I think this ad campaign is just trying to tell people … look you don’t have to be religious. Come hang out with us.
One could argue that there’s no need for atheists to spread the word - just sit there and be atheists. The problem some atheists have with religiousness is that
a) it makes some people less curious about this world - and the world is best off with oodles of curiosity. If the whole planet had always be filled with people who took religion’s answers as answers, some think we would not be where we are today
b) there’s a fair amount of war, and some blame some of it on religion
c) religious people turn to thinks that are ineffective and think it’s helping. Namely, prayer - or just assuming that it’s ok. Ben Carson said that lots of evangelicals don’t vote because they assume God’s got it under control. I’ve heard people say they need not worry about the future because the rapture is going to happen within the next X years. That thinking does not help humanity.
You said that both religion and science make a certain claim - to provide objective truth - but only science fulfils that claim. I said that religion does not make that claim, and that science does not deliver on that claim.
Now you are saying that I have to prove religion does what you said it claims to do, and that I’m not allowed to point out the basic, fundamental flaw in your argument, or you won’t talk to me any more!
I’m not going to take up an extreme position so that you can administer a beat-down, after I’ve already met you on ground of your own choosing and used the weapon of your choice (science and reason) to show you that you’ve made a false claim.
Now, for the benefit of atheists in the peanut gallery: the reason I was able to do this was because @Skeptic tried to combine two incompatible systems; the form of atheism that @CarlMud called “strong” (which theists often call “naive”) and the system of reasoning we call science. He made two categorical claims, and science relies on the ancient Greek laws of reasoning, so I only had to provide two examples to refute those claims. One example of a religion that doesn’t claim to provide objective truth or a means of determing objective truth (very easy) and the logical result of applying the scientific method to the claim that science is not based on unprovable assumptions (@Skeptic calls that nihilism, with some justification).
If I tried these arguments against the form of agnosticism some call “weak atheism” I’d look the fool; they aren’t applicable in the slightest. I have taken the argument of “strong” atheism - which is a faith based argument - and shown that it’s not compatible with fundamental precepts of science; science does not accept absence of evidence as evidence of absence.
I yield to @anon62122146 and others in advance, you’ll have to settle for a forfeit. The reason I don’t like the labels weak and strong when applied to atheism is because a weaker faith leads to a stronger argument; my belief system can only refute so-called “strong” atheists and their claims.
Of course I’m not recruiting, so I don’t mind that arguments against agnosticism can’t be “won”. I don’t even think the winning/losing metaphor is appropriate, anyway. @Skeptic, let us go forth and prosper and adopt those creatures in need; love beauty and hate injustice, and never stop picking ourselves up or lifting up others; what matter if our chosen faiths differ, when we can run in the wind?
If I had known you wanted to play, I could have set up my position more precisely. But let us both admit, I hope, that all of the Abrahamic religions make claims about how the world works and of the nature of god - and that they have no objective truth testing mechanisms to prove those claims.
OK, re-reading that it’s more pompous and prolix than I’d like, but I’ll let it stand. We’re mourning recent losses here - two beloved pets - so I’m feeling bleak and taking comfort in philosophy - mostly in the knowledge that time is just a subjective phenomena emergent from the limitations of the meat engine that houses our minds.
I’d be okay with it if I were actually friends with anyone in the group and knew they’d show up on days I went. Otherwise it just sounds too much like the Christian youth group meetings I went to in high school, or didn’t go to when I was feeling guilty about not being a good Christian, or didn’t go to because I hadn’t gone for a while because I was feeling guilty about not being a good Christian. There’s a lot to be said for shedding artificial guilt and no longer feeling accountable to other people for not adhering to made up rules.
If there were cats or dogs to interact with, I would probably go though.
It is, absolutely, but if it means those nasty “Bus Stop Bible Studies” ads can’t get space because it’s already taken up and paid for, I’m mostly okay with that.
Capital G “Gnostic” and small g “gnostic” aren’t the same thing. Too bad the word’s the same, but it’s usually clear enough in context which is intended.
I found that fascinating. But for me way too much like church that replaces the sermons with TED talks and the worship with … songs about positivity I guess is the way to describe what I saw on the projector?
Reading their stuff, I’m sure I’d be welcome enough but not being actually an atheist (Hail Eris!) would likely rankle one side of the equation or the other eventually. I’m also curious to see how the local one would treat a trans woman but not nearly curious enough to find out the hard way since I also have other reasons not to bother.
I had no idea anything like that was happening so close to me though. Thanks for the link.
Nah. Even for me there’s something to be said for a lightly social weekly occasion. Christianity was not a fun 25ish years for me on the whole. I don’t want something that’s Church without the Church. But I would like something. A knitting circle sounds great.
Well, that kinda depends on who gets to slice the cake. Even on the conservative end, Quakers generally don’t believe Sola Scriptura for example. I’m tempted to argue, if in a particularly flippant mood, that even the conservative end doesn’t believe Mucha Scriptura at all. For our resident actual Quakers, I’ll mention that this isn’t a complaint. Y’all are pretty great.
If the Mormons aren’t Protestant (or even Christian at all) then neither are the Quakers. On the salient, day-to-day relevant points, the Mormons have a lot more to do with Charismatic Evengelical Protestants than not … and many still wouldn’t call them Christian.
The, uh, far left Quakers have more in common with the UU than anything else.
Those who have left Christianity often have a mean and argumentative phase. At least for me, it wasn’t really about the Christianity. The anger was about my experiences with some very specific Christians in my life who had a direct and negative impact on my life (which is a severe understatement but off topic).
Mainstream Christianities on the whole don’t have a useful or generally usable structure in place to recognize when something bad is happening to kids and stop it. Those who should have known better were inadvertently preaching that the things that were done to me were good and right. Leaving, I suddenly no longer had to pretend that no one I knew had ever wronged me … so I had a lifetime of wrongs to get to the Acceptance phase on.
I eventually got most of my anger out. But it’s a bit more complicated than calling it a Choice. And just because my Bargaining and Depression phases are less annoying to people outside of my life doesn’t mean they aren’t happening or are inherently healthier than the Anger phase.
Angry former Christians should definitely not start feeding on the anger. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t have something to be angry about and should never let themselves feel the anger. I like to believe the ones who didn’t have anything to feel angry about never turned even briefly to an angrier version of whatever belief or disbelief system they turn to next.
Too late. Discordianism was founded about 53 years ago.
I think many people who convert to a religion find this a positive experience - they’re attracted to the new philosophy and the hope it gives, often see benefits in their own lives and have a greater sense of connection to a new community. New atheists are often dealing with the negative sides of losing their faith that religious converts also experience, but with less of a sense that everything is now much better - or that was true for me at least. There was some relief at being free of some obligations, but I was annoyed that I had invested so much of my life up to that point trying to learn more about a topic that seemed worthless now, been subjected to arbitrary rules that were based on premises that I now saw as ridiculous and that I felt like I was being given the choice between believing fairy tales and losing close relationships. Approaching people who would normally give me advice was useless, as losing my faith was the problem and I would just be given simplified versions of arguments that I had seen destroyed many times before along with promises that they would pray for me (or even trying to make me take part in a spontaneous prayer for my re-salvation).
This was in a fairly good situation where my church and family are open-minded and still accept me. On top of all of this, I had no assurance that being an atheist would make me a better person or improve my life - in fact, a lot of the atheists I came into contact with were of the bitter and argumentative variety. Being LGBT or coming from a situation where there was actual abuse would have made it hard not to become an angry atheist, at least for a while. If a group like this can provide acceptance and direction to someone in that situation, I think they’re doing a good service.
Yeah, basically any notion of “I” is way beyond the scope of the argument, and what it means for something to exist is left entirely up the reader. A better statement of the conclusion would be “Something has a relationship to something.” or just “something.” But as an argument that is really just trying to overcome complete nihilism, I think it actually does fine, though I prefer, “Well, if you really believe in nihilism, why are you talking to me?”
Cogito ergo sum just imports this very flawed notion of the self so that Descartes can conclude two pages later that the Christian god is stroking his long white beard in the clouds.
The reason I don’t like the labels weak and strong when applied to atheism is because a weaker faith leads to a stronger argument; my belief system can only refute so-called “strong” atheists and their claims.
