Premiss: "Atheism" is for people who can't handle "Religion".

[Mangetout]

@mishagoe

Atheism is an escape hatch for those of us who are uncomfortable with the notion that the world we exist in is infinit and essentially un-fathomable by us puny humans.

Late arrival to this thread (I did read it right through though). I find this to be an interesting assertion, because in my experience, the reverse seems true. Religious people often seem to value certainty more highly than truth.

This is particularly evident in the creationist movement (but by no means limited to that subset of believers) - there’s a desperate urgency to believe anything that can be offered up as an argument against evolution. Doesn’t really matter if it’s incompatible with some other argument they made the minute before - doesn’t matter if it’s poorly researched, or misrepresented so as to be at odds with observable reality, as long as it reinforces certainty.

[BrainGlutton]

@mishagoe

Atheism is an escape hatch for those of us who are uncomfortable with the notion that the world we exist in is infinit and essentially un-fathomable by us puny humans. In Atheism we can hide our fears behind the belief that eventually all questions can be defined in mathematical relationships and a well stacked table of fundamental particles and forces.

:rolleyes::dubious: No. That “science is sure to answer all questions someday” is not a defining belief of atheism, and not one shared by any atheist I’ve ever met. And certainly not by any scientist. Science begins with a humble admission of ignorance – which includes the rejection of authority, religious or otherwise; and then, from that starting point, goes and finds out.

[Voyager]

@raindog

In MB atheism “There is no proof of a God”, and “There is no God” are qualitatively the same statement.

Will any of you own up to your faith?

Any of you?

As a statement of a hypothesis, God can no more be proven than Newton’s Laws. Most of us would settle for some decent evidence that would stand up in a court of law, though, as a start. God showing up would help. If you think God for some reason is allergic to showing himself, read Exodus and be enlightened.

As for the second part, given the various contradictory versions of god, and the lack of good evidence over hundreds of years of documentation, and the lack of reason to believe in the hearsay before that, it is perfectly logical to state that there is no reason to believe in God, and, given that he is as shy as a unicorn, a fairy, or Harvey, there is good reason to believe he does not exist.

You appear to not understand the difference between faith and logic.

[mishagoe]

@Lobohan

That ignores that religion is *far *easier, since it teaches you to ignore painful realities. Specifically, ending at death, meaning and justice.

I don’t think that is true. I have met very few people, religious or otherwise, who ignore their painful realities. I think this is one of the misconceptions thrown out that religious believe must come out of a need to escape life’s hardships. Often time religious believe results in painful hardships.

[Trinopus]

@Der_Trihs

There’s no “spiritual truth”, or spiritual anything. . . .

Agreed. When people say “spiritual,” what they often really mean is “emotional.” We have a vast suite of emotions and emotionally-driven behaviors, and some of them are good. Love, honor, trust, friendship, cooperation, etc. A great many of our pleasures are emotional.

Religion often keys in to basic emotions. Churches have known this for centuries. They get people together in one place, with beautiful music, group participation, and promises made in a voice of absolute certainty. These are powerfully appealing to people.

Religion also often appeals to the nastier emotions. It often uses fear, anger, bigotry, and divisiveness. Religion has a long history of violent schisms, crusades, pogroms, inquisitions, and the like.

I only really differ from you in one regard: I think that, in a free society, beneficial religion can have a legitimate place. If it makes people feel good about themselves, if it relieves their fears of death, if it eases their grief, well… Shrug… No skin off my knees. Religion, at that level, can simply be a kind of personal aesthetic, an individual viewpoint. It’s a personal preference, like optimism or pessimism, or liking one variety of food or disliking another.

I only get alarmed when some jackknob pipes up and says “Everyone must view things my way…and you can’t eat bacon, either.” At that point, a free society has a new enemy.

It is remarkable, though, how very few times “atheism” has ever been that enemy.

[mishagoe]

@The_Hamster_King

Dawkins DOESN’T claim to know the “absolute purpose and meaning of the world”. Instead, he puts forward a provisional model of reality that happens to matches the evidence at hand

Fair enough. I just don’t see how the provisional model that Dawkins puts forward has anything to say about the purpose and meaning of the world in a broader sense, other that it leads Dawkins to form his belief about the purpose and meaning of the world, which I agree he is entitled to.

[Paralogic]

@mishagoe

Atheism is an escape hatch for those of us who are uncomfortable with the notion that the world we exist in is infinit and essentially un-fathomable by us puny humans. In Atheism we can hide our fears behind the belief that eventually all questions can be defined in mathematical relationships and a well stacked table of fundamental particles and forces. The fact that we aren’t there yet is simply because we’ve just barely begun the enterprise, but someday we will fathom our existence in every possible detail, leaving no question unanswered, complete masters of our existence and our future.

Agree/Disagree ?

Disagree because your premise is factually wrong.

A religious belief assumes the existence of a being or entity that is in complete control of the world, making the world finite and fathomable to that being, whether or not the believer is capable of understanding it.

If, as you say, atheism was an escape from anything, it would be an escape from a finite and complete world ruled by a divine being. Individual believers and their capability of comprehension are irrelevant when the entity they believe in has ultimate reign over the world as we do or will ever know it.

The mystery of the universe will probably always remain a mystery to the human intelligence. The question is whether a human being chooses to apply reason in order to verify claims, or just accepts them for psychological or ego gratification.

Atheism is the result of applying reason to the claims of supernatural existence, and refuting and dismissing unsubstantiated claims for the divine. Unfortunately, it’s not an appropriate label because it usually signifies the refusal of false claims, and not direct, affirmative statements about reality.

In any case, it’s only atheism that has been the drive for progress in society, from the examination of why people have to drill holes in people’s skulls to let the evil spirits escape when they had a headache, like the religious believed in the Middle Ages, to slowly but surely realizing that the Earth is not at the center of the universe, and the human mind is not at the center of anything.

We can only develop and increase our knowledge about our world, but only by using reason, and not with superstitious ego-gratifying fantasies. No one knows how far we’ll go, but thankfully, we’ve destroyed many religious shackles, both mental and physical, that have hampered humanity for several millenia.

[Der_Trihs]

@mishagoe

Fair enough. I just don’t see how the provisional model that Dawkins puts forward has anything to say about the purpose and meaning of the world in a broader sense, other that it leads Dawkins to form his belief about the purpose and meaning of the world, which I agree he is entitled to.

What it has to say is that there isn’t any larger “purpose and meaning” beyond what we impose.

Which I personally think is a good thing; I really don’t understand the hunger so many religious people seem to have to be nothing more than just another cog in a divine plan created before the universe existed. Tools have a purpose imposed by their maker; I don’t want a purpose. And if presented with such a divine plan I’d reject it. I want to make my own purpose, create my own meaning. Any “gods” that actually exist can go off and do their own little projects without my help.

[mishagoe]

@BrainGlutton

:rolleyes::dubious: No. That “science is sure to answer all questions someday” is not a defining belief of atheism, and not one shared by any atheist I’ve ever met. And certainly not by any scientist. Science begins with a humble admission of ignorance – which includes the rejection of authority, religious or otherwise; and then, from that starting point, goes and finds out.

I’ll agree with your first statement. But I think you’ll agree that what the atheist is most likely to say is true are the collection of currently accepted scientific theories. Next in line are the possible extensions of those theories or any one of plausible constructs based on those scientific theories. It is very safe ground to stand on, and requires nothing more than to profess an undying believe in what can be physically or mathematically shown to be real or a reasonable extension of that. However, the matter of what is reasonable, is still a matter of judgement in that one has to edit out extensions that seem unreasonable. Now that judgement may be right or may later proven to be wrong, but for the time being, you might believe that a specific extension of a scientific theory is still reasonable until proven otherwise by direct experiment and data collection and of course data interpretation. You can’t get away from making judgment calls or interpretation of what the data really mean, and doing so requires that you rely on currently accepted theories.

What puzzles me about all this is that we all exist in an uncertain world, where we will admit freely or if pressed, that we don’t have al the answers, but we do have believes about what those answer might be or they might be unknowable. Yet when it comes to debates about religion vs atheism we all act as if we knew with certainty what is real and what isn’t. I’m not arguing for any specific religion here. I’m simple saying that none of us know enough about this Universe to have anything final to say about purpose and meaning, unless what we are stating is our belief about that purpose or meaning, or our believe that there is no purpose or meaning.

[mishagoe]

@Der_Trihs

What it has to say is that there isn’t any larger “purpose and meaning” beyond what we impose.

Which I personally think is a good thing; I really don’t understand the hunger so many religious people seem to have to be nothing more than just another cog in a divine plan created before the universe existed. Tools have a purpose imposed by their maker; I don’t want a purpose. And if presented with such a divine plan I’d reject it. I want to make my own purpose, create my own meaning. Any “gods” that actually exist can go off and do their own little projects without my help.

I don’t think it has anything to say at all about purpose or meaning, however you can conjecture about what it might possibly reveal about purpose or meaning, or its non-existence. As far as I know Evolution describes a well established theory that explains the variation in life as it exists on Earth and by extension might describe the same for other planets where life surely exists. As an explanation it has nothing to say about purpose or meaning, and I think that is often mistaken as being proof that there is no purpose or meaning.

[FixMyIgnorance]

Just because there are parts we don’t know doesn’t mean we have to discard what we DO know. There’s a lot out there we understand in great levels of consistent detail. It’s not like we’re making hazy guesses in a fog of uncertainty.

The scientific method is founded on the notion that what’s true today could be wrong tomorrow. It’s the nature of falsifiability. That doesn’t mean, however, that everything is false. If we falsify gravity tomorrow, it’s not like objects are suddenly going to start floating up in the air. It just means we discard the current theory and replace it with one that accounts for all the observations more accurately.

@mishagoe

I don’t think it has anything to say at all about purpose or meaning, however you can conjecture about what it might possibly reveal about purpose or meaning, or its non-existence. As far as I know Evolution describes a well established theory that explains the variation in life as it exists on Earth and by extension might describe the same for other planets where life surely exists. As an explanation it has nothing to say about purpose or meaning, and I think that is often mistaken as being proof that there is no purpose or meaning.

No, but evolution does suggest that we’re nothing special. We’re just the eventuality of billions of years of natural selection. There’s nothing in that that suggests any higher meaning or purpose. It’s just something that happened. We weren’t created. We’re the extreme expression of complex chemistry, spawned forth out of a multifaceted rock formation born from accretion, the elements of which were forged in the centers of high-mass stars via thermonuclear fusion, etc.

[Paralogic]

@mishagoe

I’m simple saying that none of us know enough about this Universe to have anything final to say about purpose and meaning, unless what we are stating is our belief about that purpose or meaning, or our believe that there is no purpose or meaning.

The terms “purpose” and “meaning” are subjective and most of the time tend to be used for emotional and ego gratification.

The realization of human intelligence that reality exists and is independent of humans is the ultimate achievement of rational thought — started with the ancient Greeks, and, unfortunately, stifled and blocked by the Christian religion in the Western world for the past 2,000 years.

At this time, we can safely say that any human wondering about “purpose” and “meaning” in order to satisfy their ego, is irrelevant to knowledge, to the universe and to everything.

[Untoward_Parable]

@mishagoe

Atheism is an escape hatch for those of us who are uncomfortable with the notion that the world we exist in is infinit and essentially un-fathomable by us puny humans. In Atheism we can hide our fears behind the belief that eventually all questions can be defined in mathematical relationships and a well stacked table of fundamental particles and forces. The fact that we aren’t there yet is simply because we’ve just barely begun the enterprise, but someday we will fathom our existence in every possible detail, leaving no question unanswered, complete masters of our existence and our future.

Agree/Disagree ?

disagree, it’s the opposite, at least for me. If I could have faith in a little fairy tale with easy rules I’d be much more comfortable. Unfortunately I am incapable of that: cognitive dissonance.

[mishagoe]

@FixMyIgnorance

Just because there are parts we don’t know doesn’t mean we have to discard what we DO know. There’s a lot out there we understand in great levels of consistent detail. It’s not like we’re making hazy guesses in a fog of uncertainty.

The scientific method is founded on the notion that what’s true today could be wrong tomorrow. It’s the nature of falsifiability. That doesn’t mean, however, that everything is false. If we falsify gravity tomorrow, it’s not like objects are suddenly going to start floating up in the air. It just means we discard the current theory and replace it with one that accounts for all the observations more accurately.

I’m not suggesting we should discard anything we DO know. I have no problem with science or its theories. I endorse them 150%. If I didn’t you would be well grounded to call me an idiot. Trust me on this, I’m not an idiot. I’m suggesting we shouldn’t be hasty in assuming that anything we can’t explain can immediately be dismissed as delusional. A bit of open mind wouldn’t hurt, as there may be experiences people have, which we call spiritual that may point to aspects of this world that can’t be readily explained in conventional mundane ways. I think dismissing them as delusional or aspirational religious clap trap isn’t necessarily anymore intellectually rigorous than it is to accept them at face value. What ever happened to natural human curiosity. A good majority of the responses I’ve gotten are so very fundamentalist in tone that I have a hard time not believing that everyone of them is birthed by a religious fanatic.

[FixMyIgnorance]

@mishagoe

I’m suggesting we shouldn’t be hasty in assuming that anything we can’t explain can immediately be dismissed as delusional.

The problem is that all too often, religious zealots will assume that science either can’t explain something when it definitely can, or they’ll assume they had a “religious experience” without considering other possibilities for the phenomenon that may have more evidence/credence behind them.

I’d say many atheists are open minded and that’s exactly why they’re atheist to begin with. It takes an open mind to reject religious delusion of the majority because you need to be skeptical enough to question what’s mainstream, and intellectually rigorous enough to think for yourself instead of simply swallowing indoctrination and nonexplanation.

[Der_Trihs]

@mishagoe

What puzzles me about all this is that we all exist in an uncertain world, where we will admit freely or if pressed, that we don’t have al the answers, but we do have believes about what those answer might be or they might be unknowable. Yet when it comes to debates about religion vs atheism we all act as if we knew with certainty what is real and what isn’t.

Because the believers are irrational, and the unbelievers have all the evidence on their side. I’m willing to state with absolute certitude that Santa Claus isn’t real either.

@mishagoe

As far as I know Evolution describes a well established theory that explains the variation in life as it exists on Earth and by extension might describe the same for other planets where life surely exists. As an explanation it has nothing to say about purpose or meaning, and I think that is often mistaken as being proof that there is no purpose or meaning.

It doesn’t need to; “there is no purpose” is the default assumption unless someone comes up with evidence that there is such a purpose. It’s the people claiming that such a purpose exists who need to come up with something supporting their claim. What evolution and biology does do is demonstrate than no such purpose is needed to explain life, and that there is no evidence for such a purpose in living things.

[mishagoe]

@FixMyIgnorance

The problem is that all too often, religious zealots will assume that science either can’t explain something when it definitely can, or they’ll assume they had a “religious experience” without considering other possibilities for the phenomenon that may have more evidence/credence behind them.

I’d say many atheists are open minded and that’s exactly why they’re atheist to begin with. It takes an open mind to reject religious delusion of the majority because you need to be skeptical enough to question what’s mainstream, and intellectually rigorous enough to think for yourself instead of simply swallowing indoctrination and nonexplanation.

If you reduce this to religious zealots vs scientific rationality than you have a nice straw man to knock down. Why do you assume the choice is between zealotry and science. Don’t you think that normal everyday rational people can have spiritual experiences that, even though they can’t be explained are still real. On what basis other than prior assumption would you dismiss them as being unreasonable and suspect?

[FixMyIgnorance]

@mishagoe

If you reduce this to religious zealots vs scientific rationality than you have a nice straw man to knock down. Why do you assume the choice is between zealotry and science. Don’t you think that normal everyday rational people can have spiritual experiences that, even though they can’t be explained are still real. On what basis other than prior assumption would you dismiss them as being unreasonable and suspect?

This isn’t a strawman. What you’re describing is exactly what I am talking about.

You’re saying that rational people can have “spiritual experiences” that can’t be explained. I’m saying that what you’re calling “spiritual experiences” typically have scientific explanations and are anything but “spiritual.”

[mishagoe]

@Der_Trihs

Because the believers are irrational, and the unbelievers have all the evidence on their side. I’m willing to state with absolute certitude that Santa Claus isn’t real either.

It doesn’t need to; “there is no purpose” is the default assumption unless someone comes up with evidence that there is such a purpose. It’s the people claiming that such a purpose exists who need to come up with something supporting their claim. What evolution and biology does do is demonstrate than no such purpose is needed to explain life, and that there is no evidence for such a purpose in living things.

Ok, so its a default assumption. Which makes sense because why would you assume a purpose if the aim is to limit your investigation to strictly external verifiable phenomenon. But then to turn that around and claim the assumption of no purpose is proof that there is no purpose is circular isn’t it? I haven’t actually claimed any specific purpose, just as i haven’t claimed non-purpose. I couldn’t make either claim without asserting that I have a unique line of communication to some external to this Universe source of knowledge. I don’t of course.

[mishagoe]

@FixMyIgnorance

This isn’t a strawman. What you’re describing is exactly what I am talking about.

You’re saying that rational people can have “spiritual experiences” that can’t be explained. I’m saying that what you’re calling “spiritual experiences” typically have scientific explanations and are anything but “spiritual.”

I’m game, what are those explanations?