Some thoughts about atheists

[tacit]

I've been seeing an uptick lately in popular media about atheism. A lot of these things I've been seeing start with "Atheists are..." and then lay out the premise that folks who don't believe in some kind of supernatural god have all sorts of negative characteristics, whether they be fat or immoral or selfish or whatever

Comments

[janetmiles]

This is a really nice summary. I do have one question, though, about the argument, "Atheists think that there is nothing beyond human understanding."

Would it be reasonable to say that atheists might believe that with enough time and research (where enough time may be many thousands or millions of years, assuming we don't kill ourselves off before then), all things could eventually be understood by humans?

[tacit]

Depends on who you ask.

We do have finite brain power. If you look at dogs, say, which also have finite brain power, no dog will ever understand calculus--at least not at its native intelligence. I for one suspect there are probably things which are as inaccessible to us as calculus is to a dog; there are things which the limits of our finite intellectual capacity can't understand.

Unlike dogs, though, we have, at least in theory, the capacity to learn to extend our cognitive capabilities, through things like brain modeling in a computer, for instance. Given that, who knows? Now you get into a sticky definitional issue--if you give a dog the intelligence of a human, is it still a dog? Is an augmented human still human?

[sweh]

There's a difference between "nothing is beyond understanding" and "understanding everything".

Given a topic and enough time I believe "man" can understand that topic. There will always be other topics not yet understood, but the comprehension of those topics is not beyond man's reach.

Put another way; we can't learn everything, but we can learn anything.

Mathematicians are used to this when dealing with the concept of "infinity" :-)

[red_girl_42]

I think it would be reasonable to say that some atheists believe that, and some don't.

[tacit]

Fixed now, thanks!

[datan0de]

typo: "...human stories about Sasquatch or space alient,"

Great summary of the most common misnomers, and excellent, succinct (and most of all- correct!) responses.

[tacit]

Fixed it, thanks!

[chaos5023]

Wow. Pretty damn comprehensive. :)

Nit:

"Atheists think that life has the meaning we give it, not the meaning that is imposed on us by a divinity."

That's existentialism, not atheism. Admittedly the two do go together like chocolate and peanut butter, but there's nothing about an atheist position that necessarily compels an existentialist one.

[tacit]

That's a good point; I've changed the wording on that one. :)

[tacit]

So are the Keebler elves! No disrespect to either fictional entity is implied.

Re: Atheists just want to be free to commit immoral acts

[red_girl_42]

I think your friend's argument stems from an erroneous assumption. A person who quits their church because "it's too hard" is not necessarily an atheist. I would imagine such a person still believes in God, but no longer believes in the tenets of whatever organized religion they followed. This is not at all the same thing as atheism.