Why modern atheism is so shallow

[SillySapienne]

I am morally and emotionally an atheist primary to my being an intellectual one, just sayin'.

*shrugs*

 

[Bella]

Darling, I can find and procure at least 10 or 15 posts of yours where you, yes, DIRECTLY ATTACK ME. (The above, ironically, not being one of them).

It has taken everything within me, (primarily pity), not to strike back at you.

You have mastered the talent of being insulting under the moderator's radar, whereas I have not.

Because I care more about this forum than I do not caring about you, you shall officially join the lone Wolf on my ignore list.

Peace out MP.

:hi:

Actually, I don't think I've ever seen him being rude or annoying.

 

[SillySapienne]

Actually, I don't think I've ever seen him being rude.

How many times have you seen he and I engage each other?

How long have you been a member?

*Looks at join date*

Ahhh, ok.

 

[Didums]

Forgive the semantics but how can modern Atheism be shallow? Isn't it a select grouping of Atheists that can be called 'shallow'. The exact same thing can be said for Theism and Theists.

Sure there are some newer (younger) atheists whos argument consists of "lol God is stupid it makes no sense", all you have to do is read some youtube comments on videos about God etc to see that. But there is a disproportionately larger amount of younger theists (this includes All religions) who are just as bad, or worse (radical islam, evangelical creationists) in their reasoning.

 

[Magic Poriferan]

Actually, I don't think I've ever seen him being rude or annoying.

I'm afraid Captain Chick is one of those people who, as the phrase goes, dishes it out but can't take it in. She also seems to have some element of a victimization complex.

I stand by my own story, that most of the times I was hostile that she's presumably refering to are times when A) I said something with little or no intended hostility, but she perceived there to be, or B) I was being hostile, but only after she provoked it with her own escelation. As time went on, A was increasingly replaced by B.

 

[SillySapienne]

 

[Didums]

I'm not an atheist, but I am not a believer in God either?

Prefix "A" = Without

Theism = belief in the existence of a god or gods



You are an Atheist. By middle-ages christian standard you'd be burned at stake, or by radical islamic standard you'd be stoned as well.


Agnosticism is the idea that we can never know whether there is a God or not, which is basically pleading to human ignorance. There either is or isn't a God and we Can determine it. People always seem to cling to the idea of the separate realms of the natural and supernatural, that the natural world can't prove anything about the supernatural world. Sorry but this idea is garbage, essentially a fullblown false dilemma fallacy that runs on assumptions, (whereas the controversy of Is there or Isn't there a God is not a false dilemma because by definition it is either true or false). If God can interact with the natural world, and he is supernatural, then they are connected, they are not exclusive of one another. Just like how if Jesus (in natural form on earth) and the Pope can interact with God then the natural and supernatural are not mutually exclusive. This all comes down to the idea of an Origin for the universe as well. If there is no origin then there need not be a God. If there is an origin then we may actually need a God, maybe. But, in either scenario, agnosticism is always the wrong assumption to make. Let me emphasize once again, Agnosticism can Never be correct, while Atheism or Theism can or cannot. Its like being an undecided voter because they don't think they can ever find out enough about the candidates to make an informed decision.

Also, I understand that there can be Agnostic Theists and Agnostic Atheists but doesn't that defeat the purpose of each position?

 

[Magic Poriferan]

Its like being an undecided voter because they don't think they can ever find out enough about the candidates to make an informed decision.

How is that inherently wrong? Agnosticism, is in my opinion, the only right way to go, quite contrary to your opinion. Human beings will always be ignorant of the necessary knowledge to understand the over-arching impetus of the universe. I find this entire conflict, in all of its small and great forms, through all of time, between theism and atheism to be unwinable because it is unknowable. It is one of the most pointless sources of conflict in the history of the human race.

"Let's take something impossible to prove, concerning scales too big to comprehend, that is out of human control, that mostly concerns what we think about existence after death anyway... and swear our lives on it."

That is the premise of the religious conflict.

The only wise thing to do is concede ignorance and stopping wasting so much life with this crap.

 

[SolitaryWalker]

You all did an excellent job of conjuring intellectual stimulating ideas, Peguy especially. My dear friend, I congratulate you on the novel piece of literature in philosophy of religion!

And Magic, you were the most trenchant of them all. I admire your ability to cut straight to the essence of the issue (without getting sidetracked by the human element and petty detail of the discourse) as well as your ability to organize your thoughts so distinctly. You are my personal model for clarity and rigor. Nature must feel like an open book to you and your method of analysis and discourse ought to be the ABCs of epistemology itself.

 

[Mempy]

*opens can of worms*

I take issue with that, because oh crap, there is a huge elephant over there, look!

The elephant is the flipside to that coin. The bitterness between people it can also cause, and the reason to start wars religion provides.

Just making a point.

That doesn't really negate my point, though. My point is that you have to understand why religion is so useful, helpful and meaningful to so many individuals. I don't think religion is all good or all bad; in fact, that's precisely my point: you have to take into consideration the positives AND negatives of anything, to the best of your ability, if you're ever going to see it in an accurate, unbiased light.

The point I was trying to make is that religion satisfies deep needs in human beings, or else it wouldn't be so prevalent the world over. Hopefully we can divorce this analogy from its negative connotation, because I think it accurately depicts a cause-effect relationship between needs and actions: A lot of alcoholics become alcoholics because they are trying to self-medicate their psychological and emotional pain away. When someone is addicted to alcohol, the alcoholism is only a symptom of deeper psychological pain, so you need to address and fix that, or the person will go back to alcohol eventually, even if they manage to stay sober for a while. They are using alcohol as a coping mechanism. Without expressing any positive or negative opinion toward religion, religion can be and often is used in the same way, as a coping mechanism.

Religion, I think, is a result of some deeper needs in humans, needs humans are trying to satisfy via religion and spirituality: a need to feel safe, for example; a need for love; a need to belong; a need for purpose and worth, and so on. All of these are just examples of why a particular individual might turn to spirituality/religion. Furthermore, many people satisfy these needs via religion in a peaceful way. You can't ignore the many religious people the world over who have not and would not use their faith as a reason to be violent or quarrelsome.

I think it's especially good if you have experienced religious faith first-hand, if you have once been a believer, because that way you can probably appreciate why so many find religion central to their lives; you might be able to better appreciate the positive effects it has on many. You can't deny the tremendous amount of good religion brings to many people. It's not all bad - but neither is it all good. To focus too much on either the good or the bad is to only see one part of the whole.

 

[EffEmDoubleyou]

So what I think we all can agree on and conclude with is that:

There are plenty of deep theists, but the average atheist will obviously be deeper than the average theist.

What a load of manure. What you really have, when you get down to brass tacks, is people taking sides on an unknowable question. One group is on the side of intellectual vanity, and one group is on the side of improbable hope. Who is to say the wiser path? To each his own, and the most savage of poxes on one who would deny the other.

 

[ajblaise]

What a load of manure.

Statistically why don't you think it's true? And by "deeper" I was thinking "intellectualism" not other kinds of deepness that someone might conjure.

 

[ajblaise]

Atheism -

a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.


Just to possibly clear some things up; an atheist can just be someone who disbelieves in God(s), they don't necessarily deny it's existence.

 

[EffEmDoubleyou]

Statistically why don't you think it's true? And by "deeper" I was thinking "intellectualism" not other kinds of deepness that someone might conjure.

I was not thinking of "deepness" either, I was thinking of scholarship and intellectualism. I think it is a very uninformed opinion to think that theists cannot be intellectually rigorous. Has no atheist heard of St. Thomas Aquinas?

 

[Didums]

How is that inherently wrong? Agnosticism, is in my opinion, the only right way to go, quite contrary to your opinion.

I've shown that agnosticism by definition can never be the correct stance to take, it is a self-contradictory position. The analogy (that you quoted) was made for clarification but it did just the opposite so ignore it and check my main points.

Agnosticism does not lead to any sort of discovery because it pleads that we'll never know enough to make an educated conclusion. Atleast by taking a Theistic or Atheistic position we can actually learn about the universe because we make an effort to do so, in these positions we try to gather observations and see if they fit or do not fit the idea of God, it is progress towards a conclusion.

Statements like "God exists" are either true or false, they cannot be Neither. Agnosticism holds that the statement "God exists" can neither be true nor false, which is fundamentally the wrong approach.

Human beings will always be ignorant of the necessary knowledge to understand the over-arching impetus of the universe.

O really? Well last time I checked we're on our way to a theory that unifies quantum mechanics and general relativity, which would be one step closer having a grand-theory of the universe. We're a clever species contrary to popular belief, just not All of us are, but the individuals that are definitely know how to find these kinds of things out and pass the knowledge down to us. Think about how much knowledge has been amassed so recently, and how much more we will obtain in the future.

I find this entire conflict, in all of its small and great forms, through all of time, between theism and atheism to be unwinable because it is unknowable. It is one of the most pointless sources of conflict in the history of the human race.

It is probably the most important source of conflict in the history of the human race, a world without religion is more unified than one divided by religion.

The only wise thing to do is concede ignorance and stopping wasting so much life with this crap.

Reread that and promise never to say it again. Howabout we concede ignorance to Everything? Wouldn't that be great? We don't know how Anything works at all!!! I never thought that I'd see the words Wise and Ignorance used together...

 

[EffEmDoubleyou]

Just to possibly clear some things up; an atheist can just be someone who disbelieves in God(s), they don't necessarily deny it's existence.

I fail to see the difference. Agnosticism is a difference; but I see no distinction between disbelieving and denying existence.

 

[ajblaise]

I was not thinking of "deepness" either, I was thinking of scholarship and intellectualism. I think it is a very uninformed opinion to think that theists cannot be intellectually rigorous. Has no atheist heard of St. Thomas Aquinas?

I've read something somewhere that referenced a study that proported atheists on average to be very educated.

And no one said theists cannot be intellectually rigorous. Many are.

 

[ajblaise]

I fail to see the difference. Agnosticism is a difference; but I see no distinction between disbelieving and denying existence.

If someone disbelieves in something, all they are doing is withholding belief in that thing. Is simply withholding belief intellectual vanity?

 

[EffEmDoubleyou]

If someone disbelieves in something, all they are doing is withholding belief in that thing. Is simply withholding belief intellectual vanity?

My "intellectual vanity" comment is about caring more for not looking silly than for taking a chance. It really doesn't connect to the disbelief vs. denial spectrum. I still don't see how withholding belief is not denying existence. Isn't that having your cake and eating it too?

 

[ajblaise]

My "intellectual vanity" comment is about caring more for not looking silly than for taking a chance. It really doesn't connect to the disbelief vs. denial spectrum. I still don't see how withholding belief is not denying existence. Isn't that having your cake and eating it too?

It's denying in that they are denying to believe in God(s), that's true. But to me that's a lot different than pro activity stating "There is no God". They aren't necessarily trying to make a statement just by not believing.