Which “holy book”? There are so many. SMH
Some religions don’t even have a single book they preach from.
Some don’t even preach.
How many believe in organized religion? How many actually regularly attend religious meetings?
How many do such things at home for various reasons which prevent their visiting a building/grove or being around others?
I like the italian version, kicking down an open door.
Being able to clip through anything might become a problem though…
So, first, Poe’s Law.
Second, if you can get people to follow “don’t be a dick” you’ve pretty much got it.
You know, I feel I ought to explain why I am not 100% atheist, and it’s because I am still open to any evidence of the supernatural* despite my “ha ha only serious” militancy. The Carl Sagan sort of atheist/agnostic that if you say you have a dragon in your garage, would like some sign that the dragon actually exists, or else it’s just an amusing claim with no relevance. But just because you haven’t proven it yet doesn’t mean I’m going to reject any future evidence.
It’s like the old saying goes, I try to keep an open mind, but not so open my mind flows out of my ears.
*at which point the “supernatural” is just natural
Ah yes, that all too familiar uber corrupt sweet spot of 28% to 42%. You just get this feeling that if the social fabric of the U.S. was an oligarchy we would now have its range.
You cannot go against nature
Because when you do
Go against nature
It’s part of nature too
-Love and Rockets
But again, this is atheism. Nobody should reject all future evidence of anything. That would be pure dogma. The point of atheism is that the bar for said future evidence is high because (as Carl would say) extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The claims made for God are about as extraordinary as claims can get. 
So congrats, you’re still an atheist. 
I’m gonna get yelled at before this thread is over, I just know it.
Nah, it’s all good. There’s the Richard Dawkins atheists who consider the discussion closed, and anyone who believes in a god a fool, and those who use the term “agnostic” (like me) are basically saying we don’t know, and really don’t think it all that important any more.
I should also add that I was raised Catholic, and find the church in the sense of a community of people still good. Despite the scandals, I see a lot of people still find comfort and community in the church. Worship as a form of communal meditation. It’s not my community, but I don’t begrudge people their mass, their Sunday service.
I guess my reason for falling on the definitely atheist side of the line is that, in the absence of any evidence of god, I prefer to think there is no god rather than thinking that maybe there is one and they are fine with the way that the world is and has always been
If convincing evidence came to light I would of course consider it, but be very disappointed in the supreme being revealed by it
A good friend had a t-shirt with that printed on it. One would think that down here deep in the Bible Belt it would have been positively received—God getting the last word, showing the godless heathens what’s what—but nope. Older white men, always older white men, would stop reading after the first part and verbally accost her about how she was wrong/going to hell/promoting the devil, and never once did her attempts to point out the second part result in an “oops, my mistake”.
(No one ever approached her boyfriend when he wore it. 
)
As a lifelong atheist (my parents never bothered to indoctrinate me), I went through a phase when I had nothing but contempt for religious people.
But then I had an epiphany as an existentialist: we all ultimately make our own reality, and my reality is not objectively better than anyone else’s, which means that when people say that they communicate with god through prayer and that god guides them, what they say is true. This has given me a sense of respect for people who are sincerely religious, as long as they are not hypocritical in terms of what they (claim to) believe and how they live their lives.
The existence or non-existence of God is logically unprovable. But I like to say, “I don’t find God to be a useful working assumption.” Sure, you can believe in an “unmoved mover”, clockmaker God but what does that get you? It simply replaces the question “Why does the Universe exist instead of there being nothingness,” with the question “Where does God come from?” The distinction between the two questions is meaningless and not really worth fighting over.
The thing is, even if God came back and started doing biblical-level miracles left and right it wouldn’t prove that He was God omnipotent creator of the universe, merely that he was powerful beyond our comprehension. Logically, you can only prove omnipotence to beings that are themselves omniscient.
Lots of them are. Entire churches that believe in activism and support everyone’s human and civil rights.
This is just one of those topics where some mutants just lack the ability to have any nuance.
When asked this question point blank, I think many people who were forced to attend church as children run something like this through their heads: “if I tell this guy I don’t believe in god then I’m for sure going to end up in hell. I’ll say yes just to be safe.”
Kind of the pollster equivalent of “no atheists in foxholes.”
The whole idea of an egoistic extraterrestrial alien controlling your life, demanding constant worship, constantly threatening ultimate punishment, should kind of freak you out. If you ever thought about it.
That’s why I assume that most people don’t really examine their beliefs that closely. That way lies madness or Catholicism (not saying Catholics are crazy, just that they really have put a lot of thought into this as an institution. Now I am going to go catch up on the new season of Evil)
