are you an atheist?

Hullo MB! I still want to talk about this stuff in the pub. I only posted anything because 'lol atheists' got up my nose. And I guess because this stuff has been pootling around at the back of my mind lately.

I'm not trying to be profound, I get that for most people concepts are conceptual, the kind of thing I'm trying to send up here is that for at least some people, God is not a useful construct for relating to the vast, incomprehensible mysterious universe, but an actual, interested (if not actively *meddlesome*) being, with thoughts and motives and opinions. Who wants to invite you over for coffee and a chat on a Sunday morning and then doesn't give you any coffee.

Let's not clusterfuck! I'm going to go away and build a database now anyhow.

MB OTM

God is as useful as concept as you want it to be. If a major part of your religious path includes buying up snarking billboards, running an evangelical empire, or making sure homosexuals can't marry, then I say it isn't much of a religious path at all. This is why the Personal Friend of Jesus (groan, i know) stuff always emphasizes the Personal relationship. Religion should be a personal thing. Only _you_ are going to Heaven, or Hell, only _you_ are going to find enlightenment. Why drag this stuff into the Worldly realm? Isn't that what religion should be veering away from, worldy, mundane concerns? Otherwise yeah you may as well put your energy into supporting a football team.

The idea of God as 'an actual, interested being' is a pretty unappealing conception of God, I'm right there with ya. But I think it's also a common misconception among atheists that this is the sole (or primary) thing that people mean when they say 'God'. The old man in the cloud. However I'm sure plenty of Xtians believe that, and politically they certainly behave that way, so they aren't doing themselves or their God any favors there.

God is not a useful construct for relating to the vast, incomprehensible mysterious universe

God is the only useful construct. The key word here is incomprehensible. For the comprehensible universe we have science. Let's not get those two confused.

God is the only useful construct.

For the incomprehensible universe we have science too! We just have to do more work!

Tinkertoys also a p useful construct in my experience, you can at least make a bird out of them.

http://yoske.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/TinkerToys.jpg

otm

I'm not just an Atheist. I eat Gods

conincidence? i think not

http://www.zmescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/nasca-lines-3.jpg

This is where I politely opine that a dogged belief in the *omnicompetence* of science is probably as irrational and unhelpful as the ~imaginary friend~ version of religions.

I'm certain of very very little, but the idea that our limited human understanding of the universe, as understood through science, includes some kind of incompleteness theorem is p p high on my 99.9% certainty scale.

MB, people understand as much of this as they can manage, up to the place where they stop developing new thoughts or else just stop trying. For some of us the limiting factor is the ability to distinguish conceptual nuances, for others it is just a matter of stopping too soon, but we all reach some kind of limit eventually.

This applies to science as much to religion. heaven knows there are a lot of people out there who believe in science, but whose understanding of science is extremely crude and lacking in detail.

The good thing about these clusterfucks is that at least we can compare notes on our stopping places.

Sam Harris interview at Tablet Magazine: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/100757/qa-sam-harris

I've got a question for atheists about something he says:

I think the God of Abraham could lose his subscribers in precisely the way that Poseidon and thousands of other dead gods did. It’s not that he needed to be replaced by something that exactly fit the same God-shaped hole in people’s lives, but the conversation can just move on. I do see it as an accident of history that the religions that are current are as well-established as they are. The Bible and the Quran are the center of literature-based cults that I view as accidents of history.

What I’m advocating is not that everyone has to become entirely responsible for their worldview, and everyone has to be a philosopher, everyone a scientist, everyone a doctor. We all rely on authority, and we all are lazy or incompetent in certain areas. The difference in science is that our reliance upon authority is cashed out by a conversation that is searching and competitive and demanding at every stage so that people do not get away with believing things merely because they want them to be true.

So, we need to instill in the next generation of human beings a desire not to be flagrantly wrong about the nature of reality and to have a different conversation around the significance of death. If human life weren’t fragile we wouldn’t be having a conversation about religion. No one would care. The crucial moment is not even so much your own death, but what do you say or what can you think that is consoling when someone close to you dies. Your child dies; what could you possibly believe about reality that’s going to make you feel better? The truth is that atheism does not have an answer to that question that connects all the emotional dots in a way that most people think they want.

Most people want to believe something that makes them feel better and most religious people actually want to believe something to make them feel so much better that death isn’t even a problem. It’s a career opportunity, if you’re a Muslim jihadist. It’s a good thing your child blew himself up. I think we just have to admit that there is nothing that’s truly rational to believe that could pay us the same kind of emotional dividends.

Isn't this exactly why the kind of atheism he's pushing for is impossible? If atheism doesn't have an answer to the question that makes religion possible, how can eliminating religion be emotionally fulfilling for human beings?

re: those billboards - it seems sort of presumptive to speak for god, no? irreverent-bordering-on-blasphemous even.

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

― joygoat, Wednesday, May 21, 2008 12:58 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark

I think it is possible I too may be a militant agnostic.

Isn't this exactly why the kind of atheism he's pushing for is impossible? If atheism doesn't have an answer to the question that makes religion possible, how can eliminating religion be emotionally fulfilling for human beings?

― Mordy, Saturday, June 2, 2012 9:15 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark

life can be emotionally fulfilling (and usually is, for better or worse) no matter what you believe or don't believe. i mean, of course you can have a love guided by love and moral values even if they aren't god's love or god's moral values. nobody's life is 'empty' because religion isn't part of the equation, unless they decide for themselves that it is and would like religion in their life.

have a LIFE guided by love etc.

The only way in which Hitchens' didactic atheism worked for me was in reminding people that novels and poetry teach us enough about good and evil to ever need The Four Agreements or The Celestine Prophecy, let alone Romans.

exclude the rest of the Bible though. More Christians and English profs need to read the Bible.

xxp to some dude, no doubt, but Harris seems to be arguing that atheism doesn't have comfort to give somebody re the finality of death and the fear of the unknown.

not sure that a belief in God does either

it's not that it doesn't have comfort per se but y'know, we're talking about "i don't have the answers" vs. "read this, it has all the answers," not to be all condescendingly 'opiate of the masses' but the point is you can find comfort outside of religion, while being outside of religion means that you have to find that comfort for yourself, there's not a systematic solution.

I won't speak for other atheists, but, for me, coping with death hasn't been impossible. I experienced my mother's death as a true loss, for which there was no immediate consolation. I talked with friends, but we didn't particularly dwell on the loss itself. We talked about happy things. My expectation wasn't that I could alleviate the pain right away. People's brains have pretty rigourous immune systems for coping with loss. You throw yourself into work, or your hobbies, or whatever makes you feel better, and the pain decreases.

I think the God of Abraham could lose his subscribers in precisely the way that Poseidon and thousands of other dead gods did

By embracing Imperialism and hunting down heretics? Pretty sure the believers of ancient Grecian and Roman gods spilled a lot of blood before they 'cancelled their subscriptions' as he so flippantly puts it.

I really dig the strawman in the very first sentence of his interview. The bus driver who let's Jesus drive. And the responding question, "Does any halfway literate modern person still imagine that there is a large person with a beard who lives in the sky and is watching us?"

I really would like to read the rest of this, but I feel like I'm looking at a field of strawmen.

Your mental rigor and strength are admirable, but they are not qualities that are widely shared by billions of other human beings. I would argue that they are the privilege of relatively small populations of humans with the leisure and freedom and psychological and physical health to think as you do.

The interviewer, giving this guy an ego blow job, poolside at the Four Seasons. No wonder the right hates this guy so much.

i had the impression that people were more matter-of-fact about death when it was pretty much constantly happening around them, and that the sort of deep, personal solace one would find in religion is a modern, urban phenomenon (as opposed to a community ritual where you'd have things get depersonalized to the point where you'd pay people to grieve publicly)

I really dig the strawman in the very first sentence of his interview. The bus driver who let's Jesus drive. And the responding question, "Does any halfway literate modern person still imagine that there is a large person with a beard who lives in the sky and is watching us?"

The answer to this question is yes, btw.

I don't like his use of "accident" to describe why Christianity and Islam are so widespread today. It all seemed very practical.

By embracing Imperialism and hunting down heretics? Pretty sure the believers of ancient Grecian and Roman gods spilled a lot of blood before they 'cancelled their subscriptions' as he so flippantly puts it.

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Sunday, June 3, 2012 2:31 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you think the Roman/Greek polytheism declined because of imperialism and hunting down heretics? I'm not sure I follow your point here. That persecution might have fueled the intensity of belief that allowed Christianity to expand, but Roman paganism was already on shaky legs before that; not enough people really believed all of that Mt. Olympus hokum.

I really dig the strawman in the very first sentence of his interview. The bus driver who let's Jesus drive. And the responding question, "Does any halfway literate modern person still imagine that there is a large person with a beard who lives in the sky and is watching us?"
― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Sunday, June 3, 2012 2:36 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

neither is a strawman in the context of their discussion, imo. Especially since the answer to the question is "yes."

I'm pretty sure Christianity wouldn't be around if the Romans hadn't taken it up officially and spread it around the Empire. Arguably the end of the Empire came when they forced it too much on pagans.

The bus driver and the bearded sky-god are just easy targets, cherry-picked cartoons of religious devotion. The context of the discussion is set from the start: cartoon religious fanatics are stupid.

The thing about Roman/Grecian dieties, he just seems to be isolating religion from political history here for his own convenience. Only later to join them back together when you can blame them for wars and oppression. It's one of the main things atheist writers do that make me rmde.

Harris isn't trying to mock religious people there, he's just making the point that beliefs have consequences and are thus worthy of study.

The bearded man thing is fairly mild when it comes to "cartoons of religious devotion." There are highly intelligent people who believe Noah's Ark is a literally true story, for example. I found that whole passage strange though; why would you use that argument on an atheist?

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/09/the-functions-of-faith.html

When atheists try to make substitutes for religion, they often do pretty well on acceptance, and on collecting specific self-control mechanisms. But they find it hard to substitutes for the high-status ally, the added comfort and self-control this allows, and the rituals this makes more powerful. Yes, if there isn’t a God, and you don’t believe in him, you win points for having more true beliefs. But you may well lose in your ability to get things done that you want done. There is simply no general guarantee that humans will get more done when they believe more truths.

really need to find a superbeing that i can believe is protecting and helping me so i can git r done

i call him Colonel Sanders

Belief is very important to atheists.

not all of us i don't think

Just as it would be silly to deny that a belief in an afterlife can be psychologically comforting for people who are dealing with the death of a loved one or facing death themselves, it would be similarly foolish to overlook the possible benefits of a belief in god. The fact that an untruth can be beneficial in some aspects doesn't convert it into a truth, or render it harmless in all other aspects, but if you insist on claiming that a belief in god does nothing but harm, then you are displaying a type of willful blindness, aka prejudice.

For hundreds of millions of people a belief in god provides a mental framework that fits their needs better than any of the alternatives. Iow, it is adaptive. Mordy's quote is saying exactly that and nothing more.

I don't think anyone is denying that there are psychological comforts to religion. That's probably it's biggest asset, and a key to its enduring popularity.

I'd say the benefits are more than just psychological reassurance, and I'm a pretty convinced atheist / skeptical agnostic. Big social and cultural goods have come directly from religion, from architecture to charity. It's not all installing shame and fiddling with kids.

Oh well if you're talking about all-time, religion is hugely important to the organising of society as well as a cultural inspiration.

I think those roles - in the positive sense, at least - are somewhat diminished these days. Psychological reassurance is still very important.

I think religion is pretty awesome in a lot of ways on an individual level, and more often than not I find myself actively wishing that I was a (liberal, non-dogmatic) religious person. But I can't be, because I just don't think/feel/believe/whatever that there is any sort of supernatural anything. It's weird to me when believers try to act like it's this choice I've made in defiance of everything in order to be "right". I honestly think I'd probably be a happier person if I could be religious, but I didn't pick a team here, it's just how I see the world.

otm. i miss being young and having that kind of comfort (though I don't miss the fear of damnation). I'm just not capable of it anymore. And I'm glad I'm not, all in all.

en eye see kay, try Buddhism on for size. It is much easier to eliminate the supernatural from it and still have many excellent traditions to choose from (e.g. Zen). Just be aware that the Zen idea of 'nature' may look 'supernatural' to you, until you get what they're driving at (via satori).

Can you say more about the Zen idea of nature, Aimless? I'm interested.

Afaics, a zen buddhist's idea of nature is completely compatible with that of particle physics, except for the particles maybe. (joeks)

It is hard to be clear about this stuff in words and talking around it just makes most people dizzy. Zen seeks a direct experience of nature and meditation is a sort of training for this, although satori is always possible to everyone at all times, with or without meditation. A good portal into this stuff is the Tao Teh Ching.

fwiw, this is my bag and is on a totally different wavelength from supernatural explanations of divinity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism#Judaism

the next section also that discusses gnosticism (where my gnostics at???)

Fuck the demiurge. Hail Sophia.

Psychological benefits of a religious person thinking they know The Truth about reality and psychological benefits of an atheist thinking they know The Truth about reality.

I think there's something in a more mystical approach to spirituality that sort of bridges the gap. However, it's a pretty abstract bridge.