A Failure To Convince Me That Any Gods Exist

The thing about god or God is that you should not be convinced. Either you believe or you do not. God is an emotional and not an intellectual commitment.

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@failures art,

failures art wrote:

Nature is indifferent. Is your god? Only gods make humans special or entitled.

God is indifferent, he gives to all. Nature made man the top of the pile.

Quote:

I don't think this will be the case. I don't mystify nature to the degree needed to entertain the idea that nature itself is a god.

The law of nature is altruism.for example, take the billions of cells in the human body and how they all work together to make one creature. There is no need to mystify Nature or God, Its the altruism in all of nature apart from mankind, that is the God we should aspire to.
Can you imagine all mankind living together in harmony,as one creature, just like the cells in a body.
Perhaps its not that you don't mystify nature to a higher enough degree, but that you mystify God to a too high degree.

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so if I'm simply skeptical of atheism am I an aatheist?

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@failures art,

My "solution" starts with this rather lengthy thread.
http://able2know.org/topic/1119-1

My position has not changed much since then except to include aspects of Heidegger's and Maturana's thinking on "language". I was not aware of the term "nominalism" at the time in terms of its contrast to "realism".

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@ABYA,

ABYA wrote:

failures art wrote:

Nature is indifferent. Is your god? Only gods make humans special or entitled.

God is indifferent, he gives to all.

Editor's note: Results may vary.

ABYA wrote:

Nature made man the top of the pile.

What makes you say this? Humans are no more entitled by nature than the smallest bacteria.

ABYA wrote:

Quote:
I don't think this will be the case. I don't mystify nature to the degree needed to entertain the idea that nature itself is a god.

The law of nature is altruism.for example, take the billions of cells in the human body and how they all work together to make one creature. There is no need to mystify Nature or God, Its the altruism in all of nature apart from mankind, that is the God we should aspire to.

Nature is not altruistic. Nature is wild and indifferent.

ABYA wrote:

Can you imagine all mankind living together in harmony,as one creature, just like the cells in a body.

No, I cannot. I can see mankind awkwardly struggling to find a functional tolerance for each other and their environment. Don't get me wrong, that is a great goal.

ABYA wrote:

Perhaps its not that you don't mystify nature to a higher enough degree, but that you mystify God to a too high degree.

I don't believe in any gods, and gods are VERY mystical. I put no effort into inflating them.

A
R
T

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@GoshisDead,

GoshisDead wrote:

so if I'm simply skeptical of atheism am I an aatheist?

if GoshisDead == skeptical of atheism;
int a;
string GoshisDead;

{
a = -1;
GoshisDead = a*a*theist;
cout << "GoshisDead is a " << GoshisDead << endl;
}
else cout << "GoshisDead is an atheist" << endl;

return (0)

A
R
The code is a little fudged...

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@GoshisDead,

GoshisDead wrote:

so if I'm simply skeptical of atheism am I an aatheist?

I know you are trying to be funny with this, but to me it just reminds me how you are investing things into your definition that don't actually apply to the definition of atheism and that is what I find funny about your comment. Even though you didn't intend for it to be funny in that way.

How can you be skeptical about the lack of a belief in something?

So if i said, i don't believe in the existence of gremlins, you are going to be skeptical of my disbelief? Seriously, i don't think you could get there without actually causing physical damage to your brain.

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@Krumple,

Krumple wrote:

GoshisDead wrote:

so if I'm simply skeptical of atheism am I an aatheist?

I know you are trying to be funny with this, but to me it just reminds me how you are investing things into your definition that don't actually apply to the definition of atheism and that is what I find funny about your comment. Even though you didn't intend for it to be funny in that way.

How can you be skeptical about the lack of a belief in something?

So if i said, i don't believe in the existence of gremlins, you are going to be skeptical of my disbelief? Seriously, i don't think you could get there without actually causing physical damage to your brain.

Ha and yet I got there. So I'm an aatheist it seems. What is so hard about being skeptical of your disbelief? a disbelief requires a belief to negate.

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@GoshisDead,

GoshisDead wrote:

Ha and yet I got there. So I'm an aatheist it seems. What is so hard about being skeptical of your disbelief? a disbelief requires a belief to negate.

Yeah and the fact that you can't see the absurdity in what you are saying tells me that you have some form of brain damage going on.

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@GoshisDead,

This is only true if you hold one particular belief to be relevant to skepticism. Atheism is not the skepticism in one god, but all gods.

A
R
T

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@fresco,

The 'a' signifies 'without', in the word atheism, just as it does in amenorrhea, and many other medical conditions. I'm guessing it is latin based.

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amoral or asocial

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@ossobuco,

ossobuco wrote:

The 'a' signifies 'without', in the word atheism, just as it does in amenorrhea,
and many other medical conditions. I'm guessing it is latin based.

Greek, actually.

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I too have found no reason to believe in and god or gods. For this, you can call me an atheist. Nor, also, do I lay claim to any knowledge, and for that you can call me an agnostic.

How, why or by what ideal atheism has become known as a "There isn't"-stance is beyond my understanding. If you believe in a god or gods you're some type of theist, if you don't, you're an atheist. It's a personally-held presence or absence of belief; two words that communicate what you believe. So what... why all the hubbub?

As far as nature and god go; why would we want to call one the other when each has their own term of collective understanding? As I mentioned before, I don't call my cat a "Muffler Bracket", I call him "A Cat". Does changing the name of one to the other - as if that changed anything substantively - make anyone feel better?

Humans are just animals with their own unique attributes, just like every other living form on this planet. Each has evolved abilities to survive; some have scales, others have claws while still others have such toys as sonar navigation, magnetic north orientation; we've got brains (many of which aren't much used and even more are used to fuss and fight over ghosts and apparitions).

This inward fascination that we are higher, better or more blessed is just self-stroking. Let's appreciate those unique attributes of our mental abilities - but there's no reason to get carried away.

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@George,

Thanks, George!

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@failures art,

To claim that a god exists is a great claim, perhaps the greatest claim
possible.
Perhaps.

It is literally the claim to know what the highest form of
life/energy/intelligence is in the entire universe,
No, it is to claim that there is a highest form . . .
It is not necessarily to claim anything more.

. . . and that they can and do violate the rules of nature at their whim.
Not at all. But then, we haven't really defined our terms, have we?

Such a great claim requires great evidence.
No. It just requires evidence.

Such a burden has never been met.
Agreed.

Since it has never been met, there is no reason to believe in any gods.
There is no proof.
One may have reasons of one's own, however illogical or irrational.

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A small nattering comment to Soz, whom I almost fully agree with -

Sozobe said: "I love to see the whys -- this evolved for that reason, for example."
I don't think things or systems evolve for reasons. Mutations and other forces (struggling for a word that covers various chemical interactions) happen, and the 'beneficial' changes enhance survival rates. Or that's what I always thought until I read something on an a2k thread, probably by farmerman, about a mutation that seemed to happen to fill a "need". Alas, I don't remember the thread or the example. And, Soz may know more about that than I do.

And later on, Failures Art said:
Nature is not altruistic. - I agree with this.
Nature is wild and indifferent. - Nature has some patterns, but I think they are evolved as systems that work out, thus surviving when other happenstances via mutation, or other processes, do not.

These comments are slightly off subject, except that they do partly relate to ABYA's posts too.

1 Reply

@Krumple,

Krumple wrote:

GoshisDead wrote:
Ha and yet I got there. So I'm an aatheist it seems. What is so hard about being skeptical of your disbelief? a disbelief requires a belief to negate.

Yeah and the fact that you can't see the absurdity in what you are saying tells me that you have some form of brain damage going on.

That maybe true, although you know it could have been the whole point of the initial joke. A play on the 'you can't prove a negative' business.

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@ossobuco,

ossobuco wrote:

A small nattering comment to Soz, whom I almost fully agree with -

Sozobe said: "I love to see the whys -- this evolved for that reason, for example."
I don't think things or systems evolve for reasons. Mutations and other forces (struggling for a word that covers various chemical interactions) happen, and the 'beneficial' changes enhance survival rates. Or that's what I always thought until I read something on an a2k thread, probably by farmerman, about a mutation that seemed to happen to fill a "need". Alas, I don't remember the thread or the example. And, Soz may know more about that than I do.

I see what you're saying.

When I say "why" I mean things like the birds who blended into bark better were more likely to survive than the ones who stood out against the bark. However the "why" implies a purposefulness that I don't mean to imply. (There was no particular agency, just a mutation that turned out to be helpful.)

1 Reply

@GoshisDead,

GoshisDead wrote:

so if I'm simply skeptical of atheism am I an aatheist?

To the extent that you're making any sense at all, yes you are. Though I don't see what it could possibly mean to be skeptical of skepticism.

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A Failure To Convince Me That Any Gods Exist

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