Atheism and agnosticism

[josephpalazzo]

 

[aitm]

aitm having fun:

That's how it would start......

[josephpalazzo]

Ok you two, get a room...

[drunkenshoe]

I'm just an innocent bystander who loves dogs. You pulled us down to the gutter.   :a012: And I feel awful.

[aitm]

I, like always, believe it is also easy to proclaim that god(s) not only do not exist but can't.

We have ample evidence that "man" did not wake up one day and say, "aha!". Our cultural evolution has shown a distinct and recognizable methodology from simply animism which still has broad support among many indigenous people's, and even among the most religious they can easily suggest that some"thing" may posses a "part" or "spirit" of a former person, i.e. your fathers catchers mitt, your mothers necklace. Even though we fully are aware that there is no "spirit" living in our car, we, and I do mean we all, have talked or cajoled at least one if not all our vehicles at one time, fully aware of how silly it is but unable NOT to.

The animal gods existed far before the great spook in the sky, the gods of the wind and snow and rain and thunder...sheesh. So now we come to the concept of a territorial god of man himself. And we have ample, mountains of gods that man has declared to be true. We all know this argument. 100,000 gods but only one is true? Right.

Man has proven they invented gods, regional gods, ethnical gods, gender gods. We have mountains of evidence that every single god was invented, and if you wish to argue about your choice, simply ask those of the other 99,999 what they think of your god and you can spend a couple years arguing with them.

As to whether a god can exist. This is a case of, "we have to abandon common sense and knowledge because we are now talking about an invented idea that has absolutely no backing in evidence, logic or practicality."

We are allowed to dismiss stupid when it is stupid. There is no law that says we have to subject stupidity to unreasonable question and suspend all knowledge and common sense because it is a "popular idea".

Is it in anyway possible for a human to get bit by a radio-active spider and within weeks develop a way to shit special webbing out of his wrists for fuck sake? No, I can see at least his anus projecting something......

But for comparison, what the "gods" are suggesting is they can create worlds with a thought, universes with no effort and... even know about everything before they ever brought it into existence, despite the idea that the ridiculousness of that statement gets lost.

A 14 billion light year universe of which our entire galaxy is but a grain of sand to it and someone suggests I cannot deny the existence of a wispy creator that created it all but thinks a woman having her menstrual cycle is a danger to the community? Get the fuck outa here.

You can claim with far more certainty that gods don't exist than you are able to proclaim they do. There is everything that demands they cannot and nothing that suggests they do.

[Mike Cl]

I used to be an agnostic.  But that was before I read and listened to (and thought about) arguments such as put forth by Shoe and aitm.  There is no god(s), and there cannot be.

[Hakurei Reimu]

Naturally, these opinions were labeled as extreme, however after the school of comparative history took his toll -which owes its root to linguistics- in the last several decades socio-linguistics keeps validating them. Men like Benjamin Whorf, Basil Bernstein...and I am afraid at the end of the road there is Heidegger who asserts language is the only real undefeatable tyrant.

What I am trying to say in a big picture sounds confusing, because I am trying to accomplish an impossible task. I am trying to connect a few huge fundamental fields to describe why humans ended up inventing a concept of god. I am trying to make a philosophy of anthropology through cognitive limits of our species which I think only determined by language and the categories that came along with.

So this is not just about the labels stated by the topic or the absolute nonexistence of god I defend, but also why the big majority of people tend to believe in one, doesn't matter how reasonable and rational the explanations get.

That does clear a lot up. Thanks.

While I have arguments with some of the specific points, they are not fatal to what I think is your overall point, which is that people have a very hard time breaking out of the view that God is an exant being with real, demonstrable influence in people's lives, and part of the trap is the language people use around them. Language certainly influences thought â€"language could not work to communicate if saying a word did not automatically trigger a certain thought in a listenerâ€" and repetition of certain phrases in ritual would definitely have a reinforcing effect, and as such would lock you into a certain way of thinking. Yet we know that the effect is not absolute, because people have broken out of these forms of thinking before (and often do), even in the most thought-restrictive societies.

If I may indulge in some triangulation here, your position of the absolute nonexistence of god sounds similar to what I have come to call the Hijiri Byakuren argument, which to TL;DR:

tl;dr version: There is no way anything we would regard as a god could ever prove that it is what it claims to a skeptical individual. Because the universe less resembles a mythical god's realm than it does a simulator, any designer we did find should be called a programmer, not a god. Therefore, we can reasonably conclude that there is no god.

So you have a point about the nonexistence of god, and agree with you that, as far as the connotations built up of what "god" means, there is no such being because we've simply stretched the concept past its breaking point. However, the specific word being used was "creator", not "god". A "creator" is a more general word that doesn't have the same conceptual baggage as "god" â€" even though it is being used as a weasel word for "god", apologists do have a point that a generic "creator" more easily bears the conceptual burden of the role and as such the possibility of a "creator" of the universe remains. The word "creator" is being used precisely because it is empty enough of specifics to not be utterly shattered by the obsolescence that afflicts "god". That's why apologists use it. As such I think it is a mistake to use the same logic to dismiss a vague creator as one would a more specific god.

And, yes, I did try to fit your argument into my language. By your own hypothesis, I can do nothing else.

[Unbeliever]

Well for one thing, you cannot seem to go more than a few minutes at a time without angrily labelling someone or something as fucking retarded. It must suck being that angry and frustrated all the time.

Yeah, all we have is this little tiny bit of time sandwiched between two eternities of oblivion. Why spend any of that time being in a negative mood?

[Hijiri Byakuren]

If I may indulge in some triangulation here, your position of the absolute nonexistence of god sounds similar to what I have come to call the Hijiri Byakuren argument, which to TL;DR:

So you have a point about the nonexistence of god, and agree with you that, as far as the connotations built up of what "god" means, there is no such being because we've simply stretched the concept past its breaking point. However, the specific word being used was "creator", not "god". A "creator" is a more general word that doesn't have the same conceptual baggage as "god" â€" even though it is being used as a weasel word for "god", apologists do have a point that a generic "creator" more easily bears the conceptual burden of the role and as such the possibility of a "creator" of the universe remains. The word "creator" is being used precisely because it is empty enough of specifics to not be utterly shattered by the obsolescence that afflicts "god". That's why apologists use it. As such I think it is a mistake to use the same logic to dismiss a vague creator as one would a more specific god.

And, yes, I did try to fit your argument into my language. By your own hypothesis, I can do nothing else.

Just to clarify, the reason I used "programmer" instead of "creator" was precisely to avoid letting apologists use their weasel word, and to emphasize that my point was specifically about the human concept of a god.

[Baruch]

Yes, the universe is a simulation created by Microsoft ... but not Apple.  Because it sucks just that much ;-)  If Apple had done it, it would "suck awesome!".

[Unbeliever]

Atheism is about not believing, agnosticism is about not knowing.

Simple.

[Baruch]

Atheism is about not believing, agnosticism is about not knowing.

Simple.

Unfortunately most religious people don't know the difference between believing and knowing.  Epistemology is not their friend.

[drunkenshoe]

That does clear a lot up. Thanks.

While I have arguments with some of the specific points, they are not fatal to what I think is your overall point, which is that people have a very hard time breaking out of the view that God is an exant being with real, demonstrable influence in people's lives, and part of the trap is the language people use around them. Language certainly influences thought â€"language could not work to communicate if saying a word did not automatically trigger a certain thought in a listenerâ€" and repetition of certain phrases in ritual would definitely have a reinforcing effect, and as such would lock you into a certain way of thinking. Yet we know that the effect is not absolute, because people have broken out of these forms of thinking before (and often do), even in the most thought-restrictive societies.

If I may indulge in some triangulation here, your position of the absolute nonexistence of god sounds similar to what I have come to call the Hijiri Byakuren argument, which to TL;DR:

So you have a point about the nonexistence of god, and agree with you that, as far as the connotations built up of what "god" means, there is no such being because we've simply stretched the concept past its breaking point. However, the specific word being used was "creator", not "god". A "creator" is a more general word that doesn't have the same conceptual baggage as "god" â€" even though it is being used as a weasel word for "god", apologists do have a point that a generic "creator" more easily bears the conceptual burden of the role and as such the possibility of a "creator" of the universe remains. The word "creator" is being used precisely because it is empty enough of specifics to not be utterly shattered by the obsolescence that afflicts "god". That's why apologists use it. As such I think it is a mistake to use the same logic to dismiss a vague creator as one would a more specific god.

OK.  I think, I am saying something more 'extreme' than Hijiri. I'll try something else.

Are you familiar with the quote, "If Aristoteles had spoken Chinese or Dakotan, he would have come up with a completely different logic system"?

Yes, I gave religious concepts as examples, however they are the ones we can easily pinpoint in this subject as fantasy, because for a long time now it has been obvious to our accumulation of knowledge that they are fantasies. (That actually is a part of what I am saying) But when I say the link between language and thought, I mean the whole kind of concepts, their development, including the 'secular' ones, which are not realy secular but created in constrast, in comparison in a language that has evolved from myth and fantasy, before creator or god 'towards' the concept. The very reason why people managed to reason out that thought about challanging those specific concepts created related to god is that they were defined/existed in language in the first place. Comparison is the most basic, simple way of critical thought. When you create a concept in contrast, it is bound to be in comparison and therefore actually very related and it is in the end a counterpart.

Also 'linguistic relativity' is not a joke. People do percieve and experience the world in many various, very different ways according to their linguistic ability and background. Or in Bersnstein's case U and Non U English as your culture go. But this is very offensive to people in general and will have a looong way to go.

You know what I am thinking, in a primitive level of perception, I think this linguistic aspect of absolute nonexistence of god  is like a bit how evolution was percieved when it first took its root and still today. It's very offensive. May be more than the idea of evolution to most people, because it is 'easy' to reject and idea of humans descending from great apes and being one, as it is very comfortable to think how 'preposterous' it is and dismiss it. People don't even think about it, they just reject it, because they reject to put their minds into it for very obvious reasons. But language is not like that. What is so unique about language is that we know for a fact that humans in every culture have always been extremely aware of it. They way how themselves and other people use it; speak it, write it. There is no other cultural element that the individuals are so strongly self aware of or aware in others.

So I am claiming that language is the major shaping force -I don't know how to name it properly; feature? I've come to believe it is at a fatal level. 

I'll write more about this when I can put my mind into it, if anyone is interested. It is an harculean task and I can't get to around it just like that.

There is this book, I would reccomend. It's not some ideogical wish wash or hardcore philosophical linguistics with sharp claims given by a monologue, but an evaluation of language in European culture in a different level ; very related to our subject as a whole and our positions as nonbelievers I think. http://www.cambridge.org/et/academic/subjects/history/european-history-after-1450/languages-and-communities-early-modern-europe?format=PB

Peter Burke is an important man for many reasons. Long story short, he is not a reactive new age historian/cultural historian looking for 'justice', but a rational scientist trying to explain human culture with critical thought.

And, yes, I did try to fit your argument into my language. By your own hypothesis, I can do nothing else.

LOL Yes, you are right. Same goes with me.

[josephpalazzo]

Nothing new here. Humans came up with two outstanding tools: the alphabet (language) and numbers (math). So it's no surprise there is a symbiotic link in the evolution of the human mind with the evolution of language and math. Which precedes and which is a chicken-and-egg question.

However one caution: there are concepts in QM that language simply cannot capture, only math - just like there are concepts in language which cannot be captured by math. So you can't have one without the other.

[drunkenshoe]

It's relatively very new. What they thought about the connections between literacy/illiteracy, language and people 50 years ago and now is very different. And no it is not about the alphabet. Alphabet is not language. English has one alphabet, there are multiple English languages.

Social history of language is not really that simple.

"Sociologist argued that 'literacy is the basic personal skill which underlines the whole modernising sequence. Anthropologist suggest that the traditional difference between 'logical' and 'prelogical' thought should rather have been framed in terms of 'literate' and 'preliterate', because what made abstract thinking possible was literacy."  Burke.

Math is a wrong example here. When you think about literacy -its uses and mediums of it- and language, you are thinking about -naturally- the standardised understanding of language in every level we have today. The crucial point is that that understanding has evolved with modern state; after French Revolution just a bit more than 200 years ago and after the standardisation of national language and the universal education models modern state brought.

See, that's makes us myopic. When you got to 16 th century Italy for example, it is very different. Or the period between 1452-1789, throughout Europe everything related to language, literacy, speaking , writing, reading, the understanding of numeracy are completely different and different from each other. Languages don't even exist past 200 years ago in the way we understand today.

What changed? Researchers; historian, most importantly social historians and cultural historians realised they cannot do without socio linguistics and this is new. This started with evaluating the recorded historical data different than before. The issue was always what is the recorded written accumulation is telling us. Events, names, dates; their accuracy and compatibility with each other etc... but then eventually they started to analyse this  information in a very different way. As in structure of language, uses of literacy in different ages in different domains, different mediums, how those mediums changed the language, it is usage; what was accepted, what wasn't and why. Ho wit played into Curch, social life. Conflicts and controversy. A very different world broke out starting from the mid 20th century.

The traditional information on linguistics has chnaged so much, branches were born. Socio-linguistics is not a joke; because the consequences of the connections between language and culture is very powerful. It's going to be a fundamental field in near future in our life times. I am guessing the last 30 years they have been feling like Darwin having a walk around in Galapagos islands. It' just ther eisn't some cool stuff to show like there isin evolutionary biology. It's a organic thing about people that changes constantly -like the air we walk in- that we don't even still know exactly what it was like just a couple hundreds of years ago. Yet, so far what was thought extreme a 100 years ago keeps validating itself.

I also think people find these subjects boring and they think it is easy and simple. They can't be more wrong. (I am not saying any of you are doing this.) But that's my general impression. It's not considered as cool as other fields, that makes me a bit upset I guess. Because I think it is fascinating. Not to mention it is also funny and surprising; it offers a lot of unlearning and learning about ourselves. What's better than that?