Isn't time that Humanity was more important than any religion

Then what do you suggest as a viable alternative to atheism?

 

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technically speaking atheism isn't viable since material existence offers a uniform destiny

 

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Theists, too, are subject to aging, illness and death.

I'll restate the question:

Then what do you suggest as a meaningful alternative to atheism?

 

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sure
but it also involves an approach for solving that issue as opposed to continuing it

Heaps of things
I'm pretty sure we have discussed the sliding scale of alternatives before.

 

For the time being, we can take this on faith only.

For an alternative to atheism to be meaningful to the atheist, it has to be accessible to the atheist.
And as discussions so far have shown, they do not seem to be accessible to the atheist. Ie., in those alternatives, there seems to be no entry point, no gate through which an atheist could pass.

 

True, however you refer to atheism a uniform institution, which would imply a uniform or preset written code of standards for those who “adhere” and I use “adhere” vary sparingly in this case since not all atheist have uniform beliefs. The same can be retorted for theists as not all theists believe in the identical gods or have different philosophies concerning life, death or the afterlife. However for atheists the only real uniting or set standard is the absence of belief in deities.

 

God is Humane, More, Important, Thought, So, It, Found, Ours, His Own, and Destiny.

This is what I say. God is Love, and those following are his God's, his beautiful angels. This is what I get religious to, straight funky, yo.

Isn't, and Not would be demons.

 

It is a false dilemma that any perceived equality, other than that of just being human, is necessary for a morality which promotes equality. You also seem to conflate equality with acceptance, where one is not necessary for the other. There is no equality necessary for a person of one belief to think it fair that those of others have the same protected rights they do. It is not necessary to believe that the sexes are equal to think it is fair for women to vote and make a comparable wage for comparable work. It is not necessary to think homosexuality is natural to allow them the rights of a civil union (which is all the rights accorded a marriage without enforcing an acceptance).

Neither of you understand this simple passage. Jesus simply said that his efforts would be wasted, just like preaching to an atheist. The woman then, without any prompting whatsoever, said that she believed the most meager of scraps would suffice, showing it was not wasted on her.

Matthew 15:26 should be the rallying cry of any atheist, as it clearly indicates that only those open to the message should be proselytized.

Jesus offered to heal the servant immediately. “Shall I come and heal him?” The centurion demonstrated more faith than was called for by assuming Jesus could heal with only a word.

Your bias is severely hindering your reading comprehension.

 

I meant viable in the sense that whatever strain of atheism one is advocating, all its values, goals and hopes are completely undone by material nature

 

Since the society is very complex , why should be only one solution for all . I believe different segments of the society will help themselves with different teaching

 

Well, there's certainly nothing in sight, but two or three hundred years from now, who knows. Anyway, I would argue that the "powers" of humanity have solved the problem, by creating religion. In other words, life doesn't have to be everlasting, the people just have to believe it is.

That's the deal for everyone. Atheists are simply more willing to accept it.

I'm sorry, but how does a transcendental worldview explain that, and how does atheism fail to?

Actually, that would better describe the carrot-and-stick of monotheistic religion. "Your life may suck now, but your reward will come in heaven."

It seems a bit unfair, because I feel like I have an unfair advantage here. As an atheist, I grew up in a Catholic household, attended church and a Catholic school, have known and still consider friends many religious people. So I know not only religion as it was written, but how it is practiced by average people. You, on the other hand, seem to be getting your information about atheism from other religious folks. I say that because I've never known an atheist to submit to nihilism. The opposite of "God has a plan" has never been "There's no point," in my experience. In fact, the only people I've ever heard say that are religious people when considering the atheist position.

:shrug:

 

I'm sorry, but that reads like gibberish. What is this "uniform destiny," and how does it detract from atheism's viability?

 

How so? If I seek to make the world a better place through education, and I institute such education initiatives, how does my death undo my worK?

 

There are no intellectual alternatives to atheism, in my view. One can choose to ride the fence as an agnostic, but they're only lying to themselves.

The only difference between atheism of the past and "modern" atheism is that modern atheism includes an agnosticism regarding the "Ultimate Question" of whether or not there is some kind of prime mover, and thus leaving no reason to call oneself an agnostic.

The only true alternatives to atheism are emotional ones. If atheism scares or depresses you, then by all means, find God. But you can't look yourself in the mirror and say that faith is more true than atheism. It isn't.

 

hence .... they are instead sold the notion of "ok you are not happy now, but you will be in the future"

A mere opinion about having a transcendental existence is as futile as an opinion that we can hopefully attain such a state via technology in 300 or so years ....

On the contrary, that's the exclusive deal of atheism and their willingness to accept is simply a consequence of having no other option . Kind of like saying the deal is that everyone only gets to eat cactus and camels are simply more willing to accept it. I guess the difference is that even atheists are mostly trying to avoid it as opposed to the camel relishing the taste of its own blood.

Been dealt with numerous times but in short

how the transcendental view explains:

A Defense of Theodicy
The Purpose of Creation



and how the atheistic world view doesn't (or is relegated to the same bevy of insurmountable obstacles that cannot be over come no matter how many resources are pumped into the endeavour):

Envy - the final frontier
Atheist Fundamentalism and the Limits of Science
The Inadequacy of Atheism
Foundation of scientific and technical thought

granted that at the lower threshold of religious practice it can function like that .... but the irony is that you have painted the upper threshold of atheists/gross materialists in the same manner ("perhaps we can solve this problem in 300 years with technology" etc etc)

as I said there are two categories - seems like you are only familiar with the first variety. Persons of the second type tend to be a bit more intellectual or knowledgeable of the nature of conditioned existence to. I've met a few but they are certainly a lot more rarer breed than your standard "I'm gonna go out there and acquire what I need to be happy" sort of atheist. Posters like Crunchycat come to mind

 

I meant viable in the sense that whatever strain of atheism one is advocating, all its values, goals and hopes are completely undone by material nature
or rotting molars et al

if whatever goals one can achieve with a process result in failure, it is not viable

 

How does it result in failure? And how is theism therefore viable? What does it achieve?

 

Its not just your death.
Its the death of the people you teach (assuming you didn't teach them anything about how to surmount the problem of death) and also eventually the planet and universe that you taught on (if you want to assume that you taught something which was noteworthy over numerous millennium).

This is a succinct description of the process based on what are the the 5 vargas (a varga is a particular type of letter in the sanskrit language and "pa" = 5.... taken together .... pa-varga .... one can get the word aparvarga which, due to the way semantics combine in sanskrit, means "liberation"

Material life is called pavarga because here we are subject to five different states of suffering, represented by the letters pa, pha, ba, bha and ma. Pa means pariçrama, very hard labor. Pha means phena, or foam from the mouth. For example, sometimes we see a horse foaming at the mouth with heavy labor. Ba means byarthatä, disappointment. In spite of so much hard labor, at the end we find disappointment. Bha means bhaya, or fear. In material life, one is always in the blazing fire of fear, since no one knows what will happen next. Finally, ma means måtyu, or death. When one attempts to nullify these five different statuses of life—pa, pha, ba, bha and ma—one achieves apavarga, or liberation from the punishment of material existence.


IOW regardless who or what you teach (assuming you are teaching nothing to do with aparvarga of course) both yourself and your pupils will go through the cycle of parvarga

 

hence .... they are instead sold the notion of "ok you are not happy now, but you will

be in the future"

A mere opinion about having a transcendental existence is as futile as an opinion that we

can hopefully attain such a state via technology in 300 or so years ....

On the contrary, that's the exclusive deal of atheism and their willingness to accept is

simply a consequence of having no other option . Kind of like saying the deal is that

everyone only gets to eat cactus and camels are simply more willing to accept it. I guess

the difference is that even atheists are mostly trying to avoid it as opposed to the camel

relishing the taste of its own blood.

Been dealt with numerous times but in short

how the transcendental view explains:

A Defense of Theodicy
The Purpose of Creation



and how the atheistic world view doesn't (or is relegated to the same bevy of

insurmountable obstacles that cannot be over come no matter how many resources are pumped

into the endeavour):

Envy - the final frontier
Atheist Fundamentalism and the Limits of

Science
The Inadequacy of Atheism
Foundation of scientific and technical thought

granted that at the lower threshold of religious practice it can function like that ....

but the irony is that you have painted the upper threshold of atheists/gross materialists

in the same manner ("perhaps we can solve this problem in 300 years with technology" etc

etc)

as I said there are two categories - seems like you are only familiar with the first

variety. Persons of the second type tend to be a bit more intellectual or knowledgeable of

the nature of conditioned existence to. I've met a few but they are certainly a lot more

rarer breed than your standard "I'm gonna go out there and acquire what I need to be happy"

sort of atheist. Posters like Crunchycat come to mind

 

I posted a reply top your post but I keep getting that stupid "your post is int he moderator queue" thing - I think that happens if the post has numerous links (even if the links are to various parts of the sciforums website) and is kind of a safe guard against bots selling discounted viagra and such


Let's see if my reply comes through .....