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What do we replace religion with?[W:675]

Re: What do we replace religion with?

zyzygy said:
Atheism is the antithesis of religion.
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I am sure it's very annoying to you when people conflate two different meaning of a word and I am sure you're already aware:

Religious can mean "a principle or belief held with faith and strong conviction" as much as it can mean "believing in the supernatural".

Because of this fact, you are probably aware atheism is only the anthesis of "belief in the supernatural" which is "religion" only in certain contexts - so why this reply when Elvira outright makes clear sure she means the former?

My guess would be you dislike being associated with the "religious" in the same way many supernatural believers like to be "spiritual but not religious". It's a word with baggage.

I hope though you might consider that for most of the religious such baggage does not exist. Being called "non-supernaturally religious" by them is not an insult. It's a starting point to furhter discussion.

When a Jordon Peterson, says he would consider himself religious as chooses to live his life as if there is a God. He does so to try and bridge such a conceptional gap. He wishes to talk abut the ideas and concepts to atheists and theists alike.

As when one can at least agree on god as an abstract concept on which there are many different conceptions, one can still have a discussion the same way we could about an abstract psychological concept like say our "egos".
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

ataraxia said:
Shakespeare had amazing insight into the human condition, no question. But it was the insight of an artist. It is breathtakingly beautiful, and I am not trying to devalue it or caricature it at all. It just needs to be understood for what it is, with all its limitations. His portrait and study of characters like Iago, or Lear, or Hamlet, or MacBeth are so beautiful for the same reason that Michaelangelo or DaVinci's or Rafael's portraits are so beautiful: they are a realistic and beautifully artistic study of the real world.

But that's all they are: artistic studies. Shakespeare gives you no final, concrete answers. You can't build anything on it, even if it's something as poetic sounding as "the arc of life". [shortened to meet post length limit]
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To be sure, "Shakespeare had amazing insight into the human condition" -- same goes for all the great Artists, poets, playwrights, novelists, painters, sculptors, and musical composers whose work has become part of the canon of world literature. That's one of the reasons they are still relevant after centuries and milennia. The "beauty" of their achievement is only a part of what these works are about, the part given attention in aethetics and the philosophy of art. The "insights" are something different from the "beauty."
These insights, individually and all together, render human nature in narrative, in picture, in physical form, in musical feeling. Ther can be not "but" about this, and your "but it was the insight of an artist" and your "but that's all they are: artistic studies" reveal an egregious lack of appreciation of Art. We converse across a great divide, you and I, a divide created by education, temperament, and philosophical outlook.

ataraxia said:
[shortened to meet post length limit]
As far as the value of being, and always remaining perplexed, let me quote Richard Feynman, the legendary Nobel Prize laureate in physics. He talks of science and the scientific mindset, and its application to ethics and social policy. Allow me to quote at length:
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Feynman is half right and wholly wrong. He's half right when he acknowledges the Socratic ideal, that of knowing that we know nothing, i,e,, the ideal of epistemic humility; but Feynman is wholly wrong in attributing the source of that ideal to science, and he is wholly wrong in attributing the provenance of liberal democracy to the spirit of science, demonstrating into the bargain the arrogance of science in these attributions, i.e., demonstrating the defining characteristic of scientism, which began seeping into the cultural tea in Feynman's generation of science and has since soaked into the brains of the educated and semi-educated classes, to their detriment.

I've posted this journal article once or twice before in the course of the past year. I post it again here out of a sense of obligation, and because you appear to be more open-minded than the rest.

The Folly of Scientism
When I decided on a scientific career, one of the things that appealed to me about science was the modesty of its practitioners. The typical scientist seemed to be a person who knew one small corner of the natural world and knew it very well, better than most other human beings living and better even than most who had ever lived. But outside of their circumscribed areas of expertise, scientists would hesitate to express an authoritative opinion. This attitude was attractive precisely because it stood in sharp contrast to the arrogance of the philosophers of the positivist tradition, who claimed for science and its practitioners a broad authority with which many practicing scientists themselves were uncomfortable.

The temptation to overreach, however, seems increasingly indulged today in discussions about science. Both in the work of professional philosophers and in popular writings by natural scientists, it is frequently claimed that natural science does or soon will constitute the entire domain of truth. And this attitude is becoming more widespread among scientists themselves. All too many of my contemporaries in science have accepted without question the hype that suggests that an advanced degree in some area of natural science confers the ability to pontificate wisely on any and all subjects.

[the headings found in the article:]
The Abdication of the Philosophers
The Eclipse of Metaphysics
The Eclipse of Epistemology
The Eclipse of Ethics
The Persistence of Philosophy
https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-folly-of-scientism
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Anyway, here, in case you're interested, is one answer to your perplexity about the nature of man; it is given in a relatively short talk (about a half hour, the rest of the 1:45 is given over to Q&A) by Alasdair MacIntyre, the most important philosopher alive today.

Alasdair MacIntyre - Ends and Endings
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fURsunj61Y
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

zyzygy said:
Atheism is the antithesis of religion.
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while it is stupid to say that nt belving in gods is a relgion i thck you could ocme up iwht one thta dosent have gods


i could belve for example that i have to hop around a tree on my left food every other wednesday in order to reach a nice after life

without believing any gods created anything


and if you wanna get super strict about ethics and how you want people to act that could be a religion like the satanic temple
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

Atheism is not a religion by definition.
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

zyzygy said:
Atheism is not a religion by definition.
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By the very definition, it is...

re·li·gion
/rəˈlijən/Submit
noun
the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.
"ideas about the relationship between science and religion"
synonyms: faith, belief, worship, creed; More
a particular system of faith and worship.
plural noun: religions
"the world's great religions"
a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance.
"consumerism is the new religion"

https://www.google.com/search?q=rel...i65j69i60j0.9453j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

Rising Sun said:
Not according to the previous definition. BTW, you know people can have faith without a religion, right?
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Just as people can have religion without faith..Paul pointed that out...2 Timothy 3:5
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

zyzygy said:
Faith in what?
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Anything beyond the nose on their faces. Usually spiritual in nature however believing in life exists on other worlds even though there is zero evidence of it is also a matter of faith. You can say, "well it's a matter of scientific odds, not 'faith'" but many gamblers in Vegas have played the odds and had faith they'd win, but came home losers. Why? Because odds are not certainty.
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

Rising Sun said:
Anything beyond the nose on their faces. Usually spiritual in nature however believing in life exists on other worlds even though there is zero evidence of it is also a matter of faith. You can say, "well it's a matter of scientific odds, not 'faith'" but many gamblers in Vegas have played the odds and had faith they'd win, but came home losers. Why? Because odds are not certainty.
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That does not make atheism a religion.
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

zyzygy said:
That does not make atheism a religion.
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Just as not all believers in an almighty/all powerful creator aren't religious neither are all atheists. It's one this to disbelieve in anything beyond the physical and never question the origin of the Natural Universe. It's another to fervently tell others they are fools for believing in a "sky daddy" and that "when you're dead, you're dead". That's a matter of faith. :)
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

Rising Sun said:
Just as not all believers in an almighty/all powerful creator aren't religious neither are all atheists. It's one this to disbelieve in anything beyond the physical and never question the origin of the Natural Universe. It's another to fervently tell others they are fools for believing in a "sky daddy" and that "when you're dead, you're dead". That's a matter of faith. :)
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I disagree. I have never seen any evidence that supports the existence of a god or gods. That is not faith.
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

zyzygy said:
I disagree. I have never seen any evidence that supports the existence of a god or gods. That is not faith.
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You seem smart enough to know the maxim that "absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence". The logical position is agnostic: unknown due to insufficient evidence. To be an atheist or a theist requires faith since there is no evidence to support either position.

Additionally, I'm not saying you are religious or have faith, just those atheists I described.
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

Rising Sun said:
You seem smart enough to know the maxim that "absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence". The logical position is agnostic: unknown due to insufficient evidence. To be an atheist or a theist requires faith since there is no evidence to support either position.

Additionally, I'm not saying you are religious or have faith, just those atheists I described.
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I do not accept that it takes faith to be an atheist.
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

Rising Sun said:
I'm sure you have complete faith that all the world's atheists think just like you. :)
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Are you of the opinion that there is anything inherently wrong or immoral about being an atheist?
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

Rising Sun said:
I'm sure you have complete faith that all the world's atheists think just like you. :)
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I do not pretend to know how other people think.
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

If atheism is a faith then not collecting stamps is a hobby.
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

Rising Sun said:
You seem smart enough to know the maxim that "absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence". The logical position is agnostic: unknown due to insufficient evidence. To be an atheist or a theist requires faith since there is no evidence to support either position.

Additionally, I'm not saying you are religious or have faith, just those atheists I described.
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Well, logic dictatts otherwise

In some circumstances it can be safely assumed that if a certain event had occurred, evidence of it could be discovered by qualified investigators. In such circumstances it is perfectly reasonable to take the absence of proof of its occurrence as positive proof of its non-occurrence.
— Copi, Introduction to Logic (1953), p. 95
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Re: What do we replace religion with?

Logician Man said:
Are you of the opinion that there is anything inherently wrong or immoral about being an atheist?
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Not at all. I used to be one. It’s just a personal matter of faith covered by the Constitution.
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

zyzygy said:
I do not pretend to know how other people think.
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Yet your comment about other atheists indicates you do.

Atheists run the gamut of “when you’re dead, you’re dead” to non-god religions like Buddhists and even semi-god beliefs like pantheists and panentheists. You are free to believe as you wish as is everyone else. The only time this becomes a problem is when people start forcing their beliefs upon others be it Stalin and Mao killing all theists or Theists killing all heretics to their beliefs.
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

Elvira said:
I'll go by the true definition, thank you very much...not by definition according to DD...:2razz:
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You aren't using a true definition, but one of your own making. According to you, anything could be called a religion. This negates the ability of the word religion to mean anything in rational discussion.
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

Rising Sun said:
Just as not all believers in an almighty/all powerful creator aren't religious neither are all atheists. It's one this to disbelieve in anything beyond the physical and never question the origin of the Natural Universe. It's another to fervently tell others they are fools for believing in a "sky daddy" and that "when you're dead, you're dead". That's a matter of faith. :)
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What does "beyond the physical" mean other than something entirely invented?
 
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