Being an atheist is hard

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First of all, let me say to AngelRho that I particularly enjoy your posts as you tend to think deeply and respond politely. I may not agree with you on many points, but you make yourself clear without emotional histrionics.

I think the same can be said of many atheists. One needn't be religious to be a good person. In fact there is a line of argument that says if a person is good only because they fear a bad end, then that kind of goodness pales in the face of the person who is good because they feel that is the right thing to be.



Given that the brain is known to be susceptible to illusions and that there is no large body of evidence pointing to any sentient creator, it makes more sense to conclude that whatever feelings one might have that there is a creator are more likely to be the effects of an illusion rather than the actual existence of a creator.

For a creator to exist, we have to assume a large number of new and unseen aspects of the universe. We would have to accept the idea that an intelligent and willful being exists beyond the known universe. For a large part of Christianity to make sense, we have to assume that this being created people with a specific end in mind, giving them a corporeal life followed by a life in spirit only. (This brings up the question, why have us die in the first place? but that's a whole other topic.)

Occam's razor says essentially that the conclusion that requires the least new concepts to be introduced into the question is the most likely to be true. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor ] We know the brain is susceptible to illusion. This is already a given. If we have many reasons to believe something is an illusion and few reasons to suspect it is not an illusion, it makes more sense to suspect that it is an illusion.



Here I believe you misunderstand my position. At any rate, the above quote is a subtle mis-representation of what I wrote.

I don't mean to suggest that "we need to leave all this God-stuff alone" If you feel that studying religion is a way to get to the truth, have at it. You might find some answers that another person might not have thought of. What we need to do is pursue the truth. We must look at what evidence exists and draw our conclusions from that and from that alone. There may be a god. There may not be. We simply do not know. We do not have evidence that suggests there is a god so there is simply no way to prove or disprove the idea. But to take the position that because we do not have sufficient evidence we can draw a highly specific conclusion is patently absurd.




Here I believe you have a serious mis-understanding of science. Science doesn't dictate anything. Science is a process that all people can use to understand the world around them. If the process of science shows that there is a god, then people, assuming they agree with the evidence and conclusions, will then likely believe in a god. If we cannot find any evidence to suggest there is a god, then we are left with the question unresolved. However if repeated attempts to find god fail, we may feel it makes more sense to conclude that a god does not exist. Unlike religion, science is not an institution that tells us what to believe. It is nothing more than a process that helps us to separate the true from the false.

You invoke Pascal's Wager, writing:


while Pascal might have believed that by living life as if a god existed one has everything to gain and nothing to lose, I don't believe he is correct. I like understanding reality and the truth is very important to me. If we believe but there is no god we risk going down blind alleys that never lead to new knowledge and understanding of the universe. Worse yet, people who believe their feelings are truths may try to enact laws that suppress scientific study or individual freedoms.

In the highly specific instance that Christianity is correct, Pascal is wins the wager. But in all other instances, he loses. I wager that by not drawing conclusions until we have sufficient evidence, we are more likely to find things that are true than if we make unfounded assumptions and then ignore evidence that refutes those assumptions.

It just depends on what you hope to gain in the wager. I hope to gain truth. Pascal just seems to want to avoid a bad end. Pascal's wager takes the position that it is better to live a life of ignorance and blindness to reality in the small chance that Christianity might be correct. He seems to believe that the truth is less important than a highly unlikely afterlife.


I'm uncertain what you mean here. First of all, if there is no soul, there is no soul to take hostage. Secondly even if there is a soul, how would science be trying to take it hostage. What ransom is science demanding?

Are you taking the position that scientists are against the poetic aspects of life? Do you think that scientists have no understanding of philosophy or aesthetics. Do you think that scientists are merely trying to reduce all life to machines? Maybe some are. But I think most find that life is richer and more beautiful when we understand why things work they way they do.


Obviously you have to pursue truth in a way that makes sense to you, but I can't say you have convinced me that your approach is actually leading to truth. It seems instead to demand that we take insupportable positions as givens (that the brain, despite clearly being susceptible to illusions, is right in this one specific instance) and that our fear of an unknown fate after our deaths should pursuade us to ignore empirical evidence and instead adopt a belief for which there exists only traditional stories and no direct evidence.

Thanks. Attacks on beliefs are often perceived as attacks on the person. I choose not to see it that way unless it's blatantly obvious that it is!


Sure. The issue is whether "goodness" is enough, or to what degree "goodness" is sufficient. Christianity does not teach that any "goodness" is ever sufficient, that only God is good.


OK, but now one has to call into questions what IS an illusion and what IS NOT. If we cannot trust our senses, there is no reason to believe that all of reality isn't an illusion. Everything we see is an illusion, therefore we cannot trust science because science is based on observations from a human perspective. And I'm sure you'll agree that doesn't make much sense.

If we can trust our senses, then we can trust the observations we make. It does not follow that all observations, whether empirical or non-empirical, are illusions. So if we can discern what things ARE illusive, we can also discern which things may or may not be illusive. Thus there is no guarantee that God is an illusion. If the experience is repeatable, as the experiences of believers shows it to be, then there must be something to observe. After all, optical illusions still result from actual causative phenomena. Thus the sense of the divine has a cause. I just happen to believe we experience God because there IS a God.


Not really though. One need only assert that God created the universe, that the universe as it is now is a result of a mechanism set into motion at the beginning point of creation, the initial act, the big bang, or however you want to see it.


It's a simple concept.


OK, but like in the previous two statements, why are these such big assumptions? For example, the human brain is often said to be "wired" to recognize patterns. How does it follow that one cannot see patterns indicative of a creative mind when they are there? So if there are signs that a structured creation not unlike what one comes to expect from a creative mind exists, then someone can reasonably conclude that there is at least evidence of a Creator, EVEN IF one still cannot claim conclusive proof.


But oddly enough, none of these concepts are really that new. Arguing, essentially, that there is no God because the brain is susceptible to illusion when one cannot say whether it's really an illusion or not seems awfully ad hoc to me.


It's certainly not intentional. One of my pet peeves is when people do that to me, and it's usually blatantly obvious when they do. If I misunderstand something, please clarify.


Um...your last statement is certainly a more honest appraisal of what we know/do not know from empiricism. Getting back to the OP, I think it's destructive to go after someone for disagreeing, especially if they don't care to argue about it. I'm ok with that, and if someone needs me to just leave them alone about it, I'm fine with that. The problem ultimately, though, is the question of God's existence is a polarizing one. It's either/or. In the end, there is a definite right or wrong. I have Christianity in mind, but the same could be said about any religion. We simply don't have entire lifetimes to decide the answer, and thus there is a certain urgency in solving the problem. The hard "there is no God" atheist position merely asserts there is no problem. The lesser, more "agnostic" form is at least more honest in admitting that "we don't KNOW that there is a God, but the likelihood is looking less and less all the time." But then, that's just a matter of how one interprets the evidence. I don't see material evidence as a determining factor one way or the other--except either God, IF God exists, either created the world or He didn't. If God does exist, and if God did create the world, then the world is evidence that God exists because, well, you can't have a creation without a creator! Hence:

1. God exists
2. God created the universe
3. God created man
4. Man messed up
5. Fallen world results from 4
6. Fallen nature of man and world obscures God
7. Man cannot know 1 beyond faith because of 6

However...

8. God exists

Therefore:

9. Material existence is evidence for God's existence (2 and 3).

So now the problem is not whether there IS evidence or not. It's a question of whether we find the evidence sufficient to draw a conclusion. You could probably state something similar to the above argument by NOT assuming God's existence, such as:

1. God's existence is unknown...

Or something like that. And it could be perfectly logical and evidenced. But would the premises drawn from evidence really be true, or could the evidence be interpreted as something else?


Agreed.



But it kinda does, doesn't it? If we're talking about science drawn from hard empiricism, it certainly does. The underlying assumption is that something cannot be said to exist without... Wait a minute, here's a better way:

1. Something cannot be said to exist without material evidence
2. No material evidence for God has as yet been found
3. Therefore, no God can be assumed

A hard empiricist would extend that to say "no God at all." A proper understanding of science is that no such assumptions are to be made, but the insinuation is generally that. So, relying strictly on hard, empirical science we ought not waste time believing in God because, as far as we know, there isn't one. You can see how this leaves theists hanging, right?


Suit yourself.

[would write more, just ran out of time]

That is correct.


That is an unneeded extrapolation. There is no link between "knowing what I know" and "knowing that there is nothing else to know". A person making a link between the two is either too full of self-confidence, or blinded by his/her own self-righteousness (some Creationists are exactly like that, but also a few atheists, and even some philosophers. I'd name Proudhon as one of them, for example).


It is entirely possible. However, it remains completely unproven, unverifiable (for the moment) and unfalsifiable. Therefore, it remains just that - a belief. It could not even hold as a postulate, as Occham's Razor goes wildly against it (what do you need the divine for in your day-to-day explanation of the real world? What does the divine bring that a standard "it happens" argument brings?)


Then we're on the same lines of thought (more or less). Your argument still boils down to a logical fallacy, though, at least if I summarized it right before making a parallel simplified argument.

What I'll have to disagree on is the "clues" - I hate to say this, but it's relatively common practice not to infer from tiny shreds of data, unless there is a staggering amount of evidence. Which there doesn't seem to be right now (especially seeing as a lot of the stuff contained in the bible turns out to be wrong - even simple stuff like the link between the radius and circumference of a circle)


They did, actually, in the knowledge frame of the people who heard about it. They never saw the planets directly, did they? All they saw was stars in the sky. So, to them, the planets did start orbiting a point that wasn't the Earth when that theory was validated (which wasn't until the late 1900s, at which point the Church finally admitted that they were wrong).

More to the point, if something exists, it is not necessary to know it. However, believing something doesn't make it exist. That's the whole idea of knowledge frames, by the way - belief != knowledge.

I'd strongly recommend drawing up a truth table for what you just said, by the way. You'll notice a rather huge discrepancy between the first and second versions.


Stating stuff explicitely avoids misunderstandings. Some people are good at reading the wrong stuff between the lines



Indeed. My big pet peeve with the new testament is that God turns from an endlessly patient, single entity that'll smite you down for trying to close him down to a God that only gives a damn about you if you believe in him, no matter what your actions are/were. You could be a mass-murderer, according to the new testament, and still get completely absolved.
That's why I prefer to make a contrast between the two and pick the earlier version. The new one seems too wishy-washy-believe-give-money-and-you-will-be-okay.


Never said that. Re-read closely.


Why are you putting science and christianity on an uneven step? They're the same.

Here's how science works: you take what you see, build up a "rule" that fits what you see, and test more. If the rule is broken, you fix the rule, and test more. If the rule isn't broken, you predict what might happen in other cases with the rule, test, and go back to step 1.

Here's how christianity (or any belief system, really) works: You take what you see, build up a set of rules, and explain what is unexplainable with them. You therefore test the rules against the unexplained, and the rule always turns out never to be wrong.

Can you actually tell me the difference, without invoking the afterlife or morality? The way both systems are created are exactly the same. The way you use them is exactly the same. And, more importantly, neither of them actually has any first-hand knowledge of the real world. Both of them are indirect, empirical verifications. One is better at explaining mundane stuff, that's true, but that's also what makes them uncomparable.
Tell you what, I know a few physicists who firmly believe in God. They're brilliant people to talk to, as they will not oppose one with the other. They'll actually take one step back and consider science as it really is - a framework to predict certain events in the world according to past phenomena. They notice that the whole "science vs. god" dilemma should be a complete non-issue - we all have our own beliefs.

Last thing - do you know any non-empirical pieces of knowledge? I don't. Not even mathematics stands up to scrutiny on that point. If you don't see the trick question immediately, look up in the SEP or otherwise what "knowledge" is and why a belief isn't automatically knowledge. Or just look up Kripke's paradox.

The opposite is true. At least we understand what prunes and kumquats supposed to be. Your utterance of 'god' is just nonsense gibberish.


Nonsense. Exactly how does god explain why some people 'experience god' (more precisely some people say they experience god), and why we have never seen, say, rocks to experience god?
At least, the theory of illusions is something that has been established.


Wrong. If god may or may not create the universe then it cannot be said that the god theory survive any falsification regarding the existence of the universe. Your 'interpretation' is nothing but begging the question.


Why don't you worry that kgesh is the true god that rewards honest disbelieve and punishes worshiping false gods? There is no reason to entertain the idea of 'eternal life' or 'eternal separation from god' to being with.

Still waiting, ladies...