If one makes up definitions of gods and then accuses others of believing in that definition, again, there is your Subjective Illusion that you call Reality. You assume we all buy it. You wish to assume, with the other self described Atheists, that these oxymoronic juxtapositions are not just self serving pretzel logic. It's a twisty form of rhetoric that echo the other religions. Yes, to me Atheism is another religion of the outer Subjective. It seeks to deny what is proposed, in a rather zelot portrayal of passion. Not religion nor science have anything to do with the Inner Objective Self.
I'm not so sure i agree with this one,...western philosophy has tended to encourage questioning...from the socratic method's basis in questioning to descartes duality via extreme skepticism, western philosophy has approached understanding through question-and-answer rhetoric, but that is not necessary nor is it inherently natural; children are curious, but they don't necessarily question things the way you're talking about.
You are claiming many changes of subject here. And still with the unknowable and broad generalizations. I'm really doubting that you have ever looked into it.
I got busy. Very, very busy. You have no idea where the most modest search terms will lead. But, I had super fast computers and got past all the hatred of the muslins vs hindu and all the opinions of modern religiousness, with dismay. I was looking for when a belief in One God began. And, I am not religious. I know the Inner Objective. I have time on my hands, what can I say. I searched for many months and got too exposed to hate. But, I found there is no time when there was not a sure acceptance of One God. I can go back as far a 2500 BC when the Aryans invaded the Indus, also in the three rivers area, now China. The sad mistranslation of Heaven for God, in Imperial Chinese is an anti-wog expression of the British.
I will agree with the one narrow point that religion being natural or unnatural seems to a be a non-sequitor. I'm not understanding the point, or seeing what difference it makes.
God made mud.
just to take up this point a little further: Take a look at Jacques Lacan's theorization of the mirror stage of development: the point in your existence when you recognize yourself as a distinct physiological entity: for his purposes, distinct from your mother with whom you, until reaching this stage, believed yourself coterminous. Hence, until you make this recognition, your "natural" state is one which functions from a presumption of connectedness, not difference.
point being, you can't argue that the natural state is irreligious or areligious; the response i was making was to someone who had said that it makes sense to be an atheist because this is your "natural" state; thats contentious at best. if religion isn't "natural" then how did it ever start? I mean, it must have some roots in the natural because it comes from man who assimilated knowledge from his empirical experiences of and in the natural. And, therefore, discounting religion on the basis that it is "unnatural" would seem wrongheaded to me.
It was claimed to be unnatural, we are discussing that. I certainly am not makng a point about it or saying it makes a difference.
Yes, and I was agreeing with that.
I believe atheism is the natural state in the sense that we are born atheist, sort of a default. If you haven't heard the theist's argument, then you are an 'innocent' atheist. But I believe this is a problem of semantics, as atheism is a confusing word that shouldn't exist as a title.
you might be interested in some of the anthropological work done on the "blank slate" theory of our natural infancy, as Jonathan Haidt mentions in his ted talk on the root of our moral psychology...the ted talk touches the discussion going on in these forums so i've added a link for everyone interested
Perhaps....
And perhaps not. There is no default. An imprint of some kind may be necessary for survival. And of course, for protection, something must be done. We can turn to thought experiments.
IMO, art is a non-sequitur or red herring. Art does not even pretend to answer questions. You may as well say, what about furniture? Philosophy -- whether theological, scientific, political, metaphysical, or whatever-- is an attempt to answer certain questions about the nature of reality or aspects of our life. Out of all of the philosophies man has come up with, science is the only one that has actually given us answers that can be confirmed and has been demonstrated to be accurate time and again. Art is not a philosophy so does not belong in the category of question answering and therefore is a weak attempt to distract from the actual discussion.
I was working on that... but you said it much better than i. Great job, this is amazing literature ^ and a great idea . Thanks man.
