Epic Beard Man
Bearded Philosopher
Indeed, that is correct.
That was a typo I meant to say you cannot deduce life simply by using logic. I know very few people that actually apply the science of logic in their lives.
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Indeed, that is correct.
Essentially what I'm saying is you're starting to sound full of it.
This is not a logic discussion this is about the psychological development of being an atheist as per the writings in the OP nothing more, nothing less.
Experiences have exceptional value in the development of our ideas and how we attain knowledge of the world. Our experience both positive and negative can have life altering changes in our own thoughts and how we see the world. the fact that you are a so-called atheist means you had the experience of (not experiencing) any metaphysical encounter. This is akin to someone telling me that they jumped out of a plane and parachuted to the ground with euphoric feelings. For me, the thought sounds cool but I've never experienced jumping out of a plane nor have I experienced euphoria while jumping out of a plane.
So as an atheist if someone tells you "God loves you," I would assume mentally you would have no clue on what that means let alone entertain the notion of God considering you've never experienced love from an incorporeal deity nor would you even know what that meant. So yes spirituality wouldn't hold no value because you've never experienced it and maybe perhaps have developed this notion that experiencing spirituality means one is deluded. I believe our experiences is our constitution of what we believe and disbelieve.
To you it is that way. I'm a clinician I'm quite sure there is something in your life I could find that has influenced your beliefs. Stop acting like you took a philosophy class and all of a sudden you can deduce life by simply applying logic this is ridiculous.
Answer what? Can you coherently phrase the question regarding my experiences because I'm not following you since you added the question "Could it be that it was Kali in disguise?" Who is Kali? What does that have to do with my experiences?
Much more important, in my estimation (see how I added this qualifier? How novel! Maybe try it some time.), are the vastly more fundamental aspects of thought. Perhaps our capability to reason in the first place? End result... I wouldn't like to be caught pretending that I know the most important aspect of human thought. Who in their right mind would?
My statement was to point out how empty your statement was - or did you not catch that? But sure, I'll take a crack at it. Again... I wouldn't claim to know this for certain, but using my capability to reason, I would posit that we create "systems of meaning" (I only sort of grasp what this nebulous term means, so bear with me), by examining ourselves, our collective desires and "best of" arguments for the ways to most productively and happily conduct ourselves with respect to us as individuals and collectively as a group, and then among all the options we pluck out what we feel are the things that most clearly support us in our survival and garner a modicum of "happiness" along the way. We don't necessarily need a story to do this - and even less do we need to pretend such a story is reality. Sure, we may tell stories as a method of relaying information of an abstract nature... but of what use is claiming they are more than that on top of formulating and relaying the story?
So that they don't commit themselves to making the same mistakes of the past. I would have thought this obvious. Every person tricked by a charlatan who tells them a story that isn't backed by evidence, should use this as an opportunity to wise up, and make sure their standards are set higher - for themselves as well as their children. I highly doubt there is anyone here who would praise the idea of teaching children anything and everything, regardless how well grounded in reality it is.
Why accept that as a general premise, and yet make an exception for religious beliefs? There are real things to be lost here. In the case of simple religious adherence, the loss is potentially time, possibly monetary, possibly loss in peace of mind, possibly a loss of family members. I've seen all of these and more that can be blamed directly on religious adherence. And yes, the same thing could be said for ardent political stances, for which there may also be less than sufficient evidence or reasoning having gone into it... but I would admonish against adopting that sort of stance as well, and for the same reasons.
Being conditionally influenced by, and being "a derivative of" are 2 separate things. If "Y" is deemed better now than "X" for verifiable, rational reasons, then it should hold that "Y" was always better than "X", even if "X" was first and helped shape our ideas of "Y".
And I guarantee you that I did. Even anecdotes and analogies are forms of evidence. Granted, not nearly the best ones in my estimation, and those that involve abstracts like feeling and desire that do not have a direct correlation to my own experiences with the same, and have no physical presence to speak of are easily discarded - or should be. Set aside with a note to check up on whether or not there is something better to gauge the claim with at a later date. And until then, ignore it or seek the answers out yourself - but until you know, you don't know.
I agree with this. However, those axioms of a non-supernatural nature, while abstract to the extreme, are still a shared attribute of our experienced reality between those who accept them in a way that religions simply cannot claim to wield.
So you can prove a negative? Speaking of clairvoyance I'm sure you think its factual that my response to you is typed, but is it also factual that while I typed my response to you I did so butt naked? No. You would say that it's possible considering you are not here to see what I am wearing or not wearing. The point is you cannot ultimately say God doesn't exist is a factual statement because dialectically you cannot prove a negative. You can make a dialectical argument on the ridiculous notion of God comparing it God to the tooth fairy or any cartoon or thing the human mind has conceived, but ultimately you aren't for certain which the term factual derives from, that God doesn't exist.
Well there are plenty other religions in the world with their own doctrine of truth so therefore the Bible is not the end all to be all. There are other faiths much older than Judaism with books much older who presuppose a kind of truth in them. Not sure why you use the Bible is some sort of litmus test against all truths.
Now you've backed away into "mythos" and the bizarre "myths/illusions/narratives/ideologies" - which are not interchangeable terms; an ideology is not an illusion.
It's something that isn't real yet we act as if it were true.
Call it what you like. Can't be bothered with semantic quibbling over whether things that aren't real could be called illusions.
You seem to want to equate all axioms though. For instance, earlier you mentioned valuing truth. You neglect to note the primacy of such a value. For without the valuation of truth we could not value much else.What axioms do you consider fundamental to your belief system?
Boy, I went from being a Christian to an atheist in a matter of months and don't recall it altering my life in any way. Just sayin'.Not to be confused in its entirety with professor Paul C. Vitz's paper:The Psychology of Atheism but I found his paper quite interesting on the psychological aspect of atheism and the development of atheistic beliefs. Of course we in the psychology community believe there are a wide spectrum of beliefs concerning religion and metaphysics. Yes we indeed see the development of religious and irreligious beliefs as a development through personal experience. Nobody believes or disbelieves just because. There are developmental stages a person goes through before they solidify a particular life altering belief. I call it life altering, because for the atheist, they are not bound by any customary religious obligations nor observe any religious dietary customs.
Bull twinkle. To put it politely.Atheism at least philosophically, is synonymous with freedom of expression, no constraints, autonomous thinking etcetera.
"Irrational" you say, and just after having offered up rational motivating forces for becoming an atheist no less."Finally, in this list of superficial, but nevertheless, strong irrational pressures to become an atheist, I must list simple personal convenience.
So what is your "issue"?But what is remarkable for me as an observer is that the issue I have with atheists is the same issues I have with theists concerning their belief. One side says "show me proof!" the other side says "the proof is here in this 2,000 year-old book The Future of an Illusion as his position seems to the most solid:
I see a very distinct difference. While there may be this "crushing superior force of nature," whatever that is, religious need comes from ones fear of death, and the comfort religion and the religious community bring.[R]eligious ideas have arisen from the same needs as have all the other achievements of civilization: from the necessity of defending oneself against the crushing superior force of nature. (p. 21)
Qualifying an opinion as such is simply a nice touch.Who in their right mind would offer an opinion on a discussion forum? Egad, the audacity!
And this negates the importance of human ability to reason because... ?Monkeys can reason though. They can't form large social groups, transmit complex cultures, create systems of education, transmit large bodies knowledge across multiple generations, create systems of laws and rights, engage in scientific enquiry, etc.
It matters for a few reasons:If someone judges that their religion is useful to them, why does it matter if it is "true" or not?
And it seems to me that your argument is in support of us actually being proud of this fact. Think about it.Unfortunately, our brains don't work that way, at least that's what the scientific evidence seems to strongly suggest. Our views are a raft of heuristics, biases, prejudices, assumptions, imitations, misconceptions, self-deceptions and sometimes reasoned judgements.
From logic: law of non-contradiction, excluded middle and law of identity.What axioms do you consider fundamental to your belief system?
You seem to want to equate all axioms though. For instance, earlier you mentioned valuing truth. You neglect to note the primacy of such a value. For without the valuation of truth we could not value much else.
What do you not understand about there being no evidence for god, the tooth fairy, leprechauns and the soul cake duck? Yes, i am "for certain."
If evidence were found, that is a biggie, real big, world leaders clamouring to take the finder out to dinner, tv interviews, even perhaps a Nobel prize. So far thats not happened. If it does and the proof if found to be valid i would change my stance. But, no proof so end of story.
I do not think it is odd in the least. But of course we would have to define beneficial, have a way to quantify it, and a way to know we didn't miss anything along the way.In this context, I meant the ideological tenet that the search for "truth" holds value beyond mere utility.
The search for objective truth beyond that which has direct practical benefit was not really that important in the majority of human societies.
Within modern rationalistic ideologies, some people even say that given the choice between believing something false but beneficial or true but harmful they would prefer the latter. This really is quite odd, yet the same person would also likely be contemptuous of 'silly' religious beliefs.
You're arguing that atheists would reject proof of God by hypothesizing such proof.On matters of scientific evidence there is neither proof nor disproof of God.
The interesting thing about the above, and I am in agreement with you @ChristineM is that in this old book which is supposedly the speech of the moon god written down by an illiterate yet capable of writing an entire book so-called "profit" named Barack Obama (I'm being facetious here cue the Christian stereotype sarcasm) it says in the following:
"And even if We had sent down to them the angels [with the message] and the dead spoke to them [of it] and We gathered together every [created] thing in front of them, they would not believe unless Allah should will. But most of them, [of that], are ignorant." -Surah 6:111
"All the proofs and all the warnings can never help people who decided to disbelieve." -Surah 10:101
I believe in another thread I mentioned Sir Anthony Hopkins in the movie "The Rite" when he has a philosophical discussion on the existence of the Devil and belief. In this scene Anthony Hopkins says:
"The interesting thing about skeptics, atheists, is that we're always looking for proof, certainty. The question is, "what on earth would we do if we found it?" There are times when I experience a total loss of faith. Days, months, when I don't know what I believe in: God, or the devil, Santa Claus, or Tinker Bell."
The one thing I find relevant here and the reason I posted the Quranic verse is this particular verse address doubt in the face of proof. As Mr. Hopkins stated in the above even if we had proof what on earth would we do with it? Many would still be skeptical. I'm sure some hardcore atheist scientist would say the above Quranic illustration would be some sort of mass delusion prompted by an advance technology that could massively affect people or some sort of scientific jargon that would explain why such and such is not real. The point is even in the fact of truth people will still have doubt. Heck, even me. I think this is why faith in the spiritual and religious sense of the word, is important.
Boy, I went from being a Christian to an atheist in a matter of months and don't recall it altering my life in any way. Just sayin'.,
Bull twinkle. To put it politely.,
"Irrational" you say, and just after having offered up rational motivating forces for becoming an atheist no less. ,
So what is your "issue"?
One makes an assertion, usually of fact, and the other simply says, "prove it."
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Just as a matter of interest, exactly what position do you hold in the psychology community? For all we know, you may be one of the thousands of college students majoring in psychology.
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Well, that is what I mean. You guys get emotional in no time, not rational. And you are claiming to be able to psychologically dissect us? Lol
I told you. The big psychological step that makes an atheist is the same that makes people not believing in blue fairies.
You are complicating a trivial thing. Well, understandable, if you really believe that your belief is sooo worthy of consideration, despite having as much evidence as Mother Goose or Superman.
Yes, but you know what I mean. Believing to have had experiences of spirits and such, is really what would require the help of professionals. That includes experiences of alien abduction, gods, demons, incubus, and stuff like that.
Everybody loves me.
Sure. Psychologist right? Again, medice, cura te ipso. You are showing signs of delirium, with your experiences and such.
Kali is a an Hindu goddess. You said my Hindu’s frien experience could have been Allah, or whomever you happen to believe, liking to crossdress like a goddess.
Not talking about the "why," but the "what after." Your so-called "life altering belief."There was something mentally that influenced you. Again it was not something "simple" perhaps there was something that propelled you to lose faith whether it was a disinterest in the faith, absence of proof, negative encounter, extremism to the point of exhaustion or whatever.
But you said it was "synonymous with freedom of expression, no constraints, autonomous thinking etcetera.," which, obviously, it is not.If we look at the history of secularism philosophically atheism is largely tied to the secular, the free from the constraints of religion or so to speak. the atheist is not bound to any religious custom that they must observe this is what I was referring to on matters of "freedom."
In as much as you quote Dr. Vitz as validation of your preceding remark, why wouldn't I believe you agree with he says? You certainly give no indication you don't.You do realize I was quoting the link? It would behoove you to read the information instead of skimming it. Perhaps you missed the quotations or I failed to place them? In any event clearly I'm not an atheist nor would I postulate my position in that syntax.
Can you blame them? If you went around claiming, "The ghost of Christmas past lives in my bedroom closet," wouldn't you expect people to ask you for "proof," or at least evidence?The issue I have is that many atheists who want to argue their position wants proof.
Ouch, a bit thin-skinned, are we. . . . In any case, it appears that while you like to talk about atheism and atheists, you don't appreciate your belief in god's existence being challenged. And that's fair, but keep in mind that nobody is making you discuss anything, so you should feel free to walk away from any question involving your rationale for the existence of god. However, if you do choose to stick around just remember that it's you (the theist or deist) who is making the affirmative assertion, not the atheist. So he has every right to challenge it. Can't stand being challenged, then walk away, but please don't go on about how unfair it is that atheists ask you, or Christians in general, for evidence.I'm in no position to influence someone to believe or not to believe I don't care. I hold beliefs personal. I recall discussing God and without even talking about proof of God's existence an atheist would chime in to disrespect my beliefs about the "sky daddy" then would ask for proof. I find atheists majority of the time as much of a cry baby as theists when it comes to people's personal beliefs. There are times where atheist believers as well as theist believers need to shut up and let people live their best life. If someone talks about God let them, you don't need to input your disbelief. If they believe in the lucky charms cereal leprechaun let them. I don't believe its always appropriate to input your disbelief in spirituality simply because someone is talking about it. That is my point and that is my issue with atheist believers.
It only matters as a point of interest, which is why I said, "Just as a matter of interest."Why does this matter?
Um...what? Those things are mutally exclusive. Secularism is an outgrowth of Abrahamic monotheistic desacralization of the "mundane" world. I also see that he is continuing the Abrahamic slander of "pagans" being aimless hedonists, which is far from the truth. There are deities representing the totality of life and nature - from chaste, asexual deities, strict and severe deities to deities of frenzied lust, ecstasy and taboo breaking. The ancient Greeks and Romans, for example, were surprisingly prudish in various ways and the wild rites of Dionysus were banned by the Romans as being offensive.today's powerful secular and neo-pagan world. I would have had to give up many pleasures and a good deal of time.
I look forward to the day when someone writes a tale of the world that has atheists as described by the Qur'an.
It would be wildly exotic, to the point of making sci-fi look banal and unimaginative.
Not talking about the "why," but the "what after." Your so-called "life altering belief."
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But you said it was "synonymous with freedom of expression, no constraints.
In as much as you quote Dr. Vitz as validation of your preceding remark, why wouldn't I believe you agree with he says? You certainly give no indication you don't.
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Can you blame them? If you went around claiming, "The ghost of Christmas past lives in my bedroom closet," wouldn't you expect people to ask you for "proof," or at least evidence?
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