When you break it down: is atheism unappealing?

[prideandfall]

Well Prideandfall, I guess not everyone has a Vulcan's ability to suppress feelings.

what on earth does that have to do with anything? that is such a bizarre non-sequitur i can't possibly imagine what you think the point is.
neither group i was referring to suppressed any feelings whatsoever, what are you trying to say here?

I do not begrudge anyone's using religion to cope with problems.

good for you? i mean, cool... but what does that have to do with anything?

though on that subject, i've never observed religion helping anyone to cope with anything - every depressed christian i've ever met was just depressed as every depressed atheist i ever met, they just get stuck being depressed over slightly different philosophical quandaries, or are depressed over their lives with slightly different ways of thinking about it.

People cope in different ways when facing death.

yes they do, and religion isn't any better at that coping than anything else is, so trying to justify its existence because it 'brings comfort' is about as valid as saying we should all be heroin addicts because heroin brings comfort too.

which is all well and good if religion is your bag, to each their own and all of that, but it's a very weak point to try to make to prop up the idea of religion as being advantageous in any way over being not-religious when it comes to dealing with life's problems.

 

[steve_bank]

You mocked peole suffering loss and calling on god. While I am atheist and debate relgion here I would never mock someone in that manner. eEcognizing I am not an all powefull god it is not for me to make such a judgment on people. That would make me an atheist version of the ranting Evangelicals.

I am not justifying anything. Religion like most most human behavior is not a simple black and white dichotomy.

Considering what is going on today and the turn culture has taken religion is at the bottom of my harmful list.

 

[prideandfall]

You mocked peole suffering loss and calling on god.

did i?
i said that they respond very negatively to the death of loved ones which i find shows the lie behind their claim to believe in eternal existence after death, since truly believing that would make death immaterial.
if pointing out that contradiction in behavior vs. proclaimed faith is mockery, then i suppose i mocked them... but honestly, they started it.

Considering what is going on today and the turn culture has taken religion is at the bottom of my harmful list.

yes well you have a very strident track record on these forums for being dead wrong on social issues, so that doesn't surprise me.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

It's an interesting question. I wonder if many people are religious in ontology, but expert materialists in practice. When it comes to everyday life we intuitively accept the physical world and basic cause/effect, but adding an additional layer (religion) makes the whole experience more interesting.

I think that is it.

As children do with Santa Claus.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

i think this is the secret portal into religious thinking... they don't actually believe in life after death, their behavior gives them away.
if one believed in life after death, the physical death of someone would be meaningless - it just means they're going on vacation for a bit and you won't see them for a couple years.
the way religious people absolutely lose their shit over someone dying shows that they *don't* believe there's a life after death, and that the whole thing is a lie they know they're trying to sell themselves but can't manage to pull off.

We've been walking around this point quite a bit.

It is entirely possible and in my opinion likely that persons ascribing to religious afterlives and otherworldly realities have in fact declared their outright fear of the reality they live in and sense everyday. This decision is subconscious but obviously natural and selected for. Couple this with the fact that scientific thought and appreciation is relatively difficult compared to believing in childish tall tales. I was really happy as a kid and adulthood is a struggle in comparison. My scientific curiosity has saved me many times because it gave me the knowledge to understand how something unpleasant can happen. That is the essential transition from childhood to adulthood.

 

[rousseau]

Although a little more nuanced, that was it in a nutshell. Between the two worldviews it's obvious which one would appeal to more people.

but why?

maybe someone religious can answer this because i've asked dozens of people in my life and nobody can explain it to me:
why does the idea that your life is a marionette show appeal to you?
why is the thought that if something bad happens to you, it's punishment for something you did, sound good?
why is all of this being a skin flick for some sky fairy sound more appealing than "it happens because it gets to happen"?

i get the argument in terms of grammar, i just don't understand it philosophically or rationally.
why is that line of thought appealing to people?

So as Atheists, we're all obviously invested in the lack of God because it appeals to us

i mean, the idea of a lack of god doesn't appeal to me per se, but i guess i'm not technically an atheist so maybe that's why.
but, none of the atheists i know are invested in a lack of god either.

however, both myself and every atheist i've ever known are most certainly invested in the lack of *religion* - but religion and god are absolutely not the same thing.

but when you break the problem down to it's basic elements we're trying to sell the religious a bit of a shithole. Their religion shields them from what is a cruel and indifferent world, they do not want to accept materialism because it isn't much of a cakewalk.

hard disagree on both points and i don't understand how that argument can even be made.
the human experience of life is what it is either way, in one version things happen because they get to happen. in the other version, things happen because some unknowable inscrutable screenplay has been written for all of existence and you're locked into a path you have no way of diverting from or even being aware of.

i don't think religion is a shield against that, and i think the behavior of religious people completely defy any attempt to classify it as such.
like so many things dealing with religious/conservative thinking, there is nothing about saving or bettering themselves that is the part that appeals to them... it's about punishment and degradation for other people that appeals to them.

they don't buy into religion with the hope to go to heaven, they buy into it for the promise that other people are going to hell.

I think the catch here is that atheists tend to think about faith far more stridently and deeply than those of actual faith. That may not always be the case, but is usually true. When you really look at it, religion usually ends up being a minor component of most people's lives. A nice, comforting idea that is nice to hold on to, while the other ninety-nine percent of the time they're living the same lives as atheists.

Religious thinking isn't something that many sit down and write a bunch of bullet-points about, it's just a pervasive, normalized, and attractive part of many cultures, and many people are positively incentivized to follow it.

Maybe that's, strictly speaking, irrational. But humans are irrational, so where are we going with that accusation?

If it weren't for religious ideas encroaching on public policy, most atheists would be completely indifferent to the religious. In Canada, religion is essentially neutral, nobody talks about it, nobody asks, for the most part nobody cares. It's just not that important here.

 

[steve_bank]

You mocked peole suffering loss and calling on god.

did i?
i said that they respond very negatively to the death of loved ones which i find shows the lie behind their claim to believe in eternal existence after death, since truly believing that would make death immaterial.
if pointing out that contradiction in behavior vs. proclaimed faith is mockery, then i suppose i mocked them... but honestly, they started it.

Considering what is going on today and the turn culture has taken religion is at the bottom of my harmful list.

yes well you have a very strident track record on these forums for being dead wrong on social issues, so that doesn't surprise me.

I am an armchair liberal's worse nightmare. I am a centrist pragmatic observer who is not racist or biased and who has gone out of his way throughout life to get to know regular people of all kinds. I am noy boid as much as I am abnle by any ideologigy. I am a regular person who feels no superiotty over anyone, even the religions.

From my experience people like you base views on generalizations and stereotypes without really getting to know people you malign. That you have never observed people benefiting from religion meansou have never really known rebellious people.

Hee re on the forum we tend to emphasize the negatives of religion. Atheists can be just as narrow mnided as the religious can be.

I can get into a conversation on a bus or a street corner. It is how I leaned about other people.

every religious person i have known when confronted with the death of a loved one embarks on this wild dramatic wailing and gnashing of teeth and incoherent sobbing, and blubbering on and on about "oh lawd why you gotta take dem away from me" and this absolute inability to accept that death as a natural part of

That is mocking. Atheits are emotional but not like religious who need to call on a deit?. I don't see how you can prove that
all atheists' cope without relying o a crutch when in distress.

You are arguing an atheist supriorty without any proof much like theists argue faith.

Such is the pragmatic view from the center.

I identify as atheist on the forum because it is convenient. However I reject both sides as equally nonsensical. The word atheist itself has no real meaning as it does not represent any affirmative belief. As such making an argument about atheism is just as meaningless as arguing theism.

Agruing for atheim is a means of finding meanign, community, and idenity as is theism.

 

[abaddon]

If it weren't for religious ideas encroaching on public policy, most atheists would be completely indifferent to the religious.

Atheists often say that and frankly I think it's not quite true. We could talk in nonpolitical terms (to keep it relevant to GR instead of PD) about how religion [sometimes] causes people to be jerks in politics but mostly IIDBers don't focus on that. Instead it's a battle of worldviews, like materialism vs "ghosts". The main theme is obviating all possibility that there's "mind" anywhere in the universe. Some folk even try to strike it from humans and render us into biological robots.

So, talk about materialism being a hard sell... If the hardline version of it is true, if it's all mindless machinery, then life's idiotic and absurd. If materialists find wonder in some bits of nature sometimes, it's a failure to be true to that ontology, similar to what people say about the religious not living strictly by theirs.

Why does religion seem to materialists like it can't be about anything except "comfort"? Because at some level they must know their view on reality is HORRIFIC.

I'm technically atheist for applying my agnosticism to theism and thus "lacking belief". The only big "Ism" word that's attractive to me is naturalism. NOT materialism.

I'm also not anti-religious. I want to be clear, to help destroy* the idea of atheism as a materialist ontology that's anti-religious (*as if that's got any chance in hell). Being religious doesn't mean you're ignorant and destructive; being a secularist who likes science doesn't mean you're not. Religion isn't the reason for the ecological catastrophes. Humans trying hard at 'technical efficiency' for "the progress of Humanity" are a big part of the problem there. We're severely ignorant (a little insane even) animals wielding more and more power; and "throw more technology at it, that'll fix it" seems to me a manic degree of excess technological optimism.

So I'm hopeful for a paradigm shift away from the money-making technical efficiency that, IMV, is at the heart of the current paradigm. In that paradigm, all nature is mindless stuff so nothing can justify any ethical qualms about using it as resources for human use, to make themselves safe from that uncomfortable ("cruel" even) thing called Nature. I've seen the phrase "nature's trying to kill you!" about 100 times in IIDB over the years in the context of how wonderful that applied science/technology is.

Is this picture of reality true? Maybe partly... but if you fully "buy" the current paradigm of materialism then it'll give you an exaggerated sense that nature is dumb objects, a machine with only instrumental value to humans. There's a huge input of values and agenda there... it's not straight up science.

Maybe religion, if re-visioned to be less otherworldly, would be helpful to save the earth from the manic "turn it all into stuff for sale" people? Religions are going through changes. To keep harping about fundies as if they represent all religions makes it falsely seem like it's nothing but BAD. Some secularists hate the idea of the changes; they seem to view them as not "ideologically pure" (very like how religious fundies see them, fascinatingly). But nevertheless there is a "greening" of religions. There are more neo-animists, neo-pagans, environmentalist Buddhists, "green" Christians, religious naturalists, et al, than there used to be. Yeah it's small and hopeless to slow down the destruction of the biosphere. But still it'd be highly unintelligent to resist the change, to revile is as "not the truth". IMV it's not clear that there isn't truth there.

So, tldr version: Atheism does not necessarily entail advocating materialism nor being anti-religious. I stand behind only naturalism because 1) the ecosphere matters more than anything else including humans; 2) naturalism is a big tent that doesn't try to keep the religious out (or "get rid of religion") and thereby 'cut off its nose to spite its face'.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

If it weren't for religious ideas encroaching on public policy, most atheists would be completely indifferent to the religious.

Atheists often say that and frankly I think it's not quite true. We could talk in nonpolitical terms (to keep it relevant to GR instead of PD) about how religion [sometimes] causes people to be jerks in politics but mostly IIDBers don't focus on that. Instead it's a battle of worldviews, like materialism vs "ghosts". The main theme is obviating all possibility that there's "mind" anywhere in the universe. Some folk even try to strike it from humans and render us into biological robots.

So, talk about materialism being a hard sell... If the hardline version of it is true, if it's all mindless machinery, then life's idiotic and absurd. If materialists find wonder in some bits of nature sometimes, it's a failure to be true to that ontology, similar to what people say about the religious not living strictly by theirs.

Why does religion seem to materialists like it can't be about anything except "comfort"? Because at some level they must know their view on reality is HORRIFIC.

I'm technically atheist for applying my agnosticism to theism and thus "lacking belief". The only big "Ism" word that's attractive to me is naturalism. NOT materialism.

I'm also not anti-religious. I want to be clear, to help destroy* the idea of atheism as a materialist ontology that's anti-religious (*as if that's got any chance in hell). Being religious doesn't mean you're ignorant and destructive; being a secularist who likes science doesn't mean you're not (which is an idea that's been presented a few times in this thread). Religion isn't the reason for the ecological catastrophes. Humans trying hard at 'technical efficiency' for "the progress of Humanity" are a big part of the problem there. We're severely ignorant (a little insane even) animals wielding more and more power; and "throw more technology at it, that'll fix it" seems to me a manic degree of excess technological optimism.

So I'm hopeful for a paradigm shift away from the money-making technical efficiency that, IMV, is at the heart of the current paradigm. All nature is mindless stuff so nothing could justify any ethical qualms about using it as resources for human use so that they can makes themselves safe from that uncomfortable ("cruel" even) thing called Nature. I've seen the phrase "nature's trying to kill you!" about 100 times in IIDB over the years in the context of how wonderful that applied science/technology is.

Is this picture of reality true? Maybe partly... but if you fully "buy" the current paradigm of materialism then it'll give you an exaggerated sense that nature is dumb objects, a machine with only instrumental value to humans. There's a huge input of values there... it's not straight up science.

Maybe religion, if revisioned to be less otherworldly, would be helpful to save the earth from the manic "turn it all into stuff" people? Religions are going through changes. To keep harping about fundies as if they represent all religions makes it falsely seem like it's nothing but BAD. Some secularists HATE the idea of the changes; they seem to view them as not "ideologically pure" in the same way religious fundies see them. But nevertheless there is a "greening" of religions. There are more neo-animists, neo-pagans, environmentalist Buddhists, "green" Christians, religious naturalists, et al, than there used to be. Yeah it's small and hopeless to slow down the destruction of the biosphere. IMV it'd be highly unintelligent to resist the change, to revile is as "not the truth". Frankly, to me, it's not 100% clear that there isn't truth there.

So, tldr version: Atheism does not necessarily entail advocating materialism nor being anti-religious. I stand behind only naturalism because 1) the ecosphere matters more than anything else including humans; 2) naturalism is a big tent that doesn't try to keep the religious out and thereby 'cut off its nose to spite its face'.

Speaking for myself, to be mindful has everything to do with materialism. If nothing else, mindfulness is an emergent property of materialism. Even if I think I'm a ghost that is going to mindlessly fly away when my material body is dead to answer to some master ghost in the sky I've just entered into another material world. Non-materialism is only possible because we have materialism front and center. Non-materialists live a 100% material existence and pretend in a non-material existence. Their lives are 100% atheistic until we find those ghosty souls of Bigfoot and Nessie. If I continue to pretend in non-materialism as an adult, a behavior that came naturally in childhood, then I have to look for a scientific explanation, not a religious proclamation. That's just dragging childhood into adulthood.

In the end theism is one example of pretending, and it's quite popular. And it carries into adulthood. What causes that to happen when other childhood fantasies fade away? If I appreciate scientific investigation the answer is obvious. If I don't the answer is hidden.

 

[abaddon]

Speaking for myself, to be mindful has everything to do with materialism. If nothing else, mindfulness is an emergent property of materialism. Even if I think I'm a ghost that is going to mindlessly fly away when my material body is dead to answer to some master ghost in the sky I've just entered into another material world. Non-materialism is only possible because we have materialism front and center. Non-materialists live a 100% material existence and pretend in a non-material existence. Their lives are 100% atheistic until we find those ghosty souls of Bigfoot and Nessie. If I continue to pretend in non-materialism as an adult, a behavior that came naturally in childhood, then I have to look for a scientific explanation, not a religious proclamation. That's just dragging childhood into adulthood.

In the end theism is one example of pretending, and it's quite popular. And it carries into adulthood. What causes that to happen when other childhood fantasies fade away? If I appreciate scientific investigation the answer is obvious. If I don't the answer is hidden.

Do you mean matter is hard and that's why things look and feel solid to you? And that's why it's obviously material and not mental?

Do you say "ghosts" because you imagine them to be airy insubstantial things? Therefore a mental world must be airy and without a substantial feel?

 

[rousseau]

So, tldr version: Atheism does not necessarily entail advocating materialism nor being anti-religious. I stand behind only naturalism because 1) the ecosphere matters more than anything else including humans; 2) naturalism is a big tent that doesn't try to keep the religious out (or "get rid of religion") and thereby 'cut off its nose to spite its face'.

Maybe I have a poor understanding of what materialism entails. I don't see it as having a relationship with any particular dogma or framework, except that the universe can be modeled. To me it's a statement that the universe is made of chemical elements, nothing more, nothing less.

I like naturalism too for the reason you mention - it is inclusive of the religious - they become a part of the aforementioned modelling, rather than a problem that needs to be solved.

If we're talking facts, to me that's a fact.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I don't get the reference of materialism being the alternative to theism. Buddhism (areligious philosophy) teaches that blind materialism is kind of a dead end sort of thing due to our own impermanence.

 

[abaddon]

I don't get the reference of materialism being the alternative to theism. Buddhism (areligious philosophy) teaches that blind materialism is kind of a dead end sort of thing due to our own impermanence.

I guess people are used to thinking of religion as being about a spirit realm "added" on top of the material world. So to convey "you're wrong" tends to rely on being adamant about "no spirit! only matter!"

The humanist philosopher Luc Ferry, in A Brief History of Thought, describes Christianity as the most materialist of religions. In his description of it, people's bodies will be restored bodily, and the earth will be restored but perfected. They don't seem to want out of the material world, they seem only to wish it wasn't painful.

 

[Politesse]

I don't get the reference of materialism being the alternative to theism. Buddhism (areligious philosophy) teaches that blind materialism is kind of a dead end sort of thing due to our own impermanence.

I guess people are used to thinking of religion as being about a spirit realm "added" on top of the material world. So to convey "you're wrong" tends to rely on being adamant about "no spirit! only matter!"

Very Christian thinking, ironically. Supernaturalis was never a Pagan term.

The humanist philosopher Luc Ferry, in A Brief History of Thought, describes Christianity as the most materialist of religions. In his description of it, people's bodies will be restored bodily, and the earth will be restored but perfected. They don't seem to want out of the material world, they seem only to wish it wasn't painful

Somewhat true, but Ferry never spoke with a Gnostic if he thinks all Christians share that tendency, belief. And though that view is doctrinally correct, I have found that even orthodox Latin Christians don't necessarily think of the afterlife or the eschatological future in material terms; and are surprised to learn that some of their beliefs are heretical.

 

[Elixir]

For me, it doesn’t matter whether or not atheism is appealing (to me or anyone else).
Until I experience something that informs me otherwise, it’s what I got. If that’s a problem, it’s not one that I could solve by pretending to believe in any god(s).

 

[abaddon]

Speaking for myself, to be mindful has everything to do with materialism. If nothing else, mindfulness is an emergent property of materialism. Even if I think I'm a ghost that is going to mindlessly fly away when my material body is dead to answer to some master ghost in the sky I've just entered into another material world. Non-materialism is only possible because we have materialism front and center. Non-materialists live a 100% material existence and pretend in a non-material existence. Their lives are 100% atheistic until we find those ghosty souls of Bigfoot and Nessie. If I continue to pretend in non-materialism as an adult, a behavior that came naturally in childhood, then I have to look for a scientific explanation, not a religious proclamation. That's just dragging childhood into adulthood.

In the end theism is one example of pretending, and it's quite popular. And it carries into adulthood. What causes that to happen when other childhood fantasies fade away? If I appreciate scientific investigation the answer is obvious. If I don't the answer is hidden.

Do you mean matter is hard and that's why things look and feel solid to you? And that's why it's obviously material and not mental?

Do you say "ghosts" because you imagine them to be airy insubstantial things? Therefore a mental world must be airy and without a substantial feel?

Sorry, I pretty badly misread your post. Nevermind.

 

[TomC]

The chief attraction of religion, at least its main stream Abrahamic varieties, is the prospect of life after death. Atheism precludes that possibility.

Not necessarily. One can still believe in some form of an afterlife that is not related to any gods.

This is quite true. Frankly I am smitten by the fact that every bit of me is eternal, you might as well say immortal. I may go to pieces but I'll never go away.

This is what I prefer to believe, AKA faith based beliefs.

Living things are animated by a little spark of the Divine. That's the difference between a living thing and a non-living thing. Including the difference between a living human being and their corpse. While we're alive we're a combination of the material(our bodies) and the spiritual(our spirit or soul). When we die they separate. Our meat continues through the unimaginably vast cycle of transformation that is the material universe. Our souls merge with the Original Source, like a raindrop falling back into the ocean.

That raindrop will never exist again, but it doesn't disappear either. It becomes the ocean. So, in my world, death isn't ceasing to exist. It's losing my human limitations, including my identity, and becoming God.
Tom

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Maybe I have a poor understanding of what materialism entails. I don't see it as having a relationship with any particular dogma or framework, except that the universe can be modeled. To me it's a statement that the universe is made of chemical elements, nothing more, nothing less.

Materialism to myself just means the same thing as naturalism. It's defined differently depending on the source, much of the time disparagingly. It really just means that there isn't any magic going on, nothing supernatural, nothing of woo value. This doesn't mean we can't comfort ourselves in fantasy. It doesn't mean I can't enjoy a movie like Avatar or that there is something wrong with my experiencing emotions. It just means I'm aware of what is going on and I control it to some degree, not it always me. It requires a healthy dose of skepticism and scientific curiosity and it is definitely not pessimistic. I don't have to surrender myself in any way.

 

[skepticalbip]

The chief attraction of religion, at least its main stream Abrahamic varieties, is the prospect of life after death. Atheism precludes that possibility.

Not necessarily. One can still believe in some form of an afterlife that is not related to any gods.

This is quite true. Frankly I am smitten by the fact that every bit of me is eternal, you might as well say immortal. I may go to pieces but I'll never go away.

Living things are animated by a little spark of the Divine. That's the difference between a living thing and a non-living thing. Including the difference between a living human being and their corpse. While we're alive we're a combination of the material(our bodies) and the spiritual(our spirit or soul). When we die they separate. Our meat continues through the unimaginably vast cycle of transformation that is the material universe. Our souls merge with the Original Source, like a raindrop falling back into the ocean.

That is poetic but does it really mean anything? Does it apply to tape worms, slugs and crab grass (which are living things)? Can the metaphor also apply to automobiles? Is the difference between a smoothly operating automobile and a rust bucket with a blown engine that has been towed to the scrap yard that the "operation" has separated from the metal and moved on to the Original Source while the metal is recycled?

 

[TomC]

That is poetic but does it really mean anything?

It does to me. I've no reason to care about anyone else's opinions on the subject. It's entirely Faith. But it works for me.

Does it apply to tape worms, slugs and crab grass?

I presume so. They're alive. I don't really care though.
Except for my dogs. I care about them.

Can the metaphor also apply to automobiles.

Are automobiles alive?
Perhaps you can answer that question without my insight.
Surely.
Tom