Ask a Radical Atheist

Darat said:
Presumably because he uses skepticism to get to his conclusions and in forming his opinions. Remember scepticism is not about a conclusion but how you get to conclusions.
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But whatever those conclusions may be, they will always be provisional, depending on the evidence. Therefore, we, as skeptics, cannot say that there is no god, end of story. Skeptics always open up for the possibility.

Darat said:
See my post above about one of the deist definitions of a god and to add to it
although there is (simply because of how English is structured) an
apparent claim when you use scepticism and critical thinking to
examine the apparent claim you can see it contradicts itself, it is incoherent.
Therefore there is in fact no actual claim to deal with. (I'm using claim in the
sense of meaning a true statement about reality.)
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What are you saying, then? That God is encompassed by the scientifically explainable universe? That science encompasses everything there is in the universe?

Darat said:
Do you reject the claim that there could be a square circle?
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There can't be, due to the way we have defined squares and circles.
 
bokonon said:
In the sputter of human enlightenment, there have been sun worshipers, who certainly didn't consider themselves atheists.


So in this case, perhaps your disagreement hinges on the fact that you don't consider the sun to be sentient.
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Well, yeah. It makes some sort of sense at least to worship the sun. It is all life giving and without it none of us would exist. Of course the word "worship" is a difficult one. If by worship a person mean to praise in hopes of influencing the sun - well that is nutty. But if by worship one means to think especially highly of I don't have an issue with it. Also, I think of earth type religions as being specifically symbolic and allegorical. Say a South American people reveres the jaguar - they revere it, I would think, as a representive of the power and grace of nature and not as a supernatural entity whom they have to please. Say the American Indians kill a deer and then they thank it for giving it's life so that they may eat - I am thinking they don't really believe the dead deer cares about being thanked. It is an exercise in grace and gratitude toward nature without supposing they are somehow petitioning nature to do their bidding. Although I am sure there are nature religion who attribute supernatural powers to nature.
 
The only thing that still makes me lean more toward the agnostic side is the possibility that the concept of god could very well elude us, much like an ant will never be able to do math.

As a strong atheist, do you have that in mind?
 
CFLarsen said:
But whatever those conclusions may be, they will always be provisional, depending on the evidence. Therefore, we, as skeptics, cannot say that there is no god, end of story. Skeptics always open up for the possibility.
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That would be the (useless) philosophical definition or school of skepticism first put forward by the likes of Pyrrho, not the methodological definition most people use today.

CFLarsen said:
What are you saying, then? That God is encompassed by the scientifically explainable universe? That science encompasses everything there is in the universe?
You seem to have misunderstood what claim Piggy was responding to, he was responding to a proposed deist definition of a god. I was explaining about the self-contradictory nature of that claim.


CFLarsen said:
There can't be, due to the way we have defined squares and circles.
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May I remind you of your own words, to paraphrase:

"But whatever those conclusions may be, they will always be provisional, depending on the evidence. Therefore, we, as skeptics, cannot say that there is no square circle, end of story. Skeptics always open up for the possibility."
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Piggy said:
What makes which more real? I'm sorry, I've lost your train of thought -- but I'm riding several trains on this thread at the moment.
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Sorry, I realize you are juggling. Here is a recap of this sub-thread.

Hokulele said:
Hmmmmm....

What if I were to define "God" as a result of certain functions of the limbic system. These functions specifically cause human beings to require a world-view that includes a higher power that devolves responsibility for their own actions, actions of others, and removes the random nature of death, destruction, and disaster. Furthermore, this "God" is not the limbic system itself, but a construct of it, much the way "consciousness" is also a construct of the brain.

Would you agree that this is both a reasonable definition of God and it does exist?
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Piggy said:
No. This is to confuse the idea of a thing with the thing itself.

I can't save myself from starvation by eating my idea of a sandwich.
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Hokulele said:
Most delusions, schizophrenia as an example, are simply ideas, but they are still powerful in and of themselves.

But you can save yourself from stress and a massive guilt trip by appealing to your idea of a god. How is this less real than schizophrenia?
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Piggy said:
Real schizophrenia involves very different neurology.
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Hokulele said:
And this makes it more real how?
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I should have said, why does having a different neurology make schizophrenia real, but god just an idea?

I generally agree with your stance on this issue, but am playing devil's (god's?) advocate a bit to, as you stated, see if I can get a solid punch in on radical atheism.
 
billydkid said:
I think if there were a God and made his presence felt to you, you would be inclined to want to please him in as much as every aspect of your fate is in his hands.
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You don't know me very well.

I'm a contrarian and curmudgeon from hell, or would be if there were such a place. (There's not).

It is very much like the presidency of a country - no being worthy of the job would want it.

If they existed, and they don't, I'd have no time for 'gods' that are more messed up than I am, and I have no burning need to be worshiped.

There are no gods or other supernatural beings, and I'm glad that such losers don't exist.
 
Silentknight said:
Okay, I'll bite.

As you might have noticed, I tend to agree with you whenever it comes to biblical interpretation, since you state your arguments more eloquently than I could come up with on a moment's notice. However I'm the furthest thing from a "strong atheist" as is typically defined. I know what basis you have for labeling yourself as such though, in that any clearly defined gods, such as the God of the Abrahamic religions, has a contradictory definition and cannot logically exist. I actually agree with you on that.

The difference may come in the fact that I still use the terms God or gods in a metaphorical sense, to refer to abstract concepts or influential ideas. In other words, I refer to a God that is mostly stripped of the supernatural, dogmatic, metaphysical, and even causal attributes one normally associates with the term. It's fair to say that this is a conceptual god that I only use for the sake of philosophical argument; it's certainly not a god that I would go off and worship.

I'm not closed off to the possibility that there is something (or someone) out there in the universe that exists beyond our comprehension. I would even grant you that there is, because we've only explored an infinitesimal fraction of the universe. However, I would not necessarily call it God. As I stated before, even if God were to appear before me and shake my hand, I would stand where I am and extend my own hand in return. I would speak with him and learn as much as I can from him and about him. I would not get on my knees, relegate myself to the position of a slave, and start sending up prayers to him.

I have defined myself as a humanist, a Jeffersonian Christian, and have expressed my interest in Buddhism, Shamanism, and Christianity. Yet I also call myself an atheist, owing to the fact that I reject the theistic definitions of God, and do not believe in any worshiped beings called gods. I consider myself an agnostic atheist, in that I do not hold any view with absolute 100% certainty.

I suppose my question is, based on that, what are the similarities and differences between our views?
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Not that you care about my opinion, but as an absolute atheist for all practical purposes I'll reiterate the point I often make on this issue. The only god we cannot test for is one defined specifically to be untestable.

A) There is no such god definition except when using the theoretical scientific principle of not being able to prove the negative, and

B) Such a god would be irrelevant if it did exist.
 
Tricky said:
Sorry Piggy, but this is a losing battle. There are too many definitions of God for you to prove them all impossible.
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The number of god definitions is finite and I daresay though the task would be tedious, you could do it. But there is another way of addressing this problem making such a task unnecessary. Why try to fit the evidence to the conclusion? The scientific method is to follow the evidence to the conclusion.

If your conclusion is some of these magical beliefs are true or could be true, then you can go about testing everyone of the beliefs to see if you can fit the evidence to the conclusion. If gods do anything, that is testable. If they do nothing or only created things and sat back then they are irrelevant and would also not have been involved in forming people's god beliefs.

But if you follow the evidence to its logical conclusion, then the evidence overwhelmingly supports the conclusion people made god beliefs up to explain what to them appeared inexplicable without magical explanations.
 
Puppycow said:
I'm about where Richard Dawkins is on the scale.

Piggy: What would you say to a deist, who proposed a god who created the universe, but does not interfere in it. He created the laws of physics and set off the Big Bang and then retired. He doesn't listen to or answer prayers or send any messages to prophets or perform parlour tricks to impress us.
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Then such a god by definition would not care to be worshiped, prayed to, nor would such a god have intervened to make god beliefs. Just as Tricky's example "nature is god" both are essentially irrelevant. Science doesn't like to add irrelevant layers to natural explanations.
 
Darat said:
That would be the (useless) philosophical definition or school of skepticism first put forward by the likes of Pyrrho, not the methodological definition most people use today.
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But what does it mean to be skeptical? Skepticism has a long historical tradition dating back to ancient Greece when Socrates observed: “All I know is that I know nothing.” But this is not a practical position to take. Modern skepticism is embodied in the scientific method, that involves gathering data to formulate and test naturalistic explanations for natural phenomena. A claim becomes factual when it is confirmed to such an extent it would be reasonable to offer temporary agreement. But all facts in science are provisional and subject to challenge, and therefore skepticism is a method leading to provisional conclusions. Some claims, such as water dowsing, ESP, and creationism, have been tested (and failed the tests) often enough that we can provisionally conclude that they are false. Other claims, such as hypnosis and chaos theory, have been tested but results are inconclusive so we must continue formulating and testing hypotheses and theories until we can reach a provisional conclusion. The key to skepticism is to continuously and vigorously apply the methods of science to navigate the treacherous straits between “know nothing” skepticism and “anything goes” credulity.
Michael Shermer: A Skeptical Manifesto
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Darat said:
You seem to have misunderstood what claim Piggy was responding to, he was responding to a proposed deist definition of a god. I was explaining about the self-contradictory nature of that claim.
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Ah, OK.

Darat said:
May I remind you of your own words, to paraphrase:

"But whatever those conclusions may be, they will always be provisional, depending on the evidence. Therefore, we, as skeptics, cannot say that there is no square circle, end of story. Skeptics always open up for the possibility."
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....and?

martu said:
And God can't exist due to the way we have defined God.
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No, he can exist the way we have defined god. The problem is that we invented god long before we discovered science.

Think of homeopathy: Hahnemann had a point when he started diluting stuff, because at that time, medicine hadn't progressed much since the Middle Ages. Since a lot of diseases just run their course, it made sense to do nothing. However, he didn't know how about molecules and that there was a limit to how much you could dilute something before there wasn't anything left.

Science caught up with Hahnemann's homeopathy, the same way we today know that thunder isn't Zeus (it's Thor).
 
Tricky said:
Well I don't disagree with you, but how do you respond if I say "God is Nature".
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I'd respond that creating synonyms does not a new entity make - it just gives a new name to an existing entity.

At that point the choice of name for the same thing is arbitrary.

If I choose to create a language to describe the word that matches a strong atheist's in every way except that I use theistic names in place of atheistic names and I choose one over the other I am expressing a linguistic preference - I am not describing a different universe.
 
Nihilus said:
...

Okay. Considering your stance on 'radical/strong' atheism, how would you describe the fundamental slips that weak atheists or agnostics make when it comes to the god concept? And, in your opinion, do you think the leniency towards permitting the possibility of the god concept is one of pseudo political correctness or more a unwillingness to step firmly into the 'hard atheist' line of thinking (or something else)?
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If one's argument is based solely on the concept one cannot prove a negative, then you have to ask yourself, do you really and truly equate god beliefs for which there is absolutely no evidence other than people's convictions (which can be explained) with invisible pink unicorns and flying sphaghetti monsters for which you also cannot prove the negative? In other words is it simply the theoretical concept and you are being a science purist, or are you closer to simple agnosticism?

If it is the former, then you are merely making a semantic argument. We can agree there is a scientific principle of always allowing for new things to be discovered with new evidence and we can agree on the scientific principle of not being able to prove the negative.

If it is the latter, then you are allowing yourself to consider some beliefs for which there is absolutely no evidence but not other beliefs for which there is equally absolutely no evidence. That is not skeptical nor scientific. In addition, within that semantic argument of scientific theory, as Piggy points out, you prove some negatives by proving an alternative. If it is made of steel, then it isn't made of wood.

If the evidence supports god beliefs are human fantasies, then the evidence supports god beliefs are not the result of real gods.
 
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Wowbagger said:
Isn't the Omni-everything, Ultimate God concept fundamentally untestable?

How do you know the Omni-everything, Ultimate God doesn't exist? What if it does, and it intentionally shaped the world for you to not see it, nor be prone to believe in it?

(Hey, I'm on your side. I'm just asking to see how you react, is all.)
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How is such a god relevant?
 
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