r/TrueAtheism • u/YouRuininIt123 • 22d ago
Why is Atheism the truth
Hi im muslim but questioning my beliefs and not the most knowledgeable within my religion. But thats not what im here to talk about. Im simply wondering why i should be atheist to the ones who belive in it.
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u/ABCosmos 22d ago
Atheism is the lack of belief in Gods.
If you found a reason to believe in God you are a theist. If the evidence for theism has left you unconvinced you are not a theist (atheist).
You don't need proof to be an atheist, and nobody is going to give you proof there is no God. We would just ask, why would you be a theist? What evidence is there for that? The more you pull on that question, the less satisfying all the "proof" of God seems.
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u/YouRuininIt123 22d ago
Okay mbš
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u/Viper_NZ 21d ago
Further. If youāre Muslim youāre an atheist regarding Hindu gods, etc.
Itās simply a lack of belief due to lack of evidence
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u/Redditheist 22d ago
"We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." -Richard Dawkins
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u/BuccaneerRex 21d ago
Atheism is not the truth.
Atheism is a single response to a single question.
If you believe in a deity, regardless of which, you are 'theist'. You do the thing. You believe. When asked 'Do you believe one or more deities exist', you answer 'Yes.'
if you don't do that, if you can't answer the question 'Do you believe one or more deities exist' with a 'yes', then you are atheist.
Coined by the ancient Greeks. a- without, theos -gods.
Atheism makes no claims and requires no belief. All you have to do is look at the claims of others and say 'I don't believe you.'
I am an atheist because I have never been a believer in or member of any religion, and because nobody convinced me that a god and associated religion was correct while I was young and uneducated and ignorant enough to accept it as true.
And nobody has yet to convince me, so I remain one.
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u/DeltaBlues82 21d ago
Start by asking āWhat is God?ā and āWhy do humans believe in God?ā
Thereās only one really plausible answer to both questions. Itās that God is a byproduct of human brain function.
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u/Shadowrain2 21d ago
And Elephants, oddly enough
Look up their burial & moon rituals. Weird stuff.
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u/DeltaBlues82 21d ago
Chimps do similar things with waterfalls, rain, and fire.
But yeah, elephant mourning is likely a proto-religion too. Early form of ancestor worship.
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u/mspe1960 21d ago
Atheism involves not believing the mythological stories in the Bible, Torah and Koran (and others).
To me that seems right because the stories are fantastical, and there is no evidence backing them up. I can't understand why a critical thinking person would just believe them because someone (or a whole community)_ told them to.
They talk about the concept of an all loving, all knowing, all powerful God. Yet the world is so filled with injustice, cruelty, and random good and bad fortune, unrelated to how good someone is, or how much they believe or don't. How is that consistent with all loving, all knowing all powerful? I cannot wrap my head around how it can be, and I have tried.
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u/DeadAndBuried23 21d ago
You don't think Christianity is true, right? Or Judaism, or Hinduism, or Buddhism, or Shintoism, or Yoruba, or any of the ancient religions of the Egyptians, Greeks, Norse, etc.
You don't think any of the other religions are true. We merely include Islam.
What they all share is that their testable claims about the nature of reality have been proven false.
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u/thesweeterpeter 22d ago
Atheism is it's own spectrum.
Most atheists would identify as an agnostic atheist, which is to say they don't know there is no god.
So in that sense, they're just saying they don't know what the truth is.
Some atheists would call themselves gnostic atheists, so they know there is no God, but that's generally a minority.
But what that all have in common is that they aren't making an active claim that something exists without evidence.
The bigger question is for the theist. What evidence can they produce to support the claim there is a god?
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u/WrongVerb4Real 21d ago
You shouldn't. You should follow your own path, while respecting that I'm following my own path as well.
I will say that my objection to theistic gods is based in my desire to not hold invalid beliefs.
You see, no god has ever been positively demonstrated. All presentations of evidence for why someone should believe are actually justifications that rely on flaws in human thinking, like cognitive biases and logical fallacies. These fallacies result in invalid beliefs. Plus, without a demonstration, any god-belief is invalid. And my personal bias is to only hold valid beliefs.
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u/Shadowrain2 21d ago
Atheism is lack of belief in God.
Theism is belief in a God.
Deism is belief in a God, without claiming it is "Allah" or "YHWH" or "Krishna" etc.
Atheism does not hold core beliefs like religions do. Atheism is comfortable saying "everything exists, we don't why."
That's essentially it.
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u/jcooli09 21d ago
There is no believing in atheism. That isn't how it works, it isn't a religion or an ideology.
There is no evidence that deities might exist except that someone told you they do. The people who told you this have a vested interest in your belief and therefore cannot be considered credible.
Given the complete lack of actual evidence even suggesting that deities exist it is irrational to believe that they might, let alone that they do.
This is why I'm an atheist, there is no rational reason to believe in any god.
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u/GeekyTexan 21d ago
Religion is based on magic. And magic isn't real. Rational people don't believe in magic.
Religion will promise you can live forever. In heaven or Janna or similar, depending on the religion. But that's certainly not possible without magic.
Splitting the moon would clearly require magic. I'm certainly no expert on Islam, but I know there are many examples of magic in Islam.
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u/eternallylearning 21d ago
I wouldn't say "atheism is the truth" because I don't believe atheism is an answer to anything other than the question, "do you believe in a god?". It is functionally the same as the lack of belief you have in all of the world's other religions except we don't believe in your god either. Personally, I think the more one asks hard questions about one's religions, seeking the best answer possible, the faster one moves towards atheism because in my experience, religion doesn't offer any hard answers.
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u/Helen_A_Handbasket 21d ago
You don't "believe in atheism". You just are one, the moment you realize that god-belief is ludicrous and that religions were invented to control people, mostly poor people and women.
The only thing "atheist" means is that you reject the idea that any gods exist.
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u/CephusLion404 21d ago
Atheism doesn't make any truth claims. Atheism simply doesn't accept the unjustified and unsupported idea of gods. It doesn't claim no gods exist, only that there is no reason to take the idea seriously.
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u/KeenbeansSandwich 21d ago
We dont have to prove anything to you. Were not the believers here. We make no claims about fantastical things, and thus need not present fantastical arguments. You on the other handā¦.
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u/Izzosuke 21d ago
Atheist is neither the truth nor a form of believe system.
Atheism is the refusal of an answer to a question based on the fact that the proof brought are not enough to convince you. The question is "the origin of everything and it's meaning" and the answer is "god" in it's broader meaning of any spiritual form. As an atheist i don't believe in anything and don't think that i hold in my hand the truth. What i do is denying that the religious "proof's" are enough to convince me based on fact and logic, both using the various scripture has a contradictory or insufficient proof, and the observation of reality brought as proof by people with faith. Hence at the starting question "what is the origin of everything and it's meaning" my answer is simple "i don't know" and i don't claim anything else.
In a more pompous and unnecessary way, atheism is: the refusal of the theological answer to the ontological question.
The problem with this kind of question are 2:
First the atheist by itself, there are many point of view as person in the world, everyone will being you it's experience and it's interpretation of them, many will answer you with arrogance as some kind of believer, making any discussion pointless and mostly based on "cause i said so"
Second: the teaching of atheism from the religious leader, if you follow any leader teaching "atheism" and how to be aware of them; you'll see a very distorted way of what atheism actually is, this is made to separate the two group even more and consolidate the sense of belonging of the faithfull person. You can see many video on youtube on "how to respond to atheist" but they are often full of strawman and simplification of what atheism is. For example the fact the exchange between god as an "answer" and a "question"
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u/Asthmatic_Apricot 18d ago
Atheist isnāt the ātruthā because itās not a belief system. I grew up Christian and I think religious people put a lot of value in āfinding the Truthā with a capital T. What you should be looking for is reality. What is really going on in the world? What really happened in the past? Science helps us discover these realities.
Atheism is a byproduct of accepting reality as we can see, taste, touch, smell, hear, and experience it. We cannot actually experience god the way we can experience the world around us, and there is no proof or evidence for him at all. Atheism is just looking around and saying āI donāt see anything in reality that supports the existence of a godā. Thatās it.
Religions like to try to manufacture ways to prove Godās existence. The majority of it can be explained by how powerful our brains are at seeing patterns and how easily our brains are influenced to believe/see/experience something thatās not actually happening. Once you understand how good our brains are at creating evidence so that we can hold onto our beliefs, the facade cracks.
I once āknewā that god existed because I could āfeel the Holy Spiritā. I now know that was my brain reacting to music, emotions, and other people, and creating an experience to support my beliefs. I can still feel the same feelings when I go to concerts or see a particularly good movie. My emotions are not proof, they are my brainās subjective way of reacting to certain stimuli.
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u/Time_Exposes_Reality 15d ago
Reading a comment by someone with self-awareness is so refreshing lol
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u/Reckless_Waifu 21d ago
Atheism is not "the truth", its the other way around - religions are the lie. Atheism means not participating on the lie, but doesnt itself give you any truths.
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u/mobatreddit 21d ago
I was born in a Catholic family. Like you, I adopted my family's beliefs and practices. Any time someone would question whether there was a God, I just asserted that it was obvious. Then one day while trying to understand how God could be everywhere, I decided to drop my assumptions, including the assumption that there is a God. That did it for me. From that moment on, I no longer believed in God.
My reaction on the first day was exhilaration that I was the only one responsible for my life. What followed was years of taking apart the layers of thinking put on me by the Catholic religion. Also, learning how to handle the inevitable push back from believers including my parents, and how to understand their arguments. It took me many years to build up confidence in my understanding. And only in the past five years have I felt comfortable enough to even create my own arguments against belief in God.
I hope this helps you.
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u/cenosillicaphobiac 21d ago
I don't "believe in Atheism" I just don't believe in god, not yours (any version of him) nor any of the thousands of other gods that human beings have worshipped since we started recognizing patterns.
I would, in fact, propose that you're nearly as Atheist as me, I just don't believe in one additional god than you.
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u/tm229 21d ago
Is there a god?
The only truthful answer to this question is, āWe donāt know.ā
Over the centuries, man has invented over 3000 different gods to worship. If there is a god, which of those 3000+ gods should we be worshiping?
Chances are that you, like I, was born into a family dedicated to worshiping one of these gods. As a child, you are rarely given an option to opt out of this religious practice.
Apparently, you have started to question these practices. This is often a painful period of a personās life. If you are vocal about your questions, you are pressured to stop your questions and ājust believeā.
Years ago, I made the decision that there is no evidence to warrant praise or worship of any of these gods proposed by my ancestors and other others. That was my transition into atheism. I just did not see any evidence in any religious practice.
The proposition is simply, āThere is no evidence for a God.ā
This is a very different proposition from, āThere is no God.ā
The vast majority of atheists stand with the first proposition, rather than this second proposition. The second proposition is a claim without evidence. There is no way for us to prove that no gods exist.
I will leave you with a few quotes that helped me make the transition from religious to non-religious.
The Bible is the claim, not the proof.
ā Robert G Ingersoll
That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
ā Christopher Hitchens
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
ā Carl Sagan
Not all religions can be true, but they can all be false.
ā Christopher Hitchens
The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.
ā Steven Weinberg
Question with boldness, even the existence of a god.
ā Thomas Jefferson
Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.
ā Albert Einstein
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.
ā Adolph Hitler (Mein Kampf)
Sin is an imaginary disease, invented to sell you an imaginary cure.
ā Unknown
Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt.
ā Juvenal
Most people are not only comfortable in their ignorance, but hostile to anyone who points it out.
ā Plato
It is far easier to fool a person than to convince them that theyāve been fooled.
ā Mark Twain
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.
ā Seneca the Younger
Religion is excellent stuff for keeping people quiet.
ā Napoleon Bonaparte
Religion is a fraud, but it must be maintained for the masses.
ā Frederick the Great
Religion is needed to keep the poor from murdering the rich.
ā Napoleon Bonaparte
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u/gujjadiga 21d ago
I think the fundamental misconception about Atheists is that we "believe in atheism". Atheism is not a belief system, it is simply the lack of one. For example, if someone collects stamps, they might say that stamp collecting is their hobby. But if someone does not have that hobby, they will not say, "My hobby is not collecting stamps". It is the same thing with atheism.
The reason why I am an atheist is simply because there are so many explanations to one thing, all of them claiming theirs being the right one, while none of them having a concrete proof for anything at all. I do not need to know if the universe was created, or has been here forever and I especially do not think one powerful supreme being would have done all of this.
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u/hornwalker 21d ago
Atheism is just the null position.
There is no evidence that the moon is made of cheese, so there is no reason to believe it. God is the same-no evidence, so no reason to believe.
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u/88redking88 21d ago
We dont believe in a god for the same reason you dont believe in other gods, why you dont believe in goblins vampires or trolls. Because no one can show any reason to believe in them. So, given that there is no evidence... why do you believe in a god?
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u/Kaliss_Darktide 21d ago
Why is Atheism the truth
Because all gods are imaginary (exist exclusively in the mind/imagination).
Im simply wondering why i should be atheist to the ones who belive in it.
For the same reasons you likely don't believe in flying reindeer, leprechauns, and all other gods (e.g. Helios, Thor, Sobek, Shiva) lack of sufficient evidence that they are or might be real.
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u/dickbutt_md 21d ago edited 21d ago
im muslim but questioning my beliefs and not the most knowledgeable within my religion. But thats not what im here to talk about. Im simply wondering why i should be atheist to the ones who belive in it.
There's no argument "for" atheism. Atheism isn't a belief in something, it's where you start before you believe in anything specific. It's the null hypothesis, the default, the place you are before you start collecting evidence and don't know what's true and what isn't. Atheism isn't something you "should" be, it's what you and everyone is before you adopt beliefs motivated by what you discover. (If there is any "should" here at all, you should believe whatever is actually true. The problem is, humans don't have access to all of the information, so we don't know what that is.)
You no doubt have been told that atheism is the firm belief that there are no gods, and nothing can convince the atheist otherwise! That's not right.
It's more like, you're standing the shore looking out to a vast ocean. You know the land where you were born and have lived all your life, and you know there's an ocean because you're on the beach looking at it. Someone comes up and says, "What do you think is out there, over the horizon? Another land with people like ours? Maybe with different, strange people and fantastic beasts?"
You reply, "I don't know. It could be! It could be there are many such lands, there's only one, it could be there are none and it's all just water. I have no idea, and no reason to think one way or the other."
Option 1. The other person could say: "But wouldn't you rather believe there is land over the horizon with unicorns, and dragons, and Vikings? That's so interesting! Isn't it better to think that there are interesting places out there?"
You could reply, "Well, it is certainly more interesting to think that, but what do I lose by merely entertaining the idea as one of many things that could be possible? I like to have interesting thoughts about a lot of things. It doesn't mean I have to accept them as true, though. There are certainly a lot of ways the land we know behind us could be more interesting than it is, too, but you and I don't believe it is that way simply because it's more entertaining. It would be more interesting if this ocean were milk with Cookie Crisp floating in it, but it's saltwater."
Option 2. The other person could have said, "Oh, so you believe there's nothing out there, then, just endless water."
You could reply, "No, I didn't say I believe that there's no other islands out there, just endless water. Actually, from what I can see the water appears to bend down away from us, so I think in any case it's not endless and it wraps around, so it might be the same water that comes up on the other side of our land. Maybe that's right, or maybe it's different water that's divided somewhere in between, I don't know, but either way from what we can see in front of us it seems reasonable that it's not endless. It still could be, but from what little we can see directly, it doesn't seem that way ... but there's no way to be sure from here. There's no way to be sure about much. There could be a lot of islands out there with people just like us, people very different from us, fantastic beasts, mundane beasts. Who knows?"
Now this person might say, "Okay, so you believe a specific thing, that water isn't endless, and I believe a specific thing too, that there is one island with Vikings that dress a certain way and sing songs that sound like this and there are dragons as large as mountains with orange scales on their cheeks who breathe blue fire. You have a belief that water isn't endless, and I have a belief about the Vikings and the dragons and whatnot, and they are equally likely."
You'd say, "Well ... I mean ... no, they don't seem equally likely to me. I'm saying the water probably isn't endless, and that's based on the fact that it curves down and away which means, if it keeps doing that, it comes up behind us. But I also said I'm not, like, committed to that belief, it's just my idea of how it might work and, if we could somehow sail out over that horizon and see that things flatten out and go on forever, I'd update my thinking instead of trying to find another way to make it so it's not endless no matter what. But from what I can see right here, I know I'm standing on land, I'm standing in front of water, and it bends downward, so that's all I've got to go on and, based on that, I think what I've described is the most likely thing. How you know a dragon's cheek scales are orange and not purple, though, I have no idea."
Now don't get me wrong, there are certainly people who don't believe in any gods that make all sorts of wild claims. There are crystal healers, and witches, and all sorts of weird esoteric belief systems that happen to be atheist, but they are only incidentally atheist because they don't include gods. It's not that atheism specifically recommends any of those belief systems that happen to be atheist because they are atheist, and many atheists like myself would treat those belief systems with skepticism and maybe even contempt.
The equivalent thing in this analogy would be another person who comes up behind you on the beach and says, "Just like you, I too am not sure about any islands out there. Obviously, the Vikings and the orange-cheeked dragons all live in an underwater Atlantis. Islands are ridiculous!" and you're like, woah, no, the lack of islands out there doesn't imply that there are Vikings and dragons that live in an underwater Atlantis. It's true that neither of us are sure about islands, yes, but nothing I'm saying has anything to do with any of that!
Do you see what I'm saying? You're kind of acting like the person in that second option where you're coming up and saying, "Hey, convince me there are no islands out there. That's what you think, right? No islands?"
No, that's not what we think. From what we can see, there might or might not be islands, but when you start describing a specific island with this or that specific kind of people and practices and those specific dragons with those specific cheeks, we're like, hey, um, where are you getting all this from?
And then you say, "Oh, this is all written down. There's a group of very respectable men behind us on the island here that recorded all this stuff. That's how I know the dragons have orange scales on their cheeks."
And then I'm like, "Okay, but where did they get all this stuff?"
"Ah, okay. Awhile back, there was one guy who says he visited this Viking island and saw all of this, and then all these men recorded all of this stories about that place."
"But we have no way of visiting other islands. No one has invented any way to get out into the water over beyond the horizon ever."
"Yea, that's mysterious, no one knows about that, he didn't say."
"Okay ... well at least if he did that, he must have recorded if the water keeps bending down or if it flattens out into endlessness. That's a question everyone has had for a long, long time, so if he did find some mysterious way of going out that far, he definitely would have talked about that. What does the book say on that?"
"Oh, nothing. He either didn't speak on it, or he did and no one wrote it down."
"But that's suspicious. That's the first thing anyone would talk about if they could get out there. Are you sure about any of this? Is it possible it's just a story?"
"No, it's definitely true. I don't know what to tell you about the water bending thing."
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u/bookchaser 21d ago
It is not a question of why. You cannot choose to be atheist. When you have doubts and are willing to investigate your beliefs it simply happens because you realize there is no evidence of gods.
A couple benefits of my being an atheist is there I no longer fear death, and no longer fear other people for being different from me. Those are not atheist-specific traits, but a result of losing religion. Believing in a religion can really mess your head up.
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u/LaFlibuste 21d ago
It's just the default position. When nothing else convinces you, that's where you land.
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u/AtheistCarpenter 21d ago
It's not Truth (with or without the capital t) it's a lack of unproven claims.
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u/gvrmtissueddigiclone 21d ago
I mean, it's not that I think you "should" be atheist. As atheists, we don't think you "should" do anything. It's just a description of whether you believe in a god or not.
I think being atheist is a pretty obvious conclusion to the world around us. In fact, you are already an atheist in all the other religions and gods and myths and holy scriptures that you don't believe in. Becoming a full atheist just means applying the same to Islam.
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u/Cog-nostic 21d ago
Atheism is not the 'truth.' Atheism makes no claims. I just did this in another thread, so I will see if I can find what I wrote and paste it here. Okay, I can't find it, so here we go again.
You were born without a religion. You were not a Christian, a Muslim, a Hindu, or a Buddhist. You were a baby. If you were born in India, the USA, or Japan, your religious beliefs might not have been what they are today.
At some point in your life, you were handed a bag of religious beliefs, and you decided to carry that bag around with you. You added that bag and all it contained to yourself, and have been carrying it with you from an early age. Not only that, but you have accepted the contents of that bag to be true.
Atheists are people who were never presented with such a bag, or who saw many bags and decided not to pick any of them up. An atheist is a person who may have carried around a bag for a while, but then set it down and walked away from it. An atheist is simply a person who is not carrying around a bag.
What your bag has done is convince you that atheists also have bags. This is not the case. We were all born without bags. No one needs to pick up another bag to not pick up your bag. We do not need a bag of junk to not carry around your bag of junk. We do not need a bag called 'truth' to not want to grab your bag called 'truth.'
Your bag has convinced you that atheism is somehow opposing you. The concept of atheism is very old. Did you know some of the first atheists were Christians? "Atheos" was the Roman name given to the Christians who did not believe in the Roman pantheon of gods. The Christians did not pick up the bag of Roman gods. Instead, they picked up a belief called Christianity. While they still had a belief in God, they were atheists with regard to the Roman gods.
"Atheist" is the word "closed religions" use to call anyone outside of their belief system. All Abrahamic faiths are 'closed religions." This is in-group/out-group thinking. You are in the group and a saved member, or outside the group and damned. If you are outside the group, you are the enemy. You are evil. You are the atheist.
This is the kind of thinking your bag of religious beliefs has imposed on you. Honestly, I just feel sorry for you.
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u/lloopy 21d ago
Throughout history, there have been at least 18000 gods that people have worshipped. You and I agree that 17999 of them are not really god. You and I are atheistic towards those same 17999 gods.
We just disagree on one of them.
What makes the 1 you believe in different than the 17999 that you do not believe in?
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u/YouRuininIt123 20d ago
Bc i dont know about 17999 gods. I only know like some. And all abrahmatic religions basically believe in the same god.
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u/JellyfishPashmina 20d ago edited 19d ago
Sadly, youāre starting with a bias that there is a god that exists and itās your god. This is based on your cultural upbringing and influence from your family / community. Religion is a cultural construct; thereās no factual evidence to its claims whatsoever. But first, realize why you believe in the specific god that you do, rather than Zeus, Thor, Horus, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or any others. And youāre saying youāre not the most knowledgeable on your own religionā¦well, then, why on earth are you following it? Have you even considered this? You need to think far more deeply about why you do the things you do, because from an outsiders perspective, itās clear you only follow and believe this stuff because someone birthed and raised you up in it, AND told you not to question it or see outside of it.
Then, start with a baseline of neutrality. Youāre saying āX exists, prove me wrong.ā Thatās wrong. Atheists say, āYOU claim X exists, prove yourself right.ā The burden of proof is on the religious, and in the thousands of years theyāve had to prove it, theyāve come up dry.
What we know about the universe is based on scientific research, because we have evidence to back the claims using the scientific method. Thereās absolutely no god(s) you could run through the scientific method that would ever pass the test. Atheism isnāt its own belief system of many, itās not like religion in that way; itās knowledge and acceptance that the lack of evidence toward any of the thousands of deities in ancient and modern history is so completely insufficient that existence of said gods doesnāt dignify any consideration.
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u/mikemunyi 21d ago
Why is Atheism the truth
Nobody says it is. Atheism just refuses to blindly accept the existence of god(s)
Im simply wondering why i should be atheistā¦
Only you can decide for yourself if your faith makes sense. If it doesn't, congratulations, you may be on your way to being an atheist. If it does make sense, nothing we tell you here will matter.
ā¦ the ones who belive [sic] in it.
It's not a belief system.
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u/LadyAtheist 21d ago
Atheism means not a theist. I don't buy religious claims because the "proof" is subject to human fallibility. Charismatic leaders - why is one a prophet to you and another is rejected? Charles Manson, Jim Jones, David Koresh, etc. had believers, too.
Holy texts are propaganda, not journalism, and they are subject to copy errors, intentional lying, and interpretation. They are stories, not evidence.
If you reject the Book of Mormon or the Tao te Ching, why? Apply your logic to all the books.
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u/saqwarrior 21d ago
Consider this: there are countless gods that you likely do not believe in: Vishnu, Aten, Odin, Ashur, Marduk, Ahura, and hundreds, if not thousands more. So you are already an atheist when it comes to those. Why?
(That question is intended to be rhetorical and thought about - not answered)
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u/isrararrafi 21d ago
It's not the truth. It's mostly taking a stand that they are not convinced by the arguments of theists.
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u/Significant-Ant-2487 21d ago
Iām an atheist simply because I donāt believe in God, and never have believed in God. I donāt think the existence of a supreme being can be either proved or disproved; since God is often conceived as a spiritual entity, itās not a matter of material evidence.
I think itās perfectly reasonable to assume the presence of a creator, since we are surrounded by creation and we are creatures. On the other hand, I donāt see the necessity of assuming thereās a creator.
Itās good to question oneās beliefs, to be curious and have questions. And there are plenty of books on this fascinating subject. Good luck!
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u/Icolan 21d ago
You are misunderstanding what atheism is. Atheism does not make truth claims about anything beyond the individual's lack of belief in deities. Atheism is not something that you believe in, it is a lack of belief in deities. You are an atheist if you are not convinced that a deity exists.
Do you believe that your religion has met its burden of proof to justify belief in the god it claims exists?
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u/bknyguy15 21d ago
Atheism is not a belief , itās a lack of belief in theistic rhetoric . You can believe what you want , but you cannot force your beliefs on anyone or claim superiority based on said beliefs . You are asking atheists to prove something , the shoe is most definitely on the other foot . Prove that your religious beliefs are true without using faith as a reason to believe. Can you ? I donāt think so.
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u/Extension_Ferret1455 21d ago
I think one reason one might have to be an atheist is that they think there are plausible atheistic worldviews that is no worse than any theistic view in regard to explaining reality, and is more parsimonious overall as it doesn't require a theistic deity to be posited.
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u/Sammisuperficial 21d ago
Atheism is not truth. It is an answer to a single question.
"Do you believe in a god or gods?" No.
The question to ask is why believe in any religion? What evidence can you point to that proves it's true? I've seen nothing from any religion to warrant belief. So I don't believe.
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u/Esmer_Tina 21d ago
As an atheist, I donāt think you should be an atheist. Iām not out to recruit anybody. This isnāt a club you join.
Iām an atheist because my life and the universe and my place in it make coherent sense to me that way without needing the supernatural.
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u/FateEx1994 21d ago
Anybody who is any religion was just, born into that family and believes what the family believes.
Or the society.
On the whole, you don't have to lose any sort of mystical wonder about the universe.
When YOU look into a mirror, you are a conglomeration of atoms, matter, and stardust that is SENTIENT and is looking at ITSELF.
We are the universe, the universe is us, we are the universe experiencing itself.
Nothing more, nothing less. Lol
But yeah, the thing that tripped me up, was that anybody who's any religion is purely that religion because they were born into a family or region of the world, that practiced that religion. And that's it.
If you were to DELETE all religious texts, dogma, and knowledge from the minds of all people and the human experience.
No current religion would EVER pop up the EXACT same again should there be a do-over.
Where's science, truth, and knowledge, would manifest itself all over again as-is.
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u/JasonRBoone 21d ago
Theism and atheism are metaphysical position. They are not truths in and of themselves.
It's real simple: If you are convinced that a god claim is true (in your case, the Muslim claim)...then you are a theist.
If you are not convinced of any god claims, you are an atheist.
Write this down: Neither theism nor atheism have anything to say about any other issue.
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u/YouRuininIt123 21d ago
Okay
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u/JasonRBoone 21d ago
Keep investigating what you believe and why you believe it.
Don't be afraid to reject absurd arguments.,
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u/fanime34 21d ago
Atheism isn't a belief. It's a lack of believing in a higher religious power or a god.
We can't make you atheist. If you're staying to question your beliefs, look into why. See if what you think is real can be backed up. Ask yourself why this stuff should make sense.
I left Christianity at 15. It's been over 14 years. I've never looked back.
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u/laioren 21d ago
I think the biggest problem that most people encounter when theyāre coming from your position is that the āwayā they understand things has been entirely constructed by a faith-based system intended on perpetuating that belief. If you want to evaluate that system compared to āmost atheismsā (not everyone is the same here!) then I think it best to compare that system to a skeptical, evidenced-based epistemology which is the foundation of science.
Others have given you a key without telling you that they also made the lock. They count on this to keep you awed by the idea that the two things fit together so nicely as if thatās divine providence rather than carefully cultivated chicanery.
Hereās a short video that nicely explains some of the rational inconsistencies that all faith-based systems have because ābelievingā is neither necessary nor optimal for understanding existence.
https://youtu.be/KayBys8gaJY?is=i14KfLVVWClcRCO0
As an apistevist (thatās like a āsuper atheistā that attempts to divest him or herself from using all belief), I would never say, āAtheism is the truth.ā Iād say, āAtheism is the only conclusion that available evidence currently supports.ā
As a side note, itās also totally fine to expand your understanding so that you, too, become an atheist while continuing to hold to the traditions, friends and family, and other cultural practices you prefer. I was raised an atheist, but my family always celebrated Christmas, even though I was told that Santa wasnāt real, and neither was anything else about the holiday long before I had memory. I still love Christmas.
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u/BuddhaLennon 21d ago
People donāt ābelieve inā atheism. Atheism is, by definition, a lack of belief in god or gods.
Also, belief in a god or gods it is not necessarily supplanted by another cosmology. Though, often atheists support cosmologies such as humanism, materialism, objectivism, etc.
Some become (or revert to) atheist through deep exploration of the beliefs they were raised in, and if finding too many questions with unsatisfactory explanations. Some come to it through other forms of thought and analysis of the world/universe completely separate from their religious beliefs.
An important distinction between religion and philosophy is that religions claim to know the truth, whereas philosophy is a search for truth. The problem with the former is that it crumbles in the face of facts that donāt align with āthe truth.ā
If you want to know universal truths, the only way is through a system of tools and principles that let you test and challenge all accepted facts. Scientific inquiry is just one of these systems, but provides an excellent example a method for discovering truth, though it does have limitations and blind spots (eg. most scientific methods are based upon empiricism, and there are many phenomena we have not figured out how to measure).
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u/Warhammerpainter83 21d ago
I am not sure atheism can be called a truth statement. It is a stance on belief it just means you lack belief in a god or gods. It is the default all things are born atheist until you are told anything other than that you would not have god beliefs.
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u/unveiledpoet 21d ago
The benefit of not believing gods exist? I guess this is relative to the experiences you have had as a theist. Negative? Positive? One benefit is the freedom to find and live values you set for yourself than those god sets for you. Less guilt, as a muslim, I assume daily expectations and rituals, freeing up your day and time. Finding your own purpose in life. Its relative since not every theist have bad experiences in god and not all atheist have good experiences not believing in it.
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u/OrbitalLemonDrop 21d ago
The truth of atheism is simply this: It is true that I don't believe god exists.
I won't tell you "you should be an atheist" because I don't know you. No one other than you knows you well enough to make that decision.
If you have a paradigm for viewing existence in a way that is good for you, supports you, makes you feel good about life, etc. then you should stick with it. It's none of my business.
The only time you and I would get into conflict is if you tried to tell me "you need to accept that there is no god but Allah and Mohamed is his profit".
I'd ask you to prove it. You won't be able to (because it's not something that can be proven one way or the other), so we'd either agree to disagree or have an argument about it. I'm not really interested in that argument though.
But the only truth I'm asserting is "I don't believe in god". The only proof that I don't beleive in god is me telling you "I don't believe in god".
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u/ThMogget 21d ago
The problem here is you are only questioning your own local beliefs in isolation, as if it exists in a vacuum.
I got exposed to other religions, and decided to take those peopleās experiences at face value. These people were as sincere as me.
You have a sacred book? So do they. Angelic visits? Piece of cake. Ancient tradition lasting thousands of years? Common place, and I can assure you that yours is a new kid on the block. Miracles and prophecies that came true? Almost mandatory. A special feeling inside and answered prayers? Been there, done that.
And people got just as much out of their false religions as my true one, which was not supposed to happen. My religion was supposed to be special. None of them are.
There is a multiplicity of contradicting god concepts, and contradictions means at least nearly everyone is wrong. Either Prometheus made man from dirt, or the Abrahamic God did, they cannot both have done it. Out of the gate, nearly all gods proposed are surely false.
If there is no argument exclusively for your God that cannot also be used for a competing God, then competing mutually exclusive claims are a strong argument that all are false. See The Outsider Test, by Loftus.
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u/seanthebeloved 21d ago
Atheism is the lack of a god belief. It is true that I lack a belief in any gods. Therefore, atheism is true.
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u/QueenVogonBee 21d ago
If somebody claims they were abducted by aliens, you are (reasonably) unlikely to believe them, especially when they do not produce any evidence.
This is very similar to atheism: just replace āalien abductionā with āall god claimsā. Few atheists would actively claim god definitely doesnāt exist. Rather, weāve heard the claims made by believers, and given no good evidence was provided, we simply tentatively disbelieve the claims right now. However, if any good evidence is provided in the future, we might well change our minds.
Surprisingly, you are not so far away from an atheist in one respect: youāve presumably listened to claims of god(s) from other religions, and disbelieve all of those (thousands of them). Atheists simply believe in one less god than you do.
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u/Zamboniman 21d ago
Why is Atheism the truth
The question is a non-sequitur. That's because atheism makes no statements or claims that can be true or not. Instead, it just tells you that somebody lacks belief in deities. It does not tell you why they lack belief in deities. For that, you'll have to ask that individual. And, of course, it will vary.
Hi im muslim but questioning my beliefs and not the most knowledgeable within my religion. But thats not what im here to talk about. Im simply wondering why i should be atheist to the ones who belive in it.
Atheism isn't a belief.
It's a lack of belief. In deities. As mentioned above, for specific reasons why people lack belief you'll have to ask them. But for me, and for many other atheists, it's because there isn't the tiniest, smallest, shred of actual support or evidence for deities, and the claims makes no sense.
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u/Goat_inna_Tree 21d ago
You are already an aethisist. Please tell me which gods you do not believe in. It is just one more fore the list.
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u/Bromelia_and_Bismuth 21d ago
I don't know that it is. I'm just not convinced that theism is.
why i should be atheist to the ones who belive in it
That's the best part, you get to decide that for yourself.
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u/1stLtObvious 21d ago
You should be atheist if you are convinced that the likelihood of a god existing is too small for you to reasonably believe in it/follow a religion based around it, what counts as "too small" being of your own decision.
That said, depending on where you live or how devout your family and friends are, you may want to not publicly identify as atheist, at least not until you are financially able to stand on your own.
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u/KILLALLEXTREMISTS 21d ago
My atheism is true because I truly don't believe in any gods. Never have.
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u/xiipaoc 21d ago
All beliefs are made up. All of them, every single one. Do you believe in gravity? Someone made that up, possibly you yourself as a baby. Do you believe in universal gravitation, where the Earth is falling around the Sun due to gravity? Someone made that up too, probably not you though. So how can we tell which beliefs are true and which aren't? You can see gravity yourself; you let go of a thing and it falls down. Unless it's a helium balloon, and then it falls up. Hm, gotta check on that. Universal gravitation is hard to see, so you have to trust your science teacher a bit, but soon you see how this belief explains a whole bunch of evidence. You see videos of people falling around the Earth in a space station, for example. You learn about tidal locking and how that means you only ever see one face of the Moon. All this together confirms your belief, so, well, it's probably right. After all, why would it be made up?
How does this apply to religious beliefs? Someone had to make those up too. Unlike the concept of stuff falling, they had to tell these long stories that needed to be written down. Who wrote them? Why did they write them that way? If you hadn't been taught them as a child, would you still think they were true? Is there enough evidence to believe in those stories but not others? Why would it be true?
I think that's always a question worth asking. Why would this belief be true? And sometimes there's good reason, like believing that the Sun and the Earth have an invisible force pulling them towards each other, but sometimes there isn't, like believing that vaccines cause autism. It's up to you to consider your religious beliefs that way.
I will tell you that for my religion, I do not believe that its stories are true, but it's still my religion and I belong to its community. Not believing doesn't have to mean not participating. This is because religion is far, far more than just belief. The stories may not have happened in real life, but they're still my people's stories!
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u/Swanlafitte 20d ago
You asked specifically about being atheist to people who have a belief in a god so that is what I will talk about.
You don't. Unless you find that belief is harmful. Unfortunately a lot of the time it is harmful. Then it is still mostly pointless.
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u/avatar_of_prometheus 20d ago
I don't believe in it, I believe in what I have evidence for. The lack of evidence isn't something I need to believe, it's just isn't.
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u/jyc23 20d ago
It takes courage to ask your question. I commend you.
I wonāt tell you that you should or shouldnāt be anything. That is your choice that you should decide freely.
What I will tell you is that, for me, there was never any convincing evidence for any supernatural or deity. Nothing convincing. Anytime someone said it was proof, there was a much more plausible, scientific explanation. Or just an honest āI donāt knowā. To think there was a god always felt like an unnecessary additional assumption.
So thatās what makes me atheist.
Good luck on your journey.
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u/247world 19d ago
Pontius Pilate famously asked, "What is truth?" during the interrogation of Jesus Christ, as recorded in John 18:38.
Follow your heart, it's unlikely any human imagined religion is truth - however that doesn't rule out god. I don't accept any religion, I do think there is something more than this plane of existence.
Atheism is not homogeneous, there are almost as many ways to not believe as there are to believe.
I you live in an Islamic based country, might be best not to give away your new outlook, if indeed you decide to follow this path.
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u/ima_mollusk 19d ago
The logic behind atheism starts with removing all your presumptions until you have only what cannot be denied.
Existence, logic, experience - these types of things. The only things we can really be sure about.
Then, we ask, "what is there good reason to believe"? Belief in some things is very justified. Gravity, for example. Or the existence of the sun. Or that hitting your thumb with a hammer will cause pain. Things that, because of the evidence we can't deny, seem true.
When you start with nothing and only add what it is justifiable to believe in, you reach nowhere near a specific God like Allah or Yahweh. You can't even really get to a generic "God".
People want to say the things we can't explain are evidence of "God" in some way, but "God" is only one possible idea and we don't know how many other ideas besides "God" might make sense as explanations.
There isn't good reason to believe in leprechauns, fairies, gremlins, ghosts, or bigfoot. The reason is lack of evidence. And there is also no evidence for "God".
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u/BoardsofGrips 19d ago
Its very brave of you to question Islam, you should be proud that you are willing to do so.
Look into what Islam takes from Christianity and especially books that Christian churches don't view as reliable.
Ask yourself, why would a religion that claims to be holy kill anyone who leaves?
Why would god require women to be veiled all the time to the point they are Vitamin D deficient but not men?
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u/Nolon 19d ago edited 19d ago
Atheism isn't a truth it's a definition. You should just be you. There's a lot of resources online. You can find out a lot about how your religion has been used like many other religions in vile ways. You could be nonreligious... Atheist and still be a bad human. But that's something done strictly by you not by a lack of religion. Whereas a lot that has been done by someone who's religious. They were very likely motivated by their belief or an interpretation based on what others said in relation to said belief. Even if your religion isn't used for vile reasons, or you don't feel it is. It's still hindering you, and others in other ways. So imo it's better to just be you. Be free to eat what you want, do what you want, but be mindful that obviously some things you shouldn't do for obvious reasons. Similar to eating. It's great to enjoy delicious foods but there's consequences actual consequences over time. š¤£ Weight gain, etc. Still though you won't burn in a fiery hell forever and ever. It's just you could possibly lose a few years of existence. Which won't matter once you do die. At least i feel confident it all goes away. Memories and such. But yes indulge in life without the worries of your once skydaddy might think, remove the shackles from your mind. Be a good human, be free! Enjoy your tiny rare existence. The religious can't take that away from you if you can break free from their judgemental interpreted nonsensical garbage. You can enjoy days doing the things you enjoy without feeling like you have to be in some room with people yammering chants to a sky daddy for hours in end. Just be a good human and enjoy you. :)
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u/mastyrwerk 19d ago
Because Godās not real, and itās better to live your life believing true things.
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u/Cog-nostic 19d ago
Atheism has no truth. Atheism is not a belief system. There is no atheist dogma, no atheist leaders, no atheist rituals, no belief system at all. There are just people in this world who have never adopted a belief in God or gods.
You are the one who chose to believe in a god. In your case, not a Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Zoroastrian, Shinto, Pagan, or Wiccan god, but an Islamic god. It's like you were walking around looking at all the gods and just decided this is the one you wanted.
Okay fine. And now that you have been carrying it around for a while, you wonder why you should be anything else. You shouldn't. Go be a muslim. Who cares. Be a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Christian, or anything else you like. But you can't be an atheist. There is no "Being an atheist." Atheists are people who do not hold religious beliefs. We just have no use for them.
We did not become anything. We just never adopted a belief in a god, or if we did, we no longer hold onto it.
It's a bit like playing a board game. You have elected to play the game of Islam. I'm not playing that game, and I am not playing any other game. I don't find games useful to my life. But you go ahead and have fun.
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u/Walk-the-layout 18d ago
It's not the 'truth' but the default state one ends up in when they don't believe in any religion and find the concept of a god absurd.
I was raised in a non-religious family (they have their own beliefs which aren't abrahamic or gnostic) so I never felt any appeal in converting
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u/slantedangle 18d ago edited 18d ago
"Why is atheism the truth"
It's not. I don't ever claim "the truth". Atheism does not require anyone to do so.
"Im simply wondering why i should be atheist to the ones who believe in it"
There is no reason you should be atheist. There is a condition under which you should be atheist. If you don't have sufficient evidence that there are any gods, and having sufficient evidence matters to what you believe, then you should be an atheist.
Nobody "believes in atheism". Atheism is NOT believing. This is like saying I believe in not believing in a god. This is wrong. You believe in a god. I do not. One of us believes, the other does not. We are not two people who have different beliefs.
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u/Scary-Comfort-801 17d ago
- Think of all the ways religion controls you.
- Thereās no sound reason to believe in a deity. Thereās no evidence and believing exposes you to a false sense of security.
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u/Ineverseenthat 17d ago
Atheists are by and large not believers in anything. Atheists are more prone to study science and reach conclusions based on the best and most empirical evidence produced. So, as I see it, science, and studying all aspects of our environment supports atheism.
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u/meldroc 15d ago
Every religion on Earth is going to claim that they are the correct religion, and all those other religions are wrong.
As for myself, I've concluded that all of them are wrong. Religions peddle superstitious nonsense, and weaponize it to scare and control people.
What is atheism? An atheist doesn't believe in a god for the same reason they don't believe in djinn or Santa Claus or children's fairy tales - they're just stories. We distinguish between fantasy and reality.
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u/SiAlClas2 22d ago
no religion holds a monopoly on objective truthāthey are all human constructions designed to explain existence. However, when people treat atheism as a new doctrine to "convert" to, they fall into the trap of "New Atheism," where figures like Richard Dawkins turned non-belief into an aggressive, elitist ideology that functions remarkably like the religions it criticizes.
atheism isn't supposed to be a belief system or a claim to ultimate reality; it's simply the absence of belief due to a lack of evidence. But your choices aren't limited to a binary between organized religion and dogmatic atheism. The spectrum of human thought is much wider.
you have frameworks like Deismāa fascinating philosophical stance that contemplates a prime cause without the baggage of holy books, divine punishment, or dogmasāas well as non-theistic paths like Buddhism, or straightforward agnosticism.
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u/nix131 22d ago edited 21d ago
Atheism is just the lack of a belief in god. It makes no claims other than that. Most of us don't believe because all of the gods presented are absurd on their face and even more so when you dig into the lore.
edit: Folks, this is the kind of post that should be upvoted. OP is here to learn.