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There’s an idea I might try out…
Atheism requires a commitment to a specific epistemological standard. One which is not unproblematic. cf. Hume’s Problem of Induction. Empiricism has its limits.
I get how Atheists don’t want to say “it’s just another faith”, and in many ways, Atheists are right about that. There is, after all, no hierarchy, and no dogma. But it is incorrect to assert that it makes no requirements of a person who is interested in being an Atheist but isn’t one yet.
@Elemenope
“Atheism requires a commitment to a specific epistemological standard.”
I have to stop you right there. Atheism requires but one thing — for a person not to believe in gods.
I have to stop you right there. Atheism requires but one thing — for a person not to believe in gods.
Yes, but Atheists by-and-large are not nihilists. They must construct belief-structures about their environment; beliefs as simple as “if I eat this food, I will cease to be hungry”. (Not all beliefs are about supernatural matters; the vast majority are practical in nature). How they do so is usually some form of naive or more considered empiricism, relying upon sensory data and attempting to detect patterns, and from those patterns hypothesizing about causes and hidden secondary behaviors.
And nearly every argument I’ve ever seen which attacks religious belief is couched from an empiricist point-of-view.
@Elemenope
It’s irrelevant as to why someone believes that gods don’t exist. Please stop trying to equate atheism with being a faith — it’s not. As a second point please stop attributing characteristics to atheists to either suit your own agenda or from anecdotal evidence. So for example I know quiet a few atheists and the reasons range from thinking religion is “a load of old boll*x” to sheer apathy to the whole concept as they where not brought up in a religious household.
It’s irrelevant as to why someone believes that gods don’t exist.
I respectfully disagree. It is generally very instructive to know exactly *why* people believe how they do.
Please stop trying to equate atheism with being a faith — it’s not.
I didn’t. I merely pointed out that it, like everything else humans believe from the mundane to the momentous, requires a little epistemic humility.
As a second point please stop attributing characteristics to atheists to either suit your own agenda or from anecdotal evidence.
I have an agenda? That’s true, I do. My agenda is to have an intellectually stimulating conversation about matters of Atheism. Why else would I be here? :)
So for example I know quiet a few atheists and the reasons range from thinking religion is “a load of old boll*x”…
A conclusion they came to…how?
…to sheer apathy to the whole concept as they where not brought up in a religious household.
Which is more properly characterized as agnosticism, unless you think it reasonable to routinely go around disbelieving things with which you are not personally acquainted. Most people, when confronted with a question on a matter about which they have no knowledge (due either to inexperience or apathy), will answer “I don’t know”.
You are confusing atheism and skepticism. Although the two things often overlap, they are not synonymous.
“How they do so is usually some form of naive or more considered empiricism, relying upon sensory data and attempting to detect patterns, and from those patterns hypothesizing about causes and hidden secondary behaviors.”
You’ve basically just described the first half of the scientific method there, and since it is the most powerful tool of understanding our universe we’ve ever found, I’m fine with that.
And yes, it is the best method of attacking religious belief, because the religious can’t ever get around the simple fact that there is no evidence that any of their supernatural beliefs are true.
So, yeah, if it’s a nail, you hit it with a hammer. Are you trying to say that our constant use of the hammer displays some sort of failure of imagination?
Are you trying to say that our constant use of the hammer displays some sort of failure of imagination?
Ty –
Why do you feel it necessary to attach normative feelings to my descriptive statements?
All. I. Said. Was. This:
Atheism is a belief.
What is a belief? A coherent statement that a human holds to be true.
Why does a human hold a given statement to be true? Well, there are lots of reasons. Some things we believe because it seems absurd not to (like, say, the Law of Identity, or the Excluded Middle). Some things we believe because they seem intuitively obvious. Some things we believe because we observe something and draw conclusions from those assumptions. Some things be believe merely because we were taught to do so.
Humans also employ personal algorithms for either reinforcing or modifying existing beliefs. Those algorithms usually are based on an intuitive sense of how reliable one’s own senses and reasoning centers are. We tend *not* to formalize them; most people lack the vocabulary or the inclination. But we all do it, heuristically.
And there ain’t anything wrong with that!
You seem to be getting hung up on my admittedly technical use of the word “belief” and believe that I am somehow equating it with the colloquial use of the word “faith”. I’m not, and I’m sorry if that was unclear. In most senses, Atheism is not a “faith”.
———-
BTW, Atheism is skepticism; more accurately a *specific* skepticism (about the hypothesis of God). The grounds by which any given person challenges the hypothesis are diverse, but it is hard to conceive of one that doesn’t rely at least partly on empiricism.
Elemenope,
“if I eat this food, I will cease to be hungry”
That claim is falsifiable. That’s the great thing about the scientific method.
Doesn’t the Bible say that believers can drink poison and not be harmed? That’s certainly falsifiable!
Do we have any volunteers?
No?
While you feel that you have demonstrated the limits of empiricism, I feel that I have demonstrated the limits of blind faith. When the chips are down, most people are going to favor empiricism, whether they know it or not.
Would you prefer an experienced pilot to perform an emergency water landing, or would you prefer someone pious yet totally incompetent?
Empiricism is the best way to deal with reality.
@Elemenope
“I respectfully disagree. It is generally very instructive to know exactly *why* people believe how they do.”
Which has nothing to do with the term atheism — it’s a belief that there are no gods.
“I have an agenda? That’s true, I do. My agenda is to have an intellectually stimulating conversation about matters of Atheism. Why else would I be here?”
Then ask why people are atheists and stop making sweep generalisations.
“Which is more properly characterized as agnosticism, unless you think it reasonable to routinely go around disbelieving things with which you are not personally acquainted.”
Yes if there is no evidence then it’s entirely reasonable. If someone was brought it in a household that was apathetic about the existence of elves and goblins then it be reasonable for them not to believe — unless of course you think that religions must by default hold some special place that removes it from other beliefs with zero evidence?
Also read the post by Ty; atheism != skepticism.
“Empiricism is the best way to deal with reality.”
Yes, and now I’m wondering if Elemenope actually has a point at all.
Do you?
You’ve successfully scrubbed ‘belief’ down to the point where it is true of everything, and is therefore meaningless. It’s like ferociously arguing that everyone is made of carbon.
Ok. So? Does it go anywhere from here? Or was that it?
While you feel that you have demonstrated the limits of empiricism, I feel that I have demonstrated the limits of blind faith. When the chips are down, most people are going to favor empiricism, whether they know it or not.
…
Empiricism is the best way to deal with reality.
I wholeheartedly agree.
You’ve successfully scrubbed ‘belief’ down to the point where it is true of everything, and is therefore meaningless. It’s like ferociously arguing that everyone is made of carbon.
I didn’t do that at all. Remember that “belief” is agent-dependent. In order for something to be a person’s belief, that person must hold it to be true. There are *lots* of thoughts that people entertain day in and day out that they would not assign a presumptive truth value to. None of those would be “beliefs”.
Yes, and now I’m wondering if Elemenope actually has a point at all.
Do you?
Oh, my point! My point was the cartoon, while glib and amusing (I laughed and saved a copy to my HD), was inaccurate. Atheism is a belief (or, more accurately in Wittgensteinian terms a fideistic belief-structure), and as such requires the agent that holds it to possess an epistemic stance which would allow that belief-structure to be maintained.
Since many religious people do not possess that belief structure (a fact which is bitched about ad nauseam around here), to ask a theist to become an atheist (by pamphleting, for instance) requires more of the erstwhile theist than you would like to believe.
——-
Yes if there is no evidence then it’s entirely reasonable. If someone was brought it in a household that was apathetic about the existence of elves and goblins then it be reasonable for them not to believe — unless of course you think that religions must by default hold some special place that removes it from other beliefs with zero evidence?
Wow. I never thought that anyone ever actually *agreed* with W. K. Clifford.
Wow.
@Elemenope
I’m with you. If I could say it better than you already have, I would. It’s frightening to see miscommunication like this from a thrid party perspective. I don’t understand why the idea that atheism would have compounding implications beyond its definition is so offensive.
As I said, I can’t say it any better than you already have, but I’ll try to simplify.
• A belief in God brings with it certain implications.
• An intellectual ascent to the conclusion that no god exists, also brings with it certain implications.
No need for everyone to get all huffy.
• These implications are different, but real in both cases.
@Ty
“Ok. So? Does it go anywhere from here? Or was that it?”
Maybe he/she has gone off to have an intellectual conversation about why people don’t believe in the lochness monster. Just how long does it take to go through “why would you believe it?” is an entirely different question.
Wade, you got it in one, and quite a bit more parsimoniously than I did.
@Wade
“An intellectual ascent to the conclusion that no god exists, also brings with it certain implications.”
Does this also apply to the belief that elves and goblins don’t exist — does this require an intellectual ascent as well? Stop trying to make out that belief that there are no gods in somehow different. What you could class as interesting is how to get so many people to believe that something is true when there is zero evidence for it and the evidence against it is strong.
Does this also apply to the belief that elves and goblins don’t exist — does this require an intellectual ascent as well?
Why do kids generally believe in them and adults don’t? I’d say that’s decent evidence for an “intellectual ascent”.
@Elemenope
“Why do kids generally believe in them and adults don’t? I’d say that’s decent evidence for an “intellectual ascent”.”
Well if you find it stimulating as to why people stop believing in stuff when the realise it’s just plain rubbish then I suppose it’s best to give it a grand sounding title — why people stop believing in stupid stuff just doesn’t have the same ring to it does it?
This implies that atheism is achieved through study.
No child is born believing in God. It takes indoctrination in most cases.
I meant “only achieved through study”.
Maybe not what the cartoon is meant to say, but it sounds like they are saying atheists have nothing good and useful to say to the world. Hence the blank tracts.
Meh.
No child is born believing in God.
Every very young child I have ever met ascribed some (or all) of the things in its world to supernaturalism…especially misfortune or destruction events.
Imaginary friends, talking stuffed animals, weather phenomena…whether they sublimate those supernaturalistic beliefs into a belief in a deity is another thing entirely. A newborn baby, I would think, lacks the conceptual framework to articulate such a thought, even if it were to occur to him/her. Psychologically, perents often occupy the position that eventually deities occupy in many people’s thoughts. As such, you could certainly say they have some primitive notion of deity in their worship of parent.
I agree that no child is born believing in a *specific* God. That’s trivially and obviously true. But I would submit (esp. seeing the history of mankind) that rigid scientific empiricism is a learned behavior, and a recent one at that, governed by modern cultural orientation.
Elemenope:
Do you believe in the existence of an invisible, giant elephant living in the centre of downtown New York? If not, does your non-belief entail any kind of “intellectual assent”? What “certain implications” does your lack of belief in this elephant (who might or might not be called “Frank”) carry with it? Is there any reason to elevate a lack of belief in such an entity as a “faith”?
Not believing in things for which there’s no evidence such a basic default position for most people that you don’t even notice all the things you don’t believe in. Why should religious beliefs be any different?
@ Wade,
A belief in God brings with it certain implications.
An intellectual ascent to the conclusion that no god exists, also brings with it certain implications.
Yeah, I have to ask, why do you need the intellectual ascent part? I’d agree with the rest of it though. I’d say instead:
-To be with belief in God brings with it certain implications
-To be without belief in God brings with it certain implications
To include the intellectual ascent part assumes that theism is normative. That is why atheists disagree with such a statement. Even if *you* think it is normative, it is certainly up for debate and not a given that it is normative.
@ Jabster
“Does this also apply to the belief that elves and goblins don’t exist — does this require an intellectual ascent as well?”
Short answer yes. The implications of this belief would be that you wouldn’t have to worry about casting spells or making potions to protect yourself from goblins or elves. lol
@ LMNOP
Psychologically, perents often occupy the position that eventually deities occupy in many people’s thoughts. As such, you could certainly say they have some primitive notion of deity in their worship of parent.
This is an interesting comment. Parent becomes deity. Well, that makes sense. When we grow up we continue to want an authority figure who will take care of us. So we create that figure to supplant our parents. But this does not support your argument, it works against your argument. What you are saying here is that we transfer our feelings of dependence on our parents to a deity, IOW we create a deity based on our experience with our parents.
Do you believe in the existence of an invisible, giant elephant living in the centre of downtown New York? If not, does your non-belief entail any kind of “intellectual assent”? What “certain implications” does your lack of belief in this elephant (who might or might not be called “Frank”) carry with it?
I do not believe in the existence of an invisible, giant elephant living in the center of downtown New York. My non-belief is entailed by a whole host of other, subsidiary beliefs, about gigantism, elephants, New York City, the (im)possibility of natural invisibility of macroscopic objects, the general uniformity of nature, and the reliability of secondary testimony.
The implications are vast and impossible to encapsulate, but certainly include the data lost to me in the (improbable) event that my subsidiary assumptions are wrong and that there are (or can be) giant invisible elephants here on Earth in a major metropolitan area. The consequences if such a thing were discovered would be large, I would think, and not just to my belief system.
Is there any reason to elevate a lack of belief in such an entity as a “faith”?
I tend not to think so, no. But if your point is that the giant invisible elephant who may or may not be Frank is an effective stand-in for any of the several deities from various scriptures, I’d submit that you are arguing with a big fluffy invisible strawman.
“I tend not to think so, no. But if your point is that the giant invisible elephant who may or may not be Frank is an effective stand-in for any of the several deities from various scriptures, I’d submit that you are arguing with a big fluffy invisible strawman.”
Since there is exactly as much evidence for the elephant as there is for any of several deities from various scriptures, I would say that ‘god’ is in fact a big fluffy invisible strawman.
What you are saying here is that we transfer our feelings of dependence on our parents to a deity, IOW we create a deity based on our experience with our parents.
How does that weaken my position? All I was saying was that it is unreasonable to argue with a straight face that babies are born with a tendency towards unbelief and must be *trained* out of it. The fact is that (most) people are naturally born with a tendency to believe and must be trained to think more skeptically/critically.
Now, I personally think that that tendency is a simple psychological holdover/transference from our innate biological disposition towards parent-figures, and in no way speaks to the *actual* existence or non-existence of any deity/supernatural phenomena. Nor does it in any way indicate which disposition is ultimately “better”.
Since there is exactly as much evidence for the elephant as there is for any of several deities from various scriptures, I would say that ‘god’ is in fact a big fluffy invisible strawman.
It is well known how many Theists never grow beyond a “big guy in the sky” view of God. It is surprising to me, though, just how many Atheists cling to it as well, as a convenient substitute for what many more reflective Theists actually believe in.
I’d suggest you read some Tillich or Kierkegaard before going much further on the “but, but, but…there isn’t any evidence!” track.
You might be surprised how many atheists hanging out here are more familiar with those philosophers than you are. Just because we don’t agree with them doesn’t mean that we’re not familiar with them.
@ LMNOP
Now, I personally think that that tendency is a simple psychological holdover/transference from our innate biological disposition towards parent-figures, and in no way speaks to the *actual* existence or non-existence
Yes, exactly. (And I think this is a not uncommon position, no? That’s why people who have angry fathers tend to believe in angry Gods.)
I don’t think the argument of parental transference supports the assertion that babies are born believing in a God at all. To transfer to a belief in a deity is a recreation of a parent. The concept of deity did not spontaneously generate. The idea was already planted in the parental authority figure.
Now, if you saying the ability to imagine or create or recreate is innate, I would agree with you.
“I’d suggest you read some Tillich or Kierkegaard before going much further on the “but, but, but…there isn’t any evidence!” track.”
I’d suggest you kiss my ass if you plan to be that condescending.
I spent 30 some years as an evangelical, much of that time in ministerial positions. I’ve read the bible through several dozen times, have studied Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, and have read and studied a lot of the apologists.
You know what more reflective theists believe in? A big sky daddy hidden by a lot of words that don’t actually mean anything once you prune the flowery language away.
I smelled pseudo-intellectual theist all over your first several posts. The attempts to claim the semantic high ground are a pungent clue. I know, I used to do that shit too.
But, just in case I’ve misunderstood you, please tell me the compelling evidence that Kierkegaard presents for the existence of a god? Warmed over arguments from incredulity buried under a lot of philosophical grandstanding not allowed.
You might be surprised how many atheists hanging out here are more familiar with those philosophers than you are.
Yes, I would be somewhat surprised. On two levels, and probably not why you might think. It certainly doesn’t have anything to do with them being Atheists.
Just because we don’t agree with them doesn’t mean that we’re not familiar with them.
I said that because ty’s flippant argument about giant invisible elephants misses the mark completely about the claims of those theists. Unless we are talking about (ugh) Apologetics, arguments from theism are not generally arguments from evidence, nor do they make evidential claims. So saying “gee whiz, God is as evidentially bereft as a giant invisible elephant” is a trivial, if true, observation.
I only used the term “intellectual ascent” to refrain from using the word “belief”, which is seen as a dirty word around here.
So, would what you guys are saying is that atheism carries no implications with it other than you just don’t believe in a deity?
There are no social implications, no intellectual implications, no emotional implications, nothing? If you are an atheist you live your life in a vacuum in regards to all other things not having to do with atheism? I would hope not. If atheism is true and belief/understanding of this truth has no real impact on one’s life or the world as a whole, then it is a fact equal to “there is a man wearing a blue sweater in Paris”. Even if it is true, it is without implication. The mere fact that we are having this conversation is a testament to the fact that atheism as an understanding/worldview/belief/intellectual ascent/etc. carries with it certain implications. All Elemenope was saying is that if door knocking, atheist missionaries did exist, they would, in fact, have plenty of material for their brochures. I fail to see exactly why this is such a bone of contention.
I smelled pseudo-intellectual theist all over your first several posts.
Get your sense of smell checked. I’m neither a pseudo-intellectual nor…a theist. Surprise! But at least now I know why you’re so defensive about this stuff. There is no zealot like a convert.
lmnop
Atheists don’t ‘cling’ to the big guy in the sky view–but we know it is the majority position in the faiths that impact on our own ability to live freely in this world. It is the type of theist who seeks to impose his or her narrow beliefs on the majority, often to the detriment of science and individual rights (YEC, ID & Prop 8 anybody?) that we object to and resist.
I tend to agree with Jerry Coyne, who said, in an excellent review article, that “The reason that many liberal theologians see religion and evolution as harmonious is that they espouse a theology not only alien but unrecognizable as religion to most Americans.”
Personally I’m completely indifferent to your type of liberal theology. It’s wishy-washy and harmless, and I’d care less whether you’re off in your little corner being a deist or communing with your navel. Clearly you aren’t a fundamentalist–although to me you are still a sort of well-meaning collaborator, giving support to the aggressive theist majority. Just as theologically liberal Muslims don’t fly planes into buildings but they’re part of a continuum.
Jerry Coyne again, slightly off topic but a great statement:
‘the most important conflict…is not between religion and science. It is between religion and secular reason. Secular reason includes science, but also embraces moral and political philosophy, mathematics, logic, history, journalism, and social science–every area that requires us to have good reasons for what we believe. Now I am not claiming that all faith is incompatible with science and secular reason–only those faiths whose claims about the nature of the universe flatly contradict scientific observations. Pantheism and some forms of Buddhism seem to pass the test. But the vast majority of the faithful–those 90 percent of Americans who believe in a personal God, most Muslims, Jews, and Hindus, and adherents to hundreds of other faiths–fall into the “incompatible” category.’
@ Wade
So, would what you guys are saying is that atheism carries no implications with it other than you just don’t believe in a deity?
Er, no. Not me. And I said so in my initial post. I agreed with you that to have belief or to not have belief brings with it certain implications. But to your comment on brochures, what do you think atheists would include in their brochures?
When atheists argue a point, it is not being argued with “God” anymore than a theist is arguing a point with “not God”. The theist is arguing with the athiest, the atheist with the theist. So the language is tailored to those people. IOW, “God” or “notGod” is not relevent, only the people are.
@Ty
“But, just in case I’ve misunderstood you, please tell me the compelling evidence that Kierkegaard presents for the existence of a god? Warmed over arguments from incredulity buried under a lot of philosophical grandstanding not allowed.”
See: Concluding Unscientific Postscripts to Philosophical Fragments. If you are familiar with the text, check out Division 2 of “The Issue in Fragments”. It begins on page 385* of the Hong translation. It’s Kierkegaard, so its existential philosophy, not apologetics, but he has some pretty interesting ideas. “Compelling Evidence” is a relative term, and a relative term that I wouldn’t use here, but if that sort of stuff blows your hair back you’ll enjoy picking it apart. (but not as much as Kierkegaard enjoyed picking himself apart.)
*yeah, I looked up which page that started on. I would never pretend to be so pretentious as to act like I had page numbers of Kierkegaard memorized, just wanted to make it easy on you, in the off chance that you do want to check that out.
“The reason that many liberal theologians see religion and evolution as harmonious is that they espouse a theology not only alien but unrecognizable as religion to most Americans.”
I tend not to subscribe to the view that Americans are the measure of all things.
Personally I’m completely indifferent to your type of liberal theology. It’s wishy-washy and harmless, and I’d care less whether you’re off in your little corner being a deist or communing with your navel. Clearly you aren’t a fundamentalist–although to me you are still a sort of well-meaning collaborator, giving support to the aggressive theist majority.
My…liberal theology? Wade was right when he wrote “All Elemenope was saying is that if door knocking, atheist missionaries did exist, they would, in fact, have plenty of material for their brochures.” And like him I fail to see exactly why this is such a bone of contention. I especially don’t see what the problem is, AND I’M AN ATHEIST.
I do object to the notion that religious social politics have to have this “you’re either with us or against us and this is the battle of our lives!” eschatological flavor to them. I don’t have to be a flaming jerk to each theist I meet or automatically insult their beliefs just because they aren’t mine. When their beliefs motivate them to do something harmful, I oppose the *action* that proceeds. I tend to agree with the libertarian proposition that you cannot make a person be better, and brow-beating them is an attempt to do just that.
I’ve certainly found that I have more productive conversations, and change more minds, when there isn’t a combative undercurrent to the discussion.
@ cello
I think Atheist at 40 just gave you a good panel for your brochure. ;)
Elemenope…. Will you be my new BFF? hahaha….
@lmnop
I did capitalize God for a reason, but I would actually stick with either God or god.
Per the supernaturalism, a child not being educated enough or have the brain power to explain it’s surroundings is not even close to assigning the world it lives in to a god.
How do you suppose that the mind of a child could even ponder such an abstract thing as the idea of a god?
The idea of god has to be taught, or learned. More specifically, a specific god is usually taught. This is exactly why you probably believe in Yahweh, and someone born in the middle east is taught to believe in Allah.
McBloggenstein –
Fair enough on the god/God thing. But I was reacting more to the implication that children are born “Atheists”, whereas the truth seems closer to born “Agnostics” with natural tendencies towards theistic belief (due to the psychological issue, among others, that I mentioned).
Wade -
LOL!
@ wade – What did Atheist at 40′s post have to do with atheism exactly? To me it was more about how he wants to live in society (which could vary from atheist to atheist). So maybe you are right. That is what an atheist brochure would look like. It would be about any given topic. Intelligent design, gay marriage, perfume, pork bellies.
But seriously though, Elemenope, you hit the nail on the head. Polarization sells ads. So all we see in the public forum is polarization. It’s always us vs. them. That’s why I don’t like James Dobson or Richard Dawkins. The world we live in tells us to pick a side and fight to the death. Reason escapes us quickly at this point. We believe that everything we are hearing is a threat just because of the mouth it is being spoken from. A few posts ago a lot of people were talking about how the educational system has failed us. I think that is true not because there are a lot of people who disagree with me, but there are an alarming number of people who don’t know how to communicate two ways, they just try to yell louder than the other guy.
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” — Aristotle
“Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.” — Chesterton
Wade: If you didn’t have theists trying to outlaw the teaching of science, or erect monuments to their god on public land, or insist that atheists can’t be moral, you probably wouldn’t have anyone espousing atheism at all. Which is why atheists, despite being a far smaller minority, are far more vocal in America than in Europe; it’s in America that theists are actively trying to remove people’s rights.
Not that there are no militant atheists in Europe, but they are certainly less common than in America.
@lmnop (i’m suprised you haven’t said anything about the name that’s been given you)
Hmm.. I see your point, but I disagree. I feel as though you are labeling the time period before a person learns to attribute his/her thoughts of supernaturalism to a god, or specific god, as agnosticism. Isn’t agnosticism, though, the position that one doesn’t know, or can’t know, of the existence of god? In which case, one would have to understand the idea of god, before one could claim that they can’t know of him.
More precisely:
Agnostic = Claim that god is unknowable.
Atheist = Absense of belief in god.
I don’t think for someone to be an atheist that they have to first understand the abstract idea of god, and then reject it. Sure this is the case for the de-converted, but I don’t believe atheism means “the rejection of God”. It just means lack of belief in god.
Therefore, since we are born not even knowing what a god is, I think we are all born atheist.
What do you think?
@ cello
I meant that half-jokingly. But seriously, I think if I were to make a brochure it would hit on a lot of the points Dawkins and Harris hit on, just in a slightly less pompous way.
• Freedom from generational religious cycles. (I like how Dawkins points out how children are identified by their parents religion. That is kind of odd if you think about it.)
• Psychological, physiological, biological understandings of things being more concrete than spiritual understandings
• Freedom from the “daily terror of eternity” (as TS Elliot would put it)
• Basically the last half of Sam Harris’ The End of Faith.
And if you wanted it to be an honest brochure, I assume you would have to touch on the sociological implications of being an (avowed) atheist in a religious cultural setting.
i am not a believer in religion. i consider myself an atheist. however, i do believe in a higher level of conscientiousness that we, as humans, cannot understand at our current state of development.
stating that, i do not believe in a god or god-like figure. it seems silly that something that could create the entirety of existence would give a shit about humans and whether or not we believe in him/her/it.
@wintermute
Somewhere there is a theist saying exactly the same thing. The truth is, its not real. It’s a bunch of blown smoke to get you to watch cable news, read news magazines and listen to talk radio. That’s the reason that it’s so prevalent in America and not Europe. There’s a market for “culture wars” in America. There’s not one in Europe, because there are to many cultures and ideologies to polarize.
@ wade,
Thanks for the examples. I think you are speaking to a specific expression of atheism though. Buddhism is considered an atheistic belief system and I think their pamplets would look very different than that.
BTW, I started the lmnop thing which I didn’t mean to be offensive. I thought she was going for the onomatopia (sp??) thing on purpose.
“Fair enough on the god/God thing. But I was reacting more to the implication that children are born ‘Atheists’, whereas the truth seems closer to born ‘Agnostics’ with natural tendencies towards theistic belief (due to the psychological issue, among others, that I mentioned).”
Agnosticism, as I understand it, deals with knowledge, not belief. Children under 3 or 4 – which would obviously include new-borns – have not developed any theory of the mind yet, thus, new-borns cannot/do not have any knowledge of “God”/gods, thus, they cannot claim to lack knowledge of “God/gods, nor can they determine if such a thing can be known, or not.
On the other hand, by default, they(new-borns) lack *belief* in “God”/gods….which, in my view, would make them at least passively Atheist. Moreover, I would offer that the fact that children believe in “magical” thinking, due their being highly guillible by nature, stems from an innate curiosity – similar to other animals – not from an innate “Theistic” tendencies.
@lmnop
Further:
What boomSLANG said.
Three cheers for Wade and Elemenope, true representatives reflection and grace. I wish more people were like them. Its funny as you read the posts, that after Elemenope identifies himself as an atheist the posts become more civil, and reasonable. Some theists may be morons and deserve some contempt, but Elemenope was making cogent arguments from the beginning and being ruthlessly attacked on the mere assumption that he was theist. So Elemenope you have theist here that will listen with intention, to what an honest intelligent atheist has to say.
atheism/agnosticism
Part of the problem, I suppose, is that both terms have been used to encapsulate two different related concepts, which most academics in the field have taken to refer to as “weak/strong atheism” and “weak/strong agnosticism”, and “weak atheism” and “strong agnosticism” blend together almost seamlessly.
I personally have always thought of Atheism as a volitional thing (as per Kierkegaard), which requires a leap of sorts. Absent that choice, the default is agnosticism of choice (i.e. haven’t lept one way or the other, for whatever reason). But that’s all just my personal sense of things, and the other definitions offered are by all means legitimate.
BTW, I started the lmnop thing which I didn’t mean to be offensive. I thought she was going for the onomatopia (sp??) thing on purpose.
Nah, it’s cool. On the other sites I post, folk just sort of do the “lmnop” thing spontaneously. :)
“Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.” — Chesterton
As usual, Chesterton FTW. Regardless of where one is coming from, that guy was seriously brilliant.
Elemenope, atheist or not, was contriving a straw man, but a useful straw man, inasmuch it gives us an opportunity to discuss the difference between “atheist” and “nihilist.” “Atheist”–once again–simply means “non-theist”. An atheist may believe in all sorts of crap. Take Bill Maher for example.
So Elemenope you have theist here that will listen with intention, to what an honest intelligent atheist has to say.
I appreciate it! When I talk the only thing I can hope is that people listen.
…and being ruthlessly attacked on the mere assumption that he was theist.
I often think that just as theists can often find atheists in our culture to be stand-offish and arrogant, they can sometimes fail to appreciate just how abrasive the insinuation of religion can be into every element of culture. It’s easy to miss when you’re a member of the religion, much as, for example, it is hard for white people in America to appreciate the dimensions of racism against black people because the forms that that racism take are essentially invisible unless you are black.
So I tend to take Atheistic defensiveness in that context (unnecessarily, but understandably, cranky.)
@ The Theists on here!
I was just reading some of the posts and it seems to me AGAIN that atheism is being grossly misunderstood. It is almost always apparent that the comparisons a Theist makes are incorrect. Even veteran non-believer Sam Harris states:
” No one ever needs to identify himself as a “non-astrologer” or a “non-alchemist.”
I would say those are also far to narrow topics to be a fair comparison to theism against atheism.
Instead of “non-astrologer” it should be “non-fortune teller” That would be much more accurate comparison to Theism and Atheism. Millions of people believe in horoscopes, tarot card readings, palm reading & thousands of other methods. They usually are making incompatible claims against each other, bending and waffling pseudo science to try and rationalise their version & explain how it works. Sometimes there is also an ancient sacred text to back up these methods……
In this way being a Fortune Teller is the same a Theist.
It means that you have your belief that your method tells the future, and you are part of a large group, but you don’t believe that anyone else in your group who has a different method of fortune telling has got it right and can actually predict the future. They each might “respect” a few of each others methods. There will be some crossovers of versions of fortune telling, but on the whole, there will be thousands of methods that other fortune tellers use that fortune tellers themselves believe DONT WORK. Just to stress against though…. They are all part of the same group EXACTLY like a Theist.
So I’m a A-Tarot Cardist, an A-Horoscopes etc BUT its not the same as atheism. The plane fact is I am a A-Fortune Tellingist, I don’t believe ANY method can predict the future. I join all the fortune tellers beliefs about the methods they don’t believe work and I don’t believe their method either.
So for a Theist to really understand the position they are in you must accept Theism is as wide ranging as Fortune Telling. Basically it could and does pretty much mean anything.
@ cello
The “Buddhism is an atheistic belief system” statement is a bit of a misconception. Belief in a deity is indifferent to Buddhist thought. Being a theist or an atheist does not preclude anyone from being Buddhist. Some Tien Tai Buddhist believe in a hierarchy of gods similar to Hinduism, while some Zen Buddhist are Christians as well (Take a look at Thich Nhat Hahn and Thomas Merton). Many Buddhists practice ancestor worship. Some Buddhist don’t put any thought into the idea of God at all, but theism and Buddhism are not, by any means, mutually exclusive. Regardless of the absence of theistic implications in Buddhism there is a common and deep running metaphysical thread that runs through all traditional schools of Buddhism.
So, I assume what you’re getting at is that in this same way being an atheist doesn’t exactly preclude believing in unseen metaphysical forces like spirits and reincarnated souls. I’ll concede that point, but I believe it’s an issue of semantics. Are there any atheist spiritualists posting around here?
@ Restless D
I’m the only theist posting on this thread. At what point did I lead you to believe that I don’t “really understand the position [that] Theism is… wide ranging”?
@Barry
I must have missed that detail. I see it only now that I went back to find it, so I doubt my tone has changed, and it won’t now. I only respond to specific arguments, as I know first hand that dissent because of an assumption about the other person is pointless.
@lmnop
Well, I’m unsure if you’re still of the belief that a child is born more agnostic.
By your quote here, you seem to be assigning the definition of “apathy” or “undecidedness” to agnosticism. Remember what I and boomSLANG said:
I think most agnostics would take offense to you saying that they are “on the fence” about God. They do not make a belief claim. They make a knowledge claim. Agnosticism requires a knowledge of god before one can claim that he is unknowable.
Being without decision, or having not “lept one way or the other” requires knowledge of the existence of both sides. This is what I am saying that a mind of a child is incapable of. Of course the sides do not have to be understood well, just known.
I think most agnostics would take offense to you saying that they are “on the fence” about God. They do not make a belief claim. They make a knowledge claim.
Some might. Certainly “strong agnostics” would.
From Wiki, a thumbnail sketch:
# Strong agnosticism (also called “hard agnosticism,” “closed agnosticism,” “strict agnosticism,” or “absolute agnosticism”) refers to the view that the question of the existence or nonexistence of a god or gods and the nature of ultimate reality is unknowable by reason of our natural inability to verify any experience with anything but another subjective experience. A strong agnostic would say, “I cannot know whether a God exists or not, and neither can you.”
# Weak agnosticism (also called soft agnosticism, open agnosticism, empirical agnosticism, temporal agnosticism)—the view that the existence or nonexistence of any deity is currently unknown but is not necessarily unknowable, therefore one will withhold judgment until/if any evidence is available. A weak agnostic would say, “I don’t know whether any deity exists or not, but maybe one day when there is more evidence we can find something out.”
# Apathetic agnosticism (also called Pragmatic agnosticism)—the view that there is no proof of either the existence or nonexistence of any deity, but since any deity that may exist appears unconcerned for the universe or the welfare of its inhabitants, the question is largely academic anyway.
# Agnostic theism (also called religious agnosticism, spiritual agnosticism)—the view of those who do not claim to know existence of any deity, but still believe in such an existence.
# Agnostic atheism—the view of those who do not know of the existence or nonexistence of a deity, and do not believe in any.
# Ignosticism—the view that a coherent definition of God must be put forward before the question of the existence of God can be meaningfully discussed. If the chosen definition isn’t coherent, the ignostic holds the noncognitivist view that the existence of God is meaningless or empirically untestable.
Elemenope,
It does not change my opinion of your arguments whether you are a theist or an atheist.
If someone comes on a thread and makes pseudo-ridiculous certain claims about empiricism “not being all its cracked up to be” (paraphrase), then I am going to vehemently disagree.
Of course I realize that empiricism has its limits. But you don’t have an alternative to that, do you?
I respect your intellect, but your style does not impress me.
@ Wade
The post is more for the Theists
BUT THE
“I was just reading some of the posts and it seems to me AGAIN that atheism is being grossly misunderstood”
Is generally regarding all the posts atheist and theists alike. It seems like Atheism gets compared with always one thing…….
I suppose that was not clear.
Do you believe in fortune tellers?
Of course I realize that empiricism has its limits. But you don’t have an alternative to that, do you?
You must’ve totally missed my response to you @ 4:20pm.
You wrote: “Empiricism is the best way to deal with reality.”
And I responded: “I wholeheartedly agree.”
I’ve never said otherwise. All that I have said is that all paths to Atheism that are not trivial pass through some Empiricist epistemology. Since I am an Atheist, it would be awfully silly of me if I believed the above to calm that Empiricism was in any way a “bad” way of doing things.
Though, I do find that many people (not necessarily you, of course) are unduly and unreflectively enthusiastic about Empiricism, and do not realize its limits. Many others do not realize just how much of how and what they believe depends upon Empiricist assumptions (like the Principle of the Uniformity of Nature, for just one). When, particularly, the theory-ladenness of observation is ignored or trivialized, bad things follow.
Elemenope,
I must have missed your response, and I continue to miss it, but I take you at your word, and thank you for responding to me again.
Oh, weird. I just looked at the post of mine @4:20pm, and it says “this post is awaiting moderation” at the top. That may be why it is not visible.
Yeah… A lot of things get put on hold around 4:20pm ;)
Juvenile, I know… I just couldn’t resist.
Yeah… A lot of things get put on hold around 4:20pm ;)
LOL. I’m pretty sure it’s because I used a slightly dirty word which means “complained crankily” and whatever language filter the site has got ornery. Let me try to repost it with an edit, see if that works…
——————
Empiricism is the best way to deal with reality.
I wholeheartedly agree.
You’ve successfully scrubbed ‘belief’ down to the point where it is true of everything, and is therefore meaningless. It’s like ferociously arguing that everyone is made of carbon.
I didn’t do that at all. Remember that “belief” is agent-dependent. In order for something to be a person’s belief, that person must hold it to be true. There are *lots* of thoughts that people entertain day in and day out that they would not assign a presumptive truth value to. None of those would be “beliefs”.
Yes, and now I’m wondering if Elemenope actually has a point at all.
Do you?
Oh, my point! My point was the cartoon, while glib and amusing (I laughed and saved a copy to my HD), was inaccurate. Atheism is a belief (or, more accurately in Wittgensteinian terms a fideistic belief-structure), and as such requires the agent that holds it to possess an epistemic stance which would allow that belief-structure to be maintained.
Since many religious people do not possess that belief structure (a fact which is [complained crankily] about ad nauseam around here), to ask a theist to become an atheist (by pamphleting, for instance) requires more of the erstwhile theist than you would like to believe.
Yes if there is no evidence then it’s entirely reasonable. If someone was brought it in a household that was apathetic about the existence of elves and goblins then it be reasonable for them not to believe — unless of course you think that religions must by default hold some special place that removes it from other beliefs with zero evidence?
Wow. I never thought that anyone ever actually *agreed* with W. K. Clifford.
Yep, that worked.
Elemenope,
Hey, now we can finally talk about something, huh? ;)
Yes, I agree with your views on when atheism is predicated upon certain beliefs, but then we must decide by which type of belief are we best served.
The atheists’ belief structure, in my opinion, is a better explanation of things generally.
Many theists encourage me to “explore” faith more deeply, but no one has proposed an equivalent mechanism (to empricism or rationalism) by which “faith” in the religious sense may be further investigated. By definition, is it not beyond investigation? Then how can theists compel anyone to “explore” the subject further? By admitting that the subject needs to be explored, aren’t theists inherently admitting that their faith may not be enough to explain their world and that it also may be misplaced? If religion were really just a matter of faith, would we even need to explore it?
@Elemenope
Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard. I think I’m in love. Too bad you’re a godless creature, on the path to destruction and damnation. What are you doing reading those theist idiots? You keep studying their work and you’ll end up a wasted atheist mind like Sartre and Russell.
(I hope that you’re sarcas-o-meter is pegged, as it should be)
your ^… i’m bad with contractions. I missed that episode of school house rock.
Thanks elemenop, you ‘honest intelligent atheist’ you. You’ve cemented a decision I’ve been arriving at for a while to withdraw from UF.
Daniel, I like what you’re attempting here–and good luck, but it’s not for me I’ve realised. I don’t want condescending pats on the back from ‘liberal’ theists, and I can’t be bothered with verbose atheists playing devil’s advocate. Elemenop is a supercilious troll as far as I’m concerned–he knew when he started posting that the nature of his posts would lead us to assume he was a godbot. In the resistance he’d be shot for giving comfort to the enemy.
I’m not sanguine about this. I haven’t the time energy or interest for circular logic and word games. As I said in another post–I agree with Hitch that religion poisons everything. When my son can’t give a school talk on Darwin without being treated like the antichrist, then this isn’t a semantic game. I’ll still be cruising by Daniel, because I like what you have to say. But I prefer the company of the dishonest, scatological atheists at Pharyngula to Christianity’s new best friend.
Happy monkey.
Atheist at 40,
Well, I sort of agree with you, and I sort of disagree with you.
My first reaction to Elemenop was very similar to yours — disgust, annoyance.
Yeah, Elemenop, what you did when you first got here was trolling, as far any reasonable definition is concerned. What other explanation would suffice?
But then I am forced to evaluate the utility of Elemenop’s actions in greater depth — was it useful to me? Was it just meaningless semantics? Was it done for a greater purpose?
Sure, I have to admit, I did find many of those early posts nearly as meaningless as the apologetics most of us despise.
But philosophically, there is something essential which separates my view of how discussions should develop from the hoards at Pharyngula’s perceptions.
I like to have RATIONAL dialogue with theists and with other atheists. If there is one thing Pharyngula doesn’t provide effectively, it’s dialogue. It’s hundreds of people screaming at each other, and I often feel like everyone is talking past each other and no one is really hearing what anyone else is saying. I like Pharyngula, and it serves many purposes, but a rational discussion of religion does not seem to be one of those purposes. If you’re into anti-creationism, evolution, or think P.Z. Myers is a swell guy (as I do), then Pharyngula is a cool kind of place. But it doesn’t give me what I want on the subject of religion.
That is why I love UF: if I say something discussion-wise, I know that other people will hear it. I know that I can force people to address my claims. I know that if someone says something, someone will address it, yet there will not be so much chaos and confusion as to prevent me from forgetting what the point was in the first place.
Recently, I have noticed that especially on some of the sports-themed entries, there has been greater traffic, and with this, much less intelligent commenting (and commenters). It’s things like this which make us dishonest: the sheer scale of the inanity and the stupidity and the obliviousness which we’re up against at times.
But aren’t thing simpler when we’re not screaming at each other and letting our voices echo meaninglessly in the dim voids of blank, reverberating, content-empty text-filled threads?
If we lose our patience temporarily at the cost of substantively addressing the claims which have been made, then I am willing to pay that price, in order to have a civil, rational, and intelligent discourse.
That is what I have come to expect from UF and while I also expect that from Pharyngula, I also expect that I would blow my brains out before I could become particularly effective. ;)
Atheist at 40,
Additionally, I wish you would stick around. I love your reading your comments, and you are definitely insightful and intelligent. I enjoy your perspectives.
One more thing I must ask of you before you leave:
WHAT THE HELL does the phrase “Happy Monkey” even mean?
At Pharyngula, people would think I’m an idiot for not knowing that.
For me, that’s one of its main problems. Why would any rational person enjoy hanging out at a place where people assume the worst about everyone, where the default assumption, not immediately knowing someone, is that any new person is an idiot?
Frankly, I find many of the commenters at Pharyngula to be abusive. I love many of them: many are clever, intelligent and friendly. However, the atmosphere really enables condescension and other issues.
If there’s one other problem I have had with Elemenope’s posts, it would have to be the condescension. I agree with his points, but I think most of us could really do without being talked down to.
I’m just trying to be honest here in describing how I feel about these things.
@Elemenope
“Atheism requires a commitment to a specific epistemological standard.”
ANY utterance “requires a commitment to a specific epistemological standard”, That’s so obvious and necessary that I wonder what’s in your head your trying not to understand and confuse yourself about…
[Edited by DF. Please don't call other commenters names.]
Guys, didn’t you see the signs? “DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS”
@Atheist at 40
I hope that you’ll reconsider leaving. Your comments are ones that I enjoy reading, and I rarely read the comments at Pharyngula.
@Teleprompter
Well said, and I agree. It’s for the calm discussions and debates that I enjoy this blog. Pharyngula is great at raising to blood pressure (because I abhor creationism), but I rarely read the comments there because well… there’s no substance most of the time. It’s 100+ comments that say nothing.
@Elemenope
Well spoken, though decidedly condescending. While your vocabulary is impressive, I think you’d score more points if you spoke in a way that was easier to understand. As it is, I could only get the gist of most of what you were saying, and I consider myself to be of above average intelligence.
There’s one thing I would like to point out, though. The main difference between not believing in an invisible pink elephant in NY vs not believing in any form of God or Gods has less to do with the plausibility of each belief, but more to do with the cultural significance. If we lived in a nation where a VAST majority believed in elves, and invisible flying elephants and alien abductions… then disbelief in those ideas would be treated with far more severity and criticism than we treat them now.
@lmnop
A common mistake.
Some atheists subscribe to a particular epistemological standard. Atheism does not REQUIRE it.
@Tele (I like your new avatar, btw)
I am relatively new to intense discussion on blogs. I see the word “troll” used here and there. Can you explain further what that means to you?
From what I feel like it means, I would label those that pop up here proselytizing, with no intention of actually engaging in discussion, as such. Also those random hit and runs that don’t explain their point. And finally those that intend to deceive.
Perhaps because I am less experienced, I often think that those labeled as being intentionally deceptive trolls don’t even know they are doing it. In that case, I agree that they need to be made aware of it.
In the case of Elemenope, there definitely was a level of purpose with the “suprise! I’m not a theist!”, so that did annoy me. But I agree that the discussion was still able to develop despite this.
I have to say, overall, the only thing I’m surprised at is the level of anger that a simple point provoked. No, I was not trolling, I was arguing in earnest. The “surprise, I’m not a theist” line was my irritation with the following:
1. Truth, whatever its form, absolutely does not depend on the identity of the source
2. Some posters started assuming for the sake of denigration, as far as I can tell, that I was a “theist” and therefore safe to ignore/belittle
3. If that’s the attitude that’s taken, it is no good to continue to conceal my personal feeling on the matter. Which is too bad, because it is always easier to discuss these things when nobody knows “what team you’re on”.
The whole concept of “teams” in this arena thoroughly disgusts me. We’re all in it (or should be) for the “truth” wherever that may lead. The “team” meme allows people to justify to themselves being nasty for no other reason than “well, he was on the other team”. Like burning someone at the stake, converting them at the sword, or simply being nasty to someone who’s trying to have a decent conversation.
A common mistake.
And I’m arguing, for serious, that it is not a mistake. Atheism requires some adherence to an empirical, a posteriori standard (as opposed, say, to some idealistic standard of a priori judgment). I can’t think of any serious atheism (that is, atheism that is thought about for more than five minutes) that doesn’t. FWIW, “a priori atheism” is properly called Ignosticism, and that’s a different beast entirely. Most Ignostics would not deign to call themselves Atheists, and think that atheism is an illegitimate label!
ANY utterance “requires a commitment to a specific epistemological standard”
Me being an idiot aside, that’s not true. A person can dither on what epistemological standard they hold, or compartmentalize for certain purposes. In order to maintain an utterance as a *belief*, yeah, you do sort of have to settle on how you know its subjective truth-value. Not every thought or utterance is a belief.
Well spoken, though decidedly condescending. While your vocabulary is impressive, I think you’d score more points if you spoke in a way that was easier to understand. As it is, I could only get the gist of most of what you were saying, and I consider myself to be of above average intelligence.
It was not my intent to condescend. I tend to write in the way in which I was trained to deal with these matters (a philosophy background) and I find that the vocabulary there is more precise and I can most easily say *exactly* what I mean this way, and so avoid miscommunication. Of course, if my interlocutor doesn’t understand my meaning, I have to clarify anyway. I still think, though, that it is better to be accurate at the risk of opaqueness and explain what I say later, rather than say something inaccurate but simple and have to endlessly amend after-the-fact.
@ McBloggenstein
Sorry, I didn’t mean to insuate that all posts previous to outing of Elemenope were vitriolic, I though yours were fair and reasoned.
I was proven wrong as shown in some of very last posts including atheist @40.
@ Atheist @ 40
Who here is a liberal theist, Wade, because he knows who Satre and Wiggenstein are? I for one would be lumped in with Falwell types if I sat down and filled out a survey on theology for you, but that’s not the point. For you if a Christian is screaming you down and being irrational your justified in your belief that faith is a dogmatic poison to be dealt with harshly. If a Christian however is willing to dialogue then they are a liberal pussyfoot who can’t make a stand. Talk about painting someone into a Catch 22. As for you son, I’m truly sorry that he has had to go through that and you are justified in feeling anger because of it. I experienced the flip side of that though when I was mocked by teachers for believing in a big sky daddy. In reality it was an atheist who showed me how to have a thoughtful discussion. I gave a speech on geology from a Y.E. perspective one time and had an atheist who afterword came and talked to me about some of my evidence and conclusions. You know what he was right on in some of his critique, but where would I have been if someone had instead jumped up and started calling me an idiot, still uneducated. So again from your “liberal” theist, thank you to atheists like Elemenope who are willing to think through the implications of their belief system and discuss like civil human beings how those implications work out in the real world.
@ everyone
It was not my intent to condescend. I tend to write in the way in which I was trained to deal with these matters (a philosophy background) and I find that the vocabulary there is more precise and I can most easily say *exactly* what I mean this way, and so avoid miscommunication.
FWIW, wrt the above, I was a long time poster on a board where most of us were lay people and someone entered the discussion who was a professor in religious studies . The board went bat s*** because of exactly what elemenope said here. The technical definitions of words are often different than the casual definitions of words. It took people six months to work that out because everyone would keep tripping over the various use of the terms and misunderstanding her in the process. So sometimes the educated sound condescending but that is only because we don’t know what they are talking about. :-)
@ Barry,
Well I suppose Daniel did set up the board for dialogue but I can understand where Atheist at 40 is coming from. It is nice to have a place to go where a nonbeliever doesn’t have to frame every comment to please believers sensibilites. There are like 400 million Christian sites on the web so its not like you have a dearth of locations to hang out when you aren’t in the mood to be offended.
@ cello
I could understand Atheist @ 40 if he had been attacked by a rabid theist, but that’s not what happened. Either this site is a place to dialogue or its not, and there is nothing wrong with “venting” like he did, but all he did was pick up his marbles and run away. When people on either side of a disagreement are unwilling to listen we’ve already lost. Atheist @ 40 may well have some of the more important things to say, but if he’s not willing to “suffer” through someone playing devil’s advocate how is anyone that disagrees with him supposed to hear what he has to say?
I’ve said this before in other places, when someone is hostile and dismissive of others that don’t agree with them there is usually hidden at the core some emotional pain or narcissism that is undealt with and this is true of both theists and non-theists. I know from experience, because when I would belittle atheists at one time in my life it was because I was insecure at not knowing the answers to the questions they posed to me. I still don’t know all of the answers but isn’t better to explore the arguments from a person instead of proclaiming them “verbose atheists playing devil’s advocate” or calling them “a supercilious troll”.
@ Elemenope
“I have to say, overall, the only thing I’m surprised at is the level of anger that a simple point provoked.”
That makes two of us. We all need to learn how to exhale, sometimes.
@lmnop
I apologize if you felt any anger was directed at you. I often don’t understand the need for some to label other commenters. I feel that they often forget that most of the arguing that happens on a blog is due to misunderstandings, as cello pointed out. This is why I try and give the benefit of the doubt, and simply try and address points, rather than assume the other person has an agenda based on their views.
That being said, while it’s nice to think that there shouldn’t be “teams” on the issues discussed here, I think it would be difficult to avoid. Perhaps it is my own bias, but I often think that the theists more clearly define themselves as starkly different than us in how they talk and view the world.
From the atheists point of view, the theist seems to have quite a presumptive view of the world, as well as other things that atheists argue can’t be known or can’t even be proven, yet theists commonly claim their deity can be known or proven, but when asked how, they either don’t give reason, or speak of “knowing” using emotion. This type of reaoning is not useful to us for the purposes of discussion.
Quite often, while an atheist simply tries to argue skeptically on something, a theist will provide terrible circular reasoning to argue their views. This is what sets them apart, and frustrates us. Therefore, it is understandable that people here pass judgment based on another’s position. And the theists position being subscribed to a “particular epistemological standard” that more often than not renders them unable to discuss points honestly and rationally.
For these reasons, it is hard to avoid prejudice when debating the “other side”. However, I have still seen it happen many times that someone that admits belief is quite a happy participator.
Also, I agree with what cello said: “It is nice to have a place to go where a nonbeliever doesn’t have to frame every comment to please believers sensibilites.”
This is a blog in which atheism is favored, afterall. You can’t expect a welcome mat for 100% of people if some come by spouting bible quotes (thinking it will mean something) and/or using lines of reasoning that don’t follow for any other aspect of knowledge.
@Elemenope
Ok. I misread what you were doing. It was sufficiently close to a tactic taken by some of the most annoying theist apologists that it falsely triggered my bullshit detector. I think that particular detector is a hair trigger in my case, because it is the one that detects the tactics *I* used to use when arguing with non-believers. I look back on those tactics now with some embarrassment, so I apologize if I projected on you. My fault.
I do disagree with a number of your points, but it’s probably a bad idea to press the issue when I so clearly got off on the wrong path to begin with.
I will take you at your word in future discussions, and not read anything additional into your posts.
Ty –
No problem. :)
I think it’s charming that one of our own would be passionate enough about his/her “beliefs” to correct us on the whole “Atheism is a faith/belief/religion too!”, debate.
Perhaps now I will amend my previous answer when asked if I believe in invisible, conscious beings…aka “God”, to……”Why yes!….yes, I DO believe that God does not exist!!!”
I think the reason so many atheists respond with such fervor to the belief assertion is that it is often the point of a particularly annoying theistic wedge.
We sometimes see that point, and assume the rest of the wedge is right behind it.
@teleprompter:
The Kurt Warner posts have been picked up pretty heavily with search engine traffic (from super bowl), which explains some of the hit-and-run comments on those threads.
I also agree with you about comment threads at Pharyngula. I don’t want UF to become like that, and will enforce stricter comment rules if I have to — but I don’t want to. My hope is we can remain civil without the host having to step in to break up fights and ask people to stop being jerks. We’ll see.
@elemenope:
And I would submit that empiricism is the default behavior for humans acting in every day life. In fact, I would submit that it is so ingrained that decisions we make unconsciously are based on empiricism. People reap the benefits of empiricism merely by remembering to eat every day (not to mention remembering how, how much, what is edible, etc…), but then go on to blather about all its “weaknesses” of empiricism without actually describing any (you’ve taken great pains to cite such weaknesses, but have completely failed to bring any into the discussion).
Also, I fail to see how the elephant is different from God. Each either exists or it doesn’t. Each has zero evidence for its existence. Not many people describe disbelief in the invisible elephant as a “commitment to a specific epistemological standard”, but you seem very quick to assign that description to disbelief in God. I would also point out there there are possibly (I would say probably) more than one epistemological standard that would lead to disbelief in God (clearly there are in the case of the elephant), so that your statement there is actually factually wrong — it is not a specific epistemological standard, but any from among a collection of such standards.
Unless of course you qualify the meaning of the word “God” until it’s unrecognizable. But all that would mean is that you failed to define terms in the first place, which to me is equivalent to moving the goalposts.
Atheism is, as other people have already explained, merely a lack of belief in deities. There are a number of epistemological justifications for this position, so stop trying to pretend otherwise. Stop trying to pretend that atheism and agnosticism are mutually exclusive. There are atheists who are sure that God doesn’t exist, but there are also atheists who adopt the stance that God doesn’t exist in the same mode that they adopt the stance that the invisible elephant doesn’t exist — because there is no evidence for either one, and no way to prove that either one doesn’t exist. In other words, some atheists are agnostics.
Dan L. –
I actually did at several points say that it is a class of epistemologies, all which share the characteristic of being Empirical epistemologies. I believe my exact words were “How they do so is usually some form of naive or more considered empiricism, relying upon sensory data and attempting to detect patterns, and from those patterns hypothesizing about causes and hidden secondary behaviors.” (See my second post). Empiricism is a broad category, all of its members sharing the above in common. This is to contrast it with idealism.
Also, I fail to see how the elephant is different from God. Each either exists or it doesn’t. Each has zero evidence for its existence.
The major difference is that we have experience with elephants, and so have parameters for their expected behavior. We have no such data-set for “Gods”. And so, yes, they are distinct and incommensurate situations.
Atheism is, as other people have already explained, merely a lack of belief in deities.
Please don’t try to tell me that just because many people assert something, it is therefore true. I obviously *disagree* with the definition, obviously pointing out it is a minority opinion will not be persuasive.
There are a number of epistemological justifications for this position, so stop trying to pretend otherwise.
The objection from a priori argument leads to Ignosticism, not Atheism. All a posteriori arguments are by definition empirical.
Stop trying to pretend that atheism and agnosticism are mutually exclusive. There are atheists who are sure that God doesn’t exist, but there are also atheists who adopt the stance that God doesn’t exist in the same mode that they adopt the stance that the invisible elephant doesn’t exist — because there is no evidence for either one, and no way to prove that either one doesn’t exist. In other words, some atheists are agnostics.
As a colleague once bluntly put it, “words mean things”. At least in the strong variety of each concept as they are normally used, atheism and agnosticism are indeed exclusive and incompatible positions. Some usage of the word agnostic implies only a knowledge claim and not a belief claim, and in this very specialized sense (only) they are not exclusive…but still such a person identifies only as an Atheist, not as an agnostic, when asked about their *belief* claims. Which was, y’know, the whole point of this discussion.
Folks who are taking your position seem to want to reduce *atheism* to a knowledge, rather than a belief, claim. Which would make all atheists merely agnostics. Which, one would hope, is recognizable as intuitively incorrect. After all, outside Gettier problems, knowledge is a special subclass of belief (namely, justified true belief), and its possible object claims are much narrower.
——-
BTW, I did raise Hume’s objection to Induction in the very first post as a relevant defect/limitation of empiricism, so your claim that I didn’t mention any is flatly untrue. Later on I mentioned Wittgenstein’s notion of the theory-ladenness of observation. We could, of course, continue. There is Kuhn’s takedown of Popper’s falsification hypothesis. There is the Grue problem. Hempel’s crows. Gettier problems.
Hume and Wittgenstein’s being the most devastating, because they bring into actual focus how tenuous our *faith* in our own senses really is. The others being somewhat esoteric but essentially practical problems about special information situations.
I also noted that there is nothing better; empirical methods are what we have, and at least in rigorous contexts (like science) they have paid great dividends.
@ Dan L.,
When dealing with Theists(and apparently some varities of “Atheists”), my advice, as I said above, is to simply change you answer when asked if you believe in invisible, conscious beings…aka “God”/gods. Yes, instead of repying, “No, I don’t believe in God”…. simply say, “Yes, I DO believe God does not exist!”
(You’ll probably raise some eyebrows, but it is evidentally incorrect to imply that “Atheism” – which wouldn’t even be a necessary term if it weren’t for people insisting that Gawds exist – is not a “belief”. Nevermind that all Atheists are all Agnostic, by default)
Your friend in Faith, boomSLANG
@elemenope:
This is why I object to philosophy as a discipline. It seems to teach its students explicitly avoid thinking clearly about things and to obfuscate anything that can be said definitively using semantics.
First of all, citing a particular weakness of empiricism is not the same as bringing it into the discussion. I have a huge reading backlog, and I will not have an opportunity to read any of the philosophers you mention for at least a few years at this pace. How about instead of merely citing them, you also paraphrase them so that we can discuss them?
This is also why I find you condescending: not because you use big words but because you seem to be adopting the attitude, “well you haven’t read Wittgenstein? Come back when you have.”
We do have a data set for “Gods.” For me, it is a null set, unless we include second-hand descriptions, in which case it is a rather large set. We similarly have a null set of of experience with invisible elephants, which may or may not have a lot in common with regular old elephants. Your argument applies just as well to invisible elephants as it does to Gods, and just as well to anything else for which don’t “have parameters for their expected behavior,” which is a hell of a lot of things. Importantly, my disbelief in those things does not require me to adopt any sort of arbitrary epistemological stance, which seems to be what you’re claiming.
Since definitions are only true by convention, there’s no reason to believe that simply stating a definition would be persuasive. Since definitions are only true by convention, I think it’s only fair that you should conform to the definition advocated by the majority, and define a new term if this disagrees with the term you are using. Don’t you think this is more sensible than to force the majority to redefine a term they have already defined unequivocally?
This is another thing I dislike about philosophy. “A priori” vs. “a posteriori” makes no sense to me. I have never encountered anything that should actually qualify as an “a priori” argument. All knowledge is acquired through the senses or predicated on knowledge thus acquired. Even “2+2=4″ is only true given some set of mathematical axioms, and one can define an uncountable infinity of systems in which it is not true, so I fail to see how even this could qualify as “a priori”. Any insights you could provide would be appreciated.
More later.
This is also why I find you condescending: not because you use big words but because you seem to be adopting the attitude, “well you haven’t read Wittgenstein? Come back when you have.”
Well, and I’m sorry for this, because it will sound a little condescending, but it’s really, really, REALLY hard to discuss the arguments of a particular author if the other party is entirely unfamiliar with that author. I personally have no knowledge of what the average knowledge base is of those that read comments here (though someone suggested upthread that philosophical literacy was pretty high around these parts), but I can’t explain every single argument in detail without typing WAAAAAAAAY more than I care to type.
Not for nothing, but if you are unfamiliar with something mentioned in a conversation, and don’t have the time to read on them *in detail*, there are lots of tools available for you to get a thumbnail sketch of the thing. Wikipedia is your friend for stuff like that. I just looked, and both the article on the Problem of Induction, and the article on Theory-Ladenness (the second redirects to confirmation holism, but it covers the specific topic in detail) are short and quite good.
I’ll address the rest of your stuff in a little while, but I gotta run right now.
@elemenope:
Point taken on using wikipedia, but I would still prefer if during these discussions everyone was willing to at least briefly paraphrase what the argument entails and leave it to the reader whether they would like to follow it up with a more in-depth investigation. I am not demanding that you state such arguments rigorously, simply that you provide a thumbnail sketch so we all know what the heck we’re talking about. Anyway, I understand where you’re coming from this and retract my accusation of condescension.
I think I also may have inadvertently brought the conversation a little off-track with my last post. You originally seem to claim that atheism entails empiricism, and I disagree with this proposition. The fact that there are many types of empiricism, all of which are quite effectively characterized by you in your last post, does nothing to convince me that you’ve actually addressed my point: that empiricism is NOT a necessary condition for atheism, and that you seem to disregard any other epistemological perspective that could lead there (and I’m explicitly avoiding the question of whether any of these are reasonable, whatever that would mean).
I would also like to mention that I object to “strong agnosticism” on the following grounds: if I ask someone whether or not they believe in God, a god, or gods and they respond by telling me that they’re agnostic, all they’ve done is studiously avoided answering my question. It’s not a statement of belief; it’s a refusal to make a statement of belief (though to be fair, this could be because there is no belief to state — which is what I’m advocating as the definition of atheism in the first place).
I disagree with the above on the grounds that “belief” and “knowledge” are so poorly defined that I fail to see how anyone could demonstrate that one is a subset of the other. Just for example, do I “believe” a logical implication of my other “beliefs” even if I hadn’t considered that implication? Does the situation change when the implied “belief” contradicts other “beliefs” I happen to have? Does a “belief” have to be propositional?
I’m trying to mount a defense of empiricism in another thread, and I’ll probably copy/paste it here to get your perspective, since you clearly know your stuff and play devil’s advocate well.
The thread is kinda dying but this is a piece talking about some of the themes mentioned here, saying our brains do have a disposition toward belief in the supernatural.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126941.700-born-believers-how-your-brain-creates-god.html?full=true
There is plenty of evidence that thinking about disembodied minds comes naturally. People readily form relationships with non-existent others: roughly half of all 4-year-olds have had an imaginary friend, and adults often form and maintain relationships with dead relatives, fictional characters and fantasy partners. As Barrett points out, this is an evolutionarily useful skill. Without it we would be unable to maintain large social hierarchies and alliances or anticipate what an unseen enemy might be planning. “Requiring a body around to think about its mind would be a great liability,” he says…
The mind has another essential attribute: an overdeveloped sense of cause and effect which primes us to see purpose and design everywhere, even where there is none. “You see bushes rustle, you assume there’s somebody or something there,” Bloom says. This over-attribution of cause and effect probably evolved for survival. If there are predators around, it is no good spotting them 9 times out of 10. Running away when you don’t have to is a small price to pay for avoiding danger when the threat is real…
Ok, I’m back. :)
It might actually work better to go backwards.
I’m trying to mount a defense of empiricism in another thread, and I’ll probably copy/paste it here to get your perspective
Sounds fun, I’m game. :)
I disagree with the above on the grounds that “belief” and “knowledge” are so poorly defined that I fail to see how anyone could demonstrate that one is a subset of the other. Just for example, do I “believe” a logical implication of my other “beliefs” even if I hadn’t considered that implication? Does the situation change when the implied “belief” contradicts other “beliefs” I happen to have? Does a “belief” have to be propositional?
First, “do I “believe” a logical implication of my other “beliefs” even if I hadn’t considered that implication?” is an interesting question. Beliefs are usually divided into two categories based on the premise of this very question: occurrent beliefs are beliefs that are actively considered by the mind. Dispositional beliefs are those beliefs that are the logical consequences of the occurrent beliefs that have not yet become occurrent. Let’s say you know the definition of the word “bachelor” and you are familiar with the meaning of the word “unmarried”. The definitions of those words would be occurrent beliefs. So long as you have never thought about the specific thought “all bachelors are unmarried”, that thought will be a dispositional belief. Once it occurs to you as an actual consequence of the definitions, then it becomes an occurrent belief.
Do beliefs have to be propositional? That’s a toughie. I tend to think ‘yes’, but it’s far from a settled question. However, the easier question is whether beliefs, whatever their form *in the mind*, can be formalized into a propositional form: I would not hesitate to say yes. We cannot be sure of how the mind forms beliefs, but whatever the process, its output seems to yield readily to formalization.
Can beliefs conflict? They can appear to. I think this problem comes from the old theory that a mind is a unitary system, rather than a society of expert and control systems. Beliefs can be compartmentalized and to that extent, they can conflict. Can contradictory beliefs about the same predicate be maintained? I think not, and dispositional beliefs actually help out here. Say a person expresses two occurrent beliefs that have contradictory consequences. Each of the occurrent beliefs implies a unique set of dispositional beliefs. At some point of exploring those two occurrent beliefs, the person will have no choice but to choose from one or the other set of dispositional beliefs to become occurrent beliefs. The set that tends toward more full realization is the true occurrent belief of the person, and the other was merely a hypothesis that was being entertained. One might say that a person was considering two hypotheses, and once one of the conflicting hypotheses was eliminated, the remaining one became a belief.
I disagree with the above on the grounds that “belief” and “knowledge” are so poorly defined that I fail to see how anyone could demonstrate that one is a subset of the other.
Given what I said about belief above, the definition of knowledge that stood for literally thousands of years…From Aristotle right up until 1963, in fact, was “justified true belief”. That is, a belief (a formalizable proposition which is internalized by a mind) which is true (corresponds with reality), and was arrived at by using some rigorous algorithm that justifies the generation of the proposed belief. Philosophers argue all the time about the appropriate standards of justification, but a popular one is coherentism (which addresses your earlier issue about contradictory beliefs) which argues that a belief is justified by its lack of conflict with the set of all other beliefs you hold. And if you think briefly about anything that you would feel justified in saying you ‘know’ (as opposed to simply ‘believe’), you will find that you do so because you apply some justification schema (consciously or not; usually an indication of what this schema is for a given belief is how you would justify holding the belief to another person), and because as far as your experience goes, it has corresponded well with reality.
A famous three page paper in 1963 by Edmund Gettier blew a sizable hole in the notion that “justified true belief” was a sufficient definition for knowledge. He did it by showing that so-called “benign deception” cases can cause a person to adopt a justified true belief that we would hesitate to call knowledge. For example, let’s say there was an enclosed room with four walls and a locked door, and the door has a window in it. Inside the room, there sits a figure on a chair. The figure appears to be a man named Bob, that you are acquainted with. The figure is actually Jones, Bob’s identical twin, whose existence you are unaware of. Let’s say further that Bob is also in the room, standing out of view of the window. If you were asked to peer into the room through the window, you would see Jones sitting on the chair, and you are likely to form a belief that Bob is in the room. This belief would be justified, in that it is coherent with all the other beliefs you have about Bob, about people, about vision, about rooms, etc.. It also happens to be *true*, because Bob is in the room. The problem is that it doesn’t seem proper to say that you know that Bob is in the room, since the justification schema was acting upon observations of Jones, not Bob. So, a belief that is justified and true isn’t necessarily knowledge.
Gettier problems aside, though, it is still accepted that absent benign deception, a justified true belief is properly characterized as something that is known. Knowledge, therefore, is a small subset of belief; a person can also believe false things, or believe things that fail proper methods of justification, or both, and these three categories would be “non-knowledgeable belief”. However, the technical terms trip us up when we talk about the colloquial sense of “belief”. When people talk about “their beliefs”, generally unless they are talking hypothetically they are really making knowledge claims, things they feel are justified and true beliefs.
I would also like to mention that I object to “strong agnosticism” on the following grounds: if I ask someone whether or not they believe in God, a god, or gods and they respond by telling me that they’re agnostic, all they’ve done is studiously avoided answering my question. It’s not a statement of belief; it’s a refusal to make a statement of belief
Well, I would say that they have answered the question in a way, in the sense that they are answering a more primitive question. What a strong agnostic is saying is they believe “A or not-A”, which is not an answer to the question “A or not-A?” But it *is* a belief statement about the coherence of concept “A”. There is a third option, which is to deny that “A” is a coherent concept; an agnostic by asserting “A or not-A” is asserting that “I can make sentences about A such that A could exist”. This is what distinguishes Agnostics from Ignostics (who would claim that “A” is merely a cipher).
The problem with theism and atheism is that we have no empirical grounds for testing the *truth* of any justified belief about “A”. But! My contention is that “not A” as an occurrent belief implies a dispositional belief. Specifically, it implies a dispositional belief regarding what the appropriate justification schema is for claims about “A”. In order to make *any* claims about “A” the atheist must assert as the Agnostic does that “I can make sentences about A such that A could exist”, and then apply a justification schema to justify the denial that A *actually exists*.
@ Elemenope
“Well, and I’m sorry for this, because it will sound a little condescending, but it’s really, really, REALLY hard to discuss the arguments of a particular author if the other party is entirely unfamiliar with that author. I personally have no knowledge of what the average knowledge base is of those that read comments here (though someone suggested upthread that philosophical literacy was pretty high around these parts), but I can’t explain every single argument in detail without typing WAAAAAAAAY more than I care to type.”
I completely agree. Summarizing just about any noted philosophical work written after Descartes (save maybe Hegel) is a task that I just never want to get into. I know this may sound condescending, but I really, really believe that if you want to have a truly educated opinion on the matter at hand, you would have to have wrestled with the ideas put forth by Kant, Kierkegaard, Leibniz, Spinoza, Russell, Wittgenstein and to a lesser degree Hegel and Nietzsche. I also believe that in order to really glean the bulk of those thoughts you would have to also be familiar with Kant and Hume. (I think, Swinburne deserves a good look too, but that’s personal opinion) Do you think that is overkill?
Intellectually, I was a theist before my immersion in these ideas. Now, I would consider myself, intellectually, an agnostic, and existentially a theist. I feel like the question of God is very important to one’s life, and I don’t know if I could have ever really had an informed intellectual response to that question without an understanding of these thinkers’ ideas.
btw, good work on explaining the basics of the KK-principle.
you would have to have wrestled with the ideas put forth by Kant, Kierkegaard, Leibniz, Spinoza, Russell, Wittgenstein and to a lesser degree Hegel and Nietzsche. I also believe that in order to really glean the bulk of those thoughts you would have to also be familiar with Kant and Hume. (I think, Swinburne deserves a good look too, but that’s personal opinion) Do you think that is overkill?
It’s never overkill! :) But I would make my big five Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Wittgenstein for philosophers generally. They collectively cover a helluva lot of ground.
Nietzsche probably had the most profound effect on my thought of those five, oddly enough. Tillich called him the most important philosopher of religion in the modern age (let me tell you, when I read that my eyebrows nearly fell off my face). He went to explain that Nietzsche’s existential criticism of Christianity was important because it brought into sharp relief very problematic issues (regarding particularly the experience of Christianity) that had been theretofore buried by philosophers who had tip-toed around them. Nietzsche certainly did more to wrench philosophy away from being simply glorified apologetics than pretty much anyone, and also was important for redrawing the lines between science and metaphysics.
Also, unlike most philosophers, he’s actually entertaining to read.
I feel like the question of God is very important to one’s life, and I don’t know if I could have ever really had an informed intellectual response to that question without an understanding of these thinkers’ ideas.
I really liked Tillich’s formulation of what theology is, as the honest striving for a non-trivial conception of the infinite. Leaves room for even atheists to contribute to the framework of matters traditionally deemed “religious”. A good friend and I shared a joke about Kierkegaard, where we both were at about the same place intellectually and background-wise, that when we came to the precipice of belief, we both took a leap pf faith; he just lept one way and I lept the other. (He’s an Episcopalian).
The commentary in the thread above is a (very) condensed version of my exploration of how my existential experience of choosing Atheism could be framed in more general epistemological terms, specifically as to whether there were larger consequences to the choice than the simple frame they are normally given.
Yeah, I sort of ebb and flow with Nietzsche, I love his authenticity that you alluded to. He and Kgaard really opened up completely different avenues of thought. Nietzsche has a pretty brazen disregard for logical structure, though. He denies the antecedent a lot, it bothers me. Kgaard does this, too, but he calls himself on it and then calls his call. He’s the Danish version of the rabbit hole. My favorite religious studies prof. loves Tillich and Buber. I never really got into them. I’m still stuck on Barth. But I have read a couple of John Spong’s books, he’s a Tillich disciple. He’s a good read, but I’m sort of ambivalent toward him. If you like Tillich, you should give him a shot.
I’m with you on the Kierkegaardian leap. Like I’ve said before, intellectually, I’m agnostic. Existentially, I’m theist.
I like Spong, but sometimes I think in his attempt to face those Nietzschean problems that Tillich talks about, he accidentally scooped something important out of Christianity, esp. with his program of de-mythologization. I remember after I finished “Why Christianity Must Change or Die” and my mom borrowed it. She was about three-quarters through it and she says to me…”OK, so why doesn’t the guy just call himself an Atheist and be done with it?” I think she had something of a point, there.
Nietzsche has a pretty brazen disregard for logical structure, though. He denies the antecedent a lot, it bothers me.
LOL. Yeah, I remember reading him at first and thinking “what is this c**p? Guy can’t even use logic right.” I think though, that a great deal of it comes from his idea of the illusion of subject as separate from the verb [will]. It’s hard not to break predicate logic when you don’t believe there’s a true distinction between the antecedent and the consequent.
My sentiments exactly on Spong. Ambivalent is definitely the word for me. I like the essence of his ideas (I assume this comes from Tillich), but I agree with you, his systematic theology has a way of neutering the inherent message of the gospel and Christianity in general.
I saw him give a lecture one time, and I was taken aback by how rigid he seemed about his conclusions. He railed about how the Bible was a sexist and chauvinistic document that had kept women oppressed for thousands of years (which is true, the Bible has been used this way for ages.) During the Q & A, I asked if he gives any credit to the ancient church for empowering women like Phoebe, Priscilla, Nymphas, Chloe, etc. He literally just stood there, stone faced and preceded to the next question. I was less than impressed.