Ask a Radical Atheist

[Ichneumonwasp]

Colour me unconvinced. It might be a nice way to explain stuff to a theist, but same thing? I'm not so sure about that.


Well that's fine, but then you're not disagreeing with Piggy(by virtue of your statement being vacant). If we remove the word God from both your statements we have:
Piggy)There is no supreme being.
Hypothetical you, communicating) I worship the universe.

There's no contradiction here. You're not making the argument that god exists at all, in fact you rely on there not being a supreme being in order to say, "The universe is God." without confusing everyone.

Of course I'm not disagreeing with him about a theistic god. My only disagreement is with the statement that all god views are impossible.

Theistic god views depend on magic and magic is silly -- that is Piggy's main point (or my simplisitc way of re-stating it). With that I fully agree. Skeptigirl's post was essentially a brief history of humanity's discovery that magic is daft.

But, there are 'naturalistic' views of 'god' -- god as the universe, god as multidimensional being (which is really just re-defining universe into multiverse and calling that god) that are still possible. We just can't treat those definitions of 'god' as impossible, in large part because we don't really know what we mean when we use words like 'universe' anyway. Sure, we have a vague idea of what that means, but when you start to really analyze it, do we really know? Planck lengths and quantum foam? 'God' is one way of denoting our ignorance and our relation to that ignorance. Now, how's that for a god of the gaps?

 

[Limbo]

Pardon Piggy, but your answer evidences that you have not examined the views I cited to any depth yourself. And you really need to before you make sweeping dismissals based on no understanding of those positions.

Yeah, this is part of Piggys problem. He really seems quite ignorant of certain things, and he seems to disguise his ignorance by hand-waving away whatever he is ignorant of.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Then it simply means you feel warm and fuzzy about the universe. Ok, that's a meaning, but it has no significance to me.

Yep, that's the long and the short of it.

I can say cheesecake is god because I really like it. It tastes divine.

But that'll never get you laid at a woo convention.

Unfalsifiable, and therefore meaningless.



Same as the deist approach.

Unfalsifiable is not the same as impossible. The arguments here have been against the claim that all god ideas are impossible, not that they are unfalsifiable. I fully agree that many god ideas are unfalsifiable. Virtually all others are simply false. None are 'true' except by definition, though cheescake as god could get a little messy during prayer services.

 

[CFLarsen]

I've disagreed with Sagan on this point already, but Sagan was speaking as a scientist, not a skeptic, and I do agree with him as regards science, but not skepticism.

If they all claim that a skeptic must believe that there is a genuine possibility for "new evidence" for every claim under the sun, then yes, I disagree with them.

Ooooh, aren't you the slippery one! Now it has to be a genuine possibility.

It makes no sense. I cannot see any justification for such a claim.

That's precisely your problem: You think it has to make sense to you.

I've already told you how. Produce a definition of God that could possibly be real, or show the error in my logic.

But you have already said that no definition of God would satisfy you.

A nice little niche you've carved out for yourself there.

No, I don't.

Because it isn't meaningful to you, no. But you can't decide what is meaningful to others on their behalf.

Nor do we need to in order to answer the question.

You don't use science to answer the question. You use your own prejudices.

Then you are the one who misunderstands science.

Science does not traffic in entirely undefined ideas.

Totally undefined notions cannot be investigated.

No one has ever launched a scientific inquiry into idea X which is defined as "I have no clue what X might be -- it is totally beyond my understanding or anyone else's and I can't tell you any of its qualities or where it might be".

Dark matter is therefore unscientific?

 

[Piscivore]

But you have already said that no definition of God would satisfy you.

Where did he say this?

Dark matter is therefore unscientific?

Dark matter has to have at least one quality- it has to have mass (specifically, the mass for which we cannot otherwise account). That's pretty far from "I have no clue what X might be -- it is totally beyond my understanding or anyone else's and I can't tell you any of its qualities or where it might be"

 

[Jekyll]

Of course I'm not disagreeing with him about a theistic god. My only disagreement is with the statement that all god views are impossible.

Actually Piggy* has said all god views are wrong or non-statements.

But, there are 'naturalistic' views of 'god' -- god as the universe, god as multidimensional being (which is really just re-defining universe into multiverse and calling that god) that are still possible. We just can't treat those definitions of 'god' as impossible, in large part because we don't really know what we mean when we use words like 'universe' anyway. Sure, we have a vague idea of what that means, but when you start to really analyze it, do we really know? Planck lengths and quantum foam? 'God' is one way of denoting our ignorance and our relation to that ignorance. Now, how's that for a god of the gaps?

Vacant. Just like all of the gods of the gaps. This isn't a god, it's just a whittling away of the idea of god until nothing is left except the name.
This corresponds to the non-statements Piggy was talking about. These definitions of God can't be wrong because they don't say anything about the universe just about you.

*From the Book of Ask Ye of a Radical Atheist, Verse the Sixth.

 

[CFLarsen]

Where did he say this?

My arguments do not depend on any single definition of God.

Don't jump in without actually reading what people say.

Dark matter has to have at least one quality- it has to have mass (specifically, the mass for which we cannot otherwise account). That's pretty far from "I have no clue what X might be -- it is totally beyond my understanding or anyone else's and I can't tell you any of its qualities or where it might be"

But we don't know it has mass - we assume that it has.

 

[Piscivore]

Don't jump in without actually reading what people say.

"My arguments do not depend on any single definition of God" /= "no definition of God would satisfy

."

Learn to parse English.

But we don't know it has mass - we assume that it has.

That's what the science is investigating. If it didn't have mass, it wouldn't account for the mass our calculations indicate should be there, and we wouldn't be investigating it.

Do you have any such qualities a god must have to warrant scientific investigation?

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Actually Piggy* has said all god views are wrong or non-statements.

Ah, that might explain it, as I am working off Ask Ye of the Radical Atheist, Verse the First in which he stated:

By my reckoning, we know enough now to say definitively not only that God does not exist, but that God cannot exist.

in the OP.

Vacant. Just like all of the gods of the gaps. This isn't a god, it's just a whittling away of the idea of god until nothing is left except the name.
This corresponds to the non-statements Piggy was talking about. These definitions of God can't be wrong because they don't say anything about the universe just about you.

*From the Book of Ask Ye of a Radical Atheist, Verse the Sixth.

Vacant (it's actually not completely vacant, only a different approach) or not is of no consequence when it comes to disproving the orignal statement. It is only a whithering away from some approaches -- pantheism has a long history. If there have been corrections to the original -- I have not read every post in the thread -- then I stand corrected.

Or we must believe in magic, which I am not prepared to do. It might be worth looking at the 'conceivability of magic'. If magic is conceivable, then god is not a logical impossibility.

 

[Hokulele]

<snip>

Or we must believe in magic, which I am not prepared to do. It might be worth looking at the 'conceivability of magic'. If magic is conceivable, then god is not a logical impossibility.

I am not sure I follow this bit. Does this mean that if a person can think of something that would be magic, their belief in god does not contradict logic?

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

I am not sure I follow this bit. Does this mean that if a person can think of something that would be magic, their belief in god does not contradict logic?

It means that the whole idea of 'magic' may not be properly conceivable. We might just be fudging when we say that we can conceive of magic -- like the whole issue with libertarian free will. Can we actually give an account of magic that makes any sort of sense? If not, can we be said to conceive it properly speaking.

So, if someone can acutally make sense of magic, then magic is conceivable. Therefore, god is conceivable. So God is not logically impossible.

But there can still be illogical views of God.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

As for all the talk about 'non-statements' or 'vacant statements', I'm not sure that anyone disagrees with the logical positivists that God-talk is properly speaking 'vacant', but that it does not follow that 'non-statement' translates into 'non-being'.

 

[dglas]

Indeed. "God" has left artifacts all over the place. Chartres. The Sistine Chapel, The Gutenberg Bible. The Acropolis. The Inquisition, the Crusades, the Salvation Army.

Behaviour patterns that would not exist absent the notion of "god". Praying, rituals, hymns.

Hmmm. So non-God is an emergent entity as well, having left artifacts as well?

I'm wondering how adopting the idea of emergent entity/property/quality/meme/whatever advances the subject matter. What content does it add or clarify?

Yes, it's a neat, fanciful, way of characterizing this or that other hing, but what does characterizing it this way do/provide/help?

Just asking.

 

[Piscivore]

Hmmm. So non-God is an emergent entity as well, having left artifacts as well?

Like what?

I'm wondering how adopting the idea of emergent entity/property/quality/meme/whatever advances the subject matter. What content does it add or clarify?

Yes, it's a neat, fanciful, way of characterizing this or that other hing, but what does characterizing it this way do/provide/help?

It explains behaviour patterns observable in some humans that cannot be otherwise accounted for.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Like what?

Large swaths of this forum, for one.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Measurable properties of "God" seem to coincide with measurable properties of religion.

 

[Piscivore]

Large swaths of this forum, for one.

How is "non-god" responsible for those sections, and which sections do you mean?

The artifacts I am talking about would not exist without the concept of god. The French would probably have built something in its place, but without God they would not have built Chartres.

Artifacts that exist that have nothing to do with god- "non-god", if I take your and dglas' meaning correctly, may or may not have been created without god.

If you are meaning artifacts that were created in opposition to god, such as one of Dawkins' books, or a thread on this forum about atheism, they exist because of god, not "non-god".

 

[Piscivore]

Measurable properties of "God" seem to coincide with measurable properties of religion.

God:
1. a) A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.
1. b) The force, effect, or a manifestation or aspect of this being.

They do, don't they.

Thus my assertion that it is the religious that create god.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

How is "non-god" responsible for those sections, and which sections do you mean?

The artifacts I am talking about would not exist without the concept of god. The French would probably have built something in its place, but without God they would not have built Chartres.

Artifacts that exist that have nothing to do with god- "non-god", if I take your and dglas' meaning correctly, may or may not have been created without god.

If you are meaning artifacts that were created in opposition to god, such as one of Dawkins' books, or a thread on this forum about atheism, they exist because of god, not "non-god".

Not according to many who identify as atheists. The common mantra is "I just don't have a belief about god."

But, sure, you could just as easily identify any artifacts left behind by atheism as atheism as reactions to theism. Otherwise, there really is no reason for them -- like Dawkin's book.

I've yet to read the definitive work on why hornfloogles don't reminicerate the skanling frousters because no one much sees a need.

 

[Hokulele]

It means that the whole idea of 'magic' may not be properly conceivable. We might just be fudging when we say that we can conceive of magic -- like the whole issue with libertarian free will. Can we actually give an account of magic that makes any sort of sense? If not, can we be said to conceive it properly speaking.

So, if someone can acutally make sense of magic, then magic is conceivable. Therefore, god is conceivable. So God is not logically impossible.

But there can still be illogical views of God.

I think I understand, but I will take a good long ponder before I decide whether or not I agree.

Hmmm. So non-God is an emergent entity as well, having left artifacts as well?

I'm wondering how adopting the idea of emergent entity/property/quality/meme/whatever advances the subject matter. What content does it add or clarify?

Yes, it's a neat, fanciful, way of characterizing this or that other hing, but what does characterizing it this way do/provide/help?

Just asking.

As one of the posters who tried this argument earlier in the thread, I see defining god this way gives me a starting point for learning more about why people believe as opposed to what they believe. Is this emergent thing a natural property of the human brain such as color vision? It is strictly cultural? If by some miracle I do learn the source of belief, I can then decide best how to deal with theists. If it is a natural part of the brain, maybe the best I can hope for is that they can accept that my brain is wired differently, so maybe they will leave off trying to convert me to their way of thinking. If it is cultural, well, cultural values change over time, and maybe there are ways I can help change the cultural perspective that theism is a necessary part of being a human being (see Stone Island's threads).

Right now, I have a few opinions on sources of theism, but no solid conclusions. Threads such as this one do help me organize my own thoughts, and introduce me to options I hadn't considered before.