Some questions for the 2 musketeers

[Kjertesvein]

I'm not here to offend anyone, but some genuine questions for my (mostly) rational A-brothers....

Agnostics. Are you just as unsure about other things in life? Why is theism a such special thing which can not, or more importently... to great to be even tried to answered? Is it wrong of me to think of your positions as a coward/insecure had this been about anything else in life?

2nd, I don't have time to write down an entire transcription, but if you have to time, please, listen to this mp3 and let me know what you think.

Atheists. Correct me if I'm wrong here... This is an observation I've seen several times here: Whenever atheists and theists go at each other with pitchforks and what not about reality and the existence of a theistic god(s) (mainly Abrahamic gods) - It always comes down to the arbitrary perception of the theist which he can't have any reasonable and logical evidence (etc.) for his theistic position. We may ask; which other group of people in society can look upon rational evidence and still say "No, because I have faith. All evidence may counter it, but in my mind - I hear voices" (he he). You guest it right: people who are mentally retarded or suffer some (common) trauma over many years through their early childhood.

So my final question is this, why do you spend time debating with them (if you do, that is)? Why waste your time speaking with such folks in the first place? I don't see alot of people seriously sitting down and debating illusions with a mentally ill person outside their workplace.

Thanks

~Wille

[Ó Cathasaigh]

So my final question is this, why do you spend time debating with them (if you do, that is)? Why waste your time speaking with such folks in the first place? I don't see alot of people seriously sitting down and debating illusions with a mentally ill person outside their workplace.

Because as much as you want it to be so, Religious people are not mentally retarded. Because Debate is fun. Because you can learn a lot from people you disagree with.

Any number of those will do just fine.

[Caledonian Rhyfelwyr]

It always comes down to the arbitrary perception of the theist which he can't have any reasonable and logical evidence (etc.)

Well maybe atheists should not hold to such misconceptions.

[Kjertesvein]

Because as much as you want it to be so, Religious people are not mentally retarded. Because Debate is fun. Because you can learn a lot from people you disagree with.

Any number of those will do just fine.

I can't really debate the existence of a god with you, as you may have understood from my OP. Let my explain why it's fruitless. The scientist come up with new evidence all the time, pointing to wards the logical reality as we know it. Jet... nothing in the real world can connect this "god" with reality. It's a theory with no evidence in the real world. If it's just a theory... then it's just a theory. Nothing to do with the real world.

I see debating serious issues with people who don't follow the common rules of evidence as nothing more then a game of sadistic :wub: over the keyboard. I won't partake in it.

It's like we play poker. The atheist wins according to the rules, but the theist won't give up the money he lose (according to the rules of evidence). He just keep changing the rules of the game: "No, behind that rock is God hiding".

Atheists and theists also never fundamentally change each others mind, at least what I've read on this forum. Well, maybe if one debater is considerably weaker, but you don't see alot of those debates in this savage frustrating area we got here...

I'm sorry dude, I'm really not trying to offend you, but I can't wrap it in with a red bow and call it a day. A spam fest isn't actually my idea of fun nor do I learn anything from it.

~Wille

[The Dude]

I'm sorry dude, I'm really not trying to offend you, but I can't wrap it in with a red bow and call it a day. A spam fest isn't actually my idea of fun nor do I learn anything from it.

~Wille

You haven't offended me, I just think it's very important that other atheists understand the importance of knowing what the theistic position is all about. If you don't, you can't adequately discuss it. And then indeed these discussions become pointless. They are often between two parties who understand little of each other, but that doesn't mean it can't be taught.

What is there to be gained from dismissing theism (or even religion, to be honest) as a mental malfunction? Nothing, really, literally, absolutely nothing.

[The Dude]

So my final question is this, why do you spend time debating with them (if you do, that is)? Why waste your time speaking with such folks in the first place? I don't see alot of people seriously sitting down and debating illusions with a mentally ill person outside their workplace.

I'm gonna have to come in harsh on this one because there's good reason to dismiss the aggressive position you're taking here.

First off, as an atheist I see no reason (not anymore, anyway) to dismiss theists as mentally ill. This is actually needlessly offensive and something that creates a lose/lose situation for both involved parties from the outset. But this is something that, at least for me, required an education to understand. Theism is to be respected as a philosophical answer to many of the questions we face and I think it is from that level of respect that any atheist must engage in debate with a theist.

The reason for that is because if you don't understand your opponent you're never going to be able to wield the required weaponry to defeat him. And that's a truth we can all agree with: know your enemy. Even if in this case theists aren't so much the enemy as just my philosophical opposites.

It's not a waste of time, mostly because of two reasons:

1) Atheists have things to learn from theists
2) Theists have things to learn from atheists

It's not all nonsense that a theist is selling. It really isn't. There are philosophical conundrums where you simply have to admit that the theist answer is more satisfying than the atheist one. But atheism being a position of negation means that I can stick to it as long as I feel that any other alternative is not yet satisfying enough.

Belief in God is not a delusion, and this really has to be made clear. I'm going to try and advocate this point as much as I am advocating the fact that atheism is not a unified body of thinkers who share with one another hopes and ideals.

If there's anything that I hope to gain from discussions with theists it's a better understanding of the religion they adhere to (if any at all), and vice versa I hope they gain a better understanding of what atheism is. That's really all there is to it. And I know there are plenty people on this forum objective and intelligent enough to understand the benefits of a mutually respectful debate.

I will finish on this note though: I oppose particular religions as much as I oppose particular ideologies. Understanding theism a philosophical stance does not change anything substantial about the crimes committed by particular religions or the negative impact that they can have on the world. It strongly depends on the religion in question of course but, for example, I will denounce Islam as being defective as much as I denounce Communism in the same way.

[Helm]

So my final question is this, why do you spend time debating with them (if you do, that is)? Why waste your time speaking with such folks in the first place? I don't see alot of people seriously sitting down and debating illusions with a mentally ill person outside their workplace.

I'm trying to get them used to the idea of the building their life on the scaffolding of Unyielding Despair!



I quite like the idea that I'm somehow doing something dramatic with an edge to it.

[Ó Cathasaigh]

I quite like the idea that I'm somehow doing something dramatic with an edge to it.

You're 13 then? or Emo? or a Hipster?

[Helm]

You're 13 then? or Emo? or a Hipster?

I wouldn't say I am doing anything dramatic with an edge to it, but you would think so judging by that video. For the most part I'm in 100% complete agreement with this guy, and it would nice imho if I this "world view" was more the norm across the world. There's no unyielding despair here, there's no need to be depressed or commit sucide over this.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Nimthill]

I wouldn't say I am doing anything dramatic with an edge to it, but you would think so judging by that video. For the most part I'm in 100% complete agreement with this guy, and it would nice imho if I this "world view" was more the norm across the world. There's no unyielding despair here, there's no need to be depressed or commit sucide over this.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

A wise chap, that Aurelius.

[Ó Cathasaigh]

Also a murderer of Christians. Great person to look up to.

[Nimthill]

Also a murderer of Christians. Great person to look up to.

Well, nobody is perfect. If you write down something that's good, it's good regardless of your other actions.

[Gaidin]

So my final question is this, why do you spend time debating with them (if you do, that is)? Why waste your time speaking with such folks in the first place? I don't see alot of people seriously sitting down and debating illusions with a mentally ill person outside their workplace.

Thanks

~Wille

You typically don't do those debates for the benefit of the ardent theist who won't change his mind, whatever his reasoning may be. You do it for the benefit of the silent reader that's on the fence.

[chriscase]

What is there to be gained from dismissing theism (or even religion, to be honest) as a mental malfunction? Nothing, really, literally, absolutely nothing.

Ok, I'm with you there.

It's not all nonsense that a theist is selling. It really isn't. There are philosophical conundrums where you simply have to admit that the theist answer is more satisfying than the atheist one.

I'm intrigued. Example please.

I just think it's very important that other atheists understand the importance of knowing what the theistic position is all about. If you don't, you can't adequately discuss it.

Oh, I don't know. Don't we synopsize for our opponents the physics of gravity, the evidence for evolution, the principles of logical inference, and numerous other commonly understood yet frequently disregarded bases for discussion? I'm happy for a dialectical partner to explain his position to me, and I even pay attention sometimes.

But that doesn't mean I'm going to go off and study a whole bunch of useless crap just because I might end up in a debate with someone who happens to be advocating that particular variety of useless crap. For all I know, I may spend a ridiculous quantity of time studying some useless crap that no one ever shows up to debate me on. What a waste. I just don't have the time.

And even if someone does show up and want to debate me on a particular flavor of useless crap, what's the point in doing a bunch of research on it unless my opponent can organize, represent, and cite sources for his position in a coherent way? If he can do so, then I have a nice primer on the subject. If he can't then he's not worth debating.

[The Dude]

I'm intrigued. Example please.

Sure, but before you dissolve what I'm about to write into a quote-a-thon please read the full thing first

Let's take the broadest possible example. Theists can posit a starting point for existence, namely god. The argument for the prime mover, the one good, whatever you want to name it. Note that I am not specifically pointing to any particular form of theism. I consider Plato a theist, and I think many will agree with me on that. What atheists do is say "well, I'm not sure about that whole prime mover thing" but they can't really posit anything in return. In terms of a logically satisfying answer, you can't settle for "well I don't know what the answer is, but it's not god at least".

An atheist could posit a whole range of scientific explanations for specific phenomena but that doesn't tackle existential questions which seem to be a very natural thing for a human being to ask. And that alone makes the theist position more satisfying than the atheist. But I consider the satisfactory nature of a theist answer to be false hope, because inevitably there are problems in the concept of god as worked out by specific religions, and I think that it's an intellectual trap that people can fall into and find it very hard to get out of. So while atheism doesn't give me the peace of mind that theism gives a theist, I still prefer it because it keeps me asking questions.

The lure of theism is the seemingly secure knowledge that you've got it figured out, and that is more satisfying than anything atheism can offer.

But of course that answer is a bit of a dodge because what I think you are asking for is whether I meant that there are situations in which theists have the better answer. Well, that boils down to the following problem: what's preferable, a seemingly true but actually false proposition, or no proposition whatsoever? This seems to be mostly an emotional conundrum and some will be inclined to favour the latter whereas others will be inclined to favour the former.

What I think is interesting about theism and the intellectual trap that I think it represents is that it demonstrates very well that there is a part of our human experience that refuses to boil things down to pure materialist cause-effect explanations. People want to be more than the sum of their parts, because they feel they are more than the sum of their parts. I am sure that in your case you would be quite content with arguing that if I were to take exactly the atoms you are built up from and arrange them specifically the way they are arranged in you right now, I would produce a fully working and functioning human being named Chriscase v2.0.

But there are many who refuse to settle for such a materialistic account of existence and that has always been so. For all its sense and logic, science can certainly lack an emotional appeal and while you may call it irrational, or a flaw, or an error or whatever, there's no denying that this emotional irrationality is a very big part of what it is to be a human, and that alone is enough for many people to decide that we must be more than an orderly collection of particles. You would at least agree with me that it is highly peculiar that even as we are assembled together out of atoms and the parts of atoms, we are still a collection of them that is exceptionally unwilling to accept itself as a mere collection.

Oh, I don't know. Don't we synopsize for our opponents the physics of gravity, the evidence for evolution, the principles of logical inference, and numerous other commonly understood yet frequently disregarded bases for discussion? I'm happy for a dialectical partner to explain his position to me, and I even pay attention sometimes.

But that doesn't mean I'm going to go off and study a whole bunch of useless crap just because I might end up in a debate with someone who happens to be advocating that particular variety of useless crap. For all I know, I may spend a ridiculous quantity of time studying some useless crap that no one ever shows up to debate me on. What a waste. I just don't have the time.

And even if someone does show up and want to debate me on a particular flavor of useless crap, what's the point in doing a bunch of research on it unless my opponent can organize, represent, and cite sources for his position in a coherent way? If he can do so, then I have a nice primer on the subject. If he can't then he's not worth debating.

Here's what I meant: you can't adequately debate theism/atheism if you don't understand what drives your opposition. In a debate with you (assuming I would at all disagree with any of your scientific assertions, which I don't) it would be useful for me to understand who you are and where you're coming from, and not necessarily the exact claims you posit or such. It's not necessary to learn all about the various sects of christianity or the variants of islam, what is necessary is knowing what these things mean to people and how they experience themselves. A friend of mine made a very accurate observation when he says that human beings experience at once both the role of object and subject. We experience ourselves as a subject, but treat others who also have that experience as a mere object. And if we are incapable of uniting those two aspects in our interaction with another individual we're always going to be stuck on the level of arguing specifics and not the bigger picture.

[chriscase]

Yo Dude,
Not a big fan of fragmented threads myself, so I usually try to keep discussion moving along a small number of lines.

Let's take the broadest possible example. Theists can posit a starting point for existence, namely god. The argument for the prime mover, the one good, whatever you want to name it. Note that I am not specifically pointing to any particular form of theism. I consider Plato a theist, and I think many will agree with me on that. What atheists do is say "well, I'm not sure about that whole prime mover thing" but they can't really posit anything in return. In terms of a logically satisfying answer, you can't settle for "well I don't know what the answer is, but it's not god at least".

An atheist could posit a whole range of scientific explanations for specific phenomena but that doesn't tackle existential questions which seem to be a very natural thing for a human being to ask. And that alone makes the theist position more satisfying than the atheist. But I consider the satisfactory nature of a theist answer to be false hope, because inevitably there are problems in the concept of god as worked out by specific religions, and I think that it's an intellectual trap that people can fall into and find it very hard to get out of. So while atheism doesn't give me the peace of mind that theism gives a theist, I still prefer it because it keeps me asking questions.

The lure of theism is the seemingly secure knowledge that you've got it figured out, and that is more satisfying than anything atheism can offer.

But of course that answer is a bit of a dodge because what I think you are asking for is whether I meant that there are situations in which theists have the better answer. Well, that boils down to the following problem: what's preferable, a seemingly true but actually false proposition, or no proposition whatsoever? This seems to be mostly an emotional conundrum and some will be inclined to favour the latter whereas others will be inclined to favour the former.

I have to say this isn't a very convincing argument as to why there are philosophical conundrums where the theist answer is more satisfying than another answer, or even none. Of course, the crux of the argument rests on the nature of one's conception of satisfaction. I go with Bertrand Russel:



By extension, if someone derives satisfaction from an "answer" that does not stand up to scrutiny - that cannot be reasonably held to be true - then we are talking about a very different standard of satisfaction than what I would accept. Indeed, an answer that holds out false hope of knowledge but turns out to be mere assertion would be for me a profoundly dissatisfying answer. The answer that we don't know is much more satisfying, particularly in the case where that answer is true.

I don't really think your theist opponents are going to feel particularly understood by this approach to their position, by the way. It might be better to let them explain themselves than to assume this is at the bottom of it.

What I think is interesting about theism and the intellectual trap that I think it represents is that it demonstrates very well that there is a part of our human experience that refuses to boil things down to pure materialist cause-effect explanations. People want to be more than the sum of their parts, because they feel they are more than the sum of their parts. I am sure that in your case you would be quite content with arguing that if I were to take exactly the atoms you are built up from and arrange them specifically the way they are arranged in you right now, I would produce a fully working and functioning human being named Chriscase v2.0.

But there are many who refuse to settle for such a materialistic account of existence and that has always been so. For all its sense and logic, science can certainly lack an emotional appeal and while you may call it irrational, or a flaw, or an error or whatever, there's no denying that this emotional irrationality is a very big part of what it is to be a human, and that alone is enough for many people to decide that we must be more than an orderly collection of particles. You would at least agree with me that it is highly peculiar that even as we are assembled together out of atoms and the parts of atoms, we are still a collection of them that is exceptionally unwilling to accept itself as a mere collection.

I don't think that the rejection of theism neccesarily puts us into this kind of materialist mold. Neither does an evidentiary approach to claims about the world. A reductionist answer to some question about the world 100 years ago would likely appear as absurd to us today as many theist positions - once again demonstrating the virtue of "we don't know" as an answer when that's actually the case.

Here's what I meant: you can't adequately debate theism/atheism if you don't understand what drives your opposition. In a debate with you (assuming I would at all disagree with any of your scientific assertions, which I don't) it would be useful for me to understand who you are and where you're coming from, and not necessarily the exact claims you posit or such. It's not necessary to learn all about the various sects of christianity or the variants of islam, what is necessary is knowing what these things mean to people and how they experience themselves. A friend of mine made a very accurate observation when he says that human beings experience at once both the role of object and subject. We experience ourselves as a subject, but treat others who also have that experience as a mere object. And if we are incapable of uniting those two aspects in our interaction with another individual we're always going to be stuck on the level of arguing specifics and not the bigger picture.

Well, I bet you can guess what I am going to say next. If I refuse to assume the contents of my opponents arguments, how much more cautious shall I be in attempting to divine his innermost motives? Extremely, I dare say.

[Helm]

Now here's a good looking book, you don't need the Bible if you've got this.

[The Dude]

Now here's a good looking book, you don't need the Bible if you've got this.

Unfortunately Stoicism suffers from the nasty syndrome of Profoundly Stupid at times.

[Ó Cathasaigh]

Well, nobody is perfect. If you write down something that's good, it's good regardless of your other actions.

Hitler said some profound stuff, but I don't see anyone quoting him to justify their belief systems. Not to mention there is a bit of a difference between being an imperfect human and actively seeking out and ordering the murder of a people because of their religion.

[Helm]

Marcus Aurelius was a decent bloke, for a Roman Emperor. Ok so a bit of religious persecution but Christian Roman emperors did a bit of that as well.