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

[El_Machinae]

Judging by the timeframes, it seems to be about when Gingrich started the new trend of treating Democrats as 'the other' and not as competitors hired to protect Democracy.

A lot of the fall of the Republican party can be traced to there

 

[bernie14]

He believes what he says, which is more consequential in practice than whether it's true or false (and ironically, he was making a remark on religion). Peoples' reasoning powers are bent largely in the service of their intuition. You can convince yourself of anything you want.

So then what's the relation between intuition and indoctrination?

 

[Tristan_C]

So then what's the relation between intuition and indoctrination?

I do not know what you are getting at with this question, since you could look the words up.

But if we think of three separate concepts in relation— indoctrination, logic, and moral intuition— the moral intuition is the person at the center. This faculty allows animals to look at something and react to it instantly. Logic is something humans use primarily to justify their intuitions. You seldom see cases of people reasoning in favor of something they dislike without great effort. Indoctrination is an outside attempt to do exactly to intuition, what intuition does to logic, which is to direct it towards expedient goals.

 

[bernie14]

I do not know what you are getting at with this question, since you could look the words up.

But if we think of three separate concepts in relation— indoctrination, logic, and moral intuition— the moral intuition is the person at the center. This faculty allows animals to look at something and react to it instantly. Logic is something humans use primarily to justify their intuitions. You seldom see cases of people reasoning in favor of something they dislike without great effort. Indoctrination is an outside attempt to do exactly to intuition, what intuition does to logic, which is to direct it towards expedient goals.

So are you saying that human moral intuition is akin to animal instincts? Could be but I think our frontal lobes muddy the relationship between instinct and indoctrination

Edit .. I just seem to have difficulty relating instinctual behavior to morality....

 

[El_Machinae]

An incredible amount of our moral thinking is in response to instincts that we've then going on to add rationalizations to. The fact that we diverge in certain instincts partially explains the Divergence between the morality expressed by people who self identify as liberal or conservative

 

[bernie14]

An incredible amount of our moral thinking is in response to instincts that we've then going on to add rationalizations to. The fact that we diverge in certain instincts partially explains the Divergence between the morality expressed by people who self identify as liberal or conservative

Our commie friends may disagree...

As for me, yes, I have seen studies showing correlation between certain brain activity and political leaning but I don't know about "an incredible amount".... seems those "rationalizations" (environment, indoctrination, education, etc) can have a pretty powerful effect on decision making.

 

[El_Machinae]

A lot of our morals can be found in the instincts of other animals. There's good reason to assume that morals built off of instincts. And some were post-rationalized.

 

[Farm Boy]

People seem like they tend to think they're more separate than I'd wager they are. Like when people claim rape is either about power or about about sex.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Since you've apparently skipped the rest of the discussion, I'll bring you up to speed with the same question: if someone else believes in god based on their personal experience, which you do not share, what makes their experience less valid than yours? Or, put another way, their conclusion "less informed"?

Because we know that people are flawed, are prone to lying, have limited senses and limited brains that interpret those senses, fallible memories, susceptible to hallucinations and can be insane.

I don't want to be accused of proselytising the religion of science or anything, but there's a good reason that the scientific method relies on independent verification, repeatability and, wherever possible, the lack of reliance on human senses and perception. It's the best way we have for controlling for those human flaws, and it's rather telling that no religious or supernatural claims have ever passed that sort of scrutiny.

As for the OP - Atheism is simply the lack of belief in any God or Gods. Many atheists may well go further than that and have a positive belief in the lack of a God or Gods, but that's not what atheism is. And even if it were, that's not a belief system.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Because we know that people are flawed, are prone to lying, have limited senses and limited brains that interpret those senses, fallible memories, susceptible to hallucinations and can be insane.

I don't want to be accused of proselytising the religion of science or anything, but there's a good reason that the scientific method relies on independent verification, repeatability and, wherever possible, the lack of reliance on human senses and perception. It's the best way we have for controlling for those human flaws, and it's rather telling that no religious or supernatural claims have ever passed that sort of scrutiny.

As for the OP - Atheism is simply the lack of belief in any God or Gods. Many atheists may well go further than that and have a positive belief in the lack of a God or Gods, but that's not what atheism is. And even if it were, that's not a belief system.

You seem intent on missing the point.

 

[cardgame]

You seem intent on missing the point.

no you

 

[Timsup2nothin]

no you

Not at all. I understand the basics of science. That wasn't the point.

Let's ask a hypothetical...

If you were driving, lost control of your car, and went off a cliff...and your car returned to the road and a guy walked up to your window and said "That was, as we say in the trade, your personal 'come to Jesus' moment. Congratulations." Would you:

a) Drive back off the cliff to see if it was a repeatable experiment.
b) Log immediately into CFC and try to convince us that it really really happened.
c) Accept that your world view needed a little work, but figure it would be best not to try to explain why to anyone else.

 

[Ajidica]

@Timsup2nothin I would choose option d.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

@Timsup2nothin I would choose option d.

Yeah, avoiding the question is probably the most popular choice. Hardly anyone is willing to confront the reality that we operate off of personal experience, we only talk about almighty science. Even actual scientists.

 

[Gori the Grey]

d) say "Thank you, Jesus." As we learned in another thread, when someone gives you a gift, the proper response is to say "Thank you" (regardless of gender)

 

[Timsup2nothin]

d) say "Thank you, Jesus." As we learned in another thread, when someone gives you a gift, the proper response is to say "Thank you" (regardless of gender)

This is a rough translation of the existing option c, and seems a very good idea to me. But that's just me.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Except that my worldview allows for the possibility of Jesus rescuing me from driving off a cliff, so no work on that needed.

 

[El_Machinae]

Not at all. I understand the basics of science. That wasn't the point.

Let's ask a hypothetical...

If you were driving, lost control of your car, and went off a cliff...and your car returned to the road and a guy walked up to your window and said "That was, as we say in the trade, your personal 'come to Jesus' moment. Congratulations." Would you:

a) Drive back off the cliff to see if it was a repeatable experiment.
b) Log immediately into CFC and try to convince us that it really really happened.
c) Accept that your world view needed a little work, but figure it would be best not to try to explain why to anyone else.

The Logical error is assuming that this is proof of God. It is an infinite leap of faith to go from suspecting that there are unexplainable phenomenon all the way to believing that you have interacted with the creator of the universe

 

[Farm Boy]

Everything beyond, "whut does me good is good" is a leap of faith. So... meh?

It seems remarkably unpopular here to argue otherwise, so again... meh?

Without logical error... Eff it. Equation complete.

 

[El_Machinae]

I don't mind a discussion on pragmatism. We are often pragmatic, and for good reason. If that event happened, it would be well worth changing your behavior. It might even be worth allowing your subconscious to change your priors. But that's just pragmatism.

It's just not evidence sufficient to believe in God.