Atheism teaches nothing.

[Yfelsung]

So, you don't believe in divinity then?

If you believe in something, it's a belief.

You have already said it is an appeal to emotion, not logic.

If you stand behind a concept, a belief, a perception etc, etc, etc, that cannot be logically proven and you rely on appealing instead to a person's "feelings", not their intellect, to prove its existence then you're argument, at it's core, is intellectually dishonest.

Your "divinity" remains, what I believe to be intentionally, undefined with any concrete meaning. Your only method of conveying this concept is through analogy and metaphor and not the direct discussion of the core idea. You circle and circle and circle but never get to a coherent point.

You are reminiscent of the creationist who refuses to define "kind" because by placing a concrete definition on it you know full well anybody with half a brain will be able to logically shred the idea to pieces.

You have a belief. That belief is that reality is divine. As much as you'd like to avoid sounding like the average theist, you are the average theist who just hides god in a new word, in a new place and you probably don't even realize this. For some, God is an all powerful being. For you, god has become a "perceptual evaluation of the cosmos".

Since it is impossible to have an intellectually honest debate with a person who's only stance is an utter and complete appeal to emotion, I'm going to ignore you from here on out.

Have a good one.

 

[mirandansa]

So, you don't believe in divinity then?

If you believe in something, it's a belief.

belief
- the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/belief/

Must i say "i believe in divinity" because i hold "the cosmos appears divine to me" true? That's like saying "i believe in beauty" because i hold "the painting appears beautiful to me" true. This "i believe in X" statement is quite redundant here. I don't have to believe in beauty in order to experience beauty. Likewise, i don't have to hold a belief in divinity in order to perceive divinity.

You have already said it is an appeal to emotion, not logic.

It didn't say it was an appeal not to logic. What i meant was that emotions are necessary for the qualitative landscape in question. For instance, if YouTuber tooltime9901 says "Tool's live was awesome", the statement pertains to no more logic than emotions; he says the live was awesome not just because he is interested in its truth value but more because he wants to express his direct emotional experience itself. And you would not understand how "awesome" it was unless you experienced it for yourself with a certain degree of sensibility and appreciation.

If you stand behind a concept, a belief, a perception etc, etc, etc, that cannot be logically proven and you rely on appealing instead to a person's "feelings",

I rely on appealing to a person's subjectivity, yes.

not their intellect, to prove its existence

Its "existence" or manifestation is contingent upon subjectivity. A song's quality depends on a person's capability to appreciate it. Unless you have the actual experience of it, you just fall short of the sense data itself, and you cannot operate your intellect on it in the first place.

then you're argument, at it's core, is intellectually dishonest.

I say you need the actual experience of it in order for you to perceive it. I cannot suggest otherwise. It's just how the thing works. I'm no more intellectually dishonest than people who say "you won't know the taste of truffles unless you find one and actually eat it". What you are doing, on the other hand, is like saying "Prove that the taste you have of truffles exists; don't ask me to find one and actually experience it". You are the one who is intellectually convoluted.

Your "divinity" remains, what I believe to be intentionally, undefined with any concrete meaning. Your only method of conveying this concept is through analogy and metaphor and not the direct discussion of the core idea. You circle and circle and circle but never get to a coherent point.

How can you expect any "concrete" meaning for a term that refers to the qualitative whole of the cosmos? Nonetheless, i have to offer you this explanation (and this is not the first time i bring up this video):



A significant part of my new understanding of theism derives from Professoranton's videos (before that, i kept identifying exclusively with atheism for more than 3 years). I'm not a native English speaker and i sometimes have difficulty articulating ideas, so i suggest you talk to this gentleman if you want more language-based explications of the "divinity" i observe.

You are reminiscent of the creationist who refuses to define "kind" because by placing a concrete definition on it you know full well anybody with half a brain will be able to logically shred the idea to pieces.

"kind" is obviously supposed to have a concrete meaning, because it's an ontological framework to account for various sets of physical properties of lifeforms. We ask creationists to define it; unless they do, there is no reason for us to consider "kind" as a working term for doing biology.

"divinity" is completely different. It's not an analytic tool. I don't use it to analyse the physical world. It's a mistake on your part to expect it to be a rigorous intellectual device. It's just a content of direct experience.

As much as you'd like to avoid sounding like the average theist, you are the average theist who just hides god in a new word, in a new place and you probably don't even realize this. For some, God is an all powerful being. For you, god has become a "perceptual evaluation of the cosmos".

God is not the evaluation; it is what is perceived through the evaluation, through direct and deep appreciation of the cosmos.

What you don't realise, on the other hand, is that your conception of God is largely fixated on the West one that has been moulded by polytheistic and monotheistic religions. You, as well as many other atheists, lack insights into non-religious non-supernatural notions of God observed especially in the East.

Since it is impossible to have an intellectually honest debate with a person who's only stance is an utter and complete appeal to emotion, I'm going to ignore you from here on out.

"Debate"? I'm not really debating. You are the one who have been making it unnecessarily argumentative due to your materialist disregard for subjective experience. My contention, if any, is that you have to respect your own direct experience if you are to understand what i'm talking about.

 

[DeathofSpeech]

Strawman fallacy.

You still don't realise i was imitating what you did for "theist"?

In other words you substituted a statement I didn't make for one that I did make, because you had no argument with the statement I did make.

Unless you actually intend to demonstrate that it is possible of a theist to be a subset of atheist, whether you can count to three is irrelevant.

I'm not saying that the category of "theist" can be a subset of the category of "atheist". That would be illogical, plainly.

So you spent at least a page of useless threadcrapping with no point and no purpose other than threadcrapping.

What i'm saying is that someone who exhibits theism in one dialogue can exhibit atheism in another dialogue. Person A can be a theist in relation to Christianity but an atheist in relation to Islam. Likewise, person B can be an atheist to Christianity but a theist to panentheism. Do you understand? "Atheism" (as well as "theism") is situational and contextual, dependent upon the notion of God at stake in a given dialogue. To ignore that would be to commit inappropriately divisive tribalism.

And the relevancy of this statement to mine is supported by your ability to count the operands in an inclusive disjunction?

Is this the result of you being god in your own little universe or should I attribute it to recreational drug use?

 

[mirandansa]

What i'm saying is that someone who exhibits theism in one dialogue can exhibit atheism in another dialogue. Person A can be a theist in relation to Christianity but an atheist in relation to Islam. Likewise, person B can be an atheist to Christianity but a theist to panentheism. Do you understand? "Atheism" (as well as "theism") is situational and contextual, dependent upon the notion of God at stake in a given dialogue. To ignore that would be to commit inappropriately divisive tribalism.

And the relevancy of this statement to mine is supported by your ability to count the operands in an inclusive disjunction?

That's obviously a different point. And what i counted were not the operands but the propositions.

The above statement is a criticism of your simplification and generalisation. When Christians like mrpleasantpreacher burn Qur'an, they are an explicit strong atheist with regard to Islam, but you excluded them and fallaciously attributed three "Has no belief" to "atheist". Self-righteously. You yourself identify with atheism in relation to Christianity, Islam etc., and you don't like the fact that Christians and Muslims are also atheists in relation to Islam and Christianity respectively. You also failed to take into account certain types of theism such as pantheism and panentheism which may well not believe in "Creator", and ended up presenting three "Creators" (Pagan's, Deism's, and Christianity's). Again, very misleading.

Is this the result of you being god in your own little universe or should I attribute it to recreational drug use?

This is the result of you being intellectually dishonest.

You still don't realise i was imitating what you did for "theist"?

In other words you substituted a statement I didn't make for one that I did make, because you had no argument with the statement I did make.

No such substitution. Just imitation. I imitated you so that you would get a clue as to what was wrong with your diagram.

I'm not saying that the category of "theist" can be a subset of the category of "atheist". That would be illogical, plainly.

So you spent at least a page of useless threadcrapping with no point and no purpose other than threadcrapping.

I did make a point. Your diagram was misleading, and i pointed that out. Then you ignored my point.

 

[Zetetic]

I greatly appreciated your response. Thank you for your time.

Well, I try to sort whatever the issue is out and represent it as I see it as clearly as possible. There is too much of a tendency to ridicule and too much self righteousness in the atheist movement. Once someone is no longer in an organized religion there is a push to drop any religious affiliation at all. Once you do that it is expected that you will be totally comfortable with the idea of atheism instantly, and then it is expected that you will read science blogs all day and cheer for people like Thunderf00t and do various other cliquish activities. There is a natural progression to enlightened thought and I think that it essentially is a never ending progression. There is always a new bias to be uncovered and a new revelation about an irrational tendency that is holding you back.

We should concentrate on fighting fundamentalism and destructive behaviors in general and find common ground with the liberal religious and the spiritual. It doesn't matter if we think you're wrong in principle because of our background and ideology, or that your worldview doesn't totally line up with ours. It's really pedantic after a certain point. You can't force Occham's razor on someone. There isn't a perfect argument for it's acceptance as a global principle. There are augments that many scientifically and academically inclined people find convincing. I find it to be a good heuristic and I think it lets me view the world more clearly, without clutter. If you have a different point of view, I can't expect you to simply agree because I present the arguement to you. It takes a period of time for some ideas to sink in and even longer to be comfortable with readily accepting or rejecting the principles I support and would argue for.

Maybe you will decide one day that you would like to start framing the subjective in terms of pragmatic and mechanical terms and that it will lead to a clearer understanding of the world. Maybe you will come up with a more useful alternative. Maybe you already have the right balance in terms of optimizing your utility. I don't know. Anyone who digs Guthrie Govan can't be all bad.

 

[Zetetic]

So, you don't believe in divinity then?

If you believe in something, it's a belief.

You have already said it is an appeal to emotion, not logic.

If you stand behind a concept, a belief, a perception etc, etc, etc, that cannot be logically proven and you rely on appealing instead to a person's "feelings", not their intellect, to prove its existence then you're argument, at it's core, is intellectually dishonest.

This seems wrong in several ways, one that is very interesting. Consider ethical argumentation. It totally reduces to complex and interconnected emotional appeals. You relate a concept that you disagree with with something that someone else disagrees with. You show that they are similar. In doing so, you are trying to goad them into viewing their own positions as contradictory. The beliefs often are too loose to be contradictory in a strict sense, so what is really going on? You get them to transfer their feelings about one frame onto another by framing one action/event in terms of another. I find it hard to conclude that this is really intellectually dishonest as it is the only way I know of to make a convincing ethical appeal.

I'm sorry for this but I need to nitpick here and say that logically proving something exists is impossible. It's rooted in early enlightenment style rationalism and flies in the face of empirical inquiry. You can make assumptions and make a prediction and then, if the probability of the event/entity occurring/being somewhere detectable is high enough you can take a look around for it, but logically proving an empirical claim isn't sound.

I don't get why the statement "It is to embrace a certain qualitative perceptual whole that manifests through deepest appreciation of reality. Neither only happiness nor only sadness" doesn't make it clear to you that you aren't really arguing an important point and that what this person's position is, is that they feel a strong emotional connection to the wonder of the universe that they would liken to sitting in awe of something of tremendous power and beauty. It seems very simple and straightforward, that is, if I understand it properly.

 

[DeathofSpeech]

What i'm saying is that someone who exhibits theism in one dialogue can exhibit atheism in another dialogue. Person A can be a theist in relation to Christianity but an atheist in relation to Islam. Likewise, person B can be an atheist to Christianity but a theist to panentheism. Do you understand? "Atheism" (as well as "theism") is situational and contextual, dependent upon the notion of God at stake in a given dialogue. To ignore that would be to commit inappropriately divisive tribalism.

Which has already been adequately demonstrated (and which you have agreed) is bullshit.

I'm not saying that the category of "theist" can be a subset of the category of "atheist". That would be illogical, plainly.

That's obviously a different point. And what i counted were not the operands but the propositions.

(Theism) OR (Deism) OR (Pagan). Inclusive disjunction... if any condition is TRUE the statement (Has Belief in God(s)) is true.
Not how many beliefs... That was your side trip, not mine. The inadequacy of your argument is not my failing.

The above statement is a criticism of your simplification and generalisation. When Christians like mrpleasantpreacher burn Qur'an, they are an explicit strong atheist with regard to Islam, but you excluded them and fallaciously attributed three "Has no belief" to "atheist". Self-righteously.

The proposition was not mine. I commented upon it.
You were the one who decided that adding up a logic table was somehow appropriate without making any statement of why this is somehow the more appropriate way to interpret the logical condition. Now... since you insist that mrpleasantpreacher must have a theological belief in order to be militantly opposed to Islam, you will now explain what that belief must be OTHER than that he is militantly opposed to batshit that he doesn't believe in. He has ample reason to be offended with Islam, none of which include a deity or belief in magic of any kind, which is the relevant point. If your answer can't be relevant, I don't want to hear another circular round about how believing in gods isn't necessarily a theistic belief.

You will limit your explanation to ONLY that which is in evidence. I'm fucking tired of you going off on page long side quests when you find yourself cornered with your own fallacious assertions. You will substantiate that your assertion that my logic table was an inappropriate and dishonest assertion based upon the theistic belief you insist that mrpleasantpreacher must have in order to find islam offensive. I will expect and accept nothing less. You will now validate your assertion.

You yourself identify with atheism in relation to Christianity, Islam etc., and you don't like the fact that Christians and Muslims are also atheists in relation to Islam and Christianity respectively. You also failed to take into account certain types of theism such as pantheism and panentheism which may well not believe in "Creator", and ended up presenting three "Creators" (Pagan's, Deism's, and Christianity's). Again, very misleading.

You will now substantiate that I "identify with atheism in relation to Christianity, Islam etc." and that this allows and requires that I have some other theistic belief that validates your assertion.
I expressed EXACTLY in this thread that I have a positive and GENERAL disbelief, which you have ignored. You have also ignored that what you are saying in this sentence directly contradicts your admission that (once again)

I'm not saying that the category of "theist" can be a subset of the category of "atheist". That would be illogical, plainly.

pantheism, is adequately defined as paganism, and while I made no special accommodation for your particular obsession because my posting was not meant to be comprehensive.
panentheism, is addressable, as several people have already pointed out as just another theistic belief. I am under no obligation to specifically address imaginary friends that are particularly imaginary.

Do you actually expect me to redefine a word for you based upon your desires?

You still don't realise i was imitating what you did for "theist"?

Evasion.

No such substitution. Just imitation. I imitated you so that you would get a clue as to what was wrong with your diagram.

I asked you to specify what was wrong with it and you couldn't.

I'm not saying that the category of "theist" can be a subset of the category of "atheist". That would be illogical, plainly.

Do you remember yet?

I did make a point. Your diagram was misleading, and i pointed that out. Then you ignored my point.

Shall we again?

I'm not saying that the category of "theist" can be a subset of the category of "atheist". That would be illogical, plainly.

Do you remember yet?


You made no point. You fabricated a strawman and demonstrated no error in my answer. You simply substituted, asserted and whined.
Since you denied that you had a real argument when confronted about what I posted, claiming again that my posting was "dishonest" now is a lie and an additional attempt to resurrect your strawman. If you had argument with it, then you should have made the argument rather than admitting that such an argument would be untrue.

What you've been trying to do throughout several threads, is to force an ill-formed assertion of a badly defined mysticism upon whatever the thread happens to be.
When faced with questions you flood the tread with tonnage of video babble and misappropriated claims of support by science which have fuckall to do with your quaint little cult. You fabricate completely irrelevant side-arguments to steer the thread to "lets talk about my cult."

Nobody sane wants to converse with you because you don't converse, you habitually preach and evade. No, my intellectual honesty doesn't extend to entertaining an argument that consists of having to have faith before I can see that you are correct and so far, despite your protests to the contrary, that is all your argument comes to.

I supplied you with peer reviewed citations of sensory function demonstrating objectively causal relationships between stimulus and response, and the architecture of that mechanism... multiple articles each worth a reasonable effort to read and within minutes, you merely asserted that they didn't demonstrate anything that you accepted as evidence due to personal bias for your cult. You provided no falsifiable alternative, just your repeated insistence.

You were requested to take your crap (and not by me) to a blog where it wouldn't flood other people's discussions with irrelevant crap and you played the "censor" card as though anyone is obligated to wade through your attic toys to carry on a conversation that doesn't revolve around your particular flavor of batshit.

How many threads do you intend to clutter with this crap?

 

[Nautyskin]

What you've been trying to do throughout several threads, is to force an ill-formed assertion of a badly defined mysticism upon whatever the thread happens to be.
When faced with questions you flood the tread with tonnage of video babble and misappropriated claims of support by science which have fuckall to do with your quaint little cult. You fabricate completely irrelevant side-arguments to steer the thread to "lets talk about my cult."

Nobody sane wants to converse with you because you don't converse, you habitually preach and evade. No, my intellectual honesty doesn't extend to entertaining an argument that consists of having to have faith before I can see that you are correct and so far, despite your protests to the contrary, that is all your argument comes to.

I supplied you with peer reviewed citations of sensory function demonstrating objectively causal relationships between stimulus and response, and the architecture of that mechanism... multiple articles each worth a reasonable effort to read and within minutes, you merely asserted that they didn't demonstrate anything that you accepted as evidence due to personal bias for your cult. You provided no falsifiable alternative, just your repeated insistence.

You were requested to take your crap (and not by me) to a blog where it wouldn't flood other people's discussions with irrelevant crap and you played the "censor" card as though anyone is obligated to wade through your attic toys to carry on a conversation that doesn't revolve around your particular flavor of batshit.

How many threads do you intend to clutter with this crap?

Gif of approval adopted from RD.net forums

 

[retardedsociety]

atheism should have nothing to do with anything else other than not believing in god, but in the end the majority of people in the world are into some sort of religion or spiritual belief, if one speaks of reason, people will immediately come to the conclusion that one is an atheist.

The only way I can counter the argument of atheism as defined by creationists "knowing for sure god does not exist", I use the common sense observation of the difference between believing and knowing.


I do not "believe" in god, but I do not "know" if there is such a thing in the first place. (Agnostic Atheist)

Belief and knowledge are two things, I know cars exist so I by default believe in them, I do not know if gods exist so by default I don't believe in gods.

Most theists mix up belief and knowledge and come to this thinking state...

I believe there is a god therefore I know there is a god (But its because they never think about it, I know, I was a Christian)

So to me two logical positions can be considered valid in society

I do not know and I don't believe

I do not know but I choose to believe anyway (Even if its illogical to me, people can believe in anything they want, but its healthy they are aware its just a belief and not a certainty, an absolute certainty that most religious people have)


The gnostic theism position to say "I know for sure", is the only thing creationists and crazy people with some sort of brain disorder hold on to, to show "evidence" which is their bronze age book and expect all of us to believe it, and in their eyes we are the crazy ones.



I believe that if atheists use this logic standpoint of belief and knowledge in debates they can make a believer think a little bit, if of course they have used their brains before (Cause most of them run on automatic).

 

[mirandansa]

pantheism, is adequately defined as paganism,

It's the other way around. And only partially. Paganism can be only partially characterised by pantheism, in addition to polytheism, shamanism, and animism. The scope is just too broad.

Also, "paganism" is a Judeo-Christian term. It would be ironic for a self-professed atheist to call non-Abrahamic pantheistic views "paganism" from the inherently Judeo-Christian viewpoint of the term.

Not only it's culturally biased, but it's ambiguous. I suggest you don't use this term.

while I made no special accommodation for your particular obsession because my posting was not meant to be comprehensive.

If you didn't intend it to be comprehensive, you could still put "Christian" instead of "theist" and "Wiccan" instead of "pagan". "theist" and "pagan" are broad umbrella terms; if you don't want to talk inclusively, just don't use them, otherwise it would render your intention contradictorily.

panentheism, is addressable, as several people have already pointed out as just another theistic belief. I am under no obligation to specifically address imaginary friends that are particularly imaginary.

Do you actually expect me to redefine a word for you based upon your desires?

For the sake of a better understanding of theism, yes.

The following statements are pantheistic:

Larry King: Do you believe in God?
Stephen Hawking: Yes, if by God is meant the embodiment of the law of the universe.
(Larry King Live, December 25, 1999)

Carl Sagan: A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge.
(Pale Blue Dot)

Albert Einstein: A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and this alone, I am a deeply religious man.
(The World as I See It)

This line of cosmological appreciation is what underlies my perception of the divinity of the cosmos, for which i am a theist.

I did make a point. Your diagram was misleading, and i pointed that out. Then you ignored my point.

Shall we again?

I'm not saying that the category of "theist" can be a subset of the category of "atheist". That would be illogical, plainly.

Do you remember yet?

Why cut out the crucial rest of my comment?

I'll tell you once again. The category of "theist" cannot be a subset of the category of "atheist". However, a person who exhibits theism in a dialogue can exhibit also atheism in another dialogue. This is the ambiguity of theism/atheism. You, like many other self-professed "atheists", ignored this fact and drew a misleading diagram by focusing on only one aspect of each category from the perspective only of non-Christian non-deist non-"pagan" atheists (i.e. your perspective) so as to assert that a "theist" has a belief but an "atheist" doesn't. Do you understand?

You made no point. You fabricated a strawman and demonstrated no error in my answer. You simply substituted, asserted and whined.

You ignore my point, that's why you don't see it.

What you've been trying to do throughout several threads, is to force an ill-formed assertion of a badly defined mysticism upon whatever the thread happens to be.

Dialogues help define ideas.

When faced with questions you flood the tread with tonnage of video babble and misappropriated claims of support by science which have fuckall to do with your quaint little cult. You fabricate completely irrelevant side-arguments to steer the thread to "lets talk about my cult."

You don't think carefully.

Nobody sane wants to converse with you because you don't converse, you habitually preach and evade. No, my intellectual honesty doesn't extend to entertaining an argument that consists of having to have faith before I can see that you are correct and so far, despite your protests to the contrary, that is all your argument comes to.

I supplied you with peer reviewed citations of sensory function demonstrating objectively causal relationships between stimulus and response, and the architecture of that mechanism... multiple articles each worth a reasonable effort to read and within minutes, you merely asserted that they didn't demonstrate anything that you accepted as evidence due to personal bias for your cult. You provided no falsifiable alternative, just your repeated insistence.

You mistook the synchronic correlation for a diachronic causation due to your materialist inclination.

You were requested to take your crap (and not by me) to a blog where it wouldn't flood other people's discussions with irrelevant crap and you played the "censor" card as though anyone is obligated to wade through your attic toys to carry on a conversation that doesn't revolve around your particular flavor of batshit.

You can just ignore the thread.

How many threads do you intend to clutter with this crap?

How many dirty words have you used to clutter this thread?

 

[Yfelsung]

So, you don't believe in divinity then?

If you believe in something, it's a belief.

You have already said it is an appeal to emotion, not logic.

If you stand behind a concept, a belief, a perception etc, etc, etc, that cannot be logically proven and you rely on appealing instead to a person's "feelings", not their intellect, to prove its existence then you're argument, at it's core, is intellectually dishonest.

This seems wrong in several ways, one that is very interesting. Consider ethical argumentation. It totally reduces to complex and interconnected emotional appeals. You relate a concept that you disagree with with something that someone else disagrees with. You show that they are similar. In doing so, you are trying to goad them into viewing their own positions as contradictory. The beliefs often are too loose to be contradictory in a strict sense, so what is really going on? You get them to transfer their feelings about one frame onto another by framing one action/event in terms of another. I find it hard to conclude that this is really intellectually dishonest as it is the only way I know of to make a convincing ethical appeal.

I'm sorry for this but I need to nitpick here and say that logically proving something exists is impossible. It's rooted in early enlightenment style rationalism and flies in the face of empirical inquiry. You can make assumptions and make a prediction and then, if the probability of the event/entity occurring/being somewhere detectable is high enough you can take a look around for it, but logically proving an empirical claim isn't sound.

I don't get why the statement "It is to embrace a certain qualitative perceptual whole that manifests through deepest appreciation of reality. Neither only happiness nor only sadness" doesn't make it clear to you that you aren't really arguing an important point and that what this person's position is, is that they feel a strong emotional connection to the wonder of the universe that they would liken to sitting in awe of something of tremendous power and beauty. It seems very simple and straightforward, that is, if I understand it properly.

Anyone who attempted to DEBATE on the subject of moral and ethical grounds is going to also run into the problem of intellectual dishonesty. Any time I've ever seen morality or ethics debated it has devolved into a train wreck of point and counter point that were ALL just emotional appeals.

Not only that, but at the very least morality has a language behind it that allows for discussion.

This whole divinity circle-jerk has been nothing but running in circles after a concept that Mirandansa refuses to define in simple, succinct terminology. They continually try to weave some tapestry of pseudo-science and metaphysical bullshit for some ephemeral idea that just comes across as putting a glaze over reality to make it more special than it is.

The entire conversation isn't even remotely intellectually stimulating. If anything, it's just an exercise in frustration. It's like arguing with any other theist, except we get divinity instead of "God".

 

[Zetetic]

Anyone who attempted to DEBATE on the subject of moral and ethical grounds is going to also run into the problem of intellectual dishonesty. Any time I've ever seen morality or ethics debated it has devolved into a train wreck of point and counter point that were ALL just emotional appeals.

Not only that, but at the very least morality has a language behind it that allows for discussion.

This whole divinity circle-jerk has been nothing but running in circles after a concept that Mirandansa refuses to define in simple, succinct terminology. They continually try to weave some tapestry of pseudo-science and metaphysical bullshit for some ephemeral idea that just comes across as putting a glaze over reality to make it more special than it is.

The entire conversation isn't even remotely intellectually stimulating. If anything, it's just an exercise in frustration. It's like arguing with any other theist, except we get divinity instead of "God".

I just interpret it as what it is, this person feels particular emotions in relation to the 'cosmos'. They call that emotional experience they feel when considering the cosmos 'spirituality' and because the comos gives them certain sensations the call it 'divine'. That is what I see here. I don't see the point in argument, it just leads to hyperbolic rhetoric and the comparison of using a word you dislike to fundamentalism. The two aren't comparable. We need to be willing to put up with things that don't totally gel with our worldview if we are going to make any progress towards promoting a more enlightened view of the world we live in.

I don't think that the animosity towards this type of view is totally rational. It is certainly detrimental to any effort beyond preaching to the choir. You have to deal with the real issues before you can nitpick potential allies. It seems counter productive. If you want to start a huge pointless debate over whether, say, deism is tenable, you're not really acting rationally. As long as a belief structure doesn't conflict with reality, it isn't bad. If you take the view of more liberal Christians that listen to NPR and go to Presbyterian churches, for instance, they often concede that if they have a belief and it is somehow challenged by evidence they would adapt to that evidence. What you end up doing is arguing against the god of the gaps, which is totally unproductive. Let the deists have an extraneous metaphysical framework that they are willing to adapt to evidence. If they are demonstrably not doing so, then fine, but what is the point of arguing over WORDS that clearly make NO PHYSICAL CLAIM. You are trying to sniff out a problem where there isn't one!

Really, I mean, you can't win a battle when you would effectively exclude Carl Sagan because he 'smacks of fundamentalism'. I cite the following;

Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light-years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the the presence of great art or music or literature, or of acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr.

The notion that science and spirituality are mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.

Carl Sagan (1934 - 1996)

This is what is being proposed (I give as evidence the relevant video of Sagan posted by Mirandansa to illustrate the point), nothing more nothing less. You took exception to the world divinity, and built a straw-creationist and are trying to beat it apart. I don't see how this is a reasonable or useful attitude. It's a big problem in the Atheist movement. In fact, the tendency to argue the small points has been the death of countless intellectual movements.

It just happens that in your view this person has adopted a less useful outlook than yourself. You may be right. You still wouldn't have any stable refutation of a logically and empirically consistent form of pantheism as is being displayed here. If a person is willing to change beliefs based on empirical evidence and good reasoning, that is enough. If they have an additional appendage to their worldview that is totally compatible with scientific progress and does not objectively damage them ( it doesn't seem to be the case here) then your point is moot. You can't argue for any more than that on a level that is more sound than an ethical appeal. If they start drawing bad conclusions from their belief, such as the universe is a conscious whole in the same way that a human is a conscious being then you can demand good evidence and point out that it is an unsupported and therefore arbitrary sort of claim that you don't respect or pay any heed to. That is fine; but before such conclusions are clearly drawn, there is no point in pursuing the discussion.

 

[DeathofSpeech]

Closed captioned for the mirandansa impared...

pantheism, is adequately defined as paganism,

It's the other way around. And only partially. Paganism can be only partially characterised by pantheism, in addition to polytheism, shamanism, and animism. The scope is just too broad.

Also, "paganism" is a Judeo-Christian term. It would be ironic for a self-professed atheist to call non-Abrahamic pantheistic views "paganism" from the inherently Judeo-Christian viewpoint of the term.

Not only it's culturally biased, but it's ambiguous. I suggest you don't use this term.

Means:" I suggest you not use common usage definitions as they may be generally understood which is contrary to my interests."

If you didn't intend it to be comprehensive, you could still put "Christian" instead of "theist" and "Wiccan" instead of "pagan". "theist" and "pagan" are broad umbrella terms; if you don't want to talk inclusively, just don't use them, otherwise it would render your intention contradictorily.

Means: "I want everyone to use my definitions, because I said so."

panentheism, is addressable, as several people have already pointed out as just another theistic belief. I am under no obligation to specifically address imaginary friends that are particularly imaginary.

Do you actually expect me to redefine a word for you based upon your desires?

For the sake of a better understanding of theism, yes.

Means: "Yes, from now on you will use the words I decide are appropriate. "Car" will now be called "Toaster." "

The following statements are pantheistic:

Larry King: Do you believe in God?
Stephen Hawking: Yes, if by God is meant the embodiment of the law of the universe.
(Larry King Live, December 25, 1999)

Carl Sagan: A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge.
(Pale Blue Dot)

Albert Einstein: A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and this alone, I am a deeply religious man.
(The World as I See It)

This line of cosmological appreciation is what underlies my perception of the divinity of the cosmos, for which i am a theist.

Means: I see evidence for my cult everywhere... have some more useless examples... look at me!!!

Dialogues help define ideas.

Means:" If I can't get you to agree, I'll turn the rest of the forum into a gigantic monument to my batshit."

You don't think carefully.

Means: "You think that the only standard of evidence that applies to an objective reality is objective evidence."

You mistook the synchronic correlation for a diachronic causation due to your materialist inclination.

Means: "You're biased toward that which you can quantify.... even though that is contrary to my cult. Evil biased naturalist."

You can just ignore the thread.

Means: "I'll threadcrap any thread I please and force everyone to wade through my useless clutter or abandon the thread. There is nothing you can do to regain the utility of the thread. I control the horizontal. I control the vertical."

How many dirty words have you used to clutter this thread?

Means: "How dare you express indignation at my force feeding you batshit? It's perfectly good batshit and you will believe in it as soon as you let me shove it down your throat"

 

[PavelRave]

Here is my reply. What does it teach us? Well, here you go. :twisted:

 

[Story]

Here is my reply. What does it teach us? Well, here you go. :twisted:

Thanks for your reply, but this isn't specifically what atheism teaches, but how the state of atheism is being free of one powerful delusion "God" and how being free of that allows us to apply the simple logic of nature to our life.

 

[mirandansa]

Means:" I suggest you not use common usage definitions as they may be generally understood which is contrary to my interests."

What you call "common" is basically "Western". Your definition of God is so narrow that it excludes non-Western non-supernatural ones in pantheism and panentheism. You are not trying to think outside of your cultural box.

If you didn't intend it to be comprehensive, you could still put "Christian" instead of "theist" and "Wiccan" instead of "pagan". "theist" and "pagan" are broad umbrella terms; if you don't want to talk inclusively, just don't use them, otherwise it would render your intention contradictorily.

Means: "I want everyone to use my definitions, because I said so."

Be honest. The theists who believe in Jesus Christ are Christians.

For the sake of a better understanding of theism, yes.

Means: "Yes, from now on you will use the words I decide are appropriate. "Car" will now be called "Toaster." "

Ridiculous.

The following statements are pantheistic:

Larry King: Do you believe in God?
Stephen Hawking: Yes, if by God is meant the embodiment of the law of the universe.
(Larry King Live, December 25, 1999)

Carl Sagan: A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge.
(Pale Blue Dot)

Albert Einstein: A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and this alone, I am a deeply religious man.
(The World as I See It)

This line of cosmological appreciation is what underlies my perception of the divinity of the cosmos, for which i am a theist.

Means: I see evidence for my cult everywhere... have some more useless examples... look at me!!!

Relax.

Dialogues help define ideas.

Means:" If I can't get you to agree, I'll turn the rest of the forum into a gigantic monument to my batshit."

If you don't understand my view, you are welcome to ask me questions.

You don't think carefully.

Means: "You think that the only standard of evidence that applies to an objective reality is objective evidence."

Evidence for an objective truth is objective, yes.

You mistook the synchronic correlation for a diachronic causation due to your materialist inclination.

Means: "You're biased toward that which you can quantify.... even though that is contrary to my cult. Evil biased naturalist."

Naturalism is different from materialism. I'm not a materialist, but i'm a naturalist. Subjective experiences are as natural as objective processes. You, on the other hand, ignore the former, claiming that only the latter is natural and real. You are biased.

You can just ignore the thread.

Means: "I'll threadcrap any thread I please and force everyone to wade through my useless clutter or abandon the thread. There is nothing you can do to regain the utility of the thread. I control the horizontal. I control the vertical."

Relax.

How many dirty words have you used to clutter this thread?

Means: "How dare you express indignation at my force feeding you batshit? It's perfectly good batshit and you will believe in it as soon as you let me shove it down your throat"

Think carefully, and speak carefully.

 

[Zetetic]

<i>
</i>                                 atheist          pagan         deist       theist
Gaea                               0               1             0            0
"something"                        0               0             1            0
Jesus                              0               0             0            1
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Has a belief                       0               1             1            1
Has no belief                      1               0             0            0

That's self-righteous and misleading, taking into account only partial aspects of atheism (and theism).

First of all, if what constitutes atheism is only "has no belief" in relation to the above 3 categories, why call it exclusively "a-theist" rather than "a-theist/pagan/deist"?

To Mirandansa: Theism implicitly includes any belief in a deity by definition (not by the specific definition though, which was also misused here). If you believe in a deity, you are a theist. If you believe in no deity, you are an atheist. The specific usage indicates a personal, single creator god. This is broader than was indicated here. Pantheism does not fall under the specific term, but falls under the broader meaning.

To DEATHofSPEECH: Theists don't believe in 'Jesus'. That is a totally incoherent use of the word. First of all, Jesus could very easily have been based on a cult leader or a sort of Socratesian philosopher (in the sense that he had radical ideas for the time and was persecuted for them, but he takes it a step further, or at least those who recorded his works did). In a sense there are many parallels between Jesus and Socrates. Both of them have questionable existence ) we aren't totally sure if there was a man that the writings were based on (we are fairly certain, certainly more certain that Socrates was a historical figure than Jesus was, but both are highly plausible). Both of them had radical ideas for their time, whether or not you think one was more or less correct in his thinking. Both of them were persecuted for their proselytizing and both of them faced their punishments for ideological reasons.

I'm not a theist, I'm an empiricists and rationalist. I think that it is quite plausible that Jesus existed, in the sense that there was likely some person whom the accounts in the bible were based on. I also believe in Muhammad, but his existence is fairly well documented. Do I believe either one was divine or supernatural? No. Do I believe, more precisely, that they had unusual characteristics that do not fit what we would consider human? No.

As I stated above, you totally misused the term theism, which is in it's broader meaning even more broad than deism and it's specific meaning, would not exclude any monotheistic religion.

As was already mentioned, paganism is also much broader than you present it in your diagram.

That being said, your point was clearly that atheism is distinct from any theistic view by virtue of it's philosophy. There is a categorical rejection of non-verifiable entities. Empiricism would further dictate that you frame as much as possible in terms of the concrete in order to maintain the clearest view of the world around you without being confused by metaphysical clutter.

Secondly, in addition to the fact that you reduced the 3 items in which atheists have no belief to "1", you clearly omitted items in which non-atheists may as well have no belief:

<i>
</i>                                 atheist          creationist
Evolution                           ?                  0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Has a belief                        ?                  0
Has no belief                       ?                  1

You said "Just because you do not believe in a specific god, does not mean you are a subset of atheist."; so, what makes a subset of atheist? "Has no belief"? You might then say "It should specifically concern a belief in God"; but what exactly is this category of "God" from which you drew "Gaea", "something", and "Jesus"? Is this a category of a being, a guy? Do you think that's the most comprehensive category of "God" with reference to which we can examine atheism properly?

This is why the term Atheism is epistemically/ontologically incomplete/misleading. I prefer the Ignostic position. Atheism allows the arguement to jump ahead and skip a step, then we end up with a whole mess. Ignosticism is a portmanteau of ignorance and Gnosis. I am ignorant of any knowledge of God. Actually, it means that I am ignorant of any definition of God that is both valid and well defined enough to be verifiable. This directly confronts the problem you are talking about but it brings up another one. There is the confusion that I do not include emotional relations to ideas. If an idea is useful, I say that we should adopt it. Why not have a sort of religious drive towards finding out how the universe works and how we can manipulate it to our advantage? This seems like it would be of great utility. I think that Sagan saw this, and knew that it would lead to an increase in respect for science and progress in general.

What if we take into account more general kinds of cosmological views? One of the reasons with which i reject supernatural "Creator" is because i'm convinced that "Nature" is capable of self-creating and self-organising. That makes me an atheist. Not the only reason for being an atheist, but there are people who started calling themselves an atheist because of such realisation. These people became atheists because they lost the belief in "Creator" and found a new one in "Nature", thereby discrediting "Creator":

Also, i evaluate "Nature" as "divine" rather than "not divine". That makes me a theist as well:

<i>
</i>                                  theist
Nature = not divine                 0
Nature = divine                     1
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Perceive divinity                   1

I wanted to ask you this: Divinity implies one of two things- (a)that the divine object is a God (b) That the divine object comes from a God. You have stated above that you reject a creator God from which the universe came. So you must believe that the Universe is God. Or do you?

I want to know: do you identify with this position :

The core of Naturalistic Pantheism is reverence for the real Universe, as progressively revealed by the scientific method and by our senses. Thus Naturalistic Pantheism does not believe in any creator deity distinct from nature, rather nature itself is the self-creating source of all being. Although Naturalistic Pantheism does not include belief in a personal afterlife, it does promote the idea of naturalistic forms of afterlife including genetic inheritance, persistence through memories and the results of actions, and recycling of human physical elements in Nature. -WIKIPEDIA.NATURALISTIC_PANTHEISM

As opposed to thinking that literally, the universe is a GOD (a concept that creates a lot of cognitive dissonance for me)?

DEATHof SPEECH: I want to point out to you that if mirandansa agrees that Naturistic Pantheism is his/her point of view, then he or she would be on good terms with Richard Dawkins, who called that view 'sexed-up atheism'.

 

[DeathofSpeech]

@Zetetic

Not gonna waste a huge amount of time on refucking hashing this.

The column left are examples of specific beliefs. The header row is the category into which they would most likely fit. Deal with it.

I'm done with looneyvision. Have a nice chat with mirandansa.