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Author Topic: 10 Myths about atheism  (Read 23741 times)

Hastur T. Fannon

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« Reply #540 on: February 21, 2007, 07:49:53 AM »
Quote from: GRIM
In which case it ain't anything


Of course God isn't a thing :)

Edit: and a picture of a five pound note isn't worth five pounds
 

GRIM

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10 Myths about atheism
« Reply #541 on: February 21, 2007, 07:59:22 AM »
Quote from: Hastur T. Fannon
Of course God isn't a thing :)

Edit: and a picture of a five pound note isn't worth five pounds


So its nothing, good, agreed :)

And it is if its on the right paper (or even if it isn't sometimes...)
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Hastur T. Fannon

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« Reply #542 on: February 21, 2007, 08:38:43 AM »
Quote from: GRIM
So its nothing, good, agreed :)


We can play word games all day ;) God is not a thing, neither is He a concept.  He just is.  Yaweh means "I AM" after all

Now you can say that this doesn't fit into everyday uses of language and you'd be right

But if you're trying to be an effective writer or even an effective GM, you need to understand what motivates your characters.  Now you can dismiss the motivations of huge mass of humanity as meaningless or irrelevant to you, but your religious characters will lack depth and versimillitude. (and how can you write horror without religion? In many ways religion is a response to horror!)

You might never be able to understand it other than in an intellectual or abstract way, but, if you want to develop as a writer you're going to need to try.

Quote from: GRIM
And it is if its on the right paper (or even if it isn't sometimes...)


"I promise to pay the bearer on demand..."

I was making a point about the difference between the signifier and the signified (after all, a five pound note can only in theory be exchanged for gold at the Bank of England), something that I'm sure a writer and thinker such as yourself is familiar with.  All concepts of God, all language about God can only be signifiers
 

GRIM

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« Reply #543 on: February 21, 2007, 08:47:47 AM »
Quote from: Hastur T. Fannon
We can play word games all day ;) God is not a thing, neither is He a concept.  He just is.  Yaweh means "I AM" after all

Now you can say that this doesn't fit into everyday uses of language and you'd be right

But if you're trying to be an effective writer or even an effective GM, you need to understand what motivates your characters.  Now you can dismiss the motivations of huge mass of humanity as meaningless or irrelevant to you, but your religious characters will lack depth and versimillitude. (and how can you write horror without religion? In many ways religion is a response to horror!)

You might never be able to understand it other than in an intellectual or abstract way, but, if you want to develop as a writer you're going to need to try.


Well we're straying off point there, though its a great thing to discuss and something I do find interesting. However, I'd differentiate between understanding something (motivation, how others think) and believing it to be so.

I do agree, briefly, that religion is a response to horror, or rather fear of death and fear of insignificance. A protective shell of narrative fiction to lend their lives an (unnecessary IMO) false significance, similar to any other delusional retreat from reality no different to the guy who reckons he's Napoleon.
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Hastur T. Fannon

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« Reply #544 on: February 21, 2007, 09:02:28 AM »
Quote from: GRIM
A protective shell of narrative fiction to lend their lives an (unnecessary IMO) false significance, similar to any other delusional retreat from reality no different to the guy who reckons he's Napoleon.


The difference is that a guy who acts on a belief that he's Napolean finds it difficult, if not impossible, to function within society, whereas followers of a mature (for want of a better word) religion are often more socialised than the general population (as has been shown upthread)
 

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« Reply #545 on: February 21, 2007, 09:22:42 AM »
Quote from: Hastur T. Fannon
The difference is that a guy who acts on a belief that he's Napolean finds it difficult, if not impossible, to function within society, whereas followers of a mature (for want of a better word) religion are often more socialised than the general population (as has been shown upthread)


The only difference is that there are more of them, thereby creating a false comfort zone for a belief that is no more or less crazy than Mr Napoleon. Socialisation is often a part of the ritualistic process of religions and those apply social pressure, a good quality in a memetic virus that persists and survives.
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Hastur T. Fannon

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« Reply #546 on: February 21, 2007, 10:00:44 AM »
Quote from: GRIM
The only difference is that there are more of them, thereby creating a false comfort zone for a belief that is no more or less crazy than Mr Napoleon.

We call Mr Napolean delusional because his beliefs can have have been falsified.  We section him if his beliefs prevent him from functioning in society (specifically if there is reason to believe he is a risk to himself or to others)

As a general rule, followers of a mature religion don't hold beliefs that are falsifiable (other than on the efficiency of prayer and that's usually because someone's taught them bad theology) and aren't a risk to themselves or to others

Quote from: GRIM
Socialisation is often a part of the ritualistic process of religions and those apply social pressure, a good quality in a memetic virus that persists and survives.


Now who believes in invisible sky pixies! Don't get me wrong, it's a lovely idea and it's helped me to understand some of my own negative experiences with religion, but come on now! Show me a "meme"

But is socialisation (the process of making an individual more fit to survive in a particular society) ever a bad thing?
 

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« Reply #547 on: February 21, 2007, 10:35:04 AM »
Quote from: Hastur T. Fannon
Now who believes in invisible sky pixies! Don't get me wrong, it's a lovely idea and it's helped me to understand some of my own negative experiences with religion, but come on now! Show me a "meme"

But is socialisation (the process of making an individual more fit to survive in a particular society) ever a bad thing?


Language itself.
Styles of wearing a baseball cap.
Viral marketing.
The 'Reet! Reet! Reet!' music from psycho.
Every religion.
The scientific method.

Memetics is an excellent model for the propogation of thought.

As to socialisation, that depends on the nature of the society.

And as to Mr Napoleon, he may indeed be happy and relatively functional but his imaginary reality doesn't conform to actual reality. How is his belief and insanity fumctionally any different to belief in a soul. afterlife, efficacy of prayer, faith healing, the second coming, zionism, natiionalism. racial supremacy, anti-stem cell research, 'no plane at the pentagon' or any number of other similar insanities?
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Akrasia

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« Reply #548 on: February 21, 2007, 10:45:43 AM »
Quote from: John Morrow
… In fact, as Greene points out, those strong emotions often tell us to do the wrong thing from a "collective well being" standpoint.

 
This is hardly surprising.  It’s one of the reasons why people engage in moral theory – by critically reflecting on moral practices we see where they conflict, where some practise are not justified, and so forth.

You’re merely pointing out the need for critical reflection on morality.  No shock here.

Quote from: John Morrow

It is not simply that those moral principles fail to motivate the psychopath on rational grounds but they can't motivate the psychopath because they are not truly rational.


This is an invalid argument.  You’re committing the fallacy of ‘affirming the consequent’.

If p, then q  (If moral principles are not rational, then they will not motivate the psychopath)
q  (they don’t motivate the psychopath
Therefore p (therefore moral principles are not rational)

There are other possible explanations for why moral principles don’t motivate the psychopath aside from the fact that they are not ‘rationally justifiable’.

Also, keep in mind that ‘rationally justifiable’ is different from ‘based on reason alone’.  Many of my desires are ‘rationally justifiable’ even though they are not based on reason.

Quote from: John Morrow

Why does the conflict have to be the result of the failure to reason well?


Ultimately reason aims at providing a coherent and consistent account of reality.  The fact that some emotional responses to particular situations lead us to act in ways that conflict with an impartial account of reality is hardly surprising or worrisome (at least for moral theory; it’s obviously worrisome from a practical point of view).  

Quote from: John Morrow

The point that the psychopath demonstrates is that they are not motivating for rational reasons or because of the strength of the evidence but because of an emotional response.  Thus your moral facts will only tend to motivate a person who shares the same emotional response to the moral facts, making them entirely subjective because they are all, at their core, attempts to explain rationally what is an arational emotional response.  


The above claim is rather messy and confused – it reflects a misunderstanding of the view ‘moral realism’ and what ‘subjectivism’ is  – but I’ll try to address it nonetheless.

A moral realist can claim:

(a.) moral properties exist (so he’s not a moral sceptic or a ‘subjectivist’);
(b.) a moral property just is a property that will motivate properly situated human agents to act in certain ways (or prompt certain responses in them, etc.);
(c.) moral reactions can nonetheless be rationally criticised and reformed (say, to better conform to the relevant moral properties; this is one reason why the moral realist is not a ‘subjectivist’);
(d.) people may often be in situations in which they are not responsive to the relevant moral properties; and
(e.) some people (e.g. psychopaths) may be incapable permanently of being responsive to moral properties.

So moral realism is a view that (1.) affirms that objective moral properties exist, and for which (2.) the fact that psychopaths exist in no way threatens this fact.  

Now, if psychopaths made up 96 percent of the population instead of 4 percent, then ‘moral properties’ as such would not exist (rather, 4 percent of the population would be capable of apprehending something that most people could not, in much the same way that only a small percentage of people can ‘lucid dream’, i.e. perceive that they are dreaming while they are doing it).  If 100 percent of people were psychopaths, the properties would not exist at all (at least not for human beings), just as ‘colour’ would not exist (at least not ‘for us’) if 100 percent of people were colour blind.  

Now you might not like moral realism for some reason.  That’s a separate debate.  But it’s a perfectly coherent, defensible account of morality that is thoroughly naturalistic in its metaphysical assumptions.

Quote from: John Morrow
 
 What this suggests as if you eliminate the emotional component of moral decisions, there are no moral violations, thus morality, itself, is an artifact or byproduct of that emotional response and does not, and can not, exist independently of it.


Neither moral realists nor expressivists deny that morality would not exist if human beings – with their particular biological and psychological constitutions – did not exist.  (I think that there are sophisticated ‘internalist’ ‘practical reason’ views that can overcome this challenge as well, but that’s a race in which I have no horse.)  This doesn’t mean that particular moral practices cannot be rationally criticised and reformed.

Quote from: John Morrow

 In other words, it often seems more likely that a person is going to latch on to a moral philosophy that seems to explain what they feel than it is that they'll be convinced by moral philosophy to change their morality because the philosophy is limited in how much in can change how a person feels about moral issues.


But people do change their views about particular moral issues because of arguments.  For example, I know people who have become vegetarians because of utilitarian arguments that they found convincing, people who came to change their views about distributive justice, etc.

Quote from: John Morrow

The best it can hope to do is help the rational mind scream more loudly by persuading a person to become more emotionally detached from moral problems…


Why couldn’t it also involve altering our emotional responses to particular situations after rational reflection, or finding that our emotional responses have been altered after we come to view a particular situation differently thanks to moral argument and reflection?  People seem to do this on a regular basis.  I know that my own ‘emotional responses’ to certain situations that I now regard as cases of injustice are quite different to my previous ‘emotional responses’ to analogous situations which I did not then regard as cases of injustice.  And I changed my views about justice as a consequence of rational reflection and deliberation (indeed, in the course of taking two particular philosophy courses).

A moral realist would argue that the possibility of such changes is precisely what ‘moral progress’ hinges on.  Similarly, changes in people’s emotional responses are key to theories of ‘virtue ethics’.   Aristotle, for instance, thought that moral education involved teaching people to feel the right emotions in response to certain situations.  Nonetheless, rational reflection and judgement played a central role in Aristotle’s ethics, despite his acknowledgement that emotional responses were key (and his acknowledgement that some people were simply ‘insensible’ to virtue).

Quote from: John Morrow

 It is that when the psychopath, who has the rational capacity to understand the argument, looks at the moral argument, it is illogical to them.


I thought that you said previously that it was something that psychopaths could understand ‘logically’?  No matter.  The fact that claims about colour have no meaning for someone who is colour blind, or claims about other people’s ‘mindsets’ have no meaning for autistic people, does not mean that claims about colour or other people’s ‘mindsets’ are purely subjective or mere fictions.

Quote from: John Morrow

 Think of it as questioning whether the evidence supports the claim that morality can be "externalist in nature".


But it doesn’t do this at all.  It is not even clear to me how it could pose a challenge to externalism.

Quote from: John Morrow

I don't think it's a mistake, nor do I think it undermines my argument if you don't presuppose that the externalism theories that you favor are true and internalism theories that you don't are false.  In other words, if you are wrong and morality does require some form of internalism, then I'm not the one making the mistake.


Perhaps morality requires some form of internalism – that’s a separate debate.  (But even if it did your points about psychopaths would only undermine one kind of internalism, namely a very ‘rationalistic’ conception of it, typically associated with Kant.)  

My objection all along has been that you are positing a false dilemma: either ‘rationalistic internalism’ is true or moral scepticism is true.  My point has been that these are not the only two alternatives.  There are meta-ethical theories that are not in any way vulnerable to the existence of psychopaths (e.g. non-reductionist and reductionist moral realism, expressivism, ‘sentimentalist’ versions of ‘virtue ethics’, etc.).  If you think that the existence of psychopaths requires moral scepticism, you need to show how they also rebut these other meta-ethical theories.  But you haven’t even begun to do this!

In short, even if I were convinced that psychopaths undermine the plausibility of ‘rationalistic internalism’ (orthodox Kantianism), I would hardly feel the need to become a moral sceptic/error theorist.  That’s because the existence of psychopaths does not even affect the plausibility of a large number of alternative non-sceptical meta-ethical theories (including the  ones that I find most plausible).

Quote from: John Morrow

 And this is why the philosophies that you keep trying to claim as slam dunks that should persuade people that you are right roll off of people in this thread (and even people much more qualified to debate philosophy with you) as if you were telling them that logic is a pretty flower that smells bad.  If they don't share the same feelings about the argument that you do, the argument not only doesn't motivate emotionally but doesn't persuade rationally.


Well I certainly would not deny that some people ignore rational arguments for emotional reasons.  Who would?  However, I know that some people who have been strongly emotionally attached to certain views (religious, ethical, political, etc.) have come to change those views thanks to rational deliberation and reflection.  So it certainly seems possible (at least for some people).

Perhaps one needs to want or desire that their beliefs conform to reality in order to feel the force of logic, reason, etc?  Well, maybe.  And if there are people who simply don’t have that desire, I don’t know what to say to them.  But such persons seem simply to be ‘cabbages’ (as Aristotle described them), and not worth discussing anything with.
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Akrasia

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« Reply #549 on: February 21, 2007, 11:07:36 AM »
Quote from: Hastur T. Fannon
... Because the existence of God is not a falsifiable proposition ...

Focusing on ‘falsifiability’ is the wrong way to go.

As GRIM pointed out, there is no reason why one cannot critically evaluate the proposition "A God with properties, x, y, z, etc., as described in texts a, b, c, etc." exists.  It simply involves considering the relevant evidence in favour and against the existence of that entity.  Of course if the account of God presented is internally inconsistent and/or incoherent, that alone is a good reason for not believing in it.

One might believe in God despite the available evidence, of course, but that involves faith.  

Quote from: Hastur T. Fannon

Intellectual argument can make the gap larger or smaller but ultimately it's a leap of faith

But it’s not a ‘leap of faith’ to abandon faith.

Quote from: Hastur T. Fannon

May I take a guess at what age this occured? Teens? Early twenties at the latest? Were your parents (or possibly significant friends during your teenage years) also Christians?

My parents were Christians, but if anything I was, at least during my teens, more 'devout' in practice than they were.  My process of abandoning Christianity occurred over a period of years, as doubts about the plausibility of Christianity accumulated and gradually wore down my faith.  I suppose my definitive 'break' occurred shortly after I started university (reflections on some philosophical arguments were the final nails in the coffin).  I was actually quite depressed about the transition for a few years, frequently wondered whether I had done the right thing, but ultimately concluded that I simply could not reconcile a commitment to reason with faith.

That's my story.  But so what?  :confused:

One of my best friends was raised by a nonChristian family, became a devout Christian at age 16, and remained one for 20 years.  Then, in his late 30s, he started using his reason to reflect critically on his faith, and after a year or so concluded that he had been wrong, that he had been believing in a myth.  And he subsequently became an atheist.

Some people do abandon faith because of rational reflection.  (Perhaps they are all deluded?  Well, possibly, but I don’t think so, and I doubt very much that you are in a position to make that kind of generalization.)
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Hastur T. Fannon

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« Reply #550 on: February 21, 2007, 11:08:52 AM »
Quote from: GRIM
Memetics is an excellent model for the propogation of thought.


Ok, you seem to be confusing "meme" and "meme-complex" and using Blackmore's definition.  Unfortunately her "everything's a meme" approach seems to have absolutely zero predictive power (because it's not falsifiable).  Even thwink.org's work on "Dueling Loops" doesn't need need the idea of memes.  Unless I'm missing something you could replace "false memes" and "true memes" with "false statements" and "true statements" and you'd have exactly the same model

Quote from: GRIM
As to socialisation, that depends on the nature of the society.


But supremely socialised individuals will act to improve their society (e.g. Shaftsbury, Wilberforce, MLK, the Founding Fathers, Lenin)

Quote from: GRIM
And as to Mr Napoleon, he may indeed be happy and relatively functional but his imaginary reality doesn't conform to actual reality. How is his belief and insanity fumctionally any different to belief in a soul. afterlife, efficacy of prayer, faith healing, the second coming, zionism, natiionalism. racial supremacy, anti-stem cell research, 'no plane at the pentagon' or any number of other similar insanities?


Because his beliefs cause him to function less well in society (as do all of those beliefs you've mentioned, especially if taken to extremes)
 

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« Reply #551 on: February 21, 2007, 11:14:27 AM »
Quote from: Hastur T. Fannon
... Because his beliefs cause him to function less well in society (as do all of those beliefs you've mentioned, especially if taken to extremes)


How can we even make judgements about whether certain 'beliefs' cause people to function 'well' or 'poorly' in society without relying on (what we take to be) a correct belief about what it is for people to function well in society -- a belief that itself cannot be evaluated with reference to whether it causes people to function well in society (since that would be viciously circular)?
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GRIM

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« Reply #552 on: February 21, 2007, 12:59:42 PM »
Quote from: Hastur T. Fannon
But supremely socialised individuals will act to improve their society (e.g. Shaftsbury, Wilberforce, MLK, the Founding Fathers, Lenin)


You're making it increasingly difficult not to use a tired example of a certain jackbooted political nationalist movement and the result of their enforced modes of socialisation.

Quote
Because his beliefs cause him to function less well in society (as do all of those beliefs you've mentioned, especially if taken to extremes)


And religions, and you don't even have to get to the extremes for a deletirious effect to start manifesting, plus even moderate religious belief carry with them the texts and passages that continue to support the extreme viewpoints while lending them legitimacy.

Could you take the nicely-nicely Christianity and the John Lennon version of Jesus, ditch the bible entirely and turn it into some nice Just-So stories about a bearded hippy who wanted everyone to be nice to each other, without involving god, prayer or any of the other attendent nonsense?

Sure, it might even be a nice way to go about it, but I don't reckon you'd see even moderate-liberal Christians willing to discard the past quite that much.
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Hastur T. Fannon

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« Reply #553 on: February 21, 2007, 01:07:21 PM »
Quote from: Akrasia
How can we even make judgements about whether certain 'beliefs' cause people to function 'well' or 'poorly' in society without relying on (what we take to be) a correct belief about what it is for people to function well in society -- a belief that itself cannot be evaluated with reference to whether it causes people to function well in society (since that would be viciously circular)?


At one end we have beliefs that inspire obviously self-destructive actions: drinking the kool-aid, giving all your money to a charlatan, supporting Millwall FC*

At the other end I think we have to look at that actions and example of the people that society consider to be truly great and inspirational and ask what beliefs inspired them

Quote from: Akrasia
As GRIM pointed out, there is no reason why one cannot critically evaluate the proposition "A God with properties, x, y, z, etc., as described in texts a, b, c, etc." exists.
Except that a mature religion doesn't make falsifiable truth claims of that sort and we're back to "the Way that can be spoken of is not the true Way"

(that may actually be one of the defining characteristics that separates (e.g.) Scientology from (e.g.) Daoism)

Quote from: Akrasia
That's my story. But so what?
It gives me a bit of background as to where you are coming from and you might be interested to know that it does fit into a well-described pattern of behaviour.  Psychoanalysing someone over the Interweb is a fools errand, but, based on what you've said, I'd suggest that your loss of faith might be more connected to you developing your own identity independant of your parents than you are perhaps aware

Your friend's story is a lot more interesting.  Late adulthood is a very late time to be critically examining your faith for the first time...

Quote from: Akrasia
But it’s not a ‘leap of faith’ to abandon faith.
You're right.  There's usually something else and the intellectual justifications come after the core of faith has already been lost.  An emotional crisis, development as a person, or disillusionment with the religious hierarchy are examples of things that can trigger this


*this is UK sports joke
 

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« Reply #554 on: February 21, 2007, 01:15:42 PM »
Quote from: GRIM
You're making it increasingly difficult not to use a tired example of a certain jackbooted political nationalist movement and the result of their enforced modes of socialisation.


Which is why it's vitally important to critically evaluate the effects of a belief or set of beliefs

Quote from: GRIM
And religions, and you don't even have to get to the extremes for a deletirious effect to start manifesting, plus even moderate religious belief carry with them the texts and passages that continue to support the extreme viewpoints while lending them legitimacy.


This is a serious problem and it's one that's confronting my own branch of the Church at the moment regarding conflicting views on sexual ethics, particularly homosexuality.  The internal politics are hideous, complex and hideously complex, but are really tangential to this thread, unless you want to use it as an example of how a religious movement handles a crisis without fragmenting

Quote from: GRIM
Could you take the nicely-nicely Christianity and the John Lennon version of Jesus, ditch the bible entirely and turn it into some nice Just-So stories about a bearded hippy who wanted everyone to be nice to each other, without involving god, prayer or any of the other attendent nonsense?


I think it's called Utilitarian-Universalism ;)