Lately I've begun to feel like criticizing organized religion is shooting fish in a barrel. If science has disproved Santa Claus, it has disproved Jesus. Yahweh is as nonexistent as Marduk, Ra, and Zeus. There are certainly no personal gods. But what about the philosophers' god, the one you can't disprove? Why do you believe there is nothing supernatural whatever, that everything in the Universe is made of matter?
atheists: why materialism?
(8 posts) (8 voices)-
blotonthelandscape
MemberIn another thread, the words "agnostic atheist" were used. I think that would describe pretty much every atheist here. That is, non-belief in a god and the belief that we can never be 100% certain. What is immplicit in your question is that we not only believe (that a non-specific "god"-entity does not exist), but that we believe with certainty.
To approach your question from another angle, so what if there is a "super"-natural? I know that my eyes, and my brain, and the rest of my senses, are stimulated by "material" things (not sure if I could strictly call a photon of light "material", but it'll do for the context). Even if there was a supernatural 'dimension' to our universe, we would only be able to view the material aspects of it, and would hence have no reason to assume that it is anything more than material. , and it is in fact an error in logic (called the fallacy of induction) to make the claim "We have never witnessed (or even "we cannot witness") a supernatural dimension, therefore the supernatural does not exist".
We therefore tentatively accept the basic assumption that everything is material, until such time as we can discern, decipher, and/or access and make use of this hypothetical supernatural realm.
Consider the proposition that god "speaks" to you. How would you discern this voice? Would you have any reason other than pre-concieved biases to conclude that it was a "supernatural" entity speaking. It would make more sense to believe that this voice is either a figment of your imagination (which is a material but abstract function of our brain), or that it came from an outside, material object (a neighbour, your mother), or a combination of both (a collection of odd sounds is misinterpreted by your brain as something significant).
Posted 3 years ago # -
Leo
MemberWhat blotonthelandscape said.
If there is something "supernatural" that doesn't interact with our universe in any discernable way, I think it really does not exist by any meaningful definition of existence.
It's totally possible that there are any number of things that do not interact with us. Take dark matter for instance- it strongly interacts with the gravitational field, but not the EM field which is how we as humans detect things. So there could easily be particles that don't interact with our forces at all. You could theoretically describe any number of non-interactive particles, but if their existence cannot be tested, the question of their existence is meaningless to us. I feel the same way about the philosophers' god.
Posted 3 years ago # -
I don't know why I would believe in something with no evidence to support it. I haven't ruled it completely out, like the others, I don't believe in the supernatural.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Kodie
MemberEven though I've always been or felt like an atheist, until I examined a lot of it with the help of this and other sites, I was a little disorganized in the head. I'm not educated well in science, but it is amazing to me, amazing enough not to require god. I once had personal "theories" about the self involving souls and such, the compilation of thoughts and self-identity that are so random and unique... I think this inability to comprehend how the brain works influences peoples' belief in gods. My concerns are greater than food and mating, my opinions "matter" at least to me, things that are maybe the same awe a religious person feels when looking at a sunset that another animal just does not sit on a mountain ledge and appreciate. Does not laugh at movies, or have a romantic date running in the rain back to the car; other stuff like worry and fear - in the human world, it's not natural predators we fear. We fear running out of food and money, or being alone forever - I can't say for sure animals don't think of it, whatever motivates them to belong to their group and keep an eye out for food and shelter, I think they worry about it when it happens. It's ego, but I think personal experience really feeds it and the imagination; we invent gods from that ego, because it seems especially different from the way other animals live. Our collective experience seems much more abstract and quite obviously more divine.
I really never think there are "souls" like I said. I would describe my ideas as more like what people have called ghosts or souls could be real but believers in the supernatural really believe are supernatural and materialists discard as nonsense. I was somewhere in the middle - maybe people who have seen this aren't full of shit, but there's a rational explanation. Ultimately, I've been talked out of it rationally, I guess there's no real division between the mind and the body after death or before death, and all the senses exist in the physical brain and require physical organs to operate. We've had a lot of discussions about uploading the contents of the mind/brain to a machine so that people can live forever in a scientifically possible or plausible way.
In a more science fiction sort of way, I'm a little bummed that I can't be like a fly on the wall after I die. Being invisible and hearing what people really say when you're not around - maybe I'm a little sick that way, but I would love for that to be true. Forget heaven. I want to be invisible. Also, that would be creepy if it were true: who would be here watching me. On the one hand, you might think god is watching or your grandmother, a sort of benevolent creature, keeping you honorable or keeping you company maybe, but it's sort of boring and mostly you hope you're alone when you're alone. If you can live with yourself alone, you don't need any invisibles judging you. These are some of my non-scientific wishes and thoughts on the supernatural and I conceive it to be pure fiction now. This is in contrast to ideas about dark matter and things that really are scientific and observed in the universe, the focus of my imagination of the subject as it interests me at all.
As for god itself: while things that seem supernatural now may someday be scientifically observable and therefore natural if only we develop the instruments to observe them and expand the knowledge, I think god just plain doesn't exist. I wrote a while back that I had once called the collection of everything "god" in a sense, a god with no purpose or concern, but exists in the forces of nature and humanity and space and atoms and cats and lizards and oceans... just everything. Not a god of the bible who creates or intervenes, nor even some pantheistic idea of trees and skies requiring some reverence. A rock is just a rock, it is not a manifestation of some mythological "power" in that sense. I have never felt anything that suggests a god or family of gods shifting the universe around like pawns, or creating energies and places like Hawaii or Paris or the backyard I see out my window, but I am in awe of nature and just how large it is and most of the things in it, even the worst of it.
The more I think about it, if god is a god, there can't be a god. If there is any supernatural explanation for anything, it does not seem to be up to the job of being god - despite all the rainbows or peace of mind I might feel in a given moment, or convenient coincidences, I don't forget all the rotten things and the hardships in this world that don't get resolved (magically or otherwise), lack of communication, lack of intervention, lack of fixing things or putting the world in a righteous course. If the "purpose" was to leave it up to us, well, it is, so I don't understand the glorification, nor the mysterious ways in which he supposedly works - that's just ridiculous. And there, I pretty much feel that whatever is unobservable now is just a matter of science and technological progress. Perhaps we don't admit it as humans, but there will always be things we don't know and can't quite get close enough to learn about, but it's nice to know we think we should at least try. Ultimately, it's all material. It can't not be.
Done babbling, that's just my perspective.
Posted 3 years ago # -
CoffeeJedi
Member"Why do you believe there is nothing supernatural whatever, that everything in the Universe is made of matter?"
Because if it exists, and is real, then we can observe and measure it. If it's real, then it's "natural". The idea of "super-natural" doesn't really mean anything to science.
And not EVERYTHING is matter. There's radiation like heat for example, or radio waves. Even light has its own quirky wave/particle duality. But the fact remains that we can observe, measure, and predict these things. Even if spiritual energies or ghosts existed, we'd be able to measure them and determine their rules as well.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Ty
Moderator"Why do you believe there is nothing supernatural whatever, that everything in the Universe is made of matter?"
Because the only thing in existence for which we have evidence is matter and energy.
If something can't be detected in any way, it either by definition or functionally does not exist.
The second someone detects something that is neither matter nor energy, then I will believe in that new thing.
Posted 3 years ago #
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