The End of Atheism

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.
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Burning ghost
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Re: The End of Atheism

Post by Burning ghost »

Chili, Eduk, Steve -

You're swaying me here. I guess I am not quite sure what I mean myself here! haha!

Something here seems inherently wrong about this and I am not sure its simply hypocrisy. I completely understand that the social impact of religion goes beyond actual religious beliefs. Pretty much everyone in the west lives in the shadow of a Judeo-Christian heritage (our social structure and language is steeped in it.)

I'll have to look more closely at what bothers me here and why it bothers me. If I figure it out I'll let you know ...
AKA badgerjelly
anonymous66
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Re: The End of Atheism

Post by anonymous66 »

Burning ghost wrote: November 28th, 2017, 1:56 am Pure insanity. What is she doing? Why is she in a church?

If she cares about people's psychological well being why is she not a psychologist? There is something quite contrary about this woman. Who has ever heard of a atheist religion? Its utter nonsense!

That said I do believe there is something to this that will likely take the form of how religion will move into our future understanding of the human condition. I think it is more a matter of the concept of "god" being rethought and shifted around to fit into general everyday understanding about the human world. I do not think "god" is a human construct, although it is a reasonably close approximation to how I see it. My view is that the concept of "god" is a representation of something human that is held at bay from rational human understanding, and that its presence in the human mind manifests as a vague entity some choose to explicate as an external supernatural force.
Gretta Vosper isn't the only atheist advocating a religion for atheists. Check out Alain DeBotton. He argues that religions arose naturally because of our need for community and ritual. It's healthy to get together and remind ourselves about what is really important.
Karpel Tunnel
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Re: The End of Atheism

Post by Karpel Tunnel »

Spectrum wrote: November 28th, 2017, 12:17 am Similarly, free ranging rhesus macaques preferentially choose to steal food items from locations where they can be less easily observed by humans, or where they will make less noise.[8]
There are several ironies to arguing that of course other minds exist, even monkies draw that conclusion. As if the ease of drawing a conclusion by creatures generally considered less intelligent than the participants in the discussion is good support for an argument.

The second irony is that within the scientific community up even until the 70s it was very dangerous for your career to talk about the intentions, cognitions, experiencing, emotions, etc. of animals. This was considered not demonstrated and anthropomorphism. All the while indigenous people, animal trainers, pet owners, went on these assumptions, and effectively in many cases.

So we had a problem with other minds in the animal kingdom, that there was no rational way to verify they had these AND NOW a few decades later, the fact that animals are smart enough - read: smarter in this way than scientists were up to the 70s - is used to prove the problem of other minds is not a real issue.

That's really funny.

I reject the idea that anyone can know what science will, later on in history, decide about a wide range of issues. It is hubris to close the door on things. And there are plenty of examples of phenomena that people not only experienced but correctly interpreted which were rejected by the science of the time as wrong, not demonstrated, not possible. Then technology changed or there were paradigmatic shifts, etc. and it was realized those people were correct. There is a fundamental agnosticism within scientific methodology and empiricism.

Very few people manage to live up to that.
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: The End of Atheism

Post by ThomasHobbes »

anonymous66 wrote: May 30th, 2018, 8:15 am
Burning ghost wrote: November 28th, 2017, 1:56 am Pure insanity. What is she doing? Why is she in a church?

If she cares about people's psychological well being why is she not a psychologist? There is something quite contrary about this woman. Who has ever heard of a atheist religion? Its utter nonsense!

That said I do believe there is something to this that will likely take the form of how religion will move into our future understanding of the human condition. I think it is more a matter of the concept of "god" being rethought and shifted around to fit into general everyday understanding about the human world. I do not think "god" is a human construct, although it is a reasonably close approximation to how I see it. My view is that the concept of "god" is a representation of something human that is held at bay from rational human understanding, and that its presence in the human mind manifests as a vague entity some choose to explicate as an external supernatural force.
Gretta Vosper isn't the only atheist advocating a religion for atheists. Check out Alain DeBotton.
Then there are two people in the world who are wrong.
If I want to have a sense of community I can join a bike club, reading group, art club, or any number of other social occasions. What's more I do not need to be exclusive about them - I can split my loyalty across yoga and singing, or painting.
Nothing like a religion at all.
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: The End of Atheism

Post by ThomasHobbes »

An atheist group would have nothing to talk about.
Eduk
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Re: The End of Atheism

Post by Eduk »

I believe Darwin wrote a book on animal emotion?
Unknown means unknown.
Eduk
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Re: The End of Atheism

Post by Eduk »

A group for non theists doesn't sound like a group many atheists would be interested in.
For example let's imagine it was a group simply set up to chat about life, do some charity work, have the odd sing along and partake of community work etc. Why preclude theists from such a group?
Unknown means unknown.
Karpel Tunnel
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Re: The End of Atheism

Post by Karpel Tunnel »

ThomasHobbes wrote: May 30th, 2018, 6:33 pm An atheist group would have nothing to talk about.
Then there are an incredible number confused atheists. Just google 'atheist club' 'atheist organisation' 'atheist social groups' or check out meetup for atheist social meetups.
Karpel Tunnel
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Re: The End of Atheism

Post by Karpel Tunnel »

And a good number of atheist dating sites.
Dark Matter
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Re: The End of Atheism

Post by Dark Matter »

Funny OP, equally funny responses from atheists. But the pseudo-psychology is downright hilarious.
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Sy Borg
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Re: The End of Atheism

Post by Sy Borg »

Nearly as funny as content-free swipes with all the intellectual depth one would expect from Twitter. Well, almost.
Eduk
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Re: The End of Atheism

Post by Eduk »

I see your point Karpel. A quick Google seems to suggest atheism UK is the biggest, and they claim only, distinctly atheist group in the UK. I'm not sure on their member size, it feels pretty fringe to me. But also non zero. Still my claim that not many atheists would be interested seems somewhat accurate, I guess it depends how you define many. Also interestingly athiest UK has a goal, the end of religious faith. So that would be what they actually are, a group of people who wish to end religious faith not a group of atheists. Basically they are a political group.
Out of interest where would you place humanist or secularist groups?
Oh and the dating site thing is not a good example. Those sites are setup as buissnesses and many, if not all, just seek to exploit. Again they do exist, so I see your point. But do you see it's not a black and white thing we are talking about?
As ever, and something I constantly repeat, you can't adequetly define something by what it is not. An atheist group makes no sense, even though they at least partially exist.
Unknown means unknown.
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: The End of Atheism

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Karpel Tunnel wrote: May 30th, 2018, 8:33 pm
ThomasHobbes wrote: May 30th, 2018, 6:33 pm An atheist group would have nothing to talk about.
Then there are an incredible number confused atheists. Just google 'atheist club' 'atheist organisation' 'atheist social groups' or check out meetup for atheist social meetups.
I know that. Some people just want to avoid theists. It's a waste of time looking for social interaction or going on a date only to find out that the person you have been talking to, buying drinks etc. is a god botherer.
This does not amount to a "religion"
Eduk
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Re: The End of Atheism

Post by Eduk »

That's a bit sad TH. Admittedly my wife isn't a theist. But I have a huge amount of pleasant and fruitful social interaction with people of many many different faiths. Granted the more extreme theists would find me as distasteful as I find them so social interaction would be complicated but that still leaves a lot of theists with less fundamental beliefs.
Unknown means unknown.
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: The End of Atheism

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Eduk wrote: May 31st, 2018, 3:46 am That's a bit sad TH. Admittedly my wife isn't a theist. But I have a huge amount of pleasant and fruitful social interaction with people of many many different faiths. Granted the more extreme theists would find me as distasteful as I find them so social interaction would be complicated but that still leaves a lot of theists with less fundamental beliefs.
But would you agree that the sort of thing Alain De Boton advocates is a pretty empty idea?
Since most atheists are so because of their distaste for religion, and that being an atheist implies nothing more than "no god", a religion of atheism is a rather silly thing.

You can imagine their first meeting.
"We are gathered here today to share not having a belief in any gods."
"All together now"
"Praise the (empty space)"

Our father who ain't in heaven
Empty be thy name.
Defunct is your Kingdom.
Our own will be done.
On earth, not in heaven.
We'll find our own daily bread as we always have.
For ours is the responsibility, the effort and the consequences
For now until we wipe ourselves off the face of the earth
Are-soles!
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