I clearly avoided that broad brush.
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three types of atheist????
- Thread starter Eddi
- Start date
Precisely. There are two main questions: that of the existence of deity, and that of the level of credence that can be demanded of an individual vis-a-vis that existence. If whatever God exists is the creator of man, then it is the author of man’s rationality and if that God is just it cannot, therefore, expect its rational creation to act irrationally. God can be, while at the same time man should not believe that God is, in perfectly justifiable congruence if the God that is has not provided rational man with the proof of its existence adequate to render man’s belief. Scripture, which is essentially mythos written down by the hands of men, does not fulfill that burden of proof.
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RestlessSoul
Well-Known Member
Yeah, scripture doesn’t prove anything. But words have power, and the written word in particular can guide us towards certain timeless truths. Pearls of wisdom can be found in the Bible, the Dhammapada, the Tao te Ching, the poetry of Rumi, Attar, Blake, Keats and Shelley, and countless others.
I agree, and think this to be the essential argument of Universalism…of the Universalist movement which grew out of Christianity and is now manifested in Unitarian Universalism.
I agree, and think this to be the essential argument of Universalism…of the Universalist movement which grew out of Christianity and is now manifested in Unitarian Universalism.
Heyo
Veteran Member
That and the fact that fundies have a black&white worldview. There is only good and evil, either you are with them or you are against them.
To be precise, I would explain it this way:
there are atheists who affirm there is no deity, but believe in man. Believing in man means to believe in man's capabilities and potentialities. So they have a moral law within them (as Kant used to say, Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. )
And there are atheists who say that the absence of God implies that man isn't any different than other animals, so he doesn't have any moral law within him. And this makes him feel entitled to commit the most atrocious and egoistic acts.
So...yes...either you are with us, or you are against us.
Whether you are an atheist, or not.
Clizby Wampuscat
Well-Known Member
An atheist is a person that does not believe a god or gods exist. So all of these people would fit into that definition.
Yazata
Active Member
Arguably.
I'm inclined to distinguish between
1. People who have never considered the question of whether 'God' exists and who have no opinion on the matter. Babies might belong here. I don't know of any word for this.
2. People who have considered the question, but who believe that knowledge of what amounts to the Secret of the Universe is beyond human knowing. This is my own position I guess, and it is agnosticism as Thomas Huxley originally defined that word.
3. People who believe that the proposition 'God exists' is False. These are atheists as I conceive of them.
And yes, I'm aware that since the 1990's or so, atheists have been trying to colonize numbers 1 and 2. But unlike them, I think that these are valuable distinctions that are still worth making.
I'm an agnostic and I don't really identify with atheism at all.
We Never Know
No Slack
How many types of Christians are there?
Heyo
Veteran Member
Do you believe in any gods? If your answer is "no", then you are an atheist by definition.
I am also but I am also an Agnostic by conviction.
(And I capitalize "Agnostic" because it is my philosophy, while my atheism is just the colloquial meaning.)
Heyo
Veteran Member
Roughly about the same as there are Christians.
There are as many types of Atheists as anyone cares to discern. The meaningful question is how significant the differences are.
Again, the core issue is that "god" is a very vaguely defined concept at best, yet plenty of people treat it as some sort of central idea and build all sorts of expectations and goals around it.
I honestly don't know whether there are any meaningful differences between those three situations that you describe. Then again, I don't know that there is any clear meaning to "god" to begin with.
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Yes, there are types of atheists, even more than are stated here. They all disagree in godliness.
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It's the whole "God or gods" bit, though, that creates its own categories. Apart from any of us.
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That's a whole philosophical argument in itself. Sadly, not one I'm versed enough with.
Suffice it to say that truth does not reside in words.
Heyo
Veteran Member
Truer words haven't been spoken.
Does truth not reside in these which follow?
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Thing is, I interpret @Willamena’s post to mean that “truth does not reside in language”, which is why I disagree. It is true that words are merely auditory symbols, indicating things which are either concrete or abstract entities. As such, words, indeed, can have no truth value in and of themselves. When words are syntactically combined to form language, however, truth values are created to a greater or lesser degree in dependence upon the language thus formed. The point is, that language is capable of relaying among the most profound of truths.