What is with all the threads attacking atheism/atheists lately?

Re Defenestrator

You wrote:

["and I am not saying science has all of the answers, just all of the ones we have been able to determine so far. Mysticism is far more clumsy and flawed."]

Mysticism has an unused potential as a reality-searching source. But when it's exposed to individual mindsets tainting it with pre-concieved expectations and motives (mysticism needs non-doctrinal 'purity' to function) and then later with 'interpretations' from half-successful experiences, it is, as you say, flawed.

Science, on its own ground, is far more reliable. That is, as long as it STAYS at its own ground.

Originally posted by awake_and_aware
Just remember, stating "GOD is the unknown" doesn't prove that God is the unknown. It's just a "GOD of the Gaps" fallacy.

To boldly go where no man has gone before...

That statement still stands, whether you believe or dis-believe in a God. In fact, it's the notorious phrase of the science-fiction program Star-Trek, and is regarding our voyage into the final frontier; SPACE. The unknown. This doesn't imply God.

edit on 5/2/11 by awake_and_aware because: (no reason given)

You are getting hung up on labels again my friend. The word isn't "THE" God, the word IS God. It is a label for a higher idea, the one we have not achieved yet.

Again...

Atheist: There is no known God.
Theist: There is an unknown God.

What the hell is the dispute??

With Love,

Your Brother

Re IAMIAM

You wrote:

["How do you know, anything?"]

Exactly. So postulates of an ultimate 'god' or 'ultimate reality' and even ascribing qualities to him/her/it/whatever (like 'love') originates with from the 'method' chosen to experience, analyse and evaluate it. The methods should be under scrutiny before validity of answers can be considered seriously.

If everyone believed in Christianity, we would all be one, and world peace would ensue. Hmm, not a bad idea. Then perhaps we could move onto bigger and better things, like colonizing the planets and asteroid field, moving someday onto other solar systems.

However, there are too many flaws in every religion, and religion would have to vastly be re-worked in order to allow for a space faring civilization. Sadly enough, all our beliefs (or lack of them) were made by us on this rather unremarkable rock during our one way ticket into the future. We feebly attempt to create a better future, and justify our actions, and accord it to some loose clinging moral fabric we call "our beliefs".

As far as attacks go, it's the same evolutionary schism we find all over nature, the paradigm that only the strongest survive. I've been fascinated over the years by allotting religion a "meme" status and have followed it's transformations over the course of time. Curiously enough, it seems that religion co-evolved in separate geographic regions simultaneously.

reply to post by IAMIAM


You are getting hung up on labels my friend, don't accuse me of it.

Your position generally flickers from pan-theism to mono-theism. I'm not sure exactly what your stance is. "GOD" is just a word made by man to explain the unknown, a word to account for everything.

Again, i care not about the label, you could call it "THE FORCE" "THE ENERGY" - But it is evident that it is NOT omnipotent, it is capricious and malevolent in regards to planets, gallaxies AND LIFE. It doesn't care, it just lets it happen.

Personally i wish i didn't have a label for my lack of belief. For example,i don't have a label for my lack of belief in fairies, santa, goblins etc.

For the purpose of debate in regards to "GOD" i am an Atheist.

Agnosticism/Gnosticism = What you KNOW

Atheism/Theism = What you believe, or in the case of disbelief.

An agnostic atheist is unware of the cause of the universe, therefore he suspends belief. Present evidence, i'm quite sure any reasonable Agnostic will renounce their doubts of "God."

This is what we are debating.

Because you just use "GOD" for the unknown, it's just a word that means nothing like "THE ENERGY" or "THE FORCE"

Read my points and realise i am responding to your comments, that's what a debate is, and realise "what the hell" we are debating about.

reply to post by IAMIAM

What the hell is the dispute??

Buisness as usuall. There is no actual dispute in my opinion, since everyone is free to believe whatever he/she wants to. The whole dispute is just plain bashing each others persons beliefs. And that is happening 46 pages of this thread so far. Quite disgusting to be honest.

Peace

Originally posted by bogomil
Exactly. So postulates of an ultimate 'god' or 'ultimate reality' and even ascribing qualities to him/her/it/whatever (like 'love') originates with from the 'method' chosen to experience, analysize and evaluate it. The methods should be under scrutiny before validity of answers can be considered seriously.

I never said Love was God, I said it the will of God.

Science has confirmed that love is absolutely necessary to our existence. It is what leads to a healthy and secure development from womb to adulthood. A child reared on love is not only healthier emotionally, but also physically. The benefits are astronomical. As been proven through countless studies.

I won't be doing anyone's homework for them!

So it is an accurate statement that:

It is the will of God to love one another.

or translated for the more science tongued...

It is unknown why, but love is a necessary element in the development of our biological structure.


With Love,

Your Brother

reply to post by bogomil


Many mystics rapidly outstripped their mindsets. Consider St Teresa of Avila. Since when does the church used such sexual symbolism. She could have been a LHP tantric. Consider the Typhonia Teratoma of the OTO? Consider the Indian Tantric's apt discription of ecstasy "Neti neti" (translated as "not this not that"). Have you explored mysticism?

Some of the most persecuted religionists on the planet have been mystics who have been persecuted by their own religionists. Viz the Sufis (Islam) several monastic orders ( Xtianity), Jewish QBL practioners.

No mate. All established religions are wary of their mystics. The whole problem is those who would see god face to face are a threat to the order of their religion.

How on earth would an atheist know of practical religious experience anyway?

reply to post by Seed76


The dispute or the debate, is one that has existed centuries; debates that consist of fundamental questions or ponderings:-

"What reason do you have to assert a belief in something that is unknown?"

or another question.

"Is belief without logical or empirical evidence a good thing for humanity?"

To have faith in the "unknown" is like rationalising: "That volcano is angry, must be a God, let's obey him"

That's what most atheists disagree with, blind speculation, pressumption and guesses all on the basis of faith.

Not many atheists consider faith a virtue. Atheism is just a lack of belief in a deity but many atheists may "believe" in an afterlife - I feel this is just as irrational and pressumptious as asserting belief in a God.

That's what the debate is about, that's why it's important. the Moral and ethical implications are important of either belief system. It separates to massive worldviews.

And i believe that otherwise Good people can be fooled into despicable acts through a belief in God. Believing someone is evil because of scripture, or bombing another religion because you belief yours is the true one.

Its a big debate, and to say it is unimportant seems like nonsense to me.

reply to post by IAMIAM

Every post, up to and including the one to which I am replying, which you have made on this thread is full of pseudo-philosophy and I've had it up to here with that crap. Please go take a course on epistemology so you never have to go on about "how you know what you think you know." Epistemology is the theory of knowledge, it would help you, and save the rest of us from your pointless ranting. I'm sure you're a very kind and well-meaning person, but I believe you to be mis-educated in certain regards. When anyone has a personal experience that shapes their worldview, that is perfectly legitimate, but foisting that worldview upon others is rude at best. This is in stark contrast to real empirical evidence, which should remain consistent no matter who looks at it.

Re Student X

You wrote:

["It was our capacity to think in mythological, symbolic, abstract terms that enabled us to survive and thrive"]

You are categorizing somewhat different concepts into the same group, sneaking in questionable postulates by identifying them with more valid ones.

Originally posted by awake_and_aware
Your position generally flickers from pan-theism to mono-theism.

No it doesn't my friend. I have ONE God. UNKNOWN.

This does not rule out that the UNKNOWN has worn many masks through out the ages.

Originally posted by awake_and_aware
I'm not sure exactly what your stance is. "GOD" is just a word made by man to explain the unknown, a word to account for everything.

Yep, it is just a word. So was Nsasi, Amen, Ra, Thor, Loki, Zeus, etc. All words to decorate the UNKNOWN so Man could rationalise it.

The word god is not GOD, but a label for the higher idea.

Originally posted by awake_and_aware
But it is evident that it is NOT omnipotent, it is capricious and malevolent in regards to planets, gallaxies AND LIFE. It doesn't care, it just lets it happen.

There you go again thinking you know the motives behind the UNKNOWN.

Originally posted by awake_and_aware
Personally i wish i didn't have a label for my lack of belief.

You do not need a label! Who the hell cares what you don't believe. What you don't believe is only what you have not experience. Share your beliefs, what you have experienced, and learn from each other!

That is all we can do. If you tell me pink unicorns DO exist, who the hell am I to dispute you? Just because I have not seen them? Ridiculous! Great! YOU have seen them. Can you draw a picture? Wow now I see that pink unicorns DO exist. They exist because either you SAW them or YOU created them and showed them to me. If I never see an actual Pink Unicorn, what does it matter? It doesn't.

Originally posted by awake_and_aware
For the purpose of debate in regards to "GOD" i am an Atheist.

Originally posted by awake_and_aware
Read my points and realise i am responding to your comments, that's what a debate is, and realise "what the hell" we are debating about

I see clearly what you are debating about. You are all debating about who's shadow on the wall is MOST correct to the outside world.

I am trying to free you from your cave, but you seem to prefer the chains.

With Love,

Your Brother

reply to post by IAMIAM


I'm free from the cave too, i don't pretend i know what is causing the shadow, and i don't pretend to know for certain what is NOT creating the shadow. I'm agnostic towards the cause, if there is a cause. Causation is an argument that my philosophers and metaphysicists quarrel over.

You just assert that the fire should be called "GOD", i STILL don't know if you claim to know the fire's attributes, again i'm unsure whether your stance is Pantheism, Mono-theism or even Deism.

Originally posted by IAMIAM

This does not rule out that the UNKNOWN has worn many masks through out the ages.

Very nice. There are indeed many, many masks of God! They are living metaphors through which the transcendent shines as a radiance.

"Half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions, for example, are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies." - Joseph Campbell

Have you read anything by Joseph Campbell, brother?

Originally posted by defenestrator
reply to post by IAMIAM

 

Every post, up to and including the one to which I am replying, which you have made on this thread is full of pseudo-philosophy and I've had it up to here with that crap. Please go take a course on epistemology so you never have to go on about "how you know what you think you know." Epistemology is the theory of knowledge, it would help you, and save the rest of us from your pointless ranting. I'm sure you're a very kind and well-meaning person, but I believe you to be mis-educated in certain regards. When anyone has a personal experience that shapes their worldview, that is perfectly legitimate, but foisting that worldview upon others is rude at best. This is in stark contrast to real empirical evidence, which should remain consistent no matter who looks at it.

I see my friend. You dislike my points so much that rather than presenting an argument or counter point against them, you wish to chase me out of the town with torches.

Your anger comes from within. If the words on this page cause something undesirable from within you to rise to the surface of your consciousness, it is your doing. It is your thinking.

I have done you no harm. You must heal your own ailments.

With Love,

Your Brother

reply to post by Student X


Even accepting that religious dogma is metaphorical only still doesn't explain why some of the metaphors, morals and ethics are contradictory.

Simply observing nature cannot provide you with the characterists of God, so i ask? Who formed the religion and how? A collective effort of myth and a lack of understanding of the "unknown"

Early man had little knowledge, even if they did, it doesn't prove their illogical or faulty ethics.

Originally posted by Student X
Very nice. There are indeed many, many masks of God! They are living metaphors through which the transcendent shines as a radiance.

"Half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions, for example, are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies." - Joseph Campbell

Have you read anything by Joseph Campbell, brother?

Not yet my friend. Should I find the time, I will add him to my book list.

Thanks for bringing him to my attention.

With Love,

Your Brother

Originally posted by awake_and_aware
You just assert that the fire should be called "GOD", i STILL don't know if you claim to know the fire's attributes, again i'm unsure whether your stance is Pantheism, Mono-theism or even Deism.

edit on 5/2/11 by awake_and_aware because: (no reason given)

Not at all my friend. I am explaining what the label actual means to those who understand Theology so that those who reject can see that they are rejecting because they too, do not understand the label.

Personally, the UNKNOWN works for me. It just a word. The meaning is what matters.

With Love,

Your Brother

reply to post by IAMIAM


That meaning works for me too. I guess your an Agnostic too; "aware of the unknown."

Dispute that if you will.

reply to post by IAMIAM


I'm not ill, I'm not your brother, and I am most definitely not your friend. The irrational things you believe are causing the planet and our species a lot of pain, you are my enemy, but I always treat my enemies with kindness when possible.

The point is: You are not making any points, merely spewing tautologies and assertions. If you had actually read my post, you would see that I suggested epistemology, are you opposed to learning about epistemology for some reason? You were interested in Joseph Campbell, but not epistemology. I find that disappointing.