I have the opposite problem. I’m an atheist because I can’t accept that there is anything more. The whole idea of an afterlife doesn’t make a lick of sense if I think about it longer than thirty seconds.
You must not watch television at all then. Every family on every show, from the Simpsons to the Sopranos, are all believers. I can’t name a single positive portrayal of an atheist character on any prime time, daytime, or cable TV show. Not a one.
I hardly think that you have any business putting yourself into ‘it offends me too’ territory with atheists when it comes to this. No President has ever said that they don’t consider you to be a citizen because of your religious beliefs. It’s like a white person saying that anti-black racism offends them too. The fact of the matter is when these bible thumping fundamentalists are speaking in terms of ‘us vs. them’, you are not them. I am.
And I consider that so-called thin veneer to be nothing more than the rude presumption that everyone believes and thus nobody could possibly have a problem just going with the flow and faking beliefs they don’t have. The mere fact that I have been expected to go with that flow my entire life or risk causing a stir by saying ‘No thanks, I’m an atheist’. is exactly what I would call persecution.
After all, it is the expectation that the religious have that atheists will just shut up, be silent, and pretend not to exist lest we be called evil for attacking religion. Don’t cause a stir, don’t object to the establishment of theism in our government, on our money, in our schools, or anywhere else for that matter.
How’s it really any different than telling gay people ‘We don’t care if you’re gay, just don’t go on dates in public.’?
My challenge in being an atheist:
Listening to people babble religious gibberish and resisting the urge to inform them that they are myopic, insular, frightened little sheep. That is my challenge.
Yeah, but see, that’s the thing. How will you ever determine for a certainty that there was not some undiscovered natural mechanism at work? For me, miracles aren’t enough. It’s not enough for me that God do something mystifying. As far as I’m concerned, that’s pretty much just another god of the gaps — one that can trick me in a way that I can’t figure out. That god then fills the void of my inability to account for why the statue disappears.
And so in a very real way, demanding that God perform a miracle is demanding that He create a gap in our knowledge. And that’s okay so long as we are willing to concede that we either cannot or need not know everything. But there’s just no way that miracles can intellectually satisfy us in the long run. Just because I don’t see a movable stage doesn’t mean that the gap god hasn’t figured out some other way to do the trick.
That’s a very difficult thing to do. Imagine just trying to describe one’s mother, let alone one’s God. There are so many aspects that are descriptive. I might describe my mother physically and God spiritually, or the nature of either one’s personality, or the goal that drives each. I could write a book — indeed many books — describing my mother, and many more describing God.
I’ve given definitions before, and you’re familiar with them: Love (that which facilitates goodness); Necessary Existence (the Supreme Being); Reality (that which is eternal, essential, and necessary); and so on. And though those are descriptive to me, they don’t seem to be descriptive to most people around here, so I’m going to try to describe God differently than I ever have before. My hope is that it will facilitate a mutual understanding. In the spirit of science’s quantum mechanics pioneers, let’s talk about God metaphorically, the way they talked about their discoveries. “When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images.” Niels Bohr
God is philosophical perfection. We can describe Him metaphysically, epistemologically, aesthetically, and ethically. I think that these are the things that are important about God with respect to His relations with us, which is really all that matters because if He won’t or can’t relate to us in any fashion, then the study of Him isn’t very interesting.
He is metaphysical perfection. He is the only thing that is real. Nothing else, including the universe is real. The universe, in fact, is nothing more than a probability distribution, and given the uncertainty of events at the quantum level, that fact ought to be clear and noncontroversial. There is a fundamental question begging problem with the existential universe, summed up nicely by Raymond Hall of Fermilab, who observed that “Stuff is made of atoms. Therefore, atoms can’t be made of stuff.” If there is an objective reality, then there is a God because only God can be real. If there is no objective reality, then there is no point in this (or any other) discussion.
He is epistemological perfection. He is the source of all knowledge and wisdom. All our epistemic tools are imperfect in some way, either inconsistent, incomplete, unreliable, or tautological. This makes absolute proof or evidence of God’s existence a problem. An analytical proof would entail either taking as given certain premises which not everyone will necessarily accept, or allowing that valid nonsense can be a proof. (For example, “Either God exists or black is white; black is not white; therefore, God exists.”) A revelation may not be reliable, since there is no way to know whether God has excited our limbic system, or our limbic system has summoned God. (See Phantoms in the Brain, “God and the Limbic System”, VS Ramachandran.) Finally, empirical inquiries (like scientific experiments) are tautological. We can test scientifically only what we can observe with our senses. Our senses themselves are a part of what we can observe, and so the observer and the observed are one and the same.
He is aesthetic perfection. He is of the greatest value because He values the greatest thing: goodness. As you know, I define goodness as “that which edifies”. Without goodness, entropy would be a general principle that would apply to the whole of reality because nothing would be ameliorative. When goodness has touched someone or some thing, it has left behind something more and better than it found. You know that you’ve been good to someone when they come away from you feeling better about themselves. Goodness improves things, makes things better, edifies things. And love, as I’ve said many times, is the means by which goodness is shared. It is the facilitation of goodness. God, as the ultimate and supreme facilitator of goodness is Love. This is the aesthetic that Jesus Himself teaches.
Finally, God is ethical perfection. His categorical moral imperative, in fact, is “Be perfect.” He is not good because He is God; He is God because He is good. As C.S. Lewis once said, God values goodness so much that, where there a creature more good than He, He would worship it. He chooses to be good in the context of being a free moral agent — just like us. And this is what it means to be created in the image of God, not that God has arms and legs, but that we have spirit and moral freedom (a freedom made possible, incidentally, thanks to our inability to prove His existence). God is both just and merciful because of the fact that, in the end, all that matters is that all is made better. What may be a contradiction on one level need not be so on another. Just as parallel lines may intersect on a globe, so may God exercise perfect justice by being perfectly merciful such that what remains is better than what was there before. Posit a hypothetical forgiven Hitler. If Hitler is forgiven and made new so that He gladly serves every need of every Holocaust Jew for eternity, is that not both just and merciful? A horrible creature is dead, and a new and wonderful creature has emerged, and people who have suffered at his hands have now become his masters, benefiting from his every action. Remember: he serves them happily because he has been reborn, no longer the man he was. It is his great joy to serve those whom he had harmed.
And so, when I demanded evidence for God, what I demanded is what I’ve covered above. It’s not exhaustive, of course, because there is only so much room here and so much time tonight. But I hope I’ve at least given you the gist of what I mean when I say “God”. **Sentient Meat ** once said that the only way God could prove His existence to him was by changing his mind from within; that is, by giving him a whole new mind and a whole new way to view the world. That’s what I was given, and I would encourage you to demand no less. Miracles are a dime a dozen. Reality is more elusive. Demand to be shown what your eyes cannot see. Not gaps in knowledge, but things that are there. But use the tools that examine God, not the tools that examine nature. Never mind what people (including me) have told you about God. Get in there and find out for yourself.
I for one am frightened. Your post fairly dazzles me with its intellectually profound insights. 
Of course it does.
Surely, it’s even more intellectually profound to walk into a thread where atheists are chatting with each other about being atheists, and demand a debate. We have a forum for that, you know.
I assume that you are referring to me, with the last line of my first post being “That is my challenge.”
If so, with that sentence I was referencing the title of the initial post and wasn’t asking anyone for a debate.
I think the reference was to where the thread was originally(IMHO). Non-atheists popped in for a debate, ignoring the title, forcing me to move this thread to Great Debates. Mind you, when theists have started threads in the past asking for responses with like-minded theists only and atheists responded, accusations of “thread-shitting” came fast and hard.
No, it’s about not rubbing peoples noses in their belief by being intentionally abrasive. I never fake belief…I simply don’t go around with a huge chip on my shoulder looking for a religious fight about every little thing.
So, you like to go around with that chip on your shoulder then. I simply don’t let it effect me. There is no REASON to cause a stir, to rub peoples noses in their beliefs…especially when they don’t effect me. I don’t make it a point to go to flat earth society meetings and heckle their speakers, or burst the bubble of all those fools who are constantly going to Roswell to find truth and spend their money on plastic aliens.
As to our government wasting money…if I let THAT bug me I would explode. I think the Department of Education is a sink hole, and most of the other government programs are the same.
No, it is like saying ‘I’m a heterosexual. You are gay. To each their own…you leave me alone, I’ll leave you alone.’ As opposed to going around and saying ‘You shouldn’t be a homosexual because of THIS AND THIS AND THIS AND THIS. You are just WRONG about this and this and this and this’. Which seems to be what YOU (and several others) are saying in this thread…
-XT
What about the illusion of objective reality? If we are just part of a probability distribution, that knowledge doesn’t mean Shylock won’t think he bleeds if pricked.
I don’t think free will exists. Yet, it seems to me as though it does; intellectually I believe that I don’t have any choice in what I do or say, in the end, yet it seems as I live that I do. If there is no objective reality, then certainly nothing we can say will matter - objectively. But it appears as though reality exists. And I can’t seperate my ideas on the intellectual level from my apparent experiences.
If we’re all brains in a glass jar somewhere, or even just apparent order when really the universe is entirely random, and we see an injured person by the side of the road; does it matter if we help them? Nope, not a jot. But try living with not helping. The lack of an objective reality doesn’t stop things from mattering, because we’re beings of that system.
Personally, I don’t find atheism to be challenging. I find it relaxing, with the confidence that while others around me are mad, I am not.
And, again, it is something of a challenge to use the whole of your existence to its fullest. The universe is billions of years old and we have only a few decades in which to do everything we will ever do. And for some people, too many people, they will spend the totality of their time in the universe doing little more than surviving until tomorrow.
I wish I could experience the blissful certainty that there is justice in the world and that the woman currently being raped to death in the Sudan will be compensated for what is happening to her. But I can’t. And I can’t do anything for her.
Shit, man, sometimes I just want to sit on my couch and watch TV.
Because to some people, gays are causing a big fuss if they DARE to go out in public and not hide who they are. You obviously did not understand a single thing I said, since what I object to is the repeated sentiment that atheists should shut the hell up and just not let anyone know that they are atheists. It’s the idea that I’m shoving my atheism down their throats if I dare to say at work, or in a store, or on a sidewalk or anywhere in public that I am an atheist in the same way that those who rail against gays claim they’re having the ‘gay lifestyle’ shoved in their faces if they see a gay couple do what comes naturally to straight couples in public.
It’s that ‘you leave me alone, I’ll leave you alone’ to a lot of people in this country means ‘You leave me alone with my prayers over the PA system and my religious glurge at work so that I can keep sending it in peace or I will accuse you of attacking Christianity’. Just like those who say, ‘Why do those gays have to hold hands in public and shove their sexuality down everone’s throat?’ That kind of ‘don’t cause a stir.’ It’s the idea that it’s still acceptable in this country to ask ‘What does America think of atheists?’ on the fucking ABC News website, or ‘Can America trust atheists?’ on this board without people immediately saying those questions are prejudicial and ignorant and if they were asked regarding Jews or Christians or Muslims the outrage would be immediate and expected.
You don’t think that happens, do you? You just did exactly what I see as the problem. You basically told me to sit down, shut up, and stay in the closet if I don’t want to be picked on. There’s my problem. People who tell me that I can be an atheist if I ‘want to’ (and they always express it as ‘well if you don’t want to believe in god, that’s fine’), as long as I don’t go telling anybody that I am.
The difference, I think, is that a couple holding hands or making out because they value and enjoy the contact is not an in your face celebration of their adamant non-heterosexuality. That’s just some hot monkey lovin’.
As for “I’m an atheist”…
Some friends are chatting over coffee one day, the subjects of religion and faith come up, as they sometimes do in cafes. One turns to a friend who has been sitting quietly and, to draw them into the conversation, says “What do you believe?”
“I’m an atheist.” fails spectacularly to answer the question. It is not shorthand for a set of norms in the way “I’m a christian.” or “I’m a muslim” can be.
“What do you believe?”
“I don’t believe in your god.”
That gods are the thing you bring up, only to point out that you don’t believe in them, is hostile and is shoving atheism down their throat. You don’t believe in gods. Sure. Gotcha. The question was about what you DO believe. Presumably you have some basis for moral reasoning that has nothing to do with gods (or the lack of gods). It would be entirely unnecessary to mention gods at all when talking about what you believe… or answering any manner of question involving moral reasoning.
Actually, it’s quite expressive. “I’m an atheist” means “Out of the millions of gods people have believed in throughout human history, I believe in exactly one fewer than you two do”.
That’s a little blunt, but just saying “I’m an atheist” is adequate. I don’t expect any reasonable person could take offense, so if they do they aren’t reasonable and you can ignore them.
Yet a gay couple doing the same thing can, and all too often will be, accused of “flaunting their sexuality.”
The Christian and the Muslim are each presumed to have a set value system and corresponding morals based on the god they believe in. They are allowed to discuss their gods amongst themselves-in fact, I find it highly unlikely they would debate ethics and/or morals without mentioning their respective deities, and yet the poor atheist must not only explain that he is just as moral and ethical as they are, he must do so without bringing up the central fact that being an atheist means not believing in any gods. It is absolutely necessary for an atheist to mention that he doesn’t believe in gods, otherwise there would be no way to explain where he gets his ethics from-that they are not handed down from above, but thought through from within.
Sure it is, and for you to argue otherwise demonstrates a spectacular failure to take context into account.
Sure, saying that you’re an atheist might require some further investigation in order to find out more precisely what your worldview is, but then so does saying “I’m a Christian.” Unless you believe that saying “I’m a Christian” means exactly the same thing to an Episcopalian, a Southern Baptist, and a Catholic. Sure, these folks might all share very similar ideas about God, and about the centrality of Jesus Christ to their belief system, but they also probably have some widely disparate ideas which can, in turn, lead to very different answers regarding questions of “moral reasoning.”
It’s ridiculous to argue that claiming to be an atheist is a failure to answer the question “What do you believe,” especially when the conversation itself is, per your own post, one about “the subjects of religion and faith.” If the conversation is about religion and faith, what is wrong with answering in such a way as to make clear where you stand on issues of religion and faith?
Also, while you attempt to paint atheism as a mere lack of belief, for many atheists their atheism does, in itself, imply a particular set of beliefs. For many atheists, atheism involves not only a lack of belief in God, but a BELIEF that there are no supernatural entities and that the universe and the things in it are entirely the product of natural forces. Sure, atheists don’t all agree about the finer details of these things—just like Christians don’t all agree about every point of theology or doctrine—but “atheist” is a perfectly reasonable shorthand to use in conversations like this. To say you’re an atheist is not simply a non-answer, despite your assertions to the contrary.
Changing the subject does not actually make your point.
I made no claim that there were any atheists portrayed favorably (although the lead in Crossing Jordan and several other characters in recent years have been portrayed as atheists). You said that some overwhelming number of TV shows insert an episode promoting the “reason for the season” and I pointed out that few, if any, shows actually make references to the Nativity.
That most shows portray their characters as being vaguely religious is nothing more than a reflection of the majority of their audiences who are also vaguely religious. Even such silly fare as Seventh Heaven, a show in which two of the leading characters are ministers, rarely mentioned God in any episode I encountered. You are free to feel offended at every encounter with the word “god” or “church,” but you have still provided no justification for your straw man attack on my non-existent claim of “no evidence” for persecution.
Well, your hardly thinking has little effect on my actual life, so you do not need to worry about it too much. “Bible thumping fundamentalists” are probably more offended by Catholics and Jews than they are by atheists, anyway, (given the large number of “bible thumping fundamentalists” who cannot even imagine that any real atheists exist). And while there have been real and vocal public attacks on Catholic and Jewish (and, occasionally Mormon) candidates, your angst over the purported remarks by GHWB are unknown outside a limited number of people who read atheist publications and has never been corroborated beyond the claims of a single reporter. I have no reason to believe that Robert Sherman was other than factual in his reporting, but it is telling that this terrible wrong you feel was inflicted on you occurred in a single six-line exchange that was not recorded by any other news agency twenty years ago and which has not been repeated by GHWB or his religiously loony son.
I’ve got no reason to believe that it is easy being an atheist in the early 21st Century U.S., but if you are going to attack me for statements I have not made and change the subject when I respond, I am going to point out the flaws in your claims.