A Request Directed to Sciforums' "Atheists"

Discussion in 'Religion' started by Tiassa, Mar 21, 2014.

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  1. Grumpy Curmudgeon of Lucidity Valued Senior Member

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    Tiassa

    Atheism is a LACK of belief in a god, PERIOD. Anything else an atheist does is motivated by something other than that lack of belief. Atheism offers no precepts, we have no organization and likely would not have any set of beliefs or convictions or moral opinions in common with each other. It is not a moral opinion, in and of itself. It is not a belief, it is the lack of a certain subset of all beliefs, those which contain a supernatural deity.

    That is an individual trait not exclusive to atheist, nor common among them. Part of our current political problems is so called Christians acting in very unChristian ways, all the while hiding behind their "Religious Freedom" as justification of their assholery. They claim they have authority from god to be such cretins, at least atheists have no such cover and claim no such authority(at least in the name of atheism).

    Again, it is up to the individual, atheism has no guidance to give them. All one needs to do to convert to atheism is to lose your belief in the god you previously believed in. That's it, that's the whole process. Most of the converted have told me that they just "Woke up" one day to find they COULD NOT any longer fool themselves that they believed what they now saw as mystic non-sense. I never believed, the indoctrination couldn't sneak by the intellect. Anything else is up to the individual to figure out for themselves. If asked my opinion of what you should do, it would all be from my own personal perspective(I was raised by a Baptist minister/missionary). Personally, I have no beef with the teachings of Jesus and wish Christians would actually follow them and get their noses out of Leviticus(a deeply immoral book). Or you could look at Humanism. All of which has nothing to do with atheism.

    I see it rather as a theist expecting something from atheists that atheists just have nothing to do with. The chestnut that there are no morals without god is reflective of that. Atheism is not about morals, it is the answer to one question,"Do you believe in a supernatural being called god?" The answer is no. You have not asked a question about our moral thoughts, or what one should do, or any of the other things that ARE intrinsic to those who answer "Yes, I believe in ______." or "_____ is the one true god!". In those cases you have a whole structure behind Allah or Odin or Shiva that has morals and stories attached. If you want to know what the moral thoughts of an atheist is, you must ask additional, specific questions, questions that are automatically answered if one identifies their religion. Theists' answers are loaded with meanings that are just nulls for atheism, but that just the way it is and it only causes a problem in theists who do not understand the difference. When a theists asks about belief in god, he is talking about the whole package of these hidden meanings, when an atheist answers no it only tells you about his belief in a deity, it is not saying anything about the whole host of hidden meanings the theist unconsciously includes. It is your own expectation of more than a no that fuels your frustration of not receiving it, the atheist is just answering the question. And many theists interpret this as there being no morals behind it, when to the atheist that is a separate question. I'm reminded of a poem I read one time, the relevant portion being the question "Who's little ism is u?". Because if you name the ism, most times you can tell a lot about that person's belief or convictions. That is not true about atheism, you can only say something about what they do not believe. Without Theisms, there would be no such thing as atheism.

    Well, it isn't. Your morals don't come from a god, they come from your internal moral compass, the way you were taught to behave in Kindergarten establishes that moral compass before the intellect accepts or rejects the existence of god. If you are the kind who is evil, belief in god does not in any way make you less evil, Hitler was a lifelong Catholic in good standing, Martin Luther a vile antisemite. And Gandhi was an Atheist. But being an Atheist is not what made Gandhi good, his good could be found in his own character. When Penn Gillette was asked "As an Atheist, why don't you rape and steal as much as you want to?", to which he replied "I am already raping and stealing as much as I want to, which is none whatsoever." God does not make you a moral person, YOU DO. Stop leaning on the crutch and stand up on your own two legs and become the person you want to be is the best advice I could give to any recovering theist. It IS harder to face reality without backup, but basically that is the way it is, whether or not you are ready to face it.

    No it doesn't. You haven't bothered to look further than that narrow, limited question. I and most other atheists I know are Humanists, look into it if you want to see the reality instead of the shallow surface reflection of your own erronious expectations.

    Grumpy

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  3. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    The atheists' lack of a central coherent ideology is in fact a strength. Without religion, what is there? Freedom. To make up your own mind, to not be beholden to some authority, to not create an institution that can be responsible for crimes against humanity. We are individuals. We choose our own moral structure. Which is also what theists do when they choose to obey the moral structure of a church. We care enough not to replace one bad thing with another similar thing. We are here to provide hope that you never needed that thing in the first place.
     
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  5. quinnsong Valued Senior Member

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    I loved your post Grumpy.In my own experience with the handful of atheists I have known personally, they all varied when it came to morals, being anti-religion,loving humanity, etc... The only and I mean the ONLY difference between an atheist and a theist is the lack of the atheist identifying with a supernatural force, in all other aspects of human nature there is no difference. This is just my own take on this, but here at sciforums where the non religious types are more representative of our membership there could be a little resentment from the atheists, I mean this place is one of the rare places where we are in the majority and fear losing our place of reason.
     
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  7. Sorcerer Put a Spell on you Registered Senior Member

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    My bold. quinnsong, I see where you're coming from, but I object to being lumped in with the god-botherers. There is a big difference between what you've said and the reality: the religionists are obliged to follow the morals - if you can call them that - which are laid down by whichever sect they belong to. So if you are a muslim, for example, you have to follow all the rules about women being inferior, killing apostates etc., whereas the rational can think through the issues unencumbered by 1400/2000 years of practice and conclude that all people are equal, and have equal rights, and no one should be dismembered or stoned to death etc etc. That's a big difference, and a real one.

    As far as Sf is concerned, the people here are supposed to be rational so the theists should just be banned if they stray away from discussing rational issues, and that includes canning the religion sun-forum. I may have mentioned this before.

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  8. quinnsong Valued Senior Member

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    What you are describing is radicalism and ignorance combined and whether that comes from a Muslim or a Christian or any ism, is a dangerous combination. There are many highly educated theists that have progressive views regarding humanity and their god. You may perceive that their belief in any supernatural force is evidence of the theist not being able to reason well just because they happen to believe that spirituality is as much a part of the human experience as materialism and humanism. When discussing religion objectively much can be learned both historically and philosophically about what it is to be human.
     
  9. Sorcerer Put a Spell on you Registered Senior Member

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    With all due respect, if you follow a particular religion then you have to obey the rules, unless you break away to create a new sect which dumps some of the baggage - not a bad thing at all. I don't think you can call adherence to the rules radicalism and ignorance, it's quite the opposite, it's just following the rules. If you're saying that smart people should seek to change the rules then I'm all for that.

    I suppose that theists can argue rationally about subjects other than their religion - some of them are scientists - but ask them to discuss religious matters and it's another matter.

    I don't mind discussing religion rationally: you may want to check out the thread I just started.
     
  10. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Notes Around

    While I greatly appreciate your attempt to address these issues, I would also suggest your entire post is demonstrative of that striking lack of pathos.

    Indeed, you pretty much summed it up:

    Part of it is simply the determination to hide every human aspect of what would make atheism remotely significant. The lack of pathos is symptomatic.

    • • •​

    If any one person's atheism is irrelevant to whatever else, then how come I hear so much from atheists about their atheism?

    It's only important if one attempts to tie atheism to logic or rational argument.

    It can be functionally problematic. For instance, evangelizing atheism is a useless crusade, indeed, but it's also because such evangelization is actually just agitation. Consider the post I responded to above. When it comes to something that could help change people's minds and understanding, could help break the superstitions that possess theistic beliefs, what is the answer?

    "I see it rather as a theist expecting something from atheists that atheists just have nothing to do with."

    Think about it for a moment; this is a complete abdication. And it comes about because of that striking lack of pathos. There is no human sympathy. That answer doesn't give a damn about anyone else; it's all about our neighbor.

    So think about this, then, please: It's not a matter of exclusivity as worthiness. It's also a matter of always blaming other people.

    I have much sympathy for where Fraggle Rocker is coming from; that is, I get the colloquial undertone. But we can't just leave it at the joke.

    Evangelizing atheism is also a useless endeavor because the evangelism is entirely about the self. That their evangelism should bear any fruit? Well, the harvest should come to them; heaven-that-doesn't-really exist help those who don't wish to dive blindly into a neurotic stew they once believed soul-corrodingly toxic without some idea of how this is going to go—fuck 'em. It has nothing to do with atheists, and therefore nothing to do with atheism, and therefore nothing to do with the evangelization of atheism.

    Evangelical atheism is a scourge. Just like any other evangelical religion that is entirely about the self.

    • • •​

    It's not really a condition you get to interview people purely about. But it's also a logical consequence of a number of vital arguments many atheistic advocates prefer to simply ridicule. It doesn't mean the theists are right. See, that's the thing. For all one might complain about how religious people behave, far too much of the focus is on form, and not enough sympathetic human consideration of meaning. Look at Grumpy's post. It's all form, with no consideration of meaning.

    I think one of the most obvious examples is that, frankly, I don't give a fuck how childish we can agree the no morality without God argument is.

    But what does that religionistic argument signify behaviorally? It is reinforced, over and over again, especially in the political discourse at the valences occurring in diverse tiers from the pub to Sciforums to the punditry and poseury. It goes around Facebook, erupts from behind the headlines. It is something they have learned, often all their lives, since their behaviorally formative years. A strong neurotic tension can be reasonably expected if one simply corners another rhetorically.

    If the proposition is accepting the reality that the God upon which they have hitherto based their entire psychomoral outlook does not exist, then one might wish to consider the psychological aspects of that morality. Except that has nothing to do with atheism, as Grumpy reminds.

    As a result, these people—i.e., humans (i.e. neurotic)—are, as you would remind, "incapable of logical thought when the subject of discourse begins to get close to their sacred, irrational, childish beliefs".

    The combined effect really is quite remarkable. There is the proposition itself, occurring over and over. There is the conditioned mass and gravity of the human psyche, except, well, that really has nothing to do with anything, so their failure to respond affirmatively to this repeated hostile stimulus can only mean that they are incapable of logical thought when the subject of discourse begins to get close to their sacred, irrational, childish beliefs.

    Addressing the conditioned mass and gravity of the psyche? Apparently that's irrelevant.

    By this arrangement, there is no useful purpose to reiterating the proposition. That sort of evangelism is simply self-gratifying agitation.

    Which really is too bad. I always thought the whole point of rejecting an irrational linchpin holding together an irrational structure for irrational reasons was to find a rational way to go about accomplishing the rational goals our societies—and, therefore, the endeavor of our species—might achieve in the real Universe.

    More fool me.

    Oh, right.

    Take it up with the evangelists. The atheistic ones.

    Really, we already know there's a problem with the theists.
     
  11. Balerion Banned Banned

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    I can't tell if it's an unwillingness to understand, or simply an inability, but Grumpy just made it plain to you that atheism isn't a worldview. It has no moral imperative. It doesn't provide answers save for one question. You don't "sign up" for atheism, anymore than you sign up for theism. Theism itself isn't a practice; it's just a belief. You don't get your dogma from theism, you get it from Protestantism, or Catholicism. You're not comparing like with like.

    ...what does that even mean? Are we supposed to be mind readers? What, exactly, do you hear from atheists about their atheism? In what context?

    Again, what the shit are you talking about? Did you have some bad experience with an atheist previously? Where is this bile coming from? To this point you haven't articulated exactly what the problem is, aside from opaque metaphor.

    As for what I could parse out of that nonsense, I have to take you to task for the term "evangelical atheism." (Leaving aside the unsupported claim that it is a "scourge" for a moment) No one evangelizes atheism. Hitchens, Dennett, Dawkins, and even Harris, promote (promoted, in the case of the late Hitchens) skepticism and reason. They defend education. They teach logic, science, and philosophy. You will find that in all of these endeavors, faith is the enemy. Not because faith is inherently anathema to these things, but because faith insists itself upon these items. Taking up the fight against such negative forces couldn't be called "evangelizing atheism" unless the person doing so was hoping for a victory on the other side...or, perhaps, was shamefully ignorant of the struggle, which seems to be the case here. Maybe a bit of both?

    Self-gratifying? How so?

    And what's wrong with agitation? It's apparently quite effective.
     
  12. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    I must offer my apologies. I just couldn't accept that Atheism was so sparse in content. I did find an excellent spill on the topic: Is atheism an ism? As mentioned above, an atheist can wear many badges, so I suppose it serves as just a subtitle in a long list of potential beliefs and practices. Yes, you can be an atheist, but what else makes you tick?
     
  13. Balerion Banned Banned

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    That's pretty much what we've been trying to say. Just as "theist" gives no indication of the beliefs or practices of the individual, atheism only tells you what a person doesn't believe.
     
  14. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    It might be better to conceive of atheism in philosophical as opposed to political terms.

    "Accountability"? For what? To whom?

    I'm not sure what "converts to atheism" means. What you seemingly are referring to is a situation in which a theist loses his or her faith in whatever god they previously believed in. What happens? Hard to say, it's an individual thing. In some cases a profound sense of loss. In other cases a profound sense of liberation.

    But in most cases, there probably isn't going to be any large and sudden emotional effect at all. That's because the theist is the one who loses his/her own faith. (That isn't the kind of thing that one person can do to another.) If theists come to the point where they lose their faith and begin to reconceive of themselves as 'atheist', that prior faith must have already been pretty shaky. These people were already doubting and questioning.

    Losing (or gaining) religious faith is typically the end-result of a process, in which an individual becomes more and more doubtful about (or more and more trusting of) the beliefs in question.

    I get the impression that you are imagining atheists going around suddenly knocking the faith out from under theists and then laughing sadistically as they crash to the floor. But it doesn't typically work that way.

    That doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

    When theists abandon faith in God, it's because they no longer believe in God. They aren't typically the victims of another person (the sadistic atheist) somehow smashing the emotional foundation for their entire lives. (Are theists really that fragile?) The theist who abandons faith in God is more apt to be shrugging off an increasingly superfluous belief that they no longer find credible.

    One can point to a whole variety of atheist organizations, to legal cases in which particular self-identified atheists have been parties, or whatever it is. One can also point to Christian churches and organizations of all sorts, ranging from the Metropolitan Community Church and the UU's to fire-breathing fundamentalists. One can point to African-Americans, ranging from the current occupant of the White House to the occupants of the local housing project.

    The difficulties arise when we begin insisting that particular atheists exemplify every atheist and atheism in general. That's like insisting that a particular storefront pentecostal congregation and it's idiosyncratic theology represents and exemplifies all Christians and all Christianity, or when we believe that the black thug who just shot and killed a 7-11 clerk for $20 represents and exemplifies all African-Americans.

    It's possible to end up in serious cognitive errors when we fail to generalize well.

    Atheists share disbelief in religious deities in general, certainly in the deities that are traditional and culturally established wherever they happen to live. Beyond that, all kinds of diversity appears. Some atheists hate "religion" with a burning fundamentalist passion, while others might be adherents of some non-theistic religion and be tremendously religious themselves. (They just don't believe in a Christian-style 'God'.)

    I don't think that atheism is a movement.

    As I said, atheists do share a broad philosophical/theological view, namely belief in the likely non-existence of religious deities. The reasons, justifications and implications of that are very interesting from a philosophical perspective. Atheism may or may not be tremendously important for other reasons as well, depending on how much weight one places on believing in deities. Theists typically think that it's vitally important.
     
  15. Sorcerer Put a Spell on you Registered Senior Member

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    I'm not quite sure that's correct. A theist does believe in a god of some kind or another - it probably doesn't matter which one, they're much of a muchness - which means there are some practices involved, whether it's the cutting off of foreskins or the avoidance of pork, or some such other nonsense, which is different from merely avoiding those superstitions.
     
  16. Sorcerer Put a Spell on you Registered Senior Member

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    Actually, there is a serious issue which the atheists address, and that is to prevent religions trying to take over or at least influence public policy. Frankly I wouldn't give a damn what theists believe as long as they stay the f*** away from trying to impose their twisted and immoral values on the rest of us. Militant atheism is a a response to militant religionism, nothing more: you shut up and so will we.
     
  17. Gremmie "Happiness is a warm gun" Valued Senior Member

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    Post deleted.
     
    Last edited: Apr 12, 2014
  18. Balerion Banned Banned

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    Theism can be as little as a basic belief in the existence of a god. No dogma is implied.
     
  19. emanresU Registered Member

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    I am not religious yet, much due to the offered range of religions to chose from on earth, I think its total BS. But when called an atheist and automatically pigeonholed as a non-believer is therefore a wrong assessment. What if there "is" a deity, or greater intellect, outside our cosmos? If there is a multiversum (before time as we know it). We do not know what lies beyond the big bang, looking back in time, beyond the birth of time...What lies "behind" that? Maybe there is a supreme truth there. I doubt if it's the human species that's gonna find out the "truth". The ones that will will probably deem us the same as homo sapiens sapiens deem monkeys nowadays. Under pressure of science all religions were willing to concede somewhat. Buddhism in it's sheer core is not a religion. Buddha would probably whip those who whore-shipped him like that. The law of gravity was written down on paper much later than the Ten Commandments, and in the bible there are multiple versions of the 10 laws. The only thing a religious person has to say to back his argument up is "it was written so it is true"....same goes for most scientific studies that go against religion.
     
  20. emanresU Registered Member

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    I am not religious yet, much due to the offered range of religions to chose from on earth, I think its total BS. But when called an atheist and automatically pigeonholed as a non-believer is therefore a wrong assessment. What if there "is" a deity, or greater intellect, outside our cosmos? If there is a multiversum (before time as we know it). We do not know what lies beyond the big bang, looking back in time, beyond the birth of time...What lies "behind" that? Maybe there is a supreme truth there. I doubt if it's the human species that's gonna find out the "truth". The ones that will will probably deem us the same as homo sapiens sapiens deem monkeys nowadays. Under pressure of science all religions were willing to concede somewhat. Buddhism in it's sheer core is not a religion. Buddha would probably whip those who whore-shipped him like that. The law of gravity was written down on paper much later than the Ten Commandments, and in the bible there are multiple versions of the 10 laws. The only thing a religious person has to say to back his argument up is "it was written so it is true"....same goes for most scientific studies that go against religion.
     
  21. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    I suppose if there's a religious person out there living under a rock they may not understand what you're talking about. But for the rest there is no excuse. To them: Your ancestors ridiculed Darwin and prosecuted John Scopes for teaching what was already a settled matter of science (yes, the Darwin's finches did actually evolve per "adaptive radiation" from a common ancestor, as did the seaweed-eating iguanas, and the long and short necked turtles). They and their children filed lawsuit after lawsuit attempting to form in the common law a schism between government and science. And when that failed you elected George W Bush, who worked hard for you by picking political leaders of the government offices of science who would harass scientists, infiltrate the academies and universities, place restrictions on them and sanction them, while at the State level you elected to assemblies the enemies of academic freedom who wrote laws to curtail the free teaching of science, and school board officials who would require the publishers to go back and add caveats that "science is only a theory" "there may be other explanations" and of course they had to waste time in science class covering the history of religious outrage over Darwin's discoveries. Then, when Big Business married Big Religion and declared war on the government policies to curtail the orgies of greed that led to the crash of 2008, you invented Climate Science Denial, replete with its own infiltrators, mind-police, propaganda machinery, and of course lawsuits, harassment and intimidation of people like meteorologists, climatologists, oceanographers, experts in measuring solar irradiance, and biologists studying the effects of climate on ecosystem collapses.

    But that wasn't enough. They and their children imposed Victorian taboos concerning private reproductive decisions, leading to countless deaths from sepsis and hemorrhage from back alley abortions. But even after the Supreme Court said "enough is enough" you decided to take it to the streets, harassing the pregnant women and staff at your neighborhood clinics, even resorting to vandalism, bombings, and murder--all in the name of God. Still that wasn't enough. You wanted to cure same-sex partners of their "disease" so you found satisfaction in what you called divine retribution for their "perversity": HIV/AIDS. Decades later you are still praying to keep same-sex couples marginalized.

    And throughout all of this, you have created atheists, who shrank in horror from your pathological urges to harm innocent bystanders, your virulent religiosity, your manipulation of vulnerable minds, your lies, your narcissism and you chronic lack of remorse and blame-shifting.

    Did you really expect no resistance? This is not militancy. Militancy would involve de-programming your congregations, suing your churches, bombing them and murdering their preachers, and raising an army groomed from childhood to root you out and destroy you.

    So this is actually quite mild. This is just argument, just to tell you "we're not going to take it . . . anymore."
     
  22. Balerion Banned Banned

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    Damn yeah! Great post, AI!
     
  23. emanresU Registered Member

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    Aside from that I believe that THOSE ====> humans are born religious, like they are destined to be gay, hetero, or (bisexual). A lot of cases are known where people had a sudden change in their lives, and they suddenly went from Atheist to devout christian, muslim or whatever...vice versa is also true. It is a brain-matter..matter of the brain. As long as religious people do not see the holistic value of materialism in brain structure, of which they are victimized by, they shall not see the truth. I never heard a muslim talking about Jesus at the end of the tunnel of light...never heard a Christian said he was drawn to the light by "come here" gestures made by muhammed. It's so obviously an anoxic process that it hurts to see how much people still "want to believe" As 90 percent of all people on earth are somehow religious, it would be kind of weird to say religion should be mentioned under "pathology" but yet I want to place it within that exact psychological branche. Proof for that? Why can't a perfect god convince a perfect sinner to believe in him/her?

    Really I can no longer believe in a god any more unless I see him/her defuse the Darwinistic laws that are proven
    beyond repair. All christians who attack the current Darwin-knowledge today are mentally ill or indoctrinated. There is no issue left, they lost the battle. "yes, but God invented "evidence" Sure, dude...dude....dude.......DUDE....D-DE-U
    DU-DE-DI-OGENES..DU -G-ueDGOD;...GOD....
     
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