Consequences of Atheism

[The Inglorious One]

Inglorious, do you not think that the bit that says:

How, or even if, you interpret them is entirely your business, but something is causing trails.

Suggests that I have at least some knowledge of the difference?

Nope.

[uwot]

Nope.

Do you have anything to offer that might enlighten me, or others similarly afflicted?

[The Inglorious One]

Nope.

Do you have anything to offer that might enlighten me, or others similarly afflicted?

As A.E. said, "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible." No matter how you interpret the trails, it doesn't explain why they are comprehensible in the first place. What are you going to do? Say "Just because"?

[uwot]

No, Inglorious. The fact that there is something rather than nothing is indistinguishable from a miracle. The fact that this something can assemble itself into organised, self replicating living entities is indistinguishable from a miracle. The fact that some of these entities are self aware and can make any sense at all of the universe is indistinguishable from a miracle. Comprehensibility is indistinguishable from a miracle cubed. The fact that some people give up on how this has happened and settle for some hokey why, involving some completely unexplainable god, is rather less miraculous. As I have stated, the idea of a god is a plausible hypothesis, but as an atheist I do not believe it. That in no way diminishes the miraculous nature of the universe. You can see it all in your belly-button. Bully for you.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

Gus, you surely must understand that when I argue I am arguing for a group of different voices. Take your pick from them, and you have your answers.

Wait, this is your response to my last posts?

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

To understand Uwot's (and other atheist's) perspective, one has to ask and to answer the questions: What is the life and power of it? What at the most fundamental level is it attempting to express and give shape to? And: What is it attempting to resist, and why? A launch into these questions, and their answers, will take one by the quickest route to the predicative cores.

In this sense an explanatory system is an attempt to arrive at definitions that are final and solid. Once defined, there is no more need of interrogation.

[uwot]

Gus, you surely must understand that when I argue I am arguing for a group of different voices. Take your pick from them, and you have your answers.

Wait, this is your response to my last posts?

That's very perspicacious of you, Gus. Actually, they're pretty much your words:

You surely must understand that when I argue I am arguing against a group of different voices.

If you are simply going to cherry pick the bits that fit your brief (it's called 'confirmation bias', Gus), there's fuck all point me giving you my opinion.
And there's more:

To understand Uwot's (and other atheist's) perspective...

I do not represent your 'mass man', Gus, It's a straw man. If you want to fight him, I'll stay on the other side of the ropes and hoot with derision, as and when the mood takes me.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

'Bacon and his followers of the Royal Society had justified natural science on the ground that the study of God's work, if carried far enough, would increase man's reverence for the divine workman; Milton had shown how 'in contemplation of created things By steps we may ascend to God'; Pope had spoken of looking 'through Nature up to Nature's God'; Rousseau had lent the magic of his eloquence to the view that God was to be sought not in text or creed or temple, but amidst mountains, forests and sunsets.'

Admittedly, in the vast shift in ideation between the scholastic period (if this is an appropriate title) and our present (and how shall we label it? if we cannot use the term 'materialist'? What exactly is Our Present? and how shall we define it? a sunset, a slow death? a slow, lingering death? or an agonising birth? a brave new world?), but this vast shift is not has not been and will not anytime soon be an easy shift to navigate, and we must see it (mustn't we?) as one of battle, conflict, disagreement, and in this sense war of ideas. Once again: to make the effort to discover, uncover, expose and analyse the predicates that operate seems a worthwhile activity.

But one thing I strongly notice: The study of nature, the focus on material or energetic phenomena (of this 'some stuff of which the universe is composed' according to Brother Uwot), does not and indeed CANNOT (I assert) lead to any acceptable philosophical or ethical position. I would further say that it will directly produce a really rather strange - even terrifying - form of nihilism which, of course, could not be called nihilistic by itself since it is NOT 'nihil' at all to which it turns, but precisely to the stuff that is everything. But this stuff reveals nothing. Or to put it another way what it reveals is only an absolute and natural brutality (and I mean brutality in a neutral sense: 'from bruting a rough hewing (of a diamond), partial translation of French brutage literally, a roughing, equivalent to brut rough, raw).

It becomes necessary to make the following statement, and to understand its implication in its fullest sense: The religion that has functioned at the core of Occidental processes for quite some time now is a supernatural religion. It is NOT a religion (view, stance, orientation, decision, enforcement, imposition) that is 'natural' but rather it is anatural and supernatural. It is in this sense a direct stance taken against 'the way things are', and in this sense it is 'against nature'. Thus, you do not and you cannot find the God of Christianity (I mean a spirit, a philosophical essence, a pattern, nor the core idealism) in nature nor in 'the natural world'. Looking for this God there you will search in vain for eternity.

This is the strangeness of it: Is thought natural, anatural or supernatural? Shall we say that the thought of humans is 1) part of nature and and expression of it? or 2) anatural to nature and a deviation from nature? If we take the 'natural' route, I will suggest, we decimate all meaning! ALL MEANING! Nature has no meaning. None is to be found there. Just an endless cycling and recycling of *energies* (within the eternal play of 'the stuff of which the universe is composed'). In the truest sense possible a return to nature, or coming under the sway of nature, is to surrender any *thought* and to enter the flow of nature as one would enter a stream: You must surrender volition, idea, counter-current, assertion, deviation, opposition.

Therefor: I assert - non JE DÉCLARE - that in its most essential sense, at the very core of it, the 'defence' of the existence of God is intimately linked with the possibility of all declarative, oppositional, assertive, moulding, intelligent, and also rational activity, that in essence makes man man.

This is actually the very essence of what we are fighting over here.

Like Uwot 'I rest my case'.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

You surely must understand that when I argue I am arguing against a group of different voices.

The different voices on this thread: Uwot, Sthita, etc.

I do not represent your 'mass man', Gus, It's a straw man. If you want to fight him, I'll stay on the other side of the ropes and hoot with derision, as and when the mood takes me.

We all have something to do with that man, Uwot. It is not a straw man to understand and attempt to define 'modern predicates' as they take shape in and shape us.

You have done what 'your side' often does: Provoke responses and then totally fail to address what you have provoked. But it makes no difference to me, or my argument, that you fail to respond. I will gain here despite your loss.

[Wyman]

And what, pray tell, is a "proper answer"? A slogan that can be put on a bumper-sticker?

Well done, Inglorious. You could just about squeeze that onto a bumper sticker; the font would be small, so you'd have to be tight up the arse of the one you are following, but that evidently doesn't bother you.

I just thought this deserves some recognition -

[Wyman]

The study of nature, the focus on material or energetic phenomena (of this 'some stuff of which the universe is composed' according to Brother Uwot), does not and indeed CANNOT (I assert) lead to any acceptable philosophical or ethical position. I would further say that it will directly produce a really rather strange - even terrifying - form of nihilism which, of course, could not be called nihilistic by itself since it is NOT 'nihil' at all to which it turns, but precisely to the stuff that is everything. But this stuff reveals nothing. Or to put it another way what it reveals is only an absolute and natural brutality (and I mean brutality in a neutral sense: 'from bruting a rough hewing (of a diamond), partial translation of French brutage literally, a roughing, equivalent to brut rough, raw).

I have argued this same position on PN several times - and at least once against uwot. However, Gustav, you are not really arguing as much as pontificating. I am not impressed - and I know uwot is not - by your bloviating posts. Luckily, we can all scroll through your posts - I feel very sorry for anyone in your life who finds themselves a captive audience to your verbal masturbation.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

I don't give a flying fuck what you have 'argued'. If you have something to contribute to the subjects, please do so. You imply that you do. But your comments have no value nor weight of any sort at all, to me in any case. You are just talking shit. Typical from what I have seen. Lots of bluster, and very little delivered.

What you have quoted is my position, and it is my argument, or the general area of my argument. I wouldn't change any part of it.

[The Inglorious One]

No, Inglorious. The fact that there is something rather than nothing is indistinguishable from a miracle. The fact that this something can assemble itself into organised, self replicating living entities is indistinguishable from a miracle. The fact that some of these entities are self aware and can make any sense at all of the universe is indistinguishable from a miracle. Comprehensibility is indistinguishable from a miracle cubed. The fact that some people give up on how this has happened and settle for some hokey why, involving some completely unexplainable god, is rather less miraculous. As I have stated, the idea of a god is a plausible hypothesis, but as an atheist I do not believe it. That in no way diminishes the miraculous nature of the universe. You can see it all in your belly-button. Bully for you.

If you were paying attention, you'd know that I anticipated you answer perfectly. Like Neil deGrasse Tyson and the late Carl Sagan, you are in awe of the universe 'out there', but totally oblivious to the bigger, infinitely more mysterious, and more wonderful universe within yourself; oblivious even to the experiencing of green. Your "awe" is without reverence and has no epistemic value. You have your feet planted firmly on thin air, as it were. You tore down the lamppost before considering the value of its light and now you discuss in the dark what might have been discussed under the obsolete gas-lamp. As the result:

Every one of the popular modern phrases and ideals is a dodge in order to shirk the problem of what is good. We are fond of talking about “liberty”; that, as we talk of it, is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. We are fond of talking about “progress”; that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. We are fond of talking about “education”; that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. The modern man says, “Let us leave all these arbitrary standards and embrace liberty.” This is, logically rendered, “Let us not decide what is good, but let it be considered good not to decide it.” He says, “Away with your old moral formulae; I am for progress.” This, logically stated, means, “Let us not settle what is good; but let us settle whether we are getting more of it.” He says, “Neither in religion nor morality, my friend, lie the hopes of the race, but in education.” This, clearly expressed, means, “We cannot decide what is good, but let us give it to our children.”

"Philosophy is dead," said a famous scientist recently. With feet firmly planted on thin air, your position is no different. What does your understanding contribute? What does the world gain? Does the world gain or lose by having its feet planted on thin air? Have we gained or lost by religion's exclusion? Is literature better? Is politics better for having discarded the moralist and the philosopher? Are people any happier with their lives? We are more connected with each other than at any time in our history, but we are also more disconnected from the Real than any time in our history.

At any innocent tea-table we may easily hear a man say, “Life is not worth living.” We regard it as we regard the statement that it is a fine day; nobody thinks that it can possibly have any serious effect on the man or on the world. And yet if that utterance were really believed, the world would stand on its head. ...Yet we never speculate as to whether the conversational pessimist will strengthen or disorganize society; for we are convinced that theories do not matter.

Some two thousand years ago, a man said, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." Those words are just as relevant today.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

However, Gustav, you are not really arguing as much as pontificating.

To be truthful I am engaged far more than the 'opposition' in strict argumentation, and your characterisation is false, however what you notice, and with some justice, is the rhetorical thrust of my discourse, which is intended. Essentially I desire to operate in philosophical discourse as rhetor. It hinges in the issue of 'decisiveness' which I have spoken of at other moments. Certainly this does have a 'sermonic' element, and I regard all use of language, and persuasion, even in the lower form such as advertising, as stemming from a 'sermonic intentionality'.

"The embattled friends of traditional rhetoric [ ... ] are in my opinion the upholders of our inherited society."

[The Inglorious One]

Did we lose our audience, Gustav?