Theism vs. Atheism

@pagan,

pagan;106081 wrote:

the logic that states that if democrats have authority figures then it follows that democrats all see Roosevelt as a successful president is just patently false. There are quite possibly many democrats today that have authority figures within their party .......... but have never even heard of roosevelt!

Authority figures vary and change within all groups. Many non catholics would not recognise the pope as such ..... but that does not imply they have no authority figures within their community, that they just they merely have people in history that have expressed their beliefs.

Atheists can have authority figures just like any other belief ..... especially if they lack confidence or knowledge in argueing for their belief.

No, it stated that if Roosevelt was an authority figure for the entire Democratic party, then he would be considered a successful president. Presidents that would not be considered "authority figures" would not be considered successful presidents.
But the whole point is ridiculous because parties do not have authority figures. Neither do Atheists.

What is the correlation between non-Catholics not recognizing the pope and non-Catholics not having authority figures? It is a completely separate point that Atheists do not have authority figures.
Atheism is not a belief, atheists do not congregate and "nonbelieve." Thus they do not have the belief structure that religions do, and do not have a need for authority figures. You stated that atheists "can" have authority figures, but this does not mean they have them.

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@William,

The thing is, if you wanted to learn piano, you could teach yourself (I have) but most people who are really any good have a teacher. Teachers can show you things you may not ever learn by yourself.

Incidentally, I am sure there are no Krishnamurti 'courses'. I know his schools are expensive to send children to, but there never has been courses, or a movement, or anything to join. Are you actually familiar with Krishnamurti or is it a general statement?

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@jeeprs,

hi jeeprs

yeh i did read Krishnamurti and i have a few friends who are into his teachings and writings. Its ok. And yeh i am making general statements re teachers becoming gurus etc. .... even after they have died and been taken on by others. I wasn't implying Krishnamurti courses as in studying him as some sort of holy man or something .... just using his name as people use the names of others. I have a friend who i guess would rate Krishnamurti up there with the buddha. I have no problem with that, it happens all the time, in and out of religion.

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@pagan,

YumClock:
I will agree that many (but by no means all) self-professed atheists are playing a game of monkey-see monkey-do. People wear words as often as they wear clothes.

But I should admit that in the traditional sense of the word, I myself am an "atheist." At the same time this is not to assert the impossibility of a personal god. Rather I am confessing that for me a personal god seems unlikely enough that I might as well call myself an atheist.

Everyone:

On the other hand, after studying Carl Jung in relation to my own emotional response to religious myth and metaphysics, I have come to believe (with enough certainty -- at the moment) that man is, in a loose sense, inherently religious.

But this is to use the word religion in a loose metaphorical way. I would say that even Nietzsche, the self-proclaimed Antichrist, was a religious man.

I would also say that folks like Dawkins (scientistic folks in general) make a religion of Truth. (Note the capital T.) Nietzsche brilliantly questions this will-to-truth.

Examine any thinking man's key-word, and find his "God." A person's Dominant Value functions in the same way as a God. It's the fulcrum their (our) world-view rests on.

We all pride ourselves on something, and this (metaphorically speaking) is our religion. Which is not to say that all these "religions" are equal.....

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@William,

I am absolutely sure Dawkins would reject any association with the idea of the Truth with a capital T.

Reason: Truth with a capital T is a religio/philosophical notion.

HOWEVER I agree with your observation about the Jungian understanding. I think what you're seeing, and few do, is the idea of religion as symbolic meta-narrative (gee that sounds postmodern doesn't it) or a way that homo sapiens makes sense out of (apparently meaningless) chaos. Whereas your scientistic types say the only sense you can make out of it is empirical - 'just give me the facts'.

As you have discerned, homo sapiens needs to make sense out of it - we are 'meaning making' beings.

This is considerably complicated by the fact that so many secular westerners are basically anti-religious and often for reasons they are not really aware of. It is very close to being a complex. (this is because you can't analyse it or talk about it directly. There are so many repressed elements associated with it that to begin to discuss it means the discussion needs to be terminated. Like a patient of Freud's trying to talk about their relationship with their overbearing parent, or whatever.)

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@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;106208 wrote:

YumClock:
I will agree that many (but by no means all) self-professed atheists are playing a game of monkey-see monkey-do. People wear words as often as they wear clothes.

But I should admit that in the traditional sense of the word, I myself am an "atheist." At the same time this is not to assert the impossibility of a personal god. Rather I am confessing that for me a personal god seems unlikely enough that I might as well call myself an atheist.

I am very atheist myself. I have never said that atheists repeat dogmas they do not understand. I was merely asserting that atheists do not have authority figures and are not a faith. Many posters here assert that atheism comes with a set of ideas like a faith would, while atheism in fact comes with a certain lack of ideas.

To be an atheist says nothing about your philosophy or beliefs aside from God. To be an atheist may simply mean you are unsure about what God is, it may mean the concept of a human God is ridiculous to you, it may mean God is purely an imaginary concept and does not bother you any more than Santa Claus, and it can also mean that you are a member of a religion that does not worship a god. There are other ways of being atheist as well.

Only one of those groups would have anything to do with the words of Dawkins.

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@William,

actually atheism must be a faith. If it were not a faith, it would not have a name. It is confidence in the idea that 'there are no higher beings'. If you were not confident in that idea, you probably would not say 'I am very atheist myself'. And in a very important way, a faith is simply having confidence in an idea.

I am interested also in having 'a certain lack of ideas'. This sounds rather self-deprecating does it not? Or is it more a matter of saying 'there are certain ideas we will not entertain'.

And - I have to ask - which of the groups would have something to do with Dawkins?

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@jeeprs,

Quote:

HOWEVER I agree with your observation about the Jungian understanding. I think what you're seeing, and few do, is the idea of religion as symbolic meta-narrative (gee that sounds postmodern doesn't it)

..... lol nothing wrong with sounding postmodern jeeprs Smile

hi Reconstructo

yeh i like the observations and interpretations you make.

Quote:

Examine any thinking man's key-word, and find his "God." A person's Dominant Value functions in the same way as a God. It's the fulcrum their (our) world-view rests on.

i agree. I had a friend for example who clearly stated that 'I live for my wife and children', and i think he really did interpret almost everything he did in that sense. Career, house, locality .....

But while i agree that the 'I am in this thing called reality' sets up mythological dimensions for those of us who consider it, and indeed there may be genetic and social inheritence with regard to jungian like meta narratives and archetypes, nevertheless we as humans can think and act outside the box.

For example i have mates who wouldn't call themselves atheists cos they don't use the word. It just doesn't occur to them to think in that way. They don't believe in god one day, but have ghost stories for another, dismiss ufo's as ridiculous on thursday, but then they might contradict the lot over the weekend. Smile

Many people don't philosophise or think deeply to create any kind of consistency, particularily if they are part of a wealthy secular democracy.

.... and thats where postmodernism is allowed to flourish in my opinion. Its a multi narrative culture where few things are taught as sacrosanct and even then there is plenty of opportunity to come across parts of the culture that will mock or flout those few principles. But if Atheism becomes a big psychological value for you, both in the positive way you see the world or as a force against religion then it becomes a type of 'God' i agree. Or as the postmodern would say, it becomes a grand narrative.

Values are very fluid in the west it seems to me. I think many thought that the west would because of this, become more and more rationalistic and secular in our technologically wealthy consumerist culture ..... but it isn't quite working out like that. The media is promoting such a kaleidoscope of values and interpretations of the world that it is difficult for me to see a mythological meta narrative being variously expressed, even though i recognise such a 'characteristic' within humanity quite probably exists. So equally i don't see us all becoming T for Techno Truth seekers either.

..... a world where 'nothing wrong with a bit of techno' would fit a number of my mates Smile

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@jeeprs,

jeeprs;106328 wrote:

actually atheism must be a faith. If it were not a faith, it would not have a name. It is confidence in the idea that 'there are no higher beings'. If you were not confident in that idea, you probably would not say 'I am very atheist myself'. And in a very important way, a faith is simply having confidence in an idea.

I am interested also in having 'a certain lack of ideas'. This sounds rather self-deprecating does it not? Or is it more a matter of saying 'there are certain ideas we will not entertain'.

And - I have to ask - which of the groups would have something to do with Dawkins?

First, an atheist need not believe there are no higher beings. He may simply not believe there are higher beings. So, an atheist of that kind has no belief or faith at all. He just lacks belief or faith.

Second, Even if the atheist actually denies the existence of a higher being, that does not mean he has a "faith" in any ordinary sense of that term. Such an atheist may believe there is no higher being on what he considers to be very good grounds. And to say that a person's belief on the basis of reasons and evidence is "faith" is to misuse the term "faith", for "faith" is belief on no grounds at all, or, perhaps, very weak grounds.

Why do you think that if belief has a name, it is a faith? Is my belief that water is H20 a faith? That the world is round, a faith?

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@kennethamy,

kennethamy;106368 wrote:

First, an atheist need not believe there are no higher beings. He may simply not believe there are higher beings. So, an atheist of that kind has no belief or faith at all. He just lacks belief or faith.

Second, Even if the atheist actually denies the existence of a higher being, that does not mean he has a "faith" in any ordinary sense of that term. Such an atheist may believe there is no higher being on what he considers to be very good grounds. And to say that a person's belief on the basis of reasons and evidence is "faith" is to misuse the term "faith", for "faith" is belief on no grounds at all, or, perhaps, very weak grounds.

Why do you think that if belief has a name, it is a faith? Is my belief that water is H20 a faith? That the world is round, a faith?

I do not think atheism qualifies as a "faith". I do not believe in a "god" or "gods" is not a faith. One does have to have a conception to make the denial but one can simply say I have no conception of "god" and neither is a faith.

The metaphysical assumptions that often accompany atheism primarily materialism, mechanism and determinism constitute a worldview. Some might say your "worldview" is a form of faith or assumptions about the nature of existence and reality. I do not think one can construct an integrated or working "worldview" from science and reason alone. All "worldviews" involve some additional metaphysical assumptions or philosophical speculations. In that sense your "worldview" is your "faith" even though still not a religion?

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@kennethamy,

kennethamy;106368 wrote:

Why do you think that if belief has a name, it is a faith? Is my belief that water is H20 a faith? That the world is round, a faith?

I guess that was carelessly put on my part and not really what I meant. I will have another try.

I think we all have faith in our fellow citizens - we generally believe that they will obey the traffic signals, not steal from us if we do business with them or kills us if we disagree with them. There might also be many specific things we know about them - that one of them lives at such and such a house, and so on. Faith in this context is more that things work a certain way. And I think this is much nearer the meaning of faith in a religious sense.

I will come back to this point later. I still think that a great deal of philosophical atheism consists of confidence in the non-existence of God, but I will do a little more work on that one.

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@William,

What is the self-esteem of a man like Dawkins based on?

Perhaps it would be more accurate that science functions for some as the Quest for Truth. They sacrificed Dogma on the altar of the Quest. And indeed, science has a dynamic and provisional view of truth. I love science, and I study it.

I admit I have used the word religion loosely. I head-shrink myself and others, knowing that such a thing is reductive. But interpretive principles are generally reductive. So one should assimilate as many methods of interpretation as possible, I think.

Because I think man is a an emotional and mythological animal, it makes sense for me to look for mythological and emotional motives behind that which claims to be purely rational.

I don't think a person is an atheist or a theist or an agnostic for purely rational or logical reasons. I just don't think humans are like that. I take a holistic view.

I like religion and I like criticism. I want to assimilate them both. I want to assimilate anything with worth. I myself am just as much in the grip of mythology as anyone. But contingent content of the ideal is variable, amenable to persuasion and example.

We learn new tricks. New ways to define ourselves. And we don't judge the value of an idea by purely logical criteria, not outside of a course of Aristotelian syllogisms. Life is more complicated than Algebra.

We are more like Captain Kirk than Spock. We want to be connected with virtue, whether we call it the truth or open-mindedness or power or beauty or enlightenment or family values or humility or self-belief or creativity or taste.

I always try to sniff out a writer's Ideal.

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@William,

I don't know what Dawkins self-esteem would be based on any more, having transformed himself from a top-flight science fiction writer to a second-rate polemicist. Although his self-belief does always radiate with adamantine clarity.

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@jeeprs,

jeeprs;106486 wrote:

I guess that was carelessly put on my part and not really what I meant. I will have another try.

I think we all have faith in our fellow citizens - we generally believe that they will obey the traffic signals, not steal from us if we do business with them or kills us if we disagree with them. There might also be many specific things we know about them - that one of them lives at such and such a house, and so on. Faith in this context is more that things work a certain way. And I think this is much nearer the meaning of faith in a religious sense.

I will come back to this point later. I still think that a great deal of philosophical atheism consists of confidence in the non-existence of God, but I will do a little more work on that one.

If we believe that our fellow citizens will obey traffic signals, it is because we have a great deal of evidence for that belief, and a belief for which we have a great deal of evidence is not faith. Certainly not just faith. All faith is belief, but surely, not all belief is faith. Isn't faith belief without evidence or very sparse evidence? As I said, some atheists believe there is no God, and some just do not believe there is a God. How much confidence goes with their beliefs seems to be to be an individual matter.

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@jeeprs,

jeeprs;106328 wrote:

I am interested also in having 'a certain lack of ideas'. This sounds rather self-deprecating does it not? Or is it more a matter of saying 'there are certain ideas we will not entertain'.

And - I have to ask - which of the groups would have something to do with Dawkins?

I apologize for replying late, but I figured you may still want your questions answered.

I used the term 'lack of ideas' to stray away from the idea that atheists deny god. They simply are not concerned about his existence.
And I was referring to the group of atheists who believe that God is a ridiculous notion. There may be others that follow Dawkins's words, but this group would be the only one where such a generalization would be fitting, if not justified.

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@YumClock,

yeh after all as people on a philosophy forum we are thinkers. We consider and reflect. It is unlikely that people who discuss atheism have not considered the existence of spiritual beings. There are many that do not discuss this issue and are atheists by default of not thinking about it. For them it is a dismissal of thinking as much as a dismissal of gods and the like. The same for many theists too.

But suppose a person gets into philosophy and understanding the nature of ourselves and the world. An atheist from that stand point i believe must have a faith that such spiritual entities do not exist. (distinguished from agnostics). That faith is indeed about evidence. If an atheist for example considers the laws of science as more than enough to understand the world and functions without god, then that can be adopted as evidence for atheism. eg. God as a redundant addition doesn't make sense since the definition of god would require that god is not redundant for theistic belief.

And that is why i think that different types of evidence considered for or against something existing is the key point re theism and atheism. Subjective, objective, anecdotal, historical, biological, psychological ..... as well as conceptual schemes, interpretation etc. Faith in this context is evidence based for both camps of interpreting the world. Its just that the different types of evidence have different weights for each of us. And if we consider a type of evidence as inherently flawed, then that too is a kind of faith for the considered thinker especially if that opinion/weight is based upon another type of positive evidence.

The personal and shared subjective experience of spirituality leading to theism will never be considered as convincing by many atheists. Just as the objective gains and claims of science and rationality leading to atheism will not be considered as convincing by many theists.

Evidence for something is different to a lack of evidence for something. But the latter is a limbo state unless we have faith that there will never be any evidence for it.... especially if that faith is also based upon positive evidence for an alternative grand narrative that denies or ignores its existence. This is true of both sides of the divide.

But there is another kind of faith again used within the diversity of both camps. Faith in something without any kind of evidence for it! Now thats faith Smile

It can inspire a quest, from which all kinds of creativity can emerge.

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@jeeprs,

jeeprs;106501 wrote:

I don't know what Dawkins self-esteem would be based on any more, having transformed himself from a top-flight science fiction writer to a second-rate polemicist. Although his self-belief does always radiate with adamantine clarity.

What science fiction books has he written?

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@pagan,

pagan;106614 wrote:

But there is another kind of faith again used within the diversity of both camps. Faith in something without any kind of evidence for it! Now thats faith

You are right. That is faith.

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@Dave Allen,

Dave Allen;106620 wrote:

What science fiction books has he written?

Sorry, apologies, I meant top flight popular science writer.

I read a review the other day of TGD by H. Allen Orr, who is also a biologist, who says that in his opinion the Selfish Gene was the best popular science book ever written.

---------- Post added 11-29-2009 at 09:56 AM ----------

comes from trying to post whilst painting your swimming pool....

---------- Post added 11-29-2009 at 10:02 AM ----------

kennethamy;106658 wrote:

You are right. That is faith.

I agree, but it distresses me what has been made of it in modern times.

I was looking at a lecture by Terry Eagleton, who has, rather surprisingly, had to become something of an apologist for the role of faith in the modern age. He makes the point that religious behaviours are 'performative not propositional'. Karen Armstrong makes the same point in The Case for God. Meaning that the original purpose of prayer, liturgy, meditation, and so on, was to enact the relationship with the sacred realm, not to frame propositions about objective facts.

The latter puts the case that it has been the effort in the modern age (i.e. since the renaissance) to show that Science is 'God's Handiwork' which has actually completely backfired in many minds, by showing the coherence of completely naturalistic explanations. So going down this road of 'proving that God exists' or 'proving that God doesn't' is a peculiarly modern pre-occupation.

Because the ancients felt, and I agree with them, that whether or not there is a supreme deity, whatever this is, is quite beyond existence.

So, I agree with Pagan's assessment, but not because I wish to cling to propositions for which there is no evidence.

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@jeeprs,

These pop-atheists like to attack religion as the cause of violence, and of course it has been. What annoys me is that they forget that communism is explicitly atheistic, and was perhaps the most murderous movement in recent times. I think they fail to see that man will always have his ideal and his idols. And man can make a religion, quite easily, out of an explicitly atheist ideology.

These pop-atheist also seem to be blind to the sublimity of religious myth. A man like Hegel could call Christianity the absolute religion, and describe his philosophy as the conceptual aspect of this same myth. And Hegel, like him or not, was not the Ak-47 toting fanatic that pop-atheism would like to serve as the image of religion.

I agree with Jung that religious myth is the spontaneous creation of the psyche, and that consciousness is but a fragment of the psyche.

I accuse pop-atheism of being shallow -- a deceptively racy fad like the miniskirt.

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