The Growth of Atheism and What it Means for Our Future

reply to post by kykweer


Cool, but just because people use words incorrectly doesn't mean we should continue doing so. Thought we were all about denying ignorance.

I'll offer this example of TPTB, police officers. They are a clear example of someone who has authority and this authority can be abused. They are not part of the elite or a secret cabal that control the world.

Now the idea of TPTB is that it is a pyramid and that it ends in a small group controlling everything. If this cabal/society/family doesn't exist it doesn't mean that TPTB don't exist it just means that instead of a pyramid it's a trapezoid.

reply to post by nicolee123nd


I see a reconfiguration of theism as a concept. Not religious in any way a all, and acknowledging that the invented terms "holy" and "faith" have deeply harmed the human race over many centuries.

The idea that there can't be an initiator of this one contextual environment presupposes that this is the foundational contextual environment. To me, that's quite a supposition, and one that I can't make or agree with. Hell, I've been able to factor out the logical progression (cause and effect, and without inventing anything that isn't common to everyone's own life) required to take an initial instant of physical genesis to the emergence of conscious intellect, and even to the point where that conscious intellect creates its own physical transcendence within the confines of an artificial contextual sub-environment. And if I can do that.... Well, let's just say that I'm no genius. I'm certainly not god-like in my intellectual massiveness.

I believe that the reason traditional theism is tumbling so badly (and causing such a violent theocratic backlash across the planet as it does stumble) is because we've debunked those traditional narratives, and that obvious determination has become overwhelmingly pervasive throughout the modern world. Atheism may succeed it for a while, but eventually, the human mind will have to tackle other questions concerning the nature of reality that atheism isn't equipped to deal with either. That's when the pendulum will start tracking back again, and hopefully there will be a reasonable alternative in place to keep it from swinging wildly back toward craziness and looking for Jesus in burnt slices of pizza.

Interestingly, in the secular world of physics, the particle is under the same stress, as technology has begun to back it into a corner and proponents of particle-physics are reaching for crazy-talk to explain away the contradictions that are beginning to regularly make appearances at the quantum level. I can't wait for the PTB to finally acknowledge that the particle is a manifestation of human perception, as the human mind struggles to deal with the fact that the event trajectory is the real basis of what we call matter.

The next 50 years will be remarkable.

Originally posted by daskakik
reply to post by kykweer

 

Cool, but just because people use words incorrectly doesn't mean we should continue doing so. Thought we were all about denying ignorance.

I'll offer this example of TPTB, police officers. They are a clear example of someone who has authority and this authority can be abused. They are not part of the elite or a secret cabal that control the world.

Now the idea of TPTB is that it is a pyramid and that it ends in a small group controlling everything. If this cabal/society/family doesn't exist it doesn't mean that TPTB don't exist it just means that instead of a pyramid it's a trapezoid.

I guess ill submit and say certain terms are according to opinion. Because if we had a way of defining everything on this site it would be the end of ATS.

Excuse me but I'm not really sure what you meant with your post, ill have a stab and if I got it wrong gimme another chance:

Your saying that police officers can be a group of "tptb"? As they in force law and have control over us?

Thing is they are a police force, backed by a government, backed by to commander, backed by the government. So what I think you mean is a TPTB thing in the confines of a country?

But why would you refeR to them as tptb? And not be more detailed as in to say poilice force?

reply to post by nicolee123nd


I was born an atheist.. religious myths have always seemed laughable to me. When I was kid I kind of thought of god that same way I did Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.. and now that I am older I know that to be true. Just trying to keep the simple minded inline.

Originally posted by Nikola014
I'm afraid if we lose our faith we will lose our future...

I'm afraid if people of faith keep blindly following the hyppocrites, we're fkd. I got no problem with religion, I got a problem with double standard hyppocrisy, whether we're talking religion, or even on a personal level, gender equality, etc. But we are talking religion, and, when you don't see the mainstream news reporting the pope's closest advisor gets arrested for pedophaelia (sp?)... next on South Park, art imitates life, or vice versa lol... sad

reply to post by kykweer


Right they are just part of a group that control things. If I am refering to those that are influencing politicians so that these pass laws that the police will enforce then they all form that group in control.

Doesn't have to be on a national level it could be larger like NATO or smaller like State or city. Maybe even smaller, in a prison, as far as the inmates are concerned, the prison staff are TPTB even though they don't hold that power over those outside of the prison.

reply to post by daskakik


Why not just call it what it is? I just feel that TPTB refers to an unknown or mysterious entity or group.

Call an apple an apple.

Anyway I'm off to bed, may you have a good evening.

reply to post by Nikola014


I don't think it is an issue of losing faith, just a misplacement of faith.

Beleive in your fellow man, have faith in humanity. We don't need gods for a brighter future, have faith in your brothers and sisters.

"It's a fact that, if there was no religion, most wars wouldn't have been fought." You say this yet the USA is still getting into a lot of wars and conflicts today. Less religious people doesn't mean less wars, it just means the wars will be fought for different reasons.

Originally posted by ErEhWoN have faith in your brothers and sisters.

At least be ready to catch them when they fall.

Personally, I think the consequences of the growth of atheism are dire and that it risks taking the air out of our tires where the rubber hits the road on the path of progress towards perfection (evolution of the psyche of mankind).

To clarify what I mean, the following is a post I made recently in another forum.

Originally posted by NewAgeMan
If non locality (see Bell's Theorem) and evolutionary theory must be accepted as facts, then how are we, the human being, as the furthermost creative expression or leading shoot of evolution's pursuit of and persistent drive towards ever higher (more complex) impressions and levels of consciousness (yes even a single cell could be thought of as an evolutionary expression of a rise towards consciousness) - how are we to find our true nature, our center, our source, and most importantly, our destiny, if we must begin with the fundamental presupposition that any such discovery cannot include a co-creative relationship, in mutuality, with God or the Godhead or a Supreme Being?

In other words, how are we to find God in eternity, as reflected through the eternally unfolding (evolving) present moment of the story of Life as intended by design (rise of consciousness) from "before the very foundations of the world" (in eternity), if we must BEGIN with the presumption that since no God exists "union" or communion with said God is never possible?

Why must we accept a purely materialist worldview and be left alone and set adrift in a senseless and meaningless absurdity, orphaned from our center and source and from a first/last cause, separated, not only from the phenomenal world at large, but also from our fellow man (and even from ourselves, from our true nature) - as a mere "thing" or at best an animal (intermediate phylos) who's sense of personality and of freedom is nothing but an illusion. Are we nothing but skin and bones, a machine, nothing more?

Is that really the extent of our "self" and our human experience? If not, then why would be choose such a paradigm or worldview anyway and in the process deny the very experience or "qualia" that makes us most human?

Why deny a heritage that includes the whole of all creation and an inheritance, in the fullness of time and history, perhaps of even greater value (transcendant)?

Why should we so belittle that which we truly are? I don't get it..

Of course I can understand why some might wish to try to grind the "no God" axe for reasons of anti-religious sentiment, but maybe, in the final analysis and in the grand scheme of things, mankind is in truth not a mere "thing", but instead a process, intrinsic to the very process of evolution, not just on earth, but Cosmologically and therefore even Universally (right across the entire breadth and depth of all being and becoming) - hurtling at last headlong into God-conscious realization and awareness (rediscovering a fundamental relationship with the creative source of all). Perhaps in truth, man contains the universe, perched as he is at the apex of an eternal creative evolutionary process (fresh, most recent ie: the last shall be first and the first, last) and that in truth, the invisible or the interior of reality and existence, the inner being, exceeds by many many orders of magnitude, the first impressioned outer, materialist reality of our apparent subjective experience.

Is it outside of the realm of possible (in eternity all things are possible) that the breadth and depth of the interior reality of the human being self realized or God-realized, contains, imbedded or enfolded within himself, by extension and proportion (see Phi Ratio or Golden Mean), the interior reality or the inner being, of the entire universe - that is if both non-locality and evolutionary theory must be accepted as fact?

Perhaps there really is much MUCH more going on, right before our eyes, than ordinarily or traditionally meets the eye at first glance and that "God" isn't the "God of the gaps" but God of the entire domain of consciousness already always present awaiting man as the mirror image of God's reflection as the creative intent (beginning as always with the end in mind), in mutual discovery, and all manner of shared, intimate, co-creative, participatory fun and enjoyment at ALL levels - the kingdom of heaven if you will, shared in koinonia.

And maybe OUR "goal" if we are to have one, is to become more fully and authentically self expressed, as people, so that in being more fully human we might also radiate ever moreso our true nature as divine, sacred beings, "made" or created and included in eternity, to contain nothing less than the same spirit of the universe already intrinsic to all life and already fully informed through an eternal, non-local, cosmic evolutionary process (see Akashic Field).

Why, if non locality and evolutionary theory must be adopted as fact, must we exclude, a priori, the most fundamental parent-child type relationship (Abba?) when in truth we as human beings are the manifest variable of the supreme value?

Why grind an axe which reduces the human being to a thing, and life itself to a meaningless absurdity without purpose or direction, and without an object of desire to drive our pursuit of continued advancement and evolutionary growth which, for the human being will occurs as much in the realm of the psyche ie: our spiritual nature, as if will in our physical morphology?

"God made our spirit with wings to fly in the spacious firmament of love and freedom. How pitiful it would be then, if we were to lop off our wings by our own hand, and suffer ourselves to crawl like vermine upon the earth!"

~ Khalil Gibran

reply to post by NewAgeMan

"God made our spirit with wings to fly in the spacious firmament of love and freedom. How pitiful it would be then, if we were to lop off our wings by our own hand, and suffer ourselves to crawl like vermine upon the earth!"

~ Khalil Gibran

Pretty much sums up your post.

The problem is, all this would only really matter if there really was a god...which we can't know. Why believe in something that is utter speculation? If we did that, we'd have to start believing in fairies too...or unicorns...or all the other stuff. And if we didn't, how on earth does that "cut our wings"? Not believing in pure speculation isn't "cutting your wings"!

Why must we accept a purely materialist worldview and be left alone and set adrift in a senseless and meaningless absurdity

You don't. You can always make a wish to try to counterbalance this reality. This keeps popping up as a reason to believe. It appears we have not yet evolved to be able to accept our point in evolution.

reply to post by MrXYZ

How can you completely miss the context and the framing of my post, and focus solely on the notion of a deity as some sort of separate entity that hasn't materialized for our scrutiny and analysis..?

reply to post by kykweer


Religion clouds peoples mind from everything else thats around him. Anything in the future that seems unholy or anything that seems wrong to them they would surly try to Demonize it. If there was no religion it would be a way for us all to unite. No arguing about if there is a God or not.

Originally posted by NewAgeMan
reply to post by MrXYZ

 

How can you completely miss the context and the framing of my post, and focus solely on the notion of a deity as some sort of separate entity that hasn't materialized for our scrutiny and analysis..?

How can you assume something to be true when you present ZERO evidence in support? And even worse, you make demonstrably false claims, like that the alternative to your worldview is materialism

reply to post by MrXYZ


I didn't know that atheism promotes a consideration of the internal depths and heights of human spiritual experience, maybe I'm wrong.

Part of the problem here is also the term "God", who I think of as spirit and truth. "God is spirit and truth" (Jesus to the woman at the well) "I tell you a day is coming, and indeed it is already here when people need no longer worship in the temple or on the mountain."

Spirit and truth - the interior reality of being and of life, this is God. I am not referring to an anthropomorphized sky-genie, except perhaps to the degree that the human being, as a conscious being having a spiritual experience reflects the highest creative evolutionary impulse of this same intrinsic inner being or spirit of the universe intrinsic to all life and most fully expressed in human form.

To deny the human being the opportunity to explore the absolute as an impetus or stimulant to eminance, and to cut us off from that pursuit now of a wholly psychic or spiritual dimension, because of some sort of prior, contemptuous bias prior to investigation which abhors the very idea of a Supreme Being as a first last cause or an Alpha and Omega of existence, is imho, degenerative, and runs counter to our quest to understand our true nature and our true place in the cosmos, and therefore undermines our continued psycho-spiritual evolution, both individually and collectively.

Atheism seems to me to lack an intense passion for Life, and I don't mean by that one's own narrow sphere of interpersonal connectedness or one's own personal enjoyment but the whole of Life as a phenomenon, now spiritualized within the human being as the leading shoot of a non-local, cosmic evolutionary process.

reply to post by kykweer


Because it's an apple, an orange and a watermelon so we call them fruit?

For example people often say our troops overseas. It's understood that this includes marines, infantry, sailors, pilots etc. It's a way to talk about a group and not just one of it's components.

Originally posted by aceto
reply to post by nicolee123nd

 

I was born an atheist.. religious myths have always seemed laughable to me. When I was kid I kind of thought of god that same way I did Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.. and now that I am older I know that to be true. Just trying to keep the simple minded inline.

Simple minded it was, and still is. Good for you, keep up the good work!

I think it has a lot to do with the fact that everything that goes on in the world can be observed and discussed from a computer. If you think about it, back before the internet was even a thought, Christianity was a strongly held core family value and as a kid back then, you really didn't have a lot of say in your upbringing or the resources (internet) to justify whether or not you should question it. But now... thanks to the internet, little kids are finding out that maybe god wont take away their xbox if you dont get up for church