Study: How Many Atheists Are There? Be Suprised!

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
Spectrum
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Re: Study: How Many Atheists Are There? Be Suprised!

Post by Spectrum »

Semtek wrote:You suggest we “replace theism and religions with fool proofs spiritual methods to deal with the inherent and unavoidable existential crisis…”
Isn’t theism a spiritual method?
I don't what to go through again on what was deleted.

Theism and theistic religions are controlled ultimately by a God which is not real and illusory. The worst of theism are the Abrahamic religions which are based on holy texts from a God and worst still is Islam which is based on holy words which are immutable. Thus theistic religions are too rigid to adapt to a reality of constant changes.
Note the theism of Islam that is directly responsible for the terrible evils and violence committed by SOME Muslims who are evil prone as influenced by the evil laden verses in the Quran.

Buddhism [non-theistic] is one good example of a religion that is a near fool proof because there are no evil elements in Buddhist texts that can directly lead Buddhists to evil acts.
There are Buddhists [Myanmar, elsewhere] who had committed terrible evils and violence, but these 'Buddhists' did it when compelled by their inherent evil nature and not in the name of Buddhism nor the Buddha.

Nonetheless, despite Buddhism itself is not inherently evil, Buddhism as an organized religion lend itself to all sorts of negatives, e.g. sex scandals, crimes, etc. within the various Buddhist organizations. Therefore Buddhism would be better off without its religiosity within any organized set-up.

Since Buddhism, Jainism and the likes have already demonstrated they are non-violent in their doctrines and are non-theistic, we can adopt the best of what is from them and together with other spiritual methods to form a foolproof spiritual practice [suitable for all] that will replace all theistic religious practices to deal with the inherent and unavoidable existential crisis.
Not-a-theist. Religion is a critical necessity for humanity now, but not the FUTURE.
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Re: Study: How Many Atheists Are There? Be Suprised!

Post by -1- »

Semtek wrote: -1- wrote:
“well, verily I say unto you… seek the path of thine own feet for your shaft will never return into its slate without watering the length of thine journey crosswise.”
Hahaha. Where do your disciples congregate? Can I make a financial contribution?
"Pssst... hey, buddy... do you want to buys some bishoptry, or high priestess designation? Sorry, I'm straight out of Vestal Virgins, but come back next Tuesday, I should have a fresh shipment. Today half price... oops, there is someone coming... okay, he's gone, so how'bout becoming the main dervish of my hajamatha? Only two-hundred and thirty are remaining... make up your mind quickly, they go fast."

P.s. N.B. This is not an actual offer, strictly forbidden by the rules. This was an attempt at humour.

-- Updated 2017 August 19th, 3:02 am to add the following --
Greta wrote: It's an interesting point how fewer choices make us happier, but weaker. If It exists, in terms of survival over the long term, God most rewards those who strive and struggle to the point of agony and most punishes those who would like to kick back and enjoy life. So, if any kind of god/s exist, we humans are not the main game to God/the gods but just either collateral damage like other animals en route to entities that can either balance joy and survival, or they will suffer in ever more refined and abstracted ways.
Yes, I had thought about that quite long and hard in the past. In my opinion it were the Europeans who discovered America or ventured out of their cocoon of comfort zone, because they, as a society, from top to bottom, were more oppressed and restricted than the Chinese or the Indian empires at the same time in history. In China, it is my understanding, absolute capitalism was the rule of the day, under a veil of feudalism. By that I mean that there was no state ideology like Christianity in Europe, or like Hinduism in India. Society operated purely on humans' natural instincts, and on their original, innate morals. It was okay to have as many wives as one could afford, or even a private army. It was all about the almighty buck.

IN contrast, in Europe at the time the vogue of the time was to wear the restrictive and harshly punitive yoke of landlords and religion, and there was no escape. You could only fornicate to produce children, and when the wife got pregnant, you bones were broken into many interesting pieces by the landlord's or the church's executioners if you were caught masturbating. ETC.

So in this environment there had got to be an outburst. You can only increase pressure in any hermetically sealed container, or hermeneutically sealed society, before the container bursts open. That lack of human face to society in Europe, which China had, kept China stagnant, and kept Europe like a keg a dry gunpowder, so to speak.

So, some Europeans fizzed out at high temperatures and velocity at the seams, and took a boat across the pond to see if the Earth were really round.
Greta wrote: Happiness is a state, like weather, so it usually must change (aside from deserts).
True. True, true, treu. Life is a kangaroo locomoting. You get some needs develop, you strive to satisfy those needs, you satisfy the needs, you relax, need develops again. When you have the need, you are unhappy, but you have a purpose. When your need gets satisfied, you become happy. It's not exactly like a kangaroo... you are better with words, Greta, what onomatopoeic English noun or verb or adjective would be most apt to describe this struggle-satisfaction-rest-cycle that keeps repeating in humans' lives?
Greta wrote:So ultimately we seek a balance that will emphasise stability but still includes enough chaotic agents to mix things up and create new connections, but controlled enough so as to not break things down. For many, religion provides that stability. Technology and globalisation have brought us a rapidly-changing world, like a flood or a mudslide sweeping through societies and many people are clinging to fixed ideas as if they were rocks. Everything, bar the scriptures and various humanist and simple prejudiced ideologies, appears to be changing, so they cling. And well they may cling, because they are amongst the most vulnerable.

So I doubt you will find any bursts of theology in northern Russia, where I expect they anticipate a time of warming, greening, the opening up of new arable land and fresh glacier water, a time when the US, China, India and other competitors are struggling with wildfires, storms and displaced people and Russia becomes the world's great superpower. No, it's in Africa, the middle east and SE Asia where people whose existence is most threatened who cling to the (ostensibly) stabilising lifeline of religion.

Dammit, I'm trying to give up babbling. Oh well :lol:
Life is either peaceful but boring, or else interesting but frought with difficulties.

Neither is satisfactory.

In large parts of Europe and in North America at least two generations were born, raised, and grown, that never saw war. Guess what they watch on tv? Sex and VIOLENCE. Right after the war we watched epic stories (Ben Hur, etc.) and every story had to do about peace and harmony: the Brady Bunch, Leave it to Beaver, Three's Company, Carol Burnett, Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore, Gilligan's Island.

It is true that war is hell. But we need hell in our lives to experience complete happiness. (Just like you said, or similarly to what you said.)
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Dark Matter
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Re: Study: How Many Atheists Are There? Be Suprised!

Post by Dark Matter »

Since Buddhism, Jainism ...are non-theistic...

Not true at all.

The “New Atheism” is dead; long live the New Atheism.

The banality of rational atheism is so arid that between 2007 and 2014, the percentage of atheists turning to irrational atheism, those who said they felt a deep sense of wonder about the universe on a weekly basis, rose a full 17 points from 37 percent to 54 percent. The claim is that atheists, too, can be “spiritual.” ("Spiritual atheism" -- gawd, I love oxymorons.) They say modern science reminds them of their deep connection not just to each other, but to the universe itself -- exactly what all the religions traditions have been telling us for millennia with mixed results. This is spirituality without the superstition, they say, so there is no need to frame it in terms of New Age “transcendence” or “mysticism” or relate it to some sort of deity. But the power of any idea lies, not in its certainty or truth, but rather in the vividness of its human appeal. And there's the rub

I came across an essay dealing with evolution and atheism. In his essay The Future of Atheism, Alan Jacobs, writes:
So here’s where I’m headed with this thought experiment: if the evolutionary account of religious belief that many atheists are now promoting is correct, then atheists don’t have much of a future. Their own arguments, plus some elementary demographic data, show that their position cannot become dominant. The only real chance that atheism has to flourish is if it’s wrong. If the Christian anthropology, for instance, happens to be true, then we will expect people to rebel against God, to act in violation of his will. But we will also expect them not to want to admit that that’s what they’re doing. So they will try to argue that their actions, however sinful, however violent, intolerant, and cruel, are somehow in keeping with God’s will. But eventually the cognitive dissonance of that position is likely to become too much for them, at which point they might find—like that one-time Russian Orthodox seminarian Josef Stalin—that the easier path is simply to deny the existence of the God who otherwise would be their Judge.

So if Christianity is true (and a similar case could be made with regard to some other religions, though not all), then we might well expect atheism to flourish, at least in certain places and at certain times. But if the evolutionary argument against religious belief is true, then atheism is doomed.
You’ll have to read the entire essay to put all that in context, but the short of it is:
Now, an atheist saying this immediately has a new problem, especially if he or she thinks that religious belief produces violence and intolerance—which is what many atheists, most notably Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, have shouted from the world’s rooftops. Anyone who holds both these views is in an interesting position, to say the least. Do we say that if I am violent and intolerant toward others I am more likely to pass along my genes—perhaps because I kill or injure those who do not share my religious beliefs before they can reproduce? If we do say that, then the atheist who protests against violence and intolerance will have to argue that we should behave in ways that do not maximize the likelihood of passing along our genes.

But this is a bad situation for an atheist to be in, since he or she is likely to have trouble grounding that “should” in anything compelling, and in any case is—according to his or her own philosophy—fighting a losing battle. If religiously inspired violence and intolerance are evolutionarily adaptive, and the blind processes of natural selection are the only ones that determine reproductive survival in the long term, then people who argue against religion and its accompanying pathologies are certain to diminish in numbers and eventually become totally marginal—nothing more than the occasional maladaptive mutation. The selfish gene will ultimately, necessarily, win out over the altruistic one.
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Re: Study: How Many Atheists Are There? Be Suprised!

Post by Fooloso4 »

DM:
The banality of rational atheism is so arid that between 2007 and 2014, the percentage of atheists turning to irrational atheism, those who said they felt a deep sense of wonder about the universe on a weekly basis, rose a full 17 points from 37 percent to 54 percent.
There is nothing irrational about this. Religion does have a exclusive claim to the sense of wonder. Wonder may lead the imagination to posit gods but it can, as it did the ancient Greek philosophers, lead in other directions, thus the well known accusation that they were a-theistic. A sense of wonder about the universe can be seen as misplaced if that sense moves from what is here to behold to transcendent deities.
The claim is that atheists, too, can be “spiritual.” ("Spiritual atheism" -- gawd, I love oxymorons.)
It is not an oxymoron. The original sense of the term ‘spirit’ refers to something that breathes, something that is alive. It was without religious connotations. A dead body is still a physical object but does not breath, and so, it was thought that the spirit must be something other that the physical body. The imagination produced all kinds of claims as to what this something other is. As to the term ‘spiritual’ it is often used to mean that one feels that he or she is part of and connected to a larger whole. This larger whole need not have anything to do with an imagined transcendence of the world here and now.
They say modern science reminds them of their deep connection not just to each other, but to the universe itself -- exactly what all the religions traditions have been telling us for millennia with mixed results.
Except you ignore the very thing you are arguing for: theism. A deep connection with the universe is not the same as a connection with some God or gods.
But the power of any idea lies, not in its certainty or truth, but rather in the vividness of its human appeal. And there's the rub
Indeed, and the appeal to God has, for many, lost its appeal. In addition, for many of those who do appeal to God, the God you appeal to is for them of no appeal. And so, all that any of this amounts to is your belief that what appeals to you ought to appeal to others. But, alas, it does not.
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Re: Study: How Many Atheists Are There? Be Suprised!

Post by Dark Matter »

F4,

As usual, you missed the point of what I said. I was keeping to the subject of this thread; if I replied to what you said, I'd be off chasing red herrings.
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Re: Study: How Many Atheists Are There? Be Suprised!

Post by Fooloso4 »

DM:
F4,
As usual, you missed the point of what I said. I was keeping to the subject of this thread; if I replied to what you said, I'd be off chasing red herrings.
On the contrary I understood you quite well. What I said was in direct response to your post. If your reply to me now would be off topic it can only be because your post was already off topic.

All of this is ironic since you already made of false claim about what the topic is:
This thread is not about the veracity of religious texts, but rather about the sustainability of religion in an increasingly non-theistic world.
The topic is, as the title makes clear and the study discusses: how many atheists there are. It is not about the sustainability of religion or what you think of as the banality or irrationality of atheism. That is your concern, and part of a siege mentality that frames every discussion of religion in terms of your defense of your beliefs.
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Re: Study: How Many Atheists Are There? Be Suprised!

Post by Sy Borg »

Issues relating to the definition of "atheist" would seem critical to the topic.

I am not sure why religion should be sustained. It's akin to bringing back extinct species. It appears that religion has done its job of helping humans be less savage and more aware. Now the moral structures built by experience, religion/ideologies and instinct will be built upon. There will be losses of sensitivity, just as we westerners lost sensitivity to nature when we creates cities, but the gains will at least make some people more likely to survive a challenging time ahead, where scientific understanding of nature (with concomitant action) will be most pivotal to survival.
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Re: Study: How Many Atheists Are There? Be Suprised!

Post by Dark Matter »

Greta wrote:Issues relating to the definition of "atheist" would seem critical to the topic.
I agree. The problem is, whatever term being used in opposition to atheism invariably designates an indefinite Ground of Being. No one who has an ultimate concern is an atheist: it's just a question of interpretative beliefs.
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Re: Study: How Many Atheists Are There? Be Suprised!

Post by Sy Borg »

Dark Matter wrote:No one who has an ultimate concern is an atheist: it's just a question of interpretative beliefs.
Why? Isn't that just universalism? An appreciation that, on some level, all things in the universe are one, even if many parts are set in opposition to each other as it shapes itself.
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Re: Study: How Many Atheists Are There? Be Suprised!

Post by Dark Matter »

Greta wrote:
Dark Matter wrote:No one who has an ultimate concern is an atheist: it's just a question of interpretative beliefs.
Why? Isn't that just universalism? An appreciation that, on some level, all things in the universe are one, even if many parts are set in opposition to each other as it shapes itself.
I should have said, "No one whose ultimate concern is the Ground of Being (or Ultimate Reality) is an atheist. Interpretative beliefs are just that: interpretative beliefs." If the ultimate concern of "spiritual atheism" is not the Ground of Being, it's not spiritual; if it is, then it's not atheism. The point is, trying to put numbers on truly atheistic is ambiguous at best
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Re: Study: How Many Atheists Are There? Be Suprised!

Post by Fooloso4 »

DM:
The problem is, whatever term being used in opposition to atheism invariably designates an indefinite Ground of Being.
The problem is, the majority of both theists and atheists, both past and present, have no idea what an indefinite Ground of Being even means. The term ‘atheist’ cannot invariably designate something that most people have never even heard of. Since antiquity the term has been used to mean either someone who does not believe in gods or someone who does not believe in the same God or gods or tenets, doctrines, and practices as those making the accusation.
No one who has an ultimate concern is an atheist: it's just a question of interpretative beliefs.
If ultimate concern is defined as faith in God then it is tautologically true and empty to claim that no one who has an ultimate concern is an atheist. An atheist may, however, devote his or her life, even to the point of sacrificing that life, for what is of concern to them. The real difference is that they have no concern for an abstract notion of a ground of being. And, it should be added, neither do the majority of theists. Their ultimate concern is with a personal God.
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Re: Study: How Many Atheists Are There? Be Suprised!

Post by -1- »

Why is "ultimate concern" such a valuable thing? Plain, healthy motivation may achieve the same thing, even easier. By having an "ultimate concern" does nothing but make the thinker who thinks he has monopoly over what the "ultimate concern" to feel self-important.

If the motivation is really to establish something that coincides with the "ultimate concern", then holding the "ultimate concern" is not nothing, but is not necessarily germane to achieving the state of the "ultimate concern".

What the heck is the "ultimate concern" anyway? Is that not just some hifolutin' expression to artificially inflate one's own self-image of having import when he purportedly holds it?
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Re: Study: How Many Atheists Are There? Be Suprised!

Post by Fooloso4 »

DM:
If the ultimate concern of "spiritual atheism" is not the Ground of Being, it's not spiritual; if it is, then it's not atheism.
Dark Matter you do not get to decide for mankind what is and is not spiritual. You have your own beliefs, the majority of mankind does not agree.
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Re: Study: How Many Atheists Are There? Be Suprised!

Post by -1- »

Dark Matter wrote: If the ultimate concern of "spiritual atheism" is not the Ground of Being, it's not spiritual; if it is, then it's not atheism.
Ground of Being: ground up, sold in sacks by the pound?

Sorry, not to be disrespectful, but you sometimes come up with the funniest terms, DM.

Spiritual atheism in a nutshell, according to some theoretical theists: "WHERE'S THE BEEF?"

-- Updated 2017 August 20th, 1:01 am to add the following --

Correction: "Spiritual atheism in a nutshell, according to" should read "Critique of spiritual atheism in a nutshell by". Sorry.

You can also correct, if you want, but not necessarily, because the correction will make the reference too obvious: "WHERE IS THE BIG BEEF?"
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Dark Matter
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Re: Study: How Many Atheists Are There? Be Suprised!

Post by Dark Matter »

Fooloso4 wrote:DM:
If the ultimate concern of "spiritual atheism" is not the Ground of Being, it's not spiritual; if it is, then it's not atheism.
Dark Matter you do not get to decide for mankind what is and is not spiritual.

[Deleted]
]You have your own beliefs, the majority of mankind does not agree.
The point being....?

-- Updated August 20th, 2017, 2:07 am to add the following --
-1- wrote:
Dark Matter wrote: If the ultimate concern of "spiritual atheism" is not the Ground of Being, it's not spiritual; if it is, then it's not atheism.
Ground of Being: ground up, sold in sacks by the pound?

Sorry, not to be disrespectful, but you sometimes come up with the funniest terms, DM.
Don't blame me. It's a common theological term. I didn't invent it.
Critique of spiritual atheism in a nutshell, according to some theoretical theists: "WHERE'S THE BEEF?"

Yup. Spirituality is a lot more than sentimentality.
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