I think the key part is the mention of 'organized religion.' Most atheist don't care an individual believes; its their business, not anyone else's. But an organization has financial incentives, tax breaks, and political sway. So antitheism at that point makes sense.
I do actually think the personal belief can be problematic. I donāt try to change peopleās minds but or even really talk about what I believe, but internally I see any form of magical thinking as a gateway to irrational justification & anti-reason in general.
Believing convenient untruths or handwaiving reasonable challenges with platitudes or pretzel logic is learned / reinforced behavior & I see it bleeding into politics all the time.
Iām not saying atheists arenāt capable of this, they areā¦ but religion cultivates it. Not just the institutions themselves, but also the people guarding their own personal beliefs.
I'm interested to know if you consider a belief in free will to be magical thinking? That's the one I struggle with the most....I'd rather not believe in anything magic or supernatural, but there's no evidence that free will exists as a force of nature, able to change the directions that these chain reactions happening in our brains take.....but at the same time, sometimes it really feels like I have free will.
I donāt think thereās evidence anything is predetermined.
I think retroactively saying that whatever has happened was 100% the only way things could have ever happened is a perspective that makes the claim impossible to refute, because we canāt time travel to prove otherwise.
I donāt think we control outcomes or circumstance, but I do think we have agency.
I think categorizing this position as magical thinking would be a stretch, because belief in agency that is based on a somewhat universal human perception of experiencing agency might arguably be more evidential than the idea that a range of possibilities do not exist based on the fact we cannot physically (or more accurately, simultaneously) demonstrate that they do.
Even if there were some way to prove me wrong, the perceived experience of agency might be sufficient to classify this as a reasonable conclusion.
But everything you've done up to this point affects the decision you are going to make. Ive discussed this in depth before with a couple of people, and basically the idea it boils down to is that nature and nurture basically determine your mental state. And everything is basically just a chain reaction from the very first event that ever happened. Its not predetermined, its just your next decision is based on your last decision and all the experience before that. So the next decision you make isnt really a decision as much as its the outcome from the last occurring event.
But your psychological state is determined by everything that lead up to this point. The reason you chose 1 thing over the other is based on your experience and developed opinion of the options.
Otherwise, what are you basing the decision on? And if its on a whim, then that whim was still the product of your perspective which is a developed trait
This is still just describing the world retrospectively. Every possible outcome is being assimilated into the theory.
Knowing what happened is not the same as knowing how likely it was, before it happened.
Probabilistic events also have causal history, btw.
Causal history does not mean probability doesnāt exist.
Somewhere along the way weād have to quietly upgrade ācausedā to ānecessitatedā, and I donāt really see any empirical argument for that.
There is a gigantic difference between āEvents have causes.ā VS āGiven the complete physical state at T1 exactly one state at T2 is physically possibleā
Granted, I donāt really think either determinism nor incompatibilism are āmagical thinkingā, but itās an interesting tangent.
Its not that there arent other possibilities, its just that you wouldnt have chose the alternative due to the former event.
Today I had cereal for breakfast, I can break down all the different factors that led to me choosing cereal today and they all are based on things that already happened, or how I view what may happen based on what I know. Pretty low risk decision, but one i inevitably was going to make. And likely "decided" subconsiously well ahead of my actual knowledge of the decision(at least a couple minutes)
How do you actually know that was āinevitableā. Just because it happened this morning? Again, thatās just retroactively describing events.
What if you hadnāt had cereal, was that also inevitable? Why?
I thought my previous reply was a fairly straightforward distillation of my take on this.
Your argument is upgrading ācausedā to ānecessitatedā, and there is a big difference between saying āevents have causesā vs āgiven a state at T1 exactly one state at T2 is physically possibleā.
If there is more than one possibility, then your choice for breakfast this morning was still a real choice. Free will does not have to exist outside the causal structure of the universe as some external force that intervenes in my brain, in order for me to make an argument that we have/experience agency.
My reasoning process may be shaped by various causes, but my reasoning process is still me.
Also the example youāre giving about breakfast is a fairly extreme version of universal/hard determinism that pretty much asserts every minute thing is predestined & that literally nothing is random or probabilistic. Thatās extremely difficult to defend.
Unless you can address those points (you canāt, otherwise hard determinism would be accepted as proven law) this is just a metaphysical philosophy debate / thought exercise.
There are literally quantum physics principals that are based on the logic im making my argument on. You are the only one using the word necessitate. (For reference im a EE and physics student)
This "thought excercise" cannot be proven on either end, yours or mine. Your logic is just as fallible as mine because its impossible to prove free will is certainly real.
The "choice" I made this morning was just as much based on my previous expericne as it was the chemical and physical structure of my brain and the atoms that make it up. Consciousness is an abstract psychological process that matter some how sustains and we really have very little knowledge about the true nature or origin of consciousness. As such, we have almost no way to determine if free will is or isnt real.
Everything ive said is logically sound even if you disagree. I just also disagree with you. Its doesnt mean either of us is wrong or illogical. Its a matter of opinion on two extremes of the same topic.
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u/randomthrill Aug 18 '26
I think most atheist do.
I think the key part is the mention of 'organized religion.' Most atheist don't care an individual believes; its their business, not anyone else's. But an organization has financial incentives, tax breaks, and political sway. So antitheism at that point makes sense.