Burden of Proof - Part 2

[Mort_Alz]

It doesn’t.

If there was a monetary crisis and all financial experts agreed on one solution, then I would expect that you’d be reasonable happy that an answer had been found.

If all experts differed in their opinion, quite often wildly, then how confident would you be that any one of them was correct? At the very best, you could only say that one expert might have got it right.

Do you prefer the solution that appears to have worked for you in the past? Or do you study each in detail to make sure you have the right one?

I know what almost eveyone does.

I sure hope people of faith frequently examine their beliefs and the beliefs of others to make sure they’re in the right boat. I like to think I do this, since I am a convert.

A little unasked for autobiography: Catholicism is the only reason I’m not an atheist. Atheism is the philosophy that makes the most coherent sense after Catholicism to my mind. I was raised more of an Evangelical Christian.

 

[Aloysium]

Then, I take it you have some emotional biases for believing what you do? You don’t just believe it because you are intellectually convinced?

It appears that you have taken away what I did not intend.

But let’s go with this:

“Emotions” are complex and hierarchical, the highest being along the lines of awe, ecstasy and joy and the lower, animal passions, would be various pleasure which ultimately turn to types of hunger, anger, hate. Meant to dwell in paradise, our spiritual nature turns the latter otherwise transient feelings into an existential suffering that permeates into the core of who we are as eternal beings.

It is all about “bias”; that’s why we formulate theories, to mould the undefined into something meaningful. It is important to keep one’s heart and mind open. I’m not sure skepticism is of much value; better to pursue everything to its end in the truth. That truth may sometimes be that what we are being told is a lie motivated by the goals set by the world.

I am not sure “convinced” is the appropriate word. I know what I know. What I know would be “faith” to you. I know that I exist and that I do so in loving relation to the Source of my being, who is not only within me as our Eternal True Self, to whom I surrender myself and strive to become, but also the connecting knowledge that is Love through whose grace I approach the Supreme Father of all there is. It is all about relationality, perfected in the giving communion with what is other, seen everywhere in creation, reflecting the reality of God.

 

[Lucretius]

Aquinas was more broad minded. He could think the sensible and the supra-sensible.

He was trinitarian: he could think like a rationalist, an empiricist, and a theologian.

The rank empiricists (probably most of them) tend to be more narrow minded and intolerant of any ways of thinking beyond the empirical.

How else explain the demand of empiricists that we show them proof of God?

It is always empirical proof they demand, as if God could be approached sensibly.

This is what I was thinking: Thomists propose that all knowledge is rooted in the senses, while the empirists want to take a step further and claim that sense knowledge is the only kind of knowledge.

As you may notice, empiricists are all nominalists. And you point about look for a sensible God also reenforces my belief.

Christi pax.

 

[Mort_Alz]

It appears that you have taken away what I did not intend.

But let’s go with this:

“Emotions” are complex and hierarchical, the highest being along the lines of awe, ecstasy and joy and the lower, animal passions, would be various pleasure which ultimately turn to types of hunger, anger, hate. Meant to dwell in paradise, our spiritual nature turns the latter otherwise transient feelings into an existential suffering that permeates into the core of who we are as eternal beings.

It is all about “bias”; that’s why we formulate theories, to mould the undefined into something meaningful. It is important to keep one’s heart and mind open. I’m not sure skepticism is of much value; better to pursue everything to its end in the truth. That truth may sometimes be that what we are being told is a lie motivated by the goals set by the world.

I am not sure “convinced” is the appropriate word. I know what I know. What I know would be “faith” to you. I know that I exist and that I do so in loving relation to the Source of my being, who is not only within me as our Eternal True Self, to whom I surrender myself and strive to become, but also the connecting knowledge that is Love through whose grace I approach the Supreme Father of all there is. It is all about relationality, perfected in the giving communion with what is other, seen everywhere in creation, reflecting the reality of God.

That’s all very well and good… Look, I’m not bashing your faith. Assuming you really are Catholic, then I share the Faith with you. Sincerely, even. I’m just suggesting alternative methods of evangelism to you. Many of the things you do are exclusively the kinds of things I received from the denomination of my youth and part of why I left. A refusal to take my objections seriously met with a condescending attempt to psychoanalyze me. Catholics, on the other hand, for the most part, acknowledged my objections as worthy of consideration. I feel we owe the same to atheists.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

That’s all very well and good… Look, I’m not bashing your faith. Assuming you really are Catholic, then I share the Faith with you. Sincerely, even. I’m just suggesting alternative methods of evangelism to you. Many of the things you do are exclusively the kinds of things I received from the denomination of my youth and part of why I left. A refusal to take my objections seriously met with a condescending attempt to psychoanalyze me. Catholics, on the other hand, for the most part, acknowledged my objections as worthy of consideration. I feel we owe the same to atheists.

Looks like here you are doing some psychoanalyzing of your own.

My point is that any attempt to avoid psychoanalyzing invariably ends up using psychoanalysis to avoid psychoanalyzing … hence a self-defeating strategy.

My own conversion from atheism resulted from reading much of Chesterton, who was a far greater psychoanalyst than Freud. C.S. Lewis likewise attributed his conversion from atheism at least in part to reading Chesterton.

Indeed, Chesterton was very good at psychoanalyzing the psychoanalysts.

 

[Mort_Alz]

Looks like here you are doing some psychoanalyzing of your own.

My point is that any attempt to avoid psychoanalyzing invariably ends up using psychoanalysis to avoid psychoanalyzing … hence a self-defeating strategy.

My own conversion from atheism resulted from reading much of Chesterton, who was a far greater psychoanalyst than Freud. C.S. Lewis likewise attributed his conversion from atheism at least in part to reading Chesterton.

Indeed, Chesterton was very good at psychoanalyzing the psychoanalysts.

Suit yourself. And lose potential converts in the process.

 

[Mort_Alz]

I myself was also very heavily influenced by Chesterton and owe my conversion in part to him. I know what you mean by saying he’s a better psychoanalyst than Freud and I agree. But, you have to be in a certain mindset in order to hear Chesterton in a way that will affect you properly. What I have witnessed you doing is not the same level of self-aware thinking about thinking that is elegantly done by Chesterton and C. S. Lewis. What I’ve seen you do is respond to an atheist’s objections not by addressing and eliminating the objection but by dismissing the objection and saying “well, you only think that because of (insert emotional or character fault here).” The problem with this approach is it still leaves the original objection (and obstacle to faith) unanswered. So, it still remains an obstacle to faith. It’s not effective evangelism.

 

[inocente]

As to Melville’s comment on the ultimate battle between Atheism and Rome, I think he was quite onto something. The rise of atheism is concurrent with the rise of Protestantism and the dissolution of Christianity into hundred of sects. Indeed, atheism in the Middle Ages was so rare as to be negligible.

An alternative theory is that it only seemed rare because atheists knew they would be persecuted for heresy, so best not let on. Just as in the 20th century no sensible gay came out as long as homosexuality was criminalized and they were stigmatized.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Suit yourself. And lose potential converts in the process.

With you is everything either/or?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I myself was also very heavily influenced by Chesterton and owe my conversion in part to him. I know what you mean by saying he’s a better psychoanalyst than Freud and I agree. But, you have to be in a certain mindset in order to hear Chesterton in a way that will affect you properly. What I have witnessed you doing is not the same level of self-aware thinking about thinking that is elegantly done by Chesterton and C. S. Lewis. What I’ve seen you do is respond to an atheist’s objections not by addressing and eliminating the objection but by dismissing the objection and saying “well, you only think that because of (insert emotional or character fault here).” The problem with this approach is it still leaves the original objection (and obstacle to faith) unanswered. So, it still remains an obstacle to faith. It’s not effective evangelism.

And so here you are psychoanalyzing me and pretending to be an effective evangelist?

 

[Mort_Alz]

With you is everything either/or?

No. I’m just saying your method of evangelism would have been off-putting to me. I would have been a potential convert lost. I thought this information would’ve been valuable to you.

 

[Mort_Alz]

And so here you are psychoanalyzing me and pretending to be an effective evangelist?

I’m sorry. Where did I psychoanalyze you? Where did I try to discern your motives and discover hidden causes for your beliefs and actions that you weren’t even aware of?

Perhaps you can show me a quote of myself doing this?

 

[Mort_Alz]

Never mind. I’m not a moderator. Not my job. I just didn’t expect such a pushback. Thought I was offering constructive criticism in order to help our mutual evangelical effort, my coreligionist.

Looks like all I did was derail the thread.

 

[Aloysium]

The OP is about atheists who like to argue making the point that since “there is no evidence that He exists, thus there is not logical reason to believe”.

The fact is that we have all the evidence we need.

Evangelization to me boils down to a proclamation of the truth, and part of that process invloves getting into the core of the intellectual and emotional forces which form the structure of our experiential worlds.

In trying to communicate with anyone, trying to go beyond just talking to oneself in the presence of someone else, one needs to know where the other person is coming from. If the vision is not shared, one needs to have some sense of where the intersect between the two world-views might occur. Unfortunately, with some atheists, there is no point of connection. What becomes clear is that the situation is like that of a person looking for lost keys under a lightstand whose light does not reach them. One may simply keep reasserting the proof as best and in as many ways as one is able. It helps most people, not everybody, to guide the person to those obstacles that stand in their way. There are intellectual factors and emotional ones. A suggestion that something is at play causing interference may help at least realize some of the workings of their mind.

Religion involves a relationship with our Creator. Emotional factors, fears and hopes, experiences of joy and of suffering, I would say are far more important that the intellectual. And, faith is action; it means doing good, giving of ourselves to what benefits the other.

There is also evil to contend with, evil within ourselves. I’m not sure how one can know God without knowing oneself.

So, I would think that any atheist who says they see no proof for God where the proof is everywhere, if they wish to engage in a dialogue devoted to discovery of the truth, should be prepared by having some understanding of how they determine what is real and what is not and of the psychological forces that may blind them and run from the truth. For someone who wants to argue, or thinks this all occurs in some ivory tower, they may be unprepared for the wild ride that leads us to Reality.