Misused labels of Atheist and Atheism

[Vonsalza]

I wouldn’t use the idea of “proof”. I would use the word, “supports” the conclusion. Proof implies that every other possible solution has been dismissed as not valid and this is the only solution.

I find this kind of subtle, intellectual beauty is often found in Oxford’s definitions.

It does not require proof because it’s a nigh-impossible standard for non-material ideas (a la, “social science”). “Evidence” is a bit more subjective and you’ll find that lots of Christians employ evidence of all different sorts in their reasoning.

That is why the logical conclusion sounds only like the hypothesis step in the scientific method, we still need to test this against reality to see if it matches.

And as I keep repeating quite a bit, the scientific method is only useful for evaluating things that are material, determinable, quantifiable (thanks @Wesrock).

The scientific method is a wonderful tool. But a screwdriver won’t do everything. Sometimes you need a wrench. The method does have its limitations and, in fairness, your educators probably covered it. It cannot make value judgements like “global warming is bad” or “murder is wrong”. Since global warming and murder are a part of our reality, a paradigm based solely on the scientific method will have some pretty big holes…

To me, this sounds like being culturally religious. Which is fine too.

To be frank, I am culturally Christian, but I’m not culturally theistic.

I require a reality where law and morals limit bad behavior in a way that isn’t arbitrary. Raping children can’t be wrong only because we’ve declared it so by act of democracy.

This is where the metaphysical comes in. And the metaphysical, like all other things, requires a cause for its effect. This necessitates “god”. Now this doesn’t mean it has to be an old man with a white beard. But it has to be something that is likely as non-material as metaphysics itself.

 

[Damian]

According to christian theology, yes.

 

[Damian]

I’ll take flip though it and see what it has.

 

[rcwitness]

According to christian theology, yes.

Thats obvious. I was asking what you believe. Not what you know without a reasonable doubt. What do you believe?

 

[Damian]

And as I keep repeating quite a bit, the scientific method is only useful for evaluating things that are material, determinable, quantifiable (thanks @Wesrock).

If we can’t test a logical conclusion, then it just remains an unfalsifiable hypothesis to me. That’s the difference in our world views I guess. I’m fine believing more strongly in unfalsifiable hypothesis about ideas in our known reality, like the idea of gravity waves before they were actually detected. I didn’t actually believe they were there, but I would put more weight in that claim than a claim about alternate realities since I have never experienced anything like an alternate reality. Interesting to talk about, internally logically consistent, but falls within the realm of science fiction to me till more evidence is available.

As to references for the “good” and “bad”, aught and is…
Once you pick your reference point of moral decisions, you can have those. You pick a deity. I don’t because not everyone has access to a deity. I pick human well-being since I have been convinced that this reference point is the most common overlap on the vin diagram for all human cultures regardless of time, class, race, etc. It is nebulous, like the idea of nutrition, but you can have absolutes. Like the nebulous idea of what fruit to eat. Apples or Oranges? But it is absolute that, for the goal of nutrition, you should eat fruit and not drink poison.

 

[Damian]

That is what I believe about it. I believe that, according to christian theology, Jesus the Son of the Creator. I don’t actually believe in the idea of a creator is justified yet to hold, so I don’t ascribe to this theology for explaining reality.

 

[Wesrock]

Well, consider the proposition: something that exists is empirically falsifiable. Is that proposition itself falsifiable? Is the idea that an event has a cause falsifiable? Or that our perceptions present reap information about reality falsifiable (note that any tests we run can’t be known immediately by our knowledge but have to be themselves perceived)? Or are all these propoaitions themselves only hypothesis?

 

[rcwitness]

That is what I believe about it. I believe that, according to christian theology, Jesus the Son of the Creator. I don’t actually believe in the idea of a creator is justified yet to hold, so I don’t ascribe to this theology for explaining reality.

Ironic that faith Justifies a person.

Matthew 16

“But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

 

[Vonsalza]

If we can’t test a logical conclusion, then it just remains an unfalsifiable hypothesis to me.

And that’s fine. But you shutter your windows to a part of reality that appears to be very real. My youngest sister has degrees in sociology and psychology and testing theories in those fields in a way that is controlled and quantifiable is usually hard and often not possible.

Your ideologically required rejection of these fields is fine, I guess. But then you willingly create a blind-spot in your reality.

That’s the difference in our world views I guess.

A difference, I’m sure. There may be others.

I’m fine believing more strongly in unfalsifiable hypothesis about ideas in our known reality, like the idea of gravity waves before they were actually detected.

Some of the boys and girls at Copenhagen’s Niels Bohr Institute still aren’t totally sold on the idea. It may not be part of their “reality” yet, despite holding similar principals as yourself.

I pick human well-being since I have been convinced that this reference point is the most common overlap on the vin diagram for all human cultures regardless of time, class, race, etc.

And here you depart from the scientific method. How, exactly, does one directly measure “human well-being” in a way that isn’t endlessly plagued with the same subjectivity you decry of the religious?

Hopefully you might see at least a shred of my point. The human experience isn’t completely quantifiable, as you implicate here.

 

[Wesrock]

As to references for the “good” and “bad”, aught and is…
Once you pick your reference point of moral decisions, you can have those. You pick a deity. I don’t because not everyone has access to a deity. I pick human well-being since I have been convinced that this reference point is the most common overlap on the vin diagram for all human cultures regardless of time, class, race, etc. It is nebulous, like the idea of nutrition, but you can have absolutes. Like the nebulous idea of what fruit to eat. Apples or Oranges? But it is absolute that, for the goal of nutrition, you should eat fruit and not drink poison.

To a degree, this is morality based on natural law. That is, what is good for the health and dignity of the human person (which requires a conception of what a “good” human being is healthwise physically and mentally) versus what undermines it.

 

[rcwitness]

Debating belief in God with analogies and equations or jars of marbles and so on is silly.

God is Spirit and speaks to us in Spirit. Those who hear Him, believe. Those who are convicted of sin, believe.

Faith allows us to see God without carnal knowledge and material sight. We recognize by the words and natural law around us. By what we know and what we dont know.

 

[Bradskii]

Well, thanks guys. I’m out of the loop for 24 hours and y’all have a nice interesting discussion without me (quick guys…before he gets back).

A couple of points:

The term ‘existential assumptions’ was used somewhere. I’m very wary of statements that begin ‘it’s obvious that.’. Lots of things are obvious. Like something can’t be in 2 places at the same time. Or you can’t be older than your father. Or maybe we need to say that ‘as far as we know at this time…’.

Quite a few, if not all of the arguments for God start with God. That is, Aquinas or the guy in the bar didn’t start with ‘something must have been the first cause because x, y and z’ and end with God. They ran through their proofs and then associated them with God. Otherwise they must surely have just used a place holder for whatever was this first cause. And then let others claim that hey, all that seems to fit this guy we believe in who sent His son here, born of a virgin and also made this couple we call Adam and Eve and these guys did a few things wrong and now it’s all gone to hell in a hand basket etc. Or is a giant flying noodly thing. Et cetera. It’s deism at best and is in serious need of some attention by that guy from Ockham.

And yes, there are more conclusions that you can draw about someone declaring him/herself an atheist. But they all proceed from that fact. Just like if I say I don’t believe in Santa then I ALSO don’t believe in flying reindeers. So I’m not likely to to grant any veracity to reindeer hoofprints in the snow on my roof as a means to prove that Santa exists.

 

[Wesrock]

They ran through their proofs and then associated them with God. Otherwise they must surely have just used a place holder for whatever was this first cause. And then let others claim that hey, all that seems to fit this guy we believe in who sent His son here, born of a virgin and also made this couple we call Adam and Eve and these guys did a few things wrong and now it’s all gone to hell in a hand basket etc. Or is a giant flying noodly thing.

Those arguments rule out the possibility that it’s a flying noodly thing, invisible unicorn, etc…

But yes, the demonstrations are for monotheism in general, not Christianity in particular. One would need good reasons to support getting from monotheism to Christianity. No doubt about that. Though you write as if that was never addressed by the likes of Aquinas or others.

 

[Damian]

I don’t know. What it means to exist to me, is that it is detectable in our reality, it exists in time and space. I don’t know what it means to exist outside of that. I don’t know what to think beyond the big bang, so I don’t bother with that until we can examine that process. As for the idea of time, as I understand it, we use the start of the big bang as time = 0, tentatively since we do know know what happened before that point, so that is the reference point for our time = 0 reference point. Time, to me, is just event A to event B.

 

[Bradskii]

Damian:

As to references for the “good” and “bad”, aught and is…
Once you pick your reference point of moral decisions, you can have those. You pick a deity. I don’t because not everyone has access to a deity. I pick human well-being since I have been convinced that this reference point is the most common overlap on the vin diagram for all human cultures regardless of time, class, race, etc. It is nebulous, like the idea of nutrition, but you can have absolutes. Like the nebulous idea of what fruit to eat. Apples or Oranges? But it is absolute that, for the goal of nutrition, you should eat fruit and not drink poison.

To a degree, this is morality based on natural law. That is, what is good for the health and dignity of the human person (which requires a conception of what a “good” human being is healthwise physically and mentally) versus what undermines it.

What is good for us is what got us here in the first place. That is why we call it good. What we describe as moral acts and why we describe them as bad is no more than saying that eating rocks is bad.

 

[Damian]

So Simon was in communication with a deity, that is evidence for someone. So Simon is justified, from his point of view, to believe that. I’m fine with that. But I don’t have that data point, so I don’t think I am justified in that conclusion yet.

Ironic that faith Justifies a person.

Can you explain this part more?

 

[Dan123]

Those arguments rule out the possibility that it’s a flying noodly thing, invisible unicorn, etc…

How so? Why can’t God have a noodly appendage if he wants? Why put limits on God like that?

 

[rcwitness]

Hebrews 11
And without faith it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

He desires the Spirit to move a person, not carnal knowledge.

We were created with the grace of His presence. With our fall, He separated from us. Since then, He draws us to know Him through faith and conviction.

The Spirit gives eternal life, so it is fitting that the Spirit must be heard and followed.

 

[Damian]

And here you depart from the scientific method. How, exactly, does one directly measure “human well-being” in a way that isn’t endlessly plagued with the same subjectivity you decry of the religious?

I have been convinced that the idea of human well-being is something that is universal to all groups of people regardless of time and culture for a reference point. This is because when people seem to tell me what is good, they mean what is good for people. So that is human well-being as a reference point as I understand it. Matt Dillahunty, of the atheist experience, describes it like this: there are basic common norms for the human experience, such as life is preferable to death, fire=hot=bad, etc. Since we all have developed empathy and socialization as part of just being human, we can learn how to implement these basic innate drivers towards the maximum benefit for ourselves and thus others as well. Since we are all basically the same in our biological needs, socialization over isolation, physical and emotional connection, etc. when we develop a society that values these for ourselves, they also, intern create a better society for everyone else because we all have these needs. That is what I understand about why Human Well-Being is largest and universal reference point of the moral assessments, of aught and is, good and bad.

But you shutter your windows to a part of reality that appears to be very real. My youngest sister has degrees in sociology and psychology and testing theories in those fields in a way that is controlled and quantifiable is usually hard and often not possible.

Maybe, but I have to understand why that is the case instead of asserting it. No one changes their positions on assertions, they have to understand why it is better than where they are now.
The softer sciences of sociology and psychology can be tested with my process as well. Our labels of love, good, bad, etc. are expressed and communicated through our body language, measurements of stress, etc. All that is quantifiable as data for feedback on good and bad.

 

[Damian]

I agree, but I don’t know of a better reference point than that one.