Do atheists understand abstract language?

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Atheists, what are your views on archetypes and symbols. Is it all imaginary fairy tail nonsense?

Archetypes are visual symbols or imprints that exist in our psyches. Some are readily understood while others bring subliminal messages that are there to help you trigger your memory of why you are here and the truth behind the illusion of reality. Archetypes can often convey messages that verbal and written information cannot.

Archetypes are found everywhere, as their symbols are a language of the mind, taken to different frequencies of thought and connected to each other by the collective unconsciousness. There are individual and universal archetypes. You become aware of them in meditation and dreaming.

Agnostics, please expand on your views in abstract terms or explain why you can't.

Last edited by Magnus on 24 May 2009, 8:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Jung isn't believed by many psychologists nowadays. His views were completely unscientific and have no support.

When I first heard of "The Collective Unconscious" I didn't realize it was such a weird, nonsense idea - I thought it referred to the fact that the average person is of such a low level of intelligence they might as well be unconscious.

Jung was never accepted into orthodox psychology. Freud opposed him vehemently.
He has gained more acceptance in the past 10 years. He still is not well received.
You made it sound like his ideas were outdated Mattshizzle. They never were accepted to fall out of favor.

Mattshizzle, did you vote that you love abstract language? If so, Jung coined most of the archetypal language that we know today. I find it hard to believe that you could love archetypes and not accepts Jungs school of thought.

If that wasn't you who voted, please disregard. I just want to keep it honest here.

Abstract language doesn't have anything to do with the nonsensical idea of archetypes. I myself have a degree in Psychology. His ideas weren't outdated, they were simply wrong for the most part (though he is recognized for some non-Woo contributions to the field.)

If by "Abstract Language" you mean speaking through metaphors and analogy, I do so all the time. What irritates me from a religious standpoint is when someone says the bible is the literal word of their god ... until the literal meaning is something they don't like, at which point they wave it off as abstract/metaphor/analogy. Sorry kids; it's either literal or it is not.

Symbols ... can come with great tradition and/or carry a lot of emotional weight. I get very emotional for instance when I see a swastika. I am atheist but I wear a pentagram.

I wouldn't say that archetypes are nonsensical. It is accepted as a literary device. If you love abstract language so much, then you should at least acknowledge it's role in literature and poetry. We can debate Jung vs. Freud in another thread. I say Freud is way more outdated than Jung not to mention that he was jealous of his star pupil.

Archetypes can be found in nearly all forms of literature, with their motifs being predominantly rooted in folklore.

From Wikipedia:

To randomly categorize all atheists in a specific way because they reject the total nonsense of much of religion is totally unwarranted. You yourself seem not to be able to distinguish stories about fairies from fairies with tails. I could not generalize from that.

Sand, you're always such a pleasure...

How did I categorize atheists? Please provide proof that I categorized you people in any sort of way. I merely asked a question which you did not answer. I think you are the one who has been insulting here.

Sand, do you like parables? Do you see any value in them? Or are they all just fairy tale rubbish, or fairies with tails?

Too many parables are acepted as valid truth and under that guise they are idiocy and deserve to be regarded as such.

Well Sand, I have tried for many months to show you my point of view. You still think I'm a twit who believes in fairy tails. How about you interpret this parable. If you will try to do this, then I think we might see eye to eye.

Deep within the ocean,
Far from land and sky,
There lived a fish named Jacob,
Who saw a Sea Gull fly.

It all began in school one day,
As the Head Fish spoke of states.
Jacob wanted to see these places.
That dwelled beyond school gates.

The more he learned of the enormous sea,
More questions popped into his head.
He asked his teacher how it all got there.
He had no answer, Jacob fled.

Jacob swam past Coral City.
He darted through Seaweed State.
He dove past Jellyfish Nation.
Then swam up so high, high, high.

When suddenly, he saw a flash!
A white light shone so up high.
He saw a white-winged phantom,
Shimmering in the sky.

Jacob swam away in fright.
Did his eyes deceive him?
He zipped back to warn the school fish.
They thought his words were lies.

The fish all asked for proof.
Jacob's claims were not believed.
And as he tried to explain what he saw,
He questioned whether it all was a dream.

So, he asked his fish mates to join him,
On a quest to find that light.
But, the fish would not leave school.
They thought Jacob was just not right.

"If you want us to believe you..."
The fish all did insist,
"You'll have to prove your phantom,
Does indeed exist."

"I cannot bring it back to you,
You'll have to come and see."
Jacob didn't want to break up the school.
He wanted them ALL to agree.

Alone he traveled for a long, long time.
In search of the white light,
He soon became ever so lost,
And there was no phantom in sight.

Jacob doubted himself gravely,
As he swam alone in fear.
He missed the comfort of the school.
His days were dawning near.

But, deep within old Jacob's heart,
He knew he witnessed something.
It wasn't something from his world.
He knew it wasn't nothing.

Then one day out of nowhere,
A shimmer caught his eye.
He swam up to the surface.
And Jacob saw the sky!

"How wondrous is this new world!"
Jacob thought everyone would now care.
He leaped to catch the light and sky.
He wrestled suffocating air.

And finally, the white phantom returned.
Stretching its wings, it clutched old Jacob.
The curious fish had finally learned,
As the Seagull ate dear Jacob.

Atheism just means one doesn't believe in god. It doesn't tell anything about whether one understands abstract language or not.

According to this definition, I understand it and love it.

EXIT GENESIS

"I have," said God.
" A nice idea,
A thing that could be fun."
So he twiddled 'round
With time and space
And fuddled up the Sun.

"Now, that's quite neat!",
He said with heat.
"I'll make a couple more."
And he tumbled out a quantity
'Til it became a bore.

But suns put out a lot of junk
Like planets, dust and gas.
And God, with red-rimmed eyes looked 'round
At all this messy jazz.

It made God twitch,
It made God sneeze,
It gave him water on the knees,
It gave Him pimples on his face.
And so, He said, "To hell with this!"
And went some other place.


CAROUSEL

The world is whirled in Space
And hurled in moving >round the place
Which centers on the Sun.
In golden light is rolled and spun
And bowled, this tiny fold
In Time, to chase
Itself in circled run
To heat and crack
Its peaks and caves
And tumble corpses
In their graves
Like some berserk psychotic clown
Who first builds up and
Then tears down.
A geoclastic schizophrenic,
Artist's eye for the scenic,
Makes and breaks
In random spasm,
Seas and seasons,
Crag and chasm,
Elephant and
Microplasm.
Roiling, boiling, coiling, spoiling,
Unconcerned for good or bad.
Split with lightning, grumbled thunder -
Is it really any wonder
Humankind is plainly mad?

GAME

I used to think that mystery
Hung somewhere out among the stars
Like silver bells and mirror balls
On the celestial Christmas tree.

But understanding changed my views.
To know how much you know reveals
That what is known is not too much,
And this is not too happy news.

So mystery crept here from night.
It rolled like mist up from the dusk
To blur and smear the sharp and clear,
Enticing with a subtle fright.

It did not hold out in the stars
But moved in close at breakfast time
To stare across the coffee pot
With one foot here and one on Mars.

Here its one-toothed finger points
To objects, thoughts, things solid, bright.
Sharp edges fuzz, ideas fall flat.
Frozen, I sit, world out of joint.

Yellow Eyes surveys my house
Where I have lived quite rigidly.
He turned construction into cheese
Transforming God to Mickey Mouse.

Now I play cards with Yellow Eyes.
The coffee pot has gone quite cold.
I sometimes, even, win a hand
To his chagrin and my surprise.

Last edited by Sand on 25 May 2009, 6:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

I don't get it. What's abstract about archetypes?

The point about abstract language is that it represents things without objective existence, things which it would be impossible for you to prove actually exist. Do you understand that?

Each abstract word depends for its value/currency on people agreeing to believe in it. If you believe in "love", or "freedom", or "good" or "justice" or "success" then you already know how someone believes in "god". It is exactly the same mechanism.

Why do you believe in "justice" or "love" or "freedom", or if you don't believe in those, any other abstract word/symbol? On what do you base your belief? What led you to believe in it?

.

That's a quite weird definition you have there. If an abstract thing is something that is impossible to prove, everything is abstract, because nothing can be proven.



Democracy is so much better than any other form of government that has been tried because the citizen is not subject to an elite, like in a totalitarian or autocratic government. There can be no such thing as total freedom, because of the limitations we have both mentally and physically, but we can do a lot.


We try to define what works best for us, what is the most moral way to behave, we try to reach some sort of agreement amongst ourselves. That's why I think our legal system should be more elastic and not as black and white as the current one, and that there is no absoluteness other than what we ascribe to.


Love. What is love? Perhaps it's a very deep appreciation for something. I find the sexual kind of attraction a very shallow type of love, which is why I'm asexual.

Good is a very hard thing to describe. Some say it's moral excellence. But since everyone has very differing opinions on what morality is right, they see each other as good and everybody else as bad.

How do you define these, if I dare ask?