If a man is really happy, mostly due to his "amazing" wife who changed his whole life and gave him hope by offering him loyalty when he'd given up on it, do you tell him that everyday while he's at work she cheats with his high school bully and he finishes each session by cumming on her wedding ring specifically so they can laugh at how funny it is that he praises her loyalty?
In this hypothetical situation, there's no possible way for him to find out other than us. He's going to feel pretty bad and lose a lot of that newfound hope if he finds out. Am I the big bad wolf for telling him or is it worse that I keep my mouth shut while knowing the truth?
It's a tough decision right? That's fair. Okay. Now imagine that letting him live the lie somehow breeds an entire belief system that encourages making fathers help stone their daughters to death as an apology to their husbands for having given them such worthless daughters when the men claim they didn't feel/appear to be virgins.
Hmm. I think that just helped me make up my mind, and it's the tip of the iceberg. Religion isn't harmless.
It isn't harmless. Depending upon the religion, it is either harmful or beneficial. There is only one religion that is beneficial. All the others are harmful. From what you have claimed, I assume you believe the same, just with a rejection of the idea that atheism is a religion.
I wouldn't say that I find atheism beneficial. Sure, I think it's beneficial to switch to it from a religion, but that's a bit like removing your hand from a hot stove burner. That's a good move no doubt, but I wouldn't describe that same area hanging at your side as an inherently beneficial position had you not just had your hand on a stove burner instead.
It's just the default position. We're all atheists until we're either told to believe in some god or decide to on our own. But atheism isn't really a belief system or even scientific system at all. Science corroborates it and often makes people revert to it, but science doesn't have to enter the picture technically. To be an atheist all you have to do is not start thinking there's a possibility that a god is out there at some point.
So since I wouldn't count all the science as a given, I'd say atheism is completely neutral. It has nothing new to offer so as to be beneficial in and of itself. What might seem as it being beneficial when reverting to it from a religion is really one simply stopping something else that was harmful.
Imagine that all religions are frequencies of visible light, different colors based on how we perceive traveling photons, but they're all certainly photons. Photons are religions. Well atheism isn't a photon. Atheism is a shadow. And a shadow is nothing. A shadow is the illusion of something created by the stark contrast between a patch of nothingness midst all those photons. If the photons weren't around in the first you wouldn't even see anything to call a shadow.
Since a shadow is nothing, it also has nothing to offer. Still, if you're being blinded or sunburned, "stepping into a shadow" might seem like a good idea, but all you really did was step _out_ of the burning sunlight.
I'd argue that agnosticism is the darkness of which you speak, and that atheism is another of the many different wavelengths. Agnosticism is the true lack of belief; not believing in the lack of a god, nor the existence of a god. After all, when there is no light, any light could come shining in, but atheism does not allow such a thing; atheism wants to stay separate from the other wavelengths, while agnosticism embraces the religions. What embraces all the wavelengths of light more readily than lack of light? Certainly not another wavelength of light. Just as atheism does not allow the presence of other religion, a single wavelength of light will not combine with another. While they may exist in the same area as each other, they will not interact. Darkness, on the other hand, is removed by the light, when the agnostic finds a religion that interests them, possibly revealing to them their truth.
Do you believe in the Aberimonu? Rather, did you before reading this comment?
I doubt it, as it's a cryptozoological creature that I just made up on the spot. Even if you weren't previously so much as conceptually aware of it, so long as you didn't either believe it existed or possibly existed, you didn't believe it existed. Even though that fact isn't something that ever crossed your mind, it's a fact that the Aberimonu is not something you believed existed.
That is the default position for all things before knowledge of them is presented. When it is, a new position may or may not be assumed.
Humans are born atheists. Even if a person never learns of what religion even is, they are still an atheist, unbeknownst to even them.
The core issue is that you are desperate to label a default lack of belief a belief when it simply isn't, just as an empty cookie jar is not a type of cookie.
If theism is light, photons, it cannot be more clear that atheism is a-light, a-photons, nothing. It's literally nothing. Your apparent inability to see this is the same as with someone incapable of seeing that a shadow is nothing, confused by the illusion of contrast rendering nothingness something useful to note in the context.
How doesn't agnosticism better fit what you describe than atheism? Agnostics are the ones who truly have no beliefs, not rejecting or embracing anything. Atheists reject all religions, except for their own belief in the impossibility of other religions. Humans are born agnostics, not immediately theistic religion, but not believing it either. Since a human is born without knowledge of religion, they will grow to be an agnostic until the concept of religion is suggested to them. They would not reject religions as atheists do, nor would they embrace religion as theists do. They are the ones who truly lack in belief. Atheism is a religion with one belief: there is no god who created the world. Agnosticism is not a religion, as agnostics have no belief.
No. People are absolutely not born agnostics. Without a conceptual understanding of gods, one can't believe one might exist.
It is widely known that people are born atheists. From the Wikipedia entry on atheism: "Atheism is commonly defined as the simple absence of belief that any deities exist. This broad definition would include newborns and other people who have not been exposed to theistic ideas. As far back as 1772, Baron d'Holbach said that 'All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God.'"
why are you atheist? why are you theist?
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If a man is really happy, mostly due to his "amazing" wife who changed his whole life and gave him hope by offering him loyalty when he'd given up on it, do you tell him that everyday while he's at work she cheats with his high school bully and he finishes each session by cumming on her wedding ring specifically so they can laugh at how funny it is that he praises her loyalty?
In this hypothetical situation, there's no possible way for him to find out other than us. He's going to feel pretty bad and lose a lot of that newfound hope if he finds out. Am I the big bad wolf for telling him or is it worse that I keep my mouth shut while knowing the truth?
It's a tough decision right? That's fair. Okay. Now imagine that letting him live the lie somehow breeds an entire belief system that encourages making fathers help stone their daughters to death as an apology to their husbands for having given them such worthless daughters when the men claim they didn't feel/appear to be virgins.
Hmm. I think that just helped me make up my mind, and it's the tip of the iceberg. Religion isn't harmless.
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Clunk42
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It isn't harmless. Depending upon the religion, it is either harmful or beneficial. There is only one religion that is beneficial. All the others are harmful. From what you have claimed, I assume you believe the same, just with a rejection of the idea that atheism is a religion.
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S0UNDS_WEIRD
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I wouldn't say that I find atheism beneficial. Sure, I think it's beneficial to switch to it from a religion, but that's a bit like removing your hand from a hot stove burner. That's a good move no doubt, but I wouldn't describe that same area hanging at your side as an inherently beneficial position had you not just had your hand on a stove burner instead.
It's just the default position. We're all atheists until we're either told to believe in some god or decide to on our own. But atheism isn't really a belief system or even scientific system at all. Science corroborates it and often makes people revert to it, but science doesn't have to enter the picture technically. To be an atheist all you have to do is not start thinking there's a possibility that a god is out there at some point.
So since I wouldn't count all the science as a given, I'd say atheism is completely neutral. It has nothing new to offer so as to be beneficial in and of itself. What might seem as it being beneficial when reverting to it from a religion is really one simply stopping something else that was harmful.
Imagine that all religions are frequencies of visible light, different colors based on how we perceive traveling photons, but they're all certainly photons. Photons are religions. Well atheism isn't a photon. Atheism is a shadow. And a shadow is nothing. A shadow is the illusion of something created by the stark contrast between a patch of nothingness midst all those photons. If the photons weren't around in the first you wouldn't even see anything to call a shadow.
Since a shadow is nothing, it also has nothing to offer. Still, if you're being blinded or sunburned, "stepping into a shadow" might seem like a good idea, but all you really did was step _out_ of the burning sunlight.
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Clunk42
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I'd argue that agnosticism is the darkness of which you speak, and that atheism is another of the many different wavelengths. Agnosticism is the true lack of belief; not believing in the lack of a god, nor the existence of a god. After all, when there is no light, any light could come shining in, but atheism does not allow such a thing; atheism wants to stay separate from the other wavelengths, while agnosticism embraces the religions. What embraces all the wavelengths of light more readily than lack of light? Certainly not another wavelength of light. Just as atheism does not allow the presence of other religion, a single wavelength of light will not combine with another. While they may exist in the same area as each other, they will not interact. Darkness, on the other hand, is removed by the light, when the agnostic finds a religion that interests them, possibly revealing to them their truth.
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Do you believe in the Aberimonu? Rather, did you before reading this comment?
I doubt it, as it's a cryptozoological creature that I just made up on the spot. Even if you weren't previously so much as conceptually aware of it, so long as you didn't either believe it existed or possibly existed, you didn't believe it existed. Even though that fact isn't something that ever crossed your mind, it's a fact that the Aberimonu is not something you believed existed.
That is the default position for all things before knowledge of them is presented. When it is, a new position may or may not be assumed.
Humans are born atheists. Even if a person never learns of what religion even is, they are still an atheist, unbeknownst to even them.
The core issue is that you are desperate to label a default lack of belief a belief when it simply isn't, just as an empty cookie jar is not a type of cookie.
If theism is light, photons, it cannot be more clear that atheism is a-light, a-photons, nothing. It's literally nothing. Your apparent inability to see this is the same as with someone incapable of seeing that a shadow is nothing, confused by the illusion of contrast rendering nothingness something useful to note in the context.
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Clunk42
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How doesn't agnosticism better fit what you describe than atheism? Agnostics are the ones who truly have no beliefs, not rejecting or embracing anything. Atheists reject all religions, except for their own belief in the impossibility of other religions. Humans are born agnostics, not immediately theistic religion, but not believing it either. Since a human is born without knowledge of religion, they will grow to be an agnostic until the concept of religion is suggested to them. They would not reject religions as atheists do, nor would they embrace religion as theists do. They are the ones who truly lack in belief. Atheism is a religion with one belief: there is no god who created the world. Agnosticism is not a religion, as agnostics have no belief.
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S0UNDS_WEIRD
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No. People are absolutely not born agnostics. Without a conceptual understanding of gods, one can't believe one might exist.
It is widely known that people are born atheists. From the Wikipedia entry on atheism: "Atheism is commonly defined as the simple absence of belief that any deities exist. This broad definition would include newborns and other people who have not been exposed to theistic ideas. As far back as 1772, Baron d'Holbach said that 'All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God.'"