I’ve been talking in another thread about what atheists believe, and I’m curious about the atheists here. Note that I’m not interested in debating here, and for this thread I’m not interested in what folks who don’t identify as atheists think about the questions; it could be an interesting secondary poll to see what theists say on these subjects.
Poll options forthcoming. Patience, please–I’ve never done a poll before.
Edit: Shit, option 5 should say, “I’ve considered these questions, but have no answer to them.” I changed the wording midway through and screwed it up. And option 7 is poorly worded, but I think its meaning is clear.
No, that option specifies believing the opposite of your first three statements. There are situations where one or more of those statements could be true. I prefer grey to black and white.
It says “1, 2, and/or 3.” If you believe that perception is reality, don’t you believe that reality is subjective? Isn’t that the opposite of the first statement? Or am I misunderstanding you?
I just thought of a follow-up question. For those of you that voted for propositions 1, 2, and 3, do these beliefs of yours have a direct relationship to your atheism? If so, what does that look like?
They certainly have such a relationship for me. Because I believe in an objective, rational, logical universe that I can apprehend through my senses, I tend to reach other conclusions based on a combination of sensory evidence and application (with greater or lesser accuracy) of reason and logic. I’ve encountered no evidence that leads me to think any deity is likely, nor do I find the idea of an omnipotent, omnibenevolent deity to be consistent with the world we’re in, nor do I find the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient deity to be logically possible. Because of my beliefs about the universe, I also find religious faith to be mystifying, and I have real trouble understanding why anyone would consider having faith to be a good thing.
Hmm. Rather than repeat what you said in different words, I’ll just quote your post. I do, however, want to emphasize your last statement as I believe theistic belief retards humanity’s progress and intellectual evolution.
I voted for 1, 3 & 8. I did not vote for 2 because I don’t think logical, illogical, rationalorirrational are predicates that can be attached to the universe. The universe just is. Inductive and deductive reasoning are sound, but they are also tools that we have developed because they are useful.
I can imagine that other beings in this or other universes could develop other structures or tools that would be more useful, but I can’t imagine how the tools we have could be invalid in this universe, or how something much like them would not be valid (even if not useful) in any universe. (I thought about typing a long caveat about Goedel’s Theorem here and maybe something else about the “unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics” but I decided not to.)
Logic and rationality are the best and only tools we have for uncovering facts about the universe, but I think this is what logic and rationality are, not an additional fact about the universe.
The universe is that which I observe. I assume, not believe, but assume, that my perceptions have a basis in reality. I would be absurd to assume anything else.
So I don’t believe the universe is “not subjective” I observe that it is.
As soon as you start bringing “belief” into the discussion then the next logical step it to start proclaiming that everyone’s beliefs are equal. This is false. Atheism is not based on belief. It is based on observation. I observe that there is no place in the universe for a magical being that mimics humanity is all its foibles but is immensely powerful. The universe I observe simply does not allow for that eventuality.
Voted 1, 2, 3. I’m not as certain of 2 (which I interpreted as “reality is in principle understandable using logic/rationality”) as I am of 1 and 3, but thus far 2 seems to hold up fairly well - assuming that 1 and 3 are correct.
I’ve pretty much always been an atheist, so those beliefs certainly didn’t make me become an atheist, but I do think that understanding more about logic and the various ways our senses can imperfectly tell us stuff about the universe have made it much easier to see the various ways in which the majority of evidence for or proofs of gods tend to be unconvincing, sloppy, or outright false.
This is a good point: I wonder if it would have been clearer if I’d phrased it as you did, or said something like, “Logic and reason are useful tools for describing reality.”
That kind of belief (that reality is subjective) is exactly why I put option 6 in there.