He gets no special treatment from me. I acknowledge that God cannot be known with a certainty not to exist but I acknowledge it only in the most sterile, technical sense. I don’t think that my qualification is really any more meaningful, in practical terms, than acknowledging that I can’t know with a certainty that elves don’t exist.`
You’re an atheist, by the way. Technically, you could probably be desribed as a “weak” atheist but (like a lot of us around here) you’re operating from a conditional assumption that God does not exist. You don’t actually have to think that the existence of God is remotely likely or plausible in order to avoid being a hard atheist.
Are you saying that emotions don’t have a biological cause?
Didn’t I just say that? All value is relative. A bag of diamonds is worth less than a ham sandwich to a starving man. No, no human has any more value than any other animal (or plant, or rock) than what he and/or other humans assign him.
Well, then I’m not sure what you mean by “rationalize.” Do feelings need to be rationalized? I feel good when I’m around my friends. I feel bad when there gone. When they’re gone forever, I feel really, really bad. What about that needs to be rationalized? As a theist, how do you rationalize them? How does belief in a diety necessarily alter how we feel about loss? I understand the difference in how we cope with loss, but the basic human, emotional reaction is going to be pretty much the same. Is that what you’re asking? How we deal with grief?
Ok. So let’s say I am an atheist. I find a person to be extremely unpleasant. Worse, I define his value as negative to to his actions and attitude. Given the opportunity and the assurance of getting away with it, why should I not kill this person?
To go even further, let’s suppose that I derive pleasure in killing other human beings. In fact I value this pleasure more than I value them. Should I not then rightfully indulge this pleasure?
Maybe it doesn’t. I’m not saying it has to be, just that for me, it does.
For example, if I feel that I have friends because I am social animal and my genes tell me that I’m safer and belong in a group, and that I’ve developed this empathy to them which is a mutually protective adaptation, and that the sense of loss I feel is simply emotional pain that my genes impose on my me through instinctive self-interest… than it’s just a bunch of mechanical bullshit.
My emotional pain is no different or more meaningful than say when my legs ache after a long jog. It’s just biological bullshit, and in fact, I am nothing more than a meatpuppet dancing around on the strings of biology and instincts imagining he is a free and sovereign entity.
If I lost a friend and felt grief, I would conclude that the emotional pain is really no more significant than say, a sore knee. Simply something to be dealt with and not taken seriously. Another stupid biological consequence, no more useful in the modern world than my vermiform appendix.
It gives it meaning.
Not really. Not whether you feel it, or how you deal with it, but why it matters.
That’s not what I said at all. What I said was that the specific emotional response of grieving is completely selfish. Grieving a loss has nothing to do with measuring the worth of the living. Empathy, selflessness and altruism are totally unrelated to grief (except for how they relate to empathy for other bereaved people) but they are equally biological. Animals can be altruistic and self-sacrificing and they don’t believe in gods.
This has already been asked and answered. You are extropolating a false conclusion from what I said. I never said or implied that I measured the worth of other people in selfish terms…I measure losing them in selfish terms. Surely, you can understand the difference.
I have no idea what you mean by “noteworthy.” I didn’t say that empathy is noteworthy, I just said that atheists feel it. Suggesting that atheists don’t feel emotions like empathy and grief is just as silly as saying we can’t feel lust or fall in love. It’s all just brain chemistry.
These are tendentious and inaccurate definitions and you know it. They are not how we, who call ourselves atheists and agnostics use the terms and they are not descriptive of how we define ourselves. You are trying to manipulate the terms of the debate through the use of selective semantics. The number of self-identified “atheists” who positively assert that God cannot exist is a minority at best. If it is only this particular group that you have a problem with then please say so. attempting to define the terms in such a way that you can paint every self-identified atheist into this camp is really a fruitless way to pursue these issues. We are not going to become those kinds of atheists just because you say that’s what the word means and we’re not going to stop calling ourselves atheists either. Narrowing the definition of the word does not alter the actual philosophical positions of the people that you’re talking to.
As a matter of fact, under those terms. that’s exactly what you are. Do you think that’s supposed to strike us as contradictory?
Atheism is the absence of an opinion. It doesn;t have to “proved” because it makes no positive assertions.
This is baloney. Do you think that the atheists around here don’t actually know what they believe? Are all of us who call ourselves atheists just lying when we say that we say we are not positive?
Read that Wolf essay I linked to if you haven’t yet.
Until the very moment that I heard it asserted otherwise, that was really the only definition I had considered.
It’s how it looks to me like the terms are defined. When speaking to you in the future I will make sure I consider how you define yourself in your own terms now that I understand them, though to me, it seems unnecessarily confusing. You surely have the right to define yourself as you like.
Them and evangelicals of every stripe.
Well, ok. Got it. I defined my terms. You defined yours. Now we understand each other. I didn’t before.
Well no. Seeing the terms defined, I identified myself in those terms so you could understand where I came from and we could communicate efficiently. The terms themselves are meaningless.
Ok. You do understand my confusion, don’t you? I mean, I go here:
and
and this is how I understood the words, and how I’ve used them, and now I understand that you use them differently.
Again, you’re free to define yourself as you like, but it seems to me you have to be willing to accept some confusion if you’re going to have special definitions of already defined words. General usage and the dictionary seem to bear me out with the “atheists-deny, agnostics don’t know” definition.
It seems to me a little disingenuous to get testy about it and act like I’m being obstinate when you’ve altered the meanings of words and it creates confusion.
Well, I guess it is baloney when you’ve redefined the terms so that I should be reading “agnostic” when you say “atheist.”
This question is a non-sequitur in relation to your questions about emotional responses to grief and I think you have to be more specific about what it is you want to know. Are you asking why, in selfish terms, atheists themselves do not kill people or are you asking why atheists think other people should not kill people. If you’re asking the former, the specter of prison rape is a pretty good deterrant as are the same biological checks on pointless violence that everybody else has. A healthy human brain is distressed by the suffering of others, by chaos and instability and by the thought of killing without reason. Human beings have evolved as social animals. We are evolved to survive as communities not as individuals and are brain chemistry has been selected for emotional responses which tend to support the health of the community and react adversely to situations which are destabalizing to that community. If you are asking why atheists wouldn’t want other people to kill people it’s really the same batch of answers- a brain chemistry which is evolved to presereve the stability of the comminity and to feel distress, abhorence and anger at factors which tend to destabalize that community. here is also the purely selfish imperatives like the will to survive and to protect our families.
Ok. Brain chemistry tells you not to do these things. Why is that enough? Being an intelligent and reasoning person you have a brain which allows you to overrule instinct to a certain degree depending on your willpower and the strength of the instinct.
If you clearly reason that is advantageous to kill this person in spite of your instincts against it… than why not do it?
You can reason beyond your instincts. They do not completely control you.
What for? Why can’t you just clarify your question. You asked me why empathy is “noteworthy.” What do you mean by “noteworthy?”
Yoiur definitions are wrong. I don’t care how many on line dictionaries you link to, they’re wrong. The way these terms are used in serious or formal academic discussions is just as I presented them. Continually linking to sloppy, more popular definitions is roughly the equivalent of claiming that “evolution is just a THEORY.” If you are new to these kinds of debates, that’s fine, but you are making yourself look like a naif with your semantic protestations and you aren’t really furthering the discussion.
I’m always amazed to hear this question from theists. What you’re saying is that, without God to tell you right from wrong, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference on your own? That the only thing preventing you from killing and stealing is fear of divine retribution? I don’t buy that.
You seem to be acting like empathy is somehow dependent on religion. It’s not. If I see another human being in pain, I feel bad, too, because I know what it feels like to hurt. If I cause another human pain, I feel guilt for being the causing feelings that I know are unpleasant. I don’t need God to tell me that it’s wrong, I know that on my own.
How do I know it? Could be biology, could be sociology. Who cares? What’s clear is that co-operation leads to prosperity for everyone. A society in which people slaughter eachother willy-nilly just means everyone’s dead. And since there’s nothing going on after this life, it’s in my best interest to foster a society in which I live as long and as happily as possible. This means, among other things, not commiting murder, if for no other reason than if I’m a threat to other human beings, other human beings are going to act to remove that threat. That’s not the primary reason I don’t commit murder: my own, internally derived moral sense tells me not to do it. But it is a rational justification to not attempt to overcome that internal moral sense.
As opposed to what? A bunch of spiritual bullshit?
Well, even if there is a God, you’re still just as much a puppet of biology and instinct, except in your case, there’s a second puppet master: God. I don’t see how you can be free if your exsistence is bounded by the expections of an all-powerful diety. You can never be more than whatever he wants you to be. As an atheist, I’m free to find whatever meaning I feel like in my life. The concept of God has always struck me as terribly limiting. If there is no God, if there is no Grand Purpose, than any purpose we can conceive of for ourselves is valid.
Well, I agree in as much as I don’t see emotional pain as more meaningful, in a philosophical sense, than physical pain, but all pain is not equal. A sore knee does not hurt as much as a broken leg. And pain of any kind is not without it’s purpose: it shows us what is dangerous, what is important, how to be careful, and when to risk.
See, I would find that intolerable. I can cope with grief or tragedy as the random outcome of natural forces. But the idea that my pain was, in some way, orchestrated by a thinking being for it’s own purposes… that would be unbearable. I would far rather there be no God at all, than there be a God that would allow the world we live in.
It matters because I say it matters. Is that really that much less valid than “It matter because God says it matters?”
If I should ever reason that it is clearly advantageous to me and to my community to kill somebody. I WILL kill them. No worries, mate. I have very little expectation that such an eventuality would ever arise, though.
Ok. If the feeling of loss you have for a friend is biologically equivalent to the feeling you have for the need to poop, that is, they are simply biological imperatives, than why should I, you, or anybody else care about the biological nuicsance that is grief? Why is it meaningful.
Semantics aren’t particularly important to the discussion so long as we finally understand each other, but I do have a problem with your simple assertion that I am wrong. If we’re going to talk in terms of serious or formal academic discussions than you should know that a simple assertion is an inferior argument.
You may be right in your assertion, but it’s not backed up. Mine is. I will stick with my assertion which has the advantaged of being cited appropriately by an impartial athority. That’s better than your plain old assertion. Yes?
In point of fact, evolution is “just a theory.” It is a very well-documented and thought theory with lots of evidence and utility and it’s better than any other competing theory, but it’s still “just a theory.”
And again, you’re telling me that my head is up my ass with my definitions and the athoritative cites I’ve provided is all well and good, but I would appreciate it if you could show me definitively. Than I can accept that it is my head that is up my ass and not yours.
It’s certainly frustrating and I am new to these discussions. I wonder if it as you say, and your definitions are generally accepted throughought academia.
I am new to these discussions but it seems like agnostic and atheist are defined with perfect utility by Websters and have been for quite some time, and I wonder if maybe just some sloppy semantics have become generally accepted on this board.
This argument in particular has always scared me… what does it say about those theists who use it, and who one day might decide that they no longer believe in God?
It might be an opinion, but it doesn’t need to be proven. I don’t make the claim to not believe in god unless someone makes the claim that there is a god. I don’t go around making claims that there is no magical sky pixie because no one has said there is one. It is always up to the person making the claim that something exists to prove it. Everyone is an atheist until this is done. People aren’t born believing in Christ. Someone has to tell them about him. People aren’t born knowing what is in the bible. Someone has to read it to them, or teach them to read it themselves. I can’t deny a god exists until someone makes the claim he does. I don’t need to provide proof he doesn’t exist, you need to provide proof he does. It’s your claim, I’m just reacting to it.
It’s not an offense, it’s exhasution at seeing the same dog and pony show over and over. I don’t even know if you know what you’re up to. But I know what the definitions you’re trying to use are for. You see, ultimately, it doesn’t matter what words we use to describe what as long as we are consistent. The problem is that the usage is never consistent, and the definitions you want to use are designed to maximize this confusion.
Here’s the game:
Theist: Do you believe in god?
Me: Nope
Theist: So you’re an atheist
Me: Okay, whatever you say, whatever you want to call it man.
Theist: You’re stupid. You can’t prove that there is no God.
Me: Er, whhhaaaa???
And so on. It never seems to get old. It’s called equivocation, and it’s the oldest definitional trick in the book. At best, all I can do is sigh and point out that despite your claim about atheism meaning a positive belief that there is no God, you then turn around and don’t use your own definition in practice.
It also seems to back up mine. So what? Obviously, the definitions are confused and bear a history of smears. But given what atheists say they are, and what a Catholic who seems to think that atheists don’t care about anyone or anything says they are, who should I trust?
As I argued, a simple opinion about a metaphysical question is not a religion. But even if you torture the word religion into fitting that, people end up playing the same game.
You: Okay, so atheism, along with every other thing you might have to say about just about anything, it’s it’s own separate religion. You have 800 different religions and I have 799.
Me: Okay, that’s nuts, but I’ll accept whatever you want.
You: See, you’re so religious: why do you obsess so much over something you don’t believe… everything you do is part of your atheist religion… yadda yadda yadda…
Me: But I’m not religious except maybe under your nutty definition. But that definition has been stretched so thin that you can’t possibly justify dumping in all that other stuff. Like with the use of the word atheist, you keep switching meanings on us mid-argument: using a more expansive and wider net to make the word apply to me, and then trying to attack me based on the very connotations you had to toss out to make it apply to me in the first place.
I agree.
That’s a misuse of te Razor, but whatever.
I guess, but I don’t know a single person who in the end really does fall or has ever fallen under this in the sense you mean it.
Okay, as youve defined it, there are almost no atheists, so I guess it isn’t a very popular religion. You certainly aren’t talking about the “atheists” of the OP.
As I noted before, while you can make up whatever definitions you want, when you look at the them all as a whole, the terms don’t add up: they’re logically incoherent. Agnosticism is not a statement about belief, and belief is a binary issue, not a contiuum.
I’m not particularly offended. Really, at this point it’s a little boring. But please understand: I’m not necessarily saying just “Scylla, you evil dickhead!” to try and end the discussion with a cheap shot at you. I’m trying to make you see what you are really saying to folks and why it’s just kind of low as a tactic.
You know what, it sort of DOES hurt my feelings, especially when I do really try to go out of my way and call non-believers on bigoted or false generalizations they make about believers. Your response is basically call me a pussy for it bothering me.
Well, sorry: it just is deeply insulting to imply that we might as well not care about anything or anything just because we don’t share your belief system. The fact that you don’t care whether or not it’s insulting is just sort of depressing. To you, it’s just another debating trick.
No one I know uses a “rationale” and I highly doubt that you do either. “Souls” isn’t a rationale. It doesn’t explain anything, it doesn’t demonstrate “intrinsic worth” or anything that you’ve been claiming it does.
“Biologically equivalent?” What the hell does that mean? They are both equally biological, I guess, but they are not experientially or subjectively “equivalent.” I also don’t know what you mean by “care about.” It seems redundant. If it is MY pain, then I “care” because it is painful and I care exactly to the extent that it’s painful. Sometimes I care because I empathize with someone else’s pain, but I don’t expect my personal pain to matter or be “meaningful” to anyone but me. Objectively speaking, no pain is meaningful.
If I provide you with some cites for how the words are formally used in philosophy will you drop this pointless hijack?
Let’s start with agnosticism. That term was coined by Thomas Huxley. Let’s see how he defined it.
The translation is that, as I have said repeatedly, agnosticism is purely an epistemological position. It does not mean “skeptical” or undecided. It is the position that the answer cannot be known, it is not a per se opinion on the existence of God. One can very well be an agnostic and still be either an atheist or a theist.
Here is a page which discusses and provides links to a number of ways in which the the word is defined and used by philosophers and by theologians. Strong atheism is encompassed by the general definition but anyone who is not a theist is an atheist. The Greek roots of the word literally mean “without theism.” If you want to insist on defining atheism as referring only to strong atheists then you’re going to have to invent a different word for the rest of us (and you can’t say “agnostic.” That’s already taken).
Wow. Are you really Scylla or are you some “guest” that hacked his account? How could such a long time Doper not know the difference between how the word “theory” is used in science, and how it’s used informally?
In science, there is no such thing as “just a theory.” If a hypothesis acquires the status of “theory,” that means you can take it to the bank. It has been confirmed as a reliable explanation for some sort of observed phenomena. It does not mean “unproven.” People who say that “evolution is just a theory” are doing so because they don’t know what a scientific theory actually is.
It is as I say. Take any Intro to Philosophy class.
So, if I understand you correctly, the attempt to redefine atheism into some kind of religion by the theists is due to a fear of change and a desire to marginalize those who would make those changes. Would that be a good summary?
On one level, it’s a roundabout attempt to justify governmental support of religion by redefining secularism as a religion itself rather than the absence of religion.
It an interesting ju-jitsu move on the First Amendment. Congress will make no law respecting the establisment of religion. Banning government-sanctioned expressions of religion is establishing “secularism”. “Secularism” is a religion, so this is forbidden. Our only recourse is to give all religions equal time. The government must publicly endorse both religion and secularism in the interest of fairness.
(And yes, I know that “atheism” and “secularism” aren’t equivalent. However the same arguments are made about both – namely that the absence of religion is a religion itself.)
Aside from political motives it’s also an effort to dismiss reason’s challenge to theism with “both belief systems rest on faith so we’ll just have to agree to disagree”. The problem with this argument is that different beliefs require different degrees of faith. I have faith that my senses present me with a reasonably accurate picture of the world around me – when I wake up in the morning I have faith that the person lying beside me is my wife and not a hallucination. But this is a much smaller leap of faith than the faith required to believe in God. The fact that the faith required to believe in atheism is more akin to the former than the latter is not immaterial to the argument.
Thank you. That is what I was wondering as defining me as belonging to a religion seemed a rather aimless goal. It was coming across as no more than mindless, semantic obfuscation.
So, is there some group of the faithful that has actually tried this argument? SBC or someone like that? Or is it just something that the religious work themselves into through lacking a logical case?