Atheist Realism?
- Thread starter ronan
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It is not that I define god as being reality in the simplest sense.
For people god is something else, I do not know their belief. I wanted only to pointed out that(I feel like I am again repeating what I already said):
for some theists god is the ineffable encompassing reality that some atheist believe exist behind our senses.
Both for many atheist and theist , this god/reality is ineffable.
Please, try to see my point, I think that I share a view with what most people said here. I want just to point out that the divide atheist/theist is not always required.
I was starting with a statement saying that I was challenging your point because I believed you would come up with reality that I will find inconsistent,for example based on particles or string, but it finnaly turns out that you share this kantian view (so common in scientific mind)
And this view is the view of many theists as well including me.
I wanted to set this up to in order to talk about one interesting points but I think it has to wait because you do not even recognize what I am trying to say.
Remark: When I am talking about what you call objective reality I use the word "reality" without adjective (Kant's noumena), if I want to talk about subjective reality, I will use the two words: "phenomenal reality" which correspond to the world we perceive.
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
Wtf ? You are devolving into nonsense if you are saying that senses receiving stimuli is the same thing as accurately perceiving objective reality.
:crazy:
It is a matter of choice, I can ask you as well why are you not calling it god?
Sheer nonsense.
You can check it out on the net, basically (I have to simplify ):
1) There is a reality (he call it noumena or transcendental reality)
2) We cannot know this reality
3) We have prewired concept like time, space, causality (it is more complex, please check out on the net)
4) these concept build our world of perceptions (our phenomenal reality) as a consistent world)
I am only referring to the first two points 1) and 2) in this thread.
Most of his critics have fight against the 3) point
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
Ok, fair enough. I see you point now
But I cannot understand why you want to call objective reality God.
I usually use 'reality' where I mean 'objective reality', but it seems confusing to people in these kind of discussions.
I am also not sure whether I agree with Kant completely, I'll have to check.
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
Yes it is. Did you spawn a brain tumor just now ?
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
SAM, my original post:
You seem to have edited you post below. I think you will see that we agree.
I cannot understand how you interpreted senses receiving stimuli as acurately perceiving objective reality.
You either misread, made a thinking error or are doing it on purpose.
You seem to have edited you post below. I think you will see that we agree.
I cannot understand how you interpreted senses receiving stimuli as acurately perceiving objective reality.
You either misread, made a thinking error or are doing it on purpose.
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
ok,and if i agree with that..............................?
You wanted me to learn about Kants philosophy to understand what a 'kantian view' is (as you seem to think I agree with it). You also wanted me to read the thread again, thinking that the meaning of the words you used in the opening question would change once this new information was gained. Is this different than what you were asking for?
I had already pre-read multiple Kant web resources before your original request and I have no idea what a 'kantian view' is so I cannot answer your question by asserting whether I agree or disagree with it. If you don't wish to define a 'kantian view' explicitly but rather hide behind the guise of 'independence' obligation then I won't be able to answer your question.
Because it corresponds to reality it is true; therefore, it's not a 'view' but instead an 'observation'. Proving it (I am assuming you mean providing 'evidence' for it) is simply a matter of examining the Earth and seeing where homo sapiens begin and comparing it to the age of the Earth. This planet has been around longer than humans by a long shot and our universe has been around longer than the planet. Kant and Hume would therefore be incorrect in this case.
Paritally correct. I am saying that reality is a presenece of information that is consistent, persistent, and non-contradictory. If asked, I would also say that huamans are difference detection machines that collect energy to persist. We label differences of reality and remember / communicate the labels for future identification.
Considering how much we have learned about reality, there is no reason to think humans won't be able to eventually understand it in it's entirety (of course I cannot claim that we will either as I don't know). That reality exists is a rather self-evident observation (a fact).
I also wouldn't give reality a label of 'God' as that presumes it is a life form that is sapent, omnipotent, and omniscient... none of which are supported by any evidence. Of course such a labeling is consistent with the pyschological phenomena of anthropomorphization which is a survival mechanism.
If that's what you meant by a 'kantian view' then my assertions don't match up with it. Also, if you are only reffering to one aspect of Kant's philosophy then the phrase 'kantian view' is deceptive as it implies a view based on his complete philosophy.
Because, it is misleading. I don't go around calling a birds strawberries either
That's right it is misleading because of its many usage.
Similarly the word "reality" (even more when use as an adjective) is also a misleading word: some people expect to see some particles or some strings inside this reality, some expect to see some chair, table , computer, dogs, humans, chocolate... in it.
By taking reality as ineffable, I feel that the word "god" represent well this aspect of reality.
Matter of choice...
May I offer something for everyone's consideration.
The Kantian view which keeps getting referred to is that a thing , in and of itself, is unknowable. So I may see a stone, handle it and so on but my understanding is subjective because my senses filter the data which is then interpreted by my brain. In other words, I cannot know what it is to be a stone; I can only have a subjective impression of one.
So, whatever reality is, it is not knowable directly.
Difficulties arise when a claim is made that there are "things, essences" or whatever that I cannot know because of the limits of my senses. This is often said of God, souls and such like. There is not a shred of evidence to support such claims. Moreover, if valid, such claims would open the floodgates to all sorts of nonsensical beliefs. Why stop at God ? There must be countless other things I cannot know such as leprachauns, unicorns and so on.
It follows that it is impossible to make a case for the existence of something that I cannot perceive; If I cannot do so, neither can anyone else other than the deluded.
The Kantian view which keeps getting referred to is that a thing , in and of itself, is unknowable. So I may see a stone, handle it and so on but my understanding is subjective because my senses filter the data which is then interpreted by my brain. In other words, I cannot know what it is to be a stone; I can only have a subjective impression of one.
So, whatever reality is, it is not knowable directly.
Difficulties arise when a claim is made that there are "things, essences" or whatever that I cannot know because of the limits of my senses. This is often said of God, souls and such like. There is not a shred of evidence to support such claims. Moreover, if valid, such claims would open the floodgates to all sorts of nonsensical beliefs. Why stop at God ? There must be countless other things I cannot know such as leprachauns, unicorns and so on.
It follows that it is impossible to make a case for the existence of something that I cannot perceive; If I cannot do so, neither can anyone else other than the deluded.
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Ineffability is by definition unknowable; why talk about it ?
read the thread...
It means that you are theist
please read before jumping
because you believe in one of the possible god present in the religions of the world
let me explain: imagine someone (A) who believe in the existence of something that he call "truc" that is descirbed by being yellow with three heads then he met another guy (B) who is a believer of a famous religion that believe in a god named "baloon" that share exactly the same properties.
(A) consider himself as an atheist because for (A) "truc" is not a god beause it does not match a god description according to him (because he do not know that a famous religion share the same description of god that the something he call "truc")
if (A) then hear the description of "balloon" from (B), he will then realize that it is the same than what he call "truc". he can know say that he believe in "baloon"
But "baloon is a famous god (I mean a god from a famous religion). So we can say that he is a theist but that he did not know before.
In fact, it is the way I became aware that I was a theist
I can predict that you will be reluctant to accept that but it is not something to be frightened about, as many said it is a matter of word.
But it become a matter of word only after we know that god and reality are the same (at least in the way we described them here)
It is not like swapping word "banana" and "apple" but like swapping "dog" and "chien"
read the thread...
It means that you are theist
please read before jumping
because you believe in one of the possible god present in the religions of the world
let me explain: imagine someone (A) who believe in the existence of something that he call "truc" that is descirbed by being yellow with three heads then he met another guy (B) who is a believer of a famous religion that believe in a god named "baloon" that share exactly the same properties.
(A) consider himself as an atheist because for (A) "truc" is not a god beause it does not match a god description according to him (because he do not know that a famous religion share the same description of god that the something he call "truc")
if (A) then hear the description of "balloon" from (B), he will then realize that it is the same than what he call "truc". he can know say that he believe in "baloon"
But "baloon is a famous god (I mean a god from a famous religion). So we can say that he is a theist but that he did not know before.
In fact, it is the way I became aware that I was a theist
I can predict that you will be reluctant to accept that but it is not something to be frightened about, as many said it is a matter of word.
But it become a matter of word only after we know that god and reality are the same (at least in the way we described them here)
It is not like swapping word "banana" and "apple" but like swapping "dog" and "chien"
so because you think god and reality are the same i must?
i think this might be where you are getting confused.
as a result of everything i have said i admit that in my opinion only a perfect, "filterless" being (ie. god) can perceive objective reality.
this does not mean that i believe in god.infact....i dont.
i dont think that anything is capable of perceiving objective reality.
where do you get the idea that god and reality are the same thing?
Right and it apply to reality as a whole (which is what I am talking about, not specific thing..)
My point was not about the limit of the sense but because of the senses, namely the first case, that because of the senses I have a subjective view and I cannot know reality in itself. But in fact it is more than that and I follow Hume for that (from which Kant get inspired): We have only impression in our mind and from that we cannot infer anything about reality as a whole or in part.
because as you will see it is not so simple (the unknowability is not so sure)
Please note that ineffable means : impossibility to express (I used the word because of its weaker meaning that will become evident later)
Ok, I think most of you now understand what I was trying to say about theist/atheist.
I will use the word realist from now on to refer to people who call themselves atheist or theist who believe in the existence of something behind their senses that is not what they perceive with their mind. This something I will call it reality because I feel that if I use god, many here will not want to follow me (and I think now you understand that we can use both word knowing to what it refers)
Let's start by recalling something:
Hume was arguing that we cannot know the reality. He is considered as the most skeptic philosopher.
But is it really impossible to know about reality?
Hume could have been more skeptic: we cannot know that we cannot know.
Hume take the path that we cannot know, let's take the other path: we can know.
How can we know?
sense are known to be not reliable because of subjectivity and error.
So what else?
Enlightenment? (I imagine some will start laughing but be careful, enlightenment also is a word with many baggage) let's define it just as that: the way to know reality
Then going back to the debate between theist and atheist: we can redefine them even if even atheist should be considered theist because it is about ontology not about epistemology but let forget that to make everybody happy in this thread (I know it won't be possible but I try)
theist (the special kind we believe in the existence of something behind the sense) : believer in the existence of reality an believer in the possibility to know this reality (while keeping the inefability, I can come back later on this, it is not so important for my point)
atheist (the special kind we believe in the existence of something behind the sense) : believer in the existence of reality an believer in the impossibility to know this reality
(I will not be able to answer this thread for some time, at least not atthe rate I was doing these last days, I will be busy for some weeks,)
I will probably recreate a thread on this specific topic if I see that this post will be misunderstood (which I am afraid will be)
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
Very well, but the word 'God' implies an intelligent being.. at least to the vast majority of people.
I think this is much more misleading than using the word 'reality'.
By the way, I don't really agree with your usage of the word 'ineffable' either.
'Imperceptible' seems a better choice, or even better: 'not fully or accurately perceptible' or 'largely imperceptible'.
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