Thoughts On Atheism and Faith

[ray3400]

Clearly this guy was indoctrinated with fear. It's a really sad thing to see. He's living his life afraid of something that doesn't exist, yet is so eager to serve it, he'll come preach to a load of atheists.

He thinks this stuff is just true, reality be damned. To him, it is real. I don't deny that. Can he ever snap out of it? Sure, I don't think it's ever too late. But you have to have the will to really dig up your beliefs and root around in them. That's hard to do when you're shit scared of your master.

I have learned both the God of fear, and the God of love.
I assure you, the God of fear is no God at all, but a notion pushed forth by the forces of evil. The God of fear is a decoy, built on falsehood and deception for the purpose of driving people away from the God of love, to deprive them of life itself.

I would suspect intellectuals would be open to hearing new ideas. Not in the sense that the new ideas shouldn't be criticized, but that they can be entertained for the purposes of discussion. If this were to be true, I would ask the atheists to entertain the existence of a spiritual realm, and to imagine its implications. A realm that cannot be seen in the physical, but perhaps can be fathomed by humans nonetheless.
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How can we prove by the physical that which exists beyond the physical? Would we be guaranteed such a proof if the spiritual did exist?

Is the inability to prove the spiritual using the physical an excuse to avoid naturalism and the scientist? Have we yet learned the limitations of the scientist to know that their is nothing beyond their ways?

So if we were to suspend the necessity of naturalism, to entertain the idea of the spiritual, what would we find? Perhaps we would find some truth by entertaining the idea of the spiritual, or perhaps not, either way it may be beneficial to attempt to experience reality beyond the limitations of naturalism.

What would good and evil look like though the spiritual eye?
Could their be forces, swaying the tides of society in such a way, in a perceivable pattern?
A pattern that probability alone would not dictate, and thus, the influence of the unseen is at work.
Good has its root, and its tree with its branches and leaves.
Evil is likewise, but insists on being the inversion of good.
Why must evil insist on such an inversion, or good do the same of evil?
And thus, good being a helping hand, and the hand of evil being the means of destruction.
Why must such a contrast be in our universe and be known to us?
It was made known to us by our minds, and was with us from our beginnings.

What is consciousness?
By what method does one experience their own consciousness and not the consciousness of another?
Why must I experience my own consciousness and not the consciousness of my cat?
Who am "I" in this scenario? Am I beyond my consciousness or am I my consciousness itself?
What would it be like to experience the consciousness of a cat?

What would it be, the thing that connects the spiritual to the physical?
Should it be the mind, the brain?
By what means does one experience what he has not seen, and feel what he has not felt?
Those in their slumber can walk on the plane of the imagination, in realm of the intangible.
Those who alter their mind, alter their perception of reality, and the intangible things of the mind become perceived reality.
Where do such things of the mind come from, if one has never obtained them from the physical?
What is the realm of the mind?
A container of the intangible by which we perceive the tangible?

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With that said, I've pretty much expressed all that I wanted to in this thread. I know some of you don't care, and don't like my expression. I'm alright with that, as I am a believer in the individual and coming to you own conclusions. Though in some sense we are all going through the human experience, and I would assume are all seeking truth in some way, so in that we can maybe have some solidarity. Either way I appreciate your comments and taking the time to participate in the discussion. Unfortunately the demands of the "real world" call and I no longer have much time to respond to this thread.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Atheists can be, and are often spiritual, but not necessarily the way you understand it. Who are you to impose your definition on such a term, and why should that definition have heft?

ETA: I'm ignoring the rest of the word salad on purpose. Truths don't need hundreds of words.

[ray3400]

Atheists can be, and are often spiritual, but not necessarily the way you understand it. Who are you to impose your definition on such a term, and why should that definition have heft?

ETA: I'm ignoring the rest of the word salad on purpose. Truths don't need hundreds of words.

"Atheists can be, and are often spiritual, but not necessarily the way you understand it."
So by the responses I've gotten I have learned that most atheists are not 100% certain there is no god, and they are often spiritual.

"Who are you to impose your definition on such a term"
I did not at any point claim to be the definitive source of what is and isn't spiritual.

I assumed many atheists were proponents of naturalism, which by definition leaves any possibility of spirituality. According to you I am incorrect in this assumption, in which case I apologize. In my defense, a lot of the time atheists are found mocking people who believe in spirituality (though Christians seem to be at the top the hierarchy, I have seen many proclaimed atheists mock any notion of spirituality). So there are non-spiritual and spiritual atheists, agnostic and strong atheists... So I would go on to think that the only thing that really brings atheists under the same umbrella term is that they all are, no matter what, lacking in a belief in any and all Gods. Which would imply that there can be a lot of diversity of beliefs and ideas under the same group "atheists". I'm not a cultural anthropologist, but it's interesting how atheist seem to share a similar culture and worldview, despite the only true requirement being "the lack of a belief in God" to be part of the group.

Anyways, I have more practical things to do, thanks for the discussion.

[robvalue]

If you can define spirituality in a way that can be demonstrated to be anything other than metaphorical or imaginary, I'll be impressed.

"Science doesn't know everything" does not imply "I know stuff science doesn't know because I say so".

[LastPoet]

Atheists can be, and are often spiritual, but not necessarily the way you understand it. Who are you to impose your definition on such a term, and why should that definition have heft?

ETA: I'm ignoring the rest of the word salad on purpose. Truths don't need hundreds of words.

They say brevity is the soul of wit.

[pocaracas]

I would suspect intellectuals would be open to hearing new ideas. Not in the sense that the new ideas shouldn't be criticized, but that they can be entertained for the purposes of discussion. If this were to be true, I would ask the atheists to entertain the existence of a force realm, and to imagine its implications. A realm that cannot be seen in the physical, but perhaps can be fathomed by humans nonetheless.
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How can we prove by the physical that which exists beyond the physical? Would we be guaranteed such a proof if the force did exist?

Is the inability to prove the force using the physical an excuse to avoid naturalism and the scientist? Have we yet learned the limitations of the scientist to know that their is nothing beyond their ways?

So if we were to suspend the necessity of naturalism, to entertain the idea of the force, what would we find? Perhaps we would find some truth by entertaining the idea of the force, or perhaps not, either way it may be beneficial to attempt to experience reality beyond the limitations of naturalism.

I just replaced "spiritual" with "force" in your text...
It still makes the same sense.
I could have used "magic" or some other fictional quantity... Yes, we can entertain ideas, no matter how ludicrous. It's called philosophy.
Just because we can entertain ludicrous ideas, it does not follow that those ideas represent reality.
Reality simply is what it is. Science is our best means of ascertaining reality.
The Truth that people like to think of is, to put in simple terms, "an accurate description of reality".
However, truth in philosophy is nothing more than a statement that a particular person considers to be an accurate description of reality.
If one person considers a statement to be true, does it follow that it is indeed True?
I think you can come up with a number of cases where it does not follow, am I correct? (think visual illusions, hallucinations, realistic dreams, etc.)

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On this, when I was learning about special relativity, the professor posed an interesting problem.
""
A guy was driving along in his space ship and passed by a traffic light.
A cop pulls him over and informs the driver that he ran a red light.
The guy is astonished and swears by all his ancestors that he saw the light as green.
Assuming the driver is speaking the truth, the cop writes him a ticket for speeding.
How fast was he going?
""
-It's a problem involving the Doppler Shift of light. I don't remember the result exactly, but I think he was going at something like half the speed of light... slightly above the allowed speed limit on most roads on Earth

All this to say that perception can also be subject to some extra interpretation..... don't trust yourself.

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This leaves us, humans in general, with the need to distinguish an individual's truth from the actual Truth.

Religion mangles both these truths together and trudges on, because it can.... because people are, in general, stupid and follow the herd... because it empowers those who "sound" right...

But, if you have some drop of intellectual honesty in your mind, you will endeavor to discern those two truths apart. How? For now, the best candidate for such a task is Science.... what you called "naturalism".

[/rant]

[Faith No More]

I would suspect intellectuals would be open to hearing new ideas.

What, do you think atheists are only atheists because they haven't heard of Jesus?

Christianity is the exact opposite of a new idea.

[robvalue]

New ideas are great, when they are supported by something other than assertions. You can't just turn up and announce a load of stuff about how things work and expect to be taken seriously.

Okay, if your God loves me instead of pretending to punish me, whatever. I don't care. If it works for you, great. None of this is new. You're trying to make your religion sound appealing. I'm not looking for one. They are irrelevant. As it happens, you've made it sound like pretty much all religions. Do what I say or else.

[robvalue]

Lets have a recap:

1) Generic discussion of faith to try and establish some atheists are hypocrites.

2) Sudden promotion of Christianity, asserted as truth.

3) Threat based preaching.

4) Denial that the Christian god actually uses threats.

Where is this going? What is the point of this?

[Angrboda]

How can we prove by the physical that which exists beyond the physical? Would we be guaranteed such a proof if the spiritual did exist?

Is the inability to prove the spiritual using the physical an excuse to avoid naturalism and the scientist? Have we yet learned the limitations of the scientist to know that their is nothing beyond their ways?

So if we were to suspend the necessity of naturalism, to entertain the idea of the spiritual, what would we find? [..]

We would find that witness of the spiritual is inconsistent. You have multiple religions all around the world each speaking of a different spiritual reality. The truth is not itself inconsistent. Therefore the spiritual doesn't pick out truth. It is a bag of fantasies. Nothing more. Fantasy is of little use to anyone as a substitute for truth.