lisarea

Define faith.

Or: Humans are pattern-seeking machines, and like to think they understand the world around them. This explains the evolving mythologies in human societies, designed to explain how the world around them works. As human knowledge expands, certain mythologies are cast off.

Do you mean penultimate here, or ultimate?

It strikes me that your premises are a bit egocentric.

It's difficult to come up with real general principles about atheism. It's not a belief, but a lack of belief. There are very few positive statements you can make about atheists as a group.

That said, let me just present a hypothesis of my own, which, I might add, I don't necessarily ascribe to myself:

Atheism accepts that self- and community preservation instincts are just that. Instincts. Right and wrong, evolutionary self-interests, and the compulsion to propagate and defend the 'community' occur in ever-widening circles. The strongest compulsion is self-preservation, then family, community, species, etc. Because of the complexity of higher thought processes, these 'groups' are not always strictly geographic or bloodline-related. So, there is an element of protectionism and a need to further ideological communities as well. The needs of these communities are weighted, and calculated according to the type and gravity of the threats to them. The ultimate goal, in a nutshell, is to preserve what is important to us. We are a complicated animal, and we live in complicated societies. We play a part in these complicated societies by trying to make them right. We have different ways of doing this, and different ideas about what that is, and by participating, we help further the overall goals of these societies. Individuals are really only a tiny part of a huge series of interconnected systems and metasystems.

Christianity, at least as it's commonly practiced in the US, places more weight on the importance of self. God loves you and has a deep and personal interest in your well-being, your obedience to him, and your behaviors on earth. Your beliefs and your behaviors are of incredible importance to this supreme super-being. You are not simply a lifeform playing a part in a larger system, but the personal teacher's pet of an anthropomorphic superentity who is responsible for everything that exists.

Which worldview is more egocentric?

It's a little disingenuous to lump evolution, creation, and 'aliens' all in the same category; and I still don't know what you mean by faith. Evolution is science. It's falsifiable, and scientists accept the disproval of hypotheses as readily as they do proof, at least in theory. Faith is not an element in science, and in fact, is contradictory to its purposes. Most of those who argue strongly for certain scientific theories do so solely because the evidence for those theories is so strong. (That being why they're called theories and all.)

Proudatheist

Let's take your basic "Assertions"

In reality, these are not assertions which would be universally accepted by all humankind. They are, rather, assumptions on your part, based on your faith or belief in something that is inherently unprovable.

1. We all have faith in some thing....This is patently untrue; I, as an atheist, have faith in only one "thing"....myself. I have no faith whatsoever in any religion, "higher power", invisible spirit, invisible realms. I am endlessly fascinated by world religions, but I, as an educated person, have no agreement whatsoever in their belief systems.

2. Humans have a natural desire to know the world about them inside and out.....Anthropologically speaking, this is an untruth. The vast majority of people have no desire to "know" the world about them; rather, they take it on faith what their parents, their elders, their priests, indoctrinate them with. Ordinarily, these lessons in "knowing" the world are used to inculcate belief systems in young people so that they can easily controlled and kept within the flock of believers. Most religions are based on a fear of the future; perhaps the universal here is human fear about the unknown. It's always easier to believe in somebody else's system of beliefs (religion) than to actually experience life and the world on your own.

3. Prayer.......you should get your tuition money returned from Brown University. They did a bad job of educating you in mathematics, statistics, probable chance, human psychology, and why it is that if you ask for something in prayer, the statistical chances of getting it are better than the chances you have in a casino. There is no intelligent way to say that you just because you thought about something you wanted and prayed to some invisible deity, that there is any cause and effect between the two. How about the times you prayed for something and didn't get it? Or don't they count? You're in the grip of a belief system that is neither universal, nor proveable and yet is responsible for endless suffering and chaos (because it does not encourage people to think for themselves).

4. ALL belief systems (religions) are based on faith......faith is nothing more than the willing suspension of belief by a group. Faith has no grounding in objective truth, by its very definition.

5. Perhaps with more education and debriefing, your fundamentalist philosophy will diminish its grip on your ability to think clearly, rationally, and as an individual. Obviously, for you to make the leap to atheism would alienate your family, friends, etc. Most people would rather keep their true atheistic thoughts to themselves than hurt the ones they love.

Shake

While I think particularly braces_for_impact has done a nice job in rebutting your post, I've got some more to say about your hypothesis, which immediately struck me as flawed.Throughout human history, we have been creating and throwing off the supernatural. Gods were invented to explain phenomena which could not be explained. We think these primitive cultures as being silly for their gods (of things like weather, fire, etc), since we have scientifically explained things now. But this sort of thought seems to be ingrained into us as a species, and many millenia of "religious inertia" (if you will) is not going to work its way out. I wonder if you are familiar with the ideas of memes and memetics. Look into it!

Your first conclusion is a double-edged sword that cuts equally against religion and secular science. Although, as I stated above, science now answers many more questions for us. I will concede that it also creates new questions along the way.

From your second conclusion, I fail to see how the atheist wanting to better him/herself equates to there being a "higher than self," as you put it. I think you need to define that term better. Even the smartest people in the world could learn more about a myriad of things.

Since you digressed, I would like to tackle this as well:OK, this may sound like a nitpick but ... the odds may have been mind-bogglingly large against the right chemicals coming together, but they were far from infinite! Please don't make the mistake of mistaking the incredibly large to the infinite. Any good mathematician will tell you that for any large number you give, they can make a bigger one, and both pale in comparison to the infinite (and don't get me started on orders of infinity)! I mean, the odds against winning the Powerball are staggeringly high, and yet people have won! Not as high you say? You're right. But so what? It's just about magnitude then. A really, really, really, ... etc., small chance of something happening is still greater than NO chance of it happening! Nope! It's chance.

Anyway, other universes are inheirently unknowable to us! Heck, according to some theories, even some parts of our own Universe may be permanently unknowable to us!

OK, I'll quit now that you've got some more to mull over, and before this becomes a science thread.

Gawdawful

I would be interested to know how specifically your god answered you. If not the "I prayed for money, then I found some." type answer, then perhaps more like my Baptist minister and his wife in Colorado. They moved from a very large church in Texas to this little church of a few hundred people in a community of a little over a half thousand people. The minister's wife told us "God told us to move here." I asked her how. She said "Well, we prayed and prayed about the opening here and then we moved here, if God had not wanted us to do it, he would've stopped it somehow."

I don't find that sort of thinking to be very logical, nor to be evidence of any sort of positive communication. So, what were the means of communications from God to you? And... how do you know it was from God?Infinite odds is pretty high, I'd bet the odds are way less than infinite.We could very well be an anomaly in a finite universe, but not in infinite universes. There it would be infinite odds that there would be other intelligent life.


Warrenokie

Howard

Hello 4God and welcome to the SecWeb. There’s no sense in my repeating what others have already posted, since I pretty much agree with them (especially with braces_for_impact, good job) But you are making a mistake imposing your values on us. When you say we all have “faith” in something, you are raising a huge red flag and grossly misrepresenting our position.

We have reasons to believe (or not believe) as we do. For example, I don’t have “faith” in the laws of thermodynamics, and I certainly don’t worship them, but I believe they provide a pretty accurate description of reality as regards heat conversion (among other things). And I have very good reasons for believing this way

There are quite a few excellent debaters on this site who have honed their skills pretty well... and can be pretty rough on theists (although not personally, the mods keep a tight rein.) So you might tread lightly until you get the feel of the place.

Eudaimonist

If these are assertions, do you care to back them up?

Hypothesis: Given that humans do exhibit faith in a variety of ways and they also are curious little buggers, then it stands to reason that if the natural world is the only world, and that there is no supernatural world, then the human population will cast off any illusions of a supernatural world-because it simply does not exist.

It doesn't stand to my reason that this would have already happened. Perhaps it will happen one day, but why by now?

2. [...] if there is no supernatural world, then "self" is the penultimate being in the universe(notwithstanding any alien lifeforms).

Please define "self". And did you mean "penultimate" or "ultimate"?

So the discovery of self-the perfection of self-is the true religion of its adherents.

Huh? Please explain what you mean by "true religion", and defend this claim.

However, [...] I think I've found an interesting dillema(sp?) for the athiest. As a Christian, I feel perfectly content to claim:all humans seek a higher than self because higher than self is what has created human life. As an athiest, that's purposterous. Yet, the search for perfection of self seems to be to be the same search, previously stated, only in a slightly different form.

If I understand you correctly, this does not follow. Seeking to perfect the self is not the same as seeking some entity separate from and above yourself. It is seeking to accomplish something implicit to your own nature.

I'll illustrate this point with an example: A child has the biological potential to become an adult. This potential is implicit in the biological nature of the child; it is not something that comes from outside the child.

You are looking at the actuality of the moment and not seeing that potentiality is also part of (or implicit in) the same entity.

Barcode

One doesn't need to attend a first rate establishment in order to gain a first class education. Placing that to one side, can you please elucidate regarding your Jesus-test, and the manner in which he decided to prove himself.

i: Not necessarily. Can you state this for approximately 6.5 billion people? If I have faith, then it's faith derived from experience and understanding of the world - regarding other-worldly concepts, it simply is not there.

ii: I disagree, and rather sadly. There are far too many people comfortable with their place in the world, with no desire to pick up a book and educate themselves -- some people freely admit to not wishing to explore new things.

Some people are also gullible and prone to accepting that for which there is no evidence -- perhaps this is due to a lack of education and understanding of how science works (it can be difficult for the average person to understand the difference between pseudo-science and science - throw in some fancy words, numbers and statistics, and somebody with limited understanding will begin believing there exists evidence for the paranormal).

Some people simply desire to believe in something greater than themselves: I know, I'm one of these people. But you see, the issue isn't whether or not you like where the evidence leads -- sometimes I think I'd be happier believing some entity loved me, would not fail me and so forth ... but that really does not seem honest in light of what I can observe, experience and understand about the world in which I happen to inhabit.

Such a desire can override reasonable thought.

If it is an empirical impossibility to state x theory is correct, then you should not proceed to argue for that prayer can produce a veridical result. The conclusion does not follow from the premise - you argue we cannot know everything (and this is reasonable - a great deal of the enjoyment I derive from science is learning new things about the natural world), and then you proceed to argue that in spite of this, you have evidence your prayers have been answered.

It's not what I would call a sound argument. Yes, questions exist; but it is unecessary to postulate more complex explanations for that which is explicable naturally or psychologically.

With regards to prayer, I have the following questions.

i) What criteria do you use to distinguish between your own voice and communication from Jesus/God?
ii) What do you think constitutes an answer to prayer?

I'm not sure I follow -- I do think I am my own God, but don't confuse that with my thinking I am special and self important. In my view, it's more about taking responsibility for everything that happens in my life, and realizing that if I screw up I can't blame Satan -- and when I achieve something, I can't give thanks to God. It all comes down to me.

BTW, penultimate is what comes before the final - a far better phrase would have been " the self is the ultimate being in the universe."

You seek answers spiritually -- I search for them through science and the tools available to me in the world. The two are in very different realms. I seek explanations -- not nice feelings or being happy. I have solid reasons to believe that science is the best method we have for understanding the world. You may of course, disagree -- but don't confuse the search for explanations about the *world* with the search for explanations about *yourself.*

Evolutionist

actually- i'm interested how you tested jesus- which tests did you use, and how did he pass them?

the mythical jesus failed all of mine- as did the bible god and the bible itself, so im very interested.

Angrillori

I think the test is like when I was a Fundy. Do I still believe in Jebus even when all the evidence, reason, and logic are against it?

If I can still believe in Jebus, I (and Jebus) have been tested like metal in the fire, and passed.

That was how the party line went. Ugh. Rewards for denying reality. Rewards for willful ignorance. Belief in spite of the evidence. My former self revolts myself.

So, in this vein, I too would like to know what the OP meant by 'test.' I would like to know how the 'test' was administered, and graded.

Thanks in advance.

nessa20x

quote
all humans seek a higher than self because higher than self is what has created human life.

A higher than self created you?? What an egocentric idea. What are you to good to have come about by mere physics and biological processes. Religion serves to provide answers to questions that science has not yet answered, however the answers are not backed by anything solid...like evidence. It would be better I think to keep your mind open and read some scientific theories...such as evolution, before you go spouting off.

After all, most of the atheists in here, myself included have taken it upon ourselves to read your pretty storybook and that of several other religions as well. As far as faith in something, if you mean those things that are backed by evidence, then yes. If you claim that I have faith in the supernatural in any way, as in a higher power, god, or souls, you are sadly mistaken. The reason for my acceptance of the theory of evolution, has nothing to do with blind faith. It has to do with studying the facts and evidence that supports its, as well as studying any contradictory theories. It certainly isn't blind faith that leads to a scientific theory, and you insult all the people who dedicate their lives to scientific research.

quote
the human population will cast off any illusions of a supernatural world-because it simply does not exist

And this is what atheists do. There is no proof of even something so vital to religion as a human soul. The entire population will doubtless never cast off religion as a whole because it comforts people when facing death...whether their own or a loved ones, it gives answers to questions that science cannot answer yet, and it provides a moral structure complete with punishment and praise. Society as a whole may not be able to rid itself of these crutches, but I don't need to be discriminated against because I don't need them, and science should not be hindered by people opposing its findings at every turn because of religious fanatics who can't change their deluded beliefs. If you don't want to learn new things about the world...fine...but I do and I'll be damned if I'll let a bunch of bible thumpers dictate what is and what isn't science. That's for the people with PH'Ds in scientific fields...not religious ones.

Remember there was a time when everyone obeyed the church and it got to say what was appropriate to learn and teach...it was called the dark ages.