Children are born into an environment and adopt the world view present in that environment with few doubts or objections. At least for the first 10-15 years of their life. Whether they go on to question that world view or not largely depends on whether it’s an open system or a closed system. In a closed system children are specifically taught not to question it. If it’s an open system children are encouraged to question it.
- If you are raised in a religious (closed) environment and continue believing, there are plenty of resources to help you understand your life from that prospective. There is usually a users manual (sacred text) and numerous experts (rabbis, priests, imams) to guide you, and a large and organized community to support you. In the case of communism there are plenty of state resources that will tell you what to believe and answer your questions consistent with their doctrine.
- If you are raised in a non-religious environment there is considerably less structure and resources to guide the development of your belief system. Atheism is basically self taught. And that lack of structure makes it difficult for the potential atheist, the new atheist, and confused atheist to get help with their questions and doubts.
Atheism Has One And Only One “Official” Belief:
- The belief that there are no god or gods or super natural entities.
Atheists Have Many Different Beliefs
“Atheists” on the other hand, have a relative narrow range of beliefs are a logical conclusion of this central belief.
- Science is the best way to explain things. If not now, then in the future as societies cumulative knowledge increases. Though it is possible that science may never be able to fully explain everything.
- Knowledge must enter the mind by one of our 5 senses. There is no such thing as spontaneous information or revelation. But the human mind and each of our five senses has inherent limitations that affect our interpretation of the information.
- Primitive man’s mind was hampered by a lack of information. Modern man’s mind is confused by an excess of information.
- There are 4 categories of information.
- Good information: Information we know to be true that is true and information we know to be false that is false.
- Bad information: Information we know to be true but is false and information we know to be false but is true.
- Anticipated information: Information we are looking for but don’t yet have
- Unanticipated information: Information we don’t know or expect
- Science is the process of verifying the information we already have, looking for the new information we are anticipating, and discovering unanticipated information.
- The root cause of most of the problems in the world is the unequal distribution of resources. People need food, shelter, security, and a job. In the absence of these basic needs their survival mode kicks in and they start cannibalizing their neighbors. Crime and wars are the result.
- Knowledge can be learned formally or informally. Specific knowledge is usually learned formally, general knowledge is usually learned informally. Most of the knowledge in our head is general and was learned informally through our birth culture.
- The more homogeneous and complete your world view is the higher the degree of certainty you will have in it. Religious world views are taught from an early age and are organized and systematic and one can get an answer for almost anything from their local religious authority. Religions have built in safeguards to avoid and eliminate inconsistent information thereby further reducing doubt. This is why religious people are often times seen as happier than non-religious people.
- The less homogeneous your world view is the less degree of certainty you will have in it. The secular world has an abundance of information that is often times wrong or contradictory because science has yet to explain many things. This can promote doubt and confusion and is why non-religious people are often times seen as less happy than religious believers.