I'm an Atheist, but I'm also lot's of other things

[toddaa]

Like a Taoist, a Scientific Pantheist, a Socialist Libertarian, a fanatical jazz fan, a lover of po mo literature (but scoffer of po mo itself), a connoisseur of cheap bourbon, expensive beer, and anything made with insane amounts of the fruit of Capsicum family of plants.

What I'm not is a Bright.


What kind of atheist are you?

[beam me up scottie]

1. Are taoists and scientific pantheists

theists?

Edited to apologize for being nosy.
I'm fairly ignorant of most non-traditional religions and I'm not even sure if those are religions.
Are they ?

[Modem Butterfly]

3. Taoism recognizes a number of gods

I don't even know what's meant by scientific pantheism. But here's a nifty Wikipedia page on Taoism.

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

[beam me up scottie]

5. So there are two types of taoists,

philosophical and religious, like buddhism.

Then Todaa must be a philosophical taoist because he is also an atheist.

Did you ever notice how much more interesting the gods of other cultures are ?

I mean, look at the greeks, now they knew how to do gods.

The christian god is pretty dull when you think about it.

[Book Lover]

6. Oh, back when he was the consort of Tiamat

he had his interesting points... now that he's brought his son into the business, though, it's all been downhill. And what's a Marduk without his Tiamat anyway? just some jumped-up sky-god with a derivative mythology.

[toddaa]

10. Religious v. Philosophical?

It's a bogus dichotomy that came out of the Jesuits misunderstanding (and fear) of Taoist teachings. When the West first came in contact with Eastern philosophy, the Jesuits latched onto Confucious immediately, because Confucianism is a nice heirarchical system that parallels both Plato and Augustine. Pretty easy stuff. Taoism, on the other hand, struck them as mystical mumbojumbo and they wrote it off as uneducated folklore. It wasn't until Legge started translating the Daodejing and Zhuangzi, that Western thinkers could come to grips with the Daoist thinking. Still, they didn't know what to do with the bazillion folk gods, the weird dietary rituals, and the internal alchemiac practices of Taoist priests. So they made up this phony myth that Laozi and Zhuangzi taught a pure philosophy that degenerated into a mystical religous practice.

While I certainly don't buy into things like alchemy, the Yellow Emporer, or physical immortality, I also don't believe that religious Taoism is a degeneration of the original proto Taoism of the Daodeching, Zhuangzi, or the Neiye.

At it's core, Daoism believes that opposites are one. Religious v. Philosophical may be how we separate the teachings into things we like and things we don't, but a Daoist sage sees them as essentially one. After all, you cannot recognize beauty without ugliness.

[beam me up scottie]

13. Thanks.

But I'm not understanding how you can be an atheist as well.
Do you believe in the supernatural ?

[toddaa]

16. It's confusing, isn't it

The classic separation between atheists is strong v. weak. I'm neither. Why? Because the word "god" is meaningless to me. No one has ever explained to me what exactly the attributes of this god term mean, so I don't spend a lot of time trying to prove or disprove an empty meaningless term.

As far as the supernatural, it's irrelevant. There may be other universes that exist by some quirk of QM, which adhere to different physical laws, but I don't live there, I have no idea how to get there, and I'm not even sure I want to be there, so why bother.

Daoism is simply a metaphorical construct that I use to understand how nature works and how I should interact with it. That's all. We all have subjective perspectives of objective reality. When we confuse those perspectives for reality, that's when nasty things like religious belief arise. So think of it this way, the closer I get to the Dao (nature), the closer I am to objective reality. When my subjective opinion does not conform to objective reality, then I am struggling against the Dao (nature) and fail. Call it secular Daoism. Works for me. YMMV.

[beam me up scottie]

17. Much better.

Thanks.
I've always been an atheist and I've not had much experience with anything other than the black and white, spy vs. spy religions.

[toddaa]

12. The christian god is not dull, he is an asshole

Sorry, but a minor distinction that I thought I'd point out.

[toddaa]

7. Scientific Pantheism primer

http://www.pantheism.net/paul/

[Modem Butterfly]

2. The mean kind

:grr:

You do NOT want to meet me in an alley after dark. I'll subvert your dominant paradigm and permanently expand your consciousness. I'll "oclast" your icons and kick over every pedestal I come across. And if you aren't very careful, you'll come to like it, too!

[beam me up scottie]

4. I'd listen to her, if I were you.

(i've heard she quotes Nietzsche)

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

9. That sounds kinky. Can I have some?

:spank: :spank: :spank: :spank: :spank: :spank: :spank: :spank:

[toddaa]

11. A pissed off Discordian

Cool

[Synnical]

8. There is a word for people who don't believe in "god"

Yet pray to "god" . . .

A prominent scientist wrote an article about it in Free Inquiry magazine some years ago. Drats, my memory fails me!

[Taxloss]

14. Explicit atheist.

Outright denial of divinity. A rationalist with no agnostic leanings. Taoism has a certain appeal to me - I've read the Tao Te Ching - but only on an aesthetic level. I converted to atheism from Low Anglicanism, which is fairly puritan. Faith, this fascinating thing that a hothouse environment was encouraging me to examine and explore as closely as possible, just fell apart in my hands.

I am not a Bright. It's an ugly, exclusionary term. It sounds like a calculated effort to insult.

As a hobby, I collect deathbed recantations of faith. When I have enough, I plan an R&T thread.

[onager]

15. Got a deathbed story for you

Though I'm not sure it qualifies as a "recantation," so much as a "nobody ever asked and it shocked the bejesus out of the family" event.

Samuel Cunard, the Canadian founder of the Cunard ship line. When Cunard was on his deathbed, one of his sons suggested it might be time to call in a Trickless Magician...er, I meant clergyman.

Cunard flatly refused. He said something like he had never paid any attention to religion during his life, so he wasn't going to be a hypocrite and turn to it in his hour of death.

I read the story in the book Transatlantic, a history of the great shipping lines.

The book had some other interesting anecdots showing that religion has always been as divisive as it is today.

One of the lines had an executive who was a God-Botherer, so he insisted that a Church Of England service be held every Sunday in the ship's main dining room.

This brought the usual complaints about one of God's shareholders enforcing a monopoly over those who didn't spiritually invest in the Church Of England franchise.

[More Than A Feeling]

19. That sounds promising!

Sure to liven up R+T (not that it really needs it, but still...) I'll be sure to watch out for it.

[immoderate]

18. I like the model of the universe that the Tao presents.

Surely the opposites thing. I read the Teachings of Huang Po, and was taken with the six paramitas, and found they comported nicely with atheism.

I am also a devoted jazz fan. Started listening seriously when I was eight or nine years old, in the mid fifties. BTW have you ever joined the party on Saturdays to listen to Progmom's show? It's very good. If you haven't, drop by the lounge noon Eastern time on Saturdays. There will be a thread. We make requests.

What's good cheap bourbon? I like Early Times. The story I got on it is that's it's really batches of I.W. Harper's that were rejected by two of five tasters. So three out of five professional tasters think it's good enough. I got that story from my friends father, who heard it at a conference of quality control managers. I'd be interested to hear what your picks would be.

I also don't like the term bright. Saying I am one is like saying to someone "You're not bright." I'll save my shots thank yoU.

Good to meetcha.:hi:

--IMM