Atheism and Materialsm

[LuisDantas]

I mean the belief that nothing beyond physical matter exists. So no souls or spirits or anything.

What kind of evidence for souls, spirits or this elusive anything exists?

How or why is anyone expected to notice their existence, if they happen to exist?

What, if anything, is supposed to be in any way different in a world where they exist while contrasted from one where they do not?

Ultimately, theism (defined as the willingness to believe in the existence of deities) is both meaningless in and of itself (what is supposed to be called a god, and why?) and demonstrably a matter of aesthetical preference as opposed to rational or epistemological analysis. So is animism, which is more properly connected to conceptions of souls and spirits.

Atheism deals with the world as it shows itself to be in more rational terms than theism, and is a lot less prone to misguide or to waste attention, effort, or emotional investiment.

Theism is a personal inclination due to very personal factors, and should expect no acknowledgement nor cooperation from outside the person proper. Among other reasons, because it is dicey at best to assume that any two people attribute the names "god" and "deity" to particularly similar real or fictional entities. It is one of the vaguest, less defined ideas in the whole history of humanity.

It is not quite the same as teaching disregard for reality in order to protect fantasy. But it comes real close and often crosses that line without any regard to eventually learning better.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

My view doesn't assume my view is external to my self. My view is that my senses are capable of informing me of the world external to me.
How then do you define reality? Are you asserting I'm not real?
My thoughts exist as real brain states. The contents of my thoughts are my subjective reality, not objective reality.

If you don't think I'm also objectively real, why do you bother posting?

I magically define with my thoughts something to be real, because it becomes real, because I as thinking define it as real. Something is real, because I think it is real. That is your trick. And now I will define, that you are unreal because then by the magic of words by definition you are unreal.
As long as you don't understand how words work as not being magical by definition, then you are unreal by definition.

So how do your thoughts in you as subjective reality travel into objective reality as the Internet and reach me as me in my subjective reality?
I have asked that before and you have never actually answered if I recall correct?

So what is subjective reality and what is objective reality and how do they connect? Yeah, that is philosophy and as long as you play as this kind of dualism as for subjective and objective, you are both unreal and real, because that is really real and unreal.
You are playing with words and I just play with them differently.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

What kind of evidence for souls, spirits or this elusive anything exists?

How or why is anyone expected to notice their existence, if they happen to exist?

What, if anything, is supposed to be in any way different in a world where they exist while contrasted from one where they do not?

Ultimately, theism (defined as the willingness to believe in the existence of deities) is both meaningless in and of itself (what is supposed to be called a god, and why?) and demonstrably a matter of aesthetical preference as opposed to rational or epistemological analysis. So is animism, which is more properly connected to conceptions of souls and spirits.

Atheism deals with the world as it shows itself to be in more rational terms than theism, and is a lot less prone to misguide or to waste attention, effort, or emotional investiment.

Theism is a personal inclination due to very personal factors, and should expect no acknowledgement nor cooperation from outside the person proper. Among other reasons, because it is dicey at best to assume that any two people attribute the names "god" and "deity" to particularly similar real or fictional entities. It is one of the vaguest, less defined ideas in the whole history of humanity.

It is not quite the same as teaching disregard for reality in order to protect fantasy. But it comes real close and often crosses that line without any regard to eventually learning better.

What kind of evidence do you have for this axiomatic assumption as the first one here:
Philosophy of science - Wikipedia
1. that there is an objective reality shared by all rational observers.

So you are for the bold the judge of all humans and atheism, for which I am not a part of that, yet I am an atheist. So if that is rational, I rather be irrational and decide for me what matters and don't let you decide that.

 

[loverofhumanity]

Would you agree that to be an atheist is to be a materialist? So many of the atheists one encounters today seem not only to reject God, but the idea of the 'other' as a whole. Anything that cannot be discovered by one of any scientific methods is rejected. It is a very modern view, I think.

Why has atheism so embraced materialism? Would you say anyone in Antiquity or pre-Enlightenment who claimed to be an atheist would fit our modern definition of 'atheist'? Would they concur with materialism and reductionism? There also seems to be a disdain for Philosophy (see Stephen Hawking for 'Philosophy is dead').

Why is this?

Firstly, it depends on each individual. There are many atheists who are kind and compassionate as much as any religious person. But with the thousands upon thousands of conflicting sects and interpretations can we really blame them from turning away from this very confusing picture which religion presents to the world?

So the atheist, amidst all this confusion, sticks to what his mind can know and accept and doesn’t want to get entangled in this mesh of controversy. Can we really, honestly blame them from turning away from superstitions and blind imitation? I don’t believe any atheist is against the virtues such as love or justice but turning water into wine and walking on water just cannot be literally believed by the thinking person. There are just too many irrational and unreasonable beliefs which the mind and intellect cannot accept literally.

What we need is for science to go through the literal interpretations of religious texts with a fine tooth comb to sort out fact from fancy. A lot can be accepted figuratively but not all literally. So an atheist will not want to get entangled in this confusion and I do not blame them.

 

[Rival]

I'm tiring of religion and theism being called 'irrational' or 'superstition' or such. There are many philosophers and theologians out there making rationally sound arguments for the existence of God. I am starting to believe that when atheists claim these arguments aren't 'rational' they're not referring to the content of the argument. For instance, I fail to see how seeing design and order in nature and coming to the conclusion that there is a designer is in any way irrational, or that, with majority scientific consensus, believing that the universe had a beginning and believing that God is the ultimate cause of the beginning of the universe is irrational. How are these beliefs in any way irrational? They're based on perfectly logical argument and conclusion. I fail to see how this is superstition or otherwise. You can disagree with the argument, but calling the argument irrational is far-fetched. Philosophers and theologians have been making and perfecting these arguments for thousands of years now, and who are you to say they are irrational garbage? Do you think you're a better mind than Augustine, Anselm or Aquinas?

It's baffling.

@Augustus thoughts?

 

[Altfish]

This isn't the kind of materialism I am talking about, though. I'm talking about the philosophy of materialism - scientific naturalism, physicalism, whatever one decides to call it.

Would you care to link me to a definition of this alternative meaning. Thank you

 

[Rival]

Would you care to link me to a definition of this alternative meaning. Thank you

Physicalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Physicalism is, in slogan form, the thesis that everything is physical. The thesis is usually intended as a metaphysical thesis, parallel to the thesis attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Thales, that everything is water, or the idealism of the 18th Century philosopher Berkeley, that everything is mental. The general idea is that the nature of the actual world (i.e. the universe and everything in it) conforms to a certain condition, the condition of being physical. Of course, physicalists don’t deny that the world might contain many items that at first glance don’t seem physical — items of a biological, or psychological, or moral, or social, or mathematical nature. But they insist nevertheless that at the end of the day such items are physical, or at least bear an important relation to the physical.

Physicalism - Wikipedia

Basically a denial of the supernatural, beyond material nature, in any form.

 

[PearlSeeker]

I'm tiring of religion and theism being called 'irrational' or 'superstition' or such. There are many philosophers and theologians out there making rationally sound arguments for the existence of God. I am starting to believe that when atheists claim these arguments aren't 'rational' they're not referring to the content of the argument. For instance, I fail to see how seeing design and order in nature and coming to the conclusion that there is a designer is in any way irrational, or that, with majority scientific consensus, believing that the universe had a beginning and believing that God is the ultimate cause of the beginning of the universe is irrational. How are these beliefs in any way irrational? They're based on perfectly logical argument and conclusion. I fail to see how this is superstition or otherwise. You can disagree with the argument, but calling the argument irrational is far-fetched. Philosophers and theologians have been making and perfecting these arguments for thousands of years now, and who are you to say they are irrational garbage? Do you think you're a better mind than Augustine, Anselm or Aquinas?

It's baffling.

@Augustus thoughts?

Philosophical theism - Wikipedia

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I'm tiring of religion and theism being called 'irrational' or 'superstition' or such. There are many philosophers and theologians out there making rationally sound arguments for the existence of God. I am starting to believe that when atheists claim these arguments aren't 'rational' they're not referring to the content of the argument. For instance, I fail to see how seeing design and order in nature and coming to the conclusion that there is a designer is in any way irrational, or that, with majority scientific consensus, believing that the universe had a beginning and believing that God is the ultimate cause of the beginning of the universe is irrational. How are these beliefs in any way irrational? They're based on perfectly logical argument and conclusion. I fail to see how this is superstition or otherwise. You can disagree with the argument, but calling the argument irrational is far-fetched. Philosophers and theologians have been making and perfecting these arguments for thousands of years now, and who are you to say they are irrational garbage? Do you think you're a better mind than Augustine, Anselm or Aquinas?

It's baffling.

@Augustus thoughts?

Well, @Augustus is better at it than me.
But here is my 2 cents. If you don't have God and you don't claim authority, just because you can, then how can you do it?
Well, the old Greeks got an idea: What if we didn't use emotions and used pure reason and logic?
Well, the short answer is that it doesn't work in practice for all cases.

The rest is over 2000+ years of arguing over this absurdity: I am thinking in the correct manner and you are not and the latter is bad.
Now if you notice the absurdity, you also know what they are doing. They as rational atheists believe in a form of human cognition, which is easy to make falsifiable and the falsification is simple. I just do it irrationally for how I make sense of being as a human and that is rational, because I include that I do what makes sense to me as me beyond just pure reason and logic.
I am on good days so rational, that I know when that doesn't work and that is rational, because I admit I have a limit to what I can do with pure reason and logic. So to me God makes sense, because the belief in God can works and thus it is reasonable, because it works for any given human, that does so.

And no, don't start with sane and all of those words. Because we all in the end cope differently, so stay out of my life as how I cope with being me. And that is so for all other humans. As for morality and ethics, start another thread.

 

[firedragon]

Would you agree that to be an atheist is to be a materialist? So many of the atheists one encounters today seem not only to reject God, but the idea of the 'other' as a whole. Anything that cannot be discovered by one of any scientific methods is rejected. It is a very modern view, I think.

Why has atheism so embraced materialism? Would you say anyone in Antiquity or pre-Enlightenment who claimed to be an atheist would fit our modern definition of 'atheist'? Would they concur with materialism and reductionism? There also seems to be a disdain for Philosophy (see Stephen Hawking for 'Philosophy is dead').

Why is this?

Not necessarily. At least in the U.S, almost 20% of the self proclaimed atheists have said that they believe in a higher power.

 

[Rival]

Not necessarily. At least in the U.S, almost 20% of the self proclaimed atheists have said that they believe in a higher power.

Does the study go into any more detail about what they consider a 'higher power'? as this would seem to defeat the whole point of atheism.

 

[firedragon]

Does the study go into any more detail about what they consider a 'higher power'? as this would seem to defeat the whole point of atheism.

The study does not really go deep into analysing why they are like that. It's a quantitative survey.

10 facts about atheists

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Does the study go into any more detail about what they consider a 'higher power'? as this would seem to defeat the whole point of atheism.

Well, as a NA, brother to AA, I believe in a higher power, that is without scientific evidence. I believe all humans have positive worth and that is something higher than me and in a sense a power. Now if you push me, I will link it to an existential kind of deism, which is a kind of Transcendental Idealism without being metaphysical. There is a positive worth in the world, which I try to find.
Yes, it is not coherent and I don't care.

 

[Left Coast]

I'm tiring of religion and theism being called 'irrational' or 'superstition' or such. There are many philosophers and theologians out there making rationally sound arguments for the existence of God. I am starting to believe that when atheists claim these arguments aren't 'rational' they're not referring to the content of the argument. For instance, I fail to see how seeing design and order in nature and coming to the conclusion that there is a designer is in any way irrational, or that, with majority scientific consensus, believing that the universe had a beginning and believing that God is the ultimate cause of the beginning of the universe is irrational. How are these beliefs in any way irrational? They're based on perfectly logical argument and conclusion. I fail to see how this is superstition or otherwise. You can disagree with the argument, but calling the argument irrational is far-fetched. Philosophers and theologians have been making and perfecting these arguments for thousands of years now, and who are you to say they are irrational garbage? Do you think you're a better mind than Augustine, Anselm or Aquinas?

It's baffling.

@Augustus thoughts?

A lot could be said about any particular argument for God, and this site is filled with endless pages of it. I do think it's lazy to call all of religion or religious people stupid or superstitious, though. And I don't think anyone has yet demonstrated philosophical materialism any more than God. They're both beyond our ability to definitively demonstrate, IMHO.

One problem with some arguments for God is that they are internally coherent, but their premises have not been demonstrated, or they pack a bunch of extra meaning into the conclusion that hasnt been demonstrated in the argument. The kalam argument comes to mind. So, let's say the universe has a cause. How does the argument demonstrate that the cause has to be the omnimax deity of the Abrahamics? Or a deity at all? It doesn't. Aquinas' matter-of-fact declaration in his version of it is simply, "This everyone calls God." Everyone, eh Tom? You sure?

So it's not really a "rational argument for God." It's an internally coherent argument for some undetermined cause of the universe. But as any scientist or philosopher can tell you, it's one thing to have an internally coherent idea in your head, and another to test it to see if it actually matches what we find the real world.

I hope that helps rather than derails the thread.

 

[Rival]

A lot could be said about any particular argument for God, and this site is filled with endless pages of it. I do think it's lazy to call all of religion or religious people stupid or superstitious, though. And I don't think anyone has yet demonstrated philosophical materialism any more than God. They're both beyond our ability to definitively demonstrate, IMHO.

One problem with some arguments for God is that they are internally coherent, but their premises have not been demonstrated, or they pack a bunch of extra meaning into the conclusion that hasnt been demonstrated in the argument. The kalam argument comes to mind. So, let's say the universe has a cause. How does the argument demonstrate that the cause has to be the omnimax deity of the Abrahamics? Or a deity at all? It doesn't. Aquinas' matter-of-fact declaration in his version of it is simply, "This everyone calls God." Everyone, eh Tom? You sure?

So it's not really a "rational argument for God." It's an internally coherent argument for some undetermined cause of the universe. But as any scientist or philosopher can tell you, it's one thing to have an internally coherent idea in your head, and another to test it to see if it actually matches what we find the real world.

I hope that helps rather than derails the thread.

I think the on the ground problem is that many internet users are simply not as intimately familiar with these arguments as would be necessary. If these arguments were as roundly defeated as many on the internet like to claim, philosophers and theologians would have dropped them decades ago, but they haven't, and they're still using them in high calibre debates with atheists. As I mentioned before, Dawkins has confirmed the strength of the fine-tuning argument to him and said it's the argument most likely to make a Deist of him. I would ask, are internet atheists now claiming they're a better mind than Dawkins, for example, to dismiss so readily this and other arguments? I would ask the same of theists dismissing atheist arguments with a wave. I think there is just a lack of informed understanding and more pop philosophy/science going on.

 

[MikeF]

Ok. We could say that an act is an act. An event is an event. Whether it is morally right or wrong, should and shouldn't etc is what is refined and that seems to me to be analagous to the empirical situation.

Fair points. I have a slightly different view of this that is the result of what I've read and learned. I imagine you have come to your view by a similar process.

To some extent what I believe about morality is motivated by a desire to be able to call things wrong when I see them as such but I'm happy to admit I don't have solid answers. Just kind of winging it on the impression I've developed over time.

It's worth adding that moral and ethical systems could all be totally wide of the mark while moral facts are still a thing.

I have one other thought for consideration. We are talking about morals as they relate to human beings. We do not think of morals in terms of most other organisms, say worms, bacteria, or plants. Indeed, it would seem that this abstract concept would be limited to organisms that have the capacity to override or ignore instinctual behavior, that some actions are not automatic or reflexive. In terms of the cosmos, species that qualify might be considered relatively few. In addition, for most of the timespan that encompasses life on earth, organisms do not seem to have such capacity. Add to this the greater amount of time in which there has been no life.

That some other species exhibit similar behavior to those we describe as moral, it lends further credence in my mind to the notion that such behaviors are born organically out of the organisms themselves.

 

[Left Coast]

I think the on the ground problem is that many internet users are simply not as intimately familiar with these arguments as would be necessary. If these arguments were as roundly defeated as many on the internet like to claim, philosophers and theologians would have dropped them decades ago, but they haven't, and they're still using them in high calibre debates with atheists. As I mentioned before, Dawkins has confirmed the strength of the fine-tuning argument to him and said it's the argument most likely to make a Deist of him. I would ask, are internet atheists now claiming they're a better mind that Dawkins, for example, to dismiss so readily this and other arguments? I would ask the same of theists dismissing atheist arguments with a wave. I think there is just a lack of informed understanding and more pop philosophy/science going on.

I do agree that a lot of people don't engage arguments about God or religion from a place of being informed. They offer off-the-cuff armchair philosophy, which is to be expected. And they knock down strawmen of what their opponents have to say.

It's a call for all of us to "elevate our game," I suppose.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I think the on the ground problem is that many internet users are simply not as intimately familiar with these arguments as would be necessary. If these arguments were as roundly defeated as many on the internet like to claim, philosophers and theologians would have dropped them decades ago, but they haven't, and they're still using them in high calibre debates with atheists. As I mentioned before, Dawkins has confirmed the strength of the fine-tuning argument to him and said it's the argument most likely to make a Deist of him. I would ask, are internet atheists now claiming they're a better mind that Dawkins, for example, to dismiss so readily this and other arguments? I would ask the same of theists dismissing atheist arguments with a wave. I think there is just a lack of informed understanding and more pop philosophy/science going on.

I will tr to be fair. That has nothing to do with religion as such, because you can also find it in non-religion.

So here it is as simple as I can make it.
P1: X is Y
P2: Y is Z
C: X is Z.
That makes perfect sense as valid, but it is neither sound nor not sound.
When you then make a deduction like this with words, which should independent for their referents and thus about objective reality, then I can claim these words are not just valid, but sound. I can do that without them being sound and that is what is going on.
And that has nothing to do with religion, because some of my follow atheists do it too when it comes to metaphysics. Or other aspects of words as between their meaning and how that makes sense, versus their referents.
That is not unique to either side. That is how human brains work in some cases.

Now if this means, that you realize that there is no proof of objective reality in itself, don't worry. Just believe as you have always done. Because it is a fact of the everyday world, that you and everybody else can do so for metaphysics for all kinds.

Regards

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I have one other thought for consideration. We are talking about morals as they relate to human beings. We do not think of morals in terms of most other organisms, say worms, bacteria, or plants. Indeed, it would seem that this abstract concept would be limited to organisms that have the capacity to override or ignore instinctual behavior, that some actions are not automatic or reflexive. In terms of the cosmos, species that qualify might be considered relatively few. In addition, for most of the timespan that encompasses life on earth, organisms do not seem to have such capacity. Add to this the greater amount of time in which there has been no life.

That some other species exhibit similar behavior to those we describe as moral, it lends further credence in my mind to the notion that such behaviors are born organically out of the organisms themselves.

As long as objective reality is metaphysically a case of naturalism or its variants.

 

[RestlessSoul]

I magically define with my thoughts something to be real, because it becomes real, because I as thinking define it as real. Something is real, because I think it is real. That is your trick. And now I will define, that you are unreal because then by the magic of words by definition you are unreal.
As long as you don't understand how words work as not being magical by definition, then you are unreal by definition.

So how do your thoughts in you as subjective reality travel into objective reality as the Internet and reach me as me in my subjective reality?
I have asked that before and you have never actually answered if I recall correct?

So what is subjective reality and what is objective reality and how do they connect? Yeah, that is philosophy and as long as you play as this kind of dualism as for subjective and objective, you are both unreal and real, because that is really real and unreal.
You are playing with words and I just play with them differently.

The mind is an alchemist, transmuting symbols into a coherent vision of reality. Put simply, the stuff of the world is mind stuff.
- to paraphrase astronomer and theoretical physicist Arthur Stanley Eddington.