Atheists and proof cont….

[Kdtym10]

A carry on from the previous thread

No you use the word "mundane" because you know it has pejorative connotations, and you think your "spirituality" makes you superior. You have no idea of the wonders I, or anyone else on these threads, have created whether through art, music, literature, or anything else. But your desperate need to feel superior shines through every post you make.

So where does this feeling within you come from?

Where does any feeling come from?

I know I don't like mushrooms, they’re too slimy. I know that I like blues music but I don’t like jazz. I know I prefer Matt Smith’s Doctor to David Tennant’s. I know I like it when it is cold and sunny. I know I like reading Tolstoy but not Dickens. I know I don’t like pistachios. I know I don’t believe in a spiritual realm.

The world isn’t mundane - well mine life in it is far from mundane . You don’t need a faith to have a good life - it’s what you make of it. Although I have a very creative imagination (too much according to DH!) I don’t personally believe there is any spiritual life.

Actually you will see further up thread that when someone criticises my use of the word physical I admit I should more accurately be using the word mundane but it appeared to have negative meanings for some, even though it was the more accurate word. So that’s a huge miss from you in imposing your sensitivities on me. In fact your entire post says an awful lot more about how you feel about yourself than how I feel about you.

As an atheist would you say that atheism is a lack of believe in a spiritual world or the belief that there is not a spiritual realm. I think it’s an important distinction

It’s little more than splitting hairs. Both equate to a person’s belief that there is no spiritual realm.

Oh I think they are very different, one is a positive statement that something definitely doesn’t exist- it is a belief. It is an active decision to have that belief.

A lack of belief doesn’t require any positive action. In other threads atheists have been very vocal about the importance of this distinction- hence my surprise at you voicing a positive belief system

They are also the same. I don’t believe in the spiritual realm, therefore I lack belief in it.

There’s no evidence that life is better if you have a faith.

Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more
adjective

1. lacking interest or excitement; dull.
2. of this earthly world rather than a heaven

used in the context of a spiritual discussion I would assume it was clear I meant the 2nd definition. So this earthly world is, by definition, mundane.

Where does your creativity come from?

"Where does your creativity come from?"

Obviously not from any deities!

Well your fellow atheists seem to believe there is a massive difference in many other threads.

But where does it come from?

My creativity and imagination comes from within me - only me . My world isn’t mundane. Why would it be? As heaven doesn’t exist - it’s an irrelevant.

Atheists are allowed different views - you won’t find those with faith all having the same beliefs.

Nice to have a (slightly) different voice in here. I wonder if any Sikhs, Hindus and others would care to join?

God's signs in the universe and within ourselves were easier to see 7,000 years (Judaism), 2,000 years (Christianity) and 1,400 years (Islam) ago. Natural cosmic and terrestrial events were not understood. Disease was not understood. Nobody had a clue about psychology, people didn't even know that thoughts originate in the brain. The mechanism of human reproduction wasn't identified until the 17th century.

Having started from entirely reasonable assumptions, given the state of early human knowledge, that things must have been enacted by mysteriously powerful beings, scientific investigation did proceed - but always overlain by assumptions of divinity. Chinese and Assyrian astronomers, for instance, did some incredible work by dint of tracking celestial events over long periods and working out some reliable sequences. This information was used to divine the gods' intentions, which is one way of looking at it but tends to stymie further investigation. Medical traditions such as Ayurveda made useful discoveries but, again, detailed examination of disease and the body was prevented by adherence to the religious building blocks on which they were founded.

The Islamic enlightenment, 8th - 13th centuries, made great strides, building on the classical science of the previous millennium. In every field and nation, gods were the presumed source of all phenomena, and scientists continued to divine godly intent in their findings. This added a confounding element to scientific discovery and impeded progress - the regular indictments for heresy are proof enough of religions' impositions of faith doctrine over intellect.

In this way, priesthoods managed their people's progress from "Everything is a sign of god" to "Science is a sign of god". And there were still plenty of unexamined mysteries which, like it or not, priesthoods guarded on pain of death. The Greek author of On the Sacred Disease (400BC) includes a tirade against priests insisting that epilepsy is a divine punishment. Human cadaveric dissection was banned worldwide for almost 2,000 years, until the Italian Renaissance.

The European Enlightenment period, 17th century onwards, brought a sincere effort to separate the natural and supernatural. This was what William Blake abhorred: a growing recognition that all things may be explained without recourse to "god's will". Worryingly, this separation seems to be going into retreat. It's happened before - and is always followed by Dark Ages.

Sorry about the length of this post; it's very close to my current pet subject, I can't help it! Anyway, the point is that God's signs come from lack of knowledge: a point well recognised by spiritual authorities, who continue to obstruct secular knowledge as far as they are able.

But we are constantly told atheism isn’t a belief it is the absence of belief

@Kdtym10 you forgot to add 'in God'!

I do not believe in the existence of any gods. I do believe many other things, including that the spiritual world is made up and not real.

Oh very open to atheists having different views. I had just never come across one who defined atheism as an active brief, so many (I think yourself included) had previously been very adamant atheism was a lack of belief not a belief (hence why I asked you to clarify your position a few posts ago)

So where does your belief come from?

There are those who will never believe no matter what proofs and evidences you bring.

I think the past two threads have clearly shown that non believers in God absolutely WOULD change their views if God made himself/herself unequivocally known. Lots of examples have been given

So please don't assume that non believers are closed minded. So far there has been zero evidence.

@Kdtym10 As an atheist would you say that atheism is a lack of believe in a spiritual world or the belief that there is not a spiritual realm. I think it’s an important distinction.

As an atheist I actively choose not to believe in a deity. That doesn't mean I don't believe in something more than our current experience, I believe in a 'soul' an essence of life that is no longer present when someone dies.

But I find the concept of a deity that is all knowing, all loving and all powerful that chooses to allow innocence to experience dreadful pain and horrible existence rather disgusting, revolting, not something I choose to countenance.

I love life, it is not 'mundane' I find that a really odd way to describe my life. I see the beauty of landscapes, the delight in my children, the fun in life and experiences. But I am aware of bad things happening across the world, sometimes due to nature but often due to other peoples actions in the name of their gods. Belief in a god wouldn't give me any positives, I would be angry, and sad in equal measure if I thought that something could stop those things.

I accept some people's beliefs but I don't really understand why they choose belief.

It’s irrelevant - we are atheists and don’t believe in god or a faith. It’s not something i ever think about - lack of belief- not a belief - it’s all the same.

This follows on from many theists desperate cries of "but atheism is a belief", in some bizarre desperation to "prove" that everyone must have a belief...

@Kdtym10 Why are you trying to 'label' us at all?

All I can tell you is that I do not believe that an all powerful all knowing god created us, and I find the concept that such a god needs to be 'worshipped' ridiculous!

Whilst your post shows your erudition I would argue against some of its conclusions.

I would argue that your premise regarding Blake is incorrect. He did not want everything traced back to God’s will. I would point you in the direction of the first book of Urizen - Los howled as Urizen was rent from his side - it is not science itself that is the problem it is its separation from
creativity, note the difference between separation and emanation. Newtons Sleep is very much still part of his fourfold vision (which I think maps onto the Kabbalistic four worlds) which, of course brings a totally different perspective to what is commonly seen as negative connotations re Newtons sleep.

Newton clearly brings us to the 17th century enlightened- Blake clearly didn’t have a good view of Newton and was clearly not privy to the fact his production of alchemical research comprised the majority of his works. Both were heavily influenced by Boehme - Newton has been misread for so long (slightly amended in the 1930s with the discovery of his alchemy texts) looking at his translation of the Emerald tablet it’s easy to see where he got some ideas of his laws from. Newton (ironically) like Blake saw the mundane and spiritual as inseparable.

Speaking of the Emerald tablet we arrive back to the wonderful Islamic world of which you speak. A world where Ficino et al found what became known as the corpus Hermetica - again the Sufis of this period were masters of knowledge, all knowledge there was no false separation of the divine and mudane. What evidence do you have of this?

So Ficino brings us neatly back to the extended early modern period, the Italian renaissance And subsequently the Reformation. His works on (neo) Platonism famously interrupted by his translation of the “corpus hermitica” shows no inclination to sepetate science and the divine.
John Dee, probably one of the greatest polymaths the west had ever produced saw how there was no separation of science and the Divine. The Rosicrucian manifestos called for the “Reformation of the whole world” again drawing together science and the divine”.

The concept of the “Dark Ages” is outdated, as you well know.,

More accurately we have the rise and fall of religions over the millennia. New Gods arise to replace the old, repeated Ragnaroks if you like. science sought to demonise and discredit the Gods that cane before just as Judaism/Christianity did with Assyrian/Mesopotamian/Babylonian (And other) gods before. We are probably on the throes of something similar regarding science.

The problems arise in the separation of science and divinity, of heaven from earth, within from without above and below. Our physical existence with our spiritual.

I am just stating what all the atheists who I had seen comment on the nature of atheism on various threads on here had stated (well up to todays comment about atheism being a positive belief) I think that I have made this very clear.