On Jul 10, 2013, at 7:24 AM, chris peck <[email protected]>
wrote:
To Jason:
>>Atheism, in its naivety, rejects all these possibilities without
even realizing it has done so.
How can you possibly speak for atheists generally in this regard?
My point is that if one takes atheism to be the rejection of all
conceptions of god, then because those ideas are conceptions of god
from various religions, then someone who remains atheist after
exposure to those ideas (rather than agnostic) has rejected them, and
worse, has done so without any justification. This is anti-scientific
because there is some evidence for these propositions. Even if that
evidence does not convince you, there is no reason to reject them
until evidence comes out against the theories on which they are based.
Particularly after the arguments you have been making! What do you
know of all the possibilities they have entertained or whether and
how they have rejected them?
If atheism means belief in no gods, then anyone can extraopolate the
implications of such a broad rejection.
Note that Brent uses a different meaning. He says some atheists mean
only the rejection of the Abrahamic god. This is not the standard
definition one finds in dictionaries, however.
>>The word atheist is either meaningless (if it applies to specific
or certain God/gods), or it is inconsistent/unsupported if you apply
it to more general definitions of god. It's a word that seems to
carry less than 1 bit of information.
How does the word become meaningless if it is applied to a specific
God?
Meaningless is an exaggeration, it carries some but very little
information. As you note below all it may means is they have some
notion of god that they reject. If atheism means disbelief in only
one particular god, then there is very little meaning conveyed in the
word, as it does not specify which god is rejected and further it
would be true for essentially everyone. It is like stating "I am a
being that can express thoughts" or "I have beliefs". It has meaning,
sure, but not much.
Now the converse, where atheism is taken to mean rejection of all
gods, rather than one, is not meaningless. However it seems unfounded
scientifically, and more likely than not it is wrong, because it takes
only one consistent and extant conception of god to invalidate it. To
assert it this form of atheism carries the arrogance of pretending to
know the final answers to all the fundamental questions, to have
surveyed all of reality (not just this universe).
So you are right I think the term is very problematic, and something
like free thought avoids most of those problems. Agnostic also avoids
the problems.
Up until now you have been arguing that it is the vast variety of
meanings the word God can convey that has been the problem,
It is a problem for the "no gods" atheism.
now it is a problem when the meaning is narrowed down?
Then it is logically consistent, but says very little without a follow
up enumeration if the god(s) one is rejecting.
I beginning to think for you 'atheist' is just a useless word
because that is how you want things to be.
It's things are. My wants did not make things this way, but I do want
to point out the many issues of this term.
I also don't get how the word 'atheist' is inconsistent if the
definition of God is broader.
Because then it leads to more general definitions of god like that
which is responsible for the existance of the reality you see, or
infinite truth, etc. You could reject these notions, but such an
ontological commitment is premature and not backed up by experiments,
logic or rationality.
The word atheist depends on two things to be correctly applied.
Firstly, that I have something in mind when I use the word God, and
that I don't believe it exists. I would be inconsistent if I said i
didn't believe in this thing, when actually I did.
I agree such a formulation of atheism could be true and consitent. My
only complaint with that formulation is that it is underspecified.
Note the same underspecification results from saying "I believe in
God". Well which one do you believe in? If it is that which is
responsible for the existence of reality, then pretty much everyone
believes in God, and you haven't communicated very much information.
>>n that case everyone is an atheist, as you could cook up any
definition of some God that person will not believe in.
Its a point many atheists make. Jews don't believe Christ was the
son of God. Christians don't believe in endless cycles of
reincarnation. Relative to both, atheists just lack one further
belief. they are all atheists relative to one another.
Those who say they reject one more conception of God than those who
are monotheist imply that they believe in zero Gods.
John Clark told me he believes in one god less than I do, but when I
asked him what that one god was that he rejected he refused. I think
because he realized that it is something he does believe in.
(I had previously said to him mathematical truth has many properties
of god, transcendant, infinite, eternal, uncreated, immutable, outside
time, responsible for existance of you and the reality you experience.
John had also said he was a Platonist.)
But you're not really getting me. The point was that the word
'atheist' conveys some information regardless of how God is defined
and therefore clearly has utility.
It conveys some, I agree.
That if I call someone an atheist you know something about him even
before you know his definition of God. ie. that he has one, and that
he doesn't believe in it. In other words 'atheist' has use and
meaning before we even begin to get into your muddle about the
meaning of 'God'.
Right.
>> Free thought is also more in line with the a genuine scientific
attitude, whereas many sects of atheism are prone to authority and
dogmas.
Well I would disagree with you there. That sounds like scientism to
me.
What is wrong with applying the scientific attitude as the took to
develop beliefs about the world? Do you have a better way?
Also, I don't like the blind assumption that thoughts come freely
rather than that they are determined.
I don't think free in "free thought" has the same meaning as free in
"free will". I took it to mean unconstrained from the outside
influences of institutions, traditions, dogmas, etc.
Moreover, I don't think there is a single kind of attitude that is
'genuinely scientific'.
Bruno says the attitude is encompassd by curiousity, humbleness, and
clarity.
I suspect Galileo and Einstein were probably extremely pig headed
and dogmatic, whereas Feynman and Darwin liked to play with ideas.
All of them made progress in science. I get anxious when I hear
people define what scientists should be like.
Maybe we can agree on what does not make for good science:
incuriosity, arrogance, obfuscation.
Jason
Whatever gets the job done, I say. But thats another argument.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Hitch
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 11:59:16 +0200
On 09 Jul 2013, at 22:58, John Mikes wrote:
(See below): I do not fall for Brent's quip that you want to impose
your extended (non-religious?) religion on us, so I continue.
Whatever you call 'religious' is continuation of millenia-long
habits, hard to break. The Hindus have different ones - yet it IS
religion.
Atheists? Atheism? comes within the package. I am agnostic, BUT not
in the God-related sense - agnostic of anything all we can state as
'knowable'. Including proof, evidence, and - yes -
appearance, (of course "testability" included) what you use FOR the
mind-body fantasy. It appears to our human 'mind' (in our latest
human logic). What I am agnostic about.
But logic and proofs are for communicating theories, that is
beliefs. Not knowledge. Logic is the most agnostic things we can met.
*
Now about my 'Steckenpferd': natural numbers. I asked you so many
times to no avail.
?
You hide behind "it is SSOOO simple that you cannot explain it by
even simpler cuts" or something similar.
I explained why it has to be like that. But we can agree on some
axioms that I have given.
In my 'narrative' I figured that pre-caveman looking at his HANDS,
FEET, EYES, and found that PAIR makes sense. (2, not 1). Then (s)he
detected that PAIR consists of - well, - a PAIR, meaning 2 similars
of ONE. And (s)he counted: ONE, ONE, PAIR (=TWO.)
Quite possible.
The rest may not exceed the mental capabilities of conventional
anthropologists. Here we go into the NATURAL numbers. Some other
animals got similarly into 3, 5, maybe the elephant into even more.
Some birds can count up to 36. They begin to make aggressive sonf
when they heard 36 songs of their species in the neighborhood. I
read this a long time ago, ---I have not verified this.
Then came the originators of the subsequent Roman (what I know of)
numbering - looking at a HAND counting fingers. The group on a palm
looks like a V, so it represented 5. With 2 drawn together at their
pointed end for 10 (No decimal idea at this point). Four was too
much, to count, so they took 1 off from the V: IV, (repeated later
as IX etc.) and when it came to 4 X-s they got bored and drew only 2
lines recangulary together for 50, -- 40 similarly marked as XL (49
as IL).
Remember: subtracting was different in ancient Rome, you also
included the start-up figure and subtracted it like 9-3 = (9,8,7) =
7 as the original old Julian calendar counted the dates, e.g. today:
July 9: "ante diem septimum (7) Idus Julii" (the 7th day before the
Idus of July) because July is a MILMO month when the Idus is not on
the 13th as usual, but on the 15th). And NO ZERO, please.
So I doubt that the 'natural numbers' created the world.
That expression is misleading. All theories assumes the natural
nulmbers, and what I show, is that if we are machine, it is
undecidable if there is anything more. If we are machine, arithmetic
(number + their addition and multiplication laws) is enough to
explain the origin of a web of dreams and how the physical realities
becomes apparent for the relative number points of view. And my
point is not that this is true, but that this is empirically
refutable.
Humans created the natural numbers. Just like they created the not-
so-naturals (irrationals, infinites, you name them).
Is that not anthropocentrism? And where the humans come from?
Bruno
John M
On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 5:25 AM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]>
wrote:
John,
On 08 Jul 2013, at 23:03, John Mikes wrote:
After some million years of 'mental' development this animal arrived
at the 'mental' fear. Usurpers exploited it by creating superpowers
to target it with assigned intent to help, or destroy. The details
were subject to the 'founders' benefit of enslaving the rest of the
people into their rule.
Such unquestionable tyranny lasted over the past millennia and it
takes a long, hard, dangerous work to get out of it. The USA
Constitution (18th c.) stepped ahead in SOME little political and
economical ways, yet only a tiny little in liberating the people
from the religious slavery: a so called 'separation' of state and
church (not clearly identified to this day).
The problem is that once we separate religion from state, people
still continue to be "religious" (authoritative) on something else.
But it was a progress. Now we know that we have to separate also
health from the state.
Th French revolution similarly targetted the religion, yet today -
after numerous vocal enlightened minds - the country is still
divided between Christian and Islamic fundamentalist trends.
Yes (even more clearly when including atheists in the christians).
In my view an 'atheist requires a god to disbelieve (deny?).
Indeed. Many atheists seems to take more seriously the Christian
Gods than most christians theologians, who can seriously debate on
the Aristotle/Plato difference.
Matter is figmentous and the 'origins' are beyond our reach.
It is certainly beyond any form of certainty, but simple theories
(conjecture, ides, hypotheses) might exist. In particular the idea
that we are machine can explain the origin of mind and matter
appearances, in a testable way, except for the origin of the natural
numbers which have to remain a complete mystery beyond reach of all
machines.
Physical is a level of human development and there is infinite
unknown - unknowable - we don't even guess.
OK.
Just musing
Thanks for that,
Bruno
John M
On Mon, Jul 8, 2013 at 4:03 PM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 08 Jul 2013, at 19:53, meekerdb wrote:
On 7/8/2013 1:11 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 08 Jul 2013, at 02:45, meekerdb wrote:
On 7/7/2013 6:56 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 07 Jul 2013, at 07:28, meekerdb wrote:
http://www.salon.com/2013/07/06/god_is_not_great_christopher_hitchens_is_not_a_liar/
I love Christopher Hitchens. I agree with many points. He is more an
anticlerical than an atheist to me ...
Everybody called him an atheist. He called himself an atheist. I
think you just don't like the term.
"atheism" is different in America and in Europa, although I have
realized now that some atheists in America might be similar, but not
Hitchens. Many people confuse agnosticism and atheism. Some atheists
maintains the confusion to hide that they are believers (in "matter"
and in the non existence of God).
I don't know any atheists who are shy about their belief that matter
exists and God doesn't.
That is the problem.
Many people, and dictionaries, confuse agnosticism="that whether or
not God exists is unknown"
That's the usual mundane sense of the word.
with agnosticism="that whether or not God exists is impossible to
know".
That's a technical view by some philosophers.
I agree with Sam Harris that "atheist" is not a very useful
appellation because it only describes someone in contrast to
"theist". It just means they fail to believe in a God who is a
person and whose approval one should seek.
Pebbles and chimpanzees fails too, but are not atheists in any
reasonable sense. Most vindicative atheists really believe that god
does not exist, and then they believe in a primitively material
universe, even a Boolean one (without being aware of this in
particular).
Also, many religions and theologies have other notion of Gods.
As Harris points out we don't invent words like awarmist to describe
one who fails to believe there is global warming or anummerist to
describe someone who's not sure about the existence of numbers.
Yes. I heard a catholic bishop, taking about a book written by a
Belgian atheist, saying that the atheists are "our allies", "they
keep advertising for us and (our) God" Then, at least around here,
"Matter" is such a dogma that you can get problem when you dare to
doubt it, "apparently" --- because they don't practice dialog, and
ignore the embarrassing questions.
They don't practice science in the matter. For them you are just mad
if you doubt ... basically the same theology of matter than the
christians. Greek theology is allowed to be studied by historians,
not by mathematicians. The atheists I know fight more the agnostic
(in the mundane sense) than the radicals of any religion. Political
correctness makes easy to defend 2+2=5, and impossible to defend
2+2=4.
We are all believers, and when a machine pretend to be a non
believer, it means "I know", and she will impose her religion to
you, by all means.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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