Atheism

O'Coonassa · 04-05-2009 5:40pm #1

I've had it cynically explained to me as the belief that there was nothing, and nothing acted upon that nothingness, and then for an unknown reason it exploded into everything; then for no good reason other than sheer random chance bits of everything rearranged themselves into bits that could make more of themselves and then they turned into apes who thought they knew about nearly everything.

Is that fair?

Helix · 04-05-2009 5:48pm

O'Coonassa wrote: »

I've had it cynically explained to me as the belief that there was nothing, and nothing acted upon that nothingness, and then for an unknown reason it exploded into everything; then for no good reason other than sheer random chance bits of everything rearranged themselves into bits that could make more of themselves and then they turned into apes who thought they knew about nearly everything.

Is that fair?

in an extremely short sighted way i suppose its not a million miles off

you neglect to take the size of the universe into account here tho. the scale of which meant that the unlikely possibility of intelligent life was almost a guarantee

O'Coonassa · 04-05-2009 5:57pm

Helix wrote: »

in an extremely short sighted way i suppose its not a million miles off

you neglect to take the size of the universe into account here tho. the scale of which meant that the unlikely possibility of intelligent life was almost a guarantee

But as I understand it space and time are just a consequence of the explosion? and therefore in terms of what the thing is not really an issue of significance except for those who are inside it?

liah · 04-05-2009 5:58pm

Imo makes more sense than the belief that some cosmic Jewish zombie can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force in your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.

(Yes, we've all seen these demotivational posters. They're lulworthy but not really worth talking about.)

vibe666 · 04-05-2009 5:58pm

if you wanted to explain any religion (or any complex theory) in two lines of text it would sound equally stupid.

whats your point or are you just attempting to start yet another theist versus atheist argument?

Helix · 04-05-2009 6:05pm

O'Coonassa wrote: »

But as I understand it space and time are just a consequence of the explosion? and therefore in terms of what the thing is not really an issue of significance except for those who are inside it?

again it depends how you look at it. space time is a feature of our universe, just as we are, all are a consequence of the creation of our universe yes.

i dont get the last bit tho, why would what goes on in our universe be of any relevance to anyone in another universe (considering the likelihood that they wouldnt know this one exists)

The Mad Hatter · 04-05-2009 6:28pm

vibe666 wrote: »

if you wanted to explain any religion (or any complex theory) in two lines of text it would sound equally stupid.

Like the theory that small mutations occur in living things and over time these cumulative mutations create wide diversity?

O'Coonassa · 04-05-2009 6:30pm

vibe666 wrote: »

if you wanted to explain any religion (or any complex theory) in two lines of text it would sound equally stupid.

whats your point or are you just attempting to start yet another theist versus atheist argument?

No. I just wanted to see if Atheists felt if that was a fair description of their position.

O'Coonassa · 04-05-2009 6:32pm

liah wrote: »

Imo makes more sense than the belief that some cosmic Jewish zombie can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force in your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.

Lol. That seems equally odd to my senses.

O'Coonassa · 04-05-2009 6:35pm

Helix wrote: »

i dont get the last bit tho, why would what goes on in our universe be of any relevance to anyone in another universe (considering the likelihood that they wouldnt know this one exists)

It's only hypothetically relevant. To a hypothetical anything/anyone outside of this spacetime, it all already has happened?

vibe666 · 04-05-2009 6:40pm

O'Coonassa wrote: »

No. I just wanted to see if Atheists felt if that was a fair description of their position.

no problem then.

did you also post in the christian forum asking if they thought the jewish zombie thing that someone posted above was a fair description?

the scope and complexity of the creation and evolution of the universe over the last 13 or 14 billion years is such that it couldn't be compressed enough to fit it into every book ever written.

you might as well compress every religious tome down to just a single question mark and ask theists if that sums everything up.

O'Coonassa · 04-05-2009 6:54pm

vibe666 wrote: »

no problem then.

did you also post in the christian forum asking if they thought the jewish zombie thing that someone posted above was a fair description?

the scope and complexity of the creation and evolution of the universe over the last 13 or 14 billion years is such that it couldn't be compressed enough to fit it into every book ever written.

you might as well compress every religious tome down to just a single question mark and ask theists if that sums everything up.

Fair point but I know full well how theists would react to me asking about a Jewish cosmic zombie. They wouldn't think it was a fair synopsis. I honestly don't know if what is written at the start of this thread would be considered 'unfair' by atheists. That's why I asked.

sink · 04-05-2009 6:55pm

O'Coonassa wrote: »

I've had it cynically explained to me as the belief that there was nothing, and nothing acted upon that nothingness, and then for an unknown reason it exploded into everything; then for no good reason other than sheer random chance bits of everything rearranged themselves into bits that could make more of themselves and then they turned into apes who thought they knew about nearly everything.

Is that fair?

No that is not what atheism is. Atheism is simply a lack of belief in god, an alternate explanation for the the universe is not required. I don't know what the underlying nature of the universe is, I just know that anyone who claims to know is making it up. I believe that science and empiricism are the only way to gain knowledge of the fundamental nature of reality and science is not at the point of being able to make that determination. If science never discovers the nature of the universe then in the absence of a better method of discovery and verification, we will never know. I don't feel the need to fill the vacuum of my ignorance with bull**** I just imagined.

Dades · 04-05-2009 7:00pm

O'Coonassa wrote: »

No. I just wanted to see if Atheists felt if that was a fair description of their position.

Atheists just have a lack of belief in gods.

O'Coonassa · 04-05-2009 7:01pm

I had thought that agnosticism was the lack of a belief in God? Whereas atheism was an active disbelief?

Dades · 04-05-2009 7:02pm

Agnosticism is the belief that we cannot know.

You can be both if you concede that, although you do not believe gods exist, we cannot know for sure.

OK-Cancel-Apply · 04-05-2009 7:04pm

Atheism basically just means that one lives their life under the assumption that there is no god, or that the chances of god existing are so slim (combined with the fact that she appears to not have anything to do with the known universe) that it's really not worth wasting your life praying to her, being afraid of her or assuming she even exists in the first place.

I think the question of believing that 'nothing' created the universe is secondary to what atheism is.

Mickeroo · 04-05-2009 7:05pm

O'Coonassa wrote: »

I had thought that agnosticism was the lack of a belief in God? Whereas atheism was an active disbelief?

Theres no difference between a lack of belief and an active disbelief.

Agnostics don't deny god may exist they just believe theres no way of knowing/proving that it does/doesn't. They're on the fence.

Someone correct me if i'm wrong on the above.

O'Coonassa · 04-05-2009 7:07pm

Dades wrote: »

Agnosticism is the belief that we cannot know.

You can be both if you concede that, although you do not believe gods exist, we cannot know for sure.

It seems I have perhaps wrongly construed atheism as a kind of 'knowing for sure'.

Overblood · 04-05-2009 7:07pm

O'Coonassa wrote: »

I've had it cynically explained to me as the belief that there was nothing, and nothing acted upon that nothingness, and then for an unknown reason it exploded into everything; then for no good reason other than sheer random chance bits of everything rearranged themselves into bits that could make more of themselves and then they turned into apes who thought they knew about nearly everything.

Is that fair?

You're not too far off, but the way you put it... LOL

Is it a definition of atheism you're looking for?

O'Coonassa · 04-05-2009 7:08pm

Mickeroo wrote: »

Theres no difference between a lack of belief and an active disbelief.

I have an active disbelief in Santy but a lack of belief in cold fusion. It seems there is a difference to me.

O'Coonassa · 04-05-2009 7:13pm

Overblood wrote: »

You're not too far off, but the way you put it... LOL

Is it a definition of atheism you're looking for?

Well at the start of the thread I though I knew what the definition of atheism was and was merely looking to gauge if atheists would recognise such a description of what they believe in. However it seems my definition of atheism was a little off and so now I am kind of looking for a suitable catch-all definition.

Mickeroo · 04-05-2009 7:15pm

O'Coonassa wrote: »

I have an active disbelief in Santy but a lack of belief in cold fusion. It seems there is a difference to me.

In that case there's a difference,but there's no difference in me personally having an active disbelief in santa or a lack of belief in santa,active disbelief in this case implies lack there of.

Mickeroo · 04-05-2009 7:16pm

O'Coonassa wrote: »

Well at the start of the thread I though I knew what the definition of atheism was and was merely looking to gauge if atheists would recognise such a description of what they believe in. However it seems my definition of atheism was a little off and so now I am kind of looking for a suitable catch-all definition.

Atheists don't believe in gods. It's really that simple

sink · 04-05-2009 7:18pm

O'Coonassa wrote: »

I had thought that agnosticism was the lack of a belief in God? Whereas atheism was an active disbelief?

Atheism and theism are binary. You're either one or the other. You either believe in a deity or you don't. Agnosticism comes into it when you don't hold an absolute position, you can be an agnostic atheist or an agnostic theist. The stance of an agnostic theist would be "I believe in god but I have some doubt of his existence". An agnostic atheist would hold the stance "I don't believe in a god but I'm not certain that no gods exist". Most people who call themselves agnostic are really agnostic atheists. Most atheists are also agnostic atheists.

People who simply say "I don't know whether god exists or not, so I'm agnostic" make a logical error. If they don't know whether god exists then they don't believe in god and therefore they fit the generally accepted definition of atheism, "one without belief in a deity". Another form of agnosticism is where the person believes that we can't know whether god exists, but as they also don't believe in a god they also fit the definition of atheism.

Theists often attempt change the definition of atheism to "belief that no god exists", in order to argue that atheism is a faith based position. But this is really just a strawman argument as almost all the people who label themselves atheists don't claim to hold absolute Knowledge that no god exists and therefore do not fit that narrow and rigid definition of atheism.

Overblood · 04-05-2009 7:21pm

Well you just described all of cosmology in one mental sentence. Cosmology/Astronomy/Biology/Evolution does not necessarily = atheism. An atheist lacks belief in a god, so since there's no god to explain how the universe works or began, most inevitably turn to science for answers.

The Mad Hatter · 04-05-2009 7:26pm

O'Coonassa wrote: »

It seems I have perhaps wrongly construed atheism as a kind of 'knowing for sure'.

You're not the only one.

sink · 04-05-2009 7:31pm

Mickeroo wrote: »

In that case there's a difference,but there's no difference in me personally having an active disbelief in santa or a lack of belief in santa,active disbelief in this case implies lack there of.

There is a subtle difference in my opinion. An active disbelief in a object does not allow for the possibility of that object existing. The non belief in a object allows for the possibility that the object actually exists but that there is no justification for believing that it does. The latter being a subset of the former i.e 'disbelief' fits within the 'non-belief' grouping, but the 'non-belief' grouping does not fit within the 'disbelief' grouping.

O'Coonassa · 04-05-2009 7:54pm

Overblood wrote: »

Well you just described all of cosmology in one mental sentence. Cosmology/Astronomy/Biology/Evolution does not necessarily = atheism. An atheist lacks belief in a god, so since there's no god to explain how the universe works or began, most inevitably turn to science for answers.

I see, but since science has no answers regarding our origin other than that one mental sentence it seems that there is a gap in the knowledge and into this gap leaps faith. As I say I had at the start of this thread the impression that agnosticism was the lack of belief position, wheras atheism was the active disbelief. Thanks to sink and others I can see that the positions are not as black and white as I had originally perceived them to be.

Zombrex · 04-05-2009 8:15pm

O'Coonassa wrote: »

I see, but since science has no answers regarding our origin other than that one mental sentence it seems that there is a gap in the knowledge and into this gap leaps faith.

True. Some people find not knowing something like the purpose, if any, of the universe's existence. So they start making crap up. It is human nature to do that, but atheists tend not to. Or at least be more aware that they are doing that.

O'Coonassa wrote: »

As I say I had at the start of this thread the impression that agnosticism was the lack of belief position, wheras atheism was the active disbelief.

Agnostics are open to the idea that human gods exist and that humans have been communicating with them, but they don't feel there is enough support to say that this has been demonstrated to the point where you would be an theist.

Atheist on the other hand reject the idea whole heartily. Humans have not been communicated with gods, if there are any super powerful beings out there they aren't the beings you find in human holy books. That stuff is just made up to answer unknowns and provide structure, explanation and comfort to humans.

CerebralCortex · 04-05-2009 9:48pm

sink wrote: »

No that is not what atheism is. Atheism is simply a lack of belief in god, an alternate explanation for the the universe is not required. I don't know what the underlying nature of the universe is, I just know that anyone who claims to know is making it up. I believe that science and empiricism are the only way to gain knowledge of the fundamental nature of reality and science is not at the point of being able to make that determination. If science never discovers the nature of the universe then in the absence of a better method of discovery and verification, we will never know. I don't feel the need to fill the vacuum of my ignorance with bull**** I just imagined.

That's exactly it. I don't know why its such a complex concept to grasp for some.

vibe666 · 04-05-2009 9:50pm

O'Coonassa wrote: »

I see, but since science has no answers regarding our origin other than that one mental sentence it seems that there is a gap in the knowledge and into this gap leaps faith. As I say I had at the start of this thread the impression that agnosticism was the lack of belief position, wheras atheism was the active disbelief. Thanks to sink and others I can see that the positions are not as black and white as I had originally perceived them to be.

lol, now i don't know any more! :pac:

johnnyskeleton · 04-05-2009 10:02pm

O'Coonassa wrote: »

I've had it cynically explained to me as the belief that there was nothing, and nothing acted upon that nothingness, and then for an unknown reason it exploded into everything; then for no good reason other than sheer random chance bits of everything rearranged themselves into bits that could make more of themselves and then they turned into apes who thought they knew about nearly everything.

Is that fair?

Atheism is the absence of religious belief. Each indiviual atheist is entitled to have their own views on the origins of the universe, provided they don't start with an old greybearded man with a toolbox and a jam sandwich industriously creating everything then sitting back for a breather (such is my understanding of Chirstian belief at any rate).

pH · 04-05-2009 11:38pm

O'Coonassa wrote: »

Is that fair?

Overheal · 05-05-2009 12:58am

O'Coonassa wrote: »

I've had it cynically explained to me as the belief that there was nothing, and nothing acted upon that nothingness, and then for an unknown reason it exploded into everything; then for no good reason other than sheer random chance bits of everything rearranged themselves into bits that could make more of themselves and then they turned into apes who thought they knew about nearly everything.

Is that fair?

About as fair as the idea that a God/Gods suddenly Shyte out of nothing. Oh, and that they were humanoid.

Big Bang or God. Take your pick. Either is at the end of the day just a fancy way to plug the gap in a tormenting infinite loop of thought relating to the origin of everything.

Get caught in that loop long enough and your brain will explode or you will commit suicide, Ive become convinced.

Goduznt Xzst · 05-05-2009 10:59am

O'Coonassa wrote: »

Is that fair?

An easier way to think of Atheism/Agnosticism is how relevant the individual finds Gods existence. Atheists will largely not say that a God can't exist or that they know it doesn't exist, but rather it's existence has no relevance to Humans.

The agnostic thinks the concept of God has some relevance. The Atheist does not. Both camps are (or at least should be) equal in that they cannot say if a or the God exists.

But most Atheists would say that if such a God exists, we don't know anything about it, and the humans that claim they do are either liars or deluded or both.

seamus · 05-05-2009 11:07am

O'Coonassa wrote: »

No. I just wanted to see if Atheists felt if that was a fair description of their position.

You're making the mistake of assuming that all atheists have the same position. Atheism isn't a religion. You can take it that atheism is defined as having no belief in any God. That's it. There is nothing more to the atheist "position". Sure, you'll find groups of atheists who share a similar position (such as Buddhists), but to add anything onto "no God" and claim it as the atheist "position" is a fundamental mistake. They will all have their own opinions on how, why and when.

O'Coonassa · 05-05-2009 12:57pm

seamus wrote: »

Atheism isn't a religion.

Indeed I see that now, I had thought it to be a more uniform belief system than it actually is, what threw me perhaps is the inclusion of this forum in the Religion & Spirituality section.

Zombrex · 05-05-2009 1:13pm

O'Coonassa wrote: »

what threw me perhaps is the inclusion of this forum in the Religion & Spirituality section.

D'oh ... and we had just got that can of worms closed :pac:

Obni · 05-05-2009 2:27pm

O'Coonassa wrote: »

what threw me perhaps is the inclusion of this forum in the Religion & Spirituality section.

Ahhh! Good old A&A. The unwanted coffee creme in the box of chocolates that is Religion & Spirituality...

liah · 05-05-2009 3:00pm

Obni wrote: »

Ahhh! Good old A&A. The unwanted coffee creme in the box of chocolates that is Religion & Spirituality...

I like coffee creme...

Goduznt Xzst · 05-05-2009 3:12pm

liah wrote: »

I like coffee creme...

me too liah.... me too

DapperGent · 05-05-2009 3:16pm

Weirdos.

pts · 05-05-2009 3:57pm

pH wrote: »

That motiviational poster reminds me a lot of this one (attached)

Mickeroo · 05-05-2009 4:07pm

Goduznt Xzst wrote: »

me too liah.... me too

You know they're not in boxes of Roses anymore?

RayMc · 05-05-2009 7:09pm

Mickeroo wrote: »

You know they're not in boxes of Roses anymore?

Proof surely that there is a God

vibe666 · 06-05-2009 2:17pm

RayMc wrote: »

Proof surely that there is a God

and that they are his favourite ones and that he magics them out of all the boxes at the factory.

Atheism

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