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Questions of religion

siti

Well-Known Member
I'd self describe as an agnostic atheist. I don't know there is no higher power, but I'm pretty sure if there is one it doesn't fit the dogmatic beliefs of some humans.
And I see no evidence of God. But given how amorphous that term is, it's a little hard to be definitive.
Hooley dooley cobber! Did you just invent the longest way of saying absolutely nothing or what?;)
 

lewisnotmiller

Grand Hat
Staff member
Premium Member
Hooley dooley cobber! Did you just invent the longest way of saying absolutely nothing or what?;)

Meh. It was only in the context of responding to previous posts.
I generally just say I'm an atheist in RL, or an agnostic atheist if I'm talking to someone interested in religion.

Kudos for necroing 'cobber'.

:)
 

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
They assert there is no god(s) or anything beyond the physical. That's a belief. The logical position is agnosticism; the "I don't know" position.



Nope, they do not assert, they base their lack of belief on l10% lack of evidence. If you (or anyone) who asserts gods exist can provide physical evidence that can be validated (look around you is not evidence of anything but nature) then you would end atheism and incidentally have the speed dial numbers of the top religious leaders in the world on your phone.

Atheism : disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.

Nothing more, nothing less
 

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
1. What are the positives and pitfalls of Panentheism?

2. What are the positives and pitfalls of Atheism?

3. What are the positives and pitfalls of Spiritualism?

I can only answer for atheism and not religious beliefs (unlike some religious here who are making claims for atheism although they seem to know little or nothing about it)

Atheists are not encumbered with antiquated (some from the bronze age) mythology. Which can impede progress because (in some cases) it severely impedes the thirst for knowledge.

One doesnt need to devote one day a week to religious worship and impressing distant acquaintances with how pious you can be.

For some reason, as an atheist you have less chance of experiencing the trauma of divorce.


Here is a list of other benefits of atheism

10 Reasons Atheists Do It Better
 

wellwisher

Well-Known Member
The positive part of atheism is to insist on proof rather than swallowing a belief unexamined.

The pitfall is to insist that the proof be comprehensible by the rational intellect rather than being able to see that the intellect is not the highest form of "intelligence".

The atheist scientists have a god. However, this god is not as obvious, even to them, since it is not personified as a god, in the traditional sense. Their god goes by many names, such as chaos and randomness. This god of randomness can do anything the traditional gods can do. They say he has finite odds for doing nearly anything that needs to be done or happen. He has powerful magic.

However, this god of atheism is not rational and he does not have a plan. He is full of uncertainty. He more or less stumbles into things but can come up with jackpots, even in unlikely places. It is a very strange mythology, based on an idiot savant god, whose is a creative genius on one hand, but aways lacks any rational sense of direction. This god was chosen by the atheists since he makes the atheist feel more in control, since they assume only they contain the higher power of reason and planning. Therefore they can control this god to some extent.

For example, there is an assumption in science that life can form all over the universe, using a wide variety of solvents, using different forms of genetic material, under various type of conditions. Nobody has ever demonstrated, the formation of water base life in the lab, even though we know all the details of modern life on earth. The rest is a pipe dream. However, their faith in the power of their idiot savant god, makes all these unlikely scenarios possible to them; all hail chaos! Atheism is a deceptive religion, that cannot even be honest with itself.
 

A Vestigial Mote

Well-Known Member
All are beliefs and unprovable....at least at this time.
As an atheist myself, do you feel that I need to prove anything when making the following statement:

"I don't see any good reason(s) to believe that God exists, therefore I await further confirmation/evidence/demonstration before bothering to believe in something for which I see no good reason/evidence."

Is there something in there that requires I provide evidence for my position? Do I need to "prove" anything to hold that position?
 

Road Warrior

Seeking the middle path..
Personal experience. I have had one somewhat "spiritual event" in my life. I do not regard it as strong evidence for the spiritual, but when I ran into a person that did believe in the so called spiritual he merely scoffed. Which is the reaction everyone else had to his claims. Personally I think that we attach to much importance to some events in our lifetimes just because they are not understood. I won't say that the spiritual does not exist. Just that the evidence for it is very very poor.
I, too, have had a "spiritual event" but agree there is no evidence of the supernatural except anecdotal. Science is great, but has its limits. It can't see outside the Universe nor what caused the Primordial Atom. It does tell us that the Universe is not only expanding toward "the Big Chill" but accelerating in that expansion for unknown reasons. What does that have to do with spirituality? Just the fact there are limits to physical science.
 

Road Warrior

Seeking the middle path..
As an atheist myself, do you feel that I need to prove anything when making the following statement:

"I don't see any good reason(s) to believe that God exists, therefore I await further confirmation/evidence/demonstration before bothering to believe in something for which I see no good reason/evidence."

Is there something in there that requires I provide evidence for my position? Do I need to "prove" anything to hold that position?
No more than a theist who believes the opposite. The only time a person should prove their beliefs is when they try to force it upon others.
 

Road Warrior

Seeking the middle path..
Whoopee! I had no idea that not knowing was a sign of intelligence (actually that's not true - I knew it all along - which is why I have determined to remain as ignorant as I can about as many subjects as I can not know anything about for as long as possible) - I am also going to use the phrase "I have no bloody idea" much more frequently in conversation - no doubt I'll soon be declared a genius.

There are no "various forms of atheism" - atheism is simply a word that denotes a lack of belief in god(s) - is this interminable conversation turning into an obsessive-compulsive disorder for me I wonder - or is it just too difficult a concept to grasp? There is nothing in the definition of atheism that prevents someone who doesn't believe in god from believing in (for example) idealism or mind/body dualism of some kind...and it doesn't have to be 'supernatural' to be non-physical - someone might believe that 'ideas' or 'consciousness' or 'mind' are non-physical realities and still not believe in the existence of deities...a physicalist would declare them to be realities that 'emerge from' or 'supervene upon' fundamental physical realities, whilst an idealist would say that it is the other way round - that the real world is fundamentally immaterial and that the physical emerges from a fundamentally non-physical reality. Indeed that view has enjoyed a resurgence among prominent scientists in recent decades - partly as a result of the extraordinary success of mathematics and quantum mechanics in explaining how the underlying levels of physical reality seem to work. You don't have to believe in God to accept that the world is fundamentally mathematical rather than material. Either view (materialism or idealism) or even both (dualism) is compatible with atheism because atheism says nothing about whether the fundamental reality is physical or immaterial. I don't think it is 'silly' to hold such a view at all - whether or not I happen to agree.
It's recognizing what we don't know which guides us on seeking to find out what we want to know. Some people think they already know everything they need to know so they stop looking.
 

Road Warrior

Seeking the middle path..
Nope, they do not assert, they base their lack of belief on l10% lack of evidence. If you (or anyone) who asserts gods exist can provide physical evidence that can be validated (look around you is not evidence of anything but nature) then you would end atheism and incidentally have the speed dial numbers of the top religious leaders in the world on your phone.

Atheism : disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.

Nothing more, nothing less
When they tell a Christian, Jew or Muslim there is not god, then they are, indeed, asserting. When they tell a Buddhist "when you're dead, you're dead" they are asserting there is nothing beyond the physical.
 

David T

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Isn't panentheism saying that "god" is integrated with the Universe but, unlike pantheism, also outside it?
And really to understand the genisis of any of this we neex to talk about experience. Thats a topic never adressed on RF . no, we tend to exist at the level of narrative itself determines and last i checked nature is far older than modernity. Just a guess could be wrong though according to most.
 

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
When they tell a Christian, Jew or Muslim there is not god, then they are, indeed, asserting. When they tell a Buddhist "when you're dead, you're dead" they are asserting there is nothing beyond the physical.

They are stating fact based on thousands of years of complete lack of evidence.
 

A Vestigial Mote

Well-Known Member
No more than a theist who believes the opposite. The only time a person should prove their beliefs is when they try to force it upon others.
Trying to convince others of their validity, yes - which does tend to happen for both "gnostic theists" and "gnostic atheists" - that is, theists who assert that god exists, and atheists who assert that they know that there is/are no god(s). If you're not trying to convince anyone but yourself, then you have no one but yourself to turn to for evidence, and the evaluation of that evidence is also only up to you. If you accept it, you accept it, and if you don't, you don't.

However, it is possible to point out that someone has no valid or rational basis for their belief from your own perspective (that is, lacking the personal experiences of whoever you're dealing with, and rejecting particular evidence that is not inter-subjectively verifiable) without directly taking the alternative stance. In this case, you don't have to state that "there is no god" in order to be able to point out that someone's evidence or reasons for holding a particular position are suspect.

Lastly, even if you aren't pushing your beliefs on anyone, there is absolutely nothing to stop me from evaluating your beliefs and coming to my own conclusions about the validity of your position/beliefs/ideas.
 

Road Warrior

Seeking the middle path..
They are stating fact based on thousands of years of complete lack of evidence.
And there we have it folks. The atheist point of view is that an absence of evidence is factual evidence of absence.
Thank you, ma'm.
2hdr4nb.jpg
 

Road Warrior

Seeking the middle path..
Trying to convince others of their validity, yes - which does tend to happen for both "gnostic theists" and "gnostic atheists" - that is, theists who assert that god exists, and atheists who assert that they know that there is/are no god(s). If you're not trying to convince anyone but yourself, then you have no one but yourself to turn to for evidence, and the evaluation of that evidence is also only up to you. If you accept it, you accept it, and if you don't, you don't.

However, it is possible to point out that someone has no valid or rational basis for their belief from your own perspective (that is, lacking the personal experiences of whoever you're dealing with, and rejecting particular evidence that is not inter-subjectively verifiable) without directly taking the alternative stance. In this case, you don't have to state that "there is no god" in order to be able to point out that someone's evidence or reasons for holding a particular position are suspect.

Lastly, even if you aren't pushing your beliefs on anyone, there is absolutely nothing to stop me from evaluating your beliefs and coming to my own conclusions about the validity of your position/beliefs/ideas.
Agreed. Also, let's not forget that this isn't a science experiment with independently verifiable results. It's a matter of faith. Yes, even for atheists who so firmly disbelieve they think it's a fact and will ridicule or attack anyone who disagrees with them just like any other religious fanatic.
 

A Vestigial Mote

Well-Known Member
Agreed. Also, let's not forget that this isn't a science experiment with independently verifiable results. It's a matter of faith. Yes, even for atheists who so firmly disbelieve they think it's a fact and will ridicule or attack anyone who disagrees with them just like any other religious fanatic.
Why don't people argue as vehemently for the existence or non-existence of unicorns? Or The Flying Spaghetti Monster, for that matter?

Point being - at some point, people without sufficiently compelling evidence who are all claiming something different (I'm speaking of the vast variety of theists and their claims here, obviously) are making things up to defend their positions. This is a given. If the Muslim makes claims about Allah that conflict with Christian claims of their God, someone's wrong, and their claim to knowledge is fallacious - the target of their belief is imaginary - it is make-believe. Not only this, but many more things have been said in defense of God than He ever said Himself, or supposed knowledgable sources have attributed to Him - this is, by definition, making things up - even if God exists and some of the things happen to be correct!

Even the atheist who makes the claim that "God does not exist" within a universe that actually does have God/gods is AT MOST "making up" one thing. ONE. That would be that "God does not exist," obviously.

So, there's a huge amount more of fabrication necessary in theism. There's not really a way around it.
 
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dybmh

דניאל יוסף בן מאיר הירש
Yes, even for atheists who so firmly disbelieve they think it's a fact and will ridicule or attack anyone who disagrees with them just like any other religious fanatic.
Even for those Atheists who will attack and ridicule...

The loudest voices should not over rule those who are less dogmatic.
 

PoetPhilosopher

Veteran Member
Even for those Atheists who will attack and ridicule...

The loudest voices should not over rule those who are less dogmatic.

I don't think I've actually seen an atheist attack anyone, surprisingly. I've seen them make humor so complex the other side doesn't get it, yet I do, though.
 
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