this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2024
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"Reddit" Atheism is when you're stuck dunking on young earth creationists (who deserve it but are extremely low hanging fruit) while also being islamophobic.
I was raised YEC so reddit atheism was good for me to an extent, but then I had to shed the islamophobia. fortunately I also came down on the right side of "Atheism+" schism, which deserves its own writeup but I'm not doing that.
I feel confident saying I know, as a fact, that the Abrahamic god does not exist. That said, I don't know how or why the universe exists. Life & consciousness seem to be phenomena which arise naturally out of laws of physics so I have no reason to believe in survival of the self beyond the physical body. It is literally true that we are "the universe experiencing itself" and not something separate from it. That idea is a form of monism which has a rich tradition in eastern religion, and even Marxism!
There are even forms of the idea of reincarnation which I find somewhat compatible with a materialist, monist view of the world. This is a powerful essay on the subject.
thank you. I don't feel attacked.
it's not based on faith it's based on history. Worship of the Abrahamic god was also associated with polytheistic religion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaanite_religion. many times in the old testament a prophet chastises isrealites for worshipping other gods of the pantheon, like Ba'al or Asherah. First of the 10 commandments is "thou shalt have no other god before me" and there are a few times in the early stories that god refers to itself in the plural, or is clearly stated to not be all powerful. this is quite different from how we understand God today, how can we determine which view is correct?
There's also the character of God which is nationalist, racist, abusive, murderous, extremely controlling, qualities that are far more consistent with being invented by a culture which had those same qualities than being the omnipotent creator of the entire cosmos.
Are all the gods of the Canaanite pantheon real or just this one? What about other pantheons? Can we assume he's more likely to be real simply because a large number of people believe it? That's not a good way of determining what is true. if an idea cannot be tested directly the next best thing is to trace its provenance.
my point here is that there's nothing special about "God" any moreso than the deities of other cultures, yet Yahweh gets special treatment but has no more evidence for basis in material reality than Athena, Ganesha, or Nap Anya. I also feel confident saying Loki doesn't exist and I doubt many would call that out as a belief based on faith.