Secularism = Political Atheism

[Benz]

On ‎8‎/‎13‎/‎2019 at 6:01 PM, Goddess said:

It is very ironic.  

The irony is that the obligation to wear headcoverings is not in the Quran, so therefore is not an infringement on anyone's rights.

French Laicitie is necessary because France refuses to let the French state be the conduit of religious demands and it has been primarily Islam who has demanded the state segregate swimming pools, ban pork from schools, and ban alcohol in predominantly Muslim areas, etc.

Islam is indeed the most noisy, but the sikh have done efforts to get attention as well. Well I do not know about France, but here in Canada, we have weirdos asking the right to use Turban instead of helmet for construction or driving motocycle. There was this kid who obtained the right, from the Supreme Court, to go into public school with his religious weapon, Kirpan. The French do not tend to waste time on such sillinyess. Unfortunatly, Canada does sometimes.

[SkyHigh]

Atheism is not a world view, simply the lack of belief in a deity

Secular government, is simply advocating for the separation of church and state

Secular humanity on the other hand is a world view.                                                    In a nut shell it's a moral philosophy based on "well being" and not an impossed set of rules handed down from some fictitious omnipotent being from on high

[Marocc]

On 11/13/2019 at 4:23 PM, SkyHigh said:

Atheism is not a world view,

Merriam Webster:

Definition of worldview:

 

: a comprehensive conception or apprehension of the world especially from a specific standpoint

[Marocc]

On 1/22/2018 at 11:56 AM, Scott Mayers said:

If your God is already sufficiently powerful to dictate concerns on Earth, it would do so without the need for some particular humans to form a system of rules that we are not defaulted to 'know' beyond our genetic nature upon birth.

Is it that you don't believe in God, but you assume to know what *it* that doesn't exist would be if it did exist? And the people who do believe, by evidence of the Holy Scripture know, that we cannot comprehend God. But you who know that *it* doesn't exist, know exactly what *it* that you know doesn't exist and never did, would be like if it did exist. Atheist logic.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Marocc said:

Is it that you don't believe in God, but you assume to know what *it* that doesn't exist would be if it did exist? And the people who do believe, by evidence of the Holy Scripture know, that we cannot comprehend God. But you who know that *it* doesn't exist, know exactly what *it* that you know doesn't exist and never did, would be like if it did exist. Atheist logic.

I suppose we know there is no God as much as you know there is.

Like unicorns

[Marocc]

9 hours ago, bcsapper said:

I suppose we know there is no God as much as you know there is.

Like unicorns

You ignored the entire point.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Marocc said:

You ignored the entire point.

I figured *it* might as well be a unicorn, as far as existence or definition goes.  I know as much as you do, and holy scripture means nothing.

Edited December 18, 2019 by bcsapper
Men never do convoluted so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction - Not Blaise Pascal

[SkyHigh]

16 hours ago, Marocc said:

Merriam Webster:

Definition of worldview:

 

: a comprehensive conception or apprehension of the world especially from a specific standpoint

So you're in agreement?

Comprehensive is defined as including all or nearly all elements or aspects of something. Atheism revolves around a singular question does god exist.

Scepticism on the other hand is a world view, dictating the epistemological way i come to decisions including the god question.

"God" has nothing to do with my "world view" as god is not necessary in the world. Science ignores the god question and secular morality (an actual world view) far exceeds biblical teachings on the same subject

So again, Atheism is not a world view, but simply an answer to one very small, insignificant question

[SkyHigh]

At the risk of being pedantic, we must differentiate between

Atheist and Anti-theist 

The former denotes a lack of sufficient evidence to prove the god claim, the latter an affirmation that no gods exist, a small but important distinction.

Agnostic refers almost exclusively to knowledge, while atheism speaks to belief

 

Edited December 18, 2019 by SkyHigh

[Scott Mayers]

 

On 12/17/2019 at 5:50 PM, Marocc said:

On 1/22/2018 at 3:56 AM, Scott Mayers said:

If your God is already sufficiently powerful to dictate concerns on Earth, it would do so without the need for some particular humans to form a system of rules that we are not defaulted to 'know' beyond our genetic nature upon birth.

Is it that you don't believe in God, but you assume to know what *it* that doesn't exist would be if it did exist? And the people who do believe, by evidence of the Holy Scripture know, that we cannot comprehend God. But you who know that *it* doesn't exist, know exactly what *it* that you know doesn't exist and never did, would be like if it did exist. Atheist logic.

Religious texts themselves were more likely from secular NON-religious ideologies that have devolved into ludicrous interpretations upon interpretations such that it BECAME something idiots embrace and tend to FORCE upon others to obediently believe with risk for NOT doing so. 

"God" for instance, is a word that comes from 'good' and was what some thought of NATURE as, ....without the comprehension because it lacked logical consistency. Even earlier, the original words for this would be translated as "nature" or "X" (for the unknown), or the "source" (as YHWY == ye ovah ....the egg), or the 'force', as "Ra" (which comes to us as 'ray'), etc. Note that the taboo against speaking the name is a perfect example of how such devolution to absurdity that religion creates: the original thinkers wondered if this "source" came from nothing at all. As some did, they interpreted the contradiction of being able to 'speak' of coming from an absolute nothingness was thought of as potentially rational but non-the-less something we cannot literally understand. Thus the original concept of the term, "YHWY' or "Jehova", was that Nature itself was just an unknown mystery, not a literal being. The original source of this came from Egypt as "Nile" (....nihil..) as "Nil" for the 'waters below' (meaning 'fluid' in thier understanding) and "Nut" (...not,....nothing) of the sky. Thus the stupidity of the latter interpretation of the term as being 'taboo' was falsely TRANSFERRED to an example of religious imposition. 

Religion, as based upon history and scripture, wasn't meant to be literal. The way it was written with characters, like Adam and Eve, were intended to give a secular justification of humanity in general, not particular people. Many languages then shared the meaning of "adam" to mean "anything of the Earth as a solid (versus, Aten, was the perfect form of SOLIDS being the circular container of the sun.)

 

I could go on. But the point is that the very meaning of "God" is NOT even a 'supreme being' outside of assuming that the mystery of Nature itself caused us all, ...and to us,....was a 'good' thing: thus the term "God". "Allah" also literally meant, "the one", in a similar to "YWHY" of the neutral 'source' (rather than giving it the quality of 'goodness', that is). 

 

All animals, of which humans are one, are born without a 'religion' and are rightfully "atheists" in the meaning, "not theists". Any atheist is at least one who doesn't claim some religious set of beliefs in the same way one is born without them. You learn your religion and in fact are forced to it where your parents and political leaders IMPOSE them upon you.

Just because most people tend towards religion, it doesn't mean that the atheist requires a counterstance against irrational beliefs that require disproving all the various claims of gods. These are endless claims that is a result of our artistic (art-ificial) expression and so would be impossible to disprove them all. I happen to be one kind of atheist that CAN argue against some of the general Judaeou-Christian-Muslim beliefs. Because there can be no one religion in common for all without force and destruction, we require a secular system that votes upon what morals we share in common. Governments require being secular even IF people are religious so as to prevent dictatorial authorities (who are PEOPLE) from commanding their will simply because they SAY they have some secret direct line to God (or even Nature neutrally). 

[Michael Hardner]

On 11/13/2019 at 9:23 AM, SkyHigh said:

Atheism is not a world view, simply the lack of belief in a deity

Secular government, is simply advocating for the separation of church and state

Secular humanity on the other hand is a world view.                                                    In a nut shell it's a moral philosophy based on "well being" and not an impossed set of rules handed down from some fictitious omnipotent being from on high

Very rare to get a new poster who is meticulous about language and seems to have new knowledge to bring us !

I can see what you mean how atheism itself isn't a full world view, but the acceptance of Atheism opens up a new domain of possibilities of world views.

 

As per the famous philosophy professor Rick Roderick:
“The Death of God” is about the drying up of a horizon of meaning, and of a whole form of human life. And about Nietzsche’s both fear and exhilaration at what might come next. We still to a large extent live in the interregnum between worlds, if you will, or between paradigms. Not many people in the history of the world have faced that..."

Our current situation is in said interregnum, in that we haven't fully taken ownership of a set of a non-theistic morality, we haven't come to terms with what privacy means without a cosmic sentinel examining your every move etc.

[Michael Hardner]

On 12/18/2019 at 10:56 AM, SkyHigh said:

At the risk of being pedantic, we must differentiate between

Atheist and Anti-theist 

The former denotes a lack of sufficient evidence to prove the god claim, the latter an affirmation that no gods exist, a small but important distinction.

Agnostic refers almost exclusively to knowledge, while atheism speaks to belief

 

And anti-theist is also a 'belief' in your definition but a faith-based one, ie. I have faith that no gods exist,  regardless of the evidence either way ?

[Scott Mayers]

On 12/24/2019 at 6:38 AM, Michael Hardner said:

And anti-theist is also a 'belief' in your definition but a faith-based one, ie. I have faith that no gods exist,  regardless of the evidence either way ?

"Faith" is what we have both where we know something with certainty or trust due to some practical certainty. I try to redefine it in context as "gambling in the truth of something" when speaking with the religious person's use of it against the atheist. Then "belief" can be used more generically. Daniel Denett wrote a good book that expressed how religious thinkers actually have 'faith in faith'. [Breaking the Spell] 

I personally hold that you CAN argue against a belief system (which implies their "God" or gods in context). But this requires an investment in time and effort that can be unending when you consider this would have to be done for each and every particular belief. So you could say that I have 'faith' that there is no god but that I know that there is no particular one any reasonable person could point to rationally. I am also anti-theist to a large degree where such beliefs are imposed upon a society Constitutionally, (like ours does here in Canada). [Preamble to the Charter and our perpetuity to favor the Catholic School system foundationally, for examples.]

[SkyHigh]

On 12/24/2019 at 7:34 AM, Michael Hardner said:

Very rare to get a new poster who is meticulous about language and seems to have new knowledge to bring us !

Thank you for the kind words, in my limited experience on this forum such responses have been few and far between, and I was beginning to think that nobody here was actually interested in rational conversation.

 

On 12/24/2019 at 7:34 AM, Michael Hardner said:

can see what you mean how atheism itself isn't a full world view, but the acceptance of Atheism opens up a new domain of possibilities of world views.

 

For me it was the other way around, as I learned more about epistemology, scepticism and the laws of logic (I'm a highschool dropout, so I didn't even begin to understand such things until later in life) atheism was simply a natural progression.

 In regards the quote from professor Roderick, I look forward to researching him in-depth, as honestly that quote went a little over my head. Like I said, I have very little formal education, hahaha

[SkyHigh]

On 12/24/2019 at 7:38 AM, Michael Hardner said:

And anti-theist is also a 'belief' in your definition but a faith-based one, ie. I have faith that no gods exist,  regardless of the evidence either way ?

By my definition Anti-theist of the three is the only one I'd truly consider a "belief".

Of the three the anti-theist is the only one claiming a fact/truth ( no gods exist)

"Faith" to me is the reason people give for a belief when they can't provide evidence. Faith is not a reliable path to truth.

The god claim is unfalsifiable, therfore a strong stance either way (theist or anti-theist ) denotes that the person making the argument is basing their opinion on personal feelings and not objective fact, logic or reason

I along with most atheists/agnostics would be willing to accept the god claim if sufficient evidence could be provided.

Im curious to your beliefs, and hope to continue this dialogue 

[Michael Hardner]

22 minutes ago, SkyHigh said:

I'm curious to your beliefs, and hope to continue this dialogue 

Not that interesting.  I was raised as a theist but now I would say "I don't know".  I can't prove or disprove anything beyond the material world.

 

That said, I'm afraid of ghosts... but would paradoxically be thrilled to see one ! 

[SkyHigh]

3 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

Not that interesting.  I was raised as a theist but now I would say "I don't know".  I can't prove or disprove anything beyond the material world.

 

That said, I'm afraid of ghosts... but would paradoxically be thrilled to see one ! 

I find it funny that the more I learn, the more  "I don't know" is often the most intelligent answer to hard questions.

And ghosts are scary, hahaha

[Sagacious]

On 12/17/2019 at 6:50 PM, Marocc said:

Is it that you don't believe in God, but you assume to know what *it* that doesn't exist would be if it did exist? And the people who do believe, by evidence of the Holy Scripture know, that we cannot comprehend God. But you who know that *it* doesn't exist, know exactly what *it* that you know doesn't exist and never did, would be like if it did exist. Atheist logic.

By the evidence of Holy Scriptures? Really?   Is that any different than knowing the motivations of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore or Aslan the lion by evidence of the book?

[Sagacious]

On 12/24/2019 at 7:38 AM, Michael Hardner said:

And anti-theist is also a 'belief' in your definition but a faith-based one, ie. I have faith that no gods exist,  regardless of the evidence either way ?

True, but a belief similar to having faith in the lack of existence of unicorns, Snarks or Grumpkins. It is hard to prove a negative but the odds are....