Question for an Atheist

[DWill]

DWill, as you probably know, I agree with what you say about Dawkins and Hitchens. Yes, religious extremism is dangerous to be sure, but it seems to me that some folks are wired to be extremists. Is there any evidence to suggest that religion itself is to blame for extremism? Likewise, an empirical worldview is no inoculation against irrational behavior. There are plenty of people out there who are dangerously ignorant regardless of religious affiliation.

I totally relate to Dawkins' love for science, but I also understand that a pure scientific worldview doesn't cut it for some people. We explore the world in different ways. Some folks gravitate towards religion/spirituality, others towards empiricism, and many are somewhere in between. The psychology that determines where we fall on that spectrum seems a fascinating area for study, doesn't it? I'm surprised that Dawkins doesn't see it that way.

In fairness to Dawkins, he seems to have found it necessary to enter the fray as a partisan for his cause, not as a voice of moderation, in order to be as effective as he was. Same with Hitchens, who published shortly afterwards. After the rise of the Christian right in the 80s and 90s, and then the explosion of violent Islam, "big guns" were needed on the other side. So those two guys, plus a few others, did a valuable service, I have no doubt. Both writers used rhetorical overkill in true polemicist fashion. My other criticism of Dawkins, tiresome by now to people at BT, is that he was scientifically incautious in advancing his theory of memes to account for the vitality of religion.

[youkrst]

good points DWill, they certainly got me fired up on occassion and that is a good thing. (eventually once i calmed down) it takes all sorts as the saying goes. i could forgive Dawkins for nearly anything just for the pleasure of hearing him read his hate mail

[geo]

In fairness to Dawkins, he seems to have found it necessary to enter the fray as a partisan for his cause, not as a voice of moderation, in order to be as effective as he was. Same with Hitchens, who published shortly afterwards. After the rise of the Christian right in the 80s and 90s, and then the explosion of violent Islam, "big guns" were needed on the other side. So those two guys, plus a few others, did a valuable service, I have no doubt. Both writers used rhetorical overkill in true polemicist fashion. My other criticism of Dawkins, tiresome by now to people at BT, is that he was scientifically incautious in advancing his theory of memes to account for the vitality of religion.

Yes, it's never a bad thing to challenge the status quo and I appreciate Dawkins' work on this front. (Haven't actually read the Hitchens book yet). Too often religion gets a free pass and the result is often blind stupidity. I like to think I'm an advocate for rational thinking, but as I get older I am less vehemently opposed to religion. All things in moderation.

And heck, THE GOD DELUSION is a great book in many ways, even it does take an overly harsh stance..

Maybe this isn't relevant, but this recent school shooting has prompted many to want to ban firearms (probably not a bad idea), but let's not forget that this guy was a lunatic. The availability of guns is part of the problem, but I would think there are a host of other factors that led to this tragedy.

[Penelope]

Maybe this isn't relevant, but this recent school shooting has prompted many to want to ban firearms (probably not a bad idea), but let's not forget that this guy was a lunatic. The availability of guns is part of the problem, but I would think there are a host of other factors that led to this tragedy.

We are such an overcrowded island here, and after the above mentioned tragedy, OH and I concluded that if guns were freely available here, there would be dead bodies littering the streets.

vis a vis - religious adherence. Tomorrow we are going to my grandson's baptism. My son and his wife are not believers, but they want their son to go to a CofE school where he will be taught about celebrating Christmas and Easter and Harvest festival. If he went to a government run school in Rickmansworth, outer London, where they live, and where there is often 90% and up, Muslim pupils, he would not be allowed to do Christmas etc. It would be Ramadan, not eating Pork, and various backward rituals and attitudes to women and so forth.

So, my son and his wife have been attending church nearby to where they live, and they quite like it. Don't believe all the dogma, but enjoy the quiet reflection and friendship. I don't blame them.

Unless religion were absolutely verboten as it was in Communist Russia, then the more fanatical religions will flourish over the more tollerant and so we uphold our faith, even though we don't believe in the tenets. Noting anyway, that in Soviet Russia, they never did manage to extinguish the flame, in fact there was a very active and spiritual underground church. As geo has said, some human beings just cannot tolerate life without this extra spiritual dimension. It is not for gain, it is merely for our sanity.

[youkrst]

re the tragedy

the unknown and undeveloped psyche strikes again. so many spend time and energy on the symptoms so few spend time and energy on the disease. i'm looking at you mainstream media, around the mulberry bush we go again cyril.

[ant]

But a pure scientific pursuit is not interested in subjective values. Religion is a subjective experience and therefore falls outside of the science realm.

This is false.

PEOPLE do science. PEOPLE bring their life's history, experience, values, belief systems, dogmas, etc, etc to the table of science. There is no separating the two.

What quantum physics has shown us is that measurement is affected by the measurer. Since Man is the "measurer of all things" there is nothing in nature not affected by Man's observation of it.I'm sure you all know this.

"Pure Science" is a misnomer, mostly voiced by hardcore materialists.


I'm not going to go further with QM. I don't understand it and neither does anyone else here. There is no logic to it. We attempt to explain it logically, but can't. It, like God/Nature, whatever you want to call it, is an onion with apparently endless layers to be peeled away. Just how much we can peel is no doubt limited. At least in our time AND by our species. I disagree with Interbane's assertion that we've basically "evolved enough."
We are LIMITED beings. Saying this is actually not that difficult. Realizing it can be if you're intellectually arrogant.

I suspect one day a new paradigm will arise, that being a fully realized relationship between mind and consciousness.
There are many materialist lines of thought. Reductionists attempt to assign consciousness as nothing more than illusion.
Atheists are completely in this camp. When pressed to admit that their loves, desires, assured knowledge, is really nothing more than illusion, and their lives and loved ones lives are noting more than animal survival,they become silent on the matter. They resort to as i've said "cowardly atheism" by claiming Agnosticism. But their rhetoric betrays their claims of agnosticism. Their position in life is nothing short of miserable. There can be no meaningful existential contemplation on their part because meaning is illusory, and nothing more. In order to experience a rich existential experience, they would need to shift their position from "There is most certainly nothing beyond this illusory experience" t "There is purpose to this cosmos. I don't understand it, but nature's direction seems purposeful" (or something like that).

I'd like for every militant atheist to say just once.., "Gee, what if I'm wrong?" And not like that stupid Youtube video of some kid asking Dawkins what if HE's wrong. I mean a much deeper question about what we hold true in our hearts and mind as untouchable.

[ant]

I like a phrase Steven Pinker uses: "Nothing human to me is foreign" (which, looking it up, I found to be from Terence, the Roman). I think that as something eminently human, religion deserves attention and respectful study. The fault I would find with some atheists is that they act as though religion is foreign, or they try to make it so. They may write books about it without attempting to know much about it, as if they need to keep it at a distance. This applies to two writers whom I otherwise respect, Dawkins and Hitchens. I admired Stephen Prothero's book, God Is Not One, because it was a non-devotional and "objective" look at this fascinating subject. So, what would we say represents the best about human beings? Is it that we were capable of inventing science or that we had the capacity to conceive religion? I wouldn't want to have to choose between the two.

Great post, DWill.

[Penelope]

DWill wrote:

So, what would we say represents the best about human beings? Is it that we were capable of inventing science or that we had the capacity to conceive religion? I wouldn't want to have to choose between the two.

We shouldn't need to choose between the two, should we? Why is everything in this day and age, about competition??

Science without religion is an abomination. Religion without science is likewise. To some of us at any rate.

[johnson1010]

Ant:

What quantum physics has shown us is that measurement is affected by the measurer. Since Man is the "measurer of all things" there is nothing in nature not affected by Man's observation of it.I'm sure you all know this.

Hold on a second. It is not a problem of “man’s observation of it”. This makes it sound like it’s got something to do with our intention, or minds.

The dual slit experiment is pretty simple to understand. You send a beam of particles through a slit, they make a blob on a detector behind it. You put two slits there and instead of two blobs, there’s a pattern of repeating lines which can only be explained if the particles are behaving like waves. Even if you send the particles one at a time they build up this wave-like interference pattern.

Now, observation sounds like non-interference. When you look at a car, you aren’t doing anything to it. But that isn’t the same as trying to quantify which quantum particle has gone where in an experiment like this. In order to detect any particle you will have to interact with it and fundamentally change what it’s doing. Whether that be installing a magnetic chamber which can detect the passage of a particle (and pull the particle out of it’s path) or bombarding that particle with an electron or photon (and alter it’s behavior) you have to DO something to the particle to tell where it was going.

This isn’t about somebody suddenly paying attention to where things are going. This is an interference with what would happen if you didn’t interject yourself.

Don’t convince yourself there’s nothing to know about this subject. It isn’t arbitrary. It’s just not classical mechanics.

I'm not going to go further with QM. I don't understand it and neither does anyone else here. There is no logic to it. We attempt to explain it logically, but can't.

I’ve said multiple times that you are misrepresenting this. Computers are quantum mechanical devices. You know, computers. The most accurate and predictable devices we have ever built? People understand it perfectly well in terms of itself. What they don’t understand about QM is when you try to visualize what’s happening in terms of billiard balls or something. It isn’t difficult to understand, it’s difficult to build a mental model of. Like infinity, or imaginary numbers. They are simple concepts that hurt your brain when you try to model them based on the things you have experience with.

When pressed to admit that their loves, desires, assured knowledge, is really nothing more than illusion, and their lives and loved ones lives are noting more than animal survival,they become silent on the matter. They resort to as i've said "cowardly atheism" by claiming Agnosticism. But their rhetoric betrays their claims of agnosticism. Their position in life is nothing short of miserable.

First, this is crazy talk. I have an awesome life. I’m not rich. My life isn’t a sugar rainbow ride through happy-town, I have problems like everyone else. But that doesn’t blunt my enjoyment of life in the least. Not having an invisible friend hasn’t put the brakes on any joy in my life.

My loves, desires, knowledge are not illusions. They are subjective. So, what I love is not inherently more valuable than what I do not love. But if you ask the objective question, what do you love? I will give you an objective answer of a positive answer about the thing which I subjectively value: my family.

That IS all determined by what I am. A primate, an ape, a human, a homo sapien. And more fundamentally than that, I’m a cog in the wheel of the universe surrounded by a tremendous amount of environmental stimuli which I have no control over. In many respects I could not do other than what the environment has compelled me to do. All the same my choices are valuable to me, if to nobody or nothing else. My concerns are real to me, even if the sun never hears my name.

My actions won’t amount to squat when the earth is boiling under the radiation of the dying sol, but that doesn’t change the fact that it matters to the only thing in my life which matters: other people.

Everything is relative, and that is especially true of the things you care about, and the things which care about you. That does not in any way make our lives vacuous.

There can be no meaningful existential contemplation on their part because meaning is illusory, and nothing more. In order to experience a rich existential experience, they would need to shift their position from "There is most certainly nothing beyond this illusory experience" t "There is purpose to this cosmos. I don't understand it, but nature's direction seems purposeful" (or something like that).

You are asserting that meaning is illusory. I haven’t heard anyone else here say that, least of all the people you are trying to saddle with that nonsense.

It seems to me that I’ve got a, not to be proud, very rich existential experience. In fact, quite more so than somebody who has no idea of their real place in existence. The fact that we are temporary, impermanent, and inconsequential on cosmic time scales only adds to my appreciation of my place in existence. It only infuses my life with richer experience.

For instance: For those of you with children, when was the last time you really appreciated picking up your children? Have you thought that one day you will put down your child and without you realizing it, it will have been the last time you will hold them like that? They will grow too old, too heavy, too mature, or there just won’t be a reason to pick them up again. They learn to walk, to put themselves into the car seat, to get on and off the big-boy chair by themselves, and there you have it. That was the last time you will pick them up.

So that is a time in your life that has a beginning and an end. Does that make all your experiences of holding your child empty? Does it make it all a waste of time? Or has this made you cherish the feeling of that precious little one a little more? One day that special relationship will change. It’s special BECAUSE it ends. Because there is a limited supply of that time. And it’s subjective. Nobody in China cares that you are holding your baby. So is that connection you feel an illusion?

No. It’s subjective. A subjective feeling about an objective event.

These are non-sense word games you are playing to try to pigeon hole atheists, Ant. If you are finding that that square peg isn’t fitting so well, why don’t you try to find one that is a bit more well rounded?

[etudiant]

In a sense, religion is the ultimate reductionism. It looks at the world, and sees so little of the magic of the universe, the known and the unfathomable, that an invented story is felt to be needed. Not an extravagant story mind you, but a minimal one; something to content those in a medieval, rural, pastoral society, but one rather simplistic by modern standards. All that might be is condensed into a slight narrative. Billions of possiblities must be held up to the light of an ancient pastoral legend. The athiest's universe is far larger, and more complex, and more interesting, than the religious one.