Why Atheists Don’t Really Exist

[Ella S.]

How many hours, collectively, do you think all these atheists have invested in a religious forum? I do wonder myself, what proportion of atheists spend that amount of time obsessing about a God they claim not to believe in.

I'm less obsessed with God and more obsessed with dialectic. I like discussing topics that I'm knowledgeable enough to hold conversations on.

Unfortunately, too much of my mind is filled with irrelevant information about religions I don't believe in. Not just Christianity, but Satanism, Paganism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Eckenkar, Judaism, Quimbanda, Vodoun, Palo, Lukumi, Theosophy, and Thelema.

There just aren't really as many interesting threads that crop up about the other religions. Every now and then a Hindu or a Buddhist thread might pop up ascribing some new pseudoscientific benefit to meditation and try to use that as an argument for why all of the supernatural aspects of their beliefs are justified, and I've argued in those, too. I had a brief debate over paranormal investigation recently, even.

I also argue over analytical philosophy, although I've noticed even there a lot of the discussion tends to center around Platonism, theology, and divine command theory, which all include some form of God. Not all of the discussions do, though; I just had a religion-neutral post about temperance, for instance.

I'll also post in political threads, mostly just to say my piece and leave because those are all dumpster fires. Usually I'm arguing with other atheists who aren't as far left as I am.

In my actual life, very little if any of this ever comes up. I'm a freaky gothic loner obsessed with computer security. I don't talk about religion or politics in-person and, honestly, I don't really have many people to have those sorts of conversations with. I'm mostly focused on my career, fashion, and cosmetics. The only time I talk about God at all is when I come to this forum when I'm bored and have nothing better to do.

I could honestly go the rest of my life never having another discussion about God at all and it wouldn't impact my life very much.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

At

Atheism is an absence of a belief. There's no method to it, no technique, no analysis. There's nothing, no facts or evidence or body of knowledge to analyze.
In essence, atheism is based on nothing but pure reason. There's no methodology, except perhaps logic, to analyze nothing.

Well, I didn't become an atheist based on pure reason. For me it is was a feeling.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I'm less obsessed with God and more obsessed with dialectic. I like discussing topics that I'm knowledgeable enough to hold conversations on.

Unfortunately, too much of my mind is filled with irrelevant information about religions I don't believe in. Not just Christianity, but Satanism, Paganism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Eckenkar, Judaism, Quimbanda, Vodoun, Palo, Lukumi, Theosophy, and Thelema.

There just aren't really as many interesting threads that crop up about the other religions. Every now and then a Hindu or a Buddhist thread might pop up ascribing some new pseudoscientific benefit to meditation and try to use that as an argument for why all of the supernatural aspects of their beliefs are justified, and I've argued in those, too. I had a brief debate over paranormal investigation recently, even.

I also argue over analytical philosophy, although I've noticed even there a lot of the discussion tends to center around Platonism, theology, and divine command theory, which all include some form of God. Not all of the discussions do, though; I just had a religion-neutral post about temperance, for instance.

I'll also post in political threads, mostly just to say my piece and leave because those are all dumpster fires. Usually I'm arguing with other atheists who aren't as far left as I am.

In my actual life, very little if any of this ever comes up. I'm a freaky gothic loner obsessed with computer security. I don't talk about religion or politics in-person and, honestly, I don't really have many people to have those sorts of conversations with. I'm mostly focused on my career, fashion, and cosmetics. The only time I talk about God at all is when I come to this forum when I'm bored and have nothing better to do.

I could honestly go the rest of my life never having another discussion about God at all and it wouldn't impact my life very much.

That is me, just that I am a different individual.
So me most of these debates are about 3 positions.
Person 1: I am right and they are wrong.
Person 2: No, you are wrong and I am right.
Me: Maybe it is a bit more complex than that.

I am right inspired by you and other posters trying to see if I can make sense of moral realism in some sense.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

As I've said before (and more than once) I used the "correspondence" definition of "truth" ─ that truth is a quality of statements, and that a statement is true to the extent that it accurately reflects / corresponds with objective reality. Likewise a "fact" is a true statement about a real state of affairs.

This has the advantage ─ or if you're a theologian, the very annoying drawback ─ of making truth objectively testable. Is your car a grey 1956 Trabant? Let's look at your car and see. Whereas "God answers prayers" leads only to the question, "What real entity do you intend to denote when you says 'God'?" ─ and if we don't have a clear answer to that, no answer to the question itself that relates to reality is possible.

Well, I think subjectively different than you in some cases and act differently than you. You can observe that in these threads. Is that true or is it not really happening?
The difference is that I in some cases accept subjectively true and in other objectively true.

 

[blü 2]

Well, I think subjectively different than you in some cases and act differently than you. You can observe that in these threads. Is that true or is it not really happening?
The difference is that I in some cases accept subjectively true and in other objectively true.

Which brings up the question, what do you mean by 'true'? Pleasing to Mikkel?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Which brings up the question, what do you mean by 'true'? Pleasing to Mikkel?

No, that it is so, that it is so. That is the shortest version of truth or even shorter, that it is so.
It is so for the word "truth" that I wrote about that word. That is not just objective, because it is depended on that I chose to do so and is about in prat what happened as subjective in my brain.

It is subjectively true as it is so, that some people use the word "God" for how they understand the world.
It is subjectively true as it is so, that blü 2 only subjectively accepts objective truth. It is not objectively true that he only accepts objective truth.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Atheism is an absence of a belief.

Atheism is an absence of a belief (in any God or Goddess).

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Atheism is an absence of a belief (in any God or Goddess).

No, deities in general. It doesn't have to be a God. It just has to be a deity or even semi-god. Your culture is showing.

 

[Aupmanyav]

That is OK. I have no problem with my culture. Yeah, I could have used the word 'deity', but I thought of clarifying it. Semi-Gods also are Gods.
Second category Gods where my culture has placed the Indo-Aryan Gods headed by Indra. They reside in the general heaven. Vishnu and Shiva have their own special heavens.That of Lord Vishnu is very magnificent (Vaikuntha). Shiva's heaven is a cave in snowy Himalayas (Kailas).

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

That is OK. I have no problem with my culture. Yeah, I could have used the word 'deity', but I thought of clarifying it. Semi-Gods also are Gods.
Second category Gods where my culture has placed the Indo-Aryan Gods headed by Indra. They reside in the general heaven. Vishnu and Shiva have their own special heavens.That of Lord Vishnu is very magnificent (Vaikuntha). Shiva's heaven is a cave in snowy Himalayas (Kailas).

Yeah, and then there are natural religions where they are a part of nature as such.

 

[joelr]

View attachment 74641​

But for Hutson and others who are perplexed at the dogged persistence of “magical thinking,” it gets worse. Hutson cites studies that show the persistent belief in God is not merely understood as some distant Deistic First Cause but, rather, of a God who cares, a God who judges and a God who might punish. Deep in our bones we are intrinsically theistic. He writes, “Even atheists seem to fear a higher power. A study published last year found that self-identified nonbelievers began to sweat when reading aloud sentences asking God to do terrible things (‘I dare God to make my parents drown’). Not only that, they stressed out just as much as believers did.”
Why Atheists Don’t Really Exist

It seems it is hard to escape the primal feeling that there is something out there we'd rather not **** off.

Good old apologetics, never fails to use all the confirmation bias and information withholding at their disposal. You would hate to be too honest, the truth might show.

The article also says children are designed to see meaning (even if it's not there), like a house burned down to teach someone a lesson. Which means all humans read into events and see cause.
Even worse is the apologetic article never bothered to ask the question (or did they leave it out), what if people are asked to read statements that don't just say "“I dare God to make my parents drown” but statements like "“I dare Thor to make my parents drown”.
"“I dare Mithras to make my parents get cancer”, “I dare Zeus to curse my children”.

Because they would likely also produce raised heartbeats. This doesn't demonstrate an intrinsic knowledge that humans all have, it demonstrates we are irrational, have irrational fears (some people actually get stressed about stepping on cracks, related to their mother's back), some people have to sleep with the blanket facing up, or they will "die".
Wow, what a revelation, we have weird irrational neurotic tendencies. Yet somehow to an apologetics article this means it's evidence their version (Catholic) of a particular God is real.
It's what they don't say in this manipulative drivel that says far more. Or course they talk about "skeptics" like they are ISIS, how dare anyone use logic and rational discourse to form a methodology that all beliefs must filter through before we bow down to them. How dare we.

 

[blü 2]

No, that it is so, that it is so. That is the shortest version of truth or even shorter, that it is so.

What exactly do you mean by "so" here? Sounds very like "Pleasing to Mikkel" once again.

It is so for the word "truth" that I wrote about that word. That is not just objective, because it is depended on that I chose to do so and is about in prat what happened as subjective in my brain.

"So" isn't anything except some letters and a sound until you give it a coherent definition, such that we end up with a test what's true.

It is subjectively true as it is so

Not till we have your meaning for the word "so". Sounds more and more like it means "Pleasing to Mikkel".

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

What exactly do you mean by "so" here? Sounds very like "Pleasing to Mikkel" once again.

"So" isn't anything except some letters and a sound until you give it a coherent definition, such that we end up with a test what's true.

Not till we have your meaning for the word "so". Sounds more and more like it means "Pleasing to Mikkel".

We are doing different versions of truth. The simplest as back to the old Greeks is that it is so. I can't help that you don't know that I am referencing philosophy and not just me.
So you do your version of philosophy, but I don't, because I can't do philosophy different that you, because you are the objective authoritative source of truth and I am subjective. I can see right through that trick and you can't.

 

[blü 2]

We are doing different versions of truth. The simplest as back to the old Greeks is that it is so. I can't help that you don't know that I am referencing philosophy and not just me.

You're saying you don't have any coherent definition of truth then.

That must be very convenient, very flexible!

Good to get these things clear.

 

[RestlessSoul]

You're saying you don't have any coherent definition of truth then.

That must be very convenient, very flexible!

Good to get these things clear.

Not sure if you’re being deliberately obtuse, or if you really can’t see the clarity and precision of “it is so” as a means of defining truth?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

You're saying you don't have any coherent definition of truth then.

That must be very convenient, very flexible!

Good to get these things clear.

So now you use the theory of truth as cohernce.

So let me play this game for 2 persons:
1: I subjectively as per personal interpretation chose one among many different theories of truth in philosophy and then use another if it subjectively suits me, but I am objective in effect, because my subjective standard is the objective standard for truth.
2: You are aware that if you just describe objectively philosophy that are 5 main ones and even then more sub-variants.
1: That doesn't matter subjectively to me. I subjectively pick for all humans and thus that you do it differently, that is objectively wrong, because I am really not subjective when I do this.

So the problem is that you assume all truth is objective coherence and correspondence combined, though that is 2 theories and you only use one. Neat subjective trick.

 

[blü 2]

So let me play this game for 2 persons:
1: I subjectively as per personal interpretation chose one among many different theories of truth in philosophy and then use another if it subjectively suits me, but I am objective in effect, because my subjective standard is the objective standard for truth.

Nope. Your subjective standard to this point doesn't even have a meaningful definition of "truth" let alone attempt to maximize objectivity. It's all still "truth means pleasing to Mikkel".

2: You are aware that if you just describe objectively philosophy that are 5 main ones and even then more sub-variants.

I'm conscious of the subjective element of things. My definitions of "real" and "truth" are based on appeals to objectivity so far as it's available.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Nope. Your subjective standard to this point doesn't even have a meaningful definition of "truth" let alone attempt to maximize objectivity. It's all still "truth means pleasing to Mikkel".

I'm conscious of the subjective element of things. My definitions of "real" and "truth" are based on appeals to objectivity so far as it's available.

Yeah and your truth is pleasing to you. If you analyze your own thinking you will find that maximize objectivity is not objective, it is subjective. That bold is a norm in you that suits your subjective understand of what we ought to do as humans.

 

[blü 2]

Not sure if you’re being deliberately obtuse, or if you really can’t see the clarity and precision of “it is so” as a means of defining truth?

What exactly do you mean by "so" here? What test will tell me whether something is "so" or not?

Does it differ from my expression that a statement is true to the extent that it accurately reflects /corresponds with objective reality (the world external to the self)?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

What exactly do you mean by "so" here? What test will tell me whether something is "so" or not?

Does it differ from my expression that a statement is true to the extent that it accurately reflects /corresponds with objective reality (the world external to the self)?

Would you please without what makes sense to you as it pleases you, decide which of the 5 main theories of truth are correct?

Truth | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

iep.utm.edu

Now remember all philosophy through time for all time is written by me and I am the source of all philosophy.
Or learn when you are subjective and not just point out when other people are so.