there was a basic problematic built into existence that gave rise to the worshipping and the rest. — Astrophel

Yup. Ignorance of causality.

Is there a boundary between internal and external experience? How does one discern that boundary? And these very different kinds of experience transmit different kinds of information? Can you give a neurological explanation as how that works? — Vera Mont

Well, it was you who brought up "my internal experiences" so I was just moving forward with this. It was the denial of spirit and the acknowledging of internal experiences that gave me pause to think: Internal experiences are of a certain kind of "being," as you affirmed when you said the thinking, feeling, valuing, being amused, sad, and all the rest refer to internal experiences. What are external experiences things about vis a vis internal things? This would be the question that creates interest. It is not about neurology, for this is an external matter, meaning to find such a thing one goes to the same places one goes to find external things like fence posts, tin cans and other external things. Brains are external things, no? They are entirely unlike internal things like the above thinking and feeling and the rest. Qualitatively unlike each other, right? This is how I understand your "internal experiences" reply.

Sorry. I can make no sense of that paragraph. My best guess is something like: delving into the human psyche reveals that it differs from inanimate objects. That much, I have already stipulated as self-evident. If that difference between life and non-life is supposed to be a "spirit", I accept that as a metaphor, not as a physical entity. — Vera Mont

But you don't need a metaphor to simply describe what is there right before your eyes, so to speak. It does take a certain suspension of assumptions about what things are to allow them to stand on their own. I am simply saying, in a non reductive way, that feelings, thoughts, attitudes, moods and everything else you might include in your "internal experience" are qualitatively different from those posited as external. Just this. It isn't about life and non life, neurology, or really anything outside the manifest qualities themselves. Indeed, I thought this entirely without issue since I was arguing on the assumption you provided.

That's a widely held opinion. — Vera Mont

Opinion? Opinion about what? I mean, I am not clear what you are agreeing to.

Well, it was you who brought up "my internal experiences" — Astrophel

I didn't bring them up. I responded to:

If you say there is no spirit, loosely construed, in the real world, I would ask, what is it that you refer to when the matter of thoughts and feelings and intuitions arises? — Astrophel

Where you take that, I don't quite follow. Is it that you want me to agree that there is some kind of otherness in sentience? Something beyond or behind the processes of the brain? I can't do that, because I do not believe that.

What are external experiences things about vis a vis internal things? — Astrophel

I have no idea: it's your distinction. You have not explained the difference between internal and external experience. Are you just getting all this mileage out my using the word 'internal'? It wasn't essential. It has nothing at all to do with spooks.

Brains are external things, no?

No! Brains are inside the skulls, which are part of the bodies and inside the skin, of sentient organisms. Everything in sensory and conceptual experience is neurological. Everything we know about the inanimate world comes through neurological process. You can't think, intuit, feel, remember or discern any external things without your brain!

Opinion about what? — Astrophel

about

a basic problematic built into existence that gave rise to the worshipping and the rest. — Astrophel

I do not agree with that opinion. I do not see a problem in existence.

Yup. Ignorance of causality. — creativesoul

As in not knowing, say, disease to be caused by microbiology. Not so much about causality itself, but of what causes what. On the other hand, the question remains, what is there that is IN the causal matrix of the world? If it is asked, what is a force? a physicist can't help you. She can SHOW you, but really, force is quite invisible. All one can witness is movement, change, and one can quantify these in endless ways, but force itself is not an empirical concept. Nor is the basis for all this talk about theism and atheism. The world is simply there and all the religious thinking comes from it, but the world as such is simply given.

So "behind" all the churchy fetishes, in the world, there is its own givenness, and here we find the mystery of value and ethics. This is what is behind all those stories.

I do not agree with that opinion. — Vera Mont

But consider: you don't think there is a basic problem with our existence that stands outside of, and prior to, the language and cultural institutions that rose up out of a response to this? Why are we born to suffer and die?

But consider: you don't think there is a basic problem with our existence that stands outside of, and prior to, the language and cultural institutions that rose up out of a response to this? — Astrophel

Nope.

Why are we born to suffer and die? — Astrophel

We're not born to suffer and die. We're not born for any reason at all. Life begets life, willy-nilly. The universe expands.
Humans would like to find a reason, a purpose, a great big invisible thingie that explains it all and makes us the one special jewel in the crown of creation. I don't subscribe to any of that. I don't believe in magic and don't need it. Being just is. We make the best and worst of it.

Very much so. It would be ...bizarre... if we weren't. Huehuehue

yeah I don't think you're making any interesting connections just yet

Much more important than stories about the elements are stories about dead people. — Vera Mont

I don't know about "more important", but I agree that this is something that is addressed in all religions, and it is important to people.

Like screaming children in burning cars. Suffering, that is. That is not a story. — Astrophel

Yes, of course this is also part of the mix. The book of Job comes to mind.

Without intelligent makers, there would be no couches or shoes. — Vera Mont

Of course, and so it is easy to see why creation stories are included in so many mythic cycles.

Before there was worshipping, Gods, and all the trappings of these churchy fetishes (I like to call them), there was a basic problematic built into existence that gave rise to the worshipping and the rest. — Astrophel

there is something empirical behind that swathe of (potential) nonsense. Thunder/rain Gods are one. — AmadeusD

It is not enough, it seems to me, to dismiss the whole business as superstition. We can't pretend that it isn't still important to human beings. It would be reasonable to suppose, wouldn't it, that religion addresses issues that are still important to us? The question of it's historical origin is one way, though it is unlikely that we'll get more than plausibility this far from the events.

I think explanation of cause only gains importance after the concentration of humans in walled cities - after we cut ourselves off from nature and felt we had to master or conquer nature. — Vera Mont

Causal explanation in our sense is a more recent development. It is part of the scientific revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries. But walled cities, agricultural technologies and religion (in our sense) all seem to have arisen at, very roughly, the same time. (Some people talk of an Age of Wisdom.) It makes a lot of sense to see them as interlinked and interdependent. There are many themes built in to religion. It addresses human concerns, but also, as Nietzsche so emphatically pointed out, is involved in the power struggles in the new, complex human societies in the new cities. I think he missed a trick, in fact. Religion gave power to a new version of the shaman - the priest - and supported or enabled much larger human societies. But it also gave a voice to people who are oppressed in those societies.

My best guess is something like: delving into the human psyche reveals that it differs from inanimate objects. That much, I have already stipulated as self-evident. — Vera Mont

It seems more plausible to me to see the sharp distinction between animate and inanimate - and conscious and not conscious - is a product of our times, specifically of - again - the scientific revolution. In natural language, there is no sharp distinction between action in the sense of what human beings do and action in a broader sense. I mean, quite simply, that we talk of, for example the wind blowing the door shut, the lightning striking a tree, the sun drying the washing without batting an eyelid. We all know the difference, but that's because of our intellectual training. Personification of the inanimate in that way is built in to our language.

After all, if one is going to dismiss spirit, it has to be made clear what the term even means apart from the mundane casual (causal?) thinking. — Astrophel

Yes. I do accept that it means something to those who talk about it. My problem is that I don't really understand what that meaning is. Too often, it seems like a way of escaping awkward questions.

It is not enough, it seems to me, to dismiss the whole business as superstition. — Ludwig V

Not believing it doesn't mean I dismiss it as unimportant. I can both interested in and sympathetic to a belief without subscribing to it myself. What I reject out of hand is that lukewarm admission that there may be some kind of supernatural something behind or underneath of the universe, and that something could be called God - because we can't prove it ain't so. Why should we bother with such a fruitless conjecture? Just not to be called atheist?

Lots of things that are important to people have no basis in material fact, but originate in human groups: nationalism and partisanship come to mind; adherence to leaders who deserve no such loyalty, reliance on luck or fate, etc.

It would be reasonable to suppose, wouldn't it, that religion addresses issues that are still important to us? — Ludwig V

It is and does. Psychological support is one main function of faith, especially when a person is undergoing some difficult ordeal. Social cohesion is another important function of organized religion - a common core around which the community can overcome its personal disparities. Religious tenets encourage good behaviour toward members of one's congregation. It also matters greatly to people who have that all-too-common human craving for a 'higher' purpose, a meaning to their insignificant individual life, a sense of being 'part of something bigger than themselves'.
These functions are not exclusive to religion, but religion is a well established and universally accepted structure on which people rely.

Nor do I dismiss the magical component. The illusion of control - however tenuous and conditional - over that immense threatening universe of natural phenomena. The hope of immortality; the chimera of miracles. These are very, very strong human desires. Of course it's important.
Moreover, I have met sincere believers who did good works just like Christians are supposed to, as well as hypocrites who exploit true believers. I've known a few dozen people who identify as Christian, Jewish or Muslim and found them selective believers: they accept some teachings and ignore others. I assume this is true of the majority of theists. They take from religion what they need and disregard the rest.

There are many themes built in to religion. It addresses human concerns, but also, as Nietzsche so emphatically pointed out, is involved in the power struggles in the new, complex human societies in the new cities. — Ludwig V

How could it be otherwise? The impulse to look for pattern in existence is also the root of philosophy. The fundamental childish questions: What am I? Where did I come from? How do I fit into the big picture? are answered by earliest known origin stories, the established religious texts and the latest philosophical treatises.
I actually don't see the power struggles built into religion itself: the Abrahamic religions are founded in a simple hierarchy of males and the basic structure of the institutions has not changed very much, except for the incursion of women into the lately reformed branches. The churches were always used to prop up the prevailing form of government and vice versa - one leg of the tripod holding a vertical social structure. But that's the institution, not the belief itself. (Of course Nietzsche saw the will to power lurking under every bed and coffee table, so we can take that with a grain of salt.)

Personification of the inanimate in that way is built in to our language. — Ludwig V

I think it might be built into our psyche, and got into the language automatically, through our tendency to make a narrative of our experience. Literature, religion and philosophy all grow increasingly complex as man's knowledge of the world grows.

We're not born to suffer and die. We're not born for any reason at all. Life begets life, willy-nilly. The universe expands.
Humans would like to find a reason, a purpose, a great big invisible thingie that explains it all and makes us the one special jewel in the crown of creation. I don't subscribe to any of that. I don't believe in magic and don't need it. Being just is. We make the best and worst of it. — Vera Mont

No, no. You misconstrue the word "to": not born to suffer and die one, say, is born to be a dentist, and therefore strives to be one, is destined to be one. Here, the term is applied with complete acceptance of the arbitrary nature of our circumstances. Born to suffer and die means born INTO suffering and dying. Just this.

There is nothing magical about being born, suffering and dying that I can see at all. Look, if you want understand atheism (the OP) you need to understand theism, and to understand this, you have to move decisively away from things "theological" that carry significance already assumed and accepted. This is the way it is with getting to basic questions, making the move to dismiss all that obscures what is essentially there, and with the matter of God and all that attends this in theology, this means dismissing a great deal.

I do appreciate your repugnance for religious thinking, from the churchy trivialities to the thunderous pronouncements, but all I am trying to get across is that when God is, well, put to rest altogether, not a peep, then IN our existence in the world there remains a very important residuum, and here one's repugnance for standard religious things and beliefs has to be suspended as well, just because it prejudices thought. This residuum has to do with our being thrown into a world where we suffer. Period. You can embrace suffering, as Nietzsche did, OR, you can observe suffering for what it is, which is qualitatively very interesting. Not to put even the slightest tendentious interpretation on suffering, but just to make it clear as a bell, suffering is "inherently" repugnant.

So atheism is just a response to theism, and theism is constructed out of irresponsible thinking. Responsible thinking categorically removes these terms to see what is really there, in the world, that is behind it all. This is suffering. Now, one can move further along analytically, but this simple assumption has to be acknowledged.

Oh, and "being thrown in a world" does not here imply that, heh, heh, someONE is doing the throwing. Just in case you are confused by this.

Here, the term is applied with complete acceptance of the arbitrary nature of our circumstances. Born to suffer and die means born INTO suffering and dying. — Astrophel

Everybody has to die, but the distribution of suffering is quite uneven. But there was still that "why?" attached to the "just this", which renders your acceptance incomplete.

Look, if you want understand atheism (the OP) you need to understand theism, and to understand this, you have to move decisively away from things "theological" that carry significance already assumed and accepted. — Astrophel

Done.

I do appreciate your repugnance for religious thinking — Astrophel

Where have I expressed any such repugnance? All thinking interests me. I reserve repugnance for exploitation and cruelty.

but all I am trying to get across is that when God is, well, put to rest altogether, not a peep, then IN our existence in the world there remains a very important residuum, — Astrophel

I can't wait to see what that's like. Literally: I have 20 years left on Earth, at maximum stretch.

ou can embrace suffering, as Nietzsche did, OR, you can observe suffering for what it is, which is qualitatively very interesting. — Astrophel

The third way: avoid it where possible, inflict as little of it as possible, relieve as much of it as possible.
(It's bloody well not 'interesting'. It's pretty much all the same: ugly, degrading and tiresome.)

So atheism is just a response to theism, and theism is constructed out of irresponsible thinking. Responsible thinking categorically removes these terms to see what is really there, in the world, that is behind it all. This is suffering. Now, one can move further along analytically, but this simple assumption has to be acknowledged. — Astrophel

I see that all my striving at the keyboard has been in vain.
One is free to move right along.

I gets interesting only when the smoke has cleared after the table has been duly cleared. To discover anything insightful about atheism, theism has to be made clear, and a lot of the clearing requires suspending a lot of what is standardly there, in the culture of believing. It really comes down to whether one is willing to do this, to be fed up with the culture and taking a purely philosophical view, and by philosophy I mean phenomenology: the taking the world to BE as it presents itself and no further, but no less than this. It requires a reduction that suspends all the familiar thinking.

It is said that the Buddha was the quintessential phenomenologist, because serious meditation is so radically reductive: the whole world of historical thinking arrested. Now, what is there, before your eyes? Atheism and its theism have to examined like this. E.g., God the creator? From whence comes this premise? Is it anywhere in the revealed presence or the given world? No. It was simply made up, to put it bluntly. There is a LOT that is made up in our general vocabulary about this matter. Hard to let go, but first, one has to see HOW to let go.

Everybody has to die, but the distribution of suffering is quite uneven. But there was still that "why?" attached to the "just this", which renders your acceptance incomplete. — Vera Mont

The question so far has only bee about what theism if grounded upon. Distribution is a matter of justice and ethics in the entangled world of evolving affairs, and this is where my question will not go, simply because it is far too complicated: ethics in the world of factual affairs presupposes an understanding of what ethics is . That is, before one is confused about whether to steal the cash from the local store's register in order to pay one's rent, there is presupposed in this that very matter that it all matters, meaning, when one goes through the justificatory process weighing the pros and cons, there is the implcit assumption that what is in the balance really matters: no mattering, no ethical issue. The philosophical question then is, what is this mattering about? This mattering qua mattering that is "in the mix" of our worldly affairs. All ethical inquiries lead to this when taken to the foundation of the issue.

Where have I expressed any such repugnance? All thinking interests me. I reserve repugnance for exploitation and cruelty. — Vera Mont

No, I mean by repugnance just the intellectual rejection. Not a reference to the strong state of mind associated with disgusting things, though understanding that religious foolishness causes a great deal of trouble for others, and one perhaps would, even should, feel a bit more than simply disagreement. Not that important, though.

I can't wait to see what that's like. Literally: I have 20 years left on Earth, at maximum stretch. — Vera Mont

I do suspect the argument may not be framed in familiar ideas. Philosophy is questions, so here is a first question (and just to keep in mind, this is only the beginning. Proving objectively that theism, beneath all the bad thinking, has a dimension that is deeply profound and real, takes a process).

How is it that knowledge is possible? More precisely, how does anything at all get "in" a knowledge claim.

This is the beginning. One has to stay the course. Of course, you are free to "move right along" as you put it. It may not be a comfortable inquiry.

Yes. I do accept that it means something to those who talk about it. My problem is that I don't really understand what that meaning is. Too often, it seems like a way of escaping awkward questions. — Ludwig V

The hard part is finding the most awkward questions one can imagine and ask about them seriously. Here is a hard question, the second hardest question I can think of: how is knowledge possible? When one goes deeply into this, there is the inevitable discovery that it si not, that is, not be any familiar assumptions about the world at the basic level. Knowledge is impossible unless there is a truly radical reconstrual of what knowing agency is. An epistemic agency is one that knows, and knowing can either be a thoroughly constituted matter (if you read this kind of thing, think of Hegel or Heidegger's historicity, or Kant's idealism), or it can be something that "mirrors nature" such that when I see a lamp, there is in the perceptual analysis something over there and not me. You know, this is the way it goes with epistemology: how much of what I witness is actually IN the constituted perception, and how much is beyond this, "over there" and this is a sticky wicket, for the moment one speaks one's speaking lies with the former.
How does this effect inquiry into atheism? Knowledge claims are about EVERYTHING, and so any respectable discussion about God and metaphysics will begin here and the foundational indeterminacy of knowledge and ethics.

All the mattering qua nattering about ethics was unnecessary. I referred to the distribution of suffering simply to point out that, while we all die, we do not all suffer.

No, I mean by repugnance just the intellectual rejection. — Astrophel

The two words are no more similar than the two attitudes. Why say one when you mean the other? I came by the intellectual rejection of Christianity first and later all organized religions and religious doctrines, through honest inquiry, not from an aesthetic response.

I can't wait to see what that's like. Literally: I have 20 years left on Earth, at maximum stretch. — Vera Mont

That was by way of a sardonic guess at how long it will take for religion to be eradicated from the world. Not the delving into what's been lurking under it.

This is the beginning. — Astrophel

For you. I wish you safe journey. I'm already here.

What I reject out of hand is that lukewarm admission that there may be some kind of supernatural something behind or underneath of the universe, and that something could be called God - because we can't prove it ain't so. Why should we bother with such a fruitless conjecture? Just not to be called atheist? — Vera Mont

We should wear our badge with pride and not let the opposition use it as a term of abuse.
I it is a mistake to allow supernaturalists to pretend that the question is an empirical one. That is a wedge argument, designed by believers to open the mind of unbelievers. But stick to the issues.
If someone claims to have seen the Virgin Mary, some will propose an explanation such as a hallucination, or down-right lying, and some will propose an explanation such as a vision granted by Heaven. Which is the most likely (plausible)? Even the RCC adopts the former. (This is a version of Hume's argument against miracles.) The RCC is prepared to consider further evidence, and may change its mind, and adopts the latter. Now, either that evidence is of a kind that anyone can accept it, or it is not. What the RCC considers to be evidence is, I understand, evidence that the visionary has caused further miracles, which is clearly circular. No need to fall for blandishments.
If you really need a bolt-hole, you can insist that, where there is insufficient non-circular evidence, the answer is to classify the event as unexplained.
If you get really desperate, you can point out that if a supernatural explanation were to be established (perhaps amongst the paranormal phenomena) on the basis of normal evidence, (not that I can imagine that happening) the explanation would then become a natural explanation.

Here is a hard question, the second hardest question I can think of: how is knowledge possible? — Astrophel

I hate to say it, but I would not be able to reject an accusation of "whataboutery" if I tried to change the subject to a general philosophical discussion about knowledge. My reaction may be conditioned by my view that much of epistemology has been thoroughly distorted by Cartesian scepticism and the belief that the only certainty is logical certainty; the latter of course, rules out all empirical knowledge out of hand. There is also a danger that if your interlocutor is not convinced by Descartes, your opportunity to persuade them on this specific issue will be lost. Faced with an argument about the existence of God, you try to prove that we don't know anything anyway. No, I don't think so.
Mind you, with a suitable interlocutor, I would be inclined to try to persuade them that the question of God's existence cannot be answered by purely empirical evidence.

One of the perennial questions I pose to nobody in particular is:
What difference does it make whether something you might choose to call God exists in a non-empirical dimension?

What difference does it make whether something you might choose to call God exists in a non-empirical dimension? — Vera Mont

None. We are bodies. If God had no relation to the empirical world, God would have no use for us, and we would have no use for God and no reason to seek God or evidence or any content to refer to in any discussions using the term “god”.

If God had no relation to the empirical world, God would have no use for us, and we would have no use for God and no reason to seek God or evidence or any content to refer to in any discussions using the term “god”. — Fire Ologist

That's about it.

I hate to say it, but I would not be able to reject an accusation of "whataboutery" if I tried to change the subject to a general philosophical discussion about knowledge. My reaction may be conditioned by my view that much of epistemology has been thoroughly distorted by Cartesian scepticism and the belief that the only certainty is logical certainty; the latter of course, rules out all empirical knowledge out of hand. There is also a danger that if your interlocutor is not convinced by Descartes, your opportunity to persuade them on this specific issue will be lost. Faced with an argument about the existence of God, you try to prove that we don't know anything anyway. No, I don't think so.
Mind you, with a suitable interlocutor, I would be inclined to try to persuade them that the question of God's existence cannot be answered by purely empirical evidence. — Ludwig V

Stickier than that. Descartes made the mistake of positing the cogito as the only certainty. But an examination of what is there in the structure of the cogito shows that there never was a thinking agency that was a stand alone apart from the cogitatum. In other words, if the cogito demonstrates indubitability, then its object must have the same epistemic value. Descartes didn't see this. SO if you are put of by the doubt that his intrudes upon common sense in affirming the world in simple perception, you might reconsider. A careful examination of the cogito shows exactly the opposite: the apprehended world is just as indubitable as the conscious perceiving agent that affirms it. In an important way, there simply is no such thing as Cartesian skepticism, that is, until one makes the move toward interpretation. One does doubt in ordinary ways, and certainly one can doubt the science and everydayness that is constructed out of the cogitata, things present before us.

As to this "purely empirical evidence" I think you are right. But if one is going to take theism seriously at all, even if the interest is to refute it, the idea has to be delivered from all the traditional thinking that generates so much ado about nothing, like all of those omni's, and notions of the creator and the source of judgment, and so on. Most who take up this issue do not really care to ground their thinking in something substantive, but move directly on to arguing about contrived assumptions.

I argue that it is possible to be quite clear about God. Only one has to lose a great deal of historical metaphysics.

That was by way of a sardonic guess at how long it will take for religion to be eradicated from the world. Not the delving into what's been lurking under it. — Vera Mont

I understand, almost. I thought, well, the OP was about the logic of atheism, and the logic of something goes immediately to its presuppositions where the trouble always lies. It IS a fascinating exposition of theism's basic logic. But if you must be off, then farewell.

Best of luck in your remaining 20 years.

religion to be eradicated — Vera Mont

As soon as humans are eradicated.

Ah! So maybe I'll see it, after all. At least part of the process.

Just as long as you don’t hope to see it, because hope is more of a religious thing. But yes, any day now. Nuclear holocaust, rogue AI, weaponized virus. Trump. Biden. Putin. Lot’s of possibilities.

hope is more of a religious thing. — Fire Ologist

Wrong way around. Hope is a human thing and therefore religion. Some religions tried to take out a patent on it, but we still have some.

the apprehended world is just as indubitable as the conscious perceiving agent that affirms it. In an important way, there simply is no such thing as Cartesian skepticism, that is, until one makes the move toward interpretation. One does doubt in ordinary ways, and certainly one can doubt the science and everydayness that is constructed out of the cogitata, things present before us. — Astrophel

That could be the beginning of a long argument, which, I guess, would be a trip through very familiar territory. For me, "Apprehended world" and "cogitata" are the dubious interpretations, not the everyday world. In my view, what Descartes missed was the elementary point that doubt implies the possibility of certainty; doubt would be meaningless without it.

like all of those omni's, and notions of the creator and the source of judgment, and so on. — Astrophel

Yes, those are the reasons I think that the concept is incoherent. Getting rid of traditional metaphysics is a lot harder than many people thought in the mid-20th century (and, indeed, earlier, back to the 17th century). I am sceptical about whether it is going to happen.

As soon as humans are eradicated. — Fire Ologist

It isn't necessary to wait that long. There are non-theistic ways of life. Confucius (?), Buddha, Stoicism, Epicureanism.

What difference does it make whether something you might choose to call God exists in a non-empirical dimension? — Vera Mont

Is there a non-empirical dimension?

Is there a non-empirical dimension? — Ludwig V

I don't think so. Therefore, the god of the gaps is immaterial in every sense.