Atheism - Obvious Default?

[LarryS]

I'm a godless reprobate with no substance to my existence. I don't believe in a metaphysical substance, be that Mind or Matter, or anything beyond the empirical.

Of the word "matter," its etymological origin is the Latin word "mater," which means mother. In this case the root origin, occasion, or substance of all phenomena.

Why is it we posit this abstraction, this meta-physical abstraction, beyond the empirical? This "Holy" Mother?

Platonism insisted on a Real as opposed to the mere empirical, an Ultimate, an Absolute, an Unconditioned, as Unmoved Mover, an Original Being, a Highest Good and called this abstract answer to questions forced beyond their usefulness, "Theos."

Is it really necessary? Was Voltaire right: that if there weren't a God (or a Mother), we'd event one?

Here's another way we paint ourselves into the corner of God belief. (But don't have to.)

Thanks for clarification - I did not know that t(t)t was shorthand for 1 or 2 t's - nor was I aware of origins of word 'matter'.
I reckon most are empericists . . . just trying to make a living and doing the best I can . . . and will believe in something when cornered. I remember hearing once 'There are no atheists in foxholes.'

 

[Apathia]

Thanks for clarification - I did not know that t(t)t was shorthand for 1 or 2 t's - nor was I aware of origins of word 'matter'.
I reckon most are empericists . . . just trying to make a living and doing the best I can . . . and will believe in something when cornered. I remember hearing once 'There are no atheists in foxholes.'

I think most of us here really intend to be empiricists, but have unexamined presuppositions that incline toward having something metaphysical, be it matter, consciousness, mind, or the thing in and of itself.

This of course doesn't amount to Theism, but look at all that theos material lying about to make something Supreme of. (Even if it's just one's own ego.)

Of "foxholes," in an age of high anxiety, even an Atheist will seek out something solid to stand upon, some kind of "Ground of All Being." (Theologian, Paul Tillich's philosophical God)

 

[arthwollipot]

I prefer my word salad without the random capitals sprinkled in.

Speaking as Apathia was of Platonism, they are appropriate. They are not random. They are specific Platonic concepts.

 

[Puppycow]

Came across this in Scientific American (a blog thereof), if anyone's interested:

Can Science Rule Out God?

We must understand the laws of nature before we can deduce their origins

By the 20th century, most scientists no longer devised proofs of God’s existence, but the connection between physics and faith hadn’t been entirely severed. Einstein, who frequently spoke about religion, didn’t believe in a personal God who influences history or human behavior, but he wasn’t an atheist either. He preferred to call himself agnostic, although he sometimes leaned toward the pantheism of Jewish-Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, who proclaimed, in the 17th century, that God is identical with nature.

If God is identical to nature, then why not just call it nature? I've had similar thoughts myself on occasion. I'm not religious in the traditional sense, but the immensity of the universe does rather fill me with a kind of awe and wonder. Of course, if a word can be redefined to mean anything one wants it to mean, then it kind of becomes useless. If I say that I define God as my pet cat, and therefore I have proven God's existence, I have only succeeded in illustrating that the word is too ill-defined to be useful.

 

[porch]

I'm a godless reprobate with no substance to my existence. I don't believe in a metaphysical substance, be that Mind or Matter, or anything beyond the empirical.

Of the word "matter," its etymological origin is the Latin word "mater," which means mother. In this case the root origin, occasion, or substance of all phenomena.

Why is it we posit this abstraction, this meta-physical abstraction, beyond the empirical? This "Holy" Mother?

Platonism insisted on a Real as opposed to the mere empirical, an Ultimate, an Absolute, an Unconditioned, as Unmoved Mover, an Original Being, a Highest Good and called this abstract answer to questions forced beyond their usefulness, "Theos."

Is it really necessary? Was Voltaire right: that if there weren't a God (or a Mother), we'd event one?

Here's another way we paint ourselves into the corner of God belief. (But don't have to.)

I am okay with neutral monism. This is a position that I owe to having discovered skepticism. Blessings upon the memory of JREF; Bless Mercutio, Bless Rocketdoger. Pixymisa, where are you? And you, Apathia, have also changed the course of my thoughts for the better. By my own estimation, I think that if I had been born in any other age I would be some kind of religious zealot. I can't help but find meaning in symbolism and pattern. I found it hard to believe, when I discovered that some people never see images in clouds. Give me one good, interesting cloud, and I can continue to see image after image in it, almost endlessly.

Regarding the thread topic more generally:

Apologies if this has been posted already, I skipped a couple pages of the thread.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iMmvu9eMrg

I should probably watch it again before commenting on it. I will summarize for the link-averse. In a nutshell though, I come down on the side of religious/mystical/supernatural thought as an inclination of humans, and that it varies to degree from individual to individual.

 

[HansMustermann]

and the word 'atheists' also includes those who believe in 'matter' - and matter is the biggest baddest most magical God ever invented.

Wait, wait... are you claiming that matter DOESN'T exist? That's not even a very Christian position, since if you read even the first half a page of the Bible, it starts with God creating MATERIAL stuff. Not that most people have read it, mind you, and even fewer seem to remember it when flailing around for excuses.

 

[HansMustermann]

Thanks for clarification - I did not know that t(t)t was shorthand for 1 or 2 t's - nor was I aware of origins of word 'matter'.
I reckon most are empericists . . . just trying to make a living and doing the best I can . . . and will believe in something when cornered. I remember hearing once 'There are no atheists in foxholes.'

Actually, there are, but that isn't even important.

The important part is this: when you're in a foxhole, you're being shelled, shot at, have tanks charging at you, etc. It's not just that it's EXTREME stress, it's DESIGNED to be the maximum possible stress. It's designed to overwhelm. Depending how trained you are, you might be able to deal with anywhere between one type of attack at a time (e.g., tank comes at you, sure, you pop up your missile launcher and deal with it) to IIRC four if you're a really grizzled veteran. More than that, nobody can deal with. (Yeah, deal with that tank while also being shelled, shot at by the infantry accompanying it, straffed by aircraft, pinned down by enemy snipers, facing a mine field, etc.) The whole modern warfare, but more generally combined arms since anyone first used it, is basically DESIGNED to overwhelm you to the point where not only you're in immediate danger and extreme stress, but are well past the point where you even know how to deal with it all. It's designed to BREAK you.

So, yeah, I have no problem believing that people in situations DESIGNED to stress them past any remembering how to deal with it all and break them, do break and start doing stupid things. Including break formation and run for the hills, even though they've been taught not to.

And that includes believing in magical protection or whatnot. Be it their lucky rabbit's foot or an invisible daddy in the sky who'll save them specifically, even though he let the company chaplain have his brains blown out by an enemy sniper and half his squad be turned into mincemeat by a mine. It's not rational, but I can see how one might prefer that fantasy to the absolutely horrible reality they're in.

BUT: how does that apply to YOU then? Are you being shelled and sniped at? Were you talking to your best mate and suddenly had a piece of his brain in your mouth because an enemy sniper just put a round though his brain? (Happened verbatim to a few people in WW2.) Or what?

How is an excuse boiling down to, basically, "people in extremely stressful situations may prefer irrational fantasies to reality" applying at all to those who AREN'T in any situation even within the same order of magnitude on a stress scale?

Or, lemme guess, your being cut off on the highway and having to wait 4 hours at a doctor's office for a wart on the ass every bit as bad as being in a foxhole under fire?

 

[Apathia]

I am okay with neutral monism. This is a position that I owe to having discovered skepticism. Blessings upon the memory of JREF; Bless Mercutio, Bless Rocketdoger. Pixymisa, where are you? And you, Apathia, have also changed the course of my thoughts for the better. By my own estimation, I think that if I had been born in any other age I would be some kind of religious zealot. I can't help but find meaning in symbolism and pattern. I found it hard to believe, when I discovered that some people never see images in clouds. Give me one good, interesting cloud, and I can continue to see image after image in it, almost endlessly.

Regarding the thread topic more generally:

Apologies if this has been posted already, I skipped a couple pages of the thread.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iMmvu9eMrg

I should probably watch it again before commenting on it. I will summarize for the link-averse. In a nutshell though, I come down on the side of religious/mystical/supernatural thought as an inclination of humans, and that it varies to degree from individual to individual.

I was dealt both analytical and mystical inclinations, so that at the same time in life that I found Bertrand Russel an intellectual role model, I found Soren Kierkegaard a spiritual/religious one. A strong sense of transcendence with at the same time a grounding in the empirical world eventually led me to a "satori," of the Transcendence being of the empirical world rather than something beyond it. I'm a Neutral Monist in that sense, that it's not a duel or departmentalism of substances, but no metaphysical substance to choke on.

For me the sacred is immanent in whatever I focus my attention on in the present moment. So I get raptured by the patterns in the sand made in a flash flood in a neighborhood wash. I love cathedrals and religious iconography. I bring to those moments an awareness that they are just what they are and signify a sacred that isn't some other realm beyond, full of the fixed beings of religious dogma. I can let a story move me without having to believe it to be literally true. Or what good is imagination anyway?

I think it a wonderful combination to have the imagination of a child and the adult ability to create and craft the imaginative.

I was a religious zealot in my teen years, but in an ironic sense, becoming more "spiritual" led me from my golden calves and eventually from Theism. It was a journey of increasing awareness where I embraced my privilege and responsibility to know myself and come to my own conclusions.

So "The Divine" for me is simply the open space in which my imagination can fly.

 

[HansMustermann]

If that's what helps with your imagination, sure. Personally I just find I don't have to actually believe it to be real for an imagination exercise. Probably the best illustrations are some of the mods I've made for various games. The backstory in the back of my head for one of my Skyrim characters was that she's an Orion who got teleported by Q to Skyrim, and had the own-made green skin and ancient bat'leth to go with it, but I didn't really have to believe that Skyrim OR Star Trek are for realz.

Basically I have no problem with imagination or spirituality or however one wants to call it, until it gets to the point where not only it's taken seriously, but they try to force their version on others too. Which, as it happens, goes just as well for religions as for die-hard fanboys of Star Trek or Skyrim or for that matter insert any comic book character.

 

[JoeMorgue]

(Most) everything in spirituality is acceptable beyond the "I have to literally consider false, un-falsifiable, or unsupported things to be literally true."

 

[HansMustermann]

TBH, I could even live with people believing silly stuff, as long as they keep it to themselves. If someone wants to believe that Japanese swords don't exist in Skyrim, nevermind that every single TES game INCLUDING Skyrim had them, sure, they can hang on to that belief. But if they try to tell me that my having such a mod is some kind of heresy, they can jolly well hear my own two cents. Same for God, really.

 

[JoeMorgue]

"You can believe it but not act on it in anyway" is too much of a tightrope for me to realistically expect people to walk.

I mean if you go to get your taxes done and and the guy behind the desk is all "I hold the metaphysical belief that 2+2=5, it's the core part of my entire view of the universe, and one of my deepest and most sincerely help beliefs.... but don't worry I totally pinky swear I still do your taxes fairly" you'd at least be hesitant.

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, I would rather they believed in reality, but from a pragmatical point of view, I also don't have the time to save the whole world. Plus, last time some bloke tried to save the world, they nailed him to a bit o' wood

 

[Thor 2]

Well, I would rather they believed in reality, but from a pragmatical point of view, I also don't have the time to save the whole world. Plus, last time some bloke tried to save the world, they nailed him to a bit o' wood

I don't know, I think there have been many more credible stories of others trying to save the world, since Jesus was supposedly doing his thing.

 

[Thor 2]

I get little tired of folk going on about about their spirituality, as if it is some special experience unique to themselves or select group. Many or most, I feel sure, have experience of awe and wonder. Being one of these, I don't brand it as some special kind of spiritual experience with a special name.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I could go my whole not hearing the "I'm not religious I'm spiritual*" thing again and die a happy man.

* Dear God and if I never hear that stupid, treacle, "God wants spiritual fruits, not religious nuts" thing again. That's the "Live, Laugh, Love" of theology.

 

[Apathia]

Personally I just find I don't have to actually believe it to be real for an imagination exercise.

Neither do I.

An example of religious utility:
The Shingon Sect of Japanese Esoteric Buddhism has a pantheon of deity like figures: Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, wisdom kings, dharma protectors, and saintly monks. These figure into rituals and meditation practices that center on the transformations of character they represent.

I've spoken to numerous Shingon priests, including the current head of the sect, Soeda Ryusho. The priesthood isn't insisting that any one believe these beings objectively exist. (Even though the traditional position of the sect is that the Cosmic Buddha is a personal being) The substance is in the practice. It's esoteric, you see.

This by the way is a level of imagination more on the lines of self-realization than making mods for Skyrim.

But making mods for Skyrim is wonderful! I used to make mods for Morrowind, especially to use in a web comic I made of screen shots from the game. I called it The Adventures of Shamus Scamp.

 

[Apathia]

TBH, I could even live with people believing silly stuff, as long as they keep it to themselves. If someone wants to believe that Japanese swords don't exist in Skyrim, nevermind that every single TES game INCLUDING Skyrim had them, sure, they can hang on to that belief. But if they try to tell me that my having such a mod is some kind of heresy, they can jolly well hear my own two cents. Same for God, really.

Hear, hear!

 

[Apathia]

Well, I would rather they believed in reality, but from a pragmatical point of view, I also don't have the time to save the whole world. Plus, last time some bloke tried to save the world, they nailed him to a bit o' wood

There's an arrogance in trying to save the world. You make people an object of your agenda that usually tells them whatever way they intend to live is "fallen," and tainted with sin. It's an insult to personal dignity to make anyone an object of a religious cause.

 

[Apathia]

I get little tired of folk going on about about their spirituality, as if it is some special experience unique to themselves or select group. Many or most, I feel sure, have experience of awe and wonder. Being one of these, I don't brand it as some special kind of spiritual experience with a special name.

Call it "awe and wonder" and enjoy and revel in it. If you wish to share the rapture of it, use whatever words work for you and the person you're speaking to.

And yes, there is no private, special experience. Our subjective lives don't happen in a vacuum but in community.