Lest it be mistaken that I believe atheism is in fact a religion let me be clear: I don’t believe it is. But I do believe a good number of Atheists behave religiously about their atheism. They are usually the ones found on the internet making sure everyone knows what they don’t believe. These Atheists evangelize their atheism and offer apologetic arguments for things they don’t believe as odd as it sounds. They certainly don’t help things when they hire Chaplains and attend weekly meetings together.
(SFGate) — Chaplain John Figdor has a divinity degree from Harvard. He counsels those in need and visits the sick. And he works with Stanford students under the Office of Religious Life.
So Figdor is the last guy you’d tag with the “A” word.
But, yes. The chaplain is an atheist.
“People are shocked when I tell them,” Figdor said. “But atheist, agnostic and humanist students suffer the same problems as religious students – deaths or illnesses in the family, questions about the meaning of life, etc. – and would like a sympathetic nontheist to talk to.”
Figdor, 28, is one of a growing number of faith-free chaplains at universities, in the military and in the community who believe that nonbelievers can benefit from just about everything religion offers except God.
[…]
But Figdor’s flock already extends beyond Stanford.
“A lot of people go back to religious organizations when they start having children,” whether or not they believe in God, because religion offers community, Figdor said. “What I really want to do is create a vibrant, humanist community here in Silicon Valley, where people can find babysitters for their kids and young people can meet each other.”
[…]
In humanism, “we emphasize the values of compassion and empathy alongside reason and science,” he said. “Humanism is about using science and technology to solve human problems. But it’s also the belief that we should ask if something will create suffering or ameliorate it.”
Armand Rundquist, 26, a Stanford graduate student in electrical engineering and president of AHA! – the campus group of atheists, humanists and agnostics – said many atheists aren’t interested in having a chaplain.
Then they discovered additional benefits to Figdor’s talents.
“He got us some discount tickets to the atheist film festival in San Francisco,” said Rundquist, adding that “it’s been really great” to have Figdor as part of what he called a new movement at Stanford.
Universities aren’t the only place Atheist Chaplains are sought. Atheists in the military also have the desire to meet with Atheist Chaplains:
(NPR) — Retired Army captain and Iraqi war veteran Jason Torpy says the chaplains employed by the U.S. military can’t relate to people like him. He’s an atheist.
He’s also the president of a group that’s trying to get the armed forces to become more inclusive by hiring atheist chaplains. The Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers wants the military to provide for the estimated 40,000 atheists, agnostics and humanists who serve in U.S. forces.
I won’t hang my hat on the Supreme Court’s ruling that Secular Humanism (which is not a synonym for atheism though most Atheists are Secular Humanists) was in fact a religion in TORCASO v. WATKINS, 367 U.S. 488, though I could:
We repeat and again reaffirm that neither a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally force a person “to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion.” Neither can constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against non-believers, and neither can aid those religions based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs. (11)
[…]
(Footnote 11) — Among religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God are Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism and others.
I just find it humorous how many Atheists act religiously about their atheism: Weekly meetings (church services?), evangelism (discussing atheism with others), distributing tracts (billboards and bus adverts i.e., “Don’t believe in God? You’re not alone” and “Don’t believe the myth” during the Christmas season), engage in apologetics (arguing for there being no gods and against theism),and identify themselves with unique symbols specific to the things they don’t believe (variants of the letter “A”). I could go on, and I’m sure more examples will surface in the comments to this post. I just thought the irony of it all was great. Apparently there are Atheists in foxholes, they just need Chaplains.
Sifting Reality 
The majority of atheists require none of the services etc you mention above. And there is no irony John, you are just seeing a percentage (15-18%) of the population from different backgrounds come out of the closet simultaneously. We understand how you will need to spin it into humor/irony for the sake of self justification though. You guys get scared during times like this. And none of the atheists I spent time with in the military needed a chaplain, humanist or not. They needed anti-psychotics and new artificial limbs and a fair dose of psych counseling.
What I find ironic is that you spend so much time zealously arguing your positions to non believers? Your tactics certainly don’t match those of the humble missionary types attempting to do gods work. They match those of an arrogant in your face militant christian.
Nash
I don’t get bent out of shape when atheists decloset themselves. The increase in the number of atheists has no bearing as to whether Christianity is true. And while you may not need those services, apparently many do. And more apparently “logic and reason” isn’t enough to satisfy.
Realizing the likelihood of being ridiculed, ostracized and discriminated against by friends, family, coworkers and most of society, there seems to be a need for support groups that encourage non-believers to feel comfortable with their position and to reassure them that they’re not alone.
People like to surround themselves with like-minded people.
If you adopted a new belief system, or never really felt connected with the belief system you’ve been surrounded by, you would probably seek out those like-minded people yourself. It sounds like many contributors here have done it themselves.
Z
Isn’t logic and reason enough?
To lead a satisfying life. It seems you are saying there’s a spiritual void (which is the purpose of chaplains) that mere logic and reason can’t satiate
The SCOTUS has previously declared that secular humanism is a religion. Most atheist I have read from or talked to are ardent adherents of secular humanism.
John, I love the graphic. Is that real? Or a doctored up photo?
Like you, I find it rather funny that many atheists (on this website) claim that belief in God is equivalent with belief in Santa, leprechauns, and unicorns. Yet they seem compelled to spend so much time and energy arguing against something that supposedly has no evidencial or logical basis. If it is so self-evident that the evidence for God is equivalent to the evidence for Santa, then why spend so much time arguing against it? Such a flimsy belief system would collapse under its own lies very quickly. The very fact that there is such a passionate and intellectually rigorous debate assures me that the evidence for God is far from lacking. We see no such debates (and never even HAD such debates) over leprechauns, unicorns, Santa, etc.
Tumeyn
I think it is authentic. There is an atheist church in england which I think this came from, but I’m not 100%
Last year, during our city’s Pride weekend, the local square had a bunch of vendor tends and displays. Next to the sex toy vendor, STD information tent and the NDP tent was an atheist tent, where several people were handing out tracts and a sign read “ask an atheist”.
Funniest. Thing. Ever.
Isn’t logic and reason enough for what?
Life is full of hardships and some folks are well suited to help people through those hardships. Reason through it all you want, the loss of a loved one, for example, is seldom easy. Mourning is evident in nature, but it still doesn’t support the argument for a deity.
I guess its a good thing I’m not arguing for God then, huh. Why don’t atheists reason their grief away?
There’s really no need to be so sarcastic, John, it doesn’t promote a fruitful discussion.
There wasn’t a single drop of sarcasm in that response.
Because atheism and its kissing cousin secular humanism are both religions, you can clearly see the concept of government neutrality towards religion is a myth. Case law based on government neutrality is flawed as it favors non-theistic religions like atheism, scientism, naturalism, evolution, secular humanism, etc.
Referenced from Wikipedia, religion is an organized collection of belief systems, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to spirituality. Since spirituality plays absolutely no role in science and evolution, your opinion that they are religions are clearly mistaken.
There you have it – Wikipedia! And we all know the Wikipedia it the most reliable source of information on the internet. So when SCOTUS stated that secular humanism is a religion, they were absolutely wrong.
Of course the dictionary has several entries about religion, many referencing God or other person of worship (atheists and humanists worship themselves). The Webster’s unabridged dictionary has as one definition:
any object of conscientious regard and pursuit…”[it] was a religion to him”
It also has a definition as follows:
any specific system of belief, worship, conduct, etc., often involving a code of ethics and a philosophy
Notice there is no mention of spirituality.
Z, are you saying that atheism makes no claims that relate to spirituality? That’s funny because you and I agree an almost everything about science and evolution. But my views on spirituality are not really accepted within atheist circles. Atheism has nothing to do with science and evolution. It has everything to do with a spiritual claim.
I claim that the spiritual realm is objectively real. You claim that my spiritual realm has as much merit as the Easter Bunny and unicorns. And you are telling me that atheism makes no claim about spirituality??
You fail to see it, but you have a BELIEF system. It’s called “scientism”. It claims that if you can’t measure or observe something by a scientific method, then it isn’t true. (or isn’t worth believing) The problem is that this very assertion is itself unprovable. You have a faith. It’s a faith in science. But you fail to see that the philosophical basis for this faith is actually quite weak.
You are correct. Atheism has nothing to do with science and evolution.
My view is that your claim of a spiritual realm is founded on nothing more than your feelings.
You are merely trying to shift your burden of proof by saying that I must assert and prove that your beliefs are not true.
I do have faith in the scientific method to help understand the world in which we live. Since we cannot use this method to prove or disprove your feeling, then no conclusion can be made, but it’s still not on me to disprove you.
Z
No one is shifting the burden. No one says it is your job to prove our view wrong. What we do say is it is your job to prove your view right, which is the opposite of our view. What we do say is that you don’t get to assert our view is wrong without supplying justification.
We’ve been through this before, John, and you still don’t seem to understand.
The opposite of “A” is not “B”
The opposite of “A” is “NOT A”
What I am asserting is not an opposite view that needs justification.
What I am asserting is that there is no justification for your assertion.
*yawn*
Ok great. Theres no justification for my view. Fine. Your view is God doesnt exist, defend your view.
Oh, and the problem with your rhetorical games is I can play them too. I’m not asserting anything either. I just think your view (that God doesn’t exist) lacks justification.
Ta da!
Hi, I’m John and I’m going to tell you what your view is and require that you defend it.
*sigh*
Z
Am I wrong? You do believe God exists?
Z,
You made a positive assertion. You wrote: “I do have faith in the scientific method to help understand the world in which we live. Since we cannot use this method to prove or disprove your feeling, then no conclusion can be made.”
What makes you say that “no conclusion can be made”? You are making an assertion that the scientific method is the ONLY method by which we can evaluate a truth claim. Can you please prove this assertion to me? I don’t buy it. I think there are lots of things we know to be true that cannot be proven scientifically. This is philosophy 101.
I realize you would love for me to commit to an answer so you can simply divert the conversation to have me defend my position, but as I’ve said before, it’s not about what I believe. It’s about what you believe and incessantly assert with never a need to justify.
I stand by my statement that there is no justification for your belief in a god.
Please feel free to present any new justification whenever you’re ready.
I stand by my statement that science is not the only way to know reality. You are making a positive belief claim that you refuse to back up. At least I have *attempted* to defend my position in the past. As far as I know, you don’t even think that you need to defend your absolute faith in science. It’s a sad state of affairs when you think you can shove your philosophy down other people’s throats by brute assertion. I would have hoped that you see the inconsistency of this.
My faith in God needs justification. Your faith in science needs justification.
This is why conversations with theists can be so difficult, dear readers.
Instead of trying to actually defend their beliefs, diversion tactics are engaged.
“Ha! You made a positive assertion! Let’s run down that road instead of discussing why you don’t accept what I present to support my claim.”
That’s what I hear, anyway…
If you don’t have faith in science, dear Tumeyn, then quit your scientific job and disassociate your life from anything developed with our use of scientific methodology.
I fail to see that pointing out the inconsistencies of religious thinking as “shoving a philosophy down other people’s throats”.
I didn’t say that I don’t have faith in science. What I said is that I don’t have enough faith in science to believe that it tells me everything that is worth knowing about. There are loads of things that the scientific method simply can’t tell us about. (morality, beauty, logic, free-will, and history, for starters)
Now, don’t accuse me of providing no evidence for my beliefs. Time and time again I have. The problem is that you refuse to admit what I say as “evidence” because it doesn’t fall into the category of scientific evidence. I will copy and paste two posts from below.
I realize that you don’t agree with the posts, but you CANNOT accuse me of not supplying evidence or arguements.
Time and time again I have. You, on the other hand, have not supplied ANY evidence that the scientific method is the only way by which we can know reality. In fact, this belief is self-evidently FALSE. Will you agree? Put up or shut up. You are busy trying to shoot down other people’s opinions without offering any defense of your own! Can’t you see the arrogance and hypocrisy of this?
———————————–
The general arguements that convince me that there is more to life than this physical universe of atoms:
1) The fine-tuning argument that I laid out yesterday (see below)
2) The existence of free will (there is something “other” than natural laws)
3) The religious experience of myself and others (mysticism)
4) The cosmological argument (the “something from nothing” problem)
5) The moral argument (objective morality requires a supernatural explanation)
6) The origin of the New Testament accounts of Jesus (there is strong support for some of his miracle claims)
7) Our sense of beauty, love, and altruism (makes no sense in naturalism)
8) The origin of information – particularly the molecular machinery governing DNA replication and protein synthesis. (information does not come from non-information)
Alone, any of these points could be dismissed. But together, they all seem to point in the same direction. This universe is not self-contained. There is something “other” or “beyond”. You seem to dislike dealing with multiple evidences simultaneously. But we have to do that in court cases all the time. There is rarely a single piece of knock-down evidence. Cases are cumulative, based on the preponderance of the evidence.
————-
Rather, the fine tuning argument is that life *IN ANY FORM WHAT-SO-EVER* would not be able to exist if the physical constants of the universe were not tuned to an extraordinary degree. (ie the mud puddle wouldn’t exist) I’ll give you a few examples. Please check my facts. These are widely known. Note that these are universal constants – they apply to the entire universe (not just to Earth). These are the factors that controlled the outcome of the early stages of the Big Bang.
1) Strong nuclear force: (the force that holds protons and neutrons together) A decrease in this force by 5% would result in a universe of only hydrogen. A decrease of 1% would not allow for carbon to exist. A 1% increase in the force would have resulted in all carbon of the universe burning to oxygen in stars. An increase by 2% would prevent even hydrogen from forming.
2) Ratio of the electromagnetic force to the gravitational force: This is an important ratio. If it decreases by about 1 part in 10^40, only red dwarf stars would form. An increase by 1 part in 10^40, only blue giants would form. The problem is that BOTH sorts of stars are needed in our universe. The heavier elements are only formed in the blue giant stars. But smaller stars, like our sun, are needed in order to have any chance for planets that allow life.
3) Ground state energy of carbon, oxygen, helium, and beryllium. The ground state energies of these 4 elements MUST all be within 4% of each other in order for significant amounts of carbon and oxygen to form. The odds of all four of these being within 4% are ~1 in 100,000. Fred Hoyle, the man who discovered this uncannily odd coincidence, was an outspoken atheist. But about this discovery, he wrote: “Would you not say to yourself, ‘Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.’” He became a sort of deist after this discovery.
4) The force of gravity. If the force of gravity were different by about 1 part in 10^21, no life would exist. If it were weaker, stars would not get sufficiently dense to allow for fusion. (ie no heavy elements) If it were stronger, fusion would take place so rapidly that stars would have a lifetime of only around 1 year. (never allowing for the timeframe for any sort of evolution)
5) The rate of expansion in the initial Big Bang: if it were slower (by about 1 part in 10^55), the universe would have collapsed back onto itself. If it were larger (by about 1 part in 10^55) would have been so dispersed that the universe would simply be a blanket of hydrogen.
I could go on. I haven’t mentioned the properties of water. The weak nuclear force. The electromagnetic constant. The speed of light. And on and on and on. I’m going to reiterate. IF THESE CONSTANTS WERE DIFFERENT, NO LIFE WOULD FORM. PERIOD. NO CHANCE. NADA. I haven’t even brought up the concept of the information content of DNA. Do you know that there are about 10x more “letters” in the SIMPLEST bacterial genome (Mycoplasma genitalium) than there are letters in any of Shakespere’s plays? This is the simplest life form we know!
Now, I remember watching a World War II movie a while back. A priest was to be executed by the Nazis. They put him in front of a firing squad. They fired. No bullet hit him. The captain ordered them to fire again. No bullet hit him. Now, at this point the priest might think “wow, I’m lucky!”. But is that really a rational response? There was a reason that the soldiers all missed the target. They valued his life. You can throw your arms up and say “I’m here, I don’t know why I’m here, but that’s Ok.” I think that is foolishness. You should ask yourself WHY you are here. Modern science clearly shows that it wasn’t by accident.
Tumeyn
Go easy. Z has said in the pas that because he is a skeptic he is fully intellectually justified in dismissing any argument or evidence until he is personally convinced of it and has no responsibility to offer reasons why he rejects the argument or evidence. He has said this is his intellectual right as a skeptic.
Nathan,
Time and time and time again you present subjective or anecdotal evidence to support your beliefs. Please don’t be upset when I simply call them insufficient to support them.
Let’s spell out your arguments:
1. Fine-tuning argument – http://phrenicphilosophy.blogspot.com/2009/07/refuting-fine-tuning-cosmological.html
2. Free-will argument – subjective, http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Free_will
3. Mysticism – subjective and extremely varied among people.
4. Cosmological argument – http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Cosmological_argument
5. Moral argument – subjective and inconsistent.
6. New Testament – Biblical texts are demonstrably unreliable.
7. Sense of beauty et al. – subjective.
8. Origin of information – pure speculation. Science merely explains the mechanisms.
Finally, you constantly insist that all these arguments together make a cumulative case to support your claim. Of course they do if you are influenced by confirmation bias.
As for trying to postulate the non-existence of anything if any of the universe’s known constants were different, please explain HOW YOU WOULD HAVE KNOWLEDGE OF THAT.
I’m sorry if science doesn’t provide you with the answer to “why?”, but it doesn’t “clearly show us that it wasn’t by accident”.
You must feel that your life has a definite purpose.
What do you think that is?
(Hey, John – feel free to give this a go as well, if you don’t mind)
Z
Why does Iron Chariots hold any authority on these arguments. Their explanations are lacking and aren’t justified.
Z, you write: “As for trying to postulate the non-existence of anything if any of the universe’s known constants were different, please explain HOW YOU WOULD HAVE KNOWLEDGE OF THAT.”
Have you researched this at all? The facts I quoted are widely acknowledged by all the major atheist apologists out there. (along with people such as Steven Hawking, Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, and on and on and on)
They are widely published in all the major scientific journals. However, feel free to bash science that doesn’t support your viewpoint. Just please don’t call yourself objective.
Z, by the way: Very nice job knocking down my argument. (although you only appeal to experts, you don’t actually provide any arguments yourself)
None-the-less, my argument is WAY better than anything you have presented to defend your belief that the scientific method is the only way to understand reality. I’m still waiting for ANY sort of defense of your worldview. It’s easy to take pot-shots at someone else’s beliefs. It’s much harder to formulate a meaningful worldview. The fact that you don’t even bother defending your worldview is a tacit admission that you have great difficulty even understanding why you have the beliefs that you hold.
@John
You can quibble about using that specific website as a source. It doesn’t change the subjectivity of the argument.
Do you care to share with us your perspective on the meaning of life?
@Tumeyn
As you may well know, there is much speculation within the subject of theoretical physics and I am certainly not qualified to argue one way or the other about the specifics of those hypotheticals. You seem to cherry-pick the hypotheticals that support your belief.
It’s a shame you seem to have missed the entire point of my reply.
Z, I also notice that you dismiss 4 of my 8 lines of evidence because they are “subjective”. But remember: All witness testimony is subjective (by definition). And yet we use subjective evidence in order to determine objective reality ALL THE TIME.
You seem to think that if something is subjective then you can simply disregard it with the wave of your hand. But in doing so we would end up throwing out almost everything we know about history and most of the evidence used in courtrooms today.
You’ll need to dig a little deeper to rattle the arguements above. But I think you easily dismiss them because of confirmation bias. (the only reality you SEE is the physical world – so the only evidence you are willing to admit is evidence that supports your hypothesis!)
@Tumeyn
Thanks, I often defer to the experts who say things more succinctly than I can.
The rest of it I read as “Well, you keep attacking the things I feel to be true. What am I supposed to believe in? At least I believe it! I don’t see you believing in anything more than science can explain. Well, science can’t explain everything!”
That’s right, science can’t explain everything, but we should avoid filling in the rest with things you say you know with such certainty.
Ahh yes, witness testimony – how often has that turned out totally wrong?
“That’s right, science can’t explain everything, but we should avoid filling in the rest with things you say you know with such certainty.”
Please defend this. I disagree. You make this by brute assertion as if I should agree with you. I don’t. There are lots of things that you and I believe in that cannot be proven by science.
“Ahh yes, witness testimony – how often has that turned out totally wrong?”
Often. But how often has it been shown RIGHT? EVEN MORE OFTEN. I’m not asserting that I can have absolute certainty of my Christian faith. I am asserting that it is reasonable and coherent. I also assert that it is consistent with science. (not PROVEN by science – but consistent with science)
Once again, I see no defense of your worldview. Stand up and be a man. If you think that science is the only way to know reality, then step up and say so and defend it. Stop pretending that you have no original thoughts of your own. I’ve argued with you enough to know that you are more intelligent than that. Pot shots are for cowards. I’ve presented time and again an arguement for theism. How about you try and articulate an coherent argeument for naturalism?
So if you can’t explain it, you just make something up? Whatever sounds good to you? I guess if you say something you could not possibly know to be true with such certainty, it’s got to be true.
The notion of reincarnation, for example – what does science say? Well, there’s no evidence to support that belief that reincarnation occurs, yet there are those so certain about it.
The afterlife? Heaven? Hell? Souls? Well, science says there’s no evidence to support belief in any of those either, yet there are those who are so certain about that as well.
I can see why so many of you believers get so upset when challenged. There seems to be plenty of special pleading involved. There also seems to be some lashing out when your replies get analyzed.
Jumping to the conclusion that something is false just because science doesn’t or can’t weigh in on it is quite the jump. At the least you should remain agnostic. But science only deals with the physical world and cannot say anything about the non physical.
Again, John, you STILL can’t seem to understand that “no evidence to support the belief” is not equal to “that belief is false”.
And get you believe the statement: God exists, is false because there’s no evidence
you are correct
So its OK for you to make that leap, just no one else. You really think you’re privileged don’t you.
What leap is that?
I don’t think atheism is a religion, but I think evolution and science in general tends to be.
I’m still waiting for a coherent argument for naturalism. You state “The afterlife? Heaven? Hell? Souls? Well, science says there’s no evidence to support belief in any of those either, yet there are those who are so certain about that as well.”
So science is silent about these issues. So what? Is science really the only way to know anything about reality? Did you gain an appreciation of logic and reason through science? Do people evaluate aesthetic, emotional, and mystical experiences with scientific tools? Do I build relationships using the scientific method? Does the scientific method help me to be creative? Does it have ANYTHING to say about the nature of free-will and consciousness? Science BY DEFINITION cannot say anything about purpose or meaning.
The scientific method is great for some aspects of reality. But the nature of our existence is just not a scientific question. You are trying to cram a square peg into a round hole and then you just say “well, there are some things I don’t understand and I’m ok with that.” Fine. But perhaps you should look at some new tools. You might be surprised at what you find.
You wish to get a coherent argument? There is good reason to believe that the laws of nature operate the universe and nothing has been shown to exist beyond the natural universe.
You are free to believe in things you cannot prove to exist if you wish. You’re not alone.
Hindus believe in reincarnation. Scientologists believe in thetans. Mormons believe in magical underwear. The list goes on.
As for reason, logic, aesthetics, emotions, creativity, relationships and even free-will, they are natural and not unique to humans. We’ve actually used science to determine those present in the animal kingdom.
But rather going off on those tangents, I would genuinely like to ask you, John, Terrance and anyone else reading this – you must feel that your life has a definite purpose. What do you think that is?
Z
Its not that nothing exists to show anything exists beyond the natural universe, you reject even the idea of nonphysical existence by virtue of your working definitions. You dismiss any evidence n favor of the nonphysical because it violates naturalism then claim there’s no evidence.
Typical.
Z
writes: “There is good reason to believe that the laws of nature operate the universe and nothing has been shown to exist beyond the natural universe.”
THIS is your coherent argument? This, once again, is a brute assertion and not even an argument at all! I’m tired of answering your questions and you refusing to answer mine. If you make an attempt to frame an argument for naturalism (that science is the only way to know reality) then I’ll take a stab at your question.
I’ve taken the time again and again to frame for you why I believe what I do. This one sentence is the first time I’ve seen you even attempt to defend your belief in naturalism/scientism. If you have good reasons for your beliefs, then come out and state them. I’m beginning to think that you lack any solid rational for your beliefs. You just enjoy tearing down other people’s arguments. It’s easy to be an armchair quarterback. Get some skin in the game and come up with a coherent and defendable worldview.
John, you seem to be stuck in an endless loop.
Please present any evidence to support the claim that a nonphysical realm exists.
I am certainly willing to entertain the hypothesis and not “reject it out of hand”, but I will not accept it as a presupposition.
Again…
But rather going off on those tangents, I would genuinely like to ask you, John, Terrance and anyone else reading this – you must feel that your life has a definite purpose. What do you think that is?
It’s a shame you’re getting so upset with trying to defend a position that is showing to be untenable. Instead, you insist on trying to attack a position you feel I don’t define well enough.
For years now I have tried to discuss with people their beliefs and find out why they believe them.
What I have found, not surprisingly, is that people don’t really have good reasons to believe in them. Just feelings and presuppositions, and that’s good enough for them.
The problem with feelings and presuppositions is that they are not consistent from person to person and culture to culture. I guess it’s all up to one’s interpretation and that becomes very problematic, as we have clearly seen throughout history.
I’d really like to discover what all the readers here think is the purpose of their life is, but…
Oh well, until next time.
“What I have found, not surprisingly, is that people don’t really have good reasons to believe in them. Just feelings and presuppositions, and that’s good enough for them.”
Yes, and I would lump your beliefs in there as well. You have a gut feeling that science is the only way to know reality. You don’t have any well thought-out reasons for this assumption. (at least you haven’t yet articulated one)
zqtx
“Please present any evidence to support the claim that a nonphysical realm exists.”
The evidence of mental realm existance.
If you say it’s physical, then I would ask you for the physical description of “physicism is true” idea.
My purpose in life? To love, honor and serve God. Not doing a good job of it, but that’s my purpose in life. What other purpose could there be that matters? And how would it matter?