Atheist!

[past_perfect]

@ SubJoe

The strange thing about people attacking, using and abusing Darwin is that most of them don't seem to have understood what evolution means: It is survival of the FITTEST. That does not mean the strongest - it means the one adapting best to its given environment. It's what Rombach calls meliorisation - enhancement and evolution within the confines of circumstance: autogenesis. It means of course too that the human species could easily be rubbed out by a virus which adapts and mutates so quickly, that we cannot keep up with our protective and corrective measures - that sure wouldn't mean that this hypothetical virus was "the strongest" species on this planet.

@amicus

We all have some set of ethics, it doesn't matter where its coming from, be that religion, rationality, social consensus, whatever. However, as long as they remain an abstract, they mean nothing. In your concrete personal life you will have to make choices, either rationally or intuitive. In those situations your interpretation of the abstracts becomes concrete for you.

Democracy and freedom are wonderful abstracts and it is very easy to say that they should be advanced and defended. However, democracy is only real if there is a democratic process. The former GDR (German Democratic Republic) had "democracy" in its name and constitution - but that was about as far as it went. It is my personal opinion that we (who live in democracies) should make sure that it is not a dead abstract on a piece of paper, but something living, advancing and adapting to changed circumstances - without leaving its precepts, before we actually try to "export" our ideas - which may or may not work in a different set of circumstances.

In Eastern Germany, the people decided that the regime wasn't what they wanted. They went to the streets shouting "we are the people" (wir sind das Volk). All the perfect measures for suppression and control, education, secret police, walls, borders were swept away by the desire for real democracy, real freedom - at least what they understood under those abstracts. It was a great moment in history.

And now, some years later, the great freedom and democracy they obtained leads to the incomprehensible result that a good portion of them votes for neo-nazi parties, another for the remnants of the former regime.

That could mean, they still didn't get what freedom and democracy means - but then again, most don't seem to get it. A large majority of those (including some here in the former west) seem to use their vote to "stick it" to the other politicians, by whom they feel betrayed and left alone in some sort of economic misery (which is of course relative - even living on unemployment benefit is by far better in comparison to what they had before). All demagogues use some twisted reasoning, Hitler was the perfect example. That's the type of reality we are struggling with at the mo, trying to find better solutions and restoring trust in the institutions and reality of those abstracts.

Back on topic:
Religion has the advantage that you don't even need that, as long as you can exhibit "authority". Authority, where it is just assumed and not grounded in factuality or reality, means nothing once you start to question it. The simple, plain-spoken farmer who lives quietly by the precepts of his own religion has probably a greater authority when it comes to his religion than those wearing colourful robes and preaching to the choir without living any of it. I have the greatest respect and tolerance for all those, who live their religion to the best of their ability, for those usually don't feel the need to convince or obstruct others in their own interpretations of life and being human. It is when their own insecurity leads to the attempt to create an environment where their beliefs are not questioned or challenged, that things go awry. That is not limited to religion, but becomes painfully obvious there.

 

[Pure]

Nice posting Joe,

Joe quoting Midgley on Dawkins,

Similarly, when he cites NOMA - "nonoverlapping magisteria", the acronym coined by Stephen Jay Gould to describe how, in his view, science and religion could not comment on each other's sphere - and Freeman Dyson's description of himself as "one of the multitude of Christians who do not care much for the doctrine of the Trinity or the historical truth of the gospels", Dawkins declares flatly that they cannot mean what they say. As scientists, they must be atheists.

It seems not to have struck Dawkins that academic science is only a small, specialised, dependent part of what anybody knows. Most human knowledge is tacit knowledge - habitual assumptions, constantly updated and checked by experience, but far too general and informal ever to be fully tested. We assume, for instance, that nature will go on being regular, that other people are conscious and that their testimony can generally be trusted. Without such assumptions neither science nor any other study could ever get off the ground, and nor could everyday life.

When we build on these foundations we necessarily use imaginative structures - powerful ideas which can be called myths, which are not lies, but graphic thought-patterns that shape and guide our thinking. This is not irrational: the process of using these structures is a necessary preparation for reasoning. Thus the selfish gene is a powerful idea, so are the Science-Religion war, Gaia, natural selection, progress, and the hidden hand of the market.

With the largest, most puzzling questions, we have no choice but to proceed in mythical language which cannot be explained in detail at all, but which serves (as Einstein's did) to indicate what sort of spiritual universe we perceive ourselves to be living in. This is the province of religion. Adding God is not, as Dawkins thinks, adding an illicit extra item to the cosmos, it is perceiving the whole thing differently.

This is well thought out, Joe. The 'war' of science and religion is vastly overstated due to some contretemps in the West (e.g. the Pope on Galileo).

This thread has too much focussed on the 'stories' that are part of many religions, e.g., 'creation stories.' Then someone says, "Well the earth did not come from a giant egg." Duh.

Dawkins, Dennett etc., while very bright and engaging, do not go very deep and pick convenient targets, the sillier statement of some religious persons. Dennett, of course, is a philosopher of some talent.
===

I think it's also worth mentioning the case of Anthony Flew, the philosopher who was a critic of theism for years, then ended up adopting some form of it (deism). That is anothe topic worth discussing: Is the deism of Jefferson and Voltaire and Flew, essentially atheism, or is it a 'religious' position, and if so, what is there to commend it, if anything.

 

[Pure]

webpage with lots of links regarding 'deism' (position of Jefferson, Voltaire, Paine, etc.)

http://www.google.com/Top/Society/Religion_and_Spirituality/Deism/

Einstein had a kind of mystical reverence for the universe, but denied a personal god, 'religion', etc. Einstein on Emotions and Morals and Religion

http://www.einsteinandreligion.com/moral.html


interview with EO Wilson, famous biologist, noted for his studies of ants. [excerpts re 'deism']


http://www.nyu.edu/classes/neimark/eow.html
PT (Psychology Today, is Jill Neimark)

PT: You call yourself a deist. What do you mean by that?
EO [Edmund O. Wilson]: A deist is a person who’s willing to buy the idea that some creative force determined the parameters of the universe when it began.

PT: And a theist is someone who believes that God not only set the universe in motion, but is still actively involved.
EO: But I’ve been doing a kind of Pascalian waffling as a deist. I think being an atheist is to claim knowledge you cannot have. And to say you’re agnostic is to arrogantly dismiss the whole thing by saying that it’s unknowable. But a provisional deist is someone like myself who leaves it open. You see, evolutionary biology leaves very little room for a theistic God. I’d like it to be otherwise. Nothing would delight me more than to have real proof of a transcendental plane.

PT: Why?
EO: If the neurobiologists came through with enough evidence and said, There is another plane, and it is quite conceivable that the individual essence somehow implanted there is immortal, wouldn’t you be happy? I’d be very, very happy. I’d congratulate my colleagues when they went to Stockholm to get the Nobel Prize, and I’d be personally relieved.

PT: Relieved of what?
EO: It would mean that human existence really is exalted and that immortality is a prospect, providing this God is not a God of irony and cruelty who is going to send everybody the other way. That reminds me of an argument I like to give. Maybe God is sorting the saved from the damned, but the saved will be those who have the intellectual courage to press on with skepticism and materialism. They would be His most independent and courageous creations, would they not? Particularly the ones who faced the charges of heresy.
PT: They get to heaven because they still wanted to, even though they believed there was no heaven.
EO: Right.

PT: I would be deeply disappointed if there was a God. The universe looks so stunningly impressive because it can do this trick all by itself. A deity undercuts it.
EO: I understand what you’re saying. That the human soul was self-created in such an astonishing way that we’re only just beginning to understand.

PT: A universe that needs a push to get it right every now and then—that’s just a second class universe.
EO: So the universe that made itself after it got started, however it got started, is a first class universe. This is what I say, actually, in Consilience. We’re free, thank God.
PT: Or thank something.
[…]


PT: In Consilience you said that our essential spiritual dilemma is that we evolved to accept one truth—God—and discovered another—evolution.

EO: And the struggle for men’s souls in the 21st century will be to choose between the two. The transcendentalist view was so powerfully advantageous in early paleolithic and agricultural societies. And if there’s anything disagreeable about secular humanism, it’s that its bloodless.

Secular humanists can sit around and talk about their love of humanity, but it doesn’t stack up against a two-millenium-old funeral high mass. I used a phrase called the evolutionary epic back in 1978 to try and convey the grandeur of biology, and it’s beginning to catch on. A colleague of mine speaks of “the sacred depths of nature” to try and evoke that same reverence.
PT: Scientists are trying to capture the awe that religion has, while theologians have had to move a long way from the communities that they’re supposed to represent to make theology consistent with science.

EO: Theology today is really two separate worlds. There’s the world of the fundamentalists who have a set of absolute beliefs that do not need to be justified. They’re armored against any logical argument or evidence, and if logic seems compelling, it’s the voice of the devil. Then there is the theology of the searchers, the thinkers about the meaning of human existence, and they’re trying to accommodate pretty well-rounded views of how the real world works without surrendering the mystery of the Almighty and the need for communal liturgy.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

When we build on these foundations we necessarily use imaginative structures - powerful ideas which can be called myths, which are not lies, but graphic thought-patterns that shape and guide our thinking. This is not irrational: the process of using these structures is a necessary preparation for reasoning. Thus the selfish gene is a powerful idea, so are the Science-Religion war, Gaia, natural selection, progress, and the hidden hand of the market.

With the largest, most puzzling questions, we have no choice but to proceed in mythical language which cannot be explained in detail at all, but which serves (as Einstein's did) to indicate what sort of spiritual universe we perceive ourselves to be living in. This is the province of religion. Adding God is not, as Dawkins thinks, adding an illicit extra item to the cosmos, it is perceiving the whole thing differently.

This is just what I was trying to say about myth.

That was a beautiful article, Joe, and pretty much sums up my reservations about Dawkins. I share his concerns about religion and I certainly see the downside, but I think the trouble really occurs when you start insisting that myth is fact and act accordingly. If you believe it when your religion says, "This is the one true way; the only way," then of course you've got trouble. Hell, you've got trouble when your philosophy or your science says that too.

 

[shereads]

You are just hissy because I corrected 'relevent' to relevant...it looked wrong...had to go to a dictionary...

SheReads...you were one of the very first on this forum that snarled and hissed at me for what I wrote, I rather enjoyed that, it somewhat endeared you to me.

Your last post was almost rational and until I went back and reread the original thread starter, I thought perhaps to copy your post and begin a new thread addressing your comment, but, upon reconsideration, this does, somewhat fall within the purpose of the thread.

I say 'almost rational' because while your statement is fairly accurate, you left out an essential ingredient for a true understanding of the scientific method and of human nature itself.

I suggest that it takes a great deal of dedication and focus to do what Copernicus or Galileo or Einstein did; I further suggest that each was an individual effort, not a group affirmation or concensus gathering foray.

As such, of course they considered all the science that preceded them and of course they challenged existing theories that contradicted what each found in his research.

You may understand, I am sure you do, as a writer...that it is an individual, lonely effort to create. I recently...last night in fact, watched a PBS thing about a young man, with a lovely Swedish wife and baby girl, who was also a Ph'D in Mechanical Engineering engaged in building robots to send to the Moon and Mars as research tools. He was also, and this is the nitty, an award winning author of fiction stories.

Each of those professions required absolute and utter dedication and focus but somehow, he has managed both to the level of excellence.

One becomes, I suggest, myopic, possessed of tunnel vision, so to speak in the quest to create. One also must, I suggest, possess an ego the size of Texas to have the audacity to create knowing full well all those who have gone before.

This leads, I suggest, to a feeling, a necessary feeling of invulnerability, of always doing methodical, meticulous research either in Math and Science, or in fiction writing.

It is also a very human trait and again, I suggest, a necessary one, to 'know' that your work is error free and absolutely correct to the best of your ability to make it so. Otherwise...why would you even continue if you doubt your own vision?

The really difficult point for me to get across to you personally and to the majority of the usual suspects on this forum is that transition from the 'real' science, math, physics, to that part of the human mind that deals with abstract concepts and emotions, neither of which can you fondle to your satisfaction.

You don't seem to wish to make the transferal of objective truth from the physical to the metaphysical. Thus you remain without a clue to some of the most important things in human life, intra personal relationships, the concepts of morality, right and wrong; even a definition of 'good and evil' elludes you as you reject the rational as it applies to human behavior.

Now, personally, I don't mind, you folks are fun to tease and I just love it when you get all pissy.

The thread starter, if I recall, is lost in a world of subjective considerations and has no way out of the dilemma if they continue to reject reason and rationality as a means to comprehend and deal with the emotional side of humanity.

We are, as so many reject, really, really, really, men and women, males and females and we see, feel, sense and comprehend things entirely differently.

There was a time when this was appreciated by all; as the opposite nature of the beasts rather complimented one another.

But with the insane imperative to discard gender differences and become some sort of 'unisex' being, all ability to comprehend the opposite sex has been diluted to a point of non existence.

I would suggest a rational and in depth exploration into the 'nature of man', and the 'nature of woman', as a beginning point for anyone, yourself included, who wishes a better understanding of themselves, the society you live in and the relationships between individuals.

Thas my story and I'm stickin' to it!

amicus...(scribbled without an edit...take it or leave it)

You're cute when you're babbling.

 

[cantdog]

I'm a live and let live kind of gal, we usually all accept the same fundamental moralities as far as killing, stealing, lying and cheating goes, why can't that be enough? Why do people have to go and make religions out of that?

The surveys that have been done, cross-culturally, suggest that a few key elements of what we call ethics or morality are universal in every culture they can locate. By which I mean, that if you explain the concept, "personal integrity/honesty" they can agree with it. Generosity is on that list, care of children, quite a few others, really.

And withal, most cultures seem to be okay with violations of these precepts, too. The distinction, again, would seem to be that between us and them. Generosity, fairness, nurture of children, honesty, integrity-- all these are meant, evidently, to apply within the group, and lose much of their validity when applied outside the group.

All people may progress beyond me/them morality into us/them, and similarly beyond that into a speciesist approach-- human dignity, human rights, etc., without regard to race, nation, religion and whatnot.

Christ himself sounds to me, at many points in the garbled record, to have been someone who took that last step, and so his message stands at odds with much of the us/them morality surrounding him. Many enlightened people in many traditions have a similar message, and find themselves similarly misunderstood, by us/them people who follow them.

When someone passes from an egocentric stance to, for instance, a nationalistic one, it comes as a revelation. Integrating it, one finds oneself suddenly willing to make great sacrifice for the newly adopted larger group. Nationalists exhort the self centered to "rise above" their narrow morality and serve the group, to commit to something greater than themselves.

Similarly, people who move on beyond us and them feel moved to require nationalists and other bigots to rise up from their narrow focus and understand that the quality of "otherness" is actually not there in the way they have ebeen imagining, that indeed, the Vietnamese is human, too, for instance, and his children need nurture, and he must be treated as the Us group would treat their own members. The Golden Rule is expanded and reinterpreted to apply every bit as well to the enemy.

That's why they make a religion out of this stuff. Partly.

 

[cantdog]

Consequently, fondling the metaphysical or not ( ), there is a bedrock that all of us seem to hold, a universal morality, but it is in the interpretation that it breaks down. You don't kill the child of your fellow, but you cheeerfully bomb the children of your enemy. A crusader, in 1190, an adherent of a honor code, cheerfully lies to the Saracen to gain entry to his city, and then slaughters all he can catch, once he's inside. The crusaders, we know from the historical documents, actually discussed this with their captians and their priests, who told them that to swear falsely to an infidel was not a sin.

Christ, on the other hand, appears several times in the record of his ministry insisting that it certainly would be, since one is bound to love one's enemy as oneself.

Christians who have moved beyond us and them would agree, and would deplore the crusaders' decisions. This kind of distinction is more important than creed, overrides it, transforms it. And it's one reason why a universal flat statement like "to be generous is a good thing" always depends on where one is on the spiritual scale. Can you be generous to your cousin? Can you be generous to an infidel? Can you be generous to a political enemy? Answers vary, but all still hold generosity to be a virtue.

Differences in the use to which one puts the concept of God have been taken seriously many times in history, and let to sober, considered decisions to slaughter. It's not a valuable distinction.

 

[Pure]

PS to cant

Cant: Christ, on the other hand, appears several times in the record of his ministry insisting that it certainly would be, since one is bound to love one's enemy as oneself.

Christians who have moved beyond us and them would agree, and would deplore the crusaders' decisions. This kind of distinction is more important than creed, overrides it, transforms it. And it's one reason why a universal flat statement like "to be generous is a good thing" always depends on where one is on the spiritual scale. Can you be generous to your cousin? Can you be generous to an infidel? Can you be generous to a political enemy? Answers vary, but all still hold generosity to be a virtue.

Differences in the use to which one puts the concept of God have been taken seriously many times in history, and let to sober, considered decisions to slaughter. It's not a valuable distinction.

P: Cant--- don't you think the point is far more general. It does not matter if the appeal is to God, Reason, Cosmic Justice, or the March of History--treatment of the 'different' persons, the 'outsiders' etc is going to be an issue.

I was reading up a bit on Pol Pot; his program of maoist type reform, it's estimated, led to 2 million deaths. He had in mind purification, ridding society of undesirable elements. In a weird, mad way, it was a 'rational' analysis, that the middle classes, the intellectuals were insufficiently devoted to the social ideal, i.e., were corrupt. Instead of 'enemy of God' (Falwell), you had, 'class enemy.'

From an alleged factual premise, "reason" can dictate a rigorous plan for social betterment-- a program to rid society of 'undesirables', 'bourgeois elements', 'Gypsies' whomever.

 

[NoJo]

I have to say, I posted Mary Midgley's review because she's probably the most eloquent and persistent of Dawkins' adversaries. While obviously experts in their fields, they tend to resent each other's tulip-trampling, ever since Midgleys (I think misguided) attack on The Selfish Gene when it was first published.

 

[Pure]

hi joe,
i think there's been a lot of controversy, and some very sophisticated responses to these three, Dennett, Dawkins, and Harris. I believe Dennett has a book replying to critics. They are smart and articulate guys, but have, in some ways, 1) overstepped themselves, 2) dealt with 'easy cases', i.e. the more silly and fundamentalist claims of religion, and 3) focussed on the alleged bad effects on conduct, e.g, crusades by Xtians.

 

[NoJo]

hi joe,
i think there's been a lot of controversy, and some very sophisticated responses to these three, Dennett, Dawkins, and Harris. I believe Dennett has a book replying to critics. They are smart and articulate guys, but have, in some ways, 1) overstepped themselves, 2) dealt with 'easy cases', i.e. the more silly and fundamentalist claims of religion, and 3) focussed on the alleged bad effects on conduct, e.g, the murders by Xtians.

I'm all for it: I think it's high time they used a slegdehammer to crack those religious nuts.

 

[Pure]

the sledge hammer,

i'm all for blocking the theocrats and puritans**, as they are at work in the US, for example.

but, surely these books, discussed/applauded by us, as non believers or unorthodox believers, would never 'reach' these people. the authors, so to say, are preaching to the converted.

also, suppose it's a temperament or mindset issue: if you 'crack' the religious nut with your sledgehammer, maybe he or she turns into a maoist or 'objectivist' nut, like some who shall go unnamed.

so again, i think, more than 'sledging,' we need to cultivate an open mind and some compassion for fellow humans, esp. those NOT our neighbors. that is not to deny that the political thrusts of the theocrats have to be blocked and denounced.
---


**right wing, state-power-oriented, or authoritarian 'evangelicals' (the majority), and the conservative r. catholics and muslims.

 

[kendo1]

My kids love sledging.
It's almost that time of year - christmas.

 

[hmmnmm]

My kids love sledging.
It's almost that time of year - christmas.

Made me laugh, Ken.
Thanks.

 

[cantdog]

Cant: Christ, on the other hand, appears several times in the record of his ministry insisting that it certainly would be, since one is bound to love one's enemy as oneself.

Christians who have moved beyond us and them would agree, and would deplore the crusaders' decisions. This kind of distinction is more important than creed, overrides it, transforms it. And it's one reason why a universal flat statement like "to be generous is a good thing" always depends on where one is on the spiritual scale. Can you be generous to your cousin? Can you be generous to an infidel? Can you be generous to a political enemy? Answers vary, but all still hold generosity to be a virtue.

Differences in the use to which one puts the concept of God have been taken seriously many times in history, and let to sober, considered decisions to slaughter. It's not a valuable distinction.

P: Cant--- don't you think the point is far more general. It does not matter if the appeal is to God, Reason, Cosmic Justice, or the March of History--treatment of the 'different' persons, the 'outsiders' etc is going to be an issue.

I was reading up a bit on Pol Pot; his program of maoist type reform, it's estimated, led to 2 million deaths. He had in mind purification, ridding society of undesirable elements. In a weird, mad way, it was a 'rational' analysis, that the middle classes, the intellectuals were insufficiently devoted to the social ideal, i.e., were corrupt. Instead of 'enemy of God' (Falwell), you had, 'class enemy.'

From an alleged factual premise, "reason" can dictate a rigorous plan for social betterment-- a program to rid society of 'undesirables', 'bourgeois elements', 'Gypsies' whomever.

Okay. That is precisely what I was saying, yes. The issue of the enemy-- who only exists, by the way, in an us/them moral system-- is everywhere apparent. If Hitler were Catholic or agnostic or pagan, what boots it? If Stalin or Pol Pot were atheist, deist, or Quaker? If they have enemies and take the concept to heart, they will act to oppose them. Machiavelli tells us that to oppose them ruthlessly is more effective than a half-measure. So yes.

I see Krishna as another such 'enlightened' person as was Christ, though he is informed by the Vedas and not the Torah. Such men do not have enemies in the sense that us/them people do. The stories about both are transformed out of all reason by attachment to religious trappings deemed appropriate to such a figure, within the traditions of each. Krishna not only gently explains the irrelevance of 'enemies' and the proper attitude toward caste duty, he also appears in a multiheaded, many armed superform as Vishnu on earth. Christ holds conversations with Satan and raises Lazarus. Both battle and vanquish demons and then settle down to lunch. But I think the germ of the stories is that an extraordinary figure, an influential figure, achieved a measure of spiritual development such that he moved beyond us/them standards.

I tell people what I imagine to be the meaning of the term, God, because they seem to have been curious about it, but it in no way defines me to the extent that this factor does. I would be called an atheist by Joe, but E.O. Wilson doesn't have a category, in this interview, to fit me. But it is a curiosity, merely. It is useful to me, personally, since I can the more easily shrug off the arguments from Biblical authority if I don't buy into God. But it's never the most important thing about a person, where she stands on this issue.

 

[cantdog]

This is just what I was trying to say about myth.

That was a beautiful article, Joe, and pretty much sums up my reservations about Dawkins. I share his concerns about religion and I certainly see the downside, but I think the trouble really occurs when you start insisting that myth is fact and act accordingly. If you believe it when your religion says, "This is the one true way; the only way," then of course you've got trouble. Hell, you've got trouble when your philosophy or your science says that too.

Ideologues, which is what you here have defined, are always trouble. And ideologues only arise from absolutes. There is no other origin for them.

 

[cantdog]

I'm all for it: I think it's high time they used a slegdehammer to crack those religious nuts.

I have been slowly coming around to agreement, on this point. I used to be able to insist to Weird Harold that I, as a freethinking atheist, certainly didn't oppose his freedom to be nonsensical, but as events progress, I am coming to feel a damn sight less tolerant.

 

[cantdog]

These people may oppose Darwinism as Christians. But when they oppose Darwinism in the biology classroom, crippling every student in the school system, then I think tolerance has to sit down and let nonsense be opposed with vigor.

 

[Pure]

cant,

as i said, you oppose (one opposes) their political actions. they can be voted off, as well as on school boards. school boards may be taken to court, etc. OTOH, i would oppose the political actions of certain non religious folks too; i can't seem to get the point across that the problem is those who want to enforce their views (irrespective of the religion factor).

 

[hmmnmm]

the hmmnmm nonsense factory coming soon

oops

 

[NoJo]

I have been slowly coming around to agreement, on this point. I used to be able to insist to Weird Harold that I, as a freethinking atheist, certainly didn't oppose his freedom to be nonsensical, but as events progress, I am coming to feel a damn sight less tolerant.

Exactly. After years of wacthing them tolerating other people's intolerance, I've started to feel that liberal atheists are being treated like putzes - (suckers).

Oh, and here's the closest thing to that infamous quote which anyone can find by Voltaire:

"Monsieur l'abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.''

Who wants to give Murdoch the go-ahead to publish whatever he wants? Nowadays, with mass-media, the rules have changed.

 

[kendo1]

Ideologues, which is what you here have defined, are always trouble. And ideologues only arise from absolutes. There is no other origin for them.

That was rather black and white.


And, Joe?
Is atheism a Western thing?
It seems to me that there is less tolerance of religious views (or lack of them) in other societies.

Apologies if this has been asked before, some of the replies to the thread have been a touch verbose.

 

[slippedhalo]

Apologies if this has been asked before, some of the replies to the thread have been a touch verbose.

...a touch? lol, that's an understatement.

Good points have been made in either case, though. I just think part of the reason many people never get into religious and spiritual debate is because it really can't have a set conclusion. Everyone has an opinion, but in the end, we don't know anything for certain...perhaps that scares us into having created religion in the first place...but I don't see the point of pretending to be certain about something I am no expert on and I know nobody else is. My old Catholic sunday school teachers would try to tell me 'That's what faith is." but to me it seems like a cop out for an unanswerable question, and I have far too many to trust to amatures. I would entrust them to God if I was certain there was one, listening and actually giving a crap about me, but even of that I waver in my certaintly. But, my uncertaintly doesn't bother me, it doesn't make me nervous, I think it's supposed to be that way. I feel life is a journey and a long lived lesson and we must learn and grow and change and if that means that my beliefs today vary from my beliefs tomorrow, so be it. If there is a God and I meet 'it' when I die, I'm sure 'it' will understand, having created me to be this way. If there isn't, I won't be too dissappointed either, having explored both angles.

 

[kendo1]

A relevant link...

Rowan Atkinson as Toby the Devil- Welcome to Hell.
Hope you have broadband, the atheists are near the end.

http://www.shamozzle.com/TOBYTHEDEVILRowanAtkinson.html

 

[cantdog]

That was rather black and white.


And, Joe?
Is atheism a Western thing?
It seems to me that there is less tolerance of religious views (or lack of them) in other societies.

Apologies if this has been asked before, some of the replies to the thread have been a touch verbose.

I don't waffle when it comes to what words mean. That's the definition of "ideologue," dude. An adherent to an absolute. That's why they sound the way they do, and why they don't bother to listen any more.

The western end of Eurasia is the birthplace of the holy-book monotheisms. In these traditions, the Truth comes out word for word, and people go to war with one another over the iota of difference. In the east, an understanding suffices, but in the west you need to pin it down.