Well atheism would only convey a negation of belief (in God) to me. My
religious model has no problem accommodating atheists, and contrawise
I have no problem with an atheist's belief model built around no-God
(or Gods or gods or GOD ...). As long as it functions its irrelevant
whether a car (or religion) runs on gasoline or horse-manure or hot
air.
My religion (loosely called "Adi Dharm") originally reduced the 330
million "gods" of Hinduism down to one ("Brahma" the absolute
reality). Having done that very successfully we were forced to go
underground in the previous century, and a not insignificant portion
of our adherents became "godless" Communists. Today we don't have a
conception of a God as a father / creator figure. Instead we conceive
God as "the" principle which regulates existence/ the uinivers/
multiverse/ parallel worlds or whatever. Deus is the "mechanism behind
the clock" and not the "clock maker". The issue is whether atheists
also acknowledge that there is a principle (or law . or set of laws)
which govern "their" universe.
I agree with Eric, newer generations are not interested in
philosophical systems any more or artificial religious categories.
There are too many other things going on in their lives.
On 9/17/12, Nicholas Thompson <nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Sarbajit,
>
> Given your range of experiences with the religious, I am curious for your
> reflections on atheism as a religion. When push comes to shove, are we
> atheists any the less religious, in the very broadest senses of that term?
> In what ways?
>
> Nick
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On
> Behalf
> Of Sarbajit Roy
> Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 8:51 AM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] just faith
>
> Platinga's view is fairly well aligned with the beliefs of my own faith
> even
> though our "God" may be different. We all develop our own models of
> reality,
> apparently the trick is to ensure that these models are robust enough
> accommodate everybody else's gremlins, devils, zombies, or maulvis and
> still
> continue to function.
>
>
>
> I probably know more Muslim's personally then half the members on this
> list.
> My neighbour is a Muslim and I also employ Muslims. India is a secular
> country whose 13% Muslim population is free to migrate anywhere in the
> world
> which will take them in - not many do. India's Muslims when asked (by
> foreigners such as the BBC or the NYT) usually volunteer they consider
> themselves to be better off in India vis-a-vis their brethren in Muslim
> countries like Pakistan or Iran (notwithstanding the occasional bouts of
> communal frenzy which develop over pigs feet or beef entrails being thrown
> by the butchers of each community).
>
>
>
> India was ruled for over 200 years by Muslims as was China (Yuan dynasty).
> America probably needs to experience Muslim rule for some time to develop a
> sustainable and robust reality model. The "Dune" SF series was heavily
> influenced by Islamic models.
>
>
>
> OT: Interestingly, "Islamic science fiction" is an emergent discipline in
> the Arabic world to attract younger followers to the world of the Taliban
> and Al Qaeda.
>
>
>
> Sarbajit
>
>
>
> On 9/17/12, Roger Critchlow < <mailto:r...@elf.org> r...@elf.org> wrote:
>
>> Reading
>
>> <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defen>
> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defen
>
>> ds-religion/
>
>> was
>
>> a rather odd experience this week, mixed in with Sam Bacile, the
>
>> Salafists, the zombies, and whatever.
>
>>
>
>> The review is by a non-believer (Thomas Nagel) who finds the book,
>
>> written by a believer (Alvin Plantinga), very interesting, even though
>
>> he doesn't believe it. Plantinga's day job is analytic philosophy, so
>
>> he gets very precisely into what he thinks it is that his faith and
>
>> his beliefs do for him. Finally, the main argument is sort a grand
>
>> slam of creationism: we wouldn't be able to correctly figure out how
>
>> the world works if the deity, more specifically the deity that Plantinga
> believes in, wasn't helping us
>
>> along the way. Why would natural selection by itself care anything
>> about
>
>> the truth?
>
>>
>
>> As the reviewer says: "The interest of this book, especially for
>
>> secular readers, is its presentation from the inside of the point of
>
>> view of a philosophically subtle and scientifically informed theist-an
>
>> outlook with which many of them will not be familiar."
>
>>
>
>> -- rec --
>
>>
>
>
>
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>
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>
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>
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