Self Confidence
Offline The religious folk often argue that a person's confidence can only come from belief in an almighty, all powerful God that is working things out for your good.
They would say an atheist doesn't know where he comes from, why he is here or where is is going. How can an atheist have any confidence at all?
They say a believer knows that God is in control of every situation at that it will work out for good in the end. So this is where one's confidence comes from. But, I've seen how phony the self-confidence of believers really is since their confidence is based on lies.
Where should the self-confidence of an atheist come from? How do we counter this Theist argument and produce atheists with more self-confidence than believers? I would argue that true self-confidence can only come from being honest with yourself. Religious folks only act confident at times, but are not truly self-confident.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
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I don't think their self confidence can be called phony just because it is based in lies. They are wrong and there are definitely some con men who don't believe, yet still preach those lies, but there are very sincere people with sincere(albeit probably false) beliefs out there and I don't think you can lump in the argument that reason and truth should equate to more self confidence. It would be nice if atheists did have more self confidence, but I think most intelligent and rational searchers seeking truth subscribe to socrates philosophy of "knowing I know there is much I don't know is smarter than thinking I can know it all." The believers do the classic God of the gaps fallacious logical reasoning and insert faith for all knowledge they don't have access to or can possibly imagine as being shaky(i.e. physics of walking on water).
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Yoda
What they don't know is that a person's confidence can only come from themselves...the all powerful, almight self.
Well literally I would say I sprung from my mothers vagina...my sister through a slit in her belly. But NOBODY knows for certain where anything came from.
Well, I remember back when I was 8 and my father started drinking. When I asked my pastor to pray and if god would listen he said that god will help him. He still drinks...I don't pray. However I do tell my dad he needs to stop drinking and he is 'thinking about it' hmmm.. was it god? (BTW I am 38...god works miracles for a L O N G time if so)
I would say that a theist is confident in their delusion. And we are confident in our lack of belief.
Slowly building a blog at ~
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Well.....
Not exactly.
Technically speaking, self image is what we think other people think our self image is. If I weigh 300 pounds and have zits and saggy man-boobs, no amount of self-congratulation can hope to negate the appalled stares I get when people look at me, or the uncomfortable excuses women offer when I ask them on dates. I will believe myself to be what other people think I am -- unattractive.
It's more complicated than that, of course, because there is a certain amount of self delusion present. When we see an emaciated teenage girl who is trying to get down to 85 pounds so she'll be thin, we can be pretty certain that her interpretation of other people's reactions to her are not being processed correctly. Even so, she believes that other people think she's too fat, so she believes she is too fat.
I honestly get a little aggravated at daytime talk shows where overweight women get together to tell other overweight women that they don't have to be a 'victim' of the stares and such. "All you need," they will say, "is belief in yourself. Just tell yourself that you are as smart as anyone else, and your weight doesn't matter, and you'll have all the self-confidence in the world."
Horse-shit. We know when we're lying to ourselves. It takes external verification for us to believe things about ourselves.
My favorite answer for this is, "Why do I have to answer this stupid question and justify my existence to you? I'm perfectly content not being a cosmologist or studying abiogenesis. Not much money in either field."
In one of my top 5 Southpark episodes of all time, Stan's dad got a DUI and had to go to AA. He wasn't an alcoholic -- he just had a couple of extra beers because the boys took longer than he thought they would at some school thing. Anyway, when AA told him that he was powerless over the alcohol, he believed them and immediately became an alcoholic.
(Oh, and the part where the virgin mary bled out of her vagina, not her ass... that was almost too funny to stand.)
Yep. There are a lot of reinforcing opinions out there for theism, and lots of really positive social reactions to reinforce confidence.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Many people that know me call me self confident (some call me egotistical but that's a different topic) and that's being a life long atheist. Now I believe that confidence is a combination of many things, knowing your strengths and weaknesses, knowing your limitations, and knowing your skills. With that said, you have to know yourself as well. I know my strengths and my weakness, when it comes to business, I know that I am very technically skilled, and quite well versed when it comes to security systems of all sorts, the laws regarding security systems in my own country and in various states in the USA, however I know my weakness is in the office department, such as organizing/paying bills, setting up schedules and invoicing, which is why I got a partner that is very strong in that department but weak in the technical area.
I also know my limitations when it comes to various parts of my life, both professional and personal. As well I know myself, I know what are my triggers, both good and bad, why I do the things I do, and why I am the way I am, I understand the process of how I came to be at this point in my life, and don't blame others for mistakes that I have myself have committed (something important I believe is to own up to your fuck ups), with that said I am very confident when I do my work, and I am very confident our my friends, because I have no reason not to be, I know myself and do not do things that I know are either beyond my skills, I do try to be anyone else, and I still take the attitude that I don't care what other people think about me, in the end none of us get out of here alive.
If you getting "self confidence" from an external source, such as god, then it is not self confidence. Self confidence does not need any other source other than confidence in the results that one can generate for themselves. The "source" if you will is a built up history of proving to yourself that you are able to deal with and handle situations.
Sounds like an irrational precept of religion, that SELFconfidence can come from an external(God) source. I think if people were taught from an early age how to have self confidence, this would go a long way toward eradicating the need for religion.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
[theist hat ON]
Nah... see, you're getting it all wrong. When you accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, He literally becomes part of you, so that when you are living in him, and He in you, you have all of his qualities, which are now literally your own qualities, and therefore, you have all the reasons in the universe to be confident.
[/theist hat OFF]
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism