Why I am an athiest

@Olivier5,

The remarks you made were about belief, and the remark about traffic lights was germane to what people believe, and how they act on it. I am on topic, and don't try to give me orders. You don't get to define what the subject of discussion is, and you are wrong even if you restrict yourself to philosophy, about which i suspect you know little to nothing. Slinging jargon around is not evidence that you know something about the source of the jargon.

It's hilarious that you characterize my critiques of your comments as insult, and then turn around and call me a fool. When you look up obfuscate, look up hypocrisy and irony, too.

The topic is belief. You're just having a little hysterical fit because someone dared to disagree with your silly statement about belief. I do certainly consider that my rhetorical skills are superior to yours--although that's not much of an accomplishment. Semantics don't enter into this, other than that you are attempting to impose your meanings. Once again, tediously, you don't get to impose definitions and you don't get to control the debate. This is precisely about belief, and it is a matter of indifference to me that you apparently can't deal with that.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Quote:

The remarks you made were about belief, and the remark about traffic lights was germane to what people believe, and how they act on it. I am on topic, and don't try to give me orders. You don't get to define what the subject of discussion is, and you are wrong even if you restrict yourself to philosophy, about which i suspect you know little to nothing. Slinging jargon around is not evidence that you know something about the source of the jargon.

Okey dokey, so in so many spirited posts, you managed to make the crucial point that the term "belief" could be used to describe non-religious and non-philosophical types of expectations. Such as the "belief" that others will obey traffic lights regulations. Fine. Point well taken.

I never disputed that, by the way, it seems pretty moot to me.

So where does that lead you? Why was this important to raise in the first place?

Quote:

It's hilarious that you characterize my critiques of your comments as insult, and then turn around and call me a fool.

So you want to freely insult other posters without them hitting back.... Interesting.

My take about ad hominem is this: i never start it, and I always try to resist fighting back for a while and offer the left cheek as a good (atheist) christian should, but if you persist in it, I will fire back.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

You said,

Quote:

It's important to keep in mind that facts are not naturally leading us all to the same interpretation of facts. There's a huge gap between facts (observations) and theories that explain facts, and there's usually more than one theory to explain the facts, even the most traumatic ones.

That's exactly what I'm talking about; people perceive different events differently. How they react to them is subjective to the individual.
Not all are religious (some are atheists), and even then different individuals of religion will react differently. It's impossible to predict what the individual will do whether the individual is an atheist or of some religion.

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@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

It's impossible to predict what the individual will do.

Indeed. People are not mere objects. They adopt their beliefs, not vice versa, and they can repudiate them. In other words I don't think we are slaves to our beliefs. We adjust them and occasionally discard them entirely. But then we become different, we change with this process, which is why I say beliefs define who we are: not as a script we'd be programmed to follow, but as an attitude to life that we opt for.

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@neologist,

Quote:

Tell that to Frank. Other than the New Jersey Guesser, we all take circumstantial and anecdotal observations into account when we form our belief systems.

Don't know Frank yet...

That, or we make the evidence fit our belief system, willy nilly.

Monotheism has always puzzled me, from that perspective: there are so many contradictions in life and nature; why assume only one god?

2 Replies

@Olivier5,

You wrote,

Quote:

Monotheism has always puzzled me, from that perspective: there are so many contradictions in life and nature; why assume only one god?

That's "your" belief; nothing more or less. That's the reason belief is totally subjective.

Still want to discuss god or santa clause?

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

That's the reason belief is totally subjective.

Is subjectivity a bad thing for you?

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@neologist,

neologist wrote:

rosborne979 wrote:
neologist wrote:
It is that thing not conceived which I assert should be obvious to those who look with discernment.
Not conceived, in this instance, being synonymous with simply unknown. If that's all you're saying, then I think we agree.

Or are you trying to imply that anything which we haven't conceived of yet must be "God"?
Your words

I know those are my words. I wrote them. What is your point?

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

How can subjectivity be a "bad thing," when humans are subjected to its limited perceptions and comprehension?

1 Reply

@rosborne979,

rosborne979 wrote:

neologist wrote:
rosborne979 wrote:
neologist wrote:
It is that thing not conceived which I assert should be obvious to those who look with discernment.
Not conceived, in this instance, being synonymous with simply unknown. If that's all you're saying, then I think we agree.

Or are you trying to imply that anything which we haven't conceived of yet must be "God"?
Your words
I know those are my words. I wrote them. What is your point?

This highlights the substance of our disagreement. I believe it requires fewer assumptions to declare the existence of a creator who is somehow above or apart from the universe than it is to parse the convoluted explanations of those who consider themselves to be scientists. That is not to disparage scientific inquiry, nor is it to claim scripture to be equivalent to scientific treatise. Scripture is directed at the uninitiated; science to the intellectual. Both have varying degrees of merit.

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@Olivier5,

Indeed you did dispute it. You said that what i had described were not instances of belief. The reason it is important to raise the issue is because you were attempting to impose a very particular definition of belief.

"Ad hominem" is a meaningless internet meme. Argumentum ad hominem means to attack the person and not the idea. I attacked your ideas, not you personally. Whether or not you "hit back" is a matter of indifference to me.

What i have seen you do is attempt to impose a definition of belief, and contradict yourself in the process. Then you ranted about being on topic. As a matter of fact, the topic is why the author is an "athiest," which was disposed of in pretty short order at the beginning of the thread. Now you appear to be attempting to dictate what the topic is. I don't buy it. I also don't buy your silly definition of belief.

1 Reply

@neologist,

Your attempts to compare religion to science is an oxymoron.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Quote:

The reason it is important to raise the issue is because you were attempting to impose a very particular definition of belief.

To each his or her own wind mills to attack, I guess... :-)

How can any poster impose anything on any other poster is beyond me. If you want to talk about traffic lights, no one is blocking you.

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@Olivier5,

I wasn't talking about traffic lights, and i'm not surprised that you don't understand that. I was talking about belief, and how the definition you were attempting to impose was flawed.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

Your attempts to compare religion to science is an oxymoron.

Not a comparison so much as a contrast. Just as there are pseudo sciences, there are errant religious beliefs.
Whether you swallow a religious smart pill or a scientific smart pill, the results may be the same . . . . or not.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Quote:

I was talking about belief, and how the definition you were attempting to impose was flawed.

Different from your own, certainly, but not flawed.

belief (plural beliefs)
Mental acceptance of a claim as truth ****regardless of supporting or contrary empirical evidence.****
(countable) Something believed.
The ancient people have a belief in many deities.
(uncountable) The quality or state of believing.
My belief that it will rain tomorrow is strong.
(uncountable) ****Religious faith.****
She often said it was her belief that carried her through the hard times.
(in the plural) ****One's religious or moral convictions.****
I can't do that. It's against my beliefs.
(from wiktionary, ****emphasis**** added)

Anyway, glad you now realize your point was all about semantics...

Another thing: you keep saying I was trying to IMPOSE my definition, which is evidently a lie. Let's not get paranoid. Nobody is in a position to impose anything to anyone on a message board. I was merely PROPOSING a definition or an understanding of the term "belief".

Now, it is certainly not the only possible understanding of the term, but as the set of definitions above demonstrates, I am well within common sense here. There IS a common acception for the term "belief" that insists on the lack of supporting evidence as an important characteristic. I didn't make that up.

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@cicerone imposter,

We seem to agree on this. "Subjective" = "human"

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@neologist,

What are the

Quote:

Just as there are pseudo sciences

?

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

What are the
Quote:
Just as there are pseudo sciences
?

You can Google pseudo science if you like. But I always like to bring up some old stuff like phlogiston to show that what is considered scientific truth changes with time. We can expect that what we now know may be subject to the same obsolescence.

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@neologist,

You wrote,

Quote:

scientific truth changes with time

.

Of coarse it does! That's because that's what science does; it continues to correct information as they are discovered.

There is no more reliable system for humans than science to understand our environment.

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