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Athiests - Who cares
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One eyed Jack wrote: »(Nah it's grand, I'm only messing, but I find it interesting that some people believe extraterrestrial life forms exist or have existed, yet when someone claims to have been abducted to spend a weekend being probed, they're nuts! )
There is good reason for that of course. There are good reasons to EXPECT there to be life elsewhere in this universe. The sheer size of it coupled with the fact that if you list in order the elements that make us up, they are 1:1 the elements that make up the universe. We are not all that special.
There is however good reason to ALSO expect such life to be entirely unable to cross great distances at speeds that would allow them to find us, let alone visit us, let alone be interested in us enough after all that time and technology to be bothered abducting us on the sly and studying us. Again, we are not that special
So I do not find it as interesting I am afraid that this disparity exists in peoples thinking because I think both are quite rational positions to hold and no contradiction exists between them.
Certainly on the note of the other points being made however, it is wrong for anyone to suggest being atheist requires no thought, or that thinking nothing exists requires no thought, or that one would never consider these beliefs if one was not indoctrinated into them. The simple fact is we all exist in this universe and we have no explanation for this. And exploring those explanations mentally, requires deep thought, regardless of which conclusions you come to, and which ones you reject.
I was never "indoctrinated" into religious belief. Except for being in an "integrated school curriculum" I remained somewhat immune and was somewhere approaching 12 before I realised the god stuff being read at what I thought was "story time" was something people ACTUALLY believed.
But when the question of our existence here came to me, the god hypothesis is just as valid as any other one I have heard. So I explored it with just as much intellectual rigor and deep thought. And after 20 years of that I have come to the conclusion that the claim our universe is explained by the actions or existence of a non-human intelligent and intentional agent......is a claim that is not just slightly, but ENTIRELY devoid of even a modicum of arguments, evidence, data or reasoning that validly supports it.0 -
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Baggy Trousers wrote: »nozzferrahhtoo is without doubt one of the best, if not the best, poster on Boards.
I saw him first
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Clermont1098 wrote: »No. He's a flat eared big eyed creep.
Well. That's just mean.
I'll pray for you.0 -
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nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »There is good reason for that of course. There are good reasons to EXPECT there to be life elsewhere in this universe. The sheer size of it coupled with the fact that if you list in order the elements that make us up, they are 1:1 the elements that make up the universe. We are not all that special.
Seriously nozzferahtoo, that's akin to someone who suggests that there are good reasons to expect there to be a deity in the ethereal universe, or whatever. The point being that what may seem like good reasons to expect something to be true, are still falling a long way short of quantitive evidence. There is no evidence that extraterrestrial life exists, or has ever existed, and there is no evidence of God. As for human beings not being all that special, I'd say given the overwhelming odds that collided in nature to cause human beings to exist at all makes us pretty special. Were it not for a mutated chromosome, we might still be swamp dwellers!There is however good reason to ALSO expect such life to be entirely unable to cross great distances at speeds that would allow them to find us, let alone visit us, let alone be interested in us enough after all that time and technology to be bothered abducting us on the sly and studying us. Again, we are not that special
All argued from your own perception of course, but the words 'reason', and 'evidence' are not interchangeable. The only reason I even mentioned the extraterrestrial analogy in the first place was merely as a somewhat humourous comparable rhetorical question. I'm sure you're familiar with the phrase -
"Talking to god is fine; it's when he talks back we've got a problem!", in much the same way as "Believing in the existence of extraterrestrials is fine; believing you were abducted by them is when we've got a problem!" :pac:So I do not find it as interesting I am afraid that this disparity exists in peoples thinking because I think both are quite rational positions to hold and no contradiction exists between them.
I've just demonstrated how both positions are irrational, but I never suggested there was a contradiction between them? There are plenty of religious people who believe in extraterrestrials, just ask any Scientologist!Certainly on the note of the other points being made however, it is wrong for anyone to suggest being atheist requires no thought, or that thinking nothing exists requires no thought, or that one would never consider these beliefs if one was not indoctrinated into them. The simple fact is we all exist in this universe and we have no explanation for this. And exploring those explanations mentally, requires deep thought, regardless of which conclusions you come to, and which ones you reject.
Being atheist is simply an absence of belief in a deity. A person is not required to think about it any further than that, and there are many atheists that don't. They simply just don't even acknowledge the possibility, they don't particularly care. Therefore by that same standard, if a person were never aware of an idea or an ideology such as the idea of a deity, there's nothing to suggest that they would think any further on the subject. Some people are quite comfortable with this position. You can't state that there are no explanations for our existence in the universe, and then say that there are explanations to explore. You're contradicting yourself. I would say there are many explanations offered for our existence in the universe, and depending on how a person's mind works, they will examine the evidence presented, whether it be from a scientific point of view, or a religious point of view, and some people will even process evidence from both perspectives independently of each other. Then there are people who will lean more towards the scientific perspective, and there are people will lean more towards the religious perspective. They don't necessarily have to contradict each other, but some people will indeed pit science against religion when it's absolutely unnecessary IMO, because the brain is quite capable of processing different perspectives and rationalising and compartmentalising each with the aim of eliminating the cognitive dissonance.I was never "indoctrinated" into religious belief. Except for being in an "integrated school curriculum" I remained somewhat immune and was somewhere approaching 12 before I realised the god stuff being read at what I thought was "story time" was something people ACTUALLY believed.
Well you were a late bloomer! :P Ah no, seriously though, as we've already seen, numerous posters here knew from a very early age they were being sold a crock, that something just wasn't right. They couldn't relate to what they were being told. It's akin to a person who is transgender knowing from a very young age that something isn't right, that they're not the gender they're being told they are. They are employing critical thinking without even being taught the concept. Some people are naturally critical thinkers, some people have to be taught how to express themselves as they lack the vocabulary to bring forth their ideas. I personally think sometimes adults don't give children enough credit that they have this natural ability to be skeptical, and often times I've heard adults use the argument against religious indoctrination that children are being brainwashed. I don't buy it, and I'll explain why - because children, in my experience, have minds of their own. They are quite adept at filtering out noise and disseminating fact from fiction. Brainwashing is a torture technique used to extract information from the brain and replace it with alternate information, literally washing the brain. Some people are more resistant than others, and children in my experience, especially so. It's as they become adults that I would be more concerned because by then their biases and their beliefs are becoming more concrete, but children? Quite malleable little brains they have, and they're able to use them. Otherwise, most people here would still be religious, and would not have been able to separate fantasy from reality. You have to be able to give credit where it's due too!But when the question of our existence here came to me, the god hypothesis is just as valid as any other one I have heard. So I explored it with just as much intellectual rigor and deep thought. And after 20 years of that I have come to the conclusion that the claim our universe is explained by the actions or existence of a non-human intelligent and intentional agent......is a claim that is not just slightly, but ENTIRELY devoid of even a modicum of arguments, evidence, data or reasoning that validly supports it.
That's why it's regarded as 'faith', and not 'fact' by most religions (yes of course, Creationists immediately spring to mind, but they're hardly a majority religion now are they, and even less so in Ireland).You don't have to "believe" in something that works. The computer that you use to post on boards is not powered by faith of any sort, it's powered by electricity. Science is like that. Einstein was horrified by Quantum Mechanics, but it got results (and still does); that is what matters, so he accepted it as a working theory.
Isn't faith described in the Bible as "the evidence of things not seen" i.e. a contradiction in terms? Well, evolution - like science in general - is supported by evidence of things seen, and there's no need to make any of it up. But what if new evidence points evolution in a new direction? Then we'll consider that, too. No belief required, it doesn't define us as people.
It's funny that you mention Albert Einstein, because by all accounts he was an agnostic pantheist, and distanced himself from the atheist labelling. It's no small wonder that he was horrified by the fact that as a pacifist, he'd contributed to the creation of a method that could harness enough energy to wipe all life off the face of the planet. Einstein is also quoted as saying -
"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere"
So not quite the best example to use as a person who relied completely on scientific explanations for everything in the universe. I think we can agree though he was one of the greatest minds of our time.
Science too btw, is about finding evidence for the existence of things not seen. Can you see gravity? You can see evidence of gravity, but gravity itself is not tangible (reminds me of the episode of Road Runner when Wile E. Coyote walks off a cliff, is standing in mid-air, when Road Runner hands him a book about gravity. Coyote reads the book, and then falls, the inference of course being that if Wile E. had not known about gravity, he wouldn't have fallen!
).
Often though, scientists can be blinkered in their thinking, such as when they have a hypothesis, and in order to affirm their hypothesis, they search for evidence that lends credibility to their hypothesis and dismiss evidence that detracts from it. A good scientist will examine evidence that points them in a new direction, a bad scientist will ignore it. Scientists after all, are indeed people too, and without the peer review system, well, we could have ended up believing that homosexuals are homosexuals because... magnets! We could have believed that Sam Harris, a well respected neuroscientist, knew what he was talking about when he makes claims that associate religious belief with mental illness. Being a scientist alone doesn't define someone as a person either. They can still be just as irrational thinkers as the rest of us mere plebs.A belief in rationality and a rejection of superstition could be considered a value. And although there aren't a fixed set of ethical/moral beliefs it could be stated that there is a meta-ethical view. That is that it's possible to construct an ethical system without relying on a religious system.
Grayson you've studied philosophy and theology. How far do you really think that would fly, "a belief in rationality"? Isn't the whole concept of rational thinking and logic the idea that it stands apart from beliefs or lack of belief? They are the tools used in critical thinking, and they're not indigenous to atheism either. While rejection of superstition could be considered a value, that's not indigenous to atheism either! The construction of, as you put it, a meta-ethical system is not a property of atheism, and as I mentioned him above, this is why Sam Harris tends to avoid the use of the term "Atheist", because he contends that Atheism is neither a world-view nor a philosophy. I'd have to agree with him that the concept of Atheism itself has no value, but that's not the same as saying Atheists have no values. Of course they do, but conflating those values with Atheism is at best irrational, and at worst, completely misguided.Is this still going on? People seem to get so wound up over atheists, they just seem to bang on and on, "Oh someone at the pub said they were an atheist, lemme go home and bitch about them online!" and it goes on for over 500 posts? Get a grip guys!
Certainly it would have been better if the OP had recognised the fact that it wasn't because his friend were an atheist that he was banging on about it. It was simply because his friend was an obnoxious twat, an effect multiplied by the fact he'd a few drinks down. There are plenty of people, be they religious or not, that turn into obnoxious twats when they have drink taken, and then there are people that don't even need drink to be an obnoxious twat.What about the atheists that you haven't known are atheist. Are they ok? Oh it's just the vocal ones you have issues with. The ones who go about their business quietly without affecting other people are grand.
I find myself feeling the very same way about Christians. Finally some common ground.
Yep, pretty much sums it up really. Obnoxious twats are just obnoxious, but they're not worth getting upset over when there are far more good people in the world than there are obnoxious twats.0 -
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