Religion and Ethics Forum
Religion and Ethics Discussion => Theism and Atheism => Topic started by: Walt Zingmatilder on April 21, 2018, 03:01:49 PM
-
https://www.atheists.org/2018/04/update-regarding-david-silverman/
-
We've been here before Private Frasier. It's irrelevant to me that the guy is an atheist, if he's done something disgusting he will be suitably castigated for it. I don't believe atheists have ever said they are better than others, they're human like anyone else.
I remember the last time you brought up something like this, I asked you many questions & you couldn't or wouldn't get to the point; Iwas convinced you were a WUM & still am.
-
We've been here before Private Frasier. It's irrelevant to me that the guy is an atheist, if he's done something disgusting he will be suitably castigated for it. I don't believe atheists have ever said they are better than others, they're human like anyone else.
I remember the last time you brought up something like this, I asked you many questions & you couldn't or wouldn't get to the point; Iwas convinced you were a WUM & still am.
Moral superiority to religion and the religious is at the very heart of New atheism and antitheism.
-
Trouble at t'mill. Get it right!
-
Moral superiority to religion and the religious is at the very heart of New atheism and antitheism.
And at the heart of religion and the religious. Just as well I am none of the religious, New atheism, if that is anything, or antitheist.
-
There have been one or two religious people found guilty of sexual shenanegans, and in many cases their sins were covered up for years, whereas the Yank atheists seem to have dealt with their scandal quickly and firmly.
-
Quite - but Private WUM likes to bait people. He's done it before, same subject.
-
There have been one or two religious people found guilty of sexual shenanegans, and in many cases their sins were covered up for years, whereas the Yank atheists seem to have dealt with their scandal quickly and firmly.
That depends on how far back the allegations against at least two prominent atheists go back.
-
That depends on how far back the allegations against at least two prominent atheists go back.
Why?
-
Why?
Because the quickness and firmness of action is a function of how long allegations have been known about by those who could and should take action.
-
Because the quickness and firmness of action is a function of how long allegations have been known about by those who could and should take action.
No clue what you are saying there.
-
Because the quickness and firmness of action is a function of how long allegations have been known about by those who could and should take action.
No clue what you are saying there.
Seems straightforward enough to me.
-
No clue what you are saying there.
Seems straightforward enough to me.
That's nice. What do you think is clear?
-
Problem with things like this - as we've seen in recent cases with actors on big & small screen - is proving the allegations & getting people to go public. He became president of the society in 2010 which isn't that long ago. I don't see what being President of the American atheists has any more to do with his misdemeanours other than he was in a position to take advantage of vulnerable people - like so many other powerful people.
He'll be punished now, has lost reputation, what more does anyone want?
-
That's nice. What do you think is clear?
The quote within the quote from Vlad the Impartial.
-
The quote within the quote from Vlad the Impartial.
And what do you think is clear that it is saying? Because I am at a loss.
-
What the Impaler is trying to get at is he thinks there was probably a cover up of several years which makes it worse than if allegations are brought to light and dealt with quickly.
-
What the Impaler is trying to get at is he thinks there was probably a cover up of several years which makes it worse than if allegations are brought to light and dealt with quickly.
In cases of this nature, aside from the alleged perpetrator it comes down to a) who knew of the allegations? b) How long did they know before acting on that knowledge? c) How did they act?
-
In cases of this nature, aside from the alleged perpetrator it comes down to a) who knew of the allegations? b) How long did they know before acting on that knowledge? c) How did they act?
What are 'cases of this nature'?
-
Quite - but Private WUM likes to bait people. He's done it before, same subject.
In some atheist circles this is being treated as a serious issue.........it isn't just my pet project.
vis
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/2018/04/on-the-firing-of-david-silverman/
https://americanhumanist.org/press-releases/aha-cuts-ties-with-lawrence-krauss/
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/2018/03/lawrence-krauss-the-wall-of-silence-falls/
The AHA statement particularly laments past poor response in these matters IMV.
-
In some atheist circles this is being treated as a serious issue.........it isn't just my pet project.
vis
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/2018/04/on-the-firing-of-david-silverman/
https://americanhumanist.org/press-releases/aha-cuts-ties-with-lawrence-krauss/
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/2018/03/lawrence-krauss-the-wall-of-silence-falls/
The AHA statement particularly laments past poor response in these matters IMV.
You getting confused between antitheist and atheist? You are a bit all over the place and not really making any coherent point. Have a digestive, and a wee think about what you are trying to say.
-
Moral superiority to religion and the religious is at the very heart of New atheism and antitheism.
I think it's been established that being an atheist doesn't prevent you from being a bad man. However, what is at issue is what the organisations that these bad men are part of do about it.
One option is to be transparent about it: have an investigation, take action to dissociate the organisation from the person,, turn the evidence over to the police if they have done something potentially illegal.
Another option is to quietly relocate the bad man, bribe or threaten the victims, maintain a wall of silence with respect to the legal authorities.
Guess which of the two options the Roman Catholic Church took? Moral authority, my arse.
-
I think it's been established that being an atheist doesn't prevent you from being a bad man. However, what is at issue is what the organisations that these bad men are part of do about it.
One option is to be transparent about it: have an investigation, take action to dissociate the organisation from the person,, turn the evidence over to the police if they have done something potentially illegal.
Another option is to quietly relocate the bad man, bribe or threaten the victims, maintain a wall of silence with respect to the legal authorities.
Guess which of the two options the Roman Catholic Church took? Moral authority, my arse.
Yes ,and there are numerous threads on this forum concerning Bad priests which tend to go unchallenged or rarely include have diversionary posts.
You are right to flag up the question of who knew, when they knew and what they did about it and in the case of Peter Ball in the Anglican church a former archbishop was sacked from a current post by Archbishop Welby.
And those are the three questions surrounding the Silverman and Krauss cases.
Who knew?
When did they know?
What did they do about it?
-
This is no different from the Kevin Spacey thing or the countless other scandals coming to light as a result of #MeToo. A man - usually - in a position of power who uses that power to abuse others, and an organisation that is too blinded by the man, to intimidated or just to ignorant to know how to react. You’ll find similar scenarios in schools - is there a conspiracy of silence among teachers? Among estate agents? Among dentists? Because it’s everywhere that someone is in a position to abuse their power.
-
This is no different from the Kevin Spacey thing or the countless other scandals coming to light as a result of #MeToo. A man - usually - in a position of power who uses that power to abuse others, and an organisation that is too blinded by the man, to intimidated or just to ignorant to know how to react. You’ll find similar scenarios in schools - is there a conspiracy of silence among teachers? Among estate agents? Among dentists? Because it’s everywhere that someone is in a position to abuse their power.
I think there is a bit of a difference between situations in which no moral authority is being claimed or even where dubious dog eat dog whatever oils the wheels morality is being claimed...and where moral authority is claimed as in the catholic church, The Anglican church, church in general, any atheism which sees religion as the root of evil and Krauss's statements where he claimed that science makes one more moral. Abusers operating in those sorts of contexts are the epitome of wolves in sheep's clothing.
-
Oh, come on, PF: after the endless scandals about sexual abuse by clergy in the RC, Anglican, and other churches, and the cover-ups for decades, one case, dealt with quickly and firmly by the Yank atheists, rather pales into insignificance.
-
This is no different from the Kevin Spacey thing or the countless other scandals coming to light as a result of #MeToo. A man - usually - in a position of power who uses that power to abuse others, and an organisation that is too blinded by the man, to intimidated or just to ignorant to know how to react. You’ll find similar scenarios in schools - is there a conspiracy of silence among teachers? Among estate agents? Among dentists? Because it’s everywhere that someone is in a position to abuse their power.
I agree with you 100% Rhiannon, this is not a religious or non-religious issue. If anything the American atheist society has the benefit of knowing about the blunders by the religious (& other tight organisations), in attempts to deal with and cover up & understand how to proceed in such a case.
-
Oh, come on, PF: after the endless scandals about sexual abuse by clergy in the RC, Anglican, and other churches, and the cover-ups for decades, one case, dealt with quickly and firmly by the Yank atheists, rather pales into insignificance.
Well, considering organised atheism is only just starting out comparative to the millennia of religion then of course it does An atheism of today's character being so young cannot possibly have anything like the same social reach as religion.
Whether wrong doing, misogyny and sexual abuse is ever insignificant is another matter.
I would say that coming at a time when toleration for the alleged behaviours has come to a dramatic and emphatic full stop...to happen to key figures within the hierarchy of such a young movement is potentially devastating.
The key to the impact will be, as I have said, who knew?, when did they know? and how did they respond ?
It may be that the present public face of campaigning atheism based on moral superiority over religion takes a big hit because of either rogues or response to allegations.
-
I'd say, Vlad, that you are in danger of becoming an anti-atheist, or would that be (using your own terms) 'anti-antitheist' - whatever label best fits, you are becoming tiresome in that nobody here (be they theist or atheist) wishes to see any delays in dealing with any examples of problem behaviour within organisations.
-
nobody here (be they theist or atheist) wishes to see any delays in dealing with any examples of problem behaviour within organisations.
Yes........... I am particularly impressed by the honesty and reflection in this organisation in response to this crisis
https://americanhumanist.org/press-releases/aha-cuts-ties-with-lawrence-krauss/
-
I agree with you 100% Rhiannon, this is not a religious or non-religious issue. If anything the American atheist society has the benefit of knowing about the blunders by the religious (& other tight organisations), in attempts to deal with and cover up & understand how to proceed in such a case.
I don’t think you can compare the systematic cover-up and often enabling of child abuse by the various churches with the situation at the Old Vic, say, or this one. The latter is a case of individual bad apples using their power to bully and abuse; the former is about collusion and self-interest and protection at all levels. However it isn’t confined solely to religion; a similar systematic failure has occurred within local authority childrens’ homes, for example.
-
you are becoming tiresome in that nobody here (be they theist or atheist) wishes to see any delays in dealing with any examples of problem behaviour within organisations.
Followers of this forum can judge for themselves peoples' responses to the Silverman and Krauss allegations.
-
I don’t think you can compare the systematic cover-up and often enabling of child abuse by the various churches with the situation at the Old Vic, say, or this one. The latter is a case of individual bad apples using their power to bully and abuse; the former is about collusion and self-interest and protection at all levels. However it isn’t confined solely to religion; a similar systematic failure has occurred within local authority childrens’ homes, for example.
Yes, I understand that.
Private Frazier doesn't seem to realise that he is highlighting this particular case in such a way as to point a wagging finger at the organisation - which is what has happened with past cases involving religious and other organisations, in an attempt to tar everyone who is a member with the same brush. It's not fair and not kind. Atheists have not taken a stand of moral superiority, all they've said is that religion doesn't give anyone moral superiority. In other words, we're all human.
-
Yes, I understand that.
Private Frazier doesn't seem to realise that he is highlighting this particular case in such a way as to point a wagging finger at the organisation - which is what has happened with past cases involving religious and other organisations, in an attempt to tar everyone who is a member with the same brush. It's not fair and not kind. Atheists have not taken a stand of moral superiority, all they've said is that religion doesn't give anyone moral superiority. In other words, we're all human.
I beg your pardon. I have highlighted the concerns of atheists throughout this thread but weirdly you and others are making this into a Vlad thing. You have no evidence that I am tarring with the same brush. Have you read the links?
I could hand therefore everything over from this point to atheist links and let atheists deeply and understandably affected by this tell their own story.
Since this is a breaking issue the question of Who knew, how long they knew and what there response has been is IMV unresolved.
I put it to you that a there are two measurements to be looked out for on this forum first is enthusiasm for Bad Priest threads and the second is enthusiasm for alleged bad atheist official/celebrity threads.
-
Followers of this forum can judge for themselves peoples' responses to the Silverman and Krauss allegations.
So they can: and they do seem to be supportive of prompt and effective action to address problem behaviour within organisations.
So unless you can detail any reluctance among members here to encourage prompt effective action why don't you go and find another drum to bang.
-
Vlad seems to have lost sight of the fact there are real victims here. Using their stories to point score is pretty low.
-
So they can: and they do seem to be supportive of prompt and effective action to address problem behaviour within organisations.
So unless you can detail any reluctance among members here to encourage prompt effective action why don't you go and find another drum to bang.
So the matter just lies?
I'm not talking about the two or three members who you are using to represent many posters. I'm talking about the many who read but don't contribute and of course those who might look at this forum in posterity.
-
Vlad seems to have lost sight of the fact there are real victims here. Using their stories to point score is pretty low.
Why didn't say, you, bring them to attention then?
-
So the matter just lies?
I'm not talking about the two or three members who you are using to represent many posters. I'm talking about the many who read but don't contribute and of course those who might look at this forum in posterity.
Then you are no better informed than I regarding what these non-contributors actually think - are you?.
-
Then you are no better informed than I regarding what these non-contributors actually think - are you?.
As I said before I am happy to let them judge. Rather than say they are all fully on board for this or that.
-
As I said before I am happy to let them judge. Rather than say they are all fully on board for this or that.
Then let them do so, and as I suggested earlier find another drum to bang (no doubt irritatingly).
-
Why didn't say, you, bring them to attention then?
Leaving aside the fact that if I posted about every sexual harassment allegation I’d be on here like it’s a full time job, I’d never heard of either of the men involved until you posted about them.
-
Moral superiority to religion and the religious is at the very heart of New atheism and antitheism.
Atheism says nothing about morality. It's just about not believing in gods.
-
Atheism says nothing about morality. It's just about not believing in gods.
Was it not Dawkins who challenged us with the question ''Religion....Root of all evil?
Was it not Hitchens who told us that ''God is not great''?
-
Was it not Dawkins who challenged us with the question ''Religion....Root of all evil?
Was it not Hitchens who told us that ''God is not great''?
and ?
-
From their perspective.
-
and ?
Having dispensed with the Abrahamic God Atheism needs to account atheistically for morality. That I would have said is an unavoidable given.
-
Having dispensed with the Abrahamic God Atheism needs to account atheistically for morality. That I would have said is an unavoidable given.
What ? No it doesn't. Atheism is just about not believing in gods.
-
Having dispensed with the Abrahamic God Atheism needs to account atheistically for morality. That I would have said is an unavoidable given.
Drivel
-
Drivel
Should that be dribble ?
-
What ? No it doesn't. Atheism is just about not believing in gods.
And the Abrahamic God is the source of morality. Having dispensed with that God, Atheism is thus confronted with coming up with alternative atheistic explanations of either or both why things are and/or how things are.
I doubt very much that you are without these.
-
Morality can be explained evolutionarily. A society which praised theft and random violence, and condemned honesty and peaceability, would collapse in short order.
-
And the Abrahamic God is the source of morality.
This is a joke, right?
-
And the Abrahamic God is the source of morality.
Nope
Having dispensed with that God, Atheism is thus confronted with coming up with alternative atheistic explanations of either or both why things are and/or how things are.
Haven't dispensed with gods. I can't because I don't believe in them.
I doubt very much that you are without these.
Without what ?
Don't understand
-
Morality can be explained evolutionarily. A society which praised theft and random violence, and condemned honesty and peaceability, would collapse in short order.
That doesn't quite explain immorality though.
Aren't theft and violence part and parcel of the Darwinian struggle? Why even use then the term morality if it's all just behaviour?
-
This is a joke, right?
Not at all that's what Abrahamic monotheists believe. Do you have an alternative?
-
Not at all that's what Abrahamic monotheists believe. Do you have an alternative?
Say I don't - so what?
-
Oh, come on, PF: after the endless scandals about sexual abuse by clergy in the RC, Anglican, and other churches, and the cover-ups for decades, one case, dealt with quickly and firmly by the Yank atheists, rather pales into insignificance.
How long were people aware of the allegations about Silverman and Krauss before their various suspensions and terminations and link severences this year?
-
How long were people aware of the allegations about Silverman and Krauss before their various suspensions and terminations and link severences this year?
Dunno. And your point, caller?
-
Dunno.
Are you interested?
-
Are you interested?
In what? As has already been covered, I hope that any abuses that have happened are dealt with properly and thoroughly. I have no particular interest in the cases, any more than the Kevin Spacey case. And once again, I ask what point are you trying to make?
-
In what? As has already been covered, I hope that any abuses that have happened are dealt with properly and thoroughly. I have no particular interest in the cases, any more than the Kevin Spacey case. And once again, I ask what point are you trying to make?
High profile campaigning atheists break links with each other over allegations of impropriety, financial issues and misogyny.
-
High profile campaigning atheists break links with each other over allegations of impropriety, financial issues and misogyny.
And? that doesn't really seem to be a point rather it's a way of summarising what has happened. Do you have a point that you want to make about it?
-
And? that doesn't really seem to be a point rather it's a way of summarising what has happened. Do you have a point that you want to make about it?
Well ''walls of silence'' and past playing down of issues in favour of ''zealous secularism'' are mentioned within the links but as you say that is summarising.
No I have no further point other than to inform or any further points not raised by my posts.
-
Well ''walls of silence'' and past playing down of issues in favour of ''zealous secularism'' are mentioned within the links but as you say that is summarising.
No I have no further point other than to inform or any further points not raised by my posts.
Thank you for the information.
-
On a recent survey of NSS Humanist sites I made I notice they are bit light on the Silverman and Krauss allegations which has hit non religious America. So light there seems to be no mention at all in the news and opinion. This would surely be a failure of self reflection considering the transatlantlic co-operation of atheists and the use of American atheist ematerial and the coverage given to Krauss by HumanistUK as presenting the Darwin day lecture last year. The attitude would surely account as evidence when the matter of 'appropriate response' is eventually weighed up.
-
You are still talking as if atheist are part of some big community with shared rules, structures, ways of seeing things and so on. They aren't. The behaviour if one atheist doesn't reflect on other atheists. As has been said, the alleged behaviour of these atheists has no more impact on other atheists than the alleged behaviour of, for example, Kevin Spacey. Such behaviour is deplorable no matter who engages in it.
-
You are still talking as if atheist are part of some big community with shared rules, structures, ways of seeing things and so on. They aren't. The behaviour if one atheist doesn't reflect on other atheists. As has been said, the alleged behaviour of these atheists has no more impact on other atheists than the alleged behaviour of, for example, Kevin Spacey. Such behaviour is deplorable no matter who engages in it.
I am not that naïve but I think atheists would rather be seen as unified than disparate which unfortunately, the Krauss/Silverman affairs has left it with some actively denying, some wishing play down some reluctantly going public and others showing relief that some kind of cat is out of the bag.
A close reader of the thread would have spotted that there are I believe implications for public atheism in terms of Who knew, what did they know and what they knew about it and many organisations such as American atheists, American Humanists, FFRF, Center for enquiry have publicly dissociated themselves from the individuals concerned.
One must question though other organisations such as Humanist UK and NSS whose websites seem completely oblivious to the issues. This IMV is puzzling since HumanistUK celebrated Krauss as the speaker at their Darwin Day Lecture in 2017 on their website.
Also we must ask whether Dr Krauss is still an honorary associate of the NSS. When I try to access his biography on the list of Honorary Associates I get directed to the home page.
Finally Maeght I think we ought to question the ability and desire of atheists who are represented corporatively to fragment into an unconnected population of individuals when trouble brews as expressed in your statement.
-
I am not that naïve but I think atheists would rather be seen as unified than disparate ...
Don't think so. I cetainky don't.
....which unfortunately, the Krauss/Silverman affairs has left it with some actively denying, some wishing play down some reluctantly going public and others showing relief that some kind of cat is out of the bag.
Atheist euth different individual takes on it. Not a surprise really.
A close reader of the thread would have spotted that there are I believe implications for public atheism ....
What is public atheism exactly?
.... terms of Who knew, what did they know and what they knew about it and many organisations such as American atheists, American Humanists, FFRF, Center for enquiry have publicly dissociated themselves from the individuals concerned.
That seems to be your interpretation.
One must question though other organisations such as Humanist UK and NSS whose websites seem completely oblivious to the issues. This IMV is puzzling since HumanistUK celebrated Krauss as the speaker at their Darwin Day Lecture in 2017 on their website.
Allegations have been made but nothing proven as yet I believe. What do you think these organisations should be pytting on their websites?
Also we must ask whether Dr Krauss is still an honorary associate of the NSS. When I try to access his biography on the list of Honorary Associates I get directed to the home page. [/quote,]
Again, allegations have been made but nothing proven yet has it?
Finally Maeght I think we ought to question the ability and desire of atheists who are represented corporatively to fragment into an unconnected population of individuals when trouble brews as expressed in your statement.
No such thing as corporatively representative atheists.
-
Don't think so. I cetainky don't.
Atheist euth different individual takes on it. Not a surprise really.
What is public atheism exactly?
That seems to be your interpretation.
Allegations have been made but nothing proven as yet I believe. What do you think these organisations should be pytting on their websites?
No such thing as corporatively representative atheists.
I disagree many atheists on this forum appeal to the humanist UK organisation for facts, figures and ethos and also to the NSS.
The crisis for these organisations is that a significant their main raft against religion is institutional abuse and the suppression of it's exposure. American equivalents have largely come out against it after the latest round of allegations went public.
The puzzle is the apparent and comparative silence of their British counterparts who have feted individuals concerned, one to the point of honorary association. To avoid the charge of whitewashing the NSS should have justified its variance with it's American counterparts but moreover for me is the mystery of Dr Krauss's biography on the NSS which IMV casts doubt as to his current NSS status. This doesn't IMV look good.
-
I disagree many atheists on this forum appeal to the humanist UK organisation for facts, figures and ethos and also to the NSS.
They may use those organisations as sources of information, but they also use lots of other sources. That's what we do.
The crisis for these organisations is that a significant their main raft against religion is institutional abuse and the suppression of it's exposure. American equivalents have largely come out against it after the latest round of allegations went public.
A word missing there perhaps? Could you give evidence please that such comments are significant part of what these organisations say.
The puzzle is the apparent and comparative silence of their British counterparts who have feted individuals concerned, one to the point of honorary association. To avoid the charge of whitewashing the NSS should have justified its variance with it's American counterparts but moreover for me is the mystery of Dr Krauss's biography on the NSS which IMV casts doubt as to his current NSS status. This doesn't IMV look good.
No puzzle. Allegations have been made but nothing has been proven. What would you want them to say exactly?
-
And the Abrahamic God is the source of morality.
The god about whom it is said he sped out every living thing on Earth in a flood? The one that demands we pay homage to a human sacrifice or burn in hell? Nope.
Anyway, got any evidence that your moral framework comes directly from God?
Having dispensed with that God, Atheism is thus confronted with coming up with alternative atheistic explanations of either or both why things are and/or how things are.
That is true, but the "morality comes from God" was always a non answer. It's just another "goddidit" moment.
-
And the Abrahamic God is the source of morality.
The Abrahamic God appears in many guises, and the morality is so various and contradictory, that to posit "it" as the source of morality is astounding. In fact, "the" Abrahamic God is so differing in his various appearances through sundry prophets, that to refer to "it" in the singular is not very instructive.
Let us know how you square the morality of the God of Noah and Abraham with that of Micah or Ecclesiastes, and then we can start a sensible conversation.
By the way, ideas evolve in the Old Testament, just as life itself does.
-
The Abrahamic God appears in many guises, and the morality is so various and contradictory, that to posit "it" as the source of morality is astounding. In fact, "the" Abrahamic God is so differing in his various appearances through sundry prophets, that to refer to "it" in the singular is not very instructive.
Let us know how you square the morality of the God of Noah and Abraham with that of Micah or Ecclesiastes, and then we can start a sensible conversation.
By the way, ideas evolve in the Old Testament, just as life itself does.
Indeed it does, Dicky, and you don’t need to read very far in to find it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_creation_narrative
-
No puzzle. Allegations have been made but nothing has been proven. What would you want them to say exactly?
So what is his status in the National Secular Society then. Is he still an honorary associate or not?
-
So what is his status in the National Secular Society then. Is he still an honorary associate or not?
No idea: so why don't you find out and let us know.
-
No idea: so why don't you find out and let us know.
His name is on the list on the website but his biography is unusually missing without explanation on the website.
There is no reference to the recent allegations. I am surprised you are trying to get me to do the legwork on this Gordon. Are you not concerned at this?
-
So what is his status in the National Secular Society then. Is he still an honorary associate or not?
You don't answer a question with a question.
-
His name is on the list on the website but his biography is unusually missing without explanation on the website.
There is no reference to the recent allegations. I am surprised you are trying to get me to do the legwork on this Gordon. Are you not concerned at this?
I suspect you are concerned enough for all of us, Vlad: and since you've repeatedly raised the matter and are clearly exercised by whatever the situation is then I'd say the onus is on you to get those things that you seem so short of - facts - since without them I've no idea whether or not to be concerned.
Off you pop then and I'll await you returning with the details since I'm sure you'll want to avoid indulging in uninformed speculation as much as I do.
-
I suspect you are concerned enough for all of us, Vlad: and since you've repeatedly raised the matter and are clearly exercised by whatever the situation is then I'd say the onus is on you to get those things that you seem so short of - facts - since without them I've no idea whether or not to be concerned.
Off you pop then and I'll await you returning with the details since I'm sure you'll want to avoid indulging in uninformed speculation as much as I do.
No uninformed speculation just reporting. Anyone can access the NSS website and try to get the biography.
Fact is Krauss has been suspended from association from atheist and humanist groups in the US and also academic bodies.
Ditto Silverman who was removed from the post of president of American Atheists.
There seems to be little information on this affair (from certain UK organisations), this affair which is either a case or cases of misbehaviour or represents a succesful conspiracy by atheists and non believers on prominent members of their own organisation either of which would be a disgrace in the non believing community IMV.
Also and unusually Krauss's biography seems to me mysteriously and inexplicably missing from the public database of the NSS. Mysteriously, because others are accessible.
Those are findings Gordon.
I hope these records will be forthcoming and the mystery cleared. In other words, at the moment those who have the facts seem not to be making them transparent.
In my view certain organisations are wrong not to apparently report on what is known. Whether such inaction is whitewash or downplay, as I have said, I am happy for posterity to decide.
-
And the Abrahamic God is the source of morality.
Which side of the Euthyphro dilemma do you stand on?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro_dilemma
-
Which side of the Euthyphro dilemma do you stand on?
I swing both ways.
-
I swing both ways.
You can't, logically. Either good actions are good because God commands them, or God commands good actions because they are good. If the former, it is incorrect to call God good, and God could have chosen to command cruelty and theft, and condemn kindness and honesty. If the latter, then the moral standard is independent even of God, not created by God, and even God is subject to it. I go firmly with the latter - the former is intolerable.
-
You can't, logically. Either good actions are good because God commands them, or God commands good actions because they are good. If the former, it is incorrect to call God good, and God could have chosen to command cruelty and theft, and condemn kindness and honesty. If the latter, then the moral standard is independent even of God, not created by God, and even God is subject to it. I go firmly with the latter - the former is intolerable.
The moral standard is God since the moral standard is love and God is love.
-
The moral standard is God since the moral standard is love and God is love.
What's love?
-
What's love?
A very good question.
I think we know that morality does not exist in vacuo and is partly a factor of an exchange or provision between and for persons.
Those who think nature is cruel are either embuing nature with personality(reinventing God) or accusing God of a failure of love.
-
No uninformed speculation just reporting. Anyone can access the NSS website and try to get the biography.
Fact is Krauss has been suspended from association from atheist and humanist groups in the US and also academic bodies.
Ditto Silverman who was removed from the post of president of American Atheists.
So, we have a couple of facts.
There seems to be little information on this affair (from certain UK organisations), this affair which is either a case or cases of misbehaviour or represents a succesful conspiracy by atheists and non believers on prominent members of their own organisation either of which would be a disgrace in the non believing community IMV.
Also and unusually Krauss's biography seems to me mysteriously and inexplicably missing from the public database of the NSS. Mysteriously, because others are accessible.
There may be a reason for this: for example, if he is suspended they aren't promoting his works. Why not phone up and ask if they have copies for order, and if not ask why not.
Those are findings Gordon.
I hope these records will be forthcoming and the mystery cleared. In other words, at the moment those who have the facts seem not to be making them transparent.
In my view certain organisations are wrong not to apparently report on what is known. Whether such inaction is whitewash or downplay, as I have said, I am happy for posterity to decide.
You ruin your position by adding a dash of conspiracy theory to the facts you have (that they have been stood down from their roles) - perhaps it would best to await further facts, such as when the results of investigations are known and their long-term status in these organisations is decided.
-
A very good question.
I think we know that morality does not exist in vacuo and is partly a factor of an exchange or provision between and for persons.
Those who think nature is cruel are either embuing nature with personality(reinventing God) or accusing God of a failure of love.
Might be good if you attempted an answer.
-
I don't understand how US and antipodean organisations and atheists have taken public action on this issue and yet there seems to be no public comment from two organisation for whom the moral adequacy of Godlessness and immorality in religion are two important rafts.
Neither do I understand the apparent dearth of reporting on this in say the Guardian, a paper that doesn't seem averse to report on American Christian groups it finds less than desirable.
-
Might be good if you attempted an answer.
Why so sarky?
-
Why so sarky?
Because you didn't even try and answer.
-
Because you didn't even try and answer.
Yes I did I sought to say that love is a transaction or a provision by and for/or between persons.
Chemical reactions where say Ions are exchanged are not love.
-
Yes I did I sought to say that love is a transaction or a provision by and for/or between persons.
Chemical reactions where say Ions are exchanged are not love.
That's meaningless verbiage.
-
That's meaningless verbiage.
I'm sorry you feel that way.
-
I'm sorry you feel that way.
It is easily illustrated since you have declared that the moral stances is love evocative your 'definition' of love means 'The moral standard is a transaction or a provision by and for/or between persons'. Which makes no sense.
Also since you have declared god is love then 'God is a transaction or a provision by and for/or between persons.' Which is gibberish
-
It is easily illustrated since you have declared that the moral stances is love evocative your 'definition' of love means 'The moral standard is a transaction or a provision by and for/or between persons'. Which makes no sense.
Also since you have declared god is love then 'God is a transaction or a provision by and for/or between persons.' Which is gibberish
Ok God can give love, love can be mutually experienced by God and another person, love is never impersonal so that which is given or exchanged is personal and that person is the holy spirit.
-
Ok God can give love, love can be mutually experienced by God and another person, love is never impersonal so that which is given or exchanged is personal and that person is the holy spirit.
Given god is now not love, is love still the moral standard? Because if you plug your above statement in as a definition of a moral standard then it's just more gibberish.
-
Given god is now not love, is love still the moral standard? Because if you plug your above statement in as a definition of a moral standard then it's just more gibberish.
God is love as I say God is the holy spirit. We love since we are made in God's image.
I'm sorry but I am not understanding your banter. I notice that you haven't sought to define love but made it a requirement for me.
Probably a safe course on your part.
-
God is love as I say God is the holy spirit. We love since we are made in God's image.
I'm sorry but I am not understanding your banter. I notice that you haven't sought to define love but made it a requirement for me.
Probably a safe course on your part.
Why would I have to define what you mean by love?
-
I suspect you are concerned enough for all of us, Vlad: and since you've repeatedly raised the matter and are clearly exercised by whatever the situation is then I'd say the onus is on you to get those things that you seem so short of - facts - since without them I've no idea whether or not to be concerned.
Off you pop then and I'll await you returning with the details since I'm sure you'll want to avoid indulging in uninformed speculation as much as I do.
let's just see what happens about that missing biography.
-
I am pleased for them that Humanists UK now have a NHS chaplain who is a now team leader. But are the National Secular Society? A plea from a junior Doctor to scrap chaplaincy spending is/was posted prominently on their home page.
-
The National Secular Society is the organisation for extreme headbangers among the non-religious. Humanists UK is much more moderate and reasonable. Comparing the two is like comparing the Exclusive Brethren with the Church of England on the Christian side.
-
Assuming god exists, its idea of morality is not one I would wish to espouse. Its idea of love is my idea of hate.
If God exists I for one would want to get to know God as he is not how I've been told he is by ''the slick'' as you strike me as having done.
I think you want a God you can hate.
-
The National Secular Society is the organisation for extreme headbangers among the non-religious. Humanists UK is much more moderate and reasonable. Comparing the two is like comparing the Exclusive Brethren with the Church of England on the Christian side.
I sympathise with you entirely although there are many with a foot in both camps. I would cheerfully add my support to Copson and Khorsandi if it came to a Rumble with Sanderson and Porteous wood.(from the end of a dodgy telephone line of course)
Humanist chaplains of course pose a dilemma for those for whom campaigning against a once solely religious hospital chaplaincy was one of their main rafts.
Now there are humanist chaplains doing the same jobs as religious chaplains where does that leave anti chaplaincy? Saying ''Oh humanist chaplains are OK'' would make a mockery of their anti privilege stance. The dilemma is theirs.
-
I sympathise with you entirely although there are many with a foot in both camps. I would cheerfully add my support to Copson and Khorsandi if it came to a Rumble with Sanderson and Porteous wood.(from the end of a dodgy telephone line of course)
Humanist chaplains of course pose a dilemma for those for whom campaigning against a once solely religious hospital chaplaincy was one of their main rafts.
Now there are humanist chaplains doing the same jobs as religious chaplains where does that leave anti chaplaincy? Saying ''Oh humanist chaplains are OK'' would make a mockery of their anti privilege stance. The dilemma is theirs.
I'll give it a try, it's O K to have chaplains of any order Vlad, including Humanists, but those supplying them should be the ones funding them, their's no secularist anti chaplain movement within the N S S, Vlad.
Regards ippy
-
I sympathise with you entirely although there are many with a foot in both camps. I would cheerfully add my support to Copson and Khorsandi if it came to a Rumble with Sanderson and Porteous wood.(from the end of a dodgy telephone line of course)
Humanist chaplains of course pose a dilemma for those for whom campaigning against a once solely religious hospital chaplaincy was one of their main rafts.
Now there are humanist chaplains doing the same jobs as religious chaplains where does that leave anti chaplaincy? Saying ''Oh humanist chaplains are OK'' would make a mockery of their anti privilege stance. The dilemma is theirs.
No dilemma if the argument was that chaplains shouldn't be just religious
-
I'll give it a try, it's O K to have chaplains of any order Vlad, including Humanists, but those supplying them should be the ones funding them, their's no secularist anti chaplain movement within the N S S, Vlad.
Regards ippy
The Humanist UK chaplain is working for the NHS and the NSS are against the NHS paying? Any specific reference on this or any Humanist chaplains on the NSS?
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/09/nhs-appoints-humanist-to-lead-chaplaincy-team-lindsay-van-dijk
-
The Humanist UK chaplain is working for the NHS and the NSS are against the NHS paying? Any specific reference on this or any Humanist chaplains on the NSS?
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/09/nhs-appoints-humanist-to-lead-chaplaincy-team-lindsay-van-dijk
I've had to sit down and recover Vlad, you're right for once.
The Humanist organisation should be funding their own representative, it looks like I agree with you?
regards ippy
-
I've had to sit down and recover Vlad, you're right for once.
The Humanist organisation should be funding their own representative, it looks like I agree with you?
regards ippy
Yes we are in agreement that there is conflict between Humanist UK and NSS if as you say the NSS line is not to fund any chaplains.
But this remember is a conflict between two groups with broadly membership of the same people certainly in their celebrity quarters.
I wonder how the NSS have expressed their dissatisfaction with Humanism UK on this matter?
-
The moral standard is God since the moral standard is love and God is love.
Irrespective of the woolliness implied by the word 'love' - as NS has pointed out - you previously said that "the Abrahamic God is the source of morality". Several here have pointed out that some of the accounts of the actions of the 'Abrahamic God' are to say the least difficult to square with any idea of 'love', however loosely defined. Are you going to face up to this anomaly, are you going to retreat into Marcionite mode (or merely cherry-pick) and say that the bits of the Bible where God reveals his love are the bits you choose? If the latter, I'd like to know your criteria. If you accept the whole caboodle of the biblical accounts as revealing God's love, as do the fundamentalists*, then I'd like to know how you think some of the accounts, that most would say reveal nothing but brutality, demonstrate this quality.
*Of course, the fundamentalists would say that another of God's qualities is his 'justice', but I can't help thinking that this is depicted as being somewhat - rough.
-
Irrespective of the woolliness implied by the word 'love' - as NS has pointed out - you previously said that "the Abrahamic God is the source of morality". Several here have pointed out that some of the accounts of the actions of the 'Abrahamic God' are to say the least difficult to square with any idea of 'love', however loosely defined. Are you going to face up to this anomaly, are you going to retreat into Marcionite mode (or merely cherry-pick) and say that the bits of the Bible where God reveals his love are the bits you choose? If the latter, I'd like to know your criteria. If you accept the whole caboodle of the biblical accounts as revealing God's love, as do the fundamentalists*, then I'd like to know how you think some of the accounts, that most would say reveal nothing but brutality, demonstrate this quality.
*Of course, the fundamentalists would say that another of God's qualities is his 'justice', but I can't help thinking that this is depicted as being somewhat - rough.
Can a moral relativist come out with ANY definition of Good or Bad if not then they have no business waffling on about people's interpretation of the word love
-
Can a moral relativist come out with ANY definition of Good or Bad if not then they have no business waffling on about people's interpretation of the word love
So what is love then? You know the thing you were asked and didn't answer.
-
Can a moral relativist come out with ANY definition of Good or Bad if not then they have no business waffling on about people's interpretation of the word love
So therefore we just have to accept that genocide, demanding filial sacrifice without question, killing innocent children, threatening eternal torments for simply not believing in a divine something-or-other, are all aspects of "love" embodied by the Abrahamic God, and accepted by you? And accepted completely uncritically as far as I can see. O waffler to beat all wafflers.
I note that the "Binding of Isaac" has caused endless perplexity among the religiously inclined, because they have a sense that such an episode cannot be squared with any idea of "good". From Maimonides to Kierkegaard, the hair-tearing has gone on down the ages. Some of the explanations are ludicrous in the extreme. Former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sachs has related a few, claiming that the episode shows an attempt by the Jews to distance themselves from the surrounding tribes, among whom child sacrifice was rife. That in itself tends to provoke dirision (for old Abe is about to do just that), but perhaps the most absurd of all is the idea that God tested Abraham to display that he wasn't afraid to sacrifice his son, even though there was never the intention of continuing through to actual murder.
Of such knickers-in-a-twist episodes are the lives of believers made, but at least they attempt to arrive at a picture of moral consistency, rather than making sweeping statements without attempt to justify them.
-
So therefore we just have to accept that genocide, demanding filial sacrifice without question, killing innocent children, threatening eternal torments for simply not believing in a divine something-or-other, are all aspects of "love" embodied by the Abrahamic God, and accepted by you? And accepted completely uncritically as far as I can see. O waffler to beat all wafflers.
No we just have to accept that you are misusing your reference material and deliberately editing out Genesis where from the off Mankind is at total peace with itself and God and chucks all that away. Whatever you might feel about the justice of that we have a picture of the perfect world you are trying to plead for. The bible is sympathetic with you.
-
No we just have to accept that you are misusing your reference material and deliberately editing out Genesis where from the off Mankind is at total peace with itself and God and chucks all that away. Whatever you might feel about the justice of that we have a picture of the perfect world you are trying to plead for. The bible is sympathetic with you.
Yes, I understand that interpretation of the myth*, but it is not consistent with the evidence of evolution, or the evidence of archaeology. There never was a golden age, no as far as I can see will there ever be. Shit happens; the best we can do is to try and mitigate the situation closest to hand, and that may also prove calamitous. There is no miraculous salvation, and where we have seen the attempts of theocracies to govern societies, the results have been to say the least a mixed blessing.
I suppose that the mediaeval Church had a few good points, as did Islamic Cordoba.....
*I should point out that the OT Jews weren't particularly interested in that Adam and Eve myth anyway - it never appears again in the OT. What they were concerned with was breaking of covenants, of which there were about five. Take your pick.
St Paul was the Adam and Eve apologist, and he certainly needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.
-
No we just have to accept that you are misusing your reference material and deliberately editing out Genesis where from the off Mankind is at total peace with itself and God and chucks all that away. Whatever you might feel about the justice of that we have a picture of the perfect world you are trying to plead for. The bible is sympathetic with you.
Who is 'we'?
-
Yes, I understand that interpretation of the myth*, but it is not consistent with the evidence of evolution, or the evidence of archaeology. There never was a golden age, no as far as I can see will there ever be. Shit happens; the best we can do is to try and mitigate the situation closest to hand, and that may also prove calamitous. There is no miraculous salvation, and where we have seen the attempts of theocracies to govern societies, the results have been to say the least a mixed blessing.
I suppose that the mediaeval Church had a few good points, as did Islamic Cordoba.....
*I should point out that the OT Jews weren't particularly interested in that Adam and Eve myth anyway - it never appears again in the OT. What they were concerned with was breaking of covenants, of which there were about five. Take your pick.
St Paul was the Adam and Eve apologist, and he certainly needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.
Firstly it's a story. Secondly it states God's ideal. So if you are going to use the bible to prove that God is the villain you undo your argument if you are caught as you have been massaging a critical element out.
I am not responsible for Old Testament people who acted in the same bowdlerising way as modern antitheists.
-
Can a moral relativist come out with ANY definition of Good or Bad if not then they have no business waffling on about people's interpretation of the word love
Love is a human emotion. It has nothing to do with morality.
-
Firstly it's a story. Secondly it states God's ideal. So if you are going to use the bible to prove that God is the villain you undo your argument if you are caught as you have been massaging a critical element out.
Accepting that Adam and Eve did some bad things, how does that justify God murdering many people who are not Adam and Eve and how does it justify God inciting Abraham to try to murder Isaac?
-
Firstly it's a story. Secondly it states God's ideal. So if you are going to use the bible to prove that God is the villain you undo your argument if you are caught as you have been massaging a critical element out.
I am not responsible for Old Testament people who acted in the same bowdlerising way as modern antitheists.
It is you who are massaging critical elements out.
As for "Old Testament people" bowdlerising - this is quite laughable. You obviously have no knowledge whatever of how the Bible came to be put together. All the evidence points to the A&E story coming into the mix quite late* - which is probably why it it doesn't appear much in the OT (and it doesn't appear much in the NT until St Paul got worked up about it).
Yes indeed, the A&E text is a story, (or rather a myth, as I said) but any instructive story or myth has to have some contact with actual reality, historical or otherwise, if it is going to be relevant. You can argue till the cows come home about this story's particular significance, but it will always remain an interpretation which you put upon it - based in your case on the theological musings of St Paul. Bully for you.
* It appears that Ecclesiasticus in the Apocrypha was aware of it, but he seems to have used the story to back up his jaundiced attitude to women, because he appears to have been unhappily married.
-
It is you who are massaging critical elements out.
As for "Old Testament people" bowdlerising - this is quite laughable. You obviously have no knowledge whatever of how the Bible came to be put together. All the evidence points to the A&E story coming into the mix quite late* - which is probably why it it doesn't appear much in the OT (and it doesn't appear much in the NT until St Paul got worked up about it).
Yes indeed, the A&E text is a story, (or rather a myth, as I said) but any instructive story or myth has to have some contact with actual reality, historical or otherwise, if it is going to be relevant. You can argue till the cows come home about this story's particular significance, but it will always remain an interpretation which you put upon it - based in your case on the theological musings of St Paul. Bully for you.
* It appears that Ecclesiasticus in the Apocrypha was aware of it, but he seems to have used the story to back up his jaundiced attitude to women, because he appears to have been unhappily married.
I think we are waiting for your interpretation, pants.
The only other interpretations I've heard is that it is the story of how man steals intellectual ability from God.......an antitheistic fantasy or it demonstrates mans discovery of chutzpah which rather casts mankind as a spiv ....and that's nastier than any Christian view of A and E.
-
And in English?
Ok I'll type this slowly.
I want Dicky to give us alternative interpretations of the Adam and Eve story.
I have heard of two alternative interpretations:
1: That it is the story of humanity stealing intellectual ability from God. In other words an antitheist fantasy.
2: That it is the story of the discovery of what jews would call ''Chutzpah'', a cheeky audacity. In other words mankind is a kind of confidence trickster.....and only a criminal would take pride in that.
-
I don't understand your gobbledegook.
BTW Vlad, why do you find the need to change your name so often, do you suffer from some sort of insecurity?
Well, I can't help your understanding. A trip to the University of the Third Age might help....end of advert.
-
Can a moral relativist come out with ANY definition of Good or Bad..
Please define "moral relativist". In my experience it means "anyone who disagrees with me".
-
Please define "moral relativist". In my experience it means "anyone who disagrees with me".
Basically.....not an absolutist.
We have had moral absolutists here who I've disagreed with.
-
Well, I'm a rule-utilitarian. Do you disagree with me?
-
Well, I'm a rule-utilitarian. Do you disagree with me?
I don't understand what that is.
-
Utilitarianism - the ethical position that the good is what conduces to the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
Rule-utilitarianism - the version of utilitarianism which advocates a set of rules which would normally maximise happiness, e.g. kindness and generosity are right, cruelty and greed are wrong, rather than trying to judge each action individually, which would be impractical.
-
Utilitarianism - the ethical position that the good is what conduces to the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
Rule-utilitarianism - the version of utilitarianism which advocates a set of rules which would normally maximise happiness, e.g. kindness and generosity are right, cruelty and greed are wrong, rather than trying to judge each action individually, which would be impractical.
I don't know if happiness should be the benchmark since a psychopath and sociopath's happiness is obviously not what one should be aiming for.
-
https://www.atheists.org/2018/04/update-regarding-david-silverman/
The thing is have they proof and will anyone believe it? ::) :o
-
I don't know if happiness should be the benchmark since a psychopath and sociopath's happiness is obviously not what one should be aiming for.
Greatest happiness of the greatest number. Pay attention at the back, there.
-
Ok I'll type this slowly.
I want Dicky to give us alternative interpretations of the Adam and Eve story.
I have heard of two alternative interpretations:
1: That it is the story of humanity stealing intellectual ability from God. In other words an antitheist fantasy.
2: That it is the story of the discovery of what jews would call ''Chutzpah'', a cheeky audacity. In other words mankind is a kind of confidence trickster.....and only a criminal would take pride in that.
As we were saying lord knows when. Can't think why you want to hear my interpretation of the story. I don't consider the story of any great significance in itself these days, apart from the fact that St Paul gave it significance and his (and St Augustine's) interpretation has had considerable influence on western history.
The two interpretations you give are typically slanted. You've missed out the obvious one adopted by the Ophite Gnostics* (I suppose you'd say that was an antitheist fantasy - except of course the Ophites did believe in God; just not the one to whom you apparently pledge allegiance). The Ophites' interpretation had the obvious advantage of actually being true to what the text actually says namely that God lied, and the serpent told the truth.
Of course, I don't believe that interpretation either. There's a wanky, pseudo-intellectual one I could give you: several million years ago, our apelike ancestors of the Miocene age lived in happy union with nature, eating bananas and other veg in the African forests. Then, either a few got cut off from their original population and had to strike out for themselves on the open savannahs. Or maybe, there were a few enterprising and curious geniuses who decided to seek pastures new. These soon found that their original sense of unity with nature was lost. And so on through Australopithecus Afarensis etc.
However, neither the latter nor the Ophite explanation have anything whatever to do with stealing or crime, which you seem fixated on.
As for confidence tricksters, you might just be acquainted with the story of Jacob, the confidence trickster par excellence. Yahweh rather liked him, I think you'll find.
*The Gnostics in general didn't like the Old Testament god, considering him evil and ignorant. I find this attitude (and the similar attitude of Marcion) very wrong-headed too. I find this kind of blanket dismissal by certain posters here just as silly. The OT includes some of the most inspiring writings in existence - as well as some of the most disgusting and boring ones.
I don't include the Adam and Eve story among the inspiring ones.
-
That reminds me of Jung's view, or at least one of them, that A and E is about consciousness, which Jung famously describes as a crime against nature. So A and E become conscious by becoming more separate, or even estranged from nature, each other, etc. So consciousness involves a kind of alienation. Interesting that there is the phrase, 'felix culpa', (happy fault), in the medieval church, meaning that the fall was a blessing in disguise.
-
That reminds me of Jung's view, or at least one of them, that A and E is about consciousness, which Jung famously describes as a crime against nature. So A and E become conscious by becoming more separate, or even estranged from nature, each other, etc. So consciousness involves a kind of alienation. Interesting that there is the phrase, 'felix culpa', (happy fault), in the medieval church, meaning that the fall was a blessing in disguise.
It's surely in almost any interpretation the gaining of humanity, Knowledge or the attempt to achieve it is crucial to that.
-
Yes, I find Jung's idea of a crime interesting, as this fits with Adam and Eve. I'm not sure what Jung meant, I suppose that by being conscious, I have to see myself as separate, and in a way, antagonistic to nature, and egotistic. I suppose also the idea that being unconscious is the baseline, and it's hellish difficult to become more aware. Also shame.
-
I have to be contrary. But to do that I need to understand separation, as you note. If I am at one with anything, there is only one thing for me.
-
And to switch to the Greek myth, knowledge is pain, suffering and death but finally hope because there is nothing that we can hope for without having a reason. There is a good justification for suffering if you are one type of Christian but it means then that heaven is a hell.
-
1: That it is the story of humanity stealing intellectual ability from God. In other words an antitheist fantasy.
How could that be an anti-theist fantasy? Anti-theists believe there is no god.
-
How could that be an anti-theist fantasy? Anti-theists believe there is no god.
Not really they are anti god so they include a lot of my old friends on the previous spirituality and religion forum I belong to. Those who would not follow God even if he were proved correct.
Dawkins and Floo keep telling us how evil God must be.
-
Not really they are anti god so they include a lot of my old friends on the previous spirituality and religion forum I belong to. Those who would not follow God even if he were proved correct.
Dawkins and Floo keep telling us how evil God must be.
That doesn't make a lot of sense. Antitheism is being against the belief in God isn't it rather than being against God?
-
Maeght,
That doesn't make a lot of sense. Antitheism is being against the belief in God isn't it rather than being against God?
“Antitheist” is a term routinely used by Vlad as a slur when actually he just means “atheist”, and – as with most terms he uses and abuses – there’s no knowing what he thinks he means by it from one post to the next. Nonetheless, if it means something like “doesn’t want belief(s) in god(s) to be true” then conceptually at least you could be both a theist and an antitheist – ie, you think there is a god, but really wish there wasn’t.
-
Maeght,
“Antitheist” is a term routinely used by Vlad as a slur when actually he just means “atheist”
No, it is not.
Someone with only an absence of belief in God (atheist) would not be in a position to make positive statements that contradict what theists believe. They would merely state that they disagree and why.
On the other hand, antitheists are very good at making positive claims (e.g. there is no evidence for God) then running away like cowards hiding behind fallacy this, burden of proof that, ...
-
No, it is not.
Someone with only an absence of belief in God (atheist) would not be in a position to make positive statements that contradict what theists believe. They would merely state that they disagree and why.
On the other hand, antitheists are very good at making positive claims (e.g. there is no evidence for God) then running away like cowards hiding behind fallacy this, burden of proof that, ...
Why would a statement of why you disagree not possibly contain pointing out the other person was using a fallacy?
-
SotS,
No, it is not.
Yes it is. Routinely conversations are had concerning atheism that Vlad responds to by addressing his interlocutor as an "antitheist" as if the terms were interchangeable, presumably because he thinks it’s a slur that’ll prejudice the quality of the argument.
Someone with only an absence of belief in God (atheist) would not be in a position to make positive statements that contradict what theists believe. They would merely state that they disagree and why.
Don’t be silly. When the argument used by the theist is logically false, of course an atheist (or anyone else) can make a “positive statement” that identifies why it’s false.
On the other hand, antitheists are very good at making positive claims (e.g. there is no evidence for God) then running away like cowards hiding behind fallacy this, burden of proof that, ...
So you assert. Actually the strict use should be, “I’m not aware of evidence for god(s)” but identifying the fallacies in the arguments theists rely on to demonstrate their gods is neither cowardly nor hiding, and again that’s got nothing to do with antitheism. An antitheist for example could think the arguments of the theist to be sound, only he really would prefer that there wern't.
This isn’t difficult to grasp if you’d only try by the way.
-
No, it is not.
Someone with only an absence of belief in God (atheist) would not be in a position to make positive statements that contradict what theists believe. They would merely state that they disagree and why.
On the other hand, antitheists are very good at making positive claims (e.g. there is no evidence for God) then running away like cowards hiding behind fallacy this, burden of proof that, ...
Don't be silly: atheists here have regularly pointed out to you when you (and others) use fallacies, and that doesn't mean they are 'antitheists'.
Your post does confirm, however, that in spite of having your errors pointed to you repeatedly you still don't understand fallacies.
-
Yes, I find Jung's idea of a crime interesting, as this fits with Adam and Eve. I'm not sure what Jung meant, I suppose that by being conscious, I have to see myself as separate, and in a way, antagonistic to nature, and egotistic. I suppose also the idea that being unconscious is the baseline, and it's hellish difficult to become more aware. Also shame.
Maybe he just wanted to establish a strong connection with the Judaic myth. However, the Prometheus myth also suggests that this assertion of independence from the gods is also something to be punished. And indeed the poor bugger didn't come off too well as a result of his efforts. Fortunately (since these are only stories) old Prometheus had the likes of Shelley and Beethoven to rehabilitate him*.
*Though Mary Shelley (in Frankenstein) was rather less sanguine. As apparently was the subject of the film Ex Machina (which I rather liked):
The inventor of human-like artificial intelligence in the 2015 film Ex Machina, Nathan Bateman, states, "It is what it is. It's Promethean. The clay and fire." His liver is damaged daily from alcoholic binge drinking, he rejuvenates the next morning with a healthy diet and exercise, and ultimately, he is stabbed in the liver (or thereabouts) by his creations.
-
And to switch to the Greek myth, knowledge is pain, suffering and death but finally hope because there is nothing that we can hope for without having a reason. There is a good justification for suffering if you are one type of Christian but it means then that heaven is a hell.
I think the Greek myths illuminate the human situation better. Their message may be harsher, but do not depend on a highly dubious 'redeemer' in whom one (so it appears) needs to trust with varying degrees of literalism in the Christian view.
-
Yes, Dicky, the Prometheus myth is a nice parallel. On the redeemer, I think that Jung would say that this exists internally, or psychologically. My wife has tons of books on this stuff, I can't read them now, they do my 'ead in, innit. But then she redeemed me!
-
No, it is not.
Someone with only an absence of belief in God (atheist) would not be in a position to make positive statements that contradict what theists believe. They would merely state that they disagree and why.
On the other hand, antitheists are very good at making positive claims (e.g. there is no evidence for God) then running away like cowards hiding behind fallacy this, burden of proof that, ...
I'm an atheist. So far, I haven't seen any evidence which illustrates that any god exists. That doesn't mean that I am right, of course, since there may be evidence that I have not yet been made aware of, but I suggest that it is a reasonable and objective holding position.
At any point I can be proved wrong by someone producing evidence that a particular god exists. I would hope that you, in your position as a theist, would be able to present some. So far that has been noticeably lacking. I assure you, I will not run away, but will examine any evidence you present.
How this defines me as an antitheist in your eyes I am at a loss to explain, so, unless you come up with something more substantial, I shall remain thinking of myself as an atheist rather than than as an antitheist.
-
I don't understand your gobbledegook.
BTW Vlad, why do you find the need to change your name so often, do you suffer from some sort of insecurity?
Why oh why do posters change their names without telling us clearly who they were before? I cannot work it out. What have you changed it from?
-
Why oh why do posters change their names without telling us clearly who they were before? I cannot work it out. What have you changed it from?
gone was LittleRoses and before that floo.
-
I did notice we had acquired a gone. Ah well.
-
I'm an atheist. So far, I haven't seen any evidence which illustrates that any god exists. That doesn't mean that I am right, of course, since there may be evidence that I have not yet been made aware of, but I suggest that it is a reasonable and objective holding position.
At any point I can be proved wrong by someone producing evidence that a particular god exists. I would hope that you, in your position as a theist, would be able to present some. So far that has been noticeably lacking. I assure you, I will not run away, but will examine any evidence you present.
How this defines me as an antitheist in your eyes I am at a loss to explain, so, unless you come up with something more substantial, I shall remain thinking of myself as an atheist rather than than as an antitheist.
Hi Enki
I have been an agnostic and had no belief in God or Gods but I'm afraid I am not sufficiently impressed philosophically or existentially by the attitudes and arguments of those willing to commit time, effort and public exposure to a committed position against the existence of God
In the examination of these.I have become a theist.
-
Vladdo,
I have been an agnostic and had no belief in God or Gods but I'm afraid I am not sufficiently impressed philosophically or existentially by the attitudes and arguments of those willing to commit time, effort and public exposure to a committed position against the existence of God
In the examination of these.I have become a theist.
Wrong again. Pretty much no-one expresses "a committed position against the existence of God" – that's just something you've made up. Rather some of us merely examine the arguments attempted for god(s) and find then to be false.
I don't know about "existentially", but your understanding of philosophy is about that of my cat.
Coda: Aside from essaying yet another straw man, you've also contradicted yourself BTW. In previous efforts you've claimed to have "experienced god". Now you tell us that you're a theist because of your "examination" of the arguments for atheism (albeit by misrepresenting them).
Which is it?
-
Vladdo,
Wrong again. Pretty much no-one expresses "a committed position against the existence of God" – that's just something you've made up. Rather some of us merely examine the arguments attempted for god(s) and find then to be false.
I don't know about "existentially", but your understanding of philosophy is about that of my cat.
Coda: Aside from essaying yet another straw man, you've also contradicted yourself BTW. In previous efforts you've claimed to have "experienced god". Now you tell us that you're a theist because of your "examination" of the arguments for atheism (albeit by misrepresenting them).
Which is it?
I believe we all experience God and the evidence is Goddodging, which I find numerous exponents of on this forum.
One can be an intellectual theist though.
-
I believe we all experience a lack of god and the evidence is 'god wishing', which I find numerous exponents of on this board.
You can't make this shit up. Oh wait, I and you just did.
-
I believe we all experience God ...
I've never experenced God.
...and the evidence is Goddodging, which I find numerous exponents of on this forum.
Don't understand what you mean there.
One can be an intellectual theist though.
A theist can be an intellectual - yes of course. Or did you mean something else?
-
I believe we all experience a lack of god and the evidence is 'god wishing', which I find numerous exponents of on this board.
You can't make this shit up. Oh wait, I and you just did.
God wishing is not the experience a lot of people have when they encounter God vis the writer of I siaih, St Paul (hysterical blindness), Bunyan, HAV Williams.
Finally the most prominent commentator to testified to Goddodging over a protracted period of time, St Augustine.
-
God wishing is not the experience a lot of people have when they encounter God
Yes, but really what else would they say?
God dodging is not the experience of people when they haven't encountered God.
-
I've never experenced God.
Don't understand what you mean there.
A theist can be an intellectual - yes of course. Or did you mean something else?
I stated that I have examined the philosophical and existential thoughts of those who would justify remaining in the agnostic/atheist state.
You can be a philosophical theist. Once the extistential bulwarks of the agnostic/atheist commitment go.One finds oneself called to a different commitment and the choice is that or to cling for dear life onto atheism/agnosticism.
-
Yes, but really what else would they say?
God dodging is not the experience of people when they haven't encountered God.
They would say they they were god wishers who found their wish fulfilled.
If you say every body's a god wisher there are plenty who would say that the discovery of God was not a wishfulfilment but uncomfortable cause to seriously rethink.
Augustine, in his experience, identifies subconscious Goddodging.
Yearners and dodgers should explore their motivations but goddodgers are often reluctant to, almost by definition
-
I believe we all experience God and the evidence is Goddodging, which I find numerous exponents of on this forum.
One can be an intellectual theist though.
Well I have certainly had no experience of any god, but, as I have previously alluded to on this forum, I have had experiences which have been imbued with the feeling that no god exists. However, as I have explained before, I discount any such personal experiences as evidence in the same way that I discount the personal experiences of others. Your belief that everyone experiences God is very clearly not true in my case(at least up to the present moment), and therefore I have to find that your belief is in error. Hence your idea that there is evidence of 'Goddodging', whilst entirely possible in certain cases but certainly not in mine, cannot be used as evidence for your belief that 'we all experience God'. The fact that you may still believe that is of no significance to me therefore.
-
They would say they they were god wishers who found their wish fulfilled.
If you say every body's a god wisher there are plenty who would say that the discovery of God was not a wishfulfilment but uncomfortable cause to seriously rethink.
Augustine, in his experience, identifies subconscious Goddodging.
Yearners and dodgers should explore their motivations but goddodgers are often reluctant to, almost by definition
I do hope you realize I wasn't being entirely serious in my depiction of believers. I was trying to point out to you your simplistic, and frankly, slightly insulting approach to non-believers many of whom have thought just as long and hard about the issue as you claim to have, and come to a totally different conclusion.
Obviously too subtle for you as you carried on in the same vein. Plus ca change.
-
I stated that I have examined the philosophical and existential thoughts of those who would justify remaining in the agnostic/atheist state.
Yes you did. I didn't doubt that.
You can be a philosophical theist.
Yes, you said.
Once the extistential bulwarks of the agnostic/atheist commitment go.
Such as?
One finds oneself called to a different commitment
You may have been but not sure it necessarily follows.
.....and the choice is that or to cling for dear life onto atheism/agnosticism.
I'm sure there are other options.
-
gone was LittleRoses and before that floo.
Betting is now open on when she comes back. Again.
-
Yes you did. I didn't doubt that.
Yes, you said.
Such as?
You may have been but not sure it necessarily follows.
I'm sure there are other options.
The existential bulwarks of atheism and agnosticism?
The self is or maybe an illusion.
That there may be or is definitely no greater judge of my actions than myself
That ultimately nothing about me or what I do matters.
There may be more
What are the options to atheism or agnosticism apart from theism.?...I can't think of any and unknownism is better known as agnosticism.
-
Well I have certainly had no experience of any god, but, as I have previously alluded to on this forum, I have had experiences which have been imbued with the feeling that no god exists. However, as I have explained before, I discount any such personal experiences as evidence in the same way that I discount the personal experiences of others. Your belief that everyone experiences God is very clearly not true in my case(at least up to the present moment), and therefore I have to find that your belief is in error. Hence your idea that there is evidence of 'Goddodging', whilst entirely possible in certain cases but certainly not in mine, cannot be used as evidence for your belief that 'we all experience God'. The fact that you may still believe that is of no significance to me therefore.
Few of us can as Burn's said "see our selves as others see us".
What warrant do you have for dismissing certain personal experiences as evidence?
-
Few of us can as Burn's said "see our selves as others see us".
What warrant do you have for dismissing certain personal experiences as evidence?
I don't know how Enki will answer, but my answer is "The fact that they are personal epxeriences". What would you say to a Buddhist who puts forward their personal experience as evidence for the truth of Buddhism?
-
The existential bulwarks of atheism and agnosticism?
The self is or maybe an illusion.
The self? Could you define what you mean by that please.
That there may be or is definitely no greater judge of my actions than myself
Other people? Society?
That ultimately nothing about me or what I do matters.
It matters to other people, to society and related to self worth and the like.
There may be more
Where are these ideas coming from?
What are the options to atheism or agnosticism apart from theism.?...I can't think of any and unknownism is better known as agnosticism.
Unknownism isn't agnosticism. Agnosticism is a philosophical position as to whether it is possible to have knowledge about the existence of God, not whether you know there is a God or not.
In the most basic terms, yes, there are only two states - belief or lack of belief. It wasn't clear from your post if you were talking at this basic level or not, hence my comment. There are different options regarding belief though of course.
-
I don't know how Enki will answer, but my answer is "The fact that they are personal epxeriences". What would you say to a Buddhist who puts forward their personal experience as evidence for the truth of Buddhism?
That sounds then like a circular argument.
Why are certain personal experiences to be discounted?
A Buddhist is talking about things other than what I speak of. Their experiences I move hardly negate mine.
-
Other people? Society?
Why should the judgment of other people about yourself be superior to your own?
Why, following on from that, should the judgment of a number of people about you be superior?
-
Why should the judgment of other people about yourself be superior to your own?
Why, following on from that, should the judgment of a number of people about you be superior?
Because we are Social creatures who value other people's opinions and have empathy - its in our nature.
-
Because we are Social creatures who value other people's opinions and have empathy - its in our nature.
I don't believe that is anything but a restatement of the question I asked.
Why should we....over and above our own self judgment, value that of others judgment.
Also social animalism, valuing others opinions, empathy are all it seems switchoffable or at best possessed in various amounts.
You paint too rosy a picture?
-
I don't believe that is anything but a restatement of the question I asked.
Why should we....over and above our own self judgment, value that of others judgment.
Also social animalism, valuing others opinions, empathy are all it seems switchoffable or at best possessed in various amounts.
You paint too rosy a picture?
There are ranges of empathy, ranges of social awareness etc so I'm not trying to paint a rosy picture. I don't think your picture of purely considering yourself though is accurate either. it is a range and dependant on situations.
-
Vladdo,
You’ve had your big bag of utter bollocks wide open today haven’t you. Just to detonate them quickly:
I believe we all experience God and the evidence is Goddodging, which I find numerous exponents of on this forum.
You’ve had this falsified many times already so why bother repeating the mistake? You can’t “dodge” something you’ve been given no cogent reason to think exists in the first place. If you think otherwise, why are you a leprechaun-dodger?
One can be an intellectual theist though.
One can be intellectual and a theist certainly. There have been some fine and nuanced minds in the clergy for example, albeit that they hold beliefs that simultaneously are sound and daft.
God wishing is not the experience a lot of people have when they encounter God vis the writer of I siaih, St Paul (hysterical blindness), Bunyan, HAV Williams.
One of your favourite fallacies that one: reification. You might think there was an “encounter with god” but you have all your work ahead of you to demonstrate that.
Finally the most prominent commentator to testified to Goddodging over a protracted period of time, St Augustine.
He made the same mistake you make of just assuming his premise? You surprise me.
I stated that I have examined the philosophical and existential thoughts of those who would justify remaining in the agnostic/atheist state.
Utter bollocks in a top hat. The only “philosophy” needed to be an atheist is the conclusion that logic and reason are probably better guides to truths than illogic and unreason.
You can be a philosophical theist.
But not a good one. Most mainstream philosophy at least has long since left philosophical theism in its wake.
Once the extistential bulwarks of the agnostic/atheist commitment go.One finds oneself called to a different commitment and the choice is that or to cling for dear life onto atheism/agnosticism.
Utter bollocks in a top hat with a feather in it. There’s no “clingng for dear life” – just an open door to someone finally making an argument that isn't hopeless for his god being other people’s god too.
They would say they they were god wishers who found their wish fulfilled.
If you say every body's a god wisher there are plenty who would say that the discovery of God was not a wishfulfilment but uncomfortable cause to seriously rethink.
More reification. What “discovery”? What you meant to say there was “personal belief” or similar.
Augustine, in his experience, identifies subconscious Goddodging.
Wasn’t he supposed to be brighter than that?
Yearners and dodgers should explore their motivations but goddodgers are often reluctant to, almost by definition
Except of course you’ve yet to identify anyone who is a “goddodger”. Good luck with it though.
The existential bulwarks of atheism and agnosticism?
The self is or maybe an illusion.
That there may be or is definitely no greater judge of my actions than myself
That ultimately nothing about me or what I do matters.
There may be more
What are the options to atheism or agnosticism apart from theism.?...I can't think of any and unknownism is better known as agnosticism.
A dog’s breakfast of incoherence and half-formed thoughts there. None of these things though are “existential bulwarks” – that ultimately “nothing about me or what I do matters” for example is just rational deduction. What colossal solipsism it must take to think otherwise!
Few of us can as Burn's said "see our selves as others see us".
What warrant do you have for dismissing certain personal experiences as evidence?
It’s “evidence” only of someone having a personal experience. The moment though he overreaches into thinking the narrative he’s come up with to explain it (“god” etc) is therefore true for other people too is when he runs out of gas. The consequence of that would be that there’d be no way to dismiss anyone’s narrative about any experience – leprechauns included. I that really where you want to be?
That sounds then like a circular argument.
Why are certain personal experiences to be discounted?
A Buddhist is talking about things other than what I speak of. Their experiences I move hardly negate mine.
Because they’re evidence of the subjective but not of the objective, obviously. Oh, and you have no idea what Buddhism entails either.
Why should the judgment of other people about yourself be superior to your own?
Why, following on from that, should the judgment of a number of people about you be superior?
Because sometimes that “judgment” comes from greater knowledge and experience than one’s own – in a psychiatrist/patient relationship for example..
I don't believe that is anything but a restatement of the question I asked.
Why should we....over and above our own self judgment, value that of others judgment.
See above. It’s not difficult.
Also social animalism, valuing others opinions, empathy are all it seems switchoffable or at best possessed in various amounts.
You paint too rosy a picture?
Some people have more empathy for others than other people. Some people are sociopaths and have none. So what?
-
Vladdo,
You’ve had your big bag of utter bollocks wide open today haven’t you. Just to detonate them quickly:
You’ve had this falsified many times already so why bother repeating the mistake? You can’t “dodge” something you’ve been given no cogent reason to think exists in the first place. If you think otherwise, why are you a leprechaun-dodger?
One can be intellectual and a theist certainly. There have been some fine and nuanced minds in the clergy for example, albeit that they hold beliefs that simultaneously are sound and daft.
One of your favourite fallacies that one: reification. You might think there was an “encounter with god” but you have all your work ahead of you to demonstrate that.
He made the same mistake you make of just assuming his premise? You surprise me.
Utter bollocks in a top hat. The only “philosophy” needed to be an atheist is the conclusion that logic and reason are probably better guides to truths than illogic and unreason.
But not a good one. Most mainstream philosophy at least has long since left philosophical theism in its wake.
Utter bollocks in a top hat with a feather in it. There’s no “clingng for dear life” – just an open door to someone finally making an argument that isn't hopeless for his god being other people’s god too.
More reification. What “discovery”? What you meant to say there was “personal belief” or similar.
Wasn’t he supposed to be brighter than that?
Except of course you’ve yet to identify anyone who is a “goddodger”. Good luck with it though.
A dog’s breakfast of incoherence and half-formed thoughts there. None of these things though are “existential bulwarks” – that ultimately “nothing about me or what I do matters” for example is just rational deduction. What colossal solipsism it must take to think otherwise!
It’s “evidence” only of someone having a personal experience. The moment though he overreaches into thinking the narrative he’s come up with to explain it (“god” etc) is therefore true for other people too is when he runs out of gas. The consequence of that would be that there’d be no way to dismiss anyone’s narrative about any experience – leprechauns included. I that really where you want to be?
Because they’re evidence of the subjective but not of the objective, obviously. Oh, and you have no idea what Buddhism entails either.
Because sometimes that “judgment” comes from greater knowledge and experience than one’s own – in a psychiatrist/patient relationship for example..
See above. It’s not difficult.
Some people have more empathy for others than other people. Some people are sociopaths and have none. So what?
Paternalistic nonsense vis "you've got you're work cut out for you'
I never worked for you and I never will.
You are just one huge argumentum ad populum
I noted that your attempt to justify taking on others judgment on you was an argument from authority.
Not one of your better attempts.
-
Paternalistic nonsense vis "you've got you're work cut out for you'
I never worked for you and I never will.
Blue doesn't suggest that you work for him!
-
Vladdo,
Paternalistic nonsense vis "you've got you're work cut out for you'
I never worked for you and I never will.
You are just one huge argumentum ad populum
I noted that your attempt to justify taking on others judgment on you was an argument from authority.
Not one of your better attempts.
1. Just out of interest, why do you always avoid the arguments that undo you?
2. I meant (of course) what I actually said - that you have your work cut out FOR YOU. There was no suggestion that you should do it for me or for anyone else. If you want your various theistic assertions to be taken seriously though, the job is all yours finally to make an argument for them that isn't hopeless.
3. You clearly have no idea what an ad pop is given that I used (fairly simple) logic to dismantle your efforts point-by-point. That you've just run away again doesn't change that.
4. You have got "argument from authority" completely wrong. That's not what I did, and it's not what that means.
5. You have no idea whether or not it's a "better effort" as you've just run away again. Actually it is though because it's left you up the proverbial creek without a paddle on all the daftnesses you've attempted today.
Apart from all that though...
-
Vladdo,
1. Just out of interest, why do you always avoid the arguments that undo you?
2. I meant (of course) what I actually said - that you have your work cut out FOR YOU. There was no suggestion that you should do it for me or for anyone else. If you want your various theistic assertions to be taken seriously though, the job is all yours finally to make an argument for them that isn't hopeless.
3. You clearly have no idea what an ad pop is given that I used (fairly simple) logic to dismantle your efforts point-by-point. That you've just run away again doesn't change that.
4. You have got "argument from authority" completely wrong. That's not what I did, and it's not what that means.
5. You have no idea whether or not it's a "better effort" as you've just run away again. Actually it is though because it's left you up the proverbial creek without a paddle on all the daftnesses you've attempted today.
Apart from all that though...
If you are saying as you are that we should be judged by our elders and betters the that is argument from authority and paternalistic junk.
I don't think you can help yourself can you?
-
If you are saying as you are that we should be judged by our elders and betters the that is argument from authority and paternalistic junk.
I don't think you can help yourself can you?
No it isn't, even if that is what has been said, which I don't think anyone has.
-
No it isn't, even if that is what has been said, which I don't think anyone has.
Me:Why should the judgment of other people about yourself be superior to your own?
Why, following on from that, should the judgment of a number of people about you be superior?
Hillside: Because sometimes that “judgment” comes from greater knowledge and experience than one’s own – in a psychiatrist/patient relationship for example.
You will note Hillside has immediately run up the white flag by putting the word Judgment in inverted comma's why does he feel the need to do that?. He is trying to punk us in the direction he wants to go which is to bring psychiatrists into it.
More argument from authority, changing the subject by deviation.
He is trying to manipulate language and unfortunately here was caught bang to rights.
His seems like a feudal atheism.
-
For it to be an argument from authority there has to be an argument that the authority is used to support What is the argument here?
-
Me:Why should the judgment of other people about yourself be superior to your own?
Why, following on from that, should the judgment of a number of people about you be superior?
Tell me, Vlad: when you visit the dentist do you accept their advice on what treatment is required, or that no treatment is required - or not?
-
Tell me, Vlad: when you visit the dentist do you accept their advice on what treatment is required, or that no treatment is required - or not?
A dentist judges me on the colour of my teeth and the colour of my money, Gordon and should not be involved in judgmentalexistential statements.
See?........... Hillside has even punked you into indulging in the deviation fallacy
-
Taking notice of someone when they are talking about something on which they are qualified is fair enough. Taking their opinion without thought or questioning is unwise. Taking the opinion of someone who is an expert in one field as having authority when they are talking about another field is very unwise! Using the latter scenario in a debate as support for a conclusion is an argument from authority fallacy.
-
Taking notice of someone when they are talking about something on which they are qualified is fair enough. Taking their opinion without thought or questioning is unwise. Taking the opinion of someone who is an expert in one field as having authority when they are talking about another field is very unwise! Using the latter scenario in a debate as support for a conclusion is an argument from authority fallacy.
Another person following a deviation snuck in by Hillside.
-
Another person following a deviation snuck in by Hillside.
Nope.
-
A dentist judges me on the colour of my teeth and the colour of my money, Gordon and should not be involved in judgmentalexistential statements.
See?........... Hillside has even punked you into indulging in the deviation fallacy
What an odd choice of words: no wonder your thinking is so mixed up (I'll not ask about the 'deviation fallacy' if you don't mind).
Your dentist doesn't 'judge you' but, instead, offers a qualified opinion based on specialist knowledge and experience regarding dental matters - I'm assuming here, for the sake of argument, that 'you' are more than your teeth and mouth. You seem to conflate this role with 'superiority', which also means that (unless you are a plumber of course) the next plumber you engage to sort out your leaky tap would be 'superior', and also the mechanic (unless you are a mechanic) - and so on.
You seem awfully inclined to over-egg every pudding (to the extent of creating puddings as you go along).
-
Few of us can as Burn's said "see our selves as others see us".
What warrant do you have for dismissing certain personal experiences as evidence?
I accept that any person having 'certain personal experiences' might well see them as some sort of personal evidence for, for instance, the existence of their particular God.
Why should I accept someone else's personal experiences as evidence also? I have no reason to do so, otherwise, logically, I should have to accept everyone's personal experiences in the same way, including my own. It seems to me that in that way confusion lies.
-
I accept that any person having 'certain personal experiences' might well see them as some sort of personal evidence for, for instance, the existence of their particular God.
Why should I accept someone else's personal experiences as evidence also? I have no reason to do so, otherwise, logically, I should have to accept everyone's personal experiences in the same way, including my own. It seems to me that in that way confusion lies.
I don't think I made myself clear.
What I should have said is.
What warrant do you have for dismissing certain personal experiences and not others as evidence? Since all experience is personal.
-
What warrant do you have for dismissing certain personal experiences and not others as evidence?
And right back at you.
-
And right back at you.
What are you talking about?
-
What are you talking about?
You dismiss other peoples personal experiences all the time by saying they are god dodging when they aren't. A clear case of your own personal warrant of dismissal.
-
You dismiss other peoples personal experiences all the time by saying they are god dodging when they aren't. A clear case of your own personal warrant of dismissal.
I talk about Goddodging because I have seen examples on this board and have witnessed lines of the very goddodging arguments I have indulged in myself in times past.
The usual suspects on this forum dismiss all experience of the divine full stop, so please don't lecture me.
Why accept personal empirical experience and deny/reject/suspect experience that does not fit into that classical kind of empirical experience? What is your warrant for that?
-
I don't think I made myself clear.
What I should have said is.
What warrant do you have for dismissing certain personal experiences and not others as evidence? Since all experience is personal.
Quite simple really.
Person A might have a personal experience of visiting India. Person B might not. However person B has the potential for visiting India at any time. Hence this seems to be a sound reason to say that India exists because it can be verified.
However, as you very clearly know, I was not talking about just any personal experiences, but certain special ones in relation to the idea of god. Indeed I made that quite clear when I said:
I have had experiences which have been imbued with the feeling that no god exists. However, as I have explained before, I discount any such personal experiences as evidence in the same way that I discount the personal experiences of others.
Such experiences cannot be used as evidence(except, as I have said, for the person who has had such experiences if they so desire) because there is no means of verification.
-
Quite simple really.
Person A might have a personal experience of visiting India. Person B might not. However person B has the potential for visiting India at any time. Hence this seems to be a sound reason to say that India exists because it can be verified.
However, as you very clearly know, I was not talking about just any personal experiences, but certain special ones in relation to the idea of god. Indeed I made that quite clear when I said:
Such experiences cannot be used as evidence(except, as I have said, for the person who has had such experiences if they so desire) because there is no means of verification.
Only empirical facts can be verified as such but we are talking about experience experience or qualia cannot be verified that is why we can only talk about intersubjective agreement.
But again what warrant do we have for accepting empirical personal experiences and rejecting non empirical personal experience?
-
Nope.
Sorry I misunderstood you. Many apologies.
-
Why accept personal empirical experience and deny/reject/suspect experience that does not fit into that classical kind of empirical experience? What is your warrant for that?
As I don't. I can't answer that. And I haven't got a warrant.
But I do note that you are still a fully paid up member of the card carrying club.
PS If you think my two sentences are a lecture, you may want to redefine lecture, or at least look the word up, and then apply the criteria to your increasingly wearying posts.
-
Vladdo,
If you are saying as you are that we should be judged by our elders and betters...
Why are you lying again? I've said no such thing.
...the that is argument from authority and paternalistic junk.
I suppose it would be if anyone said it.
I don't think you can help yourself can you?
The only person here who can't help himself is you in respect of your unrelenting dishonesty.
-
Vladdo,
Me:Why should the judgment of other people about yourself be superior to your own?
Why, following on from that, should the judgment of a number of people about you be superior?
Hillside: Because sometimes that “judgment” comes from greater knowledge and experience than one’s own – in a psychiatrist/patient relationship for example.
You will note Hillside has immediately run up the white flag by putting the word Judgment in inverted comma's why does he feel the need to do that?. He is trying to punk us in the direction he wants to go which is to bring psychiatrists into it.
More argument from authority, changing the subject by deviation.
He is trying to manipulate language and unfortunately here was caught bang to rights.
His seems like a feudal atheism.
When you make a wrong turn you just keep on going don't you. Just to correct you yet again, here's RationalWiki on the difference between a fallacious and a non-fallacious argument from authority:
"An argument from authority refers to two kinds of arguments:
A non-fallacious argument from authority grounds a claim in the beliefs of one or more authoritative source(s), whose opinions are likely to be true on the relevant issue. Notably, insofar as the authorities in question are, indeed, experts on the issue in question, their opinion provides strong inductive support for the conclusion: It makes the conclusion likely to be true, not necessarily true. As such, an argument from authority can only strongly suggest what is true -- not prove it.
A logically fallacious argument from authority grounds a claim in the beliefs of a source that is not authoritative. Sources could be non-authoritative because of their disagreement with consensus on the issue, their non-expertise in the relevant issue, or a number of other issues.
Correct uses of argument from authority involve deferred justification: Insofar as your claim accords with what experts on the issue believes, then your claim is also supported by the evidence the experts are relying on, even if you may not yourself be aware of what that evidence in fact is.
In order to be fallacious, the argument must appeal to and treat as authoritative people who lack relevant qualifications or whose qualification is in an irrelevant field or a field that is irrelevant to the argument at hand. For example, saying "There is no God, because Stephen Hawking said so and is a knowledgeable physicist" is a fallacious appeal to authority as Hawking's qualifications in physics do not automatically make him an authority on whether God exists. However, accusations of a false appeal to authority, or dismissing an argument because of someone's lack of relevant qualifications or expertise, runs the risk of encountering the pitfall of the Courtier's Reply. This is the counterfallacy to a misapplied appeal to authority: that the lack of an official and relevant qualification doesn't automatically undercut the argument."
(https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority)
Doubtless you'll keep on getting this wrong nonetheless, but at least you can't claim that you've not had it explained to you. You're welcome.
-
Vladdo,
I don't think I made myself clear.
What I should have said is.
What warrant do you have for dismissing certain personal experiences and not others as evidence? Since all experience is personal.
For the reason I explained to you and you just ignored.
1. Experience may be personal but evidence isn't.
2. You're cheating again by conflating "personal experience" of something with the narrative used to explain it.
3. The "warrant" as you put it for dismissing the explanatory narrative "god" for a personal experience is that it's untestable - and any untestable narrative is as (in)valid as any other. Either you accept "god" and "leprechauns" equally as objectively true explanations for different personal experiences, or you accept neither. There's no third option.
-
Vlad - please spell "god-dodging" thus, with a hyphen.
Bhs - Please observe the parliamentary convention of not accusing people of lying - it's rude and rather childish. Assume that they are mistaken instead.
-
Steve H
Please spell gog-doging thus, god-dodging. ;)
-
Oh knickers! Edited.
-
Vladdo,
I talk about Goddodging because I have seen examples on this board and have witnessed lines of the very goddodging arguments I have indulged in myself in times past.
No you haven't. For reasons that have been explained to you and you've just ignored (again) "goddodging" is nonsensical. First you just assume your premise "god", and second you just assume that everyone else also assumes the same premise. Having done that, then you've created an entirely false platform on which to base your charge that they're "dodging" something.
The usual suspects on this forum dismiss all experience of the divine full stop, so please don't lecture me.
Wrong again. They/we dismiss the narrative that there is an "experience of the divine" for the perfectly good reason that the claim is untestable.
Why accept personal empirical experience and deny/reject/suspect experience that does not fit into that classical kind of empirical experience? What is your warrant for that?
You've already had this explained to you. If you insist that the untestable explanatory narrative "god" should be privileged over just guessing, then you have no choice but to accept any other untestable explanatory narrative for other "experiences" on the same basis. It's simple enough to grasp isn't it?
-
Oh knickers! Edited.
Strange isn't it?
I find, quite frequently, when I post a valid point about another's grammar or punctuation, or whatever, that a little gremlin creeping around in the back of my mind decided to make me look like a fool by creating another mistake in my amending post.
The human brain - a weird, wonderful and occasionally mischievous organ.
-
Strange isn't it?
I find, quite frequently, when I post a valid point about another's grammar or punctuation, or whatever, that a little gremlin creeping around in the back of my mind decided to make me look like a fool by creating another mistake in my amending post.
The human brain - a weird, wonderful and occasionally mischievous organ.
I actually originally typed "gog-godging"! I noticed one g where a d should be before posting, but not the other!
-
Steve H,
Bhs - Please observe the parliamentary convention of not accusing people of lying - it's rude and rather childish. Assume that they are mistaken instead.
In general the first time it happens I do, but when the mistake is repeated regardless of how often it's been corrected then I consider it a lie. Vlad is notorious for it - his usual stunt is to tell people they've said something they haven't actually said at all in order to attack his own misrepresentation. See his recent efforts on the argument from authority for an example of it.
-
Yes, the principle of charity assumes a mistake the first time, but not the 500th.
-
Trent,
The human brain - a weird, wonderful and occasionally mischievous organ.
A particular bugbear of mine: people who pronounce "mischievous" as "mis-chee-veeyus". They know there's an "i" in there somewhere, but move it to after the "v".
AAARRRGGGHHH!!!
-
Only empirical facts can be verified as such but we are talking about experience experience or qualia cannot be verified that is why we can only talk about intersubjective agreement.
But again what warrant do we have for accepting empirical personal experiences and rejecting non empirical personal experience?
I don't reject non empirical personal experiences. Indeed they can be quite valuable, especially to the person concerned. What I do do is dismiss them as evidence because they cannot be verified. Hence there is no way to accept any one such experience as evidence without accepting them all. In other words, it's the same answer to the same question. You can disagree with me, no problem, but I see little point in keeping on repeating the same thing.
-
I don't reject non empirical personal experiences. Indeed they can be quite valuable, especially to the person concerned. What I do do is dismiss them as evidence because they cannot be verified. Hence there is no way to accept any one such experience as evidence without accepting them all. In other words, it's the same answer to the same question. You can disagree with me, no problem, but I see little point in keeping on repeating the same thing.
As long as you are acknowledging it's empirical evidence and the problems that presents in making further ontological claims, then I am fine with that.
-
Vladdo,
No you haven't. For reasons that have been explained to you and you've just ignored (again) "goddodging" is nonsensical. First you just assume your premise "god", and second you just assume that everyone else also assumes the same premise. Having done that, then you've created an entirely false platform on which to base your charge that they're "dodging" something.
Wrong again. They/we dismiss the narrative that there is an "experience of the divine" for the perfectly good reason that the claim is untestable.
You've already had this explained to you. If you insist that the untestable explanatory narrative "god" should be privileged over just guessing, then you have no choice but to accept any other untestable explanatory narrative for other "experiences" on the same basis. It's simple enough to grasp isn't it?
By God-dodging I am describing behaviours issuing from the mention of the word God.
In terms of who we should accept existential judgment from.
Are you saying no such judgment can be made at all because the self does not exist?
A person is the last person who can make such judgments?
A person is the only one who can make such judgments?
or what?
-
Vladdo,
By God-dodging I am describing behaviours issuing from the mention of the word God.
1. No you’re not. Your efforts until now have always concerned the false claim that people with no good reason to think there’s a god can at the same time “dodge” that god. Now that’s been detonated you’re scrambling for an escape route by retrenching to the bizarre notion that some people want to dodge just "the mention of the word God”.
2. No-one “dodges” “the mention of the word God” in any case.
In terms of who we should accept existential judgment from.
Where did that slipped in “existential” come from, and what are you even trying to say here?
Are you saying no such judgment can be made at all because the self does not exist?
A person is the last person who can make such judgments?
A person is the only one who can make such judgments?
or what?
What gibberish are you spouting now? If you think you have a legitimate notion in your head then at least try to set it out in cogent and comprehensible terms.
Oh, and you might want to preface that with acknowledging where you went wrong previously with your “goddodging” nonsense – you know, like someone with at least some decency left would.
-
Vladdo,
2. No-one “dodges” “the mention of the word God” in any case.
Never said they did. It's just the behaviours that issue from it's mention I'm describing. That kind of makes you the Don Partridge of such behaviour IMHO.
-
Vladdo,
Never said they did.
Yes you did – here: “By God-dodging I am describing behaviours issuing from the mention of the word God.” (Reply 216)
What behaviours do you think “issue” when “the word God” is mentioned? Either you reify the term and treat “god” as if it had been demonstrated, or you refer only to the word itself. Either way though, you’ve crashed and burned.
It's just the behaviours that issue from it's mention I'm describing. That kind of makes you the Don Partridge of such behaviour IMHO.
No idea.
-
Vladdo,
Yes you did – here: “By God-dodging I am describing behaviours issuing from the mention of the word God.” (Reply 216)
A completely different thing from dodging "the mention of the word God" I'm afraid Deviation on your part.
-
Vladdo,
A completely different thing from dodging "the mention of the word God" I'm afraid Deviation on your part.
As you twist and turn in ever-more convoluted and etiolated "explanations" for what you meant by "goddodging" you're also forced to keep avoiding question of what you even think you mean by it. What are these supposed behaviours that "issue" "from the mention of the word god", and what is it that you think is being "dodged" exactly?
It's ok - you can admit it. Just say, "actually I have no idea whatever of what I'm even trying to say". We know that anyway, so it won't be news to anyone.
-
Vladdo,
As you twist and turn in ever-more convoluted and etiolated "explanations" for what you meant by "goddodging" you're also forced to keep avoiding question of what you even think you mean by it. What are these supposed behaviours that "issue" "from the mention of the word god", and what is it that you think is being "dodged" exactly?
It's ok - you can admit it. Just say, "actually I have no idea whatever of what I'm even trying to say". We know that anyway, so it won't be news to anyone.
Avoiding the word God is completely different from hearing it and THEN acting to it adversely.
The latter suggesting failure of the former.
If I may liken the behaviour of a lot of antitheists on here as akin to playing Chicken on a road or railway.
as for others I think they might be building up a portfolio of how to limbo dance while wearing a top hat.
-
Vladdo,
Avoiding the word God is completely different from hearing it and THEN acting to it adversely.The latter suggesting failure of the former.
If I may liken the behaviour of a lot of antitheists on here as akin to playing Chicken on a road or railway.
as for others I think they might be building up a portfolio of how to limbo dance while wearing a top hat.
Further evasion noted. So again, here's the question you just dodged (ironically enough) once again but in big, bold letters:
What are these supposed behaviours that "issue" "from the mention of the word god", and what is it that you think is being "dodged" exactly?
If the answers are "actually i have no idea of what I'm even trying to say" then just say so. It's ok, really it is. No-one has any higher expectations of you anyway and think of the weight that'll be lifted from your shoulders when you no longer have to bother with all that evasion, misrepresentation, irrelevance, various fallacious arguments etc.
Go for it!
-
Vladdo,
Further evasion noted. So again, here's the question you just dodged (ironically enough) once again but in big, bold letters:
What are these supposed behaviours that "issue" "from the mention of the word god", and what is it that you think is being "dodged" exactly?
If the answers are "actually i have no idea of what I'm even trying to say" then just say so. It's ok, really it is. No-one has any higher expectations of you anyway and think of the weight that'll be lifted from your shoulders when you no longer have to bother with all that evasion, misrepresentation, irrelevance, various fallacious arguments etc.
Go for it!
Tut tut
A multiplicity of deviations here. Your posts are beginning to resemble maps of middle earth.
-
If a new thread is started on this would you answer the question?
-
Vladdo,
Tut tut
A multiplicity of deviations here. Your posts are beginning to resemble maps of middle earth.
Translation: "Yes, you've got me bang to rights there Hillside - I actually have no idea what I mean when I use the term "Goddodging". Yours, Vlad".
Thought so.
-
Maeght,
If a new thread is started on this would you answer the question?
Not only will Vlad never answer a question (while at the same time demanding that others answer his) but he'll never tell us even why he'll never answer a question either. I once chased him all over this mb asking how he'd propose that anyone distinguish the accuracy of his his non-material assertion "god" from that of any other non-material assertion. He never did answer that, and nor did he answer the subsequent question about why he wouldn't answer it. Short version: he's got form as long as your proverbial.
-
As long as you are acknowledging it's empirical evidence and the problems that presents in making further ontological claims, then I am fine with that.
I have no problem with empirical evidence. Unfortunately 'ontological claims', by which I assume you mean, claims that a god exists, seem to be lacking any empirical evidence. Hence, such claims which are a result of personal experiences cannot be verified by any objective(intersubjective) method, and are therefore useless as evidence for any but the claimant.
-
enki,
I have no problem with empirical evidence. Unfortunately 'ontological claims', by which I assume you mean, claims that a god exists, seem to be lacking any empirical evidence. Hence, such claims which are a result of personal experiences cannot be verified by any objective(intersubjective) method, and are therefore useless as evidence for any but the claimant.
Which (again) is the answer to his repeated earlier question about why such claims should be dismissed when they overreach into claims of objective truths.
-
enki,
Which (again) is the answer to his repeated earlier question about why such claims should be dismissed when they overreach into claims of objective truths.
Blue,
I completely agree. :D
-
I have no problem with empirical evidence. Unfortunately 'ontological claims', by which I assume you mean, claims that a god exists, seem to be lacking any empirical evidence. Hence, such claims which are a result of personal experiences cannot be verified by any objective(intersubjective) method, and are therefore useless as evidence for any but the claimant.
Yes God's leave no empirical evidence but the lack of that does not affect whether you trust a statement or what one believes.
If you are saying you are an atheist because God has no empirical footprint then we are all atheists. However theists don't claim empirical evidence. Although historical reports blur the edges on that.
-
Yes God's leave no empirical evidence but the lack of that does not affect whether you trust a statement or what one believes.
If you are saying you are an atheist because God has no empirical footprint then we are all atheists. However theists don't claim empirical evidence. Although historical reports blur the edges on that.
Personally I find no need to believe in any god and find no evidence that justifies the existence of any god. Whether others wish to believe in their particular gods is entirely up to them.
-
Vladdo,
Yes God's leave no empirical evidence…
So you assert. So what makes you think that there are such gods in the first place then?
…but the lack of that does not affect whether you trust a statement…
Of course it does if that “trust” entails treating the statement as objectively true. If not for empirical evidence, what kind of evidence would you propose instead to distinguish the claim from just guessing?
…or what one believes.
Yet another of your countless straw men. No-one doubts that those who assert “god” (or for that matter any other non-material belief) actually believe what they say to be true.
If you are saying you are an atheist because God has no empirical footprint then we are all atheists. However theists don't claim empirical evidence. Although historical reports blur the edges on that.
Wrong again. Atheists are atheists because – so far at least – they/we haven’t been presented with an argument for theism that isn’t hopeless. It’s simple enough.
-
Atheists are atheists because – so far at least – they/we haven’t been presented with an argument for theism that isn’t hopeless. It’s simple enough.
Nope, an atheist is simply someone who lacks a belief in god(s). Stating why they are an atheist is not something you can make a generalisation on, and this one is based on avenging the question by assuming that any arguments are noodles because someone thinks they are.
-
NS,
Nope, an atheist is simply someone who lacks a belief in god(s). Stating why they are an atheist is not something you can make a generalisation on, and this one is based on avenging the question by assuming that any arguments are noodles because someone thinks they are.
Even if you found someone in the middle of a jungle to whom the notion "gods" had never occurred he too would fall into the category "haven’t been presented with an argument for theism that isn’t hopeless". I'm not sure I can think of a type of atheist to whom that rationale wouldn't apply. Can you?
-
NS,
Even if you found someone in the middle of a jungle to whom the notion "gods" had never occurred he too would fall into the category "haven’t been presented with an argument for theism that isn’t hopeless". I'm not sure I can think of a type of atheist to whom that rationale wouldn't apply. Can you?
I'm not really bothered about 'types' or indeed why you want to use what appears to be an argument from incredulity. From my own viewpoint I realised I was an atheist when I realised I lacked a belief in what other people talked about when they said they believed in god(s). I didn't think to myself ' Oh their arguments are hopeless'.
And I still don't see how you get to the statement that the arguments are hopeless simply because someone finds them to be so. Some flat earthers find the arguments for a round earth to be 'hopeless', that doesn't mean they are and your post seems to elide between people finding arguments unconvincing, even for those atheists that fit your generalisation, and the arguments actually being hopeless.
-
Wrong again. Atheists are atheists because – so far at least – they/we haven’t been presented with an argument for theism that isn’t hopeless. It’s simple enough.
Ah, the one size inflatable atheist with the realistic Hillside face printed at one end.
I happen to know someone who admitted to experiencing God while being a public atheist so I think we might have to get the basin and puncture repair outfit on your standard atheist.
-
NS,
I'm not really bothered about 'types' or indeed why you want to use what appears to be an argument from incredulity. From my own viewpoint I realised I was an atheist when I realised I lacked a belief in what other people talked about when they said they believed in god(s). I didn't think to myself ' Oh their arguments are hopeless'.
You’re not getting it. If an atheist had been presented with an argument he didn’t think to be hopeless (ie, it was sound) then presumably he wouldn’t be an atheist. Thus axiomatically all atheists haven’t been presented with such arguments so you specifically wouldn’t have needed to think, “Oh their arguments are hopeless” for that to be the case.
Even if you’d never once heard an argument for theism at all you’d still be in the category, “haven’t heard an argument for theism that isn’t hopeless”.
And this has nothing to do with the argument from incredulity by the way.
And I still don't see how you get to the statement that the arguments are hopeless simply because someone finds them to be so.
That’s a misrepresentation of Vladdish proportions. I’ve said no such thing – finding an argument to be hopeless does not necessitate just an arbitrary opinion on the matter. I find such arguments to be hopeless for example because they align with codified and well-understood models of logical fallacies.
Some flat earthers find the arguments for a round earth to be 'hopeless', that doesn't mean they are and your post seems to elide between people finding arguments unconvincing, even for those atheists that fit your generalisation, and the arguments actually being hopeless.
Nope – see above.
-
Vladdo,
Ah, the one size inflatable atheist with the realistic Hillside face printed at one end.
Clumsy ad hom aside, what are your thoughts on the questions you keep running away from in the hope that NS have given you an escape route? You know, these ones:
What are these supposed behaviours that "issue" "from the mention of the word god", and what is it that you think is being "dodged" exactly?
I happen to know someone who admitted to experiencing God…
Again, absent an argument to validate the claim all he could have “admitted to” was a belief that he’d “experienced god”…
…while being a public atheist so I think we might have to get the basin and puncture repair outfit on your standard atheist.
Wrong again. If he genuinely thought he’d “experienced god” then he couldn’t have been an atheist, regardless of his public pronouncements after the episode. He’d have been telling a porkie Vlad.
-
NS,
You’re not getting it. If an atheist had been presented with an argument he didn’t think to be hopeless (ie, it was sound) then presumably he wouldn’t be an atheist. Thus axiomatically all atheists haven’t been presented with such arguments so you specifically wouldn’t have needed to think, “Oh their arguments are hopeless” for that to be the case.
Even if you’d never once heard an argument for theism at all you’d still be in the category, “haven’t heard an argument for theism that isn’t hopeless”.
And this has nothing to do with the argument from incredulity by the way.
That’s a misrepresentation of Vladdish proportions. I’ve said no such thing – finding an argument to be hopeless does not necessitate just an arbitrary opinion on the matter. I find such arguments to be hopeless for example because they align with codified and well-understood models of logical fallacies.
Nope – see above.
There are plenty of things that I've heard arguments on that I didn't think were hopeless and yet weren't convincing to me. So I don't see why you want to say anything about arguments being hopeless,. Again as I pointed out I'm not an atheist because I find arguments to be hopeless, I just don't believe in what people talk about when they talk about gods. I'm not sure why you think you know more about how I think than I do but it's lead you to fall back on your argument by incredulity again - you just cannot believe there are any atheists who don't fit your description even If an atheists says to you 'I don't fit your description'.
I don't see it as misrepresentation, I may be misreading you but when you wrote 'they/we haven’t been presented with an argument for theism that isn’t hopeless', then surely that isn't just saying that someone finds an argument unconvincing but that it is actually hopeless and I don't see how you get there. That's the elision that I was referring to so are you saying that isn't what you meant to say?
And I don't suggest that finding an argument to be hopeless did mean it was arbitrary opinion, just that you cannot assume as your post seemed to that it was actually correct that the argument was hopeless. And I'm perfectly happy to think that you weren't misrepresenting me there, just that you fell into the trap of using a false dichotomy
-
I cling onto my theism by my fingernails anyway, but the reason I don’t believe in God as Vlad does is because I don’t experience that his god is real. Arguments about whether god exists or not are pretty pointless in that regard. Either someone experiences god as real, or they don’t. I wasnt reasoned out of faith, it just stppped existing for me.
-
I cling onto my theism by my fingernails anyway, but the reason I don’t believe in God as Vlad does is because I don’t experience that his god is real. Arguments about whether god exists or not are pretty pointless in that regard. Either someone experiences god as real, or they don’t. I wasnt reasoned out of faith, it just stppped existing for me.
Yes, I find the arguments pointless generally as well. Theists rarely seen to be there because of 'arguments' even in putting them forward. In one sense, I am one of the mythical 'apatheists' talked of on another thread on that except for an intellectual interest, I don't find the actual idea of whether gods exist important.
-
NS,
There are plenty of things that I've heard arguments on that I didn't think were hopeless and yet weren't convincing to me. So I don't see why you want to say anything about arguments being hopeless,.
You’re struggling now. We can discuss the difference between “hopeless” and “not persuasive” if you like, but the principle is the same: if you haven’t found an argument for “god” to be correct then you’re an atheist. That’s true whether you’ve seen lots of arguments for theism or none – you’re still in that category.
Again as I pointed out I'm not an atheist because I find arguments to be hopeless, I just don't believe in what people talk about when they talk about gods. I'm not sure why you think you know more about how I think than I do but it's lead you to fall back on your argument by incredulity again - you just cannot believe there are any atheists who don't fit your description even If an atheists says to you 'I don't fit your description'.
No doubt you are, but it’s irrelevant for the reason I explained. You’re still an atheist because you haven’t been persuaded by an argument for theism. If you had been persuaded by an argument for theism then you wouldn’t be an atheist. QED
I don't see it as misrepresentation, I may be misreading you but when you wrote 'they/we haven’t been presented with an argument for theism that isn’t hopeless', then surely that isn't just saying that someone finds an argument unconvincing but that it is actually hopeless and I don't see how you get there. That's the elision that I was referring to so are you saying that isn't what you meant to say?
I meant to say what I said. Either someone finds an argument for god(s) to be correct or to be incorrect – there aren’t gradations of correctness that would lead him to think there are gods but only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, or that there is a god but only from the waist down or some such. You can quibble about the use of “hopeless” rather than “incorrect” or “wrong” if you like, but it’s a secondary matter at best.
And I don't suggest that finding an argument to be hopeless did mean it was arbitrary opinion, just that you cannot assume as your post seemed to that it was actually correct that the argument was hopeless. And I'm perfectly happy to think that you weren't misrepresenting me there, just that you fell into the trap of using a false dichotomy
Then why did you use the phrase “And I still don't see how you get to the statement that the arguments are hopeless simply because someone finds them to be so”? (emphasis added). I didn’t misrepresent you and there was no false dichotomy – you just assumed that I’d said or implied the “simply because someone finds them to be so” bit when I did no such thing.
There are good reasons for finding an argument to be hopeless/incorrect/wrong/whatever and there bad reasons for reaching the same conclusion (see Vlad’s confusion about the fallacious and non-fallacious use of the argument from authority a while back for example). There may also be no arguments for theism available at all. In all three cases though the atheist still hasn’t been presented with an argument for theism that’s persuaded him – which is all I was saying.
-
Hi Rhi,
I cling onto my theism by my fingernails anyway, but the reason I don’t believe in God as Vlad does is because I don’t experience that his god is real. Arguments about whether god exists or not are pretty pointless in that regard. Either someone experiences god as real, or they don’t. I wasnt reasoned out of faith, it just stppped existing for me.
Yes, but there’s a difference between personal, subjective beliefs and general, objective ones. The person who thinks she’s “encountered god” may not care much whether she can muster a validating argument for god actually being the causal explanation. When she wants the belief to be taken seriously by others though, then arguments are the only tools available for the job.
-
NS,
You’re struggling now. We can discuss the difference between “hopeless” and “not persuasive” if you like, but the principle is the same: if you haven’t found an argument for “god” to be correct then you’re an atheist. That’s true whether you’ve seen lots of arguments for theism or none – you’re still in that category.
No doubt you are, but it’s irrelevant for the reason I explained. You’re still an atheist because you haven’t been persuaded by an argument for theism. If you had been persuaded by an argument for theism then you wouldn’t be an atheist. QED
I meant to say what I said. Either someone finds an argument for god(s) to be correct or to be incorrect – there aren’t gradations of correctness that would lead him to think there are gods but only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, or that there is a god but only from the waist down or some such. You can quibble about the use of “hopeless” rather than “incorrect” or “wrong” if you like, but it’s a secondary matter at best.
Then why did you use the phrase “And I still don't see how you get to the statement that the arguments are hopeless simply because someone finds them to be so”? (emphasis added). I didn’t misrepresent you and there was no false dichotomy – you just assumed that I’d said or implied the “simply because someone finds them to be so” bit when I did no such thing.
There are good reasons for finding an argument to be hopeless/incorrect/wrong/whatever and there bad reasons for reaching the same conclusion (see Vlad’s confusion about the fallacious and non-fallacious use of the argument from authority a while back for example). There may also be no arguments for theism available at all. In all three cases though the atheist still hasn’t been presented with an argument for theism that’s persuaded him – which is all I was saying.
No, I'm not an atheist because I haven't been convinced by an argument. When you can stop using your incredulity to tell me what I think, we might have a discussion, until then I will leave you to making generalisations which by your incredulity become unfalsifiable even by the people you are making the generalisation about.
-
Hi Rhi,
Yes, but there’s a difference between personal, subjective beliefs and general, objective ones. The person who thinks she’s “encountered god” may not care much whether she can muster a validating argument for god actually being the causal explanation. When she wants the belief to be taken seriously by others though, then arguments are the only tools available for the job.
But plenty of atheists get there because they were theists and god ceased to be real to them. The arguments against faith may then make sense, but they stop believing because god wasn’t there any more. That’s what happened to me. The reasoned arguments against faith are nothing to do with whether I believe or not. There’s no one-size-fits-all reason as to why people are atheist.
-
NS,
No, I'm not an atheist because I haven't been convinced by an argument. When you can stop using your incredulity to tell me what I think, we might have a discussion, until then I will leave you to making generalisations which by your incredulity become unfalsifiable even by the people you are making the generalisation about.
It’s simple enough I’d have thought: either you’ve encountered an argument for “god” that you’ve been persuaded by (in which case you can’t be an atheist) or you haven’t (in which case you can be an atheist).
Seems to me that the issue here is the word “because” rather than the nature of the arguments themselves. When I said, “Atheists are atheists because – so far at least – they/we haven’t been presented with an argument for theism that isn’t hopeless. It’s simple enough” that’s still true – if they had been presented with an argument for theism that they found to be not hopeless (ie they were persuaded by it) then they couldn’t be atheists. You seem to have turned this into something like, “only after a review and falsification of the arguments for theism could someone be an atheist” which isn’t what I said or implied at all.
-
NS,
It’s simple enough I’d have thought: either you’ve encountered an argument for “god” that you’ve been persuaded by (in which case you can’t be an atheist) or you haven’t (in which case you can be an atheist).
Seems to me that the issue here is the word “because” rather than the nature of the arguments themselves. When I said, “Atheists are atheists because – so far at least – they/we haven’t been presented with an argument for theism that isn’t hopeless. It’s simple enough” that’s still true – if they had been presented with an argument for theism that they found to be not hopeless (ie they were persuaded by it) then they couldn’t be atheists. You seem to have turned this into something like, “only after a review and falsification of the arguments for theism could someone be an atheist” which isn’t what I said or implied at all.
No, I have simply stated that I didn't become an atheist because of any failings in the arguments made. As Rhiannon has covered she didn't believe because of the arguments, not for she stop believing because of the arguments. Again stop telling me what I think simply because your incredulity won't allow you to listen to what I actually write.
-
If a new thread is started on this would you answer the question?
Most certainly since we have derailed the original intent of this thread long ago. Let us not trouble ourselves finding a culprit there.
Would you do the honours and start the new thread?
-
Nope, an atheist is simply someone who lacks a belief in god(s). Stating why they are an atheist is not something you can make a generalisation on, and this one is based on avenging the question by assuming that any arguments are noodles because someone thinks they are.
Agreed. I tend to think of it as follows. Theist talk of experiencing God, feeling a presence, knowing God personally or similar. I have never had those experiences or feelings, so have no belief. I do not find the arguments for God convincing but that is not why I am an atheist.
-
Agreed. I tend to think of it as follows. Theist talk of experiencing God, feeling a presence, knowing God personally or similar. I have never had those experiences or feelings, so have no belief. I do not find the arguments for God convincing but that is not why I am an atheist.
What arguments for love convinced people that they should be in that state?
-
Agreed. I tend to think of it as follows. Theist talk of experiencing God, feeling a presence, knowing God personally or similar. I have never had those experiences or feelings, so have no belief. I do not find the arguments for God convincing but that is not why I am an atheist.
Absolutely. And people who find god generally do so because the prayer thing has worked for them or they feel a sense of communion in some way.
-
Was just thinking, regarding arguments for God that if rejected imply atheism (and I'd say that approach does apply to me) that I've yet to encounter a theist who states that their theism is primarily based on concluding that, say, the ontological argument for God is sound.
Perhaps these arguments for God, whether rejected or accepted, aren't the only reason that people become theist or atheist.
-
Was just thinking, regarding arguments for God that if rejected imply atheism (and I'd say that approach does apply to me) that I've yet to encounter a theist who states that their theism is primarily based on concluding that, say, the ontological argument for God is sound.
Perhaps these arguments for God, whether rejected or accepted, aren't the only reason that people become theist or atheist.
Yes, I think people that become atheists do so in a myriad of different ways. How and why they do so is entirely up to them. I can only speak about the reasons why I am an atheist, which I have done. I think that is one reason why atheists are a very varied community, simply held together by the lack of belief in god(s).
-
What arguments for love convinced people that they should be in that state?
What?
-
What?
All I am saying is that some things occur or are arrived at without the type of argument you are Referring to, the intellectual argument. Although I think there is ample evidence abroad of atheistic bias in that respect.
-
All I am saying is that some things occur or are arrived at without the type of argument you are Referring to, the intellectual argument. Although I think there is ample evidence abroad of atheistic bias in that respect.
So are you arguing that god is an emotion now?
-
All I am saying is that some things occur or are arrived at without the type of argument you are Referring to, the intellectual argument. Although I think there is ample evidence abroad of atheistic bias in that respect.
You seem not to have read Maeght's post. Since he stated that it wasn't finding the arguments unconvincing that meant he was an atheist.
-
Maeght,
Agreed. I tend to think of it as follows. Theist talk of experiencing God, feeling a presence, knowing God personally or similar. I have never had those experiences or feelings, so have no belief. I do not find the arguments for God convincing but that is not why I am an atheist.
I didn't become and remain an atheist because my study of the arguments for theism told me they were hopeless either, but I was able to become and remain an atheist because neither then nor since have I found an argument for theism that's sound. If ever I did I'd be forced to think, "OK, there must be (a) god(s) then" and to abandon my atheism, albeit that I'd have had no experience of god(s) at all. To put it another way, finding the arguments for theism to be bad ones may or may not be a sufficient reason for atheism but it is a necessary one.
-
So are you arguing that god is an emotion now?
Not necessarily. I'm just saying that argument does not equal ontology.
-
Most certainly since we have derailed the original intent of this thread long ago. Let us not trouble ourselves finding a culprit there.
Would you do the honours and start the new thread?
I will when I get a momnet (if someone hasn't already). Would be my first time!
-
All I am saying is that some things occur or are arrived at without the type of argument you are Referring to, the intellectual argument. Although I think there is ample evidence abroad of atheistic bias in that respect.
I wasn't refering to the intellectual argument in regard to being an atheist - quite the opposite.
-
Maeght,
I didn't become and remain an atheist because my study of the arguments for theism told me they were hopeless either, but I was able to become and remain an atheist because neither then nor since have I found an argument for theism that's sound. If ever I did I'd be forced to think, "OK, there must be (a) god(s) then" and to abandon my atheism, albeit that I'd have had no experience of god(s) at all. To put it another way, finding the arguments for theism to be bad ones may or may not be a sufficient reason for atheism but it is a necessary one.
I don't see where the 'able to become' comes into it. Not really sure what you mean by that.
I don't think if there was a sound argument for the existance of God that I would become a theist unless I had some experience of God or sense of a presence.
I don't think 'finding the arguments for theism to be bad ones may or may not be a sufficient reason for atheism but it is a necessary one' is true either. Many atheists have never really considered the arguments for God/theism but just don't have a belief because they have never felt a presence or had an experience to give them a belief.
-
Maeght,
I wasn't refering to the intellectual argument in regard to being an atheist - quite the opposite.
But the point was that you cannot be an atheist if you're aware of an argument for theism that's sound. "No sound arguments for theism" is a necessary condition for atheism - or at least it is for honest atheism. Although Vlad's "goddodging" car crash that he just ran away from a while back was hopeless thinking (because it just assumes its premise), ironically someone who found a cast iron argument for theism that he couldn't falsify but who nonetheless insisted he was still an atheist would I suppose be one such.
-
Maeght,
I don't see where the 'able to become' comes into it. Not really sure what you mean by that.
I mean that atheism is only possible if there’s no insurmountable argument available for theism (or at least honest atheism is).
I don't think if there was a sound argument for the existance of God that I would become a theist unless I had some experience of God or sense of a presence.
Why not? On what basis would you deny an argument you couldn’t falsify?
I don't think 'finding the arguments for theism to be bad ones may or may not be a sufficient reason for atheism but it is a necessary one' is true either. Many atheists have never really considered the arguments for God/theism but just don't have a belief because they have never felt a presence or had an experience to give them a belief.
That’s a non sequitur. Yes many atheists may never have thought they had an experience of ”god” and that’s sufficient for their atheism, but if ever one were found a cogent argument for god would make that position untenable.
-
Maeght,
But the point was that you cannot be an atheist if you're aware of an argument for theism that's sound. "No sound arguments for theism" is a necessary condition for atheism - or at least it is for honest atheism. Although Vlad's "goddodging" car crash that he just ran away from a while back was hopeless thinking (because it just assumes its premise), ironically someone who found a cast iron argument for theism that he couldn't falsify but who nonetheless insisted he was still an atheist would I suppose be one such.
I suspect I might be a god dodger in that sense. And in no sense would I be being dishonest. You're wrong about it being a necessary condition. The only necessary condition is the lack of belief. If I found an argument that seemed to make sense then I suspect that I would wonder if I could be wrong about it, and since that is possible I wouldn't necessarily accept it. There are multiple things in which I see good arguments on both sides but that doesn't make me dishonest.
You seem to think that we choose what to believe and that in no way chimes with my experience.
-
Maeght,
But the point was that you cannot be an atheist if you're aware of an argument for theism that's sound. "No sound arguments for theism" is a necessary condition for atheism - or at least it is for honest atheism. Although Vlad's "goddodging" car crash that he just ran away from a while back was hopeless thinking (because it just assumes its premise), ironically someone who found a cast iron argument for theism that he couldn't falsify but who nonetheless insisted he was still an atheist would I suppose be one such.
Depends on what you mean as a sound argument I guess - something which is different from a cast iron argument though.
-
Maeght,
I mean that atheism is only possible if there’s no insurmountable argument available for theism (or at least honest atheism is).
Now you are saying insurmountable argument. Which is is? Sound, Cast Iron, Insurmountable?
Why not? On what basis would you deny an argument you couldn’t falsify?
See above.
That’s a non sequitur. Yes many atheists may never have thought they had an experience of ”god” and that’s sufficient for their atheism, but if ever one were found a cogent argument for god would make that position untenable.
Don't see how it is, especially when you go on to agree with my point.
Cogent argument now. That's four different versions.
-
I suspect I might be a god dodger in that sense. And in no sense would I be being dishonest. You're wrong about it being a necessary condition. The only necessary condition is the lack of belief. If I found an argument that seemed to make sense then I suspect that I would wonder if I could be wrong about it, and since that is possible I wouldn't necessarily accept it. There are multiple things in which I see good arguments on both sides but that doesn't make me dishonest.
You seem to think that we choose what to believe and that in no way chimes with my experience.
Totally agree.
-
Depends on what you mean as a sound argument I guess - something which is different from a cast iron argument though.
Is there such a thing as a cast iron argument in this area, or indeed in most areas we deal with in a daily basis? How could I know what a 'cast iron' argument was? It can't simply that I can't see how to refute it, To quote Russell on the ontological argument "it is easier to feel convinced that it must be fallacious than it is to find out precisely where the fallacy lies". That 'feels' seems much closer to my experience than bhs's view of how we reach belief.
-
NS,
I suspect I might be a god dodger in that sense.
How so? Have you found an argument for theism that you can’t falsify?
And in no sense would I be being dishonest.
How so? If you can’t falsify an argument for something, on what other basis can you deny it?
You're wrong about it being a necessary condition. The only necessary condition is the lack of belief. If I found an argument that seemed to make sense then I suspect that I would wonder if I could be wrong about it, and since that is possible I wouldn't necessarily accept it. There are multiple things in which I see good arguments on both sides but that doesn't make me dishonest.
But the point is that lack of belief becomes untenable if you can’t falsify an argument for belief. You might cling to it it anyway (ie, cognitive dissonance I suppose) but then we’d be back in denial territory. It’s a bit like the JBS Haldane falsification test for the ToE – rabbit fossils in the pre-Cambrian layer. If one such was found you might still say "I still think the ToE is right in all its particulars" but your position could easily be undone.
You seem to think that we choose what to believe and that in no way chimes with my experience.
Not really, but I do think that we have the capacity to know when our beliefs are false even if we ignore the problem.
-
Maeght,
Depends on what you mean as a sound argument I guess - something which is different from a cast iron argument though.
See below.
Now you are saying insurmountable argument. Which is is? Sound, Cast Iron, Insurmountable?
Irrelevant. All that’s necessary to make the atheist position untenable is that the atheist finds an argument for theism he cannot falsify. Whether that argument is called “sound”, “cast iron” etc makes no difference to that.
Don't see how it is, especially when you go on to agree with my point.
A non sequitur? It’s a non sequitur because your conclusion ("Many atheists have never really considered the arguments for God/theism but just don't have a belief because they have never felt a presence or had an experience to give them a belief") doesn’t follow from the premise ("I don't think 'finding the arguments for theism to be bad ones may or may not be a sufficient reason for atheism but it is a necessary one' is true either").
No doubt many atheists have done that, but that doesn’t remove the requirement that logically you cannot be an atheist if at the same time you cannot falsify an argument for theism.
Cogent argument now. That's four different versions.
No, it’s just four terms for “cannot falsify”. See above.
-
NS,
How so? Have you found an argument for theism that you can’t falsify?
How so? If you can’t falsify an argument for something, on what other basis can you deny it?
But the point is that lack of belief becomes untenable if you can’t falsify an argument for belief. You might cling to it it anyway (ie, cognitive dissonance I suppose) but then we’d be back in denial territory. It’s a bit like the JBS Haldane falsification test for the ToE – rabbit fossils in the pre-Cambrian layer. If one such was found you might still say "I still think the ToE is right in all its particulars" but your position could easily be undone.
Not really, but I do think that we have the capacity to know when our beliefs are false even if we ignore the problem.
I know you like to split posts up but it leads to you, as here asking questions that are addressed in the rest of the post. So The reason that I suspect I might be a god dodger in the circumstance is covered in the rest of the post but you ask why because you are treating things out of context. There are tons of arguments that I cannot falsify it doesn't necessarily mean that I can claim that they are insurmountable, or cogent, or cast iron or whatever description you want to use without defining.
You seem to be getting confused with what might in a very narrow circumstance be defined as rationality, and ignoring how I, to me, would seem to come to beliefs. Now since you are the one making the objective claim here, whereas all I am saying is that it doesn't fit with my experience, I will need a bit more than your ongoing argument by incredulity and simple assertion to see your argument in any way as sound, never mind any other desperately reaching description you might want to apply to it.
-
Maeght,
See below.
Irrelevant. All that’s necessary to make the atheist position untenable is that the atheist finds an argument for theism he cannot falsify. Whether that argument is called “sound”, “cast iron” etc makes no difference to that.
A non sequitur? It’s a non sequitur because your conclusion ("Many atheists have never really considered the arguments for God/theism but just don't have a belief because they have never felt a presence or had an experience to give them a belief") doesn’t follow from the premise ("I don't think 'finding the arguments for theism to be bad ones may or may not be a sufficient reason for atheism but it is a necessary one' is true either").
No doubt many atheists have done that, but that doesn’t remove the requirement that logically you cannot be an atheist if at the same time you cannot falsify an argument for theism.
No, it’s just four terms for “cannot falsify”. See above.
So all non falsifiable arguments are sound, cogent, cast iron and insurmountable? I thinkyou didn't really mean to suggest that.
-
I know you like to split posts up but it leads to you, as here asking questions that are addressed in the rest of the post. So The reason that I suspect I might be a god dodger in the circumstance is covered in the rest of the post but you ask why because you are treating things out of context. There are tons of arguments that I cannot falsify it doesn't necessarily mean that I can claim that they are insurmountable, or cogent, or cast iron or whatever description you want to use without defining.
You seem to be getting confused with what might in a very narrow circumstance be defined as rationality, and ignoring how I, to me, would seem to come to beliefs. Now since you are the one making the objective claim here, whereas all I am saying is that it doesn't fit with my experience, I will need a bit more than your ongoing argument by incredulity and simple assertion to see your argument in any way as sound, never mind any other desperately reaching description you might want to apply to it.
The difference is that other arguments and beliefs which cannot be falsified do not have millions of followers - billions when you include all other non-falsifiable god beliefs - and do not, therefore, have a similar world-wide influence.
-
Maeght,
See below.
Irrelevant. All that’s necessary to make the atheist position untenable is that the atheist finds an argument for theism he cannot falsify. Whether that argument is called “sound”, “cast iron” etc makes no difference to that.
A non sequitur? It’s a non sequitur because your conclusion ("Many atheists have never really considered the arguments for God/theism but just don't have a belief because they have never felt a presence or had an experience to give them a belief") doesn’t follow from the premise ("I don't think 'finding the arguments for theism to be bad ones may or may not be a sufficient reason for atheism but it is a necessary one' is true either").
No doubt many atheists have done that, but that doesn’t remove the requirement that logically you cannot be an atheist if at the same time you cannot falsify an argument for theism.
No, it’s just four terms for “cannot falsify”. See above.
All fine for someone who talks in terms of logic and the philosophical nature of that. I don't so won't get into debates on terms etc
I don't have a belief in God and so am an atheist. I see no evidence for God. Of course I could be wrong and could accept that I was wrong, or likely to be wrong, if the right evidence was presented. My lack of belief is not a matter of evidence but a state of mind in my view, a lack of a sense of belief, presence of God etc The analysis of evidence is secondary to me and to many atheists. Conclude from that what you wish is terms of your logical analysis and philosophical talk - I'm not really interested in that.
-
All fine for someone who talks in terms of logic and the philosophical nature of that. I don't so won't get into debates on terms etc
I don't have a belief in God and so am an atheist. I see no evidence for God. Of course I could be wrong and could accept that I was wrong, or likely to be wrong, if the right evidence was presented. My lack of belief is not a matter of evidence but a state of mind in my view, a lack of a sense of belief, presence of God etc The analysis of evidence is secondary to me and to many atheists. Conclude from that what you wish is terms of your logical analysis and philosophical talk - I'm not really interested in that.
I agree so much with this. Somewhere someone asked recently if believers feel that god is an emotion, and actually there is something in that. God can be very much a feeling and faith is about experience, not intellectual exercise. I think that if an atheist were presented with irrefutable proof that God did exist but they they still didn't experience that as real, the best they could hope for would be a kind of abstract understanding existence of God in the same way that I have a vague understanding that somewhere out there black holes exist. Ok, so it's real, but it doesn't have much of an impact on my life.
Faith is about relationship; without that it is meaningless. This is why I don't get it when believers try to make belief into an intellectual exercise. Vlad's best posts on here by streets have been the ones where he stops sneering, stops shoving god in to fill the gaps and just focuses on his experience of coming to faith.
-
The difference is that other arguments and beliefs which cannot be falsified do not have millions of followers - billions when you include all other non-falsifiable god beliefs - and do not, therefore, have a similar world-wide influence.
That's irrelevant to bhs making an objective claim about what I think which doesn't agree with my experience and is simply based on his argument by incredulity.
-
All fine for someone who talks in terms of logic and the philosophical nature of that. I don't so won't get into debates on terms etc
I don't have a belief in God and so am an atheist. I see no evidence for God. Of course I could be wrong and could accept that I was wrong, or likely to be wrong, if the right evidence was presented. My lack of belief is not a matter of evidence but a state of mind in my view, a lack of a sense of belief, presence of God etc The analysis of evidence is secondary to me and to many atheists. Conclude from that what you wish is terms of your logical analysis and philosophical talk - I'm not really interested in that.
After with much of this, though I would suggest bhs is wrong in philosophical terms as well since if they don't take into account what we as humans are like then the arguments are not sound.
Again this makes me think that in terms of the description on wiki, I might be an apatheist. I can take an intellectual interest in the arguments for gods existing but they seem unimportant to me in real terms. I dislike bad argument or people claiming privileges for belief but gods seem a mere curlicue of that.
-
I agree so much with this. Somewhere someone asked recently if believers feel that god is an emotion, and actually there is something in that. God can be very much a feeling and faith is about experience, not intellectual exercise. I think that if an atheist were presented with irrefutable proof that God did exist but they they still didn't experience that as real, the best they could hope for would be a kind of abstract understanding existence of God in the same way that I have a vague understanding that somewhere out there black holes exist. Ok, so it's real, but it doesn't have much of an impact on my life.
Faith is about relationship; without that it is meaningless. This is why I don't get it when believers try to make belief into an intellectual exercise. Vlad's best posts on here by streets have been the ones where he stops sneering, stops shoving god in to fill the gaps and just focuses on his experience of coming to faith.
'Intellectual exercise', as regards what lies behind many religions, is likely to be counter productive in experiencing its 'truth' or otherwise. It doesn't help when the undefined word 'god' is used and provided with human characteristics inflated to super human proportions, it inevitably leads to an attack and defence scenario on discussion sites.
-
I agree so much with this. Somewhere someone asked recently if believers feel that god is an emotion, and actually there is something in that. God can be very much a feeling and faith is about experience, not intellectual exercise.
Rhiannon fantastic post although some of your blame here is wrongly apportioned.
I look at intellectual formulations of religion as analysis which in fine Lewisian fashion I regard as secondary to experience but which New and modern atheists regard as paramount vis almost anything by Hillside.
Public intellectual debate on religion by the religious with non religion is imv in the context of God as viewed by argumentum ad ridiculum.....Leprechauns, FSM, Invisible unicorns, sky fairy, etc
That shouldn't stand.
A good world view should involve all aspects of life and so forbidding intellectual exercise as you seem to do is imv the wrong way to go.
That said I do not want to detract from your piece recognising in excellent terms the primacy of experience and was reminded of Aquinus who apparently had a divine relevation which caused him to put down his pen and enjoy , without regret of past intellectual triumphs, his faith.
-
Please my post has triggered some more interesting discussion. I would like to clarify that I am talking about belief rather than knowledge. In a situation where there was sound, iron cast, etc evidence, sufficient that the existence of God became a fact, then would become knowledge not belief. I would have knowledge of the existence of God but not belief and doubt I would be religious in tems of worship etc very much as Rhiannon suggested in regard to Black Holes I guess.
I think the use of Leprechauns, Invisible Unicorns etc is relevant when debating specific points of argument but are not, and are not intended to be, exactly analogys of belief in God.
-
Please my post has triggered some more interesting discussion. I would like to clarify that I am talking about belief rather than knowledge. In a situation where there was sound, iron cast, etc evidence, sufficient that the existence of God became a fact, then would become knowledge not belief. I would have knowledge of the existence of God but not belief and doubt I would be religious in tems of worship etc very much as Rhiannon suggested in regard to Black Holes I guess.
I think the use of Leprechauns, Invisible Unicorns etc is relevant when debating specific points of argument but are not, and are not intended to be, exactly analogys of belief in God.
Regarding your last statements.
I don't believe you can use these and avoid a charge of argumentum ad ridiculing.
It is in the antitheist mind set that he or she must be seen as cheeky and bright and slipping in an argumentum ad ridiculing.
-
NS,
Sorry I ducked out last night – last minute call offering Mrs B and me corporate tickets for the Rolling Stones at the Olympic Park. Bloody magnificent – my god for a bunch of pensioners they can really rip it up still. Anyways…
I know you like to split posts up but it leads to you, as here asking questions that are addressed in the rest of the post. So The reason that I suspect I might be a god dodger in the circumstance is covered in the rest of the post but you ask why because you are treating things out of context. There are tons of arguments that I cannot falsify it doesn't necessarily mean that I can claim that they are insurmountable, or cogent, or cast iron or whatever description you want to use without defining.
You seem to be getting confused with what might in a very narrow circumstance be defined as rationality, and ignoring how I, to me, would seem to come to beliefs. Now since you are the one making the objective claim here, whereas all I am saying is that it doesn't fit with my experience, I will need a bit more than your ongoing argument by incredulity and simple assertion to see your argument in any way as sound, never mind any other desperately reaching description you might want to apply to it.
I make no comment at all on how you came to your (non-)beliefs. I merely say that, if you found an argument for “god” that you couldn’t unravel then logically at least you’d have no choice but to abandon your atheism.
So all non falsifiable arguments are sound, cogent, cast iron and insurmountable? I thinkyou didn't really mean to suggest that.
Because I suggested no such thing. You’ve fallen into a pit of Vladian absolutism there, and here’s why: Consider Fred. Fred is an atheist. Maybe he’s an atheist because he’s never felt he experienced a god, maybe he read up on theism and found the arguments for it unpersuasive. Whatever.
Then one day Fred comes across an argument for theism that he can’t unravel. Try as he might, he can see no way to falsify it. Now you might find a way to falsify it. I might find a way to falsify it. It might be an utterly shit argument in fact. Doesn’t matter. All that matters is that Fred can’t unpick it so from his perspective he has a problem – should he retain his atheism and try to forget the argument he’s found to detonate it, or should he abandon his atheism in light of the argument he’s found undoes him?
Do you see it now? It’s a reference point issue – no-one (least of all me) suggests an argument that’s cast iron etc in some sort of absolute way (surely you know me well enough by now to know that I see no way to be certain about anything – unknown unknowns and all that). All I need for the point to stand is an argument that just seems certain enough to Fred.
That was the "because" I referred to earlier: logically at least you can be an atheist by any means you like; find an argument for theism you can't undo though and retaining the atheism is akin to a professor of geology holding on to the notion that the earth is made of cream cheese.
-
Regarding your last statements.
I don't believe you can use these and avoid a charge of argumentum ad ridiculing.
It is in the antitheist mind set that he or she must be seen as cheeky and bright and slipping in an argumentum ad ridiculing.
It is possible if put in the correct way and their purpose is explained. If their use is not clear people do interpret them as being a way of ridiculing beliefs, I agree.
-
It is possible if put in the correct way and their purpose is explained. If their use is not clear people do interpret them as being a way of ridiculing beliefs, I agree.
The really annoying thing about that is that belief in ‘the little people’ existed for centuries - belief in local spirits and animism is more ancient still - and in some places and for some people these beliefs and experiences continue to be real. A theist shouldn’t see comparison to the very real beliefs of others as ‘ridiculing’ their own. I don’t get it.
-
The really annoying thing about that is that belief in ‘the little people’ existed for centuries - belief in local spirits and animism is more ancient still - and in some places and for some people these beliefs and experiences continue to be real. A theist shouldn’t see comparison to the very real beliefs of others as ‘ridiculing’ their own. I don’t get it.
That though cannot apply to the atheists who patently do not respect any of what you have said.
Any apparent respect is merely suspended contempt in some war on theism imo.
-
That though cannot apply to the atheists who patently do not respect any of what you have said.
Any apparent respect is merely suspended contempt in some war on theism imo.
Well to be fair the majority of atheists think any set of beliefs in the supernatural to be a load of old pony. I don’t get why a theist such as yourself should think that a comparison between, say, the practice of prayer and the practice of magic to be ridiculous.
-
The really annoying thing about that is that belief in ‘the little people’ existed for centuries - belief in local spirits and animism is more ancient still - and in some places and for some people these beliefs and experiences continue to be real. A theist shouldn’t see comparison to the very real beliefs of others as ‘ridiculing’ their own. I don’t get it.
I can see how that would be annoying.
-
Well to be fair the majority of atheists think any set of beliefs in the supernatural to be a load of old pony. I don’t get why a theist such as yourself should think that a comparison between, say, the practice of prayer and the practice of magic to be ridiculous.
Certainly many theists of the type who come in for your attacks do not see magic as ridiculous but as a serious involvement of spiritual forces which is detrimental to the participant.
As far as I am aware FSM, sky fairy, Invisible Pink Unicorn have no such traditional following and yet atheists include Leprechauns and the fey folk in that armoury.
A promising line of discussion turned by yourself into another bashing of the monotheists.
-
Certainly many theists of the type who come in for your attacks do not see magic as ridiculous but as a serious involvement of spiritual forces which is detrimental to the participant.
As far as I am aware FSM, sky fairy, Invisible Pink Unicorn have no such traditional following and yet atheists include Leprechauns and the fey folk in that armoury.
A promising line of discussion turned by yourself into another bashing of the monotheists.
You know that there are pagan monotheists, right? And my mother and my best friend are both monotheists and I haven't bashed them noticeably of late.
So, you are frightened of magic. Fair enough.
-
You know that there are pagan monotheists, right? And my mother and my best friend are both monotheists and I haven't bashed them noticeably of late.
So, you are frightened of magic. Fair enough.
Your rush to a conclusion just shuts down conversation.
At the moment you have me treating magic with ridicule and simultaneously fearing its reality.
Careful now since if you say I hold both positions then you can no longer say an atheist can't both ridicule and fear God.
-
Your rush to a conclusion just shuts down conversation.
At the moment you have me treating magic with ridicule and simultaneously fearing its reality.
Careful now since if you say I hold both positions then you can no longer say an atheist can't both ridicule and fear God.
I didn’t know which position you held. Now I do.
It’s been so long since I had a conversation with Christians about witchcraft that I’d forgotten the ludicrous indoctrination of fear of it within the church.
-
I didn’t know which position you held. Now I do.
It’s been so long since I had a conversation with Christians about witchcraft that I’d forgotten the ludicrous indoctrination of fear of it within the church.
Again the same rush to a conclusion which leaves you looking hopefully superior.
Let's not forget your thesis that theists hold magic in the same way atheists hold prayer and magic has been shown as not being a dogmatic absolute.
The rush to conclusion shuts down a promising line of conversation.
I'll see your project fear against magic in the church with pagan arrogance that they can possibly hope to control these forces.
-
All fine for someone who talks in terms of logic and the philosophical nature of that. I don't so won't get into debates on terms etc
I don't have a belief in God and so am an atheist. I see no evidence for God. Of course I could be wrong and could accept that I was wrong, or likely to be wrong, if the right evidence was presented. My lack of belief is not a matter of evidence but a state of mind in my view, a lack of a sense of belief, presence of God etc The analysis of evidence is secondary to me and to many atheists. Conclude from that what you wish is terms of your logical analysis and philosophical talk - I'm not really interested in that.
Are you interested - and if so, can you say how much - in the continuing push for things taught as facts to children to be backed up by objective evidence or classified as unknowns for the present time?
How much of a stand should be made against the teaching by faith religions of their beliefs as truths?
-
That said I do not want to detract from your piece recognising in excellent terms the primacy of experience and was reminded of Aquinus who apparently had a divine relevation which caused him to put down his pen and enjoy , without regret of past intellectual triumphs, his faith.
I get a bit fed up with that Aquinas being quoted right, left and centre as if his was the final word on things religious. It is all very well, but he was talking at a time when a vast amount of the factual knowledge we have now was completely unknown. If he was alive today and saying the same things, he would be justifiably challenged at every turn.
-
Are you interested - and if so, can you say how much - in the continuing push for things taught as facts to children to be backed up by objective evidence or classified as unknowns for the present time?
How much of a stand should be made against the teaching by faith religions of their beliefs as truths?
This reads as a non sequitur to Maeght's post
-
I get a bit fed up with that Aquinas being quoted right, left and centre as if his was the final word on things religious. It is all very well, but he was talking at a time when a vast amount of the factual knowledge we have now was completely unknown. If he was alive today and saying the same things, he would be justifiably challenged at every turn.
He isn't challenged today, rather a Dawkinsian caricature of his work is challenged.
Knowledge of the facts you are eluding to is inconsequential to his metaphysics. Indeed such is the misunderstanding of his work is the uneducated are convinced that his work depends on the universe having a beginning.
-
This reads as a non sequitur to Maeght's post
I didn't write it as a sequitur!! I wrote it as a part of the general discussion.
-
I get a bit fed up with that Aquinas being quoted right, left and centre as if his was the final word on things religious. It is all very well, but he was talking at a time when a vast amount of the factual knowledge we have now was completely unknown. If he was alive today and saying the same things, he would be justifiably challenged at every turn.
Can you give an example of something factual that would be used to challenge something from Aquinas
-
I didn't write it as a sequitur!! I wrote it as a part of the general discussion.
So why quote a post and then write something irrelevant to it?
-
Maeght,
All fine for someone who talks in terms of logic and the philosophical nature of that. I don't so won't get into debates on terms etc
That’s up to you, but it doesn’t change the facts that the atheism of an atheist who finds he can’t falsify an argument for theism is untenable. He might somehow cling to it nonetheless (cognitive dissonance) but he’d thereby put himself in the same position as an astronaut who says he thinks the moon is made of mozzarella.
I don't have a belief in God and so am an atheist. I see no evidence for God. Of course I could be wrong and could accept that I was wrong, or likely to be wrong, if the right evidence was presented. My lack of belief is not a matter of evidence but a state of mind in my view, a lack of a sense of belief, presence of God etc The analysis of evidence is secondary to me and to many atheists. Conclude from that what you wish is terms of your logical analysis and philosophical talk - I'm not really interested in that.
Yes I know, but an argument for theism you couldn’t unpick would be a type of evidence – at least for you. Then what?
-
Maeght,
That’s up to you, but it doesn’t change the facts that the atheism of an atheist who finds he can’t falsify an argument for theism is untenable. He might somehow cling to it nonetheless (cognitive dissonance) but he’d thereby put himself in the same position as an astronaut who says he thinks the moon is made of mozzarella.
Yes I know, but an argument for theism you couldn’t unpick would be a type of evidence – at least for you. Then what?
Arguments are not evidence.
-
Vladdo,
I don't believe you can use these and avoid a charge of argumentum ad ridiculing.
You've been corrected on this misrepresentation, what - ten times perhaps? 20 maybe? Why then do you repeat it as if it hadn't been corrected?
-
NS,
Arguments are not evidence.
They're one type of evidence - which is what I said.
-
NS,
Sorry I ducked out last night – last minute call offering Mrs B and me corporate tickets for the Rolling Stones at the Olympic Park. Bloody magnificent – my god for a bunch of pensioners they can really rip it up still. Anyways…
I make no comment at all on how you came to your (non-)beliefs. I merely say that, if you found an argument for “god” that you couldn’t unravel then logically at least you’d have no choice but to abandon your atheism.
Because I suggested no such thing. You’ve fallen into a pit of Vladian absolutism there, and here’s why: Consider Fred. Fred is an atheist. Maybe he’s an atheist because he’s never felt he experienced a god, maybe he read up on theism and found the arguments for it unpersuasive. Whatever.
Then one day Fred comes across an argument for theism that he can’t unravel. Try as he might, he can see no way to falsify it. Now you might find a way to falsify it. I might find a way to falsify it. It might be an utterly shit argument in fact. Doesn’t matter. All that matters is that Fred can’t unpick it so from his perspective he has a problem – should he retain his atheism and try to forget the argument he’s found to detonate it, or should he abandon his atheism in light of the argument he’s found undoes him?
Do you see it now? It’s a reference point issue – no-one (least of all me) suggests an argument that’s cast iron etc in some sort of absolute way (surely you know me well enough by now to know that I see no way to be certain about anything – unknown unknowns and all that). All I need for the point to stand is an argument that just seems certain enough to Fred.
That was the "because" I referred to earlier: logically at least you can be an atheist by any means you like; find an argument for theism you can't undo though and retaining the atheism is akin to a professor of geology holding on to the notion that the earth is made of cream cheese.
Why invent someone to illustrate your argument by incredulity when you are talking to someone explaining their position and experience as being contrary to your invented person. And I wasn't been absolutist in any sense. You were the one that said an unfalsifiable argument, which has a technical meaning, is a cast iron insurmountable and sound, another term which has a technical meaning as an absolute on a non personal sense. I think this use of terms which have technical meanings in attempting an idealised personal argument is sloppy.
-
NS,
They're one type of evidence - which is what I said.
Yes, I know you said it but you were wrong and repeating it isn't useful. Arguments use evidence they are not any type of evidence. Alien used to make this same basic philosophical mistake.
-
NS,
Yes, I know you said it but you were wrong and repeating it it isn't useful. Arguments use evidence they are not any type of evidence. Alien used to make this same basic philosophical mistake.
Just telling me I’m wrong doesn’t make it so. Try here to get you started:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/evidence/#SH1a
-
So why quote a post and then write something irrelevant to it?
Well, when you get to be as old as I am, you can take a liberty or two, you know! :D
-
NS,
Why invent someone…
I invented someone to illustrate the fundamental reference point error you’d made. All that would be necessary for Fred’s atheism to become untenable would be for Fred to fail to falsify an argument for theism. QED
… to illustrate your argument by incredulity…
There wasn’t one. Try reading what I actually said.
…when you are talking to someone explaining their position and experience as being contrary to your invented person.
Because you’re still not getting it. I don’t doubt your position – and nor have I said otherwise. I merely say that you can only hold it logically or tenably because (presumably) you haven’t found an argument for theism that falsifies it. Nothing more, nothing less.
And I wasn't been absolutist in any sense.
Of course you were. You tried to critique me with a straw man – ie, that I’d said or implied that “cast iron” etc should mean absolutely so. I said no such thing though – rather my point was that an unbeatable argument for theism from the perspective of the atheist would make his atheism untenable.
You were the one that said an unfalsifiable argument, which has a technical meaning, is a cast iron insurmountable and sound, another term which has a technical meaning as an absolute on a non personal sense.
The technical meaning is “cannot be falsified” – that does not though imply I meant “cannot be falsified by anyone”, which is just an assumption you made. I don’t see how any argument can be known to be absolutely right or wrong so I certainly wouldn’t introduce such a notion into a discussion, and nor in any case did I need to for the point to stand.
I think this use of terms which have technical meanings in attempting an idealised personal argument is sloppy.
No, the sloppiness is in assuming something that was neither said nor implied – ie, that an argument for theism could only make someone’s atheism untenable if that argument was also universally unfalsifiable. My atheism would be undone if ever I found an argument for theism that I couldn’t falsify. Wouldn’t yours?
Wouldn't anyone's?
-
NS,
Just telling me I’m wrong doesn’t make it so. Try here to get you started:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/evidence/#SH1a
I didn't say me saying you are wrong makes it so. As to re article given that it covers a wide range of ideas, how about you select s one that you think supports your idea that arguments are evidence rather than using evidence and we might be able to have a discussion?
-
NS,
I invented someone to illustrate the fundamental reference point error you’d made. All that would be necessary for Fred’s atheism to become untenable would be for Fred to fail to falsify an argument for theism. QED
There wasn’t one. Try reading what I actually said.
Because you’re still not getting it. I don’t doubt your position – and nor have I said otherwise. I merely say that you can only hold it logically or tenably because (presumably) you haven’t found an argument for theism that falsifies it. Nothing more, nothing less.
Of course you were. You tried to critique me with a straw man – ie, that I’d said or implied that “cast iron” etc should mean absolutely so. I said no such thing though – rather my point was that an unbeatable argument for theism from the perspective of the atheist would make his atheism untenable.
The technical meaning is “cannot be falsified” – that does not though imply I meant “cannot be falsified by anyone”, which is just an assumption you made. I don’t see how any argument can be known to be absolutely right or wrong so I certainly wouldn’t introduce such a notion into a discussion, and nor in any case did I need to for the point to stand.
No, the sloppiness is in assuming something that was neither said nor implied – ie, that an argument for theism could only make someone’s atheism untenable if that argument was also universally unfalsifiable. My atheism would be undone if ever I found an argument for theism that I couldn’t falsify. Wouldn’t yours?
Wouldn't anyone's?
I haven't said anything about absolutes except that as an individual I am aware that I am unable to declare an absolute. Knowing that affects how I feel about arguments. At no stage have I said that the arguments itself has to be cast iron, insurmountable, and sound in an objective sense, though as already noted your use of a term sound which in a technical sense is a claim to truth, causes issues in discussion because your use of terminology is sloppy.
-
The really annoying thing about that is that belief in ‘the little people’ existed for centuries - belief in local spirits and animism is more ancient still - and in some places and for some people these beliefs and experiences continue to be real. A theist shouldn’t see comparison to the very real beliefs of others as ‘ridiculing’ their own. I don’t get it.
I once pointed out to Vlad that my late great Irish granny believed in the 'little folk' and he said she must have been a stupid old woman.
-
He isn't challenged today, rather a Dawkinsian caricature of his work is challenged.
Knowledge of the facts you are eluding to is inconsequential to his metaphysics. Indeed such is the misunderstanding of his work is the uneducated are convinced that his work depends on the universe having a beginning.
Perhaps you might want to start a thread on Aquinas to shown in your hugely self proclaimed eruditeness, what has not been challenged?
-
Vladdo,
You've been corrected on this misrepresentation, what - ten times perhaps? 20 maybe? Why then do you repeat it as if it hadn't been corrected?
No. That was you trying to deny argumentum ad ridiculing via the miracle of hypnosis.
-
No. That was you trying to deny argumentum ad ridiculing via the miracle of hypnosis.
What colour is the sky in your world?
-
Perhaps you might want to start a thread on Aquinas to shown in your hugely self proclaimed eruditeness, what has not been challenged?
Certainly one to ponder.
I also don't understand why some atheist classify a challenge as an automatic win.
-
Certainly one to ponder.
I also don't understand why some atheist classify a challenge as an automatic win.
The same reason as some theists do? Who cares?
-
NS,
I didn't say me saying you are wrong makes it so.
No, but you didn’t tell me why you thought I was wrong – just that I was.
As to re article given that it covers a wide range of ideas, how about you select s one that you think supports your idea that arguments are evidence rather than using evidence and we might be able to have a discussion?
Gladly. Have a look at this:
“a. Propositional Evidence in Explanatory, Probabilistic and Deductive Reasoning
One way to approach the matter is to consider the role of evidence in certain kinds of reasoning in which we engage. Recently, such a strategy has led Timothy Williamson to the conclusion that evidence must be propositional—that is, that it must consist in a proposition or set of propositions (Williamson 2000, pp. 194-200).
Although Williamson declines to give any theoretical account of propositions, minimally we may take propositions to be the bearers of truth and falsity (what is true or false), the contents of assertions (what is said or asserted) and the objects of propositional attitudes (e.g. what is believed or known). More generally, propositions may be taken to be the referents of that-clauses: for instance, I believe or know that the house is on fire; it is true or false that the Orioles won last night; I said or asserted that Jones is a thief; and so on.
To begin with, Williamson points out that evidence is often featured in explanatory reasoning, in the sense that we tend to infer to the hypothesis that provides the best explanation of the evidence. Whatever else evidence may be, then, at the very least it is the kind of thing that hypotheses explain. But what hypotheses explain, Williamson contends, are propositions; we use hypotheses to explain why such-and-such is the case, and so what is explained—the evidence—is that such-and-such is the case. By contrast, it makes no sense whatsoever to explain an object; we cannot explain this knife, for example. What we might explain, however, is something true about this knife, such as that it is bloody. Here, the evidence would be that the knife is bloody—again, a proposition, not an object. Nor, on Williamson's view, would it make sense to explain a sensory experience. The hypothesis that I have a cold does not explain the tickle in my throat, but would explain why I have a tickle in my throat. Again, what is explained—the evidence—is that I have a tickle in my throat, not the experience itself. Accordingly, if we consider the role of evidence in explanatory reasoning, it seems that evidence is propositional."
You seem to be opening up a distinction between reasoning (or argument) and evidence (“rather than using evidence”) that I think is false. A bloody knife next to a corpse for example isn’t on a stand alone basis “evidence” of a murder weapon – rather reason or argument has to be brought to bear to create an evidential narrative. At a fundamental level therefore all evidence is argument – without it all we have is data (“the bloody knife exists” etc).
As for pure reason (eg, when there is no knife) then I see no barrier to that being evidence either. If we take “argument” to mean something like “truth bearing statements that lead to a conclusion”, then if I say, “All men are mortal” that statement is either true or false. The same goes with the statement “Fred is a man”.
From these two statements (which are themselves reason-based, and so on back up the chain of propositions) I can argue:
1. All men are mortal
2. Fred is a man
3. Therefore Fred is mortal
Logical inference (ie, argument) provides thereby evidence to believe the conclusion that Fred is mortal.
I haven't said anything about absolutes except that as an individual I am aware that I am unable to declare an absolute. Knowing that affects how I feel about arguments. At no stage have I said that the arguments itself has to be cast iron, insurmountable, and sound in an objective sense, though as already noted your use of a term sound which in a technical sense is a claim to truth, causes issues in discussion because your use of terminology is sloppy.
Yes you did. I said (Reply 260):
“But the point was that you cannot be an atheist if you're aware of an argument for theism that's sound. "No sound arguments for theism" is a necessary condition for atheism - or at least it is for honest atheism. Although Vlad's "goddodging" car crash that he just ran away from a while back was hopeless thinking (because it just assumes its premise), ironically someone who found a cast iron argument for theism that he couldn't falsify but who nonetheless insisted he was still an atheist would I suppose be one such.”
Note that I referred there specifically to “someone who found a cast iron argument for theism that he couldn't falsify”.
You then commented (I think to Maeght) in Reply 266:
“Is there such a thing as a cast iron argument in this area, or indeed in most areas we deal with in a daily basis? How could I know what a 'cast iron' argument was? It can't simply that I can't see how to refute it, To quote Russell on the ontological argument "it is easier to feel convinced that it must be fallacious than it is to find out precisely where the fallacy lies". That 'feels' seems much closer to my experience than bhs's view of how we reach belief.”
Again, I’m not doubting anyone’s “experience” here – I merely say that, if you found an argument for theism that you couldn’t unravel, then your atheism would be untenable (at least if you were to remain honest about it). And so would the atheism of anyone else.
-
A note of thanks to bhs for his post which I will reply to when I have the time to do it justice.
-
Again, I’m not doubting anyone’s “experience” here – I merely say that, if you found an argument for theism that you couldn’t unravel, then your atheism would be untenable (at least if you were to remain honest about it). And so would the atheism of anyone else.
Theist: Let's see a bit of unravelling then....
Antitheist: You couldn't possibly understand it and it was done in the past....
Theist: Repeat it.....
Antitheist: There is no point.
Theist: Reference it.
Antitheist: Oh it was before the board was springcleaned.
You see a lot of your 'argument' involves words like unravelling and undoing which lack philosophical precision.
-
Theist: Let's see a bit of unravelling then....
Antitheist: You couldn't possibly understand it and it was done in the past....
Theist: Repeat it.....
Antitheist: There is no point.
Theist: Reference it.
Antitheist: Oh it was before the board was springcleaned.
Reference it.
-
Reference it.
It is a parable Sane.
We know that the ignorant theist is a favourite trope in antitheist circles.
We know this forum has undergone spring cleaning and other changes
We know that posters respond to demands for repeat undoings with stating the pointlessness of the activity....
In terms of referencing......
A note of thanks to you for your point which I will reply to when I have the time to do it justice.
-
It is a parable Sane.
We know that the ignorant theist is a favourite trope in antitheist circles.
We know this forum has undergone spring cleaning and other changes
We know that posters respond to demands for repeat undoings with stating the pointlessness of the activity....
In terms of referencing......
A note of thanks to you for your point which I will reply to when I have the time to do it justice.
. An evasion and a non sequitur. What on earth does the quote from me have to do with any point you think you are making here?
-
A note of thanks to bhs for his post which I will reply to when I have the time to do it justice.
... and don't forget
1. All gods are immortal
2. Jehovah is a god
3. Therefore Jehovah is immortal
and
1. All women are mortal
2. Fred is a woman
3. Therefore Fred is mortal ;)
-
NS,
No, but you didn’t tell me why you thought I was wrong – just that I was.
Gladly. Have a look at this:
“a. Propositional Evidence in Explanatory, Probabilistic and Deductive Reasoning
One way to approach the matter is to consider the role of evidence in certain kinds of reasoning in which we engage. Recently, such a strategy has led Timothy Williamson to the conclusion that evidence must be propositional—that is, that it must consist in a proposition or set of propositions (Williamson 2000, pp. 194-200).
Although Williamson declines to give any theoretical account of propositions, minimally we may take propositions to be the bearers of truth and falsity (what is true or false), the contents of assertions (what is said or asserted) and the objects of propositional attitudes (e.g. what is believed or known). More generally, propositions may be taken to be the referents of that-clauses: for instance, I believe or know that the house is on fire; it is true or false that the Orioles won last night; I said or asserted that Jones is a thief; and so on.
To begin with, Williamson points out that evidence is often featured in explanatory reasoning, in the sense that we tend to infer to the hypothesis that provides the best explanation of the evidence. Whatever else evidence may be, then, at the very least it is the kind of thing that hypotheses explain. But what hypotheses explain, Williamson contends, are propositions; we use hypotheses to explain why such-and-such is the case, and so what is explained—the evidence—is that such-and-such is the case. By contrast, it makes no sense whatsoever to explain an object; we cannot explain this knife, for example. What we might explain, however, is something true about this knife, such as that it is bloody. Here, the evidence would be that the knife is bloody—again, a proposition, not an object. Nor, on Williamson's view, would it make sense to explain a sensory experience. The hypothesis that I have a cold does not explain the tickle in my throat, but would explain why I have a tickle in my throat. Again, what is explained—the evidence—is that I have a tickle in my throat, not the experience itself. Accordingly, if we consider the role of evidence in explanatory reasoning, it seems that evidence is propositional."
You seem to be opening up a distinction between reasoning (or argument) and evidence (“rather than using evidence”) that I think is false. A bloody knife next to a corpse for example isn’t on a stand alone basis “evidence” of a murder weapon – rather reason or argument has to be brought to bear to create an evidential narrative. At a fundamental level therefore all evidence is argument – without it all we have is data (“the bloody knife exists” etc).
As for pure reason (eg, when there is no knife) then I see no barrier to that being evidence either. If we take “argument” to mean something like “truth bearing statements that lead to a conclusion”, then if I say, “All men are mortal” that statement is either true or false. The same goes with the statement “Fred is a man”.
From these two statements (which are themselves reason-based, and so on back up the chain of propositions) I can argue:
1. All men are mortal
2. Fred is a man
3. Therefore Fred is mortal
Logical inference (ie, argument) provides thereby evidence to believe the conclusion that Fred is mortal.
Yes you did. I said (Reply 260):
“But the point was that you cannot be an atheist if you're aware of an argument for theism that's sound. "No sound arguments for theism" is a necessary condition for atheism - or at least it is for honest atheism. Although Vlad's "goddodging" car crash that he just ran away from a while back was hopeless thinking (because it just assumes its premise), ironically someone who found a cast iron argument for theism that he couldn't falsify but who nonetheless insisted he was still an atheist would I suppose be one such.”
Note that I referred there specifically to “someone who found a cast iron argument for theism that he couldn't falsify”.
You then commented (I think to Maeght) in Reply 266:
“Is there such a thing as a cast iron argument in this area, or indeed in most areas we deal with in a daily basis? How could I know what a 'cast iron' argument was? It can't simply that I can't see how to refute it, To quote Russell on the ontological argument "it is easier to feel convinced that it must be fallacious than it is to find out precisely where the fallacy lies". That 'feels' seems much closer to my experience than bhs's view of how we reach belief.”
Again, I’m not doubting anyone’s “experience” here – I merely say that, if you found an argument for theism that you couldn’t unravel, then your atheism would be untenable (at least if you were to remain honest about it). And so would the atheism of anyone else.
I think we are owed
1: A definition of hypothesis as used in this context
2: A worked example to show how it aids you in the war against theism.
-
Vladdo,
Theist: Let's see a bit of unravelling then....
Antitheist: You couldn't possibly understand it and it was done in the past....
Theist: Repeat it.....
Antitheist: There is no point.
Theist: Reference it.
Antitheist: Oh it was before the board was springcleaned.
You see a lot of your 'argument' involves words like unravelling and undoing which lack philosophical precision.
Only what actually happens is:
Theist: Here’s my argument for god…(insert ad pop, argument from incredulity, post hoc ergo propter hoc etc here).
Atheist: But that argument fails because it’s logically false, and here’s why….(insert explanation here).
Theist: Here’s my argument for god…(insert ad pop, argument from incredulity, post hoc ergo propter hoc etc here).
Atheist: What’s the point?
You have for example been corrected countless times on your “argmentum ad ridiculum” misrepresentation yet you repeat it over and over again. Why then demand yet further corrections of your various mistakes when you won't respond to any of them?
-
Vladdo,
I think we are owed...
You'e not "owed" anything.
1: A definition of hypothesis as used in this context
It's a standard term - look it up.
2: A worked example to show how it aids you in the war against theism.
There is no "war against theism" - that's just another of your fanatasies.
-
Vladdo,
Only what actually happens is:
Theist: Here’s my argument for god…(insert ad pop, argument from incredulity, post hoc ergo propter hoc etc here).
Atheist: But that argument fails because it’s logically false, and here’s why….(insert explanation here).
Theist: Here’s my argument for god…(insert ad pop, argument from incredulity, post hoc ergo propter hoc etc here).
Atheist: What’s the point?
You have for example been corrected countless times on your “argmentum ad ridiculum” misrepresentation yet you repeat it over and over again. Why then demand yet further corrections of your various mistakes when you won't respond to any of them?
Where the use of a non ridiculous substitute is possible and not used. It is fair to deduce that an argumentum ad ridiculing is being exploited.
-
Vladdo,
Where the use of a non ridiculous substitute is possible and not used. It is fair to deduce that an argumentum ad ridiculing is being exploited.
And again you repeat your fundamental misrepresentation of what the argument actually entails despite been corrected many times.
Why bother?
-
Vladdo,
And again you repeat your fundamental misrepresentation of what the argument actually entails despite been corrected many times.
Why bother?
Once again you repeat your pisstaking.
-
Vladdo,
Once again you repeat your pisstaking.
Identifying your mendacity isn't "pisstaking" - it's just identifying your mendacity. If ever you stopped doing it, there'd be nothing to identify.
-
Vladdo,
Identifying your mendacity isn't "pisstaking" - it's just identifying your mendacity. If ever you stopped doing it, there'd be nothing to identify.
Use of the argumentum ad ridiculum is pisstaking.
-
Vladdo,
Use of the argumentum ad ridiculum is pisstaking.
Probably would be if anyone actually did it. No-one does though - that's just your corruption of the actual argument.