questions & opinions

>>Mewing about 'alts' &c is a weak dodge.<<

I disagree. I prefer to have the conversation be as genuine as I try to be. I believe that, to be an "honest" debate, it must come from an "honest" place. Otherwise, it's typically not worth my time.

Regardless, I "played along" and did a follow up. Far from a dodge.

First of all, thanks one more time for all your replies, much appreciated, much to think about – and much to reply. In fact a lot more than I expected. I'm seriously interested in this discussion, so I will either do it all the way or not at all. I put all my effort in this reply, and it's quite a long one. If things keep going like this, doing it all the way might prove to become too much of a destraction to me - like I said, it's already becoming a bigger thing than I expected, and after all it's not my 9to5. But for now I'm gonna stick with you. So here we go :)

I – Can a position of atheism be a position of faith ?

Jason
"Do you believe in Ba'al? Neptune? Shiva? Is your disbelief in any or all of these myths "blind" faith?"

Rene
"The conception you have that not believing in some proposed theory about the existence of certain unobserved entities can ever be a matter of faith is silly; not believing is the default position for any proposal until evidence for and/or logical necessity for such a proposal is demonstrated."

Grim
"Close, but not exactly. As an analogy, let us consider gravity. So far, my understanding is that when I drop a rock, it will fall toward the closest most massive gravity well that is the Earth. I need no faith in authority, or belief that this is true."

Maybe there's indeed a language barrier, because I thought I had made my point clear with contrasting the phrases I used - but I'm reluctant to believe you all got me wrong, which would point to a language barrier. I'll try again. The very first group I defined the same way you do: lack or absence of belief ("I don't believe in deity").
I didn't state though that this particular view was one of blind faith. I stated that about the second group ("I believe there is no deity"). What do I understand belief as in this case ? Belief as in blind faith - asserting truth to an idea, dogma or philosophy for which there is no proof. These ideas etc. would constitute the objects of belief. So to say "I don't believe (in this or that)" means there is no action of believing and no object of belief. It would indeed be 'silly' to call this a belief. To state "I believe there is no deity" though is built on the action of believing and an object of belief for which there is no proof – namely that existence is void of deity.

Now Grim, I understand your analogy in this way - you say you don't need to have faith in the rock falling to earth because no evidence to the contrary has ever been produced, and I assume you're saying you don't need to have faith in deity not being there, because no evidence to the contrary has ever been produced in this case as well. I see the following flaw in that analogy, if that's indeed the way it was meant to be understood - observing something and not observing something are two different things. Observing that the rock is falling means that you're able to observe the rock, and thus would be able to observe evidence to the contrary – the rock not falling. Which indeed is a good reason to feel sure about gravity. Not observing deity though would mean two things - you're able to observe it and it's not there or you're unable to see it. In which case you wouldn't see evidence contrary to its existence either. So to be as sure in this case as in the case of the rock, you'd have to assume your means of observing are sufficient to observe a potentially existing deity. On what evidence is this assumption based ?

If I talk of deity here, I don't mean a particular one – not the Christian version, neither the Jewish one etc. I mean a being, or simply BEING, which created the universe, or holds it within itself, or whatever you like. Considering this, plus the fact it thus would be able to answer all our "big" questions about existence, the meaning of life, death and so on, points to something of immense vastness, something that transcends our ability to comprehend. Considering our evidence-based methods of aquiring knowledge spring from the human mind, which for example has trouble comprehending any dimensions beyond the third (and in fact in many people has difficulty with comprehending the actual third, when it comes to simple geometrical drawing exercises for example) – where is your evidence our methods of acquiring knowledge would be sufficient to detect anything so vast, which in the hypothetical case of its existence would transcend our minds and its methods by far ?

I've been talking about evidence-based thinking here, and I feel like "redefining" atheism for the purpose of this discussion. As evident from your posts, atheism here often includes atheism – duh, but also the methods of science, reason, logic, and most importantly evidence-based thinking. Now I think this way of thinking is behind all the aforementioned things, seeming the very root of them. So from here on, when I write aTheism in this way of spelling, I'll be referring to all these things, and them rooted in a mentality based on demonstratable evidence.

II – The merits of aTheism

The second question I had in my initial post admittedly was poorly stated, I understood that while pondering all these things, so let me try again...

What I was trying to convey was that I have trouble understanding how much stock atheists put in aTheism. Like I said, defending aTheism, passionately discussing about it, putting yourself out there are indicators that you hold your particular world view very dear, just like a religious person would. This is fine. In case of aTheists, it's a little hard to understand for me though. Let's consider the things that might make someone wanna embrace aTheism.

1
First thing that comes to mind as a benefit of aTheism is quite an advance in natural science and technology. In context with religion, that's clearly a point where it's superior to the latter. But has this advance in the bigger picture really had an effect that makes it worthy to be embraced ?

Sure, we've been to the moon, have sent probes beyond the solar system. Modern anesthesia makes my eyes water with gratitude. I just have to get up, walk to the sink, get some water, or flip a switch and have light. And many more things that make life easier. But along these same lines science and technology have enabled us for the first time in our history to wipe our species off the planet, kill millions with an action as simple as flipping a switch. And science and technology have done nothing yet to change human nature to an extent that would prevent us from abusing it, nor to an extent to make us spread its little and great benefits to the millions living in hunger and poverty. I'm not against science or progress, but under the line, I think it only deserves an ambigous attitude. Personally I wouldn't too eagerly embrace aTheism based on this.

2
Another thing that comes to my mind which aTheism has done is an antidote to religion with all its superstition and blind faith - both mindsets I dislike. For this to make it a thing to be eagerly embraced though, one would have to demonstrate how superstition etc. would be such a big problem, so that an antidote is greatly needed. JasonWantsToMakeIt has given me quite some material to think about that.

One way superstition would be a problem was if nothing helpful ever came from it, or the majority of things coming from it were harmful. Like Jason stated for example:

"All of the "bad" effects of religion (including those admitted to by believers) stem from literal beliefs about ludicrous prophecies and myths. All of the "good" effects of religion stem from broadly humanistic interpretations of general good advice like the Golden Rule."

No. If it's considered an effect of that religion, it comes from the literal belief - whether "good" or bad "effect".

A bad effect from a religion would be if someone kills because of it, obviously. For example the literal belief that killing will make them a martyr in their god's eyes.

Another one would be hitting your wife, coming from the superstitious belief she as a female is inferior to males.

A good effect was if someone helped someone else. For example that they hold the literal belief in the myth that God's son walked the earth and did good, and so imitating him is gonna secure them a place in heaven. Or they literally belief in the superstition they're gonna be reborn as an animal or in a hellish realm if they don't do enough good to accumulate beneficial karma. Or the fact that the practice found at the very core of Tibetan Buddhism aims at developing compassion for all living beings stems from the literal belief in the idea that you'll thus one day will help to free all living beings from suffering.
Actually at the moment, there's more things coming to my mind how literal belief in superstitious myths would push people to do good.

A problem will arise if doing "bad" is defined in these myths as "good" - but then the problem would not be the literal belief, neither the superstitious myth, but its very content. So I fail to see how your argument, Jason, makes literal beliefs in myths a problem - clearly not only bad things can come from it, and I fail to see an imbalance towards the bad.

Sometimes the good that comes from a believer might be inspired by their myth, sometimes not. Same goes for bad, they might do it because of their myth, they might do it because of more mundane reasons.

We also could consider an evidence-based theory, namely that of evolution. Could you not think of many "bad" things that could be reasoned for with this theory ?

All this only shows that good and bad is beyond world views, as aptly stated by your spin on Hitchens' challenge. Precisely because this is what this quote demonstrates it wasn't clear to me why someone would use this in favour of aTheism.

"can you imagine a good deed done by a believer in the name of their faith that could not also be done by a non-believer? The corollary: can you imagine a wicked deed done by a believer in the name of their faith that could not be performed by a non-believer?"

Clearly it shows what I stated above - the question of good and evil is beyond world view. So this quote makes both aTheism and religion look unimportant in face of this question. So I looked up this challenge in hope for clarification for why you would use it arguing for aTheism, and it turns out he uses it a little differently than you quoted him.

"Can you name me a good action done or a good thing done by a believer that couldn't have been said or done by a non-believer?"
(www.avclub.com/content/in...hristopher)

Let's see - while you, Jason, used the correct corollary (leading to a statement rendering the value of aTheism secondary), he uses two altogether different ones. Either he's too dumb to realize that, or he's deliberately doing it. Considering the fact he seems to have repeatedly stated this challenge, he'd have to be severely impaired mentally to not realize that he's using two incompatible corollaries - so he must be doing it deliberately. Why would he ?

Well, it seems to be to the "rhetorical equivalent of a stun gun". First he makes you realize "Woah, religion is superflous, it's not required for doing good !" and then "Whoa, so much evil comes from religion !". To use such a device in a heated debate person-to-person is one thing. That can happen. To repeatedly, soberly, deliberately use it is a dishonest attempt at making religion seem bad, in a way that hopefully leaves your audience so stunned it will keep them from really investigating his challenge.

Like I pointed out, we then find that he's using two lines of reason that aren't logically linked. Taking the correct corollary for the first part, his statement would prove that "good" and "bad" are beyond world view - not a strong argument to pick either religion or aTheism. For the sake of being thorough, let's use the correct corollary to the second part - "Can you come up with evil things done by non-believers ?". Anybody having a hard time ? And what does this set of corollaries show ? Same thing as the first - world view is secondary.

I hope out of compassion for his fellow atheists that this isn't one of his best shots. Let's look at the other guy, Mr. Dawkins. Whether he quoted someone or not, it's a very vague statement - somewhat baffling me considering it's used in a philosophical debate by someone intelligent enough to become an evolutionary biologist.

Why is it vague ? Well, he uses the terms "good" & "bad", which are highly dependent of context - and the statement can be understood in two ways. Which is both okay in an informal discussion, but not when publically trying to make a point in a philosopical debate.

So for the sake of this discussion the best replacements for good and bad I can come up with are "good=doing something deemed helpful by the object of the action" and "bad=doing something deemed harmful by the object of action".

As for the two possible meanings - is he trying to say "Good people do good things, bad people do bad things, but TO MAKE GOOD PEOPLE DO BAD THINGS, that takes religion.", or is he trying to say "Good people do good things, bad people do bad things, but FOR BAD PEOPLE TO BE CONSIDERED GOOD, that takes religion.".

The statement doesn't hold much value either way. First though - can a "good" or "bad" person really be defined by their actions ? I don't think so. If I kill someone in self-defense, my action would be "harmful to the object of action". I guess most people wouldn't think this is bad. It seems to be intention that is the best indicator for a "good" or "bad" person.

So back to Dawkins again - first possible meaning of his statement: does it take religion for someone having helpful intentions to make them do something harmful ? No.

Example: A father trying to protect his daughter might actually do her harm by locking her in her room all the time, isolating her from social contact. No religion involved, just love for your child and an insufficient way of applying it. Helpful intentions, harmful outcome.

Second possible meaning: does it take religion for someone with harmful intentions to be considered helpful ? No. It doesn't even touch the realm of religion or no-religion – to consider someone with harmful intentions as someone with helpful intentions, it just takes some good deceiving on part of the "bad" person.

So for this quote - whether by Dawkins or anybody else - to hold any value in this discussion, it either must be even more vague and hold at least a third possible meaning, which isn't apparent to me at the moment – or he uses a different definition of "good" and "bad". In this case I'd be really interested to hear it.

At the end of the day, just as Hitchens' statement, this quote seems to show nothing but the fact that "good" and "bad" don't depend on religion or no-religion and point to something transcending world view – yet both get stuck with arguing for aTheism instead of devoting their time to investigate the actual consequences of their statements.

Let's get back to the actual point we started off from – the merit of aTheism being an antidote to superstition, religion and the like. Another reason why it might have some - despite the fact that superstition itself is not the problem - might be the situation that still, harm coming from superstition somehow ends up being the main reason for our man-made problems. Is that maybe so ?

An indicator would be the huge man-made problem of wars. I'm not a historian nor too familiar with the subject, but from what little I know, I'm pretty sure it's a relatively new development in the history of mankind to fight religious wars. For example I can't picture hunter-gatherer tribes - if the ones of ancient times resembled the modern ones in any way (who can arguably in many cases be seen as even more superstitious from an aTheist's perspective than any of the monotheistic religions for example) fighting over their totems or ancestor spirits.

I think much older than wars fought in the name of religion are wars fought for territory and resources - whether because of necessity or greed. And what about the wars of our times ? Two wars that have had such a huge impact on humanity that we labelled them World Wars come to mind. Were these two great wars fought in the name of religion ? No. The slaughtering of the Jews was based on an ideology which resembles religions in so far as that there is no evidence for it's truth, but then again didn't make any attempt at metaphysical concepts as far as I know, so I wouldn't completely equate it with religion. Ultimately that's not important anyway, because mostly the actual war was very secular.

For other conflicts and wars of the last 100 years I recommend this page:
nobelprize.org/educationa...onflictmap/

Looking at this one would be hard-pressed to come to the conclusion that religion is more than just one of a whole bunch of motives for war. And another question is, in how many wars fought in the name of religion doing so wasn't just to cover up or justify the old-fashioned motives of territory, resource and power.

Another man-made problem are the environmental challenges we face today, rapid depletion of resources, pollution etc. I don't see how anywhere in this religion comes into play. Main factors I can think of are simply greed and disregard for nature. Interesting to think about in this context would be that the only groups of people living in a truly environmentally sustainable way, in balance with nature, are cultures which base their world views on things deemed utterly superstitious by our cultures – ancestor-worship, ecstatic revelations, faith-based healing, animal spirits. I think one would be hard-pressed to explain the values of reason, logic and rationality to these people, yet they are superior to the rest of the world when it comes to leaving the balance of nature intact. Spreading aTheism among them might actually rid them from the very values which enable them to live the way they do.

Hunger & poverty could definitely be considered a wide-spread man-made problem. Don't see much of a connection with religion either.

When it comes to the "big players at bat" – war, environmental crisis', hunger & poverty – superstition seems to play a minor role in the bigger picture. Then there's all kinds of "smaller" problems – gang/youth violence, rape, murder, child abuse, domestic abuse etc. None of them – at least not to me – immediately brings to mind religion.

Going back to Dawkins once more, I can't help but wonder if working against children being indoctrinated doesn't miss the point ? Drug abuse, binge drinking, promiscous sex, disillusionment and alienation seem to me things that need to be fought much more urgently. All things you wouldn't immediately link to pious people, would you ? Compared to these things, fighting indoctrination of children seems to be a dangerous misdirection of effort.

Also concerning good and and bad coming from literal belief in superstitious myth I think it might be interesting to consider the history of pacifism. If you consult the Wikipedia entry on this (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacifism) you'll find that religion brought forth many great pacifists, many if not most of who rooted their pacifism in beliefs that could easily be considered superstitious, and DID NOT root it in general humanist philosophy. For the ones who didn't so openly – seemingly having literal belief in ludicrous and supersticious myth didn't prevent them from being pacifist.

Furthermore – what about people who have done a lot of harm and have actually been convinced by a ludicrous myth to quit their ways ? Only Ashoka the Great comes to my mind now as a historical example, but I'm sure there's more.

The less superstition seems to be a real problem these days, the more the value of anything fighting it pales.

So recounting the things aTheism has speaking for it – advance in natural science and fighting superstition and faith-based world views – it doesn't seem to me like these two things are what the world needs, considering we're still fighting wars, with more potential for destruction than ever, there's at least as much hunger & poverty as ever, and we're facing an immense environmental crisis. This is why I fail to understand how aTheists could so passionately embrace their world view.

To come to the conclusion of this post – my point is, here we are facing a world full of suffering which seems to largely have no roots in religion or superstition, yet there's atheists who'd rather be passionately arguing against a minor cause for the general suffering of mankind to solidify their own stance than trying to understand the roots of the our problems (no offense to anybody).

My point is, considering that aTheism doesn't seem to be much of help to humanity in the bigger picture, nor answers the "big" questions of life (and doesn't provide evidence it could) – how can one be passionate about that (assuming you care about humanity's suffering and the "big" questions) ?

My point is, it should be apparent to reasonable people that the roots for "evil/bad", as well as "good" go deeper than world views. So how can one spend your time forever running around on the surface of things, defending and holding this or that particular view, when the reasons for our problematic behaviour lie so much deeper ? Especially disappointing I find that in the case of aTheists, people who have never been indoctrinated or left behind indoctrination, and thus should have a more sober view on things than someone needing to defend their belief or otherwise face not knowing anything. People who are already facing it should not cover it up with another view but go deeper. That's what I'm trying to understand about passionate aTheists I guess.

As you see, there quite some things going through my head concerning these questions, and considering the difficulty I sometimes had with keeping track of all the different layers to this topic, I'm sure there's enough for you guys to take a shot at. Fire away & good night !