(December 28, 2011 at 12:00 pm)Mind42 Wrote: I have to confess, I am totally lost now and could not really look through this discussion anymore. At the edge I have the feeling that it is a dispute or even fight on egos by egos or non - egos. But I do not really catch the point where this has been inflamed and why.
So of course I have my own thoughts, but I also like to learn about other thoughts, ideas and concepts and try to understand them. Just understand in the first row. This is the base I have to manage to make up my own mind (or feeling or anything else concerned to me) and to proof or rearange my personal point of view.
So I tried to sort my questions and also my unsatisfiedness this day. And for the moment I like to say, I can accept this definition of atheism, where it is just said, that the belief in one or more deities is refused. For me this includes the refusal of outsourced entities or personifications may they interfer with the world I live in or not.
If this is the only thing, then I see atheism (just) as an opposition to religious paradigms. Since it is only an opposition then, it is not an autonomous paradigm itself, but only a negation of a paradigm, that already exists. My grandfather then was a naturalist, which includes beeing also an atheist but is more, because it is not defined by a negation.
So far so good for me. What now is disturbing me and in the end led to my confusion I think is a chance encounter a few years ago. While I was hiking I met somebody who told me that he is an atheist. I got the feeling that this is more than just an anti-thesis. I thought about that thing for a long time, and I think there are some needs we have as human beings not beeing robots. So e.g. the wish of beeing integrated and a part of something greater, the wish for life-sense and so on. Religions make use of this needs on the one hand, and for the believers it is quite comfortable since they get an all-inclusive-package, and do not have to care about irritating details. The price is being a sheep, in most cases, a shepeard in less cases, a lack of self-responsibility in any case.
The reason for my question, or better the search of my question, was that feeling that atheism for some may be more, than just the anti-paradigm of religion, if not, for me this only could be like a supplement but not a complete view of life. And if both are mixed or made equal, I guess this will cause quite a lot of problems within a personality.
That irritated me, since I had the feeling that an anti-thesis is not enough.
Is it enough for you? Or didn't you just have this problems of incompleteness? Or is atheism, if you are involved in it, also just a supplement? Works atheism combined with spiritualism (if yes, how has this to look like?) ...is there more beyond a simple antithesis?
Ps1: maybe some of the problems inflamed in the discussion above, arose because of the written media, which lacks intonation and accentuation, such that things arrive differnt as they have been sent, it developed more grim than necessary
Ps2: @language, yes I did not take time to fill out my profile yet, and I have to make up leeway when I find a leisure minute or two, so german is my mothertongue, up to now I did not have serious problems with my english, but maybe this also depends on what is discussed, after all, the non-understanding may have been caused by my own confusion in combination with a different language
I don't believe being an atheist is anything more than a response to theism. Some people, theists, speak of gods and so the question arises "do I believe in gods?" After considering the question I find no belief in anything that fits the description theists offer.
You are probably correct to question whether the concept of god really makes any sense and it is quite alright to decide that you are ignostic - or unable to make any sense whatsoever of 'gods'. But as has no doubt already been pointed out that should not prevent you from searching yourself to find whether you have any belief regarding gods. If your search is not productive, you are without-theism, an atheist.
Atheism has no positive positions. There is no implied moral order, no highest good, no secret meaning of life or common values you can count on where atheists are concerned. We are simply without theism.
That doesn't mean we don't have morals or altruistic aims or values. It just means none of them flow from theism or its rejection. There is a much wider world out there to inform us on these things.
