Q to atheist GAF:
What is your single biggest complaint about religion? The doctrines it preaches or the lack of evidence for a deity?
As an atheist I think there are good and bad parts to religious doctrine. It's the basis for the laws in our society, which for the most part, are a good thing. Religion also brings much needed charity work, but can be frustratingly selfish on certain social issues.
My biggest complaint is the lack of evidence, or sometimes a willingness to ignore evidence that conflicts with beliefs rather than examining it.
In some cases I don't think its a matter of
wanting to see all sides of the story, but a matter of
not wanting to be wrong.
...And really, it's human nature. We don't want to be wrong.
I have family members that adamantly deny evolution because it conflicts with the creation story, yet when I try to explain what the theory of evolution really is, the only thing on their mind is "We didn't come from monkeys." They've already dismissed the theory, they don't really understand it from how they explain it to me, and don't really care to understand it any further.
I was born into a religious family and baptized twice over, but as I became older I examined the facts and I arrived at a different conclusion. I'm glad I did, though it took a while for me to come to terms with that everything I had believed in previously was wrong to me now.
What prompted my lack of faith is when I asked myself if I could find someone who was completely neutral to science and religion (if such a person could exist) and they were exposed to both religious text and scientific research papers for the first time, which one would they chose? Which one makes the stronger argument?
I'm not saying that it's impossible to reach a conclusion to become religious after some critical thought, I'm saying that many people try to avoid thinking critically and just continue to believe in what they were raised with because that's the way it's always been. For many religious people, any conflicting information is an "attack" on religion, rather than something that could be seriously considered.
...I know, because that used to be me.
With religion, we try to fit everything we know and everything we discover into the confines of already established beliefs.
What is so attractive about the scientific method to me is that scientists are willing to admit when they are wrong. They don't need to fit their ideas within a religious framework. New discoveries are exciting, not threatening. New evidence is scrutinized, and if it passes, it becomes the new standard. And if it doesn't pass, we still learned something valuable in that it
doesn't work.
So there you have it. A look into the mind of an atheist.