The commonality dilemma

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ShyGirl7
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03 Oct 2019, 11:06 am

Fnord wrote:

"Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby." -- Penn Jillette

Only if Penn Jillette can prove that God does not exist - otherwise Atheism (a belief system) is a religion.

Fnord
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03 Oct 2019, 11:07 am

envirozentinel wrote:

Fnord wrote:

envirozentinel wrote:

I don't want to ho at a tangent, but my question is why such a supreme being (technologically advanced beyond imagining)/would be primitive enough to need blood sacrifices, even vicarious ones.

God didn't. Humanity did.

The idea behind "sacrifice" is to do away something precious or valuable. As far as "blood sacrifice" is concerned, the idea is that the death, dismemberment, and cremation of your best bull, ram, or goat was both an admission of guilt and the payment of a "fine" for the the sin(s) you committed. God Himself even admitted that He finds such sacrifices detestable (!) and that He would much rather people obey Him in the first place, but He directed that such sacrifices be made as a sign of sincere repentance and to restore the relationship between Him and sinners.

Of course, the need for "blood sacrifice" ended with Jesus' death on the cross, so we don't have to concern ourselves with it anymore.

Your beliefs may differ, of course...

But do you accept the traditional Christian belief that all who don't have him are "lost"?

Yes, I do. Before we derail into who's beliefs are right and who's beliefs are wrong, we need to agree that beliefs are subjective, and each of us interprets God in his or her own way.I grew up in a very Bible-based church. But it still seems incompatible with an advanced God who's far superior to our primitive and tribal-like ideas.[/quote][color=black]God gave us free will, in that we are free to choose to love and obey Him or not. Those who choose to love and obey Him are "Found", and those who do not are "Lost".

Now, I'm not going to force-feed a bunch of Bible verses to you, nor am I going to judge you as a person for your beliefs. I am not an expert on Christianity, but if you're sincerely interested in learning about my beliefs -- and not merely interested in demolishing them then start another thread ... no ... skip that. Send a PM to me with a few simple questions and I will try to answer them.

And please, none of those stupid "Can God create a rock so heavy He can't lift it?" type of questions. Thank you.

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Last edited by Fnord on 03 Oct 2019, 11:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

kraftiekortie
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03 Oct 2019, 11:08 am

It’s only a religion if a supreme being is involved.

Otherwise, at most, atheism mimics religion.

ShyGirl7
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03 Oct 2019, 11:14 am

kraftiekortie wrote:

It’s only a religion if a supreme being is involved.

Otherwise, at most, atheism mimics religion.

Not true at all.

In Confucianism a supreme being is not involved - and it's still a religion.

Religion is a belief system.

Marknis
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03 Oct 2019, 11:17 am

kraftiekortie wrote:

It’s only a religion if a supreme being is involved.

Otherwise, at most, atheism mimics religion.

Ironically, the Romans called Christians atheists since they didn’t worship any of the Roman gods so it’s silly how Christians bash atheists. The idiot caller on the video of the Atheist Experience I posted earlier tried to claim atheist originally meant “an idiot” and he doesn’t get that he’s calling the Christians he’s supposed to be defending idiots. :roll:

Really, though, what can you expect from someone who thinks Pharoah was a name rather than a title?

Fnord
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03 Oct 2019, 11:20 am

ShyGirl7 wrote:

kraftiekortie wrote:

It’s only a religion if a supreme being is involved.

Otherwise, at most, atheism mimics religion.

Not true at all.

In Confucianism a supreme being is not involved - and it's still a religion.

Religion is a belief system.

1.0.0: Religion
  1.1.0: Atheistic
  1.2.0: Agnostic
  1.3.0: Theistic
    1.3.1: Monotheistic
    1.3.2: Polytheistic
    1.3.3: Pantheistic

... or something like that ... ?

kraftiekortie
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03 Oct 2019, 11:27 am

There is controversy as to whether Confucianism is actually considered a "religion."

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary definitions:

1. The service and worship of God or the Supernatural

2. Commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance

3. A personal set of institutionalized systems of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices.

4. A cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith

Atheism is not any of these things---except maybe #4.

techstepgenr8tion
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03 Oct 2019, 12:57 pm

techstepgenr8tion wrote:

It depends on an atheist's behavior. If they hold it as a private matter that they don't see enough evidence then that holds true. If they chase people around with it then they're behaving on the premise of a positive assertion and it's not any more than if they ran around preaching the evil and backwardness of collecting stamps - ie. proselytizing against stamp collection would indeed be a hobby.

Atheism could be considered true under any of the following circumstances:
1) Reductive materialism is true
2) Reductive materialism is not true but polytheism or animism is.
3) Reductive materialism is not true, polytheism or animism aren't true, but panpsychism or 'universe as an organism' is.
4) Some unforeseen case where all three of the previous are untrue including no God.

When it's waved as a political cudgel I think it muddies the waters because it confuses 'atheism' for more important constituents like questions about reductive materialism, questions about revelation and its relevance/irrelevance to truth, questions about consciousness, etc.. It gets us into the same sort of problems that Sam Harris complained about in American tribal politics - ie. like your position on gun rights shouldn't inform us on your opinion of global warming or your opinion on abortion, they're apples, oranges, and pears with no proper inherent relationship to one another.

Almost incontrovertible evidence that I nailed it - the conversation moved on as if I'd never keyed this at all.

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cathylynn
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03 Oct 2019, 1:40 pm

you can't prove a negative (NO god). i can certainly point to the dearth of evidence to support my idea that god is unlikely, hence my rational atheism.

if there is a heaven and a good god, everyone goes. i wouldn't find it a source of comfort or joy to spend eternity with a tyrant who doesn't mind condemning people to ETERNAL extreme suffering.

rdos
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03 Oct 2019, 3:20 pm

Fnord wrote:

rdos wrote:

Until they can explain how matter from an incredibly large black hole (all the matter of the universe compressed into a single point) can escape and still expand after billions of years...

Google "Hawking Radiation".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation

I don't think this can explain how a huge black hole can explode and fill out our entire universe. When a supoernova explodes it does so before gravity becomes so strong that not even light can escape, and when it later collapses it's the reverse scenario of the Big Bang.

techstepgenr8tion
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03 Oct 2019, 3:25 pm

rdos wrote:

I don't think this can explain how a huge black hole can explode and fill out our entire universe. When a supoernova explodes it does so before gravity becomes so strong that not even light can escape, and when it later collapses it's the reverse scenario of the Big Bang.

I think Penrose might be on to something with the idea that with space and time being directly related (in a multiplicand sense) that things go haywire when you get to either the infinitely small or large. I think he'd suggest that we're in a cyclical system that gives birth to a big bang when heat death hits a particular maximum.

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rdos
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03 Oct 2019, 3:27 pm

cathylynn wrote:

God figures are always human-like and part of the neurotypical social hierarchy (at the top), and so cannot have created the universe since humans are just a small evolutionary parenthesis on the insignificant planet earth, in a particular solar system in a particular galaxy among billions of other. Therefore, this God cannot have created anything and only exist in the minds of people that believe in him.

rdos
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03 Oct 2019, 3:33 pm

techstepgenr8tion wrote:

rdos wrote:

Sounds like a religious creation myth to me. :wink:

The potential relationship between space & time (which I suppose works with extra dimensions?) is completely impossible to prove, and so should work like a fail-safe explanation in a religious creation myth. :mrgreen:

techstepgenr8tion
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03 Oct 2019, 4:32 pm

rdos wrote:

Sounds like a religious creation myth to me. :wink:

You do have me on that - I'm not a physicist.

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techstepgenr8tion
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03 Oct 2019, 5:31 pm

Completely forgetting this is L&D in continuation with the theme of this thread :lol: , I started in on this one last night and I'm just having a minute to get into it. Nima seems pretty granular and I'm glad he does it, it's not quite as good but he seems to be doing an equal amount of demystifying here to what Mark Blyth does with economics.

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funeralxempire
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04 Oct 2019, 1:26 am

ShyGirl7 wrote:

Fnord wrote:

"Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby." -- Penn Jillette

Only if Penn Jillette can prove that God does not exist - otherwise Atheism (a belief system) is a religion.

You can claim that all you like, but it won't ever become true. Atheism is a religion like being bald is a hair colour. The only thing that unites atheists is not believing in any gods. :wink:

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