Atheist Ideals

I've been trying to write this thread for about a year now but I never have the will or time it really requirs. I always get a good idea or two and then it all gets lost after a few days, only to return in a few weeks.

I believe that Atheists are extremely misunderstood. Thats because young Atheists tend to speak out mroe than older ones, and young ones tend to be stupid.

It is my belief that Atheism is what is going to bring understanding and peace to the world. But first, it must have a unified cause. I would like to say that the cause Is To Find The Truth.

If the goal of Atheism is to find the truth about Life, to understand Life and how it works, then there are some things that Atheists should not do, and some things they should do. I believe that a well thought out and logical pattern of Ideals and Actions is in order.

Like I said, its a lot of work to do this all at once, so I'll add one or two every now and then.

I really would like other people to understand what this means, so if I have done a poor job at explaining it, please ask questions. As well, these are suggestions that are highly open to debate, which is what I am hoping will hapen.

These are not only Ideas, I am going to be telling you how I live my Life. The Ideals and Morals I follow, as some what of a religion itself.

* Do not fight religion, study it. If we are looking for Truth, we have nothing to fear. If There is a God, good. If there is not a God, good. Both of these things are good, because both of them are options of Truth. As long as it is true it is welcome.

I wholeheartedly agree with those tenets, however claiming to be an atheist automatically excludes them as possible.

How so?

Claiming oneself to be an atheist is claiming unequivocally that there is no God. Any sort of truth that is sought under the pretenses of atheism will be biased.

But that is what I meant Wyote. We, I, am a misunderstood people, given a false definition. Or do you suggest a new one?

Like wyote is saying, basically, you are mixing atheism with agnosticism. One is a claim of knowledge while the other is a claim of seeking knowledge.

You can't be an athiest and claim to seek the truth, like religious conviction athieism is a claim of a belief, or knowledge of a truth, of no god.

This is where the debate of a denition of god becomes most relevant.

Did you create existance? If not, or, even if so, is not whatever force that did an acceptable definition of god? And therefore and an antithetical ideal to atheism?

I hesitate to even use the term agnosticism, due to its somewhat gray definition.

If you must label yourself something, I'd suggest Verificationist. That doesn't seem to offend people... unless they're crazy.

But really, it's best to stay away from labels. They just group people together, taking away their individuality. And when you are part of a group, you become biased... or at least it is exponentially more likely.

Its not that I want to label myself...

Its not about the comfort. I just feel that an organized group of individuals seeking the truth for all things could really get a lot done. I feel that that group is a new type of people. People like myself, and like some others on this site. The only problem is we are such a new type of person that there is a lot of fine tuning to be done. We bicker over small things and definitions and forget what we are really trying to do. A set of ideals, or guidelines, accepted by a vast number of people, crafted out of honesty and truth seeking, would serve as a great platform and foundation for actual change.

Personally I'm agnostic but my stance is that it is possible there is a god, but it is highly unlikely. But then i guess ideals would be brought into other categories such as consequentialist and deontological. I would say I'm more a consequentialist but there are definitely areas I would say that I'm deontological. You're going to have atheists with deontological moral grounds and atheists with consequentialist grounds. Even though most deontological people are also religious there are still people who do not believe in god but still believe that it is inherently wrong to murder someone. I guess what I'm getting at is that even as atheists we are still divided on ideals.

I would say that ideally we would want to create the best outcome for the most number of people. However, we should not do extremes of this such as an organ lottery. As well we should not try and justify actions that would be too far into the future because the future is hard to predict for anyone. I guess we need consequentialism with a touch of deontological argument to create the perfect atheist ideals.

I get the feeling that only a few rules of how to act and think are required for an adequate base for a new kind of science.

Things like, be humble, be honest, be modest, respect yourself and others. These basic ideas are very much misunderstood by a vast majority of individuals, and that if a group of people fooly understood what those things meant, along with others, an inevitable truth would come, based on logic.

I don't need a complicated set of morals, just a strong base for human kind. How to be happy and how to live fully.

an agnostic that is not sure if god exists and states it in that phrase is simply a denier of the christian faith. they need to constantly question and rebel against all faiths and all gods which means that true agnostics refer to it as a higher power.

although the ideal of the agnostic is closer to the search for the truth than that of the athiest. If our goal is world peace than such a logic that can and will be picked apart by the theologians of the world who will continue to vie for power and dominance in politics and social structure. The doubt that is in the phrase "there might there might not be" is easily refutible.

so is the existance of god and the non existance of god. the difference in athiesm is there is no way to create a following of athiesm. no church no agenda no god ordained holy wars or god to hope the stain comes out of the shirt or god to pray for for the touchdown or god to win me the election or god that this person does what I said as I said without fucking it up.

God poisons everything it touches including every thought that has any sort weight in the religious minded individual. To remove this is to create a space in which there is a hole within there soul. this is not to say that it is a void or a black hole but more like a tapestry of which there thought is part of, this can be repaired with logic and reason. to which before they are blinded for leaving the explanation of every shitty thing that happens to people as the will of god. and will see what they do is wrong even if it is confessed to in the church, you know like the molestation of little boys.

I thought I'd end on some dark humour

BethewateR (Bruce Lee)

I agree with most of what you are saying, except this.

"no church no agenda no god"

You are attaching fellowship and agenda to god, when those two things have been around much longer than god. Why can't I start a movement in the name of truth, and attach atheism to that name? You've given me no reason, only told me that i cant.

I didnt say you couldn't but I did lay out why it would be very difficult and I got the idea for my name from a hendrix song.

In my opinion, one should not categorize him/her self under any banner, but try to seek the truth and create your own banner, which may consist of new ideas and the ideas of others.

quote:

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Why can't I start a movement in the name of truth, and attach atheism to that name? You've given me no reason, only told me that i cant.

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I agree with Swordpriest. Labels, categorisations or segregation of any kind are products of insecurity and are completely irrelevant. To conform to ideals to seek truth is fundamentally counterintuitive. If I believe in inner peace and unconditional compassion, my only motive in ranking myself would be to validate my beliefs - the very bowels from which patriotism and religion come from in the first place.