“Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.”
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James 5%3A1-6&version=NIV
Atheism is scientific. It rejects unknowns until proven. Atheism is not a gnostic worship of nothingness, but a rejection of accepting religions as fact.
Atheists often understand religion more than many religious people, so you need to explain just what you mean by this. What are Atheists not getting?
Not who you’re replying to, but I’ll attempt a diplomatic answer.
Many (not all) atheists and theists alike lack the capacity to separate fact and faith in their worldviews, and see them as conflicting with one another.
But some people see them as entirety separate realms that do not interact. For us science and fact is based on knowledge and impiricism, whereas faith is based on the unknowable.
Thatbis, something cannot be known AND believed. If it can be known, it’s in the realm of science. If it cannot be known it is the realm of faith. They don’t conflict because they are entirely separate, and pitting them against each other is like arguing about the conflict between Wayne Gretsky and Renee Descartes.
It’s more that Theists attack Atheists for believing absolutely in nothing, instead of not believing anything unproven.
And there’s the disconnect. If it can be proven it can’t be believed.
If you don’t believe in something unproven, then you don’t believe in anything at all.
And that’s fine, by the way.
You’re taking statements beyond their logical extremes, ad absurdum. You can believe facts that have moumtains of evidence, and not believe stories with no evidence, and be perfectly rational and believe in things.
Belief is accepting something without evidence. If you have evidence, belief isn’t necessary, because you know it.
Saying you won’t accept anything without evidence is saying you don’t hold any beliefs at all. But nobody is really like that. Atheists believe all kinds of things.
The part that trips people up is when something is unknown but knowable. That is where someone can have belief without having faith.
Faith is for stuff that is not and never can be empirically known.
No. It isn’t.
No. It doesn’t. Science embraces the unknown. If it rejects the unknown, it is committing the same anti-scientific logic atheists accuse religious people of committing.
Nope. It is an irrational fetishization of something’s non-existence.
Good thing you told me… I would never have been able to tell by all the atheist shittakes I see.
Is it really this difficult? Are there no religious people in your family?
Wow, that was certainly a comment!
Science does not embrace the unknown, it pokes, prods, and seeks to turn the unknown into the known via the scientific method. It rejects the unproven and untested until confirmed tested and proven.
Atheism is not believing that fairies exist until the existence of fairies is proven, it is not “fetishizing something’s non-existence,” lmao. Atheism is the default state of humanity brought up in an environment with a strong emphasis on the scientific method.
Yes, I do have religious family members. None of them are particularly technically minded, and usually use their faith as a weapon to oppress trans people. Please answer my question instead of gesturing vaguely, what are Atheists not getting that theists do?
If it didn’t it would discover absolutely nothing of any value.
Science does not treat the unknown as an enemy. That’s how a colonizer sees the world - not a scientist.
Really? There is absolutely nothing else to atheism, is there? You try to conflate science with atheism - but you fail abysmally because there is absolutely nothing about the scientific method that is incompatible with any religion anywhere.
To try and “substitute” religion with “science” is anti-scientific because science is not religion. I’m starting to get the idea that a lot of atheists don’t have a very good grip on what the scientific method actually entails.
LOL! And your proof of this is what?
Where is your scientific method now? Did you forget it in your other lab-coat, perhaps?
So you think the only reason your family members are religious is to opress transgender folks?
What the hell does “technically minded” mean? Do they not know how to turn on a blender, perhaps?
I never said science treats the unknown as an enemy, science pokes at the unknown via the scientific method to turn it into known. You do not see scientists embracing Lord of the Rings as history.
Religion is as of now unproven. Atheism is the default stance, once a religion is proven then atheism will be no more. Atheism is the default stance because it is the absence of unproven claims.
No, I believe my family is religious because they were brought up religious, and the outcome of this is opression of trans people and women.
Technically-minded meaning trained and educated on technical or other scientific topics, as opposed to business, marketing, accounting, etc.
Really? You’re not really thinking about what it is you’re actually saying, are you?
I guess it’s no mystery why the atheism expressed on here sounds so downright liberal - the unknown can only make sense to you once it’s dead.
Religion requires no proof. It hasn’t required any proof since the glaciers retreated, and it won’t require any proof as long as humanity exists.
Atheists have been attacking religion at it’s strongest point for a few centuries now (as you just did)… it seems even the oldest method of scientific rigor - trial and error - completely escapes atheists. Can we trust you with something as complicated as a Bunsen burner, then?
Your religion is failing you - it requires proof, remember?
But then, again… I’m not an all-knowing technocrat - oops, sorry, I meant to say ,“technically-minded person”. I could be wrong - there could very well be evidence for these “default atheist” communities and societies in anthropology if that truly is the “human default” as you claim.
Can you provide such?
So you are claiming that people get nothing from religion? They are merely automatons who follow their (constantly alleged) “brainwashing?”
No, I never once took the strawman claim you’ve been claiming I have, intentionally or unintentionally on your part. Science seeks to understand the unknown, it isn’t about accepting unknowns as knowns. Hence the scientific method.
Science isn’t liberal, it’s very leftist: the search for explanations and known laws of material reality. That’s Materialism! Material conditions guide people’s behaviors and science in general, not vague ideas.
If “Religion requires no proof” is the crux of your argument, then it’s the same as saying “Religion is a fairy tale,” without proof it cannot be known to exist, and is thus a hypothesis without much weight. I never suggested trial and error was a problem, but if you’re claiming Religion itself is mere trial and error, as though scientists dream up absurd claims and test them, rather than building upon previous knowledge, that is also absurd.
Being aware of the scientific method is not technocracy, but education. That’s it. Stop playing the elitist card, it isn’t working.
A child raised without religion will call no god. Religion is taught, thus atheism, the lack of religon, is the default.
I believe my family is religious because it is both all they have been taught, and is convenient for them to believe, as they would face ostracism from their own family members and people like you for questioning it. I speak from personal experience, thank you.
So far, that’s the only strawman argument applied here… and it’s purely yours.
No, science isn’t liberal… or leftist. Neither is materialism - there is no rule that says a right-winger cannot apply a materialist analysis. We even have a term for that - it’s called “Vulgar Marxism.” And, as atheism is thoroughly anti-scientific, your attempt to reframe the conversation in this manner is inane.
And? Do you now have a problem with fairy tales, too?
Me telling you something you should already have known isn’t the crux of anything.
No you didn’t. I suggested that your brand of atheism has demonstrated a fundamental weakness in applying it - and you certainly don’t seem to be improving in that regard.
Again… no I didn’t. As I’ve tried to explain to you before… science is not religion. Why would religion require trial and error?
This you?
I could have sworn that was you…
Oh? And how certain are you that such a child would not merely invent one? It’s very easy to check - if what you say is true, anthropology books will be full of examples of such.
Or perhaps you think anthropology is beneath a “technically-minded person” such as yourself?
That’s it? That’s what people have been doing for thousands of years? You sound neither certain nor knowledgable about the reasons - are you sure these vague hypotheses of yours has any weight?
No, you have pretended I said Science hates the unknown and treats it like an enemy, which is of course a strawman.
Not believing in fairy tales is scientific. Applying the scientific method to better understand the world is scientific. Materialism, over idealism, is scientific. Atheism is in line with all of these, it is the lack of a belief in unproven hypothesis until proven, whereas Religion is in conflict with this.
Fairy tales are great stories often time, just like religion, but treating them as reality without basis is anti-science.
I wasn’t being elitist when I said my family isn’t technically minded, I was pointing out that they have not studied science nor have they practically applied the scientific method. That’s like saying trusting climate scientists over climate change deniers is elitist. Learning and education is the foundation of which new knowledge can be found.
If a child invents a god, as you say, why would you assume it to be fact? Children also make imaginary friends, and lose them over time. This does not make these imaginary friends material reality.
More strawman bullshit claiming I think myself above anthropology, you can only cling to strawman because you have no logical footing. I never even claimed I myself was technically minded, why do you assume I believe myself to be the arbiter of the scientific method? Because you seek to slander.
Yes. That is indeed what people have been doing for thousands of years, and is why religion falls out of favor and fervor over time, as we learn more about the world.
You clearly only wish to lie and slander, and have no arguments, at all, outside of such, so you can kindly stop bothering.