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Pastafarian
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Philadelphia

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Message Posted: Jun 15, 2011 4:42:38 PM
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I know some of you are atheists but not metaphysical naturalists. I'm wondering how that works, because my atheism is founded on my metaphysical naturalism.

I was religious into my early adulthood, but one key part of my deconversion was realizing that if you accept that there's a supernatural world--that is, a world which cannot be observed from our natural world--you have no way of excluding any particular assertion about it. If I believe there are supernatural phenomena, how do I vet any proposition about them? Why believe in one god and not another? Why believe in a god but not karma or reincarnation or fairies?

I found it enlightening and liberating to realize I could safely assume away the supernatural world because, as Christopher Hitchens later wrote, "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." No god to figure out, and in fact, a whole (putative) world of complications I could ignore. Great!

But clearly, if you're an atheist, and yet you believe supernatural things or forces exist, you found a way to exclude a supernatural god as one of the supernatural things or forces. How did you do that?
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ldheinz
Champion Author Chicago

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Message Posted: Dec 25, 2011 9:29:31 PM
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I hadn't heard the term before, but after reading the Wikipedia entry, I'd call it a good description of my beliefs. I don't start by assuming supernatural events. I see no need for any of that nonsense. I'm willing to discuss the possibilities of things unproven, as long as we agree that the results are hypothetical.

I see religion as the result of people that want to know answers to important questions, but aren't really concerned if those answers are correct. Religion, therefore, is a result of moral weakness.
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doggod
Champion Author Anchorage

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Message Posted: Dec 24, 2011 3:08:20 PM
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I may not be following this line of thinking correctly, so if I say something irrelevant I apologize in advance.

I don't consider myself an anything-ist, I just consider myself a guy. It's the people who are foaming at the mouth about invisible people and what-not that insist on pinning labels on me.

Speaking as just a guy, I admit that while the premises of all the religions I've heard of seem too absurd to be taken seriously, it is fun from time to time to speculate on bizarre possibilities. Particularly if in the company of friends sucking on hoses from a big bottle of water with some burning herbs on top.

But later on, when rationality begins to reassert itself, we all get up and go back to our prosaic worlds, having been sufficiently amused to carry us along to the next time.

So don't try to deconstruct my logic, because there isn't any there. There's a place and time for logic, and then there are other times. I wouldn't want to have to go without the other times.
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