Why I am not an Atheist.

Thank you.

 

This is a version of the Transcendental Argument for God (TAG), which holds that valid logical syllogisms could not possibly have resulted from an evolved material universe. As Neo points out, laws of logic are 'inherent, immaterial, and transcedant ", so how did they come to be and how could they evlove in a material world? As a matter of fact, what they are is conceptual thought and reasoning. Machael Martin developed a non-theistic version called "TANG" (Transcendental Argument for Non-God). If principles of logic are contingent on God, they are not logically necessary:

• If principles of logic are contingent on God, God could arrange matters so that a proposition and its negation were true at the same time.
• But this is absurd. How could God arrange matters so that New Zealand is south of China and that New Zealand is not south of it?
• Therefore, the principles of logic are not contingent on God.

Dawkins would probably take a different approach emphasizing natural selection. If something as complex as the eye can be explained in terms of natural selection from functional light sensing areas,why couldn't particular conceptual and abstract reasoning abilities? The ability to think logically and to spot fallacies would surely help the survival of the organism possessing them.

 

It feels to me like Atheism and Theism are two sides of the same coin. Theists have faith in supreme beings and devote their lives to those beliefs, wheras Atheists believe that there is no god or supreme beings, and reject the idea of religion. What else do athiests believe? Is it simply an existence made up of counter beliefs to those of theists? what sort of life is that? I think Atheism is unnecessary - a waste of life. An athiest bases his whole world view and beliefs of reality upon rejecting the beliefs of other individuals. It's strange that a person, who does not even believe in religion, would then base their whole existence around it.

If atheism is the rejection of religious belief and supreme beings then what is left? Have athiests thought about what they do believe in, rather than constantly thinking about the things they dont believe in?

Atheism is completely unnecessary, I , myself do not believe in a supreme being who came down from heaven and made everything, however I do believe in something else, therefore I am not an atheist. Atheism seems to be the absence of any sort of other belief outside that of disbelieving in religion. What sort of a life is that? It's not free thinking, it's really no different to theism - blind faith in one thing and one thing only.

 

Not at all, Atheism is not believing in God or Gods, not rejection of Relgion, Buddhism it's self is an Atheistic religion.

 

It's true that buddhist's don't believe in God, they do however believe in something else. I wasn't referring to people that don't believe in god but do believe in something else (This includes me, I don't believe in god in the traditional sense but I don't consider myself atheist) I was referring to the people who base their whole belief in not believing in a god or gods, yet not believing in anything else either . Thus my point still stands.

 

I would say that Buddhists really do worship God and gods. They just don't label anything as such, but the essence of the belief system points to the same thing all other religions point to as well.

 

Some atheists argue that they do believe in something postive: Naturalism and/or humanism as preferred belief-value systems over theistic ones.

 

I was not even going to bother get involved in this nonsense thread but this post is so fucking ignorant and ironic I just had to comment on it. As if I spend all my time thinking about religion and God, I am not the one who needs to ramble on for pages and pages weaving a web of self affirming nonsense. I've already posted what I believe in other threads, There's a lot of good stuff in a 50 page thread that attempted to prove god "right now" and every creationist theory in their was laid to waste. I'm not going to keep restating my beliefs just because creationists ramble on about theirs.

I'll tell you what is absolutely pointless, believing and worshiping in a God that has proven his willingness to NOT inter vein. In this world there are millions living in impoverished hellholes praying to God 35 time a week and others who don't pray at all living luxury and decadence. And this goes on generation after generation, for thousands of years! God really takes care of his people doesn't he? That really something to devote hours of your weekly life to! Bull Fucking Shit!!! Even if there was a God does it make any sense at all that he would require worship from the likes of us? Killings in his honor? That is so absolutely stupid. Religion IS absolutely fucking stupid!!! To think of all the waste of life and energy on something so devastatingly STUPID is heart wrenching!!!

Religion is organized ignorance based on a mental illness that has been bred into the minds of the majority by millions of years of religious genocides. Anyone who can not see the link between war and religion is a god damned idiot and a fucking tool!!!

There will never be peace on earth as long as this mental illness runs rampant! It may have been an evolutionary stepping stone but it is also an evolutionary dead end. Religion is hindering the advancement of mankind. Belief in God is simply illogical and more importantly a pointless waste of time, unless of course you are trying to convince people to DIE for your cause, then God turns out to be rather convenient!!!

 

I think that woman in your signature is pretty.

 

neodude, since you like to make general assumptions about groups as a whole that think differently than you, ill make one myself.

People who believe in god, especially christians, are narrow-minded, self rightous bigots, who choose shun religions (or lack of one) that which they misunderstand. Most have no way of even coming close to being able to comprehend life without god. It is a crutch for them to deal with life on lifes terms, almost like having a drug addiction. Instead of being understanding and let people make their own decisions about their beliefs, they choose to try and change those peoples beliefs. For example, instead of posting this in the Christianity subforum, you posted it here, wanting a reaction and try to make us see an error in our ways. So why dont you get off your high horse and mind your own fuckin business...

 

I have never once said anything pro religion. I am not religious, I, like you, know truths about religion. I was simply showing how some Atheist people are no different than religious people, in their one sided blind faith in something. I don't believe religion is at all necessary, and it is probably a huge hindrance to us. I wanted to know what atheists believe in, other than a non existence of god. How do atheists benefit human kind? All of the atheists I know personally believe there is nothing outside of humanity, we all die and feed the earth, everything is inevitable and there is nothing outside of living, procreating and dying.. It's avery negative view of life, one that I don't share .I don't see how this view - other than being aware of the truth of religion - can possibly benefit human kind. Please, tell me if you could.

 

I don't see my view as negative. I believe life struggled for billions of years to get to it's current state. Believing in God and Heaven dismisses how precious life is. Saying there is a greater beyond actually belittles the hear and now. Creationism is disrespectful to nature. How would you like to work your entire life to have some else take credit for all your achievements? And not only that, claim he can do it in a snap like it was no big deal. We owe it to natures 14 billion year struggle to improve life and start breeding intelligence over ignorance.

 

To quote Okie from another thread.

"Let's analyze that claim. What role did religion play in: the Greco-Persian wars, the Peloponnisian war, the Punic wars, the War of the Roses, the Hundred Years War,the Seven Years War, the American Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the American Civil War, the Spanish-American War, the Boer War, the Crimean War, the Russo-Japanese War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War,the Vietnam War, and the Persian Gulf War? "

 

Actually, I was looking for a logical discussion. Mind my own business? Oh, I thought these were free speech forums. Silly me.

btw, was my assumption that everyone would simply attack me rather than address the points I brought up correct?

 

Post it in the Christianity subforum? It has to do with atheism. Admittedly, most people who post in the Christianity subforum are atheists or Christian haters, but for an intelligent discussion of atheism, this would seem to be the preferred venue. You may disagree with the OP, as I have, but in doing so you have an opportunity to advance our understanding of atheism by giving us your take on the particulars of Neodude's post.

 

I'll bite.
I'm a Buddhist, and so an Atheist of sorts. Buddha positing that the existence of god wasn't really an important question, and myself seeing no particular reason to hold a belief in an entity that presents no evidence of existing.
I don't hold an active disbelief in god, I've no interest in disproving god's existence, it simply doesn't occur to me to believe in something I see no evidence for.
I don't believe in god in exactly the same way you don't believe in Steve, the Amazing Time Travelling Space Banana.

So moving on...

I think this is an oversimplification, that fails to differentiate between "hard" and "soft" atheism.
Atheism is an umbrella term, the only common uniting factor (as mentioned) being an absence of belief in any deities.
Since Atheism isn't necessarily a claim par se, there is no "burden of proof".
To say that there is, would be to say that the burden of proof rested upon those hearing a claim, rather than those making the claim.
Theism is a claim (the existence of an entity), Atheism is the default position pending the proof.

I'm afraid this is an assumption on your part. We can only make statements within the realm of our experience, since we can have no conception of that which is outside of time or space, we cannot say that the laws of logic exist outside them, or that they remain the same outside of them.

What is there to suggest that logic is transcendent?
We know it works this way because this is how we have observed our universe to be, but there is no reason why another universe might not behave differently.

The possibility of other things existing doesn't justify belief in them...

You haven't shown how it is impossible either. Why shouldn't a naturalistic universe have such laws? This is how the universe is.

You are making a statement of which you are not certain. If nothing existed, there would be no logic, logic simply being a system of observation.
Nothing to observe would suggest to me, that logic also ceases to exist.

Atheism does not seek to make such an explanation, why should it need to?
You seem to be heading down the path of "god of the gaps", trying to fill a gap in your knowledge with the supernatural.

No, logic, like gravity could simply be an inherent factor of the universe, you haven't actually presented any reason why it shouldn't be.
Logic does not need to have "developed" in Atheism.

Yes... IF it did.

This seems to be a problem of semantics more than anything else.
You're dodging a pertinent point on the basis of word-play.
The phrase "nothing is certain" may technically be a contradiction, but rephrased as "the human mind is subject to natural limits and can be incorrect when assessing truths" is perfectly reasonable, no?

We know as a fact that our minds can be mistaken, and that our knowledge is not concrete, that's why we conduct tests and do the best we can.

The statement isn't self-refuting, it merely contains the possibility of self-refutation.

You have misunderstood the Theory of Evolution, it does not "design" for starters, it is a process of natural selection guided by enviromental pressures and random mutation.
Evolution is not based on any "knowledge" it is a physical process, that just happens.

I would say a more accurate statement would be "it is irrational to believe in a specifically defined entity, unless there is proof of it's existence evident".

Why just god? why not the Spaghetti Monster? or the Invisible Pink Unicorn?
It's not disbelief par se, but the absence of any good reason to believe.

My answer to what causes life?
"I don't know"
Your position presupposes that someone must have an answer to that question, forcing you to adopt an irrational premise. In the absence any explanation, but with the notion that you must be able to answer it, you are forced to adopt a supernatural explanation.

Once upon a time we could not explain thunder-storms, and so we blamed the Norse god Thor. Now we can.

Not answering a question does not mean no answer exists, it means we don't know.

Isn't "I don't know" more honest than speculating about deities?

None of this is a reason to believe in god however.

This is all Ifs and Buts and What Ifs.
None of it presents a reason to believe in god in the first place.

I'm afraid I do not find your reasoning persuasive

 

from my point of view you weren't, it seemed as though you wanted to try to provoke people to make an arguement in which most God believers want to, to attack nonbelievers to try to make them feel guilty about not believing in god and that they are going to "hell". although that may not have been your intention, that is how i interperted(sp?) it.

when saying mind your own business, i wasnt directing that towards you in particular, i apologize if i came off as seeming that way. when saying that, i was considering the people who come up to me when im wearing a Bad Religion patch and berating me for being the "anti christ". Too many times have i been in school, and gotten literally attacked by my peers for not believing in a god, and stating my opinion in what is supposed to be a "safe and secure" environment. in my post before, i was merely trying to retort to what seemed to be an attack on Atheists. I wasnt trying to say that all believers are like that, i know that is not the case. I just felt that you were coming to this forum to start a fight, and thought i should instigate it a bit. when looking inward on myself, i can see that a lot of my resentment towards religion, especially christianity, comes from my parents and family trying to force the word of god upon me. in saying that, i am a bit of a hipocrite. i look on this forum almost daily, and for once i found a thread that particulary "irked" me. From my experience there hasnt been a single understanding bone in religious people for as long as i can remember. minding your own business is something everyone, religious or not, should do. but in this case i didnt, i felt very strongly in what i said and still do, however i didnt take into consideration of one of the few values that i have. i try, very very hard, to accept people for who they are, and in this case i didnt, i judged you when i shouldnt have. for that i am sorry, but for me feeling and interperation on religion and religious people,i dont...

 

Thanks for your open and sincere sharing of where you' re coming from. Yes, I've too often encountered the kind of Christians you're talking about. They're a menace. I know that just before his post, neodude and I were being rather savagely bashed by the anti-Christians on the Christian forum, so there may have been an edge to his initial post, which was rather tame in comparison with what we've been enduring lately. We've never said all atheists are evil, violent, and responsible for all wars, which is the sort of constant message we've been hearing about Christians. Namaste.

 

Persian Gulf War, are you kidding me??
All I claimed was there is a link, and if you cant see it then...

Onward Christian SOLDIERS!!!

My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.... When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom to-day this poor people is plundered and exploited.

-Adolf Hitler

No link my ass!!!
Isn't that right Elizabeth? You little religious republican tool, you.

 

Satan can quote scripture for his purpose