are you an atheist?

xpps
we share our culture through storytelling, so isn't it self-evident that the stories that form your culture & upbringing are the ones that will resonate the most? I was raised atheistish, but from a strong methodist background and in strongly C of E schools (the "scripture lessons" CofE, not the "Youth Club for Grannies" CofE) I learned to read from picture books of simplified bible stories as a toddler, we acted out scenes from the Bible for our school plays. These stories were a big part the culture I grew up in; they resonate like Thundercats, like Space Lego, like Manic Miner, with added bright neon signage pointing out the moral take-away.

That was kinda to Laurel a few posts back, but you've all said something similar.

This is a big thing I'm working through these days but basically the television movies and literature that resonate with me are the ones that best seem to capture what it means to be alive (I've been watching a ton of westerns lately for that reason)

tom, yes to all of that. I was just responding to Mordy saying "But not just mythology, because (unless you're using the word differently than I use it) mythology feels very remote and removed."

And my answer to Mordy is, Yes, in that case I am using the word "mythology" differently than you might, because I don't think it makes any difference in the function of religion-as-mythology whether you or I feel that a certain Creation myth is more "meaningful" to us.

And once you have got to the point where you experience contact/a very real vision of the deity, then you start back over with a totally different deity. The purpose is to enhance your control of your willpower, to beef up your creative energies and hone them. You could say this deity is only a figment of your mind, a hallucination you experience after focusing so much time and effort on it. But really you could say that about the everyday reality we live in as well...

― Adam Bruneau

Like, I think I'm an atheist because I can't handle cognitive dissonance in the slightest.

― breaking that little dog's heart chakra (Abbott)

some very interesting discussion going on here. like kingkonggod, i've become much more open to faith & belief over the last year or so. a product of prayer (something i discussed on another atheism thread?), which for me = simple statements of thanks and devotion directed at some undefined godlike totality - whatever it is that has enabled this world and my own small part in it. i believe that my sincere expressions of gratitude and love make me feel better, stronger, happier and more in control of my own life. i dunno, it may be just the classic "i don't want to be alone" that i used to sneer at in others, but i find that i really like seeing myself not as the ultimate arbiter, but as an agent in service to something magnificent, even as an extension of that magnificence

at the same time, none of this undermines my rationalist conception of the universe. i don't see any good reason to believe in anything, and would argue that the available evidence suggests the existence of a godless, purely material universe. but the cognitive dissonance that abbot mentions doesn't bother me at all. my relationship with the the god i worship has nothing to do with my rational conception of the physical universe. it is a wholly internal/personal experience, taking place solely in the space inhabited not by my rational mind, but by my spiritual/emotional self - and i'd argue that that space is only tangentially related to the perceptible material world in the first place. plus i find cognitive dissonance interesting, and i like the idea that i might be able to sensibly contain and integrate beliefs that seem contradictory.

at the same time, and as fascinated as i am by the idea that i'm creating the spiritual relationship i see myself as engaged in, i ultimately reject the radical, hermetically-sealed solipsism that adam bruneau seems to be advocating. it's true that we all create our perceptions of and reactions to the world around us, and yeah, this means that in some sense we DO create the world, since our own perceptions and reactions are all we can ever know of it. but at the point where you begin to classify the tragedies and realities of the people around you as mere figments of your own conscsiousness, things you can turn a blind eye to with impunity, you've become almost monstrously selfish - imo. and the essence of the spirituality i'm interested in is not selfishness ("what do i want the world to be?"), but selflessness ("how can i use my god-given time and ability to make the world a better place?").

isn't using the word "god" to describe a sense of wonder and mystery at the universe problematic? you could be a bit more specific. carries an awful lot of baggage, to say the least.

ICP, by loading the word "miracles" with the baggage of rapping clowns and magnets and pelicans, has made it the word you're looking for maybe? The word now feels divorced from the divine and anchored to the absurd, gaping jaw sort of thing (which their being Christian and all, it was probably the opposite of their intention).

Good post, contenderizer.

isn't using the word "god" to describe a sense of wonder and mystery at the universe problematic? you could be a bit more specific. carries an awful lot of baggage, to say the least.

― max arrrrrgh

My friend likes to associate the idea of God being the concept of the force that manages and organizes the universe (I think I have it right...). It seems like a bit of a stretch to fit the word god into his equation. If it were me, I wouldn't try to associate my theory with "god", when the general idea of god for most people only is vaguely comparable to my concept.

i also have the idea that i'm in communication with (or, really, a part of) an entity larger than myself, a being of some sort.

i think this is fine, but imo it's important to remember that it's your idea.

^ I was gonna say, not in a nasty way or anything.

the model that i always come back to with this stuff is of a mitochondria trying to understand how a jet propellor works. except even that scale is off by a factor of millions.

(ok so i mean a jet engine. i know they don't have propellors.)

...yet

i think this is fine, but imo it's important to remember that it's your idea.

― a tenth level which features a single castle (tipsy mothra)

I have this theory that there are these microscopic life-forms that reside within the cells of all living things and communicate with the universe...I've dubbed them "Schmidischmorians"

Our consciousness is Dennis Quaid, the universe is Martin Short, kind of thing?

more like George Lucas's wallet is the universe, and our consciousness is the money inside

skywalker green is made out of people

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/22/atheist-rally-billed-as-coming-out-moment-for-nonbelievers/?hpt=hp_t3

um

John Gray still a master at trolling atheists:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14944470

When he recounts the story of his conversion to Catholicism in his autobiography A Sort of Life, Graham Greene writes that he went for instruction to Father Trollope, a very tall and very fat man who had once been an actor in the West End.

I can't read the rest of this, there's no way it can live up to the opening

In most religions - polytheism, Hinduism and Buddhism, Daoism and Shinto, many strands of Judaism and some Christian and Muslim traditions - belief has never been particularly important. Practice - ritual, meditation, a way of life - is what counts. What practitioners believe is secondary, if it matters at all.

well, there's a kernel of truth here, but it's kind of hard to see for the mountain of bullshit.

I think he's got a good point though - Christianity, esp. Protestant Christianity, is I think pretty unique among world religions in its fixation on belief as the essence of religion.

yeah, but the idea that "belief has never been particularly important" in "most religions" is overstatement to the point of nonsense

it's more accurate to say evangelism has never been particularly important in most religions, right?

yeah, that's fair

yeah, but the idea that "belief has never been particularly important" in "most religions" is overstatement to the point of nonsense

I guess you could quibble about what "particularly important" means. Sure, it's important, but I think his argument is that in most religions it hasn't been considered as of primary importance.

it's more accurate to say evangelism has never been particularly important in most religions, right?

Evangelism is a related but separate thing, I think. Even if you don't think "belief" is important, you could still think it's important to get others to practice as you do - though it's true that many religions don't make a big deal of evangelism.

(like, most of them were just "oh, you don't believe what I do? I guess I will ignore/kill you" (delete where applicable))

it's true that many religions don't make a big deal of evangelism.

Judaism and Hinduism and Buddhism do not, and Christianity does

how much of Christian evangelism can be tied to being a direct reaction to Roman cultural imperialism

I don't know, but apparently there were early Christian sects that had differing views on the importance of evangelism. One sect basically saw Christianity as a subset of Judaism and not something which was available to non-Jews. I think the Apostle Paul, with his constant missionary journeys, was a key figure in making Christianity into the evangelical force it became.

In August 1986 the Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism issued a "letter to the churches" concerning its conviction that the New Testament mandates Christians and the church to bring the Gospel to the Jewish people because "The Gospel. . .is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile" (Romans 1:16). This letter has been read and studied widely and, in the process, has been praised as a faithful affirmation of Christian acceptance of the Great Commandment, on the one hand, and roundly condemned as fundamental denial of the Jewish people's relationship with God, on the other. At the very least, the letter has brought the question of the legitimacy of Christian efforts to convert Jews into discussion within the so-called ecumenical churches as well as in the evangelical branches of Christianity represented by the Lausanne Consultation.

http://www.abrock.com/Attempt.html

I do not know about evangelism as a reaction to Roman cultural imperialism. It may be true. I just know about Christians trying to convert Jews.

I'm not really sure what "Roman cultural imperialism" is shorthand for. Romans were pretty okay with their colonies doing whatever as long as they a) didn't get in Rome's way and b) paid up

Well, in the very beginning all Christians were Jews. The original controversy was whether Christians should try to convert non-Jews.

xp

I would venture that the Christian emphasis on proselytization has more to do with the resistance they encountered from Jews - their original target audience - and yeah, goes back to the apostles

early church stuff is super interesting and i wish i knew more about it. there are probably dozens of great key histories of the time, i bet.

Pagels yo

I agree. Sadly it's hard to piece together much about that period because the victors write the history books, and the group that later won and became identified as "orthodox" was very thorough in stamping out any writings that supported alternate views. The book "Lost Christianities" by Bart Ehrman is a place to start.

xp

i think the historical record is fairly open about how contested and wild the period was? i mean the great councils (nicea etc) were all about how out of hand shit was!

Lol @ atheists.

Yeah, that's true, but mostly what survives are proto-orthodox writings denouncing "heretics". It's sometimes hard to distinguish what the "heretics" actually believed from the slurs and libels meant to discredit them.

(that was xp)

it's funny to me how little the Romans gave a shit about Xtianity initially. Off-hand references here and there (Marcus Aurelius, Pliny) to some wacky "cult" etc.

Belief is pretty important if you want to be an atheist.

It's sometimes hard to distinguish what the "heretics" actually believed from the slurs and libels meant to discredit them.

well, we've got the Nag Hammadi at least

well how were they supposed to know this was the wacky cult that had what it took to take over the world

altho how those texts were interpreted/put into practice is obviously a huge open question in a lot of ways

xp