Re: 5 Questions for Atheists

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[Veritas48]

I'm still watching my friend ;)

[parispeter2]

Great, thanks! I'd be interested in your feedback.

[pythagoras9]

Good answers on atheism!  I do think that being an atheist is less reassuring than being a theist because it forces you to think more about what is really going on in things. I myself have been through all three stages (i.e. theism, agnosticism, and atheism) and i think that people should concentrate on getting on with each other because labels and divisions only separate us, as you know David Bohm writes about this problem.

[parispeter2]

Thanks. No I'm not familiar with what Bohm says about that, though "Wholeness and the implicate order" has been on my "to read" list for some time. Is that where he deals with this subject?

[parispeter2]

Though I have to say I'm more than a little suspicious of what natural scientists say on subjects which are not in the object domain but have more to do with human SUBJECTIVITY e.g. morality, identity, attachments, religiosity, the mind of God and so on...I think that such questions are better left to human scientists: psychoanalysts, linguists, anthropologists, political theorists, sociologists, moral philosophers etc.

[Gryphon595]

Wait wait, people who believe in God are comfortable with not knowing things about the observable world? Many great scientists were Christians and were motivated to study the natural world because of the amazement they had at God's creation. Just because there are theological questions that are unanswerable does not mean that Christians shouldn't try to understand how things work and how they came to be the way that they are.

[livinginlux]

5. You said that people of faith use it as a crutch to behave passively and irresponsibly. Hell, being lazy and irresponsible is human nature...you don't need religion for that!

Seriously though, I think atheists tend to stereotype believers as a homogeneous mass of people with a cluster of negative traits: rigidity, intolerance, ignorance. But there is such a diversity of belief and behavior in our complicated world! And the true exemplars of most faiths aren't passive or irresponsible.

[livinginlux]

4. Now THIS is an absurd question. Obviously atheists can live meaningful lives. Anyone who asserts otherwise is a brainwashed prick.

I WOULD say that religious people also generally build their sense of meaning and faith through life experiences...which involve both internal evolutions and observations of and interactions with the outside world.

[livinginlux]

3. Science has NOT explained the root of the patterns and order that we observe in the world around us! It is entirely legitimate for a person to hypothesize an intentioned, planned act of creation based on the order they observe.

[livinginlux]

2. I think there is some evidence for faith, or theism, or the existence of the spiritual plane. One is the fact that every known human culture and society has come to believe in and worship gods and goddesses. We should also consider the countless testimonies of other people's mystical experiences. I'd say that it isn't philosophically rigorous to completely disregard this multitude of experiences just because one hasn't experienced something similar oneself.

[livinginlux]

I'm not sure if I'm a theist, but I'm definitely not an atheist, if that makes sense.

I have a few responses to your points:

1. People who believe in God traditionally accept limits to knowledge and unanswered questions. Only God is omniscient. In their view, our original sin was picking the fruit from the tree of knowledge. Modern science is much more uncomfortable with not-knowing. All should be questioned, explored, classified, experimented upon.

[pythagoras9]

I have always thought that human beings needed the concept of god as a means to civilizing themselves, and once civilized enough they no longer need this concept. I did put this proposition forward to scientificdiscussion a few months ago but he put up a lot of resistance to it and i am not sure whether i convinced him.

zorio, and scientificdiscussion seem to be playing mind games recently in the sense that they have taken down most of their videos and they are ignoring everyone else.

[pythagoras9]

I know what you mean but he does make some good points on how people and society use labels, gimmicks, and divisions in an ever increasing and unhealthy way.