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Thread: Why are there so few atheists that actually take their philosophy seriously?

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    Veteran Member Stimpy's Avatar
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    Atheism simply means the lack of belief in god(s). Nothing else. It's not a philosophy and therefore no beliefs to ''take seriously''.

    Two people can disagree about pretty much everything and adhere to completely different life philosophies, politics etc. and still, both be atheists.

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    There is something to what has been said about atheists but nominally religious people also suffer from their own version of the same problems that apply to atheists relating to consistency, coherence etc.

    Quote Originally Posted by Stimpy View Post
    Atheism simply means the lack of belief in god(s). Nothing else. It's not a philosophy and therefore no beliefs to ''take seriously''.

    Two people can disagree about pretty much everything and adhere to completely different life philosophies, politics etc. and still, both be atheists.
    That's an important point. The word means without god. It doesn't even necessarily mean an absolute certainty of the non-existence of god(s). There is no philosophy automatically attached to that state of godly absence and many atheists never seek out any clearly codified philosophy. For them it is essentially about seeking pleasure, avoiding pain, etc. Luckily for them, they seem to do well enough without doing the hard philosophical yards.

    Without a single point of reference like the Bible, church communities etc. I'd say it is more difficult for atheists to find their way, and many never get there or never bother to try digging beneath the surface.

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    Quote Originally Posted by James Markham View Post
    Same can be said of Christians and Muslims
    In fact, people can hardly be religious anymore today, that does not mean religions are no long important and everything in the religious past was wrong or stupidity. Most atheists fail to realize they are attacking history and stereotyping many important cultural heritages by branding religion as a result of ignorance and fear. Western atheists have not grown out of the marxist pattern of self-justification, they are just trying to stand astride between the the east and the west, a kind of spoiled capitalists that even can not convince the eastern marxists, you have to rely on your own historical background as a resource of your individualism as allowed today freedom of expression, that is in a short word, the backside of the same coin of western civilization. Atheists can not prove themself anything better than the theists, by endlessly attacking the impalpables, laughing at the religious people they are actually disproving themself.

    As for the muslims, they do not or fail to force onto buddhists, let alone the christians, there are many asian monarchies that are neither christian nor muslim, like Thailand and Japan or Bhutan, muslim mughals ruled India but India is not a muslim country, Islam is not likely expanded by force most of the time.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Hexachordia View Post
    In fact, people can hardly be religious anymore today, that does not mean religions are no long important and everything in the religious past was wrong or stupidity. Most atheists fail to realize they are attacking history and stereotyping many important cultural heritages by branding religion as a result of ignorance and fear. Western atheists have not grown out of the marxist pattern of self-justification, they are just trying to stand astride between the the east and the west, a kind of spoiled capitalists that even can not convince the eastern marxists, you have to rely on your own historical background as a resource of your individualism as allowed today freedom of expression, that is in a short word, the backside of the same coin of western civilization. Atheists can not prove themself anything better than the theists, by endlessly attacking the impalpables, laughing at the religious people they are actually disproving themself.

    As for the muslims, they do not or failed to force onto buddhists, let alone the christians, there are many asian monarchies that are neither christian nor muslim, like Thailand and Japan or Bhutan, muslim mughals ruled India but India is not a muslim country, Islam is not likely expanded by force most of the time.
    Religion certainly must be acknowledged for the role it plays in culture and in history and should be studied for that inherent value to understand ourselves better. I still celebrate Christmas it's part of my heritage and carries an aesthetic that resonates with me. As for weather I actually believe Christianity's dogma, well since Christmas, and honestly all Christian holidays are based on pagan archetypes, and since segments of the bible were taken out during the Council of Nicea and through various mistranslations of past languages, I can't even trust the Church to have an accurate understanding of what Christianity really is so I just accept that I probably will not know the true nature of those metaphysical questions and leave it at that

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bezprym View Post
    Legal consequences? I've mentioned suicide afterwards. Well, technically I can also shoot to the police that will try to catch me, what morality stops me, if we shouldn't have morality?
    Dunno, why don't you? If you feel like it go and do it. Or not. It's all the same anyway and Neon Knight is spot on. You might not go and kill people for whatever reason, but ultimately your choice means squat if an atheist worldview is the one being held.

    And why do you care? You'll die too. The only thing that differs here is that you believe is some Afterlife and being judged. But you don't have to do anything to improve the life of the mankind.
    Why a father loves his son? Why a mother doesn't want her daughter to live in a shitty world?
    Don't know. Maybe they're not atheist and empty like you are. Or maybe they are atheist and just do these things for whatever reason, knowing that it doesn't ultimately matter.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dunai View Post
    My sense of duty comes from my great admiration of what humans are capable to achieve when given the chance to exist. It would be really shallow and moreover moronic from me to turn my back to this amazing existence and not help it to somehow survive. Anyone who is struck by the beauty of arts, language, reasoning cannot really be careless about whether it will be destroyed sooner or later, or it could survive, perhaps even outside of our planet.
    So your duty is something you created yourself, not a duty that was given to you by anything greater than yourself. Got it, kk.

    Quote Originally Posted by James Markham View Post
    Whether your an atheist or religious, just keep it to yourself. Thats your for you only not for anyone else. Your thoughts don't resonate inside of other people
    Religion etymologically comes from religio, meaning to link, to connect. It is conceptually impossible to be religious only privately like the disciples of hardcore secularism in France would like it too. Religion gives explicit behavioural rules that influence social exchanges. It is a public matter and prior to the decadent era we ran into a couple centuries ago, this was known worldwide. Society is fed religion all the time, to children in school, in the public discourse or through policy creation. It is no different today, people are taught endlessly to worship totems like democracy, or human rights, or equality or whatever you want. Only difference is the current religion doesn't have any level of transcendence.

    Quote Originally Posted by James Markham View Post
    Do hardcore theists on the forum actually contemplate deeply in their subscribed religion or do they identify as a certain religion because they believe that it is required of their particular ethnicity/nationality. Like all southern meds just automatically identify themselves as Catholic or Northern Euros identifying themselves as Protestant so as not to break tradition.
    The issue of God supercedes country. My own flag and land could go down in ash and it wouldn't change a thing about the metaphysics of life. Jean Bodin, known by some as the first jurist in Europe outlined all of this in the XVI Century quite well. All authority and power in the world originates from the source, and thus the laws of God supercedes the laws of the King, whom in turn supercedes contracts or other smaller scale authorities.

    Quote Originally Posted by Jack Slivovitz View Post
    There are many atheistic patriots, but atheism is indeed more prevalent among non-patriots or non-nationalists. At least that is the case in my country.
    It is like this everywhere. Atheism if taken consistently leads to egoism, this is the analytical work Stirner did to prove it quite clearly. Atheists that aren't yet fully corrupted by self-centeredness are the 'involuntary egoist' type, that he mentions in the paragraph I quoted in the OP, a good read to keep in mind.

    So proportionally, atheists will always be amongst the flakiest, most cowardly and most self-absorbed people everywhere. Reason why people are naturally wary of someone who believes the world came to be out of randomness and nothing really has any purpose, but it's just accidents that have no ulterior meaning. They know they're sick.

    Quote Originally Posted by Linebacker View Post
    Whats there to take seriously,there is no god,there is space,the universe and the countless answers that we don't have about it and our own existence.

    Taking seriously is something religious people do,like taking man-made fairy tales like the holy books seriously.They are just about as real as fables like Hansel and Grettel.
    That's fair. If you don't take anything seriously then you are indeed a consistent atheist. Serious atheism means nothing is serious. It's when they pretend to sacralize random stuff beyond the level of physicality that they look hilarious. Throwing a fit about LGBTQIA+ discrimination when they supposedly believe everyone and every emotion they have is just the accidental product of matter coming together.


    Quote Originally Posted by Szegedist View Post
    Yes, I know a few atheist patriots who respect the role of religion in the history, and are even against separation of Church and state , yet they don't believe in God.

    But this is very different to the militant secularism 'respect my atheist feeling"
    Maurras was like that. Agnostic yet proning healthy national organization, they are decent people. But they're quite rare I find, the bulk of atheists at the moment seem to divide in two main camps:
    1) The Atheism+ types, essentially meaning 'intersectional feminism' + atheism. God is such an unfair guy, won't let me abort 3 times, have to rebel.
    2) Atheist libertardian, oh you know I think the purpose of life is the free marketz and doing w/e you want (just like Thelema but they're not even aware), and I oppose feminism and Atheism+ cuz discrimination of men and against freedom.

    Quote Originally Posted by Szegedist View Post
    Whether you like it or not ,it's necessary because the communist and pre 2010 rule left the nation and soul very sick. Degenerate materialism individualism alcoholism depression, high suicide rates high abortion rates are all symbols of a disease called militant atheism , which only now the government is trying to repair , and it will take a very long time to undo the damage.

    USA and western Europe are both terrible examples of we should aim for, since that was the goal of SzDSz before they went kaput
    Swedish friend of mine has a compelling argument to explain this. All that exists materially, is sourced in consciousness, God's consciousness specifically, since will seems to predate material creation. Atheism stands for severing the connection between the dimension of physicality and the other dimensions of existence. So naturally following it will just lead to becoming exactly what they say they are (or want to be): Pure matter. Weaker souls till maybe one day they'll wake up being just sickly agonizing beasts, on the verge of becoming a rotten carcass.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hexachordia View Post
    Most atheists conceal the enormous inconsistency in their rhetorics by attacking anyone who has whatever to say that is not 100% in agreement with all their self-reighteous proclamations. Just like how Marx attacks everybody else, attack anything that get in his way, by endless attacks they promote themself as the incarnate of the absolute truth. Attack attack attack attack attack attack attack Attack attack attack attack attack attack attack Attack attack attack attack attack attack attack...................This is the way of atheismproving themself.

    To me, I am not interested in theoretical debates with atheists, the more you take them seriously in the debate the more excuse they can conjure up. The problem of atheism is not God exists or not, but they force their own values onto people by endless attacking on the impalpables, God can be a scapegoat for everything and he simply does not whine and die, so people can exonerate themself forever by forever raising the issue with the Godhead. The central code of atheism can be condensed in one sentence: I am always right, because I am an atheist.
    Quite clearly yes. Atheism on an epistemological level means that all standards beyond "the universe is" are entirely subjective and frankly arbitrary. It is very easy to justify any ideology you take when you are an atheist, whether it is seeming opposites like libertardianism or communism, since after all, you pick and choose whatever principles and values you fancy as the atheist context means there's no imperative to care for anything other than what you choose to.

    Quote Originally Posted by Manzikert View Post
    Because it's the only existence you have and according to the athetist logic, you're going to vanish when you died. So their first and only life that exists in the universe is precious and matters more compared to the muslims' perspective of life that believe this world is just a testing stage.
    Fair enough. So long as it is not argued that the stuff they care for has objective inherent value, but is only important in as much as absurdism allows you to (individual focus, because aesthetics) it is consistent, yes.

    Quote Originally Posted by Stimpy View Post
    Atheism simply means the lack of belief in god(s). Nothing else. It's not a philosophy and therefore no beliefs to ''take seriously''.

    Two people can disagree about pretty much everything and adhere to completely different life philosophies, politics etc. and still, both be atheists.
    They all agree physicality is all there is to this world + there are no real objective imperatives, nor purpose, to existence.

  6. #66
    Veteran Member Neon Knight's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bezprym View Post
    Legal consequences? I've mentioned suicide afterwards. Well, technically I can also shoot to the police that will try to catch me, what morality stops me, if we shouldn't have morality?
    I don't actually believe moral behaviour need be derived from belief in God, so I'll leave that.

    And why do you care? You'll die too. The only thing that differs here is that you believe is some Afterlife and being judged. But you don't have to do anything to improve the life of the mankind. Why a father loves his son? Why a mother doesn't want her daughter to live in a shitty world?
    I don't believe that Divine judgement is likely. I'm not convinced there's an afterlife but I think there's a good chance of it. I think most people do not fully realise the condition of non-existence; if they did then, logically, they should not care about the future. I assume an afterlife existence would permit knowledge of material existence, sooner or later.

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    Veteran Member Neon Knight's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by James Markham View Post
    Just because you would like something to exist doesn't mean that it does. Finding value in something does not change the fact of weather it exists or not. It either does or it doesn't.
    And, conversely, just because you would not like something to exist, it doesn't mean it doesn't. If assuming x rather than y makes life more meaningful then I should logically assume x, even if it cannot be proved.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Szegedist View Post
    I am not talking about today but the decades of communism and post communism. Remember the hyper liberalism of the now defunct SzDSz?
    The attempt to be "progressive " and emulate the west was economically and socially a failure to Hungary, our path is not like Britain or USA. Magyar culture is historically very conservative and we are naturally drawn to almost feudalist like systems.

    Rather than trying to be like Sweden or UK we should progress on our own path, which is what the government is trying.
    What type of poor excuse this is to say that because Hungarian culture is not like that of Western countries we should abandon educating our population for critical, independent thinking, keeping religion dogmatism out of schools and public life? Are you really implying that we should rebuild some sort of neo-feudalistic system, where the role of nobility would be replaced by wealthy businessmen and the vast population who once used to have the role of serfs to become the labor-slaves of this new businessmen class? Because this same very thing is building up during Orbán's regime. He tries to justify his authoritarian way of governing with religious and Romantic historical rhetoric, while in reality he only cares really is making his entourage get wealthier and ever-powerful. I consider national symbols very important to keep a healthy level of patriotism, but these should never be emphasized and taken more seriously than learning what our modern world truly faces and will face in the future. While remembering the glory of the past we should live in the present with a constant mind for what will come next. Traditional thinking, of which religious symbolism is also a very important part, is in great ways counterproductive to contemporary and future progress. With one and a half feet in the past we, as a people, will never be able to catch up with those populations that realized that for achieving better life standards we have to embrace innovative, rational thinking, and down-play the role of traditions, including religion from everyday decision making, be it in our personal lives or in the public sector.

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    Veteran Member Stimpy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by N1019 View Post
    That's an important point. The word means without god. It doesn't even necessarily mean an absolute certainty of the non-existence of god(s). There is no philosophy automatically attached to that state of godly absence and many atheists never seek out any clearly codified philosophy. For them it is essentially about seeking pleasure, avoiding pain, etc. Luckily for them, they seem to do well enough without doing the hard philosophical yards.
    I'd actually argue for the opposite, people are more drawn to religion for the sake of avoiding pain than they are drawn to the idea of not adhering to religion. The idea of an afterlife and a clear set of rules is very soothing and comforting for the human psyche. Especially people who are born into a strong religious identity. Abandoning that would mean that you were wrong about your whole life philosophy, not only that but your parents and grandparents likely were too - quite painful and a hard hit to your ego. Not to mention you run the risk of being an outcast in your family and/or community, which again, would be pretty rough.

    Also, to me, not wanting to seek out and adhere to some kind of clearly codified worldview and/or set of rules is just a sign of independent and analytical thinking. You can have strong points of views and a deep interest in many things without adhering completely and strongly with only one political ideology. Just because you believe X doesn't mean you have to believe Y, because some other people do.
    People who identify extremely strongly with everything about one single political party f.ex. have always seemed unenlightened and not well thought through to me. It's like they're rooting for a fucking sports team or something.

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    Because Dawkins told them it was unimportant, and to many atheists, Dawkins is some sort of secular prophet.

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