Harbal wrote: ↑Fri Jan 13, 2023 12:48 am
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jan 12, 2023 8:11 pm
Harbal wrote: ↑Thu Jan 12, 2023 7:30 pm
To become aware of some claim, give it some consideration, and conclude that it lacks enough plausibility to be taken seriously, therefore not including it among proposed accounts of states of affairs one regards as being true, or likely to be true.
Alright. Let's take that definition and work with it.
On what does one base the "conclusion" that it "lacks enough plausibility to be taken seriously," when it comes to the matter of God?
Well, in my case, I base that conclusion on my own experience of how the world that I know works. Certain causes always lead to certain effects, and certain things do happen, while other things never happen, so, based on these sorts of observations, I have arrived at a model with which I am able to compare any state of affairs that might be presented to me as fact. Now, the state of affairs that you, for example, present to me regarding God, most definitely does not comply with my model.
Is this not simply an elaborate way of saying, "I haven't seen it, so I don't believe it"? Or is there something else here?
I fear that if I were to accept all these accounts as genuine my mind would lose its way, and I would be unable to function properly in the world that I know.
That's very interesting. And you're not alone in that observation. For example, David Shenk in his (entirely secular) book
Data Smog, says that when faced with all the data flooding into people's lives from the internet, the effect is a kind of information paralysis, where to make any commitment or believe anything comes to feel dangerous -- since, at any future moment, some new bit of information might appear, and then one might find oneself committed to a position that makes one a fool or exposes one as naive, or whatever. So he says the automatic default of the postmodern person is a kind of permanent "floating" without solid commitments, because of the fear caused by one seeming to float in an infinite realm of possibilities without any compass or orientation points.
Your commment reminds me of that, a little. That "my mind would lose it's way, and I would be unable to function property" suggests a similar feeling. Nevertheless, what we always have to remember is that reality and truth are inevitably singular. All that floating free really does to one is reduce the chances of being right to 0%.
So I see where you're coming from. You seem to opt for gripping on firmly to a kind of whatever-I-experience-is-what-there-is postion, and that makes you skeptical of the claim there might be a God.
However, what I submit to you is this: the data you know, from your own experience already, is, at best, equivocal, not decisive in favour of Atheism or even agnosticism. The vast majority of people, looking at the same data (and this even includes people like Dawkins) feel attracted to the belief that there is design, purpose, order and even wonder in this same world your "common sense" is suggesting to you is devoid of God...and their "common sense" is telling them there well might be a God, and even that it's likely there is.
And then, of course, there's that further problem to which your own common sense can direct you: namely, that you already know that what one person has experienced is not at all decisive of what anybody else can experience. It's not even decisive of what the one person
will eventually experience. All it reflects is whatever he has experienced
up to now...not of anything further.
Maybe we all assume our "common sense" is the "common" one. But it's not. It's not the sum of others' experiences. It's not even the sum of the experiences you and I are going to have.
And that's one thing that even common sense knows.
That's an obvious question, because according to neutral statistical gathering (the CIA factbook, for example) 92% of the world's population believes it's plausible, and another 4% thinks it might be plausible...leaving only 4% that are convinced it's not. And that's without taking the historical count into tabulation, which would surely be far higher, since for long periods of time there was practically nobody who thought otherwise.
I don't know that those statistics are accurate, to what extent they have been skewed, or to what degree the beliefs are significant to those who hold them, but popularity is no measure of good judgement. Remember the Osmonds?
Yes, they are a telling blow indeed.
I have been very careful in my remarks, you'll see, not to imply any
argumentum ad populum, any fallacy holding that something becomes true because many people believe it. I recognize that as a fallacy, and would never offer that argument. So it wasn't my point.
But there is a relevant point to be made with reference to the general intuition that God exists. And it's that Atheism, far from being any kind of natural or automatic reaction of intelligent people or the default way of the world, is statistically an extreme minority position, not at all common-sensical, and not at all the natural product of viewing the evidence. As such, it certainly owes us some kind of explanation as to why it thinks we should abandon the common intuition to cleave to it, and thus to foreclose on the question of whether or not God exists. And if it cannot offer such, it surely cannot expect to be believed automatically.
My impression is that many, if not most, people go about their lives without much reference to God.
You'll find it's quite otherwise, I'm sure. But I don't know how wide your scope is, only that you won't extend it very far until that thesis is demonstrated incorrect.
I have never had the impression that those who are aware of my lack of religious beliefs have difficulty in taking me seriously in that particular regard.
Probably not.
But whether
you are serious, or your
basis for your "lack of religious beliefs" is serious are two different questions. People may take
you seriously as a person, and fully believe you believe what you say, and have no affinity at all with the skeptical position you affirm. They may, in fact, take you seriously, and still believe you're incorrect in your assumptions about God.
I certainly don't think that somebody who claims to be an Atheist wants to say, "Y'know, I've never actually thought about God at all," or "I have no opinion." If he's an Atheist, he has both. He's thought about it, and he has an opinion. I think that's fair, don't you?
I suppose so.
But is it a rational opinion, or just a wish? That will have to be established on the quality of the evidence he produces.
Well, again, in my case it is an opinion for which there is no rational reason for it to be otherwise, and I do not consider it reasonable to present me with what I consider to be ludicrous claims and then demand that I produce evidence to justify my rejection of them.
I was with you until you interjected "ludicrous." Because the minute you add that pejorative, you need reasons for it, or else nobody has to accept it is "ludicrous." the word merely becomes a gratuitous insult, absent evidence warranting the claim.
But I also find that the average Atheist is only interested in thinking about the matter long enough to fix on some singular idea that satisfies him personally that he can dismiss the whole matter, and then stops thinking right there. That's why they never want to give evidence, but prefer to complain, "I don't owe any." It's because their disbelief is, even in their own awareness, not well-founded, and they're very keen not to have their reasoning examined, or their basis of disbelief questioned. It won't stand up well.
This account of what you "find" to be going on in the heads of average atheists has a strong flavour of something made up on the spur of the moment, and is not what you would expect from one who is ever mindful of the need for evidence.
Not at all. I've talked to a lot of Atheists, and found it so. And so could you. You could even go back to earlier posts in various threads on this site, and see the Atheists plead, "I don't owe any evidence, because I just fail to find reason to believe" (i.e. the agnostic defensive positon) and then, a message later, jump to "People are irrational to believe in God." (i.e. adopting the Atheist attack stance). They do both frequently, without any consciousness at all of the contradiction.
But if "rationality" is the problem, then the Atheist owes evidence. And if "I fail to find reason to believe" is the defense, then the sufficient Theist response becomes far too easy to satisify the Atheist: it's simply, "Well, I do find reason to believe." And worse still, for the Atheist, the Theists can add, "And if you had experience like ours, or thought harder than you are doing, you might find the reasons you lack."
Obviously that's highly unsatisfactory to any Atheist who who wants his position to seem rational or to become the default of others -- which, of course, many do. He's too easily defeated. So he needs evidence...but lacks it, permanently.
Atheists are quite obsessed with dismissing God. They work very hard at it
Maybe so when they find themselves on discussion forums, but perhaps not so much in their day to day lives.
Plausibly so. Most people's daily lives are preoccupied with daily trivia and the business of simply surviving. And even those who still find time to think often today suppress it with distractions and entertainments. So thinking's becoming a bit of a lost art.
My impression is that Dawkins thinks the matter to be important because of the damaging effect he believes religion to have on society. I agree with him in that I do believe when religion is practiced with too much enthusiasm it can be detrimental, and even dangerous, but I think his message has much more relevance in the USA than it does in my country.
That's the effect of a very strongly Leftist media propagandizing. I've seen the reports from outside the US, and the impression they give is of rabid hordes of right-wingers and religious conservatives being ready to explode onto the political scene and create "Handmaid's Tale" tyrannies.
It's rubbish, actually. Even the foaming Leftist press can't find these "hordes of right wingers" when they go looking for them. That's why they never show them...because if they knew where they were, they'd be there with cameras for sure. It would cement their case, which is designed to give the public in the US, and outsiders elsewhere, the impression of a massive, looming, right-wing threat. If they could find such evidence, you can bet your eye teeth they'd be blazing it across the airwaves. The fact that they can only point to rare individuals of extreme type, and never to mass movements, to political parties, or major voices of any kind, shows that the putative "right" is actually not a threat.
But to see that, one has to look beyond the propaganda and posturing, and simply ask, "Where are they?"
All my experiences of being among the religious have been in a C of E environment, where the danger of being bored to death is the biggest threat you are likely to be faced with.
Indeed so. I have to admit that I find the C of E exceedingly musty.
But that's a very different question than whether or not it's a serious matter. Plausibly, it's a matter that has simply escaped your serious interest.
No, it hasn't escaped my interest; that would imply there may be circumstances under which I would pursue it. That fact is, I don't consider God and religion worthy of my interest. True, I am putting effort into this discussion, but it is not because I have an interest in religion, it is because this is a discussion forum and I find preposterous assertions hard to ignore, regardless of the subject of their content.
Two more words that would imply a need for reasons and evidence: "preposterous" and "worthy of interest." Such firm conclusions on...what evidence?
Is your conclusion that there needs to be no careful consideration of the possibility of God that you simply "feel" that? Or have you another, stronger reason for that conclusion?
The possibility of God and the possibility of unicorns have similar credibility in my estimation, and that is the basis for my feeling that careful consideration is not necessary.
I would have guessed that's the way it is. So it's just an intuition.
I am not a spokesperson for these people. All I have to say about them is that they are not typical examples of atheistic behaviour.
Quite so. They're the Atheist's heroes and flag-bearers. So many Atheists laud them.
For every Dawkins there are probably a dozen fanatically religious crackpots spewing out there poisonous filth on the internet or in some pseudo church or other. Would it be fair to ask you to answer for them?
No, of course not: unless I praised them, or associated myself with them, or invited you to believe I was like them, or something of that kind. Which perhaps
you personally don't do with Dawkins et al...but so very many Atheists do.
