The Post Athiest Manifesto
- Thread starter Idaho
- Start date
Vibrance said:
No. Even the very idea that something like a truth exists relies for its existance purely on human perception. Any such truth, what it is, what is represents, what form it takes can't exist outside the scope of influence of human perception. It is therefore always imaginary, instable, non-treadable personal experience.
I didn't read much of Newton so far, just one piece that was mentioned in a discussion here some time ago but I don't think my reasoning goes parrallel with his.
You can't project any future if you have no past; to imagine a future you need its frame of reference as a start.
In my view the problem with your proposal of reality and consciousness as circular is that such idea leaves no room or possibility for progres or even any form of change.
salaam.
Idaho said:
Sometimes people find that disturbing. I do it beause it makes it so much easier for me to reply to a longer text if I cut it down (I'm dsyelxic and even if I hope that my knowledge of this language gradually improves, it is among the most difficult to read and write for me.)
If you read my "improvements" of your text, I think you can safely conclude I didn't leave much of it unchanged
salaam.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
That it is a meaningless concept? That it is shorthand for 'that which you cannot know'?riglet said:
Your statement is untrue since atheism requires nothing but a rejection of religion. If the whole world were atheist, atheism would cease to exist. I cannot be against *your* concept of a god until *you* explain it to me. Atheism requires no assumptions whatever.
Spion
I hear ya
About a man-made creation that arose from superstition in a world we couldn't understand.riglet said:
As an atheist you're compelled only to think about the pixies because there are so many people who continually try to ram down your throat the idea that the pixies exist.
But the kernel of truth in the OP is that we do need something 'spiritual' in our lives. I'd say it needs to be an appreciation of the human spirit - that we are capable of great things as a species and are capable of a lot more if we do our best to cut out the shit that leads us to fight each other etc. And for me the story of our birth and death and our relationship to the universe that we are part of is greater than any story we can make up [/sermon
]
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
A belief in no godIdaho said:
Hmmm.
Define 'god', please.
Spion said:there are so many people who continually try to ram down your throat the idea that the pixies exist. [/sermon
I have just had a visit by two women of retirement age who inquired if I may be interested in God's Kingdom. They were two sisters from the Jehovah Witnesses. I spent 20 minutes in pleasurable and polite debate with them. When they left we were all smiling. Fortunately I haven't yet experienced the horror described by Spion.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Yes, a very good 'anti-definition' - how can one 'believe' in 'that which is indefinable'? The very question itself cannot be posed properly.riglet said:
fudgefactorfive
New Member
sorry, far too busy being post-gay, any more post-y-ness and i run a serious risk of disappearing up my own arse
fudgefactorfive
New Member
Idaho said:
Can't we play placebo musical chairs?
Belief is fine if it's accepted as temporary - ie. not blind, selfish "faith" - and concerns unverified facts or opinions. The moment facts are verified, they stop being beliefs and start being knowledge. I believe in Saturn's moon Europa, because I haven't actually been there. I could in theory go there - it's not literally impossible. But I know that one litre of purified water weighs approximately one kilogram at standard gravity and sea-level pressure. Because it does. I can verify that whenever.
Placebos - belief in something which does not actually exist, something which has been deliberately misrepresented - are a depressing example. The idea isn't finished, is not satisfying, and is predicated on falsity anyway. The final lesson of placebos is that state of mind, mental health, positive outlook etc. are vital to the normal healing process. You don't actually have to maintain the lie for this to work.
Once you know - not believe - this, the need for placebos vanishes. And you are still a happy old school atheist. And it's not a question of "atheist dogma" as shrill agnotics would have it. It's not belief. It's knowledge, which was fought for tooth and nail against a horde of scripture-peddling nonsense-fascists. It's now known - not believed - that consciousness and the immune system are intertwined, that the process of the immune system is a process of unconscious cognition. I've read white blood cells described as "bits of brain floating around the body".
Yes. That's freedom. But that's not a reason to believe in anything - not a reason to be post-anything.
I think there is everything to be gained from analysis of structure. Without exploring a thing's structure, you will not understand its process. Without recognition of process, you are miserable as fuck. Some people call that deep-rooted awe-filled satisfaction at recognising a hugely complicated process "spiritual". For no good reason other than that the God-botherers staked their claim on that emotional territory first. Like those fuckers that planted an American flag on the Moon.
There is no destination.
But you're right, it is everyone's own choice. Choosing is an act, though. And every act has eternal ramifications. Even the choice of fence-sitting.
Every existing agnostic is a prop for the crushing oppression of religion.
stdPikachu
Plughole in bathtub curve
Been watching this thread for a while but without the time to formulate a decent reply. FFF, that's a top post, prolly the first in this thread I wholeheartedly agree with and I wish I'd been able to think it first!
(Dagnabbit, I hate making me too!'s...)
(Dagnabbit, I hate making me too!'s...)
fudgefactorfive
New Member
i could make a fair case for it being postjudice, technically
but i shan't
but i shan't
fudgefactorfive
New Member
i mean, Idaho's right in a sense, you can really run with the comparisons between placebos, dolphin-shaped crystals and white-bearded rapists up above the clouds
you give someone a sugar pill and tell them it's great, it's got Wonder Factor X in it, something lofty from the realms of medical wisdom, that cannot be defined - just like the orbital rapist. and lo and behold, in 20% of cases, they do actually feel better - they've been empowered by belief in something completely made up - they have faith in the magic little sugar pills
but the man in the white coat lied. what's it like when we find out that the pretty thing is a lie? it stops being pretty.
someone you know "finds God" - God was down the back of the sofa all along, next to "the plot" and "your marbles" - and, much to normal people's disgust, it seems to work in 20% of cases - the placebo deity does actually appear to help them "get better" - which of course means there has to have been "something wrong" in the first place. and that's the great thing about invented memories, don't they just feel so real, just like you've always had them.
you don't need any actual evidence, just all those lovely feelings. in fact - luckily, eh! - evidence would be contrary to the very nature of your new unknowable Lord and Master.
all you have to do is shun unnecessary bumsex, smite evildoers etc. and you're away: fitter, happier, more productive. which, tragically, you might have done if you'd started believing in a hyperspatial carrot that bisects Earth's cosmic leyline every 33 million years and the next time it happens is on your birthday, o chosen one.
but, in the real world of hard facts, where we value things like accuracy and honesty and genuine self-esteem that actually comes from the self, and we don't lie about magic chemicals in the sugar, agents of spiritual rebirth that go around putting funny ideas in people's heads are, at best, well-meaning do-gooders in love with pretty semantic doodles that eat themselves like the uroburos - like, faith is great because only by manically believing in something which is, by definition, beyond the reach of definition - lol - can you transcend normal human experience. Or, at worst, they are liars in exactly the same way as someone who prescribes a placebo is a liar. and sometimes they're a money-grabbing, faith-as-brand-identity powermongering mega-liar, in a mighty psychic battleship composed of pure ego.
imagine if it worked all the time. you could just walk up to people in the street and say something contradictory like "hello, i'm dennis, the DJ with no name" or "my temple is even more north than the north pole, in a special northy way which you get wrong automatically just by talking about it" and have them start drooling and worshipping you. i'd probably abuse it to shag people. in a post-gay way.
a perfect post-atheist would, by definition, not actually exist.
you give someone a sugar pill and tell them it's great, it's got Wonder Factor X in it, something lofty from the realms of medical wisdom, that cannot be defined - just like the orbital rapist. and lo and behold, in 20% of cases, they do actually feel better - they've been empowered by belief in something completely made up - they have faith in the magic little sugar pills
but the man in the white coat lied. what's it like when we find out that the pretty thing is a lie? it stops being pretty.
someone you know "finds God" - God was down the back of the sofa all along, next to "the plot" and "your marbles" - and, much to normal people's disgust, it seems to work in 20% of cases - the placebo deity does actually appear to help them "get better" - which of course means there has to have been "something wrong" in the first place. and that's the great thing about invented memories, don't they just feel so real, just like you've always had them.
you don't need any actual evidence, just all those lovely feelings. in fact - luckily, eh! - evidence would be contrary to the very nature of your new unknowable Lord and Master.
all you have to do is shun unnecessary bumsex, smite evildoers etc. and you're away: fitter, happier, more productive. which, tragically, you might have done if you'd started believing in a hyperspatial carrot that bisects Earth's cosmic leyline every 33 million years and the next time it happens is on your birthday, o chosen one.
but, in the real world of hard facts, where we value things like accuracy and honesty and genuine self-esteem that actually comes from the self, and we don't lie about magic chemicals in the sugar, agents of spiritual rebirth that go around putting funny ideas in people's heads are, at best, well-meaning do-gooders in love with pretty semantic doodles that eat themselves like the uroburos - like, faith is great because only by manically believing in something which is, by definition, beyond the reach of definition - lol - can you transcend normal human experience. Or, at worst, they are liars in exactly the same way as someone who prescribes a placebo is a liar. and sometimes they're a money-grabbing, faith-as-brand-identity powermongering mega-liar, in a mighty psychic battleship composed of pure ego.
imagine if it worked all the time. you could just walk up to people in the street and say something contradictory like "hello, i'm dennis, the DJ with no name" or "my temple is even more north than the north pole, in a special northy way which you get wrong automatically just by talking about it" and have them start drooling and worshipping you. i'd probably abuse it to shag people. in a post-gay way.
a perfect post-atheist would, by definition, not actually exist.
Idaho
continuity character
I think you make some good points FFF, but you seem to be attacking a point that I am not making.
What you seem to be is very scared and opposed to any form of religion - and doubtless with good reason. However I think there are elements of religion that could be good, and elements of human culture that are innately religious regardless of whether we claim to be hard rationalists.
What you seem to be is very scared and opposed to any form of religion - and doubtless with good reason. However I think there are elements of religion that could be good, and elements of human culture that are innately religious regardless of whether we claim to be hard rationalists.
ska invita
back on the other side
You've obviously given this whole matter some thought, but I think you are making a couple of mistakes.Idaho said:
What you propose is not a deliberate agnosticisim - agnosticism is not charactersied by "beliefs" and "spiritual narratives" - classic mistakes to make as an atheist. A pure agnostic position cannot give credence to any belief system as the truth (which you so confidently do in your opening line - and all atheists do by definition of their absolutist position).
Making up "narratives" in order to gain from the psychological benefits that it is reported to bring is nothing to do with agnosticism - the opposite - agnosticism embraces living in doubt, disbelief and a universe of open-ended posibilities. It faces and thrives on existential angst, if you like!
WE had two great threads on the subject recently - both well worth reading:
the very throrough and long Atheism vs Agnosticism
http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=204716
and the shorter but succinct:
"Agnostic Buddhism"
http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=205251
Believing in atheism (and it is a belief) and then making up a narrative is ridiculous - I suggest a much better aproach is to keep a close eye on the latest scientific narrative for some loose foundation, then open up your imagination, recognise the limits of human comprehension, and embrace the infinite possibilites of the universe and what came before.
This makes for not exactly a linear narrative - more of a surrealist play - but the effect is the same - there is a pleasure in true wonder, and satisfaction in recognising the limits of human knowledge and comprehension - it is the mistaken aboslutism, and IMO arrogance, of atheism, that leads to degrees of depression and existential angst in some (as your uncited sources suggest).
Not going to say anymore cos it was said at length on the two threads above.
stdPikachu
Plughole in bathtub curve
Idaho said:
I think FFF's point (dare I say belief?) is that these elements of human culture stem from human nature rather than religion - it's just that religion conceptualised them first, so whenever we experience a particular gamut of emotions it's seen as "spiritual" simply because of the way our society has evolved around a religious framework.
You say innately religious as though certain beliefs stem from religion, rather than from the people who structured the religion in the first place. Whilst I agree there's lots of good aspects to most religions, I think saying that religion created them is getting it back-asswards; religion was simply a convenient way of getting people to follow the tenets of being a good citizen using carrot/stick tactics - I'm sure humans were capable of doing unto one another before organised religion came along.
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