The Growth of Atheism and What it Means for Our Future

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


No actually it's not. It's putting the correct term on your either or argument.

reply to post by Jordan River


I think they have a secret belief that they must attempt to browbeat others to attain transcendance.

reply to post by Watcher-In-The-Shadows


And yet you're avoiding it by refusing to accept that you're in a binary position. Something is either present or it is not. In this case, it is the belief in a deity. If you do believe in a deity, you are a theist. If you do not believe in a deity, you are an atheist.

Simple as that.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


Uh. Bald men do shave their heads. I do so love when people tell me what I am though. I form no belief either way. I do not say no god exists (atheism), I do not say a god exists (theism). That makes me agnostic.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


Black and White. And here I thought you said you didn't say that.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


Too bad we live in a grey world huh? Incidentally, ever hear of cognitive distortion?

All-or-nothing thinking (splitting) – Thinking of things in absolute terms, like "always", "every", "never", and "there is no alternative". Few aspects of human behavior are so absolute. (See false dilemma.) All-or-nothing-thinking can contribute to depression. (See depression). Also called dichotomous thinking.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


I don't really no. Indo-european culture seems to have adopted a few things as it passed through to the west.

I think there's a lot of similarities to Sumerian faith and Abraham faith, but there's a lot of blurred lines there, considering a lot of their people interchanged between each other. Exiles, armies, etc etc. In truth there's no known answer. It's like what was the first religion? We simply do not know. I can, however, state that the oldest constant faiths came from that region. I think the fact that they've lasted so long says something. But that's faith and opinion. Scientifically monotheism has no beginning. But there are a lot of independent movements towards it. Zeno and the Stoics, the moves in Egypt, Sumer itself rejected a large amount of the indo-euro ways.

Yahweh had a wife in some other cultures. He was a God known by quite a few in the region, each with their own opinions. What ones survived, I would imagine, were the ones he thought were proper and could work with.

Egyptian culture evolved out of beliefs in the middle east. Some would say very early Egypt was monotheistic in its own right. Reason being before Egypt, a lot of people had a single God, but didn't agree with each other. The region was greener and more wide spread, so no one cared. Environmental change forced people together and to work together. Thus in order to remain secure, the leadership made each opinion of God into a god. And thus was born polytheism. This evolved quite nicely with the indo-european pantheon and their gods evolved, merging and dividing. Again, to them it was opinion, not actually a god. After their government collapsed, then they became independent gods with cults following them, and they added some of their own people to the pantheon.

Thus Egypt is unique.

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.

Charismatic leaders aren't bad. What they do tells what they are. None of the post modern religions really have many good leaders. L Ron certainly doesn't check out. The ones invented for pure entertainment clearly don't really care about religion.

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.

1: You can choose. You refuse to, thus you have defaulted to no choice. In your mind, there is no God.
2: Not really. Lieing to yourself is stupid.
3: Sure you can make the bet. You believe in something, give it a chance, and then move on if it fails. Of course that requires faith. And in my own experience, going against your nature sometimes. I mean I was an atheist, and coming back to faith made my stomach ache sometimes because I didn't accept it. Now I've had my own proofs, but as you said, your own proofs don't matter squad.

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

And as I've showed, there's really only a very few. Use your discretion, postulate, think, and wonder. Ponder on it and find your truth. I've found mine. Don't stick to a few stereotypical people and the religion you rejected. I went out into the world to figure it out. I threw away the indoctrination of the catholic church and decided to read and make my own decisions. Never been happier. Now the consequences of such is that I call myself Christian, but can I really claim to be of any school of thought like Catholicism or Pentecostal? Nope I'm Christian. Christ. What Christ said. I could care less the opinions of others, including those who call themselves that.

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.

I have reward for the sake of belief. If you choose to believe for a reward, that is silly, though why is it wrong? I'm just saying, it's nice to have something in the end. And to some degree, if the reward is well earned, I don't see a problem with that.

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.

So has Christianity, doesn't make it true. Age has no correlation to correctness. But having one way opinion does.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


I asked the question of which I believe this is part of the answer to. Believing or not believing is black and white.

Believing in god = Theist
Not Believing = Atheist

Accepting that you don't really know = agnostic ---> Flexible/Open minded
Thinking that you do know = gnostic and ---> Rigid/Close minded

You can be a combination of things.

You can even apply agnostic/gnostic to other things in life like UFOs, ghosts or big foot.

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
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.

Honestly, no matter what you label as true, it is something you have accepted as true, regardless of the method by which you verified it's authenticity because the sense of being assured comes from within... no matter what it's external trigger

In other words, even though your method of accepting something as truth is different than the religious, from a psychological standpoint... it's the same sensation the religious get when they accept something as truth...

I don't completely agree, prejudices aren't related to your religion but your closest community and society. People have tended to use religion as a mere smoke screen for their own personal vendetta.

Also I've noticed that atheists are generally smart people, but I've also noticed their tendency towards depression as they have a lack of motivation or meaning and its very apparent on communities such as ATS.

Don't blame religions for all the bad in the world, religions don't start wars, money and power do... Religion is an excuse.

Don't blame religions for all the bad in the world, religions don't start wars, money and power do... Religion is an excuse.

Religion is the excuse for war?TPTB know it and use it's influence and power.It's the people that make up the religions that are part of the machine that feed the power.
So you can go ahead and blame religions for a good part of the bad in the world.

Originally posted by kykweer I've also noticed their tendency towards depression as they have a lack of motivation or meaning

That's no excuse for religion. I realize that I live on a planet that doesn't understand what I need as an atheist. However, I live as close to my ideal life as possible. My life has lots of meaning. Not only am I involved in a myriad of Arts and Crafts, I spend a lot of time trying to wake up the world. I'm not too bad at it. People get mad at 1st, so we move on. They later ask me questions about what they were mad about. It's a slow process, as one has to be delicate with the damaged merchandise.

reply to post by flyingfish


TPTB is the conspieacy theory of conspiracy thoery of conspiracy theories, if they can influence what you had for breakfast to a child being raped in africa... I have no doubt that if religion disappeared of the planet today tomorrow something else will be "feeding the power"

But then again I don't believe a small group of people control the world. Even though I believe in multi groups we have to just accept one fact...

People are evil, people are scum we need to stop shifting the blame and start looking at ourselves.

reply to post by gentledissident


That's great man, the fulfillment of helping people is the ultimate experience

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying atheists are bad people or all depressed or anything like that, but sometimes things can get lonely without a spiritual closeness, but "opening peoples minds" can be pointless if they don't have a firm base to believe from. It can be easy to lose track of reality, so I guess trust is a must if you want someone to fight by your side and not cheer you on from way back if you know what I mean.

Originally posted by kykweer It can be easy to lose track of reality

I don't experience that.

Originally posted by kykweer if you want someone to fight by your side and not cheer you on from way back if you know what I mean.

I've met people like me. We hang out for a while and then go off to talk to more people who are not like us. There are so few of us, it's better if we spend less time with each other preaching to the choir.

Originally posted by gentledissident

Originally posted by kykweer It can be easy to lose track of reality

I don't experience that.

wow dude your so defensive, I did mention that I'm not pigeon holing all atheists to be the same didn't I? I'm just saying its absurd how some people on *ATS will say that Osama wasn't part of 9/11 and now that he's dead will say he was killed sooner, infact contradicting everything from the media, even being defensive against music and movies and music... These people lost track of reality and generally they will also denounce religion as its a way of "tptb" to control us

Originally posted by gentledissident

Originally posted by kykweer if you want someone to fight by your side and not cheer you on from way back if you know what I mean.

I've met people like me. We hang out for a while and then go off to talk to more people who are not like us. There are so few of us, it's better if we spend less time with each other preaching to the choir.

What are people like you like?

Originally posted by kykweer wow dude your so defensive

I was just letting you know. Sorry you took it the wrong way.

Originally posted by kykweer What are people like you like?

My posts in this thread are a good lead.

Originally posted by nicolee123nd
If you ever get into a religious conversation with an atheist, at one point the person almost always says "I was raised Christian..." How come you never hear a person say "I was born an atheist..."? This simple notion is evidence that the population of atheists is growing -- religious people are changing their minds!

Hi there. I was born an atheist. My father, a born-again, tried to instill religious values into me by sending me to Catholic school, but I never saw the bible or the idea of God as anything other then old stories that were trying to instill some kind of moral code.

I also never believed in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.

Originally posted by kykweer
reply to post by flyingfish

 

TPTB is the conspieacy theory of conspiracy thoery of conspiracy theories, if they can influence what you had for breakfast to a child being raped in africa... I have no doubt that if religion disappeared of the planet today tomorrow something else will be "feeding the power"

I've seen alot of people say they don't believe in TPTB because they don't believe that a small group of men control the world. The truth is that TPTB is anything that excerts control over a person.

The rich guy who used his connections to get his kid a job at city hall leaving you out of the running even though you were better qualified. That's TPTB.

The company that buys or drives out all the mom and pop operations so they can have a monopoly in a market is another example of TPTB.

Any time that someone uses power, money, force or lies to maintain a position of superiority that's TPTB in action. Religion is an excellent tool for that.

reply to post by daskakik


So "TPTB" = any instance of privilege? You do realize that Christians are a privileged group, right?