what do y'all think? (the atheism thread)

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

O.K. look guys, y'all are WAY overthinking all of this WAY too much.

If any of you have been paying ANY attention to the way the world works you'd know this by now . . .

Just go about yourself as a Conservative Christian. You can get away with ANYTHING then. I tell anyone I meet now that I'm "Christian" and "Conservative". (wink, wink)

[Sean]

Originally Posted by myrrh

This a very long and interesting thread. The one thing about it is that when these kinds of discussions ensue there usually is no clear definition of the concept of God. So, everyone reading this can have their own idea of this concept and it be different to everyone elses.

Therefor you can have people saying that they don't beleive in God, but that is based on a Biblical/Christian definition of God. And I have found most atheists come from this type of background. It seems that most people who denounce the concept of God come from Europe or the US, and these were the heartlands of Christianity.

So, perhaps, that speaks more about the religion of Christianity and how it defines God, rather than the existence of God in a general stance.

For me it's the entire idea of mythical deities, period. None of my arrival at atheism had anything to do with the specific character of the Catholic God I was raised with. It was simply the concept of A god - ANY god - that made no sense to me as I got older and learned more.

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

One thing I've learned about atheists is how many of "those" kind use science to legitimize their own style of bigotry and/or racism . . .

[bas_I_am]

Originally Posted by Sean

I maintain that there is a chance that he exists - albeit a minuscule chance from a reason-based outlook.

Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. - Paul Tillich
Faith which does not doubt is dead faith. — Miguel de Unamuno

Originally Posted by Sean

More active in my disbelief is a modest understanding of how religion developed and evolved throughout human history. When you take the time to understand that, it becomes exceedingly apparent that deities and religions are man-made concepts meant to help us deal with the questions we can't yet answer - particularly in regards to death.

religion <> spirituality
While religion is a social entity, spirituality is not. Spirituality is personal, developed be each of us, or not, on our own.
My spirituality enables me to deal with the questions I can answer, and which actually matter. It better enables me to live in the here and now, instead of life's distractions that are of no true consquence.

Originally Posted by froopy seal

I think every human more or less knows what's right and what's wrong. We're just too lazy and egoistic to follow that knowledge.

No. . . While everyone of us, save the psychopath/sociopath, knows right from wrong.
It is FEAR that leads us to fall short of our ideals. Driven by various forms of subtle, corrosive, self-centered fear, we fall into sloth, greed, envy, pride, gluttony, lust and anger.
This fear is present in all of us to some degree.

Originally Posted by jOHN rODRIGUEZ

One thing I've learned about atheists is how many of "those" kind use science to legitimize their own style of bigotry and/or racism . . .

Exactly. The closed mind can rationalize myopia by arguing either for, or against, dogma.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by bas_I_am

Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. - Paul Tillich
Faith which does not doubt is dead faith. — Miguel de Unamuno

I wouldn't call my acknowledgment that there's a miniscule chance god exists "doubt", because I flat out do not believe there is a god. Really, it's just practical acceptance of the fact that god's existence/non-existence simply can't be proven. And it probably never will be either, given the fact that god has been perfectly constructed by believers to be exempt from any and all methods of scrutiny.

I just had a brief debate with a religious girl on another website in which she asserted that the complexities of the human body proved God's existence, because nothing that complex could possibly have come into being without the involvement of a "creator". I noted that if this was so, then that creator would presumably have to be at least as complex as humans if not moreso. I then asked her if a being's complexity inherently necessitated a creator, wouldn't that creator's complexity also necessitate a creator of their own? Her answer was that no, it didn't, because the nature of God is outside our realm of understanding. This is the kind of argument I always see. If you apply any logic or scientific method to the concept of "God", it simply gets brushed aside as irrelevant.

So believers will likely always update their descriptions and definitions of god so that he/she/it can never be disproven through human knowledge or understanding. As such, folks like myself will always just have to acknowledge on a philosophical level that sure - maybe there's a god, but I'm extremely confident that there isn't. Just like we all could actually be living in the Matrix....

[bas_I_am]

Sean,

Have you read Heinlein's Job ?

[stimpee]

Originally Posted by bas_I_am

Sean,

Have you read Heinlein's Job ?

Its well known that Heinlein was no big fan of organised religion. Stranger in a Strange Land is a great example of this, and a fantastic book at that. Job is also very good.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by bas_I_am

Sean,

Have you read Heinlein's Job ?

No, I haven't. Honestly, I don't read many books because I usually pass out asleep after two pages or so. They end up taking me forever to get through. Would this one be worth a shot?

[bas_I_am]

Originally Posted by Sean

No, I haven't. Honestly, I don't read many books because I usually pass out asleep after two pages or so. They end up taking me forever to get through. Would this one be worth a shot?

Job is one of the few books I've read... cs lewis' the screwtape letters is another.

Both quick fun and worth reading.

Those and lowy's programming wcf services and are my fave three books.

[bas_I_am]

Originally Posted by stimpee

Its well known that Heinlein was no big fan of organised religion. Stranger in a Strange Land is a great example of this, and a fantastic book at that. Job is also very good.

Who the fuck said anything about organized religion????