The Bloggers With The Most To Say
Is God a dirty word?
or Jesus?
I feel like people always say you shouldn't talk about your religion because you're trying to force it on people.
The problem with that is that they're forcing the lack of religion on me, and they usually win for some reason.
Atheism is a belief set. It shouldn't get preferential treatment.
I feel like people always say you shouldn't talk about your religion because you're trying to force it on people.
The problem with that is that they're forcing the lack of religion on me, and they usually win for some reason.
Atheism is a belief set. It shouldn't get preferential treatment.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by leilani on -
I may have to correct you - how does atheism not qualify as a belief set? It is a belief in the absence of a supreme being. Rather than being indifferent to the concept or unsure, you're actually forming a belief that it does not exist, right?
I think an 'absence of belief,' as you say, would actually be a more appropriate description of agnosticism...
Secondly, to your point about giggling - nearly everyone I know self-identifies as an atheist (some of whom even practice religion) - what I always like to ask people is, do you not think there's some supernatural, phenomenal element to existence/the Universe?
I mean, I know this discussion isn't about philosophy, but I am always super interested in people's ideas on this as it seems that despite the tangible correlates of existence (e.g. biology) it maintains a dualistic quality in the sense that many things, e.g. consciousness cannot really be explained by science or in a definitive manner...
I think you make an excellent point on the public vs. private practice thing - though I think a social component is inherent to many religions/religious practices, can you imagine all of the trouble that could be/would have been prevented if these beliefs were kept private and subjective?
(Sorry if I am going a bit too far with this... things like this bring me back to my early years of studying things I like, as opposed to what I should be studying now, which is boring.)
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Permalink Reply by Andrew G on -
Atheism is the 0 point. The emptiness. The vacuum. The purity of thought. No belief.
Agnosticism is noncommittal, doubtful, but could go either way.
Now, you are twisting up your logic in knots by assuming that an atheist has to believe that there is nothing. This is not how it works. Nobody can observe or prove god exists, so there is no precedent to deny. God, being a construct of human imagination, exists only for those who believe, and only in a form that is apparent to them and only them.
Belief is a bridge between what there is and what we think there is. Atheism says, "We don't need a bridge because we only need what there is."
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Permalink Reply by leilani on
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I don't think atheists believe there is nothing, hence my phrasing of the question as "do you not" - I find that most people do indeed believe in some type of underlying phenomenal structure of the Universe (for lack of a better expression?) but since you made the remark about 'believing in fairies,' I thought you may have been rejecting the validity of unverifiable ideas.
I do see your point about atheism. I think it is perhaps true that considering it to be a "negative belief" presupposes theistic belief by placing a belief in God as the affirmative state, so to speak.
As far as whether atheism is the "0 point" or "-1 point" I think it comes down to a semantic difference. I don't see atheism as being a belief in the sense that theism is a belief (namely, the affirmative belief in God), but the mere absence of belief in a God (somewhat counter-intuitively) denotes a belief - a negative belief. The emptiness, if you will.
To me, "no belief" would have more nihilistic or indistinct components than atheism generally does... but this is dictated by my personal experience/interactions so I suppose what I have learned here is that the notion of what constitutes a belief or belief set is more subjective than I thought.
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Permalink Reply by Andrew G on
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I still have to correct you. If you are going to take my words and try to turn it into a semantics game, I might as well set you straight on what you're talking about. When I say "0 point" I mean it. If we think about belief as a mathematical equation, applying a "-1" to the line assumes that there is a "1" that it is countering (because we all know that equations balance out to 0). However, as I have noted, there is no evidence whatsoever to support the existence of any god. "-1" would represent denial of evidence if there were any. "0" is simply a natural state where nothing is assumed or denied.
I really urge you to focus on my metaphor of a bridge because the more I think about it, the more it really illustrates the difference. Any faith is just that... faith. You're not accepting the natural world and instead *believing* that there is more than what is apparent. It is thus a bridge from what there IS to what we THINK there is. And, I repeat, atheism simply has no bridge leading to anything, all paths are based on realism and evidence.
Nihilism is a form of atheism - it is actually a thinker's atheism. Many atheists just stop at accepting that there is no god. Few think further to realize that since there is no god, there is no purpose, no fate, no chain, no real continuity. It takes a real philosophical approach to life (and perhaps the reading of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's books) to embrace nihilism, thus it is misunderstood as an angsty lazy default.
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Permalink Reply by Eric on -
This comes interestingly close to Keats' idea of negative capability. I've never associated the two before.
Could you explain more about a lack of continuity in nihilism? Is this rooted in an absolute lack of faith in literally everything, or did you mean rather any sort of orchestration to the cosmos?
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Permalink Reply by Andrew G on
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It's more like the lack of continuity in anything. We are always using our brains to create narratives out of our observations: X happened because of Y. While physical things may have causal links, they do not have actual purposes for which they exist. We make up those purposes as a way to explain our world, but the world would go on existing whether we make those stories up or not. Furthermore, our view of the past is not complete, so we have no ground to properly attribute causation. Think of all the extinct species that left no traces behind when they perished millions of years ago - they will never find their way into our biology books or lessons because they contributed nothing visible to the narrative we live by today. This is not to say that they did not have an impact. This is why the present-to-past view is unreliable. Nihilism is the understanding that history moves forward, not backwards. Because we cannot look into the future with ANY accuracy, all of our past observations are useless. But we always ignore this fact and predict anyways.
Which brings me to my point: there is no meaning in anything beyond what we feel we must give it because our brains urge us to do so. Purpose is a man-made concept.
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Permalink Reply by Eric on
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If you choose to remove any supernatural force or order from the universe then everything has a physical causation. You could trace back the reasons that we want to pin deeper meaning to events by physical causation. If we can't trace them now, wait a couple years on science to catch up. Everything happened for a reason.
Not really a revolutionary point. But I wonder if you can separate this idea from belief. Semantically, you can. I wonder if the same is possible biologically.
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Permalink Reply by Andrew G on
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Right. As noted, you can identify physical causation, but you cannot assign purpose. And purpose is precisely what religion tries to give to EVERYTHING.
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Permalink Reply by leilani on
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did i give you the impression that i posses this "faith" you speak of?
i don't see the 1, 0, -1 thing as being a question of evidence, i see it as being a question of substance, so here is an example that may or may not make any sense whatsoever
a) ok, so, a grown man is zapped onto the planet by extraterrestrials. he lives his life for about ten years. one day he sees a temple (he doesn't get out much), curious, he decides to enter.
b) he learns all about the notion of god
c) now he must form his beleief
since you like math so much ;)
at point a, he is at "absolute zero" - homeboy is truly a blank slate because that's how they roll on planet whatever
point b entails a transition - namely, the learning of the concept of god, which means 0 + 1 = 1
at point c, he has a decision to make, and he decides not to believe in god. this entails not only negating his newly acquired belief, but also adding a new belief that he didn't have previously - i.e. at this stage: 1 [starting state] - 1 [decision to remove newly acquired belief in god] - 1 [decision to adopt a belief against the existence of god] = - 1
*arguably, you could consider the "decision to adopt a belief against the existence of god" step with a positive value (i.e., +1) - but, the point remains that you're still not at 0... you can't go back to absolute zero once the game has changed - the underlying ontological structure is altered upon learning of the notion of god
well, that was fun.
did you study philosophy? oh how i miss talking about aliens and unicorns...
AND i actually didn't intend to write anything - i am beginning to believe in christ by virtue of the fact that i think the devil is at work in the form of 20sb distracting me from very important writing!
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Permalink Reply by Owen on -
I said this before and deleted it, but think it should be said.
You're being disrespectful.
You have the freedom to choose to 'not believe' in God and others have the freedom to choose to believe in Him.
I think it's sad you have to demean them to feel like you have a place.
No one is 'giggling' at you for being an atheist even though we're fairly certain you're mislead. Please show the same consideration.
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