Atheism = Farce!

[willow78]

I'm not a religious person but I still go to church fetes. I believe in the power of cake stalls!

 

[Drifterwood]

But putting both these aside, if one could know that he definitely believes there is no god ... does the question still not remain open of whether he is an agnostic or an atheist?

I think that this is one of those issues which depends largely upon from which POV you approach it.

If I were to say that an a-gnostic is someone who has not experienced the revelation which they take to be knowledge/faith, then this could equally apply to many who wish to be Christians. Baptism, confirmation, sunday school, church attendance does not automatically lead to gnosis. You can be an a-gnostic practicing Christian. Let's ignore the dogmatic religionists at this point.

At the same time, there are many who feel that they have experienced a revelation regarding their "spirituality", the meaning of life etc., but they do not relate this to a theistic POV. These people are in a very similar place in my opinion to the post-revelation Christian, Muslim or Jew, but they are not theists, a-theists.

As I have said, I do not consider people's metaphysical incomprehensions to be relevant to anyone else, other than when they adversely affect other people, and perhaps as an academic excercise. Those who do wish to disprove theism are IMO something else. Anti-theists perhaps?

I have been thinking recently about the growing number of a-theists (under my definition above). Perhaps this number will or already does eclipse the number of those attached to an organised faith. I feel that people have moved away from religionists, who themselves blame a growing immoralty or people losing their way. But they are wrong, it is their dogma and often hatred that is driving people away from organised religion. People have remained the same.

 

[Drifterwood]

Just to continue my ramble, without constantly editing my response to the Huckster, dogmatic religionists have found it very difficult to transfer their dogma to the planetary view of humanity which is emerging.

Too many religious people sadly do not take the time to study the history of their religion. They can think that its tenets are fundamental. But even the most transient research will show that religions develop. The tribal God Yahweh was not originally considered the only God and monotheism took some 1000 years to develop for example. Whether or not you may think that man created God, man certainly redefines God and attaches dogma to that understanding.

Today we can see beyond our tribe. We may be nurtured within a religious dogma, but many are seeing that this can be an ill-fitting suit to our nature. If you consider that all humans fundamentally share a similar nature, then all human's transcendental, metaphysical experience and search is also fundamentally similar. This is more important than the dogma that the religionists then dress it up in. It is more important than the wedges that some religionists try to drive between us in order to prove their particular truth and to make enemies of others'.

 

[D_Gunther Snotpole]

I think that this is one of those issues which depends largely upon from which POV you approach it.

If I were to say that an a-gnostic is someone who has not experienced the revelation which they take to be knowledge/faith, then this could equally apply to many who wish to be Christians. Baptism, confirmation, sunday school, church attendance does not automatically lead to gnosis. You can be an a-gnostic practicing Christian.

Very very common.

At the same time, there are many who feel that they have experienced a revelation regarding their "spirituality", the meaning of life etc., but they do not relate this to a theistic POV. These people are in a very similar place in my opinion to the post-revelation Christian, Muslim or Jew, but they are not theists, a-theists.

Okay.

As I have said, I do not consider people's metaphysical incomprehensions to be relevant to anyone else, other than when they adversely affect other people, and perhaps as an academic excercise. Those who do wish to disprove theism are IMO something else. Anti-theists perhaps?

Your guess is as good as mine.
But often, they believe that all forms of religious belief are delusional, and perhaps believe, with Bertrand Russell, that:

The whole conception of God is a conception derived from the ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men. When you hear people in church debasing themselves and saying that they are miserable sinners, and all the rest of it, it seems contemptible and not worthy of self-respecting human beings.

Of course, Russell ... like you ... had a bee in his bonnet.
I have no problem with religion except the forms and the practitioners that want to remake me and others and the world in line with their religiously-derived ideology.
Very few religionists do that.
Some of my best friends, etc. .....

I have been thinking recently about the growing number of a-theists (under my definition above). Perhaps this number will or already does eclipse the number of those attached to an organised faith. I feel that people have moved away from religionists, who themselves blame a growing immoralty on people losing their way. But they are wrong, it is their dogma and often hatred that is driving people away from organised religion. People have remained the same.

Lot of truth there, I would guess.
But I also think a decline in religious belief is inevitable as the realm of science expands and as the people in this ever smaller world become far more aware of the many dozens of different religions, all subscribed to for the most part by people who were indoctrinated at their parents' knees.
Choice of belief begins to seem an accident of fate.
At which point, belief starts to seem a bit silly.

 

[D_Gunther Snotpole]

Just to continue my ramble, without constantly editing my response to the Huckster, dogmatic religionists have found it very difficult to transfer their dogma to the planetary view of humanity which is emerging.

Too many religious people sadly do not take the time to study the history of their religion. They can think that its tenets are fundamental. But even the most transient research will show that religions develop. The tribal God Yahweh was not originally considered the only God and monotheism took some 1000 years to develop for example. Whether or not you may think that man created God, man certainly redefines God and attaches dogma to that understanding.

Today we can see beyond our tribe. We may be nurtured within a religious dogma, but many are seeing that this can be an ill-fitting suit to our nature. If you consider that all humans fundamentally share a similar nature, then all human's transcendental, metaphysical experience and search is also fundamentally similar. This is more important than the dogma that the religionists then dress it up in. It is more important than the wedges that some religionists try to drive between us in order to prove their particular truth and to make enemies of others'.

Hey, you stole my point.
(Not that I've made it yet.)
But good choice, drifter.

BTW, it's the Hhuckster.

 

[Drifterwood]

The whole conception of God is a conception derived from the ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men. When you hear people in church debasing themselves and saying that they are miserable sinners, and all the rest of it, it seems contemptible and not worthy of self-respecting human beings.

Of course, Russell ... like you ... had a bee in his bonnet.

There you go trying to put things in my mouth again, Huxtah.

I think that Berty misses the point of Vedic ritual or Confucian li, as well as being historically and anthropologically misinformed. But then that is quite different from the dogma of original sin and hatred of the flesh as opposed to routes to revelation through ritual.

Surley you haven't forgotten my posts on Simonides and original sin?

 

[D_Gunther Snotpole]

There you go trying to put things in my mouth again, Huxtah.

Ahem.
Hhuxtah.

I think that Berty misses the point of Vedic ritual or Confucian li, as well as being historically and anthropologically misinformed. But then that is quite different from the dogma of original sin and hatred of the flesh as opposed to routes to revelation through ritual.

For Bertie, even the Middle East was the orient.
And his main concern was the monotheistic religions, which by definition could not tolerate competing religious options.
I'm not sure that Confucian li have anything to do with religion.
Bertie was big on original sin. (According philosopher Paul Edwards, who once had occasion to bathe in some public spot with Russell ... very big.)

Surley you haven't forgotten my posts on Simonides and original sin?

Fifth time: Stop calling me Surley.

How could I forget what you posted on Simonides?
You said Plato only cited him in The Republic.
But he was a big playa in Protagoras too.

 

[Drifterwood]

I'm not sure that Confucian li have anything to do with religion.

Even when performed religiously, HuxtaHh?

 

[midlifebear]

Farce, schmarsh . . . one thing I know for certain is that Snelgrove Ice Cream makes the best Butter Brickle Ice Cream in the world. It's 17% butter fat!

 

[D_Gunther Snotpole]

Even when performed religiously, HuxtaHh?

Hha Hha.

 

[musclebare9]

Here is another definition for you.

Gregorian calendar - The system of dates used by most of the world. The Gregorian calendar was proposed by the Calabrian doctor Aloysius Lilius and was decreed by, and named after, Pope Gregory XIII on 1582-02-24.

Please note the word "most".

Elsewhere it is defined as an internationally accepted civil calendar.

Do you know what the term metaphysical means?

You do realise that there are very many dating systems? Thinking that yours is of particular relevance is as silly as the OP link.

 

[Pendlum]

And for a long time the Japanese used a system that was basically "X year of the y Emperor"

Do you really believe that just because so many Japanese people believed that their Emperor was literally a living god and based their calender around that it shouldn't be doubted?

I guess you also believe in the Mayan Doomsday myth.

 

[musclebare9]

I can't follow your reasoning. We have sound evidence about the secular events that you mention. But "something significant" is not the kind of historical description that can be given any determinate application."

Labeling an event as secular does not remove historical importance. There are other historical writings (non-secular) that mention the existance of Jesus.

Cornelius Tacitus (A.D. 55-120) was considered the greatest historian of ancient Rome.

Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian, (A.D. 38-100+)

If you are alluding to the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, as I assume you are, then, first of all, the date of his birth cannot possibly have been 2010 years ago, even if there was such a person. He is supposed to have born during the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4 B.C.E., so he cannot have been born any later than that year."

My grandfather is now deceased but there was no proof of the exact year of his birth. My friend is from India and approximately 50 years old, he doesn't know his exact birth date. It seems that not everyone makes a huge deal out of birthdays. We can't even clearly define if the President of the US was born in the US and you want to argue about the exactness of an event that was 2000 years ago.

That aside, even if we credit the whole Christian story, it is not the birth but the resurrection of Christ that is supposed to be the great event. In any case, to argue from the fact that we have a calendar with a certain point of origin to the conclusion that God exists is so bizarre and inconsequential that I hesitate to call such a sequence of thoughts an "argument."

Somewhat common sense but I don't believe that resurrection couldn't happen without the birth so both are equally important. Birth and resurrection in itself would be the definition of God (eternal). Historical information referencing said birth and resurrection is solid.

 

[Drifterwood]

Labeling an event as secular does not remove historical importance. There are other historical writings (non-secular) that mention the existance of Jesus.

Cornelius Tacitus (A.D. 55-120) was considered the greatest historian of ancient Rome.

Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian, (A.D. 38-100+) .

Aren't you getting secular the wrong way around?

But anyway, just out of interest, both these texts are highly disputed and there is strong evidence that later Christian or Chrestian (as Tacitus would say) scribes inserted and or changed the passages.

I prefer Livy anyway.

 

[D_Gunther Snotpole]

I prefer Livy anyway.

You would!

That seedy old republican was just lucky that Augustus's devoted Livia was from the same clan.

 

[Calboner]

Labeling an event as secular does not remove historical importance.

True but irrelevant. I never said that it does. "Historical importance" per se was not the issue. Your claim was that "something so significant happened 2010 years ago in history that our entire time system is based upon it," and you offer this as a ground for belief in God. In other words, what was at issue was whether an event had theological importance. Only a revelation of God could have such importance. But the fact that our calendar has a certain point of origin is not evidence of an event of theological importance.

There are other historical writings (non-secular) that mention the existance of Jesus.

Cornelius Tacitus (A.D. 55-120) was considered the greatest historian of ancient Rome.

Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian, (A.D. 38-100+)

The text from Tacitus shows only that there were Christians in the second century. It is not evidence of the historicity of Jesus, much less of his divinity.

The passage about Jesus in Josephus is known to have been inserted by later writers. There are historians who believe that the original text contained some sort of mention of Jesus, but even they acknowledge that parts of the passage identifying Jesus as Christ were inserted by a later Christian writer.

In any case, you have not shown that any of this has any relevance to belief in God, which, I remind you again, is the issue.

My grandfather is now deceased but there was no proof of the exact year of his birth. My friend is from India and approximately 50 years old, he doesn't know his exact birth date. It seems that not everyone makes a huge deal out of birthdays. We can't even clearly define if the President of the US was born in the US and you want to argue about the exactness of an event that was 2000 years ago.

You are the one who is claiming that there was such an event. I presume that you do so on the evidence of the Gospels, as there is no other evidence, so far as I know. If you are going to do that, then at a minimum you had better offer a story that is consistent both within itself and with independently known facts. The Gospels place the birth of Jesus in the reign of King Herod. Herod is known to have died in 4 B.C.E. Therefore, Jesus cannot have been born any later than 4 B.C.E. I have never heard of a professional historian or even a Christian apologist who disputes this.

If you are going to claim that Christianity has a basis in historical fact, then you have to face up to historical facts. You can't just invoke such facts when it suits you to do so and then brush them aside when you don't like them.

In any case, I remind you once more than none of this supports your claim that belief in God has a basis in historical fact.

Somewhat common sense but I don't believe that resurrection couldn't happen without the birth so both are equally important. Birth and resurrection in itself would be the definition of God (eternal). Historical information referencing said birth and resurrection is solid.

They are not equally important. I remind you again that the claim at issue is whether there is a historical basis for belief in God. Even if there were compelling evidence that a Jesus of Nazareth was born in Bethlehem, that fact does not support any theistic conclusion. The revelation on which Christianity is founded is the supposed miracle of the Resurrection, not the birth of Jesus.

No historian regards the "information" regarding the Resurrection as "solid." It is not even consistent: see, for example, this chart, or this page.

 

[JustAsking]

.... But the fact that our calendar has a certain point of origin is not evidence of an event of theological importance..

I agree. That in itself is no kind of proof. I imagine it simply made sense to start the calendral clock at Jesus' birth. The big holiday historically has always been Easter, with Christmas being celebrated only recently as any kind of a big deal.

The calendar and most of the drive for a solar system model was driven by the need to fix the date of Easter many years in advance. It is a movable feast that coincides with solar and lunar position. I think Easter is always the first Sunday after the first full moon after the summer solstice.

It was important enough for medieval cathedrals to be used as solar observatories so the solstice could be accurately determined.

.... They are not equally important. I remind you again that the claim at issue is whether there is a historical basis for belief in God. Even if there were compelling evidence that a Jesus of Nazareth was born in Bethlehem, that fact does not support any theistic conclusion. The revelation on which Christianity is founded is the supposed miracle of the Resurrection, not the birth of Jesus..

Yes, I would agree with that. The Resurrecton is the important event theologically.

 

[Drifterwood]

The calendar and most of the drive for a solar system model was driven by the need to fix the date of Easter many years in advance. It is a movable feast that coincides with solar and lunar position. I think Easter is always the first Sunday after the first full moon after the summer solstice.

Sounds rather Pagan. :biggrin1:

 

[D_Gunther Snotpole]

I think Easter is always the first Sunday after the first full moon after the summer solstice..

JA, I'm sure you mean the spring equinox.

 

[maxcok]

Sounds rather Pagan. :biggrin1:

Not to be confused with ancient fertility rites celebrated in the season of renewal, rebirth and resurrection - eggs and bunnies notwithstanding.

JA, I'm sure you mean the spring equinox.

But of course, that is the short method of calculation. Frankly I'm surprised that someone so learned and generally scientifically precise made such a blunder, but perhaps he is using a different time scale. :wink: