Prophecy

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In answer to a question posted on the forums. http://z7.invisionfree.com/TheAtheistJourney/index.php?showtopic=1

Epistemic Circularity

CORRECTION: About 3:50 "just as reliable as any other..." is supposed to be "epistemological" not "empirical."
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William Alston's "Piercieving God" is an excellent resource for this concept. Although I do not fully agree with his conclusion.

His conclusion is that, basically, SP (spiritual perception) is just as unreliable as DP (doxastic perception.) Since there is no reasonable cause to doubt spiritual perception is true, it is beneficial to the individual to believe in their spiritual perceptions.

There are problems with this. The first is when spiritual perception is not at all beneficial to the individual, or life. For example, seeing an angel tell you that Jews need to be slaughtered, or God telling you to kill your babies, or demons/spirits telling you they demand rape and slaughtered black kittens. Furthermore, how do you logically separate the ones that tell you to do harm, and the ones that simply tell you you shouldn't have sex before marriage because that's bad for some reason?

The second, is that since that spiritual perception is so exclusive as to not be shared unless it is a group vision. I can go to my memory, or testimonies of others even to prove my sense perception is not lying to me. Or I can use other sense perceptions to validate one sense perception. If my eyes tell me when I stick a straw in the water it becomes contorted, I can reach in and verify with my sense of touch that it's not. Spiritual perceptions by nature are usually exclusive and can't be verified.

But.... this can easily become many other separate blogs.

Atheists in Church

The issue was brought up multiple times, and is always brought up when I tell someone I'm an Atheist.

Truth be told though, I have not gone to church in a while. Mainly because it's too early in the morning for me and I always have work that night. My one problem with church was always it's totally inconvenient time. When they had Saturday night services I was thrilled, but that's stopped since.

Basically guys, it's a culture issue. My whole family is Christian, and like I said I was born and raised in that place. Luckily here in America Atheists have some freedom and ways to slip through the cracks. The most we have to feign is not digging in to eat during family meals before grace is said. But when it comes to holidays, all of the Christian holidays have pagan roots anyway and have commercial alternative ways of celebrating them and still feeling included in society.

Other cultures do not have it so easy. There are many non-believing Jews, for example. But they still participate in Shabat, Pesach, and Chanukkah. Atheistic Hindus may still go to their services simply because they find comfort in meditation and structure.

Furthermore, there are many Atheists in the pulpit. Yes, I said in the pulpit. Look it up, there's a few books on the subject and they can best answer for themselves why they pastor/priest when they don't believe in God.

So in conclusion, there are many reasons. But I can only answer for myself. =)

In this blog I briefly addresses the issues between Atheism and Agnosticism and explain why I call myself an Atheist.



Here I address the many questions and objection brought up from the rant against agnosticism as life stance.

I to say one doe snot know, or cannot know as an agnostic theist is absurd. To say I believe in someone I cannot describe or define in any way, and give no empirical or logical data on makes no sense.

Referenced Atheism: The Case Against God by George H. Smith.

Will GLADLY send the book to anyone who will 1.) Read it, 2.) Pay it forward.

Also, I am now the proud owner of www.TheAtheistJourney.net