Thread: The Myth of Atheism

Originally Posted by Invader

I was pointing out that you're still correlating specific worldviews with atheism and ignoring other worldviews that are also prominent within the atheist community. That is, flying your own beliefs under the banner of atheism. Atheism has absolutely nothing to do with anything besides that lack of God/deities. That's why I keep repeating it. Please stop associating your own beliefs with atheism.

I am an atheist.
I am a proponent of several of those views, as are several others here who are atheists.

Completely accurate to say "atheists are proponents of these views" because we've already established that we're dealing with people here on this forum who hold such views. You're complaining because I'm agreeing with Taosaur's factual observation and somehow getting the idea into your head that I'm associating atheism with them, even when I've given you a definition of atheism and stated that such beliefs are not atheism, and when I've commented on why such terms generally crop up under the term of "atheism".

Don't tell me I'm falsely associating things when I'm not. Can people here not fucking read?!

If we're honest, virtually all debate that takes place under the aegis of "atheism and religion" concerns only Rational Materialism on the one hand and scriptural literalism in Abrahamic faiths on the other, with little relevance to religion or secularity generally. I'm not inclined to see anyone from either side of that debate exert too much influence on society.

Too bad the Abrahamic religions already exert a great deal of influence politically in modern society around the globe. Much of the debates do occur on this simply because it's more pertinent. At best us discussing the merits and limitations of say, materialism, is an interesting philosophical discussion taking place in an ivory tower.

False. Rational Materialists constructing their worldviews to varying degrees around their understanding of scientific findings does not even make their views scientific

I never made that claim. I already mentioned that science is a limited domain. I shouldn't have to point out that as soon as you step outside that, it becomes non-scientific.

Nor does holding a non-Materialist worldview constitute, in any way, a rejection of science, unless some feature of your ontology demands that science should fail to operate on a material plane. You're drawing a false equivalence between merely recognizing material reality and being convinced that physical forms are the sole and base expression of all reality.

I didn't say holding a certain view constitutes a rejection of science, I said that acting in a specific way does.

There's also a difference between claiming there is nothing other than what is physical, and saying "we agree that physical stuff does exist, I'm just unconvinced there's anything further (i.e. the default position)". The latter is the position I actually hold rather than the strict definition of materialism, though that's my fault for not clarifying.