Why Atheists Don’t Really Exist

[RestlessSoul]

Admit it...you'd be disappointed if I stayed away.
Without a foil, believers wouldn't find RF interesting.

You never disappoint

 

[Audie]

You never disappoint

Interesting.
Your posts are always a disappointment

 

[RestlessSoul]

Interesting.
Your posts are always a disappointment

Don't read them then. Simple really.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Truth/reality is not a tool. It's not supposed to do anything or benefit us. It just is.

Both are abstracts that you can't point to just like with God.
In fact start here and then tell me the correct objective version of truth:

Truth | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

iep.utm.edu

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118972090.ch21#:~:text=There%20are%20often%20said%20to,its%20coherence%20with%20other%20beliefs.

You get different result with different versions of truth in some cases. The same with reality in some cases.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

^^^ mention belligerent atheists, and three turn up at once

Which is a joke btw. I know how sensitive some of you are

Remember they doubt everything, except if they are as rational as they believe they are.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Until someone finds counter evidence. Then those tenacious ideas die. If it happened with the most revered theory in history, Newton gravitation, or classical mechanics, then it can happen to any of them. All they need to die is counter-evidence. No matter how beautiful, respected, tenacious it is, one center-example and it is dead.

And the fact that scientists are human is actually an advantage. Scientists die. Especially the old ones sticking to the old theory for some personal/irrational reason.


Theology is to God, what leprechaunology would be to leprechauns. Probably, it has been invented in order to create an aura of importance and intellectual philosophy so that people do not laugh straight away to its claims.

Ciao

- viole

Except Newton's law of gravitation hasn't died, has it? It still gets used because it still gives results, except at extremes of scale. Unless you mean it died as an ontology, but wasn't Newton at some pains not to attempt a description of what gravity actually is? Because he never claimed to understand what it was, he just developed a means of measuring it's effects...which has subsequently been refined by GR.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I suppose it depends a lot on how rational an individual is; whether s/he's more influenced by reason and logic, or emotion and tradition.

I'm an INTP (Meyers-Briggs). I think that tells you on which side of that divide I land.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

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've answered this many times, right here on RF, but it gets quickly forgotten by theists who really want to claim that we atheists are secretly believers.

Essentially, the reason many of us spend time in such discussions comes under the heading "know your enemy." And believe me, if there is something "different" about you -- if you are LGBTQ+, or atheist or agnostic, or the wrong colour or race, or fall in love with the wrong colour or race, or any number of other differences, theists will be the first to try to exclude or belittle you. And they get to do so because they are theists -- because they believe they have the backing of a powerful god.

 

[viole]

Except Newton's law of gravitation hasn't died, has it?

As a correct theory of gravity? Yes, it did.

t still gets used because it still gives results, except at extremes of scale.

Well, Ptolemaic theory was also pretty effective for simple cases. That does not mean that it has not died.
And what is "extreme of scale"? Anything as trivial a GPS system would not work if we use only Newton.

Believe me. It is as dead as a door nail.

Unless you mean it died as an ontology, but wasn't Newton at some pains not to attempt a description of what gravity actually is?

As I said, it died because it could not explain Mercury's precession, nor that time flow is influenced by gravitational fields. It died because of something very basic that is part of commodity technology today. Your navigation system in the car could not work if Newton was right.

It died because he made a fatal assumption. Namely that space and time are not themselves physical things that are part of the system under consideration.

That does not mean he was stupid. He was probably one of the greatest physicists and minds of all times.

My point is that his theory has been sacrosanct for centuries. Attacking it was tantamount to career suicide.

Yet, it also bite the dust, when counter evidence is overwhelming. They all do. That is what science is. No holy cows.

ecause he never claimed to understand what it was, he just developed a means of measuring it's effects...which has subsequently been refined by GR.

Well, those means were clearly wrong beyond simple cases like human rockets.

What you seem to miss is not a problem with Newton. It is a problem, invoked by yourself, that science is human, and tenacious, and all that. With the apparent intention to show that science is stubborn and cannot change. I think that what I showed clearly defeats your case.

Ciao

- viole

 

[RestlessSoul]

I've answered this many times, right here on RF, but it gets quickly forgotten by theists who really want to claim that we atheists are secretly believers.

Essentially, the reason many of us spend time in such discussions comes under the heading "know your enemy." And believe me, if there is something "different" about you -- if you are LGBTQ+, or atheist or agnostic, or the wrong colour or race, or fall in love with the wrong colour or race, or any number of other differences, theists will be the first to try to exclude or belittle you. And they get to do so because they are theists -- because they believe they have the backing of a powerful god.

I can assure you I am not your enemy. But even if I was, prejudice is a pretty effective barrier to learning anything about anyone.

And if religion is really as intolerant you perceive it to be, how do you account for it's inclusivity? I have known several devout Catholics, for example, who were openly gay. And as for being the wrong colour or race, have you been to church recently?

In any case, I'm not really convinced that political activism is the real motive for arguing incessantly with believers on internet forums. There has to be something else going on, at the level of the subconscious.

 

[RestlessSoul]

As a correct theory of gravity? Yes, it did.

Well, Ptolemaic theory was also pretty effective for simple cases. That does not mean that it has not died.
And what is "extreme of scale"? Anything as trivial a GPS system would not work if we use only Newton.

Believe me. It is as dead as a door nail.


As I said, it died because it could not explain Mercury's precession, nor that time flow is influenced by gravitational fields. It died because of something very basic that is part of commodity technology today. Your navigation system in the car could not work if Newton was right.

It died because he made a fatal assumption. Namely that space and time are not themselves physical things that are part of the system under consideration.

That does not mean he was stupid. He was probably one of the greatest physicists and minds of all times.

My point is that his theory has been sacrosanct for centuries. Attacking it was tantamount to career suicide.

Yet, it also bite the dust, when counter evidence is overwhelming. They all do. That is what science is. No holy cows.

Well, those means were clearly wrong beyond simple cases like human rockets.

What you seem to miss is not a problem with Newton. It is a problem, invoked by yourself, that science is human, and tenacious, and all that. With the apparent intention to show that science is stubborn and cannot change. I think that what I showed clearly defeats your case.

Ciao

- viole

So there are no sacred cows in science, but attacking well regarded theories is tantamount to career suicide? I think you just made my point for me.

I am not arguing that science is stubborn and doesn't change. But I do think the view that theories are discarded the moment a piece of falsifying evidence comes along, is a bit of a myth. It took 200 years for the Copernican model to definitively replace the Ptolemaic. Falsification as a principle may be an effective yardstick for drawing a line between theories that are scientific, and those that are not. In reality humans, being tenacious and stubborn, are resistant to change; and scientists may think themselves immune, but they are not.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I can assure you I am not your enemy. But even if I was, prejudice is a pretty effective barrier to learning anything about anyone.

And if religion is really as intolerant you perceive it to be, how do you account for it's inclusivity? I have known several devout Catholics, for example, who were openly gay. And as for being the wrong colour or race, have you been to church recently?

In any case, I'm not really convinced that political activism is the real motive for arguing incessantly with believers on internet forums. There has to be something else going on, at the level of the subconscious.

As I said, it still seems to be important to you to suppose that atheists are really worried that they may be wrong. To the point that you even suggest that I myself, who have thought about it, don't really know my own reasoning.

I've written here before about the fight for gay rights in Canada, leading up to same-sex marriage -- invariably the leaders of the opposition to those rights, up to and including calls that we should be put to death, were religious organizations. Invariably.

Your claim that you know several devout Catholics who are openly gay, actually speaks to their attitudes -- not to the attitudes of the Catholic Church, or the straight members of their congregations. You must have read the threads here at RF about Baha'is objecting to openly gay members. Mormons are willing to tolerate people of same-sex attraction -- but only if they don't act on their attraction. Meaning, if you're gay, stay celibate for life, and we'll accept you. Live your life your way, and you're outa here! The Anglican Communion is busy tearing itself apart over some of these issues. Not very many religions actually accept homosexual expression, nor same-sex marriage.

Funny, but I suspect that if I were in Northern Ireland and said that I was an atheist, the first question I'd be asked, is "but are you a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist?"

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I can assure you I am not your enemy. But even if I was, prejudice is a pretty effective barrier to learning anything about anyone.

And if religion is really as intolerant you perceive it to be, how do you account for it's inclusivity? I have known several devout Catholics, for example, who were openly gay. And as for being the wrong colour or race, have you been to church recently?

In any case, I'm not really convinced that political activism is the real motive for arguing incessantly with believers on internet forums. There has to be something else going on, at the level of the subconscious.

Well, start following @Augustus He is better at that than me. But I do have a model of how that can be the case, that there is something else as play.

 

[viole]

So there are no sacred cows in science, but attacking well regarded theories is tantamount to career suicide? I think you just made my point for me.

Yes, it is. For the simple reason that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. For instance, killing the second principle, or evolution, should rightfully be met with the career's end of the respective "scientist", if she did not make her homework. And that homework should be comparable to how well the claim under challenge is established.

am not arguing that science is stubborn and doesn't change. But I do think the view that theories are discarded the moment a piece of falsifying evidence comes along, is a bit of a myth. It took 200 years for the Copernican model to definitively replace the Ptolemaic.

Better late than never. Well, in case of relativity, it took only a few years. Probably, reducing religious institutions, like the Catholic institution to insignificance, as in case of Copernicus, works as a catalyst for consolidating new knowledge pretty fast. After all, I am sure that threats to be turned into a barbecue are a slowdown that cannot be blamed to scientific epistemology, but to religion, and the underlying unscientific superstition that always fuels it.

Falsification as a principle may be an effective yardstick for drawing a line between theories that are scientific, and those that are not.

Yes, because unfalsifiable things are the lowest ranked claims in the world. They are not even wrong.

In reality humans, being tenacious and stubborn, are resistant to change; and scientists may think themselves immune, but they are not.

Eventually, they are. Like Eddington said, you just have to wait for the holders of the older view to die.

Ciao

- viole

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Yes, it is. For the simple reason that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. For instance, killing the second principle, or evolution, should rightfully be met with the career's end of the respective "scientist", if she did not make her homework. And that homework should be comparable to how well the claim under challenge is established.


Better late than never. Well, in case of relativity, it took only a few years. Probably, reducing religious institutions, like the Catholic institution to insignificance, as in case of Copernicus, works as a catalyst for consolidating new knowledge pretty fast. After all, I am sure that threats to be turned into a barbecue are a slowdown that cannot be blamed to scientific epistemology, but to religion, and the underlying unscientific superstition that always fuels it.


Yes, because unfalsifiable things are the lowest ranked claims in the world. They are not even wrong.


Eventually, they are. Like Eddington said, you just have to wait for the holders of the older view to die.

Ciao

- viole

Yeah, now use evidence on how it is true that you are rational and remember that it could be that case that you are not rational as you believe you are.
Any proposition or claim should be tested including I am rational.

 

[Heyo]

Like Eddington said, you just have to wait for the holders of the older view to die.

Maybe Eddington said something to that tune but I guess you confused him with Planck.

 

[Heyo]

I can assure you I am not your enemy. But even if I was, prejudice is a pretty effective barrier to learning anything about anyone.

And if religion is really as intolerant you perceive it to be, how do you account for it's inclusivity? I have known several devout Catholics, for example, who were openly gay. And as for being the wrong colour or race, have you been to church recently?

In any case, I'm not really convinced that political activism is the real motive for arguing incessantly with believers on internet forums. There has to be something else going on, at the level of the subconscious.

Have you noticed that there are very few debates between atheists and pagans (or religions/denominations that really are inclusive)?
That what you feel to be going on unconsciously is the potential threat that dogmatic religions pose to our way of life. And when you look at the US the threat isn't only potential.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Have you noticed that there are very few debates between atheists and pagans (or religions/denominations that really are inclusive)?
That what you feel to be going on unconsciously is the potential threat that dogmatic religions pose to our way of life. And when you look at the US the threat isn't only potential.

Well yes, I do understand that. But I don’t live in the United States, so the brand of particularly strident conservative Christianity that some Americans perceive as a threat to their civil liberties, is not something I recognise. I am aware of the chequered history of Christianity in Europe, the wars and burnings etc, but that was all quite a long time ago.

Religious persecution died out in Europe, but religion has not. Perhaps because there was something worth preserving in there all along. Besides, I’m pretty sure Europe’s history would be littered with just as many atrocities, without the occasional participation of religious institutions.

 

[Heyo]

Religious persecution died out in Europe, but religion has not. Perhaps because there was something worth preserving in there all along. Besides, I’m pretty sure Europe’s history would be littered with just as many atrocities, without the occasional participation of religious institutions.

Europe's history is littered with atrocities. The power and belligerence of the churches has only subsided recently (historically speaking).
And it is no coincidence that they subsided together. Power corrupts. When religion has no power it becomes much more friendly.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Europe's history is littered with atrocities. The power and belligerence of the churches has only subsided recently (historically speaking).
And it is no coincidence that they subsided together. Power corrupts. When religion has no power it becomes much more friendly.

The atrocities didn’t subside after the European enlightenment did they? The 20th century was the bloodiest in European history. Humans are savage creatures; one of the purposes of religion, central to the philosophy of Jesus among others, is to attempt to transcend our savage natures.