Feedback requested on a new hypothesis on the origin of atheism

[Tyrathca]

So what is your position then? Do you believe we are born atheists?

Humans are born with predispositions to think and process information in certain ways but they are not born with complex beliefs. To believe they do so would be counter to what I understand of neurology and human development. This is regardless of whether the belief is about god or anything else. Eventually as they experience the world and human interactions and teaching they are strongly predisposed by these modes of thinking/processing to form certain beliefs.

This means that "technically" babies are atheists in the sense that they do not believe in a god (mainly because they couldn't comprehend the concept in the first place yet). But I think statements like that are a bit misleading because atheists such as myself can (sort of) understand the concept and still don't believe so putting me in same category as someone who can't comprehend isn't as meaningful as the phrase implies.

I don't really want to get bogged down in proving the premise that we are born believers.

I thought that was the whole point of your original post....? Are you just after pats on the back? You asked for feedback and here it is - you present poorly referenced opinion which does not fit with the research underlying your faux references.

I'll do that in the book I'm writing and it's really not controversial.

Actually, it is. Both among laymen and among the scientific community (for the reasons I state above).

I can point you to plenty of resources and talks, etc. but I doubt you would have the time to go through all of them.

"resources and talks" does not sound promising for real research and proper references so I thank you for not wasting my time with such things.

This should be the easy part. The concept that we are born with a predisposition to believe is a fact. Even atheists like Dawkins, Shermer and Pinker admit that.

And I agree, but a predisposition to belief is not in any way the same as being born with said belief.

What I'm interested in is the cause for people who are born without that inclination.

That would be interesting, though it may be more that they are born with a weaker inclination not absent and environment does the rest. Also don't fall into the trap of thinking this is a purely genetic factor, there are obviously strong environmental influences that may drown out a lot of the genetic variation. (phenotype v genotype)

 

[quip]

2. Theism is the default position. We are all born believers. Evolution has caused us to be this way due to its survival advantage.

No, conscious beliefs - theistic or non-theistic - do not exist at birth. Children simply entertain a defacto and wondrous acceptance of nature/existence. Similar to the described rabbit which instinctively reacts to an external stimulus as a potential threat, the human child makes anthropocentric interpretations upon his/her environs...that is, the birds make musical sounds and the flowers show pretty colors simply because children enjoy the experiential sensations of such. As we mature we tend to examine our environs and thus either accept and understand our humble function within nature's realm or maintain the (again, anthropocentric) illusion of purposeful creation (telos)...hence the general division of thought in this regard.