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Leifler
Guest
What your saying is not what is actually meant when people are referenced in real life. This is some serious warped trickery of the tongue.
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Leifler
Guest
I would say I agree with all that stuff about the arguements
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Peter_Plato
Guest
It appears that atheism is a delusion…
youtu.be/_Ii-bsrHB0o
AND those deeply flawed arguments are attempts by atheists to fool themselves into believing their delusion.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
An interesting link.
Theism of various types being a distinct overwhelming tendency among all races of men, theism does seem likely to be more real than delusional. The arguments against God never really convince, and the reason is that the human mind is naturally inclined to reject them. When the arguments for God are rejected, it is easily possible to find an abundance of reasons for rejecting them that have more to do with emotions than with reason.
Psychologist Paul Vitz brilliantly explored this theme in Faith of the Fatherless, which turns Freudian atheism on its head.
youtube.com/watch?v=HCtOZ5ibL_g
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tonyrey
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Evidence?
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Peter_Plato
Guest
Aren’t you assuming that what people “reference” with regard to the topic in "real life” has some consistency?
I am not clear that it does.
There is a kind of slippery meaning surrounding the whole issue wherein advocates of “gay” relationships want to imply that homosexual “orientation" does not necessarily entail a sexual relationship but then they don’t want to deny it either. Isn’t that the source of the “warped trickery?”
In any case, this is still way off topic.
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tonyrey
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Argumentum ad hominem. You are making an allegation of intentional deceit…
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Bradski
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Well, where to start.It appears that atheism is a delusion…
youtu.be/_Ii-bsrHB0o
AND those deeply flawed arguments are attempts by atheists to fool themselves into believing their delusion.
I guess with the seemingly novel (at least to the guy who made the video - someone called Newburg?)that mystical experiences can be neurologically exhibited. Was there a surprise there? If you imagine any mystical experience, be it God or Shiva or Banquo’s ghost then it will trigger certain areas of the brain.
And nothing happens within the brain that hasn’t been filtered by billions of years of natural selection. It is all there for a purpose. Fear of the unknown, anthropomorphism, social cohesion, hope. The list is literally endless and if you couple that fact with a lack of knowledge as to how the world works and we have a core set of psychological intuitions that lead to the supernatural experiences and hence to religion.
It doesn’t mean that Banquo’s ghost is any more real than Shiva. But it does mean that the main question Newburg asks: ‘Do you really believe in your religion?’, is a resounding Yes.
The main paper that he quotes from (The Origins Of Religious Disbelief by Norezenyan and Gervais. pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7183/a12b4ad28931f1dfeeccf0668b1d81fbbd45.pdf) says that:
‘Our (neurological and entirely natural) cognitive biases make us prone and receptive to religious ideas’.
That is, go with the flow and you end up with almost everyone else. Experiencing religious ideas. Be they Islamic, Christian, Jainism, Hinduism or any other flavour you care to mention.
Newburg goes on to say that this somehow proves that children are not indoctrinated with mystical experiences. Well, no-one that I have aver read has actually said that. But the paper does go to say that children, having this tendency, as we all do, are THEN inculcated with specific religions via the culture in which they live. Heavens, who would have thought that children grow up holding the same religious beliefs as the majority of their peers.
Another little gem of cherry picking is his claim that atheist are angry against God. So that they must, deep down, really believe because it’s impossible to be angry at something imaginary. He quotes another study and flashes that on screen. But if you pause and read the relevant passage, it says:
‘…anger towards God, particularly on measures emphasising past experience and IMAGES OF A HYPOTHETICAL GOD’. My emphasis.
So if you pretend that God exists for the sake of the survey, then are asked if you could be angry at such a hypothetical entity, then the reasonable answer, hypothetically, might be ‘yes’.
He goes on to quote from the paper I mentioned above:
‘Non-belief requires some hard cognitive work to reject belief’.
This is a supposition early in the piece. And the authors go on to propose, as one of their intended findings:
'…that disbelief DOES NOT always require hard or explicit cognitive effort and that rational deliberation is (only) one of several routes to disbelief’c
So not only are they comparing ‘hard cognitive work’ with ‘rational deliberation’, they are saying that it isn’t the only method by which one becomes an atheist.
And a little gem from the paper, which Newburg certainly skipped over, is one of the 4 specified requirements for belief (apart from going with the neurological flow, having an ability to imagine a god or gods and cultural indoctrination), being an ability:
‘…to maintain this commitment without further analytic cognitive processing’.
Ouch. No wonder he left that out. And they go on to say that religion is far less common is areas of society where there are a greater proportion of analytic thinkers (scientist were used as an example) and more common in societies where poverty, high infant mortality and short life spans were the rule rather than the exception. To quote again:
‘Analytic thinking erodes religious beliefs’.
And their conclusion:
‘…it becomes evident that under the right conditions, a theism can flourish and reach a viable cultural equilibrium and…the beginning of a novel transition in human history - the existence of religious disbelief and societies without a belief in gods’.
Maybe Newburhg and you should read what you post before you post it. There’s a lot of interesting stuff behind the grade school video. If only you look.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
Analytic thinking can erode religious belief if the analytic thinking is not balanced by the emotional life of the subject. There’s nothing surprising about that. Certain professions (psychologists, philosophers, scientists) tend to stress analytic thinking at the expense of intuition, imagination, and the emotions, and these professions will almost certainly tend to produce atheistic thinking. Freud was notoriously atheistic.
Vitz’s argument (his documentation is impressive)is that the rise of modern atheism can be traced to the decline of paternal care for the offspring. What distinguishes our age from all previous ones is the popularity of divorce, by which the offspring are deprived of a holistic view of the world, and are exposed instead to the view that God is not our father because our human father is not even our father, or at best a weak or absentee or impotent father against whom we can rebel or whom we can hold in ultimate contempt.
I can confirm my own turn to atheism in my twenties as rooted in this same phenomenon. I became excessively analytic at precisely the same time that I was rebelling against two very inadequate father figures in my life. My later turn to faith was motivated, I do believe, by the desire to know the Father of us all. I met a holy priest, Father Bernard, whose nurturing role as “Father” helped me find my way to ultimate faith and conviction.
Vitz’s argument (his documentation is impressive)is that the rise of modern atheism can be traced to the decline of paternal care for the offspring. What distinguishes our age from all previous ones is the popularity of divorce, by which the offspring are deprived of a holistic view of the world, and are exposed instead to the view that God is not our father because our human father is not even our father, or at best a weak or absentee or impotent father against whom we can rebel or whom we can hold in ultimate contempt.
I can confirm my own turn to atheism in my twenties as rooted in this same phenomenon. I became excessively analytic at precisely the same time that I was rebelling against two very inadequate father figures in my life. My later turn to faith was motivated, I do believe, by the desire to know the Father of us all. I met a holy priest, Father Bernard, whose nurturing role as “Father” helped me find my way to ultimate faith and conviction.
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PRmerger
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The problem of evil is a problem for both atheists and theists alike.
Firstly, the atheist still needs to explain to his child why his beloved cousin had to get cancer and die. “It just happens, son” is about as satisfactory as “Because God did it”.
The atheist has no answer to the problem of evil.
Secondly, logically, evil existing doesn’t pose a contradiction to God existing. It’s entirely possible for God to exist co-extant with suffering.
The atheist would need to offer some sort of logical contradiction for the existence of evil to demonstrate that God couldn’t exist.
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goout
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Both atheist and theist must admit, suffering and evil are simply part of life.
Joy and pleasure, success and prosperity are also part of life.
If life is taken as a realistic whole, all of this is part of our existence.
If the existence of suffering and death say something about God, then the good of existence itself should say something about God.
Not to mention pleasure, joy, material prosperity, etc…
What do these things say about God? Why is half of life chargeable to God, and half of it is not?
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Charlemagne_III
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What I have observed about atheists is that they rage against human suffering.
What I have not observed about atheists is that they dedicate their lives to charity, nor of course that they have any spiritual mandate from above to do so.
That atheist the Marquis de Sade threw in the towel and joined those who inflict suffering just because it gives them pleasure.
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o_mlly
Guest
- Atheism is evil.
- The sources of evil are the world, the flesh and the devil.
- Atheists choose to be evil in order to pursue the world’s pleasures w/o restriction.
- Atheists choose to be evil in order to pursue their appetites w/o restriction.
- Atheists choose to be evil because of demonic possession or oppression.
- Atheists who are not silent but proselytize atheism choose to do evil. May God have mercy on their souls.
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Tomdstone
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Foundation beyond belief is a charitable organization.
foundationbeyondbelief.org/
Also atheist volunteers:
atheistvolunteers.org/
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Tomdstone
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Abuse is not restricted to atheists. There have been in the news reports of Roman Catholic clergy doing terrible things to children and as well there was a Roman Catholic priest who helped found NAMBLA.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
Quite so.
The difference is that the priests were in violation of their own ethics.
There is no ethical system to which atheists are bound.
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Charlemagne_III
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The Foundation Beyond Belief is hardly motivated by charity so much as the need to prove that atheists, like Christians, can give. That is a mercenary, self-serving motive.
huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/04/foundation-urges-charitab_n_485790.html
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Tomdstone
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Not sure because belief in secular humanism can be a motivation to give to charity.
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Tomdstone
Guest
Many atheists subscribe to secular humanism.
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