Are Atheists just close minded Agnostics?

[Nakosis]

Evidence too, can be a funny thing, and yes I believe I have had a sort of immaterial evidence or my beliefs would not be as they are.

I was going to say the same thing. We accept the existence of somethings that aren't material. Energy, light, heat. However we accept the existence of these things because we can detect how they affect material objects.

I guess say someone claimed they could see gravity. However you couldn't. Their evidence would be to show you how gravity affected matter. However if you could see gravity for yourself, that would be the evidence.

 

[riley2112]

Agreed. However showing how God affects material objects is something that , well , I don't know how you could. I mean we say he created all. So that in itself is a way to see the affects , however what material evidence do we have to try and prove that theory , again , none that would be believed by all. It is a catch 22.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Ok, let us do it your way, what do you think
abrogate means, I think it means little red wagon.

OK. So did you have an abrogate when you were a kid? I didn't. Raised poor.

Do you see a problem with your statement now

Ummm... no. What are you talking about? What problem?

Seriously. What problem?

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

So you have reasons for putting some faith in their claims.

Sure, you could say it that way without bothering me. If I didn't have a reason to believe something, I wouldn't believe it.

Knowledge certainly helps to determine what is trustworthy.

Especially for us skeptics. We don't handle authority very well.

No reason to place faith in someone you don't believe existed. So what reason would you have for testing the truth of his claims?

I don't believe that Jesus made claims. I think his words were put into his mouth by the men who created him -- over a period of many years, building a 'Christian' theology as they went. Sorry if that offends, but it's what I really think.

That's were I think Jesus does. But one is going to know that without first having faith in him. Why would you listen to someone you have no faith in?

I listen to everyone. Then I think about what they've said and decide whether it looks more like feces or more like shinola. I build my own truth, just as everyone else does. I just seem a bit more aware that my Truth Hinney is hanging out in the breeze all alone.

Maybe, enough to test your claims. Beyond that it depends on how verifiable your claims are.

My claims aren't verifiable in any physical sense. My only claim is that my worldview (how I use words to organize reality) makes better sense than some.

How does your view/concept of God differ from that of Jesus?

Really I'm not sure that's a fair question. How can I imagine the God-concept of a person whom I believe not to have existed?

We'd have to have Jesus here with us so we could discuss/debate the nature of God, I think.

But if you want to ask me anything more specific, I'll be glad to answer.

 

[riley2112]

OK. So did you have an abrogate when you were a kid? I didn't. Raised poor.




Ummm... no. What are you talking about? What problem?

Seriously. What problem?

Ok, I had that coming.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Ok, I had that coming.

My only point is that you understood me perfectly when I asked if you had an abrogate when you were a kid. That's because you and I had agreed on the meaning of 'abrogate.' And that's really how it always works. Words don't mean things all by themselves -- despite our mostly-futile efforts to build dictionaries. Words just mean what the two communicators believe them to mean. As you engage other minds here, I think that's an important truth to remember. We can insist that 'faith' means a certain thing, or we can watch the other mind dance with 'faith' and maybe learn some fancy new steps.

Sorry to sound preachy. When a guy grows up never having an abrogate like all the other kids, it can make a mess of him.

 

[riley2112]

My only point is that you understood me perfectly when I asked if you had an abrogate when you were a kid. That's because you and I had agreed on the meaning of 'abrogate.' And that's really how it always works. Words don't mean things all by themselves -- despite our mostly-futile efforts to build dictionaries. Words just mean what the two communicators believe them to mean. As you engage other minds here, I think that's an important truth to remember. We can insist that 'faith' means a certain thing, or we can watch the other mind dance with 'faith' and maybe learn some fancy new steps.

Sorry to sound preachy. When a guy grows up never having an abrogate like all the other kids, it can make a mess of him.

That be a fact. lol

 

[Nakosis]

There are different definitions of faith. There is faith in the religious sense, no. 3, which is the one I most often refer to. Considering we're in the religious forums. However, I would define faith and trust differently. But religious faith is the one that I was defining, which is either lacking in evidence or in the face of evidence to the contrary.

This is the common quote regarding religious faith...

1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

Evidence is fine. The universe is evidence. It's the metaphysical stuff.



You can see the box but you can't see inside the box. All the forces which allow the box to exist. However you have faith in the existence of those forces because you can see the box.


Evidence for some is speaking in tongues, faith healing, seeing the virgin Mary in a stain on the wall. It's trust in the immaterial as the cause of what you do perceive.

 

[Nakosis]

Especially for us skeptics. We don't handle authority very well.

Me either.

I don't believe that Jesus made claims. I think his words were put into his mouth by the men who created him -- over a period of many years, building a 'Christian' theology as they went. Sorry if that offends, but it's what I really think.

Doesn't matter whether Jesus existed or not. What we have is the words to test.

I listen to everyone. Then I think about what they've said and decide whether it looks more like feces or more like shinola. I build my own truth, just as everyone else does. I just seem a bit more aware that my Truth Hinney is hanging out in the breeze all alone.

Jesus, whether fictional or not, seemed to be aware his Hinney was hanging out in the wind as well.

My claims aren't verifiable in any physical sense. My only claim is that my worldview (how I use words to organize reality) makes better sense than some.

If they didn't, I suspect you'd change them. I think this is what most people do. However individuals may have different views on what makes the better sense.

Really I'm not sure that's a fair question. How can I imagine the God-concept of a person whom I believe not to have existed?

We'd have to have Jesus here with us so we could discuss/debate the nature of God, I think.

Again we have his words. You could create a fictional persona. Respond completely opposite of how you really felt and all I'd have to judge you on is the responses you offered.

But if you want to ask me anything more specific, I'll be glad to answer.

I was just curious if your view of God was any different. They could be similar, which would justify the words if not the person.

A question about God... Hmm. Ok, what causes some people to believe they've experienced the presence of God.

 

[Trimijopulos]

Ok, archaic gods of oral traditions? This definition is also inclusive of yahwee, the god of the old testament.

Yahweh is the name of a God, of an entity, and its origin is theology.
Elohim (the alternative name for God in OT) names a group of persons or even an entire population. The term means “judges”, “angels”, “gods” and “God” and its origin is oral tradition.

I have no interest in Yahweh and theology but I am very much interested in mythology. “Elohim” as “angels” is found in almost every people’s traditions and that is a fact no one can dismiss by just saying “those are all myths” and meaning “those are fairy tales.”
Mythology contains humanity’s memories of its past.

I agree, those are all myths. What does any of this have to do with science operating on faith? You're not making any sense and you're not bringing anything relevant to the table, so, whats the contention?

It is that I insist science operates sometimes on faith (or belief. That’s not the point here) and you insisting that it never happens.
I wrote:

Just before the concept of a male god who was creating humans out of clay, Marduk was creating humans out of his blood and bone (the reference to the bone resulted in the funny story of Adam’s rib in the OT). A contemporaneous concept was about the slaughtering of a god and mixing his blood with earth in order to fashion humans.
The irrationality commences to diminish when women are involved in the creation: the gods call the “goddess of the land” and instruct her to produce humans. Still earlier, the goddess of the land did not possess the ability to produce men and thus she had to call a number of anonymous Mother-wombs and it was them who produced the human kind.

Anyone who has reached that far in the past of mythology knows very well who these Mother-wombs were. They were women kept in enclosures where gods or semi-gods or gods by two thirds, as Gilgamesh was, were visiting and raping them in order to produce either “slaves of the gods” or “sons of God.”

By following the myths backwards we arrived at the report of an event.

Then you wrote:

Ok, but the event is one I have contention with. The person reporting the event I believe is mistaken. Particularly, when we're talking about a period of time when mytical thinking was the norm and we had vertually no scientific knowledge, it's easy to assume that some god is responsible for lightning/thunder etc...

We are not talking about gods shooting lightning from the sky (philosophical nonsense) but about gods producing humans by raping some women.
You believe that the person reporting the event is mistaken but you did not say “I do not know” as you should have said and neither were scientists saying “we don’t know” because they also believed that the report was mistaken, until they found out last year that the report was correct!

You and my self and all of us but the sub-Saharan Africans we are hybrids: approximately 96% Homo sapiens sapiens and 4% Neandertahl, and what is more… the gene flow went only one way, from Neanderthals to Hss and not vice versa meaning that the interbreeding was forced.
We are not pure products of evolution!! We were such up to the stage of Homo sapiens sapiens and then by a little bit of creation by the “gods,” we became the hybrids that we are today.

Myths do not mix spiritual, immaterial beings as today’s gods are thought to be, with people made out of flesh. They report that a group, tribe of race that was later known as “gods,” raped the women of another group, tribe or race that did not belong to the race of the rapists.

In case you did not happen to read about the latest achievement of the science of genetics, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8660940.stm here is a good site.

 

[Caladan]

I don't think I have my question answered in this thread.
when did open minded came to mean we should accept supernatural ideas?
am I also close minded because I refuse to believe in angels? should other people call me close minded because I refuse to believe alien civilization visited earth?
I think you get my point. when did we begin defining open mindedness on the acceptance of supernatural or ideas which we don't see to be compatible with naturalism?

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Doesn't matter whether Jesus existed or not. What we have is the words to test.

I don't feel that way. We have very few of his words -- words which were first laid down in an ancient foreign language and then translated and retranslated over the years. Even today we find various translations or versions.

Plus, we aren't even sure which words are his. We know that none of the modern English red-lettered ones are his, and those are the only words I'm capable of examining.

So for me, it's pretty hard to get a grip on Jesus' overall worldview.

If they didn't, I suspect you'd change them.

Just so. My worldview is the best I've been able to concoct. Otherwise I'd concoct a different one.

I think this is what most people do. However individuals may have different views on what makes the better sense.

Yes. I'm glad there are forums so we can fight over the best sense.

Again we have his words. You could create a fictional persona. Respond completely opposite of how you really felt and all I'd have to judge you on is the responses you offered.

I'm not sure I understand your proposition, but I'll try to answer about my Godview vs. Jesus' Godview.

I think that the character Jesus lived in very primitive times, where magic was assumed. Gods and spirits were assumed to be very real, a normal part of life, such as we can still see these days among primitive peoples. Things go bump in the night, and the primitive mind sees hidden beings doing the bumping. Ancestors, trolls, jinn.

But I don't see it that way. I think of God as a concept. The word 'God' is fun and useful, at least to me, but I don't agree with Jesus that some actual Being exists behind the word. My God does no conscious thinking.

A question about God... Hmm. Ok, what causes some people to believe they've experienced the presence of God.

I dunno. You'd have to define which God you mean. A real-word-speaking Guy? Then probably some organic brain problem. An oceanic feeling? Then probably the restless poet reaching for the divine in his back garden and labeling it as God.

 

[Willamena]

I don't think I have my question answered in this thread.
when did open minded came to mean we should accept supernatural ideas?

Can I take a stab? To me, it doesn't mean that we should accept any particular ideas, but that if a good, or even valid, case can be made for two sets of ideas that are apparently contradictory, an open mind would automatically dismiss neither.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

The Big-Bang theory is but an Ex Nihilo Creation Myth produced by a pastor which requires from me to believe that we know what happened just after the BB but not before.

It's a conclusion reached through careful study and consideration of the evidence.

Thank you, but it is of no use to me to read an article providing evidence for the BB because I have not the required training.

So, you lack the "required training" to assess the evidence for the big bang, yet you feel informed enough to call it a "myth" and make assertions about what it claims we know? What you hold is a contradictory position. With one breath you claim knowledge of the big bang, but as soon as evidence is presented you claim ignorance. Which is it?

Have you ever wondered why?

No more than I have ever wondered why there is no consensus among the scientific community about the existence of aliens, nor a consensus among the scientific community about politics, tastes in literature or what beer is best to have with steak. It's because these issues have nothing to do with science - currently.

If we also count small chapels, there are millions of “Houses of gods or God” on this planet and millions of people who believe in gods, purify themselves to satisfy the gods and they even kill their firstborns obeying the gods.
No parallels can be drawn between gods and your Bigfoot or mermaids, dragons, and elves.

Except for the fact that there is the exact same amount of evidence for any of them. That is, none. The number of people who believe a proposition does not make that proposition true. As said before, if the entire world believes something that is wrong, it does not make it right.

The story told about gods is the same all over the earth. Do you have a similar story about creatures of the imagination? You do not!

What garbage. If stories about Gods were all the same, why are there so many religions? So many different Gods? Why do some people believe in singular Gods and others in multiple? Why do some believe God to be an intelligent agency while others prefer to define God in a more deistic fashion? Why do people go to war and kill or torture others for believing in the "wrong" God or Gods?

Religion did not spontaneously appear out of thin air. It was born out of a simple monomyth, and that monomyth has deformed over time. It was not miraculous - just the result of primitive minds trying to make sense of a Universe that they had no idea how to contextualize.

How did it happen and the idea of gods appeared for the first time?
How did it happen and the absurd ideas of immortality and afterlife appeared for the first time?

Can you prove that they did? Also, see above.

Why are there no answers for the above questions?

Because the questions are based on presuppositions and baseless assumptions. Various ideas about God did not appear simultaneously, nor did morality precisely coincide with the appearance of such notions. I very much doubt you could produce even the slightest trace of evidence for either claim.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

The Big-Bang theory is but an Ex Nihilo Creation Myth produced by a pastor which requires from me to believe that we know what happened just after the BB but not before.

So you believe that there's a conspiracy among the world's scientists to uphold the BB Creation Myth? Everyone who does have the training to understand the theory -- they're all just going along with the pastor who created it?

Thank you, but it is of no use to me to read an article providing evidence for the BB because I have not the required training.

How do you know it's a myth if you can't even understand it?

 

[Trimijopulos]

I don't think I have my question answered in this thread.
when did open minded came to mean we should accept supernatural ideas?
am I also close minded because I refuse to believe in angels? should other people call me close minded because I refuse to believe alien civilization visited earth?
I think you get my point. when did we begin defining open mindedness on the acceptance of supernatural or ideas which we don't see to be compatible with naturalism?

A close minded person is the one who refuses to consider, investigate or explore new ideas which are contrary to what prejudices he harbors.
An open minded person will at least listen to what one has to say.

I have a lot of experience on the particular subject because I happen to support a theory that regards myths about gods as echoes of prehistorical events.
Neither believers nor non-believers are disposed to investigate the possibility that the gods of our ancestors were just a race of common people. Believers because their immaterial God will be proved to be just an historical joke and non-believers because the OT will be proven right about issues such as the flood and creation of people in the likeness of the “sons of gods” who married the beautiful “daughters of men.”

You will have an idea if you read post # 770.

 

[work in progress]

Well, the famous Big-Bang theory is based on faith, but I have not studied astrophysics and I cannot discuss cosmological theories.

We are here dealing exclusively with the gods of our ancestors and I wish to make it clear that I am not referring to the gods of the theologians but to the gods of the archaic oral traditions.
You wrote: “ I believe all gods are either myths or irrational thinking. Does this clear up my position?” Your position is quite clear. However, that is also the position of the scientific community and as you see it is based solely on belief.

Myths about gods are not fairy tales for the simple reason that it is impossible for two peoples without contact between them to create simultaneously an identical imaginary story with lots of identical details.

WRONG! Ever hear the of the scientific principle that correlation does not prove causation? This sort of thing happens all the time when medical claims are made about quack medicine. Same thing here. For a start, research psychologists who study young children, can tell us that we all begin with a teleological understanding of the world....everything around us, like the Sun, is there for some purpose that involves us personally. When we get older...providing we are taught a more sophisticated understanding by adults around us...we realize that we are not the center of the Universe. But that teleological beginning of understanding the world explains alot more about mythology than any proposal that the gods and goddesses are real.

And, much of the rest of mythology can be filled in if we consider recent psychological research which shows that people (mostly males) who have autism or Asperger's Syndrome are statistically more likely to be atheists than the general population. The most plausible reason being that, since these are subjects who do not have the same understanding of other minds that normal people have, they are likewise far less likely to assume other minds existing in animals or natural phenomena. So, what does that tell us about the rest of us who do jump to the conclusion that there must be hidden forces at work in nature?

Considering how universal teleology and the quick assumption of other minds is, the similar patterns in mythology aren't that big of a surprise.

........................Anyone who has reached that far into the past of mythology knows very well who these Mother-wombs were. They were women kept in enclosures where gods or semi-gods or gods by two thirds, as Gilgamesh was, were visiting and raping them in order to produce either “slaves of the gods” or “sons of God.”

There is nothing irrational about tortured miserable women bearing children to their rapists.
Myth is not fairy tale! But science does operate on faith sometimes.

You really need to get rid of the "Chariots Of The Gods" or whatever more recent equivalent books you have with these themes! They are a waste of time, and they start off on the wrong trail, so there's no need to proceed further.

 

[work in progress]

A close minded person is the one who refuses to consider, investigate or explore new ideas which are contrary to what prejudices he harbors.
An open minded person will at least listen to what one has to say.

I have a lot of experience on the particular subject because I happen to support a theory that regards myths about gods as echoes of prehistorical events.
Neither believers nor non-believers are disposed to investigate the possibility that the gods of our ancestors were just a race of common people. Believers because their immaterial God will be proved to be just an historical joke and non-believers because the OT will be proven right about issues such as the flood and creation of people in the likeness of the “sons of gods” who married the beautiful “daughters of men.”

You will have an idea if you read post # 770.

In post 770, you link an article from the BBC on recent discoveries of Neanderthal DNA in the modern human population, and its implications for the strong version of the Out Of Africa theory which denied any crossbreeding between Neanderthals and Cro Magnons....and it has nothing to do with sons of gods marrying daughters of men!

 

[work in progress]

I don't think I have my question answered in this thread.
when did open minded came to mean we should accept supernatural ideas?

I forget now...I think I responded to the OP a long time ago...and I work from a naturalist perspective, so I would say anything supernatural has to get through the hoops applied to other claims that need evidence to support them.

am I also close minded because I refuse to believe in angels? should other people call me close minded because I refuse to believe alien civilization visited earth?
I think you get my point. when did we begin defining open mindedness on the acceptance of supernatural or ideas which we don't see to be compatible with naturalism?

My argument lately has been with atheists or materialists who also presume that ideas that may not be correct (like supernatural beliefs and the organizations based on them) also must be harmful, and that most people need to adopt naturalism. I don't see the case of either presumption. In a way, I consider the new, oddball supernatural beliefs to be more dangerous than a lot of traditional religious mythology. Because a religion has had to be tested over time, and can either be working for the betterment of society, or for evil purposes, while these new supernatural ideas that pop up in the decline of traditional religion are untested, as are the cults that spring up with them.

 

[Nakosis]

I don't feel that way. We have very few of his words -- words which were first laid down in an ancient foreign language and then translated and retranslated over the years. Even today we find various translations or versions.

Plus, we aren't even sure which words are his. We know that none of the modern English red-lettered ones are his, and those are the only words I'm capable of examining.

So for me, it's pretty hard to get a grip on Jesus' overall worldview.

So you could have similar views (to that of Jesus, if such a person existed) and not be aware of it.

Just so. My worldview is the best I've been able to concoct. Otherwise I'd concoct a different one.

My views are always changing. However I find that as my views change, towards whatever, it was something Jesus was already teaching about.

Yes. I'm glad there are forums so we can fight over the best sense.

Good place to expose one's ideas for criticism.

I'm not sure I understand your proposition, but I'll try to answer about my Godview vs. Jesus' Godview.

I think that the character Jesus lived in very primitive times, where magic was assumed. Gods and spirits were assumed to be very real, a normal part of life, such as we can still see these days among primitive peoples. Things go bump in the night, and the primitive mind sees hidden beings doing the bumping. Ancestors, trolls, jinn.

But I don't see it that way. I think of God as a concept. The word 'God' is fun and useful, at least to me, but I don't agree with Jesus that some actual Being exists behind the word. My God does no conscious thinking.

I don't know that God is conscious in any sense of what we think is conscious.

I suppose you are right. The four gospels make Jesus out to be a magician of some kind. I suspect he was just a healer, using natural remedies. There are stories as such but that's all external to the Bible.

I dunno. You'd have to define which God you mean. A real-word-speaking Guy? Then probably some organic brain problem. An oceanic feeling? Then probably the restless poet reaching for the divine in his back garden and labeling it as God.

It'd be like Paul on the road to Damascus. It was a real experience to him. Something he perceived like you'd perceive sitting in front of a desk. The same sense of reality.

You say a brain disorder but then how would you know any experience you had was not the result of a brain disorder?

Have you ever heard the concept of brains in a vat? Disembodied brains being fed electrical signals being led to believe they had a body. That could be us and we wouldn't know it. We are subject to our perceptions to determine what is real. If one can't trust their perceptions then what are we left with?