Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
How does one ascertain that without a deity?
Unless one feels deities are the source of the supernatural and mysticism and no one can experience it without some form of deity involved.
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Atheism: A bastardized word
- Thread starter Unveiled Artist
- Start date
How does one ascertain that without a deity?
Unless one feels deities are the source of the supernatural and mysticism and no one can experience it without some form of deity involved.
I'm not sure I understand your questions.
Materialist-atheists do not accept the existence of the so-called supernatural or transcendent mystical experiences whatever the source.
You are right that straight up atheists can still believe in the supernatural or the transcendent mystical but this seems to rarely be the case for western society atheists as they are predominantly materialists.
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
Sorry. I meant that an atheists (rather) and atheism doesn't imply materialism. One can be mystic or believe in the supernatural without belief in deities.
Speaking of atheism in general and those who identify as not believing in deities without reference to materialism. I say that because atheism doesn't imply materialism so I assume some atheists don't fall on that only because they don't believe deities exist...
In other words... atheism doesn't invalidate mysticism and supernatural. People can experience these things and more without deities involved. Though a lot of atheists are materialists that doesn't mean atheism is defined by it.
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Understand that I agree with that.
BUT, but show me anyone on this forum that strongly waves the Atheism Flag that believes in the supernatural and transcendent mystical.
The fact that Atheism and the supernatural and transcendent mystical belief is such a rare combination the association between atheism and materialism is often assumed.
One can be an atheist and believe in spirits for example but I rarely see that.
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
But the definition doesn't depend on people's opinions. I believe in mysticism and supernatural. I even believe that my ancestors and close loved ones are alive energetically. I just don't believe deities exist.
There's probably a rare minority of atheists who do not add more to the word than disbelief in god, but that's essentially word the word means. People can add, subtract, and interpret the definition in many ways but that doesn't change what the word actually means.
So you are an atheist that believes in spirits. That's kind of rare as you noted.
I am of non-dual (God and creation are not-two) Hindu philosophy and believe in spiritual planes. I think the Abrahamic God concept has some issues but I would never refer to myself as an atheist but a conservative Christian might.
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
@George-ananda
These are a few of my experience relating to not being a materialist yet without belief in deities. Side note.
lukethethird
unknown member
What difference does it make if deities exist or not? Apparently, none since they aren't relevant to anything that matters. What a waste of a rant.Well, atheism doesn't mean "lack of belief in deities" for starters. ...End of rant.
PureX
Veteran Member
A general definition of God is readily available: God is the mystery source, sustenance, and purpose of all that it. The vast majority of theists will accept this definition, even though they will disagree on many of the particulars.
ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
Do you have the statistical evidence that the "vast majority of theists will accept this definition"?
Regardless, although that definition is vague to the point of being all but meaningless, it's still something that needs some justification for its (apparently) baseless assumptions. How do you know there is a purpose at all, or that the 'sustenance of all that is', is actually a thing?
I'm sure atheists will admit there is a mystery about existence but the other baggage seems devoid of merit or meaning. A mystery is a mystery. We don't know, and we probably never will when it comes to the basis of existence, so why does it matter?
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
It's foreign to atheist who don't believe in the supernatural. God, hy definition, is a deity not an abstract mystical concept.
Unfortunately you're not taking into account religions like Hinduism have totally different God. So far I know they wouldn't believe there is a "source" as described by abrahamic theist so the particulars are irrelevant.
It isn't that atheism is necessarily that associated with science; it's that theism is in opposition to science, generally.
If you've found something to believe in that works for you, great, but it's presumptuous and myopic of you to present your personal beliefs as some sort of "general definition."
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
According to who? Hindus, from what I gather, does not share that view at all in relation to any abrahamic sense of the term.
This is just your definition of it. Like many religious people they try to say that "everyone believes in (our) god just differently." They're not (and maybe can't) figure that people just don't have any connection with Their god... not by belief, not by fact, not by culture, and not by history. No connection.
Why can't universalist get that?
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
How so? Many atheists say they are atheist because they dropped theism for science. I would think if it wasn't attached to science atheist can just drop theism and believe in any number of other mystical and supernatural religions. In other words, atheism isn't the opposite of spiritual beliefs just gods' existences.
The Enlightenment begins in the 17th century and is still a work in progress. It represents a change of attitude, an explaining of nature by looking at it and analyzing it. By the end of the 18th century we find the beginnings of textual criticism of the bible ─ that is, analysis of the text rather than the earlier synthetic views (which still abound). By 1800 geology has already upset churchmen by disagreeing with the bible, and the study of nature and fossils diminishes the educated person's expectation that God is involved. Thus (for example) Tennyson, who's been reading Lyell's Principles of Geology and about fossils writes earlier than 1844 of the difficulties that science was already presenting to faith in those days ─
‘ So careful of the type [species] ? ’ but no.
Thou makest thine appeal to me :
Man, her last work, who seem’d so fair,
Who trusted God was love indeed
Who loved, who suffer’d countless ills,
No more ? A monster then, a dream,
O life as futile, then, as frail !
From scarpèd cliff and quarried stone
She cries ‘ a thousand types are gone :
I care for nothing, all shall go.She cries ‘ a thousand types are gone :
Thou makest thine appeal to me :
I bring to life, I bring to death :
The spirit does but mean the breath :
I know no more. ’ And he, shall he,The spirit does but mean the breath :
Man, her last work, who seem’d so fair,
Such splendid purpose in his eyes,
Who roll’d the psalm to wintry skies,
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,Who roll’d the psalm to wintry skies,
Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation’s final law—
Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek’d against his creed—Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw
Who loved, who suffer’d countless ills,
Who battled for the True, the Just,
Be blown about the desert dust,
Or seal’d within the iron hills ?Be blown about the desert dust,
No more ? A monster then, a dream,
A discord. Dragons of the prime,
That tare [tore] each other in their slime,
Were mellow music match’d with him.That tare [tore] each other in their slime,
O life as futile, then, as frail !
O for thy voice to soothe and bless !
What hope of answer, or redress ?
Behind the veil, behind the veil.What hope of answer, or redress ?
The smarter and better educated you were, the more the Argument from Design had seemed extremely powerful, outright necessary, to explain nature; there MUST be a God. Now it seemed that God wasn't so necessary afterwards. And this had already been the scene for decades when Origin of Species hit the shelves in 1859, in effect confirming all the doubts. The 19th century saw not only books written for the educated layman on scientific topics but also the coming to popularity of the public lecture on many matters including science, and the most interesting were reported in the press, so the whole of the middle class was exposed to the debates on a constant basis.
The rise of science has had religious consequences from the start, moving authority from God and [his] churches and into the hands of reasoned enquiry.
Hence even now a whole lot of religions hate the theory of evolution ─ they make it more personal and 160 years out of date by hating Darwin ─ because it confounds the Argument from Design and the relevance of gods.
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lukethethird
unknown member
I don't believe in God for precisely and exactly the same reason I don't believe in Santa
Claus, it's child's play.
PureX
Veteran Member
Of course it's not "child's play". What you meant was that it's "make-believe". And yet "make-believe" among adults is called 'artifice'; an elaborate form of conceptualization and communication used to better understand and share experience of being human.
PureX
Veteran Member
Nevertheless, the Hindus have the concept of 'Atman'. A kind of universal godhead from which all the other 'god natures' spring.
No, it's A definition of it. One that most theists can and would accept.
They recognize that the vast majority of human beings hold a similar essential concept of God as being the source, sustenance, and purpose of all that is. It's YOU who is the anomaly that cannot accept this as a fact of human nature.
They do. It's you who isn't "getting it".
PureX
Veteran Member
I am not presenting my "beliefs", here. I am simply presenting a universally acceptable definition of "God". One that the atheists here seem to have to somehow discredit by whatever argument they can muster. As you are trying to do.