Are we all born an Atheist?

[Sculptor1]

In a debate, Christopher Hitches was asked what Atheism has to offer and he replied, “It offers the chance of living without illusion.”
What an illusion! Given how we cannot help but think in subjective - illusional - ways, it is worse to deny it rather than seek subjective interpretations that work for us rather than against us.

I think the quote would be "delusion", rather than illusion.

But were you to consult ANY definition of the term you would find what HE meant and not what you mean.

noun
an instance of a wrong or misinterpreted perception of a sensory experience.
"stripes embellish the surface to create the illusion of various wood-grain textures"
synonyms: mirage, hallucination, apparition, phantasm, phantom, vision, spectre, fantasy, figment of the imagination, will-o'-the-wisp, trick of the light; ignis fatuus
"the magical illusion is created using mirrors, lights, and paint"
a deceptive appearance or impression.
"the illusion of family togetherness"
synonyms: appearance, impression, imitation, semblance, pretence, sham; More
a false idea or belief.
noun: illusion; plural noun: illusions
"he had no illusions about the trouble she was in"
synonyms: delusion, misapprehension, misconception, deception, false impression, mistaken impression; More

[Sculptor1]

I suppose children will have to start somewhere, i.e., given the implication that the human mind is both rational and emotional.

We raise our kids going to church - & though there are some negatives - the sense of community is awesome. I have taught them about other religions, by study and attending different services, so they have some understanding that there are different ways to believe. They are also familiar with atheism and agnosticism. My hope is they take truth and goodness from whatever they come across, while not being deceived by unethical or less-ideal teachings or ways.

"Awesome"??
Community can be found without the need for delusion and moral injunction.

As for belief. Why have ANY?

[GaryLouisSmith]

I'm going to jump in here with something that is probably not related to what has already been written, but it is on topic. Philosophically, I call myself a phenomenological realist, a direct (not-representational) realist. I am a theist. My theism has nothing to do with a belief system that I was taught. It has to do with certain experiences in my early life. I experienced the Numinous, which Rudolf Otto said is at the core of all religion. I watch animals being slaughtered on a farm. I watched puppies being drowned purposely. I watched the moon follow me around. I felt a shiver go up my back when i put my hand in some spring water rise up from underground. I was constantly having experiences of what the French call a Frisson. A shiver came over me. I watched the people in my grandmother's church fall under the spirit and tremble. I worried about a boy who fell into a well and workman worked for days trying to get him out. And I felt sex feelings come over me. Those kinds of numinous feelings came early in my life, maybe earlier than I can remember. That is the origin of my Theism. Today I am a philosopher and I write philosophy in which I try to capture that feeling. My guess is that human beings have always felt such things. So in a sense I would say that we or some of us are born theists. The gods come at us and we succumb.

[Sculptor1]

I'm going to jump in here with something that is probably not related to what has already been written, but it is on topic. Philosophically, I call myself a phenomenological realist, a direct (not-representational) realist. I am a theist. My theism has nothing to do with a belief system that I was taught. It has to do with certain experiences in my early life. I experienced the Numinous, which Rudolf Otto said is at the core of all religion. I watch animals being slaughtered on a farm. I watched puppies being drowned purposely. I watched the moon follow me around. I felt a shiver go up my back when i put my hand in some spring water rise up from underground. I was constantly having experiences of what the French call a Frisson. A shiver came over me. I watched the people in my grandmother's church fall under the spirit and tremble. I worried about a boy who fell into a well and workman worked for days trying to get him out. And I felt sex feelings come over me. Those kinds of numinous feelings came early in my life, maybe earlier than I can remember. That is the origin of my Theism. Today I am a philosopher and I write philosophy in which I try to capture that feeling. My guess is that human beings have always felt such things. So in a sense I would say that we or some of us are born theists. The gods come at us and we succumb.

Your experience does not amount to "god".

[GaryLouisSmith]

Sculptor1 wrote, "Your experience does not amount to "god"."

So what I have to do now is defend the idea that my experience amounts to “god”. First of all, as a phenomenologist I will assert that for every mental act there is an object. The mental acts (plural) involved here are feeling and perception. A feeling comes over me and I perceive that feeling. As a direct realist I will assert that that feeling, which I perceive, is real, i.e. it exists separate from and independent of my act of feeling and perceiving it. What I have to do now is show that what I felt and perceived was God or a god.

I think you know about Holy Ghost charismatic religions. The people sing and dance and pray until the Spirit falls and then the people tremble and quake and speak in tongues. It isn’t that the Spirit CAUSES that but that the Spirit IS that. Such trembling occurs in all religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism Only Calvinist religions and philosophies that descend from that believe that the human mind, because it is fallen, totally depraved. Is incapable of experiencing God directly. Once I was in Istanbul watching some Dervishes. Later I asked the Imam if they saw God or only an image of God. He insisted vigorously that in their ecstasy they saw God directly; God was the ecstasy.

So, Yes, the feeling of the Numinous IS God or a god. Here in Nepal, such trembling by both Hindus and Buddhists is common. And always it is a direct experience of a god. Only a rationalist would say it isn’t. Perhaps you are a conceptualizing rationalist, a Calvinist, who believes that what one knows is only in one’s head. That is not realism.

The Principle I am using to “prove” my point is the Principle that says that if something is present to my mind then it exists. You might call that extreme empiricism. And in analysis I divide the experience from the experienced.

[LuckyR]

Sculptor1 wrote, "Your experience does not amount to "god"."

So what I have to do now is defend the idea that my experience amounts to “god”. First of all, as a phenomenologist I will assert that for every mental act there is an object. The mental acts (plural) involved here are feeling and perception. A feeling comes over me and I perceive that feeling. As a direct realist I will assert that that feeling, which I perceive, is real, i.e. it exists separate from and independent of my act of feeling and perceiving it. What I have to do now is show that what I felt and perceived was God or a god.

I think you know about Holy Ghost charismatic religions. The people sing and dance and pray until the Spirit falls and then the people tremble and quake and speak in tongues. It isn’t that the Spirit CAUSES that but that the Spirit IS that. Such trembling occurs in all religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism Only Calvinist religions and philosophies that descend from that believe that the human mind, because it is fallen, totally depraved. Is incapable of experiencing God directly. Once I was in Istanbul watching some Dervishes. Later I asked the Imam if they saw God or only an image of God. He insisted vigorously that in their ecstasy they saw God directly; God was the ecstasy.

So, Yes, the feeling of the Numinous IS God or a god. Here in Nepal, such trembling by both Hindus and Buddhists is common. And always it is a direct experience of a god. Only a rationalist would say it isn’t. Perhaps you are a conceptualizing rationalist, a Calvinist, who believes that what one knows is only in one’s head. That is not realism.

The Principle I am using to “prove” my point is the Principle that says that if something is present to my mind then it exists. You might call that extreme empiricism. And in analysis I divide the experience from the experienced.

You could have just written: "cuz I said so". Using internal justification (perceptions being a fine example) is essentially an exercise in circular logic.

[Sculptor1]

Sculptor1 wrote, "Your experience does not amount to "god"."

So what I have to do now is defend the idea that my experience amounts to “god”. First of all, as a phenomenologist I will assert that for every mental act there is an object.

Yes, in this case the object is your brain. And the fantasy of your thinking.

The mental acts (plural) involved here are feeling and perception. A feeling comes over me and I perceive that feeling. As a direct realist I will assert that that feeling, which I perceive, is real, i.e. it exists separate from and independent of my act of feeling and perceiving it. What I have to do now is show that what I felt and perceived was God or a god.

Good Luck

I think you know about Holy Ghost charismatic religions. The people sing and dance and pray until the Spirit falls and then the people tremble and quake and speak in tongues. It isn’t that the Spirit CAUSES that but that the Spirit IS that. Such trembling occurs in all religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism Only Calvinist religions and philosophies that descend from that believe that the human mind, because it is fallen, totally depraved. Is incapable of experiencing God directly. Once I was in Istanbul watching some Dervishes. Later I asked the Imam if they saw God or only an image of God. He insisted vigorously that in their ecstasy they saw God directly; God was the ecstasy.

Kalahari Bushmen do this. It is a well understood medical phenomenon, and not to be confused with god. The Bushmen do not see it that way, and non Christians see it in manifold ways. There is no reason to pretend it is god.

So, Yes, the feeling of the Numinous IS God or a god. Here in Nepal, such trembling by both Hindus and Buddhists is common. And always it is a direct experience of a god. Only a rationalist would say it isn’t. Perhaps you are a conceptualizing rationalist, a Calvinist, who believes that what one knows is only in one’s head. That is not realism.

So no, You seem to have an fertile imagination. As for Buddhists, they do not conclude "god" from this phenomenon.
You seem to be confused over what is and what is not realism and rationalism.

The Principle I am using to “prove” my point is the Principle that says that if something is present to my mind then it exists. You might call that extreme empiricism. And in analysis I divide the experience from the experienced.

The method you are using is delusion. Many have it about many topics.

[GaryLouisSmith]

Sculptor1 wrote, "Yes, in this case the object is your brain. And the fantasy of your thinking." He is an idealist/materialist who believes that everything I think is a fantasy in my brain. I, alternatively, have said that what appears before my thinking mind is real. Here we have a fight between two ways of looking at the world that is very very old. There is no end to it. Some things in our philosophies are rock bottom and are deeper than logic can reach. Idealism vs. realism. You will choose which side you are on or it will be chosen for you. As for Buddhism, they do have gods in their religion. I am not referring to Western secular Buddhism, but to the religion that is all around me here in Nepal. I know very well what realism is. And I know that it is not the popular philosophy of today when nominalism and idealism have led the willing into materialism, where everything is illusion.

[GaryLouisSmith]

You could have just written: "cuz I said so". Using internal justification (perceptions being a fine example) is essentially an exercise in circular logic.

I start with perception because one has to start somewhere. Apparently you are assuming that the object of perception is internal to consciousness, which would be a sort of idealism. I am assuming is that the act of perception is to be differentiated from the object of perception and the object is not internal to consciousness. Phenomenological idealism vs. phenomenological realism. There is no circular reasoning in either philosophy. Just why some philosophers choose idealism over realism or vice versa is a mystery to me. My guess, though, is that idealism seems to offer some people freedom from the world's pressures and they are reaching for freedom. But I rather like the feel of that pressure of the world against me.

[Sculptor1]

" He is an idealist/materialist who believes that everything I think is a fantasy in my brain"
Which am I ? An idealist or a materialist?
I do not have to "believe" in any thing to see you are in a state of fantasy.

[GaryLouisSmith]

Which am I ? An idealist or a materialist?
I do not have to "believe" in any thing to see you are in a state of fantasy.

Materialism and idealism are two sides of the same coin. Neither believes that the phenomena we directly see are real, it is all constructed by the one seeing. In the end, for both, we are left with a fantasy and nothing else. So of course he would say that I live in a fantasy, which is to say that I take the phenomena that appear to my mind to be real. He must say that the one who sees the truth, the enlightened one, is the one who knows that all we directly see is fantasy. It’s rather paradoxical, but I think it is easily understood. For the idealist/materialist, there is no real world that exists separate from and independent of his thinking.

[GaryLouisSmith]

I believe that everything that appears before my mind'eye exists. If so, what is the difference between a so-called “real” object and an hallucination? The usual explanation today is that the first is out there in the external world, while the second is “in the mind”. The one is objective; the other is subjective.

Please permit me to define the real as that which exists independent of and separate from thought thinking of it. The real is not a mental construct projected out. Nor is it a mental construct left standing alone after the mind moves back to look at it. So now I want to consider religious or paranormal visions, for example angels or aliens or ghosts or a drunk’s pink elephants. For the one seeing them they appear real enough. They are out there. But they are different from ordinary things. What is that difference?

That difference is that they are wild. They are not domesticated, brought into the fold of everyday life. If you are an artist and you paint such beings, you work will be shoved into a gallery, a zoo, with other strange entities.

The everyday vs. the wild. The everyday has a certain stability about it. It hangs around and it is related to the great family of things all about. The wild is very unstable. It quickly disappears with no trace left behind, except for someone’s memory of it, but that memory is rather hazy. Wild things have a great indeterminacy about them. They are vague and generic. They cannot be examined up close. It’s as though they have escaped from the pages of literature. Fantasy becomes real, so to speak. Scary stuff. Maybe you are going crazy. The neat, clean divisions of rationalism give way. The paranormal is an in-between thing. The irreal real, irrationally rational, creepy. Nonetheless, wild things exist external to the mind observing them.

[Sculptor1]

Which am I ? An idealist or a materialist?
I do not have to "believe" in any thing to see you are in a state of fantasy.

Materialism and idealism are two sides of the same coin. Neither believes that the phenomena we directly see are real, it is all constructed by the one seeing. In the end, for both, we are left with a fantasy and nothing else. So of course he would say that I live in a fantasy, which is to say that I take the phenomena that appear to my mind to be real. He must say that the one who sees the truth, the enlightened one, is the one who knows that all we directly see is fantasy. It’s rather paradoxical, but I think it is easily understood. For the idealist/materialist, there is no real world that exists separate from and independent of his thinking.

I'm not a coin either.
I am multifaceted.

[Felix]

GaryLouisSmith: "So now I want to consider religious or paranormal visions, for example angels or aliens or ghosts or a drunk’s pink elephants. For the one seeing them they appear real enough. They are out there. But they are different from ordinary things. What is that difference?"

Psychiatry, due to it's rigid empirical bias, generally classifies paranormal visions as symptoms of mental illness that are best suppressed. Jungian and other sorts of transpersonal psychologists will take a more progressive viewpoint: they'll consider the nature and content of the visions and their psychological relevance to the individual who has them.

A person of sound mind will have no trouble distinguishing between a hallucination and a paranormal vision, the former is recognized as imaginary, while the latter will appear at least as real as any ordinary physical object, and may be possible to verify objectively - for example, a precognitive vision that comes to pass.

[GaryLouisSmith]

GaryLouisSmith: "So now I want to consider religious or paranormal visions, for example angels or aliens or ghosts or a drunk’s pink elephants. For the one seeing them they appear real enough. They are out there. But they are different from ordinary things. What is that difference?"

Psychiatry, due to it's rigid empirical bias, generally classifies paranormal visions as symptoms of mental illness that are best suppressed. Jungian and other sorts of transpersonal psychologists will take a more progressive viewpoint: they'll consider the nature and content of the visions and their psychological relevance to the individual who has them.

A person of sound mind will have no trouble distinguishing between a hallucination and a paranormal vision, the former is recognized as imaginary, while the latter will appear at least as real as any ordinary physical object, and may be possible to verify objectively - for example, a precognitive vision that comes to pass.

Everything you say is true enough, but, it seems to me, irrelevant. The question at hand is whether or not for materialism everything, absolutely everything, we see is an hallucination, including of course religion. I contend that it is. The world is a construction of the brain. For a materialist there is no mind that can see outside the brain. It can only speculate that there must be such a thing as an external world, but it is pure speculation, a guess trying to get out of the inevitable solipsism it finds itself in.