Today, an atheist needs an essential to aid himself navigate pseudoarguments and another groundless statements of believers whose sole intent is to undermine the views of an atheist. Hence, my effort to gather and discuss any of the issues we face.
According to the census, we declared atheists, in Poland 7%. There are only more believers in 3 European countries. At the same time, Poles are powerfully laicised, while differences between older and younger generations are among the largest in the planet [1]. Today, atheists are a tiny group in a society dominated by believers. However, there is simply a difference – spiritual institutions [5] feel social change coming on. The structures of power and values powerfully favour them today, but religions fear losing their privileges. So atheism and atheists become the natural mark of attacks – due to the fact that they are a threat. present it's inactive faint, but it's getting clearer, due to the fact that it's conditional upon generation.
Departing from religion is frequently a long and painful road—breaking years, frequently decades of indoctrination in which religion is specialized. This is besides hard outside – frequently associated with misunderstanding of loved ones and social ostracism. 1 can hear of the fact that atheists are incompletion, something lacking, and leaving God is an expression of immaturity and rebellion. We are said to be people without a moral compass and no better than animals (this is the truth, but covering the full human race).
This series of essays I wanted to come to the aid of all those who are on their way to atheism or have reached their destination and conflict with a million rhetorical tricks, half-truths and lies that religions effort to defend themselves against the exile of the faithful, attacking us without pardon. And since religions have had centuries to train themselves in these tricks, they can origin quite a few confusion in the minds of both believers and unbelievers. Today, an atheist needs an essential to aid himself navigate pseudoarguments and another groundless statements of believers whose sole intent is to undermine the views of an atheist. Hence, my effort to gather and discuss any of the issues we face. In connection with the place in which we live, it refers mainly to Christianity, and in peculiar Catholicism – although there are themes concerning Protestantism or Islam.
- Knowledge and Faith
Knowledge rules out faith. Where we have knowledge, there is no faith. erstwhile individual finds that they do not believe in gravity, we think that they are insane or troll – due to the fact that we know that gravity exists. It would be even more absurd to say that individual believes in gravity [2].
Faith and disbelief are the domain of ignorance and within it we can say that we believe in something or not. We come to our faith, weighing circumstantial evidence, logical arguments, our own beliefs about the nature of the world, and most importantly, our emotions and the effects of cultural conditioning. So usually religion is gradual – depending on how hard these factors will decision us 1 way or the other. There are those who believe zealously, those who believe, those who believe, but doubt, those who are willing to believe, unbelievers and firmly unbelievers. However, even the unbelievers do not claim to be wrong. I do not believe in pegasus – due to the fact that my cognition of biology tells me that it would be very hard for specified an animal to evolve. But will I say that I know for certain that pegas does not exist? Not at all.
The same rule applies to God (or deities) – as humanity we do not know for certain whether they be or not. Actually, we all – believers and non-believers are agnostics (gnoza is knowledge, the agnostic of this cognition does not have). As long as individual claims to believe or not believe, he admits to deficiency of cognition – even 1 way or the another he has a very strong conviction. Hence, the frequent opposition to agnosticism and atheism seems completely pointless.
Gnostics are a tiny ray of society. These are people who claim to know that God is (or that he is not). In turn their conviction is usually based on a individual mystical experience – gathering with God. This phenomenon is interesting as it is elusive, due to the fact that it is individual. Everyone else must be based on belief in the words of gnostic and on belief that his experience was real, not the effect of hallucinations, psychoactive substances, epilepsy, exaltation – or yet attempts at deception. At the same time, most religions are based on specified individual revelations.
Gnostic atheist seems to be an even more unusual creation (and most likely a lot little rare) – learning about the existence of a god is, in principle, much simpler than learning about its non-existence [see the burden of proof].
However, the message that atheism is besides a form of religion is not correct. religion is an act to be done. No 1 is born a believer, just becoming a believer. [see: natural tendency to believe]. For people unaware of the existence of the concept of God, unbelief is completely transparent and apparent – as we ourselves do not believe in billions of different imaginary creatures we have never heard of. It is hard to compare the position of a believer in a vendigo and the position of a individual who has never heard of a vendigo and to say that these are 2 varieties of faith. It's besides hard to do if the unconscious just heard about the vendigo. In another words, we cannot say that deficiency of religion is simply a variety of faith, just as silence is not a variety of sound. religion and unbelief are based on uncertainty, but religion demands the existence of beings: gods, dwarves, unicorns. 1 friar, on the another hand, spoke rather unequivocally about the explanations that make existences beyond the need.
- Religion and Faith
The concept of religion is simply a European invention. Date Religion was a thorough adherence to the obligations of the professing god. Saint Augustine insisted not to call Christianity a religion – for it is simply a word besides narrow. Christianity was meant to be more than just a human-god relation.
In the mediate Ages, the meaning of this word evolved, meaning spiritual but only spiritual persons. They were the ones who were devoted to the careful “giving of God to God.” Only at the time of the Reformation did the word “religion” begin to accept a more abstract much – the interior request of relation with God. Moreover, religion as a propensity for religion and god was considered to be as natural to man as barking for a dog – it could only disagree from external cultural manifestations, e.g. in the form of Christianity, Judaism or Islam. religion was fundamentally 1 – it was only different from emanations.
That is why Europeans expected that each of the peoples they met would have a religion – possibly changed by cultural conditions. However, the concept of religion is full Euro-centric and completely incomprehensible for non-European peoples. The imposition of the concept of religion by Europeans (and later Americans) on another cultures resulted in the marking of certain behaviours, texts and traditions as “religions” of a given society. An interesting example is Japan, where under the influence (or, in fact, coercion) the US introduced this concept [4]. In time, various elements of culture under the influence of this fresh concept began to gather into collections increasingly resembling the European concept of religion. Then the concept of religion begins in the plural. What was discovered was so different from what Europe was utilized to – i.e. variations about abrahamic religions, that it was essential to distinguish.
Today all religions of the planet have only 1 common feature (It is strangely not a belief in God) – it is the fact that they were called religions. This in turn causes large problems, for example, in legislation, which guarantees freedom of religion on the 1 hand (here the problem with the definition is smaller), but on the another hand many privileges for religion (including tax). Just how do you figure out what religion is and what isn't? Pastafarianism is recognized as a religion in many countries (Netherlands, Czech Republic, Austria, fresh Zealand, USA, but in many – including Poland not. Why?
- Faith and the Church
Convincing a god or superior intelligence is 1 thing. But if we have specified a conviction, it is necessarily very vague. Many philosophers have tried to conclude the qualities of deity on the basis of the nature of the planet and their beliefs. Various conclusions have been drawn, suggesting that it is hard to talk about universalism in this area. The quality of the conclusions of metaphysical considerations is so questionable.
The Church is an organization built around belief in a god that has the power to impose on people what they are to believe in. The features of the god the church frequently gives in large detail. The full departments of theology work constantly, specifying what qualities God has and what not, what is fact and what is heresy. These are large monumental intellectual structures, but they are placed on sand [see evidence of the existence of a god]. Often, theologians themselves are cornered, reaching contradictions. But for that, there is simply a solution: just call it divine mystery – and the case solved. possibly the most celebrated example of this is the Holy Trinity – the creation so incomprehensible and internally contradictory that it was essential to suspend the deliberalization over its nature – due to the fact that if it was not to pull a metaphysical quilt, it was always besides short. However, this is from an average point of view of the faithful without meaning – most do not really know the basic findings of theologians and for nothing in life they request it. They believe, but all these theological details are incomprehensible and unnecessary to them. Hence, Catholics do not head believing in horoscopes – even though their religion explicitly forbids them. likewise incomprehensible and absurd are complaints about Harry Potter and yoga – they do not know where they come from.
It is besides worth considering the origin of this foundation, from which theological structures grow. Pure doctrine about a possible deity speaks small and inconsistently. Thus, in order to get more details, churches frequently mention to any kind of “revelation” – that is, direct communication of the deity with the man in whom it gives faithful information about his nature, which in time becomes the basis for further work. Of course, peculiar priestly castes within religion must find what is simply a real revelation, and what is Satan’s verses. Satanic Verses]. This discussion can be very lively and frequently ends in wars or piles for heretics. Of course, the winner decides who was a heretic, although this does not gotta happen quickly: conflicts between Sunni and Shiite or Orthodox and Catholics and Protestants have lasted for centuries and hundreds of thousands of victims have already been consumed.
For here we come to the core of the issue of the church. The ability to decide what to believe and how to do what God likes, and so is good, and what doesn't like and so is bad [see the origin of morality] is immense power. It begins with the fact that sacrifices (which the gods always like) kill priests to live well and effortlessly even in very primitive and mediocre societies. Therefore, Saint Paul was so boastful that he was dead at the expense of the faithful, but he was working [7], which was to give him credibility. As we know, this approach did not last long.
But the temporal good is only the tip of the iceberg adequate only for private priests. The most ambitious wanted more not only money, but besides political power – for this we needed centralization and the emergence of a caste of advanced priests (with us known as bishops). And that's where average politics started, very violent, due to the fact that the stakes were high. The opponents were eliminated without pity – most physically at the stake arranged from their writings. It was here that power was useful to decide what is rightful and what is heresy – what could be a greater crime than preaching untruth about God. And this "truth" was usually secondary to politics. If you wanted to get free of a group, you just had to focus on some, even a third-rate difference in the confession – and you were done. In the end, what the average believer celebrates is whether the Holy Spirit comes from the Father, the Father and the Son, or from the Father through the Son--the formal reason for the top schism in Christendom. But that was not the point, it was the imposition of his authority by the Bishop of Rome over the remainder of Christendom.
The centralization of spiritual power was most frequently based on imposing a form of monopoly – whether to a single deity (which led to monotheism, specified as in the case of Aton's worship in ancient Egypt) or 1 place of worship (as in the case of the temple of Jerusalem, so that the Jews inactive have nowhere to offer sacrifices to their god), or yet a monopoly on fact (although in the form of a dogma of the infallibility of the pope). All to become the only point of mention and a place where economical resources can be allocated to further expansion of their revenues.
This building of ecclesiastical power is mostly associated with the formation of larger social organisms that were frequently organized around worship. The central location of the cities-states of Mesopotamia were temples – just like in South America. another areas of life and religion were intertwined in various ways. Sometimes the ruler proclaimed himself a god – like in Egypt or Rome, sometimes the head of the church, like in England. However, usually secular power was to legitimize itself with any kind of heavenly mandate. Coronation in Europe is inactive a spiritual sacrament, as we have late seen during the enthronement of Charles III. However, secular and spiritual power was seldom full unified and frequently opposed. The second had a considerable advantage for a long time, as Emperor Henry IV in Kanoss saw – as did our Bolesław Bold. The process of independency of power from religion is long and not everywhere completed. There is simply a country on the Vistula River where the passing of laws shifts over time in fear of the parishioners' reaction to the elections. [see: why I am disturbed by the cross in the office]. But of course they have even worse in Iran.
However, what is important, the church is primarily a very human organization, which has proved to be very effective. It is crucial to remember that they are believers, whose corset of religion is very disturbing and they stay believers, but unreligious (often self-determining themselves as “sudden). On the another hand, as part of religion, we undoubtedly have atheists who participate in the organization without believing in God. They do so for purely opportunistic reasons, or due to the fact that not participating in a spiritual organization threatens to harassment or even death. As far as the second is understood [see better, Islam or Christianity], opportunisticism seems morally reprehensible.
- Science and Faith
Science was frequently in conflict with organized religion. Religions, if they want to act in terms of faith, must operate in areas of uncertainty and mystery [see the god of ignorance]. frequently their success was based on explaining what we do not know. Why are seasons changing? Gods. Why does lightning strike? Gods. Where did the planet come from? Gods.
Science is an alternate way of translating the world. It has the advantage that correctly applied gives a description that can be verified and what is better, frequently gives benefits in the form of technology. Moreover, he can easy modify his teachings by getting closer to the truth. The tension between religion and discipline arises erstwhile discipline begins to explain the things that religion had previously explained – and worse, it explains them differently. Then the stacks and indexes of forbidden books begin.
However, as it turns out, the benefits of discipline are so powerful that in time religion usually gives up. Of course, not always and not quickly: to this day many people think that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, while evolution has no place. However, it is only rather loud (and unfortunately sometimes influential) folklore. In most cases, however, religion gives way over time and tries to explain that what it claimed earlier is only allegory, and the records of the holy books should be viewed figuratively – even though they had to be treated virtually before under punishment [see the Bible]. The process of retreating religion to happiness, despite considerable resistance, is slow progressing. As Benjamin Franklin reportedly stated, religion lost to discipline erstwhile the first lightning rod was installed.
In fact, discipline enters another areas so far reserved for religion and goes on [see the god of ignorance]. The very question of the existence of God is not yet of interest – due to the fact that it is not very clear how to approach the issue. The survey of various spiritual activities, specified as whether praying for the sick helps them (does not aid them) [8] and whether religiousness involves a longer and more satisfying life (binding) [9]. Unfortunately, the number of verifiable spiritual claims is comparatively tiny present – religion has learned to be as elusive to discipline as possible, due to the fact that the result of specified a clash is rather unilateral unless religion is supported by the argument of force.
Many believers find that discipline and religion are not very different. In total, it is besides based on a series of assumptions, and if any of them prove incorrect, the full building of discipline can change. spiritual dogmas and many assumptions of discipline may indeed seem akin and likewise accepted to faith. Only that discipline takes its axioms seriously and inactive checks them and verifies them as much as possible. And erstwhile doubts arise, this does not mean disaster – on the contrary, it frequently opens up completely fresh fields of exploration for science. Newton's theory, on which all physics rested until the 20th century, was replaced by the explanation of relativity [10], but physics helped, not harmed. This is all due to the fact that technological assumptions are accepted, but always with suspicion and are constantly verified. spiritual dogmas pretend to be invariance and infallibility [see the Bible], and erstwhile it is absolutely impossible to pretend to be wrong, they are shamefully hidden or misinterpreted.
Another difference between discipline and religion is their source. "Revelation", whatever it may be, is one-off and subject to further arbitrary reinterpretation. Where each religion is present depends on what minds and theologians have passed dogmas and their conclusions. Besides, there is no request to pretend – not only thinkers, but politicians besides influenced how each religion looks today, due to the fact that they besides adapted it to their needs. In another words, if present burned all holy books and erased their memory – they would never appear in today's form again. If we did the same thing with technological works, then after a while we would regain the discipline as we have present – due to the fact that its origin is not an individual revelation, but the reality around us, which shows rather a large invariability (it is 1 of these technological assumptions that works so far).
The 3rd key difference between discipline and religion is their goal. The intent of discipline is to analyse fact and knowledge. What he has present is the best approximation available at the minute and is moving on. religion thinks he's a trustee of truth. He doesn't gotta go anywhere – he has to defend his position. discipline of criticism is not afraid – it is based on its development. The religion of criticism hates.
- The burden of proof
A conversation between a theist and an atheist frequently leads to a point where a theist requires an atheist to prove that there is no god. This is an interesting point of discussion, due to the fact that it touches many philosophical and logical issues. But its solution is simple: there is no specified proof and more than that, there will never be. This is due to the simple fact that there is no evidence of non-existence (except mathematics). If you don't know why, dear reader, effort to prove the absence of dwarves.
The origin abruptly becomes obvious. To find that there are no dwarves, we would gotta look at all the places in the universe in 1 minute and say that the dwarves are not in them. And that's not all: the dwarf might have been invisible or undetected by our instruments. And with God, it's even harder, due to the fact that many religions say that he lives outside our universe. Therefore, it is hard to believe in the existence of rational gnostic atheists – people who know that there is no god. due to the fact that how would they have that knowledge? [see religion and knowledge]
Is the absence of specified an argument for the absence of God an argument for the existence of God? No more than the deficiency of an argument for the absence of dwarves is an argument for the existence of dwarves. His absence shows that we are moving in areas of ignorance and religion [see: religion and knowledge]
The conclusion is 1 – if individual claims that something exists, the burden of proof lies with him. Especially due to the fact that proving the existence of something is incomparably easier – it is adequate to show something. If I say I've discovered yeti, I should show the evidence, not request evidence from others that yeti isn't. Command should so be left to the theologians.
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[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2018/06/13/young-adults-around-the-world-are-less-religious-by-several-measures/
[2] Of course, we can go further in the area of utmost solipsism based on the only certainty "I think I am." Then we believe absolutely nothing of sensual experience. This is an approach that gives certainty of correctness, but not practical. Here we will optimistically presume that the reality and another people around us exist, while the repetitive experience utilizing natural or artificial senses describes this reality. In another words, we have an aristocratic definition of truth. And no, it is not a akin approach to spiritual religion [see discipline and faith].
[3] Nicolaus Cusanus, De pace fidei (1454). Edition Weltordnung–Religion–Gewalt, 107.
[4] Josephson, J. A. (2019). The invasion of religion in Japan. University of Chicago Press.
[5] NONGBRI, B. (2013). Before Religion: A past of a Modern Concept. Yale University Press.
[6] Of course, the name “church” refers to Christian organizationsAnd not all of them. But here, for simplicity, we will usage it in a broader context.
[7] 2Tes 3:8-10.
[8] Benson, Herbert, et al. "Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercession Prayer (STEP) in cardioc bypass patients: a multicenter randomized trial of unprecedented and certificate of Receiving intercession patient". American heartjournal 151.4 (2006): 934-942.
[9] Ferriss, A. L. (2002). religion and the quality of life. Journal of Happiness Studies, 3(3), 199-215.
[10] Of course, all technological explanation is incorrect. The scale and degree of this failure is important. Newton's explanation was replaced by the explanation of relativity, due to the fact that the second includes everything the erstwhile – and more. Doesn't mean Newton's explanation is inactive not widely utilized in applicable applications. Her mistakes in most cases are so tiny that, from a applicable point of view, it is much simpler. That's where she's inactive studying at school. Another relation occurs between relativity explanation and quantum mechanics. Both are incorrect, but each manages well where the another fails – hence 1 does not replace the another – alternatively complement each other. Physicists hope to make a explanation that will replace both and work on it for a long time – for now without the final effect, although not without achievements, like prof. Dragan's ideas.
