Polytheistic Atheist vs. Monotheistic Atheist

Regarding the first statement, why would you think that? The bible is the story of man's relationship to God. I'm not sure why anyone would presume that it meant any more or less than that.

Regarding the second, when determining right from wrong becomes a matter of personal convenience, the actions of others toward their fellow citizens becomes a matter of personal convenience, which can be waived when convenient and without consequence. This should be a disturbing characteristic is a political leader.

 

duplicate

 

Bone, if God created man in His image, it makes perfect sense that He would instill an awareness and relationship to his creation.

 

Agreed...

 

Funny, I was thinking the same about you, the cases you site such as stalin were hardly sane...nor have I tried to denigrate the belief in god...it is only you who are denigrating anything my friend. I have no problem at all with people who believe in god holding positions of power.

Hitler believed in God and it was through Mein Kampf that he obtained his followers and power...I am sure those people thought he must be a good god fearing man...people like you who use that as a benchmark of a good leader...even in the occult, he was professing belief was he not......the list is endless of leaders who used god and religion to commit atrocities.

But I am not trying to slander religion...I would vote for a person who says he is religious...it is not me who has made a blanket absurd statement that all people who worship (or dont worship) a god is unfit to hold positions of power....this is all you...it is you who have accused those who choose not to believe as being without morals and unfit to lead...I am merely trying to illustrate how, regardless of where a person places (or claims to place) his beliefs, you can still end up with a homicidal maniac...and that indeed an atheist or an agnostic can live a life and lead in a moral way and can discern between right and wrong...it is you who have made the sweeping generalizations ...I have voted for religious men...and would vote for those who arent if I thought he was a good person.

Oh...and it is much more likely that man created god in his own image...history illustrates this very clearly

 

It is a story, I'll give that. But the literal way it is taken both at an institutional level and a personal level demands that it IS the word of God. The bible is widely accepted by many as pure fact to the point where the existence of concrete examples of past organisms like dinosaurs is cast in doubt because they aren't in the bible. Talk about scary. Of course in the last few years, brand new explanations have been thrown out that incorporate relatively recent discoveries. Discoveries that hadn't been at issue until they conflicted with the teachings of the bible. You and I may just blow the bible off as a nice story of humans relationship to God but we would be in the minority I assure you.

Right or wrong has always been a matter of personal convenience whether you have a religious foundation or not. You can't argue that Humanists and Naturalists who are both Atheist groups don't have any sense of right or wrong in their respective traditions, heck, I'd say they actually have a better sense of right or wrong than many of the more popular religons in the world today. And what about Buddhists? They have no deity to speak of and yet they have a sense of right and wrong that could rival any religious group. I'm sorry but I just don't think your assumption has any legs.

 

Moen, I'm not a fundamentalist who denies the existence of dinosaurs, so I can't answer for them. Regarding a sense of right and wrong, I suspect many atheists obtained theirs before they decided they were atheists, maybe from religious parents or education, and it is too ingrained to change even though they publically deny the influence.

 

Drusus, you are correct in stating that you have not slandered religion. All of your posts are well thought out.

 

I suspect that most religious people had a basic sense of right or wrong before they were molded by their parents, the educational system, or religious indocrination, too. The fact of the matter is that atheists and agnostics are more than capable of developing their own ethical and moral compass, probably more so than those who claim to be very religious.

 

That is very doubtful. I don't even think that most atheists would agree with that.

 

If you believe that, isn't it equally possible that people who have no sense of right or wrong failed to obtained it before becoming Atheists and Atheism has very little to do with this particular moral "defect"? The way you describe it, the only way to obtain a personal sense of right or wrong is through a belief in a higher power and even though we have pointed out that many have a sense of right or wrong without that belief you still insist that there is but one path to a moral life. Oh well, to each his own.

 

Actually, the truth is stranger than fiction. The earliest objects of worship were abstract and wild animal portrayals. Almost like creatures from a nightmare. Here is one which shocked the Paleo world when it was discovered.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Göbekli_Tepe

This is what is know as a Pre Pottery temple dated to somewheres around 9000 B.C., now that is was back. The first pottery was thought to have developed around Jericho of biblicial fame...

 

I said basic. Yes, most children wouldn't understand the ethical complexities of, say, abortion. However, child psychologists have long understood that we appear to have some very basic, innate inclinations as to what is right and what is wrong, just as children (notice I'm not talking about infants, here) have basic, innate survival skills, such as the flight instinct. Of course, no child (except in extreme 'wild children' cases) will ever grow up without outside conditioning, so there's little reason to get into a lengthy nature vs. nurture debate, and depending on how religious you are, you probably don't give a hoot about all this 'instinct' or 'evolution' nonsense as it is.

And yes, if you're arguing that those who are strongly religious have no need to formulate their own set of personal ethics because it is all laid out for you already in a book or available from a person of religious authority, then clearly atheists WOULD be much better at coming to their own ethical conclusions since we have to look to ourselves and our surrounding in order to come to these kinds of conclusions, and religious individuals don't have to think about them at all; rather, they just have to recite what they've been taught!

 

I think this cave painting pre-dates those...I learned about it in art history...sometimes called the horned shaman / god. dates to AROUND 13,000-11,000 bce, cave painting, Trois Freres, Dordogne, France.



...now this is not an object of worship but most likely a depiction of a shaman (less likely a god, most scholars dont think people of the time would draw a god)...Regardless, they think this depicts the fact that people were worshipping something, most likely some form of nature / animal god.

I think it was mentioned before that drawings of animals were found in caves with spear hole in them...these holes were thought to have been made as people hunted the drawings of the animals in effigy in a ritual that they thought would give them power over the animal. Again, evidence of belief.

This might also explain why humans are always depicted as rough stick figures while animals are well rendered...if they thought that the likeness of an animal could be used to gain power over it, who would want their likeness drawn?




and this, the venus of willendorf predates the horned shaman at around 25,000 years ago which some think is an early cycladic idol of worship (wouldn't it be funny if it was just an early artist messing around and sculpting some fat lady : ) )

This is thought to represent some for of fertility goddess later to be called innanna...because of the corpulent features she represents fertility and natures abundance...

These were both made during the paleolithic - neolithic era...

I DO think that gods were made in the image of man OR nature...I should have eleborated...

Man, early on, did not know a lot and did not have a lot of time to study those things around them that they did not understand like the sun, moon, river, why the rain fell, etc...early life was hard and they wanted / needed an edge.

I think very early on, they created nature gods and animal gods in some early form of spiritualism. This was probably in order to explain what they did not understand and to maybe gain a little power over things they felt powerless to control like the forces of nature they had to deal with every dy and effected every part of life....

This early spiritualism developed as man developed into pantheons of gods representing each aspect of nature, often either in our image or in animal / human hybrid...civilization came and the gods and how you were to worship them became more complex...sun god, moon god, god of the mountains, rain, river whatever....with civilization came complex laws and rules...for man AND thus for gods as well...

Summerian, Greek, Norse, Roman, etc...most of the later gods were in our image or hybrid...but they had very human weaknesses and personalities (like zeus always having sex with humans, jealousy, anger, etc...)

As mankind progressed, they had more time to study those things around them and they didnt need many of those gods...they discovered what they sun was, what they moon was, why it rained, how the river flowed, why the volcano erupted...

what do they still not know? How we got here, where we go when we die....man has always defaulted to a god to explain he unexplained...maybe its just something in us that cant let something remain unknown until we can explain it...we default to god...thats the theory I see as most likely

 

Think that all transpired around the 16th/17th Century...

BTW, I've got that book too...

 

that was one of my favorite classes, art history...probably had a lot to do with the teacher and the passion she had for the subject.

 

:smile :smile :smile

 

The ancient greeks and Romans (and asian cultures) made quite a few inroads into many of the subjects that vexed early man...its just that along the time line, the information was lost and rediscovered in the renaissance...renaissance meaning rebirth often refered to the re-discovery of the knowledge of the ancients.

The Greeks knew the world was not flat, that the earth was not the center of the universe and had begun charting the planets, they had even developed the concept of the atom a well as charting weather patterns, sources for rivers, etc.....

 

Yes yes, I'm aware... It's a fascinating subject though isn't it?

 

Polygamist Athiest?