I swear to god that i'm a non believer

[Curious George]

That's not actually true.

I anticipate we can go back and forth saying nuh-uh and yes-huh for quite some time without ever finding closure.

 

[Curious George]

If there is any confusion on the part of theists when contemplating what it might mean to be atheists it would be the atheist tendency to deny any similarities that such an ideology might induce. Those similarities may not be indicative of atheism but they are real nonetheless.

I think that both theists and athiests as a group have entirely to much diversity for your statement to make any sense.

 

[Earthling]

I think that both theists and athiests as a group have entirely to much diversity for your statement to make any sense.

Both as a group or you mean each group? Of course there is diversity, but there is diversity in any group, minority or majority. Theist or atheist. We're just people. I don't think there is a lacking of diversity to the extent that atheists claim for themselves as a group. It just isn't reasonable. As if there were nothing in common with them.

 

[TheresOnlyNow]

I anticipate we can go back and forth saying nuh-uh and yes-huh for quite some time without ever finding closure.

I had no such intention.

 

[Axe Elf]

This is not quite the first line of the song 'Bitter End' by Rag'n'Bone Man

There's a similar line in a song by James ("Sit Down"):

"Hope that God exists,
I hope, I pray."

I think it's kind of clever, like, who are you praying TO, exactly, when you pray that God exists?

 

[YmirGF]

Nothing more, nothing less. As an atheist my position on god is the same as my position on harry potter, mickey mouse or bilbo baggins, i.e. they are fictional characters. And i am pretty sure most (if not all) atheists would agree.

Whew, that was close.

 

[dfnj]

I have struggled to understand this theist view of atheism and I can only conclude that they [certain theists] cannot conceive of the atheist viewpoint because they think in terms of god.
Am i correct in this conclusion or has anyone got another explain?

There is no question that someone can be an atheist and be moral. And there are many atheists who are completely immoral jerks. I don't have any real evidence to support which is more or less immoral. But I would imagine the group that is obsessed with morality might be the ones who are most immoral because they are counting so hard.

But in terms of atheism being defined as a lack of belief in God or gods is an interesting question. Atheists do not get to define what the word God means. Many people believe in a pantheistic type God which atheists just dismiss out of hand. God is just a word. What the word God represents for theists has many definitions. But just as theists don't get to decide what atheism means, atheists don't get to decide what the word God means. For people who believe in God it is almost universally understood ALL of existence is evidence for God. From the time theists are little kids they often associate the experience of natures awesome beauty as being attributed to God. I've seen posters of pretty pictures of nature with the sub-title "Go God!" I think when theists make the subjective judgment "God is the rain" or God is beauty found in nature it is just as equal of a statement as saying "there is no objective evidence for the existence of God." There is objective evidence for the existence of God. What atheists are really saying is, "there is no objective evidence for the existence of God I am willing to accept as being true." All "good" science is determined by subjective judgments. Who is to say one opinion is better than anyone else's.

Take nihilism for example. Some people take the sum total of all their experiences and come to a nihilistic conclusion. Other people, who may have had a much more difficult life with much more suffering, may take the position that everything in reality is sacred, God is great, God is good, and they personally live or have lived a blessed life as a direct result of God's favor. Is it "right", is it "wrong", it really makes no difference on the grand cosmic time scale of the Universe. Life may be meaningless, but it is also meaningless that it is meaningless. Since it really doesn't matter how or what you choose life to mean, you might as well choose sacred and blessed over nihilistic and meaningless. At least choosing life is sacred and blessed you commit to treating people as sacred. With the nihilistic and meaningless choice, you might see people as automatons mindlessly carrying out the laws of physics like a dumb old computer or calculator. When you are viewed as just a machine then the way people treat machines is the level of morality a human being can expect. What difference does it make how devious the WMDs the government creates when people are worth no more than factory equipment or any other machine. When human beings are considered machines they have moral equivalency to insects.

If you really want to compare theism to atheism there's probably more evidence supporting theism anyway from scientific point of view. Just google "end of materialism". There are many people who have argued quantum mechanics debunks the clockwork Universe of hard determinism. Most people who think the Universe is a giant computer ignore the results discovered by experiments in quantum mechanics.

God speaks to us through experimental error. God is the force in the Universe that keeps our full understanding of nature's behaviors just one step beyond our full comprehension. The speed of the Universe at the smallest possible scale we are capable of measuring moves faster than anything we can measure. It may always be the case that no matter what scale we focus on reality is happening faster than we can ever measure. We may know when radioactive decay might occur with probabilities but we cannot predict the precise exact moment the decay will occur. How could we possibly comprehend how nature is going to behave or to predict the future if we can't accurately predict behavior of a single atom? To fully understand what is happening or predict the future we would have to fully understand the interactions of trillions of atoms interacting with each other with no way to control or limit the scope of the interactions. So we can never have a complete understanding. The Universe is composed of an infinite number of waves of energy all connected and interacting with each other. Rogue waves converge and energies from the quantum level bubble up to the macro level as shown in recent QM experiments. So if we can't gather enough information and there are too many measurements to take into account then having a comprehensive clockwork Universe understanding of reality is impossible to achieve.

Reality is happening faster than we can ever measure it. What better word to use to represent the unpredictable nature of our life experiences than God? God is what we experience. For a theist, since it is really strange to deny the existence of reality, and it is really strange not to believe in the existence of reality, for a theist, the natural conclusion is God exists because reality exists. And there is good scientific evidence supporting the theist way of thinking. There is lots of scientific evidence supporting the idea that materialism is just a made up, imaginary, or delusional belief. Therefore, Theism is a more rational belief system.

 

[Estro Felino]

Thank God I'm an atheist

B. Bertolucci

 

[dfnj]

Thank God I'm an atheist

B. Bertolucci

Thank God you are logically consistent too!

 

[Jumi]

Well there's no shortage of people who demand that you and your set of beliefs fit into a neat little box you can file away without thinking.

 

[ChristineM]

From an atheist perspective the idea that there is no thing that can exist that is responsible for all that does is rather short sighted.
That skepticism, strong or weak as it may be, resonates in its own belief from that positional opinion that first concedes as something to be opposed, that perspective theism conjures and defines as deity.

Are you saying that lack of belief based on lack of evidence is short sighted, i would consider it the other way round, that belief based on lack of evidence is at odds with reality. Which is why belief in god or gods is considered to be faith.

 

[ChristineM]

If there is any confusion on the part of theists when contemplating what it might mean to be atheists it would be the atheist tendency to deny any similarities that such an ideology might induce. Those similarities may not be indicative of atheism but they are real nonetheless.

Atheism is well defined, other differences are personal

 

[ChristineM]

Well theists are a bit kooky but normal. Although all atheists insist that their own personal understanding is complete nonsense scientifically Which i totally agree with. Atheists understanding of yhe topic is garbage parroted from theists is all.

Atheists experts are theists in context to the topic. Severly confused heretic theists in ancient world at that. Heretic is a religious word for idiot.

So if you rely on an idiot to show you astrology charts are they reliable cosmologists? I dont think so but all atheists insist theists are the experts to the topic God. Ha ha ha ha ha now thats funny.

Surely you dont speak for all atheist?

 

[ChristineM]

This is not the problem. The problem and the disagreements come when the atheist imagines, and then insists to everyone else, that "fiction isn't real". Or that, "if it isn't real, it isn't true". Because what most atheists mean by "real" and "true", is 'materially extant'. And this is not how theists perceive or experience their reality.
Spiritualists have just as much difficulty understanding materialism as materialists have understanding spiritualism. This is normal. After all, how can anyone understand a way of perceiving and experiencing reality that they have not (and/or will not even try to) experience or perceive for themselves? We would be fools to expect someone to understand what they have never experienced.

What people mean by real or true is that that can be evidenced.

I think you need to revise the meaning of reality
Reality : the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them.

 

[ChristineM]

There's a similar line in a song by James ("Sit Down"):

"Hope that God exists,
I hope, I pray."

I think it's kind of clever, like, who are you praying TO, exactly, when you pray that God exists?

If you pray.

 

[ChristineM]

There is no question that someone can be an atheist and be moral. And there are many atheists who are completely immoral jerks. I don't have any real evidence to support which is more or less immoral. But I would imagine the group that is obsessed with morality might be the ones who are most immoral because they are counting so hard.

I cant say i have met an immoral atheist but i have met several jerks. The most immoral people i do know of are those killing, enslaving, abusing in the name of god and there are far to many of them.

But in terms of atheism being defined as a lack of belief in God or gods is an interesting question. Atheists do not get to define what the word God means. Many people believe in a pantheistic type God which atheists just dismiss out of hand. God is just a word. What the word God represents for theists has many definitions. But just as theists don't get to decide what atheism means, atheists don't get to decide what the word God means. For people who believe in God it is almost universally understood ALL of existence is evidence for God. From the time theists are little kids they often associate the experience of natures awesome beauty as being attributed to God. I've seen posters of pretty pictures of nature with the sub-title "Go God!" I think when theists make the subjective judgment "God is the rain" or God is beauty found in nature it is just as equal of a statement as saying "there is no objective evidence for the existence of God." There is objective evidence for the existence of God. What atheists are really saying is, "there is no objective evidence for the existence of God I am willing to accept as being true." All "good" science is determined by subjective judgments. Who is to say one opinion is better than anyone else's.

It seems theist cannot agree on a definition of god either, perhaps if they could and they could provide evidence for the personification of their agreed definition then they could put an end to these pesky non believers.

Take nihilism for example. Some people take the sum total of all their experiences and come to a nihilistic conclusion. Other people, who may have had a much more difficult life with much more suffering, may take the position that everything in reality is sacred, God is great, God is good, and they personally live or have lived a blessed life as a direct result of God's favor. Is it "right", is it "wrong", it really makes no difference on the grand cosmic time scale of the Universe. Life may be meaningless, but it is also meaningless that it is meaningless. Since it really doesn't matter how or what you choose life to mean, you might as well choose sacred and blessed over nihilistic and meaningless. At least choosing life is sacred and blessed you commit to treating people as sacred. With the nihilistic and meaningless choice, you might see people as automatons mindlessly carrying out the laws of physics like a dumb old computer or calculator. When you are viewed as just a machine then the way people treat machines is the level of morality a human being can expect. What difference does it make how devious the WMDs the government creates when people are worth no more than factory equipment or any other machine. When human beings are considered machines they have moral equivalency to insects.

Who chooses whether sacred is blessed? Viewing life as meaningless does not equate to viewing life as a machine.

If you really want to compare theism to atheism there's probably more evidence supporting theism anyway from scientific point of view. Just google "end of materialism". There are many people who have argued quantum mechanics debunks the clockwork Universe of hard determinism. Most people who think the Universe is a giant computer ignore the results discovered by experiments in quantum mechanics.

There is no way that QM supports either theism or atheism.

Who believes the universe is a giant computer... Con you give a comparative estimate alongside the number who believe the earth is flat?

God speaks to us through experimental error. God is the force in the Universe that keeps our full understanding of nature's behaviors just one step beyond our full comprehension. The speed of the Universe at the smallest possible scale we are capable of measuring moves faster than anything we can measure. It may always be the case that no matter what scale we focus on reality is happening faster than we can ever measure. We may know when radioactive decay might occur with probabilities but we cannot predict the precise exact moment the decay will occur. How could we possibly comprehend how nature is going to behave or to predict the future if we can't accurately predict behavior of a single atom? To fully understand what is happening or predict the future we would have to fully understand the interactions of trillions of atoms interacting with each other with no way to control or limit the scope of the interactions. So we can never have a complete understanding. The Universe is composed of an infinite number of waves of energy all connected and interacting with each other. Rogue waves converge and energies from the quantum level bubble up to the macro level as shown in recent QM experiments. So if we can't gather enough information and there are too many measurements to take into account then having a comprehensive clockwork Universe understanding of reality is impossible to achieve.

You will have to provide falsifiable evidence before you can say "god speaks..."

In QM, speed even a relevant concept?

Yes the behaviour of a single atom can predicted, it is when millions or billions of atoms interact with each othet that accuracy becomes less accurate.

And? Are you unhappy with the idea that (at present) not all things are known?

Reality is happening faster than we can ever measure it. What better word to use to represent the unpredictable nature of our life experiences than God? God is what we experience. For a theist, since it is really strange to deny the existence of reality, and it is really strange not to believe in the existence of reality, for a theist, the natural conclusion is God exists because reality exists. And there is good scientific evidence supporting the theist way of thinking. There is lots of scientific evidence supporting the idea that materialism is just a made up, imaginary, or delusional belief. Therefore, Theism is a more rational belief system.

I would rather not fill in gaps in knowledge with a god magic when one doesn't have any evidence for the existence of god. To me, that is filling those gaps with deliberate ignorance.

The definition of reality does not specify it relies on god, on the contrary, it specifically requires what is real as opposed to idealistic.

Could you please provide links to this "scientific" evidence

 

[viole]

Similarities between atheists that don't necessarily negate or indicate atheism? Many atheists are science minded, many are socially and politically frustrated, many from certain parts of the world, many aren't militant, they like Douglas Adams, accept evolution, perhaps are more educated, there are all sorts of possibilities.

Well, accepting evolution is a side effect of education, for instance. Cannot imagine people with the education of a caveman even considering the plausibility of evolution So, at least some of your points are not logically independent.

Ciao

- viole

 

[viole]

There's a similar line in a song by James ("Sit Down"):

"Hope that God exists,
I hope, I pray."

I think it's kind of clever, like, who are you praying TO, exactly, when you pray that God exists?

Well, faith is hope.

You know, that thing that springs eternal.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Twilight Hue]

This is not quite the first line of the song 'Bitter End' by Rag'n'Bone Man

That one line using my 1st person interpretation rather than the songs 2nd person reminds me so much of how theists assume an atheist thinks of god.

I have been told in the last few days 'your god is your belief that there is no god' eh! 'an atheists god is ... ', 'you must believe in god to be moral', that old favourite 'you hate god' etc, etc, etc.

Atheism : disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.

Nothing more, nothing less. As an atheist my position on god is the same as my position on harry potter, mickey mouse or bilbo baggins, i.e. they are fictional characters. And i am pretty sure most (if not all) atheists would agree.

I have struggled to understand this theist view of atheism and I can only conclude that they [certain theists] cannot conceive of the atheist viewpoint because they think in terms of god.

Am i correct in this conclusion or has anyone got another explain?

Everyone has an atheist "viewpoint" for no other reason than the fact you were initially born without God at the start , of which theistic religion was introduced later on in life for those that in turn embraced it.

I would take primarily such introductions comes from people whom you personally trust and believe them to be trustworthy enough to tell you the truth. Or at least a truth that they believe in themselves , and subsequently your own belief took on a life of its own.

Being that I used to be a theist, it's easier to see both sides of the coin.

I remember during the times where I believed in God I would discount any and all arguments made against the existence of God and would veminently ignore science or anything else other than the Bible and my church.

Almost every theistic argument seemed rational and historically sound to me at the time, even if it contradicted actual scientific findings and discoveries.

Basically building a Fantastical world around and living in it as if it were true in a conceptual environment comprised of god(s), angels and devils and didn't think that any of it was unusual or outlandish in comparison to the rest of the world whatsoever.

Atheists to me during my time as a theist were always these humanoid dark boogeymen clamoring to drag me back into the abyss, lost and Damned for all time because they didn't accept Jesus Christ as their savior. Reinforced by the fact that I used to be one of them, and now I am rescued from ever having to worry about going back to that cemented the deal that I would have remained a theist from that point on. Of course, that turned out to be not true after a long time of deprogramming myself.

To be honest I'm actually surprised I did indeed returned home as it were, and abandoning all that. It wasn't an easy task for a stout theist to accomplish.

If I could have met my past younger self , that younger self of mine would have never ever believed anything I would have to say about the future denying and screaming that I would never ever completely abandon my loving Jesus and God and the Bible and to risk that type of consequence by betraying the very same people who lovingly dragged me out of the muck of darkness.

If you really think about it, I soon discovered if not suspected for a while , that even theism has its form of atheism, using pretty much the same arguments for any God's outside their own belief as being non -existent or irrelevant identical to the conventional definition of atheist, except of course for their own particular deity of choice. A strange Paradox when you think about it. ;O)

I agree with you with the statement that atheism, for all intents and purposes, is simply a person who is without gods. It's root meaning which I resonate with as being the most accurate description.

I think the primary of theists when they look at atheists is that they are corrupted evil god-awful beings that had fallen short of the glory of God. Forever damned and forever lost if they don't reach their hands out.

Sort of like the hymn lyric, ".. .they saved a Wretch like Me".

That would describe pretty well my own view as a theist concerning those who are atheist.

I think you're pretty accurate in light you are a theist yourself , as I used to be, and I understand it is difficult to gain any perspective of atheism when a particular belief is so cemented into your being, that it essentially becomes a living part of you regardless of evidences and implications.

 

[Earthling]

Well, accepting evolution is a side effect of education, for instance. Cannot imagine people with the education of a caveman even considering the plausibility of evolution So, at least some of your points are not logically independent.

Ciao

- viole

[Laughs] I don't know how much your scientific journals would estimate the value of the education of the cavemen they indoctrinate the kiddies with, but I had 12 years of government sponsored propaganda, most of which was either irrelevant or pure bull**** and if that isn't enough to have indoctrinated me, then there isn't much to it.