Atheism is untenable in the 21st Century
…I feel sorry for Atheists. Not to sound disparaging, but I really do. Here in America, positive Atheism [a loose form of religious belief system] is in the so-called minority, and for a reason(?). As such, here in the US we have religious freedom that provides for that expression, any expression, even extremism. And in simple terms, our history indicates such values of freedom whereby we escaped religious persecution, and in many ways are still considered a refuge from the following notion of extremism which by itself, certainly continues to be a concern here and throughout the world; 911 was largely based on religious extremism.
So in that little synoptic view, what we have existing is, Atheism on one side, and then on the other side we have extreme Fundamentalism (literal interpretation of the Christian Bible, dogmatic precepts that of course can lead to violence, and so forth) which has contributed to the problem that I’ll briefly address. And so my ‘cursory thoughts’ are, at best Atheism is just another religion; at worse it’s just Nihilism.
Einstein said:
“Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is the same as that of the religious fanatics, and it springs from the same source . . . They are creatures who can't hear the music of the spheres.” (The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton University Press, 2000 p. 214)
Before getting to my questions, and to support my view that Atheism is untenable, here’s the brief definition of Evolution/Darwinism:
Descent with modification from preexisting species : cumulative inherited change in a population of organisms through time leading to the appearance of new forms : the process by which new species or populations of living things develop from preexisting forms through successive generations. In Darwinian evolution, the basic mechanism is genetic mutation, followed by selection of the organisms most likely to survive.
Pushing back, here are some existential phenomena/higher-consciousness that exist for human beings:
1. Mathematical abstracts
2. Musical genius
3. Sense of wonderment
4. Sense of purpose/Love
5. Cosmological questions (all events must have a cause)
6. NDE’s (near death experiences)
7. Consciousness: human sentience/experience v. pure reason (loosely, a posteriori v. a priori)
(Those are just a few concepts that in my view largely separate us from lower life forms.) But they [in our conscious existence] also can present unresolved paradox (propositions about self-consciousness/self-reference) that exists in life (also see Gödel's incompleteness theory).
So Let me start with number 1. Mathematical abstracts. Why do we have two ways or this dual capacity for knowing the world? Consider falling objects, we avoid them through our cognitive/perceptive abilities. One does not calculate the laws of gravity in order to avoid falling objects to survive in the jungle do they? What survival value does math hold? In Darwinism, there is no reason to believe that the second method springs from a refinement of the first. The former does have a biological need, the latter has no biological significance at all.
I will demonstrate through those seven aforementioned phenomena (and other’s may have more or less), using logical inference, that the probability of a Deity is much more tenable than no-thing, nihilism or: Atheism.
Any takers?
So in that little synoptic view, what we have existing is, Atheism on one side, and then on the other side we have extreme Fundamentalism (literal interpretation of the Christian Bible, dogmatic precepts that of course can lead to violence, and so forth) which has contributed to the problem that I’ll briefly address. And so my ‘cursory thoughts’ are, at best Atheism is just another religion; at worse it’s just Nihilism.
Einstein said:
“Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is the same as that of the religious fanatics, and it springs from the same source . . . They are creatures who can't hear the music of the spheres.” (The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton University Press, 2000 p. 214)
Before getting to my questions, and to support my view that Atheism is untenable, here’s the brief definition of Evolution/Darwinism:
Descent with modification from preexisting species : cumulative inherited change in a population of organisms through time leading to the appearance of new forms : the process by which new species or populations of living things develop from preexisting forms through successive generations. In Darwinian evolution, the basic mechanism is genetic mutation, followed by selection of the organisms most likely to survive.
Pushing back, here are some existential phenomena/higher-consciousness that exist for human beings:
1. Mathematical abstracts
2. Musical genius
3. Sense of wonderment
4. Sense of purpose/Love
5. Cosmological questions (all events must have a cause)
6. NDE’s (near death experiences)
7. Consciousness: human sentience/experience v. pure reason (loosely, a posteriori v. a priori)
(Those are just a few concepts that in my view largely separate us from lower life forms.) But they [in our conscious existence] also can present unresolved paradox (propositions about self-consciousness/self-reference) that exists in life (also see Gödel's incompleteness theory).
So Let me start with number 1. Mathematical abstracts. Why do we have two ways or this dual capacity for knowing the world? Consider falling objects, we avoid them through our cognitive/perceptive abilities. One does not calculate the laws of gravity in order to avoid falling objects to survive in the jungle do they? What survival value does math hold? In Darwinism, there is no reason to believe that the second method springs from a refinement of the first. The former does have a biological need, the latter has no biological significance at all.
I will demonstrate through those seven aforementioned phenomena (and other’s may have more or less), using logical inference, that the probability of a Deity is much more tenable than no-thing, nihilism or: Atheism.
Any takers?
Comments (684)
So starting with that again, regardless of whether mathematics has survival value, traits are not required to have positive survival value, or necessity, to persist. All that's required is that traits do not have a significant enough negative survival value to end up making that species go extinct.
So when you're wondering why some trait exists, assuming that it must have positive survival value to exist, or that it must be necessary, is a misconception.
Again, this is regardless of whether any particular trait has positive, neutral or negative survival value.
By the way, atheism has zero connection to evolutionary theory.
I don't at all buy Bayesian probability, by the way. I only buy frequentist probability, and even that has problems in my view.
Any view of whats true based on probability always seems pretty dodgy to me. Probability is not aw effective as the scientific method, or even just simple reasoning.
This is an example of vacant religious claims, to think that atheism is in trouble in our modern times is the product of a religious “bubble” where reality just isnt getting through.
Exactly. It strikes me that a lot of it is simply about folks feeling better/more confident and secure about their own view. If they can support it in a way that seems satisfactorily "intellectual" to them, they're more comfortable holding it than they would be otherwise.
I'm confused. So are you saying the ability of mathematical computation is by chance? Explain that in greater detail if you could.
Why are you people in the minority?
No.
I'm saying that it doesn't need to have positive or even neutral survival value, and there doesn't have to be a need for it. That doesn't imply that we're talking about random phenomena. Something with slightly negative survival value can arise, via a genetic mutation, via processes that are not random.
Note that this isn't saying anything about the survival value of mathematical abilities. It's just a general truth about evolution.
I just finished reading a section in "The Systems View of LIfe" describing the creation of artificial cells. Basically, they dump a minimal set up proteins along with an encapsulating agent (a lipid) into a container. Cell formation requires that all the components become encapsulated together. The number is about 90 and statistically, this should never occur (i.e. all 90 elements becoming encapsulated in the tiny spaces involved.) However it does happen. What occurs is that some membranes have NO encapsulated elements while others get the full set.
The hypothesis is that what is going on is a non-linear dynamic system, the formation of the cell aligning with what is called a "strange-attractor" which represents a stabilized condition of the overall system.
So statistical/probabilistic computations do work for classical closed thermodynamic systems, but not necessarily non-linear ones....
Thats why “brainwashing” seems like such an accurate word when describing how people come to religion. Trained from childhood to accept utterly vacant claims, to call the illogical logical, and to be taught meaningless terms are actually the most meaningful. (IE faith).
Its unfortunate that an accurate term like delusional, or irrational is dismissed out of hand by the religious when just accepting the potential accuracy would be enough for them to shake off the brainwashing.
We are in the minority because the institutions from a bygone era of ignorant superstitions still exist and exert influence and control.
What you should be noticing is how vastly more common atheism is in our modern time, and spreading ever faster. There is also a huge shift in just how committed people are to any particular religion, a transitional state on the road to atheism.
I, for one, would love to see your demonstration. When will that occur?
"I, for one, would love to see your demonstration. When will that occur? "
Sure, let's examine number 4. Sense of purpose/Love.
Please Tell me what Love is?
Examples could be: subjective truth, objective truth, phenomena of some sort, or... ?
Assuming you're an atheist, you consider there is no mystery in the world, therefore you must use logic to explain human existence. Therefore, please explain that human phenomenon using logic.
Its unfortunate that an accurate term like delusional, or irrational is dismissed out of hand by the religious when just accepting the potential accuracy would be enough for them to shake off the brainwashing.
Sure I get that. But are you suggesting all of life is logical?
Oh sorry, I thought you were going to do the demonstrating. I’ll pass.
Okay. then how do you explain why we have that ability? I mean really, these are simple existential questions that you as an Atheist must have grappled with at some point right TS?
No im not suggesting that at all...so do you “get that” after all?
LOL, that's what I thought; one down more to go!
Let me know when you got it figured out!
I'm not following you. Are you saying that Atheism is untenable in some way?
Thank you kindly for name-dropping that book. I took a quick look-see an am very intrigued...
And I'll do you one back; have you read The Mind of God by Physicist Paul Davies?
Eh? Where are you getting that link from? Atheism is the belief that no gods exist, not the belief that no mysteries exist, that would be amysterism.
I believe that every misbehaviour is its own punishment. If someone does something that will not keep flying, then let it just crash in a natural way. That is why I do not give a flying fart about atheism. Let them just do whatever they want, because in the end, who cares? Unless, of course, if they try to impose their views onto me. That is when I get pissed off.
No, im not saying that either. No idea where you are getting that from. This is why when you said “I get that” I think you were mistaken. You don’t seem to get my point at all, but true to the point I was actually making you have responded vacantly.
Whats an example of an atheist trying to impose their views?
While I'm in agreement with your description of how the survival mechanism of evolution happens, I do think there has to be positive survival value to higher cognition.
Superfluous traits usually get weeded out because they cost calories, and surivival is in part about being calorie efficient. Since the human brain uses 20-30% of our daily calories, it suggests that there has to be good reason to maintain it at that level of complexity.
Also, evolution works through survival and reproductive mechanisms. Frogs, for example, usually don't make it past tadpole-hood, but they make up for it in laying hundreds of eggs at a time.
I've read some theories that art is a reproductive value: showing that you have the extra calories and resources to invest in art makes you attractive to a mate since it suggests a greater ability to provide for offspring.
...in the US (but it's not like there's anything outside the US, right? - not anything that matters, anyway.)
Why are people of color in the US on average poorer and less educated than white people? Something must be wrong with them, or they must be doing something wrong.
Analogous to a peacocks feathers. I’ve seen that theory debunked but I don’t recall how exactly.
Do you tend to find artists sexy, by the way?
This alone indicates that you have no idea what you’re talking about.
I hear you Alcontali. And I also respect your learn-ed mind. I've read many of your posts.
Did you have any thoughts on the 7 existential phenomena ( our conscious experience) examples, that would suggest Diety?
Its unfortunate that an accurate term like delusional, or irrational is dismissed out of hand by the religious when just accepting the potential accuracy would be enough for them to shake off the brainwashing
You mean that statement you made above? Those are psychological statements of discontent. What would you like me to do with them?
Hey SC welcome!
That's a good question, probably has something to do with the human condition. Psychological bias, racism, you know, those kinds of things.
To that end, you think it's a pathology of sorts, or just human nature?
Of course atheism and theism are untenable since their 'truths' can't be shown, and it gets worse, though, than indefensible, in that it is the height of intellectual dishonesty to proclaim them. The same for anything else that can't be shown.
We developed our abilities over a very long time; they weren't just granted to us. I'm not musical, though.
Thats not what those statements are about, though I understand why you might think that.
That comment was not intended as insult, or to express discontentment about religion. They are observations, and I wish there were other, less “offensive” words to use but those seem like the most accurate words to use.
As to what you should do with them...you understand that what you quoted wasn't at all directed at you right? Understand? I was talking to someone else, so I really didnt have expectation of what you should do with those words. Why would I? As they were directed at somebody else, not you, I don’t have anything I would “like” you to do with them.
We agree! It does seem logical that mysteries exist. Unfortunately, many Atheists I've come to know don't hold your/that world view.
Of course it begs many questions, one of which might be: what does one do with the concept of mystery that exists in the world?
Hey Poetic, yeah, that's one of many reasons why I'm a Christian Existentialist.
Many atheists might indeed hold the view mysteries do not exist, but not because of their atheism. As the person pointed out, atheism doesnt have anything to do belief in mystery, it has to do with lacking belief in god. (Or gods).
There is a different word for lacking belief in mystery, also pointed out to you.
Okay Gotcha. Then is this statement true:
1. God does not exist.
True or false? (I'm just asking don't get angry.)
Still in one of the camps whose 'God' can't be shown, regardless of their claims.
What do you think about sexual selection, for example? I have always found it weird that there is such a focus on survival advantage when what really matters is not surviving, but passing on your genes.
Concerning the subject of higher cognition, it's possible that higher cognition had a survival value in general, but specific results, like mathematical abilities, are accidental byproducts.
Are you sure? What is leap of Faith?
No need to worry about me getting angry at your questions/comments.
As to your statement, it depends on what you mean by “god”. Generally my answer would be “I do not know”, but that might change depending on how you define “god”.
If you don't mind me wondering too...I was always curious about sexual selection as it were. I mean, with human's, it's not just pure instinct... .
When I say reproductive mechanism, I mean sexual selection. And, yes, I think it's just as important to understanding evolution as mere survival.
I think simple math has huge survival value. I've read a lot of accounts of birds and mammals having basic math skills, understanding when something is more or less, being able to count up to 5 or 10, etc. It seems to me, especially if you're living in groups, it would be beneficial to know how to share resources and how to count how many apples you're trading for how many walnuts, for example. Or how many babies are in your nest, how many members are in your group, etc. etc.
Our developed ability to do higher math, like statistics, or understand the Pythagorean theorem is probably, as you suggest, just a happy coincidence of evolution. Though I think it obviously stems from useful evolutionary traits. Curiosity, innovation, and basic math skills coming together to aid us in our understanding of the world--that sort of thing.
Great...to me, " I don't know" sounds much more reasonable or even 'logical'.
But once again, existential questions can rear their ugly heads hence: If one says that they don't know something, what are they really saying/what's behind that thought process?
I suppose one could say that one is Stoic or indifferent to the question. Or maybe even some element of the so-called sense of wonderment is there. I think that's of higher consciousness...kind of like Kant's form of a priori logic, or in other words innate or intrinsic human intuition.
What I don't quite get is what rational process you aim to follow here. It has already been pointed out that disproving the theory of evolution wouldn't affect atheism, though it might affect the view of individual atheists.
But apart from that, you cannot actually poke holes into a scientific theory by pointing out phenomena it cannot (fully) explain. You'd have to point to examples that explicitly disprove the theory, that is things that cannot possibly happen under it's framework.
If what you mean to do is to argue that the theory of evolution is wrong because it doesn't offer a compelling account of all phenomena, your problem isn't with the theory of evolution but with the scientific method itself.
Quoting Artemis
I refer specifically to the idea that traits with no, or even negative, survival value are selected for due to the sexual preferences - attractiveness, if you want - of the species. Like a peacocks feathers not being selected for because they symbolise a strong male capable of "wasting" resources, but rather because long, colorful feathers are attractive to peacocks. Of course what's attractive is also determined by evolution, but it's possible that something that originated as a survival advantage stops being one, without a corresponding change happening in the species' own logic for selecting partners.
I'm not an expert, but seeing how most animals try to make themselves seem bigger when predators approach, I would assume that a huge plumage with spots that look like eyes would also have survival value. Probably explains their hideous voices too :lol:
I think most people think creativity is an attractive trait. But I've met enough otherwise unattractive artists to tell you that's just not enough overall. Steven Tyler is just not a "sexy" man, for example :P
No E! What I'm saying is that it is LIMITED. I'm not dichotomizing.
See my response to Praxis re:peacocks.
Quoting Echarmion
Sure, like blonde versus brunette. There's no reason (I know of, correct me if I'm wrong) for one to be more attractive than the other, yet people often have strong preferences.
Fun related fact: red hair does make sense to be considered less attractive, because it is correlated with a higher rate of genetic abnormalities.
Wishes and hopes.
Great response. Why do we hope, is there survival value to Faith, Hope and Love?
But what follows from it's limitation? The God of the gaps?
Quoting Artemis
Damn, looks like I selected the wrong partner....
Anyways, it seems we mostly agree. I just find it curious that, apparently, the idea that this sort of sexual selection plays a (significant) role in evolution is highly debated, when it seems so obvious.
This alone indicates that you have no idea what you’re talking about.[/quote]
:up:
I think theism means a BELIEF in god, and atheism, a BELIEF in no god. Belief requires no proof. No atheist is showing you or attempting to show you the truth about god's existence or inexistence. It is not intellectual dishonesty to believe in something that is possible.
@PoeticUniverse, I think your fallacy lies in your expectation or presumption that atheists try to prove the non-existence of god, and theists, the existence. A learned, smart, philosophical person will never attempt either. Because theism and atheism are matters of faith, of, as you precisely said, an untenable truth. So neither side (as long as one has a minimum required amount of brains) will claim their belief to be the truth.
It is a question of belief. No truth is needed, no truth is to be shown, and nobody will try to show a proof therefore.
I don't know if it will sink in. But I hope it will.
Again, that's not at all the case. I think it's interesting for theists to try to argue in support for theism. I don't think it's interesting when they do that by arguing against atheism where they're completely misrepresenting what atheism even is. Atheism doesn't imply a belief that evolutionary theory is correct, it doesn't imply a belief that there is no mystery in the world, etc. What you're doing is akin to someone saying, "I'm going to demonstrate that the Beatles aren't the best band: first, the Beatles were leprechauns from another planet . . . "
Quoting 3017amen
Love is the name for a set of brain states, the set of states that amount to an intense feeling of deep affection, caring, romantic attachment, etc.
Quoting 3017amen
That's a category error that, like suggesting that the Beatles were leprechauns from another planet, suggests that you're not very familiar with what logic is. Logic isn't an "explanation tool." Logic is the way we think about implicational and inferential relations.
I explained everything I'm explaining here in the other thread. But you're just repeating the same misconceptions. You need to acknowledge and either present objections to what I'm saying or reflect that you agree and understand what I'm saying.
Quoting 3017amen
First, note that holding any particular stance doesn't actually require that one explain particular things. One can be an atheist and think that we have no idea how to explain various things--we're still figuring it out.
At any rate, I do buy evolutionary theory, and on a broad level, the reason that we have every single ability that we have is that it was a possible property of the materials that comprise our bodies, in the wake of a progression of genetic mutations over a huge period of time. The abilities that persisted were those that were genetically transmitted, and that weren't enough of a liability to make it not possible for the species to continue breeding.
Great question. As volitional Beings, what should we choose...and I never asked you E, what have you concluded thus:
1. God does not exist.
(True or false just asking)
Yeah, I think that, too. But 3017amen has the common misconception that a trait can't arise unless it's evolutionarily advantageous, so it's important to get him to realize that that's a misconception.
I'll get to your other concerns TS, but we are talking over each other. I am asking why we have those traits.
True, of course.
If you're asking why in the sense of looking for a purpose, there is none. The world in general has no purposes.
Great. How do you know that for sure? I realize that's a big question, but I'm guessing it's as simple as the ontological argument....
Of course you have to be kidding me right?
I think you are overcomplicating it. It just means I do not know if that statement is true. Again though, it depends on what you mean by “god”.
How do you define that term?
Yeah, it could change with a different definition, but unless someone explains that they're using some goofy definition, I assume they're using standard senses. So if someone asks me, "True or false: there are Fender Stratocasters made in 1846" I'm going to say false. It might turn out that they're using "Fender Stratocaster" to refer to horseshoes, but I'm going to assume they're using the term normally until they tell me they're using it to refer to horseshoes.
Don't be shy 180. Argue that God does not exist!!!!
I'll go part by part.
The first part? Because the notion of nonphysical existents is incoherent.
Great. Then I would recommend you become an Agnostic.
I was just getting ahead of the inevitable movement of goal posts
No, not at all. Teleology is goofy nonsense, precipitated by projecting the way we think about things onto the world at large. That's a common problem--projecting mental stuff into the world, although it was more common historically than it is now, but it's still a problem with many things.
Agnostics are atheists, the two terms are not mutually exclusive. (A common misconception)
Can you see the quantum universe?
Okay good for you. Just don't say: God does not exist. Then you become a positive Atheist and will have to defend your position.
There are existent things that we can't directly sense. I'm not saying anything about that when I say that the idea of nonphysical existents is incoherent. That's not anything about whether we directly sense something.
Depends on whats meant by “god”.
Care to define that term?
Atheists must assert that they currently possess adequate knowledge to be able to comprehend everything that is possibly knowable right now, before declaring that God does not exist. Which is of course absurd!
That's what I am saying. The claims can't be preached or taught as if the claims are true; however, this dishonestly is widespread.
True.
Quoting Pantagruel
I don't see how that follows.
Usually, "existence" denotes physical existence. To make the argument that God, or gods, do not exist as physical entities, I merely need to point out that they have no predictive value, and as such are not part of any theory about the physical world. Since the proper epistemic procedure for establishing what exists physically is the scientific method, that is all that is required to answer the question.
Of course, you could be using "existence" to refer to some other reality. But in that case, I argue that the proper epistemic procedure is a null hypothesis. Since non-physical reality can only be known a-priori, anything that can be known about it is deducible from a-priori knowledge. Therefore, all I need to point out is that there is no valid deduction of God, or gods, from a-priori principles. Since there is thus no good reason to assume God exist, the reasonable thing to conclude is that God doesn't exist.
Nah, all you have to do is admit that folks (on theistic side) are positing incoherent, insane-sounding nonsense.
Also, for them to be making a positive claim about it, we can't be saying that it's unknowable.
But there's no reason to reserve judgment about it when it's incoherent nonsense.
I don't say that. I say something along these lines:
The word "God" does not represent any physical being or object in the universe.
There are many variations of that sentence which express the same thought.
We wish and hope because we want things, such as to ever continue on in an eternal life.
Religious claims are at least as ridiculous as what I made up above--they're equally insane-sounding nonsense. It's just that they're so entrenched in our culture historically that people give them more consideration.
Remember, I'm a Christian Existentialist : If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe.
I'm guessing that you must have a conception of God to assert its non-existence though.
He just won't stop the misconception that traits only arise and persist if there's a survival value to them.
You still haven't supported your view of why humans do/don't have purpose. Until you do that, your Atheism has major holes LOL
Oh, explain Faith Hope and Love while you are at it LOL!
Purposes are ways that we think about things. It's thinking about something in a goal-directed way, where we have motivations for action related to goals we set.
It's a category error to project that mental phenomenon onto the world at large, as if things other than brains-functioning-as-minds think about things in a purpose-oriented way, too.
But how can you be sure? What kind of logic tells you that?
Same thing with the whole debate about the oranges growing inside of toothpick crystals etc.?
"True"
Okay you said true to the proposition that: God does not exist.
Great. How can you prove it?
Of course not. I established my criteria of epistemic adequacy and cumulative knowledge already. You're statement is just...flippant.
You're still in the dark. Why do I have goals? What does that confer? Happiness/purpose?
You contradicted yourself from your earlier statement that there is no purpose.
The question was "does God exist". Possibility is not actuality.
Quoting 3017amen
I am just going to quote what I said before:
Quoting Echarmion
There is no need to assert the non-existence of god, any more than I need to assert the non-existence of a magic turtle upon which the earth is built. The assertion is the claim that god or the magic turtle exists.
You do not understand atheism, nor the burden of proof. Further, you have a position of believing in something you cannot define which is nonsense. Its just nonsense that your religiosity has inoculated you against.
As long as you are focused on delivering your message, you will make no progress in discussion nor your view.
We agree. But you failed to discuss induction.
Nope you're wrong. As soon as you make a proposition about a God's existence, you put yourself in a position of defending it. Your best bet is to say no-thing and walk away. Or say 'I don't know'.
This is another reason why positive Atheism is untenable of course.
Religious claims are no more sensible or plausible then what I proposed.
That is just Daniel Dennett's argument and I didn't find it convincing when he delivered it. Reasons for believing are ultimately contingent on the entire body of an individual's knowledge. If I find a good reason to believe it is sufficient for me. If Dan Dennett (and you) don't, then you speak for yourself.
It's properties of your brain--ways that your brain works. The brain structure and function that amount to properties in question arose because of genetic mutations.
Per what?
You do not understand the burden of proof.
If someone makes a claim, they are the ones that have to defend that claim. If someone is not convinced by the claim, they are not themselves making a claim.
Also, you are not engaging what I am saying. This is a dishonest way of trying to discuss something.
You do not have answers to all points being levelled at you, instead you are just cherry picking the parts you think you can counter-point and ignoring the rest. I mean, you didnt even quote an entire sentence to respond to in that last post.
I did refer to the scientific method, which is inductive. If you have a way to inductively reason about the non-physical, I'd like to hear it.
Quoting Pantagruel
Right. But we can exchange reasons and debate them. It's not a matter of faith, after all. If you have an argument for God that you find convincing, I'd be happy to take a look at it.
Based on the sum total of my experiences (which may not coincide with yours) I have sufficient evidence of connectivity which transcends the domain of ordinary scientific discourse. Trivially, neural networks operate by leveraging 'hidden dimensions' of connectivity also, so while this may not rise to the standard of scientific proof, it is evidence, nevertheless. And I certainly extend my hypothesis to include the strong possibility of there being forms of consciousness far more advanced and therefore toto caelo unlike ours. Possibly not limited in space and time like ours. And I conceive this to be 'close enough' to the most general form of the notion of God.
As was said, it all depends how you define "God," doesn't it?
In his Philosophical Fragments, Kierkegaard moved away from the traditions of "proving" the existence of God in favor of framing the matter as how an individual learns what is true in the world. The proposition that an individual needs to "receive the condition" to see the truth is the opposite of arguing that everybody needs to recognize what is necessary by the evidence given to us all.
So the approach is similar to Pascal saying that the "scandal" is a better match to our human condition than other descriptions but goes further by declaring that only being conditioned in a certain way would make Pascal's thought sensible.
Yep! That's the Atheist who wrote the infamous book " consciousness explained" of course.
Many agree he didn't explain it all. I read it and came to the same conclusion. Kind of what Einstein said in the OP about troubled Athiest's. The book was basically philosophical gibberish to justify nihilism and... .
That's the part of Atheism I feel sorry about...just another Religion. Besides, not that he was perfect, I would rather trust Einstein anyway LOL
Hey V. Yes I am a Christian Existentialist. And in many ways of course I agree with Kierkegaard. I'm not trying to prove the existence of God. In the OP I'm drawing distinctions between lower life-forms and higher consciousness... .
Sure... critiquing thier deficiencies would be a better characterization I think.
I don't know. Pick a lane.
Per the rules of a priori formal logic or propositional logic if you prefer.
It's properties of your brain--ways that your brain works. The brain structure and function that amount to properties in question arose because of genetic mutations.
Sorry don't take this the wrong way but it sounds like Daniel Dennett's philosophical gibberish all over again. It's far from describing the nature of consciousness viz. why human's have purpose and goals like Love or music or mathematics or anything of higher consciousness.
Although we might agree that it would be outside the purview of Darwinism LoL
I think so too, but... Homo sapiens hunt and gather successfully (presumably using their higher cognition) but primates also forage successfully, without (apparently) having our higher cognition. Wolves and bears hunt and gather successfully with even less higher cognition. Primates are still here because enough of them avoided being eaten, and they didn't have higher cognition. So did we, with higher cognition.
Question: For a relatively long period of time (several hundred thousand years) we were hunter gatherers, doing much the same thing that other animals do. So, where do the higher cognitive skills come into play?
Well, tools come to mind. Other animals make tools, but nothing approaching the complexity of a carefully knapped piece of flint attached to a shaft and thrown. Fire? The early use of fire required skill and insight to use for beneficial results.
Wandering? Moving long distances required adaption over a relatively short period of time. Wandering people would encounter dangers they hadn't seen before, as well as new foods.
Primates haven't made many advances in the last million years; we have (for better and for worse). We would not have, had it not been for higher cognitive functioning (and maybe the opposable thumb, upright posture, ability to walk and run a long ways, etc.)
There is some interesting research that some primates are entering the stone age as far as using tools. Sorry, I cannot recall the source but it mentioned primates using spears to get fish out of the water. Ill see if I can find a link if you are interested.
Ha, you should know that I try not to dichotomize!!
One might could argue that the inferences for Deity which I've hinted at could be added criteria for negative Theology.
And I would be okay in taking a journey in that direction... However, I was keeping the focus on certain Existential phenomenon as it were.
I mean we haven't even talked about the so-called William James religious experiences that people have, and other things relative to psychology and consciousness...
Aside from that, in theory, if the Atheist is trying to use pure logic to defend their position that God doesn't exist, it would still be untenable no? We all know about the ontological argument...
Quoting 3017amen
People are no more "brainwashed" to believe a some deity or batch of deities than they are brainwashed into accepting the existing economic/political arrangement, or the basic method of bookkeeping. Brainwashing and learning amount to the same thing.
"Brainwashing" applies to situations where, under pressure, people are forced to adapt a contradictory view of the world. An example of this is "brainwashing" a captured enemy soldier so that he comes to think of his own country as an aggressor and his captors as victims. Children are not "brainwashed"; they are taught to believe what their parents believe.
Atheist parents tend to teach atheism to their children (usually - not always) and religious parents tend to teach their religion to their children (usually, not always). Whether their teaching is successful is another matter. Children are not born with anti-religious views, so teaching them religion normally has nothing to overcome. Same with teaching children to be atheists.
The conventions of logic don't actually have anything to do with ideas of "needing to defend" anything.
It's not though. The only reason that those things exist is because it's stuff that brains can do, and natural processes can and did result in the formation of brains as they are. There's no additional "why" to it aside from that.
Dennett is an eliminative materialist by the way. I'm not an eliminativist.
I like me some William James. One his virtues is that he tried to separate the arguments about authority from descriptions of what is the case.
Are you helping that cause?
SophistiCat was asking a rhetorical question.
How about adding "history" to the list, along with "something to do with the human condition. Psychological bias, racism..." The United States isn't "naturally" a more religious country than France, and it is no accident that people of color are poorer than whites. Both the religiosity of Americans and the relative poverty of blacks are the result of a long history of specific religious teaching and economic practice.
The dominance of religion in a given population isn't the consequence of the "overwhelming truth of the religion"; its the consequence of intensive and long-lasting promotional activity. When the intensive and long-lasting promotional activity is withdrawn (especially during periods of rapid change) the number of adherents is likely to decrease.
One of the consequences of the US not having an established church is that every two bit (and $10) religious organization was free to promote its religious views. And they did -- from Anglicanism and Catholicism to Mormonism.
Are you sure.
1. God doesn't exist.
Atheism says that statement is true. Are you saying you can't defend that?
Yeah, positive. We could put money on it. If you can find a logic textbook that talks about burden of proof or "needing to defend" certain claims, you win. If you can't find one after a certain period of time, I win.
Yep I love me some William James as well. Just like Maslow he was a psychologist turned philosopher so he has some good experience behind his theories.
That would certainly be under the heading of consciousness and phenomenology which again, does not help Atheism.
The varieties of religious experience book, deserves another thread... I've got it... . Great read!
Ha, sounds good TS! Be back at cha soon.
Shooting fish in a barrel. Boring, not philosophically interesting. Will editorialize, though, when the usual sophistry, cant & uninformed - thoughtless - bloviating are afoot. Maybe I'll play later (have to catch a flight).
I think once you get into the hunter gatherer epoch of human development, you're already at the stage of higher cognitive skills. At least for the hunting part, because humans have pretty lousy natural hunting traits: our teeth are too flat, our nails too brittle, and we're neither very fast nor very strong (though we can run longer than most other land animals).
After we became homo sapiens, the cognitive abilities and innovation took over for evolution to provide us with food, comfort, etc.
Why new traits evolve in the first place when other species were doing just fine is pretty much coincidence. Random mutation led to a trait that was not disadvantageous enough to kill off those offspring, possibly was even beneficial.
Cool 180! Come back when you have time. Be safe on your trip. Actually maybe pick one of the seven topics to parse I'd be happy to debate those with you...
In order to impose your views onto others, you need to grab control over the government in one way or another, and get them to do it for you.
For example, look at the rules and procedure for divorce in the West. Do they apply the Jewish, Christian, Islamic, or any other religion's rules-cum-formalisms? No. Absolutely not.
So, what they apply, is a non-religious system. Hence, for all practical purposes, it is an atheist/secular system.
Furthermore, if you confess to being of religion X, will the secular state respect that? Will the secular state let you use the procedures and rules of religion X? No, they will force their atheist system down your throat.
For myself, I can happily accept any of the three Abrahamic religious systems of divorce (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), because they are in my opinion fair in one way or another. Over the centuries, they have turned out to be sustainable practices. Furthermore, if I sign a marriage contract with someone, specifying that one particular choice of these three systems is applicable, why does the State's godless vermin stick their noses into none of their business, and declare their godless rules to be applicable instead?
That is just one example, one of the many actually, of an instance in which the atheist/secular state forcibly overrules people's religion, because they somehow mistakenly believe that their atheist/secular bullshit would be superior to the religious take on the matter.
That belief of superiority is utterly baseless, though, because there is absolutely nobody who believes that the atheist/secular divorce-rape procedures are even fair. Now that pretty much nobody wants to get married anymore, how can they still claim that the atheist/secular marriage contract would be somehow "better"?
So, the atheists have managed to wholesale destroy the nuclear families in the West, and hence, the entire social structure, but hey, their views on the matter would still be better!
Hey BC wanted to give you some love there.
As you know I'm a critic of most Fundamentalism when it comes to Christian apologetics and certain theology.
What really bothers me and saddens me is the harm that you alluded to relative to those old school paradigms. And even though I am heterosexual, it really hurts me when I see homosexual men and women committing suicide over some erroneous Bible interpretation.
As a Christian Existentialist you may know that I don't consider the Bible a perfect book. And you may know that so-called ' rationale ' relates to: Church politics, lost gospels, translations, different religions excluding certain books, medical science, and so forth.
The Fundamentalist taking literal interpretation from everything in the Bible contributes to extremism. We know common sense says there's much historic contextual allegory and metaphor that's part of the human condition... .
This is another reason why I frame the topic '... 21st Century.' It's time we get smarter and balance both science and religion appropriately. I mean in the case of LGBT the Bible is not a medical science book. And for all we know due to church politics, it's certainly possible scripture could have been easily edited out. After all, we know for example that ambiguous genitalia babies exist. And maybe they weren't reported then...
As you were.
And if religious people control the government, wouldnt they be the ones imposing? Wouldnt they be imposing on the atheists? Wouldnt they be imposing on other religions with different practices?
Also, your tone is very angry. You interested in discussing or ranting?
Multiple factors have gone into the decline of the nuclear family and the increasing lack of desire to marry. The problem with religion is that it is suitable only for those who can have faith in something for which there is no experiential evidence. (Even a so-called religious experience does not constitute evidence for the veracity of any particular religion or even for religion as such).
I'll let you and Dingo hash the political issues out, in the meantime and in a similar way, I think you would agree that here in America our currency suggests the merits of Deity tipping the scales in favor of Christianity.
In God we trust. Generally speaking, maybe God has blessed this country. One of the greatest countries in the world IMHO.
Interesting are you sure about that? Have you ever had a religious experience? Have you experienced miraculous happenstance?
Per the OP, have you ever had an NDE?
The Kierkegaard challenge is not about what can be said to exist or not.
Whatever you are into, please associate it with somebody else.
Are you talking about the ineffable?
Such experiences are always interpreted, and usually in ways compatible with the religious culture one has been inducted into.
A good question. I will re-phrase:
Does the word "God" - as you are using it in this discussion - represent any physical being or object in the universe?
Some religions do, but other religions absolutely do not.
[i]In the Ottoman Empire, a millet /?m?l?t/[1][needs Turkish IPA] was an independent court of law pertaining to "personal law" under which a confessional community (a group abiding by the laws of Muslim Sharia, Christian Canon law, or Jewish Halakha) was allowed to rule itself under its own laws.
The Ottoman term specifically refers to the separate legal courts pertaining to personal law under which minorities were allowed to rule themselves (in cases not involving any Muslim) with fairly little interference from the Ottoman government.[12][13]
The millets had a great deal of power – they set their own laws and collected and distributed their own taxes.[/i]
This is a direct consequence of numerous provisions in the Quran and the Sunnah which strictly forbid applying Islamic law to non-Muslims, the most important of which is the testimony in which the prophet of Islam administered law between Jews out of the Jewish scripture:
Narrated Abdullah Ibn Umar: A group of Jews came and invited the Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) to Quff. So he visited them in their school. They said: AbulQasim, one of our men has committed fornication with a woman; so pronounce judgment upon them. They placed a cushion for the Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) who sat on it and said: Bring the Torah. It was then brought. He then withdrew the cushion from beneath him and placed the Torah on it saying: I believed in thee and in Him Who revealed thee. He then said: Bring me one who is learned among you...... Then a young man was brought. The transmitter then mentioned the rest of the tradition of stoning similar to the one transmitted by Malik from Nafi'(No. 4431).
As you can understand from this narrative, an Islamic ruler will not administer Islamic law in a Jewish dispute or concerning a Jewish criminal offence. Instead, it is the Jewish religious scholars (Rabbis) who will be habilitated to adjudicate the case.
Of course, this practice only applies if such community has a documented system of law, i.e. a "scripture". There is no requirement for any ruler to recognize undocumented law.
Are there any psychologists who support your view?
Quoting 3017amen
[quote=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_and_philosophical_views_of_Albert_Einstein]
Einstein stated that he believed in the pantheistic God of Baruch Spinoza. He did not believe in a personal God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings, a view which he described as naïve. He clarified however that, "I am not an atheist", preferring to call himself an agnostic, or a "religious nonbeliever." Einstein also stated he did not believe in life after death, adding "one life is enough for me." He was closely involved in his lifetime with several humanist groups.
[/quote]
Not sure how relevant this is, though.
Quoting 3017amen
Quoting NOS4A2
Quoting 3017amen
Hm. I was looking forward to your demonstration as well, but then you wanted @NOS4A2 to instead.
Is Yahweh hiding somewhere in your opening post...?
Quoting 3017amen
How about, a bit like Socrates, "Not taking your word for it, though I'd take Shiva's"?
As an aside, creationist "kinds" are demonstrably nonsense:
Yes, but Christian rules must not be imposed onto, for example, Jews. I absolutely do not believe in doing that.
If you confess to being a Christian, then you are seeking to keep Christian rules, and therefore, you implicitly declare Christian rules to be applicable to you. That is in my opinion the reason why Christians can be held against Christian law.
As far as I am concerned, there is no other reason for being held to confessional rules than your own confession.
In a Kierkegaardian sense I conceive God as an ineffable experience. Though if I were to put it into words I would say the Christian God is spirit. And for what it's worth there is some scripture that supports that. And of course the Book of Thomas that was left out of the Bible includes Gnosticism...
Agreed, however man-made rules and certain dogma can be detrimental to the human condition. The Jesus I believe in promotes love and pacifism. In that sense, politics and government was not his kingdom.
Well if it's irrelevant why are you asking? How about if I give you some hints: Maslow and James among many others...
Welcome Joe! Which items out of the seven in the OP would like me to parse?
Not all of religion lacks experiential evidence. Some other reasons people engage in religious activity: They like getting together in church and singing; they like being reassured and praying (which is experiential for the people praying; a listening god is not experiential). They like the experience of ritual, like the eucharist. They like seeing friends. Participants in religion like social events such as common meals which happen in church--pot lucks, funeral luncheons, Advent or Lenten meals and worship, or Christmas parties, and the like. All experiential. Being taught about "that for which there is no evidence" is itself experiential. Sunday school is experiential, even if the subject of the teaching is never manifest.
Religions ALL involve a lot of person to person stuff, which is our human bread and butter.
How do you feel about all the preachers indoctrinators proselytizers out there, then?
4th Grade Science Quiz (David Mikkelson, Snopes, Apr 2013)
Quoting DingoJones
Yeah. A majority of religious adherents (like Christian, Hindu, Muslim) ...
All their deities neither evident nor necessary, just humans.
Quoting 3017amen
...
Those people are not a good example.
Pick a serious theologian at the Catholic University of Turin to talk about Catholic theology. Or pick an experienced Rabbi at a Sanhedrin of your choice to solve jurisprudential questions in Jewish law; or choose an experienced mufti who lectures at the Islamic University of Alexandria. These people understand their own system very, very well.
Seriously, you are going for the wrong crowd. The people whom you have chosen, are not to be taken seriously. They simply known nothing about their own subject.
(y)
I was referring to the majority out there.
The preachers indoctrinators proselytizers that all claim to be speaking the truth of the matter.
And that is what we're after, yes?
It's not like the pastors/imams/pujas conclude their sermons with "Oh, but we don't know".
Hence asking how you feel about them. (Apparently, some piss you off.)
Ergo, belief in God is not a belief about something that exists or doesn't exist. It's a belief about the meaning of what exists. A theistic philosophy posits that the nature of the Universe is such that it means or implies the reality of a source of order which cannot itself be understood on the level of phenomena. Accordingly, this source of order cannot be said to be something that exists, because existing things (1) have a beginning and an end in time and (2) are composed of parts. (Any objectors, please provide an example of something existing that doesn't satisfy those conditions); and also because 'what exists' is contingent, whereas 'the source of what exists' is necessary.
There are elaborations of this understanding in classical theology, for instance, John Scottus Eriugena:
However
In other words, the concept of 'existence' cannot be univocally applied to beings on different levels of the hierarchy ('great chain of being').
SEP
Even your avatar understood religious faith to be an irrational leap.
I think this is the other way around. ‘What exists’ is necessarily dependent on everything else and necessarily transitory in nature. ‘The source of what exists’ is contingent upon whatever need one is trying to fulfill, such as the need for meaning.
Yes, it seems reasonable to say there are different ways of being or existence, but not radically different kinds of being or existence. The idea of a hierarchy of being is an anthropomorphic projection; different ways of being or existence (excluding the moral or aesthetic dimension) are not, in any absolute or essential sense, higher or lower, or better or worse.
:up: :up:
Quoting tim wood
:wink:
To perk you up and lift your spirit, kind of:
This does sound quite a bit like faith, though. I think faith in concerning metaphysical concepts is perfectly fine. I just don't think it obliges me to adopt an agnostic position.
Quoting Pantagruel
But evidence for what, exactly?
Quoting Pantagruel
I think that, by definition, a consciousness toto caelo unlike ours would be unknowable to us. We can recognise consciousness that is significantly similar to our own, but only by comparison to our own behaviour. I see no way to ever establish totally alien consciousness, though I think it's fine to fantasize about them (I do, too).
Quoting Pantagruel
Given that you could define "God" in a way to refer to your pet goldfish, sure it does. But of course people refer to traditional notions of God when they call themselves atheist.
It would seem to me that if there is a source of order, and the source of order does not have a beginning or end in time, and it's not composed of parts, then existent things do not necessarily have a beginning or end in time and are not necessarily composed of parts. Ditto for contingency versus necessity.
Or in other words, this seems like a type of special pleading.
So then you'd need to explain what you think is the non-straw man version of god(s) . . . and of course that will probably lead to new issues and new doubts or denials as above.
Can you name any such thing? I mean, here I am, typing my response to you on an iPad on the kitchen bench: there’s nothing I can sense here which is not temporally limited or compound. Everything I see around me is composed of parts and begins and ends in time. So if you’re making such a claim, how can you support it? What do you mean by it?
You're suggesting one. God or the source of order in your view. If there is such a thing, then that thing exists and not all existents have parts, etc.
If you're saying there is something that's not experiential then you can't say that all existents are experiential.
It's addressing the question in pointing out that asking about experience is irrelevant if one is positing that there are non-experiential things. In that case, existents aren't exhausted by talking about experiential things.
Great !! So far I'm up on the Atheist 3-0 and counting LOL
You're not even addressing most posts/most points or questions in those posts.
What do you mean when you say classical theology? A specific time period?
Quoting Wayfarer
That seems to describe a metaphysical concept. So, you're saying God should not be understood as a physical entity, but as a metaphysical concept?
What would you say are the epistemic rules concerning metaphysical concepts?
Quoting Wayfarer
Which would be the correct attribute or relation to describe metaphysical concepts, if "existence/nonexistence" cannot be used? Truth/Falsehood?
What would you like me to address?
In your case, you contradicted yourself on the topic of Purpose
And secondly, you didn't understand basic deductive/formal logic in defending your claim that God doesn't exist.
Sure. So start with that. What did you take to be a contradiction (presumably some P (some proposition) that I both asserted and denied)?
Quoting 3017amen
Re that, I proposed a wager. Would you make a wager about it?
You're still in the dark. Why do I have goals? What does that confer? Happiness/purpose?
You contradicted yourself from your earlier statement that there is no purpose. Then you said human's have goals.
Then on your next point. I might be mistaken, but if you're claiming God does not exist in a proposition, you have to defend it.
What I wrote was "The world in general has no purposes." In other words, outside of humans thinking about things that way, purposes do not obtain in the world. And then I mentioned teleology (I mentioned it being bunk). Teleology is "the explanation of phenomena in terms of the purpose they serve rather than of the cause by which they arise" or "the doctrine of design and purpose in the material world." That should have given you a clue what I was saying with "The world in general has no purposes" if that sentence alone was not sufficient. (You're not another Aspie, are you?)
Quoting 3017amen
I asked you per what do you have to defend it. You said per the rules of formal, including propositional, logic. I challenged you to a wager: find a logic textbook that says anything like "If you claim that P, then you have to defend it" and you win the bet. The reason I made that challenge is that you've made a number of statements about logic that suggest that you don't understand what logic is.
Your point alludes to cosmology. I'm talking consciousness/cognitive science. So, can you answer why human's have purpose and why that's important?
Your second point, unless I've missed something regarding 'P', were you able to simply answer the important/relevant question:
1. God does not exist.
Again, is it true or false? (If you answered it please let me know where, or just answer it now.)
I'll wager you can't defend it, yes. No textbook needed is there?
Quoting 3017amen
This is why it's important to not bypass some posts.
Re why humans can think about things in terms of purpose, I said this, in response to every potential question of this sort:
"The only reason that those things exist [such as purposes] is because it's stuff that brains can do, and natural processes can and did result in the formation of brains as they are. There's no additional 'why' to it aside from that."
Also, countless times now, I've explained to you that there need not be any importance to any trait that arises. That's not to say that thinking about things in terms of purpose isn't important, but it's irrelevant whether it's important. It could be a detriment, and it could still have arisen and persisted.
We're at an impasse. You are not answering the existential question about the why's of existence.
Your talking around the question and deflecting away from your own truth.
Example: most all humans have a purpose to fall in love and procreate. Is that instinct or higher consciousness or both? If it's both, you would have to admit that there still remains a mystery associated with animal or human existence.
Otherwise we are left with your contradiction of the cosmological world having no purpose, yet the animals/humans who inhabit the world do indeed have a purpose.
Am I missing something there?
Regarding the other:
1. God does not exist.
True or false?
I bet you can't defend your position.
As I say here, there is no why other than this:
"The only reason that those things exist [such as purposes] is because it's stuff that brains can do, and natural processes can and did result in the formation of brains as they are. There's no additional 'why' to it aside from that."
You'd have to explain why, in your view, that doesn't answer why something like purpose exists as a way we think about things. Can you explain that?
Re this, instincts aren't purposes. Purposes are ways that we consciously think about something. As I explained, it's a motivational, goal-directed manner of thinking. If you don't have in your conscious mind, "My purpose for x is y," or "My purpose is to y," then purposes do not apply.
First, you can't answer the question of whether God exists or not right? Looks like I win there.
Second, I just explained it to you:
Most all humans have a purpose to fall in love and procreate. Is that instinct or higher consciousness or both? If it's both, you would have to admit that there still remains a mystery associated with animal or human existence. Otherwise we are left with your contradiction of the cosmological world having no purpose, yet the animals/humans who inhabit the world do indeed have a purpose.
I'll be waiting, surely you don't want to concede that Atheism is untenable yet do you? We just started the debate LOL
Let me demonstrate to the viewers another conundrum that maybe you can wrestle with.
1. I'm a composer and performer. I play both by ear and am classically trained and know most everything about music theory.
2. Most all humans love or like to listen to music.
3. Music theory obviously has no biological significance at all.
Explain to me why number three is false?
Re the post I just made above this, someone only has a purpose to fall in love and procreate if they intentionally think, "I have a goal or purpose to fall in love and procreate."
Otherwise there's no such purpose for that human.
Do you agree with this?
Quoting 3017amen
So just to be 100% clear, your answer to my question is "No"?
The being or entity or substance you call god does not exist because, like a planet made of chocolate, it’s impossible. It’s made up.
Mmmm, interesting. So are you saying God doesn't exist?
I'm not saying that. But since you as an Atheist believe God doesn't exist, you must have a different explanation I'm guessing... .
So since you have no answer, your Atheism remains untenable in the 21st Century!
No?
God exists as a character in a book.
Everything that exists can be understood as merely conceptual, so this point seems extremely weak. Do unicorns exist? They certainly exist conceptually. We can easily see how the conceptual components of a unicorn have been synthesized to form the concept. It’s much harder to determine the reason why unicorns exist (if only conceptually), or rather to determine the role of what’s symbolized plays in society. Because the concept is so widespread I think it’s fair to say that it’s useful in some way. Significantly, if it was not useful it would not exist.
Atheism can offer valid reasons for why God exists, in other words.
To answer your question, in using the logic of language, our consciousness unfortunately limits us to things like: inductive reasoning, phenomenology, Kantian intuition, Physical science, cognitive science, and other experiences and physical and philosophical/psychological analogies... .
In my opinion, if one personally discovers and uncovers any real meaning for themselves, then one could associate that meaning with a leap of faith in order to make logical sense of their experiences. Of course that would beg the question concerning the nature of Faith. For example, is a so-called everyday pragmatic human faith the same as a theoretical/metaphysical type of faith, and so on.
So, if I say God is ineffable or spiritual/genderless like What I think God is, that would be based upon my inductive reasoning or logical inference of how the physical world [things that are physically seen and unseen and experienced] works viz. our consciousness and the limitations thereof.
That's my cursory version.
That's cool. Is the character real to you?
I can pick up the book and read about this character at any time, so yes.
That's cool. It's funny too, when we study history generally speaking, it begs the question of its truth value regardless of the subject matter...
For example, do we really know what George Washington said? Do we really know what Jesus said? etc. etc. etc...
Subjective truth (and bias) is written into history. It's recorded by subjects about subjects. And that's not a bad thing either, or is it?
I don’t think it’s a bad thing. Not many people were capable of writing and reading in ancient times, so personally I’ll take whatever I can get, no matter how biased or unbelievable.
But yes, you’re right about the truth-value of history. So much history is left out of history.
Quoting 3017amen
I read through your response several times just to make sure I wasn't overlooking something, but I am still not seeing a definitive answer to the question. I believe you are answering "No", but I could be mis-understanding you. So please:
Does the word "God" - as you are using it in this discussion - represent any physical being or object in the universe? Please choose one of the following answers:
1. Yes
2. No
But yes, you’re right about the truth-value of history. So much history is left out of history.
Yep, I'm wit you on that brother!
Of course that's one of my gripes about far-right/extreme Fundamentalism. Just think, there could be information out there that could be so liberating for people...ie, the problem with evil, sexuality, and so on.
I've already mentioned my concern about LGBT folks (I'm heterosexual) and the condemnation from the far-right... .
1. Yes
2. No
1.Both.
a. The physical apple appears red. Upon further examination the apple is not red, but a mottled color of red.
b. We don't have a distinct color from the color wheel that describes 'mottled' red.
c. Therefore, we say it's both a and not a. (P and-p).
d. Otherwise, in our conscious mind, what is red/describe the color red.
e. Similarly, in our conscious mind, also describe in physical terms human sentience and/or Love.
f. Human's most prized possession is Love
Existentially, my limited ability to reason accurately, leaves me with saying both. To that end, and maybe in a fun kind of way, the concept of God is: God is a mottled color of truth.
Thoughts?
Saying I have no answer, when I'm giving you the answer but you're just saying it's not acceptable without explaining why it's not acceptable doesn't really work.
At any rate you ignored this post:
Someone only has a purpose to fall in love and procreate if they intentionally think, "I have a goal or purpose to fall in love and procreate."
Otherwise there's no such purpose for that human.
Do you agree with this?
The concept of 'God' is a concept.
When I watch that I'm just waiting for that part where I have to start shooting people. (I like playing video games.)
3) You don't know.
You've been very insistent that folks give you a specific answer to the question "Does God exist".
But words have meaning. If you want an answer to your question, you need to give clear and coherent definitions of the words "God" and "exists". This is what I am attempting to get from you (so far unsuccessfully).
Just e.g., here is a good definition of the word as I use it exists
Do you agree with this?
No, because if that person does not want to fall in love (in that case), thier consciousness will turn yet to another unfulfilled goal/purpose.
Do half-truth's exist?
No, the positive Atheist say's:
1. God does not exist.
So your comment applies to them.
I'm a Christian Existentialist.
Otherwise, I'm comfortable with half-truth's existing. Which of course they do, right?
"No such purpose" is a different phrase than "No purpose." "No such purpose" means that they do not have the purpose in question if it's not consciously present. It doesn't mean that they won't have some other purpose in mind.
However, some people think of nothing as a purpose. They may have goals, but they don't actually think about those in terms of them being a purpose.
But it still begs the question why should a human have goals? For what purpose?
NICE Poetic!
Hey, do me a nice poem on God, a mottled color of truth!
Thanks
There are no shoulds or purposes other than thinking about things in those terms. So you're looking for an answer that can't be had--it's a category error. People do think in terms of normatives and purposes and so on. It's simply a contingent fact of brain evolution. There's no purpose, there's no "should" to brains evolving as they did.
What's a category error?
The idea that (it's true that) a human should (or shouldn't) have goals or that there's a purpose to having goals.
Or are you asking what category errors are in general?
If in general, see; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_mistake
Is having no goals a goal?
If someone thinks about it that way. Again, goals and purposes are not the same thing, though.
Of course, as do half-lies.
Do you have an example of a half-lie ?
In any case can a human eradicate their goals and purposes?
As other folks on this thread have been telling you in different ways, until you can give reasonably clear definitions of the words "God" and "exist" your position is incoherent and meaningless.
Quoting 3017amen
Do you see? You keep using the word "exist(s)" and "existing" - but as it stands, this sentence is just a bit of poetic whimsy with no meaning. Defining your terms is the first step.
‘God’s image reflects the mottled colors
Painted by human artists upon the air
Where the wormed apple was before the fall
That rotted away truth’s Tree of Knowledge.
Existing: in existence or operation at the time under consideration; current.
You sound like you're overthinking this.
You asked me a question and my answer is: both.
Are you not satisfied with that answer?
I thought it went without saying that God is not a physical entity but spirit. Of course, that then raises the question of the nature of spirit - which is the subject matter of philosophical theology. Which takes us into the territory of metaphysics.
My argument here is basically that what we nowadays understand as 'what exists' comprises the 'domain of phenomena' - those things, forces, entities, that are knowable by scientific means, the realm of naturalism, and so on. So, most often, when the question is asked whether God exists, it presumes that God is part of that domain of phenomena. Hence the 'flying spaghetti monster', the 'celestial teapot' and all the other memes that you encounter in internet atheism.
But, the effort is mainly misplaced. All the 'new atheists' (in particular) don't understand what it is they think doesn't exist. So when I refer to 'classical theology', I do that to distinguish it from American Protestant fundamentalism, which in my view makes a similar kind of error, and which I take to be a fallacious misrepresentation of genuine theology. (And actually I'm highly dubious about Protestantism generally, for reasons I won't go into here.) But as for representatives of what I would describe as classical theology, I would mention David Bentley Hart and Edward Feser, both contemporaries, and the neo-thomist philosophers, among others.
See reviews of David Bentley Hart's The Experience of God and also here.
Quoting Echarmion
The vital perspective that has gone missing is that of degrees of reality. This is related to a worldview grounded in the idea of the chain of being - that reality emanates from or is originated by a transcendent intelligence, and cascades down through various levels of being, of which matter is the lowest level, i.e. most remote from the origin or source. And as our culture sees matter as being the only reality, then obviously understanding or coming to terms with that outlook is quite a difficult matter.
But one way into it, is through the reality of intelligibles. That is the platonist route. It will point out that whilst all phenomena are compound and transient, there is something that the intellect can grasp that is not, and that is the reality of number and geometric form. So represents knowledge of a different kind to sensory knowledge - it's direct intellectual apprehension, dianoia.
Hahaha, that was good Poetic, I love the melodramatic music!!!
Some say God is truth
Some say God is false
Others say that both are true
Like humans having faults
:clap:
Hey 180 don't be shy come join the party!
LOL
1. God does not exist.
True or false or something else?
Do theists understand what it is they think exists?
I think, through practice, you 'understand' it in your bones. You might not be able to spell it out, say what it is, but you understand it by exemplifying it. So, for instance, the commandment 'love others as self' - it's easy enough to say 'oh yes, I can see what that means'. But through the practice of a faith, it actually becomes second nature. Then you 'understand' it, by living it out.
As to the commandment "love others as self" I think that is perfectly natural for a socially functional animal, and does not necessarily require any special extra beliefs in anything transcendent, although it may require that for some, but I think it all depends on the way one thinks.
I think you underestimate the capacity for spirituality, for love and goodness, of the secular because you fail to understand it. It pays to remember that not everyone is the same; there is no "one size fits all" in these matters.
Religious faith, and hence practice, is unsuitable to those who cannot believe without evidence, that is what it comes down to. If you can believe without evidence then you are suited just fine to be religious or to follow some traditional spiritual path, and I'm not one to say there is anything wrong with that.
The atmosphere of paradox is handy here. Paradox is a transrational thing so not always welcome in philosophical dialog. I'm not sure if paradox is a handy way to describe god only because god insists on unanalyzability for Itself.
God exists as a potential illumination (sacralization, quickening, intensifying) of the fabric of reality. Through spiritual practice a person can learn how to manipulate the fabric of reality to "see" god (the subject calls his experience "seeing god" because this seems to be the most precise use of the linguistic conventions at hand). This changes the fabric of reality for the subject but has no direct effect on other people so in this sense god exists and at the same time god does not exist. The subject has compelling evidence for the existence of god. But this evidence is subjective. And the word "god" may be a reluctant terminological necessity.
Can a phenomenon-in-potentia be said to exist and not to exist?
Of course. Simply stop thinking about anything that way.
Is that Nihilism?
The subject has compelling evidence for the existence of an experience that s/he conceptualizes as 'seeing god". Alternatively s/he could conceptualize it as "realizing Buddha Nature", "seeing the unity of Atman and Brahmin", " becoming who I am" "Satchitananda" (being, consciousness, bliss), "attaining enlightenment", "rejoining the Ocean of Being", 'wandering in the dreamtime". "playing in the Akashic fields" " strawberry fields forever" "lucy in the sky with diamonds" " McArthur's Park is melting in the dark" " it's all too beautiful" and so on ad infinitum.
No. It doesn't have anything to do with nihilism.
"Can a phenomenon-in-potentia be said to exist and not to exist?"
What a fabulous question. I'm going to think about that for a while. The short answer could be that Being is both a noun and a verb
In the meantime consider the following. Time is required for Humans to exist thus a metaphorical bullet point:
1. During procreation a seed is planted.
2. Time is required for its development
3. Existence requires time
4. Time is existence.
What do you call a human being at conception other than a fetus?
Is it a person, half person, human being in the making... ?
Just a strange analogy using words and concepts...
Why not? Couldn't one have a goal of Nilhilism?
If you stop thinking about anything in terms of goals and purposes you're not going to have a goal of nihilism. You'd have to have "I have a goal of nihilism" as a conscious thought in order to have a goal of nihilism. But obviously that's not the case if you're not thinking of anything in terms of goals or purposes.
You’re doing halfway well in this topic.
I'm not quite following that. Are you now thinking that a person can think about nothing at all and still exist?
That's what I'm left with if you say that humans have no goals.
Help me out there...
Don't be afraid of yourself. Join the party. It's okay to be scared; if you're scared say you're scared !!!
Speaking of half-truths, actually you halfway joined the party already LOL!!
You only have a goal if you think about something in terms of a goal. Are you saying that every single thought you have is in terms of a goal?
I'm saying that what you were saying is false due to our stream of consciousness.
But if such ideas are
Quoting Terrapin Station
Then there's no reason to believe them, they are not grounded in anything other than contingent facts. Some people just happen to believe such things - and good on 'em! But the problem is, it doesn't amount to a philosophy.
From the above-mentioned review of D B Hart:
I can't tell if that's a yes or no.
So for example, I just thought, "I can't tell if he's answering yes or no." I didn't think anything about a goal.
To believe them? It's not clear to me what you're referring to. To believe what?
That would be false because your goal is to seek the truth.
Therefore you have an inherent higher consciousness.
And that in part, is another reason why Atheism is untenable. No?
No. I don't have a goal to seek the truth unless I'm consciously thinking "I have a goal to seek the truth."
You don't have goals that you're not aware of and focused on as goals.
And I think it's called the subconscious LoL
I don't buy that there are any subconscious mental phenomena.
Sure, volitional existence. As a goal you chose Atheism LoL
The specific belief in question was 'treat others as self', as an example of Christian principles. Janus then said:
Quoting Janus
So I replied by referring to your post:
Quoting Terrapin Station
So I'm using that to show that naturalism can be questioned as a basis for ethics, because it provides no reason or grounding for such principles as 'love thy neighbour'. Basically it says they're a by-product of an essentially meaningless process. And I'm using your quote to illustrate that.
Say what?
Quoting 3017amen
Atheism isn't a goal for me. It's simply a term for a belief I have.
I wouldn't say that's a belief. It's an exhortation. Beliefs have to do with thinking that something is the case.
When you're driving a car daydreaming and run a red light and crash into someone is that your conscious or subconscious?
Regarding atheism as a belief, it sounds like another religion, doesn't it?
There are a lot of good things to call it. The category you catalog is the peak experience made famous by Abraham Maslow. "Seeing god" is one way to say it and in the moment of "seeing god" and saying "I see god" god exists to the one who sees him.
Would you that spangle of Existence spend
About The Secret—quick about it, Friend!
A Hair perhaps divides the False from True—
And upon what, prithee, may life depend?
A Hair perhaps divides the False and True;
Yes; and a single Alif were the clue—
Could you but find it—to the Treasure-house,
And peradventure to The Master too;
Whose secret Presence through Creation’s veins
Running Quicksilver-like eludes your pains;
Taking all shapes from Máh to Máhi and
They change and perish all—but He remains;
A moment guessed—then back behind the Fold
Immerst of Darkness round the Drama roll’d
Which, for the Pastime of Eternity,
He doth Himself contrive, enact, behold.
—From FitzGerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Full truth: you have a health sense of humor.
He is too busy to attend your boring theist party. Atheists party hard.
LOL[/quote]
Buzzin'.
[quote=3017amen]1. God does not exist.
True or false or something else?[/quote]
Flypaper.
[quote=3017amen]Couldn't one have a goal of Nilhilism?[/quote]
"Nihilism is as dead as god." ~Thomas Ligotti
[quote=3017amen] As a goal you chose Atheism LoL[/quote]
Avoids flypaper, and keeps buzzin' ... :death:
I agree. Storybooks are NOT about whether or not the characters exist. Hence: atheism.
If I claim a unicorn is standing in front of Harris Teeter at 3 pm every Wednesday, it is NOT about whether or not the unicorn exists, but instead whether or not this claim is true.
It validates atheism IN THE CONTEXT of that God. Hence, the point.
Atheism DOES NOT care about Gods that say nothing to care about. To say that atheists claim NO GOD EXISTS is a poor interpretation of what atheism claims. Atheism (positive atheism anyway) claims that only the gods claiming to be important - do not exist, and does so by demonstration.
That by default includes not just theism, but deism, Hindu's and all other bizarre supernatural gods and the unicorns.
It does not include which ever 'possible' IF ANY AT ALL, yet to mean anything..
But tonight they're going to act out the Dead Sea Scrolls!
Quoting 3017amen
We'll have to send you to a halfway house until you can go all the way.
Quoting Swan
Tip your temptation glass at the big Theist party, but be careful not to spill a drop:
It's not a matter of believing anything but of recognizing what is the most effective way to live harmoniously and happily with community. So, if humans generally tend to exemplify this characteristic of caring about others in their community, this is not merely a "contingent fact of brain evolution" but a trait which has been selected for insofar as communities of loving people are more likely to survive than divided communities of hateful or indifferent people.
Recognition that the Golden Rule exemplifies the best way for living well in community does not diminish the philosophical value of such a way, any more than following the Dao would not amount to a philosophy. Per Aristotle it's called phronesis; practical wisdom.
So this: Quoting Wayfarer
is quite wrongheaded; there is nothing meaningless about living well in community. Naturalism is not an axiomatic "basis for ethics" but what is natural to humans is likely to be what works best. Today because of consumerism, entertainment and the self-centredness they foster, community, and concern for others, at least in the populous urban environs, has, unfortunately, largely declined. All this is more on account of capitalistically oriented thinking, and the sense of individual ownership and entitlement that comes with it than anything else.
If you say that is the extent of god's existence, I can find no disagreement. :grin:
Which is attributable to social psychology and philosophy. Suicide is a leading cause of non-natural death in contemporary culture, and I’m sure it’s tied to the underlying nihilism of modern cultural psychology.
And what I mean by ‘naturalism’ is ‘current scientific naturalism’ which is generally physicalist in outlook. It’s nothing like the ‘natural law’ ethics of Aristotelianism or for that matter Taoism, or any of the pre—modern social codes which you appeal to above. There’s no basis for ethics in Darwinism, other than the kind of utilitarian ethos that is suggested by the notion that the only ‘purpose’, so-called, of existence is passing on the genome.
Modern culture is no where near as nihilistic as you imagine it. It's just that the prevailing values have become overly focused on the individual, but that is much more a symptom than it is the cause of the decline of community. That comes inevitably with large densely concentrated urban populations, or so it seems to me.
I think philosophical physicalism plays almost no part in most people's lives; they are just not that interested in metaphysics. The point is that the idea of natural law, in the sense of a natural social/ethical orientation for human beings, is sufficient to ground ethics. It seems to me you are forever attacking strawmen when it comes to this question; time to let it go and refocus.
Depends on who you're talking to, I guess. I agree insofar as God is incoherent as a physical entity anyways. But I tend to bring up the possibility just in case.
Quoting Wayfarer
I have a bit of a different view on the matter. I think that a problem of the theism/atheism debates among laypeople is that whatever is meant by "existence" is not properly defined at all. This means that people tend to mix physical and metaphysical perspectives, in addition to mixing epistemic, ontic and normative perspectives. More often than not, you end up with a big mess with everyone talking past each other.
I don't think there is a general trend among people towards dismissing the metaphysical. I think that, now as in the past, people who aren't familiar with the philosophy of epistemology tend not to make a clear distinction between the two.
Quoting Wayfarer
Do you think that, if they understood, they wouldn't be atheists? I think I understand, at least the basics, but I am not convinced.
Quoting Wayfarer
That perspective too requires justification though. How do we judge whether this perspective is, for lack of a better word, true?
Quoting Wayfarer
I don't think that's an accurate assessment of our culture. Materialism is not quite the same as physicalism.
Quoting Wayfarer
Right. I agree that such a-priori apprehension exists. But that alone is not sufficient to establish a platonic world of intelligibles.
Agree!
Quoting Echarmion
Well, they might still be atheists but not on the basis of such facile arguments.
Dawkins' book The God Delusion begins with a chapter on Einstein as an exemplar of 'the very religious non-believer'. It's perfectly true that Einstein would not have a bar of institutional religion and thought it childish nonsense. But he said many things that contradict atheism, such as his well known (and bona-fide) statement 'Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in fact, religious.'
Likewise, I don't think anyone ought to believe that science 'proves' or 'shows' anything about 'God' whatever. At best it suggests certain perspectives. The way I put it is like this: that to believe that it proves that God doesn't exist, is the fallacy of scientific materialism; and to believe that it proves that He does, is the fallacy of religious fundamentalism. So, many of the arguments that naturalism 'proves' or 'shows' that the origin of life/mind/universe is understood by science are just as otiose as the fundamentalism that they're typically trotted out to oppose. Actually materialism and fundamentalism have a rather symbiotic relationship.
Quoting Echarmion
Of course, it's a very big, contested and subtle topic, and I'm never going to be able to do it justice in a few lines on a philosophy forum. Suffice to say that I accept the fundamentally Platonic notion that 'ideas are real' - and not just in the sense that they exist in some (physical) brain.
Quoting Echarmion
In its absence, there is no epistemic framework for the understanding of 'degrees of reality'. We tend to think that 'existence' is univocal - that something either exists or that it doesn't. But I think any kind of metaphysics has to allow for the fact that things can be more or less real. Of course, it's a big subject but I'm pointing to the fact that without taking it into consideration, then our assessment of the issues is likely to be rather one-dimensional.
Daydreaming is a conscious mental phenomenon. So is awareness while driving, although simple awareness is not the same sort of mental phenomenon as imagining or fantasizing.
Quoting 3017amen
I wouldn't say so. Religions are "the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods," "a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs" or something similar. Religions aren't just any arbitrary belief.
I wouldn't say that. It's a moral exhortation. Moral stances aren't a belief system, since moral stances aren't even true or false. We could say that it involves a belief that there are others to treat some way, but I wouldn't say that's a "belief system" or that it's indicative of one.
Atheism also isn't a "belief system" or even necessarily a belief (if we accept the notion of "negative atheism").
That's the extent of it as far as I can tell.
Does music theory confer biological survival value?
LOL
Interesting... I have many questions about your belief in consciousness, but I'll ask just one right now about phenomenon. What's the religious experience? Is that a phenomenon?
All experiences are conscious mental phenomena. "Experience" is a broad term for temporally -unfolding mental awareness of something.
Religions are "the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods," "a set of beliefs concerning the cause, "
I'm confused. You are saying you have a belief in atheism. Does that mean you have a belief that God does not exist?
Secondly, you use the word personal. Are you saying you know the truth about subjective truths?
And so is the subconscious a phenomenon?
I have a (justified, true) belief that god does not exist, yes. (And I told you this in a post above, by the way.)
Quoting 3017amen
Sure, I'd say that (if you're asking from a meta, truth-theory perspective).
Not a mental phenomenon, no. Unconscious brain functions are not mental phenomena.
Using consciousness, how can you prove that your belief is true?
I'm still confused. Are you saying you can get inside my head and objectively tell me whether my subjective truth is objective?
But if I'm driving down the road daydreaming and kill myself in the process, what told me to do that?
"Proof" is a red herring. Empirical claims are not provable, and proof in the context of logic and mathematics is simply a matter of whether something follows per the system we've set up.
One way that I know the claim is true, though, is that the very idea of nonphysical existents is incoherent. I had mentioned this to you either earlier in this thread or in the previous thread.
Quoting 3017amen
This is the first time you're introducing the word "objective." I hadn't said anything about that. Subjective truth isn't objective, of course. That's a simple contradiction. You don't need to repeat the adjective again, but subjective truth is subjective, obviously. That simply means that truth is something that occurs via mentality. Namely, it's a judgment about the relation of a proposition to something else.
Quoting 3017amen
What "told you" to have an accident? Nothing "tells you" to have an accident. It's an accident.
now
Forgive me for not following your logic. If I'm having an accident, what caused me to have that accident to kill myself?
Or let me say it in the reverse order. What can help me prevent the accident while I'm daydreaming driving a car?
In the scenario you're talking about, the simple fact that you're not paying much attention to what you're doing with respect to driving.
What can help you prevent it is to pay attention to it.
Interesting of course that begs many questions at the heart of atheism.
1. God does not exist.
Using your logic from your quote, is that an objective truth or subjective truth?
Truth is never objective. Truth is a judgment we make--so a mental activity, about the relation of a proposition to something else. So by definition, it's subjective.
"Proof" is a red herring. Empirical claims are not provable, and proof in the context of logic and mathematics is simply a matter of whether something follows per the system we've set up.
I agree.
So how can you demonstrate that God doesn't exist then?
Through what method of logic?
"Proof" is a red herring. Empirical claims are not provable, and proof in the context of logic and mathematics is simply a matter of whether something follows per the system we've set up.
I agree.
So how can you demonstrate that God doesn't exist then?
Through what method of logic?
One way you demonstrate it is empirically. By showing that everywhere you look, there's no god.
Another way you demonstrate it is via the fact that the notion of a nonphysical existent is incoherent. (I've already explained this many times.)
Truth is never objective. Truth is a judgment we make--so a mental activity, about the relation of a proposition to something else. So by definition, it's subjective."
That would mean your belief that God doesn't exist is a subjective truth?
Gotcha, then describe to me the color red? Or better yet, describe the feeling of love?
Beliefs aren't truths period. Truth is a property of propositions. But yes, it would mean that the truth of "God does not exist" is subjective, because a fortiori, all truth-value is subjective. All this means is that truth-value is a judgment that we make about the relation of a proposition to something else. It's not saying anything about whether anything is a fact or not, it doesn't amount to saying that facts are subjective, etc.
What can help you prevent it is to pay attention to it.
But what if I simply can't pay attention and I have an accident what caused that?
What in my consciousness caused that?
They make these things called "dictionaries" that will do this for you for any word you like. You can even get them in other languages.
Red - "of a color at the end of the spectrum next to orange and opposite violet, as of blood, fire, or rubies."
Love - "an intense feeling of deep affection"
I already said, the fact that you weren't paying attention caused it.
Quoting 3017amen
Nothing. The lack of conscious attention with respect to driving caused it.
Love - "an intense feeling of deep affection"
What is human sentience then, how is that physical?
It's a set of brain states. Brains are physical.
But cognitive science says it was my subconscious are you refuting that?
I'd both refute that and I'm refuting the claim that cognitive science says that subconscious mental content causes accidents. I'll offer another wager to you about that, even. Find me something from an academic/peer-reviewed source in cognitive science that claims that subconscious mental content causes accidents and you win the bet.
It's a set of brain states. Brains are physical.
now
I'm confused what are brain States consciousness and subconsciousness working together?
But that would be a contradiction no?
I don't understand that question grammatically. Could you rewrite it?
I'll make you a counteroffer, check with atheist Daniel Dennett in his book 'consciousness explained' and then we'll parse it.
In the meantime I'm learning that you really don't understand human consciousness do you?
I don't understand that question grammatically. Could you rewrite it?
Sure, explain your meaning of brain states?
What? You made a claim about what cognitive scientists claim re subconscious minds and accidents. I called bull on that claim. Why are you telling me to check something--I'm not the one making a claim about what cognitive scientists say, and why would you be telling me to check Dennett of all people? He's an eliminative materialist. He doesn't even buy that there are minds in the conventional "folk" sense. He's certainly not going to claim that we have subconscious minds and that they cause accidents.
Quoting 3017amen
I certainly do more than you, given the questions you're asking.
Nothing unusual. You know what a brain is, right? (Or do I need to explain that to you, too?) Brains are dynamic, in constantly changing electrochemical states, with different neurons activated to different degrees etc. at different times.
Then the question still remains unanswered:
1. Is human sentience physical ( explain the feeling we get looking at the color red and explained the brain states of Love phenomenon)?
2. Explain what happens when I'm not paying attention while driving a car having an accident and killing myself, explain that phenomenon?
Yes. I answered this already.
Re explaining the feeling you get when you look at red, how am I going to know the feeling that you get when you look at red (assuming for some odd reason that it would just be one feeling and not various feelings on different occasions, in different contexts)?
Re brain states for love, here: https://www.medicaldaily.com/what-love-mri-scan-reveals-what-stages-romantic-love-youre-brain-map-326080
Quoting 3017amen
I haven't the faintest idea why you'd see this as a mystery. You're not paying attention, and you do something careless as a result, like not stopping for a red light, as you suggested.
I'm afraid you're far from explaining it. If I look at the color red and perceive a feeling about it, tell me about the nature of that feeling?
Explain why I have that feeling in physical terms?
That makes no sense whatsoever. If I'm hard-wired to survive, you're suggesting my brain states willingly caused an accident by daydreaming.
Surely you're not suggesting that I daydream on purpose in order to kill myself right?
Sure. Do you remember what I said about this idea? If I offer something as an explanation that you're going to respond to with "that's not an explanation," then you're going to need to set forth your criteria for explanations.
Quoting 3017amen
I'll do this, but I'm not going to bother if you're just going to go, "That's not an explanation" or "That's far from explaining it" and that's the extent to which you address it.
So let's have your criteria for what counts, in general, as an explanation, so we can make sure that the explanation meets your criteria and you can't willy-nilly just say that it does not.
The whole idea of an accident is that it's not intentional. So no. "Willingly" is intentional. It's as if you're not familiar with the idea of accidents. But how could that be?
And I told you in the OP that you would not be able to explain many things about human existence including consciousness, and you are demonstrating the fact you can't.
For example does music theory confer biological advantages?
I could say that you can't explain anything at all. All I'd need to do, with any explanation you offer, is say, "That's not (sufficient for) an explanation." If I decide to do that, what can you do about it?
Nothing.
That's why we'd need to set forth our criteria for explanations.
But how could that be?
It's because I couldn't understand my conscienceness. But you're saying since you completely understand your consciousness, then you can prevent all accidents from occurring, is that what you are saying?
And then in response to anything you say, I can write, "That's not an explanation."
Well, there's nothing you could do about that if I'm not going to give you what my criteria are for whether something counts as an explanation.
Did I then "prove" that you're not able to explain how to spell the word "cat"?
Okay let's go back to this question then:
God does not exist?
You being an atheist is that true or false or something else?
Say what? "But how could it be that you're unfamiliar with the notion of what an accident is"
That's what I wrote (implicationally) there
1. God does not exist.
True or false or something else?
We're not going back to anything where you might respond with "That's not an explanation" if you don't set forth your criteria for explanations.
Do we agree to that? I'll go on, but not if you're just going to take a step back and respond again with "That's not an explanation" after a few posts back and forth, without you giving your criteria for explanations.
I answered this already and I'll answer again, but you're not going to respond with "That's not an explanation," right?
Is that true or false?
If you're not going to answer any questions, why do you expect me to? You have to play fair.
I'm not interested in this as a game or as an ego-inflating exercise for you.
I apologize TS did you answer that I missed it?
(God does not exist.)
Again, before dropping the above and going back a few squares, you need to say whether you agree that you're not going to simply respond with "That's not an explanation" again.
If you don't agree to that, or alternately you don't give your criteria for explanations, I'm not interested.
Accident: event that happens by chance or that is without apparent or deliberate cause.
Is that true or false?
TS, that definition is from the dictionary.
One more chance to answer the question I'm asking and not just keep retyping stuff like an OCD victim.
God does not exist.
It's a simple question I think, answer it yes or no. Or something else?
If you're unwilling to answer it then your seemingly
not an atheist.
And there goes the buzzer
Surely you're not acquiescing to the fact that atheism is untenable are you?
LOL
Do you know the saying about playing chess with a pigeon?
Hahaha! I thought my questions were simple, but then again maybe they're not so simple after all LOL!
In any case, it doesn't seem like atheism has the answers...( to the deep questions of existence).
Obligatory Einstein quote: :up:
NDE's: :up:
Sense of wonderment: :up:
obligatory condescending LOL in lieu of any understanding: :up:
Such original argumentation!
Hey happenstance welcome aboard!
What do you think about this simple question regarding atheism:
1. God does not exist.
Or since you mentioned a couple of those phenomena in your post:
1. Does music theory confer biological advantage?
2. Can you explain the feeling I have when I look at the color red?
Just askin'
Crappy argument?
Sure, I think it was Aristotle who said the greatest gift we can give to each other is to ' know thyself'.
Otherwise if I could read between the lines, it sounds like you are advocating atheism as a superior belief system of sorts. And that's perfectly fine.
It doesn't seem to provide the answers to basic existential questions though.
If you cannot explain the rules of chess to a pigeon, that doesn't mean that you don't know them.
Sure...Kantian intuition... or some other Reformed Epistemology?
(Otherwise existential questions are mysteriously answerable.)
I am not sure what you mean by Kantian intuition, but I do at least have some idea of Kant's epistemology.
Have you asked? What are the questions?
Sure, from the OP, I suggested these so-called phenomenon of making judgements from intuition.
1. Every event must have a cause.
That's called a synthetic a priori judgment. It's a synthesis of two concepts: experience and innate or what psychologists would call, intrinsic intuition.
So we know the statement is partially true but we're not exactly certain because we have not experienced every event.
This is ( an example of) the nature of human wonderment. And is also absolutely necessary (synthetic propositions) in using logic to discover anything in physics.
That also goes back to my point about half-truths existing (if you painstakingly read further back in the thread).
And so once again we're seeing that life is not perfectly logical like the Atheist's politically posit.
Faith, hope and love... .
You should have added an LOL
At one point in history monotheism was a minority view. A view becomes a mass delusion when the elites in a society propagate and enforce the belief by imprisoning and killing anyone who says otherwise. Over centuries of doing this, eventually you weed out the kinds of people who think originally, or for themselves, and end up with a society of sheep who follow orders without question.
Hey come on now you know I was only kidding I love you guys!
Yeah I get it... deplorable! But I would say don't throw the baby out with the bathwater either!
I'd like you better if you'd have a real discussion instead of acting like a troll.
Yeah, I dont get what this has to do with what I said.
You know TS, I got to stop this is a bad addiction. At least for a while, I got to get some work done.
(George Harrison/Beatles said: a lot of things in life can wait but the search for God cannot wait.)
But I love talking with you guys about religion. But you also have to own up to the fact that you never answered a lot of my questions in a direct succinct fashion.
That's okay we'll live for another day
I was speaking to the religious aspect (paradigms) of your concern.
So if you're saying it's all or nothing, or it's a or b , I of course would not agree with that dichotomization.
You are conflating answering “in a direct succinct fashion” with the answers you want us to say. You clearly want an atheist to say “god does not exist and here is my proof” or somesuch. Expecting that answer shows that you do not understand atheism, nor some of the basic logic behind atheist arguments/positions (such as the burden of proof).
People are becoming frustrated because you are not engaging. (Hence the “troll” accusation). Instead of engaging in discussion you are just trying to illicit responses which you can use to perpetuate your own talking points.
Personally, I think that you are being dishonest (perhaps not realising it) and the best you can do is couch your posts with feigned humility and good humour. ( hence the accusation of condescension).
You can show that isnt the case by exercising some succinct engagement of your own. I suggest starting by recognising the difference between “talking to” and “talking at”. Most people find the former to be the better of the two.
This seems contradictory. A-priori means prior to experience. I cannot be a synthetic a-priori judgement if it contains experience. Kant uses the qualifier "synthetic" to denote judgements that "synthesize" new information, as opposed to "analytic" judgements.
The rest doesn't really make much sense to me.
I am not playing games and I am not into political doublespeak. Personal attacks won't intimidate me in searching for the truth.
If people are frustrated they have to ask themselves why they feel frustrated.
For the 20th time parse/answer this statement/ question,:
1. God does not exist ?
You're an atheist so please answer the question. Now let's wait and see who's playing games ?
Because, for example, I asked you three or four times in a row if you'd either agree to not resort to saying "That's an explanation" or alternately think about and post your criteria for what counts as an explanation, and you wouldn't even address the issue. That's frustrating, because it's someone simply ignoring what you're saying, all while pretending that they want to have a conversation.
I'll try once again and ask you, is the following statement true or false:
1. God does not exist.
If you can't answer it, it's suggests atheism is untenable... prove me wrong.
Didn't you read the second page of this thread? You even responded to me about it.
Im not trying to intimidate you, nor was any if that a personal attack. Im trying to help you, because if you keep on doing what your doing people will just start ignoring you. Id rather that people had interesting interactions instead of talking past or ignoring each other.
The reason you seem like you are trolling is because you are ignoring direct points and questions. You responded to that by just doing the exact same thing. Ignoring and restating your question. People are not confused why they are frustrated, you are confused as to why its frustrating.
And I already answered your question, remember?
Guy's guys guys stop the political doublespeak:
Is the following statement true or false:
God does not exist.
The lack of answer suggests that you don't know, therefore, what we are left with is that atheism remains untenable.
Prove me wrong if you have the courage.
Doublespeak? Look at the 2nd page of this thread. It's not as if you didn't see it. You responded to it already.
Some sort of short-term memory weirdness? It was only two days ago.
It sucks that it's almost impossible to actually have a conversation with someone with a different point of view here (and on boards like this in general). Everyone either has act like they have various mental problems. It almost seems like folks believe that's the way to approach "debates" on the Internet--as if it's a requirement to act like you have some mental problem rather than having a straightforward, good-faith conversation. It just becomes a long string of people acting like they don't or can't understand anything the other person says, a la Aspie reading comprehension issues, absurd "playing dumb" approaches, repetitive OCDish behavior (as 3017 seems to be sinking into), and a variety of other trollish crap in the same vein.
My apologies guys. Seems like nobody wants to answer that simple question.
TS said : yes.
Dingo said : I don't know.
Now TS, why did you say yes?
(Dingo doesn't know so I have no questions for him other than one could reasonably inquire as to why he has a belief in atheism. And I use the word belief mainly because TS used the word when we were referring to cognition.)
So TS, why is this your belief ?
Ok, I will answer again but this is your last chance for an actual discussion. From me at least.
God does not exist, true or false?
The answer is I do not know. No, that doesnt mean atheism is untenable because atheism isnt the position that god doesnt exist. Atheism is the position of not believing a god does exist.
Now your turn to answer a question, I think thats fair.
Do you understand the distinction between a position that god doesnt exist and the position of not believing a god exists?
So you already asked in this post earlier in the thread:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/340427
I already started my answer in this post earlier in the thread:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/340432
Then you responded with this:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/340437
I responded to that post with this:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/340439
And then you dropped out of that subthread without commenting on the above post.
But is the following statement true or false:
1. God does not exist.
:grin:
Ya, there certainly seems to be alot of posturing in these forums. The main sources seem to be defensiveness based on assumption of incoming attacks (which I cant blame them fir really, the internet is like that) and arrogance, that they have cracked some philosophical code thats 100% ironclad so disagreement is equal to failure to understand.
Yes, good points.
Ok I think I'm following you. You said: Atheism is the position of not believing a god does exist.
So my question is what is the" belief " based upon?
Its not a belief, it is the lack of belief. This is an important distinction.
Okay please don't get mad but I don't understand.
What is a lack of belief in something? In cognition, what does that really mean?
Or in Philosophy, for example, is that an objective falsehood or a subjective falsehood or something else?
(Or if you prefer it's an epistemic question for you. )
For example, you lack a belief that Frank Zappa at a Whopper from Burger King on March 5, 1982.
Does that make sense to you?
No I don't think so, but what does make sense to me is that your , as you said " belief" , is untenable.
Or maybe ask Frank Zappa !!!
You don't understand that you don't have that belief?
Hey great question! No I don't know. Can you tell me why I don't?
Can I tell you why you don't understand it? No. It seems weird to me that you'd have difficulty with it, because it seems so simple to understand not having a particular belief.
Why can't you tell me? Don't take this the wrong way but your atheism is supposed to know about consciousness, belief systems, so on and so forth right?
Again please don't take it the wrong way theses very simple Existential questions
That doesn't have anything to do with atheism.
:up:
incidentally, I found a blog post years ago, long since vanished, which argued that the scholastic 'proofs of God' were in no way intended as rhetorical devices to convert unbelievers. It was taken for granted that faith was required for any such proofs to be meaningful; they were intended for intellectual edification, not as literal proof.
[quote=3017amen]
1. God does not exist.
True or false or something else?[/quote]
0. God does exist.
True or false or something else?
[quote=3017amen]In any case, it doesn't seem like atheism has the answers...( to the deep questions of existence).[/quote]
Atheism is merely (a) consequence of answering ... e.g. "the deep questions of existence".
[quote=3017amen]Does music theory confer biological survival value?[/quote]
No.
By the way, if your theism makes it so that you can't understand the notion of not having a particular belief, then it doesn't seem very useful.
Well you would lack a belief whenever you are not holding a particular belief. So in this case, I have not heard any arguments or seen evidence that convince me there is a god. Maybe there is, but I lack belief until such a time as those things are provided. Thats atheism. If anyone holds views about religion or god other than that, those views are beyond what atheism entails. (Anti theism for exemple)
From Defragmenting Modernity, Dr Paul Tyson p51ff
I doubt Dennett would be stupid enough to deny there are subconscious mental processes (or brain processes if you prefer). Do you claim to be aware of all your brain processes?
This is right. Worship establishes the existence of God for the worshipers. I think that much cannot be argued against.
The irony! :rofl:
Here is a nice summation I came across concerning the detrimental effect of the idea of "The Great Chain of Being" and the inevitable belief in human supremacy that goes with it:
[i]Whatever the favorite philosophical, theological, political, or other Rubicon, “the search for [an] elusive attribute” of human uniqueness and superiority “has been one of the favorite pursuits” of Western thinkers.31 What the various distinctive qualities share is the assumption of a definitive polarity between humans and nonhumans.
As one popular eighteenth- century English writer pithily summed this ostensibly clear-cut division, the line between man and the rest of nature is “strongly drawn, well- marked, and unpassable.”32The human distinctions fl owing from “Western Civilization 101,” so to speak, have primarily, and certainly as a distilled conditioning missive, not only exalted Anthropos and his supposed specialness but simultaneously portrayed nonhumans (and for a long time “inferior” humans) as deficient by comparison.
The quest for human distinction also functioned as the cornerstone trope for the elaboration of hierarchical narratives. The most enduring of these—historically threading across very different traditions of thought—has been the Great Chain of Being: this grand narrative ordered Creation as a graded hierarchy from pure spirit to inert matter.33 Within the Great Chain humans were positioned at the apex, just beneath angelic beings and God, while animals, plants, and minerals followed down the line.
This prevailing model in Western history was cognitively appealing for organizing Creation in a tidy order; and it was sociopsychologically appealing for giving humans pride of place. Within the Great Chain of Being, each domain was said to rightfully use the one beneath it; for example, animals were entitled to use plants and plants to use minerals. Since humans occupied the highest earthly rung, they were duly authorized to use all other beings and domains.
Thus the Great Chain has not only functioned as a complete description of Creation (what philosophers call an ontology), it has also worked as a moral order sanctioning the use of everything. The achievement of the Great Chain of Being was to fold the beliefs of human superiority and entitlement into a single cosmological package. It is perhaps not surprising that this ontological- moral order has endured for so long: it is immediately accessible to everyone—from the most educated to the completely illiterate—and it is serviceable in giving license to everyone to have one’s way with nonhuman nature.[/i]
From Eileen Crist Abundant Earth page 56 here:
The God you have in mind clearly does not exist. It's infinite nature precludes it from acting in the world, it cannot be the means by which any state is made true over another. Necessity precludes existence.
As for other Gods, those existing being who take action in the world, that comes down entirely what happens in the world. Such a God is a being of the empirical world and is testable in such terms.
In this respect, there are many possible Gods, but it would seem few, if any, of the Gods asserted by a religious text exist, since they appear to make a host of claims falsified by events of the world.
A tendentious interpretation.
It doesn't seem tendentious to me at all. There is no doubt that the idea of a hierarchy of being has been used to justify human exploitation of the natural world as well as those peoples who were considered to be savages. Those are its negative achievements. Perhaps you could say what you think have been the alternative positive achievements and benefits of the Great Chain of Being.
That you're commenting on it? Yes. You're one of the folks with serious, almost continual reading comprehension problems.
True that.
True.
Hey bana welcome to the party glad you could join!
How did you arrive at your conclusion logically?
Just askin'
Don't take this the wrong way but you sound like a preacher!
Really sounds like a bunch of a priori logic with no experience behind any of that gibberish.
Sorry it's not very persuasive.
Try tackling some questions from the OP...
TS denies subconsciousness.
He basically said when you're daydreaming while driving a car and crashing then killing yourself, that you do it consciously LoL
Go figure...
I don't believe in Zeus. Nor do I believe in Yahweh. Nor in any Christian god. Nor in blue flying squirrels.
Not at all sure what that has to do with logic.
It has everything to do with logic. Can you define belief, or in your case disbelief?
Please tell me how the mind works like Daniel Dennett did...
I'll see how smart you are with this question:
If I'm driving my car daydreaming and crash and kill myself what caused me to do that?
Tick tock tick tock
Anyone who denies subconscious mental processes is, quite simply, a laughable fool. :rofl:
Amen sister soul!!
Can you?
Quoting 3017amen
As if one needs to know how the mind works before one can hold a belief. No.
Quoting 3017amen
What does this phrasing say about you as an interlocutor? Are you here just to show off? Why did you think it necessary to say this?
Quoting 3017amen
Why the tangent?
No I can't but you're supposed to know you are the atheist!
I'm just getting you back from trolling on my Donald Trump thread LOL
Anyway, try to answer that question about daydreaming while driving... ?
Conscious, subconscious or something else? Is the mind a mysterious phenomenon or is it all logical?
I've no idea what this sentence is about.
Quoting 3017amen
So... you are suggesting that the mind is mysterious, therefore god exists?
I think you had best put some detail.
I've no recall of that.
Does mathematical abstract ability confer any survival advantage?
Does music theory have any biological significance at all?
Do all events must have a cause?
True, false or something else?
Is love a phenomenon or is it all logical?
Do any of those suggest life might be a little mysterious?
Or are you saying you have life all figured out?
For mathematicians, yes. And for accountants. Builders and blacksmiths, too.
Quoting 3017amen
I've no idea. Quoting 3017amen
Do you mean "does each even have a cause" or "do events as a whole have a cause"? In either case the answer is going to depend on what a cause is. Big question.
Quoting 3017amen
You seem to presuppose that it cannot be both - or neither. Why?
Quoting 3017amen
There are indeed things I do not understand. That does not imply that there is a god.
Quoting 3017amen
Not at all. I will leave such to you.
Well, there will be multiple causes. A cause is an explanation; so what you accept as the cause will depend on what you are doing, what you are explaining.
Where do you think this leads?
Quietism? :joke:
Are you sure? For example, should you run laws of gravity calculations in order to avoid falling objects in the jungle?
I've no idea.
Does that mean that there's mystery in the world?
Do you mean "does each even have a cause" or "do events as a whole have a cause"? In either case the answer is going to depend on what a cause is. Big question.
Your doggon right it's a big question !
Alll events must have a cause. It's a kantian synthetic a priori judgment. A synthesis of two concepts: experience and a priori logic..
I don't have an answer but if you do I'd love to hear it????
Because that's not a very good argument at all.
So, being a charitable chap, I'll leave you to enlighten me.
If you mean are there things I do not understand, then yes.
But that does not imply a christian god.
Does 'mystery' signify for you just stuff we don't know, or something else?
You're right it could be both!
Because if I walk in front of a running train to save my loved ones, that would transcend an animal's need to survive. It's called altruism.
Does Darwinism account for altruism?
Altruistic behavior also exists in animals and can be a beneficial adaptive strategy for social groups.
Yep. Kant was wrong.
Take an atom of caesium-137. We know that it may decay to barium, with a 50% probability of doing so in the next thirty years. What causes it to decay now? The question has no answer; it makes no sense.
Send electrons through a double slit. Will it go left or right? We know the probability, but we do not know which way it will go until it goes. Further, there is no reason that it goes one way and not the other; no cause for it to go left instead of right.
Cause just does not work in the way Kant and others thought.
Good response. Volitional existence is important. And intuition, a sense of Wonder , Love ,mathematical ability, musical genius ,consciousness , all seems to point towards something beyond logic or metaphysical...
And speaking of metaphysical, when someone says I got married by falling in love with him or her and I can't describe it it just felt right, what is that ineffable feeling?
There are numerous examples of altruism in animals, enough for there to be a small industry in finding evolutionary advantages for it.
But here's the thing - suppose that altruism is completely inexplicable in Darwinian terms.
That does not imply that the correct explanation is theistic.
Proposing that it does would be a very lame argument.
Sure. The trouble is, so many folk seem to think they know what that something is.
Which of course is just bullshit.
Edit:
Quoting 3017amen
Ah. You too. You see, the thing about the ineffable is... well, one can't say.
"Proposing that it does would be a very lame argument."
Using it as a basis of one's leap of faith, is that a lame argument?
Is theoretical physics bulshit?
Unless it happens to be God of course, then we can finally be certian. Or so many these stories would seem to have it.
One must ask why God amounts to any improvement here.
That would not be an argument; that would be a leap of faith.
You are welcome to make such leaps as you see fit. You come into a public forum, we might amazed at your dexterity, or amused by your inelegance.
Are you admitting then that there's mystery in the world?
So there is a proof of a christian god in theoretical physics?
You are welcome to make such leaps as you see fit. You come into a public forum, we might amazed at your dexterity, or amused by your inelegance.
Are you getting frustrated because your struggling with adequate answers?
There's a gramatical issue here. Certainty is a species of belief, not of truth.
No. Does theoretical physics confer survival value in the jungle?
Not at all. The only frustration I feel here is that you have not put together anything like the coherent defence of theism I would have liked to see.
Quoting 3017amen
OK, suppose that it doesn't. What next?
I asked you this earlier when you used the example of mathematics. I didn't note an answer.
My bad for unclear language, I meant that we would finally have a descriptive account (God) for what/how something was.
I'm not defending theism, I'm critiquing your atheism and it seems to be working no?
I somehow think that if god appeared before us, suddenly we would have vast numbers of theists saying "That's not god..."
I asked you this earlier when you used the example of mathematics. I didn't note an answer.
That's a good answer. That would suggest a mystery no?
Highlight the text you wish to quote, and a pop-up will appear saying "quote". Click it to have the highlighted text appear, correctly formatted, in your post as a quote.
Thank you kindly
OK. I've already agreed that there are mysteries. And pointed out that there is no need to conclude from that the Christian god is real.
So, where next?
"No need". Don't take this the wrong way, but explain to me what needs are, and why do they exist?
For example, human needs would be something different than animal instinct correct?
And to answer your question, I've already stated it earlier that volitional existence is important to humans. We choose based on our goals. Why do humans have goals?
I've no clear idea of what this might be.
Choice
Why? YOu are a competend user of English; you know what "needs" are. AS for why they exist... again, what could it mean to ask such a question, to ponder a need for needs.
Why not just say that we have needs, and that there need be no reason for that?
Now what?
Because that doesn't explain why we have them.
I thought Atheism was an alternative to Theism in the quest for those existential answers no?
I guess I would have liked to see some sort of Bayesian analysis, wherein the probability of god being a believable theory becomes higher after one considers, say, mathematics.
I suspect this is the sort of thing you would like to argue,
The trouble is, you havn't quite gotten there.
You're saying that there must be an explanation for why we have choices. Am I understanding you correctly?
We have needs or goals because it is a feature of our existence. The counterfactual of a person without needs or a goal shows this to be the case. What would it take, for example, for a human without a need for food? The existence of someone who didn't need to eat food.
Our own existence is the reason here.
Well, no. Atheism is not an explanation so much as the rejection of an incorrect explanation.
The notion of a theistic god is not credible. Hence, atheism.
Sure, put those seven items together in Bayesian analysis and see what you come up with LOL
Tick tock tick tock
But your atheism is not tenable is it? You're like Donald Trump just attacking with no real plan LOL
Well, it's your thread. You put the bits together.
So, again, suppose that mathematics confers no evolutionary advantage...
is this the third, or fourth, time I've asked you to fill in the consequence. You want it to lead to the conclusion that there is a theistic god. But so far as I can see, it just does not.
Why not?
Are you saying that you know why we are here?
Because you said you picked atheism over theism and theism accounts for mystery / faith. Yet you conceded that there is mystery in the world and in life no?
I would suggest you become an Agnostic. It would be more consistent with your logic.
Sometimes, yes.
Not always though, like any peice of knowledge, people are sometimes without it. Humans sometimes know why they are here, be that in an ethical sense of knowing what you ought to do in your life or a descriptive sense of know how you are a distinct entity of the world.
You seem to not know who we are. You keep insisting we are God or some mystery, rather than our own existence. We can do a lot better than such confusion of ourselves with an infinite entity.
I agree with you. For example quantum physics is a mystery to me.
Yet another mystery...
Do all humans know why they die,?
I'm not following you on that one...
How?
Further, doesn't that oblige you to believe in a god who chooses to keep some things hidden from you?
Why should he do that?
Yes. There are things I do not know.
Compare that with "there are things that god chooses to hide form me".
Shouldn't an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving, all-forgiving god be so overwhelmingly apparent that there could be no possibility of not noticing him?
Hence, for you, whence atheism?
"Become..."
Is there a membership form I need to fill in? A secret handshake?
No, as per above, people sometimes know something, other times they do not. Plenty of people know of their own death. Plenty of others do not. Such is our existence, some things we know, some we do not. It's always down to an individual's existence, that is, what experiences of knowledge they exist with.
Good questions. I will answer all of them in this succinct judgement:
All events must have a cause.
Sorry for the redundancy but it's real simple
Only I explained earlier that this is just wrong.
I'm saying your position is a nihilism.
Faced with our lives, you assert they must be meaningless, that only a greater being or mysterious force could define who we are, our meaning, needs and goals. You take a postion in which we are nowhere at all, just an illusion of the puppeteer God or mystery that's really going on.
Okay you're wrong and I'm right. Now what?
The trouble is - as mentioned in the discussion of existentialism elsewhere - we may either follow god or deny him; so god fails as a source of meaning.
Really? I'm afraid of dying, aren't you?
I don't know about you but I'm living a pretty happy life and I'm sure you are too...
After all sitting around talking about philosophy confers biological advantages LOL
Crash. Down comes the gate. You deny the conversation any future.
So is it really the case that your belief in god relies absolutely on the notion that each even has a cause? I doubt that. What is happening, I think, is that in trying to articulate your belief, you came to some conclusions about mathematics and other things that seemed to make sense. You've now exposed those to critique, and find them wanting.
I'm sorry but I'm losing you on that one...?
My faith is based on many things. But the seven concepts I mentioned in the OP provides more persuasive evidence that all events must have a cause...
I don't think so, at least not in this abstracted sense. I like living and so am afraid of many things which might act to end my life (e.g. lack of water, guns pointed at me, etc.), but this strikes me as a little different than fear of being dead.
To ask if I fear being dead, that I no longer exist at some point or another, doesn't have much of an effect on me. The world was fine without me for many billions of years, it will get on fine without me for billions more. To think I must be so integral to the functioning of existence is quite the hubris.
I do think you've hit on why people engage in the sort of nihilism of your argument. If one recognises mortality to their existence, the only way to overcome it is to not exist at all. If it's all just really God or the mystery, then an impossible cure is on offer for mortal existence. We can trick ourselves into thinking because we are really the constant of God, we have no mortality to face.
And yet I gave examples of uncaused events.
I appreciate that analysis
An authentic leap of faith in the Kierkegaardian sense, has no basis (and proposes no propositions, neither).
Oh and I forgot to mention and give some love to the wisdom books in the OT.
In paraphrase there is scripture that talks about 'always remember the end of your life' ...
Basic introspection obviously has its virtues.
I'd be infinitely more afraid of an eternity of suffering in Hell, if I believed it. So, it would seem that only the "milk toast" version of Christianity offers a belief which would be less frightening than the idea of simply being annihilated.
Yeah I don't believe in hell. There was a gentleman in the old forum that did extensive study on the subject/ problem of evil but can't remember what he uncovered.
I'm not a theist, but I need to be better versed on that subject. Otherwise, it's just a gut feeling or an intuition of sorts that everyone will feel love per the NDE phenomenon.
Not to mention William James & Maslow's study on the religious experience...
Wha? You're not a theist?
Hahaha ( Christian Existentialist)
An argument from ignorance rather than just admitting you don't know...?
By the way, without you first postulating theism there's nothing to discuss.
Hence, the onus probandi is on you.
Yet, going by ignorance isn't the best evidence/justification around.
Quoting 3017amen
Quoting 3017amen
...
This is the main reason why you're getting such incredulous responses. You've simply made a mistake here. Atheism is absolutely not "an alternative to Theism in the quest for those existential answers", and I don't think a single atheist would see it that way. Atheism (as the name specifies - the 'a' prefix) is the rejection of one means of explanation, not the provision of another. It's simply saying that we don't find 'God did it' a convincing explanation for the remaining mysteries, for whatever varying reason.
It's like trying to solve a murder - someone might say "Ms Scarlet did it", another might say "No, she has an alibi". In doing so they're not suggesting they know who did do it, only that the explanation offered is unsatisfactory for some reason.
Quoting Banno
I like that expression.
Quoting Janus
Damn. I had just enrolled in some basic reading comprehension classes in the hope that I might one day [s]agree with him[/s] understand what he's saying. Now you're suggesting me it's not just me...?
And it's not because it doesn't work as an explanation... It's that it is far too successful. It explains everything; even stuff that ain't so. So as explanations go, it's of absolutely no use. One cannot do anything with it; nothing new comes out of it.
Yes, exactly. The correct response to "God did it", I think, is "So what?"
I'm skeptical about unconscious mental content. That doesn't imply that I believe that everything is mental and thus conscious mental content. Accidents do not stem from mental content.
Not at all. But that you think this underscores how poor your reading comprehension is. You're very similar to Isaac in that. It's rare that you don't post a response with reading comprehension gaffes.
It was already corrected for you many times, by many different people, that atheism has nothing to do with beliefs about whether there is any "mystery in the world."
No. This is such a basic and simple thing to understand. Atheism isn't anything like an ideology, a body of theory, a school of thought. It's only a term for one simple thing: the absence of a belief in gods.
It certainly wasn't clear that you believed those things suggested that all events must have a cause. That seems like a completely arbitrary idea in relation to them.
For your information, in puting my faith into words, that approach is essentially Apophatic or negative theology.
Two concerns with your reasoning:
1. The opposite of Theism is Atheism. Unless you're trying to posit Nilhilism, then your argument works.
2. Terrapin Station, although certainly not an expert in atheism, said that his atheism is, and I quote " belief".
Does mathematical abstract ability confer any survival advantage?
Does music theory have any biological significance at all?
Do all events must have a cause?
True, false or something else?
Is love a phenomenon or is it all logical?
Explain the ineffable feelings of love.
Explain the feeling of the color red.
Do any of those suggest life might be a little mysterious?
Or are you saying , as an Atheist, you have life all figured out?
:up:
Quoting 3017amen
Lack of g/G belief isn't an alternative faith commitment to g/G belief any more than being celibate is an alternative sex act to sodomy.
Yes, but theism isn't a quest for existential answers either, it's a belief in god(s). One might believe in a god whose nature is such that their existence answers no existential questions at all, they'd still be a theist. Your conflation of belief/non-belief in god with answering existential questions like those you have posed is simply an error. Just reform your questions and then there might be something to discuss.
Quoting 3017amen
Well atheism is a description of one's state of belief. I wouldn't say it was a belief itself, but I expect that disagreement is probably just a reading comprehension error on my part... It usually is. Not sure why this would be a concern with my reasoning though either way.
Yes we are having unseasonably wet weather at the moment.
I'm not following that Isaac why would I need to reform the questions?
The Apophatic theologist would consider those existential questions as additional clues for a Deity or Creator or a First Cause.
On the other hand, the perplexing difficulty that you have is that apparently Atheism ignores any such clues from our existence ( not to mention our conscious experiences).
I even see complete denials... . For example, cognitive science says we have a subconscious. Some Atheist's believe we have no subconscious at all...go figure. I've even used the pragmatic example of daydreaming while driving a car and having a resulting accident... . But hey , just another reason why Atheism is just the opposite of fundamentalism: it's called hard headed-ness. God doesn't exist just cause I say so...LOL.
So I'm equal opportunity: I'm just as hard on fundamentalism as I am atheism LOL
Quoting Isaac
Any belief system requires logic to support one's belief. I use clues from the natural world including my conscious experiences; then chose to make a leap of faith.
I disagree.
e.g. Deism (i.e. NOT INTERVENING g/G) is the opposite of Theism (i.e. INTERVENING g/G).
e.g. Pantheism / Animism (i.e. NOT TRANSCENDENT g/G) is the opposite of Theism (i.e. TRANSCENDENT g/G).
Atheism, as I understand it, is merely a 2nd order evaluation - dissent due to conceptual incoherence, inconsistent predicates, negative truth-values, etc - of 1st order (i.e. claims, or statements, about g/G) Theism. Meta-statement & object-statement, respectively, which is not an opposition (i.e. diametric or contradictory opposites).
How can a question possibly be a clue pointing to the existence of something? I can't even make enough sense of that expression to tell whether I disagree with it or not. A question is just a request for clarity, why would the fact that there are things about which we are yet to be clear have any bearing whatsoever on whether there is a God?
Surely that's one of the things about which some people are yet to be clear.
Quoting 3017amen
No one has said anything like that. The main reason given here for people's atheism has been that they find the idea of God incoherent and have not found enough compelling evidence to the contrary. That's not "cause I say so", it is the means by which absolutely every judgement we ever make is derived. How is your theism any different? The concept obviously feels right to you and you've not found overwhelming evidence to contradict it. Atheism feels right to me and I've not found overwhelming evidence to contradict it. The mere existence of questions I can't answer is entirely insufficient because I cannot think of any way in which my uncertainty could somehow be impossible to maintain in a world without a god.
Quoting 3017amen
Yes, so does everyone, I think. The fact is that they reach different conclusions thereby because they have different dispositional starting points, different experiences and different capabilities. I'm not sure what any of that has to do with a concern you may have with my reasoning.
There is "positive" and "negative" atheism.
Negative atheists simply lack a belief in gods.
Positive atheists have a belief that there are no gods (and therefore also lack a belief in gods).
I consider myself an "irrational optimist." I keep, irrationally, having hope that he'll suddenly start having a worthwhile good faith conversation about this stuff.
We might call that agnosticism.
Which is still atheism. Not mutually exclusive terms.
Traditionally, agnosticism is a positive belief that knowledge about the existence of gods isn't possible, or at least isn't practically attainable for some reason.
Colloquially, agnosticism often is parsed as the "shrugging one's shoulders"/"I dunno" option.
Meh. @3017amen is arguing in good faith. He may be beginning to realise that his conclusions do not follow from his premises; his argument is no where near as strong as he thought. The resulting dissonance shows in repetition - as - and adjusting his position - .
If you like. That's not how I would use those terms.
What is atheism to you? Does it entail something more than a lack of belief in god or gods?
Wha? You're not a theist?
Quoting 3017amen
But you do believe God exists, right?
Those who have read my views on epistemology will know how keen I am to distinguish belief from truth. While both are predicated to propositions, they are logically quite independent.
So a proposition can be true; or it can be false.
And a proposition can be believed; or it can be disbelieved (using that as the negation of belief).
Placing the statement "god exists" in this framework, we get
1. Banno believes that god exists
2. Banno believes that god does not exist
3. Banno does not believe that god exists
4. Banno does not believe that god does not exist.
1 & 2 are inconsistent, as are 1 & 3 and 2 & 4. But 3 & 4 are consistent.
That's the view I would call agnosticism. Neither accepting nor denying the existence of god.
(Written in a rush; I reserve the right to edit.)
Very :cool: metaphor!
I understand, but that doesnt answer my question about how you define atheism.
Yes, it's like being asexual; if you are asexual you have no interest in sex and similarly, if you are atheist you have no interest in gods or deities.
See, I understood something you said! Was that only because I happened to agree with it? :razz:
I hate to do this when you're being friendly (which I'm grateful for--seriously), but I wouldn't say that really understood what I wrote (so even though I was hesitant to point this out, I think it's important because you think the comments are sourced in the mere fact of disagreement).
I wasn't saying that atheism implies no interest in gods or deities. So "If you are atheist you have no interest in gods or deities" isn't necessarily the case, and that's not what I wrote, it's not what I was saying.
Particular atheists might have no interest in gods or deities, but plenty do. The ones who do have an interest have just reached the conclusion that there are no such things as gods, or they at least lack a belief in gods.
Really?
Guys, it's just the opposite!
Know one has come close to elucidating the nature of existing things, for which topics I provided a discussion point.
Tick tock tick tock
I'm ready when ever you all are?
Let me help, any one care to take on 'daydream while driving a car' phenomenon?
You can all just pat yourselves on the back and pretend you understand the basic questions of existence, but it only supports the majority view that Atheism is an untenable position. Again , that's what extreme Fundamentalist's do... LOL
Now there, you've got that right. It's really simple is it not?
I've reached my conclusion (leap of Faith) based on 'existential phenomena'. All you've said is 'God is incoherent' but could not explain why, let alone speak to any existential phenomena...
Make sense?
I believe you've got the analogy a$$backwards, no pun intended LOL
Atheism is the opposite of Theism like heterosexual and homosexual is to sexuality.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Are you sure?
If there was no mystery, why do the majority of people believe in God?
Am I sure that this was already corrected for you many times? Yes.
Atheism has nothing to do with that issue.
So, does the atheist's skepticism essentially mean that your theory is true?
Don't take that the wrong way but it sounds like:
Atheist: I don't believe in God because I'm skeptical about how the subconscious mind works [you said you don't think there even is a subconscious mind].
Theist: Really, how does such skepticism produce an alternate truth about conscious existence?
Atheist: It doesn't, I just think God doesn't exist and that's that.
LOL
Forgive me again but this is how I see your logic:
Theist: Why do believe in the absence of a God or gods?
Atheist: Because my belief system say's it's incoherent.
Theist: But what does incoherent really mean here?
Atheist: Well, even though I can't explain my own consciousness or conscious existence, It doesn't mean I'm wrong.
Theist: Oh I see, you're just saying it's incoherent because you arbitrarily think so. Gotcha.
LOL
We're all over the map here. Re this:
"No. This is such a basic and simple thing to understand. Atheism isn't anything like an ideology, a body of theory, a school of thought. It's only a term for one simple thing: the absence of a belief in gods."
That's not a matter of logic, or an argument for anything. It's reporting a conventional definition to you, because you seem to not understand the conventional definition.
The leap of faith, as presented by Kierkegaard, is not about confirming a proposition or reciting the Credo. It concerns taking one's existence as an individual seriously enough to make choices and perceive events through the responsibility it confers upon one.
I suggest that you use an avatar of someone or thing that more closely hews to your view of the world.
Sure , I have no quarrel with that.
The point I'm making is relative to volition. In this context, at some level, one must make a choice.
For example, human's are trapped in a series of life's choices. The belief in God is a choice.
In my case, I choose to believe in God through logical inference from the science's (cognitive and physical). The gap is the leap of Faith.
At the time of Kierkegaard's writings, there wasn't as many discoveries as there are now in physical Science/physics and cognitive Psychology.
Make any sense?
No. No sense at all. You've just done some vague hand-waiving along the lines of "I don't know what 'red' is... therefore God" which doesn't even make any sense. I've not even got round to providing reasons why I find the concept incoherent, nor what life experiences have lead me to atheism because so far I've just been trying to get you to understand the very simple fact that believing there are great mysteries in life has absolutely no necessary connection to believing that God is the answer to them. And atheism is about a lack of belief in God, absolutely nothing else.
I don't know what the inference is that you're making though. It seems like you're simply forwarding the old God of the Gaps argument, which has been pointed out to you by others.
In other words, it seems like you're saying:
(a) Phenomena x occur
(b) I consider phenomena x inexplicable/mysterious
(c) Therefore I'm going to say that "God did it."
I don't know if this is referring to something other than my comments, but I said that the idea of nonphysical existents is incoherent on my view (nonphysical existents are different than god, but on most conventional accounts of god, required for there to be a god). I didn't explain that further than that. But no one asked me to explain it further than that, either. Generally, my policy is to not type too much unless someone is really interested in it--and is able to have what I consider a good faith, "remaining curious" back and forth discussion about it, because otherwise it just seems like I'm wasting my time.
We're talking past one another.
My concern is that you haven't provided what your 'system of belief' consists of...for example what is the nature of your believe system?
I've told you mine.
Then frame the discussion that way. If you frame it as a discussion about atheism, and you characterize that as being a "system of belief," you're mostly going to get comments correcting you re the conventional definition of atheism, which has nothing to do with a "system of belief."
I wouldn't say that I have a system of belief, but my disposition tends to be somewhere in between logical positivism (it's just not that too strictly--I disagree with their approach on a number of things--it would take a lot to explain my relationship and resemblance to it, but nevertheless, I have similarities to it) and pragmatism. I'm relativist, and with lots of skepticism and a strong dislike of "over(re)acting" or sensationalism as well as absolutist/universalist-sounding claims. That's maybe the best nutshell version I could give without a lot of work.
Are you suggesting that if SK lived in our time, he would have framed the limits of psychology differently than was done in The Concept of Anxiety?
You will have to point to which text in that or another of his books gives you that expectation. You will find locating those words a difficult task since he wrote so many arguments against your kind of argumentation per se rather than as conclusions or inferences of his arguments for what is the case.
It's certainly possible that had he written that today it might be a different analysis.
However, the existential thing about anxiety is a great topic that I agree with... . "Kierkegaard mentions that anxiety is a way for humanity to be saved as well. Anxiety informs us of our choices, our self-awareness and personal responsibility, and brings us from a state of un-self-conscious immediacy to self-conscious reflection."
So in that context, I think we agree.
Who are you quoting?
As to agreeing to something, the only thing I have stated in this thread is that you are not saying anything remotely "Kierkegaardian."
A disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.
And so my existential argument is, you have to define the nature of belief.
I see belief as being a particular cognitive faculty I have and when faced with a specific question such as deity existence I'd say I lack that particular cognitive faculty for that specific content which is not equivalent to having a particular cognitive faculty for no specific content, hence why I wouldn't term atheism as a belief system and certainly not a religion.
That is not a bad encyclopedic description as such paraphrasing goes but it is only concerned in placing SK on a map in relationship to other writers and trends of thought.
It does not, however, in any way, reflect the discussion of psychology and the limits of its formulation to the ethical challenge SK puts upon the reader. The language of the Wikipedia is exactly the sort of description Kierkegaard delighted in making fun of.
How about a quote from the man himself to support your view?
Okay, don't take this the wrong way, but that gibberish didn't explain one's epistemic truth.
It may be gibberish but you don't seem to be forthcoming on why so.
That is very close to St Anselm's expression of God being "greater than can be conceived."
Interesting in the present context of what constitutes evidence.
Is "defining the nature of belief" asking for something different than "defining belief"? If so, what's the difference?
I do think what may be constituted as evidence as subjective.
Tick tock, tick tock.
No you haven't. Unless it consists of "god did it" written on the back of a copy of 'Watchtower'.
"I reason from existence, not towards existence."
I never said "God did it", did I? On the contrary, unless I'm mistaken, you are saying 'God did not do it', right?
Anyway, to answer your question, let me paraphrase a few from the OP:
Does mathematical abstract ability confer any survival advantage?
Does music theory have any biological significance at all?
Do all events have a cause?
True, false or something else?
Is love a phenomenon or is it all logical?
Explain the ineffable feelings of love.
Explain the feeling of the color red to me.
Does the conscious and subconscious mind work together in a [illogical] contradictory manner (p and not p)?
Explain how I come to know something; what is the nature of a Belief?
Try to tackle any one of those, and I'd love to parse it with you, if you care to... .
Does mathematical abstract ability confer any survival advantage?
Does music theory have any biological significance at all?
Do all events have a cause?
True, false or something else?
Is love a phenomenon or is it all logical?
Explain the ineffable feelings of love.
Explain the feeling of the color red to me.
Does the conscious and subconscious mind work together in a [illogical] contradictory manner (p and not p)?
Explain how I come to know something; what is the nature of a Belief?
Try to tackle any one of those, and I'd love to parse it with you, if you care to... .
Tick tock tick tock
Temporary events have causes, but the permanent source has no cause.
Clocks ticking:
Assuming these questions are meant to somehow support theism, you should probably share that reasoning first.
Assuming these questions are meant to somehow support theism, you should probably share that reasoning first. "
Hey Praxis, thanks for asking:
1.Mathematical abstracts. Why do we have two ways or this dual capacity for knowing the world? Consider falling objects, we avoid them through our cognitive/perceptive abilities. One does not calculate the laws of gravity in order to avoid falling objects to survive in the jungle do they? What survival value does math hold? In Darwinism, there is no reason to believe that the second method springs from a refinement of the first. The former does have a biological need, the latter has no biological significance at all.
2. If I'm driving my car daydreaming, hit someone, and kill myself, how did that accident occur? (How did my consciousness allow me to do that?)
3. I am a composer and performer of music. I am trained both by ear and music theory. What biological significance does discussing music theory hold?
Per your request, I'd be happy to parse any of those with you....
Hey Poetic, cool stuff dude!!!
And those evolved abilities include knowledge of gravity and math or else we'd get clunked.
Tick tock time continues:
Awesome. Reminds me of:
Existence is time
Time is existence
To see them as opposites
Is man's stubbornness
Existence is temporary, as changing in time; the timeless is permanent.
I have some disagreements with your reiterations. They're irrelevant, however, lacking a larger point. Am I correct in a assuming it has something to do with theism? If so, please explain the relation.
No, it has something to do with Atheists lack of ability to explain them adequately
You asked me a question so I provided more detail... Surely you're not making excuses are you?
LOL
Hm. Eventually the thread drops in to tedium.
I've shown you uncaused events.
I've agreed with you that there is mystery in the world, and pointed out that theism is does not follow from that mystery; something with which perhaps you agree, since you at one stage claimed not to be a theist.
It's fine to say "I don't know" in the face of this mystery. Showing a bit of humility is better than ether jumping to conclusions or making things up - Christian Existentialism.
Gotcha....thus:
Time is eternity
eternity is time
to view them as opposites
Is man's perversity.
Why?
First, what does it mean exactly for something to exist? And what does it mean exactly for something to be physical?
You: "Okay, don't take this the wrong way, but that gibberish didn't explain one's epistemic truth."
Me: "What way should I take it given no explanation why it's gibberish?
You: "Gibberish"
You've replied with gibberish because it doesn't answer my question anyway whatsoever. See how this works!
Anyway, could you point to where the big bwad atheist touched you?
Time is of the temporary transmutations of the permanent timeless eternal.
So obviously you do not agree that traits can arise evolutionarily if there's no survival advantage to them or need for them. But you never explicitly said that you do not agree with that and you never explained why you disagree.
Alright, [randomly chooses one of your questions] how does a theist explain the feeling of the color red?
Re existing, the idea is simply that something is present, it occurs, it obtains, it's instantiated, etc. If we say "There is a such and such" we're saying that the such and such exists.
Re physical, on my view it refers to material/substance (in the matter sense), and (dynamic) relations of that material.--Or we could say matter, relations and processes.
Re why, the idea of them literally makes no sense. No one can ever even relay what nonphysical whatevers are supposed to be--what any properties of them are supposed to be, for example. All anyone does is say what they're not, but the list of things that they're not doesn't leave anything conceivable for them to be.
I think you've gotten confused between an answer and a question. What you've provided here are a series of questions. The clue is in the little mark at the end of each one. Answers don't tend to have those.
There's a formal debating thread here somewhere in the forums - such that two folk can engage one on one, keeping the discussion on track.
It might be interesting to debate you on this topic, @3017amen.
You take first post, setting out your argument. I will oppose. Topic: "Atheism is untenable"
Over to you.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/categories/29/debate-proposals
You mean like this:
"
Hey Tim ! I never said God did it. The Atheist say God didn't do it.
Absolutely banno it's fine to say I don't know. But positive atheism doesn't say that.
In my case I'm not interested in being an agnostic. I took the leap of faith years ago as a Christian existentialist.
Hahaha, was that you who gave me a reach-around the other night?
LOL
I don't have an answer for mathematical abstracts. And neither do you or anyone else.
Is that what your way of saying that your atheism is untenable?
I mean you didn't even answer any of my concerns.
Tick tock tick tock
Indeed. An unjustified leap. Fair enough.
But you started this discussion because you think others ought make the same leap.
Debate?
What? Why would me pointing out that you have provided questions not answers have anything to do with my atheism? Is atheism a belief in discourse now?
Quoting 3017amen
It doesn't even mention it. Positive atheism is the belief that there is definitely no god. It doesn't say anything whatsoever about any of the 'mysteries' you've repeated. It doesn't answer them, doesn't deny them, doesn't say it knows the answers, doesn't say it doesn't know the answers. Doesn't say a bloody word about them because it's about belief in God and absolutely nothing else.
When you say, "something is present," do you have in mind that it must be a thing in the world, something extended, something finite and measurable? Must it have location?
Can there be actualities, realities, truths, and so on, that aren't things in this sense? For example, what about time itself? Or what about logic? What about the very relationality, or possibility of such, of things in the world?
Consider that some physicists are working with new ideas in the pursuit of quantum gravity where time and space and matter all emerge from an even more fundamental level. Would that more fundamental, non-extended, non-temporal reality be something that "exists" in the sense you are talking about?
What about that which grounds physical reality? It cannot itself be physical in the sense of being a measurable state of affairs inside the world. What about even the universe as a whole itself? The universe isn't a thing in the universe. I am not sure it makes sense to speak of it being in itself measurable. One thing in it can affect something else in it, this constituting a measurement, but such doesn't make sense with respect to the universe itself.
It seems to me that what we usually mean when we speak of things existing involves difference. Something "stands forth" from the background of "nothingness". And this nothingness from which it stands out does not itself "exist". But what about that which is differentiated, that which itself is prior to all differentiation, but is in some sense the condition for the possibility of all differentiation? Does that exist?
Heidegger spoke of what he called the ontological difference, saying that Being is not a being among beings. When people speak of God as not existing, but as nevertheless having a sort of reality, I think what they mean is that God is not something in the world, something you'll find and be able to put your finger on. As the ultimate ground of the world and everything in it, God, considered in this way, cannot sensibly be expected to be a state of affairs in the world that can be established in the way the existence of the planet Mars is established. And to say that God, thus being not "found", being impossible to point at, to register on a dial, is therefore not real, is to fail to appreciate what God, if real, must be.
A thing in the world cannot ground the world. This much is or should be obvious. Even a first cause is the wrong thing to consider, as a cause being at the start of a temporal chain of events is, in the sense I am talking about, something in the world, something in time.
I apologize if I have come across as unfriendly. I don't really think of discussions in terms of personal feelings anyway. In other words you can attack anything I say to your heart's content without there being any danger of my being offended. I generally feel a commonality with everyone here insofar as they are all (bar any trolls that might be lurking) interested in exploring ideas, and trying to work out where they stand in relation to the various standpoints that are available to the inquiring mind.
So I didn't think you had intended to say that atheism implies no interest in gods or deities, I was merely drawing out what I see to be the implications of what you had said. I was highlighting the fact that atheists have no real interest in god or deities, because they don't believe there are any actual gods or deities. Now they may have an interest in ideas or stories about gods or deities, or in the psychology of belief in gods or deities, but that would not be an interest in gods or deities themselves, since one cannot have an interest in something one does not believe one experiences, or at the very least does not believe exists.
You could not, for example, have an interest in unicorns, because there is nothing there to be interested in. You could be interested in stories about unicorns, you might even like pictures of imagined unicorns, but you could not rightly be said to have an interest in unicorns in any way analogous to how you might be interested in horses, for example.
Even when you say that atheists may have an interest in gods but have reached the conclusion that there are no such thing as gods or have no belief in gods; I think what you really mean is that they may be, or they may have been, interested in the question about the existence of gods. To be interested in something you must have access to the thing, or at least believe that you do if the thing does not obviously exist or even does not exist at all (in which cases you would not actually be interested in the thing, but merely in the idea of, or belief in, the thing).
It is possible that God is real to (at least some) theists; is real, that is, as an experience that we might call an hallucination but is nonetheless every bit as compelling for the believer as any experience of anything actual is for anyone. You could say that such people really are interested in God, because they experience His presence directly. Would this mean that God really does exist? Who knows? But whether God really exists or not, I would maintain that no one who does not have a direct experience of God's presence could really be said to be interested in God.
Sure here's the thesis from your Kierkegaard quote that's relevent to my argument:
Does existence have primacy over essence or the reverse?
Right?
I'm still expecting a straight answer from you.
I believe God is an ineffable experience, and a genderless spiritual force of energy.
I don't think that fits into the traditional theistic paradigm.
@3017amen Tick tock tick tock
The quote is not a metaphysical claim regarding essence.
If you can't see how it challenges the premise of your OP, then I have gone as I can and will now turn the bike around to head back home.
Fare forward.
First of all I'm not a 'theist'. However I posit that a theist, atheist, et.al. is unable to adequately explain the nature of those kinds of things.
My guess is that it's similar to the ineffable feelings of love. And maybe philosophically one could argue that love is a mottled color of subjective and objective truth.
How would one capture the phenomena of Love in words?
You're not paying attention. I'm not discussing metaphysics. I'm discussing the nature of a thing or things. Existence precedes essence; the central theme in Existentialism.
You can go home now professor, you just got an F.
Valentinus' point was existence precedes essence. This precludes the accounts you giving because neither an essence of God nor an essence of mystery can be an account of that which exists.
If we are to give an account of an existence, say the human who feels love, it can only be done in terms of existence. What does the loving human entail? The existence of a human who loves. That's how it occurs. There is no other account to give. It cannot be accounted for by God nor mystery.
I’m not inclined to bother with these questions because you haven’t shown how it would lead anywhere.
Just a wild guess but so far your reasoning appears to be something like: there are mysteries no one can answer and therefore we should all be agnostic. Is that right?
If that’s the case then the topic title is somewhat misleading.
I don't know what you're responding to there.
No.
If you think that something can be present that's not in the world, that's not extended, that doesn't have a location, etc., then it's up to you to try to make sense of those notions. Again, simply saying it's not such and such won't cut it. You need to explain properties whatever you're proposing would actually have if we're to make any sense of it.
Quoting petrichor
I don't want to suggest that I'd be using "thing" in some technical sense. "X exists" is met by you saying that there are whatevers. And then if you want to posit something that doesn't have any location, etc., again, it's up to you to try to make some sense of that and to not just list ontological properties that what you're proposing does not have.
Quoting petrichor
If there is a "more fundamental level" for space and matter to emerge from, sure. Again, it would just be a matter of whether we can really make sense of the idea.
Quoting petrichor
You'd need to explain, for one, why there would (need to) be something that "grounds" physical reality, and then if you're saying it's not physical, you'd need to try to make sense out of what you're saying the whatever would be.
Quoting petrichor
I didn't say anything about a measurement requirement, by the way.
This is already a bunch of different issues to discuss. I don't want to keep adding to them. We could get back to the rest later.
Sure absolutely.
1. Your point is well taken. Atheism would deny the religious experience as has been reported in cognitive science. Or maybe better said, they would not associate a god with such experiences. They're entitled to that choice to believe otherwise. However, it begs the question of what does "otherwise" really mean. No - thing?
They can't even explain things in themselves.
2. Your concerns about God's existence I view in this way. You mentioned ontology. The ontological argument of course is based solely on a priori/pure reason. It's meaningless. Most know that. Traditional Theism endorses that logic. I don't. The irony is atheism endorses the same kind of logic relative to explaining things in existence.
3. Your question about what I think about whether God exists independently of humans existence is of course not answerable. However my answer here is consistent to the theme in the OP which is, I speculate that God would exist like mathematical abstracts exist. Which isn't too far off from the notion that all events must have a cause.
I've broad-brushed a lot but I'm trying to be as succinct as I can....
You are right, of course, as the matter is expressed in the vernacular of "existentialists" who speak of matters that way.
In addition, Kierkegaard was opposed to the formulation as a matter of logic, per se. In that sense, he was arguing with the Hegelians while also arm wrestling with the "Scholastics."
If a Buddhist has the kind of experience I'm referring to then she might think of that in terms of 'realizing Buddha Nature', and obviously that is only possible if there is a 'realizer". But she might still say that Buddha Nature is real independently of any human's belief.
In any case, why do experience need to be explained rather than just lived, felt and accepted
as such?
Quoting 3017amen
I wasn't referring to the ontological argument but to the ontological question about what exists and whether the existence of anything that exists is independent of human experience. You might say that we can't know the answer to that question, but we can still have a opinions about it.
Quoting 3017amen
So, again, even if there is no definite absolutely certain answer to the question (as is also the case with questions in science, by the way) it doesn't follow that we cannot have any opinion about it. If you think God exists like mathematical abstracts exist, would you say that the latter exist Independently of human thought and experience?
That's not what he said, he said it was metaphysics.
If SK were to write today, I think he would be remiss not to consider nature's secrets along with cognitive science, which in theory would take his existential angst (mystery) to its current status of understanding. What follows would be a 21st century leap of faith.
Otherwise more to your point, I haven't claimed I understand God's essence or existence. So I'm not following you there.
It is refreshing none-the-less to hear you say that you cannot explain the nature of Love's existence.
Unless I'm mistaken then, are you thinking nihilism is the logical conclusion or outcome to that inquiry or mystery?
I want to give your post the analysis it deserves so I will only answer one of the two questions tonight and the other one about experience tomorrow.
The latter question about independent existence has been debated quite a bit on this forum in its various forms. And of course it's an intriguing question and is fun to postulate over... .
You probably know what side of the fence I would lean towards, which is I believe mathematics has an independent existence as apposed to a human invention or an Darwinion evolved trait. (Same with music theory. ) I don't have any reason to believe the second method springs from a refinement of the first. And even if one were to assume that somehow they were evolved traits to some degree, it would still not explain the ability to intellectualize about them. Talking about abstract's confers no biological survival advantage.
But there again you suggested nobody knows. So back to the OP, if nobody knows how does the Atheists account for those mysteries? And if they can't explain the nature of those mysteries ( and many other Existential phenomena) then how can they explain the nature of their belief (system) that a God doesn't exist (?).
Depends on the atheist in question. They have all different sorts of views about this stuff.
Re "explaining the nature of their belief that a God doesn't exist," again, it's not clear to me what, if anything, the word "nature" is adding there. What's the difference between asking someone to "explain the nature of their belief that P" and "explain their belief that P"? (Not that it's clear what either are asking, by the way. But I suppose you're asking more or less for their justification for holding a belief.)
Note, by the way, that atheism isn't necessarily a belief.
When we mention something like that, instead of just functionally ignoring it, if you want people to think that a conversation is worthwhile, you should either make an adjustment for it ("Ah, okay, so it's not always a belief--let me be careful to not say that it is"), or you should argue against it, saying why you think that the idea that it's not always a belief is incorrect. "In my view it IS always a belief because . . . ."--you'd need to argue something like that.
Quoting 3017amen
You believe that music theory is something that we discover rather than invent?
Sorry TS, I haven't been purposely ignoring you ( I enjoy the exchanges) I've just been all over the place lately with work, here, and everywhere...wearing a lot of different hats right now LOL.
Anyway, I hope this statement will clear things up. Since you understand philosophy, when I talk about the nature of things, I'm basically referring to Kantian things-in -themselves.
I believe Kant was right, humans don't know thing-in-themselves. AKA the nature of existence. I think that's one reason why he made a big deal about critiquing pure reason. Pure reason of course, is a priori formal logic. It's central to the ontological argument for the existence of God as we know. It's meaningless. It leaves out experience (human sensory experience/ phenomena/cognition, etc.).
However, even though human phenomena won't tell us for sure about the nature of things, it gives us clues to the likelihood or plausibility for reasonable theories about same.
So, that leads to your question about justification for a claim of belief. Does my personal belief suffer from similar difficulties? Sure it does. But I'm not a Fundy either.
I won't digress too much about the value of the Religious Experience that has been well documented from the likes of Maslow, William James, Analytical Psychology/Carl Jung, NDE phenomena, et al. since that is a subject for another day. However, it is very impactful to say the least.
Music theory. Back In school, I had a debate with my professor about music theory. I didn't want to learn it because it was too hard. I was an ear trained musician. After much argumentation, we talked after class. He said, 'yes you're right Jim, I didn't want to tell you that music came before theory because if I told you that it would make you guys not want to learn theory.'
So yes firstly, I believe the phenomenon of music came first, then someone figured it out (theory). (There are minor exceptions in classical music... .) Secondly, to your point, there does not seem to be a clear answer, only a 'belief' as to the nature of it. In any case, what we do know is, that it doesn't confer any biological advantages. And we know the sounds of music itself takes primacy over music theory.
And as far as its second cousin, mathematics, for some reason my Kantian intuition tells me mathematics has an independent existence.
@3017amen Tick tock
Hey Praxis...I would say yes, if that's your choice.
Quoting 3017amen
I sincerely hope you do mean that in the past tense.
You’re an idealist, in other words.
... philosophically?
If you can't explain the nature of those mysteries ( and many other Existential phenomena) then how can you explain the nature of your belief (system) that a God does exist (?).
In logical terms, through Apophatic or negative theology.
For example if one say's they think God is spiritual, that's just another way of saying God is not a physical being. As a metaphysical theory, I personally think God is an ineffable, genderless electromagnetic force (i.e. EM fields of consciousness or light).
The logic there is a form of inference from nature. Consider the notion from the OP:
All events must have a cause.
That's a synthetic a priori judgement. Meaning its a synthesis between innate forms of intuition and experience about the world. However, we only know the statement is partially true but we're not exactly certain, because we have not experienced every event.
So we look at existing things to basically corroborate or infer as to whether that (causal relationships) could be true. Physical science almost always uses synthetic propositions or judgements to advance a theory about a some-thing.
If all events must have a cause is true, what is the takeaway? What if it's false? What would that mean?
Quoting 3017amen
???
Do my subjective thoughts make me a theist (or is it a metaphysical theory)?
Edit: Bonus question, are you an Atheist?
LOL
You mention God as though it’s a given, and even attribute consciousness, yet claim not to be a ‘theist’.
Is it a given?
I personally think God isn't an ineffable, genderless electromagnetic force (i.e. EM fields of consciousness or light).
How is your statement any better supported than mine?
Quoting 3017amen
Literally anything. Atheism, theism, flying-spaghetti-monster-ism... Absolutely any view on God could derive from a synthetic judgment that all events have a cause. I might be atheist and believe in a beginning of time, I might be Christian and believe in Genesis. I might believe the whole universe is a figment of my imagination.... Anything.
The simple fact of experience that it appears all events have a cause does not necessarily lead anywhere.
Not to sound disparaging, I'm just a bit confused, why do you feel the need to contribute anything on this subject matter? Are you not happy with Atheism?
Otherwise, okay, great! Now what, anything?
Sorry, but it really begged those questions...my thought is if you were content, you would not be interested. But then the more I'm thinking about it, maybe it's your innate sense of wonder that's causing your curiosity?
LOL
It worse than unsupported, the claim is incoherent.
If God is knownto genderless, electromagnetic consciousness, God is certainly not ineffable. Amen knows precise things about God.
Aren't all metaphysical theories unsupported/incoherent/illogical?
And how do you know God is not ineffable?
Tick tock tick tock
Nope, just the opposite.
Metaphysics deals in logical distinctions of necessity. Properly reasoned, metaphysics involves what we can be sure of, without making reference to a supporting empirical context. Indeed, if we try to reason about metaphysics empirically, we just end up with nonsense statements.
I know God is not ineffable because that would mean God was meaningless and absent. It would suppose a God which even lacked the distinction of being God. A God in which there was no God because concepts and statements about God would not pick out anything.
Oh okay well I have tons of questions first of all are you saying the concept of God is abstract?
I said that you speak as though God is a given. If I said that an apple pie is sweet I’m speaking as though an apple pie exists, or has existed. If I were to say, “If YHWH exists, she is ineffable,” that wouldn’t be speaking as though YHWH necessary exists. In any case the statement is incoherent.
Sure. I suppose you could say as a similar analogy that this statement is a given:
All events must have a cause.
Is that a given?
It doesn’t matter that causes & events are not distinct physical things like an apple pie, you can still dispute their existence. You can dispute the existence of pie, if you like.
I'm not quite following that could you rephrase the statement?
The existence of anything is disputable, or can not be taken for granted.
Shure. How do we confirm the existence of things then?
We see that we behave as though things exist even though we haven't confirmed their existence. That's as good as a confirmation gets this side of certainty.
A defining characteristic of religion is its dependence on authority. Only a religious authority can attribute qualities to the ineffable. :halo:
Absolutely; faith, hope and love!
Sure, beyond the religious experience, only a God would know the nature of existence.
I'm not sure I would say abstract here. Abstraction brings to talking about some similarity between existing things. Sort of liking talking about the fact your two books and two forks are similar. While not strictly inaccurate, it's true these things share meaning, it's not the angle I was wanting to come form.
Rather than trying to talk about how some things might be similar, I was going for a recognition of a necessary truth itself. Instead of trying to talk about how your books and forks shared the meaning of two, I had in mind adressing two itself. The necessary meaning, true regardless of what exists.
Whether God amounts to a necessary metaphysical truth depends on which notion of God you are talking about. Some gods or Gods are empirical , beings who act within the world, who could possibly exist or not.
Other notions of God are metaphysical, supposing a necessity which has no empirical presence or existence.
Most religous accounts are some incohrent confusion of the two.
:roll:
[quote=3017amen]Aren't all metaphysical theories unsupported/incoherent/illogical?[/quote]
If they are "theories", that is, conjectures attempting to explain X, then yes - because they, being properly "metaphysical", must be so general that any "support" for an explanation would presuppose the explanation itself, thereby begging the question. Such "theories" are merely pseudo-theories ... philosophy (i.e. metaphysics), as I understand it, elucidates critiques problematizes & speculates (i.e. proposes formal/conceptual Criteria or Methods) but does not theorize, or explain, as formal, natural or social sciences do.
You claimed that atheism is untenable, I'm an atheist. I'm obviously concerned to check that my beliefs are not actually untenable. Did you not expect any atheists to reply?
Quoting 3017amen
I think it's my innate sense of curiosity that's causing my curiosity.
For the umpteenth time - what has any of this got to do with atheism?
I just need the tiniest link you're trying to make between being curious about existential mysteries and deciding that God is somehow the answer to them (you could go on to explain exactly how 'God' is and answer to them too if you can, but answer the first question first...)
Why can I not be an atheist and yet still wonder about the existential mysteries which remain unanswered, while wondering for you, as a theist, remains consistent?
Rather than trying to talk about how some things might be similar, I was going for a recognition of a necessary truth itself.
Hey guys, as apposed to asking more questions, for the time being, here’s my short Metaphysical theory based upon the Kantian cosmological judgement: All events must have a cause:
Consider a necessary consciousness (some people say necessary Being):
A. There is at least one true proposition
B. That proposition is false.
Is A necessarily true? Suppose I contend that A is false. Call that proposition B. But if A is false, so is B, because B is a proposition. And if A is false there are no true propositions. So A must be true.
It is therefore logically impossible for there to exist no true propositions.
In an analogous way, how can a necessary (a priori) Being or consciousness be the first cause in a contingent deterministic world? A dipolar God could.
Consider the cosmological computer brain. The hardware is the fixed a priori thing-in-itself. The software is the deterministic cause and effect programing. That software represents free will, only in terms of the limited scope of computer program choices that are designed into it.
Feel free to parse and ponder
I appreciate that you wrote all of that, but you're not understanding the question I asked.
I was asking you a simple question about semantics with respect to sentence structure.
We can make two different queries:
(1) "Explain the nature of your belief that P"
(2) "Explain your belief that P"
The queries have the same sentential structure with the exception that the first one adds "the nature of."
What I'm asking you is what, semantically, does "in the nature of" change about the query? Is (1) really asking anything different than (2) is asking? (Or alternately, is "the nature of" kind of a verbal "engine revving"?)
By the way, my degrees are in philosophy and music theory/composition--so we have those two things in common.
Firstly, I appreciate you sharing that personal bit of info.
Secondly, unless I'm missing something, philosophically, my answer is real simple.
The nature of= Kantian things-in-themselves.
And oh by the way, don't you know kabasi is bad for you (reminds me of Pa.) LOL
So, your belief as a noumenon rather than your belief as a phenomenon?
I wouldn't be sure how to make sense out of that. But I'm not much of a Kantian in general. I don't buy the phenomena/noumena distinction, really.
That'd be a strong bare assertion at best, incoherent at worst.
Consciousness is not necessary in general, since there are simple possible worlds (self-consistent wholes) without. But necessities hold for all possible worlds.
Unless you mean consciousness is necessary for our world (or you've abandoned possible world semantics of modal logic) or something?
Yeah TS, I'm on the fence about that distinction as well. I guess in Kant's mind, he was thinking that noumenon was the result of transcending phenomenon. And so the logic there is that noumenon would consist of Metaphysically independent existing things, if you will. I certainly get that possibility, from a cosmological standpoint.
In my mind, metaphysical things are simply that, parts of unexplained things that we wonder about. But when we talk about consciousness/causation in the physical world, we can't help but incorporate that kind of thinking...I suppose a materialist won't though...
(Otherwise I'm fine with thinking about consciousness phenomena as a metaphysical thing.)
Hey jorn, that's a great question. I view consciousness as metaphysical necessity. I used the propositional example to demonstrate our sense of logical truth, or objective truth as it were.
In other words, consciousness and its primacy is required or needed to understand (apprehend) all forms of necessity and necessary truths, right?
@OP -
Seems to me quite the "tenable" 21st century position ...
[quote=Swan]Atheism does not address the question "Does god exist, or does god not exist".
It addresses the truth-values of theism, starting first with it's sin qua non fundamental claims on reality.
Theism is false, therefore god does not exist. Inexplicable "Gods" with no claims/predicates are irrelevant to atheism.
People are arguing the wrong thing. As usual.[/quote]
:death: :flower:
Hey 180, wow, now there's a novel proposition to parse:
"Theism is false, therefore god does not exist"
1. Is that what you believe?
2. If so, can you prove it to me?
tick tock tick tock
“The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas”
I like to think that I appreciate poetry as much as the next person on the street. You can do cool things with poetry that you can’t do with plain language or logic. I remember The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes as one of the first poems I was taught in school. Besides having alliteration, this line has one of the all time classic metaphors. “The moon was a ghostly galleon”. You can picture it in your minds eye. Oooh - nice one there Alfred.
But of course we all recognize that this is a poem - and in reality the moon is most definitely not a ghostly galleon; it’s a giant hunk of rock orbiting around the earth roughly once every 28 days.
So when we look at your posts, we see a series of metaphors & images - but nothing that connects with reality.
Quoting 3017amen
Quoting 3017amen
Umm, no. Truths do not exist, half truths do not exist, and lies do not exist. Physical objects exist.
Pretty much everything you are saying falls into the same trap - the words may sound pretty to you, but there is no logic, no reason, and unfortunately no rhyme (which might at least make what you’re saying fun to read).
I much prefer @PoeticUniverse's musings. @PoeticUniverse, if you’re reading this, I would be honored if you could make a poem out of what I'm saying.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
All that said, I am not telling you to abandon your beliefs. I was not aware of Christian Existentialism until you brought it up, so I have learned something new from this exchange. If your beliefs help you to make sense of your life and give you comfort, far be it from me to tell you otherwise. Compared to the more fundamentalist religions of the world, your beliefs seem relatively harmless.
I am under no illusions that you will read this and say to yourself, “Oh no - everything I’ve believed in all my life is wrong”. But try to accept that all religion beliefs are irrational and have no basis in reality.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
And all that said, I actually agree in part with some of your critiques of Atheism. But as an Ignostic I have no skin in this particular game. And so I will leave you with the last word. . . .
1. Yes
2. No
A metaphysically spiritual/genderless ineffable Being? The only answer that makes the most sense relative to how you worded the question would be, NO. Unless you can explain, materially, our own conscious existence. But then, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion right?
Truths do not exist, half truths do not exist
Are you sure? From the ideas set forth in the OP ( I apologize for some redundancy here), if I'm driving my car down the road daydreaming, have an accident and kill myself, was it my consciousness or subconsciousness that caused me to die?
Otherwise, you said, "Truth's do not exist" .... Say wha…???
And hey, I appreciate your commentary, thanks. Until humans can explain consciousness (which will never happen), then as you say, maybe we will all have more 'skin in the game'. On the other hand, it might just be the game changer! LOL
B well.
Conscious beings are existing states. There can be no necessary consciousness. The context of a conscious being supposes the existence or non existence of an entity with experience.
Necessary being, by definition, cannot be subject to such possibilities because it is always true. It cannot be a conscious being because necessary being is so regardless of what exists. When conscious beings do not exist at at all, necessary being is still the case, same as when conscious beings do exist.
More precisely:
Theism is false, therefore
(1) every theistic g/G concept is an empty name - without referent (e.g. "5-sided triangle" or "flat earth" ... or "Zeus" "Hu?tzil?p?chtli" "Vishnu" "Nana Buluku" "YHWH" ... ),
(2) theology (i.e. theodicy) derived from (1) is incoherent,
and (3) theistic religions are immoral, at least insofar as they indoctrinate & ritualize falsehoods-as-truths (i.e. fairytales) which reinforce inexorably maladaptive magical thinking.
[quote=3017amen]1. Is that what you believe?[/quote]
Yeah.
[quote=3017amen]2. If so, can you prove it to me?[/quote]
Of course.
[quote=3017amen]tick tock tick tock[/quote]
Sub specie aeternitatis, that's ... 'foolishness to us'.
:naughty:
Who is more foolish - the fool, or we who engage the fool in conversation, expecting reason?
The fool is still the fool. There is nothing wrong with having discussion(s)/conversation with fools. We do this daily, actually. Without expecting some well reasoned answer - but if you are more intelligent (i.e. skillful..) than the 'fool', it isn't a problem to talk with them, even have derive fun out of them... if not still extract something from even foolish answers, even if they themselves, cannot give you anything better.
Talking with fools only becomes FOOLISH, as I see it, when you are attempting to convince them of something (they don't have the capacity to understand or the integrity to investigate), which I don't think anyone here is trying to do, except other fools... You can surely distinguish between the two, so yeah, he is playing around with the guy (having fun with 'em...) in case you haven't noticed, not losing much... :cry:
Yeah "expecting reason" is almost always a mug's game. Playing the odds, like Swan suggests, I only expect to shame 'em a little ...
How come?
As mentioned, there are simple possible worlds without, absence thereof is hardly impossible.
(Hence why I asked if you meant that consciousness is necessary for our world.)
Quoting 3017amen
Skipping "primacy" — to understand/apprehend, sure.
But I wouldn't mix up belief/knowledge and truth/ontology.
Knowledge depends on truth, not vice versa.
Great questions...just for a starting point of discussion:
"Metaphysical necessity is contrasted with other types of necessity. For example, the philosophers of religion John Hick[2] and William L. Rowe[3] distinguished the following three:
1.factual necessity (existential necessity): a factually necessary being is not causally dependent on any other being, while any other being is causally dependent on it.
2.causal necessity (subsumed by Hicks under the former type): a causally necessary being is such that it is logically impossible for it to be causally dependent on any other being, and it is logically impossible for any other being to be causally independent of it.
3.logical necessity: a logically necessary being is a being whose non-existence is a logical impossibility, and which therefore exists either timeless or eternally in all possible worlds."
Jorndoe, I look at things a little differently:
1. I think mathematics is a metaphysical language.
2. I think consciousness is a metaphysical thing.
3. I think language itself is a metaphysical thing.
Whether any of those exist in other possible worlds is not answerable. But what we do know, is that consciousness exists.
Feel free to parse and ponder
It would be helpful if you understood what "metaphysics" even is.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/metaphysics/
Hi Atemis!
Thanks! I'm still wondering though, about this paradoxical conundrum of sorts ( metaphysical/consciousness) , perhaps you can help me with it (sorry for the redundancy):
I'm driving down the road, daydreaming, and have an accident and kill myself. Was it my subconscious or consciousness that caused that to happen?
And from the OP, what is this feeling known as Love, is that metaphysical you think?
That's not true. Richard Dawkins has said that evolution has made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. It is possible for someone to hold to the view of theistic evolution - that is, that God used the process of evolution as his method of achieving diversity of life. But it is incorrect to say that "evolution has zero connection to evolutionary theory."
Also, I would point out that evolutionary theory is closely tied to the theory of abiogenesis. Abiogenesis is an hypothesis in distress. Sometimes people claim there is no relation between abiogenesis and evolution, but that is not true. Charles Darwin proposed both ideas. In a letter, Darwin suggested the first life could have arisen "in a warm little pond." At the time, no one understood how complex life was and so Darwin's proposal seemed plausible, but the more we study unicellular life, the more we understand how complex it is.
Of course, abiogenesis and evolution were more plausible than the atheist positions in Isaac Newton's day. In Newton's day, atheists proposed the spontaneous generation of humans. They claimed that humans did not need to be created by God, the first humans probably just popped into existence long ago. Seems like a crazy idea, right? Now we understand that abiogenesis is just about as crazy.
Yeah, it is true. Atheism only refers to the lack of a belief in gods. You can think that evolution--or even all of science--is complete hogwash and still be just as much of an atheist.
I don't know why people find this so hard to get. Like, is it something in the water?
Like - you can believe in Harry Potter and Hogwarts and still be an atheist. Still an idiot. But idiot atheist nonetheless.
Or it's like telling a theist that he or she really must believe in animal sacrifice. Like, no, you complete intellectual incompetents.
This very question shows you don't understand what metaphysics is. Go educate yourself and only then is a conversation possible.
Okay I take that as a no answer LOL
B well
Yeah, it's frustrating. I can understand to some extent that people might conflate "stuff that most atheists I encounter (usually by 'debating' with them online) seem to believe" with atheism in general (even if they really shouldn't make that conflation--maybe read/look stuff up a bit more often?), but once you point out that the definition of atheism only has to do with a single issue, they should be able to get it.
I'll take that to mean you're not interested in actually learning anything here and your questions are therefore disingenuous to begin with.
Same thing with music, as you said. You weren't interested in learning anything about that either.
Willful ignorance has no place in philosophy.
But I did learn it. You read into something that wasn't there. I'm classically trained.
Then learn something about philosophy instead of trolling and using words you don't understand.
Yes, he is being completely disingenuous and dishonest, but I do not think he realises it. This is the evil of religion, how it corrupts the basic integrities of the human mind. The cognitive dissonance humans experience becomes a way of thinking, a gross inoculation against rational thought and self reflection.
Take “faith” for example, An utterly vacuous term that gets trotted out as a reason for believing when of course its the exact opposite of a reason.
Worse still, guys like this amen dude actually view themselves as paragons of rationality, and of virtue when again...exact opposite. Emotional analysis, not rational and so lacking in virtue they cannot even be honest with themselves let alone when posing “questions” to philosophical adversaries.
Hey, thanks for the political statements!
You're a politician? Who knew.
We're not the only ones to point out to you in this thread that you're not engaging people well. You can be stubborn about that or try to figure out what you're doing wrong and improve yourself. Your choice.
I don't know what to tell you Artemis.
Your non-answers/ad hominem arguments speak for themselves.
That's why I use the word politics... .
B well.
I guess you've chosen willful ignorance then.
If that makes you feel better!
LOL
Does loling at people make you feel better?
Not sure, ask Albert:
https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=zO72UPUl&id=A56C942A39C81CB36A68D6AD278700321F3D0C5A&thid=OIP.zO72UPUlOM4LJkylwjVEZQHaHa&mediaurl=http%3a%2f%2fi2.kym-cdn.com%2fentries%2ficons%2foriginal%2f000%2f015%2f725%2furl-3-10tjli1.jpeg&exph=940&expw=940&q=albert+einstein&simid=608026377354808944&selectedIndex=0
Cute. But you know Einstein never laughed at people when he was arguing with them in good faith.
Maybe if he was still alive I'd invite you to one of his seminars, then we could all have a good laugh together.
Heck, we might even have a group hug!
So why do you do this? Why do you string people along endlessly and without any intention of learning or taking them seriously? What's the point of you being here on this forum if you don't care about the conversation?
And, back on topic, since it's been the atheists here arguing in good faith with you, and you as the "believer" (of whatever ineffable thing it is) have been arguing in bad faith, that really just proves you wrong and solidifies the legitimacy of atheism.
You are giving him way too much credit. He isnt being stubborn, that would require him having an actual position to cling too, which he doesnt. He THINKS he does, and thats why he cannot engage. He has been programmed with placeholder words that have no substance and thus anyone actually trying to engage with him is just firing off into thin air. He has nothing to offer, so there is nothing to hit with any point you might want to make.
That, and there is this underlying immaturity to his comments which make it easy to think of him as stupid, or a troll but thats not what it is. He is a victim, made vulnerable by his own childish fears and fragility. Its not really his fault, which I think is why he gets people trying to help him. It is folly however, as part of his delusion is a defence mechanism where he ridicules the things he doesnt understand. He HAS to do that, he HAS to put in those dismissive responses and “LOL”’s, because his entire view is based on a childish narcissism of self importance. He’s this special guy, with a special little view that his philosophical opponents are powerless to respond. Again, that is the exact opposite of the reality. Unsurprising, since thats basically what religion is all about, denying reality for comfort.
Actually just the opposite. Many of you just use ad hominem arguments when you find yourselves in a position of defending nothingness.
There are numerous existential questions/Kantian metaphysical questions, cognitive science/ phenomena, unresolved paradox, et al. that suggest deep mystery, Through conscious beings the universe has generated self-awareness. That can be no trivial detail, no minor byproduct of purposeless forces. All events must have a cause is, by pure definition of the words used, transcends logical and metaphysical necessity. Accordingly, I would suggest you yourself, read-up on your Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.
But back to politics and humor. I see the Atheist Ronald Reagan television ad running again talking about separation of church and state. That's good thing for sure, and we see what extremism can do in third world politics (ie: Syria has no separation of church/state), yet it's only a half-truth here in the US. It's funny, in our great country we have on our currency 'In God We Trust', seems like a paradox for you, no?
The point is, Reagan ends the ad by saying in close quotes "...this is Ronald Reagan, I'm an unabashed Atheist not afraid of burning in hell." That precisely feeds into the dysfunction/deficiencies or otherwise the pathological 'an axe to grind' that's been projected here by some... . Don't take my word for it, look at what Einstein suggests in the OP, you can't hear the Pythagoras "music of the spheres".
Otherwise how does one transcend, as Maslow once said "what you are not you cannot perceive to understand; it cannot communicate itself to you"...
Not sure we have an answer do we(?)
I don't think you understand what an ad hominem is.
If I were to say, "amen is a stupid screenname, therefore you're wrong," that would be an ad hominem.
I'm saying that your entire method of interacting with people on this thread is wrongheaded. That's not an ad hominem.
I'm not criticizing an arbitrary aspect about you to refute your argument. I'm saying your process of argumenation is deeply flawed.
Do you understand the difference?
No I don't . And don't take this the wrong way, but your response proves my point of pointless arguments not addressing the existential issues at hand. Almost as pointless as the movie Forrest Gump (which was based on Existentialism).
Just kidding, it was a pretty good movie! LOL
If you don't understand how an ad hominem works, I suppose that explains a lot for your lack of understanding of the rest of this entire discussion.
Perhaps @DingoJones is right and you're just not aware of how out of touch you are in this conversation.
In that case I commend you for trying to participate in something that is obviously not your forte, but I do recommend some humility and some willingness to learn rather than grandstand on the idea that you've somehow gained insight that has mysteriously eluded people with more education and experience than yourself.
Also, quit it with the lols. It makes you sound like you're in middle school.
Ad hominem : in a way that is directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.
LOL
Ad hominem : in a way that is directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.
Ad hominem : in a way that is directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.