Being brainwashed into a belief is not a good reason to hold said belief.

[Onomatopoeia]

[QUOTE=VarlosZ]
It’s threads like these that should make us all miss Liberal. I know he helped me, at least, to see that faith was a valid epistemology. He was also good at highlighting the importance of personal revelation for many believers, a part of spirituality that most athiests completely fail to appreciate.

As for the OP (and Onomatopoeia): the retention rates for all spiritual beliefs (including atheism and agnosticism) among families and communities are extremely high. Please keep this in mind when throwing around words like “brainwashing” or holding out your own belief system as extra-valid.
[/QUOTE]
Again, atheism is not a belief, nor is it spiritual, and I would consider agnosticism quasi-spiritualistic at most.

[Kalhoun]

[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
I think you have your analogy backwards. I think going by the typical definition of God, he is the one who is the boss. We are the ones who have something to prove to him, not the other way around.
[/QUOTE]

No…it’s not backwards. One has to prove their worth. I prove my worth as an employee, god proves his worth as worshippable (my employee, per se). It doesn’t make sense to worship something that doesn’t make its existence known any more than it would make sense for Children’s Memorial to hire me as a neurosurgeon.

[Sarahfeena]

[QUOTE=Kalhoun]
No…it’s not backwards. One has to prove their worth. I prove my worth as an employee, god proves his worth as worshippable (my employee, per se). It doesn’t make sense to worship something that doesn’t make its existence known any more than it would make sense for Children’s Memorial to hire me as a neurosurgeon.
[/QUOTE]
Maybe he thinks that not only has he demonstrated his worth (by creating the universe & us), but that this is also sufficient to prove his existance.

[Onomatopoeia]

[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink]
I’m no expert in child psychology or educational development, but it seems to me you have to learn & accept some things uncritically before you get into critical thinking. You have to learn to count to 10 before questioning why 8 comes after 7. You have to learn who George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were before thinking critically about the casues of the American Revolution or Civil War. You have to accept your parents’ commands not to run into the street and not to drink the Drano if you’re going to survive long enough to develop your own rules for living.

As for how early, or whether, children are “allowed” to question the Bible, or anything else for that matter, that varies quite a bit from family to family, church to church, etc. Your own experience is not universal.
[/QUOTE]
I actually agree with everything you’ve said, but you’re not really contradicting my thesis, unless I’m just not seeing it, which is that critical thinking is suppressed by religious belief; the more devout the more suppression.

[Nature_s_Call]

[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
Maybe he thinks that not only has he demonstrated his worth (by creating the universe & us), but that this is also sufficient to prove his existance.
[/QUOTE]

It is a huge leap to say “Because the stars, therefore Jehovah.”

[Voyager]

[QUOTE=Eonwe]

Athiesm is an answer to no fundamental question. To athiests (at least to me), the existance of the supernatural isn’t a fundamental question at all. What happens after death isn’t a question at all. Saying that ‘athiests have an answer to the question of what happens after death’ presupposes that a person believes there is a soul that exists independantly of the body, without which ‘after death’ has no meaning.

Can you see the logical issue here? ‘After death’ to an athiest means, ‘after I cease to exist.’ Nothing happens to us after we aren’t. Only unsubstantiated (not invalid, just not supported by anything factual) belief supports the idea that when you die you are not really dead, you just lose your body.

[/QUOTE]

I think you overstate the level of atheist belief. It is perfectly possible for an atheist to be a spiritualist, and believe in life after death. I think some forms of Buddhism may count as atheism with a spiritual component. In our society, there is a strong correlation between seeing no evidence for a god and no evidence for life after death - but this isn’t a requirement of atheism at all. Atheists don’t even have to have a logical reason for lack of belief. There is no atheist church, and no atheist creed, and no uniform set of ethics. It’s not surprising that those who are confused about this (like our friend) consider atheism in any way a religion.

[Sarahfeena]

[QUOTE=Nature’s Call]
It is a huge leap to say “Because the stars, therefore Jehovah.”
[/QUOTE]
Just trying to look at it from his perspective, not mine.

[Kalhoun]

[QUOTE=AHunter3]
Kalhoun:

There are those of us who consider ourselves theistic but who nevertheless have to endure religious persecution in our everyday life. Mainstream christianity in the US is very often smugly oblivious to nonchristian folks (theistic or otherwise), never mind the activities of the zealous fundamentalist horde I think of as the Christian Taliban.

When you rise to defend your rights, you’re defending mine as well, and I’m grateful and appreciative, believe me.

I may rise to do battle here on the SDMB against fervent atheists in Great Debates from time to time, but in the larger context the skeptics and atheists are the ones with whom I find myself most often in alliance.

**badchad’s[/b] opening premise in this thread is exquisitely well-stated. I would build a church and in the center on a stone tablet on a shrine would appear that very sentiment. If there is to be any meaning or validity to the experience spiritual, religion, I think has to embrace the perception that you cannot claim to know things to be true simply because those things were taught to you, no matter how much authority is attached to the teacher thereof.

I would add that you can’t even claim to know things to be true with absolute conviction even when your own experience, reason, deliberate experimentation, and internal consistence with all else that you believe to be true completely supports it. Even then you need to retain the awareness that absolute certainty is not an option; that even while common sense dictates that you must necessarily continue to live your life on the assumption that what you think you know is correct, you need to suspend that sense of certainty from time to time and question it anew, especially when dealing with people who believe other than you do.

And at the bottom of the tablet it would say: If you have come here for the secure feeling of possessing absolute certainty, go find another church.

re: the atheism as a [spiritual, or equivalent-to-spiritual] belief system —

If an “athwigznot” is defined by dictionary as a person who believes there is no “thwigznot”, the term is pretty useless without an operational definition of “thwigznot”. It’s not the same as being a person who “does not ascribe to ‘thwigznotic’ beliefs”. We are all, right now, in the latter category, insofar as I invented the word yet didn’t invent any belief systems for the word to refer to. Those beliefs are irrelevant to us, we’re oblivious to them, the world for us is understood by us completely without reference to those beliefs.

The word “atheist”, if it were construed to mean “does not ascribe to theistic beliefs”, would not itself refer to a belief system. But generally “atheist” is held to mean “believes that there is no God”, while “agnostic” is held to mean "does not believe in God but doesn’t actually have any belief about ‘God’ ", or, perhaps more common but less usefully phrased, “does not know whether or not there is a God”.

So much of it all boils down to terminology and communication. From the standpoint of a theistic person there’s a difference between “I have no belief about anything called ‘God’ and so your utterances that include that word are meaningless to me”, on the one hand, and “I know what you mean when you say ‘God’, and what you refer to when you do so is something that does not exist” on the other. If you want to call the former “agnostic” and the latter “atheist”, that’s fine; or if you prefer to call the former “weak atheist” and the latter “strong atheist”, that’s fine, too. Since the terms are being used to describe your perspectives, you should pick the terms and those of us discussing things with you should get on board with your terminology-use, especially if we’re going to turn around and ask that we be the ones to define this term ‘God’, which you don’t use to refer to anything that’s real to you, in the course of describing phenomena that are real to us.
[/QUOTE]

The terms “atheist” and “agnostic” have gone through some definition dispute in recent years. I should clarify that the definition of “agnostic” that I use is that the existence of god is unknowable. I understand that concept (and used to subscribe to it). However, at this point in my life, I think the existence of god IS knowable. I believe that any *mystical unknowability * is a humanly-conceived attribute because some people couldn’t reconcile the apparent non-existence with their desire for a god. I think it’s ok to say “I don’t have the answer and I’m withholding judgement until I have more evidence.”

My definition of “atheist” is a person who does not believe god exists (as opposed to a person who says ‘god doesn’t exist’). That’s not to say it’s an impossibility (what* is*?). It just means there is absolutely no logical reason to believe one exists. Should evidence present itself, I’ll be the first one to acknowledge it.

[tomndebb]

[QUOTE=Onomatopoeia]
the more devout the more suppression.
[/QUOTE]
Nah. It has much more to do with the type of (local) society one inhabits than it does with the qualities of one’s devotion. I know a lot of extremely devout Jesuits and Franciscans, and a handful of Dominicans, and none of them have ever attempted to suppress doubt or questioning. (Well, one of the Franciscans did, but he was a bit odd.)

There are social structures that inhibit doubt and questioning, but they are not directly related to the form or depth of one’s faith.

[Onomatopoeia]

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
Piffle.

I know several atheists who lack a belief in a god simply because they were raised in a family where there was no belief in a god and they accepted that situation as uncritically as any theist accepts a god.
[/QUOTE]
Hmm… I wonder if any statistics exist illustrating the percentage of those who were “born into” an absence of religious faith but ultimately, through exposure, became adherents. I suspect the number would be surprisingly high.

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
I also know a few people who “critically” came to atheism, then abandoned it and became believers in a god (often one radically different than the one worshipped by their family, so it was not simply a matter of “going home”).
[/QUOTE]
We’ll have to disagree on this one as I contend those people were never atheists, but agnostics.

[Lilairen]

[QUOTE=AHunter3]
while “agnostic” is held to mean "does not believe in God but doesn’t actually have any belief about ‘God’ ", or, perhaps more common but less usefully phrased, “does not know whether or not there is a God”.
[/QUOTE]

Which common usage is vastly frustrating to me.

I am a strong enough agnostic that I cannot comprehend why people get so incensed about the question of whether there are gods or not – I consider it utterly unknowable and thus fundamentally irrelevant, and thus spending cycles about it is like spending vast time and effort debating how many invisible pink unicorns can dance on the head of a pin.

The structure I happen to use in my day-to-day life is theistic. Whether those systems are directed at actual gods, metaphorical structures, Jungian archetypes, personifications of impulses in the unconscious, or delusions I happen to find useful I don’t know; depending on the day, I may ‘believe’ any or all of these, or others I’m not thinking of at the moment.

I just don’t put that much weight on the question of belief. (One reason I’ve always preferred orthopraxic religion to orthodoxic.)

[tomndebb]

[QUOTE=Onomatopoeia]
Hmm… I wonder if any statistics exist illustrating the percentage of those who were “born into” an absence of religious faith but ultimately, through exposure, became adherents. I suspect the number would be surprisingly high.
[/quote]
I would expect the number of people born into a non-believing family who later became believers to be quite low and am not sure why you would believe otherwise.

@Onomatopoeia

We’ll have to disagree on this one as I contend those people were never atheists, but agnostics.

What is this, some sort of inverted Christian Fundamentalism where anyone who becomes apostate after conversion was never “really” converted? The number is rather small, so I am not going to draw any statistical conclusions, but if a person claims that they have no belief in (a) god, I am going to take them at their word and not haggle over whether I can smash them into one category hole or another. They did not claim to be unsure of God or unable to know God; they claimed that there was no God and, after a few years, claimed that they had decided that God did, indeed, exist after all.

[Nature_s_Call]

[QUOTE=Lilairen]
I just don’t put that much weight on the question of belief. (One reason I’ve always preferred orthopraxic religion to orthodoxic.)
[/QUOTE]

Pardon my ignorance: what does “orthopraxic” mean? I just looked up “orthopraxy” and the only definition I could find is:

The treatment of deformities in the human body by mechanical appliances.

[JThunder]

[QUOTE=spoke-]
The value of early “brainwashing” has been known for some time:
Proverbs 22:6
[/QUOTE]

So training = brainwashing? What an unusual definition.

[Eonwe]

[QUOTE=Voyager]
I think you overstate the level of atheist belief. It is perfectly possible for an atheist to be a spiritualist, and believe in life after death. I think some forms of Buddhism may count as atheism with a spiritual component. In our society, there is a strong correlation between seeing no evidence for a god and no evidence for life after death - but this isn’t a requirement of atheism at all. Atheists don’t even have to have a logical reason for lack of belief. There is no atheist church, and no atheist creed, and no uniform set of ethics. It’s not surprising that those who are confused about this (like our friend) consider atheism in any way a religion.
[/QUOTE]

You’re right, I stand corrected. Not believing in a god/gods does not necessarially preclude a person from believing in any other supernatural or spiritual thing. Just another confusion of nomenclature I suppose, and who uses what word to mean what.

My point still stands, even if my example wasn’t the best, that just because something is a fundamental spiritual question for one person doesn’t mean that everyone shares that question, or that everyone’s answer to a question must be spiritual and belief- based just because another person’s answer happens to be.

[Spoke]

[QUOTE=JThunder]
So training = brainwashing? What an unusual definition.
[/QUOTE]

Yes, “training” as used in that verse can include “brainwashing” (to the extent both “training” and “brainwashing” refer to inculcating religious beliefs in children).

One word is pejorative, the other is not, but they both mean the same thing in that context.

[Eonwe]

[QUOTE=VarlosZ]
sigh

Read the whole thread before responding; I’ve already addressed your objection twice this morning.
[/QUOTE]

Yep, did read the thread, thanks for asking. Perhaps you’re referring to your statements here:

This is really a question of how you want to use the words. Just so there’s no misunderstanding, feel free to replace the words “spiritual beliefs” in my last post and this one with “physical/metaphsical tenets,” or whatever else makes those sentences meaningful to you.

and this:

Well, ok, but please recognize that you’re the one who’s using the word “belief” in an exceptional way. The word “belief” is commonly used to refer to positions on matters which are much more settled than the existence of god – e.g., it is my belief that the sky is blue and the holocaust really happened, and in no way am I using that word incorrectly. If you intend to use the word only when referring to positions that are unsupported by logic or evidence, then you will need to point that out in the future if you wish to avoid misunderstandings.

Here’s the thing. “Spiritual beliefs” are not synonymous with “physical tenets.” I’m not sure exactly what you mean by physical tenets, but most people, religious and non-religious alike, draw a line between the physical realm and the spiritual.

So, when talking about religion and spirituality, most people speak of their belief and/or faith as being a very separate kind of belief than their belief that the pizza they ate today was tasty, or their belief that 1+1=2.

We tend to not operate on a metaphysical level of debate, and certainly in a practical sense it doesn’t work.

You can say (and, in an intellectual practice I might agree) that all of existance is belief, and all such beliefs are equally valid interpretations of existance. But how is that meaningful. How can you use that perspective to reconcile your beliefs about the world with others’ beliefs? At some point, we all must agree on some givens (blue is a unique color based upon the wavelength of light reflected or emitted from an object), so that we can communicate and live together. That’s where the difference between what “is” and what we believe comes in.

Certainly there are beliefs about the world that are just wrong. Certainly there must be a way for an individual to judge whether a belief has merit or not. Certainly that way must hold true for all people. Certainly belief in a given thing by one person does not automatically require other people to develop a belief about not believing in said thing.

Yes I read the thread. I feel like the Invisible Pink Unicorn argument gets shot down constantly because it’s somehow not the same as the Judeo-Christian God, and tortured logic is used to write-off arguments for the existance of all other divine/mythical beings and to insist that somehow God’s existance follows logically from some premise or other, while all of the others are just silly.

[Onomatopoeia]

[QUOTE=cosmosdan]
well, what tom said. You can’t be so naive to not realize at least some atheists become that way because their parents were and taught them that, or that they did because of peer pressure.
[/QUOTE]
Of course I understand and agree that children of parents who adhere to no mythological belief system will themselves, at least initially, adhere to none. After all, when you’re a child Mommy and Daddy are gods to you, and they have the answers to everything in your world. However, I don’t believe someone can become atheistic through peer pressure. I just don’t see adherence to a faith based system being lost so cavalierly.
[QUOTE=cosmosdan]
It’s just human nature. It’s isn’t only about logic and reasoning. It’s about emotion as well. Emotion affects the nature of atheist belief as well.
Real atheists can’t become believers? So if they lacked belief in God and then believed that isn’t what happens? Can they at least eat quiche?
[/QUOTE]
I’m sorry, but I discount your contention because I simply don’t believe that real atheists can become believers. …of course then can eat quiche if they desire, but why oh why would they. Have you actually tried quiche? The horror.
[QUOTE=cosmosdan]

I realize lots of people see atheism as some strange form of spiritual belief. I am not one of them. When Sam Harris suggested we not give religion any special status I took that seriously.
[/QUOTE]
Hah! So we do agree on something. Extra kudos for your admiration of the great Sam Harris.
[QUOTE=cosmosdan]
In doing so I came to think more about the nature of what we believe on a subjective level as well as the objective. In doing so I realized that believers and non believers share a lot of the same traits and motives for what they believe in the subjective arena. Both have a belief system when we subtract the religious label.
[/QUOTE]
I disagree here. Atheism is not a system of beliefs.
[QUOTE=cosmosdan]
Both act on things out of faith when we subtract the religious faith specification.
[/QUOTE]
I agree with this statement.
[QUOTE=cosmosdan]
If we’re not giving relious beliefs a special protected staus {and I believe we shouldn’t} then perhaps we can stop covering every religious belief with the same blanket, and deal with the more specific details of belief.
[/QUOTE]
I would love that.

[QUOTE=cosmosdan]
Sorry…I vented a bit
[/QUOTE]
NP. I’ve been known to be swept by emotion a time or ten thousand myself.

[QUOTE=cosmosdan]
FTR believers also have to swim against the tide and more than a few have suffered from it.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, but it’s probably neap.

[Lilairen]

[QUOTE=Nature’s Call]
Pardon my ignorance: what does “orthopraxic” mean?
[/QUOTE]

Etymologically, “straight/correct practice”. An orthopraxic religion defines membership validity by correct action, where an orthodoxic one by correct belief. (This isn’t entirely tidy, as belief and action can be and often are tightly intertwined, but where the weight goes matters in some ways.)

It’s the “faith versus works” question, basically.

[Kalhoun]

[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
Maybe he thinks that not only has he demonstrated his worth (by creating the universe & us), but that this is also sufficient to prove his existance.
[/QUOTE]

You’re assuming he created it based on christian conceptions. I have nothing to base that assumption on. I have to see something that makes sense when we’re talking about something as big as the universe. The Big Bang is more believeable because it’s based on science. It makes logical sense with regard to what we know about our universe at this point. It is a constantly changing thing. New information is discovered and processed all the time. The religious approach doesn’t allow for another possibility and automatically discounts any new evidence we discover.