Atheism
Community Guide
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Statement of Purpose
- This is a support and conversation community for people who don't believe in gods.
- Superstition hucksters have no reason to subscribe or post here at all.
- If you are looking to debate or proselytize, options will be linked lower in the sidebar.
Acceptable
- Honest questions or conversations.
- Discussions on parenting or advice.
- Struggles, frustrations, coming out.
- Atheist memes. We can have fun!
- News headlines relevant to atheism.
Unacceptable
Depending on severity, you might be warned before adverse action is taken.
- Anything against site rules.
- Illegal and/or NSFW material.
- Troll posts and comments. There will be no attempt to explain what that means.
- Leading questions, agenda pushing, or disingenuous attempts to bait members.
- Personal attacks or flaming.
Inadvisable
- Self promotion or upvote farming.
- Excessive shitposting or off-topic discussion.
Application of warnings or bans will be subject to moderator discretion. Feel free to appeal. If changes to the guidelines are necessary, they will be adjusted.
If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathizer or a resemblant of a group that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of any other group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you you will be banned on sight.
Provable means able to provide proof to the moderation, and, if necessary, to the community.
~ /c/nostupidquestions
If you want your space listed in this sidebar and it is especially relevant to the atheist or skeptic communities, PM DancingPickle and we'll have a look!
Connect with Atheists
- Matrix: #atheism:envs.net
Help and Support Links
- Freedom From Religion Foundation
- The Secular Therapy Project
- Secular Students Alliance
- Black Nonbelievers
- The Clergy Project
- Atheist Alliance International
- Sunday Assembly
- Atheist Ireland
- Atheism UK
- Atheists United
Streaming Media
This is mostly YouTube at the moment. Podcasts and similar media - especially on federated platforms - may also feature here.
- Atheist Debates - Matt Dillahunty
- Rationality Rules
- Friendly Atheist
- Making Sense with Sam Harris
- Cosmic Skeptic
- Genetically Modified Skeptic
- Street Epistemology
- Armored Skeptic
- NonStampCollector
Orgs, Blogs, Zines
- Center for Inquiry
- American Atheists
- Humanists International
- Atheist Republic
- The Brights
- The Angry Atheist
- History for Atheists
- Rationalist International
- Atheist Revolution
- Debunking Christianity
- Godless Mom
- Atheist Freethinkers
Mainstream
Bibliography
Start here...
...proceed here.
- God is Not Great (Hitchens)
- The God Delusion (Dawkins)
- The End of Faith (Harris)
- Why I Am Not a Christian (Russell)
- Letter to a Christian Nation (Harris)
Proselytize Religion
From Reddit
As a community with an interest in providing the best resources to its members, the following wiki links are provided as historical reference until we can establish our own.
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But I am talking about religious experiences specifically, not physical phenomena.
Also, you seem to think that when society was more religious people had beliefs about physics that were informed exclusively by religion, but this is not the case. Greek tradition of philosophy has been inherited by Christianity (which has elements of both Greek rationality and Jewish mysticism), and in the middle ages physics and other sciences were rooted in Aristotle.
But that is hardly relevant. As I said, I am talking about religious experiences, not explanations of natural phenomena.
How is a religious experience not a physical phenomenon? Define it for me, please, with sources where possible. How did you eliminate brain activity, such as with the god helmet?
The Greek tradition of physics that Christianity adopted was established by Aristotle, not Epicurus. If they'd chosen to follow the evidence instead of inference, the world would look very different today. You can't think anything into existence the way Aristotle proposed. He had good ideas, but his approach to physics was completely wrong.
I did say that Aristotle was a major inspiration.
I am not sure what you mean by this. I have not found that in Aristotle and it is hard to imagine someone from that time saying this, seems very uncharacteristic. Feel free to clarify what you meant.
What "evidence" are you speaking of? The experimental method was not employed by anyone then, philosophy is a speculative endeavour. There were arguments, however, and saying that Plato, Aristotle, or any other non radical materialist is somehow intellectually deficient simply shows a lack of familiarity with antique philosophy.
Also, materialism is about as metaphysical as it gets.
I am not sure you noticed, but no pre-modern physical ideas are currently employed, whether Epicurean or Aristotelian.
While I disagree woth you on everything you said with regards to philosophy, I will grant you thatyou are correct and a religious experience is in a sense, a natural phenomenon. I will add, however, that while it is possible to deny the spiritual nature of such an experience(which I mentioned), it is, philosophically speaking, possible to deny any proposition, so this alone is not a refutation.
Much of the church's insistence that there has to be a god to explain things is based on Aristotle. He gave them the tools to construct logical constructs in which faulty assumptions about reality are used to say "I want there to be a god, therefore this thought process is all the proof I need." For example, Aquinas' "Five Ways" are a classic demonstration of how to misuse Aristotlean physics to justify belief in a god.
I'm definitely not going to debate philosophy with you. It's a waste of time.
I will continue to challenge the validity of spiritual thinking until such time as anyone can objectively demonstrate the existence of anything spiritual. I will follow the evidence, and complaints about how evidence doesn't allow for spiritual answers just reaffirm the conclusion that it's not based on reality. It's just an irrational perspective with no basis beyond wishful or magical thinking.
Philosophy is always based on assumptions, just because people had different assumptions and intuitions in the past, doesn't mean they are intellectually deficient in any way. If you think your intuitions are definitively true, or that you do not assume anything at all, debating or, possibly, reading philosophy might not be so pointless as you think.
You can try to challenge spiritual thinking all you want, but you have not provided any arguments against it yet.
If you don't want to debate philosophy, it is fine. I can't say I agree with your understanding of historical philosophers in any case, and it does eem rather pointless.
You can't make anything true through argument. Spiritualism has a burden of proof that has never been met. There are no excuses for this, and until you can meet that burden, there is no further discussion to be had.
You can't prove anything to be definitively true. Materialism especially.
Your worldview is just as unporven.
Thank you for demonstrating you are not here for a rational conversation. Now everyone knows why you're here.
Goodbye.
I could say the same to you. FYI, rational does not mean "something I reckon is true".
It is easy to just say your worldview is rational and dismiss everyone who disagree with you on that basis. Making good arguments is much more difficult, isn't it?
Goodbye.