10 myths - and 10 truths - about atheism
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DemoDetective #?! Join Date: 2006-09-19 Member: 58026Members, Constellation
DemoDetective #?! Join Date: 2006-09-19 Member: 58026Members, Constellation
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<div class="IPBDescription">Article in the LA Times</div><!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
10 myths -- and 10 truths -- about atheism
By Sam Harris
SAM HARRIS is the author of "The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason" and "Letter to a Christian Nation."
December 24, 2006
SEVERAL POLLS indicate that the term "atheism" has acquired such an extraordinary stigma in the United States that being an atheist is now a perfect impediment to a career in politics (in a way that being black, Muslim or homosexual is not). According to a recent Newsweek poll, only 37% of Americans would vote for an otherwise qualified atheist for president.
Atheists are often imagined to be intolerant, immoral, depressed, blind to the beauty of nature and dogmatically closed to evidence of the supernatural.
Even John Locke, one of the great patriarchs of the Enlightenment, believed that atheism was "not at all to be tolerated" because, he said, "promises, covenants and oaths, which are the bonds of human societies, can have no hold upon an atheist."
That was more than 300 years ago. But in the United States today, little seems to have changed. A remarkable 87% of the population claims "never to doubt" the existence of God; fewer than 10% identify themselves as atheists — and their reputation appears to be deteriorating.
Given that we know that atheists are often among the most intelligent and scientifically literate people in any society, it seems important to deflate the myths that prevent them from playing a larger role in our national discourse.
1) Atheists believe that life is meaningless.
On the contrary, religious people often worry that life is meaningless and imagine that it can only be redeemed by the promise of eternal happiness beyond the grave. Atheists tend to be quite sure that life is precious. Life is imbued with meaning by being really and fully lived. Our relationships with those we love are meaningful now; they need not last forever to be made so. Atheists tend to find this fear of meaninglessness … well … meaningless.
2) Atheism is responsible for the greatest crimes in human history.
People of faith often claim that the crimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were the inevitable product of unbelief. The problem with fascism and communism, however, is not that they are too critical of religion; the problem is that they are too much like religions. Such regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship. Auschwitz, the gulag and the killing fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok. There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.
3) Atheism is dogmatic.
Jews, Christians and Muslims claim that their scriptures are so prescient of humanity's needs that they could only have been written under the direction of an omniscient deity. An atheist is simply a person who has considered this claim, read the books and found the claim to be ridiculous. One doesn't have to take anything on faith, or be otherwise dogmatic, to reject unjustified religious beliefs. As the historian Stephen Henry Roberts (1901-71) once said: "I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
4) Atheists think everything in the universe arose by chance.
No one knows why the universe came into being. In fact, it is not entirely clear that we can coherently speak about the "beginning" or "creation" of the universe at all, as these ideas invoke the concept of time, and here we are talking about the origin of space-time itself.
The notion that atheists believe that everything was created by chance is also regularly thrown up as a criticism of Darwinian evolution. As Richard Dawkins explains in his marvelous book, "The God Delusion," this represents an utter misunderstanding of evolutionary theory. Although we don't know precisely how the Earth's early chemistry begat biology, we know that the diversity and complexity we see in the living world is not a product of mere chance. Evolution is a combination of chance mutation and natural selection. Darwin arrived at the phrase "natural selection" by analogy to the "artificial selection" performed by breeders of livestock. In both cases, selection exerts a highly non-random effect on the development of any species.
5) Atheism has no connection to science.
Although it is possible to be a scientist and still believe in God — as some scientists seem to manage it — there is no question that an engagement with scientific thinking tends to erode, rather than support, religious faith. Taking the U.S. population as an example: Most polls show that about 90% of the general public believes in a personal God; yet 93% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences do not. This suggests that there are few modes of thinking less congenial to religious faith than science is.
6) Atheists are arrogant.
When scientists don't know something — like why the universe came into being or how the first self-replicating molecules formed — they admit it. Pretending to know things one doesn't know is a profound liability in science. And yet it is the life-blood of faith-based religion. One of the monumental ironies of religious discourse can be found in the frequency with which people of faith praise themselves for their humility, while claiming to know facts about cosmology, chemistry and biology that no scientist knows. When considering questions about the nature of the cosmos and our place within it, atheists tend to draw their opinions from science. This isn't arrogance; it is intellectual honesty.
7) Atheists are closed to spiritual experience.
There is nothing that prevents an atheist from experiencing love, ecstasy, rapture and awe; atheists can value these experiences and seek them regularly. What atheists don't tend to do is make unjustified (and unjustifiable) claims about the nature of reality on the basis of such experiences. There is no question that some Christians have transformed their lives for the better by reading the Bible and praying to Jesus. What does this prove? It proves that certain disciplines of attention and codes of conduct can have a profound effect upon the human mind. Do the positive experiences of Christians suggest that Jesus is the sole savior of humanity? Not even remotely — because Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and even atheists regularly have similar experiences.
There is, in fact, not a Christian on this Earth who can be certain that Jesus even wore a beard, much less that he was born of a virgin or rose from the dead. These are just not the sort of claims that spiritual experience can authenticate.
8) Atheists believe that there is nothing beyond human life and human understanding.
Atheists are free to admit the limits of human understanding in a way that religious people are not. It is obvious that we do not fully understand the universe; but it is even more obvious that neither the Bible nor the Koran reflects our best understanding of it. We do not know whether there is complex life elsewhere in the cosmos, but there might be. If there is, such beings could have developed an understanding of nature's laws that vastly exceeds our own. Atheists can freely entertain such possibilities. They also can admit that if brilliant extraterrestrials exist, the contents of the Bible and the Koran will be even less impressive to them than they are to human atheists.
From the atheist point of view, the world's religions utterly trivialize the real beauty and immensity of the universe. One doesn't have to accept anything on insufficient evidence to make such an observation.
9) Atheists ignore the fact that religion is extremely beneficial to society.
Those who emphasize the good effects of religion never seem to realize that such effects fail to demonstrate the truth of any religious doctrine. This is why we have terms such as "wishful thinking" and "self-deception." There is a profound distinction between a consoling delusion and the truth.
In any case, the good effects of religion can surely be disputed. In most cases, it seems that religion gives people bad reasons to behave well, when good reasons are actually available. Ask yourself, which is more moral, helping the poor out of concern for their suffering, or doing so because you think the creator of the universe wants you to do it, will reward you for doing it or will punish you for not doing it?
10) Atheism provides no basis for morality.
If a person doesn't already understand that cruelty is wrong, he won't discover this by reading the Bible or the Koran — as these books are bursting with celebrations of cruelty, both human and divine. We do not get our morality from religion. We decide what is good in our good books by recourse to moral intuitions that are (at some level) hard-wired in us and that have been refined by thousands of years of thinking about the causes and possibilities of human happiness.
We have made considerable moral progress over the years, and we didn't make this progress by reading the Bible or the Koran more closely. Both books condone the practice of slavery — and yet every civilized human being now recognizes that slavery is an abomination. Whatever is good in scripture — like the golden rule — can be valued for its ethical wisdom without our believing that it was handed down to us by the creator of the universe.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-harris24dec24,0,3994298.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail" target="_blank">Source</a>
10 myths -- and 10 truths -- about atheism
By Sam Harris
SAM HARRIS is the author of "The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason" and "Letter to a Christian Nation."
December 24, 2006
SEVERAL POLLS indicate that the term "atheism" has acquired such an extraordinary stigma in the United States that being an atheist is now a perfect impediment to a career in politics (in a way that being black, Muslim or homosexual is not). According to a recent Newsweek poll, only 37% of Americans would vote for an otherwise qualified atheist for president.
Atheists are often imagined to be intolerant, immoral, depressed, blind to the beauty of nature and dogmatically closed to evidence of the supernatural.
Even John Locke, one of the great patriarchs of the Enlightenment, believed that atheism was "not at all to be tolerated" because, he said, "promises, covenants and oaths, which are the bonds of human societies, can have no hold upon an atheist."
That was more than 300 years ago. But in the United States today, little seems to have changed. A remarkable 87% of the population claims "never to doubt" the existence of God; fewer than 10% identify themselves as atheists — and their reputation appears to be deteriorating.
Given that we know that atheists are often among the most intelligent and scientifically literate people in any society, it seems important to deflate the myths that prevent them from playing a larger role in our national discourse.
1) Atheists believe that life is meaningless.
On the contrary, religious people often worry that life is meaningless and imagine that it can only be redeemed by the promise of eternal happiness beyond the grave. Atheists tend to be quite sure that life is precious. Life is imbued with meaning by being really and fully lived. Our relationships with those we love are meaningful now; they need not last forever to be made so. Atheists tend to find this fear of meaninglessness … well … meaningless.
2) Atheism is responsible for the greatest crimes in human history.
People of faith often claim that the crimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were the inevitable product of unbelief. The problem with fascism and communism, however, is not that they are too critical of religion; the problem is that they are too much like religions. Such regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship. Auschwitz, the gulag and the killing fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok. There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.
3) Atheism is dogmatic.
Jews, Christians and Muslims claim that their scriptures are so prescient of humanity's needs that they could only have been written under the direction of an omniscient deity. An atheist is simply a person who has considered this claim, read the books and found the claim to be ridiculous. One doesn't have to take anything on faith, or be otherwise dogmatic, to reject unjustified religious beliefs. As the historian Stephen Henry Roberts (1901-71) once said: "I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
4) Atheists think everything in the universe arose by chance.
No one knows why the universe came into being. In fact, it is not entirely clear that we can coherently speak about the "beginning" or "creation" of the universe at all, as these ideas invoke the concept of time, and here we are talking about the origin of space-time itself.
The notion that atheists believe that everything was created by chance is also regularly thrown up as a criticism of Darwinian evolution. As Richard Dawkins explains in his marvelous book, "The God Delusion," this represents an utter misunderstanding of evolutionary theory. Although we don't know precisely how the Earth's early chemistry begat biology, we know that the diversity and complexity we see in the living world is not a product of mere chance. Evolution is a combination of chance mutation and natural selection. Darwin arrived at the phrase "natural selection" by analogy to the "artificial selection" performed by breeders of livestock. In both cases, selection exerts a highly non-random effect on the development of any species.
5) Atheism has no connection to science.
Although it is possible to be a scientist and still believe in God — as some scientists seem to manage it — there is no question that an engagement with scientific thinking tends to erode, rather than support, religious faith. Taking the U.S. population as an example: Most polls show that about 90% of the general public believes in a personal God; yet 93% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences do not. This suggests that there are few modes of thinking less congenial to religious faith than science is.
6) Atheists are arrogant.
When scientists don't know something — like why the universe came into being or how the first self-replicating molecules formed — they admit it. Pretending to know things one doesn't know is a profound liability in science. And yet it is the life-blood of faith-based religion. One of the monumental ironies of religious discourse can be found in the frequency with which people of faith praise themselves for their humility, while claiming to know facts about cosmology, chemistry and biology that no scientist knows. When considering questions about the nature of the cosmos and our place within it, atheists tend to draw their opinions from science. This isn't arrogance; it is intellectual honesty.
7) Atheists are closed to spiritual experience.
There is nothing that prevents an atheist from experiencing love, ecstasy, rapture and awe; atheists can value these experiences and seek them regularly. What atheists don't tend to do is make unjustified (and unjustifiable) claims about the nature of reality on the basis of such experiences. There is no question that some Christians have transformed their lives for the better by reading the Bible and praying to Jesus. What does this prove? It proves that certain disciplines of attention and codes of conduct can have a profound effect upon the human mind. Do the positive experiences of Christians suggest that Jesus is the sole savior of humanity? Not even remotely — because Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and even atheists regularly have similar experiences.
There is, in fact, not a Christian on this Earth who can be certain that Jesus even wore a beard, much less that he was born of a virgin or rose from the dead. These are just not the sort of claims that spiritual experience can authenticate.
8) Atheists believe that there is nothing beyond human life and human understanding.
Atheists are free to admit the limits of human understanding in a way that religious people are not. It is obvious that we do not fully understand the universe; but it is even more obvious that neither the Bible nor the Koran reflects our best understanding of it. We do not know whether there is complex life elsewhere in the cosmos, but there might be. If there is, such beings could have developed an understanding of nature's laws that vastly exceeds our own. Atheists can freely entertain such possibilities. They also can admit that if brilliant extraterrestrials exist, the contents of the Bible and the Koran will be even less impressive to them than they are to human atheists.
From the atheist point of view, the world's religions utterly trivialize the real beauty and immensity of the universe. One doesn't have to accept anything on insufficient evidence to make such an observation.
9) Atheists ignore the fact that religion is extremely beneficial to society.
Those who emphasize the good effects of religion never seem to realize that such effects fail to demonstrate the truth of any religious doctrine. This is why we have terms such as "wishful thinking" and "self-deception." There is a profound distinction between a consoling delusion and the truth.
In any case, the good effects of religion can surely be disputed. In most cases, it seems that religion gives people bad reasons to behave well, when good reasons are actually available. Ask yourself, which is more moral, helping the poor out of concern for their suffering, or doing so because you think the creator of the universe wants you to do it, will reward you for doing it or will punish you for not doing it?
10) Atheism provides no basis for morality.
If a person doesn't already understand that cruelty is wrong, he won't discover this by reading the Bible or the Koran — as these books are bursting with celebrations of cruelty, both human and divine. We do not get our morality from religion. We decide what is good in our good books by recourse to moral intuitions that are (at some level) hard-wired in us and that have been refined by thousands of years of thinking about the causes and possibilities of human happiness.
We have made considerable moral progress over the years, and we didn't make this progress by reading the Bible or the Koran more closely. Both books condone the practice of slavery — and yet every civilized human being now recognizes that slavery is an abomination. Whatever is good in scripture — like the golden rule — can be valued for its ethical wisdom without our believing that it was handed down to us by the creator of the universe.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-harris24dec24,0,3994298.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail" target="_blank">Source</a>
Comments
<a href="http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2244691&pagenumber=1" target="_blank">http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthrea...mp;pagenumber=1</a>
What the hell is it with America and witch hunts? First it was actual witches, so they burned all the "witches". Then it was communists, so they started a stupid and pointless war which cost countless lives for no real reason other than "We don't like communism. They like communism. Lets kill them." Now its terrorists, so we're bombing and occupying what have apparently been decided to be "terrorist" nations. Soon it'll be atheists.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->MY FRIENDS, I MUST ASK YOU AN IMPORTANT QUESTION TODAY: Where do you stand on God?
...
Richard Dawkins, the leading light of the New Atheism movement, lives and works in a large brick house just 20 minutes away from the Shelley memorial. Dawkins, formerly a fellow at New College, is the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science. He is 65 years old, and the book that made him famous, The Selfish Gene, dates from well back in the last century. The opposition it earned from rival theorizers and popularizers of Charles Darwin, such as Stephen Jay Gould, is fading into history. Gould died in 2002, and Dawkins, while acknowledging their battles, praised his influence on scientific culture. They were allies in the battle against creationism. Dawkins, however, has been far more belligerent in counterattack. His most recent book is called The God Delusion.
Dawkins' style of debate is as maddening as it is reasonable. A few months earlier, in front of an audience of graduate students from around the world, Dawkins took on a famous geneticist and a renowned neurosurgeon on the question of whether God was real. The geneticist and the neurosurgeon advanced their best theistic arguments: Human consciousness is too remarkable to have evolved; our moral sense defies the selfish imperatives of nature; the laws of science themselves display an order divine; the existence of God can never be disproved by purely empirical means.
Dawkins rejected all these claims, but the last one – that science could never disprove God – provoked him to sarcasm. "There's an infinite number of things that we can't disprove," he said. "You might say that because science can explain just about everything but not quite, it's wrong to say therefore we don't need God. It is also, I suppose, wrong to say we don't need the Flying Spaghetti Monster, unicorns, Thor, Wotan, Jupiter, or fairies at the bottom of the garden. There's an infinite number of things that some people at one time or another have believed in, and an infinite number of things that nobody has believed in. If there's not the slightest reason to believe in any of those things, why bother? The onus is on somebody who says, I want to believe in God, Flying Spaghetti Monster, fairies, or whatever it is. It is not up to us to disprove it."<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
"Believe whatever the hell you want, but leave ME alone. And WHATEVER you do, do NOT try to make LAWS that I have to live by based on YOUR religion."
If everyone lived by that rule, religion (or lack thereof) wouldn't lead to conflict. The obvious conclusion, then, is that some people break that rule. And THEY are the problem.
<b>You can believe whatever the hell you want to believe, as long as it doesn't adversely affect me or anyone I care about.</b>
The church runs afoul of this rule frequently. I was pretty freaking peeved when I heard that preachers in south africa were going around saying that the aids virus is too small to be stopped by a condom, so you may as well not bother. A condom is impermeable to freaking WATER which is THREE ATOMS ACROSS. Grrrrr....
--Scythe--
When scientists don't know something — like why the universe came into being or how the first self-replicating molecules formed — they admit it. Pretending to know things one doesn't know is a profound liability in science. And yet it is the life-blood of faith-based religion. One of the monumental ironies of religious discourse can be found in the frequency with which people of faith praise themselves for their humility, while claiming to know facts about cosmology, chemistry and biology that no scientist knows. When considering questions about the nature of the cosmos and our place within it, atheists tend to draw their opinions from science. This isn't arrogance; it is intellectual honesty.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Considering his entire article dripped of arrogance from one end to the other, he's done a lot more to confirm this myth than to refute it. Oh, and the word he should be using is "stereotype", not "myth"--because, like most stereotypes, they actually apply perfectly well to <i>some</i> of the people so labeled, just not all of them.
That said, I've met plenty of atheists who weren't arrogant at all, so I'm not going to hold this stereotype against Atheists in general.
-------------------
Duo's link contains at least one very good quote that helps explain the bitter divide between atheists and deists though.
<!--QuoteBegin-Fish Steer a Dhow+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Fish Steer a Dhow)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Think of it this way... if you're a Baptist and you ask your friend what he believes and he says that he is a Methodist, chances are you don't even know much about the doctrinal differences between them which make them separate religions in the first place. A more different religion like Catholicism and they might have some beliefs like, "Well you worship the Pope so you're not a Christian." but if they actually spoke to the person they'd find out they have a lot more in common than not. The further from the beliefs someone else is and the more obvious the differences between the religions, the easier that it is to come into conflict with that person, but in the end all you have to rely upon are varying opinions on scriptures or personal experiences. But if you ask a person what they are and they say that they're an atheist, then one need not even investigate what that person believes because it's self-evident; they believe that <b>everything</b> that you believe is wrong. There isn't one point where a true atheist materialist and a person believing in any spiritual religion can hold common ground, whereas even Christians and Muslims can admit that God exists and that they worship the same God.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Technicalities of water aside, HIV virii do not penetrate intact condoms.
And in the defense of religion, ignorance exists quite independently of it.
also, i dislike most religions because their sole reason for acting like "civilized folk" is "GOD WILL SMITE THEE WITH HIS GIANT FIST OF DEWM"
Somewhat poorly paraphrased, but it unfortunately makes sense. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" />
Besides: if the belief in God didn't exist, John Coltrane wouldn't have made his album "A Love Supreme". What a tragedy!
I can't remember who said it, it was some british philosopher, but I like it. It was along the lines of 'If God doesn't exist, and you pray to him every day and go to church every sunday you will have wasted a fair amount of your time and energy on something that is pure fiction. If you don't believe in him you will have saved that time and been intellectually honest towards yourself. If God however DOES exist and you do not believe in him, you will face an eternity burning in hell. This leads me to believe that the only reasonable option is to believe in, and worship god.'
Somewhat poorly paraphrased, but it unfortunately makes sense. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" />
Besides: if the belief in God didn't exist, John Coltrane wouldn't have made his album "A Love Supreme". What a tragedy!
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Pascal was French you silly Euro <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
And Pascal's Wager does not make sense. It assumes that the only two options are to believe in God or not, when there in fact are an infinite amount of possibly deities.
if i believe in god and i live well and go to heaven, god is fair.
if i believe in god and i live well and go to hell, god is not fair.
if i believe in god and i live poorly and go to heaven, god is vain.
if i believe in god and i live poorly and go to hell, god is fair and just.
if i do not believe and i live well and go to heaven, god is fair and just.
if i do not believe and i live well and go to hell, god is vain.
if i do not believe and i live poorly and go to heaven, god is not fair.
if i do not believe and i live poorly and go to hell, god is fair.
Pascal was French you silly Euro <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
And Pascal's Wager does not make sense. It assumes that the only two options are to believe in God or not, when there in fact are an infinite amount of possibly deities.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well, there's a multitutde of stipulations you could throw on there. For example:
Which God do you want to pray to (monotheistic or polytheistic)? - the 'infinite amount of possible deitites' question, which is actually argued in any lecture about Philosophy and Pascal's Wager.
What if God punishes you for praying only because you're praying because it's statistically the correct path? If you're praying only to mold to the greatest benefit, then it's not real faith; it's just playing numbers.
What if it's some crazy type of God that punishes you for worshipping him?
Which religion do you choose? Sure Chrisitianity is most numerous, but its close brother Islam is right there, and Bhuddism and Hinduism aren't too far behind either - then you've got individual sects that are important as well - what if God doesn't like Methodists but Calvinists are okay?
Personally, I just take the crazy "created in his image" aspect from Christianity, which grants a certain amount of fairness, likemindedness and similarity between any potential God and humanity. If I was all powerful, and didn't want to interfere in the lives of the living, I wouldn't punish people for not knowing if I exist or not. I would assume any sort of God would function the same way.
There's also the craziness that I've never understood, is: why couldn't you just acknowledge God or any sort of Messiah once you're actually dead? If there's truly some sort of final judgement and you're standing before some ethreal creature in white robes who's got a big fellow with a giant bushy white beard next to him (claiming he's God), why not just figure that the dead person is going to acknowledge the existence of a God once he's actually met him. As in, if there's an afterlife then why is the mortal life the only one that gets to count for your soul's damnation or sanctification?
I've held to a certain atheistic type of tenet ever since I can remember. I'm just too bound to physical evidence and rational possibility. I do, however, consider it a rational possibility that a God could exist - mostly in the manner of a starting period for the creation of the universe/multiverse (sort of like the clockwork God of the enlightenment, but in the manner of 'setting each atomic particle in the desired position and then letting it go to see what happens - and not the "A God must exist because everything interacts so nicely."). Some sort of God that runs around, helping people win superbowls and allowing people to murder other people in the name of faith - I just can't catch that. Plus a knowledge of basic linguistics, history and the bible has lead me to believe that the collection has no merit as a means for proving or disproving a God's existence.
All hail the <a href="http://www.venganza.org/" target="_blank">flying spaghetti monster</a>!
I would argue that such an argument is not sufficient on its own. There are an infinite number of possible unsupported beliefs, and because all are unsupported, all must be considered equally probable. The probability of the truth of one specific such belief, then, is strictly zero. Thus there is no reason to accept that argument unless there is also evidence to support the belief.
(This argument was essentially posed in two previous posts, but less directly.)
Too many contradiction and faulty logics in their books. So therefore, I'm kinda atheists.
My God would not condemn people that have never heard of Him in their entire life.
My God would send a CLEAR message to His people so they wouldn't start a war for His sake.
My God would not put contradictory messages into his writing (Bible for one)
My God would not be a sexist, nationalist, slavery endorsing almighty.
I'm still searching, the closest one so far is Buddhism if you excluded all the Hinduism addition, but he's more of a philosopher.
It's a very very poor justification for faith. I prefer if someone just comes out and admits they believe in god on blind faith. Trying to dress it up in logic like Pascal did is rather pathetic if you ask me.
I'm a devout Athiest who believes that people should stop relying on their imaginary friend before they hit double digit ages. I've followed the growing intolerance towards athiesm in the US and it is frightfully scary. When the world's last superpower shows tendencies towards religious fundamentalism, it's time to be scared. I hope that the self correction mechanisms in democracy keep things from getting out of control.
Oh, and another thing: It is important to recognise that the Bible was not written by God. Certain sects or fringe groups of christianity do believe this as far as I know, but the great bulk of christians follow a variant (catholicism, and most kinds of protestantism) that does not contend that the Bible, word for word, was written by God.
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->¹If you must know about my beliefs, PM me.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
Why is this even important are we feared or what?
I don't believe in any god and I'm proud of it.
The church runs afoul of this rule frequently. I was pretty freaking peeved when I heard that preachers in south africa were going around saying that the aids virus is too small to be stopped by a condom, so you may as well not bother. A condom is impermeable to freaking WATER which is THREE ATOMS ACROSS. Grrrrr....
--Scythe--
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This i dont find weird.
Christians (Catholics in particular) have been lied to by their church for centuries.
robbed of knowledge, treated as animals, and forced to believe in order to get redemption.
from
paying in gold for their mortal sins, to have a more pleasant time going through pergatory,not knowing what the bible actually said (normal people didnt know latin,paters did)
to, well what Scythe wrote.
chained to faith by fear.a fate i wouldnt give to my worst enemy.
my personal beliefs are abit complicated and a long story,i will not start on it here
Another comment about the bit about god not writing the bible.
the bible is a book, written on the stories, passed down through generations.
stories that live a long time on other peoples lips, tends to be.. well abit altered and exaggered.
So they should not be taken dead seriously.
However, my opinion, the bible is a touching collection of books, to learn from.
what is right and what is wrong.
ofcourse its your own opinion what is right and what is wrong, such as moral and ethics is.
i went to college, owned and ran by 7th day adventists
They are very strict christians,focusing on the end of days.
I learnt alot, but i do not believe in what they preached to me.
I dont want to tread on anyones toes with this,so if any of this offends you.then i appologize.
What i have learnt sofar in life?
(my own opinions)
Believe in yourself, if somethings that happen to you are too great for you or any mortal thing to take the glory for, then stamp it as a mystery.
There are some things that are too big for humans to grasp, that we arent ment to figure out.
My signature says the most of what i am and what i believe in, i guess.
Myths about atheism?
Why is this even important are we feared or what?
I don't believe in any god and I'm proud of it.
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In America, at least, atheists are the least trusted members of society, lower than Muslims or black people or Jews or Christians or any other group mentioned in the survey. In addition, Americans feel that atheists more than anyone don't share their values or their "vision for the country." Something like 80% of Americans wouldn't vote for an otherwise qualified presidential candidate if they were an atheist. There are no atheists in Congress, and being an atheist basically means you're unelectable. Many believe that atheists have no morals and would disapprove of their son or daughter marrying an atheist.
So we're not exactly equals.
I also hate religion because I come up against the "believe in God or you'll suffer forever" argument far more often than the "believe in God out of compassion" argument. I've also known far too many children / young teenagers whose sole reason for their "belief" was fear. That's not right.
I recall a quote that goes something like "It's not God I don't like, it's his fanboys I have a problem with". Or something.
God I hate religion. Seriously. Almost everything weird or bad that I see happening in the world at large seems to be based on religion in some way.
I also hate religion because I come up against the "believe in God or you'll suffer forever" argument far more often than the "believe in God out of compassion" argument. I've also known far too many children / young teenagers whose sole reason for their "belief" was fear. That's not right.
I recall a quote that goes something like "It's not God I don't like, it's his fanboys I have a problem with". Or something.
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Religion isn't necessarily to blame for all the ills of the world. True it has caused a lot of pain, but the root of the problem is people. It's people that cause the problem, and they ultimately bear the responsibility of their actions, rather than the religious belief itself as the cause. If it wasn't religion, it would be something else.
"You stole my land"
"We don't like how your wasteful with your food while we starve"
"We want to live in your resource filled land instead of our wasteland"
"You believe in liberal democracy while we believe in communism as the perfect form of human government, lets fight it out and see whose idea wins"
There are plenty of plausible reasons outside of religion that people would fight each other over. I'm an atheist myself but I believe strongly in the idea of religious freedom since it so closely intertwined with personal liberty. You can't do what the communists did trying to suppress religion, as that will never work and creates instability. Religion will most likely always be around in one form or another, so we best start learning how to live with each other, 'cause we're all in this together. I don't have a problem with Christians as people, even though I strongly disagree with their ideas and religious identity. The problem starts with me is when I have to deal with laws that are created out of the religious establishment and forced on everybody. Although, I am sure many Christians feel the same way when they feel their right to religious freedom and practice is being treaded upon by 'liberals'. Case in point, the 10 commandment displayed in that courtroom. Where do you draw the line between religious freedom for all and limits to your own religious practices and customs?
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Considering his entire article dripped of arrogance from one end to the other, he's done a lot more to confirm this myth than to refute it. Oh, and the word he should be using is "stereotype", not "myth"--because, like most stereotypes, they actually apply perfectly well to some of the people so labeled, just not all of them.
That said, I've met plenty of atheists who weren't arrogant at all, so I'm not going to hold this stereotype against Atheists in general.
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There are also arrogant christians, muslims, and jews as well. From my own personal experiences, the vast majority of people in these religions are just normal people that usually don't loudly espouse their views unless they feel personally threatened. It's usually the loudest ones that help perpetuate stereotypes for all followers of that religious sect.
EDIT:
Forgot to mention, the USA is not a 'Christian nation' although we do have a high population of them. It's a very mixed nation with many different cultural identities and religions, and really is an insult to anyone who isn't Christian. It's like looking through a prism and only seeing a single color, instead of the whole spectrum.
I also don't want to make it sound that Atheists necessarily got it all right either. You can't be human without being able to criticize your own methods of thought. I can accept there are things out there that can't be explained by science, at least yet. There should be a sense of wonder and questioning about creation. Although to make up the REST of the story behind that, then base your cultural guide to living around it, is fantasy and a fallacy.
Religion isn't necessarily to blame for all the ills of the world. True it has caused a lot of pain, but the root of the problem is people. It's people that cause the problem, and they ultimately bear the responsibility of their actions, rather than the religious belief itself as the cause. If it wasn't religion, it would be something else.
"You stole my land"
"We don't like how your wasteful with your food while we starve"
"We want to live in your resource filled land instead of our wasteland"
"You believe in liberal democracy while we believe in communism as the perfect form of human government, lets fight it out and see whose idea wins"
There are plenty of plausible reasons outside of religion that people would fight each other over. I'm an atheist myself but I believe strongly in the idea of religious freedom since it so closely intertwined with personal liberty. You can't do what the communists did trying to suppress religion, as that will never work and creates instability. Religion will most likely always be around in one form or another, so we best start learning how to live with each other, 'cause we're all in this together. I don't have a problem with Christians as people, even though I strongly disagree with their ideas and religious identity. The problem starts with me is when I have to deal with laws that are created out of the religious establishment and forced on everybody. Although, I am sure many Christians feel the same way when they feel their right to religious freedom and practice is being treaded upon by 'liberals'. Case in point, the 10 commandment displayed in that courtroom. Where do you draw the line between religious freedom for all and limits to your own religious practices and customs.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that supressing religion is the way to go, nor do I believe that the world would be a happy carefree place without it. I just think that religion gives a blanket, or a cover, for people to hide behind and manipulate. A smart person can manipulate beliefs and twist them into whatever they want (see, for example, the extremes of most religions out there, such as Islamic extremists and the Westboro Baptist church).
Religion is a powerful force, and it scares me, to be honest. It's far too easily manipulated, because people want to believe insomething. Take scientology, for example. Ignoring the arguments about their methods and beliefs, in the early 1950s it was just a self-help idea in one man's mind. Now it's an international, multi-million (billion?) dollar organisation. And that's a religion with *lots* of bad press.
Religion is a powerful force, and it scares me, to be honest. It's far too easily manipulated, because people want to believe insomething. Take scientology, for example. Ignoring the arguments about their methods and beliefs, in the early 1950s it was just a self-help idea in one man's mind. Now it's an international, multi-million (billion?) dollar organisation. And that's a religion with *lots* of bad press.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think there is far deeper arguments about human nature itself that is the root of all our problems, rather than blaming it all on religion. At least in my eyes, religion is a vehicle to perpetuate the master-slave relationship and a control mechanism. This outside force we can't explain has control over us and we must follow 'his' rules to be happy.
Although as with any human organization\doctrine that holds power over other people, it can be manipulated by a select few to affect the majority.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->In America, at least, atheists are the least trusted members of society, lower than Muslims or black people or Jews or Christians or any other group mentioned in the survey. In addition, Americans feel that atheists more than anyone don't share their values or their "vision for the country." Something like 80% of Americans wouldn't vote for an otherwise qualified presidential candidate if they were an atheist. There are no atheists in Congress, and being an atheist basically means you're unelectable. Many believe that atheists have no morals and would disapprove of their son or daughter marrying an atheist.
So we're not exactly equals.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think to many people buy into the stereotypes of atheists, rather than viewing them as <u>people</u> first. Or they can give into the fear of there being an idea out there that completely denies their world view, and feeling threatened by it.
[...]Forgot to mention, the USA is not a 'Christian nation' although we do have a high population of them.[...]
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It isn't? Why does the pledge of allegiance say "one Nation under God" then? And why do the dollar bills have "in God we trust" printed on them? Could of course be a more general perception of some other sort of god, but I believe it's the christian god that those refer to.
It isn't? Why does the pledge of allegiance say "one Nation under God" then? And why do the dollar bills have "in God we trust" printed on them? Could of course be a more general perception of some other sort of god, but I believe it's the christian god that those refer to.
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Considering the questions that arose within the last few years about having "under God" in the pledge and having the ten commandments anywhere near a government building, I think the US as a 'Christian nation' can quickly be called into doubt.
There's also the fact that Jews, Christians and Muslims all believe in essentially the same God with a different prophets and scripture changes; and so if you're Muslim and wanted that 'under God' to be under your God, then it's easy to make it that way (whether or not the majority of the population feels the same way or not). The founding fathers were Christian, easy enough, but borrowing from William Penn's fairly enlightened view on religion (the old Pennsylvania charter from 1690 allowed freedom of religion (...to anyone that believed in God), the God does not necessarily need to be Christian (although in Penn's case it needed to be monotheistic...and there weren't really any Muslims moving out to Pennsylvania). I'm still for a seperation of church and state in that department, and I don't really see why we need "in God"s or "under Gods"s on any of our stuff, anyway.
Wasn't it added in the 50s to give make it seem like god was on 'our' side over the godless communists? I could be mistaken though.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It isn't? Why does the pledge of allegiance say "one Nation under God" then? And why do the dollar bills have "in God we trust" printed on them? Could of course be a more general perception of some other sort of god, but I believe it's the christian god that those refer to.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It doesn't say "one nation through Christ our lord" in it. It says 'God', which is a fairly broad assumption that the majority of the nation believes in some sort of higher power, not necessarily a Christian one. That is not enough clearance to apply the blanket term, "A Christian nation", to an entire populace. I think its open to individual interpretation as to what "God" is, or stands for, other than it being a monotheistic power.
However, after a society has established itself, the majority of these morals are coded into the youth through the society itself now. This means that if a society is predominately religious, then the youth will have a greater chance of becoming religious himself because society will write on his slate.
Therefore, religion in my view is just another facet of our current society, and as you all know, society changes. Who knows how the future turns out, but just like how people back then began forming new theories about the shape of the planet, religion could be replaced with more and more understanding if it doesn't have enough evidence to back it up. Everything in science is based on the best guess, nothing is known to be an absolute truth. People will go with the most logical explanation, however. As the general population evolves into more and more rational thinkers, religion just might be eventually be replaced. This however is something we will never see in our lifetimes because things like these do not evolve rapidly in human society.
Don't get me wrong, I just tend to agree with the most rational and logical explanations. Because I do not see enough evidence backing up religion, I do not agree with it. At this point, if there is a god, I need more proof before I will agree with it. Other than that, I do not think there is enough evidence to support that.
EDIT: Religion seems to be something that develops in humans naturally due to curiousity, I assume. In primitive isolated cultures, the population will tend to develop certain myths and beliefs in an attempt to understand phenomena. This is also apparent in ancient history, every society has developed a set of beliefs. Like how some societies believe the Earth is round, and other societies believe the Earth on top of a infinite stack of turtles or something. As such, religion can change or be replaced. It seems to be a natural part of human evolution, not something that some person decided to create.