Thoughts on Atheism

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Originally Posted by Mr. Dr. Ralph

That is comfort as well. The appeal of theism is that all problems are answered and the solutions appeal to the ego, i.e., I am here for a purpose, I am going to heaven when I die, God loves me. It seems to make sense at first but investigating theism while impartial will reveal that it is pretty weak.

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I don't think you do theism credit. The appeal of theism is certainly not that all problems are answered and that the solution is "God loves me, I am going to heaven when I die" etc. etc. Well, perhaps it is, but only at the most abstract level. In practical terms, theism creates vastly more problems for the believer than atheism does! For one thing, it usually involves great personal sacrifice, extremely strict behaviour restrictions, standards that are impossible to realise, and a stark awareness of one's own weaknesses and foibles. Moreover, Christianity in particular but all religions generally de-emphasise the ego: evangelical Christianity, for example, holds as one of its main tenets the belief that everybody is born sinful and completely undeserving of God's love.

You say that investigating theism while impartial will reveal that it's pretty weak. I'm inclined to agree, but in terms of logic I hold atheism to be equally weak. On the other hand, I hold both to be equally strong in terms of faith. I've met extremely devout Christians, Jews, and Muslims, and I've met extremely devout Atheists, and I'm consistently impressed by the strength of their convictions and how they put them into practice.

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Originally Posted by Mr. Dr. Ralph

It is the coldest and least comforting thought I have imagined.

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I don't doubt that for the believer sometimes theism is equally cold and comfortless! I'm reminded of St. Francis of Assissi, hedonist and ladies man, torn between demands of the flesh and the spirit, desparately pleading with God to "please make me good...but not yet!"

What I mean by "comfort" is that both theism and atheism explain the world, and at a basic level sets out how it exists and how the grand scheme of things hangs together. In other words, there is very little existential angst involved. Agnostics have to deal with the wondering. ;)

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Originally Posted by Noisms

In practical terms, theism creates vastly more problems for the believer than atheism does!

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This I don't doubt, though these problems are very superfluous. Why accept them when the edifice on which they stand is so weak and delicate? it worries me that you say this with such enthusiasm; since when is it lofty and magnanimous to have more problems? The masses seem to think that facing adversity builds character and appreciation for life, which is a pity because I think the opposite. There is indeed something to be said for those who are unattached to things that are more or less trifling.

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For one thing, it usually involves great personal sacrifice, extremely strict behaviour restrictions, standards that are impossible to realise, and a stark awareness of one's own weaknesses and foibles.

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But for crassly examined and often force-fed reasons. Granted, self-examination and restricting behavior is beneficial, but not if the reasons for them are flimsy and delicate.

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Moreover, Christianity in particular but all religions generally de-emphasise the ego: evangelical Christianity, for example, holds as one of its main tenets the belief that everybody is born sinful and completely undeserving of God's love.

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Main Entry: ego
Pronunciation: 'E-(")gO also 'e-
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural egos
Etymology: New Latin, from Latin, I -- more at I
1 : the self especially as contrasted with another self or the world
2 a : EGOTISM 2 b : SELF-ESTEEM 1
3 : the one of the three divisions of the psyche in psychoanalytic theory that serves as the organized conscious mediator between the person and reality especially by functioning both in the perception of and adaptation to reality -- compare ID, SUPEREGO
- ego·less adjective

The ego is quite meaningless, and Christianity, along with almost every other religion on earth asserts that it exists when it certainly does not. Unfortunately, rhetoric and language have been taken as the basis of thought. After close examination, most words we use do not make intrinsic sense.

What is the self? My body, mind and soul? My body is comprised of the food I once ate, and everything on this planet was once star matter that exploded millions of years ago. My mind is formed by my brain, also a silly arrangement of atoms. And the soul, my least favorite idea. How can anyone know they have a soul if they have not used their senses to discover it, but instead took it on faith? The idea of the soul is ignorance at its healthiest.

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I don't doubt that for the believer sometimes theism is equally cold and comfortless! I'm reminded of St. Francis of Assissi, hedonist and ladies man, torn between demands of the flesh and the spirit, desparately pleading with God to "please make me good...but not yet!"

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It appears the discomfort lies in his delusion that there is a personal God that is listening to him. St. Francis hasn't used reason to understand why demands of the flesh are deplorable, he instead takes it as fact because he read it somewhere in the bible. He doesn't deserve much sympathy.

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Originally Posted by Mr. Dr. Ralph

This I don't doubt, though these problems are very superfluous. Why accept them when the edifice on which they stand is so weak and delicate?

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Because of faith. I happen to believe faith is a fantastically important and intriguing emotion. (Not blind faith, mind.) Faith that there is no god is something that I also include in that.

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Originally Posted by Mr. Dr. Ralph

It worries me that you say this with such enthusiasm; since when is it lofty and magnanimous to have more problems? The masses seem to think that facing adversity builds character and appreciation for life, which is a pity because I think the opposite. There is indeed something to be said for those who are unattached to things that are more or less trifling.

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Hang on. If you're going to be picky and pedantic and bring up dictionary definitions of words like 'ego', you'd better get a dictionary and find out what 'magnanimous' means! I never said it's 'magnanimous' to have more problems - to say so would be to, well, mutilate the English language.

I think you meant to say 'worthwhile' or somesuch. Well, no, I don't necessarily think it is worthwhile to have problems. But that wasn't what we were debating. You asserted that atheism brings up lots of problems, and isn't very comforting. I was asserting that in fact theism does the same thing. I was being neutral about whether or not that was worthwhile.

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Originally Posted by Mr. Dr. Ralph

But for crassly examined and often force-fed reasons. Granted, self-examination and restricting behavior is beneficial, but not if the reasons for them are flimsy and delicate.

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Why not? And I'm not just being facetious. Why do you think it is beneficial to self-examine and restrict behaviour, but not if the reasons are flimsy and delicate? (I don't happen to think the reasons are flimsy and delicate, but that's by the by.)

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Originally Posted by Mr. Dr. Ralph

1 : the self especially as contrasted with another self or the world
2 a : EGOTISM 2 b : SELF-ESTEEM 1
3 : the one of the three divisions of the psyche in psychoanalytic theory that serves as the organized conscious mediator between the person and reality especially by functioning both in the perception of and adaptation to reality -- compare ID, SUPEREGO
- ego·less adjective

The ego is quite meaningless, and Christianity, along with almost every other religion on earth asserts that it exists when it certainly does not.

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I'm not altogether sure whether you understand what you're saying here. And I don't mean to be patronising. It's just that, well, the ego in the sense that you've highlighted here (the self as opposed to other selves) certainly does exist - unless you're arguing that there is no such thing as the self. (Which you might be. Are you?) Either that or you're saying that Christianity and almost every other religion on the earth subscribes to Freudian psychoanalysis and the idea of the id, ego and superego. (On balance, I think that's what you're getting at.) But if you are saying that, you're surely wrong in saying that the "ego is quite meaningless". You can't prove that there is no such thing as the ego. There are competing theories which have superceded Freud, and he's been proved wrong about lots of things. But the ideas of the id, ego and superego are conceptual - you can't say that they don't exist or are meaningless, because there isn't a way to scientifically prove the matter either way. It would be like saying "it can be proved that existentialism is meaningless!" I find the idea of the id, ego and superego quite compelling as explanations for the way humans behave, but I wouldn't say that it's definitely true or definitely false.

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Originally Posted by Mr. Dr. Ralph

It appears the discomfort lies in his delusion that there is a personal God that is listening to him. St. Francis hasn't used reason to understand why demands of the flesh are deplorable, he instead takes it as fact because he read it somewhere in the bible. He doesn't deserve much sympathy.

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Given that there is no proof either way as to whether a personal God exists or not, I'd be careful about bandying around words like "delusion".

I'd also be careful about asserting that St. Francis hadn't used his reason and just taken the Bible as fact, because that doesn't sound to me like the action of an intelligent believer. (Say what you like about St. Francis: he wasn't stupid.) Plenty of religious people quite closely examine and analyse the texts of their religion, and don't take them to be fact. I doubt very much that St. Francis' thought process was "God doesn't want me to sleep around, so I won't even though I want to." Much more likely "God doesn't want me to sleep around because x, y and z, and I can see the reason and wisdom in that, so I'll try not to even though I want to."

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Originally Posted by Noisms

Hang on. If you're going to be picky and pedantic and bring up dictionary definitions of words like 'ego', you'd better get a dictionary and find out what 'magnanimous' means! I never said it's 'magnanimous' to have more problems - to say so would be to, well, mutilate the English language. I think you meant to say 'worthwhile' or somesuch.

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Recap: You wrote Theism creates vastly more problems for a believer than atheism does! I followed with Since when is it lofty and magnanimous to have more problems?.

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Well, no, I don't necessarily think it is worthwhile to have problems.

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This would have sufficed as a response. The manner in which I used magnanimous implies the sort of "holier than thou" tone and occasional down-talking that seethes from descriptions of not getting their way. In fact, griping about the difficulty of keeping faith is more closely related to championing a plight they choose to bear. Sorry to confuse.......

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Why do you think it is beneficial to self-examine and restrict behaviour, but not if the reasons are flimsy and delicate? (I don't happen to think the reasons are flimsy and delicate, but that's by the by.)

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Because if the reason for examination and restricting behavior is to please God and know him better, then that is not real examination and any change in behavior may be false because of accepting God as the cornerstone of one's thought.

In other words, there can be no self-examination if it is being done for a particular reason. That reason necessarily affects the manner in which you examine, and therefore leads to results that are necessarily tied to something that wasn't examined, in this case, the possibility of God. That is why I mentioned the importance of impartial reasoning.

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It's just that, well, the ego in the sense that you've highlighted here (the self as opposed to other selves) certainly does exist - unless you're arguing that there is no such thing as the self. (Which you might be. Are you?)

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Yes.

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Either that or you're saying that Christianity and almost every other religion on the earth subscribes to Freudian psychoanalysis and the idea of the id, ego and superego.

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No.

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Given that there is no proof either way as to whether a personal God exists or not, I'd be careful about bandying around words like "delusion".

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A cavil. Besides, recall which claim has the burden of proof.

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Plenty of religious people quite closely examine and analyse the texts of their religion, and don't take them to be fact.

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Reading a text and rejecting some of it as false doesn't sound very religious to me. This is the way I read, and I don't consider myself religiously involved with any of my books. However, I don't think you're telling the whole story.

I've noticed this type of examination, i.e. Bible study, casuistry, and the sort to be incredibly partial to what they conclude. That is, they have already made a conviction not derived from reason and aim to defend it with material from their appropriate holy text. Blindly accepting the idea that God exists but examining other ideas such as same sex marriage, Jonah, etc. with a keen eye is not a sound method of interpreting books. Verily, the edifice on which the authority and divinity the book leans is whether or not God actually exists.

Granted, the non-existence of God would not logically invalidate things in the bible, take this simple example:

All birds are black
Crows are birds
Therefore, crows are black.

Despite the falsity of the premise, the conclusion turned out to be correct. Hence, God's non-existence would not instantly falsify the statements written in the bible. I happen to agree with much of the ethical conclusions drawn from the Bible, despite disagreeing that there is a personal God.

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I doubt very much that St. Francis' thought process was "God doesn't want me to sleep around, so I won't even though I want to." Much more likely "God doesn't want me to sleep around because x, y and z, and I can see the reason and wisdom in that, so I'll try not to even though I want to."

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This is a better method of thinking, but not great. There is still an appeal to God in the second sentence, which is often used as a rationalization and obscures the conclusion. Didn't God want Abraham to Kill Isaac, even though he would later tell people to not kill with the fifth commandment?

A better line of reasoning St. Francis could have taken was "I will not sleep around because of x, y, and z, and for those reasons only." Choosing to do or not do something for its own sake is the only way to ensure there is no outside influence on your reasoning.

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Originally Posted by Mr. Dr. Ralph

Recap: You wrote Theism creates vastly more problems for a believer than atheism does! I followed with Since when is it lofty and magnanimous to have more problems?....

This would have sufficed as a response. The manner in which I used magnanimous implies the sort of "holier than thou" tone and occasional down-talking that seethes from descriptions of not getting their way. In fact, griping about the difficulty of keeping faith is more closely related to championing a plight they choose to bear. Sorry to confuse.......

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'Magnanimous' means 'generous'. It doesn't imply a "holier than thou" tone. Do you mean 'sanctimonious'? If so, I think what you're doing is arguing against an attitude - not the reality. I agree with you entirely that having lots of problems shouldn't entitle a religious person to be sanctimonious, and I don't like sanctimonious religion people either. But it doesn't follow that all religious people are like that. A great deal of them are, but a great deal of them aren't.

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Originally Posted by Mr. Dr. Ralph

Because if the reason for examination and restricting behavior is to please God and know him better, then that is not real examination and any change in behavior may be false because of accepting God as the cornerstone of one's thought.

In other words, there can be no self-examination if it is being done for a particular reason. That reason necessarily affects the manner in which you examine, and therefore leads to results that are necessarily tied to something that wasn't examined, in this case, the possibility of God. That is why I mentioned the importance of impartial reasoning.

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But nobody can ever be impartial, can they? Whether you're self-examining because of your desire to "be a better Christian/Jew/Muslim" or whether you're just self-examining because you want to be a better person, you're still doing it for a particular reason. Therefore, there isn't really a difference - a theist self-examines in light of god, and an atheist does it in light of themselves and the society around them.

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Originally Posted by Mr. Dr. Ralph

Yes.

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Care to elaborate?

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Originally Posted by Mr. Dr. Ralph

A cavil. Besides, recall which claim has the burden of proof.

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Both claims have burden of proof, actually. If somebody is saying "I'm not persuaded that there is a God" then they don't bear burden of proof. But if somebody is saying "there definitely isn't a God" then that is an unproven assertion, akin to saying "there definitely is a God".

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Originally Posted by Mr. Dr. Ralph

Reading a text and rejecting some of it as false doesn't sound very religious to me.

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Then you haven't met very many sophisticated religious people.

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Originally Posted by Mr. Dr. Ralph

Verily, the edifice on which the authority and divinity the book leans is whether or not God actually exists.

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It only leans on that edifice if you believe what it says about itself! If you believe that the book is just a collection of literature written by other believers, then it doesn't lean on anything - it's like any book written by a religious person. Just because you believe that there is a God does not mean that you have to believe a holy text was inspired by or written by God.

Let's be clear about what I'm saying: I'm not arguing that belief in God is rational. In fact, arguably the whole point of belief in God is that it's irrational. But believing in God is where, for the theist, irrationality ends. It doesn't follow that just because you believe in God, your analysis of what other people have had to say about God (the psalmists, St. Paul, Mohammed, Moses) is inadequate or flawed. The one does not have anything to do with the other.

For example, if I read a book by CS Lewis, I can examine his arguments and accept or reject them, and I can subject the text to rigorous critical analysis. What's to stop me doing that with a book written by St. Paul, like the Letter to the Romans? Or the book of Deuteronomy, written by Moses? I can still view it through a new historicist or Foucaldian or deconstructionist lens. That would be no more rational or irrational than what English literature students do with Shakespeare.

To turn the argument around, Atheism is based on an equally irrational belief - that there absolutely is not a God. But that doesn't prevent Atheists from rationally analysing the arguments of other Atheists and rejecting or accepting or deconstructing them. Does it?

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Originally Posted by Mr. Dr. Ralph

This is a better method of thinking, but not great. There is still an appeal to God in the second sentence, which is often used as a rationalization and obscures the conclusion.

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The appeal to God doesn't I]necessarily[/I] serve as a rationalisation and obscure the conclusion. It often does, but again, that's just an argument against a certain attitude which some believers hold.

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Originally Posted by Mr. Dr. Ralph

Didn't God want Abraham to Kill Isaac, even though he would later tell people to not kill with the fifth commandment?

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Sorry, and no offence, but that's like something the smart alec kid says to put off the Sunday school teacher! It hardly brings Christianity or Judaism crumbling down. Who says that episode happened? What if it's just an ancient Jewish proverb, a bit like a Brother's Grimm story? The veracity of the story has nothing to do with whether God exists or not.

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Originally Posted by Mr. Dr. Ralph

A better line of reasoning St. Francis could have taken was "I will not sleep around because of x, y, and z, and for those reasons only." Choosing to do or not do something for its own sake is the only way to ensure there is no outside influence on your reasoning.

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You're arguing as if having "no outside influence on your reasoning" is a good thing, but again, it's just one of your many irrational assumptions. Can you explain why exactly we should be trying to ensure there's no outside influence on our reasoning? It's important, because as it stands you argument is just a baseless assertion that can be answered with the equally baseless assertion that "God should always be an outside influence on our reasoning". And having two baseless assertions butt heads just leads to blind alleys.

I am going to propose under Philosophical Literature (if it will be acceptable there) a new direction for this discussion: "What are the postive/negative effects of theism vs those that follow from atheism/agnosticism?"

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Originally Posted by PrinceMyshkin

I am going to propose under Philosophical Literature (if it will be acceptable there) a new direction for this discussion: "What are the postive/negative effects of theism vs those that follow from atheism/agnosticism?"

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How about just "What are the differences between theist, agnostic and atheist belief?"

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Reading a text and rejecting some of it as false doesn't sound very religious to me. This is the way I read, and I don't consider myself religiously involved with any of my books. However, I don't think you're telling the whole story.

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hmm.. but would not an athiest assess everything in his life, gain a narrative in their head, derive meaning, and then determe morality -- choosing what fits per personal gain. What is this called, I can't remember --- sympotatic reading? Arghh... Louis Althusser read Marx this way. Either way, most theists would claim that the Bible is consistent in morality; any person who disagrees tends to create their own view of Christianity --> this is answered as to why there is many different denominations

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Originally Posted by Noisms

Can you explain why exactly we should be trying to ensure there's no outside influence on our reasoning?

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I think this sums up your post terrifically. I'm going to withdraw from the thread, it's been fun guys.

a youtube video that discusses atheism, logic and belief. There is also a textual reproduction of the interview.

And lastly, Douglas Adams on the value of religion.

Any religious attitude other than agnosticism just indicates a big, mad ego in the adherent. Human beings have neither the knowledge nor the ability to determine what exists and what doesn't. To put your faith in a specific set of beliefs is just arrogant. Evidence is irrelevant in the proof/disproof of a God in that the possibility of illusion remains. Is existence what we really know it to be? Thus, is the evidence (or lack thereof) of god an illusion? The ambiguity of such judgment is infinite, therefore it is impossible to disprove the existence of God.

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Originally Posted by monellia

Any religious attitude other than agnosticism just indicates a big, mad ego in the adherent. Human beings have neither the knowledge nor the ability to determine what exists and what doesn't. To put your faith in a specific set of beliefs is just arrogant. Evidence is irrelevant in the proof/disproof of a God in that the possibility of illusion remains. Is existence what we really know it to be? Thus, is the evidence (or lack thereof) of god an illusion? The ambiguity of such judgment is infinite, therefore it is impossible to disprove the existence of God.

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That's my point, really. I wouldn't use the word arrogance, though: blind faith, perhaps. Arrogance comes into it most often when Atheists portray their own beliefs as somehow inherently more rational than Theists', or when Theists portray their own beliefs as more moral or lofty than Atheists'.

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Originally Posted by MaryLupin

a youtube video that discusses atheism, logic and belief. There is also a textual reproduction of the interview.

And lastly, Douglas Adams on the value of religion.

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The interview with Douglas Adams really confirms what I was saying all along. Atheism is not just "I'm not prepared to believe in a God" (which is actually agnosticism); it's "I'm convinced there is not a God" - which is a subtle but very important difference.

"I'm not prepared to believe in a God" is a perfectly sensible and rational position, given that the existence of God can't be proved. But "I'm convinced there isn't a God" is utterly irrational, because it is based on something that can't be proved. (Douglas Adams tries to escape this by saying that being convinced there isn't a God is different from believing there isn't a God. That's just a smokescreen, and I think he's playing with semantics to duck the problem.)

As with most Atheists (Richard Dawkins is another example), Adams makes the mistake of thinking that thanks to the theory of evolution, we now have a better explanation than we used to for why we are here. We don't; evolution certainly happens, but it doesn't provide any evidence for or against the existence of a God. It explains a specific process which doesn't require a God (small random mutations resulting in new species through the workings of natural selection) and which we resulted from, but it doesn't provide an ultimate cause. No scientific theory does, or indeed can.

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Originally Posted by monellia

Any religious attitude other than agnosticism just indicates a big, mad ego in the adherent. Human beings have neither the knowledge nor the ability to determine what exists and what doesn't. To put your faith in a specific set of beliefs is just arrogant. Evidence is irrelevant in the proof/disproof of a God in that the possibility of illusion remains. Is existence what we really know it to be? Thus, is the evidence (or lack thereof) of god an illusion? The ambiguity of such judgment is infinite, therefore it is impossible to disprove the existence of God.

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Everyone is either an agnostic or a fool when it comes to knowledge of the existence of god. However, the battle over god is not one of knowledge, it is a matter of belief. When it comes to belief, the agnostic can be either a theist or an atheist. So in terms of belief or non-belief, agnosticism is irrelevant. We are all born atheists. We are cruelly indoctrinated as children with the nonsense of religion, and then have to spend our adult lives either correcting the conditioning or blindly following it.

It is not impossible to disprove the concepts that many religious people have of god. It is impossible to disprove that I am god, as its also impossible to disprove the existence of unicorns etc etc. Big deal.

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Originally Posted by atiguhya padma

Everyone is either an agnostic or a fool when it comes to knowledge of the existence of god. However, the battle over god is not one of knowledge, it is a matter of belief. When it comes to belief, the agnostic can be either a theist or an atheist.

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Where does that come from? There are plenty of agnostics who say "I honestly haven't made up my mind." (In fact, those agnostics probably outnumber atheists and theists.) It simply isn't true to say that agnostics 'can either be a theist or an atheist' when it comes to belief. They can be neither.

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Originally Posted by atiguhya padma

So in terms of belief or non-belief, agnosticism is irrelevant. We are all born atheists. We are cruelly indoctrinated as children with the nonsense of religion, and then have to spend our adult lives either correcting the conditioning or blindly following it.

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Can you tone down the rhetorical bombast? "Cruelly indoctrinated" ..."nonsense"...."blindly following"...who are you, Christopher Hitchens? Unless you're willing to explain why the 'indoctrination' is 'cruel', or why religion is 'nonsense', or why the only choice is 'correcting the conditioning or blindly following it', keep your terms neutral.

We aren't all born atheists. We're born agnostic in the truest sense of the world - without knowledge. We don't believe in God as babies, but nor do we actively disbelieve - so we aren't atheists. (Even if we were, by the way, I'm not sure what it would prove. We're born atheists! We're born without the ability to speak, too. What does it prove, exactly? We're born without a sense of self or reality. Does that make nihilism any truer?)

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Originally Posted by atiguhya padma

It is not impossible to disprove the concepts that many religious people have of god. It is impossible to disprove that I am god, as its also impossible to disprove the existence of unicorns etc etc. Big deal.

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Well, exactly. Big deal. People are free to believe what they want to believe. Nobody has the monopoly on truth. Including atheists. So why do people become atheists? Because they want to, not because they've been persuaded by science and reason and logic.