You’re not atheists.
- Thread starter Light Travelling
- Start date
Light Travelling said:
Someone can be an atheist and a "materalist" at the same time. BTW, no human on earth can escape exercising belief. People believe their money managers are investing in their best interests, that "one more beer" wont hurt, that Bobby believes daddy, ... and the list goes on indefinately. Applying evidence-based thinking to every aspect of life is too costly in time and effort.
A typical atheist doesn't accept the assertion 'God exists' as truth simply because of a complete absence of supportive evidence and the presence of contradictory evidence. Evidence based thinking tends to be a more dominant mode of thought among most atheists whom I have encountered and is often applied to situations where there is little or no supportive evidence for a claim.
Reality is the ultimate test of all truth (what it says goes) and most atheists realize this and value truth over the psychological needs that exercising 'belief' might satisfy. This doesn't make them rigid in any way though. Place a base of evidence out there and all sorts of wild and wacky theories will spawn from it. Look at M-theory (a huge infrastructure spawning off of a small base of evidence). That's a model where our reality is an collection of plank-length strands and loops of exotic energy floating around in and vibrating across 11-dimensional hyperspace.
According to wikipedia, this is the definition of materialism:
"In philosophy, materialism is that form of physicalism which holds that the only thing that can truly be said to exist is matter; that fundamentally, all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions."
Most evidence-based thinkers don't automatically restrict truth to matter nor do they restrict construct to material (i.e. matter and energy). Look at the structure of cube of empty space. There's no matter ("material") there and it's a real structure nonetheless. Evidence-based thinkers do restrict truth to evidence. Mankind's present ability to uncover evidence tends to be restricted to our reality and maybe that's where your "materialism" interpretation is coming from; however, we can for example mathematically model things outside of our reality, make predictions of how they would affect our reality, and then test those predictions from within our reality. That's actually what's going to happn in 2007 with the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva. We're going to start testing M-Theory's predictions. If they turn up positive then it shows there is quite an interesting reality outside our universe.
For the sake of argument, all atheists on this forum are atheists. It's a science forum and I suspect many atheists are heavy evidence-based thinkers and there might even be a materialist (ala wikipedia definition) out there.
phlogistician said:
No you are right about buddhism. My point is this.
Buddhism is definately atheist - all concepts of creator and god are absolutely denied.
But
Buddhist do believe in other spiritual and un proven places, beings and concepts.
Therefore
It does not automatically 'follow' that atheism requires disbelief in all spiritual things - as geeser and others have asserted.
Light Travelling said:
No, that would have a different term, 'skeptic' probably. The language can be beautifully precise if used correctly. Atheism means what it means and geeser et al should not stretch the definitions. While atheists in general may not hold other spiritual beliefs, that matters not to the definition of the word atheist.
After all, I can be both a surfer and snowboarder, but one does not imply the other, even if all my friends both surf and snowboard.
By that same argument, every Christian is an atheist because they don't accept the existence of Thor (God of Thunder) as truth.
Crunchy Cat said:
Well, they are, technically. I don't think the term 'atheist' implies that there is only one god which can be not belied in. So, lack of faith in any deity makes someone an atheist. This vexes many believers, and they use such mental gymnastics like other gods are facets of the one true god, etc, which is plainly false as in some mythologies gods have offspring, and are definitely distinct entities. Believers dilike the idea that they disbelieve other gods for the same reason people don't believe in theirs;
“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” -Stephen Roberts
C
Confutatis
Guest
phlogistician said:
Language can be a lot of things, but precise is not one of them. If an atheist is just a person who does not believe in God, and nothing else, then atheism would mean nothing. Atheism certainly means a lot more than simply not believing in God. How much more, it depends on the atheist. There are even atheists who believe in salvation, in the form of transferring the contents of their minds to a computer. (even as they vehemently deny the existence of a soul... I can only laugh at the silliness)
Ultimately, I think atheists really don't exist. Most concepts that mean the absence of something are extremely difficult to define, mostly because they (the concepts) are useless.
phlogistician said:
I'm in complete agreement. Great quote BTW. I was only showing LT the ramification of the point that he chose.
Confutatis said:
Why Christianity? Why convert from a "pessimistic and complex religion" (I don't agree with your assessment) to a blackmailing, pessimistic, idolter religion? Accept the savior or suffer eternal damnation - blackmailing. Every Human sins, one can only attain salvation by accepting the lord Jesus Christ - pessimism. "10:38 And whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me." Worhip Jesus Christ and the cross - idoltry.
It seems to me a Buddhist would just be converting from one "bad" situation to another.
C
Confutatis
Guest
QuarkMoon said:
Don't get so uptight. In your eagerness to bash Christians, you missed the irony in my post.
It is an awful thing to suggest one religion is better than other. I said that in my post, even though I don't believe it. And that's the irony.
Confutatis said:
I'll contradict that assertion for $100 bob. There are an immense number of concepts that reference absence in a very useful way. 'Dark' is the absence of light, 'silence' is the absence of sound. 'still' is the absence of motion, and the list goes on and on. Even religions have found concepts of absence useful. 'Heathen's' and 'Infidels' desribe an absence of their respective theologies.
C
Confutatis
Guest
Crunchy Cat said:
You're right. I aimed for simplicity and got nonsense instead. I actually had in mind concepts that describe the absence of attributes, but I was afraid people would not understand what I meant by "attributes".
Perhaps this won't make sense to you either, but it seems to me it's difficult to describe a thing by listing the attributes it doesn't have. In this particular case, it's difficult to describe a person by referring to the things the person doesn't believe. If I tell you I'm Roman Catholic you can tell a lot about me, but if I tell you I'm an atheist, there's very little you can infer. You cannot even tell which God I happen to disbelieve.
Confutatis said:
Desribing things by what they are not might be difficult and / or uninformative for some people in a variety of situations. I do find the distinction between theist and a-theist useful because identifying with one or the other yields alot of information about the person's thought process used to understand reality.
What might help is thinking about differences in terms of presence. For example, people use a thought process to understand reality. The thought process of 'belief' tests assertions of truth against authority, emotion, and theological literature. The thought process of 'critial thinking' tests assertions of truth against authority, reality, and scientific literature.
Ted is a critical thinker.
Frank is a believer.
Both people are described with presence of attributes that are informative.
a-theist - without god
a-sexual implies without sex
a-symmetrical implies that which is without symmetry.
The difficulty with those that have that blind trust called faith is they refuse to admit that there might be some question about their beliefs. That they might be wrong. In this line of thinking, "no such thing as an atheist" consistently emerges as a valid argument, however it wrong it may be.
The description "athest" says far more about someone than "Roman Catholic" if you're willing to think. Among the many bits of information that can be obtained is that the atheist has his/her Sundays freed up for activities that don't include satisfying supernatural agents. Nor is the atheis likely to be unconcerned with the future because he believes End Times are nigh -he/she may actually care about the environment or creating a legacy of stewardship and conservation for future generations. An atheist also isn't overly worried about supernatural agents peeping at them in the shower or listening to their private thoughts. The morality of an atheist is therefore genuine concern for fellow humanity and not fear of an afterlife in hell. Moreover, the atheist doesn't believe he/she can commit wrongs/crimes and then get forgiveness from supernatural agents later -the atheist lives his/her life as if it is the only one he/she will get.
There is much information you can know about the person that refers to himself as "atheist," but not if you're unwilling to apply thought.
Little_Birdie
Registered Senior Member
Nirvana is more like the state one gets to when they enter heaven because heaven is not a place but a state of being, thinking it is a place is one of the biggest misconceptions of most christians but in christianity unlike buddhism once you reach heaven/nirvana you stay the same person into eterinty donning your flesh body once more at the second coming of the christ
C
Confutatis
Guest
Crunchy Cat said:
That is only if you have preconceived notions about people. In reality, I suspect you don't even understand your own thought processes.
Nice and neatly described, and in all likelihood false. I have read this nonsense before in a psychology book - it classified thought processes as "logical", "theological", and something else I can't remember. It's an outdated theory of cognition which never had much recognition to start with.
There is no such thing as "critical thinker" and "believer" as distinct personalities. Everyone is a bit of both, and often both at the same time. An atheist who goes through a religious experience will have a hard time remaining an atheist. A believer who goes through enough tribulation in life, like Job in the bible, will have a hard time keeping his faith in a loving God.
I have seen too many times the claim, by atheists, that religion divides people, but if anything religion unites people. All members of a church are united in their beliefs and their rituals. What divides people is the notion that some people are better than others. That notion is as popular with believers and skeptics alike, but it's not an easy notion to get rid of.
C
Confutatis
Guest
Little_Birdie said:
Heaven as a place is not a misconception in Christianity, it's simply a concept that is consistent with the basis of the religion. The greatest difference between Christianity and Buddhism is that Christians believe the world is good so they want more of it, while Buddhists think the world is an illusion which should be renounced.
Little_Birdie
Registered Senior Member
theologicly heaven is not a place it is not "of this world" anyone saying otherwise has only learned religion from a ccd teacher who though well intentioned had not real understanding of their faith doctrine, also this world is not good this world killed christ in this worlld there is suffering we were sent here in exile from the eadan we hope earn heaven back in this life by following god's will through goodness
Little_Birdie
Registered Senior Member
theologicly heaven is not a place it is not "of this world" anyone saying otherwise has only learned religion from a ccd teacher who though well intentioned had not real understanding of their faith doctrine, also this world is not good this world killed christ in this worlld there is suffering we were sent here in exile from the eadan we hope earn heaven back in this life by following god's will through goodness