Ignorant atheists?

[Genevaman]

Omorose Panya

unerring dogma

the atheists who think the Big Bang disproves god, don't understand where it came from. Same for the Christians who don't even bother to study where the idea either. sad

That reminds me of my mom. She doesn't "believe in" evolution or the big bang or abiogenesis, and she doesn't know what they are. They must understand that they can appreciate science and god at the same time. You see, the problem is not faith but an unwillingness to learn.

That's the best way to achieve the delusion of intelligence, huh? By never giving yourself the opportunity to be wrong.

I like that last line. You won't mind if I quote you, will you?

[Omorose Panya]

Appel Juice

Shelann

Atheism isn't a religion.

Fix'd. Not necessarily, but it can be, even to those that deny that it is. There are certain people that talk about Dawkins as though they are talking about the pope.

Atheism in its truest form is not a religion. However, with all the "As atheists, we believe that (insert 300 scientific concepts and insults toward the religious here)," it's difficult for them to avoid a religious title. There also seems to be a broad misconception that religion requires a god or deity of some sort.

[Omorose Panya]

Genevaman

I like that last line. You won't mind if I quote you, will you?

No, sir smile

[Mike Oxlittle]

So many Christians have to suffer the same!
The problem is, how vocal they can be about it.


What really pisses me off is when they join a religious debate.

I.e.

"Would sex before marriage be acceptable in God's eyes?"
"God doesn't exist /end thread."

Which is quite the same to:

"Would Harry Potter have considered wearing contacts?"
"Harry Potter doesn't exist /end thread."

Of course, I don't actually think that God doesn't exist.

[yeah is dead]

I have talked to atheists on here who believe we derive from monkeys, and they credit Darwin. It is so disgusting.

That being said, atheism's only requirement is a disbelief in supreme beings.

[DeMeniac]

I myself am an atheist, but more so, a person who questions religion. And in my questioning I came to a Philosophy class at the local college, granted, I came out of the class with a solid B. But there was one very specific quote that came to mind when you brought up the "I don't know" statement, I believe it was Socrates who said, "We only know what we don't know." though I may have paraphrased a bit. Not to mention the arguments that Plato had written some stories on Socrates just to be a little more well-known, so it's not certain of Socrates said that. Anyway, now I'm rambling.

I don't think that not knowing something is bad. Not knowing is the method we use to find out how to do something. When you learn how to ride a bike, you try several different methods that may or may not end up in a scraped knee over the sidewalk, but the fact is, you don't know for certain which method will work for you. We're constantly testing things we know and disproving others. The things we think we may know are probably going to be disproved someday in the future as well. We continue to test and test until we find something that works, then when that fails we try something else. With each failure we get one step closer to the truth, but there are always so many possibilities it's hard to say that we'll ever be there.

[Genevaman]

Manic of Dementia

I myself am an atheist, but more so, a person who questions religion. And in my questioning I came to a Philosophy class at the local college, granted, I came out of the class with a solid B. But there was one very specific quote that came to mind when you brought up the "I don't know" statement, I believe it was Socrates who said, "We only know what we don't know." though I may have paraphrased a bit. Not to mention the arguments that Plato had written some stories on Socrates just to be a little more well-known, so it's not certain of Socrates said that. Anyway, now I'm rambling.

I don't think that not knowing something is bad. Not knowing is the method we use to find out how to do something. When you learn how to ride a bike, you try several different methods that may or may not end up in a scraped knee over the sidewalk, but the fact is, you don't know for certain which method will work for you. We're constantly testing things we know and disproving others. The things we think we may know are probably going to be disproved someday in the future as well. We continue to test and test until we find something that works, then when that fails we try something else. With each failure we get one step closer to the truth, but there are always so many possibilities it's hard to say that we'll ever be there.

Nice summary. I think I know the quote your talking about. Would it be "Wisest is she who knows does she does not know." by any chance?

Socrates always was one of my favourite Western philosophers. I think the mystique of what he did and didn't say made him all the more interesting. Mind you Plato was a genius in his own right with his "I think therefore I am" and founding of the academies and what not.

EDIT: Your name doesn't derive from the Shivering Isles mythos by any chance, does it?

[DeMeniac]

Genevaman

Manic of Dementia

I myself am an atheist, but more so, a person who questions religion. And in my questioning I came to a Philosophy class at the local college, granted, I came out of the class with a solid B. But there was one very specific quote that came to mind when you brought up the "I don't know" statement, I believe it was Socrates who said, "We only know what we don't know." though I may have paraphrased a bit. Not to mention the arguments that Plato had written some stories on Socrates just to be a little more well-known, so it's not certain of Socrates said that. Anyway, now I'm rambling.

I don't think that not knowing something is bad. Not knowing is the method we use to find out how to do something. When you learn how to ride a bike, you try several different methods that may or may not end up in a scraped knee over the sidewalk, but the fact is, you don't know for certain which method will work for you. We're constantly testing things we know and disproving others. The things we think we may know are probably going to be disproved someday in the future as well. We continue to test and test until we find something that works, then when that fails we try something else. With each failure we get one step closer to the truth, but there are always so many possibilities it's hard to say that we'll ever be there.

Nice summary. I think I know the quote your talking about. Would it be "Wisest is she who knows does she does not know." by any chance?

Socrates always was one of my favourite Western philosophers. I think the mystique of what he did and didn't say made him all the more interesting. Mind you Plato was a genius in his own right with his "I think therefore I am" and founding of the academies and what not.

EDIT: Your name doesn't derive from the Shivering Isles mythos by any chance, does it?

Hm...I'm not sure about the quote to be honest, I know it was something like that though. And of course, I wasn't being down about Plato. Every philosopher has their strengths and weaknesses.

Oh, and yes. ^^; I was a big fan of the Madgod from the Shivering Isles, so I took both the cities.

[Whom]

Well that's hella lame. While nothing can approach science in finding out how things are, science can't find out how things ought to be. That's where ethics comes in. Science might tell us why we're biologically inclined to adopt certain kinds of ethics, but you can only go far with what there's evidence for; there's really no way to scientifically prove that one action is better than another. We need to decide for ourselves what makes an action good.

The people in that discussion would do well to read How the Mind Works by Dawkins' staunch supporter Steven Pinker on some of those areas where science's scope ends and ethics must take over. In fact, he addresses in that book one of Dawkins' and his biggest critics, whose position is that evolutionary psychology is bad because if it's true, any of its findings that negative traits evolved in the human mind must condone those negative traits. This position shows a clear lack of insight into the difference and separation between science and ethics. War and violence and xenophobia are still ethically wrong even if there's a genetic predisposition to them.

As an aside, the Greek atomism was only a lucky guess and nothing about it serves as a basis of the modern atomic theory.

[Genevaman]

Manic of Dementia

Hm...I'm not sure about the quote to be honest, I know it was something like that though. And of course, I wasn't being down about Plato. Every philosopher has their strengths and weaknesses.

Oh, and yes. ^^; I was a big fan of the Madgod from the Shivering Isles, so I took both the cities.

Ah. I was wondering. I'm a Eldar Scrolls addict too. Nice to see another fan.

Blessings of the Madgod. 3nodding

[_Thats Fantastical_]

im atheist, but i dont 'shoot down other peoples ideas'
they can believe what they want to believe and i will go about my business.
90 percent of the time though, i take all the crap. i never try to force anything on them, i just sit there while they attempt to force it on me.
i dont see why people arent as accepting as they should be, and smart enough to realize that by badgering, youre not changing them into anything... youre just acting like an a*****e biggrin

[DeMeniac]

Genevaman

Manic of Dementia

Hm...I'm not sure about the quote to be honest, I know it was something like that though. And of course, I wasn't being down about Plato. Every philosopher has their strengths and weaknesses.

Oh, and yes. ^^; I was a big fan of the Madgod from the Shivering Isles, so I took both the cities.

Ah. I was wondering. I'm a Eldar Scrolls addict too. Nice to see another fan.

Blessings of the Madgod. 3nodding

In the Immortal words of the Madgod, Cheese for everyone!...Unless of course you don't like cheese, in which case, not having cheese can be a reward also.

[lawtonfogle]

Genevaman

As many people know I am a die-hard atheist and all round cynical a*****e in terms of skepticism. I am a huge fan of both Dawkins and Hitchins and am a thorough believer in Darwinian Theory.
I also hold no grudge against the religious (bar the extremists).
But something rather frightening has emerged in the atheist community recently and I shudder with dread as the silent "I told you so"s of Youtube creationist videos come to mind.
We, as a minority, have become arrogant, conceited and, worst of all, ignorant.

I refer of course to the "fundementalist atheists" or "Neo-Atheists" as I have deigned to label them.
Atheism has become more of an anti-social trend than a point of view on life but then again that's nothing new. Such has been the way since the early 90's.
No. What I refer to specifically is the bulwark of single-mindedness that many atheists sought to prevent. A staunch "pro-Darwin, Dawkins, Hitchens" and "f**k everything else" attitude all topped with a red cherry of raw stupidity.
An anecdote of such an example is, not long before writing this, when I happened upon a Dawkins interview on Youtube and glanced at the comments below where I found the statement:

"Religion and philosophy have never contributed anything to the world. Only science has done anything for us."

Or something to that extent. Just not as grammatically correct. I didn't react in a big way to this. After all even I have been subject to hastiness in my own words before so I simply responded with:

"What about Democritus? He was a philosopher."

Of course I could also have used Plato or Marx as an example but seeing as he had referred to science I assumed Democritus would have the most relatable effect. But rather than the famous Dawkins-esque reproach I had expected I instead received:

"Democritus and all philosophers are idiots. Philosophy is just guess work. It's chemistry and physics get things done. You creationists have to get real."

Oh sweet irony! The term "guess work"? On a Dawkins interview?
Yet still I held the benefit of the doubt and explained thusly:

"I think you might have jumped the gun a bit there... Democritus was the founder of atomic theory which would later become the foundation of thousands of formulae within both chemistry AND physics. You could almost call science itself a gathering of philosophies with hard evidence to back it up. And I'm an atheist by the way. "

The response didn't show much of a change in tact:

"Stop trying to sound like some sort of genius. Everyone knows it's arrogant bulls**t. How is science like philosophy? Read a book. Or better yet read the God Delusion. That might help you."

To this I left no response as, frighteningly, his words grew bolstered with the replies of like-minded viewers and my comments became hideously thumbed down to the point of where it was a task to even read them. I had been shot down by my own "pro-open mind" kinsmen for being open minded.

This was but one of many instances and not just limited to me either.
One of my peers was called a "f**king nerd" when he asked a person who claimed to support "Darwinian Theory over ignorance" what he thought of the recent revelations on Darwin's tree of life. I don't mean to sound whiny but personally think an "I don't know" would have been better suited.

But that's exactly what the problem is. People are afraid to say they don't know. People feel the need to flaunt an aura of superiority and if you should question them on such you're either arrogant or small minded for doing so.

I fear our recent endeavers have filled our ranks with naught but an anti-religion mentality rather than a pro-knowledge attitude. Instead of enlightenment we have merely sheparded the ignorant from one side of the fence to the other. And as such we have earned our nay-said titles of arrogance and ignorance. A sad but true fact indeed.

So my suggestion is this. Forget religion. Forget creationism. Preach of the wonders of the truth rather than the failures of the false. (No offense to the religious. xp ) I don't mean to say give religion immunity to criticism but merely not to make it our focus. We are atheists. Not anti-Christs.

Learn what evolution actually is before preaching its wonders. Or at the very least don't claim to know everything about biology. (Unless you do. 3nodding )

And PLEASE! Don't dismiss philosophy as the same thing as theology.
There IS a distinct difference between the two.

Any opinions anyone?

As far as I have been able to decide, there are two fields. Philosophy and mathematics. Some field (computational sciences) are a blend on very basic levels. Also, the two may be one side of the same coin. But from both, we get everything. Science is but a very carefully defined subset of philosophy which uses much mathematics. Science sets conventions for what is 'true', such as it being repeatable or derived from something repeatable. This is very solid most of the time, though there are a few areas it gets blurry (one day the big bang will not be scientific because the evidence we use to find it would have red-shifted to the point where it would be blocked from every reaching our solar system, and when this is combined with the accelerating expansion of space, it will become impossible to rederive our current theory, and thus it will no longer be science. Of course, that is about 100,000,000,000 years in the future, and if we are around by then, our science will have undergone some major changes.

But I agree that most people are false intellectuals. They have not learned enough to know how stupid they are. I am only happy with a class if I leave with more questions than I entered (and all the questions I entered with were answered).

Is Turing completeness or hypercomputability philosophy, mathematics, or science? Without philosophy, we would not have modern computer theory (which is what we based the computers on which is where the internet came form).

The problem is not just atheist, but they are the most ironic of the trouble group. It is like when homosexuals say 'accept other sexualities... well, actually just us, punish everyone else who has abnormal sexual desires' (yes, that does happen from time to time).

[Omorose Panya]

Genevaman

Socrates always was one of my favourite Western philosophers. I think the mystique of what he did and didn't say made him all the more interesting. Mind you Plato was a genius in his own right with his "I think therefore I am" and founding of the academies and what not.

....Descartes?

Have you read Allegory of the Cave?

[DeMeniac]

@ lawtonfogle: Never quote the first post! -_-;