Why do you believe what you believe?

Maybe it's worth a bit of clarification here... It's not just that people fake love (they do). I think that this word we call love covers a range of experiences, motivations and behaviours that are not all shared by everyone.

For example, under the meaning of 'love' I've found:

Most people experience some or several of these things when they experience love, but I don't know many who experience all of them. And when they do experience those things, it may be in a physical mode, a psychological mode or a social mode -- but perhaps not all three.

So I can understand that 'love' may include any or all of the above (because of how we've chosen to define the term), but I can't necessarily know what someone actually means when they say 'I love you'. Moreover, several of the things above are things that people aren't always aware of, or don't admit to. So love isn't an impossible term to discuss, but it is fraught with is/ought problems -- because I might think that people ought to experience love the way that love is for me -- when they don't.

There is an ontological hole here too -- though I think it can be managed. Say we claim that 'love is belonging' (I don't think it necessarily is, but let's claim it anyway). Is the reverse true: that belonging is love? The history of African America tells us that sometimes it's not. So we can be in a situation where we say 'I love you because I belong to you' or worse 'You love me because you belong to me', but committing an ontological fallacy.

In a religious sense, when my theist friends tell me 'God is love', I hear '<garble> is <fuzz>'. All it takes is for me to see that my theist friends don't even love each other the same way to realise that they're not actually worshipping the same deity -- it's different deities with the same mythology and name. And some, I'm pretty sure, don't actually know what they mean.

Ruv Draba said:

Just to keep the language simple for those who don't read such stuff -- the naturalistic fallacy is the idea that 'if it's natural, it's good'. Counter examples are that strychnine and cyanide are both compounds produced by nature -- they can occur in fruit, for instance. They're entirely natural but they can kill us.

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That's not a very good example. While the description of "if it's natural, it's good" is kind of accurate, the naturalistic fallacy is not about health risks. The naturalistic fallacy is to say that things are a certain way in nature, and thus that's the way they should be. Social darwinism is a prime example of this: in nature only the fittest survive, thus [even in society] only the fittest should survive.
On a side note: Sorry if i'm using technical terms, i'm not used to simplifying my vocabulary since i don't just read such stuff, i do it professionally.

Just for completeness' sake, its mirror-twin the moralistic fallacy is that 'if it's good, it must be natural'. An example is that if violence is wrong, then people must be peaceful by nature (in other words, all aggression must be taught via nurture). That's also proven untrue.

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Yes, though that's just plain silly. I don't think one should even properly call it a fallacy, since it's not fallacious logic, just a patently silly (and provably wrong) assumption that nature is perfect. (and nice)

While those two lines of reasoning are clearly fallacies (because we can find counter-examples), the is/ought problem in general is not. We can't show that every instance of is/ought reasoning is wrong -- we can only show that a limited number of is/ought arguments are wrong.

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Nope. It is all wrong because it all commits a categorical error.
It is similar to the observation (i think made first by Mill) that there is a separate dimension to any moral statement that cannot be substituted by different vocabulary. I.e. an ethical rule, when stated, has a quality when stated that makes it a moral expression, which is not derived from anything else, but unique.

This allows idealists to say indefinitely 'there is a purpose somewhere, and I think I'm close to finding it' -- even if it turns out that their current statement of purpose is mistaken. But we can't tell them 'stop looking for purpose', because we have no constructive argument to show that their next five (say) arguments of purpose will all be wrong.

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Their arguments are not fallacious because they arrive at wrong purposes, but because their reasoning is faulty. Demonstrating that the "found" purpose is wrong is not what allows us to determine the fallaciousness of the arguments.

It's generally considered good logical hygeine to keep arguments of how and why separate because historically, we know it leads us into mistakes... however... we also use is/ought reasoning all the time as a kind of heuristic to give us hypotheses to test -- so it's useful even if we can't rely on it.

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Ah, human common sense. While so often useful, usefulness is not an indication of correctness. Nor is use in general. We use faulty reasoning all the time because it works well enough. The well known example is how our pattern recognition and confirmation bias evolved. If an early primate ancestor sees a striped pattern in the jungle and runs away because he believes it's a tiger, he doesn't lose much when in error. If however he sees a tiger and misjudges it as just some play of light and leaves, he gets eaten.

We use is/ought thinking all the time to guide our investigation. The error (the danger really) comes when we try to turn 'is' into laws. Yet Science is full of is/ought Laws (like Conservation of Mass, Conservation of Momentum, and Biogenesis). It's just that scientists know that these 'Laws' are really expectations. We don't expect them to fail (and they generally don't) but we have nothing to assure us that they won't.

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That is a misinterpretation on your part. Science makes never any prescriptive statements. They might be called laws, but in science, "law" means a precisely described observable principle in nature. That's for example the reason why there is a law of gravity and no law of evolution, even though we know more about evolution than pretty much any other scientific topic, and know next to nothing about gravity. We can precisely predict the way gravity acts, and coin a formula, thus a law. We cannot accurately predict evolution, thus no law.

So that line of is/ought reasoning is wrong. But that counter-example has nothing to say about whether Conservation of Mass (deriving entirely from is/ought thinking, supported by squillions of tests) is itself valid or not.

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Conservation of mass is a simple observation, it has nothing to do with any prescriptive statements. Science never commits the is-ought fallacy, because science never deals in oughts.

AMCrenshaw said:

If it's not the "ontological fallacy", it's definitely a fallacy involving the ontological argument, which I think is actually rather common.

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The ontological fallacy is to derive from the fact that something exists, that it must have been created, and that therefore a creator must exist. It is trying to connect two ontological statements by a teleological one. Though i think the term (ontological fallacy) is not used very often, so there might be some differing uses. Inferring existence from words though would be rather strangely described by calling it an ontological fallacy.

The ontological argument for the existence of god, for example, includes "existence" as one of god's characteristics; it essentially follows that a perfect being is more perfect if it exists...therefore it exists. Concept / ontology fallacy.

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Actually, the ontological argument for god is wrong because of equivocation. There are two ways to state it:
1. The most strongly existing being must exist
2. That is god
3. Therefore god exists

or
1. God is perfect
2. Perfect includes existence
3. Existing (or more strongly existing) than not is more perfect than not
4. Therefore god exists.

In both cases the argument is generally logical. If we take existence as varying property, it does indeed follow than an object existing most strongly does indeed exist (by definition).
The fallacy here is to assume that this argument can prove anything beyond mere existence. It is an equivocation because the god we define in step 2 (first argument) has only one single property: existence. We have proven that the most strongly existing god does indeed exist, nothing else. We haven't proven that he's loving, omnipotent, the christian god, the only god, or even a theistic god at all. We have only proven that the most strongly existing god exists. Try it with a different predicate. The bluest possible god is blue. Congratulations. Undoubtedly true, but doesn't seem hardly as profound. Or pick a different object. The most strongly existing table exists. Also nothing to argue about. And also doesn't prove anything beyond existence.

The second way to state the argument is even better at obfuscating the logic behind it. The equivocation here is when we say that existing is more perfect than not existing. By this, we have actually defined existence as the most important property of perfectness. A good, non-existent god would be less perfect than an evil, existent god. So we have again managed to logically prove the existence of a perfect god, but we have redefined "perfect" to mean only existence. And thus failed to prove the existence of something that would commonly be called "god". Again, try it out with different predicates or objects. Apples are perfect. The most perfect apple is one that's red. Thus, apples are red. Congratulations, we have just defined green apples out of existence (or rather: out of being apples).
The ontological argument basically proves the existence of something like Aristoteles substance, not a christian god.

Ruv Draba said:

There seems to be some confusion. I found a nice definition here:

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I have to say i wasn't terribly impressed with that quote. For a start, Occam's razor is not about what being we should believe in at all. It is about what explanations are favourable.

The Ontological Fallacy just points out that 'talking about it doesn't mean it exists'. Ockham's Razor reminds scientists and philosophers to not talk about things that they don't know exist unless they absolutely have to.

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No it doesn't. Occam's razor states "do not multiply [explanatory] entities beyond necessity". It states that given two different explanation for the same thing, the simpler one is to be preferred, assuming they both offer the same explanatory power. That can result in, for example, disbelieving in gravity fairies, since they're an unnecessary entity, but that is not the primary purpose. Another example of Occam's razor applied is the heliocentric solar system. It would be perfectly possible to describe our solar system as geocentric. It would work just as well, just the planetary movements would be different, and a whole lot more complicated. Occam's razor states that as heliocentrism is simpler than geocentrism, while both are otherwise perfectly working models of the solar system, heliocentrism is to be preferred. And there are no being we should not belief in, in this case. The unnecessary explanatory entities are purely mathematical.

I think it's already been mentioned that Ockham's Razor is a convention, it's not a logical or scientific truth. It's an attempt to keep the complexity of theories as simple as possible to do the job.

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Basically, it's just the KISS principle. Occam's Razor makes no statement as to the truth of a theory, it just states that simplicity is preferable, all else being equal. It's pretty obvious today of course, but we've come a long way since Occam. And it saddens me a bit that's he's pretty much only known for his razor and scientific theory. Occam's philosophy of language is very interesting.

But sometimes the simplest theory is wrong (e.g. as with Newtownian's 'laws' of motion). So Ockham's Razor can lead us to a wrong theory and keep us stuck there until we can find enough evidence that it's wrong.

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Occam's razor is only applicable when deciding between two theories with the same explanatory power. To think that Newtonian physics would be preferable to Einsteinian physics because of Occam's razor is a misunderstanding of what the razor is meant to be used for.

So not every scientist uses Ockham's Razor, and not all the time -- and sometimes we're better off for it.

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Simpler=better is the, unfortunately all to common, pop-science interpretation of Occam's razor. Similar to how entropy is often misunderstood as being about order. Neither of those interpretations are correct, even though they are the ones most commonly encountered in non-technical literature.

Lhun said:

It is all wrong because it all commits a categorical error.

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Only because you've decided what the Right semantic categories of our language are and insisted that everyone agree. And you've based those categories on what?

Their arguments are not fallacious because they arrive at wrong purposes, but because their reasoning is faulty.

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See, you and I may think that, but those like Einstein who believe that form and function predict purpose don't actually think it's a problem in such reasoning; at worst they think it's their model of purpose. Einstein was convinced that 'god does not play dice with man', but he lived to see Heisenberg publish his Uncertainty Principle in 1927, and to see it validated -- but still maintained that chaos is a result of our ignorance, not reality. How would you dissuade him? Should you dissuade him?

If you argued with Einstein that he's made a categorical error, he might well ask you: 'From what part of Nature did you get your categories?' In honesty, you'd have to say that it's not from Nature at all. It's simply an accepted human convention, end of story.

If we imagine that we're living in a box run by a very orderly and predictable being, can you really say that is/ought is not valid technique for investigation and argumentation? If some people believe that they live in such a box, their semantic categories may be entirely different to yours. How will you persuade them to use the categories you specify? My answer: you can't. Language is free; it's up to us to decide how we are going to use it.

Conservation of mass is a simple observation, it has nothing to do with any prescriptive statements. Science never commits the is-ought fallacy, because science never deals in oughts.

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I've already said this, so I obviously agree with you. But popularly, the people who reason about science (especially those theists who object to materialism) think that science is all about finding certainty. 'Otherwise', they'd argue, 'what use is it?' 'Or if you're so uncertain, how can you be certain I'm wrong?'

The honest answer is that science can't be certain about non-material matters, but whenever non-material claims predict material ones, mystics have an appalling track-record of failure. If they were investment advisors you'd sack them.

But then there's a cadre of mystical scientists and scientific mystics who embrace materialism but still don't abandon mysticism -- they sort of run separate magisteria, keep two sets of books. I believe that they're running a different set of semantics to ordinary materialists like thee and me... and other than my own fear of mystic-cooties and my innate skepticism about order, I can't see a single logical, practical or humane reason to tell them to stop.

Really, just personal experiences as well as experiences of family members. I could go on and on about this.

Also, sometimes my views change. I'm always discovering new things and running into more questions. It's a journey to be sure. In all honesty, I think we all really do know so little. What's really out there is far bigger than we can ever wrap our little human minds around.

Ruv Draba said:

Only because you've decided what the Right semantic categories of our language are and insisted that everyone agree. And you've based those categories on what?

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It has nothing to do with semantics. The categories do not originate with any linguistic labelling, but simply the very questions being asked. "How" and "Why", to go back to where it started, are questions that require completely unrelated answers. Just as for example the answer to a "When" question can never be an answer to a "Where" question. Separate categories. From a more technical perspective, the two are separate for this because ontology is not contingent upon teleology, thus you cannot infer teleology from ontology.
On the other hand, teleology is contingent upon ontology and thus you can infer ontology from teleology. Though there is nothing to say your inference has to be correct.

See, you and I may think that, but those like Einstein who believe that form and function predict purpose don't actually think it's a problem in such reasoning; at worst they think it's their model of purpose. Einstein was convinced that 'god does not play dice with man', but he lived to see Heisenberg publish his Uncertainty Principle in 1927, and to see it validated -- but still maintained that chaos is a result of our ignorance, not reality. How would you dissuade him? Should you dissuade him?

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I'm pretty sure that Einstein was very capable at logical thought and his disagreement with quantum physics came from personal conviction, not from disagreement with basic scientific methodology. You'd have to persuade me with some very explicit quotes from Einstein to have me believe that he'd accept faulty reasoning. As an aside fun fact, Einstein actually wrote "I can't believe that god plays dice with the universe" not "with man" as often quoted.
As for dissuading him if he really believed that his personal conviction about a deterministic world is stronger than logical reasoning, i wouldn't. There is no way and there is no point. You cannot argue against logic (also called the critics paradox) as you then have no basis for an argument. If someone does that, there is no convincing them. In this case, there would be no need to either, since physical evidence always trumps theory. If a theory doesn't fit the evidence it has to be altered or replaced.

If you argued with Einstein that he's made a categorical error, he might well ask you: 'From what part of Nature did you get your categories?' In honesty, you'd have to say that it's not from Nature at all. It's simply an accepted human convention, end of story.

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No it's not. The fact that ontology and teleology are categorically separate is the factual result of quite obvious observation. A result of logic if you will.

If we imagine that we're living in a box run by a very orderly and predictable being, can you really say that is/ought is not valid technique for investigation and argumentation?

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Yes.

If some people believe that they live in such a box, their semantic categories may be entirely different to yours.

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It has nothing to do with semantics.

How will you persuade them to use the categories you specify? My answer: you can't. Language is free; it's up to us to decide how we are going to use it.

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Not semantic categories.

I've already said this, so I obviously agree with you. But popularly, the people who reason about science (especially those theists who object to materialism) think that science is all about finding certainty. 'Otherwise', they'd argue, 'what use is it?' 'Or if you're so uncertain, how can you be certain I'm wrong?'

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It's about usefulness, not certainty. While science might profess to a consensus concept of truth, in reality it's just a pragmatistic one that's being used. If it works, it's true. And as long as it works, it gets accepted as the truth. If it stops working, it has to be replaced or altered. The problem with theist objecting to what they call materialism is once again that there's no real convincing such people. The entire line of criticism is hypocritical, because they apply extreme requirements of certainty upon areas they're uncomfortable with, requirements they don't deem necessary anywhere else. There is again no real convincing possible. To steal a quote: you can't reason people out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

The honest answer is that science can't be certain about non-material matters, but whenever non-material claims predict material ones, mystics have an appalling track-record of failure. If they were investment advisors you'd sack them.

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Science only deals with natural things, so even saying it's uncertain is too much. Though there is the funny (and quite true actually) argument that there are no supernatural things, by definition. If it can interact with natural things in any way, it is natural. And if it cannot, what difference is there to non-existence?

But then there's a cadre of mystical scientists and scientific mystics who embrace materialism but still don't abandon mysticism -- they sort of run separate magisteria, keep two sets of books.

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It's also called cognitive dissonance. And always reminds me of the quote that if you mix science and theology you'll only get bad science and worse theology.

I believe that they're running a different set of semantics to ordinary materialists like thee and me...

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Again, semantics has nothing to do with it.

and other than my own fear of mystic-cooties and my innate skepticism about order, I can't see a single logical, practical or humane reason to tell them to stop.

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There's rarely any reason to tell someone to stop what they're doing as long as they like doing it. Infusing mysticism into science will however not get you any useful results. If it's just used as inspiration, and proper methodology is kept up, there's nothing wrong with it. But that's really all there is to correct science. Follow the right procedures and your results are reliable. Don't, and they're not (though one might take that as a practical reason to stop). There really is no alternative to the scientific method, but wherever you get your input from before following it, doesn't matter.

Lhun said:

It has nothing to do with semantics. The categories do not originate with any linguistic labelling, but simply the very questions being asked. "How" and "Why", to go back to where it started, are questions that require completely unrelated answers.

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That's full of presumption, Lhun.

If we believe that a world is subject to immutable laws (whatever they are), then the how question comes to the fore. If instead we believe that our world is subject to will, then the why question comes to the fore. In fact, there's no scientific evidence that there are immutable laws, or that our world is not subject to the will of a very powerful being.

Follow the right procedures and your results are reliable.

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What makes the scientific method reliable?

On reflection, isn't it the consistency of the Way Things Work?

But what makes those things consistent?

Answer: we don't know.

There really is no alternative to the scientific method

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That would depend on whether things remain consistent and any reasons for existence (if there are any) remain obscure to us.

But if we can't guarantee the above, then we can't say that rational materialism is the only viable way to work. We can say that it has been the most reliable way to work so far, but we can't say that (for example) revelation won't someday prove to be more viable. It just hasn't yet.

A few more bits and pieces...

Lhun said:

the answer to a "When" question can never be an answer to a "Where" question.

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"When" answers are used for "where" questions in the situation of infrequent observations of an object moving in a predictable fashion (e.g. tracking smuggling-vessels).

That's a trivial counter-example I know, but I mean it to demonstrate the general point that the relation between semantic categories depends on the assumptions in our metaphysics. In some metaphysical frames, "when" and "where" are dependent.

In Platonic teleology (Plato's study of design and purpose), "why" and "what" are also dependent. Plato believed in Intelligent Design, in which ideal Forms had to be expressed somehow. So his 'why' sent him looking for 'what', and his 'what' always seemed to confirm his 'why'. Einstein believed in something similar, so his methodology while it included scientific method, was actually more than that. Having convinced himself that a Form existed, he'd go hunting for a mechanism for it... and even without a proof of existence (for he had none), he invited others to test the truth thereof -- something that theoreticians often do, but which is actually not the whole scientific method.

Separate categories. From a more technical perspective, the two are separate for this because ontology is not contingent upon teleology, thus you cannot infer teleology from ontology.

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If our metaphysics incorporates Intelligent Design, and we think we understand the intelligence then we can infer teleology from ontology. The worst that a negative result will show is that we don't understand the intelligence well enough; it won't show that the endeavour is flawed.

As an aside fun fact, Einstein actually wrote "I can't believe that god plays dice with the universe" not "with man" as often quoted.

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I don't think it matters for our discussion, but if we're going to be pedantic, here are the direct quotes:

Letter to Max Born said:

Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the 'old one'.I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice.

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Also relevant:

Remark on visiting Princeton said:

Raffiniert ist der Herrgott, aber boshaft ist er nicht.

Subtle is the Lord, but malicious He is not.

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You cannot argue against logic (also called the critics paradox) as you then have no basis for an argument.

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Lhun, you said you did this professionally... are you aware that there is more than one form of logic? For instance, predicate and first order logics, second and higher-order logics, modal and temporal logics, paraconsistent logics, relevance logics... Not all of them produce the same results.

The kind of logic you're talking about is probably some sort of first order logic, such as the one axiomatised by Russell and Whitehead (also known as First Order, Peano Axioms or FOPA). It's our 'workhorse' logic, containing the sort of logical steps Aristotle used, and basic arithmetic too. There are a couple of problems with it though...
So I'd say that yes, you can certainly argue about logics. Logicians and philosophers do (one day, in a place where it's not terribly dull for most readers, I might share my scar-tissue about working with Relevance Logics).

To steal a quote: you can't reason people out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

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While there's truth in that, it's also true that if we don't understand the axioms we can't follow the logic. There's no compelling basis for rejecting Intelligent Design as a metaphysical axiom -- just the convention we call Ockham's Razor, which is known to be sometimes flawed as a reasoning strategy (while it won't produce logical falsehoods, it can lead us away from truths). That's not to say that I.D. supporters are finding real evidence against evolution (they're not), but there's nothing stopping I.D. from being a logical and consistent piece of metaphysics.

Science only deals with natural things, so even saying it's uncertain is too much.

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Science also studies synthetic things... like economics (which is a behavioural science, and like many of them, the study affects the studied). While we're agreed that in the natural (spontaneous, non-artificial) domain, it makes sense to separate 'what' and 'why', I'm not at all so persuaded with economics. Some purists argue that economics isn't a science. I wouldn't go so far, but I do think that the behavioural sciences are very weird. (I'm not entirely sure what the scientific method means when even voicing an hypothesis can change the system of study.)

This has been a very interesting thread. I've read through most of it. In spite of some angry posts, people here have been very well behaved. So I may dare to post.

My personal beliefs aren't very exciting. They don't fit any category that I'm aware of. I'm not even atheist. I used to call myself an atheist but then somebody asked me what it is I think I'm rejecting and I wasn't sure. So then I stopped calling myself atheist.

DrZoidberg said:

I used to call myself an atheist but then somebody asked me what it is I think I'm rejecting and I wasn't sure. So then I stopped calling myself atheist.

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LOL! ..




Gehanna

Gehanna said:

LOL! ..



Gehanna

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Hmm... I'm not sure why you would make a comment like it. Don't make the mistake of assuming that opting out of the atheist/theist dichotomy means that a person doesn't care or hasn't thought their position through.

Philosophy is a hobby of mine. I've read the Koran, Torah, the New Testament and Baghavad Ghita. I've studied all the major religions, both from within the faiths and through critical analysis. I found my beliefs after long and hard soul searching and philosophical study.

Ruv Draba said:

There is an ontological hole here too -- though I think it can be managed. Say we claim that 'love is belonging' (I don't think it necessarily is, but let's claim it anyway). Is the reverse true: that belonging is love? The history of African America tells us that sometimes it's not. So we can be in a situation where we say 'I love you because I belong to you' or worse 'You love me because you belong to me', but committing an ontological fallacy.

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The following has nothing to do with the "love" discussion, but the mention of "belonging" sparked a thought that it pertinent to the whole discussion about belief and what belief means to a Christian.

Acts 16:31 says "...Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved..."

This belief is not a simple belief in the existence of Christ, but it is a commitment. The Greek word used means "commit to". It has a strong connotation of possession or belonging.

It is used in much the same sense that a campaign worker might be committed to Barack Obama. That person might be said to "believe in Obama". In one sense then, Obama "owns" that person, that is, the worker's loyalty. In another sense, the worker "owns" Obama, that is, Obama's fidelity. The belonging is two way.

With a Christian, the ownership is not just of loyalty, but it is supposed to be the whole being -- "with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." Does any Christian achieve that? Absolutely not. But it is an ideal that we're supposed to strive for every day all our lives.

Roger J Carlson said:

In one sense then, Obama "owns" that person, that is, the worker's loyalty. In another sense, the worker "owns" Obama, that is, Obama's fidelity. The belonging is two way.

With a Christian, the ownership is not just of loyalty, but it is supposed to be the whole being -- "with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." Does any Christian achieve that? Absolutely not. But it is an ideal that we're supposed to strive for every day all our lives.

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It's definitely true, but it took years before any Christian told me this. When they did it came as something of a relief.

They didn't tell me in Sunday school, compulsory religious education, church services or Bible camp for instance, that Christianity (or rather, the major sects then supported by government education in Australia) all expected us to sacrifice our sense of self-worth, our sense of self-sufficiency, or our confidence in our ability to discern truth from falsity by dint of sincere study and honest questions. I worked that out for myself because teachers of religion were constantly trying to prise those things from my grasp -- they just wouldn't say why they were doing it. Later on -- decades later -- my Christian friends talked about committing, being owned and so on.

I think those things -- self-worth, self-sufficiency, confidence that truth will out -- are all articles of faith. There's no real way of proving them, and not everyone believes them anyway.

When I think about how I acquired them, I don't believe that my family could have taught those things because on balance, they don't believe those things themselves. I don't recall any teacher teaching me those things directly, and I seem to have had those faiths very, very young.

I think they came in part from my circumstance (eldest child, and fairly poor), in part as a natural response to being loved, and in part because of the kind of earnest, inquiring mind I had since before I could talk.

When theists talk of faith they often talk of faith given and received -- revealed faith. But some kinds of faith don't come in saleable packages. The faiths with which my life began were actually in-born and built -- innate and accreted faith, if you will. I think a lot of my early experiences of Christian teaching was of blind, ignorant, arrogant but well-meaning authority figures trying to decide for me what faith I should have and not realising that I already had it.

But that experience... being on the receiving end of adults deciding what children should feel and believe now makes me think very deeply about the moral and ethical concerns associated with adults wresting faith from children. That's something often slated to secular educators, but in my experience it came from religious educators too.

Hello DrZoidberg,

My responses to various stimuli are often quirky. I assure you my laughter was not mockery. It was the result of the delight I found within your comment of:

I used to call myself an atheist but then somebody asked me what it is I think I'm rejecting and I wasn't sure.

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None of the arguments in this thread are new to me. Your comment was like a breath of fresh air. It was unexpected and therefore delightful.

Gehanna

Gehanna said:

None of the arguments in this thread are new to me. Your comment was like a breath of fresh air. It was unexpected and therefore delightful.

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For me too.

I call myself an atheist, but I don't actually have to know what a god is supposed to be to say that I'm living without them. I know that I'm living without any practical use for the word 'god' outside literature. I also know that I reject the concept unless it meets certain criteria -- which so far it has not.

But it's complicated. I'm agnostic about creation (agnostic doesn't mean 'undecided'. It means 'I think we are unlikely to ever be able to know'), materialistic (Not in the sense of consumerism; I just see costs but no obvious benefit to believing the supernatural), atheistic (gods make no sense to me and I have no desire to worship one), rationalistic (I like to think my way through problems) and spiritual (I care about morals and ethics, and purpose).

A Jehovas Witness came by unannounced on the weekend and required me to host him on my property in the middle of my writing as he told me what I ought to think about things. I explained to him very early on that I was an atheist and he told me instantly what it was that I thought and what a poor idea that was.

And none of it was what I actually thought (what is it they're teaching evangelists about atheism?) So I started to explain to him how he was mistaken.

Early on I felt that he was wasting my time... but about mid-way through a twenty-minute conversation (when I explained that my own eternal death and the destruction of humanity were acceptable to me, if not desirable) he suddenly found that I was wasting his. Realising that he wanted to go but couldn't (until he'd Delivered His Message), I told him that I knew he wanted to leave but felt that he had to deliver a message first, and what was it?

'The Kingdom of God can Fix Things' he said.

Which left me wondering: what's stopping it, and if it can then was knocking on my door really necessary?

An atheist is someone who rejects the imposed belief that we are all created by one thing and bound by it. (Well, atheism compared to Christianity, but I live in the US so...) There are other various illogical concepts that atheists reject. It annoys me that people feel that our lives are not complete without accepting these illogical concepts. The concepts have no proof and have been the #1 cause of death throughout history. 'God' to me is like 'Santa Claus', only more obnoxious because he has such an ego that 'if you believe in him you go to heaven'. It's a ridiculous concept. Thus, I'm atheist.

Gehanna said:

Hello DrZoidberg,

My responses to various stimuli are often quirky. I assure you my laughter was not mockery. It was the result of the delight I found within your comment of:

None of the arguments in this thread are new to me. Your comment was like a breath of fresh air. It was unexpected and therefore delightful.

Gehanna

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Religion is a touchy subject and I had no intention of insulting anyone. So I probably kept it needlessly vague. It's a shame that my comments came across as flippant. I believe religion isn't about God at all, none of them. They're all about the believers and what they need to be able to express themselves.

We have a limited language. Our language doesn't have a one to one fit with reality, so we're stuck with talking about the world and our experiences through metaphor. I think Stephen Pinker summed up this problem of language with, "Chemistry isn't the study of sticks and balls." And that's what I believe religious soul searching is all about, discussing which metaphors most accurately fit our experiences when none of them fit very well.

I don't think debating whether God exists or not is particularly interesting. If you need God to describe the world then God exists, if you don't then God doesn't. I believe the pope and scientists are describing the same thing, with different words. It's the same world. It's simply a question of perspective.

I also think this is impossible to understand intuitively. Even if we have it spelled out for us, it's still impossible to internalise. Thinking about God this way, as an abstract and empty container is impossible, and will always be. We'll always in some way be painted in a corner because of our choice of metaphors.

I don't equate all religion or see all religion as equally valuable. Like every concept for humans, the concept of God is a tool to help us (personally) reach our goals (whatever those are). Some formulations of God are better than others. If my formulation of God doesn't help me with what I want, then I would change. I think the theist vs atheist dichotomy is missing what its all about. They're both right and are describing the same world.

That's what I believe. As I told you, my faith isn't very exciting.

DrZoidberg said:

This has been a very interesting thread. I've read through most of it. In spite of some angry posts, people here have been very well behaved. So I may dare to post.

My personal beliefs aren't very exciting. They don't fit any category that I'm aware of. I'm not even atheist. I used to call myself an atheist but then somebody asked me what it is I think I'm rejecting and I wasn't sure. So then I stopped calling myself atheist.

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Glad you dared!

I respect not calling yourself an atheist and your reason for doing so. I used to be hesitant to call myself one and do now largely because, since I don't believe in god, it's apt, and because I hope to help dispel the myths about and stigma against atheists. Don't know if I'm doing so.

I've been accused of rejecting god and choose to explain that I am not rejecting anything; I just lack belief in any deity. I try to explain that it's only a rejection in the sense that a Christian might "reject" the idea of Zeus or Odin as actual deities instead mythological.

Ruv Draba said:

I think a lot of my early experiences of Christian teaching was of blind, ignorant, arrogant but well-meaning authority figures trying to decide for me what faith I should have and not realising that I already had it.

But that experience... being on the receiving end of adults deciding what children should feel and believe now makes me think very deeply about the moral and ethical concerns associated with adults wresting faith from children. That's something often slated to secular educators, but in my experience it came from religious educators too.

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While I can't speak for your early experiences, I'm not sure it is always ignorance and arrogance on the part of authority figures. Often (perhaps mostly) it is laziness and (ironically) lack of faith.

It's laziness because it's essentally "sound bite" Christianity. "If you don't accept Christ you'll go to hell. You don't want to go to hell, do you?" Is much easier to preach than explain the commitment of the Christian life.

And let's face it, the "Hellfire and Damnation" technique was quite effective until the middle of the 20th century. Most churches don't use it much anymore. I don't remember the last sermon I heard about hell. But churches change very slowly. Many of the elder members (and pastors) grew up in that era and if it was good enough then, it should be good enough now.

Fortunately, younger churches (and many older churches) are abandoning it.

It is "lack of faith" because often Christians don't trust God to work things out the way He wants. They talk a lot about His Will, but deep down they believe He needs their help. So they don't want to have any ambiguity. These Christians don't want people to think because people might decide differently than they want them too.

As a parent, I can understand this. I didn't want to give my daughter conflicting messages, especially about something I consider has eternal consequences. I think there's some validity to that. Young children, especially, need absolutes. As they get older, they can deal with ambiguity. Unfortunately, many Christians use that technique with other adults.

My personal feeling is that God Himself gives every person the opportunity to accept or reject him (or decide that He is a null concept). I'd be getting above my station to decide otherwise for them. My job, as I see it, is to tell people what I believe, what the Christian Life means to me, and let God work out the rest.

Roger J Carlson said:

While I can't speak for your early experiences, I'm not sure it is always ignorance and arrogance on the part of authority figures. Often (perhaps mostly) it is laziness and (ironically) lack of faith.

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Laziness certainly, to imagine that there are easy short-cuts to working with other values and beliefs...

But lack of faith? I dunno. I think of faith as valuable in supporting us in our journeys, in helping is re-extend trust to others when they hurt or disappoint us... in letting us endure what we think we can't... stuff like that.

But to imagine our own view is supreme regardless of others' sincere objections doesn't seem like faith to me; more like supremacism. I have very little regard for people who think they can teach us something new without first ascertaining what we already know.

The real virtue that's needed to work with other minds is not extra faith I think, but extra humility.

"Humility is endless."

-- T.S. Eliot

Ruv Draba said:

But to imagine our own view is supreme regardless of others' sincere objections doesn't seem like faith to me; more like supremacism. I have very little regard for people who think they can teach us something new without first ascertaining what we already know.

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I think this is a pretty universal human characteristic. You can find this in every single camp regardless of belief. I think convincing others and having others share our beliefs, I think is a pretty hard-wired instinct, and is an intrinsic part of what makes us human.

If we didn't think our beliefs are superior we wouldn't hold them, now would we? We all want to think that we have an open mind, who wouldn't? But it's only open to a point. If we lack the ability to discriminate our knowledge couldn't be applied. A completely open mind is as worthless as fully rigid mind, IMHO. I think the best we can do is some sort of oscillating general balance. Sometimes we focus on growing, and sometimes we focus on creating. And in the mean time we'll keep having wars.

Ruv Draba said:

The real virtue that's needed to work with other minds is not extra faith I think, but extra humility.

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Humility just like an open mind has its limits. If I may make it more precise I think the greatest virtue is learning to accept the unknown, learning to accept that there's plenty of things we just don't know. "So you think you'll go to heaven after you die, really? Why?" This is where science by far trumps today's religion. If the religious don't learn to embrace this, I think we will see the continued decline of religion, until they'll eventually die. Barry Kosmin's gargantuan US religious survey of 2001 seems to indicate as much. Which is a shame. I think it would be a disaster. I think religious language does catch something crucial, something the language of science doesn't and can't address. I think we'd be poorer as a species without religion's language. Even if the soul doesn't exist, I can still feel it.

Just my two cents.