I’m curious. How did you originally arrive at the conclusion that god didn’t exist?
It all made no sense. Everybody was just doing and saying what their parents told them to, and actually thinking or talking about it and taking it actually seriously just seemed absurd. Nobody was actually following through on what the scriptures said they aught to be doing, if it really was all true, and if they had that would be even worse.
So it wasn’t so much deciding god doesn’t exist, it was that if god does exist, which version is it and how would I know? From there concluding that religion is an entirely artificial social construct was a pretty small step.
Having said that, I also concluded that spirituality is clearly a ubiquitous human experience. Religion seems to be a response to a universal, or near universal impulse that it’s worth taking seriously.
I'd say religion is more an evolved phenomenon than a constructed one.
Religious groups tend to have more children than secular groups, which suggests religion confers an advantage to a group's evolutionary fitness.
Due to modern education system and scientific thinking clears out most of the dogma imposed on to people by religion. And I can see the current religion leaders embracing them, as it was their own. And we will see how the religion will evolve or devolve in this modern era of logic and reasoning.
But something's existence in theory can be proven by mere act of finding or defining it.
I was mormon up until around 30ish. However, researching the history of the mormon religion ultimately led me to completely disbelieve the faith claims of the church.
From there, atheism was just sort of natural. Why, for example, would I suddenly believe that any other religious sect got it's supernatural claims correct when the one I was raised with, got a bunch of the "good feelings" from and was 1000% convinced was true ended up having really major issues?
I certainly could be convinced there is a god, but it cannot be through emotions. My emotions held me in mormonism for far to long. I know emotions can trick, deceive, and are easily played to. The right type of music or a charismatic orator can easily trigger them.
So what does that leave me with? Facts, logic, and evidence. Any religion that can give me solid evidence that the supernatural is real and exists would win me. None have succeeded (and I have had fun looking into a few).
If there is an all knowing, loving god that cares about me, then that god would know exactly how to present me the evidence I need to believe in it. If that god doesn't care about me, then why should I care about it?
And, if there's a supernatural belief without a god that I should believe in for afterlife rewards... well, there's just no way for me to correctly stumble into it. I need evidence that I'll be reincarnated as a spider if I don't believe in reincarnation, and that seems pretty tough to prove.
What tools would you use to prove supernatural claims?
For example, let's say the claim is "God will heal you if you pray to him". Ok, let's pray that someone is healed in the hospital. How about another? And another? Do those prayers fail? Why?
The issue that one runs into is that the prayers will often fail and the answer is generally "mysterious ways". Yet, no religion seems to statistically fair better than other religions when it comes to diseases. So either, the prayer isn't working, or god is working extra hard to make sure to hide itself (Why would a divine being do that?)
Some claims I'll just reject outright. If the proof is "feelings" that's manipulation, not proof. Because, as I said, feelings are easily triggered. Pretty much every religion has figured that one out.
Can you explain further why this would be a good standard, or how it would help? I mean, suppose you were god (with the usual alleged attributes that generate this kind of issue). How would you make yourself repeatable or testable?
Prayer seems like one of the tests that you would propose. This seems to me to be a maybe not great test? Even we respond differently based on the situation. My kids pray to me for ice cream fairly regularly, for example, and sometimes they get it and sometimes they don't. (Sometimes they eat their dinner and haven't had more sweets than are good for them by my judgment; sometimes they're disobedient and annoying; sometimes I'm a first-rate bastard to my kids; and so on.) If god exists, I don't know that I would expect him/her/it to respond repeatably or to be testable, at least in that sense.
Bohr, the Nobel-winning physicist, had a horse shoe on top of the front door of his country cabin. When he was asked whether he believed it brings him good luck, his reply was "I was told it works regardless I believe in it or not."
There is no need to believe in such things, and belief -- in the sense you are using the word -- does not "help" you. It may even be a hindrance.
More interesting question could be: can I find useful things about myself that I can personally verify that would be difficult or impossible to learn otherwise?
A book called Inner Game of Tennis (not related to Gurdjieff) talks about the inner game that elite athletes need to learn. For example, if you are practicing how to make the perfect tennis forehand hit, you are struggling with a part of yourself that tries to control your movement. However, you need to learn to let go, and let the body to do the movement. The part that wants to control the movement is very poor in doing that. So there are these various parts in myself, and it is essential to learn how they operate.
If you are intrigued, reading "In Search of the Miraculous" by Ouspensky or one book from "Psychological Commentaries" by Nicoll could be a better starting point than Wikipedia.