asgardhaven

Nowhere357

Sorry I probably could have been clearer.

Mental Processes like Pattern recognition and inference are advantagous because it allows us to learn skills and methods that feed, clothe, and shelter ourseves more efficienciently.

As a by-product, we see patterns and infer meanings were there are none (like superstitous belief) but these mistakes for the most part don't directly effect are chances for survival or reproductive success.

By the way, thanks about the screenname.

asgardhaven

Just for clarification sake does
strong=gnostic
and
weak = agnostic
when discussing atheism?

Nowhere357

Yes, I agree. Many optical illusions work due to this, for example. So superstition can be seen as a sort of mental illusion - I've never really thought of it that way.

Using optical illusions for analogy, the illusions persist even when we understand the science behind them. Helping to understand how superstitious beliefs may persist even in the face of reason.

asgardhaven

Nowhere357

I like the visual analogy.

callmejay

I AM aware of that concept. I am aware, as are you, of a lot of wonderful and amazing things about the universe.

Mysticism is A part of most religions. I don't see how it suggest the presence of a deity, though. It's just something weird our brains can do. The morals argument has been beaten to death and is irrelevant.

This I disagree with. It's clear from observing other people and animals that they have minds. The existence of the mind is explained pretty well, assuming you mean how did it come about. We can look at creatures from the simplest to the most complex (mentally) and see the evolution of the mind. As to how it works, well we probably won't know that for a long time.

Depending on what you mean by "mysterious," I'll agree that it is. (I.e. how a lot of things work is still a mystery.) You seem to be arguing that the fact that we are looking for something implies that the something exists. That seems a strange argument. We used to look for Gods who pulled the sun around the earth.

To me "supernatural" is synonymous with "non-existent," since every definition I can think of for "exists" couldn't describe a supernatural anything.

kubli

Let me get this straight then. An atheist can be somebody who doesn't believe in god in three different ways:

1) There is no God, period.
2) Doesn't believe in God as defined by a religion.
3) Believes in the possibility of God, but since God can't be defined chooses not to believe in God.

Is this right? For the case of #1, how is that person any different than any other religious follower? They have faith that God doesn't exist. Isn't this the same "I know" type of attitude that religions subscribe to?

Nowhere357

Yes, we agree.

All the examples I gave had a central theme - the concept of group mind.

I'm not sure what you mean by "mysticism". I guess transcendance can be seen as mystical, but I don't see it that way. Mysticism is too related to supernatural, which I don't accept as real. Transcendance however is a real phenomenae.

And the morals issue here follows the theme of group mind - isn't it interesting that morals serve to expand an individuals awareness to include that which is good for the group? This is a form of transcendance. From my pov here, morals are not irrelevant.

I basically agree with this, but you have missed my point. Consider that if we were not aware of our own minds, there would be no reason at all to assume that anything has a mind. Poke a creature with a stick and it reacts - but what reason is there to assume the stimulus was actually felt? One way to explore the issue is to consider how we can tell if an advanced enough robot or computer, which claims to have subjective awareness, actually does have subjective awareness.

This seems profound to me. The only evidence for the existence of minds, is our direct experience of our own. Once we realize that we have minds, it becomes easier to recognize the presence of minds elsewhere. Without our own direct experience of our personal minds, we would only see action/reaction, and Occam's razor would deny that minds exist.

We are making progress in our understanding of minds, but in no way can current physics explain the phenomenae.

Why the qualification? Minds are not physical, yet nothing known about any form of energy or any type of force can explain how a thing can come to be subjectively aware. Minds are different in kind from all other phenomenae ever obsevered. Mysterious, period.

Something exists, so we look for the explanation, not the other way around. Minds exist, they are apparently inextricably related to brain activity, but other than that no one has a clue as to why or how they exist. Your condenscension is misplaced.

I agree with this. If something exists then it affects reality and so we can in theory detect those effects and design a natural law to explain the observations. If something "exists" yet does not not affect reality, it is EXACTLY the same to reality as if it doesn't exist.

I claim that agnostism does not imply cowardice, or dishonesty, and I hope you don't disagree with that. I also claim that agnostism does not imply gullibility, and that is what I have been trying to show. Nothing more. Agnostism can be logical, reasonable, and sensible.