Bayesian Atheism
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-bayess-theorem-an/
Perhaps one of the biggest questions we have ever pondered as a human race is the existence of a god. And while both sides of the argument employ various forms of evidence and rhetoric to affirm or deny the presence of an omniscient deity, some members of the academic and scientific community have since turned to mathematics to explain how such varying opposition in beliefs could form amongst so many people. Doing so relies on the ever-useful Bayes’ Theorem that applies observed evidence to prior probability gathered from existing knowledge, and assumes that people draw conclusions about their faith in a god from an estimation made through Bayesian calculations.
Bayes’ Theorem ultimately adjusts for observed evidence by comparing it to the prior held probability that something is true. In this case, we would compare observations made about the world with our internally held beliefs about the probability of a god existing to begin with. Thus, as we continue to observe data about the outside world, we also continue to update our prior belief, which continues to factor in our overall faith. This explains how we could start with full belief in a god and then, after gradual collection of evidence, the evidence could either strongly affirm a previously held belief or start to overturn the belief. In the event that we observe enough data to overturn the probability that a god could exist, we might turn to atheism over religiosity. The reverse is also true, starting with atheism and then collecting and interpreting data around us to come to believe in a god.
We also see how through Bayes’ rule, an information cascade can start where, on a broader scale, we observe a significant amount of people around us all believing in a god, and then our own observations through collected evidence become no longer relevant in making the decision to believe in a god. This would help explain how people often take on a religious belief that all their family and friends already share, since this is an information cascade that has already begun, and they would essentially ignore our own private information to take on whatever the rest of the crowd is already doing.