to the atheists

[meowington]

Atheists do not have to prove a negative. Theists do have to prove a positive.

This.

 

[Arctic Hysteria]

“If you think God’s there, He is. If you don’t, He isn’t. And if that’s what God’s like, I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Happy agnostics.

 

[entropie]

You get a completly different few on religion, if you have a look on how our present day religion came into existence. Back in the days, at the end of the roman empire, you had a very widespread roman population throughout major parts of today Europe. They brought civilization and administration to a lot of rural germanic tribes. They build houses from stone, while the tribes people had lived in wooden houses before. And they brought their Gods.
The problem with their Gods was, they were pretty complicated. Those not so intelligent tribes people didnt really get how many Gods there were and on top couldnt read Latin, to learn more about it. On top² the roman Gods werent all encompassing, no they had a lot of Cults from which came new Gods and demi-Gods and half-Gods and wannabe-Gods or humans that became Gods, it was a total mess.

Then came Jesus an easy religion. Only 3 Gods: God, Jesus and the holy spirit. That was easy for the dumb germanic tribes. Plus it had that underdog feature. The dumb germanic liked the Romans, they brought a lot of fancy things and co-existed with them in peace. But their lifes hadnt too much meaning. Plus they were very spiritual, having lived in the woods before, they had a lot of natural spirits and wood ghosts they believed in. Fairies and all the stuff goes back to them. The wood was a magic place, with a lot of phaenomena happening that they did not understand. Nor did they even had the way of thinking to know what rational understanding means.

So being bored a bit with civilization there came that underdog religion from the Eastern-South. And they felt a bit connected again to their old spirituality. The religion was pretty easy, cause as I said, easy God count and you didnt need fancy things or idols or statues. On the contrary it built on simpliness, so every beggar could participate. And so they formed religious christian cults in the underground to pray to their God.

The Romans of course didnt like that new religion but they werent too harsh about it, like back in the time of Jesus. The Romans were living in those germanic settlements and had become calmer, had families and with age their intrest in holding up the Roman religion became weaker. In the beginning they arrested christian cultists and gave them a choice: publicly renounce your God or be crucified. Of course most renounced there Gods, were let free and then prayed to their Gods again. Christianity was easy, it didnt offer death penalties for its members that renounced it. Plus you can convert anytime again, even seconds before your own death. It was a pretty perfect concept, well thought through. Of course there were a few martyrs but they helped the cause.

Then, only 300 years after Jesus, there was the constantinian shift. Emperor Constantinus of the Roman Empire thought: hmm, well the christianity thing aint that bad. Actually he found it quite intresting. So he said: its not forbidden no more in the empire. And only 3/4 century later, christianity was declared the main religion of the empire. If you walked around Europe today, you will see all that romanian settlements became huge cities and they all have big churches in the middle. Those settlements flourished and paved civilization.

The concept of christianity is brilliant per se. Cause it works with morals and uses the most basic concept of human interaction. Namely friendship. Friendship you achieve by doing something for someone without asking something in return. Altruism is a way to impress a person and to show him that you care for him and want him in your life. That works for both persons and since it is so very basic, there are no arguements against it. So the very concept of christianity - when the authors wrote the Bible - was based around a timeless inter-human psychology that enables us to cooperate. Thats why it worked.
In comparison: the arabian religions are all autocratic. They work with fear and supression and with forbidding things. Since that would be an opportunity for a lot of people to use that for their own causes, the arabian religious have splintered in a lot of different cults, in which everyone wants to be the boss. Logical outcome is: noone is the boss and they just wage war and war, over and over again.

The way the roman settlements worked, we live by till today. We have an emperor/president, a democracy and a religion that doesnt interfere much with wordly affairs. The submissive qualities, our religion inspires has saved us from too many power hungry warlords rising and it enabled us to learn things like subterfuge. Good politicians until today still portray themselves as moral altruists, like religion showed us and then do everything else, behind the back.

I am not per se against religion, cause modern concepts like humanitarism, socialism and even communism date back to the time when someone made the concept of altruism instilling cooperation prominent through religion. I am not surprised that religion is still that strong in America, for once you have a lot of rural people living in the desert(woods), which are easy material and very gullible, but then you have a very anti-altruistic society as well. A society that believes, everyone gets what he works for and what he deserves. That provokes very much opinion on a strong black side and on a white side, but the grey gets lost a bit. That mustnt be bad, cause friction produces innovation.

I very much believe in the concept of cooperation, I love socialism (best invention of mankind) and I hope our World doesnt forget that core values that make a civilization. But I believe in values and human traits, no God, no holy ghost and no manmade rules.

 

[geedoenfj]

I'm not an atheist but I can see where atheists are coming from.. That's all I got to say

 

[Polaris]

Atheists don't necessarily disbelieve in souls or consciousness after death. Atheism refers to lack of belief in a deity, and that's it.

 

[meowington]

The only door I'm leaving open for a deity in any form, is that we don't quite know what happened before abiogenesis. In that respect I'm probably more agnostic than atheist.

 

[Lark]

The official philosophy of the Roman Catholic Church is Faith and Reason. But the sleep of Reason brings forth monsters, and we have been discovering the monsters in the Judicial Enquiry into Child Abuse in Ireland, and as I write, we are discovering the monsters in Australia at our Royal Commission into Institutional Child Abuse.

I'm not sure what your point is, if its that all roman catholics are peadophiles then I'm just going to start reporting your posts.

 

[Lark]

Atheists don't necessarily disbelieve in souls or consciousness after death. Atheism refers to lack of belief in a deity, and that's it.

Yeah, because unlike any of the world religions, which attempt at a doctrine or clear singular account of their shared beliefs atheism has no structure, no church, no consensus, no discipline in its thinking, its nothing other than a negative after all, the opposite of theism.

I cant argue your point really because if I did provide evidence of the atheists who do disbelieve in souls or consciousness, there's plenty BTW and a lot of them are unsure about consciousness before death let alone after death and have been pretty crusading in their attempts to demonstrate that not only is there no God but there's no human nature either, then you could simply say "but I am an atheist and I dont believe those things" or refer to an example like that.

This sort of thing makes me question the value of these threads.

 

[Mole]

I'm not sure what your point is, if its that all roman catholics are peadophiles then I'm just going to start reporting your posts.

Oh no, don't report my posts! And of course not all catholics are paedophiles. Paedophilia is a psychiatric disorder where the police were not called, and children were betrayed by those whose duty it was to protect them.

If you don't believe me, read the Judicial Enquiry in Ireland, and you can read every day in the newspapers the results of the Australian Royal Commission.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Chado, are you amaury from ffshrine forums all growed up?

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

In discussions there is always a drive to establish concrete conclusions. Speculation is a different process from proofs, so it is okay for there to be concepts that are worthy of consideration without the possibility of absolute conclusion. I think part of the frustration with this topic is that discussions of it tend to take the observable, measurable data related to it, and then feed that through the logic machine to churn out a fact. That is an important process for a lot of analysis, but there is also room for speculative discussion that has no intention of establishing facts.

 

[chado]

I am 99.9% convinced there is no life after death, so in practice I treat it as a "no, there is no after life" because it's simply easier to say than "well I am 99.9% certain because of all the lack of evidence, and..." it gets really long winded. Again, because there is no evidence for it. All of the "evidence" doesn't fit into what we know of the world, physics, science, reality, psychology, etc. so it's meaningless. Regardless, it's something that is almost certainly literally impossible to know. Because of that, no one can say 100% there isn't because with our current knowledge there is no way to know. It's not fair or right to say you know with absolute certainty.

I look at it like I do in chemistry (I am a chemist). When I run a reaction and it's a perfect reaction, meaning all of the material reacts and converts to a product, you can say 100% yield because no side products at all were formed. However, you still lose a little bit in the reaction from tiny drops sticking to the glass during purification, work up, etc. It's a literal physical impossibility to get 100% yield that you can hold in your hand, but easy to get 99.9% yield (we'll "easy"). It's effectively 100% for all intents and purposes, but not literally so, and when you publish in literature, you can't claim 100% yield. 99% is the highest you can claim. Most chemists will say "quantative yield" meaning it's 99%, but functionally 100%. That analogy applies to how I look at my views as an atheist.

I see mystics as people who explore their own minds and experience the world around them in a analogical manner. What they see and claim doesn't fit into concrete world knowledge, or lie adjacent. Just because the mind experiences or sees something doesn't make it true. It's like experiencing a hallucinogenic drug (I have a lot of personal experience with this). You perceive the world around you totally different, and it's not uncommon for people to have mystical experiences on the drugs. We can reason why; the receptors in the brain these drugs act on are known to have the effects they do. That's it. Trying to extrapolate off that into saying it's a spiritual event, or you were speaking to spirits or something doesn't have any basis. All we can fairly say it was, is that it was a human experience due to the drug acting in the areas of the brain that it did.

you are the proof that there is a god other wise were does such beautiful intellegence come from?just matter? or are you a soul that is eternal ,were does love free will,poetry,enjoyment,happyness,thinking,come from?the soul or is it just meaningless matter?

 

[chado]

Chado, are you amaury from ffshrine forums all growed up?

nope,im just chado that use to be chad0 on persoality cafe but got banned

 

[erm]

The thing to realize is that the core of Atheism does not have any conclusions. It's a negative statement, anything that's not Theism, and so is logically prior to Theism and its conclusions.

Those that take it to certainty, that there are no gods, are making a small leap of faith in comparison to the far more specific clams Theism makes about existence.

Three smaller points:

1. Most Agnosticism logically implies Atheism. Not knowing implies not believing.

2. The Burden of Proof lies on claims, not people. There can be a socially enforced burden of proof, but it's a matter of convenience and is not logical.

3. Souls are far more significant factor in our lives and brains than gods. It's rare for someone to not believe in a soul during their life, whereas not believing in a god is essentially what happens whenever you forget about the concept.

 

[á´…eparted]

you are the proof that there is a god other wise were does such beautiful intellegence come from?just matter? or are you a soul that is eternal ,were does love free will,poetry,enjoyment,happyness,thinking,come from?the soul or is it just meaningless matter?

that's not proof. That's not proof of anything. Saying that because I exist there must be a god is a nonsequitur. The reason I exist is because my parents had sex. You could go back and say the ultimate reason I exist (and everyone exists) is because of the big bang. In no way does any of that illustrate that there is some sort of god, spirit, or anything beyond known reality.

Not everything has some sort of grand reason, sometimes things just ARE and there isn't anything beyond that. In some rare cases there is but we're unable to know what that is. A good example of that would be black holes. Due to the way the particles of the standard model are (which are fundementals that just ARE) there isn't any way to determine what is inside of it. Is there something beyond it? It's fair to assume yes, but we simply don't know, and with our current knowledge there doesn't seem to be a way to know.

 

[erm]

the soul or is it just meaningless matter?

A good avenue to pursue here is why you find matter meaningless.

The brain, it seems, does not tend to associate strong mental rewards with explanation and models. Some of those rewards are what we end up describing as "meaningful". The mechanical narrative is treated very differently from the volitional narrative, and those seem to be the two main narratives our brains use to engage consciously with the world. They are not mutually exclusive, and so often come into conflict when attempting to describe the same set of facts. (Narratives here meaning neither true nor false, but simply a way of interpreting facts that are true or false)

This, I think, explains a lot of philosophical conflicts, and in your case it might be worth exploring your reactions to the two narratives mixed together (e.g. a mechanically described god, or a mystical unthinking force) or your reactions to both projected on the same story (e.g. a relationship described by wants, choices and desires vs social forces, brain chemistry and larger physical happenstance).

 

[Mole]

“If you think God’s there, He is. If you don’t, He isn’t. And if that’s what God’s like, I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Happy agnostics.

If you think the Sun goes round the Earth, it does. And if you think the Earth goes round the Sun, it does. If that is what the solar system is like, I wouldn't worry about it.

Happy agnostics.

 

[Mole]

A good avenue to pursue here is why you find matter meaningless.

The brain, it seems, does not tend to associate strong mental rewards with explanation and models. Some of those rewards are what we end up describing as "meaningful". The mechanical narrative is treated very differently from the volitional narrative, and those seem to be the two main narratives our brains use to engage consciously with the world. They are not mutually exclusive, and so often come into conflict when attempting to describe the same set of facts. (Narratives here meaning neither true nor false, but simply a way of interpreting facts that are true or false)

This, I think, explains a lot of philosophical conflicts, and in your case it might be worth exploring your reactions to the two narratives mixed together (e.g. a mechanically described god, or a mystical unthinking force) or your reactions to both projected on the same story (e.g. a relationship described by wants, choices and desires vs social forces, brain chemistry and larger physical happenstance).

I think the best approach is from the point of view that we are meaning creating animals.

And we are meaning creating animals because meaning makes us supremely adaptable. And it is adaption under natural selection enabled us to survive and prosper.

 

[Beargryllz]

how can you conclude that theres no god no soul no consiousness that exsists after death how can you actualy conclude this?

I didn't conclude any of this.

what can you sure that you can say''there is no soul that exsists after death'' or we have no souls and are simply a body and matter

Because there is no evidence suggesting souls exist outside of human literature, human superstition, and human delusions, there is no reason to believe that souls exist.

you might say lack of evidence i think there plenty of evidence out there that suggests a soul.

And I'm always open to new evidence. Please share

my own view on atheism is that atheism is just magical thinking or ego gymnastics,because you dont want to accept something about the soul/god/buddhism/hinduism/ect you start to look for evidence to suggest that the soul doesnt exsist,its like this one gay guy that use to eb a christian,he was a christian untill he saw that christianity doesnt accept gay people so after realizing he could not get rid of his gayism,he did an ego shift,or tricked himself into beliving god doesnt exsist,looke dfor evidence and found it...so there?

Nah, it's more like this. Man created god, but the god man created created man. It's a paradox, but a very easy one. It's like a chicken-or-egg scenario that shouldn't be all that hard to solve. Again, what evidence for the existence of god outside of the human imagination is there?

I am god

 

[LovecraftianMonstrosity]

It seems like you just like to bait people into poor dialogue with controversial discussions. Maybe if you focused less on -people- as confirming or disconfirming your notions you would be able to see things more clearly. If you were correct, then your beliefs would only be true for you so you wouldn't be telling us anything objectively real only what a creature such as yourself perceives. Look for the objective, it is rarely found in words.