"the church starts all the wars" in particular. — T Clark

Where did I say this? I said:

I'd say that religious beliefs and similar irrational ideals were the core of most wars and conflicts. — Christoffer

See the difference?

But claims like 'most wars in human history have been religious wars' need to rest on more than having atheism in common. — Kenosha Kid

Because it's taken out of context of that post. The claim is in relation to atheism, to atheism being linked to violence and blood when the statistics or religious violence is quite clearly higher going through the history books. It was a summed up sentence but should have maybe pointed out "violence" instead of war since it seems like it confuses more than "violence".

In no sense have you supported your claim, and this shouldn't be too surprising given a) your unnecessary hostility toward disagreement, b) your preference for expansive complaints over a single sentence of justification, and c) your inconstant attitude to whether the problem is that people are focusing too much on this one thing or aren't going into enough detail. — Kenosha Kid

I literally expanded on that part of the original argument, because it's linked to the argument that atheism is being blamed for more murder and violence than religion. I lifted the logic that you have religious doctrines that easily come in conflict with other doctrines and practices and therefore are prone to conflict, while atheism does not have any binding doctrines or practices to stand behind, it's rather a lack of it. This means there's a logical gap when blaming atheism for violence and murder in history, compared to what religion has caused. This is the argument.

In no sense have you countered this logic.

Let's take what should be an easy example for you: jihad. On the one hand, nothing could be a better example of the warlike nature of religiosity than something that calls itself Holy War and whose Cyberman-like message is 'convert or die/be raped'. It's written there in their primary text, so no escaping it.

And yet, for the most part, Islam has been and remains a particularly peaceful, sophisticated religion. If 1001 people read the same book, 1000 think "peace" and 1 thinks "kill", is the religion accounting for the war, or the difference between that 1 and the other 1000? — Kenosha Kid

Compared to not reading the book at all? And being a peaceful religion can also mean that it is peaceful within itself, that if the community or society with it as its foundation, it may be peaceful if all worship under it because it becomes homogeneous and has no freethinkers or critics.

The problem arises whenever you have someone questioning the status quo. Human history is filled with violence attributed to when people question the status quo, and there's nothing more "deep core" of a status quo than religion being a foundation of a society. Questioning or confronting another nation/people with other religious beliefs almost always led to bloody conflicts. And since religion isn't a political theory, it isn't something that can be argued and converted easily into something new or different, because it is at the core of the heart of every person in such a society, questioning it means, in their eyes, questioning existence itself and it's a threat that feels like being about survival instead of intellectual discourse.

The argument I made was that religion causes violence far more than the lack of religion. The mechanics of religion almost forces people into conflict whenever there's a different voice that doesn't follow that specific religion. This is because religion finds its way into the core values of a person much more than any other system of knowledge. It more easily corrupts and more easily controls people. It can make them utterly abandon all intellect to do as a text says. It works in a bubble, but introducing another element almost always leads to conflict.

If you take what I wrote out of context, of course, it becomes problematic, but that was not my argument, it was in relation to the view on atheism as a violent "church". And the logic I present here is the logic of how religion works and why it leads to a conflict far more than anything else.

Add to that the actual number of cases of religious violence and wars rooted in conflicting religious views and you have everything in support of this right there.

The common denominator in all war is definitely not religion, and the common denominator of all religions is not war. — Kenosha Kid

And this has never been stated or said by me. It is a simplification of what I actually argue. If people cherry-pick stuff from my argument and make further simplifications of it, you might begin to understand my frustration here. It's straw-manning after straw-manning without really reading what I actually write and understanding it before forming a counterargument. Because of this, I get oversimplifications like the one you wrote there and that this is somehow what I meant in my text? How does any of what I write here conclude that all wars are religious and all religions are about war? Where did this come from?

I can see how you'd like that to work, but that's not how it works. Claims aren't true until proven otherwise. Since you are unwilling to defend your point, no one else is obliged to disprove it. — Kenosha Kid

Which is why I provided it if you bothered to read it.

It was infantile tantrum-throwing and nothing more, quite obstructive to the sorts of detail you now claim to want. — Kenosha Kid

I write maybe ten times longer posts than most in here and a majority of each post is the actual arguments. Then things get cherry-picked, conclusions ignored, and I'm drawn into explaining things that have been explained to absurd lengths in many threads on this forum, by many others including me, that to stay on the topic of the current thread, we just point out the conclusion of those countless other posts. But I provided a sum up, I still like to hear the counter-argument to that logic, but I suspect it becomes the usual "straw-manning atheism" thing again, which I'm not interested in because it's frankly stupid and beneath me to put time and effort into saying the same things over and over to people so blinded by their own belief biases that they cannot form tangible arguments.

If you have anything to counterargue what I just wrote in the previous post, please do that, because I'm tired of infantile belief arguments that would never pass basic philosophical scrutiny or believers just saying I'm wrong without any further elaboration. I'm still waiting for anything substantial.

But in the absence of that, it doesn't come naturally, I don't think. — Wayfarer

Life is hard, but religion really makes it more confusing and harder, requiring someone to accept a "truth" without proof. Either people are idiots and accept such a truth without questioning it, or they try to understand it, spending years of their life in search of an explanation behind that truth, only to sometimes come to the conclusion that it was just made up by people throughout history and that there's nothing more to it. It's a great waste of a lifetime. Why not just make it "less hard" and accept things around and in the universe, for what they are or what we can perceive them as? The rest is just irrelevant time-wasting noise.

then any idea of meaning is basically an illusion. — Wayfarer

Any meaning that has some cosmic objectivity, yes, not meaning as invented, felt, and built by us humans for us humans. It's the "cosmic meaning" that is both non-existent and irrelevant.

It's just a comfort blanket for theists to crawl under. The universe is mind-blowingly big and we are so impossibly small in comparisons that they just can't accept that we are basically the same as bacteria on a cosmic scale. They can't wrap their heads around these things, so they pull the blank over their heads and tell themselves that there truly is a cosmic meaning to their existence. It's the same reason why religions came to be in the first place, we've just scaled up the knowledge of the world around us into the size of the universe and its timeline. Before, we tried to explain thunder, couldn't, needed some comforting explanation so we invented thunder gods. Crops died unexpectedly, so we invented agricultural gods. And so on. Then it was just easier to use one God for everything. A basic "god works in mysterious ways" to sum up all the shit we can't explain and you're all setup and ordered the comfort blanket ultra mega 2000 experience package, with some action figures of prophets and downloadable content with predictions for the end of time, so you don't have to think about your meaningless and upcoming death.

It's basic psychology really.

Given people do precisely this, it must be true. I think for all the lofty talk about meaning requiring some transcendent foundation, I believe people obtain meaning from being in the world, interacting and doing things. Possessions, nature, music, food, friends, family, home, whatever you are into is where your meaning comes from. I believe this is true for theists and atheists alike. — Tom Storm

I agree. But theists tend to apply an unnecessary layer that wastes "life time" on irrelevant interpretations that lead nowhere. Atheism is Ockham's razor of meaning in life. The shortest path to a sense of clarity, the least clouded by confusion when worldviews get challenged.

you just can't handle people pointing out where you're wrong. — Kenosha Kid

I'm not though. People just say I'm wrong, they provide nothing substantial behind it. For around two weeks now, everyone whom I've been in discussion with on this forum radically fails at basic philosophical reasoning. It's just believers spewing out opinions and that they are right because "God" or whatever. It's getting rather tedious hearing the same thing over and over when so many, not just me, has already countered the lack of logic or knowledge in many of the claims.

It's rather all these people who are the ones not able to understand when they're wrong. I'm still waiting for true arguments to bounce off into the next argument. But I'm paddling in the manure of biases and fallacies.

If you want to defend the point, great, but like you say this is a philosophy forum and posts like your last aren't going to cut it: that's just tantrum-throwing. — Kenosha Kid

Let's start with everyone else supporting their counter-argument first, please. I can either roll my thumbs waiting or just continue to ask for something substantial.

If you don't feel inclined to defend the point, just have some dignity and move on peacefully. If you're just trying to pick a moronic fight, well carry on as you are I guess. I'm here to discuss the matter, including the finer details. For the record, I considered the matter closed several posts ago. — Kenosha Kid

The cherry-picked portion of my argument had to do with religion and its bloody history compared to atheism. Now, theists really love to mash together communism and atheism to make the point that "atheism is worse", which, by looking at the actual mechanics behind the communist movement throughout the 20th century, shows that it has nothing to do with atheism, it's not "part of the murdering", it's rather a way to create guilt by association to a political movement with their own doctrines, in no shape or form linked to atheism just because there wasn't a religion at the core of communism. Just like religion, the communism and corruption of Marxist theories of the 20th century act out as a form of institution, almost by religious standards. Atheism isn't an institution, there is no "church of atheism". There can be atheistic organizations that have a place of gathering, focused primarily on giving guidance to those seeking to move away from religion, but there's no single "church" or institution or a gathering of rituals, rules, laws, principles etc. There are nothing binding atheists together as a form of "method of life". So to blame atheism for murders throughout history makes zero sense whatsoever and is a straw-manning attempt at attacking atheism whenever the notion of "religion's bloody history" is being brought up. The bloody history of religion is, however, very documented. The suffering, terror, prosecution, mass murder, torture etc. for thousands of years, throughout many different types of religious beliefs and institutions that through rules, laws, practices, and principles gathered a group behavior into these acts. It's the entire nature of religious institutions and doctrines to force behavior onto the practitioner of that belief system and it's been a source of power over the people for as long as human history. Atheism is a rejection of all of that and the antithesis of it makes it impossible to be a "reason" for mass murder. Someone murdering "in the name of atheism" doesn't really refer to anything.

So, anyone claiming either that religion doesn't have a bloody history, or that Atheism is responsible for more terror and murders than religion, really needs to prove those points with some actual logic, history, and support. Straw-manning atheism in an attempt to shift blame from religion to atheism is fundamentally stupid and childish and an insult to the intellect of those who actually just paid attention to the information, knowledge, and records of history we have.

I considered this matter to be closed years ago. Believers still seem to form a sound reasonable argument that doesn't use every bias and fallacy in the book to reach its conclusion. It's tiresome and I rather just sum up the conclusion with theists are wrong in this matter, period. End of discussion, until an unbiased, sound argument is made with an antithesis to this.

Yes, a philosophy forum, meaning, a higher quality should be expected. Outside of picking out a single point, that point has been discussed so many times on this forum and believers defend it saying “No! Religion is innocent, it has no blood on its hands. But look at atheism and communism, that’s where the blood is”.

It’s a blanket statement that’s both wrong and mind-numbingly lacking in philosophical quality. It’s tedious going down that route every time believers get triggered by the notion that religion has a bloody history that isn’t at all as visible on the atheism side. People need to pick up a history book, and also understand what they read.

We're fast arriving at the point where some larrikin decides to demonstrate that 20th mass murder is the result of atheism (i.e., godless Communism), proving Friedrich Nietzsche right about the inimical consequences of the Death of God. I'll do it now to save time. — Tom Storm

Ah, that kind of argument again, it's getting old and has been countered so many times without any of the theists able to remember the conclusions of those counterarguments. I think I've countered this a dozen times on this forum. Maybe create a search button for all the biased theists needing to get some counterarguments of that bullshit, I'm tired of doing it over and over in all the evangelical threads of indoctrinated believers.




It's so interesting to see you all focusing on this out of the entirety of my argument. It's like you don't get my point whatsoever.

Actively clinging on to a point that you can stretch to be the only thing to argue about. That "no, not all conflicts are religious, look at these examples, look at all the proof that this is NOT the case". Yeah, sure, some conflicts are not religious in nature or have anything to do with religion. That's not my point. Seriously. If this is the thing that gets people riled up, no wonder I'm fucking right.

I'm with T-dog on this one. There are religious wars but, more often, religion is the excuse and rallying point, not the cause. — Kenosha Kid

I'm talking about human history. Quantify the entirety of that before concluding the reasons for all conflicts. I would say that even in the cases where conflicts and wars were seemingly by other reasons, religion has a core anyway.

But, after everything I wrote, this is the thing to hang up on. It kind of shows how the argument gets steered off course when some get triggered by these notions. This is not about religious war, but the need to defend religious history around that seems to be a valuable point to many, to the point of ignoring the rest. I think I've made my point around this specific thing.

This is not true at all except in the most trivial sense. — T Clark

Do you mean that there are rarely religious themes under the actions of people through war throughout history? Including all those who thought they were guided by God or Gods to invade and conquer other lands? I'd say that religious beliefs and similar irrational ideals were the core of most wars and conflicts. Rarely have I found intentions not related to religious themes as reasons for such acts. Maybe you can explain why this is superficial and that there are reasons other than that at play. Remember, even conquers for power were mostly generated by illusions of divinity for the conquerer, rather than conquering for anything else.

A significant crisis is also an opportunity to seek a new belief system, perhaps for consolation.

The secret to being happy in the foxholes is probably to expect chaos and suffering in the first place. Some people are fortunate and do not get to know the foxholes.

The saying there are no atheists in the foxholes refers specifically to the fact that otherwise secular people become superstitious and religious when facing death for the first time in a terrifying war
zone. This falls under what might be called 'folk wisdom.' — Tom Storm

I was in what would have been a very serious car accident with an 18-wheeler and trailer, around 15 years ago. I got super lucky, the car was smashed, but I was totally fine. So there were no consequences to me or anyone else other than my car crushed and a fence broken when my car flew into it. I managed to open the door and just stroll right into organizing the police and everything on the location, the truck driver more traumatized than me.

When I got home a friend asked if I'm religious now. I replied sincerely: fuck off.

Meaning is use.

Even if life was intrinsically meaningless, extrinsic meaning can come from how life is used. Chess pieces on a chess board are intrinsically meaningless. The meaning of chess comes from how the pieces are moved on the board.

IE, meaning comes not from life itself but how life is used. — RussellA

Exactly my point.

People put so much effort into finding a cosmic meaning to everything that they can go through their entire life without putting much meaning into that life. Accepting the meaningless nature of the objective universe does not mean the subjective experience has to be meaningless, and I think that if one actively finds meaningful things out of the meaningless mess, that is worth every breath of one's life. A futile surrender to religious belief somewhat makes people miss out on actually feeling a meaning of existence within the life that they have. They focus all that energy on the hope of something totally unproven to show itself after death and it means wasting an entire life with the risk of nothing being beyond death, which by any facts about biology, is the truth.

For me, religious belief and people who are consumed by it are one of the great tragedies of the human condition.

Of course, some find meaning in the practices of religious belief, and that I'm not opposed to. The problem I have is when such belief is forced upon other people, indoctrinate them, and consequently affecting many others by the irrationality out of such forced belief. Not many major wars and conflicts have been done without any religious themes.

If people can find meaning in religious practices that doesn't force itself onto others, then that is a purposeful meaning in their life. But it's my hypothesis that we can find "rituals" outside of irrational belief, we can find meaning without irrational belief and we can live happily, even in face of tragedy, without irrational belief. Meditation is a great example of how some religious practices were made into practice outside of belief. Meditation is by many researchers found to be of great health benefit to the physical and mental state of the one practicing it. If someone creates a daily routine, a "ritual", to meditate every morning or every night, it can create a tremendous sense of calm and tranquility. Without having anything to do with belief or religion.

Finding meaning outside of belief systems and religion means it's always a search inwards. Introspection, listening to the inner voice as a guide for the meaning of external events. It requires an open mind, it requires learning new things, knowledge, wisdom, and empathy. Religion and belief is a safety blanket, something to hide under, but never really true when examined. It's always limited and I can't even imagine the horror one feels when dying, getting a sense of nothing being there beyond the horizon when all their lives they've been taught there will be a paradise. Accepting and knowing the end is the end, like a computer being shut off, not showing anything but a black void on the screen, is very scary. But accepting this horrific thing, as it is, removes it of its scary power over you. You know it's the end, memories of you continue past your death, eventually, you are an unmarked grave in history, eventually nothing at all. So you start focusing on the time you have, it's the only thing that matters. The time you have and the things that actually exist; the things that can be witnessed, experienced, felt, learned about, understood etc.

Religious people and people with belief often think of atheism, or the "ideal atheism" as I've been told is my definition of it, as "lacking something". But I would argue that you add something. You add your own existence to the time you are alive, not excluding it as being something temporary before the "real purpose of existing" after death. You dismiss all the "belief noise" and start to actually fill your life with real things, you put your time into those things, skip the wasted time spent on religion and do something substantial instead.

There's more to life than religion and belief.

rejection of reason and logic for irrationality and intuition, a Continental rather than analytic approach. — RussellA

Still requires an atheistic approach. If you reject set "rules for life" then there's an absence of them. If atheism is the absence of belief and faith in God or religious motifs, then the rejection works best within atheism. I still feel that rejection of reason and logic isn't necessary in order to not preoccupy oneself with "winning or losing". You can be very analytical and still not have an interest in winning or losing. Analytical people are very interested in arriving at substantial truths that exist and can be witnessed, but it doesn't mean they're doing it to win, just that they find meaning in the pursuit of knowledge. That pursuit doesn't have an end or is able to be won or lost, it just is a meaning in itself. As life is not a journey towards the end goal, death is not a win or loss, it just is.

What are the arguments for trust in the medical system, given the above considerations? — baker

Probability should be enough. Mistakes are made by people, not the "medical system". The "medical system" can have problematic bureaucracy and coordination systems in place that are prone to create problems and mistakes and these are the things to keep push for the better. The fact that many doctors and surgeons sometimes work long hours with little sleep is a sign of such structural problems.

The important thing to remember is that "the medical system" is built upon other people who struggle and fight often to the breaking point in order to help other people. The bar is low for mistakes, it shouldn't happen, but it does, because they are people. But that doesn't mean these people do these mistakes because they don't care, there are many variables involved.

and the prospect of malpractice or betrayal — baker

Malpractice is one thing, betrayal is another. "Betrayal" is a very strong word that needs some deeper explanation. Are we talking about medical staff betraying the will of the patient? There are variables there as well, the patient might not know everything about their condition, the patient might be stupid and risk their own lives. The "will" of the patient should be interpreted. If the "will" of the patient is to survive, feel better, then that is the purpose for the medical staff and doctors, regardless of what the patient believes makes them better. So a "betrayal" when treating someone could actually be a good thing that saves the patient's life. If that was against the will of the patient, why is the patient even at the hospital and not dying or suffering outside of that "system"?

If a person has already experienced serious negative side effects of a medication, or has been the victim of medical malpractice or betrayal, on the grounds of what should this person still trust the medical system? — baker

Elaborate on what the "system" is? There are thousands of "medical systems" all around the world. Some with better care than others, some with better expertise than others. So back to "probability".

Is the probability higher that you are affected by negative side effects, including malpractice, mistakes, or bad competence, compare to the probability of getting better from your illness or risk of illness/death?

Probability is all around us, the risk of anything exists always. In order to trust something, a probability has to be calculated for that trust. There will always be a risk of damage or dangerous consequences for any interaction a human is doing in their life, it's unavoidable. If people stop making probability predictions, they start operating on irrational fear and biases.

Does the "medical system" possess a higher danger through mistakes, malpractice, side effects etc. than the consequences of not getting involved at all when a health problem arises? No, it's not higher, obviously. So any malpractice, mistakes, side effects etc. that exist in the world is not enough to erase trust in the medical system. There's no rational reason to mistrust an entire system because of cases of bad luck or incompetent people.

The rational thing to do when constantly getting problems with some specific medical people is to report them because it can be that a specific doctor or medical staff is individually incompetent and a danger to others. Or an entire hospital with a bad administrative team creating systemic problems for that specific hospital.

The "medical system" is referring to the entire global medical system (as nothing else has been specified), but problems occur on individual levels or specific hospitals. These usually don't survive long, doctors lose licenses, hospitals get shut down, and so on.

The probability of getting help is still higher than any of these consequences. And people can only act on probability, the rest is an irrational belief and bias.

dying from complications of the vaccine are 112 times more likely than dying from covid itself — Thinking

It's literally disproven by actual numbers of deaths getting lower when vaccination numbers get higher. So please provide a source for such a specific number.

Are you a zombie or something??! is there nobody home there??

I'm not saying that if something happens to me, then the statistics are wrong. Oh god. I'm talking about the way a person handles or is supposed to handle the possibility of experiencing negative side effects of medical treatments. — baker

Subjective, singular, personal, and emotional experiences are irrelevant when making moral arguments about vaccines, which is what this thread is about. Morality has more to do with what we do against others than our own personal experiences. If someone experiences extreme side effects they might scream at the world "WHY!?" but for all the ones who survive because of the vaccine and the pandemic fading away along with the suffering; all those millions or billions of people who were helped by population immunity and the vaccine will be the sum of the morality around vaccines.

If someone is suffering, the world shouldn't suffer because of that. This doesn't mean we should aim to let some suffer, but the statistics of suffering from the vaccine is blown out of proportion to the suffering of the virus. It's pure anti-vaccer propaganda rooted in irrational fears formed as factual arguments and "news" from such sources. As some US states now face a problem with not being able to vaccinate enough people due to a high number of anti-vaccers present in those states, it becomes apparent that the spread of false statistical interpretations to push an almost religious agenda is becoming rather dangerous. Anti-vaccer propaganda is not something harmless, it is right now actively pushing back the end of the pandemic and risk introducing even worse mutations. It is morally degenerate to oppose vaccines in light of the suffering Covid-19 creates and anyone who's not educated, too stupid or indoctrinated into anti-vaccer propaganda should be shut down when spreading bullshit about the science behind the vaccine.

If you think I'm a zombie for misinterpreting your argument, then maybe elaborate or expand further. I'm no mind reader, I can only read the things you actually write. But good that you started a new thread that's about the things that this thread isn't about.

Is that what the reasonable thinker does? I am no expert in anything but from what I've seen, its the brainless thinkers that tend to buy into experts' so called expertise. — Merkwurdichliebe

Is it "buying into"? Or is it compiling the consensus conclusions of people who have studied most of their lives on subjects and science that we only grasp a fraction of? Whenever someone says "so called" expertise my alerts fire up. What is "so called"? If you haven't studied viral diseases, epidemiology, vaccine methods, RND and DNA behavior, and so on at any time in your life, how are you in a position to question these experts' results? And I am well aware of the appeal to authority fallacy, that's why I'm saying "consensus", because a reasonable thinker looks at the results of many within a field of knowledge that the thinker isn't an expert within, and then draws conclusions out of that collectively formed knowledge. And I've yet to see any "brainless thinkers" who buy into expert ideas in any negative ways. It's rather that these "brainless thinkers" buy into pseudo-experts who aren't really knowledgable in their fields but possess a biased opinion that they push with an expert's rhetoric. Hence why the scientific method requires peer reviews and second opinions. The "reasonable thinker" understands this and guards against acquiring biases of their own.

I have also seen many examples of experts getting it wrong and leading the brainless followers into shitty situations, which should make anyone with two shits for brains skeptical about anything any expert might claim. — Merkwurdichliebe

Of course, therefore consensus. If one expert says something, you can conclude that if you are not an expert in the same field, that person might know more than you and you should take note of the knowledge presented. But in order to reach a conclusion that more and more chips away and reveal the truth about something, a consensus needs to be formed among many experts.

Being skeptical is good, but just as handling any knowledge requires rational thought, skepticism requires rationality as well. "Being a skeptic" doesn't mean someone is intelligent or rational. Most conspiracy nuts are highly skeptical. It's how you manage skepticism that is key. I am an extremely skeptical person, which requires me to be smart about how to tackle a certain topic. I need to form an opinion unbiased by myself and with support from facts. The only way to do so is to include experts into forming that opinion with me reviewing the logic of many expert sources and truly understand their conclusions before forming one.

Of course, I didn't get my opinion from an expert, so you will probably reject what I'm saying here. — Merkwurdichliebe

No, I get your point. But I point out that caution needs to be taken if the opinion comes from emotional experience or anecdotal evidence. In any form of arriving at truth, excluding yourself means that both anecdotal and emotional experience is almost always irrelevant to forming a rational and sound conclusion.

The logic of what you're saying is that you shouldn't just listen to someone and take their word as truth. This is true, it's the foundation of "appeal to authority". But just accepting an expert's word is not the same thing as listening to experts and forming an opinion.

The key here is not revolving around any "expert", it's how you treat new knowledge and ideas; If you take anything at face value, you aren't really being epistemically responsible. The same goes for just rejecting everything any expert says. The path to take is to acknowledge your shortcomings in knowledge and only speak as someone who knows when you actually know something. The path is to listen to experts and analyze the truth value without biases of your own. If you have one expert who will earn a fortune on convincing you about a certain "truth", then you naturally have to be very skeptical and wary of any underlying agendas. But if you have 10, 50, 100, or more experts saying the same thing, in different labs, in different nations, independent of each other and with totally different personal goals, all while you have zero knowledge of their field of expertise. Then what is the rational path? To dismiss them all and form your own opinion based on emotional or anecdotal evidence instead? Or listen to everyone, even the ones not involved with the consensus these experts provide? No, in that case, the only two options to have are to either become an expert yourself (a real expert based on education, not an armchair one) or to actually conclude the truth of the consensus.

But then we have those who talk about science as "changing its mind" around different topics. That people present theories that are then rejected and changed. This is true, a topic within science is always changing when new data is presented. This is nothing strange to the ones understanding the process. As mentioned earlier, the process is about chipping away at something until the most likely and clear truth emerges. This is the reason behind what "hypothesis" means and the confusion of what a "scientific theory" is compared to the common idea about "theory". If someone looks at experts and expects that they tell the truth they don't understand how things work, just as much as someone who rejects anything an expert says. Listening to experts requires understanding the process by which they arrive at knowledge. Understanding that if a hypothesis is presented, that isn't pure truth, if a scientific theory is presented that is as close to pure truth as possible with the data set that exists. But with new data, it can change. That doesn't mean the expert is "failing people" with knowledge. It means that if they arrive at new conclusions, the consensus needs to shift and the people need to change their set of facts to work according to new findings.

People just don't like change. They want to get "one" truth" from an expert and when that "one truth" is changed they blame the experts for not knowing "the truth". This is what's degenerate about society right now. People want to know the truth, experts form a consensus and people either A) dismiss that consensus because it's a discomfort in their lives and they won't comply with it out of that, or B) they accept the consensus and get angry when the consensus changes, even though it's totally logical and in-line with the scientific process, or C) They accept the consensus and understand that it can change, adapting accordingly.

Petty people can't accept uncertainty. They collapse under the idea that they need to accept an uncertain factor in their lives. Maybe it's because many in the western world haven't lived in a war in the same way as older generations. They don't have experience with uncertainty. They want control, they want a clear way forward and when that is not possible they collapse into moronic behavior.

So, what is a reasonable thinker? Someone who is morally balanced and can survive any intellectual challenge. Someone who is epistemically responsible, who listens, who forms opinions around consensus results, facts that by human measurements can be considered to be true. Who do anything in their power not to form opinions out of biases, who explain their position without fallacies.

There are experts and then there are those who gather knowledge to form a whole picture. If the expert is the spear, the archer, the soldier, the "compiler" of knowledge is the one forming a picture out of different facts presented by these experts. This is what philosophy is for me. Compiling the knowledge of others who are specialized, into a complete picture. Collaboration in its best form. If a specialized expert forms broad perspectives, they fail. If a "compiler" forms a broad perspective without listening to experts, they fail.

The reasonable thinker is the one who listens to a knowledge consensus, studies the fringe results of combined large sets of facts, and form conclusions out of that. I cannot see a human be any more truthful to the world outside their own mind than that. Anyone who "just have an opinion" without anything more than that, is in my opinion not helping anyone but their own sense of ego. A narcissist of the modern age, irrelevant to arrive at any kind of truth or constructive position for anyone, including themselves.

yep. And then say irrelevant, or anecdotal. Either way, whatever you dislike, you dismiss. — Book273

Are you dense? Did you read what I wrote? That you are comparing apples to oranges? Are you unable to understand that such comparisons aren't relevant and not a logical correlating foundation to what you actually concluded? Can you understand this now or should we dance around your inability to understand this simple thing some more? You haven't presented valid premises for your conclusion, fucking get that already. It doesn't matter if you think this yourself, I have deconstructed the argument you've made and showed how it makes no logical sense to compare in the way you do, but you continue like a parrot along the same line of thinking. You are simply just proving yourself to be just stupid now.

Nope, not ever. You are projecting again. I think the pandemic response will result in more damage than the pandemic would have if there had been no response at all. — Book273

Projecting? Isn't you thinking that the pandemic response is more damaging than if we'd not done anything at all... exactly like assuming things would have been fine? Are you actually fucking stupid right now in not understanding that those two basically mean the same thing?

Check the WHO site for anticipated deaths due to starvation, lack of TB diagnosis and treatment, etc. as a result of all the border closures and crap resulting from the pandemic response. Last I checked the numbers were about 50,000,000. — Book273

And you are comparing that to what estimate of death tolls for the virus? Here's your actual argument in philosophical terms:

p1: The seriousness of the virus is not high
p2: The consequences of the pandemic response leads to many deaths (around 50 000 000) due to other global health problems
Therefore, the pandemic response is more damaging than not doing anything at all.

p1 is an assumption you have no supporting evidence for or can point out to be true. It's your own assumption that you have just "guessed". So by that alone, your argument falls. p2. is probably true if you remove the number. However, because you also point to a number of 50 000 000, you need to support that number with relevant statistical linking data. You cannot quantify that data as a direct relation to the pandemic response. You need to establish a direct link to that number, otherwise, you cannot quantify how many deaths are a causation of the pandemic response (this is a classic causation/correlation fallacy). Your conclusion relies on p1 being correct and that the serious consequences of p2 is both directly linked to the pandemic response and that they are worse than anything could be if p1 was false.

So once again, with this extremely low-quality induction, tell me again why you are on this forum?

Where I work we are seeing adverse reactions to vaccine at 1:5. Not monster life ending stuff, but still, 1:5. Hard to support that. But hey, it's anecdotal right? So ignore it and carry on. — Book273

Yes, it's an anecdotal fallacy... again. You think that fallacy exists for everyone else but doesn't apply to you or your argument? You even acknowledge it yourself to be anecdotal but don't understand why it's a fallacy? What level of stupidity are you on?

The OP asked for reasons regarding Vaccine yes or no. I am saying no. Do what you like based on the data. — Book273

But you have no data! You make a correlation/causation fallacy, you use anecdotal evidence, you speculate the severity of the virus without any facts behind it. "Do what you like based on the data" is epistemically irresponsible and also plain wrong. You do what is best according to actual data and understanding that data. This means you need to understand both the action to take and you need to know how to interpret the data. You are unable to do both. The way you describe it is selfish and dangerous to others. Stupid people thinking they know best without actual education, knowledge, or ability to interpret statistical data is the problem I'm speaking about. They need to sit down and stop being so loud.

Unless you are frontline, your data is filtered. I am taking the data I see, anecdotal as it is, and working from that. And No is what I come up with. — Book273

And this is why you are stupid and don't belong on a philosophy forum. Being on the frontline means you also have data filtered as you are only seeing ONE part of a whole, ONE sample of data that is limited and only in context to that situation. It's the exact opposite of the scientific method, the exact opposite of any kind of method of logic to arrive at what can be concluded true.

And once again not able to understand what the anecdotal fallacy is and why it exists.

And No is what I come up with. — Book273

Without any philosophical scrutiny whatsoever. You don't even attempt to follow any kind of philosophical methods needed to arrive at a sound conclusion. You just have an opinion based on anecdotal experience. And without the capacity to understand statistics you think you have support for that opinion, without ever logically create an argument around it.

I'd like to see you actually create an induction argument around your conclusion. Please do that, because you are still on a philosophical forum, so this is a valid request. Put forth the argument and I'll run through why the logic doesn't work.

There it is. Never gets old eh, back to the old "irrelevant" position. So your position is that it's ok to rebel, maybe, but not now, and not against this, because....it weakens your position? — Book273

You are comparing rebelling against a government fighting for the freedom to fighting scientists and experts who try to fight a pandemic. You're so far off the map now that you've fallen off and you can't even realize it. This is why your comparison is irrelevant. If you can't understand why such a comparison is irrelevant and not valid as a premise to your conclusion, then you're purely delusional.

I cannot argue against something that has no relevance or is unable to follow as a counterargument to what was actually written. You've said nothing of relevance to the point that was made.

Contradicting yourself their eh. Just saying, pick a direction and stick with it. Either we don't understand our place and should "shut the fuck up" and let someone else take over, (big brother) OR it's not about big brother, which invalidates the first bit. — Book273

No, because Big Brother is about a government who spies and controls the people. I'm talking about experts in the field of science and coordinators of medical staff and people fighting the pandemic. I'm referring to morons not being in the steering wheel and instead letting the experts in their fields steer what they have knowledge about. You are talking about government control, it's not the same thing. Are you mentally unable to understand the difference here? You are pretty much proving my point by this extreme inability to understand even the simplest thing.

Also; just because you put in parenthesis doesn't make it a quote. I have not used the phrase "would have been fine." — Book273

You are advocating against restrictions and relevant actions taken to fight the pandemic and your logic was assuming things would have been fine while then saying this:

Really hard to prove how bad things "would have been". Everything runs on modeling and assumptions. — Book273

So, you are basically speculating a scenario that doesn't have any modeling or valid assumptions behind it other than your wild speculation and irrelevant comparisons between apples and oranges, while criticizing a scenario that has a valid foundation of logic based on the facts we actually have about the virus, calling that "hard to prove" because it's out of modeling and assumptions.

If you are only using your uneducated wild speculation as a foundation for what you think would have happened to the world and then dismiss scenarios that actually have facts and knowledge as a foundation, I'd call that a contradictory argument from you, and my parenthesis was to sum up your stance in order to show why your logic failed. I guess it's impossible to, even when it's staring you in the face.

Ghandi rebelled eh. Peacefully, and effectively, but he still disagreed with the powers that were and changed his world. — Book273

Why do you keep bringing up rebelling political injustices when that has nothing to do with the problems of morons standing in the way of experts trying to fight a pandemic? It's like you're unable to understand what we're talking about here? What the fuck has Gandhi to do with Karen's screaming that they don't want facemasks? Or armchair experts spreading stupid bullshit that creates confusion while scientists and experts try to educate the people and stop the pandemic?

Mother Theresa worked around the restrictions placed upon her, effectively rebelling against those who would stop her from doing what she thought was right. — Book273

And one more again

You are doing what you think is right. As am I. We will both be ignored by history, and yet, one of our positions will be more accurate than the other, such is the way of things. We are rebelling. Good for us. — Book273

You are not acting upon the knowledge that we have. You are acting like a moron and have zero foundation as to why. The fact is that you have less probability of being accurate because you don't have any rational deduction behind the things you write. I keep asking for it, but you make historical comparisons to things that have nothing to do with the current situation or problem.

Seems like a bankrupt plan. — Book273

Seems like you should sit down.

I am not anti-vax — Book273

No, you're only using their exact rhetoric, wild speculative bullshit, fear-mongering, and total ignorance of the science. It's like a racist who says they're not racist. The proof is in the pudding.

So...big brother knows best eh. Scary stuff. — Book273

If you actually bother to understand the text I'm writing, I'm talking about the need for experts to be behind the steering wheel and not have morons pulling that steering wheel while the experts are trying to drive. It's dangerous and stupid. It's not about "Big Brother", stop trying to make my argument into something that it's not and understand what I write.

Applicable to you my friend. — Book273

The difference here is that I acknowledge the experts around me and refer to them to conclude what they are actually knowledgeable about. If I make arguments that refer to source material that they produced, then I'm taking the epistemically responsible path of arguing logic out of that knowledge. The difference between me and you is that you just have opinions, you think you know best, but have little to no foundation for that logic. The same goes for every other person who does the same. Armchair experts are called that based on them thinking they know best. The reasonable thinker, however, never position themselves to know past their own knowledge and instead include the consensus of experts into the arguments. So you are comparing apples to oranges while you don't understand the difference.

And yet...you are still posting. Most of your rant is fully applicable to you as well eh. Or is that another irrelevant detail that you will overlook in defense of your position? — Book273

Read above.

It is refreshing to hear someone actually come out and just say that people should not make their own decisions and just follow the leader, because the leader knows best. Appallingly ignorant and short sighted, but refreshing none-the-less. — Book273

Again, read what the fuck I'm actually writing. What "leader" are you referring to? If you're gonna strawman the argument at least try to talk about something I actually write.

There would be no United States if people had listened to what you are pushing. No one can rebel in your philosophy of obedience. How dreary. — Book273

Oh, another unrelated comparison. Read what I fucking wrote stupid.

You have yet to specify when I claimed any sort of conspiracy theory. Still waiting on that. — Book273

That WHO or other public health has a hidden agenda of some sort:

You are clinging to the premise that public health is entirely correct and that they are completely trustworthy. — Book273

I don't buy into the sales pitch. A lot of us that work in healthcare don't, no matter how much that may shock you. At the end of the day I am very glad you don't make the rules I have to live by. — Book273

That you don't recognize what's a conspiracy theory or not is not surprising as it's exactly how those things go.

I have given examples of when public health has had less than scientific approaches; if you want solid examples of this, look them up. — Book273

And I answered you on that, they are irrelevant comparisons to modern public health, read what is written.

At no point have I suggested any conspiracy theory, that is all you. If you disagree with this claim then it should be easy to locate exactly where I claim a conspiracy is underway. Don't paraphrase: quote me. — Book273

I did and your examples I have also countered, you just ignore it, you ignore the simple logic I provided to counter it and you don't care. So stop spamming the same thing over and over.

It is unfortunate that to every example I have given to support my position you counter with some version of "irrelevant." or "prove it". — Book273

Because you need to fucking prove your point dumbass. And you cannot just dismiss the counterarguments you get and just spam the same thing over and over. The reason that they are irrelevant is that they have no internal logic to them, they are just loose connections between historical events and totally different practices of public health today, especially in nations that collaborate with other nations.

You just say things, you claim something and when asked to support it you draw loose connections that are irrelevant. Get educated.

Also, I am not yelling at you, nor swearing, nor seeking the moderator to intervene on my behalf, nor am I questioning your place on this forum. — Book273

Why would you? I've provided tons of logical arguments and links to facts etc. You just say things and you get posts removed by moderators on the basis of your posts being low quality. It's not like I argue about your place on this forum because I can't argue against you, it's that I argue against you and you just don't care to provide any logical follow up to those counterarguments, you spam the same thing again and the low quality of your posts (referring to the specifications in the rules of this forum) implies that you simply don't belong here. Either you step up and increase the quality of your arguments or you leave and join a forum without these kinds of guidelines. If you cannot understand this simple fact then, of course, you don't understand why I question your place here.

I suggest that people make up their own minds and determine their own course of action; as close to informed consent as they can achieve, and not blindly obey (unless they want to). That is all. Why this infuriates you is beyond me. People thinking for themselves should be a good thing, correct? — Book273

People are stupid, most of them have zero ability to logically conclude anything, review facts, or come to conclusions that are sound. I don't agree that people shall "make up their own minds", people should know their limits, they should know when they don't know all the facts to make a conclusion. The problem today is that people learn to value their own opinions in such narcissistic ways that they ignore every kind of method to actually arrive at any kind of truth. So no, they should not "just make up their own minds", especially during a health crisis. They should sit down and shut the fuck up and let the ones who are actual experts run the show. If they didn't care to educate themselves and take the necessary time and effort to become experts themselves, they are in no position to conclude anything if it's not logically reasonable beyond such knowledge. There are too many people thinking their opinions matter or are important, they aren't, most people don't know anything and their conclusions are laughably inaccurate. In a health crisis, that should not be a driving force, facts and science should, expertise and knowledge. "Thinking for themselves" is not equal to understanding the facts and arriving at conclusions that are sound.

People today learn that they are limitless, but the fact is most are so limited, by education or just mental capacity that they are unable to actually be of any help, and when they try to involve themselves they are mostly in the way of people far more suited for the tasks. Not because they offer help, but because their actions are actually in the fucking way of people who need to work with these things.

The amount of time and energy that people in these fields, people like scientists, researchers, medical staff, and so on, need to apply to stupid narcissists standing in their way to fix this pandemic is astonishing. Just as an example, the projected vaccination of the US is not meeting its goal because of anti-vaccine movements being strong in certain states. While all the regular, intelligent, and morally balanced people are getting vaccinated, helping each other, and push for an end to the pandemic, these fucktards and their "thinking for themselves" helps to keep this pandemic alive.

People need to understand their place. The blue-collar worker who isn't educated in medical sciences and acknowledges that they shouldn't conclude anything about that kind of science and instead listen to the consensus answer of experts is an epistemically responsible person that I look up to just as much as the highly educated scientists and researchers working in these fields. I don't like uneducated people who speak like they are the world's experts on things they don't understand even the basics of. And if they go further and acts upon that narcissistic delusion, they need to be shut down, like any other Karen on a plane. The anti-expert mentality of the last few years needs to stop.

You are clinging to the premise that public health is entirely correct and that they are completely trustworthy. Maybe they solidly believe what they are peddling. I completely understand that you believe them. — Book273

Do you have any evidence to support this claim that you cannot trust public health? You have provided nothing of the sort. As long as there's no evidence of them lying and being a propaganda machine, you are just bullshitting because you believe it is so.

However, public health in the 20's and 30's also supported eugenics as a viable heath initiative. This is true for many countries at the time. The most infamous, and the one that resulted in the end of publicly supported eugenics, were the Nazis, master race and all that. It was wrong, but at the time was a supported theory. — Book273

How are the crimes of the Nazi regime or the practice of eugenics in any way or form related to modern public health that's constantly reviewed and is consistent of thousands of individual institutes that work independently but review each other and peer-reviewing publications of others?

This is conspiracy-level bullshit premises that is in no way any evidence for WHO being a propaganda machine or conducting any of the things you speak about around the Nazi regime. Seriously.

Other initiatives also supported by public health include racially separated bathrooms (theory of the time being that non-white people spread disease), removing children from transient peoples (gypsies, etc) as transient people were clearly of lower breeding. — Book273

The same answer applies to this.

Yep there are some epic fails in the history of public health, mostly based on the politics and perspectives of the time, not based in science. — Book273

Exactly, so what politics is there that govern ALL THE DIFFERENT CDC AND WHO EQUIVALENT INSTITUTES AROUND THE WORLD? Is it not that these institutes today actually are run by scientists in global collaboration? So that no single nation governs over scientific practices or has the power to initiate unethical practices without consequences.

Your knowledge of the scientific community and world is astonishingly low.

We should question what is going on. IF the answers hold up, great. If not, following directions might not be the way to go. — Book273

You don't do any of this! You question something without even a single strand of evidence to support that critique, you just mash together Nazi public health with WHO and think that means we need to question what is going on. This is fucking conspiracy rhetoric, it's basically a textbook answer of what that is. If you want to ask the question of if WHO has hidden agendas, then you can't state that as facts or take action based on that belief, you need to gather evidence that logically, as a sum of facts, show that it is indisputably true that WHO has other agendas. If not, then you cannot and should never continue as if that belief was true. It's like basic fucking philosophy here, how to arrive at a logical conclusion.

Why are you even on this forum if this is the level of arguments you put together? It's not even close to having any rational relevence.

I would say it is because what we find intolerable, but nevertheless have to tolerate, — Cuthbert

Not in philosophy. I've been pointing this out in other threads as well. This forum is supposed to be a place that A) Tolerates almost all kinds of topics and at the same time B) Demands higher quality rhetoric and philosophical scrutiny to discuss those topics.

It's why this place doesn't have the name "Reddit" or "Facebook", "4Chan" etc. and instead is called "The Philosophy Forum". It's even in the rules of the forum that people need to have a higher level of discussion here than just normal "internet debate". It's the reason I gravitated to this place and not some other forum because I can expect better quality here. Now, sure, if it's an open forum there's always gonna end up being people joining that aren't up to this task and of course, there has to be some stretching, otherwise, it would be tediously boring... but constantly pushing unsupported conspiracy theories, extreme bias, and fallacy after fallacy should be shut down more than I experience on this forum. There are probably nutcases joining this forum every hour, but I wonder how someone gets to hundreds or thousands of posts before they get banned, get a warning, or similar.

But that's enough of that derail of this thread. Back to topic.

Really hard to prove how bad things "would have been". Everything runs on modeling and assumptions. — Book273

No, they're not. You can easily compare nations who prepared badly or who didn't have effective actions in place. Like in India where they had to burn piles of bodies because they didn't have the right precautions in place.

You are also contradicting yourself with that conclusion. Because if it's hard to prove what "would have been", then how do you know the world "would have been fine" if we didn't have the restrictions and precautions that we have right now? You're not making any sense.

I had considered running magic shop back when I had finished high school, I noticed how stressed out the other students were at exam time and figured I could sell them an amulet to wear when they wrote their exams that would make them do 20% better on the exam than if they had not worn it. At the time I thought that the placebo effect and reduced anxiety based on wearing the amulet would result in at least a 20% increase in their grade. Turns out, had I sold those items, I could have been charged with fraud, as there is no way to prove that wearing the item would have had any positive effect. When I countered with the "but just think how bad they would have done with out it." I was told that businesses that practiced that way are operating illegally and in bad faith. I find it ironic that the governments are not held to the same standard as an 18 year old entrepreneur. Apparently it's illegal for the business man but just good messaging for public health? — Book273

That's a bullshit analogy. You do know there's data and facts behind the restrictions and actions taken? It's just that you are too lazy to actually read up on those things and you compare that to yourself having an idea for fraud.

Just think, without all this...you could have died. — Book273

Yes, I could have, relatives have died of it, or I could have had severe effects, like co-workers who can barely walk 5 meters without having to catch their breath because their lungs are permanently scarred and fucked up.

You cannot conclude like that with bullshit premises.

Of course, with all this...you could still die. — Book273

Yes, but the risk is much lower. What's your point?

Huge difference. — Book273

No, it's not, you are just superbly bad at understanding basic logic.

Actually, I do. Just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand. Common mistake, surprising how common it is. — Book273

I don't care about what you think about yourself. You don't prove to us that you are educated on this matter, you don't prove you understand either the logic of what is being said or the facts that actually exist. The fact that you "don't care" already shows the level you're at.

Now, can any moderator please explain what a low-quality post is? Why are we tolerating conspiracy nuts on this forum?

So, what reason do I have for believing that the WHO is not a propaganda machine? — Janus

Maybe because there's no evidence other than conspiracy theories for it? The lack of something on their site is not "evidence" for them being a propaganda machine. You can get national data over what you are looking for if you do some digging.

Maybe you can provide evidence for why WHO is a propaganda machine instead of a global coordinator for health and medical science?

If you think they do then send me a link to the precise thing I am asking for. — Janus

Maybe the data set is too low to be able to conclude anything at this time? If you dig around in the data and reports you'll see that there's data supporting slowing the spread, even though it's not at the level of totally blocking. Then you have national reports from different CDC organizations around the world reporting on statistics of vaccine levels and change in spread rate. But since the data is still being collected, there's not finalized statement on it, just like how science should work.

In about a year...actual herd immunity. And minor population control. — Book273

Scale up the statistics and do a projected death toll and include all "long-covid" health problems that for some are permanent and you'll see that it's not a damn flu season. When people say that Covid-19 isn't that bad because we don't see any major problems in society, they seem to forget that the restrictions and actions taken have already suppressed a lot of what the virus would have caused if nothing were done. And there are further reports that herd immunity for this virus isn't as clear-cut as the uneducated critics might think. Lots of people who got the disease got it again in a short period of time and had even more severe problems the second time. And let's not forget that the Delta variant of the virus is around 70% more effective and can have even more severe effects on someone's health.

People who criticize restrictions, vaccines, and actions taken to battle this virus and its mutations don't know what the fuck they're talking about. If you aren't a researcher yourself, the only course of action is to listen to the scientists and experts in this field and gather enough data to understand the broader perspective and severity of it. You simply don't understand how to interpret data and the reports given.

A new born baby is a non-believer, and ostensibly does not get there through logic. I'm sure it's the same for many adults: they don't get to non-belief by thinking about the evidence or lack thereof - it's just default. — Down The Rabbit Hole

If you don't prime a person into a specific belief, there will not be any of that belief. If the exposure to such belief isn't present until the child is an adult, his reason and logic will at that age help to question that belief in a way that a child could never do.

The problem in this world is indoctrination from a young age. Many grow up and have to actively question everything they've been taught in order to dismiss those irrational beliefs. Since most people are biased and don't fundamentally think with reason and logic, very few wake up from that indoctrination. It is their fundamental worldview, their Plato cave.

Convincing arguments supporting theism are lacking, therefore nothing.

Convincing arguments supporting atheism are lacking, therefore nothing. — Foghorn

Reason, logic, and rationality have always pushed back theism. Whenever a "truth" in theism is debunked, theists and religious people reshape the meaning surrounding that "truth" in order to comply with newly discovered facts. By historical events alone, very much support atheism compared to theism. If we produce an argument for atheism, it's the more rational path, it's the path of reason and logic, compared to a path of pure belief. Since the burden of proof is always on the one making a claim, theists have lacking support in any argument. So atheism already have that as a supporting argument.

It's rather that theists don't accept arguments against theism. It's a common thread that theists just throw the same argument back at atheists. It's the foundation for the theist's fundamental misunderstanding and disregard for burden of proof.

There's no rational or reasonable evidence for theist's claims, therefore atheism has a higher truth value than theism since atheism is what comes out of not being able to prove the existence of God. It's the logical conclusion to the failure of rationally proving the existence of God. Without proof, atheism has the higher ground. It's the logical conclusion of burden of proof. If burden of proof is rational, then atheism, since theists need proof to claim any truth, which they don't have.

But even if they had proof, then atheism still applies, since if atheism is a lack of belief, then with proof there no longer is belief, only facts. So atheism is always higher in truth-value than theism, by the logic of their relation to each other.

Why do we have these un useful and completely meaningless brains that work for nothing the way they do - no other animals have them.
Do not say I should read phycology and stuff - because they ONLY study what is already present and there - not why it came to be... — Iris0

I already explained it in detail, if you want more detail you have to study psychology, I won't write out thousands of pages of psychology research when I've already summed it up.

And psychology doesn't just study what is going on now, it's actually the exact thing you are after. The only way to understand how we function today is to study how our intelligence evolved.

You can't just demand answers and when you get them you just repeat the questions again just because you don't understand the answers. I've summed it up and if you want to dive deeper into the science of evolution and psychology you really have to sit down and read about it.

If you don't do the work and just question the answers you get like that, then it's hopeless to try and explain further. It's all there in psychology research, buy some books!

Does still not make us understand why we have this sort of self-reflection --- what is if for? Giving us depressions? Seems very un-useful to me.
Why have we developed this faculty and this feature? — Iris0

In order to reflect upon decisions. Nothing of this is really a mystery, just study some psychology and evolution and you will have the answers there. If we don't have self-reflection, we wouldn't be able to examine the choices we've made and adjust for the future. But depressions is even more basic, even animals show characteristics of depression.

And not all aspects of either evolutionary animal features or characteristics of our intelligence are useful. You can't take an example of something that doesn't make sense for us to have and conclude that in any pro or against evolution or religious beliefs. Evolution is slow, most of humanity right now still possesses characteristics of psychology that are basically still the things we had on the savanna. A lot of stress and mental disorders today have their roots in our modern lives not being very well suited for hunter/gatherer psychology.

I suggest you study psychology, evolution, history, etc. if you want longer and more thorough answers to these questions.

then atheism is all about repeating what some guru said and no ability to think or find reasons on who or what one in reality is refuting? — Iris0

???

It can be all at once. There can be morality out of our empathy, which could be considered an objective truth of the human condition. Then there can be morality that is subjective, invented differently by different cultures, religions, and so on. And therefore much of morality becomes relative.

The hypothetical true moral system has answers for all three. It makes a synthesis of all.

See you in the gutter, we'll see if then you can still be so smugly satisfied with pointlessness. — baker

No, I'm saying I want to see if the other poster can still be so calm and confident even when he is in the gutter.

People sometimes brag that they can handle the meaniglessness of life and that they don't need crutches like religion. Sure, as long as their health and wealth are still relatively intact, that long it's fun to be a nihilist. But what happens to those people when, for one reason or another, they lose that health and wealth? — baker

This is irrelevant to the point I made, is it not? You are saying that because someone lives in the worst conditions, they will find it hard to feel meaning in anything. This is true and not something I argued against. What I said was that it is possible to accept life, nature, the universe, as it is, no more or less, and any meaning in life or to existence, can be built upon that, rather than delusions that come out of a life crisis.

So, you say that poverty and living in the gutter will make people turn to things like religion easily. This I agree with, but I'm not talking about the psychology of religious people or how people turn to it, but that it is possible to accept the pointless existence of life and the universe and still feel meaning without adding religious delusions. And people who fight against these kinds of very human tendencies (to invent unsupported explanations for things they can't explain), I find have much more strength than others to cope with life's challenges, as religious thoughts often spiral things into the nonsense that rarely pushes people out of misery. It takes a lot of willpower to not fall into delusions as a way to flee from the harsh reality of the universe and of course, that is harder the worse someone's life situation is, that is not the point.

But - if everything is (because we can imagine it to so) without goal and without any sort of meaning, and all is just due to a stochastic variable - why did we not stay apes? They do actually walk on two legs but do still not have (nor do ravens - the smartest bird (animal) alive) the capacity of abstract thought and written language what will enable them to give their knowledge to their offsprings - and they cope and live in reality - MUCH BETTER than we humans do. — Iris0

Because self-reflection and the way human psychology works make us prone to depression in entirely more complex ways than them. That things are without a goal isn't something we imagine, it's what is the most logical observation of our existence, it's a hypothesis that is the most likely because there's no evidence for there being any further meaning. Any kind of applied meaningfulness that isn't an invented meaning by us (like, the pleasure of eating ice cream during a warm day) and rather a meaning that we invent as being cosmic and outside of ourselves, is the imagination, the delusion.

We didn't stay apes because evolution developed a highly adaptable intelligence for us in order for us to survive better and hunt in packs. We developed our advanced intelligence just like a predator develops extremely sharp and clear vision in order to hunt. Our intelligence is just a fluke of evolution, nothing more. What comes after that, i.e that our intelligence starts to invent concepts of reality that can have profound effects on us, good or bad, is just the side effect of this evolutionary trait. Just like the advanced night sight of the owl doesn't work well during the day, so does our intelligence fail to work well when we are pressured into explaining something unexplainable at the time. Like when our ancestors fleed a predator and they tried to explain between them why the animal did the things they did. They could then predict what that animal would do the next time they were being hunted and easily evade it. But when a lightning strike hit and killed one in the tribe, they couldn't explain why, but their intelligence forced them to do so because that's the point of that evolutionary trait, they started forming explanations that were far away from the truth of how lightning and thunder works, because it was too complex of an event to be explained at that time and with the resources they had.

So does intelligence work today as well. People tend to be extremely biased and explain with a lot of fallacies. We have over the course of thousands of years developed methods to bypass our thought process shortcomings, this is essentially what philosophy has been doing, bypassing our tendency for jumping to conclusions. And we've felt it in the world, we can see it all around. The very existence of the technology we have is a result of us being able to figure things out instead of jumping to conclusions. Using tools of thought to help explain something past our biases and fallacies. The very fact that we write on computers right now is because of this, not because we are intelligent and could figure it out. Without any tools of thought, developed through philosophy and science, we would never have come this far as a species.

So then, why should we live life through delusions that have their roots in primal thinking, biases, and fallacies? And not find meaning through ways of bypassing delusions and our intelligence shortcomings? This is what I'm talking about, that delusions are for people who give up on finding meaning in things as they are and instead need to apply fantasy to the universe in order to feel happy. Religion and belief is a drug to block the truth of reality. It takes effort and willpower to see things purely as they are, and even more to find meaning in the pointlessness of everything. But the opposite is just opium for the mind and soul, it can comfort, but is essentially a lie.

The modern definition of 'rationalism' is 'provable by empirical science' or mathematicazation of same. Basically it always comes down to one or another form of positivism. The Greek rationalist tradition started with Parmenides, and was utterly different to what is nowadays known as 'rationalism'. In fact, scientific rationalism is irrational, in that it disposes with any notion of purpose, telos, the why of existence. — Wayfarer

But none of that has to do with what I pointed out.

And if your argument isn't really in opposition to what I said, but rather stating a new argument about the nature of living as I described it and that one cannot live by rationality, reason, and logic as a foundation because you lose the "why" of existence, any sense of telos, then that is simply wrong.

It is entirely possible to find meaning in the things that purely are, the exact nature of everything, without applying any further concepts to it in order to sense a meaning. You can absolutely accept that our existence is basically meaningless, absolutely pointless, but still invent a why your existence is meaningful to you rooted in what already exists, in of itself.

The struggle to find a "why" of existence is futile if that search is trying to externalize the meaning of our existence. To invent a God, or being that can answer us why, and to imagine an answer that will be understandable to all at the end of time. It is basically just a psychological life crisis that takes shape in such a futile attempt to desperately find meaning. There's absolutely nothing in the universe observed so far to suggest or hint at any such cosmic meaning of existence.

The problem is that people are psychologically unable to accept the disappointing truth of existence, so they invent a comfort, a drug, a blanket to hide under so as to not have to deal with such a cosmic horror of pointlessness. But the biggest problem with this isn't that everything is pointless, it's that few attempts are made to be satisfied, ok with this fact, and find meaning in the truth and existential situation that purely is as it is. The world is what it is, existence is no more or less than what you can experience through life. So find meaning in the things that do exist, in the intoxication of fantasy, art, imagination, without deluding such ideas to be true, a world within that is limitless, without having any cosmic meaning in of itself.

I can look up at the night sky, understand that all of it is pointless, that it's just physics and chemistry producing all of what I see, and I can still be in awe, without having to bullshit any of it and apply delusions upon it in order to feel a sense of meaning. For me, it's pointless to muddy the sense of reality more than it already is with our limited senses of perception. If the line between what is true, or likely, and our fantasy, imagination, and art is blurred, we get delusions of existence.

Living with rationality, reason and logic as the foundation, means living with an exact line drawn so as to not be deluded by concepts that are closer to madness (by the definition of the word) than reality.

Let's hope so for all our sakes. — Tom Storm

*sigh*

II was expecting this. — Tom Storm

I am not bashing on Buddhism. In any sense, for me as an atheist, it's the only major religion close to any rationality in the world today.

But it is still a religion, with practices that can come in conflict with pure reason and rationality. Like, reincarnation, how do we combine that with atheism?



I'm trying to get some clarifications on the definitions people have, because I think there's no point in trying to argue about theism and atheism when people have muddy definitions in the first place.

If you want to mock me then go ahead, that would just clarify your level in this discussion.

I suggest you read about secular humanism, this is the worldview you seem to have in mind. — Tom Storm

Yes, I know that. I'm trying to find out how people define atheism when it seems possible to believe in something that is by all definitions a God, but the only thing that is different is that they claim it not to be a God, even though everything about it is.

Buddhism is often described as an atheistic religion. — Tom Storm

Yes, but do you see the apparent contradiction in such a description?

A theist. — Tom Storm

But by the definition that an atheist can hold different belief systems, just that they share the lack of belief in God or Gods, then an atheist with a belief system around that example who just reject the idea that it is a God, can't be an atheist, but theist, right?

How then can we have atheists with different belief systems? Isn't everything collapsing into pure semantics with no clear meaning of any definitions?

American Atheists definition of atheism:
Atheism is one thing: A lack of belief in gods. It is simply a rejection of the assertion that there are gods.

The only common thread that ties all atheists together is a lack of belief in gods. Some of the best debates we have ever had have been with fellow atheists. This is because atheists do not have a common belief system — Tom Storm

So a Buddhist atheist can therefore exist? Or someone believing there's a quantum-entity-cat flowing through the Higgs boson field is also an atheist because that's not directly a God?

If I reject any kind of belief that isn't supported, reject belief systems all-together other than a supported belief that can be rationally justified, i.e a hypothesis, what am I?

If I have a belief in an entity that is responsible for creating everything, starting the universe, a guardian of the world and universe, but I absolutely won't call it a "God" and do not accept anyone claiming my belief in such an entity is a belief in God, what am I?

Your definition is more of an ideal atheist: as you see it. — Tom Storm

I'm not only questioning theist's perspective and straw-manning of atheism, I'm also questioning many atheist's perspectives on defining it. If atheism is only about a lack of belief in a God or Gods, then what do you call them who lack belief in any superstition, supernatural, ghosts, fortune-telling or whatever fantasy you can come up with? Atheism is the closest definition of such a person and dividing it into "normal" atheists that can include absolute superstitious fanatics, with "ideal" atheists that are more close to the core of what atheism should be defined as, muddies the water and makes it very unclear as to how the opposing worldviews between atheism and theism work.

If we are talking about defining a concept, there are no real facts other than how society decides to define a concept. There's no "fact" that atheism is defined in a certain way, and possible it is defined differently in a heavily religious nation compared to a secular one. Dictionaries change all the time through cultural movements. When atheism was coined as a term, there was pretty much only the dichotomy of belief in God and a lack of belief in God. Today, if someone puts down tarot cards, starts fortune-telling in coffee stains, and wants to eat dirt to heal her aura, I don't think such a person can be attributed with the definition of atheist, regardless of what not-up-to-date dictionaries outlines.

A no true Scotsman fallacy happens when someone hears a description of the characteristics of X and argues that 'they're are not X' (because the description doesn't suit the person's preferred understanding and argument). — Tom Storm

So how do you define someone who is living by reason, rationality, facts of the world, and logic? As opposed to living with pure unsupported belief? Because if we go by your loose definitions, then you are putting me in the same category as some lunatic fortune-teller. And sure, by self-reflection, I'm doing it to, lumping together believers in God with everyone else who has an unsupported belief.

What's the answer to this? If atheism and theism aren't broad opposing concepts then how do we broadly define what you define as an ideal atheist? I make a clear separation between atheism and theism and any other unsupported belief. It makes the arguments clear.

The reason I don't think the Scotsman fallacy applies is that an atheist who believes in other supernatural things or even gods that are not part of any live religion today is much closer to theism and those belief systems. They use the same kind of arguments, the same kind of justification for their beliefs. And even if we define atheism by the classic "lack of belief in God" then how can we have belief systems within atheism that are just as unsupported as in that classical definition?

An ideal atheist is the norm definition of an atheist.

Imagine that all current religions go out of fashion, they become dead religions, and a thousand years from now we have a new religion with a new "God". If Atheism is only defined in relation to current Gods, then atheism can't exist as a concept in opposition to that new religion.

And what about Buddhism? There are no Gods there, but it's still in opposition with atheism. An atheist Buddhist doesn't exist. So how do you define an atheist in relation to Buddhism?

I'll remind you of what you said: — Tom Storm

I know what I said, and just as a racist saying "I'm not a racist", a person saying "I'm an atheist" and then lays tarot cards and start talking in tongues because they think there's an entity flowing through the quantum realm, is not an atheist. You misuse the Scotsman fallacy. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/no-true-scotsman

I have clearly defined the line where you go from atheism to something else. So I'm not shifting any goalposts (like described in the link), I'm stating that any unsupported belief in entities, gods, supernatural, superstitious, or whatever unsupported belief you can think of, adheres more to theism than atheism. And that dismissing any unsupported belief that can't be justified with reason, rationality, and logic adheres to atheism.

You don't own the definition of atheism. If someone says they are an atheist and they don't believe in god, they are an atheist. Period. They may be an untheorized atheist, but so what? Atheism may have an ideal form (humanism and skepticism) but that's not what we were talking about. — Tom Storm

What does this have to do with "owning" a definition? I criticize a muddy definition that incorporates new agers and other wackos into the same category as atheists. As I said: if someone says "I'm no racist" when they clearly are, they are still a racist. People can say that they are whatever they want, but having a quantum-squid-entity worshipper who lays tarot cards call themselves an atheist becomes absurd.

To say that someone can call themselves whatever they want is not an argument in this discussion, it has nothing to do with the points I'm making. If we are to have a discussion about atheism, it has to be clearly defined. I don't think aunt Clarice with her "cat god of venus" applies to atheism and using her will to claim herself to be an atheist has no relevance.

About 50% of atheists I have met at freethinkers forums/events over 40 years and the like have no or little interest in logical foundations. They may be inchoate but they are still atheists. I was an atheist for 20 years before I ever examined reason and logic. — Tom Storm

It's not about an active or conscious way of using reason and logic as a calculus during the waking hours. The reason, rationality, and logic I talk about are how you approach everyday stuff with skepticism, with a clear opposition towards believing anything at face value. If an atheist didn't live by this, they would start to believe things that are unsupported, including the supernatural. It's not about "interest in logic", it's about the inner workings of an atheist's thought process. It's that if someone claims something, the atheist doesn't just nod and accept it as true, the foundational thought process questions everything until there's evidence or logic behind a claim.

Having a debate about why so many atheists are not philosophically inclined and can't really justify their atheism might be a more rewarding line to follow. — Tom Storm

Justify what? That I deny the truth value of any claim that doesn't have a rational, logical foundation for it? I justify myself as an atheist by not accepting anything as true or likely to be true just because someone say it is.

Sure, you have a point that I might create a concept of the ideal atheist, but there's no clear definition of what a person who lack unsupported belief is. And that kind of person is by definition an atheist anyway. So even if there's something added to include the lack of any kind of unsupported belief, not just in "God", that person is still at the foundation, an atheist. I just don't agree that aunt Clarice and her cat God can call herself an atheist, it's very much far from what defines an atheist.

An appeal to authority from a fundamentalist atheist.
No priestly irony here! — Trinidad

Please continue with the low-quality posts. You add nothing to the discussion and no real counterarguments. I refer you to previously written posts to produce some valid counter arguments before putting in any more time on your discussion.

Words words words. — Trinidad

I thought that was your thing... just words, no substance, logic or meaning.

Why would I want to? — counterpunch

So your counterargument is that you don't want to? The point is that burden of proof is on the one claiming something. You claim the existence of God, then the burden of proof is on you. If you don't even know Russell's teapot I understand why you are confused, but it proves my point even better. In contemporary philosophy, theism is a joke. The scrutiny required for the level of philosophy done today requires much more than theists can manage to provide.

I'm asking how you prove reason is true?
You haven't shown reason is superior to experience. You have just listed some assertions.
Logic rests on non provable axioms. Its just that you feel they are justified. Same as religion. From feelings. — Trinidad

Can we have the moderators check for low-quality posts? I'm not sure how to define it anymore.

Nietzsche was wrong. Nihilism is false. Man in a state of nature was not an amoral, self serving brute - and we can know this because our species survived, generation after generation, raising children - for millions of years. Homo sapiens is a moral creature. — counterpunch

I didn't say he was right, psychology has already proven basic morality can arise without any religion or heavy rationalization about ethics. Why I brought up his fear of nihilism is that theists usually show this fear. It's why they always bring up Lenin and Stalin as (ridiculous) examples of how atheism fails as a foundation. The core is that nihilism out no belief and faith leads to murder. It's the same reason why pseudo-philosophers like Jordan Peterson claim that a true atheist is a murderer because he has no morals.

I used it as an example of the absurdity that theists possess when fearing a world built on atheism.

Faith is required because of the social significance of the concept; not because of its apparent truth or eminent provability. Indeed, religion seems to go out of its way to stretch credulity! Why? Because belief serves a purpose - and arguably, it's an important purpose that's been displaced without being replaced. — counterpunch

It has no or serves any purpose anymore. This is the point. In a large society where there are no clear explanations for anything and moral philosophy isn't a thing, there has to be some kind of agreement between people to follow or for them to explain things that force great sorrows onto them. So it makes sense how religion starts, but that doesn't mean it has any purpose existing when rational reasoning and logic have taken its place. We don't need religion to explain things anymore, so the purpose of religion is gone now. We can use methods from religion, such as meditation, as there are physical effects on our well-being that we get out of it, but the faith and belief are gone. It has no meaning when we have other methods and tools to explain the unexplainable or can be calm in accepting something as unknown until we know more.

The only purpose of belief is the psychological factor, how it can calm certain people. But I can't see how that can't be replaced by meditation and other forms of practice. Most of the time, people who need the relief of faith just have bad mentors who can't articulate support or guidance without the concept of faith intertwined.

It's not that I disagree; per se - but would just point out that humankind is barrelling toward extinction — counterpunch

By what measurement are we doing that? Apart from insane politicians with the hand on the button and capitalist scumbags who rather burn the world for a profit, there's little to support the world getting worse. Quality of life is increasing around the world. To say that humankind is barrelling toward extinction needs some supporting data.

Their way of life is sustainable, while ours isn't. And that unsustainability, I would argue - is the consequence of a mistaken relationship between religion and science, that is in turn the author of your mistaken relationship to God. — counterpunch

Unsupported assumptions. Where's the data that they would survive and we won't? And why would that have anything to do with a relationship between science and religion? Nothing of what you write here has any substance, it's just "end is nigh" speculation without substance.

Given apparent design in nature, God is a credible hypothesis explaining existence; the first cause argument is about as reasonable as, and not exclusive of the big bang. — counterpunch

Oh no, the old first cause argument. It's disproven all the time without theists caring for the lack of logic. First cause doesn't point to any God at all. It points to there being a starting point, something that kickstarted the dominos, but that could be an interdimensional rock of unknown material as well, which is as far from "God" as you can get. And you explain nature as designed and therefor there must be a God and... got damn it, there's no logic here, there's nothing to support any of what you are writing now and you're just proving my point of the illogical fallacy and biased nature of theists. It's not philosophy, it's a mockery of philosophy to just puke words about connections between nature and God and first cause.

I don't have to make an argument anymore you are proving my point yourself.

Epistemically, you'd be agnostic with regard to the validity of the hypothesis - whereas, you positively claim to know there's no God. — counterpunch

There's a teapot between Mercury and Venus and you can't prove me wrong! And if you can't prove me wrong then I am right. Why are we still tolerating this kind of stupidity in philosophy? I don't know. The burden of proof is on you to prove God's existence. I cannot have a burden of proof to disprove something that isn't first proven. I must provide evidence for a teapot between Venus and Mercury before I can claim it to be true, and then you have the burden of proof to prove that wrong. But I can't demand that you need to disprove me if I've provided no proof to you. This is like kindergarten-level philosophy. This is why I can't take theists seriously and why I don't think theism should be considered philosophy, it disregards everything that is a foundation for philosophical praxis, and for some unknown reason, it is tolerated. For me, this is all evangelistic nonsense that has no place in contemporary philosophy. Let the theists play in their bubble called something else than philosophy.

The proof from epistemology that justifies reason as being true. — Trinidad

"Justifies reason as being true"? Why are you changing the meaning of what I write? What truth?

You asked:

Where is the logic and reason to prove that logic and reason are better than experience and belief

Whenever you go into epistemology and ask if belief and experience are superior to logic and reason, how would you create such an argument? If you claim this, then please make an epistemological argument in support of it.

let's go

p1. Unsupported belief leads to more unknown consequences.
p2 Supported belief leads to more known consequences.
p3 Unknown consequences have a higher tendency for suffering.
p4 Known consequences have a higher tendency to suppress suffering.

Conclusion: Unsupported beliefs have a higher tendency to cause suffering. Supported beliefs have a higher tendency to suppress suffering.

We could go on with arguments like this but the point is that if you go through epistemological philosophy, there's little support for belief and experience as being superior sources for any kind of decision. It's like basic philosophy to know this. It flows through epistemology, ethics, metaphysics. It's the most foundational idea in philosophy, the foundation for deduction, induction etc. There's rarely any room for belief and experience in any philosophical arguments because they are essentially biases and fallacies at their core.

Please prove that human reason is qualified to meaningfully address the very largest of questions. Thank you. — Foghorn

Human reason is how we know facts about the world and universe, the very reason you are able to write on a machine right now is because of this. The proof is in the pudding, in the very existence of humanity's achievements. None of this is a result of religion or belief, they're a result of logic, reason, inventions through science.

So if that is true, which we have the world around as proof for, then if we ask what has the highest potential to answer or address the largest of questions we have, is that then religion, belief, and faith? By any logic of this, no. People can find comfort in religion and faith, but not address the questions in any knowledgeable way.

As an example, the nature of life, evolution, physics, and how the universe works are major, huge questions that for many thousands of years were only explained by religion. But with general relativity, Darwin and with modern experiments and tests confirming them over and over, we have essentially answered a lot of questions that were once "large".

So, is human reason, logic etc. qualified to meaningfully address the very largest of questions? If by meaningful you mean to comfort you, no, fantasies and fairy tales can do that if you don't find meaning in truth and facts, but for anyone that finds meaning in truth and facts, yes, it is absolutely superior to any reasoning through religion or faith. It's what much of the world we live in is built upon.

Faith doesn't start my electric car. It doesn't achieve major shifts in the quality of life. The house I live in is a result of many hundred years of innovation based in reasoning and my good quality of life is a result of all of that, not religion. By answering some of the largest questions, we also produce meaningful consequences for our lives.

So, please disprove and then prove that religion does the same. Especially in regard to how institutionalized religion fought back against human innovation and rational thought until the enlightenment era started to give them the middle finger.

So any epistemological proofs for reason? — Trinidad

What proof are you talking about? You asked if there were anything that "examines" reason and logic, if that is the foundation for atheism. And the answer is epistemology. What proof is it you are after?

This was site of Nietzsche's 'inversion of values' - not the strong fooled by the weak, but a translation from morality inherent to the structural relations of the kinship tribe, to objectivised social values, attributed to God. Thus, the natural obligation upon anyone hacking away at the pillars of moral authority is that they have some adequate alternative - and this politically correct secular relativism is neither one thing nor another. — counterpunch

Nietzsche's inversion of values refers to how Christianity reverses the natural into the opposite. It stems from his contempt for Christianity. Stating the moral system is based on "the contempt of man". The fear I'm referring to is the fear that when a structural moral system is dismantled, however faulty it is, will eventually create a great nihilism within the people if they do not actively examine ethics and form new systems in its place. And what have we've been doing throughout the 20th century? It's exactly this. It was even fueled by the examination of moral decay in Nazi Germany. Almost the entire part of post-WWII philosophy around ethics has revolved around figuring that shit out.

I would raise Stalin and Mao as examples of atheist societies butchering their populations on a scale that make Hitler look like an amateur genocidal nutter! Exactly that, and they're actual examples - to compare to your purely hypothetical atheist societies, you claim are always more peaceful. Would you care to name these havens of veritable enlightenment? — counterpunch

Here comes the classic guilt by association that is such a drag to always have to explain. The Stalins and Lenins and communist leaders who conducted murder and terror on their people did so under a kind of religious worship of themselves. They didn't build upon an atheist foundation, they built their society around themselves. These are dictators who don't have much to do with Marxism or atheism. Narcissistic personalities who brainwashed their people into a pseudo-religious politic surrounding themselves as deities. Much like how North Korea and Kim Jong Un act right now. I don't see much atheism going around these people. The only thing is that they don't have any old religions present, but that's not the same as an atheistic foundation for their society. I even touched upon this in this very thread in a previous post that you might have missed.

Would you care to name these havens of veritable enlightenment? — counterpunch

So this becomes the guilt by association. The classic theist argument that because they claimed to be atheists or built upon it, therefor atheistic societies are evil. It's a stupefyingly bad conclusion that is a giant fallacy. Check how heavily secular societies in the world today fare against heavily religious ones, there's your answer and data.

I have the data on my side of this argument.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-secular-life/201410/secular-societies-fare-better-religious-societies

As University of London professor Stephen Law has observed, “if declining levels of religiosity were the main cause of…social ills, we should expect those countries that are now the least religious to have the greatest problems. The reverse is true."

That's some myopic logic, don't you think? I cannot accept that's how this question presents itself to people. I think maybe, that's how you post-rationalise your deeper motives, but I cannot imagine someone becoming familiar with epistemology and logic, before encountering the concept of God, and so concluding "the burden proof is with the theist, and that shall be an end of the matter!" Well, it's not the end of the matter because God is a concept that serves a wider social and political purpose - and logic aside, it's probably not wise to undermine that concept without even understanding its function! — counterpunch

The burden of proof is on the one making the claim. Otherwise I will, in classic terms, claim there's a teapot revolving around the sun between Venus and Mercury. You can't say there's not, you have to prove there's no teapot there! Burden of proof is on the one claiming something, claiming gods existence needs to be proven, the burden of proof is still on theists making claims that they can't prove. This is basic stuff.

I cannot imagine someone becoming familiar with epistemology and logic, before encountering the concept of God — counterpunch

Not in nations that are heavily religious, which I would say even the US is considered to be. In nations like Sweden, many grow up secular, without any concepts of God other than fairy tale concepts of the bible in the same manner as pantheon stories of the Greeks. So what you imagine is irrelevant, we have secular nations in the world where God isn't as common as in religious countries so the concepts in epistemology can definitely come before any concept of God. What you describe is just a projection of your own situation, not the truth.

Well, it's not the end of the matter because God is a concept that serves a wider social and political purpose - and logic aside, it's probably not wise to undermine that concept without even understanding its function! — counterpunch

I understand its function, where it comes from, how religion and belief evolved, but God and religion is still irrelevant to humanity if we have good non-religious ethics system in place (which we have) and live our lives with self-reflection, skepticism, and a sense of logic and rational reasoning.

The concept of it being necessary is only true for those who cannot imagine a society without it. But some people live their life without it, both on the micro and macro level. This is an undeniable fact. I live my life like this, I have friends living their life like this, and Sweden is considered a secular nation with a very high quality of life. Compare that to heavily religious nations in the world. Check the link I provided.

It's not wise to overvalue the importance of religion without knowing how secular and less religious societies fare.

Where is the epistemological justification for rationality? — Trinidad

Epistemology is reasoning and logically examining the nature of knowledge and how to know. It was an answer to this:

Where is the logic and reason to prove that logic and reason are better than experience and belief — Trinidad

In epistemology, that's much of what the main questions are about. It examines how we know things, how we can be certain. In any attempt, within an epistemological discussion, to try and justify experience and belief as being superior to reason and logic, it fails. It's the answer to your question.

Have you not read your plato? The meno? — Trinidad

Have you read any of the philosophers past the enlightenment era?

Epistemology has no foundations,no conclusions. So you just have faith in reason.
In reality you are worshipping the ideological biographies of dead philosophers. — Trinidad

You make no sense now. I question how much you actually know about philosophy.

Epistemology you say? Is there any agreement or conclusions in that field of philosophy?
If not,your whole post is moot.
And to be honest,you sound just as dogmatic and ill informed as a fundamentalist. — Trinidad

I don't see an argument here? Just, "oh, you don't have any answers within epistemology, so you are wrong", and "you are just an ill-informed fundamentalist."

I don't care how I sound or people view me. Make your argument.

You are committing the no true Scotsman fallacy. — Tom Storm

You don't seem to know what the true Scotsman fallacy is. If I define atheism as having a foundation of logic and rational reasoning instead of just a lack of belief in God, that incorporates everyone with a belief that doesn't have a logical foundation for it. Hence, it includes these people. The Scotsman fallacy is if I just say "they aren't true atheists" and don't provide any foundation for that claim, which I have.

Atheism is without theism. It says nothing about any other irrational beliefs the person might hold. — Tom Storm

"It says"? What says? The dictionary? If I question the common definition or layman definition of atheism as being incomplete and include all types of belief and not just God in the equation, then who cares what "it says". I say, I question and I argued for it. What you do is the same kind of "bible says" argument here. But about atheism.

The ideal atheist may well be someone who privileges reason and holds to no superstition but that is a wholly separate matter. — Tom Storm

The ideal atheist is in my argument the normal atheist. People are prone to label themselves however they want. But if someone says they're now an atheist when stopping to worship god but starts to worship dead deities, new age, or fortune-telling, they are not really doing anything but replacing one faith with another. It doesn't work when defining what atheism is.

Most of the critiques of religion arise right out of a moralism which was given to western culture by the Jews. The Christians then became the leading salesmen of such moralism (not to be confused with being morally superior). So many atheists think they can just pull the plug and walk away from these thousands of years of history. It doesn't work that way. — Foghorn

No, they can't, we all live under the weight of history, good or bad. But what does that prove? You basically just say that we are a product of history. Ok, so what? Doesn't mean that moral philosophy isn't better than morality from a religious text. It more or less means that we ditch the books and find out for real what was good or bad in old teachings, or invent new ones where bad and old ones lacked.

But I can't stop thinking like a Catholic, that is, being interested in the kinds of things Catholics are interested in (thus my comments here) because that doesn't arise from my personal choice, but from many centuries of Catholic DNA up my family tree. That's built in. We don't just turn it off with the flip of a switch. — Foghorn

This I absolutely agree with. This is why I think it's good that the bloody history of religion is going out the door so that new generations can grow out without being programmed into this. But it also doesn't mean that we lose history. We can find interest in the old pantheons of the greek and those stories fine, we can find the pantheon of the Edda to be wonderful, without having belief in those things. The same is true about Christianity, Islam etc. Nothing of these religions will be lost, or erased. I think that we might even have more appreciation for the cultural mark on history if we leave the faith behind. I'm neither Christian or Muslim, but when I was in the Anna Sofia mosque in Istanbul, it was a profound experience seeing Christian and Islam design and art in that vast architecture. The experience can be enormous even if faith and belief in God is gone.

Except, if you are an atheist, your life is not based on logic and reason. At least not that part of it.

Atheism is not reason. Atheism is an ideology which competes with religious ideology. — Foghorn

Ok, explain how I cannot live my life like this, this will be interesting. Because I'm very well acquainted with self-reflection. Shoot.