Bored at work, Ask an Atheist

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So I was watching a YouTube video from a BBC conversation talk show entitled, “The Big Questions”. The topic of the episode was, “Is There a Difference Between a Religion and a Cult?”. I came to the conclusion that the distinction comes to two points. First the size of the following has to reach a critical point. Second is about isolation. Once a religious following reaches a size to where they can no longer isolate themselves from the other cultural groups, they are now forced to address this interaction to their members. The feed back from the community they are apart of now must be addressed and thus, the cult, will begin to curtail their more extreme teachings and any possible illegal activities. This is to address retention of the religion. The church will fail if their members have an “out” to go to. It’s the old adage: no one knows they are being abused until someone not of that group points out a new way to look at those actions.

Also, if anyone has any questions to put to me, as an atheist, please feel free to ask.
 
Being bored at work is Hell.

Maybe you should get a puzzle or crossword to do. Most of the time I knew what being bored at work felt like. I once told the boss an orangutan could do my job.

So, as far as cults and religions are concerned: Some people think what they don’t know won’t hurt them. They don’t like to think too much.
 
Okay, here’s a question… what do atheists believe in? It’s pretty clear what atheists do not believe in, but instead of addressing a negative, I’d like to know what the positive aspects are in the thought processes of an atheist.
 
LutheranScholar said:
Okay, here’s a question… what do atheists believe in? It’s pretty clear what atheists do not believe in, but instead of addressing a negative, I’d like to know what the positive aspects are in the thought processes of an atheist.
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Atheism is a position on one question, Do you believe that the supernatural exists? - Nope. That’s all. Now from that answer, can you get to any other conclusions about this person? No. No you can’t. It’s like telling someone that you met bob yesterday and they didn’t believe you. Ok now could you make any predictions about that person’s politics, values, belief systems? No of course you couldn’t. And not everyone uses the same logic to not believe that you met bob yesterday. Some a-bobists are reacting to being a previous probob, and many other reasons. Not all atheists came to this conclusion through logical means, but are reactions to being antitheists. But you can’t know this till you talk to that specific person.

This is why it is problematic to begin with the assumption that atheism has the same structure as religion, with decrees, written books of do’s and don’ts, leaders that proclaim what it is to be an atheist, etc. That doesn’t exist for us. You can be proscience and still theist, you can be liberal, gay, all the groups that religion demonize and still be theists.You can be anti-theist and still be spiritual.

If you want to know my specifics, you’d have to ask. But remember, these are my conclusions, not any atheist manifesto.
 
gazelam said:
Is it true that there are no Atheists in foxholes? 😛
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Nope, I was one. Well never in a foxhole, but operating a nuclear powered submarine. - smart enough to not get shot at, but if we did get hit, I’d die instantly from the concussion. Also, I wanted an engineering back ground that would translate easily into the civilian sector, wanted free education, and would never be someone’s executioner just because someone else told me to.
 
Arizona_Fat_Gir said:
Being bored at work is Hell.

Maybe you should get a puzzle or crossword to do. Most of the time I knew what being bored at work felt like. I once told the boss an orangutan could do my job.

So, as far as cults and religions are concerned: Some people think what they don’t know won’t hurt them. They don’t like to think too much.
Click to expand...
I find that people are taught what and how to think about a situation but are restricted to their own social bubble where everyone agrees with that process. Only when you have a social sphere that overlaps into all points of view are you introduced into knew approaches to your dogma.
 
Russell_SA said:
So I was watching a YouTube video from a BBC conversation talk show entitled, “The Big Questions”. The topic of the episode was, “Is There a Difference Between a Religion and a Cult?”. I came to the conclusion that the distinction comes to two points. First the size of the following has to reach a critical point. Second is about isolation. Once a religious following reaches a size to where they can no longer isolate themselves from the other cultural groups, they are now forced to address this interaction to their members. The feed back from the community they are apart of now must be addressed and thus, the cult, will begin to curtail their more extreme teachings and any possible illegal activities. This is to address retention of the religion. The church will fail if their members have an “out” to go to. It’s the old adage: no one knows they are being abused until someone not of that group points out a new way to look at those actions.

Also, if anyone has any questions to put to me, as an atheist, please feel free to ask.
Click to expand...
How did… we, the earth and the universe come into being?
 
Russell_SA said:
I find that people are taught what and how to think about a situation but are restricted to their own social bubble where everyone agrees with that process. Only when you have a social sphere that overlaps into all points of view are you introduced into knew approaches to your dogma./QUOTE

Who taught people ‘what and how to think about a situation’? How is one 'restricted to their own social bubble"? Can people not learn new approaches to ‘their dogma’ on their own?
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How is like to identify itself with a negative?

Look man I’m an Abaker/ataxidriver you know…

And how is to identify with a group without someone who can speaks for the group?
 
Russell_SA said:
Atheism is a position on one question, Do you believe that the supernatural exists? - Nope. That’s all. Now from that answer, can you get to any other conclusions about this person? No. No you can’t. It’s like telling someone that you met bob yesterday and they didn’t believe you. Ok now could you make any predictions about that person’s politics, values, belief systems? No of course you couldn’t. And not everyone uses the same logic to not believe that you met bob yesterday. Some a-bobists are reacting to being a previous probob, and many other reasons. Not all atheists came to this conclusion through logical means, but are reactions to being antitheists. But you can’t know this till you talk to that specific person.

This is why it is problematic to begin with the assumption that atheism has the same structure as religion, with decrees, written books of do’s and don’ts, leaders that proclaim what it is to be an atheist, etc. That doesn’t exist for us. You can be proscience and still theist, you can be liberal, gay, all the groups that religion demonize and still be theists.You can be anti-theist and still be spiritual.

If you want to know my specifics, you’d have to ask. But remember, these are my conclusions, not any atheist manifesto.
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Okay, thank you. 🙂
 
Techno2000 said:
How did… we, the earth and the universe come into being?
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I trust that the scientists who study cosmology conclude that the Big Bang Theory is the current best model for how the universe came to be after the bang. * What happened before that, no one knows. A label of god is my label of “No one knows”,they’re just calling that cause a god. While that’s fine, i’ll call it bob. We’re still just labeling the concept of A comes before B, so there must have been an A. Fine I agree with that. There must have been an A. What that A is? No one knows. We can use logic to come to conclude that there must have been an A. But what that A is, well I have to stop because I demand more evidence than just philosophical arguments that attempt to define something into reality. You can be philosophically correct, but factually wrong, IE: It’s like how we mathematically concluded that gravity waves could exist, but we didn’t teach that they existed in reality until we ran the test this year and found them. That is when I would feel justified in teaching people about gravity waves and not a moment before that point.

See the problem with labeling something as A in logical arguments, where you can’t test for the A, is that what you assume about A could be not enough to illustrate how that A actually may interact with reality. You have to run the test. With out being able to run the test to see if A manifests in reality in any detectable way, then the A is no different than “nothing”. So as far as science is concerned, every time someone attempts to run a test to determine the difference between a natural even and an event where the supernatural intervened, well there’s never been a test that has made that distinction. So if the results of Test 1 and Test 2 are no different in any statistically significant way, then the inclusion of “supernatural” is irrelevant and indistinguishable from “just not there”. We have to be able to tell the difference and at this point, we can’t.*
 
Jomann said:
How is like to identify itself with a negative?

Look man I’m an Abaker/ataxidriver you know…

And how is to identify with a group without someone who can speaks for the group?
Click to expand...
I identify with many positive claims, just this this is a response to the religious groups. I am very much a humanist and critical thinker. I believe in scientifically backed political policy. I believe the scientific approach is the best way to solve problems because its is the best philosophical approach that we’ve developed for making conclusions and justified beliefs about reality. It’s self correcting in its approach. I believe in asking people for their feed back about me so that I always feel I was open to how my approach was for communication so I don’t assume that my language and approach was correct for everyone. etc. Lots of positives in what and who I am. I am an atheist by reference to the positive that religious people are making a claim to about reality. “you say you saw bob yesterday? ok well I don’t believe you” that’s all I’m doing in that conversation and as such I’m using the label of atheist to describe my response to that assertion.
 
Tantum_ergo said:
Russell_SA;14320464:
I find that people are taught what and how to think about a situation but are restricted to their own social bubble where everyone agrees with that process. Only when you have a social sphere that overlaps into all points of view are you introduced into knew approaches to your dogma.
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People always have the ability be slowly boil the frog regardless of your level of education and application of logic. There is a guy in canada, i believe, that makes a living being a social life coach for people, and immediately presents his approach as to blame the parents and get people out of their normal support group so that the only voice they feel that they should respect for life choices are filtered through this guy’s program. Its completely secular and still he’s your basic televangelist. People with masters degrees in philosophy and ethics have been caught up by this guy. So we are all susceptible to wanting something that removes the complications of nuance and grey decisions in our lives.
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Tell me scientifically how our sense of justice evolved from animals that doesn’t show any sense of justice.

Same thing for our sense of our natural mortality, our sense of infinity.
 
Russell_SA said:
I trust that the scientists who study cosmology conclude that the Big Bang Theory is the current best model for how the universe came to be after the bang. * What happened before that, no one knows. A label of god is my label of “No one knows”,they’re just calling that cause a god. While that’s fine, i’ll call it bob. We’re still just labeling the concept of A comes before B, so there must have been an A. Fine I agree with that. There must have been an A. What that A is? No one knows. We can use logic to come to conclude that there must have been an A. But what that A is, well I have to stop because I demand more evidence than just philosophical arguments that attempt to define something into reality. You can be philosophically correct, but factually wrong, IE: It’s like how we mathematically concluded that gravity waves could exist, but we didn’t teach that they existed in reality until we ran the test this year and found them. That is when I would feel justified in teaching people about gravity waves and not a moment before that point.

See the problem with labeling something as A in logical arguments, where you can’t test for the A, is that what you assume about A could be not enough to illustrate how that A actually may interact with reality. You have to run the test. With out being able to run the test to see if A manifests in reality in any detectable way, then the A is no different than “nothing”. So as far as science is concerned, every time someone attempts to run a test to determine the difference between a natural even and an event where the supernatural intervened, well there’s never been a test that has made that distinction. So if the results of Test 1 and Test 2 are no different in any statistically significant way, then the inclusion of “supernatural” is irrelevant and indistinguishable from “just not there”. We have to be able to tell the difference and at this point, we can’t.*

You sound more like a Agnostic than Atheist, tbh.🤷
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Russell_SA said:
I identify with many positive claims, just this this is a response to the religious groups. I am very much a humanist and critical thinker. I believe in scientifically backed political policy. I believe the scientific approach is the best way to solve problems because its is the best philosophical approach that we’ve developed for making conclusions and justified beliefs about reality. It’s self correcting in its approach. I believe in asking people for their feed back about me so that I always feel I was open to how my approach was for communication so I don’t assume that my language and approach was correct for everyone. etc. Lots of positives in what and who I am. I am an atheist by reference to the positive that religious people are making a claim to about reality. “you say you saw bob yesterday? ok well I don’t believe you” that’s all I’m doing in that conversation and as such I’m using the label of atheist to describe my response to that assertion.
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Where science fails, for me, is its lack of ethics and morals. I don’t mean in the sense of natural law, but in a lack of acknowledging a human is more than a smart creature of accidental origins. This lack, seriously affects what is considered good and what is not good, in practice.
 
Russell_SA said:
I identify with many positive claims, just this this is a response to the religious groups. I am very much a humanist and critical thinker. I believe in scientifically backed political policy. I believe the scientific approach is the best way to solve problems because its is the best philosophical approach that we’ve developed for making conclusions and justified beliefs about reality. It’s self correcting in its approach. I believe in asking people for their feed back about me so that I always feel I was open to how my approach was for communication so I don’t assume that my language and approach was correct for everyone. etc. Lots of positives in what and who I am. I am an atheist by reference to the positive that religious people are making a claim to about reality. “you say you saw bob yesterday? ok well I don’t believe you” that’s all I’m doing in that conversation and as such I’m using the label of atheist to describe my response to that assertion./QUOTE

I heard a voice speak to me in church when no one was speaking and the church was relatively empty. It was at Eucharistic adoration. The voice told me to come up closer to the front because there were empty seats… No, I’m not crazy. No, I’m not making it up. Someone spoke and I moved up and prayed. You say you don’t believe me… doesn’t mean it didn’t happen…

Praying for you.
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I think that the word “Cult” is mostly used in a pejorative sense. It typically reflects more about the person using the word and their opinion of the group in question. Whether you agree with that opinion or not reflects whether you agree on whether the use of the term is appropriate. For example, using your definition, the Romans would have defined Christianity as a cult for their anti-social and extreme views of rejecting public worship of the official Roman gods and emperor worship.

God bless,
Ut
 
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