Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 11-18-2012, 07:13 PM

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Originally Posted by TedM

... . I have not accepted the tenants of Christianity for 36 years. I've explained my position yet you apparently think I'm deluded. I guess we have something in common: I think you might be a closet atheist but unwilling to admit it, and you think I'm a closet Christian and unwilling to admit it.

... when the source of depressing thoughts is an ideology that is grounded in unproven and unprovable speculations (ie God likely wouldn't bother creating us because we are so stupid and he'd be bored by us), then there is no need to face it and embrace it. And when there are alternative explanations (ie God was curious as to what would happen, or all life is an ongoing expression of God's goodness regardless of the subjective feelings of that life, or suffering helps man reach out to God so it is good, or even that God loves to make us suffer, or God was bored so he created 'free will' and the concepts of evil and good to which it would be applied for whatever reasons., etc..) those can be considered too and one should not turn one's back on them.

...

I think you are a Christian pretending not to be a Christian, because I have never known a nonbeliever who felt depressed about the idea that no god exists.

Usually, atheists find a sense of relief in realizing that there is no god, and the problems in the world are not the result of a bizarre deity who created an imperfect man in an imperfect world and threatens to torture his soul for all eternity if he can't just believe.

TedM · 11-18-2012, 07:30 PM

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Originally Posted by outhouse

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It's not a fact outhouse. It is your theory

NO

it is factual nothing can be attributed to any deity.

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Tell that to the Near Death Experiencers.

LOL you mean tell that to people who hallucinate after having their brains temporarily rebooted.???

Science has not shown that to be a fact. Why do you believe it is?

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No problem, many test have been done and labs have reproduced all that, showing no such place or thing exist.

You are not correct. A few of the attributes have been duplicated but much has not.

The core experiences are very intriguing. I don't know what to make of them yet. I find it interesting that you have dismissed them so easily when there is not clear evidence about what is going on. This seems to be the atheist mindset, and I believe it is psychologically driven, as opposed to scientifically driven. IOW you disbelieve because you want to.

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admit it !!! you have a empty handful of want and wishes, based on ancient mens mythology because it feels good to leave that possibility open.

It doesn't just feel good. It is imperative to avoid despair. Atheism strikes me as a religion for those who have lost faith in anything truly good.

TedM · 11-18-2012, 07:36 PM

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Originally Posted by Toto

I think you are a Christian pretending not to be a Christian, because I have never known a nonbeliever who felt depressed about the idea that no god exists.

Really? I'm very surprised to hear that about non-believers. I guess I"m just a weird ex-believer..
I'll expound a little bit. My mother passed away a few months ago after a prolonged illness. She was a sweet, grateful, pure-minded, optimistic, caring, and self-less person. Atheism tells me I'll never see her again. That's depressing. Atheism tells me her suffering had no purpose whatsoever. That's depressing. Atheism tells me that her strong faith and relationship with God was all an illusion, and she won't be rewarded for her sacrifices out of faith. That's depressing. Christianity says not only is she no longer suffering, she is experiencing great happiness and peace. I want that for her. Don't we all want to see loved ones again someday, and to know they are happy now? I would think that non-believers would struggle with despair without those hopes.

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Usually, atheists find a sense of relief in realizing that there is no god, and the problems in the world are not the result of a bizarre deity who created an imperfect man in an imperfect world and threatens to torture his soul for all eternity if he can't just believe.

Yeah, I can understand that. Especially if there was no previous positive relationship with God. If life seemed unjust, it would be easier to just reject the idea that God exists, than try and understand the reasons for life being difficult and unfair. And, I suspect this is why many people become atheists: To find relief. It's an emotional decision as opposed to a rational one. Some of course will become atheists because they get cart blanch to do whatever they want and can get away with, without ever having to answer to a higher power who knows and sees all. This is another emotional reason to disbelieve.

I would be curious to know how many people become atheists because they simply feel like it makes more sense to believe that the universe has always existed in some form or that ideals like love, joy, peace, beauty, justice, knowledge don't really exist as anything other than disguised tools for survival.

MrMacSon · 11-18-2012, 07:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TedM

... Atheism is a religion for those who have lost hope in anything truly good.

All religions invoke the supernatural or supernatural events.

Atheism is a lack of belief in the supernatural, or a lack of belief in narrated supernatural events

TedM · 11-18-2012, 08:18 PM

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Originally Posted by MrMacSon

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Originally Posted by TedM

... Atheism is a religion for those who have lost hope in anything truly good.

All religions invoke the supernatural or supernatural events.

Atheism is a lack of belief in the supernatural, or a lack of belief in narrated supernatural events

This is a softer definition than I'm used to. I'm not used to seeing it as a person who does not believe in a God, as much as a person who believes there is NO God. The first includes agnostics. The second does not.

I believe it is not natural to have a lack of belief in a cause for something, even if that cause has to be something we can't explain, that must involve a higher intelligence. I think religious belief is innate to our human species, and those who think their way out of belief are somehow separated with their true selves. Can't prove it. Might be wrong too. Never researched it.

And, as I said in a post above, I think many, if not the vast majority, of atheists come to their faithlessness by way of emotional considerations. Thus the relief Toto speaks of.

Toto · 11-18-2012, 08:24 PM

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Originally Posted by TedM

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Originally Posted by Toto

I think you are a Christian pretending not to be a Christian, because I have never known a nonbeliever who felt depressed about the idea that no god exists.

Really? I'm very surprised to hear that about non-believers. I guess I"m just a weird ex-believer..
I'll expound a little bit. My mother passed away a few months ago after a prolonged illness. She was a sweet, grateful, pure-minded, optimistic, caring, and self-less person. Atheism tells me I'll never see her again. That's depressing. Atheism tells me her suffering had no purpose whatsoever. That's depressing. Atheism tells me that her strong faith and relationship with God was all an illusion, and she won't be rewarded for her sacrifices out of faith. That's depressing. Christianity says not only is she no longer suffering, she is experiencing great happiness and peace. I want that for her. Don't we all want to see loved ones again someday, and to know they are happy now? I would think that non-believers would struggle with despair without those hopes.

You've got it all backwards. Atheism tells you that your mother's life had the meaning that she gave it, that she left an imprint on you and others, that she gave you life, and you appreciated it. You can be grateful for that. Atheism says that her prolonged illness was not a punishment from god, and there is no danger that she is being tortured in hell for having the wrong beliefs.

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Usually, atheists find a sense of relief in realizing that there is no god, and the problems in the world are not the result of a bizarre deity who created an imperfect man in an imperfect world and threatens to torture his soul for all eternity if he can't just believe.

Yeah, I can understand that. Especially if there was no previous positive relationship with God. If life seemed unjust, it would be easier to just reject the idea that God exists, than try and understand the reasons for life being difficult and unfair. And, I suspect this is why many people become atheists: To find relief. It's an emotional decision as opposed to a rational one.

As you say, you are weird if you really are an ex-believer, which I continue to doubt.

Not believing is rational. You can't flip that, however often you say it.

You have yourself told us that we are too puny to every understand why the creator has made life difficult and unfair. So what would be the point of trying to understand?

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Some of course will become atheists because they get cart blanch to do whatever they want and can get away with, without ever having to answer to a higher power who knows and sees all. This is another emotional reason to disbelieve.

This is a very common Christian belief - that atheists only become atheists so they don't have to obey the rules. In fact, atheists observe that Christians break all the same rules, but claim that Jesus has forgiven them. Another indication that you are just playing a nonbeliever here.

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I would be curious to know how many people become atheists because they simply feel like it makes more sense to believe that the universe has always existed in some form or that ideals like love, joy, peace, beauty, justice, knowledge don't really exist as anything other than disguised tools for survival.

On the contrary, atheists do believe in love, joy, peace, beauty, justice, and especially knowledge. They are products of our evolution, not values that this mysterious god fails to live up to.

Atheists get together at conventions and have a good time. You might want to check out organized atheism if you think that atheists are all depressed and hopeless.

Toto · 11-18-2012, 08:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TedM

...

I believe it is not natural to have a lack of belief in a cause for something, even if that cause has to be something we can't explain, that must involve a higher intelligence. I think religious belief is innate to our human species, and those who think their way out of belief are somehow separated with their true selves. Can't prove it. Might be wrong too. Never researched it.

There are scientists who research the biological basis of belief, and have located it in the frontal cortex. You could research it if you care. There is no hint that anyone who doesn't believe is separated from their "true self."

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And, as I said in a post above, I think many, if not the vast majority, of atheists come to their faithlessness by way of emotional considerations. Thus the relief Toto speaks of.

"Faithlessness?" spoken like a Christian. You can find a lot of deconversion stories on this site, and none are based on the criteria that you claim.

Come clean. You are a believer.

EarlDoherty · 11-18-2012, 08:43 PM

I have to say that I have been floored by TedM’s reasoning—or lack of it—in this thread, and disappointed by spin’s rather ineffectual dealing with it. I was reminded of an article in Harper’s magazine several years ago, a review by Marilynne Robinson of Richard Dawkins’ book “The God Delusion.” I wrote a rebuttal to Robinson’s review which I called “Harper’s Folly” and I posted it on my Age of Reason site in 2006. The following excerpt from it gets to the very core of Ted’s logical fallacy. I have bolded the parts which I feel are particularly in direct parallel to Ted’s arguments and fallacious reasoning. It is a little lengthy, but for those who have an insufficient interest or attention span, or who have trouble following it, I have appended a single-paragraph summary of the basic argument it contains. I urge Ted to have a go at it.

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To discuss what Robinson is getting at, I will need to quote an extensive passage from her, which will also lay out the basis of Dawkins’ argument against the existence of God (the hiatuses are hers):

(Dawkins) reasons thus: A creator God must be more complex than his creation, but this is impossible because if he existed he would be at the wrong end of evolutionary history. To be present in the beginning he must have been unevolved and therefore simple. Dawkins is very proud of this insight. He considers it unanswerable. He asks, “How do they [theists] cope with the argument that any God capable of designing a universe, carefully and foresightfully tuned to lead to our evolution, must be a supremely complex and improbable entity who needs an even bigger explanation than the one he is supposed to provide?” And “if he [God] has the powers attributed to him he must have something far more elaborately and non-randomly constructed than the largest brain or the largest computer we know,” and “a first cause of everything…must have been simple and therefore, whatever else we call it, God is not an appropriate name (unless we very explicitly divest it of all the baggage that the word ‘God’ carries in the minds of most religious believers).” At Cambridge, says Dawkins, “I challenged the theologians to answer the point that a God capable of designing a universe, or anything else, would have to be complex and statistically improbable. The strongest response I heard was that I was brutally foisting a scientific epistemology upon an unwilling theology.” Dawkins is clearly innocent of this charge against him. Whatever is being foisted here, it is not a scientific epistemology.

Evolution is the creature of time. And, as Dawkins notes, modern cosmologies generally suggest that time and the universe as a whole came into being together. So a creator cannot very well be thought of as having attained complexity through a process of evolution. That is to say, theists need find no anomaly in a divine “complexity” over against the “simplicity” that is presumed to characterize the universe at its origin. (I use these terms not because I find them appropriate to the question but because Dawkins uses them, and my point is to demonstrate the flaws in his reasoning.) In this context, Dawkins cannot concede, even hypothetically, a reality that is not time-bound, that does not conform to Darwinism as he understands it. Yet in an earlier book, Unweaving the Rainbow, Dawkins remarks that “further developments of the [big bang] theory, supported by all available evidence, suggest that time itself began in this mother of all cataclysms. You probably don’t understand, and I certainly don’t, what it can possibly mean to say that time itself began at a particular moment. But once again, that is a limitation of our minds….” That God exists outside time as its creator is an ancient given of theology. The faithful are accustomed to expressions like “from everlasting to everlasting” in reference to God, language that the positivists would surely have considered nonsense but that does indeed express the intuition that time is an aspect of the created order. Again, I do not wish to abuse either theology or scientific theory by implying that either can be used as evidence in support of the other; I mean only that the big bang in fact provides a metaphor that might help Dawkins understand why his grand assault on the “God Hypothesis” has failed to impress the theists.

Now we can take it apart. Robinsons claims that Dawkins’ arguments against the theologians are not scientific epistemology, that this is not scientific reasoning being brought to the question. What, then, is it in Robinson’s estimation?

Dawkins and his reasoning/evidence is time-bound, in that the concept of evolution is dependent on the workings of time, and time only came into existence with the known universe following the Big Bang. Therefore, the Creator’s ‘complexity’ cannot be tied to a process of evolution which entails the time factor. We cannot disallow a complex God by requiring him to exist and operate by the material universe’s processes. Robinson admits that the language she is using is not appropriate to the question, but she must do so because Dawkins uses it and to demonstrate the flaws in his reasoning. But right there, she has thrown a light on her own, and religion’s, flaws in reasoning. Dawkins—and herself by default—use such language and concepts because they are the only thing we have. We have no way of knowing, let alone claiming with a priori certainty, that there is another type of complexity possible, through other types of processes not involving time, or that complexity can exist in this other pre-physical/material domain without any processes of evolution at all. To maintain this is simply to declare it by fiat, which Dawkins rightly criticizes.

What Robinson is doing, once again like all her apologist compatriots, is defining God arbitrarily (without remotely understanding it) as something that exists and functions ‘outside’ or ‘above’ everything that we can possibly know or even conceive of. She is faulting Dawkins—and calling him a faux or pseudo or hysterical scientist—for not doing the same as she! When Dawkins challenged the Cambridge theologians he was asking for some kind of evidence, some theoretical conceptual argument, as to how God could function as creator, since this would by any logical or experiential measure require some form of complexity. He offered them, as an example, the only complexity known and demonstrable by science: the principle of evolution from simplicity to complexity, which necessarily entails the factor of time. Every process from the Big Bang onwards has moved on that one-way path. To postulate complexity as pre-existing without any such process of development goes against everything we have learned. Dawkins was simply asking the theologians to explain or describe God’s brand of complexity, if not by Darwinian evolutionary principles and the input of time, then by some other process or concept.

Of course, they could not. They would have no basis on which to do so (other than simply religious faith). If Robinson, appealing to ‘proper scientific epistemology’ is going to disallow time-based evolution as legitimately applicable to the question of God’s complexity, she has at least to offer some alternative source or reasoning for a pre-existing complex God who could create the universe—not simply declare it to be, or to be hypothetically possible (which, of course, is her only available option). In her world, anything could be hypothetically possible, no matter how lacking in evidence or conceivability—particularly if it had the blessing of religion.

But on what basis can she, or any theologian, occupy such a position? Dawkins is indeed imposing science on an unwilling theology—unwilling, because theology has never had any sort of epistemology to appeal to! Epistemology is “the study of the origins, nature, methods and limits of human knowledge.” But there is no “study” here, since there is no possibility of ‘understanding’ what is being attributed to God. What are the theological origins and methods? The words of an ancient holy book? Personal experiences of God’s voice in believers’ heads? (These the Cambridge theologians actually put forward!) A lack of understanding (those gaps that are ever narrowing) of how the world works which invite God as an explanation? Because religious beliefs are traditional, ingrained, and the conviction that we need them and want them compels us to perpetuate them? These are the very fallacies that Dawkins exposes and dismantles in his book, fallacies which theologians, along with Robinson, never acknowledge to the slightest degree.

Robinson’s claim for a different brand of complexity for God—an entity who never has to follow any rules or reason—is the central, if only, plank in the platform she creates to stand on. She thinks to have caught out Dawkins in some blatant error of reasoning. “In this context [science’s Darwinian outlook tied to a time-bound universe], Dawkins cannot concede, even hypothetically, a reality that is not time-bound, that does not conform to Darwinism as he understands it.” True, he cannot, because nothing in the universe’s experience would bring one to consider it possible. This is not to say that “possible” it could not be—although we have nothing but arbitrary fiat based on wishful thinking to suggest that it actually is.

Yet Robinson is guilty of a far greater error of reasoning in suggesting the reverse of the coin, that we ought (yes, ought, since Dawkins is ‘guilty’ of not doing so) to concede the possibility of a supra- or pre-universe reality not time-bound, inhabited by an innately complex God, because she has no tangible reason for insisting on that concession. Other than, of course, traditional beliefs that were set down in a primitive, pre-scientific phase of human evolution, beliefs for which modern science (including Dawkins in this book) has provided a host of insights and evidence to explain their development as human phenomena with no perceptible link to reality. Dawkins is far more justified in refusing to concede a God-inhabited hypothetical reality outside time and the rules of complexity than Robinson is in postulating the actual existence of one. He is justified by the only objective measure we have: our knowledge and experience of the universe as uncovered by science.

Of Dawkins Robinson demands facts and evidence. Of herself, she merely demands hypotheticals and speculations. She imagines that this is a fair and balanced match-up. (This is exactly what Daniel Dennett means when he says debating a religionist is like playing tennis with someone who lowers the net for their shots and raises it for yours.)

Robinson goes on to illustrate the skyhook she is hanging from. Does she even attempt a reasoned justification for her position?

That God exists outside time as its creator is an ancient given of theology.

Perhaps she is claiming that ancient axioms like this are self-evident, and don’t require anything resembling objective evidence or justification; that they didn’t suffer from the lack of accurate knowledge about the universe which modern science has given us (in stark contrast to the ‘science’ and philosophy developed by the ancients themselves, long consigned, for the most part, to the dustbin of dead ideas). In her critique, she has failed to address the drubbing Dawkins (and others) have given to all the standard ‘proofs’ for the existence of God. She is no better than the theist debater who, outmatched by scientific arguments at every turn, declares from his boxed-in corner that God simply is the way we declare him because he follows no rules of logic or evidence that we are a party to.

If I had to summarize very briefly the above argument, with Robinson’s defective reasoning representing your own, you acknowledge that God cannot be understood by any of the principles of science or reasoning known to man, and thus it is illegitimate to offer any conclusions about what he could be expected or not expected to do or to be. But that leaves you with no basis, logical, scientific or empirical, to even postulate his existence and activities as an assumed starting point, let alone to declare that he could be the source of all that you attribute to him. To arbitrarily define him as an entity which can operate outside of all that we know about the workings of the universe, while having no way to describe that operation, or even to understand it, since we have no benchmarks for postulating, let alone demonstrating, such an externally operating entity, is probably the biggest example of begging the question in the history of the human mind.

The complete article can be found at:

http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/AORComment17.htm

Earl Doherty

MrMacSon · 11-18-2012, 08:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TedM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrMacSon

All religions invoke the supernatural or supernatural events.

Atheism is a lack of belief in the supernatural, or a lack of belief in narrated supernatural events

This is a softer definition than I'm used to. I'm not used to seeing it as a person who does not believe in a God, as much as a person who believes there is NO God.

Yes it can be quite a passive - "meh!" - position.

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The first includes agnostics. The second does not.

It doesn't have to include agnostics; it can be more certain there is a lack of evidence.

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I believe it is not natural to have a lack of belief in a cause for something

What do you believe caused the god you believe in?

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I think religious belief is innate to our human species

it is more learned than innate.

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those who think their way out of belief are somehow separated with their true selves

thinking ones way out of belief is the honest thing to do.

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Never researched it ...

... is wrong! Most who lose faith, or have no faith, have researched it!

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And, as I said in a post above, I think many, if not the vast majority, of atheists come to their faithlessness by way of emotional considerations.

such disparaging put-downs are mere generalizations, and merely 'appeal to emotion'.

TedM · 11-18-2012, 09:13 PM

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Originally Posted by MrMacSon

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I believe it is not natural to have a lack of belief in a cause for something

What do you believe caused the god you believe in?

Nothing. Cause and effect need not apply to a supernatural being, as he may not be subject to that law. Our universe, as far as we know, is.

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I think religious belief is innate to our human species

it is more learned than innate.

I see it like language. We learn it but it is in a sense, innate because it serves a purpose for us. The fact that it is learned does not make it any less innate. We learn to eat to. Just a lot more quickly!

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Never researched it ...

... is wrong! Most who lose faith, or have no faith, have researched it!

Not sure I believe your 'most', nor that the quality of research is good. It can't be proven either way so what is there to research?

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And, as I said in a post above, I think many, if not the vast majority, of atheists come to their faithlessness by way of emotional considerations.

such disparaging put-downs are mere generalizations, and merely 'appeal to emotion'.

Yes, I know it has that effect. But it is what I believe is the truth. I don't believe rational reasoning, absent from a desire to disbelieve, leads very many to atheism. I think there is a strong emotional component. If I'm wrong so be it. I'm just telling you what I think is the truth. It doesn't mean atheists are wrong. I'm just not at all convinced that they are as rational as they claim.

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