I realized that my other thread was too fixated on promoting my own brand of pantheism to the detriment of another important point. The point being whether it's enough for atheists to just disbelieve and debunk traditional religious claims without offering something more to replace them with.
If that's a question, then, Yes, it is enough.
I know that atheism is just the absence of belief in traditional deities.
Yet from what follows in your post (I have read ahead ) You expect it should be more than "
just the absence of belief in traditional deities." An
Atheism version 2.1 as it were.
By definition, it cannot actually offer anything more than that. Although there's a variety among individuals, atheists themselves usually also believe in physicalism, naturalism, pantheism, and/or other related beliefs. Personally, I find the label of "atheist" to be rather limited in expressing who a person really is to begin with.
Perhaps that's because "atheist" wasn't coined to express anything more than that.
It only says what you don't believe in within expanding on what you do believe in. I mean, technically, you don't even have to believe in naturalism to be an atheist.
Yup.
In practice, atheists tend to focus on just debunking religious claims without offering any of their own positive beliefs as an adequate replacement.
So what kind of positive beliefs would you consider an adequate replacement for religious claims? For the most part claims that would be deemed to be religious in nature seem to almost always involve the supernatural or at least unverifiable notions. Truthfully, I don't regard the beliefs of any atheist I know as coming close to most of the claims of religion.
Essentially what traditional religious folk are hearing is that their most profound and meaningful beliefs are completely baseless and absurd.
Perhaps, but certainly not to degree that non-religious folk hear how they're going to hell in a hand basket if they don't mend their ways.
They don't see any viable alternative coming out of naturalism so they're only left with a sense of spiritual nihilism. That's why they believe inaccurately that atheists believe in nothing.
Can't be all things to all people. And personally, although only a fence sitting agnostic, I can't bring myself to care how I or atheists may be perceived by the religious faithful.
Do you think they prefer that sense of nihilism over their outdated belief system? Or will they just continue to believe what they do, even if in the back of their heads they know it's baseless, because it's still preferable to any alternative they're getting from naturalism?
I would guess a fair number of doubters do; however, atheism and agnosticism aren't proselytizing positions that seek converts.
I'm suggesting that perhaps some form of naturalistic spirituality should be expressed much more often by atheists as a possible replacement for the fantasies being destroyed by science and logic.
To what end? Because I'm not familiar with naturalistic spirituality I'm not sure it's any less irrational than religious spirituality. But the name alone suggest a departure from the rationality common among atheists.
People need an optimistic belief system to give them something to hope for.
Some people do.
Atheists are debunking their primary sources of hope without offering anything to replace them with. I'm not saying it has to be scientific pantheism, or my variation of it, just something better than what they're hearing from most atheists.
Hey, they have the option of tuning out atheists if they wish and continue on as they are, or seek some other "primary sources of hope." I don't see atheists banging tambourines. Do you?
Don't atheists need to prevent that unfortunate reaction to make any sort of meaningful progress in dialogue?
I don't think atheists really care about any meaningful progress in dialog. Most of them would prefer to be left alone and in exchange are happy to do the same to the faithful. Any dialog that does arise is almost always with an understanding between both parties of each other's position.
And wouldn't it be more beneficial to society at large for atheists to promote naturalistic spirituality anyway?
I don't think so, but I'm willing to listen. How do you see such a maneuver benefiting society at large?
