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Why Atheists Need Captain Kirk
New submitter anlashok writes: Atheism and science face a real challenge: To frame an account of science, or nature, that leaves room for meaning. According to this article, atheists have pinned their flag to Mr. Spock's mast. But they need Captain Kirk. Quoting: "I'm pro-science, but I'm against what I'll call "Spock-ism," after the character from the TV show Star Trek. I reject the idea that science is logical, purely rational, that it is detached and value-free, and that it is, for all these reasons, morally superior. Spock-ism gives us a false picture of science. It gives us a false picture of humankind's situation. We are not disinterested knowers. The natural world is not a puzzle. ... The big challenge for atheism is not God; it is that of providing an alternative to Spock-ism. We need an account of our place in the world that leaves room for value."
appealing to emotions only prolongs the time taken to master them.
You can catch up on all the bull sessions you missed right here.
Opinion shot to pieces by the best comment in the thread on the NPR link, the one with 477+ up votes and only 432 total comments, as of this post. Basically, show me who these Spokists are? [crickets]
Seems some atheists are smoking some very potent stuff.
As well as some slashdot editors.
twaddle
Our Holy Trinity?
Our Captain, His Spock, and the Holy Bones.
It's a holographic universe, so if we play the game with sincerity but not seriously, we'll be fine. Or not.
Development is programmable; Discovery is not programmable. (Fuller)
I've been deistic for decades. It discounts the idea that god is an old man on the mountain, but maintains the idea that there is purpose and meaning to everything, not just man.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Science is agnostic. It makes no statements about God, gods or Non-gods. Science doesn't need to place value on anything. Atheists don't own science and science is not a religion. By trying to make it the Atheists' religious thing, Science becomes weakened and non-credible.
I'm *not* saying Atheism is weak and non-credible. However, trying to make Science into a religious icon will certain cause all of humanity to suffer.
I feel the basic sentiment--of course to be reasonable and rational does not require us to be cold or non-human.
But actual science IS logical and purely rational. That doesn't mean we aren't warm people with skin the the game. It means that rationality INCLUDES that we are warm people with skin the game.
Science IS solving a puzzle. That's not the only thing it is, but it's one of the coolest things about it.
Is it strange if you base your beliefs on rational foundations, but base your actions on other concepts? I don't believe in god because I see no evidence. I sometimes play golf, which makes no rational sense, but I enjoy it. I'm not sure what values I apply to either of these things.
Hey!
Who turned out the lights?!
I think we need Jean-luc
To religious theists, do you remember when you choose to be religious? If so, at what age did you decide to become a religious person who believes in a god?
One thing that bothers me is, whenever people say, "oh, you are an atheist, so you don't believe there is anything after death?" That has NOTHING to do with being an atheist, all atheism is, is not thinking there is a great creator, you can be atheist and fully believe in an afterlife, ghosts or even praying.
There is already value without God. Kant derived moral judgements on purely secular bases 200 years ago. The "deontology" he ushered in is now the single most common ethical view held by philosophers today (25.9% according to Bourget & Chalmers 2013), and Kant scholars are at pains to teach it to students and anyone else who would listen.
The problem for many people is they suppose that determining what is wrong and what is right must be easy. Why think this? Why should it be easy? Do you fully understand Wiles' proof of Fermat's Last Theorem? Probably not, but he gave it. Do you fully understand Kant's deduction of the categorical imperative in particular and his deduction of the possibility of synthetic a priory judgements in general? Probably not, but he gave them.
Author is arguing against a strawman (or at least a minority view) form of atheism which claims to be above value judgements. Of course one brings value judgements to the table, with philosophy. People've been doing that for a very, very long time. So what?
Author also seems to not understand Star Trek that well - while they're a planet of hat, more-or-less, Vulcans were known to live by a philosophy, and presumably like all systems of logic, the Vulcan one sits ultimately on a philosophical foundation, not some bs "a priori" claims that the author wants to warn us against.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
A combination of both sides rather than a polarized either or.
And that's the problem; it's impossible to justify a value system purely from an atheist perspective; you've got to add some value such as 'the good of society', 'the utility of the individual', 'the success of the species'. In practice atheists tend to absorb the dominant values of their society; thus often 'love your neighbour', usually defining 'neighbour' in the extensive way that Jesus offers in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. But actually there's not a terribly good reason for doing so, and it's been a minority view down the centuries.
And of course the excesses of the church pale into insignificance compared with the horrors of Stalin and Mao - which is not to argue we Christians haven't committed some appalling crimes, but that all need to be given the right to condemn some of those flying the same flag.
[Full disclosure - I'm a traditional Christian from a Christian background. I have one particular friend who had ended up a Christian from an atheist background, not least because it offers no value system]
Those names of soylentnews and pipedot are mocking names like gnu, gnome, gimp. Slashdot is at least a cool name, but I guess some think it's time to divide and conquer this group of nerds.
...by presuming that all atheists are alike.
It's like when atheists are dumb enough to treat all Christians alike, or Muslims, <Insert Religious Stereotype Here>...
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Perhaps you should ask an Atheist, what atheism is imstead of spreading your bullshit ideas.
I'm an atheist. I'm convinced there are no gods.
Wow, shocked? There is nothing more about it. You can still go to church, we don't mind.
Atheism is popular. Nothing to accept. In germany most people are only Christians on paper, because the parents put them to be baptized. In truth 50% or more are Atheists, they simply don't bother to "leave the church".
So why do you fear atheists, what is you rational to spread such nonsense about them, to fight them?
Atheists don't believe in people.
How do you come to this insulting braindead idea?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
This argument has been around at least since the Victorian era. Basically, when you give up the certainty of Romanticism and Religion, you need to fill the void with something in order to give life meaning and direction, or else there'll be this big empty spot where your heart used to be.
Seriously, just read through the Norton Anthology from the era. Doesn't take that long.
So if we don't feel a void, what do we do then? The idea that if you aren't a "believer", then you are lacking something is just more of the bullshit that people try to pile on atheists, like we are immoral, and that Atheism is a religion.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Immorality is much easier to excuse when you believe there is a divine order to things. When someone is poor, or suffering or has had a bad run of luck, belief in a divine plan makes it easy to see that as deserved, instead of unfortunate. When someone is rich, powerful and/or fortunate, you're more likely to see them as superior and deserving of their good fortune if you are religious.
Every time you hear someone thank god that for answering their prayers and blessing them with something, keep in mind that intrinsically behind that statement is the idea that god has made a judgement call and found them deserving of having their prayers answered. It's a round about way of saying "God chose this for me, because he thinks I deserve it." It always rubs me as subtly arrogant to imply that whatever good fortune you are enjoying isn't simply good fortune, but it's a reward you earned because god found you deserving of it, and thusly found everyone else who doesn't receive that same thing, undeserving.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
This argument has been around at least since the time of Socrates.
#DeleteChrome
"Spock-ism" is really a Straw Vulcan where logic is forcefully neutered.
For example, Counceller Troi beats Lieutenant Data in a game of chess, claiming that it's a game of intuition. This ignores that computers can consistently win games of chess against anyone relying on intuition, and where intuition needs to be first built up on logic. (Really, just play chess intuitively against modern AIs on their maximum setting.)
... nor religion it seems. More simplified:
- You believe in "God" (A) or you do not believe in "God" (B)
- You can be rooted firmly enough in reality that you realize science (for the most part) reflects the reality that exists (1), or you can be so absorbed in a dream-world that you don't realize that. (2)
(I have encountered people that were A1, A2, B1 and B2 in my life. Although A1 and B1 more often than A2 and B2.)
Totally *unrelated* to those two facts are other aspects of your personality, like if you are friendly to your neighbours and family, or a raving madman that likes to shoot people, etc, etc, etc......
But that B1 and B2 people "need to compensate the lack of a God-figure with some other quasi-god-figure" is pretty much the greatest nonsense I have heard all day. (And I hear a lot of crazy stuff each day) Nature ITSELF is so absolutely mind-boggling that you can spent ages being just enthralled by the basic facts of it. Just listen to the "Fun to Imagine" Series by Feynman on YouTube to see how a person can be excited about basic scientific facts without needing some sort of "God-Figure" or personalized "Mascot"
What you want is an ideology... a belief system. Science is not a belief system.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
amen.
By thinking it through. There is a lot of time to do that when you are an Atheist.
The thing is Atheism is that god doesn't exist. replacing God with another imaginary idol means you just believe in a different God. You might as well believe in Thor, or Zeus, or Ba'al, you are no longer an Atheist.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
He's a moral sociopath. An excellent example of a kid without regular feelings of empathy and love raised with good principles that allowed him to be a benefit to society and those around him.
Unlike Dexter where they had to cop-out and fall back on the typical "people can't change who they are" crap.
As crazy as it sounds, Spock is a role model for some of us less emotionally endowed.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
How is that different from any religion's view of other religions?
A strawman argument, that Godwins itself within the first few paragraphs? This is worthy of slashdot now?
Really?
College sophomores tend to get all messed up on what they think is logic. Many atheists do as well. Because there is a limit to the depths that can be reached in science there is always an element of faith or trust that creates a condition similar to a worshiper in church. Science is able to shift beliefs a bit faster than most religions and set sail on a slightly different course. Religions are usually slower to adopt the latest beliefs. But in the end neither science nor religion is free of the irrational. Philosophy students are easily sucked into this as well. They would be well served to remember the quote that philosophy begins where language ends. Make note of philosophies that must create special words or alter the meanings of existing words or strangle the very nature of language in order to maintain an absurd belief system. Scientology leaps to mind.
From the article:
> "To which one might reply: Science is all those things. Between holocausts!"
My understanding is: without religion, there would have been no holocaust.
German Christians hated Jews. Hitler was a product of his strongly Christian upbringing. At the time, in Germany, Jew hatred was taught in public schools.
Why on earth would you blame science, and not religion, for the holocaust?
ISIL scholars or pro-GOP scholars?
I can't figure out which one Alva Noë has less understanding of - atheism, science, or Star Trek.
Apparently Noë's conclusion is that science does not make a very good religion. Since science is not a religion at all, that is unsurprising.
Atheism is not a religion. People who are atheists do not believe the same thing, they are people who lack a certain kind of belief. And they are certainly not people who have adopted science as their religion.
Atheism is a belief that there are no supernatural deities. Some atheists are fine with religious metaphors, they simply accept them as metaphors with no supernatural reality behind them. Atheism is not a rejection of values. In fact, atheists embrace the challenge of living lives that they must make meaningful on their own without having a religion tell them what that meaning is supposed to be ahead of time.
Spock is a fictional character.
One of the arguments for the existence of God is that we are inclined to worship. It is argued that we would not have this god-directed faculty if there were no object upon which to exercise this faculty. Apparently this article urges that hero worship be substituted. Charisma over reason....
Science requires all the things that religions purport to be interested in: honesty, trust, humility, even a measure of self sacrifice, but it does it better than religions because of interpersonal accountability.
My response that atheists needs something to believe in: believe in the future of humanity.
It doesn't actually exist. It has psychotic tendencies. It may reward or punish us on a whim, but we can hope that it will work out okay.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
Its not much different at all. A "Hard Atheist" may be just as religious and biggoted as any other kind of person devout to their beliefs.
The real question is: Is there a word for people who "Could care less if there is a god",
I think the pasta people might be closest to that ideal, but I could never embrace it.
Science is a process of discovery: using observations, measurements, and thought to attempt to answer questions about the physical world. Religion attempts to define values, principles, rules, and ideas that enable our lives to be lived as our creator God desires. The only way that science and religion intersect is when people attempt to use science to prove or disprove the existence of God...which is obviously a question that science can not, and never will, resolve. If atheists need spockism, it is only because it gives them the comfort of a world with all questions 'logically' answered and with no messy philosophical entrails.
Spock for his logic and dedication to the scientific principle. Kirk so we can nail the occasional hot alien babe.
Have gnu, will travel.
No, atheism actually is the disbelief in god or gods.
Atheism is the lack of belief in a god or god. Nothing else. It's not about science, it's not about ethics, it's not about morals, it's not about values. When you say you're atheist, you're saying you do not hold any belief there is a god or gods. That's all. There's no dogma, no book, no set of "therefore we believe these here other thingamajigs", nothing.
If you want to know what an atheist thinks about something other than belief in a god or gods, you really must ask them, or you're simply letting your imagination paint a false picture of the world.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
> It's like when atheists are dumb enough to treat all Christians alike, or Muslims, ...
No it's not like that at all.
When you join an organization that espouses certain values, then you must agree with those values. Otherwise why would you join?
For example, if somebody joins the KKK, it would hardly be wrong to think that person is a racist. And if somebody joined NAMBLA, then it is fair to believe that person believes it is okay to molest children.
Atheists have no set ideology. For that matter, theists may not either - unless they belong to some organization that has some specified sort of ideology.
But if you are Christian, Muslim, whatever; then you are claiming that you ascribe to those values.
Is this an idea you came up with all on your own? Or did a bunch of people get together to try to convince you of these beings? Did they write books, build temples,and hold ceremonies to convince you of the existence and benevolence of these creatures?
Are you disbelieving the idea, or the people who told you the idea? The problem is, the people who told you didn't claim credit for the idea. They told you it was the TRUTH.
Do Vulcans have God/gods in their modern-day culture?
The Nine Billion Forks of /.
As an atheist I can assure you we don't fucking need Star Trek. There just isn't some big bearded dude in the sky pulling strings down here and watching us when we sleep.
Author is a philosopher (i.e. bullshit artist), "a contributor to the NPR blog 13.7: Cosmos and Culture" and currently working on "a book about art and human nature".
Ergo, space+art+culture = Star Trek.
And as he is reaching for the lowest common denominator to hang his foregone conclusion on (and then wail on it until that straw flies out of that argument) - so Kirk as an imaginary opposite to an imaginary "Spockian" atheist.
Because that's what's recognizable to most people through cultural osmosis.
Who ever heard of Sybok as an opposite to Spock, right?
Oh... wait... That's the story where Kirk is the logical atheist and a Vulcan is a religious fanatic... oh...
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
...and that Atheism is a religion.
Good point. To often people who believe that life has some 'ultimate backdrop with their favorite color' (religion), and they expect that whatever you say is you describing what you think the backdrop is (this is how most/all religious conversations go). Atheists are pointing out that there is no backdrop, and religious people are forced to straw man the conflict, as that's all religion, by nature, can do.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
Its pretty funny actually. Ya might want to backtrack and re-read the conversation. Pay special attention to the capitalization if that helps.
Silly rabbit.
It confuses human hunger for understanding as need for an easy and simple answer.
So, it supposes a hole which needs to be plugged up by something.
Ignoring the possibility that the hole is there for ingesting, digesting, absorbing and rejecting information - and not to be plugged up.
Human body is full of holes that need to stay open for us to function normally. Plug em up... and we die.
Same goes with our minds. Starve them of new information and they wither and suffocate.
Plug them up with dogma and they drown in their own excrement.
On another note, the "argument" ignores even the possibility of no religion to begin with, and thus nothing to reject.
Thus, according to that logic, a born atheist would be an impossibility.
Or a very wile man, whose life has no "meaning and direction" and with a "big empty spot where heart used to be".
What was that called again... Oh right... Bullshit.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
How is not collection stamps different from any other hobby?
TFA is an argument against scientism using a Star Trek metaphor. Summary of TFA: Which is better Kirk or Spock? No, Kirk and Spock! Why stop there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
Atheism means that you believe it's more probable for the universe then create itself then it is for a pedophile, misogynistic, sadomasochist, asshole, to create the universe 6000 years ago and you exist now thanks to incest, murder, killing, abuse and rape. If you want to believe in the literal bible then please go ahead, but you don't look intelligent, rational, mature or even like an adult. The same goes for Islam, Judaism and any other religion which claims to have the answers.
Do not conflate atheism with science. I'm an atheist and as I get older I have come to trust science less and less, esp. theoretical physics.
...as seen by filmmakers who know about science hardly more than a cow about flying.
There are many facts that support possibilities of god
Interesting. Do you have an example?
> “We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.”
> “If this is your God, he’s not very impressive. He has so many psychological problems; he’s so insecure. He demands worship every seven days. He goes out and creates faulty humans and then blames them for his own mistakes. He’s a pretty poor excuse for a Supreme Being.” — Spock, The God Thing, by Gene Roddenberry
This quote was recently making the rounds on Facebook. It’s taken from a newly discovered script, what The Complete Star Trek Library is calling “Gene Roddenberry’s Last Star Trek Novel.” Roddenberry was an ardent atheist and it appears he was constantly working his critique of religion into the series. The God Thing is a testimony to Roddenberry’s atheistic aims.
http://mikeduran.com/2012/08/star-treks-loopy-deity/
To which premise do you refer? I did not make the comment with the expectation of making friends, but rather to incite debate. Anyone who talks about religion and Atheism should expect debate.
That said. Religion is a fundamental construct of western civilization. To claim disagreement with what so many people have born, lived, killed, and died to believe is a very serious thing.
Premise: Atheism is a refutation or dismissal of ALL stories, anecdotes, eyewitness accounts, and historical records that claim the "for real" corporeal or non-corporeal existence of divine beings .
Premise: The refutation or dismissal of the existence of divine beings is incompatible with the belief, first-hand accounts, and historical record of said divine beings.
Premise: A Atheist, by virtue of the first premise, holds that the stories, anecdotes, and first-hand accounts of divine beings are wrong due to error or deception.
Enough said.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Sure, we'll do all your preacher daughters and all green space babes encountered.
Table-ized A.I.
I can produce evidence of that.
Particularly since the opening of a mosque in my neighborhood.
And since they've figured out how not to blow out the speakers every other day.
Luckily, rubber foam administered into one's ears beats praying 10 times out of 10.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Dear Alva Noë, the word you're looking for is "modernism", or rather, a caricature thereof. You're basically railing against a strawman on whom you put the label "Spock". I'm a scientists and I'm surrounded by scientists and atheists, yet I know few people who fit your description. Admittedly, some of the folks here on /. come close, but /. is a bit of a freak show in that respect. Either way, it sounds like you're trying very hard to paint modernists, atheists and adherents of science as sticks-in-the mud, which would make you part of the problem.
I consider myself an atheist. I believe there is no god, such as the one from the three Abrahamic religions of Christianity, Islam, or Judaism, just in the same way I don't believe that the universe was created and is watched over by an infinite number of tiny, invisible fairies. There is exactly the same amount of evidence for either of those - none.
I keep an open mind about nearly everything, but nothing that organized religion has produced even passes the laugh test.
Atheism simply means that one does not believe in the existence of God. You can be religious and an atheist: there are many atheistic religions. And you don't need science to see through the self-serving web of lies preached by corrupt Christian churches, or to reject the evil morality that theism is based on.
The contradictions between theism and science are probably the least important argument against theism, both because science tends to be careful in its pronouncements, and because contradictions with reality are not convinced to theistic worshipers, and they are easily addressed by saying that whatever aspects of theism are contradictory are simply metaphor.
Anyone who thinks Vulcans are logical is an idiot.
Oh, and anyone who's studied Game Theory knows that emotional responses are extremely logical in many circumstances. For example, if you can prove you are committed to self-sacrifice for nothing more than to damage your opponent who has angered you, you limit what is logical for an opponent to do to you. Thus, people cannot safely screw you whenever you would earn no material profit in harming them, because you will "illogically" get angry and punch them in the face.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
In the Avengers.
It just screams like a post someone made without any philosophical background.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
I don't believe that the universe was created ...
So you reject the scientific theory which so far seems to have by far the best track record in explaining the universe, the "Big Bang" theory? Is that because it was proposed by a Catholic priest?
On another topic, what do you think is the explanation for the Jews? How do you think they managed to survive for more than 4,000 years as a people with a common identity despite multiple deportations to far off foreign lands, pogroms, and even attempted genocide, only to reassemble in their native land and reform the country of Israel after being nonexistent for 2,000 years? Are there other examples of a similar nature that you can think of? How do you suppose that is?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Or if you believe in Science as the ultimate tool that can explain everything, you just gave found another surrogate god, as even science knows it cannot do that (by Incompleteness).
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Seems silly to point out but, if you don't believe some god created the universe, life, etc. then you need some explanation for the universe around us and us as observers of that universe. The flying spaghetti monster is one alternative but it sort of makes sense that quite a few atheists will just say that the scientific explanation of the universe works for them; no more, no less. It's not something to be carried on your sleeve. I'd hardly call that "flocking to science." I haven't heard of too many militant atheists picketing some religious get together with signs saying, "Believe in string theory!" or "Quantum Gravity has the Answer!"
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Atheists have moral systems because all humans have moral systems. Atheism is not that moral system - atheism is the absence of belief in the supernatural.
One of the things I hated about TOS, TNG, etc was while the other species have centuries of culture, humans had none. Maybe it was Shatner's vision: Earth had a cultures 'reset.' Humanity became largely docile. Starfleet seems to be for those who didn't quite fit in, but even those humans abandoned history as abhorrent. Most enjoyments were alien in origin. Pets were imports from another planet. No one played basketball or soccer, two games that should be easy to export to starships with artificial gravity. TOS used history for morality plays but never tied it to their present day beyond "oh there was a nuclear war.' Yes TNG had poker. Riker was into jazz, but who else? Secular Humanism as depicted in Star Trek was pretty sterile, and civilizations are never that clean.
As for this view on atheism, it's the same sterility mistake. Being Atheist doesn't mean you worship science. Being a scientist doesn't eliminate your ability to appreciate spectacle, beauty, art, or music.
Being an Atheist doesn't protect you from false beliefs. There are Atheists who prefer anecdotal evidence over rigorous scientific testing. They follow politicians as if they held the keys to enlightenment. They may look the other way when a professional athlete slaps his wife around or destroys a drive through window because he didn't get his hot sauce.
Even Spock required regular pon farr.
Only the dead have seen the end of War. - Plato
Business used to have a completely secular moral compass. Rotary International has their The Four-Way Test, a "nonpartisan and nonsectarian ethical guide for Rotarians to use for their personal and professional relationships." Rotarians recite it at club meetings.
Of the things we think, say or do
This is a morality for business. That's a concept that sounds archaic today. It was mainstream from about 1940 to 1975. Many small business owners used to belong to Rotary, especially in small towns. What went wrong? That's a long story, and has to do with the decline in the political power of small business.
Anyway, that's a completely non-religious moral system which is still around and once was mainstream.
Understanding is a feeling based on a set of internal mental processes. For anyone who wants to think about anything, they require their feelings as much as any other aspect of their mental expression.
Spock then is a terrible role model for a human to attempt to emulate, as to be successful is to lose the ability to think properly.
Kirk is a seat of the pants creative responder to situations. That kind of activity doesn't lend itself to solve every kind of problem.
The problem with the ideas of god are multifaceted. and cannot be simply dismissed with a poster child for science. This simplifies the problem and to a degree that makes the solution unobtainable.
Do you work for Fox News?
Seriously, post his whole sentence not just the excerpt that gives you the most support for your lambaste.
And yes, calling you a fox news employee was ad hominem. But at least I based it off something you actually said/did, rather than invent something.
...
Atheists are lazy/efficient. It doesn't take much to show that a religious book contains an error, something that can be proven wrong without doubt. Combine that with the premise of the religious followers for that book that everything in that book is true and the word of their god, and the conclusion is that the religion is BS. After you've done that for a couple of religions, you get the picture and don't bother with checking each and every further religion. If there's news of evidence for a god, it will make the news. Do you think that Vatican would hide it if there were a new message from god, after 2000 years that the boss of the Vatican didn't show up?
An atheist will take your word for it that you had a ham/cheese sandwich for lunch. For an atheist to believe something extraordinary, it takes extraordinary evidence. If not even a shred of evidence, is offered, yes, the atheist draws his conclusion. The number of possible unsupported assertions is probably infinite; who'd bother to waste his time on that?
Bert
Bollocks.
Imagine we live in the stone age, (major) religion not having been invented yet. The two of us are out in the wild.
You have found an apple and think, that would be nice for breakfast. In the morning, you wake up, and the apple is gone. You feel hungry, but I don't.
The next night you wake me up and say, let's go hunting. I notice that the firestone axe I worked on for over 2 weeks is in your belt. When I ask you for it, you won't give it back.
I develop a new insight: Taking stuff from another person isn't a good thing.
Back at the tribe, someone irks me. I plant my (spare) axe deeply into that person's body and toss him outside the camp to avoid stench. Problem solved. I'm the last one to go to sleep. When I go to my fur rug, I hit someone's foot. That person wakes up grumpily, grabs his axe and tries to kill me.
I develop a new insight: Arbitrarily killing another person is not a good thing. It could happen to me.
This suggests that morals develop as soon as brain functions develop, possible future consequences can be understood, and future actions of others can be predicted and controlled. Religion isn't the source of those morals. Religion certainly helps to maintain them. If I'm strong and you're weak, religion gives you some control over me: Don't kill me, or the god Faket will punish you for it. Hmmm, I could easily crush you, and while I don't mind crushing you, I don't want to be crushed by Faket. So, I leave you alone and you get to reproduce.
Here's a fairness study for monkeys ... ext?c=upw1
http://www.upworthy.com/2-monk...
Here's another article on altruistic behaviour in monkeys
http://www.madisonmonkeys.com/...
starting with this; "Previous work in our laboratory(1) had demonstrat- ed that most rhesus monkeys refrained form operating a device for securing food if this caused another monkey to suffer an electric shock.".
Morals are not a feature exclusive to humans, and with the above stone age scenarios, the 'god-tells-human(s) about what is moral and what is not' hypothesis remains unsubstantiated speculation. And if your source is a religious book that says that people should be stoned for wearing cloth made of two types of fiber, how much time do you need to realise that book (and that god) is a human fabrication?
Bert
"Atheists don't believe in people." - probably the most stupid statement posted so far, the rest of the post isn't much better
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
"There are many facts that support possibilities of god" - no wonder you are an AC, that's embarrassing statement
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Quite interesting. They are the main characters, but don't count out Scotty.
When you have all four personalities then you also have something that can be found in some successful companies.
Kirk - the leader, emotional and active.
Spock - the cool logic mediator.
Bones - the humanistic perspective.
Scotty - the fixer geek.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
no wonder you are an AC. all your verbal diarrhea needs to be flushed away quickly
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
sounds a good explanation to me
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
In practice the term 'agnostic' has come to mean 'doesn't have a belief about God', not what it means strictly. However, to confuse the point further, it can be argued that the person who claims not to have a belief about God proves by how he lives that he doesn't believe in God, at least on some definitions of God.
What I said did not claim that there was an atheist perspective, what I said claimed that it provides no basis for a value system. You argue there is no atheist perspective. We therefore agree that it provides no basis for a value system! However I guess I might have expressed the point more tightly...
Quite possibly true, but to do so requires an additional presupposition that 'rational systems' or evolution should provide a basis for morality. Why should they?
Sure fight your strawman all you want. But you are rejecting an non existant science. Science is about self correcting process , reasonable, to discover more about our universe and its quirk. Science is not morallly superior, or moral at all. Science USER are the one which bring moral in. As for the spock image, well it is a movie. DUH. We atheist already threw away the old gods, we do not need new gods especially idols from movie and tv serie about an utopia.
Repeat slowly after me: atheism is not about sicence, atheism is not about anything whatsoever as value or morality. atheism is solely about the belief of absence of gods.
Some atheist are religious. Some do not care about evidence and are simply atheist out of lazyness. Some do ask themselves question and introspect. Some are terrible evil asshole some are good. Basically atheist are (tada!) human. All that link them is the absence of belief in gods nothing more nothing less.
Now you may be as me an agnostic atheist (null hypothesis is that there is no god, and the clan pretending there are gods have not brought any evidence to stop the null.... Still I am not gnostic atheist I do not know for SURE there is no gods, only no evidence of it). And you might as me try to use the rational process of science for many reason (self correcting, try to remove bias etc...) but that still does not make us less human. We are still bound by morals and emotions.
My final word : spock is not 100% rational ! you misunderstood the character of spock. Spock *ATTEMPT* to be 100% rational. But he is a mere half human and is sometiems driven by emotions. We saw him relieved for example that kirk was safe in movie/tv serie. We saw him getting angry. We saw him having emotions. Your diatribe would have been better put with a true 100% vulcan. So you even fail at common knowledge.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
My wife and I (both engineers) give religion a place in our lifes as much as we reckon the inaccuracy of human observation.
It gives us an opportunity to step back and think about our limits.
Why is it so important for people to believe in god?
go educate yourself you ignorant fools!
My country had 14 million atheists at the last census. Out of a population of 64 million that's hardly unpopular or unaccepted.
Science is purely logical, purely rational and morality free!
Atheism is a much more general and also a much more loaded philosophical concept, that has absolutely nothing to do with science. Many atheists are very passionate about the fact that humans are moral, and, in fact, God, is not!
Stop trying to conflate the two.
He did write it. The rest of that sentence doesn't really alter that statement, but discusses a new topic. So, I didn't actually "invent something," did I?
Ok, you fail reading comprehension then, as well as being an idiot.
He actually said
I don't believe that the universe was created and is watched over by an infinite number of tiny, invisible fairies.
Tell me, which Catholic fucking priest proposed a big bang theory involving infinite fucking fairies?
we have no idea what is outside our universe. we can only test theories inside the universe.
making testable predictions is the realm of science.
making untestable predictions is the realm of religion.
the hypothesis that there is no god/higher force outside the universe is as untestable as the hypothesis that ther is any kind of god outside the universe.
as a physicist I therefore am agnostic, buy I expect religions not to make any conclusions which affect my life by conclusions from unproven fairytales
There's no need or ability to "prove a negative"; This has always been a fallacy as proven all over the world on a daily basis: People are being proven NOT to be guilty of various things, containers are proven NOT to contain things, various theories are proven NOT not be true, etc. all over the world all the time.
The actual argument you are referring to is not that it is impossible to prove a negative. As you illustrate, it is possible to have evidence of absence. Looking inside a container provides evidence of its contents, theories that make falsifiable claims can be proven false, etc. What makes proving God(s) exist different is that no evidence is presented at all. All that leaves is an argument from ignorance, which is the fallacy in informal logic non-believers are referring to when they say you can't prove God does or does not exist. If religions made falsifiable claims, then this logical fallacy would not exist.
Your second fallacy is just you projecting opinions onto people so you can easily shoot them down. Evolution is not "proven" scientifically just because we know it is a possible solution. So far it is the only proposed solution. Religion solves no questions regarding how we got here because any questioned answered by "God did it" should be promptly followed by "then how was God created?"
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
The jews is quite simple. Birds of a feather will flock together. They believed in the same thing and when given a chance they grouped up again. Basically any religion can do that, in fact some have they just haven't been as big or widespread as jews.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
WTF is this? Religious people not just claiming a factually facist souverenity of all things moral but now also claiming the same about passion, poetry and emotion? WTF, dudes?
Just because I believe in science and reason, in the scientific method and in moral values by what Dawkins calls "intelligent design" - i.e. debating, weighing and reasoning - doesn't mean I'm not passionate. I have a diploma in performing arts, love poetry and music, am pratically addicted to dancing tango (i.e. holding hot cuties in my arms while moving to passionate music ... you'd get addicted too, trust me ...) and indulge in stoic philosophy and mysticisim and enjoy studiing and debating religious philosophy and architecture.
I just don't like some religious facist telling me - or anybody else for that matter - what they are supposed to believe, think, advocate, pray, meditate, celebrate or otherwise do due to some invisible dictator in the sky or some ancient bronce-age myth written in a book most people are to dumb to interpret correctly anyway! Or telling others that they will burn in hell if they don't chop of certain parts of their penis or will go to heaven if they wear certain clothes of blow themselves up with some unbelievers!
If anything I'd say that my likes - I like to call them 'free thinkers' - are *more* passionate about most things than 'religious' people, who simply have found a sad and sorry reason to turn off their brains when it comes to difficult questions.
I'm starting to believe we need a more outspoken movement for reason and gotta go out into the street standing right next to the Salafist handing out free Qurans and the J-Wittnesses with their watchtowers and hand out free copies of Hitchens' 'God is not great' and copies of Seneca and Spinoza.
Religious factions made up of losers are starting to claim to much space in public attention, imho. This is getting out of hand and needs a little counter-action, don't you think?
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Dawkins has been challenged on this point. He knows what scientism is enough to refute the charges. Dawkins does not use scientism in every argument but he often resorts to it when he is in a corner and refutes the charges later. This is a massive failing on his part and weakens his argument. Because Dawkins in a corner relies entirely on what is known science fact. The end result is that Dawkins appears to have no confidence in moral reasoning and cannot concede that science can only ever be a contributing science officer on the bridge of human reason. Spock is well aware of the limitations of his training and does not seek executive control of the bridge. Not so Dawkins. For more details on Dawkins occasional resort to scientism under pressure see: http://www.rightreason.org/201.... Btw, Bones is a kind of moral philosopher and also a theist. Agnostic atheist speaking ; ). The basic problem with Dawkins is that he cannot find a way to acknowledge that science is only a contributor to human enterprise and cannot yet be trusted with the position of first executive. Further he cannot understand there are good reasons for this.
Basically, when you give up the certainty of Romanticism and Religion, you need to fill the void with something in order to give life meaning and direction, or else there'll be this big empty spot where your heart used to be.
Good example of that is when Japan lost WW2 and the people came to realise that the emperor was NOT the invincible descendant of the Shinto sun god. For many it was a great dissapointment and they kinda fell into a hole for a while. Many replaced this devotion to a religious emporer figure with devotion to a secular job. Japan then rose and rose.
Oops, should be:
In other words, religious people feel threatened by science, so they will adopt the fantasy that science is, or should be, more like just another religion, thereby putting science and their religion on an equal footing.
Ill stick with Seven of Nine thanks.
the hypothesis that there is no god/higher force outside the universe is as untestable as the hypothesis that ther is any kind of god outside the universe.
Here is the fundamental difference: The obvious response to the statement "The universe was created by God/The Big Bang" is "OK, so who created God/what caused the Big Bang?" Religion forbids asking that question and insists that you accept the existence of one particular interpretation of God as an article of faith. Science*/atheism recognises it as an unanswered question, and accepts the possibility that it could be answered in the future.
To cut a long story short, go and read up on Russell's Teapot.
For me, atheism is not believing in any of the various gods on offer by the world's religions, which, falsifiable or not, are so blatantly anthropomorphic that the "null hypothesis" is obviously that they are products of the human imagination. The possibility of some non-anthropomorphic "higher force" lurking before the big bang is so ill-defined that its existence isn't even non-falsifiable (how can you prove that you can't disprove something that isn't defined?) and doesn't justify calling yourself "agnostic" - its just a variation on "God moves in mysterious ways".
(NB: Disclaimer: sufficiently bad science is indistinguishable from religion.)
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
If you want to be awe inspired: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXEiKPxCSdA
This is not the sig you're looking for.
The problem is that value is not intrinsic, so it necessarily ends up varying from person to person in a largely arbitrary way. Attempts by atheists to universalize value invariably end up just creating a new god like "humanity" or "progress" that serves the exact same function as a traditional religion, merely in a more subtle fashion.
... the last refuge of belief, for the professed non-believer.
That's a greatn justification to be able to sterotype others and not yourself
Where did vacuum fluctuations come from? That's like sailing across the Atlantic and running aground at Land's End, then asking "Where did that come from?" It's just there.
Kirk? Spock? Metaphor?
Atheists do not believe in God, because there is no sound evidence for God and atheists do not believe in things without evidence. Scientists tend not to believe in things without evidence, God is a thing one could believe in, so absent evidence many scientists are atheists. But so are plenty of non-scientists. This point is simple, and is utterly disconnected from morality. Santa Claus might illustrate some sort of imperfect morality as metaphor (not that I think that this is the case) but that that doesn't mean Santa exists, or that the argument for Santa depends in some way on whether or not the Tooth Fairy is needed to fill in moral gaps in pure Santaism.
Many atheists, like many theists, have an admirable personal moral system. Indeed, since they act in morally good way without any hope or expectation of postmortem supernatural reward or punishment, one could argue that a good atheist is a much better person than a good theist whose good acts are in any part motivated by hope of reward or to avoid punishment. Atheists tend to recognize that if heaven or hell exist, they exist right here, right now, on Earth and human action is the only thing that can increase the prevalence of the one and decrease the prevalence of the other. An observation that was reportedly made several thousand years ago by the non-supernatural empirical social philosopher atheist, Siddhartha, a.k.a. Buddha.
Atheists often try to live a life that minimizes both their suffering and the suffering of those around them, and to work for a better world for all because that's the only safe and secure way to maximize a better world for themselves and those they care about. A rational morality is actually quite possible without an imaginary source of supposedly perfect magical justice in a world that is quite obviously lacking any such thing.
rgb
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
[O]ne must begin by asking: What are values? Why does man need them?
“Value” is that which one acts to gain and/or keep. The concept “value” is not a primary; it presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and for what? It presupposes an entity capable of acting to achieve a goal in the face of an alternative. Where no alternative exists, no goals and no values are possible.
...
:unquote
...
It is only an ultimate goal, an end in itself, that makes the existence of values possible. Metaphysically, life is the only phenomenon that is an end in itself: a value gained and kept by a constant process of action. Epistemologically, the concept of “value” is genetically dependent upon and derived from the antecedent concept of “life.” To speak of “value” as apart from “life” is worse than a contradiction in terms. “It is only the concept of ‘Life’ that makes the concept of ‘Value’ possible.”
The standard of value of the Objectivist ethics—the standard by which one judges what is good or evil—is man’s life, or: that which is required for man’s survival qua man. Man must choose his actions, values and goals by the standard of that which is proper to man—in order to achieve, maintain, fulfill and enjoy that ultimate value, that end in itself, which is his own life.
Since reason is man’s basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys it is the evil. To the extent to which a man is rational, life is the premise directing his actions. To the extent to which he is irrational, the premise directing his actions is death. A rational process is a moral process.
...
Values are the motivating power of man’s actions and a necessity of his survival, psychologically as well as physically.
Man’s values control his subconscious emotional mechanism that functions like a computer adding up his desires, his experiences, his fulfillments and frustrations—like a sensitive guardian watching and constantly assessing his relationship to reality. The key question which this computer is programmed to answer, is: What is possible to me?
...
An emotion is an automatic response, an automatic effect of man’s value premises. An effect, not a cause. There is no necessary clash, no dichotomy between man’s reason and his emotions—provided he observes their proper relationship. A rational man knows—or makes it a point to discover—the source of his emotions, the basic premises from which they come; if his premises are wrong, he corrects them. He never acts on emotions for which he cannot account, the meaning of which he does not understand. In appraising a situation, he knows why he reacts as he does and whether he is right. He has no inner conflicts, his mind and his emotions are integrated, his consciousness is in perfect harmony. His emotions are not his enemies, they are his means of enjoying life. But they are not his guide; the guide is his mind....Emotions are not tools of cognition.
...
The Objectivist ethics holds that there is no conflict of interests among men who do not desire the unearned, who do not make sacrifices nor accept them, who deal with one another as traders, giving value for value.
--The Objectivist Ethics, Ayn Rand
You're projecting. You're trying to conflate what YOU would do with what some "other" would do. You are engaging in a common fundie tactic of pretending your own fault is that of your "enemy". You assume that atheists "give a fuck".
From one simple observation you claim to know how I behave and what I believe, and you accuse me of projecting?!
> What about non-religious people forcing their views onto you or other people?
This only manifests in preventing theocrats from running around like members of ISIS forcing their views on everyone else.
The facts do not support your argument, for example the situation in Ukraine is clearly not about theocrats. And the same is true of many (and arguably most) of the recent major conflicts in the world.
We have certain laws and founding ideals that are contrary to the theocrat mentality.
You do realise that those "laws and founding ideals" are an example of the government forcing their views onto other people?
"I reject the idea that science is logical, purely rational, that it is detached and value-free, and that it is, for all these reasons, morally superior. Spock-ism gives us a false picture of science."
Reject it all you want, but the scientific method IS logical, purely rational, detached, and value-free. In fact, that's only THE WHOLE POINT and why it's useful. An irrational science that accounts for values is no longer science; it's just more un- or anti-scientific blathering.
But then, it's exactly for this reason that science is not "morally superior." Since science is value-free it cannot possibly declare itself to have such a value.
In the end it sounds like what this author really wants is for people to consider values in addition to science, but he doesn't realize that there are other, value-considering approaches out there. He's hijacking science unnecessarily.
Science should be conducted in a "Spockian" manner, however difficult it may be to do that. That is the only way to get to truth. But it's absurd to say we don't find meaning in these truths. Knowing the true vastness of the universe is so much more inspiring than imagining God walking around above our heads in the heavens, with Earth as the center of focus. Imagining the evolution of life over vast eons is way more mind-blowing than imagining God, like a cheap magician, poofing things into existence. That some people are too small-minded to see it, doesn't make that the fault of how science is, and must, be done.
It is a Spockian universe. There is no intrinsic "meaning" to it, except that which we as individuals ascribe to it. Allow me to quote, (or paraphrase, if my memory doesn't serve me), the great philosopher, Robert Crumb:
Flaky Foont: "What does it all mean?
Mr. Natural: "It don't mean shit."
Those profound words have stuck with me since I first read them, as a child, back in the late sixties/early seventies. Nihilism is not a philosophy of despair. It merely shows us we have to derive our own meanings.
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
At no point does he state that there are two things he disbelieves in (within this conversation thread - I haven't checked his lifetime utterances)
He does state 'either of those', implying two things, but that refers to his state of belief on existance of a god, and his state of belief on "a universe created and watched over" by fairies. Oh look, the 'and' refers to the actions of the fucking fairies.
Which still don't appear to exist.
his state of belief on "a universe created and watched over" by fairies. Oh look, the 'and' refers to the actions of the fucking fairies.
The actual phrase is:
I don't believe that the universe was created and is watched over by an infinite number of tiny, invisible fairies.
He isn't stating that the universe was created by fairies as you imply. There are two things in that phrase that he doesn't believe in:
1) That the universe was created
2) (the universe is) watched over by an infinite number of tiny, invisible fairies.
Which still don't appear to exist.
A tedious straw man, nobody here is claiming that they do.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Your interpretation is illogical and incorrect. Your reading comprehension is as absent as the fairies. You should find an adult to help you with this.
An "adult"? Are you speaking from experience? It appears that not just any adult will do. I suggest you try a tutor next time.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
I wish I had understood this better as a teenager. Bertrand Russel said that every philosopher makes at least one assumption, usually not acknowledged, and builds from there. As Albert Einstein said: ..."
http://www.sacred-texts.com/ao...
"It is true that convictions can best be supported with experience and clear thinking. On this point one must agree unreservedly with the extreme rationalist. The weak point of his conception is, however, this, that those convictions which are necessary and determinant for our conduct and judgments cannot be found solely along this solid scientific way.
For the scientific method can teach us nothing else beyond how facts are related to, and conditioned by, each other. The aspiration toward such objective knowledge belongs to the highest of which man is capabIe, and you will certainly not suspect me of wishing to belittle the achievements and the heroic efforts of man in this sphere. Yet it is equally clear that knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be. One can have the clearest and most complete knowledge of what is, and yet not be able to deduct from that what should be the goal of our human aspirations. Objective knowledge provides us with powerful instruments for the achievements of certain ends, but the ultimate goal itself and the longing to reach it must come from another source. And it is hardly necessary to argue for the view that our existence and our activity acquire meaning only by the setting up of such a goal and of corresponding values. The knowledge of truth as such is wonderful, but it is so little capable of acting as a guide that it cannot prove even the justification and the value of the aspiration toward that very knowledge of truth. Here we face, therefore, the limits of the purely rational conception of our existence.
But it must not be assumed that intelligent thinking can play no part in the formation of the goal and of ethical judgments. When someone realizes that for the achievement of an end certain means would be useful, the means itself becomes thereby an end. Intelligence makes clear to us the interrelation of means and ends. But mere thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends. To make clear these fundamental ends and valuations, and to set them fast in the emotional life of the individual, seems to me precisely the most important function which religion has to perform in the social life of man. And if one asks whence derives the authority of such fundamental ends, since they cannot be stated and justified merely by reason, one can only answer: they exist in a healthy society as powerful traditions, which act upon the conduct and aspirations and judgments of the individuals; they are there, that is, as something living, without its being necessary to find justification for their existence. They come into being not through demonstration but through revelation, through the medium of powerful personalities. One must not attempt to justify them, but rather to sense their nature simply and clearly.
As I see currently it, sets of assumptions ("meme complexes"?) are almost like living beings...
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
of course it was bad interpretation. "Survival of the fittest" and "selective breeding" are not eugenics (which was a popular idea in the US and other places before hitler). Darwinism, as you want to call it as a derogatory term, does not say anywhere that you exterminate a particular population. Hitler supporters want to call it Darwinism rather than the antisemitic genocide that it was. Your view of darwinism is about as credible as creationism.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Albeit he says so, Mr. Spock is not at all "logical, purely rational, that it is detached and value-free," as the OP says. On the other hand, "official" religions have not endeavored into intellectually challenging arguments for several centuries now. They are becoming tedious, to the point that many scientists, even if they are not atheists, consider their religious commitment detached from their work.
". . . I reject the idea that science is logical, purely rational, that it is detached and value-free, and that it is, for all these reasons, morally superior. Spock-ism gives us a false picture of science. It gives us a false picture of humankind's situation. We are not disinterested knowers. The natural world is not a puzzle. ... The big challenge for atheism is not God; it is that of providing an alternative to Spock-ism. We need an account of our place in the world that leaves room for value." "
But true science at its heart must be truly rational or it is not really science at all.
If you don't see natural world as a puzzle then you are not seeing it scientifically.
If we are choosing archetypes for science then I would choose Spock as a pretty good one.
The real truth should be on the other foot - far more can be achieved by analysing emotions and religion and empathy using 'cold' empirical logic.
Human thought and emotion are extremely logical, love is a beautiful example of object driven logic.
Religion on the other hand, to much logic and it crumbles to dust and blows away in the wind.
Another thing that logic highlights is that religion has almost nothing to do with God, it is really all about total social control, ie the enslavement of the simple minded heard, the sheeple (baaa baaa...).
Ultimately science and logic reaches the Anthropic Question and this basically proves that God exists - however the real thing isn't anything like the God/Gods of religion. - This real scientific 'God' doesn't care about good or evil, humans and the Earth are pretty irrelevant to it, it doesn't have a mind in the way we understand it, you cant talk to it. In fact it is dead, it only existed during the moment of the big bang - a mindless force (a quantum order seeking force), a wave of expanding energy, physics....
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
Your reading comprehension is ridiculous. Clearly the original author missed some punctuation. The correct way of writing his claim, and the only logical way anyone can honestly interpret it, is as follows:
I don't believe that the universe was created, and is watched over, by an infinite number of tiny, invisible fairies.
I don't know who you think you are trying to persuade with your comical interpretation of the position, as anyone with an ounce of honesty will clearly see that you are trying very hard to make a very childish point.
But then you don't really have a reputation of honest discussion, so this isn't really surprising.
As a mathematician I find that I am struck by the boundary between what mathematics and research tell me and what ethicists (religious and otherwise) tell me. The best example of the conundrum we rationalists face is how to claim that a behavior is moral when the underlying systems model tells us it is not. Consider the classic question of which is "better", the old testament (admittedly an arbitrary source, but bear with me) rule of "an eye for an eye" compared with the new testament rule to "turn the other cheek". Extensive exploration of the long term consequences of these two strategies for life are conducted under the guise of game theory, most specifically, the extensive simulations of the prisoner's dilemma (made famous by the book of the same name). The massive hoops and artificial framing necessary to make simulated evolution favor turning the other cheek are strong indications of the strength of the simpler, eye for an eye strategy. Perhaps what makes us most human (whatever that is) is when we embrace, for our own illogical reasons, turning the other cheek in the face of the systems models that tell us to exact an eye for an eye. But the price we pay is the price of the person who leaps from a bridge hoping to fly like a bird when the systems analysis says it won't work. Because evolution operating on memes will punish the society that follows the gentler turn the other cheek in the face of a society that exacts the eye for an eye. Is extinction the price we pay for the more "moral" and gentler turning the other cheek? I hope not, but keep the eye I have left wide open just in case.
"There is no god but allah" - well, they got it half right.
“Values, life meanings, purposes, and qualities slip through science like a sea slips through the nets of fishermen. Yet man swims in this sea, so he cannot exclude it from his purview. This is what was meant when we noted earlier that a scientific world view is in principle impossible. Taken in its entirety, the world is not as science says it is; it is as science, philosophy, religion, the arts, and everyday speech say it is. Not science but the sum of man's symbol systems, of which science is but one, is the measure of things.
With science itself, there can be no quarrel. Scientism is another matter. Whereas science is positive, contenting itself with reporting what it discovers, scientism is negative. It goes beyond the actual findings of science to deny that other approaches to knowledge are valid and other truths true. In doing so it deserts science in favor of metaphysics-- bad metaphysics as it happens, for as contention that there are no truths save those of science is not itself a scientific truth, in affirming it scientism contradicts itself. It also carries marks of a religion-- a secular religion, resulting from overextrapolation from science, that has seldom numbered great scientists among its votaries.”
Huston Smith, Forgotten Truth: The Common Vision of the World's Religions
Wow, almost 800 comments and NO ONE even mentions the word "mythology" when speaking of religion. Atheists, like myself, reject mythoogy as "Truth". All religion is mythology. The Romans believed as hard about their Gods as modern Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Wickens, Satanists, etc. do about their current God or Gods. So did the Greeks, the Phoenicians, the Aztecs, the Egyptians, and all the societies that had religions before them. What do we call all those completely valid at the time beliefs today? Mythology. Why? Because it was replaced by a new more accepted one? Nope. Sorry. Don't buy it. Anything involving the supernatural is mythology, including all current religious texts. Sorry. They are books of parables.
Another thing that a lot of atheists exhibit is a lack of trust in "blind faith", the "because I said so" schtick. Again, no.
The morality argument is tired. If religion was so great at instilling morality then all criminals would be atheists. Enough said. STFU about religion and morality. More atrocious things have been done in the name of religion than for any other reason in human history since religions came about. Especially, the current Abrahamic sorts. We've got more than a few live demonstrations of this lunacy going on right now! Hypocrites, the lot of them.
I am also not missing anything by not having religion or some "higher belief" in my life. Meaning to life comes from inside you. The joy you take from what you do everyday. Knowing that we all live in a wonderful universe that is full of mystery. That there might be no limit to the things we still need to learn about our universe in order to understand it. Everyone has the capacity to find meaning in their own life no matter what their beliefs are. If the only meaning you derive from life comes from religion, then I am sad. There's plenty more places it can come from. The proof is all around.
P.S. To limit confusion I put the links in to definitions of words that may have different meanings to different people. I don't care what you think the word means I am going by what it means. When you invent your own language you decide what words mean. If we're using English we go by the definitions. I have also read most modern religious texts (for analysis and comprehension, not just skimmed and put down) including, Torah, Bible, Qu'ran, many Hindu texts and Buddhist texts. I have attended many denominations of services and rituals and enjoy learning above all. I am not closed minded and tend to make deliberate, educated decisions while keeping in mind that new information may change things in the future.
The only question I..
Ever thought was hard...
Was do I like Kirk?
Or do I like Picard?
And no, it isn't deep, nor profound. But it is funny.
I like that quote, even though it was a bit difficult to digest. The English language has evolved in the past century in a way that demands much less of the reader and conveys much less complexity and accuracy.
I wanted to add, somewhere, my $.02 about "faith." I'm told that early (1st century) Christians used what-we-translate-as-faith to be a kind of radical trust. More verb than noun. A trust in an idea, not fully understood or rationalized, that allowed them to lead lives that were unselfish, bold/foolhardy, non-violent extremists, anti-establishment, share-the-wealth sorts of people. The idea is that for them, faith was incompatible with certainty. Conviction deletes the possibility of faith. They did not have proof of deity, a consistent doctrine, etc. Reason was encouraged and appealed to, but knowledge was known to be incomplete.
What most people think about religion is that it is a doctrine (teaching or authority-based knowledge) that requires unwavering belief without question or reason. (My perspective here is Christianity rather than all religion, but I suspect that most major world religions are similar in this way.) Yet this is probably not a genuine or original form of any given religion but instead what human nature and politics have deformed religions into over time. People want to be told what to believe, and people who desire power cannot help but use fear and shame to great effect. I think modern-day Christianity is more about manipulating people and in most respects is the exact opposite of its earliest incarnations.
Science today has some of the same struggles. Science itself is an art, since the more precisely one tries to define it, the more inaccurate that definition becomes. Scientific knowledge is a little bit of an oxymoron since science can be described as a tool for disproving what is not true more than it is a means of proving what is true. This is true on all scales of complexity, but it's most evident at the reductionist frontier of particle physics and cosmology. The standard model is not logically consistent with general relativity, yet both theories are spectacularly successful. And there are problems of naturalness, etc. It is not tenable, not reasonable or scientific, to think that our most successful scientific theories are set to last. Modifications need to be made, and probably in big, fundamental, philosophically-challenging ways. The history of the development of physics is full of cases like this and physics is by no means "done." But people are eager to philosophize based on "what scientists know", and they are eager for answers from authority.
Authentic science, like authentic religion, is not authority-based. I'm not saying anything negative about consensus, just that there is always room for new theories and new experiments regardless of credentials. Data does not respect authority. And I don't believe there needs to be any contradiction between the two approaches of religion and science, as long as we are referring to religion as a searching process not a placating drug. Both science and religion address the basic problem of doing the best we can today with what little we know. Good scientists know that good questions are better than "right" answers, and good ... what, "religious" folk ??? (atheists included) ... know that it's better to be loving than right.
I suppose most of these ideas come from two books that might seem diametrically-opposed: The Underground Church, and Dreams of a Final Theory.
atheism is not a religion.
The rest of your post is 3rd grade tripe.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
In an ideal world, human beings could be motivated by appeals to great ideals. Some people are: I have to admire the 'red martyrs' of communism who accept death for their beliefs with no hope of resurrection, unlike the 'black martyrs' of the Church. However in reality most people will rapidly drift back to being selfish. Therefore the prospect of eternal reward and punishment provide an external goad that, within the religious worldview, is a reality that will encourage people to stay on the strait and narrow. Of course it may not be true - but if it is, it is a reality for the believers.
Atheism offers no such goad. It has to construct a vision for the future, and depend on politicians to evangelise for it. This has not gone well...
You can play with punctuation all you want, but you are stuck with two clauses joined by an and. You're just traveling terrain we've already passed over, and nothing has changed.
I don't think you can identify what constittues honest discussion. What I bring to discussions is typically unwanted facts to puncture the BS coming from people like you. You are blinded to this by your fringe poiltics.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
It is when it tells people what [not] to believe.
Fundamental atheists have zero respect for tolerating other people's different belief -- they arrogantly assume theirs is the "correct" one.
Odd. You're careful about the "claiming" caveat when discussing religions, but not those other groups. Consider Jerry Thompson: http://dlib.nyu.edu/undercover...
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
On another topic, what do you think is the explanation for the Jews? How do you think they managed to survive for more than 4,000 years as a people with a common identity despite multiple deportations to far off foreign lands, pogroms, and even attempted genocide, only to reassemble in their native land and reform the country of Israel after being nonexistent for 2,000 years? Are there other examples of a similar nature that you can think of? How do you suppose that is?
You're kidding, right? If Jews are proof of the existence of God, then it's just proof that God hates the Jews and just loves to shit on them, century after century.
I have to laugh at the pathetic modern assertion that there IS some basis for morals/standards/ethics/values etc in some biological-mandate or evolutionary imperatives built-into biological systems to help further advance evolution... This is a desperate claim that an undirected system CAN establish such irrational mechanisms
Seems to me that among social animals, the society that can work together will be stronger and have more of a chance to survive than the one with no altruism at all.
You should go on a stand-up comedy tour.
...scratch that. SoylentNews turns out to be just as bad as /. in this regard. They posted this same damn story, too, and the head of the site has stated they don't want to be a tech site at all.
Instead, my last hope rests with pipedot, which is much more like an old-fashioned /. with a focus on sci/tech instead of flamebait crap. Hell, the sci/tech stories even get more comments on pipedot than they do on SoylentNews, which says a lot about the community.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
The only person blinded by anything here is you coldie. Too many fairies in your eye, or is it angels I can never remember?
Perhaps the fairy dust stole your memory?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
You're playing semantic games. I don't think you're actually stupid enough to believe what you wrote. My post obviously referred to the blue fairies creating and then watching over the universe.
You're just trolling because you are intellectually bankrupt.