Atheism Explained

WIP · November 27, 2012

I posted this in another thread, but this is such a great explanation of atheism that I think it needs its own thread. There are so many misconceptions and false information about the nature of atheism. This video does a wonderful job of explaining it well and addressing many of the problems, such as "otherwise reputable dictionaries" even getting it wrong.

And, I finally got around to watching the video! There's nothing new here that I wasn't already aware of, although I was a little irritated by the speed the narrator was talking at. Why didn't he just slow down and make a 15 minute video instead? It's more likely that theists might pay attention if a guy isn't speaking like he's running an auction or something!

Anyway, back to the video. He's presenting the "weak" atheist position - that atheism only describes lack of belief in deity, as opposed to strong atheism, or positive atheism, wherein a few will claim to be able to prove the non-existing of a deity, or that the conditions in which a god is proposed to exist, are logically inconsistent.

One thing the video doesn't deal with is that most religions are a combination of a set of doctrinal beliefs and a code of ethics, religious practices, and rituals. I have met more than a few Jews in my life, who are essentially atheists, but still follow the ritual observances of Judaism. Also worth noting is that being an atheist, leaves a void to fill in many aspects of life, and most atheists fill the gap in different ways, depending on their own individual needs and desires. Most atheists have come from some religion or other, and take interest in developing a satisfying naturalistic understanding of the world after they come to a decision that they are not going to find answers in the supernatural realm. But, there are atheists who just decided something like:'I don't believe in anything I can't see myself' and have little or no interest in developing that thought any further.

And, if atheism just describes a lack of belief, can or should atheists even bother to try to organize around atheism? My views on almost everything aside from the supernatural are totally at odds with a lot of conventional atheist thinkers...who predominantly are believers in assumption that we have entered an era of endless progress. When we get to absurd levels, we get the technology worshippers like the Transhumanists or the related belief in The Singularity, where the promise of immortality is achieved through scientific means, rather than religious faith. I can't even accept the faith that libertarian atheists have in capitalism and techno-optimism, let alone this stuff.

Pliny · November 28, 2012

One of these professions doesn't belong....

There is the scientific method. That is lightyears ahead of a prophet, who gets direction directly from the heavens, or a priest, who gets direction from a book they believe to have been written from a being in the heavens.

We no longer need to be superstitious.... we know what the sun is.... we know why it gets dark... we know where we came from and how (for the most part)... Oftentimes these discoveries were buried and the scientists who discovered them were persecuted by religious leaders because it was a perceived threat to their dogma.

Well, reality itself has not yet been proven to exist. Scientists are just telling you what they have found and you believe them. They wouldn't knowingly mislead you, they simply don't know.

Scientists are just currently in vogue and Prophets and Messiahs are passe. The thing about science though, as is true with most religions, there are no options, no choices, you believe or you don't. Will there be schisms in the future? Who knows what might pop up?

Do you think politicians will toss out their new mistress somewhere down the line as they did with their old bed partner? They are so fickle.

Edited November 28, 2012 by Pliny

The_Squid · November 28, 2012

Science is not a religion. Scientists are not in vogue like prophets. Your premise is completely faulty.

dre · November 28, 2012

We need to keep this in context here fellas. We have to keep an eye on the Islamic countries and those countries who are soft on Islamic countries. They have death penalties for crimes that aren't very severe. This is the level of fanaticism that isn't welcome in Canada.

If this is what you are worried about youll get way further by being a consistant proponent of personal liberty.

dre · November 28, 2012

Well, reality itself has not yet been proven to exist. Scientists are just telling you what they have found and you believe them. They wouldn't knowingly mislead you, they simply don't know.

Scientists are just currently in vogue and Prophets and Messiahs are passe. The thing about science though, as is true with most religions, there are no options, no choices, you believe or you don't. Will there be schisms in the future? Who knows what might pop up?

Do you think politicians will toss out their new mistress somewhere down the line as they did with their old bed partner? They are so fickle.

No I think their new mistress is here to stay. This isnt some kind of flash-in-the-pan type thing... Science has been gradually but consistantly displacing magic for hundreds of years as the source of peoples understanding of nature.

Pliny · November 28, 2012

Science is not a religion. Scientists are not in vogue like prophets. Your premise is completely faulty.

They have already been politically derailed on several fronts and have wandered off on weird tangents stemming from the acceptance of information as being true but isn't. It's as though it has reached a phase of proving itself right over proving anything true.

Pliny · November 28, 2012

No I think their new mistress is here to stay. This isnt some kind of flash-in-the-pan type thing... Science has been gradually but consistantly displacing magic for hundreds of years as the source of peoples understanding of nature.

If that is true then we are in for a rough ride. Although science has taken a thousand years to displace "magic" it hasn't yet replaced it entirely. I don't think it will take as long to displace science as the source of people's understanding of nature.

kimmy · November 28, 2012

You're not going to start talking about dark matter again, are you? Or magnets (how do they work!?) Or that stupid theory that there's no such thing as gravity, everything is just growing at an ever-accelerating rate?

Remember, Pliny, just because somebody says something on the internet doesn't mean it's true. If somebody mentions "orgones" or "das Juden Physik!" you might want to close that website and go find a book instead.

-k

cybercoma · November 28, 2012

You're not going to start talking about dark matter again, are you? Or magnets (how do they work!?) Or that stupid theory that there's no such thing as gravity, everything is just growing at an ever-accelerating rate?

Remember, Pliny, just because somebody says something on the internet doesn't mean it's true. If somebody mentions "orgones" or "das Juden Physik!" you might want to close that website and go find a book instead.

-k

+1 for painfully stupid ICP reference. haha

kimmy · November 28, 2012

The thing about science though, as is true with most religions, there are no options, no choices, you believe or you don't.

Science works whether you believe in it or not.

-k

Pliny · November 28, 2012

Science works whether you believe in it or not.

-k

Mix it with politics and it doesn't

Pliny · November 28, 2012

You're not going to start talking about dark matter again, are you? Or magnets (how do they work!?) Or that stupid theory that there's no such thing as gravity, everything is just growing at an ever-accelerating rate?

Remember, Pliny, just because somebody says something on the internet doesn't mean it's true. If somebody mentions "orgones" or "das Juden Physik!" you might want to close that website and go find a book instead.

-k

My point is basically the same. Science is not infallible and its adherents, the skeptic more specifically, has nothing over the zealotry of the religious fanatic.

Say. How do you re-align the molecular structure of a ferrous material with no energy?

WIP · November 28, 2012

Mix it with politics and it doesn't

I only wish politicians cross-referenced their policy decisions with science, instead of religion and political expediency. Maybe we wouldn't have ended up with a cynical Machiavellian politician like Harper, putting a young earth creationist clown in charge of science and technology!

WIP · November 28, 2012

Well, reality itself has not yet been proven to exist. Scientists are just telling you what they have found and you believe them. They wouldn't knowingly mislead you, they simply don't know.

If you want to go to the extremes of philosophical idealism, we could really be stuck in tubes that take care of our necessary physical requirements, while all of the sensory input reaching our brains is created by a complex supercomputer -- if The Matrix says that's what's really being done, try and prove them wrong!

Seriously, maybe idealism has a point that our minds cannot prove anything to be absolutely real...and unfortunately for Rene Descartes, that includes our inner space as well, since modern neuroscience is putting together a portrait of a complex physical machine that generates our sense of conscious awareness, decision-making, and sense of being a permanent self. Studies of brain function - especially abnormal brain function leads to the unsettling conclusion that all of these things are self illusions created so that a complex brain can function in a unified manner.

But, when it comes to deciding what is true or likely to be true, all we have to base claims of objectivity on, are predictability and regularity (we can trust gravity until we see something fall upwards), and that objects exist if they are described in the same way by other minds (which we also assume to exist). So, if I look up and see and hear a plane flying overhead, I'm going to assume that I can trust my sensory experience until I meet people who don't see or hear what I am experiencing.

And, when it comes to learning about what exists and how things work, the scientific method is proven more reliable than religious revelation.

msj · November 29, 2012

I think the anti God people are more fanatical then people who believe in God.

Seems an appropriate placement for this:

bleeding heart · November 29, 2012

Seems an appropriate placement for this:

Just so.

Pliny · November 29, 2012

I only wish politicians cross-referenced their policy decisions with science, instead of religion and political expediency. Maybe we wouldn't have ended up with a cynical Machiavellian politician like Harper, putting a young earth creationist clown in charge of science and technology!

Cynical? Machiavellian? Is your world crumbling?

A science with political power will not prove less dangerous to people than religion did when it was married to the State.

The_Squid · November 29, 2012

Cynical? Machiavellian? Is your world crumbling?

A science with political power will not prove less dangerous to people than religion did when it was married to the State.

Nope. The good part is that real scientists have to use the scientific method and their work is always up for scrutiny.

The two are not analogous.

WIP · November 29, 2012

Cynical? Machiavellian? Is your world crumbling?

A science with political power will not prove less dangerous to people than religion did when it was married to the State.

Could you elaborate or try to develop that point? Perhaps with a few examples!

Pliny · November 29, 2012

So, if I look up and see and hear a plane flying overhead, I'm going to assume that I can trust my sensory experience until I meet people who don't see or hear what I am experiencing.

At which point you would conclude what?

And, when it comes to learning about what exists and how things work, the scientific method is proven more reliable than religious revelation.

Scientific revelation is no less a fear - as witnessed by the genetically inferior 6 million Jews who died in WWII or the insane who were sent to Siberia out of political convenience or those who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Science is not immune to being misused just as religion was in the past. However, that is not reason to rid the world of either at this point.

Pliny · November 29, 2012

Nope. The good part is that real scientists have to use the scientific method and their work is always up for scrutiny.

The two are not analogous.

Unfortunately, the danger to us is that scrutiny too often follows its destructive effects. Is the Aryan race genetically superior?

With respect to the diabolic misuse of both religion and science throughout history by power mongers of all manner, they are indeed analogous.

WIP · November 29, 2012

At which point you would conclude what?

I hope I never have to answer that question!

Scientific revelation is no less a fear - as witnessed by the genetically inferior 6 million Jews who died in WWII or the insane who were sent to Siberia out of political convenience or those who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Tell me again how it was science, rather than the obvious reason - religious and ethnic hatred of an outsider group, which led to the Holocaust.

As for Hiroshima and Nagasaki...different story! I don't think it is proper to blame science and scientific inquiry for Truman's decisions to test them out and see what would happen. Many of the scientists who cooperated with the Manhattan Project, like Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein, were conflicted about using their knowledge of the energy potential that could be unleashed by the strong nuclear force in the form of a weapon of destruction. They understood that they could build the Bomb, but weren't sure whether it was right to build the Bomb! This shows that evil comes from scientific discovery only when it is developed in the form of new technologies.

But besides the Bomb, why hasn't our society tried to put technology under scrutiny to determine whether it's overall benefits are greater than potential harms presented by building and applying the new inventions? The only group I am aware of who has taken a skeptical approach to technology are the Amish. From what little I understand of their beliefs, it's a mistake to go with the common assumption that they are misfits caught in a timewarp of the 18th century! I don't have it front of me right now, but I have heard that they have a three step process for analyzing new inventions or ways of doing things, and any new invention adopted has to pass this examination.

So, the Amish would be among the tiny minority who are skeptical about technology, while the rest of the world -- whether they are atheists or fundamentalists of varying stripes, fall in the category of techno-optimists, who believe technology is either neutral or virtuous, and even where new technologies create obvious problems, instead of scrapping them, the solution is to just create counter-technologies to deal with the symptoms....just like in modern medicine! And our collective worship of technological progress explains a lot, possibly even most of the reason why the human race is standing at the brink of extinction today.

Edited November 29, 2012 by WIP

Bonam · November 29, 2012

And our collective worship of technological progress explains a lot, possibly even most of the reason why the human race is standing at the brink of extinction today.

Your premises and conclusions are all wrong, and the statement that the human race "stands at the brink of extinction" is, frankly, absurd and has no supporting evidence. Not even the worst serious predictions of the effects of climate change, nuclear winter, super-viruses, resource depletion, etc, talk about extinction of the human species. You need to start talking in realistic terms if you want people to take you seriously.

msj · November 29, 2012

This shows that evil comes from scientific discovery only when it is developed in the form of new technologies.

Developing "the bomb" is an amoral thing.

It's like when Nietzsche stated: There are no moral phenomena at all; only moral interpretations of phenomena.

We animals (aka humans) do the natural thing by building "the bomb."

We then make moral judgments/interpretations about building it and using it.

Scientific discovery is really just us figuring out how the world works - nothing moral or immoral about that.

Now, using "the bomb" is a whole other matter.

Pliny · November 30, 2012

I hope I never have to answer that question!

Now now Just close your eyes and go to sleep.

Tell me again how it was science, rather than the obvious reason - religious and ethnic hatred of an outsider group, which led to the Holocaust.

There was indeed prejudice against Jews in the thirties in Europe, North America and other places but the Holocaust happened in racially superior Germany. Science there found a reason and a way to help relieve the Jews of their misery. Once they were scientifically determined to be genetically inferior humans there was a "logical" and "scientific" rationale for their extermination.

Tell me again how it was religion, rather than the obvious reason, power and control over the masses, which led to the Inquisition?

These are just examples of the misuse of both science and religion for purposes of the centralization of power.

As for Hiroshima and Nagasaki...different story! I don't think it is proper to blame science and scientific inquiry for Truman's decisions to test them out and see what would happen.

I don't blame science and that's the point. It was misused in that case. If science becomes a means of controlling populations, as religion was in the past, then there is reason for concern, before we reach the point of the compassionate disposal of "mental defectives" who for some reason are not evolving.

Many of the scientists who cooperated with the Manhattan Project, like Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein, were conflicted about using their knowledge of the energy potential that could be unleashed by the strong nuclear force in the form of a weapon of destruction. They understood that they could build the Bomb, but weren't sure whether it was right to build the Bomb! This shows that evil comes from scientific discovery only when it is developed in the form of new technologies.

Oppenheimer and Einstein never gave the order to drop the bomb. They were employed by the State to develop it only. They should have gone with their instincts but I'm sure they were convinced the evil axis powers needed to be defeated.

But besides the Bomb, why hasn't our society tried to put technology under scrutiny to determine whether it's overall benefits are greater than potential harms presented by building and applying the new inventions? The only group I am aware of who has taken a skeptical approach to technology are the Amish. From what little I understand of their beliefs, it's a mistake to go with the common assumption that they are misfits caught in a timewarp of the 18th century! I don't have it front of me right now, but I have heard that they have a three step process for analyzing new inventions or ways of doing things, and any new invention adopted has to pass this examination.

So, the Amish would be among the tiny minority who are skeptical about technology, while the rest of the world -- whether they are atheists or fundamentalists of varying stripes, fall in the category of techno-optimists, who believe technology is either neutral or virtuous, and even where new technologies create obvious problems, instead of scrapping them, the solution is to just create counter-technologies to deal with the symptoms....just like in modern medicine! And our collective worship of technological progress explains a lot, possibly even most of the reason why the human race is standing at the brink of extinction today.

I see the Amish aren't alone in their skepticism of technology.