Toadfish Monastery

Originally saw this here: theChive (http://thechive.com/2012/03/05/the-most-astounding-fact-according-to-neil-degrasse-tyson-video/)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9D05ej8u-gU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9D05ej8u-gU)

I agree: If this this doesn't resonate on some small level then you're broken....
[youtube=425,350]9D05ej8u-gU[/youtube]

_{(I put this in spirituality because I think it is... kinda)}

 :thumbsup:

Serendipitous; I watched one of his interviews every night last week.
Good find!

You're talking my kind of spirituality, my friend.

We are all related, whether we know it or not. We are all important. We all matter. We are family with everything.

Quote from: Opsa on March 06, 2012, 03:25:24 PM
We all matter.

In fact, we're all matter... ;) :P :mrgreen:

Quote from: Sibling Zono (anon1mat0) on March 06, 2012, 04:12:18 PM

Quote from: Opsa on March 06, 2012, 03:25:24 PM
We all matter.

In fact, we're all matter... ;) :P :mrgreen:

...and waves.

Some of us are more standing waves, some more sitting down waves, and some more recumbent upon the sofa waves...

Some are pure energy, and some are inert. Great video there. As Carl Sagan says in Cosmos, "We are made of star stuff." Those who deny it are afraid; afraid of the consequences of that revelation. We are all connected; to each other; to the universe.

The weak anthropic principle gives me the warm fuzzies.  :mrgreen:

I like to put it this way:

We are the descendants of the very stars themselves.

I like the fact that I'm breathing the same air as the dinosaurs. Part of me was probably once part of a T-Rex.  I also like the fact that we are ultimately all a variant of the first (or perhaps the first handful of) life form(s) on this planet. We've all found a slightly different way of doing it. Which, to me, is a good reason to find your own best way of doing it all.

Quote from: Aggie on March 17, 2012, 06:13:32 AM
I like the fact that I'm breathing the same air as the dinosaurs. Part of me was probably once part of a T-Rex.  I also like the fact that we are ultimately all a variant of the first (or perhaps the first handful of) life form(s) on this planet. We've all found a slightly different way of doing it. Which, to me, is a good reason to find your own best way of doing it all.

I quite like that sentiment:

"find your own best way"

In fact?

You really ought to put that on a T-shirt!

Seriously.

I think I'll repeat it, just because:

Find Your Own Best Way

Kinda says it all, don't it just?

I lost a post in response to the thread you posted featuring Fiona Wallace's essay on why she is an atheist (mostly in agreeance).

On the end of the post, I had a little riff on why I'm no longer an atheist.  To condense it somewhat, I find the current atheistic obsession denying and 'disproving' the culturally dominant image of an Abrahamic, OOO god to be just as absurd as denying the Invisible Pink Unicorn or the FSM. That image of god makes no sense to me in context of human observations (scientific and personal) of how the world works. That particular image isn't even a solid historical fact; what we have left of it today has been twisted into knots, patched and re-painted continuously to make it fit with new insights and observations (even more than the Big Bang theory has ;)).

Personally, I'd rather used my innate, evolved human intelligence and imagination to contemplate a god that doesn't contradict the observations.  My image of god is very fluid, and changes as I learn new things about the world - it's a working model, that best fits what I understand at the time _{and at this point is comfortably synonymous with nothing}. I don't presume that such a god cares about us, is directing the show in any way, shape or form, or for any practical purpose is even aware of us. In conceiving a Possible God, one must be willing to let go of some of the cherished but intensely problematic attributes of our best-known model of a Traditional God.

To this nearly attributeless model, one can intentionally add one attribute - goodness. I say intentionally because there's little evidence to support that attribute, but if we're just making this shit up anyways _{(and basically we are  ;))} I think that's one attribute we are going to want in there. After all, what I'm trying to conceive of is the Best Possible God; by possible I mean a god that doesn't contradict empirical observations. If goodness makes attributes like omnipotence and omniscience impossible, so much the better.

I've never been able to grasp the central doctrine of christianity...  that god-as-man went through the birth-and-death cycle to save us (I don't really get the concept of sin, which might be part of the problem). However, I do like exploring the thought-experiment of what god would be like in human form. According to your own personal ideals of the Best Possible God, what would you expect of god if god were living as a human, with all the constraints of human physiology and no goddish powers to bend rules? How would that person live each moment of their life? How would such a person contribute to the greater good? IOW, what would the Best Possible Human be like?

Now, I'm faaaar from the Best Possible Human, but I really do like holding that concept as North on my moral compass, and hope that over the course of my life I can move a little closer to that Best Possible Human ideal. That's why I am driven to keep striving towards the divine. Instead of rejecting god, I will use the most uniquely human parts of my being to allow the idea of God to keep evolving towards the form that is fittest for practically achieving good, and use that reclaimed idea of god to drive both my spiritual growth and the everyday expression of my humanistic values.

Forget Heaven and Hell...  just try to be as much like your ideal of god as you can, as often as you can. In some small way, the world will be better for it.

Aggie, interesting thoughts there. The nearest I ever come to an acceptance of any form of deity has to be as hinted at near the end of Cosmos by Carl Sagan. A god that created the universe we live in, left some evidence hidden so deep in the mathematics that we'd have to be advanced to find it, then left, but which evolved in much the same way as we did, and gained the knowledge and power to create universes. The idea of a personal god, as i've said before, just doesn't figure in my own view of the cosmos.

Aggie--

-- I rather like (and agree) with your notion that since (as far as anyone can prove or actually know) it's all made up anyway?

Why not go with a god (meme) that is worthy.

And you hinted at this a bit-- what is worthy to one person may well not make the cut for another-- we must each find our own respective best way, realizing that no one way will work for all or even a majority I'd wager.

Sure, we humans have many, many things in common-- this is true.  And the literature and poetry covering that topic is endless.

But, we each also have many things not held in common-- ideas or abilities or ways-of-seeing that are unique.  It has to be thus, as we are the sum of our memories, are we not?

And we each possess a unique pathway through time-- even identical twins don't share the exact same memories-- and they become less and less "identical" as time/memories go forward.

So this unique memory-trip we each have, makes it needful we must each fit the Best Way meme within each of our unique paths. 

For some, the Best Way will involve honing a skill or talent or artistic finesse into something the follow-on generations will remember for years.

For others?  It matters not what the subsequent children may or may not think-- it only matters to the self-- that an urge or craving is satisfied within the internal dialog we each maintain with ourselves.

I do not see either way as better-- nor other deviations from these.

I think we must each find our own respective Best Way, whatever that turns out to be for ourselves.

In the end?  What does it matter, if you fail to satisfy your own inner self?   

As for god(s) being good?  Perhaps so-- it's a nice sentiment, I'll certainly agree with that.   

Alas, I've not seen evidence for either good deities or evil ones-- but indifferent, uncaring-- unaware deities?  Sure.  I could buy that one.

Of course-- there would be no point to paying attention such beings, would there?  Apart from possibly getting out of it's way, if detected.   Not unlike an old Jewish sentiment:  "Lord, I pray that I can remain unnoticed by your Graces".   Notice from a deity usually meant... trouble... followed by a mandatory Epic Journey with An Adventure.   

;D

Quote from: Roland Deschain on March 19, 2012, 12:29:07 AM
Aggie, interesting thoughts there. The nearest I ever come to an acceptance of any form of deity has to be as hinted at near the end of Cosmos by Carl Sagan. A god that created the universe we live in, left some evidence hidden so deep in the mathematics that we'd have to be advanced to find it, then left, but which evolved in much the same way as we did, and gained the knowledge and power to create universes.

Perhaps we were created so that we could, in turn, create God?  ;) I'll get back to that eventually.

For a long time, I'd pretty much completely written off any connection between god and creation. I tend to work from a panentheist viewpoint which makes me comfortable with the philosophical concept of the physical universe being the natural manifestation of something more fundamental, but uncomfortable with the concept of a Creator. That is, god is Nothing, but gives rise to the reality we know without any intent, will or effort (these attributes don't make sense to me in context of my concept of god - as I conceive it, god is Being, but God isn't a being).  I'd been picking away at what causes that manifestation for quite a while, but wasn't making any progress with it, and had shoved the question to the back burner _{the specific phrasing I used was 'Find the grain of sand in the universal oyster that caused the pearl of the world' ::)}.

Then I heard Lawrence Krauss on the radio, and subsequently watched this lecture (still waiting for the book):

[youtube=425,350]7ImvlS8PLIo[/youtube]

Now, my first reaction was that it was the best argument for atheism that I'd ever heard, which I found somewhat disconcerting. However, after mulling it over a bit, Dr. Krauss would be chagrined to hear that according to my peculiar concept of god it's the best argument for a Creator god that I'd ever heard, not in terms of the big guy in the sky that intentionally designed and executed the Universe, but as a constant creative force that is a fundamental part of the fabric of the physical universe. If god is Nothing, and Nothing is Creative, it would indicate a creative attribute that I'd need to accommodate in my concept of god.

That angered me a little, to be honest. I don't wanna believe in a Creator  ;). However, it does cheer me to see scientific theory delving at the roots of reality this way. If god is more than a nice idea and in some way has an effect on material reality, I have no doubts that science will eventually find ways to describe and measure this effect.  In principle, it should be possible to build a working theometer; the difficulty is that in a godless universe it's impossible to distinguish between a working and non-working theometer. ;) On the other hand, I don't feel much of a need to address the question of whether god and/or spiritual experience are genuine supernatural phenomena or simply a natural byproduct of human physiology. Actually, I think the latter - that the ability to perceive the divine or attain transcendental experiences is innately human and has nothing to do with an outside Thing - makes us pretty freakin' special as a species.  Where's God? Inside us, and nowhere else. Wow. :o


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Quote from: Roland Deschain on March 19, 2012, 12:29:07 AM
The idea of a personal god, as i've said before, just doesn't figure in my own view of the cosmos.

Nor mine. I suppose my previous post could count as a relating to 'personal god'. To be clear, what I was describing above is primarily a thought exercise to help one strive for moral excellence without the need for religiously derived rules or the threat of a Big Judge who will punish you for setting a foot wrong with those rules. Imagine the best possible god you can think of, and then try to live up to the standards of how you would have that god act if it were placed in your exact circumstances. It's apparently an entirely different application of the idea of god than the metaphysical cosmology I'm blathering about earlier in this post, although I don't see a contradiction between the two if taken in the context of Atman and Brahman.

_{Incidentally, I agree with Bob that there's no indication or reason to expect goodness from a hypothetical deity, and would actually protest quite strongly against applying any inherent 'goodness' to my cosmological understanding of god. I certainly don't believe in evil. 'Good' (in the form of altruism) appears to be a natural phenomenon, and crops up in some surprising places in the natural world. Of course, one could strip out the whole God nonsense from this argument and just pursue good for the sake of good; there's little difference between stand-alone good and a god whose only attribute is goodness. I think it's humans that are responsible bringing good into the picture, and of course all our little weaknesses that lead to the bad behaviour which we call evil.}

However... there's room to play with that idea. I didn't explicitly allude to it, but if you take as a starting point the notion that god doesn't wilfully interfere with physical reality (i.e. there's no miracles, and no direction of events), then the only method by which a hypothetical best possible god could act in the world is via free-willed humans that are trying to do their best according to their understanding of God. Our historical track record on that particular part of the deal hasn't been so good on that, though.  ::)

Although I believe that the roots of the atrocities committed in the name of religion are the same as all other atrocities (desire for power and/or the abuse of power to express secondary desires, if you boil it down far enough), it's not too much of a stretch to say that the concept of God in Abrahamic religious systems doesn't exactly preclude committing atrocities up to and including military aggression and genocide. If you ask the question "What would God do in my place?" while holding the ideal of a vengeful, judgmental and punishing God, it's not much of a stretch to include violence in the answer. If you want to righteously justify being a horrible person, it helps to subscribe to the notion of a horrible God. However, if we have the freedom to create god in the image of our ideals, we can strip out this built-in justification for doing horrible things in the name of God. If one's concept of god is entirely benevolent (but effectively powerless), one cannot be righteously committing horrible acts in the name of god. An entirely benevolent god would not carry atrocities in the name of the greater good.

Returning to the starting assumptions that a possible god which doesn't contradict the natural laws of the universe is inherently non-interfering, and that a non-interfering god can only influence the world via human actions, there ceases to be any practical distinction between an independent supernatural God and a human-created idea of god. Hypothetically, it's possible that the dominant cultural conceptions of God could change over time, and shift towards one that discourages atrocities and promotes altruism. I'm certainly not expecting anything of the sort to happen any time soon, but I like the notion that if enough people were willing to work towards being godly to whatever degree they could, even while openly acknowledging that their concept of god was nothing more than an idea, 'god' could have a genuine positive effect on the world. Literally, we have the potential to create God as a force of good in the world, and this is something that is apparently natural to our species.

Interesting.

And kinda Japanese, if I understand Japanese culture at all-- an online friend has lived there for years, and has commented on the Japanese notions of spirituality/deities.  It's odd from a Western perspective, in that few Japanese households lack a shrine to some household god or other, but few believe it is a real thing-- it's just What You Do, without any real understanding of the Ritual.  (again, according to my friend's understanding).

So a god that isn't a book-god, but is acknowledged as an Idea God, one which we strive to emulate to find a Better Way?  Yeah.. I can easily see that idea having merit.  Very Ghandi-esque, I would say-- he rarely spoke of his deep and strong faith in the gods of his culture, but he clearly lived as if he strove to uphold peaceful and altruistic ways.   He was often confused as "christian", even though he never claimed to be-- and indeed, denied being one.  But he felt zero need to proselytize his personal deities, rather he proselytized his Ideas instead:  the ideas of peaceful and altruistic life.

And why not?

Some folk seem to need to point to something and say, "that is [a/my] God" in order to be Satisfied.   So why not give them one that is not a monstrous concept?

Not unlike giving a smoker a Nicotine patch, I think.

:D

Quote from: Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith on March 19, 2012, 02:47:51 PM
Some folk seem to need to point to something and say, "that is [a/my] God" in order to be Satisfied.   So why not give them one that is not a monstrous concept?

Not unlike giving a smoker a Nicotine patch, I think.

:D

Funny thing is...  strip out the act of smoking and the associated chemicals produced by the cigarette, and nicotine on its own isn't all that addictive, nor is it dreadfully harmful (hardens the arteries, but it may protect the brain from some disorders). I used to use nicotine gum as a cheap, legal stimulant for working extended hours, and I can tell you that I have a far harder time keeping away from caffeine. Dosage may have been a factor; my typical daily dose was 1 - 4 mg, but I never had issues quitting cold turkey after weeks to months of continuous daily use. There was little 'experience' to my use, just a desired effect (and to quit, a regular piece of gum does a good job of replicating the experience, such as it is). The few times I've taken up a temporary cigarette habit (generally on holidays), I've found that the act of smoking remains quite attractive long after the pack is gone.  The metaphor may be appropriate here, too. ;)

Quote from: Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith on March 19, 2012, 02:47:51 PM
Interesting.

And kinda Japanese, if I understand Japanese culture at all-- an online friend has lived there for years, and has commented on the Japanese notions of spirituality/deities.  It's odd from a Western perspective, in that few Japanese households lack a shrine to some household god or other, but few believe it is a real thing-- it's just What You Do, without any real understanding of the Ritual.  (again, according to my friend's understanding).

Ritual has it's place, but I tend to flip it on its head compared to the Japanese example you reference above. For me, ritual is a good way of centring your intent, and allowing you to focus on the moment.  My housemate and I smudged the garden this morning (a more appropriate use for tobacco than casual smoking, IMHO... I grow a bit of my own for such things), and afterwards sat down over tea and discussed this. Understanding the Ritual is more effective than What You Do, although even just going through the motions of a traditional activity can be calming and centering.  To me, the details of the ritual aren't important, and there's no supernatural significance of a particular ritual, but it can be a useful tool for mindscaping.

Quote from: Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith on March 19, 2012, 02:47:51 PM
He was often confused as "christian", even though he never claimed to be-- and indeed, denied being one.  But he felt zero need to proselytize his personal deities, rather he proselytized his Ideas instead:  the ideas of peaceful and altruistic life.

That's the essence of 'goodness' I think... try to live your ideals so that you can unabashedly act as an example of those ideas without hypocrisy. I've met some trickster types who aren't what you'd consider good people in terms of behaviour, but live with such authenticity that it's a moot point.   It's also the only way that the idea of Christ makes sense to me...  not god descending into a human body, but a human so in touch with godliness that it amounted to a similar thing. I suppose I'm a very, very liberal christian in that respect. ;)

 I cannot call myself an atheist, even though I do not believe in the omnipotent, all powerful angry stranger-in-the-sky. I never did believe in that god. I believe that god exists though, at least as an idea.

I like this quote from Aggie:
"Imagine the best possible god you can think of, and then try to live up to the standards of how you would have that god act if it were placed in your exact circumstances."

I might extend this to say that we can think of god as an extension of ourselves that includes all else around it. We influence the world. As a working portion of god, we choose whether or not to work as a good element of the world. I am happier when I believe that I am going with the flow of positivity. I am upset with myself when I lose patience, so I strive to find harmony with all the rest (of you) that is part of this amazing life.

I do not think of god in terms of a separate thing from us, a thing that all ready knows it all. God learns and evolves, just as we do. God can't grant wishes or stop bad things from happening, but god can inspire us to treat everything with respect. When we respect each other and ourselves we are less likely to do thoughtless things that cause pain. When we realize that we are not perfect, that we can screw up just as well as the next guy, we can forgive because we are in touch with this god of ourselves. When we control our emotions for the sake of peace (in our households or on a global scale) we can be said to be respecting god. We're respecting each other. You could call it benevolent, if you thought that fit.

My own best way changes and grows with time. God can't exist without us. We're the same stuff. Can we exist without god? Probably. Why have god, then? Maybe to remind us that we're all in this together. God is maybe the stars, and maybe the stuff between them, and between us as well.

Japanese spirituality, if I generalise, is a weird thing when viewed through the eyes of a white westerner. I like that though, precisely because it is so different to my perceived experience in life. Someone I used to know visited her son in Japan (he lives there), and he showed her around, getting to see things most tourists would never dream of seeing. One of these places she visited was a temple (ok, so maybe this wasn't that off-the-wall), where there were fortunes written on paper, and rolled up. All you did was pay the fee, and you could get your fortune from a random piece of paper. What she noticed, and this is ingenious, is that if one of the Japanese people didn't like their fortune, they would keep paying for another until they found one they did like, essentially saying, albeit in an unconscious way, that you make your own luck in life. That really stuck with me, the image of them doing this.

Nice synopsis on Ghandi there. If only the people of that area had truly listened to him, then maybe it would be a far better situation there today. Who knows? At least it would have been better than the Kashmiri and Indian/Pakistani conflicts.

Opsa, so you are essentially saying that the whole universe is a god in and of itself, and so every constituent part is also god? This would put it on a par with a living organism, just a bloody great big one. I like the idea of the universe as one large conscious entity, with it learning through us. I think Carl Sagan said something along these lines once, something like "We are a way for the universe to know itself".

Quote from: Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith on March 19, 2012, 02:47:51 PM
Some folk seem to need to point to something and say, "that is [a/my] God" in order to be Satisfied.   So why not give them one that is not a monstrous concept?

Not unlike giving a smoker a Nicotine patch, I think.

:D

Want one !! Or a huge cigarette set in a shrine for me to worship.

it's ok, I haven't given up giving up

Quote from: Opsa on March 19, 2012, 09:26:27 PMGod can't exist without us.

Somewhere...I have a copy of a prayer/poem written by a Russian monk in Tzarist times. The monk is grappling with his own changing concepts of deity, and extrapolating from that the shifting amounts of worship offered from the larger human populace. There is a plaintive line about being 'distressed' for god, about whether he's getting enough of the proper attention since his existence is somehow bound up with being worshiped. If I can find it within a reasonable future I'll post it here; I think our theists, deists, and atheists alike would enjoy it.

Quote from: Roland Deschain on March 20, 2012, 12:45:06 AM
Opsa, so you are essentially saying that the whole universe is a god in and of itself, and so every constituent part is also god? This would put it on a par with a living organism, just a bloody great big one. I like the idea of the universe as one large conscious entity, with it learning through us. I think Carl Sagan said something along these lines once, something like "We are a way for the universe to know itself".

I like to think that life is the universe's way of knowing itself; if you like, you can extend this to say that life is god's way of knowing the universe. The evolution of life on this planet has generated LOTS of 'knowing' (i.e. observed stimuli of any form, not necessarily requiring a nervous system).  It probably started off with chemolithotrophs, which are capable of 'knowing' the chemical structure around them. Microorganisms undoubtedly 'know' your body far better than you do.  Plant life as a whole 'knows' a whole lot about electromagnetic radiation on this planet. Fungi 'know' a lot about the forest, to the point where they direct the flow of energy between different species of tree*, and also a lot about dead things. Once you get up multicellular animals with nervous systems, it's clear that an incredible proportion of planet earth is under observation, from the molecular level on up.

Humans... well, humans have stepped out even further than this, and have become observers of the universe.  Assuming there's no other intelligent life anywhere out there (which is a rather big assumption, IMHO), the consciously observed universe has expanded incredibly during the course of human history, especially over the last century or few. Knowledge of the universe may not ever have existed until we began to gain it.

Besides this, humans have an innate drive to do something that as far as we know is unique on this planet...  some of us seek to know God.  If you care to concede the point that life is god's way of knowing the universe, then humankind is God's way of knowing god. From this viewpoint, we are the handmirror of the divine.  I think that constitutes a reason to try reflect back the purest image we can muster.  :)

*sound like metaphysical gobbledegook? Far from it; ectomycorrhizae can move carbon between trees (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v388/n6642/full/388579a0.html) and therefore potentially influence succession in transitional ecosystems. Fungi have been conducting silviculture for far longer than humans.


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On a side note, I was mulling over the concept of a Best Possible God today, and was struck by a thought regarding atheism.  I can certainly sympathize with the atheist viewpoint that holds that since there is no empirical evidence for the existence of deities or the supernatural, it's illogical to believe in deities. However, if asked to contemplate the concept of a Best Possible God (heavy emphasis on possible), I wonder what proportion of atheists would posit that the Best Possible God is no god at all.  In other words, if one was given the free choice of a purely benevolent and non-interfering god (no power to directly manipulate reality) and no god at all, how many people would insist that having no god at all is the better option?

Warning: Provocative post.

I wonder who the first person to think of a G-d (or Gods) was. Like is there any evidence Stone Age (wo)men hadd this concept (I suppose they might have laid stones at funny angles or something). Anyway, it seems it was a very bad idea to me and they should have been sent to the naughty corner for inventing something that was going to cause wars, madness, and blind faith. (I'm all for faith if it is not blind).

The way it looks like personalized deities were a rather late development. Religion probably started with impersonal animism, i.e. belief in spirits but without namimg them or giving them an individual face. Organized religion can be traced back to prehistoric times (e.g. in Turkey). I think for the earliest times it is impossible  to distinguish between religion and magic (traces of the latter are still deeply ingrained in 'modern' religions).
Even the Neanderthals must have had some spiritual beliefs or ritual burials would not make sense.

Quote from: Swatopluk on March 20, 2012, 11:20:05 AM
Even the Neanderthals must have had some spiritual beliefs or ritual burials would not make sense.

There's a ritual of Changing the Guard (http://www.royal.gov.uk/RoyalEventsandCeremonies/ChangingtheGuard/Overview.aspx) at Buckinham Palace every day.  I don't think the Queen is a spirit or a God. Admiited it is not a ritual burial, but there's not much point to it as far as I can see.  ;D  Except the Great God of the Tourists bearing gold.

Quote from: Griffin NoName on March 20, 2012, 09:33:50 AM
Warning: Provocative post.

I wonder who the first person to think of a G-d (or Gods) was. Like is there any evidence Stone Age (wo)men hadd this concept (I suppose they might have laid stones at funny angles or something). Anyway, it seems it was a very bad idea to me and they should have been sent to the naughty corner for inventing something that was going to cause wars, madness, and blind faith. (I'm all for faith if it is not blind).

I was going to comment that it's not god that causes wars, madness and blind faith, it's people. But then again, if I have a sense that god is the (bloody great big) organism of Being, then we are part of god, and so in a way god did invent these terrible things.  :P But not all alone. We did, as part of the whole. Just as we are part of what creates peace and sanity and seeking truth.

We seem to be the things that think, thus it could be thought that we are the part of the (bloody) Great (big) Everything that thinks. Whenever we enlighten ourselves and choose to react in positive ways, we contribute to the good of everything, and vice versa.

Why be good? Why not just snatch that yummy looking electronic gadget out of someone else's hands and keep it for ourselves? Why? Because we are the consciousness. We want the world to go well. The way we can control things is to control ourselves. We are the great spirit. Which way can we push the world? Which way do we want it to go? Shall we push for a good world or a bad one? C'mon, o little bits o' god, isn't it up to us?

Being a self-admitted atheist (little-A here) on other venues, I've often been accused of insisting there cannot be a god, because I hate the very idea itself.

But that is simply not true:  I would very much love it if there were a benevolent deity watching out for the fate of humankind-- even one who's only interested in the Big Picture, and lets us mere mortals deal with our personal day-in-and-day-out problems pretty much on our own.

By letting the deity take care of the Big Picture:  keeping massively large rocks from hitting the earth-- until we learn how to do this for ourselves is one example of a Big Picture item.   There are others.

But letting a benevolent deity take care of these?  I can worry about the little things, and quit thinking that humans are riding a handbasket directly to Hell, either figuratively or literally.

Because, occasionally, I do contemplate what would happen to humans, if a really big rock were to strike the earth--- and I don't much care for all the possibilities in such an event, none are good ones in my opinion-- a return to stone-age sustenance-survival would be to throw away all progress (and lives that were spent in getting there) as if it never happened at all.

So, I, for one, am an atheist who would be quite delighted to be presented with unquestionable evidence that a benevolent deity truly does exist.

I'm already convinced an evil/capricious one does not exist-- there is too much good in life for such a being to be hanging around.  (yeah, I am well aware there is evil too-- but so far, all of that can be traced to either purely random events, or human stupidity/selfishness/indifference-- none of those causes are even a little bit divine).

I would not be interested, much, to learn of a completely indifferent deity-- no real point, other than, "that's nice".  Is there?   I'd have about as much involvement in such a being, as an ant worker would have in the leftover Lunar Rover gathering dust on the moon... that is to say, none at all.

So here's one atheist who would say, "yes, let's" with respect to the best of all possible gods.

As Author C Clarke noted?  We humans are still very much in the childhood stage... we still could use some parenting, as a species.

My $0.02, for what it's worth:  here's a sawbuck, and you can buy some coffee with it.

;D

Quote from: Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith on March 21, 2012, 12:31:37 AM
................-- a return to stone-age sustenance-survival would be to throw away all progress (and lives that were spent in getting there) as if it never happened at all.

This one has always worried me.

And the more we advance the more ancient methods are lost as well. At present lots of people know how to sew and hand weave and knit etc so as long as some animals survived we could clothe ourselves, but the number of people who do these crafts is reducing all the time.

Quote from: Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith on March 21, 2012, 12:31:37 AM
So, I, for one, am an atheist who would be quite delighted to be presented with unquestionable evidence that a benevolent deity truly does exist.

As Pratchett put it some atheists hate god for not existing :mrgreen:
And then there are the Discworld atheists always using a lightning rod. They know that the gods exist (all those lighning strikes and angry mobs of gods in front of their doors) but refuse to believe in them  because they are not worthy of it.
Not to forget the world's first ceramic atheist (a golem) who seems to be the only one to actually read Omnian pamphlets and is eager to discuss theology provided the debate is logical and fact based.

Quote from: Swatopluk on March 21, 2012, 10:03:15 AM

Quote from: Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith on March 21, 2012, 12:31:37 AM
So, I, for one, am an atheist who would be quite delighted to be presented with unquestionable evidence that a benevolent deity truly does exist.

As Pratchett put it some atheists hate god for not existing :mrgreen:
And then there are the Discworld atheists always using a lightning rod. They know that the gods exist (all those lighning strikes and angry mobs of gods in front of their doors) but refuse to believe in them  because they are not worthy of it.
Not to forget the world's first ceramic atheist (a golem) who seems to be the only one to actually read Omnian pamphlets and is eager to discuss theology provided the debate is logical and fact based.

I had forgotten that-- thank you for the reminder.

Bob, I think that the difference between you and I is only that you define god as a (fictional) benevolent individual and I define god as the (possible) consciousness of all things.

We both seem to believe that we are responsible for our actions, and that we can do things to help the world.

Quote from: Opsa on March 20, 2012, 06:46:34 PM

Quote from: Griffin NoName on March 20, 2012, 09:33:50 AM
Warning: Provocative post.

I wonder who the first person to think of a G-d (or Gods) was. Like is there any evidence Stone Age (wo)men hadd this concept (I suppose they might have laid stones at funny angles or something). Anyway, it seems it was a very bad idea to me and they should have been sent to the naughty corner for inventing something that was going to cause wars, madness, and blind faith. (I'm all for faith if it is not blind).

I was going to comment that it's not god that causes wars, madness and blind faith, it's people. But then again, if I have a sense that god is the (bloody great big) organism of Being, then we are part of god, and so in a way god did invent these terrible things.  :P But not all alone. We did, as part of the whole. Just as we are part of what creates peace and sanity and seeking truth.

I'd think it was more likely that the people who invented Big Sky Man Gods were already at war with some other tribe, and found that having the Biggest Man on your tribe's side helped encourage your warriors.  As long as you kept winning, your god must be on your side. When you lose, you must have pissed him off somehow, so it's time to make up some rituals to appease him.  Whoever wins the most and ends up slaughtering or displacing the surrounding tribes must have the best god.  A god of peace in this context would be unlikely to exist within the broader culture for long; OTOH violent, vindictive gods that either caused destruction of one's enemies when pleased or punishment by defeat when angry would be positively selected for.

Quote from: Opsa on March 21, 2012, 02:34:27 PM
Bob, I think that the difference between you and I is only that you define god as a (fictional) benevolent individual and I define god as the (possible) consciousness of all things.

I believe god is (a) malevolent (concept).  :mrgreen:
--
:soapbox:
I hate the term, the implications, and the relations with how it was defined, that's why while I'm agnostic in the broader sense, consider myself a hard atheist in the strict sense.

I love the idea of Gaia, I feel connectedness to the world and the universe, I feel empathy by the surrounding living beings, but, because I like it and respect it so much I refuse to call that god. God has been defined as absolute and I abhor the absolute, I consider it the most destructive force in existence and with every passing day I come more and more to the conclusion that it is the tyrannical definition of evil.

There may be a spirit or a collective of spirits that may be watching, there may be a consciousness that may permeate the universe and/or living things, but that -to me- will NEVER can be called god as a matter of principle because the current definition is:

Quote from: wikipediaGod is most often conceived of as the supernatural creator and overseer of the universe. Theologians have ascribed a variety of attributes to the many different conceptions of God. The most common among these include omniscience (infinite knowledge), omnipotence (unlimited power), omnipresence (present everywhere), omnibenevolence (perfect goodness), divine simplicity, and eternal and necessary existence.

^ that simply doesn't exist and represents evil to me.
---
Sorry, I'll get down of my soapbox now.

Zono--

I'm with you 100% here-- strictly defined gods are the root of all evil, I say.

Why? 

Because there is no compromise with a strictly defined deity's "commands", is there?

I mean-- what can you say to someone who claims, "God Said Thus!"  (and yes, they would speak in capitals).

You may either agree with the proclamation, or you may disagree: "No he didn't!"

If the issue is forced?  Violence is usually required.

Which is why I am pretty certain that there are no deities who care about the fate of humans-- what sort of deity would permit the squabbling in it's name, like we puny humans are so wont to do?

Either one that was hamstrung, and therefore useless as a deity, or one that enjoyed the constant fray-- neither is a good thing.

So, I say either the deity does not care (or not aware-- almost the same thing) or does not exist at all.

I, personally, have no use for a deity that is powerless--it's not really a deity at all, but Something Else... interesting, perhaps, but not a god.

And I do not think an evil deity (or deities) exist-- there is simply too much good that happens on earth-- either by chance, or by the collective and individual activities of humans.  An evil deity would not allow such things, I would say-- no more than a tyrannical human dictator permits the triviality of free speech.

But that is just me-- there are some more ethereal possibilities with regards to the subject that I am ignoring.  Mainly because I'm human, and tend to anthropomorphize these things.

I know of no mainstream religion that worships a giant amoeba-deity.  Do you?

:D

You meet few Shoggoth woeshippers, do you? :mrgreen:
I believe that the most basic forms of religion (animism in particular) do very well without anthropomorphic deities.
And even in the great monotheistic religions there has always been a struggle (occasionally extremly violent) between the abstract and the god-as-extrapolated-human concept. God as old fart with long beard accompanied by winged guys in dresses and a lot of ex-human spoilsports (aka saints) had a lot to do with concessions to those that could not cope with the idea of an invisible abstract entity. I loath the cult of Mary but I can see why it is more appealing for many to pray to a once flesh-and-blood commoner than to a being that is defined by lack of materiality.
It's easier to worship the vacuum*, if one can focus on a vacuum cleaner ;)

*the Mongols (before converting to Buddhism and Islam) came imo close with their worship of the Eternal-Blue-Sky (Menke Kökö Tengri)

I agree with Zono and Bob, and would like to point out that I was using the word "god" to explain my lack of atheism. I am more likely to refer to the spiritual whole as the Great Spirit, or Great Everything.

Still, I do not feel that I am technically an atheist (not that there's anything wrong with that!). Am I wrong?

@ Zono: I understand where you're coming from regarding the term God.  My usage of the word isn't completely unrelated; I would like to think I'm taking the word back from the narrow definitions that have been attached to it.  Well, that and the fact that my loose definition of it is quite useful for inducing cognitive dissonance in both theists and atheists.  :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

@ Bob: Interesting point about a powerless deity being Something Else, but not a god. My imagining of god is somewhere along the lines of Something Else, Including All This. Tinkering willfully in the material universe seems a bit pointless if it's all a 'natural' manifestation of that Something Else in the first place. Of the list of attributes that Zono quoted from wikipedia, only divine simplicity, eternal 'existence'* and arguably omnipresence make sense to me.  I simply don't see how omniscience, omnipotence and omnibenevolence can be concurrently attributed to god without a logical epic fail.

_{*to get quibbly about the semantics, I would insist that god doesn't exist, but that's a failing more of the word than god. ;)}

Quote from: Swatopluk on March 22, 2012, 11:23:30 AM
And even in the great monotheistic religions there has always been a struggle (occasionally extremly violent) between the abstract and the god-as-extrapolated-human concept. God as old fart with long beard accompanied by winged guys in dresses and a lot of ex-human spoilsports (aka saints) had a lot to do with concessions to those that could not cope with the idea of an invisible abstract entity. I loath the cult of Mary but I can see why it is more appealing for many to pray to a once flesh-and-blood commoner than to a being that is defined by lack of materiality.

In that sense, Christianity is easier to grasp for people than the abstracts, and is more easily evangelized, I should think. God-as-a-man is something you can put a face to.

For myself? It's easier to understand something I cannot understand that to make the logical compromises necessary to put a vaguely human mask on god. I suppose that's why systems with more abstract ideas of The Great Whatever appeal to me more. The idea of worship has zero resonance with me, but I can get my head around practising a set of mindscaping exercises in order to allow an increased level of perception of the divine.

Quote from: Swatopluk on March 22, 2012, 11:23:30 AM
It's easier to worship the vacuum*, if one can focus on a vacuum cleaner ;)

:ROFL:

I may have mentioned this here, several years back, or it may have been at TOP.

But bear with me if I have, please.

Let's presume that humans do not manage to wipe themselves out as a species for the next million years or so, and they also manage to learn an adult culture, such that they begin to self-accelerate the evolution of the human species-- willfully and with forethought¹.

The result would be difficult to predict, and I would expect a kind of diaspora/divergence into a multiplicity of vastly differing sub-species as time went on, and the various off-shoots traveled the galaxy, and perhaps later, the larger universe itself.

But the final/end result of deliberately accelerated human evolution?  If you could even call it that [evolution] any longer?   Who can say-- but what if they learn to become pure-energy based beings, with immortality, vast powers of mind-control directly on matter itself.

And here's the kicker:  what if these powerful ultimate descendants learn how to manipulate the very fabric of space and time itself? 

And what if these beings begin to wonder about their own humble beginnings as self-replicating DNA creatures of flesh and blood?  And at the unlikelihood of that happening in the first place?

And conclude that they really ought to make certain that it happens as it happened-- just in case. 

And so, travel back to the beginning of the universe itself, scrambling the cosmic egg in just the right way, such that the Laws of the Universe are what they are today, and also watch carefully, to make sure a certain yellow sun condenses at just the right time, at the edge of a certain type of galaxy, and that a rocky dirt-ball condenses 3 steps out from that yellow star.... replete with all the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen atoms in just the right mixture.... such that life begins there ..
... and the rest, as we say, is history.

We become our own self-creators, our own gods.....

.... what then? 

Once such beings ensured their own beginning, why would they stop there?  Why not continue to fabricate other universes, by scrambling other Cosmic Eggs, and let the Laws of the Universe be slightly different, Just To See What Would Happen.

And what if, instead of we being our own creators, we are instead, one of those Just To See universes instead?   In a long, infinite line of Just To See What Happens universe with similar, but ever so slightly different attributes?

And... what if we humans, one of an infinite number of self-aware beings, in an infinite number of similar universes, still manage to live long enough to evolve into super-beings of pure energy (or some, as yet unheard of material that is neither matter nor energy), and go Out There only to discover that there is already an Infinite Number of similar (but different) beings, who have been doing this Make A Universe game for a near-infinity of time Before? 

Okay... I've drifted a bit here--

-- my point really was this:  what if we humans are destined (should we live to long) to become our own Gods, some day in the far-flung future?

How would we treat our distant-past, flesh-and-blood selves?  How should we flesh-and-bloods respond to such beings who are orders-of-magnitude more complex than we are now? 

The best I can wish for, is that these distant beings follow some form of a Prime Directive.

::) :mrgreen:

__________________

_{¹ If Moore's law states that computational power doubles every few years or so, what would happen once humans unlock the secrets of DNA/epigenetics?   I'd predict vastly accelerated modification, by way of genetic engineering of animals and plants first-- quickly followed by manipulation of humans themselves.  Some would object, sure, but they'd be left behind, to fade back to a stone-age subsistence existence, or even go extinct.}

Quote from: Aggie on March 22, 2012, 04:28:52 PM
@ Zono:

@ Bob:

:offtopic:

Someone on TV tonight said that on Twitter if you use tha @ sign like that, then it means you are shouting..

Anyone here use Twitter? If so, can you confirm or deny this?

(I know nothing about Twitter, but feel I should)

Quote from: Griffin NoName on March 23, 2012, 03:44:57 AM

Quote from: Aggie on March 22, 2012, 04:28:52 PM
@ Zono:

@ Bob:

:offtopic:

Someone on TV tonight said that on Twitter if you use tha @ sign like that, then it means you are shouting..

Apologies if I've offended.  I'm not a twit. ::)  ;)

Quote from: Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith on March 23, 2012, 02:48:16 AM
If Moore's law states that computational power doubles every few years or so, what would happen once humans unlock the secrets of DNA/epigenetics?   I'd predict vastly accelerated modification, by way of genetic engineering of animals and plants first-- quickly followed by manipulation of humans themselves.  Some would object, sure, but they'd be left behind, to fade back to a stone-age subsistence existence, or even go extinct.

I personally think we're much closer to cybernetic enhancement of those well-off enough to afford it. I'll be surprised if I don't see devices that allow messaging-by-thought (i.e. telepathy - for a modest monthly fee!) happen in my lifetime.

Epigenetics is an interesting path by which one could modify existing DNA to produce a desired outcome.  I'm sure we'll see scam artists offering "epigenetic reprogramming" popping up soon (I'm aware that some new-age circles believe in reprogramming DNA, but I would like to hope it's a metaphor or that they at least mean epigenetics? maybe? :P).

I have my doubts about tech telepathy. Each individual brain runs on its own operating system, so there can be no generic solution beyond very basic stuff (more or less on/off actions). To tailor a device to deduct specific thoughts like text might be possible one day but it would imo take more effort than it is worth because it would take ages and the results would be cumbersome. There have been experiments with the goal to pilot planes by thought. It was possible but far too slow. The main problem: for the tech system to detect the command signals from the brain, the thoughts had to be conscious while typical piloting is for the most part sub-conscious. A pilot does not think left-right-up-down or even stick-forward-back-left-right even as a raw rookie, he reacts instinctively and the conscious thought follows when the action has already taken place. It's an old joke: how do you make a millipede stumble? You ask him how he is able to coordinate all his legs individually. The millipede begins to think consciously about it, gets confused and stumbles over his own feet.
The brain is a purely results oriented system the function of follows no 'logic'. It's input-black box-output for everything, and the black box part is individual. Only because all humans start from basically the same oiginal blueprints there are some things in coomon, like putting some functions into specific general areas. But as recovering brain patients have shown even some of these can be moved with considerable effort, if the original place is damaged beyond repair. Relatively new functions like speech and esp. reading are to a degree handled differently depending on culture. E.g. Chinese that have lost the ability e.g. by stroke have it much easier to recover it than Europeans because Chinese image-based scripture is processed differently from European abstract alphabet scripture. The functions that process the former seem to be more flexible and easier to relocate. I guess it is spread farther, so injuries are less likely to wipe it out completely.

You have a point.  I have wondered about how one would segregate outgoing thoughts from ones you wanted to keep to yourself. ;)

However, I wouldn't rule out alternative modes of physical data entry (iris trackers etc) that could be used and trained to be quite as quick as typing, which as you point out doesn't require conscious thought to drive the physical action. This would work well enough for the outgoing message. I think texting comes close for some people.  The key to 'telepathy' would be to be able to directly stimulate the auditory nerve to make one hear the incoming message.

I understand what you mean about conscious vs. sub-conscious actions; I am quite adept with sports that involve individual sub-conscious weight shifts and whole-body action (skiing, mountain biking, swimming), but am rubbish at throwing and catching type team sports.  It takes far to much conscious effort to monitor the field of play and I haven't practised the various actions enough to make them sub-conscious, so I'm hopeless at getting various limbs in the correct place to contact or release a projectile with any accuracy (unless it's made of lead and moving very fast, although I try not to make contact with those).

Quote from: Aggie on March 23, 2012, 05:56:43 AM

Quote from: Griffin NoName on March 23, 2012, 03:44:57 AM

Quote from: Aggie on March 22, 2012, 04:28:52 PM
@ Zono:

@ Bob:

:offtopic:

Someone on TV tonight said that on Twitter if you use tha @ sign like that, then it means you are shouting..

Apologies if I've offended.  I'm not a twit. ::)  ;)

No, that's why I was asking, as @joeblogs normally just means "I am directing this to joeblogs" and hs nothing to do with shouting which is denoted by using upper case. Why would twitter be different? Is it, or was the person on TV mistaken?

Quote from: Swatopluk on March 23, 2012, 09:56:07 AM
It's an old joke: how do you make a millipede stumble? You ask him how he is able to coordinate all his legs individually. The millipede begins to think consciously about it, gets confused and stumbles over his own feet.

A centipede was happy quite
Unitl a toad in fun said
Prey which leg comes after which
Which brought his mind to such a pitch
He lay dejected in a ditch
Considering how to run

Taught me at my mothers knee when very little! I've often wondered why it was a toad - Wind in the Willows?

QuoteI am directing this to joeblogs" and h[a]s nothing to do with shouting

1. Yes.

Quoteor was the person on TV mistaken

2. Yes.


;)

Quote from: pieces o nine on March 24, 2012, 06:53:52 PM

QuoteI am directing this to joeblogs" and h[a]s nothing to do with shouting

1. Yes.

Quoteor was the person on TV mistaken

2. Yes.


;)

@ P09 - Do you have a Twitter account? I am thinking abiout getting one. I don't know why as I always thought I didn't want one. Also, I can't decide whether to use my real name (advice?).

No, I don't have twitter and don't anticipate getting an account.  I'm just going off the conventions I've seen in quoted tweets. 

I'm [guessing] that the assumption about shouting comes from observing people commenting to each other, and sometimes angrily.  Since some message boards do not permit members from commenting on other member's posts addressing topics, I'm [guessing] a conflation of the two observations has caused confusion to the person(s) objecting to @responses.

If you're comfortable using your real name in other public settings, then use it on a twitter account. If not, then choose a pseudonym.

Thanks.

Some very interesting concepts on deities appearing now, with most along the lines that I like to think of deities on; create the universe and let it work itself out. I look upon any possible god as being "god-like", which is an important distinction, and not defined in the sense that most current religions define them. By this I mean, as I said previously, evolved in some way as we are, maybe with some intervention from their own technology, and developed so far ahead of us as to be extremely powerful. Arthur C Clarke had a great idea with The Sentinel (later 2001: A Space Odyssey), and its descendents, which is very possible too. For me, everything has to evolve in some way, no matter whether it's through "natural" processes, or it has been given a helping hand/pseudopod/cilia/tentacle/noodly appendage, which ultimately belong to evolved beings.

For a long time now, i've liked to think of nothing as impossible. Nothing can be truly impossible, as that would be impossible to prove, just shown to be highly unlikely. Even then, it does not mean it's impossible. What was thought of as impossible 20 years ago, is thought of as de rigueur today, so what will be possible even just 1000 years from now, a mere blip even in our own human history? I'm not sure creating universes will be within our reach at that point, but maybe in a few million years if we have the foresight not to destroy ourselves long before then.

This feeling of interconnectedness and awe many feel at points in their lives is called the numinous, which takes two forms (Das Heilige (The Idea of the Holy) - Rudolf Otto). The first is mysterium tremendum, which is the fear. The second is mysterium fascinans, which is the awe and fascination. These are common to many religions throughout our history, and have been felt by many non-religious people, such as Carl Sagan, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and many other scientists. I have felt it myself when listening to music, reading books, watching films/TV, and seeing pictures of the wonders that lie in wait for us in our universe, yet not once have I ever been tempted to attribute it to some "other" being. I accept it for what I believe it to be, and that is a part of not only what we are, but what we can become. I'm not ashamed to say that this feeling has also brought a tear to my eye on more than one occasion, so deeply did it affect me (more than anyone, Carl has done this to me). Maybe i'm just a romantic at heart, and this feeling is an oddity (oh, what an oddity!) of our own evolution, and it means nothing in the big picture, but I long for everyone to feel as I do in these moments with no thought other than that we are all connected through the origin of our universe, the wonders of stellar evolution, the origin of our planet's life, and our ultimate fate as a species.

The age old questions of who we are and where we're going will never leave us unless they are genetically bred out, but I don't think it's a good idea to do so purposely, as they have driven us ever onwards to greater achievements, and will do so for as long as we exist. Our race feels so alone and isolated, here on our blue-green planet in a seeming backwater of our galaxy, that it is only natural that we would invent something far greater than ourselves who interacts with us on a daily basis so as not to feel so alone, but so great is the knowledge we now have compared to 6000 years ago, although we have not really even scratched the surface yet, that I think it's about time we began to seriously think about growing up as a species, and put away such childish concepts as a personal god. Petty differences are destroying us all.

Quote from: Roland Deschain on March 25, 2012, 06:09:58 AM
This feeling of interconnectedness and awe many feel at points in their lives is called the numinous

Also, the Transpersonal. Have you read any Roberto Assagioli or Ken Wilber?

Interesting thoughts.

Quote from: Griffin NoName on March 25, 2012, 06:21:24 AM
Also, the Transpersonal. Have you read any Roberto Assagioli or Ken Wilber?

No I haven't. I'll make a note and look them up. Any particular books of theirs you would recommend?

Assagioli Transpersonal Development: The Dimension Beyond Psychosynthesis (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Transpersonal-Development-Dimension-Beyond-Psychosynthesis/dp/0953081125/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332717094&sr=8-1-spell). It's quite a tough read, but I think worth it. He has one other book, on Psychosynthesis, if you want to find out more about that. But it's the Transpersonal book I meant.

As for Ken Wilber, hard to recommend one over another. Quite prolific and anything is a good read. The only distinct one really is Grace and Grit which is about his wife dying of cancer - ie. different type of book - so you might want to avoid that. Unless that subject interests you.

Quote from: Griffin NoName on March 26, 2012, 12:17:20 AM
Assagioli Transpersonal Development: The Dimension Beyond Psychosynthesis (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Transpersonal-Development-Dimension-Beyond-Psychosynthesis/dp/0953081125/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332717094&sr=8-1-spell). It's quite a tough read, but I think worth it. He has one other book, on Psychosynthesis, if you want to find out more about that. But it's the Transpersonal book I meant.

Odd, I think I saw that at a garage sale yesterday, but didn't pick it up to investigate it.

Quote from: Roland Deschain on March 25, 2012, 06:09:58 AM

Maybe i'm just a romantic at heart, and this feeling is an oddity (oh, what an oddity!) of our own evolution, and it means nothing in the big picture, but I long for everyone to feel as I do in these moments with no thought other than that we are all connected through the origin of our universe, the wonders of stellar evolution, the origin of our planet's life, and our ultimate fate as a species.

I hear ya, RD. I also like your
"Our race feels so alone and isolated, here on our blue-green planet in a seeming backwater of our galaxy, that it is only natural that we would invent something far greater than ourselves who interacts with us on a daily basis so as not to feel so alone" comment.

I think most of us are awed and grateful for certain points in our lives (if we are at all observant people) and we  have only the rest of the universe to thank for them. I guess some people need to feel that presence as a personal god, and others are more comfortable with a Great Everything experience.

It's a personal choice and it shouldn't really matter to others what our choice may be. The problems start when people think others should think like they do, and unfortunately that goes for some atheists as well as the religious zealots.

Quote from: Roland Deschain on March 25, 2012, 06:09:58 AM
The age old questions of who we are and where we're going will never leave us unless they are genetically bred out, but I don't think it's a good idea to do so purposely, as they have driven us ever onwards to greater achievements, and will do so for as long as we exist. Our race feels so alone and isolated, here on our blue-green planet in a seeming backwater of our galaxy, that it is only natural that we would invent something far greater than ourselves who interacts with us on a daily basis so as not to feel so alone, but so great is the knowledge we now have compared to 6000 years ago, although we have not really even scratched the surface yet, that I think it's about time we began to seriously think about growing up as a species, and put away such childish concepts as a personal god. Petty differences are destroying us all.

I listened today to this interview with Robert Wright  (http://www.cbc.ca/tapestry/2009/09/robert-wright-the-evolution-of-god.html) who has a bit of a unique take on it; to summarize roughly, he proposes that our ideas of god have evolved to match the needs of society and human development, that these ideas have been completely wrong at certain times in the past and very likely are pretty wrong today, but that the overall development of the idea of god leaves open the idea that there may be an overarching pattern of moral development (which is possibly is inherent to natural selection itself).  I don't agree with him on all fronts, but it's an interesting listen.  He makes the point fairly late in the interview that while a personal, anthropomorphic God may be an entirely incorrect interpretation of the divine, for some people it may be the only effective way to approach the divine (due to the limitations of a human brain that really hasn't evolved to grapple with abstracts).


I know for some atheists, their chief complaint is not the idea of God, but the terrible things that have been done in the name of God and religion. Call me a cynic, but I'd contend that the only reason terrible things have generally not been done in the name of atheism is lack of opportunity and social dominance. ::)

Apart from a lot done in the Soviet/Maoist block. Religious believers where always high on the target list.
Albania was possibly the most extreme* with officially declaring itself to be the first atheist state in history and seeking to eradicate religion once and for all.

*Pol Pot war more murderous but hostility to religion was just one tiny bit in his autogenocidal campaign.

I contend you can find zero example in history where someone is killing in the name of not-belief (atheism).

There are anti-theists, who have certain faith that there are no gods of any kind-- but these are few.   And none were in power.  Even Mao was a spiritualist (not atheist), and Stalin was raised Eastern Orthodox, and never recanted so far as anyone knows.

These regimes killed for cult of personality, for overly zealous social dogma, or simply out of extreme paranoia.  None killed due to a lack of faith in deities (atheism).

To claim they did, is to rewrite history.  In spite of their official words, they were anything but demonstrative of a lack of faith in deities--- they had deities alright, they just called their gods by different names.

I just say: Enver Hoxha
The wiki entry on state atheism has some other examples.
Of course it can always be claimed that it was just persecution of ideological rivals for power but the same could be said about a lot if not most believer-on-different-believer persecution.
Lenin had many priests secretly killed while maintaining an image of mere 'disapproval'. Given his private writings and secret orders there were strong hints that those actions were motivated not only by the wish to crush the competition but also by a personal hatred of religion. Although there was both hyperbole and hypocrisy galore in the speeches of Stalin's chief procsecutor Vyshinsky, among the charges was often the false claim of secretly holding and spreading religious beliefs. In at least one case he mocked his victims with the promise of an atheist equivalent of absolution for renouncing those beliefs before execution.
So, quite a number of cases of 'in the name of atheism'. Genuine motivation is of course a rarer case but, as I said, the same can be said about 'holy wars'.

Quote from: Aggie on March 26, 2012, 10:29:45 PM
............. for some people it may be the only effective way to approach the divine (due to the limitations of a human brain that really hasn't evolved to grapple with abstracts).

? At 18 months my grandson walked past an open door through which an icy draft was blowing and said "winter". (he was right, it was winter).

Ok, maybe not striclty abstract, but to an 18 month yr old it is surely.

Other than that, it makes sense to me.

I'm afraid I cannot agree with your analysis, Swato.  But there it is.

There has been prosecution from atheist states towards religious individuals, although it has been mostly towards religions institutions, nevertheless I agree with Aggie that if there were more weight of non believers it wouldn't be difficult to get some equivalent atheist prosecution everywhere else.

Think of the teachers that had been threatened by creationists, the ones that had been assaulted, the doctors killed... I'm sure that if I look hard enough I will get a fair amount of cases that will get you (and me) the blood boiling, now imagine someone saying something like "we have to defend ourselves from those barbarians" and it wouldn't take much.

You may think that atheists wouldn't do something like that, because currently those are a (relatively) enlightened minority, but the moment more people gets into the bandwagon, more people will be swayed but those kinds of arguments, in the end it's always a matter of we are right and they are wrong.

OTOH I do believe that religion makes things worse simply because it invokes the absolute, so critical minds are less likely to be voiced, and more individuals will proceed without question, but considering that the general motivations rarely have anything to do with faith I'm sure evil can be done in the name of atheism as much as I don't like the idea.

Quote from: Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith on March 27, 2012, 10:32:51 PM
I'm afraid I cannot agree with your analysis, Swato.  But there it is.

Actually this is brilliant because if we have a fault here, it is that we all tend to agree on everything, therefore the Debating Chamber is almost non-functional. ;D

Go Toadfish! Yeah!

Again-- nobody does anything because they do not believe in something.    You do not go to meetings because you do not collect stamps.   You do not go get your hair cut, if you are bald.

Atheism is not a belief in gods-- that's it-- a lack of belief in deities/supernatural/life-after-death/etc.

It has no morals.  It has no creed.  There is nothing to believe in.  You don't have to sign a book.  It has no dogma, no moral position.  No code of ethics.  No politics, none of that-- it's simply a lack of faith in the supernatural.

It is the default state of humans-- as you must always be exposed to the idea of supernatural, before you accept the idea-- no exposure, no belief in it-- atheist.

Now.

Some folk do things because they are anti-theist, or because they hate religion(s) or because they are powerful and object to sharing that power with other institutions (including religious ones).   Those are real motives.

But they are not atheist ones.

Again-- nobody has done things in the name of atheism, mainly because "in the name of nothing" makes no real sense.   

So... no, I disagree with your analysis. 

Sure-- if not believing in supernatural woo becomes the majority position?  People will think of something else to use to victimize others-- perhaps left-handed baldies?  (a reference to the obscure novel Bright Suit McBear by L. Neil Smith)

That seems to be the nature of some human groups:  to find ways to make victims of others.   I would hope that one day we humans can invent/develop a culture that would tend to discourage such things.   

But I doubt I'll live to see that, myself.

I think it's possible to argue that there are plenty of 'evil' things done in the name of secularism. It's not overt atheism that is the issue, it's more a case of what's replacing religious worship for a given individual (even in many of those who profess to practice). If it's the pursuit of money and/or power at any cost, that's a problem. As god steps aside in a secular culture, it becomes somewhat easier into putting more attention into things which are highly culturally relevant, and Western culture today is largely about money and spending it on things to show you have it.

If we were to take a grand survey of what's going on in the world today and over the last century or so, how many of the injustices and how much of the planet-wide degradation in the world has been caused directly by religion or in the name of God, and how much of it is done simply and secularly in the name of the economy or for some company to make a few more million dollars every year?

Lemme see if I remember this correctly... it was the Catholics who invented DDT, right? Mormons singlehandedly caused global warming? Wasn't it Tibetan Buddhists who built the hydrogen bomb?  ::)


No, seriously...  where did our rainforests go?  Is it really true that we cut them down so that we could saw them into planks and sell them? Or burned them to make room for beef cattle to stuff into ground-cow sandwiches? And what the hell happened to all the fish in the ocean? If we have all this technology and are able to maintain a high standard of living because of it, and the whole earth is more or less globalized and able to communicate freely, why are some people living and dying in conditions that are the same as they were a few hundred years ago (except in this age, the local thugs and warlords have guns and bombs, and sex might have a pretty good chance of killing you)?

If these aren't evil acts against humanity and life in general, I don't know what are. It's more horrifying to me that it's being done by people who profess to know better, not in the name of religion but just... well, just because That's The Way It Is. It's especially horrifying to me that I'm one of those people, and so is everyone I know. Some of us try to make small gestures like recycling or driving a car with a smaller engine, which is helpful and needs to be encouraged, but few of us stand up to protest what's happening, and very few are willing to stand by their convictions and practice all of what they preach. I don't have the courage to do the former, but I hope I have the courage to attempt as much as I can of the latter, at some point.

Yes, some bad crap is still being done in the name of religion; the September 11 attacks killed 2,996 people in one terrible day. The automobile in America kills roughly 33,000 - 43,000 people every year, directly (I suppose you could add smog deaths and the like to that figure if you like). Pretty much any time someone identifies an activity as dangerous, I helpfully point out that driving in an automobile is probably statistically far more risky.  ;) How many people are killed in terrorist attacks worldwide compared to industrial accidents and occupational diseases?

How many of us are dying from chronic exposure to chemicals that make things smell nice and that make manufactured food look and taste like the real thing? From poisons applied directly to our food in order to keep other living things from eating some of it?  We laugh at the Romans for sweetening their wine with lead, but let's be clear:


Until recently, we fed ground-up animals to herbivores to make them fatten up faster. I'm pretty sure we still feed chicken feather meal to factory-farmed animals.

Myself, I wrestle with questions about The Great Whatever to help deal with being part of the utterly unskilled job humankind is doing of running our collective crap. Things have been getting crazy; we don't really see that it's crazy, because it's been crazy for a really long time (I doubt there was any time in history, if ever, that things weren't really crazy for humans. Maybe the Stone Age... spear point 'versions' only got released every 10,000 years or so*. ;)  However, I can see how some people just want to grab onto something that seems age-honoured and clear-cut, and take it as absolute. I think part of the relatively recent literalist approach to the Bible is an attempt to keep things as simple and concrete as possible, even if they blatantly contradict all objective evidence. Doesn't work for me, because I like to think, but I can see the attraction. We're all headed for fundamentalism or pharmaceuticals sooner or later, if we don't make a concerted effort to keep our sh&t together. Perhaps that why I'm a little nonplussed by the whole rah-rah aren't we special monkeys? back-patting that comes quite easily from the perspective of the first world.  :P

Did I mention I'm an optimist?   ;D


*
[youtube=425,350]EZ15vUjgqvw[/youtube]

It can be disputed (and has been for millenia), if non-belief is indeed the default position. There seems to have never been a culture without a belief in some supernatural entity (some African tribes come close though with a firm belief in magic but no gods).
The kind of belief of course differs widely but a total absence seems to only occur when instilled deliberately.
That does not prove any relgious beliefs (as has been wrongly argued in the past) but strongly hints that we are naturally wired to have the pro-verbial god-shaped hole to be filled. To speak in (outdated) computer analogies: It's not just 0 and 1 but 0,1,not-yet-set. The original state is the latter and will usually be filled with either 0 (definitive non-belief) or 1 (religious belief). Absent total amnesia it is an irreversible process. The variable may switch between 1 and 0 but cannot return to the not-set.
As for a difference in anti-theism and atheism, I do no think it works that way. People get persecuted for believing 'wrong'. That can be the 'wrong' god or (in the case of 'proselytizing atheism') any belief in the first place. It is about eradicating the 'false' ideas together with the people that hold them in the name of the 'right' idea. And that 'right' idea can be the conscious belief in the non-existence of the supernatural. No person in the not-set-yet state could (by definition) do that. That's another reason why weak agnostics tend not to organize autodafes.

I smell some connections to the white bear phenomenon/paradox. You cannot be a 'proper' denier without getting the idea that there is something to be denied.
There is another thing at play here: self-definition vs. thirs-party definition. From the former point of view (which I prefer in this case) atheism cannot be the natural state by definition. I can only self-define as atheist when I know what that means but others could do so to me. A child born to a Jewish mother is by third-party definition a Jew independent of the child knowing what a Jew is. It could never self-define as a Jew without being told what that means (the same way it cannot know its name without being told*). Ironically it can also be the other way around. There are self-defined Jews that are not accepted by parts of the Jewish establishment as such because they lack the 'blood connection'**.
I think Bob is the Platonian thinker here while I follow Aristotle (Disclosure: I think both were self-centered bastards. Platon was just the more dangerous one***).

*choosing one again requires the idea that persons have individual names.
**sad example: parents of a child that has turned nazi tell it that it was actually adopted and that his real mother was Jewish. The child commits suicide because now it is by third-party definition Jewish and can therefore not keep up its self-definition as nazi but (due to being a self-define nazi) cannot accept belonging to the other group either. And since it is not a Jew by belief or blood it cannot be part of actual Jewry.
***Unlike Aristotle, a pragmatist at heart, Platon was willing to make his ideas reality without regards for the costs. He also would not let reality get in the way (The facts contradict the theory? The worse for the facts!). Fortunately, he did not get the chance.

Love that video. First saw it on TV.

Again, you re-define "atheist" to mean something other than what self-professed atheists say it means to them.

And by doing so-- you eliminate most (if not all) of the modern atheists from your scope of atheism.

And I disagree-- the default state is no faith (atheism).   Just because the majority of cultures have theistic facets to their sum-of-ideas, is not evidence that every culture does.  Indeed, in the modern world, there are growing cultures that are putting aside theism in favor of rationalism.  

Antitheism is a position that some take, to be sure-- and that could be seen as a subset of 'atheism' itself, apart from the antitheists who have strong belief (faith) of no deities/supernatural elements (this is not an atheistic position, but a faith-based antitheistic position).   So an antitheist could be an atheist as well, or not.

I disagree with your "not set" idea-- for "not set" is atheist:  no faith/not-set/no beliefs either way in supernatural elements.  And we are all born without faith in anything-- but we do have strong instincts to trust without question what adults tell us (when we are young).

I could say more, but I think we are going round and round fruitlessly.

We went over this several times in the past. There is no common definition of atheism. I can come up with many dictionaries/thesauri/encyclopedias that see it my way and similar numbers that are closer to your position. Many have more than one definition. And I am counting just the serious works here.
As inside any religion (and ideology) you can easily find members that categorically deny that certain other self-professed members actually belong into the group. Strange though it looks, it is easy to find atheists that will tell other people that consider themselves as such that they are actually not. The opposite is rare with religions (Mormons are an exception there): 'You deny belonging to us. But we say you do and we do not care what you think'. I find that actually more common with atheists than the first position ('you do not belong'). The main target  are naturally agnostics that are often insulted as cowards that don't dare tell their true name (i.e. atheist).

Personally I find certain atheists as unpleasant as their religious counterparts anf I find the differences to be often minimal. Even if non-belief is not a religion, some guys do all they can to imitate one (i.e. mimicking the worst traditions). They have no tolerance for the leave-me-alone faction.

I have yet to find a (printed) dictionary with an anti-theism entry btw.

Quote from: Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith on March 30, 2012, 12:58:56 AM
I disagree with your "not set" idea-- for "not set" is atheist:  no faith/not-set/no beliefs either way in supernatural elements.  And we are all born without faith in anything-- but we do have strong instincts to trust without question what adults tell us (when we are young).

I actually kind of agree with the "not set" idea, based on how we are as young. Children are told by adults that the things they imagine are not real, but if a kid wasn't told that imagination wasn't real, they'd probably enter adulthood with all sorts of very personal beliefs and fantasies.  The reality/fantasy switch has to be thrown at some point, culturally.  I suppose it can be thrown selectively to some degree, but I think this is what also causes cognitive dissonance for many people. Don't believe in fairy tales, except the ones we tell you.

Santa Claus really does not help the Christian faith.  Who comes on Christmas Eve? Santa Claus and the Baby Jesus. So, when Santa Claus turns out to be a fake, what's a kid supposed to think about Jesus? ;)

Quote from: Aggie on March 30, 2012, 04:47:03 AM
..........Children are told by adults that the things they imagine are not real, but if a kid wasn't told that imagination wasn't real, they'd probably enter adulthood with all sorts of very personal beliefs and fantasies. 

Sorry to challenge this but my son, when young, always reassured me that the terrifying stuff I was watching on TV was not real !! 

Quote from: Aggie on March 30, 2012, 04:47:03 AM
Santa Claus really does not help the Christian faith.  Who comes on Christmas Eve? Santa Claus and the Baby Jesus. So, when Santa Claus turns out to be a fake, what's a kid supposed to think about Jesus? ;)

Actually, I do think my 4yr old grandson has a pretty good idea of what is real and what is not. However he does seem to believe in Santa, or.....is he just accomodating his parents' fantasy?

What about the Tooth Fairy - 6 to 7 yrs old when she arrives. I don't think any of them really believe in her, but they like the cash, so happy to go along with parents again.

I think we have to look deeper into why a child can be brainwashed into accepting religious belief.

Quote from: Griffin NoName on March 30, 2012, 08:02:49 PM

Quote from: Aggie on March 30, 2012, 04:47:03 AM
..........Children are told by adults that the things they imagine are not real, but if a kid wasn't told that imagination wasn't real, they'd probably enter adulthood with all sorts of very personal beliefs and fantasies.  

Sorry to challenge this but my son, when young, always reassured me that the terrifying stuff I was watching on TV was not real !!  

I didn't know Fox News was around then. ;) Where did he pick up that notion? From an adult, assuredly? I could believe that some children can come to this conclusion independently at some stage of their development, but I suspect that very rarely occurs before an adult teaches them to be more critical in their perceptions.  Children are fantastically adept, and while I think most of them can recognize the difference between fantasy and reality without too much prompting, I can't really say that I'm confident they would put aside all of their fantasies if they weren't prompted to do so.  Religion make a nice 'acceptable' fantasy for some of them, but when you overlay a rationalist worldview (that which is real must be factually true) on top of a strictly religious one (this Book is a guide to reality), it's an ideal setup for breeding both poles along the fundamentalism (this Book is factually true) or rejection of religion (this Book is obviously not factually true, and therefore must have no bearing on reality).

Following the path of development that I have, I'm skeptical that children can derive much depth from religious education. It seems like an adult pursuit to me.  If I had children, I would certainly discuss the various ideas of God out there with them, so that they could make up their own minds where they stand, and get them started on some of the basics (tolerance, patience, humility and compassion), but I can't say I'd want them fully indoctrinated into ANY belief system, including my own personal spirituality.  However, childhood could definitely be a very fruitful time for exploring the uses and limitations of self-directed and acknowledged fantasy, and I think children probably have the capacity grok mythos better than rationally-indoctrinated adults.

Quote from: Swatopluk on March 30, 2012, 01:30:41 AM
We went over this several times in the past. There is no common definition of atheism. I can come up with many dictionaries/thesauri/encyclopedias that see it my way and similar numbers that are closer to your position. Many have more than one definition. And I am counting just the serious works here.
As inside any religion (and ideology) you can easily find members that categorically deny that certain other self-professed members actually belong into the group. Strange though it looks, it is easy to find atheists that will tell other people that consider themselves as such that they are actually not. The opposite is rare with religions (Mormons are an exception there): 'You deny belonging to us. But we say you do and we do not care what you think'. I find that actually more common with atheists than the first position ('you do not belong'). The main target  are naturally agnostics that are often insulted as cowards that don't dare tell their true name (i.e. atheist).

Personally I find certain atheists as unpleasant as their religious counterparts anf I find the differences to be often minimal. Even if non-belief is not a religion, some guys do all they can to imitate one (i.e. mimicking the worst traditions). They have no tolerance for the leave-me-alone faction.

I have yet to find a (printed) dictionary with an anti-theism entry btw.

The thing is?  Where is the magical authority that says dictionaries are the be-all and end-all rulers of what is and what is correct?

Answer:  no where.

A dictionary is simply a collection of opinions of whomever wrote it, as to what is in the common lexicon with regards to a given set of words.   That's it.   As such, all dictionaries are 1) behind the actual language-usage, if said language is still in use, and 2) based on popular usage, not necessarily accurate usage.

So the dictionary argument fails.  Who cares what the opinion of the dictionary editor's are?   Unless you are taking a class or similar, obviously.

If you want to know that a plumber does?  Do you ask his enemies, the hypothetical anti-plumbers, who regard everything plumbing as evil?   Or do you ask the plumber himself?

I am sure you can get lots of "answers" from either group-- but which one do you think would be more accurate, as to what a plumber actually does?

So, too-- to know and understand what an atheist is-- you ask an atheist.  You don't ask a theist, as they are natural enemies of atheists, and will give you a nice straw-man "definition" of what they want the atheist to be.   

Since theism is more popular than atheism, the majority of dictionary definitions are these false, straw-man versions, rejected by pretty much all self-identified atheists.

And that is why the "the dictionary says" is not a valid argument.

Even the most zealous atheists, who's arguments I have followed, do not claim to have faith that no gods of any kind, any where in the universe can possibly exist.   All would agree that there is a possibility, however slight, that somewhere, somewhen, a god (or gods) may or may not exist or have existed or will exist in the undetermined future.  Or at least, (a) being(s) powerful enough to qualify for at least some of the billions of definitions of the word "god".

But according to most of the dictionary definitions?  The majority of atheists are claiming exactly that-- yet I have not encountered a single one (who fits), in all the various readings by atheists.

Even Dawkins admits there my possibly be god(s)-- but reiterates the odds appear to be vanishingly small (but not zero).

So there you go. 

If you want to know what it means to be an atheist, does it not make more sense to actually ask one, than to fabricate an imaginary one to fit a pre-defined term? 

___________________________

As for agnostic? 

That is rather a different thing-- it's not actually a kind of "half-way position" at all-- again, a false theist straw-man.

I could use the dictionary definition here, in a bit of ironic hubris-- but I won't, except to say this:  agnostic, as used by the original inventor of the term, has to do with "to know" and "can not know", and has little to do with faith at all.

So, again according to the original creator of the term (who's name escapes me-- just a sec... okay, it was Thomas Henry Huxley) the opposite of agnostic is gnostic. 

And an agnostic simply states it is impossible to know (or understand--implied) about god(s), whereas the opposite (gnostic) claims that humans can know (about) god(s) (typically through special pleading, special revelations and/or special unique circumstances).

To sum up:  using Huxley's definition of "agnostic" and the majority of self-identified atheists' definition of "atheism", we have:

Atheist/gnostic:  this person believes that you can know for certain that there are no gods. Rare individuals-- I've not discovered any who fits this category.

Atheist/agnostic:  has no faith in gods, and does not believe it is possible to know for certain, across all possibilities, that there are or are not actual deities. The majority of self-identified atheists go here.

Theist/gnostic:  this person believes there is(are) god(s)  and also believes it is possible to know about this(these) being(s), usually through special circumstances.  Most theists fit this category.

Theist/agnostic:  this person believes there is(are) god(s) but does not believe you can know for certain one way or another, but chooses to believe anyway.  Some theists fit this one.

___________________

I have seen bitter arguments and vile invective from atheist-zealots, to be sure-- and they typically use a straw-man definition of "agnostic" when they are criticizing them.  Ironically failing to realize they are also criticizing their own position! 

But that is what people do most often:  criticize others, and fail to apply the same critique to their own preconceived ideas.

___________________

My bottom-line position is this:

People can call themselves whatever they wish-- and I try my best to not presume what they mean, by the various terms they self-identify with.

If a person really does wish to consider their position is somehow 1/2 way between full-on theism and full-on atheism?  I say-- sure!    Go for it, if that satisfies your inner fish.   

And if they wish to call themselves Zoidbergs while doing it?  Again:  go for it!

But I do reject attempts to label me with straw-man definitions of words.   If a person does not understand what I mean?  Ask!  I'm happy to share.

So, according to the above matrix, I'm an agnostic/atheist, in that I freely admit there may well be god(s) somewhere, somewhen, but I doubt it.  And I doubt there is a way to find out, too... at least, not while alive (so far) ....

... meh.

I feel the need to say, here, that the above is using Huxley's definition of "agnostic", together with it's implied opposite, coupled with what appears to be the majority-definition by self-identified atheists for the word "atheist" and it's implied opposite "theist".


Your mileage may vary (as may your definitions of these 4 terms-- feel free).   

'Tis the nature of English, to be fluid in it's many meandering meanings of memes....

:D

Quote from: Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith on March 30, 2012, 10:39:47 PM
Even Dawkins admits there my possibly be god(s)-- but reiterates the odds appear to be vanishingly small (but not zero).
.........
............
Atheist/gnostic:  this person believes that you can know for certain that there are no gods. Rare individuals-- I've not discovered any who fits this category.

I think Dawkins is just applying a proper scientific approach.

According to your reckoning, I am Atheist/gnostic:  this person believes that you can know for certain that there are no gods. Rare individuals-- I've not discovered any who fits this category.

Since I don't think I am a rare being, I disagree with your definitions. My definition is that anyone who says "can't know for certain" is agnostic not atheist.

I believe there are no Gods. I think they are a poor man's attempt at a) putting up with pain and wretchedness and b)  the opposite - explaining wonderment and joy. I don't see why that is needed so I have no reason to iinvent a concept that to me is meaningless.

Quote from: Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith on March 30, 2012, 10:39:47 PM
Even Dawkins admits there my possibly be god(s)-- but reiterates the odds appear to be vanishingly small (but not zero).
.........
............
Atheist/gnostic:  this person believes that you can know for certain that there are no gods. Rare individuals-- I've not discovered any who fits this category.

I think Dawkins is just applying a proper scientific approach.

According to your reckoning, I am Atheist/gnostic:  this person believes that you can know for certain that there are no gods. Rare individuals-- I've not discovered any who fits this category.

Since I don't think I am a rare being, I disagree with your definitions. My definition is that anyone who says "can't know for certain" is agnostic not atheist.

I believe there are no Gods. I think they are a poor man's attempt at a) putting up with pain and wretchedness and b)  the opposite - explaining wonderment and joy and c) investing power in an object (eg. rain dances etc).. I don't see why that is needed so I have no reason to iinvent a concept that to me is meaningless.

Quote from: Aggie on March 30, 2012, 08:58:29 PM

Quote from: Griffin NoName on March 30, 2012, 08:02:49 PM

Quote from: Aggie on March 30, 2012, 04:47:03 AM
..........Children are told by adults that the things they imagine are not real, but if a kid wasn't told that imagination wasn't real, they'd probably enter adulthood with all sorts of very personal beliefs and fantasies.  

Sorry to challenge this but my son, when young, always reassured me that the terrifying stuff I was watching on TV was not real !!  

Where did he pick up that notion? From an adult, assuredly? I could believe that some children can come to this conclusion independently at some stage of their development, but I suspect that very rarely occurs before an adult teaches them to be more critical in their perceptions.  

Have to agree to differ here. I am basing my beliefs on observation of my own children and grandchildren.

My grandson calls his maternal grandmother his real grandma (remember discrepancy, they see her all the time and me once a year), as in when I came on Skype, "can we Skype my real grandma......." - yes it hurt.

Quote from: Griffin NoName on March 30, 2012, 11:46:45 PM

Quote from: Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith on March 30, 2012, 10:39:47 PM
Even Dawkins admits there my possibly be god(s)-- but reiterates the odds appear to be vanishingly small (but not zero).
.........
............
Atheist/gnostic:  this person believes that you can know for certain that there are no gods. Rare individuals-- I've not discovered any who fits this category.

I think Dawkins is just applying a proper scientific approach.

According to your reckoning, I am Atheist/gnostic:  this person believes that you can know for certain that there are no gods. Rare individuals-- I've not discovered any who fits this category.

Since I don't think I am a rare being, I disagree with your definitions. My definition is that anyone who says "can't know for certain" is agnostic not atheist.

I believe there are no Gods. I think they are a poor man's attempt at a) putting up with pain and wretchedness and b)  the opposite - explaining wonderment and joy and c) investing power in an object (eg. rain dances etc).. I don't see why that is needed so I have no reason to iinvent a concept that to me is meaningless.

Oh, I certainly agree all the typical gods as certainly defined by humans, especially those as defined by mouldy old books?   None of these exist-- especially not as depicted.  Of that, I'm as certain as anythign else in this muddled life we call "reality".

But I cannot declare that for all 9 billion definitions of the word spelled "god".   (If there be only 9 billion-- there may be more-- I have not experienced the greater universe... 9 billion is a conservative guess, allowing approximately 1 definition per person, excluding the younger set, but including those who have lived and died already.)

Of course, few folk are all that concerned with undefined gods-- and these may well exist, too.  Who can say?   

This is why I call myself "agnostic" with respect to the word "god". 

You may honestly call me "gnostic" with respect to bible's god-- all three major versions of it, including all 9 billion minor variations (see above).   ;D  In that the bible itself, being the basis of these gods, is severly and fatally flawed-- no such being can exist as described within it's pages.  Same for the theistic descendants of the bible, too:  quoran, bom, etc.

I was briefly involved in a conversation with a fundamentalist Christian over this issue, whereby he would not accept that children are born as atheists (his definition was a denial of the existence of gods, and he used all these fancy links (there were freakin' loads of them) from online dictionaries, but I digress), yet on repeated asking by myself and others, completely failed to give his own opinion on what a baby is born as, and instead mired the whole conversation to a halt with his insistence on everyone accepting his viewpoint (the guy is one of those "special" fundamentalists you see so often who like to deflect open dialogue on what they may find uncomfortable).

My thoughts on it are that we are born without the knowledge of deities. Simple and succinct. Yet deceptively so. It is natural for children to grow up with adults rather than on their own, and so they pick up on the beliefs of the adults around them. If you bring them up within your religion (assuming you have one), then the odds are that they are not going to leave, especially if they are never exposed to any other viewpoint for the rest of their lives, as let's face it: most of us are sheep in at least one respect. If you bring them up explaining to them only verifiable facts, as in scientifically proven, then would they come up with the concept of a god all by themselves? What if they grew up completely by themselves with no concept of either science or religion (not that they are mutually exclusive), and by some great fortune, managed to survive in the wild, what would they believe?

You see, it is unnatural for a human child to grow up without adults around, so the natural thing would be for them to grow up being exposed to what their parents allow them to be exposed to, and anything else that may slip through the net, which in some cases is a lot. If we were to consider the most unnatural way for a child to grow up, and also the least ethically-sound from a study perspective, then we have to consider what we are and what our natures are. We question all the time, whether we voice that or not, and have an innate desire to know why things are the way they are. Religion has been around for a long time, and evidence of reverence for the female form is one of the oldest, along with reverence for nature (or at least that part which provided us with food). I believe that religion grew out of the two: firstly our need for understanding; secondly our reverence for that which gives us life.

All of this leads me to believe that the default religious position for a child is that they have no knowledge of any deity at all, and that the human imagination needs to anthropomorphise things so that they seem less scary in the absence of true understanding. This appears to be the only logical position to take, but we are left with defining what a child is in terms of religion. A child does not believe in any god, but then they have no concept of that theoretical god, so I believe that agnostic or atheist, by any definition above (bar one partial one of "atheist"), do not make the grade, therefore leading me to the conclusion that a new word is needed to define "No knowledge of (a) god(s)". Again, to me this appears to be the only logical position.

That would follow my 'not-set(yet)' concept.
Looking for The Deeper Meaning of Liff? ;D

Since there seems to be no human group in history we know of naturally developing without coming up with some 'religious' beliefs, there seems to be a bias in favor of such a thing*. There is no 'knowledge' of gods indeed in the newborn but a tendency to come up with something 'god-shaped' later. The adults around will mainly influence the shape. What is far more rare is that a child will come up with a 'doctrine' of its own, i.e. go beyond a set of often vague personal beliefs into a formalized one that can go forth and multiply (and compete with other doctrines). This does say nothing about the reality of deities but a lot about human psychology.
Would any of you provide some newborns for a double blind study? :mrgreen: ;)

---
Bob, I think you ran into some classic logical fallacies, esp. shooting the messenger but also they etymological one while referring yourself to both. You claim that dictionaries are biased because those who wrote them were biased in disfavor of atheism (I personally know some people who worked on reputable dictionaries that would take offence there) and are outdated. I do not claim that any definition of the term is the one and only and the makers of those multiple dictionaries would likely agree** or they would not put several different on the same page. There are also a lot of terms that are now generally accepted as neutral that started out as insults. For example: gothic (both architecture and literature), baroque, romantic, protestant. Of course it goes the other way too, an originally neutral term becoming an insult (negro and liberal maybe the most prominent, the latter as a result of a deliberate campaign).

*often (falsely) used in discussions about 'proof of god', already by Greek and Roman philosphers, e.g. Cicero (de natura deorum).
**no, that is not an argument at authority but about the way of reasoning.

Two words:  feral children.  Google for examples, but these kids demonstrated no desire to create deities for themselves.

As for the "god shaped hole"?  There is a nice, evolutionary explanation for that, too-- google the "god helmet" and pay attention to the discussion of the brain's functionality with respect to the effect.

It seems in a self-aware, but social species, the need for some mechanism to induce a cooperative mental attitude is high, or the species would perish (we are not all that physically powerful). 

But having a strong sense of empathy or "other" than ourselves, permits us to engage in powerful social interaction, that can lead to selfless cooperation.   Good for the species.  Sometimes, not so much for a given individual.

But DNA is blind to the individual-- it's a species-driven engine only.

Examples:  cycle-cell anemia.  Bad for the individuals-- as high as 20% in some populations-- good for the species-- as individuals with partial cycle-cell anemia (without the negative symptoms) experience a somewhat higher resistance to malaria.   

So look at it this way:  The blind and uncaring process of natural selection is "happy" to "sacrifice"  20% of the population to gain a 3-5% (a guess-- I know the resistance improvement is very low) improvement in resistance to a very common disease. 

DNA just "wants" to make more DNA, and does not "care" about consequences.

So a "god-shaped hole", if it increases even slightly, the whole species' ability to survive?  By increasing-- even by a fraction of a percent-- the social cooperation within said species? 

That trait will, sooner than later, get spread throughout the population.

Even at the cost of sacrificing a fairly high percentage of the individuals involved-- so long as the species as a whole enjoys a ever-so-slight advantage.

... meh.

Think of an ant colony.  Think of the countless worker ants who are sacrificed daily, such that the whole colony thrives.  These are sterile workers-- they play no direct role in DNA replication.   Yet, by contributing to the survival of their same-DNA queen?   They actually increase the survivability of their DNA by a large factor.   


So the "god shaped hole" argument, to me, says nothing with regards to actual gods.

Apart from that, if these [gods] do exist?

They(it) are(is an) uncaring monster(s).   

One by which all others pale in comparison.   (I had a YouTube I was gonna insert, but it's been removed.... drat)

Quote from: Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith on March 31, 2012, 05:29:20 PM
Two words:  feral children.  Google for examples, but these kids demonstrated no desire to create deities for themselves.

From the small number of cases that I'm aware of, they are rarely well-documented enough to constitute more than anecdotal evidence, and the ones who are documented do not comprise a large enough sample size to be statistically significant, IMHO. Many modern examples are more accurately described as abused and locked-up children, as opposed to the classic Mowgli image of a wolf-raised wild child.

Quote from: Roland Deschain on March 31, 2012, 04:09:50 AM
All of this leads me to believe that the default religious position for a child is that they have no knowledge of any deity at all, and that the human imagination needs to anthropomorphise things so that they seem less scary in the absence of true understanding. This appears to be the only logical position to take, but we are left with defining what a child is in terms of religion. A child does not believe in any god, but then they have no concept of that theoretical god, so I believe that agnostic or atheist, by any definition above (bar one partial one of "atheist"), do not make the grade, therefore leading me to the conclusion that a new word is needed to define "No knowledge of (a) god(s)". Again, to me this appears to be the only logical position.

I agree with this.  The closest terms I can think of to match are 'naive', 'innocent' or 'ignorant'.  I think the first, in the biological sense, fits best. Not exposed to a stimulus, so therefore not-set (as Swato phrased it).

I'll concede that God as a concept is primarily (perhaps exclusively) a cultural artifact, and that in no case would I expect to see an anthropomorphic god produced by the mind of a human raised entirely independently of humans.  Early concepts of god(s) were nothing like the monotheist OOOs that currently hold dominance in Western and Middle Eastern cultures.  If you want to play loose with the concept of deity and include something along the lines of an imaginary friend or guardian-spirit? I would not be as surprise to see such a thing... except that a child raised in absence of human language would probably be incapable of forming such concepts.  Without language, it's probably tough to get past the sense of 'self' and 'other'; such a person should be able to discern 'bad-other' from 'good-other'.  If one is operating primarily on physical stimuli and not cultural memes, I could see it being a fairly short leap from understanding that large noises in the trees are generally caused by large beings in the trees to speculation that very large noises in the sky (thunder) are possibly caused by very large beings in the sky, with zero concept of 'divinity' involved.

Once humankind was able to communicate with language and orally propagate ideas from generation to generation? It's almost inevitable (IMHO) that in a pre-scientific state, gods would be invoked to explain things.  What we are sitting with today is the current state of a 30,000-year-old evolving meme, with all the expected branches and spontaneous mutations you'd expect to see in an evolutionary tree.  

That I, as an individual, can sit here and concoct a God to my liking and personal understanding, using information and ideas  (usually) dating back as far as written language from multiple cultures, has much to do with the current state of human affairs.  This is why I favour using the scientific mindset to investigate god: Science has _{well, purports to have ::)}  the humility to change the explanations and models we are using as the old ones are superseded, and relies on independent verification of results. If a published result doesn't seem credible, some scientist somewhere else in the world will get off their arse and try it for themselves. I personally am of the opinion that this is very possible with regards to the human perception of the divine, and get a little frustrated when atheists denounce spirituality, but are not willing to spend a few decades finding out for themselves.  ;)  The major difference between scientific knowledge and spiritual experience is that the latter is entirely subjective, with a dearth of empirical data, so the only way to personally verify the validity of it is to experience it for yourself*, and compare it to similar results obtained via different methods (some of which are highly focused on achieving transcendence, yet completely exclude the concept of god from the resulting experience).

The problem with an armchair atheist uninterested in theology denouncing god is the same problem as a creationist fundamentalist with very little scientific education denouncing evolution - they don't get it and really aren't willing to put the time in to understand it. Likewise, the new-atheist spectacle of respected scientists giving their opinions on god (and freaking holding conferences about it! (http://www.atheistconvention.org.au/speakers/)) is to me as guffaw-inducing as rounding up Tenzin Gyatso, Joe Ratzinger, Rowan Williams, Ayatollah Sistani, Thomas Monson, Yona Metzger, Shlomo Amar, Farzam Arbab, Gustavo Correa, Sammy H. Bhiwandiwalla, David Miscavige, Harold Klemp and their ilk for a conference discussing erroneous conclusions in science.  Giving credence to Lawrence Krauss's opinion on God is like asking the Archbishop of Canterbury for an informed opinion on the scientific merits of current cosmological theories.  Or, to use another example, like asking Pope Benedict XVI to independently verify that it's possible to create copernicium (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copernicium) in the laboratory. In science (self-educated prodigies like Edison and Einstein notwithstanding), we rarely give credence to 'discoveries' made by those who haven't gone through a rigorous training process and years of study. Why, then, are skeptics willing to take opinions on God from typically uneducated and under-exposed beyond-novice non-practitioners?

I should point out, however, that getting advice on God from agents of any of the major faiths is a great idea, provided that you are the sort of person who trusts published results for safe-use trials by agrochemical and pharmaceutical companies. ;)  Any large corporation / organization has too many other motives and objectives at stake to be trusted with the truth.  :P

_{*Spiritual experience does not constitute evidence for God, as it's entirely possible that the common experience described is due to some quirk of human physiology, and that spiritual practice is a way of tweaking the mind to exploit that quirk.  However, if doing so has a statistically significant effect of improving the human experience, they why the hell not do it? I also do not dismiss the possibility that we may very well be born with or without the ability to relate to the divine - as Bob alludes to, it's not necessary for an entire population to be subject to a fitness-decreasing condition to derive a larger specific benefit.  I'd be willing to argue that a genetic basis for perception of the divine is maladaptive in terms of passing on one's individual DNA; many traditions encourage celibacy. ;)}

Quote from: Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith on March 31, 2012, 05:29:20 PM
DNA just "wants" to make more DNA, and does not "care" about consequences.

So a "god-shaped hole", if it increases even slightly, the whole species' ability to survive?  By increasing-- even by a fraction of a percent-- the social cooperation within said species?  

That trait will, sooner than later, get spread throughout the population.

Even at the cost of sacrificing a fairly high percentage of the individuals involved-- so long as the species as a whole enjoys a ever-so-slight advantage.

... meh.

This makes a lot of sense in the climate in which we actually evolved, in terms of genuine genetic change.  I'm not talking particularly about cooperation, here, although that does come into it.  An even more powerful driver for hunter/gatherer or nomadic humans would be to fill that god-shaped hole with a warrior god who promoted xenophobia and extermination of conspecific competitors outside of one's own tribe.  Tribes whose god promoted war and rape would have a genetic advantage over pacifist tribes. This assumes an environment at which humans had reached a natural carrying capacity according to their technology, and did not need to engage heavily in trade. Only in these circumstances does such a god make genetic sense, and since the tribe would be rather small and engage with each other face-to-face for the most part (or perhaps periodically with recently split sub-populations) a moral/cooperative god would help but would not need to be the primary image.

As we moved to agricultural societies and developed urban centres, it would have became necessary to emphasize a compassionate or 'friendly' image of god who promoted peace amongst not just one's tribe but with the surrounding populations. Why? Crops - and permanent dwellings - are vulnerable to destruction by fire, and constant raiding between agricultural societies would become maladaptive quite quickly. Taking over another society's cropland is still adaptive in this context, so wars were still commonplace, but a skirmish can cause more destruction that it did in the days of small hunter-gatherer or nomadic bands, who could more easily move to a distant part of their territory for a while until things cooled down. Small raids by a very small number of warriors could result in a burned village or a ripe crop in ashes.

With regards to early cities, they simply wouldn't function if the dominant impulse is violently expressed xenophobia. The story of the Tower of Babel kind of supports this, if you take it in the context of being a nomadic people's mythological warning that their god is displeased with multiethnic collaborations. The Old Testament YHWH in some of his descriptions is quite 'congizant' of the fact that exposure to other belief systems is a threat to his dominance, and is quite a good example of a self-protecting memeplex (Karen Armstrong* points to evidence that the confusing and variable image of God in the Bible is the product of the amalgamation of historically disparate writings; under some conditions, it was more favourable to avoid war with your neighbour by cooperation and religious tolerance, but when conditions permitted it was often better to smash your neighbours and expand into their territory; in the latter periods, a hardline xenophobic warrior-god was a better fit and was so promoted by the contemporary powers-that-be).


_{*I'm re-reading the unfortunately-titled The Case for God, which is admittedly has had a big influence on me lately.  FWIW, the 1-star reviews on Amazon (criticism always being the most interesting assessment of a work) are quite hilarious, as she's appeared to have pissed off both the theists and the atheists.  This was my favorite, I think:}

QuoteNowhere in this book did I see any instance of proof other than the belief of a deluded bunch of people. I suggest everyone to read this book, because we need more atheists.

_{Highly recommended. ;)}

Quote from: Swatopluk on March 31, 2012, 09:08:25 AM
Looking for The Deeper Meaning of Liff? ;D

Indeed. I just recorded MP's Meaning of Life off the TV - need to watch it again to re-affirm my soul.

Quote from: Swatopluk on March 31, 2012, 09:08:25 AM
Would any of you provide some newborns for a double blind study? :mrgreen: ;)

:ROFL: - would a 2 yr old do?

It seems rather strange that everyone (not merely the siblings here) endlessly discuss whether god(s) exist, when there is no fixed agreement on what god(s) actually do. If we got that clear, we would know whether god(s) existed !!  :taz:

The Meaning of Life.  A wonderful movie, I think-- best watched more than once, to really get at the nuances.

I do so love the various by-play of the conversations within each scene... remember the machine that does nothing but go "bing!"?   :D

Aggie:  I rather like Karen Armstrong myself, although I've only skimmed her stuff here and there, and read several of her more interesting (to me) essays.   I suspect she'd be a really good Toadfish.

I quit reading her words, when I lost the final trimmings  (and respect) of pure faith (i.e. faith that has no rational basis or evidence supporting it's claims).   "You just have to have faith" is all too frequently tossed out like it has some sort of profound meaning.

It doesn't.

I have to remind people who do that, that the pilots of 9/11 had deep and abiding faith-- more faith, in fact, than the people tossing out statements of faith demonstrate (in that they were cheerfully willing to die for their actions, unlike many of the most "you have to have faith" proponents).

Once I realized that faith based on nothing is not worthy of respect?  (or practice)  I quit reading books that tried to convince me one way or another.    And I put down Ms Armstrong's books about the same time, even though I do respect her scholarship.  

But I do recommend them for anyone who is interested in history of modern systems of faith.

---------------------

Griffin:  I agree-- the definition of what means the word "god" is a varied and individual as ... fingerprints.

Which is why I claim there at least 9 billion different god-concepts floating about the human-created aether.  

:)

Something I have observed is this:  why do these gods always seem to hate the exact same things that the gods' zealous followers hated already?  

Is that not a wee bit too convenient?  

Why, yes..... I think it is...

--------------------------------------

And that reminds me of Iaasic Asimov's short-short:  The Nine Billion Names of God (or was it Author C Clarke who wrote this?  I forget.... just a sec...)

Okay, it was Clarke-- and here it is, lovely and complete:  Nine Billion Names of God (http://downlode.org/Etext/nine_billion_names_of_god.html)

Worth the 10 minutes or so it'll take you to read it....

I was talking about this:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_XsVALQtGIZM/TGEuxuoZAqI/AAAAAAAARks/tQw5FfE4vdk/s1600/Pan-32220%2BAdams%2B%2526%2BLloyd%2BDeeper%2BMeaning%2Bof%2BLiff.jpg
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_XsVALQtGIZM/TGEuxuoZAqI/AAAAAAAARks/tQw5FfE4vdk/s1600/Pan-32220%2BAdams%2B%2526%2BLloyd%2BDeeper%2BMeaning%2Bof%2BLiff.jpg) not this (http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/519KBR2JR1L._SL500_AA300_.jpg)
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/519KBR2JR1L._SL500_AA300_.jpg

Just to be clear (although I thought I already was): 'god-shaped hole' is just a shorthand for in 'need' of 'something beyond the material' not limited to an antropomorphic separate entity. A sense of 'what I can see and touch is not everything there is'.
And at no point did I state that this means anything about a reality of that that is expected to fill that hole. I also do not believe in Feng Shui in the spiritual sense but can oberve in myself that some ways to arrange the furniture somehow feel better than others without a manifest reason. I read an article recently that found that instinctively people prefer to put their beds on the side of the room the hinges of the door point to. The guess is that it is because that way the door for a moment blocks the line of sight towards the bed, when someone enters the room. That leaves the person in the bed a moment longer to react than would be the case otherwise. But few people consciously think that way. They just put there bed where 'it feels right'.
People do not usually think: 'We need people to believe there is a constant watcher that will punish them, if the violate rules becasue that will make them more inclined to obey those mutually benficial rules'. Somehow such idea of seems to develop in all human communities. In the case of isolated people something else comes into play. People deprived of the contact with other living beings (humans preferred but animals can substitute to a degree) for extended periods of time begin to hallucinate. And those hallucinations seem to always include the presence of something living. Either of something that is not actually there or something coming alive that objectively isn't. (non-fraudulent) Religions we know the origin of also seem to get started by such people. That is one of the standard cases-against-god made today.

Quote from: Griffin NoName on March 31, 2012, 07:01:25 PM
It seems rather strange that everyone (not merely the siblings here) endlessly discuss whether god(s) exist, when there is no fixed agreement on what god(s) actually do. If we got that clear, we would know whether god(s) existed !!  :taz:

Not only what they do but what they are. Generally most traditions call it unknowable, but I feel that is a cop-out for "we can't reconcile our definition with the world, and since it must exist we can't know it".

It becomes -again- a discussion about definitions, be it the meaning of the word 'god' or the meaning of the word 'atheist' and 'agnostic' which are clearly derived from the first, and as every person has a different opinion of what 'god' means, the definitions of 'agnostic' and 'atheist' are also many, which is another of the reason for my discomfort with the word, the word is loaded and loosely defined, and because without a clear definition there is no clear way to discuss the subject.
---
IMO opinion the word should simply be avoided and use more succinct definitions, that will avoid bad feelings (considering the loaded nature of the subject).

Personally I am convinced that an OOO type of deity is simply incompatible with the universe as we know it and under that definition I am a hard atheist.
I consider the possibility that a very powerful being or beings may or not exist and may or not influence our universe in which case I would define myself as agnostic about their existence.

Wot Zono 'as said.   In a nut'shell.

:D

[youtube=425,350]lS0b4QCpFGc[/youtube]

Possibilian (http://www.possibilian.com/)

Also, Sum (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sum-Tales-Afterlives-David-Eagleman/dp/1847674283/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333340895&sr=1-1) - book by David Eagleman

Great link, Grif!    :)

Thanks Griffin.  Had a quick look at his site, and some things resonate there. I'll take some more time to explore it and watch the video soon.

Quote from: Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith on April 01, 2012, 04:28:59 AM
Aggie:  I rather like Karen Armstrong myself, although I've only skimmed her stuff here and there, and read several of her more interesting (to me) essays.   I suspect she'd be a really good Toadfish.

I quit reading her words, when I lost the final trimmings  (and respect) of pure faith (i.e. faith that has no rational basis or evidence supporting it's claims).   "You just have to have faith" is all too frequently tossed out like it has some sort of profound meaning.

It doesn't.

I have to remind people who do that, that the pilots of 9/11 had deep and abiding faith-- more faith, in fact, than the people tossing out statements of faith demonstrate (in that they were cheerfully willing to die for their actions, unlike many of the most "you have to have faith" proponents).

Once I realized that faith based on nothing is not worthy of respect?  (or practice)  I quit reading books that tried to convince me one way or another.    And I put down Ms Armstrong's books about the same time, even though I do respect her scholarship.  

But I do recommend them for anyone who is interested in history of modern systems of faith.

I'll pay attention to this as I continue my re-read. The first portion of the book is, as you indicate, largely historical (which is her specialty).  I've started or browsed several of her other books, and they've failed to catch my attention, but The Case for God clicked with me enough that I've bought several copies of it and given them to friends.  The only other books I've been so enamoured of are Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass and, if I could easily find used or discounted copies of it, The One-Straw Revolution (oh! Never mind, there's a pdf available). (http://idc-america.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/One_Straw_Farming_Fukuoka.pdf)

-

Ah, faith is a confounding thing that for the vast majority of my life made absolutely no sense to me. Sometime last year, it started to click for me that it's a method of spiritual practice, similar to meditation.  I'd equate the two to the degree that saying "you have to have faith" is analogous to "you have to meditate".  Neither is true, of course, but certain religious traditions emphasize these techniques as being essential to their methods. Faith itself doesn't have any particular value, but the actual and constant process of having faith can support your spiritual practice and make you more receptive to some of the irrationalities that crop up along the path.  

If you take the phrase "you have to have faith" to mean that if you have faith, everything will work out peachy, then it's a fat load of bunk (IMHO). Faith does seem to be a good tool for active spiritual practice. Perhaps this should be obvious - it's difficult to work toward perceiving the divine and remain completely skeptical at the same time. ;)  I'm fairly adept at holding mutually exclusive assumptions simultaneously, so I didn't find it too much of a stretch to start with the assumption that the perception of the divine is possible, and then use faith in and focus on god as a technique to help manipulate my mind in that direction (while keeping some rationality and objectivity about the whole process). Traditions that don't describe the ineffable as god (such as Taoism or Zen Buddhism) can dispense with explicit faith as a tool for practice, although I suppose you've still got faith in the system.

I am not sure there's much value in faith for the average layperson, but I am not in a position to comment as following a religion without aspiring to mysticism doesn't resonate for me.

Forgive me if I'm not being particularly clear about all this, as it's from my best recollection of where I was at last summer. I've largely abandoned any serious spiritual practice for the last seven month or so, but am on the verge of getting back to it (hence the extensive pseudotheological rants of late). God's an addictive drug, and I've been jonesing.  :mrgreen:

Quote from: Sibling Zono (anon1mat0) on April 01, 2012, 09:52:52 PM
Not only what they do but what they are. Generally most traditions call it unknowable, but I feel that is a cop-out for "we can't reconcile our definition with the world, and since it must exist we can't know it".

That certainly applies today, but during the time periods when most of these traditions originated there was little conflict between the supposed attributes of god and the contemporary understanding of the world. It tends to be the intersection of old ideas about god with new ideas about how the world works that causes the conflict.  I don't see it a cop-out, personally; if we are talking about something other than material reality, then it's not surprising that the language we have developed based on material reality is inherently inadequate. As far as the modern scientific outlook is concerned, something that can't be described precisely with the appropriate jargon and cannot be investigated in terms of empirical data isn't something worth investigating.  I'm comfortable with god = nothing, however.  

I'll tell you one thing, though... if you asked me to state clearly and rationally what I've learned from my spiritual practice to date, I'd be at a loss. I can tell you I have a much greater understanding of the whole shebang than I used to, but it's not something that translates well into speech.  I think that's really the point of the exercise - to work towards gaining an raw understanding that is completely outside of language and empirical evidence.  The supposed perception of the divine may very simply be exploration of the areas where thought and language become completely inadequate.  Socrates used a non-theological and rational method of dialogue to get to the same place. Gods are not a necessary part of the process.

Quote from: Sibling Zono (anon1mat0) on April 01, 2012, 09:52:52 PM
[IMO opinion the word should simply be avoided and use more succinct definitions, that will avoid bad feelings (considering the loaded nature of the subject).

Suggestions? I've heard New-Agers use the term 'Source', which I feel is a better and more impersonal term, but also carries its own set of implications. As you know, I favour the g-word specifically because it's a loaded term; using it in a non-traditional way does seem to have a way of opening up discussions about what it means.

Given the harm that centrally-dictated ideas of God can cause, I really would like to hear more widespread discussion regarding those nine billion concepts of god. At this moment of time (and indeed, for the last several hundred years), much of the tension between religion and science comes from the fact that religion is focused largely on preserving a traditional view of how the world works to keep a relatively static idea of god, while science is devoted primarily to the discovery of new knowledge and ideas. If religion was more open to discussing new ideas about god....  well, who knows? I don't expect this to happen any time soon, as it's too much of a threat to established power-structures.

Jonathan Miller (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Miller)

[youtube=425,350]zOBnmqavp-Y&list=PLE4400CDAD6D242CC&index=1&feature=plpp_video[/youtube]

I've often contemplated the idea that within each and every adult human, there exist some notion as what the word "god" means to them.... call it X (the meaning).

Whether they think this X is real, or an idealized concept, or a complete unknown, or just a pretty (or ugly) myth of past cultures, I think that each X is more or less unique-- not unlike the person who's mind conceptualized this X in the first place.

Obviously, there are many points of congruences with various versions of X, else organized religion would be impossible.

And a typical person's ability to ignore incongruities between their X and the discussed X of others is... simply amazing.  But does have limits-- else there would never be any religious wars.

I always wondered what sort of experiment would demonstrate that each person, no matter how much they would like to think their X is the same as other's X, is actually unique.... perhaps a deserted island? 

In that you take a group of people who all practice the same religion, attend the same religious institution, and place them on an island together.   Plenty of resources, so the experience does not devolve into one of pure survival. 

Leave them there for a time.

Come back, and see:  how many schisms occurred within the religious practice?  How much did the religion drift from it's mainland/parent group? 

Obviously such a thing would be completely unethical to do deliberately.

But there is the old joke about the fellow, who was quite a devout believer, who was stranded on an island, all alone.   

Now, he comes from a strong tradition of hard work-- so during his stay of many years on the island, he was busy building all sorts of things to make his life a wee bit more comfortable:  a house to live in, a barn for the foodstuffs he gardened, a shed for the tools he'd made, and of course... a church to worship in.

At long, last, he was rescued.  He was quite proud of his achievements, and before leaving the island, gave his rescuers a little tour:   

"There is my house, much improved from my first effort.  Over there, is the barn, and there is the workshop."  he pointed out each construction.

One of the rescuers pointed to a series of buildings, each one seemingly less maintained than the next.   The first, best-looking building was clearly a house of worship.  The others' purpose was not clear. "I see you made yourself a church.  Very nice. But what are those other buildings next to it?"

"Oh.  Those.   Those are where I used to go to church... "

:D

Same joke in Jewish.

there is the old joke about the fellow, who was quite a devout believer, who was stranded on an island, all alone.  

Now, he comes from a strong tradition of hard work-- so during his stay of many years on the island, he was busy building all sorts of things to make his life a wee bit more comfortable:  a house to live in, a barn for the foodstuffs he gardened, a shed for the tools he'd made, and of course... a synagogue to worship in.

"There is my house, much improved from my first effort.  Over there, is the barn, and there is the workshop."  he pointed out each construction. "And over there are my two synagogues."

"Why have you built two synagogues?"

"Well," pointing at one of the buildings "That's the synagogue I go to" pointing at the other synagogue "and that's the synagogue I don't go to".

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Are all religious jokes essentially the same?

Japan unintentionally conducted a long term experiment in that area.
After the unification being a Christian became a capital offence and the state tried to stamp out the last trace of Christian belief (that campaign included the infamous mandatory stomping of the crucifix) while at the same time isolating the country. When the country got reopened centuries later it turned out that there were still Japanese Christians around that had kept the faith alive. But comparision between their practices and 'real' catholics outside Japan showed that it had become a game of Chinese Whispers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_whispers). The latin hymns had turned into gibberish etc.
But there can be no doubt that these people firmly believed to have stayed with the one true faith. One would not risk to be slowly tortured to death together will all the extended family if one had any doubt about that.

I had forgotten about that-- yes, without the continuous mix and re-mix of idea-memes, an isolated version will drift into a completely unrecognizable Something Else.

For me? 

That was the last straw in an already-broken pile of straws:  if there were really anything to the idea of supernatural guidance?  No drifting would be possible.   All faiths would, over time, through divine guidance, drift towards the same place... right?   Right.

Ergo-- none have any (divine influence at all).

Quote from: Sibling Zono (anon1mat0) on April 01, 2012, 09:52:52 PM

It becomes -again- a discussion about definitions, be it the meaning of the word 'god' or the meaning of the word 'atheist' and 'agnostic' which are clearly derived from the first, and as every person has a different opinion of what 'god' means, the definitions of 'agnostic' and 'atheist' are also many, which is another of the reason for my discomfort with the word, the word is loaded and loosely defined, and because without a clear definition there is no clear way to discuss the subject.
---
IMO opinion the word should simply be avoided and use more succinct definitions, that will avoid bad feelings (considering the loaded nature of the subject).

Personally I am convinced that an OOO type of deity is simply incompatible with the universe as we know it and under that definition I am a hard atheist.
I consider the possibility that a very powerful being or beings may or not exist and may or not influence our universe in which case I would define myself as agnostic about their existence.

*Rumble*

I wonder, Bob, if you're disagreement isn't with religion in general? Is that any different than rejecting anyone's concept of god?

Quote from: Swatopluk on April 03, 2012, 08:46:47 AM
But comparision between their practices and 'real' catholics outside Japan showed that it had become a game of Chinese Whispers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_whispers). The latin hymns had turned into gibberish etc.

Hmmmm. Not sure this constitutes proof. Judaism has stayed virtually unchanged even where isolated stetls etc. Admitted customs like the Passover supper would consist of custom of chicken in one place, fish in another, but the worship and laws have stayed identical. eg. practices amongst Ethiopian Jews will be the same as ours in England. (I saw many Ethiopean Jews when I was in Israel, greatly to my surprise as I did not know there were any). Perhaps this is in part because we have had the laws and customs written down throughout the ages, but cannot be entirely that as some aspects are only passed on by following what others do when a child. While the practices of the Chassidim strike me as nuts, I have always recognized them as normal as well  ;D decoded, that means the pratcice is normal, but nuts to actually do it

Completely (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemba_people) unchanged?

Drat, your interposting killed my long post.

OK, here a short version:

Jews:
never fully isolated
Practice in a language they knew
Holy texts could be kept and could be replaced after the occasional book burning
Their neighbours (Christians, to a  degree Muslims) had a faith based on the same sources as theirs, so
they had to memorize mainly the differences not the whole thing
Judaism had a long traddition

Japanese Christians:
fully isolated
Practice in Latin the knowledge of which quickly disappeared
Holy texts could not be kept and were irreplacable
Christianity was something alien and relatively new, there was nothing similar in their neighbour's faith or practice

Quote from: Sibling Zono (anon1mat0) on April 03, 2012, 07:19:14 PM
Completely (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemba_people) unchanged?

Very interesting. Nothing to suggest that their pratcices, that they do do,  have any differences, but no evidence that they do all practices. Genetic evidence fasinating. Males but not females, whereas females normally bloodline. Sort of invalidates this as the Cohen streak is preserved via the male Y chromosone. Hmm. Can I work this into my essay?

Ok, Swato, they are different, but still interesting.

Quote from: Opsa on April 03, 2012, 04:17:09 PM
I wonder, Bob, if you're disagreement isn't with religion in general? Is that any different than rejecting anyone's concept of god?

Well, I rather enjoy ritual for ritual's sake-- I'm human enough to recognize that there is a certain satisfaction at performing a ritual as it was done 1000's of times previously, by those who came before.

And that part of religion, I had no problem with-- so long as the ritual was recognized as ritual, and there was no pretense that it was a mandated from god thing-- for they had no basis in reality for making such a claim.

I suppose I expect a god to make it's self known, or else not care if it's ignored (for a failure to make known).  And that is my biggest beef with religion (the failure of god(s) to prove they exist).

Quote from: Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith on April 04, 2012, 04:10:10 AM
.............
I suppose I expect a god to make it's self known, or else not care if it's ignored (for a failure to make known).  And that is my biggest beef with religion (the failure of god(s) to prove they exist).

The religious would not agree that He/She does not make he/erself known.... think of the flowers and bees and other miracles.  :D

Quote from: Griffin NoName on April 04, 2012, 05:32:15 AM

Quote from: Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith on April 04, 2012, 04:10:10 AM
.............
I suppose I expect a god to make it's self known, or else not care if it's ignored (for a failure to make known).  And that is my biggest beef with religion (the failure of god(s) to prove they exist).

The religious would not agree that He/She does not make he/erself known.... think of the flowers and bees and other miracles.  :D

They have such low standards for a creator to jump over... I expect actual godly things from ... an actual...  god.

:D

But why would something as huje as a god jump through a hoop to try to prove itself to little us?

Does god have to be manipulated in order to exist?

That is a two way avenue, if he is that big to care for us insignificant beings, why should we care about him/her/it?

The same reason humans care for anything, practically speaking... personal benefit.

I don't exclude loving your family, helping those in need and being kind to your friends from the realm of things that are done from personal gain; it's just that they're win-win instead of win-lose.  Acts like these, I suspect, are quite enough to bring the kind of satisfaction and meaning to one's life that some people (including myself) look to 'god' for.

Actually, being able to consistently act to my highest standards of what I think a human being should be is why I'm so god-focused.  I honestly don't think I am able to do it on my own.  However, I think it's acting to this kind of a standard is what gets one 'close to god' (again, there's no reason to bring god into this if you don't need it).  It's not a start here -> get there kind of thing...  a compassionate and virtuous life is the goal and the method of 'getting' God (for me) and striving for God is the focus-point that encourages me to live a compassionate and virtuous life.

But then again, I haven't really seen God as a being, you know, like a sentient thing, since I was a little child. I am comfortable with the statement 'God is' but not with the statement 'God exists'.  God doesn't exist, as I understand it, but we are now getting firmly into semantics.  ;)


_{On the third hand, if one cares to follow my 'Best Possible God' line of thinking and throw in a heaping handful of Pratchett's Small Gods theology, maybe it matters to God that we as a species develop a better idea of God than the currently dominant ones.  He sounds pretty cranky, if you believe the majority consensus. It's no fun being cranky all the time, especially when that dratted scientific rationalism has stripped out all the powers of smiting.  What's a god gotta do to get a lightning bolt around here, anyways?
:mrgreen: :ROFL: :mrgreen:}

Quote from: Aggie on April 04, 2012, 11:15:24 PM
 What's a god gotta do to get a lightning bolt around here, anyways?

It shouldn't be that hard to steer wind currents to create the right amount of cloud ionization. What kind of god can't bump a couple of clouds together?  ;) :P :mrgreen:

Once again, we have the challenge of understanding the definition of god as some sort of independent being vs. the definition of god as everything that exists. What kind of god would be immature enough to slam two clouds together just to startle little us? What if god is the two clouds?

I am guessing that most atheists are against the idea of god as an independent being, who helps or harms at will. I am with them, in this case.

If god is a floating pile of spaghetti just kinda putzing along with no real intention of anything, that's a little more feasible to me.

On the other hand (uh-oh, all these hands are making us look a tad like the Hindu gods...), if all of us together with all that exists is god, and the goal is to be here and now and do the best we can together, then I am not an atheist.

So what I'm asking is, are atheists against all ideas of god, or just the man-in-the-sky kind?

Quote from: Opsa on April 05, 2012, 04:11:04 PM
So what I'm asking is, are atheists against all ideas of god, or just the man-in-the-sky kind?

Might as well ask if god is against the idea of all atheists, or just certain kinds?  :mrgreen:

The idea of an atheist seems to be as necessarily fluid as the idea of a god (because you need to use your own idea of god to frame a rejection of it). However, can definitely say that I believe that atheists exist. Otherwise I'd be an aatheist, I suppose.  ;)

Well, US fundies tend to deny the existence of atheists categorically. 'No atheist in the foxhole' has become a dogma. ;)
But they also deny 'real' homosexuality.

Indeed they do Swato, indeed they do...

:)

Opsa:

I rather like the notion that the whole universe is god (little-g).    It means that any self-aware entity be it biological or electronic (or other) in origin would have a nice, automatic built-in purpose to exist:  in order to see.

Of course, the cynic in me has to quote the following counter-point.

QuoteWe exist to bear witness.
We had to be.
The infinite needs us to see it.
Without the perceiver,
the perceived does not exist.
That gives us leverage.
Don't look until you get what you want.

--Chuck Lorre, #225

Is that a counter-point or just a counter attitude?  ;)

So if you can allow that we may be the wondering and appreciating pieces of the all, are you an atheist? And am I?

I freely admit here that I do have some kinds of faith.   I would never admit such to a fundamentalist, though-- it fuels their delusions, for they misconstrue what I say to their own nefarious ends.

But I do admit that I have faith that our human senses: eyes, ears, etc, can actually perceive the real universe around us, especially if we utilize tools which help us get an unbiased opinion.

For example:  look at the height of say, a tree.  We can use just our eyes, and guess-- an opinion.  Or we can use a tool, such as a tape-measure, and form an unbiased opinion.  Anyone using a similar tape-measure will get the same results.

So it's a principle of faith, I suppose, that our human senses and an objective tool of some sort:   yardstick, microscope, telescope, cyclotron, will give us an unbiased measurement of the universe.   Within the limits of the tool, of course.   That should be obvious, but isn't, and must be stated to be complete.

Yet, I maintain that I am faithless all too frequently (atheist).

What gives, then?

To me, the principle difference is the repeatability, regardless of language, culture, origin, mental acuity, etc.   

To be acceptable, a principle must be common/repeatable to everyone*.    And the religious premises simply to not fit that requirement.  At all.

So I see no real conundrum here.

Besides:  everyone is an atheist in some respect-- there are always some gods of some sort that any given person does not believe in.   :)





__________________

* obviously within the limits of a person's set of senses: some humans do not possess the full slate, due to some injury or accident of birth.

I appreciate your opinion very much, Bob. I wonder if what we're both mostly against is really just fundamentalism.

I read a very interesting article today in The Washington Post called "Is Doubt Good?" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/admitting-doubts-may-be-first-step-to-ending-religious-divisions/2012/04/05/gIQAU2hoxS_story.html) I think it touches on some of what we've been discussing.

In the end, I suppose it is another "Question Authority" thing.

mmmm!  Nicely written-- thanks for the link, Opsa.

And you are correct:  I am pretty much against fundamentalism, regardless of which form it takes.

Our dear departed sibling DD once reminded me of that:  it's the extremists that we should worry about, not your average Joe or Jane next door, who's only trying to live life as best they know how.  (If you wonder about the conversation, search here for "I do not belong here" (or a thread with a similar title to that).

As for question authority?  I like to quote John Clease if MPFC:  "Question everything.  Nothing should be so sacred that we cannot make fun of it now and again."

And I agree-- nothing is wrong with reviewing sacred stories (translation: stories we hold very dear) from time to time-- it helps remind us how we got here, if nothing else.

But by the same token?  We should also feel free to make fun of those same stories-- for by making fun of them, it lets us re-examine them from a new or different perspective.

And that, is never a bad thing.

*rumble*

* also rumbles *

:Topic Drift:

Jerusalem Syndrome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_syndrome) might be worth considering.

:End Topic Drift:

As a Card Carrying Atheist^TM of long standing, I define atheism as simple not believing in any supernatural being until and unless there is some actual evidence for he/she/it.  Should such evidence ever be produced, of course, then belief will not be required, only acceptance of the evidence, thus belief if a non-starter however you look at it.  If you want my opinion, then I very seriously doubt any such evidence will ever be uncovered, but I accept that there is a very small (vanishingly small but not zero) chance that it may.  However, I count on it much less than the chance that I might win the lottery, after all sometimes I even buy a ticket in the lottery!  ::)

PS:  Anyway the point I intended to make above but topic drifted myself with, was that I do not consider atheism to be rejection of god, how can you reject something that does not exist?  The atheist does not reject god he/she simply does not consider god at all.  As I have been known to say to fundies in other places:  show me the evidence.

There is a lot one can reject or accept independent of hard evidence of actual existence. A notorious case would be 'human rights'. Objectively, dictatorships like China that simply deny that they exist have the better arguments. Give me any hard facts that 'rights' exists independent of a made-up consent one can force no one to share. It's quite a useful illusion (likely a better one than 'G*d' most of the time) though. Again we are talking about frame of reference. The rejection cannot exist without the idea that is rejected being there in the first place (the idea, not necessarily something real). It would make no sense to define somebody as a-gfhemcfjdlgfnl unless there is a common idea of gfhemcfjdlgfnl. You ask for evidence? Gotcha! You bought into the frame. Are you for or against Popov? Who the hell is Popov? Gotcha! I do not doubt you own atheist credentials but I deny that you were born one (you were not born as a believer either), you grew into one during the process of learning that other people have this strange idea not based on evidence. The same is not true about material facts like your biological sex because that has an idenpendent existence and does not require any perception on your part.

There are of course more fuzzy things like your nationality or your name. They are not strictly material but the world does a lot to make them as real as possible while you are free to feel completely different about them. You can rejct the name assigned to you and you can feel to be a member of a nation of your choice while that nation denies it to you and/or another claims you and refuses to release you and also insists oy you having a certain name. Both was true for German Jews in the 3rd Reich, stripped of citizenship and assigned a nation and name and later a mere number although the majority had no interest in either. A lot of German Jews were rabid German nationalists and totally rejected the idea of zionism.

Human rights exist simply because we humans have decided that they do.

Human rights is a meme, a concept completely abstract, like money.   These exist because we say they do, and act accordingly.

Sure, the same arguments could be used for "god" but there is a very important difference:  without humans, there would be no need of human rights (or money as humans use the meme).   But the god-botherers claim their god(s) exist independent of any and all human activity.  By making that claim, they have set themselves up for verification of the claim-- if it's true, then this "god" or "gods" can be tested for independent of human activity.

To date, no gods have ever passed this requirement.

And yes-- I was born an atheist--everyone was (default:  no beliefs=atheist).   You can spin this however you like, but I reject your straw-man "atheism" definition as "n/a".

Quote from: Bluenose on April 13, 2012, 02:43:19 AM
I define atheism as simple not believing in any supernatural being until and unless there is some actual evidence for he/she/it.

The moment you bring evidence it stops being supernatural and becomes natural, the same way dark matter and dark energy are not considered supernatural, as although we don't know what they are we can infer their existence from consistent observations.

Quote from: Sibling Zono (anon1mat0) on April 13, 2012, 05:48:32 PM

Quote from: Bluenose on April 13, 2012, 02:43:19 AM
I define atheism as simple not believing in any supernatural being until and unless there is some actual evidence for he/she/it.

The moment you bring evidence it stops being supernatural and becomes natural, the same way dark matter and dark energy are not considered supernatural, as although we don't know what they are we can infer their existence from consistent observations.

I quite agree.  That is one of the most powerful arguments against the very idea of the supernatural.  If something exists, it is by definition natural.

Platon taught that ideas have an existence independent of the material world while he left the question open whether the same was true for gods. So if you had asked him 'human rights' would exist even without any humans being there to claim them.
Of course he was also a donkey cavity and would not have found it to be one of the better ideas. ;) He was more fond of duties.
Later he would be named an idealist as opposed to the nominalist/realist Aristotle (marginally less of an ungulate's rear entry).

So true, Zono.  So true--

-- so does that make those of us who demand natural explanations, naturalists then?

:D

I kinda like that myself: 

Stranger: "Are you an atheist or a believer?"

Me:  "Neither.  I'm a naturalist."

:D

As long as yah ain't one a them naturists, son...      :giggle: