A question for atheists

I have asked these questions of atheists before and they have admitted asking God to help, "please God..etc" to which I ask them 'what god, you don't believe', they then look confused. As do I.

When a relative is ill, or in an accident, do you merely hope they will get better?

When sitting exams you merely hope you will do well?

What runs through your minds in times of great personal crisis?

 

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jeez idle what the hell are you tripping on man thats plain stupid

 

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You mean do i talk to an imaginary friend? no, i dont.

 

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I didn't even pray to God much when I was christian, so why would I now? :l

 

you do seem to be tripping, because those people you mention in your story, and lets face it it is just a story, ar'nt atheist, something else perhaps.

yes, you remain optomistic, however also being realistic.

if your sitting exams you can only ever rely on your own abilitys, cant you.

the people you love, possible outcomes, etc.

 

to that i would answer that, I belive in myself and the people around me, and when in need of aid that is also where i look.

God is in the mirror, go take a look and belive in what you see, you dont need relgion as a crutch.

 

why are you piss holes so damn rude, it's a genuine question?

meanhwile yes you are right, they were probably athiest vegetarians who also ate chicken and fish, ie: labelling themselves for the sake of a trend, it did make me wonder. And no it's not a story, don't accuse me of lying because some wanabee atheists aren't sure of the rules.

Athiests praying in times of great distress is not all that different surely to the religious denying God exists when they have a bad day.

 

I'm not religious, not remotely, quite the opposite, but I believe in God, not religions definition of God though something else. Something I have personal experience of. It annoys me greatly that you can't mention the word 'God' without people assuming religion has something to do with it. I guess they are as brainwashed as the religious in the view that one cannot exist without the other.

 

I do hope for certain outcomes at times, and even use traditional phrases like "thank God", or "God help us". But it's all in good fun, I don't believe there is a being that I'm addressing. It's like talking about genes "wanting" something. It's not precisely correct, but it's how humans relate to the world.

 

I think "shit happens" =]

seriously though, sometimes I think "maybe I should pray, just to be on the safe side" but quickly talk sense into myself.

 

I dont think I would ever use phrases like "Please God..." and literally be talking to this sky fairy. I use phrases like this in vain all the time though. Although in tough circumstances all I do is hope, what else is there?

 

Do you mind if we explore the psychology behind this.

Spider, you mention 'gene's wanting something'..are you implying that genes 'want' to believe in soemthing more? If so why if there is nothing more?

Cato, you think you should pray to be on the safe side, I understand this however it does imply that you may be more agnostic than atheist? Although I am not here to swap lables, just to look at this line of thinking and thank you both for your honest replies.

I know skeptics who deny all belief in palmistry but are the first in the queue when I mention palm reading. I don't actually believe in it myself.

What is it (and you hinted at in in your gene comment spider) that makes us perhaps yearn for something more than we have, even when (in your case) logic is telling you something different. Why do humans want 'more'.

Is this need for 'more' something else which seperates us from the rest of the animal kingdom, and if so why? What is it's evolutionary purpose or gentic purpose? If that is all there is then we must be able to explain this behaviour in those terms. If not, then what?

 

Hmmmmmmmmmm I may have found a possible answer to my question, see what you think:

"1. A Parent Figure
Psychologists consider experience to be projections of our expectations on to events. So that sleep apnea is experienced by UFO believers as an attempted abduction, but by those who believe in evil spirits it is experienced as an attempted possession. According to the expectations and the subconscious wishes of the person, events will be experienced in completely different ways. So, the cause of God is partially our inner wishes.

"To begin with, we know that God is a father-substitute; or, more correctly, that he is an exalted father; or, yet again, that he is a copy of a father as he is seen and experienced in childhood - by individuals in their own childhood and by mankind in its prehistory as the father of the primitive and primal horde. Later on in life the individual sees his father as something different and lesser. But the ideational image belonging to his childhood is preserved and becomes merged with the inherited memory-traces of the primal father to form the individual's idea of God."
Sigmund Freud [2]

Parent figures experienced by children, those under the age of four, is quite different than how they experience them once they develop empathy. When they start realizing that their parents do not know everything, that they can hide things from their parents, and that their parents can hide things from each other, then the father becomes 'something lesser' than what he was before. Parents, before this stage, are considered omniscient and omnipotent by children. The child feels and acts as if the parent figures can do anything, solve any problem, know the child's own thoughts and know what the child is doing. After doing something that the child thinks will elicit a response from the parents, a child will expect hir parents to act, punish and reward the child even if the parents were not actually present. This is the feeling of being continually and completely watched by an omniscient and ever present parent figures. This parent figure fades, in real life, when the child learns the reality of how its parents are limited, like the child itself, but the memory of this uber-parent still remains. And the want and wish for such a uber-parent to exist remains in the subconscious memory of the child as they mature"

This is no doubt a very valid point, however it actually just reinforces something present from birth.

From a psychological persepctive, it is considered that babies believe they
are omnipotent and therefore 'God' (although word 'god' of course does not feature) so again the concept of an all powerful being begins even before the toddler/parent stage of understanding. First it is them, this then becomes the parent and as they are older something else.

So when people say that the belief in 'god' is purely taught through religion, this is not in fact correct, but it does rather explain where and why religion and the notion of a 'God' arose in the first place. It does infact have natural biological causes. (All things psychological only being possible by all things biological).

So when athiests turn away from a 'God' figure there must be some inner struggle? fighting the biological urges that were dominant in early life. Is this the case?

NOTE: please do not misinterpret this to be me trying to prove the eixistance of a God it is NOT at all, rather discussing the 'need' within people to have a 'god'.

 

I'm just talking about how people, even scientists, may talk about innanimate objects like they were animate. We can talk about genes "wanting" to replicate themselves and be successful, even though it isn't technically correct. Richard Dawkins talks about this in "The Selfish Gene". Genes don't actually want anything, but they seem to behave this way, because the ones that produce a "survival machine" that is beneficial to them are the ones that spread.

I know that there isn't a being controlling overall events on Earth, but since people relate best to other people, it's easier to say "thank God", than "I appreciate the circumstances that led to a beneficial outcome for me". In this case the word God represents circumstance and good luck.

 

Please take a look at my edited post, I found something out, quite interesting

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depending on your definition of agnostic and atheist, I may fall in either one. however, I do not pray to god, nor do I believe in one. I think the reason that I sometimes think "why not" is cultural conditioning. by cultural conditioning, I mean that so many people in my culture do believe in god, and pray, that I sometimes forget just how idiotic these ideas are. I quickly dismiss the thoughts when I look at the situation objectively.

perhaps its not the culture I live in, maybe it is the "god gene" that has become a popular idea recently. however, there needs to be much more work done in the area before I back it.

if you are going to do any reading on the subject of philosophy, I would recommend you start with Daniel Dennett's work.

here is a link to an interview with Dennett:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/22/m...663a39246&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

 

Hi Cato, please read post submitted by me at 9.38, explains this inner 'need' for all powerful being in our lives, rather interesting. I never came across this explanation before.

Excellent link by the way, no doubt this parental thing i came up with is in there also

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from your link:

"Yet faith, by definition, means believing in something whose existence cannot be proved scientifically. If we knew for sure that God existed, it would not require a leap of faith to believe in him.

Isn't it interesting that you want to take that leap? Why do you want to take that leap? Why does our craving for God persist? It may be that we need it for something. It may be that we don't need it, and it is left over from something that we used to be. There are lots of biological possibilities"

 

Now what we need to look at is why those biological possibilities exist? As science ties everything into 'reproduction' why do we need to believe in an all powerful being to reproduce..any ideas? I'll check out that book!

 

here are some articles I just found:
http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/incpages/publctns.shtml
I am just diving into them, I will post again if I find anything worth while

 

Hmmmm, a biological basis for a belief in a "god". Interesting, but none of our dogs look like they ever pray. But maybe the chimps with 98% match of our genes........

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Why not think about the old admonition, "I'll put the fear of God in you." Maybe that's a better clue.