Thread: Do Atheists seem hypocritical to you?

Maybe I'm somewhat of an optimist but personally I believe there will be a day when there is only traces of religion left. I know that I will never see that day, though I find solice in the belief that we as a people will overcome the perpetual cycle of ignorance and dilusion known as religion one day. Even though I wish to believe that we could possibly have a majority atheistic population within a few generations as we become more individually intelligent as a species, I am also painfully aware that religion will find a way to propogate. The ultimate irony is that even religion evolves and will continue as it has done over the past millenia. That said, I do still believe the virus of faith will one day be extinugished, even if only after thousands of years.

We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in, some of us just go one god further.
-Richard Dawkins

Originally Posted by greigor

There was a thought piece I read a while back suggesting natural selection in humans favours religious traits. It was along the lines that religious people have more children whereas atheists are more likely to be childless. The piece didn't provide statistics to support its claim but I thought it was interesting and taking it at face value it made sense.

I have problems with that. For the piece to make this claim based on Evolution, it implies that there is such a thing as a religion gene to pass on to the next generation. I would find it hard to believe that we all (theist or non-theist) possess any significant differences in our DNA to account for whether we are religious or not. More likely, someone's theistic slant is influenced by environmental factors, not genetic ones.

Religious couples will more likely raise religious offspring because they nurture that behavior/belief, not because it's part of their offspring's genome. And without seeing data, I would agree that they probably have more offspring than non-theistic couples. But the data points at the exact opposite conclusion that the piece seems to make. Religion, over that past millennium (many generations) has been declining. If what that piece is proposing was true, the trend should be going in the opposite direction, but it's not.

Originally Posted by s2cuts

I have problems with that. For the piece to make this claim based on Evolution, it implies that there is such a thing as a religion gene to pass on to the next generation. I would find it hard to believe that we all (theist or non-theist) possess any significant differences in our DNA to account for whether we are religious or not. More likely, someone's theistic slant is influenced by environmental factors, not genetic ones.

My belief is there isn't so much of a religion gene as religion may be a spandrel or byproduct of the evolution of other psychological processes. I write briefly about it in my earlier post here

It's true the difference in whether one is religious or not is likely influenced more by environmental factors than genetic ones. The theories wouldn't suggest a difference in DNA, rather all humans may have some genetic evolutionary predisposition to religious belief. However just because we have an evolutionary predisposition doesn't mean we are constrained to religious belief. Our higher level analytic reasoning abilities (also a product of evolution) allow us to make choices, and perhaps 'rebel' against genetic predisposition. As an example, in the human ancestral environment an effective evolutionary strategy for a male may have been to mate with as many women as possible. This may have given the greatest chance for the male to pass on his genes. The male faced fewer costs as females bore the costs of raising offspring as well as the long pregnancy period. Obviously societal expectations and pressures likely prohibit widespread behaviour of this sort these days but we might still see the results of this evolutionary predisposition in some male behaviours.

I don't think religion is declining so much as modern communication technologies have allowed non-believers to connect and this has helped spread atheism. In the past atheists may have kept quiet about their non belief out of stigma and fear of persecution and ostracism by their community. However because religion likely does have evolutionary and genetic roots I think there are some people atheism will never get through to, either because they don't want to know or because they want to believe in religion.

Originally Posted by greigor

My belief is there isn't so much of a religion gene as religion may be a spandrel or byproduct of the evolution of other psychological processes. I write briefly about it in my earlier post here

It's true the difference in whether one is religious or not is likely influenced more by environmental factors than genetic ones. The theories wouldn't suggest a difference in DNA, rather all humans may have some genetic evolutionary predisposition to religious belief. However just because we have an evolutionary predisposition doesn't mean we are constrained to religious belief. Our higher level analytic reasoning abilities (also a product of evolution) allow us to make choices, and perhaps 'rebel' against genetic predisposition. As an example, in the human ancestral environment an effective evolutionary strategy for a male may have been to mate with as many women as possible. This may have given the greatest chance for the male to pass on his genes. The male faced fewer costs as females bore the costs of raising offspring as well as the long pregnancy period. Obviously societal expectations and pressures likely prohibit widespread behaviour of this sort these days but we might still see the results of this evolutionary predisposition in some male behaviours.

I don't think religion is declining so much as modern communication technologies have allowed non-believers to connect and this has helped spread atheism. In the past atheists may have kept quiet about their non belief out of stigma and fear of persecution and ostracism by their community. However because religion likely does have evolutionary and genetic roots I think there are some people atheism will never get through to, either because they don't want to know or because they want to believe in religion.

Yes, we do probably have these competing genetic traits. While I fully except that we can explain how religious behavior spawned through these traits, we can not attribute modern organized religion to anything genetic. At least not those genetic traits that spawned superstitious behavior. I would have to favor the idea of memes being the impetus for religion today, not actual genetic information. Our genetic ability to rationalize supersedes superstition, which at it's root is simply an effort to understand something we don't understand. Religion clings on because the ideology itself has a built in mechanism for it's own survival. I would argue that in most cases religious people were conditioned from a young age to commit to religion, and that conditioning is the underlying reason that religious people cling to their ideology in the face of mountains of evidence that actually do explain how the world works. Not to say that we understand everything about the universe (far from), but between a biologist, a chemist, and a particle physicist, we can explain a hell of a lot. Certainly more than religion can.

As far as the growth or decline of religion, I would probably disagree with you. Intuitively, I would think that it was a lot easier to be god fearing nearly a thousand years ago when we didn't understand why or how the "black death" was killing our families and friends. Run the clock forward to today, and our understanding of the world leaves religion with only psychological tricks for it's propagation. It would seem that over the long run these tricks are losing. Let's hope anyway. But that doesn't lessen our responsibility to humanity to promote critical thought and skepticism when ever we can.

Wikipedia says :D

Hypocrisy is the act of persistently professing beliefs, opinions, virtues, feelings, qualities, or standards that are inconsistent with one's actions. Hypocrisy is thus a kind of lie

So therefore an Atheist would only be hypocritical if they practiced a form of religion. There would be a gray area with deistic religions of course. Perhaps if an Atheist held beliefs in superstitions they could be considered hypocritical. I wouldn't consider myself a hypocritical Atheist, I even walked under a ladder the other day ;) But seriously as an Atheist I believe in logic and reason and applying them to my life so I would say no Atheist don't seem hypocritical they just think there is a better way to live life :D

Hey sorry to be soo late on this. i just came back from a five day vacation.

I read all the responses, you all make excellent points about atheism. I don't mean for the debate to get heated lol I was mearly trying to challenge the idea. Anyway I hope this debate thread can continue if anyone in the future has any thing to challenge the atheists with. As for me I think you guys pulled me toward the atheists are NOT hypocritical side.

What was going through my head when I made this topic:
Conversiontion between me (Agnostic) and an Athiest about a Catholic
Athiest: His religion is so stupid. They worship a god that they are only told about, none of the stories have scientific evidence, and he has no proof.
Me (Agnostic): Ya well I don't belive his religion either, but you belive that there is no god and you have no scientific evidence and no proof either.

Now I kind of realize that just because you are an atheist you don't necessarily think that other religious people are stupid for believing in somthing that they have no evidence for. Most of the atheists here seem to be saying that thats just their belief and thats why they are atheists. You guys seem to reconize you have no evidence (becuase technically its impossible to gain enough evidence to disprove a topic as encompasing as god). This obviously doesn't make you hypocritical and it wasn't correct for me to assume that all atheists thought they had all the answers.

Thanks everyone with for your reponses VectorKing, greigor, and s2cuts especially.

Originally Posted by Kicker

Now I kind of realize that just because you are an atheist you don't necessarily think that other religious people are stupid for believing in somthing that they have no evidence for. Most of the atheists here seem to be saying that thats just their belief and thats why they are atheists. You guys seem to reconize you have no evidence (becuase technically its impossible to gain enough evidence to disprove a topic as encompasing as god). This obviously doesn't make you hypocritical and it wasn't correct for me to assume that all atheists thought they had all the answers.

Let me correct you one more time. Atheists have NO belief. We're defined by the absence of belief in any religion. If you ever use a sentence like "Atheists believe..." you are incorrectly representing atheists. On the question of gods, we're waiting for the proper evidence to attain belief. The onus is on those who make the claim. It's not up to Atheists to disprove a claim for which there is no evidence.

A presentation on the reproductive advantage of religiousity is here

Seeing this actually made me rather sad...

Tachiko88 asked me to post this because he isn't able to.

I really like this guy's videos
YouTube - Albert10110's Channel
Down to earth logic intermingled with some deep stuff
Start here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Albert10...14/SabcvBDtSE0

Mod Edit: Greigor I have merged your posts. In the future make use of the edit button please. There is no need to double post. Thanks - JJ

The statement that it's not up to atheists to disprove the God theory is a cop out. It's also incredibly close minded. If given the ability and the intelligence, why would you not want to search for the truth?

It is also ridiculous to compare God (or at least the Abrahamic God) and by extension, his son Jesus Christ, to the flying Spaghetti Monster. There are historical records of the existence of Jesus Christ and the miracles he performed. I find it difficult to believe that he, his disciples, and all of his followers were deluded. They witnessed the miracles of Christ. How can we dispute the testimony of hundreds of people who saw the same thing?