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Post by radioear on May 3, 2007 18:25:41 GMT -5
Yesterday at 4:32pm, Ixthusdan wrote: Atheism is indeed "not God" in its orientation.
Paragon wrote:
It is not. Some atheists may believe no god can exist. Some may not. As I've stated before, atheists simply subscribe to no theological beliefs. So IS that the opposite of believing in a God? I give that a big YES!
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Post by Paragon on May 3, 2007 18:35:19 GMT -5
Yesterday at 4:32pm, Ixthusdan wrote: Atheism is indeed "not God" in its orientation. Paragon wrote: It is not. Some atheists may believe no god can exist. Some may not. As I've stated before, atheists simply subscribe to no theological beliefs. So IS that the opposite of believing in a God? I give that a big YES! I am an atheist. I believe it is not impossible for a supreme being of some sort (aka God) to exist.
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Post by thatguy on May 3, 2007 19:45:00 GMT -5
In full disclosure I must admit that I am in no way trained, inclined, or interested in philosophy and the alleged in sites it supports. I had to take one philosophy course in college, it was and interesting distraction from my science courses to say the least. Anyway, being one semester it was a broad survey course. One of the first things we were given was a handout a couple of pages long. It had what for all practical purposes were formulas. These 'formulas' were a depiction of how to design and write a creditable philosophical argument. We then proceeded to read passages and chapters from the great philosophers and among other discussions determine which of the formulas the philosopher was using. What I took away from this class, the synopsis of the whole semester was that you can say any ridiculous stream of thought and as long as it follows one of the formulas you have a logical, and reasoned argument. Philosophy is fun in a musing "what would happen/be/if/(whatever thing strikes you fancy)" type of mental exercise. But I don't particularly value it. If I remember correctly Kant was a real pain in the ass to understand and follow what he was trying to say. That being said I am not going to expend the energy in my lifetime to read his works carefully enough to refute it.
Quote: Atheists must argue for a source of an ethical or moral basis since matters of faith are most frequently used for such things. Inevitably, ethical and moral values seem to arise "from outside" of one's own self concept. If not, then the self is the only frame of reference for these values. This boils down to "whatever is good for me is what is good." The problem is that even atheists have difficulty with such a notion; it flies in the face of all human history. People who act like this are found in prisons or mental institution, suffering from a variety of personality disorder. But all of this is rather academic. I do not wish to patronize you and have no idea how much of the basics I need to cover.
Now just because religion has been the vehicle to frame ethical and moral decisions does not make it the only way or the reason we have basic moral compasses as a group. There is nothing to say that our basic altruistic impulses are a result of these traits being naturally selected over time. Just because these impulses have been framed with religious terms does not mean that I as an atheist do not have this basic moral compass. I think that paragon made very good examples of these basic impulses that we describe as ethics and morals in a non-religious way and ones that generally we can all agree on.
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Post by ixthusdan on May 3, 2007 21:59:19 GMT -5
It saddens me that your exposure to philosophy was bankrupt of any real depth. Fortunately, you sound like you have the ability to rise above your inadequacies.
I gather your understanding of Kant is not enough to make comment. It might be best to clearly state that rather than name calling or trying to fuzz the fact. Obviously, your rejection of the subject does not remove its importance to the field exploring this, a field consisting of atheists and people of faith. Then you should at least understand that these discussions we are theoretically engaged in are not new and certainly not complete.
BTW, so that you all understand, "atheism" is derived from the Greek "theos." To negate a word, an alpha was prefixed, "a." So, when I told you "not God," I was giving you nothing but factual information based upon language. Your rejection of facts is curious.
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Post by voltage on May 3, 2007 22:35:50 GMT -5
First off, name calling should be saved for the topics like "Why I can't think of alternative use of communication." and "Profanity is man-talk." If you wish to use it here, I will be delighted to give you a warning now. The next will be a pm, and the next a temporary ban. I have viewed the topic with extreme objectivity (hard to do) and I see a provocation (Paragon, Thatguy,) and a retaliation (Ixthus) which was indeed a quote. You say in one post that you do not wish to be mistaken for something else, and then you go call Ixthusdan's opinion BS. I think that until you can keep from stomping all over everyone else's toes, you should stop squealing about your bad reputation. The last thing we need in a topic as hot is this is someone who cannot uphold there debate without making a statement which has the one intention of starting a fight. This whole "BS flag" is downright juvenile, and if you want to wave it, wave it at yourself since the only one who is expressing an adolescent form of expression is you. Your statement had absolutely no purpose to your point, and can only be interpreted as an outright attack on Ixthusdan's opinion, which should never happen on a board specifically targeting debates!
Now you have two choices, gather your points and submit them in an orderly fashion, or resign from the topic because you can't establish and debate your views. The value and intention of Profanity has been exhaustively decided as an immature act of childish expression.
Whether it will be used here? That is not a debate.
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Post by ixthusdan on May 3, 2007 23:11:08 GMT -5
I am referring to Kant's notion that in order for reason to exist, there must exist faculties prior to the experience of reason. Do you want quotes in the German or would you prefer an English translation? If faculties exist prior to reason, from where do they come? How does reason occur without prior knowledge? This is more troublesome for atheists than for Christians. There is no rational explanation for empathy. Even if I recognize another as having feelings and volition of will as I have, there is no rational in back of granting that other any kind of right or desire. It seems reasonable only in light of an already existing ethic or moral sense. Apart from that, as atheists have been attempting to formulate since ancient days, a moral motive can only be seated in the motivation of self interest. Do you want me to give you some titles written by atheists on this subject? A little research on Google can serve you just as well.
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Post by Paragon on May 4, 2007 10:29:38 GMT -5
Just point out the chapters and I'll open my copy to them (English though, I don't understand German at all).
In some senses, this is quite troublesome. Prior knowledge is obviously necessary to base reason on. But this also need not come from God. I cannot remember the first few years of my life. Perhaps as an infant, I was incapable of reason. Humans not only learn as they get older, but change, mentally. I doubt that as a ten-year-old I was capable of the same reasoning I am capable of now.
You are right, it does come back to self interest. Empathy does as well. The logic behind it being, "If I help people, they will be more likely to help me." "If more people are happy, they will be more likely to make me happy." "If someone feels a certain way that I have felt, it is likely that I can make them feel better the same way I felt better, which makes them more likely to help make me feel better at other times."
So self interest is a powerful motivation for morals. Is that wrong? The effect is still the same, people still help each other based on those morals.
Go ahead I suppose.
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Post by thatguy on May 4, 2007 13:50:36 GMT -5
As for Kant and philosophy. I read you post and did a quick review on wikipedia. I still find his argument empty and unsatisfying. These are the sorts of philosophical discussions and thoughts that man has been trying to answer since very ancient times. Since they have no basis in evidence I find them hollow and unanswerable. We can and probably will debate on the merits of this or that philosophers arguments till we end as a species. Now, I also think there are other ways to answer these types of questions. Those answers will be found over time in fields like neuroscience, psychology, and sociology to name a few. We have only begun to scratch the surface of how our brains work, and what motivates us to do things. We at this time have very few answers and will never know everything but we will have large answers for many of the types of questions philosophers ask.
If faculties exist prior to reason, from where do they come? How does reason occur without prior knowledge? This is more troublesome for atheists than for Christians.
It is only troublesome if we can only look at and use philosophical arguments to answer these questions. Now, if we can look at broad categories of scientific endeavors we may not have satisfactory answers to these questions at this time but we can formulate workable ideas that we can go and test and find answers later in time. For example, we know that our brains change over time, the way we think changes with age. Look at what and how children learn and behave at different stages of development. We know that we learn from others as well as with experience. I was reading an interesting article on the mind in a fairly recent Newsweek or time magazine (yes I know it is not the source documents,IE published papers). I am in a hotel without the magazine so I am going to paraphrase what I remember with the knowledge that it is like that experiment with a circle of people whispering a story. One of the comments that a neuroscientist made was that at the core our brain is much like a reptiles brain, with very basic functions that do not even enter our conscious thought. Like breathing, heart beating. They had done experiments with people that had a certain type of blindness. These people were blind, they needed the canes or dogs, braille writing etc. However, if you waved a ball or object in front of them they could reach out and grab it or move their head out of the way. How? It seems that our eyes (as well as most of our senses) are connected first too very basic parts of our brain, then the information gets handed off to other parts that process it and create models and that is in turn handed off to other parts which is what we would 'see' in our minds eye. If you picture our minds like a computer program like DOS. DOS being the very basic program like the basic parts of our brains that don't directly interface with us the user. On top of that you have all sorts of other modules doing various processes until you have the GUI interface you use. The GUI interface would be in this analogy our consciousness. Now I would like to put forth the idea that we may not be born with the facilities for reason but as our brains develop we have structures (or modules) grow and enable us to reason. This is developed over time with practice (like we are doing now) and experience. How does reason occur without prior knowledge? I would suggest the possibility that it is part basic wiring and part slowly learned over time. I would not expect a four year old to write like Kant for example.
I know that this is not a wholly satisfactory answer to the question that Kant proposed but then Kant's is not satisfactory either. I believe that looking at the question in a more organic and empirical way will over time lead to the answers we want answered.
I do believe that we as a species do have for whatever reason (I lean toward biological, and physical) have a capability and need for (what we perceive) as a deeply spiritual experience. Even though I do not believe in a god per se, and do think the need that most people have for spirituality and god is based on our biology does not mean that I do not have spiritual experiences. When I get away from people out in natural environments I feel calm, at peace, relaxed, happy, awed, ect. Much like how I imagine religious people feel when they pray or meditate.
I know this was a long post so I will sign off and let some others post.
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Post by Admin on May 4, 2007 22:10:31 GMT -5
So IS that the opposite of believing in a God? I give that a big YES! I think what Paragon is referencing is called anti-theism. Anti-theists would say that they believe God doesn't exist. Atheism is just lacking belief in a God or gods, possibly due to lack (in their view) of proof towards a God/gods.
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Post by ixthusdan on May 5, 2007 15:29:34 GMT -5
I beleive you all are referring to agnosticism. Atheism is not the same as agnosticism. From the Greek (again) a= not, gnosis= knowledge, meaning "not knowing." I have already clarified what atheism means, so I won't repeat myself.
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Post by Paragon on May 5, 2007 17:03:09 GMT -5
I beleive you all are referring to agnosticism. Atheism is not the same as agnosticism. From the Greek (again) a= not, gnosis= knowledge, meaning "not knowing." I have already clarified what atheism means, so I won't repeat myself. I can understand that it makes little difference to a religious person as to what the definitions of these terms mean, to most theists, and unbeliever is an unbeliever, whether because they believe in something else, lack belief, or believe in nothing. But I think it is important to clarify the definitions. Theism is the belief in the existence of one or more gods or deities. Agnosticism is the belief in the existence of undefined gods or deities. Atheism is the lack of belief in the existence of one or more gods or deities. Anti-theism is disbelief in the existance of one or more gods or deities. So, an agnostic would say, "Yes, some kind of supreme being definitely exists, but I don't know what that supreme being is like". Technically, agnostics are still theists, because they do still positively believe. An atheist would say, "Some supreme being may or may not exist. I don't know. (And sometimes) I don't care, it doesn't affect the way I live my life". An anti-theist would say, "I believe no supreme being of any sort exists".
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Post by ixthusdan on May 6, 2007 21:41:31 GMT -5
Atheism= there is no god. Agnosticism= I don't know if there is a god. theist= there is a god anti-theist= against the above theist
Your definition of agnosticism is new, as is your definition of atheism.
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Post by ixthusdan on May 31, 2007 6:49:27 GMT -5
The computer analogy is useful, but I am going to suggest some changes to it in order to help understanding. Whether one is working with DOS, BIOS, or an operating system like Linux (not windows *gasp*), the function is still one that is explained by learning. The argument for centuries centered upon learned, or empirical, reality. The problem is "who wrote the program?" We already know that a processor is a design. Even the materialists have difficulty (Unsettling, as you put it) with the notion that the brain somehow creates itself. A processor certainly does not. Who designed the processor?
One does not have to like philosophy in order to understand the problems faced. But, it is useful if one thinks.
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