Thank you atheists...

[stvdv]

19 jun 2018 stvdv 011 94

Hearts pump blood, nothing more. Why do you persist in ancient errors?

What is that to you? I am not the one seeing "errors"!

 

[Unveiled Artist]

You would be correct in assuming that atheists hold no superstitious beliefs.

Yes we do. We just dont believe in deities. Tao, Buddha nature, and Dharma arent superstitious beliefs. How did you connect the two (by agreement)?

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Atheist dont believe in deities, but a lot of us believe in gods. juggle that ten times fast in your heads.

 

[stvdv]

19 jun 2018 stvdv 011 95

Atheist dont believe in deities, but a lot of us believe in gods. juggle that ten times fast in your heads.

OMG, do I read this correct? I get more and more confused. 1 god is a lot to handle for me, but "gods" must be terribly confusing
Atheists believe in gods? I only believe in 1 god, so an atheist is a "bigger believer than I am?". Now I understand why I get along so well with atheists

 

[Unveiled Artist]

19 jun 2018 stvdv 011 95


OMG, do I read this correct? I get more and more confused. 1 god is a lot to handle for me, but "gods" must be terribly confusing
Atheists believe in gods? I only believe in 1 god, so an atheist is a "bigger believer than I am?". Now I understand why I get along so well with atheists

Told you to juggle it, ha.

Atheist dont believe in deities (supernatural beings)

Some of us do believe in gods (Non-abrahamic type, even some Pagan gods arent deities. Few on RF dont define gods that way, for sure) Also, not every abrahamic sees God as a deity. But thats another story, and shall be told another time.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

19 jun 2018 stvdv 011 95


OMG, do I read this correct? I get more and more confused. 1 god is a lot to handle for me, but "gods" must be terribly confusing
Atheists believe in gods? I only believe in 1 god, so an atheist is a "bigger believer than I am?". Now I understand why I get along so well with atheists

The difference is, I can believe the pantheist god but their god is not a deity.

 

[`mud]

Superstitious beliefs in `gods` and appropriate idols are indications of fears of those entities being real.
Atheists find those ridiculous beliefs laughable.

 

[ecco]

You would be correct in assuming that atheists hold no superstitious beliefs.

Yes we do. We just dont believe in deities. Tao, Buddha nature, and Dharma arent superstitious beliefs. How did you cinnect the two (by agreement)?

You claim to be an atheist
You claim Dharma is not a superstitious belief
Yet you say you do hold superstitious beliefs

Do you mean like being leery of black cats?

 

[ecco]

Atheist dont believe in deities, but a lot of us believe in gods. juggle that ten times fast in your heads.

Do you? If so, please enlighten me.

 

[ecco]

Superstitious beliefs in `gods` and appropriate idols are indications of fears of those entities being real.
Atheists find those ridiculous beliefs laughable.

 

[sealchan]

No significant family upbringing..

One never knows what seemingly insignificant,,
forgotten event or words can have a lifelong impact.

But of course, I will agree that you'd be one of a rare
few who were actual atheists and then went over to the dark side.

The biggest impact I can think of from my parents is when my mother read to my brother and I Tolkien's The Hobbit. Then I tried, as a teenager to read The Lord of the Rings until I finally completed it. I was hooked on myth after that.

When I went to college I went to a University with Catholic affiliations. They required three courses in religion...that was how I was introduced to Christianity in any serious way. My teacher referred me to Kazantzakis' The Last Temptation of Christ which I read with great appreciation. I was happy when the movie came out soon thereafter. I went to the theater, passed the picket lines, three times!

While in college I studied for a Math and Physics degree based in no small part by my inspiration from having watched the Cosmos series by Carl Sagan on PBS when it originally aired (which, to my parents' credit they promoted to me who would otherwise have been oblivious as to that series' existence). Not too many years ago I re-read the book of the series.

I also think that my study of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell were instrumental as was Bill Moyer's series on Campbell and later Genesis.

I entered my faith as a Christian with my eyes wide open as to its psychological and mythological roots. I read Douglas Hofstadter, Daniel Dennett, Steven Hawking and I study the NIV on Bible Hub via online forum posts.

When I read Genesis I see the dream, psychological, literary, mythic influences and I also see a great work of spiritual literature. When I do dream interpretations I see the basis of myth and the common spiritual motifs that the human brain structures underneath the vicissitudes of our daily and lifetime experiences.

 

[sealchan]

I know a lot of atheists that really like the non-supernatural teachings of Buddhism. I respect the ideas, but I'm not that spiritual/introspective, so don't claim to be Buddhist myself. But I do like many of it's aspects.

I know a lot of atheists probably like superheroes...and science fiction involving spiritual "forces" (huh I wonder what that might refer to).

 

[sealchan]

Hearts pump blood, nothing more. Why do you persist in ancient errors?

there is a growing recognition that there are two neural systems in the brain that process rational truth in differing ways.

Carl Jung's Psychological Typology
The Myers & Briggs Foundation - MBTI® Basics

Antonio Damasio's wedding of emotion as essential to reason
https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-What-Happens-Emotion-Consciousness/dp/0156010755

The core idea is that without emotions you cannot evaluate the relevance or importance of what you are thinking about. So emotion is an essential dimension of rationality.

There are also, IMO, two modes of personality formation: separative and collaborative. Think stereotypically masculine and feminine. One mode is the isolate the self and attempt to gather all power and control to the center. Rules and competition decide outcome, even moral truth (think Arthurian jousting and playground fights). The other mode seeks to maintain relationship of self to other and seeks to distribute all power evenly and not pull it in centrally. Think "Women's Ways of Knowing" (Women's Ways of Knowing - Wikipedia).

What you get with this is that the human personality develops in a biased way on the architecture of the hemispherical human brain and individuals and collectives exhibit preferential biases towards thinking vs feeling based truth or separative vs collaborative styles of truth. Think of the conservative strong father morality versus the liberal nurturing mother approach to morality and government.

 

[Jumi]

You would be correct in assuming that atheists hold no superstitious beliefs.

So your definition of atheism isn't lack of belief in gods, but also has quite a bit more to it. When I was atheist, I always used that term only to refer to gods. The scientific worldviews I still hold are separate from the topic theism or atheism. What do you consider people who hold non-scientific metaphysical beliefs but who don't believe in gods? Because there are many of those.

 

[sealchan]

While I appreciate the critical thinking that atheists often bring to the table amid some of the more fanciful and even dangerous ideas that come from people of rigid faith, I also aim to raise the issue to atheists that rigid reality is also not the whole truth. Imagination is also an expression of the truth of human experience. That imagination may come unbidden to people who then experience some supernatural truth that is not "their own". The human brain recoils from pure experiential-thinking-rationality by inducing imaginal-moral experiences to compensate.

We must acknowledge that reality, for us humans, is not enough. We must feed on a big diet of moral-fantasy play in order to cope in this world. As long as we value that subjective saving fantasy and don't mistake it for objective literal reality, we keep a healthy balance.

So for each atheist how much does science fiction or fantasy movies, stories, or games play a role in your life, your freely chosen time?

 

[Unveiled Artist]

You claim to be an atheist
You claim Dharma is not a superstitious belief
Yet you say you do hold superstitious beliefs

Do you mean like being leery of black cats?

Haha

Atheist: believes no deities exist

Dharma: Teachings of liberation of the mind from suffering, its cause, by way of solution,a and implementing of that solution. The purpose is so that we can actually die. No life after death. No oneness with god. Accesstoinsight.org (or suttacentral) has good stuff on this.

I never said I hold superstitious beliefs. That's on you. You have to ask me first before making assumptions like that.

 

[Audie]

How much effect does family upbringing really have? I know that psychological research that Steve Pinker often cites show that parents have very little influence on the adult characters and behaviors of their children. Its roughly 1/3 rd genes, 1/3 rd peer group and 1/3 rd unknown. I am certain that birth does determine what religion a religiously inclined person is likely to choose, but not sure if parenting has any effect on them being religious/non-religious/spiritual/skeptical in orientation or not.

Well, you know, psychological research...

There is the old saying to the effect that despite
your best efforts, sooner or later you become your
parents.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

I know a lot of atheists probably like superheroes...and science fiction involving spiritual "forces" (huh I wonder what that might refer to).

Oh, I love me stories about Magic, and Supernatural Horror, and Vampires -- all of that.

Most are pretty simple, really, with the Bad Guys being All Bad, and the Good Guys being good--mostly.

Makes for what the Greeks called Catharsis. Good for your mental health, or so I've read.

My only requirement for these Fairy Tales? Internal constancy: does the Magic System work consistently? Are there no glaringly obvious plot holes left dangling? Is there sufficient motivation for the bad guys as well as the good guys? These are the makings of a Good Story.

Alas, when I apply those same rules to the bible? It suffers greatly--- its not consistent at all, there are glaring plot-holes, and the bad guys? Suffer from a total lack of motivation. In fact, the entire story appears quite arbitrary to me. The "good" guys seem capricious and downright mean at times.

No, I'll stick to Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, and Buffy The Vampire Slayer please.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Do you? If so, please enlighten me.

Pantheist believes in god but they don't believe in deities.

God of Abraham is a deity. Since people worship him, that makes him a god.

It came to mind couple days ago. I knew ya'll would be trigger happy over it.

 

[Audie]

While I appreciate the critical thinking that atheists often bring to the table amid some of the more fanciful and even dangerous ideas that come from people of rigid faith, I also aim to raise the issue to atheists that rigid reality is also not the whole truth. Imagination is also an expression of the truth of human experience. That imagination may come unbidden to people who then experience some supernatural truth that is not "their own". The human brain recoils from pure experiential-thinking-rationality by inducing imaginal-moral experiences to compensate.

We must acknowledge that reality, for us humans, is not enough. We must feed on a big diet of moral-fantasy play in order to cope in this world. As long as we value that subjective saving fantasy and don't mistake it for objective literal reality, we keep a healthy balance.

So for each atheist how much does science fiction or fantasy movies, stories, or games play a role in your life, your freely chosen time?

Approx zero.

rigid reality is also not the whole truth.

No need to point that out.


who then experience some supernatural truth that is not "their own".

That is a topic for further discussion, other than for me
to point out that when you get one of those "Answers", you just keep stewing and pretty soon you will get the
opposite answer. Seemingly from outside yourself.