The first question or feeling that always comes to my mind, when the definition of atheism is given by a rejection of a belive in deity is: what we are really talking about? It seems to me that gods of monotheistic and polytheistic religions are meant. Which means to me, that they are outside entities with metaphysical skills interfering humans life (mostly in some kind of enslaving way with rules and so on).
Since I am new, not only in this forum but also in the intellectual world of atheism , I just read across several threads and also looked up some definitions. What I found was very inhomogenious. This is a fruitful situation, since there are many perspectives. There are people seaming to be atheists, according to the explanation above, some people seeming to be some kind of achristians, having reasons to express their opposition to christianity as form of atheism, there are people naming themselfs agnostic atheists (reading about that I found this position quite interesting).
Up to now, by question myself about my feelings and beliefs, I came to the result, that I have a need to define, what is meant about deity, otherwise speaking about it would not make sens to me. As I recently learned by research about these topics this might be a kind of ignosticism? What I can do is to define what I understand and then taking a position in relation to this definition. (yes, I confess beeing an inch pincher by Passion
)
My point of view, is, that these outside deities, I tried to define above, are projections from humans, that mirror inside characteristics, archetypes and so on, at the one hand, or that this deities with their rules have been introduced because of leading people, (ab)using power is much easier if you have an almighty power in your back giving you authority you otherwise wouldn't have, and that could not be confronted with any kind of logic. In this sense of deieties I would say, no they are not real and they do not exists in real life but are a creation of people that need it for their aims, what ever they might be.
On the other hand I am not a naturalist in a sense of the philosophical meaning of the word (only the natural world, ruled by the principles of nature exist, and nothing else). This was what my grandfather understood for himself when he said, that he is an atheist. In my opinion there is more than our conciousness identifies as the natural world in the sense of a trivial use of the word 'reallity'. But this is in no way something like an outstanding deity.
What would you say, is this a kind of atheism?
Since I am new, not only in this forum but also in the intellectual world of atheism , I just read across several threads and also looked up some definitions. What I found was very inhomogenious. This is a fruitful situation, since there are many perspectives. There are people seaming to be atheists, according to the explanation above, some people seeming to be some kind of achristians, having reasons to express their opposition to christianity as form of atheism, there are people naming themselfs agnostic atheists (reading about that I found this position quite interesting).
Up to now, by question myself about my feelings and beliefs, I came to the result, that I have a need to define, what is meant about deity, otherwise speaking about it would not make sens to me. As I recently learned by research about these topics this might be a kind of ignosticism? What I can do is to define what I understand and then taking a position in relation to this definition. (yes, I confess beeing an inch pincher by Passion
)My point of view, is, that these outside deities, I tried to define above, are projections from humans, that mirror inside characteristics, archetypes and so on, at the one hand, or that this deities with their rules have been introduced because of leading people, (ab)using power is much easier if you have an almighty power in your back giving you authority you otherwise wouldn't have, and that could not be confronted with any kind of logic. In this sense of deieties I would say, no they are not real and they do not exists in real life but are a creation of people that need it for their aims, what ever they might be.
On the other hand I am not a naturalist in a sense of the philosophical meaning of the word (only the natural world, ruled by the principles of nature exist, and nothing else). This was what my grandfather understood for himself when he said, that he is an atheist. In my opinion there is more than our conciousness identifies as the natural world in the sense of a trivial use of the word 'reallity'. But this is in no way something like an outstanding deity.
What would you say, is this a kind of atheism?
