the atheism delusion

[Newest Reality]

17. I chose other.

I think that there are many modes of inquiry into the nature of reality.

Each mode is specific to both its own methodology and sphere of exploration. While there can be cross-modal comparisons, intersections and overlapping, each mode has its own category.

However, all forms of exploration of reality rely on two factors that influence to what degree we can understand the reality of phenomena, consciousness, matter, etc.

First, there is the bias of our own sensory apparatus and the conceptual filters that we apply to our investigations. For instance, science has shown us that the spectrum of our senses, in total, are an extremely small portion of the entire, vast electromagnetic spectrum. Whatever tools we devise and utilize to explore the macrocosm and the microcosm are, to some degree, limited and we can assume that as our tools improve our data will increase and change.

Then, there is the fact that, despite the close correlations of our data and mathematical models of what we have observed and recorded so far, all information is, in essence, an abstraction and not the "thing in itself". Baring direct experience, (see above) we seem to only be able to end-up with an approximation, no matter how close we may be able to come to the actuality itself.

Religion appears to have, or assumes, insights into the cosmological nature of the Universe and its origins, (although Buddhism essentially avoids aspects of that in its cosmology) claiming a spiritual authority. However, to me, religion is actually about a certain band in the spectrum of intellect that has specialized itself and given itself, (via memes, "miracles", traditions, etc.) the ability to separate its own form of symbolic abstraction from the more academic and sundry type of mental activity. It is more about subjective experience and comes closer to mirroring how the mind itself can function in its ability to reify experience and translate it into "higher order" categories that it are branded "spiritual", unique, magical and beyond ordinary intellect.

From my understanding, no matter how ethereal or academic abstracts are, they all fall into the same category of derivative fabrications and, in that sense, are biased, by nature limited, and in contrast to direct experience itself.

Atheists are free to argue against something that can be considered an absurd proposition, (even in a religious sense when you go into more thoughtful and deeper definitions of God) but that does lead them into arguing a negative about a non-entity as per their beliefs. Yet, in a way, I do support political efforts by atheists as their efforts represent a refreshing reaction to years of persecution of "non-believers" by dominant religious institutions for centuries.