Design your own hell

[Kuciwalker]

Atheism is quite literally a lack of beliefs. Every time anybody on this board tries to refer to it as a religious belief, he or she gets (rightly)shouted down, as atheism is just the belief that there is no god. There's not much intrinsic to that message.

False. Atheism is the belief that there are no gods. Being a belief, it would be no more logical than the belief that the Smurfs are actually omnipotent beings that created the universe, if it weren't for Occam's razor. Since there is no logical basis for the assumption that there are gods, the statement "there is no god" is logically "correct". Just like the statement "there are no undetectable green elves dancing on electrons" is logically "correct", despite being unprovable.

The best way of putting is/was a quote in someone's sig (I don't know of whom, but it wasn't a 'Poly poster): "I contend that we are both atheists; I simply believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you don't believe in all of the other gods, you'll understand why I don't believe in yours."

[Elok]

Opinion is an idea of one's own preference towards a subject that cannot be strictly defined to have a set optimum value. Without God, there is no reason to believe in an absolute right or wrong, only "right" and "wrong" as abstractions. If you hold up right or wrong without a god, all you have really done is made morality into a sort of god itself. You can argue as to whether that is a bad thing, but any right or wrong, without a god, tends to be defined in terms of human consequence, which is difficult to entirely understand, all but impossible to understand objectively, and thus is usually a matter of personal judgment.

I say this not to endorse a god, but because I understand God to be a set, existent truth. If you believe the same of Right and Wrong, you only believe in a sort of God you made up yourself, or copied from a proud intellectual tradition perverted from Socrates, whichever you prefer. Whether you believe god does exist is your business, but there is no "belief" without god or a substitute thereof.

[Kuciwalker]

I'm a moral relativist, Elok - you're preaching to the choir about "morality"

[Elok]

Well then, it's a good thing I was talking to Molly. Otherwise I might've been wasting my time, and it'd be terrible and unprecedented should the OT board ever be used for that...

[Kuciwalker]

Exactly

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Elok

Without God, there is no reason to believe in an absolute right or wrong, only "right" and "wrong" as abstractions. If you hold up right or wrong without a god, all you have really done is made morality into a sort of god itself.

I say this not to endorse a god, but because I understand God to be a set, existent truth.

Uh, right and wrong are not capricious supernatural beings, but things which have values assigned to them, dependant upon the time and the society/culture.

Right or wrong to kill if you're a Christian or a Muslim?

Well, depends on the circumstances and the era as far as I can tell from having studied history- what with bishops blessing atom bombs, and mullahs and imams issuing fatwas.

I've never understood the human urge to do a god's business with regard to apostates- one might have thought an all-powerful deity quite capable of taking care of any insults directed at it.

Your understanding of god sounds remarkably like an opinion- based on what evidence?

By the way, Cicero described Socrates as an atheist. What Socratic (or otherwise) tradition has been or is being perverted? The glee with which religions hope to include Classical philosophers in their belief systems always amuses me.

Bush will be held responsible for the rantings of Falwell, Robertson, Graham and others. After all, they are not peripheral figures. They are now mainstream religious leaders, courted by political leaders . . . and treated with great, if undeserved, respect.
--Columnist Richard Cohen
"Imams of Inanity"
Washington Post, Dec. 3, 2002

As 9-11 showed us, people who mix religion and politics can be dangerous. Governments around the world need to be more secular, not less, especially in the Middle East.
--Columnist Paul Mulshine
[Newark] Star-Ledger
December 2002

In the past 12 months, Westerners have become all too familiar with the incendiary rhetoric addressed at them by radical clergy in the Muslim world. But has as much attention been paid to the gasoline some Christian leaders have thrown on the flames?
We are fast approaching a situation where influential leaders on both sides of this religious divide are talking the language of apocalypse in a climate where large numbers of people are feeling fearful and vulnerable. Unless we are very careful, Armageddon may become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
--Columnist Chris McGillion
"Beware Christ's zealots as they fan the flames"
The Herald (UK), Oct. 15, 2002

Many of our finest European so-called Christian scholars, church leaders, bishops and professors kept their mouths shut or actively endorsed and encouraged the deeds of the Holocaust.
--Wesleyan Prof. Dr. John Warner
Charleston Gazette
Oct. 21, 2002

In our effort to win a war against these religious warriors, we wrap the cloak of religion even tighter around us. This seemingly is a reversion to the atavistic struggles of the past in which "my God is bigger than your God" disputes resulted in some of humanity's most violent struggles.
--Salim Muwakkil
Senior editor, In These Times
Chicago Tribune, July 8, 2002

It makes no difference for us where we will die. We have chosen to die here, in Moscow, and we will take the lives of hundreds of the infidels with us.
--Veiled Chechen woman hostage-taker
Rebel videotape
New York Times, Oct. 27, 2002

. . . With terrorists attacking Israelis in Kenya, Muslims and Christians killing each other in Nigeria, a mission nurse murdered in Lebanon and Hindu worshippers and Muslim assailants shot down in Kashmir, this seems like an especially bad period for the abuse of religion.
--Martin Woollacott
The Guardian, Dec. 11, 2002

Has there ever been a big, powerful country that is as patriotic as America? And patriotic in the tinniest way, with so much flag-waving? You'd really think we were some poor little republic and that if one person lost his religion for one hour, the whole thing would crumble. My feeling is that you're patriotic if you're obsessed with America because it's a democracy and its obligation is to improve all the time, not to stop and take bows and smell its armpits and say, "Ambrosia." --Author Norman Mailer Daily Telegraph interview New York Daily News, Feb. 19, 2002

The religious cant that will send American troops into battle is perhaps the most sickening aspect of this surreal war-to-be. Bush has an arm-lock on God. And God has very particular political opinions. God appointed Israel to be the nexus of America's Middle Eastern policy, and anyone who wants to mess with that idea is a) anti-Semitic, b) anti-American, c) with the enemy, and d) a terrorist.
--Novelist John le Carre
"The United States of America has gone mad"
[London] Times, Jan. 15, 2003

I'm an atheist, and I'm becoming more and more atheistic as I grow older.
--Scientist Oliver Sacks
San Diego Union-Tribune
Book section, Nov. 24, 2002

As an atheist I have always taken perverse pleasure in watching the slow encroachment of science on the realm of the spirit and the supernatural. . . .
People often ask me, 'If you don't believe in a god, then what happens when you die?' I don't know, and no one else does, either. The difference between me and them is that I don't care. Even if this is all we get, I'd still rather live here on earth with the knowledge that it's humanity, physics, and chance that chart our course--not some bearded guy sitting on a fluffy cloud watching football while people burn.
--Kris Frieswick, essayist
Boston Phoenix, Nov. 7-14, 2002
(featured in HarperCollins' More Mirth of a Nation)

I have yet to find a sect that treats women like fully fledged human beings. Is this the key? Is religion in its essence a guy thing with a female following that was trained from birth? How easily led must the pope think Italian women are, that he would dare, as he did this year, to order them to have more babies?
--Columnist Heather Mallick
"This Xmas, Keep your religion to yourself"
[Toronto] Globe & Mail, Dec. 14, 2002


Atheism . . . is a rational view of the world where you stand up proudly, in your humanity, you look life straight in the face, you look the universe straight in the face, you do your level best to understand it, to understand why you exist, what the universe is about, you recognise that when you die that's it, and therefore life is very, very precious and you devote your life to making the world a better place, to leading a good life so when you die you can say to yourself I have led a good life. Now, that seems to me to be a worthwhile goal to put in place of the medieval superstition which is religion.
--Scientist Richard Dawkins
The Dubliner, October 2002


[One of] three themes which are utterly taboo as far as most American publishers are concerned is . . . the total atheist who lives a happy and useful life, and dies in his sleep at the age of 106.
--Author Vladimir Nabokov
1956
(Submitted by Steven Denenberg)

Humankind made god/s, not the other way around. Eventually it will unmake them.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by skywalker
False. Atheism is the belief that there are no gods.

No, it's the lack of belief in god(s). It's not a lack of any beliefs, so Elok's wrong, and it's not necessarily a positive belief of the non-existence of gods. Atheism encompasses anyone who does not believe in deities, no matter their degree of certainty.

[Elok]

I define "opinion" differently from you, for the third time at least. Absolute morality is profoundly deistic in nature, as it assumes something beyond human nature to define the context of our actions. I'm not going to say this again. Now stop asking.

And Socrates was pre-Christian, and not being Jewish, as far as I am concerned had no meaningful religion. He was, however, an enemy of the sophists, who were precisely the sort of trash you seem to be elevating as better people. The very question of "what is the real truth" implies that there is a real truth to be found, which, as I said, is more idealistic than "realistic." Your Secular Humanism, from what I can read of its actual message separated from the litany of quasi-eugenic propaganda and religion-bashing, has no real Socratic roots.

The values it stands for, against "bigotry, censorship, isolationism, McCarthyism," whatever, are apparently held to be ends in and of themselves, to judge by the words used. That's not Socratic. The whole attitude it's based on is that there are certain ends to be rationalized. Shallow, and only superficially thoughtful.

Now, having slogged through all your self-important quotes, I must insist that you read some real Orthodox Christian theology, C.S. Lewis, some sort of Kabbalistic thought, or other thoughtful belief, and THEN, and only then, attack religion. If you're going to base your opinion of such a huge idea, encompassing thousands of years of traditions from across the world, on its most ignorant and primitive members, your opinion is meaningless. I might as well base my opinion of biology on the people who insist that daddy longlegs are poisonous but have defective teeth, or of neurology based on the guys who babble about ninety percent of the brain being unused.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
No, it's the lack of belief in god(s). It's not a lack of any beliefs, so Elok's wrong, and it's not necessarily a positive belief of the non-existence of gods. Atheism encompasses anyone who does not believe in deities, no matter their degree of certainty.

No, it's the belief that there are no gods. Agnosticism is closer to the lack of belief in gods (though it's more "are there gods? I dunno"). A-theism - the opposite of theistic.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Elok
I define "opinion" differently from you, for the third time at least. Absolute morality is profoundly deistic in nature, as it assumes something beyond human nature to define the context of our actions. I'm not going to say this again. Now stop asking.

And Socrates was pre-Christian, and not being Jewish, as far as I am concerned had no meaningful religion. He was, however, an enemy of the sophists, who were precisely the sort of trash you seem to be elevating as better people. The very question of "what is the real truth" implies that there is a real truth to be found, which, as I said, is more idealistic than "realistic." Your Secular Humanism, from what I can read of its actual message separated from the litany of quasi-eugenic propaganda and religion-bashing, has no real Socratic roots.

The values it stands for, against "bigotry, censorship, isolationism, McCarthyism," whatever, are apparently held to be ends in and of themselves, to judge by the words used. That's not Socratic. The whole attitude it's based on is that there are certain ends to be rationalized. Shallow, and only superficially thoughtful.

Now, having slogged through all your self-important quotes, I must insist that you read some real Orthodox Christian theology, C.S. Lewis, some sort of Kabbalistic thought, or other thoughtful belief, and THEN, and only then, attack religion. If you're going to base your opinion of such a huge idea, encompassing thousands of years of traditions from across the world, on its most ignorant and primitive members, your opinion is meaningless. I might as well base my opinion of biology on the people who insist that daddy longlegs are poisonous but have defective teeth, or of neurology based on the guys who babble about ninety percent of the brain being unused.

This isn't sophistry

1. There is no evidence for the assertion "there is a god".

2. That assertion is, for all practical purposes, false.

This is the same logic behind:

1. There is no evidence for the assertion "little green undetectible elves live on the surface of electrons".

2. That assertion is, for all practical purposes, false.

[Lonestar]

To all the people who put George Bush in a deeper pit of Hell than bin Laden:

F--k you.

[Elok]

The very statement that claims there is a God, in my case, goes on to explain why God is not readily apparent; the means of perception has been darkened by way of the fall. There is a state that can be reached in which one can feel the existence of God, but it is very hard and requires continual effort to maintain. If you are unwilling to make that effort, or cannot find the strength, then yes, there is no "evidence." Much as there is no evidence of light to a man with his eyes shut.

"Secular humanism" is intrinsically opposed to Socrates because it is based not on a direct search for truth, but, the way Molly tells it at least, merely justifies acepted social principles in a context opposed to God. Ideals are created in terms of what the thinker would like them to be, rather than actual discovery by introspection. There is no introspection in that big fat manifesto. Lots of big scary words about how religion is wrong, but the actual ideas it supports appear to have formed directly in reaction to religious faith and left to stand unquestioned. With Socrates as a mascot. Blech.

[Kuciwalker]

The very statement that claims there is a God, in my case, goes on to explain why God is not readily apparent; the means of perception has been darkened by way of the fall. There is a state that can be reached in which one can feel the existence of God, but it is very hard and requires continual effort to maintain. If you are unwilling to make that effort, or cannot find the strength, then yes, there is no "evidence." Much as there is no evidence of light to a man with his eyes shut.

Provide empirical evidence from a repeatable experience, and I'll believe you.

[Elok]

Originally posted by skywalker
Provide empirical evidence from a repeatable experience, and I'll believe you.

I'm afraid it can't be done. Only you can see God. I can't see him for you. If you're going to ask for God to give you a miracle before you believe, you're starting from the wrong attitude entirely. You might as well ask gravity to ease up a little to make getting on the bathroom scale less depressing. You're insisting that the system adjust to fit your wishes, and it ain't gonna happen. See what I mean?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by skywalker
No, it's the belief that there are no gods. Agnosticism is closer to the lack of belief in gods (though it's more "are there gods? I dunno"). A-theism - the opposite of theistic.

No, the "A" prefix is Greek for "without."

Theism = Belief in God.
Atheism = Without belief in God.

"Agnostics" (the word as commonly used is wrong, anyway, but that's beside the point) are without belief in God (though they accept God is possible). Ergo they are a type of atheist. The active disbelief in gods is "positive atheism," and it's the rarer form of it, as most atheists are of the "negative" variety, holding out that while they don't believe in god, they can't eliminate the possibility.