RE: Are atheists religious?
October 17, 2011 at 4:52 pm
(This post was last modified: October 17, 2011 at 4:54 pm by Cyberman.)
(October 17, 2011 at 3:59 pm)John Jones Wrote: All atheists are religious. This is because they, like the Church, believe in ANIMISM. Animism underpins all religions, atheism, science, and virtually ALL philosophical doctrines.I realise this guy's probably not going to be around for much longer - mod willing - however everyone else has had a poke at him.
Animists believe that objects really DO have the properties we say they have. They really DO believe that objects have some mysterious boundary drawn around them that distinguishes them from everything else.
They really DO believe that light of 650nm IS red, that a TV really IS a TV, that a fish's eye really IS a form, that there really IS a sound in the forest, that the brain really DOES have functions... All very primitive..
You want proof? Here's proof: What material, rational, property distinguishes a TV from the carpet it stands on? I can tell you, because I'm not a religious atheist animist - NONE.
That's why I'm smiling, while others complain.
I can state quite definitely that I am not an animist. While I may 'believe' that a tree is a tree and not a chicken, it's not because of any spiritual quality of the tree that I do so. A tree is a tree because of its genetic heritage. That's the "mysterious boundary" distinguishing it from everything else.
It's undoubtedly possible that on the quantum level all matter really is indistinguishable from all else. I and the rest of my species don't operate at that level, having evolved in a world dominated by disparate material constructs. Trees continually refuse to lay eggs, chickens rarely shed their leaves, planets orbit their parent stars, etc; all obeying natural, physical laws and all without giving a shit what I believe. If you can't tell where a carpet ends and a television begins, you have more serious problems than merely a trollish attitude to discussion.
I really don't care if the colour which I recognise as red is the same as that which you recognise as red, but when you start driving through what the rest of society considers to be red traffic lights, then you're the one out of step. Good luck explaining that one in court.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
