Australian Politics Forum - Is atheism a religious belief?

muso

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Re: Is atheism a religious belief?
Reply #330 - Aug 4^th, 2010 at 11:15am

Soren wrote on Aug 4^th, 2010 at 10:45am:

Please delete wrote on Aug 4^th, 2010 at 10:31am:

So our achilles heel is that we don't know the answer to that huge question?

Nobody knows the answer to that.
No, your achilles heel is that you construct your belief system without being able to even engage with the foundations of your beliefs. The feet of your elephant go all the way down...

In short you believe/pretend that you don't belive. But you do.

Believe in what? A basic first cause Deity which set the wheels in motion, a full-blown Christian God complete with JC on a stick, an Allah that's all merciful or one of the other guys with an Elephant's trunk or multiple arms?

I can buy the Deist God to some extent, but not the ones with baggage.

If we're talking about a real Achilles heel, it's the propensity to rush in with a Eureka-like solution in the absence of evidence. New Atheists do it, as do Religious Fundamentalists.

Without a reasonably full set of ingredients, all you'll get is a half-baked cake or in the case of New Atheists, no cake at all, but they also insist that nobody else must eat.

The ancients settled for many half-baked cakes and decided that each one was fully baked. Each has its own pons asinorum, and they all led to different islands where they could defend their collective faiths and occasionally rough up the heretics a bit.

We are all starving for this knowledge. We all have a drive to know more about this very interesting existence that we're thrust into, where we end up on a soggy rock flying around a massive thermonuclear reactor once a year.

If we want to learn more, we need to use our perceptions and learn about this incredible place where we live (and I don't mean Rural Queensland). It's all we have. Are we any closer to answering this big question? I don't think so, and I suspect that we are all in the same position.

That was the view from my lofty peak. I don't consider my view to be superior to your lofty peak - just different.

We all process information from our universe and we all decide individually at various stages which piece of data is likely to be dangerous, interesting, pleasurable or important, and those subconscious decisions define our individual paradigms for life.

The process is identical. The results vary, as do the neural pathways

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« Last Edit: Aug 4^th, 2010 at 11:25am by muso »

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Soren Gold Member Offline Posts: 25654 Gender:	Re: Is atheism a religious belief? Reply #331 - Aug 4^th, 2010 at 5:25pm The religious are at least honest enough to know and say that they are taking a leap of faith. The atheists don't know or confess (!) it but they are also taking a leap of faith. See the différance, to speak French for a pomo moment?
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mozzaok Gold Member Offline OzPolitic Posts: 6741 Melbourne Gender:	Re: Is atheism a religious belief? Reply #332 - Aug 4^th, 2010 at 7:06pm As do I every time I do not believe in the tooth fairy, or father christmas.
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NorthOfNorth

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Re: Is atheism a religious belief?
Reply #333 - Aug 5^th, 2010 at 6:43am

Soren wrote on Aug 4^th, 2010 at 5:25pm:

The religious are at least honest enough to know and say that they are taking a leap of faith. The atheists don't know or confess (!) it but they are also taking a leap of faith.

See the différance, to speak French for a pomo moment?

Usual attempt to deploy the rhetorical trick of equating atheism with theism. Theism requires religion... After all what is the point of a theist asserting the existence of a god where he does not also define the consequences of god's existence.

And therein is the point of theism/religion which atheism does not share. The fact is the religious are not arguing about god only in terms of a first cause (which would be fine if they were - what atheist would argue with a "first cause" having a name?), they are arguing for god to justify a specific moral code...

So in that sense the theist/religious is way less honest than the atheist.

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muso

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Re: Is atheism a religious belief?
Reply #334 - Aug 5^th, 2010 at 8:18am

Soren wrote on Aug 4^th, 2010 at 5:25pm:

The religious are at least honest enough to know and say that they are taking a leap of faith. The atheists don't know or confess (!) it but they are also taking a leap of faith.

See the différance, to speak French for a pomo moment?

I can see your point, but there is some sleight of hand in your argument. A first cause god does not imply anything more than a Deist position, which is merely stating that something way beyond our understanding initiated the universe. So Jehovah, Allah, Ganesh, various offspring and servants can pack their baggage and take the next train for the coast. They are not a strict requirement of your argument.

So when you say "The religious are at least honest enough to know and say that they are taking a leap of faith", do you include Deism as part of "la religion" or just "la métaphysique", with apologies for the gratuitous rhetorical orgasms, and do you really mean "la métaphysique" anyway?

One possible theory of inception is the multiverse theory, or variations on that theme with a variety of Anthropic Principles thrown in for good measure. The Deist position is possibly more elegant, but in all cases, it's arguing from a basis of no evidence and when it comes to the Universe coming into existence, Ockham's razor is not likely to be useful when it comes to cosmological behemoths and their ilk .

These are pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that we're not quite sure about. There are several options that could work, and the truth could be much more complicated than either. We could even postulate that a very advanced form of humanity some time in the future went back in time and created the spark that initiated the universe. There have been variations of that theme portrayed in some science fiction, and there is no way of proving that it's nonsense. (or "you can't prove it's wrong" to coin a phrase)

We can dismiss any pretext for a caring, merciful god, because quite clearly, the gods don't give a damn about us mortals and are quite happy partying on Mount Olympus.

For some, God (or gods) are one way of personifying that which is mysterious about existence, but a budget Deist God is just as good as any theist gods.

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« Last Edit: Aug 5^th, 2010 at 9:02am by muso »

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Soren

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Re: Is atheism a religious belief?
Reply #335 - Aug 5^th, 2010 at 10:15am

I think it is possible to conceptualise the 'world' only metaphysically, that is, taking a look at it from 'outside' it. Athesists and materialists, like everyone else, concepotiualise the 'world' as an object of their thinking, thereby placing themselves outside it. So any such debate is metaphysical in the firts instance, that is the common ground all parties share: we are looking at the obect of discussion metaphysically.

After that you personify that point of view (theism), personify the object of your contemplation the 'world' (deism) or say you personify neither but declare again that you actually ordered a hamburger (atheism).

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Soren

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Re: Is atheism a religious belief?
Reply #336 - Aug 5^th, 2010 at 10:20am

Soren wrote on Aug 5^th, 2010 at 10:15am:

I think it is possible to conceptualise the 'world' only metaphysically, that is, taking a look at it from 'outside' it. Athesists and materialists, like everyone else, concepotiualise the 'world' as an object of their thinking, thereby placing themselves outside it. So any such debate is metaphysical in the firts instance, that is the common ground all parties share: we are looking at the obect of discussion metaphysically.

After that you personify that point of view (theism), personify the object of your contemplation the 'world' (deism) or say you personify neither but declare again that you actually ordered a hamburger (atheism).

Seriously, it seems to me that atheists have not faced the fact that they are already thinking metaphysically. Which of course is a wholly impossible place to be physically (outside the wordl) yet it is a postion that is inevitable when thinking about the nature of the world.

Theists take a leap and engage poetically. Atheists, finding themselves on the horn of a paradoxical dilemmal, are struggling to make sense of it because they must, ex officio, insist that there is no either/or there. They insist that there is no dilemma or paradox.

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Please delete

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Re: Is atheism a religious belief?
Reply #337 - Aug 5^th, 2010 at 10:52am

I really dislike this projection of "metaphysics" onto atheists. I dispute your every premise.

"I think it is possible to conceptualise the 'world' only metaphysically"

I don't.

"Athesists and materialists, like everyone else, concepotiualise the 'world' as an object of their thinking, thereby placing themselves outside it"

I don't.

"say you personify neither but declare again that you actually ordered a hamburger (atheism)."

Crap. You are applying an invalid intellectual straightjacket to a way of thinking you plainly don't understand.

"Seriously, it seems to me that atheists have not faced the fact that they are already thinking metaphysically."

More crap. Many atheists just live, on this world, in this lifetime, in their own heads.

Your attempts at some polysyllabic denigration of atheism certainly doesn't apply to me. I'm not smart enough to "conceptualise the 'world' ... metaphysically".

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gizmo_2655

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Re: Is atheism a religious belief?
Reply #338 - Aug 5^th, 2010 at 3:03pm

Please delete wrote on Aug 5^th, 2010 at 10:52am:

I really dislike this projection of "metaphysics" onto atheists. I dispute your every premise.

"I think it is possible to conceptualise the 'world' only metaphysically"

I don't.

"Athesists and materialists, like everyone else, concepotiualise the 'world' as an object of their thinking, thereby placing themselves outside it"

I don't.

"say you personify neither but declare again that you actually ordered a hamburger (atheism)."

Crap. You are applying an invalid intellectual straightjacket to a way of thinking you plainly don't understand.

"Seriously, it seems to me that atheists have not faced the fact that they are already thinking metaphysically."

More crap. Many atheists just live, on this world, in this lifetime, in their own heads.

Your attempts at some polysyllabic denigration of atheism certainly doesn't apply to me. I'm not smart enough to "conceptualise the 'world' ... metaphysically".

I've always thought of atheism as a philosophy...

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"I just get sick of people who place a label on someone else with their own definition.

It's similar to a strawman fallacy"
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Sappho Gold Member Offline OzPolitic Posts: 1406 Gender:	Re: Is atheism a religious belief? Reply #339 - Aug 5^th, 2010 at 3:07pm Theism was once a philosophy too.
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muso Gold Member Offline Posts: 13151 Gladstone, Queensland Gender:	Re: Is atheism a religious belief? Reply #340 - Aug 5^th, 2010 at 3:35pm Sappho wrote on Aug 5^th, 2010 at 3:07pm: Theism was once a philosophy too. So was Lesbianism.
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Please delete Gold Member Offline Please delete this smacking PROFILE Posts: 2936	Re: Is atheism a religious belief? Reply #341 - Aug 5^th, 2010 at 3:42pm And onanism
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muso Gold Member Offline Posts: 13151 Gladstone, Queensland Gender:	Re: Is atheism a religious belief? Reply #342 - Aug 5^th, 2010 at 3:47pm That wasn't so much a philosophy as a Political Party led by Bob Brown.
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Soren

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Re: Is atheism a religious belief?
Reply #343 - Aug 5^th, 2010 at 5:08pm

Please delete wrote on Aug 5^th, 2010 at 10:52am:

I really dislike this projection of "metaphysics" onto atheists. I dispute your every premise.

"I think it is possible to conceptualise the 'world' only metaphysically"

I don't.

"Athesists and materialists, like everyone else, concepotiualise the 'world' as an object of their thinking, thereby placing themselves outside it"

I don't.

"say you personify neither but declare again that you actually ordered a hamburger (atheism)."

Crap. You are applying an invalid intellectual straightjacket to a way of thinking you plainly don't understand.

"Seriously, it seems to me that atheists have not faced the fact that they are already thinking metaphysically."

More crap. Many atheists just live, on this world, in this lifetime, in their own heads.

Your attempts at some polysyllabic denigration of atheism certainly doesn't apply to me. I'm not smart enough to "conceptualise the 'world' ... metaphysically".

I don't believe a word you say. Is that an argument? Well, that's all you have said. ANd that may well be all that an atheist can say: no.

You cannot think about the world unless you make it an object of your thought. That means you have to make it into a concept - you can't have the actual world in your head. (It's another issue that you yourself are part of the world but now you have what you are part of also in your head as a concept).

How do you think of the world if not as a concept?

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Please delete Gold Member Offline Please delete this smacking PROFILE Posts: 2936	Re: Is atheism a religious belief? Reply #344 - Aug 5^th, 2010 at 6:19pm "How do you think of the world if not as a concept?" The planet? A ball of rock, molten at the centre. It's thing, like a road or a continent. A drawing on a page. A photograph taken from space. The place I exist. Why does it have to be swamped in mumbo jumbo? Is it any different to me than it is to my dog?
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