Is Atheism a Belief System? (split from the Political Views thread)

[Timsup2nothin]

Atheism is the existing state of affairs for every human being on this planet - until they are dragged to a church or temple by their parents.

Look, I get it. Religious people treated you shabbily. I didn't do it. Neither did god.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

To be clear, I only threw in the movie to provide a sort of visual cue. The point of my post was in the hypothetical shaking part. While I suppose you might add, "look at these wrinkles in my shirt" to the claim that god shook you around and told you stuff, I think you are still going to be dismissed as a nut...except by the rest of the people sitting quietly and fingering their shirtfronts, of course.

Probably, unless you can demonstrate more than shirt wrinkles. At best people might conclude you were assaulted/drugged and have damaged recollection of it as a consequence.

That doesn't change the point though. We have no more reason to believe in Morgan-Freeman god jostling people around than we do for unicorns. No less either, but it's "almost zero" in both cases. To bring something out of "almost no chance" in possibility space requires sound evidence. If enough people get tossed around or see unicorns, it's probably worth at least looking for evidence of these things (or some other cause for so many people saying so). However, even if 3.4 billion people wake up tomorrow and claim they saw unicorns, we'd need at least some evidence of a unicorn in physical reality...otherwise we should anticipate a different cause for that.

 

[brennan]

It isn't even relevant past showing off an ought value judgement being conflated for an is.

I don't think you can accuse me of conflating an ought for an is when the difference is explicitly spelled out in the post.

Do you go to a court whenever you want to determine what is and what isn't? Or do you go to an encyclopedia or something like the rest of us?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Probably, unless you can demonstrate more than shirt wrinkles. At best people might conclude you were assaulted/drugged and have damaged recollection of it as a consequence.

That doesn't change the point though. We have no more reason to believe in Morgan-Freeman god jostling people around than we do for unicorns. No less either, but it's "almost zero" in both cases. To bring something out of "almost no chance" in possibility space requires sound evidence. If enough people get tossed around or see unicorns, it's probably worth at least looking for evidence of these things (or some other cause for so many people saying so). However, even if 3.4 billion people wake up tomorrow and claim they saw unicorns, we'd need at least some evidence of a unicorn in physical reality...otherwise we should anticipate a different cause for that.

Define "we." When you say "we" have no more reason to believe..." I have to assume that the "we" doesn't include the guy with the wrinkled shirt. For him the point is completely different.

 

[cardgame]

Look, I get it. Religious people treated you shabbily. I didn't do it. Neither did god.

On the contrary, they've been pretty nice to me, on the whole. Some of them even after I declared apostasy.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Define "we." When you say "we" have no more reason to believe..." I have to assume that the "we" doesn't include the guy with the wrinkled shirt. For him the point is completely different.

True. For clarification, i mean "we" as in "people expected to believe the story when told about it". The guy himself experienced physical evidence, though he might have some cause for doubt depending on what precisely occurred and his mental state at the time.

 

[El_Machinae]

Look, I get it. Religious people treated you shabbily. I didn't do it. Neither did god.

Obviously I agree that god didn't treat me shabbily. Neither has the Wendigo. But yeah, I'm apostate. And a large part of that I was raised into a faith that didn't go on to survive standards I went and created. I think my atheism is a belief system. I had to construct it around the premise of "what if God didn't actually exist?"

I'm happy to discuss God as a theoretical entity. I also believe in Objective Morality, so it's not like I cannot discern a situation where someone is better off believing in God than not.

 

[Farm Boy]

I don't think you can accuse me of conflating an ought for an is when the difference is explicitly spelled out in the post.

Do you go to a court whenever you want to determine what is and what isn't? Or do you go to an encyclopedia or something like the rest of us?

I just did. Sorry the courts around where I'm from don't meet the criterea you think they ought. Responding to jury commission today, maybe I can address a small part of that.

The court is an example of a specific type of fact finding, inclusive of categorization of mental states, brought up in reference to your assertion that an untruth cannot be affirmed. That isn't going to change no matter how often you repeat the example provided was of limited scope and American courts suck. It's besides the point.

I also believe in Objective Morality

Good luck!

 

[Arakhor]

Atheism is the existing state of affairs for every human being on this planet - until they are dragged to a church or temple by their parents.

Only if you interpret the concept in its broadest sense (as you are perfectly entitled to do so), but it is singularly unhelpful to deploy such a use when the conversation has been tending towards its more recognisable and much tighter use, especially if you then think this somehow answers that discussion.

It tells us the Judeo-Christian God can't exist because it supposedly created the universe in seven days, not billions of years. If some deity did manage to create the universe in a manner that is consistent with the Big Bang then it CANNOT be the Christian God!

Only if you follow the same fallacy as creationists and insist that the universe was created according to Genesis. I don't get my history from Geoffrey of Monmouth, so why would I get my science from the Bible? What's more, it's easy (and proper) to disregard specific claims when they don't match what can be observed in nature, but treating that as evidence for no God or gods or at all is faulty, to say the least.

 

[Akka]

Only if you follow the same fallacy as creationists and insist that the universe was created according to Genesis. I don't get my history from Geoffrey of Monmouth, so why would I get my science from the Bible? What's more, it's easy (and proper) to disregard specific claims when they don't match what can be observed in nature, but treating that as evidence for no God or gods or at all is faulty, to say the least.

His point was specifically about the Bible God, not gods in general, though.
If the Bible says "our specific God did X and Y", and it became proved that X and Y didn't happen, it kinda prove that this specific description of the god was wrong (unless you bring in some more unfalsifiable stuff like "God hid what did by adding Carbon 14 which wrongfully make people think the world is more than 7000 years, but that's because he wants to test our faith").

Also, I don't really see the fallacy in Creationists saying that the universe was created exactly as in Genesis (I mean, I do consider they're completely wrong and in denial, but I don't see a fallacy in following their official doctrine).

 

[Arakhor]

The fallacy lies in assuming that the creationists' God is the only conception of God that exists in Judaeo-Christian culture and that deployment of the Big Bang somehow means God as a whole cannot exist. I'm right with you in agreeing that God could not have created Earth and the universe according to Genesis without a lot of extra hoop-jumping, but given that religions are generally much more broad-ranging than their literal creation myths, that's not really that important. After all, King Arthur and Robin Hood certainly didn't exist as the legends about them would have you believe, but if your take-away from those stories is empowerment of the oppressed to rise up against tyranny, then that doesn't really matter at all.

 

[sophie]

Not all christians believe god created the universe in seven days.

The bible is not a historical scientific document. If it was we'd still be doing stuff like stoning adulterers and cutting off limbs that cause us to sin.

Just as tim is harping on one specific type of atheist you are harping on one specific type of creationist.

It's absolutely a historical document. Just as Ab Urbe Condita is a historical document and Beowulf is a historical document and the Ramayana and Mahabharata are historical documents. Yes there are components of the story which are obviously mythological or allegorical, but that is true of a great many of the historical documents we have coming out of the antique period. There are scholars of a great many historical periods that would absolutely kill for as detailed a historical record as we have in the Bible. Germanic studies comes prominently to mind, for obvious reasons.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

True. For clarification, i mean "we" as in "people expected to believe the story when told about it". The guy himself experienced physical evidence, though he might have some cause for doubt depending on what precisely occurred and his mental state at the time.

Thing is, why do you assume there will be "people expected to believe the story when told about it"? Would you tell anyone if it was you? To what possible end?

Here's the thing, because it's pretty clear what you are sliding towards on the "what occurred and what was his mental state at the time." This is a seemingly unrelated anecdote coming up here, but you're a smart guy and will be able to follow the connection at the end if you are patient. Or maybe even if you want to skip the long anecdote.

Spoiler :

I knew this guy who was grossly arrogant. He was also, unfortunately, really frickin' smart. One of those *took naps in class but still heard enough, and since he retained basically everything he heard he got straight As* guys. His people had sufficient money so they sent him to college, where he continued to take naps and get straight As, after, of course, taking the SATs and getting higher scores than anyone he knew. Football fan that on Monday would 'discuss' Sunday's games play by play, and of course could point out every error made by coaches, players, or even the announcers, and back up his assertions by quoting stats from prior seasons off the top of his head.

Pretty close to universally despised throughout life, then dropped out of school and joined the navy...where he encountered a bunch of people more or less like himself. Most of us were college dropouts of the ran out of money or just got board sorts. We all got maximum marks on the military's entrance test, then we all passed a test that was only given to people who got that top mark. We all then went to some sort of navy trade school where we were required to finish in the top two thirds of the class to stay in our program, which sounds easy enough until you realize that more than two thirds of the people in the class are in our program so a couple losses are guaranteed...more if someone slipped through the net and got in the class from a different program. Then if we got through that we got sent to our own program school, which had an attrition rate for that very seldom dipped below fifty percent. To say he was among the better minds the navy could find is not a falsifiable claim. Yet he was still arrogant to the point where shooting him out a torpedo tube was a common fantasy discussion, because he had no doubt that he was far and away the smartest of us.

Then this navy campus rep came to the boat, and a handful of guys decided to take the opportunity to get a degree before they got out, including this guy. Most, of course, blew it off before they really got started, but this guy and one other guy got as far as signing up for a bunch of 'college level examination program' tests. Sit for a three hour exam, get six credits of the basic core requirements out of the way...if you pass. Accredited universities don't skip the registration fees on those core curriculum courses just because you show up, the tests aren't easy. The navy campus rep proctors the tests and has the room for six hours, and guys from all over the base, different ships, whatever are there...like twenty guys. So these two guys, arrogant and his pal, walk in having signed up for four tests.

The rep has said that if they have the time after two they can take a third, she'll time them individually rather than making them use the two three hour blocks and still have two tests for the next testing cycle. Of course Mr Arrogant and his sidekick blow through all four of their tests, with plenty of time to spare, and the proctor basically shakes her head assuming they have wasted their time and effort. Much to Mr Arrogant's satisfaction, he gets to point out that he waited almost fifteen minutes for the sidekick to finish. Then they come back to the boat. In telling the rest of the guys about how easy it was and how getting a degree is gonna be a breeze, a little tension pops up between our arrogant pair. They decide nothing will settle their differences like a bet, though the sidekick doesn't really express much interest.

Terms of the bet as laid down by Mr Arrogant: each test has two subsection scores and a final score; three scores per test, twelve overall. Whoever gets the most high scores wins, loser buys three fifths of winner's choice, they drink one together and each have one to dispose of at their leisure. Since they actually live off base in the same apartment complex this is just a question of who buys liquor they would likely have drunk anyway, so it's obvious this is just a brag bet, not a stakes bet. The sidekick sort of half heartedly pointed out that there could be a tie and suggested maybe using total score as a tiebreaker, and Mr Arrogant scoffed and said that if by some outrageous shocking turn there was a tie he'd call it a loss...in fact he'd spot the sidekick two points. Most of us forget all about the bet long before the scores come in, so most of us never figured out what happened to Mr Arrogant. A lot of people thought the sidekick, who was really his only friend, might have lost patience with him and actually beat him up. But the truth is that getting beat up wouldn't have had any impact on him, probably. And there was definitely an impact. Mr Arrogant actually became a very decent human being, had lots of friends, got married, and by all indications lived happily ever after.

What changed the course of Mr Arrogant's life was the sidekick beat him across the board, twelve to nothing. By wide margins. At a contest of his own devising.

The point is that "picked up and shaken by the shirt" might be what one person says is 'the demonstration beyond which I cannot pass unmarked.' For someone else it may take more, and for someone else it may take less. Maybe there are stipulations, like 'and it can't be when I'm drunk or tripping on LSD.' That's probably a good one for most people, actually. But the thing is if you yourself determine the threshold of the demonstration required and that demonstration comes along you won't be able to ignore it. You also might not feel any need to tell anyone about it either...but you'll probably develop a wary eye for wrinkled shirts.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

And yet you are the most aggressive proselytizer I personally have ever encountered. Amazing contradiction that.

You must never have met proselytizers, then, if you think I'm the "most aggressive" one you've ever encountered. I've never gone doorknocking, never followed anyone for blocks and then cornered them when they stopped (the Mormons did that to me once), never called a student to my office for having a negative score on the question of how important religion is in daily life and try to indoctrinate them into what I believe (like my Mormon sociology instructor did one year when I was in college; I could have gotten him in trouble for that but chose not to), and numerous other things.

LOL...key knocking is vastly different than door knocking in your dogma, apparently. I'm always glad to see you participating in this discussion, since you are such a perfect example.

I have no idea WTH "key knocking" might be.

When I worked for C&E we were unofficially advised to swear on the Bible if we were witnesses in a court case as credibility suffers if you don't. You'd think people would respect the integrity of someone who would rather not take an oath that is meaningless to them but apparently not.

What gets me is that there are boatloads of people who swear on the bible/other holy book and proceed to lie anyway.

The obvious question is, if it is "meaningless" then why did you feel driven to make a gigantic stink about it?

To me the bible is a meaningless thing to swear on, as would be any other book or object. It's your own interpretation that I made a "gigantic stink" about it. I did no such thing, and I don't recall you being present to have any credible basis to tell me or anyone else otherwise.

If you're just a hunk of meat and the book is a hunk of fiber, then the underlying logic of atheism provides you with no basis for assigning meaning or importance to refusing.

But you did refuse, so you must have either an irrational, faith-based moral foundation telling you that, despite being a mere hunk of meat, it's wrong to lie; or, you have a territorial instinct whose interests were best served by having a standoff in this little Canadian Bible Belt. I don't think that choice especially admirable, either.

...could just quietly go about their business along with the rest of us.

This is how I feel about religious people. Go to church/temple/mosque/whatever. Leave the rest of us out of it, don't preach at me, don't try to tell me your holy book/whatever is scientific when it obviously isn't, don't use your religion as an excuse to do an end run around the Charter of Rights, and stay off my doorstep, telephone, and intercom.

And neither is theirs. And if neither of you is a proselytizer that's basically the end of it. This whole thread started from a typical gnostic atheist dropping yet another anecdote about her adventures in proselytizing.

I did not start this thread. Arakhor did. He made me the OP without even asking if I was okay with that (I think every regular poster here should realize by now that I would never start a thread like this). I made it very clear that I do NOT want to be considered the OP, and if you'll notice on page 1, I no longer have that unwanted distinction.

Re-read this post.

Stop deliberately misrepresenting me. The incident I'm talking about happened over 25 years ago, in a place where you were not present. Therefore you have no cause whatsoever to accuse me of "proselytizing" when all I did was quietly raise my hand and politely state that I would prefer to affirm, rather than swear on the bible. The over-the-top reactions then were those of the rest of the people present. The person with the over-the-top reactions here is you.

 

[cardgame]

Only if you interpret the concept in its broadest sense (as you are perfectly entitled to do so), but it is singularly unhelpful to deploy such a use when the conversation has been tending towards its more recognisable and much tighter use, especially if you then think this somehow answers that discussion.

I generally dislike said tighter use, since it leads to a whole host of singularly unhelpful comparisons, like 'the proselytizing atheist' or 'agnostics are the real atheists, atheists are just militant jerks'.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The incident I'm talking about happened over 25 years ago, in a place where you were not present.

And yet twenty-five years later here you are key-knocking about it, apparently looking to either rally your fellow atheists to your "poor picked on atheists" flag or just to let anyone who might be interested know how happy you would be to discuss their possible service to the non-god. In short, proselytizing.

*Picked one line to respond to since the "write a tome of drivel then put the target on ignore" strategy, while initially clever, loses effectiveness very quickly.

 

[timtofly]

The point about a lack of belief not being a belief system does not hold up unless a human can exist without a belief system. A person without a belief system would have to have knowledge of everything both physical and spiritual. If we deny the whole spiritual part of existence we would have to have experienced the whole of physical reality. For the most part even with evidence we still have to have faith and believe science cannot deceive us. Science is not a thing, it is a body of knowledge, and of to date, we do not contain all the knowledge we need to be final judges on the totality of existence. Faith is not a thing either, nor is it the lack of evidence. Faith without evidence is about the same thing as atheism without belief. Totally empty and worthless. Athiest claim that faith is empty and worthless, and I agree with that premise because they base their non-belief on the lack of evidence as well. A lack of belief is the same as having faith without evidence.

The reality of the disagreement is that most people religious and non-religious are in the same boat. Not many actually have the evidence needed for evidence based faith. Non-religious people use faith as a reason to not accept evidence based faith. Religious minded people base their faith on generations of religious teaching and thought. Both groups lack the evidence needed to make the spiritual part of existence a reality. There have been non-religious people who have experienced the spiritual side of reality even without religion. Religion is as much of a belief system to attempt at explaining God as an athiest's attempt at explaining God does not exist. Neither one have direct knowledge and experience of God. It is as much of a mistake to use religion as is the mistake of claiming one has no belief system on the matter. They both lack evidence. That is what science is for right? It is the evidence needed to back up one's belief system.

 

[metalhead]

The point about a lack of belief not being a belief system does not hold up unless a human can exist without a belief system.

The difference is that atheists far less frequently than theists have a belief system that centers on the belief in the non-existence of god.

Theists frequently have their religious beliefs at the center of their system of beliefs about the reality of our universe (and beyond). Atheists typically do not. I think that is the important distinction here. "Atheism" doesn't purport to describe anything about the nature or purpose of our existence, though it can color some beliefs on those topics. It merely precludes certain possibilities, or at least calls them into question.

Some atheists, of course, do make the cause of atheism their animating principle in life. But usually when religious folks bring this up, it's in an attempt to try to say that "atheism" is a religion and therefore atheists are hypocrites for criticizing or looking down on theists. Which is dishonest, to say the least.

 

[Tristan_C]

This is how I feel about religious people. Go to church/temple/mosque/whatever. Leave the rest of us out of it, don't preach at me, don't try to tell me your holy book/whatever is scientific when it obviously isn't, don't use your religion as an excuse to do an end run around the Charter of Rights, and stay off my doorstep, telephone, and intercom.

On spiritual/supernatural matters I am agnostic, but when it comes to law, I suppose you could say I am a person of faith. Every law is based on morality. The regulations on beef quality, the law saying you can make a right turn on red but you have to yield, these represent the general sentiment on how the rights of the individual and the needs of the society are to be balanced. Every corrupt law violates a moral principle.

Can an agnostic like me, or an atheist like you, make a statement like, "We hold these truths to be self-evident?" Not really, unless you make a religion out of it in effect.

lol @ left trying to meme

Faith without evidence is about the same thing as atheism without belief. Totally empty and worthless.

Shouldn't it be the opposite? If you have evidence, you do not need faith.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

And yet twenty-five years later here you are key-knocking about it, apparently looking to either rally your fellow atheists to your "poor picked on atheists" flag or just to let anyone who might be interested know how happy you would be to discuss their possible service to the non-god. In short, proselytizing.

Still waiting for a definition of "key-knocking."

I have no flag, and it's ridiculous to talk about service to something that doesn't exist.

Can an agnostic like me, or an atheist like you, make a statement like, "We hold these truths to be self-evident?" Not really, unless you make a religion out of it in effect.

Isn't the italicized part of your post part of some American political document? I'm not American, so no, I have no plans to make a religion out of it.