believe in a God.
If people were born with a knowledge of God, then there would only be one religion, because there wouldn't be thousands of different Gods to choose from.
Anyone who can't understand this, isn't using their brains, and isn't even trying. They've got a mental block up, so give up trying to explain.

Answer 7

A lack of belief is not the same as an inability to believe nor does it signify lack of ability to believe at some point. In fact the definition of atheist is of one who has looked into the matter of belief in a deity and has concluded such belief is not rational - at least not for himself or herself.

Answer 8

Why respond to an idiot at all. Nobody starts with a lack of belief in anything specific. Much less a like of belief in God. You have to be able to recognize a thing before you can not believe in it. To say a person starts as an Atheist is nonsense.
My God I'm an Atheist and I'm doing it again.

Answer 9

I would disagree with the above statement, because even though a baby doesn't know much when he/she is born, as soon as they are old enough to understand abstract concepts (around 3 or 4 for most children), you will find they have a natural inclination to believe in a higher power. You may have heard of a "childlike faith". Unless something happens to disrupt this faith when the child is young (like attending public school to be brainwashed to become an atheist) a child will continue to be predispositioned from birth to believe in God. This is why it is so easy for children to believe in the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus - because they naturally have great faith. However, we cannot clump God in with those two, because of the fact that Creation exists, and we exist, and everything in the universe is complex and intelligently designed, so we are without excuse when it comes to admitting God's existence. The evidence in the physical world is powerful evidence for the existence of God. I used to be an atheist and an evolutionist for 20 years, and I now recognize that none of the supposed "evidences" for evolution hold any water upon closer examination. So the only alternative we are left with is that there IS a God.

Answer 10

My first years in life wasn't that religious but I still found myself pondering a lot about the existence of someone somewhere controlling everything. I believe we are born believers. We do not need to carry out any empirical research to know that the vast majority of humans believe in the existence of God. How did they all begin to believe this? I conclude then that there is something in man that seeks for the supernatural. Man is spiritual also.