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From: jso@edison.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Why I am an atheist
Message-ID: <287@edison.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 30-Jun-84 18:03:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: edison.287
Posted: Sat Jun 30 18:03:49 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 2-Jul-84 00:23:29 EDT
References: <355@kpnoa.UUCP>
Lines: 124


kpnoa!parks' excellent article on why he is an atheist seems to me to
have a few fatal flaws.
Remember that I am not presenting my own belief as "absolute truth", but
simply as a contrast.

The central problem is that he tries to approach religion and
non-material phenomena from a materialist point of view.
This is not to say that scientific experimentation and reasoning
are incompatible with religion; the essence of occultism, as opposed
to organized religion, is enquiry and experimentation, and forming your
own conclusions as to the nature of the universe.  (To those who object
to my calling occultism religious: as you expand the scope of an honest
definition of religion, you will include occultism before you include
Buddhism or related religions.)

> ... parapsychology has gained a legitimate name, recognition by
> the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and millions of
> dollars in research funding.  Despite that, in all this time not one
> single solid piece of repeatable evidence has appeared demonstrating a
> true psyhic power.

psi powers, by their nature, cannot be consciously replicated, especially
in the context of a sceptical experiment.  This sounds like a cop-out,
I admit, but I have found it to be true.  Parapsychology can't supply
hard, repeatable, evidence; it is a subjective phenomenon.  (In that,
it's very repeatable! :-) )

> I believe
> now that there is no mystery behind: astrology, telepathy, precognition,
> telekinesis, mediums, seances, UFO's, bigfoot, psychic surgery, dowsing,
> reincarnation, or a host of other beliefs that fall into the category
> "psychic phenomena".

I can't understand how you link reincarnation with psychic phenomena,
or what UFO's and bigfoot have to do with this at all.  Reincarnation
is as much a part of "conventional religion" as single-life views of
the afterlife; just different religions.  More on this below.

>     In fact, (almost) every separate
>     branch of humanity has discovered its own different Gods, each as
>     different from each other as the separate groups of man were from
>     each other.  IF THERE WAS NO GOD, THEN MAN WOULD INVENT HIM.

Beneath all the external differences, (almost) all ancient religions
were remarkably similar, with very close correspondences in pantheons,
myths, and rituals.  See the works of Jung for an explanation.
Not that this refutes your argument at all, but it should indicate that
gods and religion are not simply "inventions", but a reflection of
some inner truth.  For a scientific theory that complements this
nicely, see the book "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown
of the Bicameral Mind" by Julian Jaynes.

As society evolved, and people became more aware of their spititual
nature (from life to life...), "true" religions developed with beliefs
about the nature of man and his relationship with god/gods/the universe.
As one such mystic said, "We see as through a glass, darkly."  My extension
to this image is that we see a multi-dimensional, complex reality.
Naturally, mystics seeing this from very different points of view
will see different things, and so the religions seem very different.
(The story of the blind men and the elephant comes to mind.)  There are
many points of agreement, though.  One of these is a belief in the
afterlife and reincarnation.  Almost no religions deny reincarnation
except modern Christianity.  Note the modern: the Gnostics believed
in reincarnation, as did (do?) Orthodox Jews.  After the council of
Nicea, parts of the Bible that disagreed with the dogma of the council
were removed, and offending copies and other writings hunted down and
burned; one such dogma was reincarnation.  They weren't entirely succesful
in removing all traces of the belief:  people saying the John the Baptist
was various of the prophets returned, etc.  Back to the point:

>     There is no current-day objective proof for religion.  There are
>     communications, prayers, miracles, and healings, but these are all
>     subjective and do not constitute proof to disbelievers.

Religion cannot be objectively proven: it is a *subjective* experience
and relationship with the universe.  (A Christian would say that you
could not have True Faith if it were proven to you, or something like that.)

>     There are people today who believe the most outlandish things.
>     [outlandish things deleted...]
>     I do not believe that God
>     (if He exists) made the world this way, or intended people to
>     believe this, or wrote these things in the Bible then made the world
>     otherwise.  I think these people are flat-out *wrong* and are
>     deluding themselves through the fanatical strength of their beliefs.

Fine, but should this reflect on the truth of religion?  If these things
are in the Bible, then this reflects only on its truth.  Certainly
people can be deceived and deceive themselves, but to say that everything
not in the common, materialist experience is such a delusion is foolish.

>  Most religions claim that theirs is the one true religion, all others
>  are either false or mistaken.

Many religious *people* claim this, Christians especially.  Religious
leaders are often more political than religious, and claim this because
it increases the power of their religion, and therefore themselves.
(Early Christain popes are excellent examples, as are modern cult leaders.)

> ---Religions have human problems and inconsistencies: their belief in
>    haunts, technical inaccuracies, and their denial of all other faiths.

> .....

>     So, which of the many religions in the world is true?  It began to
> seem to me, that from the above points, that the worldly proof of the True
> Religion rests on its ancient miracles, and nothing else.  Any other
> religion in the world has its modern-day subjective beliefs, comforts,
> order, and minor miracles.  They are all on a roughly equal footing here.

>     Again and again I was forced back to the fact that "we can't *prove*
> to you today, but in the past there was this miracle...."   And that is
> when I became an atheist.

Why is it necessary that one religion be true, and others not?  You said
yourself that this was a problem.  If you try to "prove" religion,
or base it on miracles, you miss the point entirely.  True mystics
and Seekers after Truth (modern ones especially) recognize that the
different religions are just different paths to the same truth - your
own inner nature and that of the universe.

John Owens
...!{ {duke mcnc}!ncsu!uvacs houxm brl-bmd scgvaxd }!edison!jso