Atheists: Is that your final answer?

[Jackytar]

Yes. Happiness has material manifestations which include hormones and bioelectric activity.



The problems of music, red, and geometry aren't questions of existence, but of definition. They aren't phenomena or causes of phenomena, but descriptive labels.

God, on the other hand, would be a phenomena or a cause if he existed. So your comparison is illegitimate.

Yes, I acknowledged that evolutionary biology suggests that these are all manifestations of the material world. You know, mindless matter and energy bouncing around in a manner ordained by natural law and nothing else. There's a term for this view. It's called "scientific fundamentalism". But they are all most definitely phenomena of the mind. You say they are merely descriptive labels. Descriptive of what? And we are nowhere near a scientific understanding of how it all works, nor will we ever be (my belief). I think it's a mistake to extend our confidence derived from intellectual persuits in the objective world to that of the subjective realm.

Jackytar

 

[Copernicus]

Yes, I acknowledged that evolutionary biology suggests that these are all manifestations of the material world. You know, mindless matter and energy bouncing around in a manner ordained by natural law and nothing else. There's a term for this view. It's called "scientific fundamentalism"...

It is also called by less pejorative names. Philosophical naturalism, for example. By calling it "fundamentalism", you give the false impression that the belief is held as a dogma rather than a philosophical position. The only "minds" I know of are those I interact with directly--those associated with physical brains. I believe that other brain-associated minds exist in the universe, but I have no reason to believe in god-like or spiritual beings that can think without physical brains, let alone manipulate physical reality just by willing events to happen.

...I think it's a mistake to extend our confidence derived from intellectual persuits in the objective world to that of the subjective realm.

But that is just what you and other religious folks do. You make claims about reality that are based on your subjective assumptions--e.g. that the universe could not exist if it were not created by an external agent of some kind. If others reject those claims, that does not make them religious fundamentalists.

 

[Imagist]

Yes, I acknowledged that evolutionary biology suggests that these are all manifestations of the material world. You know, mindless matter and energy bouncing around in a manner ordained by natural law and nothing else. There's a term for this view. It's called "scientific fundamentalism". But they are all most definitely phenomena of the mind. You say they are merely descriptive labels. Descriptive of what? And we are nowhere near a scientific understanding of how it all works, nor will we ever be (my belief). I think it's a mistake to extend our confidence derived from intellectual persuits in the objective world to that of the subjective realm.

Jackytar

Descriptive labels aren't existent or set in stone, they are merely groupings of phenomena. Red describes a certain frequency range of visible light. "Red" exists in that the frequencies of detectable electromagnetic waves crosses over the frequency range we label as red. There is no way that we can prove red exists or that something is objectively red; it's a matter of definition. Generally we agree upon the definition of red, but in other languages, "red" means something else or nothing at all, and some languages don't even have an equivalent word.

My point is, that the comparison between "red' and "god" is illegitimate, and all the other constructs you mentioned are illegitimate for similar reasons. "Red" is inherently existent by its own definition, while "god" is not, just as "dragon", "unicorn", and "chupacabra" don't inherently exist.

Furthermore, I disagree that all matter is mindless. The human brain is not mindless; it is the mind. I am in complete awe of the workings of the human mind. My awe is in no way decreased by understanding that it operates upon a vast network of electrochemical reactions which, as you say, is ordained by natural law and nothing else.

Lastly, your claim that this is a subjective argument is illegitimate. We aren't close to understanding how the brain as a whole works; that is true. However, we have a pretty good understanding of the tiny building blocks upon which it is built, at least down to the molecular/electrical level. Objectively there is no evidence that there is anything more than that (if you disagree, please present said evidence).

 

[Jackytar]

First of all, to Copernicus - perhaps my use of the term "scientific fundamentalist" led you to to believe I'm a religious person because it is often used by religious persons in a pejorative manner, just as "atheist" can be a pejorative in the same context. But I assure you that was not how it was meant. In fact I find the views expressed by the so-called "scientific fundamentalists" quite compelling. I learned the term in an article about new research into the workings of the mind and it was not used in a pejorative manner in that context. If you read my first post in this thread you will see I give credit to these views and discard religious dogma as "folly" and "not worthy of careful examination". I like the term but if my use of it somehow led you and possibly others to get me completely backwards I will indeed be careful how I use it in the future.

Edit - Tonight I googled "scientific fundamentalism" and clicked on a few links. All had the term expressed in a pejorative manner. I truly thought the term had a legitimate use. And wiki states that the word "fundamentalist" is itself most often used as a pejorative. I was mistaken about this.

And I will also point out that the word "subjective" does not mean feelings, intuitions and imaginative thought - or assumptions, as you say - in the context of a philosophical or scientific discussion. It is in reference to the observer or "the self" as opposed to the object or thing being observed or experienced.

To Imagist - I disagree that "red" is descriptive of a certain frequency range of visible light. It is descriptive of a experience that we have. We experience red just as we experience the smell of a pineapple. Yes, the chemicals a pineapple emits are material objects. The receptors in our nose are material objects. The electrical impulses sent to our brains are material objects. But the phenomenon of the mind that we refer to as the smell of a pineapple is not a material object. A pineapple smells like a pineapple but I cannot impart the smell of a pineapple to you if you have never experienced it for yourself. "How a pineapple smells to me" is an example of what some philosophers call "qualia". This is a weird word to define, as you can imagine. But in philosophy qualia are "subjective experiences" and they are as real to me, at least, as rocks. And these sensory experiences are of course at the base level of all experiences of the mind. Try to pull a materialistic understanding of music, language or geometry out of your hat and I will be impressed.

I'm new here but I've learned you folks like to keep threads on track. So getting back to the theme of the thread, the point I'm trying to make is that the underlying assertion of many of the atheist's posts here that the material world is all there is may well be true, and I as an individual may even be drawn to the notion, as an agnostic I acknowledge that this assertion does not hold a high level of certainty. If you look up the wiki entry for "qualia", for example, you will see the level of disagreement (and perhaps understand why I'm not that keen on participating in a debate about cognitive phenomenon). Suffice it to say that given our extremely poor objective scientific understanding of the mind - and even the most hard core scientific researchers readily admit to this - I'm not personally ready to declare our experiences as purely manifestations of natural phenomenon just because it fits in neatly with everything else we know about the objective world. Apart from the intellectual failing this represents to me, it also has troubling consequences such as the value of life and the existence of free will. I think it is a mistake to extend our confidence derived from successes in understanding the objective world to that of our internal life. I think our scientific understanding of what is is "to be' will forever remain out of our grasp. Like a snake nibbling at it's own tail, thinking it may be possible to swallow itself whole. A wonderful mystery there for us to savor. Not a meaningless collection of matter and energy to be sacrificed at the alter of reason.

Jackytar

 

[Imagist]

To Imagist - I disagree that "red" is descriptive of a certain frequency range of visible light. It is descriptive of a experience that we have. We experience red just as we experience the smell of a pineapple. Yes, the chemicals a pineapple emits are material objects. The receptors in our nose are material objects. The electrical impulses sent to our brains are material objects. But the phenomenon of the mind that we refer to as the smell of a pineapple is not a material object. A pineapple smells like a pineapple but I cannot impart the smell of a pineapple to you if you have never experienced it for yourself. "How a pineapple smells to me" is an example of what some philosophers call "qualia". This is a weird word to define, as you can imagine. But in philosophy qualia are "subjective experiences" and they are as real to me, at least, as rocks. And these sensory experiences are of course at the base level of all experiences of the mind.

Okay, so you're choosing "red, the experience", rather than "red, the description of a phenomenon". That's fine, we can go with your definition.

You haven't established exactly how this relates to the existence of a god, but I think I can guess.

If you are asserting that god is a qualia, then I would have to agree that god exists, but only by that extremely limited definition. I have yet to find a theist who attributed god only with being a sensory experience. Theists almost universally attribute god with at least having a mind or having done something.

Try to pull a materialistic understanding of music, language or geometry out of your hat and I will be impressed.

Music, language, and geometry aren't qualia. Music is sort of a group of qualia, and nobody can really agree what belongs in that group (some people think rap isn't music, for example).

Language and geometry aren't experiences; they are systems of expressing ideas (I would argue that geometry is a language). Again, language and geometry have a defined existence rather than an absolute existence as evidenced by the various languages of the world or the differing systems of Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry.

I'm new here but I've learned you folks like to keep threads on track. So getting back to the theme of the thread, the point I'm trying to make is that the underlying assertion of many of the atheist's posts here that the material world is all there is may well be true, and I as an individual may even be drawn to the notion, as an agnostic I acknowledge that this assertion does not hold a high level of certainty. If you look up the wiki entry for "qualia", for example, you will see the level of disagreement (and perhaps understand why I'm not that keen on participating in a debate about cognitive phenomenon). Suffice it to say that given our extremely poor objective scientific understanding of the mind - and even the most hard core scientific researchers readily admit to this - I'm not personally ready to declare our experiences as purely manifestations of natural phenomenon just because it fits in neatly with everything else we know about the objective world. Apart from the intellectual failing this represents to me, it also has troubling consequences such as the value of life and the existence of free will.

To a very general idea of god I am agnostic, and I do believe that such a thing could exist. However, the fact that the materialist idea of the world "fits in neatly with everything else we know about the objective world" gives it a very high probability, in contrast with the non-evident concept of god.

Also, these troubling consequences you speak of have no bearing on what is actually true. The truth is sometimes uncomfortable.

I think it is a mistake to extend our confidence derived from successes in understanding the objective world to that of our internal life. I think our scientific understanding of what is is "to be' will forever remain out of our grasp. Like a snake nibbling at it's own tail, thinking it may be possible to swallow itself whole.

So what alternative do you propose? Our understanding of the objective world is the only understanding we can claim to have.

A wonderful mystery there for us to savor. Not a meaningless collection of matter and energy to be sacrificed at the alter of reason.

Why do you think that a materialist worldview removes meaning from our "qualia"? I just ate a very excellent sandwich. My belief that the sandwich is 100% matter/energy and that my experience of it is only through the electrochemical processes of my nervous system in no way diminishes the deliciousness of its taste. In fact, as I write this, I think I will make myself another sandwich.

 

[Jackytar]

Imagist - I don't know how to split your post in multiple quotes like you have done so I have to reply without them.

First of all, I think the word "qualia" is used only for sensory experiences like sight and smell, not as a blanket term for all thought processes. They are like raw data inputs with no meaning in and of themselves. My use of it here is as a simple, baseline example to make the point that our experiences are not necessarily confined to the material world. They may be derived from the material world, but they may or may not have material properties. Beyond this we have higher orders of experiences (for lack of a better term) such as music and syntax and thoughts of God that are even less clearly grounded in the material world. And yes, I would term these things as experiences because they are unique to us in the observable world. We created them out of "nothing", or so it seems. To take the materialist view, when you die your mental constructs of geometry music and language (or lack thereof) dies with you. They have no life of their own other than in the minds of other persons. At one time they didn't "exist" at all and the universe will continue along it's merry way without them if all life everywhere were eradicated.

I am a person who finds more fascination in our limitations than in our abilities - or in what we don't know than in what we do. Evolutionary biology is a beautiful expression of human reasoning but who among us can deny that we haven't closed the book on all this? While I am completely unsympathetic to religious dogmas such as creationism, I am sympathetic when creationists point out the inherent absurdity in the claim that we are merely random assemblages and mutations of common elements and nothing else. This may not be as magical as creation and revelation, but it is indeed magical. Don't get me wrong - I do understand how we take what we know and can adequately prove about natural selection and extrapolate back in time to it's logical beginnings. It makes sense to me just as it does to you. But you and I, if we are to be intellectually honest, have to concede that we really cannot begin to account for all the moving parts. You may say that this is merely a complexity that we will work our way through, and that may well be correct (though I have profound doubts), but what level of certainty can we ascribe to this? The difference between you and me (I think) is that I perceive depths of knowledge in which the human mind will ultimately flounder. And nowhere is this more evident than in our understanding of the mind itself, or what it is "to be". Many great thinkers past and present have grappled with this. Ultimately they gave up, declared it of no consequence, went insane, or reached conclusions on which there is little agreement. As Einstein said - "As the circle of light increases, so does the circumference of darkness that surround it." I don't find the purely materialist perspective of life emotionally troubling, I find it intellectually troubling.

I am an agnostic and as such I really can't tell you anything about God other than this: the social sciences tell us that the concept of God appears in the minds of all persons and as far back as we have historical record, crossing all cultural and physical boundaries. I would say that even the hard core atheists who post here and who may claim the question of God has no meaning need to account for why they are members of this forum. Do they post on bowling or quilting forums as well even though they have no interest, or do they debate flat-earthers even if the question has been satisfactorily settled in their minds? They may say they provide a counter-point to what they perceive as the dangers of religion to society or even in their personal lives. But methinks if they were that smart they would realize that those that are here already have some measure of doubt about their religion. The others - those that live in a fortress of fixed belief and who pose the actual danger to society - wouldn't touch this forum with a ten foot pole. So by all appearances, at least to me, notions of God are a base level universal human trait upon which we seem to place all kinds of ill-considered ornamentation. But that doesn't negate the trait itself. We can come up with many explanations for why this is. Fear of the unknown. The comfort of certainty. Intellectual laziness. Cultural conformity. Memes. The void left by "God the parent" when we became intellectually mature. But none of these can account for all instances, for why God seems to be born of a universally shared experience.

Here's my take (which is admittedly an evolving one) - If we can acknowledge our limitations, then we can also imagine a nondescript entity without limitations and ponder on what such a being would have to teach us. We can concede that if we are possible, then He is possible. And we can wonder without shame or cognitive dissonance as to what lies beyond the human experience.

Jackytar

 

[linwood]

But methinks if they were that smart they would realize that those that are here already have some measure of doubt about their religion.

I think that`s exactly why many of them are here.

Jackytar,

While I enjoyed your posting in this thread I must say what you`ve got here is an elegantly written argument for the "god of the gaps".

 

[Jackytar]

I think that`s exactly why many of them are here.

Jackytar,

While I enjoyed your posting in this thread I must say what you`ve got here is an elegantly written argument for the "god of the gaps".

The difference is that I'm not filling the gaps in our understanding of nature with God. I am (attempting) to assert that we cannot fill the gaps in our understanding of what is is "to be" from a purely materialistic worldview - at least not with our present day understanding of the material world. And I further assert that we never will. Not only because of the obvious complexity of the task, but because as I see it the mind simply cannot transcend the mind. It alone occupies this special place.

I do not question that evolutionary biology is far and away the single most compelling explanation of how we came "to be". But we must acknowledge that we are painting this picture with some pretty broad strokes. Somewhere in the details, hidden from us for all time (I would say), there are surely a few surprises. Big surprises - perhaps of many more orders of magnitude than anything we can even imagine, let alone comprehend. Not that this would be beyond nature. Just well beyond our ability to comprehend it. And I wonder why the same persons who can discuss with aplomb the singularity of the big bang, black holes with infinite gravity and parallel universes popping in and out of existence seem so keen to explain away in simple terms the single most intriguing and confounding phenomenon of the known world - ourselves.

So what has this got to do with God? Nothing if you believe in a personal God. But it may lead one to ponder the God of Einstein, for example. We experience "the self" but we acknowledge that we can't objectively comprehend what it is "to be". We have enough awareness to realize the limitations of our awareness. That consciousness is a scalable phenomenon without a logical endpoint. We have not encountered anything more conscious than a human, but if we are possible then it is possible. Here's what Einstein wrote:

You will hardly find one among the profounder sort of scientific minds without a peculiar religious feeling of his own. But it is different from the religion of the naive man.

For the latter God is a being from whose care one hopes to benefit and whose punishment one fears; a sublimation of a feeling similar to that of a child for its father, a being to whom one stands to some extent in a personal relation, however deeply it may be tinged with awe.

But the scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation. The future, to him, is every whit as necessary and determined as the past. There is nothing divine about morality, it is a purely human affair. His religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.

Jackytar

 

[Imagist]

Jackytar, quotes are anything surrounded by the bracketed tags [ QUOTE ] and [ / QUOTE ] (without the spacing). You can also put quotes inside each other like [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] hello [ / QUOTE ] [ / QUOTE ] (again without the spaces).

But methinks if they were that smart they would realize that those that are here already have some measure of doubt about their religion. The others - those that live in a fortress of fixed belief and who pose the actual danger to society - wouldn't touch this forum with a ten foot pole.

I don't think this is actually the case. Some of those "in a fortress of fixed belief" do come here (I'll name mickiel and ProudMuslim as examples).

Furthermore, those with doubts about their religion might have more reasonable views than those without doubts, but they still act as enablers for the fundamentalists by agreeing with them on key points here and there - just enough to push over the scales on some important issues.

The difference is that I'm not filling the gaps in our understanding of nature with God. I am (attempting) to assert that we cannot fill the gaps in our understanding of what is is "to be" from a purely materialistic worldview - at least not with our present day understanding of the material world. And I further assert that we never will. Not only because of the obvious complexity of the task, but because as I see it the mind simply cannot transcend the mind. It alone occupies this special place.

I don't know about your claim that the mind cannot transcend the mind. This is a similar problem to the computer puzzle of getting a computer to hold a complete representation of its own hardware. Given clever compression (like what you use to create .zip files) this can actually be done. However, based on the obvious complexity argument, I agree that "we cannot fill the gaps in our understanding from a purely materialistic worldview".

However, I think your statement makes an insinuation that isn't valid. One could with equal accuracy say that "we cannot fill the gaps in our understanding". By adding on the prepositional phrase "from a purely materialistic worldview" you are making it sound like there is some other worldview that would allow us to fill in the gaps in our understanding.

This is a sort of perfect solution fallacy. Sure, a materialistic worldview can't provide all the answers, but that doesn't change the fact that it is the only thing that provides answers at all.

 

[Jackytar]

Jackytar, quotes are anything surrounded by the bracketed tags [ QUOTE ] and [ / QUOTE ] (without the spacing). You can also put quotes inside each other like [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] hello [ / QUOTE ] [ / QUOTE ] (again without the spaces).

Thanks. I thought there might be a way without manually entering or cutting and pasting the HTML tags.

Furthermore, those with doubts about their religion might have more reasonable views than those without doubts, but they still act as enablers for the fundamentalists by agreeing with them on key points here and there - just enough to push over the scales on some important issues.

True dat. This is pointed out by Dawkins, Harris et al and if you are publishing a best seller it makes perfect sense. But if you and the other atheists who post here do so to chip away at the handful of religious moderates and/or to validate the handful of atheist brethren who also read this forum (and by extension the persons they influence outside this forum) I would say while commendable, surely you realize that you are collectively making an itty bitty ripple in a ginormous ocean. The true value of internet forums is more personal than that, at least for me. It provides a social group populated by persons with common interests. In this case a place to hash out my thoughts on God. If I didn't have them, I wouldn't be here. And it seems to me that we all have them, even the "hard core" atheists (with which I find much more agreement than not - this is not a pejorative), and I wonder why that is. Why the question refuses to be set aside.

I don't know about your claim that the mind cannot transcend the mind. This is a similar problem to the computer puzzle of getting a computer to hold a complete representation of its own hardware. Given clever compression (like what you use to create .zip files) this can actually be done.

Okay, this gets to the heart of my participation in this thread. Using the example of a computer as a vehicle of insight into ourselves is no less spurious to me than if you were to extend your understanding of a firetruck based on your understanding of an radio wagon because they are both red and on wheels. The mistake here is not that we recognize the similarities, which are real, but that we have the false confidence to extrapolate those similarities to conclude something about the complex nature of one based on the relatively simple nature of the other. They are both, in the larger view, exquisitely superficial comparisons.

The problem I have with the materialist view is when we use it to replace one false certainty - religion - with another false certainty - our scientific understanding of nature. Now, of the two, science is without question the way to go. As you say, we have no understanding other than the material one. But certainty is not a feature of science, and I'm not just speaking philosophically, I'm speaking in practical terms. If you burn my brain it will reduce to common elements and energy . A functional MRI will reveal electrical patterns that correlate with my thoughts and emotions. You can have fun poking a probe into a part of my brain to evoke a memory or make my leg kick up in the air. When the brain is injured, the mind is affected. When my brain dies, I suspect my mind will cease to be. All material properties. Nothing to indicate otherwise.

But what does this tell us about consciousness when our understanding of the material world is anything but comprehensive? As I said in another post, at the edges of our understanding of the material world scientists are discussing unabashedly about such things as parallel universes popping in and out of existence. Not that I know much of anything about quantum theory, but I do know that with every question answered there are other, deeper questions raised and the answers get more fantastic and "other worldly" as we peel back the layers. Well beyond that of what we commonly refer to as "material" such as the inner workings of a computer or the bio-electrical properties of the brain. And at some point we acknowledge that he bottom layer in this depth of understanding does not exist - that there is infinite darkness that surrounds the growing circle of light. And nowhere is this more evident than in our objective understanding of ourselves and what it is "to be". Our current understanding of the material world is wholly inadequate to explain it away (and I would say it always will be). And while it may be all we have, be wary of an overabundance of confidence. Embrace the uncertainty, luxuriate in the mystery. Be an agnostic.

Jackytar

 

[Autodidact]

There is, jacky. Just highlight the bit you want and hit the quote icon.

 

[Imagist]

True dat. This is pointed out by Dawkins, Harris et al and if you are publishing a best seller it makes perfect sense. But if you and the other atheists who post here do so to chip away at the handful of religious moderates and/or to validate the handful of atheist brethren who also read this forum (and by extension the persons they influence outside this forum) I would say while commendable, surely you realize that you are collectively making an itty bitty ripple in a ginormous ocean.

Every little bit helps.

The true value of internet forums is more personal than that, at least for me. It provides a social group populated by persons with common interests. In this case a place to hash out my thoughts on God. If I didn't have them, I wouldn't be here. And it seems to me that we all have them, even the "hard core" atheists (with which I find much more agreement than not - this is not a pejorative), and I wonder why that is. Why the question refuses to be set aside.

From an evolutionary perspective it's not too difficult to explain why religion is inherent to most human thought.

Okay, this gets to the heart of my participation in this thread. Using the example of a computer as a vehicle of insight into ourselves is no less spurious to me than if you were to extend your understanding of a firetruck based on your understanding of an radio wagon because they are both red and on wheels. The mistake here is not that we recognize the similarities, which are real, but that we have the false confidence to extrapolate those similarities to conclude something about the complex nature of one based on the relatively simple nature of the other. They are both, in the larger view, exquisitely superficial comparisons.

I was using the comparison for explanation of my point, not as evidence.

The problem I have with the materialist view is when we use it to replace one false certainty - religion - with another false certainty - our scientific understanding of nature. Now, of the two, science is without question the way to go. As you say, we have no understanding other than the material one. But certainty is not a feature of science, and I'm not just speaking philosophically, I'm speaking in practical terms. If you burn my brain it will reduce to common elements and energy . A functional MRI will reveal electrical patterns that correlate with my thoughts and emotions. You can have fun poking a probe into a part of my brain to evoke a memory or make my leg kick up in the air. When the brain is injured, the mind is affected. When my brain dies, I suspect my mind will cease to be. All material properties. Nothing to indicate otherwise.

Science does not provide 100% certainty, but in many cases it provides 99.9+% certainty, which is certainty enough to live our daily lives by it.

Add to this the fact that we don't have any other source of information. Certainty isn't required for making decisions. Even very unreliable information can (and should) be used to make a decision if no other information is available.

In life there are many decisions that might be affected by a belief in god. I, for one, am not going to spend my life looking over my shoulder because of the possibility of a god existing. I'm going to have premarital sex, drink on weekends, and teach my kids evolution. If god doesn't like it, he should have made himself more apparent.

But what does this tell us about consciousness when our understanding of the material world is anything but comprehensive? As I said in another post, at the edges of our understanding of the material world scientists are discussing unabashedly about such things as parallel universes popping in and out of existence. Not that I know much of anything about quantum theory, but I do know that with every question answered there are other, deeper questions raised and the answers get more fantastic and "other worldly" as we peel back the layers. Well beyond that of what we commonly refer to as "material" such as the inner workings of a computer or the bio-electrical properties of the brain. And at some point we acknowledge that he bottom layer in this depth of understanding does not exist - that there is infinite darkness that surrounds the growing circle of light. And nowhere is this more evident than in our objective understanding of ourselves and what it is "to be". Our current understanding of the material world is wholly inadequate to explain it away (and I would say it always will be). And while it may be all we have, be wary of an overabundance of confidence. Embrace the uncertainty, luxuriate in the mystery. Be an agnostic.

I realize that there is a lot we don't know. There may or may not be a god, just as there may or may not be strings. But as failings of both religion and string theory come to light, it becomes less and less likely that either are true.

I AM an agnostic in relation to a vague abstract concept of god that is sometimes presented by theologians, because such a concept is nearly impossible to disprove. But as Dawkins said in an interview with PZ Meyers, "I'm not interested in that god, I'm interested in the ones people actually worship." The vague abstract concept might exist (though I would argue that our default position should be disbelief, just as it is for unicorns, dragons, and other mythical creatures). In contrast, the Christian or Muslim gods provably do not exist (one proof being that omnipotence is self-contradictory). In relation to such gods I am an atheist.

 

[Jackytar]

But as Dawkins said in an interview with PZ Meyers, "I'm not interested in that god, I'm interested in the ones people actually worship."

I am interested in "that god".

As for the gods that people actually worship - not so much. As a practical matter you and Dawkins are correct to identify those gods as the most important given the dangerous role that religious certainty plays in socio-politics. It just seems to me that in the effort to refute religious belief - the human possession of divine knowledge - atheists are too quick to discard as trivial any notion that divine knowledge actually exists.

There is not much light between your "atheist" beliefs and my "agnostic" beliefs. I am no different than any other atheist in my unwavering devotion to the empirical and iterative qualities of scientific pursuits and my absolute rejection of the personal god as a path to knowledge. And you can color me astonished as to what the human mind is capable of figuring out over time with the tool of critical thinking. But the grand lesson of science is that behind every curtain there is another curtain. That much lies beyond the human experience. And in the larger picture nothing is more astonishing or improbable than life and consciousness itself.

Our understanding of consciousness cannot be likened to a computer holding a complete representation of it's own hardware because of this infinite regression.

And "that god" cannot be likened to a unicorn because consciousness, though improbable, actually exists.

Jackytar

 

[Imagist]

Our understanding of consciousness cannot be likened to a computer holding a complete representation of it's own hardware because of this infinite regression.

Maybe you're misunderstanding my meaning (my fault, I wasn't very clear). I agree that the things there are to know are infinite. However, the things that humans can know are NOT infinite, because our brains are only so big. If you keep putting files on your hard drive, you will eventually have to delete something if you want to continue putting files on your hard drive. Likewise, if you want to continue learning, at some point you would have to forget something to learn more.

There is also the problem of limited lifespans in which to learn.

And "that god" cannot be likened to a unicorn because consciousness, though improbable, actually exists.

So? The existence of consciousness doesn't increase the likelihood that god exists any more than the existence of horses increases the likelihood that unicorns exist.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I am interested in "that god".

As for the gods that people actually worship - not so much. As a practical matter you and Dawkins are correct to identify those gods as the most important given the dangerous role that religious certainty plays in socio-politics.

Personally, I think I've arrived at the position that a god is a human concept, and therefore "that god" is irrelevant in the discussion of whether god exists. Here's what I mean:

There are plenty of different (and often contradictory) definitions held by various believers of what constitutes a god. AFAICT, there's only one common thread in all of them: someone, somewhere, at some point in time, believed that the thing in question was in fact a god.

In a wider sense, the meaning of words is defined by humans through usage and shared thought. If nobody has ever considered a particular thing to be "god", then it cannot be included in the spectrum of definitions for the term "god".

When we ask the question "does God exist?", we assign a particular definition (or maybe range of definitions) to the term "God". This question is not the same as the question "does anything exist that, if we knew about it and learned about it, we would incorporate into our definition of 'God'?" Regardless of whether it exists unknown or doesn't exist at all, it's not a part of our current definition, and therefore not included in the valid scope of the question "does God exist?"

IMO, whatever exists in the universe, unless someone has actually believed in it as a god at some point in time, then it's not a god by the strict definition of the term.

"Godhood" is dependent on a link with humanity in the form of belief. If there is no belief, then a fundamental characteristic that would be needed to define a thing as "God" is lacking.

 

[Jackytar]

The existence of consciousness doesn't increase the likelihood that god exists any more than the existence of horses increases the likelihood that unicorns exist.

I would say it does. In both cases.

Jackytar

 

[Jackytar]

Maybe you're misunderstanding my meaning (my fault, I wasn't very clear). I agree that the things there are to know are infinite. However, the things that humans can know are NOT infinite, because our brains are only so big. If you keep putting files on your hard drive, you will eventually have to delete something if you want to continue putting files on your hard drive. Likewise, if you want to continue learning, at some point you would have to forget something to learn more.

No, your missing my point, and perhaps my fault. From wikipedia:

Infinite regress in consciousness is the formation of an infinite series of "inner observers" as we ask the question of who is observing the output of the neural correlates of consciousness in the study of subjective consciousness.

This is what I mean when I say "The mind cannot transcend the mind".

Jackytar

 

[linwood]

So? The existence of consciousness doesn't increase the likelihood that god exists any more than the existence of horses increases the likelihood that unicorns exist.

Exactly.

I would say it does. In both cases.

On what standard or evidence do you base this belief?

 

[Copernicus]

I have to agree with linwood, Jackytar. How could it be the case that the existence of a horse increases the likelihood of the existence of a unicorn? Minds clearly do exist, but experience suggests that they are not godlike things. For one thing, minds are inextricably linked to brains.

 

[Jackytar]

Personally, I think I've arrived at the position that a god is a human concept, and therefore "that god" is irrelevant in the discussion of whether god exists.

Interesting comments. It's agonizingly apparent to me that the use of the term "god' in the strong agnostic context is grossly misleading to most. Yet I haven't found a useful term to replace it. I have in the past used "The God of Einstein" but I don't like the appeal to authority inherent in that term. I was happy when we were able to extract the mutually understood term "that god" from this discussion.

That said, I disagree that "that god" is irrelevant. While I agree with Imagist and yourself that the concept of god (in the traditional use of the word) has strong biological and cultural evolutionary underpinnings, that in itself is not enough 'splaining for my liking. I have rejected the personal god from a very young age - like 12 - even though I was exposed to the teachings as much as most. Yet I haven't been able to shake off the more vaulted notion of "that god" and as far as I can tell this is born of the undeniable experience of my own consciousness. To repeat myself - I observe that consciousness is a scalable phenomenon with no logical endpoint. And while we have not observed a consciousness greater than our own, in an infinitely vast and mysterious universe if we are possible then it is possible. And it seems to me profoundly arrogant not to concede to the possibility, if not the likelihood.

Note that this is not a fanciful flight of the imagination such as the belief in fairies or unicorns. It is not born of fear of the unknown or an emotional preference for certainty. Neither is it a belief in anything supernatural. And I don't sense that anything other than ourselves takes an interest in our lives.

It is, nevertheless, in concert with many of the universal, root-level religious traditions. I am humble in the face of this perceived possible superior awareness. And it is real enough that I feel compelled and full of purpose to emulate it. It provides the conceptual framework that I may enjoy and interpret correctly the rapturous experience of epiphany from time to time. It instills a sense of community and empathy with others who share my experience of human consciousness that I may help them or they might help me grow as an individual or to be placed in a position of growth. I see my existence as a tiny piece or reflection of something that is much larger than myself. And it leads me to contemplate as to what lies beyond, even well beyond, the human experience.

Religious feelings are not merely some misbegotten evolutionary inheritance. They can be sourced squarely in rational - not rationalizing - thought irrespective of our tendancy to pile all sort of irrational mind droppings on top of it. If I'm crazy please help me.

Jackytar