@ Dagda:

Dagda - Whether there can be evidence for the 'spiritual realm'...or not - What?.. - should you just go ahead and believe without evidence??? I myself need evidence to believe--rationally anyway--whether there can be evidence or not.

If God is, indeed, undetectable by science; and it turns out there can be no evidence for him...empirical evidence or 'otherwise' - I'm not going to just go ahead and believe in him without evidence! The same goes for 'The Spiritual' here. Until there's verifiable evidence - I shall not believe. I think it would be completely, totally and utterly irrational to do otherwise. Evidence is for giving credence to the truth of a belief. Belief without evidence is irrational. Whether there can be or otherwise...sorry

EvF

This kind of reminds me of Hermes Trimegistrus argument of "How can you say that there are two gods when there is only one?"
A bad paraphrase, yes. I think that this was Augustine and his departure from Manichaean philosophy .

EvF I totally understand your point. There are days when doubt niggles away at the back of my mind. This doubt made me abandon the orthodox version of God for reasons not dissimilar to the reasons you abandoned Spirituality altogether. However, I can not bring myself to accept any form of atheism.

I see atheism as materialism. You might ask 'So What?'. Well I was brought up in a household which embraced trade unionism/socialism. Both my Dad and Granddad were trade union reps at one point in their lives and me and my mum have been union members since we started work. I still have a copy of The Communist Manifesto despite abandoning communism well before I left school. This environment has left me distrustful of any type of materialism. If that was not enough my family embraced Christian Socialism rather than its Secular cousin. This means the obvious secular connotations of atheism/materialism sit at odds with me. Hope that enlightened someone in some way rather than just amounting to a paragraph of me ranting on about my life so far!

Atheism doesn't have to be materialism. The only part of the definition is rejecting God(s).

But yeah...if someone is an atheist and also a materialist, indeed; "So what?".

Quote:You might ask 'So What?'.

Indeed, like I said - so what?...

Now... .. . ...wait for it

Quote:Well I was brought up in a household which embraced trade unionism/socialism.

That's got nothing to do with atheism or materialism. So I still wonder...so what? How can this be a refutation to the 'So What?' of atheism and materialism when combined. I still wonder "So what?"; as you correctly predicted I might wonder...

EvF

My core programing tells me materialism is individualism. 'What does not benefit the hive does not benefit the bee either' as Emperor Marcus said in Meditations. I associate materialism with individualism and individualism with disaster. How can I then support materialism when I think it is against my own (and that of societies) best interests?

(June 16, 2009 at 4:06 pm)dagda Wrote: My core programing tells me materialism is individualism. 'What does not benefit the hive does not benefit the bee either' as Emperor Marcus said in Meditations. I associate materialism with individualism and individualism with disaster. How can I then support materialism when I think it is against my own (and that of societies) best interests?

I've not got involved in (or even read) most of this thread ... a bit too philosophical (as in BS) for me ... but I do have to take exception to your view that materialism (which you see as atheism) is individualism. IMO none of these things are the same.

• Materialism has a couple of meanings, it's a consumer oriented term meaning that one covets possessions (modern day tokens of wealth I assume) and it can also mean and kind of methodological naturalism i.e. the belief that what we can see/detect is all there is ... broadly speaking that's my default position.
  
• Atheism (as you agreed elsewhere) is simply the rejection of claimed deities, a lack of belief in god or gods.
  
• Individualism is, I suppose, a philosophical position regarding the individual's personal rights as paramount ... it's a bit kike nihilism but I don't think it goes quite that far.

Kyu

(June 16, 2009 at 4:06 pm)dagda Wrote: My core programing tells me materialism is individualism. 'What does not benefit the hive does not benefit the bee either' as Emperor Marcus said in Meditations. I associate materialism with individualism and individualism with disaster. How can I then support materialism when I think it is against my own (and that of societies) best interests?

You have evidently confused economic materialism with philosophical materialism. Philosophical materialism states that nothing exists but matter.

As EvF said though, you can be an atheist without be a materialist. Just because we don't believe in gods doesn't mean we cannot believe that something "spiritual" exists. I wouldn't take that position, but I know of a few who do. Certainly most Buddhists would probably view it that way.

Quote:

(June 13, 2009 at 9:37 pm)obsessed_philosopher Wrote: "The belief that there is a "physical world" and a "spiritual world"."

(I always came to this conclusion when I was...otherwise intoxicated. >_> )

Okay. So, if there WERE a spiritual world, i.e., an afterlife, a place where your soul rests before being reborn, whatever, how would you know? If it wasn't physical, how would you be able to prove that it was there? And if you DID prove it, wouldn't it be then a physical thing?
But, since it isn't physical, wouldn't that mean that it doesn't exist in the first place, not to mention, you would need proof for souls and a whole bunch of other crap.

Indeed, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence!

I don't think that there is a contradiction between being atheist and accepting the two notions of "physical world" and "spiritual world".
It is a matter of interpretation.
Of course if you equal "spiritual world " to the existing of a soul given to every newborne which lives everafter in heavens ,it is sheer nonsense.
On the other hand we know that the world we perceive is divided in a part which contains measurable entities ,governed by phisycal laws which we conventionally call the physical world and other parts ,although basically phisycal as well, but characterized by non measurable entities and governed by a lot of undefinable laws.
We use to call our individual thoughts ,emotions, all which is related to our mind as our spiritual world.
It doesn't matter if all of these human activities are located only in the brain, which for sure most of them are,or also in other parts of our body.
A typical characteristic of our spiritual world is the coexistence in a mixed up matter of rational and irrational thinking
We can name all of our mind activities as being our soul and not contradicting by that our atheistic convincing, as long as we don't atribute it to be a gift from God or that it has the capacity to live after our death.
I will go further to the link existing between this spiritual world and the power of religion.
Let's leave to historians,archeologists,theology scientists and so on, the task of of demonstrating the origins of religions or as put most simpler the creation of God in history,and reffer to the spiritual needs of our contemporary humans.
One can not deny that pople are seeking in their daily life for help, comfort,happiness,health,and so on from outer factors to their personality.That they are seeking for fullfilments of their spiritual lives.
It is a struggle for existence and survival for every human being.
Religion succeeds in giving to the great majority of humans the right answer which they actually expect in their minds.It's so convincing that all your life is governed by God,if you are okay-thank God who helped you,if you are in need -pray for his help,if a tragedy occurs-it is his will.
The believe in afterlife is a most powerfull weapon in the hands of clerics of all religions.
What I'm saying is this:
-the existence of an individual spiritual world ,call it soul,or whatever you want, is basically a physical
atribute to humans (also to animals) but totally different in it's form from the "physical world" as conventional defined my measurable entities.
- may be that sometime in the future all or part of the spiritual world will be also measurable but to day,except electrochemical measurable activities of the brain with little interpretable results,the spiritual world is not measurable.
-religion in it's spiritual aspect,combined with it's social/political aspect is a major component of the spiritual world of millions of people.
-atheism could see itself only as a phylosophic believe and let religion govern the minds of people,
or it coud see itself also as social protagonist contributing to the development of modern society.
-in this last task ,if desired,atheism should come up with simple answers contradicting or anihilating the spiritual answers given by religion

(June 20, 2009 at 12:14 pm)josef rosenkranz Wrote:

Quote:

(June 13, 2009 at 9:37 pm)obsessed_philosopher Wrote: "The belief that there is a "physical world" and a "spiritual world"."

(I always came to this conclusion when I was...otherwise intoxicated. >_> )

Okay. So, if there WERE a spiritual world, i.e., an afterlife, a place where your soul rests before being reborn, whatever, how would you know? If it wasn't physical, how would you be able to prove that it was there? And if you DID prove it, wouldn't it be then a physical thing?
But, since it isn't physical, wouldn't that mean that it doesn't exist in the first place, not to mention, you would need proof for souls and a whole bunch of other crap.

Indeed, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence!

I don't think that there is a contradiction between being atheist and accepting the two notions of "physical world" and "spiritual world".
It is a matter of interpretation.
Of course if you equal "spiritual world " to the existing of a soul given to every newborne which lives everafter in heavens ,it is sheer nonsense.
On the other hand we know that the world we perceive is divided in a part which contains measurable entities ,governed by phisycal laws which we conventionally call the physical world and other parts ,although basically phisycal as well, but characterized by non measurable entities and governed by a lot of undefinable laws.
We use to call our individual thoughts ,emotions, all which is related to our mind as our spiritual world.
It doesn't matter if all of these human activities are located only in the brain, which for sure most of them are,or also in other parts of our body.
A typical characteristic of our spiritual world is the coexistence in a mixed up matter of rational and irrational thinking
We can name all of our mind activities as being our soul and not contradicting by that our atheistic convincing, as long as we don't atribute it to be a gift from God or that it has the capacity to live after our death.
I will go further to the link existing between this spiritual world and the power of religion.
Let's leave to historians,archeologists,theology scientists and so on, the task of of demonstrating the origins of religions or as put most simpler the creation of God in history,and reffer to the spiritual needs of our contemporary humans.
One can not deny that pople are seeking in their daily life for help, comfort,happiness,health,and so on from outer factors to their personality.That they are seeking for fullfilments of their spiritual lives.
It is a struggle for existence and survival for every human being.
Religion succeeds in giving to the great majority of humans the right answer which they actually expect in their minds.It's so convincing that all your life is governed by God,if you are okay-thank God who helped you,if you are in need -pray for his help,if a tragedy occurs-it is his will.
The believe in afterlife is a most powerfull weapon in the hands of clerics of all religions.
What I'm saying is this:
-the existence of an individual spiritual world ,call it soul,or whatever you want, is basically a physical
atribute to humans (also to animals) but totally different in it's form from the "physical world" as conventional defined my measurable entities.
- may be that sometime in the future all or part of the spiritual world will be also measurable but to day,except electrochemical measurable activities of the brain with little interpretable results,the spiritual world is not measurable.
-religion in it's spiritual aspect,combined with it's social/political aspect is a major component of the spiritual world of millions of people.
-atheism could see itself only as a phylosophic believe and let religion govern the minds of people,
or it coud see itself also as social protagonist contributing to the development of modern society.
-in this last task ,if desired,atheism should come up with simple answers contradicting or anihilating the spiritual answers given by religion

You sound like a spiritual humanist. You might try the magazine "Human Quest" (if it still exists)/ Steve Allen was associated with it as well as John Shelby Spong.

Quote:

(June 20, 2009 at 4:45 pm)LEDO Wrote: [quote='josef rosenkranz' pid='20650' dateline='1245514494']
[quote][quote='obsessed_philosopher' pid='20134' dateline='1244943468']
"The belief that there is a "physical world" and a "spiritual world"."



You sound like a spiritual humanist. You might try the magazine "Human Quest" (if it still exists)/ Steve Allen was associated with it as well as John Shelby Spong.

Hi Ledo
You're not yourself a convinced nor a less convinced atheist.Are you?
Let me tell you this.If you have an argument with an opponent of you and you try to understand his point of view or even to recognize that his philosophy speaks to a certain category of people,then it proves not of a weakness of your position but quite contrary a strength of your conviction.
Religion is a fact of life for billions of people,nothing doing.
We as atheists, whith our activities ,even within the frame of this forum,do not only convince each other of the rightness of our philosophy (call it only belief if it pleases you) but we also try to convince
non-atheists.That's the right thing to do.
We are not playing ping-pong with ideas,as elated as they might be,but we are happy to think at least that we are convincing other people to join atheism.
Recognizing the fact that religion ,besides its negative deeds in the past and to day, has in the same time also positive influences on the minds of people does not disminish out atheist convincing whatsoever.
So, by puting me in a certain category as a spiritual humanist is nothing but totaly wrong indicating that you have not understood my opinion.
If you have other opinions you could come out with contra-arguments but categorizing me and recommending material for study means little to me.