Showing posts with label faith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label faith. Show all posts

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Unity without Uniformity

I read somewhere, that all of our views can be tolerant of each other, without being the same kind of thinking. Or, "agree to disagree".
This applies to things of opinions and preferences, in cases where the truth of it is inconsequential or the preference of it is according to taste.
Such as, a red car is better than a blue car. You may agree with the statement, or disagree.
However, you can not argue that a red car does NOT get more speeding tickets than a blue car, simply because you are of the opinion that the red car is better.

When it comes to matters of knowledge and actual truth, agreeing to disagree is a joke.
Either you agree with the facts, or you don't.
The best way to demonstrate it is:
"A red car is good, a blue car is not as good."
"2+2=4 is correct, 2+2=5 is not as correct".

It becomes obvious that 2+2=5 isn't "not as correct", it simply is wrong. Where as a blue car is "not as good" is a matter of opinion.
However, if fundamentally, math was wrong, and 2+2=5 is correct, then we'd have to show and prove it to be so. In doing so, we must employ the scientific method.
I'm not saying disagreeing isn't something to do, The scientific discord is based on disagreement. It's this entire, middle luke warm ground that irritates me. If you agree with the facts, great... if you don't, prove to me why the facts are wrong and I'll gladly champion your cause with you.

For once, Christianity got it right.
Revelation 3:16
"So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth."
Being on the fence about facts should be rejected outright. However, the determination of which side of the fence is absolutely wrong when it comes to religion, they don't take reasoning or logic into account, but belief and faith.

 There is a final thing, if we do not personally possess the capacity to understand the information, facts or method upon which the claims are being made, we can not make a judgment. This form of "fence sitting" isn't considered lukewarmness in my book. This is the true fence sitting of any scientific method and logical deduction. This is the null stance that everyone should take when determining and understanding a concept.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Doubting my Atheism

All my life I've been a skeptic, but it wasn't until closer to my adult life that I take up the title of Atheist.

I hear Christians give talks,sermons, and/or speeches about doubting their faith. And of course, they teach not to doubt it. Normally, I don't care if you believe this, I don't care you believe in unicorns and one day doubt that. What I do care is that you preach ignorance. By preaching, your "recovery" from doubt, and encourage others to recover as well is absolute intellectual treason.

I digress.
Never once have I doubted my skepticism. Never have I wondered if I was wrong about doubting... That I should simply believe.
My Sunday school teachers always hated my questions. They never expect a 6 year old to ask, why. Or for a 7 year old to show the logical incoherence in a statement.
I suppose you really can't doubt your need to understand more than what has been presented to you.
Since I've officiated the title of atheist upon myself, I never once questioned if I was wrong in doing so. Though skepticism and atheism are not mutually exclusive. Most Atheists are skeptics, and skeptics are definitely atheists... "Agnostics" are actually atheist but don't understand the term correctly... They're just agnostic-atheists.
Perhaps my skepticism is preventing my questioning of my atheism, because any evidence that attempts to turn my atheism, must pass my skeptic test, or meet the burden of proof (my level of skepticism).
One thing is for sure, my atheism is not hindering my skepticism, in fact, it encourages it.
My atheism standards are; "Only believe in a god that can proven".
My skepticism standards are; "You must believe in claim that has met the burden of proof, all others must be held as unproven."
They go hand in hand. So no, I have never doubted either.

Which brings me to my point. Why is it that someone can even doubt atheism? Especially when it is a null stance. Especially it is the ONLY stance until the burden of proof ha been met.
Every time I hear someone who "de-converted" from atheism, I question if they were skeptics at all. I question religious people who claim to be skeptics.
I question why Theists doubt their faith, then shy away from pursuing the doubt to find out exactly why. Or to find the exact answer to why they began to doubt it in the first place. Or better yet, to actually try to find the answer to the doubt in question.
I've doubted a lot of things in the past. Sometimes, I don't find the answers of my doubts, That's OK... Really.. that's OK, you don't have to have the answer to everything. BUT, I don't continue as though the answer was correct in the first place. Sometimes I do find the answer, and it's not what I expected or even want to believe, but I HAVE to believe it; of course until there's contradictory evidence.

I've been approached at atheist who doubts their atheism... Do you know what I do?
I laugh at them. I make fun of them. I poke at their intellect. I poke at their reason to doubt. I ridicule them.
You might be thinking to yourself, "well.. that's not a way to encourage atheism".
And you would be right. I don't care to "convert" people to atheism.
If they haven't already decided to be a skeptic, there isn't a point to keeping them as an atheist.
If you've rejected your god because of a stupid personal reason, no reason at all, desire to break away or rebel, bla bla bla...
You deserve to be in the religion and I will laugh at you the same, even if you've "broken away", the stigma of it's ignorance still resides in your mind.
Chances are, once you've reconciled the issues, forgotten about the issue, or simply looked past it, you are likely to return to believing in a invisible sky father.

For myself, I demand the proof of burden is met. My guidelines of my belief are stringent and is a heavy demand. If someone chooses to believe something for their own reasons, I don't care. What I do care about is if it's justified. If it's rational. Their standards may not be a strict as mine, and that's their business. But, if they're irrational, it tends to rub off on others. It tends to be passed on to children. It tends to influence others who follow them. To me, that is the death of the future of human intellect. I want to stamp out ignorance.
So, you may accept that little green space men planted the DNA seed upon the earth, and use it to farm free roaming livestock for their consumption at a later time; However, I don't.
Oddly enough, this passes for a rational reason to believe the inception of life on earth, however, does not pass my personal reason to believe.
Of course this doesn't address the regression of actual abiogenisis, just life on earth.
The belief of a sky god who created everything and watches everything you do of every day of every moment of your life, who can do anything, and knows everything, and can not possibly be wrong; is absolutely irrational. I encourage the doubt, and instead of finding the "answers" in a circular reasoning holy book, find actual answers. Or keep the belief as unproven until you find sufficient evidence.