"Lack of belief"

[Willamena]

But weak or essential atheism is not a belief.
Why is this essential point so hard to grasp?

Because 'no belief' is nothingness, by any other name. The world is composed in consciousness, and each real thing you're aware of is believed.

http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/arguments-for-atheism/the-presumption-of-atheism/

 

[LuisDantas]

No. All religions accept it as unborn and the reality of the present.

Arguably all religions.

 

[ArtieE]

Huh. Inert materials do not imagine.

Since when is brain matter inert material?

 

[viole]

Pardon my intrusion. Whence our desires? Before deciding about God, whom no one has seen or heard, we may, IMO, probe our own selves.

Well, it is the theist who insists that her position answers all "whys". I am challenging this. Sooner or later they either become circular, or have no answers,or accept at least one brute fact without "becauses". I even think that this can be proven logically.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Guy Threepwood]

The most probable explanation is that some person wrote it. Nobody in their right mind would claim that a god wrote it.Not when this God somehow spontaneously invented himself or have always existed for no reason.That is quite possible. So what you are saying is that the universe might not have been created by a god but simply by member(s) of some alien race more advanced than us?

I'm saying it was probably created by ID one way or another, and an alien intelligence that transcends our universe, our time and space as we know it, created all we see around us, certainly does not preclude the concept of God, as I or most understand him.

It's becoming more common for atheists to consider 'alien' ID as a possible solution to the ever growing 'problem' of fine tuning we discover in life, physics etc- it's pretty much down to either than or an infinite probability machine of some kind which many atheists are as skeptical of as the rest of us.

It's getting more down to splitting hairs about how we define this intelligent creator, but that's all part of a functioning reality I think- it wouldn't work if the answer was too obvious, if we could see all the strings..? that would not be a very well designed universe would it?

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Why cut out a drink (alcohol) that Jesus himself would use?


If the relationship with Jesus is personal, churches are not required.


I believe God has a sense of humor and won't punish a guy for an SNL reference.


I'm not that familiar with early Canaanite mythology.

It's the same question, really. If I knew Your origin story I'd remind You.

Your purpose is for You to decide. According to the bible, You went off on the Council of El, decrying the other gods of being apathetic and lazy. Now we have populations claiming the same of You. Given the feedback, are You interested in changing Your management style?

Similar question to the previous one.


What if God is the random number generator? What if God is included in the random number generator? After all, if I play a "God game" like Sim City or something, you have the Sims, the User (Me, their Deity) telling them how to live their lives ... but you also have MY "User" (whatever that turns out to be).

I could delete my Sims however I want because I run their lives. However, maybe I am also a character and can be deleted ...


Rules in nature don't exist like our governing rules. They exist because of the properties of the things involved, not because there is some poor code checker somewhere making sure all the code works out.

I mean, I'm a theist, but I can accept that the universe is run on nature, derived from the properties of the items themselves, not anyone in particular. This is why miracles always tend to be something kinda sorta possible. Jesus can raise a guy from the dead but never once tries it on someone beheaded, etc.

If God exists, He (or whatever) can only influence the rules. The rules, however, exist on their own.

Like, if God wanted a boulder to hit a particular town downhill, He could create a rut for it to go down. However, gravity and the limitations of the rut don't need a Creator.

I'd mostly agree with that, the creator of the universe can achieve intended results, in more subtle ways than dropping rocks on people- (now watch I'll probably be hit by a meteor!

I used to like the old Sim City, those 'God Sims' are an interesting analogy though, we find ourselves caring for our individuals, but we don't want everything to be 'good' without any possible alternative for failure- or success means nothing, we want our worlds to have meaning, rich experience, a little of everything..

 

[atanu]

Since when is brain matter inert material?

As soon as the life breath leaves a body.

 

[atanu]

Well, it is the theist who insists that her position answers all "whys". I am challenging this. Sooner or later they either become circular, or have no answers,or accept at least one brute fact without "becauses". I even think that this can be proven logically.

Ciao

- viole

Prove then.

 

[viole]

Prove then.

Let's try.

Tell me why God created the Universe.

Ciao

- viole

 

[McBell]

God provides a less improbable explanation for sophisticated natural laws, than them spontaneously inventing themselves for no reason.

You keep making this claim but never back it up.
Please show your math.

 

[atanu]

Let's try.

Tell me why God created the Universe.

Wow. Why are you asking me? I know nothing of God.

 

[Acim]

The most probable explanation is that some person wrote it. Nobody in their right mind would claim that a god wrote it.

LOL. I would claim a god wrote it. Would be rather easy if one considers persons to be manifestations of god(s). So the assertion of 'nobody in their right mind would claim' is purely subjective. My subjectivity would suggest the claim that no god did this, is not right minded.

 

[ArtieE]

As soon as the life breath leaves a body.

What's "life breath"? Please link to a site that explains what this "life breath" is in detail. Only thing relevant I could find online was from Merriam-Webster and that only says "the breath that sustains life". Very little helpful. There's probably a whole lot more information in medical literature I don't have access to because obviously medical professionals are the experts on what does or doesn't sustain life. Do you have such access?

 

[ImmortalFlame]

LOL. I would claim a god wrote it. Would be rather easy if one considers persons to be manifestations of god(s). So the assertion of 'nobody in their right mind would claim' is purely subjective. My subjectivity would suggest the claim that no god did this, is not right minded.

And it would be rather easy if one considers people be manifestations of Cthulhu to claim that human writings are the result of Cthulhu, so the assertion of 'God wrote it' is also purely subjective. Now we are left with three supposedly "subjective" points of view:

1- People wrote it.
2- God wrote it.
3- Cthulhu wrote it.

The question is how we determine which of these three is reasonable to accept. If you think it is "right minded" to assume that option 2 is true, then you should also believe it is "right minded" to believe option 3 is true because you have just as much reason to accept either. Obviously, they can't both be true. So which is more likely to be true and why?

 

[Acim]

And it would be rather easy if one considers people be manifestations of Cthulhu to claim that human writings are the result of Cthulhu, so the assertion of 'God wrote it' is also purely subjective. Now we are left with three supposedly "subjective" points of view:

1- People wrote it.
2- God wrote it.
3- Cthulhu wrote it.

The question is how we determine which of these three is reasonable to accept. If you think it is "right minded" to assume that option 2 is true, then you should also believe it is "right minded" to believe option 3 is true because you have just as much reason to accept either. Obviously, they can't both be true. So which is more likely to be true and why?

To me, 1 and 2 are true. 2 would, be for me, right minded. But I see them as one and the same. If it is 3 (or some other name), I'm cool with that. At some point, it would strike me as just a name of some intelligent designer that conveyed that message. But would be really fascinating if it were just the way the waves washed the rocks onto the shore line. I'd still lean toward intelligent design, but would perhaps be a bit too fascinated to discuss it on any meaningful level. Would be more like discussing a work of art for me.

 

[atanu]

Huh. Inert materials do not imagine. That is why I had suggested "Whence the desire? " and before that "Whence the I?"

Since when is brain matter inert material?

As soon as the life breath leaves a body.

What's "life breath"?

If I knew life breath, I would not ask you "Whence the I?".

You claimed that brain was not inert. I showed otherwise.

Some people hold that consciousness is a product of some process. Which would mean that that process is the owner and controller of your awareness. Some of us have considered the matter and have come to an understanding that consciousness is unborn and constitutes the "I am".

 

[ArtieE]

If I knew life breath, I would not ask you "Whence the I?".

Why not? If you don't know "life breath" how do you know it's got anything to do with "the I"?

You claimed that brain was not inert. I showed otherwise.

I claimed that brain matter isn't inert. The medical definition of inert is "Devoid of active chemical properties". http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/inert
Are you saying that your brain is devoid of active chemical processes?

Some people hold that consciousness is a product of some process. Which would mean that that process is the owner and controller of your awareness. Some of us have considered the matter and have come to an understanding that consciousness is unborn and constitutes the "I am".

What exactly did you take into consideration when you came to that understanding? Who is the "owner and controller" in your scenario? The "life breath"?

 

[Willamena]

Obviously, they can't both be true.

They could have collaborated.

 

[Willamena]

Why not? If you don't know "life breath" how do you know it's got anything to do with "the I"?I claimed that brain matter isn't inert. The medical definition of inert is "Devoid of active chemical properties". http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/inert
Are you saying that your brain is devoid of active chemical processes?What exactly did you take into consideration when you came to that understanding? Who is the "owner and controller" in your scenario? The "life breath"?

Properties. Not processes.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Creator and ruler of the universe with power over its inhabitants and events.

So, to you:

- belief in gods that aren't creator-gods (e.g. most forms of polytheism) doesn't count as belief in gods?
- belief in creator-gods that aren't rules (e.g. some forms of deism) doesn't count as belief in gods?

Do you consider these polytheists and deists (as well as whichever other theists don't believe in a god that fits your definition) to be atheists?

It's not really important though, you don't have to be able to define something to understand it. You might have an apophatic view and believe God can only be experienced, never described.

The term "god" either refers to a concept or it doesn't. If it does, then the definition of the term can be derived from the concept. If it doesn't, then the word is just noise and not meaningful communication.

Babies really don't do this

Someone who is aware of zero god concepts and has rejected zero god concepts has rejected all the god concepts they're aware of. It's an edge case, sure, but it's valid.

& the 2nd point is nonsense. If you don't like curry then you don't 'reset' this belief every time you hear of a new curry. You assume you don't like it until proved otherwise.

I disagree with your statement in a general sense, but it utterly fails when you try it with your approach to gods: even if we reject every god we hear of, we can still recognize two distinct categories when it comes to things called "gods":

- things I agree exist, but that I don't think qualify as gods (e.g. the Sun, the universe, Haile Selassie)
- things I agree would qualify as gods, but that I don't think exist (e.g. Jehovah, Thor, Quetzalcoatl)

Even for someone who rejects every god, there's no default answer to the two parts of your two-part test.

And I don't know about you, but I don't reject a concept unless I can evaluate it. I've heard people explain their god-concepts to me in ways where I end up thinking "I have no idea what this person is even trying to describe" or "I understand what this guy is saying, but it seems to be completely unfalsifiable or supportable." If I can't evaluate a statement at all, then I can't evaluate it as true or false (i.e. reject it). OTOH, I can recognize that I have not accepted the proposition as true (i.e. lack belief in it).

I consider the word theist to be one of the most useless words in the English language when used in the way you are describing. To give it any meaning it really needs to mean monotheist (as is its traditional definition). So you get (mono)theist, deist, polytheist, pantheist as separate things.

Except they're not separate things. They all relate back to the term "god" in some way.

'Equal opportunities' theism doesn't work. Trying to create a 'one size fits all' approach as you are doing is like forcing square pegs in round holes. All of the traditional usages of these words are straightforward as they developed organically in response to societal need. The problems are with the newer definitions that were created because people looked at the words and thought they "should" mean something else.

This is a problem with 'religious' language in general as it grew from a specific social context and cannot always be 'universalised' or made to be nice and PC. This is why many philosophical discussions will be based around the monotheistic God. Sometimes if you try to expand concepts too much, then they break.

Polytheism isn't a new thing. It's been known to monotheists as long as there have been monotheists.

And deism has been a mainstream thing (or at least well-known to the mainstream) at least as far back as the Enlightenment, so I don't see how you can say that acknowledging it in our terminology is a matter of being "PC".

Whether you like it or not, we recognize theists of all description - not just mainstream, western monotheists - as theists. We also recognize that theists aren't atheists. We don't do this out of political correctness; we do it because we realize it would be absurd to call someone who believes in a god of any description to be an atheist.

Noncognitivism usually relates to the monotheistic God anyway, as finite polytheistic gods are readily understandable.

I think we're using the same word to describe different things. I'm not necessarily saying that any individual god-concept is incoherent (though I agree that some are); I'm saying that all the various god-concepts, when considered together, can't be reconciled into a coherent whole.

And this isn't a modern problem that arises out of "universalizing" or making things "PC". Even back in the early days of Christianity, a Christian could have recognized that winged divine messenger he believed in (Gabriel) counts as "not a god" but the winged divine messenger his neighbour believed in (Mercury) counts as a god and wondered what single definition of "god" could result in that distinction.

Personally, if I had to resolve things, I could do it easily: I see no reason not to consider angels to be gods, and any "monotheist" who believes in angels not to actually be a polytheist. However, I recognize that this doesn't align with how we as a society use the terms involved.