Exposing Atheistic Myths

[Lion IRC]

Going back to the actual topic, this thread was supposed to be about atheistic myths. Did anyone list any yet?

Yes.

The myth that a universe can spontaneously pop into (or out of) existence without a cause.

Or that an uncaused universe can exist eternally and we have been here forever, doing stuff over and over and over again, (Groundhog Day trial and error,) yet we still haven't seen any time machines showing up to save Sarah Connor from the Terminator, or visitors arriving from other parts of the universe that's been here forever.

Or the myth that there are an infinite number of multiverses all competing to be the most finely tuned.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Going back to the actual topic, this thread was supposed to be about atheistic myths. Did anyone list any yet?

Yes.

The myth that a universe can spontaneously pop into (or out of) existence without a cause.

Nothing like the good ole, 'your universe can't exist without cause, but my god can' argument.

 

[Lion IRC]

I did say "spontaneously".

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Going back to the actual topic, this thread was supposed to be about atheistic myths. Did anyone list any yet?

Yes.

The myth that a universe can spontaneously pop into (or out of) existence without a cause.

Nothing like the good ole, 'your universe can't exist without cause, but my god can' argument.

When's the last time a kid asked you where Santa Claus came from?

 

[abaddon]

Going back to the actual topic, this thread was supposed to be about atheistic myths. Did anyone list any yet?

Yes.

The myth that a universe can spontaneously pop into (or out of) existence without a cause.

Or that an uncaused universe can exist eternally and we have been here forever, doing stuff over and over and over again, (Groundhog Day trial and error,) yet we still haven't seen any time machines showing up to save Sarah Connor from the Terminator, or visitors arriving from other parts of the universe that's been here forever.

Or the myth that there are an infinite number of multiverses all competing to be the most finely tuned.

Is everything known to have a cause? Or is that an assumption (a 'myth')?

If the universe is eternal then does that mean there's an eternal recurrence within it, or there must have been enough time for aliens to have traveled everywhere? Or did you just now assert a 'myth'?

There are multiple universes competing to produce life (as if that's a goal)? That's news to me.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I did say "spontaneously".

That is a needless differentiation. You are arguing that one thing can't exist without cause while another can.

 

[steve_bank]

To get back to the OP, us atheists simple reject deities.

Depending on the person one can believe in witchcraft, magic. One can believer in telepathy.

The issue is not what atheists believe. The issue is the Christians who seek to impose their particular mythology on everybody else.

Yet one more time aestheticism is not an ideology. It is a rejection of all and any gods and deities.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Yet one more time aestheticism is not an ideology. It is a rejection of all and any gods and deities.

i think auto complete did you a dirty, there.

 

[skepticalbip]

It's a bitch when someone's aestheticismness gets truncated like that.

 

[abaddon]

To get back to the OP, us atheists simple reject deities.

Depending on the person one can believe in witchcraft, magic. One can believer in telepathy.

The issue is not what atheists believe. The issue is the Christians who seek to impose their particular mythology on everybody else.

Yet one more time aestheticism is not an ideology. It is a rejection of all and any gods and deities.

I agree with your general point. There is no atheist mythology and can't be because atheism is not a belief system nor a worldview. The belief-system they want to attack is materialism but they keep calling it "atheism".

And even if the criticisms are applied to materialism, they do it stupidly. For one, they conflate philosophical materialism with "hedonist" materialism (the focus on possessions and comforts over spiritual values). Apparently the belief-system is supposed to cause the lifestyle. But, many theists are very materialistic and some atheists aren't so the causal connection isn't clear.

Mainly the problem they have with philosophical materialism is ... it doesn't have their myths! It's godless so it's without the myth about God. It doesn't propose teleology, purpose, design... There's no mind telling matter what "laws" it must obey... So, the theist criticisms are a list of materialism's failures to endorse the mythological.

 

[atrib]

Going back to the actual topic, this thread was supposed to be about atheistic myths. Did anyone list any yet?

Yes.

The myth that a universe can spontaneously pop into (or out of) existence without a cause.

Or that an uncaused universe can exist eternally and we have been here forever, doing stuff over and over and over again, (Groundhog Day trial and error,) yet we still haven't seen any time machines showing up to save Sarah Connor from the Terminator, or visitors arriving from other parts of the universe that's been here forever.

Or the myth that there are an infinite number of multiverses all competing to be the most finely tuned.

Someone who claims that one must eat the flesh and drink the blood of a 2,000 year old zombie, in order to be saved from an eternity of torture at the hands of the Beloved Supreme Leader, has little credibility in matters pertaining to what other people should believe.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Not a zombie. A lich. Magic user animated by his own magic post mortem.
If he fumbled the spell, it might have allowed some decay between death and animation, which would explain why people didn't recognize him right away. The gaping nostrils, long hair and fingernails, sunken cheeks...

 

[DBT]

Going back to the actual topic, this thread was supposed to be about atheistic myths. Did anyone list any yet?

Yes.

The myth that a universe can spontaneously pop into (or out of) existence without a cause.

Or that an uncaused universe can exist eternally and we have been here forever, doing stuff over and over and over again, (Groundhog Day trial and error,) yet we still haven't seen any time machines showing up to save Sarah Connor from the Terminator, or visitors arriving from other parts of the universe that's been here forever.

Or the myth that there are an infinite number of multiverses all competing to be the most finely tuned.

Nobody is claiming that there must necessarily be a multiverse, or that the universe necessarily popped out of nothing without a cause.

There is nothing to prevent the universe from being eternal but cyclic, always present in some stage of existence.

We have evidence for the existence of the universe, but nothing for the existence of a creator of the universe.

 

[steve_bank]

To get back to the OP, us atheists simple reject deities.

Depending on the person one can believe in witchcraft, magic. One can believer in telepathy.

The issue is not what atheists believe. The issue is the Christians who seek to impose their particular mythology on everybody else.

Yet one more time aestheticism is not an ideology. It is a rejection of all and any gods and deities.

I agree with your general point. There is no atheist mythology and can't be because atheism is not a belief system nor a worldview. The belief-system they want to attack is materialism but they keep calling it "atheism".

And even if the criticisms are applied to materialism, they do it stupidly. For one, they conflate philosophical materialism with "hedonist" materialism (the focus on possessions and comforts over spiritual values). Apparently the belief-system is supposed to cause the lifestyle. But, many theists are very materialistic and some atheists aren't so the causal connection isn't clear.

Mainly the problem they have with philosophical materialism is ... it doesn't have their myths! It's godless so it's without the myth about God. It doesn't propose teleology, purpose, design... There's no mind telling matter what "laws" it must obey... So, the theist criticisms are a list of materialism's failures to endorse the mythological.

The modern term may be Christian Materialism. Take away god and Christians act like everybody else. They think they are different.

 

[steve_bank]

There is no credible scientific theory I know tha says the unversed popped into existence without cause. Some may think that.

I believe causality rules, nothing happens without a cause. Therefore the universe always was and always will be. But that becomes philosophy not science.

The BB Theory does not start a time zero. The initial conditions leading to the BB are not explained. Science can not address ultimate cosmic origins. Science, philosophy, and religion converge when it comes to origins.

Scientifically ultimate origins can be speculated on, but never proven.

As to blood, I believe the Mosaic ritual for intimating Hebrew clerics was sprinkling animal blood was it not? A tribal kind of ritual.

 

[Half-Life]

To get back to the OP, us atheists simple reject deities.

Depending on the person one can believe in witchcraft, magic. One can believer in telepathy.

The issue is not what atheists believe. The issue is the Christians who seek to impose their particular mythology on everybody else.

Yet one more time aestheticism is not an ideology. It is a rejection of all and any gods and deities.

I agree with your general point. There is no atheist mythology and can't be because atheism is not a belief system nor a worldview. The belief-system they want to attack is materialism but they keep calling it "atheism".

And even if the criticisms are applied to materialism, they do it stupidly. For one, they conflate philosophical materialism with "hedonist" materialism (the focus on possessions and comforts over spiritual values). Apparently the belief-system is supposed to cause the lifestyle. But, many theists are very materialistic and some atheists aren't so the causal connection isn't clear.

Mainly the problem they have with philosophical materialism is ... it doesn't have their myths! It's godless so it's without the myth about God. It doesn't propose teleology, purpose, design... There's no mind telling matter what "laws" it must obey... So, the theist criticisms are a list of materialism's failures to endorse the mythological.

Materialists use empiricism to gather facts about the world, right? And Berkeley argued that empiricism leads to immaterialism.

You guys scoff at the idea that Berkeley was more of an empiricist than you actual atheists! Berkeley proved God using pure empiricism and you hand waved it away.

 

[Half-Life]

There is no credible scientific theory I know tha says the unversed popped into existence without cause. Some may think that.

I believe causality rules, nothing happens without a cause. Therefore the universe always was and always will be. But that becomes philosophy not science.

The BB Theory does not start a time zero. The initial conditions leading to the BB are not explained. Science can not address ultimate cosmic origins. Science, philosophy, and religion converge when it comes to origins.

Scientifically ultimate origins can be speculated on, but never proven.

As to blood, I believe the Mosaic ritual for intimating Hebrew clerics was sprinkling animal blood was it not? A tribal kind of ritual.

Certainly nothing about the beginning of the universe can be empirically verified via the senses. This is because you claim things can exist independently of minds, which leads to nonsense like the bold.

Immaterialism has no such problem. It is empirically verified.

http://www.philosophypages.com/hy/4r.htm

"Even if we accept it as common sense, is Berkeley's immaterialism compatible with modern science? Certainly Galileo's astronomy, Newtonian mechanics, and the chemistry of Boyle all took for granted the existence and operation of physical objects. But Berkeley maintained that natural science, if properly conceived, could proceed and even thrive without assuming that bodies are material substances existing outside the mind."

"Astronomy and optics seem to suppose that what we see exists at some distance from us. But Berkeley argued in his New Theory of Vision that our apparent perception of distance itself is a mental invention, easily explained in terms of the content of visual ideas, without any reference to existing material objects. In fact, Berkeley held, our visual and tactile perceptions are entirely independent. What we see and what we touch have nothing to do with each other; we have merely learned by experience to associate each with the other, just as we have learned to associate the appearance, the taste, and the smell of an apple. There is no reason to suppose that all of these qualities inhere in a common material substratum. "

 

[skepticalbip]

To get back to the OP, us atheists simple reject deities.

Depending on the person one can believe in witchcraft, magic. One can believer in telepathy.

The issue is not what atheists believe. The issue is the Christians who seek to impose their particular mythology on everybody else.

Yet one more time aestheticism is not an ideology. It is a rejection of all and any gods and deities.

I agree with your general point. There is no atheist mythology and can't be because atheism is not a belief system nor a worldview. The belief-system they want to attack is materialism but they keep calling it "atheism".

And even if the criticisms are applied to materialism, they do it stupidly. For one, they conflate philosophical materialism with "hedonist" materialism (the focus on possessions and comforts over spiritual values). Apparently the belief-system is supposed to cause the lifestyle. But, many theists are very materialistic and some atheists aren't so the causal connection isn't clear.

Mainly the problem they have with philosophical materialism is ... it doesn't have their myths! It's godless so it's without the myth about God. It doesn't propose teleology, purpose, design... There's no mind telling matter what "laws" it must obey... So, the theist criticisms are a list of materialism's failures to endorse the mythological.

Materialists use empiricism to gather facts about the world, right? And Berkeley argued that empiricism leads to immaterialism.

You guys scoff at the idea that Berkeley was more of an empiricist than you actual atheists! Berkeley proved God using pure empiricism and you hand waved it away.

A philosopher in the early 1700s made a philosophical argument that you like and you think that your liking it makes it TRUTH. You have a hell of a lot to learn about philosophy. Philosophers have made arguments on every side, and then some, of any imaginable thought possible, regardless of how absurd the thought may be.

 

[blastula]

Materialists use empiricism to gather facts about the world, right? And Berkeley argued that empiricism leads to immaterialism.

You guys scoff at the idea that Berkeley was more of an empiricist than you actual atheists! Berkeley proved God using pure empiricism and you hand waved it away.

CHECKMATE ATHIESTS!

 

[Lion IRC]

I did say "spontaneously".

That is a needless differentiation. You are arguing that one thing can't exist without cause while another can.

No I'm not.
A past eternal 'thing' doesn't need a cause. God is past-eternal. Is the universe?