Thoughts on Atheism

[PureX]

you can only be responsible for what you can change. I cannot will myself to levitate off the ground and defy gravity, nor can I will myself to be a theist or an agnostic. As a belief, this is not a question of will power.

Others can. I can. So why can't you?

For example: choosing another open question; let's say the existence of intelligent alien life forms in the universe. There is reasoning to support the belief that they exist, and there is reasoning to support the belief that they do not exist. While there is no way of knowing, at this time, whether they exist or not, most people choose to believe one or the other even as they all agree that we cannot, as yet, know which it is.

So why can't you?

 

[ADigitalArtist]

Others can. I can. So why can't you?

For example: choosing another open question; let's say the existence of intelligent alien life forms in the universe. There is reasoning to support the belief that they exist, and there is reasoning to support the belief that they do not exist. While there is no way of knowing, at this time, whether they exist or not, most people choose to believe one or the other even as they all agree that we cannot, as yet, know which it is.

People don't choose to be persuaded. Either they are or they aren't. I say this as someone who sincerely, earnestly tried to believe in a god but ultimately realized I didn't believe in one, I was only pretending to.

 

[PureX]

People don't choose to be persuaded. Either they are or they aren't. I say this as someone who sincerely, earnestly tried to believe in a god but ultimately realized I didn't believe in one, I was only pretending to.

Believing in God does not require "persuasion" any more than believing that other intelligent life exists in the universe requires persuasion. There are logical reasons to believe they do exist, and logical reasons to believe they don't exist. And once we have become aware of the logical reasons for either case, we choose which we think the more logical and reasonable.

And we can do this without having to be convinced of anything. Almost no one is 100% convinced that other intelligent life exists in the universe, or that God exists. We simply choose one line of reasoning, and the conclusion it supports, over the other. I really don't see why anyone would have so much trouble understanding this as a choice.

 

[Jumi]

Atheism leads to Communism.

Actually it doesn't. Communism leads to communism.

 

[Laika]

I really don't see why anyone would have so much trouble understanding this as a choice.

...because I have a decade of experience with mental illness to contend with, whereas you don't. That's what your missing.

The part of my life where I've had the least control is the small space in my own skull. Its fairly horrific because its so intimate and screws with your sense of identity and self in ways you don't expect. If your a bit confused as to why I'm comfortable admitting the irrationality of my beliefs, its because its something I've had to learn by trying to change whole parts of my inner life to deal with depression or anxiety (without using medication or therapy). It still has a sting to it, but its a quality that is more useful to deal with constantly adjusting to mood swings by learning not to take them at face value.

The social convention is you can change your beliefs, emotions and thoughts by willing them to. But I'm pretty sure you would be no more able to convince yourself that you could fly or that 2+2=5 or that all hippos are pink because you have your life experience to contend with. That would be the same problem for me as I lack the life experiences that would have made me have religious belief and, additionally, lack really strong positive motivations to change that. e.g. I have had zero friends of any religious background. They were all atheists or agnostics or didn't care or share what they believed. If I'd been around Christians or Muslims my whole life, then atheism would be quite a different beast entirely.

shame, guilt, fear, humiliation, etc are effective ways of getting people to outwardly conform. But sincere, deep conviction can never develop out of that (or at least in free societies we'd certainly hope not because of how dangerous that would be). It has to be something that you love if you are willing to put the time and effort in it to make it work and to build it up. Conviction is hard to fake, but its almost impossible to will in to existence.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

My atheism sounds pretty different from yours,but with some overlap. I use so many labels to describe my beliefsbecause I think atheism is such a small part of it. The meta-ethical systems I am drawn to are available to both theists and atheists. They aren't Christianity Lite like Secular Humanism or UU. And are descriptive rather than prescriptive. So I don't think I could call my atheism a faith or dogma, which are terms I reserve for POVs with more substance and ritual.

However, I am not allergic to the term 'belief as some atheists are. While it's possible some persuasive evidence will change my tune someday, I don' choose to be an atheist. I just don't believe there are gods (at least, not ones I've considered.)

As for dogma, I guess it depends on how we are defining it. There's a tendency by some to equivocate passion with dogma (or religion for that matter), but I think there' more nuance to the words than that. Someone who believes strongly in spaying and neutering pets isn't necessarily dogmatic. And outside loose colloquial slang, we don't actually consider football to be a valid religion.
If there's anything I could be dogmatic about it's that I am anti-authorotarian. Not in an anarchist sense but in a rejection of arguments from authority, human or divine, when in conflict with utilitarian consequentialism.

And as for nihilism, I wouldn't describe myself as one. Taking a purpose from what you suppose is a divine creator about what you suppose they want is no different to me than taking on a purpose from a self-help book. You're just accepting someone's opinion. Even if I believed in a creator I wouldn't automatically accept them as the arbiter of purpose, any more than I accept straws are meant to drink through rather than distribute and move droplets of ink on a page.
Contrary to beliving there is no purpose, I believe there's lots. To discover, to invent, then repurpose.

Ugh I can't believe I wrote all that on my phone.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

Believing in God does not require "persuasion" any more than believing that other intelligent life exists in the universe requires persuasion. There are logical reasons to believe they do exist, and logical reasons to believe they don't exist. And once we have become aware of the logical reasons for either case, we choose which we think the more logical and reasonable.

And we can do this without having to be convinced of anything. Almost no one is 100% convinced that other intelligent life exists in the universe, or that God exists. We simply choose one line of reasoning, and the conclusion it supports, over the other. I really don't see why anyone would have so much trouble understanding this as a choice.

I don't understand why anyone would have so much trouble understanding why it isn't. I no more chose to be unconvinced but disbelieving in intelligent aliens than gods. There was no agency on my part, any more than liking chocolate more than vanilla.

 

[Laika]

>>but is instead inferred by an intellectual error.<<

Why couldn't you or the typical atheist be the one making an intellectual error?

I could be, but from past attempts it has proven very hard to change. I'm not sure its possible to change my beliefs (or anyone else's) except over very long periods of time with a lot of motivation to really research and re-evaluate it.

>>If all belief is the product of man and is therefore as finite as man's experience, both within their individual lifetime and the historical accumulation of experience.<<

I would agree with this. Most atheists think this is all there is and all there will be. Also, I'm glad you admitted that your's and the atheist's worldview is a religion and based on faith, too.

you're welcome.

>>In creating ourselves, we possess and exercise the divine power of creation.<<

What do you mean by we create ourselves?

You seem to assume that the act of creation did not happen. We do not actually create ourselves, but reproduce sexually. The first man and woman and the ability to reproduce sexually did not just happen. If you think this is not the case, then create something simpler. For example, a new flower for us.

Next, I thought you were referring to Darwin and evolution, but I don't believe we descended from apes and ape-men or a common ancestor. Otherwise, there would be many fossils of ape-men and other transitional fossils and ape-men would still be happening, i.e. a preponderance of evidence. Furthermore, it's scientific racism to say we descended from apes.

Actually the context I meant was "self-creation" in terms of creating the psychological self, rather than a biological one. Our ability to alter our surroundings and adapt them to our needs is also something of a god-like ability in some ways.

Moreover, if humans did evolve, then we would have made guns to protect ourselves. However, there is a movement by atheists (liberals) to control guns, i.e. get rid of guns, which goes against Darwin's evolution. Why the discrepancy?

We're selfish and don't want to die basically. I'm not really bothered about that honestly but

Finally, the sceptism on creationists part is that atheists seem to believe they can create a universe or living things just by believing in it. There is no such evidence because if living things were created by nature or humans, then we would be seeing it all the time. What it shows scientifically is that creation does not happen, but is hybridization or genetic modification.

You're a creationist and for what its worth I'm entirely ok with that. It's not like I'm going to be able to persuade you to believe otherwise in the course of an online discussion as people's beliefs typically change on much longer time scales (even in response to trauma to an extent). I'm sure we both have plenty experience of that and you have been on RF longer than I have.

Atheism leads to Communism. What you stated is the abstract concept of atheism and that in which leads to Communism. It purports to understand all that we need to know about the world and universe and gives us a false sense of security and power. Communism must eliminate religion, morality and philosophy first. Humans and their science along with nature can do it all. It's explained in The Communist Manifesto.

"Some" forms of atheism lead to communism, but not all. Atheism isn't a single monolithic bloc but is a number of different philosophies arriving at the same conclusion. Communism was based on Dialectical Materialism, whereas most Atheists on RF are sceptics or agnostic atheists and would reject the claims of communist-atheists.

 

[PureX]

Conviction is hard to fake, but its almost impossible to will in to existence.

It's not about "conviction". It's about choice.

Presuming that an unknown is a known is not the same as presuming a known is a known. I know I can't levitate at will. So I can't honestly choose to believe that I can levitate at will, because I already know that I can't. But I don't know if God exists or not, so I can choose to believe that God does exist, or that God does not exist, as I wish, because there is no knowledge to countermand my choice, which ever one I make. And so it is for all of us.

 

[Revoltingest]

Atheism leads to Communism.

What you stated is the abstract concept of atheism and that in which leads to Communism. It purports to understand all that we need to know about the world and universe and gives us a false sense of security and power.

You have it entirely backwards.
Tis the religious folk who claim to know all these many things about
the supernatural world which rules over & pervades our universe.
Atheists don't know nuthin about that.
As for the natural world, believers know just as much as we atheists do.

Communism must eliminate religion, morality and philosophy first. Humans and their science along with nature can do it all. It's explained in The Communist Manifesto.

The atheists I know tend towards capitalism.
They see no moral imperative or advantage in being forced to share
the wealth with lesser folk. But we might choose to share some,
just because we want to. Communism sucks big stinky hairy b***s.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I reject all gods.

That's quite a feat.

Obviously I have a cultural bias for the Christian God as the one I'm most familiar with, but I believe the premises necessary for rejecting the christian god would logically also reject every other god.

Which premises are those?

How did you come to the conclusion that you could use these premises to reject every god? I'm especially interested to hear how you figured out that they apply even to the gods you've never heard of.

The reason I'd say this is a particular variety of atheism is the fact that it's reliance on natural causes makes it a worldview, and hence is potentially a "closed" system of belief that is atheist.

Except this isn't true at all. Atheists who believe in the supernatural are still atheists.

And even if you are an atheist, it seems to me like you may still be stuck in a theistic mindset if you think that merely not sharing certain beliefs that presuppose a god or gods is enough to qualify the people who don't share those beliefs as having a common "worldview."

Do you also say that all theists share a single worldview?

If God doesn't exist, then man created god. Man is the source of religious belief and of religious values.

Right: and it would be theists who buy into that, not atheists.

Man created the sense of the sacred and the divine as a means of evaluating ideas, so it is possible that man could treat man as "sacred" as in having high value and being a source of meaning and purpose in life. (logically, the reverse would also be true that man decides what is "demonic" and can demonise other human beings).

Values, meaning, & sacredness don't have to have anything to do with gods or divinity. Again, I think you're stuck in a theistic mindset.

 

[blü 2]

or such as the phenomena of an invisible infinite probability machine spontaneously creating this universe and the rules of physics as we know them

Or that the Big Bang at time zero consisted of mass-energy, and that spacetime is a property of mass-energy; coupled with the observation that from observation we conclude energy can neither be created or destroyed.

That hypothesis has the advantage that at least we know mass-energy exists. (As for the Improbability Drive, see Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. As for gods, see Hans Anderson's Fairy Tales.)

Okay , so creative intelligence is the phenomena which is NOT magic then, by your own concession.

Oh, if it's said to exist independently of a physical brain, it's magic pure and simple!

I'm with you, let's go with the non-magic explanation

Yes, let's.

 

[blü 2]

Something magical is indeed happening in your posts. You are ascribing to Fool or or to Laika someone else's statements.

If that's happened, then my apologies.

 

[Desert Snake]

Sometimes we get bogged down in formalism, eg, the existence of gods cannot be disproven.
But I know in my bones that there are no gods....I just cannot claim certainty.

That doesn't prevent you or other atheists from presenting a more honest personal opinion.

 

[Desert Snake]

Or that the Big Bang at time zero consisted of mass-energy, and that spacetime is a property of mass-energy; coupled with the observation that from observation we conclude energy can neither be created or destroyed.

That hypothesis has the advantage that at least we know mass-energy exists. (As for the Improbability Drive, see Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. As for gods, see Hans Anderson's Fairy Tales.)

Oh, if it's said to exist independently of a physical brain, it's magic pure and simple!

Yes, let's.

I'm not a big bang theory adherent. You might have some logical imagining of how the theory works, but it certainly isn't 'fact'.

 

[Revoltingest]

That doesn't prevent you or other atheists from presenting a more honest personal opinion.

How can I be more honest than complete honesty?

 

[Desert Snake]

How can I be more honest than complete honesty?

Theres a difference. We encounter the same thing with theists and theism.

What separates a theist from just an agnostic, if the person doesn't think they can be sure, so forth? The personal opinion, of course.

 

[Revoltingest]

Theres a difference. We encounter the same thing with theists and theism.

What separates a theist from just an agnostic, if the person doesn't think they can be sure, so forth? The personal opinion, of course.

An unsure theist still leans towards theism.
And agnostic not at all, or very much less so.

 

[blü 2]

I'm not a big bang theory adherent. You might have some logical imagining of how the theory works, but it certainly isn't 'fact'.

That's a matter for you.

I find that evidence such as (a) the observed expanding universe (b) the accurate prediction of the background cosmic radiation frequency (c) the success of cosmological modeling on the basis of a BB ─ and a great deal more ─ add up to what is certainly the best theory of the universe going.

What view do you favor instead? And on the basis of what evidence?

 

[Desert Snake]

That's a matter for you.

I find that evidence such as (a) the observed expanding universe (b) the accurate prediction of the background cosmic radiation frequency (c) the success of cosmological modeling on the basis of a BB ─ and a great deal more ─ add up to what is certainly the best theory of the universe going.

What view do you favor instead? And on the basis of what evidence?

As is universe created in a short time. Evidence can include logic.

Hence, i'm not "guessing" but rather using the evidence that we have.