A question on the meaning of existence
I was just thinking about the God-debate. The atheism-theism divide that hasn't been, to me, adequately resolved.
One key parameter in the debate seems to be the meaning of existence. There are other elements of the debate that's important but I'll focus on the meaning of existence.
It seems to me that the meaning of existence differs depending on which side of the debate you're on.
For atheists, existence means something physical - that which can be perceived through the senses and if you want to go the whole nine yards, something measurable.
In contrast to the above, existence for theists goes beyond the physical - beyond our senses and instruments.
The atheist POV is reasonable because rationally speaking it's a mistake to go beyond the evidence. Our senses can't perceive x and so it is reasonable to believe x doesn't exist. Note however that such a view limits us to physical existence only.
Theism plays with a different set of cards. The Shakespearan claim that there's more to heaven and earth than can be dreamed in your philosophy seems apt here. Yes, a naturalistic approach has successfuly eliminated a lot of gods - weather, fire, water, trees, etc. are no longer gods. But naturalism, to theists, is too narrow a worldview. It fails to consider possibilities that seem to multiply the further you get from Earth. I mean how are we so certain that in a distant galaxy God hasn't given proof of his existence (physically or other wise)?
Also, radio waves can't be perceived with the our senses. We need instruments to detect them. So, it isn't that outlandish to think of things that can't be detected with our current instruments but do, in fact, exist.
So, here Iam, torn between being open to possibilities (theism) and being rational (shaping my world view with reason).
What should I do?
One key parameter in the debate seems to be the meaning of existence. There are other elements of the debate that's important but I'll focus on the meaning of existence.
It seems to me that the meaning of existence differs depending on which side of the debate you're on.
For atheists, existence means something physical - that which can be perceived through the senses and if you want to go the whole nine yards, something measurable.
In contrast to the above, existence for theists goes beyond the physical - beyond our senses and instruments.
The atheist POV is reasonable because rationally speaking it's a mistake to go beyond the evidence. Our senses can't perceive x and so it is reasonable to believe x doesn't exist. Note however that such a view limits us to physical existence only.
Theism plays with a different set of cards. The Shakespearan claim that there's more to heaven and earth than can be dreamed in your philosophy seems apt here. Yes, a naturalistic approach has successfuly eliminated a lot of gods - weather, fire, water, trees, etc. are no longer gods. But naturalism, to theists, is too narrow a worldview. It fails to consider possibilities that seem to multiply the further you get from Earth. I mean how are we so certain that in a distant galaxy God hasn't given proof of his existence (physically or other wise)?
Also, radio waves can't be perceived with the our senses. We need instruments to detect them. So, it isn't that outlandish to think of things that can't be detected with our current instruments but do, in fact, exist.
So, here Iam, torn between being open to possibilities (theism) and being rational (shaping my world view with reason).
What should I do?
Comments (57)
Don't atheists do math? Believe in justice? Follow the law? All abstractions. Non-physical.
Atheists believe in and use abstractions.
Not exactly what I meant. The abstract is mental but by non-physical existence, theists mean something outside of the mind, don't they? God isn't simply an abstraction.
There are other ways to qualify the term "existence".
SIlence.
Respectfully, I think this is a narrow conception of the atheist. Admittedly there is an assembly line scientistic atheist, and these may even be in the majority. A more radical atheism expands its critique to include the idea of the physical. Of course there's a world out there, but as rule we look at it through the theoretical goggles of educated common sense --the 'superstitions' of the day. The assembly line scientistic atheist has a less embarrassingly obsolete pair of goggles than the amateur theologian who already capitulates to scientism by understanding religion as belief in a set of propositions. What I'm hinting at as an 'atheistic' position who finds the same kind of dullness in both assembly atheism and theism that unwittingly understands itself scientistically. Both ignore the experience that is closest to them. Both cover-over the life they actually live with a 'dead' universal truth.
Quoting TheMadFool
Of course I care about evidence, but what's left unquestioned here is the source and foundation of this understanding of the reasonable. I suggest that it's not at all just about evidence. It's about the sense we can make (or not) of various assertions in context. For instance, my objection to most (but not all) theisms is largely about the vacuity of the idea of God in these theisms. The content is not there in the first place. The word is slapped on a vague mess of feelings and half-thoughts. They can't say what they mean because they don't know exactly what they mean.
On the other hand, what I call scientism is a more or less uncritical conformity to respectable educated common sense. The roots or foundations of science are left unexamined. The idea of explanation is left unexamined. The massive gap between the way we experience the world un-theoretically and the highly mathematical scientific image is hardly acknowledged. 'Metaphysical' positions are unwittingly conflated with scientific hypotheses. For instance, 'physical existence' is already an abstract. Scientific observation is theory-laden. It is a highly useful way of looking at and thinking about the world, but this undeniable utility seduces us (in my view) into a kind of stupidity. Finally, how many non-scientists are ultimately just believing what they are told by an expert culture with gadgets? No doubt this trust has a certain pragmatic justification, but does it not suggest an inaccurate outsider's view of science?
Surely there are those who sneer at the theist in the name of science who don't know what a differential equation is or how to construct a simple hypothesis test in statistics. So they believe the personalities on TV. They take on the beliefs of those who tend to be successful. I'm not against those beliefs in their proper realm. I'm just pointing out that mostly thoughtless conformity exists on both sides. Many of our 'reasonable' atheists would be 'reasonable' theists if theism happened to be the view of the experts on TV.
Quoting TheMadFool
These things that possibly exist invisible to our instruments are not something that we could revere, though. Why couldn't a atheistic scientist acknowledge undiscovered entities? It's not the entities that happen to be already discovered, as I see it, but rather the framework that bestows 'official' or metaphysical existence in terms of these instruments and the theories that guide their use.
[quote=wiki]
Metaphysical naturalism, also called "ontological naturalism" and "philosophical naturalism", is a philosophical worldview and belief system that holds that there is nothing but natural elements, principles, and relations of the kind studied by the natural sciences, i.e., those required to understand our physical environment by mathematical modeling.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that metaphysical naturalism doesn't exist on its own terms. It's so stupid and extreme that it only makes sense as a countermovement against an equally crude theology. It denies its own ground (a rich history of the doing and living and thinking of human beings), unless one is really to believe that all of this living and doing is 'just' or 'really' [updated 'atoms and void'].
What is the attraction here? An obsession with the unchanging. A living man is born. He lives and learns and speaks and then he dies. He exists in 'real' or 'human' or 'meaningful' time, a time in which meanings and feelings and sensations move. But these are hard to catch and fix and be absolutely certain about, precisely because they are alive. Since the same atoms and the same void are always there, they are the really real, never mind their empty stupidity. Whereas the field of meaning in which Democritus (for instance) could invent or enrich atomism is unreal in its mortal elusiveness. In short, an obsession with being right, or with possessing a deathless truth, tempts us to call our most intimate experience of reality an illusion. This 'deathless truth' or proposition-as-god is the 'theism' of the assembly line atheist.
Metaphysical naturalism is a perverse fantasy that lives parasitically on successful engineering. Note that the success of engineering plugs us back in to human desire and the reality of our embodied, future-driven situation.
Quoting TheMadFool
I'd suggest searching out both better atheist and better theist thinkers. I like negative theology (theism), for instance, and anti-scientistic philosophers like Heidegger (atheism). What I find interesting is how the atheist/theist distinction breaks down in the limit. Old religious myths come back to new life in the midst of sophisticated self-critical 'atheist' critique, etc.
A last line: what are we to make of 'the kingdom of God is within you'? How does religion start to understand itself as a truth factory? How does it start to turn away from intimate, lived experience of 'God' to understanding itself as metaphysics?
Hence, the requirement for an argument for the indispensability of mathematics, required because, according to it, ‘our best epistemic theories seem to debar any knowledge of mathematical objects.‘
I thought you meant that atheists only believe in the existence of physical things. If you didn't mean that at least I'll try to clarify my own thinking. There seem to be three levels of existence: things that are physical; things that are abstractions of the mind; and things that are outside the mind.
An atheist believes in the first two but not the third presumably, if by "outside the mind" you mean God. Or ... well, outside the mind is too strong. How about outside reason? A theist believes in God, and to have a belief is an act of mind. God may be outside the mind but faith is within the mind. And some theists accept that their experience of faith literally is their experience of God.
So this idea of outside the mind I'm finding a little tricky to get hold of. But outside reason makes sense. A theist would agree that although they have belief, it's a belief based on faith and not on reason.
They would not agree that faith is a leap in a random direction however. They will make every effort to rationalise the direction, eventually resorting to faulty rationalism!
For this reason, they may, in general, as philosophers, obsess over correctness. That means religion must be understood in terms of propositions, because the only thing sacred is the objective truth ---if you ask a metaphysician. This applies to the forum theist as well as the forum atheist. It's all nails for the hammer. Since they are both invested in the same functioning religion (possessing/presenting the truth), this shared investment is invisible. It doesn't become conspicuous within the disgreement. It is the how concealed in the what. The point is that both can walk away still understanding religion as sub- or super- science respectively.
What are they? I guess when one steps outside the boundaries of the rational - which seems to be based on the observable and physical - things stop making sense in the rational sense of the word.
The relationship between our minds and the world, according to modern standards of thinking, seems to be: real IFF physical (observable, measurable). But, how do we know the world is only physical? Shouldn't the right attitude be to keep options open for all sorts of things, including a non-physical realm, by which I don't mean just abstractions of mind but things out there - beyond the reach of our senses and instruments?
Quoting Banno
He who speaks does not know and he who knows does not speak. I don't know about my relationship with materialism. Is it just too dry a worldview (it doesn't appeal to my mindset) or is it true that it's incomplete (there's more to this world than just matter)?
Quoting 0rff
What is the right view then? Agnosticism?
Quoting fishfry
We're always advised to keep an open mind. We're also advised against daydreaming. Somewhere between these two lies the truth.
[I]Faith[/i] isn't exclusively religious. All of science suffers from the problem of induction.
For me, it's the paradigm of the 'right view' itself that deserves looking in to. Is there one right view? Does any view stay fixed? Should it stay fixed?
Also, are these "-isms" really that useful? Can they function as more than the barest introduction? For instance, I can find my most profound realizations mirrored in religious myth and imagery from my believing childhood. The radical image at the centre of Christianity (God in the flesh dying as a criminal by public execution) is covered over or ignored really by understanding religion yet again to be the same kind of religion that had Christ crucified in the first place. In the basic Christian myth is that religion kills God (with a little help from the state).
Yet Christianity eventually became the state religion of that same state. In short, this stuff is (IMV, upon close examination) complex and profound. For instance, one might say that Christ himself was an 'atheist' in a peculiar sense. For me, he's a character who may or may not have actually existed. This idea of Christ exists in an important sense, though, just like the idea of rationality. Human beings live in terms of passionate ideas. So an atheist might be a theist and the reverse depending on how existence in interpreted. But that's what's wrong with these oversimplifying terms. They are just title pages, indeterminate until the book is read. We have to really talk with others to get a sense of what they deeply value.
That which exists has an effect/affect.
Isn't that taking it to the extreme? Perhaps not in philosophy but what about most people who simply want a useful guide to navigate the world?
Quoting 0rff
I think you're right. I have a very superficial understanding of the issue I'm raising. But how deep must we dive before we say this is enough? To me philosophy seems a botomless pit - there's no final destination. There are many levels of analysis and I suspect each level, instead of providing answers, raises more questions.
Quoting 0rff
This is good advice. Thanks.
Quoting creativesoul
I once tried to prove god's existence with that. My argument is that god seems to have palpable effects on human lives. Therefore, I said, god exists. Of course the main error in my argument is I have to distinguish between existence of god and belief in god's existence.
Anyway...the cause/effect notion you're suggesting seems to fail because we can only perceive physical effects.
I don't see the issue. Gravity has efficacy. Thought and belief have efficacy.
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I’m going to be specific about the resolution regarding Atheism and Materialism, a few paragraphs farther down, after I reply to a few paragraphs of this post. I’ll discuss each resolution at what seems like the right place in this post that I’m replying to.
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Yes, it’s a lot of unnecessary, not-valid, inappropriate criticism, mostly from the one particular side, about a definitional matter.
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I suggest that, as definitional misunderstandings, the issues of Atheism and Materialism are resolvable in principle, but not in practice, because the hard-core, hardline adherents of those positions are psychologically dependent on the feeling of superiority that they derive from their beliefs.
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I don’t care what Atheists believe. They seem quite confused about what they believe or don’t believe:
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Invariably, New-Atheists claim Agnosticism (but call it “Atheism”). But then, in the next breath, they’ll espouse Positive-Atheism, usually in insulting attack-language.
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Anyway, it’s none of my business what they believe, and my only objection to Atheism is the manners of its True-Believers. I don’t feel a need to criticize others’ beliefs (including Fundamentalists, Biblical-Literalists, and Atheists). Maybe some Atheists need to ask themselves why they feel that need.
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But I suppose there’s some value in trying for that definitional resolution at this forum, because occasionally, in these forums, we hear from an aggressively-critical New-Atheist, who might ease-up with the attacks, given a better understanding of the definitional differences.
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Yes, “exist”, “real”, and “is” aren’t metaphysically defined, and a lot of unnecessary argument is the result of different definitions of those words.
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…though that isn’t the only definitional difference on which these unnecessary disagreements are based.
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Yes, and the belief that what’s physical, measurable, is all of existence, all of Reality, is the usual definition of Materialism. As you said, it’s just a definitional issue.
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To try to discuss that with a Materialist is to play a never-ending game of definitional Whack-A-Mole, as the Materialist hops back and forth between meanings, as each is demonstrated to not support him.
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I’ll just add that there’s another definitional issue that contributes to Atheists’ confusion: The matter of what they mean by “God”. After all, that’s what their criticism of Theism is about.
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When an Orthodox (Materialist) Atheist recites the standard Atheist Liturgy, he makes statements about God—the God that he believes in as the one to disbelieve in.
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That of course is the Fundamentalists’, Biblical-Literalists’ God
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…the One True God, for Fundamentalists, Biblical-Literalists, and Atheists.
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Reality isn’t describable by facts, and sometimes all one can say is to express an impression. Having looked at the posts here, I looked up negative theology, and found that someone in 9th century Europe was saying what amounts to that. Of course it was being said in India as early as 700 B.C. or so.
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Given that theology means knowledge about God, negative theology doesn’t seem to allow for much theology. I’ve always considered theology to be a presumptuous subject.
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I don’t usually use the word or name “God”. …usually only when replying to someone who has recently used that word or name.
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As I mentioned in previous posts, my metaphysics seems to suggest an impression or implication of openness, looseness and lightness. …and, maybe for that reason, an impression or implication that what-is, is distinctly good.
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In fact, that impression of the goodness of what is, seems to imply a good intent behind what is.
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That’s an impression, not an assertion. I don’t debate religion. But, though it’s an impression, it’s an impression that I don’t doubt. So maybe it could be called a factual belief. …but not the kind of logical verbal factual matter that one asserts, debates, tries to convince anyone about, or offers or discusses evidence for.
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And I’m not saying that metaphysics is necessarily all that leads to that conclusion, but of course this is a philosophy forum.
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Of course that intent or its possessor isn’t, itself, an element of metaphysics.
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I agree with those who say that Reality isn’t understandable or describable.
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Not only are certain words metaphysically-undefined, but I don’t even have my own definite definitions of “is” or “exist”. But, as I use it, “Reality” encompasses more than metaphysical reality, the understandable and discussable reality.
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Anyway, though more literalist, or doctrine-believing Theists believe differently from me, I think they also believe in the Benevolence that I’ve mentioned above, as the at least nearly known attribute of the God that they speak of. So I tend to perceive the differences as mere denominational, doctrinal differences, and so it seems reasonable to me, to call myself a Theist.
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To a more literalist or doctrine-believing Theist, I’d say that God isn’t an element of metaphysics, and is quite unknowable and un-discussable.
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(But I have to admit that when the aggressive door-to-door denominations knock at my door, I tell them that, after many bad experiences with them, I no longer talk to them.)
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To an Atheist, I’d say that he’s probably only expressing disbelief in the Fundamentalist’s, Biblical-Literalist’s, God. That’s all I discuss with him. If he means more, I’m not interested in the details, or in telling him that his opinions or impressions are wrong. It would be meaningless to get into an argument or debate about impressions. One might just hope that he can resist attacking those who don’t share his opinions.
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In physics, physical evidence is needed to support a physical theory. In metaphysics, of course claims need logical support. But the Atheist is someone who wants to apply physical (or sometimes logical) standards outside their area of applicability. The Atheist is the one making the mistake. …a mistake of confusing different topics, and applying standards outside their areas of applicability.
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Naturalism:
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On the subject of Atheism, I replied inline, making my main suggestions at what seemed the right point in the post that I’m replying to.
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About “Naturalism”, I’ll just make my comments without commenting inline:
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There are some funny things about “Naturalism”, and maybe the funniest is its name.
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We all know that the usual definition of Materialism is that matter is all of Reality.
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Metaphysical Physicalism is just a slight re-statement of Materialism that explicitly includes such non-matter things as forces and fields, along with matter.
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I still call that “Materialism”. I used to say “Physicalism”, until someone corrected me and told me that Physicalism is a science-of-mind position. Because, then, Physicalism has 2 meanings—a metaphysical position and a philosophy-of-mind position, I avoid the word “Physicalism”.
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“Naturalism” is a funny word, because it amounts to an attempt by a Materialist to establish, as a starting-premise, that the physical world is what’s natural and genuine, the fundamental, primary reality; and that all else is “the supernatural”, not-natural things consisting of violations of physical law, akin to such things as vampires, werewolves, and mummies that chase you.
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So I’ll use the less biased word “Materialism” instead.
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To discuss Materialism, it will be necessary to briefly refer to my own metaphysics, which agrees with what Michael Faraday said in 1844. Tippler and Tegmark have said similar things, but I feel that they’ve missed the mark a bit in various ways.
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One class of things that there definitely, inevitably are, are the abstract objects…the abstract logical facts in particular.
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The Materialist might try to say that they aren’t real. Fine, because “real” is a flexible undefined word. I don’t claim that abstract logical facts, or systems of them, are objectively real. Only that there are such things. Even a Materialist can’t really deny that. Is there a square root of the number 2? Is it a fact that, if the additive associative axiom of the real numbers is true, then 2 + 2 = 4? (…given the obvious and natural definitions of 1, 2, 3, & 4, based on the multiplicative identity of the real numbers, and addition.)
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In fact it couldn’t have been otherwise. Could there have not been abstract facts? No.
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Someone here pointed out that if there were no facts, then it would be a fact that there are no facts, and that would be a fact.
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Someone else here said that there could obtain a fact that there are no facts other than the fact that there are no facts other than itself.
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But that would be a special brute-fact, calling for justification.
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Anyway, an abstract logical fact, or a complex inter-referring system of them, doesn’t and needn’t have reality, existence or meaningfulness other than in its own inter-referring context. It needn’t be real in some larger or global context, and it needn’t have some medium in which to exist.
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In particular, it’s completely independent of any global context or permission. A global fact that disallows all other facts would be meaningless.
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I claim that, among the infinitely-many complex systems of inter-referring inevitable abstract logical facts, there’s one whose events and relations exactly matches those of our physical universe. There’s no reason to believe that our physical universe is other than that.
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I’ve already posted some details about how a set of physical-quantity variable-values, and a physical law consisting of a relation between them are parts of the “if “ premise of an if-then fact.
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…except that one of those variable-values can be taken as the “then” conclusion of that if-then fact.
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A mathematical theorem is an if-then fact whose “if “ premise includes, but isn’t limited to, a set of mathematical axioms (geometric or algebraic).
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But I don’t assert that it isn’t more than that. Maybe this universe superfluously has objective existence too—in addition to being identical in detail to a complex system of inter-referring inevitable abstract logical facts.
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A claim that that’s so would be unverifiable, unfalsifiable, and a brute-fact. But I don’t claim that it couldn’t be so.
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So: Is there anything about that that’s controversial? No. I haven’t said anything that someone would disagree with. It’s an uncontroversial metaphysics.
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In particular, there’s nothing about it that a Materialist would disagree with. But of course he’ll try.
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He can’t say that there aren’t those abstract logical facts, or a complex inter-referring system of them. He can say that they aren’t real. Fine. I don’t claim that they’re objectively real. Only real in their own inter-referring context.
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And I don’t deny the Materialist’s claim about his objectively-existent universe and matter. But, if his claim about that is true, it would a superfluous brute-fact. …the subject of an unverifiable and unfalsifiable proposition.
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If you want to observe some frantic hopping back and forth between meanings, then watch a Materialist trying to wiggle out of that.
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By the way, because whatever we know about the physical world is via our own individual experience, then I suggest that it’s most natural, and makes the most sense, to speak of a complex system of inter-referring abstract logical facts that is our individual life-experience possibility-story.
Because of that individual-experience emphasis, then my metaphysics doesn't emphasize mathematics as much as MUH does. Of course much or most of our experience isn't about mathematical physical laws.
If I tell you that there's a traffic roundabout at the intersection of 34th & Vine, that also means that if you go to 34th & Vine, you'll encounter a traffic roundabout.
Facts about our world are equivalent to if-then facts.
We're used to declarative grammar, because it's convenient. We've come to unduly believe our grammar. I suggest that conditional grammar better describes our world.
A world of "if", rather than a world of "is".
Instead of one world of "is", infinitely-many worlds of "if".
.Using already-existing metaphysical terms, that metaphysics could be called Eliminative Ontic Structural Anti-Realism (EOSAR).
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I wanted to call it Skepticism, because—forgive me—it seems to me that complete rejection and avoidance of assumptions is skeptical. …and that an ancient Greek epistemological position doesn’t have a monopoly on a common noun as a name.
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But I’d be willing to settle for Uncontroversy as a brief name for that metaphysics, because it’s entirely uncontroversial.
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Atheism isn't rational. It's pseudo-rational.
Theism needn't mean dogmatic, or doctrinaire or Biblical Literalist Theism.
If you get the impression of good intent behind what is, then you're a Theist.
Quoting TheMadFool
Nothing?
Take god and gravity. Even if everyone stopped believing in gravity it would still exist - objects would fall to the ground, the planets would move around the sun.
Compare that to everyone abandoning their belief in god - prayer would cease, religious behavior would disapper. The effects of the belief in god would vanish.
There's a difference between god and gravity. The former is a belief (true/false) but the latter is a fact (true).
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
That's what I mean. [I]Existence[/i] is one of the issues. Atheists think God has to manifest physically. Of course theists too believe that god intervenes in the world. However, the point is the atheistic insistence on existence being defined physically may be unjustifiably restrictive.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
(Y)
Quoting Vajk
:D
Yes, religion isn't about anything physical, and isn't about provable facts, or anything to assert or debate..
Materialism doesn't hold up under examination, and discussions of it result in the Materialist fleeing in a circle, like the Weasel in the nursery-rhyme.
Michael Ossipoff
A godlike being could exist outside our perceptual capabilities, but what would that mean for us if it did? The reason theists cite examples of a god intervening in the world is because that attempts to show a relational or somewhat involved god. A god who cares about the outcome here on earth. If there is no interaction/intervention we end up being deists. Deism is a fine idea, but it is impotent.
The difference between Theism and Deism is a temporal one. In the larger, meta-metaphysical picture, are you sure that that distinction is meaningful?
Michael Ossipoff
I suppose that depends on which iteration of god we're talking about.
How many sets of "inevitable abstract logical facts" are there?
Infinitely-many.
That's why it's inevitable that there's one that has the same events and relations as our physical universe. ...and why there's no reason to believe that our universe is other than that.
...though one could make an unverifiable and unfalsifiable brute-fact assertion of an objectively-existent physical universe superfluously existing and operating in parallel with that complex logical system.
Michael Ossipoff
Quoting TheMadFool
Your attempt to prove the existence of God via holding that that which exists has an effect/affect has no bearing upon what I've written. The objection(s) to the argument you offered don't hold water, just so ya know. I do not and would not argue for the existence of God. However, it could be done rather easily using this notion of existence. Back to the point...
Gravity doesn't appear in physical form. It exists. We know that because of it's effects. That which exists has an effect/affect. The same is true of thought and belief. You've posed no problem for that.
I would be inclined to say just one. Who decides on the subsets?
Alright yes, I took another look at your post that I was referring to, and you said sets of inevitable abstract logical facts.
...whereas I was talking about systems of inter-referring abstract logical facts.
Most of the infinity of logical facts aren't in the same inter-referring system.
...but if it could be argued that they are, that would be an interesting surprise, because it would be different from what I've assumed.
But, as for sets of them, the fact that we can divide them into sets as we choose--Doesn't that mean that there are infinitely many sets of them, equal to the number of combinations that can be formed from those infinitely-many abstract logical facts?
...even though one of those combinations consists of all of them?
Michael Ossipoff
You're right...God simply doesn't fit in our world, at least not the interventionist God of Judaism, Islam and Christianity. This has led the faithful into a gymnasium where they must do mental acrobatics to try and fix the many inconsistencies of religion. End result...God is reduced to a cartoon.
What does that mean?
Which "iteration" are you talking about?
But yes, if Biblical Literalism is an "iteration", and if it's the one that you're talking about, then there is a meaningful distinction between Theism and Deism, and Theism is what you're talking about.
Michael Ossipoff
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There are Theists who believe that God is a being. There are Theists who believe every statement in the Bible.
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Is one of those your “iteration”?
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You could check out the discussion, links and quotes in this thread, and in the Hegel's Philosophy of Religion thread.
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Your question is like asking what it would mean to you if all of Reality isn’t observable and measurable…what it would mean to you if Materialism doesn’t obtain.
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Speaking for myself, I have no idea what that would mean for you, except that presumably it would inspire, for you, a bit more modesty.
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Incidentally, Materialism can’t be defended.
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I rarely refer to the name “God”, but evidently Atheism-advocates at a philosophy forum talk about God a lot.
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I stay out of Theism vs Atheism discussions. It certainly isn’t a debate-topic.
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In this instance, I didn’t mean to participate in such a discussion. I just misunderstood the nature of this thread.
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So that’s what you’ve ended up being.
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So you believe that everything said by Theists who aren’t Biblical-Literalists is just a desperate attempt to justify and rationalize things said by traditional Literalists. Far be it for me to want to change your belief, which is entirely your business.
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As I and others have mentioned, Atheists (including the New-Atheists, who, with inconsistency they seem unaware of, often claim Agnosticism) are over-eager, in their denial of others’ positions about which, in general, they haven’t a clue. …a denial of the God of Biblical-Litertalism, applied blanket-style, to every possible meaning with which the term God might be used by anyone.
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So, Atheism is a most peculiar belief-position. …a blanket denial whose object is unspecified, and unknown to that position’s adherents.
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Anyway, I have no interest in getting into that issue, but I just wanted to comment briefly, having accidentally entered a thread about an issue that I don’t usually get involved in discussing.
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Michael Ossipoff
Quite so. Though most, nearly all, Atheists are Materialists, believing that the physical world is all of reality, being an Atheist doesn't definitionally require being a Materialist. There are probably non-Materialist Atheists at these forums.
(But, though not all Atheists are Materialists, all Materialists are Atheists.)
I call a Materialist Atheist an "Orthodox Atheist".
Though I'm a Theist,that doesn't mean that I belong to a denomination. Anyway, not only are there many denominations of official organizational church Theism, but of course there are also various Theist religions that regard eachother as entirely different religions,
I don't belong to a Theist organization or a church. I wouldn't say that being a Theist means belonging to a church or a denomination.
Nor did any religion, its representatives, or anyone else, convince me in that matter. I haven't adopted anyone's religion.
I also call myself a Vedantist, though my metaphysics differs from those of the 3 usual Vedanta versions. (But they greatly differ from eahother in that regard as well.)
I say that I'm a Vedantist because my metaphysics shares the conclusions and consequences of the 3 main Vedanta versions' metaphysicses, and because the ancient Indians' writings seem very competent and right. They seem to have been well qualified regarding what they wrote about.
There may very likely be. Even if we just go to sleep, Shakespeare pointed out that there could be dreams. Of course he wasn't referring only to the dreams in ordinary sleep, but, more generally, to any experience or perception when unconscious.
Of course we never experience "oblivion", a time when there's no experience. Only our survivors will experience that time after our complete shutdown and body-dissolution..
And our ordinary night-time dreams show that being unconscious needn't mean being without experiences of perceptions. In fact, wouldn't it be expected that the absence of waking consciousness will arrive before the complete end of experience and perception--as we know it regularly does in ordinary sleep?
I rarely refer to the name "God". Usually only when replying to others who use that term.But I think you'd agree that Reality isn't known, knowable or discussable. I don't think metaphysics describes Reality, any more than physics does. There's Reality beyond metaphysics, and it isn't knowable.
I rarely talk about God, using that term, but it's my impression that there's good intent behind what is. I say I'm a Theist because I encounter expression of that impression from Theists of all kinds.including the doctrine-believing ones, and the non-doctrinaire ones too.
Of course not using the word "God" isn't quite the same as criticizing others who speak of what we don't understand. There's no need to be so sure we know it all, and be so quick to criticize those who don't share out beliefs (...and yes, Atheists and Materialists do have beliefs).
Though I don't agree with them, I don't criticize Biblical-Literalists or Atheists or their beliefs. I find that both of those groups tend often to not share that tolerance. That intolerance, that need to criticize, is alien and inexplicable to me.
Michael Ossipoff
But as I say, who gets to choose? A "subset" might be a mathematical abstraction, but it seems faintly silly to assign a universe or whatever to each one. Surely any mathematical underpinning of existence isn't based on Venn diagrams??!!
Of course someone can refer to the "Universe" of all abstract facts.
But I'm not talking of arbitrarily dividing it into subsets.
There are systems of inter-referring abstract facts. Our physical universe is one such. (I always emphasize that there's no reason to believe that it's other than that).
The whole universe of all abstract facts is not an inter-referring system.
For any particular system of inter-referring abstract facts, all the other abstract facts that aren't part of that system are irrelevant to it.
All the distinct systems of inter-referring abstract facts are irrelevant to eachother, and isolated from eachother. They don't need eachother and aren't real in eachother's context. None of them needs anything outside itself. None of them has or needs reality, existence, meaning or relevance outside itself.
...and doesn't even need a medium in which to exist or be.
Michael Ossipoff
Yes, providing they are indeed distinct. I think we agree that this is debatable...
No, I say they're distinct, because they're unrelated to eachother, and completely independent of, and irrelevant to, and inaccessible to, eachother, with no connection of any kind to eachother..
Though they have something in common, because they're all abstract facts, and members of the same set of similar things, they don't share a continuum. They aren't parts of the same universe together. Just because they're a set, doesn't mean that they're a universe. A universe has a common continuum.
In what way aren't they distinct from eachother?
Michael Ossipoff
...and that's why I don't agree with Tegmark referring to the set of possibility-worlds as a type-IV "multiverse".
Michael Ossipoff
I emphasize that there's no continuum or medium that contains, and is shared in common by, all the abstract facts and systems of inter-referring abstract facts.
Michael Ossipoff
That's why I suggested that my metaphysics implies reincarnation. So I shouldn't say that different life-experience possibility-stories are necessarily entirely unrelated and inaccessible from eachother.
But they don't need a global continuum or a medium.
Michael Ossipoff
Russell and Whitehead came very close to deducing all of matematics from logic only (Principia Mathematica). Perhaps mathematical facts are not so independent as you might think?
Mathematics from logic doesn't sound surprising to me. I've been regarding mathematics as a logical subject. A mathematical theorem is an abstract if-then fact whose "if " premise includes (but needn't be limited to) a system of axioms (geometric or algebraic).
And some mathematical systems, algebraic structures, like the system of the real numbers and its axioms, or more generally, the groups, fields, rings, & lattices, etc., could be regarded as a big inter-related system (but not a world or universe).
Because mathematics is a logic subject, I have no doubt that the same mathematics obtains in every possibility-world, and in every life-experience possibility-story.
Michael Ossipoff
I think we are trapped/guided (delete as inappropriate) by logic as humans, but what if logic is illusory? Is it possible to talk about such a thing (as logic being illusory) even?
I'd say it isn't.
A proposition can't be true and false.
If all Slithytoves are brillig, and all Jabberwockeys are Slithytoves, then all Jaberwockeys are brillig.
If the additive associative axiom is true, then 2+2=4
(by a reasonable, obvious definition of 1, 2, 3 & 4 in terms of the multiplicative identity and addition).
Each of those abstract facts is valid with or without minds, or any larger context or medium.
Sure, only sentient beings can discuss those logical facts. But we can also discuss them with regard to a hypothetical universe in which there's no life. We can say "If, in that world, there were Slithytoves, Jabberwockeys, and the quality of being 'brillig'..." or "If, in that world, there were four objects to count in various ways, and someone to do the counting..."
A proposition can;t be true and false, and so we don't live in a willy-nilly-self-inconsistent impossibility-world. That's why I say that logic has authority over experience,
I think it's important to emphasize that isolation and independence of an abstract fact, or an inter-referring system of abstract facts. ...complete independence from any external context, or global rule, or medium in which to be.
The metaphysics that I propose is an Anti-Realism, about an experience-based possibility-story, for each of us.
For each of us, that life-experience possibility-story is a complex system of inter-referring if-then facts about hypotheticals. It's as valid as any other. It's one of infinitely-many systems of inter-referring abstract-facts....and individual abstract facts too.
But its abstract facts aren't really different from all the other abstract facts, which, likewise have their local validity, quite independent of anything else.
So that's why I claim that absolute Anti-Realism is out of the question.
Michael Ossipoff
I must disagree here. Not everyone is so theoretical! Some people just don't go to church, don't pray, don't expect help from secret sources. They won't show up on argumentative forums. They don't care enough. Most people do not pick some "ism" to wear and defend. We are the strange ones. We are the word-mongering intellectually vain theological poets.
Sure, but perhaps a more likely "refutation" of logic could be constructed from denying the existence of truth and falsity in the first place..... maybe the quantum world will turn out to be like that, and utterly incomprehensible to us.
Then there's the Hegelian version of theology, which sees the divine in progress itself, the belief that although cultural values are contingent and relative, there is an inexorable march of dialectical progress that leads. Marx's idea is a kind of secular theological version of this notion,
I think you only begin to really shatter the metaphysics of truth when you follow authors like Nietzsche, who recognize truth as ideology, and ideology as subjective valuation, and valuation as affective.
So your vocabulary of objective rationality dependent on evidence from a physical world, implying metaphysical assumptions which underle the various theologies I mentioned, becomes challenged when the subject-object, mind-world, consciusness-material dualisms are dissolved.
This doesn't make sense to me, or not if facts are made of language.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
God is love. Is that a proposition? Is a metaphor a proposition? How is such a statement intended? What does 'God' mean? What is love? Is 'God is love' meaningless just because it doesn't fit some attraction 'fantasy' of meaning that makes the metaphysician's job easier?
Quoting Joshs
Exactly. The taken-for-granted method is the blindspot.
IOW the Theist argument is persuasive in abstracto, but it depends on so many steps that are themselves open to question, that involve heavy abstraction, that it makes more sense to me to move forward slowly and carefully from where we are, in terms of probabilities and likelihoods, and not "leap ahead" so to speak.
And if God exists, I don't think He'd begrudge me this caution - all-too-human fairytales about God to the contrary.
Thinking means existing, but existence does not mean thinking. Perhaps existence also means the possibility of being thought, conceivability, or the potential to think (panpsychism rules).
Where there is thought a thinker is entailed because without a thinker there is no thought and no meaningful existence.
What secret sources? Let me in on the secret.
Why am I the last to hear about it? Must be because I'm fairly new to these forums :D
Secret--Do you mean like the Kabbalah? You couldn't mean Theism, because Theists don't make a secret of their religion. (Maybe some of them did, in Roman times. Maybe some of them even do here, in a relatively Atheist environment.)
I must admit that it would be ok with me if the door-to-door denominations decided to adopt a new policy of being secretive about their beliefs.
And what did you mean by "expect help". Critical aggressive Atheists like to attribute to all Theists the attributes of some Biblical Literalists that they've heard or heard of.
If you're referring to Theism, I just like to sometimes say something when I hear aggressive Atheists attacking those who don't share their beliefs. We discuss positions here, usually philosophical positions, but sometimes religious positions. In our language, whether we like it or not, there is a suffix, "-ism", to denote a position about something. It makes for more concise discussion, and avoids having to render the meaning by phrase.
And, when answering about a topic or issue, yes sometimes I clarify my position on it.
You said you don't believe that most people are Materialists. No, everyone who believes whatever they're taught in school is a Materialist. Talk to most anyone, other than sincere Theists, and you'll hear Materialism.
Michael Ossipoff
I can relate to this. I'm a science student. But studying science doesn't answer the big questions. It doesn't do what the religion I once tried to follow tried to do. So I've picked up various philosophy books. I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that philosophers seem better at tearing things down than building them up, at least to me. Some of their positive beliefs are enviable. I sometimes wish I could believe them. But I can't. For me these positive beliefs seem (for lack of a better word) like rationalizations.
On the other hand, my science studies seem ultimately to boil down to moving stuff around, calculating where it must have been, where it will be, etc. I like it for being relatively trustworthy and definite, but I can't muster a religious feeling toward this kind of pragmatic knowledge.
I can't speak for ff0, but I think 'secret sources' is a pretty good phrase for what religious people imply that they have access to. It's not just theism. It's ghosts, horoscopes, new age energies, all kinds of things. It's the stuff that's invisible to ordinary experience and to science. Some of this stuff sounds so good that I'd like for it to be true. But so far my experience doesn't validate any of this stuff. At best, certain outlandish statements turn out to be (for me) metaphorically true.
It's possible that I close myself off to certain experiences, I guess. But this being-closed-off is the way I find myself. We don't choose our beliefs, it seems to me. Or we don't choose our big picture beliefs. I would have to have vivid conversations with the dead or with a godlike entity to really believe that the world is radically different than I think it is, for instance. I don't think a mere sequence of words could accomplish that.
There is also a whole community of phenomenological and post-phenomenological thought that turns the materialist-theist binary on its head.
It's difficult to converse without specific, explicit definitions. So, if there are many Materialisms, then Materialism advocates need to clarify which Materialism they're advocating.
Most definitely. ...which is why aggressive Atheists don't really know what they're loudly and aggressively denying.
Atheism is a peculiar belief, a denial whose subject isn't specified, and is unknown to that belief's adherents, who seem to equate all Theism with Biblical Literalism.
...so definitions should be specific and consistent.
...by changing the definition of Materialism (that this physical world and its physical things are the only or fundamental reality, or that all of reality consists of this physical world)?
Sure, there are various wordings of Materialism's definition, but most of them seem to not contradict eachother, and seem to be about the same belief.
No doubt, by changing definitions, all sorts of "binaries" can be turned on their heads.
For example, maybe you could re-define Materialism to replace "reality" in the above definition, with metaphysical reality.
And of course there are a lot of Theists who say that their anthropomorphically-conceived God created a physical world that's largely, basically or usually the same objectively existent Materialist physical world that Materialists believe in.
I'm not saying that I object to definition-changes, or positions that don't recognize usually-accepted dichotomies. Yes, some dichotomies are artificial and unnecessary.
Michael Ossipoff
I'm of the opinion that if there is a conflict between an assertion and rational thought, then rational thought wins, and I believe that theism is poorly represented as irrational.
Where our understanding is less detailed, we still use some sort of handle to cope. Could be called magic, and there's nothing wrong with that generalization.
I completely disagree. Rationally speaking, it's extremely unreasonable to believe that something doesn't exist simply because we are not aware of its existence. Based on how many times and how vastly in scope our "knowledge" of the world has changed, it's insane for us to think that what we are aware of at this point in time is all that is real. That has literally never been true.
I'm challenging this rule of thumb. Rationality seems confined to what can be, well, sensed, [i[measured[/i]. In short, rationality is empirical and science is at the forefront of such a worldview. But look a few centuries ago micro-organisms and radio waves were undetectable to us. If one is to stay true to the empirical viewpoint we must believe that bacteria or radio are nonexistent. However, as science advanced we developed tools to detect the microscopic and the invisible and now we listen to the radio and take antibiotics. All I'm asking is that we learn something from this historical fact. We simply can't deny the supernatural because we can't sense/detect it with our instruments. Perhaps we need better or newer instruments?!
Quoting JustSomeGuy
I second that.
That which cannot (yet) be measured is difficult to even think about. A good example is rolling a pair of dice. The assertion that the outcome set is a sum between 2~12 is often met with a meta-game. What about when the cat jumps on the table and knocks a die under the couch? How often does an event external to the playfield become part of the play?
Scientific analysis of such a process might even be impossible: Consider the researcher who breaks their pencil, goes off to get another and is waylaid in conversation along the way.