Ah, but appeal IS a central element of what we call truth, especially in the sciences. An important value in choosing one theory over another is aesthetic appeal. The facts have no coherence outside of their relation to our pragmatic goals and purposes. We convince ourselves that we conform our empirical models to the cold, hard facts of the world, but those cold , hard facts are constantly shaped and reshaped by our evolving concerns, expectations and practices. The same goes
for our gods. — Joshs

Sounds a little like Richard Rorty.

I share some of these impulses/thoughts too, but I think this may be just a bit too 'extreme' for my worldview. I am still tied to reason since I can't imagine a way out of it and still have functioning humans. But I recognize the limitations of reason. Maybe this is the subject for a different thread.

( I’m speaking both of religion and the view of science as ‘truths that dont care about our feelings’. God and objective realism are tied together, not opposites — Joshs

Yes I see this and this is in Nietzsche too. Something like, 'if you believe in grammar you're still a theist.'

I don't have an intrinsic problem with god and realism being tried together. Humans organize lives by reasons and values (regardless of their foundational value) some of these seem pragmatically better than others. I would rather have a germ base theory of disease than, say, one of demonic possession - you can get better, lasting outcomes with the first it seem to me. If preserving life is your goal.

Any 'not to difficult' paper or essay on this subject?

Prove that because religion comes in many forms it is not reliable as truth. You make premises without conclusions so it's as if you have faith in non-faith. A simple belief in God suffices.

Prove that because religion comes in many forms it is not reliable as truth. — Gregory

We're not even talking about the same thing, Greg. Sorry man, I did my best. We can maybe talk about something else another time. Take care.

Loving god is faith/spirituality — Gregory

Accordingly, I am in no way (I never have been) ... spiritual. Music is "my religion".

Once atheism makes claims about wider issues such as about whether there is a creator, whether reality needs a first cause, whether reality is purely physical — Andrew4Handel

Those are questions best left open, as far as this atheist is concerned. I can't know those things, wouldn't begin to know where to start investigating them, and they're frankly none of my business

but

whether morality can survive the death of religion etc. — Andrew4Handel

is a human one that only humans can answer - not gods, not conjectures, not the biggest of bangs.

The idea is once you abandon religion the only other option is to be a materialist atheist reliant only on science. — Andrew4Handel

That's one idea. "reliant only on science" sounds ominous, but all it means is trusting your senses and reason, learning, experience and memory, rather than stories that make no sense and don't appeal to you.
But if some of the stories do appeal to you, you have the option of holding onto them. Disbelieving in propaganda from one political source doesn't commit you to one other political party; it simply leaves you free to choose.

It's interesting how 'absolute certainty' is itself a kind of god in a lot of thinking. — Tom Storm

Do you mean a lot of people think certainty is a god, or that a lot of people think that other people who claim to be certain of something are actually professing a religion?
I think it doesn't matter. Most of the time, without entertaining doubts, or even giving it any thought, we are sure of some things that we take them for granted: slide out of bed in the dark, expecting the floor to be where we left it; grope our way to the bathroom, expecting it to be where we left it, flush the toilet and expect it to flush like it always does. Even the most ardent theists absolutely believe in physical reality, but most of them, at some time or other, waver in their "sure and certain hope [?] of the resurrection"

If you take the Bible literally you've missed its message — Gregory

And if you have to 'interpret', read the commentaries, obfuscate and waffle over it, you've missed it's fatal flaw. Either the scripture is sacred and true or it's just literature.

Loving god is faith/spirituality — Gregory

Loving a god is faith, yes, but spirituality is much more than fidelity to a single supernatural entity or idea, and it doesn't necessarily require "faith" - i.e. believing without evidence. Something as simple as awe when beholding the northern lights or being transported by a Schubert chorale can be a spiritual experience - all the way up to a complex relationship with the web of life.

Do you mean a lot of people think certainty is a god, or that a lot of people think that other people who claim to be certain of something are actually professing a religion? — Vera Mont

I was referring to people's needs for 'absolute certainty' whether they are secular or religious. At one end is scientism and at the other end religious fundamentalism.

What do you make of @joshs argument:

appeal IS a central element of what we call truth, especially in the sciences. An important value in choosing one theory over another is aesthetic appeal. The facts have no coherence outside of their relation to our pragmatic goals and purposes. We convince ourselves that we conform our empirical models to the cold, hard facts of the world, but those cold , hard facts are constantly shaped and reshaped by our evolving concerns, expectations and practices. The same goes
for our gods. — Joshs

The idea that facts have no coherence outside of their relation to our pragmatic goals and purposes is probably accurate, but there is a lot to unpack in 'goals and purposes' and in how humans might live together in a shared world (as much as this is even possible).

If religion X says we need blow up the planet to fulfill prophecy, what do those who find objective facts problematic do with this?

Everyone approaches faith differently because they all experience religion differently. The Bible can be true for one and not another. Seriously. God gives spirituality to each person as he likes because it is as if we are children on this earth. Stories can be true and false to a child. The higher truth is God who makes the stories. My general point was that hatred toward religion can turn into love for religion without a conversion. Faith is groping in the dark

appeal IS a central element of what we call truth, especially in the sciences. An important value in choosing one theory over another is aesthetic appeal. — Joshs

No. While an 'elegant' solution is much to be desired, and hard to let go, we settle for awkward, inconvenient, mean truths all the time. We always hope they will fit into a larger, more beautiful picture, and sometimes we luck out.

The facts have no coherence outside of their relation to our pragmatic goals and purposes. — Joshs

No. facts have coherence whether we like them or not. We just make don't all all make use of them all all of the time.

We convince ourselves that we conform our empirical models to the cold, hard facts of the world, but those cold , hard facts are constantly shaped and reshaped by our evolving concerns, expectations and practices. — Joshs

No. Facts do not change. Our perception of them may grow clearer, our understanding of how they fit together may render them less cold, but our concerns and practices shape nothing but our immediate environment, and our expectations are as often dashed as are fulfilled.

I don't know what this argument is meant to prove or demonstrate, but I think it's a rejection of reality that would not stand up in a court of law or a tax audit or a building design. Facts have very sharp teeth and I don't recommend turning your back on them.

Everyone approaches faith differently because they all experience religion differently. — Gregory

Oddly enough, I said that very thing in another thread. People take in what they hear, see, feel, read and they remix it in their head according to their previous experience, temperament and needs. Sure.
None of that affects the text itself or its relation to objective fact.

The Bible can be true for one and not another. — Gregory

Somebody can think it's literally true (I have some doubt about this: the people I've met who insisted that the scriptures were literally true were quite selective in the parts they quoted. They seem to like Paul for some reason... hm) but either was a woman named Esther in Persia or there wasn't; either she married Xerxes or she didn't; either he retracted the order to massacre the Jews or he didn't. Either Noah built an ark like the one in the Creation Museum in Kentucky or he didn't. I choose to believe Esther existed and Noah didn't, but that doesn't change their histories.

God gives spirituality to each person as he likes because it is as if we are children on this earth. — Gregory

Sweet... for those whom that fickle god likes. I have to squint really hard to see this, and it's not worth the effort. Microsoft fixed Windows 11 so that every time my cursor moves too far left, a window pops up with a too-familiar ugly orange balloon face in one of its frames, hour after hour, day after day... I can't see anything on the actual screen.

:up:

It often seems to me that some atheists use the lack-theism definition as a way of getting out of having to meet their burden of proof and/or epistemic justification. Usually in connection with other associated canards, such as knowledge/belief requiring certainty (as you mention), not being able to prove a negative, and so on.

And I can see the upside for a more inclusive definition of atheism in a social sense (strength in numbers, essentially)... but that doesn't mean this is a more useful definition for doing philosophy, where it is usually advisable to be able to distinguish between unthinking lack of belief, reflective disbelief, and reflective suspension of judgment.

Once atheism makes claims about wider issues such as [ ... ] etc. — Andrew4Handel

Stop with this strawman. Atheism does not make any "claims". Atheism is disbelief in god/s. Period.

The idea is once you abandon religion the only other option is to be a materialist atheist reliant only on science.

An incoherent idea. Idealists like Schopenhauer who are also avowed irreligious atheists expose this (your) patently false dichotomy (which I'd previously pointed out to you at the end of this post ).

:up:

No. Facts do not change. Our perception of them may grow clearer, our understanding of how they fit together may render them less cold, but our concerns and practices shape nothing but our immediate environment, and our expectations are as often dashed as are fulfilled — Vera Mont

“ Knowledge is taken to consist in a faithful mirroring of a mind-independent reality. It is taken to be of a reality which exists independently of that knowledge, and indeed independently of any thought and experience (Williams 2005, 48). If we want to know true reality, we should aim at describing the way the world is, not just independently of its being believed to be that way, but independently of all the ways in which it happens to present itself to us human beings. An absolute conception would be a dehumanized conception, a conception from which all traces of ourselves had been removed. Nothing would remain that would indicate whose conception it is, how those who form or possess that conception experience the world, and when or where they find themselves in it. It would be as impersonal, impartial, and objective a picture of the world as we could possibly achieve (Stroud 2000, 30).

How are we supposed to reach this conception? Metaphysical realism assumes that everyday experience combines subjective and objective features and that we can reach an objective picture of what the world is really like by stripping away the subjective. It consequently argues that there is a clear distinction to be drawn between the properties things have “in themselves” and the properties which are “projected by us”. Whereas the world of appearance, the world as it is for us in daily life, combines subjective and objective features, sciencecaptures the objective world, the world as it is in itself. But to think that science can provide us with an absolute description of reality, that is, a description from a view from nowhere; to think that science is the only road to metaphysical truth, and that sciencesimply mirrors the way in which Nature classifies itself, is – according to Putnam – illusory. It is an illusion to think that the notions of “object” or “reality” or “world” have any sense outside of and independently of our conceptual schemes” ( Zahavi)

“…the success of science cannot be anything but a puz­zle as long as we view concepts and objects as radically independent; that is, as long as we think of "the world" as an entity that has a fixed nature, determined once and for all, independently of our framework of concepts."
“So much about the identity relations between different categories of mathemati-cal objects is conventional, that the picture of ourselves a describing a bunch of objects that are there "anyway" is in trouble from the start.”
“…what leads to "Platonizing" is yielding to the temptation to find mysterious entities which somehow guarantee or stand behind correct judgments of the reasonable and the unreasonable.”

That's a big quote. Tell it to gravity.

Religious truths are not like scientific truths. Even scientific truths are relative to a degree. Only God is absolute. If you hold to objective truth and yet remain an atheist because of lack of evidence you're being hard headed and ignoring the whole experience of religion, which is supposed to grow our hearts. God can do anything

Atheism is the absence of belief in God. — Agent Smith

Every monotheism is "the absence of belief" in every god except "the one God" ... that's not saying much. I prefer to be clear: either (A) belief that there aren't any gods or (B) disbelief in every god. – they are roughly synonymous as far as I'm concerned (and is my preferred definition of atheism until about fifteen years ago when I traded-up from mere clarity to precison ...) Anyway, the latter formulation (B) may seem more defensible than (A), but it's not, as they are two sides of the same shekel; complementaries such that (A) warrants (B) and (B) assumes (A).

Smith, my point is: disbelief is a mode of active belief and not a passive "lack of belief" as @Andrew4Handel's thread's title (OP) suggests.

I know you find postmodernism's approach problematic, but what is your response to this argument:

appeal IS a central element of what we call truth, especially in the sciences. An important value in choosing one theory over another is aesthetic appeal. The facts have no coherence outside of their relation to our pragmatic goals and purposes. We convince ourselves that we conform our empirical models to the cold, hard facts of the world, but those cold , hard facts are constantly shaped and reshaped by our evolving concerns, expectations and practices. The same goes
for our gods. — Joshs

Do you see this reasoning as having any utility?

When Joshs talks of 'our pragmatic goals and purposes' presumably this could refer to an understanding of humans as sharing a 'common world' and having to make choices about better or worse ways of behaving towards each other and our environment. In this respect, I see theism as ultimately not being helpful in the ways you have already identified.

I know you find postmodernism's approach problematic, but what is your response to this argument [ ... ] — Tom Storm

I don't read an "argument" here but instead an "aesthetic appeal to 'aesthetic appeal'" for its own sake. Chasing – sniffing – one's own tail.

Do you see this reasoning as having any utility?

I prefer more reasoning and less rhetoric in my Bitches Brew ...

Thanks. I confess to finding elements of the position seductive but I fear its consequences. I think I enjoy Spanish Key the most on that particular album. Great driving music at 2am. :wink:

Stop with this strawman. Atheism does not make any "claims". Atheism is disbelief in god/s. Period. — 180 Proof

How can you disbelieve in something you have heard of with out any reasons?

I have just started reading the SEP article on atheism and agnosticism by Paul Draper.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/

"The purpose of this entry is to explore how atheism and agnosticism are related to theism and, more importantly, to each other. This requires examining the surprisingly contentious issue of how best to define the terms “atheism” and “agnosticism”."

One issue it mentions is whether there would be atheists without theists.

I think there would have been because people have a commitment to the notion of an explanation of reality excluding creators and deities.

But I think once someone has raised a concept people form beliefs about it and then make claims to justify rejecting it such as the lack of necessity of a creator deity.

Accordingly, I am in no way (I never have been) ... spiritual. Music is "my religion". — 180 Proof

Loving a god is faith, yes, but spirituality is much more than fidelity to a single supernatural entity or idea, and it doesn't necessarily require "faith" - i.e. believing without evidence. Something as simple as awe when beholding the northern lights or being transported by a Schubert chorale can be a spiritual experience - all the way up to a complex relationship with the web of life. — Vera Mont

When Hitchens describes the numinous and the transcendent in the clip above as being (and I am using my own interpretation of the description he gives here) in a sense, 'meta' to 'the material.' Do you think this helps or compliments the 'naturalist' position? Is a 'love' of music or an appreciation of certain architecture, esoteric is some way? Can the concept of the numinous be legitimately used as evidence for something beyond(meta) the material? I think Blair in the clip above tries his best to capitalise on Hitchens use of the terms transcendent and numinous. I think a 'love of music or certain architecture or art' is humanist and not transcendent or numinous(a term derived from the Latin numen, meaning "arousing spiritual or religious emotion; mysterious or awe-inspiring." ). Do you think Hitchens use of the terms transcendent and numinous was actually a wise subterfuge? as it let's the 'immaterialists' in a little, but he then uses that invite to discuss the consequences of letting them in any further, when he talks about the fact that, it would follow that, theistic authorities such as the pope would then have to be fully accepted by all adherents to such religious doctrines.(again, that's based on my own interpretation of what Hitchens says after Tony Blair finished).

I don't know what this issue is called but there is something about beliefs that can lead to infinities.

For example if I believe that Paris is the Capital or France then that entails I believe London is not the Capital of France and That Berlin is not the capital of France and that A Monkey is not the capital of France.

So a belief can have weird entailments. In the previous case you could say believing that Paris is the capital of France entails that an infinite number of other things are not the Capital of France.

So I think it is probably impossible to have beliefs without entailments.

Those are questions best left open, as far as this atheist is concerned. — Vera Mont

Everyone has a wide range of differing information they are exposed to that lead to different questions arising for them.

People are entitled not to investigate different questions just like most people have limited concerns and some people like a university professor has a specific in depth area of concern.

But I think it is a state of agnosticism not to commit ones self to an opinion on something.

In this thread I am not suggesting all people who classify as atheists are committed to XY and Z but that there are prominent strands of atheism that make positive claims and have a belief system.

I don't know where you stand on each issue. As a gay person there are lots of things I don't agree with other gay people about including the whole LGBTQIA+ ideology. I am not at all saying this relates to you but I think as a gay person I need to distance myself from things I disagree with that are labelled as part of my identity.

I am not saying atheists need to do this but certain things that come out of the what can be called the atheists community are claims that people can disagree with. Especially provocative books like "The God Delusion" and a promotion of physicalism and non dualism.

But we never get a chance never to have heard of the gods. They're in our faces all the time — Vera Mont

This sounds like you are from The States.

I grew up in a fundamentalist cult in England. I had religion all day every day until I was 17 from birth. The bible was read and prayers said everyday. On leaving I have felt under no compulsion to be religious

In UK in general now it is easy to avoid religion. It is interesting how People like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens arise from the UK which has never had the same religious culture as America and was already very secular in their childhoods.

They became very prominent and loud in talk about theism/atheism and opposing religion so it was in the public consciousness to the same extent as religion. Also militant atheism and secularism entered universities. It seems that atheism is most prominent in liberal non theocratic countries where there is no compulsion of belief (ironically?).

For example if I believe that Paris is the Capital or France then that entails I believe London is not the Capital of France and That Berlin is not the capital of France and that A Monkey is not the capital of France. — Andrew4Handel

I am sure I have typed this before, but its worth making the point again. Misunderstood context either deliberately or by mistake can also result in interpretations such as F is the capital of France and L the capital of London. Look at the chasms between the various interpretations of religious scripts.

It often seems to me that some atheists use the lack-theism definition as a way of getting out of having to meet their burden of proof — busycuttingcrap

Nobody is authorized or empowered to lay that burden on me. My beliefs and unbeliefs are subjective and autonomous; I owe nobody a justification for them. Actions are - or may be - a different matter.

Religious truths are not like scientific truths. Even scientific truths are relative to a degree. Only God is absolute. If you hold to objective truth and yet remain an atheist because of lack of evidence you're being hard headed and ignoring the whole experience of religion, which is supposed to grow our hearts. God can do anything — Gregory

I'm not stopping him! I'm not an atheist because of lack of evidence; I'm an atheist because of evidence to the contrary: far too much of what religionists have claimed is proved false. But that just means I do not subscribe; it doesn't mean you shouldn't. So long as you don't bully other people or hurt animals, I'm fine with whatever you believe.

But I think it is a state of agnosticism not to commit ones self to an opinion on something. — Andrew4Handel

Only if the supernatural, and more specifically, deity, comes into it. For me, they don't. The big cosmic questions are simply beyond our ability to investigate: whether they contain something that somebody chooses to call a god or not will probably remain unknowable, so unless and until they do, I'm not require to believe or disbelieve. If you want to call that agnosticism, fine.

I am not saying atheists need to do this but certain things that come out of the what can be called the atheists community are claims that people can disagree with. — Andrew4Handel

People disagree about all kinds of things all the time. We are a contentious species. Crap comes out ever "community" - which just means some people talk crap - and wisdom comes out of every community, because some people talk sense.

This sounds like you are from The States. — Andrew4Handel

Doesn't matter where you are. All over the world, every single day, children are exposed to religious ideas. I very much doubt there is any adult who has never heard of religion.

. Also militant atheism and secularism entered universities. — Andrew4Handel

When? Why? In response to what? Look at historical cause and effect chains.





.

Consider Richard Dawkins for example. Religion pours hot coals on his mind everyday and it clearly has caused him a lot of suffering. Just because he thinks he knows everything when his suffering proves otherwise. Religion use to cause the same thing in me, a subjective ich, but now it's completely gone. Not because I found evidence for God, but because faith gives me peace from that. You can't grow when your rationality feels like it's cloaked in a hair shirt

Consider Richard Dawkins for example. — Gregory

Who is Richard Dawkins to me, or I to Richard Dawkins? Why should I consider his state of mind before settling on one of my own? Indeed, why should you?

I suppose Dawkins is reacting to some of the crimes of religious organizations and religious men - and he's quite right in feeling that way: those crimes have been enormous in scope and depth. In the present world, a number of very dangerous religio-political organizations are are perpetrating and contemplating further egregious crimes, in the name of the same deity (keeping in mind the Jehovah=God=Allah) and Dawkins may feel, along with many others, that they must be opposed. In this latter instance, I side with him. People have reasons for what they believe, what they think, what they consider to be worth suffering ans fighting for. I'm not in the business of telling them what that should be.

some of the crimes of religious organizations and religious men - and he's quite right in feeling that way: those crimes have been enormous in scope and depth. In the present world, a number of very dangerous religio-political organizations are are perpetrating and contemplating further egregious crimes, in the name of the same deity — Vera Mont

What about the crimes of Atheist and non theist regimes Like Stalin, Pol Pot and Chairman Mao and The slaughter of the French revolution? The current Genocide of the Uighurs in China.
Religious people were specifically targeted in these regimes. Also the crime of eugenics. What about the World Wars that were nothing to do with religion and Japanese nationalism?

There is no reason believe that an absence of religion leads to a better society or better people. The current Russian atrocity is irreligious. Modern Western societies are pluralistic with the cohabitation of multiple belief systems.

Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett et al are not targeting theocratic regimes but the soft beliefs of moderate Christians.

I posted this link earlier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_atheism

What about the crimes of Atheist and non theist regimes Like Stalin, Pol Pot and Chairman Mao and The slaughter of the French revolution? — Andrew4Handel

What about them? Don't you think people react to that, also? Including atheists, believe it or not. Everyone has a reason for thinking as they think, but there's no law (no secular law, anyway) that says we have to agree with any of the others.

There is no reason believe that an absence of religion leads to a better society or better people. — Andrew4Handel

That is why I don't believe that - not even when when intelligent, well-meaning people assert it. I have no faith in humanity.

Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett et al are not targeting theocratic regimes but the soft beliefs of moderate Christians. — Andrew4Handel

I mildly disagree, having heard some of Dawkins' opinions on Islam.
But I don't really care what he thinks.
And again - Why do you?

I have no faith in humanity. — Vera Mont

I have faith in some people not others and faith in human reason to some degree.

I favour general agnosticism about knowledge because one is not committed to making claims of certainty.

I can't think of an atrocity committed by an agnostic.

I can't think of an atrocity committed by an agnostic. — Andrew4Handel

Atrocities should come, like packaged food, with a content label on the back, as to the mind-set of their participants:
Hindu ---- 48%
Muslim ---- 40%
Atheist ---- 8%
Agnostic ---- 3%
Don't know ---- 1%
They're usually group efforts, with more than one motivating factor. The only thing we be can sure of they're all 100% human.