Atheist beliefs

[athon]

I believe the essence of everything is based on information, logic/mathematics, and computation.

These aren't 'things' at all. They are ways of describing relationships between what we observe. But this suffers the same problem as Plato's archetypes - it's a vague hand wave that cannot be defined.

The truth is it is impossible for us to ever describe more than laws and rules between observations.

Athon

 

[Cynic]

What other choices are there?

I'm not sure what FedUpWithFaith means, exactly, but I do tend to suspect something similar to what he said. If you accept the premise that the universe (as in, the sum total of all existence, and not the potentially limited universe instance we have observed so far) is the way it is because it must be that way, then the questions turn to why that is. "Why" implies rules and laws, discovered through observation. As Athon points out, those aren't "things". However, it's important, IMO, to consider what we mean when we say things like "fundamental". Clearly we've got matter and energy. But of course you can't rest there, because we'll then want to know what the fundamental basis of those are. Ultimately, I believe it inescapable that if you want to understand the fundamental underpinning of physical things, things which we assume to necessarily exist, then we have to look at what makes them necessary, which are "necessarily" ideas -- not things, but logical relations.

*shrug* At least, that's what I think.YMMV.

 

[Eyeron]

"Christians are not atheists of course, but certainly are materialists."

All TV and radio evangelist are begging for money (under the guise of religion) all the time!!!

They don't go 5-Minutes without asking for money or trying to sell you something!!!

Not all Christians are televangelists. But the thing about them is that they ask for money for charity. It just so happens they get a some sort of percentage of it and with some wise investing, BAM! They're in the money.

And no, not all Christians are materialists on that definition.

The Bible does indeed teach against materialism.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Ultimately, I believe it inescapable that if you want to understand the fundamental underpinning of physical things, things which we assume to necessarily exist, then we have to look at what makes them necessary, which are "necessarily" ideas -- not things, but logical relations.

*shrug* At least, that's what I think.YMMV.

Are they necessarily ideas, or do we necessarily think these thoughts with ideas since that is the basis for knowledge and thought, which is how we ask such questions in the first place? What is "idea" and what is the nature of 'idea'?

I'm afraid I don't see a bottom except "don't know and can't know", so let's describe what we can (which are the relations that surround us). Seems that's what science is all about.

 

[KS_SKEPTIC]

Not all Christians are televangelists. But the thing about them is that they ask for money for charity. It just so happens they get a some sort of percentage of it and with some wise investing, BAM! They're in the money.

And no, not all Christians are materialists on that definition.

The Bible does indeed teach against materialism.

Eyeron,

What fantasy world are you living in?

Remember Jim and Tammy Baker (check out Wikipedia for details) , Oral Roberts (The man who announced to a television audience that unless he raised $8 million by that March, God would "call him home.")
Here is a portrait of the real Oral Roberts when he was alive, the man not too many of his admirers know. He dressed in Brioni suits that cost $500 to $1000; walked in $100 shoes; lived in a $250,000 house in Tulsa and had a million dollar home in Palm Springs; had diamond rings and solid gold bracelets employees (airbrush) out of his publicity photos; drove $25,000 automobiles which were replaced every 6 months; flew around the country in a $2 million fanjet falcon; had membership, and so did his son Richard, in `the most prestigious and elite country club in Tulsa, The Southern Hills (the membership fee alone was $18,000 for each, with $130 monthly dues) and in `the ultra-posh Thunderbird Country Club in Rancho Mirage, California' (both father and son joined when memberships were $20,000 each. Religion has made his family members independently wealthy (millionaires) for life. etc...
This is but sample of televangelists.
Take a close look at how these people live!!!!
Their life styles are off the charts!!!

Of all the Christians I have known or worked with in the past 50 + years most ( 8 out of 10) were greedy!!!
I once raise money for cancer research at my work and eveyone put money into the pot but the born again Christian. He said he needed a money receipt for his taxes.
Why do you need a receipt for 2 or 5 dollars?
GREED , GREED, GREED
He didn't want to give!!!
(And yet he would talk about god all the time.)

You can live in your fantasy world but I prefer the real world!!!

 

[Maia]

I don't have any problem at all with materialist thinking. What I don't agree with at all is when claims are made for "materialism" that do not fall under the proper domain of that word. This is, of course, true only in the context of emphasizing that religion has no business in science and no explanations to offer when it comes to the workings of the natural world, and it never has. Theology has staked an indefensible claim for a very long time, but it's never been a logical claim. It's just that we now know so much more about just how illogical it is. Theology has nothing to say about what can be learned through the empirical method, but the entire point of the empirical method is that we will glean nothing valuable from it unless everything we put into it is very strictly defined. There is no room for ambiguity. If I am going to do a study on whether or not a particular intervention reduces anger for ten-year-old boys with conduct disorder, for example (and I did work on a study exactly like that), then I have got to operationalize the definition of "anger." How many times per week did the child act out, throw things, attack other children, how many times did other children complain, how many times did his siblings complain, how did the child self-rate his feelings of anger... etc.,etc., etc.

So the scientific method-- and this is a much better name for what we're talking about than the vague "materialism"-- has nothing to say about a certain area of life,or to put it a little differently, a certain way of understanding areas of life. A lot of the statements and speculations I have seen concerning matters that are not correct subjects for this area of life are just downright embarassingly bad. Richard Dawkins, for example, isn't my favorite thinker, but he's a brilliant man, and he's much too smart to write some of the dumb and sloppy things he has, drawing incredibly tenuous and really nonexistent connections between totally speculative information about the brain and grand, sweeping statements about "why we feel love", for instance. We would never accept this kind of horrible logic in the field of evolutionary biology. It does not suddenly make sense just because it goes along with the idea that everything can be reduced to "materialism"-- all that means is that the idea is emotionally satisfying. Well, that isn't good enough. It doesn't somehow become good enough just because it's not being used to try to justify an argument in favor of God as an explanation for something.

 

[Cynic]

Are they necessarily ideas, or do we necessarily think these thoughts with ideas since that is the basis for knowledge and thought, which is how we ask such questions in the first place? What is "idea" and what is the nature of 'idea'?

They're necessarily ideas. That's just a word we assign to things that aren't physical.

I'm afraid I don't see a bottom except "don't know and can't know", so let's describe what we can (which are the relations that surround us). Seems that's what science is all about.

There is potential value in trying to reason out the framework that leads to the necessity of the universe as science has observed it. If such a framework can be deduced, it might reveal by extension testable observations that we might never have stumbled upon otherwise. Make no mistake -- this is science. Just as we've taken observations and then deduced testable hypotheses that lead to Newtonian physics, relativity, and quantum mechanics by logical reasoning, there is nothing to prevent the reverse, coming up with a logical framework of necessity and then testing it through observation.

Even if nothing pans out, I think that a lot of scientists could use a gentle reminder once in a while that "don't know and can't know" is not the same thing as "doesn't exist".

 

[Hux]

Even if nothing pans out, I think that a lot of scientists could use a gentle reminder once in a while that "don't know and can't know" is not the same thing as "doesn't exist".

Do scientists take an agnostic view like this? Do we not have to draw a line between what we can imagine and what we can conceive could exist? Does anyone really have sleepless nights wondering if a Pink Unicorn is likely?

 

[Cynic]

Do scientists take an agnostic view like this? Do we not have to draw a line between what we can imagine and what we can conceive could exist? Does anyone really have sleepless nights wondering if a Pink Unicorn is likely?

Not all things we can't know are akin to pink unicorns. Take the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, for instance, which states that we cannot know both the position and velocity of a given particle having measured one of those properties. Does this mean the other property didn't exist? Of course not. That's the kind of "don't know, can't know" thing I'm talking about, not pink unicorns.

 

[fishbob]

Aah - an actual question:

I've pulled all my hair out and killed three cats with frustration at not being able to get this bit of crucial information - what do "atheists" actually believe?

In my case - nothing.
I play the odds and accept what the evidence indicates.
Unlike theists who do the opposite.

 

[Hux]

Why do we have to accept the principle of 'can't' know? Surely there are things deemed possible to confirm and those things that are improbable in the first place? There is surely a difference between adhering to a theory that may explain what we observe and that of a Pink Unicorn? philosophically you cannot deny one could exist somewhere in the universe (so I gather) but there has to be a line between imagined things and proposals for how the universe works?

 

[The Atheist]

The truth is it is impossible for us to ever describe more than laws and rules between observations.

Athon

But if that's all the truth there is, looking for the fairy at the bottom of the garden isn't necessary. You're just confusing the issue with philosophical agnosticism. What we observe is.

*shrug* At least, that's what I think.YMMV.

I don't like the "why" part,

There is no why, as in answer to Athon, there just is. No reason is necessary. Does a tea-leaf need to know the history of the East India Company to make a good cup of tea?

The Bible does indeed teach against materialism.

I always take great ironic pleasure at seeing lreachers driving flash cars.

Are they necessarily ideas, or do we necessarily think these thoughts with ideas since that is the basis for knowledge and thought, which is how we ask such questions in the first place? What is "idea" and what is the nature of 'idea'?

I'm afraid I don't see a bottom except "don't know and can't know", so let's describe what we can (which are the relations that surround us). Seems that's what science is all about.

Bingo!

In my case - nothing.
I play the odds and accept what the evidence indicates.
Unlike theists who do the opposite.

Good mention of odds to segue into Pascal's Stupidity. He was never going to become a bookmaker, that guy.

Life's all about playing the odds and betting 10% of your paycheck, or standing behind "agnosticism" seems futile to me.

Why do we have to accept the principle of 'can't' know? Surely there are things deemed possible to confirm and those things that are improbable in the first place? There is surely a difference between adhering to a theory that may explain what we observe and that of a Pink Unicorn? philosophically you cannot deny one could exist somewhere in the universe (so I gather) but there has to be a line between imagined things and proposals for how the universe works?

Bingo for you as well.

I hate agnostics.

 

[Gate2501]

I hate agnostics.

Do you hate agnostic atheists(I am one)?

I don't believe in any deities, I think that the notion is completely absurd.

I also do not pretend to have perfect knowledge of absolutely everything in the universe, above scrutiny and error. This doesn't mean that I have any real practical doubts about my position; it simply means that I concede that it is illogical to claim with absolute certainty that it is impossible for a deity to exist.

Why would you care about an infinitesimal possibility that some deity could possibly exist? It isn't like we are talking 50/50 here.

Edit: I am trying to say that agnosticism isn't practical in everyday life, but when you get down to the nitty-gritty philosophy of it all, you cannot(without committing a fallacy) say that you are absolutely certain that these things don't exist. For the sheer sake of argumentation, you shouldn't take up a position of absolute epistemological certainty. It is impossible to defend because you cannot satisfy the burden of proof for such a claim without perfect knowledge.

 

[athon]

But if that's all the truth there is, looking for the fairy at the bottom of the garden isn't necessary. You're just confusing the issue with philosophical agnosticism. What we observe is.

No argument here. My point wasn't that we need to define anything - it is that defining it as something is unfalsifiable. Saying that a particle really is a solid little ball of something 'out there' is as meaningless as saying it's all in our mind. It isn't even agnosticism - that would imply sitting on the fence between two concepts. I'm saying that the concepts are meaningless fluff.

If you want to distinguish materialism from idealism in some meaningful way that is falsifiable, I'm all ears. I can't figure how to do it.

If you want to call the system we use (i.e. that observations equal solid reality) 'materialism', go for it. I don't see the use, mind you, as giving it a philosophical name like that would only serve to distinguish it from some other concept, like discussing dualism or idealism. If you want to make a distinction, I'd need to know on what grounds you're making it and how we'd perceive a universe that was different.

Athon

 

[athon]

Why do we have to accept the principle of 'can't' know?

Because we're not talking about a veil which hides something from view here. It's not like there is a thing called 'fundamental reality', and if only we had the right tools we could somehow see it.

The very notion of it is impossible to even define. Try it! Use your imagination to come up with something remotely plausible. You can describe properties of things, sure. But you'll always get to the point where you can't state where they come from.

It's turtles all the way down, even for materialism. So it's best to accept the fact that we'll never be able to say what the bottom turtle is resting on.

Athon

 

[arthwollipot]

Edit: I am trying to say that agnosticism isn't practical in everyday life, but when you get down to the nitty-gritty philosophy of it all, you cannot(without committing a fallacy) say that you are absolutely certain that these things don't exist. For the sheer sake of argumentation, you shouldn't take up a position of absolute epistemological certainty. It is impossible to defend because you cannot satisfy the burden of proof for such a claim without perfect knowledge.

This is my position too. As for other people, I think it's very difficult to actually get to the bottom of what they believe. I feel that materialism does tend to imply atheism, and atheism supports materialism, but I don't know how many people make the link from one to another. So I voted Planet X. Sorry, The Atheist, but I can't be much more help to you than that.

 

[Hux]

Because we're not talking about a veil which hides something from view here. It's not like there is a thing called 'fundamental reality', and if only we had the right tools we could somehow see it.

The very notion of it is impossible to even define. Try it! Use your imagination to come up with something remotely plausible. You can describe properties of things, sure. But you'll always get to the point where you can't state where they come from.

It's turtles all the way down, even for materialism. So it's best to accept the fact that we'll never be able to say what the bottom turtle is resting on.

Athon

I meant from the point of view that it is defeatist to say there are things we cannot know. We do not know everything but we know quite a bit and our knowledge increases as history marches on. Even if it means developing technology to understand such things. But can we really say we can never know something? I am not talking about fallacy here. You could apply that to the merest of facts. I am talking about knowledge that means a damn that is meaningful to our purposes. Surely we have to have some agreed reference to reality? Im sorry I am not expressing myself well here.

Is it really a fact we will NEVER know what the bottom turtle is resting on?

 

[Gate2501]

Is it really a fact we will NEVER know what the bottom turtle is resting on?

We have no idea.

 

[The Atheist]

Edit: I am trying to say that agnosticism isn't practical in everyday life, but when you get down to the nitty-gritty philosophy of it all, you cannot(without committing a fallacy) say that you are absolutely certain that these things don't exist. For the sheer sake of argumentation, you shouldn't take up a position of absolute epistemological certainty. It is impossible to defend because you cannot satisfy the burden of proof for such a claim without perfect knowledge.

I agree entirely.

I just object to the need for absolute knowledge.

If you want to call the system we use (i.e. that observations equal solid reality) 'materialism', go for it.

That's all it is. I'm not stuck on the labelling; it just seemed like the most meaningful term.

 

[athon]

I meant from the point of view that it is defeatist to say there are things we cannot know. We do not know everything but we know quite a bit and our knowledge increases as history marches on. Even if it means developing technology to understand such things. But can we really say we can never know something? I am not talking about fallacy here. You could apply that to the merest of facts. I am talking about knowledge that means a damn that is meaningful to our purposes. Surely we have to have some agreed reference to reality? Im sorry I am not expressing myself well here.

Is it really a fact we will NEVER know what the bottom turtle is resting on?

As in is it an observed truth? No. Because that would be a contradiction in terms.

I don't make this claim because I don't think we'll ever have the tools to describe something. I'm saying that the nature of it is indescribable, ironically in part because of the very logic you're alluding to. You cannot induce a universal set - you can only determine a context from what you have induced.

Second of all, let's imagine you're at the bottom turtle, and you have the tools to peek beneath it. You see...a rock! Yay! Now...what's that rock sitting on...

Because science can only deal with properties and not subjects, there will always be the question of 'what is responsible for that property?'. As I said before, even if we determine that all of the universe's properties come down to how mathematical concepts called 'strings' vibrate, 'string' is still a metaphor for something that we cannot describe. You can say it's vibrating space and time...but that hasn't really answered anything at all.

To describe where a property comes from, you need a deeper context. Until then, you can only say 'it is'. You can't say anything about the next turtle down.

Now, I have no problem with that being challenged. Please, speculate away. Even a wild guess would at least demonstrate that such a thing could feasibly exist as a mental concept.

Athon