Do atheists understand abstract language?

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Another example; when I paint I don't know how the pigments were created, and I only know how paper is made because I saw it on TV at some point. But my painting is no guarantee that I understand how the medium that I use is produced.

Another example; when I paint I don't know how the pigments were created, and I only know how paper is made because I saw it on TV at some point. But my painting is no guarantee that I understand how the medium that I use is produced.

A writer uses words, but that does not mean that they know how they were produced, eg. what has gone into the making of this or that symbol.

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How does one determine if someone knows how to understand abstract language?

Is one of the problems that atheists cannot understand something that their intellectual position claims refers to nothing? And this problem mostly refers to the materialists, correct? So, a materialist's statement on justice will ultimately redefine the term to distort it, as otherwise the term refers to nothing under that worldview, correct? Is that the issue, as you referred to an issue on WP. Is there another way to describe it? I don't do well with analogies, as.... well.... nothing is really an analogy of the other thing in that perfect sense.

You don't need to know, in order to use the materials. Look at young kids. They do not know how paper is made or pencils or pens or crayons, but some of them are rather talented in their use.

How do we know that you understand abstract language?

I am wondering what I would consider proof/evidence that someone really/indisputably understood abstract language, ( in the sense that Magnus seems to have meant, and which Henriksson provided a definition for ) . Not using it maybe? Or only in very strange ways so that automatic/conditioned reactions to the "prepackaged" modules were challenged.

The point about abstract language is that it represents things without objective existence, things which it would be impossible for you to prove actually exist. Do you understand that?

I doubt atheists in toto are as naive as you propose.

The awful shadow of some unseen Power
Floats though unseen among us, - visiting
This various world with as inconstant wing
As summer winds that creep from flower to flower. -
Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower,
It visits with inconstant glance
Each human heart and countenance;

Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrate
With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon
Of human thought or form, - where are thou gone?
Why dost thou pass away and leave our state,
This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate?

No voice from some sublimer world hath ever
To sage or poet these responses given -
Therefore the name of God and ghosts and Heaven,
Remain the records of their vain endeavour,

Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart
And come, for some uncertain moments lent.
Man were immortal, and omnipotent,
Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art,
Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart.

[i]Shelley replaces the third of the Christian values, faith, with self-esteem, which signifies respect for the human imagination. According to the narrator, we have only temporary access to these values and can only attain them through Intellectual Beauty:

Thou messenger of sympathies,
That wax and wane in lovers's eyes-
Thou - that to human thought art nourishment,
Like darkness to a dying flame!
Depart not as thy shadow came,
Depart not - lest the grave should be,
Like life and fear, a dark reality.

While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped
Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin,
And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing
Hopes of high talk with the departed dead. (Lines 49–52)

The words he speaks, possibly referring to Christian doctrines, brought him no response. It was not until he mused on life that he was able to experience a sort of religious awakening and learn of Intellectual Beauty:

Sudden, thy shadow fell on me;
I shrieked, and clasped my hands in exctasy!


I vowed that I would dedicate my powers
To thee and thine - have I not kept the vow
Thus let thy power, which like the truth
Of nature on my passive youth
Descended, to my ownward life supply
Its calm - to one who worships thee,
And every form containing thee,
Whom, Spirit fair, thy spells did bind
To fear himself, and love all human kind.

Since someone here said that Shelly was an atheist, I brought up "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" as an example of abstract language. Even though he wrote The Necessity of Atheism, he was very spiritual. Abstract poetry is felt, but underneath it, it's loaded with meaning and symbolism that is not in black and white ink. You can't take it at face value and that is annoying to people who are very logical because they seek objectiveness. Abstract language is completely subjective, but archetypes are universal to the human psyche. At the very least it is culturally universal.

Read this poem and look back at the break down I posted earlier and you will see how effective abstract language is.

Truth, beauty, justice etc are abstracts very personal and highly culturally directed and therefore so plastic in concept that they have no firm general meaning

Shelley's understanding of Beauty, as an ideal and universal aspect and not in the common understanding of the word as an aesthetic judgment of an object, was influenced by his knowledge of Plato's writings. However, where Plato believed Beauty should be sought after gradually in degrees until one can achieve true Beauty, a process made possible through dialectic, Shelley believed that Beauty could also be found through its earthly manifestations and could only be connected to through the use of the imagination. The origins of Shelley's understanding of Beauty and how to attain it can be found within "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty". The poem's theme is Beauty, but Shelley's understanding of how the mind works is different from Plato's: Plato wrote (principally in the Symposium) that Beauty is a metaphysical object existing independent of our experiences of particular concrete objects, while Shelley believed that philosophy and metaphysics could not reveal truth and that an understanding of Beauty was futile. Instead, Beauty could only be felt and its source could not be known.[7]

Sand wrote:

Like ruveyn said, all language is abstract. Let's not get carried away with literalness. There are some forms of expression which are more abstract than others. The expression "the cat got your tongue?" can be taken literally. However, the phrase would lose all the meaning it was meant to convey if someone were to do that. Not to mention that the person who took the sentence literally would think the person who uttered it to be completely insane.

Religious parables get taken literally way too much. People do this because it's frustrating to live in a subjective world. Literal thinkers tend to want to make the world objective so they try to make everyone use language in a way in which all can agree upon. They get confused when people can't all agree on ideas like truth, justice, and love. That is why religions were formed after all, so that everyone can think the same way.

Going back to the poem Hymn to Intellectual Beauty which touches on this subject...

Shelley and Plato had different ideas of what Beauty meant and in the end, Shelley said that the imagination is where these ideas are felt.

I have been concerned with the idea of beauty most of my mature life and I have come to the conclusion it is an emotion like anger and fear and distaste. Things like mathematical beauty can be appreciated only by the initiates who are deep into mathematics and all sorts of so called beauty become apparent only to those who have studied the various and very different areas where it might be perceived.

Plato was an idiot? Now I don't feel so bad for all the times you called me dumb.

Speaking of mathematical beauty...

Pythagoras understood experiences of beauty and contemplations of the mathematical as spiritual experiences which purify the soul. Aesthetic experiences and exercises of reason were understood as a necessary process and training to cultivate the soul. He built a theory of beauty within the framework of religious thought. His conviction of the immortality of the soul, as well as the relationship between beauty and mathematics, had a strong impact on Plato.