"I don’t care if it rains or freezes
I’m warmed by the love of Metrosexual Jesus"
Well, my understanding of the aesthetics argument was not one of the physical world or of an attractive Jesus. I though it was the aesthetic choice of worldviews. The aesthetic choice is more about social morality.
One worldview says that there is no underlying meaning other than what we want to impose on ourself and others. A violent worldview, even if the violence is not physical. Imposing one’s will, ideas, and memes on someone else, is by definition a violent act. This worldview cannot truthfully condemn seemingly horrifying acts like the genocide of the indigenous Americans because everything will be obliterated eventually and is only part of a longer chain of pointless violence.
The Christian worldview gives a story that at its core is nonviolent. Jesus willingly died on the cross. “Not my will, but yours be done.” and all of that. “Love one another as I have loved you.” Not the first time anyone’s came up with that idea, but Jesus lived what he preached. The other story connected with the Christian worldview is the Kingdom of God. It’s a place where all can be loved and find their true purpose in the world. “Join the Mind Hive! We have free benefits!” The outcast and liminal are equal to everyone else because we are all joint heirs with Jesus.
The aesthetic choice should be obvious if actual Christians didn’t undermine what is their core message by adopting the method of violence again and reestablishing hierarchies amongst humans.
Not at all, but I made the point and it stands. Even on the most fundamental level, the universe is frankly a silly, whinsical place. We are all quite literally nothing which simply isn’t nothing, and there’s no reason we are so except that we are.
I did not misunderstand you at all.
Happily, the choice is not up to you, and the universe only is because of Him whether you like it, or not (and apparently, not). But here is the ultimate, cruelly kind joke of it: if you truly love the universe, you will come to know God. If not, you will come to hate the universe. It will break your heart; nature is neither a teacher nor an artist, but a cruel and tempetuous sister, who enjoys breaking things as much as making them. Including human hearts. The universe has much good in it, but much also which has been corrupted, and will remain such until it is broken and remade.
But you did miss my point, which is that God does not add, nor take away, anything from the universe. He made the universe, and though He is in it through us, He is also outside it. And because you do not know God, and so you also do not know how His existence affects and defines all things. But you have taken the first step in that direction by looking at the universe as art; if you were truly a mechanistic atheist s you imply, you would look indifferently upon it. It might be pretty at a given moment, or not, but it could not be art, and it could not be loved.
And I hope that one day you will lose your hatred and contempt for people different than yourself. You, of course, will probably deny such a twist in your heart, but it’s plain to see that you hate the very idea of God, or those who bring it to you.
Speaking only from the elegance-as-aesthetics perspective, a supposedly omni-something being creating this universe is extremely ugly.
I personally find it hard to react the same way to things that I consider insensible, as compared to things I consider conscious and deliberate in their action. I can have open admiration the sloppy bootstrapped complexity of the universe (wow, it actually works!) but be utterly unimpressed by any creation with the same properties, or any creator that would create such a poorly planned mess. I can recognize the universe as cruel and unfair in its mindless impartiality without feeling the least bit of ire towards it, but revile any sentient diety who would deliberately subject real thinking beings to such cruelty and unfairness.
Basically I cannot conceive of a naturally-existing uncreated universe as having been “corrupted” without first assuming that there is an external force that might have arranged the circumstances of the corruption (which would then cast the ultimate blame on the god that caused the corruption). Absent an external influence, the universe cannot corrupt itself, only change in accordance with its nature.
And I gotta ask, what is “the aesthetical Jesus” suppsed to actually mean? Some sort of argument that becaue Jesus had a stylin’ proto-hippy thing going, God is real? Or something else? (Or should I expect this to be made clear in part 2?)
I disagree. Certainly, imposing one’s will is a vital or active thing, but I would not call it necessarily violence without diluting the meaning of the word. An attempt to frame action as violence is typical of the christian tradition, though, as Nietzsche recognized .
This attitude presupposes that *only *ultimate ends matter, which is, IMO, a rubbish premise to build a moral framework on.
Passive, yes, nonviolent, no. Why does Jesus have to die on the cross? To “save” us from something, some punishment. If that isn’t at its core about violence, even if only as the willing recipient, I don’t know…and you’re casting god as both the meter out and receiver of said violence. Kinky.
There’s that slave mentality Nietzsche was talking about.
Only to ants and bees. Maybe dogs. Not so much for humans (and cats).
We are not nothing. If that’s what you have to tell yourself to make your choices easier, that’s fine, but it won’t do for me.
I disagree. Please, paraphrase what I said.
Prove it. Or make me feel it. But the empty (and smug) platitudes aren’t going to do it
I already love the Universe. Finding out it’s all a cruel joke perpetrated by the kind of monster-god you need would make me hate it.
Nature isn’t animate. It has no will.
No, I’m disagreeing with your point. God would very much take away from the Universe.
Rubbish. I’m afraid you don’t get to tell me, or any atheist, what I can feel or not feel, or why.
Not that I claimed to be “mechanistic”, in any case. That’s your straw man.
We have different notions of art, and love, clearly.
You mis-spelled “pity.”
I do hate the very idea of god (I have said before, I’d be an atheist even if I was certain the christian god or one like it existed), but I am merely* annoyed* by those who won’t let it die a well-deserved death like all the other concepts we’ll outgrow in time, like slavery, homophobia and sexism.
No you wouldn’t - you’d be a rebel (or a cinder). Atheism is about belief, not alleigence. (Another way that it differs from most religions.)
[/pedant]
Getting off the subject of Jesus, I’d agree with this.
Aesthetic value, in my opinion, is value which is not objective value. Objective value is the amount of usefulness in an item and aesthetic value, for lack of a better definition, is the amount of useless value in that item. It’s art for art’s sake.
Goat shit would be a good example of something which has high objective value and low - probably negative - aesthetic value. A concerto would be a good example of something that has high aesthetic value and virtually no objective value. A house is an example of something which has both objective and aesthetic value.
Wrong pedant.
I’m so stealing this expression.
Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that you were an ancient greek or that you had written “ἄθεος” instead of the modern english “atheist”. I concede utterly.
Just pointing out that words have more than one meaning, and sometimes where a word has come from can tell you more about it. I don’t have to be Greek or use their alphabet to appreciate the etymology of the word I use to describe myself. That you would divorce the word from all previous meanings is *your *self-imposed limitation, not mine. You don’t get to define my atheism anymore than a Catholic gets to define a Mormon’s Christianity. I actively choose to have my atheism include the Classic Greek sense of the word as well as the modern meaning. I am also the kind of atheist who actively disbelieves in the existence of God and lacks any belief in God. My Classical Atheism is just a what-if sideline. It’s, in fact, something I picked up from our OP and his “Classical Liberalism” thing. And you don’t have to pick it up on first encountering my usage, as I’m perfectly willing to explain my usage.
Fair enough (and I just posted myself in another thread that “atheism” has two other common meanings, both about belief).
Though the use of a no-longer standard definition of a word that you can reasonably expect nobody else to interpret correctly on first glance does offend my sense of aesthetics.
I refer only to the scientific sense: as near as we can tell, all matter and energy is quite literally nothing. Simply bits of nothing moving very fast. And that’s is all we are in the material sense, and arguably in the spiritual.
[quote]
I disagree. Please, paraphrase what I said.
[quote]
You have said that you find the universe aesthetically pleasing: elegant and beauitifully so in its fundamental simplicity and unity of design. Yet this is a value judgement, which I recognize. The universe is only as neat as you find it. I can certainly imagine a much neater, more elegant universe. I can certainly imagine a more needlessly complicated. I, however, think of the universe as a cozy little universchins, a nce little home, with just enough stars and just enough space.
Of course, one could feel anything at all about it, but those feelings have no scientific validity, and not even any spiritual one
I’m am not here to convince you, not today. You will not find God, nor his lack, by looking at nature. Nature can only teach the lessons you already know: if you are an artist, you will see art. If you are a cruel man, you will see cruelty. If you are spiritual, you will see spirituality. Which is to say that nature does not teach anything at all. There is no truth in her.
I said it was cruelly kind and joking, but not a cruel joke. And the while the joke is divine, the cruelty is not.
Are you sure? I can’t say for certain that it is or is not. I can say that many things within her do, and not limited to humanity.
Yes, I know you are disagreeing with me. That’s why you are wrong.
I believe the self-evident fact is that I can tell you, based on the self-evident act that I just did. Although, I will relent: in strict truth I was actually noting that you contradicted yourself. You can believe two contradictory things, but unlike me you have no reason for it. And even I believe I can only do so because God declared it; without that divine persmission, I would be forced, in all honesty, to believe only one, non-contradictoy thing. Else I would be a hypocrite, and could not condemn anyone else believing whatever they chose when they chose, even if they denied other principles they claimed to hold dear.
I will grant, that like all men, I am a bit of a hypocrite anyway. But I never claimed to be perfect, either.
As I said, you strongly implied it. I did not say it was a certainty. But if not, then what do you believe?
I do not believe love is an emotion, if that’s what you mean. An emotion, a feeling - it cannot be right or wrong. But I believe love can be right or wrong, and not merely under human judgement.
There is no pity in your words: contempt is not pity. It is the exact opposite of pity. Pity is humility, and even love. But you have naked contempt for me, whereas I must admit I admire your thinking.
Ah, but as near as I can tell from what you yourself have said, those concepts cannot be right or wrong under your beliefs. They may be incorrect if they assert certain scientific facts which are incorrect, but they cannot be incorrect values, for nothing in nature demands any of them to be true or false. Humans can hold them or not, but they cannot be good or evil for doing so. If, however, you have some claim to truth which does not allow them, please present (in another thread if you wish, and I shall try to respond).
Edit:
Lastly, speaking as to your definition of atheist, you must also recognize that if you refuse to define your concepts (both in the immediate sense of this conversation and the universal sense internal to you), then we are not going to get very far, and furthermore, you can hardly criticize us for our beliefs without contradicting yourself. Thus, I must respectfully ask you to define them reasonably tightly in order to continue.
You might want to use the term antitheist MrDibble; it seems to fit and its meaning is more clear than using an old definition of atheist. I’ve been known to refer to myself as “atheistic, antitheistic, and theocidal”; I don’t believe in God, I oppose gods regardless of their reality, and if God did exist I’d be more inclined to kill it if I could than worship it.
Yes, but your mind can evaluate the world through more reliable means than aesthetics. Not perfectly, but good enough to get by, unless, or course, you allow yourself to be misled by such things as aesthetics.
Only in the same way a dowsing rod can be a pointer to water. That is, through coincidence alone.
I don’t think stretching the definition of aesthetics to include the more general concept of ‘moving’ makes any difference to the argument.
I didn’t say aesthetics aren’t important, just that they are not an indicator of truth. Aesthetic values do not make something more true or more likely to be true.
Nonsense like this is the inevitable result when you allow yourself to believe things are true simply because of their aesthetic value.
Which is why I always explain what I mean by Classic Atheist as soon as I use the term.
If that’s your broader point, I have to agree. One only has to witness all the great art done in service to various religions to see that.
But I think you do the human mind a disservice if you expect us to make all our choices based on rational criteria only. Man is a feeling as much as a thinking creature. Of course, those things we choose for aesthetic reasons mustn’t *contradict *our rationality, but hey - even the choice of the rational over the irrational is an aesthetic choice of sorts. At least I find it so, or, at any rate, the choice to be rational agrees withmy aesthetic sensibilities.
Not strong enough. I remember misotheist coming up before, and that’s a good one. But I like “Classic Atheist” *because *it invites further explanation and discussion, not in spite of it.