A Question for Believers and Non Believers

[Minimalist]

You would say "let's see your evidence.

I can think of any number of ways for her to prove it.

You know, when someone is in a persistent vegetative state they remove the feeding tube so they die. They still let the idiot shamans chant over them. IT does no good but also no harm....especially as the target of their bullshit is beyond hearing them.

The world is REAL. Your bullshit religion is not. As long as you harm no one but yourself I would not care but you people can never keep your superstitions to yourselves.

[Nick_A]

No, Nick, that isn't how it would work. You continue to conflate supernatural mumbo-jumbo with reality. They do not mix. A peyote trip with Carlos Casteneda doesn't mean you actually contacted the egg-beings lording over the energy circuits above the ether.

There is a reason pizzas and amatory females are popular with men: They exist.

Your soul angst won't serve you well amongst pragmatics.

Quite true. Pragmatics is concerned with subjectivity while the soul is attracted to objective truth. It seems that positive atheism refuses to appreciate this distinction even theoretically.

Simone Weil has observed: "There are two atheisms of which one is a purification of the notion of God."
- William Robert Miller (ed.), The New Christianity (New York: Delacorte Press 1967) p 267; in Paul Schilling,
God in an age of atheism (Abingdon: Nashville 1969) p 17

This is very true. One is a product of an open mind and the other, a product of a closed mind in blind denial. One is a pleasure to dialogue with and the other is the same as a religious literal fundamentalist

[Epimethean]

Nick, this soul thing you are batting about: It doesn't carry much weight in an atheists' group. I should think you would know that. It is an artificial contrivance.

Why did you join here if you are so deeply religious?

[Nick_A]

Nick, this soul thing you are batting about: It doesn't carry much weight in an atheists' group. I should think you would know that. It is an artificial contrivance.

Why did you join here if you are so deeply religious?

I wanted to see if there were any negative atheists here since their opinions are valuable. I see there are only positive atheists who are as dogmatic in their denial as religious fundamentalists are in their belief.

Simone Weil has observed: "There are two atheisms of which one is a purification of the notion of God."
- William Robert Miller (ed.), The New Christianity (New York: Delacorte Press 1967) p 267; in Paul Schilling,
God in an age of atheism (Abingdon: Nashville 1969) p 17

I haven't encountered any of these atheists that Simone refers to posting here.

[Epimethean]

Negative atheism is a bit terse. So, when it all comes down to it, you're just a fisherman doing his duty, eh?

[Nick_A]

Negative atheism is a bit terse. So, when it all comes down to it, you're just a fisherman doing his duty, eh?

Not really. I'm not interested in belief as much as being open to the human condition that causes all this confusion. If we are in Plato's cave, what difference does it matter what we believe? The problem is how to deal with the human condition. Naturally I believe that if we were more consciousy realistic, the conscious connection between Man and higher consciousness, would be experienced more often helping Man out of the cave.

[twocompulsive]

Um...I have not copyrighted the word, dear.

True. However: your post count and personality back up your using 'Evidence' to simplify a greater statement. What you say is certain, it's a known quantity. You speak your own language.

When a random person asks for evidence, it's not necessarily intersubjectively verifiable data evidenced by the scientific method. Ie: I've heard plenty of religious people settle for 'personal evidence' when asked for evidence.

One must not be satisfied with the statement of an individual merely because they possess authority on a given subject. It is the message that is important, not who is referencing it. Some of the greatest minds ever have made major scientific miscalculations. Their greatness in those respects counted for absolutely nothing. Generally speaking however, the more wise and learned one is, the less likely they are to become prone to error. But no one is infallible. Everything must always be checked and scrutinised irrespective of whoever is stating it. I am just as guilty of this as anyone else. But even so. No excuses.

Personal evidence and scientific evidence are not the same thing. The first is subjective and prone to confirmation bias. And is to all intents and purposes an oxymoron. The second - the scientific method - is the only reliable indicator of how to accurately measure a hypothesis. That is a universal that is employed in science as a standard tool for investigation. Subjectivity doesn't enter the equation at all. Because the moment it does then that experiment becomes invalid.

And this brings me onto something else. How we sometimes have great difficulty in accepting what is and isn't true. And I mean truth in the objective sense. Subjective interpretation of factual knowledge is essentially unnecessary and useless. The onus is not for us to mould truth to our world view but the exact opposite. The number who make this classic error is staggering. Accept what is true irrespective of how you feel about it. Even better : accept what is true without having a subjective opinion one way or the other on it.

[Anymouse]

I wanted to see if there were any negative atheists here since their opinions are valuable. I see there are only positive atheists who are as dogmatic in their denial as religious fundamentalists are in their belief.

"Positive" and "negative" atheists? Are they poles on a battery? Bipolar atheists, perhaps? (Like a transistor, not a psychiatric patient).

Also, there are more than "two" groups here than atheists and Christians. Though generally atheism lumps all theistic views into one category, "theism," I doubt your church would have me, nor would I be very likely to enter it (being afraid of marshmallow roasts in the name of religion).

There are deists, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and even the occasional pagan or Wiccan.

James.

[Nick_A]

I wanted to see if there were any negative atheists here since their opinions are valuable. I see there are only positive atheists who are as dogmatic in their denial as religious fundamentalists are in their belief.

"Positive" and "negative" atheists? Are they poles on a battery? Bipolar atheists, perhaps? (Like a transistor, not a psychiatric patient).

Also, there are more than "two" groups here than atheists and Christians. Though generally atheism lumps all theistic views into one category, "theism," I doubt your church would have me, nor would I be very likely to enter it (being afraid of marshmallow roasts in the name of religion).

There are deists, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and even the occasional pagan or Wiccan.

James.

Why worry about blind beliefs. Why not be concerned with the human condition? I didn't just invent the distinction between positive and negative atheism. It was coined by an atheist.

http://www.investigatingatheism.info/definition.html

You worry about groups and I'm concerned with finding open minded people capable of going beyond blind denial for the sake of reality.

[Epimethean]

You say that and yet constantly quote your inspiration in Weil. What if you are devoted to a poor muse there, my friend? It happens often that people are enslaved by their senses, as your steady spelunking references have gone to suggest.