Why I am not an atheist

But to get where I am going, I have to start from where I am now.

I have no complaints about anything anybody else has said, even though no-one liked or understood what I wrote - that really is OK by me. It's sad and painful and tough, but I have tolerate that.

I'm sure this can be shot down instantly, but what the heck - who wants to live forever? I just want to know if it makes any sense to anybody. It's not intended as gospel.

The atheist has to represent in his own person the human values in which he believes. This inevitably results in one of four outcomes: (1) inflation, because of all the human values which he rightly feels called upon to contain;(2) explosion, under the pressure of all the human values which he cannot contain; (3) denial, and effectively destruction, of some or all vital human values; or (4) the only sane option, but an irrational one, which is the expulsion from his own person (and into the persons of others, whether they consent to the projection or not) of all those necessary human values which his own person cannot contain.

The theist, meanwhile, allows human values to permeate him, moving in and out, as and when they are needed. His mental skin is permeable; he knows better than to try to contain the whole human spirit. To vary the metaphor: he bends, therefore he need not break.

The theist who sees God in anthropoid form, however, is no better than the atheist; indeed, he is much worse. He takes all the defects of the atheist, multiplies them together, and projects the product into the sky. He deserves all the mud that Richard Dawkins et al. can throw at him.

And on the other hand, atheist option (4) can probably be eloquently spoken for. Something like 'the human spirit' can probably be put in place of 'God', and often with advantage. But is it any easier to believe in? In any form in which it can be believed in, does it differ detectably from 'God'?

It seems to me that if one human ego cannot contain all that needs to be contained, then neither can seven billion human egos.

It's not obvious what can contain all that needs to be contained. But then, 'God' was always more of a question than an answer.

Motto: don't strain your brain; let God take the strain.

Writing out what you think you mean with simpler language helps you clarify your thoughts. Start with simpler language, and then you will begin to see where you are going (if anywhere).
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But you don't have to tolerate that. You act as if you have no choice but to write out your thoughts in a vague, obscure manner. Search for the straightforward words you think best convey the thought. Write them out. You don't even have to press "reply". Just leave the words in the text box and look at them for a few minutes. Ask yourself, "Does this make sense?" and "Could I convey this thought in a more precise or clear manner?".

You may be too infuriated right now to do so appropriately, but I'll hope to hear from you by tomorrow. And I will be here when you want to discuss something, even though you may hate me.

I can see you're making a sincere effort, and that already mollifies me. So let me try to explain in plain language, not what I was initially trying to discuss, but why I no longer wish to discuss that particular matter in this particular thread.

If everyone had simply said - as everyone except you (and in a different way Reconstructo) did say - "No, I'm sorry, I just don't see what you're getting at. It looks like nonsense to me, or else it's just wrong. Are you quite sure you're feeling all right?", I'd have replied, "Oh dear, that's a real pity! For a few moments there, I thought I'd managed to put a few of my vague intuitions together, just about well enough to try to have a conversation about them, at last - but apparently not yet. But don't worry, I'm feeling fine." And that would have been the end of that.

Even better, of course, if at least one person had known what I was getting at, and had thoughts of their own to offer! Because then the conversation could have continued.

But because no-one knew what I was on about, where could any energy come from for continuing the conversation? The initial attempt at communication had failed. I could perhaps regroup, and make another attempt - at another time, in another thread - but why prolong the death agonies of this one? There was simply no basis on which to continue. Better to make a fresh start.

If I'd managed to get something across, I could perhaps have built on that, used it to 'bootstrap'. But there was nothing. End of thread. (If only!)

I expect that even this explanation is not yet clear enough. But I am willing to go on with this post-mortem, this thread about a dead thread.

You see, it doesn't just depend on me. It depends on who I'm talking to. I simply don't want to talk about this to people who have no idea what even my first fumbling attempt meant, because that means that either (i) they have no intuitions similar to mine on this subject, or (ii) I am still not nearly as ready as I thought I was to even begin to try to talk about them.

If I could improve on my first, fumbling attempt, that first fumbling attempt would not have been such a complete failure.

Its obscurity was not a linguistic accident. I can be very clear and precise when I know what I am trying to say. But I wrote this article (#1 of this thread) in the same way as I write other articles. If I knew what I was trying to say this time, in the same way that I usually know what I am trying to say, it would have come out in such a way that it could be understood (even if I didn't start off the writing process knowing how it was going to come out).

And it doesn't matter where the 'blame' lies, whether it's (i) or (ii); it's the simple absence of a sympathetic listening ear that matters, not the reason for that absence.

Consider my OP as a preliminary sounding. If there's no response, I don't send out any further signals, because there's no-one there. Later, there may be someone, perhaps because I have improved my echo-sounding equipment, or I've recharged my batteries, or I'm in a different place.

Or, it's like knocking on a door. No response? Then there's no-one home. So there's no point in knocking on the door again. I know I knocked loud enough. Or at least I knocked as hard as I can. Either way, no point in knocking again - they can't all be on the lavatory, in the bath, asleep, on the telephone, or making love! Try again later, or try another door.

This is torture. :disappointed:

And I suppose it's still not clear ...

Humanity , the Human Spirit is above any god , as it should be

I can be very clear and precise when I know what I am trying to say.

If I could improve on my first, fumbling attempt, that first fumbling attempt would not have been such a complete failure.

And on the other hand, atheist option (4) can probably be eloquently spoken for. Something like 'the human spirit' can probably be put in place of 'God', and often with advantage.

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absolutely an advantage , if only Humanity could understand this

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But is it any easier to believe in?

yes it is Natural

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In any form in which it can be believed in, does it differ detectably from 'God'?

we have , Humanity , have been so psychologically pounded by this concept of god ,( which is suppose to be above us , of which it is not )that we can't think outside the box of god

the difference between believing in Humanity or god(s) is that Humanity grows , when we believe in ourselves

we stagnate in our Human growth when we believe in god because we wait for guidence

This is a forum, and a philosophy forum at that. It is expected, at the least, that if you create a thread on a matter, you can at least reason out what it was you were trying to convey. I'd even be willing to hold your hand a bit (principle of charity), but you have to give me a bootstrap, give me something that I can go off of.

And if need more time, that is completely fine. Critical thinking does take time, patience, and work, and that's why most people avoid it. Clarifying thought is a skill. You can get better at it. And that practice is what I'm advocating here.

In speaking of the fear of religion, I don't mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper-namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and wellinformed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that.

My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind. Darwin enabled modern secular culture to heave a great collective sigh of relief, by apparently providing a way to eliminate purpose, meaning, and design as fundamental features of the world."

It most certainly needed a helping hand, but the help could only have come from someone who had at least an inkling of what I was trying to say.

For instance, someone might have responded, "I don't know, I think I might have a glimmering of what you might be trying to get at here, but your use of the phrase 'human values' throws me - that just doesn't make sense in this context - what do you mean?" Perhaps they would have had to say a bit more than that, in order to convince me that something of what I meant had got through, but I could certainly see the point of that sort of questioning, and would be obliged to respond, and try to find a better choice of words than the one I had first grabbed hold of.

No, what's missing here is not a capacity for critical thinking on my part. It's all too easy for me to see inadequacies in the way I put things. But sometimes when you have hold of a fleeting thought, just for a few moments, and you glimpse the possibility of putting it into words, you just have to make a very rough first stab at it, knowing that hosts of questions are raised. This does not imply an inability to deal with questions later.

But in the absence of any interested response (again, where the 'blame' lies does not matter), there is just no point in trying to refine the communication. It failed; end of story. This attempt failed very badly. There was simply nothing that could be worked on. And merely pointing out ad nauseam that no meaning had been conveyed only created a tortuous thread about nothing! It should have died a natural death hours ago.

What I am having to think hard and painfully about now is whether an online forum, any online forum, is an appropriate place to try to express ideas which are still in a very raw, unfinished state. As I wrote earlier in this thread, I do know how to play safe, and I may well decide to go back to doing so, taking this debacle into account. But then I wonder, just as you do, what I am doing in this forum at all. I can read philosophy books on my own (and I'd have more time to do so!).

Hi Twirlip - I am in your corner,

What corner? Segregation is exactly what we don't need, and exactly what I wanted to avoid.

Behind all the polite requests to 'explain yourself clearly' - incidentally I thought you explained yourself very well - there is actually a subtle accusation, which is that because whatever-it-is-that-you-are-talking-about cannot really be known and shown, it is, therefore, irrational, certainly not scientific, and in all likelihood delusory.

In times past, there was a loose social consensus regarding religious belief, which is now under attack as never before.

I think an excellent answer is given by Thomas Nagel, a respected, non-religious philosopher from New York, who says in his Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion:

From Thomas Nagel, The Last Word.

I would be interested to see if anyone feels there is anything in this.

Behind all the polite requests to 'explain yourself clearly' - incidentally I thought you explained yourself very well - there is actually a subtle accusation, which is that because whatever-it-is-that-you-are-talking-about cannot really be known and shown, it is, therefore, irrational, certainly not scientific, and in all likelihood delusory.

I was once an atheist (even used to preach it) and I was never more so in denial than I was then.

I must read that Mary Midgley book, Evolution as a Religion. And I'd better read Dawkins (on evolution, not on religion) as well. I get very cross with people who deny the existence of evolution by natural selection (horrifying though it is). Another way in which I'm still, almost, a good atheist. :shifty:

you are learning

if you can't handle the the questions and critizisms of what you speak , then hide in the books where there is no one to ask what you mean , when come upon a thought or two

I don't think I've ever seen a single interesting or useful post from you in this forum.