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He says it like it's a bad thing. Militancy: the view that it's OK to tell people that they are wrong. Materialism: the expectation that things are made up of

by gort 16y ago

He says it like it's a bad thing. Militancy: the view that it's OK to tell people that they are wrong. Materialism: the expectation that things are made up of stuff that can be investigated by empirical experiment; which is to say, physics. Reductionism: the expectation that what things do is explained by what the things they're made of are doing [plus whatever outside influences exist, of course]. Atheism: the view that gods need explaining as much as anything else.

itistoday 16y ago
He says it like it's a bad thing. It certainly can be. Militancy: the view that it's OK to tell people that they are wrong. This would be OK if the people to whom they were saying this to were actually wrong. The truth is quite often they don't have any evidence for this. For example, if a mystic were to go to the average physicist and tell them that they were God and they had created the Universe, they would laugh in the mystic's face, yet that doesn't mean the mystic is incorrect, it just means the physicist did not understand the mystic, nor were they inclined to attempt to do so. This sort of militarism is a block to knowledge and understanding. Reductionism: the expectation that what things do is explained by what the things they're made of are doing (what else would you expect - some sort of soul that imparts unexpected properties?) Reductionism assumes that fundamentally everything is made up of individual parts, a "lego-theory of the world" if you will, yet this is not what the known physics itself says is happening. Take the case of quantum entanglement, you have two "things" that yet act as one. Physicists are still baffled by this. Legos do not behave this way. Further, it must be acknowledged that even if everything is made up of "individual parts", these parts interact with one another, and hence they are not truly individual and separate, their behavior and any meaning that can be attributed to them requires the simultaneous acceptance of all other parts of the system, the understanding of mutual-interdependence (a mystical concept). Without the rest of the parts, the individual components are without meaning themselves. Meaning only arises out of the relationship between the various components, and that does not fit with the reductionist viewpoint. Atheism: the view that gods need explaining as much as anything else. No, atheism is the outright rejection of the idea of God. It is a religious belief in itself that requires a faith in the non-existence of any sort of God. It does not ask for an explanation of God, for if it did it would have to accept the possibility of a God.
- ThomPete 16y ago
  No, atheism is the outright rejection of the idea of God. It is a religious belief in itself that requires a faith in the non-existence of any sort of God. It does not ask for an explanation of God, for if it did it would have to accept the possibility of a God. This is pure nonsense. Kindergarden logic. I am an atheist because I don't have god in my life. I live without god. It's not a non-belief in god. It's simply that I don't believe in this thing that someone claim exist any more than I believe that we are living in the matrix or that advanced aliens created us. If we are to follow your line of reasoning then all believers who are only allowed to have one god would be going against their belief by not believing in the thousands of other gods out there.
  - itistoday 16y ago
    I am an atheist because I don't have god in my life. I live without god. It's not a non-belief in god. It's simply that I don't believe in this thing that someone claim exist any more than I believe that we are living in the matrix or that advanced aliens created us. You accuse me of spouting nonsense, yet you actually make two contradictory claims: 1) "It's not a non-belief in god." 2) "It's simply that I don't believe in this thing" (thing referring to "god") Statement #2 is clearly an admission that you hold a non-belief in god. I think part of the problem here is that you do have a belief in God. You believe "God" to refer to some specific thing, and it is that thing that you choose not to believe in. Whatever that is, I don't know, but if you assume that the word "God" has a clear and singular definition, well, then you don't know very much about religion, do you? :-) But that doesn't seem to be the case, it just sounds like you might be a little confused, as in your last sentence, you demonstrate an understanding that there are in fact multiple definitions for the word "god". So, what is atheism then, really? Wikipedia gives the following definition: Atheism, in a broad sense, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.[2] Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.[3] We must then investigate further, because this definition begs the question of what is meant by the word "deity". A click and we get this definition: A deity[1] is a postulated preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers, often religiously referred to as a god. Here I think the relevant word is not "immortal", for there may in fact be something that is immortal (the universe is immortal), but rather "preternatural" and "supernatural". And that is were the crux is. For the mystics do not believe that God is supernatural or "preternatural". This is not the notion of God as understood in Hinduism or Buddhism, for example. In those religions, God is natural. God is nature. So, if you identify as an atheist, and by that you mean you disbelieve in a God that is outside of nature, then I think that is just fine (and fairly unremarkable), but if you disbelieve also in the second type of God, the one who is one with nature, then that is another thing entirely. You may in fact believe in God, but you just might not have known about the various meanings of that word.

by gort 16y ago

itistoday 16y ago

He says it like it's a bad thing. It certainly can be. Militancy: the view that it's OK to tell people that they are wrong. This would be OK if the people to whom they were saying this to were actually wrong. The truth is quite often they don't have any evidence for this. For example, if a mystic were to go to the average physicist and tell them that they were God and they had created the Universe, they would laugh in the mystic's face, yet that doesn't mean the mystic is incorrect, it just means the physicist did not understand the mystic, nor were they inclined to attempt to do so. This sort of militarism is a block to knowledge and understanding. Reductionism: the expectation that what things do is explained by what the things they're made of are doing (what else would you expect - some sort of soul that imparts unexpected properties?) Reductionism assumes that fundamentally everything is made up of individual parts, a "lego-theory of the world" if you will, yet this is not what the known physics itself says is happening. Take the case of quantum entanglement, you have two "things" that yet act as one. Physicists are still baffled by this. Legos do not behave this way. Further, it must be acknowledged that even if everything is made up of "individual parts", these parts interact with one another, and hence they are not truly individual and separate, their behavior and any meaning that can be attributed to them requires the simultaneous acceptance of all other parts of the system, the understanding of mutual-interdependence (a mystical concept). Without the rest of the parts, the individual components are without meaning themselves. Meaning only arises out of the relationship between the various components, and that does not fit with the reductionist viewpoint. Atheism: the view that gods need explaining as much as anything else. No, atheism is the outright rejection of the idea of God. It is a religious belief in itself that requires a faith in the non-existence of any sort of God. It does not ask for an explanation of God, for if it did it would have to accept the possibility of a God.

ThomPete 16y ago
No, atheism is the outright rejection of the idea of God. It is a religious belief in itself that requires a faith in the non-existence of any sort of God. It does not ask for an explanation of God, for if it did it would have to accept the possibility of a God. This is pure nonsense. Kindergarden logic. I am an atheist because I don't have god in my life. I live without god. It's not a non-belief in god. It's simply that I don't believe in this thing that someone claim exist any more than I believe that we are living in the matrix or that advanced aliens created us. If we are to follow your line of reasoning then all believers who are only allowed to have one god would be going against their belief by not believing in the thousands of other gods out there.
- itistoday 16y ago
  I am an atheist because I don't have god in my life. I live without god. It's not a non-belief in god. It's simply that I don't believe in this thing that someone claim exist any more than I believe that we are living in the matrix or that advanced aliens created us. You accuse me of spouting nonsense, yet you actually make two contradictory claims: 1) "It's not a non-belief in god." 2) "It's simply that I don't believe in this thing" (thing referring to "god") Statement #2 is clearly an admission that you hold a non-belief in god. I think part of the problem here is that you do have a belief in God. You believe "God" to refer to some specific thing, and it is that thing that you choose not to believe in. Whatever that is, I don't know, but if you assume that the word "God" has a clear and singular definition, well, then you don't know very much about religion, do you? :-) But that doesn't seem to be the case, it just sounds like you might be a little confused, as in your last sentence, you demonstrate an understanding that there are in fact multiple definitions for the word "god". So, what is atheism then, really? Wikipedia gives the following definition: Atheism, in a broad sense, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.[2] Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.[3] We must then investigate further, because this definition begs the question of what is meant by the word "deity". A click and we get this definition: A deity[1] is a postulated preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers, often religiously referred to as a god. Here I think the relevant word is not "immortal", for there may in fact be something that is immortal (the universe is immortal), but rather "preternatural" and "supernatural". And that is were the crux is. For the mystics do not believe that God is supernatural or "preternatural". This is not the notion of God as understood in Hinduism or Buddhism, for example. In those religions, God is natural. God is nature. So, if you identify as an atheist, and by that you mean you disbelieve in a God that is outside of nature, then I think that is just fine (and fairly unremarkable), but if you disbelieve also in the second type of God, the one who is one with nature, then that is another thing entirely. You may in fact believe in God, but you just might not have known about the various meanings of that word.