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Atheism, Theism, and the Nature of Religion
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Atheism, Theism, and the Nature of Religion

Death Monkey
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Posted 07/03/09 - 04:15 PM:	#11
kNoctis, According to your own words, you are an atheist. You do not think that God literally and factually exists... Additionally, you have posited that religion doesn't, or at least shouldn't, convey literal truths. I think it would be helpful to make a distinction between critical realism and naive realism. Naive realism in ontology says that things exist exactly as we perceive them. Critical realism says that the things we perceive exist, but they don't exist exactly as we perceive them. I'm simple arguing that naive realism regarding an Ultimate Reality is false. I'm not an anti-realist, as was Ludwig Feuerbach. Because of the limited applicability of our terms and the cultural conditioning of our language, our inability to adequately describe God or any other Ultimate Reality entails at best a critical realism regarding the existence of the divine. I don't understand what this response has to do with what I said. We don't percieve God at all. At best you could claim to infer the existence of God from various observations about the world. So the issue of whether things exist as we percieve them are not is irrelevant to the question of whether God exists or not. The question is whether or not you believe that a personal God exists. If you do not, then by definition you are an atheist, regardless of whether you think that religions can provide literal truths or not. And yet this is precisely the point of debate between theists and atheists. The atheist claims that the various religions do not convey literal truths, while the theists claim that their religion does convey literal truths. An atheist claims only that theistic religions do not convey literal truths about the Ultimate Reality that they point to. That says a lot more than your definition. I was referring to religions that claim that a personal God exists, since that is all atheism is relevant to. As I already pointed out, all that one must claim in order to qualify as being an atheist is that they do not hold the belief that a personal God exists. They need not claim that a personal God does not exist, nor make any other positive claims about what does or does not exist, or about what is or is not true. An atheist is simply anybody who is not a theist. When I use the term 'literal', I am referring to our knowledge of what exists, not whether or not something literally exists. I believe God literally exists like I believe the desk I am sitting at literally exists. I believe neither exist as I perceive or describe them, and particularly so with God OK, then I misunderstood. But I still don't see what this has to do with the atheism/theism debate. Do you believe that a personal God exists? If so, then you are a theist. And likewise I am an atheist because I do not believe that a personal God exists. Neither of these positions depend on either of us stipulating that God has to exist exactly as we percieve or describe it. All that it depends on is the stipulation of the necessary and sufficient conditions for it to be a true statement that a personal God exists. If you think that those conditions obtain, then you are a theist. If you do not, then you are an atheist. DM
Pseudoscience makes Baby Jesus cry.

180 Proof
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Posted 07/03/09 - 06:14 PM:	#12
kNoctis wrote: The claims of religion, and specifically the claims of a religion regarding it's "divine reality" - God, Allah, Tao, Nirvana, etc... are not claims that can be interpreted literally. Of course they can, and have been by devout believers (& fundamentalists) for millenia. Whether or not it is rational, however, to do so is another question and of (some) philosophical import. There are no literal truths to dispute. Well, orthodox clerics, theologians & laity (i.e. strong theists) dispute this very objection. Thus, propositions regarding a religion's Ultimate Reality are not meant to convey literal truth ... Instead of attempting to explain or describe the world we live in, religion seeks to entertain and inspire one to moral improvement. Clearly, you've not closely read, for instance, Zoroastrian Avesta, Judeo-Christian scriptures, the Quran, the Vedas or Mayan Popul vuh, and more importantly observed the social & political consequences of the literal adherence to these religions' respective, canonical claims. "Moralizing" is merely an instrument used by (most) religions/cults for indoctrinating a "worldview" (of "Ultimate Reality") and hardly exhaustive, or the principle content, of (most) religious/cultic teachings. Death Monkey wrote: An atheist is simply anybody who is not a theist ... Do you believe that a personal God exists? If so, then you are a theist. And likewise I am an atheist because I do not believe that a personal God exists. Neither of these positions depend on either of us stipulating that God has to exist exactly as we percieve or describe it. All that it depends on is the stipulation of the necessary and sufficient conditions for it to be a true statement that a personal God exists. If you think that those conditions obtain, then you are a theist. If you do not, then you are an atheist. Edited by 180 Proof on 07/03/09 - 06:20 PM. Reason: aum ...
The question isn't "Which explanations do I believe?" but rather "Which explanations do I least disbelieve?" Absence of evidence THAT MUST BE THERE (i.e. implied by any claim, concept, or (its) predicates, that affects changes in/to the world) entails evidence of absence. [What cannot be done?[What cannot be hoped?[What cannot be known?]]]

kNoctis
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Posted 07/03/09 - 08:39 PM:	#13
I think, generally, the reactions to my view by Death Monkey and 180 Proof shouldn't be surprising, since they conform perfectly to the trend of taking religious claims literally, and failing to distinguish the difference between a first order religious theory and a second order one. In fact, the view I am proposing is a second order theory because it is a theory regarding the commonality of all religions. Instead of taking each religion on its own terms, it goes beyond to that which all religions hold in common and looks at the issue from a different perspective. Wayne Proudfoot distinguished between first and second order religious theories in the following way: A first order religious theory is one that identifies or describes a religious belief or practice in terms of the concepts and rules employed by the tradition or culture in which that belief or practice is embedded. A second order religious theory explains those beliefs and practices in terms of some higher-order scheme, framework, or theory in the effort to arrive at the best explanation of the belief or practice at issue. In this case, because my belief is specifically a religious theory, the best explanation still assumes the existence of that to which all religions hold in common - the divine. This process is not unique to my theory. We use second order theories to explain first order theories all of the time. We explain the religious practices inherent in Greek mythology via historical, sociological, or philosophical theories. We don't seek to criticize psychological and psychiatric theories regarding mental illness because they conflict with the religious theory that people are simple possessed. If the views I am proposing fit into atheism at a first order level, fine. My interest is in evaluating the nature of those first order claims, and my argument is that they are irrelevant and miss the point. 180 Proof wrote: Well, orthodox clerics, theologians & laity (i.e. strong theists) dispute this very objection. And they do so with arguments on a first order scale, which are ineffective against second order theories. Take a first order theory of ethics, say utilitarianism. Utilitarianism assumes moral realism. The second order theory of a moral anti-realist - perhaps non-cognitivism, conflicts with the assumptions of utilitarianism. That doesn't entail that utilitarianism, or any first order theory for that matter, has the necessary 'ammunition' to refute non-cognitivism, or any second order theory either. Orthodox clerics are free to reject the premises and conclusions of my second order theory, but without providing arguments on a second order scale, it is as you are so fond of saying: beliefs without evidence can be rejected without evidence. Edited by kNoctis on 07/03/09 - 10:47 PM

kNoctis
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Posted 07/03/09 - 09:37 PM:	#14
Death Monkey wrote: Do you believe that a personal God exists? If so, then you are a theist. And likewise I am an atheist because I do not believe that a personal God exists. Yes, I believe that God exists - insofar that I interpret the divine as God. That is how I see it. That is what inspires me. Seeing the divine reality as God allows me to put it in a context in which I am most comfortable. It allows me to refer to the divine reality in ways in which I can comprehend. No, I believe that God doesn't exist - insofar as I believe that 'God' is not the true representation of the divine. It is not God, strictly speaking, anymore than it is Brahman, Nirvana, Zoroaster, or the Universe. If you're incapable of accepting both of these propositions at once, then I don't know what to tell you. They're not contradictory. In two different respects, I'm both a theist and an atheist.

ciceronianus
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Posted 07/04/09 - 03:16 AM:	#15
If your point is that there is no point to debates regarding the existence/nonexistence of God, I agree wholeheartedly. If your point is that this seemingly endless debate is the result of some kind of misunderstanding, or misuse of language, I think you're wrong. One might wish, or urge, that proponents of God conceive of God as you do, but most of them don't--or at least, the most vocal of them don't. They make all sorts of claims regarding God. Not surprisingly, those claims are challanged, most if not all of them successfully. One can maintain that this is because their conception of God is incorrect, or that they should not think God is that way, but this just perpetuates the debate. For me, one should believe, or not believe, or wonder--and be silent.
"Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts."--C.S. Peirce "There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it."--Marcus Tullius Cicero "Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of philosophers and becomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of men."--John Dewey

aufbau87
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Posted 07/04/09 - 03:18 AM:	#16
kNoctis wrote: There are other ways of knowing about 'x' than by description. If I asked you if you knew Barack Obama, and you said 'no', I could either tell you that Barack Obama is the current president of the United States, i.e. I could describe who Barack Obama is, or I could point Barack Obama out to you during a press conference, i.e. I could let you acquaint yourself with Barack Obama. Likewise, when you perceive a chair, your perception is not necessarily verbal or descriptive. You acquaint yourself with the chair in a non-inferential way that gives you knowledge. In many ways, this type of knowledge is "more important" than knowledge by description, because it is knowledge by acquaintance which allows for basic perception and observation. But the whole idea of acquaintance is tied up with description. You cannot meaningfully separate the two. If you are acquainted with something, then you have the resources for describing it in some way. Our perceptions themselves are theory-laden.

mayor of simpleton
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Posted 07/04/09 - 04:06 AM:	#17
ciceronianus: "If your point is that there is no point to debates regarding the existence/nonexistence of God, I agree wholeheartedly. If your point is that this seemingly endless debate is the result of some kind of misunderstanding, or misuse of language, I think you're wrong. One might wish, or urge, that proponents of God conceive of God as you do, but most of them don't--or at least, the most vocal of them don't. They make all sorts of claims regarding God. Not surprisingly, those claims are challanged, most if not all of them successfully. One can maintain that this is because their conception of God is incorrect, or that they should not think God is that way, but this just perpetuates the debate. For me, one should believe, or not believe, or wonder--and be silent". This is some very sound advice. The existence/non-existence of god is much like parents and their baby pictures at a high school class reunion. All I can think is "when will it end"! Such pictures are very interesting for the correct public, but torture for the wrong group. For the parents, often, the baby pictures are symbolic for the most important centre of the universe, their universe, but this does not apply to everyone viewing them. I am not so much interested in the question of existence/non-existence of god, but rather the obsession in proving the point one way or the other. It is a curious competition between the "god/god" of the theists and the "not-god/god" of the athiests. Nature sits back and possibly says, "Goddamn it, get over it and on to something of substance. Enough baby pictures!". God or no god is not the question as much as it is of personal faith. Faith is not subject to proof. We might as well fight over which colour is better, red or blue? (Why bother, we all know it's yello?) Who gives a damn and what difference does it make? I am a comparitive mythologist. I am totally into all this "god stuff", but realize this is not everyone's cup of tea. Given the appropriate setting and audience, this topic is super, but with the wrong group, we have baby pictures. BORING! Ciceronianus makes a good point, but it is not quite complete. "Be silent" on both sides applies, but in respect to kNoctis, one has the right to ask. If there is no interest, then keep silent, or perhaps the critics and people who are disinterested should just go somewhere else. kNoctis has the right to pose such a question here. This is a point that has been debated in philosophy for a long time. If you are not into it, then leave it. So what! As for myself, I find this to be interesting, not the existence/non-existence question, as much as the use of symbolic language to understand religious perspectives in a non-literal manner. I find this to empower religion and make it relavant. Then again, not everyone needs or wants this. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Who care? I just want to eat. Meow! GREG
I am not one to attribute that which I cannot understand immediately to be god(s)-perhaps I will never understand, but god(s) are not defined by my lack of understanding-this is the foundation of dogmas, the pressing of connotative values into the realm of dennotative meaning. - MOS

dclements
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Posted 07/04/09 - 04:54 AM:	#18
kNoctis wrote: The philosophy of religion forum sees the same arguments over and over. That's a complaint on two levels. 1) On an entertainment level, the thousands of variations of a few arguments leave the forums looking tired and boring. Of course, not all of the discussions follow this trend, and some of the ones that do can still produce interesting corollaries. However, for the most part, I'm interested in a different take. So, 2) The debate between theism and atheism results from confusion regarding the nature of religion and religious truth. The theist/atheist debate is a conflict between two contradictory propositions - a: God literally and factually exists, and b: (a) is false. Both sides hold to what they believe is a literal fact regarding the truths of religion. I understand the feeling as so may times I see people that argue the same ideas and principles, however ever so often there is a new idea or perceptive that almost makes the aggravation worthwhile. As to your first complaint, part of the reason people debate God instead of something else is that God is an easier subject then arguing about more unpleasant subjects. In a way it method avoiding truths that we don't what to think about why at the same time being able to tell ourselves that we are actually trying to find the truth. As to your second complaint, I don't really see it as a debate between theist and atheist as more of a debate between theists as to what the nature of God is. This is due that I come from a Nihilist or extreme skeptic perspective and believe that people arguing whether there is a God or there is scientific progress is not that much different then the debate of of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Two sides arguing that there is a purpose, but not agreeing to what that purpose is to me is pretty much moot. As long as there is a purpose then it doesn't really matter as long as we can figure it out and find out how to live our lives. The real problem from my perspective is if there never really is a purpose and there is nothing that can be done to change our situation.
No, you don't get it, thats why I'm telling you. You think you get it, which isn't the same as actually getting it. Get it?-Kakashi Hatake Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, And vice sometimes by action dignified-Friar Lawrence The state of mind that questions is much more important than the question itself.Any question may be asked by a slavish mind, and the answer it receives will still be be within the limitations of its own slavery...Freedom of desire for an answer is essential for the understanding of a problem-Krishnamurti

Death Monkey
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Posted 07/04/09 - 06:31 AM:	#19
kNoctis, Do you believe that a personal God exists? If so, then you are a theist. And likewise I am an atheist because I do not believe that a personal God exists. Yes, I believe that God exists - insofar that I interpret the divine as God. That is how I see it. That is what inspires me. Seeing the divine reality as God allows me to put it in a context in which I am most comfortable. It allows me to refer to the divine reality in ways in which I can comprehend. No, I believe that God doesn't exist - insofar as I believe that 'God' is not the true representation of the divine. It is not God, strictly speaking, anymore than it is Brahman, Nirvana, Zoroaster, or the Universe. If you're incapable of accepting both of these propositions at once, then I don't know what to tell you. They're not contradictory. In two different respects, I'm both a theist and an atheist. So this "divine" is something that you believe exists. That's fine. Whether you choose to call it "god" or not, is not what is at issue. All that matters with respect to the question of whether or not you are a theist is whether you believe that this "divine" qualifies as being a "personal god" or not. So while I am perfectly capable of accepting both of your propositions at once, that simply has no relevance to the question of theism vs atheism. Unless I am misunderstanding your above two propositions, you do not believe that what you choose to call "god" actually literally qualifies as being a personal god. If this is correct, then you are an atheist. The fact that you believe that something exists that you choose to call "god" is completely irrelevant to this. Anyway, please understand that I am not trying to address your views on religion here. I am just pointing out that you seem to be misunderstanding what the whole theism vs atheism thing is all about. It has nothing to do with the belief/disbelief in obscure metaphysical or philosophical notions of the "divine" that people choose, for whatever reason, to refer to as "god". It has to do with the belief/disbelief in a sentient being that created and/or holds dominion over the universe. DM
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kNoctis
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Posted 07/04/09 - 12:40 PM:	#20
ciceronianus wrote: If your point is that this seemingly endless debate is the result of some kind of misunderstanding, or misuse of language, I think you're wrong. I think I'm right, and until you critique my argument and not my conclusion, I'll continue thinking that way. aufbau87 wrote: But the whole idea of acquaintance is tied up with description. You cannot meaningfully separate the two. Yes you can. People do it all of the time. When you see a sunset that leaves you speechless, when you have an awkward social moment and don't know what to say, when you have a comfortable silence with a lover, these are all moments when you have knowledge by acquaintance without knowledge by description. Death Monkey wrote: Unless I am misunderstanding your above two propositions, you do not believe that what you choose to call "god" actually literally qualifies as being a personal god. If this is correct, then you are an atheist. I don't know if I choose to call it God anymore than I chose to be brought up in the Christian religion. That's my culture and that's how I identify it. It's no coincidence that 95% of people who are religious belong to the religion that they were raised in. Death Monkey wrote: Anyway, please understand that I am not trying to address your views on religion here. I am just pointing out that you seem to be misunderstanding what the whole theism vs atheism thing is all about. It has nothing to do with the belief/disbelief in obscure metaphysical or philosophical notions of the "divine" that people choose, for whatever reason, to refer to as "god". It has to do with the belief/disbelief in a sentient being that created and/or holds dominion over the universe. I think you under-appreciate the right for someone to classify his or her own religious views as they see fit. One of the consequences of my view is that the classification of someone's religious beliefs is set by how the believer classifies him/herself, not by someone on the outside looking in. I'm a theist, for I believe in God. The fact that my classification conflicts with how other people would classify me does not concern me, since a theist/atheist classification is on a first order theory of religion, and my view explains how disagreements on a first order scale stem from a misapplication of religious language. The view I am proposing makes whatever theist/atheist classification I may fall under irrelevant. It's as if I am arguing for the meta-ethical position of moral anti-realism, and you're making a big deal that moral anti-realism entails that I'm not utilitarian. I understand that you're not trying to directly critique my view, but I still fail to see how whether I'm an atheist or theist according on a first order view makes any difference whatsoever. Edited by kNoctis on 07/04/09 - 03:46 PM. Reason: double post

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