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And again, i dont want to keep banging the drum here Orlanth, as ive said, i dont think im militant with my atheistic belief, because im aware of how many nice pleasant well meaning Christians there are, 99% of them seem to be, but i am not hiding a false proposition behind semantics because i do not "believe in non belief"

Me, and most people who would describe themselves as agnostic or atheist are simply that because there isnt any evidence. If something more convincing turns up, i do of course reserve the right to convert!

I dont believe in the absence of something, i just dont see any evidence for "something"

If it changes, then i will of course happily become religious! The two are not the same thing surely?

I also believe in the worth of human life. I believe there is more to life than suffering. I believe that the world is a wonderful, interesting, beautiful place.

I see no particular reason to believe in a pleasant afterlife, but I am glad that people get happiness from these beliefs. (My family are all religious, I was raised Catholic.I keep quiet on my views because while I derive strength from the idea that there is probably nothing but us, I know they might not. I feel the same in this instance.)

My issue with the idea of a benevolent God is that if he is the creator of the universe, he set it up so that natural evil would occur. I can understand the idea that free will is needed, and that this allows for human evil to cause suffering. That's fair enough. But I wonder why the world was made in the way it is. Many things cause suffering that have nothing at all to do with humans. Natural disasters are an obvious example, or genetic defects. There are all sorts of examples. Hypothetically, if God is all knowing, he could have constructed a world without these things. A happier world. To me it's somewhat similar to having animals in an enclosure and leaving broken glass on the ground. That is irresponsible and bad of me.
Now, I accept that many christians have wrestled with this and come down of the side of trusting in god, trusting that there is a plan. I do not share that faith. I don't know, maybe there is, but I would question (and I believe, were there a supreme being, it would be entirely my right to question) whether the plan was worth it. I don't feel I should be expected to take things on faith. For that reason I choose to hope that there is not a God, in the christian sense, and focus on doing what I can to make it a nicer place while I'm here. When I'm dead, that'll have been enough.
Oh and editted to add: Hopefully none of that comes across as disparaging.

I think most none believers feel that way Boss.. there are literally thousands of different thoughts i have about why it just cannot be so, did we get made sick and then commanded to be well on pain of eternal torture? If it is a sin to lust after a woman, why do we see scantily clad women and think "hey thats nice..." naturally?

Anyway, lets not get into the myriad of reasons why we question and deal with the topic in hand, as i said, i have nothing at all against the Religious, and i am glad that it can bring people seem peace, particulary during berevement and such, but the simple fact is, non belief cannot be a Religion because there isnt any faith involved. I dont THINK that there is a God, but i can change my mind about it if evidence becomes available.

When was the last time a bishop or a priest said "we THINK that God wants X, but we are waiting for further evidence" or "Probability seems to suggest that God wants...."

Da Boss wrote:I don't feel I should be expected to take things on faith.

That is the heart of your situation. I think a lot of your questions are premised on the concept of an anthropomorphic God who "plans" or "has a plan." This is not the kind of God Christians worship. This kind of God, like pagan Zeus, is subject to the same kind of literary analysis as a human being. "God was angry, God is loving, etc" are all metaphorical approximations. The only instance is which this anthropomorphism is literal is in the human being called Jesus. When you think about the life and teachings of Jesus, you will see that He did not talk about abstract metaphysical topics like the nature of suffering or the origin of evil in the world. Rather, He spoke of a way of living this temporal life that transcended the merely temporal and became eternal.

As to the mind of God the Father: If you have been raised as a Catholic, the you will have heard the word mystery. This word indicates that knowledge can transcend the rational. In other words, logic is not the only way that one can meaningfully experience the world nor is it even possible to experience the world in its total complexity solely through logic. Faith is not simply bad or unfounded logic. It has nothing to do with logical argument. It is a realm unto itself, a way of knowing or a sense (to compare it to your empirical senses of taste, hearing, etc) that apprehends mystery.

Well put forward. You've a good way with explanations.

I like your explanation of god as non-anthromorphic. I'm down with that, it's my "God is completely alien" idea expressed much more elegantly. I still would feel no desire to communicate or praise such a being, but it's existence wouldn't depress me.
I also like your second point about the teachings of Jesus. That's something I have to go chew on, but I agree with the central thrust. Eternal might be the bit I have trouble with, but I can certainly say it transcended his lifetime and the lifetimes of everyone since then, and shows no sign of stopping or even slowing down. As a social phenomenon alone, it is amazing.

I'm familiar with the mystery idea, and how it relates to faith. That's why I make great pains to be respectful of the faith of others, and (though I have lapsed through being in a bad mood or feeling provocative) try not to make light of it by comparing it to an imaginary friend or any of the other insulting tricks that often get used.
I'm also cool with logic not being the be all and end all, though I'm comfortable and happy with logic as fairly central to my world view. I view faith as something I've not experienced properly, and so don't fully comprehend. I'm willing to accept various ideas about it, and take people at their word with regard to it. I'm a skeptic, but I hope, an accepting one.

Cheers for the explanation though. It was quite excellent. I might steal bits of it when discussing these issues with others. The turn of phrase was really rather nice.

You'll only ever get to faith from within yourself. I don't know how it's done. I don't understand how it happened to me. (As I may or may not have mentioned, I was raised without religion.) All I can say is that I was hungry for the truth. I don't like scripture-quoting but this is one that always appealed to me in my atheistic/agnostic investigations of religion: Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Of course, righteousness here could be snidely twisted to "self-righteousness" by a critic. Sadly, such a critic would be all-to-often spot-on in such an observation.

All I can say is that God works in mysterious ways. She's not even that hot, so of course she's out.

Now, if she were a Traci Lords doing underage porn, that'd be different...

And finally, we're back to porn. Thanks, John.

YW, Manchu.

Taking a porn thread OT?

*This* is what's wrong with Dakka

Da Boss wrote:Orlanth:
I can see where you are coming from. There's nothing current in science at all that says definitively one way or another ANYTHING about god. Pure atheism is in fact unscientific, as it stops one being open to the possibility that current ideas are incorrect- science can never truly prove anything right, only that what we thought before was wrong and the new theory is more likely to be right.

Thankyou.

Da Boss wrote:
Unfortunately many people who are agnostic refer to themselves as atheist in my experience. (Not meaning to put words in anyone's mouth). True atheism seems to me to require a level of faith similar to belief in a deity. Strong, almost certain levels of doubt in the existence of God is not the same as militant atheism. (Gah, the language really isn't clear and it makes talking about this stuff really difficult.)

Good call, a lot of 'atheists' don't think too much about that they believe and call that atheism. However they still have an elementary belief somewhere because the questions that rise to a belief choice.

A confused semi conscious atheism is all very well for walking down the street and daily life, but it is an illusion nonetheless and once challenged in a theological debate can raise ugly heads. i am not proactively out to challenge anyones faith system

Da Boss wrote:
Faith system is also synonymous (perhaps incorrectly) with religion to some people. It's a case of communications breakdown I feel, because the language is relatively imprecise, and many of us are not theologians. And I appreciate your concise use of language in saying atheism is a faith system, rather than a religion.

I will address this comment first before the comment that preceded it.

yes you are right, esentially many people misunderstand the concept of a religion or faith asystem and thus do not see atheism as one. The problem here is not with theological discourse but an entrenched dogma amongst many self professed atheists that reglion is of itself something unwholesome.

If for example someone hypothesised that a Christian is in fact a sect of Judiasm, I would not be offended. Some Jews and Christians might be might but I would not. In a very real way its true, from some points of view I am a Jew and that point can be defended from scripture.
I do not consider myself a Jew and consider myself a Christian. This is a better description of my faith standing. Nonetheless by examining such biblical terms as 'grafting in to the root of Abraham' there is a theological point could be made to say I am. This is not relevent but my reaction is. I would not be offended because being 'accused' of being a Jew, as it is not an insult, because being a Jew is not unwholesome.

Da Boss wrote:
On the other hand, I can see how Mattym and others get frustrated by being told that they have a faith system, because while militant atheism requires faith, there are many grades of non-belief that do not.

Now on the other hand when I point out the quite literal fact that atheism is a faith system those who prefer to be considered atheists but not people of faith get offended. The relevance here is in the reaction, to a lot of atheists consider this an insult because they consider being of faith as unwholesome.

This becomes very important and leads us back to the crux of the excuse why faith is seen as unwholesome despite all evidence that atheism is a faith choice. It comes right back to the 'atheism is science' fallacy, and its root cause. As evidenced earlier atheism is a faith choice, as you have understood and acknowledged on the post I am quoting. The 'atheism is science' fallacy has two effects here; first it encourages a culture of denial amongst atheists and scientists alike, denial is unhealthy and it crushes freedom of thought from within, secondly it promotes an us and them attitude between atheists and other faiths. us and them attitudes mixed with denial is a powderkeg that leads to discrimination very quickly.

I did not expect to see it so openly here but those who took comfort in the fallacy that their atheism was in fact science and thus they had 'evolved beyond the need for religion' as I have heard it described in the past. My challenge to the atheism is science fallacy was necessary to stop the blanket of association fallacies that are used to lockdown theistic arguments. once you can 'establish' that atheism is science its very hard to argue on an equal plane because the association fallacy raises an unfair assumption that 'religious people' are at loggerheads with the body of scientific knowledge. Some may well be, but it is a very poor argument with overtones of bigotry and fundamentalism attached.

Some might not like their world view exposing, it's simply too easy to point out that atheism is a faith choice, and looking back on it most atheists here probably know it. Yes Da Boss I hit a raw nerve unwittingly because I challenged the 'lie that exalted' and thus sowed doubts in people who were happy in the illusion that they have moved past the need for religion.

Why is this so important to me. Because the 'atheism is science' fallacy has been too long unchallenged, it is supported by current UK government dictat - purely as a means of bashing religion, as we have seen here it gives rise to some pretty powerful unpleasant emotions below the surface. On the other forum I regularly visit there is a strict 'no politics and no religion' rule I have encountered blatant atheist threads under the cloak that espousing atheism was science not religion. This is not uncommon on the internet. Atheism apparently belongs in both religion and science chatrooms. I challenged the concept there pretty much as I did here.
you can see that even in harmless circles such as forums on the internets the fallacy gives rise to opportunity to one sided debate, and one sided debate is not debate at all. It wasn't right when you had to join one church or die, its not right now.

However the 'atheism is science' fallacy goes far deeper and has a bloody past. I don't know where it came from but early Communism was all over this one. The Soviet union was an atheistic system, but Russia was a country with an established and strong faith. Part of the justification for the atheistic system was the atheism is science fallacy. If you want to see the methodology as to how the Soviets disenfranchised the Russian orthodox church look at what we saw here: attempted stiffling of religious and scientific debate, denial of inherent nature, derisory attitudes to (other) religious persons and teachings. Add a large dose of Stalin and what do you get?

The Soviets were not the only communist state to use this system. China also uses it and still does. China suffers terrible persecutions of Chiristians and other minorities let alone what they have done to Tibet. The root cause of this stems from the twin dictats that 'Communism is the answer' and 'religion is poison'. Many forms of Communism is in their own way a religion and one based on atheism, but Communism is not poison, because Communism is based on scientific progress and what is atheism: Science! How do you keep this dogma when the true nature of atheism is so easy to expose, harsh oppression of course. Send all the Orlanths to the gulag, then noone can tell us that atheists are religious. This has the side benefit of creating atheist fundamentalism, and harnessing it under the skin of communism, so you can see how Mao and Stalin were all for this. atheistic relgious fundamentalism diguised as sceintific atheism is the spiritual root of Communism and grants the state doctrines the power of religiosity.

Not all Communist states headed that way, despite encouragement to do so. Cuba didn't and saved itself from a shitstorm. Communism can live alongside a religion easily enough, many of the teachings of Jesus and Buddha sit well with Communism. but the 'atheism is science' fallacy when used by a totalitarian state is as much an evil as the Final Solution, and in all likelihood killed more people.

I concede the point entirely. That was a very good rebuttal. Man, some quality posting going on in this thread. (If Nurglitch'd come back and respond to my point, I'd be perfectly happy with it.)

I hadn't considered the "religion is dirty" overtones to that reaction. Thanks for pointing it out.

@Orlanth: I don't think that the argument in the cases you're presenting is necessarily that atheism and science are the same thing. Rather, the proposition seems to be that the scientific method leads to atheism (where atheism in this context is a type of agnosticism specifically concerned with the existence of God). I think this is why mattym rejects the idea that he believes in disbelief. As I've tried to show before in this thread, the (weak) logical argument that God does not exist does not require any leap of faith in the sense that religious people talk about faith.

China / Tibet is like Romans / Jews, per the _Life of Brian_. But because the Dali Lama is charismatic, the West is all "poor Tibet".

If you're only going to listen to one side, then at least stand up and agree that Haiti deserves God's punishment for their slave revolt!

mattyrm wrote:And again, i dont want to keep banging the drum here Orlanth, as ive said, i dont think im militant with my atheistic belief, because im aware of how many nice pleasant well meaning Christians there are, 99% of them seem to be, but i am not hiding a false proposition behind semantics because i do not "believe in non belief"

Me, and most people who would describe themselves as agnostic or atheist are simply that because there isnt any evidence. If something more convincing turns up, i do of course reserve the right to convert!

I dont believe in the absence of something, i just dont see any evidence for "something"

If it changes, then i will of course happily become religious! The two are not the same thing surely?

Perhaps you are not militant, but you only 'emulated atheist fundamentalism' for much of your earlier post.

Taking that at face value I still suspect that you have a gut feeling one way or another, because it is inevitable part of our psyche to develop one. You did categorise yourself as a proven case of foxhole atheist after all.

As far as the no evidence thing. That one can be laid to bed. it's another misused word. You can only say no conclusive evidence or no proof. Evidence is everywhere and for both sides, between reading Dawkins and C.S. Lewis should should have enough evidence to mull over for a lifetime.

@John: Yeah, not to get too sidetracked on this one but Tibet was an oppressive slave theocracy before 1950. I'm not saying the Chinese are wonderful but it wasn't so nice a place before the Communists took over, either.

JohnHwangDD wrote:then at least stand up and agree that Haiti deserves God's punishment for their slave revolt!

This is both inappropriate and in poor taste. Lets agree all that you typed faster than you could think here and didn't mean what it says lest I go midieval on your .

I think he was posting in jest, albeit bad taste

Thats what I was thinking.

Well this thread has taken an interesting, albeit predictable, turn.

We have had similar discussions about this before and I do enjoy them.

Faith defined

1. confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.
2. belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
3. belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims.
4. belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.: to be of the same faith with someone concerning honesty.
5. a system of religious belief: the Christian faith; the Jewish faith.
6. the obligation of loyalty or fidelity to a person, promise, engagement, etc.: Failure to appear would be breaking faith.
7. the observance of this obligation; fidelity to one's promise, oath, allegiance, etc.: He was the only one who proved his faith during our recent troubles.
8. Christian Theology. the trust in God and in His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved.

If you look, #'s 1, 2, and possibly 4 could describe Atheism. Not necesarily Agnostism as that is more of a lack of faith IMO. (although I guess it could be argued that it takes faith to make a declaration of doubt)

The atheist says "There is no God, I know this to be because of X reasons." The thing they forget that when they say "I know this becuase of X reasons" they presupose that these X reasons are in fact correct, therefore they use faith.

GG...trying to keep it short.

Frazzled wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:then at least stand up and agree that Haiti deserves God's punishment for their slave revolt!

This is both inappropriate and in poor taste. Lets agree all that you typed faster than you could think here and didn't mean what it says lest I go midieval on your .

Well, it is a shame that this was a prominent Christian leader's response. Obviously it wasn't the only response. Caritas has sent and is sending a huge amount of volunteers and resources, among other things. But it's hard to understand why a Christian leader would say such a thing and the answer "he's not a real Christian" seems no more convincing to people than saying child-molesting priests are not "real Christians."

Manchu wrote:@Orlanth: I don't think that the argument in the cases you're presenting is necessarily that atheism and science are the same thing.

I cannot see how you can possibly think I believe that. Did you type the post correctly?

Manchu wrote:
Rather, the proposition seems to be that the scientific method leads to atheism (where atheism in this context is a type of agnosticism specifically concerned with the existence of God).

Scientific method leads to questioning religion yes, which opens the door for alternate views on relgion one of which is atheism, but it does not necessarily lead to atheism.

Manchu wrote:
I think this is why mattym rejects the idea that he believes in disbelief. As I've tried to show before in this thread, the (weak) logical argument that God does not exist does not require any leap of faith in the sense that religious people talk about faith.

Mattyrm and I seem to be seeing things differently now. He has cleared up his semantics and I have toned down my arguments.

Yes he requires no 'leap of faith', to park in the vicinity of atheism or agnosticism but I am arguing that one is likely made anyway. His one liner reply to the atheists in foxholes comments says as much.

I want to avoid personalising this or singling him out, we all have some form of default faith stance while we are awaiting better answers to make a deliberate choice on. Our individual default faith stance depends on our own prior experiences of life in general, not necessarily overtly religious ones.

Manchu wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:then at least stand up and agree that Haiti deserves God's punishment for their slave revolt!

This is both inappropriate and in poor taste. Lets agree all that you typed faster than you could think here and didn't mean what it says lest I go midieval on your .

Well, it is a shame that this was a prominent Christian leader's response. Obviously it wasn't the only response. Caritas has sent and is sending a huge amount of volunteers and resources, among other things. But it's hard to understand why a Christian leader would say such a thing and the answer "he's not a real Christian" seems no more convincing to people than saying child-molesting priests are not "real Christians."

Sure its easy. Its not "he's not a Christian." Its "he's a frakking LOON." To besmirch Christianity with this is willful ignorance of persons who blind themselves to the good works others are doing.

Orlanth wrote:

Manchu wrote:@Orlanth: I don't think that the argument in the cases you're presenting is necessarily that atheism and science are the same thing.

I cannot see how you can possibly think I believe that. Did you type the post correctly?

You are talking about the "fallacy of science = religion" and then using historical examples that I do not think have much to do with this fallacy. Rather, I think the development of atheism in those cases was the result of skepticism. Atheism actually is, after all, a scientific point of view.

Manchu wrote:Scientific method leads to questioning religion yes, which opens the door for alternate views on relgion one of which is atheism, but it does not necessarily lead to atheism.

Yes it does. The scientific method is only capable of addressing empirically observable phenomena. Here's the relevant syllogism: All that exists is empirically observable. God is not empirically observable. God does not exist.

@Manchu... except that their are many Scientists who happen to also be Christians.

GG

Frazzled wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:then at least stand up and agree that Haiti deserves God's punishment for their slave revolt!

This is both inappropriate and in poor taste. Lets agree all that you typed faster than you could think here and didn't mean what it says lest I go midieval on your .

Sorry, I figured the sheer outrageousness of the comment would be obvious, and this was the most obviously ridiculous one-sided thing tied to religion I could think of that I knew that everybody would be familiar with.

I used it as example precisely because it dovetails neatly with the whole Faith thing. If we really believe in God that way, and that everything is God's will, then there are no accidents, and God really did kill upwards of a quarter-million Haitians for no reason obvious to us mere mortals, which then follows that Pat Robertson's explanation is no less plausible than anything else.

OTOH, if you dismiss Pat Robertson's Faith out of hand, then what does that say? What makes his statement denying the science of geological plate tectonics any more or less reasonable than a declaration that skinny girls with no marketable skills were made for anything besides porn?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Manchu wrote:@John: Yeah, not to get too sidetracked on this one but Tibet was an oppressive slave theocracy before 1950. I'm not saying the Chinese are wonderful but it wasn't so nice a place before the Communists took over, either.

Thanks, Manchu, for explaining why the Tibet situation isn't as simple as it seems.

But now that people become aware of the new information, it raises the question what it really means for Tibetans to be "free"...

edit: ninja'd by John . . .

@Frazzled: As I have argued in this thread elsewhere, people bring a lot of baggage with them to the faith. But Robertson is a public figure that many people associate (unfortunately) with authentic Christianity. His comments are a scandal to believers and nonbelievers alike. This is why I'm defending John's comment. I didn't read it as intending to offend Christians (I was not offended) but rather to criticize Robertson with as much shock-value as Robertson criticized Hatians. It seems like a legitimate piece if rhetoric to me as long as you don't read other intentions into it. But maybe he was trying to insult people (other than Robertson) of faith. He'll have to speak to that for himself. I just took it in the best possible light.

I don't dismiss his faith. I dismiss his sanity.

@John: If you look at the video (which I believe has now long been forgotten) it wasn't Jesus or God that got her out of the Porn Industry. It was catching an STD and getting kicked out. Just saying...

@Orlanth: Why do you assume that there is some sort of 'defualt faith setting'. Is lack of faith a sort of faith now?

Emperors Faithful wrote:@John: If you look at the video (which I believe has now long been forgotten) it wasn't Jesus or God that got her out of the Porn Industry. It was catching an STD and getting kicked out. Just saying...

That's actually a very good point. I wonder if she would say, to crib John's riff on Robertson, that Jesus gave her that STD?

Da Boss wrote:I also believe in the worth of human life. I believe there is more to life than suffering. I believe that the world is a wonderful, interesting, beautiful place.

I see no particular reason to believe in a pleasant afterlife, but I am glad that people get happiness from these beliefs. (My family are all religious, I was raised Catholic.I keep quiet on my views because while I derive strength from the idea that there is probably nothing but us, I know they might not. I feel the same in this instance.)

My issue with the idea of a benevolent God is that if he is the creator of the universe, he set it up so that natural evil would occur. I can understand the idea that free will is needed, and that this allows for human evil to cause suffering. That's fair enough. But I wonder why the world was made in the way it is. Many things cause suffering that have nothing at all to do with humans. Natural disasters are an obvious example, or genetic defects. There are all sorts of examples. Hypothetically, if God is all knowing, he could have constructed a world without these things. A happier world. To me it's somewhat similar to having animals in an enclosure and leaving broken glass on the ground. That is irresponsible and bad of me.
Now, I accept that many christians have wrestled with this and come down of the side of trusting in god, trusting that there is a plan. I do not share that faith. I don't know, maybe there is, but I would question (and I believe, were there a supreme being, it would be entirely my right to question) whether the plan was worth it. I don't feel I should be expected to take things on faith. For that reason I choose to hope that there is not a God, in the christian sense, and focus on doing what I can to make it a nicer place while I'm here. When I'm dead, that'll have been enough.
Oh and editted to add: Hopefully none of that comes across as disparaging.

As a child, I really wasn't sure why we were created by God at all. When I asked about it, I was told we were created so God wouldn't be lonely. This was something that troubled me a lot because why would an all loving and knowing being create a thinking, intellegent race whose members would be condemned to firery torment on the one hand if they did something wrong, or if they did good, be rewarded either with the chance to be part of a jukebox on a cloud, singing praises for eternity or a glorified, well kept pet hanging out in a garden somewhere. Not to mention all the crap we have to slog through in this life to achieve either of these outcomes.
All this, so an all powerful being wouldn't be lonely.
I then did some further study and found something that made total sense to me. I was taught that a lot of what I had been raised with contained only fragments of truth and that we are literal sons and daughters of God, put here to learn and grow through the individual experiences we need in order to come to an inheritence much like a child here on Earth is raised and taught by a loving and caring parent in order that they might be a strong adult. I was then taught that there is no eternal torment with fire as a lot believe, and that God will give each person as much of an inheritence as they can handle. The only ones that would be totaly cast from his presence would be those who, in this life, had a perfect knowledge with nothing doubting, that rejected God.