Are you atheist?

[MigL]

4 hours ago, studiot said:

I am not sure what this means but she now has an illuminated christmas tree outside her front door all the time.

It means the isolation during the pandemic has made her crazy.

1 hour ago, Moontanman said:

Damn a bunch of naked old men on the beach,

I'll have no part of this sausage fest.
( you can't bribe me with alcohol )

[MonDie]

Sticky stuff on my toothbrush.

Thinking about it, I think it may be most important to distinguish between the formalistic communications of science and the informal dialogues that have occurred since before humans could write.  We speak informally all the time, but a scientist would be wrong to express his atheism in his capacity as a scientist.  Ideas about the divine are informal, and they might not be scientifically meaningful let alone scientifically testable.  Thus they should be responded to in an informal way.  In science and the peer review process, the aim is an objectivity that is independent of the observer, and it would be important to disclose subjectivity if statements were subjective.  In informal communication, it is already assumed that ideas are subjective, contextual, or approximate.  Thus it would be redundant to preface a statement with terminology like "My feeling is that..."/"I think that..."/"What I'm saying is..."/"I imagined that..."/"My tentative conclusion is..."

Informally speaking.

Also, can the scientific method be tested scientifically?

[zapatos]

Just now, SaniyaSaunders said:

No, my family and I always celebrate Christmas and all religious holidays. They bring families together and make us feel warm.

ALL religious holidays? Rosh Hashanah? Tzom Gedaliah? Ramadan? Obon? Makahiki?

I celebrate Christmas too, but that doesn't keep me from being an atheist.

[Peterkin]

We used to celebrate the Christian holidays centered on children - Christmas and Easter - when we had children. We kept up a casual nod to those holidays - a festive meal, some decorations, a few gifts - as long as my mother was alive and we had older friends with whom to visit back and forth. When they were gone, we dropped all pretense of those remnants of a story that had been barbaric and in very bad taste from its inception.

Our general rejection of superstition is not evenly distributed: some religions are more invasive, pervasive and repressive than others; only a few affect our current society. The old dead ones are fodder for anthropological study, not a threat to personal freedom.

Edited August 13, 2022 by Peterkin

[mistermack]

19 minutes ago, zapatos said:

ALL religious holidays? Rosh Hashanah? Tzom Gedaliah? Ramadan? Obon? Makahiki?

I celebrate Christmas too, but that doesn't keep me from being an atheist.

That's right. Atheism and religion are fundamentally about what you believe, not what you celebrate. Especially if there's free beer on offer. 

[zapatos]

16 minutes ago, mistermack said:

Especially if there's free beer on offer. 

I think that is why they give away free wine at Catholic Mass!

As I like to say, I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

[Peterkin]

23 minutes ago, zapatos said:

I think that is why they give away free wine at Catholic Mass!

Do they? Last I heard, the congregation got a tiny cracker, while the priest paraded the wine in front of them but didn't share. In the old country, there was a comic chant, made to to sound like a Latin incantation, that translates to "You can see, you can see, but you cannot drink it!" At least the Protestants give you a bite of bread and sip of wine.  

The poor little Jewish boys only get a drop for all their pain, while the parents get all the rest.

[zapatos]

28 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

Do they? Last I heard, the congregation got a tiny cracker, while the priest paraded the wine in front of them but didn't share.

Yes. While not all archdiocese have brought back the chalice yet it is currently being used in many places and is being rolled out as COVID wanes.

[Peterkin]

1 minute ago, zapatos said:

While not all archdiocese have brought back the chalice yet it is currently being used in many places and is being rolled out as COVID wanes.

Huh! New broom does sweep clean.

[MarlonSoto]

It is convenient to be an atheist if you are cynical and do not want to see the good surrounding us. It is much easier when you deny God and, therefore, the punishment for all your sins. 

[joigus]

16 minutes ago, MarlonSoto said:

It is convenient to be an atheist if you are cynical and do not want to see the good surrounding us. It is much easier when you deny God and, therefore, the punishment for all your sins. 

Quite the opposite:

https://www.livescience.com/9090-religion-people-happier-hint-god.html

Life becomes easier when you are a believer, especially if you believe in whatever your neighbours declare to believe. Try to be a Christian in Yemen!

Then you fit in, you don't think about ethical problems, because you've got it all written down for you, and you have a picture of a fancy wonderland where to go when your time is up on this planet.

What's harder, as anything that's worth anything in this life, is facing things objectively and without bias. And learning from the process. That's incomparably harder, and brings incomparably more good to this world.

[dimreepr]

25 minutes ago, MarlonSoto said:

It is convenient to be an atheist if you are cynical and do not want to see the good surrounding us. It is much easier when you deny God and, therefore, the punishment for all your sins. 

Athiest's tend to be more critical, than cynical; for me, I want to see the good in everything, but I don't want the blinkers of someone telling me what beauty is or should be; It leaves me free to find the good in everyone's God, not just yours.

Edit. X-posted with joigus.

Edited August 15, 2022 by dimreepr

[Bufofrog]

30 minutes ago, MarlonSoto said:

It is convenient to be an atheist if you are cynical and do not want to see the good surrounding us.

I'm an atheist and I see all the good around us.

32 minutes ago, MarlonSoto said:

It is much easier when you deny God and, therefore, the punishment for all your sins.

I don't disbelieve in God so I can sin without consequence, that has nothing to do with it.  I disbelieve in God because there is no evidence that God exists; that's the issue.

In the absence of a God, my philosophy is treat others the way you want to be treated.

[swansont]

32 minutes ago, MarlonSoto said:

It is convenient to be an atheist if you are cynical and do not want to see the good surrounding us. It is much easier when you deny God and, therefore, the punishment for all your sins. 

!

Moderator Note

This doesn't really address the question of the OP, and is wandering into the territory of proselytizing, which is against the rules.  

 

[Peterkin]

2 hours ago, MarlonSoto said:

It is convenient to be an atheist if you are cynical and do not want to see the good surrounding us. It is much easier when you deny God and, therefore, the punishment for all your sins. 

It is convenient to dismiss people who don't buy into your world-view. It is much easier than asking why they don't and why you do, or examining the source and purpose of those "punishments" or the nature and cause of those "sins". 

(But at least you got excellent mileage out of that snippy little post!)

[mistermack]

7 hours ago, MarlonSoto said:

It is convenient to be an atheist if you are cynical and do not want to see the good surrounding us. It is much easier when you deny God and, therefore, the punishment for all your sins. 

What utter rubbish. It's much easier to tamely accept the indoctrination you got as a child, than to question it. Especially when that doctrine has been specially designed to appeal to weak-minded people, who respond like puppies to the fake love of an imaginary friend. 

[Peterkin]

It's also enlarging and empowering to have the politically most powerful religion of your nation behind whatever persecution, discrimination, punitive exclusion, fact-denial and breach of civil rights you wish to commit against a minority. 

[dimreepr]

On 8/15/2022 at 8:12 PM, mistermack said:

What utter rubbish. It's much easier to tamely accept the indoctrination you got as a child, than to question it. Especially when that doctrine has been specially designed to appeal to weak-minded people, who respond like puppies to the fake love of an imaginary friend. 

This is where atheism and critical thinking part company; you smugly decide an entire, history of philosophy as weak minded; and so dismiss Taoism, Buddhism, Jesus etc. by equating it with scientologism and the westboro baptist church, talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water... 

BTW The +1 you got for that post offended me, so I peacefully removed it...

Edited August 17, 2022 by dimreepr

[Peterkin]

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

This is where atheism and critical thinking part company;

Perhaps atheism should not be judged as a single mode of thought, any more than faith should be. Each atheist thinks differently, just as each religionist does, from different perspectives, with different mental tools according to different motivations. It's true, some people don't really bother to reflect on or question their convictions (not just about faith, about politics, economics and interpersonal relations, too) but even they hold different degrees and flavours of belief.

[iNow]

1 hour ago, Peterkin said:

Perhaps atheism should not be judged as a single mode of thought

I agree. In much the same way, NOT playing golf isn't a sport and NOT collecting stamps isn't a hobby. 

[mistermack]

2 hours ago, dimreepr said:

This is where atheism and critical thinking part company; you smugly decide an entire, history of philosophy as weak minded; and so dismiss Taoism, Buddhism, Jesus etc. by equating it with scientologism and the westboro baptist church, talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water... 

Your comprehension has let you down yet again. I did not dismiss what you listed. I said "especially when the doctrine has been specially designed.... etc." 

As usual, you take two and two and make five. Try to make more effort to respond to what is actually written. 

As far as Jesus goes, yes, it's designed to appeal to the weak minded. Promising a blissful life after death, so long as you obey our rules today. That's aimed straight at the weak minded. However, religious weak mindedness is made, not born. It  takes years of indoctrination to make people swallow that crap. 

The others, I don't know, and don't want to know, what they are pushing. But I assume the worst till I find out different. Because every spiritual belief I've come across so far has been bollocks.

[Peterkin]

15 minutes ago, mistermack said:

As far as Jesus goes, yes, it's designed to appeal to the weak minded.

Not really. For one thing, it wasn't designed: it grew and evolved and was adapted for cultural, as well as corrupted and subverted for political and economic reasons.

The central myth is considerably older and more primitive than Christianity, and it appeals to a deep human yearning, which is not easy to comprehend, but pervasive. This impulse motivates a good deal of human activity and feeling besides the religious one. It's about dedication and sacrifice (being 'part of something greater than oneself' is a phrase we hear in other contexts) as much as it is about obedience and promise.

The doctrine itself demands self-control, discipline, tolerance, endurance, forbearance, charity and loving-kindness, none of which are easy in practice. Some fairly strong minds have been applied to this theology over the centuries.

Weak minds follow - as they always do - whatever doctrine is adopted by their overlords of the time, and whatever is expected by their communities.

[mistermack]

3 hours ago, Peterkin said:

Not really. For one thing, it wasn't designed: it grew and evolved and was adapted for cultural, as well as corrupted and subverted for political and economic reasons.

Something can be designed bit by bit. And designs can evolve. Like my car. Brakes, windscreens, tyres, seats, engines, all evolved over time, but all were designed, sometimes many times over.

The concept of heaven, somebody made it up. As with hell. As with virgin births. All designed to APPEAL to their target audience. There's very little about Christianity that wasn't designed to produce a desired response in the punters. 

Just because it was done piecemeal doesn't mean it's not designed. 

[Peterkin]

Fine.

[dimreepr]

21 hours ago, Peterkin said:

Perhaps atheism should not be judged as a single mode of thought, any more than faith should be. Each atheist thinks differently, just as each religionist does, from different perspectives, with different mental tools according to different motivations. It's true, some people don't really bother to reflect on or question their convictions (not just about faith, about politics, economics and interpersonal relations, too) but even they hold different degrees and flavours of belief.

Indeed, but my point is critical thinking should highlight the fact that whatever the belief, even non-belief, there is merit in a philosophy that advocates being kind to people in order to be kind to oneself; rather than dismiss, out of hand, any possibility of merit.

16 hours ago, mistermack said:

Something can be designed bit by bit. And designs can evolve. Like my car. Brakes, windscreens, tyres, seats, engines, all evolved over time, but all were designed, sometimes many times over.

The concept of heaven, somebody made it up. As with hell. As with virgin births. All designed to APPEAL to their target audience. There's very little about Christianity that wasn't designed to produce a desired response in the punters. 

Just because it was done piecemeal doesn't mean it's not designed. 

Just because someone thought about (designed) how best to live a good life, that ultimately benefit's everyone, suggests it wasn't cynically designed to dupe, anyone...

Just becuase a scam artist found a way too twist it, is not the fault of Jesus or Mohamed or Buddha etc.