Posted: Dec 24, 2011 11:06 am
Ultimately though what we believe in is based on the material that is in or brain i.e. the connections that make up our memories and which alter our thoughts. Add a suitable set of connections and we would believe in God (or anything), or take away these connections then we would stop believing in God (or anything).
Learning is what creates these connections and this can be due to experience or evidence. The absence of the connections through not learning is not the same as absence of the connection due to no evidence though the result is the same in that if such a set of connections means a belief in god then when there are no connections for whatever reason (born that way or have never learnt this) then there is no belief.
This is what I usually mean by not having a belief in god; nothing has stuck that makes me positively believe in god i.e. I do not have these memories. I have a very good filter; it is my belief that if you teach children to be sceptical and cautious and to verify what you trust before they get taught about woo then woo will not infest their mind. Equally if you can infest the children's mind with woo that turns off sceptical though then you can control that mind a lot more easier.
Now a person could also have the positive belief that there is no god and this would be a set of connections that they have learnt that make them believe this to be true. Very few atheists are like this.
Then there is those who have doubts about god and here the atheist would have to have a belief in god i.e. they would have had to have evidence and thus learnt about the positive existence of god and have such connections but then altered the weighting of that network of connections with new learning that in effectually swamped this belief. I believe that those that did believe but now have doubts are in this category. This is no different from any learning - you correct your mistakes.
Finally there is the often claimed that the atheist is in denial of God. For this to be valid the atheist would have to have a belief in god i.e. they would have had to have evidence and thus learnt about the positive existence of god and maintain this but then altered the weighting of that network of connections with new learning that in effect deliberately balanced out this belief. The result is the denial. I doubt many are like this. If most people believe in something they run with it. This is juggling two mutually exclusive beliefs at once for no particular reason and it's not like they are equal - the believer in the Christian God has to disbelieve the Hindu, Maori, Egyptian, Greek, Australian, Roman and so on gods.
Ultimately everything we believe in, everything we are, lies in the connections in our brain and the more we understand how beliefs are stored the smaller the gap that god can hide.
Learning is what creates these connections and this can be due to experience or evidence. The absence of the connections through not learning is not the same as absence of the connection due to no evidence though the result is the same in that if such a set of connections means a belief in god then when there are no connections for whatever reason (born that way or have never learnt this) then there is no belief.
This is what I usually mean by not having a belief in god; nothing has stuck that makes me positively believe in god i.e. I do not have these memories. I have a very good filter; it is my belief that if you teach children to be sceptical and cautious and to verify what you trust before they get taught about woo then woo will not infest their mind. Equally if you can infest the children's mind with woo that turns off sceptical though then you can control that mind a lot more easier.
Now a person could also have the positive belief that there is no god and this would be a set of connections that they have learnt that make them believe this to be true. Very few atheists are like this.
Then there is those who have doubts about god and here the atheist would have to have a belief in god i.e. they would have had to have evidence and thus learnt about the positive existence of god and have such connections but then altered the weighting of that network of connections with new learning that in effectually swamped this belief. I believe that those that did believe but now have doubts are in this category. This is no different from any learning - you correct your mistakes.
Finally there is the often claimed that the atheist is in denial of God. For this to be valid the atheist would have to have a belief in god i.e. they would have had to have evidence and thus learnt about the positive existence of god and maintain this but then altered the weighting of that network of connections with new learning that in effect deliberately balanced out this belief. The result is the denial. I doubt many are like this. If most people believe in something they run with it. This is juggling two mutually exclusive beliefs at once for no particular reason and it's not like they are equal - the believer in the Christian God has to disbelieve the Hindu, Maori, Egyptian, Greek, Australian, Roman and so on gods.
Ultimately everything we believe in, everything we are, lies in the connections in our brain and the more we understand how beliefs are stored the smaller the gap that god can hide.