Atheists holding Reason Rally in Washington, D.C., this weekend
By Eric Pfeiffer
PostsRSSBy Eric Pfeiffer | The Sideshow – Fri, Mar 23, 2012EmailShare30Print
Richard Dawkins (AP/Manish Swarup)An organized group of atheists and some of the biggest voices from their movement will hold Reason Rally on The National Mall this weekend to raise awareness for their cause and to encourage members of Congress to respect their views.
"We need to stress to the theists that we are here," David Silverman, chairman of the rally committee and president of the American Atheists, told CNN's Belief Blog. "Atheism is growing in all 50 states. What people don't seem to understand is all we demand at American Atheists is equality."
Oxford Professor Richard Dawkins, arguably the most famous living atheist in the world, will headline the Reason Rally. Dawkins says he hopes the event will pressure members of Congress to respect the views of nonbelievers in America.
"The nonbelieving constituency has not been vocal enough, and it therefore has been politic for them to be ignored by their congressmen, by their senators," Dawkins said.
The event is advertised as the largest gathering of atheists in history, but reports of a gloomy weather forecast could significantly reduce the rally's participants. The National Parks Service says it is prepared for up to 30,000 participants, but Silverman told CNN that rain could cut that number down to 5,000.
Todd Stiefel, Founder of the Stiefel Freethought Foundation, is helping to cover about half of the event's estimated $300,000 in expenses.
And while there are plenty of critics of atheism, CNN reports the only group to have officially registered for a competing spot of land to protest the rally is the Westboro Baptist Church, a group infamous for its picketing of funerals of American servicemen and servicewomen.
Unfortunately I didn't make it. It rained for most of it. Some of the videos are starting to trickle out onto youtube where you can see the athiest evangelicals picking on Christians that showed up.
Mr Hyena wrote:So...whats the purpose of the rally?
The same purpose to pretty much every publicly held event.
The spectacle. It's all about the spectacle.
generalgrog wrote:Unfortunately I didn't make it. It rained for most of it. Some of the videos are starting to trickle out onto youtube where you can see the athiest evangelicals picking on Christians that showed up.
Mr Hyena wrote:So...whats the purpose of the rally?
The same purpose to pretty much every publicly held event.
The spectacle. It's all about the chicks.
generalgrog wrote:Unfortunately I didn't make it. It rained for most of it. Some of the videos are starting to trickle out onto youtube where you can see the athiest evangelicals picking on Christians that showed up.
generalgrog wrote:Unfortunately I didn't make it. It rained for most of it. Some of the videos are starting to trickle out onto youtube where you can see the athiest evangelicals picking on Christians that showed up.
GG
Why would Christians have attended a rally for Atheists?
You don't suppose it was to troll the unbelievers now, do you???
I doubt I would've gone even if I hadn't had to work. Doesn't seem to be much point. Atheism doesn't need to involve itself in movement politics. That way lies madness and stupid-ass organizational names.
Mr Hyena wrote:So...whats the purpose of the rally?
The same purpose to pretty much every publicly held event.
The spectacle. It's all about the spectacle.
generalgrog wrote:Unfortunately I didn't make it. It rained for most of it. Some of the videos are starting to trickle out onto youtube where you can see the athiest evangelicals picking on Christians that showed up.
Do you have a link/source for that?
just do a youtube search for "athiest rally in DC" or reason rally.
generalgrog wrote:
just do a youtube search for "athiest rally in DC" or reason rally.
GG
This doesn't prove much other than some people are jerks. If I can find a video of a christian being mean to a non-believer, do all believers inherently suck? I'd like to think not. FWIW, the martyr card is rarely successful so you should probably stay away from it.
generalgrog wrote:
just do a youtube search for "athiest rally in DC" or reason rally.
GG
This doesn't prove much other than some people are jerks. If I can find a video of a christian being mean to a non-believer, do all believers inherently suck? I'd like to think not. FWIW, the martyr card is rarely successful so you should probably stay away from it.
Hmm, An organized group seeking to convert others to their thinking?
Now what did i just describe there?
Really This is ridiculous. I dont hate atheists. I hate their Hypocrisy that seem to accompany many(note, NOT ALL) who follow that religion(face it, it sometimes is)
Most of the guys who are loud are the ones who've felt hurt or persecuted by religion or religious figures. It's like the cycle of abuse, only instead of child abuse it's a cycle of being a jerk.
If you genuinely believe that you've got the truth, and other people are laboring under a delusion, it can be a noble impulse to try to shed light and lead them out of darkness. Alternately, it can be a self-aggrandizing way to hold yourself superior and be an arrogant dick. Note that this entire paragraph applies equally to religious prosyletizers, atheist crusaders, and fanatical followers of any political philosophy you are to name,
MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Why would Christians have attended a rally for Atheists?
You don't suppose it was to troll the unbelievers now, do you???
From what I've seen on Youtube, yeah, that's pretty much it. And, seemingly they were successful:
Personally, I've dealt with people very much like both of them, and they're both generally terrible. The atheist is the sort of person you chuckle at smugly, and the Christian dude is best handled via being better at trolling.
generalgrog wrote:Unfortunately I didn't make it. It rained for most of it. Some of the videos are starting to trickle out onto youtube where you can see the athiest evangelicals picking on Christians that showed up.
GG
Why would Christians have attended a rally for Atheists?
You don't suppose it was to troll the unbelievers now, do you???
I was actually planning on going in "stealth mode". I was curious to see what people like dawkins had to say. I certainly had not planned on wearing the JESUS shirt like the evangelist above. Thats just like smearing yourself with honey and lying down on an ant hill.
You turn up for a rally saying you want equality, and layer the thing with a heavy dose of assumed superiority, and some people from a religion turn up and you yell at each for a bit. Everyone goes home convinced they have to keep fighting for the right to be left alone. Which makes no sense, if they'd never attended the rally no-one would have known they were atheist, or even thought to ask them the question.
Now, people from both groups getting together, and holding a rally for pluralism. That makes some damn sense.
Frazzled wrote:Corrected your typo.
Which is why these sorts of things are doomed to failure. There are no hot, crazy atheist girls, like there are hot, crazy hippies/socialists/evangelicals, so why would any guy ever turn up to one of these things? Only vocal atheist chicks I've met were shrill and extremely not hot. So the rallies would have to be complete fail.
sebster wrote:Which is why these sorts of things are doomed to failure. There are no hot, crazy atheist girls, like there are hot, crazy hippies/socialists/evangelicals, so why would any guy ever turn up to one of these things? Only vocal atheist chicks I've met were shrill and extremely not hot. So the rallies would have to be complete fail.
There are hot, crazy atheist chicks too. I think you see fewer of them just because you see fewer people in general gathering as atheists, per se.
Here in the UK, we don't have reason rallies, because 39% of the population identify as Atheist, compared to America's 9%. It's really a non-issue here.
Mannahnin wrote:There are hot, crazy atheist chicks too. I think you see fewer of them just because you see fewer people in general gathering as atheists, per se.
Oh, there's hot women of all kinds. And there's crazy in everything, I'm certain atheism isn't exempted. And in most cases crazy and politically active are about the worst things you can find in a person, so much so that they're not worth it, no matter how hot they are.
But there's a special kind of girl that is crazy in the perfect way, that you find at some kinds of rallies. If you've been to a rally and found this kind of girl then you'll know what I'm talking about (and if you've been to an environmental rally you most definitely will have found this kind of girl). And trust me when I say that kind of girl is why a whole lot of the guys attend these things. They may not admit, not even to themselves, but seriously, they aren't there because there's a really pressing need to burn an effigy of the minister for youth affairs.
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H.B.M.C. wrote:Aiight. Let's take that one step further then.
Let's organise a White Pride parade. See how far that goes...
So by one step further you mean 'let's take a great big leap into the land of non sequitur'. Seriously, what in the feth does an atheism rally have to do with white pride?
sebster wrote:So by one step further you mean 'let's take a great big leap into the land of non sequitur'. Seriously, what in the feth does an atheism rally have to do with white pride?
Really not the point I was making. Let me try and explain:
Mel said that if there can be religious parades, why not a specifically non-religious one? To me, that's a perfectly legitimate thing to say, and I can't disagree with her. But I wonder what folks would say if you applied that to race. We do have black pride parades, so why not a white pride parade? Where's the 'line', so to speak, when being proud of and/or wanting to support something in 'parade format' becomes incorrect or inappropriate?
[EDIT]: Oh, and this would be tangential, not non sequitur. Just FYI.
sebster wrote:
...Which is why these sorts of things are doomed to failure. There are no hot, crazy atheist girls, like there are hot, crazy hippies/socialists/evangelicals, so why would any guy ever turn up to one of these things? Only vocal atheist chicks I've met were shrill and extremely not hot. So the rallies would have to be complete fail.
generalgrog wrote:I certainly had not planned on wearing the JESUS shirt like the evangelist above. Thats just like smearing yourself with honey and lying down on an ant hill.
GG
Wearing the jesus shirt aaaand arguing with the attendees, that's more akin to jumping up and down on the anthill repeatedly and then bleating because you got bitten. It was trolling.
Ouze wrote:Monica Belluci and Rose Byrne are both agnostics, and totally hot.
Agnostics aren't atheists. They are just fence sitters. Sorry, no Belluci for you.
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MeanGreenStompa wrote:
generalgrog wrote:I certainly had not planned on wearing the JESUS shirt like the evangelist above. Thats just like smearing yourself with honey and lying down on an ant hill.
GG
Wearing the jesus shirt aaaand arguing with the attendees, that's more akin to jumping up and down on the anthill repeatedly and then bleating because you got bitten. It was trolling.
Unfortunately some people seem to think freedom of speech means exactly that - the freedom to say whatever the hell they like without any repercussions.
I daresay it's the other way around. Let me explainoose.
I am agnostic about God(s) in the same way I am agnostic about the Easter Bunny. I can't scientifically disprove the Easter Bunny, or God, but I live my life with the 99.9% estimate that He/She/It is not there, until such time as new evidence is revealed, like a monster rabbit emerging from behind me as I type this and pushing my face into the keyeajfelkajfkleahgke;alwfjkle;ajgljealkfhlkewahgoiaehroighealfjeklwfjlajgkleawglawehgoiaefkfa
fluffstalker wrote:I daresay it's the other way around. Let me explainoose.
I am agnostic about God(s) in the same way I am agnostic about the Easter Bunny. I can't scientifically disprove the Easter Bunny, or God, but I live my life with the 99.9% estimate that He/She/It is not there, until such time as new evidence is revealed, like a monster rabbit emerging from behind me as I type this and pushing my face into the keyeajfelkajfkleahgke;alwfjkle;ajgljealkfhlkewahgoiaehroighealfjeklwfjlajgkleawglawehgoiaefkfa
Yes. You're an atheist. The vast majority of atheists would start believing in deities if empirical evidence that they existed were actually to be discovered.
You do not believe in deities. Saying, "Well, I can't prove they don't exist," doesn't make that any less true, it simply means you refrain from asserting they do not exist. "Strong" atheism vs. "weak" atheism.
Well I was more responding to the post by Frazzled, but yes, you are correct, and I refer to myself as an atheist as well, it's easier than saying 99% agnostic. Also I have no problem asserting the chance that a deity may or not exist, I just try to avoid statements like, I don't believe in God, or God absolutely doesn't exist, because it's not a matter of belief, it's a matter of insufficient evidence. I just say, I find the idea of a deity unlikely in the extreme.
It may sound overly nitpicky but when it comes to theists they may pick up on anything and accuse you of being just as dogmatic as they are if you don't use the correct terms.
fluffstalker wrote:Well I was more responding to the post by Frazzled, but yes, you are correct, and I refer to myself as an atheist as well, it's easier than saying 99% agnostic. Also I have no problem asserting the chance that a deity may or not exist, I just try to avoid statements like, I don't believe in God, or God absolutely doesn't exist, because it's not a matter of belief, it's a matter of insufficient evidence. I just say, I find the idea of a deity unlikely in the extreme.
It may sound overly nitpicky but when it comes to theists they may pick up on anything and accuse you of being just as dogmatic as they are if you don't use the correct terms.
Of course. Theists have an easier time of things if they can frame atheists as actively denying their god rather than simply not believing in gods.
Agnosticism is atheism, provided we define atheism as it should be defined - lack of belief in supernatural deities.
Ouze wrote:Monica Belluci and Rose Byrne are both agnostics, and totally hot.
Agnostics aren't atheists. They are just fence sitters. Sorry, no Belluci for you.
They are, actually.
He's right like Frazz, I'm agnostic, I accept that there might be a God, I just doubt there is, and ill happily change my mind if I see any good reason to.
Hardly makes me a fence sitter does it? That's like implying that agnostics think a Christian God is as likely as No God.
I prefer to think of my brand of agnosticism as something more akin to having this attitude towards the vocal religous groups and atheists:
It's not that I don't believe in a god or some sort of higher power, I just don't think anyone has gotten it right yet, and I really just want everyone to quit trying to shove their beliefs/politics/morales down my throat.
Maelstrom808 wrote:It's not that I don't believe in a god or some sort of higher power, I just don't think anyone has gotten it right yet, and I really just want everyone to quit trying to shove their beliefs/politics/morales down my throat.
If you believe in a "higher power," you're not agnostic.
I never said I did believe either, the simple fact is...I don't know. The statement was aimed at those saying agnostics are simply atheists, which is not true. An atheist is certain that there is no higher power. A theist is certain there is. I don't believe there is certainty to be had at this stage of the game.
Maelstrom808 wrote:I never said I did believe either, the simple fact is...I don't know. The statement was aimed at those saying agnostics are simply atheists, which is not true. An atheist is certain that there is no higher power. A theist is certain there is. I don't believe there is certainty to be had at this stage of the game.
Atheism is a binary state. Either you do believe in supernatural deities, or you do not. If you do not believe in supernatural deities, you are at best an agnostic atheist - one of the many strands of so-called "weak" atheism.
Some atheists are certain that there is no higher power. "Strong" atheism is the explicit affirmation that gods do not exist. "Weak" atheism includes all other forms of non-theism, including simply saying, "I don't know what I believe."
Maelstrom808 wrote:I never said I did believe either, the simple fact is...I don't know. The statement was aimed at those saying agnostics are simply atheists, which is not true. An atheist is certain that there is no higher power. A theist is certain there is. I don't believe there is certainty to be had at this stage of the game.
Atheism is a binary state. Either you do believe in supernatural deities, or you do not. If you do not believe in supernatural deities, you are at best an agnostic atheist - one of the many strands of so-called "weak" atheism.
Some atheists are certain that there is no higher power. "Strong" atheism is the explicit affirmation that gods do not exist. "Weak" atheism includes all other forms of non-theism, including simply saying, "I don't know what I believe."
...and I disagree.
Agnosticism is saying we can not know the truth (at least for now). This is not the same as saying " I don't know what I believe". Yes that's essentially what I wrote, but it was an attempt at simplifying my beliefs. If you want to apply it in the terms of your post, I'd call Manchu an agnostic theist. If I interpret his post correctly, he believes there is a higher power, but admits that we do not know if there is one.
You cannot simply dump everyone into the atheism camp when it comes to agnostics. Some believe, some don't, but that's not what it's about.
Agnosticism is saying we can not know the truth (at least for now). This is not the same as saying " I don't know what I believe". Yes that's essentially what I wrote, but it was an attempt at simplifying my beliefs. If you want to apply it in the terms of your post, I'd call Manchu an agnostic theist. If I interpret his post correctly, he believes there is a higher power, but admits that we do not know if there is one.
You cannot simply dump everyone into the atheism camp when it comes to agnostics. Some believe, some don't, but that's not what it's about.
You can, actually. It's truly very simple: either you believe in supernatural deities or you do not. If you are unsure about their existence, you do not believe in them. If you do not believe in supernatural deities, you are an atheist.
H.B.M.C. wrote:Unfortunately some people seem to think freedom of speech means exactly that - the freedom to say whatever the hell they like without any repercussions.
The absence-of-God bless America.
And agnostics are just the bi people of the religious spectrum.
Agnosticism is saying we can not know the truth (at least for now). This is not the same as saying " I don't know what I believe". Yes that's essentially what I wrote, but it was an attempt at simplifying my beliefs. If you want to apply it in the terms of your post, I'd call Manchu an agnostic theist. If I interpret his post correctly, he believes there is a higher power, but admits that we do not know if there is one.
You cannot simply dump everyone into the atheism camp when it comes to agnostics. Some believe, some don't, but that's not what it's about.
If you are unsure about their existence, you do not believe in them. If you do not believe in supernatural deities, you are an atheist.
Belief and knowledge are not the same thing.
Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:
H.B.M.C. wrote:Unfortunately some people seem to think freedom of speech means exactly that - the freedom to say whatever the hell they like without any repercussions.
The absence-of-God bless America.
And agnostics are just the bi people of the religious spectrum.
Maelstrom808 wrote:If you want to apply it in the terms of your post, I'd call Manchu an agnostic theist. If I interpret his post correctly, he believes there is a higher power, but admits that we do not know if there is one.
To clarify, I wanted to highlight that I don't think that atheism as it's understood in our pop culture today is meaningfully paired against theism. The "new atheist" position seems to be two-pronged: (1) there is no evidence of God's existence in the sense that there is evidence of the existence of refrigerators or gravity and (2) therefore God does not exist. A lot of religious people, myself included, can agree with the first prong. But we don't think the first prong can ever lead to the second. We often talk here in OT about how the religious perspective dominates how we define atheism. But there is also a sense in which atheist arguments seek to define theist ones. My faith in God is not the same type of phenomenon as my "belief" in gravity. One helpful, I hope helpful, way to talk about it is to use the example of friendship. The key question is not whether your friend exists but whether or not you trust that person. Similarly, the objective existence of God (again, the idea that God's existence can be proven in the same or a similar way to the existence of a refrigerator) is not a certainty for believers. I think this kind of certainty neither precedes nor proceeds from faith.
Maelstrom808 wrote:If you want to apply it in the terms of your post, I'd call Manchu an agnostic theist. If I interpret his post correctly, he believes there is a higher power, but admits that we do not know if there is one.
To clarify, I wanted to highlight that I don't think that atheism as it's understood in our pop culture today is meaningfully paired against theism. The "new atheist" position seems to be two-pronged: (1) there is no evidence of God's existence in the sense that there is evidence of the existence of refrigerators or gravity and (2) therefore God does not exist. A lot of religious people, myself included, can agree with the first prong. But we don't think the first prong can ever lead to the second. We often talk here in OT about how the religious perspective dominates how we define atheism. But there is also a sense in which atheist arguments seek to define theist ones. My faith in God is not the same type of phenomenon as my "belief" in gravity. One helpful, I hope helpful, way to talk about it is to use the example of friendship. The key question is not whether your friend exists but whether or not you trust that person. Similarly, the objective existence of God (again, the idea that God's existence can be proven in the same or a similar way to the existence of a refrigerator) is not a certainty for believers. I think this kind of certainty neither precedes nor proceeds from faith.
You're somewhat on the right track, except that's not "new atheism's" position. That's I guess what we could call "old atheism's." "New atheism" is rather more specifically anti-theist or, more correctly, anti-religious.
The friendship example is the baseline for many arguments against atheism's insistence on empirical evidence. I most often hear it in the form of, "Well, you can't prove love exists, either!" You can in fact prove that love, trust, friendship, and numerous other such concepts exist, empirically.
Even if it is possible to empirically prove the existence of love, trust, and friendship as an empirical fact, which I find dubious, that is beside the point. The point is not proving that someone else's is really my friend. The point is that I consider someone else to be my friend. But this who friendship thing is just an analogy anyway, something that I think is much closer to the theist experience of faith in God than the acknowledgement of the material existence of a refrigerator.
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Relapse wrote:What's the reason for the rally?
To seek equal rights for atheists, I believe. I'm not sure if any unequal treatment is actually alleged.
Manchu wrote:Even if it is possible to empirically prove the existence of love, trust, and friendship as an empirical fact, which I find dubious, that is beside the point. The point is not proving that someone else's is really my friend. The point is that I consider someone else to be my friend. But this who friendship thing is just an analogy anyway, something that I think is much closer to the theist experience of faith in God than the acknowledgement of the material existence of a refrigerator.
What do you find dubious about it? We can prove that emotional bonds do form. We can prove that selfless acts of altruism occur. We can prove that individuals make sacrifices for the betterment of others. None of this is particularly hard to do. We can label the motivation for such with whatever we want - if we called love "gruflab" instead, it wouldn't change the underlying psychological and biological mechanics behind it, all of which are observable.
To seek equal rights for atheists, I believe. I'm not sure if any unequal treatment is actually alleged.
I think it is just being tired of government officials disparaging atheists, either for political points or out of genuine dislike of them. The most common example is this exchange:
George H.W. Bush, 1987 Chicago wrote:
Sherman: What will you do to win the votes of the Americans who are atheists?
Bush: I guess I'm pretty weak in the atheist community. Faith in God is important to me.
Sherman: Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists?
Bush: No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.
Sherman (somewhat taken aback): Do you support as a sound constitutional principle the separation of state and church?
Bush: Yes, I support the separation of church and state. I'm just not very high on atheists.
I am suspicious that any definition of love could capture the way we experience it. But this suspicion is not relevant to the subject at hand because even if such a definition was satisfactory it still would not objectively prove the existence of God. My love of God does not "force" Him into existence.
@Ahtman: Better late than never, I suppose. Or does that not apply in this case?
Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:How can you prove something is truly selfless? Last I checked that was impossible.
Well, I would posit that sacrificing oneself for the protection of another would meet the definition, but regardless, it's irrelevant. Whether or not something can ever truly be selfless has no bearing on the point I was making, namely, that we can scientifically observe and prove the existence of emotional attachment, trust, etc.
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Manchu wrote:To seek equal rights for atheists, I believe. I'm not sure if any unequal treatment is actually alleged.
I believe there are still seven states that specify a religious test for officeholders.
There have been polls as recent as 2006 showing that 50% of the country would not vote for a qualified atheist for any level of office; that around the same level would not want their child to marry an atheist; that 40% of the country believes atheists to be un-American. Some folks in North Carolina tried to prevent a democratically-elected councilman from taking his seat in 2009 because he admitted to being an atheist. Etc.
The issues are rarely visible at the national level. On the local level, they crop up a fair amount.
Maelstrom808 wrote:If you want to apply it in the terms of your post, I'd call Manchu an agnostic theist. If I interpret his post correctly, he believes there is a higher power, but admits that we do not know if there is one.
To clarify, I wanted to highlight that I don't think that atheism as it's understood in our pop culture today is meaningfully paired against theism. The "new atheist" position seems to be two-pronged: (1) there is no evidence of God's existence in the sense that there is evidence of the existence of refrigerators or gravity and (2) therefore God does not exist. A lot of religious people, myself included, can agree with the first prong. But we don't think the first prong can ever lead to the second. We often talk here in OT about how the religious perspective dominates how we define atheism. But there is also a sense in which atheist arguments seek to define theist ones. My faith in God is not the same type of phenomenon as my "belief" in gravity. One helpful, I hope helpful, way to talk about it is to use the example of friendship. The key question is not whether your friend exists but whether or not you trust that person. Similarly, the objective existence of God (again, the idea that God's existence can be proven in the same or a similar way to the existence of a refrigerator) is not a certainty for believers. I think this kind of certainty neither precedes nor proceeds from faith.
Which is kind of exactly what I'm saying. Agnosticism is not about what you believe or don't believe. It's about what you know or more what you feel you can know. If someone really wants to try and simplify it down into camps:
- Pure atheists or strong atheism: Those who do not believe in a higher power and claim to know that there cannot be a higher power, or that knowledge of one is inconsequential.
- Agnostic atheists or weak atheism: Those who do not believe in a higher power, but claim that the existance of a higher power is unknown or is impossible to know.
- Pure theists: Those who do believe in a higher power and claim to know that there is one, or claim that knowledge of one is inconsequntial.
- Agnostic theists: Those who believe in a higher power but claim that the existance of a higher power is unknown or is immpossible to know.
It really is a gross oversimplification, but for our purposes here, it'll do. Even agnosticism can be broken down into classifiable variations.
Seaward wrote:
Maelstrom808 wrote:
Belief and knowledge are not the same thing.
So you do believe in supernatural deities? Either you do or your do not.
Part of my belief is it's nobody's business what I believe, but I will say it falls closer to Ietsism than anything else. We exist in a world of greys, quit trying to put everything into your two boxes. It doesn't work.
I guess I don't find any value in the term "pure theism" as you define it. There is simply no room for faith given certainty and, as I mentioned, certainty does not precede or proceed from faith. So having certainty regarding God is reductive of Him, making him out to be a thing among things, which is in turn contrary to what we believe about Him (at least in Christianity).
Yet there are those that fall into that description, so it is there. An important side note that you touched a little with a clarification you made. We must think outside the terms of Christianty or really any of the major accepted religions for that matter.
Also, I would not be an "agnostic theist" by your definition. My main point was that the way that atheists claim we should be able to know that God exists if He does exist is not how theists, or a least Christians, know God. The distinction is "know that God exists" on the one hand and "knowing God" on the other. Knowing God presumes His existence in the same way that being friends with someone presumes their existence. If I want to talk about friendship, I have no reason to talk about whether persons exist. New atheists point out that it's all well and good to assume the existence of persons because we can prove their existence but that the same cannot be said of God. For the Christian, the existence of God as we believe Him to be, necessitates that He is not the sort of thing among things that can be materially proven to exist. The new atheist then usually says something like "that's awfully convenient."
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Maelstrom808 wrote:We must think outside the terms of Christianty or really any of the major accepted religions for that matter.
No, that's not helpful. That results in theists defining atheism and athiests defining theism -- i.e., each group is actually only talking about what they think the other believes rather than what they really believe and why.
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Maelstrom808 wrote:Yet there are those that fall into that description, so it is there.
That a person can fit in a category does not render the category meaningful.
Manchu wrote:For the Christian, the existence of God as we believe Him to be, necessitates that He is not the sort of thing among things that can be materially proven to exist.
Which is kind of the very definition of agnostic theist
No. According to you, the definition of an agnostic theist is "Those who believe in a higher power but claim that the existance of a higher power is unknown or is immpossible to know." I am not saying that I feel the existence of God is unknown or impossible to know. I am saying that the concept of "certainty" as used by atheists regarding, for example, the roundness of the globe, is inapplicable.
Manchu wrote:No, that's not helpful. That results in theists defining atheism and athiests defining theists -- i.e., each group is actually only talking about what they think the other believes rather than what they really believe and why.
But to not do so results in "you are an atheist because you don't believe in either my god, or my list of marginally acceptable gods".
That a person can fit in a category does not render the category meaningful.
It might not be meaningful to you, but it could be very meaningful to that person.
An agnostic atheist would not believe in any deities, but would also say that there is a possibility of God's existence, even if it is extremely farfetched and unlikely. You'll find that most atheists fall under this category.
So a gnostic theist knows that the god(s) s/he believes exist do exist? This presumes a distinction between "knowing" and "believing" where gods are concerned -- which is not meaningful unless there is some god-detecting device out there that I haven't heard about.
Well, they believe they know, and leave no possibility for doubt in their mind.
For example, my grandfather 'knows' God exists because he's supposedly talked to him during the many near-death-experiences he's claimed to have had over the course of his life, and will not accept any possibility of an alternative.
Of course, what my grandfather believes he knows does not make it any more true (and it doesn't make him any less of an donkey-cave, but that's another topic).
Manchu wrote:No. According to you, the definition of an agnostic theist is "Those who believe in a higher power but claim that the existance of a higher power is unknown or is immpossible to know." I am not saying that I feel the existence of God is unknown or impossible to know. I am saying that the concept of "certainty" as used by atheists regarding, for example, the roundness of the globe, is inapplicable.
Which would be more along the lines of fideism or what I described as a pure theist. Knowledge of or certainty of god is irrelevant.
Anyway, this is not a road I want to go down. I just wanted to show that agnostic does not automatically equal atheist.
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Manchu wrote:That kind of "knowing" is a form of belief. It's different from how we know about refrigerators and gravity.
Not really. How do you know about refrigerators and gravity?
Manchu wrote:That kind of "knowing" is a form of belief. It's different from how we know about refrigerators and gravity.
Not really. How do you know about refrigerators and gravity?
Not by encountering them during what I claim are "near-death experiences," that's for sure. And my personal phenomenological experience of refrigerators and gravity is not what is at stake; rather, their apprehension according to scientific investigation is. God, by contrast, is invulnerable to such investigation. Or He doesn't exist.
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Fafnir wrote:
Manchu wrote:That kind of "knowing" is a form of belief. It's different from how we know about refrigerators and gravity.
Which is why I put the word 'knows' in quotations.
So you would say that an agnostic theist believes in god while a gnostic theist ... believes in God in such a way that you would state it twice but instead of using the word "believe" a second time you would instead use the word "know" but not actually mean "know" but rather mean "believe"?
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Maelstrom808 wrote:
Manchu wrote:I am saying that the concept of "certainty" as used by atheists regarding, for example, the roundness of the globe, is inapplicable.
Which would be more along the lines of fideism or what I described as a pure theist. Knowledge of or certainty of god is irrelevant.
And I am saying, to Fafnir, that this "pure theisim" you describe is a meaningless term. EDIT: Except inasmuch as it could refer to those who believe that empirical evidence of God's existence is inconsequential to God's existence.
Anyway, this is not a road I want to go down. I just wanted to show that agnostic does not automatically equal atheist.
Well I agree that not all agnostics are atheists but I'm not sure your description of pure and agnostic theists does that. EDIT: see edit above
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Seaward wrote:There have been polls as recent as 2006 showing that 50% of the country would not vote for a qualified atheist for any level of office; that around the same level would not want their child to marry an atheist; that 40% of the country believes atheists to be un-American.
I don't find any of this troubling. There is some percentage of people out there who would not vote for a Catholic candidate because they are Catholic and I'm okay with that. I wouldn't be okay with not allowing Catholics to run for office, of course. And I'd like chance to explain why Catholics aren't bad political candidates or potential spouses, at least not by virtue of them being Catholics. So I have to conclude that the point of this rally was or should have been held to communicate to the people mentioned by you above that being an atheist doesn't make you a bad political candidate or potential spouse. Given that, how would you rate their success?
Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:How can you prove something is truly selfless? Last I checked that was impossible.
Well, I would posit that sacrificing oneself for the protection of another would meet the definition, but regardless, it's irrelevant. Whether or not something can ever truly be selfless has no bearing on the point I was making, namely, that we can scientifically observe and prove the existence of emotional attachment, trust, etc.
Just for fun:
1 Corinthians 13:3 wrote:
And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor , and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing.
John 15:13 wrote:
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Acts 20:24 wrote:
But I hold not my life of any account as dear unto myself, so that I may accomplish my course, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.
The only thing in the entirety of scripture that can kind of be construed as a selfless act *might* be Jesus dying, though the phrasing is that god is basically blackmailing him into it for his love of people. Doing stuff for others or for a cause isn't selfless so much as self-fulfilling.
And as for the whole knowing vs. believing vs. semantics vs. the universe thing:
Hebrews 11:1 wrote:
Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen.
That's the only answer you'll get out of someone who believes. Just leave it at that, it kind of summarizes itself.
Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen.
C_T_U, I'm not accusing you of it in this case, but the charge of "That's Just Semantics" is about the most miserable thing I see posted on the OT board, maybe second to the "I'm The Victim Here" strategy (colloquially, BLAME THE VICTIM).
I was just commenting that we have a page's worth of arguing fine detail of something that's a really simple concept. I'm not sure how it's any more miserable as neither of you two are really any further than when you started. On top of that, you're aware of my love of hyperbole by now
Manchu wrote:That kind of "knowing" is a form of belief. It's different from how we know about refrigerators and gravity.
Not really. How do you know about refrigerators and gravity?
Not by encountering them during what I claim are "near-death experiences," that's for sure. And my personal phenomenological experience of refrigerators and gravity is not what is at stake; rather, their apprehension according to scientific investigation is. God, by contrast, is invulnerable to such investigation.
Personally, I think that the more we delve into things like quantum physics and studying how the brain functions, the line between belief and knowledge begins to get fuzzier and fuzzier (more fuzzy? not sure which is right...anyway <shrug> )
And I am saying, to Fafnir, that this "pure theisim" you describe is a meaningless term. EDIT: Except inasmuch as it could refer to those who believe that empirical evidence of God's existence is inconsequential to God's existence.
And I guess I'm still not understanding how it is meaningless. Maybe if you could break down how you view the differences or definitions of atheists, agnostics, and theists, that would give me a little more perspective on your position.
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Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:I was just commenting that we have a page's worth of arguing fine detail of something that's a really simple concept. I'm not sure how it's any more miserable as neither of you two are really any further than when you started. On top of that, you're aware of my love of hyperbole by now
LOL, I don't honestly think that we are going to come to any sort of consensus on subjects that have been debated on for centuries by people far more intelligent than we, and changing someone's mind on an internet forum is about as likely as getting hit by lightning, winning the lottery, then getting hit by lightning again, all in the same day. I always love getting someone else's take or perspective on things like this and getting a little more understanding of an opposing viewpoint.
Besides, I need something to kill the time while waiting for mixes to finish exporting
Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:I'm not sure how it's any more miserable as neither of you two are really any further than when you started.
That's not the measure of merit regarding a point.
Maelstrom808 wrote:And I guess I'm still not understanding how it is meaningless. Maybe if you could break down how you view the differences or definitions of atheists, agnostics, and theists, that would give me a little more perspective on your position.
The main problem is that for theists in 2012, there is no meaningful difference between the statements "I know that God exists" and "I believe that God exists." So any definition of a "pure" or "gnostic" theist that relies on a distinction between them cannot itself be meaningful. I think you partly offered a much better definition: "someone who believes that evidence of God's existence is irrelevant to God's existence." The trouble with that is that it can be said of any theist, given that "believing in God" and "knowing that God exists" are the same thing for a theist.
They are not the same thing for an atheist. Atheism, or at least the new atheist position articulated by Dawkins, assumes that everything that does exist exists like the things that we know exist. If God does not exist in the same way as refrigerators or gravity, then he does not exist at all. But Dawkins says that it is possible to believe in a thing that doesn't exist and this is his account of religious faith. Basically, he thinks that believing in God is the same thing as believing that unicorns exist. Or that flying spaghetti monsters exist, in the popular parlance. Dawkins's argument is irrelevant to theists because they reject that God exists in the same sense as refrigerators and gravity -- bringing us back to the theist conflation of belief and knowledge, regarding God.
A person who says that s/he believes in God but is not sure whether He exists is saying one of two things: (1) the kind of evidence whereby we know of refrigerators and gravity is irrelevant to the existence of God or (2) s/he's not actually sure whether s/he believes in God. So to the extent that one speaks of an "agnostic theist" you're just talking about someone who finds belief in God compelling more often than not. This is different from an agnostic atheist, who believes that while God does not exist in the same way as refrigerators and gravity, it may be possible that God could exist in a different way.
Manchu wrote:They are not the same thing for an atheist. Atheism, or at least the new atheist position articulated by Dawkins, assumes that everything that does exist exists like the things that we know exist. If God does not exist in the same way as refrigerators or gravity, then he does not exist at all. But Dawkins says that it is possible to believe in a thing that doesn't exist and this is his account of religious faith. Basically, he thinks that believing in God is the same thing as believing that unicorns exist. Or that flying spaghetti monsters exist, in the popular parlance. Dawkins's argument is irrelevant to theists because they reject that God exists in the same sense as refrigerators and gravity -- bringing us back to the theist conflation of belief and knowledge, regarding God.
That argument's been around long before Dawkins, but yes, you're correct, minus the "exist in the same way" part. Existence is provable.
My question for those who insist God doesn't play by the rules in terms of existence is thus: What else doesn't play by the rules? You fully embrace God, yet deny leprechauns and abominable snowmen and woodland fae creatures who come out at night to rearrange sock drawers.
Well, that gives me a better grip of where you are coming from. Personally, I think that you are approaching the subject from a fairly singular viewpoint leading to some pretty narrow definitions. But then again, [lebowski] "That's just like, my opinion, man [/lebowski].
Well, the existence of refrigerators and gravity is provable. Christians believe the existence of God is not, at least not insofar as we're talking about the manner in which refrigerators and gravity exist -- namely, because, in the sense of those things, a Christian would agree that God does not exist. If you say that I can only exist if I am a pelican then I will be forced to reply that, according to you, I don't exist.
Seaward wrote:My question for those who insist God doesn't play by the rules in terms of existence is thus: What else doesn't play by the rules?
According to Christianity, no one. God does not "play by these rules" as a matter of God's own definition. Christians don't believe that God is a thing that exists in the world alongside of other things so it strikes us as odd for someone to insist that we look for Him amid refrigerators and gravity -- and even more odd when someone insists we'll only find him amid unicorns and leprechauns.
Maelstrom808 wrote:Personally, I think that you are approaching the subject from a fairly singular viewpoint leading to some pretty narrow definitions.
That's true but I think it's necessary. I'm only interested in accounting for how and why Christians in 2012 believe because, of all the positions actually addressed by atheists in 2012, that is the only position that I can speak from.
Seaward wrote:
Atheism is a binary state. Either you do believe in supernatural deities, or you do not.
Strictly speaking, the deities in question don't have to be supernatural, they simply have to be viewed as a deity; though most non-deranged people would require their deity to be at least supernormal.
Fafnir wrote:Basically, gnostic and agnostic.
Gnostic means you know, agnostic means you don't.
An agnostic atheist would not believe in any deities, but would also say that there is a possibility of God's existence, even if it is extremely farfetched and unlikely. You'll find that most atheists fall under this category.
A gnostic atheist would "know" there is no God.
Similarly, the principles also apply to theists.
Its not quite the same regarding theism. All theists believe that God exists, but none of them know that God exists (though some believe that they do). The distinction of gnostic and agnostic as it applies to theism deals with knowledge of God. In brief, gnostic theists believe it is possible to know God or things about God, agnostic theists do not.
Manchu wrote:I still think we have a collapse: belief in God implies a sort of knowledge of God's existence, which is itself knowledge of God.
Not necessarily. In order to say I believe in a thing, I have to outline the parameters of what make that thing, that thing.
To take God, specifically, I might say that I believe in God, and that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenvelont. I don't know that this particular sort of God exists, but I believe that it does. Its possible that God might not have all these properties, or any of them, and the resulting being might not be properly called God, or even exist at all. But I can still claim to believe in the original that God, per the original understanding, exists without claiming any knowledge. The ultimate point being that in assigning specific labels to my beliefs regarding God, I'm really just approximating God's nature as I am best able.
For what its worth, at least as regards theists, there are very few truly agnostic believers. Most theists will claim that they don't know God, per se, but that they believe he can be known, or at least approached; so the label doesn't get used much. An agnostic theist is basically someone that claims to believe in God, but holds no religion, and doesn't speculate about His nature.
dogma wrote:. An agnostic theist is basically someone that claims to believe in God, but holds no religion, and doesn't speculate about His nature.
Isn't that Deism?...like Jefferson?
Deism is sort of in between, but definitely further towards agnostic than gnostic. It really depends on how far a particular deist reads into natural observation in terms of the knowledge of God.
dogma wrote:. An agnostic theist is basically someone that claims to believe in God, but holds no religion, and doesn't speculate about His nature.
Isn't that Deism?...like Jefferson?
Deism is sort of in between, but definitely further towards agnostic than gnostic. It really depends on how far a particular deist reads into natural observation in terms of the knowledge of God.
Jefferson may have been further down the track of Deism toward Agnosticism than most Deists, even approaching Atheism by some accusations. His edits to the Jefferson Bible to remove all supernatural elements of Jesus' story while retaining all the moral teachings are one of the major elements which make him a pretty extraordinary person in regards to his beliefs, especially given the time in which he lived.
H.B.M.C. wrote:Really not the point I was making. Let me try and explain:
Mel said that if there can be religious parades, why not a specifically non-religious one? To me, that's a perfectly legitimate thing to say, and I can't disagree with her. But I wonder what folks would say if you applied that to race. We do have black pride parades, so why not a white pride parade? Where's the 'line', so to speak, when being proud of and/or wanting to support something in 'parade format' becomes incorrect or inappropriate?
Okay, I get you now, and it's a decent point.
[EDIT]: Oh, and this would be tangential, not non sequitur. Just FYI.
Nah, it would have been non sequitur. Would have been, if you meant it the way I was reading it. But it wasn't, so forget it.
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Frazzled wrote:So? Welcome to free speech 101.
Which would be relevant if people were saying 'he shouldn't do that and the government should stop him'. People weren't saying that, they were saying 'that guy is a trolling douche', which is, well, exactly what he was and exactly what he should be called.
Freedom of speech 101 not only allows, but requires us to comment when people are being jerks. It's what the whole market place of ideas is about.
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Seaward wrote:Agnosticism is atheism, provided we define atheism as it should be defined - lack of belief in supernatural deities.
No, because it denies the existance of people who believe that they simply don't know if there are Gods. They look at the evidence and think it could go either way.
Whereas atheists look at the evidence and say 'and from what I've observed I do not believe in God'.
Giving the two terms different meanings allows us to describe both of these groups.
We do have black pride parades, so why not a white pride parade?
Most African-Americans were cut off from their respective cultures so their bond is more based around shared bondage experience and trials. I don't know what things are like in your area, but we have those quite frequently in the form of different ethnic festivals. We have an Irish festival, an Italian festival, a Greek Festival, and several other smaller ones throughout the year. Occasionally there is a parade to go along with one of them. The opposite of black, ethnically, isn't white, in this case, but a knowledge of ones ancestry. Even then there are many Americans that put no importance on that at all, when combined with being a much larger and less homogenous culture, is why you don't have "white parades".
Seaward wrote:You can, actually. It's truly very simple: either you believe in supernatural deities or you do not. If you are unsure about their existence, you do not believe in them. If you do not believe in supernatural deities, you are an atheist.
No, seriously, there is a point of difference between 'I don't know if there are supernatural beings' and 'I believe there are no supernatural beings'. These are different things.
sebster wrote:
No, because it denies the existance of people who believe that they simply don't know if there are Gods. They look at the evidence and think it could go either way.
Whereas atheists look at the evidence and say 'and from what I've observed I do not believe in God'.
Someone who thinks it could go either way doesn't believe in God.
The basic question is "Do you believe in God?"
Yes = Theist
Not Yes = Atheist
Now, you could develop a means of classification that didn't use binary logic, but I spent a good year or so trying to do that for the hell of it, and none of the ones I came up with were especially good.
Manchu wrote:To clarify, I wanted to highlight that I don't think that atheism as it's understood in our pop culture today is meaningfully paired against theism. The "new atheist" position seems to be two-pronged: (1) there is no evidence of God's existence in the sense that there is evidence of the existence of refrigerators or gravity and (2) therefore God does not exist. A lot of religious people, myself included, can agree with the first prong. But we don't think the first prong can ever lead to the second. We often talk here in OT about how the religious perspective dominates how we define atheism. But there is also a sense in which atheist arguments seek to define theist ones. My faith in God is not the same type of phenomenon as my "belief" in gravity. One helpful, I hope helpful, way to talk about it is to use the example of friendship. The key question is not whether your friend exists but whether or not you trust that person. Similarly, the objective existence of God (again, the idea that God's existence can be proven in the same or a similar way to the existence of a refrigerator) is not a certainty for believers. I think this kind of certainty neither precedes nor proceeds from faith.
That was an excellent post.
To clarify, I don't believe in any kind of supernatural being. This isn't because of any rational look at evidence akin to the scientific claims a certain breed of atheist like to make all the time, but because to me, intuitively, the world doesn't look designed, it looks like random happenings that we have attempted to give meaning to.
It isn't faith like a religious person has, but it is an intuitive, instinctive understanding of things that's somewhat similar to it. It's really the only way anyone can address the supernatural - through intuition and personal belief. The idea that we should use science, the study of the laws of the natural world, to form an opinion on the supernatural, is just bizarre.
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Manchu wrote:I don't find any of this troubling. There is some percentage of people out there who would not vote for a Catholic candidate because they are Catholic and I'm okay with that. I wouldn't be okay with not allowing Catholics to run for office, of course. And I'd like chance to explain why Catholics aren't bad political candidates or potential spouses, at least not by virtue of them being Catholics. So I have to conclude that the point of this rally was or should have been held to communicate to the people mentioned by you above that being an atheist doesn't make you a bad political candidate or potential spouse. Given that, how would you rate their success?
You really should find it troubling. You have people who would be perfectly suitable candidates for office, that people would not consider voting for simply because of their religious views. It's overt, unashamed bigotry, exactly the same as someone saying they'd never vote for a black person, or a mormon, or a gay man*.
Now, I agree that the atheist rally didn't improve matters one bit. Because those atheists are going about things in all the wrong ways - standing in a group and being loud and annoying only helps people see you as the 'other'. Instead they should do the same thing that has been steadily working for gay people, go about their lives, be the good, upstanding citizens they are, make friends and all that, and do it while being openly atheist. You teach people that you're no different to them despite your religious beliefs, by being no different to them.
*Not to say that atheists have anything like victimisation those groups have, as people simply aren't denied jobs, or killed, like has happened to those groups. But in terms of being judged suitable for public office, it's unacceptable for people to consider atheism a reason to vote against someone just like any of the above issues.
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corpsesarefun wrote:I'm not a fan of militant atheists, they annoy me just as much as militant theists.
Definitely. Ultimately both groups are the same, arguing against pluralism, against the idea that we can believe different things about the supernatural and still get along just fine.
sebster wrote:No, because it denies the existance of people who believe that they simply don't know if there are Gods. They look at the evidence and think it could go either way.
Whereas atheists look at the evidence and say 'and from what I've observed I do not believe in God'.
Someone who thinks it could go either way doesn't believe in God.
The basic question is "Do you believe in God?"
Yes = Theist
I'm going to speak up for the polytheists and object on a technical point.
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sebster wrote:Now, I agree that the atheist rally didn't improve matters one bit. Because those atheists are going about things in all the wrong ways - standing in a group and being loud and annoying only helps people see you as the 'other'. Instead they should do the same thing that has been steadily working for gay people, go about their lives, be the good, upstanding citizens they are, make friends and all that, and do it while being openly atheist. You teach people that you're no different to them despite your religious beliefs, by being no different to them.
Sebster, gay people have had a lot of pride parades. Part of their assimilation and increased acceptance in the larger culture has included increasing their visibility, and making clear that they are not ashamed of or hiding who they are. In Iran they have no pride parades, and their president pretends they do not exist. There is, I think, some legitimate comparison to Atheism here. Atheists are not a group anyone's really worried about offending in this country, and not considered an important political demographic. Thus politicians frequently pander to the side of religiosity, and I do think Atheists may often feel politically invisible.
Mannahnin wrote:Sebster, gay people have had a lot of pride parades. Part of their assimilation and increased acceptance in the larger culture has included increasing their visibility, and making clear that they are not ashamed of or hiding who they are. In Iran they have no pride parades, and their president pretends they do not exist. There is, I think, some legitimate comparison to Atheism here. Atheists are not a group anyone's really worried about offending in this country, and not considered an important political demographic. Thus politicians frequently pander to the side of religiosity, and I do think Atheists may often feel politically invisible.
Except in the case of homosexuals, those pride parades were an important part of getting enough recognition, and enough basic legal protection that they could be openly gay without being personally in danger. Once that step was taken then it was possible to be openly gay, and from there they are able to change people's opinions just by being normal, healthy people that happen to be gay. You break down resistance to gay marriage by age and location, and look at places where people can be openly gay, and opposition all but disappears, because most of those people know someone who they know is gay and they know they're just normal people.
The point is that atheist has never had the level of oppression. Living an atheist life will not leave anyone in fear of their life. So all the marches and the like just aren't needed. Atheists can just move on to the next step, changing minds by just be openly atheist, normal people.
EDIT
I mean, I do think there is a place for atheists to comment on overt Christian Dominionist stuff like that Year of the Bible crap. But it doesn't need rallies, spokespeople ought to be enough. And it shouldn't be through atheist groups, but to groups dedicated to pluralism, where the message is that people of all beliefs can make a country great.
Mannahnin wrote:... I do think Atheists may often feel politically invisible.
Do people primarily define themselves as atheist? If so, is that legitimate? Atheism, a lot of Dakkanauts suggest, is merely the absence of belief in God. Is there really an atheist take on healthcare? Or an atheist position on tax reform?
Mannahnin wrote:Sebster, gay people have had a lot of pride parades. Part of their assimilation and increased acceptance in the larger culture has included increasing their visibility, and making clear that they are not ashamed of or hiding who they are. In Iran they have no pride parades, and their president pretends they do not exist. There is, I think, some legitimate comparison to Atheism here. Atheists are not a group anyone's really worried about offending in this country, and not considered an important political demographic. Thus politicians frequently pander to the side of religiosity, and I do think Atheists may often feel politically invisible.
Except in the case of homosexuals, those pride parades were an important part of getting enough recognition, and enough basic legal protection that they could be openly gay without being personally in danger. Once that step was taken then it was possible to be openly gay, and from there they are able to change people's opinions just by being normal, healthy people that happen to be gay. You break down resistance to gay marriage by age and location, and look at places where people can be openly gay, and opposition all but disappears, because most of those people know someone who they know is gay and they know they're just normal people.
The point is that atheist has never had the level of oppression. Living an atheist life will not leave anyone in fear of their life. So all the marches and the like just aren't needed. Atheists can just move on to the next step, changing minds by just be openly atheist, normal people.
EDIT
I mean, I do think there is a place for atheists to comment on overt Christian Dominionist stuff like that Year of the Bible crap. But it doesn't need rallies, spokespeople ought to be enough. And it shouldn't be through atheist groups, but to groups dedicated to pluralism, where the message is that people of all beliefs can make a country great.
well atheists fear for their lives in some states more than others. You have people like Pastor Michael Stahl, trying to get a registry of all atheists. because he says that atheists are as bad as, if not worse than the people he cites in his quote: "think about it. There are already National Registrys [sic] for convicted sex offenders, ex-convicts, terrorist cells, hate groups like the KKK, skinheads, radical Islamists, etc.." the same people who hate gays, hate atheists even more, atheists are just harder to identify as we don't hang out together in atheist clubs. Even president bush sr had this to say "No, I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God.." Even in this race you have santorums pastor Dennis Terry, saying we should leave the country.
This is why atheists need all the marches, and the rallies they can get, and more than just a few spokespeople. We might not be the most hated group, but where the group all the theists think should leave the country.
well atheists fear for their lives in some states more than others. You have people like Pastor Michael Stahl, trying to get a registry of all atheists. because he says that atheists are as bad as, if not worse than the people he cites in his quote: "think about it. There are already National Registrys [sic] for convicted sex offenders, ex-convicts, terrorist cells, hate groups like the KKK, skinheads, radical Islamists, etc.." the same people who hate gays, hate atheists even more, atheists are just harder to identify as we don't hang out together in atheist clubs. Even president bush sr had this to say "No, I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God.." Even in this race you have santorums pastor Dennis Terry, saying we should leave the country.
This is why atheists need all the marches, and the rallies they can get, and more than just a few spokespeople. We might not be the most hated group, but where the group all the theists think should leave the country.
If you want in a lesson in hysteria and generalization all you have to do is read the above....
Mannahnin wrote:... I do think Atheists may often feel politically invisible.
Do people primarily define themselves as atheist? If so, is that legitimate? Atheism, a lot of Dakkanauts suggest, is merely the absence of belief in God. Is there really an atheist take on healthcare? Or an atheist position on tax reform?
That's a big part of the problem, theists will demonize and discriminate based on just that. Atheist is not a rallying cry, its a label theists use. No one describes themselves by what they are not.
From the theists camp Atheist is our only label needed.
From my point of view, saying I'm an atheist is no more descriptive of me than saying I'm not a doctor.
But to counter the theists and to get a true separation of church and state it is becoming a greater necessity to band together. goals being: have the politicians stop pandering to the theists. To be able to go through life without having theists telling you to leave your country. To not have any of the religions taught in public schools.
I'm not convinced that a bunch of people who travel from all over the place to come to a rally and argue with other people who have come from all over only have the absence of belief in God in common.
well atheists fear for their lives in some states more than others. You have people like Pastor Michael Stahl, trying to get a registry of all atheists. because he says that atheists are as bad as, if not worse than the people he cites in his quote: "think about it. There are already National Registrys [sic] for convicted sex offenders, ex-convicts, terrorist cells, hate groups like the KKK, skinheads, radical Islamists, etc.." the same people who hate gays, hate atheists even more, atheists are just harder to identify as we don't hang out together in atheist clubs. Even president bush sr had this to say "No, I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God.." Even in this race you have santorums pastor Dennis Terry, saying we should leave the country.
This is why atheists need all the marches, and the rallies they can get, and more than just a few spokespeople. We might not be the most hated group, but where the group all the theists think should leave the country.
If you want in a lesson in hysteria and generalization all you have to do is read the above....
GG
oh please, its a true representation of the state of things. I could fill up pages with examples. but tell me this, name any other group you can just at will say "you should leave the country because you're a X" "lets start a nation registry of X"
Ultra-conservatives tell everyone who disagrees with any of their points that they should leave the USA. (Meanwhile, ultra-liberals are always threatening to leave.) Atheists are hardly unique in that regard.
Manchu wrote:Ultra-conservatives tell everyone who disagrees with any of their points that they should leave the USA. (Meanwhile, ultra-liberals are always threatening to leave.) Atheists are hardly unique in that regard.
Indeed, I think Frazz shouts it at a fellow American who happens to be liberal on a daily basis.
Seaward wrote:You can, actually. It's truly very simple: either you believe in supernatural deities or you do not. If you are unsure about their existence, you do not believe in them. If you do not believe in supernatural deities, you are an atheist.
No, seriously, there is a point of difference between 'I don't know if there are supernatural beings' and 'I believe there are no supernatural beings'. These are different things.
And now, dogma will do my work for me...
dogma wrote:
sebster wrote:
No, because it denies the existance of people who believe that they simply don't know if there are Gods. They look at the evidence and think it could go either way.
Whereas atheists look at the evidence and say 'and from what I've observed I do not believe in God'.
Someone who thinks it could go either way doesn't believe in God.
The basic question is "Do you believe in God?"
Yes = Theist
Not Yes = Atheist
Now, you could develop a means of classification that didn't use binary logic, but I spent a good year or so trying to do that for the hell of it, and none of the ones I came up with were especially good.
dogma wrote:Someone who thinks it could go either way doesn't believe in God.
The basic question is "Do you believe in God?"
Yes = Theist
Not Yes = Atheist
Now, you could develop a means of classification that didn't use binary logic, but I spent a good year or so trying to do that for the hell of it, and none of the ones I came up with were especially good.
How does this apply to people who do not believe in Judeo/Christian "God"? The Hindu, Taoists, Shinto or even animist Native American religions? You would ask them "Do you believe in God?" and they would tell you "No." Surely you wouldn't be suggesting that they are Athiest?
noun
a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.
1565–75; < Greek áthe ( os ) godless + -ist
Related forms
an·ti·a·the·ist, noun, adjective
pro·a·the·ist, noun, adjective
Can be confused: 1. agnostic, atheist (see synonym note at the current entry ); 2. atheist, theist, deist.
Synonyms
Atheist, agnostic, infidel, skeptic refer to persons not inclined toward religious belief or a particular form of religious belief.
An atheist is one who denies the existence of a deity or of divine beings.
An agnostic is one who believes it impossible to know anything about God or about the creation of the universe and refrains from commitment to any religious doctrine. Infidel means an unbeliever, especially a nonbeliever in Islam or Christianity.
A skeptic doubts and is critical of all accepted doctrines and creeds.
streamdragon wrote:
How does this apply to people who do not believe in Judeo/Christian "God"? The Hindu, Taoists, Shinto or even animist Native American religions? You would ask them "Do you believe in God?" and they would tell you "No." Surely you wouldn't be suggesting that they are Athiest?
Which is why the question isn't, "Do you believe in God?" but, "Do you believe in deities?"
Even the dictionary disagrees with you:
No, it doesn't, unless by some leap of illogic you believe "refraining from belief" to be somehow different from "does not believe".
streamdragon wrote:
How does this apply to people who do not believe in Judeo/Christian "God"? The Hindu, Taoists, Shinto or even animist Native American religions? You would ask them "Do you believe in God?" and they would tell you "No." Surely you wouldn't be suggesting that they are Athiest?
Which is why the question isn't, "Do you believe in God?" but, "Do you believe in deities?"
Ah, not per the post in my quote. I see your point though.
Seaward wrote:
Even the dictionary disagrees with you:
No, it doesn't, unless by some leap of illogic you believe "refraining from belief" to be somehow different from "does not believe".
It's a question of "I KNOW that there is no deity out there" versus "I don't know if there is or isn't". One set has a particular belief, the other has no belief. The two groups are not the same.
streamdragon wrote:
How does this apply to people who do not believe in Judeo/Christian "God"? The Hindu, Taoists, Shinto or even animist Native American religions? You would ask them "Do you believe in God?" and they would tell you "No." Surely you wouldn't be suggesting that they are Athiest?
Which is why the question isn't, "Do you believe in God?" but, "Do you believe in deities?"
Ah, not per the post in my quote. I see your point though.
Seaward wrote:
Even the dictionary disagrees with you:
No, it doesn't, unless by some leap of illogic you believe "refraining from belief" to be somehow different from "does not believe".
It's a question of "I KNOW that there is no deity out there" versus "I don't know if there is or isn't". One set has a particular belief, the other has no belief. The two groups are not the same.
That is grossly, grossly false. Atheism is not an active assertion of belief, it is a passive assertion of a lack of belief.
Seaward wrote:
That is grossly, grossly false. Atheism is not an active assertion of belief, it is a passive assertion of a lack of belief.
Minimally, yes. But lots of people take it further.
They certainly do. "Strong" atheism vs. "weak" atheism. But to claim that atheism in its default state requires an active assertion of positive belief that deities do not exist is false.
dogma wrote:Someone who thinks it could go either way doesn't believe in God.
The basic question is "Do you believe in God?"
Yes = Theist
Not Yes = Atheist
Now, you could develop a means of classification that didn't use binary logic, but I spent a good year or so trying to do that for the hell of it, and none of the ones I came up with were especially good.
How does this apply to people who do not believe in Judeo/Christian "God"? The Hindu, Taoists, Shinto or even animist Native American religions? You would ask them "Do you believe in God?" and they would tell you "No." Surely you wouldn't be suggesting that they are Athiest?
noun
a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.
1565–75; < Greek áthe ( os ) godless + -ist
Related forms
an·ti·a·the·ist, noun, adjective
pro·a·the·ist, noun, adjective
Can be confused: 1. agnostic, atheist (see synonym note at the current entry ); 2. atheist, theist, deist.
Synonyms
Atheist, agnostic, infidel, skeptic refer to persons not inclined toward religious belief or a particular form of religious belief.
An atheist is one who denies the existence of a deity or of divine beings.
An agnostic is one who believes it impossible to know anything about God or about the creation of the universe and refrains from commitment to any religious doctrine. Infidel means an unbeliever, especially a nonbeliever in Islam or Christianity.
A skeptic doubts and is critical of all accepted doctrines and creeds.
Formatting and emphasis mine.
the dictionary is only 1/2 right though, that is one definition for atheists. But it also fails to take into account anyone who's never heard of a god.such a person does not deny or disbelieve the existence of a god. What does disbelief mean "Inability or refusal to accept that something is true or real." So to disbelieve in god, you first have to show it is true or real. As god can't be proven there is no reason to disbelieve in him, or believe for that matter.
This is why I've never liked the word, its the same as asking "do you watch nascar races?" if you answer no, do you need a new word to say I don't watch nascar? or "do you collect stamps?" No, so not collecting stamps is your hobby. If anascarist need to be added to the dictionary? How would you define such a word? what would its synonyms be? You just don't watch nascar, that's all the word would mean and nothing else.
but when you put a god into the question, now you need a word for those who answer yes, and a word those who answer no. and then if you think its all cut and dry you're a theist/atheist. Well then all babies are born atheists until they choose to believe in a god. It just gets horrible complicated. And if a baby grows up to believe in a god, would he ever just say "I'm a theist?" no, he'd give a more specific label of what religion he belongs to.
the atheist label normally gets applied by a theist something like this:
Theist, do you believe in god?
me, no
Theist, so your an atheist, here's what your believe, and here's why you're wrong.
me, what you talkin bout willis?
Our language doesn't use labels to describe what we are not. labels describe what we are and what we believe.
Seaward wrote:
That is grossly, grossly false. Atheism is not an active assertion of belief, it is a passive assertion of a lack of belief.
Minimally, yes. But lots of people take it further.
They certainly do. "Strong" atheism vs. "weak" atheism. But to claim that atheism in its default state requires an active assertion of positive belief that deities do not exist is false.
This is where the appeal of ternary logic comes in. Believing in the absence of gods doesn't necessarily require you to not believe in the existence of god.
Basically, it isn't a progression. A person looks at the evidence, or lack thereof, and concludes that he believes in a god, doesn't believe in a god, or believes there is no god. He doesn't start at disbelief, and move to the active belief in the absence of.
sirlynchmob wrote:well atheists fear for their lives in some states more than others. You have people like Pastor Michael Stahl, trying to get a registry of all atheists. because he says that atheists are as bad as, if not worse than the people he cites in his quote: "think about it. There are already National Registrys [sic] for convicted sex offenders, ex-convicts, terrorist cells, hate groups like the KKK, skinheads, radical Islamists, etc.." the same people who hate gays, hate atheists even more, atheists are just harder to identify as we don't hang out together in atheist clubs. Even president bush sr had this to say "No, I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God.." Even in this race you have santorums pastor Dennis Terry, saying we should leave the country.
This is why atheists need all the marches, and the rallies they can get, and more than just a few spokespeople. We might not be the most hated group, but where the group all the theists think should leave the country.
Seriously, arguing there is this one guy that really hates atheists, and that one President had a poor opinion of atheists but never did anything about it does not make you an oppressed class.
This thing where everyone tries to be the most downtrodden social group is just weird. I have a friend who calls it holocaust envy, which is harsh, but certainly gets the point across.
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Seaward wrote:And now, dogma will do my work for me...
Funnily enough I've argued this with dogma before as well. The definition the two of you are arguing may sound like it makes all kinds of great sense when laid out, but as I already said, it completely fails to differentiate between two vastly different beliefs. Any set of definitions that fails to differentiate between 'I believe there is no God' and 'I don't know if there is no God' is a failed set of definitions.
sebster wrote:
Funnily enough I've argued this with dogma before as well. The definition the two of you are arguing may sound like it makes all kinds of great sense when laid out, but as I already said, it completely fails to differentiate between two vastly different beliefs. Any set of definitions that fails to differentiate between 'I believe there is no God' and 'I don't know if there is no God' is a failed set of definitions.
Only if you continue to ignore the fact that atheism encompasses a passive lack of belief in deities.
Seaward wrote:Only if you continue to ignore the fact that atheism encompasses a passive lack of belief in deities.
Here's the thing, you can play fun little games with words derived from their meaning, and invent all manner of definitions for all kinds of things and have a wonderful time, and end up with an intellectually rigorous complete set of definitions. And when you go out and use them people will just get confused with the invented meanings you've given to words with common understandings. Because language doesn't work like you're trying to make it work,
Or you can go out and say 'I'm atheist' and people will know you mean 'I believe there is no God' or say 'I'm agnostic' and they will know you mean 'I hold no belief about the existance of God'.
That atheism may technically be argued to be inclusive of a passive lack of belief is beyond irrelevant, and all these word games ever do is confuse what should be a very straight forward pair of definitions.
sebster wrote:Any set of definitions that fails to differentiate between 'I believe there is no God' and 'I don't know if there is no God' is a failed set of definitions.
It does differentiate between the two, sort of.
The argument is that the absence of any belief in God/god is required to believe that there is no God/god.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
sebster wrote:
Or you can go out and say 'I'm atheist' and people will know you mean 'I believe there is no God' or say 'I'm agnostic' and they will know you mean 'I hold no belief about the existance of God'.
That atheism may technically be argued to be inclusive of a passive lack of belief is beyond irrelevant, and all these word games ever do is confuse what should be a very straight forward pair of definitions.
The whole thing is, ultimately, a word game. Reasonable people don't care whether or not you believe in God/god, because it doesn't matter in any practical sense. The people that do care substitute "God/god" for "all those things I believe".
sebster wrote:That atheism may technically be argued to be inclusive of a passive lack of belief is beyond irrelevant, and all these word games ever do is confuse what should be a very straight forward pair of definitions.
That would be great, if one of your definitions wasn't patently incorrect.
Frankly, you seem to be trying hard to make the point that atheism requires faith. It doesn't. All it requires is a lack of it.
Seaward wrote:That would be great, if one of your definitions wasn't patently incorrect.
Frankly, you seem to be trying hard to make the point that atheism requires faith. It doesn't. All it requires is a lack of it.
It doesn't require faith, sure. But it is a belief, in that one believes there that there is only this world, and no supernatural world beyond it, believes that there is no God or Gods.
That is a different thing to a person who says 'I don't know'.
Seaward wrote:That would be great, if one of your definitions wasn't patently incorrect.
Frankly, you seem to be trying hard to make the point that atheism requires faith. It doesn't. All it requires is a lack of it.
It doesn't require faith, sure. But it is a belief, in that one believes there that there is only this world, and no supernatural world beyond it, believes that there is no God or Gods.
That is a different thing to a person who says 'I don't know'.
Would you say you believe that pink unicorns who secretly control the world's financial markets from an orbiting space station undetectable by any conventional means don't exist? If so, why does that require a positive belief rather than a negative lack of belief?
Atheism does not require any beliefs. It can quite easily be defined as a lack of belief in supernatural deities. And tiny pink unicorns, for that matter.
sirlynchmob wrote:well atheists fear for their lives in some states more than others. You have people like Pastor Michael Stahl, trying to get a registry of all atheists. because he says that atheists are as bad as, if not worse than the people he cites in his quote: "think about it. There are already National Registrys [sic] for convicted sex offenders, ex-convicts, terrorist cells, hate groups like the KKK, skinheads, radical Islamists, etc.." the same people who hate gays, hate atheists even more, atheists are just harder to identify as we don't hang out together in atheist clubs. Even president bush sr had this to say "No, I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God.." Even in this race you have santorums pastor Dennis Terry, saying we should leave the country.
This is why atheists need all the marches, and the rallies they can get, and more than just a few spokespeople. We might not be the most hated group, but where the group all the theists think should leave the country.
Seriously, arguing there is this one guy that really hates atheists, and that one President had a poor opinion of atheists but never did anything about it does not make you an oppressed class.
This thing where everyone tries to be the most downtrodden social group is just weird. I have a friend who calls it holocaust envy, which is harsh, but certainly gets the point across.
How many examples would you like? I figured a quote from a recent president, a candidate for president should have been enough to show the intolerance towards atheists, and highlight why we need to start holding rallies.
Now I'm sure in the UK where you have a much higher % of atheists, most of this kid of stuff doesn't happen. But all of these were just from last year to today. The whole reason theists like throwing atheists into just another belief system, ie religion. Its just a front for their goal of having creationism taught in schools and not evolution. Because from what theists tell me, because I'm a atheists, evolution is my religion.
Its by no means holocaust envy on my part. The christians play that card over here. Their in the majority and always claiming how their being oppressed.
Do you have a better understanding of whats going on over here now, or do you need more examples?
The comments on the second one made me a bit sick to be honest. I'm certain that it is "Go forth and make disciples" not "Go forth and kill the unbelievers"
Also atheism is a belief, it is only relevant as a negative belief because 84% of the country believes in a diety or religion of some sort. Yes, if you do not believe in leprechauns you are aleprechaun, however when given the comparitive importance of leprechauns vs God in the discussion I think its pretty easy to see why one is important and one is not.
sirlynch the question's that you need to ask yourself is "Why am I an athiest" and "What doctrine/dogma/teaching/whatever you want to call it...led me to the direction to choose athiesm".
The point is, that the choice to be athiest or religious isn't made in a vacuum. This choice is made based on some sort of influence, and your willingness to accept/believe in this influence.
generalgrog wrote:sirlynch the question's that you need to ask yourself is "Why am I an athiest" and "What doctrine/dogma/teaching/whatever you want to call it...led me to the direction to choose athiesm".
The point is, that the choice to be athiest or religious isn't made in a vacuum. This choice is made based on some sort of influence, and your willingness to accept/believe in this influence.
GG
I never chose atheism though, it got assigned to me. by the words themselves your either a theist, or an atheist. Since no one can show me evidence of a god ever existing, I see no reason to believe their is one. Just like I see no evidence to believe in faeries, elves, dragons, the easter bunny, or santa clause. I don't need doctrine/dogma/teachings/ or anything to not believe in those things, as they are not real. Not believing in mythological beings does not need dogma,doctrines, or teachings. What docrines/dogma/teachings do you need not to believe in Zeus? or the invisible pink unicorn I have trapped in my basement?
Until you choose to be a theist, you are by default an atheist, so all babies are atheists until they can say what god they believe in. Likewise anyone growing up in a place with no indigenous religions. They don't have a god, they never had the need to invent one, therefore they are atheists as well, no choice needed. Buddhists are atheists for that matter, but they get testy if you point it out to them.
Why don't I believe in the christian god? Well I read the bible. There is no way I could ever support a being like that even if he could be shown to be real. If the christian god could be proved to be real by appearing on Oprah, then I could willing accept the label atheist and disbelieve in him. Should they find a god to appear on Oprah, my money would be his name is Zeus though. At least his 1/2 god 1/2 human son started the Olympics, Jesus just got a few rich guys drunk
For me to believe in a god, you would first have to produce said god. You can't use the bible to prove the bible, that's as ridiculous as me using the harry potter books to prove theirs a hogwarts. the way christians describe their god makes him self refuting and therefore unbelievable. the bible itself is so self refuting you can use it to justify any belief you want. Hardly evidence for any sort of omnipotence being. And lets face it, if their was a god of some sorts, he would have been on Oprah by now
Being labeled an atheist does not in any way describe me or what I believe, its as meaningless a label as me saying "I'm not a tau player", I'm an Atauist . That' why atheist rally's are hard to get going, its not a defining factor for anything, Its not a unifying factor, its a derogatory term theists use. But today, people are making the word atheist their own, and trying to unify others under the atheist banner to fight the idiocies of the church and their religious doctrines they're trying to pass as laws. For the sake of solidarity I will now claim to be an atheist for these type's of debates, but it really irks me.
For the record I am a metaphysical naturalist. See that is a positive label based on what I believe.
generalgrog wrote:sirlynch the question's that you need to ask yourself is "Why am I an athiest" and "What doctrine/dogma/teaching/whatever you want to call it...led me to the direction to choose athiesm".
The point is, that the choice to be athiest or religious isn't made in a vacuum. This choice is made based on some sort of influence, and your willingness to accept/believe in this influence.
GG
Look at you... trying to witness people online... soo cute...
But seriously GG.... All poking fun aside
Is the idea of belief in god inherent? Or is it influenced by where you grow up?
Do you think the Native americans Inherently believed in Jesus? No right? because "What doctrine/dogma/teaching/whatever you want to call it" influenced them not to.
Athiesm is a belief like abstinence is a sex position.
generalgrog wrote:sirlynch the question's that you need to ask yourself is "Why am I an athiest" and "What doctrine/dogma/teaching/whatever you want to call it...led me to the direction to choose athiesm".
The point is, that the choice to be athiest or religious isn't made in a vacuum. This choice is made based on some sort of influence, and your willingness to accept/believe in this influence.
GG
I never chose atheism though, it got assigned to me.
You dodged my question.
How did athiesm get "assigned" to you..and how did that happen?
generalgrog wrote:sirlynch the question's that you need to ask yourself is "Why am I an athiest" and "What doctrine/dogma/teaching/whatever you want to call it...led me to the direction to choose athiesm".
The point is, that the choice to be athiest or religious isn't made in a vacuum. This choice is made based on some sort of influence, and your willingness to accept/believe in this influence.
GG
I never chose atheism though, it got assigned to me.
You dodged my question.
How did athiesm get "assigned" to you..and how did that happen?
GG
nice trolling, did you OCD kick in and you only got that far through my post?
So you have a belief that people are born athiests. You now have defined your dogma and your belief system.
You have essentially said this... "I don't believe in God because I DO believe that people are born atheists. I don't believe in God because he hasn't appeared on Oprah."
So you do have the capability to form a belief system based on something outside of a vacuum.
generalgrog wrote:So you have a belief that people are born athiests. You now have defined your dogma and your belief system.
You have essentially said this... "I don't believe in God because I DO believe that people are born atheists. I don't believe in God because he hasn't appeared on Oprah."
So you do have the capability to form a belief system based on something outside of a vacuum.
I don't think he means atheist in the sense of having a coherent system of thought on a subject, but more was referring to infants and children are more in a state of tabula rasa: they aren't atheists or theists. Those develop over time from a multitude of sources and influences.
Ahtman wrote:I don't think he means atheist in the sense of having a coherent system of thought on a subject, but more was referring to infants and children are more in a state of tabula rasa: they aren't atheists or theists. Those develop over time from a multitude of sources and influences.
No.
For the love of Christ, quit loading atheism with more than it actually contains. It requires no dogma, no one set of coherent thoughts, nothing. It is, very simply, the lack of belief in deities. It's impossible to be neither a theist or an atheist; children are born one or the other, and unless you're saying they're born with a copy of the Bible in their hands, they're born atheistic.
For the love of Christ, quit loading atheism with more than it actually contains. It requires no dogma, no one set of coherent thoughts, nothing. It is, very simply, the lack of belief in deities. It's impossible to be neither a theist or an atheist; children are born one or the other, and unless you're saying they're born with a copy of the Bible in their hands, they're born atheistic.
Ahtman wrote:I don't think he means atheist in the sense of having a coherent system of thought on a subject, but more was referring to infants and children are more in a state of tabula rasa: they aren't atheists or theists. Those develop over time from a multitude of sources and influences.
No.
For the love of Christ, quit loading atheism with more than it actually contains. It requires no dogma, no one set of coherent thoughts, nothing. It is, very simply, the lack of belief in deities. It's impossible to be neither a theist or an atheist; children are born one or the other, and unless you're saying they're born with a copy of the Bible in their hands, they're born atheistic.
THIS!
Religion is a man made idea and so is god. I think thats GGs point. Since we are born with out it and its assinged by the society in which we grow up.
The Problem is... GG is so connected to the idea of religion he can't see things from any other way.
For the love of Christ, quit loading atheism with more than it actually contains. It requires no dogma, no one set of coherent thoughts, nothing. It is, very simply, the lack of belief in deities. It's impossible to be neither a theist or an atheist; children are born one or the other, and unless you're saying they're born with a copy of the Bible in their hands, they're born atheistic.
generalgrog wrote:So you have a belief that people are born athiests. You now have defined your dogma and your belief system.
You have essentially said this... "I don't believe in God because I DO believe that people are born atheists. I don't believe in God because he hasn't appeared on Oprah."
So you do have the capability to form a belief system based on something outside of a vacuum.
Thanks for helping me prove that.
Speaking from the definition, everyone is born an atheist; ie. without the belief in God. However, they are atheists in the sense that a rock is an atheist, unconsidered atheists. In order to advance an atheist position, one must be at least rational, which newborns are not.
That being said, theism pretty much has the uphill battle here. Its very easy to convince someone that something they do not believe in does not exist, its much more difficult to convince someone that something they don't believe in does exist.
generalgrog wrote:So you have a belief that people are born athiests. You now have defined your dogma and your belief system.
You have essentially said this... "I don't believe in God because I DO believe that people are born atheists. I don't believe in God because he hasn't appeared on Oprah."
So you do have the capability to form a belief system based on something outside of a vacuum.
Thanks for helping me prove that.
Speaking from the definition, everyone is born an atheist; ie. without the belief in God. However, they are atheists in the sense that a rock is an atheist, unconsidered atheists. In order to advance an atheist position, one must be at least rational, which newborns are not.
That being said, theism pretty much has the uphill battle here. Its very easy to convince someone that something they do not believe in does not exist, its much more difficult to convince someone that something they don't believe in does exist.
If cats, and rocks, and bicycle wheels, and sunflowers, and plastic bags, and planets are all examples of atheists then atheist is not a very useful term. All we really need is theist, it would seem.
dogma wrote:
Wow, that cat over there, its an atheist.
Do you think saying that somehow discredits the definition? I don't believe that cat over there believes in any supernatural deities, either.
No, the definition is what it is. Well, sort of, there are quite a few definitions floating around, and this negation business is rather new (and of course, not at all politically influenced).
The point is that whether or not someone is born an atheist is irrelevant, because we're also not born American, Jewish, Christian, gamers, (probably) gay, or anything else. We're born human, and our genes and experiences (concomitantly) make us who we are after that singular event.
Manchu wrote:If cats, and rocks, and bicycle wheels, and sunflowers, and plastic bags, and planets are all examples of atheists then atheist is not a very useful term. All we really need is theist, it would seem.
dogma wrote:
Wow, that cat over there, its an atheist.
Do you think saying that somehow discredits the definition? I don't believe that cat over there believes in any supernatural deities, either.
No, the definition is what it is. Well, sort of, there are quite a few definitions floating around, and this negation business is rather new (and of course, not at all politically influenced).
It's...no. It's not. It's not new at all. The concept that atheism requires faith/belief is quite new, and absolutely politically motivated.
The point is that whether or not someone is born an atheist is irrelevant, because we're also not born American, Jewish, Christian, gamers, (probably) gay, or anything else. We're born human, and our genes and experiences (concomitantly) make us who we are after that singular event.
It's a pretty simple concept, and I'm finding it somewhat amusing that people are having issues with it. Do you believe that babies are born with an inherent belief in deities? If not, they are, by very definition, born atheists.
Seaward wrote:
It's...no. It's not. It's not new at all. The concept that atheism requires faith/belief is quite new, and absolutely politically motivated.
This takes me back, back to my dark days on the "Atheism vs. Christianity" Google group.
You can date the negation definition back to the 18th century, if you're flexible, but it rose to contemporary prevalence in the 70's.
However, you're right, the notion that atheism requires faith or belief (even though it minimally requires the latter*) is new, and it is politically (though primarily socially) motivated.
*It doesn't require a belief in the absence of God/gods, but it does require that you believe certain things regarding the interpretation of evidence.
Seaward wrote:
It's a pretty simple concept, and I'm finding it somewhat amusing that people are having issues with it. Do you believe that babies are born with an inherent belief in deities? If not, they are, by very definition, born atheists.
Its really not a simple concept, its been the subject of much debate for centuries. As with any concept, calling it simple generally means your level of understanding is not high.
It's incredibly difficult to explain to someone who believes that intellectual concepts correspond in a perfectly non-hermeneutical manner to the phenomenon they signify that this is not the case.
Atheism is not a belief system nor is it a religion. While there are some religions that are atheistic (certain sects of Buddhism, for example), that does not mean that atheism is a religion. Two commonly used funny retorts to the nonsense that atheism is a religion are: 1) If atheism is a religion then bald is a hair color, and 2) If atheism is a religion then health is a disease. A new one introduced in 2012 by Bill Maher is, "If atheism is a religion, then abstinence is a sexual position."
The only common thread that ties all atheists together is a lack of belief in gods and supernatural beings. Some of the best debates we have ever had have been with fellow atheists. This is because atheists do not have a common belief system, sacred scripture or atheist Pope. This means atheists often disagree on many issues and ideas. Atheists come in a variety of shapes, colors, beliefs, convictions, and backgrounds. We are as unique as our fingerprints
frgsinwntr wrote:from the american atheists website
Atheism is not a belief system nor is it a religion. While there are some religions that are atheistic (certain sects of Buddhism, for example), that does not mean that atheism is a religion. Two commonly used funny retorts to the nonsense that atheism is a religion are: 1) If atheism is a religion then bald is a hair color, and 2) If atheism is a religion then health is a disease. A new one introduced in 2012 by Bill Maher is, "If atheism is a religion, then abstinence is a sexual position."
The only common thread that ties all atheists together is a lack of belief in gods and supernatural beings. Some of the best debates we have ever had have been with fellow atheists. This is because atheists do not have a common belief system, sacred scripture or atheist Pope. This means atheists often disagree on many issues and ideas. Atheists come in a variety of shapes, colors, beliefs, convictions, and backgrounds. We are as unique as our fingerprints
Like hell we don't have an atheist pope! I have my pope card right here!
dogma wrote:You can date the negation definition back to the 18th century, if you're flexible, but it rose to contemporary prevalence in the 70's.
No, you can go quite a bit further than that. Hell, the Greek word from which it's derived means, "without god."
Its really not a simple concept, its been the subject of much debate for centuries. As with any concept, calling it simple generally means your level of understanding is not high.
Two things: are you really saying there's no such thing as a simple concept? That's amazing, if so. Secondly, just because something's been debated for centuries doesn't mean it's not really, really simple, like transubstantiation versus consubstantiation. That one's simple because both are a load of nonsense, the wine and bread stay wine and bread.
generalgrog wrote:So you have a belief that people are born athiests. You now have defined your dogma and your belief system.
You have essentially said this... "I don't believe in God because I DO believe that people are born atheists. I don't believe in God because he hasn't appeared on Oprah."
So you do have the capability to form a belief system based on something outside of a vacuum.
Thanks for helping me prove that.
GG
Again Disbelief = "Inability or refusal to accept that something is true or real. Lack of faith in something."
Until you can prove a god to be real, not believing in said god is not a belief system. Based on the dictionary definition, I am not an atheist, nor am I a theist.
1.the doctrine or belief that there is no God.
2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.
I have no doctrines, nor a belief that there is no god. As you have yet to prove what god is, and prove a god exists, there is no reason to disbelieve in something that is not real.
But explain this to me, why are you so eager to claim atheism is a belief system? and as you ducked my question "What docrines/dogma/teachings do you need not to believe in Zeus? or the invisible pink unicorn I have trapped in my basement? " Is your whole belief system just not believing in invisible pink unicorns?
Seaward wrote:
No, you can go quite a bit further than that. Hell, the Greek word from which it's derived means, "without god."
Dude, the Greek word was a pejorative. It meant, literally, what "godless" means today. As in "Those godless bastards!"
Prior to the 18th century it wasn't a seriously considered philosophical concept.
Seaward wrote:
Two things: are you really saying there's no such thing as a simple concept? That's amazing, if so.
Yep. At least in the context of a specific understanding of the term. If I hit you, I know it will hurt, but the detailed understanding of why, how, and where escapes simplicity; just as it does regarding the nature of atheism.
Seaward wrote:
Secondly, just because something's been debated for centuries doesn't mean it's not really, really simple, like transubstantiation versus consubstantiation. That one's simple because both are a load of nonsense, the wine and bread stay wine and bread.
Sure, but its a pretty strong indicator that it isn't simple. You don't see many people arguing about whether or not a nail will go into a board if you hit it with a hammer.
dogma wrote:Dude, the Greek word was a pejorative. It meant, literally, what "godless" means today. As in "Those godless bastards!"
Pejoratives are in the eye of the beholder. I don't consider "godless" to be a pejorative, for example. If anything, I'd call it an accurate description of myself. Simply because the word was used with a negative connotation isn't enough to dispute that the idea wasn't around. "Bastard" is much the same, by the way; it can certainly be used as a pejorative, but it can also be used to signify its original definition.
This, incidentally, is the sort of crap that should've been discussed at the Reason Rally, but only about twenty people would have stuck around. The real "threat" to atheism is the religious right's attempt to frame it as just another religion, as requiring as much or more faith than their own beliefs, rather than accepting it for what it is.
I'm not surprised that an argument about historical context slipped over your head, Seaward, but what dogma meant is that atheist did not simply mean "absence of belief in divine beings" to the Greeks who were using it long ago.
Seaward wrote:
Pejoratives are in the eye of the beholder. I don't consider "godless" to be a pejorative, for example. If anything, I'd call it an accurate description of myself.
Sure, and I consider "donkey-cave" to be an accurate description of myself, but it doesn't stop being pejorative because of that.
Seaward wrote:
Simply because the word was used with a negative connotation isn't enough to dispute that the idea wasn't around. "Bastard" is much the same, by the way; it can certainly be used as a pejorative, but it can also be used to signify its original definition.
But it means the idea was different, and really not comparable to the present debate. We don't pretend Leucippus' views on the atom are relevant to the modern take on the same, so why this noise regarding atheism?
Seaward wrote:
This, incidentally, is the sort of crap that should've been discussed at the Reason Rally, but only about twenty people would have stuck around. The real "threat" to atheism is the religious right's attempt to frame it as just another religion, as requiring as much or more faith than their own beliefs, rather than accepting it for what it is.
"I'm not religious, but I'm deeply committed to my non-religiosity!"
Most people won't care if you're an atheist, same as most people won't care if you're Catholic, Jewish, or Muslim. It becomes and issue because some prick makes it an issue, or because you, as a prick, make it an issue.
Manchu wrote:I'm not surprised that an argument about historical context slipped over your head, Seaward, but what dogma meant is that atheist did not simply mean "absence of belief in divine beings" to the Greeks who were using it long ago.
Of course it didn't. "Bastard," wasn't a simply neutral term that meant "one who was born of parents out of wedlock," either. It carried heavy social connotations. Does that mean its definition was inaccurate?
Manchu wrote:Without the heavy social connotations, I doubt there would have been a term. For example, there is no term for a person who has no aunts or uncles.
What difference does that make? In a society where everyone is religious, the outcast few who are not would certainly have pejoratives levied against them, just as the "outcast few" born to an unwed mother would in a time when everyone - or at least everyone of status - is born to married parents.
Furthermore, the argument that "atheist" was purely an invented pejorative with no actual basis of occurrence holds little water, from a logical standpoint; why would I call you godless if the concept of godlessness did not exist?
generalgrog wrote:So you have a belief that people are born athiests. You now have defined your dogma and your belief system.
You have essentially said this... "I don't believe in God because I DO believe that people are born atheists. I don't believe in God because he hasn't appeared on Oprah."
So you do have the capability to form a belief system based on something outside of a vacuum.
Thanks for helping me prove that.
GG
Again Disbelief = "Inability or refusal to accept that something is true or real. Lack of faith in something."
Until you can prove a god to be real, not believing in said god is not a belief system. Based on the dictionary definition, I am not an atheist, nor am I a theist.
1.the doctrine or belief that there is no God.
2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.
I have no doctrines, nor a belief that there is no god. As you have yet to prove what god is, and prove a god exists, there is no reason to disbelieve in something that is not real.
But explain this to me, why are you so eager to claim atheism is a belief system? and as you ducked my question "What docrines/dogma/teachings do you need not to believe in Zeus? or the invisible pink unicorn I have trapped in my basement? " Is your whole belief system just not believing in invisible pink unicorns?
The thing is we know that most people in western society are more intellectually curious than "I haven't seen God so therefore I don't believe he exists". Every person in our society has asked themselves "where do I come from. how did it all begin". Some people research this question themselves and come up with "I don't believe the God, that so and so is talking about exists because of X.Y.Z.....etc." Other people after research come to a different conclusion and end up believing in a God.
So my point was to try and get you to think about how you came to the conclusion that God doesn't exist. You are an intelligent person and intelligent people are intellectually curious therefore I know that you have done some kind of research on the issue to come to the stance you have come. Simply rattling off the pink unicorn, santa clause argument is not usefull here. Because logically the non existence or existence if santa clause does not = existence or nonexistence of God.
I.E. if I were to prove or disprove the existence of santa clause or the pink unicorn, that wouldn't mean that I can therefore prove or disprove the existence of God.
Now I think I agree more with dogmas definition of childrens belief in that they don't have the rational sense to be an athiest in the sense that sirlynch is claiming.
It means that the phrase you are using to describe atheism in 2012 was not what ancient Greeks were talking about.
Furthermore, the argument that "atheist" was purely an invented pejorative with no actual basis of occurrence holds little water, from a logical standpoint; why would I call you godless if the concept of godlessness did not exist?
No one is making that argument. The argument is about what "the concept of godlessness" means and meant.
Seaward wrote:
Furthermore, the argument that "atheist" was purely an invented pejorative with no actual basis of occurrence holds little water, from a logical standpoint; why would I call you godless if the concept of godlessness did not exist?
The concept needs to exist, but seriously entertain the concept as something with philosophical weight is different.
Also, please don't misuse the word "logic", it annoys me, and most other people that actually study it.
Seaward wrote:
Furthermore, the argument that "atheist" was purely an invented pejorative with no actual basis of occurrence holds little water, from a logical standpoint; why would I call you godless if the concept of godlessness did not exist?
The concept needs to exist, but seriously entertain the concept as something with philosophical weight is different.
Also, please don't misuse the word "logic", it annoys me, and most other people that actually study it.
I don't grant that the concept of atheism carries any more "philosophical weight" than the concept of not believing in unicorns. Nor does it require it.
I understand you're getting angry, but trying to impress me with your pursuit of a liberal arts degree isn't going to win you the argument.
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Manchu wrote:]No one is making that argument. The argument is about what "the concept of godlessness" means and meant.
So you're suggesting it did not, in fact, mean a lack of belief in gods? I'm curious what else you think it could have meant.
Seaward wrote:I understand you're getting angry, but trying to impress me with your pursuit of a liberal arts degree isn't going to win you the argument.
I thought you came here more often than that?
Seward wrote:So you're suggesting it did not, in fact, mean a lack of belief in gods? I'm curious what else you think it could have meant.
As I understand it, it meant something more like "irreverent" to them.
generalgrog wrote:So you have a belief that people are born athiests. You now have defined your dogma and your belief system.
You have essentially said this... "I don't believe in God because I DO believe that people are born atheists. I don't believe in God because he hasn't appeared on Oprah."
So you do have the capability to form a belief system based on something outside of a vacuum.
Thanks for helping me prove that.
GG
Again Disbelief = "Inability or refusal to accept that something is true or real. Lack of faith in something."
Until you can prove a god to be real, not believing in said god is not a belief system. Based on the dictionary definition, I am not an atheist, nor am I a theist.
1.the doctrine or belief that there is no God.
2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.
I have no doctrines, nor a belief that there is no god. As you have yet to prove what god is, and prove a god exists, there is no reason to disbelieve in something that is not real.
But explain this to me, why are you so eager to claim atheism is a belief system? and as you ducked my question "What docrines/dogma/teachings do you need not to believe in Zeus? or the invisible pink unicorn I have trapped in my basement? " Is your whole belief system just not believing in invisible pink unicorns?
The thing is we know that most people in western society are more intellectually curious than "I haven't seen God so therefore I don't believe he exists". Every person in our society has asked themselves "where do I come from. how did it all begin". Some people research this question themselves and come up with "I don't believe the God, that so and so is talking about exists because of X.Y.Z.....etc." Other people after research come to a different conclusion and end up believing in a God.
So my point was to try and get you to think about how you came to the conclusion that God doesn't exist. You are an intelligent person and intelligent people are intellectually curious therefore I know that you have done some kind of research on the issue to come to the stance you have come. Simply rattling off the pink unicorn, santa clause argument is not usefull here. Because logically the non existence or existence if santa clause does not = existence or nonexistence of God.
I.E. if I were to prove or disprove the existence of santa clause or the pink unicorn, that wouldn't mean that I can therefore prove or disprove the existence of God.
Now I think I agree more with dogmas definition of childrens belief in that they don't have the rational sense to be an athiest in the sense that sirlynch is claiming.
GG
since their is no good definition for the word atheist, going by its etymological origin its simply "Not a theist"
Since you still don't seem to get it, here's a picture for you.
that being said, I'll say again its not a descriptive term, it is not any sort of belief system. Its just not being able to answer yes to one question.
If you insist on trying to say its a belief system in and of itself, then you also have to concede that not believing in invisible pink unicorns is your belief system. Its just as pointless to label my couch an atheist, a tree an atheists, but when it comes to cats, well don't cats consider themselves the supreme being? the Egyptians considered them gods. So GG is your god a cat?
You didn't answer "insert right name here" what your religion was, so are you just a theist? is that you're entire belief system?
And again I have to wonder, why are you so keen to label atheists as being a belief system in the first place. If your not an atheist, why is it so important to you to?
Seaward wrote:
I don't grant that the concept of atheism carries any more "philosophical weight" than the concept of not believing in unicorns. Nor does it require it.
God, I love it when people struggle to prove theirs is the "default" position, as though it matters.
Anyway, the argument hasn't changed, saying babies are atheists is exactly like saying rocks, cats, dog, guinea pigs, and platypuses are atheists. Philosophical weight enters the equation once rationality does, prior to that its just a pathetic attempt at political gamesmanship.
Seaward wrote:
I understand you're getting angry, but trying to impress me with your pursuit of a liberal arts degree isn't going to win you the argument.
I'm not angry, I've had this argument hundreds of times, and it always entertains. And while my undergrad degree was a BA, that "Dr." which goes in front of my name means it doesn't matter. Of course, you're assuming being studious is contingent on formal education, which is itself amusing.
And, really, I'm not here to convince you, that's not how argument works in a practical sense. I'm here to convince everyone else that you're position is untenable, useless, or otherwise without merit.
Seaward wrote:I understand you're getting angry, but trying to impress me with your pursuit of a liberal arts degree isn't going to win you the argument.
I thought you came here more often than that?
Seward wrote:So you're suggesting it did not, in fact, mean a lack of belief in gods? I'm curious what else you think it could have meant.
As I understand it, it meant something more like "irreverent" to them.
As I understand it, it meant something more like,
"ἄθεος m, ἄθεος f, ἄθεον n; second declension; (atheos)
1. without gods
2. denying or disdaining the gods (especially officially sanctioned gods)
3. generally: godless, secular
4. abandoned by the gods,"
dogma wrote:God, I love it when people struggle to prove theirs is the "default" position, as though it matters.
Anyway, the argument hasn't changed, saying babies are atheists is exactly like saying rocks, cats, dog, guinea pigs, and platypuses are atheists. Philosophical weight enters the equation once rationality does, prior to that its just a pathetic attempt at political gamesmanship.
Actually, it matters quite a bit, if one has a desperate, underlying need to constantly reinforce one's belief in that for which there is no evidence. Suggesting that we are born believing in our sky faerie of choice lends credence to the notion that said sky faerie exists. To admit that we're not born with an inherent belief in sky faeries, on the other hand, suggests that belief in sky faeries is a social construct that we're indoctrinated to, rather than the universal truth its proponents would claim.
I'm not angry, I've had this argument hundreds of times, and it always entertains. And while my undergrad degree was a BA, that "Dr." which goes in front of my name means it doesn't matter. Of course, you're assuming being studious is contingent on formal education, which is itself amusing.
And, really, I'm not here to convince you, that's not how argument works in a practical sense. I'm here to convince everyone else that you're position is untenable, useless, or otherwise without merit.
I'd stick to your day job.
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Manchu wrote:
Seaward wrote:But, hey, YMMV.
Did you even read that before copy/pasting?
I did.
It's now your turn to provide evidence that "atheos" actually meant irreverent.
In context, t's definitions 1-4 of what you posted. Short wait, I know. Now, I'll give you a thousand internets if you can find even one ancient Greek text that use the word atheist in the neutral way that you have described it.
EDIT: You know what, scratch that. If you find that text, send it to Karen Armstrong so she can correct her scholarship.
Seaward wrote:
Actually, it matters quite a bit, if one has a desperate, underlying need to constantly reinforce one's belief in that for which there is no evidence. Suggesting that we are born believing in our sky faerie of choice lends credence to the notion that said sky faerie exists. To admit that we're not born with an inherent belief in sky faeries, on the other hand, suggests that belief in sky faeries is a social construct that we're indoctrinated to, rather than the universal truth its proponents would claim.
Of course, the above statement is not at all ironic, and totally possesses intrinsic merit, and not that which is applied by the speaker.
The entire argument from inherent characteristics is a joke, on both sides. That this is an "issue" at all is a joke.
Seaward wrote:
I'd stick to your day job.
My day job is a blend of telling people they're wrong, and telling those same people how to make other people believe they aren't.
Manchu wrote:In context, t's definitions 1-4 of what you posted. Short wait, I know. Now, I'll give you a thousand internets if you can find even one ancient Greek text that use the word atheist in the neutral way that you have described it.
EDIT: You know what, scratch that. If you find that text, send it to Karen Armstrong so she can correct her scholarship.
Go back and try again. I fully granted it was used in a pejorative sense, not a neutral one.
What you're arguing is that, because "godless" was used as a pejorative, the very concept of "godlessness" couldn't have existed. And I, frankly, have absolutely no idea why.
Seaward wrote:Would you say you believe that pink unicorns who secretly control the world's financial markets from an orbiting space station undetectable by any conventional means don't exist? If so, why does that require a positive belief rather than a negative lack of belief?
Atheism does not require any beliefs. It can quite easily be defined as a lack of belief in supernatural deities. And tiny pink unicorns, for that matter.
Why would I say anything about pink unicorns who secretly control the world's financial markets. I'm talking about descriptive terms for the groups that actually exist on Earth. And for those three groups we have three perfectly good, and well understood terms.
Consider a man accused of a murder. People follow the story in the media and quickly fall into three camps, those who believe he is guilty, those who do not know, and those who believe he is innocent. Each group would be identified by its own term.
Now, it might be possible to point out that the people who believe he is innocent hold no belief on who else might have murdered the man, that indeed they hold no belief other than the negative belief 'he did not do it'. This might lead certain people beloved of set theory or whatever to point out that the "I don't know" group and the "he didn't do it group" are actually part of the same group, but that's all irrelevant, pointless tosh that is utterly useless in actually describing these groups as they interact with each other.
Ultimately you need to describe three groups, which are significantly different from one another. So you have atheist, agnostic and theist. And we all know what each means. Or you can play fun and games and confuse the whole matter.
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sirlynchmob wrote:How many examples would you like?
It's not quantity that matters, but quality. It's a country of 300 million, you'll always be able to find examples of people being obnoxious to some random group and saying mean things about them on the internet. I could, for instance, find at least as many examples of people saying mean things about Christians, but claiming that Christian groups are oppressed would be ludicrous (it doesn't stop them trying, of course ).
I mean, just look at the 'scariest states to be atheist article'. You have people on a march getting jeered. Billboards vandalised.
But that stuff really, really doesn't compare to what black people historically had to put up with, and what gay people still put up with to this day.
I'm not saying that stuff is okay, it's straight out bigotry and needs to be fixed, but it isn't the kind of oppression that demands rallies and activism to ensure equal rights. It is the kind of bigotry that can be solved just by being openly atheist and leading a good life, while being friends with Christians.
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Seaward wrote:No.
For the love of Christ, quit loading atheism with more than it actually contains. It requires no dogma, no one set of coherent thoughts, nothing. It is, very simply, the lack of belief in deities. It's impossible to be neither a theist or an atheist; children are born one or the other, and unless you're saying they're born with a copy of the Bible in their hands, they're born atheistic.
If you've never considered a question before, then you can't be assumed to have answered it 'no'.
sebster wrote:Why would I say anything about pink unicorns who secretly control the world's financial markets. I'm talking about descriptive terms for the groups that actually exist on Earth. And for those three groups we have three perfectly good, and well understood terms.
Consider a man accused of a murder. People follow the story in the media and quickly fall into three camps, those who believe he is guilty, those who do not know, and those who believe he is innocent. Each group would be identified by its own term.
Now, it might be possible to point out that the people who believe he is innocent hold no belief on who else might have murdered the man, that indeed they hold no belief other than the negative belief 'he did not do it'. This might lead certain people beloved of set theory or whatever to point out that the "I don't know" group and the "he didn't do it group" are actually part of the same group, but that's all irrelevant, pointless tosh that is utterly useless in actually describing these groups as they interact with each other.
That analogy would probably work, if it wasn't so horrendous.
I'll fix it for you.
A man disappears. One group believes he was murdered. Another group doesn't believe he was murdered. A third group simply says they don't know what happened.
That's the religious, atheists, and agnostics in a nutshell. Atheists and agnostics, you'll note, are basically the same in that neither group actively believes he was murdered.
Ultimately you need to describe three groups, which are significantly different from one another. So you have atheist, agnostic and theist. And we all know what each means. Or you can play fun and games and confuse the whole matter.
The problem there is, you clearly don't know what all three mean.
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sebster wrote:If you've never considered a question before, then you can't be assumed to have answered it 'no'.
So in other words, an individual raised in isolation - or a society that simply didn't follow a religion that included supernatural deities - who did not develop a belief in the supernatural because it never crossed his mind would not be an atheist. What exactly would you them, then? They do not believe in deities; it seems the definition of 'atheist' would be perfectly serviceable, but you object to that. No idea why.
Seaward wrote:
So in other words, an individual raised in isolation - or a society that simply didn't follow a religion that included supernatural deities - who did not develop a belief in the supernatural because it never crossed his mind would not be an atheist. What exactly would you them, then? They do not believe in deities; it seems the definition of 'atheist' would be perfectly serviceable, but you object to that. No idea why.
Well, no, you don't have to be completely isolated from the concept, you just need to have not considered it. That's the whole point of what I call the "unconsidered objection." Rocks aren't atheists because it isn't useful to call them atheists as they are incapable of holding beliefs of any sort. Similarly newborns, being incapable of holding beliefs, are not atheists. They may well become atheists, but you don't spring from the womb as an atheist because the descriptor simply isn't appropriate, just as it isn't appropriate in the case of the rock.
As to why someone would object to the application of that word, beyond simply being incorrect, you've already outlined for us exactly why its a form of political gamesmanship.
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Seaward wrote:
That analogy would probably work, if it wasn't so horrendous.
I'll fix it for you.
A man disappears. One group believes he was murdered. Another group doesn't believe he was murdered. A third group simply says they don't know what happened.
That's the religious, atheists, and agnostics in a nutshell. Atheists and agnostics, you'll note, are basically the same in that neither group actively believes he was murdered.
No, that's wrong.
Agnosticism doesn't pertain to belief, it pertains to knowledge. If you're going to break agnostics out from atheists and theists, then you effectively have to refer to atheists as people that believe that the guy was not murdered.
A better analogy is this:
Guy disappears.
Group 1 believes he was murdered. (theists)
Group 2 believes he wasn't murdered. (strong atheists)
Group 3 doesn't believe anything. (weak, or agnostic, atheists)
Group 4 believes he was murdered, but doesn't think we'll ever know if he was. (agnostic theists)
sirlynchmob wrote:How many examples would you like?
It's not quantity that matters, but quality. It's a country of 300 million, you'll always be able to find examples of people being obnoxious to some random group and saying mean things about them on the internet. I could, for instance, find at least as many examples of people saying mean things about Christians, but claiming that Christian groups are oppressed would be ludicrous (it doesn't stop them trying, of course ).
I mean, just look at the 'scariest states to be atheist article'. You have people on a march getting jeered. Billboards vandalised.
But that stuff really, really doesn't compare to what black people historically had to put up with, and what gay people still put up with to this day.
I'm not saying that stuff is okay, it's straight out bigotry and needs to be fixed, but it isn't the kind of oppression that demands rallies and activism to ensure equal rights. It is the kind of bigotry that can be solved just by being openly atheist and leading a good life, while being friends with Christians.
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I never compared atheists to either of those groups, all I said was "they're not the most hated group in america" some of the articles showed how people in america hate atheists more than the other groups you listed. And at the bottom of the 10 worst states article the author even said the same thing I did. He also went on to explain very well that you can't compare peoples suffering, as its all subjective and based on what group you identify with.
but the rallies and activism helps in showing the world that atheists are people to, and it helps other atheists see that they are not alone. You missed the part where teachers and others have been fired for ``suspected of being an atheist.`` Its hard to be open about something that could cost you your job. the rallies also help show that we are not immoral just because we are not theists. I use immoral, because its a synonym in our dictionaries.
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dogma wrote:
Seaward wrote:
So in other words, an individual raised in isolation - or a society that simply didn't follow a religion that included supernatural deities - who did not develop a belief in the supernatural because it never crossed his mind would not be an atheist. What exactly would you them, then? They do not believe in deities; it seems the definition of 'atheist' would be perfectly serviceable, but you object to that. No idea why.
Well, no, you don't have to be completely isolated from the concept, you just need to have not considered it. That's the whole point of what I call the "unconsidered objection." Rocks aren't atheists because it isn't useful to call them atheists as they are incapable of holding beliefs of any sort. Similarly newborns, being incapable of holding beliefs, are not atheists. They may well become atheists, but you don't spring from the womb as an atheist because the descriptor simply isn't appropriate, just as it isn't appropriate in the case of the rock.
As to why someone would object to the application of that word, beyond simply being incorrect, you've already outlined for us exactly why its a form of political gamesmanship.
Its not so much grammership, its the fact that all the words are so poorly defined. Yes the individual raised in isolation would be considered a atheist.
Do you believe in god? yes = theist, not yes = atheist.
do you know god exists? Yes=gnostic, not yes = agnostic
mix and match to taste.
the dictionary definitions are based on common usage, and will often not reflect the original meanings. Its why I keep saying atheist is a horrible descriptor, because it doesn't describe anything, it just says you are not a theist. we don't describe ourselves by what we are not. But due to the horrible definitions available for atheists, babies can be considered atheists, just like in the same regard they are not doctors, not lawyers, not warhammer players. so trying to attach labels based on things your/something is not is inane and futile. do we need words to express not believing in santa clause? not beliving in the easter bunny? not believing in gnomes? what are the synonyms for agnomiest? asantaist? what are their antonyms?
lets look at how badly the word is defined:
n. 1. One who disbelieves or denies the existence of a God, or supreme intelligent Being.
2. A godless person.
legal definition: ATHEIST. One who denies the existence of God.
well which is it? the isolated person would be godless, so would babies. I believe I am a supreme intelligent being, so am I god? If I believe I am god, does that make me a theist? since god doesn't believe in other gods, does that make him an atheist?
what does disbelief mean: The act of disbelieving;; a state of the mind in which one is fully persuaded that an opinion, assertion, or doctrine is not true; Can you prove god to be true? nope, am I fully persuaded that your opinion, assertion, or doctrines about god is not true? nope, but you have yet to significantly prove he is true, so I don't need to disbelieve in it.
so we can see how trying to label anyone an atheist is really pointless. its like going around and saying not being a doctor is my occupation, not collecting stamps is my hobby, not playing tau is my 40k army.
Legally speaking, I belong to no religions, I am not a theist, does that mean I am denying gods existence? nope, so I am not a theists or an atheist. Are we dizzy yet? This is why we use positive labels to describe things, while I can say I'm not a doctor, its more correct to say I'm an electrician. because as I am an electrician, that implies that I am not all other profession. Does anyone go around saying I'm a theist? no, they'll normally say I'm a christian, or a specific denomination of christian. by stating which one you are, you also imply all the ones you are not.
so let see if I can wrap this up, Being an atheist is not a belief system. My belief system is I don't accept anything til it can be proved. As god can not be proved, I see no need to join any religions. especially since (according to theists) joining the wrong one is just as bad as not joining any. so because of my belief system I'm labeled an atheist, not atheism is my belief system.
Again I will claim to be an atheist for solidarity. despite my feelings about the word.
Blackhoof wrote:To be honest, I do not know of this is helpful since I jave completrly lost track of this odd argument, but here is the definition of 'religion'
(1) the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
Atheism does not fit either category.
You left off a few(nice try)....from miriam webster
4: a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith
First off, as you know, the further down the list of definitions the weaker and less-common a usage it is. So this is the rarest usage for the word.
Secondly, we've already clearly seen in the thread that some atheists add a cause (like equality for atheists, or removing religious privilege from politics) or a system of beliefs (like the "atheists believe" stuff from that atheist's organizartion earlier, talking about self-reliance and such) onto their atheism. But many or most don't, as has been evinced by multiple atheists in this very thread. Atheism itself doesn't require either of those things. Some atheists happen to add them on as optional adjuncts.
Religion requires those kinds of things. You have to have a system of beliefs to have a religion. Atheism doesn't.
Blackhoof wrote:To be honest, I do not know of this is helpful since I jave completrly lost track of this odd argument, but here is the definition of 'religion'
(1) the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
Atheism does not fit either category.
You left off a few(nice try)....from miriam webster
#4 does not apply, atheism while it may be considered becoming a cause, it is not one currently. Is still most definitely not a principle or a system of beliefs held with faith "2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence." Any principles the atheist cause will adopt will never be based on faith.
the problem with dictionary definitions is the words are based on common usage. so the first definition is the most commonly accepted usage of the word. I could start up a campaign to start using religion to mean "a group of bigots who pay others to do bigoted things for them" If enough people start using the word religion for this usage, I could get this to be the #1 definition in the dictionary. But the context of the word is based on how the person using it, is defining it at the time.
Look at the word cigarette "a. A student at a British public school who is required to perform menial tasks for a student in a higher class.", and see how its definitions have continuously changed throughout the years. or even bad: 15. Slang good; excellent. Hey what, how does bad=good?
As you are not an atheist GG, why are you so keen to label them a religion? Just read through all the definitions of religion, look up the census results of listed religions, atheism is not a religion. It will never be a religion no matter how much you wish it would be for whatever reasons you're afraid to admit.
Automatically Appended Next Post: weird, I had a different word for cigarette, if you understand the concept I was making you should figure it out
As I stated before a person that believes that there is no God, bases that belief on a set of assumptions or presuppositions. These assumptions are then backed up by another set of beliefs assumptions. Assumptions and presuppositions = faith in something (whether it is some philosophical subset or some scientific principal). When you throw in the ardor that we saw at the reason rally..... you have religion.
generalgrog wrote:As I stated before a person that believes that there is no God, bases that belief on a set of assumptions or presuppositions. These assumptions are then backed up by another set of beliefs assumptions. Assumptions and presuppositions = faith in something (whether it is some philosophical subset or some scientific principal). When you throw in the ardor that we saw at the reason rally..... you have religion.
generalgrog wrote:As I stated before a person that believes that there is no God, bases that belief on a set of assumptions or presuppositions. These assumptions are then backed up by another set of beliefs assumptions. Assumptions and presuppositions = faith in something (whether it is some philosophical subset or some scientific principal). When you throw in the ardor that we saw at the reason rally..... you have religion.
generalgrog wrote:As I stated before a person that believes that there is no God, bases that belief on a set of assumptions or presuppositions. These assumptions are then backed up by another set of beliefs assumptions. Assumptions and presuppositions = faith in something (whether it is some philosophical subset or some scientific principal). When you throw in the ardor that we saw at the reason rally..... you have religion.
No, that's false for the same reason its false to claim that theism is a religion. Atheists, minimally, do not believe in God/gods. Theists, minimally, believe in God/gods. There is no necessary set of assumptions that underpins, or is attached to, either of these beliefs. A theist who believe in a particular God, or set of gods, is probably religious (but not necessarily), and with a sufficiently broad definition of "religion" you might call atheists that attach other beliefs to the absence of belief in God/gods, but that definition of "religion" will be so broad as to encompass nearly every belief.
generalgrog wrote:As I stated before a person that believes that there is no God, bases that belief on a set of assumptions or presuppositions. These assumptions are then backed up by another set of beliefs assumptions. Assumptions and presuppositions = faith in something (whether it is some philosophical subset or some scientific principal). When you throw in the ardor that we saw at the reason rally..... you have religion.
Thank you very much.
GG
Wrong. Oh so wrong.
Plus, assumptions are not faith, and pretty much what the dude above me says.
generalgrog wrote:As I stated before a person that believes that there is no God, bases that belief on a set of assumptions or presuppositions. These assumptions are then backed up by another set of beliefs assumptions. Assumptions and presuppositions = faith in something (whether it is some philosophical subset or some scientific principal). When you throw in the ardor that we saw at the reason rally..... you have religion.
Thank you very much.
GG
Please stop being so remarkably wrong.
It takes no faith to not believe in something.
Why don't you believe in God?
GG
What god? Can you be more specific? Which one are you talking about?
Aphrodite LOVE GODDESSES
Apollo SUN GODS AND GODDESSES
Apsu
Ares WAR GODS AND GODDESSES
Artemis MOON GODS AND GODDESSES
Asclepius
Athena WAR GODS AND GODDESSES
Athirat
Athtart
LOVE GODDESSES | WAR GODS AND GODDESSES
Atlas
Baal
Ba Xian
Bacchus
Balder
Bast
Bellona WAR GODS AND GODDESSES
Bergelmir
Bes
Bixia Yuanjin
Bragi
Brahma
Brigit
Camaxtli WAR GODS AND GODDESSES
Ceres
Ceridwen
Cernunnos
Chac
Chalchiuhtlicue
Charun
Chemosh WAR GODS AND GODDESSES
Cheng-huang
Cybele
Dagon
Damkina (Dumkina)
Davlin
Dawn
Demeter
Diana MOON GODS AND GODDESSES
Di Cang
Dionysus
Ea
El Enki
Enlil
Eos
Epona
Ereskigal
Farbauti
Fenrir
Forseti
Fortuna
Freya LOVE GODDESSES
Freyr SUN GODS AND GODDESSES
Frigg
Gaia
Ganesha
Ganga
Garuda SUN GODS AND GODDESSES
Gauri
Geb
Geong Si
Guanyin
Hades
Hanuman
Hathor LOVE GODDESSES
Hecate (Hekate)
Helios SUN GODS AND GODDESSES
Heng-o (Chang-o) MOON GODS AND GODDESSES
Hephaestus
Hera
Hermes
Hestia
Hod
Hoderi
Hoori
Horus
Hotei
Huitzilopochtli
WAR GODS AND GODDESSES | SUN GODS AND GODDESSES
Hsi-Wang-Mu
Hygeia
Inanna
LOVE GODDESSES | WAR GODS AND GODDESSES
Inti SUN GODS AND GODDESSES
Iris
Ishtar LOVE GODDESSES
Isis LOVE GODDESSES
Ixtab
Izanaki
Izanami
Janus WAR GODS AND GODDESSES
Jesus
Juno
Jupiter
Juturna
Kagutsuchi
Kartikeya WAR GODS AND GODDESSES
Khepri
Ki
Kingu
Kinich Ahau
Kishar
Krishna
Kuan-yin
Kukulcan
Kvasir
Lakshmi
Leto
Liza SUN GODS AND GODDESSES
Loki
Lugh SUN GODS AND GODDESSES
Luna MOON GODS AND GODDESSES
Magna Mater
Maia
Marduk
Mars WAR GODS AND GODDESSES
Mazu
Medb
Mercury
Mimir
Min
Minerva WAR GODS AND GODDESSES
Mithras SUN GODS AND GODDESSES
Morrigan WAR GODS AND GODDESSES
Mot Mummu
Muses
Nammu
Nanna MOON GODS AND GODDESSES
Nanna (Norse)
Nanse
Neith WAR GODS AND GODDESSES
Nemesis
Nephthys
Neptune
Nergal
Ninazu
Ninhurzag
Nintu
Ninurta WAR GODS AND GODDESSES
Njord
Nugua LOVE GODDESSES
Nut
Odin
Ohkuninushi
Ohyamatsumi
Orgelmir
Osiris
Ostara
Pan
Parvati
Phaethon
Phoebe
Phoebus Apollo
Pilumnus
Poseidon
Quetzalcoatl
Rama
Re SUN GODS AND GODDESSES
Rhea
Sabazius
Sarasvati
Selene MOON GODS AND GODDESSES
Shiva
Seshat
Seti (Set) WAR GODS AND GODDESSES
Shamash
Shapsu
Shen Yi
Shiva
Shu
Si-Wang-Mu
Sin MOON GODS AND GODDESSES
Sirona
Sol SUN GODS AND GODDESSES
Spaghetti Monster
Surya
Susanoh
Tawaret
Tefnut
Tezcatlipoca
Thanatos
Thor
Thoth
Tiamat
Tianhou
Tlaloc
Tonatiuh SUN GODS AND GODDESSES
Toyo-Uke-Bime
Tyche
TyrWAR GODS AND GODDESSES
Utu SUN GODS AND GODDESSES
Uzume
Vediovis
Venus LOVE GODDESSES
Vesta
Vishnu
Volturnus
Vulcan
Xipe
Xi Wang-mu
Xochipilli
Xochiquetzal
Yam
Yarikh MOON GODS AND GODDESSES
Yhwh
Ymir
Yu-huang
Yum Kimil
Zeus
generalgrog wrote:As I stated before a person that believes that there is no God, bases that belief on a set of assumptions or presuppositions.
What set?
Aside from none.
It does not take a set of "assumptions or presuppositions" to simply not care, or to say "there is no proof therefor no reason to believe."
In fact, requesting proof and basing one's argument on proof is the direct opposite of assumptions and presuppositions, because assumptions are defined as "believing without proof" and presuppositions are defined as "assuming before the argument begins".
pretty much what everyone else has been saying. atheism does not require faith or a set of beliefs or a set of rules such as religion does. atheism is simply a lack of belief, a null position, '0' on the scale.
Well what makes the Christian god any different from the millions of other strange imagined beings that inhabit the universe? They were all created for the same reason, to explain the unexplainable. Now that most of it is starting to be explained some of us arn't so inclined to put faith ahead of reason.
The fact that a simple question like "Why don't you believe in XXX" will not be answered is quite telling.
Athiests avoid this question because they know that it gets to the heart of the their belief system, and they do not want to admit that they use faith. They like to think themselves superior to people of faith because athiests are in denial themselves about the quantity of faith they have in Science and philosophy.
generalgrog wrote:The fact that a simple question like "Why don't you believe in XXX" will not be answered is quite telling.
Athiests avoid this question because they know that it gets to the heart of the their belief system, and they do not want to admit that they use faith. They like to think themselves superior to people of faith because athiests are in denial themselves about the quantity of faith they have in Science and philosophy.
Again... athiesm does not exist in a vacuum.
GG
You're the one in denial here, You don't even know which god your worship, nor can you describe him. How can anyone answer if they believe in someone you just made up without proof and evidence? Being an atheist is a result of my belief system, not the belief system. You do not need faith in science, faith is for religions as they can not prove anything, they need people to have faith in it (believe without proof)
so why don't you go figure out what god your asking about then try asking your question again with a proper name for your god, and a testable hypothesis for its existence.
generalgrog wrote:The fact that a simple question like "Why don't you believe in XXX" will not be answered
But I already stated why most atheists don't believe in god. Because there's no proof of God's existence therefor no reason to believe he exists.
Do you believe in the one-eyed, one-horned, flyin' purple people eater? His horn on his head blows 'em all out of the house with its epic rock and roll. Or the Flying Spaghetti Monster? His Noodly Appendage embraces all, and we all go to the great pasta bowl in the sky whether we believe or not.
Do you even read what you post? I know you're not reading any posts in this thread.
but lets get back to this other post you made:
generalgrog wrote:
The fact that a simple question like "Why don't you believe in XXX" will not be answered is quite telling.
Did you really just ask, "why don't I believe in porn?" And your not answering "what god?" is quite telling.
well since you won't answer, and you like telling others what they believe, let me return the favor.
You believe in some sort of god.
I believe I am a superior being, ergo you believe I am god.
Please send all donations to my pay pall account, and for specific prayers its a minimum donation of $10,000 american dollars.
generalgrog wrote:I find that statement very interesting.
Why, because it's true?
You're desperate to say science is a faith, but science doesn't require faith. You can test it. If you come up with a hypothesis that better explains reality than the current theory (and repeatedly test the hypothesis), it replaces the current theory.
The reason that the geological uniformitarianism philosophy (which is distinct from faith) is held is because there's no proof to cause scientists to believe otherwise.
Science is the study of the world as it is, not as one wishes it to be. The latter is faith. The scientific consensus changes over time as our understanding of the real world as it actually is changes. Because it is not based upon faith-- but upon facts.
I have a question that has probably has been addressed before, but my laziness overtakes me and my currently weak google foo defeats my purpose.
How are similar stories among isolated groups of people explained? In other words, similar stories about destruction by flood and repopulation by select groups of people, etc.
Do you even read what you post? I know you're not reading any posts in this thread.
but lets get back to this other post you made:
.
sirlynch do you accept uniformitariansim or not?
GG
I refuse to answer any more of your questions until you answer mine.
you haven't answered one of my questions.. LOL
GG
If you'd actually read my entire post from any of the previous pages, you'd see that I had. yet you still have yet to even answer the most basic one of, what god?
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Relapse wrote:I have a question that has probably has been addressed before, but my laziness overtakes me and my currently weak google foo defeats my purpose.
How are similar stories among isolated groups of people explained? In other words, similar stories about destruction by flood and repopulation by select groups of people, etc.
It floods all the time, the mid west in the USA floods just about every year now. there was a Tsunami in Japan last year. Floods happen. Is there any evidence of any flood that covered the entire world? NO. The Chinese have a written history that started before the biblical flood was supposed to have happened. There is evidence of a local flood in the middle east about the time biblical scholars claim.
Thanks for the answer, sir.
I'm just interested in everyone's take on different regions religious stories that are similar, because it leads to interesting thoughts.
In my own opinion, I believe in God and the Bible. I know we have lost a lot through mis translation and other factors, but that there are things yet to be revealed.
Relapse wrote:Thanks for the answer, sir.
I'm just interested in everyone's take on different regions religious stories that are similar, because it leads to interesting thoughts.
In my own opinion, I believe in God and the Bible. I know we have lost a lot through mis translation and other factors, but that there are things yet to be revealed.
Like the 'Biblical' flood? The historical accuracy of an event such as there being a flood has no bearing on the existence of god (and vice versa).
Relapse wrote:Thanks for the answer, sir.
I'm just interested in everyone's take on different regions religious stories that are similar, because it leads to interesting thoughts.
In my own opinion, I believe in God and the Bible. I know we have lost a lot through mis translation and other factors, but that there are things yet to be revealed.
Like the 'Biblical' flood? The historical accuracy of an event such as there being a flood has no bearing on the existence of god (and vice versa).
I never said it did, I was just answering a question about floods and isolated groups.
Relapse wrote:Thanks for the answer, sir.
I'm just interested in everyone's take on different regions religious stories that are similar, because it leads to interesting thoughts.
In my own opinion, I believe in God and the Bible. I know we have lost a lot through mis translation and other factors, but that there are things yet to be revealed.
What will really be interesting if we do get to encounter another advanced civilized alien race, then we could compare notes on science and religion.
There's been examples of writing in cliffs and caves which date as far back as ~6000 BC, which have similarities to early Chinese characters, although there is dispute that this is actual writing and not proto-writing. Other, more strongly confirmed examples date to about 2600-1500 BC depending on the example.
A reproduction of one such example, which was made on an oracle bone.
Well, the Chinese had written history (although not continous?) from about 5000 BC:
At Damaidi in Ningxia, 3,172 cliff carvings dating to 6000-5000 BC have been discovered "featuring 8,453 individual characters such as the sun, moon, stars, gods and scenes of hunting or grazing." These pictographs are reputed to be similar to the earliest characters confirmed to be written Chinese.[13][14] Later Yangshao culture was superseded by the Longshan culture around 2500 BC.
Melissia wrote:But why wouldn't they have similarities? They are all humans, with human desires and emotions, all living on this blue little ball of water and dirt.
Kilkrazy wrote:The Chinese cave paintings are meaningless if you don't believe in Carbon-14 dating.
Would the same people say that they don't believe in the science behind firearms if someone just shot them in the chest? Or that they don't believe in the science behind medicine and want to just tough it out and maybe get some leeches?
Something that was always interesting to me is in the New Testament, were a ressurected Christ was telling his Apostles of "other sheep"he needed to go to, and they would hear his voice. Couple this with Central American traditions of a "bearded white God" who came to teach them many things, then leaving, promising to return.
When Cortez came, many at first believed him to be the bearded white God.
This goes a bit more into it with some sources mentioned
Ah, I remember that now. That's a modern American religious belief, based on part on Cortes' claims that he was welcomed and worshipped as a deity. The wiki page gives a pretty good breakdown. The Spanish priests seem to have attempted to argue that Quetzalcoatl had some similarity to Jesus. That's pretty well in keeping with the Catholic tradition of co-opting local deities and religious practices, like how they made the Irish Goddess Bridgh into St. Brigid, and how the myth stories about the origin of Jesus are mostly taken from Mithras.
Relapse wrote:Something that was always interesting to me is in the New Testament, were a ressurected Christ was telling his Apostles of "other sheep"he needed to go to, and they would hear his voice. Couple this with Central American traditions of a "bearded white God" who came to teach them many things, then leaving, promising to return.
From my understanding the people that Jesus would have come from wern't particularly... white
Relapse wrote:Something that was always interesting to me is in the New Testament, were a ressurected Christ was telling his Apostles of "other sheep"he needed to go to, and they would hear his voice. Couple this with Central American traditions of a "bearded white God" who came to teach them many things, then leaving, promising to return.
From my understanding the people that Jesus would have come from wern't particularly... white
"the earliest depictions of Jews, which date from the 3rd Century, are - as far as can be determined - dark-skinned"
It could be relative. I know a Mexican or two who have nicknames the translate as "white" refering to their light skin, yet the average Europeon/Anglo would look at them as dark skinned.
Mannahnin wrote:...and how the myth stories about the origin of Jesus are mostly taken from Mithras.
I love how you say this as though it were fact. It's just another one of your fallacious arguments.
Lets see.... there was a story about mithras that had similarities to the story of Jesus.....soooo.. ipso facto....the Jesus story was made up..Yayyy now I don't have to believe in Jesus.
Why didn't you choose the story of Horus like bill Maher did in his movie religulous? It's just as fallacious.
Mannahnin wrote:...and how the myth stories about the origin of Jesus are mostly taken from Mithras.
I love how you say this as though it were fact. It's just another one of your fallacious arguments.
Lets see.... there was a story about mithras that had similarities to the story of Jesus.....soooo.. ipso facto....the Jesus story was made up..Yayyy now I don't have to believe in Jesus.
Why didn't you choose the story of Horus like bill Maher did in his movie religulous? It's just as fallacious.
generalgrog wrote:The fact that a simple question like "Why don't you believe in XXX" will not be answered is quite telling.GG
Assuming that XXX is any sort of god, I don't believe in them because I have yet to see first hand evidence that any exist.
People used to believe that the earth was flat, because there was no first hand evidence that it was spherical.
GG
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sirlynchmob wrote:
generalgrog wrote:
Mannahnin wrote:...and how the myth stories about the origin of Jesus are mostly taken from Mithras.
I love how you say this as though it were fact. It's just another one of your fallacious arguments.
Lets see.... there was a story about mithras that had similarities to the story of Jesus.....soooo.. ipso facto....the Jesus story was made up..Yayyy now I don't have to believe in Jesus.
Why didn't you choose the story of Horus like bill Maher did in his movie religulous? It's just as fallacious.
generalgrog wrote:People used to believe that the earth was flat, because there was no first hand evidence that it was spherical.
GG
The myth of the Flat Earth is the modern misconception that the prevailing cosmological view during the Middle Ages saw the Earth as flat, instead of spherical.[1] The idea seems to have been widespread during the first half of the 20th century, so that the Members of the Historical Association in 1945 stated that:
"The idea that educated men at the time of Columbus believed that the earth was flat, and that this belief was one of the obstacles to be overcome by Columbus before he could get his project sanctioned, remains one of the hardiest errors in teaching." [2]
During the early Middle Ages, virtually all scholars maintained the spherical viewpoint first expressed by the Ancient Greeks. By the 14th century, belief in a flat earth among the educated was dead. However, the exterior of the famous triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch is a Renaissance example in which a disc-shaped earth is shown floating inside a transparent sphere.[3]
According to Stephen Jay Gould, "there never was a period of 'flat earth darkness' among scholars (regardless of how the public at large may have conceptualized our planet both then and now). Greek knowledge of sphericity never faded, and all major medieval scholars accepted the earth's roundness as an established fact of cosmology."[4] Historians of science David Lindberg and Ronald Numbers point out that "there was scarcely a Christian scholar of the Middle Ages who did not acknowledge [Earth's] sphericity and even know its approximate circumference".[5]
Historian Jeffrey Burton Russell says the flat earth error flourished most between 1870 and 1920, and had to do with the ideological setting created by struggles over evolution.[6] Russell claims "with extraordinary [sic] few exceptions no educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the earth was flat," and credits histories by John William Draper, Andrew Dickson White, and Washington Irving for popularizing the flat-earth myth.[7]
generalgrog wrote:People used to believe that the earth was flat, because there was no first hand evidence that it was spherical.
GG
The myth of the Flat Earth is the modern misconception that the prevailing cosmological view during the Middle Ages saw the Earth as flat, instead of spherical.[1] The idea seems to have been widespread during the first half of the 20th century, so that the Members of the Historical Association in 1945 stated that:
"The idea that educated men at the time of Columbus believed that the earth was flat, and that this belief was one of the obstacles to be overcome by Columbus before he could get his project sanctioned, remains one of the hardiest errors in teaching." [2]
During the early Middle Ages, virtually all scholars maintained the spherical viewpoint first expressed by the Ancient Greeks. By the 14th century, belief in a flat earth among the educated was dead. However, the exterior of the famous triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch is a Renaissance example in which a disc-shaped earth is shown floating inside a transparent sphere.[3]
According to Stephen Jay Gould, "there never was a period of 'flat earth darkness' among scholars (regardless of how the public at large may have conceptualized our planet both then and now). Greek knowledge of sphericity never faded, and all major medieval scholars accepted the earth's roundness as an established fact of cosmology."[4] Historians of science David Lindberg and Ronald Numbers point out that "there was scarcely a Christian scholar of the Middle Ages who did not acknowledge [Earth's] sphericity and even know its approximate circumference".[5]
Historian Jeffrey Burton Russell says the flat earth error flourished most between 1870 and 1920, and had to do with the ideological setting created by struggles over evolution.[6] Russell claims "with extraordinary [sic] few exceptions no educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the earth was flat," and credits histories by John William Draper, Andrew Dickson White, and Washington Irving for popularizing the flat-earth myth.[7]
Kilkrazy wrote:The Chinese cave paintings are meaningless if you don't believe in Carbon-14 dating.
This.
Carbon-14 dating is not that reliable, in that you can date freshly dead animals to over 1,000's of years old. Also it isn't fully understood how a "flood event" may have changed the environment.
Again assumptions of uniformatarianism must be relied on to fully accept radiocarbon and or radiometric dating.
generalgrog wrote:People used to believe that the earth was flat, because there was no first hand evidence that it was spherical.
And then the ancient Greeks (amongst others, probably earlier ones, too) found evidence to the contrary.
You seem to believe the fact that the scientific consensus changes over time as a weakness, when it's actually science's greatest strength. The scientific consensus changes because we scientists are always searching for the truth of the world. Which means that science is always growing, becoming stronger, and better.
Reflecting more and more of the truth of the universe in the consensus-- one discovery at a time. Maybe, one day, there will be scientifically verifiable evidence of a "god" or godlike entities. In that case, the scientific consensus will change. Until then, there's no real reason to believe in a god from the scientific point of view. If you still want to, hey, that's your choice. But looking down on people who don't just makes you a bit of a jerk.
Want me to list the 7 references that passage quotes? Or are you happy to read them yourself?
Or you want to go and do your own research into the issue so you can get some first hand evidence?
2) Doesn't mean that there wasn't a time where people thought the Earth was flat, just that it wasn't during the Middle Ages, if that is in fact true.
Sure, apparently there are records of people thinking that the Earth was a sphere from the 6th century BC... I'd give you are reference, but it is used in a wiki article
generalgrog wrote:
I love how you say this as though it were fact. It's just another one of your fallacious arguments.
Lets see.... there was a story about mithras that had similarities to the story of Jesus.....soooo.. ipso facto....the Jesus story was made up..Yayyy now I don't have to believe in Jesus.
Why didn't you choose the story of Horus like bill Maher did in his movie religulous? It's just as fallacious.
God I love it when people not only butcher the term "fallacy" but commit to fallacious arguments while accusing others of doing the same.
Grog, as a rule, you should avoid using the words "logic", "fallacy", and "science" because you have an extensive history of failing to understand all of them. And, honestly, it has only ever taken away from any point you were attempting to make.
In this particular case you're accusing Mannahnin of making a fallacious argument without any basis, largely because you yourself are proceeding on the basis of a strawman (Mannahnin didn't claim that the story of Jesus being taken from the Mithras was a reason not to believe in Jesus.), and further that any given person would need to believe in Jesus by default (follows from an argument from ignorance).
Mannahnin wrote:...and how the myth stories about the origin of Jesus are mostly taken from Mithras.
I love how you say this as though it were fact. It's just another one of your fallacious arguments.
You can feel free to contest it, just as you are free to present evidence to the contrary if you don't believe in any other factual claim I make. For example, if I say "The Catholic Church has a history of adopting and incorporating some local religious customs and deities as an aid to converting the locals," and I point to Bridh/St. Brigid as an example, or the Christmas tree/Yule tree as another, you can simply contradict me or you can try to produce an argument with contrary evidence.
generalgrog wrote:Lets see.... there was a story about mithras that had similarities to the story of Jesus.....soooo.. ipso facto....the Jesus story was made up..Yayyy now I don't have to believe in Jesus.
This is a failure of reasoning and of reading comprehension on your part. I'm not making the same argument Mahar does. I know it's a thread about atheism but if you've paid any attention in the past you know I'm not an atheist. Most of the myth of Jesus' birth and the signs that attended it are extremely similar to or identical to those of Mithras, which was around immediately before Christianity, and in the same region of the world. These are matters of clear historical record, and occam's razor leads us to believe it unlikely that two (or three; if Mithras was based on Horus) deities had the same origin, rather than one being based on the earlier.
Now, just because it appears that some early Christians stole parts of the story of Mithras to add glory to their own deity, that doesn't mean Jesus isn't worthwhile to follow or even that he wasn't divine. Just because some of his later followers decided to "gild the lily" of his story by adding more decoration doesn't mean that his story wasn't meaningful without that stuff added to it. From the evidence of the Jefferson Bible, it appears that Jefferson didn't think of Jesus as divine but believed that Jesus' moral teachings were wonderful and worthy of following. He opined that it was obvious that much had been added to the gospels after the fact.
Jefferson, in a letter to John Adams 1813 wrote:In extracting the pure principles which he taught, we should have to strip off the artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests, who have travestied them into various forms, as instruments of riches and power to themselves. We must dismiss the Platonists and Plotinists, the Stagyrites and Gamalielites, the Eclectics, the Gnostics and Scholastics, their essences and emanations, their logos and demiurges, aeons and daemons, male and female, with a long train of … or, shall I say at once, of nonsense. We must reduce our volume to the simple evangelists, select, even from them, the very words only of Jesus, paring off the amphibologisms into which they have been led, by forgetting often, or not understanding, what had fallen from him, by giving their own misconceptions as his dicta, and expressing unintelligibly for others what they had not understood themselves. There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter which is evidently his, and which is as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill. The result is an octavo of forty-six pages, of pure and unsophisticated doctrines.[
generalgrog wrote:Why didn't you choose the story of Horus like bill Maher did in his movie religulous? It's just as fallacious.
The word you're looking for is "false". Fallacious normally refers to a formal error in logic/argument. If that's what you meant, you should mention what fallacy you think is in play. If you think I've made an error in reasoning, to demonstrate that you've got to point out the error. Challenge one of my premises or show how they don't lead to me conclusions. What you're offering here is simple contradiction.
generalgrog wrote:Carbon-14 dating is not that reliable
You don't have the expert knowledge to proclaim that, you're just regurgitating some junk you ate up off of a propaganda site.
Carbon-14 is a Carbon atom (six protons, six electrons, and six neutrons in its base state) with two extra neutrons (the electrons have mass, but they're quite negligible compared to a proton or neutron). The extra Neutrons turn the carbon's nucleus in to a radioactive isotope. Carbon-14 is quite rare, 1 part per trillion being quite common (trillion, as in, a million million). The decay itself is a method called beta decay, which is to say, it changes from Carbon-14 to Nitrogen-14-- without going in to too much detail, one of the excess neutrons becomes a proton, and this process takes 5,730 ± 40 years (that is, ~5,690-5770 years) for any given amount of carbon-14 to decay to half of its value. This value has been proven time and again to be quite precise, and there is no evidence to claim otherwise.
Carbon-14 dating machines need to be properly calibrated, however, because the amount of C14 has not been constant over the years (cosmic rays and variations in Earth's magnetosphere have an effect on it for example). Therefor they use a combination of other dating methods in concert with radiocarbon dating, in order to properly calibrate the radiocarbon dating machines. When properly calibrated, a carbon-14 dating is quite accurate, being able to accurately predict the age of, for example, wood from a royal Egyptian boat which was made in 1850 BC. Over the course of the 26,000 years in which radiocarbon dating is used, the total measurement error is plus or minus 163 years.
Carbon-14 dating is not that reliable, in that you can date freshly dead animals to over 1,000's of years old. Also it isn't fully understood how a "flood event" may have changed the environment.
Again assumptions of uniformatarianism must be relied on to fully accept radiocarbon and or radiometric dating.
Really? This argument again?
If you don't accept radiometric dating as valid evidence, then you effectively cannot accept any attempt at creation "science" because you are abrogating your ability to prove that Earth is only 6,000 years old.
Beyond that, carbon dating isn't a simple matter of assuming a constant rate of decay. The process of calibration tests against the strata in which a subject is found, which is dated by other methods in order to normalize for carbon content in the atmosphere. The whole idea that you can date an animal corpse as being thousands of years old is based in the failure of uneducated people to understand the distinction between rawBP years, and calibrated years.
Oh, and while it is an assumption to presume a constant rate of radioactive decay, there is no evidence, at all, to suggest it varies but a mountain of evidence to suggest that it doesn't.
generalgrog wrote:The fact that a simple question like "Why don't you believe in XXX" will not be answered is quite telling.
Athiests avoid this question because they know that it gets to the heart of the their belief system, and they do not want to admit that they use faith. They like to think themselves superior to people of faith because athiests are in denial themselves about the quantity of faith they have in Science and philosophy.
Again... athiesm does not exist in a vacuum.
Your entire argument is predicated on the assumption that atheism is a belief system. Its fine to argue from a presumed position if that presumption is supported in the course of the argument, but the initial question "Why don't you believe in God?", in this context, automatically places belief, and the absence of belief, on equal footing; which is incorrect. You are begging the question.
You do not need a reason to not believe in something. You need a reason to believe in something, at least if the belief is rational. I need no reason to not believe in God, or not believe that any evidence offered is evidence that God exists. You need a reason to believe in God, and you need a reason to believe that any evidence offered is evidence that God exists. The same is true if "God" is replaced with "cat".
Relapse wrote:It could be relative. I know a Mexican or two who have nicknames the translate as "white" refering to their light skin, yet the average Europeon/Anglo would look at them as dark skinned.
Europeans sailed to this 'New World' hundreds of years ago and, as humans often do, engaged in sexual intercourse with some of the indigenous people. Others colonizers did not engage in such activity, but lived here all the rest of their life, and their family line still exists so you end up with people who are now native to Central and Southern America that are Caucasian. The people today also use 'white' in a different racial/cultural context than they would have in the past. Find an incident from pre-European colonization that used it in the same context and you may be on to something.
generalgrog wrote:
I love how you say this as though it were fact. It's just another one of your fallacious arguments.
Lets see.... there was a story about mithras that had similarities to the story of Jesus.....soooo.. ipso facto....the Jesus story was made up..Yayyy now I don't have to believe in Jesus.
Why didn't you choose the story of Horus like bill Maher did in his movie religulous? It's just as fallacious.
God I love it when people not only butcher the term "fallacy" but commit to fallacious arguments while accusing others of doing the same.
Grog, as a rule, you should avoid using the words "logic", "fallacy", and "science" because you have an extensive history of failing to understand all of them. And, honestly, it has only ever taken away from any point you were attempting to make.
In this particular case you're accusing Mannahnin of making a fallacious argument without any basis, largely because you yourself are proceeding on the basis of a strawman (Mannahnin didn't claim that the story of Jesus being taken from the Mithras was a reason not to believe in Jesus.), and further that any given person would need to believe in Jesus by default (follows from an argument from ignorance).
I was thinking that the particular fallacy was the one of causal reasoning or possibly post hoc.
example:
"the bread has gone bad and has mold on it"
"the bread produced the mold which caused the bread to go bad"
"Jesus story is based on mithras"
"How do you know that"
"because there are similarities between mithras and Jesus"
Isn't it fallacious to claim that the Jesus story is fabricated from mithras because there are similarities(some of these "similarities" are way out there) between the stories?
generalgrog wrote:
I love how you say this as though it were fact. It's just another one of your fallacious arguments.
Lets see.... there was a story about mithras that had similarities to the story of Jesus.....soooo.. ipso facto....the Jesus story was made up..Yayyy now I don't have to believe in Jesus.
Why didn't you choose the story of Horus like bill Maher did in his movie religulous? It's just as fallacious.
God I love it when people not only butcher the term "fallacy" but commit to fallacious arguments while accusing others of doing the same.
Grog, as a rule, you should avoid using the words "logic", "fallacy", and "science" because you have an extensive history of failing to understand all of them. And, honestly, it has only ever taken away from any point you were attempting to make.
In this particular case you're accusing Mannahnin of making a fallacious argument without any basis, largely because you yourself are proceeding on the basis of a strawman (Mannahnin didn't claim that the story of Jesus being taken from the Mithras was a reason not to believe in Jesus.), and further that any given person would need to believe in Jesus by default (follows from an argument from ignorance).
I was thinking that the particular fallacy was the one of causal reasoning or possibly post hoc.
example:
"the bread has gone bad and has mold on it"
"the bread produced the mold which caused the bread to go bad"
"Jesus story is based on mithras"
"How do you know that"
"because there are similarities between mithras and Jesus"
Isn't it fallacious to claim that the Jesus story is fabricated from mithras because there are similarities(some of these "similarities" are way out there) between the stories?
"You already know Christmas trees and Easter eggs were originally Pagan, and you probably know the seasonal timing of the two holidays is Pagan too. Mildly interesting. Not what you'll find here. What you'll discover at POCM is that ancient cultures around the Mediterranean shared standard ideas about Gods and their powers and place in the universe—and that Christianity simply adopted those ideas and applied them to Jesus. Ancient people knew godmen did miracles. The first Christians thought Jesus was a godman, so they told stories about Jesus doing miracles. They even had Him doing the same miracles as the other godmen."
generalgrog wrote:(some of these "similarities" are way out there) between the stories?
As "way out there" as a magical person coming back from the dead after being born of a virgin and doing all sorts of cool things like catering parties with magical wine and food, walking on water etc?
sirlynchmob wrote:
... The first Christians thought Jesus was a godman, so they told stories about Jesus doing miracles. They even had Him doing the same miracles as the other godmen."
again it seems fallacious to me...
"cultures made up stories about "godmen"
"Jesus was considered a Godman"
'therefore people made up stories about Jesus"
I.E. the fallacious argument to me is that because X happened here that automatically means the same thing that happened to X happened to Y.
generalgrog wrote:again it seems fallacious to me...
You don't understand what the term "fallacious" means or represents anyway, so how would you know what it feels like?
I think waht you really mean is "I don't agree".
A fallacy is an error in reasoning that renders an argument logically invalid, but you aren't thinking in purely logical terms to begin with. And, I should note, that just because an argument itself is logically invalid, that does NOT mean that its conclusions are untrue.
I could say that All animals are cats, and all dogs are animals, therefor all dogs are cats and that would be logically valid and not fallacious. I could also say that if someone has the flu, they cough a lot; ergo John, who is coughing a lot, has the flu. While he does actually have the flu, the argument itself is logically fallacious and invalid, despite the conclusions being true.
generalgrog wrote:(some of these "similarities" are way out there) between the stories?
As "way out there" as a magical person coming back from the dead after being born of a virgin and doing all sorts of cool things like catering parties with magical wine and food, walking on water etc?
More like comparing the virgin birth of Jesus in a stable to mithras being born from solid rock in a cave. Or comparing the 12 disciples to the 12 signs of the zodiak...yeah those are way out there. A very similar thing that Bill Maher tried to do with the Horus myth.
Well cats definitely qualify as a supreme being, the Egyptians thought of them as gods. ergo cats are gods.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
generalgrog wrote:
SilverMK2 wrote:
generalgrog wrote:(some of these "similarities" are way out there) between the stories?
As "way out there" as a magical person coming back from the dead after being born of a virgin and doing all sorts of cool things like catering parties with magical wine and food, walking on water etc?
More like comparing the virgin birth of Jesus in a stable to mithras being born from solid rock in a cave. Or comparing the 12 disciples to the 12 signs of the zodiak...yeah those are way out there. A very similar thing that Bill Maher tried to do with the Horus myth.
GG
So are you saying that jesus was a totally unique god? that his followers borrowed nothing from the local area?
Jesus is not a carbon copy of any one other god, he was a collection of a variety of gods and what people thought of when they thought of gods. With a few new bits thrown in to make him seem like the new thing.
Relapse wrote:It could be relative. I know a Mexican or two who have nicknames the translate as "white" refering to their light skin, yet the average Europeon/Anglo would look at them as dark skinned.
Europeans sailed to this 'New World' hundreds of years ago and, as humans often do, engaged in sexual intercourse with some of the indigenous people. Others colonizers did not engage in such activity, but lived here all the rest of their life, and their family line still exists so you end up with people who are now native to Central and Southern America that are Caucasian. The people today also use 'white' in a different racial/cultural context than they would have in the past. Find an incident from pre-European colonization that used it in the same context and you may be on to something.
This could be interesting to study further. Then again, when Christ was first ressurected, his closest followers did not at first recognize him until he spoke to them.
I do think I will look into some of the early languages to see what I can find since it is a thought provoking comment you made.
In the end, though it comes down to personal faith more than anything. The scriptures are full of examples of people that had seen some amazing things, yet denied them.
It could be argued that the things they saw were blown out of proportion, but my own beliefs and experiences tell me otherwise.
Jesus is not a carbon copy of any one other god, he was a collection of a variety of gods and what people thought of when they thought of gods. With a few new bits thrown in to make him seem like the new thing.
Again this is the same mistake manny is making. You are making this grand statement based on your opinion and not proven fact.
I'm waiting for dogma to help with clarification on which logical fallacy is being made here.
generalgrog wrote:
I was thinking that the particular fallacy was the one of causal reasoning or possibly post hoc.
Well, its definitely not post hoc because the argument being made isn't causal. In essence, the presence of similar tales isn't being claimed to have caused the telling of Jesus' story.
You could make the case for cum hoc (correlation is not causation), but its difficult in this instance because the similarities are so plentiful. You would have a stronger argument if Mann was claiming that the story of Jesus was wholly fabricated, but it seems he's simply stating that much of his story was likely embellished by others because there are clear parallels between it, and the messianic tales told by people of other faiths. And again, its not a causal argument.
You also have to remember that informal fallacies aren't like formal fallacies. Formal fallacies can be proven using formal logic (word math), informal fallacies aren't so cut and dry. They turn on reasonable standards of evidence. If they didn't, all arguments would be intrinsically fallacious.
generalgrog wrote:
Isn't it fallacious to claim that the Jesus story is fabricated from mithras because there are similarities(some of these "similarities" are way out there) between the stories?
Possibly, at least if you're implying that it was created whole cloth.
However, if all you're doing is claimed that it was influenced by other stories, then you're on more solid ground.
Then again, when Christ was first ressurected, his closest followers did not at first recognize him until he spoke to them.
Some folks have posited that if a man's closest followers and friends cannot recognize their close friend and companion, it might not be the same person.
Jefferson believed Jesus was the greatest moral teacher in history and worthy of basing one's morality and ethics upon, but dismissed the claims of Jesus being the son of god or performing miracles as "nonsense", added by later adherents, and that Jesus actual teachings and insights are as "easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill. "
Carbon-14 dating is not that reliable, in that you can date freshly dead animals to over 1,000's of years old. Also it isn't fully understood how a "flood event" may have changed the environment.
Again assumptions of uniformatarianism must be relied on to fully accept radiocarbon and or radiometric dating.
Really? This argument again?
If you don't accept radiometric dating as valid evidence, then you effectively cannot accept any attempt at creation "science" because you are abrogating your ability to prove that Earth is only 6,000 years old.
Beyond that, carbon dating isn't a simple matter of assuming a constant rate of decay. The process of calibration tests against the strata in which a subject is found, which is dated by other methods in order to normalize for carbon content in the atmosphere. The whole idea that you can date an animal corpse as being thousands of years old is based in the failure of uneducated people to understand the distinction between rawBP years, and calibrated years.
Oh, and while it is an assumption to presume a constant rate of radioactive decay, there is no evidence, at all, to suggest it varies but a mountain of evidence to suggest that it doesn't.
generalgrog wrote:The fact that a simple question like "Why don't you believe in XXX" will not be answered is quite telling.
Athiests avoid this question because they know that it gets to the heart of the their belief system, and they do not want to admit that they use faith. They like to think themselves superior to people of faith because athiests are in denial themselves about the quantity of faith they have in Science and philosophy.
Again... athiesm does not exist in a vacuum.
Your entire argument is predicated on the assumption that atheism is a belief system. Its fine to argue from a presumed position if that presumption is supported in the course of the argument, but the initial question "Why don't you believe in God?", in this context, automatically places belief, and the absence of belief, on equal footing; which is incorrect. You are begging the question.
You do not need a reason to not believe in something. You need a reason to believe in something, at least if the belief is rational. I need no reason to not believe in God, or not believe that any evidence offered is evidence that God exists. You need a reason to believe in God, and you need a reason to believe that any evidence offered is evidence that God exists. The same is true if "God" is replaced with "cat".
maybe the question is the wrong one then. What I was trying to get at was. "What has influenced a person to not believe in a god or God". Some people have answered honestly in that they do not believe in a god or God because said god or God has no evidence(in their eyes) of existing..
This is what I was trying to get sirlynch to admit to but he didn't play fair...the point I was trying to make is that just because a god or God has no scientific evidence does not mean this god or God does not exist. I can't see gravity but I see the effects, I can't see magnetism but I can see the effects.
I used the example of the flat earth, which of course people missed the point. It was a veiwpoint by much of western society that the earth was flat. If someone had said... you know the earth is really spherical. The sirlynches of the day could just say...I choose not to believe in a sphere because you haven't proven to me that it is spherical. All you have to do is look at the horizon and see the edge of the earth! So in this persons mind they are right when they are really wrong.
athiesm does not exist in a vacuum, there are ideas, dogmas, and faith involved, which lead people to take that position.
Mannahnin wrote:
Some folks have posited that if a man's closest followers and friends cannot recognize their close friend and companion, it might not be the same person.
Jefferson believed Jesus was the greatest moral teacher in history and worthy of basing one's morality and ethics upon, but dismissed the claims of Jesus being the son of god or performing miracles as "nonsense", added by later adherents, and that Jesus actual teachings and insights are as "easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill. "
Yeah, I've basically come to the conclusion that either the story of the Resurrection is fabricated (it doesn't really bear on Jesus' moral teachings), or evidence that other people claimed to be Jesus, or were believed to be Jesus.
Well, I'm pretty sure the latter two happened anyway, its really just a matter of whether or not it impacted the Bible.
Then again, when Christ was first ressurected, his closest followers did not at first recognize him until he spoke to them.
Some folks have posited that if a man's closest followers and friends cannot recognize their close friend and companion, it might not be the same person.
Jefferson believed Jesus was the greatest moral teacher in history and worthy of basing one's morality and ethics upon, but dismissed the claims of Jesus being the son of god or performing miracles as "nonsense", added by later adherents, and that Jesus actual teachings and insights are as "easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill. "
I can understand the logic of that position. On the other hand it is stated we will be resurrected in a perfect form. This may be supposed that our bodies are going to be a very much improved version of ourselves.
The best analogy I can think of in this context is the gangly kid in high school that turns into Joe Stud or a total hottie. People seeing them for the first time after their transformation sometimes don't recognize them until they start talking to them.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Other people just change their hairstlye or fashion and can pass unrecognized.
A philosophical question on that tangent: If one is created in one's "perfect form", would that mean the idealized versions of ourselves, or perfectly healthy bodies?
The two are distinctly different, especially, for example, for transexual or intersexual people.
generalgrog wrote:
maybe the question is the wrong one then. What I was trying to get at was. "What has influenced a person to not believe in a god or God". Some people have answered honestly in that they do not believe in a god or God because said god or God has no evidence(in their eyes) of existing..
This is what I was trying to get sirlynch to admit to but he didn't play fair...the point I was trying to make is that just because a god or God has no scientific evidence does not mean this god or God does not exist. I can't see gravity but I see the effects, I can't see magnetism but I can see the effects.
Well, we can actually see magnetism via photons, and can hypothetically see gravitation, but that's beside the point.
What you're getting at is problematic because we get into a debate about the nature of evidence. Some people see a puppy and consider that puppy, and their emotional response to it, to be evidence of God. Others see the same thing and see it as evidence of a puppy, and evidence of emotions. Basically you're running face first into Occam's razor. Honestly though, that's fine if you're taking God's existence on faith, the problems arise when you start trying to equate your faith with the beliefs of people using the Razor.
And the religious aren't the only people that run into this. Neo-Platonists that still cling to Forms have the same problem, so do Kantians with an affinity for the categorical imperative. And really any philosopher that isn't a fairly strict positivist.
You are right though, the absence of evidence isn't the evidence of absence, but that doesn't really capture the notion that I think you were initially arguing for, which is that atheism is a religion or belief system.
generalgrog wrote:
I used the example of the flat earth, which of course people missed the point. It was a veiwpoint by much of western society that the earth was flat. If someone had said... you know the earth is really spherical. The sirlynches of the day could just say...I choose not to believe in a sphere because you haven't proven to me that it is spherical. All you have to do is look at the horizon and see the edge of the earth! So in this persons mind they are right when they are really wrong.
The problem you run into here is that the idea that the Earth was flat wasn't widespread in the educated class. Basically, the people who couldn't think abstractly, beyond their experience, thought the world was flat. Everyone else was educated, and knew the horizon wasn't the edge of the Earth because the spices you were using in your food probably came from India and China.
generalgrog wrote:
athiesm does not exist in a vacuum, there are ideas, dogmas, and faith involved, which lead people to take that position.
Ideas, sure. Dogma and faith, no. And even then the ideas involved are basically the fundamental tenets of rational thought, most prominently the idea that things must be proven to exist in order to be treated as existing.
Melissia wrote:A philosophical question on that tangent: If one is created in one's "perfect form", would that mean the idealized versions of ourselves, or perfectly healthy bodies?
The two are distinctly different, especially, for example, for transexual or intersexual people.
The best answer I can give to that is the form God means us to have as his sons and daughters.
Carbon-14 dating is not that reliable, in that you can date freshly dead animals to over 1,000's of years old. Also it isn't fully understood how a "flood event" may have changed the environment.
Again assumptions of uniformatarianism must be relied on to fully accept radiocarbon and or radiometric dating.
Really? This argument again?
If you don't accept radiometric dating as valid evidence, then you effectively cannot accept any attempt at creation "science" because you are abrogating your ability to prove that Earth is only 6,000 years old.
Beyond that, carbon dating isn't a simple matter of assuming a constant rate of decay. The process of calibration tests against the strata in which a subject is found, which is dated by other methods in order to normalize for carbon content in the atmosphere. The whole idea that you can date an animal corpse as being thousands of years old is based in the failure of uneducated people to understand the distinction between rawBP years, and calibrated years.
Oh, and while it is an assumption to presume a constant rate of radioactive decay, there is no evidence, at all, to suggest it varies but a mountain of evidence to suggest that it doesn't.
generalgrog wrote:The fact that a simple question like "Why don't you believe in XXX" will not be answered is quite telling.
Athiests avoid this question because they know that it gets to the heart of the their belief system, and they do not want to admit that they use faith. They like to think themselves superior to people of faith because athiests are in denial themselves about the quantity of faith they have in Science and philosophy.
Again... athiesm does not exist in a vacuum.
Your entire argument is predicated on the assumption that atheism is a belief system. Its fine to argue from a presumed position if that presumption is supported in the course of the argument, but the initial question "Why don't you believe in God?", in this context, automatically places belief, and the absence of belief, on equal footing; which is incorrect. You are begging the question.
You do not need a reason to not believe in something. You need a reason to believe in something, at least if the belief is rational. I need no reason to not believe in God, or not believe that any evidence offered is evidence that God exists. You need a reason to believe in God, and you need a reason to believe that any evidence offered is evidence that God exists. The same is true if "God" is replaced with "cat".
maybe the question is the wrong one then. What I was trying to get at was. "What has influenced a person to not believe in a god or God". Some people have answered honestly in that they do not believe in a god or God because said god or God has no evidence(in their eyes) of existing..
This is what I was trying to get sirlynch to admit to but he didn't play fair...the point I was trying to make is that just because a god or God has no scientific evidence does not mean this god or God does not exist. I can't see gravity but I see the effects, I can't see magnetism but I can see the effects.
I used the example of the flat earth, which of course people missed the point. It was a veiwpoint by much of western society that the earth was flat. If someone had said... you know the earth is really spherical. The sirlynches of the day could just say...I choose not to believe in a sphere because you haven't proven to me that it is spherical. All you have to do is look at the horizon and see the edge of the earth! So in this persons mind they are right when they are really wrong.
athiesm does not exist in a vacuum, there are ideas, dogmas, and faith involved, which lead people to take that position.
GG
I answered all those questions, you are just incapable of reading my whole posts, or are just ignoring my points. You consistently tell me what I believe, then when I and others correct you, you still say the same nonsense. now here you are lying again about what I have been saying, and bearing false witness against me. tsk tsk, some christian you are and when you're so sure you're being watched by a god.
I accept theories that have testable, provable, useful, and predictable results, you're god has none of these. Nor have you offered any evidence for which god you believe in, or made any case for believing in him. Natural laws can explain the universe, how life formed on our planet, and how life evolved to what it is today. So what need is there for some unnatural god? your god exists outside of nature, he is therefore unnatural. So please show me how yours is the right god, and not any of the others I listed. You just hope you have the right one, how could you ever be sure based on the long list of gods.
You are just worshiping another in a long line of pagan gods. and funny you mention the flat earth as quite a few of your fellow christians still believe the earth is still flat based on the bible. I like this quote of yours "So in this persons mind they are right when they are really wrong." Are you projecting here?
for the last time what I do believe, leads me to reject all unnatural claims, and any claims that can not be proven. ergo I do not accept any notion of god. not the other way around. I see no more reason to worship any god you claim is real over the list of others you also reject. or do you believe in all those other gods?
if you want to believe in any god, that's up to you, go ahead and teach it to your kids. Just don't be pushing your unfounded beliefs into public schools, passing your dogma off as secular laws, and don't be telling me what I believe.
Melissia wrote:A philosophical question on that tangent: If one is created in one's "perfect form", would that mean the idealized versions of ourselves, or perfectly healthy bodies?
The two are distinctly different, especially, for example, for transexual or intersexual people.
Its a hand wave that amounts to a statement of "Whatever you are, you are." but with some pretty language attached.
Too bad these discussions always turn into confrontational "You believe/don't believe in this, so I'm going to ridicule you for it because this is the Internet" situations. From what I've observed, neither parties here(in some cases, anyway) seem to be representing their camps very well(mostly on the non-deist side).
Mannahnin wrote:R-S, who is ridiculing whom? Are you planning to contribute to the thread, or just make negative characterizations of the participants?
What prompted the post was sirlynchmob's most recent comment.
Good Post sir!
