Misused labels of Atheist and Atheism

[Dan123]

The biggest distinction between a lot of “New Atheists” and the older guard is the fairly novel insistence that “knowing” and “believing” are discrete activities.

It’s hardly a new idea, epistemology is one of the oldest fields of philosophical study. I believe for example that raising the minimum wage in the US would lead to greater economic success for many Americans. I found this believe on historical economic data. But lacking the ability to foretell the future I would not claim to know that course of action would lead to that result.

You might try to correct strawmen or go over some basics, but you wouldn’t feel obliged to write up your own academic paper that covers the theory of evolution in a comprehensive way from start to finish, nor would you design a course yourself for them to go through. It’s a lot of effort!

While I didn’t write a paper or design a course I did spend quite a bit of time just yesterday making graphs and laying out the function of natural selection for someone in another thread. Sadly I’m now convinced he was just trolling.

Much of your post presents a form of the Kalam cosmological argument and I’m sure you’re already familiar with the objections to it so I’ll take your suggestions and not write a long response but to say you make a huge leap. Nothing about Kalam prevents there being 2 creators, nothing requires omnipotence or omniscience. It’s maybe one of the better arguments for deism but says nothing beyond that.

How the hell do you measure “good” or “happy” in an objective way?

There’s still a material component to those however, you still have brain chemistry interacting to produce those results. If someone suddenly destroys your brain what happens to the ‘happy’ that was inside you?

But you may need to specify which argument for the existence of god that you’re alluding to. Honestly, there’re quite a few, naturally with varying degrees of soundness among them.

I was responding to other posters who I assume had one in mind.

 

[Vonsalza]

Missed this.

So you can assert that due to God’s nature this standard can’t apply, and that’s fine. It’s ‘special pleading’ to say “my claim doesn’t require proof”, which doesn’t mean it’s wrong but it is unfortunate,

It’s not special pleading to say that a non-material object cannot be analyzed using material methods. And this is also not the same as failing to provide evidence - which is what the pro-theist arguments do.

Your natural redoubt would be “Well, if it’s not material, then there’s no compelling reason to believe in it!”

Which is fine. But what an unfortunate existence you have if you apply that standard uniformly. Love, beauty and all kinds of other human constructs are also destroyed by your razor, here.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

You might try to correct strawmen or go over some basics, but you wouldn’t feel obliged to write up your own academic paper that covers the theory of evolution in a comprehensive way from start to finish, nor would you design a course yourself for them to go through. It’s a lot of effort!

While I didn’t write a paper or design a course I did spend quite a bit of time just yesterday making graphs and laying out the function of natural selection for someone in another thread. Sadly I’m now convinced he was just trolling.

Much of your post presents a form of the Kalam cosmological argument and I’m sure you’re already familiar with the objections to it so I’ll take your suggestions and not write a long response but to say you make a huge leap. Nothing about Kalam prevents there being 2 creators, nothing requires omnipotence or omniscience. It’s maybe one of the better arguments for deism but says nothing beyond that.

I’m familiar with the Kalam Cosmological Argument and have argued it against it on these boards and elsewhere as I think it’s faulty. So no, I’m not presenting a form of the KCA, and what can be inferred or not inferred from the KCA about omnipotence, omniscience, or oneness is irrelevant.

 

[Dan123]

Your natural redoubt would be “Well, if it’s not material, then there’s no compelling reason to believe in it!”

Which is fine. But what an unfortunate existence you have if you apply that standard uniformly. Love, beauty and all kinds of other human constructs are also destroyed by your razor, here.

I’m willing to entertain a different standard for non-material claims. @Wesrock used the mountain/molehill metaphor which dragged it back into the material world. Perhaps a non-material metaphor would work better? I’m open to one if one of you have one.

Emotions are not purely immaterial any more than say pain is. We experience things based on a variety of complex interactions. I’m willing to accept there may be an immaterial component to emotions, especially depending on how we defined everything, but I would ask you demonstrate that these things can exist without a physical material component to facilitate them.

 

[Dan123]

I apologize for mis-attributing it, but to explain my confusion, I read your argument as:

1. Things which change require a cause
2. Reality changes, and therefore also requires a cause
3. The cause for reality (first-mover) must originate outside of the reality it caused and have the power to create that reality.

Whereas the Kalam states:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause;
2. The universe began to exist;
3. The universe has a cause.
4. If the universe has a cause, then an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful

 

[Vonsalza]

It’s hardly a new idea, epistemology is one of the oldest fields of philosophical study.

Quite right. But the razor that “knowing and believing are discrete things” isn’t the same thing as “epistemology”. And again, Gettier takes a hammer to the distinction pretty thoroughly.
They are much more akin to two different points on the continuum of “certainty”. And the darned thing about continuums is that they often lack neat little fences. Of course, this view would be a bit inconvenient to the constructs forwarded by many New Atheists.

Frankly, the odd necessity to declare them identifiably separate smells an awful lot like a religious idea.

There’s still a material component to those however, you still have brain chemistry interacting to produce those results. If someone suddenly destroys your brain what happens to the ‘happy’ that was inside you?

No one is denying that there’s a material component to happiness - so there might be a touch of straw here. It’s just that claims of being exclusively material presently lack convincing evidence. We still don’t completely know what consciousness even is and a non-material derivative of the material is still, troublingly, non-material in itself.

But to the original point - we still can’t measure happiness objectively. So it doesn’t seem to empirically exist at the present. Maybe Sam Harris will get it figured out for us.

I was responding to other posters who I assume had one in mind.

Fair enough.

 

[Damian]

ATHEISM. Denial of a personal God who is totally distinct from the world he created.

Okay, but as an atheist, the term “Atheism” doesn’t really exist. The idea of “-ism” implies, to me, a type of world view, a goal, a way that directs your thoughts on how to address the world. This just isn’t the case.
Back to the jury analogy, when the jury member is unconvinced of the prosecution’s evidence and reasons for why the defendant should be found guilty, does the jury have a world view of “not-guilty-ism” that guides them to conclude the defendant is not guilty? No, no they don’t. Just like how I am unconvinced of why theists believe the supernatural exists based on the reasons and evidence the theist put forth. I am not using a world view of “atheism” that brings me to conclude that I don’t believe that conclusion is justified to hold at this time.

I do appreciate the dictionary definition from the religious references though. That way we can see where the differences are.

Someone who denies the existence of something based on good evidence, to me, is just someone who is just deliberately trying to undermine this understanding of reality for their own political purposes. They have other factors in their life that are in competition with this conversation. Not sure what term to use for someone like that, other than political troll.

trespassing beyond the boundaries of the positive sciences,

Why the qualifier of “positive” sciences? It’s just science as I understand it. There are “hard” and “soft” sciences, like physics vs psychology.

either contend that everything can be explained by the reasoning process used in such sciences

This is just the hypothesis process of the scientific method. You then have to go run tests in reality to see if your logical conclusions match up. See we can be logically correct and still factually wrong. That is why we didn’t teach that gravity waves exist when Einstein mathematically concluded that they should exist. We only started teaching that they exist after we detected them in 2015.

to affirm man than to deny God.

Not sure what they are getting at here.

In the light of this array of infidelity, it was only logical for the Council to declare that atheism is one of the greatest problems facing mankind in the world today.

This doesn’t follow since, again, atheistic position is a conclusion about a single question on a single topic. It has nothing to do with anything else outside of that question.

 

[Dan123]

It’s just that claims of being exclusively material presently lack convincing evidence. We still don’t completely know what consciousness even is and a non-material derivative of the material is still, troublingly, non-material in itself.

Indeed, it’s exciting to think what we might discover in the coming decades or longer. Many of us try to remember it wasn’t long ago humanity attributed things like illness and natural disasters entirely to immaterial origins and try not to repeat that.

You’ve discussed applying things equally and I appreciate that in concept but I think a mirror needs to be held up. If one were to compare the immaterial claims of every religion out there, what methodology would you use to determine truth from fiction? I’m not asking for you to use science use whatever you want, but apply it evenly across all the claims.

 

[Damian]

If I am raising my seven year old son consistent with my Catholic (Theistic) belief, I don’t want a spouse looking over my shoulder and telling my seven year old that “daddy is six cherries short of a fruitcake. There is no God just like there is no Santa Claus.” In the very simple, everyday, “where the rubber meets the road” sense of the word, atheist means that the adherent of such a term does not believe in God and maintains that God does not exist.

You married the wrong atheist then. She’s just being a tool.

You just might sound like you have your head up……………

Maybe, but at least I’m fine being honest with it and having a conversation with the people that are being taught to see me with my head up my…, you will keep holding this position if you never interact with someone like this, so it is on me to show you this is not the case. Or if it is the case, it still shouldn’t matter in having a meaningful relationship with someone that values and respects the same things that you value and respect. Again, disbelief in the supernatural is tentative position. It is not dogmatic position to hold. It is also something that has nothing to do with morality or thinking that someone who does believe it is soft headed. What convinced you does not necessarily work for someone else. They will let you know what it would take for them to believe it and that they are open to being convinced once that new information is presented.

 

[Dan123]

You married the wrong atheist then. She’s just being a tool.

Not to mention those are discussions to have before you agree to have kids together.

 

[Damian]

The existence of God and some at least of His attributes are revealed

How so?

one of which is the gift of faith

If faith is belief without evidence or reasons, then how is that a gift of having knowledge about reality since you can believe anything this way because you don’t need reasons or evidence for that position. Without reasons or evidence, you can not falsify the held position against reality to see if it matches reality or not, right? That is why you can not determine who is actually right about their faith held beliefs if two people hold exact opposite views of reality by faith. How do you determine who is right?

Hebrews 11:1 “Faith is the realization [Gk: hypostasis] of what is hoped for

I can hope a 7 will land on two dice rolls because I bet on 7. But I know it is possible to land on that since the evidence provides it. Its not a guarantee that it will land on 7 because it could land on 2-12 instead. But I at least know it is possible. That is what I call hope, the desire for a possible outcome out of all the known possible outcomes.

evidence [Gk: elenchos] of things not seen.”

I assume what they mean by “not seen” is evidence that is not provided but just assert is there. That is not evidence right? If the cop on trial just asserts the defendant had drugs on them but can not demonstrate that there was drugs on the defendant, that is also evidence of things not seen as well right?

 

[Damian]

it’s just fun simple analogy that seems to make the point.

 

[Damian]

Cant you be logically correct and still factually wrong?
Einstein was mathematically, logically, correct to conclude that gravity waves should exist. But we didn’t teach them as being part of reality until we detected them in 2015. Seems like that is the difference in world views. Your claiming that your world view is find with logical arguments being the reason to conclude something about reality, but other people are wanting the test to be ran to conclude it.
The logical conclusion is the hypothesis step in the scientific method. The tests is what lets you know if your logical conclusion was correct or not. You can still be logically correct and still factually wrong because the test may actually reveal more information about reality that you didn’t take into account. Or is this an unfair conclusion from your conversation?

 

[Damian]

So if two people hold to directly opposing views of reality on faith, how does that help us understand who is actually correct by comparing their claims against reality? Can’t you hold any position on faith regardless if it matches with reality or not?

 

[Vonsalza]

Perhaps a non-material metaphor would work better? I’m open to one if one of you have one.

I’m happy to let Wesrock hone his own devices. But as far as arguments for the existence of God, here are a few of the more common ones you’re likely familiar with on the general wiki - 3.1 and 3.2 are your more commonly encountered examples

Existence of God - Wikipedia

Emotions are not purely immaterial any more than say pain is.

I’m not making the argument that they’re purely immaterial.

I’m willing to accept there may be an immaterial component to emotions, especially depending on how we defined everything, but I would ask you demonstrate that these things can exist without a physical material component to facilitate them.

The existence of a non-material and hypothesized thing would only be “observable” through the derivative effects of it. How to do that without the material? I’ve no idea.

 

[Vonsalza]

You’ve discussed applying things equally and I appreciate that in concept but I think a mirror needs to be held up. If one were to compare the immaterial claims of every religion out there, what methodology would you use to determine truth from fiction? I’m not asking for you to use science use whatever you want, but apply it evenly across all the claims.

Oh, I think that’s a pretty weak understanding of religion.

God, if It exists, has unambiguously been strained through the cultures that encounter the thing.

Of course, I’m a theist way more than I’m a Christian. Christianity just helps me harmonize both God and my culture. So maybe I’m a little odd in that regard (heretic! )

 

[Dan123]

The existence of a non-material and hypothesized thing would only be “observable” through the derivative effects of it. How to do that without the material? I’ve no idea.

Agreed. And yet the vast majority of people in the world accept some immaterial claims and reject others.

 

[Vonsalza]

Vonsalza:

The existence of a non-material and hypothesized thing would only be “observable” through the derivative effects of it. How to do that without the material? I’ve no idea.

Agreed. And yet the vast majority of people in the world accept some immaterial claims and reject others.

Sure. We see evidence of dark matter/energy/other universes, but have never laid eyes on the things.

Religion isn’t the only place where I accept info on faith.

 

[Damian]

What is love?

Love is the label I put on someone’s investment into my wellbeing. What ever actions they take for that, based on what I understand as well-being for me, I feel “loved”. I have an internal reference point of what well-being is for me and if they support that, I feel loved by their actions.

What is meaning?

Depends on the topic meaning is being applied to. This is too ambigious to address.

What is identity?

Same response as “Meaning”.

Who are you?

I am me.

Where did you come from?

My parents.

How were you created?

Biology, power outage, late night, and beer

Why were you created?

No birth control used.

What is joy?

Discovery in an environment free of fear.

What is peace?

Understanding the future outcome is mostly to occur based on efforts we have worked towards for a positive outcome of humanity

Why does any of it really matter?

Because of evolution. We are the product of people that have evolutionary drivers that promoted this behavior and the ones that didn’t died off. Our reproduction selected out people that had this tendency more apart of their personality than the psychopaths.

Why are you here adamantly presenting your case for “no god”?

I am not, so I repeat. The jar analogy: Here is a jar with marbles that no one can investigate. As far as we can understand, there is either an even or odd number of marbles. The theist claims that there is even number of marbles. I don’t believe that claim is valid. Okay, so do I believe it is odd? No, no I don’t either, because that claim is also not valid to hold either. I am only disagreeing with the theist’s reasons for why they believe what they believe. What position have I made about the status of the marbles? None, none at all.

 

[Dan123]

Sure. We see evidence of dark matter/energy/other universes, but have never laid eyes on the things.

Religion isn’t the only place where I accept info on faith.

Yeah but those are theories regarding undiscovered material things, not undiscovered immaterial things. I get what you mean though I’m not dismissing it fully. At a minimum the effect of dark matter is demonstrable in the material world, and explaining it is a current scientific frontier.