The “consensus” view among atheists seems to be that atheism is reasonable and that religious beliefs are not.
So why are atheists angry at God?
We can become incensed by objects and creatures both animate and inanimate. We can even, in a limited sense, be bothered by the fanciful characters in books and dreams. But creatures like unicorns that don’t exist ”that we truly believe not to exist” tend not to raise our ire. We certainly don’t blame the one-horned creatures for our problems.
The one social group that takes exception to this rule is atheists. They claim to believe that God does not exist and yet, according to empirical studies, tend to be the people most angry at him.
I’m trying to remember the last time I got angry at something which did not exist. It’s been a while since I last played World of Warcraft, but that might be a candidate.
But atheists angry at God? That’s absurd. Assertions that there are empirical studies to that effect? Simply ludicrous. By definition, atheism is a lack of belief in God or gods. It is simply a matter of logical impossibility that atheists should be angry at God.
Poor Mung is trying so hard to get the grownups’ attention.
No it’s not. It’s not a core tenet. I’m sure it’s creedal dogma in certain sects. But it’s an inference from a particular interpretation of Logos and a particular interpretation of the incarnation. Not all christians believe that, and – if they’re correct in their own christian belief about the purpose of Jesus – then god wouldn’t even want that to be dogma. Because that dogma is manifestly ridiculous and it turns souls away from entering into church communion.
Re-read Paul’s letters and remember that John wasn’t even written until 90CE or so.
And even if it were a core tenet for every single christian for all time, that still wouldn’t make it actually true in reality, any more than it’s actually true that there were no rainbows until after Noah’s flood. Could be a rare belief, could be a common belief, could be a universal belief, but it’s still only a belief, and a ridiculous belief at that.
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edit, corrected the “tenant” for “tenet” mistake
no correction is necessary that is what Ive been saying here for what seems like months. Is there anything I have said to contradict this?
peace
fifth:
Real, but quite remote.
No, I don’t. Where on earth did you get that idea?
I think I’m a better judge of the core tenants of my faith than you are. There are lots of people who call themselves atheist who also believe in God
Does that mean it is not a core tenant of atheism that there is no god?
peace
For a Catholic :
I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
Under Pontius Pilate, He was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
I see nothing about to be a Christian one must believe human nature of Jesus fully comprehended the universe which you presuppose is true.
Have you defined what ” fully comprehensible” entails?
I wish someone would evict these core tenants and replace them with tenets.
Quote
me:
We both have presuppositions you know mine I want to know yours
You:
I try to keep mine to a minimum (see this) . [a post about uncertainty]
end quote:
peace
I’d still like to know what FMM — or anyone else, for that matter — means by “material”. How would we know whether a force is “material” or not?
fifth,
That OP is an argument that absolute certainty is a myth. It’s not a presupposition.
I never claimed that the human nature of Jesus needed to fully comprehend the universe. I said that Christ (who is fully human) comprehends the universe fully.
Again the Logos…….. is…… the comprehensibility of the universe and the Logos became flesh
Oh so you do think it’s possible that we can be certain about some things?
How do you know absolute certainty a myth?
Are you certain about common decent?
In your world view how would you come to know something for certain?
peace
Perhaps someday we can get to such interesting discussions but first we would need to get past the constant badgering about topics like the precise meaning of world in Luke 2.
Apparently that is the sort of thing the atheists here are interested in
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
You keep trying to promote your preferred assumptions to the level of a “worldview”. All you’re doing is trying to keep your religious beliefs out of the debate. It’s easy to conclude that “Jesus is lord” (the claim you have yet to support in any way) if you start by claiming that your Christian beliefs are foundational, unchallengeable axioms.
Try supporting your arguments with objective, empirical evidence. That’s a lot more challenging (and interesting).
fifth,
Actually, it was your fellow Christian Mung who brought it up.
Well, exactly. As I said, Luke getting the census wrong should result in a shrug “Hmm, guess he got that wrong. Let’s move on to things which are spiritually important”.
It’s not my fault that christians like torley and fifthmonarchman feel a need to defend the historical truth of both Matthew and Luke in spite of the problematic decade between their dates, and in spite of the problematic discrepancies between their tales and other, non-christian, historical data. It’s not my fault that you feel it worth your time to ask a question about when I think the magi visited baby Jesus – of course, I don’t think the magi visited at all, so why ask me – why even raise the question unless you’re implicitly defending the historical reality of their visit (some time or other)?
I keep telling y’all that your faith shouldn’t depend on a literal interpretation of the bible, and y’all keep telling me that, yep, you don’t read the bible literally, but y’alls behavior says different. Because every time a skeptic raises a problem with an apparently-wrong fact claimed in the bible, y’all jump to defending any imaginable interpretation by which the apparently-wrong fact can be twisted into an apparently-right fact. Instead of refusing the argument and repeating until everyone is bored and goes home “It’s not meant to be literal fact, it’s meant to be a spiritual lesson” …
I admit, I think christianity is false. But that’s not my conclusion from just individual discrepancies; it’s not my “Therefore, christianity is false”.
I think christianity is false because NONE of it makes sense, the whole idea of bodily incarnation of the one-and-only special son of god is silly, the whole idea of blood sacrifice for sins is incoherent, the whole idea of resurrection after death is revolting. And given the identity between the genocidal war god of the OT and the god of the NT, if that god does exist, we humans have a moral duty to fight against it with all our strength, not worship it. So, NO, I won’t be making a deathbed conversion to christianity.
But in the meantime, I enjoy watching your fellow christians squirm when they can’t rationally explain the bible’s apparently-wrong “facts”. What better entertainment do I have?
fifth,
This isn’t that hard, but you need to think a little.
Of course I’m not absolutely certain that absolute certainty is a myth. The point of my OP is that absolute certainty is a myth — not that it is absolutely certain that absolute certainty is a myth, which would be an obvious contradiction.
I have no problem getting the attention of the grownups. Look. I even managed to get your attention. Again.
Already been done.
You and I see things completely opposite. I saw that as being a post about certainty.
😉
I’m not playing your game.
Skeptics, non-believers, and atheists don’t have a Central Dogma. I’m not responsible for ensuring that keiths and I are both in agreement with each other and in agreement with the (non-existent) CD.
I’m also not responsible for ensuring that you have re-stated keiths’ position accurately – I have plenty of reasons from your prior conduct to be confident that you would not have understood and re-stated keiths accurately – but that’s between you and keiths, not me.
So, even if I do agree with keiths, or if I don’t agree with keiths, I still wouldn’t play your gotcha game and answer your stupid question yes or no.
Try supporting your demand for supporting arguments with objective, empirical evidence with objective, empirical evidence. That’s a lot more challenging (and interesting).
FMM:
OK, thank you!
With regard to your “trying to hit on the exact response you were looking for,” I repeatedly told you exactly what response I was looking for (yay or nay), and even supplied the alternatives at least four times, as quoted above. You were obviously reluctant to go the distance, which I found evasive. Given your agreement with my statement above, what the fuck was up with that?
FMM:
This from the guy whose initial response to a straightforward question about the common ancestry of chimps and humans was “You are going to have to be much more specific before I could answer that one. You would need to define your terms explicitly.”
Apparently it is hard.
I don’t much care your absolute certainty that you can’t be absolutely certain. That was not the point of the questions.
What I care about is how you know things at all in your worldview. So far you haven’t explained much about that as far as I can tell.
peace
Reciprocating Bill,
My amazement is not in that proper definitions are handy. My amazement is that local atheists would give rip about Luke 2.
Am I the only one that finds the interest in all things Christian exhibited around here to be odd?
peace
Actually, that “challenge” is a tired old dodge that mostly makes eyes roll.
Empiricism simply is what works, the only fruitful approach that we’ve found to expand our knowledge beyond tradition and bare perceptual “facts.” The people who “challenge” its supremacy are never willing to give up the requirement to reach standard empiric thresholds when their assets or freedom are at stake in court.
God told the accused to kill my child? No, I don’t really believe that, you’re going to have to provide powerful evidence in favor of it to get off using that gambit.
Glen Davidson
KN:
Well, if your force is nice angora wool, carrickmacross lace, fine barracan, or even a stout burlap or questionable corduroy, you’ve got a material force.
You still need a pattern, though. That’s where the intelligence comes in.
ETA:
*Slaps forehead*. It’s the midi-chlorians.
You may think that, but you’re not. It’s an inevitable side effect of sectarianism that the members of one particular sect over-generalize their belief to everyone who is under the same big tent. Takes an unbiased person outside the tent to tell what are really the core tenets – if anything – and what are just particular interpretations. Well, there is the Pope, who claims the right to tell all people for all time what True Christians MUST believe — but you’ve already said you repudiate the Pope’s authority (of course you do, you’re a Calvinist) so you have no grounds whatsoever for claiming that you can “judge the core [tenets]” for all christians. Of YOUR OWN personal faith, yes, you can judge what is core to YOU, but not to others who share the christian faith in general, in all its fantastic variety.
And based on your conduct here, there is no reason to think you are a competent judge on any subject whatsoever. Even if you weren’t already a narrow sectarian.
I’m pretty sure that I’ve never met a self-identified atheist who says THERE IS NO GOD.
So, it’s probably a good thing we don’t have to swear to that statement before we’re allowed to join the cool atheists’ club.
But who am I to judge? If someone wants to throw me out of the club because I won’t swear THERE IS NOT GOD, I’ll go without a fight.
FMM:
I don’t share that interest, so I can’t help you there. But Mung started the thread going after “atheists angry at god” from his xtian perspective. Do you really find it odd or surprising that there is pushback?
But does intelligence really matter?
Glen Davidson
“What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind.”
– Bertrand Russell’s mother
We could get past that, the moment you admit that the problem is NOT whether “all the world” was intended by Luke to mean literally the whole world or figuratively to mean the whole Roman empire or even more limited: just encompassing all the people in a specific territory. NOT the problem. As you know but won’t/can’t address, the problem is everything else about the Lukan census. And the secondary problem is that you (and some other christians like you) wish to be seen as reasonable people, not hicks who must take every word of the bible literally, but simultaneously feel compelled to defend the possible-by-some-twisted-interpretation story just as much as if you think god intended it to be literal history.
You should learn from Mung. Shrug and admit “Hmm, guess Luke got it wrong.” When you do that, you can begin to be seen as believable for more serious topics.
I have no special animus toward Christianity. I know more about than about other religions, and I meet more Christians than people of other faiths.
But it is faith itself that I find to be troublesome. I’m congenitally un-faithful. My ony strong opinion is lack of the ability to hold strong opinions, and a lack of communion with holders of strong opinions.
On summer breaks between college years I held a number of blue-collar jobs. One group of co-workers dubbed me Old More Or Less. If keiths and others can’t pin me down it is because I can’t pin myself down.
Sounds about right 🙂
I’d agree with them, give or take.
Glen Davidson
fifth,
You still don’t get it.
I examine evidence, and think, and when something is sufficiently well-supported — like the idea that there is calamansi juice in my refrigerator right now — then I treat it as knowledge.
OldMung,
When you figure out what you’ve done wrong and are ready to apologize for it you can come back to the grownups table.
fifthmonarchyman,
In the U.S., fundamentalist Christianity is the biggest threat to secular people. All the time we tie you up watching you try to defend the indefensible is time you’re not trying to pass laws based on your barbaric beliefs.
And who knows, maybe a few lurkers will recognize the lack of evidence for your religion and be less inclined to support policies based on it.
fifth,
We’re skeptics, fifth, and most of us live in societies where Christianity is the predominant goofy belief system deserving of skepticism.
Patrick,
Imagine the dismay that Christian lurkers must feel at the poor performance of their local advocates Mung and fifth.
fifth:
hotshoe:
Even Pope Dawkins doesn’t claim that there is no god. I still await a ruling from the college of non-cardinals, though.
And, likely, they are also the biggest threats to themselves, though I’m sure they don’t recognize that.
If by “faith” you mean what most atheists mean which is belief absent evidence or in spite of evidence I completely agree this kind of faith bugs me.
However there is another kind of faith. Which is about trusting those who have demonstrated themselves to be trustworthy.
I’m glad that my wife has faith in me not to intentionally hurt her and I would assume she values the faith I have in her.
It’s this second kind of faith that Christianity values.
When I say have faith in Jesus I mean I trust him to act according to his gracious nature toward me.
peace
If you were truly skeptics we would see lots of activity expressing doubts of the specifics of your own position.
I can’t recall ever seeing an post expressing doubt of a single atheist position from the locals here.
maybe I missed it
Instead what I’ve seen is what seems to be a never ending effort to convince yourselves that you made the correct decision when you rejected what you thought was the god of Christianity.
peace
And do you “skeptics” doubt your rejection of demon possession as the explanation for schizophrenia?
I mean, you wouldn’t want to come to a reasonable conclusion and stay there, would you?
Glen Davidson
fifth,
How do you think I got from Christianity to atheism if not by questioning my beliefs?
How do you think I concluded that absolute certainty was mythical if not by questioning the idea of absolute certainty?
I am perfectly willing to question my beliefs, including my atheism, and I suspect I’ve already done a better job of it than you ever could.
I was willing to question my Christianity. You refuse to question your Christianity, calling it “non-negotiable”.
I was interested in the truth, whether or not that turned out to include Christianity. You’ve turned your back on the search for truth, preferring Christianity whether true or false.
How do you know that demon possession is not causal factor in schizophrenia?
That is a serious question. I am still looking for someone to tell me how you know things in your worldview
Please be spesific and don’t say empiricism
Since demons are not physical beings we can be confident that empiricism did not play a part in your rejection of demons.
peace
I can’t read your mind but I have a hypothesis. So far it has not been falsified
peace
fifth,
But it’s the first kind of faith that gets you to the goofy idea that Christianity is true and that the Bible is the word of God.
That’s why you shield your beliefs from criticism by declaring them “non-negotiable”. I think you realize, as we skeptics do, that they cannot stand up to critical scrutiny. The only way you can cling to them is to assume them via faith of the blind, evidence-denying kind.