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Go Back   Spiritual Forums > Spirituality & Beliefs > Spirituality

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  #91  
Old 12-09-2019, 09:19 AM
Altair Altair is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by iamthat
If someone truly had no beliefs then they would be neutral about the subject. They would neither believe nor disbelieve.

The same dictionary you quote above defines an atheist as:

a person who believes that God does not exist

This sounds like someone who has beliefs.

Peace.

No iamthat... you are making stuff up.
The definition of belief is quite clear, and I provided it. Lack of belief =/= belief.

There is no such thing as ''I believe that I don't believe'' -_-
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  #92  
Old 12-09-2019, 01:11 PM
Jyotir Jyotir is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by iamthat
Quote:
You say that atheism is a lack of belief in God and therefore atheism is not a belief system. Surely an atheist is someone who believes that there is no such thing as God. Belief is holding an idea in the absence of knowledge. The atheist does not know whether God exists or not, so all they have is a belief.

We could turn your argument round and say that a Christian lacks belief in the non-existence of God and therefore Christianity is not a belief system. This does not make sense.
Quote:
…confusing disbelieving with a lack of belief. The atheist does not have a lack of belief. The atheist disbelieves. Disbelieving is just another belief system.
Quote:
If someone truly had no beliefs then they would be neutral about the subject. They would neither believe nor disbelieve.

The same dictionary you quote above defines an atheist as:

a person who believes that God does not exist

This sounds like someone who has beliefs

Belief is in and of the mind, the intellect.

One may be so objectively concrete as to reason that the negation of any objective - be it a supreme personal deity, or the availability of lunch - constitutes “no belief”, but really what they have done is simply reason the indirect conclusion of ‘fact’ which is in-and-of-itself the belief, whether affirming or negating the objective, regardless of whether it constitutes real truth.

"Lack of belief" IS a belief; it is simply the reasoned conclusion which is the belief.

This is why faith is superior to belief.

Belief is reasoned from premise or inference, but faith is more directly subjectively intuitive even if the conviction seems to have no substantial objective basis. The issue of substance and its apparent absence is a deficiency seen by the reasoning mind as insufficient to the mode and process of its own concrete reasoning.

Likewise for the always suspect self-deceptive Mother of all beliefs:
“I don’t have any beliefs”, which is of course, just another belief.

Atheism is penultimately as implied, a belief in viability of oneself vs. that of deity or divine agency.
But it is ultimately the divine playing hide-and-seek with Itself; the self-conscious human being as the instrumentation of that Game.

Of course, it could be reasoned that I am "making stuff up" (based on a premise gleaned from a dictionary) toward that conclusion.

That's another belief.


~ J




Last edited by Jyotir : 12-09-2019 at 03:28 PM.
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  #93  
Old 12-09-2019, 04:09 PM
Siemens Siemens is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Altair
Lack of belief is not the same as having a belief. Every high school kid who pays attention during any class on argumentation will already heard of have this. It's just so tiresome to say atheism is a belief. It isn't. Why believe in things there is no proof of? This doesn't describe me by the way, I'm not an atheist, but Jesus, some people need to check on some fallacies and argumentation.

A lack of belief is not the same as a belief. Someone who doesn't believe in a god or the Easter Bunny (yes, this one needs to be in capitals) isn't some sort of ''believer in non-belief''. Get real folks.
Atheism indeed is a kind of religion. I do not talk about agnostic atheists but about atheists that belief that there is definitely neither god nor soul nor anything else that is supernatural.

Here is an example of what atheists positively believe:
- Atheists believe without any prove that the whole universe is made up of substantial matter (atoms) although the material universe could - with at least the same likelihood - be a virtual simulation our souls created within their minds.


As a consequence
- Atheists believe without any prove that human consciousness is created by the human brain (because they deny the possibility of the existence of a soul).
- Atheists believe without any prove that we all developed through biological evolution (natural selection) because they deny the possibility of spiritual forms of evolution.
- Atheists positively believe that spiritual experiences that people make are just hallucinations.
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  #94  
Old 12-09-2019, 04:10 PM
EdmundJohnstone EdmundJohnstone is offline
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NDE (Near death experience) should be the gateway to the afterlife, right? But some people don't experience anything they were just completely unaware saying that those who experienced something were just hallucinating, or contradicting one another. How does someone explain that?
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  #95  
Old 12-09-2019, 04:21 PM
Siemens Siemens is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Altair
not believing in Santa or in spirits doesn't mean one has beliefs. It's simply the absence of belief.
The difference is that Santa doesn't explain anything observable.

Although all religions contain lies (also eastern religions like Bhuddism,...) spiritual views give an explanation of WHY something that we can observe and therefore demand an explantion exists. E.g. the existence if the universe or spiritual experiences that people have. Santa Claus doesn’t explain a lot.
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  #96  
Old 12-09-2019, 05:23 PM
Altair Altair is offline
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But in any practical way, nobody goes around believing that the world is only matter. There's no church, no doctrine, no nothing about it. It's just people who observe existence and come to the conclusion that existence of spirits cannot be proven. People only bring subjective experiences to the table, like ''I feel there's a spirit'', ''I'm hearing voices'' and ''meditation yo!'' Nothing wrong with that, and I'm not shy of it either, but lets be real here, none of this will pass the rigorous requirements of science.

And because of this some people take an atheist position, and perhaps if they do have ''spiritual experiences'' they remain skeptical about them. This is not the same as religion, where people just make jumps and fill gaps. Atheism is simply not a belief, it's a lack of beliefs.

I agree with you that eastern religion contains lies too and this should be explored more in spiritual circles.
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  #97  
Old 12-09-2019, 06:03 PM
BigJohn BigJohn is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by iamthat
If someone truly had no beliefs then they would be neutral about the subject. They would neither believe nor disbelieve.

The same dictionary you quote above defines an atheist as:

a person who believes that God does not exist

This sounds like someone who has beliefs.
Peace.
I see nothing wrong with one person
believing their is no God/god as opposed to somebody
believing there is a God/god.
In both cases, each person expresses their own belief.
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        Happiness is the result of an enlightened mind whereas suffering is caused by a distorted mind.
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  #98  
Old 12-09-2019, 06:06 PM
BigJohn BigJohn is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Siemens
Here is an example of what atheists positively believe:
- Atheists believe without any prove that the whole universe is made up of substantial matter (atoms) although the material universe could - with at least the same likelihood - be a virtual simulation our souls created within their minds.
I suspect most people will agree the Universe is made up of matter: any thing else is subjective.
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        Happiness is the result of an enlightened mind whereas suffering is caused by a distorted mind.
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  #99  
Old 12-09-2019, 06:11 PM
BigJohn BigJohn is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Siemens
- Atheists believe without any prove that human consciousness is created by the human brain (because they deny the possibility of the existence of a soul).
Where is our mind located?
Is our minds 3 dimensional.
What is the largest a mind can be?
For the most part, we can not describe what our mind is just like we have a hard
time trying to describe consciousness. We might conclude both are subjective.
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        Happiness is the result of an enlightened mind whereas suffering is caused by a distorted mind.
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  #100  
Old 12-09-2019, 06:14 PM
BigJohn BigJohn is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Siemens
- Atheists believe without any prove that we all developed through biological evolution (natural selection) because they deny the possibility of spiritual forms of evolution.
More and more Christian beliefs are acknowledging that micrevolution is a fact.
Now.... macroevolution is another thing. As for spiritual forms of evolution, that is questionable.
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        Happiness is the result of an enlightened mind whereas suffering is caused by a distorted mind.
   ⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜ ⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜


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