Atheism: Love it or Leave it? - Part 3

[KalMart]

As we've evolved and gained more knowledge of ourselves and what's around us, we've also gained more capacity to understand and experience spirituality without it depending on the existence of an omnipotent super-presence. There are many reasons to appreciate religion as a social endeavor and an important part of our history as a species, but it's just as important to understand it as human construct borne out of internal human conditions that we developed, not had it given to us...and thus has been subject to error, misuse and abuse and is fundamentally flawed in so many ways. Not only was it authored from human sensibilities, but primitive human sensibilities at that. We're in a better place to understand that now, and will continue to be so...it's just still hard for some to take that free step.

 

[Ajendo]

Yeah, you're talking about smoking that sticky-icky.

 

[Sloth7d]

Maybe. It might be more accurate to say that religion was necessary... But at some point, the training wheels have to come off.

Why is it irrelevant now? Psychologically it's as important now as it ever was. It's not something science can replace since that was never the ultimate point of religion.

 

[-Arya-]

Religion as a failed science, huh? I would prefer to believe that is the case, but I find Jung's interpretation more convincing. Religion is necessary in most people for emotional growth and development. It never mattered whether some of the material explanations were real or not. This is my biggest beef with modern religion; the vast amount of literalist running around imposing their spirituality on others when spirituality is a personal matter.

We don't really have a suitable sample of non-religious compared to religious upbringing in order to make an accurate statement about that. If you want my opinion, I don't think it's necessary in our current time and place.

 

[NateHevens]

Maybe. It might be more accurate to say that religion was necessary... But at some point, the training wheels have to come off.

Ooh. I like that. I'm stealing it...

 

[Sloth7d]

As we've evolved and gained more knowledge of ourselves and what's around us, we've also gained more capacity to understand and experience spirituality without it depending on the existence of an omnipotent super-presence.

Not all religions rely on an omnipotent creator for guidance. Sam Harris even mentions the Jainists in his video; though he doesn't elaborate there, Jainists do not believe in a Creator God. In fact, the gods are pretty irrelevant to them. But like the Buddhists, that does not diminish their spiritual capacity and belief in a plain beyond this existence. If this is something they need for emotional growth, so be it. The problem lies with those religion that seek beyond their own personal development, but seeks to impose development on others.

There are many reasons to appreciate religion as a social endeavor and an important part of our history as a species, but it's just as important to understand it as human construct borne out of internal human conditions that we developed, not had it given to us...and thus has been subject to error, misuse and abuse and is fundamentally flawed in so many ways.

I never said anything to the contrary, but you must also understand, that though every religion is wrong isn't the point. And that some people don't need it does not mean others don't. I believe Alan Moore said it best when he said, "If there's any place God exists, it's in the mind."

[quite]Not only was it authored from human sensibilities, but primitive human sensibilities at that. We're in a better place to understand that now, and will continue to be so...it's just still hard for some to take that free step.[/QUOTE]

This is only true if you look at religion, as Harris said, as a failed science. If he is right in this claim, then you are right, absolutely and completely. But if what Jung says is correct, that religion is a natural occurring phenomena in humans to help stimulate emotional growth, then it is far from some out dated, primitive instinct, and is another part of our evolutionary psychology.

 

[KalMart]

Why is it irrelevant now? Psychologically it's as important now as it ever was. It's not something science can replace since that was never the ultimate point of religion.

See, the thing is, there didn't exist science as we've developed over our history at the time...so if it wasn't meant to be scientific, that's a distinction we can identify now, it wasn't 'designed' or 'meant' to have that ultimately arbitrary uniqueness from the start. It wasn't that clever or complex, because we weren't. It wasn't science, but the big problem is that for some, it's much more

The 'needs' that religion addressed are understood much better now as having nothing to do with an external intelligent force. It's not that math and science seek to replace religion...that was never the point of it. It's that religion has expired most of its usefulness and relevance in the face of human development. It's not just that religion can't hold up scientifically or historically...it can't hold up intellectually or rationally, either. I'm sure it still holds emotional and rhetorical value, but it's high time that people realize that it is, at its core, most likely a human construct that we have all but outgrown outside its nostalgic value.

 

[Sloth7d]

We don't really have a suitable sample of non-religious compared to religious upbringing in order to make an accurate statement about that. If you want my opinion, I don't think it's necessary in our current time and place.

Indeed. It's hard to falsify this, most of the world subscribes to some superstition based in spirituality. Hardcore materialists, are rare according to statistics, but as I said, I'm more convinced that religion has less to do with what's explainable, as Sam Harris puts it, and more to do with how best to cope in life. The fact that there are many Christians who also accept evolution and the big bang as a fact makes that more convincing for me. That no matter how many times science steps on the toes of religion it continues to persist, adapts you might even say, to the point of coining logical absurdities and contradictions(for example: God, heaven, etc. is immaterial) is convincing to me more than a "failed science" point of view.

 

[KalMart]

Not all religions rely on an omnipotent creator for guidance. Sam Harris even mentions the Jainists in his video; though he doesn't elaborate there, Jainists do not believe in a Creator God. In fact, the gods are pretty irrelevant to them. But like the Buddhists, that does not diminish their spiritual capacity and belief in a plain beyond this existence. If this is something they need for emotional growth, so be it. The problem lies with those religion that seek beyond their own personal development, but seeks to impose development on others.

Which says pretty much all you need to know about it being based on truth and real existence or not...and why it needs to be understood as myth. Not to say that people won't somehow find inspiration from it. But not understanding it as a man-made endeavor and instead a 'bigger' power is at the root of its abuse and consequently the worst atrocities that human's have committed.

Debunking religion is not meant to ridicule people. If anything, it drives home the importance of the person as a person, to take full responsibility for their own actions and morals. There should be no reason that people can't still gain personal growth from religion while knowing that here is no god or gods.

[YT]TMn90aAaDg8[/YT]

 

[Dr.]

Why is it irrelevant now? Psychologically it's as important now as it ever was. It's not something science can replace since that was never the ultimate point of religion.

Well… back in the day (as Harris notes) we had a pretty feeble knowledge of the physical sciences and medicine - and knew even less about psychology. Fast forward to now. In what areas do you think religion is still useful - such that it offers better answers than those other disciplines?

(I guess I'm repeating the essence of Kal's post.)

 

[-Arya-]

Indeed. It's hard to falsify this, most of the world subscribes to some superstition based in spirituality. Hardcore materialists, are rare according to statistics, but as I said, I'm more convinced that religion has less to do with what's explainable, as Sam Harris puts it, and more to do with how best to cope in life. The fact that there are many Christians who also accept evolution and the big bang as a fact makes that more convincing for me. That no matter how many times science steps on the toes of religion it continues to persist, adapts you might even say, to the point of coining logical absurdities and contradictions(for example: God, heaven, etc. is immaterial) is convincing to me more than a "failed science" point of view.

I think we mostly agree on this, but I still hold by my opinion that religion in any form is not necessary for emotional growth/development. The person who is a christian, muslim, hindu etc. may believe that their religion was necessary for this, but it's more likely a simple case of a false cause.

 

[KalMart]

Religion itself isn't inherently needed or essential for human growth...but for many it addresses innate needs for growth, and it isn't the only way to address those needs, either. It's more a process than an answer. It's an option...and a good one for a lot of reasons. But its inherent flaws and susceptibility to abuse combined with a perceived power makes it a dangerous affliction to cultural growth as well, being that it's practiced, and defended, by humans.

 

[enterthemadness]

Read some of it...watching Chuck..

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46160046/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times/

 

[8wid]

Why is that Christians and Muslims don't realize that with the exceptions of believing a certain prophet was the son of God and that the exact existence of God might be just a little different in name and form, that they have basically the same rules and penalties for punishment of sin, yet the Christians of the West act like their more civilized because they follow less of the Bible's exact teachings and act more secular than the Muslims do?

 

[Thundercrack85]

Christianity only became civilized after it waged war on the entire world.

It only took a thousand years of darkness and misery.

 

[enterthemadness]

Christianity only became civilized after it waged war on the entire world.

It only took a thousand years of darkness and misery.

Yeah, for a loving and forgiving God they like to force conversation and genocide the rest. Not saying all modern Christians are like that, but still some that fear other religions and what not.

 

[EML420]

Can´t a person just be an atheist and be content?

 

[Thundercrack85]

Can´t a person just be an atheist and be content?

Well, the problem with being an atheist is that you have to accept that the rest of the world is insane. If you can live with that... sure.

 

[EML420]

That doesn´t bother me im ok.

 

[enterthemadness]

Well, the problem with being an atheist is that you have to accept that the rest of the world is insane. If you can live with that... sure.

....do you consider me insane???

Cause if you do you have to say Mr. Insane.

 

[Thundercrack85]

What do you believe exactly?

But if you fall into the same category as 80-90% of humanity. Than yes.

 

[enterthemadness]

What do you believe exactly?

But if you fall into the same category as 80-90% of humanity. Than yes.

I worship Mother Earth and celebrate it's seasons. I love it's Moon. I Love the Sun. I call myself Pagan/Neo-Pagan, but I don't believe in our Gods and Goddesses to be real. They could have been, but I see them as a metaphor. So yes, I pray to the Earth. I also call Earth Gaia, Gaia is a Greek Goddess of the Earth...but even I see her as a metaphor. Here's a song about the Moon I wrote and posted in poetry thread. Not my best work, but I like it.


Moon--Song

You're such a sight to see.
You are up there, so high up there.
So far away from Mother Earth.
You are beautiful, yet some don't see it.

Some just see you as dull.
They see you as lifeless
And see you as useless.
But we see you as different.

We see you as useful.
After all, you control her tides.
And on a clear night we can see you.
Up there with all the stars.

When you are bright and full.
You are a sight to behold.
I love to look at you during your night.
When you are a full moon.
And surrounded by clouds which in turn.
Sometimes let you disappear from us.
On a cold and dark night.

You're such a sight to see.
You are up there, so high up there.
So far away from Mother Earth.
You are beautiful, yet some don't see it.

Some of us worship you.
See you as a Goddess.
I can only speak for thy self.
You've had a few names.
Selene, Luna, are a couple.
People can believe in Goddesses and Gods.
But for me, I just see you.
See you as a beautiful Moon.

 

[NateHevens]

Can´t a person just be an atheist and be content?

Some theists can't even give us that.

Well, the problem with being an atheist is that you have to accept that the rest of the world is insane. If you can live with that... sure.

Um... what? Why?

If you mean there's more to atheism than the lack of belief in a higher power or powers, well...

http://forums.carm.org/vbb/showthre...or-something&p=2461262&viewfull=1#post2461262

Spoiler

Thanks for the reply. I am curious to find out from your point of view, in what way my understanding is flawed. I am pretty sure that it is, yet to gain your specific insight would be appreciated.

You ascribe to them certainty, yet not all theists or atheists insist on any such certainty.

Certainty implies knowledge. Belief, on the other hand, does no such thing. This is why I call myself an agnostic atheist, because I refuse to claim any such certainty, but I do not at all believe. Truth be told, I think the term "agnostic" is redundant and useless because, technically speaking, everyone is agnostic with respect to the question of the existence of gods (at least, in my opinion). How can we know right now? Right now, we simply don't know enough about the universe to make a definitive statement either way.

But just because we don't have enough knowledge to know does not mean we can't make a decision as to whether or not we believe in gods. This is where the terms "atheism" and "theism" come in to play. They have nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with belief. Theists may not know whether or not gods exist, but they believe in them. Atheists may not know whether or not gods exist, but they don't believe in them.

Those who claim certainty either way would be gnostic (a)theists. I don't hold much respect for those who claim any amount of gnosticism on the subject because I don't see how, given what we know and what we don't know, one can honestly claim they know for a fact that gods do or don't exist. Claiming to know strikes me as intellectually dishonest. I'm not talking about specific gods here, of course (I'll go into that in a second), but the general God Hypothesis.

I think we can be more certain about specific versions of the god hypothesis, however. I'll give you two extremes as an example:

For me, personally, I don't see how the Bible's Yahweh can exist. I think the Bible describes him out of existence.

First, of course, he is given a gender... specifically, male. How could humans know such a thing? How could it even apply?

Second is the contradictory nature of his omnimax description. Omnipotence implies being able to do anything (without exception). If you limit that to only what is logical, you may have solved the problem of questions like "can God create a being more powerful than himself", but you've done it by limiting his powers, making him no longer all-powerful. Omniscience can be contradictory to his omnipotence (does he have the ability to change the future, and if so, then how can he know the future?), as well as being contradictory to the accepted (if flawed) human idea of free will, and contradicted by the almost messy, flawed nature of... well... nature (at least as far as we know it). Omnipresence is of course contradicted by his obvious absence, and his omnibenevolence is contradicted by the Problem of Evil (not just man-made evil, but natural disasters, too).

Third, he's so insanely human it's ridiculous. This is true of just about all the personal gods, though. They are everything humans want to be. Yahweh himself, like all the personal gods, has human emotions such as love, hate, jealousy, and so on. This means he has predictably human flaws... specifically, he's not exactly the most peaceful god... especially in the Old Testament, he's very much a warrior, in both the best and worst ways. He's quite the bigot, too: misogynistic, racist, homphobic, ethnocentric (what a surprise), xenophobic, and so on. He seems to be an exact outpouring of the thoughts of the people who wrote about him. And this should come as no surprise, either.

Taking all this into account, I don't see how it's possible that Yahweh could exist. The very idea is just too far-fetched.

On the flipside, you have the Pandeistic concept of the God Hypothesis. Despite many atheists protestations that Einstein was an atheist, he was, in fact, a Pandeist (note: yes, Einstein did say that, in the view of a Jesuit priest, he was an atheist... however, for Jesuits, an "atheist" is simply someone who is not a Jesuit, which includes all non-Jesuit Christians [including Catholics and Mormons], Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and so on). Pandeists, unlike Pantheists, are not, in fact, "glorified atheists" (as Pantheists have often been called), but actually do believe in a higher power... it's just not a higher power they waste their time worshiping.

I'll use a quote from Einstein, and then a more specific one from Wikipedia, to explain what the Pandeistic God Hypothesis is:

From Einstein:

I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.

From Wikipedia:

Pandeism or Pan-Deism (from Ancient Greek: πάν pan "all" and Latin: deus meaning "God" in the sense of deism), is a term describing beliefs incorporating or mixing logically reconcilable elements of pantheism (that "God", or its metaphysical equivalent, is identical to the Universe) and deism (that the creator-god who designed the Universe no longer exists in a status where it can be reached, and can instead be confirmed only by reason). It is therefore most particularly the belief that the Creator of the Universe actually became the Universe, and so ceased to exist as a separate and conscious entity.

Now, yes, there are problems with the Pandeistic version of the God Hypothesis, most notably the infinite regress problem that the general God Hypothesis suffers from. However, if there is some kind of creator, the Pandeistic idea is the one that I think has the best chance of being right. So I'm quite a bit more agnostic about Pandeism than I am about Yahweh.

So while it may be possible to claim some certainty about specific ideas of the God Hypothesis, it is not currently possible to claim any certainty on the God Hypothesis overall.

I'd like to note that I'm emphasizing "currently" and "right now" (above) because I think that could change in the future. We may be a few hundred millenia away from even knowing how to begin to answer that question (and then, perhaps, a few centuries, if not millenia, more away from actually finding an answer), but I don't agree that the question is forever unanswerable. I do think it's a scientific question because it's a question about the nature of reality, and questions about the nature of reality are the questions we use science to answer in the first place.

So... everyone is agnostic with respect to whether or not gods actually exist. Saying that you're an agnostic is pointless and says nothing. Of course you're agnostic... we all are (whether or not we admit it). It should be assumed. The question here is not whether you know if gods exist, but whether or not you believe that gods exist. They are two different questions, and so the answer to each should be different.

The fanatics are insane. But your average theist is not at all insane. Wrong? Possibly. Insane? No.

 

[8wid]

John Lennon, The Beatles, and Jesus?

 

[Thundercrack85]

Some theists can't even give us that.



Um... what? Why?

If you mean there's more to atheism than the lack of belief in a higher power or powers, well...

http://forums.carm.org/vbb/showthre...or-something&p=2461262&viewfull=1#post2461262

The fanatics are insane. But your average theist is not at all insane. Wrong? Possibly. Insane? No.

Believing in something without a shred of evidence. That's insanity. Being insane doesn't mean that you're bad or violent. Some insane people are quite pleasant. The fanatics are violently insane.