Atheism...

thomasquinn 32989 wrote:

The word to describe the above already exists, and it is "irreligious". Many people who hold a large diversity of spiritual views (ranging from animism on one extreme to theological noncognitivism on the other) are irreligious but not atheist, and you now lump them under that latter heading without their consent, oversimplifying a host of nuanced views.

Excellent point.

The word "atheist" implies a willful position being taken. Some people simply may not have a position and don't care.

It would be like calling "not playing golf" a sport, or calling abstinence a sex position.

Religion is the only subject where there is an entire canon of language to describe the various degrees to which people do not participate in it. People who don't play golf aren't "nongolfists". They just don't play golf.

But alas, this is what happens when religion has been such a domineering force in the world over the last few thousand years.

Is it aggressive to rightfully state there is no god?

If I insist there are unicorns, then I have the burden of proof. And until I can prove it, anyone is well within their rights to call me at best wrong and at worst clinically insane. But as Sam Harris says - "This is the true horror of religion: it allows perfectly decent and sane people to believe by the billions what only lunatics could believe on their own."

Thousands of years ago people knew so little about the world. They were illiterate, but they were curious. They asked the big existential questions all on their own, and devised philosophies and religions and even patterns in the stars to help answer them. But today, with most of us having Smartphones that can make pancakes, one can wonder how many people would even care about these things if religion wasn't feeding them the questions (and answers) to begin with.

But those Smartphones haven't made us any smarter. We are still not rational beings. We are, after all, animals, with a need to survive. After about 200,000 years, far less than half of us are scientifically literate. Most of us can't tell the difference between what's real and what isn't. Most 4 year old kids have invisible friends in the sandbox, and most of them become grown adults who make the conscious decision to relocate that sandbox friend to the sky. That is enough cause for realization that religion is going to continue to be a fundamental need for most people for a very, very long time. But religion is just the symptom. The root of the issue is a need for cognitive closure.

The answer to the topic starter is no, it is not aggressive to insist there is no god. If anything, it is aggressive to insist there IS one. There is way more important dialogue that we need to be having. But most people just aren't up for it yet.

Invisible Woman wrote:

If all this doesn't exist there would be no life on Earth.It's a miracle.:)

It certainly is. But that doesn't mean it was a god, two gods, a million gods, a dragon, or someone who looks like Dennis Rodman.

What you've described is the "god of the gaps" theory. Where knowledge ends, god begins.

The more rational decision is to simply say - "I don't know." And that's perfectly OK. Because nobody knows.

It's interesting to note that even some of the smartest people in history, like Isaac Newton, invoked a god where their knowledge of the world hit its limits.

But that doesn't mean they were right. They just didn't know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRHefbIgKxk

^ Neil deGrasse Tyson explains it a lot better than I can.

Too bad you edited that post - you asked some pretty fair questions that I was looking forward to answering.

Ha, they were written very late in the evening and didn't look very good when I looked at the post again in the morning. English is my second language and my writing tends to deteriorate when I get tired.

I'll try to remember the sentiment:

"If I insist there are unicorns, then I have the burden of proof. And until I can prove it, anyone is well within their rights to call me at best wrong and at worst clinically insane."

Religious concepts are mostly impossible to prove and by their very nature don't need to be proven to mean something to people. I think it's a little simplistic to treat religious views, whether it's a product of the human mind or something more, as provable/disprovable scientific hypotheses.

"Thousands of years ago people knew so little about the world. They were illiterate, but they were curious. They asked the big existential questions all on their own, and devised philosophies and religions and even patterns in the stars to help answer them. But today, with most of us having Smartphones that can make pancakes, one can wonder how many people would even care about these things if religion wasn't feeding them the questions"

"There is way more important dialogue that we need to be having. But most people just aren't up for it yet."

I don't know why existential questions, pancake making smartphones and CERN accelerators couldn't be able to co-exist. The answers that science is able to give might be enough for some, but that doesn't necessarily apply to everyone. Religion and metaphysics will continue to ignite discussion among the worlds most brilliant minds, regardless of whether we have, as you claim, more tangible or urgent matters to deal with right now.

"Religion is the only subject where there is an entire canon of language to describe the various degrees to which people do not participate in it. People who don't play golf aren't "nongolfists". They just don't play golf. But alas, this is what happens when religion has been such a domineering force in the world over the last few thousand years. "

I think it is interesting to note that you actually think we have too much nuance in this matter, when thomasquinn has just put forward some excellent reasons as to why such nuance is so important to him. It's not that he "doesn't care" as you say, but that he can't reject a concept of something "more" that isn't clearly defined. In an earlier version of your post, you mention something like "an invisible man in the sky" which is exactly the sort of concretisation that's much easier to reject. 

This is just one of many reasons why a non-believer might not choose to call him-/herself atheist, and why we need a term like agnosticism.

There does not seem to be much room for tolerance or a middle ground in this discussion. Seems that the concensus seems to be that only ignorant baboons believe in God.

I remember when my son was a boy scout in a Mormon sponsored troop. My son and I were welcomed and treated with respect even though we were not Mormon. I feel that religious people should be treated with respect if they in turn can respect non-believers.

YourValentine wrote: I used to call myself an agnostic but now I think the term is too tentative for me. Being an atheist is the answer to not being in a religion or church. First there must be the idea that God exists before I can decide that for me he does not exist. I did not grow up in a social vacuum where I thought about the existence of God just for the sake of it, I grew up with a religious education and the doubts about the "truth" I learnt from people I trusted were very severe. Still, I have to acknowledge the possibility that science some day might prove the existence of a creator but I think it is very unlikely.

I think Neil deGrasse Tyson put it in a very good perspective.

Neil deGrasse Tyson talking about labels

If you want to label yourself as atheist, agnostic, Christian, etc; then that's fine. However, if you don't know exactly where you belong, then there's no need to define yourself, and more importantly you shouldn't allow others to put labels on you. One thing that bothers me about a lot of atheists (mostly the anti-theist ones) is that they want to label agnostics as "atheists afraid to come out of the closet", which is pretty fucked up. That's like a gay person labeling a straight man who likes to listen to Cher as "closeted". Such attitude is just as annoying and obnoxious as the one from hardcore religious people who want to convince you share their beliefs in order to be "saved".

Here's a recent experience I had recently. I was raised Catholic, but mostly out of family tradition rather than actually being a practicing Catholic. Over the years I've been leaning more towards the agnostic side, but I've remained philosophically Christian. I don't go to church for anything other than taking part in someone else's ceremony, but once in a while I come across situations where I find myself praying. My grandmother died last month after battling cancer for 18 months, and her level of pain got to such a point where I asked God to let her go in peace. Not 100% sure if there's higher power listening to my pleas, but if there is one I wondered why he'd allow a very devout religious person like my grandmother to suffer for so long... or perhaps if God exists, perhaps he has decided to have no control whatsoever over what happens here on earth. Who knows? Maybe there's no God. Nobody knows... and I'm OK with dying not knowing the answer. All I know is that my grandmother is free from pain, and that's what matters.

Panchgani wrote: There does not seem to be much room for tolerance or a middle ground in this discussion. Seems that the concensus seems to be that only ignorant baboons believe in God.

I remember when my son was a boy scout in a Mormon sponsored troop. My son and I were welcomed and treated with respect even though we were not Mormon. I feel that religious people should be treated with respect if they in turn can respect non-believers.

This interview pretty much sums up what's fucked up about people who have extremist hardcore views about religion, or non-religion for that matter.
Reza Aslan - WTF with Marc Maron For those of you who don't know him Reza Aslan is a scholar on religion and a frequent CNN contributor on the subject. He has written books about religions around the world. On this podcast Aslan talks about receiving death threats from both religious people and atheists. Fundamentalists criticize him for blasphemy and offending their beliefs, and anti-theists criticize him for being a religious apologist. Basically, all Aslan has done is stating the facts, how religion can be used for both good and evil.

Panchgani wrote:

Seems that the concensus seems to be that only ignorant baboons believe in God.

Your words, and nobody else's.

It's all about whether or not people are willing to accept propositions without evidence. The reality is - most people aren't willing to subscribe to evidence based thinking in the 21st century, ultimately defaulting to some variant of superstition or falsehood (not necessarily religion) at some point. However we characterize this is up to the individual.

Sure, plenty of good comes out of religion. Empowerment, sense of belonging, etc. But the amount of good is far outweighed by the bad, and by a substantial margin. Any cursory look into the history of religion shows this to be true.

All that said, we all should acknowledge this:

If we compare the individualistic western world with group-oriented eastern philosophies, religion is pretty much the only major group-oriented activity left in the west that exists primarily to provide a safe place for people to congregate (unless we count yoga).

It's also worth noting that plenty of church members are atheists or agnostics. They come for the community. We are better as a group, and most of us realize this on some level.

Oscar J wrote:

Religious concepts are mostly impossible to prove and by their very nature don't need to be proven to mean something to people. I think it's a little simplistic to treat religious views, whether it's a product of the human mind or something more, as provable/disprovable scientific hypotheses.

I don't know why existential questions, pancake making smartphones and CERN accelerators couldn't be able to co-exist. The answers that science is able to give might be enough for some, but that doesn't necessarily apply to everyone. Religion and metaphysics will continue to ignite discussion among the worlds most brilliant minds, regardless of whether we have, as you claim, more tangible or urgent matters to deal with right now.

Great post - but I'm highlighting these points particularly.

Existential questions are important. We've had them for thousands of years, and they have led to great leaps in knowledge. But there's a difference between asking the questions *and accepting that no such answers are available*, as opposed to asking the questions and accepting packaged answers that are patently false (without getting into a discussion of epistemology).

In this day and age, a fair number of us have a clear understanding of what is testable and what isn't. This wasn't the case in 200 BCE.

All that said, naturally I accept the points that you're making, as it's obviously not black and white for most people. But me personally, I just don't see the value of magical thinking in the 21st century.

Although I can acknowledge that abstract thinking not rooted in rationality has led to a ton of good art. Beyond that, I just don't see how it's necessary for fairy tales to be the cornerstones of people's lives in this day and age. Children, sure. But educated adults?

After a solid 20 years of thinking, reading, and much dialogue with others, it still doesn't make sense to me. Maybe one day it will. Whatever the answer is, I just hope it isn't a matter of people wanting the easy way out. Because there certainly are some people who prefer to defer to the afterlife instead of solving problems in the here and now.

And let's note that "brilliant minds" is a subjective term. There are people like Deepak Chopra and Michio Kaku who are often labelled as brilliant, but almost the entire field of science would discredit them in part or in full if asked. There's a good reason why websites like quackwatch and rationalwiki exist - quantum woo is blurring the lines between science and pseudoscience. Even the smartest of laypeople often cannot tell the difference between the two, because the latter is branded so well. What appears to be great dialogue is very often pure bullshit being given a lot of air time, often for ratings or advertising revenue. Even some actual scientists are being drawn into it for the money. It's a complete mess.

Mr.Jingles wrote:

For those of you who don't know him Reza Aslan is a scholar on religion and a frequent CNN contributor on the subject. He has written books about religions around the world. On this podcast Aslan talks about receiving death threats from both religious people and atheists. Fundamentalists criticize him for blasphemy and offending their beliefs, and anti-theists criticize him for being a religious apologist. Basically, all Aslan has done is stating the facts, how religion can be used for both good and evil.

Yep - he's going to piss off almost everyone by coming at it from that angle.

No doubt he's an incredibly bright guy and very well studied, but he's out to lunch when he declares Sam Harris as unqualified to speak on the matter for not having formally studied religion. That's where he loses me.

Sam Harris is incredibly well read on the topic - certainly more than 99.99% of theists. In fact, it's often the atheists who are the best religious scholars, because they aren't afraid to encounter information to counter their beliefs, since they don't have any ! Atheists are thus more likely to be intellectually honest in the study of religion. There will always be roads that cannot be tread if one who studies religion has decided that certain propositions are true and immune to criticism or question.

The origins of religion began when primitive, unenlightened humans decided to start talking to the weather.

....followed by man creating God in his own image.