Atheism.

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I've noticed a few disputes on here between athiests and theists. I'm creating this thread because I think it might become a rather interesting debate, as long as you folks can keep it mature and avoid ignorant remarks (So scags... get out).

Some athiest views on religion that I've heard:

Religion gets people to believe something untrue.
Religion makes people base the way they run their lives on a falsehood.
Religion stops people thinking in a rational and objective way.
Religion forces people to rely on outside authority, rather than becoming self-reliant.
Religion imposes irrational rules of good and bad behaviour.
Religion divides people, and is a cause of conflict and war.
The hierarchical structure of most religions is anti-democratic, and thus offends basic human rights.
Religion doesn't give equal treatment to women and gay people, and thus offends basic human rights.
Religion obstructs scientific research.
Religion wastes time and money.

I've personally never paid much attention to athiesm or studied it, yet. So I have a few questions I'm hoping some of you can answer...

What are the fundamental messages of athiesm?

This question may be a little more personal... but what are your philosophical justifications for athiesm? Surely the belief in athiesm or science is an act of faith, like religion... would you not consider this a religious belief?

From my understanding, athiests are either in disbelief in God or deny his existence. But wouldn't you consider this the same thing?

Is there such a thing as atheist morality? Where do your morals come from?

What if you're wrong about God (and He does exist?)

What is the meaning to life? Why does the universe exist? How did life originate?

Just a few questions I have.

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I beg any respondants


To avoid being ignorant and respect one another's personal beliefs. Please.

[The Answer]

I know very little about this "religion"

But if they dont believe in god, doesnt that they believe in evolution?

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This might be a dumbass question bare with me. Were the enlightment thinkers and intellegentsia atheist as well? I mean were they all atheist or just wanted less intervention from the church with the govt.

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This might be a dumbass question bare with me. Were the enlightment thinkers and intellegentsia atheist as well? I mean were they all atheist or just wanted less intervention from the church with the govt.

Here's a few:

Paul Henry Thiry
the Baron d'Holbach
Bertrand Russel

There's a lot more (you can do a google search if your avid about it) but those are the only ones that come to mind at the moment.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I've *read* and understood the Thinkers of the englightment were athiests who distanced themselves from the Church and attacked religions. Someone would even call them *Blood thirsty* but I'd be branching into a whole different topic.

Again, you can look into the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. Shit's fuzzy or else I'd give you a quick run down.

So in short, yeah. From my understandings of course.

[nubre3d]

Atheism doesn't support itself

thats like saying...

a clock gets smashed in the desert and 50 million years it re forms itself

[82643827468734]

Atheism doesn't support itself

thats like saying...

a clock gets smashed in the desert and 50 million years it re forms itself

Can you elaborate more? Truthfully, you helped inspire this thread. I've seen a few of your disputes and remarks about athiesm. I'm curious of your views.

Cabbie, I guess you could say so. There were several views from philosophers such as Jean Meslier, Voltaire or Descartes, who questionned the existence of anything (including God); Cogito erm sum. Martin Luther opened the doors for many.

[Name]

There's a lot of misunderstanding of atheism. Atheism, at the moment, is a movement that shouldn't be. The reason "atheism" exists in peoples' minds as a cohesive group is because there are a lot of ignorant religious people who pin a lot of the "sinful behaviour" of western culture on Atheists.

An atheist is a person who has no belief in gods.

That is what an atheist is.

There's a distinction between an atheist and an anti-theist that I think is important for people to know. An atheist is someone who does not believe in God anymore than they believe in unicorns or the tooth fairy, an anti-theist is someone who will go around talking about why religion is evil.

There have been, throughout history, a lot of atheist thinkers who have been persecuted for their views or have kept their views secret. It was mostly during the time between say 800 ad and about 1600 ad that was dangerous for people to be atheist, after that they could be open about it and reasonably assume that they would not be killed.

Another reason, I think, there's a lot of misunderstanding of atheism is because people think that it's a religious movement. This is not the case, it's no more a religion than "people who don't use Scope". There are no morals or teachings or stories or dogma attached to atheism. Atheists come from all walks of life and all over the political spectrum and all that they have in common is no belief in god.

You could be an atheist and not know it. People who have never even thought about God would generally be considered atheist, since that's what it is. No belief in any sort of God.

To answer chuck's questions,

What are the fundamental messages of athiesm?

There are no fundamental messages of atheism. Atheism is not a religion, there is no atheist book to follow with any sort of ideologies.

This question may be a little more personal... but what are your philosophical justifications for athiesm? Surely the belief in athiesm or science is an act of faith, like religion... would you not consider this a religious belief?

Science is something people can do and see for themselves. Some science is certainly inaccessible to most people, you have to go through a lot of school to get to it obviously, but you more or less have to trust the process. There's peer-review for a reason. Fake science usually gets weeded out. So it's not religious, no. You don't put faith in science, its own evidence (and the fact that it very clearly is extremely effective) should be enough. If science didn't work, and wasn't as effective as it is, we wouldn't be sitting here on our laptop computers with wireless internet access watching T.V. that comes across satellites in orbit around the Earth. When was the last time you saw a God-powered iPod?

From my understanding, athiests are either in disbelief in God or deny his existence. But wouldn't you consider this the same thing?

I think the difference is very subtle. Some people will flatly deny the existence of gods, while others will say they don't believe but they can't say that the probability is 0. I'm more of the school of thought that I can't know that there are no gods, but I don't think there are. So I would say I have a disbelief in gods, but I will not say that there is definitely no god. I can't know that.

Is there such a thing as atheist morality? Where do your morals come from?

We talked about this in the morality thread, I think the sociobiological view is accurate.

What if you're wrong about God (and He does exist?)

Pascal's wager? Well I would hope that if God were good like people like to claim he is then he would understand my skepticism. He's never given me any reason to believe.

What is the meaning to life? Why does the universe exist? How did life originate?

I think the meaning of life is what you make it to be. I think that there's a lot more to the universe than we know right now and maybe the true "meaning" might be revealed at some point, but right now it's not for us to know. Same with the origins of the universe. There's a lot of theories out there, but it's speculation. The big bang says that the universe has changed state over time but it does not say how the universe began, only that it changed.

Life, on the other hand, I think we're getting close to seeing how life originated. Abiogenesis and chemical evolution theories are making progress all the time, I think within the next decade we'll probably have a good idea about how life started.

[Name]

Onto why I'm an atheist:

I've always been atheist. I never, at any point in my life, have even considered God. I thought Santa Claus was real when I was a kid, but I didn't even know what God was.

Fast forward to the present. I have grown up in a family with no belief in God and I've done quite a bit of reading on religion, on God, on the Universe. More than most people. I'm fascinated with the universe, I love reading about black holes and supernovas and quasars and gamma ray bursts. Give me string theory, give me quantum gravity, feed me your fucked up theory about how the universe is a 253-dimensional Lie pattern. I love it. I don't necessarily think they're all accurate, I just find it all extremely interesting.

I find religion interesting too, but the interest it holds for me is like the fascination someone would feel if they went to a sideshow. I find it interesting that people hold these beliefs and that they hold onto them so strongly that they sometimes feel the need to kill for them.

Philosophically I just don't see any reason why there should be a god. If God can be infinite, why can't the universe? Take Old Earth Creationism for example...If the Earth can progress for billions of years without God's direct intervention, why should the universe need God at all? Is he just necessary for the initial "spark"? It seems so redundant to me.

The universe, I think, will turn out to be a place much weirder than we ever imagined...if we can probe so far into it. But I don't think a god is responsible for it. It probably just is.

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But I don't think many of the philiosophers from the enlightenment period were athiest. They could have been Diest.

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But I don't think many of the philiosophers from the enlightenment period were athiest. They could have been Diest.

I'm a philosophy major. We don't really discuss their personal views... and if you search the internet, you won't find their personal views that easily. Thats the thing with philosophy. Their theories don't always depict their p.o.v.


As for Lou, THANK YOU for the response. I'm still reading it... just wanted to answer Gangsta.

[Name]

But I don't think many of the philiosophers from the enlightenment period were athiest. They could have been Diest.

Yeah a lot of the English philosophers and scientists (such as Darwin) were deist. They believed in a God, but didn't like religion.

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Nah I read about these dudes before. Like I know that Descartes for sure was athiest. he basically poked fun at the mistake galileo made on his theory of God. Than Voltaire once I started thinking from cabbie's remark wasnt really an athiest. I thought of him more of a Diest who believed in a rational, non-christian God. I dont want to get into the French Revolution but the only philosopher I found hard to understand was Rousseau, weird fellow.

[nubre3d]

Can you elaborate more? Truthfully, you helped inspire this thread. I've seen a few of your disputes and remarks about athiesm. I'm curious of your views.

Cabbie, I guess you could say so. There were several views from philosophers such as Jean Meslier, Voltaire or Descartes, who questionned the existence of anything (including God); Cogito erm sum. Martin Luther opened the doors for many.

Well Philosophically and logically everything in the world we live in is based on creation, which means that we and everything on this earth was created. Just look around the earth has a self cleansing system and animals have a hemogamic behaviour, we humans everyday are trying to imitate and innovate what the world already has, and this is why I believe there has to be someone that created the world.

[Name]

Nah I read about these dudes before. Like I know that Descartes for sure was athiest. he basically poked fun at the mistake galileo made on his theory of God. Than Voltaire once I started thinking from cabbie's remark wasnt really an athiest. I thought of him more of a Diest who believed in a rational, non-christian God. I dont want to get into the French Revolution but the only philosopher I found hard to understand was Rousseau, weird fellow.

It's tough to tell sometimes too because a lot of them will speak metaphorically about God. Einstein and Hawking are frequently misquoted about having belief in god, which is not the case. Both of those men use God as a metaphor for...well...for how he would do it if he did exist. It's kind of a confusing metaphor if you look at it from the point of view of someone who actually is religious though, I guess. It's just a way of conveying an overwhelming sense of beauty.

[Name]

Well Philosophically and logically everything in the world we live in is based on creation, which means that we and everything on this earth was created. Just look around the earth has a self cleansing system and animals have a hemogamic behaviour, we humans everyday are trying to imitate and innovate what the world already has, and this is why I believe there has to be someone that created the world.

The problem with this argument is that it doesn't take into account the vast time scales nature has had to perfect itself. 4.5 billion years is a very, very long time. It's 1/3rd the age of the universe itself. The earth did not start out as a perfect location for life, life made the earth the way it is. In many ways the earth is extremely hostile to life. Because of oxygen levels there is no chance that chemical evolution could ever happen again. If all life were wiped from the earth, that would be it.

This argument you are making is (if you don't mind the cliche) a bit like a puddle saying "amazing that this hole I'm in is just perfect for me." Well of course it wasn't the hole that was shaped for the puddle, rather the puddle is shaped for the hole. The earth is the way it is because of billions of years of life changing it and life changing itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis