Atheist, Agnostic, Religious or Spiritual?

[cooldude420]

Christian and it is complixated. It is the reeson I hate myself and the reason why i am here and contemplate sooicide. It destroyed my life in the most amazing ways.

 

[draw a circle]

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Based on this, I'm leaning to agnostic theist too. It's not like i don't believe that any god exists or think that it's ridiculous to believe in it, i just have a different opinion/interpretation of it. It's fun to think someone up there is watching us fucking shit up and gives us a hand every now and then.

 

[motel rooms]

It's fun to think someone up there is watching us fucking shit up and gives us a hand every now and then.

And you think that this someone isn't a major fuckup for creating an incredibly flawed world with creatures that fuck shit up?

 

[Meliæ]

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O_o

 

[Kattt]

Too old to even think about more than making it through a day

 

[arie]

Atheist. I don't believe there is anything after death. I don't believe any god created us or watches over us. When it's your time to go, it's lights out and it's over. Would be pleasantly surprised if there were such a thing as heaven and god.

 

[lucid]

I'm...not entirely sure. Kind of been thinking about this most of my life, mostly more recently. I'd say technically agnostic, but not atheist nor religious either.
At times I do lack the hope to think that there's any higher being, but for the most part it brings me comfort to know or at least think there is something. Just not the something people believe is what we see when we die, I don't believe lasting brain activity proves anything, because that's still physical.

 

[Superdeterminist]

Agnostic atheist.

The problem of suffering makes the existence of god (a mind responsible for reality) improbable for me. God would have to be limited (then are they really a god?) or a morally corrupt one. Granted, those are possibilities, but it seems that all, if not the vast majority of theists posit a morally perfect god.

 

[draw a circle]

And you think that this someone isn't a major fuckup for creating an incredibly flawed world with creatures that fuck shit up?

Oh, for sure. Didn't say the hand they gave us is always helpful perhaps sometimes they want to help us but by the wrong way. Perhaps there are evil gods... Who knows lol

 

[Tomoko]

I believe in God. Not necessarily religious. In fact, in terms of beliefs I lean more spiritual. Not quite sure why, I'm the only one in my family that actually believes in god yet I do somehow.

 

[Makko]

Why people end up atheist is that the popular alternatives only sell a god that is essentially a human with superpowers. Easy to understand but too magical to make real sense. Those who don't like magic settle for atheism despite it being a fundamentally incomplete thought. It denies explanations without making any plausible counter-offers ("science can't detect a god and therefore everything exists for literally no reason" is not a plausible counter-offer).

 

[9BBN]

Why people end up atheist is that the popular alternatives only sell a god that is essentially a human with superpowers. Easy to understand but too magical to make real sense. Those who don't like magic settle for atheism despite it being a fundamentally incomplete thought. It denies explanations without making any plausible counter-offers ("science can't detect a god and therefore everything exists for literally no reason" is not a plausible counter-offer).

Not exactly why people become atheist... Usually the burden of proof goes to the person making the claim. The more extraordinary the claim, the stronger the burden. Especially when there are ordinary explanations available. There isn't very much reason to believe a god exists other than "there are things we don't know where they come from." Even then, the honest answer is to say we don't know, rather than assume something even more complicated and hard-to-explain exists. So if an agnostic atheist can't give a plausible counter-offer, I'd argue they're simply just being more honest. And if you want to bring up plausibility, science would make more plausible sense than an invisible, omnipotent, omniscient being that made the entire universe just for us.

 

[Makko]

Not exactly why people become atheist... Usually the burden of proof goes to the person making the claim. The more extraordinary the claim, the stronger the burden. Especially when there are ordinary explanations available. There isn't very much reason to believe a god exists other than "there are things we don't know where they come from." Even then, the honest answer is to say we don't know, rather than assume something even more complicated and hard-to-explain exists. So if an agnostic atheist can't give a plausible counter-offer, I'd argue they're simply just being more honest. And if you want to bring up plausibility, science would make more plausible sense than an invisible, omnipotent, omniscient being that made the entire universe just for us.

You're not contradicting me by again talking about a very narrow, strictly judeo-christian definition of "god". Science by itself isn't a counter-offer at all because science isn't equipped to answer the questions. The implausible counter-offers come from the people who draw fallacious conclusions from science.

 

[9BBN]

You're not contradicting me by again talking about a very narrow, strictly judeo-christian definition of "god". Science by itself isn't a counter-offer at all because science isn't equipped to answer the questions. The implausible counter-offers come from the people who draw fallacious conclusions from science.

The line of argument follows for any religion that makes extraordinary claims. The last sentence was just an example as it applies to those whose religion involves an invisible, omniscient, omnipotent god (most common religions).

I'll simplify what I was really trying to respond to you: atheism isn't a counter-offer, and it's not "fundamentally incomplete thought." It's lack of belief, that's it.

 

[Makko]

I'll simplify what I was really trying to respond to you: atheism isn't a counter-offer, and it's not "fundamentally incomplete thought." It's lack of belief, that's it.

It's an admission that you're not interested in answers.

 

[9BBN]

It's an admission that you're not interested in answers.

No, it's not. Atheism is just lack of belief in religion as the answer. I'm an atheist and I'm quite interested in answers.

 

[Makko]

No, it's not. Atheism is just lack of belief in religion as the answer. I'm an atheist and I'm quite interested in answers.

How do you go about looking for answers, then? You're certainly not getting any answers using the scientific method.

 

[9BBN]

How do you go about looking for answers, then? You're certainly not getting any answers using the scientific method.

Good question. First, I'll solidify my earlier point with an example we can work with.

We used to not understand how rainbows formed. Many posited they were divinely created. At the time, it would not have been a fundamentally incoherent thought to say, "I don't know how this rainbow formed, but the evidence doesn't compel me to believe anything supernatural caused it."

You also misunderstand the scientific method if you think it is meant to "give answers." The scientific method can't prove anything. Gravity, evolution, these are all just theories. In science something is called a Theory if it is a disprovable hypothesis that has tremendous evidence for its truthfulness and none for its falsity. Everything in science is about confidence intervals. How confident are we that gravity as a theory is true? Pretty certain, but not 100%.

The scientific method, when used properly, looks at evidence and guides us toward the most likely explanations. Sometimes, we just don't have enough evidence yet. Let's normalize being honest about that, instead of inventing religions.

 

[littlelungs]

It's super tricky for me to even attempt to articulate my views on this whole thing, as it's naturally a very complex (and for many, highly sensitive) topic, and while I'm definitely open to other perspectives, I don't really have it in me to actively debate my (already complicated) beliefs on everything. There are some things that I believe and/or hope to be true about the universe, but even with parts of those beliefs, I couldn't even really tell you why I think that. But what I can say is, I think that regardless of what is out there, it isn't possible to adequately comprehend or describe it, despite the literal billions of us who try to do so, anyway. As humans, we have a sort of "framework" in terms of how we interpret and understand the world and beyond, based on what we've experienced and already know to be true, but even that can only go so far.

That probably made absolutely no fucking sense whatsoever... but as far as I'm concerned, none of this makes any fucking sense, anyway.

In short: I've got my own complicated beliefs about the whole thing, some of which I (clearly) can't even wrap my own stupid head around, but honestly, your guess is as good as mine.

 

[deflationary]

Let's normalize being honest about that, instead of inventing religions.

Exactly. The "incompleteness" of atheism is a feature, not a bug.

Positing a god is a hypothesis that doesn't explain anything anyway. You can ask all the same whys and hows about the existence of god that you can about the existence of the universe. There are simply no rational reasons to believe in god, which makes for a good reason not to believe in one :)

 

[Makko]

You also misunderstand the scientific method if you think it is meant to "give answers."

That's what I said. The only current scientific conclusion on the big questions is that we don't know anything. An atheist is satisfied with this, while a theist or a deist is not. You said that you are both an atheist and interested in answers, which doesn't add up.

 

[deflationary]

Being interested in answers doesn't mean you have to jump to adopting unsatisfactory and unreasonable answers. In fact that's exactly the opposite of what someone interested in truth would do.

 

[motel rooms]

Let's normalize being honest about that, instead of inventing religions.

But inventing religions is so cool. Only believing in psychic abilities is cooler.

Btw, I don't understand why people identify as "spiritual" as opposed to religious. When did religious folks lose the right to call themselves spiritual?

 

[Makko]

Being interested in answers doesn't mean you have to jump to adopting unsatisfactory and unreasonable answers. In fact that's exactly the opposite of what someone interested in truth would do.

It's a matter of where you think truth (of any kind that is relevant to us) could be hiding. There's very little science or surety to life as humans experience it, and being exclusively focused on physics is no more reasonable or rational than making up spaghetti monsters.

 

[Lmd]

Whatever gives me a good ride.

 

[Amumu]

I'm an atheist and a mechanistic materialist. Concerning the burden of the proof, @9BBN is right, it lies on spiritual people, which account for 95% of humanity. It doesn't lie on atheists. Not surprisingly, the rate of suicide is extremely low in Muslim countries, low in very Christian and Hinduist countries, moderate in Buddhist countries, and extremely high in atheist countries (especially the post-Marxist ones). What a surprise.

In other words, it's impossible to prove the inexistence of something which doesn't exist. So atheists could keep searching for answers to prove atheism is the truth, they couldn't prove it, sadly.

 

[Makko]

In other words, it's impossible to prove the inexistence of something which doesn't exist. So atheists could keep searching for answers to prove atheism is the truth, they couldn't prove it, sadly.

There's no burden of proof vis-a-vis others in any direction. World view isn't a trial, it's a personal journey, and nihilism is a pretty crappy neighborhood to end up in. Worst part is that you're probably not getting out once you're in.

 

[deflationary]

It's a matter of where you think truth (of any kind that is relevant to us) could be hiding. There's very little science or surety to life as humans experience it, and being exclusively focused on physics is no more reasonable or rational than making up spaghetti monsters.

It's definitely more reasonable because at least you've got a handle on some aspect of reality when you're doing physics. Even if science is always incomplete and doesn't explain everything, it still explains a lot.

When you're making up spaghetti monsters though, well, you're just making stuff up like you said. There's zero reason to think any truth is hiding there. There's no science and there are no good philosophical arguments either. There's just an endless number of unverifiable metaphysical systems you can come up with, with no reason to believe any of them over any others.

The general direction of human knowledge has been to go from universal belief in purposes and meanings in nature to science disabusing us of these things and replacing them with mindless processes. It's clear that human being like to see purposefulness where there is none. So I'd say it's about time we got skeptical about this whole tendency in us and stopped hoping that at some ultimate fundamental level purpose still reigns.

 

[9BBN]

That's what I said. The only current scientific conclusion on the big questions is that we don't know anything. An atheist is satisfied with this, while a theist or a deist is not. You said that you are both an atheist and interested in answers, which doesn't add up.

The scientific method doesn't give answers, but it gives us extremely high certainties. Gravity is only a theory, and yet we are comfortable building housing, planes, and rockets with human lives on the line if the theory of gravity proved to be false. You don't need 100% certainty in a truth to live life and make decisions, and science proves that.

So when you say scientific method can't give us answers, you only win by technicality. It can't give 100%, only 99.999999%.

There's no burden of proof vis-a-vis others in any direction. World view isn't a trial, it's a personal journey, and nihilism is a pretty crappy neighborhood to end up in. Worst part is that you're probably not getting out once you're in.

"Burden of proof" is not only a legal invention (how you may be thinking about it) but also philosophical idea. The burden of proof is on the religious because the religious are making a claim about reality, for example the creation of the universe. Atheists are not making any claims, only skeptical of religious claims. They're not counter-offering. They have no burden of proof.

For example, when remember when we didn't understand how rainbows formed, atheist were simply saying "I don't know how this rainbow formed, but the evidence doesn't compel me to believe anything supernatural caused it." There's no claim about how the rainbow formed. The religious are making the claim that the rainbow has divine origins, so they hold the burden of proof. Just because we have no other explanation doesn't mean we have to pick a hypothesis with weak evidence. We can be honest that we don't know and keep looking for evidence. This is where the scientific method comes in: turns out rainbows form naturally when sunlight hits scattered raindrops in the air.

 

[Makko]

The general direction of human knowledge has been to go from universal belief in purposes and meanings in nature to science disabusing us of these things and replacing them with mindless processes. It's clear that human being like to see purposefulness where there is none.

Science doesn't disabuse anything of meaning, philosophical conclusions on the basis of science do, and the more I read about how these philosophical conclusions come into being it becomes more clear that they amount to nothing but a form of large-scale spiritual masochism.

So when you say scientific method can't give us answers, you only win by technicality.

I don't "win" anything. There can never really be a serious dialectic because it stops already at step one. If we take a step back and actually look at what we're talking about, we don't have the same definitions of the words we're using. Truth, reality, divinity, science, consciousness, we are not going to agree on what any of these things contain. And if we can't even agree on that, we can't move on to putting them in context. It's pretty strange how the different "sides" skip this step and then wonder why they come to such different conclusions on everything when seemingly working with the same terms.