Extremes of Atheism vs Theism

[LuisDantas]

I guess rejecting the answer doesn't tell us whether the rejecter is going to give a guess themselves. There is a difference between saying the answer isn't possible vs outright rejecting the answer

Is there? When the answer is essentially tentative as in the case of Theism, I don't think so.

Truth is, that question does not need to be answered, at all.

 

[idav]

Is there? When the answer is essentially tentative as in the case of Theism, I don't think so.

Truth is, that question does not need to be answered, at all.

Right and no reason to claim atheism either. If "I don't know" is the answer then atheism or theism has not been claimed.

 

[bobhikes]

If you're making the blanket contention that atheists are critical of anything theistic, then yes, you've either read posts by atheists on rf over the years which show the ways they are not critical of theism, thereby making you dishonest; or you haven't read much of what atheists have posted on rf, making you ignorant of the actual range of their opinions and views on various theistic subjects.



An easier choice might be to not make unsupportable blanket statements in the future.



I'm quite clearly being critical. Of course, my criticism has nothing to do with theism, so whatever strawman you're attempting to build here has already burned to the ground. If you're going to attempt to use logical fallacies, at least try to make them somewhat appear related to the point at hand.

Do you know how many times you have used the Clearly Dishonest or Clearly ignorant line, also a favorite of yours is the strawman line. You use to be clever and fun now you don't even try.

I debate to learn new things and for fun. I never lie though I may misdirect. I may be ignorant at times but I always admit it. Instead of using the same old same old. Trap me if your good enough. Make me say d@@@ he got me good.

 

[LuisDantas]

Right and no reason to claim atheism either. If "I don't know" is the answer then atheism or theism has not been claimed.

You're taking it backwards. Both theists and atheists are allowed not to know. Neither group has to have an answer.

For that matter, there is no particular need for a justification for theism, and even less of a need to justify atheism.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Do you know how many times you have used the Clearly Dishonest or Clearly ignorant line, also a favorite of yours is the strawman line. You use to be clever and fun now you don't even try.

I debate to learn new things and for fun. I never lie though I may misdirect. I may be ignorant at times but I always admit it. Instead of using the same old same old. Trap me if your good enough. Make me say d@@@ he got me good.

I fail to see what any of this has to do with your erroneous statement that atheists are critical of anything theistic - other than perhaps as a weak attempt to shift the focus away from your clearly unsupportable blanket statement.

 

[idav]

You're taking it backwards. Both theists and atheists are allowed not to know. Neither group has to have an answer.

For that matter, there is no particular need for a justification for theism, and even less of a need to justify atheism.

Nobody has to answer but an answer of belief is needed to qualify as theism or atheism. So to be theist or atheist at the very least a guess is taken that is believed to be true.

 

[Alceste]

The difference is in reserving ones opinion rather than rejecting or accepting.

"Impossible" is just about the strongest, clearest statement of rejection on earth.

 

[idav]

"Impossible" is just about the strongest, clearest statement of rejection on earth.

Uh huh, as opposed to reserving your opinion.

 

[bobhikes]

There are many definitions to many words and one should never assume what is being said. It is fun to use the different definitions and see how people react. I learned a lot. Thanks for playing.

Extreme -most or exceedingly great in degree

Critical -involving skillful judgment as to truth, merit, etc.; judicial: a critical analysis.

I would doubt any Atheist would not use this with any thing non-atheist for the most part I use this for most of my major decisions in life.

Too: Killgore Trout
You missed this and the next few replies with artie.

You never asked what I meant for Extremly Critical you just assumed.

 

[LuisDantas]

Nobody has to answer but an answer of belief is needed to qualify as theism or atheism. So to be theist or atheist at the very least a guess is taken that is believed to be true.

Nope. That is true for neither theism nor atheism. Neither group needs to have any kind of answer or stance to the question of "how existence came to be". Or really, any other question besides "are there any gods?"

 

[Alceste]

Uh huh, as opposed to reserving your opinion.

Oh, maybe I misunderstood you. I thought you were saying there is a difference between saying something is impossible and rejecting it outright.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

This is another version of absence of belief. Saying to a person, "I don't believe you" means that the person hasn't necessarily made a claim of their own. However as soon as theists claims are rejected then they are saying "god didn't do it" so they must have an alternative explanation.

No, they're not. That's my point. My rejection of your claim that there is an odd number of jelly beans doesn't automatically mean that I claim there are an odd number of jelly beans.

 

[idav]

No, they're not. That's my point. My rejection of your claim that there is an odd number of jelly beans doesn't automatically mean that I claim there are an odd number of jelly beans.

Your rejection of the odd numbers is like rejecting allah while I say Yahweh is truth (even numbers). Not hazarding a guess to the number is like not making a claim one way or another. Not even attempting a guess means they are neither theist or atheist. When theists make their claim, a person would have to disagree to be atheist in order to be able to claim theists are wrong or no gods exist.

 

[LuisDantas]

Your rejection of the odd numbers is like rejecting allah while I say Yahweh is truth (even numbers). Not hazarding a guess to the number is like not making a claim one way or another. Not even attempting a guess means they are neither theist or atheist. When theists make their claim, a person would have to disagree to be atheist in order to be able to claim theists are wrong or no gods exist.

We are taking the metaphors a bit too strongly here.

I thought the number of jelly beans was a stand-in for "origin of the universe" or some such. If it is, then an atheist can indeed make a guess.

 

[Awkward Fingers]

Your rejection of the odd numbers is like rejecting allah while I say Yahweh is truth (even numbers). Not hazarding a guess to the number is like not making a claim one way or another. Not even attempting a guess means they are neither theist or atheist. When theists make their claim, a person would have to disagree to be atheist in order to be able to claim theists are wrong or no gods exist.

No.
No and no. That is exactly not correct.
I like the jelly bean example,, personally.
All I have to do to be an atheist, is reject the claim of an even number of jelly beans.
I don't have to make a counter claim
I don't have to attempt a guess.
I only have to not accept an even number of jelly beans.

To be an atheist, I only have to reject theism.. That is all.
I don't have to counter claim, I don't have to care in the slightest
I ONLY have to reject the positive claim that theism is asserting.

 

[Awkward Fingers]

In fact, you could come up to me, and claim an even number, which I could dismiss if you didn't have enough evidence got me..
Then someone could come and claim an odds number, and without evidence...
I can reject their assertion as well!!
Rejecting a claim does not mean you assert or agree with the opposing claim.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

I'm speaking of relativism as a whole, of course. You wish me to give specific examples of where you see this? You wish to debate relativism as having valid insights? An easy example is our very attempt at a discussion over what God is, or is not. I guarantee you that what you have in your mind as you think of God and reject that, is not what I see as God.

I have not picked some one particular conception of God to take whacks at; my argument is based on minimal theism; the claims that, so far I can tell, ALL forms of theism have in common, in virtue of which they are considered theism at all- in particular, the existence of a transcendent cosmic intervener.

Objective truth is not just laying out there for you discovery if you can only just reason it well enough. It's called the myth of the pregiven world. It completely overlooks the person observing and the cultural influences that create blind spots, for both them, and for others of their own cultural frameworks. Often, even though everyone agrees on the same thing, it may be completely not that. Just because a thing is believed to be objective, does not necessarily make it so.

Hence why to speak of God as objective and 'here's your proofs', as a line of reasoning is deeply flawed. Both in the claim of those proofs, and in the rejection of those proofs. God is not a Yeti or an extra terrestrial.

This is completely non-sequitur; that agreement doesn't entail truth does not imply that minimal theism involving internal contradictions is anything but fatal for theism.

I answered all your questions. That paragraph was to point out your tendency to resort to pejoratives instead of substance in these discussions.

You clearly didn't; I asked what a certain phrase meant and asked whether you even knew- you claimed that you did, but never said what the phrase in question was supposed to mean. This was most certainly a dodge.

You assume all these things are incoherent.

No, I do not assume that. I have extensively argued that very conclusion, on numerous threads on this board (I also explicitly pointed out that while I did not produce these arguments on this particular thread, I can either provide links or paraphrase as requested).

What exactly is this "fundamental truth claim"?

A truth-claim is a proposition or an assertion; a claim that something is the case. Fundamental truth-claims of theism, or any particular form of theism, are the truth-claims which form the essential/necessary/distinctive core of the model that religion presents. For theism it is simply that at least one cosmic/transcendent intervener/causal agent (god) exists.

Is it one I share?

If you endorse theism, then yes.

Did you completely miss my response in my previous post? Let me direct you to is as it answers this well:

I am very curious indeed why you totally skipped that huge section of my response in your response here? Did you not understand it, since you seem to ask the same question again here? You didn't try to shoot it down as everything else that doesn't agree with your thinking, so are you considering it?

I didn't address it because it just struck me as extremely scattered and vague.

I am saying that both theism and atheism are true, and not true. The reason is because these are perspectives to something that itself is beyond definitions, including that definition itself. Theism is a perspective of that which is wholly beyond mental ideas. Atheism is actually correct in saying that theism cannot be correct. But not in the way it then concludes there is therefore no God, period, end of story. Because it is tied to the fault of a literal definition of God. It's enlightened enough to realize it doesn't match up with the larger picture, but not enlightened enough to avoid falling into the same trap and make a conclusion themselves, defining God in a particular way, which is what you do.

Again, you clearly are mistaking me here; I'm not attacking "a literal definition of God", but a minimal definition of God/god that can be satisfied by ANY form of theism- not just the naive caricature endorsed by fundamentalists, but sophisticated philosophical versions of theism as well.

I know you didn't. I did. Because that's all of what we are talking about, is concepts about God, not God itself.

Atheism clearly has no problem acknowledging the existence of concepts of God. The point is that these concepts are not satisfied by anything- there is nothing real corresponding to them, they are like our concept of MacBeth or Sherlock Holmes.

True, but at the very best then, and the point I am and have been making, is that all that atheism is doing is saying that people ideas about God, their reasoning, is flawed. It cannot say God does not exist.

Of course it can; if people's "ideas about God" are flawed in the relevant sense- that they do not denote anything, or are not instantiated by any object- then this means no less and no more than that God does not exist.

I'll explain this through this quote from Sri Aurobindo which I feels says this well,

It is necessary, therefore, that advancing Knowledge should base herself on a clear, pure and disciplined intellect. It is necessary, too, that she should correct her errors sometimes by a return to the restraint of sensible fact, the concrete realities of the physical world. The touch of Earth is always reinvigorating to the son of Earth, even when he seeks a supraphysical Knowledge. It may even be said that the supraphysical can only be really mastered in its fullness – to its heights we can always search– when we keep our feet firmly on the physical. “Earth is His footing,” says the Upanishad whenever it imagines the Self that manifests in the universe. And it is certainly the fact the wider we extend and the surer we make our knowledge of the physical world, the wider and surer becomes our foundation for the higher knowledge, even for the highest, even for the Brahmavidya.

In emerging, therefore, out of the materialistic period of human Knowledge we must be careful that we do not rashly condemn what we are leaving or throw away even one tittle of its gains, before we can summon perceptions and powers that are well grasped and secure, to occupy their place. Rather we shall observe with respect and wonder the work that Atheism had done for the Divine and admire the services that Agnosticism has rendered in preparing the illimitable increase of knowledge. In our world error is continually the handmaid and pathfinder of Truth; for error is really a half-truth that stumbles because of its limitations; often it is Truth that wears a disguise in order to arrive unobserved near to its goal. Well, if it could always be, as it has been in the great period we are leaving, the faithful handmaid, severe, conscientious, clean-handed, luminous within its limits, a half-truth and not a reckless and presumptuous aberration.

~Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, pg 12,13
​

That's great, but that there is anything supraphysical, or any truths pertaining to such a thing, or to the Divine, is a gigantic assumption, and one that does not appear to admit of any evidence. Apparently the insights of atheism have not fully been appreciated by this author, if he nevertheless maintains a steadfast faith in the existence of things which, for all we can tell, are indistinguishable from mere fiction.

I am saying there is a valid experience of that which can be called "God" because it transcends and includes everything.

If God is an experience, in the sense that being hungry, or going on a rollercoaster, is an experience, then theism is mistaken, and people have been systematically misusing the word "God" for centuries.

It is nothing, in the sense of no-thing, at the same time is all-things. It is real in that it can be realized by us, in us, and in all things. It is known in emptiness and in form. It is apprehended, never comprehended.

Here you go again. Care you explain what you mean here, if you can?

But it can be spoken of meaningfully, but only as relative truths.

What are relative truths? Can you name one?

Fingers pointing at the moon are not the moon itself. But "isms" tend to look at the fingers as the moon. Theism, and it's flip-side atheism, are arguing over a finger itself, not God.

I wish you would stop throwing around these slogans. Yes, the map is not the territory and blah blah blah, but in the sense that theism and atheism "are arguing over a finger itself", they are arguing over whether there is a moon for the finger to point to at all.

Is it?? Please elaborate? I would like to see your understanding of what this is you dismiss rationally? Let's focus on this together.

I just mean that pretty much all forms of theism have some general presuppositions that are shared across the board; philosophically interesting things like that humans are agents, other minds are real, we live in a shared external world, to extremely trivial things like historical and geographical facts.​

 

[idav]

To be an atheist, I only have to reject theism.. That is all.
I don't have to counter claim, I don't have to care in the slightest
I ONLY have to reject the positive claim that theism is asserting.

So you can just reject it without ever having to offer a counter? You have reasons for rejecting or you just flip a coin?

 

[Enai de a lukal]

So you can just reject it without ever having to offer a counter?

Yeah, we've covered this any number of times. Think of a simple scenario, like the one I've mentioned several times: you find muddy footprints in your kitchen. You know that Peter is out of town. Do you need to know who did put the footprints there in order to know that Peter did not? Clearly not. Similarly with theism.

You have reasons for rejecting or you just flip a coin?

One hardly needs to flip a coin; there are good and compelling reasons for rejecting theism, I've already mentioned some of them a couple times on this thread.

 

[idav]

We are taking the metaphors a bit too strongly here.

I thought the number of jelly beans was a stand-in for "origin of the universe" or some such. If it is, then an atheist can indeed make a guess.

Guess away of course. The answer I dont understand, "anything but god". If you can understand why we would agree it wasnt the cosmic turtle then perhaps you might see why I am not so quick to rule out some creative force with at least a universe worth of power.