Since we can't know 100% of the knowledge of the universe, what are the grounds for atheism?

weak argument, yawn!

LMAO!

From the person who just claimed that atheists "have to deny God over and over again".

Hi chansen:

As I said  many times before, the existence or nonexistence of "God" depends on whether or not we regard "God" as a metaphor, and/or how we define "God."

If God is a metaphor, then the argument about the existence or non-existence of God is irrelevant because one can't argue the existence of a metaphor.

Even if we regard God as a factual, ontological reality, the existence or nonexistence of God depends on how we define "God." If God is the totality of being, then the existence of God can hardly be denied. Some definitions of God, like Pantheism, Panentheism, Unitheism or Holotheism define God as the totality of being.

If,  however, the traditional Christian definition of God as a separate, supernatural, omnipotent, omniscient and humanoid creator ghost were to be regarded as the only possible definition God, then the above definitions would be atheism. Then I too am an atheist.

And that's fair enough, Arm. But Christianity, even within the UCCan, still talks of the pink dragon God in most circles. You see how much angst there is among the clergy here about other clergy who agree with you.

Frankly, if that's the best "strong atheism" can do, then theism has no real reason to be concerned. I'm actually surprised that you consider it a good argument, chansen. I could make a better argument for atheism than that. 

Yes, chansen, I realize that—sadly.

Well isn't that what you're "experiment" is trying to prove?

Part of the problem with your experiment for me is that science always has to remain within the world of matter. It cannot answer things beyond that. Science has no bias's, people do. Science does not address the many life and spiritual issues that God and religion can for believers. They are different. God cannot be tested, only experienced.

But that's the point, isn't it? God has been in full retreat for centuries. Each time we look under a new wooden board where God was supposed to be, God wasn't there. Each time, religion has an excuse, or denies and demonizes science until it's forced to apologize.

The more we know, the smaller and less impressive God gets, until he is now just "something we experience". Well, sorry, but God in the bible was written as a tad more demonstrative than that.

Science deals with facts, religion with meanings. The meanings often are expressed metaphorically, and sometimes the metaphors are regarded as facts, on par with scientific facts.

This, I think, is the cardinal mistake of the church. (pun intended :-)

What meanings does the church get right? Or do they just insist they have meanings, with no backup whatsoever?

My step-dad makes a better argument than that. He is not simply skeptical about the existence of deities. He is certain that they do not exist. His reason is that people made up their deities. He does not bother trying to disprove God since he accepts that God can neither be proven or disproven . Moreso, as he views them as made up things. He knows that an attempt to disprove A is an act of acknowleding that A exists or is a reality.  He does not think that he should suspend judgment about God's existence, even though he cannot prove/disprove anything. He actually acknowledges having much in common with theists, which he believes adds to his position. He also, believing God is a made up thing, does not rule out that there may be a made up thing which he would support, with the acknowledgment all the while that it is made up.

But the Bible is a record at least a part of the human experience of God. Again, only literalism (which has never been the universally accepted way of understanding the Bible) insists that the Bible is anything more than that. The experiences recorded therein challenge us; nature challenges us, science challenges us; for that matter atheism challenges us. Some turn away from God by such challenges; others find their faith in God deepened by the challenges. I fall among the latter group. The more science, for example, discovers about our origins (human origins or the origins of the universe) the more in awe of God I find myself. You speak of God being in full retreat. Not at all. A certain way of understanding God (that has never been universally accepted) is in full retreat. In other words, it's some humans who are in retreat.

The meaning of life and other meanings are up to each of us to define. There is no all-applicable or absolutely right or wrong meaning. A group can agree on a meaning, by group consensus or majority agreement, but then it is so only by common agreement. Scientific facts are a given, but the meanings are created by us.

So, why do we need religion to create a meaning? What elevates the bible above any other book you could use for inspiration?

I think some go way deeper than literalism. They read what is not there and never was. They can do that and wind up believers or non-believers. The Bible is not a singular written work. It is a collection of writings. They are writings which span hundreds of years. They were composed by many different human authors. They express different messages targeted to a variety of audiences. God did not write the Bible. So, what we have are people's accounts of God, their account of their belief in God, people's experience of God, what they believed was God's communication with them. Some folks heard or read their account and believed them and others did not. I believe that it is their account. I have had enough of the same experiences, same communications... not all of them, but enough that I believe in God.

We don't need religion or the Bible to create meaning.

I, personally, don't elevate the Bible above other inspirational books. Actually, because of the biblical literalism that was shoved down my throat in my younger years, I have a acquired bit of a distaste for the Bible as inspirational literature.

Meanings come from speculation, whether that speculation is philosophical, scientific, theological, cultural, ideological, etc. It may be the Bible. It may be the Quran. It may be science. It may be Shakespeare. It may be Luther. It may be stories of Gitchi Manitou. It may be VoDuo.... Meaning can come from "conceptions".  Does one have to have religion? IMO, No.

To add on what SG says about her dad's views, a comment I often use in some variation is:  When I find the car keys in the sofa, I don't keep wondering if they're on the roof.  Gods can be firmly identified, their origins observed.  Those origins are in the minds of humans.  They exist, and we can see where they exist.

Alright weak analogy then.

I think we each have a very individualistic view of what is termed God.  For some it is  a man who lives in what they call heaven.  For others it is a word for those things we feel but can't prove to someone else - including those awesome moments of connectiveness to all people, all nature and the 'something' we call God.

Azdgari, ever read Michael Shermer's How We Believe?

Hello each and all...

I have much appreciated the atheist presence as a provocation to thought. The atheist has done much to locate and question the glib confidence of my inherited religious traditions and convictions. I am pressed to dedicated reconsideration of all that I take to be the case concerning the presence and influence of "God" in human experience. Something of a refining process, for which I am grateful.

It seems to me that the atheist quarrel is primarily concerned with the dark manifestations of religion located in a narrow sample of the universal experience of religion.

The atheist assault on the God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam seems biased by a determination to see only the shadow of these religious traditions, using that shadow as definitive of religious precept and practice. What about the enlightened precepts and practices of these traditions? Further, what of the manifold expressions of religion as the cohesive key to the surviving and flourishing of indigenous peoples of all times and places?

I am reading "God is not Great", by Christopher Hitchens. He seems to have catalogued all the travesty committed by religion, concluding that religion poisons everything. He does concede that some have employed religion to the service of noble ends. He states that in the case of the latter, it is not really religion but humanity at its best, that the good imagined and achieved could have as easily been accomplished without religion.

Could we not, by extrapolation, say that the abominations Hitchens attributes to religion are grounded in human imagination and will? That the presenting problem is not religion but distorted human imagination and will?

George

Yes, it's never religion's fault.

Just like when Taylor Swift sings about her many failed relationships, it's never her fault - it's always the guy's fault. She has never written a song called, "Maybe it's me".

It is never Taylor's fault, and it's never religion's fault.

wonderfall,

You and chansen have a lot in common

The both of share sombunall things to be deeply meaningful/in my terminology art or spiritual (things like your country of birth, the sancity of both your selves, the concept of family...), somebunall things you don't share (waterfall follows an art called Christianity that has certain concepts, like g_d, Jesus, the devil, etc) at all...etc

Art can be tested and experienced, even done consciously and intentionally

(...category mistakes abound..."Mozart was the best composer in the world" "prove it!" and so it goes...)

It doesn't have to be shared though (in the sense of followed/agreed to), and thank g_odness for that :3

(and what we find to be spirtitual/our art/what we find to be deeply meaningful, we can become protective of it, turn into tight balls of protectiveness...that's all quite normal...even to the point of atheists believing in a 'soul'...)

chansen can only talk aboot 'you' (in the sense of what you cherish, your g_d, your Christianity, your Jesus concepts, etc) if you accept what he is writing aboot as writing aboot your concepts.  For him to be writing or commenting aboot your g_d, etc, you have to accept, on some level, that he is.  What power you have :3

thank g_odness for WC, the ministry of sharing in the common human experience :3

*back to the ether*

Hi kaythecurler:

You took the words right out of my mouth, or brain, or mind, or soul.

Hi "chansen"...

I imagine this intended for me:

Let me be clear. Religion has been used to accomplish much that is rightly called evil. This is no secret to any person even moderately conversant in our shared history. The Salem witch hunts come easily to mind, along with the Spanish Inquisition, or the assorted Crusades. Examples can be drawn from all epochs. Knowing this does not diminish my position.

If I liquor myself up every evening? If over a period of time I harm my general health by the habitual resort to liquor? If a doctor finally discovers that liquor has so damaged my liver that it has no future? Would I get anywhere by blaming it on liquor? The "Taylor Swift" argument is appropriate, "It's not my fault" does not absolve the abuser of religion, science, or any other available means.

Being a universal means, religion holds a great potential for good. This when it is practiced"within" its proscribed boundary. I understand this "within" to be a sacred space. The same may be said for the practice of science and all other means available to human imagination and will. Rightly used all such means bring benefit. Misused they bring harm, and abused they bring danger.

It would be nice if we could lay the blame on the means we employ to achieve the ends we have in view. I think of Flip Wilson's "the devil made me do it". But we are not so easily off the hook. Each of us must choose the means most appropriate to the ends we have in view. Finding fault with means simply misses the point.

George

So Arminius, shall we point out that 'evidence' of connection between all things? 

Sometimes I see with my mind's eye an intricate lacy spiderweb touching all things.  A kindness done to one thing sending gentle vibes along the threads. A violence done to one thing causing breakages to the web.  (For the literal among us - no I don't have a space in my head where my mind's eye can be found!) 

Well said Kaythecurler. (And for all the literal among us -don't listen to Kaythecurler re her "minds eye", google the words "pituitary gland third eye", you may find it. {wink})

Shermer, of Skeptic magazine, writes about how and why people believe.

Infinite Ends; regarding imagination!

How could such infinite ends to the imagination be used to corrupt ... being that power corrupts and what an infinite stretch could do to the abstract? Recall that historicly the Romans and Jews (juda'n not Hebre) were the only traditions that denied the possibility of nothing and the infinite. This caused great grief for the Aramaic that was studious in math and had a concept of infinite as having no end. These leave a great dark area available for us to quibble over as ... realize no one knows ... leaving nothing or nobody holding the best of cards! Thus those devoid of thought are in the fore front? The thnkers are linger, following to see what the unthunk sinks into as a cow in de mud 'ere ... that sucking feeling!

Now if my late and strange grandfather was right about love being nothing ... could this lead to an infinite hunger? Is this a hunger to know or not to know? If it was used as a hammer about not knowing would a person that believed they knew the infinite (in a mortal or limited case) use this imagined fantasy to drop such nuts on human heads that were open to weird suggestion? Could you beat an superstitious person over the head about unknown and fearful things? That could put sense beyond them and explain the cartoon about men hunting psyche critters with clubs and maces as macedonians ... and the maces come down across heads that were virtually donian (from the Erse Don for a hole where there is nothing). Such accomplished they loved it but few know who really loved the bashing uness it moderated about sectant banter ... leading to divine sects that infatuated Dante with  a funny alchemii of sex! We now call this Divine Coedy and people will fight about it when they should run if they don't know the implications and complexity of extensive connections.

I get a picture of 3 monkey theorm and da Videon PS alms ... after written experiences that couldn't be rite before (or ante)! So much is lost in blind transmutation ... that unseen communication that is vocal or otherwise advocated ... by supportive powers (aÐ'm-ism; a philosophy denied by Romans who would accept nothing from any dimension below them and thus creating Peter Prin). Therein we were screwed ... male and female, Jew, gentile and all non Romantics ... if you thought ... you were just out of the Circe in short order! The decree was that light belonged in a tree or bush ... fringe bunches like gorse? A place for bobbin people and spinners ... like Friar Tuck?

Premise: If we could just get people to disbelieve the infinite theory and believe that god is in a box and it is ours! We'd have it made ... but there are always flaws in a stupid plan ... like stray intellect. You know it's out there ...

This lead to patriarchs selling daughters as a metaphor of things they couldn't equate with ... omega d'ominous word! This happened because word carries in it appreciation of the rounda bout genre ... that could metaphorically relate to thoughts getting into a hard place as Eire manna of anonymous entity. Today real scientists still say light is a mystery like apostacy ... and unseen light is even more alien ... like black Ness. Pools you can't see into ...

You wouldn't believe the idealisms that come out of such stuff as gods ... and then these curios entities do disturb some brainstorms into moving experiences ... brain phoqah? The people of the Aris (Erid) regions according to Hebrews ... but realize Hebrews were dark too ...

The questiion is where did the red-haired, blue eye'd juda'ns (Oz-semes/sums?) come from ... blame the crusades ...

Did someone say don't cross the fabrics and fibres ... optic illusions?

I'll accept all gods and daemons ... one can propbably feed the grey manna with black and white polity and the brain will do its crank thing ... vert ego is thus on the go ... I'Don't expect the institutionalize to stretch that far tho' ... until Apocalysos hits ... that's another realm of thought and myth ... further out ... and if you know of the problems of God ... you'll back off and observe from the dark ... comment on what you see obtusely ... authorities don't like to hear of errors in plan ... why gos is and was sunk ... a subtle support system depressed by the original error that nothing could phoqah up other than Peter in attentuation, or thus at attent shin ... one leg up on someone ... a'Hab?

The myths one has to familiarize with to understand infinite and out-there things ...

Especially as truth is rare down here in the people of the Lie---Dr Scott Peck! A'dillo've an etude ...

You understand peccadillos? Under the hyscos it may be spelt wildly ... as if someones brain was hexed with giggles and RIFF-tz ...

A different kind of world wide web, eh?

As far as scientific evidence for the connection between all things is concerned, many scientists agree that complementarity is at the heart of being.

Thus, the cosmic analysis necessitates the cosmic synthesis; the universe of variety, diversity, and unqiueness is also one of utter oneness and sameness: a singularity in a state of synthesis.

Synthesis is antithetical to analysis. I don't think there can ever be analytical proof for the synthetical, syncretic, wholistic or synergetic nature of the universe. However, IT can be experienced. But if the Principle of Complementarity, whereby opposites necessitate each other, is assumed to be a basic cosmic principle, then the cosmic analysis proves the cosmic synthesis truthful. Then the cosmic synthesis is proved to be true by inference.

We actually have the web image enshrined in our princples, kay. Our seventh principle describes the universe as "the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part". The interdependent part is important. Those connections go both ways, not one. Breaking a strand hurts both sides.

Mendalla

It is fascinating to me that spiritual teachings are similar in content from religion to religion.  Mostly buried under tradition! 

Hi Mendalla:

Breaking a strand does not only hurt both sides, it weakens the entire web. If we tear enough holes into the web, then the web collapses.

What we should be doing is weave more strands.

Yup.  When we pollute the planet we kill the animals, plants, and eventually, humankind.

If I believe that there are pink dragons behind the squares and in reality there are not, no danger befalls me. Ah, dear friend, what if you don't believe there are pink dragons behind the squares - but there are!?

That scenario sounds like the texts of terror that are used to control Christians!

Do you mean the texts of love by which we Christians guide ourselves?

The whole dragons behind the boxes is dumb, as far as I can see. What if I were to show you a Universe of immense and incredible complexity that the greatist mathematical minds find nearly impossible to fathom yet still of such simplicity and beauty that a child's mind can appreciate. And then if I were to tell you that such a Universe had no architect or reason to exist. Would you believe me? Comparing God to one man's belief about dragons behind a set of boxes is incomparable to attempting to answer the "why" and "purpose" behind all that exists. It takes a philosophers mind to dwell on such things.


Belief in God makes much more sense if we view ourselves as living and breathing and having our being within the body of something greater. How could we, as mere cells within a greater whole, ever be expected to understand the whole without experiencing it?. We can see anology in nature and extrapolate from there.


What if the Earth was a living entity in space? Would it not be as God to us? The only way we can know for sure is to raise and expand our awareness. In this way only we could be God-Aware and know for sure.

Beautiful Neo.

Neo, while we don't necessarily share the same ideas about God, I thought those two sentences were bang on!

It does help to cross reason with feeling ... like 2 ph-shes and 5 loavers ... an image of farce ID sweet breds ... an old term for the two halves of brain that are porjected into the electric mystery of mind ...

Some physical stoics can't accept Eyrestails ... they could be classic!

Is some interweaving of past and present required to allow human futures? Even Charles Dickens said with our emotional excesses the future here looks bleak ...

Too much judgement and too little myth ... more strings please ... the only was to encapsulate an emotion that's out of order! They are like that fly of like Ba tz out of eLLe ... and expect to be forgiven for crimes of passion ... reminds me of someone in Toronto!

This is said to be OK for the Heirarchy and not for wee people and thus the diminishment of the subtle mind ... a self-limiting built in factor? Lets call it mortal ... just for the Phun ... al Leg or yee ...

Thanks Seeler and Rev Steven. I'm used to not having many share my philosophy on God. One reason, I suspect, is because I'm always referring to "living, breathing and having our being within the body of God", which must make me appear pantheistic on the surface, that is, one who identifies God as being the Universe itself, and nothing more.
I actually lean much more towards panentheism, where I believe the physical Universe is animated and manifested by some hidden force. Much like we as people have an invisible mind and spirit in and behind our physical body, so do great Beings like the Earth and the Sun have physical bodies that are animated by a cosmic mind and spirit. And then I also tend to take it even one step further by believing that even our mind and spirit are but manifestations of an even greater unseen, and that I see as the real God, the true Self, the Observer, the Spark of God.
Spirit, mind and body, therefore, can be seen in this light as "temples of the Lord", where the true eternal "Self" stands outside of creation. These statements most definitely require a belief structure that modern day physics cannot touch because, simply, there is no physicality to them.


I suspect that the growing atheist movement that Chansen is promoting has more to do the Church's abuse of hard nose dogmas that make little sense in our world today. What would a new world religion look like in the future? Perhaps that's a subject for a different thread.