V
VociMike
Guest
Except the universe itself.
But really, I think your claim is far too agressive. Are you really asserting that everything in the universe has a known natural explanation?
- Status
But really, I think your claim is far too agressive. Are you really asserting that everything in the universe has a known natural explanation?
V
VociMike
Guest
No, but it is faith to say āI do not know, but nonetheless I believeā. Is that not what you said regarding the supernatural?
S
Suat
Guest
Ah, but you are incorrect there. What I say is a little more complex than that. Humans do not know all the answers to the natural world yet, and may never. However, I see many things that can be explained by natural processes. I also see many things that people used to ascribed to religion that now have known natural causes. In addition, I see absolutely no evidence for the supernatural, therefore I see no reason to posit supernatural explanations simply because we do not yet have a natural one. The god of the gaps was never very convincing to me.
V
VociMike
Guest
Iām curious, what would evidence for the supernatural look like?
A
aaronjmagnan
Guest
To have faith is a little more strong minded than to have proof I would sayā¦jab jab :knight2:
God bless
Aaron:knight2:
God bless
Aaron:knight2:
T
Techno2000
Guest
āBelieve it or not, I found that revelation remarkably comfortingā
Until you are on your Deathbed.
T
Techno2000
Guest
Faith is like a precious jewel .
M
MerryAtheist
Guest
Yes. Theistic delusion can be quite comforting, but it is delusion nevertheless.Until you are on your Deathbed.
E
Exalt
Guest
Iām not really an athiest, technically speaking. Iām an agnostic, you could say.
I used to be a thiest (Catholic in particular). I was involved with a somewhat youth group and a bunch of retreats where the point was to get closer to God. I bought it at the time, and believed myself to have a personal relationship with God. Furthermore, I believed what I was told about the Catholic Church - things like the Church has never āofficiallyā taught anything wrong. It has never changed itās āofficialā teaching. The Bible is the true, inspired word of God - stuff like that.
But I grew older I found that many of those claims are simply not true. After 3 years of theology at a conservative Catholic school, I came to the simple and obvious conclusion that the Church has indeed taught things that it went back later and changed; it has grown and evolved and changed just as much as everything else in our world. So has the Bible, which used to advocateā¦ horrible, horrible thingsā¦ Anyway, for a while, I had plenty of complex rationalizations for all of those discrepancies.
But after a while, after trying to explain everything to a non-Catholic, I realized how silly they all were. So I started to pick everything apart, throwing out anything with an outlandish or circular explaination. That led me, quite clearly, out of Catholicism.
As far as my āpersonalā relationship with God, it was the last to go. But one simple, clear, and reasonable observation eventually became plain: when we talk about being āpersonalā with God, we use a completely different meaning than any other relationship with any other being, person, animal, or thing. A āpersonalā relationship with God means holding on to coincidences as Godās personal communication (i.e., My dad told me about how his friend had offered to loan him a particular movie - and on a retreat, a speaker mentioned that exact same movie. My dad believes that this is a sign that God wants him to talk to his friend and try to convert him.), reading scripture as Godās message to mankind (leaving out, of course, āuncomfortableā passages), and retreat/sworship/adoration/experiences of prayer where oneās emotions make one feel close to God (which, of course, were the result of an emotional atmosphere and peer pressure). God doesnāt have a personal relationship with human beings any more than the planet Jupiter does. There are just a few of us that invent the relationship.
Anyway, those are my reasons.
I used to be a thiest (Catholic in particular). I was involved with a somewhat youth group and a bunch of retreats where the point was to get closer to God. I bought it at the time, and believed myself to have a personal relationship with God. Furthermore, I believed what I was told about the Catholic Church - things like the Church has never āofficiallyā taught anything wrong. It has never changed itās āofficialā teaching. The Bible is the true, inspired word of God - stuff like that.
But I grew older I found that many of those claims are simply not true. After 3 years of theology at a conservative Catholic school, I came to the simple and obvious conclusion that the Church has indeed taught things that it went back later and changed; it has grown and evolved and changed just as much as everything else in our world. So has the Bible, which used to advocateā¦ horrible, horrible thingsā¦ Anyway, for a while, I had plenty of complex rationalizations for all of those discrepancies.
But after a while, after trying to explain everything to a non-Catholic, I realized how silly they all were. So I started to pick everything apart, throwing out anything with an outlandish or circular explaination. That led me, quite clearly, out of Catholicism.
As far as my āpersonalā relationship with God, it was the last to go. But one simple, clear, and reasonable observation eventually became plain: when we talk about being āpersonalā with God, we use a completely different meaning than any other relationship with any other being, person, animal, or thing. A āpersonalā relationship with God means holding on to coincidences as Godās personal communication (i.e., My dad told me about how his friend had offered to loan him a particular movie - and on a retreat, a speaker mentioned that exact same movie. My dad believes that this is a sign that God wants him to talk to his friend and try to convert him.), reading scripture as Godās message to mankind (leaving out, of course, āuncomfortableā passages), and retreat/sworship/adoration/experiences of prayer where oneās emotions make one feel close to God (which, of course, were the result of an emotional atmosphere and peer pressure). God doesnāt have a personal relationship with human beings any more than the planet Jupiter does. There are just a few of us that invent the relationship.
Anyway, those are my reasons.
M
Mirdath
Guest
Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. I had about three conscious seconds each time, sometimes a little more. Itās not a frightening experience at all.āBelieve it or not, I found that revelation remarkably comfortingā
Until you are on your Deathbed.
āEverythingās fading outā¦ cool.ā
V
VociMike
Guest
As you say, we may never know. For example, quantum mechanics is very adamant that we will never know why any individual QM event chooses to happen or not happen. And regarding the origins of the universe, it may all remain forever a guessing game. After all, science depends on observation, and nature has put clear bounds on our ability to observe. And yet you state without equivocation that you believe the supernatural does not exist. You are confident that this is the case, even though it is certainly unknowable today, and quite possibly unknowable forever. That still sounds an awful lot like faith to me.
V
VociMike
Guest
Again, how is this not a faith-based statement?
A
aaronjmagnan
Guest
Exalt: Thatās why you left? Because the Church has changed? Wow.
Of course the church changes.
God bless
Aaron
Of course the church changes.
God bless
Aaron
C
clmowry
Guest
Just to clear this up in advance, this is not a comment addressed at what I think you believe, but this is the scariest statement of an Atheistic belief system Iāve ever read. (Perhaps I just have not been paying that much attention.)
The āmoralā conclusions that could come from these beliefs are frightening to me in a way that can only recall Hitlerās atrocities.
A better world through chemistry and surgery would fit in just fine here.
This particular animal apparently has something wrong with his brain (since he believes in God) so maybe we can cure that chemical imbalance. If not, we can just lop out that part of his brain and maybe heāll forget his delusion and society will be better off.
Yikes.
Chuck
The āmoralā conclusions that could come from these beliefs are frightening to me in a way that can only recall Hitlerās atrocities.
A better world through chemistry and surgery would fit in just fine here.
This particular animal apparently has something wrong with his brain (since he believes in God) so maybe we can cure that chemical imbalance. If not, we can just lop out that part of his brain and maybe heāll forget his delusion and society will be better off.
Yikes.
Chuck
C
clmowry
Guest
Ah yes, the arrogant condescension that reminds me why I typically avoid any thread with atheists in the title.
V
VociMike
Guest
I have a theory about agnostics, tell me what you think about it. An agnostic, by definition, allows that the existence of God is possible. But they do not live their lives that way. They say they do not know if God exists or does not exist, but they always live as though God does not exist. Why is that?
Anyway, my theory is that a rational agnostic must live as though God exists. The consequences to the agnostic if God exists are quite literally infinite. Infinitely āgoodā or infinitely ābadā. The long-term consequences if God does not exist are zero. Now faced with even a small likelihood of an infinite consequence, vs. a large likelihood of no consquence, a rational agnostic would have to modify their behavior in anticipation of the infinite consequence. Rationally they would have to live their lives to attain heaven and avoid hell, even if they thought heaven and hell were extremely unlikely. But they never do, that I have observed. Why donāt agnostics behave rationally?
W
whatever
Guest
The OP stated
and now Pascalās Wager is on the table?
G
Greg27
Guest
When I was an atheist it was because I believed science could explain everything. The problem with this belief was demonstrated when I concretely experienced evil in my life. I found the only way to really āhealā this existential encounter with evil was to re-orient myself and learn to experience āBeingā in its fullness, which is found not just in science but also in religion, the arts, and other areas. While sometimes I have real difficulties with some dogmas of the Church in terms of true assent, these doubts tend to be swallowed up when I feel I encounter Being in its fullness in the Church, especially in its mystical theology and contemplation, and its rich religious philosophy.
I feel in my general study of religions there is too much beauty in their various depictions of Being or the Absolute in their various forms all (including the Christian encounter with Being or the Absolute as Jesus) and truth to be completely false, or a delusion created by our own minds. Surely if that were the case, these beauties would be in reality ugly and the truths falsehoods with no depth and only covering an ugly mask of empty ugliness. But, my experience has been the opposite, which is why even if I left the Church because I could no longer hold a teaching in good conscience, I would continue to accept that a Transcendant Reality exists.
Hopefully in the future all world religions will come to a better understanding of each other, themselves, and also of manās eternal quest to transcend himself, in secular and religious ways, and will also adopt a better perspective towards science than ignorance or rejection.
I feel in my general study of religions there is too much beauty in their various depictions of Being or the Absolute in their various forms all (including the Christian encounter with Being or the Absolute as Jesus) and truth to be completely false, or a delusion created by our own minds. Surely if that were the case, these beauties would be in reality ugly and the truths falsehoods with no depth and only covering an ugly mask of empty ugliness. But, my experience has been the opposite, which is why even if I left the Church because I could no longer hold a teaching in good conscience, I would continue to accept that a Transcendant Reality exists.
Hopefully in the future all world religions will come to a better understanding of each other, themselves, and also of manās eternal quest to transcend himself, in secular and religious ways, and will also adopt a better perspective towards science than ignorance or rejection.
M
Mirdath
Guest
I believe that if there is a God, it is not the personal, anthropomorphic Abrahamic deity.
I do not live my life as if a specific God or Gods may exist because I donāt have the time to ensure Iām performing all the various acts of each religion properly or resolve the mutually conflicting issues (to be a Jain or Vaishnavite, I cannot eat flesh; to be a Catholic, I must; and so on). Basically I hope that if one particular religion is right Iāll be graded on effort ā which, in the end, is all you can hope for too, isnāt it?
M
MerryAtheist
Guest
And yet you took the bait here. I wonder why?
For the record, my comment was in response to post #26, which I took as a snide remark directed at me. I replied in kind.
I canāt help but wonder how theists can be so finely aware of mystical things that supposedly surround us and sustain us, and yet so blind to āarrogant condescensionā in their own midst.
Speck, meet Log.
Log, meet Speck.
- Status