The ONE THING?

[Baruch]

No one is ever born with a religion.
It has to be inculcated, family, peer pressure, culture.

Some religions are worse than others.  Example Islam vs Buddhism.

Also, it does depend on the environment.
Religions created in harsh regions; e.g. the Middle East are more brutal than those from areas of plenty where the competition for survival is not so intense.

The "Abrahamic" gods originated from the worst climates on the planet.

Remember, all religions, gods are human creations.

Everyone is born into a culture.  Mogli is a fiction (boy raised by wolves).

[Mousetrap]

Thank you all for your answers.
I will at a later stage obviously like to summarize the answers, and work in depth with it.
In RSA the sun now sets, and I am going home, so see you later.

NS, for those who claim that they deny the existence of a God, because of a complete lack of evidence, just a thought on whether you believe that the light spectrum we humans can not see exists?
I know you will say that it does and science can prove this ranges of light, but the ultimate Question to answer is, did it exist before we discovered infra red and ultra violet?

I am worried about absence of evidence as evidence.
Good night sweet all, good night!

[Baruch]

Thank you all for your answers.
I will at a later stage obviously like to summarize the answers, and work in depth with it.
In RSA the sun now sets, and I am going home, so see you later.

NS, for those who claim that they deny the existence of a God, because of a complete lack of evidence, just a thought on whether you believe that the light spectrum we humans can not see exists?
I know you will say that it does and science can prove this ranges of light, but the ultimate Question to answer is, did it exist before we discovered infra red and ultra violet?

I am worried about absence of evidence as evidence.
Good night sweet all, good night!

Absence of evidence as evidence is a rhetorical gambit, not a logical one.  But not bad for rhetoric.

There is no agreement on what existence means (or any other purely metaphysical term ... say ... reality).  As usually meant in materialist terms (matter/energy) and as usually meant in theological terms (supernatural) ... no gods can exist.  But if you don't accept materialism, or don't accept the usual theology, then there are other choices to be made.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

The entire scientific canon of the human race.

[Blackleaf]

No. I will not simplify my reasons for leaving the faith to a significant traumatic memory to justify your biases. There are many reasons I no longer believe, and none of them are that my father never loved me, or that I was abused by a religious authority. Several factors came together to lead to my loss of faith, and since that time, my reasons for continuing not to believe have grown in number thanks to my mind becoming clear.

Also, I have strong suspicions you are a troll, so going into more details may not be worth the effort.

[SGOS]

I do however see you are clear about the fact that you don't believe in God, and this was the intend of my question to know why.
You do answer that it was a realization that there is no God. And this is what I wanted to know.
When and Why.
So forgive me if the question was not suitable, your answer is great.
Thanks

No, you still don't quite understand.  Could be my fault or yours.  I don't really care, but my realization was NOT there was NO god.  I've never come to such a realization.  My realization was that I didn't believe in one.  I can understand that this sounds strange, probably because it even sounds strange to me, but for half of my life I played mind games with myself to cover up the intolerable realization that I was without belief.  It was jammed into my head before I could talk that harboring mere doubt was a ticket on the express train to Hell.  And admitting that you weren't buying the package meant that there was no train out of Hell.

But long before I came to that realization, I did recognize that I had serious doubts about the Bible tales, and doubts about there being anyone at the other end of my prayers.  Evidence (which I don't really see as proof) always seemed to point in the direction of no god.  And the sacred evidences in favor of a god, usually revolved around some version of the totally stupid "Yeah, but how do you explain..." argument.  This assumes that if you don't have a counter argument you lose the argument, which of course is a totally foolish assumption.

In fact, my focus was always centered around finding proof of a god, not finding proof of no god.  That's all I wanted.  Give me proof.  Give me a sign.  I even thought I had a sign once, but later realized the sign was more easily explained by the rational, rather than the miraculous.  So that was of no help.  When you think about it, the presence of doubt, the needing of proof, the needing of signs, probably should have alerted me much sooner that I wasn't a believer much past the age of six.  I will forgive myself for my earlier stupidity, because there is no end to the things you can get a 5 year old to believe.  They are the most gullible of souls, and can be taught to believe any absurd nonsense.

[aitm]

I know you will say that it does and science can prove this ranges of light, but the ultimate Question to answer is, did it exist before we discovered infra red and ultra violet?

Ohh nooes……it's a twap….a mouse twap.

[GSOgymrat]

Ohh nooes……it's a twap….a mouse twap.

That made my day!

[SGOS]

I know you will say that it does and science can prove this ranges of light, but the ultimate Question to answer is, did it exist before we discovered infra red and ultra violet?

I used to think the question, "If a tree falls in the forest, but no one is there to hear, does it make a sound?" was a philosophically legitimate question, because the obvious answer is that it did, but wait.  The question is asking about something deeper, much deeper.  But what is it?  I dunno, it must be something really intellectual so I'll pretend like I don't know the answer, because the guy asking it sounds like some sure footed dude from the big city, and even if he's full of horse shit, there are bunch of other people around that are going to buy the elixir and nod their heads knowingly, and I'll be the odd man out.

[Mike Cl]

This is the type of answers that I am glad you are giving as reasons too.

Why?

[Mike Cl]

I am worried about absence of evidence as evidence.
Good night sweet all, good night!

As well you should be.  Your only argument is that god works in mysterious ways.  Other than that there is not a shred of evidence that any god (or unnatural thing) exists, including yours.
And good night to you, as well.  Sleep well.

[Baruch]

The entire scientific canon of the human race.

If you have a scientific canon, make sure you aren't firing blanks ;-)

[SGOS]

NS, for those who claim that they deny the existence of a God, because of a complete lack of evidence, just a thought on whether you believe that the light spectrum we humans can not see exists?

He's gone to bed, just when things start getting spooky.  He's got something up his sleeve.  I starting to think he's going to make me cranky.  I think it involves some analogy between God and the spectrum of light.  Let's see could it be that we know light exists even though we cannot see the light spectrum?  Therefore, God exists because we cannot see him.

I know you will say that it does and science can prove this ranges of light, but the ultimate Question to answer is, did it exist before we discovered infra red and ultra violet?

OMG, the dreaded curve ball.  I did not see that coming.  He fooled us with the question, and just when we think we're going to knock the ball out of the park, he tells us it's not the ultimate question.  He's parried with the old moving of the goalpost fallacy after delivering the pitch.

I am worried about absence of evidence as evidence.

Don't worry.  Absence of evidence will just remain absence of evidence, until the absence goes away, and then we will finally have evidence and something to talk about.  Until then, there just isn't that much more to do here, unless PR123 will share his recipe for pineapple upside down cake.

[Baruch]

He's gone to bed, just when things start getting spooky.  He's got something up his sleeve.  I starting to think he's going to make me cranky.  I think it involves some analogy between God and the spectrum of light.  Let's see could it be that we know light exists even though we cannot see the light spectrum?  Therefore, God exists because we cannot see him.
OMG, the dreaded curve ball.  I did not see that coming.  He fooled us with the question, and just when we think we're going to knock the ball out of the park, he tells us it's not the ultimate question.  He's parried with the old moving of the goalpost fallacy after delivering the pitch.Don't worry.  Absence of evidence will just remain absence of evidence, until the absence goes away, and then we will finally have evidence and something to talk about.  Until then, there just isn't that much more to do here, unless PR123 will share his recipe for pineapple upside down cake.

I dealt accurately with your last point (absence of evidence) in the debate section.  Depends on if there is more than one cause for the result, and if we are saying the result can never happen (please empirically justify that) or if it is just abduction (we have to do more reasoning to tease out the cause if there is more than one).

Don't know if he is a troll, or just trying to get some "atheist material" to provide input to some theistic thesis project ... by asking actual atheists ... as opposed to just quoting the stereotypes.

[Munch]

There was never one definitive reason why, it was a slow process, it wasn't some 'sudden realization'. I dunno if I even really believed in god, he was just something everyone else believed in and I just went along with it.
When the realization was broken to me as a kid there was no father christmas, or tooth fairy, or easter bunny, thats when the whole idea of make believe characters I was told as a child were all fake, including when the school use to read us bible stories (it was the 80's and most non-private schools had it mandatory then). When stuff you use to believe was real suddenly stops being so, then everything else you were told equally as made up falls into that ether of make believe.

But unlike father christmas and similar, things like jesus and god were preached by full grown adults and seeing them, I questioned if maybe god is just separate from those childish make believe characters. Thats when the contradictions come into it, like god being all loving but killing people because they don't follow him or all knowing despite not knowing half the shit going on in his own book and then killing or cursing people who disobey him.

When your a child and believing in make believe characters, it gives you comfort against the harsh real world, but you grow up from it. God is just a coping mechanism for people who need that comfort blanket their whole lives unable to face the harsh realities of life and death. God is the make believe character adults keep believing in to shroud themselves from the harsh facts of reality.

So really, I guess the first time I questioned god being real, was when I stopped believing in make believe characters.