So you're an atheist? Not so fast.

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
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Dark Matter
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.

Post by Dark Matter »

Your original assertion is right, Ranvier. I'm glad I'm not the only one to see there is no "view" or "perspective" other than a critique of the outlook of others.
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Ranvier
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.

Post by Ranvier »

Dark Matter

Thank you DM, I was beginning to feel as if watching a "show" of a blind asking the deaf for directions on this thread :)
Dark Matter
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.

Post by Dark Matter »

Ranvier wrote:Dark Matter

Thank you DM, I was beginning to feel as if watching a "show" of a blind asking the deaf for directions on this thread :)
I've said on more than one occasion that the best the confused have is, "I dunno, but not that," as if it constitutes a genuine philosophical argument. This is supposed to be a philosophical forum, and people still ask, "Why must there a grounding on an Absolute?" Amazing, truly amazing. This is what you get when the virtue of wisdom is scarcely mentioned in even the finest schools.
Steve3007
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.

Post by Steve3007 »

Steve3007, post #156:
If I say "I have a personal purpose" why do you characterize that as me saying "there is no purpose"? If I said "I have a personal iPhone" would you interpret that as me stating that there are no such things as iPhones? If so, again, it's an unusual use of language.
There seems to be a pattern in this thread's particular iteration of the atheist/theist discussion. The theist asks the atheist what atheism is. The atheist replies factually. (It's not believing what theists appear to believe in). The theist asks for an alternative worldview. The atheist gives one. The theist denies the validity of that worldview and asserts that atheists don't have worldviews.


Are you going to the post office?

No.

Where are you going?

I'm going to my own personal house.

You're lying. You don't believe in houses.

Yes. I do. Why would I be saying I'm going to my own personal house if I didn't believe in houses?

Atheists don't believe in houses. You don't know where you're going.

I don't know about this atheism thing. I just know I'm going to my own personal house.

Atheists don't believe in houses. You don't know where you're going. You don't believe in houses.

etc.
Dark Matter
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.

Post by Dark Matter »

BTW, without a grounding in the Absolute, you get people claiming that raw cotton decor is "racially insensitive."
Steve3007
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.

Post by Steve3007 »

Thank you for reminding us of that important central issue, Dark Matter.
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Ranvier
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.

Post by Ranvier »

Dark Matter

Forget grounding in the absolute because "confused" people... become confused even with simple questions.
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.

Post by Steve3007 »

Are you going to the post office?

No.
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Count Lucanor
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.

Post by Count Lucanor »

Ranvier,

Actually, for your original assertion I take to be the one that starts as the first premise of the argument that tries to prove your hypothesis. Your premise is that we are all rational beings searching for a path, and that path is illuminated by the explanation of our existence. By your own admission, atheists have an explanation of their existence, therefore their path is well illuminated. Your hypothesis is proven wrong by the weight of your own assertions.

There's and old saying from the Quixote: "the road is better than the inn". I'm also reminded of Antonio Machado's verse:

" Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking. By walking one makes the road, and upon glancing behind one sees the path that never will be trod again. Wanderer, there is no road-- Only wakes upon the sea."

Life is a journey and the most rational thing to do is to make it a good one. If there were, as suggested, an ultimate purpose, an end that is more important than the journey, why it would be more rational not to end that journey right away? Why not achieving that ultimate purpose just one bullet in our head away from us? Welcome, Camus. As you see, theists don't seem to be exempt from confusion.
The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.
― Marcus Tullius Cicero
Dark Matter
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.

Post by Dark Matter »

Ranvier wrote:Dark Matter

Forget grounding in the absolute because "confused" people... become confused even with simple questions.
I noticed.

-- Updated September 20th, 2017, 10:21 am to add the following --

The surest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live faithfully every moment as a tadpole.
Steve3007
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.

Post by Steve3007 »

Count Lucanor (post #249, in reply to me exploring the idea that in a Newtonian Universe randomness could be seens as synonymous with lawlessness):
Again, just like Ranvier, there may be a confusion here that equates the opposite of randomness with determinism, or unlawfulness with randomness.
An open system may be undetermined, which does not play against its lawfulness. Such a system (as living ones) are often evolving, reacting or adapting to given conditions and producing new conditions.
I'm not sure which open system you have in mind here. I would tend to class the Universe as a whole as, by definition, a closed system with respect to the laws that describe it. And I would say that any complex system can be effectively undetermined while still being describable with what we often refer to as deterministic laws. (What I've characterised here as classical, Newtonian physics.) The classic example being the Earth's weather systems.

I think the whole question of what exactly it means for a system to be determined is an interesting one in itself. Even if we neglect the fundamental randomness of QM, for all practical purposes, we arguably still don't get a determined system, because of effects that are normally placed under the heading of "Chaos Theory". That is, sensitive dependence on initial conditions. So a system can be theoretically non-random but it makes no sense to call it non-random if you believe statements only make sense if they correspond to something that could be measured. i.e. if it looks like a duck... If it looks like it contains randomness...

This is one reason why the "free-will versus determinism" debate could be argued to be meaningless.
Closed systems tend to be more deterministic, but even so they also operate under the circumstances of different amounts of interactions: in theory it would be easier to predict the precise behavior of water waves in a small tank, than in the vast ocean.
I think it's the nature of the dynamics of the system and the things we choose to measure which decide whether we classify a system as effectively deterministic or not.

Anyway. Off topic again I guess. Perhaps I'll find a thread on this subject and re-open it.
Fanman
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.

Post by Fanman »

DM:
It seems to me that atheism, like the OP suggests, lacks any grounding in an absolute, let alone acquaintance with the ideal of anything having an infinite and eternal nature.
Why do you classify an “infinite and eternal nature” as an ideal? I can understand that its an idea that relates to how you perceive God, but what makes it an ideal? Also, when you refer to an “absolute”, what specifically are you talking about, can you give any examples?
Theists believe, agnostics ponder and atheists analyse. A little bit of each should get us the right answer.
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Ranvier
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.

Post by Ranvier »

Count Lucanor wrote:Ranvier,
"...atheists have an explanation of their existence, therefore their path is well illuminated".
What is the atheist "explanation" that illuminates their path for the future?
There's and old saying from the Quixote: "the road is better than the inn". I'm also reminded of Antonio Machado's verse:

" Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking. By walking one makes the road, and upon glancing behind one sees the path that never will be trod again. Wanderer, there is no road-- Only wakes upon the sea."

Yes, try to make the "road" walking off from the roof top... In your mind, Don't actually do it!
Life is a journey and the most rational thing to do is to make it a good one. If there were, as suggested, an ultimate purpose, an end that is more important than the journey, why it would be more rational not to end that journey right away? Why not achieving that ultimate purpose just one bullet in our head away from us? Welcome, Camus. As you see, theists don't seem to be exempt from confusion.
"Life is a journey..." - I'll await your atheist "explanation" of the "path", otherwise the journey will be short in "walking off from the rooftop", evident by the atrocities of the 20th century.

"...good one." - what does it mean? What is a "good life's journey"? What is "good" in this instance? Is "good" only something that allows to continue the journey, such as Not "walking off from the rooftop"? But most of all: "What is a rational for the purpose of journey"?
Dark Matter
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.

Post by Dark Matter »

Fanman wrote:DM:
It seems to me that atheism, like the OP suggests, lacks any grounding in an absolute, let alone acquaintance with the ideal of anything having an infinite and eternal nature.
Why do you classify an “infinite and eternal nature” as an ideal? I can understand that its an idea that relates to how you perceive God, but what makes it an ideal? Also, when you refer to an “absolute”, what specifically are you talking about, can you give any examples?
From a finite point of view, the “infinite and eternal nature” is indefinite but not non-existent: the existential reality will always fall short of the ideal.

From the UB: "Values can never be static; reality signifies change, growth. Change without growth, expansion of meaning and exaltation of value, is valueless — is potential evil. The greater the quality of cosmic adaptation, the more of meaning any experience possesses. Values are not conceptual illusions; they are real, but always they depend on the fact of relationships. Values are always both actual and potential — not what was, but what is and is to be." (emphasis mine)

“A human being is part of a whole, called by us the ‘Universe’ —a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts, and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” (AE)

-- Updated September 20th, 2017, 6:11 pm to add the following --
Life is a journey and the most rational thing to do is to make it a good one.
Sounds to me the Count is advocating hedonism.

-- Updated September 20th, 2017, 6:14 pm to add the following --

the existential reality will always fall short of the ideal.

Let me rephrase that: the existential reality of man will always fall short of the ideal.
Spectrum
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.

Post by Spectrum »

Dark Matter wrote:BTW, without a grounding in the Absolute, you get people claiming that raw cotton decor is "racially insensitive."
BTW, with a grounding in the Absolute, you get people killing non-believers merely because they disbelieve as commanded by the Absolute in a holy book.
As with Islam, the Absolute provide grounds for the extreme of genocide and even the possible extermination of the human species. Other than the above possibility the Absolute is a grounding for all sorts of terrible evils, terror and violence by believers.
Wiki wrote:In philosophy, metaphysics, religion, spirituality, and other contexts, the Absolute is a term for the most real being. The Absolute is conceived as being itself or perhaps the being that transcends and comprehends all other beings.

While there is agreement that there must be some fundamental reality, there is disagreement as to what exactly that might be. For example, some theist philosophers argue that the most real being is a personal God.[3] Some pantheist philosophers argue that the most real being is an impersonal existence, such as reality or awareness.
The 'Absolute' or 'God' is illusory and impossible to be real.
While a belief in the Absolute has psychological advantages for many, the downside is such belief provide moral support for those who commit terrible evils in the name of God.

-- Updated Wed Sep 20, 2017 9:05 pm to add the following --
[b]Dark Matter[/b] wrote:the existential reality will always fall short of the ideal.
Let me rephrase that: the existential reality of man will always fall short of the ideal.
Philosophically, it impossible for an ideal to exist as real.

One can think and reason out a perfect circle [an ideal] but a perfect circle cannot exists in reality by itself. A perfect circle is an inference from an empirical base and there is no way such a perfect circle exists in reality. Show me one if you insist.

From the above it is obvious even when it is empirical, there is no ideal and thus it would more difficult for any non-empirical ideal to exists, e.g. perfect beauty, love and the likes?
The Absolute is a non-empirical thought and to insist on the existent of a ideal like the Absolute is impossible and ridiculous.

Yes, humans can think and even reason [crude] perfection, an ideal or the Absolute, but at most they are only thoughts albeit useful one for psychological purposes to soothe the existential crisis.

-- Updated Wed Sep 20, 2017 9:11 pm to add the following --

Dark Matter,
Here is how Kant describe, even the wisest of men cannot free themselves from a psychological necessary illusion.
Kant in COPR wrote:There will therefore be Syllogisms which contain no Empirical premisses, and by means of which we conclude from something which we know to something else of which we have no Concept, and to which, owing to an inevitable Illusion, we yet ascribe Objective Reality.

These conclusions are, then, rather to be called pseudo-Rational than Rational, although in view of their Origin they may well lay claim to the latter title, since they are not fictitious and have not arisen fortuitously, but have sprung from the very Nature of Reason.

They are sophistications not of men but of Pure Reason itself. Even the wisest of men cannot free himself from them. After long effort he perhaps succeeds in guarding himself against actual error; but he will never be able to free himself from the Illusion, which unceasingly mocks and torments him. -B397
Not-a-theist. Religion is a critical necessity for humanity now, but not the FUTURE.
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