lukethethird
unknown member
What supposed subjectivity am I imposing onto anyone by stating that I don't want religion imposed onto me?
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Why Atheists Don’t Really Exist
- Thread starter Nakosis
- Start date
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
None. but you are still in part subjective, right? I am at least, so we need common norms.
lukethethird
unknown member
What exactly am I subjective about by stating that I don't want religion imposed onto me?
He said, "I don't accept religion nor should I be expected to." He's telling you he won't dance to any religion's tune, and he doesn't need luck with that for now, although I would add 'assuming that he's not American.' Americans have to dance to the Christian tune there now, where people are arrested for abortions or wearing drag in public.
Agreed. Now that my wife and I have no living parents remaining, we have no reason to return there (I have almost no living family and the in-laws mostly are Chrisitan Trumpers that don't approve of us nor we them). And you probably aren't surprised to know that about half of the American expats I live near feel the same about visiting their homeland.
Same here in our little expat retirement enclave in Mexico. We've seen a significant influx of expats moving here in the last few years and we have a traffic problem now. Two major changes in the expat demographic, one for the good and one not: Young families with minor children are moving here now. For ten years, the only kids we saw were Mexican. And we're starting to see people moving here that don't want to be here but can't afford the States any longer, meaning we're getting more conservatives. Many if not most won't be happy here. My in-conservative laws would hate it.
Two funny anecdotes about them:
- My brother-in-law was recently trying to get to San Ysidro CA, missed his exit which meant he crossed the border, turned around in Tijuana, and came back to San Diego County, which terrified his wife that he was bringing disease home even though he never got out of his car.
- When we announced to them that we were moving to Mexico, which was before Trump taught them explicitly that Mexicans were diseased criminals. Shortly after we were here, they asked us why we wanted to live with the illegals. We explained that it's not illegal to be Mexican in Mexico, and that the only illegal (undocumented immigrant) we knew was our American neighbor, who had let her visa lapse.
Correct that I do not respect gods. They're not needed for anything in my life. My respect is for nature and mother earth, of the night sky and what it signifies, of the garden, of the miracle that is my dogs, of evenings on the terrace watching the sun set over the lake to music and wine - spirituality without spirits.
Enjoy some Grateful Dead. THIS is what I call spiritual, from The Music Never Stopped inspired by an all-night concert by the band:
Well the sun went down in honey
And the moon came up in wine
You know stars were spinnin' dizzy
Lord the band kept us too busy
We forgot about the time
Of course you see it like that. I don't mind what you or any other theist believes about gods. If my neighbor wants to dance around a tree in his back yard at midnight baying at the full moon while shaking a stick with a bloody chicken claw nailed to it in order to center himself and give his like meaning, that's fine, as long as he isn't insane, isn't sacrificing animals to his god or gods, and keeps the noise down. Why would I care?
Kind of like somebody proselytizing for Jesus, but on the other side.
Atheism is neither interesting nor boring. And time spent here on RF is some of that comfort. I enjoy this.
Also, I can't waste time unless it's by doing something I didn't need to do and didn't enjoy. My job for the rest of the day is to continue enjoying it.
I am indeed lazy. Why waste time reading books where
someone made up sky fairies? And why respect a fictional
creator, eh. I recommend that people spend less effort
convincing themselves & others that fictional deities are
real, & more time enjoying making this real world a better
place, with liberty, prosperity, & a verdant environment.
Colt
Well-Known Member
But you spend much of your time on RF, so I think one side of your brain is manufacturing bs and the other half is buying it!
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I spend little time on RF.
Ever notice how little effort goes into my posts?
(It doesn't take much to counter the rampant
religious BS, eg, arguments that God is the
image of man, but without genitals. Silly stuff.)
Yes, i can be weighed, measured and observed
Distancing from delusion is never wrong
Maybe. Or it may simply be peace of mind by not imagining harm to those you love, or by not imagining wanton harm at all.
But because of those possibilities, which apparently the 'test' didn't examine, I don't think we can conclude anything much about atheists from the test,
Of course not. I was simply stating the case as I see it. My close friends and relatives who are believers (Christians) have had similar life paths, which I think are put in our heads by evolution ─ to everything there is a season.
Though while we're on the topic, it occurs to me that as far as I know, none of those friends or relatives have children who are churchgoers, including a pair of children who went to a Christian (RC) high school.
The statistics show a decline in churchgoing all over the Western world, and I now note it's closer to me in a way that I hadn't noticed before, so thanks.
RestlessSoul
Well-Known Member
The decline in church attendance has been well documented for years. In Europe, for around two hundred years in fact. The churches (and synagogues, and temples and mosques) are still here though. And the interest in Buddhism, Eastern mysticism, pagan spirituality, mindfulness etc, and the number of people identifying as “spiritual not religious” has increased exponentially.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Well. that was not the point. How should we organize society without religion?
RestlessSoul
Well-Known Member
So at the end of that process, you have a collection of numbers, each relating to a given metric. How do numbers on a page or spreadsheet prove your existence?
Heyo
Veteran Member
By disproving the null hypothesis. If there were nothing or only random noise, you'd expect to not see those numbers. I.e. we know that there is something, it exists.
RestlessSoul
Well-Known Member
Okay. So we can prove existence mathematically. But maths is an abstraction, right? Like language is an abstraction; a description of something, but not the thing in itself.
Heyo
Veteran Member
How would you prove a "thing in itself" without using language?
RestlessSoul
Well-Known Member
You can't. So we need language, a formalisation of abstract thought, to confirm the existence of something concrete.
Or you could just drop it on my foot, I suppose.
Luckily hypotheses and theories are judged by testing and peer review, rather than the status of a particular theoretician.
Theology seems like an attempt to convince oneself and others of a particular viewpoint. It functions as a means of social control, a justification for coercive enforcement of the status quo, suppression of minorities or dissident ideas, and, of course, for war and pillage.
I agree that religion is not a good model for the workings of the natural world, but apparently many think otherwise, and are constantly trespassing into the realm of science; making assertions of fact and contradicting scientific facts and models.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Evidence that the world is natural. I can't point to God and I can't point to that the world is natural. Both are particular viewpoint and not the only ones.