:roflmao:
Your desire for God to be real does not equate to God's necessity to exist. That's how the two are not related.
Atheism and universal loneliness
- Thread starter wynn
- Start date
:roflmao:
Your desire for God to be real does not equate to God's necessity to exist. That's how the two are not related.
And straw is not food.
And non-sequiturs are not sequiturs.
Does it make a difference whether I believe in Zeus and the greek mythology, The xian (jesus didn't proclaim much of an ontological position btw, preferring instead to focus on interactions between people and the problems with greed and ego in finding what basically amounts to enlightenment in the Gospel of Thomas and can be interpreted as such in most of the canonical gospels too, the ontological position of creation and that sort of God was borrowed from a book which he only seemed to think contained the law, not the ontology exactly, that part was assumed by the xians who wanted heaven so they could reunite with their beloved pet parakeet someday*) ontological position of a supreme godhead, the buddhist ontological position of nonduality and emptiness, the scientific materialist ontology of rocks and bulldozers, or simply hold my knowledge, such as I aquire, as conditional and make no ontological conclusions?
If so, can you articulate why?
*(exquisite ontological sentiments from the gospel of thomas)
Which
Can you really walk around making no ontological conclusions?
Or at least: Can you really walk around desiring no ontological conclusions?
And yes, it makes all the difference in the world what your ontological position is - because based on that ontological position (however merely implicit or intuitive it may be) will be your approach to the problem of your suffering. And you do suffer (at least we take this much as a given).
If you thnk that your suffering is your own private problem that has nothing to do with the workings of "life, the Universe and everything", then it is not clear how you can ever hope to do anything about it - and as such, are doomed to suffer for as long as you shall live. We assume that suffering is something we try to do away with, and that happiness is something we seek.
As an example: Can you envision holding a behavioristic ontology (something along the lines of "There is no self. It all comes down to a series of stimuli to which humans react by the principle of rewards and punishments.") and feel happy and content with your life?
Thank heavens for inconsistency, huh!
It's not really inconsistent, though, if you think about it. Saying there's no overall purpose to life doesn't mean that there's no immediate purpose to life. I have an itch, I want to scratch it; the purpose to life isn't to scratch that itch, but it's my purpose right now.
And at any rate, I think to avoid happiness and seek out suffering requires effort, and probably isn't sustainable, so there's something to the idea that these things just come naturally.
If I don't want to bump into things it's even preferable.
But seriously, the answer is noyes. I constantly make hypotheses or provisionally accept those which I pick up from stray coffee tables and out of my neighbor's mailbox when he isn't home. But it seems to me that if happiness is your goal, you'd be a lot better off just allowing that a guess is always a guess and not getting to detailed with it's decorations in case they clash with future observation. It's easier to just adjust them to fit what you experience. Are you assuming an end goal which is larger than an individual lifetime is necessary for any individual to pursue happiness within his or her individual lifetime? I find tremendous peace in not having to work out compartments to keep dissonance at bay. I also find comedic value when I discover that I have been holding some truth too tightly and failed to check that it still fits with my experience. Again, yesno. I am constantly fiddling with how things work, drawing or painting, writing songs, doodling, or engaging in mental masturbation about what sorts of things seem to make sense when I measure them against my own experience. Some things I find quite profound, others entertaining or anywhere else on the satisfying scale. And I enjoy and even desire to encounter things I find profound or sublime. But do I declare that because I find both theism and atheism to be mental straightjackets, closing off future investigations by exclusion that whatever third horn I seem to be stuck on is an ontology? I can't imagine how that would enhance my ability to be open minded and discover those rare ideas or events which I might call profound.
Give me one single tangible attribute of God. Since you can't, since no one can give a single tangible attribute which withstands investigation, God is a pretty pointless postulate for me. Rather than say that there is definitely no god though, I prefer to simply wait until I encounter something which needs a name before I name it. Once I name it, I know that my name might delineate poorly on closer inspection and I may have to discard the name or change it or allow the category to expire as it is subsumed into another. So I just use the names I collect to describe what I encounter, and allow that the way you name things might be different but that it does seem like we likely have similar experiences at least physiologically and mentally, so if we use different names then I can look at all your names as new ways to name the experiences I will encounter. If I find something useful, profound, or in some other way worth tucking away for further use then it's a bonus and I am happy. So Yes I desire ontological conclusions but I know that they are pure guesses based on my own names for sensations which have no real persistence so I don't treat the agreement between my experience and them as a requirement for my personal happiness. In fact I am almost always entertained when I encounter a disagreement. I actually spend a fair bit of my constant attention looking for disagreements between what I think something should be and what I actually encounter.
I imagine that the alternative would be very frightening and maybe even misery of some sort or another. Definitely a cause for suffering. So no, I have no desire to force my conclusions to fit my experience. Or, not much anyway. I suppose that is the basic human condition and I am not claiming any special status or anything, but I do find it more conducive to happiness to let go of conclusions which inform my choices within unnecessary limitations.
Hmm. I inadvertently already addressed this I think. Perhaps my ontological position is that all ontologies are eventually self-refuting and all truths are provincial. And that ontological position does in fact inform how I deal with unhappiness or suffering, dukkha you might even call it were you inclined a buddhist direction.
If you think that adopting some fabricated cosmic narrative with no warrant but that you were bequeathed it by your family or adopted it after reading the entire encyclopedia Britannica and everything by William Lane Craig or Roger Penrose, depending on your personal kinks, out in a cabin in montana until you created your triumphant manifesto which, like the denizens of Plato's cave said about the cause of the shadows, you have no way in hell of knowing anything more than it might sound good, and read the entrails or whatever appropriate analog you invent or accept, of the slaughtered sacrifices to determine whether you should be feeling good at any given moment, I would say that you stand less chance of success than I do. But obviously I have no idea how happy you generally are. You read a little angsty and there is a slight hint of arguing to convince yourself when I try to imagine what it would be like to think what you have written. But the context is too narrow for me to do anything but guess. If you told me how happy you generally are, I would believe you though since I have no other sources who know you personally. If I met you and decided that experience didn't match my expectation, it wouldn't bother me very much because experience and words are different. My naming conventions are slightly different as an individual and no doubt my observation, even if I concluded the opposite from what you told me, wouldn't in any way cast a shadow on the truth of your statement as the description which worked for you. If my working description didn't match yours, that would be hard if I thought of truth as related to more than my provisional model which I use to navigate the world around and inform my interactions with others.
Would you feel offended and so suffer just a little if I did not accept your naming of your general demeanor because it didn't work for me? If you need an ontology to guide your actions and pursuits, it seems like you could feel suffering when others didn't accept it as relevant to them. If you then got irate or surly because they didn't seem to care that you really really wanted them to believe the absolutely unsupported and unsupportable wild ass guess you adopted regarding ultimate purpose or cause or whatever from a decidedly finite set of data, then you would not only be suffering but you could potentially be increasing the suffering in the world in retaliation for not having the power to tell someone which wild ass guess they need to believe to make you happy. That just seems somehow problematic to me.
Don't worry, I don't take offense at the questions or anything. I'm happy to discuss this kind of stuff when I have time. But I think you might have your causes and effects backwards. It's worth a look anyway. I am wrong probably more often than right.
just saw this. was it an ETA?
I am not any sort of materialist, behavorist, theist, atheist, philologist or really any kind of ist. I think theories should account for data and be useful in predicting it. Any theory which fails either one of those is already on shaky ontological grounds. Especially if there has never been a corresponding experience which takes it's name from that theory. Making shit up and holding onto it until your fingers bleed seems like it would only create unhappiness over the long run.
Define self. Words are a tangled mess when you dig down to clear edges. If you want truth, get into math.
I am not any sort of materialist, behavorist, theist, atheist, philologist or really any kind of ist. I think theories should account for data and be useful in predicting it. Any theory which fails either one of those is already on shaky ontological grounds. Especially if there has never been a corresponding experience which takes it's name from that theory. Making shit up and holding onto it until your fingers bleed seems like it would only create unhappiness over the long run.
Define self. Words are a tangled mess when you dig down to clear edges. If you want truth, get into math.
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DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
wynn, you've been reduced to cryptic sarcastic quips. It is tough to follow your line of reasoning. A discerning reader might conclude that you've no counterargument but can't admit it.
Say what you mean.
Are you saying that you can't see how one can pursue happiness even while one is sure that the universe has no larger meaning?
Our sense of well being seems to come mostly from a being secure, that one's immediate universe is stable (provided he's not hanging from manacles, or the equivalent).
I think the myths that have grown up around us, including religions, have a tendency to invade that sense of stability. Charles Dickens once wrote
I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain, to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body: and because its ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable to the eye and sense of touch as scars upon the flesh; because its wounds are not upon the surface, and it extorts few cries that human ears can hear; therefore I the more denounce it, as a secret punishment which slumbering humanity is not roused up to stay….
He happened to be speaking about the Philadelphia prison but it resonates with my own idea, that religions create virtual prisoners.
I don't get a similar vibe from atheism. If anything, it rails against the way religions mess with people's heads.
Have you ever encountered the writings of PZ Myers or the group calling itself the New Atheist movement?
Because I had to stop calling myself an atheist recently so that I wouldn't be mistaken for someone who is involved in the formation of a new religion based on discrimination and hate speech propaganda.
An example:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/11/27/i-do-not-forgive/
I just got banned from PZ's blog the other day. Weird, I've now experienced a first. I have been banned from a site on the internet. I called him out on some puffery where he was denigrating some lady doing her phd I think in some aspect of virology or a related field where he made a whole post to point out that he would decline any invitation to attend a conference that she was attending.
I asked if they would be invited to the same conferences anyway since she has research to present and PZ is not a research scientist. He posted a big long list of his recent scientific accomplishments and none of them were scientific and in one item he actually wrote he was the keynote speaker at SDB Hawaii last year (not A keynote speaker, THE keynote speaker) and he wasn't. He was the last presenter in the session after lunch on the second day.
http://www3.jabsom.hawaii.edu/Grad_DRB/sdb/program.htm
Here is his list:
Got a publication coming out this fall, got a major grant award, was the keynote speaker at SDB in Hawaii, UNLV White Distinguished Lecture, taught a standard 3/2 load (including developing a new upper level elective), had 35 advisees, have 3 students working with me this summer on a new field project.
aside from the straight up lie about keynote, the following sentence made all the items on the list intentional misrepresentation of his academic credentials and I don't know why he did that:
"Now, bwe4, your turn to recite your scientic[sic] accomplishments this year."
His credentials he listed aren't scientific. By asking for mine he dishonestly suggested his were. They are education credentials, not scientific accomplishments. And the " UNLV White Distinguished Lecture"? Guess what it was on (Listed as a scientific credential. Give up? This:
The School of Life Sciences welcomes Paul Z. Myers from the University of Minnesota, Morris department of biology as the annual Juanita Greer White Distinguished Lecturer. His talk is titled "Foundational Follies of Creationism."
Myers is an outspoken critic of evolution deniers and challenges proponents of intelligent design, scientific creationism, and pseudoscience.
http://go.unlv.edu/node/11167/m
I think he just got put on the spot and I touched a nerve since I am a somewhat vocal critic of his blog and claims about the power of science to determine Truth[sup]TM[/sup] or some bs like that. An example:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/04/15/sunday-sacrilege-sacking-the-city-of-god/
Anyway, when I did the whole, WTF dude, you just lied to me about your academic credentials in public, he told me I had to list my scientific credentials or be banned. So I did. He decided to ban me anyway and this is his doosie of a closer:
You’re just a random asshole passing by who knows nothing about my work, but feels free to invent lies about it? Fuck off
My lie? Here:
It’s been more than a decade since you’ve actually done any science hasn’t it? What kind of conferences still invite you anyway? Probably not the same sort that invite Abby who, last I checked, was still actually doing science. I know the echo chamber here will soothe you of any self-doubt you may have, but hate speech is hate speech. And dogma is dogma. And when someone gets so wrapped up in a personal dogma like yours, getting so stupidly mired in it that they actually proclaim science is a replacement for religion, that they find ways to excuse hate speech or claim that it isn’t hate speech because religion is really awful, well, you made the bed, you lie in it.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyng...s-no-blacklist/comment-page-2/#comment-345148
But he deleted almost all my posts so I don't have all of them anymore but I did save some at talkrational.
Anyway, there's atheism and then there's New Atheism which is a Movement and the latter creeps me right the heck out.
Because I had to stop calling myself an atheist recently so that I wouldn't be mistaken for someone who is involved in the formation of a new religion based on discrimination and hate speech propaganda.
An example:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/11/27/i-do-not-forgive/
I just got banned from PZ's blog the other day. Weird, I've now experienced a first. I have been banned from a site on the internet. I called him out on some puffery where he was denigrating some lady doing her phd I think in some aspect of virology or a related field where he made a whole post to point out that he would decline any invitation to attend a conference that she was attending.
I asked if they would be invited to the same conferences anyway since she has research to present and PZ is not a research scientist. He posted a big long list of his recent scientific accomplishments and none of them were scientific and in one item he actually wrote he was the keynote speaker at SDB Hawaii last year (not A keynote speaker, THE keynote speaker) and he wasn't. He was the last presenter in the session after lunch on the second day.
http://www3.jabsom.hawaii.edu/Grad_DRB/sdb/program.htm
Here is his list:
Got a publication coming out this fall, got a major grant award, was the keynote speaker at SDB in Hawaii, UNLV White Distinguished Lecture, taught a standard 3/2 load (including developing a new upper level elective), had 35 advisees, have 3 students working with me this summer on a new field project.
aside from the straight up lie about keynote, the following sentence made all the items on the list intentional misrepresentation of his academic credentials and I don't know why he did that:
"Now, bwe4, your turn to recite your scientic[sic] accomplishments this year."
His credentials he listed aren't scientific. By asking for mine he dishonestly suggested his were. They are education credentials, not scientific accomplishments. And the " UNLV White Distinguished Lecture"? Guess what it was on (Listed as a scientific credential. Give up? This:
The School of Life Sciences welcomes Paul Z. Myers from the University of Minnesota, Morris department of biology as the annual Juanita Greer White Distinguished Lecturer. His talk is titled "Foundational Follies of Creationism."
Myers is an outspoken critic of evolution deniers and challenges proponents of intelligent design, scientific creationism, and pseudoscience.
http://go.unlv.edu/node/11167/m
I think he just got put on the spot and I touched a nerve since I am a somewhat vocal critic of his blog and claims about the power of science to determine Truth[sup]TM[/sup] or some bs like that. An example:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/04/15/sunday-sacrilege-sacking-the-city-of-god/
Anyway, when I did the whole, WTF dude, you just lied to me about your academic credentials in public, he told me I had to list my scientific credentials or be banned. So I did. He decided to ban me anyway and this is his doosie of a closer:
You’re just a random asshole passing by who knows nothing about my work, but feels free to invent lies about it? Fuck off
My lie? Here:
It’s been more than a decade since you’ve actually done any science hasn’t it? What kind of conferences still invite you anyway? Probably not the same sort that invite Abby who, last I checked, was still actually doing science. I know the echo chamber here will soothe you of any self-doubt you may have, but hate speech is hate speech. And dogma is dogma. And when someone gets so wrapped up in a personal dogma like yours, getting so stupidly mired in it that they actually proclaim science is a replacement for religion, that they find ways to excuse hate speech or claim that it isn’t hate speech because religion is really awful, well, you made the bed, you lie in it.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyng...s-no-blacklist/comment-page-2/#comment-345148
But he deleted almost all my posts so I don't have all of them anymore but I did save some at talkrational.
Anyway, there's atheism and then there's New Atheism which is a Movement and the latter creeps me right the heck out.
I'm a big fan of PZ. His is the farthest thing from hate speech imaginable. All the New Atheists are awesome.
BWE1
I am very familiar with PZ, I don't recognize him in your post. Rather I see YOU have a problem with Atheists that talk back and say things you don't agree with(for whatever reason). Personally I got a whiff of theism bias in your rant. Are you a stealth theists pretending to be an atheist?
Grumpy
I am very familiar with PZ, I don't recognize him in your post. Rather I see YOU have a problem with Atheists that talk back and say things you don't agree with(for whatever reason). Personally I got a whiff of theism bias in your rant. Are you a stealth theists pretending to be an atheist?
Grumpy
lol.
A stealth theist? I think I just gave me perspective regarding ontological positions right upthread.
I don't have a problem with anyone talking back. But I do have a problem with hate speech. It may seem haha funny but the effort to brand a group as an out-group and inferior to the in-group, which is defined and branded by the same person or interests is propaganda and it's hate speech. Religious people do all kinds of stupid shit and a very uneducated and fearful segment of our society in aggregate tends to identify with the label 'religious'. By branding the label as inferior and those who voluntarily identify with the label (or involuntarily as you just attempted to do to me as if it would somehow delegitimize the content of my post) as inferior, PZ and the new atheists are promoting actually as indisputable fact, that a group of people are inferior based on their association with the label.
If you want to argue an atheist position, I will call myself a theist of whatever sort and still show your position , at least in the post above, is an attempt to intimidate through insinuation rather than address content. I could be a gay siamese twin with a m uslim father and a witchdoctor mother for that matter. I don't care. Because I presented an argument and you presented an insult to discredit me. That's how labels work. One of the actually more minor uses for labels is an initial filter for how we delegate our shared opportunity. Someone who is intrinsically inferior by virtue of a label deserves less attention, less compassion, less patience, less money and their life is worth less if that decision needs to be made.
Think "Public reaction to Trayvon Martin's murder. How many people went on the record saying that he was probably a thug or that for some reason, Zimmerman was justified in hunting down and killing a kid. What it does is say that actually, though this was a tragic mistake, hunting down real car prowlers and shooting them is acceptable because we all know people who steal lawn ornaments are inferior and their lives are not just unimportant but killing them is a service to humanity.
And then, when some idiot goes out with a gun hunting a black kid because he fits the profile, people actually try to excuse him for it. If you think PZ's words and those of his followers are not the same kind of hate speech as 'ghetto thugs' and whatever, hPZ has mentioned his glee should he (metaphorically of course) have the opportunity to spread creationist's entrails around. To make them suffer.
But beliefs are not actions. I will not endorse someone who proclaims which thoughts are allowable and which make one inferior as a human.
And, you're content free attempt to belittle me with a label sort of reminds me of another guy who sometimes posts on TR who does the same thing. Loves to insult and by judging the person inferior, assuming that judgement invalidates their argument. Well, what that poster does is identical to what the New Atheists do by creating a label so that a general judgement of inferiority of humanity is as easy as putting a stamp on an envelope.
Here's the deal. PZ lied to me about his academic achievements and misrepresented his academic credentials as something they are not. I posted the text and links above. Do you dispute my claim or are you going to pull a WT or a PZ and call me names to delegitimize my individual value so that the fact that PZ Myers Lied to me about his academic achievements and misrepresented his academic credentials as something they are not will sink into obscurity with my disgraced name?
Because buddy, I never claimed to be anything special in the first place. If you want to compartmentalize your observation far away from your truths which cannot manage to coexist with those observations, that's your business. But I don't shut up because someone calls me a name. In fact, I try to understand their argument and see if it presents a difference or conflict with one of those conditionally held ontological assumptions we were talking about upthread.
So, actually, Wynn, this is a reasonable example of what I was trying to describe.
Of course, that does require that the other person presents an argument. I'll try to respond though if you do.
A stealth theist? I think I just gave me perspective regarding ontological positions right upthread.
I don't have a problem with anyone talking back. But I do have a problem with hate speech. It may seem haha funny but the effort to brand a group as an out-group and inferior to the in-group, which is defined and branded by the same person or interests is propaganda and it's hate speech. Religious people do all kinds of stupid shit and a very uneducated and fearful segment of our society in aggregate tends to identify with the label 'religious'. By branding the label as inferior and those who voluntarily identify with the label (or involuntarily as you just attempted to do to me as if it would somehow delegitimize the content of my post) as inferior, PZ and the new atheists are promoting actually as indisputable fact, that a group of people are inferior based on their association with the label.
If you want to argue an atheist position, I will call myself a theist of whatever sort and still show your position , at least in the post above, is an attempt to intimidate through insinuation rather than address content. I could be a gay siamese twin with a m uslim father and a witchdoctor mother for that matter. I don't care. Because I presented an argument and you presented an insult to discredit me. That's how labels work. One of the actually more minor uses for labels is an initial filter for how we delegate our shared opportunity. Someone who is intrinsically inferior by virtue of a label deserves less attention, less compassion, less patience, less money and their life is worth less if that decision needs to be made.
Think "Public reaction to Trayvon Martin's murder. How many people went on the record saying that he was probably a thug or that for some reason, Zimmerman was justified in hunting down and killing a kid. What it does is say that actually, though this was a tragic mistake, hunting down real car prowlers and shooting them is acceptable because we all know people who steal lawn ornaments are inferior and their lives are not just unimportant but killing them is a service to humanity.
And then, when some idiot goes out with a gun hunting a black kid because he fits the profile, people actually try to excuse him for it. If you think PZ's words and those of his followers are not the same kind of hate speech as 'ghetto thugs' and whatever, hPZ has mentioned his glee should he (metaphorically of course) have the opportunity to spread creationist's entrails around. To make them suffer.
But beliefs are not actions. I will not endorse someone who proclaims which thoughts are allowable and which make one inferior as a human.
And, you're content free attempt to belittle me with a label sort of reminds me of another guy who sometimes posts on TR who does the same thing. Loves to insult and by judging the person inferior, assuming that judgement invalidates their argument. Well, what that poster does is identical to what the New Atheists do by creating a label so that a general judgement of inferiority of humanity is as easy as putting a stamp on an envelope.
Here's the deal. PZ lied to me about his academic achievements and misrepresented his academic credentials as something they are not. I posted the text and links above. Do you dispute my claim or are you going to pull a WT or a PZ and call me names to delegitimize my individual value so that the fact that PZ Myers Lied to me about his academic achievements and misrepresented his academic credentials as something they are not will sink into obscurity with my disgraced name?
Because buddy, I never claimed to be anything special in the first place. If you want to compartmentalize your observation far away from your truths which cannot manage to coexist with those observations, that's your business. But I don't shut up because someone calls me a name. In fact, I try to understand their argument and see if it presents a difference or conflict with one of those conditionally held ontological assumptions we were talking about upthread.
So, actually, Wynn, this is a reasonable example of what I was trying to describe.
Of course, that does require that the other person presents an argument. I'll try to respond though if you do.
I disagree. PZ is not saying that a group of people are inferior, only their beliefs are inferior.