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*sigh* I really should stop reading the comment section. Cause I actually like this comic bt everybody here seems to scorn religion. Oh well now I’m just complaining. Back to laughing.
@Toast: Ok, a materialistic atheist believes that nothing transcends the material man, be it in time (“Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die.”) or magnitude of reason (“Man is the measure of all things.”, i.e. “I am the measure of all things.”, i.e. sometimes “The Party is the measure of all things.”).
A non-materialistic atheist at least acknowledges his/her “…faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women…”.
You see it’s “faith” in “fundamental human rights” that helped create the world you and I live in. The framers of the Declaration of Human Rights were reluctant to say something like that there is enough evidence of “fundamental human rights”. Compare also the Declaration of Independence “We hold these Truths to be self-evident…”. “Hold” means “believe”, and the “truths” are “self-evident”. So there is an admitted lack of external evidence for those truths, yet there are people who are not ashamed to hold those truths. I believe that this limits the applicability of Clifford’s principle to the area where it properly belongs: natural sciences.
Therefore I believe that it’s wrong (both ethically and epistemically) to strictly apply Clifford’s principle to some beliefs, among which is also the religious belief.
I hope your definitions of ‘materialist atheists‘ and ‘non-materialistic atheists‘ give you pleasure – they certainly don’t offer much in the way of meaning. Where on earth did you get the idea that ‘materialist atheists‘ believe humans to be un-transcendably intelligent? That’s simply bollocks.
An atheist is someone who does not believe in a god or gods. It’s that simple.
The concept of “fundamental human rights” is one invented by man. It’s an aspiration. It’s not something which exists in any form other than through our creation.
The Declaration of Indepence states:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness…
Again, in this example’Hold‘ (or ‘believe‘) is used in a completely different way than in the phrase ‘I believe it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.‘
The Declaration doesn’t state: We hold it to be self-evident that water is wet – that actually is self-evident.
Clearly, these ‘rights’ don’t exist in nature. Very obviously, if they did they wouldn’t need to be stated or enshrined amongst the founding principles of a new country. It is an aspirational statement, casting the creed of the new country in opposition to wrongs its founders perceived in other existing countries. It is obviously not *literally* true that ‘all men are created equal‘ – we’re not all the same height, or equally ugly, or of equal intelligence, but the Declaration creates a principle of legal equality – notwithstanding that slavery continued for many decades in the USA.
‘hold’ or believe means ‘it ought to be the case that…’
The statement could be re-written: we wish it to be a fundamental principle that it is wrong for any man or woman to discriminate against any other man or woman on grounds of race, sex, nationality, sexuality, age, disability or any other factor over which they have no control, and that everyone will be treated equally under the law
As the second sentence states, these ‘rights’ are bestowed through human civilisation – they are not in any way pre-existing. They are principles which, as human societies evolve, they seek to implement and protect through law. They are also regularly attacked by the religious, cf, the pope’s recent rejection of equality legislation, and the church of england tearing itself apart about women bishops.
(1) Human rights can be a human creation, but then it’s the belief in their existence that made their existence come true, is it not? (And could you accept such a concept of g/God?)
(2) There are only two types of “believe”: “believe that/in (a proposition)” and “believe in (a person). The proposition can be either normative (as with the human rights) or descriptive (God’s non/existence), but the fact remains, we are talking about propositions here, not about persons, and I am asking you for the justification of your beliefs that Clifford’s principle holds in all situations and that there is sufficient evidence for the non-existence of God. Are we getting to your “properly basic” beliefs now?
(When you say an atheist is someone who does not believe in a god or gods, I believe that it is equivalent to “an atheist believes that there is no god”.)
(3) Materialist atheism: Do you know a being more intelligent than humans, if there is no God?
(1)You concede that ‘human rights can be a human creation‘, though you don’t state where else you think they might come from. I notice you don’t argue about the misogyny and homophobia of the church – hardly conducive to human rights.
Sadly, you then make the same mistake you’ve consistently made – you use the word ‘believe’ in two different ways without realising or admitting you are doing so.
Your belief in god is in a being which you claim *actually* exists, but for which there is no evidence.
The belief in human rights is in a concept or way of behaving towards other people which *it would be desirable if it came into existence*. There is of course, ironically, plenty of evidence of the *lack* of these – and thus the need to create them.
Do you understand the difference?
(2) Show me where I said ‘Clifford’s principle holds in all situations‘
To save you time, I said this:
Cliffords principle seems sound to me. Do you feel you dont have sufficient evidence to accept it? Excluding your belief in god which you accepted in your first post is irrational anyway how many examples can you think of where Cliffords principle wouldnt apply? I would suggest that in most cases, most of the time, its a description of how we interact with the world around us. If you believe its validity is merely subjective, do you think it would harm or benefit your life if you attempted to live counter to it?
I didn’t mention Clifford’s principle of course originally; you did. Presumably because you wanted to try to equate belief in it with your belief in god – by mistakenly conflating two different uses of ‘believe’, as I explained in point (1) above, and in previous posts.
Show me where you are quoting “properly basic” from. I didn’t say it. Why are you quoting it when it isn’t a quote? Because you think it makes your position look better? Is that honest behaviour?
(3)What difference does it make whether I know a ‘being more intelligent than humans‘ or not?
You said a materialistic atheist believes that nothing transcends the magnitude of reason of man. I didn’t say that. That’s your belief. There may well be species elsewhere more intelligent than man.
And just to remind you of what we are in fact arguing about, and which you have tried to wriggle out of and distract attention from, without admitting you were wrong, here I’ll quote your first post and my response from a few posts back:
‘If youre an atheist, fine. I even agree that being an atheist is perfectly rational (why believe in something there is no proof for, like the Loch Ness or Flying Spaghetti Monster). But even if you are an atheist, there are questions about your life that you cant avoid. You can try to answer them on your own, consult your friends or family, literature, Jesus and Mo, philosophers, become a member of the Communist Party or whatnot After being an atheist for some time, I found the best answers, or rather, the best conditions for looking for the answers, in a moderate Christian assembly.’
So you now attempt to give the impression that you were drawing a distinction all along between atheists who avoid certain questions and a group of some other kind of atheist. What you actually wrote can only be read as to be an atheist means avoiding certain questions, with this meaning emphasised with a further recommendation, based on your personal experience, that the answers can be found in a moderate Christian assembly.
You now define a sub-group which you call materialistic atheists. How is this group different from other atheists? What is a non-materialistic atheist?
As you made no suggestion in your original post that any such sub-groups exist, let alone that you were referring only to one of them, the fact that you are now creating one and restricting your criticism to that sub-group only, suggests that you are accepting your first post was wrong, but cant openly admit it.
(1) No, I don’t see any difference. These beliefs can be justified and true for some, unjustified or even false for others. The justification is a different issue. Foundationalism, coherentism, foundherentism, pragmatism, skepticism…
(2) Sorry for making it look like I was quoting anyone with the term “properly basic” – I would have used italics if I knew how to do it – I just wanted to point out that it’s a term. I am trying to show that even you have some unprovable beliefs upon which you found your arguments.
(3) What the sentence means is “there are questions about your life that you can’t avoid” – whatever your confession is. The meaning between the lines is, of course, “some atheists try to”, but that says nothing about the other atheists and all theists.
A non-materialistic atheist acknowledges the existence of things beyond the material world. A strict materialist would e.g. call love a chemical imbalance, a non-materialist would acknowledge that it’s so, but that it’s not the whole picture. As long as the materialistic atheists are denying the importance of spirituality, I feel offended.
(4) The Roman-Catholic Church is a conservative institution almost by definition. Is that good or bad? I think that it’s necessary to have a conservative voice in the debate about ethics, as long as it doesn’t have or try to gain a monopoly. But that goes for all other opinions.
The notion of Natural Law (from which originated the idea of human rights) was widely discussed by Christian philosophers throughout the Middle Ages. There are two sides to every coin (as long as it’s not a Moebius coin).
(1)Expand the word ‘believe’ in both sentences:
‘I believe in god.’
=
‘There is a being/entity/however-you-want-to-define-it known as god that *actually* exists.’
‘I believe in human rights.’
=
‘It would be better if people behaved towards each other in a particular way, ie treated each other equally, and didn’t cause unnecessary suffering.’
Try using the same subject in both cases, so the second sentence becomes:
‘People do *actually* behave towards each other in a particular way, they do *actually* treat each other equally, and don’t cause unnecessary suffering.’
The word ‘believe‘ is different in each case, and it is wrong to suggest that one is equivalent to the other. Even MS Word’s thesuarus shows this:
‘believe (verb)
1. accept something as true
transitive verb to accept that something is true or real
…
6. think something is good
intransitive verb to be of the opinion that something is right or beneficial and, usually, to act in accordance with that belief’
- these are the two meanings you are confusing.
(2)There’s an infinite supply of ‘terms’. It doesn’t help to start throwing them in to a discussion randomly, in quotes. And you haven’t ‘shown that even [I] have some unprovable beliefs upon which you found your arguments‘. See my quote of myself re Clifford’s principle. It may be useful, but if it’s proven wrong in any circumstance I don’t have to hold to it.
(3)If you’re unambiguously retracting the suggestion that to be an atheist one must necessarily ‘avoid questions’ then good. It seems to me that to be religious one must avoid the unpleasant answers to certain questions – that’s the reason our species invented religion in the first place.
(3b)’A non-materialistic atheist acknowledges the existence of things beyond the material world.‘ – what does this actually mean?
‘…A strict materialist would e.g. call love a chemical imbalance,‘ – would they? Who says? Where did you get this from?
‘Love’ could be discussed materialistically on many levels. It evolved for a reason, or more than one reason. It might suit the purposes of religious extremists to portray their opponents as emotionless robots by describing it in this way, but it sounds more like a charicature of Mr Spock to me. Who are you quoting here?
‘…a non-materialist would acknowledge that itâs so, but that itâs not the whole picture. As long as the materialistic atheists are denying the importance of spirituality, I feel offended.‘
Whether you ‘feel offended’ or not is irrelevant. If ’spirituality’ is a thing, and needs to be included in debate, you’ll have no difficulty defining it and justifying why – so, go ahead.
(4)I specifically didn’t limit that point to the Catholic church. Even the C of E is being torn apart by this kind of mindless bigotry, let alone Judaism and Islam. You ask whether it’s good or bad? Do you ask that question also in light of fascist political parties, or does the exemption from ‘fundamental human rights‘ only apply to religious bigots?:
‘The British National Party is a conservative institution almost by definition. Is that good or bad? I think that itâs necessary to have a conservative voice in the debate about ethics, as long as it doesnât have or try to gain a monopoly. But that goes for all other opinions.‘
Does that sound equally reasonable? If not, why not?
(1) Both of the sentences you provided use the verb “believe in” in the same meaning: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/believe (see meaning 6a – I guess that 6b could apply to belief in God too, but as long as you insist on the impersonality of God, we cannot use that).
Belief in human rights and belief in God are different beliefs only because human rights and God are different concepts. But the meaning of “belief” is the same. (see also “Belief” at wikipedia or at the BBC’s H2G2: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A855371)
(2) OK, so we have done away with Clifford’s principle. Do you still want a proof that God exists? Even Richard Dawkins is cautious enough to say that “a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist” (quoted from wikipedia). Almost certainly? (Battleground God http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/god.htm discusses this argument nicely.)
(3) I must admit that some theists also avoid questions. Too bad for them.
(3b) Try googling love chemical imbalance.
Ad spirituality: Spirituality is the ‘inner life’ of an individual, his/her subjective feelings and opinions, “deepest values and meanings by which people live”, for a nice quote. I think that the looking for meaning in life is the defining aspect of spirituality. Some people may say – hey, you are not going to find the meaning of life by sitting at home and reading a lot of books by wise people who think they found the meaning of life. They are right. It takes more luck and effort to follow a promising spiritual path in life. Those who criticise the extreme forms of spirituality are justified. I am more worried about the people who just don’t care. The people who only read the prolefeed and lead their lives accordingly. Those who elect populist politicians because they can only see as far as their stomachs. The populist politicians themselves.
(3c) If people and groups of people act as if there is an ineffable but caring-and-suffering deity, can the society become more stable? Religion obviously entailed some kind of evolutionary advantage to early societies. And my question is – can it be advantageous nowadays? Is God hard-coded in our genes? And do we have to try hard to overcome religion? And should we?
(4) Your example is different from my example – extremist political parties try to gain a monopoly, almost by definition. I do believe that conservative opinions are necessary to any ethical discussion.
You probably acknowledge that not all branches of the Christian Church are conservative – I picked the Catholic Church specifically to show that reasonable conservatism is something that I am not worried about.
(1) No, they really aren’t. Saying you *believe* that something exists is categorically different from *asserting your agreement* of the value of something. They are different. Really try to understand that.
‘I believe in god.’
=
‘There is a being/entity/however-you-want-to-define-it known as god that *actually* exists.’
‘I believe in human rights.’
=
‘It would be better if people behaved towards each other in a particular way, ie treated each other equally, and didn’t cause unnecessary suffering.’
‘God’ is a being/entity/whatever which actually does or doesn’t exist.
‘Human rights’ are human actions. If we act in a particular way, it can be described as demonstrating accordance with the concept, human rights.
If you take away people, ‘god’ still exists or doesn’t.
If you take away people, ‘human rights’ becomes meaningless.
(2)’Do you still want a proof that God exists?‘ – where have I asked for this? Why are you throwing in more irrelevant questions and pretending I asked them?
(3)’I must admit that some theists also avoid questions. Too bad for them.‘ – so now you’re weasling out of your apparent retraction?
In however many hundreds of words you’ve typed in this thread you still haven’t stated what question you think a person must avoid to be an atheist. So state it now.
(3b) No. I have better things to do. If you don’t take your own arguments seriously enough to support them, don’t be so arrogant as to ask me to do it for you.
(3c) Spirituality: ‘Spirituality is the âinner lifeâ of an individual… subjective feelings and opinions, âdeepest values and meanings by which people liveâ… looking for meaning in life is the defining aspect of spirituality…‘
Is it? I have those things. They’re not my ’spirituality’. My ’subjective feelings’ are just my subjective feelings. My ‘values’ are just my values, and so on. I don’t need to dress them up in mumbo jumbo terms.
And you provided this description to support this statement:
‘A non-materialistic atheist acknowledges the existence of things beyond the material world.‘
Are you seriously saying these ‘materialistic atheists’ you believe in *deny* subjective feelings, opinions, values, and everything else you mentioned? Do you think it’s possible you’ve actually simply created a robot enemy in your own mind, then convinced yourself it actually exists and wears the label ‘materialistic atheist’? Do you really believe there are people who don’t have, eg ’subjective feelings’?
(3c) Utility of religion. Yes, obviously it was useful in some ways. That doesn’t for one moment make it any less bullshit.
(4) Fascist bigotry bad: Religious bigotry good – And which religion *doesn’t* want a monopoly? Christianity aims to spread the ‘good news’. Islam goes one further – you’re born muslim whether you know it or not. And again, why is the exact same bigotry acceptable – or ‘reasonable‘ when it comes from a group which is defined by its religion, but not when it comes from one defined by its political views?
Also, how is lieing that condoms *cause* aids ‘reasonable‘? Or that lobbying that states should not extend marriage privileges to two people because one of them is the wrong sex? Or campaigning against research using stem-cells? Or for the right to deny children an objective education about sex?
You define these things as ‘reasonable‘ *because* they come from a religious group rather than a political one. Not because of anything specific about the forms of bigotry themselves. They all harm other people, but you consider them ‘reasonable’ because they’re religiously inspired – and therefore exempt from human rights concerns.
(1) You haven’t persuaded me.
(2) How else can a “bullshit” stop being “bullshit” for you than by a proof?
(3) I must admit that some theists also avoid questions. Too bad for them. – theists, not atheists
Spirituality: there are people who grossly underestimate the importance of subjective feelings and values (spirituality) and in turn don’t respect the spirituality of others who are willing to respect others. These are the materialists. (those who overestimate their own spirituality and in turn don’t respect others’ – religious fanatics and other superstitious lunatics)
(3c) “Utility of religion. Yes, obviously it was useful in some ways. That doesnt for one moment make it any less bullshit.” – I call the last sentence your properly basic belief. Pretty much sums up this discussion.
(4) Bigotry bad, tradition good. Condoms OK, civil partnerships OK, stem-cell research OK, education about sex OK (but parents should be educated that it’s primarily their responsibility to educate their children about sex and not to leave it to the children’s peers).
1 a) âThere is a being/entity/whoever-you-want-to-define-it known as god that *actually* exists.â
1 b) âIt would be better if people behaved towards each other in a particular way, ie treated each other equally, and didnât cause unnecessary suffering.â
‘Belief-that-x-is-true’ vs ‘assertion-of-the-superior-value-of-certain-behaviour’. Just think about the two sentences. It really isn’t complicated.
2) You’re digressing and distracting. You said ‘Do I still want a proof that God exists?‘ (my emphasis). I’ve never asked for proof of God’s existence, yet your question states that I have, and then for no reason you drag in Richard Dawkins. It’s just distraction because you still haven’t even ATTEMPTED to justify your initial point, from which this whole discussion arose and which I’ve asked you for several times, namely:
3)…the question you think a person must avoid to be an atheist
- what is it? What question am I and every other atheist avoiding?
Spirituality: there are people who grossly underestimate the importance of subjective feelings and values (spirituality) and in turn donât respect the spirituality of others who are willing to respect others. These are the materialists. (those who overestimate their own spirituality and in turn donât respect othersâ â religious fanatics and other superstitious lunatics)
Ultimately, every ’subjective feeling’ I might have could be traced down to physical, electrical and chemical action in my brain. There’s nothing ’spiritual’ about it; there’s
nothing outside the natural world about it. It’s not extra-material in any way. It’s very, very small and very complicated, but it’s entirely material.
Your definition of ‘materialists’ (ie, ‘people who grossly underestimate the importance of subjective feelings and values (spirituality) and in turn donât respect the spirituality
of others’) – seems to have nothing to do with whether they accept this explanation for their subjective feelings or not, and is simply a description of whether they are
polite/sensitive/respectful to others or not. Indeed, your definition (‘These are the materialists… people who grossly underestimate the importance… etc.’) could be re-written as: Materialists are people who are sometimes rude, insensitive or obnoxious.
You may not like people who view existence materialistically, but you haven’t offered any reason – or evidence – why someone who sees their own and others’ subjective
feelings naturalistically must necessarily ‘grossly underestimate the importance of subjective feelings and values (spirituality) and in turn donât respect the spirituality of others’.
Seeing things realistically doesn’t for a moment necessitate underestimating other people’s subjective feelings.
It sounds more like you are simply offended by the idea that some people choose not to accept your views on the supernatural/spiritual or whatever you prefer to call it. In fact you said:
‘As long as the materialistic atheists are denying the importance of spirituality, I feel offended.‘
As you’ve still not provided any support for your own initial point (this mysterious question atheists must avoid), and given your explanation re ‘materialism’, it seems to me that your main motivation here is your ‘offence’ at people expressing views which make it difficult for you sustain your belief in the spiritual/supernatural. The problem is the conflict between the reasoning, rational part of your mind and the emotional part. Rationally, you know we are just meat, with a limited use-by date, and it causes you emotional discomfort to confront that, so you are offended when this is brought home to you by people who consciously reject the spirituality/supernatural which offers you a way out of that unpleasant knowledge. That would be perfectly natural – for you and for every other human being. The awareness of our own mortality is the seed of god/s, the afterlife and religion.
(1) God doesn’t equal human rights, but belief equals belief.
(2) Fine, then you don’t want a proof and therefore you accept my belief as equally justified for me as yours for you.
(3) Not only some atheists, but also some theists try to avoid questions like: “Why are we here?” to repeat myself. You can call it non-sensical or irrelevant, mock it or whatever, but still you have to answer it, at least by continuing your life. The “floating question why”, to quote my favourite poet.
The ‘materialists’ are not making it difficult for me to sustain my belief (remember, I used to be an atheist too). They can just be obnoxious to other people by considering their own position (There is/are no g/God/s) as the universal truth achievable by ‘reason’ (i.e. Belief in g/God/s is rubbish.). Similar to late-19th-century Catholic traditionalist triumphalism (God can be known solely by reason), only the other way round.
Of course there can be a conflict between the rational and emotional part, but it can’t be solved by crippling the emotional part.
“The problem is the conflict between the reasoning, rational part of your mind and the emotional part. Rationally, you know we are just meat, with a limited use-by date, and it causes you emotional discomfort to confront that, so you are offended when this is brought home to you by people who consciously reject the spirituality/supernatural which offers you a way out of that unpleasant knowledge. That would be perfectly natural â for you and for every other human being. The awareness of our own mortality is the seed of god/s, the afterlife and religion.”
I almost completely agree with the above. Only the “spirituality” is not offering me a “way out”, but rather a “way in” to lead my limited life down here with a proper fear of God, not trying to think that I know all the answers when I don’t.
ad the nexus between underestimating the subjective and being intolerant: the more you hold a proposition to be “objective truth” the more likely you are to be intolerant to those who don’t see the “truth” as “objective”.
Propositions in the magisterium of science can be verified/falsified by scientific means, and therefore be tentatively called ‘objective truth’. Propositions in the magisterium of metaphysics cannot.
1)’…belief equals belief.‘
Perhaps I’m explaining this badly, possibly because it seems such an obvious difference to me that I’ve never considered anyone else couldn’t see it, but the dictionary link you yourself provided contradicts your view:
‘be¡lieve (bÄ-lÄv’)
v. be¡lieved, be¡liev¡ing, be¡lieves
v. tr.
1.
To accept as true or real: Do you believe the news stories?
2.
To credit with veracity: I believe you.
3.
To expect or suppose; think: I believe they will arrive shortly.
v. intr.
1.
To have firm faith, especially religious faith.
2.
To have faith, confidence, or trust: I believe in your ability to solve the problem.
3.
To have confidence in the truth or value of something: We believe in free speech.
4.
To have an opinion; think: They have already left, I believe.’
Either 1) agrees with the ‘believe in god’ meaning. Intransitive 3) agrees with the ‘hold these truths’ meaning.
Wikipedia draws the same distinction:
‘To “believe in” someone or something is a distinct concept from “believe-that”. There are two types of belief-in:[11]
* Commendatory – an expression of confidence in a person or entity, as in, “I believe in his abililty to do the job”.
* Existential claim – to claim belief in the existence of an entity or phenomenon with the implied need to justify its claim to existence. It is often used when the entity is not real, or its existence is in doubt. “He believes in witches and ghosts” or “many children believe in fairies” are typical examples.[12]‘
2a)I didn’t request a ‘proof that God exists‘ so it was a distraction for you to introduce it into the discussion, and dishonest of you to ask if I ‘still‘ wanted one. Your statement ‘OK, so we have done away with Cliffordâs principle.‘ was similarly false. ‘We‘ hadn’t ‘done away‘ with anything. You raised Clifford’s principle specifically because you felt you were able to safely ‘do away with it’. I said it:
‘seems sound to me. Do you feel you donât have sufficient evidence to accept it? Excluding your belief in god â which you accepted in your first post is irrational anyway â how many examples can you think of where Cliffordâs principle wouldnât apply? I would suggest that in most cases, most of the time, itâs a description of how we interact with the world around us. If you believe its validity is merely subjective, do you think it would harm or benefit your life if you attempted to live counter to it?
Moreover, do you think a question of the unique scale and significance of âIs there a supernatural being who created the universe?â should be decided by an exceptional/extreme loophole in an otherwise sound principle?‘
To compare ‘belief‘ in Clifford’s principle with ‘belief‘ in god/God/gods is the same false equivalence that you make between god-belief and human-rights-belief, as above. One is literal belief in the existence of a supernatural being, the other is assertion of the value of some type of behaviour.
2b)‘Even Richard Dawkins is cautious enough to say that ‘a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist’‘
And? The onus is on the person making the claim to support it, and a claim for the existence of a supernatural being requires extraordinary support. It would inevitably be an entirely separate discussion from any other point under consideration, but if you think you’ve got some, go ahead. Why you think you would need – or even think it possible to have *belief* in a god for whose existence you actually had proof, I don’t know.
3)’…’Why are we here?’ to repeat myself. You can call it non-sensical or irrelevant, mock it or whatever, but still you have to answer it, ‘
I gave you a straight answer to this right at the beginning Tom:
‘because my parents had sex and my mother gave birth me‘
In what way does that *not* answer the question? How is it calling the question ‘non-sensical or irrelevant‘ or mocking‘ it? It’s the answer at the specific level, and if you extrapolate it backwards, it’s the answer 3 billion or whatever years ago as well.
This is the question you said atheists avoid, yet there is my answer from the beginning of this thread. You may not find it satisfactory, but it is the answer. This materialistic explanation – like it or not – answers your question. You don’t like it, therefore you pretend atheists aren’t answering your question – because they don’t come to the conclusion you have about god. It’s you who is avoiding things – specifically, the answer to your own question.
‘…but still you have to answer it, at least by continuing your life‘
It would take a positive effort *not* to continue my life, and it would probably be painful, and it could well go wrong and cause me considerable suffering and put me in a worse condition than I am. And I would gain nothing anyway. And I would have the relatively certain knowledge that it would cause considerable unhappiness to a number of people. So what other – non-material – ‘why’ do I need? Is that not enough? Once it’s over it’s over. Continuing it for as long as possible seems a no-brainer.
3) ‘The âmaterialistsâ are not making it difficult for me to sustain my belief (remember, I used to be an atheist too). They can just be obnoxious to other people by considering their own position (There is/are no g/God/s) as the universal truth achievable by âreasonâ (i.e. Belief in g/God/s is rubbish.)‘
If it is ‘perfectly rational (why believe in something there is no proof for‘, how can it also be rational to believe the opposite? Why is it ‘obnoxious’ to say that you think someone’s position is irrational or just wrong?
‘Of course there can be a conflict between the rational and emotional part, but it canât be solved by crippling the emotional part.‘
Who’s crippling anything? You’re just complaining people come to a different conclusion than you.
‘…a âway inâ to lead my limited life down here with a proper fear of God, not trying to think that I know all the answers when I donât.‘
Who *does* think they ‘know all the answers’? And how does ‘fear’ of an (usually all-loving – strange, that) imaginary being prevent it?
‘ad the nexus between underestimating the subjective and being intolerant: the more you hold a proposition to be âobjective truthâ the more likely you are to be intolerant to those who donât see the âtruthâ as âobjectiveâ.
Propositions in the magisterium of science can be verified/falsified by scientific means, and therefore be tentatively called âobjective truthâ. Propositions in the magisterium of metaphysics cannot.‘
If a proposition can’t be verified or falsified then it can’t be investigated or tested by anyone other than the person subjectively experiencing it. Therefore it can’t be applied generally and cannot have the same value as a testable proposition, yet you complain that people who value objective, empirically testable views higher than un-verifiable, un-falsifiable ’spiritual’ or ’supernatural’ views are being obnoxious. It’s only when people force their subjective, un-falsifiable views on others that it leads to intolerance.
1) v.tr. 1 doesn’t apply to “believe in” sth., because that’s IMHO intransitive (I’m not a linguist, but cf. the example sub v.intr.3).
v.intr. 1 and 3 really are the nuances of the meaning. But if you look more closely at the equivalents (faith vs. confidence), are they really so different? Both of them express some bridging of a mental gap between reality and knowledge, more or less certain or uncertain. The only difference is, in my opinion, that you consider one of the beliefs irrational and the other one rational.
Commendatory vs. existential claims of “believe in”: both could apply to God, and both could apply to human rights.
Also note that both sentences can be rephrased as “I believe that God exists.” and “I believe that human rights exist.”, and now there really is no difference between these existential beliefs. If you are a legal positivist, then human rights exist thanks to codification, if you like the Natural Law approach, then they exist thanks to human nature. In fact, both of these theories can be correct at the same time. It’s just the way of looking at things. Light beam can also be viewed as a wave or a stream of particles. The world can be viewed as a smoothly operating machine, as a plant that grew out of a seed, as a giant baloon undergoing inflation, or as the work of God. All of these theories can be correct at the same time and I see no problem in believing them, as long as they don’t offend my reason or feelings.
2) You believe there is/are no g/God/s, I believe there is a God. There is no way to tell which of these beliefs is wrong, i.e. out of correspondence with reality, because both are coherent with reality. I e.g. find it quite unbelievable that something appeared out of nothing. Nothing – no Planck’s constant, no numbers, no information, no laws of nature, no power which brought the universe into existence. Nick Bostrom’s idea that we are probably living in a computer simulation is intriguing, but still there has to be [someone/something that created/a principle by which arose] the ultimate reality.
3) “Itâs only when people force their subjective, un-falsifiable views on others that it leads to intolerance.”
I totally agree. Both atheism and theism are such subjective un-falsifiable views. Neither can be proven wrong by observing the reality (see also the Argument from Ignorance at wiki). If the “hard” atheists meta-believe that they are epistemically better off with respect to God than the theists, then it’s only their fallacious belief, and if they spread the “hard” atheism across the population, then they are proselytizing just like any other religion, and they can be just as intolerant as some theists.
“By their fruits you will know them.” Mt 7:16. Our beliefs, all of which should also be coherent with our dis/belief in God, can have great influence on how we lead our lives. The evolution will eventually take its toll. Either the various kinds of theists and atheists alike will learn to share the planet with those who believe differently, or we’ll all become the evolution’s blind alley.
I tried to criticise in my comments those who deduce such opinions from their disbelief in God as are incompatible with my understanding of morality. I admit that this is a subjective category, and one may always be wrong in placing particular people in the category. I hate judging people. I just don’t like those who don’t think about their lives, that’s all. It’s not your case, I believe.
I also tried to note that my experience with religion and religious people has so far been positive overall.
“Why is it ‘obnoxious’ to say that you think someone’s position is irrational or just wrong?”
a) If someone’s opinion is fallacious (see Argument from Ignorance), then it’s obnoxious if they think they are right by virtue of reason and force their opinion on others (hard atheists – those who believe that there is no God and that those who believe otherwise are fools). b) If someone has some weird opinions on values (like e.g. it’s OK to marry and consummate the marriage with a 9-year-old, and that we are wrong in prohibiting that), then what they say is obnoxious and potentially dangerous.