Strong atheism vs. weak atheism

[PseuTonym]

strong atheists believe everything is imaginable, whether it exists or not.

I cannot imagine a winning strategy in tic-tac-toe.

(In case that isn’t clear, a strategy that guarantees at least a draw isn’t a winning strategy. A strategy has to guarantee a win for the strategy to be correctly described as being a winning strategy. Of course, there cannot be a winning strategy for both players.)

Question #1:
If everything is imaginable, then should I conclude that a winning strategy in tic-tac-toe is imaginable, and I simply lack imagination?

Question #2:
If everything is imaginable, then should I conclude that the words “winning strategy in tic-tac-toe” don’t describe a thing?

Those aren’t intended to be rhetorical questions. Please attempt to answer them.

 

[AnlytcPhil]

I cannot imagine a winning strategy in tic-tac-toe.

(In case that isn’t clear, a strategy that guarantees at least a draw isn’t a winning strategy. A strategy has to guarantee a win for the strategy to be correctly described as being a winning strategy. Of course, there cannot be a winning strategy for both players.)

The strong atheist would say that the row of words “a winning strategy in tic-tac-toe” is an incoherent sequence of words, not “a row of words referring to something impossible or something nonexistent”.

PseuTonym:

Question #1:
If everything is imaginable, then should I conclude that a winning strategy in tic-tac-toe is imaginable, and I simply lack imagination?

No, again, the strong atheist would claim that the row of words “a winning strategy in tic-tac-toe” is meaningless or incoherent.

PseuTonym:

Question #2:
If everything is imaginable, then should I conclude that the words “winning strategy in tic-tac-toe” don’t describe a thing?

I’m not going to tell you what you should or shouldn’t conclude, because this is a Roman Catholic forum and to do so may be considered by the moderators as proselytizing about something other than Roman Catholicism, which would be against the forum rules. But yes, the strong atheist would tell you that you should conclude that. So now you understand what the strong atheist claims about the Christian’s utterance, namely that “The infinite omnipresent incorporeal spirit that created the universe and everything except such infinite spirit itself – exists” is incoherent.

PseuTonym:

Those aren’t intended to be rhetorical questions. Please attempt to answer them.

No one should consider your questions rhetorical, but philosophical. Your Question #2 show good understanding on your part of the strong atheist’s or theological noncognitivist’s way of thinking.

 

[PseuTonym]

The strong atheist would say that the row of words “a winning strategy in tic-tac-toe” is an incoherent sequence of words, not “a row of words referring to something impossible or something nonexistent”.

That sounds like a refusal to distinguish between syntax and semantics, and an insistence that the Strong Atheist’s beliefs about what exist are to be imposed – as though they were syntactic restrictions – on all who enter into communication.

After somebody does a bit of work constructing mathematical apparatus to represent strategies for non-probabilistic games such as tic-tac-toe, the following becomes not merely meaningful, but very specific:

S(G) = {x: x is a winning strategy for game G}

In that terminology, we can rewrite what we seem to agree upon:

S(tic-tac-toe) = the empty set

So now you understand what the strong atheist claims about the Christian’s utterance, namely that “The infinite omnipresent incorporeal spirit that created the universe and everything except such infinite spirit itself – exists” is incoherent.

I’m not convinced that the description “incoherent” is appropriate, or warranted above.

If infinity is the problem, then you might be interested in knowing that at least one mathematician made an effort to describe a coherent way of doing mathematics without infinity. People who deny the existence of infinite entities usually either refuse to learn very much mathematics, or insist that mathematics is an extremely effective tool that relies upon acceptance of nonsense and fiction as though it were fact.

Warning Signs of a Possible Collapse
of Contemporary Mathematics
by Edward Nelson
web.math.princeton.edu/~nelson/papers/warn.pdf
Search for the phrase “sky-hook” to get to the central part. It may be also helpful to read the text surrounding all three occurrences of the word “fable” in that essay.

You might also be interested in the book entitled “Predicative Arithmetic” (also written by Edward Nelson), with full text available at no cost here:
web.math.princeton.edu/~nelson/books.html

 

[PseuTonym]

the key word here is “spirit”. I could not show her a spirit, so I cannot cause her to understand why the word “spirit” makes any sense.

Can you show somebody the past?

In the novel 1984, a powerful government denies that statements about the past can be objectively true. Statements about the past are said to belong to the same category as statements about what ought to be. There is a duty to stay up-to-date as the government changes the official story about the past, but officially there is no change, because only the present moment is accepted as truly real.

Can you have a symptom of pain in your brain, but not in your spirit, psyche, or soul?

If you can have pain in the brain, then you might go to the doctor and say that you are not consciously experiencing any pain that you are aware of, but that you are concerned that there might be pain in your brain, and that you want the doctor to make sure that your brain is not suffering from any pain. After all, it is natural to take an interest in your own brain.

 

[AnlytcPhil]

That sounds like a refusal to distinguish between syntax and semantics,

No, these people whom I label “strong atheists” claim that what rows of words they label ‘coherent’ and ‘incoherent’ have only to do with whether what they are saying refers to something imaginable or not, regardless of syntax and semantics. The people I label “strong atheists” claim that if what is being said or read refers to something that can be imagined as being sensed, then they label what is being said as ‘coherent’. And they say conversely, if nobody can imagine anything for what is being said to refer to, they label it “incoherent”.

You may be saying that I am labeling these people incorrectly. Maybe I am, for lack of a better term for them. I’m not up on what words have been coined for such people. I’m just telling you about their claims, for I’ve talked to them and studied them. If you know of the correct label for them, then please tell me the correct label for them and I’ll use it. I’m just telling you what sort of rows of words these people label “coherent” and which rows of words they label “incoherent”.

PseuTonym:

After somebody does a bit of work constructing mathematical apparatus to represent strategies for non-probabilistic games such as tic-tac-toe, the following becomes not merely meaningful, but very specific:

S(G) = {x: x is a winning strategy for game G}. In that terminology, we can rewrite what we seem to agree upon: S(tic-tac-toe) = the empty set

The empty set ∅ is “mathspeak”. In reality, what is labeled ‘the empty set’ in mathematics is just ‘nothing at all’ in reality. It’s like the number zero, the cardinality of the empty set. Sure 0 is labeled a number, but only because that’s a very convenient way to have things in math, but actually zero should not be labeled “a number”, but the absence of number.

If zero were actually ‘a number’ outside of mathematics, then I could brag and say that I own ‘a number’ of multi-million dollar mansions, as well as ‘a number’ of Roll-Royces.

The ancient Romans did a lot of useful mathematics using their Roman numerals which had no zero at all. But in math, and in speech, we speak as though “nothing is something” because it’s convenient to talk that way, but math ain’t reality. In reality, nothing ain’t something, because there is nothing at all. (Yes I know ain’t ain’t good English)

PseuTonym:

I’m not convinced that the description “incoherent” is appropriate, or warranted above.

Now we’re getting into semantics. Before we can argue about labels such as “coherent” and “incoherent” we must be absolutely sure we are on the same page of thought rather than language, OK? Otherwise it could be like the argument “I have a dozen donuts” “No you don’t, you have twelve donuts”.

Strong atheists claim that if what is being spoken refers to something that can be imagined, they label what is being spoken as “coherent”. If what is being spoken does not refer to something that can be imagined, they label what is being spoken as “incoherent”.

PseuTonym:

If infinity is the problem, then you might be interested in knowing that at least one mathematician made an effort to describe a coherent way of doing mathematics without infinity.

This is getting back into mathspeak. In calculus mathematicians never speak of “infinity”. They only say “as x approaches infinity” which is just another way of speaking of a variable x taking on larger and larger values without bound. They may say “the limit of 1/x as x approaches 0 is infinity”, but they’ll tell you that all they mean is that when x gets arbitrarily close to 0, 1/x gets larger and larger, and if you tell them how large you want 1/x to be, no matter how large, they can always calculate for you a domain, or interval of values around 0, such that 1/x will be that large or larger. They have no need for anything to label “infinity”.

PseuTonym:

People who deny the existence of infinite entities usually either refuse to learn very much mathematics, or insist that mathematics is an extremely effective tool that relies upon acceptance of nonsense and fiction as though it were fact.

I suppose you would say that the famous mathematician David Hilbert is one of the latter. His famous quote is “Mathematics is a game played according to certain simple rules with meaningless marks on paper.”

Anyway, strong atheists would not claim to do anything labeled “to deny the existence of infinite entities”. They would claim the row of words “to deny the existence of infinite entities” makes no sense, and consider it the same as if they had heard “to deny the existence of bliffles and zickets”, which is the same as not hearing anything at all.

You like math apparently. What is a number? It’s simply an adjective! If I say “I have five apples”, then “five” is an adjective modifying the plural noun “apples”. An adjective is a word that modifies a noun or pronoun (or noun phrase or clause) and tells ‘which’, ‘what kind of’, or ‘how many’. Numbers are adjectives that tell ‘how many’. That’s all they are – adjectives of quantity.

Enough about math. Do you have a different label for these people I label “strong atheists”?

 

[AnlytcPhil]

Can you show somebody the past?

Sounds like this is saying “Can you show somebody something yesterday today?” How could that makes any sense?

PseuTonym:

In the novel 1984, a powerful government denies that statements about the past can be objectively true.

So what if they say that? They’re just speaking a different language where “objectively true” means something different from what it means to us, but they’re still in the same world.

PseuTonym:

Statements about the past are said to belong to the same category as statements about what ought to be.

They’re just speaking a different language where they consider words to mean something different from what we consider them to mean.

PseuTonym:

There is a duty to stay up-to-date as the government changes the official story about the past, but officially there is no change, because only the present moment is accepted as truly real.

That’s doing nothing but changing the meaning of “truly real” from the way everybody uses it. It’s just changing language, not what is the case.

PseuTonym:

Can you have a symptom of pain in your brain, but not in your spirit, psyche, or soul?

Strong atheists only understand that we say we feel pain when the nerves and neurons of the body behave certain ways. They’d say “psyche” is talking about the emotional system. They don’t claim to get any meaning from the words “spirit” and “soul”.

PseuTonym:

If you can have pain in the brain, then you might go to the doctor and say that you are not consciously experiencing any pain that you are aware of, but that you are concerned that there might be pain in your brain, and that you want the doctor to make sure that your brain is not suffering from any pain. After all, it is natural to take an interest in your own brain.

If I said that to a doctor, and he didn’t commit me immediately to the funny farm, he’d certainly be a quack.

 

[Vonsalza]

Weak atheism: God (Yahweh) does not exist.
Strong atheism: “God” (“Yahweh”) is not a meaningful word.
[Strong atheism is synonymous with theological noncognitivism; ignosticism]

Coming back to the original post, there seems to be something worth clearing up. First, the provided definitions/examples seem to be incorrect. Here are corrections:

Weak Atheism is the lack of belief in any gods
Strong Atheism is the denial of the existence of a particular god

Looks like AnlytcPhil sorta has those backwards, respectfully.

Looking at some of his other posts, he seems to espouse a general relativism in the use of labels (i.e. “what I think ‘X’ means”), but in order to have meaningful discourse, we need to use words with the meanings they are commonly and authoritatively given. Yes, that is semantics, but semantics is quite important in the exercise of rhetoric, as Voltaire well knew.

Second, I love the advent of different classifications of atheism due to it being an obvious attempt to cloak classic atheism in the scientific credibility of agnosticism. Let me explain.

Not long ago, theistic belief was divided into three camps: theists, agnostics and atheists. Theists claimed to believe in a god(s), atheists claimed that there was no god(s) and agnostics espoused uncertainty either way.

The problem for theists, from a rational perspective, is that they make a positive claim that requires proofing (which is impossible - much to the delight of atheists worldwide). However, it didn’t take long for the beleaguered theists to realize that atheists also make a material negative claim that requires proofing as well.

Thus atheists had a problem. They claimed to be the quintessential rationalists over those weak-minded, superstitious theists, but didn’t want their sense of community compromised by their inability to scientifically rationalize their claim. The solution? Make their atheism resemble scientifically-invulnerable agnosticism as much as possible without actually converting.

Why don’t atheists simply commit themselves to agnosticism? It is very difficult to build an active community around a religious idea that mirrors the scientific and hypothetical null value of “undefined” like agnosticism does. No one wants to go to “God Might/Might Not Exist; There’s No Hard Data” meetings. They seem inherently boring.

So lo and behold, philosophy textbooks started showing up with different classifications of atheism in the 70s (thanks largely to Colin Campbell). By the late 90s they were commonplace, even though the classifications provided in these texts were often different between them.

So how can you tell if you’re speaking with a classic atheist? If someone treats one’s religious views with a hostile tone on the basis that its a religious view, you’re likely dealing with a classic atheist, even if that atheist clothes themselves with another label. They lack the gall to admit they also can’t prove their religious views and their only respite is to attack yours. If they were genuinely committed to scientific uncertainty about god(s), they’d only inquire with civil, rational questions.

And in my years of dialogue, genuine agnostics are rather rare…

 

[PseuTonym]

AnlytcPhil, I am responding to only two small parts of your message. I foresee a possibility of creating the impression that I have ignored most of what you wrote. Actually, I did read through your message carefully, more than once. If you would like me to respond to other parts, then please don’t hesitate to make a specific request.

In calculus mathematicians never speak of “infinity”.

The quoted text below appears to be a counter-example to the above claim. The word “countable” is a clue.

I would like to prove the following:

Let g be a monotone increasing function on [0,1]. Then the set of points where g is not continuous is at most countable.

Link:
math.stackexchange.com/questions/84870/how-to-show-that-a-set-of-discontinuous-points-of-an-increasing-function-is-at-m

Please observe that the notation [0,1] means the closed interval from zero to one on the so-called “real line.” In standard set theory, the set [0,1] isn’t a countable set. It can be explicitly written in set notation as {r: r is an element of the set “R” of real numbers and r is greater than or equal to zero, and r is less than or equal to 1}.

Anyway, strong atheists would not claim to do anything labeled “to deny the existence of infinite entities”. They would claim the row of words “to deny the existence of infinite entities” makes no sense …

If they are truly discussing the row of words, then they need rules for classifying rows of words. All sorts of difficulties arise, and we find ourselves in the realm of linguistics and the area of artificial intelligence involving language processing. The label “makes no sense” appears to be a description of a Strong Atheist’s emotional reaction, rather than a conclusion that has been deduced step-by-step via a rigorous system of rules.

 

[AnlytcPhil]

Coming back to the original post, there seems to be something worth clearing up. First, the provided definitions/examples seem to be incorrect. Here are corrections:

Weak Atheism is the lack of belief in any gods
Strong Atheism is the denial of the existence of a particular god

No that’s not what I say at all. This is what I say. Play close attention and think hard.

Weak atheism is the belief that “Yahweh” refers to a nonexistent god.
Strong atheism is the belief that “Yahweh” refers to nothing at all, either existent or nonexistent. Strong atheists (theological noncognitivists; ignostics) believe that “Yahweh” is an empty row of alphabet letters, like “Bliffle”.

Strong atheists believe that theists do not believe in a god, but only have the illusion that they believe in a god. Now do you understand?

 

[AnlytcPhil]

AnlytcPhil, I am responding to only two small parts of your message. I foresee a possibility of creating the impression that I have ignored most of what you wrote. Actually, I did read through your message carefully, more than once. If you would like me to respond to other parts, then please don’t hesitate to make a specific request.

The quoted text below appears to be a counter-example to the above claim. The word “countable” is a clue.

Apparently you want to discuss mathematics. If we do, I suggest we start with the Peano axioms, not real analysis. But I think we should discuss it someplace else, because most people on here probably only understand high school algebra, trigonometry, and possibly some calculus, if that.
PseuTonym;:

The label “makes no sense” appears to be a description of a Strong Atheist’s emotional reaction, rather than a conclusion that has been deduced step-by-step via a rigorous system of rules.

Yes, indeed. They claim ignorance of anything regarding the term “Yahweh”. So if theists are to convert them to Christianity, they must educate the strong atheists.

Strong atheists actually agree with Roman Catholic Father Ronald Rolheiser, except for his “dark knowledge” and “gut sense”.

I keep posting a link to Father Rolheiser’s site, but it seems nobody is reading it, or if they are, they’re ignoring it. So I will post the last two paragraphs again from the site.
ronrolheiser.com/the-ineffability-of-god/#.WHORlBma_-Y

***God is infinite and, thus, by definition unimaginable and impossible to conceptualize. That’s also true for God’s existence. It cannot be pictured. However the fact that we cannot imagine God is very different than saying that we cannot know God. God can be known, even if not imagined. How?

We all know many things that we cannot imagine, conceptualize, or articulate. Inside us there is something the mystics call “dark knowledge”, namely, an inchoate, intuitive, gut-sense within which we know and understand beyond what we can picture and give words to. And this isn’t some exotic, paranormal talent that fortune-tellers claim to have. The opposite; it’s our bedrock, that solid foundation that we touch in our most sincere and deepest moments, that place inside us where when we are at our best we ground our lives.

God is ineffable, unimaginable, and beyond conception and language. Our faith lets us bracket this for a while and lets us picture God as some idolized super-hero. But eventually that well runs dry and our finite minds are left to know the infinite only in darkness, without images, and our finite hearts are left to feel infinite love only inside a dark trust.***

The simple equation for a strong atheist is:

A strong atheist = Father Rolheiser minus his “dark knowledge” and “gut sense”.

 

[Vonsalza]

No that’s not what I say at all. This is what I say. Play close attention and think hard.

Weak atheism is the belief that “Yahweh” refers to a nonexistent god.
Strong atheism is the belief that “Yahweh” refers to nothing at all, either existent or nonexistent. Strong atheists (theological noncognitivists; ignostics) believe that “Yahweh” is an empty row of alphabet letters, like “Bliffle”.

Strong atheists believe that theists do not believe in a god, but only have the illusion that they believe in a god. Now do you understand?

I apologize if I was terse, based on the language of your response. And I do, indeed, understand what you’re trying to say. It’s relativistic nonsense.

Simply, you’re using non-standard definitions of the terms involved. Rephrased, you’re using definitions that exist outside what is found in both academic literature and the websites of the larger and more credible organizations devoted to the advocacy of contemporary atheism.

In fact, the definitions I provided were cut-and-pastes from one of the oldest, largest and (thus) most credible atheist advocacy groups on the web (I deliberately didn’t cite them as I don’t want to provide them any “traction”, but they’re very google-able). For further consideration, these definitions are almost verbatim to what I find in my philosophy textbooks.

Also, your now-revised definition of strong atheism appears to now depend on a specific interpretation of “theism”. I smile at the unintentional truth you reveal, as atheists have always been defined by the specific brand of theism they vehemently oppose. I caution that defining a negation by directly referencing the negated word is a practice that inherently limits the ability of the negation to stand as its own concept (as “atheist” is a negation of “theist”).

And should you feel the need to redirect your defense from “these are the definitions” to “this is just what ‘we’ functionally believe”, I directly and unapologetically challenge your supposed authority to re-interpret the pertinent terms on behalf of atheists everywhere.

To my knowledge, atheists do not have the equivalent of a “pope” (although Dawkins may come close, since the death of Hitchins).

Herg blergie durgie (Relativist nonsense for “Go in Peace”)

 

[AnlytcPhil]

You’re using definitions that exist outside what is found in both academic literature and the websites of the larger and more credible organizations devoted to the advocacy of contemporary atheism.

But these so-called “more credible organizations devoted to the accuracy of contemporary atheism” are not keeping up with what is on the internet, such as this:

strongatheism.net/library/atheology/argument_from_noncognitivism/

Vonsalza:

Also, your now-revised definition of strong atheism…

I am not aware of any revision, only rewording.

…appears to now depend on a specific interpretation of “theism”.

The only theism I’m refer to are Christianity, Judaism and Islam. That takes care of the overwhelming people who people label “theists”.

I smile at the unintentional truth you reveal, as atheists have always been defined by the specific brand of theism they vehemently oppose.

And I smile at your ignorance that 99.9% of Americans use “theism” to refer to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, and “atheism” to refer to those who consider all those as bunk. It’s too much trouble to have to use extra language to rule out all possible obscure religions.

Read Father Rolheiser’s “The Ineffability of God” that I keep posting links to. Then you can realize that I am merely saying that strong atheists are people who are just like Father Rolheiser without his “dark knowledge”, an inchoate, intuitive, gut-sense within which we know and understand beyond what we can picture and give words to"

 

[Wesrock]

Suppose there were a person who had been so sheltered from reality that she had no idea what I meant by “a think, heavy shoe”. I could then go to my closet floor and come out with a thick, heavy shoe and point out to her why I label it “a shoe”, why I label it “heavy”, and why I label it “thick”. But I can’t come up with anything to show her what “spirit” means, let alone one that is “infinite”. [The word I used was not “omnipotent”, but “omnipresent”. I could probably explain “omnipotent” (able to do any task) to her but not “omipresent” (everywhere all the time).]

Omnipresent requires further defining as to what is meant, because it conjures up the image of some type of substance (ethereal or material) extending everywhere, which is not the case. There are two ways in which God can be said to be omnipresent. The easiest would be his omniscience. I can’t physically hold knowledge to present to someone, but I would assume you believe knowledge is a coherent concept, and that something that knows all things is therefore coherent. In this sense, God is omnipresent because no thing can be hidden from him. There is no place or time that is not present to his knowledge. That may suffice. Still, we could dig further and consider that God is argued to be the first cause of all things (there are many firsts we could consider, but for the sake of simplicity, we can stick with first cause). Certainly I can demonstrate what is meant by cause and effect to a sheltered person, and it would fit with their limited experience. Presenting God as the first cause of all things, and so present in that sense in all things, is coherent, even if we could expand on that further. And both of these examples are what is really meant by omnipresent, so it seems that omnipresent can be considered a coherent concept with further explanation. And my understanding of your argument isn’t that we must prove that things must have a cause or a first cause, but only about whether a concept can be presented in coherent terms.

As for Spirit, that seems rather simple. A person can easily grasp what it means for something to exist. Present a number of objects that exist to the person. A spirit is something that exists but without matter. Now, this is foreign to their experience, and might require further contemplation of what is necessary “to be,” but certainly if “to exist” and “matter” are coherent and distinct concepts (with material things that exist being a subset of all things that exist), then one can easily define existence as something that exists but has no matter. The person might find no reason to believe such things exist or accept that as their working definition of existence (without further discussion), but it is not incoherent.

 

[Wesrock]

The motto of strong atheists could be “If you can’t imagine something you could be taking about, then you aren’t talking about anything.”

And the error here is that it equates imagination to conceptualization. Is this boiling down, in part, to a disagreement between realism and nominalism (or at least conceptualism)?

 

[Vonsalza]

But these so-called “more credible organizations devoted to the accuracy of contemporary atheism” are not keeping up with what is on the internet, such as this:

strongatheism.net/library/atheology/argument_from_noncognitivism/

If organizations like atheists.org can’t “keep up with what’s on the internet”, who can? Why is your source better than mine? Mine’s certainly older, more cited, more recognized, more monied. Perhaps you should consider your selection bias when choosing your sources.

AnlytcPhil:

I am not aware of any revision, only rewording.

You start with "Strong atheism is the belief that “Yahweh” refers to nothing at all, either existent or nonexistent. Strong atheists (theological noncognitivists; ignostics) believe that “Yahweh” is an empty row of alphabet letters, like “Bliffle”.

And then go to “Strong atheists believe that theists do not believe in a god, but only have the illusion that they believe in a god.”

This is clearly a revision because the former defines in terms of how “strong atheists” perceive a religious word. The latter defines in terms contra to your perception of theism. The theistic reference is not even present in the former, thus it is a clear revision.

Your sloppy rhetoric is sloppier still because it initially defines itself with use of the term “Yahweh”, Which is not a theistic term. It is a Jewish term. I can’t quite tell if your comparison is better described as a straw-man fallacy or a category error. Likely both. You do realize that theism and Judaism aren’t the same thing, right?

AnlytcPhil:

The only theism I’m refer to are Christianity, Judaism and Islam. That takes care of the overwhelming people who people label “theists”.

AnlytcPhil:

And I smile at your ignorance that 99.9% of Americans use “theism” to refer to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, and “atheism” to refer to those who consider all those as bunk. It’s too much trouble to have to use extra language to rule out all possible obscure religions.

I’ll be as gentle as I can. The Big Three and theism are not the same thing. The big three may be theistic religions, but they are not theism. They never have been. To insist they are is factually, categorically incorrect.
Are all Labradors dogs? Yes!
Are all dogs Labradors? No!
“No dogs (atheism)” is arguing against “dogs (theism)”, not “Labradors (Judaism)”. Even if you were able to successfully disprove “Labradors”, the concept of “dogs” remains unscathed.

Please allow that to soak a bit.

AnlytcPhil:

Read Father Rolheiser’s “The Ineffability of God” that I keep posting links to. Then you can realize that I am merely saying that strong atheists are people who are just like Father Rolheiser without his “dark knowledge”, an inchoate, intuitive, gut-sense within which we know and understand beyond what we can picture and give words to"

Allow this to soak as well - any given priest is not supremely authoritative in his personal philosophical musings, no matter how intelligent they may be framed. I can think a priest’s existential writings are complete bunk, yet I would still submit to his authority to administer the Sacraments, because in that authority, he is an agent of the Church.

To be clear - if a priest is teaching something outside the Magisterium, I am allowed to consider such teaching to be trash. Remember that next time you quote priests.

As another aside, I’m tickled that hyper-rational secularists can accept the irrational, unprovable notion of “an inchoate, intuitive, gut-sense within which we know and understand beyond what we can picture and give words to” yet balk wildly at the concept of god.

My empirically unprovable metaphysical beliefs are absurd, but your empirically unprovable metaphysical beliefs are ok, right? How rational and consistent…

Go in Peace.

 

[AnlytcPhil]

And the error here is that it equates imagination to conceptualization.

Yes, strong atheists (theological noncognitivists, ignostics) do claim that you can’t name anything that you can imagine that you can’t conceptualize, or anything you can conceptualize that you can’t imagine. So to defeat them, you have to come up with something that you can imagine that you can’t conceptualize, or something you can conceptualize that you can’t imagine. To help you do that, here’s a glossary from the online dictionary:

im·ag·ine
iˈmajən/Submit
verb
1.
form a mental image or concept of.
“imagine a road trip from Philadelphia to Chicago”
synonyms: visualize, envisage, envision, picture, see in the mind’s eye; More
2.
suppose or assume.
“after Ned died, everyone imagined that Mabel would move away”
synonyms: assume, presume, expect, take it, presuppose;

con·cep·tu·al·ize
kənˈsep(t)SH(o͞o)əˌlīz/
verb
form a concept or idea of (something).
“we can more easily conceptualize speed in miles per hour”

con·cept
ˈkänˌsept/Submit
noun
an abstract idea; a general notion.
“structuralism is a difficult concept”
synonyms: idea, notion, conception, abstraction; More
a plan or intention; a conception.
“the center has kept firmly to its original concept”
an idea or invention to help sell or publicize a commodity.
“a new concept in corporate hospitality”

 

[AnlytcPhil]

my understanding of your argument isn’t that we must prove that things must have a cause or a first cause, but only about whether a concept can be presented in coherent terms.

Yes, strong atheists (theological noncognitivists, ignostics) say words either tell of or describe something imaginable or else they are meaningless.

Wesrock:

one can easily define existence as something that exists but has no matter. The person might find no reason to believe such things exist or accept that as their working definition of existence (without further discussion), but it is not incoherent.

Strong atheists aren’t merely looking for rows of words that people label “definitions”. They’re looking for words that describe something they can imagine.

 

[Wesrock]

Many would disagree with you on the need for mental images. Through my experience with things that exist, I can understand what it means “to exist”. I am not limited to only all the objects of my experience that exist. Through my experience with triangles, I can understand what it is for something to be a triangle without needing to conjure up any mental image of one. I’ve never encountered a chiliagon and cannot for the life of me conjure up a mental image of one that is in any way distinct from a polygon with 1,001 sides, but I still understand what a chiliagon is without first needing to encounter such an image. We build our knowledge of concepts through experiences, but we can understand a concept at a higher level than simply a memory or a mental image of every object of our experience. It seems like a depressing intellectual handicap to say you can’t understand what it means “to exist” without having to conjure up a mental image of an existent thing. Or that you have to envision a triangle to understand it’s a closed shape with three straight sides, but then need to envision three and a straight line in order to understand that and what a line is. There’s no “dark knowledge” here, it’s simply exercising your intellect.

Ultimately, I disagree with you regarding universals, and I see no reason to abandon this position.

 

[PseuTonym]

Apparently you want to discuss mathematics. If we do, I suggest we start with the Peano axioms, not real analysis. But I think we should discuss it someplace else, because most people on here probably only understand high school algebra, trigonometry, and possibly some calculus, if that.

Why should everybody who participates in the discussion be required to have some minimum combination of understanding and believing that goes by the name “knowledge”? What is generally believed to be true in mathematics might include falsehood, and this discussion might motivate some lurkers to learn enough mathematics to detect and bring to everybody’s attention some such falsehood.

In Socratic irony, somebody takes the role of a humble student, and it seems that a role reversal occurs when the humble asker of questions humiliates the initially confident lecturer. However, the role reversal doesn’t occur as a result of Socrates claiming to have advanced academic credentials, or making claims that the initially-confident lecturer doesn’t understand.

Reviewing the earlier discussion, we somehow went from infinity to Yahweh. Allegedly, strong atheists believe that the word “infinity” is meaningless or incoherent:

Anyway, strong atheists would not claim to do anything labeled “to deny the existence of infinite entities”. They would claim the row of words “to deny the existence of infinite entities” makes no sense …

If they are truly discussing the row of words, then they need rules for classifying rows of words. All sorts of difficulties arise, and we find ourselves in the realm of linguistics and the area of artificial intelligence involving language processing. The label “makes no sense” appears to be a description of a Strong Atheist’s emotional reaction, rather than a conclusion that has been deduced step-by-step via a rigorous system of rules.

Yes, indeed. They claim ignorance of anything regarding the term “Yahweh”. So if theists are to convert them to Christianity, they must educate the strong atheists.

This has nothing to do with “Yahweh.” It sounds as though – according to strong atheists – the row of words “there are an infinite number of pairs of twin primes” doesn’t identify a meaningful conjecture, but is merely an incoherent row of words.

 

[AnlytcPhil]

Many would disagree with you on the need for mental images. Through my experience with things that exist, I can understand what it means “to exist”.

So can strong atheists. They know that unicorns don’t exist but that horses do.

Wesrock:

I am not limited to only all the objects of my experience that exist.

Neither are strong atheists. They can imagine unicorns, mermaids and fairies, just as you can. Existence is not necessary to be able to imagine something.

Wesrock:

Through my experience with triangles, I can understand what it is for something to be a triangle without needing to conjure up any mental image of one.

It’s not whether you ‘need to’ conjure up an image, it’s whether you ‘can’ conjure up an image. I agree that if you have already conjured up images of many triangles, there is no need to keep conjuring them up again and again every time somebody speaks of a triangle.

Wesrock:

I’ve never encountered a chiliagon and cannot for the life of me conjure up a mental image of one that is in any way distinct from a polygon with 1,001 sides, but I still understand what a chiliagon is without first needing to encounter such an image.

Like the triangle, it’s not whether you ‘need to’ conjure up a chiliagon in your head. It’s that every chiliagon ‘can’ be imagined, and its sides ‘can’ be counted to verify that it has 1000 of them.