Non-belief

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I am an Atheist. I've noticed before and can see in the poll that we Aspies tend to be less likely to believe in a religion. I wonder if it is because we tend to be more logical and less swayed by appeals to emotion?

no. theres more factors to account. logical thinking doesnt always destroy a religious beliefs, it brings doubt into some long-held traditions. but a factor would be "pushy salesmen".

certainly reading some comments here, i will grossly disagree with the emotions part.

I think it might have a lot to do with the fact that AS tend to take things literally, and an awful lot of religion only makes sense when understood in a non-literal way.

It took me ages/years to understand just some of the non-literal truths in religions, ( and also, oddly enough, to see how literally true some other elements are as if I had to "get" some of the non-literal bits before I could "see" some of the literal truths )

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I believe it's down to poor Theory of Mind.

Maybe due to lack of empathy?

Kidding P:

I don't think that most people are atheists and agnostics if this is the board we're using to make that conclusion. I suspect there are just as many members here that're religious or believe in something as there are those who happen to be atheists. Religion is not an easy subject to debate or talk about here since it is an intangible subject. Also, we get so many people who disagree with eachother....why bother? I've seen a good deal of religious members here as well as atheists, it's just that people of religions and beliefs have nothing to back up their "facts" when it's an issue of debating. Plus this isn't a religious club, it's a forum for aspies and auties. Once in while I see members here making forums in asking anyone is of their religion.

Me, I'm agnostic so I am skeptical but at the same time I try and keep an open mind about other people's perspectives and perceptions......which is hard sometimes.

Actually it's a complicated subject but agnosticism isn't a halfway point between theism and atheism. Gnosticism vs agnosticism is about knowledge - unless you are absoultely sure there is/is not a god you are agnostic. If you can't say "I have a belief in a god or gods" you are an atheist. Most people are just afraid of the big, bad "A" word. I considered myself agnostic until about 3 years ago. I'm absolutely sure the Christian/Jewish/Moslem god does not exist but others... who knows, but probably not.

well, to be honest, I believe that following atheist and agnostic philosophies can also be based on emotion rather than a completely rational approach, past experiences with Christianity or any particular church can be an example of this. It is also related to the following of idealistic and activist ideas, which would be something often emotional driven and the rejection of beliefs that conflict with these ideas followed such as with few christian dogmas or certain interpretation of the Bible.

well, given that atheism is divided into "strong" and "weak" atheism, pretty much everything that is non-theist would seem to fall into "weak" atheism, which means that agnosticism would seem to fall into that division. However, the variety of positions within agnosticism is something I believe is needed to make, so agnosticism being separated from plain atheism makes sense, I mean, there can be a type that can separate itself from non-theism into theism, and also the issue about knowledge vs belief.

I've noticed that things that are logical aren't always true, and things that are true aren't always logical, so I'm not too deeply committed to the Atheist Religion.

Atheism isn't a religion unless "bald" is a hair color and "off" is a tv channel.

I so agree with that.


It's a belief. Like belief in free will. Like belief in "truth", "justice", "beauty", etc. All use of language is a question of belief, ( active faith or social conditioning ), like money. Most people believe, to greater or lesser extent, in the virtual reality which language, with its labels/words/categories, creates. And atheism is belief in one kind of language-based reality, as is theism, ( belief in "god" ).

The funny thing is that "god" is as "real" as truth, justice and beauty, etc; it is an artefact of the system of symbols which is language, ( a bit like zero or infinity are in maths ), and yet most atheists confine themselves to attacking the symbol "god" rather than realising that the whole system is based on socially conditioned or active belief in symbols, a faith in labels, and "god" is just the tip of the iceberg.

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I'm no mathematician, but I wonder what it would feel like to try and demolish/disprove the existence of infinity, or zero, ( now that those symbols have been "discovered" ), with mathematics/numbers. I'm imagining that it feels rather like trying to demolish "god" while believing, more or less unquestioningly, in the rest of language.

I couldn't prove to anyone the existence of zero or infinity. How many people here have had the existence of zero, or infinity, proven to them? And how many have taken these things on faith? Because they "work", and are agreed upon by most people. I would have to be a mathemetician to follow and understand the proofs.
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Last edited by ouinon on 08 May 2009, 12:55 pm, edited 3 times in total.

When saying Atheism is a religion the real important point is that most atheists would change their beliefs given evidence and happily admit this (I do)

It is another belief of most atheists, ( part of their belief-structure/faith ), that their beliefs are based on objective criteria, ( or should be ).

And yet I am fairly sure that most/many of them believe in truth, beauty, and justice, for example, without demanding objective evidence for the existence of these things.

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Instances of truth, beauty and justice in fact exist. There is no clear instance of god available to people with ordinary senses. It is pure belief supported by no empirical evidence whatsoever.

ruveyn

im living my life with no regrets now, i dont need something cheap, worthless and full of imaginations that dont exist. too expencive! although parts of me for some reason wants to believe in something,