Theism... Rational?
Posted on: May 11, 2009 - 10:54pm
Offline
Theism... Rational?
Hello, unlike most of you I'm an Agnostic, however I've leaned toward the idea that a God may perhaps not exist. My reasoning is that the idea of a God came out of some guy's ass in either an attempt to better the world or a schizophrenic "vision." I can easily say the moon is made of cheese if there is no counterexample for my statement. I suppose it all boils down to Joseph Goebel's word of "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."
Dictated but not read.
- Login to post comments
Are you sure you're not an atheist?
It's written all over yo---your words??
Actually most of us are agnostic atheists.
Welcome to the forums.
Welcome. I think you would find this article quite interesting.
Sounds like you are an agnostic atheist.
Definitely. I'm one too. Though it took me quite a while to get used to thinking of myself as atheist. Weird that the word's got such a stigma, even for unbelieving folks like us.
Welcome to the forum!
By your interpretation of these terms, I think most of the people on this forum would be agnostic.
Of course, we're still agnostic, but we're agnostic atheists.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Simplistically reducing the origin of religion/theism down to one guy talking through his arse and/or intentionally lying is really not getting any nearer the truth of the matter, I feel.
For a start religion incorporates much that has been absolutely necessary for developing the very faculties by which we as a race employ reason to distinguish between fact and fiction when engaging our intellect in fathoming abstracts, an absolutely vital function which underpins all rational thought not applied simply to understanding that which lies before your eyes at that moment. That function relies heavily on recourse to intuitive reasoning, if not always on intuition itself, and such reliance has come at a price - the victim in humanity's case being the ability to readily distinguish between the credible and the incredible.
Why this short-circuit occurs is completely understandable. If we didn't have the capacity to suspend our disbelief (or better put, temporarily invest belief without having garnered all the evidential justification for doing so), then decision-making at an individual level would simply take too long. Ditherers die in nature with great frequency. What religion does is to take that built-in flaw in the application of reason which has served us well in a survivalist sense and use other mechanisms that we as a race have developed - most particularly the delegation of responsibilities for our collective "good" (ie. even better chance of survival) - to transfer this tendency into the complex social structures and interplays which we have developed in tandem with our instinct to form into groups. It is an individual's flaw writ large and applied socially.
Its roots as an individual flaw are betrayed by the discrepancy between its claims and actuality. For example all religions claim to contain the truth, yet they are so diverse and contain so many contradictions with each other and within themselves that such a claim is patently false. Religion places huge emphasis on individual fears and hopes (fear that one has done wrong, fear that one is unworthy, fear of death, hope of reward for one's effort, hope of not having to fear, etc) and codifies them into rules of behaviour, an unavoidable outcome of having translated subjectively-held interpretations of personal success and failure into a standard which applies across the board to everyone.
Calling this dishonest however is doing humanity a huge disservice. In terms of our communal development religion has played a catalystic role, though we are now at a point where it has long been superseded in that function by a hugely superior method of transmitting knowledge and values - education. Recourse to reliable information, the ability to interpret it, and the ability to disseminate that interpretation have replaced almost entirely the traditional function religion played. What it has left which it protects most dearly is what used to be its greatest effect and is now its only cause d'etre - its role as self-appointed moral arbiter, itself a function largely superseded in many societies by secular law and consensual standards of application of this law.
Religion did not always rely on "god". Early ones seemed to venerate visible natural entities quite happily, misunderstood and all as those entities might have been factually. But as its application as an intellectual catalyst shrank so its dependence on the result of its own short-circuit was forced to take centre stage. Deity became at first separate from logic and reason, and now stands as antithesis to them.
If there is an inherent and intentional dishonesty to be found in religion then it is in those who subscribe to its strictures knowing this to be the case. In other words they have consciously rejected logic for irrational belief. They are dishonest because they pretend they havn't.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
I guess I was wrong every time the name "Rational Response Squad" comes up people always say it's a group of atheist, I suppose I'm not the only one who was mislead with lies.
Dictated but not read.
Either you are being facetious or I must infer that you believe 'agnosticism' to be some kind of middle ground between belief and non-belief. If you do, you are mistaken.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
Wait, I think that's what he's saying. He's saying he had a false idea of what the terms agnostic and atheist meant, due to the zeitgeist against atheism.
Is that what you're trying to say, Stoic?
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
More so I had a false idea who populated the rational response squad. I got the false impression it was an all athiest community. The "mislead with lies" was my little slap against strong theism.
Dictated but not read.
Yeah, it's mostly atheist, but not at all. It is, however, still a place made for atheists to come and chat and let it all hang out- so to speak. Kind of like how there are zillions of Christian sites that are filled with Christians talking to Christians about how great Christianity is. Not to say that there's more of a consensus around here than a general notion that belief in the supernatural is silly. 'The atheist' is a false category.
I'd imagine if you do a general search and come up with this site, it's probably because of the Hovind controversy. Or just a bunch of people elsewhere saying 'those people are CRAZY.' I came here because of the Jesus mythicist idea- I was looking up stuff on the historical proofs for Jesus (pretty thin and unreliable), found first the Web site for the Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy, then Rook Hawkins' massive post on Atheist.net (since then it's been taken down.) From there, I saw a link to here, checked it out, and have been posting ever since. If it has a bad rep, it is totally undeserved.
We aren't an all atheist community, but we believe you are mistaken with your definition of atheism and agnosticism.
1. The gnostic/agnostic question is binary.
This is the question, "Do you know that god exists? Do you know he does not exist?' (or deity or spiritual force or whatever)
If you say "I know he exists" or "I know he does not exist" then you are gnostic. If you say "I don't know whether he exists," then you are agnostic.
2. The theist/atheist question is binary.
This is the question "Do you believe in a god?" (Or deity, or, spiritual force or what have you)
If you answer "yes" then you are a theist. If you give any other answer, then you are an atheist.
Hence, we have:
1. Gnostic Theist- "I believe in a god and I know he exists."
2. Agnostic Theist- "I don't know whether or not God exists, but I believe in him anyway out of faith."
3. Gnostic Atheist- "I don't believe in God. I know he doesn't exist."
4. Agnostic Atheist-"I don't know whether or not there is a god, so I don't believe in him."
Furthermore we have the following distinctions:
1. Strong Agnostic Theist- "It's impossible to know whether God exists. Belief can only come through faith. I believe."
2. Strong Agnostic Atheist- "It's impossible to know whether God exists. Belief, (or disbelief), can only come through faith. I believe there is no god."
3. Weak Agnostic Atheist- "It may be possible to know whether or not God exists. I am open to evidence. However, I see no reason or evidence to believe in the existence in a God, so I don't."
I have a fairly good idea of agnosticism but thanks for the explanation anyway, I fall under the "Weak Agnostic Atheist" category, however this thread may seem to contratict that idea. Anyway, to crazymonkie: I actually found out about the rational response squad from TheAmazingAtheist on youtube a while ago, just now I decided to join it. What inspired me to head here was because of my growing resentment of extremists. What does that have to do with the rational response squad? Well, I remembered hearing of this place and figured it would be a great place to spread my ideas against extremism. As a community such as this you all can empathize my resentment of extremists, correct?
Dictated but not read.
Oh wow, I just reread this post and I noticed how badly it's worded and formated. Oh god, this is just awful, I must be devolving into an ape... Or evolving if you'd rather consider it that way.
Dictated but not read.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
I don't like that guy.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Which is another term for a faith based atheist.
Just ignore this guy. I think most of us do. He doesn't know what he is talking about.
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
What if someone were an altruistic extremist. I assume you wouldn't dislike them. I think you are saying you dislike evil people. There are religious people who in fact are extremely good people. Who have devouted their life to doing good. They really do exist.
Yeah, he just equated agnosticism with faith, so you can tell he's rather out of it.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
You have a point, but when I say "extremism" I usually mean people who not only follow their religion too much, but they blow it out of proportion as well hence almost defying and defiling their religion. Take 9/11 for example, those are the kind of extremists I dislike. Muslims aren't neccisarily bad people in the least but yet the common American still visions muslims as mindless suicide bombers, which they are, but what we get wrong is that; suicide bombers are muslim, but not all muslims are suicide bombers. Same thing with Christianity, although I strongly disagree with Christianity, the belief is nothing harmful, but we've grown to believe it is a group of ignorant and hostile morons, although "good" Christians tend to be very charitable and overall good people.
Dictated but not read.
Stoic- Don't feed the Clay.
I doubt you exist.
Problem with the use of language is most words do have multiple meanings and the most popular one is generally the one most people default to.
Nothing is more annoying when hackers start waffling on about they arent hackers because they dont break anything etc using some obscure dictionary to prove that they arent.
ie a hacker is someone who illegally breaks into a computer system regardless of why , who or how.
Same with atheism, there is an intellectual use of the word and a common language one which are different
You're wrong, a hacker is a person who tests the limits of hardware and software, you explained what a cracker is.
Examples? Alright sure!
There's actually lots of what we refer to as "hackers,"
A hacker will take something like a wiimote for example and get it to cooperate with a computer.
A cracker will make a virus and infect computers, that's pretty much it.
A cybercriminal commits some profound action among computers for some gain, commonly financial.
A cyberterrorist will completely annihilate anything in their path for some purpose.
An insider will spy on computers(commonly ones from an organization) for a particular gain.
And I'm pretty sure that's all of them.
The moral of the story is, hackers don't do wrongs neccisarily, the worst one would do is put a mod chip in a gaming system to play burnt games and such. Sorry, I just had to throw it out there, I don't appreciate when people do exactly what you just explained(not meaning to sound like a pompous ass).
Dictated but not read.