A secular protestant...
— ucarr

It's not always a vacuous culture war out there. — Tom Storm

A secular protestant, lying on his deathbed, in defiance of his own emotional past as a boy raised Catholic, exhorts his parents, wife and children, to their great anguish, not to hold any type of religious services at his funeral. — ucarr

For the sake of clarification, let me add that with my examples to busycuttingcrap I was only trying to show what an atheist might choose to do as observances of his atheism. I acknowledge your examples of atheist behavior demonstrate with equal truth how some atheists behave. I have no opposition to atheists doing these types of things and wouldn't hesitate to socialize with them while they were doing so.

I do think an atheist who, in his socialization with close friends, celebrates Christmas, attends mass and acts as best man at a Christian wedding lacks integrity and honesty if doesn't declare his beliefs beforehand, instead allowing others to assume he shares empathy with their convictions and rituals.

My issue with religion is that it unfortunately offers an opportunity to separate people by drawing firm lines in the sand as to what is demanded of one another in terms of belief and custom. — Hanover

I'm here trying to get a better understanding of things. Although it's imprudent to discuss religion, I find trying to understand it is more interesting than ignoring it.

If I make a wrong claim about atheism herein, my correspondents are on the job with pushback. Doing philosophy is the easy part. Getting the attention of correspondents is the hard part. Whereas written statements can only reflect light, live humans with incandescent sentience provide the important thing.

Exchange of ideas stirs thickets of fierce rhetoric. Sometimes I get hit by the verbal shrapnel of serious thought coupled with strong feelings. Sometimes I get hoisted aloft by the nearby landing of someone's witty petard.

Black eyes and fat lips are my tattoos. I always get them en route to grinding out the cognitive gems only I appreciate.

It seems to me that if your religion requires exclusion, you heard the sermon, but maybe missed the message. — Hanover

:fire:

I suppose you need to reformulate what I've written because it's easier for you to knock down strawmen rather than substantively engage my stated positions — 180 Proof

Of course I reformulate what you've written because that's how I try to substantively engage your stated positions. If I were you and we were me, there'd be just one and thus no dialogue.

My straw-men are caused by cerebral viruses that occasionally infect my thinking with unintentionally flawed interpretations of correspondent's intended meanings.

Below is a piece of your writing I tried to interpret. Help me see what's actually there.

atheism is disbelief in theistic deities (& stories) If the material universe was "created", then an atheist only states "I disbelieve stories of 'the universe created by a theistic deity'" — 180 Proof

Please fill in the blank. 180 Proof > a = atheism is disbelief in theistic deities (& stories); ucarr > a′ = [fill in blank here]

Metaphysical Claim - a declaration of truth about the root causes, designs and operations of the creation as understood to be separate from the mundane world of everyday physics.

“God did not create the material universe.” — ucarr

What happens to the above sentence if I add one of your important adjectives?

“ Theistic God did not create the material universe.” — ucarr

What happens to the first sentence if I add another one of your important adjectives?

“ Deistic God did create the material universe.” — ucarr

I don't see any "blanks" in what I wrote that need to be filled. Context matters.

Metaphysical Claim - a declaration of truth ...

As I understand philosophy, "metaphysics" does not consist of factual truth-claims; it's not theoretical and its expressions are not propositional – like poetry – but rather, metaphysics consists of categorical inquiries into reality, insofar as reality both constitutes and encompasses all of our hypothetical inquiries (e.g. formal natural & historical sciences and arts), in order to rationally make sense of – make whole – 'human existence'. The resulting categories, paradigms, criteria, methods, interpretations constitute reflective ways of 'being in the world' (or world-making) but are not themselves demonstrable truth-claims about the world. Thus, for me at least, ucarr, "metaphysical claims", as Witty says, is nonsense.

NB: Atheism is a 2nd order statement about theism which is a 1st order statement about "god"; the latter is metaphysics (i.e. onto-theology) and the former epistemology / logic.

I was only trying to show what an atheist might choose to do as observances of his atheism. I acknowledge your examples of atheist behavior demonstrate with equal truth how some atheists behave. — ucarr

Thanks for clarifying.

My issue with religion is that it unfortunately offers an opportunity to separate people by drawing firm lines in the sand as to what is demanded of one another in terms of belief and custom. As religiosity increases, who can sit with you at the table often shrinks. The same holds true in other contexts, political divisions being the polarization du jour.

It seems to me that if your religion requires exclusion, you heard the sermon, but maybe missed the message. — Hanover

Nicely put.

I don't see any "blanks" in what I wrote that need to be filled. — 180 Proof

With 180 Proof > a ≠ ucarr > a′ I'm asking you to write a description that elaborates how a ≠ a′, which is to say, 180 Proof's statement a gets turned into ucarr's non-equivalent a.′ I'm asking you to write my straw-man distortion a′ of your original a.

If you'll be specific in this way, I'll best understand the underlying cause of my straw-man distortion.

Below follow my takeaways from your info

"metaphysics" does not consist of factual truth-claims... — 180 Proof

So paradigms can only be supposed without affirmation or refutation.

it's not theoretical and its expressions are not propositional — 180 Proof

Actually no, paradigms cannot even be supposed. Furthermore, paradigms cannot express assertions.

metaphysics consists of categorical inquiries into reality, — 180 Proof

Paradigms sever the induction-deduction oscillation. Only statements the resultants of induction are expressed; no reverse reasoning back to empirical details the resultants of deduction.

reality both constitutes and encompasses all of our hypothetical inquiries — 180 Proof

The resulting categories, paradigms, criteria, methods, interpretations constitute reflective ways of 'being in the world' — 180 Proof

The ontology component of metaphysics dovetails with functionalism. Metaphysics says, "Mentally I am my operational, relatable, useful states."

(...categories, paradigms, criteria, methods, interpretations...) are not themselves demonstrable truth-claims about the world. — 180 Proof

The endgame of metaphysics arrives at axiomatic utterances not parsible into logical expressions. The ground of being is a given. It potentiates analyses but is their unbridgeable limit.

"metaphysical claims... is nonsense. — 180 Proof

Atheism is a 2nd order statement about theism which is a 1st order statement about "god"; the latter is metaphysics (i.e. onto-theology) and the former epistemology / logic. — 180 Proof

Theism is the ground of atheism as arithmetic is the ground of algebra. By algebra I know arithmetic cannot be reduced to logic. So logic too, is grounded by arithmetic. 2nd order expressions convey their meanings through their first order foundations. Because atheism cannot exist without theism, it cannot be categorically separable from theism, thus all atheistic expressions are theistic expressions in the negative.

"Atheism Equals Cosmic Solipsism" As far as I know, solipsism is a philosophical thought that proposes that only the self exists, and its experiences such as himself, his place in the world and his perception of the world are either imagined, or else directed illusions.

How does its being cosmic affect this? There is no cosmos in solipsism.

And why would atheism equal solipsism, cosmic or otherwise? There is no reason to believe that. Atheism is a belief there is no god, there are no gods. This is a far cry from solipsism. Solipsism can exist in the philosophy of a theist and equally in the philosophy of an atheist. Cosmic (?) or otherwise.

This entire thread, my dear friends, is put forth by a philosopher whose words SEEM to make sense, but they don't. In responding to him, other philosophers admit that ucarr makes sense. I blame these other philosophers who have made the initial mistake of taking ucarr seriously.

What do I mean? I mean, that ucarr will make propositions in perfectly clear syntactical statements, that semantically make no sense; and he dupes people into believing he makes sense. Take any statement by him in this thread. I randomly picked the following:

Paradigms sever the induction-deduction oscillation. Only statements the resultants of induction are expressed; no reverse reasoning back to empirical details the resultants of deduction. — ucarr

What's an induction-deduction oscillation? What do paradigms do to sever this? And sever this from what else? The rest I don't understand, but that may be only my problem, because I was never told properly what inductive and deductive reasoning is. My guess is that the rest of ucarr's statement in the quote makes no sense; someone smart and learned can study and tell whether it's valid or sheer nonsense.

I am curious what on earth possessed the moderators to not notice the thinly veiled but screamingly obvious style and tactic of ucarr to engage serious thinkers in joining to discuss a very long tirade of nonsense.

Well, there has been quite a few people who have taken up to discuss ucarr's propositions; they all seem to be having fun with it, inasmuch as a frustrating and leading-to-nowhere never-ending argumenting is fun.

Ucarr is not the first such philosopher on this site who I noticed does this. I can't remember the monikers of others. The tactic is reminiscent of that of Bartricks. But they are fundamentally different. Ucarr makes no sense. Bartricks makes statements that are fallacious, and he contradicts himself often, and when he is shown his own contradiction, then he comes back with ignoring the logic there. Ucarr is more sophisticated: he can't be called out on a self-contradiction, because he makes no sensible propositions, he only spews nonsense; and he will defend himself with more nonsense when called out, in a fashion that will drag the conversation out yet in another vein.

We're tediously talking past each other. Merry Xmas, ucarr. :sweat:

:100: :up:

:smile: Thanks. Nameste.

You've taken your time and done a careful job of profiling, per your perceptions, my writing, its meanings and, moreover, you've detailed your inferential conclusions about my intentions and strategies.

A writer whose writing is somewhat queered away from the common sense orthodoxy of its chosen discipline - in this case philosophy - overflowing as it may be (as in my case here) with idiosyncrasies of thought and personality quirks, asks a lot of his readers.

You have delivered. The serious attention of another person is one of the finest things a person can receive and a detailed profile bespeaks close and serious attention. I thank you for it. You could've taken the easy path by standing pat awaiting my implosion from overindulgence of selfish alienating impulses.

Beyond being a critique your statement is a warning. If I don't change my writing I run risk of being seen by consensus as a self-absorbed crackpot willfully peddling what I know to be nonsense. Such indulgence will put me on the permanent-ignore list vis-a-vis justifiably esteemed correspondents such as those participating in this conversation. Even more ominous, moderators, sharing the crackpot consensus, might feel compelled to block such perceived bandwidth-wasting verbiage.

I'm one who can heed warnings.

"Atheism Equals Cosmic Solipsism" As far as I know, solipsism is a philosophical thought that proposes that only the self exists, and its experiences such as himself, his place in the world and his perception of the world are either imagined, or else directed illusions.

How does its being cosmic affect this? There is no cosmos in solipsism.

And why would atheism equal solipsism, cosmic or otherwise? There is no reason to believe that. Atheism is a belief there is no god, there are no gods. This is a far cry from solipsism. Solipsism can exist in the philosophy of a theist and equally in the philosophy of an atheist. Cosmic (?) or otherwise. — god must be atheist

Atheist humans are no less social than all other types of humans. They neither embrace nor propound notions about being alone in the universe. It's not a stretch to suppose some politicians are atheists and, well, politicians are people-persons; they thrive in crowd scenes.

The above declarations pertain to human-to-human interactions. What about humanity-the-collective to cosmos-the-totality-of-creation? At this level I assert that atheism is solipsistic.

This so because human consciousness vis-a-vis the totality of creation must first answer the question posed by the interstellar probe Jimmy Carter sanctioned. He asked, "Is anyone out there?"

Let's assume the answer is "yes." Other sentient (hopefully humanoid) beings are out there. Even so, this only dispels the interstellar solipsism of the human collective vis-a-vis other intra-cosmic sentience.
It still doesn't dispel the cosmic solipsism of atheism because the interstellar collective of sentience
vis-a-vis the cosmos is still alone unless the cosmos (and beyond) is sentient as distinguished from the interstellar collective of sentience, a state of being denied by atheism.

Sidebar - Some will argue atheism takes no position on the cosmos (and beyond) with the exception of an over-arching trans-physical theistic God. I'm still searching for a definition of theism that doesn't apply to all God-concepts. Perhaps evolution might be conceived as a unitary cosmic consciousness. I know, however, that some (if not all) evolutionists reject the notion of teleology (intelligent design) being baked into evolution.

So the atheist dialoguing as s/he does with humanity and perhaps, eventually, interstellar sentience, nonetheless vis-a-vis the cosmos stands alone as denial of cosmos as sentient being means necessarily intra-mural dialoguing within an over-arching physical universe itself forever silent.

Here's where QM comes into the picture and makes things more interesting. QM entanglement of observer_observed suggests (at least sub-atomically) the blurring of the objective/subjective binary. I say the intriguing thing about QM entanglement is its disavowal of any type of solitude.

The sans-solitude of QM via implication tells atheism to stop playacting Hamlet soliloquizing to the heavens about suicidal solitude.

Final Note - When I ran my list of takeaways in response to 180 Proof's carefully worded definition of metaphysics,

As I understand philosophy, "metaphysics" does not consist of factual truth-claims; it's not theoretical and its expressions are not propositional – like poetry – but rather, metaphysics consists of categorical inquiries into reality, insofar as reality both constitutes and encompasses all of our hypothetical inquiries (e.g. formal natural & historical sciences and arts), in order to rationally make sense of – make whole – 'human existence'. The resulting categories, paradigms, criteria, methods, interpretations constitute reflective ways of 'being in the world' (or world-making) but are not themselves demonstrable truth-claims about the world. Thus, for me at least, ucarr, "metaphysical claims", as Witty says, is nonsense. — 180 Proof

I was attempting to give my serious attention to the details of said definition. As we say, I was getting into the weeds. The narrative/counter-narrative is where the action is, man. I suspect all human individuals, when you get into their weeds, are no less weird than the fundamentals of QM. A big part of the trick and fun of debate, for me, entails walking a mile in the other-worldly strangeness of another individual.

The above declarations pertain to human-to-human interactions. What about humanity-the-collective to cosmos-the-totality-of-creation? At this level I assert that atheism is solipsistic.

This so because human consciousness vis-a-vis the totality of creation must first answer the question posed by the interstellar probe Jimmy Carter sanctioned. He asked, "Is anyone out there?"

Let's assume the answer is "yes." Other sentient (hopefully humanoid) beings are out there. Even so, this only dispels the interstellar solipsism of the human collective vis-a-vis other intra-cosmic sentience.
It still doesn't dispel the cosmic solipsism of atheism because the interstellar collective of sentience
vis-a-vis the cosmos is still alone unless the cosmos (and beyond) is sentient as distinguished from the interstellar collective of sentience, a state of being denied by atheism. — ucarr

You immediately jumped into nonsense in the first paragraph, explaining it with more detailed nonsense in the third.

Solipsism excludes community.

Solipsism is not concerned with extraterrestrials.

There is no such thing as interstellar solipsism.

You immediately reverted to saying nonsense... perhaps because you actually don't know the meaning of sopipsism?

the cosmos (and beyond) is sentient as distinguished from the interstellar collective of sentience, a state of being denied by atheism. — ucarr

This is denied by many religions, and may be denied by some atheists; but the only thing that is denied by atheism is that there is a god and that there are gods.

So you sucked me in to reply to you. Let me assure you: this was the first and last time I wasted any thought on debunking your crazy theories.

…solipsism is a philosophical thought that proposes that only the self exists, and its experiences such as himself, his place in the world and his perception of the world are either imagined, or else directed illusions.

godmustbeatheist

This definition contains an internal contradiction within the solipsist. He assumes his own existence yet designates his experience of himself as imaginary_illusory. Such extreme skepticism doesn’t allow for the existence of a definite self even as that self has experiences it acknowledges, albeit as imaginary_illusory.

ucarr

solipsism – the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist.

 The Apple Dictionary

This alternative definition, as applied to the atheist, leads to the statement: the collective selfhood of humanity (on earth) and, beyond that, (possibly in future) the collective selfhood of physicalist sentience throughout the universe is all that can be known to exist.

Theism, for which atheism is the negation, claims there is a cosmic dialogue between sentient humanity and transcendental¬_ universe_God consciousness.

QM provides evidence (at sub-atomic level) of entanglement of observer and observed. There is no isolation. This evidence is consistent with cosmic dialogue. It is anti-consistent with the cosmic solitude of physicalist atheism. The cosmic solitude of atheism positions sentience within a universe according to a bifurcated design that has circumambient universe and sentience separated into isolation. Science adds further demerits to this position with its observations that the physical universe has no center and no boundary.

How does its being cosmic affect this? There is no cosmos in solipsism.

godmustbeatheist

Given the supposition of the dubious self of the solipsist that only the self can be known to exist, that dubious self is the cosmos.

ucarr

Solipsism can exist in the philosophy of a theist and equally in the philosophy of an atheist.

godmustbeatheist

theism - belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in one god as creator of the universe, intervening in it and sustaining a personal relation to his creatures…

 The Apple Dictionary

The above definition of theism, providing a description of dynamic relationship, which is cosmic dialogue_entanglement, sets it apart categorically from atheism, which is human-to-human entanglement only.

Atheism strongly implies a bifurcation of the physics and the circumambient universe. When that bifurcation dissolves, the ensuing entanglement of the physics and the circumambient universe propagates and the cosmic dialogue_entanglement becomes active.

Claiming human is cast in the likeness of God is simultaneously saying human is cast in the image of physical universe.

Denying God separates physicalist humanity from circumambient universe along the axis of cosmic sentience-to-human sentience entanglement. Following from this, isolated physicalist humanity is enclosed within non-sentient circumambient universe of local society amidst cosmic solitude. We see, however, the vitality of organic chemistry towards sentience, and yet atheism says the organic chemistry of the circumambient universe is non-sentient. Atheism equals cosmic solitude.


metaphysics consists of categorical inquiries into reality,

180 Proof

Paradigms sever the induction-deduction oscillation. Only statements the resultants of induction are expressed; no reverse reasoning back to empirical details the resultants of deduction.

ucarr

My guess is that [the rest of] ucarr's statement in the quote makes no sense; someone smart and learned can study and tell whether it's valid or sheer nonsense.

godmustbeatheist

I don't see any "blanks" in what I wrote that need to be filled. — 180 Proof

Context matters. — 180 Proof

Yes, context matters. Induction-deduction oscillation = general ⇔ specific.

When I wrote, “Paradigms sever the induction-deduction oscillation.” I was responding to a series of claims by 180 Proof including, “metaphysics does not consist of factual truth-claims,” and “it’s not theoretical and its expressions are not propositional.”

Given these exclusions, metaphysics, as defined by 180 Proof, operates as a pure model. It’s like the root of a word without its declension, or the infinitive of a verb, without its conjugation.

To claim the results of an examination of essential attributes of existence consist of no factual truth-claims, embody no theories, express no propositions and treat phenomena with broadest brushstrokes is to invoke mystery.

This invocation harks back to ancient times when seekers of truth paid visits to the Oracle for receipt of esoteric pronouncements.

Solipsism excludes community.

Solipsism is not concerned with extraterrestrials.

There is no such thing as interstellar solipsism. — god must be atheist

godmustbeatheist is a witty sitename. Notice how it assumes (ironically) a relationship between God and human. Even when making a little joke at the expense of theism, we have an atheist (I presume) who invokes human-sentience-to-cosmic-sentience entanglement.

While serious, godmustbeatheist notes how solipsism excludes community and is not concerned with extraterrestrials, and then s/he denies interstellar isolation due to solipsism.

I say we're most earnest while joking.