Atheism

neologist wrote:

The only complaint I have about unbelievers in general is what I percieve to be an air of intellectual arrogance and condescending superiority. Present company excepted, of course.

That's not arrogance. It is simply true that the evidence supporting the God hypothesis is threadbare and feckless, whereas the no-gods hypothesis is a straightforward shave with Occam's razor. Our case is superior to theirs; there's no reason to tiptoe around it.

I just come from a different viewpoint. Music, for example has a mathematical signature apart from the experience it imparts to the listener.
Failure to understand or express the mathematics does not diminish one's ability to enjoy the work. Correspondingly, the existence of God can not be understood or expressed empirically.

The big problem with that analogy is that we pretty much all agree that music exists...

The concept of gods have evolved ever since man started thinking about their mortality. That's the reason why the christian god is one of the last to be "created" by man.

But one should also understand the danger of discarding anecdotal evidence solely on the desire for license.

But one should also understand the danger of discarding anecdotal evidence solely on the desire for license.

What's the danger?

There are more people that hold to the anecdotal evidence and desire license--and most of these also hold the eternal, torturous punishment idea--than there are people that discard that evidence and desire license.

"Motives?" How does one measure motive? Do you have some measuring system for motive that's accurate/reliable? Why don't you teach us how?

I wrote:

But one should also understand the danger of discarding anecdotal evidence solely on the desire for license.

InfraBlue wrote:

What's the danger?

There are more people that hold to the anecdotal evidence and desire license--and most of these also hold the eternal, torturous punishment idea--than there are people that discard that evidence and desire license.

So you're saying we should be aware of our motives.
Agreed.

It is possible that they see the human brain, and the processes supporting it, as too complex to allow for meaningless happenstance and that a belief in gods provides a useful organisational tool for building and maintaining society.

A guess that there are no gods is a derivative of the guess that there are. The functioning structures in which the guess that there are no gods can arise are hardly likely in the absence of the guess that there are gods.

A guess that there are no gods in a society dependent on the guess that there are gods might very easily be suspected of a solipsism superficially convenient to the guesser. Such a convenience vanishes when everybody guesses that there are no gods.

Refusing to guess either way ought to result in the concept of gods not being a content of consciousness except in the sense of the sociological, military and economic consequences of the preponderance of one or other of the guesses in a particular social organisation.

Those who refuse to guess or guess that there are no gods are then required to offer an alternative to the consequences of the guess that there are gods, or that there is a God. Failure in that respect behooves them to cogitate on the subject within the confines of their own infantile noddle.

rosborne979 wrote:

The big problem with that analogy is that we pretty much all agree that music exists...

Explain that to a deaf person. . .

neologist wrote:

rosborne979 wrote:

The big problem with that analogy is that we pretty much all agree that music exists...

Explain that to a deaf person. . .

Ha, that's a good "flip" comeback, but get serious, most deaf people I know still understand that music exists.

Like I said, "Why anyone would think that a guess of "there are no gods involved in REALITY" is "superior" to a guess that there are gods...is beyond me."