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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Is there really such a thing as atheism? (I don't think so)
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
I've been thinking about it ( a lot) as a family member has been challenging this. Rather argumentatively and repeatedly. In ways that trouble my sleep. I will try to leave the personal out of this, and focus on representing the argument.
I have long thought that atheism doesn't actually exist, except in the narrow sense of rejecting some narrow, simple or strawman view of organized religion, e.g., the 10 year old child's version of a god to pray to who may or may not grant your request which was made most often under some sort of duress. Jesus loves me this I know stuff.
Everyone has a set of beliefs, and they generally pursue them. Not always acknowledging that they are the foundation of their pursuit, because they may not realize that it is at thr level of belief. It often seems to be individuality in various guises which tries to replace transcendent belief, or it's a belief in progress, or in consumerism (acquisition of things), which all depend on the pretence that they are not items of belief and, while maybe not resembling actual overt reverence and worship, operate unconsciously that way, organizing thoughts, feelings, behaviour and relationships with others.
I think these beliefs organize inner life, at the level of automatic, so much so that the holder of them is fooled into thinking that they aren't present, and even if realized, are classified as superior to the conventional belief in something beyond the material world we perceive through senses (and the enhanced sensing science provides). They emphasize the individual being in control, and the desire to be in increasing control. I think it is an illusion to think we can be in control, and this belief of control forms a major portion of the fake non-belief that I'm thinking atheism is. Now you may dispute that a god or formal religious belief isn't required to get beyond that. And I couldn't argue with this, but I think it gets the argument at least into agnosticism.
[ 31. October 2016, 17:56: Message edited by: no prophet's flag is set so... ]
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
A lot of atheists that I know describe themselves as agnostic atheists. This distinguishes knowledge (hence, agnostic), about which few atheists claim to have about God, and belief, which most atheists claim to lack, hence 'a-theism'.
There are also strong atheists who actually assert that there is no God.
I don't see why lacking a belief in something is a problem. The old analogy was not collecting stamps, and it's correct that this is not a thing or a human trait.
I suppose there are an infinite number of things that I lack a belief in, but these lacks are not things.
Old joke: Sartre goes in a cafe and asks for coffee without cream. The waiter comes back, and says, 'apologies, M. Sartre, we don't have cream, but we have milk, would coffee without milk be OK?'
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
I think the OP clearly illustrates the problem many have in seeing things from any perspective but their own.
They cannot trust go beyond how they see the world.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
At least, it doesn't say that atheists assert that there is no God, therefore that is their burden of proof. This is a common claim.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Everyone has a set of beliefs, and they generally pursue them. Not always acknowledging that they are the foundation of their pursuit, because they may not realize that it is at thr level of belief. It often seems to be individuality in various guises which tries to replace transcendent belief, or it's a belief in progress, or in consumerism (acquisition of things), which all depend on the pretence that they are not items of belief and, while maybe not resembling actual overt reverence and worship, operate unconsciously that way, organizing thoughts, feelings, behaviour and relationships with others.
This seems like a sloppy, over-broad definition of theism that would be rejected in any other context. For example, a lot of people love their families. Those that don't typically have other very strong feelings about their families. But it would be fatuous in the extreme to claim that anyone with strong feelings about their families didn't believe in God because they were really "familiests".
I'm not sure "you believe in something, therefore you believe in God" even rises to the level of an argument. It's just a non sequitur.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
A lot of people who self identify as atheists tend to be rejectors of organised religion. Usually rejecting Christianity, probably because of it's historical dominance coupled with the fact that, in most instances these days, people are free to reject it.
Some tend to be adamant there is no God despite having no more evidence for this state of affairs than those who believe their is.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
I didn't even realize that the OP meant that!
It sounds like presuppositionalism, oh no, bring the garlic and crosses.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
A lot of people who self identify as atheists tend to be rejectors of organised religion. Usually rejecting Christianity, probably because of it's historical dominance coupled with the fact that, in most instances these days, people are free to reject it.
Some tend to be adamant there is no God despite having no more evidence for this state of affairs than those who believe their is.
But I think some atheists don't identify as such. Nearly everyone in my family lacked a belief in God, but they didn't talk about it. Well, my mum did, spitting and hissing in the corner about Christians. Well, it is Hallowe'en.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Everyone has a set of beliefs, and they generally pursue them.
This is probably true. But that's not a reason to suppose that it isn't atheism.
To take some famous atheists: d'Holbach, Shelley, Comte, Schopenhauer, Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre all had beliefs. Not the same beliefs by any means. But they all count as atheists. An atheist is someone who doesn't believe God or gods exist(*); not someone who doesn't believe anything.
(*) I think the fundamental division in belief systems lies between monotheists who believe in God but not in gods and similar atheists on the one hand, and polytheists who believe in gods but not God and similar atheists on the other. Of the atheists above, I'd say d'Holbach to Marx fall on the first side; Nietzsche, Heidegger and Sartre on the second.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
I think there is a case for a kind of weak version of the paragraph Croesus has just cited, that might be justifiable. Something along the lines of "some people who are not formally religious have adopted other belief systems which perform much the same emotional role in their life as religious belief does in the life of a religious believer" or as Mary Midgley once put it: "worship does not always involve Hymns Ancient and Modern". But it is quite possible to be one of those people and to be an atheist. It's also possible to have neither a religious worldview nor something which on closer examination rather resembles a religious world view.
Actually, if you think about it, the latter position is not a million miles away from the position taken by sensible religious believers and sensible people who have a world view that bears some resemblance to a religion. Pretty much all of us think that when we are trying to make sense of the world we come across not only good versus evil, but also competing goods. How do we square off, say, the claims of freedom and equality? Or justice and peace? Or economic growth and concern for the environment? Now, if you are Isaiah Berlin, say, these are the key questions for a thinking person to answer. If, on the other hand, you are a Christian or a Communist or Richard Dawkins or someone else who thinks that there is one profound and terrible question that must be answered at all costs, once you have answered it you still have to answer those other questions in the light of your original answer. If you are religious, or have a religious-like belief system, presumably you hope this sheds some light on the question. But you still have to answer it and, if you are honest, you are still dealing with a trade off between competing human goods.
That being the case it is at least theoretically possible that everything boils down to how you decide between competing human goods. As a Christian, that isn't what I believe but I don't think that people who do believe it are self-evidently wicked or stupid.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Carex
Shipmate
# 9643
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Posted
If you define atheism as not believing in "God", then before you can determine whether someone is an atheist you have to define "God" so you can compare "God" to what a person believes. Clearly the more vague you make the definition, the more people will believe something close enough to it that you can claim they aren't atheists if that is what you are trying to do.
On the other hand, some make the definition of "God" so strict that it makes most people atheists even if they don't consider themselves such. Just like believing that nobody other than your only denomination is "really Christian".
So if you want to talk about whether or not someone is an atheist, you first have to define that that means - what features does "God" need to have to qualify as a "God"? I might believe that "God" is a dyslexic dog that lives around the corner: yes, I believe such a dog exists named "God', but does that exclude me from being an atheist? What if someone believes in the social or moral concept of "God": is that close enough to believing in a "God"? This is where the real conversation has to take place, before you start judging whether or not people meet your definition.
The other question, then, is why does it matter to you whether or not I am an atheist? What benefit or advantage do you get from redefining the terms so that I'm no long an atheist? Or that I am? Why do you care? Why should I care how you define my beliefs?
I've seen a number of cases on these boards over the years where someone posits that most atheists really aren't: it often is tinged with a sense of victory or superiority: "see, even those who claim to be atheists really believe in God." I don't understand this part of it, but this certainly isn't the first post that has gone in that direction. That might be another good point for discussion, even before trying to define what constitutes an atheist.
Posts: 1425 | Registered: Jun 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
An atheist needs nothing beyond a lack of belief in god(s) to qualify as an atheist.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
For the sake of this discussion, I am content with a definition of a nontheistic god á la Spong.
It appears the belief in something and governing one's behaviour in accord with the belief is the usual human condition.
[ 31. October 2016, 21:21: Message edited by: no prophet's flag is set so... ]
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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TurquoiseTastic
Fish of a different color
# 8978
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Posted
But you are now defining theism so widely as to make the term virtually useless. It seems that you are now saying that you can be a "non-theistic theist" - huh?
Posts: 1092 | From: Hants., UK | Registered: Jan 2005
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Carex
Shipmate
# 9643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
For the sake of this discussion, I am content with a definition of a nontheistic god á la Spong.
What does that mean? Not having read anything by Spong, how do I tell whether a particular thought or belief qualifies as "God" or not? It is rather presumptuous, of course, to assume that atheists think in stereotypical ways as imagined by those who believe differently.
And why the need to eliminate atheists by redefining them away? Is it too threatening to have them around for some reason? It seems like there are a lot of underlying assumptions that need to be sorted out before the question even makes any sense to ask.
quote:
W. C. Fields said:
A man's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another drink.
That's a belief that was pursued - does it qualify as a non-theistic God, given that it is explicit rather than unacknowledged?
Posts: 1425 | Registered: Jun 2005
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
I'm not a Spong expert, and you will find many references to him and his thought on the internet. Basic idea he seemed to have is of an impersonal god not too interested in human beings.
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Anglican_Brat
Shipmate
# 12349
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Posted
I suppose it depends on your understanding of theism. The non-theistic theologians such as John Spong and Gretta Vosper maintain, to some degree that you can have a spirituality without entailing a dogmatic belief in the traditional Christian God. Usually this is the case of deifying IMHO, positive Christian traits. Vosper in particularly, doesn't use the term "God" but "love" and "goodness" and "peace."
It would be weird asking Richard Dawkins if he believes in "love" or not, rather than a theistic God. But I think the atheistic response to such Christian nontheism would be dumbfoundedness, why would you gather on a sunday morning to sing praises to "love, love, love", when all you are doing is personifying an abstract concept.
I believe that to be a theist, ultimately means that you believe or accept in a divine Other, as in there is something there, in a cosmic, spiritual sense, that is not completely reducible to human perception or subjectivity. How this "other" is understood by the human may be through the metaphors of theology, and I think religious people should admit that all theology is basically metaphorical. But, if one denies the presence of the divine Other, and asserts that really, we are the only ones here, then in my mind, that is true atheism.
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Posts: 4332 | From: Vancouver | Registered: Feb 2007
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
For the sake of this discussion, I am content with a definition of a nontheistic god á la Spong.
A "nontheistic god"? You've given this a lot of thought, have you?
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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Ariston
Insane Unicorn
# 10894
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Posted
Weird. I've known a lot of folks in my time who were as thoroughgoing materialists as they come. Not even "spiritual, not religious" "I believe in love" "maybe there's something out there" wishy-washy types; real and true "matter is all there is, consciousness and other stuff supervenes" materialists. Maybe it's what I get from hanging around analytic philosophers—who, to be fair, are often trying to out-science their perception of scientists—but I really and truly don't have a clue where NP's getting that idea from. At all.
(Side note: turns out atheistic philosophers have very different views on a number of surprising things than theistic philosophers do. Sure, physicalism makes sense, but theists preferring communitarian political theories? Whodathunkit.)
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“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.
Posts: 6849 | From: The People's Republic of Balcones | Registered: Jan 2006
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
One of the things I find interesting is the atheists I am familiar with want to take the Bible as literally as my fundamentalist friends.
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quetzalcoatl--
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
There are also strong atheists who actually assert that there is no God.
One of them is magician Penn Jillette. Some years back, he did an essay/recording for NPR's "This I Believe". Here is the audio and text for "There Is No God".
He took a very positive approach, though I gather he's sometimes more negative. It's really good.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
np--
You don't have to answer this, but are you maybe:
a) worried about your family member and/or their soul,
or
b) worried about your own faith and/or soul?
ISTM you're trying very hard to eliminate the possibility of anyone being an atheist.
FWIW.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
There are at least 2 types of atheists. The first is relatively straight forward, believing that there is no God, no afterlife, nothing before the big bang etc. Then there are those who don't believe in God. This group includes people like Dawkins, and the problem is that they define themselves by a lack of belief expressed in such a way as to be dependent upon the existence of that being.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
I have, of late, encountered "Christian Atheism", which might help to clarify this a little (or not). It is the position held by David Hayward (the Naked Pastor). It is not one I agree with at all, but have learned to understand.
His position is that all of the things that Christianity teaches about how to act and behave are good and valid. They are a way of life and a way to live a good life. This includes helping the poor, caring for others, helping them in their spiritual journey.
However - crucially - he does not believe there is a God, a divine being. He is atheistic in the sense that he has been convinced that God does not actually exist. And that this is not a problem in terms of an individuals life and behaviour.
And, of course, the Biblical writers believed in God. This is not militant atheism, in the sense of rejecting all those who believe in God. It is liberal atheism, in the sense of accepting spiritual insight from everywhere, but actually rejecting the inspiration behind it.
FWIW, I reject this position. In fact, I hold an almost inverse position - that I act as I do, that I am the person I am because of the divine in me, because God is real. That is what saves me from the mire.
What is significant is that our behaviour is not that different. And I think we can embrace each other.
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Blog
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Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
Some tend to be adamant there is no God despite having no more evidence for this state of affairs than those who believe their is.
Do they need evidence?
I don't believe in dragons.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
The recently popular definition, that an atheist is someone who doesn't believe in God or gods (or a God or gods, or in the existence of God or gods) is interesting because pairing God and gods is something a monotheist would not do, nor, I suspect, a polytheist.
Monotheism rejects gods as idols, as in Isaiah 44, or Acts 17. One God or many gods are not alternatives, they are different sorts of things. I suspect that a polytheist might not reject a monotheist God so much as see it as irrelevant or uninteresting.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
One of the things I find interesting is the atheists I am familiar with want to take the Bible as literally as my fundamentalist friends.
This is because they have no pressing need not to do so.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
Some tend to be adamant there is no God despite having no more evidence for this state of affairs than those who believe their is.
Do they need evidence?
I don't believe in dragons.
Well, there is a big difference between the firm assertion that there is no God, and citing a lack of belief in one. Dawkins' famous scale of belief, from 1-7, had 7 as 'definitely no God', and my memory is that about 25% of respondents chose that. So these would be gnostic atheists.
That surprises me, is I can't see how one can justify absolute conviction. However, lack of belief is just that, lack of belief, citing lack of evidence for God, but not claiming to know, (agnostic atheism).
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
I think it was Leibniz who coined the phrase : Atheism is a Christian sect. There are many ways to read and understand that of course, but there is a lot of truth in it for today's 'new atheism' that often seems born from a reaction purely to Christian fundamentalism than to any true conviction about the existence of God.
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
I think it was Leibniz who coined the phrase : Atheism is a Christian sect. There are many ways to read and understand that of course, but there is a lot of truth in it for today's 'new atheism' that often seems born from a reaction purely to Christian fundamentalism than to any true conviction about the existence of God.
But that's just it. Atheism isn't about conviction about the existence of God. It's about lack thereof.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
There is something. Therefore there always has been. God no more explains that - being something - than no God does and makes things infinitely more complicated.
Atheism is perfectly rational. Minimal, Occamian, reductionist, simple, unimaginative, stark, elegant. But rational, inevitable with its handmaid inexorable physicalism. Perfectly reasonable.
Creation; energy, life, mind, does not logically require a creator.
It might actually do, but we have no way of knowing.
Except Jesus.
And grandeur. Wonder.
[ 01. November 2016, 11:54: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
Posted by Mouse:
quote:
But that's just it. Atheism isn't about conviction about the existence of God. It's about lack thereof.
Is it really though? I've always understood atheism as a held conviction that there is no God, whereas agnosticism covers a broad spectrum of those who believe in a God, but are not affiliated to any particular religious faith and those who simply waver between thinking there might be a God and might not be. Agnosticism, as I understand it, is difficult to define being so broad. Atheism is quite certain of its parameters. It seems to me that there is today a lot of confusion because some agnostics think it is fashionable, hip or edgy to be labelled 'atheist' rather than agnostic and there's the added accusation that agnosticism is far too wooly by half. And who really wants to be labelled wooly in today's world unless you're a principled Anglican?
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
It's less a conviction than a conclusion.
The rationale goes like this: anything can be postulated to exist. Russel's Teapot is the classic example. I can claim that there are pink unicorns somewhere in the world.
The onus, when such a claim is made, is to provide evidence for it. To provide a test, to provide falsifiability criteria. To be able to say "if there were no pink unicorns, then it follows we'd see X. We don't see X, therefore pink unicorns exist."
The atheist contention is that no such test, no such observation, not such falsifiability criteria are provided. The atheist is provided with no reasons to believe that God exists, and therefore, like pink unicorns and Russel's teapot, the rational conclusion is that he doesn't. And if it turns out that he does, he is of little consequence because he doesn't make any verifiable difference to the world. If he did, believers could point to that difference as evidence for his existence.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
One of the things I find interesting is the atheists I am familiar with want to take the Bible as literally as my fundamentalist friends.
Well said. That's the strawman isn't. Rejecting what isn't believed.
The Spong version of god, I have thought might be a starting point to consider the opposite end.
Is the point of atheism to deny the unconscious drive towards purpose?
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Is the point of atheism to deny the unconscious drive towards purpose?
Does atheism have to have a point? Atheism denies either the truth or the relevance of monotheism and polytheism.
Strictly, there's a problem of language here, namely that where language has a noun we tend to believe that the world has one phenomenon. But in this case, it's better to see a number of different phenomena united largely by not being something else.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I have long thought that atheism doesn't actually exist, except in the narrow sense of rejecting some narrow, simple or strawman view of organized religion,…
What an interesting OP – I’ve been thinking about it since I read it first thing this morning. I think you are right – atheism is, like so many thousands of abstract nouns in English, a word to label something that does not exist.* The word became needed I should think to avoid having to use whole sentences to describe a lack of belief!
thank goodness for modern communication and the freedom to discuss such things; it was a word I never heard when young when in any case to mention religion in company was the height of bad manners. I’m not so sure about the word rejection, as I think there must be many like myself who, in the course of widening contacts, knowledge and understanding of how events, such as apparent ‘miracles’, could be so wrongly misinterpreted, simply stepped easily away from belief - i.e. belief in any god.
*Or any name such as god? ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
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IconiumBound
Shipmate
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Posted
Having moved from a long history in Christianity to a non-believer in a supernatural being; I subscribe to Stephan Hawking's statement that "God is not necessary" (for natural evolution). That would make me an atheist but I have an aversion to that because many people assume that makes me an anti-theist. I do not feel that theistic believers are necessarily bad or evil.
I view all religions as being examples of moral structures for what is considered good behavior by the sect that made them up. Having a god to enforce (heaven or hell) those morals is a way of keeping the sect on a "good" path. When the sect tries to coerce their belief system on others by threats or violence they have moved beyond any sense of morality. But short of that, I believe the religious sect can provide comfort, relief and service to their members and others.
In other words I believe in the non-religious Golden Rule, a statement echoed in almost every religion and non-religion,
I won't be insulted if you call me an atheist but presently I am more comfortable with the title Humanist.
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Super post.
Ditto to Iconium Bound
[ 01. November 2016, 14:33: Message edited by: SusanDoris ]
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IconiumBound:
Having moved from a long history in Christianity to a non-believer in a supernatural being; I subscribe to Stephan Hawking's statement that "God is not necessary" (for natural evolution). That would make me an atheist but I have an aversion to that because many people assume that makes me an anti-theist. I do not feel that theistic believers are necessarily bad or evil.
I agree with Hawking on this. Which I think is part of the strawman argument. Of course evolution doesn't need a god to command the natural processes involved in evolution. Nor chemical reactions, the weather, the orbits of planets etc. None of which is an argument for or against.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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An atheist needs prove there is no god like a Patagonian penguin herder needs to prove there is no Loch Ness Monster.
An atheist does not need any other context than a lack of belief.
ISTM, the obsession with defining an atheist as more than that lies in a lack inside the person obsessed, not in atheist self-definition.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
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mark_in_manchester
not waving, but...
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Posted
quote:
In other words I believe in the non-religious Golden Rule
Would you mind my asking why 'non-religious'? Believing in the Golden Rule seems like a religious position to me; it not being a position which has a name commonly recognised as 'a religion' doesn't seem to me to be a good enough reason why it isn't.
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"We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard
(so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Is the point of atheism to deny the unconscious drive towards purpose?
Atheism doesn't have a "point". It is no more nor less than the absence of belief in any Divine Being(s).
Many, if not most, atheists have a drive towards purpose in their lives. They just don't derive that purpose from a theistic belief.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:
quote:
In other words I believe in the non-religious Golden Rule
Would you mind my asking why 'non-religious'? Believing in the Golden Rule seems like a religious position to me; it not being a position which has a name commonly recognised as 'a religion' doesn't seem to me to be a good enough reason why it isn't.
Believing that one should treat others how one wishes to be treated isn't an inherently religious poition. And not all beliefs are religions.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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HCH
Shipmate
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Posted
Usually when I hear of atheists, they are in countries like Britain or the U.S. where a common reference point is some version of Christianity. I hear thereby of atheists as rejecting specifically Christianity. I do not usually hear of atheists as people rejecting Buddhism or various other religions. I suppose there must be such but I do not hear of them. Are there societies in which atheism is rare?
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Raptor Eye
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# 16649
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Posted
I don't believe in the god or religion rejected by many atheists either. Surely atheism can exist only if people know who the God is that others believe in, so that an informed decision can be made to reject the possibility of that God's existence.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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lilBuddha - spot on.
HCH - there is no Buddhist God. Atheism nulls all theism including mono: the People of the Book and poly: Hinduism. Atheism is officially rare in Muslim societies as it gets you murdered.
Raptor Eye - no one else needs to believe in any God(s) for a person positively not to. Any idea of God(s) will do.
Karl: Liberal Backslider - the evidence for God is existence itself. Which is actually binary, 50:50 Either stuff exists because it can of itself, or it can't and therefore God has to think it. This isn't falsifiable either way.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HCH:
I do not usually hear of atheists as people rejecting Buddhism or various other religions.
Of course, many schools of Buddhism are non-theistic to start with.
Based on my own experience, it seems to me a reasonable question to consider what concept of God an athiest does not believe. I have known those who reject all concepts of God, while I've known others who reject a more Christian concept of God but remain open to other concepts of the divine, however they might express it. (And for the record, I think it's an equally reasonable question to consider what concept of God theists believe in. Even among Christians, I find widely differing understandings of God.)
But it doesn't really follow to me to suggest that an atheist who rejects all concepts of God isn't really an atheist because they believe in something that someone else might label "god," however unreasonable that label might be.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Many, if not most, atheists have a drive towards purpose in their lives. They just don't derive that purpose from a theistic belief.
Human drive and achievement is perfectly capable of functioning independently from any theism, meditation or spiritual practicing.
If somebody really isn't bothered that dead means dead, or that planet Earth with all it's biological diversity is, in the face of all available evidence, a mere quirk of the Cosmos then who is anyone to try and tell them different.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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IconiumBound
Shipmate
# 754
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Posted
In reply to Mark-in-Manchester
I used the term "non-religious" to indicate that the usual version of the Golden Rule does not use the word god or God. Although it does no harm for a god-believer to assume it comes from his/her God; as long as he/she doesn't press his/her version on others.
Wikipedia gives this definition: quote:
The Golden Rule or law of reciprocity is the principle of treating others as one would wish to be treated oneself. It is a maxim of altruism seen in many human religions and human cultures
Posts: 1318 | From: Philadelphia, PA, USA | Registered: Jul 2001
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Goldfish Stew
Shipmate
# 5512
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
The atheist contention is that no such test, no such observation, not such falsifiability criteria are provided. The atheist is provided with no reasons to believe that God exists, and therefore, like pink unicorns and Russel's teapot, the rational conclusion is that he doesn't. And if it turns out that he does, he is of little consequence because he doesn't make any verifiable difference to the world. If he did, believers could point to that difference as evidence for his existence.
This is well put, and sums up where I sit. I'd be one of the people who if someone insisted on a label would hover between agnostic and atheist dependent on context. (The agnostic part comes from the notion that a verifiable piece of evidence may pop up tomorrow, thus the door cannot be closed as a complete article of faith.)
My last prayer about 8 years ago was "well I'll start acting as if you exist if you do." Before that gets overly dissected, that's a culmination of a longer journey ![[Biased]](wink.gif) , but resonates with Karl's summation.
Of course, that also depends entirely on the definition of "God" utilised.
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