Why is empiricism ineffective when we can see that the products of empirical investigation are so obviously effective (rockets to the moon, etc.)?
"If I am right, I go to heaven, if you are right, you die anyway."
- Thread starter garbonzo
- Start date
No idea what all that is about. Seems you're continuing a conversation with someone else, on other matters.
I can't help it if you are so literal-minded that you are blind to obvious literary devices that you would probably be able to recognize in any context you don't have a cognitive bias on.
Sounds like a lot of justification not warranted by anything I've said. Relax, your worldview is not under attack.
Taking all obvious literary devices as indiscriminately literal will likely leave you confused.
Rational thinking can only be objectively verified by evidence, without which your opinion of what is rational is purely subjective. There is no evidence to support or deny atheism, nor support a claim of it being objectively rational.
You seem to have erroneously understood several things. Read the above definition of worldview again. Can you honestly say that atheism has absolutely nothing to do with how you live your life?
No doubt, but then that statement alone gives you no factual grounds upon which to argue the statement "I do believe in God".
Gods have always been characterized as an idealization of man, with the one progressing with the notion of the other. In this respect, it is the thing characterized, not the specific characterization, that constitutes theism.
That's nonsense, of course. You're quite good at nonsense, I'll give you that. Atheism is supported by the fact that there is no evidence of the existence of God, as well as plenty of evidence against the existence of God. I don't know how many times this must be repeated before you understand it.
Here you go again, trying to define atheism as a worldview. And of course, I never said that my atheism has nothing to do with my life. But then, being a Mets fan has something to do with my life. Plenty of things have an impact on my life, but you wouldn't call any of them worldviews. Or maybe you would, since you don't seem to have the foggiest idea what the hell a worldview actually is.
Just as "I do believe in God" gives you no factual grounds upon which to argue the statement "I don't believe in God." Atheism is not an argument, it is a position based on certain criteria. It's like saying "Global Climate Change is an actual phenomenon." The statement is not the argument, but the position.
That our gods are so parochial is evidence of their human authorship. The fact that all societies have had something like a divine creator only speaks to our answer-seeking nature, and that agency was our first logical conclusion. What it does not imply, as you're trying to, is that they're all sort of talking about the same thing, but dressing it differently to suit their needs.
Yes, yes. Resort to ad hominems when you can't make a valid argument. Case in point: "plenty of evidence against the existence of God". Really? So you've gone from the statement "I don't believe in God" to "a god does not exist"? So what is this evidence? You know, other than your indiscriminate literal insistence of obvious literary devices.
Repeat all you like. Insistence does not evidence make. Actually that is the sort of evidence asserted and accepted only by pseudoscience and the ilk.
Straw man. Must I really provide you with the simple definition yet again?
world·view
1. The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world.
2. A collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or a group.
1. The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world.
2. A collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or a group.
Does being a "Mets fan" inform your "overall perspective"? Quit being obtuse and arguing ad absurdum.
You're equivocating. I said that atheism is an opinion, and since you've here agreed that atheism and theism are equivalent claims, they must be subjective opinion. I've never said otherwise. Yet another straw man, as I also never said anything about atheism being an argument.
You cannot argue for atheism without asserting a god does not exist. So an advocating atheist is, ipso facto, making a claim subject to evidence, but then you just said: "If I were to say "Yahweh does not exist," then you're getting into opinions."
So which is it? Do you have objective facts, or is it only opinion?
Do you even hear yourself? "that agency was our first logical conclusion" So there's logic in it after all?!
At the very least, it is factual that all of the Abrahamic religions share the exact same god. So how are the differences in between these not "dressing it"? Quite aside from theism not addressing any particular religion, but deity with traits common throughout all religion.
All decisions are based on some ideology.
Circumstances don't make people do anything. How people understand the circumstances (ie. the ideology they employ) is what leads them to decide one way or another.
I am perfectly capable of appreciating literary fiction. Besides, I believe it is the conservative Christians who are literal-minded. Aren’t they the ones who are confident that the Bible is the authoritative Word of God?
The problem is that none of the original manuscripts currently exists and the authors are dead and buried. Don’t you think that the various techniques of hermeneutics only intensify subjectivity? Most agree that genesis 1-11 are literary stories representing mythology rather than history, but what about the gospels. Do you feel that they are literary works or historical?
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Again, if someone claims that stuff with absolute conviction, he is no longer a rationalist, for we can only we sceptics right now, we dont have enough to go on to be counter-claimants. We can only say that the claims present to us are incorrect, but I agree with you than we cannot go further than that [currently, atleast].
I mentioned it earlier
"... since reductionist views of reality are not only non-evidenced but also logically incapable of being successful (on account of being epistemologically bound to a metonymic scope between the micro and macrocosm - IOW the further one goes into the grander scheme of things, whether via the telescope or microscope, the hazier it gets - to the point of fading out to nothing - on account of the intrinsic limitation of the senses, the core tool of empiricism)"
Then, by your own conviction atheism must be adverse to rationalism since the very term atheist weighs in at being convinced of a number of (non-evidenced) points ( .... at least for those who don't now start scurrying to the ramparts of "chairs and stones" atheism")
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
But arguing against the existence of God wasn't your point. Your point was 'atheism is an opinion - that god doesn't exist'. That's wrong.
Atheism is simply a stance - that god is not accepted without compelling evidence.
perhaps that statement would make sense if atheism wasn't staved to the hilt with theories, ideas, misconceptions and preconceptions that effectively prohibit any investigation of evidence on the subject.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
This is a misrepresentation of what a fact is.
A fact is essentially indisputable. It is not "factual" that there is no evidence of god. There is quite a bit of debate about what evidence constitutes evidence of God. It doesn't matter whether you or I or a million people don't accept the evidence or the conclusion. Since it is the very thing that is in dispute, it is not fact. This is the fallacy of foregone conclusion.
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DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Atheism has no theories.
Atheism has no ideas.
Atheism simply puts the onus on the claimant to make a compelling case.
It is true that people who are atheists may also have theories, ideas and misconceptions, but that doesn't mean the same thing.
Consider: there are lots of theists who think that the death penalty is a good idea. Can I then state that "theism condones capital punishment"?
No. Correlation does not imply causation.
If those theories, ideas and misconceptions are exclusive to the atheist creed then they certainly do own them.
The only way you can weasel out of it is if you play the "implicit atheism of chairs and stones" card (which I anticipate you will be pulling out very shortly)
You may mention the limitations of empiricism, but you don't have anything better.
Sure - I guess it doesn't take much to beat something that is inherently incapable and useless for the given task
There is no atheism either!
No. Some atheists put the onus on the claimant to make a compelling case.
Some Buddhist atheists, for example, would be perfectly happy to just let any theist say whatever he wants to say.
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I didn't say "a god does not exist." I am convinced the God of Abraham does not exist, however, and I base this on all the various evidences against it. We've discussed this evidences at length, and they don't simply rely on the correct interpretations of the Bible.
You're not stupid, so don't pretend you don't understand why I bring up the Mets. Atheism does not inform my overall perspective. It's a position based on evidence (and the lack of it), not a worldview. In other words, atheism is as much a worldview as my Mets fandom is.
Being equivalent claims does not therefore make them subjective opinions. I can claim that a corpse is alive, but that does not mean the counter-claim of "the corpse is dead" is therefore a subjective opinion.
It would only be an opinion of one were to say "There is no creator," because it's impossible, at least as of yet, to say one way or the other conclusively. That's what I should have said.
At the time when these gods were invented, sure. Nobody knew what made thunder happen, or what brought floods or famines. They needed to explain these things, and without science to help them understand the world, they had to come up with something else. And agency would have made sense to people who did not know any better. I mean, you even see those arguments put forward today, so clearly they have a value to people who lack knowledge to the contrary.
Well, you were talking about theism overall, not simply Judaism and its schismatic branches. But even then, they all rely on very different claims. I don't see how that can be described simply as "dressing." Is the God of the New Testament really the Allah of the Quran?
Well, listen, it's no surprise that the religions you're thinking of (the Abrahamic religions) share traits with the pagan religions of the region, since those pagan faiths are the ones the Abrahamic faiths are to varying degrees based upon, and from which Christianity especially borrowed extensively from for political purposes. But as you broaden your scope, the similarities dwindle. If you want to broaden the scope to "theology" as a whole, really the only trait they all have in common is the assertion that the world exists because a god or gods made it so.
If you assume without evidence that there is a realm or force outside the observable, then we will always be left lacking. Therefore, you can both dismiss the science that contradicts your worldview (that the universe is the result of something other than naturalistic mechanisms), and set yourself up as a kind of authority on that which is unknowable. Convenient! And intellectually the epitome of dishonesty.