Topic: Why do Atheists Hate Religion? - page 386. (Read 901367 times)

You said "I do not believe God exists" so what is your religion? or you are Atheists? and I do not agree with this too "you operate in faith and belief rather than fact"
facts are facts and it is different with faith

Empiricism works because we can defer to the rules of sound inference as they pertain to inductive reasoning.  We simply must blare this inductive limit at all times -- it is precisely because this limit exists that empirical conclusions carry a margin-of-error.

While empirical conclusions carry a margin-of-error, knowledge of the inductive limit itself does not -- we know this at a 100% level of confidence. 

We can know things logically at a 100% level of confidence because logic is self-referential, i.e. logic validates itself.  This is why logical consistency is recognized as the trump card in theory-making.  Because any theory of anything must be consistent in a logical way in order to be true, knowledge of this self-referential property of logic, and its structure, serves as a root of all conceptual understanding -- it is a limit of theorization itself.  Utilizing this limit, if we can evoke categorical relationships between this limit and objectively real content, then we've devised a logical way of forming tautologies at the height of generality.  This is the next step in scientific understanding.

I'd like to come in and comment about that. You point out a very interesting issue with an empirical philosophy. We must assume that our senses are reasonably reliable and that what our senses "show" to us is the reality around us. The brain in a jar problem comes up (the matrix, etc). I take this issue to be irrelevant to the validity of empirical research (science), because of a pragmatic stance. Does it work? It seems to. It got us fast transportation, it got us off the ground in planes and spaceships ^{To the moon! ┗(°0°)┛} . We have computers and TVs that work on principles found by doing empirical research.
Now, that doesn't solve the problem. I might still be a brain in a jar being fed electric stimuli to emulate the feeling of typing up a response to a comment, or we might be in a matrix-like network (for whatever reason), or our senses are fooling us all in some odd way that makes certain real things seem like something else under our perception of them. I don't think that problem has a solution. I don't think it necessitates God to come solve it, I don't think God solves that particular problem.
Maybe God can bypass our senses and reveal things to us directly into our consciousness... but how do we know them to be true? How do we know them to be accurate? We take God's word for it? You might say God is the source of all good, the moral law giver... but I'm sure fucking with our perception of reality could be done to spare people pain and suffering, perhaps even death. Who are you to say that God doesn't make us all think we're mortal, when in fact God grants immortality to all, removing people from earth at time of "death" and sending them off to a heaven/hell/purgatory/etc that exists within this universe?

I don't think god solves the problem because we could never know for certain whether God was fucking with our perception of reality (if this is reality, and not some God-created simulation to temporarily place us in) to serve a good our minds can't even begin to comprehend. That's just what I think. And at the end of the day, our senses seem to be the only things to guide us in this universe, be it a simulation, hallucination or something completely different.

Currently, science believes officially that there is nothing more than the physical to life. All of the supposed consciousnesses and free-will activities are nothing more than bio-electric activities of the brain and nervous system. This means that everything operates by cause and effect. Why? Because some many things stimulated the brain and nervous system to act the way it did... produce the illusions that we call consciousness and free will.

However, even if science gets to the point where it literally discovers that there is some outer thing that is a part of us, and upholds or acts with or is upheld by the brain and nervous system, even then science will have to prove that this thing is not operating through cause and effect.

Cause and effect rules in everything that we see, know, and understand, especially in science. Even the quantum mechanics and quantum math that suggest that in some cases effect can come before cause, have to do with the manipulation of the order of things in the universe by mankind. Thus, there is cause and effect in all that seems to be the reverse order of cause and effect. But it is reverse cause and effect that is caused by man, making cause and effect to still rule.

What, if anything, was the Great First Cause that started things going?

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There is extreme complexity in the universe. This complexity includes the mind of mankind, the illusions of free will and emotion, math that is so great that we haven't been able to thoroughly calculate dimensions beyond 6 or 8, even though we have parts of as many as 30 dimensions or more, mathematically.

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We see nothing other than entropy in all things. Everything is wearing out, eroding, falling to pieces, etc.  The more complex something is, the faster it seems to wear out with regard to its complexity. This is why life doesn't last much more than a hundred years for people. Yet, in all this entropy, we don't see anything that could have started the complexity. The complexity is dying, but we don't see anything that could have started it.

If the mind of man wasn't so complex, if he wasn't so able mentally, then we might be able to say that whatever started the universe might have been backward. But this isn't the case. Even today, after thousands of years of entropy, the mind of man is still great. Obviously, by the way cause and effect, and entropy work together, the mind of man must have been far greater in the distant past. After all, entropy doesn't suggest evolution. It suggests devolution.

Because the mind of man - and even the whole universe - was far advanced in the past, much more than entropy has allowed it to remain, the THING that was able to start the whole universe going, the THING that was able to dictate the multiple thousands of years of cause and effect ('cause that's what we see in everything), and WHATEVER IT WAS that was able to produce such extreme complexity back then, must have been way more complex in itself that anything we see.

Advancement does not arise from entropy. And we see nothing other than entropy, operating through cause and effect. And a thing that could cause-and-effect the mind of man into existence way back before there was much entropy (or any), certainly falls into the category of God Almighty... at least with relation to anything that mankind can think of or be.

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If you don't like the above, change your science. Because what is above is essentially what the laws and facts of science say.

If you are going to go against pure science, you have a religion, you are operating in faith and belief rather than fact.

The closest thing you can say is "I don't believe God exists. It is an act of faith on my part, because science shows that He does." Some day we may have science that shows something different. But we don't have such now, or else don't use it at all today.

Lol would you give it up with your fallacious 'lack of evidence' garbage?  How many more academic references would you like to show you that you're just wasting your breath?

There is a good reason to not believe in Unicorns based upon a lack of evidence because Univorns are theoretically empirically falsifiable/verifiable.  An intelligent designer is not theoretically empirically falsifiable/verifiable.

It's a false analogy.  This point is non-debatable.

The supporting rationale is common academic knowledge.

Precisely. Had there existed a long history of Unicornist burning heretics alive and continuing to cause a subset of innocent youth to kill themselves in the present day with their ignorant hatred, we would bother pointing out the total lack of evidence to support the existence of Unicorns.

Atheism is not a religion

This is a refrain I’m hearing a lot from religious apologists – "atheism is a religion". Also its equally fallacious siblings, science is a religion and evolution is a religion. It’s a sign of their desperation that the best argument they have is not that atheism is wrong, or that god does exist (supported by evidence of course), but that atheism is a religion too. A strange argument for a religious person to make on the face of it.  Is it supposed to strengthen the atheist’s position or weaken the theist’s one? In reality it’s a sign they have run out of arguments.

Still, this argument is widely made, and so it needs to be addressed. Atheism (and here I mean the so-called “weak atheism” that does not claim proof that god does not exist), is just the lack of god-belief – nothing more and nothing less. And as someone once said, if atheism is a religion, not collecting stamps is a hobby.

That really ought to end the discussion right there. Clearly, a mere lack of belief in something cannot be a religion. In addition, atheism has no sacred texts, no tenets, no ceremonies. Even theists making this argument must know all that. So they must have something else in mind when they trot this one out, but what is it? What are they really thinking? Well, if you look at various definitions of religion, the only things that could possibly apply to atheism would be something like this:

6. Something one believes in and follows devotedly

or this:

4. A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.

Obviously I don’t know if that’s what they mean – I don’t read minds. But I can’t see what else it could be. They must be referring to certain activities of atheists – writing books and blogs, financing bus ads, joining atheist groups, etc. They think atheists are “religious in their atheism” as one person put it to me – the word “religious” being used here colloquially to mean something felt very strongly, or followed enthusiastically. But this definition of religion is so broad that virtually anything people enjoy doing very much, or follow strongly or obsessively, is a religion. It’s a definition of religion that is so broad that it’s meaningless. In reality, most of the things that people follow enthusiastically, are just hobbies. And ironically, although not collecting stamps is not a hobby, getting involved in atheist activities (writing books and blogs, attending atheist meetings) might well be a hobby for some people. But it is a hobby, not a religion.

What Is Religion?

I’m sure that argument won’t convince all theists to abandon this rhetorical trope they love so much.  To really address the argument, we have to define religion, and then see if atheism fits the definition. While I don’t think I can define religion completely, I think I can state the minimum that religion has to have to still be a religion. And it seems to me that there is one thing at least that is common to all religions. It’s this. In my view, religion at a minimum, has to have the following characteristic:

Religion must include something you have to accept on faith – that is, without evidence commensurate with the extraordinary nature of the belief.

Most religions will include other things too, but they must require faith. Of course, not all things that require faith are religions, but all religions must require faith.

The minimum definition covers all the religions I’m familiar with. For example, it includes any religion that involves belief in god or gods – something you have to believe in without evidence. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism… all require you to believe in god or gods as a minimum, without evidence. The minimum definition would also include religions that don’t require belief in god, but require faith in other things. For example, I believe it would include Buddhism, which (for example) includes the belief that living beings go through a succession of lifetimes and rebirth. It would also include Scientology – no evidence for Xenu, that I’m aware of. Maybe you can think of some actual religions that would be excluded, but I haven’t been able to so far.

So religion requires belief without evidence. And by that definition atheism cannot possibly be a religion because atheists do not have to believe in anything to be an atheist – either with or without evidence. QED.

Now, some religious people may say, “but that’s not my definition of religion”. To which I say, OK, then give me your definition. Give me your definition of religion, that doesn’t require belief without evidence, that includes your religion, the others I named, and atheism. And it needs to be better than the two dictionary definitions I cited above.  Give me that definition. Because here’s the thing. The problems I have with religions are:

They are not based on fact or on any reasonable evidence commensurate with the claims they make. In many cases, the claims they make are plainly absurd and are actually contradicted by the evidence.
Religious proponents demand respect, and adherence to their delusions by others. This despite (1) above.
Those are the aspects of religion that I object to. Clearly atheism doesn’t fit 1 (or 2) above, so it is nothing like any of the religions I object to. If your religion does not require belief without faith, then I probably wouldn’t have a problem with it. Assuming, of course, all the tenets of your religion are actually backed up by evidence extraordinary enough for the extraordinary claims your religion makes. But they never do.

In my view, theists will have their work cut out to deny this minimum requirement for religion.  Come on – they even refer to their religion as “my faith”.

Evidence and Extraordinary Evidence

Some religious people will claim that their religious beliefs are backed by evidence. This is where it gets tricky, because many religious people genuinely believe their religion is rational and backed by evidence. For example, one Christian I debated cited that the evidence Christianity was real, was (and I quote), “the resurrection of Christ”. Of course, the resurrection of Christ, if it had actually happened, would be pretty good evidence for Christianity. But, unfortunately, there is no good evidence for the resurrection. Certainly, nothing close to the extraordinary evidence we would need to accept this extraordinary claim.

Extraordinary Claims

This needs explaining in more detail. Why do extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence? Well, all claims require exactly the same amount of evidence, it’s just that most "ordinary" claims are already backed by extraordinary evidence that you don’t think about. When we say “extraordinary claims”, what we actually mean are claims that do not already have evidence supporting them, or sometimes claims that have extraordinary evidence against them. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence because they usually contradict claims that are backed by extraordinary evidence.

So why is Jesus’ resurrection an extraordinary claim, and why is the Bible not extraordinary evidence for it? Well, the resurrection goes against all the evidence we have that people do not come back to life, spontaneously, after two days of being dead. Modern medicine can bring people back from what would have been considered in earlier years to be “dead”, but not after 2 days of being dead with no modern life support to keep the vital organs working. In fact, it is probably reasonably safe to say it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that people cannot come back to life after being dead for two days without modern life support. So, extraordinary claim it is.

On the other hand, the evidence we are offered in support of this extraordinary claim consists only of accounts written decades after the event, by people who were not there when the events described were purported to have occurred. We are offered nothing but hearsay anecdotes from superstitious people with a clear reason for wanting others to think the story true. This is hardly acceptable evidence to counteract the fact that this never happens. Christians might ask, what evidence would an atheist accept for such an extraordinary claim? And in reality, it is hard to imagine that there could possibly be any evidence good enough for us to accept the resurrection as true. Christians may claim that this is unfair, or that we are closed minded, but the fact that you are unlikely to find extraordinary evidence for this event 2,000 years after the fact, is hardly the non-believer’s fault. The real question, considering the weakness of the evidence, and the wildly extraordinary nature of the claim, is why would anyone believe any of it in the first place?  The truth is, they accept it on faith.  In fact, the acceptance of this story on faith alone is usually considered to be essential to the true believer. And although that was just Christianity, the same lack of evidence, and belief based on faith alone, applies to the claims of all the other religions that I’m familiar with.

Religions require belief in extraordinary claims without anything close to the extraordinary evidence that is required.  Atheism requires no belief in anything.  The contrast couldn’t be clearer.

But the believer has one final shot – one last desperate rhetorical item to fling at the atheist.  Here we go.

More Faith To Be An Atheist?

The final argument many religious apologists throw into the mix is it takes more faith to be an atheist than it does to believe in god. That certainly took me by surprise the first time I heard it. I think what they’re trying to say is this. Atheists think matter just appeared out of nowhere, that something came out of nothing. But where did the matter come from? To think that matter appeared out of nowhere requires more faith than to think a creator made everything. Why is there something rather than nothing? To think that matter just appeared by itself, requires faith.

Atheists don’t think matter came out of nowhere. Atheists say we don’t know where matter came from; we don’t know why there is something rather than nothing. Maybe one day we’ll know, or maybe we won’t. But we don’t know now. Theists are exactly the same. They don’t know either, but the difference is they make up an explanation (god). But it’s just a made up explanation – they have no reason to suppose it’s true, other than that they just like it.

And it’s a useless explanation. Unless they know something about this “God” – how he created everything; why he created it; what he’s likely to do next - it’s a lack of an explanation. It’s just a placeholder until a real explanation comes along. Except that the theist won’t be open to the real explanation when and if science is able to provide one. The god placeholder prevents investigation into any real tentative explanations. The theist who says god created everything, is the one with the faith – faith that “god” is the explanation and that no other is possible. The atheist is content to say “we don’t know”. For now, anyway. And it’s obvious that saying “we don’t know,” requires no faith.  That may be a hard thing to do for people who want all the answers, but it certainly isn’t religion.

One last thing.  Some theists have responded to the “if atheism is a religion, not collecting stamps is a hobby” argument by pointing out that non stamp collectors (aphilatelists?) don’t write books or blogs about not collecting stamps, don’t post anti stamp collecting ads on buses, don't ridicule stamp collectors, etc.  This is meant to demonstrate that the “stamp collecting” analogy is weak.  It actually demonstrates that the analogy is very good, since it highlights one of the main problems atheists have with many religious people.

Here’s the thing they are missing, and the real problem most atheists have with religion.  If stamp collectors demanded that people who don’t collect stamps obey their stamp collecting rules, started wars with groups who collected slightly different types of stamps, denied non-stamp collectors rights or discriminated against them, bullied them in school, claimed you had to collect stamps to be a suitable person to run for public office, tried to get stamp collecting taught in schools as science in opposition to real science, demanded that people be killed for printing cartoons that made fun of stamp collectors, claimed that non-stamp collectors lacked moral judgment, made up ridiculous straw man positions they claimed non-stamp collectors took, and then argued against those straw men positions etc etc, - then non-stamp collectors probably would criticize stamp collectors in the way atheists criticize many religious people. And with good reason. Not collecting stamps would still not be a hobby.  Or a religion.

That was a very simple way to put it. Yup. Atheists believe (without proof that there isn't a God) that there isn't a God. Even scientists don't know for sure how everything got here.

Atheism is the doctrine or belief that there is no God or disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings. Word Origin C16: from French athéisme, from Greek atheos godless, from a- 1 + theos god.

Belief an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof.



An agnostic is one who believes it impossible to know anything about God or about the creation of the universe and refrains from commitment to any religious doctrine. An atheist is one who denies the existence of a deity or of divine beings.

Atheism is a religion.

Incorrect.

Superstition and scientific skepticism are mutually exclusive patterns of thought. Our primate brains are imperfect pattern-recognition machines, which all too often finds nonexistent signals in the background noise of life. It's a classic signal-to-noise problem. Humans evolved brains that are pattern-recognition machines, adept at detecting signals that enhance or threaten survival amid a very noisy world. This capability is association learning--associating the causal connections between A and B--as when our ancestors associated the seasons with the migration of game animals. We are skilled enough at it to have survived and passed on the genes for the capacity of association learning.

Unfortunately, the system has flaws. Superstitions are false associations--A appears to be connected to B, but it is not (the baseball player who doesn't shave and hits a home run). Las Vegas was built on false association learning.

Consider a few cases of false pattern recognition (Google key words for visuals): the face of the Virgin Mary on a grilled cheese sandwich; the face of Jesus on an oyster shell (resembles Charles Manson, I think); the hit NBC television series Medium, in which Patricia Arquette plays psychic Allison Dubois, whose occasional thoughts and dreams seem connected to real-world crimes; the film White Noise, in which Michael Keaton's character believes he is receiving messages from his dead wife through tape recorders and other electronic devices in what is called EVP, or Electronic Voice Phenomenon. EVP is another version of what I call TMODMP, the Turn Me On, Dead Man Phenomenon--if you scan enough noise, you will eventually find a signal, whether it is there or not.

Anecdotes fuel pattern-seeking thought. Aunt Mildred's cancer went into remission after she imbibed extract of seaweed--maybe it works--maybe it doesn't. Either way, there is only one surefire method of proper pattern recognition, and that is science. Only when a group of cancer patients taking seaweed extract is compared with a control group can we draw a valid conclusion. We evolved as a social primate species whose language ability facilitated the exchange of such association anecdotes.

The problem is that although true pattern recognition helps us survive, false pattern recognition does not necessarily get us killed, and so the overall phenomenon of superstition has endured the winnowing process of natural selection. The Darwin Awards (honoring those who remove themselves from the gene pool) will never want for examples. Because anecdotal thinking comes naturally, while science requires training and discipline.

Thanks.

Sorry MakingMoneyHoney, fixed it, I had nested quotes in there, my bad

Atheism is a superstitious religion just as much as any other theist belief system, failing to recognise that Atheism is also a superstition would be unethical, or sign ignorance. Since there is no definitive proof the ethical stance is to be agnostic. i.e. keep an open mind. While there is no proof for intelligent design there is an abundance of circumstantial evidence to support it. Just because we have no comprehension of the universe outside of our very limited shared experience, we should not allow our own limitations to prevent others from appreciating life's mysteries to their fullest.

This can be known only by you. But I think that this is not true for all atheists. They don't believe but this doesn't mean that they hate the people that believe in God. Everyone has its choices in life and every choice is right until doesn't hurt the others.

So you cannot generalizes your case. I know atheists that are good friends of believers and discuss with each other about their points of view.

First, let me acknowledge that I'm a narcissist.  But, hey, at least I acknowledge it.  

Second, that being said, what does your "intellectual acuity" suggest to you when you -- intentionally or unintentionally, I do not know -- fail to respond to the instances in which your core arguments against Intelligent Design have been proven totally false beyond all possible doubt?

Examples:

1)  You close your case (i.e. "case closed") against a belief in God based upon the premise of a total a lack of empirical evidence, though it has been both proven and referenced to you that this is a completely invalid and irrelevant argument.  We can toss that argument of yours in the trash.

2)  There is no #2.  Number 1 is all you've proposed, and it's false.  You've demonstrated no other argument.

Here is your debating style in a nutshell:

You:  There is no evidence for God or unicorns or flying spaghetti monsters.

Correct person:  False analogy, and it's also irrelevant in that, axiomatically, physical evidence can neither prove nor disprove the existence of something with a non-physical component(s).

You:  Blah blah blah, superstition.

Correct person:  But, you didn't even rebut the point.  You just kept going.

You:  I am so smart.

Correct Person:  

...And repeat.  Sound about right?

Wow.  Some acuity.  You're essentially a character foil to BADecker.  It seems no amount of sound reason will convince either of you to admit you're wrong.  I readily await the ad hominems to follow --  unless, you know, you actually want to discuss ideas.

Just as someone who believes you're going to hell would want to save your immortal soul.

Two peas in a pod.

Please refer to the edit I added to the post above, reposted here for your convenience:

EDIT:
I consider the liberation of your mind from the lies of superstition to be among my ethical duties as a person possessing exceptional intellectual acuity who is also a compassionate citizen of this hivemind we call the internet.

I know that. I had explained further, but didn't want you to take the line I had written as being against you (it's not), as I know you had recently put someone on ignore. I don't like putting people on ignore, I don't think it's right to block people out of your (in the plural sense) world. I feel it's like sticking your head in the sand.

I never said you were affecting others. And no, it doesn't bother me, not in the slightest.

For some reason my point continues to go over your head.

Let me try again.

You continue to try to "convince" people who don't agree with you that you are right and they are wrong.

Jehovah's Witnesses continue to try to "convince" people who don't agree with them that they are right and others are wrong.

Similar? Yes. That's how I meant it, and only how I meant it.


I don't believe all atheists replace one religion for another. But I believe Beliathon has. A true atheist shouldn't care to convert others, etc. There are other reasons, but I don't need to get into that again.