C C > Sep 28, 2018 04:23 PM
Syne > Sep 28, 2018 05:30 PM
Yazata > Sep 28, 2018 07:29 PM
(Sep 28, 2018 04:23 PM)C C Wrote: Many atheists think that their atheism is the product of rational thinking.
Quote:They use arguments such as “I don’t believe in God, I believe in science” to explain that evidence and logic, rather than supernatural belief and dogma, underpin their thinking. But just because you believe in evidence-based, scientific research – which is subject to strict checks and procedures – doesn’t mean that your mind works in the same way.
Quote:The problem that any rational thinker needs to tackle, though, is that the science increasingly shows that atheists are no more rational than theists. Indeed, atheists are just as susceptible as the next person to “group-think” and other non-rational forms of cognition.
Magical Realist > Sep 28, 2018 08:20 PM
Quote:Meanwhile, a new generation of postmodern atheists highlight the limits of human knowledge, and see scientific knowledge as hugely limited, problematic even, especially when it comes to existential and ethical questions. These atheists might, for example, follow thinkers like Charles Baudelaire in the view that true knowledge is only found in artistic expression.
Yazata > Sep 28, 2018 09:51 PM
(Sep 28, 2018 08:20 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: I consider myself somewhat of a postmodern atheist. I don't jump on the bandwagon of scientism like most atheists do.
Magical Realist > Sep 28, 2018 09:58 PM
(Sep 28, 2018 09:51 PM)Yazata Wrote:(Sep 28, 2018 08:20 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: I consider myself somewhat of a postmodern atheist. I don't jump on the bandwagon of scientism like most atheists do.
I don't either.
But I don't want to call myself "postmodern" since my views aren't influenced by Saussure, Derrida, Foucault or any of the trendy French crowd. I'm much more in the tradition of David Hume.
Zinjanthropos > Sep 28, 2018 10:17 PM
Quote:Many atheists think that their atheism is the product of rational thinking. They use arguments such as “I don’t believe in God, I believe in science”
Syne > Sep 28, 2018 11:02 PM
(Sep 28, 2018 08:20 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: I don't jump on the bandwagon of scientism like most atheists do. That to me is a sort of continued religious devotion to an infallible authority and ideology.Wholly agreed.
Quote:My deepest objection to theism is simply the self-evident absence of God from every aspect of my experience. We never see him or hear from him or touch him. He is simply absent in a world that appears to get along very well without him. If God DOES exist, he is doing a very good impression of not existing. And how that lie would contribute to our freewill is beyond me. If the reality is that God is real, then it would be liberating to us to know that, not to succumb to a delusion of him not existing. No. God is an omnipresent absence in my life I have been trying to fill since the age of 23. And just not believing in any one thing, in the deepest Zen Buddhist sense, has gotten me thru this spiritual crisis so far.
Magical Realist > Sep 29, 2018 02:52 AM
Quote:In the case of a god, what specific thing should we expect to find that we don't?
Syne > Sep 29, 2018 04:18 AM
(Sep 29, 2018 02:52 AM)Magical Realist Wrote:Quote:In the case of a god, what specific thing should we expect to find that we don't?
The calming protective father figure I was raised to believe in and trust in and required years to uproot from my psyche. It's like an addict overcoming his addiction to a drug. He will always miss that artificial source of bliss for the rest of his life.