I dont see how deference and respect to the dead are intrinsically human. I dont think children have it. It seems more of a learned cultural thing. Why should we have respect for the dead? What does it even mean to have respect for the dead?

LOL these are some of the most bizarre "arguments" I have ever read.

Humans aren't even the only species to show empathy towards others, including towards their own dead. I guess based on this argument, the other species showing empathy is because they have a deep-down hidden belief in God?

Showing respect to the dead on the battlefield, well, people want to treat other people the way they want to be treated. And i'm sure it is pretty emotional to watch your friend killed or injured in front of you, so you might not want to let the enemy run their body over with a tank or whatever. Maybe they have a spouse or children who would like to bury their body at their home? Maybe they have friends?

Survival beyond 600 years? Basic human instinct wants us to survive, and not just ourselves but our offspring, which includes those people 600 years in the future. Interestingly, theists should not care about survival on earth, since their belief is based on survival after death. Why would any theist care at all about how long they or their children live? In comparison to eternity, their time on earth isn't even a significant portion of their existence, and is irrelevant.

The bible example is just LOLbad.

Come on DS do you have any better arguments? This has to be a troll.

Or maybe his account was hacked by Joel Osteen.

Concocting yet a new odd example isn't helping you here. Namely, the criticism here is your continued attempts to shoehorn some semblance of hidden/vestigial/subconscious theism as motive in the actions of atheists, something I submit you are vastly overvaluing. Is it possible such subconscious theists exist and you can imagine a weird hypothetical where you make the atheists act in a way designed by the hypothetical to appear as if their subconscious theism is the causal agent? Sure. But that doesn't help your mistake: the continual overvaluing of all this secret theism stuff, particularly to actions that are quintessentially human actions and not quintessentially theistic actions.

While I think engaging any of the specific hypotheticals distracts from the error you are making quite generally, for the record while I probably wouldn't use any book to clean up a spill, if I was I would hardly give two ****s whether it was the bible or not.

"Why should we?" and "do we?" or "why do we?" are two very different questions. It is just an observational point that humans across a wide range of cultures - and certainly atheists as well - show such respect for the dead. Yes this is a cultural thing (and not a purely religious cultural thing either) but presumably the reason it is such a common cultural thing is because of basic human instincts. One can speculate as to various psychological motivations such as the fact that our brain builds emotional responses to memories of people whether they are or are not present and the like as to why humans may desire to respect dead loved ones.

Eitherway, the point was that simply because atheists do this does not imply they are secret theists, it just means they are acting in a way common among humans. It is a human trait, rightly or wrongly, not a specifically theistic trait.

Actually you have sort of caught me being too cute. Because my original idea was almost unrelated to religion and was originally going to be in the SMP forum. But I thought it might be fun to tweak atheists in the process and didn't foresee that some of them would tenaciously argue only that part of what I was trying to say. My Asteroid post in SMP will hopefully rectify that.

Trolling is against the rules.

Usually people pick up on the worst parts of other's posts. It is precisely this kind of focus on the most egregious errors that helps to learn and develop. So I focused on what I thought was by far the most ridiculous part of your post - the subconscious theist part. Nonetheless, you repeated your mantra several times and dug in trying to defend it, it was hardly just a casual tweak against atheists at the start.

Groan.

Mighty how about this example which may take things to a different level then the Bible example previously mentioned,

A depressed and suicidal atheist man is wandering aimlessly in a cold desert not to far away from civilization. He suddenly stumbles upon a book which happens to be a Bible. At first he thinks I will destroy it or stomp on it but then starts reading a few pages and the depression starts to slowly disappear. The man then starts to walk back toward civilization.

In addition, some ardent atheists will not curse out a religious site out of respect and sometimes even fear. Other atheists will look at a statue of Mary and think what a waste of space surely this statue is meaningless and I could spit on it.

IMO It just seems like in the ladder example where a person who spits on a statue of Mary, could not be moral or sensible. That doesn't mean they are mentally unstable but its sort of a case of anti religion that does society no benefit and actually seeks to divide and in turn cause damage. Would you agree to this?

This was cringeworthy to read.. holy crap sklansky

Ask some of em about armageddon.

Some interesting conversations going on in the religion forum lately, has there ever been some type of Priest/Iman/Rabbi etc who posted in this forum?

Just don't agree, I think it's the dead opposite. I think theists probably just expect the human race to survive because god made them to do exactly that, and when it's over they'll be going to heaven (think about the rapture) so they probably aren't bothered about the long term survival of our species at all. When the end comes, it will be because god decided to end it, so no problem.

As an atheist I have no other reason to want the long term survival of our species beyond just not wanting us to not be here anymore. It's a subject I think about (I read a lot of Stephen Baxter who writes about this theme quite a lot) and I get very frustrated at our apparent shortsightedness when it comes to our long term survival. I'm coming to the conclusion that as 'intelligent' as we are, we might actually be too stupid to last much longer and it may be our very 'intelligence' that causes it to happen and turns out to be yet another failed evolutionary experiment.

Sure, I don't think I'm giving anything away to agree to this, there are plenty of obvious explanations for this behaviour, not least that religions do a good job of creating that kind of response, it's just a type of behavioural conditioning. Think about blasphemy laws, the recent push by Islam to make any criticism of Islam illegal, the 'respect' that we're all commanded to have for religious views etc etc etc. People claim that religion shouldn't be treated as a special issue, then cry 'persecution' or 'disrespect' when someone dares to suggest that they might be wrong and expect others to support them in their indignation, where that response would be laughable if it were their political views being criticised.

But that's a digression.

Everyone going sterile is perfectly fine with this atheist. Let the earth go back to being a place of endless wilderness. Eventually another species will evolve a great deal, quite possibly even apes once again evolve into something humanlike.

I don't consider humans to be so holy and special.

It is not trivial at all.

The reactions of many to this thread actually support David's hypothesis.

You can start again with a thought experiment from an established fact:

All humans are born atheists (at least, all atheists should acknowledge this as a fact).

All humans, through various means, acquire a knowledge of some form of theism.

At some progressive stage of an individual's existence some forum of theism/atheism/agnosticism etc. is adhered to.

That residual or vestigial theism is still present in an individuals thinking and belief system is a viable hypothesis to explore. In addition to the replacement rationalization and augment process that lead to the expunging (supposedly) of all theistic belief.

The existence of the human species is no more important or necessary or meaningful that some random 100 square meters of interstellar space. If you think otherwise you are not an atheist.

No they certainly don't. You are insinuating that that if I accuse a Liverpool supporter of subconsciously supporting Everton, a protest from him would verify my accusation.

I don't know what kind of pre-cognitive Freudian labyrinthine view of the mind you and D.S subscribe to, but if a person reacts aggressively to being called an adherent of something - it is more than likely because he is not.

So essentially, Abrahamic theism is impossible as no believer could avoid heresy. That issue was resolved quickly.

Anyway, all you and D.S have done is to wrap up the "no true scotsman" in a very pretty frock.

lol

True, but it must be resolved on a case by case basis. I'm a Packer supporter and if accused of actually being a Bear supporter I would never react aggressively to such an accusation. I find aggressive reactions to be silly and not worth my time. But since that is a personal preference it is equally silly to hang that on everyone else. So your original argument is justified and has substantial weight. One sample point from a " pre-cognitive Freudian labyrinthine" mind is hardly worthy of consideration.

That you have lumped me with the DS, I find very amusing. I think David will find it insulting. Just a warning.

"very pretty frock" in regard to the "no true scotsman" is a good statement. I would have also added petty, just to twist the knife in a few extra turns.

"Abrahamic theism" is a western concept. I'm a Taoist. And, yes, that is so ambiguous as to have almost no meaning whatsoever. Thus, all heresy can be avoided.

You should join in the fun. SMP needs your input. Seriously. Especially because you are so serious a person and an excellent rationalist.

I generally avoid nitpicking (well, these days at least), since it is more important in debate to understand one another in good faith than make perfect statements.

However, since this...

... is basically throwing down the gauntlet, I'll make an exception.

In my calculations that is exactly 0 litres of space.

Did you think this through?

Just came across this thread, and as a diehard atheist who is 99% sure that there are no gods( never say never ). I have to say that this is just wrong.

Most Christians I would think said this is God's plan,**** the earth. We're going to heaven anyway. Lets all be happy campers for 600 hundred years.

Strange dilemma, because for non belivers this will never be a relevant issue. For christians this would have to come from god and it would be weird to lay this choice on them..

I for one, atheists and people who belive in natur and humankind. I would think care very much how the planet and humans is going beyond 600 years.

With only maybe 100k years for humans, 5k years with recorded history and only decades into computer/atomic age. It's much more interesting for us to speculate on what life is like in 1k years or 1M years. Unfortunately it does not look good. But there is hope and I really hope relgion disappear or are greatly reduced. Stand accountable to our children and not to God is a good start.

Good point on the last one. If Abram existed, he was an ignorant nomadic tribal leader from somewhere in the ancient area of Mesopotamia (in an area occupied today by Syria, Iraq, and Turkey) that rambled about the region pillaging, plundering and generally mucking about in search of better pasture lands for his goats and women. This, in an area plastered with the name Asia Minor or the Middle East by modern geographers. That this rather mundane myth of a person is given the honor of starting monotheism is a bit over the top. That he is given honor in a few tattered books of dubious origin does not give him the pretext of starting anything new or important or even of existing. But aside from all the above, it is historically accurate, as far as one can determine, to confer Abrahamic theism as originating in Asia Minor. Through Judeo-Christian influence and other accidents of history it was thoroughly amalgamated into western thought.

It is unfortunate that you are such a serious individual. I would wager that you would never sell heroin to a sixteen year old girl. If an asteroid where headed to earth you would probable wring your hands in anxiety and wish/work for a solution to save humanity.

I hope that you at least drink beer or ale or toss down a swig of single-malt to alleviate the morbid task of saving the world for a better day. Like the Theist do.

I don't really understand why your posts are dripping with sarcasm. It is fine that you are a taoist, and it is fine that people have their religion.

But why should this imply that you are allowed to lord sarcasm and irony over people who don't find anything worthwhile in esoteric beliefs? There has never existed a person who can influence the physical world with metaphysical manipulation. Why then, should I for one second believe that metaphysical phenomena can yield meaning?

So the reply to this is to forcefully try and push me into nihilism. If I reject esoteric beliefs, I must be a nihilist. The people imbued with the magical power of metaphysical contact intuitively know that I am not allowed to hold that humanity has value, and that if I do I must secretly believe that Gods roam the universe and pump the furnace of meaning to magically enchant us all.

Here is a thought: Could it be that I am simply... human?

Maybe, but if you think you're contradicting something that I said, then I must have missed the bit where I said that that our existence is 'important or necessary or meaningful'. Can you point it out for me?