Are atheists inevitably pessimists?

[David Mo]

Depends on the concept.

Of course.

 

[David Mo]

The matter of whether or not we should try to analyse the reasons for the behaviour of believers seems to be a new branch in this discussion.

I know lots of Christians, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs etc and I get along with them fine, I don't have to psychoanalyse them any more than they have to psychoanalyse me.

It might be useful to enquire into the psychological underpinnings of religious fanaticism of various types, but I am sure that I would not be up to that task without undertaking a degree and PhD in psychology.

In any case I am sure that nearly every person is a different case. I don't think the Anglican priest I follow on Twitter has the same motivations as, say, Franklin Graham. For a start the priest likes to tweet funny stories about his husband and I doubt that Franklin Graham does that.

I am not sure that Franklin Graham even has a husband. Maybe I could google it.

I'm not trying to investigate the causes of religious beliefs now. I am interested in the definition of God because it is important to define atheism. Some in this forum have argued that the definition of atheism is impossible because there is no definition of "god. That is why we have addressed the issue.

 

[David Mo]

Ah, well, then perhaps for the purposes of the thread we can attack the question without using the contentious term!

A) Are people who once had god beliefs, and have shed them, inevitably pessimists?
A1) if they shed them primarily due to disillusionment?
A2) if they shed them primarily due to further consideration of facts/history?

B) Are people who have considered god beliefs and figured they don’t represent any truths about real gods, inevitably pessimists?
B1) if they were free to consider the question without much outside influence?
B2) if they considered the question in an environment of social expectation that they at least pay lip service to god beliefs?

C) Are people who have never considered any god beliefs, inevitably pessimists?

These and many other nuances would surely arise in a discussion of pessimism and atheism. They are actually assumed in the present debate and can be summed up in a simpler question (intentionally avoiding cursed words):

Should someone who does not believe in gods be pessimistic?

In my opinion the question is confusing because it includes an ambiguous word: pessimistic. Pessimism can refer to many things, so we should begin to say what we mean. That is why I proposed that the situation faced by those who do not believe in God can be called rather dramatic or concerning.

 

[erwinl]

These and many other nuances would surely arise in a discussion of pessimism and atheism. They are actually assumed in the present debate and can be summed up in a simpler question (intentionally avoiding cursed words):

Should someone who does not believe in gods be pessimistic?

In my opinion the question is confusing because it includes an ambiguous word: pessimistic. Pessimism can refer to many things, so we should begin to say what we mean. That is why I proposed that the situation faced by those who do not believe in God can be called rather dramatic or concerning.

If you go that way, there's still a lot of ambiguous in your proposal.

Like what is meant with dramatic or with concerning? Please define this properly.
And moreover. Which god(s)? One in particular? Or all of them?

 

[David Mo]

If you go that way, there's still a lot of ambiguous in your proposal.

Like what is meant with dramatic or with concerning? Please define this properly.
And moreover. Which god(s)? One in particular? Or all of them?

God: the unbeliever is regarding the gods he has heard about and makes an inductive generalization from this knowledge. In my case...

"God" means: supernatural entity that is the creator and/or sustainer of the universe and is a superhuman power with respect to knowledge, power and moral perfection. It orders (directly or through authorized persons) specific behaviours that are the condition for a special reward (in another world usually) or punishment.

"Dramatic" means that by not accepting gods, the unbeliever has to face an essential question that is not easy to answer: What can I do? In other words: What moral principles are ?

 

[Robin]

"Dramatic" means that by not accepting gods, the unbeliever has to face an essential question that is not easy to answer: What can I do? In other words: What moral principles are ?

Everyone has that same question whether they believe in some supernatural entity or not.

I know that you think believers should be given a free pass on the Euthyphro dilemma - to say "not my department" with respect to morals and ethics, but I am not buying it.

This would imply that if God were to command that raping children was good (as some believers do indeed believe) then we should just accept that, for them, raping children is good.

The "Something becomes good by being commanded by God" attitude is not by any means a universal attitude from believers. C.S. Lewis, for example, felt it was a revolting position.

I don't think I have come across a believer who thinks that "good" means nothing else than "commanded by God".

So the questions of "what can I do?" and "What are moral principles?" are universal ones, not restricted to atheists.

 

[Robin]

I'm not trying to investigate the causes of religious beliefs now. I am interested in the definition of God because it is important to define atheism.

I didn't say anything about addressing the causes of religious beliefs.

I said "The matter of whether or not we should try to analyse the reasons for the behaviour of believers seems to be a new branch in this discussion." I was addressing this statement from you before

I believe a very simple thing that I don't know why it is being debated here (there seems to be a mania to debate everything): That ideas that people have in their heads influence the way they behave, whether they are false or true. If we want to explain the behavior of believers we have to analyze their beliefs.

 

[Robin]

To paraphrase Socrates (or rather Plato), when people say "Something good is what God commands", they are not telling me what "good" is, they are just telling me something that happened to it - that God commanded it.

 

[Robin]

And again

Bob: "What is Shrdlu?"
Alice : "What do you mean by Shrdlu?"
Bob : "That is just what I asked you"

Bob : "What are the moral principles?"
Alice; "What.do you mean by 'moral principles''
Bob: "That is just what I asked you"

 

[Lithrael]

I completely agree with Robin here; it’s one of the things I was trying to say earlier.

Everyone has that same question whether they believe in some supernatural entity or not.

I know that you think believers should be given a free pass on the Euthyphro dilemma - to say "not my department" with respect to morals and ethics, but I am not buying it.

This would imply that if God were to command that raping children was good (as some believers do indeed believe) then we should just accept that, for them, raping children is good.

The "Something becomes good by being commanded by God" attitude is not by any means a universal attitude from believers. C.S. Lewis, for example, felt it was a revolting position.

I don't think I have come across a believer who thinks that "good" means nothing else than "commanded by God".

So the questions of "what can I do?" and "What are moral principles?" are universal ones, not restricted to atheists.

The first four pages of the thread hummed along quite nicely before we all stopped to figure out what Mo means by “dramatic” and “nausea” and to argue about the characterization of all atheism as an abandonment of religion for like two weeks.

Now it sounds like it’s finally shaken out that he thinks the religious are, in principle if not in real life, inherently more settled, in the feeling that they have a superfather taking care of the question of the basic morals of life on their behalf. The atheists come face to face with the idea that morality/what to do with your life is an important question they have to look at for themselves.

Despite the ongoing disagreement about the way he’s characterized things, he does go on to say that at the end of the day the religious are not necessarily inherently any more or less pessimistic than everybody else. He just thinks it’s because of things like the Problem of Evil rather than that, as I think, the religious do not typically actually get a significant amount of moral certitude from their religion.

Of course, atheism implies some dramatic question. You cannot abandon religion and continue to live like nothing has happen. This is the existential "nausea" that every one copes as he can. There are lucid ways and illusory ways.

But for all I know religious people are not free of this kind of nausea. They rationalize it in other ways like doubt, God's silence and distressing mystery of a terrible god.

I think that religious people are more prone to illusory ways that atheist. It seems more consolatory, in principle. But it is ironic that this illusory consolation leads them to new anguishes that come from a dependence of a terrible father. How do you be calm with an incomprehensible and violent father? It is useless that I constantly repeat that my Father loves me if I see how He treat his creatures.

That is why that questioning about the advantages or disadvantages of religion is an useless question. Be lucid and search your way. There is not other that is valid for you.

 

[Darat]

And again

Bob: "What is Shrdlu?"
Alice : "What do you mean by Shrdlu?"
Bob : "That is just what I asked you"

Bob : "What are the moral principles?"
Alice; "What.do you mean by 'moral principles''
Bob: "That is just what I asked you"

Which is why I think a better working definition of "atheist" is someone who, when asked which God they believe in, answers with "none". Disbelief is not an active behaviour but belief is.

 

[David Mo]

Everyone has that same question whether they believe in some supernatural entity or not.

I know that you think believers should be given a free pass on the Euthyphro dilemma - to say "not my department" with respect to morals and ethics, but I am not buying it.

This would imply that if God were to command that raping children was good (as some believers do indeed believe) then we should just accept that, for them, raping children is good.

The "Something becomes good by being commanded by God" attitude is not by any means a universal attitude from believers. C.S. Lewis, for example, felt it was a revolting position.

I don't think I have come across a believer who thinks that "good" means nothing else than "commanded by God".

So the questions of "what can I do?" and "What are moral principles?" are universal ones, not restricted to atheists.

I'm with you. Everyone has to ask himself what to do and nothing can stop him from asking it. The difference is that the believer hides his responsibility under submission to God and the unbeliever has to face his responsibility in deciding what is good. This is a problem of bad faith and courage also.

Theology is proof that a responsible and true believer (let's put aside indifferent or conventional believers) also has to face dramatic problems. For example, modern ethical sensitivity to the barbarian god of the Bible, the loving Father and the eternal pains in hell, etc.

But theologians or not, orthodox or heretics, every believer who hears the voice of God has to set aside his personal opinions about good and obey. Otherwise it would be the agonizing soul of Ivan Karamazov or Satan the Rebel. And these are not very Christian examples.

Or to stop believing in God, which is not easy either.

I don't know what that Lewis you quote would say. I don't know him.

Note: the Euphron referring to Christianity is a source of monumental paradoxes that theologians do not want to see because it would be too much for them. But I think commenting on this would take us very far from the subject.

 

[David Mo]

I completely agree with Robin here; it’s one of the things I was trying to say earlier.



The first four pages of the thread hummed along quite nicely before we all stopped to figure out what Mo means by “dramatic” and “nausea” and to argue about the characterization of all atheism as an abandonment of religion for like two weeks.

Now it sounds like it’s finally shaken out that he thinks the religious are, in principle if not in real life, inherently more settled, in the feeling that they have a superfather taking care of the question of the basic morals of life on their behalf. The atheists come face to face with the idea that morality/what to do with your life is an important question they have to look at for themselves.

Despite the ongoing disagreement about the way he’s characterized things, he does go on to say that at the end of the day the religious are not necessarily inherently any more or less pessimistic than everybody else. He just thinks it’s because of things like the Problem of Evil rather than that, as I think, the religious do not typically actually get a significant amount of moral certitude from their religion.

Thank you for quoting me. I think that if people had read carefully my comment, maybe the following (too long) debate would not have taken place.

I was not justifying the position of the believer. Nor I was defending any atheistic position. I was pointing out a responsibility that all believers hide and some atheists also: I and I alone am responsible for my moral values. Neither God, nature, the working class nor any other entity can justify me.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

I'm with you. Everyone has to ask himself what to do and nothing can stop him from asking it. The difference is that the believer hides his responsibility under submission to God and the unbeliever has to face his responsibility in deciding what is good. This is a problem of bad faith and courage also.

Theology is proof that a responsible and true believer (let's put aside indifferent or conventional believers) also has to face dramatic problems. For example, modern ethical sensitivity to the barbarian god of the Bible, the loving Father and the eternal pains in hell, etc.

But theologians or not, orthodox or heretics, every believer who hears the voice of God has to set aside his personal opinions about good and obey. Otherwise it would be the agonizing soul of Ivan Karamazov or Satan the Rebel. And these are not very Christian examples.

Or to stop believing in God, which is not easy either.

I don't know what that Lewis you quote would say. I don't know him.

Note: the Euphron referring to Christianity is a source of monumental paradoxes that theologians do not want to see because it would be too much for them. But I think commenting on this would take us very far from the subject.

This ignores the possibility that, surprisingly, God's voice often tells the believer exactly what the believer already believes.

 

[David Mo]

This ignores the possibility that, surprisingly, God's voice often tells the believer exactly what the believer already believes.

I don't ignore it. I imagine this is more common when the believer literally hears voices. Joan of Arc or Paul of Tarsus, for example. But a conflict with God and the believer's desires is relatively common when God is interpreted by a representative. The believer is not alone here and his personal interests may intersect with those of the priest.

But this is an assumption. I know some cases in every sense and it should not be disdained that the voices he hears represent internal conflicts of the believer.

 

[Lithrael]

To the extent that this is true, that believers just assume the morals of the local religion they’re participating in and don’t spend the energy to face moral questions themselves, I think it’s got a lot to do with the part of human nature where we just roll along and try to cope using whatever tools we’ve internalized without really examining things as much as we could or should.

I’ve heard several anecdotes about, for example, mothers in communities where there’s a lot of anti-gay stuff going around, who regret the way they initially reacted to a child coming out to them, even though they were never trying to be the ‘get out of my house’ worst case scenario. Parents who regret that their very first response was anything other than “I love you no matter what.” Who regret that their first response was to try to cope with something terrible, and that reaction pushed their child away. These parents who characterize the experience this way, changed their minds about all these particular moral boundaries basically right after they were seriously challenged. They only assumed what people told them about what God thinks about it was what they ought to think about it when... well, when they didn’t have to think about it. They kept that toolset with them, and the first time they used it, the tool hurt the things they cared about. So they threw that particular tool away, and started work on repairing their relationship with their kid.

Other tools work fine whether you’re challenged to think more deeply about them or not. Don’t steal, and especially don’t steal your neighbor’s cow. So you keep those and assume the rest are for some good reason too. Until you’re challenged by something more serious than ‘but what if I really want that cow?’ And then - well you don’t even re-evaluate. You evaluate for the first time. Before that it was just coasting.

But really, I think the same is true for people who are irreligious. They’re still going to pick up moral norms from their surroundings. I think the difference is that whenever they’re challenged to think about the real applications of those morals, it’s more just the feeling of challenging their own assumptions or challenging the status quo than the feeling of challenging god-given rules.

 

[David Mo]

To the extent that this is true, that believers just assume the morals of the local religion they’re participating in and don’t spend the energy to face moral questions themselves, (...)
But really, I think the same is true for people who are irreligious. They’re still going to pick up moral norms from their surroundings.

I don't know how many believers and non-believers pick up their morals from the environment. In a way, everyone collects their ideas from the environment. Except for a few geniuses, our creativity is limited. We take our ideas from the social milieu and fuse them personally, at best. But many people are more gregarious than others. Their morality is only based on "what a decent person has to do". Their moral problems consist only of what neighbours might think of this. But sometimes doubt arises and it is not possible to avoid thinking for oneself. This can be the open door to a genuine moral attitude. And this genuine moral attitude is the one I was talking about before. Moral robots are another matter. A sociological and political question rather than a moral one.

 

[Cris]

i know very pessimistic theist

 

[Cris]

atheists say that if god exists he will be detected by the great hadron collider.

 

[xterra]

atheists say that if god exists he will be detected by the great hadron collider.

Please provide a link to a quotation to back up that statement.