Atheism as a religion

[Marblehead]

I am a free-thinker.

I have a friend on another forum who, I am sure, is going to end up attaching that label to himself. Right now he has the label Agnostic. He won't go Atheist because it has too many negative connotations. He has used the term "free thinker" just recently.

[Marblehead]

 

Atheism is a form of belief for sure and its faithful followers are truly devout.

 

I give you permission to exclude me from that category.

 

What the hell is an Atheist song?

[KenBrace]

I give you permission to exclude me from that category.

 

What the hell is an Atheist song?

LOL that's what I'm wondering.

[C T]

What the hell is an Atheist song?

I have no idea. I know its definitely not this one...

 

[iain]

Now that is a very good point; vis the pied piper of Hamlin ...

The song remains the same ...

Edited October 16, 2014 by iain

[Marblehead]

I have no idea. I know its definitely not this one...

Yeah, that was before John realized he didn't believe in anything.

[Owledge]

Belief is a choice...what you know as fact cannot be belief. I wonder how many atheists have such realisations.

You believe it to be true. That is the belief. "Fact" can be quite subjective. It is almost like nothing but a definition by an established authority and thus part of believer mindset. (Yet, from that viewpoint, it's hard to find anything that is not belief. ... And that is a very spiritually valuable realisation, one that you could say was slapped around my face until I shed my denial. I now distinguish between 'ordinary' reality and wholistic reality in order to be more practical in the former.)

 

This thread is making me horny. God knows why. And that's just a figure of speech ... I don't believe in a God. Well not a man in the sky anyway...but that consciousness and everything around us could be likened to a God-like presence for it is far greater than I...

 

There must be a region for this...

Pantheism. I consider myself a pantheist.

[Marblehead]

Excluding man's mind, objective reality is what it is. The lamp post is still there while the guy is turning his head to watch the lady walk. Bloody nose time.

[Brian]

Yeah, that was before John realized he didn't believe in anything.

If the Beatles get on the side of Christ, which they always were, and let people know that, then maybe the churches won't be full, but there'll be a lot of Christians dancing in the dance halls. Whatever they celebrate, God and Christ, I don't think it matters as long as they're aware of Him and His message.

This is a quote from an interview he did in 1969 with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, during his & Yoko's Bed-In for Peace.

 

EDIT: He also said:

 

"People always got the image I was an anti-Christ or antireligion. I'm not. I'm a most religious fellow. I was brought up a Christian and I only now understand some of the things that Christ was saying in those parables. Because people got hooked on the teacher and missed the message."

Edited October 16, 2014 by Brian

[Marblehead]

This is a quote from an interview he did in 1969 with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, during his & Yoko's Bed-In for Peace.

But we still need to remember that near the end of his life he did, in that song, say that he believed in only himself and Yoko. And that was reality for him.

 

And John, when the Beatles made their first visit to America said something like: We seem to be more popular than Jesus.

 

I doubt it would be fair to suggest that John was an Atheist but rather a Cosmopolitan.

[C T]

But we still need to remember that near the end of his life he did, in that song, say that he believed in only himself and Yoko. And that was reality for him.

 

And John, when the Beatles made their first visit to America said something like: We seem to be more popular than Jesus.

 

I doubt it would be fair to suggest that John was an Atheist but rather a Cosmopolitan.

If Lennon's song 'God' was to be accepted as a reliable indicator, then it would clearly suggest that his views were purely atheistical. But describing his as a 'Cosmopolitan' is quite interesting.

 

[Brian]

But we still need to remember that near the end of his life he did, in that song, say that he believed in only himself and Yoko. And that was reality for him.

 

And John, when the Beatles made their first visit to America said something like: We seem to be more popular than Jesus.

 

I doubt it would be fair to suggest that John was an Atheist but rather a Cosmopolitan.

You are in direct conflict with what John said about himself, MH. That second quote above -- the one in which he plainly states "I'm a most religious fellow" -- is from 1980, shortly before his death. In his later years, he wrote and talked about his faith and his return to a non-church religious belief.

 

Yes, in 1966, he said:

"Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock and roll or Christianity."

 

As he matured, however, his self-absorption and narcissism faded.

 

You owe it to yourself to research this one a little for yourself but here are a few more quotes to prime the pump:

 

"I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong."

 

"I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?"

 

"Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."

 

"Surrealism had a great effect on me because then I realised that the imagery in my mind wasn't insanity. Surrealism to me is reality."

 

"Reality leaves a lot to the imagination."

 

These are not the words of a Bible-thumper but they are also definitely not the words of an atheistic materialist.

Edited October 16, 2014 by Brian

[C T]

oops!

[Brian]

oops!

No, you were correct -- "God" was very bitter and nihilistic. Seems to have been more about the sense of loss which accompanied the breakup of the Beatles (the song was a Plastic Ono Band number from 1970) but his works and words in the decade to follow reflected a period of growth and mellowing. He was certainly not a religious traditionalist, and would surely not have fit in with the Anglican Church of his childhood, but I suspect most of us here would be unlikely to find an organized religion with which we are in complete agreement and so we have each formulated our own belief system (including those of us who believe we have no belief system...)

[Marblehead]

If Lennon's song 'God' was to be accepted as a reliable indicator, then it would clearly suggest that his views were purely atheistical. But describing his as a 'Cosmopolitan' is quite interesting.

 

Yeah, that is one of my favorite songs of his. And I would have to agree with you.

 

I base my "Cosmopolitan" thoughts on the songs "Give Peace A Chance" and "Imagine".

[Marblehead]

You are in direct conflict with what John said about himself, MH. That second quote above -- the one in which he plainly states "I'm a most religious fellow" -- is from 1980, shortly before his death. In his later years, he wrote and talked about his faith and his return to a non-church religious belief.

 

That's cheating. you edited after I responded.

 

And remember, he was talking about Jesus, not God.

 

And while what you say may well be true it was not reflected in his songs.

[Marblehead]

Yes, in 1966, he said:

...

 

As he matured, however, his self-absorption and narcissism faded.

 

You owe it to yourself to research this one a little for yourself but here are a few more quotes to prime the pump:

 

 

Matured? Believing in fairies? You aren't serious, are you?

 

I believe more what he said in his songs than what he said for image purposes.

[Owledge]

John Lennon: "Reality leaves a lot to the imagination."

 

This is one of my favorite quotes now.

[Brian]

Matured? Believing in fairies? You aren't serious, are you?

 

I believe more what he said in his songs than what he said for image purposes.

I'm just trying to provide a little more insight into the guy by pointing out some of his own statements about his personal beliefs. Whether you choose to believe them is irrelevant to me, just as is your choice to discount the majority of the last hundred years of scientific research because it doesn't fit with your personal belief system. I'm not trying to prove anything to you, just to get you to question your own beliefs.

 

EDIT: Ask me to stop and I will (just as I did with TaoMaster a while back).

Edited October 16, 2014 by Brian

[zerostao]

pure objectivity is discredited except by popper. even the arch-logical positivist carnap with his 11 axioms understood the value of subjectivity and in fact endorses it. there is a "new materialism" we are now in the 21st century and the old materialism way of looking at things/objects died about 1880. rip

there is the ebb and flow between art, philosophy, and science that continues and will continue to unfold new insights and revelations. the fluxes travel like clouds,, mind and matter, nature and culture, reality and imagination.

in 1950 turing said critical is better than critique. and going critical refers to critical mass and europe always uses a different valence than america. critique is always too easy and is no longer the tool we need to deal with what we are now facing. as i type a single neutron is heading towards and will enter a critical sample of nuclear material causing a branch chain reaction exploding with new ideas. these will find different waves to modulate upon and there will be variance.

 

john lennon is an example of a legend turning into myth. he prophesized his own shooting. i would post lennon's Mind Games but on this forum i already have at least twice.

[Marblehead]

This is one of my favorite quotes now.

I can understand that.

[Marblehead]

, just as is your choice to discount the majority of the last hundred years of scientific research because it doesn't fit with your personal belief system.

I have never done that and never will. Science is not the hypothesis. Science is the facts supporting the theory.

 

Imagination can go places the human body cannot. I don't try to go to imaginary places.

[Marblehead]

And to point out, I have never denied the importance of the subjective. All I have ever done was to state that the subjective is not always equal to the objective, and that oftentimes the subjective is directly counter to the objective.

[Brian]

I have never done that and never will. Science is not the hypothesis. Science is the facts supporting the theory.

 

Imagination can go places the human body cannot. I don't try to go to imaginary places.

You use a computer to reject the quantum-mechanical principles upon which the computer functions yet you see no irony there.

[Marblehead]

You use a computer to reject the quantum-mechanical principles upon which the computer functions yet you see no irony there.

No, I have never rejected quantum mechanics in total. I have said that there are many hypothesis within the quantum field that I do not accept. I can't even recall any specifics at the moment because I pay so little attention to it.

 

I don't need to know what a computer consists of. I need to know what it does. I know what it does. I don't care what it consists of. I have argued, and will continue to argue, that a particle cannot be a wave because it requires many particles for there to be a wave. A wave is a bunch of particles.

 

I never needed to know how many particles were within the wave of my radio signal when I transmitted a message. But I did have to know about the antenna that radiated the wave.

 

I have heard some of the quantum theorists suggest that I can be in more than one place at any given point in time and this is total nonsense in my mind.

 

Keep it realistic and I will be right there with you. Get too far off the wall and I will have gone someplace else.

 

Are we still talking about Atheism?