"Theological Atheism"? Huh?
Posted on: June 8, 2011 - 4:08am
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"Theological Atheism"? Huh?
I don't know if the author would allow me to repost the article, so I'll link and summarize the article:
http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/fundamentalist-atheism.html
Essentially, Theological Atheism is the belief that
a) God (specifically the Abrahamic one) exists
b) He doesn't want us to believe in him
It takes the creationist idea that god made all the evidence that he doesn't exist, and uses that to draw the conclusion that god wants us to no longer believe in him because of his personal preference for invisibility, and his perfect humility.
What do you think of this idea? To me it makes no sense but maybe some of you can make it not sound dumb.
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Well then I guess we are doing it right after all.
If it assumes a God exists, but hides from us, then it ain't atheism.
But with theology, logic goes out the window, or at least any propositions about God are not bound by 'ordinary' logic, so it makes as much or as little sense as any other ideas starting from the assumption that they is some kind of being deserving to be called a 'god'...
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
I have often thought that the Bible would make more sense as a test of gullibility - if you remained skeptical, if you see all the contradictions and absurdities, you won, and it was all the foolish ones who were going to be consigned to some lesser status, maybe not Hell, but some second class version of the after-life.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
That's not a bad idea. If Yahweh has any sense left, he set the humanity free to grow in wisdom out of his extremely paternalistic care.
If there will be any Jesusoidic prophets, they will not gather followers, but rather gain attention by saying sensible and useful things or outright by educating people.
Of course no-one of Biblical authors could imagine that, so they wrote lots of stuff about worship, judging people and brimstone rainfall. Which was their maximal stretch of imagination, just like for us today are the crazy fantasies of people like Stephen Hawking or Terrence McKenna's novelty theory.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Isn't this the doctrine of predestination?
In most Christian denominations, they believe God only reveals himself to his true believers. He doesn't reveal himself to non-believers or members of false churches. Then they jump through all kinds of hoops to say we also all have free will to choose or not choose to believe.
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This makes no sense whatsoever. The primary argument of the article is that God doesn't want us to believe in him because he has provided no evidence for his existence. So, they just assume that God exists, and it's implied that if their is no evidence, then it must be that he is withholding evidence from us, ignoring the obvious - there are no gods.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
According to the Atheist Experience, the un-knowable equals the non-existent. And I agree.
/thread
Well, that sounds to me like some weird inversion of Pascal's wager. Now one thing that has always seemed obvious about that was that it urged one to play a marginal set of odds but provided no actual guidance as far as which belief might be correct.
There are, of course, no loss for other reasons to reject Pascal's wager but that seems to be sufficient for my life. Shall I believe in some specific concept under the larger rubric of christianity and if so which one? For that matter, nothing in the wager precludes me from picking the animal spirits of pre-Columbian native American Indians or some other aboriginal belief from another part of the world. For that matter, what about whatever passes for religion on some other inhabited planet which we have not had any contact with?
So let me invert the wager and see if the objection still holds. Don't believe in that for which there is no proof. OK, I don't believe in the great wolf spirit of North America. I don't believe in mumbo jumbo god of the congo and I certainly don't believe in the god of small furry creepy things from Alpha Centauri. Oddly enough, I also don't believe in any of the eurocentric concepts of god either.
So let's now say that one of those gods is really real but hiding. OK, which one would that be? How do I pick it out from all of the others and if I did pick correctly, should I not believe in that one harder because it is the real god? I guess that I should not believe in the other gods less because they never were real gods in the first place?
OK, what would it mean to not believe less in the fake god than I do the real god?
Really, the whole idea makes no sense at all.
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Yes, it really has the same basic hole as Pascal's Wager, that there is only one God that should be considered.
That said, it makes even less sense than PW.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
This is a new one to me. It never ceases to amaze me how the theist tries to dress the skunk up in a different colored tuxedo.
How about this. God does not exist and people simply want a super hero. And by giving the fictional super hero new colored spandex and a cape. that makes the super hero real.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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To me, the best thing about this is that it's more likely creationists will go to this than pure atheism. Same with any theist. It could be a nice stepping stone to atheism
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So, no one bothered to check the rest of her website and realize this was a very clever joke? Come on, kids.
Awwww....you meany.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
It was a joke? Where did you see this? I looked briefly but didn't see that. I was shown it by someone who seems to actually believe it.
Look at my blog! It's awesome!
I'm also on this Twitter thing