"Scientism" on Wikipedia ...

[mikkel_the_dane]

I think you've missed the point, which was your claim...



What do they do these atheist fundamentalist, hang around debate forums and try and make rational observations, search for evidence, and scrutinise and criticise theistic claims. Make valid points about the merits of science If that's what you think religious fundamentalist get up to, you might want to pay a little more attention to the news occasionally. The comparison is preposterous.

Please explain what you mean by the bold one.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Is it really? Do they blow people up, torture them, cut heads off, mutilate the genitals of children, condemn people who happen to be gay, kidnaps people, subjugate women and girls, etc etc etc, why are these atheists never on the news?

Tbf Stalin was on the news quite often when he was alive. And The CCPs persecution of Uighur Muslims has received a fair bit of coverage recently.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Is it really? Do they blow people up, torture them, cut heads off, mutilate the genitals of children, condemn people who happen to be gay, kidnaps people, subjugate women and girls, etc etc etc, why are these atheists never on the news?

Well, all fundamentalists are bad and those are not limited to religion. Or rather all authoritarian forms of ruling are bad.

 

[Sheldon]

Religious atheism is like stationary motion.
It will be all over the news when they find out about it

Those angry fundamentalist atheists, always telling others they don't share their beliefs, and asking for objective evidence, it's barbaric, that's what it is.

 

[Sheldon]

Tbf Stalin was on the news quite often when he was alive. And The CCPs persecution of Uighur Muslims has received a fair bit of coverage recently.

So the atheists here are like Stalin? Yes, and obviously a sociopathic mass murdering totalitarian dictator with the power of life and death over every citizen, is a fair generalisation for all atheists, and not a negative stereotype at all.

Now Hitler was a baptised Catholic alter boy, who claimed to be doing god's work, is he a fair benchmark for a Christian? How about Saddam Hussein, a typical Muslim would you say? Now you had to be a Christian to get into the German SS, so what are we to read into that I wonder, and of course the precursor to the Holocaust was centuries of antisemitism by European Christianity.

 

[Sheldon]

Well, all fundamentalists are bad and those are not limited to religion. Or rather all authoritarian forms of ruling are bad.

So you think the atheists here are comparable to ISIS, or the KKK, or Stalin, or the Westborough Baptist church then? I have to say I'm dubious, that posting in a debate forum, and not believing in a deity, championing the method of science as useful, or demanding people demonstrate some objective evidence for claims they espouse publicly is comparable to religious fundamentalists by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[Sheldon]

Please explain what you mean by the bold one.

It's as simple an assertion as I can make it sorry.

 

[Yazata]

Religious atheism is like stationary motion.
It will be all over the news when they find out about it

I assume that you have heard of non-theistic religions, such as Buddhism and Jainism. While traditionally they accepted the existence of the various polytheistic gods and goddesses of common devotion, they held that those deities were irrelevant to their teachings. Many modernist Buddhists today are more close to atheists and don't believe in the existence of deities.

Even in the theistic religions there are elements of religious agnosticism that at times approaches religious atheism. John Scotus Eriugena wrote:

"We do not know what God is. God Himself does not know what He is because He is not anything. Literally God is not, because He transcends being."

What he meant was that God is not another item in the inventory of space-time-matter, the things that can be said to exist and that can be known by beings like us. Rather, God is the reason why the universe of space-time-matter and all the existing things exist at all.

In his theology, God cannot be known in essence, but only by whatever his effects are in the universe of being. Essentially the same theology remains basic in Eastern Orthodoxy today, in their essence-energies distinction. (They didn't get it from John Scotus Eriugena but rather from late antique neoplatonism.)

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

So you think the atheists here are comparable to ISIS, or the KKK, or Stalin, or the Westborough Baptist church then? I have to say I'm dubious, that posting in a debate forum, and not believing in a deity, championing the method of science as useful, or demanding people demonstrate some objective evidence for claims they espouse publicly is comparable to religious fundamentalists by any stretch of the imagination.

No, not here. But for the world as such, yeah. So here is as short as I can make it:

For the group of non-believers you can find contradictory beliefs among them and thus nothing follow from the fact that some of them are atheists. They can still have contradictory about ethics, politics, even metaphysics or even what knowledge and science is.
Some of them are gnostics and others agnostics.
And yes, some of the beliefs are authoritarian.

I think you can't quite get that I am believe in limited cognitive, moral and cultural relativism to the point that I as a skeptic can't claim any strong objective knowledge. I can talk about objective knowledge like I talk about God, but I don't believe in any of them.
Fun thing is though you haven't mentioned Pol-Pot, Mao or any of the Central or South American dictatorships.

So here is what nobody so far has been able to do. Find a behaviour based on religion, which hasn't been done without religion.

 

[Audie]

I assume that you have heard of non-theistic religions, such as Buddhism and Jainism. While traditionally they accepted the existence of the various polytheistic gods and goddesses of common devotion, they held that those deities were irrelevant to their teachings. Many modernist Buddhists today are more close to atheists and don't believe in the existence of deities.

Even in the theistic religions there are elements of religious agnosticism that at times approaches religious atheism. John Scotus Eriugena wrote:

"We do not know what God is. God Himself does not know what He is because He is not anything. Literally God is not, because He transcends being."

What he meant was that God is not another item in the inventory of space-time-matter, the things that can be said to exist and that can be known by beings like us. Rather, God is the reason why the universe of space-time-matter and all the existing things exist at all.

In his theology, God cannot be known in essence, but only by whatever his effects are in the universe of being. Essentially the same theology remains basic in Eastern Orthodoxy today, in their essence-energies distinction. (They didn't get it from John Scotus Eriugena but rather from late antique neoplatonism.)

You assume, maybe coz I am from Hong Kong,
that I am familiar with Taoism, Buddhism, folk religions
and even Christianity?

I definitely dont need a lesson.

I am also familiar with the English language,
various definitions and, with the vice of equivocation.
All religions involve a belief in supernatural beings.
That is what a religion is.
Use the word some opposite way and its gibbersh.
(See Vice of equivocarion)

I dont do gods. (Supernatural beings)
I dont believe in them. I have no religion
Any claim that i do, that "atheist religion" exists,
is nothing but an insensible contradiction.

Which, btw for all the excursions into
" Eriugna" or whatev, you never addressed.

Religious atheist is a contradiction,
like hot ice or stationary movement.

Do you understand that?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

It's as simple an assertion as I can make it sorry.

Fact or belief?

 

[RestlessSoul]

You assume, maybe coz I am from Hong Kong,
that I am familiar with Taoism, Buddhism, folk religions
and even Christianity?

I definitely dont need a lesson.

I am also familiar with the English language,
various definitions and, with the vice of equivocation.
All religions involve a belief in supernatural beings.
That is what a religion is.
Use the word some opposite way and its gibbersh.
(See Vice of equivocarion)

I dont do gods. (Supernatural beings)
I dont believe in them. I have no religion
Any claim that i do, that "atheist religion" exists,
is nothing but an insensible contradiction.

Which, btw for all the excursions into
" Eriugna" or whatev, you never addressed.

Religious atheist is a contradiction,
like hot ice or stationary movement.

Do you understand that?

Be that as it may, there is a vociferous minority of atheists on this very forum, whose commitment to their cause looks an awful lot like religious fundamentalism of the most intolerant and intransigent kind. They have their articles of faith, their gurus - Hitchens, Dawkins etc - and their well rehearsed diatribes, which are often loaded with dogma.

 

[Audie]

Be that as it may, there is a vociferous minority of atheists on this very forum, whose commitment to their cause looks an awful lot like religious fundamentalism of the most intolerant and intransigent kind. They have their articles of faith, their gurus - Hitchens, Dawkins etc - and their well rehearsed diatribes, which are often loaded with dogma.

That is your chosen perception, though the
only ones going on anout dawkins are the theos.

Articles of faith, gurus, dogma is all just
mpre equivocation. ( nonsense )

By " be that as it may" -hand wave-
it appears you wish to stick to your
nonsensical equivocation and contradictiins,
The introduction of yet more: see " dogma", " "gurus" " and yes, "articles of faith" shows intent to double down down on it.

It does though give us an illustration of who is "intransigent". And of course, of intolerant diatribe.

Sorry you want to be that way.
If you want sensible talk sometime
we can try, but i wont further respond to
plain nonsense.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Be that as it may, there is a vociferous minority of atheists on this very forum, whose commitment to their cause looks an awful lot like religious fundamentalism of the most intolerant and intransigent kind. They have their articles of faith, their gurus - Hitchens, Dawkins etc - and their well rehearsed diatribes, which are often loaded with dogma.

There is one test none of them have passed. It is from David Hume. Some people state a fact and then claim a first personal qualitative evaluation.

It goes like this.
P1: There are people who claim facts without evidence.
C: That is irrelevant/meaningless/bad/cognitively wrong or any such negative.

So far in recorded history nobody have been able to come up with more premisses that makes the deduction sound. Or even be able to show evidence or rationality per their own standard for the conclusion.
What they don't seem to understand, is that they are not doing science in the conclusion. They are doing a first person evolution of what matters to them and what people ought not to do. That is the Is-Ought problem and so far nobody has solved that.

They don't seem to understand this:
https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/whatisscience_12
And then some of them starts to make appeals to emotion apparently without realizing what they are doing. Or take for granted that their first person values are universal for all humans,

And, yes, there are some religious people that also take their first person values as universal for all humans.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

...
Articles of faith, gurus, dogma is all just
mpre equivocation. ( nonsense )
...

Objective evidence that is nonsense. No first person evaluation. Evidence!!!

You are doing this:
P1: There is no evidence for objective claims in religion.
C: Therefore it is nonsense.

That is not correct logic and the conclusion doesn't follow from the fact.
Yes, some religious behaviours are bad in my view, but that is in the end a feeling without evidence or rationality.
Just state that there is some human behavior you don't like.

 

[joelr]

Okay, as a skeptic and an atheist I don't believe in the divine, yet here is how I understand it as me.

The universe is if you look closer currently not reducible to being only objective, physical and so on. The closest you can get is non-reductive supervenience. I.e. the mental is caused by the physical, but it can't be reduced to the physical.
So the trust and assurance in the universe is in the formal sense the first assumption here:
"...

The universe is reducible to laws of probability, fundamental forces and a strict limit to how much information you can get. Everyone who tries can get the same experience and results. That isn't subjective.

 

[joelr]

That is subjective. I use another weight system.
As for this: The physical universe exists as an objective fact,... If you can actually show that and not just write it, there is a Nobel Prize in that. You would be the first human in recorded history able to do so.

Weight systems can be converted to demonstrate they measurements are equal.

You cannot get a Noble Prize for what you suggest. They don't give those for philosophical musings. It's a different prize.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

The universe is reducible to laws of probability, fundamental forces and a strict limit to how much information you can get. Everyone who tries can get the same experience and results. That isn't subjective.

Okay, the reduce the meaning of this sentence as a part of the universe down to nothing but laws of probability, fundamental forces and a strict limit to how much information you can get.
The problem is the information you get out of the above sentence is not physical, it is mental and there is so far no bridge law between the fundamental forces and the mental.
You are doing an over-reduction, because you assume all mental states can reduced 1 to 1 to a physical state. It has been tried before and it doesn't work. It always involves the mental rule that all mental states are physical states, expect that nobody so far has been able to reduce the meaning of all mental states are physical states down to a physical state.
That is how logical positivism failed in part. You really have to study the limits of science, if you want to claim science.

So yeah, the mental is caused by the physical, but can't be reduced to the physical or fundamental laws.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Weight systems can be converted to demonstrate they measurements are equal.

You cannot get a Noble Prize for what you suggest. They don't give those for philosophical musings. It's a different prize.

Now express all that using your claim in the other post. You can't! And neither can I.

 

[joelr]

Okay, the reduce the meaning of this sentence as a part of the universe down to nothing but laws of probability, fundamental forces and a strict limit to how much information you can get.
The problem is the information you get out of the above sentence is not physical, it is mental and there is so far no bridge law between the fundamental forces and the mental.
You are doing an over-reduction, because you assume all mental states can reduced 1 to 1 to a physical state. It has been tried before and it doesn't work. It always involves the mental rule that all mental states are physical states, expect that nobody so far has been able to reduce the meaning of all mental states are physical states down to a physical state.
That is how logical positivism failed in part. You really have to study the limits of science, if you want to claim science.

So yeah, the mental is caused by the physical, but can't be reduced to the physical or fundamental laws.

Thoughts don't get a pass as being special and un-reduceable.
It takes energy to move neurons around and the process is bound by the same laws. The sentence has a meaning to a brain and code has meaning to a computer. Neither are outside the physical system. It doesn't matter that we cannot map out all of the microscopic and even subatomic happenings of a thought. We cannot do that for anything except simple interactions but we know they are physical. There is nothing there that suggests anything beyond the basic physical laws. Being "thoughts" don't give it magic power unless you can demonstrate some supernatural aspect. So this doesn't demonstrate anything divine.
Philosophy doesn't demonstrate a divine.