The issue with atheism

originally posted by: randyvs
a reply to: MotherMayEye

No I'm not speaking for anybody just because
you imply that I am. So drop your squirrelly little
narcississtic judgement or argue with yourself
about it.

Ha...well, at least I wasn't claiming to speak for 'God.'

originally posted by: Out6of9Balance
How about adressing my claim that if you claim you worship nothing you are claiming to be sovereign.
Only a souvereign being, of which there is only one, God, does not worship anything.
The word says itself "souvereign".

Does that word include Unicorn? Or how about Santa Claus? Kids seem to worship Santa Claus, does that mean, I'm equally a Santa Claus?

Or better, I don't believe in Sun God aka Sol Invictus and Mithraism, does that mean I am a sun god?

a reply to: EasternShadow

Do not presume the OP has thought this through overly hard I saw some saber rattling (dick waving?) but little else.

originally posted by: randyvs
a reply to: MotherMayEye

Oh that's how you deal with a reply?
How can I be speaking for someone
you say doesn't exist? Try'n to tell me
I don't have point when you don't even
have platform.

Show me the proof that life can come from
outside of life. Explain existence from your
hokey world view please I'm waiting.

That is not necessary.

Can you prove that rainbow farting unicorns do not exist? No one can, even though it's a nonsense idea. There is just no way to prove that they don't.

When someone says "I don't believe you." it's not up to them to supply proof to negate your belief.

Atheists generally just accept that existence simply exists and honestly admit that they do not know how or why. They make no claims which require proof of any sort. Theories are not claims of fact, but simply ideas.

The only people in this thread making the claim to know how existence came about are the religious people and I'd bet if you interviewed them all you'd find that they don't even agree about things regarding god.

It is you who are claiming god created all, prove that!

Your own belief is your own business by the way. I accept that you believe in god and I have no problem with that.

PS: I see you say you don't believe in Allah.
That's actually quite funny as Allah is the name Muslims give to your god, it's the same god, just worshipped in a different way to you. See what I mean, you all don't even agree?

originally posted by: randyvs
a reply to: MotherMayEye

More weak antagonism. And you try to
come off so intelligent.

Witnessing the two sides of this argument is enlightening. I think your attributes of intelligence are 180 degrees from reality.

You can tell by the person arguing the actual issue and the person resorting to personal attacks. But I understand, you have chosen a very tenuous position from which to support. It can be tough.

originally posted by: Hammaraxx

PS: I see you say you don't believe in Allah.
That's actually quite funny as Allah is the name Muslims give to your god, it's the same god, just worshipped in a different way to you. See what I mean, you all don't even agree?

Haha.. Nice one. You nailed it perfectly. Star for you.

a reply to: Hammaraxx

Flash if someone says I don't believe life only
comes from life. Then they obviously believe
life can come from some where other than life.
You can't argue that is not a belief. Or that it
doesn't ignore the observable evidence. But I
don't get to ask for evidence because science
is biased.

God that's funnyl

Show me the observable evidence that life
can come from anywhere other than life.

a reply to: ClovenSky

And try'n do it from my phone is a bitch.

originally posted by: randyvs
a reply to: Woodcarver

Unless you want to try'n explain your belief
that life doesn't have to come from life?

What is Life exactly?

a reply to: Annee

A gift whats your answer same question?

originally posted by: Incandescent

originally posted by: Raggedyman
Atheism is a choice not to believe in a god or gods.

A "choice" they are usually forced into expressing by believers demanding they do so.

WTF?....atheism is.....not believing in mythical beings.....that's it.....nothing more......nothing less.....end of it.


why is this so hard to understand?....are you unable to understand something so simple?

originally posted by: randyvs
a reply to: Hammaraxx
Flash if someone says I don't believe life only
comes from life. Then they obviously believe...[SNIP]

Are you serious?
"I don't know." is NOT a belief.
"I do not believe" = "I do NOT believe".

originally posted by: randyvs
a reply to: Hammaraxx
...[SNIP]...
Show me the observable evidence that life
can come from anywhere other than life.

I'm not making any claims therefore I have nothing to prove to you.
Why is this all so hard for you to understand?

originally posted by: jimmyx

originally posted by: Incandescent

originally posted by: Raggedyman
Atheism is a choice not to believe in a god or gods.

A "choice" they are usually forced into expressing by believers demanding they do so.

WTF?....atheism is.....not believing in mythical beings.....that's it.....nothing more......nothing less.....end of it.


why is this so hard to understand?....are you unable to understand something so simple?

It would be really nice if there were some universally accepted definitions for atheism & agnosticism.

something like: atheists = no god, no existence after death .....agnostic = no one knows what is behind the veil, no information is transferable from the beyond.

Those who know do not talk and those who talk do not know

a reply to: Elementalist


And what if what is right, just and real is subject to scientific analysis? A theory of how the mind works, to quote the famous neuroscientist Gerald Edelman,

“To be scientific, the theory must be based on the assumption that all cognition and conscious experience rest solely on processes and orderings occurring in the physical world. The theory must therefore take care to explain how psychological processes are related to physiological ones.” – Gerald Edelman, Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of the Mind; pg. 82, 1992, Basic

One could say that thinkers like Edelman i.e. scientific types, are very much ripping to pieces the Platonian "view from nowhere" delusion that so many people believe to be a real vantage point.

But what if everything is physics - as the sciences show?

That would mean symmetry would be present in your functioning in terms of how you feel - your expectancies - which derives from past experiences (and how that enforced or destroyed a more ideal symmetry).

The golden rule, according to this logic, is an emergent property of human social processes whereby each element 'converges' on the same fact - on the same proposition - which derives from a common element that each individual experiences: the body.

The question which the sciences have already figured out, but which gnostics, or "left hand path" sorts of people wish to be ignorant of, is how dissociation works, from where it comes, and how its instantiated in brain-functioning.

Dissociation, as you probably know, is that "view from nowhere", which Eco, in his inimitable style, describes in Foucaults Pendulum like this:

“Idiot. Above her head was the only stable place in the cosmos, the only refuge from the damnation of the panta rei, and she guessed it was the pendulums business, not hers. A moment later the couple went off – he, trained on some textbook that had blunted his capacity for wonder, she, inert and insensitive to the thrill of the infinite, both oblivious of the awesomeness of their encounter – their first and last encounter – with the One, the Ein-Sof, the Ineffable. How could you fail to kneel down before this alter of certitude?” – Umberto Eco, Foucaults Pendulum, pg. 6, Harcourt, 1988

This 'point', or the 'tip of the pyramid', is typically imagined to be the source of everything else.

But what if that 'point' arose from billions of years of evolution? What if its existence was an epiphenomena of a series of other processes? What if consciousness - as a rule - depends on intersubjective moments of "feeling recognized"? A mind which dares to use its consciousness for its own selfish ends - to ignore the symmetry which makes consciousness possible - to ignore the golden rule, and to even entertain as true the fantasy that there is a "middle" which stands above good and evil - this - this is a painfully untrue, and remarkably careless - to ones own afterlife/reincarnation (if cause-effect hold up even over existential transformations, as seems very likely) - attitude to take to ones own living.

But ah - social relationships and narratives such as a philosophy you subscribe to, the way it describes things, and the "way it feels" to feel like you "know the nature of things" - this is the 'glue' that holds your experience together.

Problem is, the platonic belief that ideas exist "some place else", as if they aren't built from the ground-up, is a dangerous fiction which is obviously performing the same function that any other threat-detection process we see in animals accomploshes: to protect the animal (in this case, the intensely sensitive human self) from the threatening object (in this case, the 'experience of self', taken as object, and as something that must be 'defended against' in order to preserve coherency i.e. sanity).

To put this in simpler terms: if you can't accept that the horizontal, or external world, is more real than your internal world, you have grown attached to a way of seeing things that is not only wrong, but prevents you from fixing the way your body-mind (held together by 'identity' states) experiences the social world.

The saddest thing is how unnecessary it is. Platonism is a vicious fiction; and the crap it built itself from - mesopotamian, anatolian, Egyptian and indigenous shamanic fictions - only serves to solidify how 'elites' (i.e. traumatized persons transformed into socially aggressive individualists) will, like all animals, tendentiously select material that serves their already existent needs (determined, in this case, by unresolved trauma).

originally posted by: randyvs
How ignorant are you?
...[SNIP]...

That post didn't do you much good, did it? (Thanks Mods)
"Don't hate the player, hate the game."

I don't have the mistaken belief that I'm not ignorant about a lot of things. No doubt I am, but I do like to learn about things I don't know and don't claim to be an expert on much at all. There's no high horse under my backside.

Do you realise, no one here is telling you what to believe about god?
Some are simply saying they do NOT believe in the same things you do, that is all and you should be used to that by now. It's a big world full of a variety of ideas. Many that do not have evidence to support them. Many that rely on faith alone.

Here's the funny bit... I'm not Atheist.

I accept that the beliefs I have have no real supporting evidence. They just feel good to me and I am well aware that many other people don't share the things I believe and that's OK with me.

And, while I'm not Atheist, I still understand what Atheist means and the difference between Theism, Atheism and Agnosticism. Which apparently, after reading through this thread, a lot of Theists, including you, don't.

a reply to: Hammaraxx

It is funny how many non Atheists are arguing with certain theists about how they are misinformed I know I have, you have... pattern?

a reply to: Noinden

Deny Ignorance.
It's the motto of the Above Top Secret website.

a reply to: Hammaraxx

If only more people followed that. Sadly I think the OP and others see atheism AS ignorance. Rather than a different perspective.