To be able to change according to what is around you is the greatest design of all IMV
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Dear Atheists, tell me what you DO believe
- Thread starter ChristineM
- Start date
I believe the scientific method is the best way to find out things about the real world.
I believe that skepticism is a good approach to truth claims.
I believe the world would be a better place if more people were more skeptical.
I believe that morals are conventional and not part of the fabric of reality. Nonetheless, our biology inclines us to like and dislike things, which is the basis of morality.
I believe that we make our own purpose in life. It isn't given from outside.
I believe that people have the right to be stupid, but not to harm others while being so.
I believe that sex has very little to do with morality.
I believe people should have the right to structure their relationships with other people in any way all concerned agree to.
I believe we should never take ourselves too seriously. But that we usually do so anyway.
I believe that skepticism is a good approach to truth claims.
I believe the world would be a better place if more people were more skeptical.
I believe that morals are conventional and not part of the fabric of reality. Nonetheless, our biology inclines us to like and dislike things, which is the basis of morality.
I believe that we make our own purpose in life. It isn't given from outside.
I believe that people have the right to be stupid, but not to harm others while being so.
I believe that sex has very little to do with morality.
I believe people should have the right to structure their relationships with other people in any way all concerned agree to.
I believe we should never take ourselves too seriously. But that we usually do so anyway.
Faithofchristian
Well-Known Member
If I may say..
I don't belong to any church or religious organizations..
All because I do not follow man's teachings and doctrines as other Christians do..
I only follow Jesus Christ teachings and doctrines and no one else's..
This is what prompt me to say seeing that Atheists do not believe in God.
Then why do Atheists let those other Christians trick them into a argument over a Good that Atheists say they don't believe in..
Where's the logic in that..to argue about a God Atheists do not believe in..
Of I do not believe in something I'm sure not going to get trick into and argument over something that I don't believe in..
That's for Sure..
since it is on a debate section... I thought I would add to the debate.
Have you ever seen a design with no designer? The design itself is hard evidence.
Love (as in loving your children) is the hard wire of who God is.
Have you ever seen structure that isn't designed? I have.
So an emotion is 'hard wired of who God is'? What does that even mean?
I suspect that is a misconception about evolution.
The idea is not that "life" changed according to it's environment. Life changed a great deal. More often than not to it's own detriment. Maybe 99.99% of these changes did not survive. Maybe only .01% or less did. That was enough.
If I designed something that only worked .01% of the time, I'd be out of a job.
Usually we don't. But those who *do* believe tend to want to make laws supporting that belief and penalizing those who don't believe. They want the belief to be taught in schools. They want to deny those who don't believe basic rights.
So the issue isn't brought up by atheists. If theists didn't make it the reason for doing all sorts of bad things, we would be happy to ignore it.
Hmmm....I'd say that looking at the evidence and weighing it to see what it supports is natural whether or not you believe in something. In fact, it might convince you that you are wrong. And that would be a good thing.
I look into things all the time that I do not believe in: I want to understand why others do believe and what effects that belief has on other people and society. if I find the effect is bad, I want to hone my arguments to convince people to change their minds.
I would say that your body has structure and function. That is NOT the same as a design. Design requires a consciousness to get going. Structure and function do not.
No. I do know that teardrops have different composition depending on emotion. Why do you think that is a design?
And if I show that the Fibonacci sequence is optimal in ways that would push a developing organism to adopt that pattern, would that not be enough to show there was NO design?
It looks to me like believers are trying to find design anywhere, even when it is clearly NOT there.[/QUOTE]
Or it is simply the result of natural laws.
The way we determine design is to see what *can't* happen without intelligent intervention. The process of natural laws is thereby NOT designed.
Well, you do have a point here, and I don't think very many people would expend that much time or energy arguing about things they don't believe in...unless someone is trying to argue with them about things they do believe in. It might come up in other situations, in matters of public policy, where many people adhere to the principle of separation of church and state. These might be reasons to argue about it.
On the other hand, people are inclined to argue about many things that might seem pointless. I sometimes hang out with people who do nothing but argue about sports - usually the kind that they don't play themselves and only really watch on TV. Yet they argue about it.
In practice, this usually means that you choose to follow what is in some writings about Jesus that *other* people have chosen to be representative. So, you may select the New Testament, as chosen by the Catholic church, for its own reasons, in the 4th century.
My guess, but tell me if I am wrong, is that you also reject *other* writings and traditions about Jesus as covered in non-canonical writings, even if those writings are just as old or well-sourced (the Gospel of Thomas, for example).
If it is simply a disagreement about some theological notion, sure. There would be little point.
But what if you have someone justifying slavery and using the Bible to do so? or how about saying that non-believers should be put to death for their lack of belief?
At that point, the theological beliefs affect the way others live their lives. And at that point, it is a good thing to argue against them.
That's for Sure..[/QUOTE]
Is the body a design or did it evolve naturally. I believe it evolved and is still evolving.
Certainly if i had designed it it would be far more efficient, more compact, organs in more convenient places, less reliability on individual organs, duplication of critical organs etc.
The Fibonacci shapes are perfectly natural, evolved as the best available given circumstances.
At the end of the OP you kind of took the thread in a different direction than I was expecting.
I thought we would hear atheist's beliefs on god-replacement thinking like 'is this all just matter blindly following natural laws'? Is consciousness just matter moving around? And such.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
All experiences in the world are not external sensory ones and all understanding is not about the hands-on. While I accept external experiences and the hands-on, it is not the world. It is a part of the world.
Here are the limits of external experiences and hands-on:
https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/whatisscience_12
That is where it always end. Religion is not science, but to say that it is better to be non-religious, is not science and not a part of external experience and the hands-on.
If you want to do the good life or any such variant, you can do so. But you can't do it with external experiences and hands-on alone.
RestlessSoul
Well-Known Member
Out of interest, how do you access the here and now? Given that we humans seem to spend much of our existence reliving (and often regretting) the past, or planning for the future, are there any techniques you use to return yourself to the Here and Now? A d do you think there are psychological, if not spiritual, benefits in doing do? Just curious btw, not trying to lead you anywhere.
A Vestigial Mote
Well-Known Member
I have been talking about mutually available experiences. That's all there is to care much about, as concerns "all of us." The rest is just fluff and nonsense, fantasy and "personal experience." When something is, alone, a "personal experience" then what is a skeptic to do? You yourself stating that you are "super duper skeptical" (or whatever it is you said to that effect), this should be entirely obvious. And yet your sympathy for the one-off fancies of anyone and everyone remains. Interesting that.
Would i that?
I don't think in terms of god or god replacement, what i believe are the mundane things if life, what i know can (usually) be proven, other than that, show me evidence and I'll consider it.
Well we are probably different then because I have a philosophical-bent and my mind is geared to want to know the BIG questions.Would i that?
I don't think in terms of god or god replacement, what i believe are the mundane things if life, what i know can (usually) be proven,
And I have more evidence than I'll live long enough to fully consider from paranormal and spiritual phenomena.
i like to know the answer to big questions too, real life questions, not spiritual/paranormal/philosophical stuff, it just doesn't interest me.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
That sentence is itself a personal experience: "The rest is just fluff and nonsense, fantasy and "personal experience." You have no mutual evidence as external experience or any hands-on reference for fluff, nonsense and "personal experience". You in effect doing what I tell you nobody can do with out.
I am a skeptic, because I have tried to make the world only "we". That didn't work. And I can't make it only me either. It is a combination of the mutual and individual, and the point of your sentence is individual, not mutual.
You individually care differently than me about how to make sense of both the mutual and individual, thus you made an individual point of interest.
In effect you are based on this post an objective and authoritarian collectivist - "all of us". You don't speak for all of us and neither do I. In effect you are experiencing that we disagree and that is a part of the world. But you want me to be like you because you apparently don't like how I do it. That is your problem, not mine.
Indeed it is a fact, that we are different and all you do, is to claim you are the standard of what the world is.
I believe similar but not that humans are an extraordinary animal, but just a little further along the evolutionary chain than our closest relatives
You don't care what/if happens to you and your family after death even?
Or do you assume just 'nothingness'? Or do you assume, 'we can't know'? Or are you truly not interested?