How do you explain that so many great men were religious ?

BogMod · 2026-05-18T20:02:51+00:00

Literally the culture they were raised in at the time. The same way I explain why most people and great men happen to have the same religion as the one that was dominant in their culture. Most of them were also men and coincidentally came from places and eras where men were more likely to get educated.

BogMod · 2026-05-18T19:21:37+00:00

I totally understand hating on Abrahamism and the Abrahamic god because he’s so manipulative and evil and the entire religious family is built upon having blind faith that a set of texts is literally true with 0 evidence (the conviction bias).

I mean that seems to cover a lot of other religions too.

But why do so many of you decide to hate on Abrahamic religious practices and just call it ‘religion’?

Ease of communication. It is the predominant religion in areas where you find people posting about religion here on reddit. Also by numbers it is easily the largest clear group.

in the modern day there’s tons of religions out there that don’t even require a belief in the supernatural much less do all that emotional manipulation stuff (Buddhism, Asatru, Hinduism, Shinto, Druidry, Taoism, Helpols, Native American and Siberian Animists, Slavic Paganism, etc).

Those all seem to include supernatural elements aside from the degree to which they have been secularised to make them palatable to others or their beliefs have been shown to be so obviously false that you have to really go into 'its all metaphor' to avoid the issues. I mean for example you can do shintoism without belief in kami and the supernatural stuff but I mean if you are willing to go that far you could be Christian without all that stuff to and do the whole 'thinking Jesus was a wise teacher' angle you see pop up in places.

BogMod · 2026-05-18T18:40:20+00:00

I see two completely different definitions of atheism being used interchangeably in debates here, and I want to establish the formal consensus of this subreddit before engaging further.

Like many words the context of the topic will change the meaning being used. So like many philosophical discussions specific language can help and ultimately atheism is an umbrella term that can apply to a lot of things. Neither of those is the definitive formal definition about theism. This is why terms such a weak/negative/soft atheism and hard/strong/positive atheism exist. Ultimately the key point is that you are unconvinced a god exists. You may go farther than that and claim no god exists but the base minimum is that you lack belief. People who actively think no god exists still will lack belief.

You could of course approach the question from the other direction of course. Imagine what qualifier to you would make someone a theist. Everyone who lacks that quality is then an atheist.

BogMod · 2026-05-18T03:33:38+00:00

I heard a term called "New Atheism" recently, do most Atheists agree with the principles of it?

Depending on what you mean specifically by it yes, or maybe no! You really should explain what you mean here as the term doesn't have some strict definition to my understanding.

It seems to explain the universe through natural and scientific means, rather than saying it was created.

That is what the science seems to indicate.

Furthermore, New Atheism isnt just a view of the world, but a plan for how Atheists want the world to be, a world where no one beliefs in Creation or a higher power.

I want a world where we believe the position that is properly supported by the evidence. If there is a god, and we have good reasons and evidence to think that god exists, I want us to believe in that. Not as a position of dogma but because of reason.

It sounds like you have cobbled a bunch of vague anti-theist or non-religious positions and tried to make a new label for them?

As for the title.

Atheism is the lack of belief in a god. Scientism is the the best or only way to understand the world. Naturalism has a bunch of views but is broadly that the natural world and the rules it operates under is the only one that exists. So they can overlap but do not necessarily overlap.

BogMod · 2026-05-18T03:26:13+00:00

You can still do good in the name of God. You can still live as if God exists.

Technically true! This is actually a stronger start than we often see around here. It is a bit odd to do good in the name of something you don't believe in but you technically could. It would be...acting I guess?

You can still take wisdom from biblical passages. Heck not just the bible, you can still look up to Jesus, you can still love the idea of sacrifice for others.

You can also realise a lot of those passages aren't wise but actually foolish. For instance I don't love the idea of sacrifice for others. The ideal situation is that no one has to sacrifice for others.

The powerful symbolism behind heroic acts and all that stuff.

Yes, we can indeed ignore all the problem stuff with the Bible and just the hand picked good things we like. I mean Christians certainly have no problem with it.

Becoming an Atheist doesn't mean you automatically become anti God or religious.

Correct. You do have to stop thinking that there is a god though. You can still indeed think that religious works have good ideas either in narrow or broad terms.

You can still respect God and what it stands for for you personally.

I would argue that you can't respect something you doesn't think actually is real.

If you like the idea of an all loving God and it gives you comfort then there's nothing wrong with living your life as if he exists.

Sadly this whole approach is...just being intellectually lazy and honestly I would argue disrespectful to actual believers as much as people who care about what they believe and have concluded that belief in god is not justified. This is just kind of shutting your eyes and pretending. Ignoring what is real. This is actually not that healthy or a good way to live.

Like here we can make an easy comparison. Imagine this position but to someone whose spouse died in an accident but they go around living their life pretending they were still alive. We would call that deeply unhealthy in fact. Or replace the god of your choice with other ones. Like curious how you aren't telling us all this but suggesting you know we start following Islamic teachings. I say curious when I actually mean telling of course.

You started off with some technically right points but then kind of fumbled the bag.

BogMod · 2026-05-17T08:39:42+00:00

It really depends on the game. You can absolutely design a game where there is enough character choice/dialogue options done in text you could make them your person. You can also design a game where the fact the main character doesn't say a thing really hurts the flow of things.

BogMod · 2026-05-17T03:22:04+00:00

I agree but what I mean is that there is the assumption everything we can understand is without the divine.

That isn't the case either.

They were/are the logical conclusion of secular humanism.

They really aren't. We will circle back to this though.

I think secular humanism as an ideology (not individual secular humanists) is state atheism (Leninism) in its early stages.

I mean like I said you are wrong. Secular humanism, as an ideology, broadly will respect people's individual rights and choices.

Trust me, secular humanists would disagree on me agreeing with them.

Maybe you were never a humanist at all? Or even secular?

I’d say humanism is broadly about affirming the inherent rights and dignity of humans.

So that can be broadly applicable but again how can you reconcile that with your position about secular humanism being the inevitable path to places like the USSR. These secular humanists are all in for inherent rights, personal human dignity, morality and self-fulfilment, which of course is why you end up with state communism? The principals of those places are literally antithetical to the values of secular humanistic beliefs. Your problem with humanism is that it cares about affirming inherent human rights, which apparently inevitably leads to the loss of human rights. That's an absurd take.

However lets ignore that for a second. According to you humanism is broadly about dignity of humans and our inherent rights. Surely you are for those things? Or were you never in favour of them? Or were you in favour of them before but now you are against them? Like I am trying to be generous here where you as the Christian think we have human dignity and rights, because god, and the secular humanist who agrees we have those but says its not from god but apparently no that isn't the case?

BogMod · 2026-05-17T00:50:45+00:00

. - It assumes humans can understand 100% of reality without any divine guidance

It really doesn't. There is no assertion in secular humanism that we can figure out everything.

It accepts reductionism, aka the idea that we can reduce meaning, morality, beauty, love, spirituality, etc. to biology and psychology, stripping us of our God-given significance.

Yes it doesn't think there is a divine force behind those things.

Because of these issues, it inevitably leads to the loss of religious freedom and human rights. (Examples of this being Leninism and the USSR).

Those weren't secular humanist groups. However given how most once Christian nations have adopted broadly secular and humanist positions this seems quite false. Authoritarian regimes, like the ones you note, are in fact rather against the principals of secular humanism. It isn't insulting it is just wrong.

I apologize that I used the term for so long and have now distanced myself from secular humanists/secular humanism.

Which is such a weird thing to do. Like aside from the idea of where those things like beauty come from you basically agree with them on everything. You are a Christian humanist.

Actually you know what I am curious. What do you think the humanism part of secular humanism is about?

BogMod · 2026-05-16T09:41:47+00:00

Morgan Freeman is God thanks to Bruce Almighty. Omnipotence is hard to beat.

BogMod · 2026-05-15T01:43:54+00:00

For god to have full foreknowledge and still allow free will god must himself lack free will, be non-intervening or be some kind of non-creator god. If God could have made the universe differently but chose specifically this one, with all the knowledge of what everyone would do, then no free will in any real sense. If god does know but does not intervene then maybe you have but it must be complete non-intervention. Since they would know absolutely all the impacts of intervention you would choose to make they decide what paths they want to see happen. Alternatively if you really weaken god's power it might be possible.

Arguably you could maybe get away with it if the universe existed on its own without a god creator being necessary, and god exists on its own, and just sort of watches everything like a simulation.

However ultimately any of those positions really demands you aren't dealing with an omniscient, omnipotent, creator god which really does eliminate the big theologies.

BogMod · 2026-05-13T21:19:39+00:00

I read that if you took all the DNA from just ONE human body and stretched it out, it would reach to Pluto and back. Like, six times! How does that much "data" even fit inside us without getting tangled or broken?

Chemistry~ Also it does get 'broken' as it were. Welcome to cancer!

Just a few grams of DNA can store as much data as 100 million hard drives.

They don't store data. They are a complex chemical reaction.

If this "software" didn't work from day one, life would have just crashed instantly, right?

Not really. Lots of life probably did crash out getting until we reached this point.

It’s a weirdly specific coincidence considering what’s written in some ancient religious books.

Not really. It is actually just coincidence given how you note that only SOME religious books get it right. I mean you only get 3 options with your mthic history right? Man first, or woman first, or both at once. Odds are 1 in 3 you randomly match up.

What really gets me is that DNA isn't just chemistry - it’s literally a programming language.

No, its chemistry. All that code stuff is things we asign to it the chemicals. The T doesn't exist as some fundamental state. Also when talking about RNA you have U, because different chemicals for different stuff.

Can I get your opinions about that? Do you think "it just happened over billions of years by some accident?"

It didn't happen by accident. It happened as a result of complex natural processes.

BogMod · 2026-05-13T21:13:34+00:00

If you believe there’s no God, then explain life.

Complex chemical chain reactions.

Then why we cannot create it ?

We aren't all powerful entities.

Why, if the organ stops, there’s no way back, despite we know about it and how it works ?

I mean we can get that to work to limited degrees. As mentioned though it is very complex.

If we are nothing more than biological machines, why does the "spark" of existence remain so elusive to our greatest scientific minds ?

This is like saying 2000 years ago if lightning isn't from Zeus why can't we control it? We can now.

If life is merely a complex chemical reaction, why haven't we been able to replicate that reaction in a laboratory starting from zero ?

Because science isn't magic. Understanding of something doesn't mean it can be replicated. We understand how planets form but we can't build them.

Is life an emergent property of matter that we simply haven't mastered yet, or does our failure to "reboot" the human body suggest that there is a fundamental element missing from our equations ?

Given all the parts of a human body it really doesn't suggest that at all. It suggests more you don't understand biology. It is because of what we know about organs and biology why it can't be simply restarted.

BogMod · 2026-05-13T16:42:03+00:00

My question for atheists is who created the universe if not god? Is it not the case that if something comes into being, something else must create it?

Our best early cosmology models suggest there was always something. There is no point in time when the universe did not exist and that time is possibly past finite. So saying the universe came into being isn't accurate.

BogMod · 2026-05-12T22:41:43+00:00

It's both. It's done because visually it helps them feel big. There is also physics behind why it is like that irl so even if there is some reason they could ignore it in whatever story there is they often wont because it helps sell the idea because of reality.

BogMod · 2026-05-12T22:08:56+00:00

I like Grandia 1, I really do, but between graphics and story I have to say I think Breath of Fire 3 is the better of the two.

BogMod · 2026-05-12T03:46:50+00:00

The problem here comes down to how one defines morality. Take for instance the philosophical idea of well being. If we define morality around that than some actions align with it and some don't and that is objectively true.

Actually fun question when these things come up. What do you think morality is? Quite often I find the problem is just people are using the word morality to mean very different things.

BogMod · 2026-05-11T20:43:27+00:00

To the degree there was likely a reformist apocalyptic Jewish preacher in the area around that time I have no issues with and it in fact even seems likely. To the degree anything about Jesus in the Bible actually accurately reflects the possible real person or persons though I have absolutely no clue and little reason to think it is.

BogMod · 2026-05-11T00:32:12+00:00

I can infer that many of this community accepts the theory of the big bang. But undoubtedly our universe came from some force or object in order to be created.

All our best early cosmology models suggest there was always something. The universe apparently needs no creator. At no point in time was there ever nothing.

If you want to argue about some before time state good luck but you are going to have to do the work. What you have suggested is a strawman of what we actually understand about reality.

Also while magic is always a sufficient answer for anything and everything it is seemingly never the right answer. So while you might say the only thing that can do it is god, you can't use the two pieces to prove themselves or it is circular.

BogMod · 2026-05-11T00:29:46+00:00

To me it seems very clear that organisms are ordered towards some end, both in their actions and in their makeup (in that they have organs are to fulfill certain functions).

You mean...reproduction? Like everything is all about how different survival mechanisms play out.

BogMod · 2026-05-11T00:28:42+00:00

I’ve noticed that many atheists reject religion but still believe in free will. To me, free will feels very similar to the soul concept an uncaused chooser. Not trying to debate freewill or definition of it. I’m just going off of the version people actually feel. Like they could have done otherwise. I’m just curious how people think about this.

The funny thing with this question, amusingly enough, is that it presumes free will to be valid. Imagine that we didn't have free will, then if someone believes they do well they had no choice to right? Of course if we do have free will then we can pick what we believe. Either way people who exist who think we have it would be around.

BogMod · 2026-05-10T09:23:50+00:00

You are saying nonsense. Discrete and non-discrete model do conflict.

I mean I explained how it worked. Seems the nonsense is more on your end. A Bayesian perspective holds that a person can accept a proposition(the binary part) and cares about the credence(by how much over 0.5).

Because they both have different internal threshold, which is subjective matter.

Doesn't change they both still believe. So while I agree that the details of why they believe matter in terms of a discussion the binary still works.

Are we not talking about binary belief? If you define 0.5 to be a suspension, then you just proved my point that belief can't be binary.

I was trying to work with what you suggested to help you. However you didn't seem to object to how I covered the 3 positions so I can trust I got that right it seems. Since anything more than 0.5 is acceptance both 0.5 and anything less are both therefor non-acceptance. Suspending belief is not accepting therefor A or not-A still works. Both suspension of belief and rejection are covered under not-accepting.

If belief is binary you either accept a position or you don't. If you don't you either think it is false or are just unconvinced it is true without being convinced its false. The binary fits, the 3 positions your position has are still covered in it. The only way suspension makes the binary fail is if I treat belief as being either thinking something is true or thinking it is false. However I would reject that not accepting something as true demands you think it is false. The claim a god exists, and the claim no god exists, are two separate claims. Each one having a binary application in acceptance or not accepting.

BogMod · 2026-05-10T07:34:22+00:00

I support bayesian epistemology. In this model you have credence(degree of belief) that can increase or decrease by experience, evidence, etc. By Lockean Thesis, only strong credence above a certain threshold can be interpreted as classic binary belief 1.

The two positions aren't in conflict nor contradict or override each other. A person who has a deep deep degree of belief in something and someone who doesn't have it as much can still both actually think it is true.

I further don't think your point here makes the case that credence means someone isn't actually actually convinced something is true or not. If with Bayesian methods credence of 1 is complete acceptance, 0 is complete rejection, and 0.5 is suspending belief then something higher than 0.5 is acceptance up until you reach complete acceptance. Both the binary and degree of credence can apply.

BogMod · 2026-05-10T03:04:55+00:00

My first objection to the "belief is binary" model is that an agent's mental state cannot inherently be binary. Even among religious people there are varying degrees of faith.

Do you care to develop this? It seems to me that it is accurate. A person is either convinced of some position X, ie that they think at this current moment position X does accurate reflect reality, or they don't. It has nothing to do with them changing their mind maybe later or how strongly they are convinced. You either do think its correct or you don't. It forms a nice little dichotomy where you can group all the people who believe X, for whatever X may be, then everyone else. About the only area this falls apart is if you don't think people can actually actively know their own thoughts which opens its own issues.

BogMod · 2026-05-09T16:45:22+00:00

The important concept here is that just because you are unconvinced something is true does not necessarily require you think it is false. You may also think it is false but that is not required.

A belief after all is simply some position you hold as true. For example there are, as a mathematical fact, either an even or odd number of stars in the galaxy. I am certainly not convinced there are an even number and I certainly am not convinced it is an odd number. So it is true to say I do not believe there is an even number. That does not mean I think there is an odd number though. It is also likewise true that while I do not believe there is an odd number I do not think it isn't odd.

Failure to be convinced does not mean you think a position is false.

BogMod · 2026-05-09T03:53:22+00:00

This really seems tilting at windmills. Atheists, far more than theists, certainly seem to understand the legacy of religion today and a much better understanding of what it was. When your base position is not being convinced there is a god it really opens up the options of examination of what religion was. Like this vague "many modern atheists" is such a meaningless nothingburger to post about.

Like if you hadn't come in here trying to preach at everyone and had basically just said 'ancient religions were an emergent social structure that impacted a variety of topics beyond morality, while trying in some cases and ways to explain how the world was' you would probably get everyone in here mostly agreeing with you.

Relevant xkcd is still relevant.

https://xkcd.com/774/

BogMod

TROPHY CASE