Can an Atheist believe in anything..?

#11

Was that brought up at all? Come on Kramer...stay on topic

#12

Is there any great reason these days to still believe in a higher power? Maybe a desire for redemption or a framework to live by, but little beyond that I'd think. Though perhaps this is just a difference of cultures - in England church attendance is at an all time low, with the vast majority of people prefering the new religeon of celebrity.

Personally I've often thought the gravitational constant G is as close to God as we are ever likely to get...

#13

It depends greatly on what you define as highter and what you define as power...For many ancient cultures, the sun represented God...How could you argue it..? Without the sun, there would be no life on earth...As a single human being, you are powerless against the sun...I don't know why there is a seemingly adamant need to assingn God human like traits, sometimes to see things for what they are, you have to do what I call "dummy down" and think clearly..

#14

Was there any early religion which worshiped the sun in a monotheoistic fashion? Certainly I'm aware of plenty of polytheolistic variations which included sun worship as part of their canon - Ra, Hellios, Apollo, etc. Perhaps Akenaten would count, certainly he seems to have tried to invoke the image of Ra with his own.

But I agree that certain aspects of the natural order could be considered "greater" than us, and potentially more powerful in many ways, but that doesn't imbue them with any of the atributes normally attributed to God(s). Though perhaps the term itself has become too broad to carry any significant meaning. The God of the Cananites was an interfeering old busybody, always sticking his oar in to alter events for the good of his chosen people. Current western views of God seem to gravitate more towards the idea of a silent or disinterested deity who perhaps judges at the end of days, but doesn't do-the-do for us in the here and now. Or even a force of nature such as the sun that you suggest or the gravitational constant that I mentioned. Of course such a God is impassive in the face of human behavior and even of our very existance. That makes worship or even contemplation of such a "being" kind of irrelevant, wouldn't you say.

#15

It always amazes me how much stuff gets talked about by the time i get back to these threads.I guess if you say you dont believe in some thing with out proof but believed in ghosts you would have to justify that with some sort of proof.There is no proof for ghosts so you would have to come up with a theory you believed in... which would be a belief.Thats a conflict.If your the type of athiest who dosnt believe in certain reliegous beliefs becouse they sound funny or stupid but are willing to believe in certain types of spiritualities becouse they sound more reasonable ...thats a personal chose and a belief.. which would be no defferent than what any other person believing in some thing does.What sounds resonable to you may sound goofy to me.

Proof....Your never gonna find it written down in a book.The words are the path. The experience along that path and the changes that happen is the personal proof that makes us sure.How do we know love exists...Proove it...Isn"t love an experience.If there was no one left on earth and you had never met any one how would you know love existed.You have to experience it...God is love

lightfoot wrote......Or even a force of nature such as the sun that you suggest or the gravitational constant that I mentioned. Of course such a God is impassive in the face of human behavior and even of our very existance. That makes worship or even contemplation of such a "being" kind of irrelevant, wouldn't you say.
.....i agree

.lightfoot wrote..... Current western views of God seem to gravitate more towards the idea of a silent or disinterested deity who perhaps judges at the end of days, but doesn't do-the-do for us in the here and now.

........not to familier with how the whole god thing works are you. =)

#16

Why does the belief in a higher power, something greater than self, even have to imply a God or Gods..? And for the record, I believe that there are more than one of the beings that could in fact be called Gods...But, this is all part of what I believe in how the universe came to be anyway...

The whole thing is to say, that if you don't belive in God, as in, the God presented to you in the bible, that doesn't make you an atheist...I'm not sure what teh word is for it, but its not that...If you think the bible is a cluster of stories written by man, and don't believe in the authenticiy of a single scriptutre, that doesn't make you an atheist...That makes you anti-religion, or something...

There are too many things tied into this that have been so blown out of context...

I ask any true atheist if it is possible that there could be beings of a greater power, and or more advanced than human beings...And by more advanced, I mean as in, a the way a 3 dimensional being can see and understand more things than a 2 dimensional being...If it is POSSIBLE for these things to exist, and not have any other attributes placed on them by humanity, as in requiring worship, then why are you saying you are atheist..?

#17

Im gonna assume your talking to me

Ayhja wrote..Why does the belief in a higher power, something greater than self, even have to imply a God or Gods..?

...I guess god is just a name we give it.The point was made earlier...why believe in some thing that has no interest in you like the sun.I really dont know how powers greater than our selves would be relevent to us as far as living our lives if they didnt react with us some how.

A wrote...The whole thing is to say, that if you don't belive in God, as in, the God presented to you in the bible, that doesn't make you an atheist...I'm not sure what teh word is for it, but its not that...If you think the bible is a cluster of stories written by man, and don't believe in the authenticiy of a single scriptutre, that doesn't make you an atheist...That makes you anti-religion, or something...

I dont think any one here has said that and i hope thats not what people think im saying.I do believe at this stage of my life that there are different ways to get to god.I certanly dont think some ones an athiest if they dont follow the path ive taken.People are very different, countries are very different ..i have a hard time exepting god would only give us one path.

A wrote...I ask any true atheist if it is possible that there could be beings of a greater power, and or more advanced than human beings...And by more advanced, I mean as in, a the way a 3 dimensional being can see and understand more things than a 2 dimensional being...If it is POSSIBLE for these things to exist, and not have any other attributes placed on them by humanity, as in requiring worship, then why are you saying you are atheist..?

I think i get your point.Some body can believe in a higher power but just have it exist with no need to have any relationship with it.Becouse theres no worship involved they concider them selves athiests?That kind of seems like that person is sitting on the fence or just has a love for science and the possibilities of discoveries yet to be made.

I say if your belief system or non belief system makes you happy and helps you bring love to this world than bless you cause we need more like you....see ya

#18

LoL, well thanks for your candid reply M8, but I wasn't talking to you in general...Just tossing out ideas for the sake of discussion...You say something interesting...

why believe in some thing that has no interest in you like the sun.

This is exactly my point...We want to humanize our Gods, make them like us and that is how we define them...Or the majority of us anyway...Or well hell, I don't knod the odds, but that's what I mean...The sun does EVERYTHING one can attribute to a being a higher power...It gives and sustains life, it is everlasting, and it he most potent source of energy we know - thus all powerful...Yet, it can't be a God, or God, or a higher power because it has no interest in us..? And then to that I challenge you to thing of nature, all things form a symbiotic circle to which a mutual relationsihp is shared...Why is our relationshp to the sun any different..? Why else would the sun be there, if not to give life..? We are surrounded by harmony, yet there are those of us (and I mean nobody in particular here) who pick and chose where they want to make those spots...

Nobody can prove that the sun is inanimate...What if it can't be comprehended..? To believe that the sun is inanimate requires the same faith and belief set that there is no God...

#19

QUOTE(highlife)QUOTE(lightfoot)Current western views of God seem to gravitate more towards the idea of a silent or disinterested deity who perhaps judges at the end of days, but doesn't do-the-do for us in the here and now.

........not too familier with how the whole god thing works are you. =)
There are always exceptions, but isn't the general trend towards a less involved God? Perhaps this is just the view from outside the US.

Ahyja, the word you might be looking for is agnostic: someone who decides there's no proof for or against the existence of God(s) and lacking that knowledge decides it's unimportant to how they live anyway. People used to get killed for expressing such thoughts, so that might explain why some took it to the extreme of athiesm. More a reaction to the power of organised religion than a worthwhile belief system.

Regarding the sun as God, or a god, I can certainly see how someone could believe that. Scientific theory says the sun was created relatively late in the day compared to the stars in other solar systems, but who knows if the current thinking is to be believed. On the other hand the sun's rays don't reach every part of even our little orbiting body, so it falls short of the omnipresent aspect of Godhood. The creatures taking their sustinance directly from hot vents or calcium deposits (on the ocean floor, or in the darkest caves) suggest God isn't providing life for all creatures on this planet, if the sun is God. Personally I have a hard time thinking of the Sun as a God watching over us, probably because we're approaching the point where we can start to contemplate destroying our God if we so wished. If we can ever get fusion to work, anyway...

#20

Or, it could be looked at on a grander scale, if one subscirbes to the fact that we are held in the suns "gravitational pull" (I know its not gravity persay, but I can't think of what else to call it at this exact moment :oops:) and thus still sustaining life on this planet, and even allowing those organisms that could not exist with direct contact of sunlight to survive...

And by no means am I advocating sun worship, LoL, I am just saying we see so many amazing things here on earth, that we take for granted...Small bugs that can produce internal lights, things that produce pure electrical energy, grow to enourmous sizes given a perfect climate, regrow a limb that has been torn off...My think is why are there seemingly so many people claiming to be atheist, rather than have the dispostion of looking around them, seeing some amazing shit that they don't understand, can't replicate, and just going, "Shit man, I guess a God is possible..."