Atheism is not an Ideology?
Faith and Philosophy
| June 6, 2008
| Tim
For generations now, popular atheist apologists have blamed "religion" (or sometimes, more specially, Christianity) for most or all of mankind's self-inflicted ills. Pointing at the Catholic/Protestant wars in later European history, and having been weaned on (mostly mythical) accounts of Inquisitions, many argued that religion must surely be the foul hand behind most human suffering.
By the late 20th century, however, evidence began to mount (in the form of piles of millions upon millions of murdered innocents) that atheistic regimes had far outdone theistic ones in terms of their ability to murder and repress. So the defense quickly became that, well, different atheists had nothing in common, and it wasn't fair to lump them all together. Atheist apologists who themselves were extraordinarily fond of lumping Wahabis in with Quakers (e.g. Sam Harris) suddenly denounced the extreme unfairness of lumping Objectivists in with Communists!
And, more absurdly, the rallying cry (irony alert!) became that "atheism isn't an ideology", or, as one atheist I know put it, that "atheism teaches nothing". In a sense, that's as valid as pointing that "religion" is similarly nonspecific. But even while making the case, atheists inadvertently admit there are different atheistic ideologies (for example, Objectivists versus Marxists) -- just as there are different groups within theism. And I personally believe it's just as fair to generalize about atheistic subgroups, insomuch as they act or think in similar ways, as with others.
For example, consider the argument itself that "atheism teaches nothing" (in its various forms). That argument itself is an atheistic dogma, and you'll find it accompanying other atheistic dogmas on web sites like this one (and he's quoting another atheist, who's repeating the argument he's heard from yet another, and so on). I'm not saying all atheists are the same, but among a certain variety of aggressive and hostile Western atheists, you'll see the exact same arguments, assertions, and views being repeated over and over -- all while insisting that atheism implies nothing in particular!
In fact, I would easily assert that there is far more variety among "religions" than there are among atheists, making this atheistic protest even more inapt. There's far more dissent among "the religious" about, say, embryonic stem cells than among atheists. An atheist must believe we evolved by natural means, but a religious adherent can believe in unguided evolution (God is not involved in the universe), guided evolution (God set up those laws) or special creation. Materialists must reject the idea of spirits or miracles, but the religious can hold a great variety of views. Among the religious, there are many different understandings of what "God" might mean, all with greatly different implications -- but when you say there is no God at all, you select among a narrower set. For example, if there is no God, morality must be an evolutionary or social construct. On the other hand, if I believe in God, I can take either view: Perhaps God is beyond morality (and our moral beliefs are just our own invention, or a side effect of evolution) or perhaps God is moral, and then morals could possibly come from God.
Surely, on many of the above issues, atheist apologists would argue they are right, and those who dissent are wrong. "Well, of course we evolved under unguided natural laws. Some religious people recognize that, and some are still mired in the dark ages." Well, that may be so, but also confirms my point: that vocal atheists are quite sure of themselves, and that they tend to think along similar lines in regarding certain core topics.
You can't have it both ways, but militant atheists certainly try.
So is "atheism" an ideology? However you want to define "ideology", "atheism" is much, much closer to being one than, say, "religion". All the elements one might include in "ideology" can be found among groups of western atheists: a common outlook on certain points, repeated talking points and arguments, a shared set of enemies, social affinity networks, etc. This is particularly so among the more vocal Western atheists -- the sort who tend to repeat whatever argument is currently in vogue among their peers.
So, humorously enough, the popularity of the "atheism is not an ideology" argument is itself strong evidence that atheists can indeed be ideologues. And to the extent atheists share the same prejudices and outlooks, they can and indeed should be grouped and examined, just as we have done with the religious.
So, humorously enough, the popularity of the "atheism is not an ideology" argument is itself strong evidence that atheists can indeed be ideologues.
And here I thought all along that all the parroting between atheists, and lack of rational, coherent arguments, or accurate knowledge of history was a good sign that the vast majority of them were ideologues. :D
(And it should be "as they have done with the religious" in the last sentence. I don't recall grouping myself with Wahabbis... ;-) )
Okay, a little definition work, shall we?
Atheism means a lack of belief in God. Nothing more, nothing less. You can't blame or credit it with anything!
As for Objectivists and communists, you can lump them together under "irrational nuts".
As for there being less variety for atheists... reminds me of my favorite phrase:
"There is but one path to good.... and an infinite number to evil. Watch your step."
Or more specifically there is only ONE right answer for each question. The fact that theists have MORE varied answers isn't a good sign- it would be like saying communism is better than democracy because there is more different forms.
Why do atheists tend to have less varied answers to things with a supernatural component? Because the supernatural doesn't exist. Look at the very definition of the word- things are supernatural when you can't scrap enough evidence for them. So you relabel them and hope people fall for it.
As for ideology... that would be antitheism- the belief that religion is harmful and false. Antitheism is an ideology, one that you strawman.
Antitheists believe that religion is dangerous because it embraces the idea of faith.
They blame it for a large number, but not all, bad things.
Crimes that aren't religious are secular. Religious and atheists both have secular motivations. Secular is not atheism.
Marxist communists killed in the name of the revolution and their attempts to be their society manifest on Earth.
The fact that theists have MORE varied answers isn't a good sign- it would be like saying communism is better than democracy because there is more different forms.
Do you really believe that?
Why do atheists tend to have less varied answers to things with a supernatural component? Because the supernatural doesn't exist.
Nations have competed for centuries. If religious belief was not adaptive, wouldn't atheistic societies dominate ones with more religious belief?
Ultimately, the existance of anything is inferred indirectly from our senses. We call a thing true because belief in it helps us understand regular patterns in the world. People believed in electrons because they saw auger tracks, but they didn't see the electrons themselves. Similarly, people might believe in spirit if doing so helps promote a more predictive or adaptive model of the world or human behavior.
The fact that theists have MORE varied answers isn't a good sign
Of course. But I don't think that that's the argument. Christians don't lump themselves with Buddhists. The variety of faiths in existance argues only against those atheists who put all religions in one category "religion."
Clarification of the above, do you really believe that there is a greater variety of communist societies than democracic ones?
grr. I mean "are a greater variety of..."
Samuel! Welcome! Regarding your various points:
Okay, a little definition work, shall we? Atheism means a lack of belief in God.
Okay, a little here history work here, shall we? Atheism was formed from atheos (Greek for no-God) and -isme (late medieval French suffix). Historically, it has meant nogod-ism (a positive assertion of God's nonexistence), not no-godism (mere failure to believe in God). Read the classical atheists (Bertrand Russell, etc.) if you're unsure on this point.
The definition you would like everyone to agree to was proposed recently, in the 1980s, as a rhetorical device, by Anthony Flew, who admitted it was historically understood as described above, but also admitted, in the same essay, that he was frustrated with atheists having to defend their assertions.
So now atheists attack with positive assertions which only make sense given a presumption of nogod-ism, but retreat as though they had only ever asserted no-godism. Most the public hasn't bought it (nor do many prominent atheists, like Richard Dawkins, who use it the old way) but hey, it was worth a try, I guess. ;-)
(Side note: I have no problem with a group wanting to rename themselves. (It might provoke laughter, as Dawkins' attempt to insist everyone should call him and his friends "brights", but not protest.) But it's quite an odd thing when a group tries to broaden their definition to include others who have not been historically included -- quite without the consent of those others!)
You can't blame or credit it with anything!
Again, you demonstrate my point precisely!
First, you're not paying attention, or haven't read what was written above. Where did I "blame or credit" atheism with anything? But when challenged, you repeat your mantra again, unthinkingly.
Second, you don't attempt to justify or explain your assertion. Atheists credit atheism with a wide variety of good effects -- please read their websites, if you're unfamiliar with this phenomenon. Why are they wrong for doing so? Others blame atheism for reducing man to a non-spiritual being. Is that wrong too? If so why?
But you don't have to justify your assertion do you? Mere repetition is enough, isn't it?
Like I said: an atheist dogma.
Or more specifically there is only ONE right answer for each question.
If the question is formed or understood precisely enough, that is.
The fact that theists have MORE varied answers...
Ah, so you make my point again. Even you arenow willing to admit that there is more ideological variation among theists than atheists. Yet you contradict yourself: if atheism narrows one's ideological range, then it can indeed be credited or blamed for whatever that narrower range of views may correlate with.
The fact that theists have MORE varied answers isn't a good sign- it would be like saying communism is better than democracy because there is more different forms.
Sometimes that's true. But sometimes it's the opposite. Sometimes a group of people cluster around a solution because the evidence points roughly in that direction, but there's debate about precisely where.
Would you apply the same litmus test to biogenesis? After all, young earth creationists are all very specific on the date of creation, whereas evolutionists have a wide variety of ideas about when, where, and how life may have arisen. Shallow pools of water? Oceanic magma vents? Another planet? Interstellar space? On crystals? Your rule, if you truly wished to apply it consistently, would suggest the evolutionists must be wrong.
So my point here is that your form of argument is fallacious.
Why do atheists tend to have less varied answers to things with a supernatural component? Because the supernatural doesn't exist.
Wow: I thought just a second ago you were insisting atheism didn't imply anything. Now you assert categorically that the supernatural doesn't exist. So you're not an atheist, I take it?
Look at the very definition of the word-
Etymology's not really your strong suit, is it? Well, if we must: "Nature" refers to the natural order of things -- the material world, thus "supernatural" means that which transcends or is above it. There's nothing in said definition which shows it exists or not.
... things are supernatural when you can't scrap enough evidence for them.
Enough evidence for what? Certainly, supernatural events aren't repeatable, or they'd be laws. But enough people have encountered such phenomenon that they're not unreasonable for thinking there's more to the universe than just the dimensions we can see and touch.
Atheists typically believe quite an array of unprovable things as well -- they're just usually, in my experience, less aware of them.
So you relabel them and hope people fall for it.
What did "we" relabel? Are you saying there was an older word for the supernatural, and that the word "supernatural" is a cunning redefinition by theists?
You're too fun: First, you demand everyone use a polemically-motivated, brand-new definition of atheism, then you complain about how awful it is when people "relabel" things in order to win debates!
Projection?
Antitheism is an ideology, one that you strawman.
I'm not sure how I could have "strawman"ed it if I didn't actually mention it yet.
But boy, you sure got me there again! Whew! ;-)
So what's your position? You have asserted categorically that the supernatural doesn't exist. So are you, by your definition, an "antitheist" -- or do you believe it's not in any way harmful to be completely wrong about such things?
But I don't think that that's the argument. Christians don't lump themselves with Buddhists. The variety of faiths in existance argues only against those atheists who put all religions in one category "religion."
Precisely right, Ryan -- you are tremendously insightful. When you're in a religion or worldview, it's very easy to define the rest of the world as differing with you along one axis. You draw a circle and say: "Us in here, all the others, out there." It's easy to see the whole world in those terms.
Atheists (in the typical meaning the word) draw that line along supernatural-belief. A Buddhist may draw it between those who have been "enlightened" (perhaps meaning they've realized the world is illusory, or other close meaning) and those who have not. Environmentalists are the ones who care about the planet, others do not. Christians talk about those who believe in Jesus, etc.
What's fun about your answer is that puts them up against each other. To the atheist, only they have the true answer, "knowing" the supernatural doesn't exist. But to the Muslim, the atheist is lumped in with all the other varieties of wrong answers among the Kaffir: godlessness, idolatry, "people of the book", the insufficiently committed, etc. The litmus test Samuel offered can be used to prove each is equally true, depending on the choice of criteria.
Which is why it gave both of us a chuckle, apparently.
In truth, the Western atheist is much closer to a Western Christian than the Christian is to, say, a Taoist (who could also count as an atheist, using Flew's definition) or Tibetan Buddhist. Most Western atheists are, in some sense, almost Christian (holding many Christian values and presuppositions) -- except for the God part. Only when you study other cultures, do you (or did I, anyway) realize how truly alien other belief systems can be.
First, variety of societies.
Technically "democracy" means direct democracy. There is only ONE form of direct democracy. However, I'm going to include Republicanism- it is only fair. All varieties of Republicanism are MUCH more similar than communist societies in the real world. Conceptually, the only possible differance are in structure- for example, parlimentary vs presidental, written vs unwritten constitution, public officials, public works- minor stuff. You can go through out the EU and the differance is minor.
Communist societies are MUCH more varied. They include all societies where the state controls all major economic activity. Not all were Marxist- that is just a small subsect. Excluding communal groups, you get a divirse missmass of the Incans (theocratic communists), the Romanians (the most prolife state EVER), Albania (purging the world of religion a preist at a time), CCCP (compare Stalin to his successors. Huge differance), The People's Republic (religion insures "social harmony", the economy is almost capitalist), North Korea (the leader is a God... no, his father, who is still leader, although he is dead. You won't pry him of that throne!), Cuba (New Soviet Man), Cambodia (Industry is bad, smart people are bad, glasses are bad- kill'em all) and Vietnam (Liberating people from Worse communists and even more corrupt governments).
They have. Western Europe was extremely secular during the age of exploration. They turned to scientists, not the bible for answers- how do you think they made those ships? Those guns? A society doesn't have to be of atheists to get said benefits- the simply must have atheistic science and be secular enough not to care. There is a reason the power that ruled the largest empires after 1800 where England and France.
Christianity in itself has an extreme number of answers. Is Jesus the son of God? Did he die? Trinity? What must be done for salvation? Etc...
Tim
Doesn't matter to me- I am a strong atheist. However, given that theist means "one who believes in God", it would seem it opposite would mean "one who doesn't believe in God".
I'm pretty sure you are wrong about the definition, but it is irrelevant. People who don't believe and people who declare God doesn't exist is more cumbersome.
? You declare that "atheism teaches nothing" is a point of yours, than declare it atheistic dogma... The correct word is secular. Atheism deals with belief. Secular deals with actions and ideologies. For example, Marxist Communism is a secular and antitheist ideology.
Why am I making this distinction? Because when people call things "atheistic belief systems" they make the word meaningless. Theists can have "atheistic" belief systems! If you mean a belief system that ONLY atheists can have, than that is true (not for communism- for Marxism).
No- all questions have right answers. If it is broad, than you have an answer with qualifiers, ex:
Can I cross the street?
If at a crosswalk and the sign says walk, yes. Otherwise no.
Do you know that sane people have MUCh narrower ranges of thought than crazy people? You know why? Because beliefs should be based on reality and when they aren't they wander.
No, they have multiple theories. One is right, the rest is wrong. That is what science is for. They know that- they just don't know which one and (in theory) everyone is willing to admit they will change their mind according to evidence.
The material world is all that exists.
Relabeling God. There isn't enough evidence for natural, so now God is supernatural.
Antitheists are people who believe religion is wrong and harmful. The "atheists" you attack are all antitheists. Given you strawman them, you are strawmanning both.
I'm an antitheist.
Tim (again)
Both worldviews are based on faith. So we can deal with them the same. Similar to the way we deal with objectivists and commies- they ignore reason when it suits them.
The only differance between atheists and everyone else is God belief. Since it is based on faith, dividing up the world that way makes sense.
Christian values? You do realize that is nonsense? Look at history- most of these values are recent. The ones that aren't happen to be universal.
I'll sum it up tomorrow.
Samuel! Welcome back! Normally, I try to let others answer their own comments, well, this was just too interesting:
Communist societies are MUCH more varied... All varieties of Republicanism are MUCH more similar than communist societies in the real world. Conceptually, the only possible differance are in structure- for example, parlimentary vs presidental
First, you seem to be using the word "society", but describing government structure. Those are different, you know? India and the UK may have similar government layouts, but that doesn't make their societies at all the same.
Second, it's just amusing: I've never seen Communism depicted as a flowering of many vastly differing forms, while Democratic Republics are, you know, cookie cutters. Albania's hostility to religion is, um, vastly different than the approach taken in most other Communist regimes? And Cuba's ideal of the "New Soviet Man" as being, um, very different than the ideal man who was to be created in Cambodia, the USSR, under Mao, the Song Revolution in N Korea, etc.
Well, alrighty then! We'll just have to split the difference here. But I thank you very much for clarifying your views on the matter.
Doesn't matter to me- I am a strong atheist. However, given that theist means "one who believes in God", it would seem it opposite would mean "one who doesn't believe in God".
I understand and see your point. But think more about the word "opposite", which means "opposed to". It carries a sense of pointing the other way. We don't say: "I'm opposed to X" or "my beliefs are the opposite of X" when we mean I have no opinion on X, or merely fail to enthusiastically assert X.
You're certainly welcomed to your own preferences, but history's history, and even Flew admitted at the time that he was trying to change the way the word was used.
I'm pretty sure you are wrong about the definition...
Okay, here you go. Anthony Flew himself, admitting precisely what he's doing and why:
Whereas nowadays the usual meaning of 'atheist' in English is 'someone who asserts that there is no such being as God', I want the word to be understood not positively but negatively.
The definition you feel is "right" never existed in any practical sense before 1984. Moreover, Flew also admits that he fully expects his reader will wonder why he's trying to make "atheism" mean what, at the time, most everyone colloquially called "agnosticism":
The introduction of this new interpretation of the word 'atheism' may appear to be a piece of perverse Humpty-Dumptyism, going arbitrarily against established common usage. 'Whyever', it could be asked, 'don't you make it not the presumption of atheism but the presumption of agnosticism?' It is too soon to attempt a full answer to this challenge and this suggestion.
So there you have it. You're repeating a fairly new definition, created in 1984 by Anthony Flew, created, as he admits, to try to change the debate -- that is, for polemic reasons. If you deplore "relabeling' things, then you must, for consistency, deplore this case as well.
Most people haven't caught on yet (and, as I've mentioned, even some prominent atheists don't play the game right) but many everyday atheists, in my experience, will insist this is what the word has always meant, and anyone who says otherwise is being sneaky or ignorant.
See what I mean? Received wisdom. Unquestioned dogma. The word always meant that! Only it didn't. All you have to do is read the classical atheists to discover it.
You declare that "atheism teaches nothing"
No, an atheist I know insisted upon that.
The correct word is secular.
No, secular simply means worldly, or temporal, or at least not overtly religious. Even Christians are being "secular" when they're at a non-religious job -- but we couldn't properly say they're being atheistic. This strikes me as an example of how trying to screw with one word ends up with people getting confused about a whole host of others as well.
For clarity, I want you to understand that I use "atheism" in the historical and popularly-understood sense. This is either fine because I have history and popular use on my side, or it's fine because if Anthony Flew and others can insist on their own definitions, than others can likewise.
I don't think word games are helpful, so I simply try to use the most common meaning of each word. So (for example) I also use agnostic in the everyday sense (not sure, no particular stance), not in the original (but much less well-known) sense of saying we can't know things.
For example, Marxist Communism is a secular and antitheist ideology. Why am I making this distinction? Because when people call things "atheistic belief systems" they make the word meaningless. Theists can have "atheistic" belief systems!
I agree that Marxism can be non-atheistic. (Nor have I argued otherwise, ever.) I wouldn't call "Marxism" an inherently atheistic belief system. (Nor socialism.) But when some belief system offers, as one of it's main dogmatic points, an assertion that no God exists -- and actively fights against such assertions -- it's certainly fair to call it "atheistic".
So if Lenin asserts, for example "Atheism is a material and inseparable part of Marxism", and you are a follower of Lenin, then you are indeed a follower of an atheistic system. It doesn't mean you personally must be an atheist (you could dissent with that point, or simply be confused, or going along out of some other motive) but it does mean that the system advocates atheism.
I'm not sure why this is so hard.
No- all questions have right answers. If it is broad, than you have an answer with qualifiers, ex: Can I cross the street? If at a crosswalk and the sign says walk, yes. Otherwise no.
The assertion was not: "All questions have right answers". (Which is false anyway.) Your assertion was that each question has only ONE right answer. Of course that's false, too -- don't be silly.
"Write a valid value of X: _________ where
X^2 = 16"
X can equal 4, but it can also equal -4.
Again, this is not that hard. Your suggestion that you "qualify" the question is just a way of saying that you'll answer a different question. But "X^4 = 16 where X>4" is not the same question as the last one; "X & Y" is not the same as "X & Y & Z" -- even though the later has just one more qualifier than the former.
So I guess, if all questions have only one right answer, then we must either define "two right answers" as being a valid interpretation of the words "one right answer", or we must say that the first broad question -- the one you felt you had to rephrase to answer -- didn't exist. (Because it had more than one answer, and all questions have one answer, therefore, it must not have been a question!)
I'm learning the most amazing things here.
(By the way, even your example of a question with "one right answer" has more answers. You could cross the street against the light. Or maybe there is no light involved. The question is ambiguous. You know what ambiguous means? It means capable of being decided in two or more possible ways. So I guess, since there are NO questions which can be answered correctly in two or more ways, there is no such thing as an "ambiguous question"! Somebody phone the dictionary people!)
Do you know that sane people have MUCh narrower ranges of thought than crazy people?
I've already agreed with you that in some cases a narrower variety of views surrounds the right answer. But I've also pointed out there are cases where the opposite is true.
Ignoring that answer, and then enumerating more cases of either type doesn't make your argument non-fallacious. Read the comment rules, please.
The material world is all that exists.
Thank you! Another unquestioned atheist dogma, repeated right here on my blog. Previously, you argued it didn't exist because of the "definition". I pointed out the definition seemed to imply no such thing.
So do you answer with evidence?
No, you simply repeat your assertion again.
So, one more time: What's your evidence that the material world is all that exists? Is it definitionally true (i.e. you're simply defining "material world" to mean "all that exists") or are you saying that you are sure nothing people would typically call "supernatural" exists?
I'll be happy to give counter-evidence. The universe -- that is "the material world" -- had a beginning. It apparently came out of something wholly unlike itself. So it follows that there is indeed something outside this universe / spacetime continuum.
That doesn't prove the existence of ghosts, ESP, etc. -- but it certainly does leave us knowing, full well, that there is something "out there" besides the visible dimensions in which we exist.
Given you strawman them, you are strawmanning both.
Where have I "strawman"ed someone? Second time I'm asking here. Please cite the passage, and explain the "strawman" in detail from the article above, or drop it.
Are you saying it's a "strawman" argument because I refuse to use your own definition of "atheist" and "antitheist"? Sorry, that's not what the word means.
Both worldviews are based on faith.
What both? I'm sorry, you're losing me here. You mean both as in the sentence before that, both "atheists" and "antitheists"? That would certainly be a refreshing admission, but I'm not sure that's what you mean.
BTW: I use "antitheists" to describe people with a viceral hatred of religion, not simply those who are sure God doesn't exist, but don't mind if others do.
Similar to the way we deal with objectivists and commies- they ignore reason when it suits them.
Right! You're making my case nicely. Sam Harris pointed out that Communism is a lot like a religion. Quite right there too. So you're both pointing out that atheism (or even "antitheism", if you prefer) is no guarantee that the one holding it is going to be particularly "reasonable" or immune from a kind of strong "religion."
That has certainly been my experience.
Christian values? You do realize that is nonsense? Look at history- most of these values are recent.
Most of what values, Samuel? You didn't even bother to find out what "Christian values" I was referring to before making your assertion to the contrary.
Well, regardless, best to you!
Technically "democracy" means direct democracy. ...Communist societies are MUCH more varied.
Your argument seems to be that Communist societies are different because they can uphold different values.
While democratic societies or democratic republics could certainly hold different values, you argue that they are the same because they are limited in their possible forms.
This doesn't seem like an apples to apples comparison.
Of course, I agree that a democracy might have certain prerequisites that a communist dictatorship of some form wouldn't require, so it might be more limited in that sense.
They turned to scientists, not the bible for answers. how do you think they made those ships? Those guns?
This seems like a false dichotomy. A society can either look towards the bible to decide how to self-organize, promote morality and treat one another OR they can make guns and ships? A society can easily do both.
How did people cooperate well enough to make these things, or accumulate enough capital to make them rather than simply competing more fiercely intra-nationally for power? Why did knowledge accumulate in the west, while the East, despite its numerous geniuses, seemed to lose so much of the knowledge it created. Inventions were created and then abandoned.
It's similar to the notion that famines are less frequent in democracies.
Who would say "you either look to farmers for food or you look to democratic government?" It's possible that farmers in a democratic society might produce more efficiently and have their product distributed more effectively. (Note: I'm not weighing in on whether the effect between democracies and famines is correlation or causation. Just that looking to social organization and the actual processes employed by people with a given organization are not mutually exclusive.)
There was an interesting discussion elsewhere on this same site and I'd be honestly interested to hear your take on it; why was it that western Europe managed to develop science, formally testing and rejecting hypotheses on a material basis and building a body of knowledge, while the more atheistic yet still advanced Asian cultures failed to do so?
A society doesn't have to be of atheists to get said benefits
Can you point me towards any society of mostly atheists who actually have gotten said benefits?
Francis Bacon wasn't an atheist.
He writes in "The Essays: Of Atheism" that "a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion."
link
Newton wasn't an atheist. You could make a long list of scientists and natural philosophers who were theists, which makes it peculiar to refer to science as 'atheistic.' If many self described theists have made strides with what you see as 'atheistic' and many atheistic societies (of different flavors) do not then perhaps you may have misjudged the effects of Judeo-Christian beliefs on those who hold them? Of course, Marxist atheism is a destructive form of atheism. Folks like Asimov seem to be beneficial. But can you point me to a society that consists predominantly of good atheists?
Theists can have "atheistic" belief systems!
Might there be some (of what you rather uniquely label) "atheistic" belief systems which are even supported and created predominantly by Judeo-Christian beliefs? If so, the term 'atheistic' seems deceptive if it occurs in a predominantly Judeo-Christian society.
The academic system of citation was a direct secularization of the religious system, for instance.
No- all questions have right answers. If it is broad, than you have an answer with qualifiers, ex:
Can I cross the street?
If at a crosswalk and the sign says walk, yes. Otherwise no.
And all questions have as qualifiers, at the least, the premises they are based on.
Can I cross the street outside of the crosswalk? Yes, if I don't care about the laws.
If all questions have one answer and all questions have, as qualifiers, the moral premises that they are based on then either there are many right answers to a question depending on one's moral assumptions or there is some way to prove a single morality.
There isn't enough evidence for natural, so now God is supernatural.
Patterns in the narrow sense can easily be a part of larger patterns.
While humans are made up of chemicals I certainly wouldn't describe most human interactions in terms of chemistry. By using a different vocabulary I'm able to think about events and make predictions which would elude me if I restricted myself to simple physics, chemistry and biology.
Screw it. I tried writing it out, but I realized the definitional things are just word games. Either Flew is wrong or the English language was missing an obvious word (agnostic doesn't count- it is about knowledge).
So skipping the word games because we have managed to agree they are pointless...
Marxism is atheistic- they are no theocratic Marxists. As for Lenin's statement, that is refered to as antitheism- the belief religion is false AND harmful. Atheism and activism.
First off, negative numbers DON'T occur in real life. Atheism and theism deal with reality and MUST have a single correct answer. Societies also occur in reality, and guess what? They have the same constraints.
You simply showed the problem with rules- there are looks and lots of qualifiers for unique situations.
If you give an example of a real life of twp answers to one problem, than the answers are probably either very similar or situational- one uses resource a, another resource b and thus implementation depends on the situation. For example a pontoon vs steel bridge. If you need a bridge up NOW, use pontoon. Long term use steel (Yes, I'm simplifying- I am not an engineer.)
The material world is all that exists based on evidence and definition.
Evidence- nothing supernatural has ever been proven.
Definition- the term "natural" is used to include everything in this universe. Things that are natural obey natures rules.
Now, you claim that it had to come from something... why? Could the universe simply be uncaused? Or take its cause with it? What makes you think the rules inside apply to the whole?
I was refering to buddists and Christians. Both are based on faith. Therefore I can deal with them similarly.
That is correct. However, I try for reasonable ness AND it is possilbe- not for theists however.
Well, I don't live in a hole in the ground- I know what you mean by "Christian values". It is nice you assume I have no idea what I am talking about.
In an effort to make things simplier I will list definitions. If you don't like them, provide your own words- you need to cover the same definitions however.
Theist- A person who believes in God.
Faith- Believing something in spite of the evidence
Atheist (weak)- atheist agnostic. Does not believe in God.
Atheist (strong)- believes God doesn't exist
Antitheist- An atheist who believes religion is bad.
Christian Values- Values that exist in Christianity but not other belief systems. Alternatively, values that Christianity has consistantly held.
Christianity- belief Jesus is the final prophet.
Ryan
Look at what the Europeans did. The bible said the world was made in seven days... and they took it literally. Until they realized it was wrong and declared it "metaphorical". The fact is that they left scholasticism and rote knowledge and moved onto experimentation- and given the previous idea that the bible had all the knowledge you'd need... well, it was change.
Read Guns, Germs and Steel. It will give a good answer. The short answer is that China had, for must of its history no external enemies and only had internal problems- so it controlled and stifled science and technology if they were problems. So it didn't advance (many inventions cause HUGE uphevals). Ditto for Japan. India was broken up into too many small states. Indochina? I don't know.
Also, Asian societies weren't atheistic. India (Hinduism), Indochina (Hinduism, Buddism, Islam), Japan (Buddism, Shintoism- Emperor is a living God), China (Buddahism, Confucism, Taoism, Ancestor worship, Pantheon).
http://www.godchecker.com/pantheon/chinese-mythology.php
It is just "they are so spiritual" crap.
The reasons famines are less common under democracies is two reasons
- the government takes famine contol measures
- democracies didn't exist during the times in human history when famines happened regularly.
Currently the only societies that have ever been atheists in human history would be in Western Europe and Japan. Prior to 1945 I don't believe there were any mostly atheist countries. I'm not sure about the stats for Eastern Europe.
The majority of scientists where theists up until the time of Darwin. Given that for a large period of time apostacy was punishable by death, it makes sense.
That was my point. You only get a narrow range if you are trying for specific agreed upon results. Truth however is one of them.
But human actions are built on chemistry. We simply don't use it because it is too complicated. The fact remains that you CAN make more detailed predictions what people will do using chemistry, biology and physics. It is rare because the system is so comlicated.
However, I try for reasonable ness AND it is possilbe- not for theists however.
What is possible? I'm not sure what you're saying here.
Faith- Believing something in spite of the evidence
Faith would probably be better defined, at least by theists, as "believing something with evidence short of proof." At the heart of this discussion is the evidence for or against the relevant views.
Christian Values- Values that exist in Christianity but not other belief systems. Alternatively, values that Christianity has consistently held.
Why do Christian values have to be exclusive to Christianity?
I can think of quite a few that are shared by other faiths and some atheists.
I'm familiar with the concepts in Guns, Germs and Steel though I haven't had a chance to read it yet. I like Diamond's emphasis on wide latitudes of land mass and megafauna as important criterion for civilization. China had both. But "internal" or "external" enemies seem entirely matters of definition rather than statements of fact. Tibet was certainly in conflict with China. The Mongols managed to gain control of it. Why are there so many stone walls all over China, enough to eventually string them together into the Great Wall, if conflict wasn't a problem. What do you think about the Battle of Tumu? Why does India being broken up into small states inhibit science if conflict supposedly led to science in Europe?
Also, Asian societies weren't atheistic.
Not all of them, of course. You seem to be conflating atheism and materialism, though. I've had at least one friend who was atheistic but believed in spirits, the zodiac, etc.
In the same way that I wouldn't presume that you were a communist simply because you were an atheist I wouldn't assume that you were a materialist simply because you were an atheist.
I have never seen an atom, but I believe that they exist because I observe their effects. Similarly, I believe that God exists, in part, because belief in God has an observable, positive effect on people.
The reasons famines are less common under democracies is two reasons
- the government takes famine contol measures
- democracies didn't exist during the times in human history when famines happened regularly.
But you seem to be missing the point I was making; social organization and the particular process used for growing food both have roles in producing and distributing food. They are not mutually exclusive.
Also, famines happen even today. So I have a little trouble with your point #2.
Currently the only societies that have ever been atheists in human history would be in Western Europe and Japan.
How did you arrive at that conclusion?
The fact remains that you CAN make more detailed predictions what people will do using chemistry, biology and physics.
Can you? For the most part, I use different mental constructs when looking at the two fields, and this is despite a fairly extensive study of hormones and nutrition. There are a few concepts that can cross over, but for the most part I don't think about "happiness" or "the benefits of law" or "trust" using concepts from, say, biochemistry. I don't sympathize with my friends because they have a serotonin deficit, but because they're sad. And I know how that feels. Sympathy can't really be understood, at least currently, by starting with physics and working up. It might be justified as evolutionarily adaptive, but that's not really the same thing.
Perhaps it might be possible one day. Perhaps not. But I don't see us being at the point where difference between the fields really blur quite yet.
It is impossible for theists to be entirely coherant and rational.
No, evidence short of proof would be... evidence!
Because than they aren't Christian values. They are values happen to hold. The differance is that the first is tied to Christianity and the second isn't.
They could be values they hold because they are Christian, but than atheists can't have them.
The walls were due to repeated internal conflict. And to control the peasents and their movement.
Also, the majority of China's history is under one dynasty or another. The dynasties prized stability, not change.
Tibet was never a threat to China.
The Mongols only conquered China once. The Manchus only conquered China twice. China has existed for over 2000 years. It is negligable. The Imperial Army managed to keep the barbarians at a nusience level for centuries between.
As for the battle of Tumu, it notes the reason the Mongols won is the Ming screwed up. Compare the number of invasions vs peasent revolts and you will see which is the bigger of the two is.
Indian states where incredibly small. Northern India is seperated from Southern India by hills. The whole country is about a third the size of the US with dozens of waring states packed into less due to the deserts, mountains...
European states were much bigger.
Given that the Chinese made a shrine of Confucious's house and worshipped the man as a God, I'm thinking their atheism has been overhyped.
As for atoms and God... you can see an atom using an electron microscope. The true differance is that the of an atom explains something in a way to make predicitions possible- while the idea of God doesn't. There are a host of other reasons.
-atoms are falsible.
-atoms are testable
-atoms are... you get the idea.
For famine I am refering to a situation where a large portion of an area is in sudden danger of dying from lack of food. You seem to be confusing it with people starving to death.
Poll data. I didn't include Eastern Europe- they might be atheist or not depending on how repressive and how many conversions.
Simple. The whole feild of drugs works on this principle. You change a persons mind and thoughts with chemicals.
In principle it is possible to break down everything into physics. We use shortcuts because we don't have an infinite amount of time.
As for "I know how that feels", that would be empathy and the mirror neurons.
Samuel!
Screw it. I tried writing it out, but I realized the definitional things are just word games. Either Flew is wrong...
But Flew wasn't incorrect about English usage. As I said: read older works by atheists and discover the answer for yourself. The usages he cites were (and still largely are) the accepted popular meanings. Thus he plainly admitted he was introducing a completely new meaning. I can attest to this: I was alive in the eighties, and knew how the word was being used at the time.
Even so, that's not the point: the point is more how this demonstrates a group of atheists functioning as an ideological sect.
definitional things are just word games... (agnostic doesn't count- it is about knowledge).
Well, *playing* with definitions -- coming up with new ones, or novel or unexpected ones, or ambiguous ones -- is indeed a word game. But crisp definitions can help clarify things. Flew admitted he was moving "atheist" into agnostic territory -- where most neologisms and new terms are meant to refine and narrow, not suddenly make a popular term more ambiguous.
And now, after decrying word games, you say the popular usage of a word "doesn't count"! Look, friend, if most people called being unsure about God "fleem", I'd tend to use that word. My intent is only make things clear to the average reader -- not win some debate with odd or new rhetorical devices.
First off, negative numbers DON'T occur in real life.
The question I posed was a mathematical one, in the standard form any student of mathematics would expect. In that context, there are indeed multiple right answers. How you feel mathematics bears on "real life" is quite another point. (Amusing as it may be to watch my "anti-theist" guest object to my invocation of the standard rules of mathematics.)
If referencing math throws you off, we can change it to a question like: "Name a color people like." There are multiple right answers to that, too. Or "Give a recipe for pizza."
Samuel: it seems to me you're making absurd statements in order to avoid admitting some simple thing you need not have contradicted in the first place: Sometimes questions allow for multiple valid answers. Isn't it just simpler to say: "Oh, I erred?" We all do, it's not a big deal. If you're not capable of admitting error, they're you're also not capable of learning.
And if you can't agree to something that basic, then either you and I occupy separate of planes of existence -- and we share no common perception of reality (I mean, the idea that ambiguous questions exist isn't exactly obscure metaphysics!) -- or you're psychologically unable to admit error -- and I'm wasting my time.
The material world is all that exists based on evidence and definition.
Sigh. Two more basic errors...
Evidence- nothing supernatural has ever been proven.
So if it hasn't been proven, then it doesn't exist?
My friend, you're almost a century behind on your philosophy and mathematics. Godel showed this assertion wrong generations ago. Look up his incompleteness theorem: given any set of starting axioms, things can be actually true and false without being provably so.
Aside from that, your assertion is self-refuting. You're necessarily implying that the only things which exist or are true are those which have been proven. But you can't prove that statement itself. By your own rule, your statement must therefore be false.
That's called proof by negation, and a rather simple one at that.
Definition- the term "natural" is used to include everything in this universe... Now, you claim that it had to come from something... why? Could the universe simply be uncaused?
Perhaps -- some try to argue that way. (There's a simple rebuttal, though.) Either way, the universe would still be a contingent entity. We can also think of something into which our spacetime fabric is expanding. That thing or space would thus not be part of the cosmos.
What makes you think the rules inside apply to the whole?
What whole? You mean including non-universe things? Yes, that's precisely my point: I think rules inside don't apply to everything. Indeed, those rules tell us directly that they can't.
For example, in the universe, most people think of events as having causes. But if you play those causes backwards, you must end up with a first thing, with no cause in this universe -- an origin. That thing itself thus proceeds from something non-universe-y.
Some people point to quantum events, which have no known cause in this universe. I would point out that (a) they operate upon the fabric of the universe it self, which wasn't coalesced at the start, and (b) we don't know that those are truly causeless, just that they have no cause inside this universe.
Likewise consider entropy, which must always increase inside our universe. If a low state of entropy (that is, a high state of order) arose from nothing, that would be a violation of the laws of thermodynamics. Therefore there must have been some context in which that could occur, something which wasn't governed by the rules of thermodynamics which govern this universe.
When you start using terms like "in this universe" (or a distinction like "inside" versus "the whole") then you allow room for something to be outside of the universe as well.
And thus can't say this cosmos, and all the matter it contains, must be all there is. Then you yourself have admitted otherwise.
I was refering to buddists and Christians. Both are based on faith.
As is atheism, my friend -- especially stronger varieties of it. You've made several unprovable statements so far (and not a few provably false ones), and undoubtedly I could get a few more.
Well, I don't live in a hole in the ground- I know what you mean by "Christian values". It is nice you assume I have no idea what I am talking about.
The question was whether you know what *I* was talking about. Interesting: you still insist you knew which Christian values I meant, but haven't named them yet. I doubt you do know, since I tend to name rather unusual ones.
But okay, since the first one to expose his hand here "loses" (the other can say: "Oh yes, that's what I thought!") I'll choose to lose: The values I was specifically thinking of were a belief in progress, a belief in universal laws, lifelong monogamy, and the importance of mercy.
You claimed these were recent developments? I think you're wrong again if so. (Or you must be defining "recent" in an odd way!)
Among the definitions you offer are a number of unusual and atypical uses. Take "faith" for example. When a man says he has "faith" in his wife, or in capitalism, does he mean that he trusts them in spite of evidence to the contrary? So your definition is quite odd, and applies, apparently, only in a narrow number of cases -- to people whose views you dislike.
Of course a Christian (or other adherent) usually believes that he or she is following the evidence. So even when they say "faith" they are not typically meaning a belief which contradicts evidence. Faith is something weaker than proof (the man cannot prove his wife has never cheated) -- it means a holding conviction not currently completely supported by evidence.
Also: I found it interesting that you said "agnostic" (meaning not sure, not "cannot know") was an invalid definition, but then used it define a class of atheist. :-)
Kibbitzing on your comments to Ryan:
The bible said the world was made in seven days... and they took it literally. Until they realized it was wrong and declared it "metaphorical".
You're in error here. There have been a variety of approaches to the subject over the years (and among different groups). The church father Origen argued that the word "day" did not mean 24 hours as far back as the second century.
Samuel: Also, Asian societies weren't atheistic.
Ryan: Not all of them, of course. You seem to be conflating atheism and materialism, though. I've had at least one friend who was atheistic but believed in spirits, the zodiac, etc.
Precisely. (I have too, Ryan.)
That argument was especially odd, Samuel, given that you yourself just defined "atheism" as mere failure to believe in God. This is why I say most atheists aren't even "with the program" -- guys like Dawkins scream about the evils of religion, but, of course, if atheism is just a-theism, then all kinds of religions can be atheistic -- including (surprisingly!) polytheists!
That's why I hate these bizarre and novel rhetorically-motivated definitions. They do nothing but muddy the waters. But hey, when you're tired of being pinned down in debates, what else can you do? Change your mind based on evidence? ;-)
Ah! I see we're cross-posting. Sorry 'bout that...
It is impossible for theists to be entirely coherant and rational.
Well, then, you should certainly depart, no? Just tell yourself: "I am an atheist, therefore I am smart and rational. It doesn't matter that this guy made points I couldn't refute -- he is a theist, therefore he is stupid."
Okay? You'll feel better about it, and we can all get more rest.
And, when you've got some extra time, you should take some classes in formal reasoning, and look up some of the subjects I've pointed you to above. Then you, when you meet another theist, can pretend that you've known such things all along (or that you learned them from another smart "anti-theist" like yourself) and avoid the same mistakes you're making above in your next debate.
You won't even have to admit you're wrong in front of me! You can just write that I'm stupid and leave in a huff. See? I'm offering you the best of all possible worlds.
Going back a bit, just noticed this fun assertion:
But human actions are built on chemistry. We simply don't use it because it is too complicated. The fact remains that you CAN make more detailed predictions what people will do using chemistry, biology and physics.
Actually, no. Sorry, but you're either wrong yet again, Samuel, or you're oddly defining words.
Saying that "chemistry" predicts what human beings will do is a bit like arguing that the way to predict the output of a computer program is to study physics, particularly focusing on the structure of copper and silicon atoms.
You can learn how the circuits work, true, but the ability to anticipate or induce higher-level behaviors would be called Computer Science, not physics. Moreover, a computer made of iron gears and strings would produce the same result -- as would a simulation of a Turing machine done with pencil and paper -- given the same software.
Likewise, thinking occurs in an organic framework, but that doesn't immediately prove that it's simply limited to that -- much less that chemistry is the proper course in which you should enroll if you wish to learn about human behavior. ;-)
Yes, I agree, these things DO involve physical interactions. And yes, if you had a huge amount of time, you could indeed spell much of it out that way. But at some point you'd have to represent those higher rules and forms, and, at that point, the discipline takes on a new name -- such as "anthropology" or "chess strategy" or "psychology". Okay? Learning about covalent bonds teaches you nothing about how to beat Boris Spasky, or how to prove the correctness of an algorithm.
Also, you're wrong about this giving the ability to make detailed predictions. You don't know quantum theory, and you haven't studied chaos theory, or you wouldn't say such things. Yes, you can characterize, in general, how such systems work, but no, you cannot "make detailed predictions". Chaotic systems (like brains and weather) do not, in fact, yield to those kinds of approaches.
Finally, asserting your beliefs is not the same as proving them. Besides the errors above, there's more to proving that the human mind is mere chemistry than simply asserting, however many times, it must be so.
I can offer evidence to the contrary. Can you offer evidence for your view? (Again: Evidence is not a mere assertion.)
Side note to the reader: This is a classic atheist dogma. The atheist insists that "atheism teaches nothing", and, not long afterwards, they're busy implying that the best way to understand the universe is as giant wind-up physical/chemical clockwork, and that people are just machines. Of course, that's a logical implication of radical materialism, but "I have no ideology" prevents them from admitting what's going on, and the examining the kinds of impacts it could have. A religious person admits their ideology, and experiences doubt and self-examination from time to time. Atheists, in my experience, almost never admit to having such self-examinations and doubts. They are right, so what's to question?
In the long run, the materialist must either live with the hypocrisy (they don't treat their loved ones and self like mere machines, and don't vote along those line either) or they end up embracing extremely harmful social policies of the kind they've supported repeatedly in the past.
They could be values they hold because they are Christian, but than atheists can't have them.
Just a side note: Samuel, I try not to pick on people's spelling or grammar, but this is just driving me nuts. The word is "then", not "than". "Than" is used for comparisons: "I, Samuel, am much, much smarter than these stupid theists." The word "then" is used for chronological precedence: "After I told them they were irrational, then I did some research into what they'd said."
Stop writing that way. It's a small point, but it makes it look like you're not even sure of some of the most basic rules of English.
And don't be silly: of course one group can adopt things from another, and give proper attribution. If I own a "Chinese vase" it doesn't mean I must be Chinese, nor living there! (I'm simply referring its origin, not its current location.) If I celebrate an Irish holiday (say, Saint Pat's Day), it doesn't imply I can't be American, or can't still call that holiday "Irish", in the usual fashion, referring to it's origin.
Why do I repeatedly have to explain such basic aspects of English usage to you? Do you have anything to offer here beyond asserting bizarre modalities of word usage? Why do atheists so often show this proclivity to imagine they can "win" debates by coming up with novel (and completely atypical) rules by which they demand language be used?
In this case, Samuel imagines he has "won" this argument with you because when you say it's an "X-ese/ian" value, you could only have meant it is currently being USED or HELD by X, rather than naming point of origin. Yes, certainly that's how the English language works. I drive a "Japanese" car because -- I'm Japanese! If I were American, then it wouldn't be a Japanese car anymore, would it, Samuel?
Geez.
Of course the tactic is ineffective anyway: My point here was that Western atheists have adopted many values which originated in Judaism and Christianity. Trying to play with the wording to pretend it meant something else only forces me to rephrase the assertion in another way. It doesn't refute my assertion about ideological proximity (which I assume you have conceded, given that you can't seem to offer a rebuttal) nor make it go away.
European states were much bigger.
It depends. Some of the places in Europe which had the most advancement were actually very small autonomous regions, such as Amsterdam, and (much earlier) cities in Northern Italy, and places like Venice. England also, before it was united. The larger European states, on the other hand -- like France and Spain -- provided comparatively little technological innovation.
This is the problem I have with Diamond: A lot of what I've heard he says seems to be just plain wrong and easily refuted. But people seem to lap it up anyway.
Given that the Chinese made a shrine of Confucious's house and worshipped the man as a God, I'm thinking their atheism has been overhyped.
Samuel, the common Chinese people were very prone to these sorts of religious gestures, offering sacrifices to ancestors, spirits of various sorts, etc. But if you'll take some time to do some serious study, you'll discover that the ruling elites and Mandarins looked down on such folk religious practices:
On a functional level, at least, both Confucianism and Taoism can be considered atheistic. Neither is founded on faith in a creator god like Christianity and Islam are. Neither promote the existence of such a god, either. Confucian texts describe a "Heaven" which is a transcendent, personal power of some sort. Whether this qualifies as a personal deity or not is a subject of debate, but it seems at least possible for a person to follow Confucian teachings and be an atheist. Basically the same issue exists for Taoism: belief in some deity may be included, but may not be absolutely required. [1]
Nature and ancestor spirits are common in popular Taoism. Organized Taoism distinguishes its ritual activity from that of the folk religion, which some professional Taoists (Daoshi) view as debased. This sort of shamanism is eschewed for an emphasis on internal alchemy among the "elite" Taoists. [2]
Different social classes, writes Xunzi, interpret sacrifices differently: “Among gentlemen [junzi], they are taken as the way of humans; among common people [baixing], they are taken as matters involving ghosts....
Dividing what is clearly too broad a category (Chinese religion or ritual) into two discrete classes (elite and folk) is not without advantages. It is a helpful pedagogical tool for throwing into question some of the egalitarian presuppositions frequently encountered in introductory courses on religion: that, for instance, everyone’s religious options are or should be the same, or that other people’s religious life can be understood (or tried out) without reference to social status.
Treating [Imperial] Chinese religion as fundamentally affected by social position also helps scholars to focus on differences in styles of religious practice and interpretation. One way to formulate this view is to say that while all inhabitants of a certain community might take part in a religious procession, their style -- both their pattern of practice and their understanding of their actions -- will differ according to social position. Well-educated elites tend to view gods in abstract, impersonal terms and to demonstrate restrained respect, but the uneducated tend to view gods as concrete, personal beings before whom fear is appropriate. [3]
It's the same dichotomy we see recently in the west: The elite scholars and professionals viewed belief in the supernatural as primitive and backwards.
Thus leading Chinese scholar Joseph Needham to remark:
It was not that there was no order in nature for the Chinese, but rather that it was not an order ordained by a rational personal being, and hence there was no conviction that rational personal beings would be able to spell out in their lesser earthly languages the divine code of laws which he had decreed aforetime. The Taoists, indeed, would have scorned such an idea as being too naïve for the subtlety and complexity of the universe as they intuited it. [4]
Sorry, but you don't get a much more credible Western authority on Chinese history than Needham. Feel free to look him up some time, if you think I'm incorrect on this point.
The bible said the world was made in seven days... and they took it literally. Until they realized it was wrong and declared it "metaphorical".
I'm not sure about the mix between literal and metaphorical interpretations, historically. I'm sure many took the bible literally. But you do understand that revelations, for instance, is an explicit metaphor designed for an age when there was no mass communication or freedom of speech. How else would you communicate with thousands except with a story that only the initiated could understand? I think that there's a reason that Americans are known for speaking so directly and it comes from having one of the longest traditions of freedom of speech in the world.
Similarly, you have people like Philo of Alexandria who did make metaphorical rather than literal interpretations of Genesis.
I don't know enough to give anywhere close to a comprehensive cover of this topic, but there were metaphorical exegeses of Genesis and other parts of the bible long long before the age of the earth had been calculated in the millions of years.
The reason agnostic doesn't work is it can be used to descibe theists. You know people who believe in God, but don't know he exists.
Currently people are using atheist to mean "people who don't believe in God". Claim it is dogma or what not, but unless you can come up with another word that means the same thing, I'm going to use this one.
It is a category, okay? That means, irrelevant of the definitions it exists and that is what I am talking about- people who lack a God belief. People who aren't theists.
That was rather pointless. We are back exactly where we started.
You are right- subjective matters of taste and preferance do have multiple answers. Since you obvious didn't get what I am saying, I will be more specific-
For questions about reality, there is only one answer.
Is that better? So, people may have many favorite colors, but a person will have one (or none that is there most favorite). What I was refering to, and you didn't seem to realize would be things that physically exist. Specifically God. Morality I also tack on because, by definition there is only one best way for a given situation.
Fine, I'll be more precise (again). If there is no evidence for something, than there is no reason to believe it exists. If there is no evidence for something and if it did exist there would be evidence, than it doesn't exist.
Godels theorm is completely irrelevant in this case. He says that you can't have a system that justifies itself. I am basing my statements on an external standard- reality.
Nice sophism by the way. Once again, I have to explain something so basic it defies belief. The reason we use evidence to prove things occur in reality is because evidence is pieces of information about reality and it turns out that examining reality is the best way to understand it.
Once again, I avoid the theorm by bacing my system on reality.
Except an uncaused universe is the current best theory explaining the universe. And you really don't understand space-time; it isn't expanding into anything! When they say our universe is reality they mena it- you can't get out of it and there is nothing beyond it. Nothing!
Once again I have to be specific. Please put thought into your responces. The whole is the universe. Why must the same rules apply to the universe as the inside (specifically being caused)?
There isn't anything outside. Given your total inability to understand me, I'll skip this until you take an astrophysics class.
That would be because I used inexact langauage. I changed the wording- are you happy now?
Screw it- you nit pick and nit pick and not a once have you adressed my arguments! Do you have anything to say that isn't nonsense?
Christian values you named:
belief in progress, a belief in universal laws, lifelong monogamy, and the importance of mercy
Belief in progress is incredibly new. The belief in universal laws existed with the pagan philosohers, lifelong monogomy... hmm- given that there are other groups who practice the same thing (hunter gathers... who have done so for, what? 195000 years) and mercy... You do realize how... odd that is? Christian mercy is relatively new- I mean, we are talking about people who the Muslims thought were barbarians because they slaughtered whole populations.
All these values are (amazingly enough), not new to me. I HAVE heard variations of this before. It is the classic "Christianity is good because it encourage science, civilization, etc". It is also complete nonsense.
My personal favorite part is how you don't think it through. It is a constant- none of the objections our thought through. If Christianity brings progress and science, than God wanted Europeans to rule.
I am refering to the religious definition of faith. The ones you give also have an alternate definition- trust. Trust is based on evidence.
Believing your wife hasn't cheated on you is based on evidence. It may not be proof, but it is evidence based. Believing because you believe is faith. Believers may believe they use evidence, but when you find a contradiction, they have faith.
Complain to Huxley- HE is the one who invented the term agnostic. I am interested what the origional word that meant lack of belief in God is- I mean you'd think they would have come up with a word that means "unbeliever"...
link
Here. It is Huxley desribing how he developed said word.
That is great. The problem? The book says seven days. So you have to take it metaphorically- it doesn't really mean days. The problem? It says days.
Atheism is a lack of belief in all Gods. Once again you COMPLETELY miss the point.
Did you even take a look at the link? Listing Gods from Chinese Mythology?
Here is another one
http://www.paralumun.com/chinesegods.htm
God of war, God of wine... sounds very polytheistic to me.
Next post (I am a machoist)
Must speck slowly...
Okay, only one position is correct, right? Which means all the others are incorrect (To avoid mindless nitpicking, I am refering to religions- most are mutually contradictory).
Therefore only one is the most reasonalbe.
Religion is a special case where there are NO reasonable arguments (so far you have used arguments from ignorance- the only ones available).
Not all theists are stupid. You? Maybe- but I don't hold it against you. There are MUCH worse things- you could be irrational AND logically consistant
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2007/02/mailvox-sharpening-knives.html
You are familiar with reductionism and materialism? In principle you could predict how something would work from its parts. We can't, but it can be done. Choatic systems occur because of imperfection in measurements cause accumulating error, "quantum" is a neat buzzword, but becomes irrelevant on larger scales... I have heard of them- they are irrelevant for what I am talking about.
I have the default position. I am simply saying the human brain consists of what we can actually find. You are the one claiming there is a magic part.
How does not treating loved ones like machines imply hypocricy? Sure, they are the sum of their parts as am I, but you know what? How the heck is that in any way relevant? Also, there is a differance between "machines" and "loved ones that follow deterministic rules"- one can feel pain. I have something called empathy so...
What? I don't care if things are deterministic. I care about if it is true. You seem (Once again) to be completely ignoring that.
Never!
I was just checking your claim because your wording was vague to such a degree that there were several reasonable interpretaions. You know, the sloppiness you constantly attack me on.
You could have meant
-values only Christians have
-values invented by Christians
-values practiced by Christians
-values monopolized by Christians
You went with invented. Unfortunately it is blatantly false for the ones you give. For example "mercy" wouldn't make sense... unless you meant Europeans upheld it as a value. Given that they didn't practice it more than there enemies (less actually- running down their own men was done repeatedly by knights).
Here is a list of Indian princedoms and states that existed in the British Raj
http://www.worldstatesmen.org/India_princes_K-W.html
It ignores those the British destroyed. Given how many of them there are, and the size of India, I'm going to have to say they where pathetically small compared to European states.
To give you an idea, here is a map of the current Indian divisions (states in the federal term)
link
Nope- you don't know what you are talking about. Just enough knowledge to believe you are smart, but lacking in actual depth.
? How is that at all relevant? Current theologians believe in a "God" that is almost atheistic. Also given the fact peasents where hte overwhelming majority of the populaiton that would make the society... theistic. Come on, it isn't that hard.
You just contradicted yourself. I'm going to assume that Needham meant Chinese Culture, but guess what? Peasents don't get to participate in Chinese Culture. Look it up- only literate people leave behind records, peasents weren't literate, and most culture is determined by the people at the top. Look at our own history for starters. Most of the Medieval tales are about nobility. The exceptions are the folk tales.
How else would you communicate to thousands of people instantly, similtaneously and without error? That would take something like divine intervention! Wait a minute...
Well, this was long. I'll try to some up my salient points.
-Several times I said prove in an inaccurate form. You can't prove something when the alternatives are unfalsible. A better term is supported by an overwhelming amount of evidence in such a way that there is no reason not to think that it is true.
-Tim, despite my dismissal tone, I don't think you are an idiot. You do know things- you just don't truely understand them.
-You make the mistake of arguing from conclusions (about materialism). I focus on truth.
-You nit pick. Can you adress any of my points?
-You argue from ignorance. I can't concieve of an explanation for the start, therefore it must be God. Given the current theories work perfectly fine without God, this is more a case of ignoring the science.
Did I miss anything?
Tim - This is the problem I have with Diamond: A lot of what I've heard he says seems to be just plain wrong and easily refuted. But people seem to lap it up anyway.
While I believe some of what Diamond says (as noted earlier) I can appreciate the ideological gap that he fills. "If all people are equal regardless of race, then how do we explain the material success of some societies and the relative weakness of others in an entirely materialist context prior to the age of exploration."
Sameul -
Because than they aren't Christian values. They are values happen to hold. The differance is that the first is tied to Christianity and the second isn't.
The issue for me is which values Jews or Christians would be more likely to hold. Or, as Tim noted, which values tend to originate with Jews or Christians and are later adopted by surrounding atheists. It makes a big difference which direction this river is flowing in terms of figuring out how religious changes will effect society over time.
As for atoms and God... you can see an atom using an electron microscope. The true differance is that the of an atom explains something in a way to make predicitions possible- while the idea of God doesn't.
People believed in atoms long before they could observe them using an electron microscope. Belief in them was predictive before they could be seen. For instance; auger tracks and stociometrical ratios in chemistry. Check out "logical positivism," a philosophical viewpoint which seems to describe your views and which Karl Popper had some good (entirely materialist) criticisms of.
Samuel, please consider that religious ideas might be predictive in explaining the behaviors of large numbers of people, the politics they support, and the outcomes of those politics as well. This seems to be a notion that you reject out of hand without even discussing evidence for or against it. This would be one very good example of exactly what Tim is saying about atheists not being aware that some of their views are ideological rather than evidence based.
Simple. The whole feild of drugs works on this principle. You change a persons mind and thoughts with chemicals.
To a limited extent. But you're still missing my point. Do you really use terms from Chemistry and Physics to describe how you relate to people? Using different sets of terms can allow you to deal with higher level concepts. This is why biology is not usually discussed using terms from physics (except for a few exceptions like entropy and relative enthalpies) or why psychology is not usually discussed using terms from cellular biology. When you deal with a larger, more complex system it can be helpful, even vital, to create a new vocabulary even if the rules from a more reductionist system might still apply.
Also, Jeff Hawking makes an excellent argument in his book "On Intelligence" that since we cannot even model small neural systems accurately on computers yet, that our failure to model a human brain on a computer is not simply due to lack of processing power but to a fail in our own models.
From wikipedia;
However, despite the popularity of this field, to date no plausible neural or computational models have been put forward to describe how mirror neuron activity supports cognitive functions such as imitation.link
In principle it is possible to break down everything into physics. We use shortcuts because we don't have an infinite amount of time.
The terms we use in daily life let us make predictions based on relatively little information and knowledge. If someone is being dishonest with me, I can't break open their head and examine their neural structure. And even if I could, people don't have the knowledge or tools yet to extract information from someone that way. But using a different toolset of concepts allows me to be socially functional. And it allowed people to make predictions even when they thought people used their hearts to think and their brains to cool blood.
Samuel - Currently people are using atheist to mean "people who don't believe in God". Claim it is dogma or what not, but unless you can come up with another word that means the same thing, I'm going to use this one.
You seem to advocate some type of materialism. There are spiritual beliefs which are atheistic and you seem very opposed to them. Why not call yourself a "materialist" or "logical positivist."
Samuel - Morality I also tack on because, by definition there is only one best way for a given situation.
You might want to be careful here. If something is "true by definition" then it is, invariably, an assumption that preceeds any kind of evidence or test.
When they say our universe is reality they mena it- you can't get out of it and there is nothing beyond it. Nothing!
Samuel, how could you prove or test what is or is not "outside of our universe"? You cannot gather any evidence on this topic. I don't think the problem is with Tim's understanding of physics.
We're dealing with a topic where we are all agnostic, in the original sense of the term. Any beliefs on this subject are based on faith.
The belief in universal laws existed with the pagan philosoher
Samuel - noone else is defining "Christian values" as values which only exist within Christianity or are unique to Christianity. That is your definition. If you don't address the premises that Tim's argument is based on, you're just going to talk past him and not understand what he's saying.
If people of a given nation are more likely to hold certain values because there are a larger number of Christians or Jews in that nation, it seems fair to attribute those values to Christians or Jews even if the values are not original to Christians or Jews. To pick up Tim's metaphore, saying "I have a Japanese car" does not imply that the Japanese invented cars. Meerly that they produce them, and are the source for my particular car.
It is the classic "Christianity is good because it encourage science, civilization, etc". It is also complete nonsense.
Evidence? You seem to have put the conclusion before your argument.
Trust is based on evidence.
Tim has asserted that there is incomplete evidence for God. Why not ask what that evidence is and evaluate it? The logical process that you use to do so would help to demonstrate Tim's assertions.
That is great. The problem? The book says seven days. So you have to take it metaphorically- it doesn't really mean days. The problem? It says days.
Samuel - Why does it have to be taken literally. You can certainly find people who didn't take it metaphorically even before any scientific system calculated the age of the earth. There are a number of religious texts of various faiths which are interpreted literally by outsiders, with metaphoric meaning delivered to 'insiders.' The apostles, while Jesus was alive, are a perfect example of just such a system.
God of war, God of wine... sounds very polytheistic to me.
I'm not sure that you're seeing Tim's point here. Many Chinese elites didn't believe in polytheism, even at points in history when they were immersed in it.
Religion is a special case where there are NO reasonable arguments (so far you have used arguments from ignorance- the only ones available).
Christianity poses that "a tree is judged by its fruits." In other words, we judge a spiritual belief by the morality of the people or society that it produces.
Of course, noone is claiming that any belief system makes people perfect. Far from it. The question is to what degree it transforms the society that embraces it. And the belief is always embraced incompletely by a given society. So to what degree was Roman society different from Christian Europe? Both were brutal in their own way. But they were not identical.
You are familiar with reductionism and materialism? In principle you could predict how something would work from its parts. Choatic systems occur because of imperfection in measurements
I'm sorry, but that view has been effectively scientifically disproven. Quantum mechanics is supported by good evidence, even if some refer to it without understanding it. Are you really saying that you think its been disproven?
Additionally, a self modifying system that interacts with its environment is going to be different than a finite state machine. You won't be able to predict behavior purely from internal components.
Life forms are neither random nor deterministic. They are stochastic.
Humility, meaning an accurate understanding of just what we can and cannot do as human beings, is important here. If we knew everything, things might be different. But we simply don't. And the tools we use to conduct our lives have to account for that fact.
Samuel, instead of looking at spirit as "magic" (which I don't believe in), consider it as an emergent property of a simpler system.
Please consider that the criterion that you give for why science didn't emerge in India or China are, to the extent that they can be disprovable, disproven. You use an exactly opposite standard for India and China to explain why the two didn't develop science. One is, by your standards, too large and unified. The other is too small and divided. It seems non-falsifiable.
Given the current theories work perfectly fine without God, this is more a case of ignoring the science.
Science can explain what happens in the universe. It can be predictive. But it isn't really capable of explaining why the universe started. Even those who follow the science (and are atheist) acknowledge that the universe is rather improbable. See Tim's recent article on Dawkins and the creation of the universe.
The reason agnostic doesn't work is it can be used to descibe theists. You know people who believe in God, but don't know he exists.
Yet another novel definition? Samuel, just go look up the word in a dictionary if it confuses you. Here: First part: "a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable." Christians say God, or things about him, can't be known? I'm sure most of them would be extremely surprised to learn they believed that!
Second half of first definition: "one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god" That would also not apply to a Christian.
Nor would the second definition, concerning the matters being discussed here: "a person unwilling to commit to an opinion about something"
Currently people are using atheist to mean "people who don't believe in God". Claim it is dogma or what not...
I've never claimed nobody uses that definition. As I've said before, I agree that certain atheists wish this to be the prevailing usage. But it simply isn't.
That was rather pointless. We are back exactly where we started.
You don't need to re-iterate your definition over and over, okay? I see your definition, I've known it for over a decade. I reject it, I have explained why. If you have something new to offer, then great. Otherwise, you don't need to keep explaining "it's a category", etc.
Yes, of course it's a category. That's why I pointed out the new definition was unusual in that it was broader and less precise than the old one. Go reread.
You are right- subjective matters of taste and preferance do have multiple answers. For questions about reality, there is only one answer.
No: "Name a pizza recipe" is not a subjective question, nor is a matter of preference. There is a word "pizza", and a variety of dishes which satisfy that definition. Thus there are also a variety of recipes which produce pizzas. That's not a matter of mere opinion, that's simply a fact about the world we live in.
You are quite wrong here, and I have demonstrated why each time. Simply ignoring those responses, and then repeating your assertion over and over (as you have done yet again) isn't a rebuttal, nor does it provide counter-evidence.
Fine, I'll be more precise (again). If there is no evidence for something, than there is no reason to believe it exists.
It probably looks the same to you, but that's an entirely different criteria than arguing that only provable things exist, which you asserted last time. I take it you now concede your previous argument was then, in fact, mistaken?
Regarding your newest proposition, that we shouldn't believe anything without evidence:
You have categorically asserted that the human mind (indeed, the whole person) is nothing more than chemicals. Great! So I have asked you for evidence for your position. Since you have now asserted we should not believe things without evidence, I'm eagerly awaiting that evidence.
On the other hand, I have offered you evidence for the contrary position, which I will gladly provide after you offer yours.
Godels theorm is completely irrelevant in this case. He says that you can't have a system that justifies itself.
Once again you are in error. If you're confused, focus on the word "incompleteness". Look, here's a reasonably terse summary:
In 1931, the Czech-born mathematician Kurt Gödel demonstrated that within any given branch of mathematics, there would always be some propositions that couldn't be proven either true or false using the rules and axioms ... of that mathematical branch itself.... The implication is that all logical system of any complexity are, by definition, incomplete; each of them contains, at any given time, more true statements than it can possibly prove according to its own defining set of rules.
Compare with my previous statement:
Look up his incompleteness theorem: given any set of starting axioms, things can be actually true and false without being provably so.
Incompleteness is not the same thing as "self-justifying". (And we don't talk about "justifying" in philosophy or math anyway, we talk about proofs.) No assertion is (ultimately) "self-proving" since each rests on unproven axioms -- that's logic 101, we didn't need Godel for that. Logic can weed out inconsistent assertions, but all positive proofs are ultimately contingent upon acceptance of the axioms or postulates.
Once again, I avoid the theorm by bacing my system on reality.
Err, Samuel, the implications of the incompleteness theorem are not an optional aspect of reality. Any time you talk about what is provable (as you have done), you have to understand and work around the limits it implies.
Nice sophism by the way...
It's not a sophism: that's actually what it means. At the time, Bertrand Russell had been working on the Principia Mathematica in which he thought he could prove all things mathematical. Another group of atheists, called the "logical positivists" asserted the same sorts of things you have been asserting here. Godel's proof sent shockwaves through the academic world and simultaneously discredited both projects.
The whole is the universe. Why must the same rules apply to the universe as the inside (specifically being caused)? There isn't anything outside.
I'm sorry: What does "the inside" mean, in contrast with "the whole"? Specifically, what part is a member of "the whole" which isn't also part of this "inside"? These are your terms, so I'm simply asking you to clarify them.
I use "the whole" to include things which might be outside our universe. (Others use the word "Landscape" or other variants.) You say "astrophysics class" would teach me there is nothing outside our universe, but, again, you are in error: visit such a class, and you will learn about multiverse theory, which asserts there might be things outside our universe.
Or read Stephen Hawking, who writes about something which must have come before the universe which he calls, for shorthand, "God." I assume you'd accept that Hawking has an adequate understanding of what might or might not be allowed in the field of astrophysics?
If not, please, by all means, write to him and set him straight. ;-)
(I love it: You assert I'm completely out of it, each time offering a statement which is widely disbelieved by the top authorities in the field. In response, I offer you specific things you can go look up. I beg you to do some basic research, Samuel.)
Screw it- you nit pick and nit pick and not a once have you adressed my arguments!
Samuel, unlike you, I actually quote what you say line for line, and have answered almost everything you have said. See the previous point: You asserted astrophysics allows nothing outside (our universe, I presume), I have referred you to at least two separate sources of evidence which contradict your assertion.
You may call this "nit picking" (which implies, of course, I have answered you and found many small problems -- though I don't think they're small at all), but I call it simply "responding with counter-evidence."
Belief in progress is incredibly new.
No, my friend, it is not. Unlike many other reigning systems which proposed the universe went in cycles (Plato, most of Eastern thought, etc.), Genesis proposed a beginning, and the prophets of the bible had this idea things were getting better and better without any need to go back again. (Isaiah 9:7, for one example).
The belief in universal laws existed with the pagan philosohers
I'm fully open to evidence for this proposition. Please provide some!
lifelong monogamy... hunter gathers... who have done so for, what? 195000 years
Sigh. Read this, please. (Do you do *any* research, or do you just make this stuff up as you go?)
Christian mercy is relatively new...
The Christian understanding and ideal of mercy is as old as Christianity (older, actually, as it comes out of Judaism). (And it's kind of the main theological point of the system.)
I mean, we are talking about people who the Muslims thought were barbarians because they slaughtered whole populations.
Here you are mistaken about both the nature and value system of Islam and the Crusades - which began with Muslims, not Christians, slaughtering whole populations. The Christian response was belated and of almost no interest to Muslim historians. See here for more evidence.
The ones you give also have an alternate definition- trust
Right! That's precisely my point: that most people use "faith" and "trust" as near synonyms. For example, a Christian preacher might equally say: "Put your trust in Jesus" or "Put your faith in Jesus" -- meaning the exact same thing.
My point is that if you're going to talk about what kind of "faith" a believer has, you have to find out what they (and most people who aren't atheists, frankly -- and even most atheists, when using the word in every other context) are meaning when they say the word.
Believing your wife hasn't cheated on you is based on evidence. It may not be proof, but it is evidence based.
Right. That's why a man in such a situation might respond by saying: "No, I have faith in my wife." The same thing might be said of a man who can't prove capitalism always works: "I have faith in capitalism." They have evidence, but not proof.
Believing because you believe is faith. Believers may believe they use evidence...
If they believe they have evidence, then for them, it's not just "believing because they believe", is it?
...but when you find a contradiction, they have faith.
But I don't think most believers believe they have seen meaningful contradictions which overturns their faith. From your point of view, yes, of course you have been taught that. But from their point of view, you're mistaken, or the contradictions fall short of implying that.
The idea that faith is against evidence seems to be peculiar to atheists. They aren't aware that others don't share it -- and as such "anti-theists" are a tiny minority, this definition is revealed as yet another project to define a word oddly in order to "win" some kind of debate. As with the definition of "atheist", most don't realize they're doing it, undoubtedly.
That's why these discussions are so interesting.
Complain to Huxley- HE is the one who invented the term agnostic. I am interested what the origional word that meant lack of belief in God is...
I understand that you'd like everyone to use the original sense. Acknowledged. Nonetheless, I want to point out that that doesn't imply that people's current usage "doesn't count", to quote you. The word "unknowable" works quite nicely as a synonym or explanation of Huxley's definition, on the (rare, in my experience) times you meet someone who actually holds and argues such a position.
The book says seven days.
Yet it uses the word "day" in a manner which implies the word is NOT literal. After spelling out seven "days" [Hebrew: yom], Genesis 2:4 then says: "This is the account of the heavens and the earth, in the day [yom] of their creation" (NAS) -- referring to the previous chapter, which just enumerated seven "yom"s (days). That seems to imply that even in early Genesis, "yom" can't be said to only mean a specific time period.
Also, one might note that the sun (by which days are measured) isn't created until later in the account -- implying the author must have been thinking of a non-solar kind of day.
But even if that were wrong, then so what? Even if the account was meant literally (perhaps that was the way God had to communicate it, given the limits of science at the time) -- so what? I find it amazing that even if so, it's a much more correct account than any of its competitors, including the prevailing materialistic scientific view which dominated just a generation ago.
Did you even take a look at the link? Listing Gods from Chinese Mythology?
Did you even take a look at what I wrote in response? Did you not even notice that I admitted and agreed that the common Chinese people believed in gods and spirits? Go back and reread, looking for the word "elites" and what it says about their beliefs.
Please put thought into your responces... Must speck slowly...
Samuel, if you're going to condescend, at least spell right when doing so. It's hilarious to see someone say I haven't put any thought into my "responces", or that they need to "speck" slowly to me because I'm so stupid and don't think about what I'm saying. :-)
I'm not saying this to shame you, but because this is one of those things where everyone else notices, even if you think its unimportant.
You are familiar with reductionism and materialism? In principle you could predict how something would work from its parts. We can't, but it can be done. Choatic systems occur because of imperfection in measurements cause accumulating error...
What do you mean by "in principle"? Do you mean "in theory", or "in reality"? If the second ("it can be done"), then you're contradicting yourself: In reality, we can't make accurate, specific non-near-term predictions about chaotic systems for the exact reason you mention: we can't know enough about the precise state of everything -- and those differences quickly multiply from tiny to large.
Then you ignore what you just asserted and claim that since quantum effects are small, effects could never multiply from small to large. Well, yes they can (as you just admitted), and a chaotic system is exactly the circumstances under which that could and does happen.
I am simply saying the human brain consists of what we can actually find.
No, to be precise, you asserted you knew the human mind consisted only of chemical components and reactions. You then asserted that you only should believe things which have evidence. So I'm asking evidence for your assertion that you know the mind is only chemistry.
I have evidence to the contrary (what you'd call "the magic part"), which I will gladly give once you give yours -- or once you admit you have none.
How does not treating loved ones like machines imply hypocricy?
If things are only the sum of their parts (you just stated), and they are nothing but chemistry (as you have stated), then we should treat human beings as nothing more than larger chemical structures -- in a word, machines. There's no "ghost" in there, so we're nothing more than big chemical machines.
And if so, then, other than personal or social preference, why bother treating people as any different than any other chemical or physical machines? Human beings then have no objective meaning nor rights.
How the heck is that in any way relevant?
It's relevant because we tend to embrace different social and political policies if we feel humans have intrinsic value, or feel they are simply meat-machines. (See the context in which I made the statement, please.)
Also, there is a differance between "machines" and "loved ones that follow deterministic rules"- one can feel pain.
What is pain? It's just a mechanism which prevents further damage. When I write software, it also has sensors which can detect harmful situations, and minimize damage. How do we know it's not feeling "pain" also?
Sadly, "pain" does not actually help us distinguish criteria between "loved ones" and other "biochemical machines" (which was my challenge) -- almost all organism have damage-minimization mechanisms. Yes, your loved ones do, but so do clams. And how does "feels pain" imply objective rights or worth?
I care about if it is true. You seem (Once again) to be completely ignoring that.
If I were ignoring that, I wouldn't give you counter-evidence at each turn.
I was just checking your claim because your wording was vague...
I'm referring values which originated in Christianity and/or Judaism. I'm not saying nobody else could have ever embraced or though of them also (though that's true also in some cases), but simply that the primary source of these values, for the average Western atheist, is from Christianity or Judaism.
As I explained, this is usual meaning. If I say that X is an American ideal, I simply mean Americans widely hold it, and that it's usually most associated with Americans -- or at least that my holding those values is best attributed to American origin or influence.
You went with invented.
I did? I think that's a strange synonym for "originated from" (one doesn't usually think of "inventing" values), but, okay, whatever. I said precisely what I meant, and gave copious examples. I'm sorry if none of them make sense to you.
(And if you now assert you know for sure I meant "invented", then why did you just say it was unclear what I meant?)
Here is a list of Indian princedoms... I'm going to have to say they where pathetically small compared to European states.
The examples I gave to you weren't European states (except for England). They were, again, "very small autonomous regions, such as Amsterdam, and (much earlier) cities in Northern Italy, and places like Venice."
You'll find this goes better if you respond to what I actually write, rather than putting different words into my mouth.
Odd: You say I put no thought into my writing, but it seems to me I'm being very precise in my meaning. On the other hand, you seem to think that "small autonomous regions" must have meant entire European states! Go back and reread it, please.
Nope- you don't know what you are talking about. Just enough knowledge to believe you are smart, but lacking in actual depth.
Well, that was the first half of my advice. You're missing the second part when you storm away saying I'm stupid.
How about this: Let's just take it as a given that I'm stupid, and you're really rather smart, okay? We won't look too closely at your knowledge of history, your understanding of cosmology, your confusion about basic logical forms, your grammar or spelling -- or any other criteria by which intelligence might be judged. We'll just both assume that you are smart and I am stupid, okay?
Now, give yourself a big hug, know that I'm willing to agree with you, and stick to the points henceforth.
You just contradicted yourself. I'm going to assume that Needham meant Chinese Culture, but guess what? Peasents don't get to participate in Chinese Culture.
Oh, Samuel, you're a scream! You are TOO funny.
You really think you can win every argument by playing word games don't you?
I think most anthropologists would die laughing at the assertion that peasants can't be considered a part of a given "culture" because they're illiterate. Please write to them and demand they stop referring to "African culture" "Native American culture" and "Polynesian culture" because these entire societies were pre-literate!
Of course, what makes your response even funnier is that I never actually used the word "Chinese culture" -- nor did I use the word "culture" at all in that context! We were all talking about "societies" -- so you suddenly change the term to "culture" so you can (oddly) claim we can't think about peasants! (Which gets you what precisely, I'm not sure, but it's darned amusing to watch!)
I'm sorry: You may consider yourself a masochist, but I'm certainly not. There's no point in dealing with someone who feels they can delude himself at each turn by trying to play silly games with commonly-accepted words. Please stop the games if you wish to continue this conversation.
Tim, despite my dismissal tone, I don't think you are an idiot. You do know things- you just don't truely understand them.
Frankly, I could care less what your opinion of me is, but thanks for the concession. :-)
And while we're at it, I'm *sure* you have an above-average intelligence, but your unwillingness to admit error (or ignorance), and high opinion of your own "smartitude", causes you to commit (and worse, endlessly defend) some colossal blunders. There is intelligence, and then there's wisdom. You have an above-average intelligence, but you're also acting like a fool. I know you can do better.
I focus on truth.
Really? I haven't noticed. Looks exactly the opposite from here. You play word games incessantly. You change my statements into different ones which are more easily refuted. You attribute to me statements not made. You try to revise your own positions without admitting your former error. You repeatedly ignore my answers and reassert your original statement, as if I hadn't answered -- and as if reasserting things were a kind of proof.
None of these things is a characteristic of a person seeking truth, Samuel.
In addition, you offer fallacy after fallacy, and seem to be repeatedly factually wrong, but, in my view, these are among your more minor problems.
Can you adress any of my points?
Go back and look for the words in italics. Those are your points, quoted verbtaim. See the writing below those excerpts? That's where I address them. If you feel I've failed to answer some important point, then quote your original point, quote my response (in cases where I didn't overlook it entirely), and then explain why it doesn't answer it adequately.
Feel free to do this at any time. But simply claiming, over and over, that I never answer any of your points doesn't make it so.
You argue from ignorance. I can't concieve of an explanation for the start, therefore it must be God.
I don't recall ever having made such an argument. Please quote where I've said such a thing. You seem, again, to be attributing arguments to me which I haven't offered.
I hate long, disorganized posts- you guys can trace my responces, right? Being on the defensive is a losing strategy, but if I wanted to win, I'd have joined the party.
What is wrong with Diamond's arguments? I looked using google and the closest I found was a person criticizing the lack of including ideology. Of course, groups that drive to conquer tend to be promoted, so I don't see that as a major argument.
Christians undoubtably invented things like crop rotation, Toledo steel and penicillian. We don't call them "Christian inventions" however- they were made by people who were Christians. Given that a major argument of atheists is that morality isn't dependant on God (see this for the brief version http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro_dilemma), claiming values as Christian values is equally false, UNLESS they can be traced to be coming from the Bible only.
Actually the origional reasoning behind an atom was that there was a minimum smallest size- however, it wasn't until you had observation data on it that you could say much more about its character.
I believe in using evidence and logic to create my view of the world. I have seen criticisms of that- they all fail.
No, religion is about God, the afterlife, the soul, etc. Although it covers other topics, this is its primary focus.
Sometimes. Sleepy drugs make me sluggish and sleepy- chemistry influencing biology.
It is good to see you realize I was talking about reductionism. And here you are criticising it- only there is one problem- we know that the mind is based in the brain. We can watch the blood flow to areas that are working, see what happens when areas are disabled, etc.
As for not being able to do AI with computers... the "singularity" people- super optimists- predict we will have enough computing power by 2050, with computers displaying intelligence by 2020 if the current trends are followed (doubling).
Here they are
http://www.transhumanist.com/volume1/moravec.htm
So basically we haven't managed to get an artificial mind because our tools are so limited- look at computer games, but from such humble starts they will grow...
I am a materialist, a rationalist, a strong atheist and an antitheist. That should clear it up. I'm not opposed to spirituality- just believing in something for the sake of belief.
I do that often. Supernatural doesn't exist by definition. Of course, whenever I do that, it happens that my statement is true. For example, if you are trying to make people happy, there is one best result. Course, we aren't able to measure so accurately, so we use rules of thumb.
Once again I must be more specific- there is nothing outside reality. If reality is only our universe, that is it. If reality includes other universes, but they don't interact with ours, the statement is false, but the effect is the same. No evidence of other universe's interacting with our own has ever been seen.
Except I believe you are going to (or have claimed it) as a Christian thing. If someone had it before Christians and in the same area, than Christians didn't come up with it.
Because we judge ideas' validity. not by their effects, but by how well they match up with reality.
Because I have been doing this for so long I have already heard all the pro-God arguments. And the list of fallacies for each. It isn't hard- give a month to it and you too can be an expert.
Because there is only one literal meaning and an infinite number of non-literal meanings. Therefore, when giving information, you always do so literally (which is why textbooks tend towards dry).
And many Europeans elites didn't believe in Christianity (look at where atheism starts- the upper classes, pilospohers, professors, priests- the learned). In fact looking at European history there have been atheists in its Christian phase too- they had to worry about the Pope and the like though... If you look at the US, 90% of the population is theists- a "Christian country". However, there are a large number of atheists and many of them are basically the sort of people who would hold civil service posts in China. Not to mention you forget an important part- the peasents were... 90% of the population? So it would be a (Drumroll) thesitic country. It simply had a secular elite.
That is great, except it so happens that that isn't the way to discover truth- not to mention an ideology counld redefine morality. After all, Everyone tends to think of themself as the "good guy".
The differance between Christian Europe and Pagan Europe was that Christian Europe was worse. This was due to the collapse of the Roman Empire, constant warfare, serfdom, destruction of public works, etc. Christianity doesn't seem to have had a big moral impact- it banished slavery at a time noone had slaves and reinstituted it 400 years later for sugar plantations.
What I said is true for choatic systems. Quantem mechanics is a problem when you deal with things on a small enough level- it is random. Fortunately enough randomness becomes predictable.
The problem with your idea is that we can gradually make more and more complicated systems- the problem isn't that the systems are special- just that we are bad at modeling them.
Actually, it was Diamond's arguemnt, but I will work on it.
Problem with China wan't that it was too large, but that it was isolated- it had no external enemies (it was only conquered 3 times in thousands of years). Saying it was "too big" was wrong. I apologize.
However, Indian states where too small. In order to develop technology and industry, you have to have countires where all the necesary basics are in one country (coal and iron). India was too fragmented for that to be the case.
Read Hawkings current theory for the start of the universe. It is finite, but without a beginning. No, I don't understand it either. But it works and precludes an outside. I will wait and see how the deal with it.
Theist is a person who believes in God. An agnostic theist is a bleiever who doesn't know what God is like.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_theism
The term was coined by Huxley in 1860 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism#Famous_agnostic_thinkers
previous to that the idea existed, but it didn't have that term.
You still haven't told me what the previous term which meant "nonbeliever" was. I'd LOVE to hear it. I honestly won't believe you until you show what world previously filled that slot.
There are a finite number of correct answers and an infinite number of wrong answers to that question. It does have more than one answer though... hmm- need to revise definition.
On subjects of the nature of reality there is only one correct answer. There is more than one answer to questions on contents of a category, which, by definiton, have a number of correct answers equal to the size of the category.
The fact that the human brain is made out of matter. Matter in certain forms (which we have) is refered to as chemicals. Given that there is no reason or evidence that shows it has any other property beside that found based on its structure, it is made up of chemicals.
Once again, Godel's doesn't apply. I am justifying my rules with referance to reality. His theorm deals with logical systems- and I am justifying my logical system on "that is how things work based on reality". For example, why evidence reveals information about the world.
At this point I am very sleepy. Sloppiness will creep in.
Uh... Hawkings believes in a closed universe
http://web.uvic.ca/~jtwong/Hartle-Hawking.htm
Doesn't need a God.
Actually I asserted that logic allows nothing outside- I conflated universe with reality. Given that we have no evidence of any interaction EVER with an "outside", it makes the whole point moot- we can treat them as nonexistant.
And you completely missed my point each time. You could have shown how the statement was inexact AND THEN proceded with the correct statement (like I did). You didn't.
A beginning does not mean a belief in progress- only a start. Given that Genisis describes the fall, it is sort of nonsence.
Well, for starters the Greeks viewed the Egyptian as a superior culture, and the Romans, the Greeks. The Romans also considered their civilization better than others and considered people in the Empire advanced and more civilized that outsiders. Barbarian comes from the description of all those that don't speak Greek.
You do realize the term "hunter gatherer" included such an extreme variety of cultures that SOME of them would fall into monogamy, if just by chance?
It is worth noting that the majority of human relationships would fall under this category, even in societies where unusual behavior also occurs.
Mercy with obedience. Also known as obedience. Look at them closely- Christ gives you a free gift- (mercy), but if you don't worship him you burn in hell (not mercy).
Except I'm refering to showing something is true. When people say they have faith, what they mean is they believe without evidence, not the trust definition.
Evidence makes somethin non-faith based. If you don't have evidence, you have faith. For someone berrating me for sloppy language, it is amazing you don't see that.
It is "believing" because the reason they consider it evidence is due to their faith (I have faith that this is valid evidence).
By definiton faith is against evidence- if you have evidence, faith is irrelevant.
? Brain shut down- how is this relevant?
Or it could simply be a contradiction. You know, it isn't like there isn't a Jewish word word for "long time period". That would have been simpler, more accurate, etc.
How is it more accurate? It seems less accurate considering all we know.
The elite's secualrism is irrelevant to wheter or not the majority where believers. Most of the elite in several countries are atheists, and yet they aren't considered atheist countries.
Randomness tends to smooth out on large enough scales. Which is why we have laws of nature. In principle means we could do it- we just don't have the tech or money to do so.
Burden of proof. Seriously- it isn'y my job to show there is something extra that you can't interact with in any way.
Because machines can be fixed. When people break it is permanent. People are more valuable.
You didn't give counter evidence. If people are machines AND it implies we can treat them bad, it say nothing on wheter what I said was true or not.
? Already talked about this...
I was trying to show the possible options and go with the strongest. Unlike you, I considered each possible argument.
None of those states where major powers. The exception is the Dutch, due to their fleets. However, the major states where the larger ones- France, England, Spain, etc.
I keep on thinking you are stupid because you say things that are obviously wrong and nonsense.
You where going by the elites. Are you even paying attention to the point I am rebutting? The reason the Chinese look atheistic is the people who wrot eeverything where atheistic.
...
Hah!
Anyway on "Christian values"... write about that silliness when... tomoorrow
First of Christian values. In case you where wondering, this is what I was referring to when I said I value truth- this is entirely irrelevant to the truth value of Christianity. After all, the same is true of communism. Any where, ere we go.
For values we have
- belief in progress
- monogamy
- idea of universal laws
- mercy
The general trend is that you are trying to imply Christianity is necessary for science and development.
Lets start with monogamous, lifelong marriages. Interestingly enough, we DON'T have these today (divorces anyone), but we will go with the idea of marrying and only having one partner.
Benefits- Actually they exist. In each cases polygamy has been banned, it has been banned by men. Polygamy has the unfortunate tendency to exacerbate inequality and lead to societal problems (those women have to come from somewhere).
Origins- I claimed hunter gathers and you produced this article
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1720068.ece
First of, a couple of points- it is one guy, a new theory, and the evidence he uses are from one location on the planet- the Venus statuettes are from Europe, based around the Black Sea and going into Turkey.
Other problems- current hunter gatherer tribes are monogamous. And not all hunter gather tribes are the same so even if most where swingers, some would be squares.
The most important point is the fact that he declares that roles didn't become fixed until they settled down- in which case monogamy dates from the first towns and cities, NOT from Judaism or Christianity. Any way you look at it, the two are unrelated.
A belief in progress is hard to define. However it is generally put as "the future will be better than the present". Now, as I look back, I realize this is new- the examples I give are of people who believe they have progressed.
Benefits- keep the proles in line- "the future is bright". Sorry- I'm cynical.
This belief had to wait until a time period where the rate of technological change was fast enough so that people could see it happen in their life time. That would be the industrial revolution. It is worth noting that the belief in progress probably occurred as a reaction to those arguing against the changes. Interestingly the Luddites were right- do to the changes in England, their jobs were eliminated and they sunk into the lower classes. in more modern times, people have also expressed more cautious versions of this- the future will be bright... if we don't kill ourselves.
There is no indication that this comes from the bible. Although the bible does have a beginning of the world, it also has an end. More importantly it has a "fall" which goes against the idea of progress.
Universal laws refers to the idea the universe is orderly, understandable and can be written down and comprehended.
Benefit- sort of the basis of methodical science.
Problem- Pagan philosophers had this to. "The Christians as the Romans Saw Them" has some good examples. Others would be the invention of logic (rules the universe follows), the Pythagoreans (belief that math ruled the universe), Epicureans (believed the universe was entirely reducible), etc.
The reason that Christianity gets credit for this is due to the fact that Newton repopularize the idea of a clockwork universe.
Mercy is not killing, maiming, raping, etc even when you have the power to do so.
Benefit- Reduces bloodshed
- I pointed out the crusades and you linked this http://www.crusades-encyclopedia.com/crusadesmyths.html
Unfortunately, looking at it they don't refute what I said. For example the sack of Jerusalem, or more infamously the butchering of the entire population of Acre were acts of extreme barbarity. The justification in the paper is "that was the standard back them". Unfortunately the Muslims didn't act that way during the fighting- Saladin is an excellent example, as is the fact the Christian population was allowed to live when they reclaimed the Holy Land.
The Old Testament has absolutely no mercy in it either- the Jews butcher all their enemies to claim the Holy land, enslave their women and utterly destroy. The Great Khan was more merciful.
The war against the Cathers resulted in the Albigensian crusade and the wholesale butcher of thousands.
The thirty years war was possibly the worst in Europe and resulted in much of the population of Germany being killed.
Knightly chivalry extended only to other knights- there are many on occasion where they ran down their own skirmishers who didn't get out of the way.
Need I go on? The simple fact is the Christians did not show mercy except when they profited from it- such as from ransoms. They did not originate the concept of mercy nor did they truly practice it.
Finally there is the "why don't you treat people like machines?" Since you are an animist, why don't you treat food as reprocessed poop or soil as plant corpses? They are made of the exact same material and actually come from the original.
The fact is that other people are the sum of their parts and experiences- but so am I. I am as much a machine as they are, and so I treat others as I would wish to be treated.
Did the value/machines get through?
you guys can trace my responces, right?
It'd help keep things a lot more organized, both for us and for anyone else who wants to read the thread, if you could show exactly what and who each post responds to. Thanks! :-)
I looked using google and the closest I found was a person criticizing the lack of including ideology. Of course, groups that drive to conquer tend to be promoted, so I don't see that as a major argument.
Not even sure what you're arguing for here. Saying that Diamond doesn't have problems?
claiming values as Christian values is equally false, UNLESS they can be traced to be coming from the Bible only
Samuel, we've both given an example of what Juedeo-Christians mean by Christian values. I can understand that you have a different definition, but the Euthyphro dielemma doesn't give any support to using your definition exclusively. For someone who believes that God created the world (which wouldn't apply to a pagan who got their values from, say, Pallas Athena, which was the type of person that the diallema was addressed to) they also believe that God created "good." Therefore "good," In Judeo-Christian beliefs predated both Judaism and Christianity which solves the diallema (given Judeo-Christian postulates.) You'll be looking for a different derivation of ethics, I know. But at this point, you have a clear and, more importantly, consistent definition of what we both mean by Jewish or Christian values, right? And what, incidentally, most theists mean by the phrase. Right? So we can move on and discuss other issues knowing that 'x values' means and has always meant 'values supported by x' when we say it. Fair?
Actually the origional reasoning behind an atom was that there was a minimum smallest size- however, it wasn't until you had observation data on it that you could say much more about its character.
Actually, no. Stochiometric ratios were understood before the 1800s. Many logical positivists, who insisted on observational data, rejected the theory of atoms for quite a long time. If all scientists had been logical positivits, the advance of science would have been seriously stifled.
The periodic table is a tabular method of displaying the chemical elements. Although earlier precursors exist, its invention is generally credited to the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869.[1]
Ernst Mach(1838-1916), who provided the German namesake for the Vienna circle, was a strong influence on the logical positivists (though they had many different views.)He died not believing in the theory of atoms.
The general resistance of the logical positivists to the existence of atoms (and other scientific theories which later became commonly accepted) up until they were actually observed, rather than much earlier when the model was simply useful was a major blow against the value of their epistemology.
In accordance with this philosophy, Mach opposed Ludwig Boltzmann and others who proposed an atomic theory of physics. Since atoms are too small to observe directly, and no atomic model at the time was consistent, the atomic hypothesis seemed to Mach to be unwarranted, and perhaps not sufficiently "economical".
Mach had a direct influence on the Vienna Circle philosophers and the school of logical positivism in general. Albert Einstein called him the "forerunner of [the] Theory of relativity", though Mach would later, to Einstein's disappointment, reject Einstein's theory.
Scientific theories are often first formed from evidence far short of direct observation.
Mach was rejecting the theory of atoms at the same time when people were observing auger tracks in cloud chambers (but not the atoms themselves.)
Again, you've had an inaccurate view of what theists mean when they refer to faith and what they mean by "Christian Values." Its pretty clear that, however many conversations you might have had with theists that you don't understand what they mean when they use particular words. It's not that you've given citations that the definitions presented here disagree with established definitions. Again, a little humility is required here. You don't seem to understand the meaning of the arguments that you're arguing against, which makes it irrelevant whether you've heard them before.
From Websters;
1. confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.
2. belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
3. belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims.
4. belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.: to be of the same faith with someone concerning honesty.
5. a system of religious belief: the Christian faith; the Jewish faith.
6. the obligation of loyalty or fidelity to a person, promise, engagement, etc.: Failure to appear would be breaking faith.
7. the observance of this obligation; fidelity to one's promise, oath, allegiance, etc.: He was the only one who proved his faith during our recent troubles.
8. Christian Theology. the trust in God and in His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved.
—Idiom
9. in faith, in truth; indeed: In faith, he is a fine lad.
Nowhere does it say "belief against evidence."
Nor does it say "belief without evidence."
It says "belief without proof" which is exactly what we've said several times here.
we know that the mind is based in the brain.
Could I strongly suggest reading Karl Popper, or at least a quick summery of his work? Please? He wrote on the philosophy of science and he'd address some issues that keep coming up in your writing. For example, if you take 400 red apples out of a barrel, that is not 'proof' that the rest of the barrel is composed entirely of red apples. There can also be green apples. Or spiders at the bottom. Or whatever. 'Proof' requires emptying the whole barrel. This isn't "an argument from ignorance. This is, of necessity, the modern philosohpy of science.
As for not being able to do AI with computers... the "singularity" people- super optimists- predict we will have enough computing power by 2050, with computers displaying intelligence by 2020 if the current trends are followed (doubling).
In the case of the human mind, there's good reason, already given, to say that humans don't have a good model yet of how the mind works. We cannot model even insect-sized setups on a computer. I'm familiar with the transhumanists from having read Kurzweil's "The Age of Spiritual Machines." He bases his projections on computing power being the limiting factor in the development of AI, as I've already addressed and your post re-affirms. If you hear someone who is unable to build a house saying "I know how buildings work! Give me enough material and I can build a skyscraper!" there is reason to doubt them.
We know that the mind has a physical component, certainly. If you destroy it, you destroy the mind. If you drug it you influence the mind. I wouldn't dream to argue against that. But that is not proof of an entirely materialistic view.
To give a crude analogy, if you destroy a radio, you destroy the sound it makes. If you twist its knobs, you alter its output. This would not be proof that radio waves don't exist, though. That matter would still be unresolved.
but from such humble starts they will grow...
Perhaps. But bear in mind, this is faith on your part. Faith based on some evidence, but evidence short of proof. Thus, the dictionary definition of faith.
I believe in using evidence and logic to create my view of the world. I have seen criticisms of that- they all fail.
There is noone here who does not believe in evidence and logic. However other people sincerely believing in these things have come to different conclusions than you have.
If you believe in evidence I've given you evidence that logical positivism is a sub-optimal method of inquiry even among the set of atheistic worldviews.
No, religion is about God, the afterlife, the soul, etc. Although it covers other topics, this is its primary focus.
I have no clue who you're saying "no" to here. Could you please snip the portion of text you're responding to? Again, if we're discussing evidence for religion, which I'm happy to do, we will focus on physical and psychological manifestations of the particular theory. Just as if we were in the late 1800s if we were talking about atoms we would discuss auger tracks (the physical manifestations of unseen things) and not the atoms themselves. Make sense?
Manifestations were used to correctly theorize about atoms long before they were shown to exist. "Logical Positivists" place a standard of evidence so high it ignores a great deal of the world around it.
I'm not opposed to spirituality- just believing in something for the sake of belief.... Supernatural doesn't exist by definition.
What does 'spiritual' mean to you? I'd be happy to discard the word 'supernatural' rather than argue about its meaning. But what word would be appropriate to forces that preceeded the creation of the material world?
Except I believe you are going to (or have claimed it) as a Christian thing. If someone had it before Christians and in the same area, than Christians didn't come up with it.
If this is in reference to morals, that was never my intent and I doubt that it was Tim's. We've explained what we mean by the values of various religions (promoting certain values, not necessarily originating them) and been consistent in our definitions. Ours is common usage, but I'm fine with whatever coveys the idea to you. I can say "values promoted by Judaism and Christianity" if it gets the point across more clearly.
Once again I must be more specific- there is nothing outside reality. If reality is only our universe, that is it. If reality includes other universes, but they don't interact with ours, the statement is false, but the effect is the same. No evidence of other universe's interacting with our own has ever been seen.
So what if God is part of 'reality' but preceeded the physical universe? This is an hypothesis being put forward.
Because I have been doing this for so long I have already heard all the pro-God arguments.
But you consistently fail to accurately describe what theists mean when they use certain words! If you really believe in evidence and logic, then this evidence strongly implies that you don't have a good understanding of the beliefs of those you're arguing against. Which undermines your claims to expertise.
Because there is only one literal meaning and an infinite number of non-literal meanings. Therefore, when giving information, you always do so literally (which is why textbooks tend towards dry).
There is more than one literal meaning. Which is why a dictionary will give more than one literal meaning.
Not to mention you forget an important part- the peasents were... 90% of the population?
Yes, but if the emergence of science in the west is any model, most peasants did not have the crucial lesiure time to do science. The taoists, to their credit, seem to have been experimentalists. And some doctors might also be exceptions. But despite the success of acupuncture neither asian group devised a reductionist or materialist epistimology.
After all, Everyone tends to think of themself as the "good guy".
Not sure what you're referring to here, but I certainly agree that the majority of people, even people who do a lot of damage to others, tend to themselves as good and that this is an important understanding. A lot of people of all stripes of people miss that understanding and think that people believe differently because of some character flaw or willful ignorance. So we agree here.
The problem with your idea is that we can gradually make more and more complicated systems- the problem isn't that the systems are special- just that we are bad at modeling them.
I could understand this a lot better if I knew which idea you were referring to.
You still haven't told me what the previous term which meant "nonbeliever" was. I'd LOVE to hear it. I honestly won't believe you until you show what world previously filled that slot.
Again, I'm not sure what this referrs to. I suggested materialist or logical positivist for a better label for your viewpoints.
It does have more than one answer though... hmm- need to revise definition.
Than you for being honest enough to say that. I genuinely appreciate the gesture.
Actually I asserted that logic allows nothing outside- I conflated universe with reality. Given that we have no evidence of any interaction EVER with an "outside", it makes the whole point moot- we can treat them as nonexistant.
Why not just address what people who refer to such things mean?
It is worth noting that the majority of human relationships would fall under this category, even in societies where unusual behavior also occurs.
Which category?
Mercy with obedience. Also known as obedience. Look at them closely- Christ gives you a free gift- (mercy), but if you don't worship him you burn in hell (not mercy).
Alternately;
God gives people a gift (mercy or forgiveness)
People are free to refuse it (free will)
I personally question Christianity tying salvation only to Jesus (I'm Jewish, but respect Christian ethics and wisdom.) Properly resolving this issue would take a jump into European history since we seem to have different views of what systems religion actually produces, but that can be resolved based on evidence.
When people say they have faith, what they mean is they believe without evidence,
You have here two people of faith giving you a definition of what faith means. I've posted a dictionary definition which contradicts the definition you gave. It will take a few citations on your part to support your assertion that faith means "belief with zero evidence" or "belief in spite of the evidence."
By definiton faith is against evidence- if you have evidence, faith is irrelevant.
Of course not. You don't need to abandon your atheistic beliefs to understand this. Read Popper. You cannot 'prove' something true unless you exhaust a search space. You can only prove things false by disconfirming the theory. Dogmatic atheists are often blind to the distinction between faith (the dictionary definition meaning lacking complete evidence) and proof, which is what this post is about and which is what your comments have (at least in my opinion) so far demonstrated.
Randomness tends to smooth out on large enough scales. Which is why we have laws of nature. In principle means we could do it- we just don't have the tech or money to do so.
Could do what?
Quantum mechanics as it is currently understood is a limitation imposed by nature, not of our technology.
Burden of proof. Seriously- it isn'y my job to show there is something extra that you can't interact with in any way.
Who claimed that you couldn't interact with God? You're right, it's not your job. Ask for evidence and you'll get it. Or better, just check around the rest of this site, which would help keep comments on each argument more organized. But you won't get 'proof' anywhere, just evidence.
Because machines can be fixed. When people break it is permanent. People are more valuable.
Bugs can't be fixed. Therefore bugs are as valuable as people? What about lots of bugs? How many bugs are equal to a person?
Samuel - Btw, there's a bug in Tim's blog where a carriage return closes an html tag. Be careful if using them.
Knightly chivalry extended only to other knights- there are many on occasion where they ran down their own skirmishers who didn't get out of the way.
There are numerous examples of atrocities in Christian Europe. There are also similar or worse examples in Roman times.
See decimation
dialemma should be "dilemma"
Your commments will be in quotes- don't know how the taby sstem works.
"Saying Diamond doesn't have problems"
I'm saying the obection due to ignoring ideology isn't a problem- desire for conquest is selected for.
Your responce to my point. Several falsehoods:
- the pagans didn't get values from specific Gods-at least, not the Greeks. I'd have to check, but I'm pretty sure.
- Your argument is nonsense. You have declared all good values to b Judeo-Christian values by virtue of existing. For starters, God isn't a member of your religion- even if he existed AND created God, those values DON'T belong to a religion- they fall under morality.
I'll be more exact. You claimed that God created all values. However, that doesn't make them Christian- it simply makes them exist.
In addition if God created everything he also made all the vices... which I guess would also be Christian vices...
"Stoichiometry"
Uh... that IS observation data. You can't see the atoms themselves, but you can conclusively see the effects. Given that in real life we never see the actual items (we see reflected light) Maches position makes no sense.
"Faith"
2,3,5
Two for instance if proof is used in the venacular as show with evidence and not the mathematical term.
3 and 5 are blatant examples- believing in God... just because.
"Pooper"
We are talking about wheter or not it is required to postulate a whole invisible world to explain the process of mind. Given the fact people's personalities, memories, capabilities, self, etc can be changed with drugs and surgery, there is no reason to make such an unwarrented leap. It IS an argument from ignorance.
"Transhumanists"
People couldn't physically build skyscrapers before cheap steel- they hade the knowledge, not the materials.
As it is we simply don't have the capability- compare the computing power of the brain vs a computer. The computer is far behind.
We can detect radio waves with other recievers.
"Faith is evidence short of proof"
You keep on saying that. What do you mean by proof? When I say proof I mean this (also from websters)...
1 a: the cogency of evidence that compels acceptance by the mind of a truth or a fact b: the process or an instance of establishing the validity of a statement especially by derivation from other statements in accordance with principles of reasoning
2obsolete : experience
3: something that induces certainty or establishes validity
4archaic : the quality or state of having been tested or tried; especially : unyielding hardness
5: evidence operating to determine the finding or judgment of a tribunal
6 aplural proofs or proof : a copy (as of typeset text) made for examination or correction b: a test impression of an engraving, etching, or lithograph c: a coin that is struck from a highly polished die on a polished planchet, is not intended for circulation, and sometimes differs in metallic content from coins of identical design struck for circulation d: a test photographic print made from a negative
7: a test applied to articles or substances to determine whether they are of standard or satisfactory quality
8 a: the minimum alcoholic strength of proof spirit b: strength with reference to the standard for proof spirit; specifically : alcoholic strength indicated by a number that is twice the percent by volume of alcohol present
What do you know? Webster agrees with me! When he says proof he means anything that induces certainty or validity... so my statement is true. It ISN'T faith, because webster ISN'T refering to mathematical proofs, logical proofs or the like.
"I have no idea"
The fact you repeatedly attempt to drag morality into this.
As for the manifestations... that's nice, show they are actually, you know, caused by God. The easiest way would be for God to give his word, but failing that just show there is no possible natural explanation.
"How do you define spirituality?"
Spirituality is the feeling people get from LSD. There are other sources, but that is probably the purest form.
"Values promoted by"
That is more accurate- and alot more vague. For starters, not all Christians are the same (believe it or not, I know that). That makes it hard. In addition you have many cases where Christians are promoting OPPOSITE values (see slavery).
"God exists before reality"
Unfortunately time is a part of reality. If you wish to confront ideas that drive logicians mad, be my guest- but be warned: those who try tohave change without time are driven mad by the impossibility, contadictions and the words outside of time. They have no meaning! IA IA!
Seriously- it gets insanely confusing, self contradictory...
"But you don't understand"
See webster- you didn't understand the definition, not me. I was right and you were wrong.
"More than one literal meaning"
You are right- there are an number finite of literal meanings and infinite metaphorical ones. My point stands.
"Failed to make a materialistic..."
Apparently you are wrong... again
http://members.tripod.com/~india_resource/scienceh.htm
And lets no forget the number of inventions the Chinese are responsible for- science waxed and wanned in China, probably due to the government.
"good guy"
Hmm... don'tremember.
"I'd understnad if I knew what you where talking about"
Everything actually. But the brain in particular.
"Material or logical positivist"
No, no, NO! That isn't what I am talking about. Tim (of the Some call me... Tim fame) has said that atheism was extended to cover simple nonbelief. If that istrue I want to know what was the previous word used? It isn't agnostic because Huxley coined, so what is it?
"Honesty"
Hey, I overgeneralize to much. Of course given the fact we have a finite vs infinite number the ratio stays exactly the same.
"Why not just address what people who refer to such things mean?"
Just so you know, I can't understand that sentance- it butchers stynax. I'm goingto take it as why don't you adress believers in miracles. I do- did you see my posts on www.MiraclesofAlllah.com? (kidding... but only a little- the site does exist.
http://www.geocities.com/islamicmiracles/
"Which category?"
Monogamous sex- about 85% in all societies do fine with it.
"People are free to refuse it (free will)"
I don't believe in the concept of free will. I have no choice in the matter- either all actions can be predicted with perfect knowledge (determinism) or they can't (randomness). Free will doesn't even get a category. And yes, this even applies with souls- the are either deterministic OR random.
"Could do what?"
Don't remember. I believe is was refering to extremely accurate predicitons, like saying how a person will act, how a rat will move through a maze, etc. It would be very complicated and costly, but it could be done... alhough it would be pointless.
"You can't interact with God? Look at the other posts."
I look the Muslim site beter- it is more shiny. And shiny is good... or at least pretty.
Bugs havevalue- I feel bad squashing them. I never kill without reason. Course if I'm hungry or they are a threat- they die. They aren't sentient.
As for "previous eras were more barbaric", yes that is true. Of course the Romans didn't kill their own soldiers when they did their jobs (unlike running down skirmishers) and they didn't kill nonbelievers.
- the pagans didn't get values from specific Gods-at least, not the Greeks. I'd have to check, but I'm pretty sure.
That they did is discussed in the Euthyphro diellema that you referred to earlier.
Your argument is nonsense. You have declared all good values to b Judeo-Christian values by virtue of existing. For starters, God isn't a member of your religion- even if he existed AND created God, those values DON'T belong to a religion- they fall under morality.
Evidence, please? Or do you take this on faith?
I'll be more exact. You claimed that God created all values. However, that doesn't make them Christian- it simply makes them exist.
Again, the phrase "Christian values" means "values promoted by Christianity."
You're still trying to win an argument by using a peculiar definition. Why not just address the argument as it's given rather than trying to turn it into some strawman?
In addition if God created everything he also made all the vices... which I guess would also be Christian vices...
If Christian values are those values which Christianity promotes, then Christian vices would be vices that Christianity supports.
But yes, the bible does say that God created Evil. I'm not familiar enough with the Hebrew to know if the literal translation is reliable, but that seems to be the assertion.
Uh... that IS observation data. You can't see the atoms themselves, but you can conclusively see the effects. Given that in real life we never see the actual items (we see reflected light) Maches position makes no sense.
"Stoichiometry"
Uh... that IS observation data.
It is indirect, though. But I'm glad you're willing to accept the predictive value of a model as 'observational' data. Which is why I'm saying that the effect of a religion on society counts as evidence for or against the religion. Our debate can focus on what that evidence says.
3 and 5 are blatant examples- believing in God... just because.
3 and 5 are definitions that do not address a person's reasons for believing in God at all. They do not support the contention that faith is without evidence. You do believe that absence of an assertion is different than an assertion that all evidence is absent, right?
We are talking about wheter or not it is required to postulate a whole invisible world to explain the process of mind. Given the fact people's personalities, memories, capabilities, self, etc can be changed with drugs and surgery, there is no reason to make such an unwarrented leap. It IS an argument from ignorance.
Spiritual beliefs have an effect that simple psychology does not and that simple drugs do not. That has to be accounted for. Again, I'm not denying the physical component of the mind at all. Religiously derived ideas about psychology are predictive, moreso than many atheistic attempts at psychology. Religious attempts to alter behavior are more successful than atheistic attempts.
This success does require an explanation, and the explanation needs to be tested. Though I think we'll need some time discussing the evidence for this first.
"Transhumanists" People couldn't physically build skyscrapers before cheap steel- they hade the knowledge, not the materials.
You're still missing the point here. If we can't replicate a simple natural model with a small amount of computing power, we can't replicate a more complex model with more computing power.
People couldn't physically build skyscrapers before cheap steel- they hade the knowledge, not the materials.
Yes, I understand that. And 'steel' in this analogy would correspond to a new model of neural computation, not more wood and bricks (i.e. more processing power.)
You keep on saying that. What do you mean by proof? When I say proof I mean this (also from websters)...
To keep things clear, I try and use evidence to mean evidence and proof to mean something stronger than simple evidence (which is fairly rare.)
I mean that you've asserted in several places that when theists use the term 'faith' that they mean they believe something against the evidence. I'm trying to get you to see that that's not what the word means to them so that you can address the argument that they're actually making, rather than accidentally attacking strawman arguments over and over.
You asserted this definition for 'faith.'
Faith- Believing something in spite of the evidence
I am trying to get you to see that that argument is incorrect, even by the dictionary definition.
You asserted the following;
Antitheists believe that religion is dangerous because it embraces the idea of faith.
The only differance between atheists and everyone else is God belief. Since it is based on faith, dividing up the world that way makes sense.
Faith- Believing something in spite of the evidence...Evidence makes somethin non-faith based
I am refering to the religious definition of faith. The ones you give also have an alternate definition- trust. Trust is based on evidence....
By definiton faith is against evidence- if you have evidence, faith is irrelevant.
First, if you say that if you have evidence then faith is irrelevant
You are arguing for a peculiar definition of faith here, which is simply not in the dictionary and which would potentially muddle the other definitions that you give which use the word 'faith' to define them, causing those other definitions to mean things you don't intend.
Contrasting faith to proof, if you were using the dictionary definition of 'faith' would infer you wanted to use the academic version of the term 'proof.' I think this is a source of confusion.
As for the manifestations... that's nice, show they are actually, you know, caused by God. The easiest way would be for God to give his word, but failing that just show there is no possible natural explanation.
For me, it is enough to show that religious descriptions are more predictive than non-religious scenarios.
It's very difficult to prove a negative, of course. There are an infinite number of possible theories. What you suggest is a wild goose chase.
Spirituality is the feeling people get from LSD. There are other sources, but that is probably the purest form.
Well, that doesn't help me much. But you're saying it is a feeling or state of mind?
That is more accurate- and alot more vague. For starters, not all Christians are the same (believe it or not, I know that). That makes it hard. In addition you have many cases where Christians are promoting OPPOSITE values (see slavery).
Generally speaking, Judeo-Chrisitan faiths were opposed to slavery though they didn't always ban it outright. Though there did seem to be some who tolerated or even promoted it. The Jubilee in Judiasm, for instance, or the emphasis on the importance of freedom in Christianity. Laws in Judiasm about the rights that slaves had. I'm not arguing that all Christians were perfect. Of course not. But compared to the Roman empire or China at the same time Christian nations had much more public opposition to slavery.
Unfortunately time is a part of reality.
That is an assumption on your part. You take it on faith.
those who try tohave change without time are driven mad by the impossibility
Very true! And if people argued that God's nature was changing, you'd be exactly right. Of course, they say the opposite. This is impossible to test, so it's not 'scientific.' I know that. What each of us believe here is a matter of faith (belief with incomplete evidence). but it's not self-contradictory. We're both consistant within the postulates we're working with.
See webster- you didn't understand the definition, not me. I was right and you were wrong. Your definition of 'proof' was based on an invalid definition of 'faith.'
"Failed to make a materialistic..."
I can't find this search string in our entire conversation, so I don't know what you're citing.
And lets no forget the number of inventions the Chinese are responsible for- science waxed and wanned in China, probably due to the government.
Quite true. But invention is not usually considered the same as science.
The Chinese had 'five element theory' and the I ching. But they didn't attempt to test either of these ideas.
"Honesty"
Sorry, I don't know what this refers to. Could you include a bit more of my text so I can just search for the relevant passage. Or summarize?
I don't believe in the concept of free will. I have no choice in the matter- either all actions can be predicted with perfect knowledge (determinism) or they can't (randomness). Free will doesn't even get a category. And yes, this even applies with souls- the are either deterministic OR random.
I can understand the sentiment, but from a human standpoint I'm not sure how to use that belief to build a better society.
Don't remember. I believe is was refering to extremely accurate predicitons, like saying how a person will act, how a rat will move through a maze, etc. It would be very complicated and costly, but it could be done... alhough it would be pointless.
Well, look at, say, a very small boat on a river. Between quantum effects and chaos theory it would be impossible to make totally accurate predictions. You could make rough predictions like saying "the boat won't float up in the sky" "the boat will roughly follow the path of the river" etc. Things do average out to a large extent, but not completely. There would be a limit, imposed by nature, that would restrict the accuracy of the predictions that you could make.
I look the Muslim site beter- it is more shiny. And shiny is good... or at least pretty.
Sure. Many religions believe in miracles. Asculpius, I've been told, had a list of healings to his credit that would put Jesus's to shame. Heck, even in the bible it has pharoh's sorcerers performing magic (which is weaker than Moses's.) I've had a number of friends claim to have done magic or interact with spirits (one left acting because of an accidental event along those lines that left her temporarily thinking she had killed her own father. ) or experience things that don't mesh well with a materialist paradigm.
I'm honestly not sure what to make of a lot of this stuff, though it certainly isn't new. If you're saying 'miracles aren't a good basis for understanding the nature of God' then I can see that. It may be that there are a number of powers in the universe, some good, some less good, and many simply amoral or evil. That's what most religions I've studied seemed to believe. But I doubt that you would make that argument. And if you wouldn't, I'm not sure what you intend to prove. That all reports of miracles must be false because the reports are contradictory?
Bugs havevalue- I feel bad squashing them. I never kill without reason. Course if I'm hungry or they are a threat- they die. They aren't sentient.
But you're not sentient either. You're either random or deterministic. It's just an illusion that you're sentient, right?
As for "previous eras were more barbaric", yes that is true. Of course the Romans didn't kill their own soldiers when they did their jobs (unlike running down skirmishers) and they didn't kill nonbelievers.
Romans killed a number of Christians in certain eras. Killing those who disagree with those in power is a human trait. Atheists have done it. (not worshiping certain emperors, or, for that matter, modern dictators.) Pagans have done it. Even some Christians and Jews have done it. It is a horrible facet of human nature. But there is no good evidence that it is caused by any particular belief system or lack thereof. I can see that it might be prevented by separation of church and state. Mixing the two draws too many power-hungry people into religion. But outside of that I don't see any belief system, atheist or theistic, which has a particularly sterling record in this regard.
Your argument is nonsense. You have declared all good values to b Judeo-Christian values by virtue of existing. For starters, God isn't a member of your religion- even if he existed AND created God, those values DON'T belong to a religion- they fall under morality.
To clarify, I am not claiming that values that God promotes "belong" to a religion. That's been your assertion only. Mine was that the purpose of a good religion is to support God's values.
It is entirely possible for other faiths or even atheists to support some of these values as well. Noone here has said otherwise.
I hate long, disorganized posts...
Me too. So I'll try to group your responses by topic, as best as I can discern them, given that you often just write some phrase out of context. BTW: Ryan: Some extremely astute stuff there. You're subtle, where I'm blunt. Sadly, I don't think your opponent is taking your thoughtful answers as seriously as they deserve.
Origins of Science
However, Indian states where too small. In order to develop technology and industry, you have to have countires where all the necesary basics are in one country (coal and iron). India was too fragmented for that to be the case.
Samuel: I have already provided an assertion that major technological and scientific innovations came from tiny, autonomous regions of Europe, as small or smaller than the Indian states you mention, under no central control. (Which you mentioned as a key ingredient in China, as well.)
You have dealt with this by...? Heh: just kidding. You haven't dealt with it at all! You simply keep pretending I've said nothing, though I've pointed this out to you, on this exact topic, several times now.
PLEASE READ THE RULES FOR COMMENTS regarding how to respond appropriately to arguments. (Hint: It doesn't involve ignoring all counter-evidence and repeating yourself as though no contrary evidence has been offered.) You don't have to agree with the counter-evidence: You can rebut it, you can say it doesn't apply, you may say you're not convinced, you may ask for further evidence, or even quietly drop the topic: but pretending it doesn't exist is not a response for which I have time. If no contrary evidence or response can be heard by you, then there's no point in anyone offering to give you any -- and frankly, you're wasting my space and time.
I've been more than patient here, Samuel, and I'm not at all joking about your being disinvited if you can't follow such a simple rule.
Atheism & Agnosticism:
Tim (of the Some call me... Tim fame) has said that atheism was extended to cover simple nonbelief. If that istrue I want to know what was the previous word used? It isn't agnostic because Huxley coined, so what is it?
Samuel, it disheartens me when you fail to read even the bits I drag here and quote for you. I quoted Flew admitting that "agnostic" was the word being used at the time to mean someone with no definite commitments. So that's what was being used before he offered his new, broader definition for "atheist", to answer your question.
Long before that, I presume people simply used some short and simple phrase, such as "I don't know if God exists or not" -- just as now there are people on the fence on a whole host of issues -- none of those positions having specific names either.
(What do you call someone who isn't sure whether capitalism or socialism is best? There's no specific word needed for that precise position. We get by just fine without having a single word for many things. And if we're German, we use a short phrase, anyway, and call it a single word.)
Christian values
I offered a short list of values I felt originated, for the Western atheist, in Christianity.
Concerning the idea that the universe operated according to rational laws, you asserted that pagan philosophers held this to be true. I asked for examples, and indicated I was willing to agree if you could provide some. Perhaps I have missed it, but I'm not seeing any evidence in response.
Regarding progress, you said it was an incredibly new idea. I cited specific examples from thousands of years ago. Ignoring my response, you again repeated your assertion:
It is worth noting that the belief in progress probably occurred as a reaction to those arguing against the changes. Interestingly the Luddites were right- do to the changes in England, their jobs were eliminated and they sunk into the lower classes.
No, again: please see my rebuttal, where I cite documents much older than the Luddite movement. Failure to respond to that evidence doesn't make it go away, Samuel.
And now you wish to drag us into another area of your boundless expertise: Economics! The Luddites were right, but England was a booming and vibrant economy, somehow, not long after that? And our jobs are still "going away" but yet the unemployment rate doesn't keep going up, up, up, does it? (Never let the plain evidence get in the way of your beliefs!)
Regarding monogamy, you first asserted that primitive people practiced monogamy. I gave you evidence to the contrary. You have said some "hunter gatherer" cultures would operate that way just by chance. Again: Evidence? (After all, you base all your beliefs on evidence, right?) I see no evidence that whole societies of men would willingly forgo sexual opportunity their entire life "by chance." Saying "I think they all won't be the same" isn't a form of evidence. (Evidence would consist, if you're confused on this, of producing such a group which was clearly monogamous -- of course, that's not even a rebuttal to my statement, but it would at least back up your tangential assertion.)
Then you asserted that "about 85% in all societies do fine with it" (no evidence given for this assertion either, but I presume if it passed through your brain, that must be good enough for you). But my assertion wasn't "nobody ever was monogamous until Christianity" (which your rebuttal necessarily implies) -- simply that it is, for the Western atheist, a value he or she obtained from Christians.
A society can have a large number of people doing X without X being a value in that society. I'd argue that probably 100% of all Americans have lied, but I'm not sure we could then say: "Lying is an American value." The key word here is "value" -- meaning that which we value.
Most Greek men, for example, slept around. They had sex with prostitutes, boys, etc. They generally held their wives in contempt. Now, true, a few Greek men (or even a sizable number) might have just had one woman though their whole life. True enough -- but that doesn't mean, ergo, that "Greeks valued monogamy." That might have happened, but it doesn't mean the society placed any particular value on it: Most of such a man's friends would probably have thought he was an idiot for passing up perfectly good sex.
I'm not playing word games here, Samuel: that's simply what "value" means. It refers to what a society holds to be the ideal, even when the society falls short of that. The Greeks valued man/man love more than that involving women, as they envisioned women as a lower form of being which polluted men. Romans had one wife, but sex outside of marriage wasn't a problem. Hindus, Muslims, native Americans, African aboriginals, Polynesians (and so on) thought there was nothing wrong with polygyny, etc.
Regarding mercy: you argue that Christians haven't always been merciful, citing the crusades, etc. Yes, that's true! But that doesn't mean that the idea of valuing mercy isn't a unique Christian value. Arab societies don't value mercy: The strong horse is admired, not the merciful one. The Greeks didn't value mercy: they felt it was a disgusting form of weakness the gods punished. In Hindu society, an act of mercy towards someone in a lower caste was often viewed as a violation of Karma. Buddhists talk of "compassion", but it's not an equivalent to the concept of mercy. Etc.
Again, your counter-argument here misunderstands the meaning of 'value' -- presuming when I say "Group X values Y" I must mean "Group X has never failed to practice Y". No, that simply not what "value" means. "Values" are about what is idealized or prized, not what is always achieved. Americans value thin women as beautiful; in the 19th century, Europeans valued plump women more. It doesn't follow, then, that Americans are thinner, and 19th century Europeans must have been fatter, as the form of your argument presumes.
(Quite to the contrary, in fact.)
Atheist values
I don't believe in the concept of free will. I have no choice in the matter- either all actions can be predicted with perfect knowledge (determinism) or they can't (randomness). Free will doesn't even get a category. And yes, this even applies with souls- the are either deterministic OR random.
Right: that's part of my thesis for this entire post, in fact. We're all necessarily meat machines in your worldview.
So why not just tear a few apart for the good of science, eh? Or deactivate the problematic ones, as atheists like Sam Harris suggest? After all, its not like we can hold the people on the killing end "responsible" -- they're meat-machines too, incapable of "free will", just doing what they do. We might as well get mad at water for running downhill, right?
And that is precisely why atheism racks up such awful body count when atheists get to rule. The religious were indeed bad: but the atheistic made them look like dilettantes.
And of course, while asserting such things, with absolute confidence, the atheist will then insist that "atheism is not an ideology". Right! It would never lead adherents to believe people were, you know, just machines.
And, of course, if your brain is just doing what it does, there's no reason to presume it's actually acting according to reason. You have no ability to really choose such a thing, so no reason on earth for you to actually believe your brain will necessarily produce...
Reason?
I believe in using evidence and logic to create my view of the world. I have seen criticisms of that- they all fail...
I don't criticize the use of reason. To the contrary, I value it and wish your assertion above were even remotely true. Sadly, it doesn't seem to be:
Once again, Godel's doesn't apply... His theorm deals with logical systems- and I am justifying my logical system on "that is how things work based on reality"
This is so cute: You insist, over and over, that you basic your beliefs on "reality" (apparently meaning only: your beliefs) and "reason and logic". Then, when logic refutes your key argument (that true things are those which can be proven) you claim that "logical systems" have nothing to do with "reality"! LOL!
Well, then you don't really believe in logic, do you?
(Funnier still: you apparently imagine you get to have your own, private "logical system" which in which fallacies (like those disproven by Godel) can somehow be magically true -- "my logical system"! LOL: No wonder you have such problems!)
You and I are fundamentally different, here, Samuel: I take logic very seriously. (Gee, I even know what it is! And it's not merely asserting, over and over, how "logic-based" you are.) As I've said, you haven't the faintest idea what reason is, and wouldn't know it if it walked up and hit you with a wet mackeral.
In frustration, Ryan wrote:
"You're still trying to win an argument by using a peculiar definition. Why not just address the argument as it's given rather than trying to turn it into some strawman?"
Precisely, Ryan. This is, among other things, one of the reasons I didn't actually become an atheist. When I was quite young, I had this impression that atheists were highly rational, etc. To my great shock, I found that a much higher percentage of their number wouldn't know how to reason their way out of a paper bag, including some of the top spokespersons whose writings I was reading.
Where I found not a few arguments for God ultimately unconvincing (Pascal's wager, etc.) in contrast, I found many or even most atheistic arguments didn't even pass the laugh test -- it seemed so much of it was blatant circular reasoning, straw men accomplished through novel definitions, proof by vigorous fiat ("I believe X! And if someone asserts otherwise, I shall counter their evidence by stating again, even more forcefully, 'I believe X!'"), and ad hominem arguments when all of the above fail.
The atheist says: "Well, I've seen problems in every proof for God!" Well, perhaps! But that doesn't mean that you can't do worse. Since the atheist is frequently convinced that his position is intrinsically reasonable, actual reason has no bearing.
Some, like this fellow, will toss "logic" out the window in a heartbeat if it seems to undermine one of his cherished dogmas. Admitting we're wrong is not an option, so, when cornered, we'll choose fallacies rather than reason.
For example:
The defininion of "supernatural": Supernatural doesn't exist by definition.... there is nothing outside reality. If reality is only our universe, that is it. If reality includes other universes, but they don't interact with ours, the statement is false...
Well, then, I believe in the supernatural, because I define it as existing. I define everything as part of the supernatural. So I'm right, by definition!
Wow, impressive form of proof you have there. Absolutely non-disprovable, but hey, I'm sure it makes you feel smart.
The nature of the mind
You asserted that the only things which existed were those we could prove. I mentioned Godel's proof. You argued "logical systems" (which could only mean logic itself, in that context) had nothing to do with your beliefs. (True enough!) You also backed off to saying we should only believe things for which we have evidence. I asked you for evidence of that. You have provided none.
You also asserted that the mind was only matter. I asked you for evidence of that. You wrote:
The fact that the human brain is made out of matter.... Given that there is no reason or evidence that shows it has any other property beside that found based on its structure...
If I had said: "The human mind contains no matter, and is not even partially constructed out of matter" the above might be a useful rebuttal. But I've asked you for evidence for your actual assertion, which was that the mind was only made of matter: a giant, predictable machine.
You assert (if I can parse your somewhat garbled syntax) that there is no evidence to the contrary. Well, wrong, but that's not the question anyway, is it?
Imagine Frank was missing, you implicated Bob, and I asked you:
"Prove that Bob murdered Frank."
And you responded: "There's no evidence that Bob didn't murder Frank." Possibly, but that's still not evidence for your assertion. We don't convict people on a lack of evidence to the contrary.
When you assert you have evidence for something (as you have done here), you have to provide it. Simply asserting (incorrectly, at that) that there's no evidence for other people's positions doesn't lead us to agree that there is indeed evidence for yours. This is really, really basic stuff.
So, let's try it one more time, okay? You have asserted we should only believe things which are supported by evidence. Where is your evidence that the mind is only matter? Not at least partially material (we both agree to that), but only matter.
I'm not asking you to complain that other people's beliefs might lack evidence. I'm asking you for the positive evidence of your belief. You're the one saying that it's wrong to believe without positive evidence (they might be fine with that), so you're the one who has to walk the walk. Show your evidence that the mind is nothing but matter, or admit you have none.
You still haven't told me what the previous term which meant "nonbeliever" was.
Answered above: I could also toss in "infidel", "unbeliever", "doubter", certain shades of "heathen", etc -- if you need single-word terms. And of course, the easiest one-word term for nonbeliever is... (drum roll) "nonbeliever." (Doh!)
But there's no reason to think an idea must be conveyed in only one word. Plenty of ideas fail to have a single word which sums them up in any particular language.
Chaos theory: Quantem mechanics is a problem when you deal with things on a small enough level- it is random. Fortunately enough randomness becomes predictable.... Randomness tends to smooth out on large enough scales.
Samuel: Again, asserting an incorrect answer over and over isn't a form of rebuttal.
No, randomness does not always tend to smooth out on large enough scales. In a non-chaotic system, that's true, but not in a chaotic system like the mind. (Nor weather.)
Again, I have asked you to read up on chaos theory. Either admit you're an ignoramus who has no such interest, drop the topic quietly to save face, refute chaos theory, or show I've misunderstood or misapplied it. Simply pretending it doesn't exist, over and over, isn't a valid form of rebuttal.
As I said, you wouldn't know reason (nor counter-evidence) if it walked up and slapped you with a wet fish.
Stephen Hawking & the nature of the universe:
Hawkings believes in a closed universe... Doesn't need a God.
Did you even bother to read the link you just supplied? You appear to have misunderstood what "closed universe" means there -- the term itself has little to nothing to do with evidence for or against God.
What "closed" or "open" means, in that sense, has to do with the rate of expansion of the universe -- not whether things can leave it or not, or whether anything exists "outside". A "closed" universe is one which will collapse in on itself eventually. An "open" universe is that expands indefinitely. (Ironically, considering your use of it, the article also notes that this aspect of Hawking's theory runs contrary to the evidence!)
And as far as Hawking's own opinion on whether his understanding of the universe and cosmology precludes "God" or not (much less anything "outside" our universe -- your actual original claim) I should think the way to investigate that would be to look at his own words.
Pointing to a short web page (one not written by him), misunderstanding its contents, and then asserting your belief again isn't a valid form of rebuttal. (Although it sure is a darned amusing one!)
Recently: Actually I asserted that logic allows nothing outside- I conflated universe with reality
You don't say!
From earlier: The whole is the universe.... There isn't anything outside. Given your total inability to understand me, I'll skip this until you take an astrophysics class.
So, hey! How's that astrophysics class working out for you? ;-) Learning much?
Given that we have no evidence of any interaction EVER with an "outside", it makes the whole point moot- we can treat them as nonexistant.
The hubris of an unlearned atheist astounds me.
Really, Samuel, you should write to Richard Dawkins and other prominent atheists who think it's very important that there be many other universes. You could, undoubtedly, teach them quite a bit about atheism and how to defend it properly. Clearly, they have a lot to learn from you!
(Of course "treat as unimportant" isn't quite the same as asserting they can't exist -- which was, of course, your position -- which you insisted, as usual, was "based on reality." (Apparently "Reality" = Less than 30 minutes thought on any given subject, and zero research.))
Questions can only have one answer!!!
It does have more than one answer though... hmm- need to revise definition.
Well, that's why I tacked on the few additional qualifiers which offended you in the first place: "If the question is formed or understood precisely enough, that is." I wasn't trying to pick a fight, I was actually just assuming you were being a tad verbally imprecise and was trying to agree with you.
I think what you were trying to say was something along the lines of: "What is, is -- that reality, from a certain hypothetical point of view, can be viewed as one state of something." But that has nothing to do with how precisely "questions" about it might be formed.
BTW: The last thing you need to do is revise another definition. Your belief that you personally get to "revise" definitions of things is quite a large part of your problem, Samuel.
On subjects of the nature of reality there is only one correct answer.
Sigh. Just when things were looking promising.
No, the subject has nothing to do with it. This is the same mistake you made last time, when you thought it was the subject of "personal preferences" which caused questions to allow multiple answers.
There is more than one answer to questions on contents of a category, which, by definiton, have a number of correct answers equal to the size of the category.
Well, duh. That's what I've been saying all along, which you've been insisting was wrong.
When some phrase (including a subpart of a question) specifies more than one object, we call that a category. A "category" is just a word or phrase which denotes multiple objects with some shared properties. Substitute the meaning of "category" into your statement, and you'll realize that all you're saying is: "there is more than one right answer to questions which denote more than one object." An ambiguous question.
Since you seem a bit confused here still (given the remark before this one) let me break it down a bit:
Every question has one or subjects (in the grammatical sense -- one or more noun clause). When I ask: "Does X do Y?", X is some noun or noun clause with a certain amount of specificity. (And there's room for ambiguity is the verb clause, "do Y", as well.) Until I narrow the words down with enough modifiers to allow only one reasonable meaning of X and Y, we have an ambiguous question -- that is, one which otherwise allows multiple answers.
For example, I might ask:
"Does the dog like carrots?"
That's an ambiguous question, which has more than one right answer: "Yes" or "no" depending on what interpretation is placed on "the dog": "Dog" is a word which only delineates a "category" of objects (that is, more than one, all sharing the trait of "dog"-ness).
If I add successive adjectives I can narrow the specification down to smaller and smaller numbers until I have a single object remaining: "Does *my dog* like carrots?" (or not, if I own more than one dog) "Does my *oldest* dog like carrots?" (And of course, even that might be ambiguous still, if there are more than one variety of carrot and she discriminates, or her taste otherwise varies from time to time.)
At the end, when I have enough modifiers, I can have a question which gives exactly one answer. The topic area in question (nature, personal preferences, etc.) has nothing to do with this process. ("Name a vegetable Bob likes" (preference) might have only one answer; "Name a universal constant" (a question, I would presume about "the nature of reality") might have multiple answers.)
Sadly, you can't even examine the form of the question itself (much less the topic area) to determine this: "Name the fruit that is inside this drawer" (points to drawer). If the drawer contains just one kind of fruit, it has a single answer. If the drawer contains an apple and a banana, it has multiple answers. (And if it's empty, it turns out the question was invalid, as it presumed, incorrectly, there was actually fruit in the drawer.) We won't know which kind of question it was until we actually open the drawer.
It has nothing to do with whether the question is about "reality" -- it has to do with how the question is phrased, and the question's "subject" (noun) -- not whether it pertains to something real or fictional, or a "nature" of something.
Lastly, I found it odd that you'd insist that a question about "pizza recipes" is somehow not a valid question because it's not about "the nature of reality." How is that different, in this regard, than asking any other "Name X" or "Does X exist?" question?
It sounds to me like when you're shown wrong, you just use the word "reality" as a vague sort of escape, sort of the way a squid throws up ink. You were making a mistake, but hey, it's okay because your opponent's rebuttal wasn't part of "reality" or "the nature of reality". (Meaning, apparently, whatever cherished beliefs you hold -- such as the elusive set of real questions -- by which we mean only the ones having one answer!)
The meaning of "faith"
By definiton faith is against evidence- if you have evidence, faith is irrelevant.
By *your* novel definition, that is. But if you're applying your definition to others, who don't share it, as using that as an important point in your argument, then you're engaged in a straw man argument.
Is that too difficult for you to understand?
Clearly.
I keep on thinking you are stupid because you say things that are obviously wrong and nonsense.
"Obviously"? Well, if they're "obviously" wrong, you should be able to easily to refute them. Instead, it looks as if your assertions are often wrong; in response you just repeat your beliefs over and over, offering no contrary evidence at all, or alleged evidence which you don't even seem to understand. ("Closed universe"? That was too funny!)
And here's what I think is going wrong for you, as looks from over here: Deep down inside, you know you're right. Problem is, it doesn't seem to come out that way! You seem to be caught out in mistake after mistake, and wrong time and time again. So you're forced to concede I must at least "know things" -- but of course, you assure yourself, I lack a real understanding of anything.
I mean, after all, how could I? It's impossible that you could be wrong, so if I'm not coming to your conclusion, I must have screwed up somewhere, no matter how often I'm apparently right, and how often you're apparently completely mistaken.
But you just don't seem to be able to put your finger on where, do you?
The problem is that you don't know how to reason. See above. Reason is not merely asserting your beliefs over and over. That's "believing something [merely] because you believe it" -- the very thing you imagine theists do is precisely what you are doing here.
If you truly cared about "reason", you would actually make some small attempt to avoid fallacious arguments. Instead, you cling to them as though your life depended upon it.
Why? Because you find the alternative unthinkable, perhaps.
To try and bring some more evidence to the issue of the polygamy or monogamy of tribes;
While I get the impression that most pre-industrial tribes were polygamous (I could be wrong) I can think of at least one possible counterexample. The Hopi seem to be monogamous.
Monogamy is the rule and the woman is the mistress of the house.Catholic Encyclopedia
There's a passage in the book of the Hopi (a recently transcribed oral tradition) criticizing a woman selling herself for large amounts of precious stones. This indicates that the Hopi, at least, (who may very well be the exception rather than the rule for such tribes) placed some negative value on sexual promiscuity.
Of course, there are also quite a few promiscuous tribes; The islanders of new guinea and the islanders of tasmania come to mind.
In the brief period of fifty years, under the tutelage of the missionaries, there has been a marked transition of family structure in one group of Australian Aborigines from polygynous to monogamous. Those who are now middle-aged have lived as man and wife in Western-style nuclear families. Presently, however, there is a tendency for the youth not to marry but for the young women to incorporate their offspring into the household of their monogamous parents.
link
Wow! Someone makes an argument by providing (at least anecdotal) counter-evidence? What an idea!
Here's some non-anecdotal evidence for the same:
Marriage was monogamous and was believed to last into the afterlife. In theory, people chose their own spouses, but high-ranking families to some extent controlled the marriage choices of their children. The marriage Ceremony involved a short period of groom-service by the bride and an elaborate exchange of goods from both sides. The leading families of high-ranking clans tended to intermarry.
On the other hand, it doesn't seem that they valued "lifelong monogamy" (the proposed value):
Marriages dissolved with some frequency. Sexual fidelity was expected, but infidelity was known and often a subject of gossip and conjecture. It was not punished, though separation frequently resulted.
From what I know, the Hopi were indeed somewhat unusual in this regard.
I would also wonder, a bit, about the possibility cultural contamination. Given that the first contact with Christian culture was in 1540 -- with the first Christian Mission established in 1629 -- and the "Book of Hopi" being written down just this century -- that's 400 or more years. People have a tendency to play down the less attractive bits of one's culture -- much less in almost half a millennium of contact.
Not exactly the "pristine" case we'd be looking for, eh?
Here is an account recorded in 1601:
Marriage was not conceptualized as a monogamous life-long tie. The Indians "make agreements among themselves and live together as long as they want to, and when the woman takes a notion, she looks for another husband and the man for another wife," asserted Joseph Brondate in 1601. Serial monogamy was the norm except among successful seniors who were always described as polygamous.
Later:
These "papas", as the sixteenth-century explorers called the heads of successful households, were often polygamous. "The men have as many wives as they can support," wrote Gaspar Perez de Villagra in 1610. "I saw Indians who had five or six wives," attested Marcelo de Espinosa. Brondate concurred and added that the martial system was sexually asymmetrical: men could have several wives but "women have only one husband."
Not too different than the arrangement in many places, where younger men typically have but one wife, but older, more powerful men have access to many. (Really, you could see why the leaders -- the older men -- might favor such a system.)
Of course my assertion was only that Christian culture is the source of these values for Western Atheists. Even if the Hopi *had* viewed lifelong monogamy as the ideal (which they apparently did not), we wouldn't assert that the typical Western Atheist had absorbed his beliefs from them. ;-)
Morality is the study of right and wrong. Simple definition really.
Because other societies promoted said values.
Indirect observation is still observation since all observation is indirect to one degree or another.
The effect on a society doesn't count as evidence. Things are true independant of the effects on society unless they are fields like morality and government. God's existance isn't such a field.
Except that 3 and 5 are "just because"... which is without evidence.
What spiritual experiences can't be accounted for? So far drugs, deprivation and electrodes can do everything.
No, steel is just wood with more strength. Well, not really, but it is the same as wood- just slightly differant properties.
Given the fact that we have made computers capable of showing unexpected behavior, we are just barely on the path to making sentiance. At this point it is simply an argument from ignorance.
The dictionary definition has faith as "belief in something where there is no proof" and proof as "being based on evidence".
So faith is beliefs that aren't based on evidence. Does it mean they contradict evidence? It isn't required, but in the case of belief in God, yes they do.
See "Atheism- Proving the Negative".
But given the fact God is all powerful and wants people to worship him, it should be obvious. It isn't. So in that case, such a God doesn't exist.
I'm not suggesting any theories. I'm simply saying that given what we see in the universe YOUR theory is impossible. Interestingly enough atheism is more predictive of theism- all religious occurances have a natural explanation. Lo and behold they all do... except the inspectors "chosen" religion.
Feelings are states of mind, right?
Christians banned slavery in the 8th century and brought it back in the 11th. It isn't really an essential part of Christian doctrine. It is worth noting that the "Christian" system was cruel even by Roman standards- a third died in transit.
Space-time seems to disagree
Given the definition of time, you are wrong.
I used your definition of faith.
The Europeans had Galen and Aristotle- theories they didn't toss till the late renisance.
Honesty- caring about the truth. You have stated that you want to see its effect on societies. That is irrelevant to where or not its claim about reality is true.
That is irrelevant. Free will is a concept based on psychology. As such the truth of the matter is unrelated to how people react. Not to mention that most human civilizations got along fine without caring about it.
My GPS can give me the time of my arrival at home to a minutes accuracy. And it is just the beginning. If you knew the water currents you could get accurate data for the boat.
Yes. There is no more reason to believe Christianities miracles than other religions.
Sentience is unrelated to determinism. Sentience is a property of the completity of a mind and its ability to think out choices and make them.
The Romans killed Christian because they were distruptive to the social order. They didn't care if you worshipped one god or a thousand- as long as you worshipped the emperor and weren't an atheist.
Saying atheists have an equaly bad track record is disingenious- the correct term is communists have an equally bad track record.
Indirect observation is still observation since all observation is indirect to one degree or another.
The effect on a society doesn't count as evidence. Things are true independant of the effects on society unless they are fields like morality and government. God's existance isn't such a field.
You don't see this as just a little contradictory? If it's okay to understand the material world through indirect observation what is the point of using a different standard for God? If you really want evidence, and if you believe all evidence is indirect why suddenly change standards when we start talking about God?
Except that 3 and 5 are "just because"... which is without evidence.
Dude, read the comment rules. You're not even addressing my argument.
Absence of an assertion vs. an assertion of absence. The two are not the same thing.
What spiritual experiences can't be accounted for? So far drugs, deprivation and electrodes can do everything.
I'll try and stay pretty basic here. Dramatic positive personality changes? How well do you think these things work for drug treatment programs? Drugs can effect the mind, sure. This is obvious to anyone. Noone is disputing this. but there's a limit to how well they can positively effect the mind.
If there was a drug that encouraged people to stay married and take care of their kids, I'd like to see it.
No, steel is just wood with more strength. Well, not really, but it is the same as wood- just slightly differant properties.
Yes, it's the same, but different. The differences are why, as you noted, they couldn't weren't building skyscrapers with wood. Anyways, if you're seriously interested in this topic check out "On Intelligence" by Jeff Hawkins. He explains the situation in a lot more detail than I can go into here, and his book is very well written.
Given the fact that we have made computers capable of showing unexpected behavior, we are just barely on the path to making sentiance.
What, specifically, are you referring to here? Could you please give some kind of citation? You're making some pretty assertive statements. How much have you actually read about neural networks and what they can and cannot do?
At this point it is simply an argument from ignorance.
Not at all. Hawkins has demonstrated some very specific problems with the current behavior of neural nets, such that a different model will have to be developed before computers can even simulate sentience.
The dictionary definition has faith as "belief in something where there is no proof" and proof as "being based on evidence".
You are deliberately excluding certain definitions of proof here to try and make your point. But I'll make it simple. Go to some other board with some religious folks on it, and ask them if they think that "faith in God" means "belief without any evidence" or "belief against evidence." Then you can at least understand what they mean when they say it, and not think that their claim to faith is a claim to believe against the evidence. That is, of course, if you really want to know what their meaning is.
But given the fact God is all powerful and wants people to worship him, it should be obvious. It isn't. So in that case, such a God doesn't exist.
That view doesn't accurately represent God's motivations as presented in the Bible. You can certainly disagree with that representation or call it illogical, but it doesn't say "God is trying to prove his existance to as many people as possible." Tim gives one example on the other thread of Jesus forbidding those he has healed to talk to others "lest they turn and be healed."
The biblical view may be an accurate view of God or an inaccurate view. Or God may not exist at all. But a God which is trying to prove his existance to as many people as possible is not the same as God as depicted in the bible.
I'm not suggesting any theories. I'm simply saying that given what we see in the universe YOUR theory is impossible.
And I'm saying that you've repeatedly shown that you don't understand what my theory is.
Interestingly enough atheism is more predictive of theism- all religious occurances have a natural explanation. Lo and behold they all do... except the inspectors "chosen" religion.
What do you mean, exactly. I'm not arguing for or against the statement, but "all religious occurances" is a bit general. How many religious occurances have you studied well enough to make a definitive judgement on?
Feelings are states of mind, right?
Of course. And they have physical manifestations.
Space-time seems to disagree. Given the definition of time, you are wrong.
I don't know what this is in reference to? Please give some context or I won't be able to respond.
You argue from definitions a lot. If our definition of a thing disagrees with the reality, we change our definition. Not the other way around. The key here is physical evidence and experiments.
I used your definition of faith.
When?
The Europeans had Galen and Aristotle- theories they didn't toss till the late renisance.
Dude. Context. Please. I don't know what 60% of your statements refer to.
Honesty- caring about the truth. You have stated that you want to see its effect on societies. That is irrelevant to where or not its claim about reality is true.
Why? Consider this example; Religion claims that it will have X positive, unusual effect on society. Religion is shown, via evidence, to have X positive, unusual effect on society. Why would that not be evidence in favor of the religion. If religion made such a claim and failed to have the claimed effect, that would certainly be evidence against the faith.
As such the truth of the matter is unrelated to how people react. Not to mention that most human civilizations got along fine without caring about it.
If a statement is true, then it is predicitive. If it is not predictive, of what value is it?
My GPS can give me the time of my arrival at home to a minutes accuracy. And it is just the beginning. If you knew the water currents you could get accurate data for the boat.
Seriously, this doesn't even address issues of chaos theory or quantum mechanics. Could you please start by reading through this. Newtonian physics can be predicitive under certain cirucmstances, but not others.
Sentience is unrelated to determinism. Sentience is a property of the completity of a mind and its ability to think out choices and make them.
Except it doesn't really 'think out choices' if it's deterministic, does it?
Why is such a system any different than water falling over a waterfall. That's complex too.
Saying atheists have an equaly bad track record is disingenious- the correct term is communists have an equally bad track record.
Would you apply this same standard to Judaism or Christianity? Would you say that it's disingenious to say that Christians have a bad track record. It's just those people who believed in the inquisition who have a bad track record?
Or what if I said "antitheists have a bad track record." To claim that religion is harmful is certainly a positive assertion, and one that you share with many brutal dictators. My point here isn't to attack you, but to say "you need to judge others by the same standard that you'd like to be judged by." Let me know if you think that that makes sense.
I'll be back.. I have to hit ideology first.
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So, humorously enough, the popularity of the "atheism is not an ideology" argument is itself strong evidence that atheists can indeed be ideologues.
And here I thought all along that all the parroting between atheists, and lack of rational, coherent arguments, or accurate knowledge of history was a good sign that the vast majority of them were ideologues. :D
(And it should be "as they have done with the religious" in the last sentence. I don't recall grouping myself with Wahabbis... ;-) )
Posted by: Michael Zappe on June 6, 2008 10:34 AM