richard dawkins (1 Viewer)

[egg_]

Happy engineering, egg.

I shouldn't have said "engineer", should I?

What I basically meant was - if Abraham knew what I know, he would have spared Isaac a pretty traumatic afternoon

 

[1000smurfs]

Absolutely not.
The sociological view of religion is that one can effectively ignore the supernatural / invisible elements and concentrate on the concrete; this is logical-positivism in action.

Not exactly sure what you imply here by "sociological view", but I think it's a mistake to equate atheism with logical positivism which entails a rejection of metaphysical concepts.

I suggest that the underlying structure of religious thinking is intrinsically bound up with but not identical to wisdom, beauty, morality, love and the idea of meaning that these things embody. Wisdom as the small-scale pattern of greater wisdom, beauty of beauty, love of love. If you conceive of these things at all then there's no limit to how far they can go, they belong to the infinite, or more particularly, the sublime and timeless.

I would characterise that as spiritual or metaphysical thinking , 'religious' connotes a God, although 'spirituality' is also a bit too loaded and can connote 'hippy' so let's settle on metaphysics.

I believe that it is a continuum and that to arbitrarily select a part of that continuum and declare it bogus is a fallacy if the rest of it is going to remain unquestioned. I'm not saying that it's not questioned but you seem to imply that there might be a clear line that can be drawn.

Logical-Positivism would declare statements like 'God exists' or 'God does not exist' as meaningless. However most atheists would say these statements have huge meaning and based on the evidence will have an opinion about what type of God is a likely proposition or not.

I think you can draw a line between the physical world and the world of ideas and metaphysics, each can affect the other but only indirectly ( think about how a unicorn affects you) and it is reasonable to think that certain things are highly unlikely to exist in the physical world, e.g. God.

I'm a fan of Popper's Three Worlds:
Three worlds
----
World 1 is the physical universe. It consists of the actual truth and reality that we try to represent, such as energy, physics, and chemistry. We may exist in this world, however, we do not always perceive it and then represent it correctly.
World 2 is the world of our subjective personal perceptions, experiences, and cognition. It is what we think about the world as we try to map, represent, and anticipate or hypothesis in order to maintain our existence in an every changing place. Personal knowledge and memory form this world, which are based on self-regulation, cognition, consciousness, dispositions, and processes. Note that Polanyi's theory of knowledge is based entirely within this world.
World 3 is the sum total of the objective abstract products of the human mind. It consists of such artifacts as books, tools, theories, models, libraries, computers, and networks. It is quite a diverse mixture that ranges from a claw-hammer to Maslow¹s hierarchy to Godel's proof of the incompleteness of arithmetic. While knowledge may be created and produced by World 2 activities, its artifacts are stored in this world. Popper also includes genetic heredity (if you think about it, genes are really nothing more than a biological artifact of instructions).
----

There is a modern mode of thinking that will not deal with unquantifiables like emotions, concepts, aesthetics etc. I'm arguing that this kind of thinking is moving toward autism, not in the clinical sense but in the way that it necessarily seems to lead toward a total lack of affect.

I can see how that mode of thinking could be described as autistic, but if you are ascribing it to dawkins and athesim in general then I think you are conflating lack of belief in God with lack of emotion etc.

 

[maims bond]

I'm an atheist. When I say that, what I mean is there is nothing but the natural universe. Here's some corollaries of that:

- there is no absolute morality

Uh oh, I think I smell the absolute vs relativist morality debate coming on!! I love this one.

Nice use of the word corollary as well, it's a dandy of a word.

 

[Diumraid]

Not exactly sure what you imply here by "sociological view", but I think it's a mistake to equate atheism with logical positivism which entails a rejection of metaphysical concepts.

Logical-Positivism would declare statements like 'God exists' or 'God does not exist' as meaningless. However most atheists would say these statements have huge meaning and based on the evidence will have an opinion about what type of God is a likely proposition or not.

I can see how that mode of thinking could be described as autistic, but if you are ascribing it to dawkins and athesim in general then I think you are conflating lack of belief in God with lack of emotion etc.

I’m not conflating atheism with logical-postivism here. Atheism derives meaning from the God question so they’re clearly not the same. The ground on which atheists criticize religious thinking, however, is founded on logical-positivist methods; there’s an inbuilt problem in the model because the average atheist is not going to let go of the question of meaning too easily nor many of the other intangibles I mentioned. To my mind atheists are far closer in fact to religious types than they are to what I imagine as genuine post-religious thinking.

 

[flashback]

so basically ... because I don;t believe in God, I believe in God.

Is there some way to get around this?



How about not believing in not God? Say we square our answers to get rid of the negatives.

 

[Diumraid]

so basically ... because I don;t believe in God, I believe in God.

Is there some way to get around this?

How about not believing in not God? Say we square our answers to get rid of the negatives.

The answer is simple...
Take it away Mr Danzig:

We are 138, We are 138, We are 138
We are 138, We are 138, We are 138
We are 138, We are 138
In the eyes of tiger
Do you think we're robot clean
Does this face look almost mean
Is it time to be an android not a man
The pleasantries are gone
We're stripped of all we were
In the eyes of tiger
We are 138, We are 138, We are 138
We are 138, We are 138, We are 138
8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8
8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8

 

[pissypants]

I suggest that the underlying structure of religious thinking is intrinsically bound up with but not identical to wisdom, beauty, morality, love and the idea of meaning that these things embody. Wisdom as the small-scale pattern of greater wisdom, beauty of beauty, love of love. If you conceive of these things at all then there's no limit to how far they can go, they belong to the infinite, or more particularly, the sublime and timeless.

I believe that it is a continuum and that to arbitrarily select a part of that continuum and declare it bogus is a fallacy if the rest of it is going to remain unquestioned. I'm not saying that it's not questioned but you seem to imply that there might be a clear line that can be drawn.

I really can't agree with that. I know plenty of atheists that fall in love with humans, books, music, films, places. Babys innately bond emotionally to their mothers faces and vice versa. Just because you feel an emotional connection with something doesn't mean you're acknowledging the existence of a sliding scale on which some form of supernatural omnipotent creator is on the other end.

What we have named "wisdom, beauty, morality, love" are of course not absolutes, defy any form of precise definition, but this does not keep them from being any less real than a brick. Although I could agree it's not clear where the line is drawn, it's definitely drawn long before any form of proof of the existence of a god.

It's easy to say that "Love and beauty are timeless" - but these concepts have only existed for the tiniest micro-blip in the history of the universe, millions upon millions of years after the creation of the earth, and in the more recent times of the evolution of humans. They're also entirely dependent on the existence of humans to exist as concepts at all. Does my dead grandmother's love for her grandson still exist? No - it dies with her. Just as the beauty that died in the eye of the beholder.

Also: our connection to and perception of art, love and beauty absolutely do not go unquestioned.

 

[1000smurfs]

The ground on which atheists criticize religious thinking, however, is founded on logical-positivist methods;

I would dispute this. Accepting LP methods may be a sufficient argument for being an atheist but it is not a necessary one.

there’s an inbuilt problem in the model because the average atheist is not going to let go of the question of meaning too easily nor many of the other intangibles I mentioned. To my mind atheists are far closer in fact to religious types than they are to what I imagine as genuine post-religious thinking.

What do you imagine as genuine post-religious thinking if it's not atheism or logical-positivism?

 

[snakybus]

Does my dead grandmother's love for her grandson still exist? No - it dies with her.

Really? Prove this please.

 

[pissypants]

Really? Prove this please.

Not "proof" but;
Her perception and expression of "love" were a function of her body / mind. Her body and mind cease to be, therefore so does her perception and expression of "love".

 

[Diumraid]

I would dispute this. Accepting LP methods may be a sufficient argument for being an atheist but it is not a necessary one.

In practice all of the arguments I hear fit the bill. It's not a question of necessity. Its the grass roots of the ideology.

In response to Mr Pants: Either love is a real thing or it is a bunch of hormones, sentimentality and loyalty etc that our DNA needs to survive and thrive.

Either beauty is real or it is a fringe benefit of our brain activity. Similarly with other immaterial 'things'; either they have a greater reality or are a mere function of the organism. A greater reality suggests the absolute. I personally believe in the perfection of wisdom and the meaning of meaning.

I suggest that your grandmother's love came from love and returned to love.. a crytallisation of possibility followed by reintegration.. The idea that it was somehow fabricated and then ceased to exist is just as strange a notion.

What do you imagine as genuine post-religious thinking if it's not atheism or logical-positivism?

I think logical positivism taken to its conclusion is the right ballpark. I maintain that there's an autistic quality to this idea.

 

[1000smurfs]

In practice all of the arguments I hear fit the bill. It's not a question of necessity. Its the grass roots of the ideology.

But LP originated in the 1920's and athesim goes much further back to the Renaissance at least as a movement.
Here's the distinction in my mind: Atheists cite lack of empirical evidence as one good reason to lack belief in God,
this is not the same as believing non-empirical \ non-logical claims are meaningless as LPers do.

I will agree with you that there are some atheists who are 'scientistic' (Scientisim) in the perjorative and possibly, if you want, autistic sense. However this fact is too often used as a straw man argument for bashing atheism.

On autism, even if i thought love was just brain chemistry, i would still most likely believe the same brain chemistry is going on in other minds and that other people are having the same feelings i do. I would have an even firmer basis for relating to them than if i believed it was all a mystery.

I suggest that your grandmother's love came from love and returned to love.. a crytallisation of possibility followed by reintegration.. The idea that it was somehow fabricated and then ceased to exist is just as strange a notion.

Sounds to me like you are a Platonist. I am too of a sort but am also an atheist. Love to me is three things, brain chemistry, an emergent emotion (and no less real for that) and an eternal ideal. Which reminds me that I'm also a fan of Eternalisim, Einstein's conception of time, the block universe, in which all our grannies and everyone that was or ever will be still exists out there in a very real sense.

 

[pissypants]

In response to Mr Pants: Either love is a real thing or it is a bunch of hormones, sentimentality and loyalty etc that our DNA needs to survive and thrive.

I don't get you. What's not real about hormones, sentimentality and loyalty? These are things that tangibly exist, and have a function and purpose.

Either beauty is real or it is a fringe benefit of our brain activity. Similarly with other immaterial 'things'; either they have a greater reality or are a mere function of the organism. A greater reality suggests the absolute. I personally believe in the perfection of wisdom and the meaning of meaning.

What is this "greater reality" you're talking about, and where does it come from? My entire point is that what you are attributing to a god is a function of the organism.

I suggest that your grandmother's love came from love and returned to love.. a crytallisation of possibility followed by reintegration.. The idea that it was somehow fabricated and then ceased to exist is just as strange a notion.

Why is that strange? We come from nothing we go to nothing. All we have is our existence inbetween, and we define what we experience by invented phrases such as the words like love, beauty etc.

Diarmuid, are we falling in love? .|..|

 

[snakybus]

Not "proof" but;
Her perception and expression of "love" were a function of her body / mind. Her body and mind cease to be, therefore so does her perception and expression of "love".

As you say. Not proof. I'd be interested in some empirical evidence at the very least (I'm being facetious, just in case you want to do the "rolleyes" smiley again). The question is (and I'm presuming you're the grandson here), do you still know the love your grandmother left you? I would say that love is not the expression of one body and mind but of a collective of minds. Two minds in this case. Can this pass through a generation? Two generations? Three? If you can say that your grandmother's love for you is now dead, years after her death, that you don't experience it in any way, then I suppose you could only consider yourself to be correct. Can you?

 

[pissypants]

Can this pass through a generation? Two generations? Three?

I know you were kidding snakey. We just fundamentally disagree. What your saying above, although it makes sense to you, smacks to me of Millhouse's speech about the soul from the Simpsons: "It can swim, it's even got wheels, in case you die in the desert and it has to drive to the cemetery".

 

[snakybus]

Right. Cheers, man.

 

[pissypants]

I mean ....I know you're being facetious, but in terms of making a point, I just don't get it. No offense intended.

 

[snakybus]

None taken.

 

[Froog]

Why does it even matter? Because understanding ourselves in terms of what we really are is how we engineer more fulfilling lives for ourselves.

erm.. are you saying athesists have more fulfilling lives?

 

[Lili Marlene]

As you say. Not proof. I'd be interested in some empirical evidence at the very least (I'm being facetious, just in case you want to do the "rolleyes" smiley again). The question is (and I'm presuming you're the grandson here), do you still know the love your grandmother left you? I would say that love is not the expression of one body and mind but of a collective of minds. Two minds in this case. Can this pass through a generation? Two generations? Three? If you can say that your grandmother's love for you is now dead, years after her death, that you don't experience it in any way, then I suppose you could only consider yourself to be correct. Can you?

I can prove it using philosophy, not Science.


But I'll need a huge grant for 'research' before you'll see any results.


and at least 2 sexy interns