I like this definition: *God is the anthropomorphization of the unknown.
*
We (theists) believe ourselves to be made in the image and likeness of God.
You (atheists) believe the reverse:
that God is made in the image and likeness of man.
You have it backwards! :doh2:
(At least we can agree on one thing, even though we see it differently…)
(As a former atheist, I can look back at that and laugh at myself now.)
I like this definition: **Nature for the atheist is the deification of the unknown.
How so? I commented on how confident you were in your assertion, and pointed out that most people aren’t so sure about anything without some form of evidence to support them. I asked what your evidence was.
Here we go again - you’re hijacking the comments of those with whom you disagree, in a failed attempt to show that they are being illogical.
Atheism is hostility to the claims of deity. It’s anti-deification, and one can’t interact with atheists or atheism in any depth and come away without this strong sense. Deification is the problem, rather than simply a matter of choosing the wrong deity. I think it’s hard for many theists to think beyond deification, but this is a salient feature of atheist thinking. Deifying anything is a sign of poor thinking, and superstitious mindsets.
No, it falsifies supernatural claims (“the gods push the planets through their orbits”) by replacing them with natural, emprically-based explanations. The realization is that the supernatural idea was spurious, fanciful, self-indulgent, and this is demonstrated by looking at a real world explanation that has been provided.
No, it’s a conceit to think that all questions require answers, or that man is in a position to answer them all, ever, even in principle. Knowledge can be obtained, and is hard won, but all knowledge gained just raises new and more fundamental questions. Man living without deities, without deifying anything, understands the humble limits of science and all tools for acquiring knowledge. We are gratified to learn what we can, and use it to our own ends (and just to revel in understanding what little we can, if nothing else), but science is just a tool, no more a god or deity than a shovel one might use to dig a hole for planting in your garden.
“attacked with no provocation”! As if you and the other atheists on this forum behave impeccably…
To deify is to revere something as the most powerful source of everything. For the atheist it is “nature” - as opposed to “supernature”.
Then it is superstitious to invest blind nature with so much power and might.
Atheism is certainly negative and amoral but it presupposes an ontology, i.e. that reality is “natural”, whatever that may mean. We know atheists begin with what is tangible but very soon they have to concede that tangibility cannot be adhered to strictly, as the demise of logical positivism demonstrates.
- How could atheism possibly make no claims as to what is “natural” if it rejects the “supernatural”?!
- How could it distinguish between the two if it does not know what the boundaries of nature are?
This is the definitive proof that atheism is not entirely negative. If it were, it would have no basis on which to reject theism. To deny is to affirm. Denial in a vacuum is literally vacuous. At the very least atheism implies that there are entities which deny the reality of God. It must also be based on reasons for that denial if it is not irrational. And not all of those reasons can be negative. A set of negatives proves nothing… The atheist states that there is no evidence for God - which implies definite ideas as to what constitutes evidence.- How does the atheist arrive at the criteria of evidence? By wishful thinking and nothing else? I leave you to answer that question.
Atheism is not an ontology but it presupposes “naturalism”, whatever that may mean. The one thing it does mean is “not supernatural”, of course, but the limits of “nature” are nebulous and constantly being extended.
There you have it! Atheism is not an epistemology but it depends on “natural, empirically-based explanations”…
There you have it again! Atheism is not an ontology but it depends on “a real world explanation that has been provided”.
Do you think the atheist is superior to the theist in this respect?
Science has humble limits but the atheist is not content with that. He regards science as a substitute for metaphysics…
In that case you should accept the fact that reality is not exhausted by natural phenomena and that metaphysics must supplant science when it comes to questions about reality… particularly about yourself…
A “Tu quoque” response is not a justification!!“attacked with no provocation”! As if you and the other atheists on this forum behave impeccably…
I suggest you read my reply to Touchstone’s post…
I’m perfectly aware of that. I don’t claim to be immune to provocation… and that is the one of the least of my faults…
Webster says:
By that definition, which seems quite adequate to me, nature doesn’t qualify, not nearly for me. It’s not a god – it’s impersonal! It’s not something to worship, and it seems ludicrous to think that nature is somehow “supreme” in worth. It’s just our environment, filled with wonderful things, but also filled with mundane and banal things, and evil things as well. A Les Paul and a good Class A tube amp, that might be something approaching supreme worth, but even then, it’s just stuff.
We attribute to nature what powers nature can demonstrate.
I think atheists make those claims, although even then, I don’t understand it to be necessary. A Buddhist friend of mine claims to be an atheist who believes in the supernatural. He denies the existence of any and all gods, which seems to me to fully satisfy the requirements of an atheism.
You are confusing an “it” with a classification. This is the same problem others here are having thinking that atheism is a positive moral framework – an “it” rather than a denial of or lack of belief in other things. See above.
Atheism in the abstract has no particular basis on which to reject theism. It’s a classification, identifying the collection of beliefs that are unified by a denial of or lack of belief in God or gods. Just as atheism entails no particular moral framework, neither does it entail one particular definition of “nature”. Maybe a good example elsewhere that might help is “third party voter”. When someone identifies themselves as a “third party voter”, you know they are not voters for either of the two major parties. But you do not know if they are for lower taxes, or communism, or laissez-far capitalism, or some other “-ism” on the political menu. “Third party voterism” does not entail a particular political stance, other than what is implied by the definition – they don’t vote for either of the big two parties.
I think that’s the most that it implies, but yes.
First, atheism in some forms is irrational. I have atheist friends who think God doesn’t and can’t exist because they hate him. That’s an irrational position. But there it is.
You are confusing the/an atheist with “atheism”. The instance is not the class.
Answers vary from atheist to atheist. The same is true for theism. Theists have different means of arriving at their criteria for evidence, just as atheists do.
- How does the atheist arrive at the criteria of evidence? By wishful thinking and nothing else? I leave you to answer that question.
I’m not a logical positivist, but I know several, and reports of logical positivism’s demise are exaggerated. Those who suppose it has
I think most atheists, especially in the west, would describe themselves as materialists, but that it is not a requirement for an atheist. My Buddhist friend claims hiimself an atheist, but a believer in the suprenatural, and says that there are a great many who share his views. In any case, as a materialist, I don’t presuppose it, and in fact was was Christian for 30+ years. Materialism is a conclusion I have arrived at, not an a priori.
I am an atheist. I am not “atheism”. There are other atheists who have different epsitemologies from mine, and remain atheists. You are confusing instances with the class. If you can understand that different “third party voters” may have political assumptions and priorities that are contradictory with respect to each other and yet still share the category “third party voter”.
I am an atheist. I am not “atheism”. I’m an instance, not the class. Other atheists are free to embrace other notions of ontology from mine, and remain co-atheists, so long as they share the lack of belief in God or gods.
I don’t know that all theists demand such, or that all atheists don’t. No matter. I can say it is a conceit for a person, atheist or theist, to suppose reality owes them all answers, or even satisfactory answers. Unknowns should be accepted honestly, as unknowns. It’s frustrating in many cases, but that doesn’t make an unknown a known.
Science is metaphysics. It is the enterprise of explaining natural phenomena in natural terms. It doesn’t get any more metaphysical than that. It rests on a faith that reality is real, and is at least partially intelligible through objective investigation. That faith may not be well-placed, and it might have turned out to be a bad leap. As things have turned out, it appears to have been a good gamble, as science has produce many models that increase the intelligibility of the world around us.
That makes no sense as science is a metaphysical enterprise. It’s just an accountable one, unlike the frivolous, unaccountable metaphysics that underpin the beliefs and actions of many other other enterprises, conspicuously among them, many religious beliefs.
If it is the source of everything you value most it must be supremely valuable.
So you regard persons as more valuable than anything else…
This is the most preposterous statement you have made on this forum. I shall mercifully give you an opportunity to withdraw it before I launch a devastating attack!
By ignoring supernature you imply that nature is the source of everything.
Do you allow for the possibility of the supernatural?
But you agree that rational atheism is based on reason(s)?
What are your criteria?
How do they reconcile the principle of verifiability with positivism?
But you have made assumptions to arrive at that conclusion?
Would you agree that most atheists believe in “natural, empirically-based explanations”?
Metaphysics is concerned with explaining the nature of reality. Science is concerned only with physical reality.
You are presupposing that the only reality is physical reality.
How can science possibly falsify its own metaphysical claims?
How can science be metaphysical when it is restricted to what is physical?
Do you believe persons and their activity can be adequately explained scientifically? Your relationships with your family for example?
Well, that conflates necessity with celebration. I need air to breathe – it’s supremely valuable to me, and I get a little freaked out when it’s denied me. But I don’t ‘deify’ or ‘worship’ an oxygen supply for my lungs. My senses and my brain are similarly valuable for surviving and making my way through life. But they are not objects of worship any more than air in my lungs is.
Sure, don’t you?
Well, devastate away! At some point you will have to come to grips with a fundamentally different disposition – godlessness. That doesn’t mean things are valued. But it does mean that things are deified. There’'s a salient difference.This is the most preposterous statement you have made on this forum. I shall mercifully give you an opportunity to withdraw it before I launch a devastating attack!
No. I’m stating that nature is the source of what we do know. There may be more out there than nature, but if so, we don’t know anything about it, and worse than that, we don’t even know how we would know anything about it. It may obtain, but we just aren’t aware of it.
Sure. Can’t be ruled out, any more than God can be. We just don’t have warrant for such beliefs, or even a coherent model of what such propositions entail.
I am forced by your tautology here to say “Yes”.
empirical, credibility increases with objectivity.
In my experience, they don’t nor do they feel the need to.
Sure. See the “atheist assumptions” for more from me on that.
Yes, certainly.
I think “natural” is probably a better term to use than physical, but yes. Science is the experiment that tests the metaphysical hypothesis: reality is at least partially intelligible in natural terms.
No, as ever, no. The hypothesis is provisional, and it only makes the modest venture: reality is at least partially intelligible in natural terms. It may be a faulty idea – I think by now the results are fairly compelling in support of the conclusion that science has achieved some significant progress on the intelligibility of reality in natural terms – but it in no way claims to be exhaustive in scope in terms of “mapping out reality”.
If science is perpetually unable to produce some level of intelligibility of reality in natural terms, we conclude its metaphysical hypothesis is falsified, and that reality is not amenable to natural investigation.
It has methodological constraints on both evidence and explanations as necessary to maintaining its epistemology, but the enterprise as a whole is predicated on the same metaphysical hypothesis I’ve been giving to you now dozens of times: reality is real and is at least partially intelligible in natural terms.
I think it unreasonable to rule that out. And while we are far from a complete and robust description, the more we learn, the more compelling the idea becomes. The more we discover, the more coherent and consilient becomes the naturalist model.
Sure. I am a natural phenomenon, just like you, and everyone else in my family. It’s a practical impossibility to develop complete descriptions of all phenomena, but there’s nothing there that presents logical problems for man as a completely natural phenomenon, explainable in thorough detail, in principle.
Do you deny that life must be supremely valuable given that it is the source of everything you value most? Do you believe life is valueless or less valuable than that which presupposes life?
I don’t regard persons as biological machines…
On what evidence do you base your** knowledge**?
You are not aware of any intangible realities that have not been explained scientifically?
Why do you regard naturalism as a coherent model when it is “far from a complete and robust description” of persons? Don’t you regard the mind as a coherent model of a rational, creative entity?
You have pointed out that there are irrational atheists. I am asking you in effect whether atheism worth considering should be based on reasons…
Would you agree that both credibility and objectivity presuppose the existence of an intangible mind?
OK, you’ll have to rephrase that one. Not following. See my answer about regarding oxygen supply. Life, as the basis for my consciousness and my… life, is the predicate for my existence as a person, and therefore an existential necessity… supremely valuable.
How would that matter?
It’s a pattern in your posts. A tu quoque looking for something to attach to. It’s a common meme – I worship God, but so what? You worship science! Everybody deifies somethings, so why not God… kind of a grown up version of “I’m rubber, you’re glue…”
It depends on what you mean by ‘intangible’. Gravity is ‘intangible’, and there’s a lot we haven’t explained about gravity, for example. I would say that falls in the scope of ‘natural’, though. If you mean ‘supernatural’ realities, no, I am not aware of any, explained or otherwise. I do think our sense of consciousness gives us a sense of immateriality, but this is something that science has substantial, but incomplete explanations for. It’s a burgeoning field of study, with lots of interesting things happening, lately.
It’s unified. That’s a huge advantage of dualist views of reality – especially when one “wing” of the dualism is a complete non-starter in terms of real knowledge and investigation. It coheres in its model – all facts are natural facts, all explanations are natural explanations, and they all integrate and interlock in a natural framework.
Sure! But in natural terms. If one introduces a “supernatural” mind as distinct from a physical brain, it quickly becomes an incoherent model, only resolved through appeals to “mystery” – not “unkown”, as there’s no path to “known” available.
Yes, that is best.
No. That isn’t required at all.
