*"Atheism = Suspension of Disbelief?"*

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If belief in god generally involves believing that the world as we know it, ( formed by the matrix of language , which directs us, determines our thoughts, organises our brains, sculpts our experience), was and still is being created, then atheism is simply a willing suspension of disbelief, like that when watching a film, choosing to forget that it is a film.

Whereas my believing in god helps me to see that "the world that I experience" is a creation, ( and also to notice a pre-language world behind the matrix), atheists believe in all the special effects. That's why so many get so cross about religion! It spoils their enjoyment of the story, to be reminded that it is a creation

I believe that the world is a creation, and the more I learn about it on a micro and macroscopic level, the more perfect it comes across as. I just don't attribute that to God.

Yes, I've often pondered what IT was. What is behind the science? Why do we need life? Why are we the only things on this planet that can speak, think, communicate, choose, and do what we do? One of life's bafflings mysteries.

I've learned to keep an open mind on these matters as I didn't before.

I don't understand what you mean by "perfect". Since religion permits the intrusion of a god to violate the laws which seem to regulate the universe I imagine that would indicate the universe was somehow "imperfect" and required manipulation to keep it functioning properly. I don't see any evidence that this manipulation takes place and witnesses to this type of manipulation are not reliable in my eyes.

ouinon, that's not quite why I am an atheist. If the idea is that Earth, life, the Universe are too complicated to have just happened, ergo there must be a God well that still leaves the question, where did god come from? No Christian or other believer that I have ever had a discussion with has any explanation that sounds credible to me. Also why would a being of such awesome power have such an inferiority complex as to demand such grossly obsequious observances of His/Her/Its greatness? Why would such a creator be considered totally good, when in Isaiah 45:7 he claims to have created evil? That will be enough for now. I am sure you have answers, and I will come back and read them and probably disagree with them. I'm sure partisans for different sides will show up soon and solve nothing. Have fun with your thread.

"The idea" is that as belief in god is generally language based, as belief in itself is a matter of language, then god is very well described as "The Word", "who" created the world that we experience since the advent of language, which is one made out of language.

"In the beginning was the word, and the word was with god, and the word was god. All things came into being through him, and apart from him nothing that exists came into being".
That question might occur to you, but it does not to me. It is completely irrelevant to belief in god.

My belief in god puts brackets round the language matrix which I experience as the world most of the time, almost all of my waking life, and enables me to see the trick/illusion , to see "through" the matrix of language a little, enough to reduce its oppression, because it is oppressive, a network of rules which direct/form/constrain thought and actions every waking moment.

To anyone without "fully developed"/"normal" language capacity it must seem as if people are walking around controlled by invisible forces, quite scary. And to those who are very sensitive to language it may seem like a violence/great weight, or a seductive but ultimately confusing maze.

Belief in god is the oldest, possibly still the most potent, way to be aware of the matrix, of its existence, that it is a created thing, with laws which constrict, and, knowing this, to feel less oppressed.

The observances, the submission, the struggles with and against, the surrender, loyalty and devotion to this creator referred to in the bible and other religous texts are no more than chillingly exact descriptions of human relationship with language as it evolved to take over every corner of our lives, to rule our every waking moment, to control our actions, direct our thoughts.

The struggle must have been great as the internal rules of language began to lay a net over all of life. Especially as with language came dualities, conflicts between things which could only be accomodated/represented in language as oppositions. Language was a mighty tool, one which was going to win many battles, bring great power, but it had a price; rules and limits never before experienced, ( not since our brains evolved so as to free us from instincts/genetically determined-behaviour-rules, anyway).

I cannot speak for you, but language, which I enjoy and use reasonably well, is not the basis for my thought or for my comprehension of the universe. I think in abstracts which may be pictures or general amorphous feelings or tastes or smells or tactual senses. These may be translated into language or pictures or music or other transmissible forms but the thought itself is not, at least in me, in language. One of the basic contempts that religious people have for creatures other than human is for their lack of language the way humans use it but there is little doubt that many living creatures have their own way to think and solve problems outside of language.

Of course they do. I am obviously not a religious person. I accept completely that other animals solve problems etc without language and probably in a far more elegant and simple way without all our messing about with free will weighing up individual interests against the herd's etc.

I have not always been aware of how much my thoughts and reactions are the product of language. It took a personal revolution for me to become aware of how much language shapes my experience of the world, when i crashed up against it, having taken the "pill" ( not like in the film the Matrix an actual pill, but a book, and a few exposures to things since ) ,which hurt. I once would have described the way I thought exactly as you do, and didn't need to believe in god, because I had not felt the weight of language on me.

I am quite sure that animals that live amongst their own kind have much the same social problems that humans have and processes of dominance and submission no doubt play an important role in the life of communal animals and their thinking.

I think you have it backwards: atheism is the suspension of belief, religion is the suspension of disbelief. Most religionists speak of a leap of faith, which is code for a suspension of disbelief.

That's the point of this thread; to investigate whether in fact people generally have it backwards.

I think it's an interesting angle. Theists are the ones who have stepped outside the illusion, and can see that what we experience is a created thing, whereas atheists are very attached to, find security in, believing that what they experience as the world is "real".

Non-theistic religious practices might be a way that some step away from the created reality - various meditation practices come to mind. But anyone can watch a sunset and revel in the experience. A religionist is more likely to interpret that experience from a conceptual framework.

But the secularists continually modify their concept of the universe. What is so distressing about religious people is that they are completely fixated on an obsolete naive viewpoint that is obviously an attempt to assume the universe is organized along the lines of a human family with a powerful beneficent father. A clearer viewpoint understands that the universe has no particular feelings towards humans or life itself. It merely plays out the interactions of basic forces and energy and matter.

Why? Do you think that atheists are freer of conceptual frameworks than theists?

Yes, in general. I have met many religionists that 'see' God or evidence of God in sunsets, in flowers, or other natural events. Sometimes they even 'see' the Virgin Mary, Jesus, or some other highly specific matter of doctrine in the patterns on a piece of toast or the dirt on a glass window. A person that is not religious or not very religious is more likely to simply enjoy the sunset IMHO, and to simply eat the toast or wash the window.

Hypothesis: religiosity is (in part) a function of suggestibility.

Not a study that perfectly illustrates my point, but its all that I can find now.