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The new Athiest Humanities downfall?

Is the new Athiest Humanities downfall?

  • Yes it is!

    Votes: 4 11.4%
  • No it isn't!

    Votes: 18 51.4%
  • Yes but I will explain more.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No but I will explain more.

    Votes: 6 17.1%
  • I offer a different view.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • The subject is more complex.

    Votes: 7 20.0%

  • Total voters
    35

TransmutingSoul

One Planet, One People, Please!
Premium Member
I have no idea what you mean when you speak of God, so how can I possibly share in such a belief? I don't know what makes me an atheist most of the time because God means different things to different people. You can call me a liar if that's what you have to do to hold firm to your beliefs, no skin off my teeth.

So does that mean, that instead of trying to understand what God is, in the capacity of our human mind, you would offer it is best to reject the concept, not even consider it?

Even more relevant is that you refute a concept, that you have said you have no idea what it is you are refuting?

RegardsTony
 

F1fan

Veteran Member
It wasn't actually about atheism, but about how we process verbal information.

Do we:

a) remain neutral on information until we choose to believe, disbelieve or something else (are we unaffected by exposure to information until we allow it to affect us)
or
b) does comprehension necessitate acceptance of that information as true unless we reclassify it intuitively or consciously as something other than true (does exposure to information we comprehend always impact us to some degree)

b) seems much better supported by the evidence.
The human brain does learn to find shortcuts to thinking and conclusions as it develops. This can be a sloppy, learned behavior unless a person is aware of it happening, and if there are negative consequences for it. But "negative" is also relative, as trump supporters can be sloppy in their support for trump and see it as a positive effect, and that effect being a very strong tribe. The strength and cohesion of this tribe relies on sloppy thinking.

Those former trump supporters testify to their moral/ethical sense rising to the occasion, and they have to reject the superficial benefits of trump tribalism to the larger consequences.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
So does that mean, that instead of trying to understand what God is, in the capacity of our human mind, you would offer it is best to reject the concept, not even consider it?

Even more relevant is that you refute a concept, that you have said you have no idea what it is you are refuting?

RegardsTony

Dear TransmutingSoul. You can't convince those kinds of atheists. Their secular faith is as strong as your religious one is.
As a friendly atheist I can learn from religious people but not about God as such. I have a different faith that is as strong as yours.
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
That hardly matters. Especially as validity depends almost entirely on functionality, NOT physicality.
It seems that your metaphysics makes it impossible for anyone to act under that influence of a delusion -- because delusions, being beliefs, automagically become real. If a woman kills a child because she believed shw was commanded to by a demon, then it is the demon that must be brought to trial, not her.

To me, I'm afraid your metaphysics is entirely fanciful. I could not live in your world, because I know when I am perceiving and when I am imagining, and can discern the difference.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
The human brain does learn to find shortcuts to thinking and conclusions as it develops. This can be a sloppy, learned behavior unless a person is aware of it happening, and if there are negative consequences for it. But "negative" is also relative, as trump supporters can be sloppy in their support for trump and see it as a positive effect, and that effect being a very strong tribe. The strength and cohesion of this tribe relies on sloppy thinking.

Those former trump supporters testify to their moral/ethical sense rising to the occasion, and they have to reject the superficial benefits of trump tribalism to the larger consequences.

Yean, I have it the same way with some actual aspects of New Atheism and I can find quote for you if I have to. I know where to find them.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
It seems that your metaphysics makes it impossible for anyone to act under that influence of a delusion -- because delusions, being beliefs, automagically become real. If a woman kills a child because she believed shw was commanded to by a demon, then it is the demon that must be brought to trial, not her.

To me, I'm afraid your metaphysics is entirely fanciful. I could not live in your world, because I know when I am perceiving and when I am imagining, and can discern the difference.

Yeah, I apologize if it is your opinion. But if it is not how do you know that religion is a bad diet.
 

TransmutingSoul

One Planet, One People, Please!
Premium Member
Dear TransmutingSoul. You can't convince those kinds of atheists. Their secular faith is as strong as your religious one is.
As a friendly atheist I can learn from religious people but not about God as such. I have a different faith that is as strong as yours.

I see we all have the capacity of oneness. It is our own choices of mind that separate.

Science will reach to the stars when we find that oneness, humanity will unite when the oneness is embraced.

Regards Tony
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
I should read about how problematic "existence" is from a source that must EXIST for me to be reading it?

It's like walking down the UP escalator.

Yeah, you are taking for granted that just because we have a word it is actually one to one about the world. You do know the problem with that, right?
 

lukethethird

unknown member
So does that mean, that instead of trying to understand what God is, in the capacity of our human mind, you would offer it is best to reject the concept, not even consider it?

Even more relevant is that you refute a concept, that you have said you have no idea what it is you are refuting?

RegardsTony
How can I formulate a belief based on invisible and supernatural?
 

F1fan

Veteran Member
All beliefs are real, otherwise you couldn't talk about them and observe their effect. You do it all the time. You observe that people have beliefs that doesn't match yours and then you react to them. That is all real.
There are different types of beliefs, such as belief in a policy versus belief in ghosts.

Belief are real as cognitive processes. Beliefs are not always real in what they represent. Ghosts might exist, but we aren't sure, so we can't assert they are real.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
There are different types of beliefs, such as belief in a policy versus belief in ghosts.

Belief are real as cognitive processes. Beliefs are not always real in what they represent. Ghosts might exist, but we aren't sure, so we can't assert they are real.

I agree. The same applies to existence as to ghosts, if you cared to check. Just because we are atheists doesn't mean that we have words that aren't in effect a belief in the same sense as a ghost. We are not special unique snowflakes outside nature and nurture.
All cultural worldviews apparently has such words and those are not limited to "woo-woo" and religion in Western culture.
Some of them comes to us through philosophy. And existence is such a word.
 

F1fan

Veteran Member
What you keep failing to understand is that the phenomena you just described is real and extant.
You are hopelessly stuck on the idea that imagination isn't "real" because what is being imagined isn't physical. But imagination is real, and so are the images and ideas that our imaginations generate. Because physicality does not define the limits of reality.
Yes, illusion and delusion is real.

And until you allow this realization into your mind, you are doomed to remain ignorant about the whole phenomenon of theism. Because theism is primarily a metaphysical phenomenon.
So you seem aware that your religious beliefs are illusory, but also think they are real beyond the illusion. It's this latter issue that has no basis in fact or reason. You consistently evade this. Atheists have no interest in being absorbed in the illusion of religion. Atheists acknowledge the lack of evidence for religious belief.
 

F1fan

Veteran Member
I agree. The same applies to existence as to ghosts, if you cared to check.
Do you think this sentence of yours exists? Should I treat your sentence as if it exists (ignore that I'm responding to it)?

Just because we are atheists doesn't mean that we have words that aren't in effect a belief in the same sense as a ghost. We are not special unique snowflakes outside nature and nurture.
All cultural worldviews apparently has such words and those are not limited to "woo-woo" and religion in Western culture.
Some of them comes to us through philosophy. And existence is such a word.
I understand you prefer murkiness to clarity.
 

F1fan

Veteran Member

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
In the same sense that anyone who has a hobby they are highly invested in is called their religion. It is a definition that is outside of actual, classic ideas of religion.

Yeah, and all ideas from the past are correct. We both know that. Culture and its ideas are frozen in stone, right?
So you are an old time traditionalist and will refer to the past, when doing something. ;) :D
 

F1fan

Veteran Member
That is not a true premise, that is an assumption. That is why we have methodological naturalism and not philosophical naturalism.
Evidence is a cognitive schemata based on the assumption that objective reality is natural, but that is not a true premise.

You properly don't like that your assumptions are not true premises, but that is your problem.
I wasn't referring to any sort of understanding of nature, but the facts of how what we experience and function happens to be. Take your mind and interpretation out of it.

If you get cancer, that isn't dictated by any understanding, or philosophy, or illusion, it happens to be something real as you experience life as a natural being.
 

F1fan

Veteran Member
So does that mean, that instead of trying to understand what God is, in the capacity of our human mind, you would offer it is best to reject the concept, not even consider it?
How does an objective human mind understand a God? Note that this mind relies on facts about the God, not lore, not learned beliefs, not revelations or prophesy from others.

Can you honestly site any facts about an actual God?
 

F1fan

Veteran Member
Yeah, and all ideas from the past are correct. We both know that.
Like National Socialism?

I'll disagree with you on that one.

Culture and its ideas are frozen in stone, right?
So you are an old time traditionalist and will refer to the past, when doing something. ;) :D
History has its own record we refer to. You do this when you cite your references. We all build on the past as we progress our thinking and understanding of how things are.
 
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