Are the terms "atheism" and "theism" logically consistent or useful?

[David Mo]

Are you feeling alright? You might need some sleep.

I'm fine. I'm only trying to establish some points of departure with Tommy Jeppesen that seems to consider the possibility I be a brain on a vat.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

How stubborn a hallucination can be!

Are you a bubble or a human being?

Since you like the classics, why don't you start here:
http://www.wright.edu/~charles.taylor/descartes/meditation1.html
MEDITATION I.
OF THE THINGS OF WHICH WE MAY DOUBT.

Part 12 shows in part the core problem:

12. I will suppose, then, not that Deity, who is sovereignly good and the fountain of truth, but that some malignant demon, who is at once exceedingly potent and deceitful, has employed all his artifice to deceive me; I will suppose that the sky, the air, the earth, colors, figures, sounds, and all external things, are nothing better than the illusions of dreams, by means of which this being has laid snares for my credulity; I will consider myself as without hands, eyes, flesh, blood, or any of the senses, and as falsely believing that I am possessed of these; I will continue resolutely fixed in this belief, and if indeed by this means it be not in my power to arrive at the knowledge of truth, I shall at least do what is in my power, viz, [ suspend my judgment ], and guard with settled purpose against giving my assent to what is false, and being imposed upon by this deceiver, whatever be his power and artifice. ...

This can be rephrased in modern terms. According to science your first person experiences are caused by physical processes. Now imagine that these experiences are caused by the fact that you are a result of a computer program running and causing your experiences.
In other words the demon without Deities, demons and what not.

So here it is with reference to a classical text and now what is your answer?

With regards

BTW - do for one moment believe that you can get away with claiming classical texts without getting some back in return.

 

[wea]

Rational, it is...
Someone: It is rational to claim that we can know that God doesn't exist.
Someone else: It is rational to claim that we can't know whether God exists or God doesn't exist.
Hi David Mo.
Can you be a skeptic for a moment?
How do you explain and please don't explain away how it is possible for these 2 persons both to claim that they are rational?

Hello Tommy, I'm interested in understanding if I get your question the right way. Please correct my rephrasing.
The first person thinks she has collected enough evidence (or lack of) to exclude the existence of this thing called God(s).
The second person thinks she will never collect enough evidence (or lack of) to exclude or believe the existence of this thing.
Which one are you suggesting that is irrational? The first, the second, both? Thank you.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Hello Tommy, I'm interested in understanding if I get your question the right way. Please correct my rephrasing.
The first person thinks she has collected enough evidence (or lack of) to exclude the existence of this thing called God(s).
The second person thinks she will never collect enough evidence (or lack of) to exclude or believe the existence of this thing.
Which one are you suggesting that is irrational? The first, the second, both? Thank you.

Now you left out one possibility, that neither of them are irrational?! Secondly the same four possibilities exist for rational.

A hint - rational and irrational can be descriptive, but they can also be used in normative, prescriptive and ethical/moral sense. Or if you like as variants for good and so on versus wrong, bad and evil.

With regards

PS I am biased in some sense, because I have 3 psychiatric diagnoses and it gives me another take on rational and irrational.

 

[barehl]

I have to admit that I'm having some trouble following your arguments.

Rather I hold it in the context of JTB as a core assumption or dogmatic assertion for which there is no justification, because it is the basis of JTB.

Can you explain exactly what a Justified True Belief is? I've seen this term used by Presuppositionalists like Eric Hovind and Sye Ten Brugencate. However, I've never seen one of them actually able to say what it is. Usually when I've seen this used, it means something like a belief that happens to be true. But since the truth part either comes as an assumption or after the fact, I'm also not sure how you would be able to tell the difference between a belief in something true and a belief in something not true. Hopefully you've given this more thought than Hovind or Brugencate.

So why do you use that much energy on something which is known to be impossible; there is no knowledge possible without running into Agrippa's Trilemma. I.e. there is no absolute knowledge, all knowledge as knowledge is conditional on assumptions and ignores the induction problem in practice.

Agrippa actually gave five different possibilities:
1. Circularity
2. Progress ad infinitum
3. Assumption
4. Relation
5. Dissent

I guess a subset of this was given by Popper.
1. The circular argument
2. The regressive argument
3. The axiomatic argument

This finally makes sense why Presuppositionalists create the imaginary distinction between "Viciously" and "Virtuously" Circular Reasoning. If you rule out an infinite sequence argument and you rule out assumptions then all you have left in this list is circular reasoning which is rather weak. So, it would make sense for someone to try to prop this up.

Popper's list came mostly from Jakob Fries who had the same regressive and dogmatic items but perceptual experience instead of circular reasoning for the third.

"All knowledge as knowledge is conditional."

That is an interesting concept. I've never found much value in the claim that absolute truth or knowledge is required. When I saw Brugencate's argument, I countered with the idea of "working confidence". In other words, I don't jump off of a tall building because I have a working confidence that I would be injured or killed. I have a working confidence that I can get into a car and drive somewhere. I have a working confidence that I can cross a street. I have a working confidence that I can understand what I read. None of these are absolutes; they are basically inductive inferences based on Fries' perceptual experiences.

However, I do recognize that there is a missing element in this in terms of cognitive theory. Abstract comprehension is not possible without a starting point; however, that starting point cannot be dogmatic. In other words, within an Idealistic framework the assumption of a dogmatic starting point leads to a circular contradiction. You can't create the starting point without comprehension but you don't have comprehension unless you already have the starting point. In a biological framework, you don't have this contradiction.

 

[wea]

.. diagnoses ..

I hope you'll recover

 

[barehl]

I will give you a justification when you justify me that you are not a hallucination generated by a bubble in the vat.

If this person were a hallucination then you would be arguing with yourself...and what reason would you have to do that?

Excuse me, but I am not used to speak with hallucinations.

If you really want to discuss this, start your own Brain in Vat or Hallucination thread.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Okay, barehl.

Look at the context of this thread.

Claim to the effect of the following: I can prove that God doesn't exist. Now refute it!
Me: Okay. ...

We stop here, because every time we effectively pass the threshold between in practice what works and I know what reality is, it goes into la-la land. In other words as a skeptic I know the moment someone claims that she knows what reality is, she effectively commits one of the 3 versions as per Popper et al. In practice there is a limitation to knowledge and it connects to such words as logical, coherent, evidence and so on.

Now a note. If you have to believe that I am a theist, idealist and so on feel free to do so, but I am not. I am a skeptic all the way "down" to "I know nothing, and I don't even know that". In other words if there is no absolute knowledge and all knowledge is conditional then what does that mean for this claim: I know, that I exist.
So back to the context of "I know that God doesn't exist". If that is conditional knowledge then what does that mean in practice. It means that I assume at the fundamental level that reality/everything/the universe is fair. I.e. that my first person experience of there being e.g. a monitor in front of me means that there is indeed a monitor in front of me and that I can trust my senses.
In other words as conditional knowledge goes and if there is no absolute knowledge then for the word "I", it means in practice that "I" is conditional on the fact that reality/everything/the universe doesn't cheat.
That in effect means that is unknown what reality really is including whether there is a Good Deity or if you are the result of an Evil Demon, which deceives you. Or in modern terms if you are in fact a computer program, which started 25 seconds ago.

So in practice...
In practice the moment we do "Everything is X" I know as a skeptic, that for relevant case I can do "non-X" or if you like refutation by dissident. In practice it means that as conditional knowledge goes I accept that everything is physical, but that includes that some people believe in God.
So let me show you want always happens.

Premise 1: There is no positive evidence for God. (I accept that)
Conclusion: It is irrational.
That is an invalid deduction and the moment someone tries to give a justification for the words rational and irrational it stops being observer independent.

Someone: I am rational.
Me: Good for you. I mean it sincerely and I hope it works for you. Now it doesn't work for me, because I am irrational.

So consider this: How does the word useful connect to the rest of reality and if something is useful to you, does it then follow that it is useful to all humans?
In other words if you are a skeptic, it might be worth your time to doubt the concept of useful.

So we covered metaphysics(/ontology), logic, epistemology and ethics and it in practice always "boils down" to the word useful. I sincerely that you manage/cope, but in practice I can't use your world-view, because I am one of "those".

I can try to simplify it further.

T: Are you an atheist?
D: What is an atheist?
T: You are an atheist if you don't believe in God.
D: Which god are you referring to?
T: There is only one god.
D: How do you know?
T: It says so in the Bible.
D: Then aren't you just asking me if I'm a Christian?
T: Well, you could believe in some other god.
D: You said that other gods don't exist so why would it matter?
T: You would be theistic if you believed in some god; that is important.
D: If theism is believing in something that doesn't exist then how is it different from just being crazy?
Are they "mostly agreed-upon concepts" or are they "variably understood"?

We can go around and around, but if we include woo-woo, CT, philosophy, political ideologies and so on, we end up with the fact that most of humanity is crazy. Is that useful as a way of understanding reality?

In the context of "culture wars" and what normal is, my claim is that crazy is normal and in effect crazy is sometimes used as the secular version of "evil".

With regards

 

[David Mo]

This can be rephrased in modern terms. According to science your first person experiences are caused by physical processes. Now imagine that these experiences are caused by the fact that you are a result of a computer program running and causing your experiences.
In other words the demon without Deities, demons and what not.

So here it is with reference to a classical text and now what is your answer?

With regards

BTW - do for one moment believe that you can get away with claiming classical texts without getting some back in return.

1. Your quotation is a copy of the first meditation of Renée Descartes' Méditations Métaphysiques A classical.
2. It is a modern way to present the pyrrhonian scepticism that Descartes is trying to defeat.
3. Bishop Berkeley presented a modern version of it. It is the subjective idealism. Other classic.
4. Pyrrhonian escepticsm is absolutely coherent. Rationally unassailable. This is classic.
4.1.But it is incoherent when trying to persuade other people or, in general, interact with them.
4.2. The coherent behaviour of a pyrrhonic is silence and inactivity.
4.3. This is not the case because the pyrrhonic sceptic is really doing rhetoric and he doesn’t believe in his own theory.
5. So it is better to adopt the most natural thinking and speak only with people that think they are people living in a common, yet sometimes mysterious, world. This is Hume's answer. A classic.
6. So my question: Are you a person or a bubble of my brain?

PS: “All of Western philosophy is but a footnote to Plato”. A. N. Whitehead (a classic).

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

...
6. So my question: Are you a person or a bubble of my brain?

...

I never claimed anything about you being a bubble of my brain nor me being a bubble of your brain, so unless you can ask me a question about something I have actually claimed, I will not answer.

A hint - we are in effect debating the effect of accepting cause and effect as a necessary part of a world-view, which reflects how reality works.

Now something else - if a person is irrational, is it then a fact that this person is irrational? I mean, if it is a case of existence and natural and how reality works, that a person is irrational, then what is the problem? Being irrational is natural and how reality works!

Further you seem to switch between I and we; i.e. you both speaks as you, singular person and we, plural. How do you establish that we as a justified belief? In practice if you exclude all forms of human belief, which is without evidence, as irrational, then the vast majority of humans are irrational. So who is that we? Why did you choose the words rational and irrational?

With regards

BTW

"But, as complete inactivity would have been synonymous with death, the skeptic, while retaining his consciousness of the complete uncertainty enveloping every step, might follow custom (or nature) in the ordinary affairs of life."
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Scepticism". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

In other words - I can do doxa, but I can also question the doxa.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

I hope you'll recover

No, sorry to say, I doubt that. I am 50 years now and I have learned to cope.

With regards

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Let me try to explain my stick. I am crazy. Now I have learned to cope with it and know my limitations in what I can't do as opposed to non-crazy people.

But we are skeptics, right? So supposedly we ought to question the doxa of our own tradition/culture. But that can be hard, because it works in everyday life.
So in short - are there any doxa involved in the use of words like rational, irrational and so on?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doxa

Doxa (from ancient Greek δόξα, "glory", "praise" from δοκεῖν dokein, "to appear", "to seem", "to think" and "to accept" [1]) is a Greek word meaning common belief or popular opinion.

With regards

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

...
4.1.But it is incoherent when trying to persuade other people or, in general, interact with them.
...

What is this supposed to mean?

 

[David Mo]

What is this supposed to mean?

1. If the pyrrhonian sceptic (subjective idealist) doesn't know if the people and the things he believes to see, to hear and to touch are not real things but possible mental hallucinations (only "ideas in my mind" in Berkeley's terminology), he will be incoherent when try to contact with this "mental ideas" or hallucinations.
2. Sceptical pyrrhonism makes absurd all knowledge and all feeling related to things and people.

 

[David Mo]

But your redefinition of "agnostic" isn't useful for our debate. Your redefinition of "atheist" likewise isn't the most inclusive, as has been shown. Why would you want to force others to stop using the most inclusive definition of atheist?

Inclusive? What to you mean with "inclusive"? What includes?

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

1. If the pyrrhonian sceptic (subjective idealist) doesn't know if the people and the things he believes to see, to hear and to touch are not real things but possible mental hallucinations (only "ideas in my mind" in Berkeley's terminology), he will be incoherent when try to contact with this "mental ideas" or hallucinations.
2. Sceptical pyrrhonism makes absurd all knowledge and all feeling related to things and people.

You don't seem to understand the difference between a hallucination as a function of a brain and the case of a brain in a vat. You are creating a straw man. So since this is a modern classic, here is the link:
http://ieas.unideb.hu/admin/file_2908.pdf Bottom of page 5 and top of page 6 until "have the illusion that . . ."

So let us play real and exists. First off, hallucinations are real, right? I mean if someone experience a hallucination, that hallucination is real and the hallucination exists, right? Or are hallucinations so unreal that they don't exist? Are you claiming that a person having a hallucination is experiencing real actual non-existence?

Further I would like evidence based on primary source text that shows a pyrrhonian skeptic is a subjective idealist and it is not just something you claim. I suspect that you are mixing metaphysics and epistemology(theory of
knowledge) and believe they are the same.
So the key question is this: How do you know that you can trust what you know about reality and that you are not been deceived by someone/something else?

Please re-read this quote:

12. I will suppose, then, not that Deity, who is sovereignly good and the fountain of truth, but that some malignant demon, who is at once exceedingly potent and deceitful, has employed all his artifice to deceive me; I will suppose that the sky, the air, the earth, colors, figures, sounds, and all external things, are nothing better than the illusions of dreams, by means of which this being has laid snares for my credulity; I will consider myself as without hands, eyes, flesh, blood, or any of the senses, and as falsely believing that I am possessed of these; I will continue resolutely fixed in this belief, and if indeed by this means it be not in my power to arrive at the knowledge of truth, I shall at least do what is in my power, viz, [ suspend my judgment ], and guard with settled purpose against giving my assent to what is false, and being imposed upon by this deceiver, whatever be his power and artifice. ...

Now can you tell the difference between your brain "misfiring" and causing a hallucination and you being deceived by something else?
Either the demon, the mad scientist or the computer program designer, who is running you on her computer.

With regards

 

[David Mo]

You don't seem to understand the difference between a hallucination as a function of a brain and the case of a brain in a vat.

A hallucination and an illusion are similar things in that you think that you are seeing something that really doesn’t exist. The result is the same whether produced by a malign demon or a bubble in the vat.

Further I would like evidence based on primary source text that shows a pyrrhonian skeptic is a subjective idealist and it is not just something you claim. I suspect that you are mixing metaphysics and epistemology (theory of knowledge) and believe they are the same.

Excuse me, but I am not very eager to give lessons of Philosophy here. But both Pyrrho and Berkeley maintained similar ways to deny our knowledge of the external world. And yes, Berkeley also has an epistemology. And a very influent one.

So the key question is this: How do you know that you can trust what you know about reality and that you are not been deceived by someone/something else?

I usually rely on my own experience and the opinion of some reliable people. In the metaphysical question of the existence of external world I follow the advice of Hume: I follow my natural inclination to believe that the external world exists and that demons not. And you? Do you believe in some malign demons dedicated to cheat you?

 

[RoboTimbo]

Inclusive? What to you mean with "inclusive"? What includes?

It includes atheists who lack belief in gods. You've excluded them from your novel definition. You want "atheist" to mean only a narrow subset of all atheists.

 

[barehl]

This thread is fried

This thread is growing more useless all the time. And now I'm getting semantic arguments about the nature of my own thread. I guess it's time to start a new one.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

...
I usually rely on my own experience and the opinion of some reliable people. In the metaphysical question of the existence of external world I follow the advice of Hume: I follow my natural inclination to believe that the external world exists and that demons not. And you? Do you believe in some malign demons dedicated to cheat you?

So you are a believer in so far as you have only stated that you believe. Now is it a rational or irrational belief?