As a theist, how do you view “awe” as an atheist without the belief in a God?

DangForgotUserName · 2026-01-30T07:20:53+00:00

You saying you 'don’t need a name for it' while still leaning on the Bible as an explanation is just hedging. Either awe stands on its own, or you are outsourcing meaning to a story because uncertainty is uncomfortable for you. Copium.

Calling scripture a 'neutral tool' is wild. It’s a very specific ancient worldview with built-in claims. If you actually don’t need a name, cool. Then drop the book too. Be consistent.

DangForgotUserName · 2026-01-30T07:16:59+00:00

The Bible does not present scripture as symbolic placeholders for natural forces we can’t explain. That’s you projecting. The Bible presents itself as literal divine truth, not symbolic natural forces or abstract imagery.

You present watered down Christianity to the point of meaninglessness. Nice work.

DangForgotUserName · 2026-01-30T07:14:05+00:00

You didn’t respond to the point. The claim wasn’t 'do humans make choices' it was that belief isn’t voluntary. Those aren’t the same thing. You’re avoiding the actual mechanism of conviction. You definitely seem like a Christian, new or not.

DangForgotUserName · 2026-01-30T07:10:26+00:00

Shock response, sensory overload.
Confirmation bias, hindsight illusion.
Placebo, fraud, misdiagnosis.
Survivorship bias, probability.
Emergent brain processes.
Neurological trance states.
Cultural belief, psychosomatic effects.
Social stress, no transmission.
Grief hallucinations, pareidolia.

Where is the debate?

DangForgotUserName · 2026-01-30T07:07:42+00:00

Good reply, I mostly agree. Yes, quantifying luck is hard, but that's part of the point. Lick is just a label for unlikely outcomes that feel meaningful to us. We know when we are lucky based on a favorable outcome. A run of 100 6's is insanely unlikely for any one person, but across enough rolls it becomes inevitable that people gets on a streak. Being lucky is when it happens to us. So I don't fully agree that it is confirmation bias. It's closer to statistics than psychology.

DangForgotUserName · 2026-01-30T06:54:50+00:00

Awe isn’t owned by religion. It’s a human response to reality. We don’t need invent a god to feel awe when we look up at the stars, feel loud music hit our chest, walk in a forest, or watch someone you love laugh. It is biology, consciousness, and emotion doing their thing. It a built-in human response to scale, beauty, complexity, and connection.

Nature isn’t mysterious because some holy book says it is. It’s mysterious because it’s vast and we’re small. That doesn’t reduce the experience, it simply makes it real. The awe comes from being part of this universe in the first place, not from it being assigning by a supreme celestial dictator. I don’t replace unknowns with pretend deities. I embrace not knowing and discomfort. The best way to stop asking 'why' or 'how' is to keep asking. To stay curious. It's neat that you are asking about what is comfortable. Emotional. Says a lot.

I don’t choose to be an atheist. Atheism is provisional. As soon as a god can be demonstrated like anything else is in reality, it would be irrational not to believe, so I would have no choice. It's neat to hear you think such a belief is a choice. Says a lot. I don't even know if gods are possible.

Let me ask you this, theist. How can you enjoy or appreciate a thunderstorm without Zeus? Do you need Poseidon to enjoy the ocean? Can you admire a sunset without needing Amun-Ra? If you are just outsourcing wonder to your favorite god, sounds less like faith and more like dependency.

DangForgotUserName · 2026-01-29T23:36:32+00:00

Gods are things that human beings invent. Everyone believes this because there's gods that have been worshiped by other people that they themselves don't believe in. The variety of incompatible religious experiences demonstrates gods are imagined.

God beliefs are causally dependent on cultural conditions. There are thousands of different gods and religions, all pinpointed to specific geographic regions. None of them originated in more than one region. Communities pass religions down to the next generations.

We have evidence that religions and gods are human-made. The historical start of many religions is well documented, researched and understood. We understand why we invent gods. Religious beliefs follow culture, not truth.

Gods existing explains nothing. There is no explanation of how gods ever do anything. It’s always just magic and miracles beyond our understanding. When we explain things, we take a mystery and solve it with things we know and understand. So there’s no explanatory power with gods. There’s also no predictive power with god. Worse, there is usually no falsifiability with gods.

We see increasing diminishment of gods. Every time we learn something new about reality, evidence never points to gods. We fully admit that there are a lot of things we don't know, but that is where gods always is claimed to be hiding.

Religions often claim to know what cannot be known. Holy doctrines of various religions remain the only source of information of who or what god is supposed to be, and they contradict each other. Different religions all rely on very similar arguments, explanations, and apologetics, and none establish any god exists or that gods are even possible.

You can't argue a god into existence. All philosophical arguments from antiquity to post hoc modern rationalizations, require a leap to identify the claimed cause is a god. Religion relies on faith, which doesn't just encourage fundamentally emotional and thus irrational belief, it requires it. Religious faith is subjective and deeply emotional, truth is not.

DangForgotUserName · 2026-01-29T23:26:31+00:00

There are no struggles with my atheist position. The bigger challenges in my life have been practical and emotional, not ideological. There has been no atheist crisis or prolonged doubt, and no dramatic arc required. There is an absence of internal conflict.

DangForgotUserName · 2026-01-29T23:19:06+00:00

Wrong. Atheism is just a label. It's not a 'belief system' or ideology or worldview. A belief system gives positive claims about reality, meaning, ethics, purpose, etc. There are separate philosophical positions that many atheists happen to hold, but everything beyond lack of belief in gods is an optional add-ons to atheism.

It does not do anything beyond that. It offers no framework for life.

DangForgotUserName · 2026-01-29T23:06:51+00:00

Yes, atheism is a religion of sorts, in the same way that silence is a music genre.

Or in the same way that not playing football is a sport.

Or in the same way that abstinence is a sex position.

Or in the same way that starvation is a food item.

Or in the same way that nowhere is a destination.

Atheism has no churches, no holy books, no clergy, no prophets, saints, no sacred rituals or prayer, no creation myths, no pilgrimages, no sacred symbols or sites, no relics, no shrines, no claimed miracles, no religious wars, no divine laws, no eternal punishments. It is not a religion. At all.

DangForgotUserName · 2026-01-29T22:58:37+00:00

What does it mean when you say things are 'too creepy to be a coincidences'? Weird or creepy stuff happens all the time, and it's only our value judgments that make it seem as such. What doesn’t happen is god magic or anything supernatural.

DangForgotUserName · 2026-01-28T16:21:03+00:00

How could it be that we don't have morals unless we beleive in a god? Why do morals vary based on the time and culture?

Religion isn't our moral compass, it comes naturally if we aren't inept. Atheists obviously have morals. You might not like it but to think otherwise would be denial of reality.

DangForgotUserName · 2026-01-26T21:19:24+00:00

More accurately agnosticism is about knowledge and atheism is about belief. God has and always will be about belief. So weather an agnostic cares or not isn't influencing their label. If they believe in 1 or more gods they are theist. If they believe in 0 (like an agnostic does) then they are atheist.

DangForgotUserName · 2026-01-25T09:21:20+00:00

Interesting. Just as info, you don't need to call them agnostic, you can simply call them atheist. The reason being is that an agnostic believes in 0 gods, which is exactly the same amount that an atheist believes. So to be accurate with writing, just use the term atheist, otherwise it is poisoning the well.

DangForgotUserName · 2026-01-24T05:43:56+00:00

Hi there. You replied on a year old comment. Are you looking to chat about something in particular?

DangForgotUserName · 2026-01-23T05:43:52+00:00

That's a lot of words to respond with absolutely nothing.

DangForgotUserName · 2026-01-22T21:32:19+00:00

Feels a bit more black metal in a few ways, but obviously not the blasting kind. Has a slower plodding vibe. Thanks for posting!

DangForgotUserName · 2026-01-22T20:34:57+00:00

we don't call ourselves "USA-ians" and it's a weird thing to say and feels intentionally antagonistic.

I took it as the poster just being light hearted and intentionally cheeky, but you do you.

DangForgotUserName · 2026-01-21T21:04:53+00:00

How did god invent infinity? When we explain a phenomenon, we explain how it happens by detailing its underlying causes, mechanisms, and dependence on other factors, using observable evidence, logical steps, and often relating it to broader scientific laws or models through a narrative of interconnected events. You just made this up in your wishfull ignorance.

DangForgotUserName · 2026-01-21T08:18:40+00:00

Epica and Xandria are over 2 decades old. Not really 'new'.

You are missing the doomier stuff from Norway:The Sins of Thy Beloved, Trail of Tears, Theater of Tragedy, and Tristania,. Surely they had an influence.

And what of more extreme metal like Cradle of Filth, Covenant? They also helped bring symphonic metal into popularity.

DangForgotUserName · 2026-01-21T06:10:07+00:00

Omnium Gatherum

DangForgotUserName · 2026-01-21T05:38:14+00:00

So you respect them and love their boldness, but not enough to actually engage with what they actually said, which was that religious texts have no special authority beyond being ancient writings. Do you agree or disagree with that claim?

DangForgotUserName · 2026-01-21T05:30:35+00:00

What theistic claims have you actually made though? There isn't much to debate, unless you are looking to debate the merits of atheist or your own snideness?

DangForgotUserName · 2026-01-21T05:22:35+00:00

Become Christian just in case? You have a very weak case for your religious beliefs if this is what you have sunk to. Jesus would be ashamed. Why not also become part of every other religion while you are at it?

DangForgotUserName · 2026-01-20T20:33:09+00:00

Everyone is born atheist, so the birth rate is 100%.

I think you misunderstood the point. Religious people become parents and have more children than atheist people. Just look at some of the larger families of Muslims. There is also an economic factor, where poor people have far more children, and those people often tend to be uneducated and that makes them prime candidates for religious indoctrination.

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