Why Theists call atheism a Rejection of God

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by aaqucnaona, Jan 20, 2012.

  1. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Not at all.

    If anything, it's an exercise in checking one's intentions, and whether they can be trusted.


    The topic titled "God" certainly exists, and is much discussed and debated, and we are often expected to have a stance on this topic.
    As such, it is feasible to have a productive attitude toward talking about this topic.
    One might not be able to do much about one's "knowledge of God," but one can do a lot to cultivate one's attitudes towards it and everything that is related to it.
     
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  3. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    James' essay that I've been continually refering to addresses these concerns of yours.
     
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  5. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Belief in God is something that takes place on a personal level, this is where it has its relevance.

    While it is possible to conceptualize belief in God in a similar manner as, say, belief that the Earth is round, this is an impoverished version of what belief in God generally entails for people who say about themselves that they "believe in God."


    What do you think of it?
     
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  7. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    If in the absence of a relevant god we are left with the (insurmountable) relevance of inevitable attachment to things that will shortly not exist, we have a god that is relevant even in this life (provided one doesn't simply tag god as being duty bound to postpone the inevitable demise of things through miracles etc)

    Far from us being all equally ignorant, its difficult to find any corner of the globe where there is not some accessible knowledge of scripture or the work of persons who applied it (what to speak of "emissaries of god" descending for our benefit)
    Perhaps that would be easier to explain if you could suggest how one is supposed to believe in anything and why it is necessary

    Generally, even in terms of mundane law, misrepresenting/misusing an authority carries more severe penalties than simply disobeying and authority

    Because such "goodness" can not ultimately solve the problems of existence. IOW its the nature of material existence that exploitation renders any collective pursuit of "moral goodness" short lived
    Because a lack of belief effectively rules out any further issues of application
    Surely you don't expect some moral solution to be forthcoming to solve the world's problems

    Sinking an authority by its worst example can knock out anything you care to mention.

    I mean its not like Bad parents, politicians or policemen suddenly render the authorities of parents, politicians or policemen invalid
     
  8. river

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    I reject god , as an atheist , because Humanity is slavery , to god
     
  9. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    Not to sound trite, but surely all belief is personal?
    I'd agree they are different, but possibly/probably for different reasons than you: belief that the earth is round is supportable with readily available "evidence".

    It's a hefty article, and I'm not sure I follow all his ideas sufficiently to comment in any detail, but it is interesting.
    However I am not sure there are any "genuine" options with regard religion.
    And on the issue of not acting with cynicism, negativity etc... one needs to be careful to understand what those traits are in response to: is it the belief itself, is it the arguments that the person uses to justify, explain and push those beliefs on someone else (either directly or indirectly), or whether it is the person getting cynical and negative with themselves for not following / understanding the other's position (albeit not always conveyed that way).

    And with regard his idea that "a rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational rule", I would agree - but such a thinking seems to be locked into a reductio ad absurdam regarding the basis on which one assess whether an alternative rule allows acknowledgement of truth.
     
  10. Grumpy Curmudgeon of Lucidity Valued Senior Member

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    lightgigantic

    Not can't, won't., as I concider arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin to be useless before you first demonstrate A. that angels exist outside of your imagination and B. you demonstrate that they know how to dance.

    Just like the evidence for dragons lies in the Dragon Riders of Pern. Circular. You must support the scriptures before the commentaries mean a thing(other than incredible feats of mental gymnastics around the fact that the commentaries are based on no evidence). Evidence for a claim are not to be found in commentaries about the claim.

    .

    Not can't, won't waste my time. Besides, I'm handily kicking your toocus without them.


    Dawkins said it, I did not. I recomended the book for the arguments, not the title he chose to put on it. But I know what a problem you are having with facts, such as...

    I made no claim that there are no truths in religion, I said there are no valid or evidenced "religious truths". "God exists" is a religious claim, but without evidence, not a "religious truth". I even gave you a truth that was contained within a religion("Do unto others..."). It is obviously beyond your capacity to understand the difference(or your straw fixation is becoming terminal).


    I do not have to deconstruct outlandish and unevidenced claims, you have to support the claims you make. The default(say to the claim that Unicorns populate your back yard)is to say "prove it". If you show me a back yard full of horny horses you have evidenced your claim, if not your claim(by default)is rubbish and "By the way, they're invisible and immaterial."(as contained in the commentary)doesn't help.

    "Do unto others..." IS the primary truth of Christianity, the rest seems to be myth attached by the religious to make it more special. Google the Jefferson Bible, he agrees with me. ("Never has greater intelligence inhabited the White House than when Jefferson dined alone")

    Indoctrination, culture and upbringing. Funny how almost every child born in a Muslim country turns out to be Muslim. Wonder why that is?(not).

    Then you will have no problem citing where you got that idiotic idea. Not knocking Newton, he did a near miraculous job given his situation and limitations in knowledge, but Einstein replaced Newton long ago. You do know that Newton was an Alchemist, didn't you? We remember his successes, not his failures.

    Stick with religion, you don't know squat about science. Newton was proven wrong and replaced(not refined, completely discarded as close but no cigar)by Einstein. The same happened with flood geology(replaced by old Earth geology), biogenesis(replaced by Evolution), Alchemy(replaced by chemistry), Earth centered Universe(replaced by heliocentrism and Cosmology). In none of these cases was the predicessor refined, in all cases they were replaced. Refinement only happens WITHIN theories unless the evidence is so great there is a complete paradigm shift(and the theory is discarded), or in religion, where paradigm shifts are usually not possible(it would be the death of that religion)(que the apologists, we have a problem).

    Like I said, you don't know squat about how science works. If even ONE of the predictions of Relativity was found to be false the whole theory would be falsified. Famously there was the scramble to take photographs of full solar eclipses just before and after WW1. Relativity predicted that curved space would displace the positions of stars around the sun by an extremely small amount, but this could only be seen at the moment of full eclipse(given the equipment available at that time). Sir Arthur Eddington's photographs of the May 29 1919 eclipse showed exactly the predicted displacement. If it had not then Relativity would have been discarded because it had been shown as false.

    At least my near 60 years of study can be edifying to those who do not understand falsification, eh?

    All three are necessary for the method to work. The Scientific Method includes gathering evidence, logic applied to that evidence and testing to confirm that the hypothesis conforms to the evidence. The singular method is the Scientific Method, not any of the steps involved alone.

    Janitors don't examine(sometimes it's better not to know), they just clean up. Medical examiners and crime scene investigators gather and document evidence, they don't just shovel it into a bin.

    I told you the more likely explanations, brain tumor(documented), lying(also documented) or mental illness(ditto). And society treats them as one of these or certain other problems(halucination, drugs, certain physical ailments or inbalances, head injuries). I could probably think of others but seven is enough.

    You haven't evidenced that there is more than one method of inquiry regarding reality. All the other methods used in the past don't give the solid results, results we see all around us today. Ancent men were not stupid, but they didn't develop reliable methods that would allow them to apply that intellect to the real world with dependable results. Trial and error is haphazard at best and slow and pure intellectual thought largely useless and full of uncorrected error(science has shown that what we think is common sense is often dead wrong). It was the scientific method that allowed us to really get a good grip on reality and to manipulate it and bend it to our will. It is the only method proven to produce a true understanding of reality.

    And I have just destroyed this claim.

    Most of the early scientist were also religious, it was the only intellectual game in town at that time. But rather than borrowing all religious a priori claims they honed them down to the very minimum and rejected most of the others. This is exactly what got Bruno burned alive at the stake, he discarded the a priori assumption that the Universe revolved around the Earth(Gallileo got off easy in 632). ALL human progress is emergent from the present paradigm.

    Your reading comprehension is attrocious(or your straw stuffing is showing again). Work on that.

    I gave you an example, assuming the Universe is as we see it is pretty minimalist, it makes no claim about any of the properties the Universe might have other than it is as we see it. God exists is a whole 'nother can of worms.

    Here's your hat.

    Grumpy

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  11. Rav Valued Senior Member

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    Ok, let me try to put this into perspective.

    I think you would agree that even if you took all religion out of the equation a person might, just by looking at the world and pondering upon the question of how it all got here, entertain the idea that there might be some sort of intelligent order behind it all. This is a perfectly human sort of thing to do. But how does one ever get from ponderings upon the unknown to claiming that they have actual knowledge of the details of this intelligent order? By embracing one of the many epistemologies prescribed by theists of course. But again, such epistemologies are unreliable methods of determining specific details as evidenced by the fact it is so common for theists to disagree about what they are.

    What this essentially means then, is that an agnostic stance with respect to the existence of some sort of undefined intelligent order is the only stance one can take that is free of the problems I am highlighting. In other words, the moment you claim to have detailed knowledge of actually existing qualities is the moment you appeal to the 'correctness' of the specific epistemology you've embraced in order to discern them.
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2012
  12. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Not at all.

    Limiting ourselves to our usual experiences and projections, while trying to keep a sense of morality, I think we'd sooner arrive at something like the Theory of Evolution with the idea of primitve organisms developing into more complex ones.


    By subscribing to mundane science.


    I think this introduces an oversimplifying approach to how people become religious. More below.


    These differences between theisms only become a problem if we live in a multicultural, multireligious society, but cling onto monocultural, monoreligious assumptions about truth, religion, God, self, etc.


    If such agnosticism is something we resign ourselves to, then I don't think it is a genuine option for us to begin with. And that thus, we should rethink what the genuine option for us is in all this.


    What's wrong with that?


    You seem to operate from the assumption that when people "become religious," they "embrace," in a wholesale style, the whole religion and its teachings and practices, pretty much in an overnight, all-at-once, all-or-nothing, manner, in a simplifed version of Pascal's Wager, in a giant leap of blind faith.

    I think this is where William James' theory on how people come to their beliefs shows its advantages: it talks about beliefs in a personalized manner, just as we experience our beliefs (and indeed our whole lives) in a personalized manner - in terms of options that are actually genuine for us.

    James is, essentially, simply appealing to common sense: focus your efforts on things that are actually of genuine concern to you, as you are, in the time and place where you are, with the thoughts and desires that really matter to you.

    Much modern education is just the opposite: while possibly operating out of initially noble intentions, it tries to focus us on things that we can't really do anything about; things we can think and talk about a lot, but which are beyond our influence or have minimal relevance for our day-to-day life (such as much science and politics).
     
  13. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    If you look at the way issues of belief are often treated in modern psychology, philosophy and popular science, the idea they convey is that belief can and should be analyzed in a depersonalized manner.


    Millions and millions of people can make no use of that "readily available evidence." So it's not that "readily available" after all.


    That is the point: there are.

    You can, by some introspection and reflection, determine whether, say, Catholicism is a genuine option for you or not.
    Catholicism certainly is a genuine option for some people; and for some others, it is not.

    For someone else, a brand of materialism may be the only genuine option for them.

    And so on.


    I think that already from the perspective of common sense, it is evident that negativity is never a productive attitude.

    Negativity is a form of blame, a form of relying on others in ways that one shouldn't have relied on them.


    Back to genuine options.

    I guess James' line of reasoning is so simple that it is often hard to believe it or take it seriously.

    James is from a time where character ethics still mattered. This can be foreign to moderners ...
     
  14. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    The evidence is available, although the means to adequately interpret it might not be, which will merely separate a rational from irrational belief. However a belief with no evidence attributable to that belief...?

    It is only a genuine option if you hold to Pascal's wager and the assumptions behind it, otherwise I see it as avoidable.
    And Pascal's wager can also be used to support religions such as Pastafarianism, whatever followers of the Celestial Teapot adhere to, and any other religions.

    But if someone does consider their position to be a genuine option then that is for them to decide and act upon, although I will still help them identify any logical fallacies etc in arguments they use to try and justify their position.

    I don't agree that negativity is any form of blame... it is a view of someone else's argument as applied to themself, and their own acceptance or not of the risk/reward. There is no blame attached.
    Yes, there's a sense of negativity in countering arguments you find flawed, but in that sense I actually find it productive... an argument that can stand up to such criticism is all the more stronger for it.

    There is no need to "believe it" as there is no statement of fact being provided. But it certainly comes across as worthy of serious consideration as a methodology / thought process on such matters.
    But his extension of the idea into the question of religion I find to fall (for good or bad depending on the person) the same way as Pascal's wager.
     
  15. Rav Valued Senior Member

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    Actually, I think history demonstrates quite clearly the human tendency to posit agency to account for the order of the natural world. I'm quite surprised that you'd disagree.

    Theists typically don't believe that the scientific method is capable of producing details about whatever intelligent agency they believe actually exists. In other words, scientific inquiry does not fit into the context of our current discussion.

    They become relevant when one is trying to suggest that one can gain actual knowledge about what God is, who God is, what God wants, and how we are supposed to be living our lives.

    I don't operate from that assumption at all, and I really don't know how I've given you that impression.

    I have absolutely no problem with that. In a general sense, it seems like excellent advice. But it's also a recipe for simply believing whatever you want to believe, or whatever happens to suit you, rather than what may be actually true. If such concerns are not important to you, then fair enough. If all you're interested in is the sort of rich, meaningful and content existence that may come as a result of focusing more on being true to yourself than trying to discern the actual truth about what may or may not be beyond yourself, then I'd simply encourage you to do just that. Go ahead, embrace what suits you, be happy. Not only will I not try to stop you, I'll even defend your choice vigorously.

    But if you embrace such a philosophy, but still go around talking about your 'truths' as if they are actual universal truths, then you have to address the relevant epistemological issues.
     
  16. Xotica Everyday I’m Shufflin Registered Senior Member

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    Theism vs atheism is a fruitless exercise. Neither science nor religion can prove/disprove the existence of God. IMHO, you just have to go with whatever life-jacket best floats your inner boat in this regard.
     
  17. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    How do you know that the theists have no evidence for what they believe in?


    Those who are sure they are pursuing a genuine option probably do not concern themselves with the opinions of those who don't pursue said option.


    Why??

    If anything, it seems to avoid precisely the problems connected to the blunter versions of Pascal's Wager.
     
  18. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    You seem to think that when agency is posited, this is automatically an act of human imagination, pretense, invention, projection - and not perhaps an accurate statement.


    My reply is that it is by subscribing to mundane science that one gets from ponderings upon the unknown to claiming that they have actual knowledge of the details of this intelligent order.

    Your reply to your own question was: By embracing one of the many epistemologies prescribed by theists of course.

    I don't think this is the case at all. The way you have put things forth, both those theists that you mention as well as the mundane scientists operate the same way: they get from pondering upon the unknown to claiming that they have actual knowledge of the details of this intelligent order by subscribing to some epistemology.


    Not automatically. If you don't have a genuine interest in the topic, no matter how much others may try to convince you or even threaten you: it won't make your interest in the topic genuine.
    At best, your interest in the topic may be secondary, this is where isues of interpersonal politics come in.


    By using terms such as "embrace" and "subscribe" in the context of "absence of empirical evidence."


    You didn't read James' essay, have you. This is precisely the sort of objection he addresses.


    I don't think so.

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    That sentiment is ascribed to Voltaire, but last I heard, he actually said something quite different.


    No.
    Contrary to popular belief, the burden of proof is on the one who desires to be convinced.

    Leaving it up to others to convince one is to give them the responsibility for one's own life.



    When I talk about the passive, reactive, victim attitudes among atheists, I am referring to this tendency to fall for anyone who has the desire or makes an impression of desiring to convince.

    Someone comes along making some bold claim, saying "Believe me or burn in hell for all eternity!" - and some people automatically become passive, reactive, and reply "Allright, convince us!"

    Psychologically, this is an unhealthy reply to challenge.

    Karen Horney (whom I've refered to several times) has a relatively simple typology of how individuals cope with challenge:

    When we look at how people tend to cope with threats made in the name of religion, we can see that their coping mechanisms are often neurotic, a mixture of the three unhealthy coping strategies (granted, the term "neurotic" is officially not in use anymore, but it is nevertheless still useful).
     
  19. aaqucnaona This sentence is a lie Valued Senior Member

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    First, welcome to sciforums! Ok, I agree with your statement, but science tends to lift away the mystery in which Gods seem to dwell - some day, the question of God will come within the purview of science - till then we can be sure of those things that aren't correct, like the creation accounts of scriptures and better yet, we can point out things were there is no evidence, like the personality of deities and rituals and dogmas of religion. Combined, the force of science and reason is enough to leave only the deists, panthesits and spinozists.
     
  20. Xotica Everyday I’m Shufflin Registered Senior Member

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    Thank you aaqucnaona

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    I tend to view the existence of God question and religious scripture/dogma as separate entities. One can believe in a higher entity (spirituality) without subscribing to the doctrine/nuances of formalized religion.

    In order to disprove the validity of God, I think science would have to prove an unequivocal non-deistic primal cause (or rely on infinity). Since our science is bounded by parameter, I see no available avenue whereas science can unequivocally establish/prove primal origin.

    I hope that makes sense.
     
  21. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    They might well have - but they haven't as yet provided any to me with an explanation such that I must rationally attribute it to God.
    Possibly not, but I can only speak of those that do.
    Because it requires religion to be a forced option - i.e. one where you must choose between religion or not, without accepting the existence of any middle ground that might render the option avoidable, such as a God that doesn't care if you believe or not and judges you on action alone.
    i.e. he holds a requirement that religion must be believed for God to reward.

    Further, accepting his argument or not must be subject to the same methodology... i.e. is accepting his position a forced option or avoidable?
    If accepting his argument is avoidable, what to speak of his conclusions?
     
  22. aaqucnaona This sentence is a lie Valued Senior Member

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    Welcome, call me Aaq.

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    Yes indeed.

    I think we know what we need to sew the picture up - abiogeneisis, big bang, unified theory of physics. I dont see much room for God thereafter. Even if this actually proves God, till then we must not assert specific theism, like the personal gods of religions.
     
  23. Xotica Everyday I’m Shufflin Registered Senior Member

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    Science is bounded by parameters established at the Big Bang. This is why for example, we can never see beyond the observable horizon. How exactly does one apply the scientific method prior to the Big Bang?

    Science cannot assert theism. People however, are free to embrace that which is personally comforting. Anything less is dictatorial.
     

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