Four Kinds of Atheists.

[Lestat]

That's true, but what were a people of 1000 years ago to have thought of an event which ocurred last Dec 26th?

Bright sunny day, men are out fishing, woman are attending to their children and domestic chores. All of a sudden, out of nowhere the sea rises and swallows entire villages whole! Tens of thousands dead.

They knew nothing of tectonic plates shifting hundreds of miles away beneath the sea. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. No human could have possibly caused this. It seems an almost rational conclusion to believe that this havoc was wrought by an angry god or supreme being. What other logical explanation was there?

I'm pretty convinced it was events such as these, that started the "god concept" in the first place. And I don't blame them. It was not an intelligence issue, but rather a lack of knowledge about the environment in which they lived.

Yes, the intelligent farmer may have figured out the process of fertilization over sacrifice, but there were still many things that were best left explained by a god.

[imported_luckyme]

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Yes, the intelligent farmer may have figured out the process of fertilization over sacrifice, but there were still many things that were best left explained by a god.

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That doesn't explain the success of early godless cultures. Religion is socially based, we're crowd followers mostly.

We evolved a cause-effect viewpoint, as do animals, we think in those terms because 'it works'. Watch a chimpanzee during an approaching thunderstorm. The alpha hears 'something' crashing stuff around, so he runs toward it, threatening the 'shaker of trees'. Loud Clap, and he runs back and 'presents himself' to the obviously approaching Meta-Alpha. And we're off to the races.

Some cultures managed to break loose of the 'Meta-Alpha' mindset sooner than others, but it's such a powerful social tool in many ways that it isn't easy. Zen concepts fit into the discoveries of modern science better than any other approach, it's just a matter of when a culture arrives at accepting the universe as it is, if ever.

My objection your objection, Midge, is that this atheist's view of God is too limited. A true atheist should not IMO just reject one version of God, but all versions as impossible. One can be a theist but still feel that the Christian God is unworthy of worship. He only needs to believe in another kind of god, who doesn't even need have to have a specific definition.

[imported_luckyme]

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1) Those who deep down want there to be a God because they feel the need to answer to someone.

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nor do I think that any type of reasoning whatsoever can lead one towards or away from God.

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Cute.
Seriously, #1 covers all believers if you just cut it off after "...feel the need." without qualifying it. All others are subtypes. You don't 'reason' yourself into faith, it's faith first, reasons to follow.

Comments by theists on their specific 'reasons to believe' usually coincide with the need being filled.

Or towards God. Reason is just a tool.

5: people who are atheists because they were raised that way, not because they came to it based on psychological need or philosophy.

Should their position be taken seriously?

[UATrewqaz]

Heck if you really want it break it down almost everything everybody believes is based on something other than a well though out rational position.

They believe it cause they were taught it growing up, or because they really WANT it to be true, or believe it to be mainstream or believe it to be anti-mainstream, etc.

"Heck if you really want it break it down almost everything everybody believes is based on something other than a well though out rational position."

Most people yes, and I'd agree that they should not be taken seriously. However, I hold out the hope that there are some who's ideas should be taken seriously, or I wouldn't read philosophy or browse this forum.

[RJT]

In the movie <u>Absence of Malice</u>, Paul Newman plays a liquor distributor with a shady past. Sally Field portrays a newspaper reporter covering a murder investigation. In her investigation she comes upon “evidence” that suggests that Newman’s character was involved in the crime. (He was not involved.)

At one point Newman asks Field, “What do you think you know?”

I can’t help but think of this line when I read things like:

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4. Those who look at the things that science has only recently explained. Things that previously seemed so astonishing that a God, as farfetched as the idea is, was a more likely explanation than anything else. And upon looking at those recent explanations come to the conclusion that it is now much more reasonable to expect that still unexplained phenomenon will also eventually be explained by science rather than the God of the bible.

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I am not suggesting the #4 atheist feels that he knows anything. I am wondering, though, why this atheist feels he knows more than he would have known had he lived x number of years ago?

It seems to me that we know only more intricate details of how things work than we did years ago. I do not see ruling out God (or making Him more viable) as more logical today than it was yesteryear. (Certainly, some of the nuances of some beliefs have to be reviewed and either re- interpreted or ruled out.)

The last part of #4 is where I see men of science making their “error”:

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…that it is now much more reasonable to expect that still unexplained phenomenon will also eventually be explained by science rather than the God of the bible.

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Perhaps, things will be “explained by science”. But, I find nothing to justify “rather than …God” should be assumed. The scenario can just as well be explained by science yet still include God. The probability of God is the same today as it was years ago.

So I ask the (can be rhetorical) question: What do you (the #4 atheist) think you know?

RJT