Antitheism

[Gonnagle]

Dear Sane,

We are surely also as a species inherently religious, as it didn't get beamed down from on high?

That's what I have been saying!! We are a religious lot, maybe they will listen to you, they don't listen to me, my genius is not appreciated on this forum

Gonnagle.

[Nearly Sane]

Easily: our natures aren't indivisible, with only one aspect. They are the result of a jumble of evolutionary outcomes that often pull us in different directions. Very often we can find our emotions or 'gut' instincts at odds with our rationality. Our rational ability cannot stop our brains from 'seeing' faces in clouds and fires...

But it's all 'just' natural. And either determined, or determined with random bits.

[Nearly Sane]

Dear Sane,

That's what I have been saying!! We are a religious lot, maybe they will listen to you, they don't listen to me, my genius is not appreciated on this forum

Gonnagle.

I don't think that it means anything though, Gonzo. We are what we are. Insignificant, yet wondering.

[Nearly Sane]

Just to note my thanks to bhs for starting this thread. It's an interesting area of discussion in terms of how we approach theism.

[Rhiannon]

NS,

But an outcome of what? If you think it to be a sort of mis-firing of our innate need for pattern and narrative to explain the otherwise inexplicable shouldn't we recognise that and seek to guard against it? Eliminate biases? Better a conspiracy than no theory at all it seems, and it creates cause/outcome loop doesn't it because even as an outcome it also causes people to do things that they otherwise might not and that are contrary to their nature.

I think what religion does very well is dress up atrocious behaviour as behaviour that is driven by concern and love. Therefore it becomes a loving act for parents to lock their trans children in their rooms or suggest that their gay offspring seek a 'cure'. If we think of something like the Rwandan massacre it's apparent that good neighbours don't need religion in order to hack each other to pieces; one thing that sets religion apart is its ability to make cruelty masquerade as acts of compassion.

[Stranger]

But it's all 'just' natural. And either determined, or determined with random bits.

Yes, it is (on both counts). However, we are sophisticated cogitating systems - for all practical purposes (god's-eye view excluded), we are capable of making free rational choices, in accordance with that part of our natures and avoiding the consequences of other parts of our natures. Determinism isn't fatalism.

[Nearly Sane]

Yes, it is (on both counts). However, we are sophisticated cogitating systems - for all practical purposes (god's-eye view excluded), we are capable of making free rational choices, in accordance with that part of our natures and avoiding the consequences of other parts of our natures. Determinism isn't fatalism.

You see to me, that, and indeed, any form of this compatibilism,  that gets trotted out by some atheists at such times reads like woo and cognitive dissonance. What is 'free' in a deterministic system?

[Nearly Sane]

I think what religion does very well is dress up atrocious behaviour as behaviour that is driven by concern and love. Therefore it becomes a loving act for parents to lock their trans children in their rooms or suggest that their gay offspring seek a 'cure'. If we think of something like the Rwandan massacre it's apparent that good neighbours don't need religion in order to hack each other to pieces; one thing that sets religion apart is its ability to make cruelty masquerade as acts of compassion.

Religion doesn't from an atheist point of view 'do' anything, surely? It just is.

[Rhiannon]

Religion doesn't from an atheist point of view 'do' anything, surely? It just is.

Well you can split it down into religious dogma, religious teaching, if you like - that it's the belief they are saving their child from hell that enables an otherwise basically decent parent to subject their child to psychological torture. Does anything other than religion offer a hell from which to save your child from or the promise of eternity?

[Stranger]

You see to me, that and indeed, any form of this compatibilism,  that gets trotted out by some atheists at such times reads like woo and cognitive dissonance. What is 'free' in a deterministic system?

Do you doubt that you have the ability to think through problems and decide a course of actions and that said actions will form part of the future? That is, that your deliberations will be significant in future events?

Granted, all that has to work some how and from the unattainable point of view of an all knowing god, your thoughts emerge from the predicable (with possibly some random bits) most basic stuff of the universe but that doesn't actually make any practical difference to you and me who have decisions to make.

What is a truly free choice anyway? I would suggest one in which I act in accordance with who I am; my beliefs and values, my knowledge and experience. None of that is threatened by determinism. In fact, how would that even work in its absence?

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

How can something that is a product of our natures cause us to do something against our natures?

Milgram: the students were not by nature homicidal maniacs but, given the right stimulus - also part of nature - they could be made to behave as though they were.

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

We are surely also as a species inherently religious, as it didn't get beamed down from on high?

No, I think we're inherently pattern and explanation-seeking: that religions happen to satisfy that need for some is a secondary issue, and other types of dogma are available too. It's the tools of reason and skepticism that help us determines when those explanations are false ones.

The point though I think is that I'm anti- any dogma that thinks itself to be infallible because they seem to me to take the brakes off our inherent empathy and circumspection. Kill that guy over there for apostasy? Sure, why not - after all, I know with absolute stone cold certainty that that's what my god wants me to do.

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

Just to note my thanks to bhs for starting this thread. It's an interesting area of discussion in terms of how we approach theism.

Thanks, but I can't take the credit. It started as a discussion about the category error of conflating the disinterested pursuit of truth with what people want to be true (ie, atheism vs antitheism) but it's morphed into something else in no small part because of your good self.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Rhi,

I think what religion does very well is dress up atrocious behaviour as behaviour that is driven by concern and love. Therefore it becomes a loving act for parents to lock their trans children in their rooms or suggest that their gay offspring seek a 'cure'. If we think of something like the Rwandan massacre it's apparent that good neighbours don't need religion in order to hack each other to pieces; one thing that sets religion apart is its ability to make cruelty masquerade as acts of compassion.

Yes, that's Gonzo's "help" point: no doubt the churches do think they're helping, even as they bury the babies from unsustainably large families made so large because of the teachings of those same churches. I remember someone debating Christopher Hitchens (him again) and suggesting that the churches do great food and health charity work in Africa, and his reply being along the lines that they bloody well ought given how much of the problem they caused in the first place.

And speaking of moral bankruptcy - what kind of mind is that that really thinks that dying children is a price worth paying for what his god really wants? Would they think that but for their "faith"? I doubt it.

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

You see to me, that, and indeed, any form of this compatibilism,  that gets trotted out by some atheists at such times reads like woo and cognitive dissonance. What is 'free' in a deterministic system?

You're digging too deep. Ultimately, there's no "free" in free will but using the paradigm of the model we appear to have then if, say, you allow yourself to be persuadable at least in principle by reason and evidence then different outcomes will follow. The alternative as Some says is fatalism - if there's no real "me" at the controls, I may as well stay under the duvet then.

It's a bit like the material world: a different model of my wife from the one I experience is that she's almost all empty space populated by vibrating quantum strings held together by fundamental forces, but that'd be a lot less fun on my birthday so instead I play the hand I'm dealt.

[Nearly Sane]

Well you can split it down into religious dogma, religious teaching, if you like - that it's the belief they are saving their child from hell that enables an otherwise basically decent parent to subject their child to psychological torture. Does anything other than religion offer a hell from which to save your child from or the promise of eternity?

That's just people doing people-y things. That it is unique in some ways doesn't make it anything external.

[Nearly Sane]

Yes, it is (on both counts). However, we are sophisticated cogitating systems - for all practical purposes (god's-eye view excluded), we are capable of making free rational choices, in accordance with that part of our natures and avoiding the consequences of other parts of our natures. Determinism isn't fatalism.

Agreed, determinism isn't  fatalism but it is determined if we are fatalists.

[Nearly Sane]

NS,

You're digging too deep. Ultimately, there's no "free" in free will but using the paradigm of the model we appear to have then if, say, you allow yourself to be persuadable at least in principle by reason and evidence then different outcomes will follow. The alternative as Some says is fatalism - if there's no real "me" at the controls, I may as well stay under the duvet then.

It's a bit like the material world: a different model of my wife from the one I experience is that she's almost all empty space populated by vibrating quantum strings held together by fundamental forces, but that'd be a lot less fun on my birthday so instead I play the hand I'm dealt.

indeed we do and, as ever at such times,I will quote Isaiah Berlin ' Of course, I believe in free will, I have no choice'


That things might be determined has no real impact on what you should believe. You will be a fatalist if it is so determined. I find the whole belief in reason rather odd since many who make the argument also do not believe that we choose what to believe.

[Nearly Sane]

NS,

Milgram: the students were not by nature homicidal maniacs but, given the right stimulus - also part of nature - they could be made to behave as though they were.

Which surely means that they were going to behave like that in that situation, it was in their nature to do so?


I would have thought that Milgram might be an example you want to avoid since it illustrates exactly that in a given situation people will behave 'worse' and that would indicate that talk of inherent altruism is merely that given certain situations people behave as they 'behave'.

[Nearly Sane]

NS,

No, I think we're inherently pattern and explanation-seeking: that religions happen to satisfy that need for some is a secondary issue, and other types of dogma are available too. It's the tools of reason and skepticism that help us determines when those explanations are false ones.

The point though I think is that I'm anti- any dogma that thinks itself to be infallible because they seem to me to take the brakes off our inherent empathy and circumspection. Kill that guy over there for apostasy? Sure, why not - after all, I know with absolute stone cold certainty that that's what my god wants me to do.

These dogmas are inherent too, they cannot exist without us and our belief in them is not externally caused.

[Nearly Sane]

Easily: our natures aren't indivisible, with only one aspect. They are the result of a jumble of evolutionary outcomes that often pull us in different directions. Very often we can find our emotions or 'gut' instincts at odds with our rationality. Our rational ability cannot stop our brains from 'seeing' faces in clouds and fires...

I am not claiming there is only one aspect, indeed, the point is that there are many aspects but it is still just all us. We created all the theism because of that jumble of evolutionary outcomes.

As for our emotions, I will return to Hume, rationality will never tell you an ought without an emotion or desire to tell you that ought. Rationality can help you work out how to achieve that ought.

[Stranger]

Agreed, determinism isn't  fatalism but it is determined if we are fatalists.

You seem to have replied to this post twice and ignored #84 - the contents of which deal with this.

I'll only add that the notion of free will held by many (who haven't thought about it much) is contradictory pixie dust - totally impossible. However, if we adopt a more realistic stance, then, for all practical purposes, we have free will in a way that is consistent with most of our intuitions about it (all of the realistic ones).

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Me, I'd have signs at airports: "Fast track security: atheists only"

Blimey, Hillside giving it ''The full Alf Garnett''.

[Nearly Sane]

You seem to have replied to this post twice and ignored #84 - the contents of which deal with this.

I'll only add that the notion of free will held by many (who haven't thought about it much) is contradictory pixie dust - totally impossible. However, if we adopt a more realistic stance, then, for all practical purposes, we have free will in a way that is consistent with most of our intuitions about it (all of the realistic ones).

Not ignored, just not got round to. I have been replying to a number of posts on the thread.

As covered in one of those replies I don't on a practical level have an issue with thinking we have free will. However, this is a theoretical discussion and mixing the two doesn't really work.

[Nearly Sane]

Do you doubt that you have the ability to think through problems and decide a course of actions and that said actions will form part of the future? That is, that your deliberations will be significant in future events?

Granted, all that has to work some how and from the unattainable point of view of an all knowing god, your thoughts emerge from the predicable (with possibly some random bits) most basic stuff of the universe but that doesn't actually make any practical difference to you and me who have decisions to make.

What is a truly free choice anyway? I would suggest one in which I act in accordance with who I am; my beliefs and values, my knowledge and experience. None of that is threatened by determinism. In fact, how would that even work in its absence?

I agree with you that a free choice is essentially meaningless. I don't know what the difference is between 'truly free' and 'free' which makes any sense in a conversation on theory.

To expand, it seems that this is the same issue I have with the cogito, it is begging the question to insert a perpendicular personal pronoun, there is thinking/choosing, no more in a philosophical sense.