Who Really is an Atheist?

[Arising_uk]

Obviously both. What else is possible?

Well not this for starters, as even if you take Spinoza's 'God' it'd still have to be in some other 'creation' by your reckoning. So what 'created' that?

[marjoram_blues]

That Noumenon song, that earworm that's been buggin' me all day ? I found it!

It's the Muppet song: mah na mah na, do be be-doo-do, mah na mah na, do do-do do

Really bloody annoying.
Over and over...
and over...

Wallace: The question is: what is a Mahna Mahna?
Statler: The question is: who cares?

[Walker]

Where did this idea come from?

Kant.

Was it created, or has it always existed?

No idea, its the Noumenon.

Well you don't know much, do you.

[Walker]

You make excellent points, Hobbes, especially about making things, and that things don't pop into existence. This is why if something has not always existed, it is created. The creation may take a long time, may be identified as a process of transformation when man has his thumbs in it, creation identified as evolution for other things. Until man can say how the universe of source material for transformation comes into being, man cannot speak for the method of orgin due to limitations of incarnation and ignorance. However creation is, no getting around that.

You are missing the key point that creating things, does not come from nothing. And that the rules of making things does not apply to existence itself, as without that there is nothing from which to make existence.

That's your patterned-thinking talking.

You're looking in the wrong place.

Look to things, creation, change.

You're hanging onto creator like a life preserver, like a shield, like a concept, like the flip side of a coin.

[Nick_A]

Arising wrote: Well not this for starters, as even if you take Spinoza's 'God' it'd still have to be in some other 'creation' by your reckoning. So what 'created' that?

God or the"Source" IS: a state of "BEING. Creation is a process within time and space and within which existence occurs. Can you visualize this? God, or this quality of BEING, is beyond time and space. God wasn't created. It doesn't begin or end as the cycles of creation do. It always IS. The process of existence is in constant change within the Source or what IS.

[Philosophy Explorer]

Arising asks: Was this 'creator' inside or outside of 'its' 'creation' when it 'created' it?

Obviously both. What else is possible?

.. that you are talking nonsense?

And you talk even more nonsense HR.

PhilX

[Walker]

That Noumenon song, that earworm that's been buggin' me all day ? I found it!

It's the Muppet song: mah na mah na, do be be-doo-do, mah na mah na, do do-do do

Really bloody annoying.
Over and over...
and over...

Wallace: The question is: what is a Mahna Mahna?
Statler: The question is: who cares?

There’s no hunger when empty pots are full and protected from spillage.

Philosophy needs hunger to empty the pot, though that reveals the void.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bQnxlHZsjY

[uwot]

There’s no hunger when empty pots are full and protected from spillage.

Dunno where you're from, but on my planet there's no empty pots when empty pots are full.

Philosophy needs hunger to empty the pot...

But "There’s no hunger when empty pots are full."

...though that reveals the void.

No comment.

[marjoram_blues]

That Noumenon song, that earworm that's been buggin' me all day ? I found it!

It's the Muppet song: mah na mah na, do be be-doo-do, mah na mah na, do do-do do

Really bloody annoying.
Over and over...
and over...

Wallace: The question is: what is a Mahna Mahna?
Statler: The question is: who cares?

There’s no hunger when empty pots are full and protected from spillage.

Philosophy needs hunger to empty the pot, though that reveals the void.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bQnxlHZsjY

My cup is full and running over. An expression of personal joy. Based on being saved by the Lord.
My cup is full and running over. An expression of personal fulfilment. Based on being curious about the world.

Not everyone has the same size or design of cup. What brings one person joy or fulfilment is not the same as another.
Not everyone cares about the continual questions about what is atheism,whether someone's atheism is real, especially when the same old questioners don't appear to listen. And continually generalise and colour the picture black and white.

Philosophers can fill a cup with good old English Breakfast, Darjeeling, whisky or wine.
They can also fill or empty a cup with pure piss.
But then again, so can anyone...

An empty cup is full of promise...
Spoiled with staleness
Inspect for staining
Clean and throw away
when cracked.

[Arising_uk]

God or the"Source" IS: a state of "BEING. ...

'Being' is to exist I presume and therefore must be somewhere, what is your 'God' in?

Creation is a process within time and space and within which existence occurs. ...

And where did this time and space come from before existence occurred?

Can you visualize this? God, or this quality of BEING, is beyond time and space. ...

I can and 'it'll' be in 'its' own time and space then.

God wasn't created. ...

And there's your problem as why can this not be the case for the Universe?

It doesn't begin or end as the cycles of creation do. ...

We have no idea if there are 'cycles of creation'.

It always IS. ...

As such could be the Universe.

The process of existence is in constant change within the Source or what IS.

Philosophers call it the Noumenon and as such there is nothing reasonable to say about 'it'.

[Arising_uk]

Well you don't know much, do you.

I know a fair bit but the Noumenon is not knowable, despite what you think you know.

[sthitapragya]

God, or this quality of BEING, is beyond time and space..

How does He manage that? You seem to be implying magic. If that is the case, then Santa Claus!! And Unicorns!!! More importantly, how do YOU know that God is beyond time and space, when other humans cannot even figure out what happened at the big bang, forget about beyond it? Do you have special abilities which allow you to see beyond space and time, unlike us other mortals?

[sthitapragya]

I agree that you cannot know if God exists. The question is if you exist and if there is an objective purpose for your existence in the context of a universal purpose? If a reasonable hypothesis can be made to explain this universal purpose of continually transforming substances, then the question becomes our purpose within it. The trouble with blind denial is that it emotionally denies any hypothesis for lack of proof and defines any hypothesis as unreasonable by definition. Blind deniers get satisfaction from the belief that blind denial proves some sort of intellectual superiority. Actually it does the opposite and as Simone Weil suggests, what the blind denier feels in private may really be an objective calling to the source of our existence or the source of the "good.".

The problem, as I have pointed out before, is purely psychological. I am pretty sure that your life would be ruined if it ever dawned on you that life has no purpose. Think about it. If life had a purpose, God would have told you what it was, so that you could go about fulfilling it as soon as you were able. This whole thing about first finding your purpose in life and then fulfilling it, is mindbogglingly inefficient and just plain stupid for someone as intelligent as God should be. Now the question is, can you live with knowing that your life has no purpose? If you can, then you will find it easy to discard God. If not, carry on.

For an atheist, the existence or non-existence of God is irrelevant. If I find out tomorrow that a God does exist, I will simply be amazed that an all powerful being could be so incompetent as to create a world like this, but other than that, my life would go on exactly as it has today. There would be no change. But for a theist, the existence of God is of paramount importance. A theist cannot conceive of a world without God because that would simply render his or her life meaningless. And this is something that theists need to address. Why this need?

[vegetariantaxidermy]

I agree that you cannot know if God exists. The question is if you exist and if there is an objective purpose for your existence in the context of a universal purpose? If a reasonable hypothesis can be made to explain this universal purpose of continually transforming substances, then the question becomes our purpose within it. The trouble with blind denial is that it emotionally denies any hypothesis for lack of proof and defines any hypothesis as unreasonable by definition. Blind deniers get satisfaction from the belief that blind denial proves some sort of intellectual superiority. Actually it does the opposite and as Simone Weil suggests, what the blind denier feels in private may really be an objective calling to the source of our existence or the source of the "good.".

The problem, as I have pointed out before, is purely psychological. I am pretty sure that your life would be ruined if it ever dawned on you that life has no purpose. Think about it. If life had a purpose, God would have told you what it was, so that you could go about fulfilling it as soon as you were able. This whole thing about first finding your purpose in life and then fulfilling it, is mindbogglingly inefficient and just plain stupid for someone as intelligent as God should be. Now the question is, can you live with knowing that your life has no purpose? If you can, then you will find it easy to discard God. If not, carry on.

For an atheist, the existence or non-existence of God is irrelevant. If I find out tomorrow that a God does exist, I will simply be amazed that an all powerful being could be so incompetent as to create a world like this, but other than that, my life would go on exactly as it has today. There would be no change. But for a theist, the existence of God is of paramount importance. A theist cannot conceive of a world without God because that would simply render his or her life meaningless. And this is something that theists need to address. Why this need?

That's only partly true. They only imagine that their life would be ruined while they are still believers, but the reality is that when religious nut-jobs finally see the light and stop believing in nonsense, they become the same as any other non-believer. They realise that their world hasn't ended, and they can be just as happy if not happier than they were before. I've known a few like that. There's no sudden eureka moment. Apparently it's often quite gradual, and they are barely aware that it's happening. Sometimes they only have to be around 'atheists' for it to happen, which is probably why religious leaders are often paranoid about their member coming into contact with 'worldly folk'.

[Walker]

Well you don't know much, do you.

I know a fair bit but the Noumenon is not knowable, despite what you think you know.

Well then, keep right on insisting that God is knowable as creator.

And before you evolve into more words games to divert the well-placed point, and before you ask what that point is (it is obvious), the sentence is not to equate God with Noumenon.

The point is that you're simply playing word games.