learning to love — ucarr

Let's split "self-love" into:

1. Compassionate emotions and actions directed toward oneself. (Doing things that reflect a caring for self (in the same way we care for, for example, our children): exercise, healthy diet, avoidance of toxic people, places, relationships, etc.)

and

2. Egotistical love, megalomania, narcissism and general conceit. This is where Ayn struts her stupid stuff.

I think the word "authoritatively" is doing a lot of work there. The only way this even remotely follows is if we're supposing that one can only know something "authoritatively" if one is omniscient. But that's dubious to say the least. I know its January 29th quite authoritatively, and am most decidedly not omniscient. — Seppo

You argument holds good up until the start of the 20th century and the arrival of QM. I resort to the empirical extremis, which greatly weakens my argument, but it's all I've got for now. In the approach & departure to & from 29 Jan, time dilation, grown significant at micro time intervals, perplexes the exact now of beginnings & endings of calendar days. Not only you do not know, authoritatively, the calendar date; no one does. Instead, we must make do with a cloud of probabilities describing our calendar date.

Curiously, in this situation, a cloud of probabilities images more precision than does the old Newtonian conceptualization of time & space eternal.

The authoritative, certain knowledge long sought by science has been partially derailed by science itself.

And "ha, ha, ha" chortles the existentialist as s/he wraps arms around absurdity.

1. Compassionate emotions and actions directed toward oneself. (Doing things that reflect a caring for self (in the same way we care for, for example, our children): exercise, healthy diet, avoidance of toxic people, places, relationships, etc.) — ZzzoneiroCosm

Well said, ZzzoneiroCosm

You call it self-love part 1. I call it self-esteem. I will say this, however; I see your list of reflexive actions as prep work towards experiencing the greatest adventure available in the universe: falling in love with another person unlike yourself.

[....] — ucarr

This post is so daft. This is not how disproving something works. Scientists do not need to 'objectively know a unicorn' or be omniscient to objectively to disprove it's existence. They run experiments on worthy hypothesis and then falsify a claim. This is irrelevant to 'omniscience' (all-knowing) which is just a religious term of blabber. I could be wrong, but whatevs.

You're literally just saying stuff that is irrelevant to atheism, like your first post. I don't know what you're talking about and you're over-complexifying simple stuff.

If you say God doesn't exist then you make the same judgement as when you say That I don't exist. In both cases you ignore a person.

Atheism can take many forms. Nature is just one of them. — dimosthenis9

Speculatively, I prefer pandeism ... to either term.

Similarly. It's the most logical approach.

Though I don't fully understand...Multiple personalities? — Cornwell1

Well, I typed

I always enjoy a bit of pantomime based exchange, 'Oh no you don't!,' 'Oh yes you do!,' — universeness

One voice in my head agreed with me and another voice did not. So three voices could be three different (or muliple) personalities. Just my sense of humour, nothing more.

I believe the gods are real existent though. How else can you explain the presence of the universe? — Cornwell1

I understand your frustration, I feel it too, we cant answer your question yet but that feeling of frustration is a driver that makes us continue to seek an answer. So far, if Cosmology is correct, we do understand the 'How,' back to the inflationary moment. We have no idea about the ultimate why? YET!
I just don't need the lazy God of the gaps filler, and all the fables written by humans, about how it or it and its pals have created and manipulated us to give some sort of meaning and significance to it/them.

I understand your frustration, I feel it too, we cant answer your question yet but that feeling of frustration is a driver that makes us continue to seek an answer. So far, if Cosmology is correct, we do understand the 'How,' back to the inflationary moment. We have no idea about the ultimate why? YET! — universeness

Well, my point is, I think I have such a self consistent, coherent, explanatory, you name it, theory/model. I can see no more encompassing theory to embrace it with. It accounts for phenomena like mass (there are only basic coupling strengths between two massless truly basic matter fields, the absolute minimum), a finite speed of light, dark energy, the whole shebang. Now what? Where did it come from?

Do you advocate for social justice through personal empowerment? Do you believe it's achieved through universal access to personal development in the form of housing, education & employment? Do you think that, where appropriate, businesses should be owned & operated by the public? Do you advocate for pluralism with respect to a person's metaphysical commitments, or lack thereof — ucarr

I advocate for social justice as a human right regardless of the 'power' an individual may or may not possess.
I believe providing the basic needs of every human on this planet, including access to free education and medical care from cradle to grave is also a human right and no human individual or group has the right to claim ownership of land. Employment is not such a big issue if everyone can take their basic needs for granted. But life can be boring if you are not engaged in useful activity so I think the vast majority of people who can 'work', would choose to do so, especially if there was a communal need for you to do so.
I believe in nurturing people not profits. Money is the driver of what you call 'business'
Money would not exist in the society I favour.
All of the essential services should be in public ownership and should never be commoditised in a 'stock market' I have no problem with small businesses, if individuals want them. I would disallow large businesses.
I would disallow billionaires and multi-millionaires.
I am a democrat so I certainly advocate political pluralism.
If by metaphysical you refer to a person's right to hold whatever beliefs they choose, including theism,
then yes. That is a vital tenet of true socialism. But you cannot incite violence and you cannot INSIST others believe as you choose to.
I use 'I' a lot in the above text, deliberately as socialism requires the consent of the majority, initially and regularly (through a voting system). To create the society I have outlined. If that consent is withheld or is withdrawn then the system will not and should not hold.

Many of us agree that deity is idealism. Well, anti-deity is also idealism — ucarr

I simply disagree. You can label god as perfect if you wish. Ideal is just a descriptive label, nothing more.
But ideal......idealistic.....idealist is a descriptive ladder towards a 'perfection' concept which is based on Plato and Aristotle's musings and probably many many others before them. Atheism has got nothing to do with 'a ladder towards perfection.' It is an opinion that there are no gods.

Now what? Where did it come from? — Cornwell1

I don't know.
Do you not get a little joy from the thought that we still have questions to answer and therefore still have purpose?

You imply that a proposition can be analyzed & judged apart from its referent within the empirical world.

You therefore imply that language has existence & meaning independent of the empirical world it describes. — ucarr

I'm certainly not making any such claim or implication. Language can only exist and have meaning in relation to the empirical world and social/linguistic habits of communities of language-users.

The point is merely that this talk of "judging a being" implies that the proper name "God" has a referent, when this is, of course, precisely what atheism denies... and so its a better and more accurate analysis of atheism as the position that neither the proper name "God" nor the common noun "god" has a referent, that there is not any being or entity to which either accurately applies.

You argument holds good up until the start of the 20th century and the arrival of QM. I resort to the empirical extremis, which greatly weakens my argument, but it's all I've got for now. In the approach & departure to & from 29 Jan, time dilation, grown significant at micro time intervals, perplexes the exact now of beginnings & endings of calendar days. Not only you do not know, authoritatively, the calendar date; no one does. Instead, we must make do with a cloud of probabilities describing our calendar date. — ucarr

Neither relativistic time dilation nor planck-scale uncertainty invalidates our authoritative knowledge of today's date (let alone any of the many other things we know quite authoritatively)- our dating methods are obviously relative to our own reference frame, and the calendar is a social convention and so the date just is whatever we agree that it is.

But the more fundamental point is that knowledge/"authoritative" knowledge, on any acceptable account, doesn't require strict apodeictic/logical certainty, else we could never know matters of empirical or scientific fact, or even of trivial matters of everyday experience... and so doesn't require omniscience, either.

The authoritative, certain knowledge long sought by science has been partially derailed by science itself — ucarr

.Very few people would agree with such a characterization of science or scientific knowledge. Absolute certainty has long been an ideal for religion or philosophy (thanks, Descartes), but science is, quite self-consciously, a fallible and approximate method for knowing and navigating the empirical world.

If you say God doesn't exist then you make the same judgement as when you say That I don't exist — Cornwell1

I've already pointed out the differences between the two cases. But sure, there are similarities between local atheism wrt some specific god and disbelief in the existence of some individual.

In both cases you ignore a person. — Cornwell1

Well, no, not at all. For one thing, whether there is a person to ignore is precisely what is in question, and for another, in thinking about whether God/gods exist, we are doing the opposite of "ignoring" the matter.

Atheism is god playing hide and seek with himself. Solipsism is doing the same but with other people.

... Language can only exist and have meaning in relation to the empirical world and social/linguistic habits of communities of language-users. — Seppo

George - "Lord Alfred, the big wheel developer, intends to have the abandoned mill property razed to the ground. This in spite of public opposition."

Sidney - "A priori, it would seem that his reach, buttressed by high government connections, acts as an extension of that power."

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Doctor - "How ever did you know the locket, sight unseen, would be inside the vase?"

Holmes - "Deduction, my dear boy. Elementary deduction."


Question - Do the products of a priori reasoning possess ontic properties independent of the empirical?

My understanding is that Holmes generally practiced abductive, not deductive reasoning.

You had to mention Ayn Rand. When she's mentioned, I'm obliged to repeat that Ayn Rand is to philosophy what L. Ron Hubbard is to religion. — Ciceronianus

Amen. As well as what Hitler is to Just Society. Or what Nero is to Philosopher King. Or what I am to Frank Sinatra. Or what Satan is to Archangelsk. Or what Scott is to the South Pole. Or what Golda Meyr was to a raving beauty of raw animal magnetism. Or what Lajos Kassak was to poetry. What the Moon is to the Sun. What the Holy Ghost is to the Son. Or what Wagner was to Music. Or what Bela Tarr is to cinematography.

Holmes was capable of powerful, arresting reasoning. -

Who says abduction isn't powerful? Of course Conan Doyle himself was not so acute and thought fairies were real and that Houdini actually dematerialized himself to escape from chains underwater, etc.

Who says abduction isn't powerful? — Tom Storm

I have to give it to you. You're right about that. It's just that you don't abduct criminals as an investigator for the law, you arrest them.

It's very disappointing.

It's very disappointing. — Tom Storm

Yes. No doubt about that.

Well, no, not at all. For one thing, whether there is a person to ignore is precisely what is in question, and for another, in thinking about whether God/gods exist, we are doing the opposite of "ignoring" the matter. — Seppo

Questioning the existence of gods or other persons is very close to denying them. You have to question their existence firstly. Then denial is a small step.

The point is merely that this talk of "judging a being" implies that the proper name "God" has a referent, when this is, of course, precisely what atheism denies... and so its a better and more accurate analysis of atheism as the position that neither the proper name "God" nor the common noun "god" has a referent, that there is not any being or entity to which either accurately applies. — Seppo

Do you know the sign God has no referent, or do you theorize the sign God has no referent?

Neither relativistic time dilation nor planck-scale uncertainty invalidates our authoritative knowledge of today's date (let alone any of the many other things we know quite authoritatively)- our dating methods are obviously relative to our own reference frame, and the calendar is a social convention and so the date just is whatever we agree that it is. — Seppo

Inertial reference frames of relativity assert the lack of a universal time. What we know in our frame is not known empirically in someone else's frame. So authoritative knowledge of the date, speaking empirically, is local; nonetheless authority is authority, whether local or otherwise.

Claims about God, however, typically speak of God's presence as something that transgresses all perceptible boundaries. Does atheism refute extant_God across all perceptible boundaries, or only within our empirical universe?

Regarding our calendar dates being what they are arbitrarily, the scientific method cannot ascribe its authorization to said dates via testing of reasoning or methods.

Elementary! :up:

Do you know the sign God has no referent, or do you theorize the sign God has no referent? — ucarr

It makes no difference in this context; either way, God's existence is what is in question, and so talking of "judging a being", as if there is a being there to judge, is question-begging at worst, an extremely awkward way of speaking at best.

Inertial reference frames of relativity assert the lack of a universal time. What we know in our frame is not known empirically in someone else's frame. So authoritative knowledge of the date, speaking empirically, is local; nonetheless authority is authority, whether local or otherwise. — ucarr

Right. In other words, authoritative knowledge doesn't require omniscience. Maybe some knowledge claims require or imply omniscience, but that would need to be shown on an individual basis; it is not generally true that "authoritative" knowledge implies or requires god-like attributes.

Let's have your argument supporting the sameness of a) questioning God's existence and b) judging claims about God's attributes.

I ask this question because I can claim there are no red German Shepherds, only black & gray ones. If someone denies existence of all shepherds, they must elaborate why canines can't exist, thus eliminating black & gray Shepherds.

Such an argument is a theory, even if no canines have ever been observed.

Let's have your argument supporting the sameness of a) questioning God's existence and b) judging claims about God's attributes. — ucarr

Not sure what you're referring to here, can you quote/link the post where this claim is made?

Do you know the sign God has no referent, or do you theorize the sign God has no referent?
— ucarr

It makes no difference in this context; either way, God's existence is what is in question, and so talking of "judging a being", as if there is a being there to judge, is question-begging at worst, an extremely awkward way of speaking at best. — Seppo

With my question, I was attempting to make a distinction between knowing by (2) possible standards: a) observation of phenomena within the empirical world; b) establishing an algorithm based on axioms.

Next, I was attempting to make a distinction between such knowing and propositions arrived at following reflection upon observations held in memory. With regard to the latter, a thinker can articulate a theory that postulates a line of reasoning that justifies a conclusion.

An important action here is to separate a proposition based on empirical observation from a proposition based on pure reasoning.

The gist of my argument is that God, being immaterial and therefore not subject to empirical observation, can only be denied via pure reasoning and that, moreover, pure reasoning, as a channel to valid conclusions, necessarily entails some measure of Plato's objective idealism.

Since we're dealing with a denial, there is a reversal of application of objective idealism. Since to deny God means denying objective existence of an absolute moral sentience, such denial entails embracing objective moral truth of a different sort from theism, or wholly denying objective moral truth, which entails embracing objective truth of a sort that excludes objective moral truth.

Further complicating the picture, denial of God gives the mind a central role in shaping a conception of reality through reasoning that leads to a configuration of the world that excludes immaterial, self-willed teleology. Since the denial, no less than the affirmation, operates without scientific experimentation, it follows that for yea or nay, the route to its conclusion travels through the realm of transcendent idealism.

Whatever the particulars, denial of God entails embracing a priori mental constructions of objective-transcendent idealism.