Can there be an atheistic religion?

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This topic contains 79 replies, has 9 voices, and was last updated by  Davis 7 years ago.

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  • #9558

    Unseen
    Participant

    How about Buddhism? The original Buddhist doctrine espoused by Siddhartha Gautama was a teaching related to achieving inner peace and happiness and a right relation to one’s surroundings and world at large. As it spread and was adapted to local beliefs, deities were added. By the time it reached Tibet, there were a swarm of them, but the original Buddhism as espoused by the religion’s founder had no belief in (as well as no denial of) the existence of a supreme god or of polytheistic deities.

    Can one be both an atheist and religious?

     

    #9560

    Simon Paynton
    Participant

    I think there are definitely at least two parts to a religion, and it doesn’t need God at all.

    1) the ideas

    2) the infrastructure of rituals and event-marking such as services at funerals and weddings.

    I think that without 2) it’s very difficult for 1) to take hold.

    #9561

    Simon Paynton
    Participant

    What I mean is, it’s not a religion without the infrastructure, practices, practitioners, the lived experience of people who follow it.  Without all that, it’s a philosophy.

    #9565

    Davis
    Moderator

    Without all that, it’s a philosophy.

    Thats a pretty big insult to philosophers. His babbling rant barely approaches a philosophy. In response to the 10 minute video I would say:

    He has me up until the “I don’t know what they mean by God”. A pretty standard igtheist stance. But then he qualifies that as a “our two concepts of God are probably not the same” then he loses me. It’s one thing to expect someone to give a coherent answer about the subject in question and not answer it until they properly define things…it’s another thing to discard a question because you both define something differently. Define it and listen to the other person’s definition and if possible work out the differences. It then gets even more silly with the “divinity of Christ”. That isn’t exactly the most ineffable question. Was Jesus the Earthly temporal incarnation/realisation of the creator of the Universe (or something pretty similar)? You can be pretty sure that’s what 99.9% of people and even theologists would define it. He is simply avoiding the question by appealing to the difficulty of agreeing on definitions when in reality it’s not that hard. This is really lazy critical thinking.

    But then wait, he defines the divine in a way I have never heard before, misusing the term logos in a way no philosopher or Greek person has ever used (logos) and then talks about some bizarre case of losing something of yourself when you are wrong (he meant change your world view when you admit your belief wasn’t true). What on Earth that has to do with logos…I have no idea and how that directly ties into the divinity of Christ…we have to jump over several chasms with leaps of faiths to arrive there. And sometimes you have to die to admit your are wrong? Do you? Does this infer that God had to become a human and die to admit he was wrong about humanity? Can an all perfect God admit he was wrong? This is a mess and it is only the first minute of the bloody video.

    His whole premise of admitting he acts as though something is real, but not claiming it is real, and then defining what he acts as though it is real, in a way nobody else defines it, and then claims he can go along with it…is horrid tortured reasoning that makes no sense. If we apply it to something else it seems absurd:

     

    I act as if the universe speaks to me (we are talking your world view and how you live). Does that mean I believe the universe speaks to me (I would hope so if you route your whole life around it)?

    I act as though communism is the best political/economic solution. Does that mean I believe in it? (Is it wise to do this otherwise?)

    I act as though the universe was created by three elephants standing on a turtle. Does that mean I believe in the balancing elephants? (You can believe what you want and act as though something is true but in all these cases it comes across as pretty pointless and crazy)

    I act as though there is absolutely no meaning to the universe and we live in a cold purposeless indifferent mechanical universe. Does that mean I believe it?

    And then at the end of the two minute mark he refers to dying and being reborn as an analogy for real physical transformations.

    Really?

    I am unaware of any animal that has died and was reborn. Do you know of any?

    I am also unaware of any human who has physically transformed into something new because they admit something was wrong. Where do you find that in nature? The only case I know is in a fictional book written 1920 years ago.

    After the two minute mark he is so abusing the term logos that I cannot stand listening to any more of his bullshit. He’s an intellectual fraud and

    #9566

    Davis
    Moderator

    Can one be both an atheist and religious?

    Yes, they are not mutually exclusive. There are millions of people who lack a belief in God yet are religious. None of lacking a belief in God stops you from believing in other supernatural irrational nonsense. An enormous amount of people in Asia and many gullible “new age loving” Americans do this every day.

    #9568

    jakelafort
    Participant

    Davis,  for all of the naysayers who devalue philosophy you illustrate its significance.  CRITICAL THINKING

    Anyone who has seriously learned about philosophy is less apt to be drawn in by a guy like JP.

    #9570

    .
    Spectator

    Can there be an atheistic religion?

    No.

    #9576

    Strega
    Moderator

    Can there be an atheistic religion?

    No.

    Agree.  No.

    #9588

    _Robert_
    Participant

    To me religion requires faith in material assertions (predictions) without fact or rational inquiry. I am not sure if Buddhism makes predictions. If a cult had a belief that aliens were hiding behind an asteroid or comet and coming to save them, I would call that a religion. Philosophy makes many immaterial assertions that are generally based on rational arguments. It doesn’t seem to deal in material predictions. I know certain scientists seem to de-value philosophy, such a L. Krauss, however I have seen him have his butt handed to him in debates and it’s really just that he argues that science does make material predictions and he values that more.

    #9591

    Unseen
    Participant

    Thats a pretty big insult to philosophers. His babbling rant barely approaches a philosophy. In response to the 10 minute video I would say:

    Where is this video? Did someone delete it from this discussion?

    #9592

    jakelafort
    Participant

    It is the  vid in which JP says he does not want to be boxed in…

    The vid is in the discussion started by Bellen asking what we think of JP.

    #9593

    Unseen
    Participant

    It is the vid in which JP says he does not want to be boxed in… The vid is in the discussion started by Bellen asking what we think of JP.

    I think it’s rather lazy to refer to a video in another discussion and not even specifically reference it. Better would have been to have inserted it into this discussion rather than expecting people who haven’t seen it to leave this discussion for that purpose.

    • This reply was modified 7 years ago by  Unseen.
    #9595

    jakelafort
    Participant

    Unseen, are you addressing your employee?

    I would have had to search for it same as you.  In the time you wrote me you could have found it.

    A simple thank you would have been appropriate.

     

    #9596

    The video is from a different post “Does god exist

    #9597

    Simon Paynton
    Participant

    The philosophy I’ve put together forms the basis of an atheistic religion, combining evolution, human evolution, logic, wisdom of the ages, Buddhism, Christianity etc.  It really works.  At its heart is the DNA of morality, and in fact, morality depends on the DNA molecule ultimately (it reproduces).  I think it makes a great complement to what Jordan Peterson is doing: he concentrates on the psychology, and stories etc. and I do the basic mathematics-style philosophy that forms one of the bases of all that.

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