Why do people form all their opinions of God based on what other people do or say?

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Atheism lacks a formal dogma, but it tends towards certain informal ones.

No, there is no dogma of any sort in atheism. That's like saying there's dogma in not collecting stamps, in not owning a dog, in not living next to a river, or in anything else one doesn't do or believe. There are an infinite number of things I don't believe in. My non-belief in these things carries no dogma.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Atheists tend to have faith in things they cannot prove and even pray on occasion*, and are often in deep denial about it.

* I define "prayer" as "talking out loud to an entity which doesn't appear to be present, or vividly imagining doing so." For example, if you're in your car, completely alone, trying to drive fast, and you utter "fuck fuck fuck fuck," you're praying. "To whom?" is a question atheists rarely ask themselves.

Do you have any evidence to support your claim that atheists are "talking out loud to an entity which doesn't appear to be present, or vividly imagining doing so?" What are these entities you imagine atheists are praying to? Ghosts? Gods? Spirits? I really can't do anything other than guess, since you're the first person I've ever seen make this particular claim. I've certainly never heard an atheist claim they pray to entities of any sort. I sure as hell know I don't.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

We are not born perfect, we're born blank. To call that perfection is just as silly as an artist buying a canvas, taking it directly to the gallery, and displaying it as finished work without even a single brushstroke.

No this is a very deep philosophical issue, but I believe we were all born perfect. Children are not racist they are taught such things. People were not born greedy but taught. Our original natural human nature, our original state, from god, is a state of ecstasy and joy in pure being. This state of conscious gets lost as we are put down, make to feel inferior, compared to others who were held up as better. We become competitive and egotistical and die.

Most humans are regressive, who doesn't have a bitter old uncle? Uses ego as armor and no longer happy child?

Learning is a wonderful thing, not a sin. It is mankind's primary method if survival. A blank slate isn't perfect, it's fucked up, it needs to learn or die. Thankfully, our species has adapted something like an instinct to learn, so this state of complete ignorance seldom lasts long.

Just because learning isn't perfect, doesn't mean it's correct to crucify the activity as an evil. To glorify ignorance as perfection is absurd.

TL;DR: What Socrates said.

Because God does not exist, but people who believe in God do.

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Antnee wrote:

Because God does not exist, but people who believe in God do.

Although I love that answer's style, unfortunately it's circular logic.

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TheVibeOfDeath wrote:

Ultimately my point in creating this thread was to try and understand why so many people default to hating God by not believing in Him based on what others have said about Him or said to have done in His name.

*note* the "you" in here is an implied general "you" and NOT directed at anyone in particular.

Unfortunately, most people don't get any formal training in logic or philosophy, and even some that do can't separate what they feel from what they reason. The number that understand how intricately their perspective in life is largely ordained before they even learn to speak fifty words is even less.

Asserting that religion has caused war because of dogma moves away from reality into personal interpretation of motives, and conflicts greatly with the real world experience. The number of atrocities committed against the number of acts of kindness and mercy certainly don't lend any credence to the "Because this book says so" line of thinking.

I'm going to take a semi-short cut to the answer, because most people don't like being lectured on their particular beliefs, and giving a long detailed explanation feels like a lecture.

1) People self identify with others based on emotions.
2) People have innate neurochemistry from birth that greatly determines whether they look at the world from a easy going progressive perspective, or from a cautious conservative perspective.*
3) People are unique, despite all the similarities of nature and nurture.

*physical, scientific measurable, repeatable data - PET scans - They can even tell you what you are thinking before you realize what you are thinking.

Ascribing motives to a group of people because person A believes they think that way isn't usually done as a conscious form of bigotry, but as an unconscious phobia due to lack of understanding and identification.

"Them" vs "Us"

This thinking evolved long before humans did. There were and are valid survival reasons for it, as well as valid survival reasons for embracing and accepting what is different.

Blaming things we don't understand is easy to do. Understanding that we have biological, sociological and psychological underpinnings for this coping and adapting mechanism can allow a person to think critically and more productively.

We rely on our brains to interpret what the billions and billions of our sensory cells are telling us.

Try this - close your eyes, stretch out your arms, now then touch one of your fingers to your nose. Did you have to open your eyes and look to do this? Did you rely on hearing, smell, taste or sense of temperature? Did you rely on pressure or sense of touch to guide your hand?

If you are like most people, you didn't need to check or measure anything to accomplish this task. Proprioceptors helped guide your hand to your nose. Nature in action, right? Now watch a newborn infant struggling to accomplish the same task. Nurture in action right?

When you look at the world, you are seeing it upside down, but your brain reinterprets what the retina is saying because the brain "knows" better. Nerves can be fooled on whether something is hot or cold. The amount of extraneous noise our bodies filter out is a function of selective perception by our brains.

Try this, take your hand off the mouse. Now without moving your head, try really hard to see the mouse. Impossible right? Can you see the mouse without moving your head? You can because even though you are holding still, your eyes aren't still. The pulse of your blood and minor movements allow your eyes to see still objects. Yet, when you see things, you usually don't perceive the jittery movement caused by your eyes.

In short, your brain is deceiving you and telling you the truth at the same time. You have zero control over this. When someone else tells us something, or we read or hear information, it also goes through a complex process of filtering and interpretation.

It's no wonder we don't all agree on everything, even when we may have similar backgrounds or share 99% of the same DNA.

Last thought experiment:

When you look at the following image - how much anger, loathing and hatred do you feel?



Do you think someone who is religious or not religious is likely to strongly feel any of those negative emotions towards the bunny? Does it matter what political party they might identify with?

Most likely not. This is because the bunny is not readily apparent as a threat. Does it represent a threat? Not likely.

Fear is a strong component of our biases, whether we realize it or not.

I did mention that the bunny is from a specialized farm in Caerbannog didn't I?





In short, we bring a lot of biases to every thing we see, do and think. Learning to recognize what our own biases are, allows us a chance to see other humans as the loveable creatures that they are.





Or not ...

I think the reason most people form their opinions through people as its way easier to use that as a basis. Like a Book Report in a way... "Why spend my entire life trying to understand something when I can just find out the end result by analyzing some person in that group" Other times they just feel betrayed by a certain religion when like for example they had a loved one or close friend who they lost when they had prayed or whatever equivalent and still had lost them in the end.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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Antnee wrote:

Because God does not exist, but people who believe in God do.

Although I love that answer's style, unfortunately it's circular logic.

Given the subject matter, I think circular logic is entirely appropriate. Sorry, I'll do better.

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TheVibeOfDeath wrote:

Why not get to know God personally? He's not handicapped, and is more than able to communicate with you...

A hypothetical: God speaks to you, and you're entirely sure that it is God. God tells you to blow up a school bus (don't get all pedantic, just insert something equally as heinous to our western morality, but equally plausible). You either:

Disobey God
Commit an atrocity

At this point, the parallel is easy to draw. Suicide-Bombers are absolutely convinced that God wants them to do what they do. Who are you to say they're wrong? Either they are obeying the master of the universe, or they are mentally ill. Which leads us back up top, to our hypothetical.

God wants you to commit an atrocity. Sane people will question if what they are hearing is truly God, or if they might just have a screw loose in their hyperactive neocortex.

Good luck parsing that.

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TheVibeOfDeath wrote:

How do you know God is not willing to communicate with you?

I don't, but hopefully what you've gleaned from the above is that it is literally impossible to separate The Voice of God from The Activity of The Neocortex.

Yes, my view of God is entirely filtered through the actions of other people. I think the flaw in your premise, OP, is that you can separate those things. If God is real-- and guides the actions of humans-- then you can infer what God is like through the actions of humans who believe God is guiding them.

You can separate the apple from the peel, but naked apples don't grow on trees.

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Antnee wrote:

Spoiler

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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Antnee wrote:

Because God does not exist, but people who believe in God do.

Although I love that answer's style, unfortunately it's circular logic.

Given the subject matter, I think circular logic is entirely appropriate. Sorry, I'll do better.

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TheVibeOfDeath wrote:

Why not get to know God personally? He's not handicapped, and is more than able to communicate with you...

A hypothetical: God speaks to you, and you're entirely sure that it is God. God tells you to blow up a school bus (don't get all pedantic, just insert something equally as heinous to our western morality, but equally plausible). You either:

Disobey God
Commit an atrocity

At this point, the parallel is easy to draw. Suicide-Bombers are absolutely convinced that God wants them to do what they do. Who are you to say they're wrong? Either they are obeying the master of the universe, or they are mentally ill. Which leads us back up top, to our hypothetical.

Spoiler

God wants you to commit an atrocity. Sane people will question if what they are hearing is truly God, or if they might just have a screw loose in their hyperactive neocortex.

Good luck parsing that.

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TheVibeOfDeath wrote:

How do you know God is not willing to communicate with you?

I don't, but hopefully what you've gleaned from the above is that it is literally impossible to separate The Voice of God from The Activity of The Neocortex.

Yes, my view of God is entirely filtered through the actions of other people. I think the flaw in your premise, OP, is that you can separate those things. If God is real-- and guides the actions of humans-- then you can infer what God is like through the actions of humans who believe God is guiding them.

You can separate the apple from the peel, but naked apples don't grow on trees.

An interesting perspective, and probably as close to we can get with the science and technology we have at the moment. The inner voice is indeed a real thing, and learning to internalize thoughts and be able to think them without actually speaking them is part of the usual childhood maturation process.

It would be interesting to see a longitudinal study that followed children who struggled with this aspect of development and see what their inner voice meant to them later on in life.

Because people (most) are sheep