Comments

  • Does theism ultimately explain anything?
    ↪Janus
    Yes, and a known brute fact (e.g. "BB") is far more informative than an unknowable brute fact (e.g. "God"), so by abduction we drop the "Goddidit" story.
  • What is pessimism?
    So, can I have the realistic outlook of pessimism without the maladaptive beliefs and behavior? — Shawn
    Of course. They are not necessarily related.
  • What is pessimism?
    ↪Shawn
    What do you mean? I don't thlnk "want" has anything to do with this.
  • We Are Math?
    ↪Art48
    More or less.
  • What is pessimism?
    Yes, where are we to demarcate between philosophical pessimism, which isn't a reflexive attitude, or disposition and the generic pessimism of resignation or lack that one feels in life? — Shawn
    Where's the demarcation between becoming an adult and being a child? The latter is regulated by feelings (impulses) and the former by reasons (judgment). One may accompany the other but I don't think they entail each other.
  • Atheism and Lack of belief
    BS reactions such as:
    anglican samizdat.     — universeness
    Pure BS. We're all "open" to such "reactions" no matter how loose or rigorous our arguments. I prefer sublime cathartic or ecstatic to the more ambiguous terms "numinous" or "transcendent", but in the contexts which The Hitch had used them I think his irreligious meaning was clear enough.
  • What is pessimism?
    ↪Shawn

    Pessimism ... simply a rationalization (à la hypochondria) for coping with ineluctable frustrations (i.e. facticity). — 180 Proof
    I.e. begins as a disposition and maybe develops into a 'reflective' outlook / stance. Other old posts on 'pessimism', etc ...

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/578692

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/511013

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/346776
  • We Are Math?
    Does is make sense that mathematical functions SUBSIST outside spacetime?
    — Art48
    Does it make sense to you now?     — Art48
    No. "Outside spacetime" is as incoherent as north of the North Pole. And to subsist is to be thought by minds which are, as I've pointed out already, embodied spatiotemporally; so the question remains doubly nonsensical to me.
  • Atheism and Lack of belief
    ↪universeness
    The Hitch makes polemical points (rather than philosophical arguments) for irreligion, so his "numinous" gambit worked fine in those public debate performances.
  • Atheism and Lack of belief
    ↪Tom Storm
    :cool:

    How can you disbelieve in something you have heard of with out any reasons? — Andrew4Handel
    Wtf. Now you're moving goal-posts. :roll:

    A definition of X is one thing and argument for X something else altogether.
  • Dualism and the conservation of energy
    ↪universeness
    :clap: :cool:
  • Atheism and Lack of belief
    I know you find postmodernism's approach problematic, but what is your response to this argument [ ... ] — Tom Storm
    I don't read an "argument" here but instead an "aesthetic appeal to 'aesthetic appeal'" for its own sake. Chasing – sniffing – one's own tail.

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

    Smith, my point is: disbelief is a mode of active belief and not a passive "lack of belief" as @Andrew4Handel's thread's title (OP) suggests.
  • Atheism and Lack of belief
    Once atheism makes claims about wider issues such as [ ... ] etc. — Andrew4Handel
    Stop with this strawman. Atheism does not make any "claims". Atheism is disbelief in god/s. Period.

    The idea is once you abandon religion the only other option is to be a materialist atheist reliant only on science.
    An incoherent idea. Idealists like Schopenhauer who are also avowed irreligious atheists expose this (your) patently false dichotomy (which I'd previously pointed out to you at the end of this post
    ↪180 Proof
    ).

    ↪busycuttingcrap
    :up:
  • The best arguments again NDEs based on testimony...
    ↪busycuttingcrap
    :up:
  • We Are Math?
    Does it make sense to you that our deepest description of matter is the wavefunction? — Art48
    "Deepest description" so far ... Why wouldn't that "make sense"?

    Does it make sense that the wavefunction is a mathematical function?
    This question, Art, doesn't make much sense. What else would / should "the wavefunction" be if not a mathematical function?

    Does is make sense that mathematical functions exists outside spacetime?
    Another incoherent question. Abstract objects subsist in minds and minds exist – are embodied – spatiotemporally.
  • Atheism and Lack of belief
    Loving god is faith/spirituality — Gregory
    Accordingly, I am in no way (I never have been) ... spiritual. Music is "my religion".
  • Atheism and Lack of belief
    ↪Gregory
    What do you mean by "spirituality"?
  • Atheism and Lack of belief
    I do believe we need hope — Andrew4Handel
    Why do you believe that?

    It actually seems impossible to know what beliefs we should have and there appears to be no right answer about how to live our lives.
     
    This is definitely the case only in the absence of thinking critically and much lived experience.

    I also think a lot of atheists seem to take for granted ...
    Stereotyping "atheists" says much more about what you lazily take for granted than what you "think" says about them. :roll:
  • Brains
    Some brains get caught up in the modelling process to the extent that they lose the distinction between the model and reality. In particular, they mistake the 'I' of the model for the real organism. Such is the human condition and universal delusion. — unenlightened
    :up: :up:
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    It shows us how to think about science, maybe — unenlightened
    Science show us how to think about nature and to correct our 'common sense', which can help one adaptively discern how to live.
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    ↪unenlightened
    Well, science does show us how to think.
  • How does ethics manifest in behavior?
    You probably noticed by now that I don’t subscribe to pragmatism or utilitarianism in ethics. I do get the attraction, however. It does seem easier. But I don’t think it can achieve anything more than assessing or justifying the rationality of behaviour AFTER the fact. — Possibility
    In other words, "anything more than" learning (developing more adaptive habits) – a feature in my book, not a bug.
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    Science wins because the magic works. Making wine from grape juice works; making wine from water does not. — unenlightened
    :smirk: :up:

    But notoriously, science cannot tell us how to live, only expand our options.
    Neither can "religion", which has only ever told us how to tribally conform, servilely obey & scapegoat "others".

    ↪universeness
    :clap: :strong:
  • We Are Math?
    reality—that me, you, Earth, universe, etc.—is fundamentally some sort of abstract object existing outside spacetime. — Art48
    This makes no sense to me. A category error at least. "Existing" north of the North Pole ... :roll:

    If this is actually the case, however, I also don't see what non-trivial difference being "fundamentally some sort of abstract object" would make with respect to (our) human existence (pace M. Tegmark).
  • Atheism and Lack of belief
    'absolute certainty' is itself a kind of god — Tom Storm
    :up:
  • Atheism and Lack of belief
    ↪Andrew4Handel
    I believe that there isn't any God or gods.

    Some atheists attack agnostics because they claim there are good grounds to reject the idea of God. — Andrew4Handel
    I think there are "good grounds to reject the" truth-claims of theism.

    ↪Tzeentch
    Nonsense. Neither belief nor knowledge requires – presupposes – "certainty".
  • Atheism and Lack of belief
    ↪Andrew4Handel
    What about 'I believe that there isn't any God or gods'? Unambiguous disbelief.
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    ↪universeness
    :up:
  • How does ethics manifest in behavior?
    ↪Tom Storm
    :smirk:
  • How does ethics manifest in behavior?
    ↪Agent Smith
    :up:
    I would answer that question put to Bertrand Russell more or less the same way he does but with slight variations: (1) intellectually trust nothing but publicly accessible evidence and sound reasoning; (2) morally practice Hillel the Elder's principle: "What you find hateful (or harmful), do not do to anyone."
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    ↪Hanover
    'Tis the season. :halo: :victory:
    Shadowbox with strawmen to your heart's content. *Reason's Greetings*
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    ↪Hanover
    :lol:

    In a world of 8 billion people, Judaism as a whole has about 15 million followers and the "Reformed Judaism" movement only has a little over 2 million followers. Not a major world religion.

    While Christiianity is a major world religion, with over 2.3 billion followers, the Christian sect of "Unitarianism", with under 1 million followers globally, constitutes a statistically insignificant fringe.

    And Buddhism, with over a half bilion followers worldwde, is a major world religion which, in most of its sects that I'm aware of, traffics in two or more of the common failings of religion I've mentioned: "idols, superstition, conformity or scapegoating".

    So far, Hanover, your examples suck.
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    Science can also give, and has given, a lot of brand new reasons for fear. — Vera Mont
    We can always act with courage when confronting that which we have "reasons for fear" (risk :chin:); it's the lack of "reasons" that paralyzes us with fear (terror), crippling denial and fetishizing infantilizing superstitions (e.g. religion :pray:). Reasoned fears are far more adaptive than the unreasoned fears from the childhood of our species.

    What about those that are not? — Hanover
    Of the extant major world religions, I don't know of one which is not. Which religion do you mean?

    Carl Sagan again: (I have this quote beside a photo of Carl on my bedroom wall. Geek and proud to be!) — universeness
    "We embarked on our journey to the stars with a question first formed in the childhood of our species and in each generation asked anew, with undiminished wonder: What are the stars?
    Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready to set sail for the stars."     :fire: :up:
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    ↪universeness
    :up:

    At any rate, I'm not sure what you want to discuss ... — Hanover
    I made my points on page 1
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/762981

    Finding meaning in one's life, for me, is the proper use of religion.
    Well I think finding one's own meaning in one's life is the proper use of one's life. Religion, no matter how 'personalistic', is always essentially totalitarian – often infantilizing – with it's ready-made, handed down from on high, canonical "meanings".
  • Impromptu debate about nominalism
    ↪frank
    :up:
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    ↪universeness
    :100: "Fear is the only God!" ~Zack de la Rocha (RatM) :fire:
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/541580
  • Impromptu debate about nominalism
    So when you talk about electrons, which have the property of spin, you speak of spin as if it's something real, is that correct? — frank
    One "speaks of spin as if it's something real" because it is useful to do so.
  • Impromptu debate about nominalism
    ↪NOS4A2
    ↪NOS4A2
    :up: :up:

    ↪frank
    There are only individuals in res from which the predicates or properties they have in common are abstracted – generalized – into discursive classes and concepts.
    So in Meinong's sense universals subsist in the mind, or in our grammar, but in Plato's sense it's mistaken that they also exist, which is misplaced concreteness (i.e. reification fallacy) deflated by nominalism and pragmatism.
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    ↪Hanover
    I must have missed the lines in my bible "In the beginning was the unknowable" or "The unknowable alone is Holy", etc.
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