Atheism: Belief or not a belief?

Wescli Wardest wrote: Secular morality is not much more than the passing fancy of what is commonly accepted at the time and changes with time and each passing generation. This can be seen and followed through the accounts of pass generations and cultures.

I am well aware that it is not all about me. In fact, it is not about me at all. I know what I believe and what I worship/adore. What I am not convinced of is that others have such clarity in their convictions.

I think plenty of Humanists would disagree with you!

But therein lies an answer to the question. Most of the atheists I know are secular humanists in terms of their 'beliefs', morals and ethics.

I’m sure they would. :laugh:

And we could debate it until we were blue in the face. :silly: But, the only way I could think to prove one way or the other is to wait a couple of hundred years and see what course was taken and how things turned out. :woohoo:

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: To say "There are no Gods" is a belief. But this is not atheism. Since you can never prove there are no Gods it becomes a belief and could possibly even be construed as a worldview.

But to say "I don't accept the existence of a God because there is no evidence to support it" is a position on a single issue. Its not a belief and its not a world view.

well, this is where it might get tricky

having a view on what the origins of the world are (or are not) is a really good step in the direction of developing a world view

i agree with the distinction between "not being convinced" and "believing" but even that distinction makes for the basis of a world view

you can have a world view based on belief that there is a god

you can have a world view based on the belief that there is no god

both of those obviously make for the foundation of a world-view

and i think you can also construct a kind of world view that begins with the understanding that you do not know for sure if there is a god or not, although i guess thats the one with the most room for personalization

I tend to see it things being in 'strengths of' belief, as a function of our capacity to perceive our environment and therefore populate it in the past, present and future with thoughts. Viewing thoughts as isolated events external to anything except themselves, then they exist entirely of models which represent those things external (to the thoughts) and therefore integrally have with the attribute of accuracy.

So, the act of awareness itself in our body and environment are heavily reinforced beliefs that our perceptions are accurate, else we would have little confidence or capability to interact with the world. But when it comes to the question of something which cannot be proven, even if only experienced (like a dream) rarely, then we end up having a requirement to artificially reinforce that belief to maintain it. This is where for me the definition of religions comes into play, it is the system of reinforcing a belief to facilitate participation with it.

So the question about atheism, I tend to think it depends on what level of analysis one wants to focus on. I feel most comfortable viewing it as a belief system insofar as all perception is belief in our capacity to perceive. I feel most comfortable viewing it as a belief if someone chooses to say they do not believe in God/Goddess/s. But I do not think it is a belief if the person has never considered the question and therefore does not have a position on it.... but once the question is asked of them
:silly:
Measures of things

Wow, this thread really did take off. I guess that's understandable seeing as how most of us are here for religious/spiritual reasons anyway.

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: To say "There are no Gods" is a belief. But this is not atheism. Since you can never prove there are no Gods it becomes a belief and could possibly even be construed as a worldview.

But to say "I don't accept the existence of a God because there is no evidence to support it" is a position on a single issue. Its not a belief and its not a world view. This is the default stance on any single issue. If I say I have an invisible purple unicorn in my garage, your default position is to not believe me unless I can prove to you that I, in fact, do have an invisible purple unicorn in my garage. This is the premise that not only Atheism but any logical process operates under. An atheist takes the default option of disbelief in the claim that a God exists, not that no Gods exist no matter what.

That's a very comprehensive comparison of the two kind of atheism. I agree with what someone said about Christians always trying to convert atheists. One of the two people I like to watch on periscope is Matt Cawthorn, a former Lutheran turned atheist. He's very knowledgeable and friendly in his approach to the beliefs of others. I highly recommend him if you're into periscope. He always has Christians on there trying to convince him that he's wrong. It really is quite entertaining.

I have experienced unexplainable phenomena at various times in my life as well as visions (drug induced and sleepy dream variety) where I communicated with being that are not of this world. I cannot explain most of what I've seen, let alone prove that it was real. Scientifically speaking, I would say that none of it actually happened, but that doesn't mean that it isn't real in some sense. It's real to me and that's why I believe in it. All belief is subjective. Did we really lands on the moon? How do you know? Faith. Did the Egyptians build the pyramids or find them? Are all the hieroglyphics factual? Faith. Does God exist? Faith is required to answer all these questions. As such, agnostic is the only valid "default belief" as I see it. Atheism is just another way of dealing with the concept of God by saying, "nope."

Edan, when you don't care if there is a god or not it's called "Apatheism". Welcome to the flock of DGAF.

Atheism is absolutely a system of belief since it cannot stand alone with evidence and proof. You can neither prove the existence or non-existence of a deity with 100% certainty.

But you certainly CAN not care one way or the other. hahaha

Oh, and nobody "ran" Mahogany off; she wasn't a martyr. She tucked tail and ran all on her own.

Did nobody from the second wave of these posts read the first waves discussion?

rugadd wrote: Did nobody from the second wave of these posts read the first waves discussion?

I can only speak for myself, but I skipped most of it. I might have made it to page two? Not meaning any disrespect by the lengthy and well-reasoned responses that people gave, but I got places to go and things to do, so I addressed the points that I wanted to address and left it at that.

rugadd wrote: Did nobody from the second wave of these posts read the first waves discussion?

I did!!!! :laugh:

rugadd wrote: Did nobody from the second wave of these posts read the first waves discussion?

Does it matter? Stop trying to control me man!