Philosophy Now Forum

Typist wrote:Oh, I really don't think so. You could ask EH I guess, but he's married so that might be rude. I really don't know what to tell you. Fuck yourself? Maybe that'll work?

Is this another example of you addressing the specifics? Minds those stones and glasshouses now.

Typist wrote:EH, observe how you didn't address any specifics in my post. This is the "abandon reason the first moment it interferes with my personal identity" process I referred to. You are in scramble mode now, and any emotion you may be experiencing is a big clue worth listening to.

Don't suppose you considered that the number of directions and thoughts in this thread is growing geometrically, and that I might just possibly have other obligations that limit my ability to respond to absolutely everything? To accuse me of "abandoning reason" as you do is gratuitous -- and as it happens, quite wrong.

evangelicalhumanist wrote:Don't suppose you considered that the number of directions and thoughts in this thread is growing geometrically, and that I might just possibly have other obligations that limit my ability to respond to absolutely everything?

I considered that you couldn't handle this....

Atheists may feel that a lack of scientific evidence is authoritative in regards to this question. This is a belief. Atheists may feel that human reason is capable of analyzing this question and coming to a useful answer. This is a belief. Atheists may feel that gods are an invention of the human mind. This is a belief. And so on...

Further, it's entirely fair to say these are faith based beliefs, as there is no hard evidence to prove any of them. All we have to do here is apply the same standard we apply to theism to atheism as well. Strongly held beliefs which can not be proven by science are faith based beliefs.

....and so you chose to dodge it.

So what? Who cares? I've told you from the beginning you're nuts to hang on to this "atheists don't have beliefs" business. It's just pure silliness unworthy of your intelligence.

You have beliefs. You articulate them well. What's wrong with that??????

Typist wrote:So what? Who cares? I've told you from the beginning you're nuts to hang on to this "atheists don't have beliefs" business. It's just pure silliness unworthy of your intelligence.

You have beliefs. You articulate them well. What's wrong with that??????

And as I've told you about a billion times (using your own propensity to exaggerate numbers), of course I've got beleifs. Lot's of them. And I do articulate them. But not believing in God is not a form of belief. It is a lack of belief in a particular thing. You are stuck with a determination to make atheism a "belief system," which it most definitely is not. Beliefs inform, lack of belief is silent. And I'm sorry, but my life is definitely not informed by the infinite number of things in which I do not belief, but rather by the much smaller number of things in which I do.

And I'm sorry, but your insistence on the opposite is unworthy of your intelligence. I don't quite know what's driving it, to be honest, except perhaps that very natural human urge to put everything into tidy boxes with labels on them.

evangelicalhumanist wrote:But not believing in God is not a form of belief.

It is, among other things, a belief in the ability of human reason to come to a useful conclusion on this topic.

This belief can be contrasted to a common theist belief that human reason does not have this ability, leading to their use of faith as an alternate methodology.

evangelicalhumanist wrote: And I'm sorry, but my life is definitely not informed by the infinite number of things in which I do not belief, but rather by the much smaller number of things in which I do.

Right, and one of the things you believe is that there is no God. Your 14 trillion posts on this topic make it abundantly clear that you hold this belief. And this belief does indeed inform how you go about your life.

Theists believe in god, and act accordingly.

Atheists believe there is no god, and act accordingly.

It's exactly the same thing.

Two groups, each claiming things they can't possibly know, and using these claims to position themselves in regards to other people.

Typist wrote:

evangelicalhumanist wrote: And I'm sorry, but my life is definitely not informed by the infinite number of things in which I do not belief, but rather by the much smaller number of things in which I do.

Right, and one of the things you believe is that there is no God. Your 14 trillion posts on this topic make it abundantly clear that you hold this belief. And this belief does indeed inform how you go about your life.

Theists believe in god, and act accordingly.

Atheists believe there is no god, and act accordingly.

It's exactly the same thing.

Two groups, each claiming things they can't possibly know, and using these claims to position themselves in regards to other people.

Tell me. Give me just one example of the effect upon you of not believing there's a herd of 50 million powder blue water buffalo on the planet Omega Cowpat VI? Not believing that has absolutely zero to do with how you act. You do not "act accordingly," and not believing in God does not inform how I act in the smallest degree. Believing in gravity and evolution and trigonometry does.

And all of my posts on the topic of God, as I've explained to you before, are not about God but about what it means that many humans believe in such an entity and bring that entity into a kind of reality by the very fact that -- as you said -- they act accordingly.

... and not believing in God does not inform how I act in the smallest degree.

Well, for starters, you often spend hours a day talking about it.

Your belief that god doesn't exist defines your relationship with those who do believe. It seems to be a major hobby of yours to tell them why they are wrong, etc. Your belief that god doesn't exist seems to be the basis for a holy jihad of sorts.

Your belief that god doesn't exist is being used to create a personal identity that is in competition with the theist flavor of personal identity. They claimed to be more saved than you, and you claim to be more logical than them etc.

Your belief that god doesn't exist has led to you to sell your own "evangelical humanist" position.

Honestly EH, your belief that god doesn't exist seems to be a significant player in your life, at least to the degree we can determine by your writings.

This...

... and not believing in God does not inform how I act in the smallest degree.

.... is just plain goofy.

Typist wrote:

... and not believing in God does not inform how I act in the smallest degree.

Well, for starters, you often spend hours a day talking about it.

Your belief that god doesn't exist defines your relationship with those who do believe. It seems to be a major hobby of yours to tell them why they are wrong, etc. Your belief that god doesn't exist seems to be the basis for a holy jihad of sorts.

Your belief that god doesn't exist is being used to create a personal identity that is in competition with the theist flavor of personal identity. They claimed to be more saved than you, and you claim to be more logical than them etc.

Your belief that god doesn't exist has led to you to sell your own "evangelical humanist" position.

Honestly EH, your belief that god doesn't exist seems to be a significant player in your life, at least to the degree we can determine by your writings.

This...

... and not believing in God does not inform how I act in the smallest degree.

.... is just plain goofy.

Try again, only this time don't leave out the important point I made, which you ignored. "And all of my posts on the topic of God, as I've explained to you before, are not about God but about what it means that many humans believe in such an entity and bring that entity into a kind of reality by the very fact that -- as you said -- they act accordingly."

I have personal experience of people's belief in God. It was filled with condemnation. The history of religion is a horror story, and it's not hard to find thousands upon thousands of shocking examples, right up to this very day -- from ritual sacrifice to torture and killing for heresy to war and flying planes into buildings. It's not God that I care about, but about what people who believe in God do with that belief.

Anything that divides people breeds inhumanity. God, through the religions inspired by belief, serves that ugly purpose.

evangelicalhumanist wrote:I have personal experience of people's belief in God. It was filled with condemnation. The history of religion is a horror story, and it's not hard to find thousands upon thousands of shocking examples, right up to this very day -- from ritual sacrifice to torture and killing for heresy to war and flying planes into buildings. It's not God that I care about, but about what people who believe in God do with that belief.

But you don't care about explicitly atheist regimes slaughtering millions. You never talk about that, even though the scale of these murders dwarfs anything theists have done over the last century.

Can we make this simple? Here's my theory.

SOME theists don't like you because you're gay, and so you don't like them back.

It seems you can't be bothered to direct your fire at gay hating theists specifically (a cause I'd be happy to support you in), and instead have lumped all theists in to one big group, apparently forgetting that millions of these theists are actually gay themselves.

Typist wrote: What is philosophy? What is it literally? Thought.
aPhilosophy is "a-thought".

why philosophy is thought? what is thought? what do you mean by literally?
do you even know what you are talking about? some say that philosophy is love of wisdom. some say that philosophy is love of knowledge. are they wrong and you are right? what is wrong, right, wisdom, knowledge or thought? some ask is it worth a try or even wise to try aphilosophy? is there any aphilosophy if you dont know what is philosophy? or do you? what you mean by knowing or meaning and do you know that for sure? are you like dope dealer, priest, philosopher or what?

Typist wrote:But you don't care about explicitly atheist regimes slaughtering millions. You never talk about that, even though the scale of these murders dwarfs anything theists have done over the last century.

Now you know, or ought to know, that that simply is not true. I myself brought that up in the other thread at 10:40this morning, and I know that you've read that post because you responded to it.

What you do here, of course, is to imply (without quite saying it directly) that the impetus for Mao's and Stalin's (and others) slaughter was atheism. It was, as I'm sure you know perfectly well, nothing of the kind. The impetus was a political philosophy on the reordering of society. I said in the other thread that once such a political philosophy becomes seen as necessary and therefore enforceable, neither theism or atheism is any bar whatever to killing by the millions. Again, I point to the wars of religion in Europe and Britain, to the Inquisition and to the Crusades. Or for the most fun of all, the endless and ongoing slaughter of millions of Hindus and Muslims in India, the persecution of Baha'is in Iran, and on and on and on...

Can we make this simple? Here's my theory.

SOME theists don't like you because you're gay, and so you don't like them back.

It seems you can't be bothered to direct your fire at gay hating theists specifically (a cause I'd be happy to support you in), and instead have lumped all theists in to one big group, apparently forgetting that millions of these theists are actually gay themselves.

And let me make it equally simple. The data points comparing religious belief and tolerance of homosexuality are remarkably clear. Again, from the Pew Forum. 50% of Americans have an unfavourable or very unfavourable opinion on gay men. This is broken down as follows:

Evangelical high commitment - 72%
Evangelical overall - 69%
Evangelical lower commitment - 64%
Black Protestant - 62% (about 10% of whom I suspect are on the "down-low")
White Protestant - 58%
White Catholic - 43%
Secular - 29%

However, it's not just about being gay. There is a wide range of things that give me concern, covering such areas as education, attitudes to women, normal sexuality, bioethics, the death penalty, tolerance of other religious affiliations, political interferance in private matters, and so on.

I've never denied that my experience of religion and my understanding of religion in history has made me frightened of it. I've said as much in plain text in my essay "The God in Your Head is Real," which I've linked to on this board.

The aphilosopher in me suggests the wise thing to do here is to allow you to be you, and enjoy your dogma in peace.

I don't mean to blow you off, but haven't we proven beyond all doubt that this conversation could go for another hundred years without movement of any kind? Speaking for myself at least, I'm honestly out of anything new to say.

Typist wrote:...Speaking for myself at least, I'm honestly out of anything new to say.

Well before you stop could you please answer a question chaz put to you at the beginning of your few billion word cycle.

How do you explain that ALL theists are atheists with respect to others 'gods'?

Please, please, please, just answer this one at least.

Arising_uk wrote:

Typist wrote:...Speaking for myself at least, I'm honestly out of anything new to say.

Well before you stop could you please answer a question chaz put to you at the beginning of your few billion word cycle.

How do you explain that ALL theists are atheists with respect to others 'gods'?

Please, please, please, just answer this one at least.

Typist wrote:

...Speaking for myself at least, I'm honestly out of anything new to say.

THERE IS A GOD!