The Atheist Delusion"The Atheist Delusion"

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Chaingang -> The Atheist Delusion"The Atheist Delusion" (12/6/2006 3:51:07 PM)
"The Atheist Delusion" http://atheistdelusion.cf.huffingtonpost.com/ Funny flash animation.

SusanofO -> RE: The Atheist Delusion"The Atheist Delusion" (12/6/2006 4:27:14 PM)
Don't get me started (hehe). I've been around this block. There's no end to it. There is a strong resemblence, I believe, between proving either perspective is "correct" and the concept of "eternity" (as in: These types of discussions can go on for eternity). But - I respect people's right to believe whatever they want (I really do). Actually I don't really care if people want to discuss this at all, and it can get kind of interesting (but I have really, really thought this through, and can guarantee I am not changing my point of view). With all due respect if you are taking the atheist viewpoint here: Personally, I find it ludicrous that people would try to prove God does not exist. The brains of human beings only weigh about three pounds, (tops), and my contention is, that they are simply not equipped to grasp any answer to this question in its entirety, no matter how "smart" they may be. I just don't think "ultimate proof" (either way) is gonna happen anytime soon. Which is (I believe) why religions are sometimes referred to as "faiths" - because believing in any of them is a matter of faith, not logic. Most hard-core atheists I've met are not interested in any logic contained in this point, however. They do seem to have a huge bone to pick with organized religion instead (which has not much, btw, to do with "proving" or not whether God actually exists, or not). I know it's a fascinating question, though (to me), and am not saying anyone who thinks about it is silly (not at all). There was an interview-discussion between Richard Dawkins and Francis Collins in TIME magazine a few weeks ago. Dawkins claims he's an atheist and Collins, a Christian. Francis Collins, of course, is the director of the famous "Human Genome Project" which first succsessfully mapped the human genome, and Dawkins is an eminent biologist who has written scads of books appealing to the masses that manage to explain complex concepts in relatively simple terms. It was a fascinating interview with both of them. In the interview, Collins became exasperated with Dawkins, and finally said that the only difference between their viewpoints, really, is that Collins' viewpoint makes room for the possibility that God does exist, while Dawkins (without any proof whatsover) completely closes off the possibility (Collins is far from a "Holy Roller", and has apparently alienated quite a few "evangelical Christians" over the years, by proclaiming them to be somewhat, at times, "intolerant" of other points of view). Just like some atheists, it seems. Hmmm. - Susan

fergus -> RE: The Atheist Delusion"The Atheist Delusion" (12/6/2006 4:44:30 PM)
I find many atheists to be as rightously zealous in an unreasonable fashion as many religious types. Either point of view seems to me to come from a place of absolute adhereance to an unprovable 'truth'. Mythology is not a set of facts to be proven true OR disproven as false. It is a different catagory altogether. fergus

Chaingang -> RE: The Atheist Delusion"The Atheist Delusion" (12/6/2006 5:08:19 PM)
I agree Fergus, I'm actually an agnostic. I accept that a final answer to the question of first cause is currently unobtainable. What I found interesting about the animation is that it points up many scientific issues over which there is no significant doubt and that also call into question very specific points of dogmatic religious belief. To that extent, I find the animation persuasive and the religious viewpoint wholly unsatisfying (ultimately ridiculous).

SusanofO -> RE: The Atheist Delusion"The Atheist Delusion" (12/6/2006 5:11:10 PM)
Well, I think I am an Agnostic-"fallen" Catholic who believes in an afterlife more than not. My mother is probably rolling in her grave, she spent so many years and money on my Catholic education (sorry mom). - Susan

MercilessMarcy -> RE: The Atheist Delusion"The Atheist Delusion" (12/6/2006 6:11:01 PM)
Oh darn, which book is correct? The Bible, the Koran, etc. ? Which religion has the truth? Aughhh! Okay, throw out religions because they're man-made. God hasn't spoken to me yet, but I'm sure if he has something important to tell me , he will.

FangsNfeet -> RE: The Atheist Delusion"The Atheist Delusion" (12/6/2006 9:45:26 PM)
Irony Atheisim is a religion and non denominational is a denomination

darksdesire -> RE: The Atheist Delusion"The Atheist Delusion" (12/6/2006 9:49:14 PM)
i've never understood the conflict between science and religion. i find them so complimentary (although i'm not one who takes a literal view of the bible). Science nearly always raises far more questions than are answered - and while it often explains the what and the how, it isn't able to explain the why. That's were spirituality fills in the blanks. i've never been able to understand this conflict, and in fact, have had many more spiritual experiences in biology class than i ever did in church.

gooddogbenji -> RE: The Atheist Delusion"The Atheist Delusion" (12/6/2006 9:50:23 PM)
Science is the new religion. Yours, benji

SusanofO -> RE: The Atheist Delusion"The Atheist Delusion" (12/6/2006 10:24:59 PM)
FangsNfeet: I couldn't agree more. I say "case closed" (hehe). Actually, I think it's an interesting topic, as long as nobody expects to conclusively "prove" much, and admits it's all pretty much opinion (wow, am I coming off as having a slight "authoritarian streak", or what)? This topic became a challenge for me to discuss last year, when two atheists in my monthly dining-out event group (which I organize, and is not bdsm-related) insisted on making arguing about it almost the sole conversation topic for almost 6 months (with me anyway). Other people got into it, too. One woman felt so alientated she quit coming to the group. I had to call her on the phone and cajole her into coming back (I liked her a lot, and thought the whole scenario had just turned into a mess). It doesn't have to be that way - people can have a reasonable conversation about this (she said, crossing her fingers). I do think it can be interesting, a times, to talk about. I hope I didn't offend Chaingang with my introductory post (which was pretty strong. it wasn't personal). - Susan

meatcleaver -> RE: The Atheist Delusion"The Atheist Delusion" (12/6/2006 10:48:08 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: fergus I find many atheists to be as rightously zealous in an unreasonable fashion as many religious types. Either point of view seems to me to come from a place of absolute adhereance to an unprovable 'truth'. Mythology is not a set of facts to be proven true OR disproven as false. It is a different catagory altogether. fergus Mythological facts were espoused as true until they were proved wrong and wrong and wrong and wrong again. While no one can prove whether god exists or not, you only after take off your rose coloured glasses to see that no god intevenes in life or if this mythical benigh omnipotent god does, that god is a mean, cruel, malicious, vindictive sadist whose sole purpose of creating life is to watch it consume itself in the cruelest possible way.

Sinergy -> RE: The Atheist Delusion"The Atheist Delusion" (12/6/2006 11:22:57 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: gooddogbenji Science is the new religion. Yours, benji This is entirely true. Science is a religion. I was reading an article last month about an asteroid that some scientific zealot spotted with a telescope, and has now been examined by other scientific zealots and determined that this asteroid will pass by the planet earth in 2022 (If I remember right) and then head off into the far reaches of space. Unless it hits a gravitational window (which is about 2000 feet across) in which case the earths gravity will pull it into orbit around the sun in the same orbit the earth has. This becomes a problem, according these scientific zealots, because it will not be orbitting at precisely the same speed as the earth, and will end up having the earth crash into it seven years later. www.space.com/news/051103_asteroid_apophis.html www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9871982/ www.guardian.co.uk/space/article/0,14493,1660485,00.html Of course, all of these things are determined using scientific principles which can be verified using mathematics and physics principles, but since these have little more reality than the Quran or the Old or New Testament, there is nothing to worry about, really. Just me, could be wrong, but there you go. Sinergy

Sinergy -> RE: The Atheist Delusion"The Atheist Delusion" (12/6/2006 11:35:00 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: darksdesire i've never understood the conflict between science and religion. i find them so complimentary (although i'm not one who takes a literal view of the bible). Science nearly always raises far more questions than are answered - and while it often explains the what and the how, it isn't able to explain the why. That's were spirituality fills in the blanks. i've never been able to understand this conflict, and in fact, have had many more spiritual experiences in biology class than i ever did in church. I agree with this completely. I think they work well together. What I usually have a problem with is when people attempt to use scientific principles to prove religious beliefs, or religious principles to prove scientific beliefs. But I have an even bigger problem with human beings who think their fragile eggshell minds can possibly imagine even a minute fraction of a Supreme Being's consciousness, if one is to exist. I had a friend once studying a branch of immunology for his PhD. One aspect of his research involved taking chickens bred to be studied, innoculating them with things, studying the results, and then putting the chickens in little bags, pumping in CO2 to kill them, and then autopsying them. I am sure that to the chickens, my buddy was God. He fed them. He cared for them. He did things to them. He killed them by the hundreds. Did he ever explain to the chicken why they had to live and die the way they did? No. Would they have understood him if he did? No. Did he dislike the chickens? No. Was he punishing the chickens for some original chicken sin? No. I tend to liken human striving to understand what God wants in a similar vein. It is entirely possible that we are the chickens in God's research project. I consider the message in many religions, including Christianity, Islam, some aspects of Buddhism, Hinduism, etc., of playing nicely in the sandbox with the other chickens to be valuable for people in general. I do think religion is a human construct to help all of us chicken's in God's research project to live our daily lives with feelings of peace and what happiness and satisfaction with our lot that we can find. As usual, this is just me and I could be wrong. Sinergy

seeksfemslave -> RE: The Atheist Delusion"The Atheist Delusion" (12/7/2006 1:12:34 AM)
Speaking as an Agnostic I find those posters who point out that the explanation of the existence of a Deity, First causes etc actually transcends human intellectual capability are very perceptive. I expect thats because I agree with them ! With regard to Synergys Chicken Killer friend I hope he discovered something useful but I rather suspect he did not. Still he can always go on to killing primates or dogs with very little likelihood of finding out much there either.

meatcleaver -> RE: The Atheist Delusion"The Atheist Delusion" (12/7/2006 2:54:48 AM)
Religion is a symptom of human conceit. The whole idea that people are central to creation is evidence of that conceit. People believe in life after death because their egos are too bloated they can't imagine the universe existing without them. Well if they think about it, the universe existed without them before they were born. Life is an event between nothing and nothing. The poetry of myth and existence makes that event fullfilling but it is ultimately nothing because in the end we are nothing, the stuff we are melts back into the flux of the universe.

seeksfemslave -> RE: The Atheist Delusion"The Atheist Delusion" (12/7/2006 3:52:10 AM)
The conceit point is undoubtedly true of many, though not all, aspects of many religions. Parts of Christianity for example stress our weakness and general unworthyness. But it is still possible to think about the problem and see formal religion as an attempted solution to it. When this is done honestly and with an open mind, then in my opinion insuperable intellectual difficulties arise. It is those difficulties that make me wonder....Can it all be blind chance ? With regard to belief in a life hereafter, I rather think that is based on fear not conceit.

SusanofO -> RE: The Atheist Delusion"The Atheist Delusion" (12/7/2006 4:47:58 AM)
There is a "school of thought" that contends that the reason we even have conscious thoughts about whether there is a God (or not) is because the Deity (that may or may not exist) may have put them there (or, rather, allowed their development) to begin with (please notice that I've said may have put them there, not definitely did put them there). I think that's an interesting and mysterious and (to me) optimistic concept. And I continually wonder about whether , if there is no God at all, how I am able to think at all (why people are able to be consious to begin with). But - (and I am not meaning to sound cynical by saying this, I'm not a cynic) when it's all said and done, I doubt this idea can be "proved beyod a shadow of doubt" that this idea is absolutely true, anymore then it can be proven that believing in a particular religion (or all of them, even) is a result of this idea being true over anything else (some other reason). But (my opinion) there might be a lot more historical evidience to back it up (depending on how one interprets that evidence). - Susan

SlaveAkasha -> RE: The Atheist Delusion"The Atheist Delusion" (12/7/2006 5:16:51 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: meatcleaver Religion is a symptom of human conceit. The whole idea that people are central to creation is evidence of that conceit. People believe in life after death because their egos are too bloated they can't imagine the universe existing without them. Well if they think about it, the universe existed without them before they were born. Life is an event between nothing and nothing. The poetry of myth and existence makes that event fullfilling but it is ultimately nothing because in the end we are nothing, the stuff we are melts back into the flux of the universe. I personally don't think it really has much to do with conceit. I think if anything it would be because we as humans don't want to think this is it. That we die, and that's all there is. I don't feel it has much to do with whether the earth does anything after we are gone, we just don't want to exist, then cease to exist in a split second. It's just knowing that we are, part of us goes on someplace to be and to live in some form or another. It's even feeling a connection to our loves ones that have passed, that they still are around us in some possible way. I am a Christian and that is my faith. I don't agree with every single thing the Church teaches, I believe what Christ taught. So much has been put in by human thought, so I try to always concentrate on the message that He gives instead. Kasha

enigmaslave -> RE: The Atheist Delusion"The Atheist Delusion" (12/7/2006 7:28:23 AM)
The Devils advocate here. (lol) I would like to say that, I consider myself an agnostic. I have self labeled my self this, because I believe it would be ignorant to rule that a higher form of intelligence such as “God” or even aliens as a possibility. I believe that for us to think that we are truly alone in the universe is selfish. My beef has more to do with organized religion then higher forms of intelligence. Answer me this, Chaingang if you are even remotely religious enough to post that on this site why you are on earth are you Collar me. I ask because, the Bible does mention in a positive light how to take “slaves” and even how to MARK AND IDENTIFIE a slave, how ever it also mentions perverted sex, in a negative light. Also note worthy: Miss MercilessMarcy, you may find it interesting some Religious Theologians, believe that the: Koran, The Bible, The Torah and a few other Religious books are actually fractions of a much larger book.Their thinking is that why so many passages seem incomplete or contradictory, because a part of that passage is in another religious book.

meatcleaver -> RE: The Atheist Delusion"The Atheist Delusion" (12/7/2006 7:37:51 AM)
I don't want to speak for Chaingang but I think you'll find he isn't religious and his post was tongue in cheek. I apologize to Chaingang if I've got that wrong and I'm speaking out of turn.

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