mitchymo
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Is atheism a faith? Is agnostism naive/ignorant?
- Thread starter galaxus
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A lack of faith by inherent status requires you cannot be atheist. Noncognitive Theism is a lot closer to "a lack of faith" than Atheism ever will be, however due to social norms and a lack of investment in philosophical education this misnomer has taken off and become a mainstream false belief.
so much silliness!
unlike the major religions, there is no book, no text, no doctrine of atheists. so there is no one set attitude.
...i don't think my apathetic lack of religion should be labeled a faith. it seems like a desperate attempt at pigeonholing by people who can't understand it.
as an atheist i just don't think about faith at all.
i don't ponder the lack of god, i don't get together and debate the true meaning of atheism with my atheist club, i don't wear an atheist badge or have a secret athiest hand shake.
i'm just one individual who doesn't believe.
you don't believe in three headed unicorns?
ok, does that mean that everyone else who doesn't believe in three headed unicorns is like minded, shares the same life philosophy?
would you call the lack of belief in three headed unicorns a faith?
unlike the major religions, there is no book, no text, no doctrine of atheists. so there is no one set attitude.
...i don't think my apathetic lack of religion should be labeled a faith. it seems like a desperate attempt at pigeonholing by people who can't understand it.
as an atheist i just don't think about faith at all.
i don't ponder the lack of god, i don't get together and debate the true meaning of atheism with my atheist club, i don't wear an atheist badge or have a secret athiest hand shake.
i'm just one individual who doesn't believe.
you don't believe in three headed unicorns?
ok, does that mean that everyone else who doesn't believe in three headed unicorns is like minded, shares the same life philosophy?
would you call the lack of belief in three headed unicorns a faith?
mitchymo
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Ok i concede this is probably in fact true.
Atheism is as non-sensical as believing in god i would then assume.
Yes. Atheism affirms that there is no deity so it's just the contrapositive of affirming there is a deity and both are unsupported. Benefit of the doubt in empiricism goes to Atheism, but because empiricism doesn't work in regards to metaphysical happenstances it simply does not "count".
OK. I was hoping the thread would go into the direction involving my example. Or maybe its a bad example.... idk
Some people would argue that its foolish for agnostics to not think of some religions as complete bullshit. You hear people make jokes about every religion out there, but many chistrians, jews, muslims, even atheist and some agnostics would probably think of Scientology as completely wacky, not just a different religion.
I personally think that Fox News = Scientology..... I know that the people at Fox News aren't scientologists..... but I just think they're both looked upon bullshit (really every religion is called out as bullshit though by many).
I'm not sure if I'm articulating my posts very well.
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D_Penruddick Middlefinger
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I would say that I have faith that three headed unicorns don't exist. But I can't prove it.
Any and all affirmed claims ( "There is no God." is a very solid claim ) are indeed pretenses and Atheism itself requires that you hold some level of belief in the idea that there are no deities.
It's a faith by default because like any other faith it is philosophical, unprovable, and without evidence. Not believing in a deity is no different than believing in a deity; considering most people put religion and deistic belief together automatically many people end up putting "faith" and "religion" together automatically.
Which, then, is not Atheism. Bilateral thinking in this world is really troublesome; you're definitely not an atheist if that is the case.
For all fun and rights and purposes any and all claims that are active can be labeled, but not all passive claims have a label. You are clearly passive in your beliefs, not active, that is to say you aren't affirming anything but rather you are simply aware of the state of things.
It's the difference between swearing oranges are the best thing in the world and simply liking oranges.
Actually, yes, but that's going to get complex because when we talk about beliefs we only take into account specific pretenses. If you asked "do you believe in magic" those who do not believe in magic are grouped into that circle, but being a "non-believer" in magic does not incite the need for a religious following ( I.E. you're mixing belief with the inherent "religion" connection ) so not believing in magic does give you a common ground with thousands upon thousands of people but that ground itself is not sufficient to create a dogma.
Truthfully looking at more religions with denominations this is readily apparent, Christianity being popular all Christians believe that Jesus was the son of God amongst other things, they do not all live their lives by the same faiths and precepts but they all have the same base belief. That's how atheism works, your unicorn example works, and my magic example works; belief does not necessitate religion.
Yes. Yes indeed. It is as a matter of fact what it is. Though now you're walking into the realm of Empiricism so it's going to be handled a little differently, but if we were to stay metaphysical with this unicorn it's very clearly a contrapositive and a statement of faith.
Incocknito
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Every civilisation since Prehistoric Times has used the supernatural to try and explain the natural world.
Some civilisations made a business out of that. Advertising religion to the poor as their "ticket" to a better (after) life.
As for this word faith:
Faith Definition | Definition of Faith at Dictionary.com
2. belief that is not based on proof
As for "ignorant"...I would argue the case that religious followers are ignorant. Ignorant of the other religions which are at their core exactly the same as theirs and no less ridiculous. Ignorant of the historical fact that there are religions that pre-date their own.
Atheists (or at least this atheist) are the exact opposite of ignorant.
The basis of all religion is entirely natural. The basic premise of a supernatural being is just the imagination of mankind at work. Nothing all that special about it. The God(s) are just characters in books.
Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs are good books...if you're five years old, but I wouldn't take them seriously.
I prefer someone who is agnostic to someone who was "born and raised" into a religion and never knew, or wanted to know, anything else.
Some civilisations made a business out of that. Advertising religion to the poor as their "ticket" to a better (after) life.
As for this word faith:
Faith Definition | Definition of Faith at Dictionary.com
2. belief that is not based on proof
As for "ignorant"...I would argue the case that religious followers are ignorant. Ignorant of the other religions which are at their core exactly the same as theirs and no less ridiculous. Ignorant of the historical fact that there are religions that pre-date their own.
Atheists (or at least this atheist) are the exact opposite of ignorant.
The basis of all religion is entirely natural. The basic premise of a supernatural being is just the imagination of mankind at work. Nothing all that special about it. The God(s) are just characters in books.
Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs are good books...if you're five years old, but I wouldn't take them seriously.
I prefer someone who is agnostic to someone who was "born and raised" into a religion and never knew, or wanted to know, anything else.
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smph, i can strongly believe that there is no god,
whilst still rarely giving it any thought at all,
and remaining most apathetic to the whole kerfuffle.
i can say, 'no god *shrug* big deal!' and then forget the entire issue, just as i shall soon forget about those three headed unicorns.
...except i won't. the unicorns are real. trust me.
whilst still rarely giving it any thought at all,
and remaining most apathetic to the whole kerfuffle.
i can say, 'no god *shrug* big deal!' and then forget the entire issue, just as i shall soon forget about those three headed unicorns.
...except i won't. the unicorns are real. trust me.
I think I am confusing agnosticism with this Seaside. With the way I live I try to accept everything and nothing. Maybe this is what I am.
I'm going to just say "if you say so"; there's no point in getting into the mechanics of this stuff here.
That's not "apathy", er... Hm. Nevermind.
mitchymo
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I am agnostic (at least that is my current position) and i do believe that major religions are bullshit. It is the religions themselves that i discredit rather than any ideology that they imply. For example i do not believe that i will go to hell after death because i had sex with a guy in this life and stole a turkish delight from the off-licence when i was 6 because that is what the religion says 'God' says and i don't believe in 'God' as religion depicts but i do believe that the passibility 'may' exist that i could go to a place called hell as it's existence is unproven and i 'may' believe in an entity that is close to the ideology of 'God' as depicted but not likely to happen unless there is plausible evidence.
Wow, i confuse myself sometimes, i hope i am sort of making some sense as i see it.
Gl3nn
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S.Fy:
The trouble with atheism is when you stop believing in God, you don't believe in nothing, you believe in anything. And perhaps we do live in a culture where reason and so on are not as glorified as they should be.
However, I don't think we should ever allow religion the trick of maintaining that the spiritual and the beautiful and the noble and the altruistic and the morally strong and the virtuous are in any way inventions of religion or particular or peculiar to religion. It's certainly true that you could say that it was Christ who said "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone". That's a wonderful thing to have said, anybody who would have said that would have won a great deal of respect and interest. But there is absolutely no monopoly on beauty and truth in religion.
And I suppose one of the reasons why I'm so fond of the Greeks and one of the reasons why the radical poet Shelley wrote his 'Prometheus Unbound' is because he understood that if you were to compare the Genesis myth, which had bedeviled our culture for a very long time indeed (2000 years).
It was essentially a myth in which we should be ashamed for ourselves.
God says "Who told you you were naked?". What possible reason do we have to believe that we are naked, or that if we are naked that we should be ashamed of it? That for what we are and what we do, we should ever apologize. We should apologize for our dreams, our impulses, our appetites, our drives, our desires, ... are not things to apologize for. Our actions we do sometimes apologize for and we excoriate ourselves for them rigthly. That's the Genesis myth.
The Greek myth is of Prometheus who stole fire from heaven and gave it to his favourite mortal, man. In other words, the Greek said: 'We have divine fire. Whatever is divine, is in us.' As humans, we are as good as the gods. The Gods are capricious and mean and foolish and stupid and jealous and rapine and all the things that greek mythology shows that they are. And that's a much better explanation it seems to me. And for that, the Gods punished Prometheus (chains, vultures, ... you know the story...).
And Shelley quite rightly understood (and interestingly enough, his wife wrote that Frankenstein was the modern Prometheus) that that mythological idea, that champion of real humanity and real humanism as we have come to call it, is that we ARE captains of our soul and masters of our destiny and that we contain any divine fire that there is. Divine fire that is fine and great. And it's perfectly obvious that if there were ever a God, he has lost every possible taste. You only have to look, forget the impression and unpleasantness of the radical right or the islamic hordes to the east, the sheer lack of intelligence and insight, the ability to express themselves and to infuse others of the priesthood here and indeed in Europe. God had once Bach, Mozart and Michelangelo on his side. And now who does he have? People with ginger whiskers and tinted spectacles who reduce the glory of theology to a kind of sharing.
That's what religion has become, an anemic nonsense. Because we understood that the fire was within us. It was not in some on an alter, whether it was a golden cross or a Buddha or anything else. But that we have it. The fault is in us and not in our stars, but also the glory is in us, and not in our stars. We take credit for what is great about man, but we also take the blame for what is dreadful about man. We neither grovel or apologize at the feet of a God or are so infantile as to ever project the idea that we once had a father as human beings and therefore we should have a divine one too. We have to grow up.
The trouble with atheism is when you stop believing in God, you don't believe in nothing, you believe in anything. And perhaps we do live in a culture where reason and so on are not as glorified as they should be.
However, I don't think we should ever allow religion the trick of maintaining that the spiritual and the beautiful and the noble and the altruistic and the morally strong and the virtuous are in any way inventions of religion or particular or peculiar to religion. It's certainly true that you could say that it was Christ who said "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone". That's a wonderful thing to have said, anybody who would have said that would have won a great deal of respect and interest. But there is absolutely no monopoly on beauty and truth in religion.
And I suppose one of the reasons why I'm so fond of the Greeks and one of the reasons why the radical poet Shelley wrote his 'Prometheus Unbound' is because he understood that if you were to compare the Genesis myth, which had bedeviled our culture for a very long time indeed (2000 years).
It was essentially a myth in which we should be ashamed for ourselves.
God says "Who told you you were naked?". What possible reason do we have to believe that we are naked, or that if we are naked that we should be ashamed of it? That for what we are and what we do, we should ever apologize. We should apologize for our dreams, our impulses, our appetites, our drives, our desires, ... are not things to apologize for. Our actions we do sometimes apologize for and we excoriate ourselves for them rigthly. That's the Genesis myth.
The Greek myth is of Prometheus who stole fire from heaven and gave it to his favourite mortal, man. In other words, the Greek said: 'We have divine fire. Whatever is divine, is in us.' As humans, we are as good as the gods. The Gods are capricious and mean and foolish and stupid and jealous and rapine and all the things that greek mythology shows that they are. And that's a much better explanation it seems to me. And for that, the Gods punished Prometheus (chains, vultures, ... you know the story...).
And Shelley quite rightly understood (and interestingly enough, his wife wrote that Frankenstein was the modern Prometheus) that that mythological idea, that champion of real humanity and real humanism as we have come to call it, is that we ARE captains of our soul and masters of our destiny and that we contain any divine fire that there is. Divine fire that is fine and great. And it's perfectly obvious that if there were ever a God, he has lost every possible taste. You only have to look, forget the impression and unpleasantness of the radical right or the islamic hordes to the east, the sheer lack of intelligence and insight, the ability to express themselves and to infuse others of the priesthood here and indeed in Europe. God had once Bach, Mozart and Michelangelo on his side. And now who does he have? People with ginger whiskers and tinted spectacles who reduce the glory of theology to a kind of sharing.
That's what religion has become, an anemic nonsense. Because we understood that the fire was within us. It was not in some on an alter, whether it was a golden cross or a Buddha or anything else. But that we have it. The fault is in us and not in our stars, but also the glory is in us, and not in our stars. We take credit for what is great about man, but we also take the blame for what is dreadful about man. We neither grovel or apologize at the feet of a God or are so infantile as to ever project the idea that we once had a father as human beings and therefore we should have a divine one too. We have to grow up.
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I'll be upfront: This isn't very compelling evidence that ignorance isn't afoot.
Gl3nn
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