An extremely oversimplified version? Laziness. There is a lot of context to this, but ultimately that's what it comes down to. It takes hard work to be a good person.
As an atheist, I came about my decision on my own. Upon searching for "people like me", as we all seek out, I found intellectual and physical laziness. For them, it was just easier to not believe in a god or follow rules. Like spiritual anarchists if you will, with some through and through anarchist altogether. A lot of the time devoid any real moral compass. They laugh at the religious because they blindly follow a bunch of silly rules, only for me to found out, they follow a bunch of people blindly that have silly rules.
For me, there was no "enlightenment." Just more cynicism. From my point of view, both religion and what mainstream atheist follow, is stuff made up by other people. But one subset of people are objectively, better than others. For those who don't know me, would think I subscribe to more "Christian values", and maybe I do. More golden rule than anything else, but it usually is my basis for objective morality. I try to be a good person for no other reason than to be a good person. Morality without an obligation to a higher power. Not out of fear of some eternal punishment or promise of some eternal reward either. To me, those things are irrelevant. What matters to me is what I can do here now. If I am wrong and there is a God and can't give me credit for being a good person, but can give salvation to heinous criminals so long as they ask for forgiveness, then the whole divine system is screwed up. My goal here is not to offend anyone, but maybe try and help OP understand atleast where this comes from and hopefully have a realization that not all of us godless heathens live a nihilistic existence with no direction, but a lot of them do, and it's a form of spiritual Marxism and/or anarchy.
Simply put, people who are inclined to be pieces of shit are going to be pieces of shit. It doesn't matter what the basis to their belief structure is.
When facing one's own mortality, it is almost impossible to carry the burden of cognitive dissonance, that is, conflicting ideas that one cannot come to terms with. For peace of mind, a lot of people decide to either believe in God wholly or believe there is no God (plenty of other caveats, but I'm speaking to our current topic). Any inkling thought countering these beliefs brings about a lot of anxiety. No one likes that.
It takes hard work to be a good person.
This is because we are fighting against our human nature. Our natural inclination to sin, from the Christian perspective. The idea that you have to be a good person to be in grace is flawed, since no matter how good you are, you will always sin. This is why Christianity is appealing to a lot of people, the idea that we cannot lift ourselves up but that merely having faith in Christ is the requirement.
What's so odd to me is that I sincerely believe people NEED faith in SOMETHING, as in it is built into their core being.. Christians believe in God and Christ, obviously, but leftists (to return to topic) believe in the idea that government knows best for them and will usher them into some socialist utopia. Even atheists have a belief system, even if that belief is accepting that there is no divine being.
Even atheists have a belief system, even if that belief is accepting that there is no divine being.
Kind of. Saying there is a belief system in not believing, is like saying that not playing basketball is just as much of a sport as basketball. I would argue that each individual has their own individual belief systems, even if they adopt components of core belief systems. That's how you end up with variations of the Abrahamic religions, then in Christianity itself, and its denominations, and I would go as far as down to the individual from the pew in church believes slightly different from their neighbor(s) in the pew with them. And the retelling through time, adds different perspectives and interpretations of a message.
Everyone has there own belief systems in all sorts of ways, from the concrete to the abstract, all in conjunction with their life experiences. Like, people believe in their employer will pay them for work done. People believe that if they walk in a straight line from a cliff, gravity will cause them to plummet to their doom. People go to bed at night, believing they will wake up in their house in their body in their own reality that they were a part of before they went to sleep. Some people believe in ghosts, aliens, bigfoot. It can be rational or irrational. Believing doesn't make something factual or fictitious, it's part of your critial faculties experience mixed with what you want/expect (or don't want/anticipate).
I think you misunderstood what I meant by belief. I meant we have this inate need or desire to believe in something bigger than ourselves. It’s in our core. It is part and parcel of who we are as humans. If we didn’t have this in ourselves there would be little motivation for religion.
The desire for belief doesn’t create what we belief in, it just serves as our motivation to seek out and discover the object of that belief.
My apologies. I thought I summarily brought up the differences between beliefs and entire belief systems. I guess even a cosmic nihilist finds meaning in waking up every morning.
An extremely oversimplified version? Laziness. There is a lot of context to this, but ultimately that's what it comes down to. It takes hard work to be a good person.
As an atheist, I came about my decision on my own. Upon searching for "people like me", as we all seek out, I found intellectual and physical laziness. For them, it was just easier to not believe in a god or follow rules. Like spiritual anarchists if you will, with some through and through anarchist altogether. A lot of the time devoid any real moral compass. They laugh at the religious because they blindly follow a bunch of silly rules, only for me to found out, they follow a bunch of people blindly that have silly rules.
For me, there was no "enlightenment." Just more cynicism. From my point of view, both religion and what mainstream atheist follow, is stuff made up by other people. But one subset of people are objectively, better than others. For those who don't know me, would think I subscribe to more "Christian values", and maybe I do. More golden rule than anything else, but it usually is my basis for objective morality. I try to be a good person for no other reason than to be a good person. Morality without an obligation to a higher power. Not out of fear of some eternal punishment or promise of some eternal reward either. To me, those things are irrelevant. What matters to me is what I can do here now. If I am wrong and there is a God and can't give me credit for being a good person, but can give salvation to heinous criminals so long as they ask for forgiveness, then the whole divine system is screwed up. My goal here is not to offend anyone, but maybe try and help OP understand atleast where this comes from and hopefully have a realization that not all of us godless heathens live a nihilistic existence with no direction, but a lot of them do, and it's a form of spiritual Marxism and/or anarchy.
Simply put, people who are inclined to be pieces of shit are going to be pieces of shit. It doesn't matter what the basis to their belief structure is.
When facing one's own mortality, it is almost impossible to carry the burden of cognitive dissonance, that is, conflicting ideas that one cannot come to terms with. For peace of mind, a lot of people decide to either believe in God wholly or believe there is no God (plenty of other caveats, but I'm speaking to our current topic). Any inkling thought countering these beliefs brings about a lot of anxiety. No one likes that.
This is because we are fighting against our human nature. Our natural inclination to sin, from the Christian perspective. The idea that you have to be a good person to be in grace is flawed, since no matter how good you are, you will always sin. This is why Christianity is appealing to a lot of people, the idea that we cannot lift ourselves up but that merely having faith in Christ is the requirement.
What's so odd to me is that I sincerely believe people NEED faith in SOMETHING, as in it is built into their core being.. Christians believe in God and Christ, obviously, but leftists (to return to topic) believe in the idea that government knows best for them and will usher them into some socialist utopia. Even atheists have a belief system, even if that belief is accepting that there is no divine being.
Kind of. Saying there is a belief system in not believing, is like saying that not playing basketball is just as much of a sport as basketball. I would argue that each individual has their own individual belief systems, even if they adopt components of core belief systems. That's how you end up with variations of the Abrahamic religions, then in Christianity itself, and its denominations, and I would go as far as down to the individual from the pew in church believes slightly different from their neighbor(s) in the pew with them. And the retelling through time, adds different perspectives and interpretations of a message.
Everyone has there own belief systems in all sorts of ways, from the concrete to the abstract, all in conjunction with their life experiences. Like, people believe in their employer will pay them for work done. People believe that if they walk in a straight line from a cliff, gravity will cause them to plummet to their doom. People go to bed at night, believing they will wake up in their house in their body in their own reality that they were a part of before they went to sleep. Some people believe in ghosts, aliens, bigfoot. It can be rational or irrational. Believing doesn't make something factual or fictitious, it's part of your critial faculties experience mixed with what you want/expect (or don't want/anticipate).
I think you misunderstood what I meant by belief. I meant we have this inate need or desire to believe in something bigger than ourselves. It’s in our core. It is part and parcel of who we are as humans. If we didn’t have this in ourselves there would be little motivation for religion.
The desire for belief doesn’t create what we belief in, it just serves as our motivation to seek out and discover the object of that belief.
My apologies. I thought I summarily brought up the differences between beliefs and entire belief systems. I guess even a cosmic nihilist finds meaning in waking up every morning.