Atheists and Christians can Agree

[Received]

There are more than 3,700 various Gods and Goddesses that have existed throughout time Godchecker mythology encyclopedia - Your Guide To The Gods We can agree that at least 3,699 are silly; that the texts that they claim are inspired were written by men who were ignorant of science and were trying to understand their environment with the best myths they could come up with. We can agree that the individuals who worshiped Nuada,Ishtar, or Marduk or the individuals who today worship Mohammad, Vishnu, or Sango were indoctrinated in their youth by the culture they were born into and no matter how many subjective spiritual experiences they had and no matter how deeply they believed that their God existed, they were simply wrong and ignorant of the true nature of the universe.

By this reasoning we should give up reasoning about reality given the multifarious interpretations on physical and metaphysical levels about what reality is and how it works. Changing concepts doesn't mean you reject the reality behind the concept, nor does it mean that refining your conceptualization of something is completely arbitrary. Nor does it mean that by changing conceptualizations that you change your *relation* with something on a deep and experiential level.

 

[alien444]

By this reasoning we should give up reasoning about reality given the multifarious interpretations on physical and metaphysical levels about what reality is and how it works.

Maybe we should just rely less on metaphysics and more on physics.
David Hume--" all genuine knowledge involves either mathematics or matters of fact and metaphysics, which goes beyond these, is worthless"

Changing concepts doesn't mean you reject the reality behind the concept, nor does it mean that refining your conceptualization of something is completely arbitrary. Nor does it mean that by changing conceptualizations that you change your *relation* with something on a deep and experiential level.

Do you mean the change in concepts of human thought over the course of history or individuals? I'm not sure what you mean by this. It sounds like you Are you saying that changing concepts does not change the essential qualities of those concepts.

 

[SoldierOfTheKing]

This is circular logic. Besides, you don't just not believe in the other Gods because of the Christian God. You don't believe in them because there is nothing in terms of evidence or reason that makes you think that there existence is more than insignificantly probable.

Oh, but there is. The pagans of old didn't believe in the gods they believed in because they were stupid, they had reasons for doing so.

It is arrogant to believe that of the billions of other people who have worshiped thousands of other Gods and believed in them and had spiritual experiences that are equal to yours and just as profound, you are right and they are/were wrong.

If it is arrogant to believe that I am right and they're wrong, then arrogance is not something I can reasonably avoid. The question really is whether I am right. Anyway, since you likewise believe that you are right and they're wrong, by that standard you are no less "arrogant".

 

[Archie the Preacher]

I cannot prove that the Christian God doesn't exist anymore than you can prove that the Egyptian Gods do not exist.

Right. Especially if YOU determine the requirements for 'proof'. Since you begin with your belief that God does not exist, than YOU are the most important being in the Universe; any information, evidence or argument to the contrary is waved away.

Nor did I say I could 'prove' the existence of God. I said I know God exists. Not only can you not prove God doesn't exist, you can't prove I don't know Him. All you can do is plug your ears and refuse to hear me.

I have no "secrets" when it comes to the universe and have far more questions than answers.

You're selling yourself short, Alien. You hold the secrets of knowing about God and gods, you hold the secrets of knowing who is 'arrogant' (anyone holding an opinion you don't approve) and I'm sure you really know everything worth knowing. You're just humble.

However, if you want to know how our universe works, there are far more qualified individuals than I to explain it and no shortage of scientific evidence.

In fact, I am absolutely fascinated by the function of the Universe. So I'm familiar with the writings of Einstein, Darwin (not strictly a 'universe' guy), Lemaitre, Hubble, Hoyle, Gamow, Greene, Hawking, Davies and several others I cannot recall offhand. I really do want to know about how it all works.

And behind it all is the Ultimate we know as God.

 

[leftrightleftrightleft]

I would venture that most are pretty cool---- to learn about. However, to devote your life to their satisfaction and approval is beyond silly, it is absurd.

I agree that devoting yourself to a statue or a dead person is silly.

That's the thing with this common argument ("I only believe in one less god than you"). Its moot if that one god happens to exist. So its really just back to the old question of "does God exist?".

I understand that myth was the ancients' way of understanding the universe and accumulating cultural knowledge--it was their Wikipedia (yet maybe more reliable), but I don't know if myth has a purpose in today's society except in a historical perspective.

I don't think myths were ever meant to be scientific in nature. They are meant to highlight truths about the human condition. About what it means to be human.

If you do not believe the bible is inerrant, then you are a definite outlier in Christianity. If you believe other religious texts have divinely inspired information, then I'm not sure if what you believe can still be called Christianity.

Outside of the strawman bubble of fundamentalist Christianity, there actually are a ton of moderate and liberal Christians who do not see the Bible is inerrant or literal.

Furthermore, if a text says something along the lines of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", then is it not also in some way divinely inspired?

Most religious texts have some formulation of the Golden Rule.

Fair point. I lean strongly toward positivism and verificationism however and therefore believe that scientific understanding is mostly superior to our metaphysical understandings of being. Although I am not ready to say it serves no purpose like Stephen Hawking has said.

The problem is that "science" (or, more specifically, naturalism) has inbuilt metaphysical ideas as well. For example:

-The universe is best understood mechanistically and atomistically
-The universe contains primary and secondary qualities (Galileo, Descartes)
-Primary qualities are defined as visible, observable, measurable or quantifiable, material and real. These lead to objective knowledge
-Secondary qualities are defined as invisible, non-observable, immeasurable or unquantifiable, immaterial and relatively unreal.
-Uniformity of nature
-The principle of substance
-The principle of causality
-God is an unnecessary hypothesis - chance and necessity are sufficient explanations for the universe and its workings.

I like to think I am exempt anyway. What you are talking about is socialization. Indoctrination is being taught to fully accept the ideas, opinions, and beliefs of a particular group and to not consider other ideas, opinions, and beliefs.

I find the word "indoctrination" is just used when you don't agree with the other group. "Socialization" would be used if you agree with the group.

I agree with that because technically anything is possible. However, thinking in possibilities can lead to some pretty strange ideas, it is much better to think in probabilities.

And how do you calculate probabilities for the veracity of metaphysical concepts?

 

[Cearbhall]

... you're not getting ready to pull that old '... I agree with you, but just believe in one less god than you...' gag, are you?

It's true. I mean, that one last god makes all the difference in terms of how the universe works and how we should be living, but at least you can understand where we're coming from when you consider the reasons why you think all the other gods are fictional.