Atheist preparing to own the label

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KarlEen said:
What if I am like mr. Smith from The Matrix?
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You might have misunderstood me. 🙂 I mean what if I was like mr. Smith regards to his philosophy/world view.
[Agent Smith ] I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you’re not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You’re a plague and we are the cure.
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If I encountered a Mr. Smith type, I doubt I’d be able to convince him of anything because a Mr. Smith type probably wouldn’t be compelled by appeals to empathy, or consequences, or even a higher power. If I encountered someone who had that worldview, and was serious enough in their worldview that they were ready to act on it, the only thing I could do is convince everyone who is not Mr. Smith that Mr. Smith is wrong and we would have to band together to stop Mr. Smith if he tried to follow through on his views.
 
Hmmm… people have already said a lot so I’ll try to be somewhat inventive.

Why do you believe that your mind and sense correspond to reality if materialism is true? There is good evidence that our view of the world is inaccurate outside of a faith based assumption that privileges humanity above all other creatures. There are a lot more mice than people, so if survival is any measure, our view of the world is inaccurate because in all reality simple creatures are much better at survival.
 
Do you think Atheism is true by default if you don’t believe in something else? How is that justifiable?
 
Ok…I’ll bite.

Question 1: Why do you feel you need to “own” label of Athiest?

Seems like you’re expressing a lot of certainty about something, and I’m not sure why.

Also, where I live, people tell me they are atheists all the time. I don’t get upset. They don’t get a rise from me. In fact, I often am very fond my friends who are atheists.

Question 2: Will you be disappointed when nobody is upset by the fact you are an Atheist?
 
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I don’t believe that my mind and sense correspond to reality necessarily. I have to live as if it does pragmatically because I can only go with what I am experiencing but I’ve had multiple people in my life who have suffered from varying degrees of mental illness up to and including full on hallucinations, so I know we as humans can trick ourselves into thinking any number of things. I am fortunate enough to not have ever hallucinated things that aren’t there but I have caught myself interpreting things the wrong way based on faulty assumptions many times. There is an set external reality but we as humans are really good at tricking ourselves in how we interpret what that reality means. My worldview is that I care about humans because I am a human. I acknowledge that there may be no larger meaning of the universe to back that up but I don’t think I personally need any more reason to care about humans for myself than I care about other people. I acknowledge that if mice could give their opinions of us, they might not care about us.
 
The whole point of this exercise for me was that I honestly don’t know how people will react and I wanted to take a “dry run” to see what kind of feedback I might need to brace myself for. When I say I need to “own” the label, I mean would like to get to the point where I am not constantly lying by omission, allowing people I care out to continue to assume things about me that are not true.
I would be thrilled if no one was concerned or upset by my being atheist but realisitically I suspect a lot of them will at the very least worried because they take a literal interpretation of hell and they might be concerned that I am going to go there due to my leaving the Church.
 
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If you dont believe that you understand the world, how can you call yourself an Atheist? Atheism is a western intellectual tradition, not a shrug of the shoulders.
 
The common meaning of Atheist just is someone who doesn’t believe in God. So that one trait is all that’s neccessary.
 
I think I can come to understand a lot about the world. I just think it would be dishonest of me to try to tell myself that it’s possible for me to understand everything or that I can’t easily trick myself into also thinking incorrect things about the world. I don’t consider my stance a shrug of the shoulders as much as just being honest with myself about what I can know. It’s really easy for us to trick ourselves, and honestly a large chunk of my experiences with my religion looking back were clearly me just seeing what I wanted to see. That’s why my taking the stance of atheist is the most practical take for me because it involves me taking as few leaps as possible.
Atheism might be an intellectual tradition but atheism can also just mean that you disbelieve in a god or even that you just don’t see that the evidence currently supports that there is one. The term has been used multiple ways.
 
You mentioned there is a one percent chance that there’s something out there. Does that make you a 99% atheist?

Do you believe in the concepts of good and evil?
 
@KarlEen Do you notice anything about these eight lines below, from Post 35?
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   •reality as I was experiencing it,

   •and trying to bend my mind 

   •and go out of my way to interpret my life 

   •I have no proscribed meaning to my life ❓

   •and I can choose to find things

   •I really liked the idea of reincarnation, 

   •I found it more emotionally appealing 

   •the dread of feeling
Also, what do you mean by “no proscribed meaning” in the 3rd line?
 
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That isn’t what I meant. It is a question of consciousness. The point of what I was saying is that logically you shouldn’t exist. You didn’t exist for 15 billion years, and in another 50 years you will no longer exist. Most atheists I have encountered pretend like consciousness doesn’t exist, but the reality is that everyone knows they exist even if they know nothing else.

There has to be a rule that explains what consciousness is, and at the same time explains each particular consciousness to the point that we are reproducible.
 
Morality is all relative if atheism is true. The idea of a social contract and others approving of what you do will work with the average person, but you have no argument to condemn a mass shooter or a dictator other than that you don’t like them. In the grand scheme they are just as just and moral as you or anyone else. Thanos, in the Avengers was just trying to save the universe from overpopulation. He was a misunderstood hero. The avengers were just bullies forcing their will upon him and the rest of the universe. You can’t really make an argument against him other than that you don’t like him.
 
It’s not even that you can’t compel him. You can’t compel anyone to do anything. The problem is that you don’t even have an argument why he is wrong other than that you don’t like him and that as a human you would rather not die.
 
Y
“wheels10 said:
You mentioned there is a one percent chance that there’s something out there. Does that make you a 99% atheist?

Do you believe in the concepts of good and evil?
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@wheels10

In Post 4, KarlEen explained: “ . . .I’m at 90-ish% sure there’s nothing out there.”

Then, in Post 6, she noted the discrepancy in having said both 90% and 1%. So, @KarlEen, did you mean 90% and 10%, or 99% and 1%?
 
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KarlEen said:
When I say I need to “own” the label, I mean would like to get to the point where I am not constantly lying by omission, allowing people I care out to continue to assume things about me that are not true.
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All families are different. Part of my family is Catholic and part of it isn’t. For those who are/were Catholic I learned a long time ago that I can no longer presume to know anything about their faith…especially for cousins etc. For my family in the US and my family in other countries, it just doesn’t work that way anymore at least for my family. Nobody assumes anything about our faith.

If a cousin came to me and said, I must tell you I’m not Christian or Catholic anymore so I’m not lying to you by omission, I’d be annoyed. People take their own journeys. I’m not watching over them like a big brother in this sense. For a relative to imply otherwise would just come across as strange and really irritating. Perhaps if the time is right over some drink, it may be appropriate to say you no longer believe. I’m sure they’d want to discuss more in that setting. You might even find the discussion very positive.

Perhaps a question would be what in your background makes you think your family or friends will react in any particular way?
KarlEen said:
The whole point of this exercise for me was that I honestly don’t know how people will react and I wanted to take a “dry run” to see what kind of feedback I might need to brace myself for.
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Perhaps make sure they’re reacting to what you think they’re reacting to. They could react very negatively to a really inopportune timing of this discussion, rather than the what you have to say and your beliefs.
 
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I didn’t read all of your posts, but from what I read was moved to ask if you’ve explored the more mystical and philosophical side of the faith. Karl Rahner, Bernard Lonergan, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Edith Stein, John Henry Newman. John of the Cross, Henry Suso, Meister Eckhart, Fulton Sheen, Joseph Ratzinger to name some.

I began with agnosticism, then began spiritual reading which lead to learning about levels of consciousness, Eastern thought, and then came across the Catholic contemplatives and theologians. These last seemed to me to contain all the same truth I was learning from the other paths, and them some. And they had a depth that I didn’t find in “street-level apologetics.” Not that that’s a bad thing. At the same time it was helpful for me to be intellectually challenged by someone like Karl Rahner versus be told just to be nice to people over and over again (my experience - not claiming this is universal.)
 
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