No, that’s not the case at all. I’ve told you my reasons, but you don’t identify with them. You still haven’t identified a system of collective thought that subscribes to both atheism and belief in the supernatural, so I’ll take your point it’s all a matter of individual choice.
I never suggested that there was one, that is irrelevant to the point I made.
Why are you fixated on it being a system of collective thought? why is that important?
Explain to me why you discount the beliefs or belief system of an individual
Yes exactly. That’s exactly what I said and believe. You fully understand what I’m saying.
Nothing inconsistent about an atheist believing in fairy tales. There are lots of fairy tales that have nothing to do with a god. “Atheist” merely describes what a person doesn’t believe in; it has nothing to do with what he does believe.
Here’s a scary one: I believe (sometimes) when inexplicably negative things happen to me, my vengeful ex- has caused them to happen. (car getting keyed, losing cel phone, getting computer virus). On one level, I understand that bad things happen at random to everyone, but on another, I think “She’s behind this, somehow.”
All of this talk of atheists reminded me -
I am firmly in the atheist camp, I do not believe in any of the versions of a supreme being or beings having any influence on material existence.
Except, I believe with every fiber of my being that if I ever utter, or even write, the phrase that I am in a state where my existence is not particularly interesting, “I’m (sounds just like the word for a milled piece of lumber (I said I’m not going to write it!))”, that the universe will conspire to correct that condition in my life, in painfully negative ways.
Cruciferous vegetables are deadly when overindulged in.
This does not follow at all. Indeed, I don’t really believe that the concept of the ‘supernatural’ is a valid one. As we investigate the universe, we continually shuffle phenomena from the ‘supernatural’ category to the ‘natural’ category. If we ever do discover that ‘ghosts’ exist, or that some kind of afterlife exists, I would expect that the characteristics of these phenomena would be transferred in due course from the supernatural category into the natural one.
Indeed, if God does exist, I would expect that She exists as part of the natural universe, despite having some or many characteristics that are difficult or impossible for humans to fully comprehend. The category of ‘supernatural phenomena’ seems redundant to me, unless we simply describe it as phenomena we don’t currently understand. But that also applies to dark matter and quintessence, and we don’t call them supernatural.
I can imagine many hypothetical situations which would allow an afterlife of sorts which does not depend on the involvement of a supernatural creator god.
Perhaps the most well-known example is the Tipler Scenario, a universe imagined by Frank Tipler where the expansion of the universe reverses itself and allows all the information in the universe to be collected artificially, a process which (according to Tipler) might allow the reincarnation of all the past inhabitants and allow them to live in the increasingly energy-rich final seconds of the cosmos.
More details here.
https://www.aleph.se/Trans/Global/Omega/tiplerian.html
To be honest, there are many reasons that this would not work, most importantly the unfortunate fact that the universe isn’t likely to collapse. But I think there are a a significant number of other, less demanding scenarios that could allow some sort of artificial afterlife. A suitably advanced civilisation might be able to create emulations of its inhabitants, or the inhabitants of some other civilisation; these artificial ‘ghosts’ might even be manifested as near-invisible and near-intangible entities, and explain the apparitions we sometimes see on dark and story nights.
Indeed, I’ve written a small but non-zero number of short stories based on the premise that almost any ‘supernatural’ entity could be replicated by a suitably advanced technology; zombies, ghosts, werewolves and vampires for example. To explain the existence of such suitably advanced tech, we could invoke a number of candidates; future humans with time machines, aliens, entities from more advanced alternate timelines and simulated universes, for example. There are others, generally more complex and bizarre.
None of these situations require the existence of a creator god, or even a supernatural god (such as Hades, Osiris or Hel) who is in charge of the afterlife but not actually the creator god.
Indeed there could be any number of layers to the universe that are increasingly inaccessible to beings at our level, and we may never know the truth - but because these data are inaccessible to us, that doesn’t mean they involve supernatural phenomena, any more than the galaxies beyond the Hubble event horizon are necessarily ineffable.
I’m a vehicular cyclist, that is, I ride a bicycle as a vehicle, obeying traffic signals, using turning lanes when I’m turning, taking the lane when stopped at intersections etc so, pre-covid, in the various places I’ve lived, I’ve biked to work most of the time, taking the same route at the same time of day, give or take five or ten minutes. I do sort of (not firmly, sorry) believe that over time the same motorists see me regularly and trust and respect that guy on the bike who’s there every day.
To be clear, I don’t believe in fairytales and never said I did. The reason Knowed_Out said I do is not entirely clear but speculating on the point would involve saying things not permitted in this forum.
Christian or Muslim gods can also be Hindu gods, some Hindus can consider a drop of water to be god, other can consider the ocean and still others be totally Atheist.
Atheism and Agnosticism are well accepted paths in Hinduism. Hinduism has a rich history of atheism dating back many thousand years.
Atheism is not something the White guys invented, although Dawkins may want you to believe that.
He absolutely does not, he’s never said that nor even hinted at it.
What is it that he has said that makes you think he holds or promotes that view?
Mankind was not made to wither and die in a day.
We shall survive.
With how pro-Russia/Poutine the Trump/US Republicans have become I firmly believe Ronnie Raygun is rotating in his grave.
Yep. Knew someone who described him as a lot shorter than she thought he would be, but had a huge physique, like a barrel.
I believe there are invisible gaps between viewpoints, where people think they’re talking to each other but are only taking past each other
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traditionally, men have power and women have value. They can have some of both and they can have varying levels, but that’s the tradition they’ve inherited.
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minorities are oppressed as much for their manner as for any behavior.
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most debates online are between people pointing out how the word should be and people pointing out the world really is. Lots of pointing but not much filling.
Plenty of evidence for that. Everything else is, so why leave them out?
I think this wins the thread on the zero evidence level.
Other species that no longer exist weren’t created to die out instantly either-fat lot of good it did them.