Atheism

@edgarblythe,

Quote:

What I feel for my children is incidental in the grand scheme of it all. If the Earth vanished today, the universe would know not remorse or caring, but continue on as before.

I believe, and am fully confident, that this is false. Do you agree that this makes me religious?

1 Reply

@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

In order to be religious, you have to: (a) believe in some manner of supernatural being(s) or force that is a "higher power;" and (b) belong in some fashion to an organization of like-minded believers, the purpose of which is to worship said being(s) or force. As an "atheist," I'm confident that you don't satisfy either criterion.

By this standard of yours, Buddhism would not be a religion. Buddhism as a creed takes no position on the existence of any deities. Accordingly, millions of faithful and practicing Buddhists are atheistic --- in the sense where the "a" in "atheistic" stands for "non-", not "anti-". You can, of course, use words in any way you want to, and if your usage denies Buddhism the status of being a religion, so be it. But it's unconventional, to say the least.

1 Reply

Quote:

Edgar said: Religion invokes the supernatural, as in gods.

But mate you said in another thread you believe there are things that science can't explain .. Wink

"When brother Sam died in Dallas, I was working in Tomball. I felt a sudden urge to go in the office and sit down. "Why?" the manager asked. "I don't know. I just do." At that moment, my phone rang. It was his wife to tell me he was gone. This would mean nothing to many people, and that's fine. I just see enough to believe in connectivity between living creatures." (Edgar Blythe Fri 7 Mar 2014 in the 'I Think' thread)

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@maxdancona,

If you think this is false, you could be a deist.

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Quote:

Coldjoint said: Faith without works is dead.
Romeo asked: What sort of "works" exactly?
Coldjoint replied: Walking the walk. A truly Christian person is far and few between.

Yeah but what are the "works"?
For example, monks spend their lives deliberately shut away in monasteries without a proper job

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@edgarblythe,

Can a deist be an athiest?

Atheist simply means the non-belief in a god. I do not believe in god. Therefore I am an atheist.

Why is this so difficult to understand?

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Atheism includes the lack of belief in the supernatural--e.g. miracles, sacredness--superstition, magic, animism, etc. along with the lack of belief in gods.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

They are two completely separate phenomena.

I presume, max, that it is a feeling. A transcendent feeling which occasionally comes under certain external conditions and which feels authentic. Searching for the external conditions, and creating the mood to enhance them, leads to High Art but most people are content for them to arrive unannounced.

That they don't ever arrive for some people is one of those things. I presume the city landscape is inhibiting.

I agree with you. Being religious has nothing to do with believing in God. Believing in God seems irreligious to some.

Such a feeling does not depend on membership of a group because the others might be faking experiencing it.

Organised religion is another matter. And the contemplation of an organised religion can give rise to the feeling as it did for Marcel Proust. Seeing a culture as a work of art. Which it cannot but be.

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

By this standard of yours, Buddhism would not be a religion. Buddhism as a creed takes no position on the existence of any deities. Accordingly, millions of faithful and practicing Buddhists are atheistic --- in the sense where the "a" in "atheistic" stands for "non-", not "anti-". You can, of course, use words in any way you want to, and if your usage denies Buddhism the status of being a religion, so be it. But it's unconventional, to say the least.

I'm fairly content with considering Buddhism to be a philosophy rather than a religion. Same with Confucianism. If we take away deities or other supernatural elements from religion, then what we're left with is an organization of like-minded individuals. At that level, every organization is a religion. I'd rather keep my definition and see Buddhism relegated to a philosophy than to see the Boy Scouts or the Republican Party deemed religions.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

To hold the second view, that there is something more to life than a set of chemical reactions, you must accept the supernatural.

I think that's unsound reasoning. It's like saying: "To hold the second view, that there is something more to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata than a set of noises, you must accept the supernatural." While it is true that Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata is more than a set of noises, the difference between it and other sets of noises is readily understood in terms of Shannon's information theory (if you're into computer science) or Bolzmann's thermodynamics (if you're into physics --- information is the reciprocal of entropy). No acceptance in the supernatural is required. And the same is true of life.

maxdancona wrote:

It is the belief that there is something beyond science and reason (which is the very definition of supernatural).

More unsound reasoning. There are plenty of things in nature that I can't understand --- through science, reason, or anything else. It doesn't mean these things are supernatural, only that I'm ignorant.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

It's not hard to understand. If you believe in the supernatural, you are anthropomorphizing. Therefore, believing in a god.

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@Olivier5,

Quote:

You're better off for being one some people's iggy list.

I dare say. It's the iggies who lose something. As I demonstrated. When "no one" means "no one I have heard from after selecting who to not hear from", somebody either can't use English properly or is assuming we can't.

i.e. ridiculous. Exposing oneself as being ridiculous is a loss.

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Quote:

Edgar said: It's not hard to understand. If you believe in the supernatural, you are anthropomorphizing. Therefore, believing in a god.

But mate, you admitted in your "I Think" thread that you believe in the supernatural.. Smile

PS- See your error in putting me on ignore, I'm running rings around you behind your back and you don't even know it!
My fans all over internet-land are loving seeing their Romeo in breathtaking action!.. Smile

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g64/PoorOldSpike/audience_zps5244042b.jpg~original

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Quote:

While it is true that Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata is more than a set of noises, the difference between it and other sets of noises is readily understood in terms of Shannon's information theory (if you're into computer science) or Bolzmann's thermodynamics (if you're into physics --- information is the reciprocal of entropy). No acceptance in the supernatural is required. And the same is true of life.

But it is an assertion that it is "readily understood" by those ideas. That they give the sentence "prestige" in the eyes of some does not alter the fact that the sentence is an assertion. How is the effect "readily understood" through those lenses? Some sort of explanation is required.

1 Reply

@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

I'm fairly content with considering Buddhism to be a philosophy rather than a religion.

Far be it from me to begrudge your contentment with your idiosyncratic usage of words. I'm only pointing out that it's idiosyncratic. If you look up Buddhism in your encyclopedia, I bet high odds that you will find it described as a religion. Therefore, Max Dancona's self-description is not necessarily wrong. He may just be applying a more conventional notion of what a religion is than you do.

joefromchicago wrote:

If we take away deities or other supernatural elements from religion, then what we're left with is an organization of like-minded individuals. At that level, every organization is a religion.

Perhaps this is where we can find common ground. While Buddhism does not take a position on deities, it does promulgate belief in other supernatural things such as reincarnation. Do beliefs in supernatural phenomena other than deities qualify for you?

1 Reply

@Romeo Fabulini,

Romeo Fabulini wrote:

My fans all over internet-land are loving seeing their Romeo in breathtaking action!..

http://img.pandawhale.com/77776-I-just-threw-up-in-my-mouth-a-3SeW.jpeg

1 Reply

@chai2,

And fed the troll.

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@spendius,

You could do worse than pay attention to what Thomas is saying. There is more to science than narrow-minded materialism.

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@Olivier5,

I do pay attention to what Thomas says.

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@spendius,

The only nitpicking I had with his post is that, to understand why Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata is different from other sets of noises, I'd rather use sensibility and art history than thermodynamics or information theory.

1 Reply

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