Atheism - How can one lack belief?

[theleftone]

I am looking for someone to explain to me (a) the concept of "lacking a belief in the existence of any deities," and (b) how one can truly maintain a position once coming into contact with the concept of a deity. Thus, my questions would be as follows.

1. What does it mean to "lack belief in the existence of any deities?"
2. Is it possible for one to have such a "lack of belief?"
3. Is it possible for one to maintain such a position after being introduced to the concept of a deity?
4. If so, to number 3, how?

[realthinker]

However, if you feel that you know what my understanding of truth is, that you already know my anxieties and "personal condition" and have already institutionalized me, that is your choice, but don't you think it's a little presumptuous?

I don't think I suggested any understanding of your personal condition other than to point out that your posting exhibits the use of rhetorical devices commonly found in the discussion of religion. That is, you've based your position on terms that have no widely recognized much less acceptable definition.

Then I pointed out how that behavior supports an idea I've presented regarding the nature of personal truth, one that presents "truth" as a set of beliefs with degrees of correspondence to objective truth and coherence, or internal consistency. Many people rely upon untestable, abstract ideas to improve coherency while sacrificing or avoiding correspondence. That becomes apparent as two incompatible notions of truth are brought to bare during an argument.

That you and QED are debating the meaning of a concrete term, "heart", that clearly has a widely acceptable definition, and your definition appears to be somewhat arbitrary while his is rather objective, suggests that your understanding of "truth" is likely to have a weaker degree of correspondence to objective truth.

That, I contend, is the prevalent condition for anyone clinging to a belief in religion.

Granted, I did that with a particularly personal approach that probably wasn't entirely constructive.

[Catharsis]

I accept your definitions and explanations, but again we are talking about apples and oranges (at least from my perspective). I accept the definition of the heart, which is common sense, proved by science, and has nothing to do with "my religion" or any religion. I'm certainly confused about why we're debating the physical definition of the human heart.

My initial post was mainly about the idea of gaining or regaining "knowledge" of God (and not scientific definitions), which uses different tools and methods than 'objective truth', rational thinking, human logic, philosophy, etc. If we wish to examine the physical health of our hearts, then we need a stethoscope. Everything must must be explored through a method appropriate to the subject under investigation. If we wish to explore God it would be a gross error to do so through our senses, with stethoscopes, or with telescopes, seeking Him out in outer space. That would be utterly naive don't you think?

>>That, I contend, is the prevalent condition for anyone clinging to a belief in religion.<<

You're wrong to assume that I'm clinging to anything.

[QED]

Has a person fitted with an artificial heart ever come out and said to have received that all-important revelation, as you put it?

The extra functionality being claimed for the heart would clearly be missing in a patient fitted with a Prosthetic heart. As you claim that a "person's existential foundation is the heart ....the centre of our psychonoetic powers - the centre of our personhood and beingness." It struck me how great a difference we should therefore see in a person fitted with a plastic pump. I'm quite certain that any such difference would be widely reported as a matter of great physiological interest. Fortunately, patients do not seem to undergo the kind of "spiritual death" that your claim would seem to predict.

The notion that the heart is involved in spiritual matters may well be one that is rooted in Western as well as Eastern philosophies yet the work of identifying the organs responsible for the different functions of the body was completed relatively recently. Apart from the observation about artificial hearts, your claim amounts to linking an ethereal property with an arbitrary organ. I could invent an imaginary property called "stirip" and claim that it is centred in the pancreas. Further, if I claimed that it was responsible for receiving long-range communications from inhabitants of another solar system, I would have a handy answer if you asked what effects being fitted with an artificial pancreas might have.

I'm sorry, but we all require large quantities of faith to guide us through to revelations such as yours and I'm sorry to say that agnosticism isn't really the rational position either. Please accept my comments in good humor -- as you claim to be a former Agnostic, I am intrigued as to how you have shifted so far into Gnostic territory.

A "heart-warming moment" is different. We experience it in different situations in our life.

Possibly, but I sincerely doubt that the experience I am referring to is essentially any different to the the one you are talking about. There are many paths to "spirituality" even without professing a belief in anything supernatural. I think it would be unreasonably selfish to claim otherwise.

If you were to read-up on human Psychology in addition to Esoteric Christianity I think you would find a great deal of information regarding the "parallel processing" that goes on it what was once termed the "subconscious" -- processing that informs our conscious thought processes with many a "revelation".

Can you point to a specific link or an article? I wouldn't mind reading it.

I can highly recommend a treasure-trove of the unexpected in Malcom Gladwells paperback called "Blink" This is purely concerned with illustrating the division of metal labour between conscious and subconscious sections of our brains -- so religious preconceptions are nowhere to be found.

[Catharsis]

Qed,

I do not want to get into further details about the heart, as I lack scientific and medical knowledge in this area, but will say that I agree that a person with an 'artificial' heart would indeed be of great 'interest' and it raises some questions.

One of the questions that I would have is, how did such an unfortunate disease develop and progress to the point of heart's physical death? I watched a program years ago about people who received donor hearts, and from what I remember, in some cases, people suffered various side effects, such as drastic alterations in personality and behavior, to the point that the relatives could not recognize them anymore.

I can't say that I was an Agnostic per se. I grew up in a non-religious secular family, and I would've classified myself as non-religious/atheist/agnostic/skeptic, or whatever you want to add there. I actually never thought or cared about God, and it was on occasion that I would have certain questions and thoughts pop up in my mind.

I do not want to get into what experience of God constitutes, as I'm hardly the one to talk dispense wisdom on it. It may be that all these heart-warming experiences mean something. My initial experience was very humbling and personal, and was more than awe and an acknowledgment that we're ants in the complex universe, with a distant creator watching far away.

As far as the book goes I do not plan to read it right now. I've read some books on the subject of psychology/philosophy. I'm not sure if it's related, but two books that I found interesting were "The Power of your subconscious mind" and "Think and grow rich".

[Noachian]

Here is the answer:

THe cold, bleak, dark, depressing, grim exsistance of nothingness and galactic lonleyness. A frightning system of beliefe where the the creation refuses to except the that its Creator has brought it into existance through a ignorant view that the creation has all the power and self sufficiency without need for intivention, this is what the Garden of Eden story dipicts.

[AClockWorkOrange]

Any reasoning behind your retort, or are you just making a statement?

Please elaborate.

[bernee51]

Here is the answer:

THe cold, bleak, dark, depressing, grim exsistance of nothingness and galactic lonleyness.

This is describing...?

A frightning system of beliefe where the the creation refuses to except the that its Creator has brought it into existance...

If you are sepaking of atheism then you have the bull by the horns somewhat. Atheism is not a systmem of belief, nor does an atheist refuse to accept that the 'creator' brought the 'creation' into existence.

...through a ignorant view that the creation has all the power and self sufficiency without need for intivention,...

The ignorance is that the creation has any 'real' existence at all.

...
this is what the Garden of Eden story dipicts.

The G of E depicts the initial realization by man that there is a question which he can now ask that he was previously unable to.

[realthinker]

Here is the answer:

THe cold, bleak, dark, depressing, grim exsistance of nothingness and galactic lonleyness. A frightning system of beliefe where the the creation refuses to except the that its Creator has brought it into existance through a ignorant view that the creation has all the power and self sufficiency without need for intivention, this is what the Garden of Eden story dipicts.

That you feel the universe a grim, depressing, dark, bleak without the security blanket of your beliefs makes me wonder at how truly frightened you must be. Have you no capacity for empathy? For understanding another point of view?

Life is wonderful and rewarding. Every minute of every day is meaningful. The measure of its goodness is in everything around me, in the people I am with, in the places I go and what I do. There is no question of my worthiness because I see it in the smiles and firm handshakes that greet me every day. Of course I've not achieved it yet, but I expect that at the end I will be willing to fade into non-existence with cheer and pride, having seen my life's work contribute to the success and happiness of the others around me. I will not go to my grave praying and pleading, filled with uncertainty. This life is mine, and I will happily have my fill of it, and then I will retire. What is me, that spark that makes me alive, will be released back into the universe, absorbed by the world around me, and that too is a goodness.

That darkness you see outside of your beliefs is what has been constructed by those who have given you your beliefs. It is the fear that is used to build your acceptance of their ideas. It is your darkness, not mine.

[QED]

Here is the answer:

Ah. The ancient priority of surety over accuracy

THe cold, bleak, dark, depressing, grim exsistance of nothingness and galactic lonleyness. A frightning system of beliefe where the the creation refuses to except the that its Creator has brought it into existance through a ignorant view that the creation has all the power and self sufficiency without need for intivention, this is what the Garden of Eden story dipicts.

If we remove the melodramatic and highly subjective elements (but not the spelling errors in case anyone thinks they're mine!) I think your statement comes down to:

"A system of beliefe where the the creation refuses to except the that its Creator has brought it into existance through a ignorant view that the creation has all the power and self sufficiency without need for intivention"

Now let me ask how we know it is ignorant to

[Noachian]

Excuse me sir/ma'am but I also except about happy smiles and hand shakes ..bla lalalalalala...but in your eyes the world is just a blob of mass nothingness, with no purpose or initial existing purpose to fufill, just a random meaningless piece of accident. Yes I listen and except other peoples point of view, I don't go on atheists, theres nothing worse than preaching, I simply say "well we will agree to disagree" and we both get on with our happy meaningful lives, but whats the point of joining a DEBATING FORUM if your only going to except others beliefes, show a little argumentitivism.
Unfortuantly you are going to someday come to grips with your atheistic view that the universe was an accident and all those people you made happy, all that happiness and success you brought to better society, WAS ALL A WASTE OF TIME, BECAUSE THOSE PEOPLE ARE ACCIDENTS WITHOUT PURPOSE AS WELL, and all that love and emphathy you showed to make an old woman feel good WAS ALL A WASTE OF TIME<<BECAUSE SHES JUST GONA ROT IN HER GRAVE AND HER EMOTIONS ARE NOTHING BUT CHEMICALS MOVING AROUND IN HER BRAIN, and all the good nutritious nutrients her corpse will emit to the environment ARE POINTLESS BECAUSE THE UNIVERSE IS WITHOUT CAUSE. You may lay back in your chair and think "well yes I believe I have a purpose, my purpose is to make people happy and joyful here on their time on earth, but one day you must come and realise that what you believe (or don't believe) is a grim dark bleak hopeless nothiness, because thats what you believe, that some atom that made itself blew up and made your lovely little home in the country with your little family and little career, its all just a random FLATULATE of the universe, so why the hell do you think you have a purpose,,,,,be philosophical for a moment; and take a realthink about what you truly are believing. So just go outside and look and the birds and the trees and the happy people and the bustling streets and think "YES YES I WAS CREATED FOR A PURPOSE" and you are not just a fart of some gas in the universe that will someday blow up and there wont be a sad f**k to see what you've done or achieved. So buck up your beliefs and look at the world in a less 'fairytale with no cause' type of way.

Excuse me for my language and my uttermost apologies for my absurd informality, and by the way Creator bless you, and I see your point about the blanket of belief, maybe that blanket is what makes me different from the rest of you people who don't give a damn about Kinsmen. I'm not asking you to run inside a church and repent, just look around you, look at what is here without reading a science textbook to find a possible alternative which will eventually lead to you being convinced you are a gibbon fart of star gasses.[/quote]