On atheism & religion

Clover
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719

Feb 1 2025, 3:29 PM

Just my lil' cozy atheist neckbeard corner. :coffee:

Started cuz of this clip of Ricky Gervais and Steven Colbert: https://reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1if7m1m/atheism_in_a_nutshell/

Transcript of talk between Ricky Gervais and Steven Colbert RG: An agnostic atheist is someone who doesn’t know there is a God or not, as no one does.

SC: So you are not convicted of your atheism?

RG: Well, I am. No I am because atheism is only rejecting a claim that there is a God. Atheism isn’t a belief system. This is atheism in a nutshell. You say, “there is a God”. I saw, “can you prove that?” You say, “No.” I say, “I don’t believe you then.” So, ummm, you believe in one God I assume.

SC: Uhhhhh, in three persons but go ahead.

RG: So, okay, but there are about 3,000 to choose from..

SC: I’ve done some reading, yeah.

RG: So basically, you believe, you deny one less God than I do. You don’t believe in 2,999 Gods and I don’t believe in just one more.

SC: Right.

SC: Do you ever have a feeling of great gratitude for existence?

RG: Of course. I know the chances are billions to one that I am on this planet as me and never will be again.

SC: I know that I can’t convince you there is a God, nor do I really want to convince you that there is a God.

RG: No

SC: All I can really do is explain to you my experience which is that I have a strong desire to direct that gratitude towards something or someone and that thing is God.

RG: Of course, we want to make sense of nature and science and it’s too unfathomable. That everything in the universe was once crunched into something smaller than an atom..

SC: But you don’t know that. You are just believing Stephen Hawking and that’s a matter of faith in his abilities. You don’t know it yourself. Your accepting that cause someone told you.

RG: Well, but science is constantly proved all of the time. You see, if we take something like any fiction, any holy book, and any other fiction and destroyed it, in a thousand years time that wouldn’t come back just as it was. Whereas if we took every science book and every fact and destroyed them all, in a thousand years they’d all be back, because all the same tests would be the same result.

SC: That’s really good.

RG: So, I don’t need faith in science. I don’t need faith to know that probably if I jump out of a window, every other time people have jumped out of the window they have smashed to the ground because of this thing called gravity.

Comments:

LucyDreamly I like to use the classic Greek statement.
I’m an atheist. I simply lack a belief in gods.
Just like the countless other things I’ve not found a reason to believe in.
From there I just go on with my life. It’s not a cornerstone I build my life around.
It’s not a religion.
It’s not even a belief or disbelief.
It’s a lack of belief.

Key-Performance-9021 This idea of atheism as a kind of ideology is mostly limited to religious cultures, such as the United States. I live in a larger city in a fairly secular country, and here atheism is more or less seen as the ‘default setting’. Furthermore, ‘believing in science’ isn’t really a thing, science is simply viewed as a tool. You might not trust certain scientists, but that doesn’t mean you don’t trust science itself. There’s also no inherent contradiction in trusting scientists while being religious, which most Americans here seem to recognize.

But we don’t have any radical evangelicals here, and the Catholics here don’t believe the Bible literally. They also don’t try to restrict the rights of women or homosexuals. It’s likely that people in the US have to fight much harder, like people in islamic countries, which is why it’s so important to American atheists.

https://reddit.com/comments/1if7m1m/comment/maedjby

justwhatever73 "Science is constantly proved over time"

More importantly, it is constantly *disproved* over time. And then a new, better hypothesis is developed that is closer to reality (to the extent that we are able to observe and measure reality).

Show me ONE religion that is constantly questioning itself and seeking to disprove itself. People argue that science is just a different flavor of dogma, but that's patently untrue. If done correctly, it is the antithesis of dogma.

https://reddit.com/comments/1if7m1m/comment/maeiqez

ActiveCollection And I think it is still absolutely fine for people to believe in God. As a personal belief. It's just very, very problematic when religion is somehow linked to state power.

https://reddit.com/comments/1if7m1m/comment/madrbzd

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ShameMustChangeSides

Feb 1 2025, 6:39 PM

Ah, I really like this explanation. I do think there are atheists who become just as dogmatic about it as religious people, but I don't think that's what atheism *is,* it's just the hubris of the individual.

Colibri

Feb 1 2025, 8:35 PM

Transcript of talk between Ricky Gervais and Steven Colbert RG: Well, but science is constantly proved all of the time. You see, if we take something like any fiction, any holy book, and any other fiction and destroyed it, in a thousand years time that wouldn’t come back just as it was. Whereas if we took every science book and every fact and destroyed them all, in a thousand years they’d all be back, because all the same tests would be the same result.

That's a good explanation. It also reminds me of this:

“If you take the Christian Bible and put it out in the wind and the rain, soon the paper on which the words are printed will disintegrate and the words will be gone. Our bible is the wind and the rain.” -unidentified Native-American

drdee

Feb 2 2025, 1:05 AM

'You see, if we take something like any fiction, any holy book, and any other fiction and destroyed it, in a thousand years time that wouldn’t come back just as it was. Whereas if we took every science book and every fact and destroyed them all, in a thousand years they’d all be back, because all the same tests would be the same result.'

True to an extent, but maybe not as true as you might think:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/99793.The_Golem (the last chapter describing a high school science experiment is hilarious)

Explore the topic 'sociology of science' for more interesting reading on the subject. Even 'the scientific method' as we define it was historically contingent:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_and_the_Air-Pump

“If you take the Christian Bible and put it out in the wind and the rain, soon the paper on which the words are printed will disintegrate and the words will be gone. Our bible is the wind and the rain.” -unidentified Native-American

That's a beautiful sentiment.

Clover
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719

Feb 3 2025, 3:42 PM

(Feb 1 2025, 8:35 PM)Colibri “If you take the Christian Bible and put it out in the wind and the rain, soon the paper on which the words are printed will disintegrate and the words will be gone. Our bible is the wind and the rain.” -unidentified Native-American

That is beautiful. It reminds me of this concept of "spirituality for atheists" that I read about here. As a side note to this, I abhor how much organized religion has hijacked spiritually to the point where people are unable to understand that one does not need to be religious to be spiritual.

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Clover
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719

Feb 3 2025, 4:00 PM

(Feb 2 2025, 1:05 AM)drdee 'You see, if we take something like any fiction, any holy book, and any other fiction and destroyed it, in a thousand years time that wouldn’t come back just as it was. Whereas if we took every science book and every fact and destroyed them all, in a thousand years they’d all be back, because all the same tests would be the same result.'

True to an extent, but maybe not as true as you might think:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/99793.The_Golem (the last chapter describing a high school science experiment is hilarious)

Explore the topic 'sociology of science' for more interesting reading on the subject. Even 'the scientific method' as we define it was historically contingent:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_and_the_Air-Pump

That's some interesting stuff I had not thought/known about. I took Ricky's take there to mean more like, we would re-discover things like gravity, certain chemical reactions, biological processes, and so on. Physical realities that don't change based on our thoughts or feelings on any given topic. An apple still is going to fall off a tree towards the ground no matter how we define gravity, sperm still fertilizes eggs to create zygotes no matter how we define the animals which produce sperm and eggs and the process of reproduction. And so on.

Whereas the Abrahamic god would certainly not rematerialize exactly as he did (especially not the whole Holy Trinity stuff Christians believe). There is no reason the Abrahamic god has any more validity or staying power as the Egyptian gods, or the Norse gods, etc. The Abrahamic god "exists" because people will them to, same as all the prior gods once were willed to "exist."

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