Thread: Atheists Discrimination

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

Everything imaginable is real to some degree. I won't say objectively, because I have no way of knowing if objective reality exists at all.

Is it really that hard to believe that what you imagine is real? Ideas have very real effects on the world. Look at the idea of God, for instance. (don't get bored sandform, I know we've already been around this one before) Even taken from a materialist perspective, you cannot deny that the idea of God has been the single most profound influence on the development of human kind. Billions of lives have been dedicated to this idea; countless advances is science, philosophy, literature, art, architecture, etc. etc. have all had the idea of god as their primary motivation.

Captain Howdy is real, but to what extent is he real? The answer to that is not very much. He is real for your friend, for sure. He is in some way real for you, because you have built a concept of what Captain Howdy is in your mind based on what your friend has told you. Unfortunately, Captain Howdy doesn't have much of an effect on the world because no one else knows about him (except for us in this thread, now) let alone believes in his reality.

You think you're god? Great. Convince the rest of us, and you will be.

Yes.

But, he means an acutal, physical manifestation of the idea, not the existence of the idea itself.

Originally Posted by Howie

But don't you agree that any one who whole-heartedly believes in THEIR own perception of "the god", feels the same way you do?

Yes, I can see how that would seem like the obvious conclussion, but there seems to me to be a unique kind of personality per god that has been coined, so to speak. They have some quality that makes them quantifiable, or other characteristics that contradict their being altogether. My wording of "THE God" was probably just a bad way of trying to get a description across. But yes, I agree that typically, most people would feel that way.

Originally Posted by A Roxxor

Yes.

But, he means an acutal, physical manifestation of the idea, not the existence of the idea itself.

Physical manifestation of what? God? The world is the physical manifestation of god. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure this doesn't convince you.

Have you never seen an idea made physical? I have; look



An idea (of mine) manifest in physical form.

Damn, I'm like; the motivation for the derailment of this thread.

Back on topic: The only good atheist is an unmanifest atheist.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

Have you never seen an idea made physical? I have; look



An idea (of mine) manifest in physical form.

Uh... Ok?

I never said it was impossible, I was just pointing out that some ideas are ideas, not perceptions of a reality, and vice versa.

How many things have never been percieved in the universe? A good deal, I'd say.

Originally Posted by invader_tech

It would be relative at least until I took the time to describe it to everyone. And it's not based entirely on my own 'personal conjecture'. That's why I ask people why they do or do not believe in whatever god or no god or what have you - for the sake of developing my own truth. I'm never closed to feedback.

That is good. So.. what do you think of my reasoning then? I used it to develop my own truths. You?

And I never claimed my idea was true, as it cannot be proven. But I'm not the one bashing your beliefs, or trying to assert my beliefs onto you. And I don't have to prove anything, as again, i'm not attempting to force my ideas down your throat. I have my own beliefs, and I have no problem that you have your own. When I ask you why you think the way you do, it's not because I believe you're responsible for explaining it to me, but so that I can gain some insight as well.

The point is that the onus if on you to prove your beliefs when discussing it with others. Of course, you can believe anything you want. However, there is no reason for anyone else to ever be inclined to agree with you based on subjective reasoning.

Either way, I think that is all there is to it. My point is simply that Theists will always be on the defensive because it's ideal is to explain everything with God (or which monotheistic God, etc.) whereas Atheists/Humanists/non-religious/etc. do not make any presumptions about the worlds origins (or shouldn't) and have nothing to defend other than "why not?".

I'll make my own thread in due time as to why I think the way I do, if you would please you that much.

It would!

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

Everything imaginable is real to some degree. I won't say objectively, because I have no way of knowing if objective reality exists at all.

Ohh ok... on that premise then, we cannot really discuss anything.

So.. how's life?

Is it really that hard to believe that what you imagine is real? Ideas have very real effects on the world. Look at the idea of God, for instance. (don't get bored sandform, I know we've already been around this one before) Even taken from a materialist perspective, you cannot deny that the idea of God has been the single most profound influence on the development of human kind. Billions of lives have been dedicated to this idea; countless advances is science, philosophy, literature, art, architecture, etc. etc. have all had the idea of god as their primary motivation.

I won't deny what God has offered the world.

No matter how hard you imagine your limb regrowing, will it happen? Ideas do affect the world, in a very chaotic way, but that does not mean they are real. I think we probably agree on the reasons why. You say you are not sure of reality being real, how can you say this about the imagination creating reality..? Life is not a lucid dream.

Captain Howdy is real, but to what extent is he real? The answer to that is not very much. He is real for your friend, for sure. He is in some way real for you, because you have built a concept of what Captain Howdy is in your mind based on what your friend has told you. Unfortunately, Captain Howdy doesn't have much of an effect on the world because no one else knows about him (except for us in this thread, now) let alone believes in his reality.

If I alone believe I am Napolean, everyone will think me insane. But if everyone believes me to be Napolean, now I am. Does that mean I am THE Napolean?

The point of the teapot is also applicable here. You cannot disprove the teapot, but you certainly don't believe in it. Thus, you are a teapot atheist. But, if everyone believed in it, had rituals, ceremonies, etc. does that make it anymore real?

You think you're god? Great. Convince the rest of us, and you will be.

Come now - that is not what constitutes reality. No matter how many people believe that I am God, I will never be able to create the Universe.

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Originally Posted by A Roxxor

Uh... Ok?

I never said it was impossible, I was just pointing out that some ideas are ideas, not perceptions of a reality, and vice versa.

How many things have never been percieved in the universe? A good deal, I'd say.

What's your definition of perception? If you want to go to extreme basics, an act of perception is merely being affected by something else. Atoms "perceive" other atoms while they float around in space and effect each other's trajectories with their gravitational forces. If something truly doesn't have an effect on anything else, it doesn't exist.

Also, I'm not claiming that ideas are perceptions of pre-existing reality. I don't think that the smiling dood a couple posts up exists on some other world and I saw him with my mind's eye in order to create him. Ideas create physical reality, and vice versa. They are different aspects of the same thing.

Originally Posted by O'nus

I won't deny what God has offered the world.

No matter how hard you imagine your limb regrowing, will it happen? Ideas do affect the world, in a very chaotic way, but that does not mean they are real. I think we probably agree on the reasons why. You say you are not sure of reality being real, how can you say this about the imagination creating reality..? Life is not a lucid dream.

If I can imagine it so hard that I actually believe it and other people do too, then yes it probably will. At least someone out there is believing hard enough to make it a reality.

Originally Posted by O'nus

If I alone believe I am Napolean, everyone will think me insane. But if everyone believes me to be Napolean, now I am. Does that mean I am THE Napolean?

I don't know, do you believe you are THE Napoleon? Do the others?

Originally Posted by O'nus

Come now - that is not what constitutes reality. No matter how many people believe that I am God, I will never be able to create the Universe.

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Find a way to prove that this isn't a baseless and completely unsupported conjecture, and we'll talk.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

What's your definition of perception? If you want to go to extreme basics, an act of perception is merely being affected by something else. Atoms "perceive" other atoms while they float around in space and effect each other's trajectories with their gravitational forces. If something truly doesn't have an effect on anything else, it doesn't exist.

Also, I'm not claiming that ideas are perceptions of pre-existing reality. I don't think that the smiling dood a couple posts up exists on some other world and I saw him with my mind's eye in order to create him. Ideas create physical reality, and vice versa. They are different aspects of the same thing.

Conscious perception. The ability to actively think about thinking about something.

I never said ideas don't exist. They are very real and have their own effects on reality.

The last part, I agree with. O'nus was talking about idea=reality. As in, when you think about somehing, your thought 'creates' a physical reality directly.

Originally Posted by A Roxxor

Conscious perception. The ability to actively think about thinking about something.

I never said ideas don't exist. They are very real and have their own effects on reality.

The last part, I agree with. O'nus was talking about idea=reality. As in, when you think about somehing, your thought 'creates' a physical reality directly.

You don't believe in god because you see the idea to be a claim for magic which you don't believe in. You ask for proof, but when you get it you don't accept it because it isn't magic. Does this kind of reasoning really make sense to you? "I don't believe in magic, but the only evidence I will accept is magical evidence." Huh?

Please, let me know if I have misunderstood you. I don't want to be accused of using a strawman argument and I honestly don't want to believe that you are that dense.

Originally Posted by O'nus

That is good. So.. what do you think of my reasoning then? I used it to develop my own truths. You?

I like your reasoning, it's the entire reason I visit your threads (not for the juicy fights that always ensue, I can assure you). It's because of your reasoning that I had to give more thought to the concept of time in my own theories.. Time is a tricky bastard, by the way. But for myself, I try to base a great deal of my conclusions on objective reality, things that can be perceived by and experienced by other people. Most of my argument is based on the natural laws of this particular universe, and the nature of laws in general.

Originally Posted by O'nus

The point is that the onus if on you to prove your beliefs when discussing it with others. Of course, you can believe anything you want. However, there is no reason for anyone else to ever be inclined to agree with you based on subjective reasoning.

Absolutely, and I understand that. I try to stay away from subjective reasoning as much as possible, but we'll how that works out when I actually get around to making my thread. It's the weekend. I expect to have it together before it ends.

When I imagine a painting, it is not just the simple act of imaging it that brings it to existence. The arrangement of colors and paper willed by my hand is what brings it to be.

Simply imagining something does not make it reality.

invader_tech:
are you under the impression that I believe in God...?

~

Originally Posted by O'nus

When I imagine a painting, it is not just the simple act of imaging it that brings it to existence. The arrangement of colors and paper willed by my hand is what brings it to be.

Simply imagining something does not make it reality.

~

What guides your hand? You must use your hand to move a paint brush and spread pigments because thats how you believe it will be possible to make your idea physically real.

Simply imagining something does make it real. It makes it a real imagination.

Will someone please tell me the difference between ideas and atoms?

p.s. if you answer, don't get bent out of shape if I don't reply for awhile. I'm going to buy cigarettes.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

What guides your hand? You must use your hand to move a paint brush and spread pigments because thats how you believe it will be possible to make your idea physically real.

Oh my. I can imagine endless things and you are saying that, because they "might" be real one day, that makes them real because I imagined them initially?

No matter how hard I stare and imagine at a piece of paper, it is the ink that is making the image - not my imagination.

Simply imagining something does make it real. It makes it a real imagination.

Yeah, that is it - imagination. I can imagine you are a donkey, but it will never happen if all I do (or however many people) is just imagine it.

Will someone please tell me the difference between ideas and atoms?

Let's not go there... lol. That fringes on the mind debate.

~

Originally Posted by O'nus

Oh my. I can imagine endless things and you are saying that, because they "might" be real one day, that makes them real because I imagined them initially?

No matter how hard I stare and imagine at a piece of paper, it is the ink that is making the image - not my imagination.



Yeah, that is it - imagination. I can imagine you are a donkey, but it will never happen if all I do (or however many people) is just imagine it.

Like I told Seis, you are looking for magical evidence while not believing in magic. What sense does that make?

Originally Posted by O'nus

Let's not go there... lol. That fringes on the mind debate.

~

No, I don't think it has anything do with the mind, or little enough that I need not say the word mind ever in the conversation.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

You don't believe in god because you see the idea to be a claim for magic which you don't believe in. You ask for proof, but when you get it you don't accept it because it isn't magic. Does this kind of reasoning really make sense to you? "I don't believe in magic, but the only evidence I will accept is magical evidence." Huh?

Please, let me know if I have misunderstood you. I don't want to be accused of using a strawman argument and I honestly don't want to believe that you are that dense.

How did you get that out of that post...?

I don't believe in the mainstream definition of god, or conscious creator.

Obviously if you define god as something that's existence can be demonstrated, then god exists...

But then, you'd have to point out what you are actually talking about. Otherwise, I wouldn't know, so I'd have to go with a general definition.

If your definition included things like omniscience and omnipotence and perfection, and anything hyperimpossible like that, then yeah, those would have to be demonstrated...

You don't seem to get how the crtical analysis process works. It has to be demonstratable.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

Like I told Seis, you are looking for magical evidence while not believing in magic. What sense does that make?

Is objective empirical evidence "magical"....?

No, I don't think it has anything do with the mind, or little enough that I need not say the word mind ever in the conversation.

Ideas take place in the mind. Atoms are in the mind. Atoms facilitate ideas in the brain which affect consciousness, blabhblahblahblbah...

Originally Posted by A Roxxor

You don't seem to get how the crtical analysis process works. It has to be demonstratable.

^

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Originally Posted by O'nus

Is objective empirical evidence "magical"....?

Nope. Do you accept my badass sculpture as evidence of an idea manifest in physical reality?

Originally Posted by O'nus

Ideas take place in the mind. Atoms are in the mind. Atoms facilitate ideas in the brain which affect consciousness, blabhblahblahblbah...

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Hmm... don't see how that elucidates the difference between ideas and atoms. If you were trying to guess at my follow up argument, thats not the direction I intended to take. Also, I don't think ideas necessarily exist in the mind. I was thinking more of the nebulous form of ideas like the idea of politics that exists as in a collection of minds, words on paper, and electrons/magnetized bits of hard drive in computer files etc. etc..

I don't think I get your point.

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Originally Posted by O'nus

invader_tech:
are you under the impression that I believe in God...?
~

Not in the slightest. I think you made that clear to me on these forums a few years ago.
What did I say that gave you that impression though? Do tell.

Originally Posted by invader_tech

Not in the slightest. I think you made that clear to me on these forums a few years ago.
What did I say that gave you that impression though? Do tell.

I'm not sure - I just couldn't quite put my finger on why we were precisely debating..?

~

Originally Posted by Xei

These words don't make sense together.

Haha! It was a joke.

Originally Posted by O'nus

Can you disprove that Zeus is real? How about my friend Captain Howdy?

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Ask Dawkins, he will talk about the flying spaghetti monster!

Lol, Dawkins is hilarious.

According to Dawkins definition, were all atheists in the respect that we don't believe in every theistic theory placed before us. While Zeus was not intended to be an actual deity but a symbol of that society's current understanding of life, overtime misconceptions have blundered up any truth these theistic theories have and most logically thinking people have no choice but to reject them.

However this is what really gets me, certain atheists are bigots against other atheists. If I don't believe in the judeo christian god, I'm an atheist according to Dawkins. But some take it farther, such as O'nus has revealed in some of his posts claiming ideas exist on within our brain's neurons. I'd liketo thank Xaqaria for arguing a perfect response to this argument.

It seems like there's a new type of atheism out there this is quickly becoming its own religion, claiming truth as something stagnant, that the world has already been figured out and it's nothing more than an arbitrary existence where life came to exist through arbitrary means that happen to be absolute perfect conditions to create life. Somehow it's just random that all of our physical laws are just where they need to be to enable the creation and perpetuation of life. As an atheist (according to dawkin's definition) I think this is fucking malarky. I think a lot of the commonalities being formed between atheists is malarky, and that outwright rejection of ideas beyond this dead, arbitrary world model goes against the philosophy of Science.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

According to Dawkins definition, were all atheists in the respect that we don't believe in every theistic theory placed before us. While Zeus was not intended to be an actual deity but a symbol of that society's current understanding of life, overtime misconceptions have blundered up any truth these theistic theories have and most logically thinking people have no choice but to reject them.

If you will consider the actual classical time, they thought of Zeus a hell of a lot more than just a symbol. You can read the scriptures yourself from that time.

However this is what really gets me, certain atheists are bigots against other atheists. If I don't believe in the judeo christian god, I'm an atheist according to Dawkins. But some take it farther, such as O'nus has revealed in some of his posts claiming ideas exist on within our brain's neurons. I'd liketo thank Xaqaria for arguing a perfect response to this argument.

So I'm a bigot Atheist..?

"ideas exist on within our brains neurons"??? Before I respond....

It seems like there's a new type of atheism out there this is quickly becoming its own religion, claiming truth as something stagnant, that the world has already been figured out and it's nothing more than an arbitrary existence

I NEVER SAID THIS.

Wow, I cannot believe how prejudice people are towards Atheists.

where life came to exist through arbitrary means that happen to be absolute perfect conditions to create life.

"Arbitrarily" implies a creator - stop that.

Somehow it's just random that all of our physical laws are just where they need to be to enable the creation and perpetuation of life.

You obviously know nothing of evolution if you are going to say this. Evolution is not something that "randomly" happened. Do we really need to review evolution?

As an atheist (according to dawkin's definition) I think this is fucking malarky. I think a lot of the commonalities being formed between atheists is malarky, and that outwright rejection of ideas beyond this dead, arbitrary world model goes against the philosophy of Science.

Where the hell are there rejections of ideas? Please show me what you are talking about.

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Don't break up my posts. I don't respond to broken up posts because it breaks up ideas. I put everything in one post because it represents one entire idea. If you want to draw quotes to specific lines in order to specifically address them that's fine, but I'm getting really sick of all this separation of ideas that were presented as entire ideas.

And if you want to pretend like you can actually have an open mind in front of ideas outside of you current concept of reality, contrary to practically every post I've seen you make, then that's fine I won't try to put words in your mouth. But I'm going to remember your claim here, and call you on it in future arguments when you thoughtlessly reject ideas because they're outside of atheist principles.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

Don't break up my posts. I don't respond to broken up posts because it breaks up ideas. I put everything in one post because it represents one entire idea. If you want to draw quotes to specific lines in order to specifically address them that's fine, but I'm getting really sick of all this separation of ideas that were presented as entire ideas.

Why not? You were making judgmental, prejudice, stereotypical remarks about Atheism and I commented on the pertinent ones individually. Ought I have left the ignorant claim all together? No, because I know you are not intending it as such.

And if you want to pretend like you can actually have an open mind in front of ideas outside of you current concept of reality, contrary to practically every post I've seen you make, then that's fine I won't try to put words in your mouth. But I'm going to remember your claim here, and call you on it in future arguments when you thoughtlessly reject ideas because they're outside of atheist principles.

Again, this only exposes your prejudice towards me and others alike. I understand and incorporate many beliefs. However, I personally approach knowledge from a strictly empirical paradigm.

I am seriously considering withdrawing form philosophical discussion completely at this time - because of these remarks. I have only learned that I am incapable of expressing my opinions properly or that my ideals are incomplete. In order to rectify this, perhaps I ought to consider meditation and further reading.

I do not "believe" in the spirit. However, I fully acknowledge the vast amounts of knowledge gained in that path.

I would not necessarily call myself an Atheist - it's not proper. I would say a Humanist Existentialist. Is that something people want to hear though..? I suppose so... *Adds to profile*

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