Posted on 25th May 2009 by Jack in re: atheism
atheism, humor, theism, Unitarianism
After years of extensive research and absurd experiments involving cheap hookers and blow, I’ve finally come upon the simple solution for making atheism acceptable to the majority of humans on this planet. It doesn’t involve asking atheists to change any of their current opinions, even so-called hard “there absolutely is no god” atheists can can do this. It’s so easy an agnostic can do it. Nor does it require theists to change their attitude toward non-believers.
Because from now on there are no non-believers. We’re all believers.
Atheism is now theism, atheists are theists. Everybody believes in whatever god you believe in.
Now it’s quite obvious that theists differ dramatically in how they interpret their scriptures and dogma. They even differ in their passion for their beliefs. At one end of the scale are those who thank Jesus or Allah after every other sentence while at the other end is the Jew who eats a ham sandwich but believes he’s wrong to do so (not that the thought of that stops him). Theists are all over the place.
So what place in the broad spectrum of religious belief exists for ex-atheists?
The Unitarians are notorious for their nearly-non-theistic theology. So we former-atheists are just a bit more secular than the UU. We accept that gods are possible. It’s just that we believe the probability that gods exist is extremely low, so low that it becomes nearly impossible.
See what a simple and elegant solution this is? Theists can no longer dismiss us from the tent; we’re now a part of the theistic clan, one big happy family. We might be the weird, possibly retarded cousin 6-times removed who grew up in a cave with wombats who insists on attending every family reunion, but we’re still family.
We humanists had it all wrong. We were trying to convince theists that we are all humans, we all belong to the human family.We should have been turning that around and stating that all humans are theists, just to varying degrees. After all, the vast majority of people believe that you cannot say with absolute certainty that gods do not exist. Conversely it must then be true that you cannot say with absolute certainty that gods do exist. So absolute (100%) belief and disbelief are positions one cannot reasonably hold. You can approach within the smallest increment to 100 and 0%.
Thus those who were once called atheists and humanists are actually just the least convinced theists you can find. I’ll let the other theists fight among themselves for the position of closest to 100% convinced.
- Are you a believer? (gittegorzelak.blogspot.com)
- At Peace With Agnosticism (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)
- First were the buses. Now atheists get a student society (guardian.co.uk)
- Atheist Revolution (rwandanatheist.blogspot.com)
- This Week in God (washingtonmonthly.com)
Posted on 22nd May 2009 by Jack in re: atheism
atheism, belief, Christianity, Existence of God, philosophy, religion, theism
To accept any brand of theism entails accepting certain assumptions as established fact. All religious belief systems have a creation story. It may be interpreted literally or figuratively, but the underlying assumption that the universe was created by a particular god must be accepted as literal truth and fact to be a member of any particular sect of religious belief.
In rejecting religious belief, atheists also dismiss the presumption that any god created the universe.
However, beyond implying the rejection of religious creation stories, atheism does not provide further guidance as to what to think about the manner in which the universe came in to being. Unlike the vast majority of religions, atheism isn’t a belief system. Atheism is a single point of disagreement with other people over the idea that it’s plausible that any particular god exists. There are many things that atheists believe and disbelieve. The fact we’re atheists only pertains to a single one of the disbeliefs.
Some atheists just don’t give a damn about philosophy or science. They could care less how we got here. They have lives to lead and no time for foolish speculation about things we can’t possibly know at this point in time. We tend to call folks like this practical and level headed.
Others of us are fascinated with understanding how everything works and what it all means. There are many names for us, one or two are complimentary. We follow the findings of scientists, philosophers and thinkers who enlighten us and increase our knowledge, which we expect to result in wisdom.
Accepting scientific explanations about life and the universe and philosophical musings on our place in nature are not obligatory. No atheist is obligated to agree with science. It’s an option, one of many that don’t entail believing in gods.
Scientific explanations of reality are incomplete and never absolute. Some people can’t tolerate a lack of absolutes, so they invent them then proclaim their inventions to be absolute. “It is because we say it is.” Not a convincing argument. My standards for belief and agreement are too high to be satisfied by religious belief. I was a theist, I’ve been there, I’ve walked that road in total sincerity and with unbridled passion for many years. Theism in general and Christianity in particular are not unknown to me. I’ve made their arguments and fought for their validity. I’m completely comfortable with dismissing them as irrelevant in the quest to understand nature on their own merits. Having scientific and philosophical explanations that hold together better and explain nature in terms that don’t require a suspension of good sense and skepticism is an added bonus. It’s nice to have but isn’t the reason for my rejection of belief in gods.
Posted on 14th May 2009 by Jack in in the news | re: atheism
Jupiter, Literature, Myths and Folktales
Which gods and in what way?
One consistent characteristic of the vast majority of gods that humans have worshiped throughout history is that they are not us, they are portrayed as having attributes we humans can only dream about (which is precisely why we project them onto gods and comic book heroes, and other fictional characters).
Humans can’t become gods, we create the gods. Our belief is the only thing that keeps them alive in the collective imagination. To become a god would be a step down for a human. And the gods can’t become human because we won’t let them. They can’t perform the functions we created them to perform as humans. To be gods they must be better than us, more powerful than we can ever hope to be, not be subject to our common dependencies, our weaknesses and mistakes. They are the “us” we want to be but can’t because those expectations are unrealistic. Perfection is a fantastical state, a never-fulfilled aspiration.
Notice the gods never have attributes, abilities or super powers beyond what we can imagine. That’s not because we have a limited imagination but because gods only exist in our imaginations. They cannot extend beyond the boundaries our imaginations place on their existence. They exist in a subset of the superset humans. We are in turn a subset of the universe.
The only way humans are becoming like gods is that we are starting to understand things about reality that our ancient religious beliefs reserve for the gods. When we discovered the mechanics of lightning, belief in Jupiter was pretty much finished. We can create lightning. Have we become like Jupiter? No, Jupiter is simply no longer relevant. We’ve evolved beyond needing a placeholder for our lack of understanding about lightning.
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