![\"\"](\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-VLl4zVUym6s\/ThEqDdyF9wI\/AAAAAAAABfc\/0Ztu3XzSkdI\/s1600\/turing+mask+atheist.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\nThis post is part of the Ideological Turing Test Challenge<\/a>. Go to the tab above for an overview and remind yourself of the voting and commenting guidelines here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n What\u2019s your best reason for being an atheist?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Well, when it comes to not believing in god(s) generally, it\u2019s not primarily the lack of evidence, it\u2019s the lack of additional explanatory power. If religion were true and compelling, it should be a better<\/em> guide to living than atheism, and it shouldn\u2019t just be better for me, it should be strictly preferable for everyone. A religion could demonstrate its truth by explaining something empirical better than competing models (just like the Copernican model explained retrograde orbits better<\/a> than the status quo), but I don\u2019t know any claims of that type a religion has been able to stake out and hold. Generally, the good bits of philosophy I\u2019m offered work all right without their religious justification, so I can incorporate them without being sold on the bigger picture. What evidence or experience (if any) would cause you to believe in God? If you believed in some kind of god, what kind of evidence would be necessary to convince you to join a particular religion?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n See above, at least insofar as the increased predictive value = evidence for the soundness of a model. I\u2019ll admit I probably set a higher than possible to clear standard when it comes to personal experiences of the divine, including any that could happen to me. (If you read Radley Balko\u2019s blog<\/a>, or anything put out by The Innocence Project<\/a>, it\u2019s hard to put too much stock in eyewitness accounts).<\/p>\n I wouldn\u2019t push skepticism all the way to assuming superintelligent and super powerful aliens so as not to concede a God that had performed miracles in a religious setting. It just seems implausible I would be converted by showy miracles, even if a god existed. Most people aren\u2019t and I have no reason to expect I\u2019ll get special treatment. I\u2019d expect to be persuaded by more scholarly-type apologetics, but that\u2019s where I run into another problem\u2026<\/p>\n That\u2019s not an accessible line of argument for most people, so a god who\u2019s giving people a fair shot to convert (and not just husbanding a tiny group of Elect) must have something else out there that\u2019s more universally accessible and persuasive. I have no idea what that\u2019s supposed to be.<\/p>\n When you have ethical and moral disputes with other people, what do you appeal to? What metric do you use to examine your moral intuitions\/cultural sensibilities\/etc?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n I think people have strong, mostly right moral intuitions. We spend a lot of time arguing edge cases, but most moral choices aren\u2019t that hard to judge. Most of the work I do in argument is trying to suss out what the choice entails, so we don\u2019t cause harm through neglect or negligent ignorance or insensitivity toward the needs of others.<\/p>\n I find it easiest to approach these questions through the lens of building up the habits of good character. Thus, if I see a friend or coworker alone and a little forlorn, it\u2019s true I\u2019m not harming them by just going on with my day and it\u2019s plausible that someone else will stop and support them. But I want to be<\/em> the kind of person who is a bulwark for others and who is so attuned that I can just act and be kind without so much analysis, so I should try to be of service now, so I don\u2019t model laziness and aloofness for myself or others.<\/p>\n
\nIn addition to the faiths that make Camping-esque falsifiable claims, I find some religions implausible because their soteriology seems incoherent or indefensible. I can\u2019t muster any desire to care about a God who only cares about a small seemingly arbitrary group of people (whether it\u2019s the god of the Jews or of the Calvinists). The non-universalist Christian sects have never given me answers that seem reasonable. Once you accept the idea that sin warps people\u2019s characters, it seems hard to argue that it\u2019s possible for most people to redeem themselves, so either everyone\u2019s off to Hell or no one is.<\/p>\n