Atheism

[Lowcast]

One need not knowledge of the natural world in order to abandon the belief in a god, you're giving to much credit to science and not the rational thought that exists within everyone, and I use the term rational as in people rationalizing things, not that the disbelief in a god is any more rational than a belief in one even though my personal bias would have a tendency to lean towards this way of thinking.

Rationalism is based on knowledge and learning. People in the middle ages hadn't yet solved many of the mysteries of the planet and universe, therefore the rational answer to these elements were that they were simply the work of something beyond them.

This doesn't necessarily mean belief in a god, because you're right, there were millions of people back then who didn't believe in a deity. But they weren't necessarily atheists. Buddhists, Confucianists, Taoists and so on often rejected the idea of gods, but they certainly weren't atheists. They believed in concepts like the afterlife and souls, after all.

Excuse me, I'd like you to meet Epicurus...

Epicurus was not an atheist, he explicitly believed that the Olympean pantheon existed. Epicurus was merely atheistic in the sense that he tried to apply a scientific explanation to the existence of gods and believed they had no influence or stake in the realm of mortals.

 

[Aries666]

He's describing Epistomological Relativism, not the most fluent description - but accurate.

How do you know you aren't plugged into the Matrix, or dreaming?

I don't, how do you know that you are not going to spontaneously transform into a banana on the other side of the universe in the next 30 minutes?

 

[SigurdStormhand]

I don't, how do you know that you are not going to spontaneously transform into a banana on the other side of the universe in the next 30 minutes?

I don't - that's the point.

 

[Aries666]

I don't - that's the point.

Yes I know

 

[StarSword]

He's describing Epistomological Relativism, not the most fluent description - but accurate.

How do you know you aren't plugged into the Matrix, or dreaming?

The best answer I saw for that is, you don't, but Occam's principle of parsimony (what is usually called "Occam's razor") says "don't unnecessarily multiply entities". Being plugged into a Matrix-equivalent is an unprovable idea and therefore useless.

Funnily enough, the guy who came up with the principle was a Christian theologian named William of Ockham, who was trying to demonstrate that you need pure faith to believe in God.

 

[Helios Panoptes]

Sun worship clearly makes the most sense.

 

[SigurdStormhand]

The best answer I saw for that is, you don't, but Occam's principle of parsimony (what is usually called "Occam's razor") says "don't unnecessarily multiply entities". Being plugged into a Matrix-equivalent is an unprovable idea and therefore useless.

Funnily enough, the guy who came up with the principle was a Christian theologian named William of Ockham, who was trying to demonstrate that you need pure faith to believe in God.

Ockham's Razor is actually a little more nuanced than that.

Ockham said that presented with two equally likely explanations you should accept the least complex. So with the Matrix-concept the argument is that if we're all plugged into the Matrix then that presupposes a time when we weren't plugged in, which is the time currently being simulated. Therefore, in the absense of any evidence that we ARE plugged into the Matrix, we probably aren't. Notably, the Matrix films include subtle hints that you are plugged in, like Deja Vu.

Ockham postulated a simple God that created a complex universe. That pertains to the current discussion because he was trying to prove that faith was rational, or at least not irrational, which actually shows there were Cynics.

 

[alpheus]

He's describing Epistomological Relativism, not the most fluent description - but accurate.

How do you know you aren't plugged into the Matrix, or dreaming?

I don't know about the others on this site to be Atheists, but I personally don't believe it's a belief system. My simple claim is that I find there to be not enough evidence to claim that any religion, or random scenario like the matrix thing, are true and chose not to play the world's most fun guessing game, or, at least I think it's fun. Why else would so many people play it their entire lives? I'm going with a null-hypothesis because I perceive no significant evidence. I believe that's the most rational way about this. Maybe my perception is off, maybe it's not, but even if I knew my reception was off, why would I still play the guessing game, I wouldn't know who to trust.

Edit: Just to let you know, I came here by looking up the mod "When the World Stopped Making Sense." I didn't come here looking for a flame war. I'm just trying to show you agnostic atheism is actually not a part of the guessing game, and I want you to know I don't look down upon people or think of myself as more rational because of my lack of a religion. There are plenty of irrational things about me

 

[moscal]

Yes I know

On what basis do you know that you know?

Scio me nihil scire! That why Socrates was the wisest.

 

[SigurdStormhand]

I don't know about the others on this site to be Atheists, but I personally don't believe it's a belief system. My simple claim is that I find there to be not enough evidence to claim that any religion, or random scenario like the matrix thing, are true and chose not to play the world's most fun guessing game, or, at least I think it's fun. Why else would so many people play it their entire lives? I'm going with a null-hypothesis because I perceive no significant evidence. I believe that's the most rational way about this. Maybe my perception is off, maybe it's not, but even if I knew my reception was off, why would I still play the guessing game, I wouldn't know who to trust.

Edit: Just to let you know, I came here by looking up the mod "When the World Stopped Making Sense." I didn't come here looking for a flame war. I'm just trying to show you agnostic atheism is actually not a part of the guessing game, and I want you to know I don't look down upon people or think of myself as more rational because of my lack of a religion. There are plenty of irrational things about me

Well, I think you just described "Agnosticism" when you said "there's not enough evidence to know the answer".

Also I note that you said "my personal belief is..."

I, and others, are not arguing that Atheism is a sort of Crypto-Religion, just that it's not a "neutral" position, it requires a commitment to a belief in the same way a religion does.

 

[ikoko]

Agnosticism is nothing but pragmatic atheism. When you speak about "Atheism" you're talking about dogmatic atheism.

 

[Holomanga]

Atheism is covered in-game by the Cynical trait. Religion itself is a combination of religion, culture, and a ton of other things probably; even an atheist monarch of a Catholic country acts Catholic and does the Catholic things.