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I've never suggested all atheists were fungible, any more than all Christians or all Buddhists are fungible. I've simply said - and no one has convinced me I'm wrong - that I have difficulty seeing a meaningful difference between a "lack of belief in a deity" and at least some level of "intellectual conviction no deity exists." It strikes me as a distinction without a difference, yet some atheists apparently believe it's important.
Some theists think it is important. We just recognize a data point.
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Originally Posted by Irkle Berserkle
I've also said that it's difficult for me to understand how someone could claim a lack of belief in a deity, thereby foreclosing a deistic or theistic perspective, while insisting this doesn't inform or affect the rest of her life.
Your difficulty to understand is your problem, not ours. We have tried to explain several times.
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Originally Posted by Irkle Berserkle
Atheists, like Christians, run the gamut from near-mindless to those who have thought about the issues more deeply to those like Bertrand Russell who have thought about the issues very deeply. The New Atheists are aggressive proselytizers for atheism, so obviously not all atheists just hold their atheism in a vacuum and get on with their knitting.
But some do, which appears to bother several theists.
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Originally Posted by Irkle Berserkle
A Christian like me is challenging to atheists who haven't thought deeply in the same way that Bertrand Russell would've been challenging to a Sunday School teacher who just knows she loves Jesus and doesn't want to think or talk about it. I'm not telling atheists who haven't thought deeply what to believe. I'm simply suggesting I believe the issues are vitally important and it would behoove them to think more deeply.
Then perhaps you should be 1) less insulting, 2) provide credible evidence for your position, and 3) not simply dismiss valid arguments against your position as inane, or that experts are just Googling the evidence we allegedly have not provided.
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Originally Posted by Irkle Berserkle
The near-mindless perspective is represented here by the poster who says he simply gives God no more thought than he gives Bigfoot or Father Christmas, as though the notion of a deity were simply too silly to bother with at all.
1) that is one poster.
2) Jesus walking on water; Saint Peter resurrecting a cooked fish; an old man with a raven telling you to drink dragon blood if you want to understand the language of the birds; or a Chinese god who fires energy bolts out of his nostrils, and his brother, who's belching can kill 1000 people with one burp, these are silly claims.
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Originally Posted by Irkle Berserkle
This is the perspective encouraged by the New Atheists: Theistic claims are too silly even to entertain, so forget them and get on with your life. Yet Nobel laureates, other world-renowned scientists and academics, and millions of other intelligent and rational people are theists - so perhaps this poster might want to at least explore a little more deeply?
And once again, do these Nobel laureates have their prizes for their theological arguments? No.
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Originally Posted by Irkle Berserkle
The atheist I challenge isn't a straw man I've invented. It's a species of atheist that is prevalent here. It's the atheists who revel in the shallowness of their atheism and curiously resist any notion that it could be deeper and better-informed.
We are not reveling, we are pointing out they exist. But I am surprised you suggest they should be better informed, because so far that has not helped your case.
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Originally Posted by Irkle Berserkle
The responses I get are entirely predictable. They are exactly the responses Bertrand Russell would've got at a gathering of Sunday School teachers. They aren't the responses he would've gotten from me.
And I can imagine what he would say to both your responses and ours.
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Originally Posted by Irkle Berserkle
I've said previously that I used to be one of the most active participants on the now-defunct Forum for Active and Critical-Thinking Skills (F.A.C.T.S.), an atheist-created and atheist-dominated forum that was at its peak 20+ years ago. Those folks knew their stuff. It was an entirely different species of atheism than prevails here. I can't even remember what I called myself there, but the responses to my posts and the level of the debates were entirely different. Things could get snarky, but it was snarkiness with substance.
Which they must have Googled, no?
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Originally Posted by Irkle Berserkle
It appears to me the folks here simply want a safe haven for mental masturbation and self-congratulation.
Ad hominem and your inability to make rational arguments noted.
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Originally Posted by Irkle Berserkle
They tolerate and even welcome Christians whose Christianity is unchallenging and unthreatening.
No, we welcome honest and respectful Christians.
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Originally Posted by Irkle Berserkle
A Christian like me is their worst nightmare, and I think the responses reflect that.
You have been refuted with science, Christian history, and probability, and if I have time, I will post something about an article by Bernardo Kastrup.
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Originally Posted by Irkle Berserkle
You and yours simply can't handle an intellectually challenging Christian who might force you to confront why you believe what you say you believe and whether you really believe it.
Maybe not. But we are still waiting for an intellectually challenging Christian to appear. You are not it.
Vitally important in what way Irkle? My husband is a person who never gives one iota of thought to the existence of god. He doesn't have the time.While we are all here contemplating our own navels around a subject matter that you nobody can prove or disprove, my husband is spending solid 14 hour days contemplating concrete scientific data with other people in a team, that has led to breakthroughs that have saved countless lives in the last year, including, let's just say one or two pretty significant people. Yes he is a world renowned scientist in his field. I can't say more than that. In his small amount of time off when his brain is not filled with the minutiae (and I mean minutiae), of the research he is involved in, he wants to crack open a beer and give his brain a rest. Notions of god take up not the smallest space in his life. He drew his own conclusions in childhood, drew a line under it and never looked back, and has never needed to. Is his, as you say 'a near mindless perspective?' Yes, on the subject of god it is. In that it doesn't factor into his day to day thought process whatsoever. He spends his time thinking deeply about other matters. As I said to you in a previous post, we can't project our own perspectives on others. I enjoy discussing notions of god or no god in my spare time because it's a topic that fascinates me.
You can't paint everyone with the same brush. Yes, as you say, Nobel laureates, other world-renowned scientists and academics, and millions of other intelligent and rational people are theists. A lot of them are atheists as well. This doesn't mean they spend time thinking about theism or atheism. Obviously they will if that's their particular field (philosophy for example). If they're in some other field, they're probably thinking about that, not this. They've got jobs to do.
bold above, that's why it is a belief
for those atheists who believe there is no god. atheists on this thread have said they believe that.
and it is a lack of belief
for those who lack belief in god.
atheists simply have a belief or lack of belief.
nothing more.
so in response to the question asked in the opening post, yes it is just another belief or lack of belief.
Last edited by Tzaphkiel; 10-13-2021 at 07:17 AM..
Of course to you Bertrand Russel was not a serious philosopher. Let me guess, a serious philosopher to you is one that support your arguments. My post was not for you, but for others who want to read different viewpoints, to have a look at his work.
I clearly stated that Russell was one of the greatest philosophers and mathematicians of the twentieth century, sweetie. The geniuses here HAD NEVER HEARD OF HIM. My guess is, you hadn't either until you read my posts, or you would not have cited his famous "orbiting teapot" of 75 years ago as though it were news..
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I was just reading another of you posts in another thread where you used an article by Michael Egnor. I was curious so tried to verify who he was. Here is his Wikipedia entry, yes Wikipedia is not the ultimate word, nevertheless it is an interesting read for anyone interested:
And he is a blogger for the Discovery Institute. What does Wikipedia have to say for that?
FWIW, I had never heard of Michael Egnor - he's not exactly Bertrand Russell. He happened to be one of the first Google results about the mind-body problem and neuroscientists' view of it. He happens to be a professor at the Department of Neurological Surgery at the State University of New York.
How about Bernardo Kastrup, neither a theist nor a dummy: "He has a Ph.D. in philosophy (ontology, philosophy of mind) and another Ph.D. in computer engineering (reconfigurable computing, artificial intelligence). As a scientist, Bernardo has worked for the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the Philips Research Laboratories (where the 'Casimir Effect' of Quantum Field Theory was discovered)." He is a regular contributor to Scientific American.
I happened to be reading his latest book, published only a few weeks ago, last night. He refers to the origin of consciousness as a "vexing problem" in neuroscience and other disciplines. He states that across numerous disciplines the views expressed here by Harry D. are becoming impossible to defend. He refers to the notion of "conscious robots" as mentioned by Harry D. as a "folly" that confuses intelligence with consciousness and mind.
The issue is not "my experts" vs. "your experts." Being a blogger for the Discovery Institute does not automatically relegate a Columbia-trained professor of neuroscience to the loony bin. The point is that some goof calling himself Harry Diogenes on an internet forum presents as Neuroscience Gospel notions that are in fact increasingly antiquated. I simply point out the his ostensible Neuroscience Gospel is anything but neuroscience gospel.
Here, to kind of put the nail in the coffin of this silliness is a 2016 article from Scientific American, "The Mind-Body Problem: Scientific Regress and 'Woo'," https://blogs.scientificamerican.com...gress-and-woo/. The author's point is how far science has "regressed" from the naturalistic approach favored by Harry. Bearing in mind that the author would love a naturalistic solution to the mystery of consciousness, here are a couple of representative quotes. The article is really quite good.
That brings me to arguably the most significant development of the last two decades of research on the mind-body problem: Koch, who in 1994 resisted the old Chalmers information conjecture, has embraced integrated information theory and its corollary, panpsychism. Koch has suggested that even a proton might possess a smidgeon of proto-consciousness. I equate the promotion of panpsychism by Koch, Tononi, Chalmers and other prominent mind-theorists to the promotion of multiverse theories by leading physicists. These are signs of desperation, not progress.
...
Returning to Tucson after 22 years bolstered my sense that mind-body research, far from advancing, is regressing. There was more diversity of speculation, and woo, than in 1994. Hameroff and others presented quantum theories of consciousness, even though few mainstream neuroscientists take them seriously. (Koch is still opposed to quantum woo. He emailed me that it is “very unlikely that [quantum] effects play a major role in cognition, including consciousness.") The conference also featured talks on “Bayesian brain†models of cognition, integrated information theory, panpsychism, paranormal phenomena and more, much more. Diversity of speculation is a sign not of vitality but of weakness. It means researchers haven’t found an approach strong enough to compel consensus and convergence.
... Mysterianism seems increasingly reasonable to me. I doubt science will ever give us a theory so potent that we think, “Ah, so that explains consciousness.†But unlike McGinn, I don’t think we’re too dumb to solve the mind-body problem. In fact, I suspect that the smarter we get, the more puzzled we will be by our own minds.
I still have an unused tube of that cream Harry urged me to get, if you'd like me to send it to you.
How many times and in how many ways does Irkle have to demonstrate that the A&A forum is a clown show? Not because the participants aren't Christian, which is of no consequence to me, but because they quite literally know nothing about the positions they purport to hold.
My husband is a person who never gives one iota of thought to the existence of god.
He doesn't have the time.
While we are all here contemplating our own navels around a subject matter that you nobody can prove or disprove, my husband is spending solid 14 hour days contemplating concrete scientific data with other people in a team, that has led to breakthroughs that have saved countless lives in the last year, including, let's just say one or two pretty significant people. Yes he is a world renowned scientist in his field. I can't say more than that.
In his small amount of time off when his brain is not filled with the minutiae (and I mean minutiae), of the research he is involved in, he wants to crack open a beer and give his brain a rest.
Notions of god take up not the smallest space in his life. He drew his own conclusions in childhood, drew a line under it and never looked back, and has never needed to.
Is his, as you say 'a near mindless perspective?'
Yes, on the subject of god it is. In that it doesn't factor into his day to day thought process whatsoever.
He spends his time thinking deeply about other matters.
As I said to you in a previous post, we can't project our own perspectives on others.
I enjoy discussing notions of god or no god in my spare time because it's a topic that fascinates me.
You can't paint everyone with the same brush.
Yes, as you say, Nobel laureates, other world-renowned scientists and academics, and millions of other intelligent and rational people are theists. A lot of them are atheists as well.
This doesn't mean they spend time thinking about theism or atheism. Obviously they will if that's their particular field (philosophy for example). If they're in some other field, they're probably thinking about that, not this. They've got jobs to do.
It appears to me that you are generalizing from your husband, who strikes me on the basis of your description as being as one-dimensional as my very good friend, a highly intelligent and decent man, who takes the position "Eh, I guess I'll find out when I die." He has an IQ as high as mine - very high, I assure you - but literally everyone who knows him can see that there is "something missing."
Questions about the meaning and purpose of life (if any), the existence or nonexistence of a deity, the nature of reality, and the survival or non-survival of consciousness after physical death have concerned the vast majority of humans who have ever lived. They continue to do so. OK, your husband "drew his own conclusions in childhood." Does this strike you as a rational approach to issues of this magnitude and depth? These questions are what the entire academic discipline of philosophy is all about, but your husband is content to rest on conclusions he reached in childhood? How often are religious believers attacked for the shallowness of their beliefs if they say they came to Jesus in childhood?
You say these topics fascinate you. Why would that be? Possibly because, at least at some intuitive level, you recognize they are the core questions of life and that there are mysteries science can't answer? You like to discuss them in your spare time - to the tune of almost 10,000 posts over a period of more than 10 years?
Why would atheists haunt the Christianity forum to a far greater degree than they do the A&A forum? Why would they be so transparently desperate to make Christianity and its doctrines seem silly and unworthy of belief? These same folks claim atheism is just a "lack of belief" and really has no more effect on their lives than you say religion has on your husband's. Something just doesn't add up, and the usefulness of the Irkle persona is that he can poke and prod until such folks tip their hand and reveal who they really are. Irkle isn't saying "Be a Christian!" or even "Your atheism is stupid!" He's saying "Take a look in the mirror and see if you really believe what you claim to believe."
To answer your question about "Vitally important in what way?" I will say:
1. The answers one reaches, necessarily tentative as they must be, inform every aspect of this life. As I've said repeatedly, an atheist does not look at herself, her fellow humans and creatures, her life, her world or her universe in the same way as a theist. If an atheist and a Christian happen to hold the exact same notions of morality, those notions are still entirely and fundamentally different. We may both adore our 4-year-old daughters, but our views of who and what they are will be entirely and fundamentally different. As much as you appear to love your husband, your view of him and your marriage is entirely and fundamentally different from my view of my wife and our marriage. Even someone such as your husband, whom you say never thinks about these matters at all but does have those childhood convictions somewhere in the back of his mind, effectively inhabits a different world and a different universe than I do.
2. At least if a number of religions are correct, the answers we arrive at will have eternal consequences.
I clearly stated that Russell was one of the greatest philosophers and mathematicians of the twentieth century, sweetie. The geniuses here HAD NEVER HEARD OF HIM. My guess is, you hadn't either until you read my posts, or you would not have cited his famous "orbiting teapot" of 75 years ago as though it were news..
Lovely, you assuming I had never heard of Russell. Pure arrogance on your part, where your arrogance exceeds your knowledge. Not a good look. There was another poster on here who had a similar failing, but they seemed to have changed for the better recently.
This is not a complicated matter like the existence of God. I can simply prove that your arrogance in making assumptions about me exceeds your knowledge or ability.
That was made in March of this year! Turns out Peter600 didn't need Irkle to know about Russel. What a surprise! What arrogance from Irkle's part to assume so.
Now let's show some other thing you posted in reply to me that are full of hot air.
Irkle: "No serious philosopher or theologian has ever asserted that the fact God can't be disproven is of any evidentiary weight or is a reason to believe."
Irkle: "I clearly stated that Russell was one of the greatest philosophers and mathematicians of the twentieth century, sweetie."
Betrand Russel, through the use of his teapot, asserts that the fact God can't be disproven is of evidentiary weight and a reason not to believe (or rather to not have belief either way).
Conclusion, Irkle can't be consistent between posts over successive days, never mind more complex philosophical questions. Or Irkle's estimation of themselves exceeds their ability. Probably both.
It appears to me that you are generalizing from your husband, who strikes me on the basis of your description as being as one-dimensional as my very good friend, a highly intelligent and decent man, who takes the position "Eh, I guess I'll find out when I die." He has an IQ as high as mine - very high, I assure you - but literally everyone who knows him can see that there is "something missing."
Questions about the meaning and purpose of life (if any), the existence or nonexistence of a deity, the nature of reality, and the survival or non-survival of consciousness after physical death have concerned the vast majority of humans who have ever lived. They continue to do so. OK, your husband "drew his own conclusions in childhood." Does this strike you as a rational approach to issues of this magnitude and depth? These questions are what the entire academic discipline of philosophy is all about, but your husband is content to rest on conclusions he reached in childhood? How often are religious believers attacked for the shallowness of their beliefs if they say they came to Jesus in childhood?
Yes it strikes me as entirely rational because I have several people in my life that came to the same conclusion in early childhood. My brother was the same.
I was raised in Britain. About 40% of the population are atheists.
I don't think 40% of the population have something missing.
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You say these topics fascinate you. Why would that be? Possibly because, at least at some intuitive level, you recognize they are the core questions of life and that there are mysteries science can't answer? You like to discuss them in your spare time - to the tune of almost 10,000 posts over a period of more than 10 years?
I like to try to understand how other people think. I make no bones about that. I have always said that's the reason I'm here. I've spent equal or more time on P&OC for similar reasons. I don't post on there anymore because literally all everyone wants to do is fight.
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Why would atheists haunt the Christianity forum to a far greater degree than they do the A&A forum?
I can't speak for other people but I suppose because the conversation tends to have more substance. There's only so much you can say about atheism before the conversation runs out.
I go where the interesting threads are.
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Why would they be so transparently desperate to make Christianity and its doctrines seem silly and unworthy of belief? These same folks claim atheism is just a "lack of belief" and really has no more effect on their lives than you say religion has on your husband's. Something just doesn't add up, and the usefulness of the Irkle persona is that he can poke and prod until such folks tip their hand and reveal who they really are. Irkle isn't saying "Be a Christian!" or even "Your atheism is stupid!" He's saying "Take a look in the mirror and see if you really believe what you claim to believe."
I don't know why others want to make Christianity unworthy of belief. That's not a position I hold personally. It's not for me to decide what's worthy in someone else's life.
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To answer your question about "Vitally important in what way?" I will say:
1. The answers one reaches, necessarily tentative as they must be, inform every aspect of this life. As I've said repeatedly, an atheist does not look at herself, her fellow humans and creatures, her life, her world or her universe in the same way as a theist. If an atheist and a Christian happen to hold the exact same notions of morality, those notions are still entirely and fundamentally different. We may both adore our 4-year-old daughters, but our views of who and what they are will be entirely and fundamentally different. As much as you appear to love your husband, your view of him and your marriage is entirely and fundamentally different from my view of my wife and our marriage. Even someone such as your husband, whom you say never thinks about these matters at all but does have those childhood convictions somewhere in the back of his mind, effectively inhabits a different world and a different universe than I do.
Okay. I sort of agree and sort of don't agree.
If our notions of morality are the same; if we raise our kids to be good, kind, thoughtful, empathetic people, what does it matter if they believe in god or not?
I would agree, you and I effectively inhabit slightly different worlds and different universes because our perception is different. It's still the same world and universe.
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2. At least if a number of religions are correct, the answers we arrive at will have eternal consequences.
I don't want to read the wrong message here so I won't make any assumptions about what I think you mean.
But I'll just say for myself, I do not believe there are any eternal consequences. So yes, here at least, you and I are worlds apart.
..............................
This is going to be my last post for a while..
Last edited by Cruithne; 10-13-2021 at 08:36 AM..
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