My Problems with New Atheism

The message is that Zeus, Yahweh, and all the rest don't exist. Common sense, in other words.

 

Sounds pretty stupid to me (atheist). I like chocolate ice cream. It would be like my wanting to establish a 'cult' to degrade vanilla.

 

Where is your credible substantiation for that allegation?

 

That is assbackwards!

There is ZERO evidence that your deity exists.

The EXTRAORDINARY claim that he does exist places the ONUS on THEISTS to provide the evidence of his existence.

 

Best to see it as a form of knowledge then?

 

Purely anecdotal, though Im confident theres plenty here who know exactly what Im talking about.

 

It can be as backwards as you want it.

I believe in God. If you expect me to *stop* believing in God, the burden of proof is on you.

 

Thank you for admitting to spreading theist disinformation about atheists.

 

Who wants you to stop believing in an imaginary deity?

It certainly isn't atheists who don't care what you believe in.

All that atheists care about is that theists not be allowed to IMPOSE their beliefs on others.

 

It only disinformation if you can counter with evidense that Im factually incorrect.

I *could* copy/paste every theological discussion on this website in support of my claim, but I dont have weeks to spare.

Anyone who debates religion online knows what Im talking about.

 

Who is trying to impose their beleifs on you?

 

It is the feeble attempt to pretend both are belief systems and thus equally devoid of proof and thus of equal possibility.

 

DOMA was a failed attempt by fundamentalist theists to violate the Constitution by imposing their religious beliefs on this entire nation.

Attempts to outlaw abortion are also violating the Constitutional rights of women.

To deny that this is happening is to deny reality.

 

Does the Easter Bunny exist, or the Tooth Fairy? Do you have actual facts that they don't or is it just faith or are you claiming that they do exist if only I n your mind?

Same goes for the big sky Daddy so many claim to worship.

 

The vast majority of spiritual people dont support restricting marriage. As you said, thats 'fundamentalists', a very small minority of the spiritual. But that doesnt stop anti-spiritualists from stereotyping and using it as ammunition to denegrate them all.

Abortion is a spiritual issue, but most people who oppose it do so because they view it as murder, not because they want to violate womens rights. Just ask them if they would support abortion if men were capable of giving birth. 99.99999% still wouldnt.

 

I agree with you.

The reason why literalism gets a focus is that it is very well defined. If non-literalists were more clear with what they believed, they'd get a similar (although not quite as large) amount of criticism. They would probably also find that they actually didn't agree with one another as much as they might have thought.

 

I really have no problems at all with atheism, atheists, except in one philosophical area. They dogmatically accept philosophical materialism, even exclaiming complete certainty that their assumption is fact. So, the intellectual dishonesty on which they based their certainty and beliefs chaps my old arse, since the truth of the matter is opposed to the certainty that they in great arrogance of ego espouse. And this obvious observation on my part, drove me into agnosticism. The kind that maintains that we do not know the ultimate reality, at least to date. I detest this faux certainty that we see from the militant atheists. I think they are just on an ego trip, and nothing more. Ah the dishonesty that egoism can create!

 

I agree with this. I have little doubt that the fundamentalist literalism is not suitable for the modern mind and appears to most people to be nothing more than the fairy tales of a more primitive man. It has seemed absurd to me that people believe in the God portrayed by fundamentalists, by those who interpret scripture in a most literal manner. As if you could ever use such language to define a creator of this universe, if such a creator existed. I am open to the God of Tom Campbell, the physicist, but also understand I cannot with any honesty claim that I KNOW this God to actually exist. Or that this universe is in fact a metaphorical Virtual Reality, created by a metaphorical super computer, which exists outside of this Universe. But at least seems far more credible than the God the fundamentalists believe exists. After all the God these people believe in looks more like a spoiled brat human king than a creator of this vast and mysterious universe. They do their God no credit at all, with their infantile beliefs as to His true nature. At least to my mind their image of God seems rather childish and fanciful fantasy. And yet I also think that if their beliefs in such a God helps them psychologically to deal with the suffering of human existence, who am I to try to take that away? I am not a cruel person, nor am I gratified by hurting others, their religious beliefs that makes their own lives easier to endure and to keep some sanity. As Freud once said, life is a disease with a very bad prognosis We suffer horribly physically and psychologically for a lifetime or a short lifetime and it is no wonder people want to believe in something that makes this at least bearable. Perhaps from this POV atheists are nothing more than masochists? A bit of tongue in cheek for entertainment in a very serious and important subject, which is also a very ancient subject.

 

There you go again driven by ego into intellectual dishonesty. That some of us will refuse to accept the fact, that certainty is impossible, is called denial. And there are some of us who find this certainty absurd, and yet we understand that some minds cannot grasp the utter simplicity of the truth of this matter. That certainty is impossible, and yet some of us are incapable of grasping the basic truth involved here. It is either cognitive dissonance or an illustration of the power of an ego, which is probably the same thing as the dissonance.

Apparently you flunked Philosophy 101? But I doubt if you ever took the course. It does not show in your posts on this subject is why I bring it up. Anyways this subject is outside of the realm of science and yet some of us ignore that. This subject is within in the realm of philosophy which many men of hard science will agree with. I just heard a physicist agree with this a few days ago.

 

That's one approach, I suppose. I prefer to look at ancient religious texts in an anthropological way. They are a part of past cultures and offer important insights into them. They are also essential for understanding the evolution of modern religious traditions.

I, too, have gotten rather bored with attacking religious fundamentalists. It was more interesting to me sooner after my personal loss of faith/quitting of religion. I've moved on to just not caring too much about it one way or another, though I will still argue against religious fundamentalism and the indoctrination of impressionable young people into such belief systems. It's like Santa Claus with a death threat attached.

 

I think of it more in an artistic sense, but there is knowledge to gain from an appreciation of art.

 

It's an interesting approach. My own view is that those who wrote the various sacred texts (of all religions that have them) were trying to explain observed phenomena. In a sense it was an early attempt at science. So in one way you're right about figurative as opposed to literal language. The early writers would have had to use metaphors with which they were familiar to explain what they observed. "Chariots of fire", is a pretty good metaphor for a meteor shower I would think. However you'll have a hard time discussing that with literalist fundamentalists.

 

The book of the Apocalypse is of doubtful origin.

It is probably a fake.

Don't put too much weight on it.

More important are the 4 Gospel books especially Chap 25 of Matthew.

 

But there are some interesting aspects of a lot of the sacred texts. Some have common threads through them and this is in texts of civilisations separated by time and distance. It's almost as if Jungian Archetypes have some reality about them. Perhaps it's embedded in human nature.

 

roughly 25%of americans believe in their bible is the literal word of their god. I agree with the "four horsemen" Literalism is an intellectual cancer that has created immeasureable suffering.

this means that roughly 50% of americans rely on their preferred interpretations and any anti-literal arguments are irrelevant to them.

You criticize people who are addressing a specific religious interpretation - that of literalism. OTOH, it is a easy way to dismiss the numerous arguments they also proferred wrt fundamental aspects of the philosophies of religio
Its been my experience that you cannot effectively "fight" literalists or anyone holding deep religious faith since no amount of logic, fact, experience or knowledge can by definition, alter that faith.