Theists: Please give me a reason to believe in your superpowered invisible overlord

[Stone]

[Getting onto every single blanking page in this site today is taking an average of three or four minutes today! Are you all having this same problem? AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!]

I will shortly be submitting the next installment in the series, showing certain social/cultural patterns related both to history and the quirks of the human brain. Again, I wish I did have access right now to a separate on-line place where I could put this entire 12-part series as a single unit for everyone to peruse in a separate thread. But right now, I don't have access to such a place. So installments it will have to be.

I fully appreciate -- and much regret -- that comments and discussion on the installments thus far have been very few and far between. But I still think it worthwhile for posters to see this because it's the only take on theism that I know that does not deal in vague imponderables like the nature of the cosmos and blah blah blah but sticks strictly to what we know of human behavior only. Somehow, the human brain has concocted this weird concept of some sort of deity (or deities) through the ages. So querying just why and how and in what context the human brain has done that is faaaaaaaaaaar more to the point than pretending to understand the cosmos as a whole. The human brain and its detritus has a more accessible paper trail than the chunks and chunks of data relating to the cosmos. That's why it makes more sense to start with the brain's paper trail first, especially in case the whole notion of deity is a pure delusion.

Although this is not one of the regular installments, it's occurred to me that it may be useful to offer here a brief precis of the questions raised in the series. A crude statement of these questions could either risk lessening readers' full interest in the extensive data behind those questions (data duly unwrapped in the 12-part series) or it could finally stimulate greater interest because of the clearer context I'm providing here. Hard to say. But it's obviously past time to take that risk. I'm honestly more interested in a discussion than in just talking to myself. And it's possible that viewing a summation of some kind here may spark better dialogue (and even a more avid readership for the series itself?) than just presenting all 12 parts of the series without any precis.

So here's a precis -- a precis not of the content, necessarily, but of the questions raised by the content.

SUMMATION OF QUESTIONS

Many religions are what I'd term "fake", since they end up pretty quickly abandoning whatever high-minded principles some original founder may introduce. On the one hand, it's very clear that, for instance, the Buddhas and the Confuciuses are perfectly caring people, whose orientation is primarily toward the alleviation of suffering. That becomes apparent if one applies the strictest secular scholarship to extant texts preserving their thoughts. Such a modern analysis, philological etc., always seems to show that the few texts that emerge as possibly the earliest, in otherwise voluminous and often useless canons of "doctrine", are those few texts directly addressing the welfare of the vulnerable. On the other hand, those texts that emerge as being of relatively late vintage often reflect obsessions with ceremony, magic, etc. -- YAWN!

It is unlikely, in my view, that the consistent concern in these earliest texts with the vulnerable, the least popular, the most abused, the least respected, etc., throughout the founding documents of religions spanning continents and millennia, is just a coincidence. Some universal impulse clearly takes over in all these figures. What is the nature of that impulse?

When we look at modern scholarship's secular choice of the earliest texts in these polyglot canons, we see that these founders who actually experience this impulse for themselves always reference it as sourced in some sort of deity or other. They may be all over the map as to the full nature of that deity, but they seem unanimous in viewing what has inspired them as ultimately divine, in some form. Can each and every single one of them be wrong, without exception? Really?

Ultimately, in my view, humanity cannot flourish long-term without each and every individual human being flourishing as well. Basic adaptation of any socialized species -- such as humanity -- demands that a habit of looking out for the least of us be ingrained -- or we all perish. Caring for the most vulnerable is really, then, a survival mechanism. It becomes ingrained out of the sheer necessity for a socialized species just to survive. If we don't live for others, we won't ourselves survive. That's what it boils down to.

Then, since we can readily trace all known notions of caring for the vulnerable back to these theistic founders and these theistic founders only, and since caring for the vulnerable is a socializing necessity for our very survival, then maybe some sort of an awareness of some deity or other is just as much a survival necessity for our species as a whole, however well certain individuals may sometimes cope without it.

What does all this ultimately mean, then? Well, it might mean that while the practice of any religion often becomes corrupted and perverted, the original impetus for its founding may derive from something sincerely felt tangibly by its original pioneer: felt as a real deity whose sole urge is caring for others, not creating any cosmos -- not all the original founders cite creation -- which may have indeed arisen through something spontaneous instead, not presiding over any afterlife -- not all the original founders cite an afterlife -- not having any power over daily events -- not all the original founders cite omnipotence -- but concerned solely with alleviating suffering. That's what the most well documented founders most stress, and it's probably what most relates to deity, whoever it/she/he is.

Religions often become corrupted bunk, but deity may well be real -- and be far more concerned with our caring for each other properly than with any of our mumbo-jumbo for worshiping her/him.

The earliest (known) social reformer is Urukagina, who also reformed the temples to reflect his belief in Ningirsu as the shield and safeguard of the "widow and orphan" (the first time this phrase appears in writing), and whio was the first to promulgate altruism and to introduce the concept of "freedom" ("amagi" in Sumerian) to the human comedy. His basic idea of protecting the vulnerable reappears practically every time some new counter-cultural spin emerges on the nature of deity, whether from Buddha, Socrates, Jesus or many another pioneer.

Brhaspati is the earliest (known) atheist. To my chagrin -- as both a social activist and a skeptic for most of my life -- I ascertained that Brhaspati is also the earliest (known) espouser of an entirely self-centered ethic! It's sobering to me that the earliest (known) atheist is also the earliest (known) social isolationist.

Of course, it's not impossible that this uncanny pattern involving religious founders versus pioneering atheists is simply a a series of coincidences, but over thousands of years? Founders of religions (their bloodthirsty, frequently immoral, followers across the centuries are a separate case) introduce counter-cultural altruism again and again while subsequent counter-cultural innovators in atheism like the Greek, Critias, of a century or so later than Brhaspati, and quite a number of others in ancient and not so ancient times as well, are primarily -- not exclusively, but primarily -- supporters of a recurring self-centered ethic until the philosophical demographics among such counter-cultural atheists finally start shifting only a few hundred years ago.

If such an ethic is indeed counter-evolutionary for humanity -- and I'm reasonably sure it is -- then might that mean that both altruism and belief are equally essential to any human evolution? If so, does it make sense for belief to be positively evolutionary even were there no such thing as deity? Or is that supposition ultimately illogical, and would the apparent primacy of the role of belief in human evolution automatically point to deity itself (whether mono- or poly-) being also essential to human evolution and thus entirely real?

Stone

 

[Fast Eddie B]

Painfully slow, and has been on and off for a week or so.

 

[Stone]

And here is Section IV of the 12-part series --

Original Contexts for Self-centered Doctrines

It's uncanny the way each pioneering altruist here couples his socially risky idea of expanding the social compact with an equally risky and pioneering "take" on the idea of Deity that often earns him the opprobrium of his peers. To properly assess if this pattern is purely coincidental, it's just as important to take the fourth step now and look at the earliest (extant) examples of unequivocal self-centered philosophies overtly deaf to any claim on society by the more helpless among us. The very earliest surviving philosophy of this kind is the ancient Lokayata philosophy in ancient India, ca. the 7th century B.C.E., introduced by the ancient Indian thinker, Brhaspati. No earlier such philosophy can be traced. There may have been some earlier such philosophies, but this is the earliest for which we have a name and a primary source. This philosophy claims, first of all, that resting places and watering holes for travelers are a waste of time and designed only for people who, being indigent, are therefore of no value. It also decries the notion of occasional general dining invitations to people in the neighborhood (a frequent obligation of that time for the wealthy), decrying these invites precisely because they are ultimately of benefit to the indigent only, while inconveniencing those of greater substance and therefore of greater worth. Instead, it should be the interests of oneself only that guides individual behavior. Here is the earliest direct quote of the founder of Lokayata, Brhaspati:


"Chastity and other such ordinances are laid down by clever weaklings; gifts of gold and land, the pleasure of invitations to dinner, are devised by indigent people with stomachs lean with hunger.
"The building of temples, houses for water-supply, tanks, wells, resting places, and the like, please only travelers, not others.
"The Agnihotra ritual, the three Vedas, the triple staff, the ash-smearing, are the ways of gaining a livelihood for those who are lacking in intellect and energy."

Now, an odd coincidence here: Lokayata is not only the earliest overtly self-centered philosophy extant. It is also the earliest extant overtly atheist philosophy as well. Ascertaining the latter gave me, as an atheist, a bit of a shock, I can tell you. At the same time, I still think it very likely that certain primitive theistic assumptions (addressing the how and/or the why of the intricate ways of this universe) should still be viewed with skepticism today. And I have to say that I also view skeptically certain primitive concepts of deity itself that still prevail today.

However, the behavioral tendencies of those counter-cultural figures throughout time who feel a visceral sense of deity around them (such as Buddha et al) and who link this with an equally visceral "take" on altruism/empathy, versus those tendencies of those who counter-culturally articulate both self-centeredness and nonbelief as a linked philosophy (Brhaspati), certainly make one wonder which philosophies are more conducive to a thriving and evolving human species, as described by Gould et al.

This accords with a general pattern for all those pioneers in non-belief down the centuries who also generate a new social ethic. Lokayata is not alone in advocating a self-centered way of life instead of a caring one. The earliest extant overt articulation of self-centeredness in the West comes from Critias, the pioneering leader of the ruthless Thirty Tyrants at the end of the Pelopenesian(sp.?) War, at the end of the 5th century B.C.E. in ancient Greece. Disconcertingly, Critias is also the writer of the earliest extant articulation of atheism in Western culture. The earliest overt expression of atheism in Enlightenment France comes from the early 1700s, from Jean Meslier, who links his posthumously issued atheism with a call to brain everyone who disagrees with him, and a wish that "every noblemen might be strangled with the ripped-out guts of every remaining priest" (evidently a believer in collective punishment........). Even the introducer of the first thoroughly atheistic philosophy in Western Europe of the second millennium C.E., Matthias Knutzen in the late 1670s, whose ethics happen to be admirably other-centered, still shapes the ethics of his social philosophy around the injunctions of another, the ancient Roman jurist and polytheist, Ulpian, instead of arriving at a new "take" on altruism on his own. Those who are original in this respect (unlike Knutzen) seem to always arrive at a self-centered social ethic rather than an other-centered one (precisely the pattern that researchers like Gould, in scrutinizing cultural/social adaptations in various socialized species, single out as potentially destructive of stability and community).

I was thus disappointed to find that, although there are plenty of atheist social reformers of great altruism -- one thinks of some of the greatest humanitarians like Bertrand Russell, or Mr. Ingersoll, or Baron Holbach -- there does not seem to be a single such altruist who actually introduces both her/his new atheism and her/his own pioneering ethical code at the same time -- symbiotically -- and whose twin introduction of that as a two-part interlinked package results in a "fast-tracked" cultural impact on everyone around her/him. This contrasts with the picture for counter-cultural theist altruists.

Now, within the four corners of this phenomenon, the strict historical approach would be to ascertain which factor is the variable that causes such a pattern to obtain for one group (countercultural theists) and not the other (countercultural atheists)? If this evolving process for ethical codes comes from nature itself, and I would guess that it does for precisely the reasons provided by Gould et al, then how can the "hallucination" process of deity from specific -- (?)highly attuned(?) -- counterculturalists not come from the same thing, nature? -- particularly since it so frequently has this symbiotic relationship with ethical adaptation?

Before we get too carried away here, though, it remains obvious that ascribing the "hallucination" of deity to the general nature of our species still doesn't automatically make deity real. It just makes the "hallucination" natural and inevitable, which says nothing about any reality behind it. But since the practical value of evolving ethical codes seem all too real and urgent to me, not an illusion at all but an urgent reality without which our species will eventually sink into extinction, I have to ask why an individual direct deity "hallucination" isn't also reality-based after all, given the (apparent) symbiotic relationship between the two -- "hallucination" of deity and insightful countercultural selfless ethics -- throughout history.

Stone

 

[halleyscomet]

Painfully slow, and has been on and off for a week or so.

Probably a DDOS from some woo-woo fanatic upset at something posted on the server.

 

[tsig]

And here is Section IV of the 12-part series --

Original Contexts for Self-centered Doctrines

It's uncanny the way each pioneering altruist here couples his socially risky idea of expanding the social compact with an equally risky and pioneering "take" on the idea of Deity that often earns him the opprobrium of his peers. To properly assess if this pattern is purely coincidental, it's just as important to take the fourth step now and look at the earliest (extant) examples of unequivocal self-centered philosophies overtly deaf to any claim on society by the more helpless among us. The very earliest surviving philosophy of this kind is the ancient Lokayata philosophy in ancient India, ca. the 7th century B.C.E., introduced by the ancient Indian thinker, Brhaspati. No earlier such philosophy can be traced. There may have been some earlier such philosophies, but this is the earliest for which we have a name and a primary source. This philosophy claims, first of all, that resting places and watering holes for travelers are a waste of time and designed only for people who, being indigent, are therefore of no value. It also decries the notion of occasional general dining invitations to people in the neighborhood (a frequent obligation of that time for the wealthy), decrying these invites precisely because they are ultimately of benefit to the indigent only, while inconveniencing those of greater substance and therefore of greater worth. Instead, it should be the interests of oneself only that guides individual behavior. Here is the earliest direct quote of the founder of Lokayata, Brhaspati:


"Chastity and other such ordinances are laid down by clever weaklings; gifts of gold and land, the pleasure of invitations to dinner, are devised by indigent people with stomachs lean with hunger.
"The building of temples, houses for water-supply, tanks, wells, resting places, and the like, please only travelers, not others.
"The Agnihotra ritual, the three Vedas, the triple staff, the ash-smearing, are the ways of gaining a livelihood for those who are lacking in intellect and energy."

Now, an odd coincidence here: Lokayata is not only the earliest overtly self-centered philosophy extant. It is also the earliest extant overtly atheist philosophy as well. Ascertaining the latter gave me, as an atheist, a bit of a shock, I can tell you. At the same time, I still think it very likely that certain primitive theistic assumptions (addressing the how and/or the why of the intricate ways of this universe) should still be viewed with skepticism today. And I have to say that I also view skeptically certain primitive concepts of deity itself that still prevail today.

However, the behavioral tendencies of those counter-cultural figures throughout time who feel a visceral sense of deity around them (such as Buddha et al) and who link this with an equally visceral "take" on altruism/empathy, versus those tendencies of those who counter-culturally articulate both self-centeredness and nonbelief as a linked philosophy (Brhaspati), certainly make one wonder which philosophies are more conducive to a thriving and evolving human species, as described by Gould et al.

This accords with a general pattern for all those pioneers in non-belief down the centuries who also generate a new social ethic. Lokayata is not alone in advocating a self-centered way of life instead of a caring one. The earliest extant overt articulation of self-centeredness in the West comes from Critias, the pioneering leader of the ruthless Thirty Tyrants at the end of the Pelopenesian(sp.?) War, at the end of the 5th century B.C.E. in ancient Greece. Disconcertingly, Critias is also the writer of the earliest extant articulation of atheism in Western culture. The earliest overt expression of atheism in Enlightenment France comes from the early 1700s, from Jean Meslier, who links his posthumously issued atheism with a call to brain everyone who disagrees with him, and a wish that "every noblemen might be strangled with the ripped-out guts of every remaining priest" (evidently a believer in collective punishment........). Even the introducer of the first thoroughly atheistic philosophy in Western Europe of the second millennium C.E., Matthias Knutzen in the late 1670s, whose ethics happen to be admirably other-centered, still shapes the ethics of his social philosophy around the injunctions of another, the ancient Roman jurist and polytheist, Ulpian, instead of arriving at a new "take" on altruism on his own. Those who are original in this respect (unlike Knutzen) seem to always arrive at a self-centered social ethic rather than an other-centered one (precisely the pattern that researchers like Gould, in scrutinizing cultural/social adaptations in various socialized species, single out as potentially destructive of stability and community).

I was thus disappointed to find that, although there are plenty of atheist social reformers of great altruism -- one thinks of some of the greatest humanitarians like Bertrand Russell, or Mr. Ingersoll, or Baron Holbach -- there does not seem to be a single such altruist who actually introduces both her/his new atheism and her/his own pioneering ethical code at the same time -- symbiotically -- and whose twin introduction of that as a two-part interlinked package results in a "fast-tracked" cultural impact on everyone around her/him. This contrasts with the picture for counter-cultural theist altruists.

Now, within the four corners of this phenomenon, the strict historical approach would be to ascertain which factor is the variable that causes such a pattern to obtain for one group (countercultural theists) and not the other (countercultural atheists)? If this evolving process for ethical codes comes from nature itself, and I would guess that it does for precisely the reasons provided by Gould et al, then how can the "hallucination" process of deity from specific -- (?)highly attuned(?) -- counterculturalists not come from the same thing, nature? -- particularly since it so frequently has this symbiotic relationship with ethical adaptation?

Before we get too carried away here, though, it remains obvious that ascribing the "hallucination" of deity to the general nature of our species still doesn't automatically make deity real. It just makes the "hallucination" natural and inevitable, which says nothing about any reality behind it. But since the practical value of evolving ethical codes seem all too real and urgent to me, not an illusion at all but an urgent reality without which our species will eventually sink into extinction, I have to ask why an individual direct deity "hallucination" isn't also reality-based after all, given the (apparent) symbiotic relationship between the two -- "hallucination" of deity and insightful countercultural selfless ethics -- throughout history.

Stone

You're using a lot of words to say that morals come from god and atheists have no morals.

 

[Stone]

Probably a DDOS from some woo-woo fanatic upset at something posted on the server.

Oh, dear. I should have put the complaint about the slowness of the pages at the bottom rather than the top of my posting.

Time to try getting back to topic here <sigh> --

I will shortly be submitting the next installment in the series, showing certain social/cultural patterns related both to history and the quirks of the human brain. Again, I wish I did have access right now to a separate on-line place where I could put this entire 12-part series as a single unit for everyone to peruse in a separate thread. But right now, I don't have access to such a place. So installments it will have to be.

I fully appreciate -- and much regret -- that comments and discussion on the installments thus far have been very few and far between. But I still think it worthwhile for posters to see this because it's the only take on theism that I know that does not deal in vague imponderables like the nature of the cosmos and blah blah blah but sticks strictly to what we know of human behavior only. Somehow, the human brain has concocted this weird concept of some sort of deity (or deities) through the ages. So querying just why and how and in what context the human brain has done that is faaaaaaaaaaar more to the point than pretending to understand the cosmos as a whole. The human brain and its detritus has a more accessible paper trail than the chunks and chunks of data relating to the cosmos. That's why it makes more sense to start with the brain's paper trail first, especially in case the whole notion of deity is a pure delusion.

Although this is not one of the regular installments, it's occurred to me that it may be useful to offer here a brief precis of the questions raised in the series. A crude statement of these questions could either risk lessening readers' full interest in the extensive data behind those questions (data duly unwrapped in the 12-part series) or it could finally stimulate greater interest because of the clearer context I'm providing here. Hard to say. But it's obviously past time to take that risk. I'm honestly more interested in a discussion than in just talking to myself. And it's possible that viewing a summation of some kind here may spark better dialogue (and even a more avid readership for the series itself?) than just presenting all 12 parts of the series without any precis.

So here's a precis -- a precis not of the content, necessarily, but of the questions raised by the content.

SUMMATION OF QUESTIONS

Many religions are what I'd term "fake", since they end up pretty quickly abandoning whatever high-minded principles some original founder may introduce. On the one hand, it's very clear that, for instance, the Buddhas and the Confuciuses are perfectly caring people, whose orientation is primarily toward the alleviation of suffering. That becomes apparent if one applies the strictest secular scholarship to extant texts preserving their thoughts. Such a modern analysis, philological etc., always seems to show that the few texts that emerge as possibly the earliest, in otherwise voluminous and often useless canons of "doctrine", are those few texts directly addressing the welfare of the vulnerable. On the other hand, those texts that emerge as being of relatively late vintage often reflect obsessions with ceremony, magic, etc. -- YAWN!

It is unlikely, in my view, that the consistent concern in these earliest texts with the vulnerable, the least popular, the most abused, the least respected, etc., throughout the founding documents of religions spanning continents and millennia, is just a coincidence. Some universal impulse clearly takes over in all these figures. What is the nature of that impulse?

When we look at modern scholarship's secular choice of the earliest texts in these polyglot canons, we see that these founders who actually experience this impulse for themselves always reference it as sourced in some sort of deity or other. They may be all over the map as to the full nature of that deity, but they seem unanimous in viewing what has inspired them as ultimately divine, in some form. Can each and every single one of them be wrong, without exception? Really?

Ultimately, in my view, humanity cannot flourish long-term without each and every individual human being flourishing as well. Basic adaptation of any socialized species -- such as humanity -- demands that a habit of looking out for the least of us be ingrained -- or we all perish. Caring for the most vulnerable is really, then, a survival mechanism. It becomes ingrained out of the sheer necessity for a socialized species just to survive. If we don't live for others, we won't ourselves survive. That's what it boils down to.

Then, since we can readily trace all known notions of caring for the vulnerable back to these theistic founders and these theistic founders only, and since caring for the vulnerable is a socializing necessity for our very survival, then maybe some sort of an awareness of some deity or other is just as much a survival necessity for our species as a whole, however well certain individuals may sometimes cope without it.

What does all this ultimately mean, then? Well, it might mean that while the practice of any religion often becomes corrupted and perverted, the original impetus for its founding may derive from something sincerely felt tangibly by its original pioneer: felt as a real deity whose sole urge is caring for others, not creating any cosmos -- not all the original founders cite creation -- which may have indeed arisen through something spontaneous instead, not presiding over any afterlife -- not all the original founders cite an afterlife -- not having any power over daily events -- not all the original founders cite omnipotence -- but concerned solely with alleviating suffering. That's what the most well documented founders most stress, and it's probably what most relates to deity, whoever it/she/he is.

Religions often become corrupted bunk, but deity may well be real -- and be far more concerned with our caring for each other properly than with any of our mumbo-jumbo for worshiping her/him.

The earliest (known) social reformer is Urukagina, who also reformed the temples to reflect his belief in Ningirsu as the shield and safeguard of the "widow and orphan" (the first time this phrase appears in writing), and who was the first to promulgate altruism and to introduce the concept of "freedom" ("amagi" in Sumerian) to the human comedy. His basic idea of protecting the vulnerable reappears practically every time some new counter-cultural spin emerges on the nature of deity, whether from Buddha, Socrates, Jesus or many another pioneer.

Brhaspati is the earliest (known) atheist. To my chagrin -- as both a social activist and a skeptic for most of my life -- I ascertained that Brhaspati is also the earliest (known) espouser of an entirely self-centered ethic! It's sobering to me that the earliest (known) atheist is also the earliest (known) social isolationist.

Of course, it's not impossible that this uncanny pattern involving religious founders versus pioneering atheists is simply a series of coincidences, but over thousands of years? Founders of religions (their bloodthirsty, frequently immoral, followers across the centuries are a separate case) introduce counter-cultural altruism again and again while subsequent counter-cultural innovators in atheism like the Greek, Critias, of a century or so later than Brhaspati, and quite a number of others in ancient and not so ancient times as well, are primarily -- not exclusively, but primarily -- supporters of a recurring self-centered ethic until the philosophical demographics among such counter-cultural atheists finally start shifting only a few hundred years ago.

If such an ethic is indeed counter-evolutionary for humanity -- and I'm reasonably sure it is -- then might that mean that both altruism and belief are equally essential to any human evolution? If so, does it make sense for belief to be positively evolutionary even were there no such thing as deity? Or is that supposition ultimately illogical, and would the apparent primacy of the role of belief in human evolution automatically point to deity itself (whether mono- or poly-) being also essential to human evolution and thus entirely real?

Stone

 

[Stone]

You're using a lot of words to say that morals come from god and atheists have no morals.

Rank-and-file atheists have the same mix of good/bad and the same general morals as rank-and-file theists. It's when pioneering atheists and pioneering theists are analyzed separately that a different pattern emerges. Even then, there are some pioneering atheists who are perfectly altruistic. It's when pioneering atheists get into the business of some new pioneering ethic as well, rather than adopting another's ethic, that self-centeredness -- or even a getting-back-at animus! -- emerges. That's what's so disconcerting to me.

No, I haven't gone from lifelong skeptic to fundie. But I have gone from lifelong skeptic to general deist (with a small "d").

I don't think it practical to weigh these patterns sufficiently without some nodding acquaintance with the data in Sections II, III, V and following. Otherwise, all readers here from every persuasion are just going by the seat of their pants. Unproductive. I hope everyone reads the full series as well.

It seems a fact that the very earliest textual strata in all wooo canons throughout history engage first with suffering and how to alleviate it, period. Then, other distractions, like cosmic inception, omnipotence, afterlives, etc., come in at much later stages and are very clearly not at the back of the original theistic impulse at all. So when armchair theoreticians go on at length about curiosity and inquiry as being at the back of theism, they are evidently all wet. -- I found that possibly the biggest surprise of all myself. Contrary to my expectations, history shows that the initial impulse for theism comes not from curiosity at all but from an odd thirst for justice of some kind, or for a fair world.

One atheist at least does get this right, and it's not anyone in modern times. As we will see in Section V, it's Critias, an atheist in ancient Greece, who places a preoccupation with how to prevent harm done to others at center stage in the recurring urge towards theism. In this, he's evidently right, and modern writers are wrong.

Stone

 

[punshhh]

I listened to a debate once about God/No God where one of the concluding questions was something like, "What argument from the other side do you find most compelling?"

The "No God" side just floundered about, never really answering it.

I remain an atheist, but I must admit that when recently taking an online astronomy course, I was again reminded of how "remarkable" it is that math can so precisely explain the way the universe works. The way certain constants, like pi and the speed of light, keep recurring to make the equations fit "just so". Maybe it's my lack of understanding of the math involved, but I still end up in awe about the way equations fit reality - or vice versa!

Not saying it's an argument for God or a law giver, but it is one of the few things that makes me pause and go hmmmmm.

Sounds like god as the eternal tinkerer. Given enough time the tinkering reaches perfection.

Perhaps the question is, does all this arise "naturally", or does it require an intelligent tinkerer?

Of course we all know(don't) the answer to that.

 

[Donn]

Sounds like god as the eternal tinkerer. Given enough time the tinkering reaches perfection.

If it takes a god time to improve, that god is no different to no god at all.

Perhaps the question is, does all this arise "naturally", or does it require an intelligent tinkerer?

You have loaded the question with the agent-driven word tinkering. Then you contrast it against naturally, as if agents are not natural.

Meh.

 

[Donn]

Stone,
tl;dr. Sorry. Slow forum, lack of free time on my side and overly long prose.

"Prolix, prolix! Nothing a pair of scissors can't fix." — Nick Cave.

Boil it down baby.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

My answer would be "none of them."

If the question is, "Which arguments for a God do you find compelling or convincing", I agree. Implied in my atheistic stance. None of them.

But unless you find each and every argument for God equally lame, there must be some that are more compelling than others.

I just find some are easy to dismiss out of hand as fallacious, and others take some thought to refute.

Yet refuted they remain.

 

[devnull]

I think Hitchens, when asked the same question, responded with the fine tuning argument.

It's wrong, most obviously, but on the surface appears to be the most compelling.

 

[devnull]

doublepost

 

[Vortigern99]

[Getting onto every single blanking page in this site today is taking an average of three or four minutes today! Are you all having this same problem? AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!]

I will shortly be submitting the next installment in the series, showing certain social/cultural patterns related both to history and the quirks of the human brain. Again, I wish I did have access right now to a separate on-line place where I could put this entire 12-part series as a single unit for everyone to peruse in a separate thread. But right now, I don't have access to such a place. So installments it will have to be.

I fully appreciate -- and much regret -- that comments and discussion on the installments thus far have been very few and far between. But I still think it worthwhile for posters to see this because it's the only take on theism that I know that does not deal in vague imponderables like the nature of the cosmos and blah blah blah but sticks strictly to what we know of human behavior only. Somehow, the human brain has concocted this weird concept of some sort of deity (or deities) through the ages. So querying just why and how and in what context the human brain has done that is faaaaaaaaaaar more to the point than pretending to understand the cosmos as a whole. The human brain and its detritus has a more accessible paper trail than the chunks and chunks of data relating to the cosmos. That's why it makes more sense to start with the brain's paper trail first, especially in case the whole notion of deity is a pure delusion.

Although this is not one of the regular installments, it's occurred to me that it may be useful to offer here a brief precis of the questions raised in the series. A crude statement of these questions could either risk lessening readers' full interest in the extensive data behind those questions (data duly unwrapped in the 12-part series) or it could finally stimulate greater interest because of the clearer context I'm providing here. Hard to say. But it's obviously past time to take that risk. I'm honestly more interested in a discussion than in just talking to myself. And it's possible that viewing a summation of some kind here may spark better dialogue (and even a more avid readership for the series itself?) than just presenting all 12 parts of the series without any precis.

So here's a precis -- a precis not of the content, necessarily, but of the questions raised by the content.

SUMMATION OF QUESTIONS

Many religions are what I'd term "fake", since they end up pretty quickly abandoning whatever high-minded principles some original founder may introduce. On the one hand, it's very clear that, for instance, the Buddhas and the Confuciuses are perfectly caring people, whose orientation is primarily toward the alleviation of suffering. That becomes apparent if one applies the strictest secular scholarship to extant texts preserving their thoughts. Such a modern analysis, philological etc., always seems to show that the few texts that emerge as possibly the earliest, in otherwise voluminous and often useless canons of "doctrine", are those few texts directly addressing the welfare of the vulnerable. On the other hand, those texts that emerge as being of relatively late vintage often reflect obsessions with ceremony, magic, etc. -- YAWN!

It is unlikely, in my view, that the consistent concern in these earliest texts with the vulnerable, the least popular, the most abused, the least respected, etc., throughout the founding documents of religions spanning continents and millennia, is just a coincidence. Some universal impulse clearly takes over in all these figures. What is the nature of that impulse?

When we look at modern scholarship's secular choice of the earliest texts in these polyglot canons, we see that these founders who actually experience this impulse for themselves always reference it as sourced in some sort of deity or other. They may be all over the map as to the full nature of that deity, but they seem unanimous in viewing what has inspired them as ultimately divine, in some form. Can each and every single one of them be wrong, without exception? Really?

Ultimately, in my view, humanity cannot flourish long-term without each and every individual human being flourishing as well. Basic adaptation of any socialized species -- such as humanity -- demands that a habit of looking out for the least of us be ingrained -- or we all perish. Caring for the most vulnerable is really, then, a survival mechanism. It becomes ingrained out of the sheer necessity for a socialized species just to survive. If we don't live for others, we won't ourselves survive. That's what it boils down to.

Then, since we can readily trace all known notions of caring for the vulnerable back to these theistic founders and these theistic founders only, and since caring for the vulnerable is a socializing necessity for our very survival, then maybe some sort of an awareness of some deity or other is just as much a survival necessity for our species as a whole, however well certain individuals may sometimes cope without it.

What does all this ultimately mean, then? Well, it might mean that while the practice of any religion often becomes corrupted and perverted, the original impetus for its founding may derive from something sincerely felt tangibly by its original pioneer: felt as a real deity whose sole urge is caring for others, not creating any cosmos -- not all the original founders cite creation -- which may have indeed arisen through something spontaneous instead, not presiding over any afterlife -- not all the original founders cite an afterlife -- not having any power over daily events -- not all the original founders cite omnipotence -- but concerned solely with alleviating suffering. That's what the most well documented founders most stress, and it's probably what most relates to deity, whoever it/she/he is.

Religions often become corrupted bunk, but deity may well be real -- and be far more concerned with our caring for each other properly than with any of our mumbo-jumbo for worshiping her/him.

The earliest (known) social reformer is Urukagina, who also reformed the temples to reflect his belief in Ningirsu as the shield and safeguard of the "widow and orphan" (the first time this phrase appears in writing), and whio was the first to promulgate altruism and to introduce the concept of "freedom" ("amagi" in Sumerian) to the human comedy. His basic idea of protecting the vulnerable reappears practically every time some new counter-cultural spin emerges on the nature of deity, whether from Buddha, Socrates, Jesus or many another pioneer.

Brhaspati is the earliest (known) atheist. To my chagrin -- as both a social activist and a skeptic for most of my life -- I ascertained that Brhaspati is also the earliest (known) espouser of an entirely self-centered ethic! It's sobering to me that the earliest (known) atheist is also the earliest (known) social isolationist.

Of course, it's not impossible that this uncanny pattern involving religious founders versus pioneering atheists is simply a a series of coincidences, but over thousands of years? Founders of religions (their bloodthirsty, frequently immoral, followers across the centuries are a separate case) introduce counter-cultural altruism again and again while subsequent counter-cultural innovators in atheism like the Greek, Critias, of a century or so later than Brhaspati, and quite a number of others in ancient and not so ancient times as well, are primarily -- not exclusively, but primarily -- supporters of a recurring self-centered ethic until the philosophical demographics among such counter-cultural atheists finally start shifting only a few hundred years ago.

If such an ethic is indeed counter-evolutionary for humanity -- and I'm reasonably sure it is -- then might that mean that both altruism and belief are equally essential to any human evolution? If so, does it make sense for belief to be positively evolutionary even were there no such thing as deity? Or is that supposition ultimately illogical, and would the apparent primacy of the role of belief in human evolution automatically point to deity itself (whether mono- or poly-) being also essential to human evolution and thus entirely real?

Stone

This is interesting to the part of my mind intrigued by the history of world religions and the ideologies that underlie them.

But what does it have to do with the thread question and OP? How does it, or any of your verbose posts, specifically offer support for belief in a god or gods?

 

[tsig]

If the question is, "Which arguments for a God do you find compelling or convincing", I agree. Implied in my atheistic stance. None of them.

But unless you find each and every argument for God equally lame, there must be some that are more compelling than others.

I just find some are easy to dismiss out of hand as fallacious, and others take some thought to refute.

Yet refuted they remain.

T. A.'s contingency argument caused me some problems for a while til I realized it's special pleading (everything must have a cause except this special being called god) then there's he fine tuning argument which is a combination of begging the question (fine tuning implies a fine tuner) and Texas sharpshooter (place life on Earth at the center then draw rings of improbability around life on Earth).


Arguments from personal experience (I see miracles, my bosom is burning and god talked to me) are unanswerable but only apply to the person having the experience.

 

[Stone]

This is interesting to the part of my mind intrigued by the history of world religions and the ideologies that underlie them.

But what does it have to do with the thread question and OP? How does it, or any of your verbose posts, specifically offer support for belief in a god or gods?

Any posts seeking to grapple with 5,000 years of human history are necessarily going to be "guilty" of some degree of detail. If you view those as "verbose", I'm afraid that comes with the territory. Glib arguments for deity like the fine-tuning argument (easily debunked by the reminder of millions of years of development in many directions) or the cause/effect argument (easily debunked by the reminder that then deity would need a Cause in turn) don't require much digging (or thought). However, analysis of thousands of years of human history does.

To your immediate question, my analysis does offer _some_ support for a belief in something or other that _might_ be termed divine; but it only does so _if_ one views any phenomenon that appears to interact positively with the human species as necessarily contingent on an external reality of some kind. Now, in this case, gutsy pioneers through the millennia have repeatedly inserted increasingly inclusive social paradigms into human society. So society appears to have functioned in an increasingly productive way as a result. Now, does that show a positive interaction of some kind with something altogether real, externally real? -- (i.e., "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" is proven a useful ethic, because it's grounded on something real: the presence of fellow creatures with whom we must cope and survive).

Likewise, if the end result for any mechanisms _behind_ increasingly inclusive paradigms reveals an interaction with something real (the end result of the paradigms certainly shows the practical need to cope with fellow creatures just to survive), then those mechanisms themselves also need to be analyzed. Do those mechanisms behind those recurring paradigms also interact with something just as real as their results do? -- (the results pointing up the practical reality of fellow creatures and of the need to get along with them). What is the nature of those mechanisms and how come their insistent and repeated involvement with obstinate and new-fangled and counter-cultural notions on the divine? -- (notions always at odds with the religious status quo rather than affirming them).

No one has made a proper study of those mechanisms that have appeared to trigger these more inclusive paradigms era by era in the first place. My 12-part study is strictly an amateurish start at doing that by a layman only. It is not intended as something conclusive at all. But it is intended as a beginning, to provoke more rigorous research by proper professionals throughout the world. This study is just a tiny bottle tossed in the ocean. The chances for a whole phalanx of professional scholars and brain researchers then coming together and actually doing this more rigorously than I can ever do are slim to none. But if there's any chance that this may happen at all, introducing an amateurish study like this one is still worthwhile.

Of course, this is all predicated on a premise: the premise that anything proved positive for humanity must necessarily interact with something or other that's real. However, if that premise is queried, then the whole argument I'm pursuing here won't wash.

Cheers,

Stone

 

[Wowbagger]

I was thus disappointed to find that, although there are plenty of atheist social reformers of great altruism -- one thinks of some of the greatest humanitarians like Bertrand Russell, or Mr. Ingersoll, or Baron Holbach -- there does not seem to be a single such altruist who actually introduces both her/his new atheism and her/his own pioneering ethical code at the same time -- symbiotically -- and whose twin introduction of that as a two-part interlinked package results in a "fast-tracked" cultural impact on everyone around her/him. This contrasts with the picture for counter-cultural theist altruists.

Pardon me for the interjection, but: Does it matter?

If altruism is, (as even Gould points out), better for our species than self-centered behavior, wouldn't both atheists and theists want to then be altruistic, for those same reasons, once that is discovered?

If you're looking for someone to claim atheism is symbiotically linked to altruism, you'll be hard pressed to find any. The ultimate reasons to be altruistic are independent of one's faith or lack thereof, in any Gods.

 

[Stone]

Pardon me for the interjection, but: Does it matter?

If altruism is, (as even Gould points out), better for our species than self-centered behavior, wouldn't both atheists and theists want to then be altruistic, for those same reasons, once that is discovered?

If you're looking for someone to claim atheism is symbiotically linked to altruism, you'll be hard pressed to find any. The ultimate reasons to be altruistic are independent of one's faith or lack thereof, in any Gods.

That latter statement would seem to make perfect sense. But for some weird reason, it just doesn't fit with the evident history. There is indeed an uncanny and constantly recurring symbiosis that emerges after all between those individual pioneers who tweak the priests' noses with some novel take or other on deity and those who introduce some novel more inclusive social ethic alongside it.

So now, the job of the social scientists, the brain researchers, and the accredited historical scholars, plus a whole phalanx of anthropologists, biologists, etc., is to determine just how come we have this weird symbiosis and whether or not it is or isn't a red herring. No one today has the requisite information to say whether or not this is or isn't a red herring. Guesses as to one or the other would just be that today: guesses, and pulled out of one's ass. Further research has to move forward first. Fortunately, no one today (at least, not yet) has the power to prevent such rigorous research from proceeding. If and when such research is ever prevented, history will not remember kindly those who may dismiss the imperative for such research.

Of course, no question that altruism is a clearly adaptive form of behavior that benefits the species. That no one sensible today disputes. The patterns of evolution and adaptation plainly bear that out. Now it's past time to analyze just how the mechanisms of altruistic adaptation work in detail. And yes, this does matter, because without altruistic paradigms, none of us would be living here in any kind of civilization at all -- if indeed we would be surviving at all, instead of having gone extinct through sheer selfishness thousands of years ago.

Stone

 

[Innocuous]

I fully appreciate -- and much regret -- that comments and discussion on the installments thus far have been very few and far between.

Distillation of the salient points would help us greatly. I understand the text was intended for a different audience. I find it hard to read, but will admit it just could be my inability to follow the text, which seems more like a stream-of-consciousness monolog than a structured argument. (And there is nothing wrong with that, but it might make it harder to find appropriate responses.) I am finding it very hard to pull the conclusions out of your text, let alone the evidence and reasoning behind it. I might give it another try.

Ultimately, in my view, humanity cannot flourish long-term without each and every individual human being flourishing as well.

How could that be true? A single person, unable to flourish (whatever that means), means that humanity overall cannot flourish (whatever that means) long-term? One single failure, and we cannot flourish? Surely this is an exaggeration.

It's sobering to me that the earliest (known) atheist is also the earliest (known) social isolationist.

He might have also been a bigot. Or a murderer. Or ... all sorts of unpleasant things. Therefore, atheism is bad? (You don't say that, but you seem to be implying something.)

 

[Donn]

Stone,
I also find your basic point elusive, but I think you're saying that religious people in history have done more to introduce altruism than atheists.

This may be so, but it does not lend truth to those religions. Great painters and musicians have also, historically, been religious. So what? History is soaked in religion, it speaks to the ologies of the humans who made it all so — not to the reality of the notions behind their beliefs.