News:

Welcome to our site!

Main Menu

What Do You Believe In?

Started by SGOS, November 06, 2016, 04:09:36 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Cavebear

Quote from: Sal1981 on November 07, 2016, 03:06:18 PM
It isn't so much us vs them, it's that them is an artificial separation from us.

We are all "us" with scheduled family arguments.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Unbeliever

Quote from: Barbara Smoker, former president of the "National Secular Society"The point is surely that the only kind of unremitting negativism is apathy, not attack. Everthing that is attacked has its obverse 'positive' side. If you are against war, you are for peace; if you are against priveledge, you are for equality; if you are against censorship, you are for freedom of speech; if you are against superstition, you are for reason; if you are against humbug, you are for honesty; and if you are against mystical obscurantism, you are for freethought.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Baruch

Some people don't understand, that Aristotle was wrong.  You can easily have 3-state or other logics ... not just Law of Excluded Middle.  In particular that happens when two things are complementary ... two ends of a spectrum, not true opposites.  Is Blue opposite of Red?

Freethought and mystical obscurantism aren't even in the same spectrum.  Freethought and dogma are.  Mystical obscurantism happens because mystical experience can't be conveyed in language.  That doesn't mean you can't experience it, only that if you do, you can't talk about it.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Well, to be clear, I doubt there is anything I actually "believe" in.  Suggests welcome.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on November 22, 2016, 12:06:18 AM
Well, to be clear, I doubt there is anything I actually "believe" in.  Suggests welcome.

I believe in worn out cynicism ... and Depends ;-)
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

doorknob

Quote from: Baruch on November 22, 2016, 06:59:32 AM
I believe in worn out cynicism ... and Depends ;-)

uh uh uh ! It's not Depends it's just Depend.

Unbeliever

Quote from: Cavebear on November 22, 2016, 12:06:18 AM
Well, to be clear, I doubt there is anything I actually "believe" in.  Suggests welcome.

Yeah, me too. Believing means something different than merely holding a working hypothesis about something, which is about all I have. Believing is more trouble than it's worth.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

trdsf

Quote from: Unbeliever on November 22, 2016, 05:48:53 PM
Yeah, me too. Believing means something different than merely holding a working hypothesis about something, which is about all I have. Believing is more trouble than it's worth.
I dunno.  As long as one is clear that it is not to be confused with actual reality and can be contradicted by observation, belief is okay.  I believe there are other intelligent life forms in this galaxy.  In no way, shape or form do I know there are, but until and unless there's some observational reason to come down one way or the other on the question, it's a harmless belief to hold.  It doesn't cause me to deny myself vital medical care, or drive me to shove my belief down other people's throats because I am so completely convinced of the reality of it.

Belief only becomes a problem when it doesn't come with the basic honesty to admit that it's a belief and not an observed 'fact'.  I have no objection to someone telling me that they believe Jesus was the son of their god.  I absolutely object to the flat declaration that Jesus was the son of their god.  Without independent repeatable evidence, they cannot say that in any honest manner.

What the religious engage in is not, properly speaking, belief, since they claim not belief but certainty and knowledge.  Belief entails the necessary admission that it goes beyond demonstrated observations, and this is not what's claimed by religious 'believers'.

I don't have a problem with calling tentatively accepting a working hypothesis 'belief'.
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

Mike Cl

Quote from: trdsf on November 22, 2016, 07:17:57 PM
I dunno.  As long as one is clear that it is not to be confused with actual reality and can be contradicted by observation, belief is okay.  I believe there are other intelligent life forms in this galaxy.  In no way, shape or form do I know there are, but until and unless there's some observational reason to come down one way or the other on the question, it's a harmless belief to hold.  It doesn't cause me to deny myself vital medical care, or drive me to shove my belief down other people's throats because I am so completely convinced of the reality of it.
trdsf, I basically agree with your entire post.  But I changed my view a little to this:  I think there will be intelligent life forms found in the universe.  I don't call it a belief.  Why?  Because I see life forms in such extreme places as in frozen ice, boiling geysers and geysers that we would consider it poisonous, in the sunless depths of the oceans, and in various other places that were called impossible for life to be when I was growing up.  If life can be found in those places, how could it be that life were not on some other planet or moon--and maybe even within our own solar system.  With that as reliable data, I think that there must be life elsewhere in the universe.

And I like hypothesis vs belief, because when talking with a theist once you agree you have a belief, they sort of do a mental 'gotcha', in that the theist has a belief and you have one so you think alike.  And we do not. 
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Cavebear

Quote from: Mike Cl on November 22, 2016, 07:39:35 PM
trdsf, I basically agree with your entire post.  But I changed my view a little to this:  I think there will be intelligent life forms found in the universe.  I don't call it a belief.  Why?  Because I see life forms in such extreme places as in frozen ice, boiling geysers and geysers that we would consider it poisonous, in the sunless depths of the oceans, and in various other places that were called impossible for life to be when I was growing up.  If life can be found in those places, how could it be that life were not on some other planet or moon--and maybe even within our own solar system.  With that as reliable data, I think that there must be life elsewhere in the universe.

And I like hypothesis vs belief, because when talking with a theist once you agree you have a belief, they sort of do a mental 'gotcha', in that the theist has a belief and you have one so you think alike.  And we do not.

That's what I mean by not "believing" vs "thinking a possibility".
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Mike Cl

Quote from: Cavebear on November 22, 2016, 10:00:19 PM
That's what I mean by not "believing" vs "thinking a possibility".
I hear ya!
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

reasonist

Quote from: Cavebear on November 22, 2016, 12:06:18 AM
Well, to be clear, I doubt there is anything I actually "believe" in.  Suggests welcome.

Compassion, personal responsibility, empathy, love, respect, tolerance, the golden rule, Karma. All in the here and now, no expectations of a reward in an afterlife.
Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities
Voltaire

Mike Cl

Quote from: reasonist on November 24, 2016, 12:18:21 PM
Compassion, personal responsibility, empathy, love, respect, tolerance, the golden rule, Karma. All in the here and now, no expectations of a reward in an afterlife.
Yeah!  I hear ya!  And I don't need a single 'belief' to strive to take all those things into consideration on a daily basis.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

AllRight

I don't believe in anything except what can be proven so I am a fan of science. I had this conversation with a non-religious friend of mine recently and he was shocked that I had not replaced my former religious beliefs with some type of belief system or some type of spirituality. People find it hard to believe (no pun intended) that you can just not have a faith based system to cope with life. They don't seem to understand that this is not a conclusion a former religious person comes to easily or without great personal gut wrenching torment, it was that way for me anyway. But, to me it is reality.

aitm

I believe I will have another beer...but...you saw that coming.
A humans desire to live is exceeded only by their willingness to die for another. Even god cannot equal this magnificent sacrifice. No god has the right to judge them.-first tenant of the Panotheust