What is the really essential, core of atheist literature...

>no reason to believe in god whatsoever in a world where the influence of religion in culture is almost nonexistent and there's no actual evidence of god beyond your own delusion
>lel look at these fedora tipppers xDDD
you retards are the definition of regressive idiots

>no evidence of god

haha

give me some evidence then

In my view, saying that god doesn't exist is the same as saying that Santa or any other mystical creature you could imagine doesn't exist

On The Nature of Things by Lucretius
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

>no reason to believe in god
"atheism is the human default setting" is the most intellectually lazy shield of unfalsifiable nonsense to hide behind.

It's true but reductive. Human beings will always be given to mystical beliefs in an essential unfathomable world, but that doesn't mean that everyone has to believe in the same god as you

i can't give you evidence, just as if you asked me to prove that fire existed i couldn't just give you fire. that is beyond my power as a man. you must turn to god if you want evidence of god.

and like if you wanted visual evidence, you would not keep your eyes closed and say, 'i cannot see the evidence, thus it does not exist!' nor if you wanted aural evidence, you would keep your ears close.

the way to perceive the evidence of god is with your spirit, in your heart. you must open your heart as you would open your eyes or ears, and you must receive the holy spirit with your spirit!

only then can you be convinced of his existence.

god is real!

evidence would defeat the purpose

the whole point is faith you fucking clueless 15 year old edgelord

Spinoza and Hegel (on one reading, calm yourself)

So basically I need to believe in god to be convinced of god

In this case, there's absolutely no reason for me to not consider god a real "thing" and not a psychological coping mechanism, and even if I could become a mystic I would have no real reason to believe in Christianity

prove it's a psychological coping mechanism. give me evidence

>Fedora tippers = Christians/lapsed catholics/agnostics/trolls with folders full of unattractive people wearing trilbys

>Atheists = People who don't believe in a creator/afterlife/immortal soul

>Veeky Forums = A board dedicated to the discussion of literature that has a large contingent of Christians/lapsed catholics/agnostics/trolls who try to goad any non-believers into asinine debates.

Try to resist and just report these kinds of things. If OP were serious, he'd find the books he was interested in easily.

>mystical
>unfathomable
do you not see the contortionism in your argument?

my point is that belief in intention behind the universe and belief that there is no intention behind the universe takes conviction either way. there is no 'default setting' for belief, both must be processed logically to formulate a conclusion not inherent in human consciousness. Neither goes "against the grain" of humanity.
It's a fork in the road and a path must be chosen(or refused) but either one is not more a part of the "original" path of oblivion than the other. Both are measured and weighed and CHOSEN, the answer is not given to you. anyone who has "proof" of either is frankly full of shit

Neither is there evidence that the Universe, and our place in it, is a random coincidence of events. That takes just as much if not more mental gymnastics to reach, than believing in God.

Stop acting like you have all the answers, its incredibly arrogant, have some humility.

I truly hope you find peace and Christ, God bless you and Merry Christmas.

Bad argument. Considering god to be a psychological coping mechanism is a consistent theory considering gods and religions have varied so wildly in human history and considering how believers use such circular logic (accept god and you will know the truth etc).
Belief and non-belief aren't really the same. I hold as much conviction that god doesn't exist as I hold that Santa or the flying spaghetti monster doesn't exist. It's there, but it's not a worldview or at the forefront of my mind, so it's not as much of a "choice" as your affirmation against everything of Christianity is.

lapsed catholics usually do something more interesting. if you look at major tippers like Dawkins and Hitchens, they were all raised Protestant. this is a thing.

fuck off tripfag fedora wielder

>Theists are fedora tippers
>Atheists are fedora tippers
can we just stop arguing about who wears what kind of hat because it's just a bunch of straw manning at this point it's not even fun anymore.
but atheists are definitely the trilby tappers here

>there's no evidence for a God
>haha! ignorant atheist!
>well okay give me evidence then
>I can't

What did he mean by this?

I never said that the universe is a random coincidence of events. Not believing in one worldview doesn't imply that I believe in the opposite.

Also it's very presumptive to jump from "there is a universal order" to "this 2000 year old religion is the ultimate truth of everything and if you don't agree you're a fedora tipper"

The default setting would be neutral/agnostic - "I don't now whether there is or is not a god". Then you'd have to look at the claims made by adherents, and test them against observable reality to see if they look plausible. That's how the scientific method works - currently, there isn't any way to prove or disprove "there is a god of some description", so full-on atheism seems a bit shortsighted to me, but equally none of the existing religions (with the exception of Eastern mysticism that doesn't posit any deities to begin with) have backed up their holy texts' claims either.

Not him, but:
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/16938037/
journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1088868309351165

it says it right there in the post my friend

God is not Great by Christopher Hitchens. Read it closely, he's more continental than analytic

and a blind man could not be convinced that light exists because he hasn't seen it with his own eyes

>I hold as much conviction that god doesn't exist as I hold that Santa or the flying spaghetti monster doesn't exist.
you're definition of "god" is, for lack of a better word, a meme. you didn't work the sum out yourself, you picked up the nearest belief to refute. If you defined the "god" by which you found your logic I wouldn't believe in "him" either.
>it's not as much of a "choice" as your affirmation against everything of Christianity is.
my point exactly. Your beliefs(or lack of) are structured to be combative, to play a pre-established field with pre-established rules but there's no real truth to be found there, just identifying untruths

how does this prove it is not god?

...

Someone who was born blind and could never see? Sure.
>you're definition of "god" is, for lack of a better word, a meme. you didn't work the sum out yourself, you picked up the nearest belief to refute. If you defined the "god" by which you found your logic I wouldn't believe in "him" either.
>my point exactly. Your beliefs(or lack of) are structured to be combative, to play a pre-established field with pre-established rules but there's no real truth to be found there, just identifying untruths
In what way? Unless you want to go into "dude god is unprovable by definition" I have no reason to believe in god. Obviously this leaves me in a state of uncertainty about the world, but it's better than believing in lies. Your issue is that you think everybody needs and overarching theory of things much bigger and irrelevant to themselves.

There isn't, atheists don't need anything to help solidify their beliefs.

OP here, I don't know if this one is exactly the type, but I love "biblical" novels like paradise lost, divine comedy, faust, screwtape letters..gonna add this to the list

>Unless you want to go into "dude god is unprovable by definition" I have no reason to believe in god.
that's exactly what I want to go into.
i'm not a Christian, personally I don't even believe in "belief" so much as "tendency", but the god-concept is not utilitarian, nor is it accessible by reductionism, but either way it is either actual or not and that is very real, if not the only real truth, and if a god-mechanism were actual then it does grant some legitimacy to those who claim it is.
>Your issue is that you think everybody needs and overarching theory of things much bigger and irrelevant to themselves
I don't think that, but I do think that by claiming there is no overarching theory you are establishing your own overarching theory.

>atheism is the default human setting
how do you go through life without never having encountered anthropology, psychology, philosophy or art?

Ironically, the reluctant Christian existentialists like Pascal and Kierkegaard (hell, even St. Augustine) understand atheists far better than any atheist ever could.

Or maybe not so ironically. In one of G.K. Chesterton's books (not going to go look up which one, sorry f.a.m) he mentions how, when Jesus felt forsaken by the Father, He in a way became the God of atheists as well. :'(

Here are two good short reads if you're interested:

www2.fiu.edu/~sabar/enc3311/Why I Am Not A Christian - Bertrand Russell.pdf

symbiosiscollege.edu.in/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/THE-NECESSITY-OF-ATHEISM.pdf

Christopher Hitchens also wrote an anthology of atheist essays called "The Portable Atheist," which might be useful if you want a broad survey.

Yeah, right. I had that feeling when I was a young atheist.

>became an atheist on my on
>thought it was the absolute truth so didn't had to read anything about theology or atheism
>shamelessly implied my reasoning/logical thinking/ideas were superior to those of great philosophers and theists
>realized all my questions and doubts about theology were already answered centuries ago by aquinas and augustine

glad I took my head out of my anus and started reading, special thanks to dante, who MADE me study philosophy and theology after reading the comedy

thanks, those are in my reading list

thanks, will check those

*tips fedora*

right on m'sirs! I'm crossposting this to /r/atheism as we speak

>le christcuck contrarian thread
fuck off trinishits, accept the reason pill

Holy shit, someone sure did stir the neckbeard atheists in this thread the wrong way

Hume probably

I did all that too, but he's right: being atheist doesn't require a goddamn thing. No reading, no justification, nothing. Just as we all go through life not being Hindu or Jewish or Asatru or Muslim or whatever without having to do fucking research on them in order to be sure we don't believe in them. If religious people can be massively ignorant of their own faiths (and most seem to be) atheists certainly have no obligation to bother about it. I love Dante, Eliot, Charles Williams, Lewis, Chesterton, etc., but my own beliefs are not connected to appreciating their art.

yes, we get it, your mother didn't love you as a child and now you're a 22 year old basement dwelling virgin who has never kissed a girl before.

this is just word games
>everyone who disagrees with me is le neckbeard meme
I guess Christcucks overuse the fedora meme because they can't actually give convincing arguments in the same way liberals spam "lel virgin /pol/ shitter" when they get BTFO by a conservative

actually im 21

not him, but I find it hilarious that people like you post this kind of shit and think you're making any kind of impact on them whatsoever

All this means is that you're easily influenced and not very good at critically thinking about things you read. Pure ideology etc

Do you really think Jesus would approve of your behavior, user?

>Or maybe not so ironically. In one of G.K. Chesterton's books (not going to go look up which one, sorry f.a.m) he mentions how, when Jesus felt forsaken by the Father, He in a way became the God of atheists as well. :'(
G.K. Chesterton should read Psalm 22.

This. All atheist arguments essentially boil down to shit like "HURR IF GOD IS MERCIFUL THEN WHY DO CHILDREN GET CANCER?"

really? as I said, I turned to atheism on my on, not influenced by anyone, and alone, I went after plato, aristotle, cs lewis, augustine...and after reading it I just couldn't see another way around if not for christianism, thats calling evolving.

And just as you shouldn't be influenced easily by anyone, you should not ignore what great thinkers have said

Atheists aren't "forsaken" by anything, and they don't need any gods. Nor are kids who were "raised religious, went through a stage of doubt or denial, and then wound up being their parents again" real atheists: people raised in atheist households from birth who don't see anything worthy of worship, never did, and have no particular concerns about the afterlife or higher powers. It's astounding how difficult it is to convey such a basic concept to people who can't imagine a total lack of religion. It's not a sophisticated philosophical debate: the fairy tales don't convince us because we weren't indoctrinated at a young enough age, that's all.

I did the same thing you did but remained an Atheist. None of those philosophers are convincing, albeit I still like reading them.

Why the fuck not? You were never an atheist. You were raised with faith, hit doubt, struggled to reconcile it, found your justification, and returned to faith. It's the usual arc for intelligent theists. But as I said a moment ago, it has nothing to do with actual atheism. You don't need to study all the great thinkers of each faith to cross them off your probability checklist. You went after thinkers who were speaking of some versions of your childhood faith hoping for evidence to let you return to it. You didn't study great Taoist, Buddhist, Muslim, etc., writers, because you have not the slightest concern about their beliefs: you were never programmed with them.

just clarifying, I did not mean that reading and turning to religion is evolving, what I meant is that putting your head out and reading something unfamiliar is evolving, and that consequently, a change of views/beliefs is possible to happen. if it doesn't change, regardless of the topic, i think that simply the fact of going after the knowledge yourself instead of just taking what people tell you is already great

I converted as an adult. So claiming being raised atheist is something permanent, is a bit silly.

That dude who is atheist here in Latinamerica

Atheist arguments are stereotypical because the flaws with mosy religions have been evident since the dawn of said religions. By the same logic, the arguments of the religious are equally uninventive.

Besides, atheism is the lack of belief in a claim, it really needs no standing argument.

Feuerbach, Marx, Freud, Sartre

youtu.be/yqAYiaTM67w?t=17m6s

Then you fell from a point of stability into a pit that religion dug you out of in lieu of self-determination.

I wouldn't say it was a 'moment of doubt'. for some years I was strongly and resolutely atheist. if someone told me back then I would believe in god later in my life i would have laughed, just as i laughed at 'how stupid catholics were'

then for a year i kind of turned agnostic, here came the 'moment of doubt', i wasn't an edgy arrogant atheist anymore, and then I read divine comedy, and that got me started on it for once

>just as if you asked me to prove that fire existed i couldn't just give you fire
Wut. Do you not know how to light a fire?

Atheism is a belief that there is no God. If you don't believe in God, then you must have some other belief that pertains to our existence. I've never heard a good Atheist argument. Most just point to shit unproven theories that they themselves don't have the IQ to really understand.

I cannot believe in any gods because there is no evidence. You believe in a god because you believe there to be substantial evidence. Burden on u bro, hehexd

I'm agnostic actually. Since you claim the universe exists without a God, the burden of proof is on you.

The thing is, by basing your arguments on such surface level inconsistencies you are totally ignoring any of the deeper questions regarding the Divine.
Instead of discussing God in a general sense, it becomes a shit flinging contest based on specific excerpts and moral dogmas.
Also, most atheists are just fedora-tipping secular humanists who believe themselves to be deep thinkers for realizing that some of the stuff in the bible might be bullshit!

You are an atheist of all gods but your own. I simply take it one step further. I don't need an origin explanation for eat, shit, and die.

The vast majority of people who describe themselves as atheists simply lack a belief in God or think his existence is unlikely rather than definitively claiming he doesn't exist. That's literally what atheism means: a lack of theism, and most dictionaries include a lack of belief in God as the definition or at least one of the definitions of the term. To distinguish between the two, a dichotomy has been established between strong and weak atheism, or gnostic and agnostic atheism. Agnosticism itself doesn't state whether one believes or doesn't believe in God, only that the answer, whatever it is, is unknown and possibly unknowable. So an agnostic atheist, for example, is someone who doesn't believe in God but believes the answer is unknown or unknowable. Likewise, there are gnostic atheists, gnostic theists, and agnostic theists.

Even if you feel like you want to somehow refute everything I just said and claim that using atheism to refer to a lack of belief in God is wrong, it still describes what most atheists believe, so it only makes sense to assume it when arguing against atheism that isn't explicitly stated to be strong or gnostic, because that's the only way you're going to be arguing against actual beliefs rather than about semantics.

>If you don't believe in God, then you must have some other belief that pertains to our existence.
Google "negative capability".

See this is exactly what I'm talking about. You cannot GENERALIZE, and your arguments end up being things you stole from a Lawrence Krauss debate.
There's principally no difference between militant atheists and creationists who say "how can life exist despite the second law of thermodynamics?".

>you can be agnostic towards something with no evidence
Are you also agnostic towards the idea of a SUV orbiting Mars?
Still don't have burden of prrof, xd

This

>The vast majority of people who describe themselves as atheists simply lack a belief in God or think his existence is unlikely rather than definitively claiming he doesn't exist.

How can you even begin to quantify the likelihood of the existence of God? You have not even proposed any alternate beliefs that are more likely.

>ywn be a narcissistic, histrionic lesbian who can magically redefine well-accepted phrases and stereotypes at the drop of a hat

>This is what passes for a modern day atheist
I thought atheists were supposed to be the smart ones.

>it's another agnostic pretends to be smart episode
ekkdee
literally the cucks of the ontological world

From my calculations there is a 37% chance of God existing.

But there's really no need to look into my math. It's all correct.

The flying spaghetti monster (or variations thereof) is an argument that has not only been destroyed ad nauseum, but misses the entire point of the debate. The only people who still use it are pseudos who have never had a deep or original thought in their life.

I generalize because I don't need 1000 arguments for every special snowflake theist who thinks their personal interpretation of God is the superior ideology. I refuse to jerk you off when there's so many other people in need of a good circle jerk.

>no proof to back up something so apparently simple
>degrades himself to attacking others

Oh boy, I can truely see we are among the truly enlightened.

>calls people cucks
>whines about ad hominems
You opted out of a civilized debate long ago.

>unironically uses the word cuck
Oh yes, civilized. Of course.

Fucking hell, christfags are god damned idiots. I refuse to believe any of these supposed christians in this thread are being genuine and not just memeing for laughs.

What you're actually saying is that you FEAR the prospect of debating God in a general sense, because it conflicts with your own established ideology.

i feel the same way about your reply, i genuinely think its bait, however, i hope you find your way to the light, son

And why is faith without evidence good?

AntiCitizenX is a YouTube channel with a few main series, including Psychology of Belief, which answers your question. He does cite several studies about psychology and relates them to religion. For instance, God provides closure for a lot of things, including where the universe comes from.

>Stop acting like you have all the answers
>Learn some humilty
>God created the entire universe so that I could exist
>Lol, I'm so humble

Also, it doesn't take any mental gymnastics. Science doesn’t claim to know everything. In fact, if you were to ask a scientist about unsolved problems in science, he would happily give you several examples.

>You can’t prove that the universe is just a bunch of random events
>Therefore, God exists.

You haven't seen infrared light, but I bet you don't doubt it exists. Also, blind people don't take light's existence on faith.