Atheists and proof cont….

[Kdtym10]

A carry on from the previous thread

Well, nobody gets everything right 😂

Re the point you said you didn't understand:
You said imagination isn't a synthesis of previously experience phenomena.
I offered the Romanian orphans and coma patients as evidence that it is.
The orphans didn't imagine anything because they had no experience.
Coma patients have nothing but imagination, yet their dreams are synthesised from things they've previously experienced.

You know when you said you’d not been rude or discourteous to people on your threads…?

im with Coleridge on the different types of imagination. Synthesis (as I mentioned above called Fancy in his parlance) is a type of imagination (at its most basic). Not everyone gets the higher levels of imagination, esp straight off. Like any muscle, so the theory goes needs work. I’m not seeing anything still which excludes the divine from imagination

What rude about that? Someone showed me a cartoon. Said they were going to watch more, I said have fun with them.

Bizarre

But it sounded very convincing - how do we know which it’s the correct science? There’s plenty of similar videos saying there’s no difference between make and female brains, others saying there are different differences. Some more measuring intelligence purely in terms of kids results in maths and science. In fact there’s a video for every little passing thoughy someone wants science to prove

Do you think there’s a risk that people are starting to use science in exactly the same way they have previously used religion?

They believe in spirits. I don't believe in god either. gods and daemones ( spiritual beings)

Oh, right, so none of your remarks were about "imagination" but special "higher imagination". Let me guess, yours is "higher" but we plebs only have normal imaginations.

Perhaps you should contact the authors of the cartoon to ask whether their interesting point about myelination depth applies to special "higher imaginations" or not.

There are differences between female & male brains. One of the most obvious is the olfactory bulb. However, these differences are on a distribution curve, not a sharp divide. Many of the other differences are due to gendered learning - as famously demonstrated, the 'spatial awareness' region expands in women taxi drivers as they learn The Knowledge. Brains are incredibly adaptable.

Do you think there’s a risk that people are starting to use science in exactly the same way they have previously used religion?

Absolutely not. Because the majority of science has proof: hypothesis, experiments, result. Sure, there’s a lot of big thinkers and theories out there too, but a hell of lot of it has proof. I think electricity will make this limb jerk - I apply electricity - the limb jerks.

Most science is not a belief. It has concrete proof through experiments that can be replicated again and again and give exactly the same result.

Yes but the question of whether there is a natural atheist culture is still answered by the Piraha tribe

Atheism is a lack of belief in dieties, and they don't believe in God or have a creation story

Belief in spirits is a separate belief

But, you have to admit it’s being used to justify all manner of agendas. Morally questionable moves. The ethics of science seems incapable of keeping up.

Personally I find many things done in the name of science as objectionable as many of the most horrific religion induced crimes.

I mentioned Unit 731 upthread. Look at all the covid stuff, people following the whims of scientists with little consideration for the human cost (eg nursing homes). Look at AI - costing jobs, someone upthread joked about it being extremely dangerous. Yes it is, Frankenstein’s monster. People blindly “follow the science” as the blindly followed religion. You state “I think electricity will make this limb jerk / I apply electricity- it jerks” like some sort of triumph - just ignore the pain you’ve put someone through by giving them an electric shock. That about sums up the thinking of scientists. The testing in animals as if they are nothing (look at all the comments on here anthropocentric assuming animals wouldn’t have souls.

science has achieved cult like status. All too often scientists are far more interested in “can I?” Rather than “should I?”

I would argue they are exactly the same. What are gods? Beings of the spiritual realm. It shows a complete lack of understanding to claim otherwise

so there are no societies who don’t believe in a spiritual realm.

I’ve not seen one atheist here aregue they believe in a spiritual realm. Do you?

Ah so you believe that transgender people have brains the same as their chosen gender? That is transgenderism is biologically based?

No. How on earth did you get that from my post?

Well surely you comments about the m and f brain being different lends creedance to all the scientific research stating people who are trans have brain structures similar to the sex they identify with. I mean I posted a little scientific video. Why is one cartoon telling me all about the science right and another wrong? Do you believe in science or not? Or can science e twisted to people’s agendas?

Im talking about the definition of the word. Atheism is a lack of belief in a deity. That's what the word means.

Now you can, if you want, lump spirits into there. I have no issue with that generally. I agree most atheists probably doing believe in spirits either.

But again, the statement was about whether a culture had ever developed which was atheist. And true to the definition of an atheist the Piraha tribe does not believe in a deity

But by all means accuse me of a complete lack of understanding if you like. But thats just rude and ignores the fundamentals of the point I was making.

so there are no societies who don’t believe in a spiritual realm.

Had this been the original point I wouldn't have mentioned the Piraha tribe. But it wasnt.

So I’ll ask the question (as the previous one wasn’t mine. Are there any societies who don’t believe in any kind of spiritual realm/spirits?

There are rumoured to be some tribes in Africa which dont believe in Gods or spirits but I haven't seen any relevant research by the people who have been there, just hearsay by others who have read it so I cant say its a definitive thing.

But perhaps the research does exist out there if you are interested

It sounds like it’s just hearsay. Interesting though how universal (or near as admit) belief in spirits/Gods etc are throughout the history of mankind. I think is fairly reasonable to assume all these people aren’t wrong.

According to my belief system your thoughts can originate out of your own inherited instincts or reactions to your own subconscious biases which result from the sum of your experiences. Or something other - either God or another spirit such as the current Zeitgeist.

What does that actually mean, 'the current Zeitgeist'??

No, it just means that primitive peoples all go through the same process of trying to understand the world until they develop some form of science. Added to the human nature part where people discover that by being a mystic/shaman/priest they get to order people about, which encourages them to keep the process going.

It basically shows that it comes from a lack of understanding of the world.

The fact that the majority of people believe a thing still doesn't mean it's true. People used to believe the earth was flat. It's not.

Just what I was going to reply. Perhaps it does show that it is innate for humans to believe in the divine - though that innate ability doesn’t automatically mean the divine is real (to refer back to Dawkins again, he has an argument that the ability to believe in the divine is simply a misfire of humans ability to imagine, and the ability to imagine was necessary, and grew out of language, for humans to understand things like risk). But it also is a logical theory for pre-scientific people to grasp on to to explain why the sun rises and the stars move etc.

There are incredibly persuasive reasons why humans developed a theory of the divine, but those theories don’t constitute proof.

@Lalupalina,

What does that actually mean, 'the current Zeitgeist'??

It means what I suspect you already understand it as meaning. Spirit of the time. A cultural 'mood' if you like which can seem to take on a life of its own in its influence on people. The word spirit does not necessarily literally resemble the imaginative depictions we see in artworks.

It sounds like it’s just hearsay

No I said I had heard it through hearsay. I don't think someone can definitely say research that has been talked about is hearsay without looking for it in the first instance.

Interesting though how universal (or near as admit) belief in spirits/Gods etc are throughout the history of mankind.

I don't think thats entirely accurate though

Many scholars have posited that atheists have always exisited and there are proof of atheists in Roman times etc

Its just that religion tends to be recorded. Where as the absence of religion doesnt need anything recorded, there are no holy stories, messiahs words, or gods images to pass down

I think is fairly reasonable to assume all these people aren’t wrong.

Lots of tribes would also have left me to die when I was born disabled. Are we also fairly reasonable to assume those people werent wrong?