...how does one know for sure there are no powerful spiritual beings out there?
Professor Brian Cox has an answer for you.
Atheism is basically a cult around here. For people who are so anti religion they will really be sure to let you know that their belief system is the only way a
i wanted to, but cannot let it go.
Can atheists be annoying? yes, they can. And i won't hide that a feeling of superiority exists, which compounds the problem. And, atheism isn't for everyone, some people *do* adopt it as a system of belief, but i do excuse them.
What a "system of belief" means is "here is a set of statements; you MUST believe them, and that's the end of the story, no arguing, no disputing". The problem is both that, often those statements have evident shortcomings to them, and that they are backed by instead very real organizations that appear to have mundane interestes in having people believe such statements.
Atheism is "there is no set of belief". You are not charged to believe anything, you are allowed to question everything. No control is imposed on you by any third party.
Nakedness is not a type of clothing.
Sitting in a field does not mean you are inside an unusual type of house.
Nobody charges you with having to disbelieve everything, either. In fact, it is very normal for humans to both believe things that are not true, and to make up fantasies. Those who embrace atheism will likely have arrived, sideways, at this conclusion, as "why does religion exist" is a common question in "social"(there is no 1 field of study which encompasses atheism) science. The very same reason is the mechanism which makes you believe that atheism is a religion - people help each other. People copy each other. People whill adapt things when they see those things work.
So yeah, occasionally you get a born-again atheist who loves to spout out phrases he's heard from Youtube. He's trying to build his footing, in a world that has been nearly destroyed by religion. I too when i was a child, was limited to arguments such as "how did Noah find Taiwanese Muskrats near Mount Ararat?", before realizing that the burden of proof was on religion, not on me. But we try, we try while constantly being attacked by an organization that wants to enslave your mind, with promises of paradise - after death - pending servitude in this world. But also, fighting against ourselves.
Ignorance .. is normal. Feral children do not suddenly develop an urge to seek out knowledge once brought into the civilized world. Religion is endemic in our species, without consideration for social extraction. Peter Hitchens, brother of the more famous Christ(lol)opher Hitchens, often argues FOR theology.
See, i - as an atheist - understand that not only YOU are full of shit, but *I* am full of shit as well. I have the same animalistic impulse to excuse an ununderstood phenomenon as "something did it", as anyone else does. I, just separate things that we have proof for, from things we have no proof for.
The only thing we have "faith" in (and which, in fact, has demonstrated to be fallible FOR THIS VERY REASON) is the "peer-review method", where, despite me having no direct proof that China exists, my peers, under peer scrutiny, have such direct proof, which i will then hold valid UNTIL COMPREHENSIVE TESTING IS DEMANDED.
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There is nothing wrong with believing in god. There is nothing wrong with someone being amish, or buddhist.
The problem arises when, their system of belief, empowers them with other authority.
When a theist thinks they have identified a problem through their belief system, and offers a solution based on it. Because you are basing your solution on a set of rules that have never been proven to be true. There is no math to back them up, there is no tests, no proof, no statistics, no modern science of measurement that has ever held true to religion.
An airplane built based on rules of Physics will fly. An airplane built on the rules of Mormonism will not.