are you an atheist?

just answer!!

hmm. Can't even guess what these results will look like.

i don't know if you're being sarcastic or not. i don't know what they'll look like.

I predict ILX is 80-90% atheist.

well we've only got 1 day so let's see =P

i just asked a friend about this and she's now furiously IMing me the history of religion. in a conversational way, not a missionary way.

it's exciting.

missionary gets a bad rap.

This is a bit of a flawed question, because saying "no" implies you're religious, which isn't true.

I'm not an athiest. But I'm not religious at all. So what do I answer?

no

atheism = no theism

Yeah, I'm actually guessing a lot of "no"s from people like me who find mainstream religion obnoxious but can't quite commit to something as absolute as atheism.

I get what Trayce is saying, tho, because when someone says "I'm an atheist" there's a terrible moment where you just KNOW their next words will be "and Ayn Rand is a great thinker."

I'm now starting to consider myself an atheist.

I'm too wishywashy to be that bald about it, like my ex is. He's of the "when you die you die, there is no soul, we're all atoms" persuasion, and I still have a smidge of "but what if...?" in me I guess. Not a god thing - more like a "hey how do we explain human thought and reason and collective unconcious and etc etc?" stuff.

Hahah also Kenan is otm.

i don't consider myself an atheist or a believer of a capital G God, more of in an abstract higher power of some sort

lol i am in college

i voted yes for the basis of this poll tho

I'm atheist and Ayn Rand is a great plonker.

Privately, I am completely hostile to the idea of religion. Dawkins-like. It's ludicrous, dangerous, and counter in every way to what I believe should be all of humanity's goal of calmly and productively sharing the planet. But I really try to keep all that under wraps. What good does it do to express it openly?

Not a god thing - more like a "hey how do we explain human thought and reason and collective unconcious and etc etc?" stuff.

I wonder about this all the time but adding God into the equation doesn't really solve much of anything!

you didn't have to kenan! it's a poll not an inquisition

=P

how do we explain non-human thought?

In some way that does not involve the interpolation of imagined deities.

how do we explain non-human thought?

heh... beg the question much?

for a while, i was all agnostic, then atheist, now i don't really care anymore. no one knows shit in the long run.

and anyone who does think they know, whether they be a christian fundie or militant atheist, irritates the snot out of me.

so i guess that makes me uber-agnostic?

i'll cop to being "non-theist" though.

Yeah, but the devout believe they DO know shit, that's what's dangerous about them! If everyone thought like you, it wouldn't be a problem.

that was four xposts

militant atheist

Unlike the xtian fundie, I kinda feel like the "militant atheist" is as much of a strawman as the "feminazi." Defending science and rational thought is not a form of dogma, and Oh god we have had this discussion SO. MANY. TIMES.

I see militant atheists as those people who insist on badgering the fuck out of religious people in the hope that they just stop being religious. Hence a valid term imo.

Where does this happen? And if anywhere, how is it bugging you?

I wouldn't even care about xtian fundies if not for the fact that they have controlled the government for the last eight years.

unless you mean those snooty pricks who want to teach evolution in school...

It doesn't bug me.

Where does it happen? The internet.

Yeah I hate it when the powerful badger the powerless.

Powerful Badger The Powerless: A new, self-contradictory superhero from Japan.

I'd describe myself as a non-militant atheist. We do exist.

WAHT? You mean you're not even armed?

xp It's already in my spazbook profile.

yeah how is dawkins not a scarecrow dancing as yr strawman? strawman? a good friend of mine trades his atheist tracts with the christian door knockers. which i think is pretty funny actually. he's really friendly about it.

I was a militant atheist once, but I sort of demobbed myself. Those who say that militant atheism is somewhat dogmatic and indicative of an authoritarian personality, no so far from a fundie, have a point.

xpost Well, I don't go around acting like Dawkins. I don't think he's wrong about much though, it's just that his approach is futile and even counter to his desired effect. Being the poster boy for angry anti-God scientists is a foolish thing to be, especially seeing as how "anti-God scientists" are not otherwise organized in any way.

I'm a militant agnostic - I don't know / can't prove anything and neither can anyone else.

There have been enough ppl on here who have quite aggressively knocked the likes of ANairn, Dee, and Kiwi to make me think militant/Dawkins style athieism is plenty prevalent.

I'm with Latebloomer tho I think - we Just Don't Know shit (even with science's best).

Yes, I'm inclined to agree.

I've never been militant, but I've had some rather heated arguments with fundies regarding the foundation (or lack thereof) of their beliefs. Usually in response to them querying my stance, which is very easily defensible.

Oh and Dawkins shits me to tears. Makes loads of very good points, then trashes them by getting all angry and wound-up.

we Just Don't Know shit (even with science's best)

But science's is not a way of making assumptions and declarations about the world, it's a way of examining it. A scientist knows that we don't know shit. That's what gets you into that game! You want to know more.

(x-x-post) However, against the idea that agnosticism is the most sensible standpoint, Dawkins considers this approach to be wishy-washy and hence dangerous. He thinks one should take a stand against the influence of bizarre beliefs on public policy, and not without good reason.

(I mean "game" loosely, of course -- it's far from play. Religion does not cure polio.)

xpost to kenan's early post. right, even if both extremes can be rude, the sticks they hit with are pretty different. there's a massive demographic of belligerent fundies. there's also a very large demographic of religious folks who aren't belligerent at all. the haters on both sides get a lot more press than the rest of us.

I don't think those who aggressively knocked those posters would do anything of the sort to someone IRL. it's a bit of a false positive.

Perhaps yr right there.

i'm not an atheist, but 75% of my friends are atheist. all quite nice, moral people. hell, a few of my atheist friends are bigger prudes than me. (and i'm a beer drinkin, noise rockin Deacon... don't ask me how on earth i got asked for that job in my church. the joke is certainly on me.) at least, for the most part, there's this larger cultural split that exists and so just as a believer here in ilx, i'm in the vast minority, that same thing carries over to the circles i know offline. for whatever reason, me and atheists have more in common than me and your average church goin fool.

i dislike fundies more than you guys do i would imagine. for me, way too much energy is wasted on fingerpointing. if christians collectively stopped oppressing eachother and everybody else, we could EASILY stop world hunger, put a major dent in world poverty, etc etc etc. but no...

it's enough to make you not believe. it really is.

DO IT. DO IT.

:( That's not what I want to see at all.

If more religious leaders were like msp...

Went with "atheist", though I'm more of a committed agnostic. Push comes to shove, though, the "there is no god" position seems just as silly & unjustifiable to me as the "God is LOVE!" position.

Really? Refusing to accept that there's an invisible man in the sky who watches you all the time is as silly believing there is one?

(simplified and pissed on for comic effect, obv.)

x-post to AA... ha! nice! wow, sunday mornings free...yeah... no more cheesy hymns...yeah... ah but the free donuts. nah. gonna stick with it for a while.

Difficult to prove that something doesn't exist, but slightly easier than trying to prove something does exist when there is no proof.

Still, that's why they call it a belief innit.

I ahte to quote Bill Hicks, and i apologize, but I do love that he said "A belief is just that. It's just what you believe. Doesn't make it true." Because that's kind of, wow, truthbomb.

(zillions of x-posts) I would not have said athiesm agruments are silly or unjustified. The arguments put forward by atheists such as Dawkins are logically quite simple and sound, and all based on variations of the point that interpolating a deity presupposes all the mysteries the interpolation is supposed to explain.

For example, the argument for the existence of a creative deity aims to explain the creation of the universe; but, in so doing, it creates a new problem of the same nature, viz, how the creation of the deity took place.

The soundness of the arguments against deism are what incline former agnostics towards atheism, when they look further into the matter. It appears that, on elementary logical grounds alone (see Dawkins - you may not like his tone, but that is another matter) deities are both unnecessary and useless when trying to explain the universe.

Therefore, atheism rather than agnosticism is to be preferred. But a gentle atheism. I wouldn't want people constantly pointing out to me that I really know almost nothing about music for example. On a basic level, that is certainly true, but I don't want to be constantly ridiculed about it. It may be that many deeply religious people are touchy for the same reason. Deep down, they know their beliefs are untenable, but aren't yet prepared to make a terrifying leap into the lap of their former enemies.

But science's is not a way of making assumptions and declarations about the world, it's a way of examining it. A scientist knows that we don't know shit. That's what gets you into that game! You want to know more.

in theory, at least. but i'm not arguing with this, my quarrel is not with science. earth is round, gravity is a fact, etc. etc.

my problem is with those who confuse their interpretation of what those those facts mean as equivalent to those facts.

(xp)

Some definitely fall into that category.

It would be terrifying, though, when you think about it: A belief you have held all your life; a family who keeps up the pressure to stay in the fold; friends and peers who would look at you differently if you abandoned them; an overwhelming sense of guilt for even entertaining the notion; in some cases, an entire racial/cultural group ready to disown you if you dare to step off the wagon.

I've never been religious so I can't directly empathise, but bugger me if it wouldn't be a ballsy move.

(x-x-post) One last thought - it appears that many atheists want to say to religious people that, becuase they hold irrational and delusional beliefs, that they are mentally ill in the clinical sense - and, indeed, many of them are. It is seriously questionable, however, that ridicule is the most effective response. maybe it is, maybe it isn't. As for logical argument, it's demonstably clear that people who hold delusional beliefs aren't so amenable to logical demonstration. The treatment of delusional beliefs is no simple matter.

It's just not clear or obvious how an atheist should respond to crazy world views. Ridicule? Argument? Pacification? Ignoring?

Ignoring people with extreme beliefs can turn out to be very dangerous in the long term, it need hardly be pointed out.

Deep down, they know their beliefs are untenable

That's assuming too much, I think. Maybe that's true for some for some, maybe even for many, but deep down or not, if enough people started thinking that their beliefs were untenable, they would talk amongst themselves, some kind of critical mass would be reached, and soon *every* church door would have a notice nailed to it. History does not provide evidence that humans always tend toward rationality.

It's a risky stategy, fomenting discontent within a community. I think for many people (myself included), it's usually a better strategy to lie low and keep one's sketicism to one's self rather than incur the wrath of the community. Though I do take your point that I may be assuming too much.

Well, on the other side of the argument, maybe your assumptions are supported by the extreme measures churches have historically taken to prevent people sowing the seeds of doubt. You know, like, killing lots and lots of people. Of totally inventing the idea of hell.

oR totally inventing, etc

I have to accept that I Don't Know Shit about why people remain religious. ;)

"I get what Trayce is saying, tho, because when someone says "I'm an atheist" there's a terrible moment where you just KNOW their next words will be "and Ayn Rand is a great thinker.""

and so is the pope

you know, much as i hate religious bullshit it's fucking silly to think of religion as simply a disease to be cured or treated. even if you could eliminate religion, people would kill and fight over other things. religion is just one of many excuses people use to be terrible to one another.

it's probably not even the primary one.

But religion as an institution, especially as a political institution, is a major boulder in the road to the long overdue War on Being A Dumbass.

^ truth bomb

Yeah but one less excuse would be nice.

well yeah. it's not like i need a lesson in how shitty religion can be. i live in south carolina fer chrissakes.

*hugs*

awww

I grew up in Texas, which at least has the advantage of being a bit edgy. In either direction.

(for "a bit edgy" red "completely over the edge and mired in piles of its own batshittedness")

reAd, not red

time for bed!

I think the difference between militant atheists and militant religous types is that I never see an atheist standing in the street with a fucking loudhailer every fucking saturday while i'm trying to have a pleasant stroll around town telling me that if i don't change my ways i'm going to hell.

With diagrams.

"Excuse me, Sir, will you be going to this Hell place with your loudhailer?"

"Well, of course not. But you are."

"If there is no asshole with a loudhailer, place just might be Heaven."

Also I never get militant atheists knocking on my door suggesting that I might want to look further into the non-existence of a higher being and perhaps take away some literature.

They don't know where you live

NOTE: if the JWs come, best way to get rid is to say you've left the church. They are duty bound to shun you.

I had Xtians at the door one Sunday, dude asked me if I would like a copy of a 'tract'. They then asked me if I knew the world was getting worse, scarier and I disagreed to put a spike in the rapture-ready narrative (my SOP for this is 'it's narcissism/wrong to think the world ends with idiots like you'). There's a huge sign on the door of my building that says NO SOLICITING and I love how they come in here thinking for some reason they're not doing that.

I am an atheist and I would give Ayn Rand a great plonking.

I was raised in a Methodist/Presbyterian congregation and stopped believing in God somewhere between ages 4 and 6, which made me pretty obnoxious to attend Sunday School with. In college or late high school, I reconciled myself to agnosticism.

In the last year or so, I've really been opening up to faith in God, however. It's the beginning of a journey and I'm still shaky on a lot of it, but it's there. Just to clarify my "no" vote as not being agnostic.

Most scientists I know think it's better science to be an agnostic than an atheist due to the nature of absolutes and the not-knowing.

it can only end it tears sur!

Flailing

Most scientists I know think it's better science to be an agnostic than an atheist

sadly it's more of a philosophical question, and most scientists are rubbish at philosophy.

I'm a scientist, (I suck at philosophy because it's an inherently flawed enterprise) and I'm an agnostic. So write-in: maybe.

i think i might be an infidel.

My dad's a scientist and is a Christian. I also work for a scientific organization, and plenty of scientists are big church- and synagogue-goers. That doesn't exactly get into the heart of their personal beliefs though.

There are enough good reasons to go to church even if you aren't a die-hard believer. Plenty of worshippers are sharp enough to realize that their religious text might not be a reliable source, but they believe anyway or go to church for social or activist reasons.

Also I never get militant atheists knocking on my door suggesting that I might want to look further into the non-existence of a higher being and perhaps take away some literature.

-- Ned Trifle II, Wednesday, 21 May 2008 18:52 (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

John Safran did that on telly, went to that mormon-rich place in the US and door-knocked selling atheism. Got loads of doors slammed in his face.

Came up in conversation with friend's ancient mad scientist dad (invented teasmade, also medical ultrasound guy) who pulled out the etymology (a gnosis) and pointed out that it was wisest to say you didn't know one way or the other, because until dead not sure and it's not like you can send an email at that point.

Friend's husband has a MD dad also, but this guy's a mega-Xtian and it's funny to listen to agnostic scientist say that belief in Xtianity is root of all his in-law's problems.

Psacal's Wager innit. Agnosticism's a cop-out though ultimately, have some damn convictions I say! Although I suppose you could have conviction that you just don't know.

I look at it this way. I live my life to the best of my abilities, I'm a pretty nice person (I like to think but really it's not up to me to judge - that's up to tombot - hoho I jest of course!). I try not to do evil (just like google!) and if there turns out to be a god and that wasn't enough, and instead of all that I could have just been a shit and sought salvation on my deathbed then I'm afraid that's no god that I want to believe in anyway. So, I'm an athiest not an agnostic.

I think the difference between militant atheists and militant religous types is that I never see an atheist standing in the street with a fucking loudhailer every fucking saturday while i'm trying to have a pleasant stroll around town telling me that if i don't change my ways i'm going to hell.

So true.

I stopped benig militant (about my atheism) cause everyone (including myself) considered me to be somewhat of a jerk when I kept saying there is no god.Of course all the others remain jerks cause they continue defending god but at least I can laugh about it now (mostly inwardly). ;-)

Honestly I don't give a shit anymore what anyone thinks. As long as we're happy and try to be "good" that's all that matters.

Nath OTM as ever. It was and is the good Dr. W!ld's conviction that he is but a humble hominid and it would be foolish to claim knowledge one couldn't actually have. My own atheism was at its most hardcore abt. 10 years ago but my beliefs come from wanting people to embrace personal responsibility instead of hiving it off to some imaginary friend.

Everybody needs something not to believe in

Also I never get militant atheists knocking on my door suggesting that I might want to look further into the non-existence of a higher being and perhaps take away some literature.

-- Ned Trifle II, Wednesday, 21 May 2008 18:52 (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

John Safran did that on telly, went to that mormon-rich place in the US and door-knocked selling atheism. Got loads of doors slammed in his face.

-- Autumn Almanac, Wednesday, 21 May 2008 11:54 (43 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Everything Suzy and Nath say is true but just once I would love to do ^^^this!

What was his opening line?

"Hi there. Can I tell you about the depressing pointlessness of it all?"

What was his opening line?

-- Ned Trifle II, Wednesday, 21 May 2008 22:40 (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

http://youtube.com/watch?v=fic56JN7aIw (about halfway through)

God is a fairy tale, but a good one.

^ a sentiment that is bad for business:
http://antiadvertisingagency.com/news/billboard-all-religions-are-fairy-tales

Hey, I said it's a good one!

Ned, trust me, it doesn't work. I have tried countless times (as a teenager and twentysth) to make people (not) see the light, but it didn't work.

I think I stopped thinking about religion (and atheism) cause it does my head in. :-( I don't like being a lazy atheist, tbh, but then again I don't have time to ponder it all anymore. So here I am with a fucked up mind that doesn't know how to draw a good system of what's good and what's bad. How do I make that up from scratch and not take cues from Catholicism (which is very tied to my upbringing, culture,...)? I mean, it's one thing not to believe in an existence of God, but that means you gotta disregard everything tied to religion and make your own value system.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, I'm open for suggestions.

It's really not complicated to come up with a decent value system, surely? Be excellent to each other! <- seems to do the job.

i think there's still good in there, it's just been covered with people clamoring for power or using their religion as a front for their true intentions. karl rove and osama are just two recent examples.

mysticism is good, but the line has to be drawn as to how you share that mysticism. you can go to X, but going beyond that X goes from genuine care and concern... love... to violence, whether mental, physical or spiritual. you can't thrust the love of God onto somebody... that's essentially a form of rape!

it's unfortunate because many religions at their core tenets are about peace and love. and just like abusive parents, "love" can sometimes go really sour. we're just people associating ourselves with an ideal. "you will eat this oatmeal young man! [or else you'll be hungry and i'll be sad because i love you and will feel like a bad parent]" vs. "you will believe this stuff or you will go to hell! [and i love you and don't want to see that and will feel responsible.]" the sad part is... this survivalistic mode... it's very fatherly... "kill or be killed! be a man!" and sure, fatherliness is fine on some levels... but there is a more motherly way that probably is more appropriate. not "do or die!" but... "hey, can i help you?"

it's unfortunate because many religions at their core tenets are about peace and love.

Many? Not all of them?

What ones aren't?

Movementarianism, for example.`

What ones aren't?

i can't say and would rather not make that assumption. satanism perhaps?

I'm pretty sure even Satanists would claim to be in favour of love and peace.

plenty of reason to suppose "peace and love" is not "at the core" of many religions... but "at the core" is a pretty vague phrase.

xp uh wha?

satanism = do what thou wilt is the whole of the law.

im not an atheist. however judging by the associations that have accrued around the word, i think god might be. that's to say, if there is a god, or a higher consciousness/divine reality etc. it want us to live our lives in a rational, scientific, humanist-centred way. whatever religious ideas have suggested about the ways we should think, be, feel, act, absolutely none of them has had the success of rational-scientiific-humanism in answering every question one could put about how things are and how we should be. religious impulses may be behind some of the most notable achievements of mankind - a lot of art (perhaps creativity itself?), the beginnings and development of civillization, philosophy, science, technology, moral and ethical movements and reform, political change, immigration - and there's no point in denying that. however all that can retrospectively be explaineds without resort to religious explanations. so what place is there left for any sort of religiosity, and why am i not an atheist?
the role and province of religion has receded so drastically as to almost have nothing left to grip onto. ethics and morals? well perhaps.
i happen to think, yes, this is an area where, if it fits into progressive liberal humanism, religion can be relevant and useful.
obviously many religious people would sneer at that and protest that their bigotry is dictated by god, but they have a point; i am deriving the moral compass from outside religion, and saying, this is your true moral guide. art? ok this is one of those stumbling blocks for me, because while i find it possible to see how scientific and philosophical developments can be explained by human consciousness working its way forward, i find it very hard to understand how bach, mozart, beethoven wrote what they did without, er, help. prolonged inspiration and a kind of mega-computer like ability to keep in play enormously complex numbers in an incredible way. i don't get that at all, it's almost inhuman. naive i might be.
so i think it ends up at "ultimate questions". finally, that's one of the very few things that religion has a role in, and that may only be because science is in its infancy. and that's possibly the reason why i'm not an atheist.

what bach et al did is not objectively amazing. just a case of the human mind boggling at/being pleased by what other human minds have done.

well, if you mean it takes consciousness to be amazed at something, that can apply to natural marvels too, or indeed anything. if a tree falls in the forest etc.

v educational thread. i now know what a "loudhailer" is!

I'm an agnostic. Atheism strikes me as just as much folly as blind belief and bears a whiff of hypocrisy in its rejection of dogmatism with more dogmatism.

... if there is a god, or a higher consciousness/divine reality etc. it want us to live our lives in a rational, scientific, humanist-centred way

why evoke science yet skip the science altogether in this thought process? these are the kinds of human-animal (as in we're crazy-advanced animals) behaviors that over millions of years of evolution have proven to be the best way to survive. do unto others as you would have them do unto you equals better chance for survival and better quality of life all around. why does any sort of higher power even need to be evoked?

yes without a question cultural concepts of morality derive from evolution

I'm an agnostic. Atheism strikes me as just as much folly as blind belief and bears a whiff of hypocrisy in its rejection of dogmatism with more dogmatism.

And how is agnosticism any less dogmatic?

I don't necessarily think that atheism, by itself, is a "rejection of dogma" except to the extent that disbelief in deities entails simultaneously rejecting their associated rituals and what have you. People aren't atheists because they think the catechism or the Nicene Creed are bunk -- they're atheists because they don't believe gods exist.

At the same time, I'm not sure what's so dogmatic about saying, "Hey, on the available evidence, I'm pretty certain this Jehovah dude doesn't exist." Any more say than saying, "Hey, on the available evidence, I'm pretty sure objects attract each other with a force proportionate to their masses."

I know most of you hate Penn Jillette, and I only agree with him 50% of the time, but he did write something pretty great about being an atheist. To paraphrase, he said the not-believing-in-a-diety part is the cake walk... it's believing that humanity would benefit were it mostly atheist, and being ready to argue for that POV from all angles.

Yes, atheism is dogmatic. Any belief system is dogmatic.

And how is agnosticism any less dogmatic?

Good point. Maybe because I'm open to the possibility of being wrong?

I'm not sure what's so dogmatic about saying, "Hey, on the available evidence, I'm pretty certain this Jehovah dude doesn't exist."

The subtext of that statement, though, is, "I believe science trumps religion," which sounds pretty dogmatic.

why evoke science yet skip the science altogether in this thought process? these are the kinds of human-animal (as in we're crazy-advanced animals) behaviors that over millions of years of evolution have proven to be the best way to survive. do unto others as you would have them do unto you equals better chance for survival and better quality of life all around. why does any sort of higher power even need to be evoked?

it doesn't! this was pretty much the point of my post! i'm trying to show how the cognitive dissonance of religious belief vs rational-scientific-humanism would work, ie with extreme unease. you essentially would have a god saying 'leave me out of the picture, you've discovered a better way' or even 'this was the path i led you on over your history'. both are nutty. but at this stage religious belief is kind of nutty, if you think it all the way through.
nevertheless, i think a distinction between opinion and belief is helpful. i can not back up my belief by opinion, which should be rational and evidence-based.

I'm open to the possibility of being wrong too, but I'm still an atheist.

I'm an agnostic. Atheism strikes me as just as much folly as blind belief and bears a whiff of hypocrisy in its rejection of dogmatism with more dogmatism.

not believing in god is very different from blindly trusting christianity

How is atheism a "belief system?" Being an atheist doesn't necessarily imply anything else about what an individual believes about the way the universe works, despite its high correspondence with humanism, rationalism, etc. (I know atheists who are crazy woo-woo UFO & astrology freaks.)

I mean, what does "I am an atheist," by itself, tell you about a person in the same way that "I am a Catholic" or "I am a Seventh Day Adventist" does?

xpost The subtext of that statement, though, is, "I believe science trumps religion," which sounds pretty dogmatic.

Maybe, but I think there's more to it than that. It privileges evidence over . . . faith, I guess, which is a little more broad than "science trumps religion." (Which I think it does in terms of explaining How Stuff Works, but is irrelevant in terms of "what is dogma?" Is the theory of universal gravitation "dogmatic?"

xxpost Yep, it's a win win thing really

Science is by definition non- and even anti-dogmatic. People can cloak their dogma in scientific language, but that's not science.

I mean, what does "I am an atheist," by itself, tell you about a person in the same way that "I am a Catholic" or "I am a Seventh Day Adventist" does?

that he's right, obv ;-)

Maybe because I'm open to the possibility of being wrong?

So's anyone who's not stuffed with fluff -- but there I go being dogmatic again.

"I am an atheist" tells you as much about a person as "I am a theist" does

Problem with the Dawkins-style arguments are that they presuppose that scientific rationalism is the default position for evaluating the worth of all propositions. In other words, they're a scientific response to a religions argument.

And science and religion are not the same thing. They're two totally different ways of organizing truth and meaning. To dismiss religion from within the confines of a scientific construct is fine, but you have to accept that you're only speaking to/for other scientific thinkers.

By the same token, religious arguments against this or that scientific position (theory of evolution or whatever) may be convincing to members of the faithful, but they're essentially meaningless to scientific rationalists.

Now, I'm a scientific rationalist. I think god probably doesn't exist. It may be that some god-like something exists somewhere, but I don't see any good reason to suppose so. But, on the other hand, I'm not so intellectually arrogant to suppose that my way of conceptualizing reality/the universe is the ONLY valid way to do so. I'm willing to grant that there may be other avenues to the truth out there, and I'm perfectly happy to let people-who-are-not-me choose their own paths.

When they try to stick their grubby little god fingers in my social policy, I get pissed, but I don't see any point in calling them stupid or deluded. This is not "wishy-washy". It's an attempt to be as honest and as humble as possible about the limits of knowledge.

I mean, what does "I am an atheist," by itself, tell you about a person in the same way that "I am a Catholic" or "I am a Seventh Day Adventist" does?

You're biasing the answer by naming specific denominations. If your point is that there are lots of different kinds of atheists that are bound only by the fact that they don't believe in God, then I'd say there are lots of different kinds of believers (Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, voodoo spiritualists, etc.) that are bound only by the fact that they do. So what?

(Or what Curtis said.)

Curt1s otm. I voted no, because my opinion is 98% "I doubt it" and 2% "who gives a fuck." It just doesn't pass the "I don't believe in God" test.

Science is by definition non- and even anti-dogmatic.
-- kenan

sorry, FH. i misread you. major xp

kenan didn't write that quote above, but he does agree with it wholeheartedly.

Contenderizer way OTM.

(In both recent posts but especially the first.)

You're biasing the answer by naming specific denominations.

Fair enough.

If your point is that there are lots of different kinds of atheists that are bound only by the fact that they don't believe in God, then I'd say there are lots of different kinds of believers (Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, voodoo spiritualists, etc.) that are bound only by the fact that they do. So what?

Because if you're going to call atheism "dogmatic," you're going to have to point to what that dogma is. "God doesn't exist" isn't "dogma," unless we're reducing the definition to the point that any statement of opinion (or fact!) is "dogma." Which, in re this: "then I'd say there are lots of different kinds of believers . . . that are bound only by the fact that they do" ignores away that each of those groups DOES have dogma that's easily pointed to.

If the only dogma you can point to regarding atheism is "God doesn't exist," I think you're really reaching.

I mean, to say "atheism is just as dogmatic as religion" . . . you're either claiming that neither is particularly dogmatic, which is silly, as on a religion-by-religion basis there have been wars fought over this shit; or you're going to have to outline deeper dogma for atheism.

i like to make fun of religious people because i can. haha sorry i'm just kidding, i have a lot of religious friends.

science (as a social institution) is often intensely dogmatic.

No, science as a social institution is irrelevant. Social ain't got a thing to do with it. Science is too busy with biotech right now to chat much.

Now, science as a corporate institution that is just as subject to the whims of the economy and the good graces of those who pay their bunsen burner bills -- that's very worth considering.

just as subject as anyone, I guess I was going to say.

are people who think the Heaven's Gate cult held irrational beliefs also dogmatic?

To the people who contend that there's just enough doubt in their minds that they can't call themselves atheists - is this doubt just about the Christian god? How about Jehovah? Allah? Shiva? Zeus? Odin?

Ok maybe you're just open to the idea of "something else" and even though that's pretty wishy-washy, I am not completely closed to that idea (maybe 99.99% closed) - but for me that "something else" would be so far removed from any traditional conception of a deity that atheist is still the best description.

Imagine Hamish McDonald, a Scotsman, sitting down with his Glasgow Morning Herald and seeing an article about how the "Brighton Sex Maniac Strikes Again." Hamish is shocked and declares that "No Scotsman would do such a thing." The next day he sits down to read his Glasgow Morning Herald again and this time finds an article about an Aberdeen man whose brutal actions make the Brighton sex maniac seem almost gentlemanly. This fact shows that Hamish was wrong in his opinion but is he going to admit this? Not likely. This time he says, "No true Scotsman would do such a thing."
—Antony Flew, Thinking about Thinking, 1975

is it weird of me as an atheist to occasionally enjoy a good ritual/service? i've really really enjoyed some episcopal services. good stuff. i felt at peace, centered. very free of my mental burdens for a little bit. it was a beautiful thing to be a part of.

i grew up southern baptist, a group that was at least partly formed as a rejection of the more ritualistic denominations. of course they developed their own rituals to replace those they rejected. revisiting baptist services as an adult, i just find them ridiculous and crude. all art and beauty's been stripped. it's a real chore to sit through. truly lowest common denominator kinda shit.

my family is by and large a very faithful lot. several ministers (mostly baptist) in there, including my dad. i pretty much avoid this kinda talk with them. you have to pick your battles. and i would never try to convince them of anything. like their "walk with christ," it's a personal journey. they might think me a heathen, but so be it. they still love me.

no i'm the same way, i enjoy service.

there's a lot to a service besides the religion.

in threads like this it becomes clear very quickly that youre all using different dictionaries

^

Absolutely.

my science is too tight

xp For one, I'm using "dogma" interchangeably with "strongly held belief." Which is why I'm saying that atheists are as dogmatic as believers. Both strongly believe in their point of view. And that's why I thought that Mackro's rejoinder "how is agnosticism not dogmatic?" was a good question.

is it weird of me as an atheist to occasionally enjoy a good ritual/service?

Why would it be?

Also, from this thread it seems like a lot of people are on the same page in terms of their attitudes/beliefs, but some are more comfortable calling themselves atheists and some aren't. Personally I avoid the term because it does seem so absolute, and doesn't recognize the degree to which I am open to the possibility of the "something else" ledge mentions, even if such a thing is unlikely. It's sort of like how I can never imagine calling myself straight, despite dating a woman and being far more attracted to women than to men: it's just too limiting.

So, I'm a rather dogmatically rationalist atheist, but I really like gospel music.

I'm totally ok with the concept of atheism and all the supposed dogma it entails, I just want to self-apply the label for the same reason I don't get the word "Liberal" tattooed on my arm. Too Garofalo for my tastes.

No, science as a social institution is irrelevant. Social ain't got a thing to do with it. Science is too busy with biotech right now to chat much.
-- kenanYou seem to be joking to some extent or another, but I can't quite parse it. Biotech is hardly the only active scientific field at the moment. And science is social by nature (peer review, shared findings, competition). It's social in that it helps define the shared beliefs of all human societies, beliefs shared even by scientists themselves. And in that sense, science (scientific understandings, not the scientific method itself) can be dogmatic, hostile to threat or change.

I just DONT want to self-apply etc

keep doing that italics-instead-of-quotes thing

http://www.jxflagg.com/images/unicorn.jpg

xpost No, you're right.

But the idea of science in the popular imagibation or what have you is completely disconnected from what scientists actually do when they go to work every day, if only for the reason that most people don't and/or can't and/or won't understand it. So it's social in the confines of its own very insular community, but to the world at large, the curtain is drawn and wondrous objects magically appear from time to time. I can't even explain how a cathode ray tube works (in much detail), and that's a 50 year old product of science.

So you were saying "social institution" meaning "the insular scientific community," and I was thinking of it as a larger part of the social cloth, which, really, it isn't.

After years of dithering, it was a relief to just say, "I'm an atheist." I grew up in a moderately Catholic household and endured a Stephen Dedalus-esque moment of intense religiosity through most of my adolescence. I'm like Buñuel: I've too much of an atheist not to adore the ritual and romance.

i'm an atheist, yet i just can't get enough of this delicious manna! problem?

God and Science are mysteries to most people, but for very different reasons.

I just DONT want to self-apply etc

Oh, go on...I feel my side is losing out here because of semantics.

Taking sides... like getting into an argument between a Man U fan and an Arsenal fan when you don't give a shit about soccer.

Alfred, otm - after years of trying to sort out just what my personal belief system was, invariably in the context of one religious system or another, it was freeing to acknowledge that I don't believe in the existence of god, or gods.

yes. 100%

it's funny/depressing hearing people try to give some rational explanation as to why god exists.

here are some corkers: http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/GodProof.htm

ARGUMENT FROM SMUGNESS
(1) God exists.
(2) I don't give a crap whether you believe it or not; I have better things to do than to try to convince you morons.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM "THE MATRIX"
(1) We cannot prove that we don't live in a Matrix-like world.
(2) Therefore we cannot know reality.
(3) If reality is contingent, then everything is possible.
(4) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM POSSIBLE WORLDS
(1) If things had been different, then things would be different.
(2) That would be bad.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM MASS PRODUCTION
(1) Barbie dolls were created.
(2) If Barbie dolls were created, then so were trees.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

I voted no, coz like I'm not.

I propose a counter-poll, getting to it more directly.

Is there God and/or Gods?

* Yes
* No

ARGUMENT FROM "THE MATRIX"
(1) We cannot prove that we don't live in a Matrix-like world.
(2) Therefore we cannot know reality.
(3) If reality is contingent, then everything is possible.
(4) Therefore, God exists.

I don't get the leap in logic from #3 to #4 here.

Is there God and/or Gods?

* No

then DIIIIIIIIIIIEEE! ~~~~~~~ZZZZZZZZZ~~~~~ZZ~~Z#$%^$%^%#$#$##$#

I believe there could well be some sort of benign creator God who has just left us alone to get on with it. No heaven, no hell. I also think, that if people believe in something, then to them it exists, therefore I would 'yes' there is a God/Gods. Obviously, I got this idea from Marvel comics and their take on the Norse mythology in the Earth X series. Finally, I wouldn't actually mind if there was a loving all powerful God and life eternal, that'd be really cool, but probably wishful thinking.

Oily, how long does it take you to make a two-choice poll?

jaymc, he leap from #3 to #4 depends on conflating "everything is possible" with "everything is actual".

if you believe something, then it exists?

i don't think so.

that'd be nice, but no.

i believe i'm a rich bastard with nothing to do but make pop songs and sleep with beautiful men!!

doh nope, still in the office.

JAYMC: The argument is nonsensical 'cuz it's a comedy strawman designed to make other, legit arguments look bad. Which is kinda silly, 'cuz the non-joke "rational" arguments for the existence of god don't need the assistance. They look bad enough on their own.

I believe I am getting a blowjob right now.

Oh, hey.

God what the hell was I doing last night posting to this thread. I know better. I decided to Get Some Things Done, and I made lists and notes, and the lists got really long and complicated, and suddenly arguing about bloody buggery God seemed like a really fun option.

Grrrr.

http://www.raige.net/pictures/images/RaigeKeyboard.gif

I would just like to state for the record that bloody buggery God is not in my canon.

ack, I know what I mean.

JAYMC: The argument is nonsensical 'cuz it's a comedy strawman designed to make other, legit arguments look bad. Which is kinda silly, 'cuz the non-joke "rational" arguments for the existence of god don't need the assistance. They look bad enough on their own.

-- contenderizer, Wednesday, May 21, 2008 6:05 PM

well, these are flippant, pithy summations of big theist ideas like the argument from design or the argument from personal revelation. it's jokes!

bruv

bloody buggery God is not in my canon

LO, BUT HE IS VENGEFUL! REPENT!

Sorry, kkvsgz. I am too busy reviving cockroach threads to create that poll.

I used to be an atheist, but then I did a bunch of potent drugs over a long period of time, and became an agnostic who hopes that when I die and my conscious being becomes freed from the flesh, it becomes a part of a sentient all-knowing universe or something.

I chose 'yes' anyway, though. I used to have a lot of opinions about this - coming from a very religious family - but I really don't care enough to discuss it any more.

Yeah I can only have the discussion so many times before it becomes asphyxiating.

btw I didn't mean to insult this thread by posting that or anything. There are some good thoughts on this thread for sure. I just don't really have much to contribute to the subject any more.

Alfred, otm - after years of trying to sort out just what my personal belief system was, invariably in the context of one religious system or another, it was freeing to acknowledge that I don't believe in the existence of god, or gods.

But then you're sort of stuck in a atheist belief system, right? (Is that how you would say it in English?) And you have to build up everything from there which completely fucks me up. :-(

guess what bros we're all atheists about a lot of really improbable shit with no proof to it, and despite positing stoner hypotheses about how we could all be in a big snow globe or some such other horseshit it's kind of how we deal with the observable world - this doesnt mean we wouldnt believe in shit if suddenly there was evidence for it but right now im not seeing increased evidence for god-belief over, i dunno, reptilian humanoid conspiracy theory belief, beyond social acceptability of religion x wishful thinking

BUt there are eyewitness accounts of Tony Blair turning into a lizard and drinking virgin blood!

im not seeing increased evidence for god-belief over, i dunno, reptilian humanoid conspiracy theory belief, beyond social acceptability of religion x wishful thinking

exactly. i don't see how just cause some view is widely held, NOT holding it makes one *automatically* dogmatic.

i don't see how just cause some view is widely held, NOT holding it makes one *automatically* dogmatic.

-- Granny Dainger

totally agree, but as evidenced on this thread, people seem to equate atheism with being dogmatic about it.

fwiw i think that the world would be better if reptilian humanoid conspiracy theories were eradicated and feel the same way about theism

That does't surprise me at all.

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/a6/55/b509729fd7a05363c70ce010._AA240_.L.jpg

nobody's perfect

http://www.unoriginal.co.uk/comics/toon222god.jpg

but are lots of dogmatic atheists out there

Not really.

Wasn't a question. There ARE lots of dogmatic atheists out there. I've met tons of them. Hell, they've even made the bestseller list lately.

Maybe atheism is just a sign of our times (am I saying it right?)? Like religion once was and is now some outmoded belief system people cling on cause they don't know any better or just blindly accept it?
Thing that keep me awake... :-)

but proportionally, do you really think they're a large % of atheists? Enough to warrant people to be wary of labeling *themselves* atheist? A book called "I AM ATHEIST...BUT IT'S TOTALLY COOL IF YOU DIG THE LORD" wouldn't sell much.

seriously atheists are like what, 1% of the world's population?

religion ain't going anywhere

I have no idea why anyone would be wary of labeling themselves an atheist (presuming, you know, they were one). And while I imagine that most atheists are chill about it, I've known quite a few angry, butthurt, "all religion sucks" types. Enough to make me suspect that, since atheists are such a small percentage of the overall pop, a goodly chunk of 'em are uptight assholes about it.

What you say about marketable book titles is true, but it doesn't exactly refute my point. A lot of atheists do seem to enjoy buying and reading books about how religion is a rogue meme, a crime against humanity that should be eliminated.

Most statistics group secularists, nonbelievers, agnostics, and atheists into the same category, at about a billion people (China helps). In the U.S., that group is about 7%, with self-identified atheists at around 2%. Far fewer than the number of dogmatic Christians. I've never had an atheist knock on my door with pamphlets, though that would be hilarious (and probably dangerous for the pamphleteer).

Both the existence of God and the nonexistence of God have been used as justification for bad things (and good ones), I doubt spreading disbelief would necessarily lead to a better world.

Contenderizer, your argument from experience doesn't support your point, so your point hardly needs extra refuting. I guess we can say there are "many" or "a lot" of asshole atheists, but those aren't very firm numbers you're using, and they pale in comparison to asshole relgious people (at least in the U.S.). Possibly they are "butthurt" because they are frequently baited into stupid debates with dumbshit Christies if they mention they don't believe in God?

I think the 2 biggest factors that cause people to be dogmatic butthurt atheists are 1) age. seems like mellow on over time 2) the current climate in the US where other people's perverted takes on their religion is foisted onto society at-large. If religious folks, particularly the ones invested with political and administrative power, were peace-loving, charity-giving, tolerant people, I can't see many atheists being dicks about their opinion.

Contenderizer, your argument from experience doesn't support your point, so your point hardly needs extra refuting.

--Gavin

Granny - Sure, I agree that relgious zealotry and intolerance of difference probably help make atheists (especially young atheists) grudgeful. But that's neither here nor there. I wasn't saying butthurt atheists aren't justifed. Just that they exist in large numbers. 'Cuz they do.

I doubt spreading disbelief would necessarily lead to a better world.

I also doubt it would turn us all into L'Etranger and we'd suddenly forget about any reasons to smile and have babies and take care of each other.

A lot of atheists do seem to enjoy buying and reading books about how religion is a rogue meme, a crime against humanity that should be eliminated.

-- contenderizer, Wednesday, May 21, 2008 4:22 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i know i do

believing stuff without any evidence is never a good idea, that's all i'm dogmatic about

i dont care if its yahweh, wiccan spirits, or wmds in iraq

also, the positive or negative effects on religion in the world have absolutely zero bearing on the question of whether god exists and i generally avoid using that argument when im talking to religionists

the positive or negative effects on religion in the world have absolutely zero bearing on the question of whether god exists

I cannot DISPROVE God's existence, and as was pointed out, that's enough for me to lose every argument I could ever forward in that direction. Which I think is a failure of human imagination on a sweeping global scale, but I'm not going to go around trying to convince people of that particular thing, because that's just my opinion. On a person-by-person basis, I don't care if you believe in God any more than I care if you bite your toenails when no one's around. Fine. I couldn't give one flat fart.

But then there's this Rogues Gallery of Really Crazy People out there, and they run countries and they kill people... I'm boring myself with this crap. It's so obvious.

I cannot DISPROVE God's existence, and as was pointed out, that's enough for me to lose every argument I could ever forward in that direction.

uh what
why is the burden of proof on you? you can't disprove a lot of things dude, that doesn't mean you have to admit they exist

I am aware of that.

o

Ban Catholics from Africa. That would make the world a nicer place almost immediately.

Maybe we don't need a god, we need a mod.

our mod is an awesome mod

no you di'int! i'm excited for results

Here's my thing about the "wouldn't fix anything" argument -- yeah, people have a little dark murderous glint in their eyes, a lot of them do, sure. Maybe it's innate. But we have this amazing ability to tame ourselves, and while one of the arguments *for* organized religion is that it does exactly that, anchors us emotionally, gives us a built-in community, etc, it also carries a heavy burden of Time and Ritual and Tradition and Crazy Shit Your Parents Told You and whatnot. The thinking of the nun who tells dying people that God hates condoms is not far off from the cracker who believes that the Confederate flag is a proud thing to wave at people -- it's clinging to something you believe to be beyond yourself, and carrying that special feeling with you in your actions until Oops! you're doing something hideously ugly.

And science can do that, too, sometimes. God knows it has given us some horrible things. But that's because we're people and we fuck up, not because the whole belief system has been engineered to never change.

The fact that people are enlessly capable of doing "hideously ugly" shit with their seemingly good ideas has nothing to do with religion. People use religion as an excuse for all types of shit, but people are awful damn good at finding excuses. In that sense, religion is like any tool: inert until put to a specifit use. I'm sure that, in the absence of religion, people who wanted to fuck each other over would come up with something.

I.e., what kenan said.

we did this before and ILX was like 85% "nope, don't believe in god."

Must have been a weird poll title.

Yeah, I'm curious how that'll work out. The results, I mean. Bcz I get a feeling there'll be a lot of "no" but I am more curious about the 'yes.' A lot of circles of friends I've been in, it's been kind of a shock when someone says they believe in god. Not that they get mistreated or mocked or whatevs, but it's always a surprise reveal. So maybe more of my buds wld say 'yes' in the option of anonymity? Or maybe we are all just godless.

Except when my boyfriend told me he believed in Jesus about two years ago and I had a crying jag/panic attack.

"not because the whole belief system has been engineered to never change."

religion changes quite a bit though. right along side cultural changes, it does. along every step of the way, superstrata is there justifying our gut moves. people are afraid that if their boys are gay, we'll be weak and get destroyed... but NO... it's hot man sex and destroying marriage that they complain about because they've got ritualistic/tradition/tabooculture to back up their gut.

even outside that, theology changes all the time. typically speaking, christian theology is about one step behind popular culture. i can't speak for other religions. but look at the increasing discussion of post-modernism in churches now. it's happening just as most academics wouldn't bother to be talking about that anymore. and it cuts right back to slavery debates or bigger the birth of protestantism... and even further back to the establishment of biblical cannon, etc etc.

it's a work in progress. hello... most interpretation is just that... exegetical... we bring our baggage in, mingle it with the text and whallah, "it's means JELLO SHOTS FOR COMMUNION!"

theology is our man made interpretation. it's our dim view of the greater whole truth ... the physical cosmology which may or may not include an actual God in the mix. if God's in there, he's deeper than the bullshit preached every sunday (or whenever's appropriate).

Except when my boyfriend told me he believed in Jesus about two years ago and I had a crying jag/panic attack.

-- Abbott, Wednesday, 21 May 2008 22:00 (27 minutes ago) Link

omg i would have too

He doesn't really, anymore.

if we're talking about absolute atheism ("i am certain that there is no intelligent higher power") then i vote no, but if we're talking about just "i do not actively believe in god(s)" then i vote yes.

I'm sure that, in the absence of religion, people who wanted to fuck each other over would come up with something.

no doubt but isn't the point that religion creates a scenario where people who wouldn't otherwise want to fuck people, constantly fuck people over?

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

mhmm

no doubt but isn't the point that religion creates a scenario where people who wouldn't otherwise want to fuck people over, constantly fuck people over?

Except for divisions of wealth/power/resources, of course. Those are the REAL reasons people fuck each other over.

Except for divisions of wealth/power/resources, of course. Those are the REAL reasons people fuck each other over.

Right. No religion ever played a part in *that* part of history. Nope, never. Nothing but love. ;)

religion changes quite a bit though... it's a work in progress.

I suppose you got me on a technicality there, but it would be extraordinarily disingenuous to suggest that religions change because they are such pliable, adaptive institutions. Yes, of course they change -- under pain of death. Don't we all. There are progressive religions, and I know there are some exceptions, but typically they change at roughly the rate that trees grow knots around barbed wire fences. Saying that they are "about one step behind popular culture" is not the most impressive boast I have ever heard, either. "Popular culture" is still trying to find a way to let boys kiss each other without angina. So they're slower than that? That's the fat kid in gym class, man.

Not only am I an atheist, I'm an ELITIST!:)

yes. i assert my superiority by reference to the advantages of my athe.

I think we've picked up some believers since the last poll.

Or at least some people who are not prepared to deny the possible existence of a something for fear that they might not get invited to the after death party.

I would not want to belong to any after-death party that would not have me for a member.

Love hedge-betting beliefs. :)

Actually I don't so much.

Someone in a church talk once said, "When the boat's sinking, the atheists are always the first ones to pray to God!" I do not understand this statement. Mainly I want to know why they shoved a bunch of atheists onto a boat...?

i hate it when i'm like really upset about something and i start whispering "please god, please." remnants of my grandmother's insanity.

My mom has similar: 'everyone's a Catholic in the Emergency Room.' NB she is not a member of any church.

Oh my gosh how will I know which saint's day it is if I'm in the ER?

Saints pocket calender. You can grab one in the emergency room gift shop. They keep those stocked, because they know that everyone is a Catholic in the emergency room.

Last time I was in the emergency room, I not only became Catholic, but also Mexican. Took days to wear off. I still have a box of $1 Jesus candles somewhere.

Haha, did you force your female cousins to have a lard-smearing tamal-making day?

ew

'everyone's a Catholic in the Emergency Room.'

In pr0n too!

(friends tell me)

oh geez

foxholes, too.
i think these old saws work against religion, actually. doesn't it show that people just want something to cling to in the face of impending death?

ya

All I know is, I'm sweatin' like a whore in church.

I think we've picked up some believers since the last poll.

Non-atheists =/= believers

It's one of those things that doesn't at all matter to me if it's fake or not because it is so perfect that it's basically true, to me.

-- Abbott, Friday, May 23, 2008 3:56 PM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

It's perfect, perfect, perfect either way. If something makes my heart completely soar, its reality is only negligibly important.

-- Abbott, Friday, May 23, 2008 3:56 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

True even with little stuff. I once heard that every member of Devo are the same height-- Is it true? I dunno, but either way what an neat rumor. Gets a smile out of me. la la-la.

-- RabiesAngentleman, Friday, May 23, 2008 4:17 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Bahaha, if only there was a religion based on a 13-year-old boy getting hookers to play Xbox with him.

^^^ unitarianism

It feels too much like group counseling, their meetings.

I've always been curious about them. Skeptical, though. Sounds more like a club than a religion.

My parents were Unitarians for a while. Seemed like a boring liberals hang out on Sunday club.

I liked the Unitarian church that my parents took me to in high school, after we all swore off Catholicism. But I think it's the sort of thing where it's very much dependent on the minister and the congregation. I went to another Unitarian service in college, which was out of state, and it sort of rubbed me the wrong way. Also, even at the place my parents went, they discouraged anyone under 18 from attending the main service and had Sunday school instead. I went for a couple weeks, and we were actually assigned to read Catcher in the Rye, lol (which we were reading that year in high school anyway) -- so I went back to the main congregation. But yeah, it's the kind of place where you can get away with "A reading from Robert Fulghum's Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten."

My parents went to the Unitarian church for a while but got mad and left when they skipped Easter in their attempt to include all other types of spring holidays. They're less religious than I am, but attached more to their cultural background, I think.

Unbelievers think that skepticism is their special virtue, the key virtue believers lack. Bolstered by bestselling authors, they see the skeptical and scientific mind as muscular thinking, which the believer has failed to develop. He could bulk up if he wished to, by thinking like a scientist, and wind up at the “agnosticism” of a Dawkins or the atheism of a Dennett—but that is just what he doesn’t want, so at every threat to his commitments he shuns science.

That story is almost exactly the opposite of the truth.

Men of Truth

The story is right about virtue: The smoothly muscled skeptical-scientific mind is a gorgeous thing—picture the Apollo of Olympia, a poised young athlete in a throng of centaurs, passion-driven half-men. Science is a virtue: a perfection of the human creature gifted with a mind, a use of the mind that, says Aquinas, “perfects the speculative intellect for the consideration of truth.” But to be “men of truth,” in the words of Exodus, is to be vulnerable to truth.

Richard Dawkins speaks as a genuine scientist when he insists, “What I care about is what’s true; I want to know, is there a God in the universe or not?” Perfect. Truth is awaiting you, with its painful grip.

But on the question around which Dennett, Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Grayling, Onfray, and voices still to come are now springing up—the question of God—the successor of Apollo is not the atheist or the agnostic. Both lack the great virtue of the scientist, the skeptical virtue. Here they are the hankerers after comfort, the scrawny ones who prefer their own commitments over reason.

No matter how excellent these thinkers might be on other questions, on this question they nimbly shift their allegiance: Between the life they like and the demands of vocation (submission to the question), they choose their lives—ironically, the very failing for which they ridicule believers. A seeker of truth has to go where the truth can be found, and to go on until it is found, and both the atheist and the agnostic are early quitters.

Dawkins is right that “the question of the existence of God or gods, supernatural beings, is a scientific question,” straight from the mind hungry for truth. On that question, the path of the scientist was shown to us at the dawn of modernity by a consummate scientist: Blaise Pascal. Here was a scientific mind that brushed aside the medieval proofs of God (which did nothing for him) to attack the question anew.

People may think it just an odd coincidence that the author of the Pensées, a work of apologetics, also came up with Pascal’s law, on the transmission of pressure in confined liquids, but one mind seeking one thing generated both. Pascal was a lifelong seeker of truth: “I should . . . like to arouse in man the desire to find truth, to be ready, free from passion, to follow it wherever he may find it,” he says in Pensée 119. But the scientists who have asked Pascal’s question after him are rarely scientist enough for that.

They do not follow truth wherever they may find it. On the topic they have promised to illuminate, they are the defenders of Ptolemy in the age of Galileo: resisters and avoiders of scientific thought inflexibly wedded to their own commitments; and it is not hard to show this.

The Skeptical Theist

There are skeptical theists; Pascal was one. Skepticism and theism go well together. By a “skeptic” I mean a person who believes that in some particular arena of desired knowledge we just cannot have knowledge of the foursquare variety that we get elsewhere, and who sees no reason to bolster that lack with willful belief.

“Believing is not something you can decide to do as a matter of policy,” as Dawkins says—though it is odd that he does so in a discussion of Pascal, who, like him, is a skeptic. A complete misunderstanding of Pascal, however, is crucial to the way that Dawkins and every one of his fellows (past and future) always think.

Evidence is just not available to demonstrate the existence of God, said Pascal, who called himself one of those creatures who lack the humility that makes a natural believer. In that, he was of our time: We are pretty much all like that now. Three hundred and fifty years ago he laid out our situation for us: Modern man confronts the question of God from the starting point of skepticism, the conviction that there is no conclusive physical or logical evidence that the God of the Bible exists.

“I have wished a hundred times over that, if there is a God supporting nature, nature should unequivocally proclaim him, and that, if the signs in nature are deceptive, she should suppress them altogether”—but nature prefers to tease, so she “presents to me nothing which is not a matter of doubt” (429). “We desire truth and find in ourselves nothing but uncertainty” (401). “We are . . . incapable of knowing . . . whether he is” (418). This is where the modern person usually starts in his assault on the question, Is God real or imaginary?

This is base camp, above the tree-line of convincing reasons and knock-down arguments, at the far edge of things we can kick and see, and it is all uphill from here. Thus, it is astounding how many Dawkinses and Dennetts, undecideds and skeptical nay-sayers—that sea of “progressive” folk who claim to “think critically” about religion and either “take theism on” or claim they are “still looking”—who have not reached the year 1660 in their thinking. They almost never pay attention to what the skeptic Pascal said about this enquiry.

Instead, the dogmatic reflex, ever caring for human comfort, has flexed and decided the question already, has told them what to believe in advance of investigation and rushed them back to the safety of life as usual.

The modern thinking person who rightly touts the virtues of science—skepticism, logic, commitment to evidence—must possess the lot. But agnostics are not skeptical, half the atheists are not logical, and the rest refuse to go where the evidence is. None measures up in these modern qualities to Pascal.

A Hidden God?

Pascal says that from base camp we must try to find a non-dogmatic route of assault upon the question. Think about it logically, he says. If we do not know that God even exists, we hardly know how he behaves. So we cannot begin this ascent with any dogmatic presumption about his behavior.

Maybe, if he exists, God would show himself directly to our senses. But maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe he would hide from us—maybe he is a Deus absconditus, Pascal says, following Isaiah 45: “Truly, thou art a God who hidest thyself.” What evidence do we have by which to rule that out? We can’t be dogmatic, can’t say that God is this way or that way: Everything possible is possible.

But we have, in fact, already tested one hypothesis about how God behaves: that he shows himself directly to our senses. That is what got us up here past the tree-line in the first place. We now have evidence for a conclusion that all our fellow seekers of truth ought to draw: Either God does not exist or he exists but does not show himself to our senses.

Our skepticism rejects the likelihood that things we can see will resolve our doubts; that is progress already made. The Humean idea so nicely put by Carl Sagan—that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”—was hardly worth resurrecting, given that it was passé before Hume was in diapers. “If this religion boasted that it had a clear sight of God and plain and manifest evidence of his existence, it would be an effective objection to say that there is nothing to be seen in the world which proves him. . . . But . . . on the contrary it says that men are in darkness. . .” (427).

A hundred years earlier, Pascal had already ruled empirical theism a dead end, a foolish hope for what we ought by now to know we were not going to get: clear material evidence of clearly immaterial being. By 1660 there were only two options left: Either God does not exist or he is not a gift to our senses.

Pascal the skeptic has ruled out a fruitless path, the path to God via logic or concrete evidence: the easy route to the summit, sought for centuries but never found. The only way forward is up from where we are, onto the icy slopes out past the limit of concrete evidence. If that is possible.

At this point, of course, the venture is not looking especially promising. The mind is made for hard evidence. It gets traction on rough ground, but what stretches before us is sheer ice (minds are not issued with crampons). Is there a way forward?

That is now the question. If we care about the truth more than we care about some favored means of data-collection, we need to discover whether there is any other way, up here where the air is thin and the ice treacherous, that a rational person could settle the question of God.

The Instrumental Heart

When the smart scientist of the seventeenth century was asked, “Is clear water pure?” he did not go with his gut and answer “yes” or “no.” “The naked eye says yes,” he answered, “but is there an instrument better than the naked eye with which to see?” We need to listen to the scientist who claims that there is, and that scientist is Pascal.

That instrument is the heart. “It is the heart which perceives God, and not the reason” (424). “The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know” (423). Pascal’s reasons of the heart are meant to take over from an intellect that operates on hard evidence but has run out of it. “The heart has its order, the mind has its own, which uses principles and demonstrations. The heart has a different one” (298).

We are not talking here about feelings, which love to cheat us. Pascal says that the heart convinces, makes us rightly sure. “Demonstration is not the only instrument for convincing us” (821).

Many of his readers miss this, and so see him as preparing us to leap—but conviction is not a leap. Dawkins takes him to say that when the evidence runs out, you just throw in your lot with belief in God, because that is logically prudent; he credits Pascal with “the ludicrous idea that believing is something you can decide to do.” But the heart, Pascal is saying, is not a springboard to choice; it charts a path to conviction about God. It is not all done for us by logic and by sight. There is still the reasoning of the heart.

The scientist Pascal claims to know a route that will take us over the ice to convincing discovery. It is the refusal to test his thinking that betrays the faith of atheists and agnostics.

No no, they will say, point to something material on which to base belief and then I will look at it. “Give us solid evidence!” They insist that every belief about reality must be accepted on the basis of evidence (“experience or logic”). On what basis do they accept that? Evidence? But there is none.

There is no evidence at all that everything reality might contain can be apprehended by this faculty or that one, this instrument or that. There is no reason at all to pick a horse, except as a matter of hope or “mood and attitude” (the impulses, atheists explain, of religion, by contrast with science).

But atheists and agnostics pick. They commit in the absence of evidence. They never fail to stew at “the weary old canard that atheism is ‘a faith proposition,’” but “commitment to a belief in the absence of evidence supporting that belief” is their own definition of faith, and that is what they do.

The Dissenter’s Heart

If belief on the basis of senses or logic is the one rational option, why does the dissenter not get all his beliefs that way? On other questions—in fact, in his most fundamental commitments, in his credo—he does believe without evidence, since there is no evidence to support the belief that the divine must knock at the doors of eye and mind.

He ceases to care about what is logically possible because he has flatly refused to accept that it is possible. And how has he done this? He has denied it in his heart. He has answered the question of God first—not by recourse to evidence but by consulting his heart, which has turned in on itself, which seeks no God. “He hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved” (Psalm 10). Because he simply “does not buy it,” he will not engage the logic by which it can be bought, and in that disordered posture he cannot unclench his heart and face the disturbing and painful logic that leaves the possibility of God open.

He could do so, though. And looking then into his heart, he might find that he wished to climb with Pascal, out onto the ice, making “every effort to seek [the truth] everywhere” (427), trying everything that all who have found the evidence advise.

He could, but he does not. Instead, he has not a moment to waste on what it might mean to fail to discover a God who might exist, because he doesn’t really care what it would mean, and he doesn’t care because all that he can picture is a world without God. He wholly inhabits question-begging. His logic is sketchy and his logos is lame: His rational power of imagining has atrophied from selective use in the service of his pleasure.

The Mask of the Unbeliever

Who, then, is this person? He is not a skeptic at all (someone who, for want of solid reasons, refuses to commit)—he commits. He is not a lover of reason over passion—he chooses the possibilities he cares about because those are the ones he likes. He is not a skeptic who in the absence of evidence withholds belief—he is a believer.

You cannot even call him selectively non-committal, committing to some reasoning of his own but refraining from ours—for the instrument he is using is the very one he disparages. He denies Pascal’s reasons that do what hard intellect cannot . . . on the strength of reasons of the heart that push religion off his path, as reason fails to do.

The final self-description this character offers is this: That without evidence he cannot believe, but now we must kick away this last support of his identity, too. It is not true at all that he cannot believe without evidence; he has already done so, having arrived at his commitment to evidence without evidence. Evidence is not his only vehicle of locomotion, and he should admit it. He should notice what his heart is already doing for him, when he lets it.

But the chance is that he does not want to. He has accomplished by his heart the thing he wants, which is to free himself from further thinking, and he does not want to know how he got there. (The entire text of Pensée 886 is, “Skeptic for obstinate.”)

He could very well believe other things on the self-same basis, but he does not want to. He likes the world that he has installed himself in, and that is what tells us who he is: a lover—a lover of his own life, a believer in the path that his heart has charted for him, a believer in the world under the sun.

ethan you're gonna spend too much time reading these dudes and become one of em, take it from me man, I spent all last month reading up on NOI and now I don't even feel dressed without my bow tie

coining a phrase just for ethan: "TLDR Bomb"

why a militant agnosticism is the least anybody can do for the kids' sake:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/04/us/04evolution.html?ref=us

In a Star Trek movie a prophet led the Starship Enterprise to the Forbidden Region to meet 'God'. This god drew them there because he needed a starship. Commander Kirk doubted the entity was really God and asked this rhetorical question, "What need does God have for a Starship?"

The 'god' was angered. Kirk was thrown to the ground. Kirk got up and ask again, "Excuse me, but what need does God have for a starship?

The angered 'god' knocked Kirk to the floor again. Kirk got up again and asked a third time. For emphasis the question was asked three times. There was no answer and this was taken as proof that since God obviously does not need a spaceship, that any person claiming a need for a starship was obviously not God.

The message delivered to the movie audience is , if any personality did come from outer space in a spaceship it certainly would not be God, for "what need does God have for a Starship?"

But what would you do if Jesus returned in a spaceship? Is it possible?

Here is a hymn by the famous Handel. It is dated 1748. That's two hundred and fifty years ago. That is way before airplanes, rockets and our modern marvels. It is still found in some church hymn books such as the Lutheran Book of Worship. It is still sung at some church services. You may have sang the words to this song.

http://www.moseshand.com/images/bright1.gif

And have the bright immensities
Received our risen Lord,

Where light-years frame the Pleiades
And point Orion's sword?

Do flaming suns his footsteps trace
Through corridors sublime,

The Lord of interstellar space
And Conqueror of time?

The heaven that hides Him from our sight
Knows neither near nor far:

An altar candle sheds its light
As surely as a star;

And where His loving people meet
To share the gift divine,

There stands He with unhurrying feet,
And Heaven's splendors shine.

Rhetorical Questions:

What are the bright immensities?

How did Handel know about light-years?

Why did Handel call Jesus Christ, "The Lord of interstellar space and conquer of time?"

A heaven 'that knows neither near nor far'. Is that travel in hyper-space as in the Star Wars movies?

Space Travel in the Bible
How Jesus left.

Acts 1:9 And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.

How Jesus will return

Acts 1:10 -11 And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; 11 Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.

is Jesus Xenu?

I know close reading and rebuttal of these pieces is hardly necessary but

Here is a hymn by the famous Handel. It is dated 1748 ... How did Handel know about light-years?

Even more incredibly, how did Handel intuit the words of a poem written by Howard Chandler Robbins in 1931?!?!?!

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/06/04/cathedral.sex/index.html

"an outrage of notable proportions which bespeaks unutterable squalor."

two people loving eachother... hmm. doesn't sound so wrong.

"We are atheists and for us, having sex in church is like doing it any other place."

I call bullshit. If it were just like any other place, they wouldn't have been in there. It's only exciting because it's knowingly disrespectful.

Churches are kind of cold and hard and uncomfortable, why would anyone choose to have sex in there other than because it's knowingly disrespectful?

... as the choirboy said to the bishop

My point exactly!

He added that a special ceremony would be held to purify the confession box.

I think probably a kleenex would be better.

That box would have heard plenty of sex talk before this I bet.

And plenty of "bashing of the bishop" from priests during esp. fruity confessions I'll warrant

Has anybody seen Julia Sweeney's 'Letting Go of God' on Showtime?

Really enjoying John Safran's Sunday night Triple J show. Dude needs his own thread.

Kinda feel like i woulda definitely voted 'atheist' for most of my life, but in the last year or two that has changed entirely. I think my definition of God just keeps expanding, sometimes it seems to encompass anything that can and/or cannot be true about the universe and reality. If God is perfect and infinite he must embody not just everything good and true, but everything bad and false and - since I'm a fan of Schroedinger - both and neither as well all at the same time. At this point in my thinking I could simply say that the material universe exists only after I have perceived it, that it is a subjective quantum-style creation. Well if God is everywhere and in all things then he surely must be in me and shit that makes total sense then because IM CREATING THE UNIVERSE THAT I EXPERIENCE!!

It reminds me of this thing I read about one of Crowley's methods, where he begins to invoke a deity and keeps on it, amping up devotion and bhakti and concentration and embodiment of this deity, chanting and dressing up and immersing in the rituals for this deity. And once you have got to the point where you experience contact/a very real vision of the deity, then you start back over with a totally different deity. The purpose is to enhance your control of your willpower, to beef up your creative energies and hone them. You could say this deity is only a figment of your mind, a hallucination you experience after focusing so much time and effort on it. But really you could say that about the everyday reality we live in as well...

But if the definition of atheist is 'lack of belief in a personal (likely Christian) deity' then I might still be that. Then again I've come to realize that if JHVH exists and truly interacted with ancient Hebrews, they would naturally be describing Him in human terms because they were not exactly privileged elites who had been initiated into the mysteries of and abstract mysticism. You try and describe the workings of an infinite consciousness, it ain't easy.

i dunno y'all, the universe is a mysterious place, i'm not ruling out anything

i am an atheist but i hate the whole richard dawkins new atheism pish. Not just because the tone can be tiresome and it's preaching to the converted, but also becuase i don't really subscribe to its worship of rationalism - no one lives their life in an at all rational manner and no-one would want to.

in a way i'm agnostic - i accept that i am completely fallible, so that must apply to my ideas on God as much as anything else - but i have an innate and strong feeling that there is nothing benevolent or all encompassing in the universe. I was raised catholic but doubted as soon as i could even begin to think about religion in any way at all, i was 5 or 5 iirc. The moment that confirmed for me that i didn't believe in god was when i was 11 and i saw someone die for the first, and so far only, time. A maybe 16 or 17 year old stranger drove a moped into a tree when i was on holiday with my family in Rome and after that i felt that my suspicion that there was nothing orderly or good about the universe as a whole was confirmed.

The irony that i reject superstitious, subjective, irrational religion on the grounds of feelings is not lost on me.

5 or 6, lol.

Sometimes I wish I believed in God. Like when I found out John Donne had a portrait done of him as he thought he'd look when he was resurrected at the Apocalypse, so he could hang it on his wall as a memento mori.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f0/Donne-shroud.png/453px-Donne-shroud.png

That's a cool thing to do that necessitates a belief in God/Christianity for it to be anything other than just a weirder-than-average portrait. But, ultimately, I'm too angered by religious paradoxes to just accept them. Like, I think I'm an atheist because I can't handle cognitive dissonance in the slightest.

Yes, atheist. Tried not to be once when I was 12-13 to get a boy to like me, didn't work (he liked me but I just couldn't get into God). Anyone else raised to *not* believe in a higher power or deity? That said, I did have a pretty spiritual upbringing (buddhist).

Was Richard Dawkins the one who said rather than "the creator" being a watch maker, "it" is a blind watch maker? That makes sense to me although I don't think there could be an "it".

Answer to OP: no, I don't have it in me to be an atheist. I'm fine with the magical-thinking aspect...actually I think I prefer a world where some things are unknowable, mystical, all that jazz.

It's the nitpicking ORTHODOXY of organized religion that I can't stand. I just can't imagine why I should care that any human authority throughout history or the present would award themselves the authority to proscribe the beliefs of others. Or me. Especially me!

all the antitheists in the house throw your hands up

I think the orthodoxy is useful because over time people found that certain rituals, certain thoughts, certain actions help program the mind in a way to put it in this spiritual state. You could reach a spiritual state sans orthodoxy but it's sort of a proven tool - to the converted - and this is why they want to share it so badly.

throw your hand in the ay-er
if you eschew prayer

I dunno, I am in awe of so many things even while being an atheist. I forget how lightning is formed every time I watch a thunderstorm (this seriously happened to me, like, yesterday. It was all like boooom! and I said to myself "wow, how does that even happen? Oh wait, right." But lightning is still kind of mysterious because how on earth do clouds get their charge anyway? I guess everything has an electrical charge and maybe clouds are just super unstable because it's all this water vapor hustling around? Is this completely inane?).

The idea that the universe has always existed and will always exist, that it expands infinitely, and that every thing is made up of and connected to everything else is pretty magical to me.

I know, and in an intellectual sense it's orthodoxy that interests me, because the Evangelical movement pretty much washed their hands of literacy and reading comprehension in the '70s with the rise of the Moral Majority and I still kind of find the idea of "respecting tradition and putting any stock in the writings of the great minds of history" to be a charming novelty.

But woe to him or her that actually BELIEVES any of it. Ritual is a great tool but I'm pretty sure there are several hundred aphorisms about a good tool turning in the hand of its user.

xp to Adam

dunno, I am in awe of so many things even while being an atheist. I forget how lightning is formed every time I watch a thunderstorm (this seriously happened to me, like, yesterday. It was all like boooom! and I said to myself "wow, how does that even happen? Oh wait, right."

but surely most theists are ok with "that sort of science", though?

(I hope?)

Hmm, atheist, with the added belief that female followers of Abrahamic religions might as well be turkeys voting for Thanksgiving. Have mellowed in that I don't mind other people's religion if they're not using it to enable bigotry, sexism or the control of some other person's behaviour by threatening them with Hell.

Anecdotally, all the people around me who went Evangelical in the '70s were not very bright, with stupid parents to boot, and were as scared of a three-syllable word as THE DEBBIL himself.

female followers of Abrahamic religions might as well be turkeys voting for Thanksgiving

haha yeah :/. i don't really think of myself as an atheist and am close to many female followers of Abrahamic religions, so this is a thought i usually only give vent to privately but yeah.

i was always p. neutral on this but i have been getting like militantly atheist in the last year or so

but surely most theists are ok with "that sort of science", though?

Science & religion are alot closer than popular (political) opinion seems to think. Big Bang first theorized by a Catholic priest and all. Increasingly science describes a universe that is more and more magical, interconnected, unseen, etc. The more dogmatic, mythical stories in the Bibles of the world may be incompatible with archeological/geological findings, but I think the spiritual & cosmological makeup of the universe (particularly in Eastern religions) tend to benefit immensely from scientific study.

If science directly contradicts the bible then its wrong (evolution)

If it wasn't something people who wrote the bible had any concept of (gravity) no big problems.

obv some religious people accept evolution and some don't that's the problem with religion multiple grey areas and interpretation means its not really comparable with science apart from for extremists.

I think there's enough leeway in Xtianity to take what you want if you personally are able to reimagine it without the patriarchal elements. But it's also possible that the foundations of the language and theology are too much based in patriarchy/male power to ever be truly gender-value-neutral and still call it Christianity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mmskXXetcg

female followers of Abrahamic religions might as well be turkeys voting for Thanksgiving

love this. yup.

i'm not a fan of dawkins-style militant atheism but i'm way way less of a fan of organised religion making its presence felt in my life, and the latter's rather more dangerous, so railing against dawkins seems a bit wrong-headed in a "fight the real enemy" way

....and women wonder how come they fall into abusive relationships, convinced that there is some redemption to be had for being involved. The major western religions pretty much show me how that happens, whatever the religion.

I like being atheist *but* it's no fun unless you've read the Bible, at least, just to put the wind up the annoying end of the God-botherer brigade. Any human being that's ever tried to emotionally blackmail me using their imaginary divine friend has gotten a big earful of 'no, actually you're the blasphemer here, trying to say what God wants or needs from me, a third party, to suit what you happen to need or want from me yourself'.

I'm Irish Roman Catholic (IIRC)

But that's a background as opposed to practicing. I'm happy enough that nothing happens for a reason, that there are basic constants in this particular universe, and that there is no overarching consciousness controlling it all.

I can dig Dawkins as a science writer, and I kinda enjoy that he's out there pissing off organised religions, but I think he'd be better off chilling out with some bones in a lab somewhere doing some actual work.

Are there any mainstream rappers outed as atheists?

I like being atheist *but* it's no fun unless you've read the Bible

yeah! i'm an atheist/anti-religion because i was raised in a religious household with all the attendant crap that comes with that, but i'm so glad i do have that knowledge of xtianity and its workings

Without god how would rappers win Grammys?

oh, mainstream

haha I'm gonna post this anyway

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ii1dtebj24M

amazing track, mebbe they got personal religions tho

I can't think of any public figure atheist who happens to be black, interestingly enough.

this will end well

I'm Irish Roman Catholic (IIRC)

But that's a background as opposed to practicing. I'm happy enough that nothing happens for a reason, that there are basic constants in this particular universe, and that there is no overarching consciousness controlling it all.

i like Dara Ó Briain's thing about being catholic, which i totally agree with.

"I’m staunchly atheist, I simply don’t believe in God. But I’m still Catholic, of course. Catholicism has a much broader reach than just the religion. I’m technically Catholic, it’s the box you have to tick on the census form: ‘Don’t believe in God, but I do still hate Rangers.’"

I feel like Obama's religiosity is a marriage of convenience, and still count him on the team.

also (and I have really no reason to think this, but I do) I suspect Kanye is secretly agnostic.

there is no overarching consciousness controlling it all.

To me, this is like denying your own role in the perception & creation of this quantum dance of energy we call reality.

suspect your quantum dance and Darraghmac's quantum dance aren't the same?

I'm Irish Roman Catholic (IIRC)

that's Irate Irish Roman Catholic

I think Mrs V's Catholicism is much as darragh describes. I self-identify as atheist because non serviam, basically, plus all the world's established faiths are so obviously human inventions.

Science is a human invention too.

Uh, science doesn't claim not to be. /No Dawkins

my favourite of them all (along with red pepper hummus) xp

yuck. waste of perfectly good hummus.

not to negate your personal hummus experience, of course.

god dawkins sucks so bad

Prefer Jalapeno or that North African one Sainsbury's do

was talking about militant atheist evolutionary biologists there

Are there any mainstream rappers outed as atheists?

― Philip Nunez, Monday, June 7, 2010 12:32 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"I run with a thievin squad/and none of us believe in god" - Big L

In the last year or so, I've really been opening up to faith in God, however. It's the beginning of a journey and I'm still shaky on a lot of it, but it's there. Just to clarify my "no" vote as not being agnostic.

― kingkongvsgodzilla, Wednesday, May 21, 2008 5:39 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Egad, what a weird time in my life. I was doing heavy praying at the time - saying the Lord's Prayer in my head over and over again on the bus. The praying was fun! I'm back to being just a plain old boring agnostic nowadays though.

kingkongvsgodzillavsgod

but surely most theists are ok with "that sort of science", though?

The lightning thing was just an example to display that not all atheists are militant, non spiritual, non magical rationalists.

i don't even think atheist is the right word? mostly i say i'm irreligious or not religious. sometimes i say i'm a materialist but then people think i'm into money.

in a long discussion about this a few years ago i realized why i have trouble calling myself "an atheist": it's not because my views on the limited question of "do you believe in god" are at odds with atheism, it's because i don't think that limited question is really very interesting. i have trouble identifying myself with a label that mostly just says what i don't believe, and nothing at all about what i do believe. i'm not any kind of theist at all, a- or otherwise. i mean, there are lots of things i don't believe in, but i don't go around calling myself an a-unicornist or whatever. whether there's a higher intelligence, a supernatural force, a judgmental deity handing out gold stars or damnation, none of those things intrigue me. i think scientific and philosophical questions are much more rewarding and challenging than specifically religious questions. microbiology, astronomy, theoretical physics, ethics, those things are fascinating to me. "does god exist," not so much.

yeah but who goes around introducing themselves as "hi I'm an atheist!"? the word only arises in a conversation about whether you believe in God or not

yeah but who goes around introducing themselves as "hi I'm an atheist!"?

surprising number of sex-starved libertarian truthers

I don't like Hawkins' militantism -- it ought to be a big tent and basically if on some level you appreciate there's BS going on then I feel you can ride the atheist train.

xpost

yeah I meant to elaborate that as "what sort of civilized human being introduces themselves as etc etc"

After reading William James, I can't help but feel like human beings lose a lot of really incredible phenomenological experiences by ditching this long historically embedded way of interacting with each other and the world (through spirituality/religion/etc). That said, if you make your religious/emotional decisions intellectually instead of emotionally, losing something like that might feel less important to you. But for me, since it intellectually seems like a wash (along the lines of tipsy, I just don't see the value of arguing about whether God exists), I make my decision using an emotional topography. Does it give me rituals and ways of understanding things like marriage, life, death, community, etc to believe in God? And in my case it does -- I love reading the Bible for archetypes + ways of being in the world. That doesn't mean that I feel compelled to follow strict religious jurisprudence, but more like it means more to me to learn about the individual and community from reading about Joseph in Egypt than it does to read about Antigone + Creon (tho I love reading both). And it helps me understand where I came from, and who my ancestors and people are and what they believed, and keeps me in touch with a broad history of common human experiences.

nb I'm the guy on the conspiracy theory thread who said he loves conspiracy theories because they seem to be a really important part of the human experience. So YMMV.

whether there's a higher intelligence, a supernatural force, a judgmental deity handing out gold stars or damnation, none of those things intrigue me

I don't really understand this. If you thought there might be a grain of truth in any of it, I couldn't imagine anything more intriguing. Even as a study of historical/cultural behaviours/philosophies/traditions, religion is a helluva subject. So are hobbits, though.

well for one thing how could you really grasp conceptually an intelligence greater than yr own...? defies logic in many ways

there is no overarching consciousness controlling it all.

To me, this is like denying your own role in the perception & creation of this quantum dance of energy we call reality.

― Adam Bruneau, Monday, 7 June 2010 16:39 (54 minutes ago) Bookmark

I don't see that- it's a denial that the dance is being directed. It's a moshpit, not a waltz.

You can't have either a waltz or a moshpit without music. The music in this case being your own consciousness, combinations of materialist subjectivity, ages-old cell-embedded psychological history, the effects of planetary/solar/astronomical gravity & radiation, and the constant influence of unseen dark matter, particles & waves that are too extreme to be detected by current scientific instruments.

I think the idea that YOU are the one directing the dance is not incompatible with the idea of an infinite and eternal consciousness creating the universe. In fact they are both, on some level, the same thing.

"ditching this long historically embedded way of interacting with each other and the world (through spirituality/religion/etc)"
but atheism is a part of this tradition, too. if you re-read chronicles of jesus with jesus-as-atheist in mind, it makes for a richer reading.

bruneau u crazy

Even if you can somehow create a secret history of atheist-Jesus, the fact still remains that much of human history involves participation in religion, religious experience/sentiment/affect etc. Even if there's members of human history who never really bought into it.

I can never, ever dig the "you create your own reality" scene. Part of this is just having known too many ultra-jerks who were into Seth Speaks/Jane Roberts, including that most formative of people, the high school boyfriend.

It's so solipsistic.

re: secret agent jesus, You don't have to construct a secret atheist backstory -- just reread the gospels with the idea that these are the actions of an atheist seeking to break apart orthodoxy.

I believe there are ways to deal with the world even if you've jettisoned ritual, but there's nothing that more details the feelings of loneliness and sadness than covering up your mirrors, taking off your shoes, and sitting on the ground when a loved one dies. Tearing your shirt when you first find out. Having all your friends and family visit you for a week to share with you about the dead and talk about life and remember things with you. Like that completely captures the experience of dealing with this horrifying and frightening experience of dying that I don't know how I'd understand if I didn't have that ritual to grab onto. Or every Saturday having friends come to a table together to sit down and eat bread and talk about the world and the things that are bothering us and tell over stories that we heard from our parents and grandparents -- these traditions are really important to me, and often the presence of God never even matters in light of the presence of the other human beings.

Seth Speaks/Jane Roberts

? never heard of this. off to google I guess...

my only real problem with the "you create your own reality scene" is just that, damn, pretty sure I could come up with a better, less depressing reality than this one. like, it's true on some levels and def. a trip to think about, but on the crude material plane you still have to deal with shit like gravity and other people and death and the passage of time and stuff like that.

xp to Philip about atheist jesus -- I don't know the Gospels as well as I know the Old Testament/Prophets, but it seems pretty clear to me that a simple reading of them requires God-believing Jesus. If for nothing else than comments like, "No one comes to the father but through me," and historically situating him requires putting him in an era where true atheism would be an anachronism.

One of my problems with it is they* say you literally choose everything, like if you got raped, you 'chose' for that to happen on an unconscious level, or if an earthquake kills 8,000 in Guatemala, all 8,000 of those Guatemalans simultaneously 'chose' to die. Not that I'm saying anyone here is espousing that.

*they = say, Jane Roberts again, or the people in the "What the Bleep movie," those type of hardline New Agers

(sorry for interrupting this other secret Jesus conversation)

Magical thinking is totally bogus imo. Not just intellectually, but emotionally it feels very false to me. The world doesn't feel like I can just choose to have whatever happen happen. And a lot of my experience in life is figuring out how I can make things work, and get things done, using the limited power and influence I have. Why would I abandon a way of looking at the world that gets things done for me, and that gibes with my gut feelings about how things are, for a system that promises much more but ultimately feels much emptier of meaning? I want a world where tragedies are capricious and mysterious and where I can't always control everything. I don't want a world where I ask the Universe for a cadillac and then try to figure out why my asking wasn't powerful enough to get it (or how I might be secretly undermining myself). Just too utilitarian an approach (and then on top of that, it kinda seems intellectually insane).

Okay maybe I mis-used the term. The world doesn't feel like I can just choose to have whatever happen happen. is not at all what I meant by "magical thinking." And congratulations for making me look it up, because I didn't know it was a specific "thing" and I will now have to stop using it at all, ever.

I just meant the idea that there are things beyond one's ken, a sense of fitness in the existent Universe, that there is a way things should work together that is more than cold logic. I need some poetry and some mystery, you know?

Oh yeah. I agree with that. The world is a confusing, mysterious place!

(Laurel = Bruneau, I'm assuming?)

How dare you.

Laurel's not saying "you create your own reality"!

afaik

Oh, sorry. Didn't see that you were continuing something you were discussing an hour ago. My bad!

"pretty clear to me that a simple reading of them requires God-believing Jesus."
It's not "unreliable narrator" that I'm suggesting, but something close to it, like sloppy journalism? Where you can see that a quoted person has a different agenda that what the reporter thinks -- like when that fake yoyo guy punked those TV morning shows, or when Dishwasher Pete sent his friend posing as him to the Letterman show.
If you read it that way, things like "No one comes to the father but through me" can be read as a rejection of the rituals and dogma of prior religions with an emphasis on fairly religion-neutral set of desired behavior and ethics.

Is this like imagining Ferris Bueller's Day Off happened only in Cameron's mind?

Nope I'm not Laurel.

One of my problems with it is they* say you literally choose everything, like if you got raped, you 'chose' for that to happen on an unconscious level, or if an earthquake kills 8,000 in Guatemala, all 8,000 of those Guatemalans simultaneously 'chose' to die. Not that I'm saying anyone here is espousing that.

I don't see how any of those things listed above are impossible. Also instead of saying 8,000 Guatemalans 'chose' to die, what if you simply 'chose' to see a news report on it.

Ok, I'm not going to have a conversation about this. I'll just end up saying shit I regret.

Is this like imagining Ferris Bueller's Day Off happened only in Cameron's mind?

^This is really funny tho!

They both seem like things that are fun to talk about after a few drinks, but I don't think either interpretation (Christ as atheist, Cameron as saddo hallicnator) holds up in context.

hallucinator

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAB-1M1ZeYE

I'm w/ Abbott on this, tho even after a few drinks (or lol, other conversation enhancing devices) I'd rather to talk about something else :P

for real

I do believe that we all constitute the universe 'participating in itself' and I do believe in some kind of all-mind but i also believe in solids i.e. a rock is a fukkin rock.

(my answer to thread q is 'no'.)

xp Adam, I agree with you that reality is a slippery creature, and each of us constucts his or her version of reality according to a complex stew of (internal) cultural/psychological factors and (external) physical/chemical stimuli. But it's wrong IMO to make the jump into assuming that all reality is formed by individual, or even collective "choice" - ie those Guatemalans did not choose to die, on any fucking level.

There is the Spinozian pantheism, where everything in the Universe is all a part of God, and then this Chassidic/Kabbalistic panantheism, where God is both everything and above everything. According to some Chassidic explanations, the highest level of the human soul is Yichud, which is this level of total unity where difference/exception doesn't exist, and comes from a high level of Godliness. So there have been historical interpretations that a human being is actually God being played out in this world, but is just an extension of this higher form -- the analogy is that we're all monopoly pieces being moved around by one player, but we all think that we are moving ourselves. (But the better analogy is that the monopoly pieces move themselves around the board and simultaneously the player moves them around the board, because they are both moving with the same consciousness and will.) This is also, secretly (lol), the Chassidic way of dealing with free-will and determinism.

Wasn't Einstein saying he believed in Spinoza's god a polite way of saying he was an atheist?

There's a lot of scholarship on what Spinoza believed exactly, but I think it seems clear Einstein believed in some form of the divine, just not a personal god.

jeez I really need to read Spinoza, don't know how I've gone this long avoiding it

Einstein was definitely not an atheist

Spinoza is super important, and next to Abraham Joshua Heschel (and Shneur Zalman of Liadi), is the most formative theologian in terms of creating my own feelings about God + Judaism.

I'm aware of him, read plenty of stuff that references him, but for some reason never gone to the source. To the library!

"Einstein was definitely not an atheist"

I will trade you Bill Maher for Einstein. Well, basically you can have Bill Maher for free. But we are very interested in Einstein playing for our team.

Who in their right mind would want Bill Maher on their team?

Wow so it sounds like I might be a Spinozian Pantheist!!!

I don't personally think that anyone's scientific accomplishments should qualify their religious opinions. And I've read Einstein's "The World As I See It." Unfortunately being a genius in one area didn't make him super insightful about other conditions of being alive, writing literature, etc. Even if he was an atheist I'd be really eye-rolly.

Who in their right mind would want Bill Maher on their team?

yeah seriously - you can shoot this guy into the sun afaic

I'm not saying Einstein's not without shortcomings. I'm just saying he's a better rep for atheists than Bill Maher.
I'd also trade Bill Maher for Dick Dale.

But Einstein definitely did NOT belive in a personal god who hears prayers, created the universe, and directs earthly events. I belive he was, more or less, agnostic.

"My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a lawgiver who works on the basis of reward and punishment."--Einstein, 1950

"The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naive."--E in 1952

I believe he was, more or less, agnostic.

no. he believed the universe had a rational, fundamental design underpinning it, he made this clear constantly (and most famously with that "He does not throw dice" line). Just because someone is knot a bonkers fundie /= they do not believe in God. wide spectrum of beliefs, ya know.

a God with personality, who gives laws = these are not requirements for a concept of God.

a God with personality, who gives laws = these are not requirements for a concept of God.

― in my day we had to walk 10 miles in the snow for VU bootleg (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, June 7, 2010 8:11 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark

But they are definitely requirments for belief in the belief of god in the judeo-christian sense.

"I have never imputed to nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in nature is a magnificant strucutre that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism."--circa 1955

"I have repetedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose ferveor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intelletual undersanding of nature and of our own being."--1949

First encountered something like pantheism through my (c of e) Sunday School teacher: "Do you believe in Good? Excellent, then you already believe in God, because, God is Good" , then pointed at a blackboard on which was written "GOD = GOOD", to really stress these two words were equal, identical and interchangeable. I still do believe in God as shorthand for goodness, I think, and I do very occasionally "pray to God". I guess I could also call the same activity "meditating on goodness", or even just "thinking about what might be the right thing to do", but the Religious tool of prayer does help to provide a nice framework for enquiring how to be better... Anyway, to answer the OP, as regards the story of the beardy bloke in the sky, nah.

God = Good is a nice approach, but if he were shut out of the bad then he really wouldn't be an infinite being/concept. Not that the idea of a finite God doesn't work (and indeed it's tremendously popular) but to me that is describing more a demigod or some kind of super being rather than an eternal process of creation and destruction.

don't see why an eternal process of creation and destruction has to have anything to do with a god.

or with us

'It's not you, it's Me.'

I need some poetry and some mystery, you know?

one argument i've had with religious-minded friends is whether the word "mystery" is sort of inherently religious, in that it implies some kind of larger or hidden truth. my take on it is no, i think the universe is plenty full of mystery without in any way needing to drag a deity into it. to me, in a way, any kind of theism really actually reduces the appreciation of mystery, because it proposes a structure and an order for things that we don't actually know. a universe without a "god" is a lot more mysterious than one with one.

^ agree 100% with all of that.

'God did it' is the opposite of mystery/wonder, from a Catholic background. It's the equivalent of 'stfu' for most lines of questioning.

For me it's more that there ARE mysteries in the universe, and a common human way of dealing with those mysteries has been making up stories and gods to explain them. Those stories tho were rarely ever just about explaining those mysteries, but also about a host of other things -- how people should act to each other, what are the myths we tell ourselves to constitute communities, who am I in the world, etc. And they also happen to be about God who created the world in 7 days, or Jesus who turned water into wine, or whatever have you. The myths are potent even if you don't fully buy into them (which is how I set up all my beliefs -- take what is useful and shrug at what isn't).

Definitely, transcendent feelings of wonder and mystery do not in anyway require belief in a supernatural god.

Yes, I should have said from the beginning: I am 100% great with religion as mythology. In any other way, not so much.

But you know there are people who can't get their heads around that: for them, religion is meaningless unless it is literally true. I'm not sure exactly what kind of thinking that is a sign of, or where it fits historically but they are there.

But not just mythology, because (unless you're using the word differently than I use it) mythology feels very remote and removed. Like I wrote above, I'm rarely moved by Antigone, or Odysseus, but I am moved by my religious tradition. Not just because it may or may not say more than mythologies, but because my great-grandparents found use in it for creating a life and learning how to live, and even if my grandparents were atheists, they still found use from those stories, and my parents (who came back to religion) certainly found use in those stories, so they are really well worn and lived in in ways that mythologies tend not to be -- they don't feel distant and removed by very personal and present.

But not just mythology, because (unless you're using the word differently than I use it) mythology feels very remote and removed

A religion's just a mythology that hasn't died yet, maybe.

makes u *think*

Yep. Your own or one closer to you might have more resonance but it's all the same really.

I'm not really moved by the Babylonian epics about flooding and Inanna going naked into the underworld but that's cos the wording is stilted and distant and symbolic and I didn't cut my eyeteeth on it so it has no additional texture or layering of meaning for me. But the Bible is no different really; depending on the translation or edition there can be a great deal of poetry and poignancy, or none at all.

For sure, but that difference is everything-- how close you feel to the stories you tell

Surely being raised in western culture there are some "myths" u feel close to, no?

Paul Bunyan. Pecos Bill.

It's everything to you, but it doesn't make the stories more or less objectively true, or better or worse tools for building a society or a life with. All that matters is that you have the feeling/belief that they are True in an enduring way, ie that they account for something eternal or basic to human experience.

Well yeah but I feel that telling stories about being human is fundmental to this condition of being human. Whether those stories are from the bible or westerns or the simpsons

I would like to see more lay-people bust out homebrew exegesis on the myths of their own religious upbringing with the same verve as applied to seasons of LOST (including complaints of shitty writing and animated gifs.)

xpps
we share our culture through storytelling, so isn't it self-evident that the stories that form your culture & upbringing are the ones that will resonate the most? I was raised atheistish, but from a strong methodist background and in strongly C of E schools (the "scripture lessons" CofE, not the "Youth Club for Grannies" CofE) I learned to read from picture books of simplified bible stories as a toddler, we acted out scenes from the Bible for our school plays. These stories were a big part the culture I grew up in; they resonate like Thundercats, like Space Lego, like Manic Miner, with added bright neon signage pointing out the moral take-away.

That was kinda to Laurel a few posts back, but you've all said something similar.

This is a big thing I'm working through these days but basically the television movies and literature that resonate with me are the ones that best seem to capture what it means to be alive (I've been watching a ton of westerns lately for that reason)

tom, yes to all of that. I was just responding to Mordy saying "But not just mythology, because (unless you're using the word differently than I use it) mythology feels very remote and removed."

And my answer to Mordy is, Yes, in that case I am using the word "mythology" differently than you might, because I don't think it makes any difference in the function of religion-as-mythology whether you or I feel that a certain Creation myth is more "meaningful" to us.

And once you have got to the point where you experience contact/a very real vision of the deity, then you start back over with a totally different deity. The purpose is to enhance your control of your willpower, to beef up your creative energies and hone them. You could say this deity is only a figment of your mind, a hallucination you experience after focusing so much time and effort on it. But really you could say that about the everyday reality we live in as well...

― Adam Bruneau

Like, I think I'm an atheist because I can't handle cognitive dissonance in the slightest.

― breaking that little dog's heart chakra (Abbott)

some very interesting discussion going on here. like kingkonggod, i've become much more open to faith & belief over the last year or so. a product of prayer (something i discussed on another atheism thread?), which for me = simple statements of thanks and devotion directed at some undefined godlike totality - whatever it is that has enabled this world and my own small part in it. i believe that my sincere expressions of gratitude and love make me feel better, stronger, happier and more in control of my own life. i dunno, it may be just the classic "i don't want to be alone" that i used to sneer at in others, but i find that i really like seeing myself not as the ultimate arbiter, but as an agent in service to something magnificent, even as an extension of that magnificence

at the same time, none of this undermines my rationalist conception of the universe. i don't see any good reason to believe in anything, and would argue that the available evidence suggests the existence of a godless, purely material universe. but the cognitive dissonance that abbot mentions doesn't bother me at all. my relationship with the the god i worship has nothing to do with my rational conception of the physical universe. it is a wholly internal/personal experience, taking place solely in the space inhabited not by my rational mind, but by my spiritual/emotional self - and i'd argue that that space is only tangentially related to the perceptible material world in the first place. plus i find cognitive dissonance interesting, and i like the idea that i might be able to sensibly contain and integrate beliefs that seem contradictory.

at the same time, and as fascinated as i am by the idea that i'm creating the spiritual relationship i see myself as engaged in, i ultimately reject the radical, hermetically-sealed solipsism that adam bruneau seems to be advocating. it's true that we all create our perceptions of and reactions to the world around us, and yeah, this means that in some sense we DO create the world, since our own perceptions and reactions are all we can ever know of it. but at the point where you begin to classify the tragedies and realities of the people around you as mere figments of your own conscsiousness, things you can turn a blind eye to with impunity, you've become almost monstrously selfish - imo. and the essence of the spirituality i'm interested in is not selfishness ("what do i want the world to be?"), but selflessness ("how can i use my god-given time and ability to make the world a better place?").

isn't using the word "god" to describe a sense of wonder and mystery at the universe problematic? you could be a bit more specific. carries an awful lot of baggage, to say the least.

ICP, by loading the word "miracles" with the baggage of rapping clowns and magnets and pelicans, has made it the word you're looking for maybe? The word now feels divorced from the divine and anchored to the absurd, gaping jaw sort of thing (which their being Christian and all, it was probably the opposite of their intention).

Good post, contenderizer.

isn't using the word "god" to describe a sense of wonder and mystery at the universe problematic? you could be a bit more specific. carries an awful lot of baggage, to say the least.

― max arrrrrgh

My friend likes to associate the idea of God being the concept of the force that manages and organizes the universe (I think I have it right...). It seems like a bit of a stretch to fit the word god into his equation. If it were me, I wouldn't try to associate my theory with "god", when the general idea of god for most people only is vaguely comparable to my concept.

i also have the idea that i'm in communication with (or, really, a part of) an entity larger than myself, a being of some sort.

i think this is fine, but imo it's important to remember that it's your idea.

^ I was gonna say, not in a nasty way or anything.

the model that i always come back to with this stuff is of a mitochondria trying to understand how a jet propellor works. except even that scale is off by a factor of millions.

(ok so i mean a jet engine. i know they don't have propellors.)

...yet

i think this is fine, but imo it's important to remember that it's your idea.

― a tenth level which features a single castle (tipsy mothra)

I have this theory that there are these microscopic life-forms that reside within the cells of all living things and communicate with the universe...I've dubbed them "Schmidischmorians"

Our consciousness is Dennis Quaid, the universe is Martin Short, kind of thing?

more like George Lucas's wallet is the universe, and our consciousness is the money inside

skywalker green is made out of people

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/22/atheist-rally-billed-as-coming-out-moment-for-nonbelievers/?hpt=hp_t3

um

John Gray still a master at trolling atheists:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14944470

When he recounts the story of his conversion to Catholicism in his autobiography A Sort of Life, Graham Greene writes that he went for instruction to Father Trollope, a very tall and very fat man who had once been an actor in the West End.

I can't read the rest of this, there's no way it can live up to the opening

In most religions - polytheism, Hinduism and Buddhism, Daoism and Shinto, many strands of Judaism and some Christian and Muslim traditions - belief has never been particularly important. Practice - ritual, meditation, a way of life - is what counts. What practitioners believe is secondary, if it matters at all.

well, there's a kernel of truth here, but it's kind of hard to see for the mountain of bullshit.

I think he's got a good point though - Christianity, esp. Protestant Christianity, is I think pretty unique among world religions in its fixation on belief as the essence of religion.

yeah, but the idea that "belief has never been particularly important" in "most religions" is overstatement to the point of nonsense

it's more accurate to say evangelism has never been particularly important in most religions, right?

yeah, that's fair

yeah, but the idea that "belief has never been particularly important" in "most religions" is overstatement to the point of nonsense

I guess you could quibble about what "particularly important" means. Sure, it's important, but I think his argument is that in most religions it hasn't been considered as of primary importance.

it's more accurate to say evangelism has never been particularly important in most religions, right?

Evangelism is a related but separate thing, I think. Even if you don't think "belief" is important, you could still think it's important to get others to practice as you do - though it's true that many religions don't make a big deal of evangelism.

(like, most of them were just "oh, you don't believe what I do? I guess I will ignore/kill you" (delete where applicable))

it's true that many religions don't make a big deal of evangelism.

Judaism and Hinduism and Buddhism do not, and Christianity does

how much of Christian evangelism can be tied to being a direct reaction to Roman cultural imperialism

I don't know, but apparently there were early Christian sects that had differing views on the importance of evangelism. One sect basically saw Christianity as a subset of Judaism and not something which was available to non-Jews. I think the Apostle Paul, with his constant missionary journeys, was a key figure in making Christianity into the evangelical force it became.

In August 1986 the Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism issued a "letter to the churches" concerning its conviction that the New Testament mandates Christians and the church to bring the Gospel to the Jewish people because "The Gospel. . .is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile" (Romans 1:16). This letter has been read and studied widely and, in the process, has been praised as a faithful affirmation of Christian acceptance of the Great Commandment, on the one hand, and roundly condemned as fundamental denial of the Jewish people's relationship with God, on the other. At the very least, the letter has brought the question of the legitimacy of Christian efforts to convert Jews into discussion within the so-called ecumenical churches as well as in the evangelical branches of Christianity represented by the Lausanne Consultation.

http://www.abrock.com/Attempt.html

I do not know about evangelism as a reaction to Roman cultural imperialism. It may be true. I just know about Christians trying to convert Jews.

I'm not really sure what "Roman cultural imperialism" is shorthand for. Romans were pretty okay with their colonies doing whatever as long as they a) didn't get in Rome's way and b) paid up

Well, in the very beginning all Christians were Jews. The original controversy was whether Christians should try to convert non-Jews.

xp

I would venture that the Christian emphasis on proselytization has more to do with the resistance they encountered from Jews - their original target audience - and yeah, goes back to the apostles

early church stuff is super interesting and i wish i knew more about it. there are probably dozens of great key histories of the time, i bet.

Pagels yo

I agree. Sadly it's hard to piece together much about that period because the victors write the history books, and the group that later won and became identified as "orthodox" was very thorough in stamping out any writings that supported alternate views. The book "Lost Christianities" by Bart Ehrman is a place to start.

xp

i think the historical record is fairly open about how contested and wild the period was? i mean the great councils (nicea etc) were all about how out of hand shit was!

Lol @ atheists.

Yeah, that's true, but mostly what survives are proto-orthodox writings denouncing "heretics". It's sometimes hard to distinguish what the "heretics" actually believed from the slurs and libels meant to discredit them.

(that was xp)

it's funny to me how little the Romans gave a shit about Xtianity initially. Off-hand references here and there (Marcus Aurelius, Pliny) to some wacky "cult" etc.

Belief is pretty important if you want to be an atheist.

It's sometimes hard to distinguish what the "heretics" actually believed from the slurs and libels meant to discredit them.

well, we've got the Nag Hammadi at least

well how were they supposed to know this was the wacky cult that had what it took to take over the world

altho how those texts were interpreted/put into practice is obviously a huge open question in a lot of ways

xp

well how were they supposed to know this was the wacky cult that had what it took to take over the world

I know rite? they were just like "wow, these guys really seem into being crucified/being eaten by lions/getting disemboweled. what a bunch of kooks!"

that's still basically my take

the early Xtians were waaaaaay into their martyrdom in a way that really does seem psychotic

The early response to Christians by Roman officials is that they were atheists who refused to pay homage to their cities (or Rome's) gods.

ha yes

Robert Louis Wilken's The Christians as the Romans Saw Them does a nice job of compiling all the extant discussions of the nacent cult from outsiders.