are you an atheist?

i've met a number of atheists in my life who have tried to proselytize to me. they're not good at it, but they try.

what was their draw, though? atheist tupperware?

i guess they offer the good feeling of being smarter than most other humans. if you already feel that way tho, there is admittedly not much there for the discriminating consumer.

that's literally all they offered you? smugness? not even a darwin fish bumper sticker?

that's all they offered me. i mean, what else do atheists have? the truth? ha.

atheists really need to develop an enticing cuisine.
christian bbq - YUM
buddhist thai brunch - YUM
secular humanist clam bake - YUK

You hurt delicious clam bake's feelings. ;__;

why does it have to be a clam bake? was elvis presley some kind-of spiritual father of secular humanism?

Unitarians iirc

people get mad about chik fil-a but no way am i eating at Agnostic Nuggets.

when people do shit like this http://www.gardenvisit.com/assets/madge/mao_zedong_tiananmen/600x/mao_zedong_tiananmen_600x.jpg
it's hard not to draw comparisons to religions. but that's a seperate argument to whether "religion" (however broadly you want to define it) is the root of all evil.

what does it even mean that religion is the root of all evil? religions are just human constructs. really it's just a cute way of saying that human constructs are the root of all evil?

things human do are the root of evil. okay! might as well say that satan is the root of evil in terms of how useful that argument is.

also i thought evil doesn't exist bc all actions have chemical, behavioral, socio-political, psychological sources. saying that religion is the root of all evil embraces the central claim of religion ie: that there is such a thing as evil.

Is that really the central claim of "religion?"

Also I'm pretty sure that saying that if something has a discernible (or even a non-discernible but infer-able) natural cause it has no moral valence is a false dichotomy but I realize I'm probably in over my head here.

in a way i feel that's right -- you can't get people to do things in a coordinated fashion without a religious mandate -- or at least it's really fucken hard. so insofar that any mass activity is evil, you can't do it without religion.

well, obv not since i don't believe the stuff that falls under the term 'religion' can be said to share anything in common. but it is certainly a central feature of abrahamic religions xxp

how do u reconcile a natural cause w/ moral valence?

if you can answer that you will help me greatly

you can't get people to do things in a coordinated fashion without a religious mandate

how do you explain motor vehicle traffic?

I suppose that depends on where one thinks morality originates from, doesn't it?

morality suggests free choice that is incompatibility w/ material explanations afaict

incompatible* i mean

eh I don't think that's true, but I would need to hit way above my weight class to argue it effectively, so I'll just leave it at that.

but I don't think "materialism" = "determinism"

w/out hearing your argument i'm going to speculatively posit that your belief that morality + materialism are compatible is probably the lacuna in which your atheism breaks down + you believe in GOD.

"how do you explain motor vehicle traffic?"
faith and threat of biblical violence

well done

Knock yourself out! xxp

http://biblicalproof.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/its-gods-way-or-the-highway.jpg

ok now ur gettin ur troll on

i would like to point out the cute reversal where the atheist is backing out of the argument w/ the theist. i don't think it means anything, but i often read arguments between dumbass religious believers and atheists where the atheist runs circles around them and i always wish that someone smart - like a theologian - was on the other side of the discussion.

in any case, the quality of the arguer shouldn't impact the inherent argument so it doesn't really matter

Highways seem like an attractive choice. They let you travel smoothly and quickly to many wonderful places.

au contraire

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7-h4r3d27A

sorry to let you down though, Mordy

not the first time!

There was an interesting bit on Planet Money about tithing among Mormons and tax collection, and while they don't advocate we switch over public fund collections to tithing, it was interesting how people tended to volunteer more money than they needed to as a tithe. It's hard not to see America as a theocracy to be a vastly more efficient enterprise.

However will I live with myself?

Maybe pray to GOD?

Don't hold your breath.

No, on second thought, hold your breath.

Can somebody just spam this thread with a bunch of existentialists already? They're not all atheists fwiw.

What if I can't pray to God, Mordy?

I don't know, Michael. Is that a riddle?

i would like to point out the cute reversal where the atheist is backing out of the argument w/ the theist. i don't think it means anything, but i often read arguments between dumbass religious believers and atheists where the atheist runs circles around them and i always wish that someone smart - like a theologian - was on the other side of the discussion.

Yeah, me too. I liked this debate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVjjpfQgJ2k

Haldane presents a sophisticated argument that the existence of God is the condition for the possibility of anything's having moral significance, and Hitchens doesn't have a decent response to it.

Pray: to ask that the laws of the universe be nullified on behalf of a single petitioner, admittedly unworthy. - A. Bierce

I am often reverent toward creation in an entirely human, irrational way yet I cannot conceive of praying without humility, without reverence and I cannot conceive of a God whom I wouldn't think a made-in-man's image of an imaginary but powerful friend who makes sense of the senseless and helps a bro out of jam every now and then when stuff gets squirrely.

i used to be a pretty religious catholic when i was a kid (pursued it on my own, family didn't care much about religion), but lost the faith in teen years after thinkin bout shit. i wish i could go back to those days, it was nice to have a friend in jesus. but can't unring rung bell etc. etc.

a made-in-man's image of an imaginary but powerful friend who makes sense of the senseless and helps a bro out of jam every now and then when stuff gets squirrely.

yeah, I wouldn't pray to this dude either.

My best answer off-the-cuff for Haldane would be that the agency that is required for the possibility of anything's having moral significance is not an existant god, but the idea of transcendence, of which an existant god is a sufficient instance, but not a necesssary one.

Yet, Judaism (and by extension, Xtianity) has in its very creation myths an anthropocentric vision of mankind as being about as close to the divine as anything in God's creation. It doesn't strike you as self-serving tribal cheerleaderism?