OK, Ok, calm down. I want well reason acceptance, rejection or restatement of the topic.
This comes because someone keeps pushing this argument on me. Personally i don’t believe its true but maybe some people accept it. I don’t really know any atheists.
I do believe if the statement is true atheism would be a bad thing.
I do reject the above statement. I do not believe in some sort of religion or gods or beings that punish me when i die. But it is still is a bit fuzzy as to exactly what is greater than me so i will try to state it here.
Nature is bigger than me, Human Nature is bigger than me, the Universe is bigger than me Existence is bigger than me. I stand in relation to everything not above it but in and with it and a part of it. It is a religious statement to separate yourself and place yourself above nature, above human nature, or above existence itself. So even if you do not believe in god, if you place yourself in a context where you say that I come before existence or I come before nature than that for me is unreasonable. It will lead to many errors of impiety and irreverence.
It is good for an atheist to be reverent and pious. (Pious as in the old Roman term of pious)
I think the only problem in modern society and in America (where Atheism is not accepted) is that most people think the above topic title is true and accept that as true when they think of atheism. They believe it is what atheists claim. It must be shown that atheists have reverence and piety.
@realunoriginal
if atheists are amoral than that is a denial of human nature. And by human nature i focus on the fact that man is a social animal.
If what you say is true of atheist than it is right for society to be afraid of atheism and to reject it.
@gib
true but what is ment by lack of belife in god? God means many things the most importnatn meaning of god for society is that i accept restriction on my being. That i am not impious, that i do not take what is owed to god as mine. IF society can be convinced that your lack of belief in god does not make you impious than it is ok. If not then you can not be accepted in society.
Atheists are not necessarily immoral, and the basis of their morality is not difficult to understand. If you are a theist, suppose that it was revealed today that god actually doesn’t exist. All the major religions revealed that they were pulling our legs. (I don’t believe religion is really just a fraud; this is a hypothetical). Would you immediately start lying, cheating, and stealing?
Those people who claim that atheists believe in materialistic notions have fallen prey to a false dichotomy. The dichotomy that states either you believe God created everything, or you are a materialist. They forget the third option available; neutrality.
Atheism, doesn’t make any ontological, epistemological, aesthetic, ethical, metaphysical, logical claims. It stands as neutral in all but one particular aspect.
Those that do make a claim about reality being wholly matter can be said to be atheistic materialists, if in fact they do not believe God created matter.
its true that people think this. I had a religious friend that claimed if they did not have their religion they would do all sorts of terrible things. I told her, “i know you, you are a good person, you wold change very little if for some reason you stopped believing.” Well now she is more of an agnostic and what i said do her was true.
It’s not surprising that your friend believed that. In many places, the bible teaches that atheists are morally bankrupt. But as you’ve noted, that’s simply not true. Unless you define morality as submission to god, in which case you are a slave rather than a moral agent.
As for your original post: I don’t really think about life in terms of what is greater than me or less than me. I respect and am influenced by some things and some people, and in turn some people respect and are influenced by me. But I don’t think it makes sense to order everyone and everything in some big chain that tells us what’s the greatest and what’s the least.
That is a good distinction Erlir, and an important point to make here. I understnad your point that someone can be an atheist and make differnt claims under all those bodies of philosophy you listed. My concern is with public perception of atheism. I think i can say that in public perception Atheism is synonymous with materialist atheist. I might even be a materialist atheist except that i don’t think we know what material is, or at least i think we can hold true that material is all that exists and we still do not know the nature of things.
My point is that atheists still need to make claims in all those areas. Is there a perception or even an actual possibility that atheists will gravitate towards certain groups of ideas? Are there some of those groups of ideas that most atheists hold? If there are ideas commonly held by athists are these ideas impious or socially dangerous? I do understand that atheism does not necessitate these ideas but there can still be commonly held ideas or ideas that are perceived to be commonly held. The topic title is an idea that is commonly held of atheists and may even be commonly held by atheists.
Are you saying there are no ideas a modern atheist is likely to hold?
Well, you would have contentions with society, that’s for sure. But I think you’re making the connection between atheism and impiety out to be a lot stronger than it is. Just the shear fact that other people exist, for whom there is no obvious reason that they should be any more/less pious than you, is something that should signal to the atheist that he has no high horse to mount onto - at least, no higher than anyone else’s.
Athiests are not necessarily materialists (some are Platonists).
More importantly though, not all theists are necessarily non-materialists. If you could construe God as a material being, that makes you a theistic materialist - for example, materialistic pantheists.
Atheist do not presume to believe things they do not understand. It may be that many theist have an understanding of god and the various religious tenets that expain him but, for an atheist, it would be disingeouous to embrace this without understanding so they demur.
Atheists seek an understanding that eludes them and eventually many accept that some things are beyond human understanding and set their quest aside and get on with their lives.
Most atheistic people tend to be materialists in their ontology, at least in my experience. Although, a belief in materialism is not a requirement to be an atheist.
In mosts polls atheists appear to be more peaceful than theists. As far as impiety, well that’s relative and atheists would always be impious to those people who think a belief in God’s existence is necessary for piety. Otherwise, the majority of atheists in the world have shown themselves to be exemplary human beings, and those countries with an atheist majority rank high in their citizens’ quality of life.
I know plenty of atheists who would disagree with this, but I know one who would agree: Myself. If there is no god to dictate morals, actions and motivations, then it is ultimately the individuals job to do this. By having the responsibility to define himself as he sees fit I would say that the individual is the ultimate force.
It may seem that because nature has chosen human physiology and even some of it’s baser thought patterns that it is greater than the individual. When a man becomes sentient he is all ready greater than nature, if it is nature’s fault for endowing him with sentience. A forest fire can be created out of a single ash. Does that make the ash more powerful than the fire?
As for human nature, I will steal a line from Sartre:
...there is no human nature, since there is no God to think it.
For existence nothing would exist to me if I did not perceive it. In that way I am greater than existence because with out me everything would cease to be.