I think you’re missing the basic point of my argument. In every civilization until quite recently, it was agreed that the proper pursuits of the human mind were topics that related to humans: philosophy, theology, art, music, literature, poetry, morality, ethics, education, politics, law, justice, and so forth. For these topics, conclusions are specific to humans. Bee ethics would be very different from human ethics. Chimpanzee poetry would have nothing in common with human poetry, if it existed at all. Hence reason means almost exclusively thinking about human topics, according to the definition that almost all intellectuals have used at almost all times. Limiting it to math and the hard sciences is highly arbitrary, and only a few people would do so.
Besides which, math and the hard sciences are culture-specific. Members of some cultures are unable to count past ten or twenty or one hundred, but we are. We believe that negative numbers exist. Ancient mathematicians did not. We believe that zero exists. Ancient mathematicians did not. We believe in complex numbers, an invention of the last few centuries. Modern mathematicians believe in thousands of abstract concepts that were invented recently. Did cobordism classes exist before mathematicians started using them? What about Coxeter groups? What would “exist” even mean for such mathetmatical objects, without human minds being invovled? There’s certainly no way to know which of these varying mathematical systems would be used by another species.
The same is true for hard sciences. We believe in 92 elements (plus some artificial ones) differentiated by the number of protons in the nucleus. Aristotle believed in only four elements: earth, water, air, and fire. If we get wiped out and another species comes along, will their science follow our approach to elements, or Aristotle’s, or a different one entirely? There’s no knowing.
Of course there is “knowing”! That’s the point. These things you mention are ALL objective points of data: systems, available, observable to any reasoning species. Our table of elements, our mathematical constructs, these are all DESCRIPTIONS of what we observe in our universe. We do not “believe” in 92 elements. We observe 92 elements in the universe and thus describe them. Any species that came to use the scientific method would find the exact same phenomena and would thus describe it.
There’s still ongoing philosophical debate among mathematicians whether mathematics is transcendent and “discovered” or an invention of the human mind to understand the universe.
I love mathematics and the Pythagorean Theorem has undeniable staying power but I’m skeptical that it can be used as metaphysical evidence to prove/disprove God.
I’m with you all the way. You can do some funny/strange and clever stuff with maths, but if there is an equation for god, it’s because we have made it to fit the ‘evidence’. ‘Maths’, like that other construct ‘time’, is meaningless without the presence of humanity.
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So, to provide a little digest of the preceding points, I am an atheist because:
[ul][li]Atheism is independent of human cognition, i.e. nobody has to know about atheism for it to be a valid philosophical stance[/li][li]It allows for the existence of fundamental truths[/li][li]It allows for logical conclusions to be valid[/li][li]It allows for the increase of knowledge about the world[/li][li]It is unique in the sense that it isn’t equivalent to any faith-based system, whereas all faith-based systems are equivalent to each other[/li][li]It holds explanatory, or at the very least descriptive, power[/ul][/li][/quote]
Atheism, according to you, is “the absence of all faith”. Your points, then, become:
[ul][li]The absence of all faith is independent of human cognition, i.e. nobody has to know about the absence of all faith for it to be a valid philosophical stance[/li][li]The absence of all faith allows for the existence of fundamental truths[/li][li]The absence of all faith allows for logical conclusions to be valid[/li][li]The absence of all faith allows for the increase of knowledge about the world[/li][li]The absence of all faith is unique in the sense that it isn’t equivalent to any faith-based system, whereas all faith-based systems are equivalent to each other[/li][li]The absence of all faith holds explanatory, or at the very least descriptive, power.[/ul]Is that what you mean? [/li]
All of these statements sound strange. How does the absence of anything do anything, or how is it anything?
Who said anything about experiencing it as “meaningful, memorable and sublime”? Whether they’re receptive to it or not, they will, verifiably, experience it in a concrete manner. Nobody said anything about it being a powerful, life-changing, or even positive experience. Just a factual, observable experience. The same is not even close to being true for “experiencing” God.
That’s not a relevant objection, since it is a mere reception problem - a deaf person will not, for example, experience classical music.
It is true that fewer experience mystic states than have functioning ears, but that is hardly the point. Both are experiences which have verifiable and objective existence.
Naturally, the interpretation of the experience differs.
Even a deaf person can feel the vibrations of the music. And nobody doubts people “experience” mystical states. As you said, the question is one of interpretation. I personally prefer the least crazy-sounding interpretation, but I realize I’m in the minority there.
I would disagree fundamentally. I would recomment Aldous Huxley’s book The Perennial Philosophy, which makes the contrary argument based on cross-cultural study:
In essence, there are many different aspects of religion:
There is social rules given religious sanction (“Thou shalt not …”);
There is creation-myths and just-so stories (“In the beginning, God made …”); and
There is direct, intuitive knowledge of the mystic sort (“We are all one”).
These are all related - some social rules are based, essentially, on ritual and history (an example, keeping kosher, or the sacrifices described in Liviticus); some are based on mystic intuition (such as the Golden Rule - “do unto others …”).
The first two aspects of religion will naturally differ considerably. A hypothetical alien from Alpha Centuri would, obviously, not be kosher, and would probably have a creation myth that differs considerably from the one(s) in Genesis. On the other hand, our hypothetical alien would probably understand the Golden Rule.
But the basis of religion is not “faith”, I would argue, but intuitive knowledge. Which leads to non-vague results and provides (I would argue) a means for evaluating the value of religious belief.
Of course, in my opinion there is (or rather, ought to be) absolutely no conflict between religion and science; both are not end results, but rather processes. Complementary ones.
If by “least crazy interpretation” you mean that the state is an evolutionary artifact based in neurology and no objective proof of the existence of an actual god external to creation, then … I’d agree.
It makes absolutely no difference to the argument.
Who said that? I said that. When I first brought up classical music as an analogy I was clearly referring to disagreement about the evaluation of music, not about the existence of music. Presumably no sane person disputes that sound waves can carry music. They can disagree greatly about whether music can carry anything meaningful. The experience of music does not occur when sound waves strike the ear drum, but rather when the mind evaluates music. A person who cares nothing for classical music could be in a room where Beethoven’s Ninth is played and experience nothing, not even conscious awareness that the music is there. He can simply “tune it out” and not experience it. A music afficionado can be in the exact same room, at the same time, getting pelted by the exact same sound waves, and have a vastly different experience. Experience, observation, seeing and hearing are mental phenomena that can vary greatly from one person to the next.
Well, this is a rather academic point – all I really need is for mathematical concepts to have some sort of independent existence, which I think is suitably evidenced by fundamental concepts being repeatedly developed, forgotten, and rediscovered throughout history, or the same concept arising independently in different locations and times (for instance, it’s widely believed that Babylonian mathematicians discovered the, you guessed it, Pythagorean theorem before Pythagoras did).
I’m doing no such thing; I’m merely arguing that atheism ought to be the default stance from which the god/no god issue ought to be assessed.
Yeah, forgive me the snark, but that’s kinda why I spend the few paragraphs in between trying to come up with some justification for those statements.
Well, the absence of something means a great many things – the absence of excess body fat means you’re slim, the absence of noise means it’s silent, the absence of light means it’s dark, and the absence of faith means that you have to build your world view on reasonable assumptions. I don’t see anything inherently strange in that.
Nevertheless, the objective existence of classical music is not called into question by that – the deaf person can utilise a great many of techniques to make themselves aware of its presence, like measuring the sound waves in the air, for instance. Again, there’s no comparison to matters taken purely on faith.
I’m discussing the objective, scientifically verifiable existence of mystic-type experiences - for which scientists can (and have) measured actual brain activity relating thereto.
I am expressly not claiming that such experiences are “proof” of anything. That is a question of interpretation.
We do agree. But I think we disagree that it makes no difference to the argument, when one is using the scientific basis in neurology as an argument that the experience somehow proves God or some mystical power exists, which is what I was getting out of it (not from you, admittedly). As I said, I don’t think anybody can claim that so-called mystical experiences have an effect on the brain of the subject, but they can also measure real fear in schizophrenics who think there is an axe-wielding murderer in the corner when there clearly isn’t. Anyway, we seem to both understand it’s down to interpretation. My problem is with the people who claim their interpretation confirms their religious beliefs.
Well, that’s because it’s a rather reasonable statement, with no root in religion at all. I stand by the statement I outlined some posts back – if you have faith, you have faith in something, which admits the possibility of infinitely many other faiths in some other thing, which means that, in all likelihood, non of these faiths can be re-invented. I’m really not sure where people have a problem with that notion.
However, we seem to have already come quite far, since so far everybody seems to agree that no specific faith, no specific tenet is ever likely to be re-discovered (barring divine intervention, of course, which doesn’t seem to happen as there’s no case I’d know of where some isolated Amazonean tribe has discovered Christianity), so even with those asserting that some non-specific faith might be re-developed, there seems to be a tacit admission that no specific religion is on par with an atheistic world view in that regard, which I find quite remarkable.
But you’d need faith that your intuitive knowledge is correct (and you’re no just making stuff up), wouldn’t you?
Well, I didn’t actually want to concern myself much with religion, but this has piqued my interest – how is religion a process, much less one ‘complimentary’ to science? I can’t claim very thorough knowledge, but in my experience, religion tends to assert its creed in a static fashion, as a divine, unchangeable truth, which is pretty much the opposite of science.
Just for the record, I just re-read the OP and some of my responses in here, and I realize I tend to sound a bit like a twat the more… exact, or precise, I guess, I try to be. It’s a tendency of mine, perhaps because of wanting to be extra-careful when writing in a foreign language. So, sorry to anybody that’s been bugged by this, I don’t mean to be aloof or condescending.
