Random thoughts regarding (a)theism

[brewerb]

The only argument I can’t rebut is when a Christian (or other religious) claim a personal experience they had that assured them god was real.  I can only point out that I have not…and not for want of trying…experienced anything like that.  I can’t base my beliefs on your personal experience.  I need my own.  I will sometimes ask how they knew it was god, though.  They just always know.

Agreed, not convincing.   Those kinds of experiences are only of value to those to whom they occur .. if at all.

Is that what David Carradine was going for?

[Rizen]

Assuming by 'proof' you mean evidence, I think there is a simple reason for that.  God is not a name for a particular thing for which evidence is available.  I think careful observation as with science or carefully reasoning as with logic cannot encompass what God/gods is really about.  Rather the situation is more akin knowing a person or place, something you can't know in total but can come to know more and more about through extended relationship.  Know as in familiarity with vs know as in acquired knowledge.  You can never be complete familiar with anyone let alone God; does anyone ever finally completely know themselves?

That's not how Christians tell it.

People and places are real tangible things you can verify, God isn't. Let me ask you this: why does there need to be a god? It sounds like you're just inserting the term God into a vague premise. It's what I call playing the God card: something's uncertain therefore it was God. Why do we have to label everything God? Why can't we just accept that there are unknowns in this world?

Christianity is built for the anti-intellectualism of the modern right.

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
Isaac Asimov

[TheGentlemanBastard]

ABBA was not me (ick), that is/was Brian37. I think he might still be active at AF.

(my bolding)

Not so much. She (trans female) posts only rarely these days.

[brewerb]

ABBA was not me (ick), that is/was Brian37. I think he might still be active at AF.

(my bolding)

Not so much. She (trans female) posts only rarely these days.

That's news to me, but I can see it.

[Whateverist]

Assuming by 'proof' you mean evidence, I think there is a simple reason for that.  God is not a name for a particular thing for which evidence is available.  I think careful observation as with science or carefully reasoning as with logic cannot encompass what God/gods is really about.  Rather the situation is more akin knowing a person or place, something you can't know in total but can come to know more and more about through extended relationship.  Know as in familiarity with vs know as in acquired knowledge.  You can never be complete familiar with anyone let alone God; does anyone ever finally completely know themselves?

That's not how Christians tell it.

People and places are real tangible things you can verify, God isn't. Let me ask you this: why does there need to be a god? It sounds like you're just inserting the term God into a vague premise. It's what I call playing the God card: something's uncertain therefore it was God. Why do we have to label everything God? Why can't we just accept that there are unknowns in this world?

Oh I have plenty of criticism for the way Christianity represents the sacred.  

I don't understand most of your post: I don't know why you think I am inserting God into a vague premise.  I don't do debate.  You're as entitled to your opinion as I am to mine.  

But of course we can just accept there are unknowns in the world.  It is a fact after all.  But their being unknown doesn't favor one worldview over another.

.

[Szuchow]

Of course the experience of top scientists varies as this article makes clear.

It's not about experience but data and there is no data that support existence of something called god. 

I think this fits for many of us reformed atheists who come to think there is an important use for the term "God/gods" which is unrecognizable in Christian theology and probably likewise distorted by other traditions.

God is just meaningless world describing something for which there is no evidence at al; a garage dragon is good summation of it. 

I think that is because religion evolves to serve a cultural purpose and so is not a reliable guide to how best to understand what is highest.  

I think that religion is a pile of crap and faith is nothing but delusion and idiocy mixed with indoctrination.

[Whateverist]

Of course the experience of top scientists varies as this article makes clear.

It's not about experience but data and there is no data that support existence of something called god. 

I think this fits for many of us reformed atheists who come to think there is an important use for the term "God/gods" which is unrecognizable in Christian theology and probably likewise distorted by other traditions.

God is just meaningless world describing something for which there is no evidence at al; a garage dragon is good summation of it. 

I think that is because religion evolves to serve a cultural purpose and so is not a reliable guide to how best to understand what is highest.  

I think that religion is a pile of crap and faith is nothing but delusion and idiocy mixed with indoctrination.

This is obviously not a topic I can discuss with you.  Have a nice life.

[Szuchow]

It's not about experience but data and there is no data that support existence of something called god. 


God is just meaningless world describing something for which there is no evidence at al; a garage dragon is good summation of it. 



I think that religion is a pile of crap and faith is nothing but delusion and idiocy mixed with indoctrination.

This is obviously not a topic I can discuss with you.  Have a nice life.

Not your fault. Not everyone can handle reality without comforting myths to insulate them.

[Rhythmcs]

The only argument I can’t rebut is when a Christian (or other religious) claim a personal experience they had that assured them god was real.  I can only point out that I have not…and not for want of trying…experienced anything like that.  I can’t base my beliefs on your personal experience.  I need my own.  I will sometimes ask how they knew it was god, though.  They just always know.

Agreed, not convincing.   Those kinds of experiences are only of value to those to whom they occur .. if at all.

-and yet they're the most compelling basis for gods in practice.  We all implicitly trust and believe in the contents of our personal experiences.  If some guy tells me he has an airtight philosophical argument for a god that his belief is based on I know before he utters a word that he's wrong - both about the argument and about why he believes......but if that same guy told me he believed in a god because he had a personal experience I understand he doesn't even need an argument to maintain that belief he holds in genuine error.

[emjay]

Agreed, not convincing.   Those kinds of experiences are only of value to those to whom they occur .. if at all.

-and yet they're the most compelling basis for gods in practice.  We all implicitly trust and believe in the contents of our personal experiences.  If some guy tells me he has an airtight philosophical argument for a god that his belief is based on I know before he utters a word that he's wrong - both about the argument and about why he believes......but if that same guy told me he believed in a god because he had a personal experience I understand he doesn't even need an argument to maintain that belief he holds in genuine error.

That sounds ultimately like the type of Christianity that annoys me the most, and the type that unfortunately I feel surrounded by the most IRL, if less on online forums etc where it is, or at least is claimed to be, more about "logic". What I'm talking about is the type of Christianity where God alone is praised for all good things that happen, whether in the believer's own mind or the behaviour of other people around them. ie it never thanks a doctor for saving a patient, but instead only thanks God for working through a doctor to save a patient. This basically parasitic notion of God means the believer never gives themself, or other people, due credit for anything good that happens, but sadly it's the most common type of Christianity that I see IRL and basically no way to argue with it because it's never claimed to be logical in the first place.

It does seem to me though that there could be at least one logical argument against this, in that God is claimed to to give everyone "free will", so how do they square that notion of free will with God being responsible for - and thus the only one due any praise for - everything that another person does, whether in terms of inspiration, decision, or action? But sadly this is hard to argue because that, in my opinion 'parasitic', notion of God seems almost like an axiom for them; something that is taken for granted and can never be argued... a core belief.

[Paleophyte]

Agreed, not convincing.   Those kinds of experiences are only of value to those to whom they occur .. if at all.

-and yet they're the most compelling basis for gods in practice.  We all implicitly trust and believe in the contents of our personal experiences.  If some guy tells me he has an airtight philosophical argument for a god that his belief is based on I know before he utters a word that he's wrong - both about the argument and about why he believes......but if that same guy told me he believed in a god because he had a personal experience I understand he doesn't even need an argument to maintain that belief he holds in genuine error.

It's telling that the only "evidence" for the Divine is the variety that nobody else can ever inspect.

[SYZ]

Wow...

112 postings debating an imaginary, mythical entity that has never,
or now, existed in the real world.  Christianity is obviously an apple
of discord for some atheists.

Why is there not the same debating intensity surrounding the
purported past or present existence of other imaginary mythical
entities—Quetzalcoatl, Ra, Minerva, Satan, or Altjira—this later still
accepted today as being an active, extant entity just like Christianity?

[Unsapien]

Wow...

112 postings debating an imaginary, mythical entity that has never,
or now, existed in the real world.  Christianity is obviously an apple
of discord for some atheists.

Why is there not the same debating intensity surrounding the
purported past or present existence of other imaginary mythical
entities—Quetzalcoatl, Ra, Minerva, Satan, or Altjira—this later still
accepted today as being an active, extant entity just like Christianity?

Well I don't know about the others, but I know Satan isn't imaginary or mythical, my dad married her. 

[Unsapien]

.

Well as an atheist I can only disbelieve in the gods that people describe to me, so my disbelief maybe not be fully informed about their god, but it doesn't take much to knowledge of a god to discount it, they just have to tell one thing about their god that's not possible.

That's where I am right now, I'm convinced that the gods that have so far been described to me not only do not exist, but in fact they cannot exist as described. 

The minute you tell me they have supernatural qualities, I'll say give me the evidence that their supernatural powers can even exist. I'm not wasting any more time arguing IF there's a god if you can't even prove they're possible.

I think the principle of charity in argument suggests that we not attack god-belief at its weakest point, but rather steelman the position by allowing for some vagueness and ambiguity about the claim without simply using the fuzziness of belief as a way to achieve a quick conclusion against the belief.  Charity demands that we attack not the weakest position for believing in God, but that which is strongest.  If nothing else, it immunizes us from having to make embarrassing concessions when the unfairness of our representation of the opposing position is drawn out and demonstrated.

20 years ago I'd have agreed with you, I know that the best way to argue or debate is to try and find some point or common ground that people can agree on and work from there. But for all those 20 years I've heard (as I imagine many of us have) the same arguments ad nauseam. So I want to cut them off before they even get started, I guess I'm just getting grumpy as I get older.

But my responses to them about their god will be based on what they tell me about their god, so I don't see how I'd have to make embarrassing concessions, unless their descriptions are so vague & ambiguous that they can't describe it properly.

[Unsapien]

The minute you tell me they have supernatural qualities, I'll say give me the evidence that their supernatural powers can even exist. I'm not wasting any more time arguing IF there's a god if you can't even prove they're possible.

My reaction to the "supernatural" is different.  I always wonder why they underestimate the "natural" world so easily.  I find the natural world to be full of surprises and wonders.  For example the ability of life to cheat the second law of thermodynamics for so long.  Of course no organism exists in isolation and so is not a closed system at all.  Still that is one remarkable chemical reaction.

The universe is full of wonders that we don't understand, and might never understand, but that doesn't make it supernatural.

Let me put it this way, I have zero evidence that life exists outside our little planet here, but I'm convinced that there must be life outside of Earth, because there's nothing special about our planet, star or any elements that make it up. Life is made up of the most basic & abundant chemicals found throughout the universe, but I still can't say that I know for a fact that it exists because we haven't found any yet.

In that same vein, I will never be able to say that a god for sure doesn't exist, but there's zero evidence that it does.

[Unsapien]

Wow...

112 postings debating an imaginary, mythical entity that has never,
or now, existed in the real world.  Christianity is obviously an apple
of discord for some atheists.

Why is there not the same debating intensity surrounding the
purported past or present existence of other imaginary mythical
entities—Quetzalcoatl, Ra, Minerva, Satan, or Altjira—this later still
accepted today as being an active, extant entity just like Christianity?

Well Christianity does directly impact our lives in a way that those other beliefs don't.

[Dānu]

.

I think the principle of charity in argument suggests that we not attack god-belief at its weakest point, but rather steelman the position by allowing for some vagueness and ambiguity about the claim without simply using the fuzziness of belief as a way to achieve a quick conclusion against the belief.  Charity demands that we attack not the weakest position for believing in God, but that which is strongest.  If nothing else, it immunizes us from having to make embarrassing concessions when the unfairness of our representation of the opposing position is drawn out and demonstrated.

20 years ago I'd have agreed with you, I know that the best way to argue or debate is to try and find some point or common ground that people can agree on and work from there. But for all those 20 years I've heard (as I imagine many of us have) the same arguments ad nauseam. So I want to cut them off before they even get started, I guess I'm just getting grumpy as I get older.

But my responses to them about their god will be based on what they tell me about their god, so I don't see how I'd have to make embarrassing concessions, unless their descriptions are so vague & ambiguous that they can't describe it properly.

So if an apologist, like Steve did, argues that the source of your objection is not a core part of his belief, you're simply not going to accept the qualification, or will you concede that your objection has no teeth?

[Rhythmcs]

My reaction to the "supernatural" is different.  I always wonder why they underestimate the "natural" world so easily.  I find the natural world to be full of surprises and wonders.  For example the ability of life to cheat the second law of thermodynamics for so long.  Of course no organism exists in isolation and so is not a closed system at all.  Still that is one remarkable chemical reaction.

The universe is full of wonders that we don't understand, and might never understand, but that doesn't make it supernatural.

Let me put it this way, I have zero evidence that life exists outside our little planet here, but I'm convinced that there must be life outside of Earth, because there's nothing special about our planet, star or any elements that make it up. Life is made up of the most basic & abundant chemicals found throughout the universe, but I still can't say that I know for a fact that it exists because we haven't found any yet.

In that same vein, I will never be able to say that a god for sure doesn't exist, but there's zero evidence that it does.

I feel like, once you get into the whole "maybe, somewhere out there, there's something that looks like a god if you squint at it in the right phase of local moonlight" you're already expressing that you're sure about gods...since, truly, no god botherer on earth has ever been talking about anything vaguely god shaped out there somewhere in the universe. We resist the declarative form for cultural reasons, not because the subject is an unknowable black box.

Maybe there's a million dollars in our mailbox. Maybe there's a cobra under our neighbors beds. Maybe there are faeries down every well. Each maybe more plausible than a god by orders of magnitude...and yet..... The whole dynamic is one of the ways, as you say above, that christianity affects our daily lives in ways those other maybes don't. It was, after all, a christian culture arguing for a consolation prize that frames the very notion that no one can know whether their absent gods exist.

[Whateverist]

Agreed, not convincing.   Those kinds of experiences are only of value to those to whom they occur .. if at all.

-and yet they're the most compelling basis for gods in practice.  We all implicitly trust and believe in the contents of our personal experiences.  If some guy tells me he has an airtight philosophical argument for a god that his belief is based on I know before he utters a word that he's wrong - both about the argument and about why he believes......but if that same guy told me he believed in a god because he had a personal experience I understand he doesn't even need an argument to maintain that belief he holds in genuine error.

Yeah we all trust direct experience even though we can be fooled, for example by stage magicians and carefully constructed visual illusions.  But when we intellectualize what we think our experience means we can go wrong.  That doesn't mean we thereafter ignore our experience.  We just have new experience of possible defeaters of our theories about what they mean.

As you say we can wind up believing an error.  It is a hazard for our entire species regardless of worldview.  Christianity possesses a powerful mythos full of insight into the human condition, but it also contains a logos which breaks down into competing systems of doctrine which dictate what their experience should mean to them.  I find that dehumanizing.

But in the secular world there are other harmful systems of doctrine such as: the idea that the world is composed of little balls of matter which ping around along entirely determined paths; that we ourselves are composed of this mysterious matter and our stuff is likewise determined so that our sense of agency is just an illusion; and there are more secular myths which are equally debilitating.


I AM BEHIND IN RESPONDING ON THIS THREAD AND WILL BE AWAY MOST OF THE DAY ON A GLORIOUS WALK ABOVE A BEACH.  MORE LATER.  (This beach) :

[Dānu]

Ignoring the god of the philosophers, to me, the most genuine expression of god belief is that of the Chinese concept of Shangdi, which somewhat literally translates into a grand man that exists behind the mundane universe (the river of 10,000 things). I think this is the likely genesis of god belief in general, as we are naturally inclined towards sensitive agent detection, so as a species we have a history of attributing activity in our environment in terms of agents that have intentions behind their action. I think modern monotheistic gods are just a winnowing of such instincts to their essences. This seems to me the most probable explanation for religion. It's a seperate question whether the universe likely is an agent with intention or not. There are other theories of religion, that it evolved as a means of social control, for example, but I don't believe those other explanations really hit the nail on the head.

[Whateverist]

Ignoring the god of the philosophers, to me, the most genuine expression of god belief is that of the Chinese concept of Shangdi, which somewhat literally translates into a grand man that exists behind the mundane universe (the river of 10,000 things).  I think this is the likely genesis of god belief in general, as we are naturally inclined towards sensitive agent detection, so as a species we have a history of attributing activity in our environment in terms of agents that have intentions behind their action.  I think modern monotheistic gods are just a winnowing of such instincts to their essences.  This seems to me the most probable explanation for religion.  It's a seperate question whether the universe likely is an agent with intention or not.  There are other theories of religion, that it evolved as a means of social control, for example, but I don't believe those other explanations really hit the nail on the head.

I like this description except that picking a man to represent what originates every being and thing seems a little presumptuous.  Of course it isn't easy to say what would be a better representation of what is behind everything so we can use something more easily relatable.  No real harm in that so long as we don't immediately go all literal about it as Christians are so prone to do.

I like the image of the river itself as in Taoism.  It is also the basis for the best description of a human soul I've ever read which comes from the Wendell Berry novel Jayber Crow.  I've tried to cut down the length of the passage it comes from but as it is art I hesitate to shave any more:

"And so I came along in time to know the end of the age of steamboating. I would learn later that there had been other ages of the river that I had arrived too late to know but that I could read about and learn to imagine. There was at first the age when no people were here, and I have sometimes felt at night that absence grow present in my mind, that long silence in which no human name was spoken or given, and the nameless river made no sound of any human tongue. And then there was the Indian age when names were called that have never been spoken in the present language of Port William. Then came the short ages of us white people, the ages of the dugout, the flatboat, the keelboat, the log raft, the steamboat. And I have lived on now into the age of the diesel towboat and recreational boating and water skiing. And yet it is hard to look at the river in its calm, just after daylight or just before dark, and believe that history has happened to it. The river, the river itself, leaves marks but bears none. It is only the water flowing in the path that other water has worn.

Or is that other water really “other”, or is it the same water always running, flowing always toward the gathering of all waters, and always rising and returning again, and again flowing? I knew this river first when I was a little boy, and I know it now when I am an old man once again living beside it … and almost seventy years! … and always when i have watched it I have been entranced and mystified. What is it? Is it the worn trough of itself that is a feature of the land and is marked on maps, or is it the water flowing? Or is it the land itself that over time is shaped by the flowing water, and it caught by no map?

The surface of the quieted river as I thought in those old days at Squire’s Landing, as I think now, is like a window looking into another world that is like this one except that it is quiet. Its quietness makes it seem perfect. The ripples are like the slats of a blind or a shutter through which we we see imperfectly what is perfect. Though that other world can be seen only momentarily, it looks everlasting. As the ripples become more agitated, the window darkens and the other world is hidden.  As I did not know then but know now, the surface of the water is like a living soul, which is easy to disturb, is often disturbed, but, growing calm, shows what it was, is, and will be."

[Unsapien]

i

.
20 years ago I'd have agreed with you, I know that the best way to argue or debate is to try and find some point or common ground that people can agree on and work from there. But for all those 20 years I've heard (as I imagine many of us have) the same arguments ad nauseam. So I want to cut them off before they even get started, I guess I'm just getting grumpy as I get older.

But my responses to them about their god will be based on what they tell me about their god, so I don't see how I'd have to make embarrassing concessions, unless their descriptions are so vague & ambiguous that they can't describe it properly.

So if an apologist, like Steve did, argues that the source of your objection is not a core part of his belief, you're simply not going to accept the qualification, or will you concede that your objection has no teeth?

Then I would ask why did they mention it, if it's not core to their belief. I'm not interested in minutia, like if Jesus was a real person or not. Although having said that a lot of theists say that this or that "isn't core to their belief" it's usually because they can't defend it, so they try and change the goal posts.

I've had these discussions with my wife, she's told me that the bible isn't what makes her believe in god, it's her personal experience. Which was her response to my problems with the bible, which I can't argue with except to ask why god seems to give her experiences, but not me.  But that's just because she's never actually read the whole thing, just genesis & the gospels. So she can tell me the bible isn't core to her belief all she wants, but Christianity wouldn't exist without it so....

[Rizen]

The universe is full of wonders that we don't understand, and might never understand, but that doesn't make it supernatural.

Let me put it this way, I have zero evidence that life exists outside our little planet here, but I'm convinced that there must be life outside of Earth, because there's nothing special about our planet, star or any elements that make it up. Life is made up of the most basic & abundant chemicals found throughout the universe, but I still can't say that I know for a fact that it exists because we haven't found any yet.

In that same vein, I will never be able to say that a god for sure doesn't exist, but there's zero evidence that it does.

Why I'm atheist and not agnostic is although it's possible for something like God to exist, I don't intend to humor every possibility regardless of how improbable it is. It's technically possible for fairies to exist, or mermaids, or Bigfoot, and so on. That doesn't change the fact that all these are extremely unlikely and there's a lot of evidence going against them. This is why the Flying Spaghetti Monster argument is such a great tool for atheist to use: anything you equate to God has the same amount of evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster could have done it too. I'm surprised they don't see more atheists here use it.

As far as life on other planets goes, I think that the fact that there's life on this planet indicates that's possible to happen elsewhere. I see more evidence contributing to this theory then the other stuff I mentioned.

I feel like, once you get into the whole "maybe, somewhere out there, there's something that looks like a god if you squint at it in the right phase of local moonlight" you're already expressing that you're sure about gods...since, truly, no god botherer on earth has ever been talking about anything vaguely god shaped out there somewhere in the universe.  We resist the declarative form for cultural reasons, not because the subject is an unknowable black box.

Maybe there's a million dollars in our mailbox.  Maybe there's a cobra under our neighbors beds.  Maybe there are faeries down every well.  Each maybe more plausible than a god by orders of magnitude...and yet.....  The whole dynamic is one of the ways, as you say above, that christianity affects our daily lives in ways those other maybes don't.  It was, after all, a christian culture arguing for a consolation prize that frames the very notion that no one can know whether their absent gods exist.

This is what I'm talking about.

I've had these discussions with my wife, she's told me that the bible isn't what makes her believe in god, it's her personal experience. Which was her response to my problems with the bible, which I can't argue with except to ask why god seems to give her experiences, but not me.  But that's just because she's never actually read the whole thing, just genesis & the gospels. So she can tell me the bible isn't core to her belief all she wants, but Christianity wouldn't exist without it so....

This is what I mean when I say playing the God card. People like to equate the unknown or phenomena they can't explain to God. Why must there be a god? Why can't we simply admit there are things we don't understand?

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Sir Arthur C. Clarke

[emjay]

Hello again @Whateverist, it's good to see you again I think we used to play the odd Mafia game in the past, long time ago, and had some good times (?) It's nice seeing that it looks like you've got a lot to say, which is really nice because these forums feel quite quiet these days... which I know I'm part of that problem because I'm more of a reader/lurker than a writer, for a long time... but nonetheless it feels like there's a lot less (a)theist/philosophical discussion in the atheist forums these days, partly because the world feels more polarised than it's ever felt... so much so that theists hardly seem to visit these sites any more, which can be either a good or a bad thing I know, but ultimately I'd prefer the world wasn't as polarised as it is, even if that meant more assholey theists around these sites

[Dānu]

i

So if an apologist, like Steve did, argues that the source of your objection is not a core part of his belief, you're simply not going to accept the qualification, or will you concede that your objection has no teeth?

Then I would ask why did they mention it, if it's not core to their belief. I'm not interested in minutia, like if Jesus was a real person or not. Although having said that a lot of theists say that this or that "isn't core to their belief" it's usually because they can't defend it, so they try and change the goal posts.

I've had these discussions with my wife, she's told me that the bible isn't what makes her believe in god, it's her personal experience. Which was her response to my problems with the bible, which I can't argue with except to ask why god seems to give her experiences, but not me.  But that's just because she's never actually read the whole thing, just genesis & the gospels. So she can tell me the bible isn't core to her belief all she wants, but Christianity wouldn't exist without it so....

But you acknowledge that you would have to abandon the line of argument if you assumed it was core and it wasn't, no? That was the original complaint you had, that you wouldn't face any complications from being uncharitable originally, understand?