Atheism

Originally posted by TacDavey
I'm not talking about the word, murder. I'm talking about the act of taking an innocent person's life against their will. Is that always wrong no matter what? Or would that be alright if society said it was?

[QUOTE=13332151]Originally posted by TacDavey
[B]But the universe of ideas was created by PEOPLE. So PEOPLE can change the universe of ideas, right? Or is it a first come first serve sort of deal?

You said morality comes from more than an individual. But the hypothetical was that murder was accepted by EVERYONE. Not just one person. In that case, wouldn't it be acceptable? Since now the people who are making the universe of ideas are filling it with the idea that murder is okay?

I think there could exist a society where killing was the "moral" thing to do. I think this would be a pretty self-destructive society so that's clearly unacceptable.

Good. Then we seem to agree. For the most part.

Originally posted by Digi
The "I'm important" comment was joking, I had hoped obviously so.

That kinda illustrates my point, how does that help when the shit hits the fan?

Originally posted by Digi

But anyway, who would willingly live their life believing their existence to be meaningless? It's really all a matter of perspective. Existence is great and I can contribute to it, therefore I'm important. There's no cosmic plan and my life is a blip in the larger scheme, therefore I'm unimportant. Neither is more valid than the other, but it comes down to the person.

I'm pretty sure you could find a spiritual belief more motivating than an athiest one. At any rate even spiritual beliefs can make life seem meaningless and unimportant. The afterlife doesn't have to contradict athiesm.

Originally posted by Digi

I don't remember describing atheism as depressing in some way. It's not as ideal as a Christian afterlife, but there's an infinite number of awesome afterlives I don't believe in (and an infinite number of awful ones). So it's really pretty neutral as a stance. In atheism, this is all you have, which can indeed be scary and poignant, but also empowering and exciting at the same time.

I think you were refering to Y the last man or some description of a void and said something along the lines of how you would picture death. Abrahamic religons tend to dwell on horrible afterlifes.

Originally posted by Digi

Also, I don't use atheism as a motivator to do good. Despite the fact that religion understandably dominates this forum, it's not a central aspect of my everyday life. There's lots of other reasons to "do good."

I know. However if you are an athiest and you're motivated it's because you're already motivated.

Originally posted by Deadline
That kinda illustrates my point, how does that help when the shit hits the fan?

Not sure I follow.

Originally posted by Deadline
I'm pretty sure you could find a spiritual belief more motivating than an athiest one.

No, actually, I can't. Motivation is intrinsic to me, not based on outside forces.

Also, why would "you have but one life to live" not motivate the sh*t out of you? I'm squarely of the mind that people would be less tolerant of mediocrity and injustice in a largely atheist world, because there isn't a divine creator giving meaning, and therefore justification, to the suffering.

Originally posted by Deadline
At any rate even spiritual beliefs can make life seem meaningless and unimportant.

Agreed.

Originally posted by Deadline
The afterlife doesn't have to contradict athiesm.

Agreed.

Originally posted by Deadline
I think you were refering to Y the last man or some description of a void and said something along the lines of how you would picture death.

Eh, maybe, but it seems like a stretch. Y was years ago, and not directly related to this discussion. Anyway, I don't remember it.

Originally posted by Deadline
I know. However if you are an athiest and you're motivated it's because you're already motivated.

Right. Same if you're religious. You can say God inspired and motivated you, but it's YOU motivating you. It's almost always, unequivocally, intrinsic.

YouTube video

TheraminTrees always has great insights and explains his points very well.

God, intellectual Brits are such a turn-on. I'm not even gay, and that was satisfying on several levels.

Good video.

crackers

The video was very well explained, and his stance is somewhat understandable, given his perspective. What I don't understand about this video and the others like it is why these people expect God to be a force that they can comprehend in the same way that a lab rat might be examined and understood. If God is the creator then he's outside of our ability to understand entirely, even if you have a firm understanding of your languages dictionary. Contradictions can be created where there are none by simply having a vocabulary limitation that promotes them, or context misunderstandings. "man that movie was bad! I loved it!" Quite the contradictory statement, correct? But anyone who speaks english well knows that it's not contradictory at all.

Simply put, there are many things that we don't understand about the universe, but many people believe that the power source that drives it is superior to us and also more aware than we are. Depending on the language we speak we may call this power source God or Dios or Allah etc.. but that power source is still beyond our comprehension.

I think that it may be possible that atheists perhaps refuse to accept God as a possibility simply because he is not only difficult to understand, but as the man in the video stated impossible to define using human standards. That being determined, many people opt to dismiss the possibility entirely rather than accept as a fact that there is anything beyond their comprehension.

People of faith view order as evidence that God/the universe is alive and aware and that our station as the hosts of the earth is as purposeful as the placement of bacteria in the furthest recesses of the planet. The order that we see also applies to our emotions and when we are using our free will they let us know whether what we are doing is morally right or wrong. No matter which direction a persons faith may take them they will either care about the morality of their actions or they will dismiss concern about that. Why is there confusion when Jesus condenses the Bible into two commandments? In Mathew 22

" All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Atheism dismisses the authenticity of the command to love others as yourself and to love God, the origin of order, based mainly on human inabilities and limitations. At the end of the day however even those who refuse to believe in God have to make moral decisions every day, there is no escaping the awareness that we are accountable for our actions. If we know that we are accountable for our actions then it's not irrational to believe that a higher power than us (the power that put us in this station) would hold us accountable for what we did and didn't do during our lives on this plane of existence. Thus theists have their basis for believing.

Well, this video is in a serious of three videos the latest of which has not been put up yet. The first one dealt with his believes as a Christian child, the second one, the one we were watching, deals with deities that he believes can be disproven by traditional means, as they make claims of the world or are contradictory in itself. What you are talking about will likely be addressed in the third video, which is to deal with ultimately unprovable deities. If I remember and it is on topic I will post it here too, perhaps it will address some of your criticism.

Originally posted by The MISTER
At the end of the day however even those who refuse to believe in God have to make moral decisions every day, there is no escaping the awareness that we are accountable for our actions. If we know that we are accountable for our actions then it's not irrational to believe that a higher power than us (the power that put us in this station) would hold us accountable for what we did and didn't do during our lives on this plane of existence.

Originally posted by The MISTER
The video was very well explained, and his stance is somewhat understandable, given his perspective. What I don't understand about this video and the others like it is why these people expect God to be a force that they can comprehend in the same way that a lab rat might be examined and understood. If God is the creator then he's outside of our ability to understand entirely, even if you have a firm understanding of your languages dictionary. Contradictions can be created where there are none by simply having a vocabulary limitation that promotes them, or context misunderstandings. "man that movie was bad! I loved it!" Quite the contradictory statement, correct? But anyone who speaks english well knows that it's not contradictory at all.

I'm actually pretty sure he deals with this directly in the video in the area where he talks about a universe specifically designed to limit our understanding into certain categories.

Originally posted by The MISTER
Simply put, there are many things that we don't understand about the universe, but many people believe that the power source that drives it is superior to us and also more aware than we are. Depending on the language we speak we may call this power source God or Dios or Allah etc.. but that power source is still beyond our comprehension.

Which is why most people will tell you that "a" God is unknowable, and can't be proven true or false. But human religions can be. That's usually what's being talked about. Most theists don't give a damn if they can cling to "an unknowable God that we have no way of understanding or comprehending," they care about their personal version of God.

Anyway, an appeal to ignorance is hardly grounds for a defense. It actually loosens the hold of any particular religion, because if we don't really know anything about such matters, "any other God" is infinitely more likely to be the correct one instead of "our particular God."

Besides, if our human faculties can't fathom the mode of existence that God operates on at ALL, then God has essentially made any quest for him futile. Another point made in the video. Seriously, if it's as incomprehensible like you suggest, how is there a point to religious inquiry at all? It's utterly contradictory.

Originally posted by The MISTER
I think that it may be possible that atheists perhaps refuse to accept God as a possibility...

Much of your argument falls flat on this statement. Most atheists accept God as possible. Objectively speaking, to say otherwise is probably a logical fallacy. However. Most don't accept him as plausible. Very different argument.

Originally posted by The MISTER
People of faith view order as evidence that God/the universe is alive and aware and that our station as the hosts of the earth is as purposeful as the placement of bacteria in the furthest recesses of the planet.

People of reason see order as the result of the laws of physics, thermodynamics, and processes like evolution and plate tectonics. Is it any wonder that some don't see the need for a God, when everything you just described is easily attributed to non-divine mechanisms.

Originally posted by The MISTER
Atheism dismisses the authenticity of the command to love others as yourself and to love God, the origin of order, based mainly on human inabilities and limitations.

We dismiss love? Since when? I love love. It's awesome. But yes, I would assume most atheists would resist commands in general, it being opposed to free will and all.

Originally posted by King Kandy
I don't know about that. I feel like moral decisions are worthless if you don't understand them for yourself. So if you only know what is moral because some powerful entity told you, I don't feel like you really keeping yourself accountable (you basically have someone else to do it for you).

Originally posted by Digi
I'm actually pretty sure he deals with this directly in the video in the area where he talks about a universe specifically designed to limit our understanding into certain categories.

Originally posted by Digi
Which is why most people will tell you that "a" God is unknowable, and can't be proven true or false. But human religions can be. That's usually what's being talked about. Most theists don't give a damn if they can cling to "an unknowable God that we have no way of understanding or comprehending," they care about their personal version of God.

Originally posted by Digi
Anyway, an appeal to ignorance is hardly grounds for a defense. It actually loosens the hold of any particular religion, because if we don't really know anything about such matters, "any other God" is infinitely more likely to be the correct one instead of "our particular God."

Originally posted by Digi
Besides, if our human faculties can't fathom the mode of existence that God operates on at ALL, then God has essentially made any quest for him futile. Another point made in the video. Seriously, if it's as incomprehensible like you suggest, how is there a point to religious inquiry at all? It's utterly contradictory.

Originally posted by Digi
Much of your argument falls flat on this statement. Most atheists accept God as possible. Objectively speaking, to say otherwise is probably a logical fallacy. However. Most don't accept him as plausible. Very different argument.

Originally posted by Digi
People of reason see order as the result of the laws of physics, thermodynamics, and processes like evolution and plate tectonics. Is it any wonder that some don't see the need for a God, when everything you just described is easily attributed to non-divine mechanisms.

Originally posted by Digi
We dismiss love? Since when? I love love. It's awesome. But yes, I would assume most atheists would resist commands in general, it being opposed to free will and all.

Originally posted by The MISTER
The scientific community consider themselves to "ignorance free" but that's an impossibility. I'm not appealing to ignorance I simply admit that it's a part of my humanity, period. It's not a defense it's a reality unless you know someone who is devoid of ignorance. The holds of particular religions should be loosened because they are not focused on love and fellowship when it's "us vs them". That being said, love exists, and if it was created on purpose then it would seem likely that it's creator would focus on it highly, for what good would the creation be without it? That narrows the scope somewhat.

The first step in the scientific process is "not knowing something" so your first statement is simply false. However, the scientific process is also the best means we've created for understanding the world around us. It is much better at this than any religion.

And why can't love be a biochemical reaction that is evolutionarily advantageous? It's an undeniably pleasant offshoot of evolution, and yes one of the strongest emotions, but has a cause and purpose that does not need a divine creator to justify or explain it.

Originally posted by The MISTER
There's a huge difference between at ALL and completely wouldn't you say? Any quest to completely understand the planet earth would be futile, does that mean we should cease our efforts to understand it at ALL? Just because there are things that are incomprehensible, that doesn't mean that we not attempt to comprehend what we can.

Wait, what? One of us got mixed up somewhere here. This isn't what I'm talking about. The point of yours that I was refuting is that God is incomprehensible. If so, what's the point of trying to determine anything about him/her/it? Your point of "atheists don't believe God but maybe God is just beyond our understanding" undermines itself, because it calls religions into just as much question as atheism. If God is incomprehensible, any quest for God is futile. And a comprehensible God is contradictory for the reasons stated in the video.

Originally posted by The MISTER
Most agnostics accept god as possible, if not plausible. Most atheists are known to believe that "There is no God" not " There may be a god". Atheism is the opposite to theism, I thought we agreed on that before. I do understand that there are atheists that do not rule God out as a possibility as I'm sure you understand that there are theists that don't rule out the absence of God as a possibility. Good for them for having such open minds but most people feel quite certain and would use terms like "impossible" to describe opposing views.

This again. I never agreed to such terms, btw. But here's the deal. No atheist believes in God, or even the remote possibility of God. But "there is no God" is still a position of absolute knowledge or fact, and therefore logically untenable. "There is no reason to believe in any God, I personally don't believe in God, and there almost certainly is no God" is, however, defensible, and I think you would find more aligned with msot atheists.

I always use the Richard Dawkins example here. He himself states he wouldn't go so far as to say "There is no God" or "I know there is no God." If the figurehead of militant atheism isn't as extreme as you're making atheists out to be, maybe your definition is flawed. The only "There is no God" atheists I've ever encountered are friends of Christians who are relating to me that they "know lots of people like that." I have yet to meet one personally, in the flesh or online.

Originally posted by The MISTER
And people of faith see these laws and forces as planned, rather than conveniently available. Yes I wonder how people don't see the need for a God when the mechanisms themselves had no reason to appear coincidentally.

You're aware there are several mathematically viable ways for the universe to have come into existence without a creator, yes?

Beyond that, let's say for arguments sake that you're right and a creator being created the universe. There's still no reason to believe He's ever been involved since then because of the rational mechanisms I listed (physics, chemistry, evolution, etc.). It's a God of the gaps. Because everything that is known to exist is largely explainable. So at that point we're not talking about a Christian God or any human God, we're talking about an unknowable, obscure God not worth considering and utterly unconfirmable.

Originally posted by The MISTER
I never said that atheists dismiss love, that would be a cut-down. I said that atheists dismiss the idea that loving one another is something that is spiritually imporatant.

Also a poor choice of words. Atheists don't dismiss love as unimportant. They would just drop the "spiritually" modifier you put in front of it.

Seriously, what is inherent in atheism that you think you can say this about entire chunks of unrelated people? You're trying to act like it's not a "cut-down" but it seems completely at odds with anything reasonable, and yes, potentially a bit insulting.

Originally posted by Digi
Seriously, what is inherent in atheism that you think you can say this about entire chunks of unrelated people? You're trying to act like it's not a "cut-down" but it seems completely at odds with anything reasonable, and yes, potentially a bit insulting.

I'll try to sum this up. I have no reason to have ill feelings towards atheists, but I do have issues with the message of atheism. The message that I'm referring to is the message that none of our actions have any spiritual consequences. The message that the individual is god, essentially, and there are only other humans to answer to and obey. The message that humans are a blip on the dust speck in space called earth and are no more or less important in the grand scheme than a fungus. The message that the universe is a byproduct of a mathematic computation that must somehow begin by tapping into some form of a timeless power source that is likely not as conscious as we are. Lastly the message that we do not have any force to thank for what we have in life, that would appreciate gratitude for giving us life.

Considering the fact that atheism bases it's entire message on the paltry bit of intelligence that humans have gathered about the universe, I can understand your feeling insulted by an idea.

Just to reiterate, you must take what I said out of context to reach the conclusion that I somehow suggested that atheists don't find love important, or don't like love. If you drop the word spiritually you change the meaning of what I wrote, similar to when you responded to another sentence after you subtracted the word commanded. I'm sure you're aware of this, so what's with hyping yourself up off of things you invented?

Plainly, atheists aren't supposed to love anyone or anything that that they don't feel like loving. If I'm not mistaken the only thing an atheist is supposed to do is survive, the same thing an amoeba is supposed to do. Introduce suicide and people don't even HAVE to do that. To me it's an insult to humanity as a whole to suggest that we are equal to the amoeba concerning what we are SUPPOSED/meant to do, perhaps inferior considering our self destructive nature.

In conclusion I can see atheism suggesting that cockroaches and bacteria are superior to humans,while not in complexity,rather their ability to do what they are SUPPOSED/meant to do.

Humanity inferior to cockroaches? That's insulting.
Love everyone/your enemies? How you find it insulting that I believe that you, a stranger/an anonymous person are as worthy of love from me as my wife and kid is beyond me.

I'll show you why I have a problem with atheism.

If I annoy someone in traffic, and they follow me and kill me, and pull it off without getting caught and feel good about their kill, according to atheism have they done anything wrong?

Originally posted by The MISTER

If I annoy someone in traffic, and they follow me and kill me, and pull it off without getting caught and feel good about their kill, according to atheism have they done anything wrong?

Do they according to "theism"?

The answer to both is "no" because neither of these has anything to say about morality. All they say is "i believe there is a god" or "I do not believe there is a god". There are atheistic philosophies that say it is wrong though, just as there are theistic ones that do.

This seems to be headed back towards the “can there be objective moral values with atheism”.

Originally posted by TacDavey
This seems to be headed back towards the “can there be objective moral values with atheism”.

I guess it has to, since his claim is equivalent to "no, there can't be objective (or perhaps absolute) moral values with atheism"

Originally posted by Bardock42
I guess it has to, since his claim is equivalent to "no, there can't be objective (or perhaps absolute) moral values with atheism"

I think that debate needs its own thread.

Originally posted by TacDavey
I think that debate needs its own thread.

You are free to create it if you do think so 😛

Originally posted by The MISTER
If I annoy someone in traffic, and they follow me and kill me, and pull it off without getting caught and feel good about their kill, according to atheism have they done anything wrong?

ummm wut?

Originally posted by TacDavey
I think that debate needs its own thread.

please, no more