Losing my atheism (my new spiritual journey)

[Shadow Wolf]

All the atheist is saying here is "you know that 'vast unknown' where you say your god lives? I don't think you know it either." I don't see anything dogmatic or unreasonable in this position.

Atheism is the belief there is no god.
How can anyone honestly hold such a belief? How can anyone honestly hold the opposite belief, which is theism? Either way, we don't know.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

hmmm...is today's date significant for this post?

For Tool's FB post today, yes, but I wouldn't bother focusing too much on today's date.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

hmmm...is today's date significant for this post?

Aww, dammit.

@viole - you got me.

 

[lovemuffin]

 

[outhouse]

Im not sure how those questions demonstrate anything. Where ever you end up best off luck to you.

Ive been waiting for april fools day threads to start I think this one could be

 

[Windwalker]

There is so much in front of us that we cannot see, so much that we do not understand, so much that we do not know. How can anyone honestly answer with a reply that they have any sort of knowledge or certainty?

Experience. If someone has an experience of what they call God, it is no longer a question of metaphysics or speculation. It's like saying you know you have a body because you can touch it. They can say with some finality they know they have had an extraordinary experience. From that point on it gets a little trickier in the use of language to describe the experience.

No matter how much we think we do, we do not have a clear and complete picture of the world.

Well, you see you are dealing with two different things. Someone who has an experience does not "think" he has had an experience. They start from the experience and try to describe it. Those without any experience are just thinking about thoughts. How good are the thoughts? How logical are they, and so forth. It's two different ball games in two different fields.

 

[viole]

hmmm...is today's date significant for this post?

Mmmh.

Let's have a look tomorrow, shan't we?

Ciao

- viole

 

[Jumi]

Well played, sir!

 

[suncowiam]

Atheism is the belief there is no god.
How can anyone honestly hold such a belief? How can anyone honestly hold the opposite belief, which is theism? Either way, we don't know.

It's actually very easy to hold a belief in Atheism.

It's the same reason why I don't believe in fairy tales and mystical beings.

The argument is so simple, it offends many theists for even bringing it up.

Why do you choose not to believe in other mystical beings? Why not believe in Santa Claus or the the Leprechaun?

But theists always make an exception for their all mighty beings. They make rules that doesn't follow science and physics, basically, what we've consistently observed of the real world.

But hey, if you get to make your own rules without further substantiation then you will always win any debate.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I intended the term to be pretty neutral and descriptive. I recognize the inadequacies of labels, but if you can suggest a better one, I'm happy to use it instead.

The problem isn't really with the label itself; it's more that the label serves as a red flag for other problems, sort of like when people refer to conventional medicine as "allopathic".

Atheism is the belief there is no god.
How can anyone honestly hold such a belief? How can anyone honestly hold the opposite belief, which is theism? Either way, we don't know.

Atheism is a response to theism. It isn't the assertion "there are no gods"; it (in its "strong" form) is the assertion "the theists haven't made their case."

Any rational justification for theism lies in the stuff we do know, not in that vast unknown expanse you keep referring to. It's only that known stuff that the atheist needs to worry about, because all that "unknown" stuff is not - and can't be - what any theist is referring to, since any statement about stuff beyond our knowledge is just made up.

 

[Yerda]

It's actually very easy to hold a belief in Atheism.

It's the same reason why I don't believe in fairy tales and mystical beings.

The argument is so simple, it offends many theists for even bringing it up.

Why do you choose not to believe in other mystical beings? Why not believe in Santa Claus or the the Leprechaun?

But theists always make an exception for their all mighty beings. They make rules that doesn't follow science and physics, basically, what we've consistently observed of the real world.

But hey, if you get to make your own rules without further substantiation then you will always win any debate.

Once you have spoken to 'theists' with a more sophisticated understanding of God than a judgey person living in the clouds you start to realise that this is not the killer argument you think it is.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Experience. If someone has an experience of what they call God, it is no longer a question of metaphysics or speculation. It's like saying you know you have a body because you can touch it. They can say with some finality they know they have had an extraordinary experience. From that point on it gets a little trickier in the use of language to describe the experience.

But our senses decieve us. Different people can observe the same event, but come away with different interpretations and different descriptions about what happened. How can experience be claimed when you can't even agree on what is really going on?

Why do you choose not to believe in other mystical beings? Why not believe in Santa Claus or the the Leprechaun?

It's easy to dismiss such things that were thought of by humans. Humans are, after all, terribly limited in what they can perceive, know, and understand.
But there are things we cannot see, and things we do not know. With such crucial things that we need for a sound and logical decision missing from our perspective of reality, combined with how we cannot agree as to what is reality, how can do anything more than acknowledge we simply cannot know. We don't even know how the universe was made or how big it is. How are to even guess if someone or something created it or not?

 

[suncowiam]

But our senses decieve us. Different people can observe the same event, but come away with different interpretations and different descriptions about what happened. How can experience be claimed when you can't even agree on what is really going on?

It's easy to dismiss such things that were thought of by humans. Humans are, after all, terribly limited in what they can perceive, know, and understand.
But there are things we cannot see, and things we do not know. With such crucial things that we need for a sound and logical decision missing from our perspective of reality, combined with how we cannot agree as to what is reality, how can do anything more than acknowledge we simply cannot know. We don't even know how the universe was made or how big it is. How are to even guess if someone or something created it or not?

So the universes exists and humans exists. What does that mean? Absolutely nothing. It just means, these two things exist. It doesn't imply anything else existed before these two things.

Everyone believes the existance of water. Everyone believes the existence of the color red. I believe in the existance of specific people.

Again, why does one mystical being get a free pass?

 

[suncowiam]

Once you have spoken to 'theists' with a more sophisticated understanding of God than a judgey person living in the clouds you start to realise that this is not the killer argument you think it is.

So if I make up a complicated and sophisticated God, then that makes it plausible and real?

Again, you make up the rules, you win.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

I have been thinking a lot recently about the Universe and the place we occupy in it. And I asked myself the question: is that really all so pointless? Do we really evolve, live, die and that's it? Isn't maybe possible that humanity occupies a special place in the great scheme of things?

Possible, yes. But why would you assume it and why would it matter? What reason do you have to think that life is any more special, being as it is just a particular arrangement of atoms, than the dust that covers the moon? Why is the physical phenomenon of life any more worth deserving of "a special place in the great scheme of things" than the rings of Saturn are? Why it reasonable to assume the Universe exists for us, rather than for the stars, or for photons, or merely for the vacuum of space? I get that the existence of life is an extremely interesting, somewhat mysterious and difficult to grasp phenomenon, but "in the great scheme of things" life is nothing more than a particular arrangement of atoms - just like every other thing in the known Universe is. I don't see that it requires a "special place", and I actually find the suggestion of it to be supremely arrogant. Why should this incomprehensibly large, almost entirely lifeless, wondrous, colourful and infinitely fascinating structure called the Universe exist for the sake of some biological phenomenon located in a tiny planet in the middle of a gigantic vacuum? It simple makes no sense.

If we collect all the arguments that hint at the possibility of God, we cannot really see one that sets the issue. But all of them could give us some cumulative pieces of evidence all pointing to a possible trascendent reality. This is also the process we use to provide evidence in science.

Not quite. Science collects facts and uses them to build a theory, but those facts have to be solid. You cannot build a theory on unproven conjecture. It doesn't matter if there is one bad argument or a million bad arguments - an unsupported claim remains unsupported until there are hard facts for it. The vast number of arguments for the existence of God are a result of simple cognitive biases - the Universe being interpreted by a fallible human mind that projects it's own ability to recognize patterns into the makeup of the Universe. Of course there's going to be a large number of them, because we are all born with that bias. But that doesn't suddenly make the assertion true, and it doesn't make the proliferation of an idea evidence for the truth of the idea either.

For instance, the amazing effectivity of mathematics to describe the Universe is something I could not really explain as a naturalist. How is that possible that mathematics applies so perfectly to the fabric of reality if there is not a mind behind all this?

Because there is a mind behind mathematics. We invented maths as a way to observe and understand aspects of the Universe, so its hardly surprising that maths tends to be quite good for... Observing and understanding aspects of the Universe. We created mathematics as a tool to do just that.

I also considered the fine tuning argument as one of the strongest ones in support of a non natural origin of conscious beings. The chances of life are so negligible that it seems really a stretch to believe that consciousness can arise out of unconscious processes. We should expect a Universe just filled with dead things and not one with life. Especially not one with introspective life, or life that goes beyond the immediate survival instincts: i.e life that can give the Universe itself a meaning.

This is what I call "the puddle argument". One day, it rains on the streets of a city and a puddle forms in a small groove in the pavement. When the rain stops, suddenly the puddle somehow gains sentience. It looks at its situation and declares "My word! This groove in the pavement perfectly holds the exact quantity of water I am! Look at how perfectly it fits - someone must have designed this particular groove in the pavement with the express intent of bringing me into existence!"

The point is, this argument fails when you look at it from the other perspective. It's essentially nothing more than a "If things were different, then things would be different" argument. What's more, it makes completely unfounded assumptions, such as asserting that there is only one specific set of circumstances in which life could possibly arise, when all you can really say with any certainty is "there is a particular situation in which the kind of life that exists on earth COULD arise". There is no reason whatsoever to assume that life couldn't arise under entirely different circumstances, or that life is unique to the kinds of life we see on our immediate planet. When you stop seeing things from the ground up, like the puddle does, and see things from a more Universal perspective, you realise that the fine tuning argument is barely an argument at all - just a collection of spurious, baseless assumptions.

But the key moment was this morning. And it was not a mere rational analysis. I just had a look out of my window. When I saw the mountains, the lake, the majesty and the beauty surrounding me, I experienced a moment in which I felt one with everything. All the long term pointlessness of my naturalistic view vanished. That was stunning and something I never felt before. I don't know if that can be considered a mystic experience, but it felt like one.

Or, maybe you just have a nice view out of your window that your found aesthetically pleasing?

 

[lovemuffin]

The problem isn't really with the label itself; it's more that the label serves as a red flag for other problems, sort of like when people refer to conventional medicine as "allopathic".

Ah. Well, I won't blame you for that, but it might be a bit prejudicial

My experience is that the people you are thinking of tend to use "atheism" as a label in a negative way, or in an attempt to call atheism "religious", much more often than they refer to naturalism as a worldview. In any case, my whole point is those folks tend to be one side of the dichotomy to begin with.

 

[Yerda]

So if I make up a complicated and sophisticated God, then that makes it plausible and real?

Again, you make up the rules, you win.

Please, don't be childish. I am suggesting that you are unaware of the depth and complexity of many theistic perspectives.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I know that this might sound surprising to whom knows my worldview, but I am seriously reconsidering my atheism (and naturalism).

I have been thinking a lot recently about the Universe and the place we occupy in it. And I asked myself the question: is that really all so pointless? Do we really evolve, live, die and that's it? Isn't maybe possible that humanity occupies a special place in the great scheme of things?

If we collect all the arguments that hint at the possibility of God, we cannot really see one that sets the issue. But all of them could give us some cumulative pieces of evidence all pointing to a possible trascendent reality. This is also the process we use to provide evidence in science.

For instance, the amazing effectivity of mathematics to describe the Universe is something I could not really explain as a naturalist. How is that possible that mathematics applies so perfectly to the fabric of reality if there is not a mind behind all this?

I also considered the fine tuning argument as one of the strongest ones in support of a non natural origin of conscious beings. The chances of life are so negligible that it seems really a stretch to believe that consciousness can arise out of unconscious processes. We should expect a Universe just filled with dead things and not one with life. Especially not one with introspective life, or life that goes beyond the immediate survival instincts: i.e life that can give the Universe itself a meaning.

But the key moment was this morning. And it was not a mere rational analysis. I just had a look out of my window. When I saw the mountains, the lake, the majesty and the beauty surrounding me, I experienced a moment in which I felt one with everything. All the long term pointlessness of my naturalistic view vanished. That was stunning and something I never felt before. I don't know if that can be considered a mystic experience, but it felt like one.

At the moment, I am a bit confused and still thinking about it. My Christian friend thinks that God is claiming me back, and, for the first time since a long time, I cannot definetely rule that out.


Ciao

- viole

Beautiful. I can totally relate with you. Best of luck on your journey and God bless.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

hmmm...is today's date significant for this post?

I hope this isn't a joke thread. I don't find it funny.

 

[JoStories]

I guess I just don't understand why people make so much out of god, or to beliefs about it. Why would it even matter whether there is a god?

Believe, or do not. It changes nothing.

IMO, it can and does change a great deal. I have seen it give solace and peace to dying elders. I, myself, find peace and help through meditation with intractable pain. So for me, and some others, it changes a great deal.