DMB

Ignoring the irrelevant interruption, I think we all agree that it makes little sense to talk of an atheistic world view. All we can usefully discuss is the world views of individual atheists. It may be just as true to say this of theists. A lot of them may spout the same stuff, but when it comes to thinking about and weighing things, they seem to come up with a great diversity of views.

Contrary to the opinion of many theists, in my experience atheists don't base their philosophy on the non-existence of a god or gods, much less on hatred of these mythical beings. It's true that we happen to live in a world where it is hard to avoid other people's beliefs in imaginary friends, lords of evil and eternal something or other. But if we happened to live where no-one believed this stuff or had even heard of it, we would still have all sorts of questions about the world and our place in it, as well as our relations with the rest of humanity and the other species with which we share our world.

In practice, as a European I am fortunate to live in a society where religion intrudes much less than it did in the days of my youth and I am only occasionally forced into proximity with it.

I long ago gave up bothering about the existence of gods, but I have never stopped wanting to know more about "life, the universe and everything" or about history. I long ago embraced humanism, and believe that we have certain duties to our fellow human beings, including posterity. Over the years my world view has changed in both small and in important ways, mainly because of new things I have learnt. I don't expect it to stop changing for as long as I live. So it is a work in progress.

[edited to remove a wrong word; must have been wool-gathering]

[ July 28, 2002: Message edited by: DMB ]</p>

Fiach

[QUOTE]Originally posted by David Mathews:
[QB]Hello Everyone,

The most remarkable thing about this thread is the near total absence of any worldviews among these atheists.

(Fiach) you need remedial reading or you skipped over my post. My post indicates that Atheists have a whole spectrum of different worldviews because we are thinkers. Any group with a unified world view are either mentally retarded, robots, or brainwashed slaves.

I don't imagine that there are any atheists who are more rational than theists:

Atheists are as ignorant about reality as theists.

(Fiach) That is a blanket statement indicating your ignorance and bigotry. Any individual Atheist may be as rational as a given theist. An irrational atheist is certainly no less rational than Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell. Atheism is just not believing in invisible improbable things. It has little to do with views on economics, politics, science, or math. The exception is Muslim/Christian Fundmentalists whose mindset is of necessity irrational because they accept an irrational universe of magic and pretend beings.

Atheists make as many guesses as theists. Atheists possess as many errors as theists.

(Fiach) Humans make guesses and errors. Only bigots claim to be errorless.

Atheists are just as imperceptive, and their perceptions are just as fallible, as theists.

(Fiach) On many topics such as economics they may be equal. However in science, Atheists are vastly superior generally. And that is because they are fully functional in logic so that they can understand evolution, star and planetary formation, plate tectonics, the 4.5 billion year age of Earth. Most European Christians also are rational enough to understand these facts. In America however 48% are fundamentalists, and reject nearly all scientific facts of major importance. That is because they accept an irrational fairy tale called Genesis 1,2. But they fail to understand sea floor spreading, continental drift, radioisotope decay, fluoroluminescence chronology, magnetic polar reversals, DNA sequence changes that fuel evolution, etc. Instead they believe Genesis which is thoroughly debunked by science. If you take out the fundmentalists whom I consider basically crazy people, the rest of Christian/Muslims are relatively rational.

You all have demonstrates that Atheism's claim of rationality is an empty, meaningless and utterly false boast.

(Fiach) Crikey are you daft? Atheism is just a lack of a belief. It requires rationalism to reject unproven hypothesis that lack evidence, such a God, Bigfoot, leprechauns, and little green men from Mars. Do we boast about being Atheists? Of course we do. We are proud of it. Theism and religion require a defect in reason and some serious deficit in intelligence. Nobody should brag about being stupid.

If anyone disagrees, please do speak.

(Fiach) Aye, I disagree with all that you say, and probably much more if you say anymore.

Best Regards,

(Fiach) Aye, and to you. But I hope that someday you can understand a bit more about science and logical syllogisms to be able to think critically, analyse all data/input, and question all assumptions, ALL. You are missing so much of the real beauty and majesty of the REAL universe by diverting your mind with magical thinking and imaginary things.

Fiach

ksagnostic

When it comes down to it, I became an agnostic when I realized that religious beliefs were largely dependent upon geography and upbringing, and I saw no religion having empirical support over any other.

I remain an agnostic 30 years later, although I think all anthropomorphic deities with names are all equally highly improbable. I see no reason to believe that the universe is an intelligent artifact, but I don't think that the possibility has been eliminated, or that it is necessarily untestable.

I don't see my lack of belief in a personal deity as defining of my approach to theological issues. I don't believe in god concepts because I am an agnostic who employs a skeptical approach to knowledge claims. I don't believe in bigfoot for the same reason. I don't believe in extraterrestrial life for the same reason, although I think that the existence of ETL is quite probable. The process (agnosticism) is more important to me, and descriptive of me, than the conclusion (provisional atheism). Others, who have utilized a similar approach, choose to define themselves by their conclusion, even if it is tentative, and therefore call themselves atheists.

That's cool.

Edited to change dieties to deities. Didn't mean to make a goddess of Jenny Craig.

[ July 28, 2002: Message edited by: ksagnostic ]

[ July 28, 2002: Message edited by: ksagnostic ]

[ July 28, 2002: Message edited by: ksagnostic ]</p>

David Mathews

Hello Fiach,

David: I am pleased to see that you do consider Christians and Muslims relatively rational, as you should because a whole lot of us do appreciate and understand the scientific principles mentioned in the paragraph above.

Best Regards,

David Mathews

rebelnerd

My worldview is fairly simple, I think the world just is. I just happen at this present time to be a human who is alive on this rock orbiting Sol. I've done the religion spectrum from RC to Protestant to Agnostic to Atheist. The only thing I have really figured out by this point is that if I play nice with other humans, they will most of the time play nice with me. Barring a traumatic body-damaging event or disease, I should be around until my eighties. I plan to learn as much as I can, try to improve things for myself and others and to teach my child to do the same. I also believe that we should take care of this rock we live on as so far, it's the only one we've got. I'm not a total tree-hugger, but I also don't believe in shitting where I eat.

I would love to see in my lifetime humans figure out that they no longer need to kill other humans for mythical sky-daddies or any other reason. I am very doubtful of this happening. In the meantime, I plan to enjoy what life I have and try to learn more about this world and it's wonders.

Filo

[ July 29, 2002: Message edited by: Filo Quiggens ]</p>

scumble

David, this is not an argument about the rationality of atheism. Perhaps you might like to talk about the subject of the thread a bit more?

Everyone else - I know atheism does not promote a particular line of thought, but it's interesting how common threads emerge.

Jamie_L

David,

"Atheists are rational" and "atheism is rational" are two different statements. To associate the two is essentially an ad homenim - you put forth a statement about an arguement by using a quality of the arguer. This is, in genreal, a logical falicy.

Whether atheists are rational or not in general is not relevant to whether a lack of belief in gods is a rational position.

On another note: one interesting thing about a discussion of "worldviews" is that religion generally tries to bring as many things as possible under one big "worldview": i.e., religions seek to explain scientific questions, moral questions, as well as providing frameworks for societies, direction for people to live their lives.

It is possible to separate these things into different, independent philosophies. My view of metaphysical naturalism, for instance, need make no comment whatsoever on my moral philosophy. I have a separate philosophy for that.

It is a mistake to assume a priori that this is a weakness in metaphysical naturalism. Because religion often indocrinates people to believe these things must be related, religious people often go "Aha! Your philosophy does not address X and Y, only Z." This completely ignores the possibility that it may not be necessary to adress X, Y, and Z with a single philosophy.

Which leads me to think that my initial post about my "worldview" may have been incomplete. But I've written so much in this post already, I'll save that for another time.

Jamie

hinduwoman

Maybe we have demonstrated it to you, but not to ourselves. So why don't you show how our boasts of being rational is empty, unless you simply mean that we refuse to accept your mythology as valid.

sir drinks-a-lot

Sure, as an atheist, I will make the claim that Atheism is rational. Do you claim that it is irrational?

Also, I would like to point out that there is a difference between saying that atheism is rational and saying that atheists are rational. I think everyone is irrational at times.

I disagree with your claim that Atheists make as many guesses as theists. I think that your claim that god exists is nothing but a guess.

After all, the only difference between atheists and theists is a single belief. Theists claim knowledge, whereas atheists do not. Please provide a rational basis for your belief in god.

[ July 29, 2002: Message edited by: sir drinks-a-lot ]</p>

Autonemesis

Atheism is rational. A-Santa-Clausism, aEaster-Bunnyism and aTooth-Fairyism are also all rational. If you find no reason to believe something, or discover that your previous belief was mistaken, then not believing in that thing is rational.

I'm quite relaxed, thanks. Could you please address the point I raised in my earlier post in this thread?