"atheim favors the devil" -Justice Scalia

[gigantes]

lol, Catholicism is brilliant, it even explains disbelief in terms of its own faith: if you doubt the devil it's the devil that's making you doubt him. ...

although the reality is that every belief system (and even science research) is prone to explaining things in terms of its previous understandings of things. and building elaboration on top of elaboration.

over time the mind easily fills up with self-reassuring rubbish, which is why the aim for simplicity and adaptability is such a childish but maddeningly elusive thing. it's also very hard work IMO.

and i am not aware of a single human being in history... including every athiest born... that did not have a belief system.

[Patrick Chewing]

atheism does not contain devils or gods AFAIK. catholicism very much does, so as to balance its mythological logic.

CONCLUSION: you seem to have it backwards, mister scalia.


side note: what the hell is a dipshit like this doing on the supreme court, anyway?

Once again, fools like you will do anything they can in their power to discredit the voice of someone with a different belief.

When you say, "AFAIK", you prove your ignorance. Atheism is not a religion. You completely missed his point.

[gigantes]

Once again, fools like you will do anything they can in their power to discredit the voice of someone with a different belief.

When you say, "AFAIK", you prove your ignorance. Atheism is not a religion. You completely missed his point.

as usual, you seem to enter with a chip on your shoulder, duderino.


atheism is still a belief system. eat that, peckerwood.

[dr.hee]

atheism is still a belief system. eat that, peckerwood.

Could you explain this maybe a bit further? Maybe I'm confusing things ( my 1st language is German, and we don't distinguish "belief" and "faith" in terms of vocabulary).

It could be that my mistake is that I'm reading your post from a non native speaking perspective, and "belief system" doesn't simply translate into something like "system of beliefs" in a more neutral context (you know, like believing stuff with lack of evidence) in German. It rather has a subtext of "worldview" in a more philosophical sense.

So based on my incompetent English , I'm wondering what you mean exactly by saying atheism is a belief system. For me personally, it simpy means I'm not agreeing with the statement "Deity xy exists". Maybe that's all you've meant when saying "belief system", since I still can't prove a negative, making my statement a belief by default.

Yeah, but probably I just can't understand shit because German is my 1st language,lol.

[Simple Jack]

as usual, you seem to enter with a chip on your shoulder, duderino.


atheism is still a belief system. eat that, peckerwood.

It's not a belief system in the conventional sense that religions use. Not even close.

[gigantes]

@dr. hee,
thank you for checking in.

it does not sound like language is really holding you back in this matter. you seem to have sketched out the starting factors very well.

so... i cannot argue against the dry definition of atheism meaning 'non-belief in a deity.' but in reality, i see this as only a starting point, or a single facet of, an atheist's belief system. nobody says they are an atheist, sets that against the situation of being religious or theist, and really means that non-belief in god(s) handles all of their psychological, metaphysical needs. it obviously does not, and cannot.

no, i observe that an atheist still has a rich, detailed, imaginative, filtered belief system full of protective barriers against unresolvable dilemmas, just as religious folks do. it's constructed by the individual for the needs of the individual, but it is still a personal construction, no matter how much it might be biased towards hard science or pure flights of fancy.

the mind still needs comforts and explanations, regardless of the starting point, regardless of the journey, and only somewhat in alliance with intention. simply put, the mind needs what it needs.

sapolsky (who i am eternally grateful to you for introducing me to) made a lot of great points about the how and why of the way this all works.

on a side-note, i find that the way people squabble over different religions, over religion versus atheism, atheism versus agnosticism, and all of those versus non-religious 'artificial' systems of thought (like EST or TA or whatever)... more or less comes down to little kids squabbling over collectors cards. 'yours is generally the best, the others are flawed by various degree.' naturally, i am also guilty of it because i am a human being just like the rest.

but IMO, the common denominator amongst us all is the same as its been for ages.

[Jailblazers7]

The justice added that he doesn't think that atheists are Satan's minions, but that disbelief in God "certainly favors the devil's desires."

The man is correct. Is he not?

I don't really agree with him there. I think it is commonly mistaken that morality can't exist separate from religion in our society.

[dr.hee]

so... i cannot argue against the dry definition of atheism meaning 'non-belief in a deity.' but in reality, i see this as only a starting point, or a single facet of, an atheist's belief system. nobody says they are an atheist, sets that against the situation of being religious or theist, and really means that non-belief in god(s) handles all of their psychological, metaphysical needs. it obviously does not, and cannot.

I agree basically, even though I'm not sure that we can just attribute "metaphysical needs" and the urge to satisfy them in the same extent to all people just by default. Personally, I "like" the idea of "something greater" however you might call it. Now I can't formulate this quite as elaborate as people better versed in philosophy can, but you get the idea. But I don't see the necessity to "satisfy" this vague idea. Not at all.

Of course, in terms of a "belief system", being more on the materialistic and rational side, I have to accept certain axioms by default, too. Whether I like it or not. But I'd say this is more related to practical reasons than maintaining my worldview for it's own sake. I'd say that I have nothing to lose if any of my assumptions would turn out to be wrong. I have no "belief system" that gives me meaning, comfort or any of that. It's merely a set of assumptions I use to give statements about the reality I assume we all share structure and a common ground.

To use a very stupid example, which is probably nonsense...the speed of light is just a number of empirical observations we call a "law" because it looks like one. If it turned out to be simply random chance (I don't know, by pure luck all particles in the history of the universe happen to move at that speed, except for a single one who's much slower), I'd have to overthink some of my assumptions about causality and the relevance of empirical data. But it wouldn't have any metaphysical implications.

That isn't the case with religious belief systems I think. At the most basic level, it's maybe the same thing, but I'd say it's a much more emotional thing if you're a religious person. It just seems to me that you have much more to lose. Comfort, meaning, final answers for big questions. Atheism and the worldviews related to that can't provide that.

no, i observe that an atheist still has a rich, detailed, imaginative, filtered belief system full of protective barriers against unresolvable dilemmas, just as religious folks do. it's constructed by the individual for the needs of the individual, but it is still a personal construction, no matter how much it might be biased towards hard science or pure flights of fancy.

Don't know if you know Lawrence Krauss' latest efforts to explain the universe as "coming from nothing", and even for me as a hardcore anti-theist/materialist, it just looks like a huge copout...and that's where it gets silly to me. Nobody has the anwer, Krauss thinks he has? GTFO!

In the end, I think you're spot on. Even though I'd say that my personal belief system is much less based on emotional needs than a religious one. The dilemmas I'm facing and trying to solve are related to logical issues as opposed to stuff like evil, suffering and so on. It's mainly the good old causal chain which just doesn't work all the way to the end. At some point, my mind just goes like "This doesn't make sense, I'm the f*ck outta here."...but that's it. I know that every "solution" doesn't make sense at all. Unmoved mover, infinite regress, simulation argument, eternal whatever...it's all nonsense. There are certain ideas I like more than others, but that's really just a "belief". And I can admit that.

But I'd say that organized religious belief systems are something completely different. They leave no room for speculation, and not much for doubt either. They seem to know everything. Not only the existence of one or more deities, but also the mind, interests, wishes character traits and so on. I don't know this just strikes me as a wholly different level of "making up stuff" than my personal assumptions about empirical data, causality, objective reality and so on. They're just so damn sure they're right, I'm not comfortable with that, lol.

the mind still needs comforts and explanations, regardless of the starting point, regardless of the journey, and only somewhat in alliance with intention. simply put, the mind needs what it needs.

Are you familiar with Daniel Dennet's idea of "Belief in belief"?

part 1
part 2

I agree with him a lot on this. Based on personal experience with the religious parts of my family, but looking at all the religions there are/have been, too. It always seemed to me that the specific religious belief isn't as important as "being religious" in general. Maybe people just either have that urge or not. I know Christians that have no problems admitting that they'd probably be Muslim if raised in an Islamic family. And that's quite interesting, since most religions claim that they're objectively true, which should mean that the "true one" should just "make the most sense" to people. But that's not the case apparently, the best indicator of adult religious affiliation is the context in which people have been raised...so I'd agree that there's a deep fundamental "urge" to believe embedded into human nature, with the specific details (religions, belief systems, worldviews, whatever...) being less important than we think.



In the end though, we're probably all just really stupid and don't know sh*t, me included, lol.

[2LeTTeRS]

Scalia said the Devil has gotten "wilier" and convinced people that he and God don't exist. The justice added that he doesn't think that atheists are Satan's minions, but that disbelief in God "certainly favors the devil's desires.""

Don't see a problem with this

[Dresta]

as usual, you seem to enter with a chip on your shoulder, duderino.


atheism is still a belief system. eat that, peckerwood.

No it isn't, atheism is an absence of belief: it is a negative assertion rather than a positive one. It asserts nothing more than 'i have seen nothing in my life that would lead me to believe that there is a God.'

[MavsSuperFan]

There's a difference in saying one believes in the devil and saying one believes the devil exists. The former saying is stupid. Believe in him for what? He can't do anything for you. He's already been judged to the lake of fire, it's just a matter of time.

They both are stupid

[MavsSuperFan]

FTFT

Scalia is awful and understands nothing about what this country is meant to be.

Looking into the actual writings of the thoughts of the founding fathers.

This country was meant to be a country where all white men were equal. Woman/minorities were not meant to be the equal of white men.
Edit: what I am saying is people tend to whitewash how awful in some respects the founding fathers were. Look at Thomas Jefferson. Its kind of a joke that we idolize this man. his actual ideas of how this country's economy should have functioned are ridiculous (thank god hamilton's ideas prevailed) and his ideas of personal liberty clash with his ideas about slavery. Its not jsut the founding fathers. Abraham Lincoln in absolute terms was probably more racist than sturm thurmond.

I agree scalia is awful, both because of his actual beliefs and because he is not even intellectually consistent. He changes his thinking whenever convenient.

With someone like ron paul who I disagree with, I can at least appreciate he is intellectually consistent. Scalia argues the constitution should be viewed from the perspectives of the framers when convenient and then when it is convenient for his biases sometimes argues the constitution is a living document.

[gigantes]

@dr. hee,
awesome, thanks. i will watch those dennet vids and get back to you, probably tomorrow.

No it isn't, atheism is an absence of belief: it is a negative assertion rather than a positive one. It asserts nothing more than 'i have seen nothing in my life that would lead me to believe that there is a God.'

well if you cast your eyes upwards, i had already addressed this at some length.

beyond that, it looks like you are conflating non-belief in theos with the need or non-need for a general belief system. i assert they are not the same thing.

a non-belief in theos is still a very powerful belief, which naturally occurs as part of a belief system. not because of the word "atheism," but because of who we are.

sapolsky found that just like ancient man, even baboons are so efficient in their mutualistic life that they need only 'work' a couple hours a day, with the rest of the day available to invent games, harass lesser-ranking members as stress-relief, and generally make a certain leap that only some animals evidently make... that they are so incredibly successful at what they do, that their brains almost begin to 'overdevelop'.

IMO this is the very foundation of self-consciousness and the endless elaboration of thought that the dunning-kruger model partly describes. essentially, the smarter you are, the greater your struggle to manage unpredictability and forces just beyond reach.

this is all just a bit of my own belief system, of course!

[gigantes]

meh... let me rewrite that later, if you want.

i came back to the topic cold and just sound pissy in the original reply.