Atheist, Agnostic, Religious or Spiritual?

[deflationary]

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.

How do these philosophical conclusions come into being then? This just seems like nitpicking. Science disabuses us of these meanings in the sense that it shows us that they're unnecessary and have no explanatory power. Some philosophical conclusions make sense in the face of science and some don't. The ones that outright contradict established science can be safely dismissed, the ones that invent invisible and arbitrary beings and meanings and intentions can't be disproven perhaps, but there's just no power behind them. They add nothing.

The more unpalatable conclusions being mere masochism seems unlikely on its face considering how widespread they are. People tend to go with arguments that are self-serving. The very fact these are not self-serving conclusions should add to their credibility. Seems more likely that religious/spiritual/whatever people like the warm and fuzzy feeling of thinking they're part of something meaningful so they keep clinging to their god of the gaps arguments.

Do you have any actual positive reasons to believe in God besides science just being unable to conclusively disprove its existence?

 

[PeaceDeathLove]

Agnostic for me. The religions are all equally unrelatable to me

 

[Makko]

They add nothing.

They add nothing in the way that shoes add nothing to someone who has no legs, and moreover thinks that having no legs is a net positive. Of course idealism adds nothing to someone who has no intuition to wear the ideas on. There's no point in me writing a long essay on this because nothing I could say will make sense from an atheist perspective.

 

[9BBN]

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.

You said to me that "you are both an atheist and interested in answers, which doesn't add up." I disagree. Now you're saying this is because we disagree on definitions?

Science doesn't give answers (it can't), it gives certainties. Religion posits supernatural answers. Please let me know where our definitions differ. "Winning" was the wrong word. I just meant that you are technically right that science can't give answers, but it gives very satisfactory 99.99% certainties like gravity.

Taking a step back and looking at my rainbow analogy: do you think it's unreasonable to have said, before we understood rainbows, "I don't know how rainbows are formed, but I'm not compelled by the evidence that they're divinely created?" Atheists and theists are both interested in answers. It does add up. The only difference is the theist proposes a supernatural answer, and the atheist is skeptical of supernatural answers. In the case of rainbows, for instance, the scientific method has shown us that they can be easily explained naturally with high certainty.

 

[Makko]

Now you're saying this is because we disagree on definitions?

We absoluely disagree on the definitions and it's painfully evident in every post where we constantly talk past each other.

The questions that need answers are never about the formation of rainbows, the behavior of various space rocks or the missing link between monkey and humans. All that is physical trivia. The questions that humans crave answers for, consciously or not, are about the origins and purpose of reality.

I've used three terms here: origins, purpose and reality. When you read these words you will be thinking of entirely different things than I do. When I say "origins", I mean the something that isn't dependent on anything else for its existence, like everything else is. When I say "purpose", I mean the something that our consciousness is the instrument to. When I say "reality", I mean the something that makes the boundary between things we can experience and things we cannot.

Even when you read this, you're going to interpret it all in a purely physiological way and we will still not be clear on what exactly we are talking about.

Science is not going to get you very far here. You can arrive at either "I don't have any evidence, so there's probably nothing" or "I don't have any evidence, so I don't know". Detemining any certainties above 0 % with these questions requires you to cross a boundary that science can't cross.

 

[Callie Arcale]

I'm an atheist. Amen.

 

[deflationary]

The point is that nothing else besides science isn't going to get you any farther either, no matter how much you want it to. Least of all religious thinking that imports questionable premises into its questions from the outset.

 

[Makko]

The point is that nothing else besides science isn't going to get you any farther either, no matter how much you want it to. Least of all religious thinking that imports questionable premises into its questions from the outset.

This is the conclusion when your definition of "reality" is materialistic, which mine is not.

 

[deflationary]

Please enlighten us about your view of reality then. So far your worldview seems to be something like "what is true is what I want to be true". You haven't given any actual arguments for it, you've just squabbled over atheism and ineffectually at that. Your worldview doesn't seem to have any actual advantages over materialism, it's just less bound by any rules of logic or evidence.

 

[GenesAndEnvironment]

Don't mind me, just a lazy hard determinist letting other people reach the correct conclusion because nothing else could have happened.

 

[Makko]

Please enlighten us about your view of reality then. So far your worldview seems to be something like "what is true is what I want to be true". You haven't given any actual arguments for it, you've just squabbled over atheism and ineffectually at that. Your worldview doesn't seem to have any actual advantages over materialism, it's just less bound by any rules of logic or evidence.

The basic premise of idealism is that the material world arises from consciousness and not the other way around. Whatever is real is whatever consciousness can experience. This view of reality doesn't place a premium on physical things as they are only a part of reality. Compared to materialism, this flips every premise of what religion and science are about upside down. From this view, science can never reveal any deeper truth, because it's confined to only the surface layer of reality. Logic and evidence can reveal a lot of information, but not about anything important, while you take for granted that logic and evidence are the only things that matter.

Don't mind me, just a lazy hard determinist letting other people reach the correct conclusion because nothing else could have happened.

This is the internet, we're not going to reach any conclusions here. Logic and evidence have long shown how that goes.

 

[DunnoWhyButYeah]

Agnostic.

 

[deflationary]

The basic premise of idealism is that the material world arises from consciousness and not the other way around. Whatever is real is whatever consciousness can experience. This view of reality doesn't place a premium on physical things as they are only a part of reality. Compared to materialism, this flips every premise of what religion and science are about upside down. From this view, science can never reveal any deeper truth, because it's confined to only the surface layer of reality. Logic and evidence can reveal a lot of information, but not about anything important, while you take for granted that logic and evidence are the only things that matter.

Granting idealism doesn't just get you theism either though. So what is your argument for theism under idealism? Mysticism? You just know there is one from personal experience? I don't think most idealists would sign off on not caring about logic and evidence when it comes to anything important.

 

[tabletop]

Agnostic. Not religious or spiritual but sometimes I wonder. I find NDE stories interesting but most of those dont point towards any religion being true. Seems the dmt theory is mlre probably but who the heck knows.

Im in the USA and come from a very christian family. I was Christian until my early 20's when I studied the bible quite a bit.

TLDR: the rest of this post is my personal rant about christianity.

First of all. I think most humans wouldnt think it is okay to create a species, refuse present yourself, then offer ultimate reward or punishment for belief or disbelief. I consider that idea highly immoral.

If christianitys creator and all knowing god is real then there wouldnt be old testament laws about how spiritually dirty a menstruation cycle is. L
Its in Leviticus. Many christians reapond to that by saying "we dont live in/by old testament law anymore". My response to that is the point isnt whether period laws are still enforced. But that those are not the actions of an all knowing creator god. The laws outline how menstruating women cant touch their family or go to the temple. Some christians will say these laws were to keep women out of working in the hot fields while experiencing a period. I think thats a nice thought but thats not biblical. Its not written. Its only written how spiritually dirty her period is and how she cant touch others and must perform spiritual cleansing rituals.

There was an old testament war where a prophet commanded genocide of a nation for their religion. It goes as far as to say to kill all women and children and infants. There is no way I can keep my morality intact and say these were the actions of a perfect all loving god.

In the new testament Jesus said there is no reason to divorce except for sexuality immorality. Thats incredibly ignorant to real life. And it has many religious folk thinking they should stay in their abusive relationships cause this false god commands it. Many children suffer abuse and whitnessing abuse for it.

That last one is very personal to me. I watched my parents severely verbally abuse each other my entire childhood. My parents did finally divorce thank goodness. But not until a pastor finally told me dad "god forgives abuse". It was even told to him that divoecing would be better for us kids than staying together. And it was better.

Doing the right thing for everyone involved shouldnt need to be "forgiven". If divorce wasnt a Christian sin my parents likely wouldve ended the abuse much sooner than they did.

On one hand i know what it is like to be a devout Christian and therfore I can and do choose to reapect the individuals who are I feel misled. When coworkers or family try to lead me to their idea of a god or say they pray for me i simply say "thank you for caring about me". Cause I know they do so out of a genuine nice caring.

But to me the Christian religion is false cause its ignorant real life moral situations like abusive marriages. I find it bithersome, irritating, frustrating, and even quite sickening that people would so ignorantly push such damaging and hurtful and dangerous ideas onto others. I kinda feel.sorry for Christians. The false hope of prayers that will never be answered is mentally damaging too.

Its def a bit insulting when someone suggests Christianity as something that could help or cure my depression. As far as im concerned Christianity ensured I whitnesses abuse through out my childhood. Best I can tell that is the cause if my depression. Which leads to my tortourous suicidal thoughts.

Shit hurts bad.

 

[juraviel]

i stopped believing in God as a teenager, thanks to a Jehovah Witness, if you can believe it. he made me question my then beliefs, inadvertently causing me to stop believing in God altogether.

religion has huge appeal because it gives people structure (rules to follow), community, and idea of an afterlife - i mean what can be more comforting than believing that when you die you not only don't die, but will only experience highest of pleasures for eternity. that has huge appeal to every human. but as you grow older i think you ought to let go of such silly ideas no matter how pleasant they seem, if untrue.

agnosticism i dont even get honestly. an atheist doesn't have proof that there isnt a God because you cant prove a negative. if you think there's good reason to believe in God then believe in him, if not then don't. this agnosticism idea for me is like a cowardly middle ground for the person that wants to maintain some believe "just in case" he's wrong..

 

[Lost Magic]

i stopped believing in God as a teenager, thanks to a Jehovah Witness, if you can believe it. he made me question my then beliefs, inadvertently causing me to stop believing in God altogether.

religion has huge appeal because it gives people structure (rules to follow), community, and idea of an afterlife - i mean what can be more comforting than believing that when you die you not only don't die, but will only experience highest of pleasures for eternity. that has huge appeal to every human. but as you grow older i think you ought to let go of such silly ideas no matter how pleasant they seem, if untrue.

agnosticism i dont even get honestly. an atheist doesn't have proof that there isnt a God because you cant prove a negative. if you think there's good reason to believe in God then believe in him, if not then don't. this agnosticism idea for me is like a cowardly middle ground for the person that wants to maintain some believe "just in case" he's wrong..

Because a lot of of people have turned away from organised religions. You can be spiritual but not religious or you can be open to possibilities that science is yet to explain and probably never will. Agnosticism leaves a door open. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[9BBN]

Because a lot of of people have turned away from organised religions. You can be spiritual but not religious or you can be open to possibilities that science is yet to explain and probably never will. Agnosticism leaves a door open. Nothing wrong with that.

Atheism also leaves a door open. Atheism isn't conviction that there is no supernatural, it's just lack of belief in it.

The way I see it, agnosticism and atheism both leave a door open. But like @juraviel said, agnosticism is just a strange middle ground that withstands belief without evidence. Personally I don't believe things without evidence to believe them.

 

[doesntevenmatter]

I don't really like to label myself when it comes to religion, only because I literally have no idea. I really enjoy theorizing with people though, and I would never tell someone they're wrong for what they believe in. When it comes to religion, I think most anything is possible. If I had to label myself I guess I am agnostic. It would be nice if there was more to life than this, especially something better, but I also find it just as likely that the lights go out and the party is over.

 

[GenesAndEnvironment]

Aight, y'all activated me a few days back. Became concerned since I had heard some arguments against dogmatic materialism, both from the thread and from memory.

I have since changed my stance on hard determinism and materialism.

I did some lazy research (youtube), turns out the consciousness and determinism/materialism/mind problem is not as cut and dry as I thought. I recommend a debate between Alan Wallace and someone else "buddhist vs atheist" (or sum).

So, my current view is that both the materialistic/objective/external and the mental/internal are valid and useful perspectives. Free will, as an example: In terms of material/objective, no; in terms of experience/subjective, yes.

I recommend that debate for people that have a bias toward materialism since the science man got rekt.

 

[deflationary]

Boooo, do some more research. Is it the debate with Sean Carroll? Because no way did Carroll get rekt. (I say before having watched the thing just based on my knowledge of Carroll)

I don't even get how your mind changed exactly? In what way that you didn't before do you now see mental phenomena as "valid" and how does your new view contradict materialism?

 

[BetweenRadioStations]

I'm Agnostic and I try to be pretty open minded. I used to say that I am spiritual but it has occurred to me that I don't even know what I'm talking about.

What does spiritual mean to you? What does it mean to be spiritual?

In terms of the religious/atheist debate I like what Werner Erhard said about this at one of his trainings when an audience member said how does God factor into this. His response was something around the lines of, "I don't like to talk about God but I'll say this. If you have God, you have god. If you don't have God, you don't have God."

I think the irony of Nihilism is that people tend to add meaning to the fact that life has no meaning. It doesn't mean anything nor does it mean anything that it doesn't mean anything or as Werner put it, "It's empty and meaningless that it's empty and meaningless that it's empty and meaningless."

 

[Lawliet]

Atheist but I believe spirits can stick around to help or haunt before going into the void.

 

[GenesAndEnvironment]

I don't even get how your mind changed exactly? In what way that you didn't before do you now see mental phenomena as "valid" and how does your new view contradict materialism?

Almost didn't catch this, pls reply to posts or @ if you want back and forths.

The thing is that it does not contradict materialism. The mental phenomena (choice, awareness) is valid because I experience them, even though they are, from an objective viewpoint, bound by causality and made of atoms. It's just about letting both perspectives have their place, since they both obviously (to me) exist.

When I've meditated I have been hit with mundane memories from long ago. Things that I haven't recalled at all and for there to be no purpose in bringing up. This has also only happened during meditation. Apparently there is a theory (mentioned during debate) that all of the memories are stored. This is what I remember myself thinking many times when getting these memories: "What if it's all stored?" So something might be siphoning our experinces down to the last detail.

Can't help but connect this to the more materialistic/external simulation theory. Think of how a videogame saves everything you do. Maybe both theories lead to the same conclusion here.

I am obviously not sure or confident about much of this (very few hours of research, lazy) but I don't lose anything by being stupid in this thread. Maybe someone will think of something I haven't.

 

[deflationary]

Almost didn't catch this, pls reply to posts or @ if you want back and forths.

Sorry :)

The thing is that it does not contradict materialism. The mental phenomena (choice, awareness) is valid because I experience them, even though they are, from an objective viewpoint, bound by causality and made of atoms. It's just about letting both perspectives have their place, since they both obviously (to me) exist.

When I've meditated I have been hit with mundane memories from long ago. Things that I haven't recalled at all and for there to be no purpose in bringing up. This has also only happened during meditation. Apparently there is a theory (mentioned during debate) that all of the memories are stored. This is what I remember myself thinking many times when getting these memories: "What if it's all stored?" So something might be siphoning our experinces down to the last detail.

Can't help but connect this to the more materialistic/external simulation theory. Think of how a videogame saves everything you do. Maybe both theories lead to the same conclusion here.

I am obviously not sure or confident about much of this (very few hours of research, lazy) but I don't lose anything by being stupid in this thread. Maybe someone will think of something I haven't.

I think everyone agrees that mental phenomena are valid. Or I guess it depends on what valid means here exactly.

The hard problem of consciousness (how experience rises from matter) is a real thing (and there are other gaps in our knowledge as well) so I'm not claiming that science has everything figured out about this or anything but I'm annoyed by how our gaps in scientific knowledge are used as justifications to believe in stuff like Gods, afterlife, souls, free will, the supernatural. From my point of view the probability of these things existing isn't 0 (except for certain types of free will which are just logically incoherent) but there are no positive reasons to believe in them and if you do try to flesh them out beyond "they might exist because we don't know everything" you start running into trouble immediately. So they seem pretty damn unlikely. And we know that these are things that people generally *want* to be true, which combined with the total lack of evidence or good philosophical arguments in their favor should make us even more skeptical.

 

[Homecoming]

Agnostic-spiritual (I was a skeptic atheist person before doing a proper afterlife research).

 

[9BBN]

I just want to say that people keep acting like nihilism and materialism are logical conclusions of atheism. This isn't true. They're just ways to cope with gaps in knowledge, as opposed to religion, which tries to explain them away. Atheism doesn't come with one coping strategy, it comes with any.

 

[GenesAndEnvironment]

Sorry :)

I think everyone agrees that mental phenomena are valid. Or I guess it depends on what valid means here exactly.

The hard problem of consciousness (how experience rises from matter) is a real thing (and there are other gaps in our knowledge as well) so I'm not claiming that science has everything figured out about this or anything but I'm annoyed by how our gaps in scientific knowledge are used as justifications to believe in stuff like Gods, afterlife, souls, free will, the supernatural. From my point of view the probability of these things existing isn't 0 (except for certain types of free will which are just logically incoherent) but there are no positive reasons to believe in them and if you do try to flesh them out beyond "they might exist because we don't know everything" you start running into trouble immediately. So they seem pretty damn unlikely. And we know that these are things that people generally *want* to be true, which combined with the total lack of evidence or good philosophical arguments in their favor should make us even more skeptical.

I agree with (nearly) everything you say, tbh. I didn't drop this point of view at all and jumped to not appreciating external reality. I also wish you'd separate "God" and "souls" from "free will". I just have another perspective on top of the physicalistic one now, maybe I'm just delusional but I feel like I'm on to something and have improved my understanding. Yes, it leads to some great effects and opening the mind so that my brain may fall out have given me peace and a sense of love/openness that I haven't felt since my hardcore meditation period five years back. This is of course a cause for "bias alerts", and I have to admit that I don't have any details on how the memories would be "sent" to wherever. Not even from a subjective stance.

Quick point about free will, it exists in the same way that "hearing" exists. From one perspective it is 100% caused by the physical and perhaps "illusory" (this perspective is correct and great, so is hard determinism) and from another it "just exists, just is". So I do believe you are right about that, but just missing some blindingly obvious "dumb" fact (again, from a different perspective).

Oh another subjective thing from my life: during periods of intense suffering I have felt like "something" has to have a use for it. More specifically that the information is stored and used. Nothing objective about it (very "religious"/"irrational" form of thinking), but it clicks with the rest.

 

[deflationary]

I agree with (nearly) everything you say, tbh. I didn't drop this point of view at all and jumped to not appreciating external reality. I also wish you'd separate "God" and "souls" from "free will". I just have another perspective on top of the physicalistic one now, maybe I'm just delusional but I feel like I'm on to something and have improved my understanding. Yes, it leads to some great effects and opening the mind so that my brain may fall out have given me peace and a sense of love/openness that I haven't felt since my hardcore meditation period five years back. This is of course a cause for "bias alerts", and I have to admit that I don't have any details on how the memories would be "sent" to wherever. Not even from a subjective stance.

Quick point about free will, it exists in the same way that "hearing" exists. From one perspective it is 100% caused by the physical and perhaps "illusory" (this perspective is correct and great, so is hard determinism) and from another it "just exists, just is". So I do believe you are right about that, but just missing some blindingly obvious "dumb" fact (again, from a different perspective).

Oh another subjective thing from my life: during periods of intense suffering I have felt like "something" has to have a use for it. More specifically that the information is stored and used. Nothing objective about it (very "religious"/"irrational" form of thinking), but it clicks with the rest.

Okay, the inclusion of free will in that list was a bit unfair since there is indeed a way of talking about free will that does makes sense. Obviously we're different from rocks. Mental processes do matter. The ability to reflect and weigh different options does matter, etc. What I had in mind was the type of free will that takes people out of the chain of causality that governs the rest of the universe. The kind that makes people think that moral responsibility is anything more than a social construct.

Btw, I'm super glad to hear that this slight shift in perspective has made you feel more love and openness. I hope you can follow that path without opening your mind up so much that your brain falls out, as you put it. :) But tbh even if it does, that's probably fine as well. Def preferable to being miserable. As long as people still err on the side of a negative view of the universe on questions like procreation or suicide rights, I'm happy for them to believe in anything they want.

 

[GenesAndEnvironment]

Okay, the inclusion of free will in that list was a bit unfair since there is indeed a way of talking about free will that does makes sense. Obviously we're different from rocks. Mental processes do matter. The ability to reflect and weigh different options does matter, etc. What I had in mind was the type of free will that takes people out of the chain of causality that governs the rest of the universe. The kind that makes people think that moral responsibility is anything more than a social construct.

Btw, I'm super glad to hear that this slight shift in perspective has made you feel more love and openness. I hope you can follow that path without opening your mind up so much that your brain falls out, as you put it. :) But tbh even if it does, that's probably fine as well. Def preferable to being miserable. As long as people still err on the side of a negative view of the universe on questions like procreation or suicide rights, I'm happy for them to believe in anything they want.

Oh, I'm still miserable. Gaining access to a new perspective doesn't remove my autism, anhedonia and lack of gf.

Seems like we understand each other at large, fam. I am far from certain about any of this, both my knowledge of the external and internal is nothing to write home about.

 

[deflationary]

Oh, I'm still miserable. Gaining access to a new perspective doesn't remove my autism, anhedonia and lack of gf.

Hmm. Are your standards for a gf high? I feel like if you're not necessarily expecting a perfect soul mate and you're okay with long distance, you'd probably be able to find someone off reddit's dating subs. You seem good at expressing yourself and smart and self-aware and all that good stuff, so you should have decent chances - there's plenty of other autists and anhedonics on reddit. :)

Seems like we understand each other at large, fam. I am far from certain about any of this, both my knowledge of the external and internal is nothing to write home about.

Yup, same here. My understanding is pretty limited as well. Kinda pisses me off that the world is so confusing. Some people look at all the ways the world is confusing and are all overjoyed at the mystery of it, whereas I'm mostly just pissed at not understanding everything.