Why atheism is irritating

@xris,

xris;68577 wrote:

Using the term and saying one persons delusions is everyone else's is abusing and using a fancy term out of context.What an amazing tool this phrase is, it can be used on any occasion to convince us of our failures.
Natural circumstances, well the BB has been resolved, its a natural event, well thats a months debate there.Everything that is, was conceived by natural causes at that singularity.
The formula for life that we can not reproduce,another months debate.
The exact location of the earth and its almost impossible precise distance from the sun and then the most incredible piece of luck a moon entered its orbit.The moon, exactly the right size and proportion to the earth, the sun ,the other planets.It comes down to fractions of miles the correlation.Yes its all an amazing coincidence but even in our logical world of law the idea of circumstantial evidence is considered.

You look at it as a fancy term because it sounds professional. I could try and think of a more simplistic term if you like? Fundamental Attribution Error has been observed time and time again. It's not the biggest mystery to solve. Here's an example of fundamental attribution error: "my daughter was eaten by a lion, not merely because the lion was hungry, but because I didn't sacrifice a goat to the Sun God yesterday."

The odds of an event taking place says nothing about purpose or intent behind the event. What were the odds that your parents would met each other and have intercourse at the very moment they did and give birth to you? Rare things happen all of the time . . . like a lightening bolt hitting an airplane and killing everyone on board. Does that mean that Thor threw a lightening bolt at the plane because nobody worships him anymore and he was jealous of Jesus?

You're ruling out all of the natural circumstances that imply a lack of purpose or intent behind natural events. How about the fact that the survival and well being of one animal is dependent upon the suffering of another animal? How about the fact that the sun will eventually cook this planet and kill everything living on it? How about the fact that some children are born with horrible deformations? I'm sorry, but the universe doesn't give a damn about you or me, and it never did.

@xris,

xris;68568 wrote:

Giving it a fancy name does not make it proved.If anyone chooses to see a creative force and a pattern to the universe its not necessarily an error but a diferent view, shared by many.

If we're to make statements about natural things, then the FIRST thing we can say is something on the order of "it is what it is". That's what pure science gets at. When you attribute consciousness, intent, meaning, divine agency, whatever, then you're taking the "it is what it is" and coloring it in with a psychological box of crayons. The view may be right, may be wrong, but unless you can support it with an "it is what it is", then you can't credit that "shared by many" to anything other than a common psychological makeup. We were born with the tools to get answers, but we weren't born with the answers themselves.

@hue-man,

hue-man;68549 wrote:

Your human psychology naturally leads you to believe that there is a pattern and a person who started that pattern. It's called fundamental attribution error in psychology. Feeling isn't knowing. I don't know what you're talking about when you say that "two inanimate objects decided to join and live", but I agree that the universe is very absurd.

so, it is an error to think that the universe had some type of intelligent designer, however, it is correct to believe that it just happened without reason?

i understand "fundamental attribution error in psychology" but can it be used in this instance?

i am not religious at all. not an iota, however, on my search for answers through reading subjects such as quantum theory, biology, astronomy etc, i have [amazingly] started to believe the opposite of what i was so convinced about, that there is no creator. yes, i know your argument that this may be "fundamental attribution error in psychology", however, the universe appears to function so blindingly and impossibly perfect that it is hard for me to escape the fact that there are just too many impossible coincident for this to be an "accident".

perhaps the only reason our universe exists is the mere fact that it could not exists without all of these fine tuned coincidents. i can also understand this thought too.

and by my quote of "two inanimate objects decided to join and live," i am asking the question; the first living thing on earth would have been a very basic life form, however, unfathomably complex compared to non living structures. it is made from atoms. so, somewhere along the line, these atoms formed molecules, which is easy to understand. these molecules formed materials. so, next, somewhere along the line, these inanimate materials somehow fell together to form a super complex object that lived. it would be like a tornado sweeping through a town and with all the bits it picked up, accidently creating a boeing 747. somehow, we are to believe that inanimate objects accidently fell together to make life. now, does it make more sense that this impossible coincidence just happened for the sake of it, or that it was on purpose. the statement, "attribution error in psychology" just seems like an easy way out of the question.

@TurboLung,

It appears that I'm looking for a benevolent god as he is easier to dismiss than an unknown engineer.May i state again i have not found a creator, an engineer and least of all a benevolent god.My opinion is that there are many so called accidental footprints in the sands of time, to dismiss them with one determined terminology without debating them is totally arrogant.
I stand for an open minded debate not to exclude any possibility till we have exhausted all other opinions.I find myself over stating my position just because of the intransigence of certain posters.This why i find atheists so damned annoying.

@xris,

xris;68736 wrote:

It appears that I'm looking for a benevolent god as he is easier to dismiss than an unknown engineer.May i state again i have not found a creator, an engineer and least of all a benevolent god.My opinion is that there are many so called accidental footprints in the sands of time, to dismiss them with one determined terminology without debating them is totally arrogant.
I stand for an open minded debate not to exclude any possibility till we have exhausted all other opinions.I find myself over stating my position just because of the intransigence of certain posters.This why i find atheists so damned annoying.

I find agnostics annoying because of their refusal to recognize the principle of parsimony, and their refusal to see knowledge as a practical concept. And what is this dismissal without debating you speak of? I'm debating with you right now. It's good to be open minded, but not so much that your brain falls out.

@hue-man,

hue-man;68773 wrote:

I find agnostics annoying because of their refusal to recognize the principle of parsimony, and their refusal to see knowledge as a practical concept.

Agnostics do not necessarily reject the parsimony. An agnostic simply believes that God is either unknown or impossible to know.

An agnostic who ignores parsimony would be a agnostic theist rather than an agnostic atheist.

@TurboLung,

TurboLung;68669 wrote:

so, it is an error to think that the universe had some type of intelligent designer, however, it is correct to believe that it just happened without reason?

I'm saying that humans have the tendency to see design and purpose behind everything, no matter how natural or random the event is. Intelligent design is just a fancy word for superstition.

TurboLung;68669 wrote:

i am not religious at all. not an iota, however, on my search for answers through reading subjects such as quantum theory, biology, astronomy etc, i have [amazingly] started to believe the opposite of what i was so convinced about, that there is no creator. yes, i know your argument that this may be "fundamental attribution error in psychology", however, the universe appears to function so blindingly and impossibly perfect that it is hard for me to escape the fact that there are just too many impossible coincident for this to be an "accident".

It shouldn't be a surprise that you've begun to see intention and purpose behind the natural world, because you have the brain of a human being. Being a human being myself, I admit to being guilty of this in the past, but that was before I actually thought about it. The universe functions according to cause and effect and chemistry. There is no divine or supernatural intervention, and the universe functions exactly how you would expect it to if there was no God.

TurboLung;68669 wrote:

and by my quote of "two inanimate objects decided to join and live," i am asking the question; the first living thing on earth would have been a very basic life form, however, unfathomably complex compared to non living structures. it is made from atoms. so, somewhere along the line, these atoms formed molecules, which is easy to understand. these molecules formed materials. so, next, somewhere along the line, these inanimate materials somehow fell together to form a super complex object that lived. it would be like a tornado sweeping through a town and with all the bits it picked up, accidently creating a boeing 747. somehow, we are to believe that inanimate objects accidently fell together to make life. now, does it make more sense that this impossible coincidence just happened for the sake of it, or that it was on purpose. the statement, "attribution error in psychology" just seems like an easy way out of the question.

I don't know that it was two inanimate objects, but they didn't 'decide' to join and live. It was a chemical reaction to environmental conditions that allowed inorganic matter to form into a primitive organism. You say the word 'lived' like it's some mystical state of being. A living thing is simply an organization of carbohydrates, amino acids, and lipids that is capable of response to environmental stimuli. Scientists do not yet know the odds of this event happening, but your comparison to the impossible odds of a tornado making a Boeing 747 is absolutely absurd. Fundamental Attribution Error is obviously not an easy way out; I wouldn't have had to explain myself so elaborately if it was.

Organism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

@hue-man,

hue-man;68773 wrote:

I find agnostics annoying because of their refusal to recognize the principle of parsimony, and their refusal to see knowledge as a practical concept. And what is this dismissal without debating you speak of? I'm debating with you right now. It's good to be open minded, but not so much that your brain falls out.

I thought it was you that claimed agnostics did not exist.How are you on the term strong determinism? do you oppose this view of a universe that by the BB everything was determined?

@xris,

If you look at my last post, would you consider me an atheist or an agnostic? I would call myself a weak agnostic, though I don't believe in any god or supernatural entity, so you might call me an atheist. I think that strong atheism(the rabid insistence that there is no god and that there are no and never will be any deities) is stupid, and is indeed intellectually equivalent to fundamentalism. Making a strict and unverifiable ontological claim, whether it be for or against the existence of something is stupid and disingenuous. I do not begrudge those who are spiritual but fluid and understanding nor those who are strong atheists but accepting, as they know that their claims are unverified and do not try to recruit or force their beliefs on others, but those stubborn goats who try to 'save' with the 'truth' and redirect the 'sheep' who are 'ignorant' of the 'truth' are the most damnable of all creatures.

We do not know if it is impossible to know a creator or if one exists or is possible, we have yet to define a concrete 'god' as everyone has their own opinions on the matter, and their own personal metaphysics. I think that there may be some health benefits that come along with belief in something, and I have reason to believe it. I think that a personal metaphysics as a psychological exercise can be therapeutic and is very unlikely to be dogmatic.

@xris,

xris;68801 wrote:

I thought it was you that claimed agnostics did not exist.How are you on the term strong determinism? do you oppose this view of a universe that by the BB everything was determined?

I never said that agnostics didn't exist. I said that agnosticism was a redundant position. I am a determinist, but I don't know if I'm a strong determinist. All events can be traced back to the big bang, but not all events were directly caused by the big bang.

---------- Post added at 03:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:49 PM ----------

Zetetic11235;68810 wrote:

If you look at my last post, would you consider me an atheist or an agnostic? I would call myself a weak agnostic, though I don't believe in any god or supernatural entity, so you might call me an atheist. I think that strong atheism(the rabid insistence that there is no god and that there are no and never will be any deities) is stupid, and is indeed intellectually equivalent to fundamentalism. Making a strict and unverifiable ontological claim, whether it be for or against the existence of something is stupid and disingenuous. I do not begrudge those who are spiritual but fluid and understanding nor those who are strong atheists but accepting, as they know that their claims are unverified and do not try to recruit or force their beliefs on others, but those stubborn goats who try to 'save' with the 'truth' and redirect the 'sheep' who are 'ignorant' of the 'truth' are the most damnable of all creatures.

We do not know if it is impossible to know a creator or if one exists or is possible, we have yet to define a concrete 'god' as everyone has their own opinions on the matter, and their own personal metaphysics. I think that there may be some health benefits that come along with belief in something, and I have reason to believe it. I think that a personal metaphysics as a psychological exercise can be therapeutic and is very unlikely to be dogmatic.

You sound like an agnostic to me, which can be classified under general or weak atheism. I'm a strong atheist because I argue that God doesn't exist. You call this stupid, but I call it stupid when a person believes that because they can't see a flying pink unicorn, that means that it is stupid to argue that there isn't a flying pink unicorn. Good epistemology proves useful in these instances. Knowledge faces the problem of skepticism, and so knowledge cannot be justified as an absolute concept. Instead, knowledge is a practical and provisional concept that is always subject to doubt.

The God 'proposition' should be verifiable if it's true. The attributes of omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, and benevolence can be logically reduced with our observations of the natural world. I am certain as I can be of anything that this God doesn't exist. The deistic conception of God is dependent on the first cause argument, which is logically circular, and so even that concept cannot be logically verified. The principle of parsimony, a reflection of the practicality of knowledge, demands that supernatural agency be held not to exist until shown otherwise. All of this is more than enough reason to argue that God & supernatural agency doesn't exist.

@hue-man,

hue-man;68812 wrote:

I never said that agnostics didn't exist. I said that agnosticism was a redundant position. I am a determinist, but I don't know if I'm a strong determinist. All events can be traced back to the big bang, but not all events were directly caused by the big bang.

So what event or events where events without a chain of events and causes.When did the chain break down? When did these random events start?
So my opinions are redundant,im a theist, am i? but i dont believe in god.Im not disagreeing with you by your reckoning.:perplexed:

@xris,

xris;68816 wrote:

So what event or events where events without a chain of events and causes.When did the chain break down? When did these random events start?
So my opinions are redundant,im a theist, am i? but i dont believe in god.Im not disagreeing with you by your reckoning.:perplexed:

Listen, Xris, I really don't care if you call yourself an agnostic, a theist, or an atheist; seriously, just call yourself whatever you want.

All events since the big bang have a cause. We don't know what caused the big bang, but logically speaking, it could have been self-caused, but we really don't know. Infinite causality could be an illusion caused by the human psychological tendency to assume that there's a beginning to everything. Either way, this universe and reality is just absurd.

@hue-man,

hue-man;68825 wrote:

Listen, Xris, I really don't care if you call yourself an agnostic, a theist, or an atheist; seriously, just call yourself whatever you want.

All events since the big bang have a cause. We don't know what caused the big bang, but logically speaking, it could have been self-caused, but we really don't know. Infinite causality could be an illusion caused by the human psychological tendency to assume that there's a beginning to everything. Either way, this universe and reality is just absurd.

So what is it, a determined universe since the BB or not? Its not a trick question.

@odenskrigare,

I recommend this article if you're going to debate about first causes.

Laws of Nature [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]

I'll summarize it as well. Causes are correlations. There's nothing detectable beyond that. Perhaps causes are some kind of thing that forces other things to happen but there is absolutely no evidence for that and it doesn't add any kind of explanatory or predictive power. All answers to "why" questions are rain checks for future work to be done. Why do apples fall to the ground? Because the law of gravity forces them to. Why is there a law of gravity? Beats me. If that's really the best we can do then we shouldn't even bother offering "laws" as explanations. The idea of a deterministic clockwork universe full of life and color is a comforting thought to some people, assuming they manage to ignore the fact that disaster and tragedy also strike with clockwork regularity but, the are no "laws" of nature and there is no magical universe cop enforcing said "laws".

@xris,

xris;68828 wrote:

So what is it, a determined universe since the BB or not? Its not a trick question.

I already said that every event since the big bang has been caused by a prior event. The universe may have been deterministic before the big bang, but once again, we don't know.

---------- Post added at 04:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:24 PM ----------

Satan;68829 wrote:

I recommend this article if you're going to debate about first causes.

Laws of Nature [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]

I'll summarize it as well. Causes are correlations. There's nothing detectable beyond that. Perhaps causes are some kind of thing that forces other things to happen but there is absolutely no evidence for that and it doesn't add any kind of explanatory or predictive power. All answers to "why" questions are rain checks for future work to be done. Why do apples fall to the ground? Because the law of gravity forces them to. Why is there a law of gravity? Beats me. If that's really the best we can do then we shouldn't even bother offering "laws" as explanations. The idea of a deterministic clockwork universe full of life and color is a comforting thought to some people, assuming they manage to ignore the fact that disaster and tragedy also strike with clockwork regularity but, the are no "laws" of nature and there is no magical universe cop enforcing said "laws".

The term law, as it applies to the functions of nature, is more metaphorical than it is literal. However, unlike human laws, the lawlike functions of the universe are never broken. That's why they call it the laws of physics.

@hue-man,

Hue,if everything was possible by the BB i think we do have a dilemma, well i have.The formula for life and ever instance was determined.I believe in free will but also believe events are constructed by previous causes.I cant exclude the fact that if the formula for life became apparent at that most singular of moments,it was not written.I have to believe certain events where by the nature of its invention made to accrue ,it does not exclude random events because random events can occur by experiment.The significance of the BB is that it made everything possible.How can you say that this determination is not worthy of subjecting it to exploring the idea of an engineered universe.The BB has always been my point of reference, its magnitude defies explaination.

@xris,

xris;68835 wrote:

Hue,if everything was possible by the BB i think we do have a dilemma, well i have.The formula for life and ever instance was determined.I believe in free will but also believe events are constructed by previous causes.I cant exclude the fact that if the formula for life became apparent at that most singular of moments,it was not written.I have to believe certain events where by the nature of its invention made to accrue ,it does not exclude random events because random events can occur by experiment.The significance of the BB is that it made everything possible.How can you say that this determination is not worthy of subjecting it to exploring the idea of an engineered universe.The BB has always been my point of reference, its magnitude defies explaination.

Xris, all of the conditions for life were not in place at the big bang, which is why there were no life forms at the big bang. Seeing purpose and design behind the event because it mind boggles you is your personal, human perspective. Exploring the idea of an engineered universe demands that we find the engineer. This just leads to a dead end, and we might as well accept that.

@hue-man,

hue-man;68832 wrote:

The term law, as it applies to the functions of nature, is more metaphorical than it is literal. However, unlike human laws, the lawlike functions of the universe are never broken. That's why they call it the laws of physics.

How exactly does one tell the difference between a "true" law that is never broken and a "false" law that has not been broken yet?

@Satan phil,

Satan;68839 wrote:

How exactly does one tell the difference between a "true" law that is never broken and a "false" law that has not been broken yet?

[SIZE="3"]I think you go too far (in an earlier post) to say there are no laws of nature. How can you (or anyone) know that? There might very well be laws. There certainly is observable predictability and consistency. Every time we've measured thus far, the gravitational force exerted between two objects can be calculated using F=Gm1m2/R2. So isn't a "law" just a term for describing observed constancy? (You might argue that the gravitational constant could be changing but we don't know it because everything else is changing in proportion to it. Then I would argue we still have constancy, for now, in relativity).

However, whether or not that predictability and consistency will hold true forever, or throughout the entire universe . . . no one can ever know (as Hume astutely pointed out long ago). So I think you would be right to say we can never know for sure if there are (or are not) any absolute laws (meaning, existing for all time and everywhere).[/SIZE]

@LWSleeth,

The principle of parsimony, people.

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