late wrote:What would be the purpose in having a philosophy you didn't like?
Understanding the world you live in, perhaps? Why should you have to like a philosophy that has utility, but doesn't cater to your whims and fancies?
Godstud wrote:Atheism rocks!!!
I think it is dogmatic, pretentious and ignorant.
Godstud wrote:Faith in ones self isn't religion.
Well, faith does not require evidence. So it would seem it is a bit of a religion, just a very self serving one.
Godstud wrote:Being confident in yourself if a great thing.
Absolutist statements like this generally bring us back to Godwin's law. Is it a great thing that Hitler was confident in himself? Stalin? Mao? Fauci?
Godstud wrote:Atheists don't need to restore their beliefs, since it's in themselves, and they are in control(as much as you can be).
It seems they do, or late would not have launched this thread.
Godstud wrote:Self affirmations are what many successful people do, incidentally.
Successful at what though? Success at running concentration camps?
Godstud wrote:It's taking FULL responsibility for your actions.
Really? There are a lot of atheists who do quite the opposite of that.
Godstud wrote:You can't blame it on someone/something(The Devil, Satan, etc.) else, and you can't attribute it to something/someone(God, Allah, etc.) else.
You can certainly blame everything on Republicans, conservatives, etc. Atheists do this all the time.
froggo wrote:This may sound somewhat obscure but there is a form of belief in 'God' or 'Spiritual Apparatus' which simultaneously recognizes the pointlessness of believing in 'God' or 'Spirit'. In such a circumstance, one is not afforded Providence, and is also responsible for the actions of the self, so those attributes are not solely given to the realm of atheism. I would suspect that few would recognize this kind of view of 'God' or understand what purpose this view of God serves to the believer of this view, and the believer in this view would hardly be able to offer a why, yet still have the faith in it.
I suppose the best I can offer is this person would view God as that which created all, yet, like a negligent mother, could care less about how her offspring fares and leaves its fate in its own hand, like a bird ejected early from the nest.
Many of our great scientific leaps forward are from people who believe in a God, not necessarily defined by Biblical teaching as such. Nikolai Copernicus, Francis Bacon, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Rene Descartes, Blaise Pascal, Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, Michael Faraday, Gregor Mendel, William Thomson Kelvin, Max Planck and Albert Einstein come to mind.
froggo wrote:If God is simply whatever it was that made the universe, or its residual energy, or essentially whatever cannot be fathomed, then I think the concept of a 'God' which is unconcerned with the affairs of humanity is legitimate and not atheistic.
That's a deistic interpretation. Many of America's founders were deistic in their beliefs.
Godstud wrote:Atheism is not a "belief" but a lack of one, however.
It's a belief that there is no supernatural.
Godstud wrote:Believe what you wish, as long as your belief doesn't force ME to do anything. If your religion tells your that you can't drink, then don't drink. Just don't tell me that I cannot drink.
What if I decide to shoot you? That doesn't force you to do anything. If I believe it's okay to kill you, provided I'm not forcing you to do anything, is that okay with you? Or are you going to tell me that you have some sort of "rights"?
Godstud wrote:Belief doesn't factor in to self-discipline, morality, and most things that a person "Good".
If belief doesn't factor into morality, how would you enforce any sort of morality?
Odiseizam wrote:I am not ignorant of someones Free Will, just pointed to froggo there are many also who embrace atheism so they would continue easily living decadent lifestyle...
In my opinion, atheists tend to be quite arrogant and dogmatic--in other words, very much religious people. I think atheists tend to be intellectually incurious about what is not yet explained, preferring the certainty of what is explained. Hence, people who consider themselves "experts" frequently present themselves as atheists. So you get statements like this:
Godstud wrote:That you link hedonism to atheism shows your true ignorance of what Atheism actually is, as "Hedonism" is a lifestyle, and not linked to any particular religion, or lack thereof.
@Odiseizam, it ultimately just becomes a personal attack of some sort.
Odiseizam wrote:I pointed to this as logic why many cant get to greater spiritual growth altho even live Inchurched Life its like driving track cargo with super'mini car so surely like that its difficult to get to the mountain top, some relay on the witnesses others simply give up as demotivated altho its their Free Will not to accept the ascetic anecdote that to Christians two wings are fasting and prayers i.e. as i pointed literary as much one loosen from this gain from the spiritual world, balanced path is the Salvation one i.e. nor pushed by zealotry nor used for judging others, so me jumping in this thread is to hand a hand to those that are curious why to some atheism is wonderful,
I don't think you can interest atheists in concepts like spiritual growth. Even many theists--like the scientists I mentioned above--are much more interested in natural philosophy than anything supernatural.
Cartertonian wrote:As I've said before, the only logically consistent position one can take is agnosticism.
Neither Theists, nor Atheists can prove their position to be true.
That's correct as far as I can ascertain, because there are limits to knowledge. However, there is plenty of evidence for something like intelligence as a force. Atheists, presenting as scientists, would argue that it's perfectly possible for a universe to exist that evolves randomly and would posit that there is a statistical probability of something like a can of Coca-Cola arising. Yet, such obtuse use of statistics belies the infinitesimal possibility of a six pack of Coca-Cola cans, yet alone a whole warehouse full of them. Modern physics does not have a rational explanation for why life exists, why it evolves, and how living beings behave. There are tons of physical and non-physical sub-disciplines to try to explain it, but it most certainly cannot be explained using only the electro-magnetic, strong nuclear, weak nuclear and gravity forces. Arising out of thermodynamics, we get a big bang and an inflationary universe hypothesis. Yet, a singularity or what causes the Big Bang cannot be so explained either.
I find atheism utterly unsatisfying.
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