Is atheism a threat to humanity?

[BeyondTribal]

Atheists follow their own minds. Theists follow rules invented by others who are ultimately doing the same thing. As you say, those who invented religion have the same human flaws and limitations, so theists are not better off. It is even worse because on top of that is a layer of groupthink which prevents questioning and checking for flaws in these invented religious ideas.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Yes, understanding, like knowledge, can be false....without wisdom.
And I don't do "propositions". "theories", and "testing" nonsense...
I go strait to the SOURCE. ( it's a lot quicker )

As in, what's source for the goose?

 

[WhyIsThatSo]

As in, what's source for the goose?

The word "Father" (God) means "Source".

 

[QuestioningMind]

That's right....I have "faith" (trust) in modern technology.....to a point.
Just like you have faith in it every time you jump into your car to start it up.
And all the other 1000 THINGS you "trust" in everyday....with or without KNOWLEDGE of it.

We cannot live in this world without "faith" (trust)…...it's NOT POSSIBLE.
And I can't help that you HATE this fact (truth)…..that's your problem.

So let me reiterate.....It is NOT POSSIBLE to live in this world without "faith" (trust),
and your denial does not change that.

So, from now on, every time you get in your car to go somewhere, make sure you open the hood first and check the battery voltage.
no ?, you don't do that ?.....oh well, then I guess you will just have to TRUST ( have faith ) that the battery is good.

Please speak for yourself. You may require faith that your car battery will work each day, but my expectations concerning whether or not my car battery will work is based on verifiable evidence, not faith. I have a history of experience with car batteries. That history has taught me how long a battery will generally last before no longer holding a charge. Thus my 'trust' in how effective my car battery will be is partly dependent on how old the car battery is. And even then every time I go to start my car I recognize that it's possible he battery won't have a charge. Not because the battery is too old, but because past experience has taught me that a battery can be dead because a faulty alternator that isn't recharging the battery or a shorting battery cable can cause a perfectly good battery to drain.

But let's drop your silly car battery analogy and focus on the analogy I started off with and which you completely ignore. How can you foolishly claim that faith or trust is a reliable path to truth when person A can have faith that the Earth is a flat disc and person B can have equal faith that the Earth is a round sphere? Note that two people can have faith is ANY contradictory claims, thus making faith a useless method for reliably determining truth.

I think it's you who HATES the fact that your foolish claim can so easily be dismissed as wrong. You HATE that I dared to question your silly claims. And mostly you HATE that you don't have an argument to refute how foolish a claim it is.

 

[QuestioningMind]

Are you going to get out of bed in the morning ? How do you "know" ? Simple answer, YOU DONT KNOW.
You HOPE that you will, you TRUST that you will, you have FAITH that you will...
If you did not, then WHY are you doing anything today, planning for tomorrow ?????????????????????????

THIS is what you HATE . The fact (TRUTH) that you have virtually NO CONTROL over your own physical existence.
and this FORCES you to have faith in something beyond your little "world view".
THIS is what you HATE....and those of us who ARE NOT TOO PROUD to acknowledge that they need help from a source beyond this physical world.

Nope... I'm not going to play 'let's try a NEW 'analogy' until you first address my original analogy. How can you claim that faith is a RELIABLE path to truth when two people can have equal faith that the Earth is BOTH a round sphere AND a flat disc?

Since you CONTINUALLY ignore my analogy and try to come up with an alternate one it's quite clear that it's YOU who HATES having your silly claim challenged. And then you PROJECT that HATE onto anyone who dares to have challenged you. I've been having a conversation attempting to [point out the flaw in your logic, while you just seem to be getting your panties in a twist and accusing me of HATE, just because I asked you a question you can't answer.

Rather sad and pathetic in my opinion.

 

[QuestioningMind]

True knowledge is only possible for tautologies. A is A.

Whether there is a trickster god or you are in a Boltzmann Brain universe with a computer and power source and you are you running on the computer and the rest of the universe is simulated, is unknowable.
In effect you trust the universe to be fair and knowable to you, when you claim empirical knowledge.

Oh, the old 'we're all in the Matrix and life is just a video game' claim. You're correct. I have no way of knowing if life is just a video game illusion. But if it is just a game then the game has rules. And the best way to determine the rules is via verifiable evidence. Of course you don't have to use verifiable evidence that control A moves you forward and control B moves you backwards. You can choose to have faith that control B will move you forward, however chances are you're going to spend the entirety of your game stuck in the corner of a room somewhere.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I think atheists are the saviors of humanity! They did so splendidly in the USSR and China, it's so wonderful to live there now after 70 years of official, forced atheism!

You seem to confuse "atheists" with "communists".

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Can you tell me about an atheist society that has benefited its nation?

There's no such thing.

How about a charity begun by an atheist?

I'm an atheist and I have organized several charity events.

How many atheists visited the Southeast to help after Hurricane Katrina?

I don't know.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

"Communist totalitarian governments didn't outlaw religion."

We cannot even talk about this, can we?

In communism, religion is seens as competition to the dictator.
There's a reason why communism is referred to as a "state religion".

It is, in essence, no different from a theocracy of religion X that forbids any religion that isn't X.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Atheism is very much an irrational worldview

Atheism isn't a worldview, let alone an irrational one....

Theism is a worldview.
Atheists are just people that don't hold a theistic worldview.

Individual atheists sure have a worldview. Their worldview simply isn't called "atheism", nore is it defined by their "atheism". The only thing you know about the worldview of any random atheist, is that his/her worldview won't be theism.

Let's have an analogy. Let's say that the various worldviews are sports. Let's say that theism is soccer.
Atheists are non-soccer players.

Some will play tennis.
Some will play badminton.
Some will play baseball or basketball.

To know, you'ld have to ask them. Just the label of "non-soccer player", is not going to tell you what sport they DO play. You only know which sport they don't...

and so yes, could be dangerous because as you say there are no ethical restraints, ultimately

Demonstrable nonsense.
Talk to any atheist that isn't also a psychopath.
You'll see that they have plenty of ethical restraints.

Yes religious folk have done very bad things too but, IMHO, usually only really in the name of a distorted, corrupted faith.

And you, off course, have the "one true faith", right?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Every minute of every day, THOUSANDS of human beings have "mystical experiences" in their lives that they cannot explain;

With extra emphasis on "cannot explain".

Meaning that even the term "mystical" is already saying to much.
In reality, they are just "experiences" that they can not explain. So when discussing those, the only correct answer is "we don't know". Not that they are "mystical" or "supernatural" or "relating to the god you happen to believe in".

So, I would assume in some people eyes they are all "insane" somehow.

Why would you assume that? I'ld need a bit more specifics then the over-the-top vagueness of "experiences they can not explain" before drawing such conclusions..........

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Ok, lets try this......your "mind" is your "spirt"..
your spirit is who and what you really are...not your body with all it's organs, like the brain
Your spirit (MIND) does not leave the body until it is DEAD.....the body dies, the spirit (MIND) lives on.

During surgery you are NOT dead

Funny how this supposedly "independently existing spirit" is apparantly so easily affected by physical brainstates.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Right.....now think about that the next time you jump into your car , alone late at night in a deserted area,
and it does not start.
What ?....is your "faith" (trust) in that piece of metal lacking ?
Or did you not "know" you needed a new battery ?

I'm curious how you think this is a valid analogy?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I'm curious how you think this is a valid analogy?

You know about a trickster God, right? What about a trickster universe? Imagine a Boltzmann Brain universe with a computer and a power source. You as you are running on computer and the rest of the universe you believe, you are in, are simulated to you. That is a trickster universe.
Now in effect to know, you must trust the universe to be fair and knowable.

 

[WhyIsThatSo]

Please speak for yourself. You may require faith that your car battery will work each day, but my expectations concerning whether or not my car battery will work is based on verifiable evidence, not faith. I have a history of experience with car batteries. That history has taught me how long a battery will generally last before no longer holding a charge. Thus my 'trust' in how effective my car battery will be is partly dependent on how old the car battery is. And even then every time I go to start my car I recognize that it's possible he battery won't have a charge. Not because the battery is too old, but because past experience has taught me that a battery can be dead because a faulty alternator that isn't recharging the battery or a shorting battery cable can cause a perfectly good battery to drain.

But let's drop your silly car battery analogy and focus on the analogy I started off with and which you completely ignore. How can you foolishly claim that faith or trust is a reliable path to truth when person A can have faith that the Earth is a flat disc and person B can have equal faith that the Earth is a round sphere? Note that two people can have faith is ANY contradictory claims, thus making faith a useless method for reliably determining truth.

I think it's you who HATES the fact that your foolish claim can so easily be dismissed as wrong. You HATE that I dared to question your silly claims. And mostly you HATE that you don't have an argument to refute how foolish a claim it is.

lol.....please, I'm a retired lifelong auto technician , with almost 50 years of experience.
So I can assure you there is NOTHING you can tell me about a car battery, or any battery for that matter.

The point is the same either way. It does not matter what analogy I use because
YOU depend on "faith" every single day of your life and in many, many ways too.
Just like every human being on this planet does. You just don't like to admit it, and that's sad.

And BLIND "faith" is foolishness, I already explained that to you.
And yes, MOST religious people do have blind faith, because they accept whatever another person tells them
instead of doing all the hard work needed to "know", instead of just "believe" something. In short, people are lazy .

BUT, some of us, and very, very few of us, are NOT lazy. We do the work needed, and never accept anything
on face value. We prove it to ourselves. And just like all the lazy people in here who "think" they know something
because they are "religious", YOU are the same way. Just in a different way.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Since you obviously missed the point, I will state it again for you..…..the word "faith" means TRUST...
you have "faith" (trust) in the car you drive every time you jump in it to go somewhere.....whether you are aware of this "faith" or not.
But you would not be aware of it ( the faith you have in the car ) unless and until you were FORCED to for some reason....

Like when it fails you somehow. And you then learn that if you had only KNOWN ( that's "knowledge" BTW ) that the battery was weak.
So lets see now......it would appear to me that your "faith" in your car, is actually what GAVE YOU KNOWLEDGE of the weak battery.

And yes, "faith" can lead to false knowledge...….especially when it's "100 %", as you say.. ( this is called "FOOLISHNESS" )
because true Faith, is NEVER 100%, that's what makes it "faith" (TRUST)…...duh !!

Would you like to try again ?

No, religious faith isn't anything like trust.

Trust is based on evidence. Trust is a reasonable expectation, based on evidence.
Religious-type faith is what you require to believe something when you have no evidence.

Trusting your car will start, just like it has for thousands of times before, is fairly reasonable if nothing special is going on (like the car not having been used for months, or the radio has been playing all night long,...).

However, I also don't think you'll find anybody who will profess the same level of "certainty" that the car will start, as you profess a level of "certainty" that you are correct about your religious beliefs. And that lack of absolute certainty is also based on evidence, on previous experience and knowledge of other cars etc. Mechanics can sometimes fail. A myriad of reasons both obvious and non-obvious, of how a car could fail to start.

But you and your religious beliefs? Nope, you are completely certain. Yet, you have no evidence at all. You are required to believe in the invisible and the undetectable.

 

[WhyIsThatSo]

I'm curious how you think this is a valid analogy?

It's an analogy to show how you have "faith" (trust) in something,
even though you deny such things (faith).

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I have absolutely NO EVIDENCE that I am talking to a person right now....

You absolutely do.
You are posting on a forum, for starters.

The language used by @QuestioningMind is consistent with the writings of humans and not consistent with spam bots. @QuestioningMind also replies in context and quotes the portions of your posts to which he's replying. So either you are talking to a human being, or someone invented an insanely advanced AI forum posting bot the likes of which the world has never seen and is not only keeping it a secret, but having it posting on some religious forum in some corner of the internet to some anonymous fundamentalist nobody.

The latter option seems quite unlikely.

So yes, you absolutely have very solid evidence that you are talking to a human.
You might not recognise the evidence. You might be too lazy to figure it out. You might not understand what evidence actually is, preventing you to recognise it when you see it...

Whatever it may be, there absolutely is very solid evidence that you are talking to a human.

BUT, I do trust that you are a real live hateful human being, anyway.

hateful??

Now, now... was that really necessary?

How about you behave a bit.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

And I don't do "propositions". "theories", and "testing" nonsense...

And that's how you inevitably end up holding false beliefs while not caring about it.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

You know about a trickster God, right? What about a trickster universe? Imagine a Boltzmann Brain universe with a computer and a power source. You as you are running on computer and the rest of the universe you believe, you are in, are simulated to you. That is a trickster universe.
Now in effect to know, you must trust the universe to be fair and knowable.

First of all, I'm not going to get dragged into this silly Matrix nonsense again.

Secondly, this doesn't seem to have anything to do with the post you are replying to, so I can only wonder why you posted that (again).