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Ocean Book
Sep 27, 2010

:yum: - hi
I'm right though, which gives me pleasure and self assurance

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Moridin920
Nov 15, 2007

by FactsAreUseless
militant atheism in China and the USSR yeah that's definitely not some ridiculous stretching of history to fit your narrative :jerkbag:

Ocean Book posted:

how is atheism not a belief system? The absence of a specific belief is a belief system.

no it's not. it's just 1 belief: 'there is no god' how is that a whole system

Moridin920 fucked around with this message at 18:22 on May 23, 2015

Ocean Book
Sep 27, 2010

:yum: - hi

Moridin920 posted:

no it's not. it's just 1 belief: 'there is no god' how is that a whole system

because every concrete atheist will have a web of mental constructs in which the atheist belief system is a subsystem that operates dynamically with the whole as the subject encounters the world.

Grand Prize Winner
Feb 19, 2007


We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
Maker of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, consubstantial
of one Being with the Father.

Through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.

On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified.

He has spoken through the Prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen, motherfucker.














for real tho i'm like religious but not all that spiritual. I just like going into a building with my friends and neighbors and singing together and then a guy in a robe puts a thing in my mouth

Grand Prize Winner fucked around with this message at 18:33 on May 23, 2015

Jim Barris
Aug 13, 2009

Ocean Book posted:

because every concrete atheist will have a web of mental constructs in which the atheist belief system is a subsystem that operates dynamically with the whole as the subject encounters the world.

Instead of explaining how it is a system you just repeated that it is a system. You dishonest fucker.

Beef Turret
Jul 9, 2009

by Lowtax

TacticalUrbanHomo posted:

Which is it? Is it an implicit assumption, or is such an assumption functionally identical to how people live their regular lives? For some people, it may well be the former, but I've never met a person who, when asked, will say "I know there is no god". Even Dawkins puts himself as a 6 on the theism scale, where 6 is someone inclined to believe there isn't a god and 7 is a person who actively asserts the non-existence of the divine.

For most people identifying as atheists, it's the latter. Yes, the way they live their life is probably identical to how someone who assumes the non-existence of god would live, and so for most practical reasons the difference is negligible, but when the subject being discussed is that person's thoughts, yes, there is an important difference. They don't have to assume the negative to reject the positive. They do, however, have to make the pragmatic decision to live their life as if anything they can't (or won't) assert to exist doesn't exist, because the alternative is literal insanity. Teapot, spaghetti monster, etc.

If you're actually going to assert that there is no difference between lacking faith in a positive claim and asserting the negative, then what does that make radical skeptics, to you? People who reject even the Cartesian proposition that a mind capable of pondering its own existence can be at least sure that it exists? If you don't see any distinction between rejecting or failing to believe a positive claim, and asserting that claim's negative, then you can't have put very much thought into epistemology, or whatever thought you have put into it has been driven with a point of reaching a predetermined conclusion.

I googled that scale you were talking about and it's so typically positivist to quantify something like conviction on a scale without reference to anything outside itself. Most people don't even know what their day to day motivations are or what it is they really hold dear in life, yet we're supposed to think theyre rational enough to self-report what ideological corner they belong to on a scale from 1-7. Personally I don't think anyone really is either 1 or 7, although they might think otherwise.

And I don't think philosophical categories of belief describe anything real. It's just intellectual exercises. A person can do what he wills but he can't will what he wills. If some belief gives him the bigger kicks then he'll believe that. A person who hears about the glory of the flying spaghetti monster would be just as unaffected by it as someone who had never heard of it in the first place

eSports Chaebol
Feb 22, 2005

Yeah, actually, gamers in the house forever,

redshirt posted:

lol no one's dying for Buddhism anywhere.

this is only because the Buddhists are much better at slaughtering Muslims than vice versa

u sp33k l33t br0
Sep 12, 2007

Who Doesn't Like Intercourse?
Soiled Meat
I'm a practicing Agnostic.

Ocean Book
Sep 27, 2010

:yum: - hi

Jim Barris posted:

Instead of explaining how it is a system you just repeated that it is a system. You dishonest fucker.

do you like, want examples of the belief system interacting dynamically with the world?

ex - the atheist walks into a room. someone says 'god bless you'. the atheist thinks 'i appreciate the sentiment but do not believe god will bless me'

quakster
Jul 21, 2007

by FactsAreUseless
dragonball is a better religion than christianity. fact

Hobohemian
Sep 30, 2005

by XyloJW
I believe in a thing called love, just listen to the rhythm of my heart.

Beef Turret
Jul 9, 2009

by Lowtax

Borommakott posted:

I'm a practicing Agnostic.

reignofevil
Nov 7, 2008

Ocean Book posted:

this is stupid and your point is stupid. Beef turret is saying that Protestantism has influenced cultural values in the west. Estimating how many people hold those values and to what extent is impossible to do usefully. What point are you going for anyway, 'cultural values don't exist, only population-ratios of personal values do'?

No I am demonstrating that he is making assertions he actually has not done any manner of reasonable work to prove by asking him how he came to his conclusions; there were some implicit questions* in my statements but he seems confident he can handle them.

Beef Turret posted:

I don't know because the polls only ask about the labels. But from the people I've known, I've noticed atheists in the west are more likely to believe that science and religion are antagonists using almost the same slogans as the Maoists who thought religion was holding back the revolutionary potential of the masses. Theyre more likely to think western civilization is superior and that we should spread western values of enlightenment and rationality to the world. They're prone to fetishize technology and systems over outcome, and believe that institutional science is the only way to find truth. All of those assumptions follow naturally one after the other from the belief that there is no god, and justifies rule by technocrats who have the right scientific credentials, which is incidentally the late soviet era summed up

Here you go. We have successfully moved the argument from whether you can ascribe specific beliefs from vague labels back to the realm of his anecdotal experiences with people; which is a far less controversial position if no less dumb.

Essentially we got what I wanted and he never even had to admit it; all you have to do is press for specifics!

Edit* Honestly "Premises" would have probably been a better word here.

reignofevil fucked around with this message at 19:11 on May 23, 2015

Beef Turret
Jul 9, 2009

by Lowtax
I'm sure you needed me to tell you the obvious. As if a cursory glance through a history book of the french, bolshevik or chinese revolutions wouldn't show that atheism alone was a big part of the justification for repression and murder. Atheists don't think twice about ascribing crusades, wars and even the holocaust and the extermination of indians to christianity, yet when someone turns it around on them they dodge the issue

Beef Turret
Jul 9, 2009

by Lowtax

reignofevil posted:

Edit* Honestly "Premises" would have probably been a better word here.

I'm ESL

reignofevil
Nov 7, 2008

Very nice to meet you :)

Be careful with your words; things mean things.

quakster
Jul 21, 2007

by FactsAreUseless
i'm non-litigious. come at me bro, won't even sue you

Jim Barris
Aug 13, 2009

Ocean Book posted:

do you like, want examples of the belief system interacting dynamically with the world?

ex - the atheist walks into a room. someone says 'god bless you'. the atheist thinks 'i appreciate the sentiment but do not believe god will bless me'
What I want is for you to stop acting like it's a foregone conclusion that atheism and organized religions are one-to-one comparable. There is no social morality that comes part and parcel with atheism, the same can't be said of any of the big three religions. Atheism describes a state of non-adherence to a spiritual metaphysics but doesn't imply any positives. I am an atheist therefore I believe _______. There is only one thing that can fill in that blank and it's 'God does not exist'

The fact that many atheists are beholden to social ideologies and the fact that these same people intermingle their social ideology and atheism, that has nothing to do with atheism in and of itself.

quakster
Jul 21, 2007

by FactsAreUseless
HOT drat this transformice fanart in my facebook feed is getting me in the mood to gently caress some tiny animals

Hobohemian
Sep 30, 2005

by XyloJW

quakster posted:

i'm non-litigious. come at me bro, won't even sue you

Lol.

porkchop_express
May 27, 2004
closed thread ban anyone who posted more than 20 words

Beef Turret
Jul 9, 2009

by Lowtax

porkchop_express posted:

closed thread ban anyone who posted more than 20 words

I'm going to bring back sincerity to GBS. Problem?

Flavor Truck
Nov 5, 2007

My Love for You is like a Truck
Voting this thread a '5' because I was greeted by the wizardly image of AronRa on the first page. Also, just tell people you're secular instead of using the word Atheist. It's less problematic.

quakster
Jul 21, 2007

by FactsAreUseless

Beef Turret posted:

I'm going to bring back sincerity to GBS. Problem?
if you're planning to do it by having the most impotent, pointless argument in human history and repeating it until everyone else stops posting like the danglin' spazticle you are, go right ahead. i'm sure people will flock to whatever side you're on

i'm 100% sincere already. that rat rear end, mmm, a man simply cannot resist such a morsel

quakster
Jul 21, 2007

by FactsAreUseless
whoops quote not edit. a first time for everything

reignofevil
Nov 7, 2008
Getting oppressed by the GBS police takin' it to the cop thread.

eSports Chaebol
Feb 22, 2005

Yeah, actually, gamers in the house forever,

Beef Turret posted:

I'm going to bring back sincerity to GBS. Problem?

your the reason for the title of this thread hth

ProfessorBooty
Jan 25, 2004

Amulet of the Dark
If its someone I know I just say I'm not religous.

If its some rando street preacher I just say I'm Christian.

quakster
Jul 21, 2007

by FactsAreUseless
yeah, im christian *pulls out crucifix like an fbi badge*

Grand Prize Winner
Feb 19, 2007


Beef Turret posted:

I'm sure you needed me to tell you the obvious. As if a cursory glance through a history book of the french, bolshevik or chinese revolutions wouldn't show that atheism alone was a big part of the justification for repression and murder. Atheists don't think twice about ascribing crusades, wars and even the holocaust and the extermination of indians to christianity, yet when someone turns it around on them they dodge the issue

Still tho, there's a pretty direct line between the protestant heresies from Martin Luther onward and the atrocities of the Nazis

RaceBannon
Apr 3, 2010

Ocean Book posted:

how is atheism not a belief system? The absence of a specific belief is a belief system.

ugh who gives a poo poo. agree to disagree.

redshirt
Aug 11, 2007

Reporting for shovel mission Sir.
lol at this point I wish I was religious. It seems so easy.

"God did it".

Troll Bridgington
Dec 22, 2011

Keeping up foreign relations.
atheism is good imo

hohhat
Sep 25, 2014

Troll Bridgington posted:

atheism is good imo

When they are not murdering people they seem alright. You can find some at your local Gamestop or vaping supply store.

Troll Bridgington
Dec 22, 2011

Keeping up foreign relations.

Agag posted:

When they are not murdering people they seem alright. You can find some at your local Gamestop or vaping supply store.

yeah murderers are bad imo, so is gamestop

Lil Swamp Booger Baby
Aug 1, 1981

God

Blowmonkey
Jan 9, 2005

Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn't mean the circus has left town.

redshirt posted:

lol at this point I wish I was religious. It seems so easy.

"God did it".

This is one of the main reasons there are so many religious people. It answers every question.

coolskull
Nov 11, 2007

no one has seriously answered my concerns about why god supports all athletes simultaneously so it seems improbable

hohhat
Sep 25, 2014

LOVE LOVE SKELETON posted:

no one has seriously answered my concerns about why god supports all athletes simultaneously so it seems improbable

Wait for the final score, then you will know who God truly favored.

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a gay lion named Tangiers
Jul 30, 2013

LOVE LOVE SKELETON posted:

no one has seriously answered my concerns about why god supports all athletes simultaneously so it seems improbable

i just looked at your post history and this seems to be your only post in this thread so... you're kind of a bastard i guess for playing with the emotions of myself and my fellow posters

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