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Wesrock
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Is coherence coherent? What of incoherence? Why are the definitions you use true?
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
When you are conversing with an atheist, whether a strong or a weak atheist, what coherent definition of God do you offer for the atheist to consider?
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AnlytcPhil
Guest
Because we don’t want to lose everybody but us by speaking of Riemann integrals and partial differential equations. I have a BS and MS in math from Clemson and I’m a retired community college math prof. I still tutor math at the college.
Fine, but let’s keep it on a high school level.
“Infinity” is meaningless, even in mathematics. You probably want to go into the cardinalities which are colloquially called “infinities”, such as aleph-null, the cardinality of a countable set, Aleph-1, the cardinality of the reals, etc. but these are defined by the existence of bijective mappings into the set of integers with aleph-null (countable), mappings of the real line with aleph-2, etc. Enough math!
Yes because it really amounts to the contradiction “all of what there cannot be all of”, “the completion of the uncompleteable”.
We need to stop all this math-speak, and talk about what weak and strong atheists have to say about the term “Yahweh”.
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AnlytcPhil
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“The creator of all universes and all things, except itself.” Do you have another one in mind?
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AnlytcPhil
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You don’t have to use the words “coherent” and “incoherent”. Just speak of something making sense or not making sense.
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Wesrock
Guest
Are making sense and not making sense coherent?
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
Well, this leaves out altogether the identity of this God, since Nature itself could be the creator of all universes and all things, except itself.
So how would you distinguish Nature from God, since God is what the atheist denies, whereas he would never think of denying Nature?
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Charlemagne_III
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AnlytcPhil
Guest
You’re asking about the motivation of the ancient word coiner(s) who coined the word “coherent”, or the idiom coiner who coined the idiom “to make sense”. Did they coin these to be used for things that cause us to conjure up a thought of something in our heads if we wanted to? Since the coiners are long dead, we can’t ask them. Maybe we should look up “coherent” to see what the lexicographers who write dictionaries think about why the word coiner coined “coherent”, and the idiom coiner who coined “to make sense”:
*co·her·ent
/koʊˈhɪər ənt, -ˈhɛr-/
adjective
1.
logically connected; consistent:
a coherent argument.
2.
having a natural or due agreement of parts; harmonious:
a coherent design.
3.
cohering; sticking together:
a coherent mass of sticky candies.
4.
Physics, Optics. of or relating to waves that maintain a fixed phase relationship, as in coherent light, or light in which the electromagnetic waves maintain a fixed and predictable phase relationship with each other over a period of time.
See also laser.*
Now let’s look up the idiom “to make sense”:
*make sense
- Be understandable. This usage, first recorded in 1686, is often used in a negative context, as in This explanation doesn’t make sense.
- Be reasonable, wise, or practical, as in It makes sense to find out first how many will attend the conference. This term employs sense in the meaning of “what is reasonable,” a usage dating from 1600. In Britain it is also put as stand to sense.
See also: make, sense
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
make sense - To be coherent or intelligible: an explanation that made sense.
- To be practical or advisable: It makes sense to go now.*
A word about words. If you look up a word in the dictionary, then look up all the words in that definition, then look up all those words, etc., you are bound to eventually come back to the same words. So we must face the sad fact that all words are defined in terms of other words, which in turn are defined in terms of still other words, which in turn are defined in terms of … — and we never get out of the dictionary of words meaning other words. IOW, all word definitions are circular! You could say that therefore no words mean anything but other words.
This proves that to find meanings for words, we must look in our heads at what thoughts we can have, not what words we can find in a dictionary. We can at best hope that seeing the words will conjure up thoughts in our heads so that we will know what the coiners of the words intended the words they coined to be used for.
Strong atheists look in their heads to find something for “Yahweh” to refer to and claim to find nothing at all. This seems essentially to be what Father Rolheiser says in his article “The ineffability of God” except for what he labeled “dark knowledge” and “gut sense”. ronrolheiser.com/the-ineffability-of-god/#.WHRP5Rma_-Y
Father Rolheiser says at the bottom of that article:
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.
So strong atheists (theological noncognitivists, ignostics) claim to be unable to do anything that they claim to be able to understand that Father Rolheiser would label “to feel infinite love only inside a dark trust”
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Charlemagne_III
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Rolheiser’s remarks do not impress me. He seems to cavalierly dismiss Jesus Christ as some kind of “idolized super-hero.”
To hear such language from a priest is disheartening to say the least.
The Gospels made Jesus out to be a super-hero who came to rescue us from the ravages of hell. I’ll go with the gospels rather than Rolheiser.
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Vonsalza
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How can we?
Your definitions of both “strong-” and “weak atheism” differ from the common and accepted definitions published in academia. You invoke your erroneous definitions in the context of a language study that has no application to a person who either doesn’t understand the language of the study, or is at least illiterate to the arbitrarily chosen terms you provide. This is the unavoidable bane of any linguistic study.
You fail to see that the natural juxtaposition to “atheism” is “theism”. Not “Judeo-Christianity”.
Additionally, you fail to see the categorical difference between “theism” as an isolated concept and any particular theistic religion. Therefore, you assume “Yahweh” has some meaning to a pure theist - like an advocate of Prime Mover Theory. It does not. Thus you invoke it in what is an obvious display of category error at the very start.
We can’t meaningfully discuss it because your views are so tightly tailored to you own personal selection biases that any conclusion drawn or truth realized would be utterly meaningless if we were to attempt to apply it to other discussions with other theists and atheists of any stripe.
However, it’s likely that problem won’t arise. If you are unwilling or unable to establish basic semantics, any time spent in discussion would be time wasted. This because rational discussions are like building projects. Unfortunately, without a common semantic set, my building materials will be honed to a different metric from yours. Thus anything we attempted to build would collapse well before the unattainable completion.
Go in peace.
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AnlytcPhil
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You’re very mistaken and jumping to a very false conclusion. Father Rolheiser is NOT talking about Jesus Christ the Son, he is talking about Yahweh the Father. Of course Jesus Christ the Son is very imaginable.
Father Ronald Rolheiser, O.M.I., is president of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas. [The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) is a missionary religious congregation in the Catholic Church.]
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Wesrock
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Nah, I’m just asking if you’re in a self-defeating loop, and I think that’s a rather absurd definition of coherence (that which can be imagined in some sensible way) to boot that fails to do justice to the human intellect. Existence, prime mover, first cause, eternal by nature, there’s any number of coherent concepts out that point to what is meant by God, all without painting a finite or entirely comprehensible picture. But that does not make it incoherent.
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AnlytcPhil
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No, I’m not in a “self-defeating loop”. LOL. Everybody knows when words alleged to be about secular things makes no sense to them. We go entirely by whether we can imagine something for the words to mean. Now as Father Rolheiser tells us in the article, it’s different for God, soul and spirit. The way we know these is the same way Father Rolheiser knows them – through our dark knowledge, our inchoate, intuitive, gut-sense within us. That’s how we know and understand things which are beyond what we can picture and give words to.
Strong atheists simply lack this dark knowledge. They only deal with worldly things, so their minds are devoid of God, soul, and spirit.
You’re right in the sense that it’s absurd when it comes to understanding spiritual things, such as God, spirit and soul. However it’s the perfect definition for understanding all secular and worldly things.
Everything secular or worldly we can imagine – or learn to imagine. I know there are times that people say stuff that makes no sense to us at first, but when we learn what they’re talking about, they make sense, and we can always imagine them.
I just trying to get you to understand the strong atheists, and why they are not Christians.
We are all like Father Rolheiser says. We only need our “dark knowledge”, which is our inchoate, intuitive, gut-sense within us, for spiritual things. That’s the only way we know and understand God, soul and spirit. These are the only things beyond what we can picture and give words to.
However when it it comes to worldly and secular things, we are like the strong atheists. If you can imagine, or learn to imagine, something secular for what is being said to represent, then the words are coherent. And vice-versa, if you cannot imagine anything, or learn to imagine, something secular for what is being said to represent, then the words are incoherent.
That’s true – but these are spiritual things! These are the things for which we must use our inchoate, intuitive, gut-sense, i.e., “dark knowledge” within us to understand. But for everything else, we rely totally on whether we can, or learn to, imagine something for what is spoken or written.
Christians have what Rolheiser calls the inchoate, intuitive “dark knowledge” to know God. Strong atheists are just like Christians except they are without this “dark knowledge”. So to convert strong atheists to Christianity, one must understand them. They simply lack Father Rolheiser’s “dark knowledge”. They don’t “hate God”.
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Vonsalza
Guest
Wesrock,
You’re debating this with him under his personally selected rhetorical terms. You realize this, right?
You rejected Rolheiser as an authority on the matter, yet AnlytcPhil continues to reference him as though you haven’t.
Finally, AnlytcPhil can’t grasp that the opponent of atheism is theism - of which Christianity is just one of literally thousands of its forms.
You are super-duper wasting your time.
You’re debating this with him under his personally selected rhetorical terms. You realize this, right?
You rejected Rolheiser as an authority on the matter, yet AnlytcPhil continues to reference him as though you haven’t.
Finally, AnlytcPhil can’t grasp that the opponent of atheism is theism - of which Christianity is just one of literally thousands of its forms.
You are super-duper wasting your time.
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AnlytcPhil
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I don’t think so. Remember the holy father Pope Francis offers hope to the faithless, and says atheists can go to heaven. Atheists are not bad people just because they lack the “dark knowledge” Rolheiser speaks of. Learn to love atheists. Many Christians believe that all the Jews who died in the holocaust went to hell because they never accepted Christ as their savior, but I know Francis does not believe that.
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Vonsalza
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Fair enough. But we’re not discussing whether atheists 1. can go to heaven 2. are bad people 3. whether I love atheists or 4. the fate of the holocaust Jews. I’m solidly with Pope Francis on his positions, btw.
We’re discussing strong and weak atheism. Or more specifically, your personally selected (and thus less-than-meaningful) versions of them.
“Atheism and Christianity” are not categorical mates any more than “atheism and The Cult of the Flying Spaghetti Monster” are. Atheism is the negated form of theism, and therein lies the proper categorical inverse. To think otherwise is an error in logic.
Furthermore, per the rule of established semantics that is absolutely, foundationally critical for the existence of meaningful debate, you can’t effectively use Rolheiser if your sparring partner doesn’t recognize the authority of Rolheiser as pertinent. It’s akin to trying to use a lever without a fulcrum. Inductive appeals to Rolheiser’s authority are subsequently meaningless to the common discussion. You need to place your lever against a fulcrum that has MEANING to the person you’re discussing with. Thus the bedrock importance of establishing an agreed semantic.
There are more rules to debate, but as a retired professor, I think you likely have access to discounted prices at your local college bookstore. Pick up an introductory philosophy text that includes the basics of Aristotelian logic and the common rules of rhetoric. If you defeat an idea with fallacy or poor rhetoric, your victory is imaginary.
“If you wish to converse with me, define your terms.” - Voltaire
Go in Peace
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AnlytcPhil
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Wrong, they are not ‘less than meaningful’ because there are real existent people who do say that “Yahweh” is no more meaningful than “Zxcvbnm”. You want to discuss whether I have the labels right. So let’s discuss labels. If you type ‘definition of theological noncognitivism’ in Google, you get this:
***Theological noncognitivism is the argument that religious language – specifically, words such as “God” – are not cognitively meaningful. It is sometimes considered as synonymous with ignosticism. ***
Do you agree with this definition of “theological noncognitivism” or “ignosticism”?
Do you agree that there are such people who claim this? If so, do you label them “atheists”? If so, would you label them “strong atheists” or “weak atheists”?
I’m curious, how do you label them?
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Vonsalza
Guest
They are unambiguously less meaningful because your provided definitions frame “atheism” as an exercise in relative linguistic cognition - which I fail to find repeated in any academic source I can currently pull. And if your definitions don’t match those commonly used in the philosophy and religion departments across the world, that makes them less meaningful as a course of fact.
Every online theological and philosophical dictionary I’ve reviewed that ends in “.edu” defines strong atheism more-or-less as “the belief that a god or gods does not exist” and weak atheism is given as “no belief in any particular god or gods.” Strong atheism is thus ACTIVE. Weak atheism is thus PASSIVE (and has, until recently, always been referred to as “agnosticism”).
Ergo, what you purport as being “strong atheism” is far closer to “weak atheism”. So as I said in my original post, you don’t really understand the terms right out the gate because you’re using them incorrectly.
Now! If you want to switch gears to using “theological noncognitivism” and “ignosticism”, that’s totally fine with me. Because that’s really what you’ve been arguing all along. However, you need to change the title of the thread because “Strong atheism vs. weak atheism” is obviously not what you want to talk about and you need to stop using those concepts. They are not the same as “theological noncognitivism” and “ignosticism”.
You can bemoan the use of “labels” all you want. But semantics are the building blocks of rhetoric. And until the relevant terms are identified and defined, you cannot meaningfully proceed in a debate with anyone. Otherwise you run into a comedy of errors where one guys keeps running around, roaring “Strong Atheism!!!” and is really meaning “Theological Noncognitivism!!!” like they mean the same thing…
But I get why you do it. If you’re an adherent to a more fringe belief, people may tend to ignore your more obscure views unless you can somehow successfully associate them with a more popular and recognizable set of views that people find more difficult to ignore. Unfortunately, those associations are generally tenuous at best; as I think we see here.
At this point, we’re turning circles now - which means this is over. Feel free to have the last word, as you are the thread OP.
Go in Peace.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
Does Francis argue that we don’t really need God to get to heaven?
So while a Christian needs to confess and repent his sins to get into heaven, the atheist can just walk right in?
Do you have any sense at all as to how weird that sounds coming from a Catholic?
I presume you are a Catholic.
I am following Vonsalza’s example. :sad_bye:
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