tailgater wrote:You seem to be confusing religion for faith.
And the "conviction" that your philosophers argued were likely speaking of long ago, when religious doctrine was considered fact, and when a religious schism could result in death or worse.
It may take courage to ADMIT to being an atheist.
But that's not the same as merely not believing in god.
Our friend Brewha believes that the simple act of "not believing" takes conviction.
As if the preponderance of zero hard facts could somehow compel a non-believer to require inner strength to remain steadfast in their non-belief.
Yes.
It's that ridiculous.
No, that's not necessarily true.
Look at it this way, if not believing in something with no facts to support it were the easy/default action, why is religion so predominant in humanity?
We, as humans, use religion as a crutch in so many ways in our daily lives. We use it to explain why bad things happen to us, or to provide comfort when facing the existential dread of simply doing the same horrible tasks for the rest of our short, brutish lives. You underestimate just how much it helps people to think that they are special... that somehow in the entire planet of animals, humans are more important because an omnipotent being said so, and that this being is watching them, like a parent at a 3rd grade recital.