Atheism and agnosticism

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Objection!

We do possess the knowledge that proves that a creator cannot exist. It's called linguistics.

There is a reason why it took so long a time for the concept of any deity; any creator evolving into a transcendental god that came up with Abrahamic religions. Because it is an abstract concept and abstract concepts cannot exist without written culture. (This is also the explanation both why Abrahamic religions rose from the same region and why they are different and yet the same in many sense, besides the narrative they dictate. Why it started with ancient Hebrew and Arabic very easily fel linto the same line...)

Simply the idea of a god; any god, gods or deities are all one and it is completely based on human desires apart from the delusion itself. There is not a definition or a description of a god in human history that exists out of that profile. There can't be. Because there is no other narrative for god out of the profile of an absentee landlord. It's human, its as various as humans and its desires.  Therefore there is no such thing as the slightest possibility of some evidence for existence of a creator. It's invalid. It's fantasy of a fantasy. Any evidence anyone would try to imagine as 'what if' would have to be in the limits of describing some sort of a super MAN. Not some unimaginable supreme entity that mortals cannot fathom. Humans only constantly developed the language to describe it and with the sufficient accumulation of written culture they finally reached to a transcendental creator. They invented imaginary concepts, powers they liked to have- to tell those stories attached to it, but narrative has always been the same. Like children playing make belief. Because gods and religions are functional. It has always, but always been beneficial and profitable. It's trade, its politics. It's a means to desired ends played itself out.

God is an anthropomorphic figure that has developed into some abstract make up -transcendence which cannot exist without written culture- and all religions are anthropocentric in their nature. The idea of god does not come from a creator of the universe. It evolved to be the creator of the universe in time. It comes from fearing the thunder and lightening, fire, earthquake, floods, hurricanes, the mighty ocean, the mighty mountains and the powerful wild animals, famine, bad winter that threatened their lives. Everything human faces on the planet in nature.

Humans did not start 'believing' in a god because they thought some supreme being 'created' them. They arrived an understanding of a god that did the creating from mortal fears and simple daily needs. Because they worried about their own lives. Famine, hard winter, disease, fear of death. Why do we die? Why do we feel pain? Why do we get sick? Why do we starve? Human fear of its own nature. It's always 'what happened to me' or 'what is happening to me' or 'what will happen to me? Now and after I die'. It's first person, all about the human itself, first defined in the individual level, then for a society because we are social animals and cannot survive alone; we have to live together.

The idea of the creator of universe, esp. the universe as we undertsand now, today, is a last phase of a series of 'upgrades' and 'updates' of that primitive idea, adapted and modified in time. By development of language. Linguistics. First 'the universe' is the clan, then the village....then the cities, countries and what's around it. As the map starts to open, gradually the 'universe' has become the planet, then finally it has becaome the universe as we know today. Adaptation. Religions and gods get keep adapted by humans because they are functional. So they survive. Basic principle. As the general scale got larger, the scale of god followed it. But it is the same absentee landlord. Doesn't matter how or with what high language or concepts you decsribe it. It's human.

God is the rejection of nature because of mortal fear. That's why in all Abrahamic religions human is defined with something supernatural, an immortal element called soul. It's a symbolic way of refusing to die. It's why in all those religions human is defined as something proud and more than animals, first in the center of the world and that world as in center of the universe. Me, me, me, me, I, I, I, I.

This is not a belief or trust into some supreme being. It's only the BELIEF IN ONESELF in a twisted collective way; SIMPLE TRIBALISM and any other way of believing in a god cannot exist, exactly because of this reason. People who claim to believe in some god, actually believe in themselves, their special place.

And that god is not even a monotheistic god. It can't be. It's sum of fears of death, fears of pain and hoping to be rewarded above all whatever happens. It's 'I don't wanna die! I'm above nature, I have a precious soul, I refuse to die'. It's not trusting in some omnipotent divinity. It's not a belief, it's a claim, it's a wish rising from a make believe has gone so long, it is a fucking category. The whole thing is just a resentful pray; a painful wish.

Guys, there is NOTHING in human history that humans DID because they BELIEVED in some god. Everything, but everything that has been DONE has a REAL LIFE FUNCTION behind it, because humans believe in themselves above all and nothing else. The very reason they imagined gods an deities is this. This is how our cognitive process evolved and also why it actually doesn't allow some genuine belief in god. Otherwise, we couldn't have survived. Because whatever happens, human will act, consciously or unconsciously according to what functions for him. Rest is politics, literature, fantasy to carry this along time.


Infact, I am going to go further and claim that it's actually impossible to believe in a creator and that actually noone does.

Because god is also a still born concept, because the moment a hominid developed the ability to think and speak;describe any experience he had stepping out that reality he experienced it; voice what's in his mind about a possible creator, imagined stories of it, rather than just feel, love, fear, live and die with it, the idea of god died there at that moment. Because he alienated and seperated himself from that supposed omnipotent nature of that idea of supreme being and its supposed existence. He existed outside of it. He developed the consciousness regarding to his own existence apart from the nature. Process of intelligence. The kind of self awareness and consciousness only one animal on the planet that we know evolved to possess. The cognitive process we developed makes the idea of god impossible. Yes, I said impossible.

If any of you can imagine a god outside the presented category, please come forward explain and then I'll reconsider that thinking/claiming that god cannot exist is dishonest. However, categories of human narrative doesn't change, because we are just simple animals with simple fixed needs and we don't have any need or use for another category of a god, that's why we invented it this way in the first place . Because there isn't one, there can't be and hence the fantasy needed to be maintained.


Even if one day we manage to colonise the galaxy, we will always be a bunch of apes that wants to feel safe sitting around a fire nestling to each other. Take that up to the space, bring it down to a cave, it doesn't matter, because it doesn't change. Can't. If it does, we'd go extinct. 

I am so going to steal all of this. And young lady just why aren't you writing books instead of translating other people's books? I'd actually buy a book titled The rantings of a raving drunkenshoe.. This all probably makes more sense than all the other crap written about god(s) and religion than anything I've ever read.  I'll go one further and suggest it ought to be enshrined at the entrances to all public buildings around the world..
That said it doesn't stand a chance because the powers that be would never allow it because they want us all to believe they derive their power from the absentee landlord..

[josephpalazzo]

A very different world broke out starting from the mid 20th century.

Yep, a result of the revolutionary ideas brought upon by GR and QM (1900-1930). Nothing since the dawn of history compares to these scientific revolutions. The technological changes  that follwed were immense. Think what the world would be without TV, computers, the internet, nukes, going to the moon, and so on. That was the world prior to 1900. And would still be without GR and QM. Of course, there were important ramifications in other fields - art, social sciences, medicine, etc. But without the impetus of science, we'd be still lighting our homes with candles. And we discussing on the net would be science fiction.

[SGOS]

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.

I used to emphasize my agnosticism more than my atheism, but over the years, the arguments for God have begun sounding like so much folly, that I'm leaning more toward strong atheism.

[Baruch]

Yep, a result of the revolutionary ideas brought upon by GR and QM (1900-1930). Nothing since the dawn of history compares to these scientific revolutions. The technological changes  that follwed were immense. Think what the world would be without TV, computers, the internet, nukes, going to the moon, and so on. That was the world prior to 1900. And would still be without GR and QM. Of course, there were important ramifications in other fields - art, social sciences, medicine, etc. But without the impetus of science, we'd be still lighting our homes with candles. And we discussing on the net would be science fiction.

Without QM, no solid state physics, no transistor, no computer chip.  Thanks for saving me from a huge vacuum tube computer to get onto the WWW superhighway ;-)

[drunkenshoe]

Yep, a result of the revolutionary ideas brought upon by GR and QM (1900-1930). Nothing since the dawn of history compares to these scientific revolutions. The technological changes  that follwed were immense. Think what the world would be without TV, computers, the internet, nukes, going to the moon, and so on. That was the world prior to 1900. And would still be without GR and QM. Of course, there were important ramifications in other fields - art, social sciences, medicine, etc. But without the impetus of science, we'd be still lighting our homes with candles. And we discussing on the net would be science fiction.

I am not questioning the impact of science and techology and how it changed the world, joseph. You completely misunderstood me. This is has nothing to do with what I am trying to say. Anyway, you are not interested I guess.

[drunkenshoe]

I am so going to steal all of this. And young lady just why aren't you writing books instead of translating other people's books? I'd actually buy a book titled The rantings of a raving drunkenshoe.. This all probably makes more sense than all the other crap written about god(s) and religion than anything I've ever read.  I'll go one further and suggest it ought to be enshrined at the entrances to all public buildings around the world..
That said it doesn't stand a chance because the powers that be would never allow it because they want us all to believe they derive their power from the absentee landlord..

Pffft on me writing a book,lol. Thank you for the vote though. *Hugs. I'm giving up translation too. I'll find a traditional daily job for the first time in my life and try to hang on to it. And do things like trying to save money for a telescope -not the one I posted, too expensive- and travel. Let's try something new, feels like time to change my life. Again.

[josephpalazzo]

Without QM, no solid state physics, no transistor, no computer chip.  Thanks for saving me from a huge vacuum tube computer to get onto the WWW superhighway ;-)

You bring up an interesting question: would huge vacuum tube computer be invented without QM? I guess the possibility would be there, but how likely for that to happen is not so obvious. Turing came after Gödel, who came after Russell, and Russell was heavily influenced by GR and QM.  Without Russell's paradox, there's no Incomplete Theorem from Gödel, and Turing doesn't come up with the  "Halting Problem" for Turing Machines, therefore no huge vacuum tube computer...;-)

[Hakurei Reimu]

Are you saying you are a linguistic determinist, DS? Because that's the vibe I'm getting from you.

Linguistic relativity is a thing. It is very difficult to get an idea out of someone's head except through language, and of course using a particular language is going to distort that idea somewhat, or even was factored in formulating it in the first place. But this is obvious enough to anyone who has been at a loss for words, or had to rewrite a statement again and again because they know what point they're trying to make and the language is failing them. And of course, you can only get a thought into someone's head using language, so of course the idea is going to be similarly distorted.

Linguistic determinism, on the other hand, where language determines what is thinkable by a certain person or culture, is quite thoroughly discredited. Nobody you have cited goes so far as to say that language forms the principle limitation on our thoughts, not even Benjamin Whorf or Peter Burke. The limits of our thoughts are determined a very large number of factors, the specific construction of the language itself being only one. For language without a context in which to operate is utterly barren.

Would Aristotle really have come up with a completely different logic system had he spoken Chinese or Dakotan? No, because Aristotle did not come up with the logic he used in philosophy, but rather was the inheritor of about three hundred years of prior philosophic thought beginning with Thales of Miletus. And it's not as if China didn't have its own philosophic hieritage, or the Dakotans their own mythology. Aristotle was the first person to refine logic into what we would call formal logic, but logic in some form has always been a part of the human experience. The myths and story-telling you alude to earlier are examples, because what is a story or a myth but a series of connected events leading to an explanitory outcome? The seeds of implication lie in the causal relation between events, faculties that all languages have to one degree or another.

As such, I do not see the language barrier as fatal as you think, because at the core of language is the seed of logic.

[Solomon Zorn]

It looks like some interesting material, Shoe. I don't really have the dedicated interest to read up on it though.

So, speaking as an uneducated hick, it seems to me that whatever strong influence linguistics has had on the thought of agnostic atheism, it has had the same strong influence on gnostic atheist thoughts as well. If one is invalid, then isn't the other also?

[Unbeliever]

I usually call myself a nullifidian, but hardly anyone's ever heard the word:

[Baruch]

I usually call myself a nullifidian, but hardly anyone's ever heard the word:

Oxfords have been out of style for awhile now.  How about those Air-Jordans? ;-)

[drunkenshoe]

Are you saying you are a linguistic determinist, DS? Because that's the vibe I'm getting from you. Linguistic determinism, on the other hand, where language determines what is thinkable by a certain person or culture, is quite thoroughly discredited. Nobody you have cited goes so far as to say that language forms the principle limitation on our thoughts, not even Benjamin Whorf or Peter Burke.

No, I am not. I'm not talking about a conclsuion. I am talking about something continous that took a turn recently. And the whole of my idea or the argument as you put it was not based on linguistics alone but a few other huge fields that I expressed my outlook regarding to the problem of the absolute nonexistence of a creator. I am trying to follow this process, because I have seen a change. And saying that while these men were defined as extreme, the new branches occured as a result of previous small paradigma shifts in the capacity of their dicisplines and the resreach keeps leaning towards a certain way and I said that at the end of this chart stands Heidegger. You are talking about he end of the chart. 

Linguistic relativity is a thing. It is very difficult to get an idea out of someone's head except through language, and of course using a particular language is going to distort that idea somewhat, or even was factored in formulating it in the first place. But this is obvious enough to anyone who has been at a loss for words, or had to rewrite a statement again and again because they know what point they're trying to make and the language is failing them. And of course, you can only get a thought into someone's head using language, so of course the idea is going to be similarly distorted.

Agreed. However, what you are describing is, for people the difficulty of expressing the thoughts in their minds and the limits/distortion of the language is just a small part of the problem. The main issue with linguistic relativity is that the distortion and the limit it creates in how people experience the world, come to understand it. It just doesn't make it difficult for them in certain situation it shapes how they percieve the world, so how they think.

The limits of our thoughts are determined a very large number of factors, the specific construction of the language itself being only one. For language without a context in which to operate is utterly barren.

I load language a special powerful place, because it is the first filter and the material all other factors are going through that transforms them into experience, memory and consciousness. That's why they are so various and different in cultures and in individual level and why it affects every person differently; why they have different importance in different cultures.

Would Aristotle really have come up with a completely different logic system had he spoken Chinese or Dakotan? No, because Aristotle did not come up with the logic he used in philosophy, but rather was the inheritor of about three hundred years of prior philosophic thought beginning with Thales of Miletus. And it's not as if China didn't have its own philosophic hieritage, or the Dakotans their own mythology. Aristotle was the first person to refine logic into what we would call formal logic, but logic in some form has always been a part of the human experience. The myths and story-telling you alude to earlier are examples, because what is a story or a myth but a series of connected events leading to an explanitory outcome? The seeds of implication lie in the causal relation between events, faculties that all languages have to one degree or another.

I don't think you understand what the quote refers to. It's not about Aristo or his logic. People who offered that anology are perfectly aware that Chinese have their own philosophy, Dakotans have their own mythology and that Aristo's logic is a product depended on schools that preceedes his. This is EXACTLY what they are saying in a higher level of a category. They are pointing out that they are all as results, strictly bound to their respective linguistic development in their own circumstances.

Parmenides just left a poem opening with a dedication to a goddess -as it was the custom- and just the description of the chariot is enough to analyse his extreme diffculty to 'express' his complicated, distinguished perspective compared to his contemporaries. Because the Ancient Greek used in his time is no where near enough to do that, he tried to make it, but at the same time he used Homer phrases -naturally- because that's the only available narrative to think in. Forget Aristo, without Parmenides you don't have Plato, so no Socrates in written form.

Ancient Greek philosophy is the direct result of the development of the ancient Greek language and there is also another direct result is the art they produced. While a bigger and older super power like an Ancient Egyptian Empire -I'm not getting into what might have happened to Library of Alexandria myths, but going with what survived to us) didn't produce anything like this, because the language of a funeral cult/culture didn't create a written culture accumulated to produce knowledge for the sake of knowledge, it also created a completely different art. Same dictating relation. 

Art is an example I can speak more confidently. It's not a coincidence or a matter of taste or the result of the religion why Egyptians depicted human body in a certain way. First of all, they were far advanced about human anotomy compared to any other culture, but while Greeks started with imitating their style and scale, they 'soon' ended up depicting human body as naturalistic (even idealistic) as possible. This is a direct result of a specific part that occured within the development of Ancient Greek culture got its break through from development in language. How they forced/worked that language to express complicated concepts.

While it's a very simple thing for Greek sculptor to carve an Afrodites figure at the moment she is brushing her hair or coming out of water (a continous act), this idea whould be shocking and confusing to an Egyptian sculptor who sculpts idealised forms of human bodies in 'unnatural' positions. Same with architecture. Pyramids are as a whole abstract art, doesn't matter if they are tombs or not. It took thousands and hundreds of years for Western culture to reach abstract forms in art.

Also about myths. From your posts I sense that when you see the word 'myth' you automatically think of obscure ancient fairy tales echoing from thousands of years ago. OK. But you were born into a world with huge accumulation of knowledge. For example, you have learned how to count, read and write when you were a toddler. But forget being literate and have the simplest undersanding of numeracy, I want you to imagine how would be like to be born in a world that the only piece of 'information' -other than the ways of fighting with the nature to survive- is just what old people tell to others around a hearth. Myths; their characters, plots...etc. This is a language. The ultimate context. Those fairy tales are the basic norms of language which we evolved it by contrasting, criticising, inflating/deflating them. That's why I said we are thinking in Homer with a much better vocabulary. 

As such, I do not see the language barrier as fatal as you think, because at the core of language is the seed of logic.

No, it is the other way around. The language is the core of logic. Seed is about the culture you bury it; it also depended/s on many other dynamics and factors to grow that logic an dmake it dominant. A very few cultures managed to do it.

I experience this everyday when I am writing a post here in a foriegn language when I have to think in it to do so. I can see very clearly the differences of logic, the ways of thinking, concepts and most importantly their differences in interpretation in two different languages -therefore cultures- when I don't know or don't get even though it was explained UI know something has changed in the material produced and in time I coincide it over again and eventually add that to my bag. And I recognise all these are in the face of very similar situations and same issues. I'm bilingual. When I take a test -be it some test to measure some specific information and knowledge or some IQ test or a simple test I score much higher than my peers if I take it in English. Because the accumulation of knowledge is dictated by that one, although there is the translation of it. My brain developed this ability of switching between the languages -through using those language together- according to the available concepts each language provides. Even while speaking in one language, it automatically changes track and some times I have to translate what I need to say from English ot Turkish or Turkish to English. I dream frequently in two languages the same way.

It's almost that my brain has learned to use two different tools, not two different languages.

[drunkenshoe]

it seems to me that whatever strong influence linguistics has had on the thought of agnostic atheism, it has had the same strong influence on gnostic atheist thoughts as well. If one is invalid, then isn't the other also?

In my opinion;

No. Because gnosticism is based on theological 'knowledge' with pre-christian roots. (3rd century?) There is no such thing as 'theological knowledge', it is not knowledge. Agnosticism is produced -evolved- to counter that idea which is theistic in itself.

The reason we have agnostic atheism is most modern atheists treat the concept of god as some natural phenomenon or law that needs to be proved by empiric data with the scientific method and insert the principle that you can never know because it cannot be falsified. By doing that also they are treating 'theological knowledge' and secienitfic knowledge in the same category -as if one could ever worked in another's place- which drives me mad,lol. Existence and belief/faith in god with or without religions exist outside of the empiric data or the scientific method. It's not science's job or duty to disprove god. Never has been. Scientific knowledge is not the criticism of theological 'knowledge'. They are completely two different things.

The reason there are gnostic theism and agnostic theism with agnostic atheism and gnostic atheism, because of the linguistic development shaping the thought that I have been busting my ass trying to explain. It's symmetrical contrust to begin with. It's getting back to the theistic position with in its own terms and inserting a 'religious' term in front of a neutral position that has nothing to do with it. No, there isn't the same relation between theism and atheism. Because atheism is not a system or attached to any systems or some anti-religious system.

Atheism is zero; the only natural position. It has nothing to do with science, or even religion, gnosticism or agnosticism, it does not have some weak or strong version. The former is a religious term and concept and the latter is evolved from that religious concept therefore strictly bound to that concept, but adapted and interpretated to something that has nothing to with it as sceptic escape point, BECAUSE we people think as the language dictates.  

[PickelledEggs]

They TEND to not be exclusive, but there are gnostic atheists. And quite a bit of them. Just because you're an atheist, does not mean you're also agnostic, but there is a very good chance an atheist is also agnostic. Just not 100% across the board.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

[Baruch]

Shoe - loved your analysis again.  We can't escape the linguistic straight jacket ... except partially, by transferring one's self to another language/culture that contrasts with our own.  Then we can see that we are captured by our upbringing.  Until that point we don't even know there is a problem ... because we are culturally solipsistic.  Zen attempts to escape linguistics, thru silence.  The monkey mind has to be knocked out.