@MyFellowAtheists: How Big an Atheist Are You?

Right. So i guess we agree on the general principles and the 'pragmatic' way to go about this. Perhaps then our difference is more about the extent of the push back needed. The development of a religion-rooted anti-science culture in the West worries me. I see these matters as under-debated in society, slightly taboo at least for some of them. They touch on raw nerves of course, so people often avoid them at the dinner table. And by compensation, they get argued a lot and bitterly so on internet message boards.

There is an anti science push in American politics right now that has to be resisted and taken down. Certain elements of Christianity are the culprits. I am not optimistic.

You have already derailed the thread enough and I have helped you do. Bug off.

I didn't think you could point to a specific...and I guessed that you would answer about the way you did.

You have charged me with making false assumptions and bogus claims a couple of times in this thread...and I have challenged you to produce a specific. You have not done so....because you cannot, not because you are worried about derailing the thread. If you could...you would do so in a New York minute.

You, not I, started any derailment that you see. You were the first with a personal attack rather than sticking to the subject of the thread.

Now you will pretend that you are ignoring me, because you are not man enough to acknowledge that you cannot come up with a specific "false assumption."

I never thought you would be reduced to this kind of guy, Edgar. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

I am an atheist. I am proud to be one. I consider those who believe in an omnipotent entity to be deluded...I am not deluded...I am convinced.

After studying quantum mecahnics, cosmology, and paleoanthropology, there is more than enough emperical evidence to show that not only is there no such thing as an omnipotent being, the very existence of this universe, and YOU, precludes the possibilty.

Ah, how unexpected--an on topic post. I'd be interested to know why you say that paleoanthropolgy supports your contention.

Uh oh...

I'm five posts into the thread, and I get the sense it would have been better if I'd been reading along since the beginning, giving my reactions to things. (I was away for a few days). Thanks to everyone for their replies. I'll probably catch up reading the thread in a few days. If that seems like a long time for what is still a fairly short thread, please recognize that I won't just be skimming the thread like I do with most threads. This is, after all, my thread in a sense, and I feel I owe many people a response.

Frank
"you cannot come up with a specific "false assumption."

I told you my specific complaint, early on. And that's my final say in the matter.

Uh oh.. Kolyo's back!

(I'll be interested in your comments, if you survive the reading of ours)

Consider Canada as well re: an anti-science push.

Further, Stephen Harper's Canadian Conservative party is dismantling the liberal state in Canada, which emphasizes social equality and justice for disadvantaged minorities, i.e. native Canadians, women, gays, etc.

The sacred cows of Stephen Harper's Canadian Conservative party are Christianity, corporate welfare, deregulation, union busting, market forces know best, false promises of balanced budgets, government cutbacks, the TFWP (Temporary Foreign Worker Program) in lieu of wage equity for the middle class, claims that an anti-drug pro-prison stance provides for a just society, federal cutbacks to scientific research programs such as climate change, ocean habitats and public health thus depriving Canadians of crucial information, etc.

Silence of the Labs
http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/episodes/2013-2014/the-silence-of-the-labs

Sounds like here.

Very familiar, Chumly.

Bush with a toque (and no term limits)!

Well with out teaching a paleoanthropology course, I can say with complete conviction that the subject is based on emperical evidence for the most part and it certainly does NOT support the existence of a being who created the earth approx. 6000 years ago. The fossil evidence alone shows a natural evolution over millions of years.

I consider that a dubious claim--the same could be said of home economics. Which is not, of course, a case of me saying that any subject does underpin a claim about the existence of a god or of gods.

Replies to various points people have made...

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@ossobuco,Olivier5
(On Chardin, etc.)

It's great that there are people like him, trying to find THE answer to life and meaning.
I'm only trying to find MY answer, which will of course be provisional and need only last me until I die.
I don't plan to spend as much time in trying to formalize and justify my ideas as he did--or in spreading them.

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@Frank Apisa
(On not considering yourself an atheist.)

Whether we call you an "atheist" or not is really just semantics, since definitions differ.
You are less atheistic than I am, because you see no grounds for meaningful guesses, whereas I am naturally inclined to disbelieve.
(I DO care about intrinsic meaning in life, and I do WANT to believe; but I'm naturally inclined to disbelieve.)
When I say I'm more of an atheist than you, that's not a comment on which of us is "better".

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http://able2know.org/topic/267220-2#post-5885005



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http://able2know.org/topic/267220-4#post-5885774

Mostly I want to label myself. I think my metaphysical views are bizarre, and I need some way of describing them to other people when they ask. For me, this thread is a way of working that out.



Yes!

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Intermission:

There was a lot of talk midway about whether atheists were frequently guilty of "hate speech".
I skimmed/skipped that part of the discussion, since it doesn't relate to my quest for self-discovery.
I also skipped the semantic discussion on the best way to label Frank's beliefs.

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@bobsal


Wow!

I guess you must belong to the Thaddeus Stevens wing of the GOP, such as it still exists.

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@edgar



I'm going to use your post as a point of departure to briefly state what sort of religion interests me, to the extent that religion interests me at all. Religion that attacks scientific discovery and denies the validity of our empirical knowledge is of no use to me. Know first that I subscribe to the idea of the "self" that fresco harps on a lot: the "committee model of self" (or something like that). I don't believe there is a solitary, unified "I" that believes in gods or asserts their non-existence; I believe an individual's consciousness is made up of several competing notions of "self", several different hunches that occur and sometimes contradict one another. So what is "my" metaphysical position? Well, think of "Kolyo" as a council of 100 intellectuals. 89 are strong atheists, rational and deductive, requiring proof for everything. The other 11 don't so much believe as want to believe in a transcendant higher order to things. To placate the 11, the council as a whole has created an origin myth. The myth has been constructed to provide as pleasing an image of God as possible with the caveat that the story can't violate the laws of physics. Nevertheless the official position of the council remains one of "weak atheism" since the 89 don't have much use for religious certainty.

On the whole, I think I deserve 4 out of 5 atheist stars.

You're obligating yourself to comment on my sense of self as per older women plus how Harper is pulling the plug on science that is antithetical to his ideologies plus teapots in space (or kittens 'cause they're kyo͞ot).

That's a bingo, though of course I could yammer at you if I noodled around. Plus, you are speedy, a trait that isn't as revered as it could be.

The bleak outlook for rational policy is one of my chief reasons for wanting to believe in a higher power. I cannot believe that people like Harper and Bush are it. There has to be some higher power shaking it's finger at them from on high, thinking what a disgrace to existence they both are.

No one believes in or ponders tea cups in space because there is NO emotional need for their existence.

I must disagree. Things are worse.

And always have been.