Curious George
Veteran Member
Of course it is a belief. In fact, saying that it is not a belief is another belief. And saying that "it is what the label means" is yet another.That is not a belief George, it is just what the label means.
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Of course it is a belief. In fact, saying that it is not a belief is another belief. And saying that "it is what the label means" is yet another.That is not a belief George, it is just what the label means.
Are you ok George?Of course it is a belief. In fact, saying that it is not a belief is another belief. And saying that "it is what the label means" is yet another.
Hmm, I think so. What seems to be the problem?Are you ok George?
We appear to be speaking different languages, lets just leave it there.Hmm, I think so. What seems to be the problem?
I see very few people making arguments regarding atheism. I never do.
Nope, it is exactly how language is used. The prefix "a" means "without". Atheists are without religion. That's what the word means.
But atheism is no more an ideology than not believing in Bigfoot
There is no atheistic worldview, period.
Atheism is the default position. Nobody is born with religious beliefs.
We just point out that Stalin's atheism has no direct and demonstrable causal link to what he did under communism. Nobody denies that he was an atheist, nobody has the slightest problem with it. It just didn't cause his actions.
In a post where you are making multiple arguments regarding atheism, you deny that you ever make arguments about atheism? hmmm...
Are you arguing that the meaning of a word comes from the letters that make it up? That's really not how language works in the slightest.
Atheism may or may not be part of somebodies ideology. Atheism is not per se an ideology, but it may well be a significant part of somebody's worldview.
Correct, there is no singular atheistic worldview, there are many.
Can you explain why birth = default = natural = standard? Why must the default be defined at birth, that's a highly arbitrary value judgement, not 'objective' reason. As is making assumption about babies minds, when there is scientific debate about whether or not we a predisposed towards religious beliefs.
To say babies = atheist so atheist = natural is not rational, it is an ideological assumption that you want to be true for rhetorical purposes.
For arguments sake, even if a baby was objectively atheist but a 3 year old was predisposed towards 'religious' beliefs, why should atheism be considered the default for anyone aged 3 and above?
So the attempts to de-Christianise the USSR and France had nothing to do with atheism? An individual's atheistic worldview can never be connected to any further decisions or behaviours?
That people publicly professing the importance of atheism as opposed to religiosity, can't be said to be influenced by their atheism?
Most things have many partial causes, are you denying that atheism is ever one of them?
Islamic terrorism is Islam + politics + additional ideology + history etc.
Why can't atheism ever be considered to be part of such a chain of causes?
It produces correct predictions. If it were bogus, the spacecraft would miss their destinations, for example. It makes sense to expect it to continue to work.
So what other method has a good track record for ascertaining matters of fact?Sorry, I have probably been unclear. Science certainly is able to make valid predictions as regards that kind of thing. All I am saying is that science cannot be proved to be a valid means for ascertaining the actual nature of reality, for ascertaining what is absolutely true, as opposed to experientially or apparently true. It is very good at the latter. I will again stress that I am a scientist myself, and am in no way anti-science.
So what other method has a good track record for ascertaining matters of fact?
All I am saying is that science cannot be proved to be a valid means for ascertaining the actual nature of reality,
I find this ridiculous at best bud. Science is factually the only credible method to study nature
Science is the study of nature.
Do you think mythology explains nature?
Do you think guessing explains nature?
Should the ignorant explain nature using bias?
Should we have a lottery and draw numbers to explaining nature?
So now you want to play around with epistemology, or more specifically, alethiology. Good luck.I didn't say we had a better method. But seeing as all science essentially occurs via the medium of our own perceptions (all we experience is our own nervous system, as some individual said) we have no way of externally verifying the absolute truth or not of its discoveries.
Um... yes? Maybe you're just really young or uneducated, but classical English at least, actually follows rules.
If a baby is never introduced to a belief in gods, they will never have a belief in gods. The same goes for unicorns, leprechauns and honest politicians. They never encounter any of these things in real life. If they are not told a bout them, they will never form an attachment to the concept.
Nobody was publically professing the importance of atheism.
Actually, it's mostly religion in that case because there is no part of radical Muslim life that isn't dictated by their religion.
I'm not saying it can't. You're saying it is. It's up to you to prove it. Get to work.
So why are there religions and gods in most societies?
The 'religion as virus' hypothesis is not a fact, and there is plenty of peer reviewed scientific literature that would disagree with what you are saying. I'm unaware of any peer reviewed scientific literature regarding belief in unicorns though.
Why should I accept that a baby that is never introduced to the concept of god would never have a belief in god though? Just because you say it is so? As someone who values the sciences, you surely don't advocate personal bluster over reasoned enquiry. Do you have actual, objective evidence, to support your baseless claim? Can I expect a thorough refutation of the body of peer reviewed research that disagrees with you?
Where would they get that belief in a god? Go ahead, explain it to us. That's like saying that a child who never had any exposure to language would just magically start speaking English one day.
But seeing as all science essentially occurs via the medium of our own perceptions (all we experience is our own nervous system, as some individual said) we have no way of externally verifying the absolute truth or not of its discoveries.
They have at least a reasonable probability of creating some form of God though, at least this is what a lot of evidence seems to suggest. Is it rational to dismiss this out of hand?
You're welcome to find a quote where I make any arguments about atheism. Go ahead. Atheism is a non-argument, it makes no claims, has no doctrines, has no goals, it is simply the rejection of irrational claims made by theists. If you can find anywhere that I've ever said otherwise, go ahead and post it.
Um... yes? Maybe you're just really young or uneducated, but classical English at least, actually follows rules.
"Worldview" has become seriously misused, a way to promote unjustified and unjustifiable beliefs and grant them some legitimacy. There are no worldviews. There is a correct, rational and credible way of looking at the world and there are a lot of wrong ways.
Dealing with reality as it actually is, not as you wish it was, is not a worldview.
Because those are the things for which we have any actual, objective evidence. And yes, atheism is the default position because, unless someone changes their minds somewhere down the road, that is what everyone will remain from birth. That's the definition of the word. If a baby is never introduced to a belief in gods, they will never have a belief in gods. The same goes for unicorns, leprechauns and honest politicians. They never encounter any of these things in real life. If they are not told a bout them, they will never form an attachment to the concept.
Natural is something that comes from nature. Find me a god in nature and you can have belief in it be natural. Logic. Try it.
There's a lot of theists who make a big deal out of such a claimed predisposition, but there really isn't one. We've been equipped by evolution with the desire to seek the answer to questions, even if we have no actual answers, it is a survival trait that was useful at one time but probably isn't as important today. It's part of the pattern recognition system that results in pareidolia, that thing that causes us to see figures in clouds and Jesus on toast, things that aren't really there but we inherently look for patterns where there may actually be none. Primitive people didn't understand the world around them, but their brains made them look for solutions and as such, they invented gods and monsters to explain the things they couldn't understand. Today, we no longer really need that, science has explained, at least in the broad strokes, much of the natural world and we have no evidence whatsoever to think there is anything beyond it. However, emotional comfort often overrides common sense and that's the only reason that religion still exists today. Luckily, at least in the western world, religion is quickly going the way of the dodo.
Nope. Assuming that you're still talking about communism, it had nothing to do with atheism and everything to do with strengthening communism. A central tenet of communism is strict adherence to the state, anything that gets in the way of that, anything that can split the loyalty of the people, is banned. That wasn't just religion though, although that's all that most religious people remember.
Nobody was publically professing the importance of atheism. Nobody was being forced to go to atheist meetings and being forced to read atheist books (no, few existed at the time, but you know what I mean). Atheism is the default position. When you remove religion, everyone is an atheist by default. It's like removing stamp collecting, everyone becomes a non-stamp collector. That doesn't mean you suddenly start advocating non-stamp collecting, it means you just don't do it. The absence of religion is atheism by default. It is not an attack on religion, any more than a-leprechaunism, the lack of belief in leprechauns, is an attack on the belief in leprechauns.
No, but you're the one claiming it is so, it rests solely on your shoulders to prove your case.
Actually, it's mostly religion in that case because there is no part of radical Muslim life that isn't dictated by their religion. The same was true of some factions of Christianity in the past, where everything revolved around their religious beliefs. They had no secular laws. They had no secular society. In the west, we have that today and most Christians keep their Christianity compartmentalized, they follow the secular laws, they take part in secular society and they really only exercise their religious beliefs on Sunday morning. In fact, I'd wager most modern American Christians don't really believe the things they profess, they only engage in Christianity as a social exercise. They pretend to believe things because that's what's expected to be part of their social club on Sunday morning. That's one reason why religion is failing so badly and so quickly, because most religious people are not deeply invested in their beliefs.
I'm not saying it can't. You're saying it is. It's up to you to prove it. Get to work.
Nobody is dismissing anything out of hand, I'm asking for evidence. Show me where this has actually happened in, say, the past decade, where someone who has never been exposed to any religion makes up their own, entirely original one.
Ooh, ooh. I found one. A little easy to be honest. (Sort of like finding waldo on the cover).