What made you an atheist?

Originally posted by Suzianne
Right, because 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater' is always eminently reasonable.

A lack of credibility is a lack of credibility ~ in the eye of the beholder ~ and that goes for your claim that there is a baby in the bathwater too. I wouldn't expect you to agree - or even empathize - with the reasons why atheists I have known have different beliefs from you.

Originally posted by Suzianne
Right, because 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater' is always eminently reasonable.

The topic of this thread is reasons why people are atheists or become atheists. Do you dispute the reason I offered at the end of the previous page?

Perhaps insights into why atheist friends of yours believe what they do would be more apt.

Originally posted by rwingett
Why panentheist instead of pantheist? The former would seem to lean more heavily on supernaturalism.

Good question. I need some sleep. I'll try to respond tomorrow.

Originally posted by JS357
I am what is in some circles is known as a weak atheist, lacking belief in deity as commonly envisioned in the West, instead of having a belief there is no such thing. (Of course it is up to the theists to define their deities and some of those definitions may entail logical contradiction which would support a belief that they do not exist.) So I do not active ...[text shortened]... e book.

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/homer1a.htm

The forward is by Albert Einstein.

Is the difference between a "weak" and "strong" atheist someone who doesn't believe in the existence of any defined god(s), as opposed to someone who believes that god(s) doesn't exist, period?

Originally posted by C Hess
Is the difference between a "weak" and "strong" atheist someone who doesn't believe in the existence of any defined god(s), as opposed to someone who believes that god(s) doesn't exist, period?

The main difference between a weak and a strong atheist is that a weak atheist tries a little harder not to hurt the feelings of the religious.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
The main difference between a weak and a strong atheist is that a weak atheist tries a little harder not to hurt the feelings of the religious.

Is that a good thing in your opinion?

Originally posted by vistesd
Good question. I need some sleep. I'll try to respond tomorrow.

I am coming to think that if mankind is to save himself from the looming environmental cataclysm that pantheism will have a leading role to play. Science, if left to drift aimlessly about, is invariably the handmaiden of the extractive industries that are driving us to rack and ruin. Science that is increasingly funded by corporate interests is doubly so. A science which gives us fracking, mountaintop removal and industrialized agriculture is leading us pell-mell into perdition. Only by giving science a pantheistic base from which its pursuit springs - a science which views the horrors of our extractive industries as the blasphemies that they are - only then can such a science deliver us from evil.

Originally posted by vistesd
Good question. I need some sleep. I'll try to respond tomorrow.

And, if I understand things correctly (a dubious proposition), panentheism seems to leave the door to supernaturalism permanently open, whereas pantheism at least has a means (whether or not it is ever fully exercised) of shutting it.

Originally posted by vistesd
Fair enough. My "longhand" list was designed to provoke two ideas: (1) That "what it means to be true" (etc.) might differ depending on the context and what exactly you're asking about, and (2) that the question, as well as similar questions, might just not make any sense, depending, again, on the context and the object of the question.

Is the que ...[text shortened]... closer to "Is the law of noncontradiction true?", or "Is Beethoven true?", or one of the others.

"Is the question, "Is the Bible true?" closer to "Is the law of noncontradiction true?", or "Is Beethoven true?", or one of the others."

I have read in a book by John Hospers, I think, that denial or rejection of the laws of logic stultifies human discourse. So a fitter question is, is the law of non-contradiction worth respecting, which becomes, is human discourse worthwhile.

The question can be fitted to the Bible: Is following the Bible's guidance worthwhile. In what sense does it offer guidance? A focus on its accuracy (or inaccuracy) as a historical record, leads to the "Is it true" question, but so does a focus whether it is true as a guide on how to live.

The question of whether it is more like "Is Beethoven true" is tougher for me. I think Beethoven's ninth symphony exalts Humankind and in a sense places us in a great drama. Is exalting humankind justified and worthwhile? Does the Bible exalt us -- place us in a great drama? I think it does. What I see the Bible doing is existentially thrusting us into an all-important drama. "existentially" means this happens to each of us, or not, as an act of will.

My life matters to the extent that I make it matter. I can make the Bible matter to me. It can be true for me, if I so will it.

Or so I am told.

But this step seems not to be happening.

Originally posted by C Hess
If you were once a devout believer, now an atheist, this thread is for you.

I've always been an atheist, so I haven't struggled too much with religious beliefs. I've been curious, looked into it a little, but remain unconvinced. I understand that it couldn't have been just one thing that turned you atheist, but I'm curious if there was one definitive moment when you realised you're no longer a believer.

When I realized the Threat of Eternal Hell was nothing more than mind-control.

Originally posted by rwingett
And, if I understand things correctly (a dubious proposition), panentheism seems to leave the door to supernaturalism permanently open, whereas pantheism at least has a means (whether or not it is ever fully exercised) of shutting it.

My problem is that I have some dissatisfaction with all of the relevant nondualistic terms. In the past I have used nondualism, monism, pantheism and panentheism. Here has been my problem with each—

Nondualism relinquishes (for me) the word theos unnecessarily to the dualists, and is also a term used in other contexts philosophical so as to need explained.

Monism is sometimes synonymous with pantheism, but I have also seen it used to deny the actuality of the many manifestations, rather than as just a denial of ontological separateness. (I recall a discussion of this in an appendix in Reza Shah-Kazemi’s work on Shankara, Meister Eckhart and Ibn Arabi.)

Pantheism is sometimes synonymous with monism, but I have also seen it used as no more than a kind of “set theory” in which theos is just everything added up, without sufficient consideration (in my view) of the principal of “mutual arising” (as the Buddhists call it) and whatever causal force or energy is behind that.

Nevertheless, pantheism is the term I have most recently used—until now. It is the term that Rabbi Zalman Shachter-Shalomi uses, and the term I have most seen applied to the Stoics (though I have also seen monism applied).

Panentheism. Here, I think it gets more complicated. I once read a Greek Orthodox theologian (I forget whom) who distinguished between pan-entheism and panen-theism—I also forget how he distinguished the two, and should probably take some time to explore that.*

I think you’re right that panentheism might be used to leave the door open to the supernatural. That’s not my intention. One Orthodox theologian that I read—I think it was John Zizioulas—claimed (1) that early Christianity had no need for the “supernatural category”, (2) that it was Aquinas who first introduced “supernature”, and (3) that the need arose from the addition of the filioque to the original Nicene Creed in the western church (which was partly responsible for the “great schism” of 1254). I don’t know how accurate those claims are, but it does seem that the theology of St. Gregory of Nyssa, for example, has no supernatural category—and his diastema (gap or space, as between musical notes) is a natural phenomenon, though not one that I fully understand.

I am using panentheism to capture the kind of “Trinitarian” notion of nondualism that I see in Christian theologian Paul Tillich’s formulation of “ground-of-being, power-of-being, and being-itself”—the latter referring to the actuality of the manifestations in apparent “many-ness”. ** But, then again, the Stoics’ view seems trinitarian too (theos as logos-pneuma-phusis).

Panentheism seems to have been less objectionable in Christian circles than pantheism. Whether this is because of the possibility for supernaturalism, or trinitarianism—or just that it’s sufficiently ambiguous—I don’t know.

Again, good point—which forced me to think all this through a bit more. I might change my mind next week. 😉

___________________________________________________

* My bookshelves were somewhat devastated a couple of years ago, and I no longer have the references and resources that I once did.

** A similar concept is found in Kashmiri Shaivism, in which the non-dual whole is nevertheless described in terms of Shiva (ground), Shakti (energy) and Spanda (vibration—the vibratory energy of Shakti manifest in the forms).

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
When I realized the Threat of Eternal Hell was nothing more than mind-control.

OP: I understand that it couldn't have been just one thing that turned you atheist...

Or maybe one thing is enough. 😵

Originally posted by C Hess
OP: I understand that it couldn't have been just one thing that turned you atheist...

Or maybe one thing is enough. 😵

"When" made me think of The Moment. That was the one that tilted the scale the other direction, though things had been accumulating over the years.

Originally posted by C Hess
If you were once a devout believer, now an atheist, this thread is for you.

I've always been an atheist, so I haven't struggled too much with religious beliefs. I've been curious, looked into it a little, but remain unconvinced. I understand that it couldn't have been just one thing that turned you atheist, but I'm curious if there was one definitive moment when you realised you're no longer a believer.

What made me an atheist?

What made me left handed?

Picking up the pen with the left hand was instinctively natural to me, my default setting if you will. More than one teacher attempted to get me to switch to the right, but i was unconvinced by their intervention. Holding the pen in the right hand didn't feel like it belonged there and had a negative effect on my writing.

Birth made me an atheist, or rather my default setting (my natural state) was as a 'godless human being.' Attempts were made to bring God into my existence, but such interventions were unconvincing, unnatural. - So it really wasn't a case of 'what made me an atheist' as 'what didn't make me a Christian' or 'what didn't make me a Muslim.'

God remains absent from my life due to a lack of convincing evidence and a multitude of contradictions..

Originally posted by JS357
"Is the question, "Is the Bible true?" closer to "Is the law of noncontradiction true?", or "Is Beethoven true?", or one of the others."

I have read in a book by John Hospers, I think, that denial or rejection of the laws of logic stultifies human discourse. So a fitter question is, is the law of non-contradiction worth respecting, which becomes, is human d ...[text shortened]... e true for me, if I so will it.

Or so I am told.

But this step seems not to be happening.

. . .denial or rejection of the laws of logic stultifies human discourse.

I think that, if this implies that all meaningful discourse must obey the laws of logic, then this would unnecessarily narrow the range of what kind of discourse can be considered meaningful. Does lyric poetry, for example, need to be mindful of the law of noncontradiction, or modus ponens?

A line from Francois Villon’s famous “Ballade of Contradictories”: “In my own country I am in a far off land.” Taken literally, that makes no sense. That line is both expressive of—and, hopefully, evokes a feeling of—a state of consciousness we might call alienation. Is it somehow less stultifying to simply say, “I feel alienated”?

Another example I can think of, often also poetic, uses contradiction to illustrate what is unknown or ineffable, in ways that, to me, can be more expressive and forceful than just stating it prosaically. (This is a technique often employed in apophatic theology.) Zen koans often also use a similar technique

The question of whether it is more like "Is Beethoven true" is tougher for me.

My initial idea with the “Is Beethoven true?” question was that such a question is meaningless—but that does not diminish the value of Beethoven (similar to expressive/evocative discourse). I was trying (as with beauty and love) to address the aesthetic quality of life.

But you make me rethink that. Because now the question becomes, can the word “true” have more than just an epistemological meaning? And the answer is “Yes”. Example: “The builder was busy truing up the angles of the beams.” Or: “The carpenter is sorting lumber to select only those boards that are true.”

So, thanks for that.

What I see the Bible doing is existentially thrusting us into an all-important drama.

Nice. That is true of a lot of religious literature, as well as poetry—as well as, as you note, music, even without words.

Some people likely find such a drama to be aesthetically enriching to their lives, and some not so much. I don’t think the Biblical texts need to be taken literally for that, but can be metaphorical, allegorical, symbolic, etc. Others do.

The way you relate that to Beethoven is quite lovely. The next time that I say, “I think the Bible should be seen as more akin to Beethoven than to biology”, I will think of what you wrote here.

Thanks for the insightful and thought-provoking response.