Any atheists in here?
POSTED BY: BlackCollarBrowncoat
UPDATED: Sunday, March 12, 2006 20:19
VIEWED: 38267
PAGE 3 of 18
I'm also atheist, but feel strongly that every human has a right to worship or not worship whatever they please (well, as long as I'm not forced to worship too!). I'm posting a link to an essay by Penn Jillette (of Penn and Teller) that aired on NPR several weeks back as part of their "This I Believe" serices. It's very nice.
Here's the link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5015557
Also, there was a really great This American Life on NPR called "Godless America". It aired 6-3-2005. The segment by Julia Sweeney is amazing. I very much related to her story of going from Catholic to atheist. You can find it at:
http://www.thislife.org/
Go to the Episodes/RealAudio, by year originally
produced, and click on 05. Scroll down until you find "Godless America". It's really good!
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I'm atheist, but still pretty spiritual. I believe in some form of afterlife but no clear-cut heaven and hell.
TBH, I can't watch the news everyday and still believe in a God, but that's just me.
Mal: Wheel never stops turning, Badger.
Badger: That only matters to the people on the rim.
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Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Belief is also what makes you trust the data, or trust that data is worth considering.
I used to have issues with that at a quite early age (pre-teen). What is real, what is significant etc. The I realized I wasn't about to test reality by jumping off a roof, and I settled on the pragmatic side.
I've got nothing against that. I like philosophy but when I took a class in it I found myself wanting to ask, "Why are we still talking about this?" quite a bit.
What if I don’t really exist? Lets say I’m the delusion of the person I sat next to in third grade. How does that effect me? Well it doesn’t, I still have my delusion of a life to live and my delusions of decisions to make. It hardly effects me no matter what I am. Why don’t we look at questions that actually have an effect on things?
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What I wanted to make sure you know is that everything is based on belief. Science requires as much faith as any religion I know of. In fact it requires more than some.
Without belief and faith we can not operate, as such they are perhaps the most important things we’ve ever created. Some people think they go against logic, and they do, but you also have to remember that logic requires them to exist.
They are the irrational things that allow the very concept of, “Rational,” to exist.
They are the foundation of everything we have ever done. As such I dislike it when people seem to think that they can group them in with religion and superstition. Everyone has them, and everyone needs them. Science takes two, maybe three, gigantic leaps of faith and from that we have been able to build up a far more coherent picture of the universe. Then people who claim to support science also claim that leaps of faith in and of themselves are stupid.
You are obviously not one of these people, but I didn’t know it at the time.
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When it comes to belief in god I think people should take whatever leaps they make and stick with them, a lot of people instead try to support them with more and more irrational beliefs whenever they have a perceived contradiction. That makes no sense to me. Figure out what you believe:
For example:
Cause follows effect and all things have a cause
My senses are an adequate way to perceive the world
God as represented in the bible exists in reality
And then interpret things based on that. When you come across something you can’t explain use logic and reason to try to explain it rather than introducing a new leap of faith.
I think science is a good model. When something that seems to contradict science appears they study it and think on it until they find a way to fit it in, even if it takes centuries. They consider the possibility that anything other than their basic premises are false and will overturn a theory they’ve held for ages if logic tells them to.
Religion should be willing to do the same things, for example if you just believe in the bible why try so hard to maintain dogmas added three or four hundred years after the fact? Why not get back to basics and then check to see if it really fits?
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Sorry about the rant.
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Quote:
Originally posted by bovinity:
I thoroughly believe that god does not exist. Does that make me a believer or a non-believer? Now I'm confused...
Well it makes you a believer, and a strong one at that.
Since you have a belief based on god you are a believer of a religious nature. A lot of people who believe there is neither god nor gods hate that fact but that doesn't change the fact it is true.
The fact is that only people who believe neither in divinity nor lack there of are non-believers. They're also the ones with the strongest position.
I believe in god and you believe in a lack of god, that means we both believe something with no hard evidence, those that don't believe have the only intellectually defensible position.
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Quote:
Originally posted by RocketJock:
You've just hit on the primal paradox of atheism. Since it's axiomatic that one cannot prove a negative
I can prove that the set of primes is not finte and thus that there exists no finite set containing all the primes.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Hotpoint:
If Atheism is a religion then bald is a hair colour by the way
When talking about hard atheists you are so very, very wrong.
Think about your analogy. Every set of beliefs on god would be a hair color, so Catholics might be blonde, and Hindus are redheads and whatnot.
To have a hair color you must have hair.
The belief that there is no god is a belief about god.
Thus those who believe there is no god must have hair. They are not bald.
Now those who do not believe there is no god, and do not believe there is a god, those people are bald.
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I mean come on, if holding a belief about the nature of god is not religious than what is religious?
According to you if I believe there is a god that is not religious because belief regarding the existence of god is not religious.
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Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
I mean come on, if holding a belief about the nature of god is not religious than what is religious?
According to you if I believe there is a god that is not religious because belief regarding the existence of god is not religious.
Well it was just a throwaway line really
In any case Atheism just means "without theism" ie. without belief in God. This should not be automatically equated with being Religious or Irreligious as there are in fact some Religions that do not have a God in the strictest sense making them Atheist Religions.
There is more to being a religion than simple theism, or lack of it, and you cannot call Atheism a Religion in the same way you could assign the term to Christianity, Hinduism or Islam for example.
If you seek to classify atheism as a religion then by implication all the theist faiths are a religion too... collectively. You should not muddy the waters by equating religion with faith either.
...................................
Hurrah, hurrah, when things are at their worst
With cries of “Death or Glory” comes the mighty Twenty-First
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Quote:
Originally posted by Hotpoint:
In any case Atheism just means "without theism" ie. without belief in God. This should not be automatically equated with being Religious or Irreligious as there are in fact some Religions that do not have a God in the strictest sense making them Atheist Religions.
This I know, but very few Atheists like it when one points out that the most famous Atheist in history was Buddha.
Also I said hard atheism for a reason. I realize that grouping together non-believers with those that believe there is no god is exactly the same as grouping non-believers with those that believe there is a god.
Quote:
There is more to being a religion than simple theism, or lack of it, and you cannot call Atheism a Religion in the same way you could assign the term to Christianity, Hinduism or Islam for example.
I know, but usually when one pulls out the, "Not a religion," line they are trying to separate themselves from all theists, even though many who believe in god are not part of any religion.
Quote:
If you seek to classify atheism as a religion then by implication all the theist faiths are a religion too... collectively.
Not really, religions hold common beliefs, that is why Lutherans and Catholics are not the same religion.
Atheists hold one set of common beliefs about the nature of god and are more united and uniform in this set than any two popes could ever be said to be. Also, with very few exceptions, they have exactly the same set of customs and rules with respect to god.
Hardly like other religions where custom differs from place to place and order to order. Certainly the Atheist belief has a more uniform set than any other dogma ever did and all who believe in a lack of god agree in totality about what god mandates in any give situation.
Atheism has an answer for every situation. A set of customs and mandates more strict than any other religion I know of. Every single hard atheist agrees on exactly what god wants them to do, when god wants them to pray, what god will allow them to eat, what god considers good or bad, which commandments god holds highest.
They have an agreement on what god considers Kosher that not even the Jews can rival. The have an agreement on when god wants them to pray that no Prophet ever managed to instill.
In short they have a set of common beliefs more uniform than any other religion on this planet, they have a set of religious mandates applicable to any situation, they have a set of religious customs that no member has ever challenged. And they always, without any hesitation, agree on exactly what god wants from them.
Quote:
You should not muddy the waters by equating religion with faith either.
I was unaware that I had done that. I certainly would never do it intentionally.
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Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
The belief that there is no god is a belief about god.
Thus those who believe there is no god must have hair. They are not bald.
Now those who do not believe there is no god, and do not believe there is a god, those people are bald.
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I mean come on, if holding a belief about the nature of god is not religious than what is religious?
According to you if I believe there is a god that is not religious because belief regarding the existence of god is not religious.
This is interesting. First of all, I'm not sure that any belief concerning the existence of god is necessarily religious, just as a belief about the existence of republicans isn't necessarily political.
Secondly, I call myself an atheist, but it's not a 'belief' for me. It's a lack of belief, and despite the attempts to muddy the waters, those aren't the same thing. Rejecting an unproven proposition is not a question of faith. If you make a proposition that something or another exists and I look where you say it is and see nothing, I'm not expressing belief when I say "but there's nothing there". I'm merely reacting to what my sense tells me. If you want to call that 'faith' then all bets are off and any possible conviction is 'belief'. That seems overly broad to me, and watering down the concept to the point that it's meaninglesss.
SergeantX
"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock
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Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
[Not really, religions hold common beliefs, that is why Lutherans and Catholics are not the same religion.
Atheists hold one set of common beliefs about the nature of god and are more united and uniform in this set than any two popes could ever be said to be. Also, with very few exceptions, they have exactly the same set of customs and rules with respect to god.
Hardly like other religions where custom differs from place to place and order to order. Certainly the Atheist belief has a more uniform set than any other dogma ever did and all who believe in a lack of god agree in totality about what god mandates in any give situation.
Atheism has an answer for every situation. A set of customs and mandates more strict than any other religion I know of. Every single hard atheist agrees on exactly what god wants them to do, when god wants them to pray, what god will allow them to eat, what god considers good or bad, which commandments god holds highest.
They have an agreement on what god considers Kosher that not even the Jews can rival. The have an agreement on when god wants them to pray that no Prophet ever managed to instill.
In short they have a set of common beliefs more uniform than any other religion on this planet, they have a set of religious mandates applicable to any situation, they have a set of religious customs that no member has ever challenged. And they always, without any hesitation, agree on exactly what god wants from them.
Your argument here does not stand up to much scrutiny. By seeking to equate a group as in any way a religion, whose only collective identity within the group is a lack of ritual then I might easily say that I am also a member of the Religion of Non-Golfers where the only commonality of our Religion is that none of us play golf.
Does our uniformity of non-golfingness gives us a unity of non-purpose?
The fact is that a Catholic and a Lutheran have more in common in their basic world view, moral attitudes and ethical motivations than I do with a Chinese Communist Party Member (for example) whose only similarity with myself is our atheism.
...................................
Hurrah, hurrah, when things are at their worst
With cries of “Death or Glory” comes the mighty Twenty-First
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