Don't get me started...
May. 24th, 2007 08:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnridleyThis is a rather long response to a thread on the GT list that I was responding to. I decided that I'd wandered too far off-topic to post to the list, but at the same time was pretty happy with what I'd written and didn't want to just throw the text away. I think I could keep going on this all day but I need to stop at some point...
(the previous statement in the thread was asserting the existence of complete lack of faith, stating that this was atheism)
I certainly agree with you regarding the existence of a state of complete lack of faith. My only argument on this point is that, in the sense I understand it, the word atheist is not completely defined as non-faith. I'd describe agnostic as non-faith. Atheist seems to be used mainly to refer to anti-faith, not non-faith, and the two are not the same.
Note that agnostic implies leaving the door open for gods; if proof of a transcendent being[1] was presented to an agnostic, they'd take it into consideration, and perhaps come to believe (though at that point, I guess it wouldn't be faith either; but belief can stem from either proof or faith). By contrast, [my perception is that] atheists have closed the door and are not willing to view evidence.
Note that I'm not even saying that there IS evidence. I haven't seen any. I've heard people say there's evidence, but the people saying it have a vastly different definition of "evidence" than I do. Testimony is not evidence, people are easily fooled, screwed-up brain chemistry can cause people to feel they're experiencing a transcendent experience, and lots of people hear voices in their heads.
If it's too hard to try to wrap your brain around and deal with the fact that the universe is just a random occurrence, the anthropic principle is a perfectly valid assumption[2], and this life is all we get (if you're miserable, you lose, end of story), then religion is an easy way to hand-wave your way out of all that uncomfortable reality. It's no wonder people don't mind being convinced of a greater existence than what they're experiencing.
Since the threat of divine retribution is a damned powerful tool for controlling the masses that I don't believe would go unwielded by the unscrupulous (a group of whom there is no lack), I think the development of religion is inevitable whether or not there actually is a transcendent being behind it, so the simple existence of religion proves nothing either.
At the same time, I see no point in closing the door on the presentation of evidence. That's just hard-headedness. But I don't really expect to see any evidence, either. Given all that, the "default position" seems to me to be the old joke about the militant agnostic: "I don't know, and you don't, either!!" In other words, I don't really believe that anyone has any real evidence. I'm willing to look, but I set the burden of proof for this really quite high.
As I've been saying, my understanding of "atheist" is certainly skewed; I get my opinion of atheists by looking at who's standing on a soapbox screaming "I'm an atheist" - just as many people's views of christians or moslems or whatever are defined by the stereotype of who's on late-night TV asking for money, or who's blowing up who and releasing videotapes from caves.
If I cared much about this, I guess I'd study it, but honestly, I don't. The semantics seem more interesting to me than the beliefs. I don't really care to make a study of atheism any more than any other set of beliefs or non-beliefs. All I really ask of a religion is that they do more good than harm. Even in the present day that sometimes seems to be asking a lot. I tend to gravitate towards religion as a fairly efficient delivery system for humanitarian efforts, as long as their views and actions aren't too onerous.
[1] Whatever that "proof" might be, since the very existence of such proof seems to me to deny the concept of transcendence. Therefore it may be that there can never really be "proof" of such a being.
[2] I think that denying the validity of the anthropic principle happens because people are unwilling to give up the notion that they hold a priviledged vantage point in the universe. This notion has always proved to be false, usually hides the truth, and must be avoided.
(the previous statement in the thread was asserting the existence of complete lack of faith, stating that this was atheism)
I certainly agree with you regarding the existence of a state of complete lack of faith. My only argument on this point is that, in the sense I understand it, the word atheist is not completely defined as non-faith. I'd describe agnostic as non-faith. Atheist seems to be used mainly to refer to anti-faith, not non-faith, and the two are not the same.
Note that agnostic implies leaving the door open for gods; if proof of a transcendent being[1] was presented to an agnostic, they'd take it into consideration, and perhaps come to believe (though at that point, I guess it wouldn't be faith either; but belief can stem from either proof or faith). By contrast, [my perception is that] atheists have closed the door and are not willing to view evidence.
Note that I'm not even saying that there IS evidence. I haven't seen any. I've heard people say there's evidence, but the people saying it have a vastly different definition of "evidence" than I do. Testimony is not evidence, people are easily fooled, screwed-up brain chemistry can cause people to feel they're experiencing a transcendent experience, and lots of people hear voices in their heads.
If it's too hard to try to wrap your brain around and deal with the fact that the universe is just a random occurrence, the anthropic principle is a perfectly valid assumption[2], and this life is all we get (if you're miserable, you lose, end of story), then religion is an easy way to hand-wave your way out of all that uncomfortable reality. It's no wonder people don't mind being convinced of a greater existence than what they're experiencing.
Since the threat of divine retribution is a damned powerful tool for controlling the masses that I don't believe would go unwielded by the unscrupulous (a group of whom there is no lack), I think the development of religion is inevitable whether or not there actually is a transcendent being behind it, so the simple existence of religion proves nothing either.
At the same time, I see no point in closing the door on the presentation of evidence. That's just hard-headedness. But I don't really expect to see any evidence, either. Given all that, the "default position" seems to me to be the old joke about the militant agnostic: "I don't know, and you don't, either!!" In other words, I don't really believe that anyone has any real evidence. I'm willing to look, but I set the burden of proof for this really quite high.
As I've been saying, my understanding of "atheist" is certainly skewed; I get my opinion of atheists by looking at who's standing on a soapbox screaming "I'm an atheist" - just as many people's views of christians or moslems or whatever are defined by the stereotype of who's on late-night TV asking for money, or who's blowing up who and releasing videotapes from caves.
If I cared much about this, I guess I'd study it, but honestly, I don't. The semantics seem more interesting to me than the beliefs. I don't really care to make a study of atheism any more than any other set of beliefs or non-beliefs. All I really ask of a religion is that they do more good than harm. Even in the present day that sometimes seems to be asking a lot. I tend to gravitate towards religion as a fairly efficient delivery system for humanitarian efforts, as long as their views and actions aren't too onerous.
[1] Whatever that "proof" might be, since the very existence of such proof seems to me to deny the concept of transcendence. Therefore it may be that there can never really be "proof" of such a being.
[2] I think that denying the validity of the anthropic principle happens because people are unwilling to give up the notion that they hold a priviledged vantage point in the universe. This notion has always proved to be false, usually hides the truth, and must be avoided.
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-24 01:42 pm (UTC)Atheist is "without God". Most would hold this view from their current view of the "facts", for some definition of facts.
In practice in the U.S. most agnostics tend to have moral views that heavily overlap with Christian core moral views without the justification of Christian religious texts. Atheists range from "I don't believe in a God, end of conversation" to "you're absolutely crazy to believe in a God and I'm going to treat you as a psychopath for doing so". It's funny when you get atheists as rabid as most of the rabid religious people.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-24 01:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-24 03:04 pm (UTC)I certainly don't blame him for lashing out. The basis of the Wired article was that people who would otherwise keep quiet about their beliefs for one reason or another are having to speak out, sometimes quite loudly, to be heard. In essence, they're tired of being in the closet.
Most of my reading on atheism comes from colonial discussions on deism/englightenment era reading that I did a number of years ago. The distinction very much an ideological one - "There is no supporting evidence, therefore there isn't a god" vs. "There is no supporting evidence and there may be a god". Much of the thought at the time turned to the idea of the watchmaker god.
Then again, there's the militant agnostic: I don't know and you don't either.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-24 02:39 pm (UTC)I think this says more about THEM that it does about me. If that's what they think, then I assume that they are, at the core, morally bankrupt and need to be threatened in order to do the right thing.
As for me, I think that simple empathy leads to core morality. Expanded (racial) self-interest leads to some more of what may be termed morality. Anything beyond that is probably dogmatic and is possibly counterproductive.
I'm not sure which christian core moral beliefs you refer to. Certainly there are a whole lot of what many christians themselves feel are core morals that I feel are actually immoral. Anything that denies a person the right to live their life as they wish if they're not bothering anyone is in that group. The problem is that lots of religious types take a very expansive view of "bothering anyone" - they seem to think that the very existence of something outside their "approval" is bothering them, whether they have to actually look at it or not.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-24 02:52 pm (UTC)As for core moral beliefs, I'm mostly referring to the Do Unto Others rules.