The simplicity of atheism

Fair enough arendt. Sorry oreso, I initially interpreted your comment as patronizing – telling us that we “should” do something without explaining what exactly it was or why we should do it. My response was meant to puncture an arrogance which apparently was not really there. Let’s just say, then, that my sarcasm wasn’t intended for you.

I understand, but without further development the proposition is devoid of material to attack or defend. What assumptions should be reconsidered? Why should we not accept an answer that makes us feel “comfortable” (whether or not those answers are “made up” is obviously a matter of dispute)?

By contrast, my initial statement apparently had something to attack. Am I being silly? I would suggest not.

William James proposed that two desires guide man when he makes judgments: the desire to find truth and the desire to avoid error. In my heart (by which I mean merely the seat of desires) I seek to strike a balance between these two desires when I consider the question of god. If it is true that there is a god, intelligent and loving like us, who created the universe, I see that as a good and beautiful thing. My desire to believe it is therefore high. If there is no such god and the universe simply is the way it is without explanation, I don’t think I’ve lost much by believing. So my fear of error is low. My desire for truth outweighs my fear of error in this case, so I believe.

In short, I stand to gain an important truth (and perhaps more) if I believe, while I stand to lose little to nothing if I’m wrong. So I believe.

NOTE: This sounds like Pascal’s wager, but it isn’t. Pascal’s wager is about getting people to believe in the Christian god. My wager is just about believing in an intelligent loving creator. Pascal’s wager weighs bliss in heaven against suffering in hell. My wager merely weighs the possibility of discovering a god behind the universe against the possibility of making such a search in vain. My wager seeks to establish much less than Pascal’s but I feel that philosophically it is on stronger ground.

Now that I’ve explained what I mean by “satisfying my heart” in more detail, you may still feel that it’s silly to seek truth by weighing desires. I submit, however, that you do this every moment of your life. For example, suppose I were to tell you that there is a man eating tiger behind you right now, and your only chance is to run for your life right this moment. You would not believe me, right? But why not?

Certainly the tiger attack is possible, so you can’t discount it on logical grounds. Perhaps you’d discount it on probabilistic grounds – since man eating tigers have never attacked you before, it’s “unlikely” to happen now, so you won’t worry about it. If you make this argument, I first ask: what do you mean by “unlikely”? and what gives you the knowledge that said event is in fact unlikely? Second, why does unlikelihood imply that you shouldn’t worry about something? I submit that in general that implication does not hold, and here is a counterexample.

Suppose that you are shopping in a store and a store employee stops to talk to you. She says that she thought she saw you leaving a car with a baby inside. It’s a hot summer day and recently you’ve heard terrible stories of parents who accidentally leave their children in their cars where they die of heat stroke (note: this really does happen). But you’re quite confident you did not leave your child in the car, because you always drop your baby off at home before you go grocery shopping. At least you’re pretty sure – it was a few hours ago and you’ve been very busy with errands in the mean time. You ask the employee if she’s sure and she says no, but she saw someone do this and is very concerned. Clearly here the probability of you breaking your routine here and not remembering is pretty low. In addition, the frequency of such deaths is probably very low relative to the number of parents who accidentally leave children in the car, so overall from both considerations the probability that your child is dying in the car right now is very low. But I submit that, regardless of probability, you will probably call home on the cellphone, abandoning your shopping cart and quickly making your way out of the store to check. Why? Because your desire for truth and fear of error in this situation overwhelm all cool objective considerations of probability. Therefore you tentatively judge, for practical purposes, that your baby is in danger and act accordingly.

This is how humans operate: not under cool considerations of logic and probability, but continually guided in their judgments by the desire for truth and the fear of error. You may object that such considerations apply only to what we will act (for example, whether or not we will run out of the supermarket in the above example) and not to what we will believe. But if you “believe” one thing and continually act in a way contrary to that belief, I submit that you do not really believe what you say you believe. Action is the measure of a man. A man may say he believes he is a chicken, but if he goes about his daily business like an ordinary man, he does not (in any practical sense) believe he is a chicken.

In summary: action is the measure of a man’s beliefs and judgments, not what he says he believes and judges true and false. But we act on the basis of weighing the desire for truth against the fear of error, wagering against ourselves and the universe in the hopes of coming out ultimately happy and satisfied with the life we’ve led. Therefore, we SHOULD decide the question of a god’s existence by weighing the desires to “satisfy one’s heart”; in fact we are incapable of doing otherwise.

Eh? Your own of course! My post wasnt made in vacuum, though yours wasnt the only one it was aimed at.

Because comfortableness is not a indication of truthfulness, and only true beliefs are helpful.

For your argument:
You have answered my counter argument in the next paragraph every time, highly commendable!

To answer though:
Your argument is still Pascal’s wager, just applied to normal life rather than the afterlife. Ie. it is more beneficial to believe than not believe, regardless of likelihood.

I still hold a distinction between a belief and ‘action’, and further, between ‘action’ and ‘enquiry’. The tiger warrants no consideration because the chances are too low. The baby warrants consideration because the chances are not that low and the consequences are still high, thus i would enquire further, and depending on the overall evidence i would form a belief based on likelihood alone. If i was in a situation where i cannot enquire further and must make a decision quickly they i would, as you say, try and avoid error and would act as if the belief were true until i can enquire further. However, this is still not a belief, but simply preparing for the worst.

With god, this is not the case. I am free to enquire for all of my life, and based on the evidence thus far I must conclude against. I cannot choose my beliefs and nor do i act as if my beliefs were different, and i dont have to prepare for the worst (indeed, it is random whether my preparations would be sufficient making any preparation seem futile).

Attempting to destroy the difference between ‘preparing for the worst’ and ‘acting out of belief’ is rubbish. How people act is not the direct manifestation of their beliefs, only a pretty vague byproduct, and cannot be used to determine them with any hope of accuracy.

Acting contrary to your beliefs obviously entails that you hold a different belief. However, with the examples you give I have not formed any belief to be contradicted.

This is the crux of the counter-argument:
With god of course, i cannot act and not believe, like i do with the baby and other examples of preparing for the worst, because the beneficial act is belief itself. This i cannot do. If i was warned that my baby was at risk until i believed my baby was actually at risk, and no other good evidence were available, i would dismiss the warning as lunacy at best (and at worst, an attempt at manipulation).

Ah. Good meat and veg!

Fresh cheese and onion pasties

Completely empty. We are suposed to accept the existance of ‘soul’ and furthermore that it must be somehow ‘nourished’ and furthermore how to nourish it, all on this guys word alone?
LoL.

What I intend to advocate here is not a fixed, irrevocable belief in a god. On the contrary, I think it probably best that no one have fixed, irrevocable beliefs about anything. If I advocate any belief at all it is a tentative belief, always open to criticism and reversing. Furthermore I’m not advocating a purely mental belief in god. Purely mental beliefs have zero importance to me. Any belief in god, however tentative, should involve some action towards knowing more about the god. So what I’m really proposing here is that we attempt to know more about this god. This attempt should involve at the very least openness to religious claims, and perhaps some prayer that god would grant one eyes to see him.

I think we all want to believe that this world was made for a reason, and for a good and loving purpose. There’s a desire for that truth. But we also fear that if we err, we may waste our lives studying or following religion when we could have been doing something else. But I don’t think you need to put your life on hold to search for god, or that the effort expended in a search was horribly wasted if the search was in vain. We can look for information and perhaps a relationship with this god through religion and by looking for him in our daily lives. If the search doesn’t yield anything, perhaps we put it on the back burner and wait for life to bring us something new (which is where I am with it).

My main point here is that the beneficial act I want to consider is not just belief. Beliefs by themselves are of no importance. The beneficial act is openness and willingness to listen to religious claims, and openness to interpreting aspects of life as revealing something about god. Furthermore, if we come across something interesting during this ‘openness’, we actively pursue it to see what it tells us about god. We do this because of the wager-like considerations I outlined earlier; just like we “prepare for the worst” by checking on the baby, we prepare for the best by seeking out god. We do not lose much of anything by looking for him, and stand to gain much more.

I truly dont. The world is good enough as is, without there being a purpose to it. A purpose would relegate it to a tool, rather than the accidental art it is as i perceive it.

Im not going to ‘search for god’, this is the wrong attitude. The default belief about an entity must always be non-belief, and then only if evidence or some argument is presented do you need to consider the entity’s possibility at all.

I have considered all the arguments and evidence that i can find, but so far, nothing substantial.

‘Openness’ is a vague concept. I am not going to consider the individual claims of specific religions if my grounds for non-belief already undermine the assumptions of those claims. However, any approach that addresses these more fundamental concerns will be considered.

if you look hard enough for something you want to see, of course you will find it. This is not a sound way of doing things however, instead you should be suspicious of all claims and demand good reasoning before a belief of this magnitude is formed.

[quote=“Sâmkhya”]
Atheism appears to be a simpler hypothesis than theism, and therefore, it is more reasonable (after Ockham’s razor).

• Atheism needs only one world, the natural one. It needs not add a supernatural world, beyond the reach of the senses, a world which is more mysterious than this one (what is God?)

This is more of a cry for acceptance than anything else, listen I feel like I have gradualy excuse the typo becoming very Nihilistic/ Atheistic in nature and have no one to speak to about these ideas.

You see first of all I simply don’t like people but I also don’t believe in anything I believe that nothing gets better or worse it just is for the time being. We spend all of our lives investing time and planning into life and it mearly ends
At this point my mind as a whole is compleatly warped I know though that I believe in nothing so if a Nihilist could please email me
or respond to my post I would appreciate it greatly

How is it simpler and more reasonable ?

as has been said, less assumptions.

Thiest: There’s the world, and the supernatural world with God.
Atheist: There’s the world.

Ignorance is bliss yes, and there is much to be said about the zen philosophy of “no mind” and its benifits , but this concept is not quite the same as no assumptions , no god , no mind = zen enlightenment .

Most of the people I know and have met that do believe in a supernatural force are better people for it.

People who used to stab other people , kill other people, were voilent wife abusers or drug addicts and alchoholics, or simply jealous controlling and manipulative in their personal affairs with others.

I think Its all about what makes a person good company, as we are innately sociable creatures . Not how complicated someones theory of a godless universe is, or how mighty they think their religion is over everyone else,s.

Life should be about simplicity yes, but I have,nt met many atheists who are simple and just happy to be alive. They are usually as caught up in argument as zealous christians or muslims are. Or are slightly reckless in their dealings.

This contradicts harmony.Harmony is the most important thing wether there exists a god or not. Harmony in the mind and in the world. I think all would agree with this,atheists and theists.

To assert that atheism equals"an easier life" as it were would not be correct . You say that with atheism there is only " the world " , true , but in my experience people who have this opinion are usually philosophical to a great extent , since they have arrived at their conclusion through intensive contemplation or academic study .

This type of intensity has the ability to make someone less alive actually , as it leads to a reliance on the intellect for all the answers.

But anyone studying buddhism or zen, both known for being essentially atheistic , would tell you that some things are supernatural. Consider the fact that even though many buddhists do not believe in a god , they still believe in a heaven with deities.

This goes against western scientific rationale in many cases , that a heaven can exist.

Yet I would sooner listen to a zen master who is an upstanding citizen than someone who has taken a degree in philosophy or something and thinks he knows all about the mysteries of life, but in fact lives a life full of discordant thoughts and reckless impulses that do not assist others truly.

I dont believe that you can say atheism is more reasonable than a belief in a deity without it being speculation . Its a matter of perspective.

Anecdotal evidence i dont share. I would curious about the statistics, but these things are manipulated very easily.

People who declare themselves atheists in your ear shot may not be a representative sample of all the people who are non-religious and lack beliefs in god.

Why are you dumping your load here btw? In any case, i disagree, progress is made through (usually) intelligent struggle.

Er, of course atheism doesnt make things easier, what has that got to do with anything? What if it is only philosophers who claim there is only the world, so what? It doesnt change the strength of their argument (and it is not only philosophers btw).

You are anti-rational?

This is true, there is a difference between areligious and atheist people. Only traditional definitions would confuse the two.

Not at all. Science (western or otherwise) doesnt seriously investigate the existence or non-existence of any kind of afterlife, because there is simply not enough evidence, nor a reliable way to gain any.

Ridiculous. If someone claims to know the mysteries of life the only thing of interest would be their arguments and only their arguments, whether they were upstanding, philosopher, discordant, french, zen, child molesterer, non-human; it doesnt matter.

It is not a matter of perspective at all. I do not consider my non-belief in klingons and vulcans to be speculation, and the same with god. Even things that probably could well exist such as “a man called Yann Sebold with grey hair who lives in Newcastle and likes draughts”, as i have no proof, it it not speculation if i do not believe they exist. Without evidence the only reasonable state is non-belief.

aye , this is true .

Btw ? sorry Im not hip to the superhighway anorak chat , what does that mean ?

Here is what samkhya said ;

Im just saying that the “appears " part is an assumption as well as the " is more reasonable” part.

Of course not , your looking into things too much and jumping to conclusions .

Naturally I am not anti rational as I have a brain also and an intellect which I enjoy using .

That depends on what you call scientific research. I would call tai chi a form of scientific research actually , but thats my opinion. Its also my opinion that you cannot judge spiritual paths without first having applied yourself to one or another intensively .

mmmm

btw : by the way.

‘Easier’ and ‘simpler’ are not the same thing, what are you talking about?

It was a question not a statement.

And so, would you care to clarify your position? How can people be overreliant on the intellect, and how does this make you less alive, and what does this have to do with atheism being or not being more reasonable than theism?

Im not judging anything spiritual. I practice tai chi myself (and i assume you mean chi gong, not just tai chi chuan), but it is not a science. Honestly, you should read up on it (stuff about falsification for instance).

[/quote]
mmmm what? Have we resorted to telepathic debate?

You need to be more focused in your argument and support and explain contentious points.
Cheers!

I dont " need" to do anything unless I want to.

wha?
im afraid you do if you expect to argue coherently.

im sorry if i insulted your intellectual manliness, but care to answer the points raised? Or at least raise new (focused) arguments? If not, its curious why you go on a philosophy board at all.

Hi

Absolute Skeptic: How do you know there is world?

EZ$

Hi

Atheism doesn’t have to explain anything. Whatever schools of thought the Atheist follows will give the answers.

EZ$

satanist-atheist-truth by fact.
christian-hoper-delusion liar.
philosophy well explained
is a philsopher well made.

oreso,

After thinking about it for a while I’m beginning to see your point of view. Maybe people don’t really have a desire for god. I don’t think it really hurts you to believe in him, but it’s not clear to me in what sense it helps either. Perhaps… god just doesn’t matter.

theres actually a ‘movement’ (though thats far too grand a term ) called apatheism, where belief in god is just ignored. You can be an apatheist and religious and just not expect anything from the big guy or areligious and do nothing spiritual at all, it doesnt matter. The idea being, regardless of God’s existence or non-existence, nothing Godly appears to be happening so lets call the whole thing off. Curiously enough, most apatheists are religious, presumably because folk become atheists by considering the problem and actively rejecting the existence of God.

Unfortunately, as Im still quite interested in the existence of God, i cant be an apatheist.

easymoney, start a new thread and i’ll answer there if you like.

Cheers!