Question for an Atheist

[VMLM]

Ant, I'm curious what you think of johnson's posts. I think he's given better answers to your questions than any of us. I'm sort of surprised that you continue to hold that we're all soulless material reductionists in the face of that.

That being said, I think you have a point regarding the climate here on booktalk. There's an obvious atheist majority... and lately I've seen a lot of scoffing and caricaturization of "believers". To me this is sad, because I've never thought of the booktalk crowd as close minded or intolerant. Maybe that's because I've never been on the other end of a god debate, so I've never felt the heat directed at religion? I don't know, but I don't like it.
I think it's important to remember that there is no us and them here... or at least there shouldn't be. I'm here to talk about books, what we like to read, what we've read, etc... Not to talk about how misguided it is to pray to an invisible wizard in the hopes that he'll solve all our problems (an infantile misrepresentation of christian morality), or to discuss exactly how morally deviant and soulless all atheists are because they obviously don't believe in anything (yet again, another near sighted caricaturization).
Seriously, Allah save the first Muslim kid who walks in here and tries to talk about Islam.... Is this really what we want book talk to be about? I'm asking all of you individually to think about us as a community. Booktalk is defined by our actions, so do you want it to be a place where you get shouted down if you're not in the majority? Are we capable of tolerance?
I know we have fundamental differences in opinion and belief. Can we respect this, take a step back and stop thinking of those who don't share our opinions as an undefined group of stupid bad people veiled in shadow and instead think of those people we know and talk to? There is me, and there is you ant, and johnson, and dexter and Chris, penelope, geo, etc.. Can we stop making generalizing blanket statements about people we don't know which risk hurting people we do know?

Ant, regarding your question directly.. I don't think you can seriously hold that atheists are all a bunch of soulless near sighted fools who have no feelings and who can't imprint their lives with any meaning. I don't believe you can hold this position because frankly I have too much respect for you.
And I'm sorry to put words in your mouth, but I think that what you actually hold is that this scenario is the logical conclusion of having materialist outlook on life. And since we're NOT loveless unfeeling materialistic machines, we have to accept that there is more to life, that there is something which makes it meaningful. In so doing we surrender our materialism, we accept that there is something beyond the material world. Or else we practice a "coward's" materialism, stubbornly asserting that there is nothing but the material world while privately imprinting our own lives with false meaning.

Is this what you're saying?

[etudiant]

Souffle? Heck, I'd be happy to do a reassessment after a morsel of bread, but there is none to be found. I don't believe you've offered us a crumb as of yet.

There may have been some scientists who had religious notions, yet did serious work. This means little however. Many in the past also thought blacks were inferior because of their race, and that a healthy meal consisted of a slab of fatty meat and a tumbler of whiskey. Times change, and we move on. In fact religion has always been a drag on science; a menacing and violent one in centuries past, a more subdued and chagrined one in recent times, but still not fully in the game. The Vatican still tells people to forget about contraception in seriously overpopulated regions of the planet, and the religious in the US are still urging creationism be taught in schools, and treated as a scientific theory.

[Dexter]

There is simply no reason to believe there is no god when we are, and perhaps always will be short on data, short on observational prowess, intelligence, and time. For you to conclude there is no god (or whatever) because he has yet to cook you a soufflé is because you choose to believe only what you are comfortable with or not prejudice against

Is it possible? Yes. That's why even Dawkins will admit that logically he must be agnostic, what you call "cowardly atheism." So it seems to you the only satisfactory position is to believe in a vague, generic deity with some arbitrarily high degree of probability (does it need to be 100%?). Perhaps we should call it "cowardly deism." Somehow belief in VGD (Vague, Generic Deity) is supposed to provide meaning to Love, Art, etc.

But you didn't answer the question. The vast majority of humans that ever lived must be wrong about their specific religious claims. Must they all live meaningless lives?

[DWill]

It's amazing how certain atheist members of this site can generalize about religion and people of faith with as hash a tone as they like, and get thanked for it, but when I generalize atheists in a similar manner they start to cry foul.
Oh the humanity!!

Point taken yet?
Time for censorship so resident atheists can have at it without being called to the carpet about it?

I know I've been on the receiving end when I attempted to be more engaging, as you put it.

Yes, I can name several atheists that I greatly admire because they are much more open minded and accepting than the common lot.

It's regrettable that you have occasionally been maligned. And we do have to work on our social skills here at BT, as VMLM says above. But you've assumed a default mode of response regardless of the actual attitude of the person to whom you're speaking, and I just see that as a wasted opportunity for dialogue.

[Penelope]

Whether I believe in a deity or not, I can create for myself meanings like love for my family, satisfaction in my work, joy in my accomplishments, sadness over losses, contentment with what I have, and so forth. Even as a believer, I created such meanings for myself, I just didn't realize I was doing it.

I wonder if this is what is meant by 'the kingdom of heaven is within you'.

As a believer, I come up with the meanings from inside myself. - The truth is within us, but it takes some deep soul-searching and a certain amount of humility to find it.

Ancient Chinese saying: Pearls don't float about on the top of the ocean, one has to dive deeply for them.

Please note that I am speaking about 'meaning', not 'facts'. Because facts (science) does lie outside ourselves to be discovered, but meaning comes from within.

Otherwise, it would be true that the thousand monkeys with the thousand typewriters would eventually type the works of Shakespeare. They wouldn't!!!

Only Shakespeare could write Shakespeare, just as only Mozart could compose Mozart, because that sort of genius comes from the soul.

[Interbane]

I protest your nonspecific, generic God in the same way that both of us protest the thousands of Gods that have been created in human history. There is simply no reason to expect it to be true. If someone wants to believe it, then by all means do so. Do all those people believing in false claims (because they can't all be true) also lack meaning? Or can meaning be provided by false beliefs?

There is simply no reason to believe there is no god when we are, and perhaps always will be short on data, short on observational prowess, intelligence, and time. For you to conclude there is no god (or whatever) because he has yet to cook you a soufflé is because you choose to believe only what you are comfortable with or not prejudice against

You both advocate an agnostic stance in these posts.

We may be short on data, but that doesn't mean we can't make a confident guess. This is the wisdom behind why Karl Rove was made to look so stupid during election night. We don't need to know everything about everything. We just need to know a few parameters. The primary example of a god that's defended is the one illustrated in the Bible. We know enough to say that such a god does not exist. When theologists go on the defensive after such a defeat, they propose a naturalistic deity. I see that as a logical step in keeping your beliefs alive... moving the goalposts.

On the matter of a naturalistic deity, I'm agnostic in theory and atheistic in practice. My response is usually to say that anyone who proposes such a deity is no different than someone who poses alternate dimensions. Without enough evidence, we must remain agnostic on both matters. We simply do not have enough evidence for or against the infinite un-thought hypotheses that may manifest in people's heads. So we should move on. Let's hypothesize inside a scientific framework, because we know that works. And we know progress will be made.

[Penelope]

Interbane:

There is simply no reason to believe there is no god when we are, and perhaps always will be short on data, short on observational prowess, intelligence, and time. For you to conclude there is no god (or whatever) because he has yet to cook you a soufflé is because you choose to believe only what you are comfortable with or not prejudice against

[/quote]

Do we really care whether the 'God' thingy exists as we perceive it? I don't care what God is like. I do care whether life is meaningful. I care whether I have an immortal soul. If I have an immortal soul, nothing else matters. I want to use my 70 or so years here, discovering and identifying what touches my soul.

I love your example Interbane.....'he has yet to cook you a souffle....'

It's like:-

A man can stand with his mouth wide open for a very long time before God throws a roast chicken into it.

No, we can't wait around.....we must keep digging and delving and discovering. But some of us are looking at the phenomena outside of us, that is science. Some of us look at what is happening to us inside.....that is experience. I think.

[geo]

I protest your nonspecific, generic God in the same way that both of us protest the thousands of Gods that have been created in human history. There is simply no reason to expect it to be true. If someone wants to believe it, then by all means do so. Do all those people believing in false claims (because they can't all be true) also lack meaning? Or can meaning be provided by false beliefs?

There is simply no reason to believe there is no god when we are, and perhaps always will be short on data, short on observational prowess, intelligence, and time. For you to conclude there is no god (or whatever) because he has yet to cook you a soufflé is because you choose to believe only what you are comfortable with or not prejudice against

You both advocate an agnostic stance in these posts.

We may be short on data, but that doesn't mean we can't make a confident guess. This is the wisdom behind why Karl Rove was made to look so stupid during election night. We don't need to know everything about everything. We just need to know a few parameters. The primary example of a god that's defended is the one illustrated in the Bible. We know enough to say that such a god does not exist. When theologists go on the defensive after such a defeat, they propose a naturalistic deity. I see that as a logical step in keeping your beliefs alive... moving the goalposts.

On the matter of a naturalistic deity, I'm agnostic in theory and atheistic in practice. My response is usually to say that anyone who proposes such a deity is no different than someone who poses alternate dimensions. Without enough evidence, we must remain agnostic on both matters. We simply do not have enough evidence for or against the infinite un-thought hypotheses that may manifest in people's heads. So we should move on. Let's hypothesize inside a scientific framework, because we know that works. And we know progress will be made.

An agnostic stance seems the most reasonable when confronted with incomplete information. Why should you take a hard-line position either way unless you have strong, positive evidence to support it?

Indeed, though the word "atheist" usually is defined as belief that god (definitely) does not exist, if you break down its root parts, you can make the argument that it merely means without belief in god which is a more of an agnostic position. Taking a strong position seems to be borne of a need for certainty. Being comfortable with uncertainty is a positive trait, I think.

I've posted this link before, but it seems relevant. This blogger makes a great argument for building tents, not castles.

http://thethinkerblog.com/?p=9479

[youkrst]

God i love this thread

The primary example of a god that's defended is the one illustrated in the Bible. We know enough to say that such a god does not exist.

absolutely! in the sense that humpty dumpty doesn't exist, and the boy who cried wolf doesn't exist..... and yet

metaphorically we all have a "boy/girl who cried wolf" within us. we all have a yahweh (maniacal egocentric mysoginist racist jealous vengeful fruitcake) within us. these tendencies exist in our psyche and so neither yahweh humpty or cry wolf boy are literal entities as described in their various tomes yet they nonetheless are able to be seen everyday in all places because they are human characterisitics personified, well humpty has his own thing going on but yahweh and wolf boy are not hard to see on a daily basis.

[Penelope]

well humpty has his own thing going on but yahweh and wolf boy are not hard to see on a daily basis.

Hmmmm.....I see inner Humpty trying to get out every time I look in the mirror....