Atheist Religion

[Rita]

Wierd title I know, by ideals I consider myself atheist for non belief.  Much like a Deist is a believer who questions, and a theist a believer of the book.

My problem with Atheism as a movement are those militant to their non belief.  They make us seem like a belief of non belief rather than just the nature of non belief in any religion.  By fighting so hard to prove to others it feels like Atheism is becoming in itself its own religion.

Which is why I hate to use it.

[Padma]

Yup, I feel that too, it's too easy for it to become another Stance or Position. This is why I just say I'm a non-theist. Note the lack of capital letters .

[Rita]

Yup, I feel that too, it's too easy for it to become another Stance or Position. This is why I just say I'm a non-theist. Note the lack of capital letters .

I rather just tell people that ask I am a heathen doomed to hell 

The look on their face shuts em up right away. 

But whyyyyy!  Because my last song gets to be highway to hell 

[Nicolette]

Although I call myself an atheist, I'm really an agnostic. I'm also agnostic about pink unicorns and flying teapots and an infinite many other things. Indeed, it gets very tiring listing all the things I feel agnostic about.

[Rita]

Although I call myself an atheist, I'm really an agnostic. I'm also agnostic about pink unicorns and flying teapots and an infinite many other things. Indeed, it gets very tiring listing all the things I feel agnostic about.

I saw a pink unicorn before, except it was really a horse I painted pink and stuck a horn on.


Edit:
My lawyer told me the beastial harrasment claim is still pending and I should not talk too much about it.

[Annah]

Wierd title I know, by ideals I consider myself atheist for non belief.  Much like a Deist is a believer who questions, and a theist a believer of the book.

My problem with Atheism as a movement are those militant to their non belief.  They make us seem like a belief of non belief rather than just the nature of non belief in any religion.  By fighting so hard to prove to others it feels like Atheism is becoming in itself its own religion.

Which is why I hate to use it.

I've said before that Militant Atheist and Fundamentalist Religious people are the same exact people. The only difference is the "god factor." Faith still plays a part in both. The rhetoric of "I'm right and you're stupid" is exactly the same, and the general disdain for a belief system that they themselves do not adhere to is exactly the same.

[tekla]

You might think that, and indeed for some that is true because it's merely one more form of belief.  One more substitute of faith for reason and rationality.  And in that - despite their labored protests, they are exactly the same as those they disagree with.  But for a lot of the people I've talked to - like people who do particle physics, and astrophysics at national labs, and other types of highly educated people, and interestingly enough artists - it's not about belief at all.  It's about knowing through doing.  And knowing requires hard work.  That stands in direct opposition to the easier way of giving into just believing.  One is a vigorous - and rigorous - constant and unending pursuit, the other is acceptance akin to surrender and saying 'yeah, sure, good enough for me as long as I don't have to think about it too much.' 

So sure there are 'atheistic' true believers.  And like all true believers they are deluded.  On the House show there were several remarkable bits of screenwriting, but none so cogent as House's remark that: If you could reason wth religious people there would be no religious people.  And the militant atheists, so convinced of their truth (without any proof) are being just as unreasonable as those they deny. 

Because any rational atheist is really an agnostic, and they are more than happy to admit two things.  One, that the universe, as Einstein said is not stranger than we imagine, it's stranger than we CAN imagine.  And there are vast things, far beyond our current abilities and perceptions, that we don't know what they are, or what their name is, is not a cosmic failing, it's just stuff we don't, or perhaps can't ever know.  And, second, that regardless of which popular creation/cosmology story/legend people believe in as a matter of faith, it seems absurd, surreal and downright perverted and bizarre to any rational person upon first telling, and that first impression is correct.  Talking snakes?  Living in the belly of the whale?  Really?  God becomes man and suffers a death so horrible and completely psychosexual that only the fricking Romans could have invented it.  Really, given all time and space he didn't chose the French Rivera or California in the modern age?  Really?

[Rita]

You might think that, and indeed for some that is true because it's merely one more form of belief.  One more substitute of faith for reason and rationality.  And in that - despite their labored protests, they are exactly the same as those they disagree with.  But for a lot of the people I've talked to - like people who do particle physics, and astrophysics at national labs, and other types of highly educated people, and interestingly enough artists - it's not about belief at all.  It's about knowing through doing.  And knowing requires hard work.  That stands in direct opposition to the easier way of giving into just believing.  One is a vigorous - and rigorous - constant and unending pursuit, the other is acceptance akin to surrender and saying 'yeah, sure, good enough for me as long as I don't have to think about it too much.' 

So sure there are 'atheistic' true believers.  And like all true believers they are deluded.  On the House show there were several remarkable bits of screenwriting, but none so cogent as House's remark that: If you could reason wth religious people there would be no religious people.  And the militant atheists, so convinced of their truth (without any proof) are being just as unreasonable as those they deny. 

Because any rational atheist is really an agnostic, and they are more than happy to admit two things.  One, that the universe, as Einstein said is not stranger than we imagine, it's stranger than we CAN imagine.  And there are vast things, far beyond our current abilities and perceptions, that we don't know what they are, or what their name is, is not a cosmic failing, it's just stuff we don't, or perhaps can't ever know.  And, second, that regardless of which popular creation/cosmology story/legend people believe in as a matter of faith, it seems absurd, surreal and downright perverted and bizarre to any rational person upon first telling, and that first impression is correct.  Talking snakes?  Living in the belly of the whale?  Really?  God becomes man and suffers a death so horrible and completely psychosexual that only the fricking Romans could have invented it.  Really, given all time and space he didn't chose the French Rivera or California in the modern age?  Really?

The universe is definitely weird, only certain thing in life are death and taxes. 

There could be a parallel universe with talking snakes  but who knows xD.  People have worshiped just about every kind of god and creature on this earth at some point in time.

[blue.ocean.girl]

Google "New Atheists." It is a movement and belief system--basically a religion in my opinion. Read the first sentence on their website. The movement's been around for nearly a decade and was founded by big names in atheism such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris. So it has pervaded a pretty substantial part atheist community. Personally, as an atheist myself, I steer clear of these ideas. That's all I'll say.

Because any rational atheist is really an agnostic, and they are more than happy to admit two things.  One, that the universe, as Einstein said is not stranger than we imagine, it's stranger than we CAN imagine.  And there are vast things, far beyond our current abilities and perceptions, that we don't know what they are, or what their name is, is not a cosmic failing, it's just stuff we don't, or perhaps can't ever know.  And, second, that regardless of which popular creation/cosmology story/legend people believe in as a matter of faith, it seems absurd, surreal and downright perverted and bizarre to any rational person upon first telling, and that first impression is correct.

As I said, I identify with atheism as well, but I do consider myself much more of an agnostic atheist. I agree with tekla. A truly objective person will realize, even with all the research that has been done in physics, astrophysics, anthropology, and other sciences, we still do not have an entirely complete picture, nor do we have completely irrefutable evidence to explain the seemingly metaphysical experiences people claim to have. There will always be questions.

[peky]

  God becomes man and suffers a death so horrible and completely psychosexual that only the fricking Romans could have invented it.  Really, given all time and space he didn't chose the French Rivera or California in the modern age?  Really?

the story or history I heard goes like this: so, it is the future, and we -the human race- are in the verge of defeating  a foe fighting for control of our part of this galaxy. The enemy last ditch effort rest rest in a time machine. Using their time machine they sent this human-like person back in the history of humanity. This alien agent gives rise to a new religion that plunges humanity in 1 thousand years of little progres and innumerable religious wars. The consequence of this action is that by the time -in the future- the aliens come by earth, we are technological 1 thousand years behind them, and thus we fell prey to them.

Pretty good story-history, eh?

[peky]

Oh, I forgot one part, if it was not for the alien agent, the Roman Empire would have generated the industrial revolution 1,800 years before England and Spain did.


Just imagine where we would be, hummmm

[suzifrommd]

Been reading this thread, and am mystified.

What, exactly, is wrong with atheists believing very strongly in their worldview?

[Nicolette]

Been reading this thread, and am mystified.

What, exactly, is wrong with atheists believing very strongly in their worldview?

I believe "believing" is the keyword here.

[tekla]

What, exactly, is wrong with atheists believing very strongly in their worldview?

A true atheist does not believe in believing.  They have no faith.  They don't take anything on faith.  Rationality, reason, and science are not ways of believing, they are methods of knowing.  Knowing requires proof.  Knowing requires that anyone, anywhere using the same methods will arrive at roughly the same conclusions.  It's having a worldview based on physics (conclusions arrived at, and demonstrable though the use of the senses), not metaphysics (conclusions arrived at though thought alone).

[tekla]

there'd be no religion. No need for it at all.

Increasingly in Western society that is the case, and many of the people who do 'religion' are not really doing the belief/faith deal, but rather something more like a communal spirituality.  I'm sure that at CERN in Switzerland, as in Los Alamos in New Mexico that if you want total peace and quite and absolutely no one else around, church services on Sunday morning would be the place to be.  Most of the great cathedrals in Europe get far more tourists than faithful anymore, and are seen by most as architectural masterpieces designed and built by men as opposed to being 'a house of god'.

That's not to say that such people do not have a spiritual component in their life, nor do they deny that there are powers in the universe far beyond those which we know and understand - it's just saying that it's kinda hard to believe the stories of a bunch of Bronze Age sheepherders in that way anymore.

[Padma]

And there are those of us with a deep spiritual commitment that just doesn't involve any belief in a god.

[Rita]

You are reading my mind at times... eerie, um.

Axxx

Perhaps we knew each other in another time 

[suzifrommd]

A true atheist does not believe in believing. 

Really? I don't believe there's a god. I thought that made me an atheist. But apparently not a TRUE atheist. (So I'm what kind? A false atheist? A disloyal atheist? What is the opposite of "true" in this context?)

For me, believe HAS to be a part of my atheism. I can't PROVE there is not god (for were there an omnipotent being, they could certainly arrange the universe so that it APPEARED they didn't exist). Therefore, all I really have is belief.

[tekla]

Some have taken note that science with all its various components is the modern version of religion

Not only would they be wrong, they would pretty much be total idiots in terms of their understanding of both science and religion.

[peky]

Religion is a series of beliefs and practices that help the practitioner relate to G-d.

I am a scientist, and had been since 1979. so I can say: that to the best of my knowlege no scientist has proclaim a sciences God.

Perhaps, good Axelle is referring to the Scientology?