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/lit/ - Literature

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6443345 No.6443345 [Reply] [Original]

How does one transcend the believer-atheist dichotomy?

>> No.6443351

>>6443345
Read Chopra and start referring to yourself as 'spritual'

>> No.6443352

Agnostic/Spiritual tier or possibly deism

>> No.6443357

>>6443345

I remember reading in Jorge's Averroes' Search that one can only be free of a belief/opinion that one has professed at some time.

I find it to be true of myself. I grew up a staunch Muslim, became a fedora-tipping atheist at 16. At 19, I don't know what I am any longer.

My God is latent/dormant.

>> No.6443372

>>6443352
>>6443351
This. You become a spiritual hipster, chained to ironically dabbling in alchemy and shit while still reaping the benefits. You can never truly overcome indoctrination and the only recourse that isn't 'belief' is an agnostic approach.

The only ones who are free of it are the ones never indoctrinated and they don't care more than not believe.

>> No.6443488

Hegel.

>> No.6443658

Understanding that the "Truth" of an idea is irrelevant and that the important thing is "How useful is this information to me."

If a religion is useful, you should pretend to believe even if you don't. If it's not, you should ignore god even if he is real.

>> No.6443713

>>6443658
Oh also, there is nothing wrong with cherry picking things from different faiths as long as you understand why they do what they do.
People complain about it, but really they are just buthurt because they don't have the freedom you have.

See also: "Cultural appropriation." It is and has always been what Patricians do, ever since Alexander the great. The best spoils of any conquest are always cultural.

>> No.6443733

>>6443345
Nietzsche.

(neither no to life (believer) nor no to belief (negation of a negation) but Yes (affirmation of life).

>> No.6443775
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6443775

Honestly, I'm so removed from this debate I don't even know what to say to you.

Atheists, theists, agnostics, spirituals... They are all on a very different sphere of thinking. If I were a philosopher I'd be able to explain it to you where I stand, nevertheless I stand aside that discussion entirely and may one day you all free yourselves from it as well.

>> No.6443844

>>6443775
Spoken like a true fedorista.

>> No.6443850

It is just a matter of necessity

>> No.6443870

>>6443844
>neofedorista

ftfy

>> No.6443876

>>6443775
>le liberal can't take a decision face
Pure Ideology.

>> No.6443884

>>6443345
Stop searching for answers and start paying attention to the answers that are searching for you.

>> No.6443924
File: 194 KB, 1680x1019, god maybe.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6443924

>>6443345
By realizing that just because you believe in something, it doesn't become true or untrue. Accept that human beings know so little about the universe, and do your best to understand the things you are capable of grasping. Honestly, I don't know. I try not to think about it, and just spend my life reading and going innawoods.

For all we know, the visible universe is nothing more than a cumstain on a giant furry's couch. Now wouldn't that be something?

>> No.6443937

>>6443345
>How do I transcend P / ~P

You don't. The best you can do is pretend it doesn't exist, if you're the kind of person who'd feel better about that.

>> No.6443947

The only free atheists are the ones who were never raised theists. There are atheists who revoked their faith in their teenage years and now define themselves by their opposition to their parents. I was never raised with religion. When fedora-tippers facetiously snarl that to them Christ is as absurd as a Flying Spaghetti Monster, you know they're lying. But I didn't know what Jesus was until I went to school, and I didn't know what religion was until I was maybe 8. When I was 4 or 5 I asked my parents where everything came from and they said they didn't know and nobody did. I feel like my atheism is distinct from that of Hitchens or Harris because I am completely earnest and honest when I say that I think Christ is about as likely as Zeus, whereas from their upbringings and preoccupation with religion you can tell that Dawkins thinks Jehovah is maybe a little more likely to exist than Thor.

I transcend the dichotomy by not thinking about it.

>> No.6443985

>>6443947
I wouldn't say losing your faith invalidates your atheism more than never being religious in the first place. My parents raised myself and my brothers to make up our own minds (which almost always inevitably leads to atheism), and yet my older brother was quite hung up on the whole 'Dawkins crusade against religious nutjobs'. That said, I'm as apathetic about it as you are, there are far more important things to be dealing with since faith is something you cannot argue rationally about, given that the opposing side simply cannot see it any other way.

>> No.6444007

>>6443345
Like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignosticism

>> No.6444022

>>6443345
Stop caring.

atheism's percieved importance is directly proportionate to the importance accorded to religion.

Faith is more or less on it's way out here in the UK, which means that "explicit Atheism" is far less of a big deal in the populace at large.

And then in time people find newer more novel ideological standpoints to murder each other over whilst maintaining an air of legitimacy.

The best way to transcend the dichotomy is to forget about it entirely and move on to more interesting subjects.

>> No.6444034

>>6444022
>The best way to transcend the dichotomy is to forget about it entirely
Sort of difficult when the entire world is in quite an uproar about it. It's like being in a room with a 15 foot salt water crocodile and trying to forget it's there.

>> No.6444043

>>6443345
What dichotomy?
There is no real intellectual debate to be had about any of that.
It's just some political stuff at this point (people belonging in this or that camp). It's simple social science.

>> No.6444046

People who complain about people who don't take a side are literally the worse.

"HOW DARE YOU NOT CONTRIBUTE TO THE TOXIC POLARIZATION OF THIS IRRATIONAL DEBATE OVER PETTY BULLSHIT THAT BENEFITS NOBODY!"

>> No.6444047

>>6444007
topdogmate

>> No.6444051

>>6444034
Now, if you live in Raqqa this may be the case, but personally I just close the front door on Jehovas Witnesses.

No more difficult than ignoring sports you don't watch.

>> No.6444056

>>6443345
By understanding God as opposed to simply believing in God's existence.

>> No.6444065

>>6444056
Understanding the nature of nothingness is best left to Zen masters and schizophrenics.

>> No.6444085

>>6443947
I'm not sure anon, I was also raised without religion. My mother doesn't care much and my father was raised catholic, was a true believer and then became an atheist when he was in his 20s. When I asked my father what was God all about, he gave me a biased review of the bible, drawing Adam and Eve and Jesus and mentioning passages and so on. I ended up thinking it was all absurd, but then again he told me in a way it is absurd. When I was a teenager and internet was starting out, I was having fedora arguments with theists and so on. It was all very silly, myself and them. As I grew older I began to feel the weight of a problem: how come people still defend this thing that I find to be totally absurd? Other atheists were just arrogantly saying people are stupid and people are like that, that the fantasies are just there to comfort us and so on. But that was too an absurd answer. I came to know more about christianity and other religions, eastern ones and so on. I learned more about language and caught myself thinking what were people saying when they were saying "god" or "soul" and etc. There really is a whole fucking world of possible interpretations and ways in which this thing can affect your life. The dichotomy between true/false, magic/real, religion/no religion begins to fall apart.

At a time I thought Dawkins and Hitchens were absolutely right and just fighting against these evil illusions that take us out of science and truth. But they are really not listening and not interested in listening at all and this really bothers me. I see the debate as a political thing, as means for one person to convince the other, have the high ground, win the argument, etc. I'm not interesting in winning arguments, I rather lose all arguments and thus learn from each one of them. I hear Dawkins speak and I don't hear a man who's trying to learn with theists, then why speak to them? It's one fag trying to lecture the other.

There is really a limbo for me, which is not about being undecided or agnostic. I'm atheist in the same way that I was before. But I understand that this doesn't mean much, just like theist doesn't mean much. I don't think talking about god, religioin, universe, science has anything to do with how things are but through which terms do we live by.

>> No.6444101

>>6443345
Start by researching the nature of belief systems (there other names for that term like conditioning (J Krishnamurti) or reality tunnels (T Leary)).
Learn to hold many conflicting ideas in your head at the same time. Learn to be detached from the conceptual world and it's need to label all sensory data. Etc etc. The noobs in this thread know very much, Socrates would probably remark to himself.

>> No.6444104

>>6443372
Yeah, that or a western buddhist.

>> No.6444176

>>6443345
You transcend pointless religious debates by forgetting about them and concentrating on something worthwhile.

>> No.6444508

>>6443345
Stop acknowledging the believers and start discussing the different theoretical physicists and their ideas

>> No.6444586

>>6443357

Hey, me too. Do you want to fuck?

>> No.6444940

>>6443345

It's a necessary dichotomy though. You either believe in God or you don't. Any so-called middle ground on this question is just bullshit evasion because it's a controversial subject.

>> No.6444960

>>6444940
It's a meaningless question though, and should be evaded. There are so many more better things to think about.

>> No.6444969

>>6444960
If there ever was an important question than this is the meaningful question.

>> No.6444991

>>6443345
>implying Atheists aren't believers

Aheists are pious people

>> No.6444993

>>6444969
>Says the person who is involved in the debate.

I think a bigger issue is the people who are involved in conflicts to assume that their conflict is the most important ever, and that anybody who isn't part of it is actually worse than the enemy.

See also, feminism, communism/capitalism, democrats/republicans, ect.

>> No.6444999

>>6443345
read everything by robert anton wilson
read everything by nietzche
read popper
read kuhn
read spinoza

>> No.6445004
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6445004

>>6443345
APATHEISM

An Apatheist is a person who regards the question of the existence or non-existence of a god or gods to be essentially meaningless and irrelevant.

>> No.6445009
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6445009

>>6443345
scepticism

>> No.6445022
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6445022

>>6443345
Take the leap of faith and believe

>>6444991
THIS
H
I
S

>> No.6445026

>>6444056
I understand it as god is more of ab experience than a belief. Reading every holy book ever written wont get you any closer to understand god that an illiterate.

>> No.6445027

>>6444999
Definitely read Spinoza. That's what solved it for me.

>> No.6445043
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6445043

>>6443345
Spiritual atheism.
I read the Bible, listen to Tallis and Allegri, find much pleasure in reading about various heretic cults, find mysticism interesting and refrain from tipping my fedora. I am moved by the poetry of Wilde, Blake, Houseman and the Psalms. I also subscribe to various conservative ideas.
Yet, I've never believed all the stuff. It's to me like the Greek mythology, only much more accessible and refined.

>> No.6445057
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6445057

>>6445022
well, if HE couldn't do it, who can?

>> No.6445058

>>6445004
isn't thar similar to the teaching of buddha. people would asking metaphysical questions all the time but he wouldn't answer because they aren't important for development.

>> No.6445063
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6445063

>>6443345
Read Gianni Vattimo, Jean-Luc Nancy, and other authors associated with the 'return to religion' in continental philosophy.

Look into Christian atheism, process theology, weak theology, and theopoetics.

>> No.6445076
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6445076

>>6445057
This guy, if he existed

>> No.6445081
File: 127 KB, 600x667, mary theotokos.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6445081

>>6445057
>>6445076
Or this lady, who probably did exist. Now, whether she was a /v/irgin is more up in the air

>> No.6445090

>>6443345
Read Heidegger, and understand how the dimension of the Holy is withheld from us due to the influence of Technik; it's impossible for anyone today to be genuinely religious.

>> No.6445094

ignosticism

>> No.6445121

>>6445057
actually, I think Kierkegaard himself might have, in fear ad trembling when he says he can't do it you have to keep in mind that it's his pseudonym (John of Silence) speaking, not Kierkegaar himself.

>> No.6445138

>>6445121
Interesting, though I believe the whole Johannes issue is just (faux?) modestry from his part.

>> No.6445158

By reading Krishnamurti and freeing yourself from the known.

>> No.6445163

>>6445090
>it's impossible for anyone today to be genuinely religious.
You can just read Sorengaard for that.

>> No.6445180

>>6445138
I don't now, I've never read his Edifying Discourses, but I think they're pretty "faithful" in a traditional sense.

I think something you have to keep in mind with a lot of existentialists is that they aren't often willing to commit to any one line of reasoning. I think Kierkegaard uses his various pseudonyms to express possibly aberrant lines of thought, whether or not the works he takes direct credit for are what he actually thinks is a further question regarding more research than I want to do atm.

Nietzsche seems to me to lack consistency, but I admit I'm no scholar (please don't cite Hiedegger to prove Nietzsche's consistency either, I like his lectures, but he more often uses Nietzsche as a medium for his own philosophy than actually interpreting Nietzsche).

>> No.6445301

>>6445043
I'm not a conservative by any stretch, but I agree. It doesn't matter if it's "True," only the simple minded think in terms of truth/lies. What maters is weather or not these teachings are useful to you.

>> No.6445466

>>6445058
The Unanswerable Questions can be interpreted as an option that is none of the above, being mostly cosmology relating to the buddha-state, it seems to imply a mental division by zero.

>> No.6445497

>>6443775
then stop fucking debating ask >>yourself<< few questions and move on.

>> No.6445541

>>6445076
>that sheep thinking 'better you than me motherfucker'

>> No.6445542

>>6445043

>Spiritual atheism.

I would understand "spiritual agnosticism", but "spiritual atheism" just makes you come across as a confused culture vulture.

Spirituality doesn't exist without a belief in something higher. Be it doctrinal or not. You can't be a spiritual atheist. You can be an ethical or moral one, but not a spiritual one.

Stop calling yourself that.

>> No.6445546

Hegel.

>> No.6445854
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6445854

>>6443870
And just when I thought we were finally in a post-fedora society.

>> No.6445866
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6445866

The idea that all truths, not just empirical truths but metaphysical as well, can be explained through reason and logic alone takes as much of a leap of faith to accept as the idea that if I eat a wafer, then I am literally putting a man's body part inside of my mouth.

>> No.6446246

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transtheism

>> No.6446318
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6446318

>>6443345
deism
>there are still people who have not felt the elation of absolute freedom and total serenity

>> No.6446338

>>6443345
Max Stirner. You are what you own

>> No.6446350

>>6446338

so, in other words, you are the collected transferences of phallic motherpower onto the material conditions of production?

>> No.6446366

>>6446350

>you can only own things through money, capital or means of production

>> No.6446382

>>6446350
No, you own whatever titles you claim. I'm not an atheist or a believer unless I claim either. I claim atheism and piss down God's throat.

>> No.6446390

>>6446366

precisely

'property' is a byword for means of production

>> No.6446397
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6446397

>>6446390

>> No.6446402

>>6443345
false dicotomy

>> No.6446408

There really is no dichotomy because God does not exist. Once you accept that, you realize there's no choice to be made.

>> No.6446415

But God exists anon, it's so obvious

>> No.6446422

>>6446408

>God does not exist

nice empty statement

>language does not exist

I can do it too

>> No.6446430
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6446430

>>6446415
xxxddxdxddd ebbbbin fuark m8888y

>> No.6446433

>>6446415

But what kind of god... A spinoza one? an abrahamic one?

>> No.6446437

>>6446422
Except it's obvious that language exists because we're using it and can observe it being used right now. God doesn't exist. It's not an empty statement because it's true.

>> No.6446444

>>6446433
The One

>> No.6446445

>>6446437

Descartes-tier logic

go read a book

>> No.6446450

>>6446445
Nice empty statements. God still doesn't exist.

>> No.6446455

>>6446450

demonstrate how any existential statement can be qualified

why and how is it necessarily true that anything does or does not exist?

go ahead

>> No.6446456
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6446456

>>6446408
see pic related

>> No.6446461

>>6446444
Stop smoking weed and watching the matrix.

>> No.6446469

>>6446455
>>6446450
Both stop. God exists as a proposition and as a spook. He does not exist as the bible would have you believe.

>> No.6446476

>>6446461
why would I sin, anon?

>> No.6446480

>>6446455
I'm not going to waste my time with a solipsist. God does not exist.

>> No.6446489

>>6446456

so much stupid shit on this board all the time and this pic still stands out

why the fuck has humanity always been so stupid and why do people keep playing the semiotic game

>> No.6446495

>>6446480

>I'm not going to waste my time with (insert related -ism)

just kill yourself, middlemind

>> No.6446508

>>6446489
God loves you, Anon.

>> No.6446514

>>6446508

why would I have dared expect any reply but this?

>> No.6446518

>>6446514
Everyone loves you Anon
I love you

>> No.6446526

>>6446518
God is not real.

>> No.6446529

>>6446433
Abraxas

>> No.6446542

>>6446489
Because of faith, of course.

>> No.6446557

>>6446526
you look afraid
why, anon?

>> No.6447540

It's easy. When people ask what religion i am i say nothing.

When they ask if I'm atheist, i say whatever.

>> No.6448409 [DELETED] 

>>6443488
> implying anyone here read Fenomenología del Espíritu, once, then twice (and highlighted and took notes) and then wrote a 6 thousand book review about it which was the final exam of a grade paper.

>> No.6448418

>>6446557

How can you see him if he's on the internet?

Did you borrow rabbi Yoshua's magic jew glasses?

>> No.6449102

Forget your ego

>> No.6449128

Most people "transcend the dichotomy" simply by being disingenuous in their belief/unbelief.

>> No.6449136 [DELETED] 
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6449136

Pyrrhonian skepticism.

>> No.6449162

>>6449128
>Anybody who's not as fanatical as I am is being disingenuous.

>> No.6449170

>>6449136
lel see you in a month

>> No.6449171

Read the Diamond Sutra.

>> No.6449182

>>6449136
Nice but wrong board

>> No.6449221

>>6444046
>Why don't you have a(my) opinion on the matter?

>> No.6449265

>>6444046
>benefits nobody

If the Christians are right it could wind up benefiting everyone considerably.

>> No.6449296

>>6443345
asdfasfdasasfd

>> No.6449334

>>6443345
Agnosticism...

>> No.6449342

>>6449265
You can still think the Christians are wrong, but still think that religion has a practical use for the living and not want to write it off completely.

>> No.6449362

>>6443345
I think Roderick Long already did that
http://praxeology.net/unblog03-04.htm#02

think the disagreement between theism and atheism is in a certain sense illusory – that when one tries to sort out precisely what theists are committed to and precisely what atheists are committed to, the two positions come to essentially the same thing, and their respective proponents have been fighting over two sides of the same shield.

Let’s start with the atheist. Is there any sense in which even the atheist is committed to recognising the existence of some sort of supreme, eternal, non-material reality that transcends and underlies everything else? Yes, there is: namely, the logical structure of reality itself.

Thus so long as the theist means no more than this by “God,” the theist and the atheist don’t really disagree.
Now the theist may think that by God she means something more than this. But likewise, before people knew that whales were mammals they thought that by “whale” they meant a kind of fish. What is the theist actually committed to meaning?

Well, suppose that God is not the logical structure of the universe. Then we may ask: in what relation does God stand to that structure, if not identity? There would seem to be two possibilities.

One is that God stands outside that structure, as its creator. But this “possibility” is unintelligible. Logic is a necessary condition of significant discourse; thus one cannot meaningfully speak of a being unconstrained by logic, or a time when logic’s constraints were not yet in place.

The other is that God stands within that structure, along with everything else. But this option, as Wittgenstein observed, would downgrade God to the status of being merely one object among others, one more fragment of contingency – and he would no longer be the greatest of all beings, since there would be something greater: the logical structure itself. (This may be part of what Plato meant in describing the Form of the Good as “beyond being.”)

The only viable option for the theist, then, is to identify God with the logical structure of reality. (Call this “theological logicism.”) But in that case the disagreement between the theist and the atheist dissolves.

>> No.6449369

Why would you bother? One can be an atheist without engaging in new-atheist scientism.

>> No.6449370

By realising that theology is at the core of western thought, developed with the greeks and brought to its logical conclusion in the Christian philosophies.

>> No.6449374

>>6443658
Oh, you saw that 8-bit philosophy episode on Pragmatism too

>> No.6449387

by becoming God himself

>> No.6449435

>>6443345
I took LSD, now i don't know if i'm an agnostic or a lazy gnostic.

>> No.6449473

>>6449374
I did, but it's irreverent because I already believed that. 8 bit Philosophy is the weakest of wisecrack's shows anyways and leaves out a lot of important shit.

>> No.6449505

>>6444085
i was with you until you used the term "fag"

>> No.6450041

>>6443488
Please elaborate.

>> No.6450188

>>6449374

Even if he watched that video immediately before posting, the pertinence of the information he's providing is in no way diminished.

"People complain about it, but really they are just buthurt because they don't have the freedom you have." Oddly similar to your behavior in that you envy his shamelessness. fitting

>> No.6450231

By definition, you can't.

There are gradients of how sure you are, but this is apart from the actual question. The choices are still only two.

If we take god as having multiple definitions, then this doesn't change the dichotomy of the question either. Just turns a word into a variable. The choices would still be two no matter the definition.

You're either an atheist or you're retarded.