Uncertainty and admitting ignorance can be uncomfortable. It takes a certain sort of humility to accept the limitations of our knowledge and admit that there are some things that we simply do not (and perhaps can never) know.
Funny you should mention this because I very frequently see it in the mindset of atheists too. As I’ve proved already, disbelief is just another form of belief and vice versa. If the atheists who go around barking about what they glibly call “the scientific method” really cared about applying the logic of science at all (as though you should over a supernatural matter) then they would merely be agnostics. They can say till they’re blue in the face that atheism is just the belief that God
probably doesn’t exist but not only do most of them not seem to behave in a way that suggests any uncertainty at all in their minds to match the lip service: in the ways that they
support their atheism they also go out of their way to pretend definite fact exists where only uncertainty does. They redefine quantum fluctuations as uncaused events that somehow show how an entire universe could itself spring into being uncaused when in reality quantum fluctuations are just fluctuations in existing energy whose cause is not yet currently known. (Indeed, “X is uncaused” is perhaps the single most unscientific concept possible.) They brag about science being superior to religion because it is an inherently self-correcting thing without dogma or certainty (which would make no difference if one doesn’t beg the question by simply presupposing that no religion got it right the first time and therefore to continue correcting itself would be
worsening the situation by fixing what ain’t broken), and yet when arguing with Creationists they make declarations like, “Evolution is as undeniable as gravity.” Many of them—like Richard Dawkins, as we recently discussed—have a problem with theism on the grounds that they are certain that the real solution must be something greater than anything that humans have yet thought of. Never mind how they would know this.
Also notice how there are far, far, far, far, far more atheists who disbelieve in all supernatural things whatsoever than there are theists who believe in every supernatural thing they hear about that they think doesn’t contradict the ones they already believe in. FAR more. Does the coincidence not bother them? Do they not notice how odd it is that they happen to disbelieve in ALL of the sundry, individual claims of non-material things, or are they just arrogantly confident that it’s a good thing for them to be biased on the subject, and tell themselves that their bias is only against nonsense or superstition, never mind the fluke involved in
all of this stuff just so happening to strike them as falling under those categories?
Religion tells us that there are all sorts of things that we cannot (and will never) know. The existence of the unimaginable and incomprehensible is the name of the game. For every thing it happens to make comprehensible to us which might not have been so otherwise there are ten mysteries it creates that are greater still.
Pygoscelis said:
Fair enough. But that would seem to apply to everybody we consider insane for any reason. Perhaps they all simply know something we don't, and hear music we can't.
The point is that everyone does and believes things that seem crazy to other people for no other reason than their own pre-existing biases. Or are you not one of those people who will tell me that holding strictly to the standards of science means accepting things which frequently go against common sense?
Don't see why that should matter. I suppose it makes it more nefarious.
It matters a very great deal, because you are associating our sincere belief with an insincere deception. Let me put it this way: if I somehow found twenty very valid parallels between being an atheist and believing in the boogeyman then would that excuse me for making the comparison? Would it not still be inexcusably obnoxious of me
regardless of my supposed intentions? Would it not seem to say something about me that I chose to put my point that way instead of in some other way that seems less patronizing?
So then you realize that not all atheists are out to mock you? From your previous post it seemed otherwise.
It’s not a question of what they’re
out to do but of what they actually do. Most of the ones who argue for atheism seem out to “liberate” us poor religious folk from our caveman-like “superstitions” and advance us to the point of “freethinking”. To evolve us beyond the “primitive” and bring us to the top of some intellectual food chain where people who hold to their own particular views naturally reside. Condescension like that doesn’t need any particular kind of conduct to be morally awful, but I do appreciate it when it is still expressed compassionately or at least dispassionately. Michael Martin is
very dispassionate and unemotional, and speaks only of logic. Very flawed logic, to be sure, but it’s still an admirable trait.
It isn't rare at all. I'm doing it right here. Maybe you should visit an atheist board other than the overly aggressive ones like Dawkins' that lily went to. I visit freeratio.org sometimes and have for longer than I've visited here (it is actually how I originally found this place - somebody from here actually went over there and mentioned here) and I've seen hundreds of discussions and don't recall ever seeing anybody outright mock anybody for their honestly held beliefs.
Well I don’t know about this “freeratio” place but as for what I do know about I have yet to encounter one, single atheism board in my whole life where I’ve seen theists and theism get even the smallest smidgeon of maturity and civility from so much as 10% of its members, and I have been to quite a lot of them. If it were just the message boards then it wouldn’t be that much of a problem; message boards are like that, even this one occasionally can be. But even the most famous “professional” atheistic writers are usually humungous jerks. Read Frank Zindler, for instance, and tell me you would want him as a dinner guest.
That could be interesting. Shermer has written a number of very interesting books. You have read them? Do you consider Shermer as out to mock people? He really isn't.
I’m not intimately familiar with Shermer but I am aware of him. So far I guess I haven’t seen anything by him to object to. I never denied that there are a
few such atheistic spokespeople out there.
How is comparing somebody's beliefs to a tea pot any more disrespectful than outright telling people they deserve to suffer in hell for not believing as they do? The former may be kind of goofy, but the latter is hostile.
If by “goofy” you mean “reminiscent of the goofy mockery of fourth-graders”. I don’t remember ever saying that anyone deserves to suffer in hell for believing anything. I do think, however, that saying such things is still much better than nose-thumbing prattle about celestial teapots and pink unicorns, because if someone does the former then however hostile he may be he’s still at least granting you the minimal courtesy of taking you and your beliefs seriously.
Not believing in space alien conspiracies is very much the automatic starting position, and without some very good evidence to the contrary, most of us will stay in that position. Saying there are different kinds of atheism is like saying there are different kinds of bald. Either you do or you do not believe. If you do not believe, you are a non-believer. A non-believer in God(s) is an atheist. Simple as that.
Yes, there are different kinds of baldness but when the question is whether or not to shave one’s head (or not let hair grow in, or whatever), the adults on one side who are deliberately bald cannot just invoke the initial baldness of infants to avoid accepting that they are not themselves in any starting position as the infants are just because they happen FOR DIFFERENT REASONS AND IN DIFFERENT WAYS not to have hair either. Those infants would have nothing—NOTHING—to do with the debate, anymore than fertilized ova that have not yet begun to reach the point where they may or may not sprout Y chromosomes have nothing to do with an argument about men vs. women. Accept this already, or at least stop forcing me to repeat myself because you intentionally and stubbornly refuse of your own free will to get it. I’m too sick and tired of explaining it to you. If you want to continue hiding behind the ambiguous or variable meaning of a word instead of looking at the situation itself then that’s your own prerogative.
The anger is mostly about specific practices and beliefs yes.
You see? It’s really religion that they’re angry at. If they were really concerned with promoting atheism then they wouldn’t keep harping on about religion instead. They don’t let themselves focus. It’s just about them letting off steam. Why else would their arguments against theism itself more often than not just be pathetically thinly veiled arguments against religion (almost always the particular religion they were raised in or which is dominant where they live)? It’s just not sincere of them.
There is no prophet, holy book, or dogma to atheism so that just doesn't work. Atheism is not a belief system. It is the lack of one single belief…
The part you have omitted already preemptively responded to that evasion. Now you’re just getting dishonest. I’m beginning to consider quitting on you.
There is if you oppose group thinking and tribalism. Which I do.
You have just admitted that your obsession with what you call “tribalism” causes you to have other and higher concerns than whether or not something is true. Therefore there is no point in trying to reason with you.
We can consider both. Zionists believe that God told them Israel is theirs and theirs alone and that they should displace the Palestinians. We don't just care about if God actually told them this (you and I both conclude he didn't), we also go on to consider the implications of the belief. The catholic church believes that God forbids contraception and has spread this belief through Africa. I don't really care if a God actually does oppose contraception (maybe I'm wrong and one does). I only care about the disease and death this belief has caused.
What am I supposed to say to that? How am I to get you to understand that you can’t formulate a belief about anything with other criteria than whether or not the belief is correct?
You just changed your definition of God. You previously left out the requirement that he must be supernatural and that he must be outside the chain of causation. Perhaps you should edit this into your OP if you plan to use it elsewhere?
An understandable mistake for you to make, and one which I predicted. I’ve got to stop overestimating people. I’ve already told you how it is impossible for God not to be supernatural: it is precisely
because of the chain thing. The matter goes beyond mere linguistics in the same way that fire being hot goes beyond the actual chemical definition of the word itself. If you want to get unspeakably technical and impractical about it then yes, you could theoretically still
call a non-supernatural entity “God” but nobody ever, ever does and it wouldn’t make any sense at all if they did. You know, for someone who keeps allegedly refusing to argue semantics you sure seem to do very little else.
