Atheism: Do Atheists actually disagree about anything? (ritual, moral, Abiogenesis)

[Idontknow]

Originally Posted by Idontknow

still for me morality its not to do the humanly correct as well as i can

I made a mistake there sorry its supose to say: still for me morality its to do the humanly correct as well as i can

[wjb2008]

I'm not atheist, but I'm fairly close. Personally, I don't believe in free will. The very idea doesn't make any sense. I believe in a flow of time where all events have occurred, will occur, and occurring "simultaneously" (but that word doesn't really work...) so that we only have the illusion of choice. We just think we have choice, but in reality our choice has already been decided, so it is inevitable that one will pick a certain direction. Are we superior to animals? I doubt it. I'm not certain, obviously, but I've met dogs that I like a whole hell of a lot better than many people. Humans are the ONLY species of animal that will kill for any reason other than survival for ourselves or our progeny. I don' think religion is evil. It is necessary and inherent in humanity. We have always searched to answer why? and religion is a good way to do that. Science is trying hard to do it today, and Superstring theory may be on to something.

I like this...

[stemann]

Atheism is a belief just like religion. Atheism is not 'having no belief at all' because if you had no belief you would neither believe that God existed or didn't exist, you wouldn't even think about it, perhaps you wouldn't care.

I think it doesn't make a difference. I would like moral atheists to explain where there morality comes from though.

[Jayhawker Soule]

Where do you suspect that Hindu, Jain, Sikh, Zen, Jewish, and Confucian morality comes from?

[cmotdibbler]

I'm not a big fan of the free will issue. Free will can have both theoretical or practical aspects pertaining to the situation. I have free will to close my eyes while driving, to quit my job, to harm my children. I choose not to do these things due to the consequences. So in a practical sense you don't have "instantaneous" free-will if the consequences are greater than than the benefit of exercising free will. Like wjb2008 said, we have the "illusion" of choice.

Are we superior to animals? Sorry to pull a Clinton but you would have to define "superior". You can look at that many different ways, focusing primarily on one vs one survival (ie. lock a naked human and animal X in a cage, which would emerge?) Depends strongly on the animal, right. Things would favor the humans a bit more if you locked a group of people in a cage with a group of animals since humans might cooperate more. Once you let the humans have access to technology then most would agree that humans would clearly have the upper hand. So does this mean we are superior? Numerical superiority, humans are not even close. We've certainly changed the environment more than pretty much any other animal, perhaps to an extent that will cause us quite a bit of grief later. Would we still be superior then?

With regard to abiogenesis, do you mean with regard to life on Earth or in general? You could believe that life *here* was seeded deliberately or accidentally from an outside source without the intervention of a deity (Raelians). But an atheist still has to explain how the ET came about. So IMHO a true atheist must accept abiogenesis either on Earth or at some other location. But a belief in abiogenesis requires no worship, prayer, so it is nothing at all like the belief in a biblical creator.

If you don't accept abiogenesis then really the only other option is to invoke a creator. The creator can operate in a couple of fashions. 1) Forming fully developed life forms de novo like the biblical god or 2) works behind the scenes changing things to initiate life and guide evolution. Perhaps I'm too simplistic here, can anyone else think of other possible mechanisms?

Atheism is the lack of a belief in a deity. People are born atheist and become theist while following the very human nature of seeking out knowledge and patterns which come from our parents and society. Humans don't have the benefit of the built in instincts that many animals enjoy. I have no belief and Stemann you are right in a way because if I lived alone on a island, God just is not an issue. Unfortunately (for me) there are *many* people worldwide who think God is the most important and sometimes the only issue. So an atheist gets his faced rubbed in god-think every day. And *that* is why we have to go through these contortions to label each other as theist, atheist, agnostic, etc.

[stemann]

Where do you suspect that Hindu, Jain, Sikh, Zen, Jewish, and Confucian morality comes from?

I don't know, are you going to tell me? We do questions in RE a-level about morality being independent of or related to religion. Obviously most atheists possess some sense of morality, and I assumed that religions got it from their religious leader, God, etc. However, feel free to correct me.

cmotdibbler that was ace (and so is your name, I like most of the Discworld books).
With regard to animals' supposed inferiority, I did a whole essay on this that I will send to anyone that wants it (I was kidding I'm not that egotistical).

Anyway I think I bypassed the part that explains what abiogenesis is. Is it the formation of life from non-living chemical compounds or something?

Atheism is the lack of a belief in a deity. People are born atheist and become theist while following the very human nature of seeking out knowledge and patterns which come from our parents and society.

People aren't born atheist, they are born with no rational mind and therefore no beliefs.

Humans don't have the benefit of the built in instincts that many animals enjoy.

Which instincts do you mean?

And, the theory of Epiphenomenalism (I think I spelt that right) provides a way of explaining why we have consciousness but not free will. Basically, the external world can influence the mind, but the mind does not influence the world, the brain does (I think this is what it says). Other similar theories include parallelism and dualism. There are probably many explanations of these somewhere on the internet.

But I think the problem is that consciousness and the mind are related to so many different areas of science, philosophy and theology that it is hard to link all available evidence together and form a fully developed theory of how the mind works.

[cmotdibbler]

Cripe, I've got to figure out how to use the quote function here...

Abiogenesis is the study of how life arose from non-life (here or elsewhere). It is independent from evolution.

I beg to differ about being born atheist. You said, " People aren't born atheist, they are born with no rational mind and therefore no beliefs." so since atheism is no belief in a god and babies have no beliefs (as you said) then babies are in fact atheist. To be honest, I was referring more to the development of a small child rather than a newborn. I'm sure there must be some recorded cases of small children trapped on islands following shipwrecks and such. If they were able to survive without cultural conditioning did they develop a god belief? (I read Lord of the Flies long ago)

With regards to animal instincts, I meant things like the navigation abilities of birds, whales and certain insects, the way certain prey animals are quite mobile and know to hide right after birth, dances of bees. Stuff like that, things a human has to consciously learn.

I've heard several arguements regarding the source of morality; instinctive or hard-wired, learned from society, provided by god (or the dominant interpretation of god in that culture, which neatly dispatches with the need for a god). Like many things, morality probably comes from multiple sources. That's about as far as dare go into philosphy without sounding like a total moron.

thanks for the Pratchett comment. I've been reading him since the mid-80s and hope he has a long life.

[wjb2008]

I would like moral atheists to explain where there morality comes from though.

So far as I can tell, society and nature define morals. Humans usually abhor chaos, so many morals come from the attemptm to impose order (like "Stealing is bad"). Others come from the fact that humans are self-centered and greedy (like "Murder is bad"). There are also many societal morals--monogamy being the most predominant one in the States--that in the end do come from Christianity, but there really ain't a dang thing an individual can do to rock all of society to its core enough to change that.

Humans don't have the benefit of the built in instincts that many animals enjoy.

People aren't born atheist, they are born with no rational mind and therefore no beliefs.

Pray tell, how do you know? I mean, really, do you remember being a baby? And since I know that your answer can be used in the reply, I'll point out that one does not need a memory to have a rational mind. And most humans are born agnostic, or at least that would make sense, but we invariably start asking "why?" pretty early on, so that evolves into whatever we are told.

Humans don't have the benefit of the built in instincts that many animals enjoy.

We really can't be sure, but it is believed that the only instincts that humans are born with are to grasp and suckle. This is due to our early birth because of brain size (according to evolutionists, anyway).

[justa_gurl]

Actually im more interested in why it seems like these things arent discussed very often.

Here’s an idea, please correct me where i'm wrong.

You most likely won't find a set of ‘atheistic’ arguments not because we don't disagree, but because we have a tendency to see such topics as philosophical, ethical and moral issues rather than 'atheistic' ones. To these issues, we each hold one opinion among many possibilities. Whether we agree or disagree on the subject at hand has no real impact on how we see each other in whole as non-theists. If there is no final conclusion met, the topic is simply set aside in a mental 'drawer' to await further insight. Theists, on the other hand, tend to consider such issues as having 'one true' and set solution that they are morally obligated to understand and reflect as a member of their belief community. So if you see non-theists frequently arguing with theists on the topic it's generally not because they see the theists position as wrong or because they feel they have a correct view but because generally morally disagree with those who will see no other positions, possibilities, or moral alternatives but the ones they feel obligated to.... on a general scale that is.

[stemann]

so since atheism is no belief in a god and babies have no beliefs (as you said) then babies are in fact atheist.

Atheism means 'believing that there is no God' which is a subtle difference from 'not believing that there is a God', since the second definition could say, 'not believing anything at all, not believing that there is God and not believing that there isn't.'
This isn't even the same as agnoticism, which is undecidedness. Atheism is a belief that there is no God. Not having a belief either way is different from atheism.

I'm pretty sure that if you educated a child from the moment it was born (or from however old it needs to be to learn) about anything, you could make it believe anything you taught it. So a 'desert island child' would develop like an animal in the wilderness; it's mind would never develop past that of an animal. I think. Think about kids who were raised by wolves and stuff.