Atheism - Shadows of Doubt

[loinburger]

Originally posted by DaShi
1. I'm not equating faith with doubt. I'm equating belief with doubt.

If there is, then the aethiests are forced to admit their believe that this is no God is based on just as muh faith as religionistas belief that there is.

2. I'm arguing about aetheism, not agnosticism. Aetheism doesn't allow doubt.

Would you apply this to religious belief as well ("Christianity doesn't allow doubt" or "Judaism doesn't allow doubt" etc.), or does this only apply to non-religious belief? If the former, then is LOTM non-religious? If the latter, then why do you believe an atheist's "faith" is stronger than a religionista's "faith"?

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by DaShi
Yes, that's spot on to what your responses have been looking like to me.

*shrug* I don't have the patience to debate with people that are purposefully obtuse. You didn't come here to change your opinion, and I'm not going to try.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by loinburger



Would you apply this to religious belief as well ("Christianity doesn't allow doubt" or "Judaism doesn't allow doubt" etc.), or does this only apply to non-religious belief? If the former, then is LOTM non-religious? If the latter, then why do you believe an atheist's "faith" is stronger than a religionista's "faith"?

In fairness, there are arguements that Judaism, with its focus on actions, and its (at least relative) paucity of specific dogmas, really ISNT a religion in the same sense that Christianity is. This is however a matter of controversy within Judaism (Orthodox vs Kaplanistas at the extremes, and plenty in between) and one that raises controversy when addressing non-Jews, whether religious or secular.

[DaShi]

Religoinistas do not allow doubt. Christianity requires that you believe in God and Jesus by it's very definition. Judaism can be seen as an ethnicity, where one's belief in God is immaterial, or a religion, where a belief in God is required. In fact, given the cultural significance of many religions this distinction is becoming more common outside of Judaism as well.

If LotM doesn't believe in religious tenets, then he can not be considered religious.

[Elok]

Originally posted by Lorizael
Birds are pretty but they don't taste good.

Chicken is yummy, blasphemer! Burn him!

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by DaShi
2. I'm arguing about aetheism, not agnosticism. Aetheism doesn't allow doubt.

What do you mean by doubt, that an atheist always has to be 100% sure there is no god ?

I'd say as atheist I can as well follow the position that I can't prove/disproof god (so that I in fact do not/can not know for sure if there is one) which is rather agnostic. But that's purely theoretical - in my practical life I am atheist - I never say to myself "damn, I can't really know if there's a god, so maybe I should try out that prayer stuff" etc....For all practical purposes there is no god for me.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Lorizael


*shrug* I don't have the patience to debate with people that are purposefully obtuse. You didn't come here to change your opinion, and I'm not going to try.

1. It's ironic that you say this after your previous post.

2. I wasn't trying to be mean. It's truly how I felt. I'm stating that aethiests believe that there is no God, and you're responding by talking about proving whether or not God exists.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
to extend your metaphor, if i say "I believe it will rain tomorrow", so that, even lacking any proof it will rain, I want to walk the fields in search of atmospheric hints of rain, not even knowing what shape those will take (since ive never seen a cloud) and someone else says that their sense of things is that its NOT worth walking the fields, are they any LESS basing their lives on faith than I am?

In your example, you're looking for atmospheric hints of rain without knowing what those may be, which implies to me that you won't know what atmospheric conditions are conducive (or not) to rain until it's actually rained. This being the case, if you've only got one shot at determining when it's going to rain, then there'd be no point in walking the fields since you can't confirm/deny your beliefs until it rains (at which point it's too late to predict when it will rain).

So in this case the religionist believes that he has some way to determine which cloud formations are conducive (or not) to rain without having to wait for it to rain to confirm/deny these beliefs, whereas the atheist doesn't see any way to determine which cloud formations are conducive (or not) to rain without waiting for it to rain. That's not so much a matter of faith as it is a lack of faith -- the atheist might believe that some cloud formations are more conducive to rain than others, he may even believe that it is possible in principle to determine which cloud formations are conducive to rain without having to wait for it to rain, but without having any faith in such a system the atheist is pretty much stuck waiting for it to rain.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by BeBro


What do you mean by doubt, that an atheist always has to be 100% sure there is no god ?

I'd say as atheist I can as well follow the position that I can't prove/disproof god (so that I in fact do not/can not know for sure if there is one) which is rather agnostic. But that's purely theoretical - in my practical life I am atheist - I never say to myself "damn, I can't really know if there's a god, so maybe I should try out that prayer stuff" etc....For all practical purposes there is no god for me.

Then you're agnostic in that you allow for the possibly that God could exist. Unless you are sure there is no God.

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by DaShi
1. It's ironic that you say this after your previous post.

Yes. The idea was, if you weren't listening to what I was saying (purposefully obtuse), then it didn't really matter what I said.

2. I wasn't trying to be mean. It's truly how I felt. I'm stating that aethiests believe that there is no God, and you're responding by talking about proving whether or not God exists.

I'm not going to get into a debate about whether or not God exists. I'm not going to try to prove anything. That's useless.

My point was that a good atheist does not believe that there is no God. A good atheist simply acknowledges that there is not enough evidence available to prove the existence of God, so the atheist acts without considering God.

For all practical purposes, this means that an atheist "believes" there is no God. Belief, in a negative connotation, viewed as a sort of self-deception, exists in every human being. It's a fact of existence in an interactive, unpredictable world.

But if you're going to go down that route, it's all semantics anyways. Yes, I believe the sun will rise tomorrow. Yes, I believe I'll come back down when I jump. And further, yes, I believe that what I hear when I talk is the same as what other people hear when I talk. Yes, I believe that my senses accurately and usefully portray reality to me under normal conditions, abstract though their portrayal may be.

Since humans cannot contain the knowledge of the universe, every single action or thought of a human is predicated on some belief or assumption, and it's arbitrary and rude to single out the beliefs of atheists and religionistas because you have an axe to grind.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by DaShi
Religoinistas do not allow doubt. Christianity requires that you believe in God and Jesus by it's very definition. Judaism can be seen as an ethnicity, where one's belief in God is immaterial, or a religion, where a belief in God is required. In fact, given the cultural significance of many religions this distinction is becoming more common outside of Judaism as well.

If LotM doesn't believe in religious tenets, then he can not be considered religious.

whats a religious tenet? In Judaism, its required to say, three times daily "Praised is the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob". Someone who follows that requirement is clearly doing something beyond an "ethnicity". OTOH you arent told whether the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has any particular set of attributes, is a "personal" being, an "impersonal supernatural force" or is even "the feelings of morality inside you". IE its compatible with everything from a theism that a Christian would love, to deism, to Spinozan pantheism, to out and out humanism. (now of course MANY Jewish thinkers would argue that a more specific interpretation is correct, but we are NOT required to repeat what THEY say three times a day). So its hard to see that it doesnt allow for doubt, since ANY particular view of G-d, even the broadest conceptions of "theism" are, (IMO, and Kaplans) open to doubt.

Now you can define a "religious tenet" as a specific statement of dogma "Christ had a twofold human and divine nature, etc, etc" and decide that "its obligatory to pray the Amidah three times a day" is NOT a religious tenet, but then IMHO youve biased your view of what it means to be religious.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by DaShi
Religoinistas do not allow doubt. Christianity requires that you believe in God and Jesus by it's very definition.

There have been countless debates within Christianity about various religious tenets (sometimes resulting in schisms), which would imply that anybody on the "wrong" side of such a debate is a non-Christian. Not to mention that several of the apostles demonstrated doubt.

This book excerpt sums up my opinions regarding faith/doubt better than I can.

Science has made good use of doubt. Doubt about this or that model or theory lead a scientist to develop a better model or theory. Doubt acts as the gadfly of progress. Natural science is the process of doubt and resolution. This process leads to the net gain of bits of information.

In religion doubt is a different matter. Traditionally doubt is seen as the diametric opposite of faith‹if one doubts, then one does not have faith. This naive view of the relationship between doubt and faith has done much harm to religion. Any religion which prohibits doubts abandons any hope of growth or development. A religion without doubt is fixed and unchanging. Such a religion is useless to dynamic thinking individuals who are curious about the truth of reality.

Faith and doubt co-exist in a productive and positive way in a dynamic religion. Christianity is this type of religion‹doubt is alright. It is acceptable to doubt. By doubting we are spurred on to search for a resolution of our doubt; this search leads to a deeper understanding of faith. Doubt leads to the development of faith. Some might object to this‹doubt can lead to a strengthened faith, but many times people just give up and abandon their faith altogether. Wouldn't it be better to have faith and never doubt than to doubt and loose one's faith? The answer to this question depends on what one wishes to accomplish with one's faith. Is a petrified faith superior to the searching of one who has rejected God consciously but continues struggling and growing, reaching out for God without knowing what it is they are looking for?

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by DaShi


Then you're agnostic in that you allow for the possibly that God could exist. Unless you are sure there is no God.

It could afaik also be described as a form of "weak" atheism. But that seems really more a semantic question.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by loinburger

In your example, you're looking for atmospheric hints of rain without knowing what those may be, which implies to me that you won't know what atmospheric conditions are conducive (or not) to rain until it's actually rained.

youve assumed the answer. Im open to the POSSIBILITY that those signs will be self evident to me, even before i see it rain, open enough again to make it worthwhile to walk the fields. That walking the fields is something I do with my friends, is something ive done since childhood as part of family traditions, and is good exercise, only adds to my inclination, though I have to be wary as those friends and the exercise can distract me from my search for signs of rain.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by BeBro



It could afaik also be described as a form of "weak" atheism. But that seems really more a semantic question.

Yes, but it's less annoying to "true" aethiests that way.