Do Atheists Have Faith?

[F1fan]

Popper pointed out that empirical observations are lies. The sun is not the same size as the moon. And one revolves around the earth, while the earth revolves around the other. Nothing in naked empirical observations tells a person that the earth revolves around the sun, while the the moon revolves around the earth; or that the sun is umptine times larger than either the moon or the earth.

To the aboriginal mind, such issues are unimportant and thus not existent. Popper realized that it was not natural human thought, natural human observations, which led to the rise of the modern scientific world. He realized that it was mythological thought; thought based on unnatural intuitions, or intuitions that in and of themselves perceived a higher order than the natural observations had any use for, i.e., it was religious thought.

Popper is certainly referring to human observations without the context of facts and knowledge. And we have the advantage of hindsight to understand that mythological thought were routinely wrong, and heavily defended against facts and better observations. the case of Galileo is a classic example of this. I'm not sure what unnatural intuitions are or how a person could determine this category from natural intuition. And what determines that any religious thought is genuinely a "higher order" and not just another product of human imagination?

For instance, heliocentrism came from the religious inclination that that which provides light, heat, and thus life, should be central, the axis around which everything revolves, and not something subject to the bodies it empowers. The agnostic empiricists laughed at the thought that human prejudice should question a person's own lying eyes. But St. Paul said we live by faith, not by sight. And throughout history those who believe in the divinity of man have been showing that our lyin eyes can't be trusted to lead us out of the muck and mire of aboriginal naturalism.

I'd be more impressed in heliocentric wasn't preceded by geocentrism in religious thought. No doubt this backs up Popper's point that empirical observations can lie. What we humans come to understand as true about how things are has come about through a process of trial and error. There have been intuitions along the way and there are stories and reasons for this long, labored process. Are these intuitions unnatural? If this is a serious category what is the reliability if what is revealed?

Popper points out that Copernicus' first inclination toward heliocentrism came from religious myths and ancient religions that worshiped the sun as central to all life on earth. He (Popper) goes on to show that it's the ability of the human mind to hypothesize orderliness and metaphysical truism of a higher order than empirical observations require, or provide, that's the true genesis of the scientific-world.

And why not look at the motion of the celestial orbs in a different way? Monks often had the time to watch the evening sky whereas the local blacksmith was in bed because he had work to do the next day. So is it divinity at the root of discovery, or just the opportunity of time on the hands of monks? We should avoid the assumptions of empirical observations.

Harvard's Professor of evolutionary biology, Joseph Henrich, does Popper one better in his book published just last year, The WEIRDEST People in the World. He shows that the entire modern, Western, world, with all its gadgets and technology is the product of the Protestant Reformation; that Martin Luther and his theology are the true engine of the modern scientific world. He sets out to prove this thesis scientifically, with real, hard, data, and, to my mind, succeeds beyond belief.

I'm not sure what the reformation, specifically Luther's theology, fueled exactly except that it was an era in a constantly evolving understanding of how things are versus traditional assumptions, and cut ties with the Church so there was more money retained locally. Perhaps this era benefitted from the surplus of food, which fueled arts, which fueled larger cities, which caused more problems, which required more solutions, etc. The Plague came soon after and wiped out about a third (if my memory is correct) of Europe's population.

No doubt the Reformation was a huge step in human progress, but so was the Enlightenment, the age of reason. This is when science really took off. This era allowed people the personal authority to ignore the divine authority, divine decrees and assumptions, and test nature itself as independent of God.

Sir Karl Popper, and his friend Albert Einstein, suspected that Judeo/Christianity provided some seminal element required to achieve the science of the modern world (hell, Isaac Newton is the champion and he was a bible-toter through-and-through), and Einstein said as much. As agnostics, that wasn't an avenue they (Popper and Einstein) pursued too aggressively. On the other hand, Professor Joseph Henrich pursues precisely that.

Intelligence makes clear to us the interrelation of means and ends. But mere thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends. To make clear these fundamental ends and valuations, and to set them fast in the emotional life of the individual, seems to me precisely the most important function which religion has to perform in the social life of man. And if one asks whence derives this authority of such fundamental ends, since they cannot be stated and justified merely by reason, one can only answer: they exist in a healthy society as powerful traditions, which act upon the conduct and aspirations and judgments of the individuals; they are, that is, as something living, without its being necessary to find justification for the existence. They come into being not through demonstration but through revelation, through the medium of powerful personalities. One must not attempt to justify them, but rather to sense their nature simply and clearly. The highest principals of our aspirations and judgments are given to us in the Jewish-Christian religious tradition.​

Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years, p. 22, 23.​

Indeed. Judeo/Christian authority was who called the shots through most of human history. It was the government, the funding sources, and most everyone had little choice to reject this affiliation. After the Enlightenment the authority of Judeo/Christian influence began to wane for secular authority.

 

[MASS_debater]

In a debate with the New Atheist Christopher Hitchens, presuppositionalist Doug Wilson argued that we all have faith in something (many spiritualists have faith in their deities -- or spiritual entities -- while atheists and agnostics have faith in reason). Consequently, it is meaningless to claim (many) spiritualists are irrational for believing in something based on faith instead of reason, since atheists also have faith in something (according to Doug, at least).

Quote: "Someone who bases everything on reason has faith in the reasoning process. What's wrong with saying that? Why can't you say 'I have faith in reason'?"

Now, some of you may want to justify the reliability of your reasoning process (in other words, to prove you're not insane). For example, you may wish to provide an argument based on past experience. But notice this very argument will rely on reason in order to work. Therefore, your argument will be based on circular reasoning (begging the question), and this is fallacious. That is, to the question "How do you know reason is reliable?" you may answer "Because reason tells me so." This is clearly circular.

So, how would you reply to this challenge? Do you agree with Doug that you also have faith in something?

(Note: it is important to define the meaning of 'faith' here. In this context faith is being defined as belief without sound justifications. And 'reason' is defined as a cognitive process that works in accordance with deductive, inductive and abductive rules).

Are you trying to say believing in magic and thinking are the same thing? I don’t know what you’re saying. Don’t we know how thoughts in our brains work like we have pictures and stuff. How is an real natural apple we can look at and take pictures of compared to an apple we just say exists but can’t produce. Lol produce apple get it didn’t mean to do that. im not trying to be argumentative it just seems like you’re making the definitions work for you instead of using them how everyone else uses them. Let me google the definition of reason real quick.

 

[MASS_debater]

Are you trying to say believing in magic and thinking are the same thing? I don’t know what you’re saying. Don’t we know how thoughts in our brains work like we have pictures and stuff. How is an real natural apple we can look at and take pictures of compared to an apple we just say exists but can’t produce. Lol produce apple get it didn’t mean to do that. im not trying to be argumentative it just seems like you’re making the definitions work for you instead of using them how everyone else uses them. Let me google the definition of reason real quick.

So I looked up the definitions and the reason one says thoughts and the faith one says without evidence. We know what thoughts are and where there stored in the brain I just looked it up and we have pictures of them I guess that includes faith too cause it’s a thought but it’s a thought about something you have no evidence for. Maybe that’s the problem there not both faith they are both thoughts. One seems to be how we think and the other one is a concept we think about? Can anyone tell me if I’m even close lol or not I’m on my dads phone and he’s really smart like you guys.

 

[John D. Brey]

Popper is certainly referring to human observations without the context of facts and knowledge.

Popper might say that what you're calling "context of facts and knowledge" are themselves merely interpretations of the sensory stimuli being referred to as empirical observations. In truth the "observations," the "knowledge," and the "facts," are based on how the sensory stimuli is interpreted. Which is to say you could be putting the cart before the horse?

There are no sensory `data'. Rather, there is an incoming challenge from the sensed world which then puts the brain, or ourselves, to work on it, to try to interpret it. Thus, at first, there are no data: there is, rather, a challenge to do something; namely to interpret. Then we try to match the so-called sense data. I say `so called' because I don't think there are sense `data'. What most people hold to be simple sense `datum' is in fact the outcome of a most elaborate process. Nothing is directly `given' to us: perception is arrived at only as a result of many steps involving interaction between the stimuli which reach the senses, the interpreting apparatus of the senses, and the structure of the brain. So, while the term `sense datum' suggests primacy in the first step, I would suggest that, before I can realize what is a sense datum for me (before it is ever `given' to me), there are a hundred steps of give and take which result from the challenge presented to our senses and our brain.

Popper, The Self and Its Brain, p. 430.​

Where the statement above is understood, nothing could be more important to our dialogue at this point than to note Popper's theory that inductive logic is illusory since coupled with what he says above, it perfectly situates our dilemma.

Popper's claim that inductive logic is illusory means that no sensor stimuli requires any mind, or brain, to act on it, or interpret it, any particular way. The impetus to "interpret" is outside the purview of the sensory stimuli. There's no cosmic playbook for how external stimuli should be interpreted.

For instance, what a human interprets as the quality of sound, a bat transforms into visual cues. And by tweaking the brain, a scientist can make the color yellow, or rather the electromagnetic vibrations normally experienced as yellow, taste like chocolate instead.

There's no cosmic playbook for what creatures do with stimuli external to their personal bodily apparatus, such that another Harvard Professor of biology, Richard Lewontin, said:

Whether or not gravitation is an effective factor in the environment of an organism depends upon the organism's size . . .the difference in size is coded in their genes, so, in this sense, the organisms' genes have determined whether gravitation is or is not relevant to them . . .Differences of size and of the medium in which organisms live are of overwhelming importance in determining the organisms' entire set of environmental relations, but these factors are a consequence of the internal biology of the species.

The Triple Helix, p. 65, 66.​

Professor Lewontin is arguing, ala Kant, that if we remove every interpretive element of our experience, eliminate what we add to the external stimuli through interpretive prejudices reified in our genes, what's left is nothing anyone or thing would recognize or consider an environment. Lewontin actually says there are no environments without organisms, and that the organism creates his environment out of bits and pieces of the external stimuli. From this he posits that Darwinism can't work since there are no environments for the organism to adapt to until the organism creates the environment according to the prejudices of its genes and evolutionary project.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

And we have the advantage of hindsight to understand that mythological thought were routinely wrong, and heavily defended against facts and better observations. the case of Galileo is a classic example of this. I'm not sure what unnatural intuitions are or how a person could determine this category from natural intuition. And what determines that any religious thought is genuinely a "higher order" and not just another product of human imagination?

If we say that our empirical apparatus for perception lies to us, and I think you've agreed that to some extent it does, i.e., the moon and the sun appear to be the same size and both appear to revolve around the earth, then the question becomes precisely what it would mean for our empirical apparatus to be lying to us since quite naturally it should be all that we have?

No other species thinks their body is lying to them. How could they when their body is all they are. Only man "intuits" that he's more than his physical body. And he intuits that because he is. And only that fact accounts for how he could "intuit" that his own body is lying to him about the nature of reality.

I think this is a profound point that, if my reading of many brilliant agnostic scientists is accurate, is starting to hit even agnostics as extremely problematic to their agnostic worldview.

He's the problem. If the human body is the sole nature of the so-called soul inside, then it's impossible to question whether there's a reality outside the human body that the human body is lying about since the soul inside the body can't transcend all it is. One of Popper's disciples, Daniel Dennett, acknowledges this logic when he says:

Human freedom is not an illusion; it is an objective phenomenon, distinct from all other biological conditions and found in only one species, us. The differences between autonomous human agents and the other assemblages of nature are visible not just from an anthropocentric perspective but also from the most objective standpoints (the plural is important) achievable. Human freedom is real---as real as language, music, and money----so it can be studied objectively from a no-nonsense, scientific point of view.

Freedom Evolves, Daniel Dennett, p. 305.
​

In a previous message I quoted Popper saying he was a materialist, and a dyed-in-the-wool evolutionist, up until the human mind, money, human language, art, and things like redesigning the genetics of our own body, things that contradict the idea that we are subsumed in the genes of our body.

Likewise, I've quoted Dawkins numerous times saying that we alone, humans that is, can rebel against the selfish genes and memes. It's this rebelling against the genes, the cultural and environmental grounding that should circumscribe all that we are, that is the genesis of theology and its understanding that man is just passing through this passing fancy of a physical world. He's on his way toward something St. Paul said is beyond any current biological creature's wildest imaginations.

If I might paraphrase him he said, "The natural eye hasn't perceived, the evolutionary ear hasn't heard, and neither has it entered into the brain evolved up to this very point in time, those things which God has already prepared in the future for those who love him" (1 Corinthians 2:9).



John

 

[John D. Brey]

No doubt the Reformation was a huge step in human progress, but so was the Enlightenment, the age of reason. This is when science really took off. This era allowed people the personal authority to ignore the divine authority, divine decrees and assumptions, and test nature itself as independent of God.

Funny you should say that about the Enlightenment since the historian Joseph Needham implied it was precisely the northern European's belief in a God who was outside of nature that made them think that nature was merely something like a machine he designed and made such that it could be dissected and understood like any other machine.

This is similar to a point I made earlier about how the theistic man believes his body is a machine designed for his soul, and not, as in the aboriginal kinds of humanist thought, the full nature of man.

In his Tractatus, Wittgenstein said that to "know" something required being outside of what is known. For whatever is circumscribed inside, is as it is, without recourse to questioning from some sort of Archimedean pearch.

When Daniel Dennett, who's an atheist, says that human freedom is real, he's implying that man somehow transcends his body, and his biological nature, has freedom from it, as Dawkins implied with his "we alone" statement. It's that "freedom" that is required to think the way man thinks, and to do science the way mankind does science.

In that vein, Albert Einstein said he trusted Isaac Newton's scientific intuition more than any other scientist he'd come across. Which is ironic since Newton said, with a straight face, that Moses was the greatest scientist who ever lived: that Moses was already using the scientific-method in his day.

Einstein attributed Immanuel Kant as a close second to Newton so far as his mentors were concerned. Which makes the Oxford philosophy Professor, Bryan Magee's heartfelt desire to understand where Kant got his brilliant ideas fruitful to this discussion. Trying to understand Kant's great contribution to scientific thought Professor Magee (another agnostic I might add) said:

One thing that has always struck me forcefully about this doctrine of Kant's is that it legitimates important components of a belief which he had held since long before he began to philosophize, namely Christian belief. It is a standard part of the traditional Christian faith that time and space and material objects are local characteristics of this human world of ours, but only of this world: they do not characterize reality as such . . . what he [Kant] did, unmistakably (and unremarked on to an extent that has never ceased to astonish me), is produce rational justification for many aspects of the religious beliefs in which he grew up [Christian belief].
​

Not only does the Christian believe his body lies to him, but he's taught to restrain its sinful desires, and to walk by faith in the scripture and not by the fact that the normal kind of thought processes of the brain try to fight back against the faith apparatus for perception found in the soul. The Christian sees this world, and his own body, as something he must constantly see through, transcend, and not merely succumb to for the temporary desire fulfillment built into the body as sort of an ungodly lure into the humanism and aboriginal religiosity of the unspiritual man.

There's a sound argument that the proclivity of Jews and Christian to fight against their natural, biological, inclinations, for the last four-thousand years, is the true evolution of the modern world, and modern science. If I wanted to rub salt in the wound that creates for the agnostic mind, I might point out that since the beginning of the Nobel Peace Prize for the sciences, 99% of all of the recipients have been Christian or Jew.

Professor Henrich (The WIERDEST People in the World), goes through pages and pages of data showing how by limiting a man to one wife, lowering his testosterone levels, he becomes a superior parent, and doesn't burn out intellectually or economically as fast as his fast and furious competitors outside the Church. Professor Henrich goes right down the line showing how the Church seemed to intuit precisely the things that would lift her people, Western, Educated, Industrial, Democratic (you know WIERD), people far above the rest of the world so far as science, economy, and evolution in general are concerned.



John

 

[paarsurrey]

Do Atheists Have Faith?

Did the Atheism people ever say that they have not faith in Atheism, please?
They do have faith in Atheism. Right?

Regards

 

[F1fan]

Do Atheists Have Faith?

Did the Atheism people ever say that they have not faith in Atheism, please?
They do have faith in Atheism. Right?

What is there to have faith in by not being a theist?

It's odd that if faith is reliable as a means to truth and is valid for theism, then it will be valid for atheism. So think through your questions.

 

[joelr]

In a debate with the New Atheist Christopher Hitchens, presuppositionalist Doug Wilson argued that we all have faith in something (many spiritualists have faith in their deities -- or spiritual entities -- while atheists and agnostics have faith in reason). Consequently, it is meaningless to claim (many) spiritualists are irrational for believing in something based on faith instead of reason, since atheists also have faith in something (according to Doug, at least).

Quote: "Someone who bases everything on reason has faith in the reasoning process. What's wrong with saying that? Why can't you say 'I have faith in reason'?"

Now, some of you may want to justify the reliability of your reasoning process (in other words, to prove you're not insane). For example, you may wish to provide an argument based on past experience. But notice this very argument will rely on reason in order to work. Therefore, your argument will be based on circular reasoning (begging the question), and this is fallacious. That is, to the question "How do you know reason is reliable?" you may answer "Because reason tells me so." This is clearly circular.

So, how would you reply to this challenge? Do you agree with Doug that you also have faith in something?

(Note: it is important to define the meaning of 'faith' here. In this context faith is being defined as belief without sound justifications. And 'reason' is defined as a cognitive process that works in accordance with deductive, inductive and abductive rules).

Reason defined that way allows one to test, make predictions, use data and use the scientific method to determine what is likely true. So you don't need faith in the reasoning process.
Faith itself can be used in any position. That one race is better than other races, or one sex is better than the other. Or that another religion from Doug's is the actual true religion. Useless.

 

[Martin]

I have faith in Saint Dawkins, and recite his catechism:
- Who made me?
- Evolution made me.
- Why did evolution make me?
- To annoy Catholics.

 

[paarsurrey]

Do Atheists Have Faith?

If we say the Atheism people have no faith in Atheism, will they be happy with it?

I don't think so. Right?

Regards

 

[Magical Wand]

Reason defined that way allows one to test, make predictions, use data and use the scientific method to determine what is likely true. So you don't need faith in the reasoning process.

Are you using reason to reach the conclusion that reason can reliably determine what is likely true? Relying on reason to justify our reliance on reason is a bit like taking a secondhand car salesman's word for it that he is trustworthy – it's an entirely circular justification, and so no justification at all!

 

[Rawshak]

Are you using reason to reach the conclusion that reason can reliably determine what is likely true? Relying on reason to justify our reliance on reason is a bit like taking a secondhand car salesman's word for it that he is trustworthy – it's an entirely circular justification, and so no justification at all!

Logic and reason are useful tools for drawing inferences from a set of statements. That's all.

 

[paarsurrey]

Do Atheists Have Faith?
Did the Atheism people ever say that they have not faith in Atheism, please?
They do have faith in Atheism. Right?
Regards
OOO
Do Atheists Have Faith?
If we say the Atheism people have no faith in Atheism, will they be happy with it?
I don't think so. Right?
Regards

 

[night912]

Do Atheists Have Faith?
If we say the Atheism people have no faith in Atheism, will they be happy with it?
I don't think so. Right?

You won't know the answer from atheists if you answer the question instead of letting them answer it.

Right?

 

[joelr]

Are you using reason to reach the conclusion that reason can reliably determine what is likely true? Relying on reason to justify our reliance on reason is a bit like taking a secondhand car salesman's word for it that he is trustworthy – it's an entirely circular justification, and so no justification at all!

You are attempting to put reason in a small box where it does nothing except act like faith. Not what reason is.
What I described would be like taking the history of the car salseman sales and repairs, looking at past reviews, speaking to people who bought cars from him, taking the car to your mechanic for a once-over check. Then you have used data, empirical evidence and the scientific method to make your decision.
This process is why you are sitting at a computer created by understanding quantum mechanics and several other fields rather than sitting at a computer created by prayer.

Reason is a process of finding truth through the best available methods possible.
When a new drug is extracted from a plant besides many levels of testing when the product is ready no one prays for the answer or takes it on faith that "30 mg seems like a good amount" and sends out 30mg tabs.
This line of thinking can also be applied to supernatural stories and religions. Looking at where the stories came from, evidence, similarities to older stories, literary styles, do people in other religions also have similar person anecdotal stories, do people in known false cults have similar stories, what are archeologists saying, what is the consensus in the historicity field? Are the apologetics unproven crank? Didi the cultures that occupied the creators of the religion influence the stories? Were savior demigods already a thing taken from Hellinism and being blended into all the local religions? What do current historians say about the most recent data, like Bart Ehrman or Richard Carrier? Archeologist William Denver or Carol Meyers?
Has there been evidence of any supernatural happenings or Gods EVER at all that isn't really sketchy.

 

[night912]

Quote: "Someone who bases everything on reason has faith in the reasoning process. What's wrong with saying that? Why can't you say 'I have faith in reason'?"

Now, some of you may want to justify the reliability of your reasoning process (in other words, to prove you're not insane). For example, you may wish to provide an argument based on past experience. But notice this very argument will rely on reason in order to work. Therefore, your argument will be based on circular reasoning (begging the question), and this is fallacious. That is, to the question "How do you know reason is reliable?" you may answer "Because reason tells me so." This is clearly circular.

So, how would you reply to this challenge? Do you agree with Doug that you also have faith in something?

Disagree because it's a contradiction. If Doug claims that someone based everything on reason then that person has faith in "reasoning," so that would mean that that person does not based everything on reason. Someone who has faith is not using reasoning therefore, they are not "reasoned" based.

 

[Magical Wand]

You are attempting to put reason in a small box where it does nothing except act like faith. Not what reason is.
What I described would be like taking the history of the car salseman sales and repairs, looking at past reviews, speaking to people who bought cars from him, taking the car to your mechanic for a once-over check. Then you have used data, empirical evidence and the scientific method to make your decision.
This process is why you are sitting at a computer created by understanding quantum mechanics and several other fields rather than sitting at a computer created by prayer.

Reason is a process of finding truth through the best available methods possible.
When a new drug is extracted from a plant besides many levels of testing when the product is ready no one prays for the answer or takes it on faith that "30 mg seems like a good amount" and sends out 30mg tabs.
This line of thinking can also be applied to supernatural stories and religions. Looking at where the stories came from, evidence, similarities to older stories, literary styles, do people in other religions also have similar person anecdotal stories, do people in known false cults have similar stories, what are archeologists saying, what is the consensus in the historicity field? Are the apologetics unproven crank? Didi the cultures that occupied the creators of the religion influence the stories? Were savior demigods already a thing taken from Hellinism and being blended into all the local religions? What do current historians say about the most recent data, like Bart Ehrman or Richard Carrier? Archeologist William Denver or Carol Meyers?
Has there been evidence of any supernatural happenings or Gods EVER at all that isn't really sketchy.

It seems you're having a hard time understanding the very simple argument I presented to you.

All the examples you gave can be reasons why reason is reliable, but they cannot be used to justify the claim that reason is reliable. Why? Because it would be circular reasoning. I gave the example of the car salesman to illustrate that (which you modified unjustifiably).

Again, you're using your reasoning faculty in order to justify the reliability of your reasoning faculty. That's problematic because it is circular.

This has been known by epistemologists for centuries (look up "Münchhausen trilemma").

 

[Magical Wand]

Disagree because it's a contradiction. If Doug claims that someone based everything on reason then that person has faith in "reasoning," so that would mean that that person does not based everything on reason. Someone who has faith is not using reasoning therefore, they are not "reasoned" based.

Except that if one believes in the reliability of reason for circular reasons, that's faith because there is no valid and sound justification for the belief. Unless you think invalid reasons (say, believing the Bible exists because the Bible says so) are valid justifications for that belief.

 

[night912]

Except that if one believes in the reliability of reason for circular reasons, that's faith because there is no valid and sound justification for the belief. Unless you think invalid reasons (say, believing the Bible exists because the Bible says so) are valid justifications for that belief.

Sorry but you're mistaken due to you excluding the contradiction that I pointed out. It's because Doug's claim regarding faith resulted in it being illogical due to contradiction, that makes relying on reason not circular.