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Author Topic:   The Atheist Experience
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 46 of 283 (839761)
09-14-2018 8:26 PM
Reply to: Message 43 by ringo
09-14-2018 11:40 AM


Re: The Discussion is not as simple as Tangle concludes
one could argue, however, that your sense of duty towards conscience is itself a belief

Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain "
~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
You can "get answers" by watching the ducks. That doesn't mean the answers are coming from them.~Ringo

This message is a reply to:
 Message 43 by ringo, posted 09-14-2018 11:40 AM ringo has replied

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LamarkNewAge
Member (Idle past 737 days)
Posts: 2236
Joined: 12-22-2015


Message 47 of 283 (839763)
09-14-2018 10:41 PM
Reply to: Message 45 by Taq
09-14-2018 4:39 PM


Re: What differences between Christianity and Atheism
quote:
Atheism is as monolithic as not collecting stamps or not playing golf. It has the same roots as not believing in Bigfoot.
Another poster seems to describe his "atheism" as simply skepticism.
Going in that direction, I shall ask:
How would a skeptical mindset toward God relate to something like a Mescalito character?
There is a "sacred cactus" (to native Americans) called Peyote.
It is the raw material to make the mescaline drug (effects similar to LSD I think).
Robert Anton Wilson never knew anything about Mescalito (or anything like), but decided to go on mescaline trips, and AFTER he was off the high, he saw a green man (with pointy ears) in a cornfield.
He later found out that TONS OF PEOPLE, from Thomas Edison to Thomas Jefferson, believed in this type of vegetative spirit.
He even found out that this green spirit had a name in Mexico. Mescalito was a name that certain Mexican Shamans (who used the peyote drug) called the green man with pointy ears.
How would you consider "atheism" relevant to this?
Are you "agnostic" on this Mescalito character or is there a specific term?
Why do you describe your failure to find a lack of evidence (on God) as somehow a definitive affirmation of knowledge and thus you are grouped into an "Atheist" membership?
I don't really understand the distinction between "Agnostic" beliefs toward God and the description of "Atheistic" membership.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 45 by Taq, posted 09-14-2018 4:39 PM Taq has not replied

Replies to this message:
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LamarkNewAge
Member (Idle past 737 days)
Posts: 2236
Joined: 12-22-2015


Message 48 of 283 (839764)
09-14-2018 10:48 PM
Reply to: Message 42 by Diomedes
09-14-2018 9:52 AM


Re: What differences between Christianity and Atheism
quote:
Atheism is just a response to a claim. i.e. Do you believe in a god or gods?
In an of itself, it is nothing more than that. In the same way theism is a response to the same claim. But theism in an of itself does not have any specific tenets or concepts since it isn't a religion.
Certain religions are theistic. Or polytheistic. And for that matter, there are some religions like buddhism that are atheistic. Whether someone is a theist or an atheist does not say anything about their specific belief system.
For atheists like myself, the only reason that label even exists is I live in a society where religion has a large presence. But being an atheist doesn't in any way affect my worldview since it has no core tenets or philosophies.
A better description of myself as it pertains to specific beliefs is that I am a secular humanist. Although deists can also be secular humanists.
In short, atheism is merely a response to a claim. Secular humanism is a a philosophical stance that focuses on the value and agency of human beings.
So it is like the Pagan Romans calling Christians "atheists"?
You don't follow the classical myth then so you are called an "atheist"?
You don't find the popular myth today (Christianity) so you are "atheist"?
Or you just haven't found convincing evidence, so you are "atheist"?
(I am having trouble seeing why this should be seen as distinct from agnosticism, but is the issue simply that the term "agnostic" lacks the word related to deity, deus, theology, theos, deva, etc?)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 42 by Diomedes, posted 09-14-2018 9:52 AM Diomedes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 51 by Diomedes, posted 09-15-2018 11:09 AM LamarkNewAge has replied

  
LamarkNewAge
Member (Idle past 737 days)
Posts: 2236
Joined: 12-22-2015


(1)
Message 49 of 283 (839767)
09-14-2018 11:50 PM
Reply to: Message 42 by Diomedes
09-14-2018 9:52 AM


Atheism and Humanism demarcated how? Relation to evidence of theologies?
Diomedes said:
quote:
A better description of myself as it pertains to specific beliefs is that I am a secular humanist. Although deists can also be secular humanists.
In short, atheism is merely a response to a claim. Secular humanism is a a philosophical stance that focuses on the value and agency of human beings.
Let me get back to this Mescalito issue, since it might be possible to offer you an example of something to chew on.
Back to Robert Anton Wilson and Mescalito.
From his 1977 book, Cosmic Trigger.
quote:
pp 5-6
I originally got interested in mind-altering drugs due to an article in the most conservative magazine in the U.S.A., the National Review, edited by Roman Catholic millionaire William Buckley, Jr. Later, of course, Buckley and his magazine would attack drug experiments with neo-Inquisitorial fury, but back in innocent '60 or '61 , they naively printed an article, by conservative historian Russell Kirk, reviewing Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception, in which Huxley recounted how he had transcended time and space and experienced "Heaven."
Huxley did it under the influence of mescaline, a drug derived from the "sacred cactus," peyote, used in American Indian rituals. Russell Kirk thought this was good scientific evidence to support religiosity in general against the "liberal humanists," whom he regards as the prime villains in history. Kirk said, among other things, that "only the most dogmatic old-fangled materialist" would reject Huxley's report a priori without duplicating the experiment. Being a dogmatic oldfangled materialist at the time, I resented this and argued about it a lot inside my head over a period of months. It seemed that, as a materialist, I had to accept one aspect of Huxley's book that Kirk had not noted: the strong implication that consciousness is chemical in nature and changes as its chemistry changes. That was provocative.
The Materialist had his first drug trip on December 28, 1962, in an old slave-cabin in the woods outside Yellow Springs, Ohio. With my wife, Arlen, and our four small children, I had rented the cabin from Antioch College for $30 per month and had an acre of cleared land to grow food on, 30 acres of woods to seek Mystery in. Farming was only partly supporting us; I was working as Assistant Sales Manager for a microscopic business, the Antioch Bookplate Company in Yellow Springs. But we had found (we thought) a way to escape the regimented urban hive without starving to death.
Before eating the first peyote button, the Materialist asked his supplier (a black jazz musician), "Is this stuff dangerous at all?"
p.7
"The fuck," he said. "The Indians been eating it every full moon for thousands of years."
"Oh, yeah, that's right," the Materialist said, remembering also Huxley's glowing description of his first trip. I quickly ate seven buttons and for the next 12 hours whirled through an unrehearsed and incoherent tour of the vestibule of Chapel Perilousa most educational and a transcendental experience.
A few years later, it would have been different, of course. The Materialist would have said, "But the newspapers claim that people sometimes go crazy on this stuff and flip out for months."
And the Supplier would have said, "The newspapers also say our troops are in Vietnam to help the Vietnamese. Man, don't believe any of the crap they say."
And, being of a curious and experimental nature, I would have gone ahead anyway, but with a lot of doubt, and that could easily have turned into anxiety or outright panic. We later saw exactly that happen to others, after the press really got into gear on this story and built up the hysteria to feverpitch.
As it was, the Materialist simply suffered the usual delusion of the first trip: he thought he was reborn. After all, back then, he had Russell Kirk and the National Reviewthe. certified sages of sanctified conservatismon his side.
When, in the following weeks, it became sadly obvious that I was not entirely reborn, and that many neurotic, depressive and egotistic programs still remained in my central computer, I was somewhat disillusioned. But the trip had been 50 interesting and ecstatic . . . Like the Lady of Spain in the poem, I tried "again. And again. And again and again and again." By mid-1963,1 had logged 40 trips to inner space and it was obvious that peyote was, indeed, a magical chemical, as the Indians claim, but that one had to be a shaman to know how to use it profitably.
pp. 7-8
We don't propose to enthuse about those 40 peyote voyages in technicolor prose. There was more than enough of that kind of writing in the 1960s. In Dr. Timothy Leary's terminology, each trip involved a transmutation of consciousness from the "symbolic" and linear terrestrial circuits of the nervous system to the somatic-genetic future circuits.* The Materialist learned to experience rapture and bliss, to transcend time. In each trip, the Body was Resurrected, Osiris rose from his t o m b ; I was godly and eternal for a while. Each time, the yo-yo effect (as Dr. Richard Alpert calls it) occurred within a day or so: I came down again. The next trip brought me back up, of course, but then, once more, I came down again; up-and-down, up-and-downthe yo-yo effect. It was alternately inspiring and exasperating.
But a change in my mind (my "neurological functioning," Dr. Leary would say) was, slowly and subtly, beginning to happen.
The Materialist frequently had the hallucination of telepathic communication with plants, both when flying on the wings of peyote and when he was straight. Hallucination was the judgment of his engineering-trained rational mind; it seemed real as all get-out each time it happened. But the Materialist knew too much to take it seriously . . . and he continued to know too much until later in the '60s, when Cleve Backster's research with polygraphs produced some hard evidence that human-plant telepathy may be occurring all the time, usually outside the conscious attention of the human participant.
pp.8-9
Several times the Materialist contacted an Energy or an Intelligence that seemed to deserve the description superhuman. It was obvious to me that I could easily, with a less skeptical cast of mind, describe these trans-time dialogues as meetings with actual gods or angels. (Quanah Parker, the great Cheyenne war-chief, who was converted to pacifism by a peyote trip and later founded the Native American Church, used to say, "The white man goes into his church and talks to Jesus. The Indian goes into his tipi, takes peyote, and talks with Jesus.") I regarded the entities contacted as X's unknownsand tried, in each experiment and in reflections between experiments, to find a psychological, neurological, or even parapsychological explanation.
The strangest entity I contacted in those twenty-odd months of psychedelic explorations appeared one day after the end of a peyote trip, when I was weeding in the garden and a movement in the adjoining cornfield caught my eye. I looked over that way and saw a man with warty green skin and pointy ears, dancing. The Skeptic watched for nearly a minute, entranced, and then Greenskin faded away, "just a hallucination . . . "
But I could not forget him. Unlike the rapid metaprogramming during a peyote trip, in which you are never sure what is "real" and what is just the metaprogrammer playing games, this experience had all the qualities of waking reality, and differed only in intensity. The entity in the cornfield had been more beautiful, more charismatic, more divine than anything I could consciously imagine when using my literary talents to try to portray a deity. As the mystics of all traditions say so aggravatingly, "Those who have seen, know."
Well, I had seen, but I didn't know. I was more annoyed than enlightened.
But that was not to be my last encounter with that particular critter. Five years later, in 1968, the Skeptic read Carlos Castaneda's The Teachings of Don Juan, dealing with traditional Mexican shamanism and its use of the sacred cactus. Castaneda, an anthropologist, saw the same green man several times, and Don Juan Matus, the shaman, said his n a m e was Mescalito. He was the spirit of the peyote plant. But the Materialist had seen him before he ever read a description of him. That was most perplexing to the Materialist. 10
A fairly plausible explanation is that Mescalito is an archetype of the collective unconscious, in the Jungian sense. He has been reported by many others besides Castaneda and me, and he always has the same green warty skin and is often dancing.
p.10
However, might we dare consider that Mescalito may be just what the shamans (who know him best) always say he is one of the "spirits" of the vegetation? Too silly an idea for sophisticates like ourselves? Paracelsus, the founder of modern medicine, believed in such spirits and claimed frequent commerce with them. So did the German poet Goethe and the pioneer of organic agriculture, Rudolph Steinerand the ideas of Goethe and Steiner, once rejected as too mystical, are currently being seriously reconsidered by many ecologists.
Or consider Gustav Fechner, the creator of scientific psychology and psychological measurement. Fechner lost his sight and then regained it, after which he asserted that with his new vision he saw many things normal people do not see including auras around humans and other living creatures, and vegetation spirits just like Mescalito. George Washington Carver also claimed a link with spirits in the vegetation, and so did the great Luther Burbank. Thomas Edison became so convinced of their literal existence that he spent many years trying to develop a photographic process t h a t would render them visible.
pp.10-11
Marcel Vogel (whose corporation, Vogel Luminescence, has developed the red color used in fluorescent crayons, and the psychedelic colors popular in 1960s poster art) has been studying plant consciousness and vegetative "telepathy" for ten years now. In one experiment, Vogel and a group of psychologists tried concentrating on sexual imagery while a plant was wired up with a polygraph to reveal its electrochemical ("emotional"?) responses to their thoughts. The plant responded with the polygraph pattern typical of excitement. Vogel speculates that talking of sex could stir up in the atmosphere some sort of sexual energy, such as the "orgone" claimed by Dr. Wilhelm Reich. If this is true, the ancient fertility rites in which humans had sexual intercourse in freshly seeded fields might indeed have stimulated the fertility of the crops, and the shamans are not as naive as we like to think . Mescalito could be both an archetype of Jung's Collective Unconscious and an anthromorphized human translation of a persistent signal sent by the molecular intelligence of the vegetative world. Naturally, the ability to decode such orgonomic or neuro-electric signals would be eagerly sought by all shamans in societies dependent on agriculture. In other words, according to this model, Mescalito is a genetic signal in our collective unconscious, but activated only when certain molecular transmissions from the plant world are received.
This shamanic kind of selective attention, or special perception, has been duplicated in the modern world by Dr. Vogel, who has given many demonstrations before audiences, in which he accurately reads vegetative signals from plants. It is no more spooky than the selective yogic trance of the average city-dweller, which allows him to walk in mindless indifference through incredible noise, filth, pandemonium, misery, neurosis, violence, psychosis, rape, burglary, injustice and exploitation, screening it all out and concentrating only on robot repetition of his assigned role in the hive-economy. One can train oneself to receive or ignore a far wider variety of signals than the neurologically untrained realize.
(Wilson immediately went on to mention the possibility of aliens sending signals to our planet and implanting into our thoughts and experiences.)
Now is the Biblical description of cultures with fertility cults and things existing beyond our human perceptions in any way related to your Humanism and Atheism?
How does scientific evidence (like what is mentioned above) factor in?
Is there some demarcation between agnosticism and humanism and atheism?
What about Biblical events like "mystical" communications?
Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 42 by Diomedes, posted 09-14-2018 9:52 AM Diomedes has not replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 50 of 283 (839768)
09-15-2018 2:53 AM
Reply to: Message 47 by LamarkNewAge
09-14-2018 10:41 PM


Re: What differences between Christianity and Atheism
LNA writes:
I don't really understand the distinction between "Agnostic" beliefs toward God and the description of "Atheistic" membership.
The only difference between an atheist and an agnostic is intellectual honesty. People either believe in god (or little green men) or they don't. If they don't know, then they do not believe. Belief is positive - like pregnancy - you've either got it or you ain't.

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 47 by LamarkNewAge, posted 09-14-2018 10:41 PM LamarkNewAge has replied

Replies to this message:
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Diomedes
Member
Posts: 995
From: Central Florida, USA
Joined: 09-13-2013


(1)
Message 51 of 283 (839771)
09-15-2018 11:09 AM
Reply to: Message 48 by LamarkNewAge
09-14-2018 10:48 PM


Re: What differences between Christianity and Atheism
So it is like the Pagan Romans calling Christians "atheists"?
I think they would actually refer to them as 'heretics'. That would be more applicable.
You don't follow the classical myth then so you are called an "atheist"?
You don't find the popular myth today (Christianity) so you are "atheist"?
Not exactly. As I mentioned, atheism is merely a response to the question of 'do you believe in a god or gods?'. The question is not asking my opinion on a specific religion. Now if someone asked me if I believe that Jesus is the son of god, I would also answer no. But that answer wouldn't necessarily label me an atheist. Muslims would answer the question the same way.
Or you just haven't found convincing evidence, so you are "atheist"?
(I am having trouble seeing why this should be seen as distinct from agnosticism, but is the issue simply that the term "agnostic" lacks the word related to deity, deus, theology, theos, deva, etc?)
I will state that I haven't found convincing evidence of the claims for a god. But more to the point, when reviewing the myriad of religions out there, I have found substantial counter-evidence to their claims. Such as visible evidence that there was no global flood, that we were not descended from Adam and Eve, that the Earth is not 6000 years old. And so forth.
Regarding atheist and agnosticism, the labels are actually somewhat distinct. Theism/atheism delves into beliefs while gnosticism/agnosticism speak of knowledge and certainty.
If one looks at it from a purely logical argument, then they actually operate in corollary to each other.
For example, someone can be an 'agnostic theist'. What this essentially means is that they have a belief in a deity, but they do not claim certainty with that belief. And in conjunction, an 'agnostic atheist' would be someone who does not believe in a deity but does not claim absolutely certainty that there isn't one.
The main rational for an agnostic stance in either direction is without testable mechanisms to leverage, there is no experiment that can be derived that can ascertain proof one way or the other. Now there are some individuals who would label themselves as 'gnostic atheists'. Which in my opinion makes no sense since there isn't any test they can reference to claim absolutely certainty that their stance is accurate. The same can be said for a 'gnostic theist'. As per my dialog with Phat earlier, he acknowledged that his stance is subjective. Which means it is more based on emotions and feelings than evidence. Which is why it can't be measured or tested in any way.
One issue with individuals who say they are purely 'agnostic' is that they are actually making an error in logic with their view. A common statement mentioned is that they will state that 'the view that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable'. This statement is actually logically invalid. It is ironically, actually making a claim about something (in this case god), and then ascribing a characteristic to that claim which makes any form of testing impossible. In common logical parlance, this would be a 'meaningless standard'. It is a claim that anyone can make and it is impossible to refute. You could replace god with Thor, Odin, The Loch Ness Monster, Cthulhu or The Flying Spaghetti Monster.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 48 by LamarkNewAge, posted 09-14-2018 10:48 PM LamarkNewAge has replied

Replies to this message:
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ringo
Member (Idle past 411 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 52 of 283 (839772)
09-15-2018 11:37 AM
Reply to: Message 46 by Phat
09-14-2018 8:26 PM


Re: The Discussion is not as simple as Tangle concludes
Phat writes:
one could argue, however, that your sense of duty towards conscience is itself a belief
Conscience is a characteristic that evolved because it was beneficial. I don't need to "believe" in it for it to be a good thing. I can see the results.

And our geese will blot out the sun.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by Phat, posted 09-14-2018 8:26 PM Phat has not replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 411 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


(1)
Message 53 of 283 (839773)
09-15-2018 11:39 AM
Reply to: Message 50 by Tangle
09-15-2018 2:53 AM


Re: What differences between Christianity and Atheism
Tangle writes:
Belief is positive - like pregnancy - you've either got it or you ain't.
I don't know about that....

And our geese will blot out the sun.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 50 by Tangle, posted 09-15-2018 2:53 AM Tangle has seen this message but not replied

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Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 54 of 283 (839774)
09-15-2018 12:29 PM
Reply to: Message 53 by ringo
09-15-2018 11:39 AM


Re: What differences between Christianity and Atheism
Some people wouldn't do so much as tie their shoes without evidence.
For me, mindfulness, personal growth, and increased patience and wisdom are all the "evidence" I need....
Granted I would rant against organized religion nearly as loudly as I would rant against new age humanism.

Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain "
~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
You can "get answers" by watching the ducks. That doesn't mean the answers are coming from them.~Ringo

This message is a reply to:
 Message 53 by ringo, posted 09-15-2018 11:39 AM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 55 by ringo, posted 09-15-2018 12:42 PM Phat has replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 411 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 55 of 283 (839775)
09-15-2018 12:42 PM
Reply to: Message 54 by Phat
09-15-2018 12:29 PM


Re: What differences between Christianity and Atheism
Phat writes:
For me, mindfulness, personal growth, and increased patience and wisdom are all the "evidence" I need....
Without concrete evidence, how do you know you're being "mindful"?
Without concrete evidence, how do you know you're growing personally?
Without concrete evidence, how do you know your patience and wisdom are increasing?
Without concrete evidence, how do you know it isn't all self-delusion and wishful thinking?

And our geese will blot out the sun.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 54 by Phat, posted 09-15-2018 12:29 PM Phat has replied

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 Message 56 by Phat, posted 09-15-2018 1:00 PM ringo has replied

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 56 of 283 (839776)
09-15-2018 1:00 PM
Reply to: Message 55 by ringo
09-15-2018 12:42 PM


Re: What differences between Christianity and Atheism
what would you say *is* concrete evidence for those perceptions? I trust what I have learned as well as verify it through my own experience. I dont need a scientific paper to verify that I'm being mindful.

Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain "
~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
You can "get answers" by watching the ducks. That doesn't mean the answers are coming from them.~Ringo

This message is a reply to:
 Message 55 by ringo, posted 09-15-2018 12:42 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 57 by ringo, posted 09-15-2018 1:09 PM Phat has replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 411 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


(1)
Message 57 of 283 (839777)
09-15-2018 1:09 PM
Reply to: Message 56 by Phat
09-15-2018 1:00 PM


Re: What differences between Christianity and Atheism
Phat writes:
what would you say *is* concrete evidence for those perceptions?
The question is how do YOU know?
Phat writes:
I trust what I have learned as well as verify it through my own experience.
What does that mean? How do you distinguish "your own experience" from wishful thinking?
Phat writes:
I dont need a scientific paper to verify that I'm being mindful.
What if there was a scientific paper that showed you were not being mindful? Would you accept it?

And our geese will blot out the sun.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 56 by Phat, posted 09-15-2018 1:00 PM Phat has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 60 by Phat, posted 09-15-2018 5:03 PM ringo has replied

  
caffeine
Member (Idle past 1024 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


(1)
Message 58 of 283 (839778)
09-15-2018 4:26 PM
Reply to: Message 51 by Diomedes
09-15-2018 11:09 AM


Re: What differences between Christianity and Atheism
quote:
So it is like the Pagan Romans calling Christians "atheists"?
I think they would actually refer to them as 'heretics'. That would be more applicable.
Unlikely - I don't think classical Latin had the word heretic. 'Haeresis' (heresy) meant only a school of thought. The word heresy attained it's modern meaning only in Christian writings; and even this modern meaning isn't really one which makes sense from the point of view of pagan Romans looking at Christians. Heretics tend to be people doing your religion wrong - it's used for heterodox interpretations of Christian dogma. A Catholic might have called a Protestant a heretic, but not a Buddhist. The Buddhist would be an unbeliever, or a pagan, or an infidel.
Atheist, on the other hand, was used in classical Latin, but it did not have the modern sense of not believing in a god or gods. A better translation in modern English might be 'ungodly'. It was used not to refer to a person's belief, but rather their actions - atheists were those who did not participate in the expected religious rites of the community. And LNA is right - early Christians were indeed condemned for atheism due to their refusal to take part in (pagan) religious rites.

This message is a reply to:
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Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


(1)
Message 59 of 283 (839779)
09-15-2018 5:01 PM
Reply to: Message 45 by Taq
09-14-2018 4:39 PM


Fine Tuning Definitions For Our Loyal Peanut Gallery
As we attempt to finetune our definitions for the sake of our peanut gallery:
Diomedes writes:
... atheism is merely a response to a claim. Secular humanism is a a philosophical stance that focuses on the value and agency of human beings.
Could a secular humanist then also be a Christian? We have never really nailed down a concrete definition as to what a Christian is or *should* be....
Taq writes:
For me, at least, something doesn't become true simply because I desire it to be true. Skeptics/Atheists tend to look for objective truths which are truths independent of our wishes, hopes, and opinions.
I guess it boils down to faith.
Indeed. To me, many atheists are simply more skeptical and see no reason to even consider a truth claim without enough evidence to arouse their curiousity. Many Christians, on the other hand, became Christians because they felt as if they needed a support...a validation and affirmation of who they were...and they trusted their friends in church and then took a metaphorical plunge...throwing away their need for objective verification and validation.
The jury is still out on whether this really changed them. For me at least, it did.

Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain "
~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
You can "get answers" by watching the ducks. That doesn't mean the answers are coming from them.~Ringo

This message is a reply to:
 Message 45 by Taq, posted 09-14-2018 4:39 PM Taq has not replied

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 60 of 283 (839780)
09-15-2018 5:03 PM
Reply to: Message 57 by ringo
09-15-2018 1:09 PM


Re: What differences between Christianity and Atheism
The question is how do YOU know?
I trust my intuition. You don't trust yours and need science to give you a reason to move forward.

Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain "
~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
You can "get answers" by watching the ducks. That doesn't mean the answers are coming from them.~Ringo

This message is a reply to:
 Message 57 by ringo, posted 09-15-2018 1:09 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 71 by ringo, posted 09-16-2018 2:11 PM Phat has replied

  
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