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[delphonso]

Got a sensible chuckle from me, Iduno.

[KittyTac]

Actually unsure if I want to be an atheist... And have been for months now.

[Superdorf]

You all swore you were hard-shelled materialists; and as a matter of fact you were all balanced on the very edge of belief—of belief in almost anything. There are thousands balanced on it today; but it's a sharp, uncomfortable edge to sit on. . . it's natural to believe in the supernatural. It never feels natural to accept only natural things.

[Rolan7]

Look at this guy, predicting the online skeptic-to-zealot pipeline back in 1926.  Whether it be anti-SJW, SJ, conspiracy theories, or hilariously just "Judeo-Christian Values", it's remarkable how difficult it is to remain an actual skeptic.  Can be an exhausting way to live, if you over-commit to it.

Some groups stay true to reasonable skepticism but they do insist on sending 4-5 discord @all pings each time they go on the air, so screw those heretics

More seriously:  Being an atheist was a fun act of rebellion when I was young.  But over time it became a position I couldn't really argue myself out of, even when I tried.  Thankfully the world is full of plenty of mysteries to wonder at - there's no need to use invented ones.  AKA me wandering in nature, with some danger to spice it up, and feeling spiritually invigorated afterwards.

Sometimes it's comforting to imagine an all-powerful entity in charge of everything.  Other times that seems like the most horrifying possibility.  I think what we really want is a sense of wonder - remember that monotheism is relatively rare in human history.  Most deities are more like actors in interesting stories, metaphors for the mysteries of reality.

[Frumple]

Apatheism is the way to go; look at the world and realize that the existence or nonexistence of any particular god wouldn't look any different given available information, so you might as well not give a damn about the question

[King Zultan]

Agnosticism is the way to go, maybe there's a god maybe there isn't.

[KittyTac]

See I vaguely believe in a God or at least an afterlife/reincarnation. But I am unsure of the details and it's been bothering me for a while now. 100% sure not atheist however.

[delphonso]

Why not atheism, if I can ask?

[KittyTac]

Why not atheism, if I can ask?

It doesn't sit with me. I can't explain why, it just doesn't feel right (nothing against the atheists themselves unless they're assholes about it).

[McTraveller]

One interesting argument for theism of any type is the fact that we have the concept of deity in the first place.  The question is - out of all the alternative explanations for various phenomena, why come up with "deity" instead of any other option?

[Frumple]

We came up with tons of other options, though.

[McTraveller]

Sure, but why did deity "stick" but things like "maybe you were just high" didn't?

I mean the ancient world had limited knowledge, but why would someone believe a dude saying they saw a burning bush in the desert and not dismiss him out of hand, unless there was something in collective consciousness which made such a thing a plausible situation?

It is feasible to assume that every single story of deity was enforced through conspiracy or force? Conspiracy seems unlikely, since throughout history there aren't (m)any records of "heh yeah we just made that stuff up and the whole population believed it!".  Force is more tenable, as in "if you don't promote these rituals we will beat you up/kill you/banish you to the wilderness where you will die without community support."

Even in those situations, though, why do you not have tons of records saying "yeah we say we believed it but we were just following along" or "it got so out of hand, we couldn't admit it was a hoax without getting killed" - you have honest people actually believing it.  This again hints that there is something that lends to its credibility beyond just "hype."

I find the two most plausible explanations either a quick or neurophysiology that lends us to think such things or that there really was some physical manifestation that led people to avoid immediate dismissal of such claims when they first originated.

[Rolan7]

I'm sure a lot of it could be explained by our advanced ability to spot patterns, even in white noise.  It's useful when you're keeping watch for camouflaged predators!  On the other hand you're going to get some false positives- see things that aren't there.  It's not just visual either, as we see with modern conspiracy theories.

So maybe you keep catching glimpses of a wolf, night after night, but it keeps turning invisible.  Why does it keep bothering you?  Is it intelligent and sadistic?  Is it related to that ghostly deer?  And so on.

Whatever the case, this impulse you're talking about has generally led people to polytheism (or even vaguer animism) rather than monotheism.  Monotheism only self-perpetuates through the hard work of its followers to erase or adapt existing, natural beliefs.  It's not a natural idea, but it's good at unifying people behind a cause.

[delphonso]

There're threads for this argument, but this argument is weak. The basic premise is 'we all did this historically, so it must have a real basis.' Which we can find plenty of other examples where we wouldn't want to claim validity (folk medicine, gender inequality, ghosts).

[KittyTac]

I will be entirely honest, I also ruled out polytheism/new age stuff. Similarly doesn't feel right to me.