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Question about Atheism

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Question about Atheism

baden511
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 11/06/09 - 07:01 PM:	#41
aletheist wrote: This presupposes that God does not exist. If God does exist, then it may be that theism is the default position; perhaps we all start out knowing God, but then our bad choices alienate us from him, making atheism possible. After all, Jesus advocated "faith like that of a child." No, it doesn't. Even if the Christian god did exist, those without concepts learned through language, such as babies and animals, could not believe in him/her/it. You may as well say a dog is Christian. In order to believe in something, you need to know what it is. Furthermore, Christianity entails more than a simple belief in 'God'. I was once a care-worker for a sixty year old man who had the mental age of a child. He said he was Christian but his concepts were so confused that what he said he believed in was not recognizably Christian. He was just repeating things he'd heard but wrongly. It was quite sad actually aletheist wrote: Please clarify. In what sense is purpose natural? What is the naturalistic basis for our sense of (ultimate) purpose? I'm surprised anyone could ask this question. Look around you at our fellow animals. Most of them seem to keep themselves quite busy don't they? You think they have no purpose? Their reason for existing is self-answering: to exist. The naturalistic base for purpose exists in our biological makeup, which in itself is a result of evolutionary processes. For humans, 'purpose' may be conceptualized after the fact into anything we want but that doesn't make that conceptualization exclusory of its own basis. As a nontheist, I don't accept that our biology is an escapable side-effect of our existence; rather I see it as the basis for it. aletheist wrote: Many Christians would say that their purpose is "to glorify God and enjoy him forever," and Jesus defined eternal life as knowing God. These activities would hardly constitute "a purposeless oblivion." Eternal bliss is equivalent to eternal oblivion as constant speed is equivalent to rest in the sense that no energy is necessary to change the condition. Therefore no purpose is necessary in death, nor is consciousness, which results from our apprehension of change. So really heaven=nothingness. Perhaps that's what religious dogmas have been obliquely trying to tell us in the first place.
"Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." Moses (Numbers 31:17-18) "Do not harm little children" - Satanic Bible. Rule no.9 "And the prize is: Eternal heavenly bliss. Or a peanut. Your choice." - The Divine Game Show Host

Sashianova
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 11/06/09 - 07:57 PM:	#42
baden511 wrote: No, it doesn't. Even if the Christian god did exist, those without concepts learned through language, such as babies and animals, could not believe in him/her/it. You may as well say a dog is Christian. In order to believe in something, you need to know what it is. Furthermore, Christianity entails more than a simple belief in 'God'. I was once a care-worker for a sixty year old man who had the mental age of a child. He said he was Christian but his concepts were so confused that what he said he believed in was not recognizably Christian. He was just repeating things he'd heard but wrongly. It was quite sad actually This raises the question of exactly what is the soul and where does it exist. The soul is said to exist independently of the mind yet its state is judged based on conscious decisions. The most crucial demand of Christianity is to believe and accept Jesus as a savior, but those nearest to death often completely lose the ability to think. When my Grandpa and Great Uncle on my mother's side passed neither of them could recognize family members at the very end, much less reason through any conscious decision to believe or accept anything. I have a friend who sustained severe head injuries in a skiing accident and although he lived his original personality was gone. It's as if he died but his body kept going. Without his original synapse patterns, memories, and the personality quirks he had developed throughout his life, my friend ceased to exist and became someone else. Should the conclusion be that the soul is independent of a personality? Did one soul depart and another take over? Energy cannot be destroyed, but there's no evidence that energy thinks without a fully functioning brain to conduct thoughts. No thoughts, no personality, no existence.

mtboger
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1 of 2 people found this post helpful Posted 11/07/09 - 12:52 AM:	#43
baden511, how do you know what a dog believes? But seriously, I took the leap of faith and believed that no evidence you present can prove my religion wrong. With respect, I don't appreciate you saying I am "sadly misguided." I believe that God works on a higher level of logic than we do, therefore we can never get to the truth, or God's plan. I did not create this thread to dissuade anyone from their beliefs either.

baden511
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Posted 11/07/09 - 07:05 AM:	#44
mtboger wrote: baden511, how do you know what a dog believes? But seriously, I took the leap of faith and believed that no evidence you present can prove my religion wrong. With respect, I don't appreciate you saying I am "sadly misguided." I believe that God works on a higher level of logic than we do, therefore we can never get to the truth, or God's plan. I did not create this thread to dissuade anyone from their beliefs either. I can see how you might not appreciate that but it wasn't intended badly and I respect your right to hold a completely different view. I was trying to give my honest opinion, which is that I think religious people are misguided, and I think it's sad. But rather than just assert it, let me give you some reasons: First of all, I think there are two types of people, those who believe what they're told (particularly if they were told it at a young age) and those who question what they are told on the basis of evidence. The former type are spread across thousands of mutually incompatible religions all over the globe and their religion is for the most part incidental. If they are born in Thailand, they're Buddhist; in India, probably Hindu; in Iran, Shia Muslim, In America, probably Christian. Once you accept this fact, which is very difficult to argue with, you accept that religious adherence is usually an accident of birth and location and in that sense no religion is any more valid than any other. Furthermore, as these religions are generally incompatible, they can't all be right and the most sensible conclusion that follows from that is that none of them are right. Getting back to the two types of people I mentioned earlier, I am of the latter: I believe if you make a claim you need to show evidence that it's true. Consider this: you are accused of a crime you didn't commit and your accuser tells the jury that he knows you're guilty because God told him so. Suppose he's a well known preacher. Suppose he has faith that you are guilty. Should the jury listen to him? I think no, and nor should non-theists listen to theists when they say something is true on faith. Faith is a tool that powerful people use to control others for their own ends. This is how cults start, and some, such as Scientology and Christianity (which was considered a cult in ancient Rome) develop into religions and gradually gain respect and adherents, all the while increasing the prestige, influence and wealth of those who control them. Now, I have a lot of time for Jesus and the only part of the Bible I find worth reading are the Gospels. I think that it's a pity that this man who was far ahead of his time was perverted by his followers into some kind of supernatural being. If he really lived, he was a man, and a very wise one. He laid out the best strategy that any community could follow to make it as successful and worth living in as possible. That is simply: Love one another. If we could all follow that message the world would be a wonderful place. Unfortunately we are far too human and saddest of all, the positive message of Jesus has been perverted into its opposite by those who most strongly claim to be Christian. Charity has been transposed into self interest; the obvious socialism of Jesus into Capitalism; love your enemy into bomb your enemy, take care of the sick and needy into profit from them. How sad, sick and pathetic is the state of Christianity, particularly in the U.S., today. If one were to invent a religious version of the classic Orwellian nightmare, none could do better than to invent the Christian right of America. Here I digress, so I'll leave that for later. Let me finish on a positive note by saying that all other things being equal, I'd much rather spend time with a religious person who was a decent human being and didn't try to force his/her views on me or others than a non-religious person who wasn't and did. Those of us who do believe that there is worth in pursuing the common good can take heart in the fact that there is probably much more that binds us than divides us.
"Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." Moses (Numbers 31:17-18) "Do not harm little children" - Satanic Bible. Rule no.9 "And the prize is: Eternal heavenly bliss. Or a peanut. Your choice." - The Divine Game Show Host

nelvan
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Posted 11/07/09 - 12:01 PM:	#45
An atheist can be several things. An atheist can be a nihilist in which religion is of no concern either being for or against. In other words, for the nihilist, being for or against religion is a waste of time (a true nihilist in my opinion). An atheist can be an anarchist in which again a person can believe or not believe; that is their business. An atheist can be a communist or socialist in which eternity does not matter; Utopian society is what matters. But the sort of atheist Dawkins is is the sort that believes that once religion disappears, the world will become a better place. Dawkins does not state how this will come about but that it will come about. Therefore, the scientist Dawkins offers no proof that a world without religion will be better. He concludes that because religion, in his opinion, is bad, that society must improve once religion disappears. To me, that seems unscientific. Thinking that you know the problem does not entail a solution. Thats like thinking that the solution of police brutality is to get rid of police or that the problem with health care is getting rid of hospitals and doctors. I respect all the other types of atheists much more than the so-called "new atheists" since there is nothing "new" about it. It is simply cynicism in disguise and what is an easier target than religion. Not only are the new atheists cynical but lazy cynics at that.

aletheist
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Posted 11/07/09 - 07:20 PM:	#46
baden511 wrote: Even if the Christian god did exist, those without concepts learned through language, such as babies and animals, could not believe in him/her/it. If that is true, then they also could not disbelieve, either. In other words, neither theism nor atheism could be the default position; it would have to be agnosticism, right? In any case, faith is not just about knowledge and assent; it also involves trust. Infants depend entirely on their parents for survival at first; perhaps they have a similar dependence on God. Does a newborn have a relationship with his or her mother? Why not also a relationship with God? baden511 wrote: Furthermore, Christianity entails more than a simple belief in 'God'. I suggested that theism might be the default position if God exists, not Christianity. baden511 wrote: Look around you at our fellow animals. Most of them seem to keep themselves quite busy don't they? You think they have no purpose? That is not what we usually mean when we talk about purpose, or (to use the philosophical term) teleology, which--as I understand it--has no place in a naturalistic universe. Am I wrong? baden511 wrote: So really heaven=nothingness. You are welcome to think so, but that is not how Christians conceptualize heaven--or hell, for that matter. Both involve eternal, conscious existence; the difference is whether or not you have a mutually voluntary love relationship with God as Lord.
"Be attentive, Be intelligent, Be reasonable, Be responsible." - Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984)

baden511
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Posted 11/07/09 - 07:25 PM:	#47
For mtboger and others of his persuasion: To expand a little bit on my point that young children cannot be considered religious, let me give this example: Suppose I say Begulas is Jujumbas without knowing what the words 'Begulas' and 'Jujumbas' refer to, would you say that I believe that Begulas is Jujumbas? Let’s further suppose that making the statement Begulas is Jujumbas qualifies me, in the eyes of society, as a member of the Begulian religion. Am I now a Begulian even though I have no idea what Begulas, Jujumbas or Begulian refer to? Let’s further suppose that I am a young child. Was I a Begulian even before I made that statement simply because my parents were? In what sense was I? What was it in my mind that made me a Begulian that would separate me from a child that wasn’t a Begulian? Can you be a Begulian without even having heard the word at all as long as someone has poured water on your head in the right context? If you think that’s so, you would have to admit that all of us could be Begulians without even knowing it. As I imagine you've guessed, all you have to do is substitute the words Jesus for Begulas, Lord for Jujumbas and Christian for Begulian to make my original argument. Young children who walk around saying “Jesus is Lord” generally no more believe in God than the staunchest of atheists, nor can they because what they are saying doesn’t refer to anything that they understand (this goes for plenty of adults too). For simplicity, I haven’t gone into specifics about age here, or elaborated counterarguments to possible objections but I’m perfectly willing to do so if called upon.
"Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." Moses (Numbers 31:17-18) "Do not harm little children" - Satanic Bible. Rule no.9 "And the prize is: Eternal heavenly bliss. Or a peanut. Your choice." - The Divine Game Show Host

baden511
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Posted 11/07/09 - 07:52 PM:	#48
aletheist wrote: If that is true, then they also could not disbelieve, either. In other words, neither theism nor atheism could be the default position; it would have to be agnosticism, right? Well at least you have conceded that if this is true theism is not the default position. But I would say no, agnosticism involves doubt and you can't be in doubt about something you have never heard about. You're right that you also can't disbelieve something you have never heard about, but here we get into the different definitions of 'atheism'. Atheism has been defined both as a disbelief in deities and a simple lack of belief in them. Rather than argue about this, I'm willing to say that young children are non-theists at least. Can we both agree then that they don't believe in a god (so they can't, for example, be Christian) but also that they don't disbelieve in a god? aletheist wrote: In any case, faith is not just about knowledge and assent; it also involves trust. Infants depend entirely on their parents for survival at first; perhaps they have a similar dependence on God. Does a newborn have a relationship with his or her mother? Why not also a relationship with God? Yes, a newborn is dependent on his mother for life. He is not dependent on a god for anything. Atheists have healthy children too. Also, it seems you're saying something odd here, as if for example a Hindu child had a relationship with God who is a Christian deity. Or are you saying, God only has a relationship with newborns who are of Christian parents? aletheist wrote: I suggested that theism might be the default position if God exists, not Christianity. OK, but I believe we have now established that it's not. aletheist wrote: That is not what we usually mean when we talk about purpose, or (to use the philosophical term) teleology, which--as I understand it--has no place in a naturalistic universe. Am I wrong? Again, it's a matter of the definition of 'purpose'. To be fair you did put the word 'ultimate' in parentheses in your original comments which I didn't deal with. But I think it should be clear that I don't necessarily accept that the teleological school of thought is valid. Feel free to try to convince me it is. aletheist wrote: You are welcome to think so, but that is not how Christians conceptualize heaven--or hell, for that matter. Both involve eternal, conscious existence; the difference is whether or not you have a mutually voluntary love relationship with God as Lord. You haven't dealt with the logic of my argument here. How is eternal conscious bliss a coherent idea? You are simply asserting that it is; I have given reasons why I think it's not.
"Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." Moses (Numbers 31:17-18) "Do not harm little children" - Satanic Bible. Rule no.9 "And the prize is: Eternal heavenly bliss. Or a peanut. Your choice." - The Divine Game Show Host

aletheist
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Posted 11/07/09 - 07:52 PM:	#49
Sashianova wrote: This raises the question of exactly what is the soul and where does it exist. The soul is the essential and immaterial aspect of every human; so it makes no sense to ask "where" it is. I am a soul, and I have a body. Sashianova wrote: The soul is said to exist independently of the mind yet its state is judged based on conscious decisions. Who says this? My understanding is that the soul basically is the mind. It is said to exist independently of the body. Sashinova wrote: The most crucial demand of Christianity is to believe and accept Jesus as a savior, but those nearest to death often completely lose the ability to think. Beliefs are important, but Christianity is fundamentally about having a mutually voluntary and permanent love relationship with God as Lord, which was made possible by the death and resurrection of Jesus. Sashinova wrote: Energy cannot be destroyed, but there's no evidence that energy thinks without a fully functioning brain to conduct thoughts. No thoughts, no personality, no existence. Energy is part of the material universe, just like matter. The soul is something different--spirit is the usual term--and it is certainly conceivable that it continues to exist after the body dies.
"Be attentive, Be intelligent, Be reasonable, Be responsible." - Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984)

mtboger
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Posted 11/07/09 - 08:08 PM:	#50
"But rather than just assert it, let me give you some reasons: First of all, I think there are two types of people, those who believe what they're told (particularly if they were told it at a young age) and those who question what they are told on the basis of evidence." -You're forgetting a third type. Those who question what they are told, but make the "leap of faith," which is believing without fully understanding. "Furthermore, as these religions are generally incompatible, they can't all be right and the most sensible conclusion that follows from that is that none of them are right." -This seems like you practice avoidance in respect to people's beliefs. I personally don't know enough about certain religions to simply say they are wrong. If I were presented with several different ideas/theories about how something occurred, I would try to investigate them for myself. "Getting back to the two types of people I mentioned earlier, I am of the latter: I believe if you make a claim you need to show evidence that it's true." -I don't need evidence to believe my religion is true. This gets back to the leap of faith. Adding to this, I believe that no matter how hard we try, we will never understand the world and God's plan. His logic is simply on another level than ours. "Faith is a tool that powerful people use to control others for their own ends." -I have faith, and I have little power and never intently try to control others. I think you are overgeneralizing. "Unfortunately we are far too human and saddest of all, the positive message of Jesus has been perverted into its opposite by those who most strongly claim to be Christian." -You're overgeneralizing again. Charity has been transposed into self interest; the obvious socialism of Jesus into Capitalism; love your enemy into bomb your enemy, take care of the sick and needy into profit from them. How sad, sick and pathetic is the state of Christianity, particularly in the U.S., today. If one were to invent a religious version of the classic Orwellian nightmare, none could do better than to invent the Christian right of America. -I agree some people use religion to justify their actions, which is wrong. I believe that this is why religion is blamed for so many disgusting events in history. You must look past their excuses and see the real reasons why people do the things they do. I don't believe religion gave birth to Capitalism; people who did not fully understand God's plan gave birth to Capitalism (Weber's theory). As far as profiting goes, assuming you're talking about tithing, true believers use tithes in order to reach other sick and needy peoples. Too bad there are corrupt organizations that have made people skeptical about this. "Let me finish on a positive note by saying that all other things being equal, I'd much rather spend time with a religious person who was a decent human being and didn't try to force his/her views on me or others than a non-religious person who wasn't and did." -I would rather spend my time with someone who disagrees with me in order to better understand why they disagree. I truly respect your opinion. But, just as you believe that I am misguided, I believe you've been misguided about how true Christianity operates. We can't look at a few bad examples and overgeneralize.

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