Who Really is an Atheist?

[uwot]

Communication is more than secular speeches.

Not really with you. Are you saying that the only things that Christ and Buddha said in agreement were secular?

Do you really think that the apostles dropped everything to follow Jesus because he was making a speech?

To be frank, there is no historical evidence for any of those characters. So, no.

Those like Jesus and Buddha communicated from what they were.

Who doesn't?

Near her death, Simone Weil started being able to communicate something from a deeper level. She began communicating from the depth of her being. I am far from that real.

Why then should we believe anything you say?

I had the impression of being in the presence of an absolutely transparent soul which was ready to be reabsorbed into original light. I can still hear Simone Weil’s voice in the deserted streets of Marseilles as she took me back to my hotel in the early hours of the morning; she was speaking of the Gospel; her mouth uttered thoughts as a tree gives its fruit, her words did not express reality, they poured it into me in its naked totality; I felt myself to be transported beyond space and time and literally fed with light.
Gustav Thibon wrote of Simone Weil

Fair enough. Monsieur Thibon was clearly impressed; does it follow that what he felt corresponds with reality?

[Arising_uk]

When a person lacks belief they are expressing a conditioned reaction. ...

No-one lacks belief?

What sort of thing does a lack of belief describe to you?

Belief isn’t required. ...

Isn't required for what?

A parrot doesn’t believe what it says but is just expressing a conditioned reaction. ...

If a parrot believes at all then it believes it is squawking. You mean a parrot doesn't know what it says.

Hope as an acquired aspect or having hope IN something also becomes a conditioned reaction. Hope as a human attribute like the potential for love is something we are born with and can become a conscious expression. ...

In what sense, doing something about one's beliefs?

That is part of the reason but another part is far deeper and is only possible through faith as a human quality rather than a means for escapism

“Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand.”Simone Weil

Where's this 'faith' in this, you mean Marxism?

Those like Jesus and Socrates welcomed the experience of conscious death. ...

Well Socrates certainly did but I remember something about being forsaken in Jesus's case.

They had to consciously experience the blindness of human reaction as part of death to accomplish their mission. ...

What does this mean?

Consciously experiencing the human condition for what it is without negative defensive emotions is the path of conscious evolution. ...

Or this?

Simone needed direct conscious experience of the human situation so became part of it so as not to consciously forget it and lose her destiny. ...

Oh please, for a start she put someone else out of work for a year.

Over here we have tenure so education isn’t the goal; indoctrination is. Professors indoctrinate students into secular statism. The students as a whole just go along. Only a minority object and often they suffer as a result. ...

I have no idea what you are talking about and I've studied to a fairly high level of education. Maybe this happens in the private education system but I've not seen it in our public system.

Simone Weil: “Love is the Intermediary Between Us and the Divine”

Seems a one-way kind of love to me.

Our essential difference is that you only accept one level of reality. I believe in levels of reality or conscious evolution. That is why you only recognize secular expressions of religion or the exoteric with all its mixed blessings. I appreciate the purpose of the essence of religion is to help our species out of its slavery Plato described as if in a cave. ...

Then just bust the shackles Plato put on them.

We are always being bombarded with new paths of self deception which is the norm for cave life. You seem concerned with how best to adjust to cave life. ...

For sure, central-heating, running water, sewage system, wall to wall rugs, kitchen, flat screen telly, wi-fi, extensions, the works. This view of a cave as bad is strange to me, for sure if you're shackled in one they be nasty places, but they have been good shelters for this primate, places to come back to and plan, swap tales and myths about what's out there beyond the opening.

Others like me are concerned with how to get out of the cave. ...

Easy, turn around and walk out and whilst doing it drop the idea of Ideal Forms and just understand the phenomena and forget understanding the noumena.

That is why we cannot communicate. We begin with different foundations.

Exactly why language is so useful.

As an aside, if you’d like to read Simone’s critique of Marxism, you can find it here. This is the first paragraph:

http://www.commonsensereligion.com/2010 ... rxism.html

Nice essay.

Don't disagree with most of her analysis and agree about what she finds will be Marx's ultimate philosophical legacy.

Still not hearing a lot of 'God' in there? Can hear a lot of 'faith' in the collective tho'.

[Hobbes' Choice]

When a person lacks belief they are expressing a conditioned reaction. ...

Having no belief in not a lack. Refusing to believe is called intelligence.
Believe nothing: seek to know.

Sapere Aude!

[Nick_A]

Arising wrote: No-one lacks belief?

What sort of thing does a lack of belief describe to you?

A habit doesn’t require belief. It is a powerful conditioned reaction. You may not believe in the habit but you remain a slave to it.

“Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand.”Simone Weil
Where's this 'faith' in this, you mean Marxism?

Faith IN God has nothing to do with it. Faith as a human attribute becomes essential to witness reality. Actually this is described well by the Faith of the Centurian

Those like Jesus and Socrates welcomed the experience of conscious death. ...
Well Socrates certainly did but I remember something about being forsaken in Jesus's case.

Yes Jesus was describing the process of Man letting go of illusions and doubts normal for Man in order for the Resurrection to become possible. Jesus was teaching his disciples.

They had to consciously experience the blindness of human reaction as part of death to accomplish their mission. ...
What does this mean?

All the horrors humanity is capable of in defense of the collective ego, its blind reactions and its effect on a person's psyche must be consciously witnessed in order to enable the help of the Holy Spirit.

Over here we have tenure so education isn’t the goal; indoctrination is. Professors indoctrinate students into secular statism. The students as a whole just go along. Only a minority object and often they suffer as a result. ...
I have no idea what you are talking about and I've studied to a fairly high level of education. Maybe this happens in the private education system but I've not seen it in our public system.

American media and education is infested with Cultural Marxism. Its aim is to establish the loss of freedom and create the chaos that will follow requiring statist slavery to bring order.. You won’t hear about it because it is politically incorrect to speak of it but its effect is obvious. This is what I mean:

http://www.marylandthursdaymeeting.com/ ... arxism.htm

Cultural Marxism is a branch of western Marxism, different from the Marxism-Leninism of the old Soviet Union. It is commonly known as “multiculturalism” or, less formally, Political Correctness. From its beginning, the promoters of cultural Marxism have known they could be more effective if they concealed the Marxist nature of their work, hence the use of terms such as “multiculturalism.”
Cultural Marxism began not in the 1960s but in 1919, immediately after World War I. Marxist theory had predicted that in the event of a big European war, the working class all over Europe would rise up to overthrow capitalism and create communism. But when war came in 1914, that did not happen. When it finally did happen in Russia in 1917, workers in other European countries did not support it. What had gone wrong?
Independently, two Marxist theorists, Antonio Gramsci in Italy and Georg Lukacs in Hungary, came to the same answer: Western culture and the Christian religion had so blinded the working class to its true, Marxist class interest that Communism was impossible in the West until both could be destroyed. In 1919, Lukacs asked, “Who will save us from Western civilization?” That same year, when he became Deputy Commissar for Culture in the short-lived Bolshevik Bela Kun government in Hungary, one of Lukacs’s first acts was to introduce sex education into Hungary’s public schools. He knew that if he could destroy the West’s traditional sexual morals, he would have taken a giant step toward destroying Western culture itself.

Don't disagree with most of her analysis and agree about what she finds will be Marx's ultimate philosophical legacy.

Still not hearing a lot of 'God' in there? Can hear a lot of 'faith' in the collective tho'.

Simone didn’t have any faith in the Great Beast but did see that humanity could awaken to its true nature and society could reflect a greater level of collective consciousness rather than be content to remain as the Great Beast. You didn’t read of God because God isn’t in the World. She believed it was through grace that human consciousness could evolve and produce human rather than conditioned understanding.

“Humanism was not wrong in thinking that truth, beauty, liberty, and equality are of infinite value, but in thinking that man can get them for himself without grace.” ~ Simone Weil

[Arising_uk]

A habit doesn’t require belief. It is a powerful conditioned reaction. You may not believe in the habit but you remain a slave to it. ...

What habit are you describing?

Faith IN God has nothing to do with it. Faith as a human attribute becomes essential to witness reality. Actually this is described well by the Faith of the Centurian

Faith in what?

Yes Jesus was describing the process of Man letting go of illusions and doubts normal for Man in order for the Resurrection to become possible. Jesus was teaching his disciples.

More like he was in extreme pain and wondering why the hell he's been left there.

All the horrors humanity is capable of in defense of the collective ego, its blind reactions and its effect on a person's psyche must be consciously witnessed in order to enable the help of the Holy Spirit.

Surely doing something about it would have been more useful?

American media and education is infested with Cultural Marxism. Its aim is to establish the loss of freedom and create the chaos that will follow requiring statist slavery to bring order.. You won’t hear about it because it is politically incorrect to speak of it but its effect is obvious. This is what I mean:

http://www.marylandthursdaymeeting.com/ ... arxism.htm

Cultural Marxism is a branch of western Marxism, different from the Marxism-Leninism of the old Soviet Union. It is commonly known as “multiculturalism” or, less formally, Political Correctness. From its beginning, the promoters of cultural Marxism have known they could be more effective if they concealed the Marxist nature of their work, hence the use of terms such as “multiculturalism.”
Cultural Marxism began not in the 1960s but in 1919, immediately after World War I. Marxist theory had predicted that in the event of a big European war, the working class all over Europe would rise up to overthrow capitalism and create communism. But when war came in 1914, that did not happen. When it finally did happen in Russia in 1917, workers in other European countries did not support it. What had gone wrong?
Independently, two Marxist theorists, Antonio Gramsci in Italy and Georg Lukacs in Hungary, came to the same answer: Western culture and the Christian religion had so blinded the working class to its true, Marxist class interest that Communism was impossible in the West until both could be destroyed. In 1919, Lukacs asked, “Who will save us from Western civilization?” That same year, when he became Deputy Commissar for Culture in the short-lived Bolshevik Bela Kun government in Hungary, one of Lukacs’s first acts was to introduce sex education into Hungary’s public schools. He knew that if he could destroy the West’s traditional sexual morals, he would have taken a giant step toward destroying Western culture itself.

And he did that in America did he? Your multiculturalism idea comes from having a lot of space to accommodate immigrant groups who have little intention of mixing but are united under the idea of happiness and money. As such it was a sad day we imported it from you rather than continue the anti-racial stance we had. Your PC comes from minorities in a Democracy demanding a change in the way they are perceived and talked to. You appear to want some old 50's racism and religious intolerance back?

Simone didn’t have any faith in the Great Beast but did see that humanity could awaken to its true nature and society could reflect a greater level of collective consciousness rather than be content to remain as the Great Beast. You didn’t read of God because God isn’t in the World. She believed it was through grace that human consciousness could evolve and produce human rather than conditioned understanding.

What's this 'grace'?

Only one thing can be taken as an end, for in relation to the human person it possesses a kind of transcendence: this is the collective.

Seems to be faith?

[Nick_A]

Arising, when a person is an alcoholic, do they believe in alcohol?

Do you know the difference between faith IN Christ and the faith OF Christ as they relate to consciousness? It would surprise me if you did. I cannot explain it to you in a post. Yet you make all sorts of remarks about faith without knowing what it is

Imagine a strong chess player trying to explain positional play to a novice. It couldn’t happen. Before discussing positional play the nature of the game requires a certain level of understanding. It is the same with grace and the sacred impulses of faith, love, and hope. Appreciating anything but the superficial requires understanding of the nature of our universe and our part and potential within it. I cannot explain it here.

[Arising_uk]

Arising, when a person is an alcoholic, do they believe in alcohol?

No, they believe they need alcohol or that they are an alcoholic, etc.

Do you know the difference between faith IN Christ and the faith OF Christ as they relate to consciousness? ...

What do you mean by 'consciousness' here?

I'd have thought that the 'faith of' is to do with someone else's faith in something and 'faith in' to do with your belief in something?

It would surprise me if you did. I cannot explain it to you in a post. Yet you make all sorts of remarks about faith without knowing what it is.

What sort of 'faith' are you talking about?

Imagine a strong chess player trying to explain positional play to a novice. It couldn’t happen. Before discussing positional play the nature of the game requires a certain level of understanding. It is the same with grace and the sacred impulses of faith, love, and hope. Appreciating anything but the superficial requires understanding of the nature of our universe and our part and potential within it. I cannot explain it here.

Then what are you doing here telling atheists what they think or not?

[Hobbes' Choice]

Arising, when a person is an alcoholic, do they believe in alcohol?.

It does not matter. The analogy is false as alcohol exits whether of not you believe IN it or believe OF it, or believe ON, or any other damn preposition.

But your analogy with addiction and Theism is noted.

[Nick_A]

Arising wrote: Nick_A wrote:Arising, when a person is an alcoholic, do they believe in alcohol?
No, they believe they need alcohol or that they are an alcoholic, etc.

You are missing the point. A person rarely believes in one thing but rather has a multiplicity of beliefs often in opposition. Say a person believes they should lose ten pounds so decides to diet. Then in the evening they decide that the box of chocolate chip cookies looks delicious so decide to eat cookies. What do they believe. If they believe both in dieting and eating chocolate chip cookies, what do they believe?

What sort of 'faith' are you talking about?

Can you first be open to the idea that there are different qualities of faith? The Apostles asked Jesus to “Increase our faith!” Does that mean they were asking for more blind faith in Jesus or another quality of faith?

Then what are you doing here telling atheists what they think or not?

No, it isn’t a matter of telling anyone to think but rather asserting that emotional blind denial prevents becoming open to appreciating teleology understood in Christianity as the Great Chain of Being. Teleology refers to the objective purpose of things as expressions of universal laws. I don’t see how Man in relation to Christianity could really be understood without it. But here blind denial is dominant so let the arguments continue.

[Arising_uk]

You are missing the point. A person rarely believes in one thing but rather has a multiplicity of beliefs often in opposition. ...

Then I recommend a good dose of Philosophy.

Say a person believes they should lose ten pounds so decides to diet. Then in the evening they decide that the box of chocolate chip cookies looks delicious so decide to eat cookies. What do they believe. If they believe both in dieting and eating chocolate chip cookies, what do they believe?

These aren't beliefs they are wants.

Can you first be open to the idea that there are different qualities of faith? ...

Such as?

The Apostles asked Jesus to “Increase our faith!” Does that mean they were asking for more blind faith in Jesus or another quality of faith?

I think he was asking them to get more recruits, as he had an inner and outer school when it came to creating 'faith' in others.

No, it isn’t a matter of telling anyone to think but rather asserting that emotional blind denial prevents becoming open to appreciating teleology understood in Christianity as the Great Chain of Being. Teleology refers to the objective purpose of things as expressions of universal laws. I don’t see how Man in relation to Christianity could really be understood without it. But here blind denial is dominant so let the arguments continue.

Well given I'm an atheist I'll leave your theological disputes up to you lot.

The problem with your 'blind-denial' idea is that you've already assumed the 'God' you wish us to believe in and then just search for confirmation.

[Hobbes' Choice]

You are missing the point. A person rarely believes in one thing but rather has a multiplicity of beliefs often in opposition. Say a person believes they should lose ten pounds so decides to diet. Then in the evening they decide that the box of chocolate chip cookies looks delicious so decide to eat cookies. What do they believe. If they believe both in dieting and eating chocolate chip cookies, what do they believe??

More blind denial of the necessity of atheism.

[Nick_A]

Hobbes wrote:

More blind denial of the necessity of atheism.

Quite true. Blind belief and blind denial permeate the God question along with the question of Man's objective meaning and purpose.

Simone Weil has observed: "There are two atheisms of which one is a purification of the notion of God."
- William Robert Miller (ed.), The New Christianity (New York: Delacorte Press 1967) p 267; in Paul Schilling,
God in an age of atheism (Abingdon: Nashville 1969) p 17

Atheism that offers questions and discussion based on intellectual doubt and free of emotional nastiness serves as a purification of the influences from blind belief. It has been proven that these atheists do not post on this site and emotional blind denial is dominant here. Maybe someone will come along but that is like walking into a club and hoping to begin a conversation with a woman who is a ten. The odds aren't good.

[Arising_uk]

Atheism that offers questions and discussion based on intellectual doubt and free of emotional nastiness serves as a purification of the influences from blind belief. It has been proven that these atheists do not post on this site and emotional blind denial is dominant here. Maybe someone will come along but that is like walking into a club and hoping to begin a conversation with a woman who is a ten. The odds aren't good.

Pardon? Are you asking for an atheist who believes in your 'God'? Whatever the hell 'it' is that is, as you are very short on description of what this 'God' is.

[Nick_A]

Arising wrote:

The problem with your 'blind-denial' idea is that you've already assumed the 'God' you wish us to believe in and then just search for confirmation.

I have never told you to believe in anything. I've written of the value of becoming open minded so as to escape the prisons of habitual blind belief and blind denial. God is meaning. What gives you your greatest sense of meaning is your god. Most draw meaning from earthly influences and these influences are their god. There are some in which the need for meaning isn't satisfied by earthly influences. They are drawn to experience a higher source of meaning that is the source of the earth itself. They call it God. You don't need this so I don't see why you bother with religious questions.Just play with your remote. Let it fulfill your need for meaning and be happy.

[Arising_uk]

I have never told you to believe in anything. ...

True, you've just told us what we think is wrong.

I've written of the value of becoming open minded so as to escape the prisons of habitual blind belief and blind denial. ...

Open minded to what? You are very coy on this point.

God is meaning. What gives you your greatest sense of meaning is your god.

Fair enough, so no actual 'God' then.

Most draw meaning from earthly influences and these influences are their god. There are some in which the need for meaning isn't satisfied by earthly influences. They are drawn to experience a higher source of meaning that is the source of the earth itself. They call it God. ...

Which is what exactly?

What do you mean by such things as 'the source of the earth itself'?

You don't need this so I don't see why you bother with religious questions. ...

I don't in general which is why I come to a philosophy forum but you godbotherers just insist on turning up too.

We really should scrap the phil of religion section and put it into a subsection of Metaphysics where it belongs.

Just play with your remote. Let it fulfill your need for meaning and be happy.

XboxOne for me.

Don't know about you but I get meaning and happiness from friends, family, new experiences and just being alive.