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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 13 December 2019 at 11:50am | IP Logged | 1 post reply

This is how I keep seeing atheism described, and I just want to say IT’S NOT A LACK. Absence would be a better world.
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Doug Centers
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Posted: 13 December 2019 at 11:56am | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Right.
"Lack" gives the assumption that I need a god , like I may lack iron in my diet or something.
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Peter Martin
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Posted: 13 December 2019 at 1:51pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

Time for this old favourite:

"As has been said before, we are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."

-- Richard Dawkins.
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Koroush Ghazi
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Posted: 13 December 2019 at 4:51pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

I've just taken to explaining to people that atheism shouldn't even be a thing, because in how many other circumstances do you define someone by something they don't do? Do we have a term for people who don't believe in vampires, or who don't believe in unicorns?

We're all born atheists by default, it's when people start pouring fairytales into children's heads that they become "theists". And no, looking up at the sky and wondering who or what created us doesn't make you a theist. That's called curiosity. Theism is when people make up stories in response to that natural urge, instead of investigating the facts that may answer it.
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Eric Sofer
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Posted: 13 December 2019 at 5:58pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

I believe that Koroush has a great point here. We don't begin as theists. We begin curious about everything, and when someone "in authority" tells us, we eagerly believe it - whether a parent, a teacher, a religious figure, or someone two or three ears older on the playground.*

I observe that most people go to church once a week**. How often do we hear fairy tales or science fiction stories? I wonder that more people don't think Santa Claus is a god... and his actions are pretty easy to explain. How many TV specials do you see about Jesus? But you see Santa everywhere.

I think we're a little more susceptible to scary stories than to good ones too. At a crack of thunder and lightning... "Don't be scared, dear. That's just the angels bowling." "NO IT ISN'T! That's the giant's wife, and she's going to come looking for Jack!"

Even if these beliefs get "straightened out"... how do you trust someone who says that the Holy Spirit exists, but the Big Bad Wolf doesn't? Why is one the truth and the other a lie? Why would the same person tell the truth AND lie? Is it the Devil who made someone say it? Does that mean that Daddy or Sister Mary Annette*** is being controlled by Satan and is going to hell? And if I listen to them, I'm going to hell too???

Maybe children are better off if we don't lie to them.

* After all, where do most of us learn about sex? And from whom?
** Those in religious school may attend more frequently, but that usually starts later than we hear stories and tales.
*** Speaking of being a puppet master...
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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 13 December 2019 at 7:16pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

I think it's rational to not believe in something unseen, unheard, unfelt... this would tend to imply too that those who absolutely believe must have seen, heard, felt etc. and in a way, like UFOs or ghosts or whatever else, can you tell them they could not have? Of course, perhaps they have a Gilligan's Island dental filling picking up a Honolulu station and misinterpreting their experience, or are undiagnosed schizophrenics, or any number of known things could be happening to them. The ones who just have faith are the illogical believing in a kind of magic trick to 'save' themselves (as opposed perhaps to working toward earning such, and I don't say none might be)

I keep the door open that there may be more things under heaven and earth than I can experience or even know at present. I suspect I may have experienced a ghost once or twice while also holding the possibility of misinterpreted evidence and having been fooled by my senses. I can see that sometimes it can be positive socially for people to believe in a higher power, if it helps them AA style off a substance, leads them to work for the assisting of the disadvantaged, stuff like that. I can also see that perhaps a Mother Theresa was actually selfish in her delusion that the suffering are closer to God so she wanted to be near them... I believe in selfish motives as neither inherently good or bad but often enough there rather than some pure altruism (which it can be very dangerous to believe in).

Read or don't read what's out there about the subject and make up your own mind, it's no knock against me or anybody else. I won't throw it all in the trash, I won't burn a book, I'll risk possibly burning in hell for eternity for being so lukewarm or on the fence.

It's up to atheists to define themselves. I agree they are not a lack of anything. I think not passing on lies is pretty sound advice.


Edited by Rebecca Jansen on 13 December 2019 at 7:19pm
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Mitch Denoyer
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Posted: 14 December 2019 at 1:11am | IP Logged | 7 post reply

I have a favorite quote on atheism but I’m not certain who said it first.  It may have been Christopher Hitchens.  A person claimed to him that atheism was a religion.  If that is true, he replied, then NOT playing baseball is a sport.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 14 December 2019 at 7:54am | IP Logged | 8 post reply

Yes, Ricky Gervais has a variant: if atheism is his religion, then not skiing is his hobby.
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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

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Posted: 14 December 2019 at 7:59am | IP Logged | 9 post reply

We don't begin as theists. We begin curious about everything, and when someone "in authority" tells us, we eagerly believe it - whether a parent, a teacher, a religious figure, or someone two or three ears older on the playground.

••

Cue one of my little rambles:

As children, we are told there are two mystical, magical figures connected with Xmas, Jesus and Santa. Those "in authority" assure us both are real. We see movies and TV shows and pageants and books, etc, all celebrating that these are real men who actually lived/live.

Then comes a time for a kind of "rite of passage". We are expected to give up our belief in one of these figures. It is considered an indication of maturity for us to do so. Despite all the "evidence" we have been fed all our young lives, we must no longer believe.

Yet, the one we are told we must abandon is the one we have, most of us, actually MET.

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Steven Myers
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Posted: 14 December 2019 at 11:36am | IP Logged | 10 post reply

Q: Don't you atheists believe anything?

A: I believe there's no god.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 14 December 2019 at 12:04pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply

Atheism is not a belief system.
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Jonathan A. Dowdell
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Posted: 16 December 2019 at 11:30am | IP Logged | 12 post reply

If someone asks if I am an atheist I just say, "I don't believe in the god of the bible." I let them draw their concussions from that. 
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