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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2012 22:52:41 GMT -5
The problem is that atheism by definition is a very arrogant outlook. Agnostics accept possibilities, but atheists, by definition, must be confident in their belief that God doesn't exist. It's the same with fully confident religious people. It takes a level of arrogance beyond that which I personally possess to be so confident in something that you KNOW is not provable one way or the other. Unfortunately, a lot of religion is corrupted and misguided, and somewhere along the way, some people have been led to believe that faith = confidence. If anything, that's the exact opposite of what faith is supposed to be. Faith is supposed to be believing in spite of doubt. That's why God values belief, because man has free will and can choose to not believe. There's no value in the faith of mindless, brainwashed sheep. If you look at many of the most respected figures in religion, time and time again, you'll hear of them having intense periods of doubt, even people like Mother Teresa. Whether somebody does believe in God or believes that God doesn't exist, I think everyone would be better off if they were a bit more humble and accepting of the possibility that one could be wrong. This. Also I keep thinking of this topic because my wife is playing Assassin's Creed III a lot.  |
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Post by dooz on Dec 30, 2012 3:57:42 GMT -5
I don't think you'll find any arguments from sane people that no one honestly knows the truth of all existence. My biggest problem with that argument is that it's always between either some sort of god(s) or nothing at all, without thinking that it could be something else all-together.
To assume that any religion/philosophy based around the creation of the universe is correct is to be an arrogant fool. This includes assertion or denial without proof.
That being said, it's not hard to trace nearly every religion to its roots, and no one believes in those root religions anymore. If you were to ask me, either the Sumerians were correct, or no one is correct. And I'd be more willing to put money on no one.
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Post by Ike on Dec 30, 2012 8:39:42 GMT -5
The problem is that atheism by definition is a very arrogant outlook. Agnostics accept possibilities, but atheists, by definition, must be confident in their belief that God doesn't exist. It's the same with fully confident religious people. It takes a level of arrogance beyond that which I personally possess to be so confident in something that you KNOW is not provable one way or the other. Unfortunately, a lot of religion is corrupted and misguided, and somewhere along the way, some people have been led to believe that faith = confidence. If anything, that's the exact opposite of what faith is supposed to be. Faith is supposed to be believing in spite of doubt. That's why God values belief, because man has free will and can choose to not believe. There's no value in the faith of mindless, brainwashed sheep. If you look at many of the most respected figures in religion, time and time again, you'll hear of them having intense periods of doubt, even people like Mother Teresa. Whether somebody does believe in God or believes that God doesn't exist, I think everyone would be better off if they were a bit more humble and accepting of the possibility that one could be wrong. This. Also I keep thinking of this topic because my wife is playing Assassin's Creed III a lot. I haven't touched ACIII, what's this in reference to? The only functional difference between atheism and agnosticism is that atheists operate in the world in such a way that, even though they realistically can't prove that there isn't a god, they're making an informed decision, based on reason, to live as if there were no god. Agnostics take the opposite route but fall there by the same conclusion; they operate as if there is no god because they can't make an informed decision, based on evidence, to say one or the other; hence it can't guide their behavior. Hence you see "New Atheists" and "militant"* atheists, while you never see militant agnostics. They believe that they have a strong path of reason to show why you cannot positively say that there's a god, and that everything can be explained materially. The thing is, they're pretty much right. There is an absolutely gargantuan list of reasons the universe could have been created entirely by natural, "unmoved" processes. We're digging into the core of being faster than ever right now and we're learning a whole lot about why we act the way we do. That includes things like faith, and the overwhelming feeling some people have of God's "presence" around them, and the people who lack this feeling entirely. It seems that beliefs about God are largely intuitive and unreasoned. You don't look at the evidence and make a choice - you unconsciously either believe or disbelieve first, and then build up reasons to satisfy that conclusion. Intuition informs your reason, not the other way around, and intuition is fundamentally irrational. The "New Atheists" are based on rational deduction and thus dismiss faith as an improper method of thought and not something intrinsic to humanity biologically. Rather, they believe it's overpoweringly ingrained culturally and, through difficulty, can be reasoned out of peoples' minds. But they don't make the decision rationally in the first place. So that's why these guys are so abrasive, I think. They're not acknowledging a fundamental part of the very cores of the minds of most of Earth's population. It's why you get obnoxious billboards and buses that say "Hey, there's probably no God, so chill out" or whatever inane thing it is. They're not (de)converting anybody. If it were me, I'd be scared away by that type of message, and I think the vast majority of people who have fallen away from or are questioning their religions would too. So now there's a section of the atheist community that has become something of a misogynistic, libertarian boys' club. It's mostly confined to the internet, although it does seep into the upper echelons of the atheist fame heirarchy, if you followed the disaster regarding Rebecca Watson, referred to as "elevatorgate" for the curious. It's not so much what happened, but the wave of really appalling idiocy that came out in the comments sections, reply videos, blogs, etc. Especially for a community of people who consider themselves enlightened and liberal. I spent like 30 minutes writing this and forgot what my original point was so  *going to be honest here, I hate it when people say "militant" atheists** because it doesn't matter how fucking obnoxious they are on the internet, even TheAmazingAtheist has never killed anybody and he's basically the pinnacle of the goony atheist **i here acknowledge that i am aware of the irony of having used the term myself in order to decry it, so don't bother pointing that out |
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Post by Allie on Dec 30, 2012 12:18:24 GMT -5
So now there's a section of the atheist community that has become something of a misogynistic, libertarian boys' club. It's mostly confined to the internet, although it does seep into the upper echelons of the atheist fame heirarchy, if you followed the disaster regarding Rebecca Watson, referred to as "elevatorgate" for the curious. It's not so much what happened, but the wave of really appalling idiocy that came out in the comments sections, reply videos, blogs, etc. Especially for a community of people who consider themselves enlightened and liberal. Hence the point of the "Atheist+" movement, started by a Gender Feminist (Jen McCraight) with the message that if you're not a Gender Feminist, and you're not using your Atheism to advance Progressive Politics, and Social Vengeance ("Social Justice"), than you're not an Atheist, you're just an Asshole. That movement was started in direct response the "elevator". |
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Post by Ike on Dec 30, 2012 12:31:52 GMT -5
I don't really see how atheism contributes to any of those things necessarily. Humanism certainly does, and that's what I subscribe to.
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Post by Super Orbus on Dec 30, 2012 13:56:45 GMT -5
Boy people sure like to make things complicated.  |
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Post by dooz on Dec 30, 2012 15:41:10 GMT -5
That's life, man.
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Post by lanceboyle94 on Dec 30, 2012 16:38:45 GMT -5
YouTube vids and/or channels biting the dust.
Recently I found a channel that had extended versions of a lot of Nintendo tracks, most notably the three tracks from Brain Age 2's Virus Buster, which no other YT channel had to my knowledge. So today I find out that the guy apparently erased his channel! Not shut down by some corporation, no: he erased it. Why? I have no idea, honestly.
Goddammit...
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Post by Scylla on Dec 30, 2012 19:04:20 GMT -5
There is an absolutely gargantuan list of reasons the universe could have been created entirely by natural, "unmoved" processes. I've always found the Big Bang theory kind of suspect myself. Not because I can't accept all that it presents but because, in my mind, it really doesn't answer anything about how the universe came to be. It only explains the explosion and all that followed, but it doesn't answer the biggest question of them all: if there was nothing beforehand, where did time, matter, and this explosion come from? Personally, I've never considered science and religion to be mutually exclusive, and I've never understood why most people do. I think someone could very easily believe the Big Bang theory to be true and that God caused it. People could also very easily believe that God causes evolution to help creatures when they face new hardships. I don't know why these lines of thinking are so hard to consider by both the atheist scientific community and religious people. |
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Post by dooz on Dec 30, 2012 19:05:19 GMT -5
YouTube vids and/or channels biting the dust. Recently I found a channel that had extended versions of a lot of Nintendo tracks, most notably the three tracks from Brain Age 2's Virus Buster, which no other YT channel had to my knowledge. So today I find out that the guy apparently erased his channel! Not shut down by some corporation, no: he erased it. Why? I have no idea, honestly. Goddammit... You should get a youtube downloading add-on for your browser and download stuff like that upon finding them. |
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Post by Ike on Dec 30, 2012 19:16:12 GMT -5
There is an absolutely gargantuan list of reasons the universe could have been created entirely by natural, "unmoved" processes. I've always found the Big Bang theory kind of suspect myself. Not because I can't accept all that it presents but because, in my mind, it really doesn't answer anything about how the universe came to be. It only explains the explosion and all that followed, but it doesn't answer the biggest question of them all: if there was nothing beforehand, where did time, matter, and this explosion come from? Personally, I've never considered science and religion to be mutually exclusive, and I've never understood why most people do. I think someone could very easily believe the Big Bang theory to be true and that God caused it. People could also very easily believe that God causes evolution to help creatures when they face new hardships. I don't know why these lines of thinking are so hard to consider by both the atheist scientific community and religious people. The scientific approach rejects supernatual variables categorically because they can't be measured, accounted for or controlled for. I don't think science has anything to say about believing God caused the Big Bang - I think that's what most scientifically literate theists believe. |
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Post by Allie on Dec 30, 2012 19:25:33 GMT -5
I've never considered science and religion to be mutually exclusive, and I've never understood why most people do. Jockeying for Political Advantage. |
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Post by Scylla on Dec 30, 2012 20:11:37 GMT -5
The scientific approach rejects supernatual variables categorically because they can't be measured, accounted for or controlled for. I don't think science has anything to say about believing God caused the Big Bang - I think that's what most scientifically literate theists believe. I'm just talking about how they're usually presented as two equal but opposed theories when they're really neither. They're not equal because "God made it", while completely unprovable, is a full answer to how the universe came to be, while the Big Bang theory is an incomplete answer that only addresses how the stars, planets, etc. formed after the universe already existed. I wish more atheists who offer the Big Bang as an explanation for how it all started would just admit that science has, thus far, not been able to explain anything about how the universe came to be. This picture from the Wikipedia page on the chronology of the universe sums up well the void of information: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Cosmic_History_020622_b.jpgIt's all just one big question mark. |
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Post by Mr. Faptastic on Dec 30, 2012 20:26:49 GMT -5
Personally, I've never considered science and religion to be mutually exclusive, and I've never understood why most people do. Because one is saying "We don't know why this happens, let's use disciplined research combined with logical extrapolation to figure it out" and one is saying "We don't know why this happens, so it was an invisible omnipotent being, case closed". It's the difference between knowing lightning is caused by an imbalance of electric charges in the atmosphere and thinking it's the thunder god pounding on an anvil. |
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Post by Scylla on Dec 30, 2012 21:25:42 GMT -5
That's a really inherently biased comment. A lot of the greatest figures in science believed in God. Just because you have a desire to figure out and understand the laws of science doesn't mean you can't believe in a God who created all those laws, and just because you believe in God doesn't mean you can't have an open mind and curiosity for why things happen on a scientific level without instantly brushing everything off as "Oh, God did it".
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