Is Atheism Irrational?
Well that wandered off into fantasy land pretty fast but the question remains and is valie, I think, and think so even as an atheist.We know well atheistic attempts to explain religion away. Marx, for example, claims that religion is the opiate of the people. Religion, Nietzsche contends, is weakness lying itself into power. According to Freud religion is a defensive illusion created in the face of “the crushingly superior force of nature.” As influential as these ideas are, they are little more than guesses based on utter speculation.
Times have changed. From the Agency Detection Device (ADD) to Theory of Mind (ToM), the cognitive faculties involved in the production and sustenance of religious belief are now well known. ADD and ToM, when taken together, are sometimes called “the god-faculty.” The god-faculty produces belief in kin, predators, mates, and enemies, and it produces manifestly false beliefs in such things as ghosts, goblins, and even gods. According to philosopher Daniel Dennett, the god-faculty is a “fiction generating contraption.”
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I think of it this way, based on ways I see atheists argue.
Many atheists define God in some way that they then declare is irrational. Example, God is omnipotent so how can he allow evil and suffering and such. I've never seen a case where the definition fits what those with faith believe. So it's a strawman.
For the rest, they say God doesn't exist without saying what God is. But if you don't know, how can you argue unknowns, it's a logical fallacy.
Arguing strawmen and unknowns is irrational.
Maybe someone has another argument.
I'm an agnostic atheist, btw. I don't know God, lack faith, chose not to believe.