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I first posted this in the thread about the sub-forum dying, but decided perhaps it should be a separate thread:
In responding to the question about bigfoot and UFOs, and whether or not atheists were also anti those concepts, I said:
Interesting question. My guess is yes, although that's purely a guess.
I can only tell you my mindset, and at least part of it has to do with my perspective as a Buddhist.
There seems to be a mindset among many that if you're an atheist you don't just not believe in god, you don't believe in anything that can't be scientifically explained.
There's a difference between:
a. I don't believe in biblegod.
b. I don't believe there's a possibility of any god-like being.
c. I don't believe in things that I can't perfectly explain scientifically.
If a christian says to me, "Biblegod is a fact" (and we hear stuff like that everyday here), then no, I don't see the evidence at all. If a christian says to me, "Well there could be some god-like figure that influence sthings, but we don't understand anything about it", well, I can't say no anywhere near as definitively.
I've had to think about this is regard to my own Buddhist beliefs. Can I say, "there is karma", or "there is past lives", or "there is reincarnation or rebirth"? Or do I have to say, "I think may be karma" or "I think there may be past lives", or "I think there may be reincarnation or rebirth".
If I don't believe in biblegod, does that mean there can't be ghosts or other things that I can't explain?
If I don't believe in biblegod, does that mean there can't be something before and after this life?
I thought atheism was the lack of belief in god or gods. I didn't think atheism was the lack of beliefs in anything I can't currently explain. What about science? Science is based on exploring what has been inexplicable and uncontrollable by mankind. I didn't think that atheism is, "No to everything we don't understand".
I really hope some will discuss this. Thanks.
I got this message when I read your post You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to phetaroi again.
That being said, as you already know, the extent of atheist thought does not begin and end with believing in a Bible-god, which BTW I do not.
Consider this: Without a god watching over and controlling everything, and judging anyone who does not adhere to what some ancient wanderer thought god was saying to him, I am free to live my life without the constraints of (unhealthy) theology. I can go to the county and state government and ask them to consider laws which benefit people, not what some silly old book says. I do not have to contribute money to a religious organization (ie tithing 10% of my hard earned money) Instead, I can choose to donate that money to educational institutions, homeless shelters/food banks, charities which provide for the basic and sometimes emergent needs of my fellow man.
When I was a kid growing up in Texas, we had these archaic "blue laws" which prohibited shopping on Sunday for certain items. While some people said that those laws were there to protect small business (which sounds like communism to some degree?) in reality, they were there to make Sundays a day where the most readily available activity was church, by removing a large sector of entertainment and activity. When I went around asking people to sign petitions wo have the laws removed, I was met with opposition not from small business owners but from the late Bishop Russell of the United Methodist church, who spent $$ that the church could not afford printing ads, sending letters to members asking them NOT to support the removal of the blue laws. From my point of view, that money could have gone to useful charities instead. But I made an enemy by openly criticizing him, and expressing my views of how wrong he was. From my point of view, religion was doing harm to society by manipulating government laws to meet the church's agendas. As an atheist, I am not bound by church laws, I am bound by what is good for the economy and society.
As a child growing up in Texas, our 5th grade teacher, who was actually an awesome educator, prefaced the chapter of Darwin and evolution saying "YOU do not have to believe it, you are free to believe what the Bible says, but you have to know the material enough to pass the test on what it says. regardless of what you believe." This was a holdover of small town thinking, insisting (as we were told in church) that the earth was 6000 years old, unchanging, as was the universe, and the thinking of the religious people dictated what could and could not be taught in schools. At least there. As an atheist, I have no limits to what I can learn, what I can read, study, learn. We were often told "curiosity leads to sin" Well, again, since I do not believe in sin, and since curiosity comes from within, from my brain (which needs more exercise now, like my body does) I can explore, read, learn, anything I want.
So talking about ghosts, Bigfoot (bigfeet?) aliens and other mythical beings, I have one response: it is entertaining. Watching a good scary movie (which sadly, are few and far between anymore) or some cheesy Bigfoot documentary ("Here look, we are going to catch a bigfoot---but we never do") Makes for an hour of entertainment.
Same for Christmas Eve church services. Makes for a beautiful presentation, if done right. Like a great symphony, or Mozart's Requiem with all the bells and whistles. Who cares, if the story is fiction.
The problem is not when the story is fiction or not, it is when the s=escape into fiction becomes permanent, and takes over and guides all aspects of a persons life. Like these religious nuts (I grew up around them) who believe everything the Bible says and center their existence around it. Or these goth types that sleep in coffins and go out and do blood rituals every night. Or the ones that commit suicide when a comet approaches. THAT is the problem. Ghosts are very entertaining. But seriously, language, movement, thought, all comes from the neural activity of the brain, and when the brain stops, so does all else. So how do ghosts move and talk if they have no brain and no vocal chords....which is why I do not believe in their existence.
The last good (and only IMHO) bigfoot film was a low budget Legend of Boggy Creek, which heavily influenced the Blair Witch Project. Demons make great films, such as The Exorcist, considered by many to be the best horror film ever made. But the subjects, of all of these ,are fictional. They are there to entertain. No, I do not believe in Demons, gods, God, Jesus Christ, ghosts, pixies, vampires, bigfoots, or aliens hiding here from other planets. But that does not mean that I cannot be entertained by them. And the reaction of people to them, healthy or not, is more interesting than any discussion of their existence.
I got this message when I read your post You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to phetaroi again.
That being said, as you already know, the extent of atheist thought does not begin and end with believing in a Bible-god, which BTW I do not.
Consider this: Without a god watching over and controlling everything, and judging anyone who does not adhere to what some ancient wanderer thought god was saying to him, I am free to live my life without the constraints of (unhealthy) theology. I can go to the county and state government and ask them to consider laws which benefit people, not what some silly old book says. I do not have to contribute money to a religious organization (ie tithing 10% of my hard earned money) Instead, I can choose to donate that money to educational institutions, homeless shelters/food banks, charities which provide for the basic and sometimes emergent needs of my fellow man.
When I was a kid growing up in Texas, we had these archaic "blue laws" which prohibited shopping on Sunday for certain items. While some people said that those laws were there to protect small business (which sounds like communism to some degree?) in reality, they were there to make Sundays a day where the most readily available activity was church, by removing a large sector of entertainment and activity. When I went around asking people to sign petitions wo have the laws removed, I was met with opposition not from small business owners but from the late Bishop Russell of the United Methodist church, who spent $$ that the church could not afford printing ads, sending letters to members asking them NOT to support the removal of the blue laws. From my point of view, that money could have gone to useful charities instead. But I made an enemy by openly criticizing him, and expressing my views of how wrong he was. From my point of view, religion was doing harm to society by manipulating government laws to meet the church's agendas. As an atheist, I am not bound by church laws, I am bound by what is good for the economy and society.
As a child growing up in Texas, our 5th grade teacher, who was actually an awesome educator, prefaced the chapter of Darwin and evolution saying "YOU do not have to believe it, you are free to believe what the Bible says, but you have to know the material enough to pass the test on what it says. regardless of what you believe." This was a holdover of small town thinking, insisting (as we were told in church) that the earth was 6000 years old, unchanging, as was the universe, and the thinking of the religious people dictated what could and could not be taught in schools. At least there. As an atheist, I have no limits to what I can learn, what I can read, study, learn. We were often told "curiosity leads to sin" Well, again, since I do not believe in sin, and since curiosity comes from within, from my brain (which needs more exercise now, like my body does) I can explore, read, learn, anything I want.
So talking about ghosts, Bigfoot (bigfeet?) aliens and other mythical beings, I have one response: it is entertaining. Watching a good scary movie (which sadly, are few and far between anymore) or some cheesy Bigfoot documentary ("Here look, we are going to catch a bigfoot---but we never do") Makes for an hour of entertainment.
Same for Christmas Eve church services. Makes for a beautiful presentation, if done right. Like a great symphony, or Mozart's Requiem with all the bells and whistles. Who cares, if the story is fiction.
The problem is not when the story is fiction or not, it is when the s=escape into fiction becomes permanent, and takes over and guides all aspects of a persons life. Like these religious nuts (I grew up around them) who believe everything the Bible says and center their existence around it. Or these goth types that sleep in coffins and go out and do blood rituals every night. Or the ones that commit suicide when a comet approaches. THAT is the problem. Ghosts are very entertaining. But seriously, language, movement, thought, all comes from the neural activity of the brain, and when the brain stops, so does all else. So how do ghosts move and talk if they have no brain and no vocal chords....which is why I do not believe in their existence.
The last good (and only IMHO) bigfoot film was a low budget Legend of Boggy Creek, which heavily influenced the Blair Witch Project. Demons make great films, such as The Exorcist, considered by many to be the best horror film ever made. But the subjects, of all of these ,are fictional. They are there to entertain. No, I do not believe in Demons, gods, God, Jesus Christ, ghosts, pixies, vampires, bigfoots, or aliens hiding here from other planets. But that does not mean that I cannot be entertained by them. And the reaction of people to them, healthy or not, is more interesting than any discussion of their existence.
Thank you. I enjoyed reading that. Excellent post, in my view.
By the way, LKC, blue laws prohibiting Sunday shopping are still in effect in Bergen County, NJ, but have nothing to do anymore with religion and more to do with the residents of the large community with all the shopping malls wanting a break from the endless New York City traffic that pours over the George Washington Bridge to take advantage of the lower sales tax. It's a controversy that raises its head regularly.
It's an interesting situation in which something that started off in the 1600s as an “Act to Suppress Vice and Immorality†has morphed into something else entirely, but with the same result.
By the way, LKC, blue laws prohibiting Sunday shopping are still in effect in Bergen County, NJ, but have nothing to do anymore with religion and more to do with the residents of the large community with all the shopping malls wanting a break from the endless New York City traffic that pours over the George Washington Bridge to take advantage of the lower sales tax. It's a controversy that raises its head regularly.
It's an interesting situation in which something that started off in the 1600s as an “Act to Suppress Vice and Immorality†has morphed into something else entirely, but with the same result.
As you know I grew up in England.
Back then the entire country's shops were all shut on a Sunday.
You'd visit a town and only be able to window shop.
My parents had a grocers shop, so Sunday was always a day off when we would ALWAYS do something together: visit a museum, go swimming, visit a relative. It was family time. If we did stay at home, my Mother would spend what seemed like the entire day cooking a Sunday Roast.
Pub were allowed to open though so we would often go for Sunday Dinner at a local pub with a beer garden. As kids we would just run about.
They started allowing limited Sunday trading when I was in my twenties I think.
I think to start with shops were allowed to open half days, or something like that.
Then gradually it got extended and extended and now Sundays are like every other day.
It's a crying shame in my opinion. If shops all closed on a Sunday we would work around it.
I think the people of NJ are completely right.
As you know I grew up in England.
Back then the entire country's shops were all shut on a Sunday.
You'd visit a town and only be able to window shop.
My parents had a grocers shop, so Sunday was always a day off when we would ALWAYS do something together: visit a museum, go swimming, visit a relative. It was family time. If we did stay at home, my Mother would spend what seemed like the entire day cooking a Sunday Roast.
Pub were allowed to open though so we would often go for Sunday Dinner at a local pub with a beer garden. As kids we would just run about.
They started allowing limited Sunday trading when I was in my twenties I think.
I think to start with shops were allowed to open half days, or something like that.
Then gradually it got extended and extended and now Sundays are like every other day.
It's a crying shame in my opinion. If shops all closed on a Sunday we would work around it.
I think the people of NJ are completely right.
Nice.
I grew up in Bergen County (NJ) where those blue laws still exist, and my family was religious, of the type (predominantly Dutch) that had settled the area, so a big Sunday dinner, usually roast beef, in the early afternoon was the norm in our house, too. It was a family day. I'm one of seven, so we played a lot of board games or outdoor games in the yard if it was nice out or went off on our own and read for a while.
Stores were closed, yes. Even grocery stores were not open, although I think an early type of convenience store that sold milk and bread and a few other items, which predated the influx of 7-11s, were open for limited hours n Sunday mornings, as was the bakery where my father would sometimes get doughnuts and Danishes for us before church.
I grew up in Bergen County (NJ) where those blue laws still exist, and my family was religious, of the type (predominantly Dutch) that had settled the area, so a big Sunday dinner, usually roast beef, in the early afternoon was the norm in our house, too. It was a family day. I'm one of seven, so we played a lot of board games or outdoor games in the yard if it was nice out or went off on our own and read for a while.
Stores were closed, yes. Even grocery stores were not open, although I think an early type of convenience store that sold milk and bread and a few other items, which predated the influx of 7-11s, were open for limited hours n Sunday mornings, as was the bakery where my father would sometimes get doughnuts and Danishes for us before church.
I'm not in favor of blue laws at all. Having spent time in Malaysia, where half of Fridays are almost like blue laws...no thanks.
Wow
I cannot imagine living in a state where the sabbath or other Holy Day shuts down everything like that. It was bad enough in Texas but at least many restaurants were open and we could still buy food.
The problem we had in Texas, was large stores (for the time) like Albertsons would have to rope off half of the store, literally, and post signs at the aisles saying "We cannot sell these items on Sunday" Made for an inconvenience, especially in December when some of us who were going to school and working Monday through Saturday could not buy shirts, or socks on Sundays.
What sparked the biggest clash was when I went around getting signatures from voters wanting the Texas state Blue Laws put to a popular vote. And Believe me, I had no problem getting signatures.....for every one person who did not want to sign it, at least 20 others did. But the aforementioned Bishop Russell, the man who gave the North Texas Methodist conference scandal after scandal, spoke out, and I spoke back, in writing and publicly disagreed with him in the congregation. I made not only an enemy of him but of the pastor of that church as well, who was a friend of his.
But in the end, voters chose to remove the laws, which angered a few members of the religious community and few else.
The Bishop was deposed, replaced a few years later by a different rump osculater and Everyone went about their business, on Sundays even.
My point is that when someone says "Oh we cannot make that law" (like gay marriage) because the Bible says not to, maybe I should send them to Phetaroi for a better, more graphic description of the horrors of religious influence in other nations. I mean seriously? Gay marriage? Who cares?
Not I BUT many people cried here in Florida when it went on to the ballot to be approved...many religious people cried I should say.
Admittedly not everyone is consistent with what they mean by atheism, but for me atheism is:
"The default position of anything is that there is no reason to believe it exists until there is evidence to support it's existence. The atheist premise is that one can not and should not make any assumption about God until there is evidence to back it up. As of now, there is not enough evidence to support God existing."
That is different to building reality from the assumption that there is no God. No such assumption is needed, the burden of assumption and proof is on the person saying God exists.
For me the same logic applies to UFO, bigfoot, etc.
At the same time, I have no problem with people being religious if that brings them comfort, happiness or fulfillment.
Peter, the atheist default is ALREADY an ASSumption that what DOES EXIST is NOT evidence of God because we have no scientific test for the presence of God to determine the status of the evidence.
Peter, the atheist default is ALREADY an ASSumption that what DOES EXIST is NOT evidence of God because we have no scientific test for the presence of God to determine the status of the evidence.
Mystic, my friend, what would the procedure be to formulate a test to measure such a god?
testimony, such as a Bible, or stories told by believers is not reliable, because the human mind cannot fully understand something like the concept of god, nor would the limits of human language allow for a compelling description.
I think I told you that when We were kids, two of us saw a UFO. We saw a large glowing fireball like object far away in the night sky, spiraling at an 45 degree angle towards the earth, spinning, emitting no sound but disappearing behind hills in the distance.
What we saw was a UFO.....an unidentified flying object. Now if we had known what it was, a flare from a plane, a firework, a meteorite.....then it would not be Unidentified. What followed was the assumption that others made, when we told them, that it was Aliens, a spaceship....etc But to us, it was "Hmmm, that was odd...what was that?" and went about our lives unchanged. I read nothing in the paper of meteorite landings, and there were no planes in the area, but there was an Air Force base nearby so who knows? I was not the only one who saw it, and to this day, don't really care what it was. It does not really matter anyway.
Now apply that to the unknown of god. We could try to contact this god, and people have, but no one has offered any demonstrable evidence that this god or gods would answer. In fact, we have no credible evidence that it has EVER answered. We could try to describe this god, but we would likely get as many different definitions and experiences as the number of people we asked. And in the end, it would still be like the UFO....unknown, and in the face of other things happening, not really that important.
Case in point....when was the last time the headlines read "Psychic wins lottery" or "God gives winning numbers to local man"
OK that is more far fetched, but assuming that the invisible and the non-existent look very much alike, then why have we as of yet never seen this god? Some may see he exists outside of the universe, or outside of the space-time continuum, in which case I ask "Then how would we know ANYTHING at lal about him?"
Scientifically speaking, there is NO EVIDENCE of which I am aware that anything exists outside of the universe....and multi-universe hypotheses are not well accepted across the board, meaning, as you know, many scholars do not agree with the Multiverse concept. but if "god" is part of the multiverse concept/hypothesis, then what role does this god play, if any at all, and is it measurable realistically or even theoretically?
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