theist in a foxhole

[Dalek Prime]

Also: I'm not a scientist, but being agnostic (even as one gathers evidence, observes, theorizes, experiments) seems a sensible thing to be.

Why, Henry?

Why would it seem sensible or, as many suppose, even intellectually sophisticated) to remain an agnostic? After all, "agnosis" is simply the root of our English word "ignorant." (after Latinization to "ignorantia,") Thus an agnostic is one who proclaims his own ignorance.

Maybe that sounds harsh. Seriously, I don't mean it to be. But sometimes a little shock awakens us to something we had not seen before. Let me be more kind.

I'll freely admit that "ignorance" could be a virtue of sorts (though obviously not a great one) if knowledge of a thing were genuinely impossible: but how can we know that? How can we know what we admit we cannot know? And what if the evidence exists, and if God says we SHOULD know, and we still don't want to know?

How virtuous does agnosticism then turn out to be?

Wouldn't we be better to stay open to possibilities of discovering more?

Agnosticism doesn't preclude searching and discovering more. It's a platform to work from. Gotta stand somewhere, if only for the moment. A polar bear's ice flow in the sea of ideas.

[Wyman]

Agnosticism is simply the admission 'I don't know and may never know'.

How you get 'we should all stop thinking about it' from that is beyond me, particularly when it comes to Wyman (he doesn't strike me as the 'turn a blind eye' type).

No, agreed.

But "I may never know" is simply a statement of one's own limitedness, with the "may" allowing for someone else to provide better information; whereas Wyman's statement moves from the observational premise...

"People are arguing."

To the conclusion...

"It's irrational to find/believe in/assume an answer to the argued issue exists."

I can't see how you get from that premise to that conclusion: but if you can provide the middle premise, I'm ready to hear it. Right now, it looks like the middle premise would have to be, "If people argue a thing, there must not be any answer," or something like that...but we can all see THAT isn't true, right? We wouldn't want to accuse Wyman of that sort of irrational middle premise, would we?

So in fairness to him, how do we make sense of his claim?

Maybe he can explain.

Simple - you already agree with me that belief in no God is irrational. Belief in God, as you said somewhere on one of these threads, is based on revelation. Rational argument does not lead to revelation; and experiencing something (whether the presence of God or a sunset) is not 'rational' or 'irrational' but merely an experience. Irrational animals, such as lizards and cats, have experiences - that does not make them rational.

So belief in God has nothing to do with rationality (not that that makes it irrational either); it has merely to do with experiencing God first hand. HQ and Arising certainly have not had a revelation of God; given that fact, it would be irrational of them to believe in God. In fairness, though, I should have said that belief in God without experiencing revelation is irrational.

[Dalek Prime]

I don't mean to intrude on Wyman's post, but he jolted something in me that was sitting there, that I couldn't describe, relating to antinatalism. There are some who just seem to 'get' the arguments, whilst most don't. And I'm starting to wonder if it's a form of revelation itself. Things just began 'clicking' for me over the past winter, and there it was. I believe those thoughts were there for decades, but I couldn't, or didn't, formulate them. Then, when I saw David Benatar and others do so, it just congealed. Solidified. Everything just mase sense. And I felt at peace. And it felt like revelation, or how I imagine it. May I ask the theists here how it felt for them? Similar, or no?

Anyways, back to topic again.

[thedoc]

It would seem that the antinatalists are watching too much of the media news, and seeing the world as negative. I would suggest that there is a bias in the news to the disaster and bad news. When our house burned there was a story in the local paper, when we moved into the new house I contacted the reporter, who wrote the article, and offered that they could write another article with the good news. The reporter didn't take me up on the offer, apparently good news doesn't sell papers. Yes there are a lot of bad things happening in the world, but I believe they are outweighed by the good things that you don't usually hear about, unless you are willing to look at the world right around you.

[Dalek Prime]

It would seem that the antinatalists are watching too much of the media news, and seeing the world as negative. I would suggest that there is a bias in the news to the disaster and bad news. When our house burned there was a story in the local paper, when we moved into the new house I contacted the reporter, who wrote the article, and offered that they could write another article with the good news. The reporter didn't take me up on the offer, apparently good news doesn't sell papers. Yes there are a lot of bad things happening in the world, but I believe they are outweighed by the good things that you don't usually hear about, unless you are willing to look at the world right around you.

Well, now that I know that I'm just negative and fucked up, as all antinatists are, apparently, we can all breath a sigh of relief, and ignore years of arguments aside from negativity and bias, kick ourselves, and jump for joy...Holy fuck, Doc. Do you really believe, if I had a choice, I would set myself up for abuse daily, talking about this, if I hadn't weeded out the emotional or negative bias involved in it? I was happily childfree for decades, and could still be, but I found rational arguments behind antinatalism. Hence my revelation that I was not merely childfree, but an AN, myself. And, I'll state this again until I'm blue in the face, optimism is no less a cognitive bias than pessimism, and it's no more relevant than the other.

And thanks for not sharing your moment of revelation, which is all I asked for.

PS. I get that you'll probably not ever see it my way. You are too convinced that '"better people" should breed, to offset the 'lessers' that are overbreeding, as you have said before. But then, I'll probably not come unto your Christian belief. But I don't fucking call you a biased simpleton for it, or disrespect your intelligence. So save your judgments, unless you've put some effort into the books I've mentioned. Then we can talk.

If I wasn't so sick of going over this, I'd start a thread "Do natalists read the primary sources of arguments for antinatalism".

[Immanuel Can]

Simple - you already agree with me that belief in no God is irrational.

Nope. You read me wrong. I don't agree with that. I said personal experience, if genuine, was "an" argument, not that it was the "only" argument. I would never say that.

Revelation is one of the primary ways we know the existence of God...but natural revelation and formal/logical arguments count too, as does genuine experiential evidence and historical evidence. The Cosmological Arguments, the Ontological Arguments, the Moral Argument, the Design Arguments, and the Historical Arguments do not rely at all on revelation, much less experience. But revelation is an amazingly good argument, one among many.

There's a whole bundle of proofs for the existence of God. But none of it is "irrational." Even the Argument from Revelation can be supported by empirical data, such as the rationality of the texts themselves, or the fulfillment of prophecies, or the rationality of arguments those texts advance.

So nothing about the evidence is so "simple" as you suggest. I do not concur, in point of fact.

[Dalek Prime]

Sorry, here I go off-topic again, but since I started it here...

I recall a friend writing a blog post comparing natalism as a belief system to religion. He did an adequate job, I suppose, but it didn't perk my interest too much, as it was a bit vague. What he didn't say, which this thread made me realize, was that he was comparing the wrong part of it. It isn't the natalism itself, it's the optimism bias that is the driving force behind it. ie. Optimism is the "faith" behind natalist outlook. Pessimism is the "faith", admittedly, behind some of the arguments for antinatalism. Natalists are the theists, if I may, whilst pessimists are the atheists. Now, considering the hard lines taken in the religious context here between theists and atheists, with very few if any crossing the lines, it's no wonder very few natalists can understand my arguments. It's a matter of faith, at least from the bias point of view.

This may not strike anyone as either interesting or even new, but it's something for me to ponder.

Okay. I now free you of my musings.

[thedoc]

It would seem that the antinatalists are watching too much of the media news, and seeing the world as negative. I would suggest that there is a bias in the news to the disaster and bad news. When our house burned there was a story in the local paper, when we moved into the new house I contacted the reporter, who wrote the article, and offered that they could write another article with the good news. The reporter didn't take me up on the offer, apparently good news doesn't sell papers. Yes there are a lot of bad things happening in the world, but I believe they are outweighed by the good things that you don't usually hear about, unless you are willing to look at the world right around you.

Well, now that I know that I'm just negative and fucked up, as all antinatists are, apparently, we can all breath a sigh of relief, and ignore years of arguments aside from negativity and bias, kick ourselves, and jump for joy...Holy fuck, Doc. Do you really believe, if I had a choice, I would set myself up for abuse daily, talking about this, if I hadn't weeded out the emotional or negative bias involved in it? I was happily childfree for decades, and could still be, but I found rational arguments behind antinatalism. Hence my revelation that I was not merely childfree, but an AN, myself. And, I'll state this again until I'm blue in the face, optimism is no less a cognitive bias than pessimism, and it's no more relevant than the other.

And thanks for not sharing your moment of revelation, which is all I asked for.

PS. I get that you'll probably not ever see it my way. You are too convinced that '"better people" should breed, to offset the 'lessers' that are overbreeding, as you have said before. But then, I'll probably not come unto your Christian belief. But I don't fucking call you a biased simpleton for it, or disrespect your intelligence. So save your judgments, unless you've put some effort into the books I've mentioned. Then we can talk.

If I wasn't so sick of going over this, I'd start a thread "Do natalists read the primary sources of arguments for antinatalism".

I wasn't trying to antagonize you or start a fight, I was just expressing some general thoughts on the subject. I never referred to you as negative or fucked up, nor did I suggest that you were a biased simpleton. It seems that you have gotten some rather intense grilling about your choice not to procreate, but not from me. Apparently you have heard this argument too many times before, but again not from me. Your choice not to have children was your's, as my decision was mine, I don't see the reason to get so heated about it. You may do as you like as long as you extend me the same courtesy.

[thedoc]

Sorry, here I go off-topic again, but since I started it here...

I recall a friend writing a blog post comparing natalism as a belief system to religion. He did an adequate job, I suppose, but it didn't perk my interest too much, as it was a bit vague. What he didn't say, which this thread made me realize, was that he was comparing the wrong part of it. It isn't the natalism itself, it's the optimism bias that is the driving force behind it. ie. Optimism is the "faith" behind natalist outlook. Pessimism is the "faith", admittedly, behind some of the arguments for antinatalism. Natalists are the theists, if I may, whilst pessimists are the atheists. Now, considering the hard lines taken in the religious context here between theists and atheists, with very few if any crossing the lines, it's no wonder very few natalists can understand my arguments. It's a matter of faith, at least from the bias point of view.

This may not strike anyone as either interesting or even new, but it's something for me to ponder.

Okay. I now free you of my musings.

I don't quite agree with your friend that Natalism always equals Theists and optimism, or that Antinatalism are always pessimists and atheists. The 2 might be belief systems but I doubt the correlation with religion or ones outlook on life.

[Dalek Prime]

I have extended you that courtesy, both as a parent and as a theist. If I haven't, show me where. I believe in my intro thread, I even said I'm sure you made a good parent, or something akin. Whereas you put my whole basis down to a bias, which you also possess. Difference is, calling one a pessimist is usually derogatory, and to tell me I've an inability to discern bias in the news is akin to saying I don't have the intelligence to do so. I have never done you this disservice before.

[Dalek Prime]

Sorry, here I go off-topic again, but since I started it here...

I recall a friend writing a blog post comparing natalism as a belief system to religion. He did an adequate job, I suppose, but it didn't perk my interest too much, as it was a bit vague. What he didn't say, which this thread made me realize, was that he was comparing the wrong part of it. It isn't the natalism itself, it's the optimism bias that is the driving force behind it. ie. Optimism is the "faith" behind natalist outlook. Pessimism is the "faith", admittedly, behind some of the arguments for antinatalism. Natalists are the theists, if I may, whilst pessimists are the atheists. Now, considering the hard lines taken in the religious context here between theists and atheists, with very few if any crossing the lines, it's no wonder very few natalists can understand my arguments. It's a matter of faith, at least from the bias point of view.

This may not strike anyone as either interesting or even new, but it's something for me to ponder.

Okay. I now free you of my musings.

I don't quite agree with your friend that Natalism always equals Theists and optimism, or that Antinatalism are always pessimists and atheists. The 2 might be belief systems but I doubt the correlation with religion or ones outlook on life.

It wasn't my friend who blogged that. I just considered that now. It shows that you are not even comprehending my posts, so you wouldn't comprehend the comparison. Also, it's not something you looked into, or given much thought. I'm talking from experience of argument trends, not just in this forum, but many others, on this topic.

[Dalek Prime]

Anyways, this realization should make everyone here happy, including me. I now realize natalists are set in an optimism faith and, as you've proven to me, both atheists and theists, your minds are set and immovable when it comes to your faiths. And that's how natalists and antinatalists are. Set in stone. Unbudging. And so I don't need to talk about it anymore with you. I'll go blog it, given the time.

Can we get an amen here?

[thedoc]

I recall a friend writing a blog post comparing natalism as a belief system to religion.

I suppose I just misunderstood this part of your post?

[Dalek Prime]

...

[thedoc]

Anyways, this realization should make everyone here happy, including me. I now realize natalists are set in an optimism faith and, as you've proven to me, both atheists and theists, your minds are set and immovable when it comes to your faiths. And that's how natalists and antinatalists are. Set in stone. Unbudging. And so I don't need to talk about it anymore with you. I'll go blog it, given the time.

Can we get an amen here?

Perhaps if you were to post something of substance on the subject rather than a lot of histrionics, we might get somewhere.