Does atheism inspire people?

[Ace Otana]

can someone tell me what a poe is? I only know edgar allan poe, and that would be a compliment, so i'm sure its not that!'

A 'poe' is an atheist pretending to be a crazy religious person. They are just as fucking annoying as the real thing.

[downbeatplumb]

Actually colour does not exist.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14421303

Yes, you could argue that nothing really exists other than in your brain, all that is really out there is a mass of atoms bouncing around, its only in your brain that any sense is made of them all. Maybe reality was created 1 second ago with the illusion of age, that can't be shown to be false either. But most people don't think that and most people live with the idea of colour being real too.

I see that you didnt really understand the article.

Colour is your brains interpretation of light signals, things may look like one colour but, in a diferent context, look like an entirely different colour, what this means is that the colour is not 'real'.

Physical objects do exist, they arent just your brains interpretation, this table (knock,knock) has an actual physical prescence were as colour does not.

[Mister Agenda]

The idea that there is no heaven, no hell, no afterlife. I get one life and I'll be damned if I don't make it count.

This is an argument I hear often and makes no logical sense. What do you mean exactly by "make it count" count for what? If this is it, nothing after, then this life is meaningless and any attempt to imbue any meaning is purely delusional, while it may make you feel better its ultimately living a pointless lie. Belief in God and eternal life gives meaning and purpose with consequence to our actions and lives, its internally coherent. Saying life has no meaning then creating meaning is internally incoherent. Faith and doubt are two sides to the same coin, the types who worry me are those with certainty, those who claim they are certain there is no God.

Asserting life without an afterlife is meaningless is an assertion, you've neglected the part where you show how a finite life having meaning is illogical. It's like saying that a movie is meaningless because it has an ending. It's not enough to say that believing life has no inherent meaning but we can give it a subjective one is internally incoherent, you have to demonstrate how it is internally incoherent, otherwise it's just a baseless assertion. And if you're worried about people who claim to be certain there's no God, you don't have much to worry about because there's not very many of those.

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What is a poe? And for the record it's not me that changes the subject, it's the numerous different people who go off on tangents. You're the one calling me a douchebag! Again, I say, I've never resorted to insults. It seems that it's perfectly acceptable for me to be insulted though...

A poe is someone who pretends to be a member of a religion, then says things to make that religion look bad. Poe's Law states that it is impossible to distinguish someone doing this from a true believer unless they admit it.

Do you really think all you have to do to avoid being insulting is to avoid calling people names? The gentility of your insults doesn't make them less insulting. Meaning is more important than word selection.

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I took a few minutes to reflect on what would make our lives meaningless. I think the best way to make our lives meaningless is for them to be a mere prelude to an endless eternity, trillions of years upon trillions of years never ending; against which our mortal lives become more and more meaningless with every passing eon. Just a tiny distressed flicker before eternity.

What does make our lives meaningful? That our lives are the only thing at all that we have. Scarcity is what makes something valuable, abundance makes something cheap: like dirt. Even if our lives are only impotent flailing before the dark, that is far from meaningless.

[genkaus]

Actually colour does not exist.

The first thing to remember is that colour does not actually exist… at least not in any literal sense. Apples and fire engines are not red, the sky and sea are not blue, and no person is objectively "black" or "white".

What exists is light. Light is real.


The grey tiles on the left look blue, and the grey tiles on the right look yellow You can measure it, hold it and count it (well … sort-of). But colour is not light. Colour is wholly manufactured by your brain.

How do we know this? Because one light can take on any colour… in our mind.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14421303

Interesting study, but I have to disagree. It seems to me the author is trying to force his conclusions at quite some points.

I think we can establish that every color is simply a combination of particular wavelengths of light. Basically, which color we perceive the object to be can be determined by which wavelengths it reflects. That is a pretty good argument for why colors do exist. Further, the fact that we can program computers to recognize colors further bolsters the argument.

Now, the examples the author gives here can be explained by filtration. As established, for us to recognize the color of the objects correctly, we'd have to perceive it correctly, i.e. without interference. So, putting a blue/yellow filter in one case or temporarily altering the color receptors in our eyes by focusing on different colors (thereby creating an internal filter), our perceptions are being tampered with. This would easily explain why we see different colors when the color of the original object is the same.

[Angrboda]

I'm coming to this late, so forgive me if this has been said, but the art of so-called atheistic religions like Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism, Confucianism, Chinese calligraphy, Japanese sword making and the tradition of the Samurai, the Japanese aesthetic of Wabi Sabi, and countless others that I'm ignorant of demonstrate a profound lack of a need for a personal god to serve as inspiration. The pre-historic art of China, the marvelous tomb of the Terra Cotta warriors — do you seriously contend that the only inspired art is that of the Judeo-Chistian tradition? That is not only arrogant, it's just plain dumb.

For what it's worth, despite being a theist myself, I spend most of my time around atheists, skeptics and humanists, and I can assure you, they are quite inspired: From the woman who gives up several nights a month to educate others about humanism and to advocate for humanist ethics, including a night each month exploring humanist themes in poetry, to the multiple atheists who organize book clubs and discussion groups so people can learn and share ideas, including one who not only has kick-ass book selections, but has organized a tour of a Scientology church, and recently an afternoon at the horse races; people outside of faith are far from the uninspired sots you seem to be imagining.

I'm afraid this is turning into a rant, but I'm just sure the OP wouldn't consider the enormously rich artistic and literary heritages of the Indus valley, China, Japan, other parts of Asia, Central and South America and other parts to be "inspired by God" — which I don't think it is any stretch to presume by this he means art inspired by HIS god.

[kılıç_mehmet]

Christianity and religion have inspired great works of art, poetry and literature. Is there any evidence of atheism inspiring anyone to create anything? Even if religion or belief in God are delusional the power to inspire people to great things is unquestionable. I can't think of any poetry, art, music or literature inspired by atheism..

I don't know. People can be inspired by anything, if they want to be inspired by it.
I once wrote a poem about a spider in my room, and I like spiders.
Generally, I write poems and articles about my main source of inspiration, nationalism and I used to publish them in our monthly issue.

[Cyberman]

Ok I've just caught up with this thread. Though I don't want to retread ground already broken by others if I can help it, just a couple of points.

First off, re: the whole topic - seems to me like someone is confusing 'religion' with 'spiritual'. I am very nearly as religious as I am an OXO cube, yet I am just as capable of spiritual feelings as the most devout xtian artist. It's simply that I don't feel obliged to constrain my interpretation of those feelings to anything beyond my sense of self. Like everyone else, I can watch a sunset or the night sky, look at a manmade work of art, listen to a piece of music, and have tears streaming down my face because of it. The experience may inspire me to create such works of my own, were I so inclined. My being an atheist isn't even a factor, nor should it be expected to be so.

Next up is the whole 'life's meaning' thing, viz:

The idea that there is no heaven, no hell, no afterlife. I get one life and I'll be damned if I don't make it count.

This is an argument I hear often and makes no logical sense. What do you mean exactly by "make it count" count for what? If this is it, nothing after, then this life is meaningless and any attempt to imbue any meaning is purely delusional, while it may make you feel better its ultimately living a pointless lie. Belief in God and eternal life gives meaning and purpose with consequence to our actions and lives, its internally coherent. Saying life has no meaning then creating meaning is internally incoherent. Faith and doubt are two sides to the same coin, the types who worry me are those with certainty, those who claim they are certain there is no God.

I'll use an analogy based on a subject close to my heart; the more astute of you may just possibly spot a pattern. Let's just for the moment imagine that each of us has only one chance in our entire life to experience true love. One shot to share even a fraction of our threescore-and-ten with our perfect partner. Which makes more sense: that we nurture the relationship, make the most of every moment we have with that person, work to ensure the love we provide them far outweighs any harm we may cause? Or that we waste the experience, treat the person like shit on our shoe, expect them to live like a drudge and cater for our every selfish whim, so as to get the most 'value' from the relationship before they inevitably piss off to someone else?

Finally, there was this:

Well, I would say that the majority of the depictions of religious people in the media, soap operas, films etc these days are always painted as evil, villains etc. I can't think of any instance of modern film etc where the religious person is a good guy!

Really? I can:

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[Epimethean]

Stat paints with a pushbroom.

[Panglossian]

Really all this thread comes down to is that the Christians are once again being uppity bastards, for no discernible reason.
"our religion inspires great works of art" really does make me throw up in my mouth a little. If you're going to look at pieces of artwork inspired by myths/fantasy, just look at the entirety of science-fiction. All of that came straight from the human imagination, without the need for some poxy book to base it on. You forget, also, that most of these "great works of art" are being held at the Vatican, once again for no discernible reason. All these priceless paintings, sculptures, books, murals etc. could be auctioned off, and the resultant millions be used to fund the missionary work the Church is so keen to shove down everyone's throat, but no, they just fester there pointlessly.
Truly inspirational.

[Brian37]

Really all this thread comes down to is that the Christians are once again being uppity bastards, for no discernible reason.
"our religion inspires great works of art" really does make me throw up in my mouth a little. If you're going to look at pieces of artwork inspired by myths/fantasy, just look at the entirety of science-fiction. All of that came straight from the human imagination, without the need for some poxy book to base it on. You forget, also, that most of these "great works of art" are being held at the Vatican, once again for no discernible reason. All these priceless paintings, sculptures, books, murals etc. could be auctioned off, and the resultant millions be used to fund the missionary work the Church is so keen to shove down everyone's throat, but no, they just fester there pointlessly.
Truly inspirational.

There was a reality that had a name
And Bingo was it's name o

B -I -N -G -O
B-I-N-G-O
B-I-N-G-O

And Reality was it's name O