Should some atheists take the time to study religion/rituals/magic ect.?

[Valjean]

You stole my post, Leibowde.

The thread title's presumptions are false. Atheists know more about religion than the religious. Most religious people, in fact, are abysmally ignorant even of their own religions.

 

[Theweirdtophat]

If you see the word "straw man" come up in response to your comments a lot, I would go back and try to rework your arguments. It is often something that you seem to employ. You make claims without providing any supporting evidence. And, often, your claims are untrue and offensive to atheists.

I have never been an atheist, but I can certainly see where they are coming from with threads like this. Atheists, generally, seem to know a lot more about religions (both historically and theologically) than the theists who follow them. That is a startling and sad truth.

Studying the history of it doesn't mean you KNOW the religion. As in, actually taking part of it, not just reading a few passages of a book.

I can provide all the evidence in the world and you'll never accept it. All you'll say it "You're making it up" or "That source is untrustworthy." Is this a thing in today's society? Where people want evidence, yet refuse it as soon as it's presented to them? I can't begin to tell you how many times that's happened. Some won't accept it even if it's undeniable proof, because they don't WANT to accept it. So why bother giving evidence when you're just going to reject it anyway? For those who disbelieve, it is best to find out yourself, as that will most likely be the only way you'll really understand.

 

[leibowde84]

Studying the history of it doesn't mean you KNOW the religion. As in, actually taking part of it, not just reading a few passages of a book.

I can provide all the evidence in the world and you'll never accept it. All you'll say it "You're making it up" or "That source is untrustworthy." Is this a thing in today's society? Where people want evidence, yet refuse it as soon as it's presented to them? I can't begin to tell you how many times that's happened. Some won't accept it even if it's undeniable proof, because they don't WANT to accept it. So why bother giving evidence when you're just going to reject it anyway? For those who disbelieve, it is best to find out yourself, as that will most likely be the only way you'll really understand.

Yet another straw man.

 

[Theweirdtophat]

Yet another straw man.

It happens way too often on forums. People will want evidence and shoot it down. Very rarely does it ever even remotely convince anyone so I don't know why you or others bother asking for it when you'll just turn it away anyway.

Please think of another word. People say straw man all the time here. It's like saying "That's racist!" even though something isn't and so many people say that something is yet don't even know the meaning of the word.

 

[leibowde84]

It happens way too often on forums. People will want evidence and shoot it down. Very rarely does it ever even remotely convince anyone so I don't know why you or others bother asking for it when you'll just turn it away anyway.

Please think of another word. People say straw man all the time here. It's like saying "That's racist!" even though something isn't and so many people say that something is yet don't even know the meaning of the word.

You are assuming that I will not accept valid evidence, which is not true. When it comes to beliefs, you might have a point. But, when you make generalizations about atheists that are offensive, you'd better be sure to back them up with a reasoned argument, not just unofficial innuendo and false assumptions.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Studying the history of it doesn't mean you KNOW the religion. As in, actually taking part of it, not just reading a few passages of a book.

Am I allowed to say that heroin is bad without ever having shot up myself?

I can provide all the evidence in the world and you'll never accept it. All you'll say it "You're making it up" or "That source is untrustworthy." Is this a thing in today's society? Where people want evidence, yet refuse it as soon as it's presented to them?

No, it's not. It's only a thing with *crappy* evidence.

 

[Quintessence]

Another thing I'd like to point out here is that when it comes to practicing mysticism, @Theweirdtophat has a very valid point that armchair study and direct, personal experience are much different things. Knowledge is sometimes characterized as having different types, with bare fact-based knowledge representing one form, and direct/experiential being another, procedural knowledge being yet another. None of these types is a substitute for the others, and notions of "proof" operate differently across different types of knowledge. When it comes to practices like spellcraft, they really cannot be distilled down to fact-based knowledge because the core of them is experiential. It wasn't too long ago I was attempting to explain energy work to an outsider, and it just didn't work. It translates poorly with words, but it's something that many, many people experience and know.

Just trying to find some wheat amongst the chaff of this thread. Don't mind me.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Another thing I'd like to point out here is that when it comes to practicing mysticism, @Theweirdtophat has a very valid point that armchair study and direct, personal experience are much different things. Knowledge is sometimes characterized as having different types, with bare fact-based knowledge representing one form, and direct/experiential being another, procedural knowledge being yet another. None of these types is a substitute for the others, and notions of "proof" operate differently across different types of knowledge. When it comes to practices like spellcraft, they really cannot be distilled down to fact-based knowledge because the core of them is experiential.

I'm not sure that's really true.

I've heard plenty of people make fact-based claims based on experience ("I felt the presence of God" and the like), and when others try to dismiss the non-experiential parts of the claim ("I believe you experienced something, but I see no reason to assume it was God"), they get very upset.

Armchair study and direct participation are different things, but often the study is a better indicator of the truth than the experience: it's the difference between an engineer's calculations saying "this building is structurally unsound" vs. a resident's experience ("this building is my home - it's where I feel safest.")

 

[leibowde84]

Another thing I'd like to point out here is that when it comes to practicing mysticism, @Theweirdtophat has a very valid point that armchair study and direct, personal experience are much different things. Knowledge is sometimes characterized as having different types, with bare fact-based knowledge representing one form, and direct/experiential being another, procedural knowledge being yet another. None of these types is a substitute for the others, and notions of "proof" operate differently across different types of knowledge. When it comes to practices like spellcraft, they really cannot be distilled down to fact-based knowledge because the core of them is experiential. It wasn't too long ago I was attempting to explain energy work to an outsider, and it just didn't work. It translates poorly with words, but it's something that many, many people experience and know.

Just trying to find some wheat amongst the chaff of this thread. Don't mind me.

Valid point, but I think you are giving too much credit. "Evidence" and "substantiation" need not be objective, per se. I think that every belief and claim require some kind of reasoning to back it up. Short of that, it is nothing but blind faith, which is a very dangerous thing. I think that asking for the reasoning behind any claim or belief is not only reasonable, but necessary and admirable.

 

[LuisDantas]

I don't know why one would doubt the life force within us. Even non-theistic religions like Buddhism and Jainism recognize that. It's like saying you don't have cells in your body. Something animates the body, much like electricity powering a robot up. Energy is energy.

I might as well ask why you ignore the findings of psychology and anthropology about religion.

Studying the history of it doesn't mean you KNOW the religion. As in, actually taking part of it, not just reading a few passages of a book.

You know that, yet you can't accept that not everyone will reach the same conclusions?

That is odd.

I can provide all the evidence in the world and you'll never accept it. All you'll say it "You're making it up" or "That source is untrustworthy." Is this a thing in today's society? Where people want evidence, yet refuse it as soon as it's presented to them? I can't begin to tell you how many times that's happened. Some won't accept it even if it's undeniable proof, because they don't WANT to accept it. So why bother giving evidence when you're just going to reject it anyway? For those who disbelieve, it is best to find out yourself, as that will most likely be the only way you'll really understand.

By this point I don't think you understand religion either. You are attempting to make it fit in the place that is proper to science.

I'm not sure that's really true.

I've heard plenty of people make fact-based claims based on experience ("I felt the presence of God" and the like), and when others try to dismiss the non-experiential parts of the claim ("I believe you experienced something, but I see no reason to assume it was God"), they get very upset.

Armchair study and direct participation are different things, but often the study is a better indicator of the truth than the experience: it's the difference between an engineer's calculations saying "this building is structurally unsound" vs. a resident's experience ("this building is my home - it's where I feel safest.")

To be fair, much of religion's subject matter is so personal in nature that this is not necessarily a flaw.

 

[Quintessence]

Armchair study and direct participation are different things, but often the study is a better indicator of the truth than the experience: it's the difference between an engineer's calculations saying "this building is structurally unsound" vs. a resident's experience ("this building is my home - it's where I feel safest.")

With respect to the human experience, the objective truth (which seems to be your use of "truth" here) is largely irrelevant with respect to our behavior and the living of life in general. The practices of magic are not and have never been about getting at "objective truth." They are more about play, more about art, more about emotion and ecstasy. It is why they cannot be understood properly from an armchair perspective. To use an analogy, we cannot understand what having sex is like without actually doing it either... for much the same reasons.

 

[Quintessence]

Valid point, but I think you are giving too much credit. "Evidence" and "substantiation" need not be objective, per se. I think that every belief and claim require some kind of reasoning to back it up. Short of that, it is nothing but blind faith, which is a very dangerous thing. I think that asking for the reasoning behind any claim or belief is not only reasonable, but necessary and admirable.

True, but when evidence and substantiation is asked for, nine times out of ten empirical/objective evidence is what is being demanded, and everything else is dismissed as inadequate or rubbish.

 

[leibowde84]

True, but when evidence and substantiation is asked for, nine times out of ten empirical/objective evidence is what is being demanded, and everything else is dismissed as inadequate or rubbish.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree on that one. That has not been my experience. Usually, I find that, when asking for these things in relation to beliefs, reasoning is actually what is being demanded.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

With respect to the human experience, the objective truth (which seems to be your use of "truth" here) is largely irrelevant with respect to our behavior and the living of life in general. The practices of magic are not and have never been about getting at "objective truth." They are more about play, more about art, more about emotion and ecstasy.

I think this is modernist revisionism, and was not generally held until magic was found not to work as claimed.

It is why they cannot be understood properly from an armchair perspective. To use an analogy, we cannot understand what having sex is like without actually doing it either... for much the same reasons.

Or to use my analogy from earlier, we can't understand what shooting heroin is like without doing it.

... but it's quite possible to take an informed position that shooting heroin is a bad idea without ever shooting up yourself.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

True, but when evidence and substantiation is asked for, nine times out of ten empirical/objective evidence is what is being demanded, and everything else is dismissed as inadequate or rubbish.

When someone makes an empirical claim, empirical evidence is appropriate.

... and the OP sure reads to me like it's talking about empirical claims.

 

[Koldo]

With respect to the human experience, the objective truth (which seems to be your use of "truth" here) is largely irrelevant with respect to our behavior and the living of life in general. The practices of magic are not and have never been about getting at "objective truth." They are more about play, more about art, more about emotion and ecstasy. It is why they cannot be understood properly from an armchair perspective. To use an analogy, we cannot understand what having sex is like without actually doing it either... for much the same reasons.

I think this is modernist revisionism, and was not generally held until magic was found not to work as claimed.


Or to use my analogy from earlier, we can't understand what shooting heroin is like without doing it.

... but it's quite possible to take an informed position that shooting heroin is a bad idea without ever shooting up yourself.

Now I got curious. If it isn't like Penguin says, how come the word 'magic' became associated with the ability to influence state of affairs beyond regular actions ? When did this happen and how did it become so widespread ?

 

[Desert Snake]

Lots of atheists will demand proof, yet they don't even bother to attempt to do what other religious people do, like participating in rituals or ceremonies to see if such religions or magic is true. They just say "Nope nuh uh, it's all fake, because my text book says so and if it's not right in front of my face this very instant, it doesn't exist." It just sounds arrogant, close-minded and depressing to me, to not believe in anything. It's especially rude quite a few consider such beings as imaginary and look up to scientists of the past, when very few of them realize that such scientists were religious whether they were monotheistic, polytheistic, animistic or something else. The scientists like George Washington Carver, Newton and Vinci all had religious backgrounds and practiced magic and mysticism. Why would scientists of today dismiss such things as imaginary yet the scientists they try to emulate have practiced the things they criticize about.

Has it ever occurred to some atheists that maybe there is some truth to it? That there is a life force animating us? Has it ever occurred to them that may such souls are present in all things, or that magic is real. Or with people having near death experiences, seeing bright lights, seeing their families and seeing their body as they move up before they go back into their body. But I guess every single one just made up such experiences for no reason, right? Don't you think an atheist would scratch their head and say hmmm

"Hmmm. Maybe there is some truth to this. Maybe there's a reason why people have spent such time and effort practicing magic or spirituality. Maybe there's a reason scientists practiced such things. Maybe meditations and rituals and words and other things have power. Maybe I should look into it and find out for myself"

What can't be proved can at least be experienced. They want proof but they should know that some things can't be proven. It doesn't make it fantasy because you can't prove it. Maybe if an atheist at least attempted to do what religious people have done it'd make more sense.

I know this because I was atheist. I didn't believe such things either until I looked into it myself and thought "Maybe I shouldn't just dismiss it as if it was all fantasy just because the evidence isn't right in front of me." I felt foolish for dismissing such things when I really had no reason to. I found out myself and knew magic and souls was real. If atheists don't want to take the time to find out themselves, that's their loss, and I feel sorry for them.

I think that you answered your own question?
That being said, no, if atheists want 'proof', then that is that. I wouldn't ''recommend'', anything they do.

 

[Desert Snake]

I guess we will have to agree to disagree on that one. That has not been my experience. Usually, I find that, when asking for these things in relation to beliefs, reasoning is actually what is being demanded.

That isn't the case, to my experience.

 

[The Neo Nerd]

Tell you what.

You tell me what religious practise i should undertake, in what way and what independently verifiable results i will get. Then we can have a talk.

There will be lots of questions, so come prepared.

 

[Quintessence]

I think this is modernist revisionism, and was not generally held until magic was found not to work as claimed.

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No, I've done quite a lot of reading in the academic literature on the anthropological perspectives of magic. At no point has the practice of magic been considered about obtaining or prescribing "objective truth." It has always primarily been about satisfying the human desire to have control (or a sense of control) over one's lot in life. From there, some anthropologists have approached it from a sociological perspective (i.e., O'Keefe's "Stolen Lightning: A Social Theory of Magic"), while others have looked more at the functions it serves for individuals (i.e., Greenwood's various works on the subject).

[/COLOR][/FONT]Or to use my analogy from earlier, we can't understand what shooting heroin is like without doing it.

... but it's quite possible to take an informed position that shooting heroin is a bad idea without ever shooting up yourself.

Although this may be unintentional, and I rather hope that it is, comparing practices of mysticism and magic to shooting yourself up with heroine isn't exactly endearing. Next time you want someone to respect your point, perhaps try making a comparison that isn't so easily equated with blatant slander of someone else's practices.

... and the OP sure reads to me like it's talking about empirical claims.

Yeah, but I aim to salvage... mostly because I can't stand for poor representation for students of the esoteric.