Anyways, to me atheism, the way the atheist attacks theism, and some of the associated beliefs like naturalism and such, try to paint a certain kind of world. When the atheist goes on his attack, using terms like ‘evidence’ and ‘blind faith’ and ‘scientific fact’, they paint the sort of world where everything real can be proven, there’s no Man behind the curtain, everything is sort of like great bit wind-up toy that can be understood if only we look at how each gear fits into every other gear. I’m explaining this badly, but I hope you get my meaning.
The atheist is operating a certain way, with a certain framework.
And the thing is, I'm willing to walk down that path with them. I'm comfortable there- it's like the industrial district of town. There's not a lot to do if you're bored, pollution is a problem, but a lot of important stuff gets manufactured there.
But then, all too often, this hyper-rationalist skeptic that walks like Skeletor and talks like Bertrand Russell, will let his guard down when he things he's 'winning', and say something about how insightful Wicca is, or how we're all connected by the Ground of Being, or how important it is that I accept Khrishna Consciousness or The Way of Tao or whatever, and I feel totally tricked and manipulated. Like, they just offered me a ride, saying they knew a shortcut, only to kick me out of the car in the middle of the Factory District as they go speeding right back to The Land of Fancy, which is where I was anyway.
This is a really round-about way of saying I'm tired of double standards, but I didn't know that's what I was talking about until I got to the end.
Since I’m an advocate of Tao, I should like to take the opportunity to point out that lumping Taoists into the deist-atheist polarities suggests a lack of understanding. Tao is neither deist nor atheist. In western terms, it would more closely resemble agnosticism.
Sometimes, we actually have to study a bit if we are to gather ,not knowing, but understanding.
There is no one who does not have a perspective, but making assumptions about the perspective of others without understanding is neither good philosophy nor rational thought.
Ok, fine. Since it wasn’t supposed to be that kind of thread, the Tao gets a pass. Does anyone else want to step up and help my make my point?
I will say that I should have said ‘skeptics’ probably, and not atheists- this was originally a response to faust in that “Religion as Dogma” thread, and it made more sense to call it atheism there.
tentative, do you see my point insofar as it applies to skeptics involved with everything on my list except for your thing?
Thanks for the pass, but I think you know my position. Being neither deist or atheist, skepticism as some sort of label means nothing to me. As a tool, I find it quite useful, but usually aimed at myself. From my point of view deists and atheists, or any other position of “knowing” suffers the same dilemma: KNOWING. It’s the same tired refrain you’ve heard from me before. Knowing you do not and cannot know in any sense of certainty is the beginning, and not the end.
Atheism is a tricky label because it concerns a negative. I’d label myself as atheistic in the sense that I don’t see any “definition of God or Gods” that make sense either with regards to themselves or how reality is. However, that’s not to say that because I think that that there is in fact, no higher power at all.
I assert that I don’t see “a higher power” at play, or at least the NEED for one. When arguing with the truly religious, I don’t get into my thoughts on what MIGHT be there because they always have a desire to try to bring it all back to whatever their brand of religion is. They aren’t interested in “listening” so much as they are of “convincing”. Then, once an atheist makes a claim that sounds something like religion, the old “Hypocrite” claim is pulled.
I’ll often speak of a “oneness” or “interconnectedness” with all living things. Christians interpret this to be God, and that’s fine. I don’t. I don’t know what I’d call it quite honestly, and the name really isn’t all that important. If I were going to designate it, I suppose the broad defintions of God MIGHT fit it, but then, I don’t get the sense that this “interconnectedness” is really all that concerned with individuals per se. It simply IS.
So, I suppose what I would say to your point is that I suspect every atheist to some extent has SOMETHING that they’d refer to as this interconnected feeling, but because the religious are often so rabid about pushing their beliefs this point becomes one to avoid in most situations unless you become comfortable that the person with whom you are conversing is not going to pull out the old “hypocrite” argument.
It seems to me atheism is a lot bigger deal for theists than it is for atheists. I really don’t care much what someone believes so long as they don’t try to force it on my or use their beliefs as an excuse to fuck with or otherwise attack me.
Oh, I can occasionally be drawn into debating it. But the same goes for which NFL QB is best, Sugar Corn Pops vs Cap’N Crunch, tubes vs solid state…sometimes I’m just in a mood to argue.
Not quite. I’m hinting that people who hold metaphysical views can’t argue against God in the way I usually see them try to do it. I think people are so used to the atheists doing all the debunking that even people with pretty mystical persuasions pick up on those same arguments when they want to attack something, without realizing those arguments (or the methods behind them) defeat their own stuff just as well.
That’s about right, I think, Ucci. Almost every atheist and almost every method is disqualified from consistent argumentation against God. There are a few which do qualify. Which? I won’t tell if you won’t.
Hmm. It’s not even exactly that I think God is immune to rational arguments. There’s a lot of pretty foundational stuff in philosophy I’m questioning these days, and I think I’m questioning it on rational grounds…but a lot of people would say it’s key stuff to what makes rational thought what it is.
So yeah, I think it’s possible to shore-up or defeat theism with reason. However, I don’t think reason necessarily entails the “Anything less than certainty is to be denied” approach that people take towards the matter. They are free to take that approach, I suppose, but I think they cut themselves off from a lot of important facts about the world when they do so, and realistically, I think they only apply that approach when it suits them for other reasons to do so.
Agreed, Ucci. In fact, from my materialist perspective, the lack of metaphysical certitude that radical skeptics assert is to be expected - it is actually aid and comfort to my position as a materialist.
Proof is an analytical process. The skeptic supposes that proof is impossible, but also asserts that it is the litmus test of knowledge. We can’t prove anything - this sets proof up as the standard. How could it be? If we can’t know the premises to be true, logical proof is entirely irrelevant.
I think this threads cuts to a rather obvious point – that atheism isn’t a metaphysical system.
So, due to basic problems of epistomology, we all have to make that first ‘jump’ which constitutes how we see the world (though some people like Imp and SIATD steadfastly refuse that they have made such a jump). From that initially (possibly irrational) step, different systems can be built. These can be either rational or irrational themselves but that first step is always a big fat question mark.
Plantigna takes a rational approach to Christianity and so he builds off of his initial step in a rational manner. Snake-handlers and Christian mystics take a decidedly irrational (occasionally even absurdist) approach to Christianity and the result looks pretty damned strange sometimes. It is the same with almost every other philosophy I can think of.
The accusations of irrationality start to become stickier once different traditions based off of different initial ‘leaps’ start looking at each other. For example, in Eastern philosophy much of what would be considered ‘mental/spiritual’ actually gets lumped together with the physical. When these traditions start looking at eachother, then, each can say the other is totally irrational because ‘everybody knows that such and such (say, thought) is a mental or physical aspect and to say otherwise is total lunacy!’.
That would require the ability to see the opposites as essential definitions of each other. That neither can exist without the other. Very Tao, thirst.
Of course, you could just be one of those infamous moral relativists.
From my point of view deists and atheists, or any other position of “knowing” suffers the same dilemma: KNOWING. It’s the same tired refrain you’ve heard from me before. Knowing you do not and cannot know in any sense of certainty is the beginning, and not the end.