Why don't athiests understand?
The two of you disagree here, I suspect, because you are each using a slightly different definition of "religion." Atheism is a religion in the sense that it takes a position on matters of religion. That its position is that there is NO God doesn't necessarily disqualify it as a religion. If you define religion as necessarily including a belief in God, then atheism is not a religion. However, I think that's a pretty narrow definition.
"Religion" can be defined as simply "a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe." This definition would certainly include the belief that there is no cause or purpose to the universe, and that there is no God.
It appears that scientific evidence, while it may not ultimately be able to PROVE the existence of God of the Bible and identify the designer as such, certainly seems to point in that general direction.
I dunno, I've heard that "atheism is a religion the way good health is a disease" or "atheism is a religion the way 'not eating peas' is a meal." I think you'd have to admit, atheism is a lack of belief in any gods, and that's it. There aren't any other atheist doctrines really. There are no atheist churches, no atheist Bible, no atheist Pope or priesthood. If you know someone who is an atheist, you know they don't believe in God, but that doesn't really tell you anything about whatever else they might believe or practice.
It seems to me that the term "religion" describes something much broader than what atheism is capable of filling. Perhaps "materialism" might come closer, but the two aren't the same thing. Not all materialists are atheists, and vice versa.
m
I think the broader point is that before anyone gets into a debate about whether or not atheism is a religion, we'd better agree on a common definition of religion. Absent that, discussion is pointless.
Atheists believe that there is no God. They don't believe this on the basis of evidence, either. They don't have any empirical proof that God doesn't exist. (can't prove a negative, naturally) Therefore, it is a faith-held belief. There may not be any sort of organized set of morals, or a central text on which to base that belief, but I certainly don't see that as a requirement of a religion. Which brings me back to my first point… we have to agree on what religion is before we figure out whether atheism qualifies as such.
Atheists believe that there is no God. They don't believe this on the basis of evidence, either. They don't have any empirical proof that God doesn't exist. (can't prove a negative, naturally) Therefore, it is a faith-held belief.
Are all disbeliefs in things that haven't been proven to not exist faith-based beliefs? Such as that picture of Ronald Reagon buried one mile under Yellowstone National Park?
Do you admit confirming not denying you ever said that? ;)
"Faith" is the assent to a proposition without any empirical proof. Therefore, anything you believe to be true but which you cannot prove empirically is ultimately taken on faith. If one believes that no God exists, one accepts that on faith. If one believes, for example, that Christ was God incarnate in man, one accepts that on faith, as it cannot be proven empirically. It's not complicated.
Actually, there's quite a bit of evidence that Santa doesn't exist. For example, the laws of physics show us that reindeer can't fly. We know that nobody lives at the North Pole. People have been there, and the living conditions are, well, not that great. We know that there's no toy factory up there. We know where toys are ACTUALLY made. We know from logic that no one can be at every house in the world delivering presents at the same moment in time… we know that's impossible. Now, I'll grant you all that this evidence could be classified, perhaps, as "indirect"… but it is evidence nonetheless.
By contrast, there's quite a bit of INDIRECT evidence to support the existence of something very similar to God (meaning, the God of the Bible) An "intelligent designer" if you will. So much evidence, in fact, that to believe there IS not an "intelligent designer" requires a great deal of faith.
I think we all know Santa doesn't exist, so why don't we use a different example, something nobody knows the truth of: do aliens exist?
My view is straightforward: I don't know. I have no evidence to believe that they do, or do not exist. Consequently, my position is that I lack a belief in aliens.
My position on God is exactly the same: I don't know if God exist, I have no evidence either way, so logically I lack a belief in God.
That makes me an atheist, but does it make me religious? Can I be religious about a belief that I do not have? Hmmm...
fG
You say that you have no evidence either way, but doesn't the absence of evidence for a thing's existence count as evidence against its existence?
Further, the position that you articulate here is what has traditionally been referred to as agnosticism.
However, an atheist might still reject the existence of God and not be religious. A friend of mine is an atheist but is totally open the possibility of God's existence (not closed to it, not vehemently opposed to it). In other words, he's an empiricist who thinks the evidence from absence is strong enough to form a positive belief that no gods exist.
He may be wrong, and he may not have access to all the evidence, but he's just being intellectually honest and I totally respect him for that.
"You say that you have no evidence either way, but doesn't the absence of evidence for a thing's existence count as evidence against its existence?"
Not necessarily - only if we would realistically expect certain evidence to be available to us, and it is not. Some believers think that God does not want us to know he exist, and if that is the case he would not provide clear evidence that he does. In that scenario absence of evidence is not evidence against its exisence, imo.
"Further, the position that you articulate here is what has traditionally been referred to as agnosticism."
Don't we already have a conversation elsewhere about definitions? lol
My investigations have shown me that there are many different definitions of atheism and agnosticism, some historical and some in current usage. The way I see it, an agnostic maintains that we don't know if god exists or not, so that would make me indeed an agnostic. However, I have found out that many believers also think that God's existence is not a matter of knowledge, but of belief. That makes them agnostics too! I call myself an atheist, as in 'a-theist', a 'non-theist'. Make that an agnostic atheist and I won't object.
"He may be wrong, and he may not have access to all the evidence, but he's just being intellectually honest and I totally respect him for that."
He is a believer. What are you?
fG
There are no atheist churches, no atheist Bible, no atheist Pope or priesthood.
Actually, there is one book that could be classified as a sort of athiest bible. That book is titled The Origin of Species by a man named Charles Darwin.
Hmmm...not really. Darwin made some changes in later editions that referred to a "Creator" with more details:
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.
Life breathed into a few forms? Sounds like Darwin didn't have a problem with polyphyletic descent.
quote = TRoutMac
Actually, there's quite a bit of evidence that Santa doesn't exist. For example, the laws of physics show us that reindeer can't fly.
/quote
But Santa is magical, he has supernatural powers. We know at least some children get presents at Christmas time, this is proof of Santa. All the other objections are defeated because he has supernatural powers. How else could he do those things?
Well, religious means being extremely conscientious or scrupulous....
You can answer your own question, are you extremely conscientious about your lack of belief in God?
If so, then you are religious....religious does not mean Godly. There is a major difference. Believers just like using that word because it gets under the skin of atheists who claim no faith. A lack of belief in God or any other faith denotes a belief in something else, perhaps evolution...giving your "belief" a scientific edge could also make you religious about science.
As far as the definition goes, "religious" has no "god" basis...only self. It is an adjective used to describe self...the way ONE feels.
Actually, there are Atheist churches:
Church of the Unchurched
American Atheists
Church of Freethought
w/ preachers
And there is an Atheist Bible...
That argument is negated, sorry...
Also, there is even a website designed for Atheists CALLED the Atheist Bible, designed to promote the indepth spirituality of Atheists: www.atheistbible.net
I think it is more along the lines of:
Atheism is a religion, the way NOT eating GOOD food is a meal (or rather; the way eating junk food is a meal).
Some people think junk food, or fast food is a meal enough for them, and that is fine...it just don't always mean it is the best choice to make.
Thanx!
They don't believe in the Greek gods, the Roman gods, the Hindu gods, and so on. Christians are atheistic towards other gods. They lack a belief in other gods and are therefore atheistic towards them.
As a side note: Isn't the standard statement: The atheist just believes in one less god than the Christian.
If Christians DID believe in "other gods", then they wouldn't really believe in God of the Bible. It turns out that to believe in the other "gods" requires a great deal of faith. Blind faith. But to believe in the Christian God, THE God, requires only that you look around. The evidence is everywhere.
Anyway, the definition of "atheism" is much broader than that: (note "God OR gods)
a·the·ism
n.
1. Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
2. The doctrine that there is no God or gods.
TRoutMac
Intelligent (Graphic) Designer
"If Christians DID believe in "other gods", then they wouldn't really believe in God of the Bible. It turns out that to believe in the other "gods" requires a great deal of faith. Blind faith. But to believe in the Christian God, THE God, requires only that you look around. The evidence is everywhere."
And anyone who believes in his or her non-Christian "One true god" [FSM, Ukko Overgod, etc] can, of course, reply with the exact same argument.
TRoutMac - How old are you anyway? According to the introduction to a Podcast with Sam Chen on Intelligent Design The Future, this site is described as follows:
"Overwhelming Evidence is a site where high school students can network and communicate their views on intelligent design and evolution. ... This site is meant to encourage students to explore the facts, report the facts, and debate the facts."
I'm too old to post here but enjoy reading what I assume to be the opinions of a young contributorship. I can go elsewhere to find what high school graduates are thinking.
My apologies if you just look older than you are or if the intent of this site has changed.
I first heard about this site while listening to the "Darwinism or Design" conference which was held a few weeks ago at the Sun Dome in Florida, and I didn't recall anything about high school students in the description I heard. That's why I was surprised when I read the ABOUT section roughly a week after I began posting here. But I promptly posted a comment in response to one of Denyse O'Leary's posts (she also is not a high school student) asking about this issue. I said:
"I'm new to this site, having just learned about it last Friday. Yesterday I was surfing around the site and was surprised to find that in the "About" section, this site is described as being for high school students. I didn't recall seeing anything to indicate that when I signed up. Now, I'm not a high school student and of course neither are you, but naturally I wonder, and would like to ask what you think: Is it "okay" for you and I to post stuff here?"
Now, Mrs. O'Leary didn't reply, but Patrick, a regular poster here, replied in a message titled "Tis Okay" and he said:
"Bill asked a number of us to go here in order to get some meat (content) on this site."
So, to answer your question, I'm 38 years old and just attended my 20 year high school reunion in August. It may be necessary to amend the "About" section of this site if, in fact, adults can participate. When I signed up, there was nothing asking about my age, my education, what high school I attend, my grade, etc.… nothing to make me think this was resticted in any way to high school students.
I guess I would like some clarification on this point as well. Perhaps that'll happen soon.
Thank you for your question.
TRoutMac
Intelligent (Graphic) Designer
MrSkippy wrote:
"I have noticed that athiests don't understand that they are deeply religious. Athiesm is a religious point of view, after all. Why don't they realize that they feel as strongly about God as Christians or muslims do, (albiet on a different side)?"
I think the answer lies in educational upbringing, and common paradigms. I doubt they deny they have a belief, they just probably have the faulty understnading of what the term religion menas and think that it requires a defined god.
This is similar to the idea that people believe the earth is billions of years old, based on how many episodes of the Flintstones they watched as a kid ;)
Ok, I gave myself away! -- I'm one of those "radical" yec.
Hello Trout,
You wrote: "Atheism is a religion in the sense that it takes a position on matters of religion."
On this definition than anything which takes a position on religion is itself a religion. "Takes a position" is too broad, and thus could conceivably include things like:
-A court decision
-Philosophical skepticism
The temptation to ascribe the label religion to the absence of religion should be resisted in favor of the best scholarly definition.
Also, note the underlying irony here. If you hope to label evolution, atheism, humanism, materialism or naturalism a religion and on that basis argue that it is either or both 1) Religious and therefore unconstitutional, or 2) Religious and therefore not based on evidence, you are at the same time undermining I.D., an arguably religious notion.
Best,
D.
This is questionable on several counts.
1. The supreme court only referred humanism as a religion in a footnote, which has no binding force. Later, in the 1994 case Peloza v. Capistrano School District, the Supreme Court refused to rule against a lower court case that said that secular humanism was not a religion, thus providing its official view that it indeed is not.
2. The standard scholarly definition of religion includes a supernatural component. Humanism does not have this.
3. The vast majority of humanists claim that their beliefs do not constitute religion. In fact, they claim that humanism is the philosophical framework for an explicitly nonreligious viewpoint.
All of this begs the question of how or who determines what is a religion and what is not. It's interesting that you should cite an out of date Supreme Court footnote and ignore everything else.
Best,
D.
Ignoring everything else? I'd never actually bothered to read up on what exactly the courts have said. I'd just "heard" via word of mouth that the US Supreme Court had supposedly defined humanism as a religion in the past.
After a quick reading of the facts it appears humanists want their beliefs defined as a religion in the US for free exercise clause purposes but at the same NOT as a religion for establishment clause purposes. How's that for doublespeak? But that's what the courts are saying...I'd consider the words of the original founders of humanism to be more important (the "everything else" that you apparently ignore).
Humanists of the past certainly had no issue with defining their beliefs as a religion, albeit one that was very different from most other religions (I say most because a belief in the existence of "God" is not part of Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, etc). While I had never read the court cases I have read the older writings but I'm sure today's humanists are saying something different in order to avoid trapping themselves legally.
http://www.americanhumanist.org/about/manifesto1.html
Huxley's "The Coming New Religion of Humanism" is an interesting read:
It is certainly a fact that Christianity does not, and I would add cannot, satisfy an increasing number of people: and it does not and cannot do so because it is a particular brand of religion, which is no longer related or relevant to the facts of existence as revealed by the march of events or the growth of knowledge.
But first of all we must ask what we mean by a religion. A religion is an organ of man in society which helps him to cope with the problems of nature and his destiny -- his place and role in the universe. It always involves the sense of sacredness or mystery and of participation in a continuing enterprise; it is always concerned with the problem of good and evil and with what transcends the individual self and the immediate and present facts of every day. A religion always has some framework of beliefs, some code of ethics, and some system of expression -- what are usually called a theology, a morality, and a ritual. When we look closely we find that the beliefs largely determine both the nature of the moral code and the form of the ritual.
The theological framework on which Christianity is supported includes as its centre the basic belief of all theistic religions -- the belief in the supernatural and the existence of a god or gods, supernatural beings endowed with properties of knowing, feeling, and willing akin to those of a human personality.
In Christian theology, god is a being who at a definite date -- until recently specified as 4004 B.C. -- created the world and man in essentially the same form they have today; a ruler capable of producing miracles and of influencing natural events, including events in human minds, and conversely of being influenced by man's prayers and responding to them.
Christianity believes in a last judgment by god at a definite but unspecified future date. It believes in an eternal life after death in a supernatural realm, and makes salvation through belief its central aim. It believes in the fall of man and original sin, that its code of morals has been commanded by god, and that all mankind is descended from one original couple. Christianity asserts a partial polytheism in the doctrine of the Trinity, and gives full rein to what the students of comparative religion call polydaemonism by its belief in angels, saints, and the Virgin and their power to grant human prayers. Officially it still believes in hell and the devil and other evil supernatural beings, though these beliefs are rapidly fading. It is based on a belief in divine revelation and in the historical reality of supernatural events such as the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus as the son of the first person of the Trinity. It claims or assumes that all other religions are false and that only Christianity (or only one brand of Christianity) is true. It assumes that the earth occupies a central position in the cosmic scheme, and that, though god is believed to be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, he has a special concern with man's salvation.
The Christian system of beliefs is quite unacceptable in the world of today. It is contradicted, as a whole and in detail, by our extended knowledge of the cosmos, of the solar system, of our own planet, of our own species, and of our individual selves.
Christianity is dogmatic, dualistic, and essentially geocentric. It is based on a vision of reality which sees the universe as static, short-lived, small, and ruled by a supernatural being. The vision we now possess, thanks to the patient and imaginative labours of thousands of physicists, chemists, biologists, psychologists, anthropologists, archeologists, historians, and humanists, is incommensurable with it. In the light of this new vision, our picture of reality becomes unitary, temporally and spatially of almost inconceivable vastness, dynamic, and constantly transforming itself through the operation of its own inherent properties. It is also scientific, in the sense of being based on established knowledge, and accordingly non-dogmatic, basically self-correcting, and itself evolving. Its keynote, the central concept to which all its details are related, is evolution.
THE NEW VISION
Let me try to outline this new vision as briefly as possible. On the basis of our present understanding, all reality is in a perfectly valid sense one universal process of evolution. The single process occurs in three phases -- first, the inorganic or cosmic, operating by physical and to a limited extent chemical interaction, and leading to the production of such organizations of matter as nebulae, stars, and solar systems; in our galaxy this phase has been going on for at least six billion years.
In the rare places where matter has become self-reproducing, the inorganic has been succeeded by the organic or biological phase; this operates primarily by the ordering agency we call natural selection, and leads to the production of increasingly varied and increasingly higher organizations of matter, such as flowers, insects, cuttlefish, and vertebrates, and to the emergence of mind and increasingly higher organizations of awareness. On our planet this has been operating for rather under three billion years.
Finally, in what must be the extremely rare places (we only know for certain of one) where, to put it epigrammatically, mind has become self-reproducing through man's capacity to transmit experience and its products cumulatively, we have the human or psychosocial phase. This operates by the self-perpetuating but self-varying and (within limits) self-correcting process of cumulative learning and cumulative transmission, and leads to the evolution of increasingly varied and increasingly higher psychosocial products, such as religions, scientific concepts, labor-saving machinery, legal systems, and works of art.
Our prehuman ancestors arrived at the threshold of the critical step to this phase around a million years ago; but they became fully human, and psychosocial evolution began to work really effectively, only within the last few tens of thousands of years. During that short span of evolutionary time, man has not changed genetically in any significant way, and his evolution has been predominantly cultural, manifested in the evolution of his social systems, his ideas, and his technological and artistic creations.
The new vision enlarges our future as much as our past. Advance in biological evolution took place through a succession of so-called dominant types -- in the last 400 million years, from jawless limbless vertebrates to fish, then through amphibians to reptiles, from reptiles to mammals, and finally to man. Each new dominant type is in some important way biologically more efficient than the last, so that when it breaks through to evolutionary success it multiplies and spreads at the expense of its predecessors.
Man is the latest dominant type to arise in the ecology of this earth. There is no possibility of his dominant position in evolution being challenged by an existing type of creature, whether rat or ape or insect. All that could happen to man (if he does not blow himself up with nuclear bombs or convert himself into a cancer of his planet by over-multiplication) is that he could transform himself as a whole species into something new. He has nearly three billion years of evolution behind him, from his first pre-cellular beginnings: barring accidents, he has at least as much time before him to pursue his evolutionary course.
Yeats implied, or indeed affirmed, that if the Christian God were rejected, a Savage God would take his place. This certainly could happen, but it need not happen, and we can be pretty sure that in the long run it will not happen.
The new framework of ideas on which any new dominant religion will be based is at once evolutionary and humanist. For evolutionary humanism, gods are creations of man, not vice versa. Gods begin as hypotheses serving to account for certain phenomena of outer nature and and inner experience: they develop into more unified theories, which purport to explain the phenomena and make them comprehensible; and they end up being hypostatized as supernatural personal beings capable of influencing the phenomena. As theology develops, the range of phenomena accounted for by the god-hypothesis is extended to cover the entire universe, and the gods become merged in God.
However, with the development of human science and learning, this universal or absolute God becomes removed further and further back from phenomena and any control of them. As interpreted by the more desperately "liberal" brands of Christianity today, he appears to the humanist as little more than the smile of a cosmic Cheshire Cat, but one which is irreversibly disappearing.
THE STUFF OF DIVINITY
But though I believe that gods and God in any meaningful non-Pickwickian sense are destined to disappear, the stuff of divinity out of which they have grown and developed remains, and will provide much of the raw material from which any new religions will be fashioned. This religious raw material consists in those aspects of nature and elements in experience which are usually described as divine. The term divine did not originally imply the existence of gods: on the contrary, gods were constructed to interpret man's experiences of this quality in phenomena.
Some events and some phenomena of outer nature transcend ordinary explanation and ordinary experience. They inspire awe and seem mysterious, explicable only in terms of something beyond or above ordinary nature -- "super-natural" power, a super-human element at work in the universe.
Such magical, mysterious, awe-inspiring, divinity-suggesting facts have included wholly outer phenomena like volcanic eruptions, thunder, and hurricanes, biological phenomena such as sex and reproduction, birth, disease and death, and also phenomena of man's inner life such as intoxication, possession, speaking with tongues, inspiration, insanity, and mystic vision.
With the growth of knowledge most of these phenomena have ceased to be mysterious so far as rational or scientific inexplicability is concerned. But there remains the fundamental mystery of existence, and in particular the existence of mind. Our knowledge of physics and chemistry-neurology does not account for the basic fact of subjective experience, though they help us to understand its workings. The stark fact of mind sticks in the throat of pure rationalism and reductionist materialism.
However, it remains true that phenomena are charged with a magic quality of transcendent and even compulsive power, and introduce us to a realm beyond ordinary experience. Such events and such experiences merit a special designation. For want of a better, I use the term divine, though this quality of divinity is not truly supernatural but transnatural -- it grows out of ordinary nature, but transcends it. The divine is what man finds worthy of adoration, that which compels his worship: and during history it evolves like everything else.
Much of every religion is aimed at the discovery and safeguarding of divinity, and seeks contact and communion with what is regarded as divine. A humanist-based religion must redefine divinity, strip the divine of the theistic qualities which man has anthropomorphically projected into it, search for its habitations in every aspect of existence, elicit it, and establish fruitful contact with its manifestations. Divinity is the chief raw material out of which gods have been fashioned. Today we must melt down the gods and refashion the material into new and effective agencies, enabling man to exist freely and fully on the spiritual level as well as on the material.
The character of all religions depends primarily on the pattern of its supporting framework of ideas, its theology in an extended sense; and this in its turn depends on the extent and organization of human knowledge at the time. I feel sure that the world will see the birth of a new religion based on what I have called evolutionary humanism. Just how it will develop and flower no one knows -- but some of its underlying beliefs are beginning to emerge, and in any case it is clear that a humanism of this sort can provide powerful religious, moral and practical motivation for life.
EVOLUTIONARY HUMANISM
The beliefs of this religon [sic] of evolutionary humanism are not based on revelation in the supernatural sense, but on the revelations that science and learning have given us about man and the universe. A humanist believes with full assurance that man is not alien to nature, but a part of nature, albeit a unique one. He is made of the same matter and works by the same energy as the rest of the universe. He is not only a product of the universal process of evolution, but capable of affecting the process which has produced him, and of affecting it either for good or ill. His true destiny is to guide the future course of evolution on earth towards greater fulfilment, so as to realize more and higher potentialities. And this can only be done by intelligently co-operating with outer nature, not by senselessly exploiting and wasting its resources; and by intelligently guiding his own nature, not by senselessly succumbing to his conflicting instincts and moods -- reproductive, acquisitive, despairing, idealistic, or aggressive.
Evolution is essentially creative. It is constantly generating improved, more varied, and higher types. During pre-human evolution from some precellular submicroscopic speck to a dominant type of terrestial [sic] organism, the evolutionary process has realized almost inconceivable potentialities -- of adaptability and power, knowledge and emotion, intelligence and love. During his own evolution, man has realized further and equally inconceivable potentialities. Some are good and have grandeur, in the shape of comprehensive scientific theories, soul-compelling religions, glorious buildings, fantastic machines, undying works of art, inspiring moral codes. But he has also realized equally inconceivable potentialities of horror and evil -- torture by the Inquisition, Hitler's gas chambers for Jews, the ruthlessness of Genghis Khan, war after war after war, the horror of the atomic bomb, and the incredible stupidity of the nuclear deterrent stalemate.
A HUMANIST RELIGION
A humanist religion will have the task of redefining the categories of good and evil in terms of fulfilment and of desirable or undesirable realizations of potentiality, and setting up new targets for its morality to aim at.
In this process of transvaluation, to borrow Nietzsche's phrase, a humanist religion will certainly do something new -- it will assign a high value to the increase of scientifically based knowledge; for it is on knowledge and its applications that anything which can properly be called human advance or progress depends. It will also assign a high value to the creative imagination and the works of art and beauty and significance which it produces; for it is they which are the highest expressions of the spirit of man.
As regards the individual, a humanist religion will, like the ancient Greeks, stress excellence. But as complementary to this, it will go further than the Greek principle of moderation: nothing too much -- and will make psychological integration and total wholeness an essential aim, and in some sense the equivalent of the state of salvation in Christian terminology. Finally, it can give the individual much-needed protection against the tyrannies of society, much-needed support against the pressure of authoritarianism and conformism, by proclaiming the vital truth that in realising his own potentialities and in developing his own personality the individual is making his own unique contribution to the universal process of evolutionary fulfilment.
Integration implies the resolution of dichotomies and conflicts, through their incorporation in a unified, balanced dynamic pattern, well equipped with feedback mechanisms. In Marxism, the individual is presented in opposition to society. In humanism, the individual and society are seen as inevitably interrelated; integration here implies making the interrelation more profound and more harmonious. In the evolutionary humanist view, the dichotomy between heredity and environment can similarly disappear, by making heredity and environment support each other and act synergistically so as to secure a more complete development.
Humanism also differs from all supernaturalist religions in centering its long-term aims not on the next world but on this. One of its fundamental tenets is that this world and the life in it can be improved, and that it is our duty to try to improve it, socially, culturally, and politically. The humanist goal must therefore be, not Technocracy, nor Theocracy, not the omnipotent and authoritarian State, nor the Welfare State, nor the Consumption Economy, but the Fulfilment Society. By this I mean a society organized in such a way as to give the greatest number of people the fullest opportunities of realizing their potentialities -- of achievement and enjoyment, morality and community. It will do so by providing opportunities for education, for adventure and achievement, for cooperating in worthwhile projects, for meditation and withdrawal, for self-development and unselfish action.
Above all, a humanist religion will uphold the ideal of quality, against the assaults of mere quantity, of richness and variety against drabness and monotony, and of active open and continuous development, personal, social, and evolutionary, as against static self-complacency or unreal millenary fanaticism.
Well, at least now we know why you oppose ID. It has nothing to do with science; it's all about protecting your beliefs.
At the same time, apparently you do not realize that ID is compatible with atheism itself...just not the additional beliefs that there wasn't any intelligence involved in the formation of life here on this planet. Now whether you can willingly adjust your beliefs to accommodate the empirical evidence I have no idea.
Hello,
If you approach the Bible with dogmatic reverence, all other texts are unavoidably seen through a similar cognitive lens, even if not believed. So, for instance, it's notable that you fall into a "founding fathers" trap (defined basically as a respect for originating thinkers with no regard or insufficient regard for the fact that their views may be mistaken and need to be improved on. You don't often find this critical attitude with the Bible and belief in it, interestingly.) with: "Humanists of the past certainly had no issue with defining their beliefs as a religion", apparently ignoring both the evolutionary character of humanism, as it changes with changes in science and thought, and the necessary questions of historical context. In the latter case it's well known that to identify as an atheist or agnostic during much of the Cold War was to invite red-baiting. Thus, at least partly on this basis, the automatic tendency was to seek outward conformity by calling your non-religiousness a kind of religion.
As for the apparent inconsistency between free exercise and establishment classifications, it's evident that this happens not due to conspiracy and deception-minded humanists, but because of defects of the law. A thoroughly secular philosophical stance over 200 years ago was hardly acceptable to the reflexive religionists of the past and thus we don't see in the 1st Amendment anything about an establishment of "life stance", or some such wording designed both to encompass religion and non-religion. This couldn't be more obvious. Thus, not seeing this is only really explainable on the assumption of a desire to see what you want to see--in this case, something fishy and slipperly about humanists. (A few constitutions in developed countries do explicitly take into account the existence of those without any religious beliefs.)
This following shouldn't need to be pointed out, but due to a deliberate misreading for political purposes, it must: The vast majority of humanists would consider their views to be thoroughly non-religious, since they define religion as having a supernatural component. They don't secretly believe their views are religious and say otherwise just to avoid legal issues.
Your statement about knowing why I oppose ID having nothing to do with science is on its face, merely a projection on your part. It's a key part of your belief system, I speculate, that any opposition to ID can't be on the basis of a better understanding of science. It somehow must have to do with a prior rejection of your religious faith. This would be more of a possibility if it weren't the case that there are many theistic Christians who also accept evolution. Are they rejecting ID on the basis of their hidden humanism? If you really want to insist on reading the minds of your philosophical opponents, then you must be clear that this is what your intention is: that those who disagree with you don't do so for rational reasons, but because they are blinded by their prior beliefs. But when this "false consciousness" theory is extended it seems either paranoic and/or unrealistic to think that evolution is either a conspiracy or the result of many highly intelligent people all expressing a similar wildly unaccounted for bias.
(It would be fascinating and instructive to see a nationwide survey with the question: Do you regard evolution as a conspiracy against religious faith? I suspect the results might prove embarrassing to ID creationists.)
In your last paragraph you again impute to me views that I don't hold, which adds yet more evidence to the observation that your tendency to commit the fallacy of projection is fairly strong. I in fact don't hold that ID is logically incompatible with some aspects of evolution. I do hold the view that there is no evidence for it.
I suspect that if you really knew how open minded many people were to ID it would be quite shocking to you. (But most scientists, as with me (I'm not a scientist, just someone who holds that evolution commands the evidence), simply find no evidence for it.) It would be shocking because you would then have to modify or give up the notion that many people are less reasonable and more prone to error than you. By the way, I don't mean this last comment to be in any way insulting. I'm merely asserting that sometimes we all must take a breath and admit that we are error-prone thinkers. I've made tons of mistakes in my thinking, but I'm always trying to improve.
Comments welcome.
-D.
No one's going to agree on whether humanism or atheism are "religions" until we all agree on ONE definition of religion and then stick with it. We're talking past each other here to an extent. In one sense of the words, Humanism is certainly a religion. In another sense, it's not. It all turns on how you define "religion".
As far as I'm concerned, "religion" is an extremely broad term and virtually any faith-held belief which has implications in conflict with any other religion is itself a religion. Humanism meets this requirement, as does atheism. An atheist has FAITH that God doesn't exist. That proposition has implications which conflict with other religions, therefore it is a religion. I don't expect everyone to accept this definition, but it is on the basis of this definition that I say Humanism is definitely a religion, as is atheism.
That aside, there's really no point in discussing it further if we don't have a common definition of "religion."
I'm the one projecting? Interesting that you automatically assume that I'm a Christian and then proceed to attack from that viewpoint. Like some of UD's moderators who are not Christians I believe humanism and atheism is nonsense based upon reason alone. Then of course you dance around the fact that humanists have been involved in lawsuits where they purposely define their beliefs as a religion for free exercise clause purposes.
In the latter case it's well known that to identify as an atheist or agnostic during much of the Cold War was to invite red-baiting.
Riiight. You do realize the Cold War started in 1946 and that the first Humanist Manifesto was written in 1933? It's kind of hard to argue with this first point in those writings:
"Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created."
Huxley also wrote his article in The Humanist...I kind of doubt he'd need to edit himself considering the audience reading his work. The 2nd Humanist Manifesto, written in 1973, also compares the traditional religions against the new religion.
I do realize that not all humanists are two-faced liars purposely changing the definition of their beliefs to avoid legal problems. Most likely it's just the latest trend among the new generation of humanists to disassociate themselves from what they consider/define religion and politics/law has little to do with it. At least that's the case with the young humanists I know personally.
You on the other hand are vainly trying to assert what is obviously a misrepresentation of the facts. If you want to disagree with the founder's definition of religion that's fine; openly say so. But your assertions border on the disingenuous.
Your statement about knowing why I oppose ID having nothing to do with science is on its face, merely a projection on your part. It's a key part of your belief system, I speculate, that any opposition to ID can't be on the basis of a better understanding of science. It somehow must have to do with a prior rejection of your religious faith.
Keep projecting...as I said on UD very recently:
"I’m an engineer, as are many of those on UD. Like a good little student I believed everything my professor taught me, including Darwinism. It was due to my interest in nanotechnology that I ran into ID."
Paradigm shifts take a while and it's not due to a conspiracy (unless you count activists like the NCSE). In the case of theistic Christians I believe it's very difficult to overcome a belief you were taught as a child and have believed for many years. Never mind if you are a scientist who has been assured by others who've spent their entire careers invested into Darwinism and are unwilling to consider it's been a waste. I have a hard time seeing that the rejection of ID is due to rational reasons based not upon my own preconceptions but because no one is able to offer empirical evidence for an indirect Darwinian pathway or a false positive caused by the EF. It's also very rare for me to run into an ID opponent who has actually read the literature. Can you honestly say that you didn't immediately reject ID due to your religious beliefs as a humanist?
I suspect that if you really knew how open minded many people were to ID it would be quite shocking to you.
Actually, no it wouldn't since I already know this. Unfortunately many people are open-minded about ID or claim to support ID but don't even comprehend ID. Usually this is because these people only know ID from the distorted reporting of the media (ID Creationism, etc) or they've never read the literature.
It's actually the old earthers who accuse the young earth creationists of believing dinosaurs and humans co-existed based on having watched Flintstones cartoons. On that reasoning, the Flintstones movie should have strengthened the YEC movement.
I think it's feasible to believe in OEC and dino-human co-existence, as I've seen persuasive evidence for the latter.
As for the main topic, many people seem to be pretty non-religious. The atheists who feel they constantly have to attack theists are quite religious. Their gods are human reason, science, technology, etc.
Hello,
Yes, this is the issue at hand. But I still think there's room for discussion given that you've offered some definitions.
First off, your definition of atheist doesn't appear to be one based on what the academic literature defines it as, which, simplifying greatly, includes simply having not belief in a god. On the other hand, positive assertions of the non-existence of god rest on perceived contradictions in theism, and when one finds self-contradictory propositions in any definition, it's perfectly valid to reject that definition.
Your definition trades on two things most likely. First, a popular understanding of the term, and second, selective use of evidence--those atheists, and they are out there, whose views go beyond reason and evidence.
So, with this background in mind it's simply incorrect to say that atheism in general is a faith position.
Are you also saying as a stand alone assertion that any views that contradict those of faith must also be religious?
D.
My original reply was inexplicably lost, so I'll make another attempt.
You seem to ignore my first post in which I talked about the explanation for why humanist groups try to use the est. clause and define themselves as religious groups. I find this interesting. Nevertheless, to repeat, it has to do with the peculiar defect of the U.S. Constitution which doesn't provide for non-religious philosophies.
As for my Cold War comment, I misspoke. Red scares predated the Cold War by decades, and the same suspicions of atheism prevailed then as they did in later years. And all of this is of course against a backdrop in western societies of persecuting outspoken non-belief.
What do you mean by your shorthand "EF"? Evolutionary framework?
Since I hold no religious beliefs, you must have misread my previous posts. I define religion, as do many scholars, as having a supernatural belief component. Humanism does not.
There are two reasons it might be rare to find those who've read the ID literature and who yet oppose it.
1. The creationist arguments can be fairly and quickly summed up in critical literature, as can many arguments from a variety of disciplines. This is sufficient for the rebuttal of ID arguments. It should also be noted that many feel that reading through creationist literature is a waste of time given that creationism has offered little to nothing to science. What it has offered science is a change to admit to what it doesn't know.
2. Old earth creationist claims have inherent flaws:
a. There's no reliable methodology for acquiring knowledge of supposed supernatural (miraculous) power or entities.
b. Even if evolutionists somehow gave up searching for explanations of some of the details of evolution, God/the IDer, the creation explanation if perfectly vacuous and doesn't count as knowledge since it only amounts to "We don't know, therefore God did it." This "explanation" doesn't tell you any number of things that actual science would--the mechanisms of the cause, their frequency, their nature and variability. Did God design the toenail? Did he do it just in primates? When did this take place? How did he do it? Why don't we see miraculous changes in organisms before our eyes?
c. It doesn't seem to occur to creationists that when science doesn't have an immediate and complete answer that perhaps the best response is to just say, "I don't know." What makes this difficult in the case of Christian theism is that God is presumed to be the ultimate cause of everything. There can't be any unknowns in the theistic universe because theists believe that their God is a sufficient cause of everything, at least at some level.
For these reasons the average scientist has perfectly sufficient reasons in principle for not taking ID creationism seriously. When this new breed of creationists actually does their homework and happens to find answers to these fatal problems, then I'll be the first to step up to the plate to sign on to their program.
So, did I immediately reject ID due to my understanding of science? No. I didn't however expect much from this new crop of creationists and while they make fewer avoidable mistakes thean their young earth counterparts, they've been quite disappointing thus far.
Are you able to look at this from the perspective of those promoting evolution? Consider how little the old earth creationists have to say for their "theory." It's very nearly entirely a criticism of evolution. How could it be otherwise? The alternative would have to include a methodology that could tell us of the mechanisms of causation and the nature of the causer(s), in this case, the god of Christianity. Absent this, not to mention having reliable evidence, they still want to introduce their ideas into science classrooms? This is astonishing to the evolutionist and those who believe in the integrity of science. Add to this religious partisan documents like "The Wedge Strategy", which is not a prescription for how to do better ID creationist science, but a strategy that places emphasis on running around the accepted means of establishing scientific legitimacy. This is all suggestive, not of honest intellectual efforts, but of a program of politics and religion with a modicum of science-y ideas thrown in.
I understand that IDers wish for their notions to be known as Intelligent Design and not creationism or even ID Creationism. But let's be honest about this. It's not due to some qualitative difference with creationism, but solely done to escape the reputational wreckage of "creationism" in the courts.
-D.
"I understand that IDers wish for their notions to be known as Intelligent Design and not creationism or even ID Creationism. But let's be honest about this. It's not due to some qualitative difference with creationism, but solely done to escape the reputational wreckage of "creationism" in the courts."
I challenge you to be honest. Even if IDers reject the term "creationism" in favor of "intelligent design" because of the "reputational wreckage of 'creationism' in the courts, is there or is there not a difference between the two?
If there is NOT a difference between the two, then be honest and say that you think ID and creationism are simply the same thing and don't hide behind this "reputational wreckage" stuff.
If there IS a difference between ID and creationism, then does it matter for what reason IDers have rejected the term "creationism?" There is, after all, a difference between the two.
I think you want to look at the facts and not the motivation. If I think that 1+1=2 because my religions says so, it doesn't mean I'm wrong.
It's really quite simple, Stone. Anything you believe which confliicts with some religion is a belief which pertains to religion. If it conflicts with a religion, then it challenges that religion, and therefore it is a religious belief. It is a belief which pertains to religion, it is a belief that has religious implications. Defining 'atheist' as "not believing in a God" as distinct from "believing there is no God" is semantic tomfoolery. Regardless, Dictionary.com's definition is as follows:
"a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings."
An atheist's faith-held beliefs (or disbeliefs), furthermore, are not based on evidence nor the lack thereof. Oh they may claim that they don't see evidence of God. Or they may believe that their own perceived contradictions in theism consitutes evidence against God. But in doing so, the atheist places himself in a position of judging God's methods… If God doesn't measure up to the atheist's standards of what is right or wrong, then they reject God.
There is plenty of evidence of God even without exposing DNA and irreducible complexity, etc. (clearly, I'm personally convinced that the Intelligent Designer is God) And it must be understood that a being which possesses the attributes of God of the Bible is obviously beyond our ability to comprehend. Infinity and eternality are impossible for us to comprehend, and yet EVERYONE believes in eternality and infinity. (Isn't that interesting?) So it ought not surprise an atheist (assuming he has an ounce of humility) that some aspects of theism appear contradictory or don't appear to make sense at first blush.
I've been a Christian for many, many years and I can say that nothing in Christian doctrine or theology fails to be logical or rational. Along the way you're struck by things which initially appear contradictory, but further study always washes those apparent contradictions away. Sure, even many Christians distort and generally fail to understand much of Christianity properly, but that's the failing of men, not Christianity or God.
You seem to ignore my first post in which I talked about the explanation for why humanist groups try to use the est. clause and define themselves as religious groups. I find this interesting. Nevertheless, to repeat, it has to do with the peculiar defect of the U.S. Constitution which doesn't provide for non-religious philosophies.
I ignored it because it was a blind assertion with no facts to back it up. From what I can tell the modern sense of humanism as not being a religion first started to formulate in the 1950's in some universities but didn't start to become popular until the 1970's (although the Humanist Manifesto of 1973 still used religious language). Leo Pfeffer used the term in 1958 to mean "Those unaffiliated with organized religion and concerned with human values." With Torcaso v. Watkins Justice Black, in 1961, referred to a non-theistic humanism that its adherents considered to be religious (Fellowship of Humanity v. County of Alameda). I would consider the transition to be complete by 2000 since the Humanist Manifesto of 2000 doesn't make any references to religion.
I think it odd that you'd rather support the notion that humanists have been lying all these years instead of the more supportable idea that it's a trend that has some correlation with the legal arguments in the US.
Oh, and I'm ignoring the religious humanists who are clearly aligned with traditional religions in this discussion, as are you.
As for my Cold War comment, I misspoke. Red scares predated the Cold War by decades, and the same suspicions of atheism prevailed then as they did in later years. And all of this is of course against a backdrop in western societies of persecuting outspoken non-belief.
If your assertion is true it's very odd that the documents I quoted clearly reject traditional religions--stating their non-belief--and clearly denote their atheism...
What do you mean by your shorthand "EF"? Evolutionary framework?
Explanatory Filter
From your later discussion it's readily apparent you don't comprehend ID at all. I'll ignore the blind assertions (point 1 and others) and the conflating with creationism.
You do realize that point 2.a is flawed because the designer of a designed object is not within the scope of ID? ID is an attempt to go beyond mere intuition or gut feeling when making a design inference. ID formalizes the process of making a design inference. The tools available for doing this are limited at this time (more may be articulated in the future). For example, even in the case of Mt. Rushmore ID would take that object, declare a positive design inference, but could not itself discover who/what designed it. This is an inherent limitation. Now ID can be combined with other methods to overcome this limitation but ID itself can be used to form a logical chain between a designed object and the designer(s).
For 2.b, ID is compatible with many other theories and can be combined into a framework in order to answer those types of questions. Read the literature to see why ID isn't a "God of the Gaps" argument based upon ignorance.
2.c is the worst argument yet since ID itself MUST make do with saying "I don't know" since, as I discussed above, ID itself cannot designate the designer(s). If other methods also cannot discover the designer(s) then we'll have to be satisfied with a "I don't know". We can posit directed panspermia and other scenarios until further evidence comes along.
I understand that IDers wish for their notions to be known as Intelligent Design and not creationism or even ID Creationism. But let's be honest about this. It's not due to some qualitative difference with creationism, but solely done to escape the reputational wreckage of "creationism" in the courts.
Let's see YOU be honest and clearly state the reasons why ID must be conflated with creationism (compatibility does not equate to being the same!). It's funny though, I could rework your paragraph to be thus:
I understand that humanists wish for their notions to be known as non-religious and not religion or even semi-religious. But let's be honest about this. It's not due to some qualitative difference with religion, but solely done to escape the reputational wreckage of "religion" in the courts.
I am neither a creationist nor a Christian, but I cannot, in good conscience, attribute the 'here and now' to chance or natural selection. Not in the extremely short time (compared to the immortal typing monkey) between 'then and now'.
I am new to the ID/EVO debate, and I don't have all of the acronyms figured out, but I cannot get past the fact that one cannot discuss "evolution" or "Darwinism" without taking themselves out of the scientific equation. For me, there is simply no "chance" or "natural selection" explanation for man's perspective that there can be anything "wrong" with anything.
If one assumes there is no God and were to act accordingly, one would have to view the world in the exact same way as a devoutly spiritual person. Namely, both would assume "This is what the evolutionary mechanism/Creator has wrought, therefore everything is fine and exactly as it should be." There would be no argument because there would be nothing to argue about. IF either side acted as if what they claim to believe were true. But they don't.
I reside on the side of ID. Not because I presume to know what or who the I in ID belongs to, but because to claim that even a stoneage tool and a candle - let alone DNA and gravity - were made by no one, seems absurd. And when you dig deep enough, and get to the origin of everything, you simply have to make a choice. And I choose to believe that man is absolutely and positively NOT the best and brightest the universe has to offer.
I don't know if the God of the Bible exists or not. All I know is that if He does exist, as described in the Bible, then He is not THE God and therefore, not my God. And ID doesn't require Him.
Let's have a look at this "faith" business. Surely when you say it is a belief not based on evidence that includes not just evidence we already have, but all potential future evidence. In other words we have our old friend falsifiability. Does your friendly neighbourhood atheist hold there is no god in the face of all possible evidence? If the stars all lined up one night to write "Here I am, god, writing this" I'll guess some atheists would say "whaddaya know, I was wrong". Not all, granted, but for these people their atheism would not have been a faith position. So I don't have faith there is no Santa - I'll sign up to Santaism in the face of certain evidence (that I'm practically convinced we'll never have), but I'm still happy to say I believe there is no Santa.
PS I'm not sure ASantaists are allowed to wheel out laws of physics, not unless they want a few difficult questions about the walking on water / water-wine conjuring tricks...
I always thought the more modern definition of "faith"--where a belief must be completely independent of a factual basis--was a bit odd. In fact, the term seems to have been twisted purposely over the years from my historical readings. It's a strange juxtaposition which frames debates in a biased manner which reflects the unsophisticated position of those who prefer this new definition (as in, if they don't like the facts they redefine everything to fit their view).
I've always seen faith as being a belief that is without direct evidence but yet at the same time it's based on indirect evidence and experience (inductive reasoning). For example, I'm sitting in my office chair. Based upon my prior experience and with no evidence to the contrary I fully had faith that the chair would support my weight when I sat in it. But I could not have direct evidence until the act itself occurred. Even once I have direct evidence that it can contain my weight for the moment I still have faith that it will continue to do so. This is just a simple example of how faith need not be evidence free.
An atheist need not have counteracting evidence in order to have faith. An atheist has faith based upon prior experience and evidence that he/she has accepted as valid. It's not a matter of faith if an atheist were to hold that there is no god in the face of all possible evidence...that would be called intellectual dishonesty.
This definition for faith seems more in line with the usage by historical documents of most religions, except for atheism which obviously prefers the modern definition since it allows atheists to artificially set up a scenario which pits supposedly unreasoning belief (faith) against rationality. For example, in religious documents men are stated to have direct interaction with God, Allah, etc. Do they suddenly not have any faith? No, quite the opposite. Many are stated to have a great amount of faith even though they've supposedly gained evidence in the past to support their beliefs.
I imagine that this modern change started to occur from Spinoza to Schleirermacher. They, and others that followed after them, believed that to have evidence--even a rational basis or partial evidence--for something you believed in would mean you no longer could have faith. This philosophy was based upon an "inward certainty" rather than reason or a rational basis for a belief. Perhaps this is why Francis Bacon wrote "A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion."
Patrick's observations are right on with regard to faith. Believing something despite evidence (and reasoning) to the contrary would more appropriately be characterized as foolishness, not faith.
Everyone uses faith daily as a means of knowing things. For example, we've all been told that Mt. Everest is the highest peak on planet Earth, with an elevation of 29,028 feet above sea level. And yet, I dare say that NONE of us has actually measured its height as well as the height of all other mountains and done a direct comparison to independently verify the elevation of Mt. Everest. Rather, we accept what we're told on faith. We have faith that others have accurately measured it and reported the results honestly. We don't have the personal knowledge and experience to verify it ourselves in an emprical fashion. That's faith.
We learn things this way our whole lives… especially as children. Sure, our faith that Chistopher Columbus sailed to North America in 1492 might indeed be backed up by historical records. But again, we've not seen those historical records ourselves nor were we around to witness the event. Therefore we accept it on faith.
More and more, as the evidence against Darwinism continues to pile up, it is Darwinists who appear to be practicing just the brand of faith which they mock religious people for… that is, faith which persists in spite of direct evidence (and reasoning) to the contrary. It's foolishness.
Everyone uses faith daily as a means of knowing things. For example, we've all been told that Mt. Everest is the highest peak on planet Earth, with an elevation of 29,028 feet above sea level. And yet, I dare say that NONE of us has actually measured its height as well as the height of all other mountains and done a direct comparison to independently verify the elevation of Mt. Everest. Rather, we accept what we're told on faith.
Actually, in 1998 an expedition placed a GPS receiver on the summit of Mt Everest. It is a good thing they didn't take it on faith, as they measured the correct elevation of Everest at 29,035 feet.
rrf wrote:
"Actually, in 1998 an expedition placed a GPS receiver on the summit of Mt Everest. It is a good thing they didn't take it on faith, as they measured the correct elevation of Everest at 29,035 feet."
Actually, I was waiting for just such silliness. I did ponder clarifying in my post that 29,028 feet was the elevation I had learned way back when and that this figure might be out-of-date for whatever reason. I chose not clarify it because 1)what the most recently measured elevation of Mt. Everest is has no bearing whatsoever on my point and 2)it might be fun to catch some Darwinist trying to "one-up" me by pointing out my out-of-date information, thus giving me an opportunity to reinforce my point further by reminding said Darwinist that he or she is taking the updated figure on faith also. I love it when a plan comes together.
Patrick is correct, rrf missed the point entirely, even as he takes it on faith that someone accurately measured Everest's elevation in 1998 at 29,035 feet. Was rrf there when they did this? Did he oversee the calibration of the equipment? No. He takes it on faith.
TRoutMac
Intelligent (Graphic) Designer
Wikipedia defines religion as:
"Religion is the adherence to codified beliefs and rituals that generally involve a faith in a spiritual nature and a study of inherited ancestral traditions, knowledge and wisdom related to understanding human life. The term "religion" refers to both the personal practices related to faith as well as to the larger shared systems of belief."
It seems to me that atheism perfeclty fits this description - it's a traditional, un-natural mode of thinking that is inherited from one atheist family to another. They have odd practicies and their belief is based around the negation of God's love and they also believe that Jesus did not die to save us from our sins. What could be more religious than the atheists nutty beliefs?
Everyone uses faith daily as a means of knowing things. For example, we've all been told that Mt. Everest is the highest peak on planet Earth, with an elevation of 29,028 feet above sea level. And yet, I dare say that NONE of us has actually measured its height as well as the height of all other mountains and done a direct comparison to independently verify the elevation of Mt. Everest. Rather, we accept what we're told on faith. We have faith that others have accurately measured it and reported the results honestly. We don't have the personal knowledge and experience to verify it ourselves in an emprical fashion. That's faith.
Exactly - atheists accept on faith that we have physical laws but they decline to state the source or reason WHY these physical laws exist. The atheist has to take as a matter of FAITH that he does not know why these things are as they are. The Atheist is like a fool blundering throgh darkness without a guide.
On the other hand, the ID theorist has a coherent answer to all of these questions, it's pragmatic and beautiful: The answer is that these laws are given to us by the eternal intelligent designer who does not himself have to be bound by these laws. This is inherantly pragmatic knowledge because it brings us CLOSER to God and grants us a more profound understanding of the Bible, and who could deny the pragmatic value of the possibility of ETERNAL LIFE.
What could be more pragmatic than that?
Sorry for the side track, hope you guys don't mind.
To my great suprise someone I had been talking to refused to accept that chance exists or that randomness plays any in role in the neo Darwinian theory. It is true that if you know everything then you will know the cause of everything but... come on. Well, what do you say; what exactly is randomness even though with enough knowledge you could predict it?
I have noticed that athiests don't understand that they are deeply religious. Athiesm is a religious point of view, after all. Why don't they realize that they feel as strongly about God as Christians or muslims do, (albiet on a different side)?
All your base are belong to us.
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