ATTN. ATHEISTS!!! PLEASE please please stop saying you "Lack belief"

[A HERETIC I AM]

or that you are an "Unbeliever" or or otherwise parsing the language you use to describe your own personal philosophical point of view in THEIR TERMS.

I prefer to say to any theist that might insist that i "Lack belief" that I DON'T LACK A DAMNED THING! It is my studied and deeply considered position that i KNOW god is a mythical construct. I refuse to allow someone who wants to insist a book filled with talking snakes and donkeys, witches, burning and talking bushes, fantastic stories of miraculous happenings, and previously dead people walking around is a book of historical fact to tell me that i am somehow LACKING something when i declare that they are, quite frankly, DELUDED!

I'm sorry, but it irks me when i see folks that are bright, articulate, thoughtful and intelligent allow themselves to be suckered in by the language of the ...well....the opposition.

I am NOT an "Unbeliever". I am AN ATHEIST! I have no gods. I do not need them any more than i need the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus. (and as i have mentioned on this board more than once, there is more historical basis for the myth of Santa than there is for the myth of Christ.) I have plenty of beliefs. I believe in the human race. It's capacity for grace, for art, for compassion and music and progress. I believe we will CONTINUE to evolve and that one day, religions such as the ones we see today will be relegated to the dustbin of history that the pantheons of the Greek and Roman gods now find themselves.

YOU FOLKS DON'T LACK A FUCKING THING! If anything, you have gained the ability, through reason and intellect, to recognize a farce when you see one.

Don't sell yourselves short merely on vernacular.

End of rant. Thanks. Back to your regularly scheduled program.

[Az]

1. Logic problem

I am thinking of a god you have never heard described before. I am not going to tell you anything about this god. Now please provide for me your argument and logic refuting this particular god.

[A HERETIC I AM]

2. You use the term "God" from the get go

plenty enough logic for refutation for me. Now, if you had used ANY other term to make your point then i might be baited, but alas, all gods are mythical constructs by the very definition of the term "God"

going to bed now (1:00Am EDT)....we'll carry on later

PS. Gotta love a Devils Advocate, eh AZ? lol have fun

Post, post script....on edit to ask:

If you arent going to tell me anything about this god, are you STILL going to say it is a god? If so, my above post stands. If not, then your point is moot, is it not?

I am thinking of a vegetable you have never heard of before. I am not going to tell you anything about it. Tell me why it is a vegetable and not a fruit. Do I make a valid counter point?

I might not get back online for a day or 2, I have to drive from Charlotte to Ft. Worth. Maybe tomorrow night. Anyway, we'll pick it back up then. I look forward to any furthur comments. g'night

Paul

[Az]

5. For when you wake

All gods are mythical constructs? Sort of begs the question. The very issue we are trying to determine is whether all gods are mythical constructions or not. Therefore prejudging the conclusion is a dishonest approach.

Here is the problem. We can theorise that all gods are constructs. But we cannot know this. We can only examine each and every claim for god and attempt to determine whether it has any merrit. In my case I have never come across a claim for god that stood up to the challenge. But there are a virtual infinite number of possible claims for god. Therefore I cannot make an absolute statement that there are no gods.

The reason for taking the position that we lack a belief in god stems not from falling for their argument. It is instead a means of heading off an argument. If we insist that there is no god we have taken a positive stance. We are making a claim that there is no god. Ok. Provide the evidence. You have just created an infinite task.

If we insist there is no god then we have to provide refutation for god. As soon as we lay down our explanation the theist merely states that's not their god. As we are the one's making the declaration they are under no burden to specify what god they are talking about. The burden of proof rests on the individual making the positive statement. The opponent merely has to provide refutation of the argument provided. As they do not have to specify the god we are caught shooting at an invisible moving target.

So we state we lack a belief in god. The positive statement here is easily demonstrated. We provide the evidence for it by simply stating we lack a belief in god. This places the burden of proof for god on the shoulders of the theist. We now own the argument. We can dismantle the argument they provide for their god.

[fshrink]

4. When you use the word "god"

you evoke a referent that contains enough meaning to refute it from an atheist viewpoint. This meaning supercedes any particular feature of the "god you have never heard described before". For example, replace "god" by "republican candidate" and answer your problem with ease.

[Az]

6. Scope

Republican candidates have only had about a 100 years of development. And even in that time they have covered a wide scope. Everything from Lincoln to .... don't make me say his name... *. God likely arises from each person's own sense of self projected onto the universe as they grow and learn the nature of their surroundings. This is turn is mixed with eons of social constructs interacting with each other and developing the notion of god to increasingly complex entities.

So while we can make a convincing argument that god does not exist and further more is a creation of the mind it falls just short of being an absolute argument. Absolute may seem to be a rather extreme goal but in matters of logic a position can be made or broken by an absolute.

The problem is the proverbial god of the gaps. Until we "know" the entirety of the universe (multiverse) and all its machinations there will be gaps that the theists will try to hide their god in. In order to make a positive declaritive statement that there is no god we have to close these gaps.

[fshrink]

7. There is no absolute argument about anything.

And that was part of the poster's point. You say atheist are lacking a positive declarative statement or an absolute argument, which is what he stood against. What atheists refuse, refute, do not need, rather than lack, is the crystal cornerstone which allows the mystical construct to achieve ideological invulnerability. The fact that human's capacity to create meaning makes such an operation possible and sustainable does not make it more acceptable. The truth is first and foremost practical, not theoretical, and while we glose on the logical structure of religious beliefs, their practical output steadily increases, consistently generating death and destruction.

[Az]

8. Their ability to propogate is not dependent on god

Though there are increasing numbers of individuals that seperate themself from organised church structures the propogation still is formented by the social constructs that created them in the first place.

Its the complex memetic structures surrounding the god memes that make them survivable.

Our position is not the result of a social construct (other than a rejection of one). Ours is a position arrived at by our own means. Typically the rejection of an individual god claim leads to our discarding of all god claims that we become aware of.

Our initial rejection of god is typically the result of a basic emotional rejection or an inability of the god meme to find a foothold in our mind. Eventually we begin to develop explanations and support for our initial rejection of this god notion.

We tend to support our claims with logic and reason. Typically using the scientific method to do so. But this is exactly why we cannot come to an absolute statement. Science and reason demand an open process. If we wish to use logic to defend our position then we have to accept this caveat. If there were ever any evidence demonstrating a sufficient proof of god then our own logic demands that we change our position.

So the natural arrival to our position does not bring with it a natural means of countering the theists means of propogating. That is our position does not have a means of socially promoting itself. Instead we (perhaps us here) have to find a way to create a social movement that is both progressive, selfpropogating, responsive to human direction, and nontheistic in nature. We are up against evolution in this matter. Not biological evolution. But memetic evolution of social constructs that have 1000s of years head start on us.

Simply put atheism on its own cannot be the foundation of a social movement that counters religious propogation. Atheism in the end is a reaction. Without theists being present atheism would not be necissary to note. Just as we do not need to note the presense of asmurfists (believers of smurfs) the absense of theists would enable us to discard the labels atheists.

This doesn't mean that atheists can't create such a movement. But it does mean that we have to enable the advancement of atheism with the inclusion of other aspects. Just as theism does not advance itself on the base of its position alone atheism needs to develop a fuller base.

[fshrink]

13. What we can do here

is, imo, create a place where political issues can be discussed without the burden and the confusion brought to exchanges by religion. I think that the exchanges would be of a much better quality, therefore more useful, more popular. Now, we would have to focus less on (a-) religion. When we do that, we just practically define what we stand for, critical thinking, as an opposition to religion, which it is only very marginally in fact. Religion is made a central issue because it serves well the purpose of domination to generates endless discussions on tastes and colors while everybody gets the shaft. This is like a general accepting the place, time and mode of a battle suggested by the ennemy.

[Az]

14. Agreed

This is much what I was trying to get at with my ealier "Its time to organize" thread. We cannot organize simply on the fact that we are atheists. Atheism is just a part of who we are. We need to include that as an aspect of our direction. But we need to create an infrastructure that forms around reason and examination of the human condition as best we can understand it.

[Warpy]

3. Believers and unbelievers have very different PET scans

and that leads researchers to think that belief (or lack of it) is hard wired into our brains from birth.

We're not going to convert them. They're not going to convert us.

The best we can hope for is a truce.

I'm perfectly happy to tell people I'm just not religious. I feel under no obligation to defend myself to anyone out there, but if they try to convert me, it generally doesn't go their way at all.

I don't consider atheism to be a source of either pride or shame. I just know that whatever it takes to swallow all the god stuff is something I am not equipped with and that so many millions of all powerful gods have already faded out of human memory that it's a safe bet that these will, too.

Until then, I really don't give a rip what anybody thinks about the nature of the universe because setting them straight isn't my job.

[Taxloss]

17. Belief or unbelief isn't "hardwired" into your brain.

People switch back and forth every day. Genetics does not and can not "hardwire" belief. It can hardwire fear of death, the original and main cause of belief. But belief is a human construct and developed by nurture.

[Az]

18. Although belief and nonbelief are not hardwired

There are factors that can lead to belief and nonbelief that can be part of the wiring. Studies do suggest a difference between skeptical individuals and others that tend to be believers when shown series of images and attempting to discern patterns.

The believers tend to have a higher false positive rate and the skeptics tend to have a higher overall accuracy but show a slitely lower tendency to spot actual patterns.

[Taxloss]

19. Pattern recognition is a fundamental part of human intelligence.

It's one of the things that distinguishes us from the animals. The research you cite sounds absolutely true to me. Nevertheless, I feel religious superstition or its absence is mostly unrelated to genetic factors and is much more related to the logic problems inherent in a developing intelligne t human mind attempting to explain things like lightning. God was nothing more than the first convincing answer from the first and most flawed philosopher. After that, societal and cultural factors took over.

However, I say mostly as in the 30,000 years of human existence, a certain amount of genetic selection against sceptics has occurred, so there is a slender element of truth.

[Az]

20. Fundimental doesn't mean uniform

And its only a tendency. It may even be a tendency that people develop instead of being born with it.

[Taxloss]

21. Religion also has Darwinist advantages.

That can't be denied.

However, it is still a soft construct. The most hardline Christian, Muslim or atheist on the planet could convert without coercion under the right circumstances.

[Az]

22. Agreed not hardlined

Tendencies are what rule the brain. Statistics and percentages. Nothing is absolute. A combination of natural wiring and environment lead to a fractal like structure capable of amazing diversity.

[Taxloss]

23. Agreed. You want my personal theory?

It's all down to language. You have to think of the earliest truly intelligent gropus there in the cave, int the process of establishing the very basis of language - understood, common, communicable and recordable communication between themselves. The first vocab consisits of only a few verbs and nouns, but one of the required nouns fills a million gaps - the noun for the thing that is responsible when something unexplained or inexplicable happens. That word, thanks to its pure usefulness, ultimately evolves into all religion.

[Az]

24. The word tied to a naturally occurring concept

My angle on explaining the nature of belief comes from examing the mind.

The notion of god seems to arise from the development of our own sense of self. As we develop we have to differentiate our selves from the universe around us. We come to realise we exist. We figure out that our arms are controlable by us but that leaf isn't.

Eventually we find our limit and the breadth of the universe. It is then that we begin to notice other things moving about in the world that seem to posess qualities similar to ours. We eventually figure out that they posess the same sense of self as we do. That they have identities.

Not being able to sense their identities directly we project our own sense of identity onto them. Projection becomes a skill. It doesn't stop with other people. Anything that seems to posess qualities or behaviour our young minds presume has an identity.

As we grow and become more tuned to society we come to learn that most of the things we project identity onto do not have minds as we do. But not all things are easily refuted or denied. As we discover more about the universe these identities become increasingly excluded. From multiplicity of gods to a single remaining god hiding within the gaps.

[onager]

25. I agree with that

Taxloss: Belief or unbelief isn't "hardwired" into your brain.

That strikes me as another con job by the believers, and I think the scientific evidence is still very unsettled on it.

I often hear people say that the collapse of religion would lead to a veritable black hole of immorality, rioting in the streets and other unpleasantness.

Us history geeks know of at least one recent example when that happened--Japan in 1945.

The Japanese emperor had been considered a living god. The victors of WWII forced him to admit that he wasn't, and appear before his people as an ordinary human.

Everything went on in Japan pretty much as it had before.

Except...of course...for some extreme right-wingers who still think of him as a god. When the mayor of Hiroshima called Hirohito a "warmonger" some years ago, the right-wingers shot him.

[Warpy]

27. PET scans aren't absolute proof, but the differences are there

across the board between believers and skeptics. Something is hardwired, whether it's based in pattern recognition or not.

In any case, the only thing that can counteract the type of religious hysteria we're seeing in the country right now (according to history) is a massive human disaster that causes doubt to be injected in the people whose belief system is the most mawkishly tied to a totally benevolent universe. It took two world wars fought on their soil plus a depression to break through it in Europe. It can (and probably will) be done here, but only at a great cost.

In the meantime, there really is nothing we can do with believers except call a truce. Again, it's not my job to convert anybody, nor is it my job to present myself for conversion. It is my job to show believers that atheists are indeed capable of ethical and compassionate behavior.

The hardwiring argument does offend a lot of skeptics who think their superior intelligence is responsible for their skepticism. However, looking around and finding people like Mary Daly and Thomas Merton should put that conceit to rest forever. Belief or the lack of it have nothing to do with native intelligence, reasoning ability, or ethical superiority. Something else is at work, and PET scans do show it originates deep within the brain.

[Taxloss]

30. Where is this research?

I'd like to see it. Have they tested people who used to believe and then stopped? People who have never or always believed? People who regained belief in God? How do the scans differ across age demographics? How broad is the sampling, and how was it assembled? Most importantly, what were the circumstances of the test?

The fact is, PET scans show what part of your brain you are using. That is all. It may be that non-believers use different parts of the brain to believers in very specific circumstances but that doesn't mean that their brains are different, their lineage is different or anything else. If a test subject converted either way, they would use their brains the same way as the new party.

Beyond a toolbox of evolutionary reflexes, nothing is hardwired into your brain. And if something is hardwired into your brain - that is, something in the toolbox - everybody has it. Unless they are damaged or ill. Most atheists aren't damaged or ill and neither are most theists.

There is no evolutionary basis for atheism, and if there was once it would have been bred out long ago. It is a myth spread by theists who want to think that their belief system is somehow more important than something that lives inside their head, and only inside their head.

[Warpy]

31. One article on it

is at http://atheistempire.com/reference/brain/main.html Another discussion is at http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4351726,00.html

I read about the PET scans in one of the journals about eight years ago. As the Atheist Empire article mentions, this is a double edged sword, suggesting not only that skeptics lack something believers possess, but also that believers are driven to create gods out of nothingness because of it.

[rman]

32. but the differences don't say anything about the causes

correllation vs causation

it may just as well be that behaviour causes a changes in brain activity.

In fact there is evidence for that: research on violin players shows the part of the brain that controls the hands is better developped compared to non violin players. Does that mean they were born as violin players? Or is it that lots of training and learing actually changes the brain? Training sure changes behaviour: first they weren't good violin players and after traing they are. And last time i checked behaviour is a brain thing.

[YankeyMCC]

9. I think Az is making the more detailed reasoned point

But maybe I can state it in a different way. And this is something that I just recently read and thought made a good point.

Who is an atheist?

Is the requirement to be atheist that we make the positive assertion that there are no gods? Or is it enough to be without a belief in god? That could mean a person (very hypothetical person unfortunately) has never heard of the idea of a god could be called an atheist.

If we accept that just being without a belief in god makes us atheist. Then that keeps the burden of proof on the theists to make the case of the existence of god. If we make the assertion that there is no god then the burden of proof rests with us and it is impossible to prove a negative.

This doesn't mean that individually we can not hold the assertion that there are no gods. But in discussions about the existence or nonexistence of gods it's better I think to keep the burden of proof on the theist and that means saying we are without a belief.

That doesn't mean we "lack" anything vital just that we don't have something the theist has. In the same way, from our perspective, that we might "lack" a love of the movie "Howard the Duck". We're not really "lacking" anything we are just without some affirmative belief or feeling of the other.

And since there's no way they are going to be able to prove the existence of a god (after all to prove god exists would remove the need for faith and that in itself would collapse their theist worldview) it puts us in a very good position.

Edit: Changed the name of the Movie - Originally had Casablanca which I in fact love. :)

[fshrink]

11. It's akin to an old problem indirectly described by Plato

when he says, in "Gorgias" that the wise is like a physician sued by a candy-maker and whose fate rests with a jury of children.

[immoderate]

33. You didn't like Howard the Duck?

The diner scene was worth the price of admission.

--IMM

[trotsky]

10. Don't get caught up on the word "lack"

After all, you also lack any cancerous tumors in your body right now, just as you lack any brain damage. "Lacking" something is not bad!

That being said, I understand your point. But of course we're atheists, so we're absolutely free to define our atheism however we want.

[Beetwasher]

12. You Lack Belief In An Infinite Variety Of Things

There's nothing wrong w/ lacking a belief in Santa Claus or Unicorns, for example.

[Modem Butterfly]

15. That's ironic from someone who embraces the term heretic

Personally, I vacillate on using the phrase "lack of belief", but it is direct and accurate, from a certain viewpoint. I guess I'll have to stay agnostic on that subject...

:evilgrin:

[Az]

16. There are actually

a wide array of positions that we wind up having. Each dependent on the particular argument for god. Against many biblical claims for god I would comfortably claim that I know such a being does not exist. I can provide quite clear evidence refuting such claims.

But against a claim of god=love I am can only reply that they have simply stretched the meaning of god so wide that it loses its impact. I have no direct evidence to refute such a claim other than to point out the seeming semantic footwork.

Then there are the claims such as the scientific pantheists who claim that the universe as it is is in fact god. Everything is god. Again it seems a semantic argument but it is difficult to refute in an evidentiary method.

So against some gods I can be quite confidently opposed. Other gods I can merely state that I believe their claims are sematic in nature. And finally there are all the god of the gap arguments and the unheard arguments that simply render us incapable of making an evidentiary refutation at this time.

[fshrink]

28. Actually, to be agnostic you first

have to be in an heretic state! Able to choose.

[Az]

29. Technically

A Heretic is a believer that has recanted their belief. This is the only way one can disbelieve a thing. To remove one's belief.

[A HERETIC I AM]

26. Many very interesting and insightful posts in the last 24 hrs.

Tonight i am in Anniston, Al on my way to Ft. Worth, TX and have spent the last 2 hors online trying to get my Taxes finalized through TurboTax, so it is again late and i dont have the time to type out the responses i would like.

Suffice to say at the moment that - AZ? I agree with the point you are trying to make and i must admit, the real point of my original post was one of semantics more than anything. But i should be clear here: The God to which i refer is the God of Abraham and Isaac and no others. That is the god which most theists you and i might come across would attempt to convince us of. I agree with your point in post #5 but with this qualifyer; we dont have to have complete knowledge of the entire universe to recognize a silly assertion for what it is, namely, a silly assertion.

Trotsky - Your point is well taken also as i am most likely too taken up by mere words.

Modem Butterfly - Heretic - From the Greek "Hairetikos" "To Choose" One who speaks contrary to established thought or custom. Yes, i embrace the term and as such i wanted to point out that i was merely uncomfortable with being labled as being somehow deficient (I "Lack" something) because i dont buy the idea promoted by the theist community any longer (I was raised Episcopalian)

700 + mile drive tomorrow so to bed with me again.

I hope i have sparked an interesting discussion for you folks. I look forward to the rest of this conversation.

Night folks.