The Growth of Atheism and What it Means for Our Future

reply to post by guitarplayer


We don't want to outlaw religion. Prohibition doesn't work and it is fundamentally unjust, nice straw man but it won't really work when it doesn't represent anyone.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


And you represent all atheists? Fascinating. Funny thing is you're both wrong. People who speak in such silly generalizations about large groups of people tend to be unable to notice it.

Originally posted by Nikola014

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
reply to post by Nikola014

 

And why is that? I'd just like an explanation of how faith is positive and linked inextricably to our 'future', whatever you mean by that.

Try to imagine a man without faith.
A man without faith it not concern for the future.How much people in difficult moments, turns to faith? Well I can tell you a lot.Because faith gives us one extra strength to fight and it's help us i the difficult moments.That's why i believe if the man lose his faith,he lost his future.
The point is,faith give us hope for better tomorrow and i strongly believe faith is one of the most important thing in human life.

I've actually seen the opposite, myself. Religious people are more likely not to care about a better tomorrow because they're all going to heaven and the world will be set on fire with all of the sinners burning alive here forever - But also different variations of that. The rapture is coming, I want to be with my loved ones, and I'm going to live in my mansion when I die! This is all incentive to live a care-free life.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul



This is where we get into subjectivity again. Sure you think you are in a position to dictate the terms. But, once again, you're one amongst many.

reply to post by Gorman91

Originally posted by Gorman91
reply to post by madnessinmysoul

 

It's not really a big leap of faith. We have no evidence to show that it is not the real world even if we cannot be certain that it is.

Leaps of faith are purely relative. From where I'm sitting, you're taking a huge leap of faith assuming there's no God.

Again, to repeat for the four thousandth time:
Atheism is a lack of belief, not a positive belief in absence.

I do not assume there to be no deity, I merely find no compelling reason to say there is one. It is not an assumption to not put forth the existence of a being without evidence.

Nope, I just acknowledge the blind spot in the middle of my field of view. I can, however, verify my observations. As flawed as our brain's interpretation of sense data can be, as flawed as our perceptions may be, we can test them. If you can't believe something is really there, you test that it is. Simple as that.

inevitably, by pure random chance, things won't be that simple,

Awfully dogmatic thing to say. Of course it isn't always that simple, but we've built up all these academic fields of study to deal with the complicated bits.

and religious beliefs stem from that in so many ways.

...so you're saying it stems from ignorance?

If we cannot have a consensus, we cannot have a truth.

Truth is not based upon consensus.

Some post modernists would say there is no truth.

Well, they'd be highly mistaken.

I would argue, in some post-post modernist f-storm, that absolute truth is true with some faith. However many people that may make angry, it works out pretty well when you think of it.

And how does that work out well at all? Please, explain it instead of merely alluding to it working out.

...no, I have no reason to think that they won't. There's a difference between 'faith' and not considering an incredibly unlikely alternative.

eh, I'm not so sure. I mean we never expected Voyager would suddenly slow down at the edge of the solar system. You said earlier that when new data comes you simply believe it.

Well, I don't simply believe it. I have to verify the data. If it's verified, I can't help but expect it. For no, there's no reason for me to acknowledge the existence of any of the multitudes of deities claimed to exist.

I mean, from my own experiences, I guess I'm doing the same with God. Only I've not gotten any new info. Perhaps I have strange faith. I talk to God through the random. set a system, ask an answer, and take in on faith that's the answer. I've done things based off that from anything ranging from where to go to college based off the wind, to weather or not to go somewhere based off the light. I have faith that truly random things still come from God. Now so far it's worked out profusely well. But that's faith. And such repeated experiments have always led me well.

...that's not experimentation, that's anecdotal. There's no control, no constraint to prevent experimental interference. Hell, you're experimenting on yourself, which is the ultimate no-no in science...though the reason isn't a matter of danger, it's a matter of bias.

...no, it's not. I don't have any faith, I have skepticism and doubt. You're simply believing without evidence, I'm making a conclusion based upon reasonable evidence.

Just seems like faith in a different thing. Something obviously more "real" from the human perspective. But then again, if something could only see and live in dark matter and not our world, maybe it would have a different perspective.

...but all I have to work off of is all I can work off of. It's a tautology, but it's all I have. You don't make claims outside of that which you can support. It's why I'd never hazard a guess at fixing a car or playing piano.

I have skepticism and doubt on plenty of things, including my own religion.

...and yet you're about to apply the cognitive dissonance technique known as 'day-age creationism'.

Questioning literal 7 days of creation has led me to conclude that the first 2 Genesis accounts are from two different perspectives. God, going across the ages and the days going by for him, and Man, observing time linearly and from his own life. So by questioning young Earth creationism I've come to the conclusion to how evolution still works with creation.

And yet you're still shoving a deity in for no reason at all. You're also ignoring that the two accounts are contradictory in the orders of creation and that the first account is just entirely wrong on nearly everything.

God says "F the time line", man is bound by it.... for now. You are doing the same, only you've closed down your mind to any possible chances that what you believe is false.

...I thought you just acknowledged that I say I'll take in any new data. If you provide evidence, I'm open to accepting your claim. Simple as that.

Like with God. Skepticism can only go so far. Eventually you have to make a decision.

Yes, that's why science has 'error bars' and 'standards of evidence'.

You've decided on a path that leads to oblivion and no reward,

Pascal's wager allusion? I'm sorry, but the reward is living.

I've made a decision that keeps my logical and critical thought, but has the rewards of life afterwards, if in fact my faith is proven true. I'm not saying either of us are wrong, I'm just being cliche lol. One has a reward the other doesn't.

Yep, Pascal's wager. It's a silly wager, because you're discounting that you may be on the path of believing in the wrong deity and pissing off the true one.

...it's not faith. It's observable, testable, and in constant doubt. Anything I believe could be changed with a reasonable amount of evidence.

That whole statement can be applied to my religious beliefs. So I really don't see how it's not faith. A creature existing in the dark matter spectrum of the universe and cannot observe us probably has the same perspective of our lives. It's all still faith.

Except that it doesn't. You accept the existence of a deity without any reasonable evidence, so you're clearly not to concerned with evidence with regard to that question. I'm also guessing you accept significant portions of the Bible, even though they are riddled with errors in history, science, and morality.

...but I have no faith that gravity is constantly the way it is, I merely accept that our only observations of gravity have shown that its effects are measurable, consistent, and any changes can be accounted for as interactions with other portions of the universe. If a new piece of data comes in, I incorporate without problem. It's called science, the place where we don't make absolute claims.

Once again, the same is true for my religious beliefs. Watch:

...but I have no faith that my views of God is constantly the way it is, I merely accept that my only observations of God have shown that its effects are visible, consistent, and any changes can be accounted for as interactions with other portions of the scripture. If a new piece of scripture or word comes in, I incorporate without problem. It's called religion,

And yet it's faith because you're accepting the deity without evidence and you're relying on scripture that is only considered true if you accept that deity's existence...which makes a pretty circular argument.

I would end without your own ending, because for both our views, absolute truths are for the now, but adjustable if we find we are wrong. In the end, it's faith in our own correctness and right-ness until proven wrong. One just has a reward, and can live with the other. Basically my faith is perfectly workable with modern science's views, but your faith in God is not workable with my views. Put down your stubbornness and maybe you'd have a reward at the end. If it's not true, then who cares?

Again, Pascal's wager. Why aren't you praying to Mecca? Why am I not a devotee of Shiva?

No, my argument is that everything is faith. So you might as well do some homework and choose the one with the most rewards. Believing without evidence is not really that idiotic.

I'm just going to stop you there. Insane asylum.

Unless its based off nothing by your own observations. Then its insanity.

Wait...what? I'm sorry, but if you're believing without evidence...then what else do you have?

I wasn't really willing to believe that anything I thought supernatural was real until about 20 other people said the same thing in some Friday night gathering occurred. Which, btw, I took on faith to go to that location at that time on nothing more than the angle of the light in front of me. It was insane until it clearly brought me to a better place with my faith. I repeat such insane adventures with the same results. Faith, see? No different really. You have faith in the scientific process. I do to, but I have faith in other things as well.

...and yet all you have are anecdotes, while I have the computer you're using as well as pretty much every other item in your dwelling as support for the reliability of science.

No, I assume it. I don't have faith because I'm open to the possibility that they're not or not entirely.

huh. And assumption is faith. That's why its an assumption. You belief based off some experience you have faith is true and you trust yourself that its true, which is faith.

...no, faith is belief without evidence. I trust that my observations are consistent.

And I'm not giving this freely, so it's clearly not faith.

I doubt you would be this forthcoming if you didn't have faith in your own truths. Clearly it is.

So...you merely claim something about me.

We've gone over this, my position is that I do not believe. I have no belief in the absence of deities! Dear sweet Aunt May and sweet Christmas, how many times do I have to go over this?

You do have a belief in the absents of deities.

Again...NO. This will be my last post to you because I've repeatedly explained this to you and yet you keep telling me something that is contrary to all ideas of logic.

You have made a choice to either believe it or not.

...no, I didn't. I cannot choose to believe. I could not merely say "I believe now" and make it happen. I did not choose a lack of belief.

I lack a belief in deities, that doesn't mean I have a positive belief in the absence of them.

I'd like to provide a comparison: A lack of belief in a deity is like being bald. An active disbelief in a deity is like shaving your head.

But I'm done now as I'm not bothering with people who can't understand a basic concept like this that has been explained ad nauseum throughout this thread.

reply to post by Watcher-In-The-Shadows


Ok, I'll say that from my experience nobody really wants to outlaw religion. I can't speak for everyone, but I can highlight that the vast majority of atheists oppose a prohibition on religion.

reply to post by Watcher-In-The-Shadows


...you cannot have a 'maybe' in a binary position.

Is there any water in the glass or none? If there's even a drop in the glass, it's a drop. If there are no drops, there's none.

Atheism is a lack of water in this analogy. You don't seem to have any faith in any deity, yet you deny being an atheist.

Now, there are people who are genuinely fluctuating between positions, but even they aren't really a 'maybe', they're just constantly at battle between yes and no. I was in that position myself when I first joined ATS.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


Vast majority? One need only look at this forum to disprove your assertion. Have you paid much attention to the rhetoric tossed about this place? And yes, both sides are bad about it.

And please stop trying to tell me what I am. I understand you think I am an atheist. But I'm here to inform you, you're dead wrong.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


It's easier to view the world in black and white. It is true. But it is FAR from correct. Particularly in the realm of thought.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul



huh, I'll start with your last comment.

I'd like to provide a comparison: A lack of belief in a deity is like being bald. An active disbelief in a deity is like shaving your head.

baldness is an act of being

You are bald. This is true or false. You can lie to yourself by cutting off your head and saying you are bald, but this does not make the fact that you in your subconscious have a belief that you are bald or not based off the data that you can grow hair or not. What you consciously accept has no relative influence over the truth. In the end, you can either believe you are not bald, and never grow a hair (wrong), you can believe you are bald, and never grow a hair(truth), or you can believe that you are bald and cut off your hair, which is a worse lie and falseness. You cannot be maybe bald or maybe not. You cannot lack a belief in the status of your baldness. It is either true or it is false, or it is a lie. So, believe what you want, but your brain has already analysed the data and made a choice. Now you can be at war with yourself or make peace with yourself. I choose to be at peace and make a decision.

I do not assume there to be no deity, I merely find no compelling reason to say there is one. It is not an assumption to not put forth the existence of a being without evidence.

No compelling evidence means you don't believe. This statement is true or false. You have decided that the statement of no gods is true, this is your belief.

It's simple really, things are true until they are not true. Things are not true until they are true. You cannot leave a blank answer.

...so you're saying it stems from ignorance?

Yes, actually. All religious belief stems from the ignorance of that which cannot be seen nor observed.

Truth is not based upon consensus.

Actually it is. However much it might be bad to admit that, all things true are based of the agreement of all parties that it is true, or at least most people accepting it to be true. Reality is true because most people accept that it is true. There has yet to come any evidence that compels the average person to think it is not true.

Well, they'd be highly mistaken.

lol, look up post modernism.

And how does that work out well at all? Please, explain it instead of merely alluding to it working out.

You and I have faith that certain things are true. We can find commonality in some of these things. Those are absolute truths. Such as reality. But it's still an act of faith. Because ultimately we can never know.

Well, I don't simply believe it. I have to verify the data. If it's verified, I can't help but expect it. For no, there's no reason for me to acknowledge the existence of any of the multitudes of deities claimed to exist.

Ergo, the statement "there are no gods" is true in your mind. This is your belief. This is your truth, and this is your faith. You have faith that that data is true, that it is not subject to corruption. This is not some unanswered question. You have formed an informed opinion of a statement based off observation and tests. If something changed, then you will change that opinion and your faith will true. This is called being open minded. And it doesn't mean you don't have belief. It means your belief is that x is true.

...that's not experimentation, that's anecdotal. There's no control, no constraint to prevent experimental interference. Hell, you're experimenting on yourself, which is the ultimate no-no in science...though the reason isn't a matter of danger, it's a matter of bias.

Only if you have faith that the scientific process is absolute. We have no knowledge of anything better, so our faith is in the scientific process to be true until something new and better comes along.

...but all I have to work off of is all I can work off of. It's a tautology, but it's all I have. You don't make claims outside of that which you can support. It's why I'd never hazard a guess at fixing a car or playing piano.

Only if you have faith that you cannot fix that piano. Only if your belief is that you will never fix that car. By pure random chance, you might. By pure random chance, some computer might have learned how to time travel and be the reason the universe began and could be God. One is more likely than the other of course. But given time anything is possible, and we simply have faith that it's probably not true or not going to happen; that statement is false based off our consensus that we have faith is true.

...and yet you're about to apply the cognitive dissonance technique known as 'day-age creationism'.

Only if you have faith that its not true.

And yet you're still shoving a deity in for no reason at all. You're also ignoring that the two accounts are contradictory in the orders of creation and that the first account is just entirely wrong on nearly everything.

Only if you believe God cannot do whatever he feels like. I have faith that linear time doesn't matter to God. considering one is a view from God's perspective and the other from Man's perspective, it makes sense to me. If I drew something with a child, and then went back in time to initiate the request to draw with that child, we would have contradictory reports of what event happened first. But yet, they are both true. Once you throw time out the window, contradictions that seem to be contradictions are inf act not. Considering its God, I don't see any reason to think he is bound by time. And in fact, just shows how much control he has.

IE, You have faith God, if such a thing exists, is linear. I have faith that God is a big jelly paddy of time that really has no beginning nor end, just goes around in all sorts of figure eights.

...I thought you just acknowledged that I say I'll take in any new data. If you provide evidence, I'm open to accepting your claim. Simple as that.

See above.

Yes, that's why science has 'error bars' and 'standards of evidence'.

Yes and you have faith that it won't profoundly corrupt the data.

Pascal's wager allusion? I'm sorry, but the reward is living.

Yes actually, living here or living somewhere with a being that can control time and space. Seems better to go with the God man.

Yep, Pascal's wager. It's a silly wager, because you're discounting that you may be on the path of believing in the wrong deity and pissing off the true one.

If you look up the religions of the world they really can just be grouped into Five or so categories:

Indo-European Pantheon. Same basic story, same basic characters. Most people, including me, believe that the tales originate with some very early primitive kings and queens in India or somewhere by there.

African Spiritualism: Some of the very early religions, some similarities. Very old, but most seem to think not all that legit, considering they change every couple hundred years, as they have no consistency.

Abrahamic faiths: Obvious what it is.

Easter Spiritualism: Essentially a rejection of the Indo-European Pantheon and a shift to seek inner truth. Most of these faiths follow some borrowed religions from the I-E Pantheon. Others, such as Buddhism, are more like life styles than religions.

Post-Modern religions: Mormonism, Scientology, Flying Spaghetti Monster. Basically a rejection of all and a creation from a central leader rebelling. Usually shows signs of heavy borrowing of all known religions of their time.

Now going with the P wager, we can knock off Most spiritualism because they change too much and aren't consistent. Post Modernism religions are clearly just inventions, and the Indo European pantheon is clearly from the lives and history of a few kings and queens long ago. I'd be willing to go with one God that doesn't act so human versus gods and goddesses that act like your basic barbarians. So then you've got three religions to choose from really. I don't know, I kind of like Christianity. And you're probably better off then the rest under that if any of them are true.

So there, considering all things.

Except that it doesn't. You accept the existence of a deity without any reasonable evidence, so you're clearly not to concerned with evidence with regard to that question. I'm also guessing you accept significant portions of the Bible, even though they are riddled with errors in history, science, and morality.

Funny thing about morality. I don't believe in it. Considering the only part of the bible that talks about morality is about clean sex lives, I really don't see what morality even exists in the world. It's an invention of man. I actually accept the whole bible as true, and no I don't have really any evidence that you would care about. Yet I also accept pretty much everything in science so far because I haven't found a contradiction. I'll admit I've had my struggles. I really didn't know how to deal with evolution until I realized that there's some hints of it in the Bible. And I also am still struggling with how to fit the 50,000 years of humanity with the 5000 something years of the Bible. Ongoing struggles, past struggles, future struggles. I just have faith I'll find an answer. And if I can't, well I'll worry then. Really haven't seen so many historic problems with it. Seems to be mainly in check. I'll admit I still have some fin with Noah's ark. I'm starting to think that people back then may have been pretty damn advanced, considering Noah's arc is essentially described as being made out of plywood, which wouldn't be invented for a long long long time till later. And considering that quite some times it's mentioned that the world will be like the people before the flood when the end nears, I'm pretty sure that we were like this before. I mean, 50,000 years is plenty of time for the whole of human history to repeat itself several times over. At least what matters, like the last 8,000 years or so.

But that's not faith, its opinion and speculation.

And yet it's faith because you're accepting the deity without evidence and you're relying on scripture that is only considered true if you accept that deity's existence...which makes a pretty circular argument.

Same thing for most scientific evidence. It's only true if you accept the process. I do because I accept reality. But I don't think that what we know is all that we can know. I'm pretty sure nobody back in the stone age could image a warp ship, and I'm pretty sure there's concepts and things that exist that we cannot fathom right this second. I'm open minded. I don't accept that the now will stay the now, nor that what we know is all that we can rely on. There's always a bigger fish, and always new stuff to learn. Why, just 100 years ago nobody would have fathomed antimatter generators. But they could exist now. IE, I don't really see the idea of God all that impossible, and I don't feel a problem believing without proof.

I'm just going to stop you there. Insane asylum.

Crazy is only crazy when the consensus says it is. I'm not a knife wielding gutter rat, so I don't think I'm insane, but I could be. Who knows. Romans might have considered me insane, because of their consensus of what crazy is.

Wait...what? I'm sorry, but if you're believing without evidence...then what else do you have?

Faith, of course. Evidence is only evidence if you believe it is.

...and yet all you have are anecdotes, while I have the computer you're using as well as pretty much every other item in your dwelling as support for the reliability of science.

And I think science is reliable, so really why would I question you? Is it impossible to accept God and science? I haven't found out yet.

...no, faith is belief without evidence. I trust that my observations are consistent.

And, as I've said, consistency is a belief.

So...you merely claim something about me.

Yes.

Again...NO. This will be my last post to you because I've repeatedly explained this to you and yet you keep telling me something that is contrary to all ideas of logic.

Logic has either true or false statements. This is why undefined things get errors. You must define your terms. You've already accepted either there are gods or there are no gods. And honestly, you're just fighting with your own brain if you think you can remain undefined.

reply to post by Gorman91


Last time: Being an atheist is an act of being. We don't get to choose, though we do have to acknowledge that we lack a belief. I lack a belief in a deity, as things stand right now I could not change that belief if I tried.

Of course, I understand where your problem lies. You think that a rejection of a belief claim is inherently an acceptance of the opposite belief claim when, in fact, that is not the case.

reply to post by Watcher-In-The-Shadows


No, I'm quite right. You claim to not be an atheist, but you're no more different than the bald man claiming he shaves his head.

And please, show me what 'rhetoric' has called for a ban on all religion.

reply to post by Watcher-In-The-Shadows


Straw man...

I don't view the world as black and white, but there are portions of the world in which binary positions exist. Whether or not an individual believes in a deity is one of those instances.

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer
Einstein is really kind of a distraction from the larger point:

Arguments that reference "20th century atheists" are intellectually dishonest and weak tools to bolster theism.

Yeah, it's really a distraction when you claimed he was an atheist and someone finds a quote of him saying the exact opposite...


which seems a bit intellectually dishonest....

reply to post by HunkaHunka


...he was an atheist by any definition. Furthermore, dredging up quotes from earlier in his life to determine his opinions at his death is nonsensical. By the logic you're using, I'm a Catholic because 7 years ago I said things which supported Catholicism.

Einstein was more religiously minded earlier in his life, but he grew apart from it as he aged, it's what the evidence suggests from his quotes.

He was clearly an atheist as he did not believe in any deity, even if he didn't use the label. The same would go for Carl Sagan.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


No. You know how Facebook creates a page for something you like if it doesn't exist? That's what I think. You can invent whatever you want to believe. But that is what you believe. Only something not sentient doesn't believe, because he does not have the mental ability to. It simply does. You are not an animal, you are a man, and therefore you either believe something or you don't, and that's a belief too.

reply to post by Gorman91


Ok, and just another issue: A reply to Pascal's wager...the 10^n reply from an atheist.

First issue: Abrahamic faith grew out of the Indo-European tradition. There is no evidence of proper monotheism in Israel until after the Babylonian captivity, so the idea that it's obvious is sort of a big problem.

Yahweh was a god who had a wife.

Furthermore, to claim that ancient Egyptian tradition is incredibly similar to what the Greeks have is insane. I mean, those are two cultures which are close and traded early on, yet their religions were very different.

And to claim that all Eastern religions are expressly a reaction to Indo-European ones is, again, to ignore a lot of history.

Oh, and then there's the huge issue of all the dead religions...and your characterization of 'post-modern' religions, as if being old somehow makes rising around a charismatic leader excusable....you know, like Jesus.

Now, since that doesn't address Pascal's wager, I'm going to put the proper objections to your little wager out in point form:

First objection, in syllogism form
1: I cannot choose whether or not I believe in a deity.
2: I can pretend to believe in a deity for fear of hypothetical punishment/anticipation of reward
3: An omniscient being cannot be conned
Conclusion: The wager fails as there is no way to make the bet and therefore the wager is pointless.

Second objection:
You can turn the same wager around with any religion.

Third objection
1: Religions in which a reward is promised do not value belief for the sake of reward
2: What is being ask is to believe for the sake of reward
Conclusion: Therefore, any belief for the sake of reward would be invalid and not count towards a reward anyway.

It's sort of simple. I can keep going, but when there's a large chunk of the Wiki entry on the subject devoted to criticisms, it's safe to say I'm not saying anything new. I mean, the argument has been around for hundreds of years.

reply to post by Gorman91


...how is the opposite of believing believing?

You're violating the most basic premise of logical thought: The law of non-contradiction. Things cannot be that which they are not and their opposites cannot be themselves.

Not believing is not the same as believing. If it were, we would call it believing.

And no, I don't get to choose. I couldn't choose to believe in a deity if I wanted...I tried, very desperately, when I was struggling with my doubts. If it worked, I'd still be a Catholic.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


Believing doesn't really entitle an opposite. I tried to believe once, then I realized Catholicism really isn't all that logical.Too many contradictions with the bible.

Hmmmm "Looks around"

and yet still no one on ats has transcended humanity!