Atheism - Shadows of Doubt

[loinburger]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
youve assumed the answer. Im open to the POSSIBILITY that those signs will be self evident to me, even before i see it rain, open enough again to make it worthwhile to walk the fields. That walking the fields is something I do with my friends, is something ive done since childhood as part of family traditions, and is good exercise, only adds to my inclination, though I have to be wary as those friends and the exercise can distract me from my search for signs of rain.

I suppose the reason I'm hesitant to apply "faith" to the atheist's decision not to walk the fields is that "resignation" strikes me as being a more accurate description many times. If somebody has spent some time walking the fields and has never seen a cloud in the sky (possibly because there aren't any, possibly because the seeker is myopic, but the seeker has no way of knowing which is the case), then at some point the seeker concludes that the practice is futile. Of course, if somebody has never tried walking the fields and assumes there's no point in doing so then "faith" is an apt term, I'm just not sure that "faith" is equivalent to "resignation."

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by loinburger

I suppose the reason I'm hesitant to apply "faith" to the atheist's decision not to walk the fields is that "resignation" strikes me as being a more accurate description many times. If somebody has spent some time walking the fields and has never seen a cloud in the sky (possibly because there aren't any, possibly because the seeker is myopic, but the seeker has no way of knowing which is the case), then at some point the seeker concludes that the practice is futile. Of course, if somebody has never tried walking the fields and assumes there's no point in doing so then "faith" is an apt term, I'm just not sure that "faith" is equivalent to "resignation."

Ok, I see your point, I buy that. Its just that I know that ive spent most of my time walking familiar fields, cause theyre easiest, and thats where my friends are, even though I know there are fields where some say they have found hints of rain, but those fields are rocky, and involve some more difficult climbs. Those who argue theyve tried and found nothing typically arent even aware of the harder fields.

and of course the fact that celebrities whove never walked the fields try to land on the peaks using hired helicopters, only to go off to some new hobby, doesnt help. "like a prayer" indeed!

[Blaupanzer]

Each of the three broad groups discussed here (religious believers, agnostics, and atheists) are being defined by those in disagreement. All three are in fact self-definitions. We each say to ourselves what we believe and which category that puts us in (plus the myriad subcategories of each).

Most humans have doubts, so having or not having them does not define us to a category. Overcoming doubts requires at least a modicum of faith, so almost all of us have that too, also not placing us in a category. In my experience, it requires a lot more faith to embrace a religion than it does to do without.

The question is, how am I going to deal with spirtual feelings and beliefs in myself and in my friends? The answer is based on what, if any, external sources you seek in that response. In general atheists spend a lot of time scoffing at the religious than the religious spend worrying about atheists. The religious seem to spend time investigating and castigating other religions. The last category, agnostics, are defined as those who believe in the idea of god but follow no specific religion.

What is the debate here? Over the use of words that have different meanings depending on who is using them.

Da Shi, all the folks here are asking is that you read and respond to their points, not repeat a set of rote answers only dimly related to what is being said.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer
Each of the three broad groups discussed here (religious believers, agnostics, and atheists) are being defined by those in disagreement. All three are in fact self-definitions. We each say to ourselves what we believe and which category that puts us in (plus the myriad subcategories of each).

So I can be an aethiest who believes whole heartedly in God and that he affects our daily lives? Sorry, but I'm calling BS.

Most humans have doubts, so having or not having them does not define us to a category. Overcoming doubts requires at least a modicum of faith, so almost all of us have that too, also not placing us in a category. In my experience, it requires a lot more faith to embrace a religion than it does to do without.

All that does put people into categories. The truth is that not all people rigidly fit into each category. But if you go around calling yourself an aetheist, it's only polite to actually have the qualities of one.

The question is, how am I going to deal with spirtual feelings and beliefs in myself and in my friends? The answer is based on what, if any, external sources you seek in that response.

In general atheists spend a lot of time scoffing at the religious than the religious spend worrying about atheistsThe religious seem to spend time investigating and castigating other religions. The last category, agnostics, are defined as those who believe in the idea of god but follow no specific religion.

What is the debate here? Over the use of words that have different meanings depending on who is using them.

Not really. The debate here is whether aetheists have beleive there is no God or, less generally, whether they have faith that there is no God. If the definition of aetheist isn't clear that should be stated. I've defined aetheist as someone who does not believe that God exists. Agnostics are those who don't necessarily believe in God but don't deny that he could exist. Religionistas are simply those that believe in God here. Except for the last one, these are all pretty standard definitions of the term. But the issue of semantics has already been brought up.

Da Shi, all the folks here are asking is that you read and respond to their points, not repeat a set of rote answers only dimly related to what is being said.

I can understand that. But they are trying to claim that their points contradict mine. If you haven't noticed, they were responding to my point initially. But I guess in your universe, such pleasantry of not repeating a set of rote answers only dimly related to what I said isn't reserved for me. What a jerk you are.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


whats a religious tenet? In Judaism, its required to say, three times daily "Praised is the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob". Someone who follows that requirement is clearly doing something beyond an "ethnicity". OTOH you arent told whether the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has any particular set of attributes, is a "personal" being, an "impersonal supernatural force" or is even "the feelings of morality inside you". IE its compatible with everything from a theism that a Christian would love, to deism, to Spinozan pantheism, to out and out humanism. (now of course MANY Jewish thinkers would argue that a more specific interpretation is correct, but we are NOT required to repeat what THEY say three times a day). So its hard to see that it doesnt allow for doubt, since ANY particular view of G-d, even the broadest conceptions of "theism" are, (IMO, and Kaplans) open to doubt.

Now you can define a "religious tenet" as a specific statement of dogma "Christ had a twofold human and divine nature, etc, etc" and decide that "its obligatory to pray the Amidah three times a day" is NOT a religious tenet, but then IMHO youve biased your view of what it means to be religious.

But Christianity you don't even have to do that. Same with the beleif that "Christ had a twofold human and divine nature, etc, etc".

I think you are biased in your view of all the different sorts of people who claim to be Christian. You hold up all the different beleifs that claim to be Jewish as a good thing, as a strong point. The same is true of Christianity.

JM

[Lorizael]

Won't you viciously attack my tirade, too, DaShi?

[DaShi]

Sorry, I missed it. Let me take a look.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Lorizael


Yes. The idea was, if you weren't listening to what I was saying (purposefully obtuse), then it didn't really matter what I said.

Because you were responding to my post with points that were completely unrelated. Frankly, I'm sick of this tactic here. I see enough of it with the Republicans who try to turn every criticism of their party into a tirade against the Clintons and other Democrats. Then remember UR. Geesh.

I'm not going to get into a debate about whether or not God exists. I'm not going to try to prove anything. That's useless.

OK, then what was all this stuff:

"You can't prove a negative. Cannot prove that God does not exist."

"This isn't enough, though. The burden of proof is on the person trying to assert the existence of something.

I've seen lights in the night sky that I couldn't explain. This is evidence of UFOs and aliens. Therefore, I will take aliens into consideration when determining my actions.

But this is crazy. There's no proof here. It is illogical to base your decisions or actions off of something you cannot prove. It is not illogical to not base your actions off of something you have no proof for or against."

My point was that a good atheist does not believe that there is no God. A good atheist simply acknowledges that there is not enough evidence available to prove the existence of God, so the atheist acts without considering God.

I addressed that. Separately from the rest as was appropriate to do. My argument is that that statement does not prove that aetheists don't believe that there is no God. If someone doesn't believe that there is a God, then of course they will act without considering God. Why wouldn't they? So they have to believe that there is no God to be aetheist. Otherwise, they know there is no God. If that's the case, I want to know how.

For all practical purposes, this means that an atheist "believes" there is no God. Belief, in a negative connotation, viewed as a sort of self-deception, exists in every human being. It's a fact of existence in an interactive, unpredictable world.

Right, although I don't see it as necessarily negative. What confuses me is that this statement followed this:

"My point was that a good atheist does not believe that there is no God."

But if you're going to go down that route, it's all semantics anyways. Yes, I believe the sun will rise tomorrow. Yes, I believe I'll come back down when I jump. And further, yes, I believe that what I hear when I talk is the same as what other people hear when I talk. Yes, I believe that my senses accurately and usefully portray reality to me under normal conditions, abstract though their portrayal may be.

Now you're getting it. But if it's semantics how can you define terms to make these not require belief?

Since humans cannot contain the knowledge of the universe, every single action or thought of a human is predicated on some belief or assumption, and it's arbitrary and rude to single out the beliefs of atheists and religionistas because you have an axe to grind.

No my axe to grind is the use of 9/11 and such to condemn everyone who believes in God or some supernatural entity. I thought this distinction was clear. It's arogant asses of aetheists who throw a hissy fit when the word belief is tossed in, like you just did. That's the only reason I do it. To put the little snots in their place. It's fun.

[DaShi]

Although, I do like the "You disagree with me, you villain!" that is common here as well. "Wah, how could you so cruelly attack my reasoning? It sounded so good when I rehearsed it in front of the mirror."

Anyway, I want to thank loinburger for his thoughtful and comparatively polite responses. You made some good points. And I may have gone too far to use faith in regards to aetheism.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
"like a prayer" indeed!

That's a good song, dammit!

Isn't she some sort of Kabbalist now? I wonder how you'd go about writing a pop single about that.

[GePap]

I think the program does tackle this issue when it talks about the nature of the notion of belief.

Belief is a predesposition. You make an asusmption or a claim and act on it. It is similar to knowledge in that it is not necessary to constantly have thoughts about this to affirm it. I know Spanish, even when I don;t think in Spanish, or have any active thoughts about Spanish.

The difference between belief and knowledge is that knowledge can be verified, while belief can't.

Lack of belief is NOT the same as a belief, any more than ignorance is a form of knowledge.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by GePap
The difference between belief and knowledge is that knowledge can be verified, while belief can't.

The problem with that statement is that "verified" is a rather fuzzy concept, unless you're strictly dealing with axiomatic symbol manipulation. F'rinstance, using the "knowledge = justified true belief" equivalence, you run into an infinite regress with your justification unless you admit some fuzziness into the picture (or arbitrarily cut off the chain of regression).

I use the terms "believe" and "know" differently when describing the state of things according to me, but when you get down to brass tacks my "knowledge" is really just the set of beliefs with which I'm sufficiently comfortable that I don't call them into question on a regular basis (aside from my knowledge of axiomatic symbol manipulation, which IMO absolutely qualifies as knowledge in that it makes clear its assumptions).

[GePap]

Originally posted by loinburger

The problem with that statement is that "verified" is a rather fuzzy concept, unless you're strictly dealing with axiomatic symbol manipulation. F'rinstance, using the "knowledge = justified true belief" equivalence, you run into an infinite regress with your justification unless you admit some fuzziness into the picture (or arbitrarily cut off the chain of regression).

I use the terms "believe" and "know" differently when describing the state of things according to me, but when you get down to brass tacks my "knowledge" is really just the set of beliefs with which I'm sufficiently comfortable that I don't call them into question on a regular basis (aside from my knowledge of axiomatic symbol manipulation, which IMO absolutely qualifies as knowledge in that it makes clear its assumptions).

I don't agree with the statement that knowledge is just another form of belief. I think the example of a language is a great way to show a concrete difference. You either KNOW a language or you don't. You don't Believe that you can speak a language and then speak it. I can't decide to believe I speak Mandarin and then go to Beijing and speak to people on the street in Mandarin.

The same for any set of physical skills, like swimming. One learns to swim, then can swim. I don't need to justify anythign about swimming, but I can verify my knowledge of swimming by doing it.

Fine, you can argue that certain more theoretical ideas, such as "knowing the theory of gravity" are closer to belief than a more fundamental form of knowledge because it is difficult for an individual to actively verify such a thing. But there is still a fundamental difference between Knowledge and Belief.

[loinburger]

I'd counter with the claim that knowing a language is the same (more or less) as knowing a system of axiomatic symbol manipulation. Vocabulary/grammar in one language may not precisely map to vocabulary/grammar in another language, but that just means that the symbol manipulation is a bit more complicated than a simple one-to-one mapping. Plus, there are different states of "knowing" a language (which explains the numerous Engrish translations one might come across).

Whereas "knowledge" about swimming is not much different than the "knowledge" that Pavlov's dog "learned" (except that the swimmer consciously learned the "knowledge" in question, whereas Pavlov's dog wouldn't have learned its "knowledge" without the intervention of Pavlov). There isn't a lot of conscious thought that goes into swimming; it would be absurd for an olympic swimmer to have to reason through each breach/stroke, and so it's absurd to claim that "knowing how to swim" is a demonstration of "knowledge" in any epistemologically valid sense of the word, any more than claiming that Pavlov's dog's "knowledge that a ringing bell means that one is about to be presented with food" is a demonstration of "knowledge" in any epistemologically valid sense of the word.

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by DaShi
I addressed that. Separately from the rest as was appropriate to do. My argument is that that statement does not prove that aetheists don't believe that there is no God. If someone doesn't believe that there is a God, then of course they will act without considering God. Why wouldn't they? So they have to believe that there is no God to be aetheist. Otherwise, they know there is no God. If that's the case, I want to know how.

To get into a little bit of semantics here, there is technically a difference between the statements, "I believe there is no god," and, "I do not believe there is a god."

The first case asserts that you have proven a negative, which is just stupid. This is why I don't believe a good atheist should make such a claim. The second expresses a lack of belief on the matter, which I do think is slightly different from agnosticism.

Specifically, this type of atheist acts as if there is no god, but cannot say for sure that there is, in fact, no god. Thus belief, in a more classical, less post-moderny and semantic way, is not required.

But, as I said, for all practical purposes, this person does not believe in god. The only difference between this person and a hardcore atheist who screams about 9/11 and the god delusion is that in a debate, the person who does not believe, rather than believes not, will be able to present a more rational argument in favor of their case.

Although, I do like the "You disagree with me, you villain!" that is common here as well. "Wah, how could you so cruelly attack my reasoning? It sounded so good when I rehearsed it in front of the mirror."

Oh no. A random internet poster, through his clever wit alone, has exposed my hidden insecurities.

This is pretty lame. I'd like to drop this part of the debate.

I'm not holding anything against you here, and I'm not hurt by the fact that you disagree with my beliefs. In fact, as I stated before - in this thread and elsewhere - I'm not even an atheist. It just so happens that, at one point in my life, I adhered to both of those atheistic philosophies I described above. I was also agnostic at one point, among other things.

So, I play devil's advocate when those beliefs are brought up, because I happen to know something about them. When you manage to attack the beliefs I actually care about successfully... well, let's just say I'll be surprised.