Atheism is not a belief, so why would anyone lie that it is?

[rational experiences]

Skepticism is not based on faith and skeptics know better than to believe such silly notions.

I had faith in my family human.

I had faith in my owned aware human love of family.

I believed my teaching demonstrating love care servitude in healing herbal remedies conscious advice support in life knowledge would save them from all wrong choices.

Faith in myself spiritually. So without it you might as well accept scientific destruction of gods changes in mens caused choices by machines and reactions not God.

God was a scientific status highest wisdom of men. O planet earths nature.

Self family mutual agreed nature.
Nature.
Gods one living body the O earth with a core heart like a human with all supplies for existing.

To exist is not to be a lying greedy bully rich man is basic advice.

So you say let me teach you liars. As science said men of invention the rich purpose is a liar.

Did the rich man exist first in gods nature? As family as humans?

No says the rich men the poor man did.

We never were poor we were natural.

The rich man created poor man himself. Lies.

Is what a scientific theist liar is in human life and consciousness.

Always trying to destroy family and mutual worth in natural groups spirituality. Always claiming his theisms about anything is more powerful than natural

Says so.
Believed.
Acts upon his thesis to say see I told you so. Look at what I know.

Really. Your science teaching look at what I destroyed is more powerful than compared to faith of self survival?

 

[Sheldon]

Nor should you. Faith won't help you determine sound reasoning from faulty reasoning.

Well perhaps a theists could give an example of something one cannot believe based on faith alone? Otherwise the vapidity of faith to validate claims and beliefs is manifest, as one could literally believe anything using it.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

They have a belief there is no evidence.

That would be agnostics.

Someone can be both an agnostic and a weak atheist, but they aren't the same thing.

The terminology of "strong atheist" vs. "weak atheist" is problematic, anyway. Everyone - including all theists - is a weak atheist with regard to the vast majority of gods humanity has believed in. Nearly everyone who's put some thought into it - including most theists - is a strong atheist with regard to certain gods or god-concepts.

Really the only difference between a theist and an atheist on this is that the theist has accepted the existence of at least one god.

Describing someone as a "strong atheist," period, or as a "weak atheist," period, is rooted in a monotheistic paradigm.

It's one thing for a monotheist to approach the world with a monotheistic worldview; it's another to try to impose a monotheistic paradigm on atheists... people who, by definition, aren't monotheists.

 

[wandering peacefully]

But it's not the end all be all of human knowledge. You don't understand we acquire knowledge as human beings in more ways than just reasoning things?

I'm just curious in understanding what knowledge you believe is attainable by faith? Can you give 3 or 4 examples of knowledge acquired without reasoning using faith alone?

 

[wandering peacefully]

Nonsense.


A baby is capable of being an atheist (i.e. someone who isn't a theist) as much as they're capable of being a civilian (i.e. someone who isn't in the military).

But Theist start working on those babies from birth! My 4 year old granddaughter has been worked on with Jesus children books, stuffed animals shaped in praying stamce while playing "Jesus Loves Me", stories about how "God" watches her to see if she is behaving, and other attempts at trying to get her to "believe". All this by her "other" grandmother.

I've countered as best possible without actually talking about it with her. I hid the books in the back of the book shelf, clipped the bears praying hands and removed the song mechanism from it's paw, etc.

But finally at age 4, they got her. A few weeks ago on one of her visits, we were discussing the content of clouds, how they form, why rain sometimes fall from them. She stops and says to me "Nana, Jesus lives in the sky". I said some people believe that. She answers "Its true"! I told her some people believe that. She asks" do you believe that?" I said no. And that was the end of that conversation never brought up again since by her.

I can only hope the respect she hold for my values, actions, and knowledge will influence her to not believe everything she hears.

 

[Windwalker]

I'm just curious in understanding what knowledge you believe is attainable by faith? Can you give 3 or 4 examples of knowledge acquired without reasoning using faith alone?

If you can refer back to my post 1141 in this thread, Wilber explains how that faith is different from belief:

The person of faith, on the other hand, will usually have a series of beliefs, but the religious involvement of this person does not seem to be generated solely, or even predominantly by the beliefs. Frequently, in fact, the person cannot say why he is "right" (faith), and should you criticize what reasons he does give, he generally takes it all rather philosophically. In my opinion, this is because belief, in these cases, is not the actual source of the religious involvement; rather the person somehow intuits very God as being immanent in (as well as transcendent to) this world and this life. Beliefs become somewhat secondary, since the same intuition can be put in any number of apparent equivalent ways ("They call Him many who is really One"). The person of faith tends to shun literalism, dogmatism, evangelicalism, fundamentalism, which define almost solely the true believer.
​

[Emphasis mine]

Going with this understanding, which I find an altogether better and more supportable understanding than merely reducing and equating faith and beliefs as the same thing (as most posters here seem to prefer to do on their own), faith I would say as a part of that 'intuiting' the nature of the Absolute, it puts someone in the position of openness. That openness allows understanding to come in, as opposed to filtering it out because it doesn't fit within a closed system of belief: either religiously or scientifically.

With that openness, intuiting without cognitively grasping something (faith), experiences are allow to flourish and grow. Faith, in fact is what allows someone to walk away from religion and its beliefs. That is certainly true in my case as Example 1. I knew in my heart, without understanding in my head, that the beliefs I was told to accept were untrue. That 'faith', that intuition, allowed me to investigate the claims and find them wanting on a rational basis. That is very much why I said, that atheism, in my case, was faith in action. Doubt is a servant of faith, to help us grow. It was the heart, that lead the mind to look, to question. As you know well, that if the heart is unwilling to look, so follows the mind. "A man convinced against his will, remains of same opinion still."

For Example 2, I'd like to quote something Einstein wrote I think perfectly describes "faith" as expressed above, that intuition, that "emotion" as he calls it below. See how that works to overcome the mind's limitations, to see Truth, that the mind in all its greatness is unable to penetrate. But the heart, or the 'eye of spirit' through faith, can:

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead —his eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.”

- Albert Einstein, Living Philosophies
​

You can clearly see here he is speaking of something beyond beliefs. This is the nature of what "faith" in the truest religious sense means. It "has also given rise to religion". That's faith. Now 'beliefs' come in behind it, as supports, and all too often overwhelm and replace faith with "believerism". That's where the posters in this thread get ensnared, unable to differentiate between faith and belief. Not entirely their fault that happened. But it's an error nonetheless.

Example 3, I'd say any great movement of spirituality which overcomes the religious indoctrination that overtake faith. I'd say Jesus and the early Christian movement was in fact just that, overturning the tables of religion. That was all driven by an intuition or faith that Truth was greater than religion. Unfortunately, but predictably, it became a religion itself, and the process of overcoming religion by faith is once again needed. That's where "doubt" comes in. A great book for you to read to understand how Faith and Doubt are bedfellows together, is this book: Doubt

I could come up with many more, but you asked for three, so I'll stop there. Let me know your thoughts after you carefully consider my points I've made. Faith has a knowledge of something that leads the mind to follow in behind to attempt to understand rationally, as best it can. Faith is knowing with the heart, what the mind cannot yet grasp, if possible at all, such as the nature and existence of "God" itself, or the Absolute, "Ultimate Reality" to give it a less baggage-laden term. "Faith" is the "experience of the Mysterious", as Einstein put it.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I'm just curious in understanding what knowledge you believe is attainable by faith? Can you give 3 or 4 examples of knowledge acquired without reasoning using faith alone?

If you can refer back to my post 1141 in this thread, Wilber explains how that faith is different from belief:

The person of faith, on the other hand, will usually have a series of beliefs, but the religious involvement of this person does not seem to be generated solely, or even predominantly by the beliefs. Frequently, in fact, the person cannot say why he is "right" (faith), and should you criticize what reasons he does give, he generally takes it all rather philosophically. In my opinion, this is because belief, in these cases, is not the actual source of the religious involvement; rather the person somehow intuits very God as being immanent in (as well as transcendent to) this world and this life. Beliefs become somewhat secondary, since the same intuition can be put in any number of apparent equivalent ways ("They call Him many who is really One"). The person of faith tends to shun literalism, dogmatism, evangelicalism, fundamentalism, which define almost solely the true believer.
[Emphasis mine]

Going with this understanding, which I find an altogether better and more supportable understanding than merely reducing and equating faith and beliefs as the same thing (as most posters here seem to prefer to do on their own), faith I would say as a part of that 'intuiting' the nature of the Absolute, it puts someone in the position of openness. That openness allows understanding to come in, as opposed to filtering it out because it doesn't fit within a closed system of belief: either religiously or scientifically.

With that openness, intuiting without cognitively grasping something (faith), experiences are allow to flourish and grow. Faith, in fact is what allows someone to walk away from religion and its beliefs. That is certainly true in my case as Example 1. I knew in my heart, without understanding in my head, that the beliefs I was told to accept were untrue. That 'faith', that intuition, allowed me to investigate the claims and find them wanting on a rational basis. That is very much why I said, that atheism, in my case, was faith in action. Doubt is a servant of faith, to help us grow. It was the heart, that lead the mind to look, to question. As you know well, that if the heart is unwilling to look, so follows the mind. "A man convinced against his will, remains of same opinion still."

For Example 2, I'd like to quote something Einstein wrote I think perfectly describes "faith" as expressed above, that inuition, that "emotion" as he calls it below. See how that works to overcome the mind's limitations, to see Truth, that the mind in all its greatness is unable to penetrate. But the heart, or the 'eye of spirit' through faith, can:

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead —his eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.”

- Albert Einstein, Living Philosophies
You can clearly see here he is speaking of something beyond beliefs. This is the nature of what "faith" in the truest religious sense means. It "has also given rise to religion". That's faith. Now 'beliefs' come in behind it, as supports, and all too often overwhelm and replace faith with "believerism". That's where the posters in this thread get ensnared, unable to differentiate between faith and belief. Not entirely their fault that happened. But it's an error nonetheless.

Example 3, I'd say any great movement of spirituality which overcomes the religious indoctrination that overtake faith. I'd say Jesus and the early Christian movement was in fact just that, overturning the tables of religion. That was all driven by an intuition or faith that Truth was greater than religion. Unfortunately, but predictably, it became a religion itself, and the process of overcoming religion by faith is once again needed. That's where "doubt" comes in. A great book for you to read to understand how Faith and Doubt are bedfellows together, is this book: Doubt

I could come up with many more, but you asked for three, so I'll stop there. Let me know your thoughts after you carefully consider my points I've made.

So no, then. You can number up to three, but you can't present an example of knowledge derived from faith. What you have here are, "an openness to understanding," a spiritual experience, and the "intuition or faith that Truth was greater than religion."

Why do you call any of that knowledge?

Reason properly applied to evidence results in knowledge. Sensory experience results in knowledge. Practicing and perfecting a skill result in knowledge. Knowledge is information or a skill or an experience acquired that allows one to anticipate or manipulate reality in a way that allows him to navigate his conscious experience more favorably. How is one to use these things you say faith generates.

Incidentally, I disagree that faith generates any of them, but that's not important. They're not knowledge either way.

 

[lukethethird]

"Faith" is the "experience of the Mysterious", as Einstein put it.

Einstein never said that.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Einstein never said that.

Oh come on! It is so much fun. Give it a try:

"If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?"

Einstein.

 

[1213]

Same as every other time, what objective evidence can you demonstrate for one? The answer is always none, thus I don't believe the claim for any deity or deities.

I take that as no and it means you hold a belief no deity exists. But, you speak about "objective evidence". Do you know "objective evidence" for anything? If yes, please tell what can be "objective evidence", one example is enough. I have difficulties to believe such thing exists.

 

[1213]

The basic atheist answer would be "I don't know" -- ...

I think that is agnosticism, not atheism.

 

[1213]

...require the person to have an understanding of what the word "god" means in a general sense, defined in at least enough precision to include every god.

Can you do that? ...

Generally "god" means the highest authority. It is like a king, but higher.

 

[Windwalker]

That would be agnostics.

Not exactly. It fits more with weak atheism. I found this nice summary of these terms here which I think will be helpful. http://www.religioustolerance.org/atheist4.htm

There is a general consensus that:

A person who believes in a specific God, Goddess or combination of deities is a Theist.

A person who actively denies the existence of any and all deities is one type of Atheist.

A person who feels that we have no method by which we can conclude whether a deity exists is an Agnostic.​

What that poster had said was, "Weak atheists have no belief without evidence." That does not fit the general consensus of what an Agnostic is. But it does fit what weak atheism is defined as in the "no consensus" categories from the same site, further expanding on the above:

But there is no consensus on how to classify the other possible belief systems about deity/deities listed above. Some have suggested the use of modifiers, like:

"Strong Atheist," or "Positive Atheist," or "Hard Atheist" to refer to a person who asserts that no deity exists.

"Weak Atheist," "Negative Atheist," "Soft Atheist," "Skeptical Atheist" to refer to a person who simply has no belief in a deity because there are currently no rational grounds that support his/her/their existence.

Peter Berger suggested that the term "methodological atheism" be used to describe theologians and historians who study religion as a human creation without declaring whether individual religious beliefs are actually true.

The terms "Noncoherent Atheist" or "Noncoherentism" have been suggested to cover the belief that there is no way to have a meaningful discussions about deities, because there exist no coherent definition of "god."

"Apathetic Atheism," or "Apatheism" have been suggested to cover the individual who doesn't really care whether Gods or Goddesses exist. They probably live with the assumption that no deity exists.
​

So when I said, "They have a belief there is no evidence. The mind is involved. They're aren't asleep," that is correct. They believe there is "no rational grounds that supports [God's] existence", according to the weak atheist definition above. What I said holds true here.

The terminology of "strong atheist" vs. "weak atheist" is problematic, anyway. Everyone - including all theists - is a weak atheist with regard to the vast majority of gods humanity has believed in. Nearly everyone who's put some thought into it - including most theists - is a strong atheist with regard to certain gods or god-concepts.

Yes, all of those terms, as explained above, have no general consensus, except for "theist, atheist, and agnostic". All these other terms are debatable. Certainly the claim that children are atheists by default, is highly debatable, which I've made clear my disregard of that as a legitimate term to apply to those who are simply ignorant of the question and "lack belief".

The site also covers this explicitly here, as I have been arguing:

Some background information about "Atheist"

Syllabication: a·the·ist

Pronunciation: ā'thē-ĩst

Etymology: Atheist originated in two Greek roots:

"A" which means "without" or "not"

"Theos" which means "deity"
This would seem to imply that an Atheist is either:

A person who is without a belief in any deity. This definition would mainly include those who are simply unaware of the existence of any deity. It would also include a person who is either too young or who lacks the mental ability to conceive of a deity. In contrast to this, most Muslims believe that all babies are Muslim at birth, and only later in life may accept the teachings of another religion, or become Atheists, Agnostics, etc.

A person who totally rejects the existence of any deity. Some may keep this belief to themselves; others may assert this belief to others.
​

The first option, that even those who lack the mental ability to believe should be called atheists, is absurd. It's no less absurd than what Muslims claim. I land solidly on the second and only viable option as defined above. Now within that 2nd option, you may further expand that as weak, strong, etc, but they are still as I have been saying, a conscious awareness of the question of God, and a choice, or lack of choice about it. Unawareness, is not a choice. To just call babies 'atheists' is like the Christian calling all non-Christians, even their little babies as "heathens". That's hardly a fair or accurate term.

Really the only difference between a theist and an atheist on this is that the theist has accepted the existence of at least one god.

I've been saying all along that theists and atheists are flip sides of the same coin. That's true for weak or strong atheists, as those are just merely shades of the same thing. It's all a spectrum of belief about God. Funny thing, as I was reading this just now, it occurred to me you are right about something. Even within theism itself, you have strong and weak atheism, as well as, strong and weak theism. They are all, both theist and atheist, on the Theist spectrum, from hard believer at one end, to hard denier at the other. And all the rest in between. It's all the same coin. All the same currency.

This isn't meant as an insult, but an effort towards a better, and more useful understanding. You're right. A theist is also an atheist in regard to other gods, and how strong or weak that denial, or "lack of belief" goes, is simply a matter of degrees. It's shades of grey, with extreme "hard belief" at either end of that spectrum. It's a circle, where the extremes meet each other and are mirror images of each other. True Believers/True Disbeliever. And then there is the rest of us somewhere else on that spectrum.

 

[Windwalker]

Einstein never said that.

He said, the "experience of the Mysterious". I said that is "Faith". I did not claim he said that whole sentence the way I worded it. Read it again. ""Faith" is the "experience of the Mysterious", as Einstein put it."

In other words, what I call "faith", Einstein called "the experience of the Mysterious". Get it now?

 

[Windwalker]

Reason properly applied to evidence results in knowledge. Sensory experience results in knowledge. Practicing and perfecting a skill result in knowledge. Knowledge is information or a skill or an experience acquired that allows one to anticipate or manipulate reality in a way that allows him to navigate his conscious experience more favorably. How is one to use these things you say faith generates.

Incidentally, I disagree that faith generates any of them, but that's not important. They're not knowledge either way.

Faith is a type of sensory experience. It's an intuition, a sense of 'feeling'. And, like sensory motor responses, that informs the mind to look, consider, process, or understand, which leads to action. It's basically awareness, that does not rely on cognition. Have you ever meditated? That's awareness without cognitions. And that gives you knowledge that thinking could not give you. Thinking can get in the way.

So 'faith', as a type of awareness without cognitions, informs the cognizing mind. It illuminates decision making. It balances out the thinking mind. It complements reason. Not violates it. They are two different things, even though you mistakenly identify faith as bad thinking. That's an error.

Awareness is knowledge. As I've said, faith and reason may complement each other, if you know how to hold them as respective sources of information and knowledge, and not run off think that emotional impulses and acting upon those are considered acts of "faith". They aren't. That's just misidentifying impulses and giving them licence to be acted upon.

 

[Sheldon]

Oh come on! It is so much fun. Give it a try:

"If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?"

Einstein.

Kudos, that made me laugh. "We don't need no education" seems apropos for some of the posts in this thread.

One for the Catholics.

"Oi! Preacher, leave them kids alone."

Sorry I did paraphrase there, couldn't resist.

 

[Sheldon]

Faith is a type of sensory experience. It's an intuition, a sense of 'feeling'. And, like sensory motor responses, that informs the mind to look, consider, process, or understand, which leads to action. It's basically awareness, that does not rely on cognition. Have you ever meditated? That's awareness without cognitions. And that gives you knowledge that thinking could not give you. Thinking can get in the way.

So 'faith', as a type of awareness without cognitions, informs the cognizing mind. It illuminates decision making. It balances out the thinking mind. It complements reason. Not violates it. They are two different things, even though you mistakenly identify faith as bad thinking. That's an error.

Awareness is knowledge. As I've said, faith and reason may complement each other, if you know how to hold them as respective sources of information and knowledge, and not run off think that emotional impulses and acting upon those are considered acts of "faith". They aren't. That's just misidentifying impulses and giving them licence to be acted upon.

Faith is an excuse people use, to justify a belief they have no proper evidence for. There is literally nothing you couldn't believe using the vapidity of faith, so it useless in establishing the validity of a claim.

 

[Windwalker]

Faith is an excuse people use, to justify a belief they have no proper evidence for. There is literally nothing you couldn't believe using the vapidity of faith, so it useless in establishing the validity of a claim.

Says you.

 

[Sheldon]

Says you.

Clearly, my name is right there above my post.

 

[wandering peacefully]

If you can refer back to my post 1141 in this thread, Wilber explains how that faith is different from belief:

The person of faith, on the other hand, will usually have a series of beliefs, but the religious involvement of this person does not seem to be generated solely, or even predominantly by the beliefs. Frequently, in fact, the person cannot say why he is "right" (faith), and should you criticize what reasons he does give, he generally takes it all rather philosophically. In my opinion, this is because belief, in these cases, is not the actual source of the religious involvement; rather the person somehow intuits very God as being immanent in (as well as transcendent to) this world and this life. Beliefs become somewhat secondary, since the same intuition can be put in any number of apparent equivalent ways ("They call Him many who is really One"). The person of faith tends to shun literalism, dogmatism, evangelicalism, fundamentalism, which define almost solely the true believer.
​

[Emphasis mine]

Going with this understanding, which I find an altogether better and more supportable understanding than merely reducing and equating faith and beliefs as the same thing (as most posters here seem to prefer to do on their own), faith I would say as a part of that 'intuiting' the nature of the Absolute, it puts someone in the position of openness. That openness allows understanding to come in, as opposed to filtering it out because it doesn't fit within a closed system of belief: either religiously or scientifically.

With that openness, intuiting without cognitively grasping something (faith), experiences are allow to flourish and grow. Faith, in fact is what allows someone to walk away from religion and its beliefs. That is certainly true in my case as Example 1. I knew in my heart, without understanding in my head, that the beliefs I was told to accept were untrue. That 'faith', that intuition, allowed me to investigate the claims and find them wanting on a rational basis. That is very much why I said, that atheism, in my case, was faith in action. Doubt is a servant of faith, to help us grow. It was the heart, that lead the mind to look, to question. As you know well, that if the heart is unwilling to look, so follows the mind. "A man convinced against his will, remains of same opinion still."

For Example 2, I'd like to quote something Einstein wrote I think perfectly describes "faith" as expressed above, that intuition, that "emotion" as he calls it below. See how that works to overcome the mind's limitations, to see Truth, that the mind in all its greatness is unable to penetrate. But the heart, or the 'eye of spirit' through faith, can:

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead —his eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.”

- Albert Einstein, Living Philosophies
​

You can clearly see here he is speaking of something beyond beliefs. This is the nature of what "faith" in the truest religious sense means. It "has also given rise to religion". That's faith. Now 'beliefs' come in behind it, as supports, and all too often overwhelm and replace faith with "believerism". That's where the posters in this thread get ensnared, unable to differentiate between faith and belief. Not entirely their fault that happened. But it's an error nonetheless.

Example 3, I'd say any great movement of spirituality which overcomes the religious indoctrination that overtake faith. I'd say Jesus and the early Christian movement was in fact just that, overturning the tables of religion. That was all driven by an intuition or faith that Truth was greater than religion. Unfortunately, but predictably, it became a religion itself, and the process of overcoming religion by faith is once again needed. That's where "doubt" comes in. A great book for you to read to understand how Faith and Doubt are bedfellows together, is this book: Doubt

I could come up with many more, but you asked for three, so I'll stop there. Let me know your thoughts after you carefully consider my points I've made. Faith has a knowledge of something that leads the mind to follow in behind to attempt to understand rationally, as best it can. Faith is knowing with the heart, what the mind cannot yet grasp, if possible at all, such as the nature and existence of "God" itself, or the Absolute, "Ultimate Reality" to give it a less baggage-laden term. "Faith" is the "experience of the Mysterious", as Einstein put it.

Oh my goodness. I already read the post you keep reverting to. I wasn't asking you to repeat it. I was asking about 3 or 4 examples of knowledge you can acquire from faith. That stuff above washes over my brain like mud. It means nothing to me.

Can you give an example of knowledge you personally have acquired with faith? I don't care what your refrenced author believes about what the heck ever he is rambling on about. Not an answer to my question.

If you don't have any examples, no problem just say so. I was just curious.