Is there such a thing as an atheist worldview?

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Pattylt said:
Because the religious often have such certainty of their views, it’s hard, perhaps, to understand that many atheists aren’t at all uncomfortable with uncertainty.
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Speaking psychologically, we’re all uncomfortable with uncertainty. We just find our certainty in different things. Otherwise the anxiety would be so great that we couldn’t function.
 
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IanAG said:
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Freddy:
I can say what I want out of life.
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What is that Freddy?
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Happy and healthy family is first and foremost. Freedom from war and civil strife. Enough food on the table. Time and the means to pursue what I enjoy. The usual sort of stuff.
 
IanAG said:
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Pattylt:
Because the religious often have such certainty of their views, it’s hard, perhaps, to understand that many atheists aren’t at all uncomfortable with uncertainty.
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Speaking psychologically, we’re all uncomfortable with uncertainty. We just find our certainty in different things. Otherwise the anxiety would be so great that we couldn’t function.
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I keep finding reasons to use this Voltaire quote (pretentious, moi?): ‘Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position, but certainty is absurd’.

I’m a little wary of people who are absolutely certain of their positions.
 
Regardless of the answer to this question, there has never been a successful atheistic society in the history of the world.
 
IanAG said:
Me too…like being certain that God doesn’t exist.
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But I’m not. I live my life as if He doesn’t exist. And if you ask me if He exists I’ll give you the short answer: No. But if you want a slightly longer one then I’ll say: ‘From all the information I have been told, have read, have watched and have dug up in various forms from a variety of formats over very many years, it is my considered opinion that God doesn’t exist. I might be wrong…but everything tells me that I am not’.

That’s not certainty.

Even Dawkins classes himself as an agnostic. And puts his chance of God not existing at 6 out of 7 (don’t ask me why it’s out of 7). Which means he is more open to God than I am. I’d be around 6.8 I think.

Again, that’s not certainty.
 
IanAG said:
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Pattylt:
I’m certainly not JUST an existentialist…which is where I ended up the first time, as I’m also a Humanist and a materialist
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That’s interesting Patty…how does holding those worldviews shape your thinking and choices?
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That’s just it…I already held the world views…those just matched it when I later learned about them. So it’s more correct to say, I have a world view that seems to match up to many of these categories.

In general, my world view is that this is the only life we have. Therefore we should do our best to try and achieve a world where we maximize happiness and eliminate the negatives. We may never reach it but we all should be striving for it. Many Christian ideals match this but some restrict achieving it. I believe in consensus as much as possible. Where consensus can not be reached, we need work on agreeable compromises. Where compromises can not be reached, we may have to settle for a majority opinion but we should never give up trying to reach for consensus or compromises even if it only gets us part way there…wherever there is.

I think all normally developed humans have a sense of morality. We probably agree on the morality of ~90% of issues. When there are morality clashes, if each can follow their own morality then they should (religions follow theirs, others follow theirs). As long as someone’s morality doesn’t interfere with the rights and freedoms of others, it’s not an issue but if it does, we need to see if compromise is possible or else agree to follow what each feels is correct but not interfere with others. We can always try to get someone else to change their mind. We just can’t use force if it’s causing no harm.

Well, that’s a start!
 
Dan_Defender said:
Regardless of the answer to this question, there has never been a successful atheistic society in the history of the world.
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Pretty difficult to form a society of like-minded individuals when all they have in common is a disbelief in gods. That’s like forming a club for people who don’t like marzipan.
 
IanAG said:
Oh, I see, so your actually agnostic rather than atheistic.
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Gee, this question comes up all the time. Let’s keep it simple:

Ian: ‘Do you believe in God?’
Freddy: ‘No’.
Ian: ‘Ah, so you’re an atheist’.

An agnostic would say that we cannot know about God’s existence. Obviously I disagree with that (see above). It’s just that nothing has ever convinced me.
 
Freddy said:
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Dan_Defender:
Regardless of the answer to this question, there has never been a successful atheistic society in the history of the world.
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Pretty difficult to form a society of like-minded individuals when all they have in common is a disbelief in gods. That’s like forming a club for people who don’t like marzipan.
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Plus, there are atheistic world views like Humanism that have never been tried…though some countries are getting close (Netherlands) and are quite successful.

The problem with the previous atheist countries were that they were communist. The two don’t have to go together. In trying to eliminate religion, they just created another religion of the state…complete with a savior and all the answers. They wanted the people to worship Lennon and the state…or Mao and the state. They acted exactly like a religion.
 
Freddy said:
Gee, this question comes up all the time. Let’s keep it simple:

Ian: ‘Do you believe in God?’
Freddy: ‘No’.
Ian: ‘Ah, so you’re an atheist’.
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That’s basically how I put it.

If you ask me if God exists, I’ll say I have no way of knowing so I’m unsure, and so I’m agnostic.
If you ask me if I believe God exists, I’ll say no, so I’m an atheist.

The two are not mutually exclusive. All an atheist has generally done is realized if you don’t have good reason to believe something exists, you probably shouldn’t. It saves a lot of headaches not having to accept everything you have little evidence for but can’t disprove.
 
Freddy said:
Gee, this question comes up all the time. Let’s keep it simple:

Ian: ‘Do you believe in God?’
Freddy: ‘No’.
Ian: ‘Ah, so you’re an atheist’.

An agnostic would say that we cannot know about God’s existence. Obviously I disagree with that (see above). It’s just that nothing has ever convinced me.
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I doubt it ever will.

So that means that at this moment you’re certain there’s no God?
 
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