Are atheists inevitably pessimists?

[David Mo]

A better question might be, "is there any good that can come of judging others?".

That is a more subtle one. If I had been taken at birth and transported back to 1930's Germany and placed with a Nazi family then I would have probably grown up a Nazi and anti-Semite.

So there doesn't seem any point in judging others who did not have the same moral luck that I did.

On the other hand it does seem useful to share the opinion that certain behaviour is sufficiently harmful that it would be better for society that people did not engage in it.

So we need to make a distinction between saying to someone, "your behaviour is wrong" and judging them.

And what do you think you're doing when you judge a behaviour to be "harmful"? Were the Nazis not harmful?
You are living proof that the contradiction between relativism and objectivism is not easy to resolve. You pass from the one to the other without transition.

 

[David Mo]

The idea is also wrong and nonsensical.

You seem to be incorrigibly stuck on this idea that someone who does not believe in God does so in order to get freedom from God.

I cannot rule out that there might be some tiny minority of hopelessly confused atheists who might disbelieve for this reason.

But for the vast majority of those of us who do not believe in God, we do not believe in God because, as far as we can tell, there is no God.

When someone decides that God doesn't exist he frees himself from the idea of God and of anything that the belief in God implies. I would like to know how do you can separate both things.
"I don't believe in God but I think the Pope is his representative". Sounds a little absurd.

 

[David Mo]

If a philosopher concedes to logic then the discussion will not continue. Not having an outlet for their never-ending barrage of words is the worst thing that could happen. Telling you that you must do things that there is absolutely no reason to do seems to be one way to keep the words flowing.

You go back to an empty speech. Say something that we can discuss, please.

 

[David Mo]

I (and I am sure Harris also) would disagree with you there. Could it be you have misunderstood the problem - or even misunderstood Sam?

Anyway, if the truth is relative as the relativists claim then you are both correct.

You think relativism is nonsense and I think Sam Harris is nonsense (at this point). This is out of place but, given that the issue has been discussed for centuries and continues today, perhaps you can consider the possibility that the solution may not be easy. This is my point.

 

[David Mo]

You are missing the point. Both of those are irrelevant.

Atheists are just not convinced given the (lack) of evidence - that's it. That makes them an Atheist. Some maybe completely thick and don't believe in God because they believe in fairies or goblins or universe farting pixies to quote Matt D. or that they just grew up in a secular non God believing family and community (like me) They are still Atheists.

You are either convinced of something, or your not. You cannot truly convince yourself that the color black is in fact light blue, if you already know it's black.

I can change my mind if I become convinced that a god does actually exist (maybe I could have a head injury that changes the way I feel) just as a theist may realize - usually after actually reading their holey book that a god doesn't exist.

Being an Atheist allows to "frees himself from the tutelage of a Superfather", but if you were never a theist to begin with, I'm not being freed by anything.

If you free yourself from God, you're free from God. That you choose to believe in other nonsense makes you a fool, but not a theist.

There is at least one moment in the life of an atheist who faces the possibility of believing in God. When he rejects this possibility, firmly or not, he is freeing himself from God. Therefore, "freethinker" is synonymous with "atheist. See: https://www.wordreference.com/synonyms/freethinker

 

[Robin]

And what do you think you're doing when you judge a behaviour to be "harmful"? Were the Nazis not harmful?

You are living proof that the contradiction between relativism and objectivism is not easy to resolve. You pass from the one to the other without transition.

Pretty obviously I haven't gone remotely neat either of those positions.

 

[BadBoy]

If you free yourself from God, you're free from God. That you choose to believe in other nonsense makes you a fool, but not a theist.

There is at least one moment in the life of an atheist who faces the possibility of believing in God. When he rejects this possibility, firmly or not, he is freeing himself from God. Therefore, "freethinker" is synonymous with "atheist. See: https://www.wordreference.com/synonyms/freethinker

Not if he never believed in a god in the first place.

This is a small point here and I do understand what you are getting at. It's just you used it in an odd way that suggest Atheists decide not to believe in God in order to be free. That's just not correct. They become free when they reject the god claims. However in my opinion many Theists become Atheists because they became free thinkers - skeptics - first, which led them to rationalize and drop the god beliefs.

 

[BadBoy]

You think relativism is nonsense and I think Sam Harris is nonsense (at this point). This is out of place but, given that the issue has been discussed for centuries and continues today, perhaps you can consider the possibility that the solution may not be easy. This is my point.

I guess if it was easy we wouldn't still be talking about it.

pah - deleted.

 

[Robin]

Very easy if you pass the buck with an irony.

I didn't pass the buck at all. I just gave straightforward answers to the questions.

Getting to the right questions is an Important part of defining problems

To find the main shared values and bases to fair judgment are the most complicated problem of ethics.

It may well be hard, but that wasn't what your questions were about.

I answered the questions as posed.

 

[Robin]

So we can refine the question further:

"How do we find the main shared values and bases.for fair judgement"

The first phase is to ask what we wish to achieve by doing this.

If our aim is to find a way to live more harmoniously together then we have just found our first shared value.

Thereafter we sit down and talk with each other and work it out.

If we agree on some values then it probably doesn't matter if we disagree on what grounds that value - God or just our shared humanity.

If we disagree on values then we can work out how we can accommodate our differing values.

 

[David Mo]

Not if he never believed in a god in the first place.

(...)They become free when they reject the god claims. However in my opinion many Theists become Atheists because they became free thinkers - skeptics - first, which led them to rationalize and drop the god beliefs.

On another planet it is possible that the freethinker would never have heard of gods and one day, while traveling to another planet, learned that some strange beings pretend that there are gods and he rejected the idea and became an atheist. This seems impossible to me on our planet where religion is omnipresent. In our societies one becomes a freethinker in continuous contact with theists of all kinds. Freedom of thought is especially built against the pressure of religions.

In any case, one becomes free in the struggle to be free from various physical, mental and ideological ties. It is not that first one is free and then one removes this or that determination. They are processes that go together. Or rather, it is the same process.

Therefore, the expression "free from God" seems to me to be valid even for the atheist who has never been a believer. Or "they become free when they reject the god claims". They summarize the same idea.

 

[David Mo]

It may well be hard, but that wasn't what your questions were about.

I answered the questions as posed.

It is just what my questions were about.

 

[Robin]

It is just what my questions were about.

You worded them pretty badly in that case.

Never mind I have answered that question too

 

[David Mo]

So we can refine the question further:

"How do we find the main shared values and bases.for fair judgement"

The first phase is to ask what we wish to achieve by doing this.

If our aim is to find a way to live more harmoniously together then we have just found our first shared value.

Thereafter we sit down and talk with each other and work it out.

If we agree on some values then it probably doesn't matter if we disagree on what grounds that value - God or just our shared humanity.

If we disagree on values then we can work out how we can accommodate our differing values.

Dialoguing is a good way to reach consensus. It seems like a good idea. But, is it valid in any situation? I have the suspicion that when noise and fury begin (too often, I'm afraid) dialogue is useless. But turning away from fury is not the solution either. Why do we guide ourselves then?

I don't want to go into this. I just want to make it clear that the solution is not easy. You admit it yourself: "It [to find the main shared values and bases to fair judgment] may well be hard".

 

[Robin]

Dialoguing is a good way to reach consensus. It seems like a good idea. But, is it valid in any situation? I have the suspicion that when noise and fury begin (too often, I'm afraid) dialogue is useless. But turning away from fury is not the solution either. Why do we guide ourselves then?



I don't want to go into this. I just want to make it clear that the solution is not easy. You admit it yourself: "It [to find the main shared values and bases to fair judgment] may well be hard".

It.is hard in a practical sense, especially getting all parties to agree to actually talk.

It is not hard in the sense of a hard problem of philosophy.

 

[Robin]

Also, I don't see how the business of working out how to live with others who might have differing value systems is a problem in particular for people who don't believe in God.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

There is at least one moment in the life of an atheist who faces the possibility of believing in God. When he rejects this possibility, firmly or not, he is freeing himself from God.

So what?

The same applies to unicorns, Santa Claus, fairies etc as well as all the various pantheons people have invented over history. You seem to feel that realising you don't believe in this particular imaginary thing is in a different category to all the others but I really don't see why.

Sure, if you grow up in a culture where most of the people around you profess belief in this imaginary thing then it has significance for your relationship with others, but that's a matter between you and your neighbours, not between you and yet another thing that never existed.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Also, I don't see how the business of working out how to live with others who might have differing value systems is a problem in particular for people who don't believe in God.

This reflects much of my own bewilderment over the points David tries to make. He seems to want to categorise non-belief in God as a special case, whether compared to other beliefs about God or compared to other imaginary things we might believe in or both, I'm not entirely clear.

 

[David Mo]

It.is hard in a practical sense, especially getting all parties to agree to actually talk.

It is not hard in the sense of a hard problem of philosophy.

It is strange to say this because philosophers don't think like you. How many different philosophical theories exist about the issue?

I don't see how you can easily solve the problem I put in:

But, is it [the dialogical ethics] valid in any situation? I have the suspicion that when noise and fury begin (too often, I'm afraid) dialogue is useless. But turning away from fury is not the solution either. How should we guide ourselves then?

 

[David Mo]

This reflects much of my own bewilderment over the points David tries to make. He seems to want to categorise non-belief in God as a special case, whether compared to other beliefs about God or compared to other imaginary things we might believe in or both, I'm not entirely clear.

The implications of the idea of God (especially in monotheisms) are not those of fairy beliefs. The only great resemblance between the two is that they are both fictional entities.

The problem of atheism that I point out is not with any God, but with the foundation of an atheistic morality that is both personal and collective at the same time.