Atheism and arrogance

[Valjean]

I am just a human with many flaws

They are as "rational" as you or I are. They simply hold to a different criteria of rationalization.

I have a friend who was raised in a home with a violent, physically and emotionally abusive father. He, his sister, and his mother all suffered the ongoing abuse of this ogre for decades. When the family priest used to come to visit, for dinner, he would get my friend alone and sexually molest him. So did an older cousin. And no one ever did anything about it. Even the man who preached about salvation every Sunday was just another liar and abuser, doing as he pleased when no one was looking. So my friend grew up believing that the world is a very 'Darwinist' environment where the strong do as they please to the weak, and get away with it. And there will always be someone stronger. So the best thing we can do is try and appease the ogres and hope they attack and abuse someone else, instead of us, when the urge strikes them.

He spent his life working in a brokerage house, serving the greed of the rich and powerful (the ogres of our society), riding their coattails through the markets to gain a few extra shekels for himself, and hoping they would spare him from their abuse, as a loyal servant.

He has been a die-hard republican all his life, and will undoubtably vote for Trump a second time. And nothing I could ever say to him will ever dissuade him from his dark and dour view of humanity and of the world. Because all his experiences in life have shown him that his dark and dour view of existence is accurate, and that people like me are just "irrational" ideological fools, living in some pretty fantasy-land where the strong can't just do whatever they want to the week, for their own pleasure, and get away with it.

And I can't say that he's wrong. Only that he's not entirely right.

But it's not rational to judge an ethic or religious doctrine by the claimed adherents. People tailor their religions to fit their own values; they cherry-pick their scriptures. Even if the doctrine is true, it's purported followers will find ways to tailor it to their own ends.
I'd judge the two separately.

 

[Spirit of Light]

But it's not rational to judge an ethic or religious doctrine by the claimed adherents. People tailor their religions to fit their own values; they cherry-pick their scriptures. Even if the doctrine is true, it's purported followers will find ways to tailor it to their own ends.
I'd judge the two separately.

I can only answer for my self here.
I do not tailor my belief, the teaching is set as it is taught and I am in no way, shape or form able to change the teaching to fit my own "need or ego" I am the one who must adjust my morality, ethics and behavior according to the teaching. It sounds more easy then it is.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Are atheists arrogant because they don't believe or do they not believe because they are arrogant?

I believe the latter is the correct view.

Qur'an 7:146 "Those who behave arrogantly on the earth in defiance of right - them will I turn away from My signs: Even if they see all the signs, they will not believe in them; and if they see the way of right conduct, they will not adopt it as the way; but if they see the way of error, that is the way they will adopt. For they have rejected our signs, and failed to take warning from them."

I don't believe in gods because I see no rational reasons to believe in gods.
It's the same reason why you (likely) don't believe in big foot, alien abduction and Thor's Hammer.

This is true wheter or not I am arrogant.


And to quote the legendary doctor Sheldon Cooper: "It's not arrogance if you are correct"


;-)

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

It seems you are starting from the ignorant presumption that creating the whole universe was a hard or great task for its creator.

If it was such a trivial thing for him/her/it, then why does he demand praise for it?
Do you demand praise for something trivial like setting a cup of tea?

I have not seen anyone who truly believes in one God and worships Him, being arrogant.

Look in the mirror.

And also realise that every theist thinks (S)HE has the true believe in the one true god. And they believe different things then you.

They are just as arrogant as well, proclaiming that only THEY hold the correct answers. Ironically, just like you.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

There's actually significant arguments against that in Islam. People reject religion because they want to do what they want.

That's not an argument. Instead, it's an arrogant declaration which also dishonestly misrepresents the actual reasons for not believing.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Indeed. However, I've taken that into consideration, and find no threat in it to what I'm saying.

And again, you are subjective and what you say is not real.

Indeed; morality, aesthetics, what to use science for, what useful is and all subjective human behavior are not real, based on a rule, that is not real itself. What is the use of this rule?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I don't know why you people get so worked up about this.

Because it is a misrepresentation of why atheists really don't believe in gods.
And when people persist in their misrepresentations of others, even after those others have made them aware of it, then it becomes quite annoying.

The truth is, I'm having trouble going through all these not so relevant comments.

If only you were to correct your mistake and stop misrepresenting people, I'm sure the flood of comments would shrink immensly.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Not really. I stated my belief

You can't express a belief without stating a claim.
Because "belief" implies a claim which is being believed.

If I'd wanted to debate my belief I would have said, "atheists reject God out of arrogance."

Ommitting the words "I believe that..." doesn't change the inherent content of the declaration.
You believe that claim to be true, do you not?

What you really seem to mean, is that you didn't want to be challenged on that claim / belief.
Which is not the same thing, off course.

Well, this is not the forum for that. If you come here and express what you believe, then people who don't agree will pick it apart and try to argue against it. That is what the forum is for.... after all...

I didn't want to debate that so I used the wide vocabulary of the English language to form an op that makes clear — for a calm reader — what I wish to discuss.

What you wish to discuss, is a strawman.

Why evidence? Why can't you reason?

Reason requires evidence. That's how you distinguish the reasonable from the unreasonable.

I didn't say everyone is arrogant. I said everyone has arrogance in them.
As for why it's relevant — that's made clear in the OP. I chose it as the topic. It being a religious forum and all. If you want to talk about something you find more relevant, you can make a thread about it.

Well, your OP is obviously malinformed and based on a strawman.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I can say, "atheists are arrogant," but I do not say to an atheist, "you are arrogant," because they are an atheist

That's completely banana's..........................

"Atheists are arrogant" is a statement that implies all atheists to be arrogant. So any individual atheist you speak to, is included in the group of atheists, who you just called to be arrogant.

I can say to another person, "you are arrogant," if I am confident that they have proven themselves to be arrogant.

The statement "atheists are arrogant" already implies that an individual atheist has proven himself arrogant by virtue of being atheist. Like in your generic claim.

It's like saying "black folks are inferior to white folks" and when talking to an individual black person, then saying "ow, but I didn't mean YOU specifically".

When you're supposed to be constructive and think about the big picture, you're all busy defending yourselves

Just like that individual black person.

And for what?

To challenge your generic false statement where you called "all atheists / black folks" to be X or Y.

If my op is so horrible and nonsense and, in fact, I should leave, why are you so busy defending yourselves?

I can't talk for others, but for me personally it's quite simple: I have psychological problems with leaving BS unanswered.

 

[Revoltingest]

But it's not rational to judge an ethic or religious doctrine by the claimed adherents. People tailor their religions to fit their own values; they cherry-pick their scriptures. Even if the doctrine is true, it's purported followers will find ways to tailor it to their own ends.
I'd judge the two separately.

I disagree.
Scripture is typically inscrutable, requiring much study.
I won't waste the time. But the believers....the range of
traits they exhibit & acts they do speaks volumes.

 

[columbus]

But it's not rational to judge an ethic or religious doctrine by the claimed adherents.

I disagree.
I say there is no way to judge an ethical or religious doctrine other than the results, i.e. the behavior of adherents.
And anyone who is a "claimed" adherent almost certainly is an adherent. Because there is no more objective standard for adherent.
Tom

 

[Trailblazer]

Ah, then you don't have a description of a real God, which is the point I was making.

I do have a description of the God I believe to be real.

God in the Bahá'í Faith

The Bahá'í view of God is essentially monotheistic. God is the imperishable, uncreated being who is the source of all existence.[1] He is described as "a personal God, unknowable, inaccessible, the source of all Revelation, eternal, omniscient, omnipresent and almighty".[2][3] Though transcendent and inaccessible directly, his image is reflected in his creation. The purpose of creation is for the created to have the capacity to know and love its creator.[4] God communicates his will and purpose to humanity through intermediaries, known as Manifestations of God, who are the prophets and messengers that have founded religions from prehistoric times up to the present day.[5]

Personal God

While the Bahá'í writings teach of a personal god who is a being with a personality (including the capacity to reason and to feel love), they clearly state that this does not imply a human or physical form.[2]Shoghi Effendi writes:

What is meant by personal God is a God Who is conscious of His creation, Who has a Mind, a Will, a Purpose, and not, as many scientists and materialists believe, an unconscious and determined force operating in the universe. Such conception of the Divine Being, as the Supreme and ever present Reality in the world, is not anthropomorphic, for it transcends all human limitations and forms, and does by no means attempt to define the essence of Divinity which is obviously beyond any human comprehension. To say that God is a personal Reality does not mean that He has a physical form, or does in any way resemble a human being. To entertain such belief would be sheer blasphemy.[17][18]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God in the Baha'i Faith

My view is that things can be real ─ have objective existence, be found in nature &c ─ or purely conceptual / imaginary.

My view is that God has objective existence and is not imaginary, but God has no material existence because God is not made of material.

There's no third choice because there's no test that can distinguish the spiritual, supernatural, immaterial or divine from the imaginary. They too have no description appropriate to anything real.

No, there is no test that can distinguish the spiritual, supernatural, immaterial or divine from the imaginary, but a test does not make anything real. Something is either real or not, regardless of whether it is testable.

What is real exists in reality whether we can test it and prove it or not.

 

[blü 2]

I'll jump in here simply because we haven't had a discussion in a long while. How are you doing?

Yo, mio bravo! I'm traveling well, thanks. And in these plaguey times I trust you are too.

The highest mystical realizations occur when all conceptions of God are gotten rid of, which means any definitions our minds try to create to make God an object for observation. To define God, becomes then looking at an image of the mind, our "imagination" as you rightly put it.

So far so good ...

So the goal is to open the mind, to move beyond imagining, not to close the mind around God, reducing it to an object, like a dog, or a cat, or even something more mysterious like a bigfoot, or a loch ness monster.

I think many would agree with that.

But from where I sit, that looks like an exercise about oneself, not about any real being external to that self. It may be that we've evolved a capacity for such thinking, or it may be an artifact from some other aspect of our mentation, but it doesn't result in accurate statements about the real world.

Descriptions of experience are pointers to something real, even if it that something real is immaterial, like love, hope, joy, peace, or God.

But surely we're talking about emotional states here. Love, hope, joy and peace (all of which I'm in favor of) are, like all our feelings, produced by the bioelectical and biochemical responses of our brain, many as the result of hormones we automatically release in particular situations and as the cause of those emotional responses. The biochemistry of love has received, and still receives, a great deal of research, for instance. Love is an evolved function, the human variety of pair-bonding, particularly needed with H sap sap because our offspring are incapable of independent existence for the first four or five years. Hope is an aspect of our being able to imagine possible futures, and of our naturally occurring desires and appetites. Joy and peace are likewise dependent on our biochemistry.

By which I mean there's nothing immaterial about any of our mental states.

"God" as a word by its usage in language is meant to point to something transcendent; not something tangible like a rock or a tree. It describes something ineffable, which is a perception and experience of reality that goes beyond words and language.

But 'transcendent' in this sense, and 'ineffable' (which simply means 'unable to be put into words') refer to emotional states of the brain ─ awe, joy, ecstatic responses. Which are often most enjoyable as experiences, but don't result in accurate statements about reality.

To say God can't be proved by scientific testing is absolutely correct. It also is consistent with the claim that God is transcendent. One should wholly expect such an attempt to fail, the same way you'd expect trying scoop up water with a fork would fail.

We will, I think, remain mutually unpersuaded, but I trust amicably so.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Are atheists arrogant because they don't believe or do they not believe because they are arrogant?

I believe the latter is the correct view.

Qur'an 7:146 "Those who behave arrogantly on the earth in defiance of right - them will I turn away from My signs: Even if they see all the signs, they will not believe in them; and if they see the way of right conduct, they will not adopt it as the way; but if they see the way of error, that is the way they will adopt. For they have rejected our signs, and failed to take warning from them."

The really nice thing is how you can claim a diverse group of people are arrogant by offering a closed loop set of choices, both of which result in them being 'arrogant', yet apparently don't recognise the arrogance in doing so.
Quite the magic trick.
Only thing missing was 'Abracadabra'.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Calm down please. It's a topic for discussion, you shouldn't take it so personally.

1. He's not an atheist, so I don't think he's taking it personally in that sense.
2. He actually care about the forum mission, so OPs which allow for atheists being arrogant for one of 2 reasons (and try to ringfence discussion into that binary format) are pretty odious.

I would fully expect to be called out by people if I made similar comments about theists, and would also call out others who did so if I saw the same.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Well if this were a football game I'd say the current score is Piculet 0 Atheists 6

Hmm...when you say 'football', are you talking about one of those lesser games where '6' is a decent score, or actual football, where '6' is just the opening gambit.

 

[PureX]

But it's not rational to judge an ethic or religious doctrine by the claimed adherents. People tailor their religions to fit their own values; they cherry-pick their scriptures. Even if the doctrine is true, it's purported followers will find ways to tailor it to their own ends.
I'd judge the two separately.

It seems completely rational to those for whom such 'tailoring' works. And I agree with them. Religion is just a collection of tools, not a holy dictator. The problem is that some people just want to do harm. And they'll use religion, politics, commerce, or whatever other means they have available to them to attain that end.

 

[Bear Wild]

How uneducated you are about Islam!

How uneducated you are about atheists.

 

[blü 2]

I do have a description of the God I believe to be real.

God in the Bahá'í Faith

So

monotheistic ...
imperishable
uncreated
the source of all existence.
personal
unknowable
inaccessible
the source of all Revelation
eternal
omniscient
omnipresent
almighty
transcendent
​

Mass-energy might have a reasonable claim to being the source of all existence, eternal and omnipresent.

But the other qualities are at best aspirational, at worst just ... well, for example:

How could God know [he]:
─ was eternal?
─ was omniscient, be certain there was nothing [he] didn't know [he] didn't know?
─ wasn't created by an überGod?
─ didn't come into existence last Thursday, along with [his] memories and [his] environment?

And we still have the old questions eg:
Since God is portrayed as intelligent and emotional, [he]'s clearly an evolved creature. Where did [he] originate and how did [he] evolve?

God communicates his will and purpose to humanity through intermediaries

That is really really really not going to work. No test will distinguish a real messenger (if there ever was one) from a fake, or confused, or self-convinced, 'messenger'. And goodness knows there's been no shortage of the latter.

My view is that God has objective existence and is not imaginary, but God has no material existence because God is not made of material.

My view is that things are either real or purely conceptual / imaginary and there's no third option. And to be real, God would have to be found in the world external to the self, that's to say in nature, where like any other natural being [he] would have a sufficient description unique to [his] kind (Homo sapiens deus, perhaps? Or Deus sapiens homomorphus?).

 

[blü 2]

And again, you are subjective and what you say is not real.

The brainstates representing my thoughts (&c) are real enough.

Indeed; morality, aesthetics, what to use science for, what useful is and all subjective human behavior are not real, based on a rule, that is not real itself. What is the use of this rule?

Morality is basically a set of evolved tendencies in humans (child nurture and protection, dislike of the one who harms, like of fairness and reciprocity, respect for authority, loyalty to the group, a sense of self-worth through self-denial) with cultural (&c) supplements. The evolved part allows us to live together as gregarious primates who enjoy the enormous advantages of cooperation. Esthetics is a set of judgments heavily influenced by culture, and I'd guess having originally evolved because there are advantages in choosing a healthy-looking mate for breeding.

<joke>Seems real enough to me </joke>.