Atheists don't need faith

[EdithSimcox]

Atheists don't need faith

Lots of interesting things here including:

• nearly half of us are non-religious but less than a fifth are atheist...
• atheists need "simply more than can be proved by logic and science"

Any thoughts? A view I've often seen expressed on MN is that logic and science are the end of the subject.

People and animals finding things beautiful (or ugly, or scary) and feeling joy, love, fear and things is just our brains and physiology in action.

Reading Niminy's long post as an Atheist is hugely offensive to me, personally. That doesn't make it a personal attack though, just like I am finding you is not the same as you are

Bertrand Russell's stupid flying teapot analogy This comment is rude and shows bigotry.

atheists need recourse to things that are beyond the reach of science No I don't, I don't need to understand everything about our world, nobody knows everything. But the answer is never because my god

Christian response to evil and suffering to be inadequate or obnoxious but at least Christianity has one, which pantheism and humanism manifestly do not
Just WTF, implying a lack of morals because I don't follow a book. How can I not take that personally? And this...

crude scientism of some well known atheist crusaders and that appears so often on MN
Again if you can't see why this is bigoted and rude I give in.
Given all the truly unpleasant ignorant views about me, my family and friends it's no wonder I'm offended. If I uttered imaginary fr................ you'd have your arms up in the air.

Spin
Sorry getting really confused sarcasm is your god
For Christians, God is outside the cosmos
or
God is not necessarily very far away at all?
Which is it?

And

so are you saying you have faith in nothing?
Why do you keep breaking everything down to believers level? My understanding of faith is that you believe something that you have no evidence of. For you that is a god, but should well imagine we both have faith that the bus will come right up until we can see the bus, then we know the bus is coming and have knowledge. That's the only type of faith we have. The faith you have in your god will never (99.99999%) turn into knowledge. And that's ok, you're happy. If the evangelizing from the religious would stop I'd be happy.

One reason I keep reading is that people simply don't want to support an organization that is anti women/LGBT rights, hides pedophiles, in my case punishes the congregation when we had a rogue vicar. There have been so many scandals involving our religious institutions. Any other organization would have been shut down.

Scaredy, Christians believe God is a spirit, so this does not mean He occupies any one particular place, physically, but can manifest within physical matter anywhere and everywhere. The example I gave, was within the believer because, even from an unbeliever's perspective, it is quite straightforward to appreciate, how an altered pattern of thought, within the believer, could lead to a physical manifestation, of sorts, in the physiology of the developing brain.

Regarding your comment upon faith, Scaredy, I mentioned this as it is the subject matter of the thread.

atheists reasons for being atheist are so similar theycan be grouped into one homogenous group

Well, yes. Atheism is the absence of belief in any gods. The reason people are atheists is that they see no evidence for the existence of any gods and no reason to believe in any.

That's kind of it, really. It's pretty straightforward.

What I do find wearying is the assumption that theism (and in particular monotheism) is the default in human terms, rather than something that emerged relatively recently in our species' timeline. And therefore that atheism must be a belief system, because faith (and moreover faith in the Abrahamic god) is the default option. It's quite an arrogant standpoint.

Jassy well there does seem to be variance in the way people express their atheism. On here atheists often say that they are not one homogenous group. All that is shared is a lack of belief in (a) g(G)od(s). I have come across someone, on here, who described themselves as a witch and an atheist, for example. I assume she believes her craft is useful in the absence of conclusive scientific evidence. This would be very different from the atheist who says she does not believe in anything and bases all her decisions on knowledge and probability. So I think it entirely reasonable to question an assumption their reasoning for being atheist is exactly the same.

Voyage within theism, beauty, joy and empathy can be 'of me', simply because according to Christian belief we are of God, made in His image, He in us and us in Him (and all creation). So, although amazing, beauty, joy and empathy,is not 'other' according to theism either.

niminypiminy

Your rambling post is very misguided. Its irrelevant if everyone has a misconception about what Christians actually believe in. They believe in something which they have never proved. Atheists don't believe in that something, Ipso facto, have nothing to prove. To claim everything has to have a creator apart from God is a nonsensical argument.

If your god exists outside of space and time and therefore can not be proved, how is that any different from a flying teapot? Why would anyone believe in that unless.... wait there is a book, there was/is a jesus. Hang on don’t they both exist inside space and time and so are subject to scientific reasoning? And yet neither jesus or the book have been proven. Confused much?

So that's one thing. The second thing is that, it is not a metaphysical to say that there is no evidence for inherent value in the universe. To reverse the argument facetiously: God created the universe 14 billion years ago, he built ten billion galaxies, with 1 billion trillion stars and a septillion planets (that's 24 zeros). On one of those planets on the edge of a galaxy in an unremarkable part of the universe 10 billion years later, he created life and left it to evolve. Four billion years later when humans reached a conscious state he decreed... “Thou shalt not boil a kid in its mother’s milk”. Wise words indeed! Slit my own throat!

Atheists don't need recourse to anything beyond science. To those things we don’t know the answer to we say “we don’t know yet”. Shock horror! Why is it more explanative to say you don't know yet so therefore santa did it. lol young children anyone?

What is the christians answer to the problem of evil? I hear so many different ones. Rational people don't think those numerous answers are obnoxious, rational people say if they were true they would be obnoxious. But there is no reason to believe they are true so bla bla bla whatever, I really don't care, I have a life to get on with in the real world. Rational thought has answered why bad things happen in the world a long time ago.

The beauty and joy of life are matters of subjective opinion, there is no faith involved. I do not need priests telling me that our creator thinks I am a sinner to have the opinion and feelings of love that my son is beautiful.

How can we be made in God's image if humans didn't evolve until billions of years after he created the universe.

Why wait that long?

Why not, They?

Voyage, I, personally, like that there is a concept of oneness (with God) but also something 'other' that is beyond myself, though. I like being able to lose myself in this. There is a sense of belonging to a greater whole, with this concept.

Voyage feeling part of the universe sounds akin to Pantheism and the Gaia principle which can get quite religious.

Someone who is deeply offended at hearing a throwaway argument by a long-dead philosopher described as 'stupid' is, possibly, too sensitive for the Internet.

Because it makes no sense. Unless he was off creating other universes !

The point is in the bible God created man in his own image but that means he was a man. But who created him?

Theydontknowweknowtheyknow - he doesn't need to be created because he had sex with himself and gave birth to himself in an infinite loop ...... he is beyond time and space...

Jassy well there does seem to be variance in the way people express their atheism. On here atheists often say that they are not one homogenous group. All that is shared is a lack of belief in (a) g(G)od(s).

That's a different thing though. Not being one homogeneous group is not the same as not having very similar reasons (not believing in any gods) for identifying as atheists. Beyond that, very possibly zilch in common, including thought processes and approaches to life, the universe and everything. There are no doubt atheists who think homeopathy works.

But to go back to 'reasons to arrive at atheism' - again, this bugs me, as it implies that atheism is not the default position but it is an active rejection of faith. For some it is, but isn't necessarily so.

Voyage feeling part of the universe sounds akin to Pantheism and the Gaia principle which can get quite religious

Why does it? Aren't you imposing your own belief structures on others here? And I'm not sure I can see anything pantheistic in feeling that one is a tiny part of a very huge thing. Let alone bringing the Gaia hypothesis into it which is kind of the opposite of religion, being something that is scientifically tested and questioned quite a lot...

So what us your point, Jassy? For some atheism is an active rejection of faith, for some it is not? Atheists are not a homogenous group but they still might have similar reasons for taking an atheist stance? Yet of course they might not...

Sounds like there is plenty of reason not to assume they have identical reasons for being atheist, then. So you agree?

Why does it? Aren't you imposing your own belief structures on others here?

Just drawing connections, Jassy. Actual belief cannot be imposed.

(Though I do accept that it depends which definition/philosophy of pantheism one takes. It's a bit of an unfortunate term in my view given the ways in which it is used.)

Gaia is synonymous with the 'Earth Mother' or 'Mother Nature', the Greek goddess Gaia.

Indeed, but the Gaia Principle/Hypothesis usually describes the Lovelock work and what has followed.

Belief structures does not equal beliefs, by the way. You're making assumptions based on the way you draw conclusions (which I assume lead you to belief); you assume others do the same.

I think we're talking at cross purposes on the wider point.

So what us your point, Jassy? For some atheism is an active rejection of faith, for some it is not? Atheists are not a homogenous group but they still might have similar reasons for taking an atheist stance? Yet of course they might not

There is only one reason for anyone to take 'an atheist stance' as you interestingly put it, and that is the absence of belief in deities. They may have taken different paths to come to the point where they identify as atheist, absolutely. But what I was responding to originally was this quite reductive statement about atheists:

atheists reasons for being atheist are so similar theycan be grouped into one homogenous group

Which, yeah. We're atheists because we don't believe in any gods. Anything apart from or beyond that is pretty irrelevant to the atheism thing.