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Shouldn't we all love God AND the Socratic Method?
Posted on: October 1, 2007 - 3:25am
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Shouldn't we all love God AND the Socratic Method?
I think the Socratic Method is a method not a doctrine. As a Christian I claim it for the Christians. So, atheists, first question: God either exists or doesn't exist, right?
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I have a very bad feeling about you.
first of all: define your god!
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I'm sure you've been trained to expect the worst from Christians in this sphere. Try to hope for the best. And, let me know if I'm making theists look bad.
Next question then: Are you an atheist or not?
Oh... really?
I think we have a real intellectual on our hands.
We have seen a cutting observation of the axiom of identity. I wonder what we'll see next...
Do you have a flag?
(Bonus points for anyone who knows the reference.)
As other noteworthy posters have mentioned, you must define your term before asking the question.
Please have a look at this thread, and the follow ups, so that you know how to ask a proper question.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Look at my blog! It's awesome!
I'm also on this Twitter thing
Eddie Izzard, of course. Dress to Kill, IIRC.
Give the man a prize.... bonus points, that is.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Correct. This is one of the most basic and foundational tautologies in the whole of propositional logic, the Law of Excluded Middle.
Get to the point.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
The Eddie Izzard reference was beautiful.
But, since this thread is supposed to have something to do with Socrates, I'll try to bring things around. Socrates prefers to talk in question and answer. This forces his interlocutor to assent to the truth of the argument as it unfolds. This works so long as the interlocutor cares about the answer to the question at hand. It is useful to question definitions, but if overused it can detract from debate when there is enough agreement about the terms to continue following the argument. Old implicitly-defined definitions can always be explicitly amended later if need arises.
Anyway, if I am to continue claiming the Socratic method for Christianity I will have to "get to the point" and make a little speech, as Socrates always did when his interlocutors would not co-operate. However, this only gives us more opportunities to misunderstand each other and more opportunities to get hung up on those misunderstandings.
Here goes: First, I'll amend my original mistake of not providing a question. Which life is more rational, the atheist or the Christian?" It seems to me that atheism and Christianity are both kinds of life and that one has to be more rational than the other. If the question is which way of life is more rational, we ought to get the data about each kind of life and see if the kind of life makes rational sense or not. The Christian must defend himself and his practices, and the atheist must defend himself and his practices. Both must do so with reference to the world which they share.
I would like to hear the atheist defence. So I ask, who are you and what are your practices?
well, i don't think there is enough agreement about the terms, since even among xtians there isn't. definitions are the very basis of such a discussion. some ideas of a god already contain certain contradictions that make it logically impossible for such a being to exist. So the statement "god either exists or doesn't" isn't that simple. would you please define the god you're referring to, so we all know, which supernatural entity you are about to argue for and can answer your questions?
"And the only people I fear are those who never have doubts."
Billy Joel, 1993
And God spoke: You can stand under my umberella -ella -ella -eh -eh -eh ...
el_kundo. My fault on the confusion. I didn't tell you what argument we were in or give an appropriate context before the dialogue began (Plato usually does that for Socrates). I wasn't trying to prove the existence of God, but I didn't really give you that clue did I? Instead I was interested in atheism as a definite stance on the existence of God, a negative stance, and in the implications of that.
However, I'm realizing quickly that there are a lot of terms that are unclear. Since, I'm interested in the atheist life I think any of the available stand-bys for God work well in this context. When the Christian presents his case he would be cound to give a much clearer definition of "God".
I don't know how well this thread will end up working. It's tremendously hard to play the part of Socrates. Still, "Nothing ventured. Nothing gained." If my attempt stalls out I welcome other Christians to take up the same question and demand the atheist's defense or atheists to question me and I will respond (I am a much better interlocutor than a Socrates).
first: we don't have to defend our position of not believing in your deity, since this is the default position. you make the claim of it's existence so you have to provide reasons and evidence for it. as long as there's no hard evidence, disbelief is the rational position, as it is concerning flying spaghetti monsters and invisible pink unicorns. just because someone makes a claim, that doesn't mean it's true until someone proves it wrong.
second: because of that, for me, atheism isn't a belief system. we don't have "our practices", cause the only thing atheists basically have in common is a disbelief in your god. nothing more, nothing less. any other aspect of live can be as varied as possible among atheists. you and I share a disbelief in zeus, as I suppose. that doesn't mean we have a common belief systems or the same practices.
"And the only people I fear are those who never have doubts."
Billy Joel, 1993
And God spoke: You can stand under my umberella -ella -ella -eh -eh -eh ...
Atheism is more rational. There's no guarantee any given atheist will be more rational than any given christian, or vice versa, but atheism itself is more rational than any belief in any of the deities we as humans currently worship, since none stand up to any actual rational challenge. As rapper Greydon Square said, "your god is logically impossible, he can't even withstand the most basic logical obstacles"
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I'm also on this Twitter thing
I'll just repeat some things that has already been pointed out.
People who think there is something they refer to as god don't ask enough questions.
Izzard reference FTW!
"Star Wars would have never fuckin' worked as a British film. Never. (man bursts into room) 'Oh, I...oh.' 'What is it, Leftenant Sebastian?' 'I, oh. It's just the Rebels, sir. They're here.' 'My God, man; what do they want?!' 'I don't know. But they brought a flag.'"
--
maybe if this sig is witty, someone will love me.
I like the twist of defending 'practice' rather than 'truth'.
Although it sounds like more of a faith vs scientism argument rather than theism vs atheism.
I think that there's plenty of atheists out there who don't believe but still have some kind of 'faith' and don't feel the need to go into scientism.
To me, practice is infinitely more valuable than truth. The only value truth can have, I believe, is its effect on practice.
On the "turn" to practice: I am not asking atheists to "turn" to practice. I might be asking you to re-turn to practice. Nietzsche is my paradigm atheist because he understood what atheism cost. His famous, "God is dead!" comes as a warning from a frantic madman who wonders how the weight of such an incredible deed can be bourne. The madman says, "We have killed God!" He is very confused by the fact that no one else seems disturbed by this.
RRS would not exist if theism was just a single belief. Beliefs come in webs. Yours and mine. RRS exists not because people believe in a Christian God, but because a belief in the Christian God has associated with it a whole host of other beliefs which it serves to justify.
To claim to be an atheist is to reject a belief in God as unfounded AND to reject a belief in the current justification for the entire Western belief system. Thus, to reject the Christian God is either 1) to reject all of the theory and practice of the Christian world, 2) to accept the burden of finding a new "rational" foundation for practice, 3) to deny the need for justification for actions, or 4) to be intellectually dishonest.
It seems to me that folks interested inthe RRS only have option 2) as a live option. Atheist practice need not be an exhaustive description of the atheist way of life, but to pretend to have no concept of atheist practice whatsoever is unacceptable. Each atheist is his or her own tree, but they are all a part of one forest.
I am not asking for a "turn" to practice so much as a thorough rejection of theism in its hugeness. Even if God himself were not real, the idea of God is no fly to be swatted. The idea of God is an ocean to drink.
Show me how thirsty you are by letting me know specifically what you think the major arms of the belief web of Christianity are. After we settle on those, we could move to discussing how those beliefs affect different atheists in their daily life and how each atheist might reground the practices she believes are worth saving and how she might free herself from those she doesn't need.
EDIT: annoying spelling error
On the burden of proof: Atheism can and does pretend that God doesn't exist. But, it cannot pretend that the idea of God does not exist, and it cannot fail to attempt to understand that idea in its enormity. It is very likely that a failure to do so will result in an explicit rejection of the idea of God, but an implicit reliance on the idea of God as the crutch for other beliefs and practices.
The Christian has her own issues. It is her task to demonstrate, insofar as it is possible, the coherence of her beliefs and the grounds from which they arise.
Thus, I propose an examination between two forms of life, the atheist and the Christian. Which is more rational? If this were a debate, I would be forced to assert, "The Christian life is more rational!!!" immediately. But, in my intial statements and in the ensuing criticism and defense, we would likely miss the question, "More rational than what? What exactly is atheism?" And, in missing that we would be doing ourselves the great disservice of failing to define our terms.
I don't speak atheist, so I am sorry it took so long for me to put this in atheist terms. I reject the easy definition of atheism on the grounds that it fails to account for the nature of beliefs in general as nested and the belief in God specifically as at the center of a massive, tangled net of beliefs. It assumes the ground it is standing on to be nuetral, when, in fact, a closer examination of the situation will prove that the ground is in fact Christian. Thus, defining atheism if it is possible is a process of digging up the ground one stands on. We must try this out to see if it is possible.
yay for strawmen....
EDIT:
What I am saying is that you cannot define your strawman version of atheism and then expect us to make a false choice based on that strawman.
It's better to debate the real issues, not made-up ones based on your own false pretenses. We do not reject the idea of a god, we simply have no belief in your god or any other gods humanity has had the creativity and superstition to conjure up.
Rather than debate your straw man, I'd rather go back to your original issue. Why do you think that christianity is rational?
so you're going to claim western civilization for christianity and if we reject christianity then we must also reject all history, art, literature, science etc...
that's a pretty preposterous statement even for a christian. which branch of your cult do we have to be initiated into to enjoy the fruits of the "christian world" as you call it?
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
You use the loaded term “pretend” to sneak by an assertion. As if atheists really suspect Yahweh exists, but feign disbelief.
This sentence is really awful. Here's a book to read other than the bible: Style Toward Clarity and Grace. Oh, and you're continuing to assert.
Here you create a straw-man out of a “failure to attempt to understand enormity” as a cause of the “erroneous” atheist position, and move on to the TAG argument (which is a complete non sequitur).
Why stop asserting now?
Not a failure to imagine as you suggest; an unwillingness to assume would be more accurate. You present nothing, and I derive from that what it suggests.
LOL. TAG, you're it.
How is anything at all explained by your Yahweh? For that matter, what explains your Yahweh?
Others have replied to parts of this better than I could, but here we go"
Look at my blog! It's awesome!
I'm also on this Twitter thing
Ofcourse not. I wasn't criticising you at all.
It wasn't a sarcastic use of the word 'like'.
Many of us are so eager to argue in terms of 'truth' that we sometimes forget that our concept of 'truth' is rooted in practice. I'm like losingstreak in that I see 'practice' being more fundamental than 'truth' as such concepts are defined by our practices in life as human beings.
There is one thing I am not getting in your argument though, you seem to think that atheists depend on God in someway. You've stated this a couple of times but I didn't see where you are coming from. I certainly don't think that any of my 'practice' requires a God of any sort. Perhaps you could show me what I am missing here? If I dig up a particular quote of yours:
What makes you think that the current justification for the Western belief system is grounded in God? Is this a presuppositionalist position? Or do you believe that our beliefs depend on traditions and that our traditions are based in theology?
At the risk of spoiling the fun here for my deconstructionist pros on this board, (AND BTW, KUDOS TO HAVING MORE PATIANCE THAN ME)......
First, neither Socrates nor Thomas Jefferson in my estimation would approach an argument in the middle, which is what you are attempting to distract us from. You are trying to throw buzz names into the mix to distract us from the deity you want to be real.
You have readly admited to being a Christian which cuts to the core of why you are here. You are here to prove yourself. This post is nothing but a bait and switch to distract that you do not have a lick of evidence for spirit sperm knocking up a 9-14 year old girl, or zombie gods surviving rigor mortis after 3 days of death.
So, cut to the chase. Socrates has nothing to do with why you are here. I susspect that you assume that atheists LOVE every philosopher pre-hebrew.
Socrates, or Jesus, or Buddah or Vishnu do not have to be seen as literally real to find metaphorical stories to be appealing. You've read Harry Potter? Maybe Peter Pan? Those stories contain morals and axioms that do not require Thor or Jesus to understand.
You brought up Socrates thinking it would distract us from the fact that donkeys dont talk, snakes dont talk and ghosts dont get prepubesent girls pregnant.
Long winded pontification, no matter how ornate is still long winded with as much substance.
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By the way, how can you claim the Socratic method for Christianity when Socrates died nearly 4 centuries before Jesus was supposedly born?
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