If atheism is true would you want to know?

[awitch]

They should, they should be very afraid! Terrified !
The demons KNOW, and shudder in terror....
the demons KNOW where those people are headed, and those people would be absolutely terrified also if they could see where they are headed .

That's not true.
It is better to fear the Creator, and honor HIM , otherwise judgment is certain, and maybe already passed.

This is why I will never be a Christian.

 

[thecolorsblend]

I'm defining "atheism" very broadly to mean that even if a god exists we humans know nothing about that god.

So if "atheism" as defined above is true would you want to know?

That's atheism? Okaaaaaay.

Well anyway, if that's true, of course I would want to know. I disagree with that premise for a wide variety of reasons. But if it's somehow true, I would prefer to know that than to believe something false. An unpleasant truth is still generally preferable to a blissful lie.

 

[zippy2006]

So yes, there is a phenomenon under Buddhists where a monk meditates to death. He is so deeply in meditation that he forgoes food and water and literally starves to death. Due to the prolonged starvation, he gradually loses muscle bulk and soft tissues, and the dehydration at moment of death, results in a mummy in the meditative position with limited rigor occurring. Usually such were judged arhats or bodhisattva, so their mummies were often then enshrined - which of course lead to reports of monks trying to fake that such occurred for an elderly monk, or monks themselves trying to induce it artificially by starving themselves and drinking high salt solutions.

The very idea of a bodhisattva though, is that a part of subdividing mind remains, even within the One Buddha Nature - that ultimate dissolution is delayed from compassion. So the argument is that dissolution of self is only partial, since in absolute Idealism that certain schools of Buddhism adhere to, there simply would no longer be anything if the self had reified its own void. Does this not imply some maintenance of consciousness therefore?

It has been a few years since I last read on Buddhism, but if memory serves, it is not that the Self arises from the non-Self state, but that the self is an illusory state from khandas or heaps of desires and ideas that congregated together - like flotsam on a river. So really, it is less that non-Self is ontologically prior, but that self is sunyata or void, with no substantial reality. Any articulation of Buddhist doctrine, or explanation of non-duality, essentially arises within duality - this is why if you meet a Buddha on the road, you are to kill it. It really is wholely other from the Western tendency to try and explain reality, and lays far more stress on the experiential.

So no, I agree it isn't insuperable to their position; but I do think that for the self to continue to "exist" by Buddhist thought, no dissolution can have been complete either.

Thanks for this good post, Quid. I don't disagree with any of that.

 

[Robban]

I'm defining "atheism" very broadly to mean that even if a god exists we humans know nothing about that god.

So if "atheism" as defined above is true would you want to know?

Have you ever or would you ever play Russian roulette?

 

[cloudyday2]

Have you ever or would you ever play Russian roulette?

No, when I went to Las Vegas and put money in one of their slot machines nothing came out for me, but I suspect that with Russian roulette something WOULD come out and I would regret it. LOL

 

[cloudyday2]

Have you ever or would you ever play Russian roulette?

The nice thing is that if atheism is true then everybody wins or everybody loses (depending how you look at it), but everybody gets the same jackpot even if they don't choose to play. It's all for one and one for all with atheism, so why should anybody want to know if atheism is true? Knowing that atheism is true is not better than not knowing it is true except that we can sleep-in on Sunday mornings and hate our neighbors without a twinge of guilt.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

I'm defining "atheism" very broadly to mean that even if a god exists we humans know nothing about that god.

So if "atheism" as defined above is true would you want to know?

My goal is to understand reality as well as possible, and whether that understanding leads to a theistic or an atheistic destination is irrelevant.

 

[muichimotsu]

I'm defining "atheism" very broadly to mean that even if a god exists we humans know nothing about that god.

So if "atheism" as defined above is true would you want to know?

Wait...you might as well be describing agnostic theism in that we cannot know anything about God, only have it revealed or such, but agnosticism is not in opposition to theism, and even the vernacular notion of "fence sitting" agnosticism isn't contrary, it's taking a neutral stance, which is not teh same as atheism as not being convinced of theistic claims

 

[muichimotsu]

I'm defining "atheism" very broadly to mean that even if a god exists we humans know nothing about that god.

So if "atheism" as defined above is true would you want to know?

Considering I'm apatheist, honestly, I wouldn't care either way in that regard because my position would also hold that a god existing would not demonstrably affect anything because we're reliant on pattern seeking and such to even conjecture a god exists that does things we might ascribe to it. But a god not existing...same thing, we're still humans striving to do our best in a world we're trying to understand with science, etc

 

[muichimotsu]

"Even if God existed, we could know nothing about him."

This is a hypothetical statement, and it is strangely self-contradictory. In order to have knowledge of the proposition, we would need to have perfect and exhaustive knowledge of the subject (God). So apparently we know something about him whether he exists or not. It doesn't make much sense to me. Try it with anything:

"Even if X existed, we could know nothing about it."

(Also, I'm not sure what this has to do with atheism.)

There could be a qualification to make it less contradictory in saying that the most we can know of a"God" entity is that it exists as the ontological ultimate, but nothing more detailed, like its intention, actions, etc, which would arguably render it little more than a Deistic entity or such.

 

[muichimotsu]

For me, those are two significantly different situations.

1) If there is/are no god(s) of any kind, would I want to know? Yes. I'd be disappointed, but truth is more important than almost anything. If the truth is that there is no god, then I'd want to know the truth.

2) If there is a god, but we know nothing about him/her/it/them: That's actually a scary idea to contemplate. If I really know nothing about them -- whether they're good, what demands they make of humans, how they interact with the world, nothing at all -- then for all I know, I'll get to the afterlife and find out that the god required me to dye a potato blue and take it to Cincinnati, or some other bizarre thing, and since I never did that, I'm going to be punished. I probably couldn't have any day-to-day peace if I thought my state in the afterlife depended on some unknowable task. Maybe ignorance would be bliss in that case.

(Maybe you didn't intend the nightmare scenario in #2. My imagination can go wild when it comes to imagining what the divine might be. )

Part of the issue with #2 is that we're working in a universe where we already have a concept of God and people claiming to know things about it. If there was a universe where a god existed, but no one knew anything about it, the question is more can they still believe anything they want, assuming people would still conceive of something like a god in the first place? Belief and knowledge are categorically different and thus, the idea boils down more to what is meant by "knowing" something about a god versus holding beliefs that may or may not be true about that god, assuming it exists.

 

[cloudyday2]

Wait...you might as well be describing agnostic theism in that we cannot know anything about God, only have it revealed or such, but agnosticism is not in opposition to theism, and even the vernacular notion of "fence sitting" agnosticism isn't contrary, it's taking a neutral stance, which is not teh same as atheism as not being convinced of theistic claims

The salient point is to imagine a reality where seeking gods is useless either because gods don't exist or gods don't respond to our seeking or our behavior in any predictable manner. Basically I want the negation of the reality where seeking gods yields results of some kind. I want to also capture a reality where gods might exist but simply swoop through our reality at unpredictable times like gangsters in a drive by shooting. There is nothing to be gained by seeking and studying those types of gods either.

 

[muichimotsu]

Agnosticism teaches that, not atheism.

I already lived that kind of life before being a Christian, I was on the edge of suicide, because there was nothing left for me to live for. It was Ecclesiastes in full swing in my thinking (if you had ever read it).

Some people can be distracted by the little things in life to get them through, but I saw through it all and saw the end of all things...vanity. I was a miserable wretch of a creature.

Atheism doesn't necessarily make a positive claim that God doesn't exist, that's a particular iteration, while agnosticism is epistemological, theists and atheists alike can advocate that position, in contrast to gnosticism, which says you can know the divine (not necessarily in its fullness), though what is meant by knowledge is not even agreed upon amongst theists, I'd imagine

Seems to me you weren't an atheist or agnostic, moreso a metaphysical or value nihilist..or you possibly had depression, I'm not a professional on that.

 

[muichimotsu]

The salient point is to imagine a reality where seeking gods is useless either because gods don't exist or gods don't respond to our seeking. Basically I want the negation of the reality where seeking gods yields results of some kind.

I mean, those are both ways that could be valid, but a lot of the problem boils down to defining "god" and that is a rabbit hole in itself, because to a primitive person, a rock could be a god because it was actually a meteor that's glowing, but they don't know that

 

[cloudyday2]

I mean, those are both ways that could be valid, but a lot of the problem boils down to defining "god" and that is a rabbit hole in itself, because to a primitive person, a rock could be a god because it was actually a meteor that's glowing, but they don't know that

That rabbit hole might be an interesting thread. Hmmmm. We imagine ourselves and our gods to have personalities. What is a personality? It seems to me that a personality is random behavior that is limited. A rock doesn't have a personality, because it is too predictable. However, too much randomness makes it impossible to get to "know" a person.

My limited understanding of quantum mechanics says the physical world satisfies that definition of a personality. There is some randomness but it is limited by some laws of physics that we have discovered through study of past behavior.

In the ancient world the gods were associated with nature. The weather gods were particularly important due to the weather's unpredictability and effect on agriculture.

Another approach is to look for meaning or purpose in the randomness. This is like divination. We know there is randomness in nature, but is there a purpose? Even if there is a purpose can humans hope to discern that purpose. And even if we can discern that purpose do the gods care what we do? If we sacrifice to the weather god will we be spared the droughts? If the Hebrews follow the Law of Moses will Yahweh give them peace and security and prosperity? Most modern religions put the rewards of piety in the afterlife so that their gods cannot be held accountable in any way.

Just thinking out loud I guess.

 

[t4inted-]

This is why I will never be a Christian.

Just curious what do you know about what a Christian is?

 

[muichimotsu]

That rabbit hole might be an interesting thread. Hmmmm. We imagine ourselves and our gods to have personalities. What is a personality? It seems to me that a personality is random behavior that is limited. A rock doesn't have a personality, because it is too predictable. However, too much randomness makes it impossible to get to "know" a person.

My limited understanding of quantum mechanics says the physical world satisfies that definition of a personality. There is some randomness but it is limited by some laws of physics that we have discovered through study of past behavior.

In the ancient world the gods were associated with nature. The weather gods were particularly important due to the weather's unpredictability and effect on agriculture.

Another approach is to look for meaning or purpose in the randomness. This is like divination. We know there is randomness in nature, but is there a purpose? Even if there is a purpose can humans hope to discern that purpose. And even if we can discern that purpose do the gods care what we do? If we sacrifice to the weather god will we be spared the droughts? If the Hebrews follow the Law of Moses will Yahweh give them peace and security and prosperity? Most modern religions put the rewards of piety in the afterlife so that their gods cannot be held accountable in any way.

Just thinking out loud I guess.

Generally gods are anthropomorphized, though sometimes they're more immanent forces without a mind, reacting to prayers in some other sense, perhaps

Personality could reasonably be defined as behavior derived from a complex sense of self and not merely behavior that is reliant on self awareness like how cats, dogs, etc, can have "personalities"

Purpose is appraised by a mind and it's generally subjective. But there's also the distinction of purpose innate to something versus purpose that we give to it by our assessment. Like I like socializing cats, but in itself, it serves a function that doesn't have to be valued by someone. A better example would be the universe itself having order and structure, but not a purpose, because that gets into an issue of humans having purpose outside of ourselves and whether that's really beneficial, since it's about conformity at that point

But doesn't God answer prayers? If the idea is that relationship means God will answer, the problem becomes how to specify it's God doing it and not just blind nature that doesn't care

 

[cloudyday2]

Generally gods are anthropomorphized, though sometimes they're more immanent forces without a mind, reacting to prayers in some other sense, perhaps

Personality could reasonably be defined as behavior derived from a complex sense of self and not merely behavior that is reliant on self awareness like how cats, dogs, etc, can have "personalities"

Purpose is appraised by a mind and it's generally subjective. But there's also the distinction of purpose innate to something versus purpose that we give to it by our assessment. Like I like socializing cats, but in itself, it serves a function that doesn't have to be valued by someone. A better example would be the universe itself having order and structure, but not a purpose, because that gets into an issue of humans having purpose outside of ourselves and whether that's really beneficial, since it's about conformity at that point

But doesn't God answer prayers? If the idea is that relationship means God will answer, the problem becomes how to specify it's God doing it and not just blind nature that doesn't care

It is good that you enjoy socializing cats. I tried helping the cats at our local shelter, but I found it was too draining emotionally. I wanted to take all of them home, but I knew I couldn't do that. It's exhausting enough to keep my one cat happy. I wave the little feather toy around for 5 minutes and consider that an accomplishment. ... So I admire people who volunteer to help those cats on regular basis. It is difficult.

 

[cloudyday2]

Just curious what do you know about what a Christian is?

You were asking a question of awitch, but I was curious what you would say a Christian is? A person can say "I am a Christian" but others can later say "that person was not a REAL Christian because X, Y, and Z". It's kind of a tricky question.

 

[awitch]

Just curious what do you know about what a Christian is?

A person who subscribes to the Christian religion--i.e., a person who believes Jesus died for the sins of humanity and is acknowledged to be the lord and savior.