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Nice link - thanks for that. (the link to the article is broken but easy to find) Another interesting question is to look at the relationship of atheism and be

by mbubb 17y ago

Nice link - thanks for that. (the link to the article is broken but easy to find) Another interesting question is to look at the relationship of atheism and belief. Actually science does not approach real atheism - it never exceeds agnosticism (one of Feynman's points). Real atheism is very close to deep religious belief. Look at the great mystics - St John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Kabbalists - they reach a point of blackness, emptyness where there is nothing but a completely baseless faith to sustain them. William Blake in the 4 Zoas discusses 'experience'. I won't quote it here as it is too long - but it is here: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-four-zoas-excerpt/ http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-four-zoas-excerpt/ a remarkable passage that begins: What is the price of Experience do men buy it for a song Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No it is bought with the price Of all that a man hath his house his wife his children... What I personally have always wondered (and I ask this as a half-assed, weak, too lazy to get up on Sundays, lapsed catholic) is if there is really a god, an omnipotent all-knowing, all powerful entity. Then how could we possibly know anyhting about this entity. Somewhere is the Hebrew scriptures (part of the Moses story) is the phrase "no one who looks upon my face lives". If one really believes in such a god (and I am in no way looking down on this) - how far is that from atheism?

ThomPete 17y ago
Atheism means without god How that is close to deep religious belief? As an atheist I live without god in my life. That's it. I don't think about god, I don't reason based on any bible, I don't extrapolate my morals or ethics from god or any religious scripture. How on earth are you by any metrics going to claim that that is deep religious belief?
- ekanes 17y ago
  (I think mbubb might have been responding to the common usage of the word atheism, which is a conclusion that "There is no God.") If one can't prove that God does not exist, then Being Certain (without proof) therefore requires faith.
  - ThomPete 17y ago
    Again it's pure polemic rhetoric. By this thinking you are basically saying that by dismissing any superstitious belief you are religious. So if you dismiss Santa Claus even though we can't know for sure whether he exist then you are being religious. So those who are told to only have one god and one belief system are daily breaking the very laws they try to uphold. Not believing in the existence of god have nothing to do with being fundamental religious. It's a weak and sad attempt to divert the argument. We all believe in something, the difference is what we believe in and why. THAT is the question.
- wheels 17y ago
  Uff, congrats on going for the standard internet atheist vs. christians blather. Atheism makes a definitive statement for things which are outside the realm of the testable world. In that sense, it is like being religious. The term agnosticism, or simply not religious, as I more often use, is indicative of a lack of belief. Second, morality and ethics are part of the same social evolution that has traditionally produced religions. Almost any citizen of a western country has ethics that are rooted in some vaguely judeo-christian notions, which themselves are rooted in socratic notions, and so on. The social fabric doesn't have clearly demarcated lines for "religious" and "areligious". Trying to imaging what western ethics would have been without the influence of religion is like trying to imagine the United States would have been without the influence of England. You just can't pull the two apart.
  - ThomPete 17y ago
    That's like saying that people declaring not guilty of a crime they haven't done are equally as criminal as those declaring guilty. Your argument is at best polemic. The reasons why I don't believe in a good have nothing to do with me living by the doctrine of not believing in god as there is no doctrine for not believing in god. I might believe in things that are not provable up front (such as making it safe from destination a - b) But the big difference is that claims made about religion and god can't be tested. And this leaves them in the same pile of fiction as harry potter, lord of the rings and so on. All very amusing but fundamentally as relevant and testable as whether mice are really running the planet.
  - ThomPete 17y ago
    With regards to agnosticism. We exactly don't know whether there is a god or not, but choosing to believe there is one despite there being no evidence for this is by no metrics the same as saying I don't believe in it cause there is no evidence. You can't be an agnostic. You either "live with god" in your life or you don't. You can have an agnostic point of view on whether the question is answerable or not. You can't both live with a belief in god and without one. You can't both follow the laws of a religion and not follow them. With regards to the cultural heritage then again you are simply assuming the conclusion. The reasons why we have morals and ethics are NOT because we have religion. Human reality is the fundamental reason why we have rules. Religion sits on top of these rules and pretend to tell us WHY we should believe (gods wrath and vengange being one of them) But you don't need religion to make rules for peaceful co-existence and that is what people fundamentally want.

by mbubb 17y ago

ThomPete 17y ago

Atheism means without god How that is close to deep religious belief? As an atheist I live without god in my life. That's it. I don't think about god, I don't reason based on any bible, I don't extrapolate my morals or ethics from god or any religious scripture. How on earth are you by any metrics going to claim that that is deep religious belief?

ekanes 17y ago
(I think mbubb might have been responding to the common usage of the word atheism, which is a conclusion that "There is no God.") If one can't prove that God does not exist, then Being Certain (without proof) therefore requires faith.
- ThomPete 17y ago
  Again it's pure polemic rhetoric. By this thinking you are basically saying that by dismissing any superstitious belief you are religious. So if you dismiss Santa Claus even though we can't know for sure whether he exist then you are being religious. So those who are told to only have one god and one belief system are daily breaking the very laws they try to uphold. Not believing in the existence of god have nothing to do with being fundamental religious. It's a weak and sad attempt to divert the argument. We all believe in something, the difference is what we believe in and why. THAT is the question.
wheels 17y ago
Uff, congrats on going for the standard internet atheist vs. christians blather. Atheism makes a definitive statement for things which are outside the realm of the testable world. In that sense, it is like being religious. The term agnosticism, or simply not religious, as I more often use, is indicative of a lack of belief. Second, morality and ethics are part of the same social evolution that has traditionally produced religions. Almost any citizen of a western country has ethics that are rooted in some vaguely judeo-christian notions, which themselves are rooted in socratic notions, and so on. The social fabric doesn't have clearly demarcated lines for "religious" and "areligious". Trying to imaging what western ethics would have been without the influence of religion is like trying to imagine the United States would have been without the influence of England. You just can't pull the two apart.
- ThomPete 17y ago
  That's like saying that people declaring not guilty of a crime they haven't done are equally as criminal as those declaring guilty. Your argument is at best polemic. The reasons why I don't believe in a good have nothing to do with me living by the doctrine of not believing in god as there is no doctrine for not believing in god. I might believe in things that are not provable up front (such as making it safe from destination a - b) But the big difference is that claims made about religion and god can't be tested. And this leaves them in the same pile of fiction as harry potter, lord of the rings and so on. All very amusing but fundamentally as relevant and testable as whether mice are really running the planet.
- ThomPete 17y ago
  With regards to agnosticism. We exactly don't know whether there is a god or not, but choosing to believe there is one despite there being no evidence for this is by no metrics the same as saying I don't believe in it cause there is no evidence. You can't be an agnostic. You either "live with god" in your life or you don't. You can have an agnostic point of view on whether the question is answerable or not. You can't both live with a belief in god and without one. You can't both follow the laws of a religion and not follow them. With regards to the cultural heritage then again you are simply assuming the conclusion. The reasons why we have morals and ethics are NOT because we have religion. Human reality is the fundamental reason why we have rules. Religion sits on top of these rules and pretend to tell us WHY we should believe (gods wrath and vengange being one of them) But you don't need religion to make rules for peaceful co-existence and that is what people fundamentally want.