Can an atheist be anything but a materialist?

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nguirado

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I’m in a discussion. Somebody said that something happened in 1905 that allowed atheists not to be materialists. Here’s what he said:
Off the top of my head - energy, forces, the curvature of space-time, space-time itself (which is observed by dint of its curvature so perhaps the last is somewhat debateable), quantum order parameters, etc. etc. etc. The obvious repast is of course - anti-matter. And while I have my doubts - perhaps dark matter? And this (with the exception of dark matter) is only considering the “well-established” part of physics. A slightly less cut and dried component of the universe is “information” (a technical term in the context of “information theory”, which was founded by Claude Shannon a mere 5 decades past, not the colloquial meaning that is usually ascribed to this word). The parenthetical comment is to ensure that “information” is not taken in it’s usual wishy-washy sense. This technical term applies to something that can be quantified, measured and in regards to which certain laws have been shown to exist that are quantitatively and qualitatively robust.
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In other words, please stop trying to describe the current state of human knowledge using obsolete terminology from a long time ago, and that too from philosophy.
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You see, materialism in the sense you understand it has been extinct since 1905. Why that year is left as an exercise for the reader. Also, belief or lack of belief in god(s) is laughably irrelevant to this entire issue. Since I’m sick of being charitable about it, this is merely a theist attempt to shoehorn that non-issue into something that’s actually relevant to intellectual thought in the 21st century.
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The physics stuff is dumb- anti-matter is matter. What about the other stuff?
 
In theory an atheist could be a sceptic, solipsist, idealist or dualist as well as a materialist. A pantheist is in a half-way house! One can believe in minds without believing in a Supreme Mind - although that view raises more problems than it solves.
 
Yes I know some non-materialist atheists. Dualism seems to be a big one for that. Though most atheists are materialists I don’t think that the two can be conflated.

Also, not even all materialists are atheists. The Gnostics held a view that God was like a light.
 
A jainist, I suppose, would be an atheist who is not a materialist. They hold (I think), that the soul exists, but it just eternally existed, but that there is no God. I think it’s an off-shoot of Buddhism. Typically, though modern western atheists tend to be materialists.
 
A true atheist is materialistic and has to act like that across the board, competition, no altruism, survival at all costs.

How many atheists do you know like that?
 
buffalo said:
A true atheist is materialistic and has to act like that across the board, competition, no altruism, survival at all costs.

How many atheists do you know like that?
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I don’t think a true atheist has to act any particular way- it doesn’t really matter how he acts. So, an atheist can be an idealist? Who has been an atheist and an idealist? How so?
 
In 1905, Albert Einstein developed & published his works on special theory of relativity, or what we recognize as E=mc2.

I don’t care much about physics, but I know that my atheist friends love Einstein’s work.
 
nguirado said:
I’m in a discussion. Somebody said that something happened in 1905 that allowed atheists not to be materialists. Here’s what he said:

The physics stuff is dumb- anti-matter is matter. What about the other stuff?
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Antimatter is just a different kind of matter, so it is ridiculous for your friend to use semantics to posit that atheists who believe in antimatter are not materialists. the contrast is between the material world and the supernatural world.
 
nguirado said:
I don’t think a true atheist has to act any particular way. It doesn’t really matter. So, an atheist can be an idealist? Who has been an atheist and an idealist? How so?
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Atheists pull from the Christian ethic all the time.

So - can there actually be a true atheist in practice?
 
Of course, an atheist can profess to believe in anything, but the question is if that belief is compatible with atheism. A Catholic can reject the authority of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, but is that compatible with Catholicism? No.

If, by atheism, we mean the proposition that there is no god, then I think philosophical materialism is a necessary implication. If the universe has no recourse to a supernatural explanation outside of itself, then it is a closed, self-contained, and natural system, and nothing could ever arise within that system that is not matter or energy. Nature, without beginning or end, becomes the necessary being in place of God. Setting aside the problems with that view, I think that follows necessarily from atheism as defined earlier.

I cannot decipher what your friend is saying, though. Sounds like filibuster.
 
buffalo said:
A true atheist is materialistic and has to act like that across the board, competition, no altruism, survival at all costs.

How many atheists do you know like that?
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I’ve certainly met my fair share of Christians like that.

One of the unappealing features of this site is how often people self-righteously use broad stereotypes to explain how a “good Catholic” should act. If anything, this tendency is even more offensive when people here apply it to other belief systems, since somehow the stereotypes are always negative.
 
WiscConvert said:
I’ve certainly met my fair share of Christians like that.

One of the unappealing features of this site is how often people self-righteously use broad stereotypes to explain how a “good Catholic” should act. If anything, this tendency is even more offensive when people here apply it to other belief systems, since somehow the stereotypes are always negative.
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Good Catholics act in accordance with the teachings and expectations of Christ.
 
buffalo said:
Atheists pull from the Christian ethic all the time.

So - can there actually be a true atheist in practice?
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I agree with you here. I’m just pointing out that a nihilist would not say that one has to behave in any particular way. Nihilism and existentialism are the only logical stances for atheists in my opinion.
 
nguirado said:
I agree with you here. I’m just pointing out that a nihilist would not say that one has to behave in any particular way. Nihilism and existentialism are the only logical stances for atheists in my opinion.
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They could only fully practice it in isolation.
 
buffalo said:
A true atheist is materialistic and has to act like that across the board
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What is a ‘true atheist’? Why must they be a materialist?
buffalo said:
competition
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You might need to expand on this point, I don’t see how this reflects on the meaning of the thread.
buffalo said:
no altruism
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Why is there no altruism in atheism?
buffalo said:
survival at all costs.
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Why must atheism value survival at all costs?
buffalo said:
How many atheists do you know like that?
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I personally do not fit into the categories you have created but I feel they are likely stereotypical and false. Perhaps you can show me otherwise.
 
buffalo said:
Atheists pull from the Christian ethic all the time.
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That is of course assuming the ‘Christian ethic’ is actually a property of Christianity rather than just a developed ethical system that exists outside of religious matters. If you really want to get into it though we know that Judaism and by extension Islam and Christianity borrowed their ethical and religious systems from the Sumerian religion and culture and it is likely that that culture borrowed their ethical system from previous systems.

To suggest that the ethical system that Christianity regularly claims as it’s own are a property of the Christian religion is a bit of a stretch.
buffalo said:
So - can there actually be a true atheist in practice?
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That all depends on what a ‘true atheist’ is and whether such a practice exists.
 
Filthy_Tugboat said:
That is of course assuming the ‘Christian ethic’ is actually a property of Christianity rather than just a developed ethical system that exists outside of religious matters. If you really want to get into it though we know that Judaism and by extension Islam and Christianity borrowed their ethical and religious systems from the Sumerian religion and culture and it is likely that that culture borrowed their ethical system from previous systems.

To suggest that the ethical system that Christianity regularly claims as it’s own are a property of the Christian religion is a bit of a stretch.

That all depends on what a ‘true atheist’ is and whether such a practice exists.
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The ethical system originated with God and was transmitted right at the beginning. The Sumerian accounts are corruptions.

Toledoths of Genesis
 
Filthy_Tugboat said:
What is a ‘true atheist’? Why must they be a materialist?

You might need to expand on this point, I don’t see how this reflects on the meaning of the thread.

Why is there no altruism in atheism?

Why must atheism value survival at all costs?

I personally do not fit into the categories you have created but I feel they are likely stereotypical and false. Perhaps you can show me otherwise.
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You may not fit because you were not born in a vacuum.
 
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