I'd start off with some lovely, life-affirming quotes by Emma Goldman. Or some other articles from the Secular Web.

I wish merely to point out that you guys already have a thread.

Atheism is not necessarily postitivist rationalism. There is surrealism.

1) can sleep in or work on Sundays and Saturdays, and can do whatever they want on other days and nights that are important to certain religions
2) can eat and drink whatever they want, when they want, without approval from their religious authorities
3) don't have to spend valuable time praying or meditating unless it's for relaxation or personal introspection
4) don't have to give money to religious organizations
5) don't have to look up to other humans just because they're wearing a certain robe, collar, hat or other religious symbol
6) can be friends with, date, marry or have sex with whomever they want; and do whatever sex acts they want, without approval from their religious authorities
7) can dress however they want, whenever they want, without approval from their religious authorities
8) don't risk getting molested, beaten or scolded by their religious authorities
9) can concentrate more on practical earthly matters instead of worrying about what happens after they die
10) Can read, watch, and listen to whatever art/expression they want; can use whatever different technologies, medicines and birth control methods they want, without approval from religious authorities.

[ 23 March 2004: Message edited by: Andy Social ]

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I cannot obey the mandate of this thread, so I shall absent myself hereafter.

I wish merely to point out that you guys already have a thread.

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All the same, I don't really adhere to the general disdain I've found among many atheists toward people who do believe in some form of religion; while many people simply adhere to religion X for very blind reasons, i.e. because their parents raised them in it, for many others it is a very different process. While I could never subscribe to any religious faith, nor do I see myself doing so in the future, I have deep respect for those who do, and I understand that they're not just parking their brains at the door when they go to whatever house of worship they choose.

Edited to add: check your PM's, RP .

[ 23 March 2004: Message edited by: googlymoogly ]

I have acquired the habit of reading a little inspirational book when I get up every day. Some interesting thoughts, you know? The idea is to provoke myself to some reflection. Perhaps it is simply psychologically useful to read something like that for me...Unfortunately, the "terrain" is mostly monopolized by ...religious sort of books. So I, ahem..ignore what isn't useful. MY POINT IS that some of it IS useful.
Another example. I have acquired the habit of going to (gasp!) a "liberal" church in the last year. The main motivation was to mix with a more, er, responsible crowd than what I had been. It turned out to be true enough, e.g., that I met more women that I had something in common with than by going to the bar. The choir has turned out to be fun. Anyway, my example is that part of the service often involves a few minutes of reflective silence. Again, I find that useful. Now the funny thing is that I COULD be making some reflective time for myself without going to some church...but invariably I don't make the time unless I go. Isn't that strange? Or is it?

Changing direction a bit here...I really like some of the work of skeptic Michael Shermer and the previous link to the Secular Web I highly recommend investigating thoroughly. But there isn't anything as good as reading philosophy from the original thinkers themselves...unless, maybe, really good literature (including poetry). Being an atheist can be lonely sometimes...so grab all the tools and assistance at your disposal that you can. Ours is a long, glorious and unfinished tradition.

He does not believe in the traditionak idea of God and so in a sense he is an atheist. I had a freind in the old days who was not just an atheist but in the politest of ways an anti-deist. He believed that there was no overarching order to things but rather, I suppose, that history and events, the forces of human activity on a massive scale shaped reality.

Fuller believed that every individual mattered and that they had the ability to effect the world in some way that was positiove and objectively meaningful.

In his book Critical Path he talks about Eistein's essay "Toward a Non-Anthropormorphic view of God". I can't seem to locate that essay but here are some of Einsteins's thoughts:

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God according to Einstein
"I do not believe in the immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it."

"I cannot imagine a god who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own - a god who is but a reflection of human frailty."

"The main source of the present-day conflicts between the spheres of religion and science lies in the concept of a personal god."

"I believe that we have to content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem - the most important of all human problems."

"Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism."

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TAKEN FROM EINSTEIN'S PUBLISHED WORKS:

"Ideas and Opinions," Crown Books, New York, 1954

"Living Philosophies," Simon and Schuster, New York, 1931

"Out of My Later Years," Philosophical Library, New York, 1950

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Let us suppose that there are three men: Bill, Paul, and Karl.

Karl, desiring to maintain good relations with all people, treats other humans decently and in general leads what we might term a "moral" lifestyle.

Paul is just as desirous of maintaining these good relations, but Bill wants to make sure this happens. So he holds a gun to Paul's head and tells him to act a certain way or he'll get shot.

Now, is Paul really the "more moral" because someone else told him what to do and backed it with a threat?

If you don't like that analogy (the analogy between the atheist and the God who banishes people to hell on apparently rather capricious grounds), then how about this one?

Bill wants to make sure Paul acts the way Bill wants him to act, so he promises Paul a giant chocolate cake at the end of it all. Somehow the chocolate cake never quite materializes, but Paul wants that chocolate cake.

The analogy here is the thought by religious people that they will have some kind of glorious afterbliss which is theirs if they just do whatever the Big Deity says.

Again, is Paul 'more moral' because he succumbed to bribery?

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8) don't risk getting (...) scolded by their religious authorities

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The religious authorities, naturally, claiming the direct authority of God.

Women are not Daughters of god, Wives, or Mothers, but human beings. Atheists don't consider women property, baby machines, lesser beings, or shameful.

Men are not Masters.

Ideas are welcome. Thinking is enouraged. Questions are asked.

Different sorts of religions pose different kinds of ethical difficulties.
Religions that posit omniscient, omnipotent, good creators have to deal with the problem of evil. They also have to deal with the fact that, basically, pretty much any religious text is going to have some nasty stuff in it, which they claim is divinely inspired--so they have to either say the nasty stuff is somehow OK even though it contradicts the previous chapter's moral precepts, or try to figure out why a good deity would be inspiring people to say evil things. Ones which also posit reward/punishment afterlives have other ethical issues to deal with, as has been pointed out.

But there are other alternatives. There's the equal-and-opposing good and evil principles kind of religion, which was more popular once. That doesn't have the problem of evil, because evil is built into the system. It can also have a hell without blaming the good deity, if the hell is just there because the equally-powerful bad deity Wants You if you're a bad guy.
I think these sorts are rare these days because they're just not reassuring enough. Even fire-and-brimstone apocalyptic Christians have that confidence that if they belong to the right sub-denomination and believe, when all the bad shit happens it'll only happen to everyone else, because God's all powerful. But if your evil principle is real evil, really capable of wrestling good to a standstill, then bad stuff could really happen to good people, heck, God could *lose*. Doesn't give people what they're looking for in a religion . . . might as well be an atheist if you're only choosing good because you think it's right, not because it puts you on the winning team.

There's Buddhism, the sparer varieties of which don't seem to have any opinions about creation. My problems with that are more political--a religion that advocates as complete passivity as possible, and that all the problems of life are but illusions, strikes me as basically playing into the hands of oppressors.

Polytheisms have the advantage of generally accommodating not just evil, but various other principles. They're difficult for most people to take seriously these days, but I kind of like them. Of course, typically they don't even pretend to give moral guidance. Christianity tells you to love your neighbour as yourself. The Aesir tell you to always clip dead men's toenails so that the fire giants' ship Naglfar will be as small as possible. Kinda trivial, although it does have the advantage that it's much more easily followed.

Then there's Hinduism. It seems to be somewhere between a polytheism (more like a whole stack of polytheisms all stuck together like saints in Catholicism) and a philosophy of cycles of growth and destruction, and a few ethical systems, all accreted on to each other. It's weird and complicated. Does anybody understand Hinduism? I suspect it has the advantage that you can get from it pretty much whatever you need.

Then there's the distinction in any given religion between organized, churchy religion, usually with a strong hierarchy, and individualized faith. I'm a lot more comfortable with individual believers than I am with church organizations, which tend to be patriarchal as hell no matter what religion they represent. My wife is a deist; she believes in something out there which has vague points of contact with Christian ideas. But she doesn't believe in the specifics of any received religion. I find that much more comfortable than more formal belief.

I know atheists come in all shapes and sizes... there are the libertarian atheists that don't care about society but would rather accumulate vasts amount of material goods whilst voting CPC... but I think most atheists, those that actually self-identify as atheist, will lean to the left and prefer government or cooperative solutions to inequality over religious/charity based solutions.

It is easy to be opposed to the traditional view that God is a little white man sitting on a cloud. But how else would a God manifest? In the movie Contact, a film version of the Sagan book the hyperintelligent Alien manifests an entire world in terms that the Jodie Foster character can relate to. So the idea is that if there were a God he or she would manifest as something comprensible. The simple fact that there are no manifestations of the Divine that we can objectively demonstrate provides proof that there isn't one.

Or does it?

Buckminister Fuller and others perhaps Sagan alludes to the idea of a metaphysical, mathematical universe where human existence has a purpose. Fuller suggests that the chemical codes were placed here almost like seeds billions of years agon with the full expectation by some other wordly being that life would evolve from them. Is that God?

The Greeks have a long literary history that concerns the social need for religion. There are many arguments in this literature for and against religious belief.

It is very fascinating.

Dr Conway's argument is not as compelling as the simple fact that religion has been a great civilizing power. There are a number of good articles in this month's Voices Across Boundaries.

Try here under the heading; Is Religion the Problem?

OOps! You'llhave to subscribe to read that article series..

[ 25 March 2004: Message edited by: Boinker ]

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Originally posted by Boinker:

Dr Conway's argument is not as compelling as the simple fact that religion has been a great civilizing power.]

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As a natural contrarian (not a hater of Christianity or religion in general), let me point out that Christianity has a fairly unimpressive history overall in terms of what most people think of as "civilization". From killing witches (mostly women who owned property or otherwise commanded respect), to the Crusades, to the Spanish Inquisition, to support of racism (see various instances in the US and other counries), widespread genocide at home and abroad (Natives being a prime example), war both with other religions (see current US politics) and with other Christian factions (see Ireland and others), things don't look too well from my personal understanding of history. For what it's worth, I attribute this much more to the corrupting influences of concentrated power than anything else (of which Christianity happens to have a lot of historically), I am not suggesting people calling themselves Christians are manevolent in general.

It also seems to me that having a "direct line" to God via Jesus - assuming he was a historical figure - can only lead to ego inflation in most followers of such a religion, a condition strongly warned against by many well-esteemed historical religious figures, perhaps best summed up by Buddha who is said to have commented that "Attatchment to Ego is the root of all suffering".

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"Attatchment to Ego is the root of all suffering".

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I do believe that something happens to the life force after this Earthly physical life ends.... but I would never claim to know what that is. I do believe there are certain abilities that huans and perhaps other animals have that we haven't scientifically explained yet.

But, I don't subscribe to any religion and I personally feel that dogmatic belief in these religions causes a lot of heartache and hardship for a lot of people. I think humans are just humans.

Does that make me a pagan? Not really, right, because I don't practice any pagan rituals....Maybe I'm agnostic?

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Originally posted by lagatta:
Discuss atheist issues from a pro-atheist perspective.

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Sometimes as a (mostly) secular humanist type, I find myself clumsily grasping at a "spiritual" vocabulary ...anyone else find this? Now while it is true that a lot of what passes for spiritual matters might be better classified as psychological, there are, for example, certain kinds of truths about human experience that defy even that categorization. Altered states of consciousness, for example...

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There's Buddhism, the sparer varieties of which don't seem to have any opinions about creation. My problems with that are more political--a religion that advocates as complete passivity as possible, and that all the problems of life are but illusions, strikes me as basically playing into the hands of oppressors.

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Originally posted by Rebecca West:
That's an interesting perspective on buddhism, but not particularly accurate.

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Originally posted by Boinker:
What I think a lot of the posts on this topic show is how ill defined the question is.

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Uh, what question?

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It is easy to be opposed to the traditional view that God is a little white man sitting on a cloud. But

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Man of straw. Most of us have been very generalized in our approach.

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The simple fact that there are no manifestations of the Divine that we can objectively demonstrate provides proof that there isn't one.

Or does it?

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Of course not. But then, that's not an argument anyone has made. Indeed, I specifically noted that it's not possible to prove a negative. On the other hand, lack of evidence is hardly an argument *for* something. I mean, take away the cute "faith" and "it's happy to be spiritual" window-dressing, and you get the following dialogue:
"You should believe this!"
"Why?"
"Because there is no evidence for it!"
"Uh . . . have you been feeling all right?"

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Buckminister Fuller and others perhaps Sagan alludes to the idea of a metaphysical, mathematical universe where human existence has a purpose. Fuller suggests that the chemical codes were placed here almost like seeds billions of years agon with the full expectation by some other wordly being that life would evolve from them. Is that God?

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No, that's silly. But even if true, it would be aliens. Hyperadvanced, ancient natural beings are not the same as the supernatural. The tendency for mystics to make category errors is one of the things that makes me disrespect them.

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Dr Conway's argument is not as compelling as the simple fact that religion has been a great civilizing power.

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Originally posted by Rebecca West:
That's an interesting perspective on buddhism, but not particularly accurate.

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No doubt; I admit I'm not particularly learned on the subject. And certainly it's true that some Buddhist groups were politically active for the downtrodden during some of China's history. But then, the theological base of Christianity advocates complete pacifism and humility. Nonetheless, Christian countries have frequently been very aggressive, often in Christianity's name. Theory and practise don't always mesh in any religion.

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Originally posted by Rufus Polson:
Does Buddhism have theory that would allow for political activism as a valid choice?

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Indeed, I specifically noted that it's not possible to prove a negative. On the other hand, lack of evidence is hardly an argument *for* something.

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There is a difference here. I can prove that, in many respects, the universe has a mathematical order and that we can thrive by optimizing on this.(Fuller) But with the idea of God as a being greater than humans (or aliens) there is the question of why he or she would not manifest comrehensibly. Traditional religion mystifies this obvious problem into the idea that " God moves in Mysterious Ways" that "we cannot understand the mind of God" etc. And at the same time rambling on about the "personal experience" of God. An object of investigation for fact, proof, that is concious of it being tested or searched for, of being known would obviously want to either manifest or not manifest. If God does not want to be known, then being God, he will have the power to prevent this. If he does want to be known then he will manifest in a way that is knowable to those he wishes to manifest to. I don't see how you can escape the rather black and white logic of this.

I think it is reasonable therefore to assume that as there is no comprehensible manifestation of the "God-as-a-Being" kind (with my apologies to Jesus Christ.) there is no God we can ever know as a being, as the little white man sitting on the cloud. The "can't prove the negative" argument fails because the idea of God subsumes the negative that is, he could cheat.

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"You should believe this!"
"Why?"
"Because there is no evidence for it!"
"Uh . . . have you been feeling all right?"

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So you have got it exactly backwards. If something manifests as God - say as Jesus is supposed to have done 2000 years ago people can test the manifest in any number of ways. This idea is in the resurrection segments when Christ rises from the dead and allows people to touch his wounds and see Him. It is a story that has a primordial appeal that goes beyond Chritianity I think.

The question is however, does it require a deity and all of the moralizing that goes with it? To me it is the big white lie we are asked to believe for sake of social harmony.

[ 26 March 2004: Message edited by: Boinker ]

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Originally posted by paxamillion:

Martin Luther King nominated a Vietnamese teacher called Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize because of work that was sufficiently political for him to have to leave.

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This seems rather beside my question.
I'm not disputing that, in practise, Buddhists can be political. But then in practise, Christians can be violent even though Jesus talked all about turning the other cheek and stuff. And Christian liberation theologists can buck the general trend for the church to be hierarchical and believe in obedience to authority.

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Boinker, I am utterly confused about what you are driving at. I thought I had some idea, but now I'm just totally at sea.

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It is, at least I think, fairly simple. Imagine two people living in a house that has been buried in an avalanche of snow or has been surrounded by a flood. They cannot escape for a few weeks and must live on the provisions that are in the house. They can't go outside. Let's call one of these persons Humanity and the other God.

If you are God Rufus and you know Humanity as a housemate or part of the family there is no problem. You sit down with Humanity and discuss how to ration and what the house rules are until the rescue. But if you have been stealing the jewellery and are not supposed to be there, then you don't want to be found. How are you going to do this absent of divine powers? Humanity will find you and be shocked, perhaps tie you up or try to avoid conflict until the rescuers arrive.But if you are God and do not want to be known Humanity will never find you.

So my argument is simply this if God wanted to be known he would be sharing the shreddies with us.

My test is to look for objective manifestations of the divine. Are the Shreddies being left out? Has someone slept in the guest bed? Who is that snoring in the other room, etc? But there is nothing, Humanity is alone in the house. The proof test is returned "false". Therefore there is no God that we can know objectively.

But it is equally difficult to understand "subjectively" why a God would be so coy. In other wordswhy would God elect to prevent Humanity from finding him hiding in the closet (say by turning invisible at the last minute or teleporting himself to Venus)? My inability to make sense of such hypothetical behavior, Religion states,is because I lack the capcity to understand God and am probably too arrogant for Him to bother with me, (unlike the accolytes who have his cell number and get cream with the shreddies every morning over breakfast with the All Powerful.)

Well, I just don't buy it.

Any clearer?

ie If you looking for a rock in a box but the rock is made of an unsual element that turns invisible every time you look at it can you say it exists?

[ 27 March 2004: Message edited by: Boinker ]

Then there's a secondary question--if the only sorts of (creator) deities we can hypothesize that fit with the observed facts about the universe are psychologically and/or ethically bizarre, why would we accept them as the source of our ethics? Just 'cause they're big? George W. Bush displays for us rather graphically that you can have lots of power and still be wrong.

As I get older though, I find there are other rewards, in particular the spirituality of understanding, and not understanding.

I've often wondered if I could ever go back to going to church again; I always liked the structure it put into my life. I used to think I could use that sort of cover up the (many) bits of (insert some religion here) that I took issue with, and focus on the parts I liked. I've known a few people who have done that.

I think my reasoning at the time was that subscribing to some sort of religion would give my life the order I wanted, sort of like a launching pad for everything else. I could use religion as a framework to fall back on while I explored other aspects of life....or something.

I don't know if that sounds crazy or not I don't feel that way anymore really; I don't think I could be satisfied living like that.

Edited to add: I'd be interested to hear how anyone else resolved this issue if anyone wanted to share; over PM, or email, or whatever

[ 27 March 2004: Message edited by: googlymoogly ]

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My question is whether Buddhism's actual tenets make any allowance for such behaviour. Which they well may, and I'd be interested in knowing. But telling me about what Buddhists do in practise doesn't enlighten me on this point.

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Actually, the Buddha taught that attachment to views, even to his teaching is not the way to enlightenment.

I don't know of anything in the Buddha's own teachings that resembles social activism -- although the Buddha did some controversial things (accepting women and "untouchables" as monks for example) and taught kings about responsible governing. So, perhaps, by his life he demonstrated social activism -- as did Master Hanh, who I mentioned above.

Budhists on the other hand wwould set themselves ablaze to protest the Vietnam war on the simple idea that this would create an effect that would reduce the world's suffering. Do we consider such an act sane? How many capitalists would do this for profit, for example?

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Of course there are also approaches that posit some sort of spiritual force in the universe that is not really individual or conscious, just a kind of inchoate harmony. But I'm not sure what these sorts of ideas are supposed to really *mean*, beyond "physics is cohesive and in some way ordered, and the results appeal to one's sense of aesthetics".

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Fuller says that we are part of that "force". I think there are poets and this used to be much in vogue in previous generations to ours. Our fathers and mothers in the 30s and 40s had to deal with the jugernaut of science disproving most of what biblical knowledge had provided.

But so did their mothers and fathers as well. But I think that what has really undermined our existence is burgeoning materialism. We don't need half the crap we have, buy, hoard, store, etc...

I used to know people who lived on very little, owned very little, spent most of their time doing good deeds, fighting for peace etc.,...

I know few of them now. Almost everyone I know is a slave to work. Socializing, doing good deeds, helping out are all secondary to the "grind". Religious gatherings used to and still do preserve much of what stands for genuine community and the time honoured and almost evolutionary qualities of social behavior. I've just started reading Polanyi's book on the socioology of primitive economies...

Religion was something different than what we think of today. We are connected to the Universe. Stonehenge was not the product of a deranged religious fantasy as we sometimes think of the past...we just don't understand what it meant to the civilization. It is our loss.

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Religion can be a useful organizing principle for good but it too can, and is often, co-opted.

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I've read a lot more about religion in this thread than I expected. I recognize I've contributed to what might be some wandering about Buddhism. However, the Buddha never saw his teaching as religion, nor himself as divine. His way was most certainly atheistic.

Although I am a Christian, I have respect for the many atheists I know who struggle with matters of ethics, morality, spiritual development (correctly mentioned above as not solely the domain of religion), social and political involvement.

Living life with an atheistic world view does, in my estimation, take a lot of courage and commitment. Personally, I think that's the sort of stuff that would most enrich a thread like this -- a thread that I think is a welcome addition.

[ 27 March 2004: Message edited by: paxamillion ]

The cycle of life, of molecules themselves is nothing short of breathtaking.

The beauty, the life, the seasons, the species all interacting together in a symbiotic way... it really grabs me.... I guess even in a spritual sense. I say a prayer of sorts inappreciation of my food and of spring and such, I guess that's spiritual.

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Originally posted by Rebecca West:
That's an interesting perspective on buddhism, but not particularly accurate.

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According to one Buddhist Nun (the Canadian who got tracked down in a cave in India and deported for overstaying her visa), modern Buddhism is a Heinz 57 type religion, ie. there are many different varieties, with IHO one to suit most peoples indiviual needs.

Buddhists tend not to try to convert people from the acounts I have come across, but is today one ot the faster growing religions around.

It is also interesting to note that many people society comes to see as "enlightened" state that they are simply "awakened" or living naturally, and that those who think they are "enlightened" are, in their opinion, not truly awake or living naturally as God/the Tao/the Universe/etc. intended.

[ 28 March 2004: Message edited by: Mr. Anonymous ]

Maybe because of the sample sizes and types -- I manage to avoid the fundamentalist Christians and not the Muslims. And culture etc.

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I have found Christians to be more open to Atheism then Muslims.

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You obviously have never been evangelised by Jehovah's Witnesses. Ever. They are like rabid terriers. They grab onto your atheistic pant leg, and won't let go. Sometimes, the only thing one can do to escape them is to move, with no forwarding address. Even rudeness doesn't work. Answering the door mostly naked doesn't scare them off.

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Answering the door mostly naked doesn't scare them off.

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[ 29 March 2004: Message edited by: googlymoogly ]

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Having been a Jehovah's Witness a few years back (from the ages of 13-16; I'm now 20), I can safely say that very little works when getting them not to come back to the door.

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Telling them that I'd been shunned as a teenage JW, for being gay, and that therefore they weren't welcome round our place, seemed to work.

A couple of them came by a few Sundays ago. I stupidly answered the door, and I listened politely and took their magazine, figuring that was the quickest and nicest way to get rid of them. After all, why be rude, right? They asked me for my first name, and usually I'm on the ball and tell people I'd rather not give out my name. But I told them, "Michelle". I also told them I was a Baptist so I already was familiar with the stuff they are pointing out in the Bible.

So anyhow, they came back the next Sunday around the same time. They greeted me by name, read a Bible passage at me, and told me that as a Baptist (they must have written it down) that I must be familiar with the most important day of the year for Christians - Good Friday. I told them, "I would think it would be the resurrection and not the crucifixion that would be the most important day of the year for Christians." They glossed over that, and invited me to some Easter thing, and this time I told them, politely, that I wouldn't be going, because I'm actually a LAPSED Baptist, and I'm not really interested in religious observances any longer. So they left me with another Awake! magazine and moved on. I heard a knock on the door yesterday, but when I looked through the peephole it was no one I knew so I didn't answer in case it was a new batch. They sent different ones the first two times.

Happily, I'm moving at the end of April, so I've only got four more Sunday knocks on the door to avoid.

As for Mormons, I know folks who've had success by assuming the two lads were a nice, gay couple.

We used to have a far-right Catholic sect around here called the Bérets blancs - even telling the little zombie who came by for them that I was living in sin with my boyfriend and that we were both ferociously atheistic, godless Communists didn't work - she wanted to know if I wanted to say the rosary anyway. To do it over with them, I'd have pretended only to speak an obscure language, but that wouldn't work with the above two sects due to their missionary zeal.

When a JW called me (wrong number actually) while I was in University to help me find Jesus (hell, I didn't know he was lost), I told her to call me back in a week, since I hadn't read the book. She did, and I had. Every time she would state her position on a topic, I would quote from my crib sheet which verse of Revelations disagreed with that position. They're such fun toys, but they break. She didn't call me back again.

I did something similar with the pair of Mormons. Nice fellows, but they stopped coming back after a couple of visits, after it became clear that most of their religion didn't come out of the book they said it did. It's nice being a speed reader.

And finally, my favorite - I was returning home from university one summer, and was on the train with a gaggle of students from the Campus Crusade for Christ, and after listening to them talk among themselves for a while, I asked them, since the bible is the word of god handed down through the profi, er, prophets (Freudian slip?), why are there contradictions? I didn't need to say another thing, and 8 hours of entertainment ensued, as they argued vociferously about how literally one is to take the bible.

That one still makes me smile.

I won't guarentee it'll work for everyone, but using proselytes as sources of entertainment seems to work best for me.

My own position is that every religion is as right as every other one, even atheism (which I suggest takes as much faith as the alternative). I have my views (my concept of God is a conciousness that exists beyond the boundaries of space and time), but they are no more right or wrong than the next person's. What I like about Babble, (as opposed, for instance, to Free Dominion) is the flexibility people show in accepting divergant views as having value.

[ 29 March 2004: Message edited by: dnuttall ]

"Ha! Where's your savior now?" Chief Wiggums

I don't understand why people are so eager to embrace the most fantastical and foolish supernatural claims in order to find some meaning to their miserable lives. If they are looking for answers, why don't they start asking the right questions?

It all has to do with the enormous human ego, which just cannot accept the fact of its own mortality. It's the "I'm much too important to become fertilizer" state of mind. I happen to find it very appealing to know that my constituent components will return to the earth from which I borrowed them to be re-used by other life forms, as they have for millenia.

It sure beats the idea of going to some alien planet, knocking up countless subservient women to populate it and become their god. And having to wear special secret underpants. That's fucked up by any weight or measure.

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My own position is that every religion is as right as every other one, even atheism (which I suggest takes as much faith as the alternative).

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Originally posted by Jingles:
It all has to do with the enormous human ego, which just cannot accept the fact of its own mortality. It's the "I'm much too important to become fertilizer" state of mind.

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I have an ego that enormous, but I generally kid myself that by the time I get old, there'll be life extension treatments, and in the end I'll be physically immortal barring accident. So I don't need religion. Of course, that wasn't a plausible self-deception until quite recently . . .

I define faith as the concious belief of something without sufficient evidence to support that belief.

I define religion as a structured set of beliefs and practices that are inexorably tied to culture and community, and includes aspects of faith and morality.

I understand Atheism to be the belief that there isn't any supernatural powers; anything beyond our ability to measure or understand. That all the mysteries of life are solveable, and that there is no existance after death. This is over-simplified, but it should be a sufficient explaination for me to be able to make my point.

The absence of evidence is not evidence of the absence. Science is not capable of testing for the existance of something beyond our sences - that's not how it works. Any position on what happens beyond our ability to measure is one of faith.

So, if I say there must be existance after physical death (be it fathering little aliens, or sitting at the Right Hand of God), that is a position of faith. If you say there isn't, (worm food and no more) that is also faith. In either case, there is no evidence to support either position. Both are faith.

Yes, some explainations may be a little weird, but that doesn't mean they are wrong. Implausible, fantastic, ludicrous, etc.; sure. But as long as there is no evidence that they are wrong, each are as good as the next. Even with evidence to the contrary, one may have sufficient personal experiences to 'trump' the evidence, and maintain a weird position. (For instance, Consumerists must know the world resources will be exhausted soon, but their experience is that more consumption is better than less.)

Fathering a race of aliens seems like too much work, what with diapers, teething, etc. I'll be content to join the cosmic conciousness when I kick off, and go wherever that takes me.

[ 30 March 2004: Message edited by: dnuttall ]

quote:

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Originally posted by dnuttall:

The absence of evidence is not evidence of the absence. Science is not capable of testing for the existence of something beyond our senses - that's not how it works. Any position on what happens beyond our ability to measure is one of faith.

So, if I say there must be existence after physical death (be it fathering little aliens, or sitting at the Right Hand of God), that is a position of faith. If you say there isn't, (worm food and no more) that is also faith. In either case, there is no evidence to support either position. Both are faith.

I'll be content to join the cosmic conciousness when I kick off, and go wherever that takes me.

[ 30 March 2004: Message edited by: dnuttall ]

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Earlier on this thread I noted the comment from the late Carl Sagan about "disproving the negative", that is, disproving the existence of some Deity. ..er, deity. I repeat the comment..."Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Hasn't anyone heard of Occam's Razor? Do we really need to provide a logical proof for all of our assertions? Didn't Kurt Godel prove that even the foundations of an entirely logical system (a branch of mathematics) could not be proven?

Another thing...and I am a little suprised by the tone here...I would expect lefty atheists to substantiate their views by pointing to the necessity, given their views, of deeds that make life meaningful. e.g., being a shit-disturber! ...and transforming the world for the better as the foundation of life's meaning.

There was a great line in the TV show
Homicide: Life on the Street by one of the characters (who was a lapsed catholic..er, Catholic, at the time) that went something like this:

"What we do is all there is. And it counts for more because of that (my italics) What we do is all there is. And it counts for everything."

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I understand Atheism to be the belief that there isn't any supernatural powers; anything beyond our ability to measure or understand. That all the mysteries of life are solveable, and that there is no existance after death. This is over-simplified, but it should be a sufficient explaination for me to be able to make my point.

The absence of evidence is not evidence of the absence. Science is not capable of testing for the existance of something beyond our sences - that's not how it works. Any position on what happens beyond our ability to measure is one of faith

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I look at atheism this way: throughout history, people have strived to explain the unexplainable. In the past, these phenomenon were ascribed to the workings of the gods. As mankind matured and science mmove dto the forefront, rational explanations were found for previous unexplained phenomenon. Not coincidentally, none of these explanations involved invisible sky superheroes. So, to me, the simple fact that there are things beyond our senses or means of comprehension does not mean there is someone or something pulling the levers. That's base superstision.

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Occam's Razor says that the simplest explaination that agrees with the observations is the most scientific.

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I think anyone who has studied any branch of science beyond the high-school textbook level will agree that Occam was an incurable and terminal optimist.

[ 30 March 2004: Message edited by: Sisyphus ]

[but, just to get the last word prior to departing, N.Beltov: Of course you are right, given the data set that you have. Mine just happens to be different, as is the case with everyone in the world. Who is right - Aristotle, Newton, Einstein, or Hawkin? They all are.]

[ 30 March 2004: Message edited by: dnuttall ]

And no, it's not in any reasonable sense a "faith". You can construe it as a "faith", but then you're construing every belief up to and including rejection of solipsism as a "faith". Which not only makes the concept meaningless, but also from a religious perspective devalues faith--what's the religious significance of having faith if you have faith no matter what you do?

Believing the alternative which on the evidence appears overwhelmingly more likely and simpler is *not* faith. On the other hand, it also isn't proof. Ockham's razor isn't *always* correct, it's just a rule of thumb for probability. Sometimes someone is getting an elaborate practical joke played on them, or there's a hidden camera TV show happening, when the simplest explanation available to them is that shit is just going wrong. So despite lack of evidence, and incoherence of religions, and Ockham's razor, and the problem of evil, yadda yadda yadda, it still remains *possible* for some religion to be true. For practical purposes it's too slight a possibility to really worry about, plus it's vanishingly unlikely that the truth would be identified with any existing religion let alone any particular one, which is why for practical purposes I'm an atheist rather than an agnostic. But as a person of non-faith I do try to apply reason with some rigor, and doing so tells me I'd be lapsing into fuzzy thinking if I claimed that religion had actually been disproved per se.

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And I don't think God is the kind of being who'd listen to my criticisms.

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And why on earth should we follow him in the first place. Why is it that we have to follow a God at all? Why does an omnicent being feel he has the right to be our dictator, because that's what his role boils down to be. We don't get to vote on mortal sins after all. And I don't find "creation" a good enough reason.

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Originally posted by Rufus Polson:

And no, it's not in any reasonable sense a "faith". You can construe it as a "faith", but then you're construing every belief up to and including rejection of solipsism as a "faith". Which not only makes the concept meaningless, but also from a religious perspective devalues faith--what's the religious significance of having faith if you have faith no matter what you do?

Believing the alternative which on the evidence appears overwhelmingly more likely and simpler is *not* faith. On the other hand, it also isn't proof. Ockham's razor isn't *always* correct, it's just a rule of thumb for probability. Sometimes someone is getting an elaborate practical joke played on them, or there's a hidden camera TV show happening, when the simplest explanation available to them is that shit is just going wrong...

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Some good observations RF...but I wanted to, er, jump on your comments about "faith". I'm using it in a much broader sense than it is used by the religiously orthodox. I'm using it to mean a duty to oneself, or as a complete confidence, like that. As if it meant a positiveness that I am responsible for ...myself. And therefore, I would let the religious people keep the phrase "blind faith." They can have it. Why the, er, hell should we allow the words we use to be appropriated by folks we disagree with? The great German poet, Goethe, once wrote:
Hope is more useful than despair. It is in this sense that this atheist uses the word "faith." Keep the faith fellow atheists!

[ 31 March 2004: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

See, I agree with him on 99% of things. BUT, I have had experiences, personally, and I have familly members experience things that "science" today dismisses as impossible.

Therefore, I disargree with the dogmatic faith in todays scientific doctrine. I truly think that science will one day EXPLAIN these experiences, it just hasn't YET.

PAX, to answer the question you asked of Scout.

I behave ethically because I want to and I am a well-balanced (for the most part) person, and I believe in all things being in balance.

If steal something, I am tipping the balance and taking more than I need in a manner that only hurts people. If everyone stole things, our society would suffer.

Therefore, I don't do things that tip the balance of fairness and would do harm to others or the planet.

That includes: Killing, stealing, assaulting, adultery, hoarding, lying, etc.

These are BASIC things that must be avoided in order to have a just and balanced society. Most cultures frown upon these negative things, no matter what myths they have written down so some people can remember them.

[ 31 March 2004: Message edited by: Trinitty ]

Karma can be viewed as a Law of the Universe without postulating the existence of any deity whatsoever. Granted, fitting it into a nice cause-and-effect package that will satisfy hardcore rationalist/materialists might be tough, but not nearly as tough as trying to rationally defend the existence of a god or gods, IMO.

[ 01 April 2004: Message edited by: Sisyphus ]

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Originally posted by Sisyphus:
I think Trinitty is on the mark when she describes her not-necessarily-theist morality. I get very tired of theists who smugly assert uncompromisingly that atheism inevitably leads to moral chaos (which is not necessarily implied by moral relativism either, btw).

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Nice post, Trinitty, and good follow-up Sysiphus. I hadn't meant for my list of questions to be directed solely at Scout.

I agree with your statement regarding smugness of theists. In Christianity, there is a tremendous diversity of views regarding how to understand and interpret scripture (hermeneutics) which has resulted in some pretty significant differences in what is considered moral behaviour.

The hermeneutical differences are being felt very strongly these days over issues like same sex marriage. The same thing happened some years ago with ordaining women. It seems as if many theists simply can't get together to agree on something very important.

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Exegesis, by means of explication, deals with what a scriptural text meant to its author and intended reader in their sociocultural context. Hermeneutics, a pseudo-science, involves the interpretation of a scriptural text to provide meaning for the present-day world. Keep in mind that the explication or the interpretation of a text in isolation from its cultural and literary context leads to distorted, and sometimes harmful, results. At the very least it does violence to the text.

A text can never mean what it did not mean in its original context to its author and anticipated reader. Be aware that there is a significant difference between exegesis and hermeneutics. It is a difference between the meaning of a scriptural text in its original context and its later interpretation.

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The "pseudoscience" crack made me bristle a bit, but I think that hermeneutics, as defined above, must be very tricky and leads into lit-crit discussions of authorial intent that can get very complicated. I hadn't realized how quickly one could be completely out of one's depth in this area until I attempted to read Barbara Thiering's Jesus the Man...

Edited to add: Perhaps this fact might suggest at least one of the "joys of Atheism"

[ 01 April 2004: Message edited by: Sisyphus ]

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Originally posted by Sisyphus:
Perhaps this fact might suggest at least one of the "joys of Atheism"

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