Atheism - theism

[geko]

Do I have your permission to quote it, with an attribution to you, Geko?

 

sure

[maddog]

It is refreshing to engage rational individuals in a seemingly irrational debate. It seems (however coincidental) that atheist and theists may in essence be ‘hard wired’ in different manners. No matter what is presented (even with Mother T being placed on a lower moral plane than Tse-tung – thanks free thinker :( ), I simply can not cognitively comprehend an atheist POV.

 

I don't see the difference as "hard wiring". It more like the logic in either branch of an if-then-else

conditional statement. For instance... If (there is a God) then ... else (not) ... endif ... Probably more

like software than hardware. At least this allows for changes between. ;)

 

That is people who were Theist to become Atheist and visa versa. Change the program, not the wires.

 

In addition, I see from interaction with other Atheist from this site and from my life, that Atheist don't

nessecarily have a POV. Instead more like a PONV (Point of Non-View). As it appears to the belief in the

Non-Existence of any God. FT might be able to give a more accurate view as he are one.

 

BTW, my growing up years, I was raised a Roman Catholic. These days I am a mixture of Gnostic,

Taoism, Buddhism and Physics. I do not prefer denominations. They are too limiting. To me it's all a

personal journey anyway. ;)

 

Maddog

[sanctus]

I might agree that an atheist might never fully appreciate the sense of deep faith that certain religious people experience, although I question whether most religious people ACTUALLY reach a high sense of spirituality within. I know I have had lots of "special" moments - one particular moment which I remember was when I was in St Peter's in the Vatican. It was a marvellous sight and it was hard not to be both stunned and impressed. I admit to feeling a sense of longing for faith. But being a rational atheist I attribute this more to the sense of awe than to the spiritualism of the place (meaning no disrespect)..

 

 

It didn't make at all that effect on me, I got upset seeing all the waste of money the church makes there intsead of using it to finance something for the well-being of their believers and not (eg poverty in africa).I've never seen so much gold and richness anywhere else I was stunned as well, but happy to not be part of the church.

[Tormod]

It didn't make at all that effect on me, I got upset seeing all the waste of money the church makes there intsead of using it to finance something for the well-being of their believers and not (eg poverty in africa).I've never seen so much gold and richness anywhere else I was stunned as well, but happy to not be part of the church.

 

I was astonished at the beauty of it all. Can you imagine what kind of attention the artists, sculptors, masons, painters etc have paid to everything? I think great buildings are important to our culture, no matter what affiliation they have. The Taj Mahal is also a fascinating place - and also a religious place.

[pgrmdave]

There's so much about most theology that is only fantasy or speculation, that's how athiests see it. To convince an athiest to believe in God would probably take a frontal lobotomy.

 

No, that's how you see it, and maybe how some others do. There is no standard athiest, although I will admit that most of the people here think that. Other atheists are simply people who haven't felt anything, or don't have enough time, or hundreds of other reasons. My thoughts about not being able to prove theism stems from the idea that there is no logical proof, and never can be any logical proof, for a god, but that to each individual there is a strong feeling that we cannot ignore, and that feeling can't be transferred, or really explained to another.

[RiverRat]

It didn't make at all that effect on me, I got upset seeing all the waste of money the church makes there intsead of using it to finance something for the well-being of their believers and not (eg poverty in africa).I've never seen so much gold and richness anywhere else I was stunned as well, but happy to not be part of the church.

 

There is a Baptist church a few miles from where I live that was nothing more than two double wide trailers crudely connected. It was set on a vacant industrial site with a gravel and dirt parking lot. As the congregation grew they need a larger building. The members donated their time and materials to construct a larger church. The two double wide trailers are still on site and used for storing food items and clothing to distribute to the needy.

 

My point is… it is easy to paint a broad stoke of an institution based on individual instances. Be careful when discarding contradictory examples to solidify an impression. ;)

[IrishEyes]

I was astonished at the beauty of it all. Can you imagine what kind of attention the artists, sculptors, masons, painters etc have paid to everything?

I felt exactly the same way. It was truly overwhelming, and it was quite awesome. There are many places throughout Europe that have inspired the same reaction. The Trevi Fountain was also quite awesome, but I think it may be that way for me with a lot of places like that. The Lincoln Memorial also does that to me, as did standing at 'the' place in Times Square, and this incredible mosque in Oman. Of course, with many of those things, it made me also wonder how many people suffered so that those buildings could be built, and even though I might find them extraordinary, would I have felt the same way if that building made me a widow? Or if that building was the reason one of my children died of starvation? Who's to know, because my husband is alive, my children have full belly's, and I still LOVE seeing things like the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, and the Sistene Chapel...

[Drakon1323]

Simple terms to me is quite to the contrary of 'mystical'

 

I suppose if there is no logical explaination ... then what I'm left with is that pesky 'flying pink unicorn'. Errrr... I can't seem to comprehend what law of pyhsics or other natural phenomenon would have enabled my experience to occur.

Just because an event or experience cannot be explained by known physics, does not necessarily discredit it from being real nor does it mean it has to be a 'religious' occurance. It may very well be an 'act of god', but keep in mind that science does not know everything and there is alot of unexplainable things in this world.

 

The nature of living things, is to fear what they do not understand. It is a part of the survival instinct, keeps them out of trouble. Humans, being of rational and logical thought (and i say that loosely) needed more to passify their ignorance of the environment around them.

 

When you look at religion, it has always been an explination to satisfy the ideas of the unknown. Ancient man has looked at everything they didnt comprehend as a god of some sorts.(the sun, moon, rain, earthquakes, etc.) As time moved on and understanding progressed, the gods disappeared. The idea, however, becoming tradition and being so heavily engrained in society, has and prolly will never go away. Plus, i dont think we as a race will ever comprehend everything, and with an ever growing need for something to tell us to be respectable decent people, religion fills that niche perfectly.

 

I grew up with catholic schooling all of my life, from pre-k thru high school, but have always found other explinations for everything. I am now an atheistic wiccan. I definitely believe in things that are not 'realistic to most', but it is all explainable with logic.

 

Have you ever considered psyonics? Its hogwash to just about everybody, but it fits the picture much better than an 'all powerful man' making it so. We dont understand SO many things that could be related to what you experienced. If you consider unknown forces of nature, and parts of psyonics, it works. Keep in mind, whatever you have learned, from parts of physics to parts of religion, some of it is unknown, some is theory, and some is true. Its a matter of taking what makes sense to you and sticking with it until something better presents itself.

 

If you make sure to be open minded about things, it wont be a disaster when you find out something is wrong. You just adapt and keep going. Be glad youve been enlightened a little more about existence.

 

If this doesnt make perfect sense to anyone, im sorry. Im ultra wired on coffee (more than usual) and havnt slept in 2 days.

[Drakon1323]

Irish, thats quite an active hibernation ;)

[Freethinker]

I suppose if there is no logical explaination ... then what I'm left with is that pesky 'flying pink unicorn'. Errrr... I can't seem to comprehend what law of pyhsics or other natural phenomenon would have enabled my experience to occur.

What I often find when confronted by anecdotal examples, even my own, is an unwillingness to accept that it is anecdotal. That single incidents are as easily mis-interpretations as actual events. Errors in perception. The senses and memory really are very poor when it comes to being arbiters of reality.

 

People think it is a requirement to force their memories or peceptions into some specific pigeonhole. And when it does not fit conveniently, they often are willing to invent connections or accept god gap answers. When the answer is just "who know?" sometimes.

 

If there was something more to it, if these things had actual reality to them, then they would be repeatable.

 

There is this segment they show when promoting ESP/ PSI. Some old Native American, speaking his native language (for effect), it is connected to Appollo 13. He talks about a vision he had which so closely fits their problems and the timing is about right. SO it is dragged out as "PROOF" of this connection.

 

OK, hundreds, perhaps thousands of Native Anericans having thousands, perhaps millions of "visions" and one connects. This is supposed to impress us? THis is supposed to be PROOF? Of what? That if we search hard enough we can once in an incredibly great while, find a coinciednce close enough to be impressed?

 

Not to minimize your experience. But if I were in your shoes, I would either see it as a coincidence or as a likely memory error. Just as my story. Or other memories I have which I could easily claim to have supernatural possibilities.

 

Like the guy that gets a feeling he should not get on a particular flight, he doesn't and that plane crashes. There are probably hundreds of these preminitions every single day. When one actually hits, we ignore the overwhelming numbers that fail and are overwhelmed by the singular coincidental one.

 

Oh ya, and it's the Great INVISIBLE Pink Unicorn, not the Flying one! Show some respect for our Creator!

[IrishEyes]

Irish, thats quite an active hibernation :)

 

Damn, busted again. I'm supposed to be "invisible" right now!!

[Freethinker]

Some people I know were once religious but gradually dropped their beliefs after becoming better educated and thinking logically.

This is actually proven statistically. There is a direct inverse correlation between education and belief. The higher the level of education the less apt to be a believer. The more highly regarded the instituion of learning, the lower the % of believers attending.

You can't believe something you don't believe. There's so much about most theology that is only fantasy or speculation, that's how athiests see it.

One of the people that attend my Freethought group's meetings, a Physics Prof, is convinced there really are no "believers". That no one can actually accept this nonsense. That it is all a charade. Especially preachers. But they just can't bring themselves to admit it.

To convince an athiest to believe in God would probably take a frontal lobotomy.

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy.

[pgrmdave]

In regards to Riverrat's premonition - I've had that same feeling multiple times, and, looking back on them, have realized that there were some subtle clues that I didn't consiously notice, but were there, and affected my thoughts.

[Freethinker]

In addition, I see from interaction with other Atheist from this site and from my life, that Atheist don't nessecarily have a POV. Instead more like a PONV (Point of Non-View). As it appears to the belief in the Non-Existence of any God. FT might be able to give a more accurate view as he are one.

ANY view I give is ALWAYS the more accurate one! :-)

 

Er.. anyway... This is what I keep trying to get across. *A*theist says only that I do not have a Theist believe structure. That is ALL it says about me or ANY Atheist.

BTW, my growing up years, I was raised a Roman Catholic. These days I am a mixture of Gnostic, Taoism, Buddhism and Physics.

Gnostic? You want to claim that you can PROVE there is a god? That there are physical proofs with logical processes behind it? That is what is meant by Gnostic as a religion. It was (is?) a specific religion which was one of the one's Christianity stole their stuff from.

 

As for Buddhism, it's support for a caste system is to anti-humanistic for me. I have too much respect for the entire human race to accept that some are born inferior and should stay in their place!

[Buffy]

I used to say I was an Atheist until I realized that the common definition was "the belief that there is no God," which sure smelled like a religion to me. So I go by "agnostic" or "heathen" ("I believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny..."), depending on the audience....

 

I've always believed that determining the answer to the "there is/is no God" obeys Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle....

 

Cheers,

Buffy

-----------------------------------

"If you do not agree with what I've said, I'll not only retract it, but deny under oath that I ever said it!" --Tom Lehrer

[Freethinker]

It didn't make at all that effect on me, I got upset seeing all the waste of money the church makes

This is my general feelings about religion, esp the larger monotheistic ones. Especially Christianity. The absolute waste ot time, energy, money and every other resource. COuntries like Poland where the population is often dirt poor. Being forced to give their limited resources to build exotic churches!

 

This was the direction I was heading in the thread that got shut down. Waiting for anyone to actually show that religion has a positive benefit when actually all it does is WASTE resources and promote ignorance. While providing the arbitrary claim of providing services to the community once in a great while.

 

I even said at the last wedding I attended, when others were raving about how beautiful the church was. "Yes imagine how many people could be fed and clothed if we tore it down and sold it off for cash for them!" Funny how it did not seem to go over very well?

[Stargazer]

One of the people that attend my Freethought group's meetings, a Physics Prof, is convinced there really are no "believers". That no one can actually accept this nonsense. That it is all a charade. Especially preachers. But they just can't bring themselves to admit it.

I'm not so sure that everyone actually see that it is nonsense and if so, why. But I have encountered one or two on other boards that seems to believe mainly out of fear of death, and then how on Earth could that possibly be an actual belief? How is it possible for them to ignore the fact that they began believing because they simply wanted it to be true?