I Believe Not God

The concept I’m about to describe is really quite simple, yet mistaken statements abound.

The world abounds in claims about which I have neither heard nor will ever hear. About those claims, I have no belief.

Babies have no belief in gods because they are not cognitively capable of making a decision based on the lack of evidence. Babies are not atheists, they are simply not cognizant. Equally, trees, rocks, and nematodes do not believe in gods, but they are not atheists.

Technically, atheism is equivalent to the belief that there is no god. For some reason, non-believers use waffle language that panders to religious hypersensitivity.

  

We have all heard hedging statements of the form: “I’m not saying that God does not exist, I’m saying I lack belief.”

Sorry, fence-sitter, you might be saying you feel uncertain, or you might be trying to dodge the illogical demand to prove a non-existence, but you are actually flunking Logic 101.

Rationally, we should not believe in anything for which there is no evidence. Further, only a concept can be argued into existence. Yes, there is abundant evidence of the god concept, but no good evidence for the existence of a deity, particularly an interfering deity.

Even more damning, believers have searched and searched and searched for valid evidence, but cannot produce any. Most damning of all, Christian apologists now emphasize Fideism—belief not only despite absence of evidence, but Faith touted as more admirable because it is held in the face of zero evidence. I can think of another term for obstinately clinging to a belief despite the lack of evidence, and despite repeated refutation of all apologetic arguments. However, the term is not flattering, so let's settle for "deluded".

I could say ‘I don’t believe in fairies’, but I am actually saying that I hold the mental state that fairies do not exist. In other words, saying that I do not believe in fairies is logically equivalent to saying that I hold the belief that there are no fairies.

The same holds for deities: “not belief in god” is logically equivalent to “belief of not god”.

A belief is not a fleeting idea or vague opinion, subject to forgetfulness or rapid change. Instead, it is a persistent mental state, the manifestation of relatively fixed neural circuits. In other words, whatever we believe persists whether or not we are thinking of it at a given moment. A believer in A will be a believer in A when he falls asleep and when he wakes in the morning.  

Time, evidence, and persuasive arguments might convince a person to abandon a belief in A and realize that the reality is not A. However, the process is often slow because the neural “belief-circuit” and associated circuits must be rebuilt.

Light dawns slowly, if at all, for believers because they have a strong emotional investment in maintaining a delusion that promises eternal life—and all for so little effort. Simply believe in the unbelievable, and you too can comfort yourself with the illusion of being Special to a Fickle, Narcissistic, Punitive Parent, who will eternally cook you—and, as a bonus for the malevolent, your enemies—if you fail to believe.