Hellow from the Pacific NW!

skeptic23
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Hellow from the Pacific NW!

Glad to find this place. I'm a former Christian coming out of a 15-year period of reevaluating of all my beliefs from scratch, down to the very existence of God. In the process I've spent a fair amount of time reading and listening to atheists. I figured that atheists would be better acquainted with the reasons for not believing in gods than anyone else. I've been frustrated in that effort. I hope there are those here who can help me with that.

Just to clear the air, I'm not a covert theist operative, as some have taken me for elsewhere. I understand why they did: my thinking tends to be hard to categorize. I ask questions about things a lot of people take for granted. It's interesting how much suspicion gets aroused when you question the "obvious" or suspend belief for longer than others are comfortable with.

I went on the About.com Agnosticism / Atheism forum a couple of years ago trying to understand why atheists choose atheism. At the time, it seemed strange to me that an intellectual/theoretical position would label and define itself by reference to what it denied. If atheism doesn't depend on the existence of theism in order to define itself, what does it mean to be an "atheist?" How could LACK of something ("a" - without, "theism" - belief in god[s]) form the basis for collective identity and provide anything cohesive enough to maintain a sense of belonging and shared interest?

I got schooled. What I learned there is that atheism for the folks I conversed with was actually a kind of anti-theism, but not as an intellectual position. I was given to believe that apart from the influence--even pressure--of theists, atheists would simply think of themselves as  human beings. In other words, "atheism" = normal human thinking, "theism" = human thinking corrupted by the addition of belief in gods. In my residual theistic bias, I had made atheism = lack of theism, while atheists seem not to have any sense of lack (gee, go figure...) I guess I can be forgiven for my presumption, since I spent most of my life in Christian circles. To me the question of God's existence was a valid question. To the atheists on that forum, the question itself was symptomatic of a problem in thinking.

That brought me to an interesting and revealing insight. I experienced the same kind of reaction more than once in my life from theists when I brought their basic beliefs (foundational, self-evident, I-have-no-justification-for-them beliefs) into question, even though I was sympathetic to them. I realized that theists consider the question of atheism as an aberration of thought and atheists consider the question of theism as an aberration of thought. Given that, how could there ever be meaningful discussion between the two positions?

What I really hope to do here is understand why atheists choose to become atheists. I expect that the reasons are wide and varied, but they all have one thing in common: they all result in atheism. I already understand a great deal about why theists choose to become theists. My frustration with understanding atheists so far is that they exhibit the same reluctance to examine their foundational beliefs that theists do. Most of what I've read and heard atheists say boils down to reasons why it doesn't make sense to seriously entertain the possibility of the existence of gods. This seems like the flip side of the theistic refusal to seriously entertain the possibility that gods do not exist. Both seem like opposing sides of the same coin of denial.

What both theists and atheists have in common is that we all went through a process to arrive at our respective positions. One striking difference between theists and atheists is the way that they talk about their individual processes. The processes described by theists tend to focus on constructive elements (what did happen, what it did mean) while those of atheists seem to focus on deconstructive elements (realizing what didn't happen, realizing that it didn't mean what it seemed to mean.)

As an example of the latter, consider Sir Bertrand Russell's description of his own process. It is from a 1959 interview in which he is asked about his atheism. Here is Richard Dawkins' page with a link to the interview: http://richarddawkins.net/articles/4833. In response to the question, "…when did you first decide that you did not want to remain a believer in the Christian ethic?" Russell said:

"I never decided that I didn't want to remain a believer, I decided… Between the ages of 15 and 18, I spent almost all my spare time thinking about Christian dogmas and trying to find out whether there was any reason to believe them. And by the time I was 18, I had discarded the last of them. "

What has always struck me about this answer is not that he rejected Christian dogmas, but some more basic things that I have yet to read or hear him comment about. For example, what motivated him to spend so much time and energy evaluating Christian dogmas? I can't think of many Christians who have put that kind of effort into evaluating the very dogmas that they claim to believe. That was some serious motivation. And why did he focus on dogmas in the first place? In other words, why did he conceive of the question in terms of dogma? Did he consider alternative ways to frame the question? Why did he think that disposing of Christian dogmas would mean that he had disposed of Christianity?

If we don't understand the basic beliefs and motivations that prompted us to start our processes and drove us through them, we don't really understand why we ended up in our current positions, and to that degree we don't understand the positions themselves. I want to talk to people about their processes in order to understand them and to understand myself. That's why I'm here.

Am I in the right place?

When The Church, i.e., organized religion collectively, divests itself of its obscene wealth, gives it all to feed the poor, and releases its death grip on the minds of its adherents, I will once again listen to what it has to say, which at that point I'm sure will be very little.

Man has to awaken to wonder — and so perhaps do peoples.
Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus


robj101
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butterbattle wrote: On this

butterbattle wrote:

 

On this forum, I don’t think anything we talk about is going to matter much. Outside of the Internet, in real life, beliefs do matter though. Whether or not the theist thinks God hates homosexuals or thinks women are inferior or allows people to work on Sunday matters.

But, of course, we’re not here just to talk about things that matter. We’re also here just because we enjoy discussing and thinking about these things; it’s fun.
 

To the contrary, I think a lot of skeptics peruse this forum who may or may not participate. Many topics have been debated here and some people probably learn something, and it probably makes others *think*.

Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin


BobSpence
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Hey, skeptic23, I think I

Hey, skeptic23, I think I missed seeing this post...

skeptic23 wrote:

BobSpence1 wrote:

Skeptic23, I do not like your use of the word 'reality' to refer to what is really our personal model of reality, progressively built up and refined from our personal experience and what we digest from other people's accounts of their experiences, ideas, and beliefs. It confuses the issue to use the word that way.

I don't use it the way you seem to have taken my use of it. Mental models are cognitive products, artifacts if you will. When I say that reality is our cognitive representation of existence, I'm talking about what we're learning about how the brain works. The brain actually doesn't process light photons: our retina does that. What we "see" as light is the result of our retinas sending non-photonic signals to our brains via the optic nerves. What our brains process as "light" is actually a representation of light, not light itself. And so on for all our senses. By the time the brain has all the info it needs to actually patch together what I experience as a scene--sights, sounds, smells, temperature, tactile, etc.--it's ALL a representation. Actually, it's at least a two-fold representation. One, it's all formed by neural signals that REPRESENT the original stimuli. Second, it's a pattern-organizing process by our brains to assemble all those discrete representations into a representation of the whole scene, a representation of assembled representations of signals sensed by my sensory organs.

I think the distinction is very important because, with apologies to any rationalists out there, MUCH of what determines our thinking happens down there where all those subordinate representations are being translated, transferred, and assembled. We don't have a clue how much. I always go by the iceberg rule: if you can see anything at all, it's no more than 1/4 the whole, the rest of which lies hidden.

I think of models you mentioned as abstractions, way up the abstraction/representation chain from the level of "representation" which I identify with our "realities."

Quote:

It seems to me that your idea explicitly abuses the normal usage of the word, as in my dictionary: (The New Oxford American Dictionary, online on my Mac )

Haha! It wouldn't be the first time, and it won't be the last. I find the dictionary helpful, not authoritative. In fact, dictionaries attempt to track current usage. Language has become too fluid to admit an authority any longer, and it's only going to become moreso as language barriers are bridged and knowledge increases require new vocabularies.

I fully understand all those steps that intervene between reality and our ultimate models of that reality.  Actually it does not add much to the argument to discuss all the intermediate physical steps that occur, as photons are translated into nerve-signals, etc. I don't care that the immediate optic nerve signals are just a 'representation' of the pattern of photons hitting the retina, that is not the issue.

The important process is where the already pre-processed nerve signals representing the raw pattern of stimulation of the retina are allowed to trigger various specific shape- and pattern-recognition circuits in the brain, before they get to our conscious level, which are further correlated at a level below consciousness before manifesting in our consciousness as visual images. There is a continual synthesis of the original scene in our consciousness from what are very fragmentary signals which don't necessarily map in any simple way to the original scene.

We learn as infants to interpret the signals arriving at the conscious level into a 'picture' of reality. This is why things like the fact that the image on our retina is inverted are quite irrelevant, altho some people make a big issue of our ability to correct for that by the time it reaches our consciousness. I love those experiments where they got people to wear inverting spectacles, which showed that the brain can re-program itself to correct for such physical distortions so that they eventually perceived things more-or-less normally.

EDIT: In fact this learning process is a good example of how an internal model is built up and refined by interaction with the environment via our sensory channels, by trial and error feedback, no doubt guided by evolved neural 'logic' circuits. It shows how very useful and practically accurate models can be formed thru channels which are not perfect, but convey sufficient information about key features of the environment, which have been found by evolutionary 'experience' to be most important. This is how actual knowledge is formed, by an iterative process, so it does not require sensory channels which funnel highly detailed data about our environment into our consciousness. By augmenting the process by our instruments, we have been able to built up an enormous and very useful collective model of reality, including of our own mental activity such as this process itself. /EDIT.

I still do not agree that 'reality' is an appropriate word to apply to these cognitive models of reality, which I still see as referring to whatever is actually 'out there', and explicitly blurs or confuses precisely the distinction you are trying to make, which I agree is important. It does this precisely because you are using it in a way which conflicts with its normal usage as recorded in the dictionary. It is OK to extend the usage of a word beyond its common 'dictionary' definition, if there seems no more suitable word of simple phrase to capture what you are trying to express, but your usage appears to me to be too explicitly in contradiction to its regular usage, which negates the purpose of having a convenient term to encapsulate your ideas.

I find my understanding fully incorporates all the issues you raise there, and more, but I appreciate your spelling out of how you see the process, which does not seem to be in fundamental conflict with mine.

Quote:

Quote:

It is part of reality that we have this model, this approximation, to actual external reality and the internal reality of what our brain contains and how it actually works.

Please see my response to Nigel where I try for effect to tongue-twist myself with the keyboard about mind and body and internal and external. They are clear notions only once we have made some usually unstated decisions about reference and context.

Yeah, a bit nit-pickery.

Quote:

Quote:

So, of course, there is a subtle distinction in the way the two words refer to reality, to 'what exists', but they really are referring to the same thing.

I do not like abuse of words in this way, it is a fundamental contribution to misunderstanding and confusion.

I hope we have straightened you out on your misunderstanding of 'atheism' displayed in your OP...

In order...

I think I've made it clear why I don't think they are the same thing. I'm not hung up on the terms "existense" and "reality" but I haven't encountered improvements. I'm pretty stuck on the categories, though, regardless of terms, until someone can show me an improvement. Like I've mentioned a couple of times, significant errors in our thinking can result from not making a distinction between existence and our immediate, cognitive representation of it, which representation is all we have access to in order to gain knowledge about existence.

I do not consider my usage abuse at all. "Abuse" sounds a bit inflammatory, anyway. What have I abused, i.e., what has been damaged, by my usage?

I covered this above. What is damaged is the communication of your ideas to other people trying to make sense of your ideas. It is confusing and/or misleading. I prefer to use terms explicitly referring to our internal 'models of reality'.

Quote:

As to being straightened out, I came asking questions and describing my ideas in order to get feedback, not pushing my views. I did describe some of the mistakes I made in the past. Is that what you are referring to?

Frankly, by using expressions like "abuse" and "straightened you out" I feel a little like you just tried to slap my hand. If so, how come? It isn't called for; I'm not trying to push anything or offend anyone. If not, my apologies for having a thinner hide than I claimed earlier!

I understand that you are not 'pushing your views', and I have not found anything you said offensive in the personal sense, although I confess aspects of your world-view have triggered my "bull-shit" detector a bit. IOW I find more than a few things that I disagree with, to varying extents from mild and pedantic to somewhat more serious and misguided.

I am providing you with feedback.

Apologies if my feedback came across a bit harsher than you expected. Were you a little surprised at some of the things which I focussed on to criticise?

I confess I do get a little 'impatient' when I perceive someone making what I see as fundamental errors, not that you quite got to that level. It was that sort of thing which made me phrase things a little harshly, possibly combined with an impression that you came across to me as a little condescending to people with conventional 'atheist' understandings, when it quickly became clear to me that you really did not understand where people like myself were coming from. As epitomised by your phrase in the OP of wanting to "understand why atheists choose to become atheists."

I think I can confidently say I have been considering these issues for far longer than you have, like more than half-a-century. Altho I confess I did not go through any phase where I took any religious view at all seriously, so that no doubt is a big part of our differences. You seem to be still trying to make an argument for cleaned-up, somewhat rationalised version of Theism. 

I can understand why you would do that, psychologically, as to admit you had spent a major part of your life accepting something which had no merit at all would not be easy. Damn, did that come across a bit condescending? Sorry, but then some of your words hit me that way.... 

 

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


nigelTheBold
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Again, I disclaim: though it

Again, I disclaim: though it sounds like I'm preaching, I'm not. I'm just presenting how I see the relevance of science to our own lives. I just happen to be passionate about the subject. Smiling

skeptic23 wrote:

Haha, I decided to take matters into my own hands to bend the real world to my will. That didn't work, so I just ran away. It bothers me much less now than it used to.

So now I know I need to be careful about throwing things out there for effect; you respond to everything! I really appreciate your responses, too, because they are helping me understand your way of looking at things. I wish we had something better than language to use to communicate with each other. One day we will. For now it's a catch-22 of inferring tons from a little language (very risky proposition if communication is important to you) or take incredible time and effort and use lots and lots of language to triangulate on what the verbiage actually signifies to the speaker and filter out misunderstandings. So, I opt for the latter.

 -- By the way, I wrote what follows BEFORE I discovered that you are a coder... Eye-wink

Gah! Real world is interfering with my time. The weekend went by without any time to respond. (I didn't realize a duct tape festival could consume so much time, but -- cheesecake on a stick! I mean, any food on a stick is good, but cheesecake is really pushing the envelope.)

Aaaanyway. I don't think we necessarily disagree on much. You've not said much that contradicts my understanding. The only difference seems to be the emphasis on the unreliability of perception (which seems to be your stand) vs. the ability of science to mitigate the unreliability of perception (which is my view).

So, two quick things before I have to get back to my work. First will be the logical necessity of the epistemology of science. Second will be the hard problem of consciousness (which I'll abdicate to Daniel Dennett).

Science makes a few assumptions about the nature of reality (or existence, if you prefer). Science assumes reality is consistent, objective, and observable. These three things are necessary for science to work.

Reality must be observable if we are to perceive anything at all. If existence were not observable, we are left with nothing at all. Fortunately, observation of the world around us turned out to be an evolutionary advantage. The fact that our perception matches reality to the degree necessary to draw correct conclusions about our environment turns out to be a survival trait. Hurray for observation! Note that "degree necessary to draw correct conclusions" doesn't mean our perceptions (sensory input) and observations (abstracted and processed perceptions) are infallible. It just means that our perceptions and observations are sufficient to build a model of the world around us that allows us to make predictions about future states. This is important: the less our internal models of reality match objective reality, the less reliable the future predictions. This is the crux of the matter.

Note the other two assumptions built in to the "observable" assumption. Reality must be objective, or it becomes arbitrary (and leads to solipsism). It must be consistent, or it becomes arbitrary (and leads to nihilism).

"But wait!" you might say. "Consistency is not a binary state. And objectivity may be a gradient, as well. You can assume some things are random, and some things consistent. You can also assume subjectivity influences objective existence."

Those would certainly be valid points. The problem then becomes one of determining what is objectively real, and what is subjectively real (as in, 'really exists, but due to subjective supervenience'). It's hard to have a little bit of solipsism. As soon as you admit there is subjective reality, objective reality becomes tainted to the point of being uncertain. Similarly, if reality turned out to be inconsistent, practical logic would become impossible. As Hume noted, we rely on inductive logic in essentially everything we do. (Popper later expanded that, and inverted the concept of 'proof.')

There are places of reality that appear to be random (such as quantum mechanics, or even stochastic processes such as weather or even the flow of water in a stream). Even here, there is a strange consistency. By taking an abstracted model, randomness appears to be statistically consistent.

There is one more assumption science makes about reality, but it is a working assumption, rather than a necessary assumption. That assumption is that the universe is coherent, that everything fits together the way a solid puzzle fits together. This is what drives the search for unification of relativity and QM, and even for an accurate explanatory model of QM itself.

As for the "hard problem" of consciousness: Daniel Dennett handles the issues much better than I ever could. So, I'll refer you to Two Black Boxes: A Fable.

Note that his answer to the "hard problem" doesn't satisfactorily address your issues here:

Quote:
It's not a problem within a materialistic view of things, but it's a problem when you try to start from that view and rationally derive a basis for things like the conventional notion of a non-material mind, personal identity, human values, in fact, ethics itself or “morality” if you prefer. The problem is that we “read things into” notions that seem very intimately involved in our own will to survive, things that require non-material realities which, when we strip them away, make things like personal identity and ethics very different than the kinds of things that would support human behavior that respects personal identities and complies with ethics or morality.

If my understanding of the "hard problem" is correct, the questions you present here are distinct from the hard problem. As a disclaimer: my beef with the hard problem is that it smuggles in the idea of dualism, and so creates a strawman version of consciousness. It does this in the same way that the cosmological argument for God begs the question by assuming fine-tuning, necessitating something to "tune" the universe.

That said, science can tell us the nature of personal identity. It has gone a long way already. I'll see if I can round up references to some good books on the subject, if you like. It won't change how we experience personal identity, of course. But it might assist in understanding certain mental diseases, at a minimum, and hopefully quell the dualists (though I think nothing will change their minds about the objective existence of 'mind' separate from 'body').

This comes back to the realms of scientific inquiry. You certainly can't arrive at morality by reductional materialism. Thank Grue materialism has come a long way in the last hundred years, and can include information processing as well as simple chemical reactions and the flow of electricity. As science answers the reductionist question of "how does the mind work?", we get to answer questions of morality by simply assuming the mind works (a fairly safe assumption, I think).

So, here's how I see it (and this is why I don't think we're that far from accord, though I could be wrong):

Science can only inform us about the objective nature of reality (or "existence," if you prefer). As I noted above, the more accurate our model of reality, the better our predictions about the future. (In one sense, we define the "accuracy" of our model as its predictive power, which is perhaps a tautology. However, it's a tautology built from the epistemic assumptions of science, as both the 'accuracy' and 'predictive power' are really just two re-formulations of the assumptions of science.) The more we incorporate objective knowledge into our working model of reality (our world-view, as the kids like to say these days), the better our predictions about the future.

At that point, our society can answer questions of morality by asking (and answering!) things like, "What kind of a future do we want our kids to live in?" and, "What can we do now to ensure that future comes to pass?"

Science certainly can't tell us what we want. But it can certainly help us get there. That's something simply "feeling" what you want can't do. And in spite of the claims of The Secret, no amount of wishful thinking will make the future you desire come to pass. It's the actions you take based on your desires that influence the future -- and the better your understanding of the processes that shape the future, the better your influence will be.

Coda: for a recent sad and funny example of why a more-accurate world-view is superior to a less-accurate world-view, you have no farther to look than Louisiana.

 

[EDIT addendum]

This article seems timely. It's a celebration of our faulty cognition. It's basically covers something I mentioned briefly: that our intuition is a great information processing system that works so well because it takes shortcuts, and so can be wrong. But it mentions something I think you are hinting at: that being wrong can be a good thing.

"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers


skeptic23
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Bob, I have been surprised

Bob,

I have been surprised by the tone of your recent posts. It was nice to see some awareness of your condescending attitude in your last post. I am interested in understanding things, which for me includes being corrected on points that I misunderstand and being called out on points that I've based on fallacious reasoning or insufficient basis. That's no problem for me. I didn't come to try to change anyone's mind, but to validate whether some patterns that I see in the god debate are actually there and to discover what they are about.

Condescension implies a superior perspective. So far, you have exhibited plenty of superior attitude, but I haven't found your thinking to be superior. I keep asking for explanation so that I can see if there is a basis for your presumed superiority. It's easy for me to defer when there is something there worth deferring to.

I gave you that list of 9 points for clarification to make a statement and see how you would respond to it. Since your response doesn't indicate that you got the statement, I'll put it explicitly for you. Although your posts clearly indicate that you have not understood my intent on this forum and you clearly dislike what I write, please realize that your posts are unclear when it comes to rational content. I'm well aware that your posts seem very rational to you. Why they seem so clear to you when they are so unclear in fact is precisely the kind of phenomenon I'm trying to explore.

Given your particular set of assumptions, your position makes all kinds of sense to you. I have a vague notion of your assumptions that I'm forced to supplement with what I know from conversing with other atheists who say the same things you do. I don't like doing that, because I find that presumptuous. Thus my requests for explanation. I'm trying to get to your assumptions. What if you were to start with different assumptions? Is that not OK to consider? Can you recognize what your assumptions are? Can you recognize the difference between yours and mine? Do you have reasons for preferring your assumptions over mine? What are those reasons? Are you able to seriously consider any of these questions? The possibility of discussing those questions with you seems to diminish as we go along.

I wrote this early in the day yesterday, before your second post, so I've toned down my comments after seeing some evidence of self-awareness in your last post.

Let me be blunt. You struck me as someone with a bone to pick, presumably with theists. Now I see that you have a bone to pick with bullshitters. Good. So do I. However, I see a difference between hypotheses and bullshit. Like bullshit, a hypothesis posits things that we have no reason to believe are necessarily true. Finding reasons to accept or reject what we posit is precisely the reason for creating and testing the hypothesis. Bullshit posits things that, likewise, there is no reason to believe are true. Bullshit does this in a way that makes us think that there are reasons and that we should believe them without appropriate examination and testing. So, a big difference between bullshit and hypotheses is that the bullshitter puts disincentives in place to prevent examination and testing, while a hypothesis is made precisely so that it can be examined and tested. This difference is due to the antithetical purposes for bullshit and hypotheses. Bullshit is intended to hide the truth from us. Hypotheses are intended to ferret out and reveal the truth. Diametrically opposed intents. My intent for things like my definitions of "existence" and "reality" is the latter, not the former.

Maybe your bullshit button will get pushed less by my posts if you look at my posts the way that they are intended: hypothetical. I have made a few truth statements, but precious few in spite of repeated requests that I do so. My definitions of “existence” and “reality” are hypothetical, working definitions that I am finding useful. In reacting to my use of them the way that you did, you essentially objected to my exercising imagination. The rational content of your comments in response to my definitions was valid, but the emotionalism that they reeked of had nothing to do with being rational, and the implication that I had no right to make and use those definitions was bogus.

What I hoped you would do when you saw that list of 9 things was take a look at your prior posts and realize how polemical they were, maybe ratchet down the dogmatism a bit, and start communicating in a way that helps me understand your position instead of faulting me repeatedly because I don't seem to "get it." Your last post indicates that you've ratcheted the polemics down a bit. I'd also encourage you to evaluate the source and motivations for your condescending attitude. It's not helping your case.

I do have some specific responses to your post just previous to your last. I haven't had time to give fair consideration to your last yet, so I'll respond to that separately.

BobSpence1 wrote:

First, a small apology - I did not have the time to read through all your very long posts, so my response was mostly based on reading nigel's response, including the fragments of your posts he quoted. So I will be making sure in this response I check at least the more relevant parts of your posts before formulating my response. I acknowledge you said "research", not "evidence". To that extent it was a misquote.

 

So right out of the gate you admit that your attacks on things like my “abuse” of terms were based on NOT reading my posts. Gads, man, you copy-and-pasted dictionary entries in your post to prove that I was making a “fundamental contribution to misunderstanding and confusion!” Are YOU serious? What's more, I didn't ask for an apology, I asked you not to misquote me. I guess that was an unreasonable request, given that you had not yet read anything that you could have correctly quoted.

BobSpence1 wrote:

skeptic23 wrote:
Bob, please don't misquote me. Here is what I wrote, the only time I have used the word "gobs" in any of my posts. 

Quote:
We have gobs of research that shows how unreliable our senses are and how unreliable our instruments are and how unreliable the minds of those to use and interpret both of them are.

We do have research that shows all those things, unreliable in two ways: producing erroneous results and severely limited in power and range compared to what we need in order to answer the questions we have. Are you denying this? 

 

Yes I am pretty much denying what you said at the end there, at least in the somewhat simplistic, over-stated and over-generalised way you put it. Unless you include some indication of degree of inaccuracy and error, what you say is actually devoid of useful information or meaning.

Of course, all our perceptions, our introspective perceptions of the workings of our own mind, all our instruments, are imperfect, flawed, open to actual fault or failure. That is a given.

So, here you first deny what I said "at the end there," that we have research that shows that our senses, instruments, and minds are unreliable in terms of accuracy and sufficiency. That was the extent of my claim. 

Then in the very next statement, you say that “all our perceptions, our introspective perceptions of the workings of our own mind, all our instruments, are imperfect, flawed, open to actual fault or failure, and that this is a given.”

Exactly how does your second statement of what "is a given" differ from my initial claim? To this reader, it sounds like nothing more than a paraphrase of my claim. Exactly what is it that you were denying, what I said or the fact that it was me who said it?

BobSpence1 wrote:

skeptic23 wrote:
I'm wondering what are you reacting to? I didn't compare the relative reliability of our senses vs. instrumentation, nor did I mention the quality of our "core" of data. You seem to feel the need to affirm these things as if I had mentioned them somehow.

I am reacting to your apparent attempt to put theories about the nature of reality beyond the world of our imagination and intuition that are based on, supported by, data ultimately derived thru our senses, ie from the world and our limited ability to observe the workings of our own mind, on the same level of validity and certainty as ideas derived purely from our imagination and intuition.

Well, I agree that you were reacting. Your early posts were friendly and informative. I was enjoying them. Once I “abused” the English language, though, I guess I got on your bad side. You've been reacting ever since. In this instance you are reacting AGAIN to something that I have never claimed. You seem to think that I am trying to put imagination and intuition “on the same level of validity” as theories about objective reality that are based on and supported by data derived thru our sense. I claimed no such thing. We haven't been able to get far enough into the discussion where claiming something like that would even have made sense. If I were to claim something on that point, I would claim that there is no way to determine whether intuition or scientific theories are more or less reliable until we established a domain of application first, which we haven't. More or less reliable to do what with what and where? You seem to have already jumped to a conclusion without sharing your answers to those questions with us. Sorry, it's a bit hard to keep up.

What I have been trying to do is point out, (and this has mostly been with Nigel,) that I see no basis for dismissing intuition and introspection out of hand as “unreliable,” which he and you seem to want to do, Nigel less so than you. What's more, these dismissals keep being asserted without qualification. Unreliable for what, (Nigel restricts it to internal states,) to what degree unreliable, under what conditions, etc? Intuition and introspection are reliable for many things, some of which I have already pointed out and which you would be aware of if you had read my posts. Please go back and read them yourself before responding further on what you think I said in them.

You put details into my mouth in a similar way when you commented on what I said about research that shows that our senses, instruments, and minds are unreliable. You construed my statement as a comparison of the relative reliability of senses vs. instruments. I clearly made a much more general claim, not the straw man you attributed to me and then argued against. I called you on this. No response from you on your mistake, however.

I guess I have to add another request now: please don't put words in my mouth. In short, Bob, please get rational or put me on ignore. I can't help the fact that I apparently push your condescension/bullshit buttons. I didn't come to this forum to accommodate your buttons or to deal with the results of having pushed them. They are your buttons. I have my own. I have my hands full trying not to inflict mine on others. I don't have the time or interest to manage yours for you.

You did make a request for clarification that is interesting and I'm glad to oblige. It's interesting because it points out a weakness in many of the comments that have been made here about introspection and intuition:

BobSpence1 wrote:

Can you explain how would you validate internal experience? How could you distinguish a vivid dream from an actual communication from a 'real' transcendental being, or however you would think of a 'God'?

The weakness I refer to is the simplistic way that internal experience seems to be characterized when points are made here about how unreliable or limited it is. I'd also like to point out that even though a couple of times I've challenged the undefined way that the terms “internal” and “external” have been used in this forum, no one has addressed that challenge yet. The terms continue being used as if they were self-evident. They actually are not. Again, I understand how they are being used. My point is that the way that they are being used is clear or obvious only once certain assumptions are accepted as given, and that those assumptions are not the only available assumptions. I would like to discuss those assumptions. To do that, those making them would have to recognize that they are assumptions, not givens. That hasn't happened yet.

Anyway, to answer your question, to validate internal experience, I would try to use a different epistemological approach than internal experience. Using internal experience to validate internal experience is what people seem to mean when they talk about the bogus, religious notion of belief. It makes about as much sense as, wait a minute, using scientific thinking to validate itself! Or using any epistemological approach to validate its own methods or a specific application of those methods. By the way, epistemological validation of science is squarely within the domain of the philosophy of science.

To validate internal experience, I would turn to objective reality (ala The New Oxford American Dictionary according to your quote of it) to check myself, just as I hope that you or any rational person would do.

I'll give you an example that might be something we can both relate to before I get to internal experience about transcendental beings: cons. One reason that, as they say, you can't con an honest man is that his greed won't normally outweigh his intuition that there is something fishy with the deal, which he has not yet decided is a con, since he is presumably going to engage in a little rational thought to validate his red flags before swallowing them whole. To validate my red flags, I do many things: talk to third parties, research suspect claims, quiz the suspected con artist to see if his depth of knowledge isn't commensurate with what it should be in order to make the claims that he's making or to see if his logic goes circular as he justifies his claims, consult an expert on the subject, etc. The one thing I wouldn't do is ask someone I suspect of not telling the truth whether he is telling the truth and then rely on what he tells me. Likewise, when I suspect my own internal experience, and I always suspect my own internal experience, I don't consult it for validation.

Another thing in particular that I do is to run my own tests of internal experience ala a quasi-scientific method. The kinds of internal experience that are really interesting, e.g., love, hate, devotion, repulsion, etc., usually involve entities that it's not appropriate to control for the sake of a test, i.e., other human beings. So, in order to conduct this kind of test, I need to be willing to do a few things:

  • be very patient and attentive in order to notice when the next “test situation” comes along
  • be willing to take risks in social interactions, such as making a fool of myself or asking the stupid questions (thank you Columbo) or pissing other people off by posing hypotheticals that they construe as editorials pointed at them or just plain old bullshit
  • keep track of what happens
  • reflect and revise

Patterns emerge from this kind of experimentation. They aren't repeatable patterns in the sense that I can, on demand, cause them to occur in controlled environments, but they are repeatable in a couple of senses. One, I can indeed set up the situations in which they are likely to occur. Two, they often occur on their own. Either way, if a pattern seems to recur consistently, I pay attention to it. If a pattern occurs invariably, I rely on it.

For the most part, the patterns I pay attention to are the patterns of my own reactions to what happens in these situations. Those are the ones that are actually under my control. And by the way, those actually turn out to be the most problematic. Most solutions to interpersonal conflicts and disconnects seem to involve shifting my perspective rather than getting someone else to change their behavior. That's one reason I like to play around with thoughts and word definitions; it's a great way to discover other possible perspectives to try out. Regardless whether a particular perspective is “right” or “wrong”, I come away from considering it having learned more than I would if I simply deferred to the “authoritative” version that everyone seems to accept as “right.”

It's interesting that this very activity seems to threaten some people, regardless of my intent or the actual outcome of engaging in it. Simply opening things to question at this level makes lots of people uncomfortable. Is that what's up with you Bob?

When it comes to transcendental beings, I look for real-world effects and whether they validate or invalidate my suppositions/intuitions. If I think that blurf is benevolent, then that would mean that if I relied on blurf for something that would serve my welfare and it did not happen or something detrimental happened instead, one of two things must be the case, given that the question of blurf's existence has already been answered, which it has, this being my process: 1) blurf is not benevolent, or 2) I misunderstood what would contribute to my own welfare. Then I consider which is the case based on other factors, just like you would do with someone that you think is your friend who did something detrimental to you. You would probably ask questions like: Did he just stab you in the back? Were there extenuating circumstances? Was it just a momentary lapse? What were his actual intentions? It's no different with blurf.

It's also interesting to me that when atheists raise the problem of evil, possibility #2 is usually dismissed out of hand. Correction: it's rarely dismissed because it is rarely considered. It's when I point it out as a possibility that it gets dismissed out of hand. That indicates a bias. And maybe it's simply a knee-jerk reaction to the way that religious authorities have misused possibility #2 to keep their "faithful" accepting of and submissive to any and all abuse that the authorities care to deal out to them. Theists, on the other hand, bend themselves in pretzels to understand tragedies in a way that is consistent with #2 in order to avoid #1. That's a bias, too. I haven't found it to be necessary.

Likewise with the question of the existence of blurf. If blurf exists, certain things should be true and other things should not. This is precisely the logic used by the problem of evil. Experientially, which was your specific question, if I think that I encountered blurf, I go about validating/invalidating that experience the same way that you would validate/invalidate your impression that a pretty girl was flirting with you, or that an angry guy just made a threat, or that I was writing bullshit. If I consider my experiential contact with blurf and ask the question whether it was blurf or if it could be accounted for with other explanations that don't entail blurf, there is something to consider.

There is a distinction that I don't hear you making and which is rarely made in my experience when talking to atheists. Theists rarely make it either. There is a difference between: 1) asking whether a particular experience was an experience with blurf, or 2) asking whether an experience or set of experiences believed to be with blurf are sufficient to conclude that blurf indeed exists. Let me start with #1 first.

If I already believe that blurf exists and I experience what I think might be blurf, I have to consider the likelihood that an alternative explanation is true vs. the likelihood that I experienced blurf. Here is where atheistic bias comes to play when a blurf believer offers "evidence" of blurf's existence: atheists have already determined that the likelihood of blurf's existence is zero or not determinable, so any other explanation for the blurf believer's experience is to them always more likely. Atheists have already answered question #2. As long as they can think of an alternate explanation for the experience claimed to be a blurf encounter, that will always be more acceptable than the blurf explanation. I guess that's why atheists are so often satisfied by an alternative explanation without doing anything further to determine if it's a good explanation.

Of course, if I already believe that blurf does not exist, asking whether I just encountered blurf makes little sense unless I'm willing to reopen the more general question #2 about blurf's existence. 

So all roads lead back to a preexisting position on question #2. However, the empiricist's demand for evidence means that question #2 can't be answered in the affirmative unless we come up with an affirmative answer to question #1. If I can't ever say that I actually experienced an encounter with blurf, I have no first-hand basis for claiming that blurf exists. Other arguments for blurf's existence have been offered, and we all know how convincing they are. Basing my claim on someone else's report of experiencing a blurf encounter doesn't help. That would simply shift the same problem to that other person, who if he refers to another would result in infinite regress. Someone at least needs to have first-hand experience with or observation of blurf to claim that blurf exists, especially if there's a hope of satisfying the empiricist's demand for evidence.

So now we're back to question #1. Atheists refuse (in my experience) to accept any affirmative answer to question #1 because they have already decided the answer to question #2. On the basis of their position on question #2 they reduce the likelihood of any affirmative answer to #1 to zero or consider it not to be determinable. As a result, the “empirical evidence” that atheists love to ask for is effectively precluded. The general question #2 of blurf's existence is decided without empirical basis, and this informs every specific question #1 of an encounter with blurf that has a hope or prayer of yielding empirical evidence, effectively reducing the likelihood of the blurf explanation for each claimed encounter to zero or to being not determinable, and therefore always yielding a negative answer to question #1 regardless of what "evidence" is offered. 

Does no one see the circularity of this? By the way, what I have described is the converse of the very kind of "belief" that Dawkins calls a "skyhook" and Boyer calls "airy nothing." It's the same circularity, just from a different perspective. It's the flip side of the same argument, one that seems to have been predetermined by both parties. James Shapiro calls the Creationist/Darwinist debate a "dialogue of the deaf." See http://evolutionlist.blogspot.com/2006/02/third-way.html. I think the same often applies to the atheist/theist debate.

I have a comment on your question and a question about it. The way that you describe/react to/characterize processes like internal experience, intuition, and subjectivity in general seems very simplistic. Given those comments, your question about communication from a "real" transcendental being struck me as if you thought that, OOOooooOOOooo... some mystical feeling wafts in like a ghost and that the simple fact that it occurred carries with it epistemological weight. Maybe that's true for some people, but assuming that it's always the case is a straw man if I ever encountered one. Instead, consider the process we all go through when we meet a new person in whatever context. We go through a series of sense-interpret-validate loops to determine things about the person that are germane to our purposes for the interaction. That's much more like the process I go through when it comes to anything concerning gods. How do you determine that a person is trustworthy? How do you determine that a person is honest? What is your scientific process to determine those things? I assume that you do make those determinations like the rest of us.

My question is: why would you think that coming to conclusions about a god would be any different than coming to conclusions about a person? Your apparent assumption that there are essential differences between validating internal experiences regarding people vs. internal experiences regarding gods say more about your lack of familiarity with the latter than they do about the nature of the experiences themselves.

So here's a big target for you: I assert not only that there are methods (plural) by which we can validate internal experience, but that even those who claim that internal experience is “unreliable” are in fact very familiar with those methods and make use of them regularly. Actually, when it comes to the most important matters in our lives, I assert that all of us in fact are very interested in validating our internal experiences and RELY on those methods to validate our internal experiences as best we can. I would make an exception to that assertion for people who actually do approach decisions of the heart with some kind of “objective” or “rational” method of making those decisions, like the story about the accountants who were trying to decide whether they were in love with each other and if they should get married, so they resorted to writing up pros and cons lists to make the decision.

In fact, I assert that far more people are far more interested in the proposition of validating internal experience with far more seriousness than they are interested in validating most laws of physics. You or others might think that this is a symptom of the problem with many people, maybe most people: they are interested in and wrapped up with irrationalities. I would say (just an opinion) that such an opinion is ill-informed, simplistic, and that people who firmly hold it are probably not much fun to hang around with. Eye-wink

What I will not assert, and therefore will not defend, is that we have effective methods for validating internal experience or that we know very well how to make use of those methods. On the contrary, I don't think that we do, yet.

Actually, I think what we're looking at here is a simple problem of domain confusion. Internal experience is much more unreliable than "objective" observation to tell us about “external” reality. "Objective" observation is much more unreliable than intuition to tell us about “internal” experience. "Objective" observation can tell us about the physical processes that underlie internal experience (or of which internal experience consists, your choice,) but that isn't the more important aspect of internal experience to most people. The most important parts of internal experience are what we want and what we believe that we should want. Scientific inquiry will never tell about those two aspects, because scientific inquiry is defined (currently) to exclude those considerations from its domain. As an informative way to explain the physical processes that constitute the cognitive experience of wanting, science is great, sure. As a way to derive knowledge by which to guide us to decide what we do want or should want, are you kidding?

Use science as a basis to make ontological statements about god or anything else? Forget about it. That is to claim as a basis the knowledge that we have developed from a framework which by definition is ontologically constrained (only physical things exist) and typically (but not by definition) epistemologically constrained (e.g., “objective” knowledge is reliable, “subjective” knowledge is suspect at best.) I'm not saying that it's impossible to make ontological statements. I'm not even saying that it's impossible to make ontological statements on the basis of scientific knowledge. I'm saying that no one has yet come close to rationalizing it. The most recent thought on this, as I already posted and you can read if you care to, is to define what is "physical" (the kernel of both ontological and epistemological constraints mentioned) by appealing to “current science.” The circularity of this can't be ignored.

I was hoping to find people on this forum willing to explore things like these with me. If you aren't willing, Bob, that's OK. Just put me on ignore. Your unwillingness is no reflection on the validity of my interests or the discussions I would like to have to explore them. I'd rather be on friendly, cooperative, investigative terms with you. You won't get another pointed post like this from me again. I didn't write what I wrote this time to get your goat. I wrote it to make clear that I don't stand for bullshit, either. I've stated why I'm here and what I'd like to accomplish. If you're not interested, fine. I'd love to have your participation. 

To sum up on internal experience, I explicitly deny that internal experience is something that cannot be validated or that we will never learn to validate it reliably. Claiming that it can't be validated or that validating it is impossible or uninteresting is both biased and unexamined. To accept that assertion here or elsewhere, I would need some reason to accept it. So far, here and elsewhere, I just hear the mantra being chanted, “internal experience can't tell us about reality, internal experience can't tell us about reality," something that the chanters let internal experience do for them all the time in other compartments of their lives.

When The Church, i.e., organized religion collectively, divests itself of its obscene wealth, gives it all to feed the poor, and releases its death grip on the minds of its adherents, I will once again listen to what it has to say, which at that point I'm sure will be very little.

Man has to awaken to wonder — and so perhaps do peoples.
Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus


BobSpence
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Ok, skeptic23, I think there

Ok, skeptic23, I think there is still some hope for meaningful communication here, and I find much of what you say quite understandable and reasonably and sometimes highly consistent with my understandings. 

Which is why I get so much of a WTF reaction when I come across a passage which makes little sense to me, OR seems to be based on naked assumptions, OR seems to skate over some fundamental points. I do try to not summarily dismiss your position at that point, but increasingly now look for your usage of language or some words being at odds with mine, IOW I may be misreading or mis-interpreting what you are saying.

I guess part of my reaction has become too much of a habit after encountering too many well-spoken and apparently knowledgeable participants who turn out to have one or more totally off-the-wall 'pet' theories which they totally fail to engage in a real debate about.

I have to keep reminding myself that you are not in that category... yet 

Which is why I will try to be a bit more patient and explain more carefully just where and why I disagree, and hope to find out just what the key divergence is. And not get too far ahead in assuming I know where you are going, which may account for some of your (probably valid) criticisms of my responses.

OK.

Quote:

I gave you that list of 9 points for clarification to make a statement and see how you would respond to it. Since your response doesn't indicate that you got the statement, I'll put it explicitly for you. Although your posts clearly indicate that you have not understood my intent on this forum and you clearly dislike what I write, please realize that your posts are unclear when it comes to rational content. I'm well aware that your posts seem very rational to you. Why they seem so clear to you when they are so unclear in fact is precisely the kind of phenomenon I'm trying to explore.

You introduced that list with

Quote:

I'd love to hear explanations of the following:

I did not quite 'get' that you put up that list "to make a statement and see how you would respond to it.". The fact that I did not 'get it' should have been a pointer to you not to make too many assumptions about how someone else will interpret the sub-text of your words, especially when the whole point is in trying to understand the PoV of someone who 'reads' things differently from you. You need to be more clear and explicit in this sort of discussion.

Starting with my responses to those 9 points, I would really like to see a more detailed response to my answers than the above quote, before I will accept your complains about my failing to provide you with explanations. I did provide honest responses in terms of my understanding of each of those points - if you would like an expansion and/or clarification of any of my answers, that would be fine by me, and would seem to me to be potentially far more productive than simply saying my posts are 'unclear as to rational content'.

There are many places where you accuse me of making "lots of assertions with little explanation or evidence to support it". That in itself is an example of what you are accusing me of. 

Again, it would be far more productive for you to select a what you see as a typical example of such an unjustified assertion and lets discuss it.

Looking back, I have, AFAICS, provided detailed accounts of my understanding of things you have raised, such as the imperfection of our senses, and why I make the distinction between mental models and reality, and other issues.

Was that list more of a 'test' whether I 'got' your agenda, rather than honestly seeking how I understood those points? 

Can you at least provisionally acknowledge that at least part of the problem you are having with understanding me may actually be due to some fundamental problem in your approach and assumptions? 

I think I would like to see your response before I continue.

Please, no hard feelings.

 

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


skeptic23
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Ok, that's better...

That's the kind of thing that I can work with.

I think we are pretty close to beating the horse of my hypothetical "reality" to death. Reading what you wrote makes a good case to me why I'm making a worthwhile definition/distinction. Your strong objection to it makes a good case for me to find/coin another term. I don't care about the terms, as evidenced by my usage of "reality" ala your preferred definition lately. I care about a describing what is going on with terms and conceptual places to track key aspects of the phenomenon.

Equating existence=reality leaves unaccounted for that 'tweener space in our cognition that IS a model (now that I understand your meaning better) but that we TREAT as reality without realizing that it is just a representation, not reality itself. "Model" is too abstract to relate to emotionally, and it's ambiguous, because there are lots of other types of cognitive models at other levels of abstraction than the one we're talking about. And "cognition" isn't specific enough. I think we need something precisely because that model-taken-as-reality is right where lots of cognitive and interpretive (philosophical and otherwise) problems seem to originate. I'll let you know when I come up with an alternative. I could call it MTAR for now, haha!

Thanks for feedback that I can recognize as such.

Was I surprised at some of the things that you criticized? I can't really say that I was. The surprise was in the level of polemics, condescension, and the emotional force behind them. Not hard to tell when your BS button is pushed, I confess. Just so you understand that this time it was pushed prematurely. That aspects of my "world-view" triggered your "bull-shit" detector seems in large part to be the result of you taking my hypothetical statements as if they were assertions about my world-view. This is exactly why I shy away from convenient statements of world-view, as much as everybody seems to clamor for them. Christians do the same thing in wanting to know your "beliefs" to make sure you're not from the devil. It's too easy to mistake the sheep for the goats by profiling with such crude criteria. And yes, that metaphor was precisely to see if I could push a button. Eye-wink I'm not as naive or simplistic as you seem to take me for.

Quote:
You seem to be still trying to make an argument for cleaned-up, somewhat rationalised version of Theism.

Maybe that statement points to some of the problems we're having. The fact is that I have not been trying to make an argument for theism at all, Bob. I'm trying to investigate, but you guys here, some more and some less, seem uncomfortable with that, so you keep trying to "out" me or get me to declare myself. Then when I comply with what I am comfortable to assert, you characterize it as an argument. What, did I come to a shooting range, and the response to my questions is to ask me to don a target?

The ONLY truly theistic things I've said are that blurf exists and that blurf is benevolent. I'm not making that argument, I'm responding to requests for my definition of god. It isn't even germane to my interests. My interests here have nothing to do with my convictions about god. My interests are understanding how YOU hold your convictions about gods and related topics. I'm trying to get at your basis for asserting what you assert, and finding the going pretty good, maybe a little rough with you in particular. All the rest is up for grabs, but not just any grabs, because I see patterns. Deny the patterns and I'll ask for information to understand the denial. No information = biased denial. Enlighten me on how I have misconstrued the patterns or misunderstood them and I'll thank you.

Frankly, I find that I have more in common with atheists than I do theists. Let me make this perfectly clear: I don't care if you believe in gods or not. I care that you do believe what you choose to believe, I would defend your right to believe it, and I want to understand what you do and don't believe, towards which by the way I occupy a philosophical and heartfelt position of unconditional respect. The only thing I don't respect is bullshit, and if what you believe doesn't make sense to me, I'll tell you so and I'll tell you how it doesn't. How do you get that I'm arguing theism from that?

I stated early on that it is difficult to get people to recognize and examine their own assumptions, and described some of the kinds of things that happen when I try. I think your posts are an excellent example of this.

Quote:
I can understand why you would do that, psychologically, as to admit you had spent a major part of your life accepting something which had no merit at all would not be easy.

Now this isn't meant to push a button, but it might. Again, you throw out a simplistic and erroneous straw man as if it had relevance beyond the fact that it makes sense to you at this juncture. No, I didn't spend a major part of my life accepting something which had no merit at all, any more than the atheism that you understood 30 years ago was a waste compared to the atheism you understand now, or than any of the less mature versions of any of our world-views "had no merit at all" compared to our current world-views. Of course, that assumes significant development and therefore a significant difference between the two. Wait a minute! Weren't you the very one who explained how prior science, even if discredited, at least has the merit of being the basis for the progress by which we arrived at our current science? Maybe it was someone else.

What I did or didn't accept would have held no merit if it amounted to nothing and led to nothing. Neither are true. Your comment does imply an assumed either/or that also is not applicable to me. I can understand what you said from a formulation of the god problem that to me represents an excluded middle: either atheism or theism and ONLY either atheism or theism. Tipping the scale of merit towards one then would mean discrediting the other. What if I find the either/or formulation erroneous? What if there is another option? What if both atheism and theism are erroneous as they are currently formulated? I'm not asserting that there is another option or that the formulations are erroneous, but that there are perplexing things about the discussion that lead me to suspect that these things might be the case, and that no one has demonstrated that they are not the case.

As for you attributing my thinking to psychological rebound, I won't dignify that with much of a response. If you so easily dismiss another person's thinking, it's more of a statement about you than me anyway.

I hope we can get past the personal digs and get to some constructive discussion, because I can see that you have thought thoroughly about these things, especially from this latest post. I'd love to have you shoot down my concepts, if you can, Eye-wink as long as you are past the inclination to shoot down their conceiver.

 

 

When The Church, i.e., organized religion collectively, divests itself of its obscene wealth, gives it all to feed the poor, and releases its death grip on the minds of its adherents, I will once again listen to what it has to say, which at that point I'm sure will be very little.

Man has to awaken to wonder — and so perhaps do peoples.
Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus


skeptic23
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Hey butterbattle!

butterbattle wrote:

skeptic23 wrote:
Offensive: You deny that the white figure at the end of the tunnel was Jesus and that God gave him a second chance at life.

Not offensive: You deny that you would have interpreted the same experience the way that he did, since you don't believe in Jesus or God.

There is no “his” reality or “my” reality; there is only one reality. Either his interpretation is correct or it is not. To say that I would not interpret his experience the same way he interpreted it is to imply that I consider his interpretation to be incorrect, and it implies that I have some correct alternative interpretation.

If you agree that there is an objective reality, then you know this has to be the case.

Given a theoretical perspective from which only a god could possibly observe things, from that perspective there is no “his” reality or “my” reality, because from that perspective the difference between “his” and “my” experiences of reality and between both of those and the actual reality we are experiencing would be clear. My point is that this is theoretical and largely academic, because no one of us and not even all of us together over all times and places could approximate more than a fraction of that perspective. 

I wouldn't harp on this if people didn't chronically insist on acting as if it weren't true, as if we could get past it. Theists think that they get past it easily, because God knows all things and, guess what, God has revealed them to us who "believe." Materialists believe that science will get them closer to the God perspective. NEITHER approach actually gets you there. 

So why not look at things realistically? You get a part, I get a part, all god's chillins get a part, and that's all we get. The fact that we act like our little parts are much bigger and more important than they really are and the fact that we like to believe like there are tricks that enchant our little parts so that they represent the God perspective is EXACTLY why I suggest an intermediate blippety-bop (since neither you nor Bob will let me call it reality) where we emotionally, intuitively, and spontaneously sense that we are actually interacting with what is there, because that is what our experiences seem like to each of us, but allows for the fact that we are interacting with a model/representation of it that often entails variances from what is really there. You tell me what to call that place and let me shoot down some of YOUR labels, haha! At least that would be a change of pace.

butterbattle wrote:

If all you’re saying is that we should try not to offend each other so much, then okay, I mostly agree. One of our primary goals should be to open the lines of communication and to try to understand each other, but I feel like many atheists sometimes just give up trying to communicate and start hurling pointless insults out of frustration. I’ve been guilty of this as well. So, I think we should strive to be impartial and polite, so as to break down the walls between us.

I agree, but that's not what I'm saying. It's not about stepping on toes. It's about recognizing that each of us understands just a little north of zip, and that each of us holds what little we do know so dear that we have historically been very willing to kill each other over it. I'm looking for a way that we can all hold our little, itty bits without dismissing and feeling dismissed, without offending and violating each other, or any other detrimental effects of the XOR (exclusive OR.)

butterbattle wrote:

But, I also think there is a limit to that because another one of our primary goals should be to spread reason, skepticism, etc. If I implied to the NDE individual that I thought his interpretation of the tunnel with the light at the end was just as valid as my interpretation, I would be lying through my teeth. His interpretation of the experience is completely unreasonable. If that offends him, then he can go crying to his mommy. I will only strip down the harshness of my voice until it begins to significantly impact the clarity of my thoughts, no further.

My point is that you don't to do the comparative validity of interpretations at all. His interpretation is unreasonable from your perspective. His interpretation is unreasonable for him and unreasonable for you from your perspective. It is the reverse from his perspective. This is simple epistemological relativism. It isn't about whether there are two realities. It's about the fact that there are two highly limited, even highly defective understandings of reality. Any determination that the other perspective is unreasonable is derived from our own limited and possibly defective perspective and so likewise is limited and possibly defective. 

You admit that your approach to this ends up, past a certain point, offending people. What if that isn't necessary while at the same time it isn't necessary for you to compromise your integrity? It's also about the fact that as long as we continue negating the value of other perspectives simply because we strongly disagree with them, we lose whatever value we might gain from them, and we will continue to negate and violate the rights of other people to hold them, which historically leads to violation of their persons and eventual negation of their existences. Not to mention that by our example we endorse their right to do the same to us, which they will. I used to tell my boys that you can't argue with a moving car. You might be right. The walk sign might have said "Walk." Being right won't heal your broken bones. Being right isn't enough.

butterbattle wrote:

Unless I’m a situation where I’m with potentially hostile people in person and when I don’t feel like experiencing the repercussions of expressing exactly what I’m thinking, I intend to try to express what I think. If I don’t, not only do I feel like I’m bending over just to preserve others’ egos, I feel like I’m compromising my own integrity.

I think you hit the nail on the head. It is about ego, BOTH ours and theirs. I'm trying to find a way to avoid the ego complications. They truly are beside the point in BOTH directions.

butterbattle wrote:
Anyone that takes a clear position on anything is either right or wrong.

According to whom? From whose perspective? Unless we determine the perspective from which to answer that question, we'd have to ask God what he thinks. That's the only way to answer your question from the God perspective. If the perspective is undefined, with reference to what do we decide things like "right" and "wrong?" The only reference we have is reality ala Bob, which is the same for all of us. If any of us had a complete, inerrant view of reality, that person could answer your unqualified question. That person would also, in that case, fulfill the role of God.

butterbattle wrote:
Do you not think I’m wrong about the existence of God?

No. That would require me to understand your position about the existence of God better and to make sure that we are both talking about the same thing when we use the term “God.” So far, the only real difference between you and me is that I think there is something on the other side of the hills and I'm motivated to find out about it. You allow that there might be something on the other side of the hills, but you're cool with your life under the belief that there isn't. That doesn't seem like a huge difference to me.

butterbattle wrote:

skeptic23 wrote:
I believe that blurf is benevolent, but we all know nature doesn't suffer fools, so I think that's characteristic of blurf, too, if there's any difference between the two.

Okay, so you think God is an intelligent being. You believe God is benevolent and just.

What are your reasons for believing this?

One, I don't necessarily believe that blurf is an intelligent being. I'm not sure about the intelligent part and I'm not sure about the being part. Consider Stephen Wolfram's idea that the universe is a computer, also something promoted by Ray Kurzweil. See http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2002/oct/24/is-the-universe-a-computer/ 

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS A HYPOTHETICAL. I DID NOT JUST PUT ANOTHER TARGET ON MY BACK. I DID NOT ASSERT THAT THE UNIVERSE IS A COMPUTER. Eye-wink

What if the universe were a computer, God was the software, and we are the intelligence it's trying to bring forth? What I'm saying is that my idea of blurf doesn't rule that out. Maybe this is all an experiment of some humongous alien and our universe is contained in a single marble in his marble-bag, just like MIB? MY POINT IS THAT IT DOESN'T MUCH MATTER TO ME. If it's one or the other, the important thing for us to do is figure out our way in and through it all. I think we do an abysmally poor job of that, screw lots of sh_t up, make excuses for ourselves, then spend the rest of our time telling everyone else how much we know and how wrong they are.

For all our knowledge and scientific and technical progress, we still can't define happiness. We still can't tell our kids how to know when they've found the right one. And then when they tell us that they have found the right one, we still can't tell them how to make it work. And for the most part, now, it doesn't work. With all that and more in mind, who gives a shit whether God is a method, a guy with a beard, or a huge green alien? We've got other matters to attend to.

 

When The Church, i.e., organized religion collectively, divests itself of its obscene wealth, gives it all to feed the poor, and releases its death grip on the minds of its adherents, I will once again listen to what it has to say, which at that point I'm sure will be very little.

Man has to awaken to wonder — and so perhaps do peoples.
Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus


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Bob, I think we're about there...

Bit of a prickly and circuitous path, but we're closing the distance.

I'm about all written-out at this point, so if you don't see a response to your 9 responses in the next day or two, just pop in a "WTF SKEP!?!" and I'll make sure to. Sending you a message was not the sole reason for that list. I really did want to hear your explanations AND see if you got my drift. I appreciate your responses.

It also helps to hear you mention the guys who come in smiling with RPGs hid in their trenchcoats. I get that and it helps explain some of what I was reacting to. I ain't got no trenchcoat on man, you can frisk me.

And I agree that once we get down to nitty-grits, we don't have fundamental disagreements on most things. Such is the irony of our initial misstepping.

Hey, I was highly trained to turn the other cheek, you know. I have no problem assuming plenty of responsibility, and it doesn't have to be provisional, either. When I come in honest and get knocked like a player, I knock back. I used to put up with a lot more of it, but that just delays the inevitable. If I push back, honest people have no trouble understanding, and we figure it out. I make no claim that I push back nicely; I get plenty of criticism from my sons on that point. Improving that is my stretch goal. Besides, READ MY POSTS (just joking, this time) I'm all about the fact that MOST of what we think is sure to be regarded as little more than misunderstanding sooner or later by someone, even us. If that weren't true, the world would be a different place right now. Let's hope it's true. Otherwise, it means the world is this way because we're all monsters more or less.

By the way, how many times should we turn the other cheek (hypothetically if we subscribed to the notion, which I actually do)? There's an answer.

No hard feelings here and I hope none with you. I'm here to discuss, put up hypothetical straw men for you to knock down if you can, hopefully stimulate some thinking on your part; it's all good. And now we know that we both know how to take a punch. Good to know.

When The Church, i.e., organized religion collectively, divests itself of its obscene wealth, gives it all to feed the poor, and releases its death grip on the minds of its adherents, I will once again listen to what it has to say, which at that point I'm sure will be very little.

Man has to awaken to wonder — and so perhaps do peoples.
Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus


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Nigel, haha! Hope you didn't get

Hope you didn't get caught in the crossfire between Bob and I. We've negotiated a lasting peace, I believe. I never found you preachy.

I'm pooped. Time to vege out in front of mindless TV. I want to wait to respond until I have a chance to look at the links you provided. Tomorrow probably. Digest that cheesecake pleasantly.

 

When The Church, i.e., organized religion collectively, divests itself of its obscene wealth, gives it all to feed the poor, and releases its death grip on the minds of its adherents, I will once again listen to what it has to say, which at that point I'm sure will be very little.

Man has to awaken to wonder — and so perhaps do peoples.
Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus


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skeptic23, it does indeed

skeptic23, it does indeed seem like we are likely to get somewhere.

Far more progress than I make with the typical dogged believer in either Xianity or some 'woo'  belief or philosophy. Which is typically as close to zero as doesn't matter.

A good sign.

 

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


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  Luminon wrote:The result

 

 

Luminon wrote:
The result is, that I know what you are talking about very well, I know many people like you. I know what blurf is, where it is, what it does with people, what it wants, how to communicate with it, and how to work with it. I've observed it on myself, on some members of my family and members of our club. Once you know the signs, you can tell if someone experienced the blurf, no matter if the person is theist or atheist.

We have, it could be said, theory of blurf. Thanks to my own investigation, I can also to some degre suggest a reasonable scientific framework for it. 

It's a big thing, in total big enough for several years of college courses. But there are introductory books and those who have experiences to compare it to, may find it extremely interesting. Sorry for the bold statements, but there are many years of many people's work behind them.

Hey, well don't bogart that theory, man, pass it over to me. Where do I start looking into it? And thanks for the link on the reincarnation ban.

 

 

When The Church, i.e., organized religion collectively, divests itself of its obscene wealth, gives it all to feed the poor, and releases its death grip on the minds of its adherents, I will once again listen to what it has to say, which at that point I'm sure will be very little.

Man has to awaken to wonder — and so perhaps do peoples.
Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus


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skeptic23 wrote:Hope you

skeptic23 wrote:

Hope you didn't get caught in the crossfire between Bob and I. We've negotiated a lasting peace, I believe. I never found you preachy.

I'm pooped. Time to vege out in front of mindless TV. I want to wait to respond until I have a chance to look at the links you provided. Tomorrow probably. Digest that cheesecake pleasantly.

I think I'm about to bow out of this conversation. I think you and Bob are covering pretty much the same territory you and I are covering, though Bob and I differ slightly in approach. He's certainly the more competent of the two of us, and since you two seem to be making headway, I think I will go silent. There's no need for you to cover the same territory in two different ways, especially as you take time to engage us properly. So, in the interest of economy, I'll just sit on the sidelines for now.

Please do follow the Two Black Boxes link. It's almost 20 years old, but is still quite interesting. Over the last 20 years, we've made great headway in understanding the circuitry of consciousness, and we are discovering it is at once much more more complex, and simpler and more elegant than we ever imagined.

So please -- don't put any effort into answering my last post. I think you've covered much of that territory with Bob. I'll just follow along for now.

"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers


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Man - what a thread

 

It's taken me about an hour to plough through it and all I can think of to add is that reality is what's left when the last human dies.

 

"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck


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Thanks Nigel

 

Well, ya gonna throw me in the den with the grizzly, are ya? OK, just one comment. No response required, I'm sure Bob will keep me in my place on the rest...

nigelTheBold wrote:

Aaaanyway. I don't think we necessarily disagree on much. You've not said much that contradicts my understanding. The only difference seems to be the emphasis on the unreliability of perception (which seems to be your stand) vs. the ability of science to mitigate the unreliability of perception (which is my view).

Actually, I was pushing on that side of things just trying to open up the discussion about perception a bit. It's hard with you science-loving guys; you're so confident in scientific capabilities that you tend to philosophically dismiss the problems with it and emphasize its strengths to the exclusion of other approaches that are valid in their proper domains. I still need to get into “objective=reliable/subjective=marginally reliable” but I'm sure Bob will oblige me. 

Thanks for the references. I perused the Black Boxes fable. That's one I'll have to put some thought into. It's been a long time since I had my hands dirty with the philosophical issues it's covering, so it represents a reverse engineering proposition for me. I'm usually flying several thousand feet higher, which has its risks. It will be good for keeping me honest.

 

 

When The Church, i.e., organized religion collectively, divests itself of its obscene wealth, gives it all to feed the poor, and releases its death grip on the minds of its adherents, I will once again listen to what it has to say, which at that point I'm sure will be very little.

Man has to awaken to wonder — and so perhaps do peoples.
Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus


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robj101 wrote:To the

robj101 wrote:

To the contrary, I think a lot of skeptics peruse this forum who may or may not participate. Many topics have been debated here and some people probably learn something, and it probably makes others *think*.

Yes, the Socratic method shouldn't be underestimated.


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skeptic23, it seems to me I

skeptic23, it seems to me I will need to be careful to clarify just what you mean by various words and phrases before I try to analyse and respond to your arguments, after looking back over many of your posts.

There seems to be a subtle but consistent skew between our respective usage and understanding of many terms and expressions which contributed to our mutual misunderstandings....

When getting into this sort of discussion it is very important to make sure the meanings of the terms are as clearly understood as possible.

There is a real problem for philosophy here, it is just too easy for slight slippages of the way terms are being understood for the 'logic' to go off into 'la-la' land. This limits the usefulness of more philosophical discourse to address complex issues.

Which is why Science tries to express things mathematically as far as practical. Such conclusions are still only as good as the original assumptions, as with any logical argument, but it can reduce the chances of running off the rails in the body of the argument. Can't be applied to all categories of discussion, of course.

On another point, I notice the Wittgenstein quote in your sig....

Among the generally low esteem in which I regard philosophers, with a few notable exceptions, I have placed Ludwig as one of the more respectable ones. However that quote drops him down a few notches for me, and I would offer a quote from another prominent figure, whose life-span encompassed that of LW, which conveys to me a more accurate picture of the relationship between 'wonder' and 'science':

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.

 - Albert Einstein

 

 

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


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Bob, agreed

I agree about making terms clear, etc. I also agree that there is a subtle, consistent skew between our respective usage. However, I think that there is a deeper issue that contributed to our misunderstandings. I was thinking about this while making my coffee this morning, before I sat down and saw your post. I'd like to address what I see as the deeper issue first.

I think we have had a credibility gap, big time. I want to overcome it. You apparently suspected that I wasn't putting all my cards on the table. Also, there are things like the fact that though I've repeatedly stated that I am not here to argue, that my interest here isn't about promoting my arguments, you characterized your involvement in our discussion as an attempt to "analyze and respond" to my "arguments." When people act like you didn't say what you said, it's often because they didn't believe what you said.

I admit that I have put arguments forward, plenty of them, but not because I necessarily hold them myself. Like I've been saying all along, I am interested in the assumptions that we build our thinking on, especially the ones that we don't realize we have. The extreme case of this is when we treat our assumptions as givens. The best way I know of to ferret out that kind of assumption is to make a really good case for the opposition that targets precisely those assumptions. When we get stumped or really challenged, we do one of two things. We get irrational (emotional, personal, etc.) or we take a step back and realize that we have a weak spot in our thinking. That's my method, as uncomfortable as it can sometimes get, of OPENING the discussion that I'm interested in. I'm all ears for suggestions of a better way. I'm still wanting to have discussions that for the most part have yet to occur.

So, I thought I'd put all my cards on the table. I can say ahead of time that doing so might not solve our credibility problem, because I don't think that they are the kind of cards that you suspected I might be hiding, but hey, it's all I got! 

My sole purpose in coming to this board is truly to understand, but of course, there's more that I can say about that. I have a vested interest in figuring things out for a number of reasons. First, for my own sanity. Second, I have six amazing sons in whose lives I figure prominently. I raised them to think for themselves. I don't presume to tell them what is "true" or what they should think, but I do tell them as clearly as I can what I think. There are things that I still can't understand, things that they are grappling with or soon will. I also have an ex-wife who is as close to religiously insane as you can get without being certifiable. Actually, I think she probably is certifiable. Anyway, the boys now live with their mom and I live nearby. As much as I would have liked, at times, to strangle her or simply walk away, neither were viable options. So, I was faced with a situation in which I needed to learn to communicate or somebody was going to die, even if only figuratively. So, I wondered why: why did my ex-wife clutch stupidities when letting them go would actually have served her cause, even saved our marriage, something she actually wanted as much as I did? Why did her church expel me and turn her against me when all I did was ask questions about fundamental issues and demand real answers?

All my life I've had a personal compulsion, wondering why. My personal situation hasn't quelled that compulsion. You mentioned philosophers, which is where I started to satisfy my understanding compulsion. I now have absolutely no respect for most philosophers, except maybe a little for Descartes, more for Socrates, and I really liked reading Kierkegaard, more for his passion than his thinking. I love science. My dad started doing genetics research at Children's Hospital in L.A. in 1964 and always hoped that I'd become a scientist. It's in my blood. I just have a low drudgery tolerance and realized as I grew up and worked for him one summer that I wouldn't be able to hack it. 

Having realized that the people who had largely formed my world view didn't truly subscribe to it themselves, at least when it came to doing more than just talk, I was of course interested in a replacement. I started from scratch. I spent a lot of time trying to rationalize the craziness that I'd just experienced and, thanks to an antagonistic ex, continued to experience. As I figured things out, my wondering about why and how people engage in conflict got more and more general. I started wondering why evolutionists and creationists both use exactly the same epistemological devices, tricks and all. Dawkins' "sky hooks" are the atheistic view of the "faith" that creationists subscribe to as something godly. They are actually talking about the same thing, not two different things, so the source of the conflict can't be there. I started trying to figure out where the source of the conflict really was. I ended up realizing that the argument itself makes no sense. Darwinism is not mutually exclusive from either the creationist or ID viewpoint. When you get down into the details that actually have evidential support, those details can be interpreted pretty well from either philosophical standpoint. So why the conflict? I suspected that it might be philosophical. Duh.

To cut to the chase, I've concluded that the disagreement that fuels the Darwin vs. creationist/ID argument lies precisely in considerations that are pre-scientific, pre-evidential, even pre-rational i.e., in philosophical decisions made prior to and without reference to either the argument or to the evidence, and it exactly concerns the question of gods. I have a label for pre-scientific, pre-evidential, and pre-rational philosophical decisions: beliefs. They are no less in abundance on the Darwinist side than they are on the opposing side.

That made me wonder whether the atheist/theist argument was the same type of phenomenon: people arguing at one level when the argument and its necessary conclusions were already cast at a completely different level. Thus my interest in assumptions.

As to my personal motivations for putting this kind of effort into a pursuit that is guaranteed to curtail cash flow, like I said, it's a compulsion. I've worked in IT and I've worked in construction, back and forth a bit, since the early 70s. Work has always been a necessary evil that stole time away from what I really wanted to do. For the last 15 or so years, I tried to push the work ball up the hill and over so that I would have the leisure to do what I wanted to do. My goal was to fund my own research and writing. That didn't materialize. I admit, it was a long shot given the circumstances. So, last year I was led by circumstance to consider the alternative: embrace material frugality to foster leisure profligacy. I've been writing and discussing ever since with no end in sight. This is my kinda heaven!

So, I am here in this forum to 1) understand, 2) test out ideas, and 3) find ways to express those ideas that can be understood, (especially by those who disagree with them,) while, 4) ensuring that they are technically correct and, 5) maybe one day over the rainbow, publish something.

The best way that I know how to accomplish 1-4 is to talk to people who are inclined to disagree, erect straw men for them to knock down, and learn from the experience. If a straw man stands, I get interested. And as I go along, my straw men get a little sturdier each time I erect them. At some point, they are sturdy enough that I'm tempted to rely on them. If someone afterwards succeeds in knocking them down, I don't see that as a loss. There was a weakness and I didn't notice it, otherwise I wouldn't have put reliance on the idea. I try to understand the former, kick myself for the latter, and take the next step. I truly am a skeptic, particularly about my own thinking.

When you talk about subtle skew, I think you are talking about my level of skepticism compared to what you are used to from someone you consider to be a "theist," maybe even compared to your own. After all, most of my disagreements with people in this forum have been over my lack of confidence in things that they seem very confident about, such as the capabilities and potential of science. I presume that from your side my skepticism might look like a function of my credulity in things non-scientific. No way, Jose. I am a thorough-going, equal opportunity, comprehensive skeptic. I have just a few things that I'm sure about.

I'm not vested in much, and I've pretty much stated those things already. I start with a simple, incontrovertible position, that something exists. Something is. By observation, which to me means personal experience, (and realize that science MUST come down to SOMEBODY'S personal experience SOMEWHERE in time and space,) by rational thought, and with the help of other people committed to observation and rational thought, I am wagering my life (truly, it's that serious to me) that we can build all we need from there. Science is a huge part of that. However, science has a domain of application and is not all that we need. I call bullshit when people apply it beyond its domain. Sometimes I'm wrong; sometimes I find out that I didn't properly understand what the domain of science is. More often, though, I call bullshit when people have unscientific reasons for making science do more than it was intended to do. When we get down to what those reasons are, they turn out to look very much like the reasons that "believers" have for invoking sky hooks and airy nothings. 

I keep seeing the same behavior over and over. It doesn't matter what the context is or what the argument is. Both sides of any long-standing controversy insist and defend their right to insist on throwing the opposition's babies out along with their dirty bath water. I like babies. I don't care whether they are "your" babies or "our" babies or "their" babies. The fact that they are precious to someone makes them worth trying to save. Even if we can't, we tried, and what's the down side of trying? We already know what the down side of the alternative is. Maybe that's what truly distinguishes our species from others: our unique ability to perpetuate, even institutionalize conflict. Predators kill because they are hungry. Humans kill because... ?? And that's the tragedy: we still haven't figured it out.

So, I'm looking for ways to re-frame controversies so that both sides can distinguish babies from bathwater. Once people get rational, they normally don't want to preserve their own dirty bath water, nor do they want to throw out the opposition's babies. And speaking from personal experience, in the process they start looking at the other side a little less like opposition. Bottom line, I'm not here to change anybody's mind except in places where they want to change them. 

I get all kinds of reactions to my agenda, usually ranging from negative to condescendingly sympathetic. I rarely find support. I find this very interesting. After a while, it tends to make you wonder if you're crazy. But wait! I've gotten that I-might-be-crazy feeling before. It came from listening to people (and not just my ex) who claimed that I'm chasing unicorns and jousting with wind mills and who wanted me to stop. If it's so impossible, why do they put so much energy into convincing me to stop?

Besides, I have history on my side. For one, every good idea large or small has gotten similar reactions from people who didn't recognize it, then even more so once they realized that there was something to it and it wasn't their idea. For another, statistically, those who claim "Impossible!" end up wrong 100% of the time. Aside from the preposterous, someone eventually manages to do the "impossible" with a retrospective success rate of nearly 100%. Alchemy might be the only notable exception to the rule, and if Garrett Lisi gets his way, that box might open up to us, too. Plus, the time elapsed between making claims of impossibility and their utter destruction is shrinking as we go along, to the point that "science fiction" is morphing into science prognostication.

What's more, sometimes someone even manages to do the preposterous. It makes you wonder why some of us so doggedly insist on being wrong. I think it has to do with a lack of imagination (one side of the coin) and a preoccupation with intellectual (maybe egotistical?) security (the other side of the same coin.) That, my friend, is one of my straw men on the verge of becoming reliable.

So now you know all about me, Bob. All cards on the table. Now you show me yours.

I'd like to play. Game?

 

 

When The Church, i.e., organized religion collectively, divests itself of its obscene wealth, gives it all to feed the poor, and releases its death grip on the minds of its adherents, I will once again listen to what it has to say, which at that point I'm sure will be very little.

Man has to awaken to wonder — and so perhaps do peoples.
Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus


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skeptic23 wrote:I agree

skeptic23 wrote:

I agree about making terms clear, etc. I also agree that there is a subtle, consistent skew between our respective usage. However, I think that there is a deeper issue that contributed to our misunderstandings. I was thinking about this while making my coffee this morning, before I sat down and saw your post. I'd like to address what I see as the deeper issue first.

I think we have had a credibility gap, big time. I want to overcome it. You apparently suspected that I wasn't putting all my cards on the table. Also, there are things like the fact that though I've repeatedly stated that I am not here to argue, that my interest here isn't about promoting my arguments, you characterized your involvement in our discussion as an attempt to "analyze and respond" to my "arguments." When people act like you didn't say what you said, it's often because they didn't believe what you said.

I never really thought you hiding anything. I assume you are basing that on my comment that I had encountered many who seemed reasonable and intelligent, but eventually turned out to have some crazy belief or PoV, and that I was concerned that you might be in that category, hence accounting for some of the prickly tone you detected.

Even with those people, I didn't really think of them as consciously hiding something.

My approach was colored by more of a concern that our discussion might possibly degenerate into another of the fruitless back-and-forth arguments I have grown a bit weary of.

You may have read a slightly different meaning into my use of the word 'argument' - I only meant it in the sense as applied to a formal discussion in support of a particular belief or conclusion, as part of explaining our views and why we hold to them, not as in the more antagonistic sense.

Quote:

I admit that I have put arguments forward, plenty of them, but not because I necessarily hold them myself. Like I've been saying all along, I am interested in the assumptions that we build our thinking on, especially the ones that we don't realize we have. The extreme case of this is when we treat our assumptions as givens. The best way I know of to ferret out that kind of assumption is to make a really good case for the opposition that targets precisely those assumptions. When we get stumped or really challenged, we do one of two things. We get irrational (emotional, personal, etc.) or we take a step back and realize that we have a weak spot in our thinking. That's my method, as uncomfortable as it can sometimes get, of OPENING the discussion that I'm interested in. I'm all ears for suggestions of a better way. I'm still wanting to have discussions that for the most part have yet to occur.

So, I thought I'd put all my cards on the table. I can say ahead of time that doing so might not solve our credibility problem, because I don't think that they are the kind of cards that you suspected I might be hiding, but hey, it's all I got! 

No problem.

Third option: that the other guy has hit on an aspect of my position, my understanding, that I hadn't looked into deeply enough to respond to without more research or refreshing of my knowledge of that aspect, which may or may not reveal an actual weakness.

Quote:

< ------- your story ------ >

So now you know all about me, Bob. All cards on the table. Now you show me yours.

I'd like to play. Game?

Sure, there certainly seem enough points I would take issue with in there to guarantee a robust but, hopefully, non-abusive discusssion.

I am a little uncomfortable with the idea of putting up straw-men that you don't actually hold to yourself, to 'sound out' the other guy. I would personally be more open about querying someone's reaction to some belief or argument that was not mine, even if it was a psychologically less effective way to get that information than 'pretending' to some extent that you are putting them forward as your own. Surely that risks getting people offside if they realize you don't actually believe it yourself. Reading that para again, I am probably misunderstanding you, as usual, but something about that strategy still bothers me.

I haven't really thought of you as theist, just that you may still have some vestiges of the thinking that comes with that territory.

I myself never took theism of any sort seriously, but I had what I think could be described as an 'epiphany' in 2000, on the way home from the airport after an idyllic scuba-diving holiday in Vanuatu (once called the New Hebrides), while contemplating my memories of the holiday. While relaxing on the little island where our holiday accomodation was set, I did have a few conversations with a fellow guest who had a somewhat different take on life. I don't think he was particularly religious, but he clearly had a more accomodating approach to religious ideas, maybe not that different to yours in some respects.

We had some good-natured discussions, and he did make me think a bit more about just what I believed about religion. This is not about me sensing a 'weakness'n my position, just part of my ongoing adjustment of my assumptions, as I came across more information, especially from different points of view.

The thoughts stirred up by this conversation would appear to have kept going at a barely conscious level, finally being resolved in the experience I referred to as my 'epiphany'. It seemed that things finally 'clicked into place' - my interpretation of the experience was that I had retained a residual level of 'respect', of a sneaking feeling that there was still something in the religious position that I still could not dismiss. And these buried feelings had been 'resurrected' by my conversation.

I suspect that I had partly absorbed that feeling that religion, theistic belief, was still 'respectable' from the prevailing ethos of society, even in relatively secular Australia, despite my strong Atheist position.

Then what happened is that my brain seems to have analysed those feelings, and 'concluded' that there really was no intellectual merit in the religious position.

I experienced this deep feeling of having finally purged that crap from my mind, and an incredible feeling of confidence and of having finally and deeply 'got it'. I think this feeling was strongly influenced by the memories of what had been a holiday with many 'magic moments' observing a classic tropical 'paradise' on the outer islands of that country. Not just the palm-fringed beaches and sapphire seas, rich jungle covered cliffs, but watching and interacting to a modest degree with local children, who seemed to epitomise the best form of 'innocence' and joy in life. Running out of villages shouting happily and waving to us as we drove past.

Another aspect of my life which has contributed much to my outlook is a lot of travelling, from Africa to Antarctica, England, Italy, Prague, China, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Siberia, Russia, South America, and of course several trips to a strange collection of 'states' south of the Canadian border.

Visiting icons of human construction, from the Great Wall, the Terracotta Warriors of Xi'an, the Pyramids of Giza, the grand mosques in Samarkand, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, even going to the top of a skyscraper in New York about 18 months before something happened to it...

Then of course the people... I loved standing back and watching the interactions of people going about their business in these 'exotic' places, especially in the market.

Other 'moments' : speeding up the Mekong listening to 'Ride of the Valkyries' on my iPod while standing bracing myself at the bow...

Freezing at -40 degrees in Red Square in Moscow waiting to see the New Year in....

Going on a sleigh ride in Siberia....

Always trying to get some 'feel' for the way of life of the people in the short time I was in their country.

In the last decade I have been inside more Buddhist temples, Islamic mosques, and Russian Orthodox churches than 'regular' Christian Churches...

So is that enough for now?

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


BobSpence
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I was curious to get a

I was curious to get a little more background on Wittgenstein, and I see what strikes me as significant similarities in your outlook and 'philosophy', insofar as I gan gauge it from what you have posted.

As I suspected, I find some of W's ideas reasonable, others definitely not so much.

In terms of stimulation of interesting new insights or ways of looking at things, I personally found him low on my scale, but at least partly reflects that most of his more insightful ideas are ones I have encountered and absorbed already from other sources.

-----

A bit more on my background:

I gained an honours degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Queensland, and have always had a deep interest in technical matters, including Audio equipment and 'Hi-Fi" as it used to be called.

I have maintained a strong interest in photography, which greatly enriched my experiences on my travels, and left me with many wonderful images to complement my memories.

In my early years I was quite interested in Philosophy, and read Bertrand Russell's 'History of Western Philosophy' while at University.

I also am deeply interested in Science, having subscribed to New Scientist magazine for over thirty years. I think following the actual process and progress of science in real time gives me an understanding of it that is not easy to gain from a more casual examination. This has also enormously contributed to my respect for the validity and utility of empiricism and inductive reasoning, as well as seeing just how necessary are the systems of logic and mathematics, while being quite inadequate by themselves to contribute to knowledge about reality.

The more I follow the progress of science, not just the state of scientific 'knowledge' at any point in time, the more I see philosophical arguments, at least where they address the nature of reality, as distinct from more subjective matters such as ethics, as rather barren and seriously 'missing the point, as compared to discussions by scientists and philosophers of science at the bleeding edge of our search for ever more insight and understanding of 'Life, the Universe, and Everything'.

I have several times listened to a more purely philosophical discussion of subjects such as the nature of mind and consciousness, or life itself, after just hearing an account of the latest state of scientific research into basically the same subject, and the philosophers seemed a century behind, discussing long-obsolete ideas, and utterly irrelevant. This has contributed to a serious decline in my interest in Philosophy in general.

I do respect several individuals who are philosophers, because they seem to be very clear thinkers, and have stimulated many new insights in my thinking. David Hume, Bertrand Russell, and Daniel Dennett stand out in my mind, but I am sure there were a few others. More recently, I am impressed with the ideas of Stephen Pinker, described as an 'experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, and linguist'.

 

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


skeptic23
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Hey Bob, I wondered if you were an Aussie...

Haha, I guess that explains the hat? I had a dear friend from Melbourne long ago. We've lost touch. It took me two weeks before I could understand him. We had some great discussions.

Also, about Wittgenstein, I liked that quote because I like anything that slaps down hubris, which is how I took it. I don't understand it as anti-science, but rather anti-complacency and anti-smugness. I liked the Einstein quote, too, but they seem pointed at different targets: W at the cockiness that comes from understanding mystery, E at the unimaginative dullness that can't even see it.

BobSpence1 wrote:
I never really thought you hiding anything. I assume you are basing that on my comment that I had encountered many who seemed reasonable and intelligent, but eventually turned out to have some crazy belief or PoV...

Cool, and correct.

BobSpence1 wrote:

You may have read a slightly different meaning into my use of the word 'argument' - I only meant it in the sense as applied to a formal discussion in support of a particular belief or conclusion, as part of explaining our views and why we hold to them, not as in the more antagonistic sense.

No, I took it the way you explain here that you meant it. My point is that firm belief is lacking on my part. I'm a work early in progress. Hey, I thought that was the stereotypical atheist line! “Absence of belief” right? Wassup with this? Are you telling me that I have fewer beliefs than you do and you're not sure how to deal with it?

BobSpence1 wrote:

Third option: that the other guy has hit on an aspect of my position, my understanding, that I hadn't looked into deeply enough to respond to without more research or refreshing of my knowledge of that aspect, which may or may not reveal an actual weakness.

Actually, I lump that under “weakness.” It might or might not be weak logically, significantly, or evidentially, but it's weak in that I don't yet know how weak or strong it might be. I need a strong wall, but I also need to know it's strong.

BobSpence1 wrote:

Sure, there certainly seem enough points I would take issue with in there to guarantee a robust but, hopefully, non-abusive discusssion.

We're on!

BobSpence1 wrote:

I am a little uncomfortable with the idea of putting up straw-men that you don't actually hold to yourself, to 'sound out' the other guy. I would personally be more open about querying someone's reaction to some belief or argument that was not mine, even if it was a psychologically less effective way to get that information than 'pretending' to some extent that you are putting them forward as your own. Surely that risks getting people offside if they realize you don't actually believe it yourself. Reading that para again, I am probably misunderstanding you, as usual, but something about that strategy still bothers me.

No you aren't misunderstanding, and point well taken. My quandary is an excluded middle: either I simply ask people what they think and get a bunch of stuff that isn't useful, since after all our assumptions are assumed, or I do what I do to get them to dig down and come up with justifications and reveal their assumptions. People don't usually dig very far. No one likes doing it. You never know what you're going to find down there. Me, it's a curse I was afflicted with and circumstances have only aggravated it.

I haven't found a good alternative that still gets where I'm trying to go. I think it has a bit to do with the way these discussions get framed. Everyone more or less assumes that it's a debate. I don't. I don't like debating, because the point of debate is not to ascertain truth, but to win the argument regardless of the truth. I feel forced into straw men primarily because, to some degree, everyone expects a fight or at least an argument. I'd just as soon they knock down straw men when its just my way of getting down to the good stuff.

What I would rather and really like is hypothesizing and applying hypotheses to what we know. Sitting around a campfire (or darkness) out in the wild throwing out what-ifs, with or without a little substance stimulation... The arguments only come in when we need to keep each other honest. A close second are discussions over pints at the local pub.

I appreciated, and enjoyed, reading about some of your background, experiences, and your epiphany. I tell people to shiver when you can shiver and sweat when you can sweat. I related to your rendition of some of your experiences that way, although I envy you some of the places you have gone. Not nearly so well traveled here... yet!

I had a similar epiphany. It occurred quite a while after yours, actually only a few years ago. When I left my religious experience, I pretty much bagged it along with all my questions about it. I stopped worrying about it and just lived, took care of my boys, did what I had to do, and tried to enjoy life for a change. I would characterize that as my hedonistic period. No big excesses other than above average alcohol consumption, (what can I say, I'm Ukrainian,) but it was definitely about fun. When I'd worry about the alcohol, I'd remember a Proverb, “Give strong drink to him who is perishing, and wine to him whose life is bitter.” Haha! Sad isn't it, when you need justification to do what you want to do? I'm not sure whether what you referred to as my vestigial theism is that or not, but needing an excuse to have fun was definitely vestigial theism.

Anyway, in trying to make sense of things, I treated the god question like I treated all other religious questions: a device used by certain power-mongering elements to sink us neck deep in a quagmire for their own ends. In the last several years I've realized that it actually is THE QUESTION. It's the question that the entire world is squaring off over. Of course for atheists, it's more directly a question of god-believers than a question of gods per se, but everybody seems to see the god question at the bottom of it all.

My epiphany happened about the time I read The God Delusion and was listening to Bill Maher rip on religion and religious people and was talking to my sons who were pretty much atheists to a man at the time. Can't say what in particular if anything gelled it for me, but at one point I regarded religious people as entitled to their beliefs and sometime later I realized that I couldn't look at them that way anymore. I'd see a shot of tens of thousands bowing towards Mecca, see a shot of the Pope and all the nauseating “finery” on him and around him with his arms up to the crowd below in St. Peter's Square, or any other number of things and think, “That's not just stupid; it's idiotic. It's insane.”

So much for freedom of religion or belief? No. I feel like I do precisely because these religions have stripped freedom of religion and belief from their adherents. It's gone on so long that practically everybody, including atheists and agnostics, use the terminology and definitions of the theists to argue with the theists about theism. Ya gotta see the disadvantage there.

I guess my epiphany was a bit more negative than yours. I liked the way you put it: “deep feeling of having finally purged that crap from my mind, and an incredible feeling of confidence and of having finally and deeply 'got it'.” That's the kind of life-defining experience that to me is, pardon my choice of terms, sacred. OK, I guess here is something I absolutely do believe (maybe I've got more beliefs than I thought, haha): every human being has deep, undeniable experiences of truth, so deep that they seem to need no justification. (Which doesn't necessarily mean that they don't, just that we're not likely to look for any in the near term.)

Those experiences, that knowledge, form the foundations of an individual's epistemology. They are the starting points for how we know what we know. That's also where the assumptions are. In your statement, I would distinguish between what you “got” and the confidence that you “got it.” I'm talking about the confidence. That is sacred. It's also impregnable. I doubt that any amount of logical argument or evidential proof would much dent your confidence from an experience like that. If I dismiss your right to yours, I dismiss my right to mine, because no one has more reason than anyone else to believe that they got it, whatever it is that they believe they got. Metaphysics are fair game, but epistemology is different. No matter how we think we know what we know, it eventually comes down to things so deep that we cannot imagine knowing anything without knowing those things. I'll even risk suggesting that those foundations of epistemology are always pre-rational. And again, the simple fact that these fundamental beliefs (they are always beliefs) exist doesn't mean that we can't dig deeper or shouldn't dig deeper. It just means that at any point in time that's as deep as we have dug so far.

My or your understanding about what I “got” or what you “got” is and should be open to ongoing scrutiny and revision, but in my terminology those things are holy (sorry, vestiges galore it seems; give me the atheistic equivalent and I'll use it.) My distinction (and I haven't checked myself against the dictionary, that's your job bud! Haha) is sacred = untouchable, holy = special and protected, but not untouchable. This is why we need each other, because whatever you got is somehow different than what I got. Together we've got more. That's why it seems like such a shame to focus on the differences in order to dismiss what the other person got.

What I see both atheists and theists doing is ignoring, even consciously dismissing and denigrating, what is sacred and holy to the other side because, and this is important, they just can't understand how the two could coexist. That might seem like a strange thing to say about something that by definition cannot coexist. Either gods exist or they don't. A and not-A cannot both be true. Granted. What I don't grant is that we've formulated our conception of the problem in a way that accurately reflects the real problem happening in space and time between real people. I'm actually starting to wonder if the way we've formulated the problem conceptually is even relevant to the actual, real problem.

Our conception is an either-or: gods either do or don't exist. When I listen to people talk, discuss, and argue about the problem, I don't see either-ors. I see the same kind of cross-disconnecting that used to go on with my ex when we were together and the same thing that continues to go on with my sons as they grow up and deal with daddy issues. A lot of it seems to be baby/bathwater stuff. Some of it seems to boil down to conflicting priorities that were set prior to the discussion and are not very clear in the discussion. Sometimes what people are arguing about isn't the topic being discussed, but about who gets to set terms or about focus: selecting an aspect of the topic as the priority around which the discussion should be oriented.

So you have to understand that this is one big experiment to me. I listen to theists and damned if I'm going to accept that atheists I know who are wonderful human beings will be consigned to hell because they don't "believe." I listen to atheists and damned if I'm going to accept an atheistic policy that dismisses the integrity of religious people simply because they do believe. Both sides have dismissed, denigrated, marginalized, and destroyed each other figuratively and literally for a long time. Actually, I think theists are by far the worst perpetrators when it comes to literal destruction. Whether that's a function of ideology, temperament, or overwhelming majority is debatable. I wonder, what would happen to theists in an atheistic world? Regardless, “evil atheists” and “crazy theists” are just two sides of the same coin of dismissal. I'm really tired of dismissals. At best they are lazy and chicken-shit. At worst we get pretty much every atrocity known to man, acts of utter dismissal of the worth of other human beings. I want a another way, something completely different.

So another couple of beliefs: I believe that there are solutions to the standoff, real solutions, as sure as I'm sitting here writing. I also believe that if we look for them, we'll find more than we will if we don't.

So, my purpose here is to figure this stuff out, find out if and where and why and how by engaging people who care about it. I do the same elsewhere with theists.

I've got more, but it isn't coming out very clearly, so I suspect it's time to get a little food in the belly. I'll post more in response to your most recent, which I just noticed... 

 

 

 

When The Church, i.e., organized religion collectively, divests itself of its obscene wealth, gives it all to feed the poor, and releases its death grip on the minds of its adherents, I will once again listen to what it has to say, which at that point I'm sure will be very little.

Man has to awaken to wonder — and so perhaps do peoples.
Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus


skeptic23
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Bob, venturing into risky territory...

Thanks for more info on yourself. I think that we're on the same page regarding philosophy. I actually haven't read anything by Wittgenstein since college, which is when I ruled him out as someone to be interested in. As I remember, he represented the direction that philosophy seemed to have taken, wrapping itself around its own axle as far as I was concerned. Philosophy in the 1970s seemed far away from the big questions and increasingly focused on its own navel: language. Theists might have argued over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but philosophers mid-20th century seemed to argue about things like how many truth functions could dangle from a comma. What's worse, I kept finding fundamental confusions in things I read. It seems like the writers couldn't tell the difference between the realities (I thought) they were talking about, the concepts they held of those realities, and the language they used to represent and manipulate the concepts. I finally gave up. No B.A. Philo here. I never did get anything past a 2-year vocational degree.

So to continue... I think I could characterize what follows as an argument. Risky too.

Something that I think is very significant, and I attribute this to the influences of the Church, is that we all tend to think in terms of compulsion rather than intention. E.g., given that theists are this way and believe and think and act and plan this or that, I'll have to, or I must, or I should, etc. Or, given that atheists are this way and believe and think and act and plan this or that, I'll have to, or I must, or I should, etc. It's sometimes as if we as conscious beings capable of rational thought and making decisions aren't even in the picture we have in our own minds, we're so focused on responding to what we see as givens.

Even worse, we can operate this way without ever asking ourselves what I think is a much more important question: what do I want? What do I want to do? How do I want to treat them? How do I want to respond? What would make me happy to have done? Maybe this is what I'll have to do to get what I want, but do I like it? If I could still get what I want and do it differently, would I? What I want to get out of a situation comes easily. We always approach what I want to put into it like a dependent matter of working backwards from the outcome that I want to end up with. If we actually do ask ourselves what we want to assert in a situation, it's usually constrained by what we already believe is “possible” with a view, of course, to what we will get as a result.

I'm not talking about mutually exclusive alternatives or the relative merits between alternatives. I'm pointing out a bias/predilection in our thinking. Huge bias.

When I bring this up to people in actual situations that they care about, they go deer-in-the-headlights on me. They are so concerned about what they should do or must do for whatever reason—in order to succeed, in order not to fail, in order to get what they want or avoid what they don't, whether that is approval or status or advantage or security with regard to men or gods—it's as if considering what they want to do doesn't occur to them. It sometimes doesn't make any sense to them even after I raise the question.

I do this with my boys a lot. They are trying to make a decision of some sort and sound like they're contemplating the situation like a chess move, anticipating every contingency several moves ahead. It's all predicated on their actions serving as causes to produce eventual effects, and they know what they want the outcome to be. In all that, they sometimes lose sight of their own rights as conscious, intentional beings in the situation and essentially characterize themselves as if they were at the mercy of the factors of the situation. They contemplate their actions, which truly will be causative in the situation, as if they were reactions to the factors that dictate what their actions must be to get what they want. Instead of seeing themselves as in control of what they do, they feel compelled to do it in order to get what they want. What they want is important, too. What they want to assert by means of their decisions and behavior might be more important than what they will “get” as a consequence, and it's even more likely that it's more important than what they anticipate they will get as an outcome. Until decisions are made and action is taken, it's all speculation.

Actually, I could argue that what we assert by our decisions and behavior is always more important than the consequences of our actions. Even jurisprudence acknowledges intent. Every great leader, even the evil ones, seems to have mastered that one. I like the metaphor of gravity. Some people have the knack of getting other people to revolve around them, to get other people's thinking to revolve around their priorities. This has a lot more to do with what they assert, with things like charisma and confidence, with what they project and exude, with what they declare that they want, than with button-pushing in order to get it. People seem to get sucked into their orbits and willingly serve their intentions. Button-pushing, making the right moves, strategies and tactics are for dealing with people who aren't already motivated to do what you want.

This isn't as airy nothing as it might sound. Any physical skill involves something similar. Woodworking, sports (baseball and soccer), driving cars and motorcycles really fast, playing guitar, all of which I'm very familiar with, all involve a certain period of learning to work within their particular constraints. At some point, our focus shifts from the constraints to our intentions. The more we master the mechanics involved and focus on what we want to do with the mechanics, the less constrained we feel and the more everything joins together to achieve what we want. I knew as I was swinging, just by the way the ball felt, that it was a home run. I'll never forget that feeling. It happened when I went up to the plate knowing that I was going to hit the ball. I'm not talking about New Age walk-thru-walls bullshit. I'm talking about the way that we do everything that we do well. I've even experienced it in relationships with women. As soon as I would start to lose my sense of direction and initiative in a relationship, it would cause problems for both of us. Dancing would be another example. Mechanics alone don't make a good dancer, but confidence and initiative do, whether it's to lead or to follow.

That confidence, initiative, assertion of intent, declaration of what will be that is intimately involved in everything we do that we consider to be healthy and productive is my definition of “faith.” Screw the religious definition and Webster's and Oxford's too, if necessary, haha, faith is a belief not only that a risk is worth taking but that taking the risk will succeed the way we want it to succeed; we expect nothing other. At the point of decision and at the point of action, there is always a leap large or small that defies the hundred and one things that could potentially go wrong and asserts that it will go right. As a matter of fact, anyone competent in a skill knows that his degree of actual success is intimately tied to his confidence and single-mindedness in what I'm calling “faith.” There is something similar that has to do with the fact that visualizing something imprints it onto our nervous system in many of the ways that experiencing it does, and athletes, for example, make use of visualization to help improve their skills and particular executions of those skills. That has to do with memory. I'm talking about first times. The first time off the high dive. The first approach to talk to a pretty girl. The first time you kicked out the rear end and drifted. And second times to a lesser degree, and thirds and fourths. It's what we use to bridge that part of the unknown that we have no answer for as we commit and act, expecting success. It's what we use until we get cocky and act like there is no unknown left to bridge, so no need for faith to bridge it, and we fall flat on our faces. Whatever we call it and as well as we might ever explain the phenomenon, explaining it won't change our experience of it, won't change it's role in our experience and thinking, and understanding the explanation of it won't be a prerequisite for experiencing it and using it, although anything that helps us understand is always an improvement.

Where am I going with this? I guess I wanted to see what you would think. Most atheists I've met are fairly religo-lergic: anything that even has a faint scent of religion or religious terminology makes them break out in argumentative hives. I'm looking for bridges, for commonality, so any available term is going to smack of one side or the other, unless I come up with a blurf-like term for this one too. Faith is a term that would work. It gets right to the fundamental belief thing. I'm also interested in it because of the way that religious people have bastardized it. Religious “faith” is actually a proposition of believing the unbelievable. That's really what it is,  and it's bullshit, I'm sorry. What's more, no one truly believes the unbelievable. They just act like they believe it, try to convince themselves that they believe it, and hope it all works, because after all, "God said" it would. The religious authorities who promote this kind of "faith" don't subscribe to it themselves, speaking from experience with them. I'm sure that things go on in the Vatican in exactly the same way that they go on in the White House or the boardroom. No magic, nothing special. Just guys talking, using logic, tricks, persuasion, calling in favors, and whatever else all the rest of us resort to. Actually, I'm sure it's much worse than the rest of us.

So you see where I'm going with this, right? What if atheists and theists could all agree that we all use faith, a real, experiential, useful faith? If it isn't real, experiential, and useful, atheists would have no use for it. And theists shouldn't have any use for it. It could be a step towards a start to figuring the mess out. Easier to tackle head on than gods, anyway. Plus there's an epistemological application of this that escapes me at this point in the day. I'll see if I can catch that butterfly later.

When The Church, i.e., organized religion collectively, divests itself of its obscene wealth, gives it all to feed the poor, and releases its death grip on the minds of its adherents, I will once again listen to what it has to say, which at that point I'm sure will be very little.

Man has to awaken to wonder — and so perhaps do peoples.
Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus


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Skeptic23, report sent.

Skeptic23, report sent. Enjoy the tons of reading and take your time to reply. Because personal messaging doesn't work for users without elevated status, use this form:
http://www.rationalresponders.com/user/22682/contact

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Luminon where do I look?

 Where did you send the "report" to?


BobSpence
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skeptic23, just to let you

skeptic23, just to let you know I will be responding, but I want to give myself time to adequately consider your posts.

Cheers.

 

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


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skeptic23 wrote: Where did

skeptic23 wrote:

 Where did you send the "report" to?

If you click on your nickname, there'll be 'View' tab with "Write private message", which is NOT what I used. I instead used the 'Contact' tab next to it. This hopefully should send you e-mail on the adress which you used to register on this forum. If not, well, I've got the text backupped.

Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.


EXC
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skeptic23 wrote:What I

skeptic23 wrote:

What I really hope to do here is understand why atheists choose to become atheists.

 

What both theists and atheists have in common is that we all went through a process to arrive at our respective positions.

Aren't we all born not believing in anything at all?

Some atheists never believed from day one. Some like myself were indoctrinated as children where fear and guilt were used to force feed belief on me.

skeptic23 wrote:

My frustration with understanding atheists so far is that they exhibit the same reluctance to examine their foundational beliefs that theists do. Most of what I've read and heard atheists say boils down to reasons why it doesn't make sense to seriously entertain the possibility of the existence of gods. .

Why do you treat this as a 50/50 proposition as if it were believing either a country from America or a country from Europe will win the world cup?

Do you go through life entertaining the possibility of leprechauns, unicorns, fairies, etc... And that the likelihood of their existence is about 50%?

 

The only reason to entertain the possibility of Jesus is that a large percentage of my fellow citizens believe in the Christian god. No one entertains the possibility of the Zeus or Thor because these are not socially popular. Christians don't really believe in any meaningful way, but just succumb to social pressure and because religion makes them feel good, but they really don't believe in any meaningful way. It's just mass delusion.

 

Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen


BobSpence
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skeptic23 wrote:Haha, I

skeptic23 wrote:

Haha, I guess that explains the hat? I had a dear friend from Melbourne long ago. We've lost touch. It took me two weeks before I could understand him. We had some great discussions.

I bought that hat because I really need to protect myself from the sun, being of a complexion that is not well adapted to UV, and living in a sub-tropical location that is affected by the fringes of the Antarctic ozone hole. It is styled as a traditional Aussie Hat, it is actually branded that, but it is made in Sri Lanka...

Quote:

Also, about Wittgenstein, I liked that quote because I like anything that slaps down hubris, which is how I took it. I don't understand it as anti-science, but rather anti-complacency and anti-smugness. I liked the Einstein quote, too, but they seem pointed at different targets: W at the cockiness that comes from understanding mystery, E at the unimaginative dullness that can't even see it.

BobSpence1 wrote:
I never really thought you hiding anything. I assume you are basing that on my comment that I had encountered many who seemed reasonable and intelligent, but eventually turned out to have some crazy belief or PoV...

Cool, and correct.

BobSpence1 wrote:

You may have read a slightly different meaning into my use of the word 'argument' - I only meant it in the sense as applied to a formal discussion in support of a particular belief or conclusion, as part of explaining our views and why we hold to them, not as in the more antagonistic sense.

No, I took it the way you explain here that you meant it. My point is that firm belief is lacking on my part. I'm a work early in progress. Hey, I thought that was the stereotypical atheist line! “Absence of belief” right? Wassup with this? Are you telling me that I have fewer beliefs than you do and you're not sure how to deal with it?

Atheism is only "absence of belief" in a God. That is all an honest and non-dogamatic Atheist will assert. Doesn't preclude any other beliefs. I personally prefer to use 'assumptions' rather than 'belief' for most things. I would restrict 'belief' to refer to more basic assumptions, such as that while we cannot have absolute certainty about much beyond 'cogito ergo sum', we can establish by empirical methods a whole bunch of things, each with some estimate of confidence in the likelihood that they usefully model whatever passes for 'reality'.

I don't have any opinions on anything like our relative "number of beliefs", I don't think in those terms. I don't really quite see how you draw any of those comments out of what I said there.

Are you saying you didn't see this discussion as us presenting 'arguments' for our respective approaches? I wasn't even presuming arguments for a specific set of beliefs. I am deliberately trying to not make assumptions about your thoughts on this whole area, after our recent exchanges, while you seem to continue to make assumption about what I am thinking or intending, reading stuff into my responses way beyond what I intended or that I can see in them.

Quote:

BobSpence1 wrote:

Third option: that the other guy has hit on an aspect of my position, my understanding, that I hadn't looked into deeply enough to respond to without more research or refreshing of my knowledge of that aspect, which may or may not reveal an actual weakness.

Actually, I lump that under “weakness.” It might or might not be weak logically, significantly, or evidentially, but it's weak in that I don't yet know how weak or strong it might be. I need a strong wall, but I also need to know it's strong.

So if you don't know whether something is weak or strong, you assume it is weak? That is what you seem to be saying - "I lump that under weakness".

That is not logical - the correct category is "I don't know". Sorry.

Quote:

BobSpence1 wrote:

Sure, there certainly seem enough points I would take issue with in there to guarantee a robust but, hopefully, non-abusive discusssion.

We're on!

BobSpence1 wrote:

I am a little uncomfortable with the idea of putting up straw-men that you don't actually hold to yourself, to 'sound out' the other guy. I would personally be more open about querying someone's reaction to some belief or argument that was not mine, even if it was a psychologically less effective way to get that information than 'pretending' to some extent that you are putting them forward as your own. Surely that risks getting people offside if they realize you don't actually believe it yourself. Reading that para again, I am probably misunderstanding you, as usual, but something about that strategy still bothers me.

No you aren't misunderstanding, and point well taken. My quandary is an excluded middle: either I simply ask people what they think and get a bunch of stuff that isn't useful, since after all our assumptions are assumed, or I do what I do to get them to dig down and come up with justifications and reveal their assumptions. People don't usually dig very far. No one likes doing it. You never know what you're going to find down there. Me, it's a curse I was afflicted with and circumstances have only aggravated it.

I haven't found a good alternative that still gets where I'm trying to go. I think it has a bit to do with the way these discussions get framed. Everyone more or less assumes that it's a debate. I don't. I don't like debating, because the point of debate is not to ascertain truth, but to win the argument regardless of the truth. I feel forced into straw men primarily because, to some degree, everyone expects a fight or at least an argument. I'd just as soon they knock down straw men when its just my way of getting down to the good stuff.

What I would rather and really like is hypothesizing and applying hypotheses to what we know. Sitting around a campfire (or darkness) out in the wild throwing out what-ifs, with or without a little substance stimulation... The arguments only come in when we need to keep each other honest. A close second are discussions over pints at the local pub.

I too do not like the debate format.

I will really have to think about how to respond to this. I will put it off to another post, I think.

Quote:

I appreciated, and enjoyed, reading about some of your background, experiences, and your epiphany. I tell people to shiver when you can shiver and sweat when you can sweat. I related to your rendition of some of your experiences that way, although I envy you some of the places you have gone. Not nearly so well traveled here... yet!

I had a similar epiphany. It occurred quite a while after yours, actually only a few years ago. When I left my religious experience, I pretty much bagged it along with all my questions about it. I stopped worrying about it and just lived, took care of my boys, did what I had to do, and tried to enjoy life for a change. I would characterize that as my hedonistic period. No big excesses other than above average alcohol consumption, (what can I say, I'm Ukrainian,) but it was definitely about fun. When I'd worry about the alcohol, I'd remember a Proverb, “Give strong drink to him who is perishing, and wine to him whose life is bitter.” Haha! Sad isn't it, when you need justification to do what you want to do? I'm not sure whether what you referred to as my vestigial theism is that or not, but needing an excuse to have fun was definitely vestigial theism.

Anyway, in trying to make sense of things, I treated the god question like I treated all other religious questions: a device used by certain power-mongering elements to sink us neck deep in a quagmire for their own ends. In the last several years I've realized that it actually is THE QUESTION. It's the question that the entire world is squaring off over. Of course for atheists, it's more directly a question of god-believers than a question of gods per se, but everybody seems to see the god question at the bottom of it all.

My epiphany happened about the time I read The God Delusion and was listening to Bill Maher rip on religion and religious people and was talking to my sons who were pretty much atheists to a man at the time. Can't say what in particular if anything gelled it for me, but at one point I regarded religious people as entitled to their beliefs and sometime later I realized that I couldn't look at them that way anymore. I'd see a shot of tens of thousands bowing towards Mecca, see a shot of the Pope and all the nauseating “finery” on him and around him with his arms up to the crowd below in St. Peter's Square, or any other number of things and think, “That's not just stupid; it's idiotic. It's insane.”

So much for freedom of religion or belief? No. I feel like I do precisely because these religions have stripped freedom of religion and belief from their adherents. It's gone on so long that practically everybody, including atheists and agnostics, use the terminology and definitions of the theists to argue with the theists about theism. Ya gotta see the disadvantage there.

No.

I believe in using the terms they understand, or think they do, to show the fallacies in their postion.

Quote:

I guess my epiphany was a bit more negative than yours. I liked the way you put it: “deep feeling of having finally purged that crap from my mind, and an incredible feeling of confidence and of having finally and deeply 'got it'.” That's the kind of life-defining experience that to me is, pardon my choice of terms, sacred. OK, I guess here is something I absolutely do believe (maybe I've got more beliefs than I thought, haha): every human being has deep, undeniable experiences of truth, so deep that they seem to need no justification. (Which doesn't necessarily mean that they don't, just that we're not likely to look for any in the near term.)

Those experiences, that knowledge, form the foundations of an individual's epistemology. They are the starting points for how we know what we know. That's also where the assumptions are. In your statement, I would distinguish between what you “got” and the confidence that you “got it.” I'm talking about the confidence. That is sacred. It's also impregnable. I doubt that any amount of logical argument or evidential proof would much dent your confidence from an experience like that. If I dismiss your right to yours, I dismiss my right to mine, because no one has more reason than anyone else to believe that they got it, whatever it is that they believe they got. Metaphysics are fair game, but epistemology is different. No matter how we think we know what we know, it eventually comes down to things so deep that we cannot imagine knowing anything without knowing those things. I'll even risk suggesting that those foundations of epistemology are always pre-rational. And again, the simple fact that these fundamental beliefs (they are always beliefs) exist doesn't mean that we can't dig deeper or shouldn't dig deeper. It just means that at any point in time that's as deep as we have dug so far.

I agree that all we have ultimately are 'beliefs', along a scale of strongly held, with good justification, to tentative assumptions at the other end.

Actually, my confidence in the validation of that epiphany has faded, although I still see it as very significant, and valuable for getting rid of that residual feeling, but not really to be taken as proving the validity of my position. IOW it was valuable for re-adjusting my subjective state, like a great therapy session, not for demonstrating any truths. Such experience should NOT be taken as some sort of access to Truth, I leave that error to the Theists.

'Knowing' is ultimately a belief. And the philosophical 'definition' of knowledge as "justified true belief" is an incredibly stupid, circular question-begging phrase. Not that you used it, just one of my pet 'peeves'.

Quote:

My or your understanding about what I “got” or what you “got” is and should be open to ongoing scrutiny and revision, but in my terminology those things are holy (sorry, vestiges galore it seems; give me the atheistic equivalent and I'll use it.) My distinction (and I haven't checked myself against the dictionary, that's your job bud! Haha) is sacred = untouchable, holy = special and protected, but not untouchable. This is why we need each other, because whatever you got is somehow different than what I got. Together we've got more. That's why it seems like such a shame to focus on the differences in order to dismiss what the other person got.

What I see both atheists and theists doing is ignoring, even consciously dismissing and denigrating, what is sacred and holy to the other side because, and this is important, they just can't understand how the two could coexist. That might seem like a strange thing to say about something that by definition cannot coexist. Either gods exist or they don't. A and not-A cannot both be true. Granted. What I don't grant is that we've formulated our conception of the problem in a way that accurately reflects the real problem happening in space and time between real people. I'm actually starting to wonder if the way we've formulated the problem conceptually is even relevant to the actual, real problem.

Our conception is an either-or: gods either do or don't exist. When I listen to people talk, discuss, and argue about the problem, I don't see either-ors. I see the same kind of cross-disconnecting that used to go on with my ex when we were together and the same thing that continues to go on with my sons as they grow up and deal with daddy issues. A lot of it seems to be baby/bathwater stuff. Some of it seems to boil down to conflicting priorities that were set prior to the discussion and are not very clear in the discussion. Sometimes what people are arguing about isn't the topic being discussed, but about who gets to set terms or about focus: selecting an aspect of the topic as the priority around which the discussion should be oriented.

So you have to understand that this is one big experiment to me. I listen to theists and damned if I'm going to accept that atheists I know who are wonderful human beings will be consigned to hell because they don't "believe." I listen to atheists and damned if I'm going to accept an atheistic policy that dismisses the integrity of religious people simply because they do believe. Both sides have dismissed, denigrated, marginalized, and destroyed each other figuratively and literally for a long time. Actually, I think theists are by far the worst perpetrators when it comes to literal destruction. Whether that's a function of ideology, temperament, or overwhelming majority is debatable. I wonder, what would happen to theists in an atheistic world? Regardless, “evil atheists” and “crazy theists” are just two sides of the same coin of dismissal. I'm really tired of dismissals. At best they are lazy and chicken-shit. At worst we get pretty much every atrocity known to man, acts of utter dismissal of the worth of other human beings. I want a another way, something completely different.

I think you are wrong - you certainly are with respect to myself, and many others here - that atheists generally are "dismissing the integrity" of religious people. I have what I think is a reasonable idea of why they believe what they do, they are stuck with a powerful 'meme' which is not easy to break out of, even if they wanted to. Many of us here repeatedly stress that it is the belief we are attacking or ridiculing or denigrating, not the person.

I have no problem with Theists attacking what I regard as 'holy', for want of a better word, because I know they are doing it because of their delusions, as I see it. Everyone ultimately has to be able to accept that sort of 'attack' from people who deeply misunderstand them and find their ideas offensive, otherwise we are doomed to this endless cycle of conflict and terrorism. Everyone has to be prepared to learn to handle and accept or ignore verbal insults, no matter how dire, and realize that the alternative is violence and war. Let us keep it to words, and let the insults fly, if they must. Rather that than resorting to violence. I would like to think we Atheists could adopt the higher moral ground - it shouldn't be hard, because Theism provides a desperately flawed basis for morality.

The magical idea embedded in many religions of the power of words is a key problem, encouraging these conflicts, whether with non-believers or believers in a different faith. We have to find away to get this thru to them.

Theism by its very nature provide no real mechanism for resolving deep conflicts of doctrine, since neither side is likely to acknowledge the authority of a third party not sharing their belief system.

Theism is vastly more the problem than the odd angry atheist, IMHO.

The sooner we can reduce this tendency to believe in a 'higher power', and recognize its psychological roots, the better.

The conflicting religions are a massive demonstration of the nonsense that comes from assuming that intuitive ideas of revelation and so on are remotely reliable sources of 'truth' beyond the workings of our own thoughts.

Quote:

So another couple of beliefs: I believe that there are solutions to the standoff, real solutions, as sure as I'm sitting here writing. I also believe that if we look for them, we'll find more than we will if we don't.

So, my purpose here is to figure this stuff out, find out if and where and why and how by engaging people who care about it. I do the same elsewhere with theists.

I've got more, but it isn't coming out very clearly, so I suspect it's time to get a little food in the belly. I'll post more in response to your most recent, which I just noticed... 

OK, I will have a go at your other post tomorrow....

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


skeptic23
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EXC, that was a bit confusing...

Rather than guess to try to make sense of it, I'll ask you to explain...

EXC wrote:

Aren't we all born not believing in anything at all?

Some atheists never believed from day one. Some like myself were indoctrinated as children where fear and guilt were used to force feed belief on me.

Granted, we started out without belief or much of anything else. Are you implying that unless we're "indoctrinated" we never develop any beliefs, whether it's in gods or in some other notion that serves to organize our world-views? For example, I find that atheists use science in many ways that are similar to the ways that theists use god belief to organize their world-views.

 

EXC wrote:

 

skeptic23 wrote:

My frustration with understanding atheists so far is that they exhibit the same reluctance to examine their foundational beliefs that theists do. Most of what I've read and heard atheists say boils down to reasons why it doesn't make sense to seriously entertain the possibility of the existence of gods. .

Why do you treat this as a 50/50 proposition as if it were believing either a country from America or a country from Europe will win the world cup?

Do you go through life entertaining the possibility of leprechauns, unicorns, fairies, etc... And that the likelihood of their existence is about 50%?

 

I didn't "treat this as a 50/50 proposition." I didn't quantify or imply any kind of relative comparison. That's clearly how you understood it. I was asking why atheists are reluctant. Atheists aren't simply reluctant to believe in gods. Atheists are reluctant to allow that gods are possible. There's a difference. Many atheists spend a fair amount of energy trying to preclude the possibility of the existence of gods, which is different than considering the possibility of gods and then rejecting their existence based on their findings. In other words, they put energy into showing that the question is invalid, whether by showing that the question makes no sense, has no meaning, or raises a possibility that is ridiculous. Your comment and you question are examples of trying to invalidate the question. My interest is why invalidating the question is important to you and others.

So I specifically ask you: why is the question so ridiculous to you? That's an open, sincere question, not a rhetorical one. You certainly had a thought process of some sort that brought you to the point that you think that the question is NOT a "50/50 proposition as if it were believing either a country from America or a country from Europe will win the world cup." I'd like to know about your process, i.e., your findings and what led you to them.

To answer your question, I go through life open to the possibility of every thing that facts show is worth paying attention to. It's an empirical approach. I try to let facts tell me where to look. When someone tells me or I read something that indicates the possibility that my notion of "what is worth paying attention to" is too narrow or is misguided, I listen to them to see if I can see the same things that they see, based on facts. Sometimes I can't, so I have to reject what they say at that point. Sometimes I realize later that they had a point, so I revise my views accordingly. Sometimes that never happens. What I refuse to do is to decide beforehand that it's impossible for that to happen. I don't like precluding possibilities, because that often means that I have treated an assumption like a given or a truth or a fact and refuse to take another look at it. Assumption might be the mother of all fuck-ups, but when our assumptions hook up with certainty so that they become impregnable, they ensure fuck-ups that we could have avoided.

 

EXC wrote:

The only reason to entertain the possibility of Jesus is that a large percentage of my fellow citizens believe in the Christian god. No one entertains the possibility of the Zeus or Thor because these are not socially popular. Christians don't really believe in any meaningful way, but just succumb to social pressure and because religion makes them feel good, but they really don't believe in any meaningful way. It's just mass delusion.

Here I think you are confusing two related issues. The god belief question is a more basic question than the Christian (or Islam or Judaism or the Hindu) question, which is cultural/societal just as you describe. The god belief question is a universally human question and transcends cultural/societal boundaries. Anthropology is clearly showing us this. The only reason to consider the Christian question is the fact that a large percentage of our fellow citizens believe in the Christian god. However, when north of 90% of the human population believes in some god or gods, there is clearly something interesting about the more basic god belief question that attracts most of us, regardless of the religion we are surrounded by. I'll go out on a limb and say that the vast majority of the other 10% decided that they don't believe in gods as a result of rejecting the particular flavor of god belief that was all around them, so they thought the question was interesting, too. And for the few left who were never exposed to god belief in a way that made it interesting to them, I'd really like to understand how they look at the other 98% of us (who knows what that number is, I just threw it out there,) who thought that it was a question worth answering.

You did make some pretty bold claims about the meaningfulness of how Christians believe. Saying that they "really don't believe in any meaningful way" implies that there are meaningful ways in which they could believe, although they actually don't. Could you tell me more about what those meaningful ways to believe would be? That's interesting to me.

When The Church, i.e., organized religion collectively, divests itself of its obscene wealth, gives it all to feed the poor, and releases its death grip on the minds of its adherents, I will once again listen to what it has to say, which at that point I'm sure will be very little.

Man has to awaken to wonder — and so perhaps do peoples.
Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus


skeptic23
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Hey Bob, I think we're

Hey Bob, I think we're making progress, thanks.

BobSpence1 wrote:

Atheism is only "absence of belief" in a God. That is all an honest and non-dogamatic Atheist will assert. Doesn't preclude any other beliefs. I personally prefer to use 'assumptions' rather than 'belief' for most things. I would restrict 'belief' to refer to more basic assumptions, such as that while we cannot have absolute certainty about much beyond 'cogito ergo sum', we can establish by empirical methods a whole bunch of things, each with some estimate of confidence in the likelihood that they usefully model whatever passes for 'reality'.

I don't have any opinions on anything like our relative "number of beliefs", I don't think in those terms. I don't really quite see how you draw any of those comments out of what I said there.

Are you saying you didn't see this discussion as us presenting 'arguments' for our respective approaches? I wasn't even presuming arguments for a specific set of beliefs. I am deliberately trying to not make assumptions about your thoughts on this whole area, after our recent exchanges, while you seem to continue to make assumption about what I am thinking or intending, reading stuff into my responses way beyond what I intended or that I can see in them.

Actually, Bob, that was my poor attempt at a little “ribbing” (humor). I'm starting to wonder whether American/Australian language differences are messing with us? Anyway, notice that I asked questions. Wasn't trying to read into anything. I have been trying to point out something that I felt you were reading into my presence on the board, that I'm here to represent a position, since much of what you state and request from me implies that I have a much firmer position than I do. If you get why I'm here, cool.

BobSpence1 wrote:

So if you don't know whether something is weak or strong, you assume it is weak? That is what you seem to be saying - "I lump that under weakness".

That is not logical - the correct category is "I don't know". Sorry.

Haha, YES, I consider all ignorance to be a weakness.

BobSpence1 wrote:

I believe in using the terms they understand, or think they do, to show the fallacies in their postion.

Me too.

BobSpence1 wrote:

I agree that all we have ultimately are 'beliefs', along a scale of strongly held, with good justification, to tentative assumptions at the other end.

Agreed on it being a scale/spectrum. We usually conceive of that scale the way you described it: one-dimensional. I wonder what a two- or three-dimensional scale would entail? Just musing out loud...

BobSpence1 wrote:

Actually, my confidence in the validation of that epiphany has faded, although I still see it as very significant, and valuable for getting rid of that residual feeling, but not really to be taken as proving the validity of my position. IOW it was valuable for re-adjusting my subjective state, like a great therapy session, not for demonstrating any truths. Such experience should NOT be taken as some sort of access to Truth, I leave that error to the Theists.

'Knowing' is ultimately a belief. And the philosophical 'definition' of knowledge as "justified true belief" is an incredibly stupid, circular question-begging phrase. Not that you used it, just one of my pet 'peeves'.

I don't construe the confidence as proving anything, either. However, your description went beyond “adjusting a subjective state” in that you said you “got it” which I took to refer to “there really was no intellectual merit in the religious position.” That sounds like a truth statement and “getting it” sounds like you concluded the statement was correct. Am I missing something? I guess I assumed that your ephiphany had to do with your certainty about your conclusion on the merit of the religious position. I am not implying that the epiphany was your most important or your sole consideration. All I was trying to do is point out that such experiences are fundamental.

This raises a really interesting question that I hope I can phrase properly. How does empirical science escape the circularity you mentioned about definition of knowledge as "justified true belief?" Isn't science precisely about justifying (empirically verifying) beliefs that we are inclined to believe (theories)? No one tries to prove a theory that he thinks is a ridiculous or stupid theory. And that is one reason that it took so long for us to figure out that the earth is not flat and that the sun does not revolve around it.

What I'm asking is based on the following thoughts. Every product of the scientific method is a function of exploring a theory or, at a more granular level, a hypothesis. Theories and hypotheses begin by definition as unproven, even imaginative. The assumptions involved in a theory or hypothesis, or for that matter those involved in perspective/world-view/framework in which he formulates them, have huge influences on the validity of his subsequent work and so the validity of his findings. This is why the tests and findings must be reproducible. We're banking on the likelihood that blind spots, oversights, biases and the like, which often are functions of erroneous assumptions, won't be 100% consistent across all reproductions. When they occasionally are 100% consistent, scientists accept as proven something that is erroneous. Prevailing assumptions also have a huge influence on the kind of scrutiny that the findings will be subjected to. The history of science is replete with examples of scientific “knowledge” that was accepted as true for long periods of time, right up to the point that we figured out that it wasn't true. I think that examples of this that were caused by erroneous assumptions are more interesting than those caused by imperfect observation methods, for example. Copernicus' work is a great example. These days, scientists like Brandon Carter and others are saying that we've taken Copernicus a little too far.

So, how does science get around the problem that all attempts to empirically verify a scientific claim are seriously dependent on basic beliefs which have not been empirically verified at the time? I don't think that we can get around it. I don't think that this is a fatal flaw. I rather think it's simply a function of limited cognition of the type that humans possess and applies to every field of knowledge, not just science. I'm interested in this because I keep running into a belief implicitly held by science advocates that science somehow gets around the problem. Some science advocates even say that science does or will at some point get around the problem. Others practically ignore that there is a problem. Most of them object when I point the problem out. It's as if they don't want to recognize the problem. That makes me wonder why. It's strangely similar to the reaction I get from theists when I point out that they need evidence in order to make the claims that they make.

BobSpence1 wrote:

I think you are wrong - you certainly are with respect to myself, and many others here - that atheists generally are "dismissing the integrity" of religious people. I have what I think is a reasonable idea of why they believe what they do, they are stuck with a powerful 'meme' which is not easy to break out of, even if they wanted to. Many of us here repeatedly stress that it is the belief we are attacking or ridiculing or denigrating, not the person.

I have no problem with Theists attacking what I regard as 'holy', for want of a better word, because I know they are doing it because of their delusions, as I see it. Everyone ultimately has to be able to accept that sort of 'attack' from people who deeply misunderstand them and find their ideas offensive, otherwise we are doomed to this endless cycle of conflict and terrorism. Everyone has to be prepared to learn to handle and accept or ignore verbal insults, no matter how dire, and realize that the alternative is violence and war. Let us keep it to words, and let the insults fly, if they must. Rather that than resorting to violence. I would like to think we Atheists could adopt the higher moral ground - it shouldn't be hard, because Theism provides a desperately flawed basis for morality.

OK, so help me understand. I can't see how considering a person's dearest beliefs as "delusions" can be separated from attacking or ridiculing or denigrating the person himself, especially if he has vested himself in them to the point of being willing to die for them. If a theist tells you that your atheism is a function of your delusional thinking, is that solely a comment on your beliefs? Isn't that also a comment on you as a person who is apparently incapable of coming up with beliefs that aren't delusional, since you presumably put a lot of effort into it and failed anyway? That would be a great line to be able to draw, because it would help avoid both the insults and the violence.

However, I think that your distinction between verbal and physical violence is a wishful one. Pretty much everything that we know about interpersonal violence indicates that verbal abuse always precedes physical abuse. What I read on the subject says this and my brother, a 30-year veteran police detective and sergeant, confirms it from his experience. Verbal abuse doesn't guarantee physical abuse, but is always its precursor. I think that motivationally they are very similar and differ primarily in terms of expression. The difference between wanting to strangle someone and actually doing it is a matter of recognizing priorities that outweigh our desire/urge/compulsion to follow through on our urge to do it, even if the priority is as simplistic as “Thou shalt not...” or fear of consequences. If someone wants to strangle and has no reason not to strangle, it's reasonable to expect that they will strangle. Whether they do or don't strangle, they almost always say something, and if they do strangle, they always lead up to it verbally. Whatever level of expression our motivation to strangle rises to, verbal or physical, the person we direct it towards always experiences it as a form of violation or abuse. Verbal abuse isn't physical abuse, but they are both abuse nonetheless, just at different levels of expression and severity.

My interest is in the fact that we ever want to violate or abuse at all. I don't believe that it is inevitable, uncontrollable behavior. It's uncontrollable only if our motivations towards abusive behavior become stronger than we can control. What if we could figure out how to avoid the motivations long before they get to that point? What if we could avoid the things that trigger those motivations in the first place? No one who is healthy, happy and secure with those around him arbitrarily decides that he wants to abuse them, or is overcome with an urge to to so. If we can understand what gets us to the point that we want to violate or abuse, maybe we can learn to avoid it so that we don't need to apply the brakes after the car is already rolling. When we don't feel that important boundaries have been violated, we don't normally lapse into any sort of abusive behavior, whether it's insult or injury. So far as we're healthy, we have no reason to think in that direction much less go there, psychopaths and sociopaths excepted. If we can figure out ways to understand and tolerate each other and each others' beliefs without involving violations or abuse, wouldn't that be better than growing thicker hides so that those violations or abuses don't push us past the verbal retaliation/physical retaliation line that you mentioned?

BobSpence1 wrote:

The magical idea embedded in many religions of the power of words is a key problem, encouraging these conflicts, whether with non-believers or believers in a different faith. We have to find away to get this thru to them.

I completely agree. I don't believe in magic and I recognize magical thinking when I encounter it. I see magical thinking going on in both sides of the atheist/theist argument.

BobSpence1 wrote:

Theism by its very nature provide no real mechanism for resolving deep conflicts of doctrine, since neither side is likely to acknowledge the authority of a third party not sharing their belief system.

BINGO! I agree. Reality is the arbiter.

That's why I start not with "cogito ergo sum," but with "is est." IT IS. Something is, whatever it is, and we need to figure out what “it” is and what that means to us. "I think therefore I am" is rife with unexamined assumptions.

That's also why I think that the disputes people get into are so stupid. We need to stop arguing about it and just Google it! Haha, just kidding. This is why science is our best approach so far. We need to look and see what is really there. I don't reject the value of the scientific approach, I just resist the claim that it trumps any and all other approaches to acquiring knowlege. Why not use all of them properly? Science involves all of them anyway. The frustration I continue to have with both atheists an theists is that BOTH put so much energy into declaring what is and what isn't valid to consider BEFORE they have looked at reality and often without the slightest inclination to look. Physicalism is an example of this on the atheistic side. I'm sure I don't need to point out examples from the theistic side.

BobSpence1 wrote:

Theism is vastly more the problem than the odd angry atheist, IMHO.

Haha, yesterday I would have agreed. Since then I answered my own question about what would happen to theists in an atheistic world. Some of the answer to that question was provided by Stalin and Mao Zedong.

BobSpence1 wrote:

The sooner we can reduce this tendency to believe in a 'higher power', and recognize its psychological roots, the better.

No argument with that. I completely agree. However, I don't agree if dismissing “a higher power” means dismissing something just because some people construe it as a higher power. I love gravity as an example. That's a pretty “high power.” None of us escapes it. Actually, practically nothing escapes it. We currently have no more evidence for gravity than theists do for God. Until we find a graviton or Garrett Lisi shows that a combination of other particles that we have found are responsible for gravity, for all we know there could be a cosmic angel in the center of every chunk of matter holding a unidirectional matter magnet whose strength corresponds to the mass of the chunk. What we have so far are theories about what gravity is but no empirical verification, no more evidence for those theories than we have for cosmic angels. (I'm obviously pushing credulity to prove a point.)

This also gets to something that really interests me. Given that there are PLENTY of things that we accept more easily than gods (dark matter, dark energy, gravity, etc.) but that we cannot prove any better than the theists can prove gods, why are those things so much easier for us to accept than gods? After decades of unsuccessful searching for evidence of things like dark matter or dark energy or gravity, when you consider what evidence we DO have that makes us believe that they must be there, that evidence serves very similar functions in our thinking as does “evidence” for the existence of gods in the thinking of theists. The big difference is one of priority: evidence is high priority for the scientifically-minded and low priority for many or most theists. I was never one of those, even when I was a full-on Christian, and that's one reason I kept running afoul of Christian authorities. I kept asking for evidence.

Is it just about magical thinking? Richard Dawkins publicly admits that he thinks that a reasonable explanation for the origins of life on earth might be aliens who seeded earth with the chemical rudiments to get it started. That isn't a real origins explanation and sets up the same infinite regress that he objects to in creationism. How is that less magical than creationism? I'm not implying that you would agree with him, just pointing out an example of a prominent atheist who is willing to accept an explanation that seems no less fanciful than a common theistic explanation that he objects to. What is he really objecting to? Or is the crux of the matter the notion that there is a big intelligence out there somewhere? Wouldn't a very advanced alien race qualify as a big intelligence? Is the crux of the matter that we can conceive of eventually becoming as advanced as a very advanced alien race, but we can't conceive of every catching up to God? Or is the crux of the matter the notion that there is a cosmic moralist out there who will whip us with a cosmic ruler when we die? How is simple causation somehow different? Won't the consequences of everything we do eventually affect all of us, even we do did it? How is that different than the metaphor of standing before the Almighty to be judged? Is it that we feel we have more hope of complying with laws of physics than we do of complying with divine laws governing our behavior?

I'm not asking these questions about Dawkins specifically. I'm just using him as an example of something I run into over and over with atheists, whether I've conversed with them or just read what they've written. In all I've read and heard, I still haven't felt like I really understand the crux of the atheist's objection to theism, since I find examples of what they object to in the very thinking that lies behind their objections. I suppose it could be as simple as "we don't need that hogwash" but when I ask what's wrong with the hogwash and why they don't need it, things get very much less than clear. I'm left puzzled.

It's like there's a fly in the theistic ointment that atheists object to so strongly that they reject the ointment along with it, even though the ointment is quite similar to their own. It seems very much like contagion aversion behavior. I see patterns in atheistic arguments that aren't accounted for by the arguments, and they look like avoidance patterns. I just haven't figured out exactly what atheists might be trying to avoid. I'm trying to distinguish the fly from the ointment. I hope this makes sense to you, because it's a big question for me.

BobSpence1 wrote:

The conflicting religions are a massive demonstration of the nonsense that comes from assuming that intuitive ideas of revelation and so on are remotely reliable sources of 'truth' beyond the workings of our own thoughts.

I agree completely. If I knew you better and was sure you'd get the joke, I would have said, “Amen brother!” Eye-wink

 

When The Church, i.e., organized religion collectively, divests itself of its obscene wealth, gives it all to feed the poor, and releases its death grip on the minds of its adherents, I will once again listen to what it has to say, which at that point I'm sure will be very little.

Man has to awaken to wonder — and so perhaps do peoples.
Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus


Atheistextremist
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Give me a break with this, Skeptic

skeptic23 wrote:

Haha, yesterday I would have agreed. Since then I answered my own question about what would happen to theists in an atheistic world. Some of the answer to that question was provided by Stalin and Mao Zedong.

 

 

You live happily in a largely secular world. Any time you want to live in an extremely religious and intolerant society you can always go live in one and see. Unfortunately I think if you tried it they might burn you at stake for heresy. Any of us can find detailed lists of good and bad atheists and theists. Both the guys you mention were power hungry nut bags. In any case, Stalin had seminary training and believed jesus existed - I think you could make a case that stalin wasn't an anti-theist. He just wanted total control. Mao was raised a Buddhist and his writings borrow heavily from taoism and confuscianism. He built a personality cult and installed himself as the messiah. Hitler said he was on a mission from the creator to kill the jews. In the bunker he thought god had deserted him.

I have found that generally, serious atheists take greater responsibility for their thoughts and actions than god people do, and probably think their way around the issues in far greater depth, and do it a lot of the time. There are no shortcuts as an atheist. When you consider the alternative to using your brain is playing a game of cognitive snakes and ladders with the mythology and outright deceit of all religions, this is no great surprise. Your position seems to suggest you think that without god humans can have no morality or are prey to taking over their countries and killing everyone. This is obviously wrong. 

 

 

 

 

 

"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck


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Atheistextremist, nope, ya got me wrong

I didn't mention Hitler. I agree Stalin and Mao were nuts. I don't agree that they were theists. USSR and China both cracked down on all forms of religion under those men. Their religious training meant little.

No, I don't have the position on morality you mentioned. My position is that I haven't heard any decent cases from atheists that explain how a compelling morality could be explained or sustained except by leveraging vestiges of theistic belief. As a matter of fact, I can make a good case for making saints out of genocide perpetrators from an untainted atheistic position, since they contributed so much to population control and ridded the religious crazies from the gene pool.

Would you care to explain how you could derive morality from an atheistic world view that has some moral clout to it without resorting to theistic BS? I'd love to hear it.

When The Church, i.e., organized religion collectively, divests itself of its obscene wealth, gives it all to feed the poor, and releases its death grip on the minds of its adherents, I will once again listen to what it has to say, which at that point I'm sure will be very little.

Man has to awaken to wonder — and so perhaps do peoples.
Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus


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I don't recall saying those people were theists

 

I said they were not atheists. And I added hitler in for good measure. He's the bloke who usually gets thrown in our faces. Their personal atheistic beliefs were not the motivation for their anti-religious practices. As for explaining morality in a way that doesn't resort to a completely unprovable theistic framework, it's transparently obvious that morals developed to allow humans to live together in self supporting groups. We developed these social mores ourselves. Attaching an invisible being living outside the universe that no one has ever seen, to an urge to help an old lady across the street, to return some bloke's wallet or trade favours with neighbours, is ludicrous.

Morality is not a single set of rules. Morality describes the generally accepted rights and wrongs in a given culture. Morality evolves. Morality differs between cultures. Morality is not always virtuous. Morality does not prove the existence of anything at all apart from its usefulness in describing beneficial and valuable behaviours in human groups. Morality is utterly separate from religion. Morality was here long before the invention of religion. Morality in significant part, is a learned behaviour.

As a case in point on the evolution of morality, today a french woman stripped naked on Uluru, a big sacred rock in the middle of Australia. Indigenous people are outraged and say she must be deported for sacrilege. But 200 years ago, all the aborigines who visited the sacred rock were stark naked.

As for your suggestion of making saints out of genocide perpetrators from "an untainted atheistic position" thanks to their contribution to population control, I think you're merrily continuing to display an immoral moral bias towards people who don't believe in god, a moral bias that was no doubt instilled in you, culturally, through your long ride with jesus' best friends. You want to lose that idea.  

 

"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck


BobSpence
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skeptic23 wrote:Hey Bob, I

skeptic23 wrote:

Hey Bob, I think we're making progress, thanks.

BobSpence1 wrote:

So if you don't know whether something is weak or strong, you assume it is weak? That is what you seem to be saying - "I lump that under weakness".

That is not logical - the correct category is "I don't know". Sorry.

Haha, YES, I consider all ignorance to be a weakness.

O-o-k-a-a-y......

Quote:

BobSpence1 wrote:

I agree that all we have ultimately are 'beliefs', along a scale of strongly held, with good justification, to tentative assumptions at the other end.

Agreed on it being a scale/spectrum. We usually conceive of that scale the way you described it: one-dimensional. I wonder what a two- or three-dimensional scale would entail? Just musing out loud...

I was considering adding that aspect, because things like 'degree of justification', 'personal confidence in the belief', and just how much you really care about it,  should really be separate dimensions.

Quote:

BobSpence1 wrote:

Actually, my confidence in the validation of that epiphany has faded, although I still see it as very significant, and valuable for getting rid of that residual feeling, but not really to be taken as proving the validity of my position. IOW it was valuable for re-adjusting my subjective state, like a great therapy session, not for demonstrating any truths. Such experience should NOT be taken as some sort of access to Truth, I leave that error to the Theists.

'Knowing' is ultimately a belief. And the philosophical 'definition' of knowledge as "justified true belief" is an incredibly stupid, circular question-begging phrase. Not that you used it, just one of my pet 'peeves'.

I don't construe the confidence as proving anything, either. However, your description went beyond “adjusting a subjective state” in that you said you “got it” which I took to refer to “there really was no intellectual merit in the religious position.” That sounds like a truth statement and “getting it” sounds like you concluded the statement was correct. Am I missing something? I guess I assumed that your ephiphany had to do with your certainty about your conclusion on the merit of the religious position. I am not implying that the epiphany was your most important or your sole consideration. All I was trying to do is point out that such experiences are fundamental.

I should really characterise the feeling that I had really "got it" to be still just a feeling, not remotely representing the apprehension of a formal 'proof' or anything like that.

Quote:

This raises a really interesting question that I hope I can phrase properly. How does empirical science escape the circularity you mentioned about definition of knowledge as "justified true belief?" Isn't science precisely about justifying (empirically verifying) beliefs that we are inclined to believe (theories)? No one tries to prove a theory that he thinks is a ridiculous or stupid theory. And that is one reason that it took so long for us to figure out that the earth is not flat and that the sun does not revolve around it.

No circularity there at all. A hypothesis, which is a provisional attempt to provide an explanatory framework for some phenomenon, set of observational data, whatever, may indeed have an element of personal bias in it. I don't really see them being formulated based on personal preferences so much, except to the extent that the scientist has some preferred way of looking at things.

Yes, of course  "no one tries to prove a theory that he thinks is a ridiculous or stupid theory."  What anyone in that position does is to devise, propose, and maybe personally perform tests, experiments, to demonstrate the flaws they claim it has, otherwise they will not be taken seriously. That is how it works - until someone other than the proponent of the new theory has tested and presumably verified it, it is very unlikely to be accepted. That comment seems to show you know little about the process of science.

But that is then subject to rigorous testing and the more independent criticism and testing the hypothesis can withstand, the greater the chance that the general body of scientists in the relevant field will accept as a valid theory.

What do you consider a long time, in regards to figuring out the round earth and that the earth goes round the Sun?

It was about the 6th century BCE that a spherical Earth was first proposed, at least in the 'West', although not fully accepted until about the 3rd century BCE.

"The notion that the Earth revolves around the Sun was first proposed in the 3rd century BC by Aristarchus of Samos", altho it took until the 16th century for Copernicus to put it on a firm foundation. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliocentrism 

So by the 3rd century BCE, both ideas were around.

 

Quote:

What I'm asking is based on the following thoughts. Every product of the scientific method is a function of exploring a theory or, at a more granular level, a hypothesis. Theories and hypotheses begin by definition as unproven, even imaginative. The assumptions involved in a theory or hypothesis, or for that matter those involved in perspective/world-view/framework in which he formulates them, have huge influences on the validity of his subsequent work and so the validity of his findings. This is why the tests and findings must be reproducible. We're banking on the likelihood that blind spots, oversights, biases and the like, which often are functions of erroneous assumptions, won't be 100% consistent across all reproductions. When they occasionally are 100% consistent, scientists accept as proven something that is erroneous. Prevailing assumptions also have a huge influence on the kind of scrutiny that the findings will be subjected to. The history of science is replete with examples of scientific “knowledge” that was accepted as true for long periods of time, right up to the point that we figured out that it wasn't true. I think that examples of this that were caused by erroneous assumptions are more interesting than those caused by imperfect observation methods, for example. Copernicus' work is a great example. These days, scientists like Brandon Carter and others are saying that we've taken Copernicus a little too far.

A hypothesis is not a more 'granular' version of a theory. A hypothesis is the preliminary proposal , which will become an accepted theory if it passes rigorous testing.

The progress of science, with progressively better theories replacing older ones, is not really a process of correcting previous specific errors, as much as a process of more accurate and comprehensive observations and testing revealing inadequacies in existing theories, stimulating people to propose either alternative explanations, or refinements of those existing theories. Such inadequacies are often the result of new and or better instruments becoming availably, such as the telescope in the case of theories of planetary motion.

This process of replacement of theories is a demonstration of the strength of the scientific process, not a flaw.

All explanations of reality are approximations, models, of whatever is 'reality', and inevitably in error to some extent. Progress in understanding consists of progressively refining these models to more closely match what we observe and measure.

All those potential problems and biases are fully acknowledged in the institutions of Science, which is why all the mechanisms of independent replication, peer review, and others are in place. The kudos that a researcher can attract if they can rigorously demonstrate a flaw in a currently accepted theory, especially if they can propose a correction or alternative that addresses the problem is a big incentive in science for people to challenge the accepted status quo.

Quote:

So, how does science get around the problem that all attempts to empirically verify a scientific claim are seriously dependent on basic beliefs which have not been empirically verified at the time? I don't think that we can get around it. I don't think that this is a fatal flaw. I rather think it's simply a function of limited cognition of the type that humans possess and applies to every field of knowledge, not just science. I'm interested in this because I keep running into a belief implicitly held by science advocates that science somehow gets around the problem. Some science advocates even say that science does or will at some point get around the problem. Others practically ignore that there is a problem. Most of them object when I point the problem out. It's as if they don't want to recognize the problem. That makes me wonder why. It's strangely similar to the reaction I get from theists when I point out that they need evidence in order to make the claims that they make.

I really covered that above.

Scientific theories are validated by their agreement with previously validated ideas, and passing tests in predicting the results of new experiments and observations. You can't propose a theory 'out of the blue'. It has to built upon already validated data and theories. It is true that some of the 'data' and ideas a given theory is based on may later be shown to have flaws - in that case it is required that the theory be revised, before it can be accepted again.

Quote:

BobSpence1 wrote:

I think you are wrong - you certainly are with respect to myself, and many others here - that atheists generally are "dismissing the integrity" of religious people. I have what I think is a reasonable idea of why they believe what they do, they are stuck with a powerful 'meme' which is not easy to break out of, even if they wanted to. Many of us here repeatedly stress that it is the belief we are attacking or ridiculing or denigrating, not the person.

I have no problem with Theists attacking what I regard as 'holy', for want of a better word, because I know they are doing it because of their delusions, as I see it. Everyone ultimately has to be able to accept that sort of 'attack' from people who deeply misunderstand them and find their ideas offensive, otherwise we are doomed to this endless cycle of conflict and terrorism. Everyone has to be prepared to learn to handle and accept or ignore verbal insults, no matter how dire, and realize that the alternative is violence and war. Let us keep it to words, and let the insults fly, if they must. Rather that than resorting to violence. I would like to think we Atheists could adopt the higher moral ground - it shouldn't be hard, because Theism provides a desperately flawed basis for morality.

OK, so help me understand. I can't see how considering a person's dearest beliefs as "delusions" can be separated from attacking or ridiculing or denigrating the person himself, especially if he has vested himself in them to the point of being willing to die for them. If a theist tells you that your atheism is a function of your delusional thinking, is that solely a comment on your beliefs? Isn't that also a comment on you as a person who is apparently incapable of coming up with beliefs that aren't delusional, since you presumably put a lot of effort into it and failed anyway? That would be a great line to be able to draw, because it would help avoid both the insults and the violence.

Of course they are likely to take it that way, but I would just continue to point that I find their beliefs unfounded and mistaken, and that I am not accusing them of being stupid, just of being human and having made some mistaken assumptions, from my point of view. Certainly not as 'incapable of coming up with' better beliefs' - that begs a lot of questions. In most cases none of us personally 'comes up with' our beliefs, we base them on what ideas are already around, and either decide which ones seem to make most sense to us, or perhaps accept advice on which ones are 'true' based on advice from some source of authority, depending on our approach to such things.

Again, you almost completely misunderstand the process.

Quote:

However, I think that your distinction between verbal and physical violence is a wishful one. Pretty much everything that we know about interpersonal violence indicates that verbal abuse always precedes physical abuse. What I read on the subject says this and my brother, a 30-year veteran police detective and sergeant, confirms it from his experience. Verbal abuse doesn't guarantee physical abuse, but is always its precursor. I think that motivationally they are very similar and differ primarily in terms of expression. The difference between wanting to strangle someone and actually doing it is a matter of recognizing priorities that outweigh our desire/urge/compulsion to follow through on our urge to do it, even if the priority is as simplistic as “Thou shalt not...” or fear of consequences. If someone wants to strangle and has no reason not to strangle, it's reasonable to expect that they will strangle. Whether they do or don't strangle, they almost always say something, and if they do strangle, they always lead up to it verbally. Whatever level of expression our motivation to strangle rises to, verbal or physical, the person we direct it towards always experiences it as a form of violation or abuse. Verbal abuse isn't physical abuse, but they are both abuse nonetheless, just at different levels of expression and severity.

My interest is in the fact that we ever want to violate or abuse at all. I don't believe that it is inevitable, uncontrollable behavior. It's uncontrollable only if our motivations towards abusive behavior become stronger than we can control. What if we could figure out how to avoid the motivations long before they get to that point? What if we could avoid the things that trigger those motivations in the first place? No one who is healthy, happy and secure with those around him arbitrarily decides that he wants to abuse them, or is overcome with an urge to to so. If we can understand what gets us to the point that we want to violate or abuse, maybe we can learn to avoid it so that we don't need to apply the brakes after the car is already rolling. When we don't feel that important boundaries have been violated, we don't normally lapse into any sort of abusive behavior, whether it's insult or injury. So far as we're healthy, we have no reason to think in that direction much less go there, psychopaths and sociopaths excepted. If we can figure out ways to understand and tolerate each other and each others' beliefs without involving violations or abuse, wouldn't that be better than growing thicker hides so that those violations or abuses don't push us past the verbal retaliation/physical retaliation line that you mentioned?

We don't really aim to abuse someone, that is more in the perception of the person whose beliefs are being challenged. That makes it a different situation from what you referred to from the common case where someone, typically under the influence of intoxicants, starts of by abusing someone else.

I think most of us would apply some judgement to the situation, and try not to make gratuitous 'inflammatory' comments for the sake of it. But when asked, I don't think we should hold back in plainly stating our views, and/or especially in challenging someone trying to publicly promulgate some religious nonsense.

Quote:

BobSpence1 wrote:

The magical idea embedded in many religions of the power of words is a key problem, encouraging these conflicts, whether with non-believers or believers in a different faith. We have to find away to get this thru to them.

I completely agree. I don't believe in magic and I recognize magical thinking when I encounter it. I see magical thinking going on in both sides of the atheist/theist argument.

Please provide some significant example of 'magical thinking' on the atheist side.

Quote:

BobSpence1 wrote:

Theism by its very nature provide no real mechanism for resolving deep conflicts of doctrine, since neither side is likely to acknowledge the authority of a third party not sharing their belief system.

BINGO! I agree. Reality is the arbiter.

That's why I start not with "cogito ergo sum," but with "is est." IT IS. Something is, whatever it is, and we need to figure out what “it” is and what that means to us. "I think therefore I am" is rife with unexamined assumptions.

That's also why I think that the disputes people get into are so stupid. We need to stop arguing about it and just Google it! Haha, just kidding. This is why science is our best approach so far. We need to look and see what is really there. I don't reject the value of the scientific approach, I just resist the claim that it trumps any and all other approaches to acquiring knowlege. Why not use all of them properly? Science involves all of them anyway. The frustration I continue to have with both atheists an theists is that BOTH put so much energy into declaring what is and what isn't valid to consider BEFORE they have looked at reality and often without the slightest inclination to look. Physicalism is an example of this on the atheistic side. I'm sure I don't need to point out examples from the theistic side.

No.

All we can assume is that we exist as an awareness. The existence of anything other than our perceptions, our sensations, which may suggest to us the existence of some object or event beyond our mental world is what is problematic, what needs to be established, or at least assumed for the time being.  Your comments re both science and atheism are of little significance since you have demonstrated how little you really understand either. Sorry.

Quote:

BobSpence1 wrote:

Theism is vastly more the problem than the odd angry atheist, IMHO.

Haha, yesterday I would have agreed. Since then I answered my own question about what would happen to theists in an atheistic world. Some of the answer to that question was provided by Stalin and Mao Zedong.

<face-palm>

Quote:

BobSpence1 wrote:

The sooner we can reduce this tendency to believe in a 'higher power', and recognize its psychological roots, the better.

No argument with that. I completely agree. However, I don't agree if dismissing “a higher power” means dismissing something just because some people construe it as a higher power. I love gravity as an example. That's a pretty “high power.” None of us escapes it. Actually, practically nothing escapes it. We currently have no more evidence for gravity than theists do for God. Until we find a graviton or Garrett Lisi shows that a combination of other particles that we have found are responsible for gravity, for all we know there could be a cosmic angel in the center of every chunk of matter holding a unidirectional matter magnet whose strength corresponds to the mass of the chunk. What we have so far are theories about what gravity is but no empirical verification, no more evidence for those theories than we have for cosmic angels. (I'm obviously pushing credulity to prove a point.)

We have infinitely more evidence for the existence of gravity than Theists do of the existence of God. Details of the 'mechanism' giving rise to gravity is not proven, but we also have a a truly infinitely more solid framework for characterising gravity and its effects and manifestations under a wide range of conditions than Theists have for affirming the attributes of their 'God', which is zero.

Quote:

This also gets to something that really interests me. Given that there are PLENTY of things that we accept more easily than gods (dark matter, dark energy, gravity, etc.) but that we cannot prove any better than the theists can prove gods, why are those things so much easier for us to accept than gods? After decades of unsuccessful searching for evidence of things like dark matter or dark energy or gravity, when you consider what evidence we DO have that makes us believe that they must be there, that evidence serves very similar functions in our thinking as does “evidence” for the existence of gods in the thinking of theists. The big difference is one of priority: evidence is high priority for the scientifically-minded and low priority for many or most theists. I was never one of those, even when I was a full-on Christian, and that's one reason I kept running afoul of Christian authorities. I kept asking for evidence.

In the context of what science has shown about reality, even if not proven, it actually provides a workable explanation of vastly more aspects of reality, including human nature and behaviour, than anything based on Theistic thinking.

On the one hand you assert that Theists would claim that they have their own form of evidence for God and it serves the same purpose in their thinking as our form of evidence serves for us, then say it is not really a priority in Theist thinking, in contrast to scientific thinking. Do you see at least some inconsistency in that account?

We have evidence for dark matter, otherwise it wouldn't be an issue.

Quote:

Is it just about magical thinking? Richard Dawkins publicly admits that he thinks that a reasonable explanation for the origins of life on earth might be aliens who seeded earth with the chemical rudiments to get it started. That isn't a real origins explanation and sets up the same infinite regress that he objects to in creationism. How is that less magical than creationism? I'm not implying that you would agree with him, just pointing out an example of a prominent atheist who is willing to accept an explanation that seems no less fanciful than a common theistic explanation that he objects to. What is he really objecting to? Or is the crux of the matter the notion that there is a big intelligence out there somewhere? Wouldn't a very advanced alien race qualify as a big intelligence? Is the crux of the matter that we can conceive of eventually becoming as advanced as a very advanced alien race, but we can't conceive of every catching up to God? Or is the crux of the matter the notion that there is a cosmic moralist out there who will whip us with a cosmic ruler when we die? How is simple causation somehow different? Won't the consequences of everything we do eventually affect all of us, even we do did it? How is that different than the metaphor of standing before the Almighty to be judged? Is it that we feel we have more hope of complying with laws of physics than we do of complying with divine laws governing our behavior?

I'm not asking these questions about Dawkins specifically. I'm just using him as an example of something I run into over and over with atheists, whether I've conversed with them or just read what they've written. In all I've read and heard, I still haven't felt like I really understand the crux of the atheist's objection to theism, since I find examples of what they object to in the very thinking that lies behind their objections. I suppose it could be as simple as "we don't need that hogwash" but when I ask what's wrong with the hogwash and why they don't need it, things get very much less than clear. I'm left puzzled.

It's like there's a fly in the theistic ointment that atheists object to so strongly that they reject the ointment along with it, even though the ointment is quite similar to their own. It seems very much like contagion aversion behavior. I see patterns in atheistic arguments that aren't accounted for by the arguments, and they look like avoidance patterns. I just haven't figured out exactly what atheists might be trying to avoid. I'm trying to distinguish the fly from the ointment. I hope this makes sense to you, because it's a big question for me.

That example using Dawkins proposal that we could be the result of alien seeding shows yet another clear misunderstanding/unwarranted assumption about what wass a perfectly reasonable suggestion. In your inimitable fashion you seem to be assuming he is proposing it as an actual explanation for the ultimate origin of life, which is absurd. It IS a possibility, that life originated from inorganic matter on some other body, and was transferred here by aliens or cosmic collisions. In his strictly honest approach, he is acknowledging that is at least possible, but not necessarily likely, just as he acknowledges that it is not absolutely out of the question that there is some sort of creator being, just vanishingly small.

Quote:

BobSpence1 wrote:

The conflicting religions are a massive demonstration of the nonsense that comes from assuming that intuitive ideas of revelation and so on are remotely reliable sources of 'truth' beyond the workings of our own thoughts.

I agree completely. If I knew you better and was sure you'd get the joke, I would have said, “Amen brother!” Eye-wink

At least there are some things we agree on. 

It is seeming to me now that our disagreements are based on your unfamiliarity with science as a process, and on misunderstandings of some of the thinking processes of people like myself, and maybe taking some philosophical ideas far too seriously.

 

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


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Atheistextremist, sorry, not buying it

You make lots of claims, but provide little support for them. I grant you that Stalin nor Mao pursued anti-religious policies for political reasons. I doubt that any dictator has been motivated solely or even primarily by ideology. However, you can't ignore that their ideologies were atheistic, not theistic, regardless of their personal beliefs or backgrounds. I agree that we can't definitely attribute their atrocities to atheism, but neither can we be sure that they shouldn't be attributed to atheism. The only evidence that we have is what atheistic regimes have done. Speculating about their motivations is just that: speculation.

I asked you to explain HOW to derive a morality from basic beliefs that are purely atheistic. Your response was to provide a mini-lecture on morality per se. I am not asking what you know about morality. I'm asking you to explain how a compelling morality can be formulated from an atheistic world-view. You haven't tried to do that yet. All you have done is made unsupported claims, among them that morality evolved to support society, that we developed these social mores ourselves and that we "attached" theism after the fact, and much more. I'll ignore that you provide no support for your claims and that they are quite speculative. The bottom line is that they are irrelevant to my challenge, which is: Demonstrate how an atheistic morality can be formulated. My challenge stands.

My genocide perpetrator comment was not a suggestion. It was a straw man, and you haven't yet knocked it down. Instead of dealing with that claim, you decided to comment on my motivations for claiming it. "Moral bias?" You have no clue what my morals or my biases are. Choosing to read what you want into my motivations rather than respond to my claim says much more about you than it does about me.

When The Church, i.e., organized religion collectively, divests itself of its obscene wealth, gives it all to feed the poor, and releases its death grip on the minds of its adherents, I will once again listen to what it has to say, which at that point I'm sure will be very little.

Man has to awaken to wonder — and so perhaps do peoples.
Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus


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Bob, thanks for your time,

While you repeatedly claim that I misunderstand science and atheism, when I look at your responses to my questions and claims, it's clear that you misunderstand what I wrote. I'm stumped about how to find the end of the string to unravel it.

One thing I would love to explore is your claim that I don't understand the process of science. I doubt that, but I'm open to being shown otherwise. My father was in genetics research for over 40 years, was on NIH site visit teams, reviewed grant proposals, wrote grant proposals, was awarded grants, and conducted research at Children's Hospitals in L.A. and Long Beach and at City of Hope. I worked for him, was well acquainted his work and the work of some of his colleagues, read some of his grant proposals, saw science "happen" in his labs and others, and have followed scientific activities of many kinds for a long time. I am very familiar with the process of science from a perspective of how it actually gets done. Maybe I'm missing something. Do you have a good source that describes the process the way that you see it? I'd love to read it.

BobSpence1 wrote:
A hypothesis is not a more 'granular' version of a theory. A hypothesis is the preliminary proposal , which will become an accepted theory if it passes rigorous testing.

One thing that we disagree on is theory vs. hypothesis. I didn't state that a hypothesis is a more granular version of a theory, but that hypotheses figure in at a more granular level in the scientific process as it works in fact, at least over the last several decades. Scientific theory is done at a very different level and usually by different people than are empirical tests. Hypotheses are normally focused on specific predictions that would either confirm or falsify some aspect of a theory, thus they occur at a more granular level.

Every scientific theory I've paid attention to was conceived either before related work was started at a level that would require hypotheses or as an explanation of the findings of that work. I agree that experimental work and research happens all the time without explicit relationship to a specific theory. However, the scientists who do that work are well aware of existing theories in various stages of formulation and where their work fits (or doesn't) into those theories. Eventually, empirical testing and research--where hypotheses are useful--informs broader theories, either confirming or falsifying or yielding inconclusive results about important parts of those theories.

Aside from some information that will help me judge which of us does/doesn't understand the scientific process, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that one.

Otherwise, unless you feel differently, I think that in general we continue to not connect very well. That's an observation, not criticism, and I'm frankly not surprised. I'm trying to explore things that are difficult to get at, so misunderstandings are likely. Your responses seem to boil down to misunderstanding my statements and then attributing the misunderstanding to my ignorance on some subject, e.g., lack of knowledge about science or atheism. While I'm always open to the possibility that I'm missing the boat by a mile, that hasn't usually proved to be the case in the past, so I'll need something more than just your opinions to that effect. It's easier for me to put stock in someone's opinions of that sort when they actually follow what I'm saying. Any specifics that you could offer might be helpful. Otherwise, I'll just let our conversation simmer a while and see if something rises for me. Sometimes it does.

On the bright side, in the process many things have become more clear in my thinking. You might need to take that by faith, haha! Just letting you know that I appreciate you sticking with me past the bumps and your time and considered responses. Hopefully we both come away from the contact enriched. I do. Thanks.

 

When The Church, i.e., organized religion collectively, divests itself of its obscene wealth, gives it all to feed the poor, and releases its death grip on the minds of its adherents, I will once again listen to what it has to say, which at that point I'm sure will be very little.

Man has to awaken to wonder — and so perhaps do peoples.
Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus


robj101
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If you can't see how

If you can't see how "morals" can develop through an intelligent society then you sir are lost.

We could all pretend that there were no morals or values pre biblical writings but it just isn't so. I could give reasons but it would seem redundant to point out the obvious.

Religion has only been useful *possibly* to help make a society cohesive. Now it is time to take the training bra off, it is constrictive and is actually causing problems now.

Everyone knows it is irrational to kill each other, it is irrational to steal etc. I don't need a bible to tell me this, animals more base than we know better. Religion has not provided as much moral support as society in general and in some instances propogates immorality.

Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin


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Are you really a Skeptic or are you just fishing?

skeptic23 wrote:

You make lots of claims, but provide little support for them. I grant you that Stalin nor Mao pursued anti-religious policies for political reasons. I doubt that any dictator has been motivated solely or even primarily by ideology. However, you can't ignore that their ideologies were atheistic, not theistic, regardless of their personal beliefs or backgrounds. I agree that we can't definitely attribute their atrocities to atheism, but neither can we be sure that they shouldn't be attributed to atheism. The only evidence that we have is what atheistic regimes have done. Speculating about their motivations is just that: speculation.

I asked you to explain HOW to derive a morality from basic beliefs that are purely atheistic. Your response was to provide a mini-lecture on morality per se. I am not asking what you know about morality. I'm asking you to explain how a compelling morality can be formulated from an atheistic world-view. You haven't tried to do that yet. All you have done is made unsupported claims, among them that morality evolved to support society, that we developed these social mores ourselves and that we "attached" theism after the fact, and much more. I'll ignore that you provide no support for your claims and that they are quite speculative. The bottom line is that they are irrelevant to my challenge, which is: Demonstrate how an atheistic morality can be formulated. My challenge stands.

My genocide perpetrator comment was not a suggestion. It was a straw man, and you haven't yet knocked it down. Instead of dealing with that claim, you decided to comment on my motivations for claiming it. "Moral bias?" You have no clue what my morals or my biases are. Choosing to read what you want into my motivations rather than respond to my claim says much more about you than it does about me.

 

All around the world, and throughout human history, civilisations have developed moral rules. Some believed in a god and some didn't. Some thought god was a magic snake. Some thought he was the sun. But morality persisted. Mothers loved their children. Wives loved their husbands. Warriors gave their lives for their nations. Integrity is not a recent addition to the lexicon of human feeling. When religion was banned in China and Russia, did morality vaporise? It did not.

I am not a christian but my morals are no different to those of my fundamentalist christian family. In terms of delving into the minutae of how a human being is instilled with an appreciation for social rules, I can't imagine the process is different from all other learning behaviours. I will come back to your challenge on development of atheistic morality. But I say this. Even your insistence there needs to be a separate 'atheist morality' gives away your internal bias. There is no separate atheist morality, Skeptic. There is human morality. That is all.

Now - you initially indicated you believed morality must be and now you say it could be, flawed in the case of atheists. It says a lot about you that instead of admitting you have done this, you edge sideways yet continue to persist in denying you've been judgmental. First you said the crimes committed by some dictators showed what would happen to theists in an atheistic world. Now you say we can't be sure those crimes against humanity weren't caused by an atheistic world view.

I am not choosing what to believe about your morals. I am saying your thinking atheism could be morally unbalanced is a moral judgment. Do you agree with this? Next, where would you get an idea like this? You'd get it in church. My father is an evangelical minister and I grew up in church so I know about the core adhominem of the christian doctrine and I think you know it, too. My comment on your anti-atheistic moral belief was meant to give you a simple model that first explained the obvious evidence of a personal moral bias against the ungodly in your posts, while at the same time highlighting the fluid cultural nature of morality in the world. I thought it worked rather well. 

Now Skeptic, I personally don't believe, at all, that morality and belief in god are connected in a real sense. I think religions trademarked human morality. They stole it from us and now you are suggesting it belongs to them. Could you give me a yes or no answer on what you believe in relation to this? Is god needed for a human to be moral? I say no. What do you say?

"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck


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Rob, wow

 Did you really not understand what I was asking? Like I said, I haven't heard a decent explanation yet.

When The Church, i.e., organized religion collectively, divests itself of its obscene wealth, gives it all to feed the poor, and releases its death grip on the minds of its adherents, I will once again listen to what it has to say, which at that point I'm sure will be very little.

Man has to awaken to wonder — and so perhaps do peoples.
Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus


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Atheistextremist, what I am is done for now

Clearly, you have no clue what I was asking for. That's fine. The answer to your last question is "No." Live well.

When The Church, i.e., organized religion collectively, divests itself of its obscene wealth, gives it all to feed the poor, and releases its death grip on the minds of its adherents, I will once again listen to what it has to say, which at that point I'm sure will be very little.

Man has to awaken to wonder — and so perhaps do peoples.
Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus


BobSpence
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skeptic23 wrote:You make

skeptic23 wrote:

You make lots of claims, but provide little support for them. I grant you that Stalin nor Mao pursued anti-religious policies for political reasons. I doubt that any dictator has been motivated solely or even primarily by ideology. However, you can't ignore that their ideologies were atheistic, not theistic, regardless of their personal beliefs or backgrounds. I agree that we can't definitely attribute their atrocities to atheism, but neither can we be sure that they shouldn't be attributed to atheism. The only evidence that we have is what atheistic regimes have done. Speculating about their motivations is just that: speculation.

I asked you to explain HOW to derive a morality from basic beliefs that are purely atheistic. Your response was to provide a mini-lecture on morality per se. I am not asking what you know about morality. I'm asking you to explain how a compelling morality can be formulated from an atheistic world-view. You haven't tried to do that yet. All you have done is made unsupported claims, among them that morality evolved to support society, that we developed these social mores ourselves and that we "attached" theism after the fact, and much more. I'll ignore that you provide no support for your claims and that they are quite speculative. The bottom line is that they are irrelevant to my challenge, which is: Demonstrate how an atheistic morality can be formulated. My challenge stands.

My genocide perpetrator comment was not a suggestion. It was a straw man, and you haven't yet knocked it down. Instead of dealing with that claim, you decided to comment on my motivations for claiming it. "Moral bias?" You have no clue what my morals or my biases are. Choosing to read what you want into my motivations rather than respond to my claim says much more about you than it does about me.

Moral behaviour follows naturally from the requirements for survival of a social species, especially if high levels of intelligence are the 'niche' of that species, and much interaction between individuals is involved in the functioning of the group.

In contrast, in Theist scenarios, regulation of behaviour is via a legalistic model, based on rewards and punishment rather than cultivating moral 'values'.

And of course, a conciously formulated morality does not come from either an Atheist world-view or a Theistic one, but rather from a combination of empathy and rational consideration of the necessary conditions for a society to function in such a way as to maximize the positive life experiences of its members. Such a rational approach, eschewing superstition-based 'commandments' and proscriptions from religious traditions, is more consistent with a non-religious, 'free-thinking' world-view, but is still not derived from it.

 

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


Atheistextremist
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Yes Skeptic

 

I know exactly what you want and why you want it but doing a decent job of outlining the development of human morality will take an appropriate amount of time. 

Thank you, I do live well, and I hope you do, too.

 

P.S. Thanks for answering 'No' to that last question. I appreciate it.

"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck


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Bob, do you have or know of a rationale?

I see you commented on our little morality dialogue. What I'm asking for isn't esoteric and doesn't depend on the word "derived." For that matter, neither does it depend on the word "morality." Moral principles, ethics, or whatever label you prefer. I'm after an outline, indication, any information at all to help understand how atheists conceive of a rational approach to deciding which human behavior is preferable to other human behavior and why. Of course, this is closely related to the question of meaning.

In a world where there is no supreme being, where there are 6 billion plus versions of what empathy and rationality are, morality must be formulated/rationalized/derived/constructed (whatever--you choose the term) differently than in it would be in a theistic world. Theists have their versions of morality. Don't atheists?

Am I asking atheists a theistic question? Do atheists not expect to have a rational, coherent understanding of how to make moral decisions? I don't think that's the case, because I've read atheists who struggle with the question. Here are a couple of articles that I thought touch on the high points of the problem:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/features/2000/augustine1.html

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/taner_edis/review_of_martin.html

Neither of those writers offer suggestions of an atheistic rationale for morality or meaning. I was hoping someone on this forum might know of one.

One of the big problems that neither of those articles touch on is that formulations of "morality" (gads, guys, I actually do write some pretty clear English, what's the matter?) that are consistent with an atheistic world-view tend not to be compelling. A morality that does not engage people's wills, so that they are motivated to do "the right thing," isn't very useful.

Atheistextremist's claim, "I know exactly what you want and why you want it," immediately followed by an excuse that it would take time to outline "the development of human morality" clearly shows that he doesn't get what I'm asking for. There's a difference between explaining a rationale and describing an evolutionary process. Asking for a rationale assumes that there is one. I'm assuming that the "development of human morality" can be rationalized. Maybe that assumption is my problem? Is morality just whatever it so happens to be as the result of societal needs at any point in the evolution of humans as a social animal? So if at some point we saw that a program of controlled extermination of certain sectors of the human population would be advantageous or necessary for the good of the species, genocide could become "good," since it arose as a natural result of our social development?

I didn't ask for someone to construct one. I asked for an explanation of how one could be constructed: a rationale in broad terms, a notion of how to approach the problem, a reference to someone you think has done a good job of explaining it, ANYTHING. Maybe I should have used "rationale" and "rationalized" instead of "derived?"

I love seeing the many and various ways that people come up with to avoid having to simply say, "I don't know" or "I don't get it." Or if someone does know, why not share? See, I'm not the only one who thinks that ignorance is a weakness.

PS. Bob, I realized I used an acronym you might not be familiar with in my last post: NIH = National Institutes of Health, the research funding arm of the US Department of Health and Human Services.

When The Church, i.e., organized religion collectively, divests itself of its obscene wealth, gives it all to feed the poor, and releases its death grip on the minds of its adherents, I will once again listen to what it has to say, which at that point I'm sure will be very little.

Man has to awaken to wonder — and so perhaps do peoples.
Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus


Atheistextremist
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I think it's you that doesn't get it, Skeptic.

 

skeptic23 wrote:

I see you commented on our little morality dialogue. What I'm asking for isn't esoteric and doesn't depend on the word "derived." For that matter, neither does it depend on the word "morality." Moral principles, ethics, or whatever label you prefer. I'm after an outline, indication, any information at all to help understand how atheists conceive of a rational approach to deciding which human behavior is preferable to other human behavior and why. Of course, this is closely related to the question of meaning.

In a world where there is no supreme being, where there are 6 billion plus versions of what empathy and rationality are, morality must be formulated/rationalized/derived/constructed (whatever--you choose the term) differently than in it would be in a theistic world. Theists have their versions of morality. Don't atheists?

 

What I know you want is for us to try to provide a theistic-style moral solution in a box - something theism claims it can do but something a rational approach will be utterly unable to do - in order for you to reject it. Coming up with a basic rationale for our moral position is going to be insufficient for you, given you keep insisting that motivations like serving one's family, friends and society for mutual good is not compelling enough and does not engage people's wills. Something in far greater detail will be required but even then I doubt you will accept it.  And while we are on this - what sort of moral framework is it that engages people's wills, Skeptic? The promise of heaven? The threat of hell?

I fail to understand why you suggest there are 6 billion different versions of morality when it's pretty obvious that at most levels morality is the shared values of an entire society. In the West, these values blanket groups of nations - we are all fairly similar thanks to our shared cultural heritage. All higher levels of human morality encourage a general commitment to the common good that's rewarded and reinforced with praise and respect.

The only way I can think of that might explain my position to you would be to unravel the development of personal morality step by step. From a kid's self-centric pre-conventional morality to conventional morality based on fear of punishment and personal reward, to post conventional social morality, to theoretical empathetic morality, to screaming pinko leftie morality and then finally, to the position the theist ascetic maintains has been given to him on a mountaintop by god himself - universal morality - a state of integrity so improbable that while it's possible for humans to conceive it no one has ever been observed actually applying it consistently to everyday life. Even jesus struggled at times with his mask of universal morality and the OT god never attains it.

Of course, I don't think you will buy any of this. Perhaps it won't be glib enough for you. There is no one word that encompasses the complexity and subjectiveness of personal morality. Morality is far too big for that. Your blurf theistic position is also unable to encompass it. I tend to think you believe morality is painted in flaming letters on the sky - a set of rights and wrongs that form part of the universal constant. But I think it is a journey of human understanding, something you might spend your whole life over and perhaps never truly master. Any thoughtful person would agree their morality has altered for the better as they have aged. 

And again, Skeptic, please stop trying to label human morality along lines of theistic morality and atheistic morality. This position is baseless and ultimately offensive and while I'm the one saying it, I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks so.

 

 

 

"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck


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I don't get it, skeptic23

I don't get it, skeptic23 seems intelligent, yet asks what an atheist could base morality on. The same fukin thing we base it on now, theist's like to pretend it's all about their god, it is not. Their "god" is made by men thus the laws and morals they prescribe to are made by men.

This is such a simple question with an equally simple answer.

Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin


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skeptic23 wrote:I didn't ask

skeptic23 wrote:

I didn't ask for someone to construct one. I asked for an explanation of how one could be constructed: a rationale in broad terms, a notion of how to approach the problem, a reference to someone you think has done a good job of explaining it, ANYTHING. Maybe I should have used "rationale" and "rationalized" instead of "derived?"

 

I swore I wouldn't write to your ass again, but this idea is driving me crazy.

Do I know why Orh in his cave many generations ago decided it was a bad deal to murder all the other men in his group?  How the hell should I?  Maybe he watched Ugh work himself to death trying to support all those women after Ugh managed to kill off the other men in his group?  Who knows, who cares?

I can tell you some of my own journey.  As I may have mentioned before - I tried to be a good christian a couple of times in my life.  One of my big hangups was christian morality.  They have the ten commandments, the sermon on the mount, a bunch of stories, and some dietary and social rules in Leviticus.

I had a neighbor who went to church three times a week.  She sang "Jesus loves you" to her baby to put him to sleep.  She was good at doing laundry, but she wasn't real good at putting it away.  I'm over one day and I notice commercial quality hotel towels in the pile.  Hey, where did you find a source for these?  It would be nice to have some!  She tells me they took them from the hotels they stayed at.  My expression must have given me away as she continued, if the hotel doesn't tie them down, they must want you to take them so it isn't stealing.

I was in an ethics class at a junior college and one of the men said he was having an affair.  He was a good Catholic.  He wasn't sinning since she wasn't married.  She was sinning but that wasn't his problem.  Yes, he said exactly that.

There was a guy in prison on TV.  He had taken Jesus into his heart and was forgiven for several very bloody murders.  Didn't matter what the courts thought, he was saved from hell.

My sister is Jehovah's Witness.  She showed me their study guide with individual verses for various topics.  The reason they don't believe in transfusions is because you aren't supposed to drink the blood of your sacrifice to god and "the soul is in the blood and the blood is the soul."

While Leviticus is chock full of how to live your life, many christians pick and choose which ones to follow.  Don't suffer a witch to live, don't be homosexual.  But they ignore the rest of them.  Why?

All of this and more and my conclusion is christian morals suck.  They are arbitrary and generally inapplicable to our modern lives.  So I formulated my own.

I will not harm nor cause to be harmed any person or any person's property.

I will not devalue nor cause to be devalued any person or any person's property.

Realistically, I may not know the exact outcome of my actions.  I may be clumsy or tactless (surprise, I do try to tone it down).  If I do happen to do harm, I will do my best to make appropriate reparations to the best of my ability.

They have done studies where people were asked for their moral evaluations of various situations.  There was NO difference between the answers of religious or atheist individuals.  None.  I have a little sympathy for the Taoist position.  We all know what is right because it is right. 

This answer may not satisfy you either, and I don't care.  I may or may not respond to you depending on how lame your answer is.  (Hey, I edited that sentence three times before I hit "Post".  You wouldn't want to see what I said the first two times.)

-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.

"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken

"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.


BobSpence
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Skeptic23, yes I know what

Skeptic23, yes I know what the NIH is, its where dear old Francis Collins works.

Thankfully, it appears so far that his incredibly lame and naive God belief hasn't driven him to interfere with the way research is done, and hopefully will not drive him to oppose any proposed research such as might involve the use of embryonic stem cells, or other religiously contentious issues.

Your experience there, as you recount it was, not remotely sufficient to give you a good feel for the way science works as a whole, however much you might have learned about writing grant proposals or how a researcher goes about his lab work. Did you follow someone as they formulated a new theory of genetics, devised some tests to validate it, publish it, respond to feedback and criticism from other researchers who attempted to replicate his results, revise or refine the theory and devise new experiments or observations, etc?

Your misunderstanding of the actual distinction between a 'hypothesis' and a 'theory' in an earlier response demonstrated your deep ignorance on this process.

On morality, between what I responded with, and what others have, before and since, you have been presented with a pretty good account of non-theistic (NOT 'Atheist') based morality works, and what it is based on.

If you don't find it is structured or justified the way you expected, then that is what we are trying to get across to you, that your assumptions about what morality or a moral theory must look like are flawed, presumably because you still are thinking about the subject in the way you learned as a Christian, at least to a significant extent. I am not referring here to the specific details of what actions are regarded as 'good' and 'bad' in the respective systems, but in the fundamentally different approaches to governing or regulating or influencing behaviour for the better, and how one defines or develops moral/ethical principles.

You haven't shifted your paradigm anywhere near enough.

That is something you often seem to not 'get', it is not so much that we don't understand or fail to respond to your question, you are asking the wrong questions, or ones that just don't make sense to people who don't share your pre-suppositions.

And stop with your f**king deliberate straw-men, that tactic is not win you any friends or even on-going cooperation and respect, and not just in dealing with us.

Sorry, but I do have to occasionally give vent to my frustration with what sometimes appears to me as wilful, condescending ignorance.

 

 

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


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Bob et al,

And after all that, all I get is disclaimers and non-specific claims about my "deep ignorance" of this and that and my inability to understand your implicit but all too superior intelligences. That's OK. I've run into that kind of dismissive, non-constructive behavior over and over with Christians. That's why I ain't one no more. They couldn't talk about the basis for their beliefs either, just kept repeating "the truth" as if I'd "get it" the next time, got upset when I wouldn't "get it," (because I still wanted a real response,) then claimed that the blame was mine for not "getting it."

I guess I was hoping for more here. Wasn't ready for you to get religious on me, because that's exactly what you've done, and I DO know what I'm talking about on that point. "Willful, condescending ignorance?" Jesus Christ, man, if we could take the presumed clairvoyance into the depths of my psyche displayed by recent posts and apply it to day trading, we'd make a killing. Except, no, you would be bass-akwards wrong there too, and we'd lose it all.

No Bob, unless you can help me out with some actual information or point me to some, you are wrong about my scientific "misunderstanding" and you clearly have a very conventional, book-learned understanding of the process. Where do you think funding decisions are made? I'll bet $20 USD that you get that one wrong. I'll pursue it on my own anyway. If I find out that you're right, I'll give you the satisfaction of letting you know. If I convince myself that I'm right, no promises. Gloating rarely seems worth the bother.

Bottom line, I made a legitimate, civil, sincere request and all I've gotten from any of you are excuses why you won't or can't satisfy it. Juvenile excuses. Well, no results are still a result.

And Bob, your straw man phobia is bizarre. It's a well-used, well-accepted discussion technique. I use it with myself, and then I'm pretty sure I'm not trying to be willful, condescending, or arrogant. I've never had anyone object to the method itself, except, wait! I get all kinds of amazing objections when people are faced with a straw man that they have no clue how to knock down. Straw men are falsifiability applied to discussion. Good thing Popper rests in peace or he might feel intimidated. Unbelievable. What's worse is that I gave you one that should have been EASY to knock down (I could do it) and no one touched it with a ten-foot pole. I'll check in from time to time to see if you're rational again. I had hoped we were getting somewhere.

It actually was a pleasure, much of it. Sincerely. That goes for especially for Nigel, and mellestad too.

cya guys. 

 

When The Church, i.e., organized religion collectively, divests itself of its obscene wealth, gives it all to feed the poor, and releases its death grip on the minds of its adherents, I will once again listen to what it has to say, which at that point I'm sure will be very little.

Man has to awaken to wonder — and so perhaps do peoples.
Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus


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Skeptic23, you got far more

Skeptic23, you got far more than naked accusations of ignorance, and such like responses from us. You got many explanations, clarifications, of the way we understood the the issues you raised, and why we thought that way. You often seemed to simply ignore them, or at least make little or no comment on them, simply retorting that we had not answered your question.

When your questions, esp about morality, made no real sense in our terms to respond to directly, we responded the only way possible, by explaining our perception of the subject, how it worked for us, what we perceived as our 'rational' for moral imperatives, and so on, IOW covering the subject pretty comprehensively from our point of view.

Re strawmen, there is nothing wrong with explicitly positing alternative ideas and concepts, and asking us what we see as the fallacies or problems we have with them. Presenting them as though you actually believed them yourself may well be a common debating tactic, but I see it as out of place in a serious attempt to understand each other's position.

I am sorry if you really see things the way you describe.

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


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And the pitiful thing is...

That it took a single Google search on "non-theistic morality" (thank you Bob for the term correction) to find the following, which would have satisfied my request, at least minimally:

progressivliving.org wrote:
 The Fundamental Question for Atheists

The fundamental question for those who cannot bring themselves to believe in God is whether or not there can be any foundation for values, or, to put it another way, whether there are any grounds for morality or life purpose. If this question is answered in the negative, that is, if it is said that there are no such grounds for morality or purpose, this leads us directly to nihilism, the belief that there are no values. Some have felt driven, out of intellectual honesty, to embrace this discouraging conclusion. And indeed, it must be faced squarely that the reductionistic materialism advocated by many in the scientific community leads inescapably to nihilism. However, reductionistic materialism is not the only form of materialism that merits consideration. A powerful alternative to reductionistic materialism is emergentism, the belief that there are phenomena in the universe, such as life and consciousness, love and value, that are not properties of the smallest elements of matter, such as atoms, but which, nevertheless, exist in their own right. On emergentist foundations, the non-theist may embrace some form of secular humanism, and may go on to affirm morality and life purpose. Numerous non-theistic moralities and theories of life purpose have been offered, most notably, perhaps, the morality of Immanuel Kant and the theory of life purpose suggested by Aristotle.

source: http://www.progressiveliving.org/explain_diagram.htm

Whatever you think of the statement and the source, at least this outlines the issues and--MARVEL OF ALL MARVELS!! contains NEW information! How exciting! 

The single term "emergentism" would have minimally satisfied my simple request. Pathetic.

Ah, but that's not all! I have a HYPOTHESIS! And I didn't just dream it up. It was indicated by observation. I have empirical evidence: you guys and your recent posts!

======== 

HYPOTHESIS: The majority of atheists cannot think rationally when confronted by anything that remotely strikes them as theistic thinking. They see red. They go irrational.

What's more, I will make a PREDICTION to TEST my HYPOTHESIS:

PREDICTION: Many of the guys on this forum who read that progressiveliving.com quote will bash it because it sounds theistic and comes from a web site that is obviously theistic.

COROLLARY PREDICTION #1: Bob will find fault with my HYPOTHESIS.

COROLLARY PREDICTION #2: Bob will find fault with my TEST STRATEGY, which follows.

COROLLARY PREDICTION #3: Bob will confirm his suspicion of my deep ignorance of the scientific process, as evidenced by this TEST PLAN.

COROLLARY PREDICTION #4: Bob and most of the people on this forum will not bother to read the whole progressiveliving.com quote before proceeding to BASH IT.

TEST STRATEGY: Post straw men on as many atheist discussion forums as possible, and class and quantify the resulting responses in two dimensions: 1) Rational vs. irrational responses on a 5-point graduated scale and, 2) Constructive vs. disclamatory responses on a 5-point graduated scale.

And this post is the maiden TEST CASE of these PREDICTIONS in an effort to confirm or falsify my HYPOTHESIS.

What fun! A SCIENCE experiment!

And if you guys can't even muster a couple of chuckles out of this one, you've got worse senses of humor than a lot of fundamentalists I know. Eye-wink

 

 

 

 

When The Church, i.e., organized religion collectively, divests itself of its obscene wealth, gives it all to feed the poor, and releases its death grip on the minds of its adherents, I will once again listen to what it has to say, which at that point I'm sure will be very little.

Man has to awaken to wonder — and so perhaps do peoples.
Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus


skeptic23
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OH! I almost forgot...

The #1 most important step of the scientific process!! Do you know what it is Bob?

That's right! PUBLISH YOUR RESULTS.

I'll publish my TEST RESULTS right here on rationalresponders.com!

That way Bob can reproduce my TEST PLAN and confirm or deny my TEST RESULTS.

Thank you Bob!

 

When The Church, i.e., organized religion collectively, divests itself of its obscene wealth, gives it all to feed the poor, and releases its death grip on the minds of its adherents, I will once again listen to what it has to say, which at that point I'm sure will be very little.

Man has to awaken to wonder — and so perhaps do peoples.
Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus