The Folly of Atheism

Your strawman points?

Strawman from post #1:

Redefine Science. Among atheists, especially the militant ones, the common theme is, 'Theists are religious, atheists follow science'. This is fundamentally flawed on many levels.​

You've been around this forum for a long time. You've been in discussions with many atheists. I think you actually know the driving factors for becoming atheistic are what I posted.

Reality:

Theists become atheists when they realize the religious beliefs they have been indoctrinated with since birth are all just nonsense.​

However, that reality is difficult for you to address.

 

I think you are a dishonest 'debater', & prefer to use ad hominem, distortion, & lies in your 'arguments'. I also think you are an unpleasant person to talk to, & are irrational & emotion driven in your replies. For these reasons i prefer not to debate anything with you. I should have known better than to reply to your post, here, but tried to give you another chance at rational debate.

 

I don't care to read your OP because it's silly. But let me ask you one question:

Do you treat your atheism towards Zeus with the same skepticism?

 

Well, then is your attempt to demean this discussion silly, too?

The debate is not on any specific deity, but on the general concept of a supernatural. And, of course, this thread is not about theism at all, except by comparison. this is about the folly of atheists, & their irrational, conflicted behavior. Was that what you were trying to illustrate with your reply?

 

You're now trying to move the goalposts. An atheist is someone who denies a claimed deity. The early Christians were charged with the crime of atheism for denying the Roman pantheon, for instance.

Atheism is not necessarily an explicit statement concerning the possible existence or a deity or deities, nor am I confusing this for agnosticism.

Let me state this for you in simpler terms:

Why is my atheism towards your deity any more egregious an offense than your atheism towards the ten thousand deities you don't believe in?

Why am I an atheist? Well, why are you an atheist towards Zeus?

 

I'm not moving the goalposts, you are changing the topic of the thread. That is another topic, though related. Besides, this is not an attempt to be aggrieved over atheism, but is a logical examination of the belief system. I've listed a few points on this, would you care to rebut them? What is the basis for your belief in 'no god'? How did you arrive at that conclusion? Personal anecdotes are always welcome & fitting in any discussion like this.. they bring the human element back into dry philosophical musings.

 

1. Atheism is not a "belief" anymore than your atheism towards Zeus is a "belief." One does not believe a negative; one rejects belief in a positive. A person doesn't "believe Zeus doesn't exist." A person doesn't believe Zeus exist. Understand now?

2. Atheism does not deny the possibility of a god or gods because atheism is not a positive assertion. It merely denies the possibility of your god.

3. You're probably going to claim that my last point is agnosticism. But it's not. Agnosticism is uncertainty concerning the truth of a positive statement. For instance, if John claims that Yahweh exists, and Mary claims she's undecided about Yahweh's existence, then John is a theist towards Yahweh and Mary is an agnostic towards Yahweh. If I come along and say I don't believe Yahweh exists but don't deny the possibility of a god or gods, that makes me an atheist. It's true that many atheists go beyond this, but atheism itself is a negative statement, not a positive. So please don't call it a "belief" because it makes you look ignorant.

To answer your question [again], I'm atheist towards your deity for the same reason you're atheist towards all the ones you don't believe in: lack of EVIDENCE.

 

There is no evidence. So therefore, in the lack of evidence, we don’t believe.

 

The topic here is not a specific belief in a specific deity, but a general belief in 'no gods'. We are not going through all the possible gods in human history, and querying about each one, individually. I assume if someone chooses the label of 'atheist', that they include all of them, not just certain ones.

Theists are more difficult, as they each have to define their deity, specifically.

I have no desire to wrangle about words, & fine points of semantics. You each have a world view. You believe some things about the universe that has no empirical basis, or things that you have no personal experience with. It is a belief system, & there is no rational reason to deny it.

There is theism, which is a belief in some kind of supernatural entity, and there is atheism, which does not believe in any supernatural entity. I see no reason to muddle the definitions with pointless technicalities. It becomes a labelling game, useful only for insults and rhetorical dodges. It does not aid enlightenment or clarity.

 

I'm just explaining what I believe. I believe it is smarter to not believe in God since there is no observable evidence.

 

And you assume incorrectly.

You can't keep moving goalposts. You try to define everything according to your misinformed views about atheism, and when you're challenged by an actual atheist, you say you don't want to define words or whatever.

And then you go right back into [incorrectly] defining atheism to fit your strawman arguments. Atheism is NOT about disbelieving in any supernatural entity. It's merely the denial of a proposed deity. In other words, if there were no theists, there would be no atheists. Understand yet?

This discussion is mostly about definitions. If you can't even properly define atheism, you sure as hell have no right being so smug in your OP.

 

I clearly showed that your OP was built on a strawman of your own making.

Faced with that you call me dishonest, but don't show where I have been dishonest.
Faced with that you say I have lied and distorted, but don't show where I lied and distorted.
Faced with that you say I attacked you personally. I didn't. I challenged what you posted.
Faced with that you call me an unpleasant person. I guess it's unpleasant for you that I showed the fallacy of your argument.
Faced with that you called me irrational. I rationally challenged your what you posted. It would have been irrational of me to debate a bogus premise without showing it was a bogus premise.

Faced with that you say my response was "emotion driven". Well, on that one you may be right. When people try to start a debate based on a false premise, I do get a little angry. I've seen it many times over and over, including your "Fallacies of Evolution" thread.

You may not want to debate with me. That's OK. But I will continue to respond to posts, yours and others, whenever I choose to. I won't expect you to reply to my posts. That's OK too.

 

IMO, that is a rational conclusion, based on the information you have, & the analysis of your knowledge base. If different evidence presents itself, you can revise your world view to fit.. as it should be, for the honest thinker.

I'm just keeping it simple. I am not equipped to deal with any phobias over terms. If you cannot deal with your own belief system, world view, or whatever you want to call it, that is your issue, not mine.

I understand atheism perfectly. I do not understand the need to obfuscate it with vague and redefined terms.

Do you believe in God or the supernatural? If so, you are a theist, regardless of the specific deity. If not, you are an atheist, that does not believe in the supernatural.

If you say, 'i don't believe in xxx God, but yyy god', you are still a theist. The terms of this thread are generic, not addressing any specific belief system. Your objection seems to be more over specifics.

The goal posts have not moved. You are just playing a different game, with different rules.


Calling me 'smug!' is no insult. It may be the closest statement of Absolute Truth in this thread.

 

Let's say we take a Descartian we-can't-know-anything-for-sure world view is the starting point.

There are important practical and political conclusions that derive from religions, let's take Christianity for example. Stances on abortion, same-sex marriages, education (biology) and so on derive heavily from Christianity, not to mention the interest some seem to have that the president or other elected officials are Christian.

Compare this to god-rejecting atheism. None of the stances most atheists hold depend on there not being a God. Those stances tend to be present in the default view of Descartian agnosticism.

This should of course have some disclaimers, I'm sure there are atheists who would legislate atheism (and when I see that, I question that as much as I would any Christian views), and of course there are Christians who don't take the religious right position on these issues. However, the question here is the justifications for starting the argument, and relies more on the impact of the views rather than the idea that all Christians hold them. To a lesser extent the same argument can be made about Christians who reject medicine in favour of prayer. Obviously most Christians wouldn't do that, but the reason it appears at all is interesting nonetheless.

So, while one is of course allowed to question any statements and conclusions, I imagine the reason religion tends to be brought up more often is that practical decisions rely upon them, whereas atheists' views on politics don't tend to rely on the atheism in particular, but is consistent with the agnostic view which is sometimes argued (even if not espoused) by the religious.

Similarly, the ideas that seem to lean on naturalism don't rely on the idea that there isn't anything supernatural as much as the idea that anything supernatural is unknown to us, so we have no indication of how to take it into account and must leave it be.

 

Yeah, that's my take too.

 

It seems to me you are trying to make a distinction between motivations from an ideology. You claim that all the 'bad' things that a christian believes, that happen to be on the leftist's $hit list, are all motivated by the theistic ideology of christianity. A particular person's views on abortion, homosexuality, evolution, & etc, are motivated by either christian belief, or atheistic belief.

This seems to be flawed on the surface, as there are many who claim to be atheists who are not for abortion, homosexuality, or many other pet issues from the left, & many who claim to be christians who line up nicely with any list of leftist doctrines.

And as far as 'legislating morality', there is plenty of mandates from atheistic based systems, from the USSR or China, Cambodia, Venezuela, Cuba, etc, where very strict morality has been heavily legislated, in the name of the State, that reflect the dictator of the day's personal beliefs. Tell me how homosexuality was so popular in Cuba, during Castro's reign. Now, tell me that was from his christian ideology.

I dispute the assertion that there is something inherently evil in any theistic belief system, that is not there in an atheistic one. Human evils are caused by humans, & many times it is completely unrelated to their motivational ideologies. But, if we examine the ideology, we can discover if it does, indeed drive the evil that you suggest.

Islam is by nature intolerant, & 'kill the infidels' is part of their ideology. It is not a conflict for muslims to kill any outliers, as they believe it is their duty. Marxism, too, is tasked with destroying 'religion', which they see as 'the opiate of the masses'. So it is in their ideology to purge humanity of this evil, & they believe they are serving the greater good to do so. But some other theistic based beliefs do not promote aggression & intolerance, but the opposite. I submit that Christianity has at it's root, a 'free will' concept that does not impose mandatory belief. It is the basis, imo, for the American view of religious freedom. Humanity has free will, & a free conscience to choose & believe what they wish. So any correlating of Christianity with ideological aggression is unfounded, and is based on a distortion of Christianity, as presented by human aggressors, not the ideology itself.

So i find the attempt to correlate theism as the source of all the evils in the world, while atheism or islam are peaceful & loving to be absurd.. a propaganda based lie, to promote just the opposite of reality.

 

Interesting. What you have to say about naturalism is a big part of the reason I left supernaturalism: rampant subjectivism, no scientific backing, no good proposals for origins, filled with assumptions and logical fallacies.

 

I would say ironic.. leaving one belief system for another, when neither has evidence. Perhaps you were led to believe that there was, in fact, evidence for a naturalistic view?

 

Then why did the God of Christianity once punish the exercise of this free will with death?

 

I see evidence for natural causes, which almost no theist denies. The only question is whether or not there are any causes in addition to that. I see no evidence for any additional causes, nor any logical advantage or explanatory power in supernatural proposals. So far I haven't found anything that can be better explained by supernatural causes, and the proposed supernatural causes seem to just add more questions rather than providing any answers.

 

You have evidence of this, or is it based on some religious texts?

I was going back, to the historical progression of freedom in the west, beginning with the reformation. The Age of Reason began concurrently, and soon after the Enlightenment. From my historical studies, i can see the thread of freedom, following the expansion of free christianity, as promoted by the reformers, & finding the ultimate expression in the American Experiment. That is a historical perspective, & a valid one, imo. But if you just want to argue bible quotes, i'm not really into that..

 

IMO, all anyone can do is be true to their own mind & thinking processes. Of course, this carries with it a caveat, to beware the many agendas & deceptions out there, promoting a world view from ulterior motives, or obedience to dogma. Pursuing Truth, as a goal, carries a presumption of skepticism & cynicism.. why should i believe what someone is claiming? I need some empirical proof, if i'm going to buy what you're selling.. and even then, i could be just a mark for some fast talking, slickly packaged agenda.

 

It is based on what Christians have to say about their God. If you don't believe that the Ten Commandments come from God or that God had anything to do with the laws of the OT, then I guess that is at least some progress.

The Reformation was full of bloodshed and intolerance on both sides. I see no reason to credit it for the Enlightenment.

Looking at the Reformers, I see no evidence of this claim. Luther and Calvin vehemently opposed religious freedom. The main expressions of freedom of religion came when then the Enlightenment pushed back against religious authority, not from embracing it.

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Hence why I've found nothing compelling about supernaturalism.

 

just more weak minds that dont understand debate. He who asserts the positive has the burden of proof. Nobody can prove that god ever existed. Nobody has the burden to prove that he didn't/doesn't. We just maintain that you believers show us any reason at all that we should believe. You can't, so we dont.

 

Have you read anything from the reformers? Any of the enlightenment thinkers? Followed the correlation between the reformation & the age of reason? Or, have you just believed what was taught in an ideologically driven classroom, from a progressive based belief system, filled with revisionist history? How do you 'know' the facts you have been fed were indeed, 'facts', & not just cherry picked, agenda driven propaganda?

What 'reformation' had 'intolerance & bloodshed on both sides'? I can correlate Copernicus, Gutenberg, the reformation, AND the age of reason & the enlightenment. You can see the connection in the thinking processes, the reasoning, & the basis for the beliefs that sprang from them. this 'boogie man' of 'evil religious people' is just revisionist history.. there were no atheists promoting freedom, science, & self rule. They came much later, & generally promoted a return to elitism, where the superior, advanced elite could & should rule over the ignorant, huddled masses. Marx & Darwin came much later, & progressive ideology has its roots, there. The correlation between them & progressivism is impossible to miss. But the Enlightenment, the age of reason, & the birth of scientific methodology had its roots in the reformation, where 'science' by decree' gave way to free inquiry & loyalty to conscience, not dogma. If you spend any time researching the actual people, their words, & the basis for their beliefs, it is impossible to miss that, too.