What actually do JREF religious believers believe?

[westprog]

Why? Aren't you just pretending your life has purpose and value when you know that it doesn't? How does magical thinking and pretend make your life more meaningful?

Isn't the meaning of life in and of itself a gift that encourages you to live every day as if it were your last, because it well could be. Atheists understand this. They aren't "waiting for the magic" they are making it now.

I'm all in favour of atheists living their lives as if life were a "gift" (who from?), and believing that they can make magic. I still consider that there's a conflict between their professed beliefs and the way they behave, whereas a person who thinks that his life is important and that it does matter what he does is at least being consistent when he acts based on that belief.

Of course, there are atheists who manage to combine a belief in a purposeless universe with a conviction that their own life somehow matters. That's a different issue - they are living consistently with their second belief, but that second belief is incompatible with their first belief.

 

[kerikiwi]

When no one can produce one bit of evidence that god doesn't exist, well...

When no one can produce one bit of evidence that Harry Potter doesn't exist, well... that is not evidence that Harry Potter does exist

 

[tsig]

What I find interesting is that people who don't have religion in any form can accept that the universe is purposeless and valueless, and still live their lives as if they had purpose and value.

What does the universe being purposeless and valueless have to do with what I find purposeful or of value in my life? Are you implying that the universe must mirror humans for them to find value?

 

[kerikiwi]

Of course, there are atheists who manage to combine a belief in a purposeless universe with a conviction that their own life somehow matters. That's a different issue - they are living consistently with their second belief, but that second belief is incompatible with their first belief.

Nonsense. You appear to be taking 'matters' to mean 'matters to someone/thing else'.
It doesn't.
The universe has no purpose. Until you provide positive evidence that it does, I am happy to make that blanket statement.
My life has purpose and meaning to me (and possibly to others).
The two statements are not mutually exclusive.

 

[I Ratant]

I'm all in favour of atheists living their lives as if life were a "gift" (who from?), and believing that they can make magic...

.
Our lives are a 'gift' from Daddy and Mommy bumping uglies.
Many times with the purpose of making a person.
Looking at the 18 month spacing between me and my older and younger siblings, it was deliberate.
"magic in a young girl's smile"... yes, we can make that.

 

[tsig]

I'm all in favour of atheists living their lives as if life were a "gift" (who from?), and believing that they can make magic. I still consider that there's a conflict between their professed beliefs and the way they behave, whereas a person who thinks that his life is important and that it does matter what he does is at least being consistent when he acts based on that belief.

Of course, there are atheists who manage to combine a belief in a purposeless universe with a conviction that their own life somehow matters. That's a different issue - they are living consistently with their second belief, but that second belief is incompatible with their first belief.

You seem determined to expound on what atheists do and don't believe* in spite of the fact that atheists have told you different. Why is that?


*

 

[Craig B]

... Of course, there are atheists who manage to combine a belief in a purposeless universe with a conviction that their own life somehow matters. That's a different issue - they are living consistently with their second belief, but that second belief is incompatible with their first belief.

Absolute nonsense! Why can you not believe that a universe which is impersonal and therefore "meaningless" on the largest scale nevertheless contains living beings whose lives possess meaning and significance on the scale in which they live?

Quote obviously the universe has no consciousness of me or regard for me, but my friends and family have such regard. And my life is meaningful in terms of the society in which I exist. Why this should seem to you to be incompatible with the observation that "the universe" and "life" in the most general terms have no purpose, I simply cannot see or understand.

 

[Dogdoctor]

Why would a skeptic believe that there is no global warming? There are lots of thigns that people belive in for various reasons. If someone is msart then they are smart enough to fool themselves. I was fairly young when I began to think there was no god. But as I grew older and had numerous experiences that weren't easily explained in any strictly logical manner. Now this doesn't mean that there is a god however after much thought I realized that if there were some all powerful, all knowing creature then they could easily hide from anyone or reveal themselves to anyone. So I became a agnostic instead of an atheist.

 

[eight bits]

Truethat

I've discussed this before and have been accused of being a "Closet Christian" so I'll give up halfway through if it starts going that way again.

You, too? It seems to be the go-to thing around here. I thought it was just newbie hazing.


Ginger

Yes, I saw Hans' answer. So, as I said, you and I have both seen what pittance of evidence there is. We disagree about its bearing, as can hardly be surprising, since it had already been said and there was surely nothing new in Hans' presentation of his opinion.

To each of your other points, I append "in Ginger's opinion, which is noted with thanks." I have no idea why you brought up evolution, nor have I ever asked you to prove anything. On the contrary, I have said that the questions before us here are uncertain contingenices. They ae not, and cannot become, the subject of proof. I wouldn't ask of you what you cannot give.

What's left? Oh, yeah. Deism isn't my own view, so there's not a lot of point in me offering a deist apology.

Speaking of which, just so we're clear. Your sentence (at post 32) containing apology was

So when people say they believe and come up with apologies like NOMa and Deism, that may be their prerogative, but that doesn't shake my conclusion about what the evidence supports.

I took your NOMa to be an abbreviation for Gould's "Non Overlapping Magisteria."

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html

Perhaps you meant something else. In any case, deism is a religious belief, not an apology for a relgious belief. NOMA, if that was what you meant, isn't an apology for a religious belief, either.

Thus, I inferred incorrectly that you meant the homonym, and that you were gently disparaging these views, maybe with a pun on the religious meaning. It never occurred to me that you were simply mischaracterizing an opposing opinion. I'll remember from now on. Thanks for the info.


Hans

You're pretty well covered in my answer to Ginger above.

 

[truethat]

I'm all in favour of atheists living their lives as if life were a "gift" (who from?), and believing that they can make magic. I still consider that there's a conflict between their professed beliefs and the way they behave, whereas a person who thinks that his life is important and that it does matter what he does is at least being consistent when he acts based on that belief.

Of course, there are atheists who manage to combine a belief in a purposeless universe with a conviction that their own life somehow matters. That's a different issue - they are living consistently with their second belief, but that second belief is incompatible with their first belief.

A gift as in you got it. You managed to get born. Thank you mom and dad.

But your contradiction is in your own head. Reality demonstrates that we're here and there's a lot to do. Plenty of options, plenty of things to see and do. Your life becomes rewarding in each and every moment. In the here and now. I wrote something about this in the thread Atheists, Alzheimers and Thank You Betty.

 

[HansMustermann]

Except we know who the authors are and they have never claimed these were real.

Yes, but you can't prove that they weren't (A) privy to some special information, maybe through some revelation or vision, even if they don't claim one (I'd be weary too of claiming wizards or ancient great old ones are real these days, even if I believed they existed), or (B) accidentally right by sheer chance alone, like the argument is sometimes done for the historical Jesus.

I mean it may be improbable that Lovecraft actually secretly had a copy of the Necronomicon, or that he was basing it on information from a historical Francis Wayland Thurston, and it certainly it would be more probable that he was honest when he said it's fiction. But you can't actually disprove the historical Francis Wayland Thurston, or not easily.

So if you're going to tell me to keep an open mind for Yahweh just because he's not fully disproven -- whatever limited meaning of open mind you may mean by that -- then I'm going to ask you to keep the same amount of open mindedness for Cthulhu. It seems only fair.

Plus, if known authorship throws a spanner into it for you, we have plenty of anonymous ancient stories too. You should definitely keep an open mind for Inanna, the murderous serial rapist goddess, lest... well, you get the idea

I understand what your saying about people tip-toeing around religion. I've met a few atheists I've had to tiptoe around too. I have witnessed some truly massive freak outs from both sides. Mostly they are hilarious

I think some people avoid saying for definite because they don't want someone trying to convert them.

Some people phrase it more definitely, and some don't, but I don't think there is anyone so schizophrenic that they'd deny something exists if it stood in front of them. Just because they don't list a tome-sized addendum with what evidence would take to convince them that God exists, doesn't mean one should assume that they are clinically insane and wouldn't accept something if it were provably real.

So, really, how much more open-mindedness than that is owed to any claim?

I usually try to avoid religious topics because it fills me with rage. People calling themselves 'good christians' have done a lot to my family. I'm fine with people beliving in whatever they want but once they start trying to control the way people act and think I see red

I think that's part of some peoole's need for religion too. They need someone else to tell them what to do and think or they will feel lost. Someone to say "If you do X and Y everything will be ok".

Well, you definitely have my sympathy there.

 

[Dani]

I'm all in favour of atheists living their lives as if life were a "gift" (who from?), and believing that they can make magic. I still consider that there's a conflict between their professed beliefs and the way they behave, whereas a person who thinks that his life is important and that it does matter what he does is at least being consistent when he acts based on that belief.

Of course, there are atheists who manage to combine a belief in a purposeless universe with a conviction that their own life somehow matters. That's a different issue - they are living consistently with their second belief, but that second belief is incompatible with their first belief.

I'm an atheist and I hope my viewpoint is useful to you:

My life is important to me just because it is. I don't need to believe it, because it's a survival instinct that has an effect in my behavior. I don't have a choice, I care.

On the other hand, I don't think that, objectively, my life is more important than any other life.

This is not inconsistent.

 

[Aepervius]

The conventional 10.

Catholic, protestant and jewish people don't have the same "conventional 10". And I am not even counting potential cults.

 

[Aepervius]

When no one can produce one bit of evidence that god doesn't exist, well...

welll..... then the null hypothesis then hold : no gods. That is how it works for pretty much every domain where human do not have a strong emotional interrest into ignoring logic/rationality.

 

[Aepervius]

I'm all in favour of atheists living their lives as if life were a "gift" (who from?), and believing that they can make magic. I still consider that there's a conflict between their professed beliefs and the way they behave, whereas a person who thinks that his life is important and that it does matter what he does is at least being consistent when he acts based on that belief.

Of course, there are atheists who manage to combine a belief in a purposeless universe with a conviction that their own life somehow matters. That's a different issue - they are living consistently with their second belief, but that second belief is incompatible with their first belief.

I haven't met an atheist saying his/her life matters. That smells strongly of strawman. What I met is atheist saying they enjoy their life, even if it is puprposeless without greater meaning /universe /god /faery whatnot.

Waaaay different to what you pretend.

 

[bruto]

When no one can produce one bit of evidence that god doesn't exist, well...

...then you're even with the evidence that he does, and that puts the burden on the person saying there's something beyond what others can experience.

REsponding to Aepervius above, a little late.... absolutely. I am of course glad my life has happened even though if it hadn't I'd never know. It's a gift to the extent that it is gratuitous, not because there's a giver. Just because the universe has no overall purpose does not mean that an individual life can have no purpose. Saying that at some long future point it all will all go poof does not mean there is nothing worth doing in the meantime. The world is bounded and finite, but it is still a very big place, and anyway, it's all we have.

 

[westprog]

I haven't met an atheist saying his/her life matters. That smells strongly of strawman. What I met is atheist saying they enjoy their life, even if it is puprposeless without greater meaning /universe /god /faery whatnot.

Waaaay different to what you pretend.

Atheists don't say their life matters, but they consistently behave as if their life matters - and for that matter, as if other peoples' lives mattered as well.

One could reasonably riposte that the religious don't live as if they were guaranteed eternal life either.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

What I find interesting is that people who don't have religion in any form can accept that the universe is purposeless and valueless, and still live their lives as if they had purpose and value.

Why do I need the Universe to have values in order for me to have them as a human being?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

When no one can produce one bit of evidence that god doesn't exist, well...

You have to ignore all the evidence that gods are mythical, they are fictional if you want to claim there is no evidence gods don't exist.

We know what gods are, they are fictional beings. Why do you also need proof of what they are not before you can accept what they are?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Except we know who the authors are and they have never claimed these were real.

Then you must be agnostic about Zeus and Thor. I'm pretty sure the originators of those myths did not say they were fiction.