Joshua Roberts

Atheists Don’t Believe in God

I can neither prove nor refute the existence of deity, as a quantum dualist I must assume that the unified field of energy underlying existence may in fact have a type of consciousness most akin to the taoist concept of “the way” or perhaps o the transcendentalist notion of the “over soul”. Is that deity? I cannot say, to be honest its not really a subject that interests me because i cant prove much about it so why even bother myself with it. thats what gets me about religious people, they all seem to think they can know the mind of god etc, ludicrous. if there were a god or gods how could anyone know what they think and if so why should anyone else belive them! The saddest thing is I am sure some religious person will come along and argue some insane inherency via a Kantian treatment. that is how silly people can be, they have a personal need for there to be a god and will go to any length to create a system which proves his existence.

In a fight against global corporatism and the dominance of an elite people of faith often are my natural allies, whats more I find that on the whole they are also decent people, perhaps even more so than my atheistic friends. But to be perfectly honest its about a horse a piece, neither group has an exclusive claim to be more ethical or humane.

I think it is important to tolerate both because one cannot prove or disprove the point of contention to within a reasonable degree of probability.

When it comes to the theoretical application of a process, or the perspective of that process as accounting for variation etc, again it is important to go with which system is more probably true based on evidence and examination. Available evidence suggests that “evolution” (which is a very complex concept and should not be mistakenly considered to be a codified set of principles in any sense although clearly one could make a list) is the most reasonable explanation for a range of aspects in cell biology. Although we may not understand this process completely, and we may never truly understand it thus not ruling out the hand of some unknown and unknowable god (for instance we might say that our thoughts have some influence on the process or our feelings this would hold with a qm view and yet seem metaphysical enough to insight notions of the divine), we can safely understand the process from the perspective analysis justifies.

The real danger here is interpretation and attitude. As with all science, it is a question of how you use it, it is a tool and one can wield a tool for humane and beneficial purposes or for brutal and inefficient ones.

Evolutionary theory was used to underwrite a gilded age philosophy of might makes right, it has been used again and again by some to underwrite their own arrogance and sense of entitlement to brutalize and dominate others. While we might never wish to dismiss the concept of a theory of rank, we must come to understand that absolute necessity of the whole, we can never make the mistake of thinking we know more than we do! Often one becomes arrogant because they think they understand a complex system well enough to safely make decisions, this is utter folly, one can never understand any system this well and must always make a decision with caution and a circumspection informed by tolerance.

History is full of examples where sweeping decisions were made about systems and the result was that those decisions broke the system because they overlooked or neglected what was vital, sweeping it away out of ignorance as to the integral nature of the system and the role each integer played!

Who knows, perhaps we atheists should learn something here, perhaps as a species we even Need this idea of god now more than ever. If not for ourselves than for others, though it bears incredible risks, it may still serve some vital purpose! Of course my instinct is not friendly to that view, I see religion as a source of manipulation and some of histories greatest atrocities.

Do People Become Atheists so They Can Act Immorally?

There are probably some people who do, but largely no, in fact most atheists start out religious because that’s how they were indoctrinated and gradually come to openly oppose religion after conducting analysis. In my own life I have spent nearly a decade making a comparative study of world religions, from the Elder Eddas to the Eleusinian Mysteries, I love the perspective of religion as astro-theology when it comes to judeo-christianity but the same thing applies to many other systems. Many of the earliest metaphysical systems that we might call pagan religions are closer almost to a quantum view of nature, in that they posit that there are “gods in all things” etc.

The problem here is that without morality one must stand on ethics, which is sufficient, but requires Other People to hold a person to a standard. Deity is more effective because it uses the Threat of repercussions after death (about which we have no experience and therefore it is terrifying) or within this own life via an omnipotent and omnipresent mind. We mustn’t forget however that morality is a perspective informed by a set of values which are human, they are not divine, and they are codified by humans. Thus the two approaches are identical! It is just that with the moralistic one there is an injected fear of divine reprisal to sweeten the pot and keep people from doing ill to one another or acting unjustly. But isn’t this also the source of a greater volatility within the morality system? All too often we have evidence of god being used as the justification for bloodshed!

I prefer ethics, without a concept of the divine, governed by a culture (which, as plato reminds us, is a difficult thing to produce and should be our primary concern) a culture which rigorously pursues the concept of justice.