(July 18, 2014 at 10:21 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote:

(July 18, 2014 at 10:16 am)ManMachine Wrote: Who said we are hardwired for faith in faeries? You lost me.

(July 18, 2014 at 10:16 am)ManMachine Wrote: I don't think religious devotion is retarded. The need to have systems of belief is hardwired into our brains.

Did you mean to imply something else?

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I still don't understand why you specifically mentioned faeries, anyway, being hardwired for systems of belief could be faeries, there are people who believe in faeries, and UFOs and Vampires, and gods with elephant heads, etc. I still don't see the point your making.

(July 18, 2014 at 10:21 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote:

(July 18, 2014 at 10:16 am)ManMachine Wrote: You are quite right, science and a belief in human progress does not flow from a lack of belief in a god, nor am I suggesting they do. I am putting forward the idea that they both serve the same human needs as their religious counterparts.

Putting grass in a bowl of water and calling it soup also serves the universal human need to consume food but clearly it is not as nutritional as an actual meal. And I think that's a fair comparison.

If you prefer the taste of grass then you will eat grass. That's entirely up to you. I'm not commenting on what you choose.

MM

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(July 18, 2014 at 11:19 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: I don't have time for zealots or preachers of any stripe.

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(July 18, 2014 at 10:16 am)ManMachine Wrote: You are quite right, science and a belief in human progress does not flow from a lack of belief in a god, nor am I suggesting they do. I am putting forward the idea that they both serve the same human needs as their religious counterparts.

I disagree. The purpose of science is interrogating the Universe. The purpose of religion is assuaging man's angst at the fact of mortality. That some people make science the central point of their epistemology doesn't mean that they use science to feel spiritual.

The universe doesn't need interrogating by humans. We are only serving our own needs.

MM

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(July 18, 2014 at 11:24 am)buddabobblehead Wrote: I certainly do NOT understand atheism as a religion. Not even close. No more than chemistry is a religion. Religions have to do with the FAITH in the supernatural. Those things are are believed to 'exist' outside of nature. 'Faith' belongs to religion. We dont need faith to understand math or science. A true atheist understands faith or belief as an intermediate point of knowledge along the continuum of speculation and hypothesis to fact and truth. We know that 2 + 2=4. No faith required. Does string theory explain what is not explained by general relativity and quantum mechanics? One may have faith (believe) that it does, and others may not. Science is in the process of finding out. A true atheist does not believe in 'faith' as having any real meaning except for a lack of knowledge. Without faith there can be no religion.

Then you also understand that science does not have any evidence proving gods do not exist. Atheism is a rejection of a belief in deities. It is saying 'I do not believe in deities'. Which, if you accept science does not disprove them, is not a scientific position. You are saying although science has not disproved deities you are prepared to take a leap of faith and say you do not believe in them.

MM

(July 18, 2014 at 11:36 am)ManMachine Wrote: Then you also understand that science does not have any evidence proving gods do not exist. Atheism is a rejection of a belief in deities. It is saying 'I do not believe in deities'. Which, if you accept science does not disprove them, is not a scientific position. You are saying although science has not disproved deities you are prepared to take a leap of faith and say you do not believe in them.

Disregarding a proposition for which there is insufficient evidence to justify belief is not a leap of faith. Your constant attempts to equivocate all manners of inquiry and consequent knowledge to the means used by religion will not hold up to scrutiny.

It doesn't take science not to believe in deities, just a recognition that the people who propose them can't give you a rational reason to believe they're right. The number of possible entities that can't be disproven is infinite, and for every one, you can propose an additional entity whose existence would preclude the other one. It would be irrational to provisionally believe them all, and at least equally irrational to select one out of the infinitude to believe in when it doesn't have any more evidence going for it than any of the others.

And it is absolutely a scientific position to not assume unevidenced entities.

Quote:Can you name two different things for which all atheists stand? We can't even all agree on the proper definition of atheist.

I can name one, lack of belief in gods or belief that no gods exist. This is enough for us to consider it a position or a worldview, not a wide view but a small one. I didn't mean to say all atheists share common views, and either way the word use in portuguese is 'mundividência' that means more or less 'worldview' but the meaning is not exactly the same, it equals more or less a way of being in society, a position, the position of lack of belief in gods. This is what the guy meant, but he never intended to make atheism a religion, quite the opposite.

(July 18, 2014 at 12:05 pm)Blackout Wrote:

Quote:Can you name two different things for which all atheists stand? We can't even all agree on the proper definition of atheist.

I can name one, lack of belief in gods or belief that no gods exist. This is enough for us to consider it a position or a worldview, not a wide view but a small one. I didn't mean to say all atheists share common views, and either way the word use in portuguese is 'mundividência' that means more or less 'worldview' but the meaning is not exactly the same, it equals more or less a way of being in society, a position, the position of lack of belief in gods. This is what the guy meant, but he never intended to make atheism a religion, quite the opposite.

And this way of being will feel like a bigger or lesser deal depending on whether gods ever were part of your baseline assumptions about life and the world. If you had felt the presence of god before, the difference can seem profound. If not, no difference at all.

(July 18, 2014 at 11:36 am)ManMachine Wrote:

(July 18, 2014 at 10:21 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: Did you mean to imply something else?

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Then you also understand that science does not have any evidence proving gods do not exist. Atheism is a rejection of a belief in deities. It is saying 'I do not believe in deities'. Which, if you accept science does not disprove them, is not a scientific position. You are saying although science has not disproved deities you are prepared to take a leap of faith and say you do not believe in them.

MM

The atheist does not have faith in 'faith'. Thats the difference. The atheist doesn't subscribe to having 'faith' that there is no god, just as they dont need faith to not believe in other supernatural phenomena. Magic, slight of hand, illusion are certainly better explanations for these so called 'supernatural' events. You dont have to have 'faith' that there is or is not extraterrestrial life. Faith has nothing to do with it. There are certain probabilities at play for everything that we suppose to possibly exist, yet we dont have the capability of knowing at this time. The probability for the existence of god is extremely low, if not zero, and it keeps getting lower the more we learn about the universe we live in.

(July 18, 2014 at 12:39 pm)whateverist Wrote:

(July 18, 2014 at 12:05 pm)Blackout Wrote: I can name one, lack of belief in gods or belief that no gods exist. This is enough for us to consider it a position or a worldview, not a wide view but a small one. I didn't mean to say all atheists share common views, and either way the word use in portuguese is 'mundividência' that means more or less 'worldview' but the meaning is not exactly the same, it equals more or less a way of being in society, a position, the position of lack of belief in gods. This is what the guy meant, but he never intended to make atheism a religion, quite the opposite.

And this way of being will feel like a bigger or lesser deal depending on whether gods ever were part of your baseline assumptions about life and the world. If you had felt the presence of god before, the difference can seem profound. If not, no difference at all.

I think the atheist position will always be a big deal as long as theists are the majority, since the standard is too believe in at least one god.

(July 18, 2014 at 11:36 am)ManMachine Wrote:

Thump Wrote:I disagree. The purpose of science is interrogating the Universe. The purpose of religion is assuaging man's angst at the fact of mortality. That some people make science the central point of their epistemology doesn't mean that they use science to feel spiritual.

The universe doesn't need interrogating by humans. We are only serving our own needs.

Nowhere in my post did I say or imply that the Universe needs anything from man. However -- the Universe also doesn't need music, but I'm pretty happy it's there.

More to the point, simply because humans engage in science doesn't mean that it fulfills the same function as religion. Science seeks to describe the Universe outside of man; religion seeks to place man in the Universe.

"Atheism is a religion."

No.

maybe if atheist stop acting like religous people we wouldn't have to look like a religion. But I have always been of the opinion that stupid is not based on a belief