The “consensus” view among atheists seems to be that atheism is reasonable and that religious beliefs are not.
So why are atheists angry at God?
We can become incensed by objects and creatures both animate and inanimate. We can even, in a limited sense, be bothered by the fanciful characters in books and dreams. But creatures like unicorns that don’t exist ”that we truly believe not to exist” tend not to raise our ire. We certainly don’t blame the one-horned creatures for our problems.
The one social group that takes exception to this rule is atheists. They claim to believe that God does not exist and yet, according to empirical studies, tend to be the people most angry at him.
I’m trying to remember the last time I got angry at something which did not exist. It’s been a while since I last played World of Warcraft, but that might be a candidate.
But atheists angry at God? That’s absurd. Assertions that there are empirical studies to that effect? Simply ludicrous. By definition, atheism is a lack of belief in God or gods. It is simply a matter of logical impossibility that atheists should be angry at God.
LOL. that actually happened to me in a class. I disagreed with Whitehead’s “…three-fold function of “(i) to live, (ii) to live well, (iii) to live better”. Hit a nerve with the prof. First time a teacher ever yelled at me for expressing an opinion, but not the last.
This response makes me wonder how well you comprehended my insistence that the norms of rational discourse are grounded in the social practices of the distinctively human form of life.
Just because the norms I am interested in talking about here are grounded in social practices doesn’t not mean that they are the kind of social practices that vary from culture to culture. For there are also universal social practices — practices that all normal mature human beings can participate in — and the norms of rational discourse are among them. And this is because the norms of rational discourse make possible successful cooperation, which is a species-typical universal behavior and one of the many things that makes human beings different from other animals, even our closest primate relatives.
Of course there are also culturally-specific social practices, but I do not think that the norms of reasoning are among them.
That said, it is also worth stressing that how the norms are made explicit and codified does have some cultural variation. For example, there is an entire school of Buddhist logic that rejects the principle of non-contradiction. But they do so by means of highly sophisticated arguments, which indicates to me that the norms of reasoning are, in a sense very difficult to explicate, “deeper” than the principles of logic we have inherited from Aristotle.
Actually, if you take a look at Rickert’s website he has some interesting discussions about Wittgenstein.
I don’t know where this attitude that Rickert is hostile towards philosophy comes from. He’s skeptical towards some types of philosophy and some ways of doing philosophy, but Rickert has never concealed that his skepticism is itself philosophical, and in fact has been quite explicit that it is Wittgensteinian.
It comes from posts here and at Analytic and from his blog. I know that he likes to do philosophy himself, though. He just does it while he says things like “That’s why I don’t like philosophy….”
Incidentally, the Wittgensteinians I’ve met (and I’ve met a bunch of them over the years), generally bad mouth philosophy–especially analytic philosophy. They don’t actually respect ANY philosophy besides Wittgenstein’s, but since most philosophers writing in English today do analytic philosophy, they hurl most of their abuse at analytic philosophers. Interestingly, Wittgenstein is generally (though not universally) regarded pretty highly among analytic philosophers.
Thanks for that reply to WJM. I wasn’t sure how to address his misunderstanding.
Of course, WJM is right that this allows something cultural to be involved in what counts as reasoning. And we see that. For example, the French people do their reasoning in French rather than in English. But I don’t think anybody has suggested that there is a problem with doing their reasoning in French, though that’s what seems to worry WJM.
From the perspective of a timeless God there is no post incarnation and their is no before the creation of the universe. To give an idea of how this all might work
Check this out
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029413-300-entangled-toy-universe-shows-time-may-be-an-illusion/
peace
“how do you know it’s true”
That is exactly the question keiths asked me at the beginning to this conversation.
Would you be satisfied if I said
I know the Bible is God’s word because I believe that the Bible is God’s word my belief is justified and it’s true
If you say yes you and I have no quarrel and this discussion was not for your benefit. My concern was always for those who would say no.
peace
I would be satisfied if you said I know the Bible is God’s word just in case I believe the Bible is God’s word, I’m justified in believing the God’s word, and the Bible is in fact God’s word.
Of those, it’s clear that you believe it and that you’ve spent a bunch of time looking for justification. Whether you actually have much justification for this belief as a result of your studies, I don’t know. As to the truth of your claim, well, it either is or it isn’t true. If it’s true and you’re indeed justified, you know it, if not both of those, you don’t.
The thing is, that is precisely the same thing the atheist can say about, for example, the existence of mice in her house. If she believes it, and has justification (caught a glimpse, saw droppings, has a jacked up cat, etc.) then, if it’s true, she knows it. Just like with you, if her justification isn’t sufficient or it’s not actually true that there’s a mouse there, then she doesn’t know it.
This is where you claim not only that you have, but that one NEEDS more than what this woman just may have (JTB) to have real knowledge. You ask at this point, “Well, yeah, but how does she KNOW it’s true that there’s a mouse in her house?’ (You do this based on your theory that you’ve got something MORE than she has). But when you do that, you are insisting that JTB ISN’T enough for knowledge, that one needs something MORE than that–because she’s GOT that (if her belief is true), and you’re still asking how she can have knowledge.
As keiths and I have pointed out several times, you’re actually requiring certainty of some kind or other. Before one can go into the question of whether you actually do have that certainty you are requiring of others, it would be nice if you could see that you’re not actually using JTB as your definition of “knowledge” (or at least that you have a weirdly high standard for “justification”–higher than is usually required for what people commonly consider to be knowledge).
No I’m not requiring certainty I’m requiring Truth.
If Truth exists then knowelege is possible. If the Christian God exists then Truth exists. That is because the Christian God is Truth.
That is what this is about not certainty . If the Christian God does not exist then I can’t see how truth exists.
In order to reason your presupposition does not have to give you certainty it has to give you truth
That is why I keep asking the question I want to see how your worldview gets you to truth. NR has even said he does not know what truth is
peace
I like that, and I’ll try to keep it in mind.
Statements are true or not if the propositions they express “fit the facts.” So, for example, it’s true that there’s a mouse in my house just in case there IS a mouse in my house, and it’s not true if there isn’t. So we don’t need God for there to BE truth.
But you mention above “getting to truth.” The only thing that can GUARANTEE that one’s beliefs are true is certainty. That, in fact, is what I have meant by “certainty” in these posts: some property which is such that if a belief has it, the belief must be true. You’re right that I don’t have that. You say that God gives you that. If so, you win.
But first you need to acknowledge that it’s certainty that God is providing here, not truth or justification. Why? Because statements are true or not with or without God, and justification doesn’t guarantee truth. Hence, JTB is, on your view, not sufficient for knowledge–unless, of course, you mean by “justification” what I mean by “certainty”–some property that guarantees truth. Some medievals called that “a mark of truth.”
And if knowledge is justified true belief (JTB), then truth is necessary for knowledge. And for those who hold to a coherence theory, that too requires truth. So either way truth is required for knowledge.
If you were to ask an African American in 1870 to what he owed his freedom he might say the emancipation proclamation.
However If you were to take some time exploring the grounds of his freedom the comprehensive reality would be a bit more complicated. It would take some effort to makes sure you did not miss anything
peace
I agree that truth is required for knowledge and that coherence can only give justification (or some portion of it). The error here is Fifth’s thinking that he is not requiring certainty: that’s precisely what he IS requiring.
In your world can you get to truth.
I’m not asking for a guarantee I’m asking if truth can exist.
By truth I mean real objective attainable truth. Not subjective hypothetical truth.
In my worldview it does
peace
I’m not so sure. But first a question about ontology and epistemology.
Is the claim that we don’t need God for truth an ontological claim or an epistemological claim, or something else? So for example to say that there is such a thing as truth. Is that not the same as saying that truth exists? And isn’t that an ontological claim?
Whether there is a mouse in the house though, is an epistemological claim. And to argue that an epistemological claim IS TRUE because it fits the fact raises the question of how it is that such claims can be true [or false] in the first place.
We can’t communicate at all unless we agree on the meanings of the terms we are using.
Of course truth can exist. It exists whenever something that is believed or said is actually the case. So for both of us, truth exists whenever somebody is right about something. For example, I put these two sentences in English:
It’s currently raining in Arlington, Mass.
It’s not currently raining in Arlington, Mass.
One of them is true. Therefore truth exists. Real, objective truth.
But now you move to “attainable truth” or “getting to truth.” I have justification for some of my beliefs and statements (including one of the two sentences above). But I concede that I could be wrong, anyhow. If you are asking me for truths that i COULD NOT be wrong about, then you are asking me about certainty.
How is the death and resurrection of Jesus a necessary precondition for knowledge?
That is exactly what I’m trying to get Fifth to distinguish. There are truths, and then there is knowing truths.
I don’t take any of those to be epistemological claims.
Let me try another way of answering this. Note that I only quoted a small part of what WJM wrote. Follow the link to read the rest.
Broadly described, reasoning amounts to considering possibilities, evaluating them and using that evaluation to make decisions.
Let me call that “reasoning behavior”.
This subtopic start with your post about laws of logic. What you are calling “laws of logic” is a codification of reasoning behavior.
When I say that laws of logic are human constructs, I am saying that how we codify that reasoning behavior is a human construct within a society. The reasoning behavior itself is presumably biological, though theists might think it has a different source.
The quality of my reasoning depends on my reasoning behavior. How I happen to codify that behavior is less important.
As best I can tell, you (WJM) are mistaking the codification for the behavior.
I think you have it exactly backwards.
Decision making amounts to considering possibilities, evaluating them and using that evaluation to make up reasons.
“Truth” with a Capital-T doesn’t exist.
Empty-between-the-ears christians. Feckin eejits.
Think they can wish Capital-T-Truth into existence merely by repeating that they haz it (and we don’t). They heard about “Truth” from some fleecing-the-sheep-for-fun-and-profit preacher or read about it in some gawdawful sophistimacated-theology website.
Sye Ten Bruggencate comes to mind. So does the odious fraud Ken Ham. And the convicted felon Kent Hovind. They’re all big on wishing “Truth” into existence, contra reality.
First thread of 2015 to hit over 1000 responses. All it took was the mere suggestion that atheists might be angry at God. 😉
To clarify: the codification is, to some extent, a social construct — not the behavior itself.
Personally I’ve always been deeply uncomfortable with the idea of “social construction”, but we can bypass my misgivings for now and say something like, “money is social construct”. Are the codifications — what gets written down and passed about as “the principles of logic” — like money?
I can’t see how, but it’s up to Neil to defend that claim if he wants.
I’m also not completely happy with the idea that “reasoning behavior itself is presumably biological”. The kind of reasoning I’m interested in describing and understanding is the activity of claiming or asserting: how we can commit ourselves to claims, be rationally entitled to claims, can acknowledge our own commitments and entitlements, and attribute commitments and entitlements to others. We have no reason to believe that any other animal can do anything like this.
Of course presumably there’s a “biological basis” to this, but that’s a vague claim. The more interesting question would be: what is distinctive about human biology that helps explain the emergence of these distinctively human kinds of thought? And here I think the answer is not neurophysiological but ecological: human beings occupy a distinct ecological niche, namely, cooperative foraging. Each individual makes a distinct contribution to provisioning for the whole community. None of the great apes do this. Social carnivores and cetaceans don’t do it either: in those cases, each individual plays a specific role in a coordinated hunt, but we don’t find each individual using specific skills to find food that is then shared with others. By contrast, cooperative foraging is so widespread in human societies that I would call it a universal, except that there always exceptions and anomalies.
We don’t yet know how to explain the neurophysiological underpinnings of cooperative foraging, though presumably the expansion of the prefrontal cortex relative to whole brain size, as well as overall increase in brain size, over the course of hominid evolution is relevant. Since brains are metabolically costly, it pays to grow one only if the long-term benefits outweigh the costs. Cooperative foraging is one plausible explanation of the benefit, not least of which is that it allows human beings to extract calories from any ecosystem they migrate to.
So while I’m willing to say that there’s a biological basis to reasoning, it’s in the sense that there is an evolutionary explanation as how reasoning emerged over the course of hominid evolution, such that animals that can play the game of giving and asking for reasons — rational animals — evolved from animals that cannot.
I think that WJM simply does not see how a non-Platonic, Wittgensteinian view of reasoning might work, because he thinks of the rules as transcendent structures of reality that explain reasoning behavior (the Platonic conception) rather than thinking of the rules as linguistic expressions that make explicit the implicit norms at work in reasoning behavior (the Wittgensteinian conception).
But I also suspect that he does not appreciate the distinctions I would like to draw between norms and conventions, and very likely thinks of both as “social constructions” (not a term I use). If someone were to think that the norms of reasoning were “social constructions” like legal codes and financial markets, then I could see the point of his criticisms. But that is simply not my view.
In any event, I have noticed that WJM has steered a wide berth around my initial claim — that we need a description of our epistemic condition that is not prejudiced for any specific metaphysical view, and that a metaphysically prejudiced description of our epistemic condition — such as his — amounts to normative violence against those who have differing metaphysical views.
Yes, it’s true that I myself do think that the norms of reasoning have an evolutionary explanation and a neurophysiological explanation — but those explanations are not part of the conception of the norms themselves. I’ve tried quite hard to keep the description of the epistemic condition free of my own metaphysical views.
If it turns out that is not possible to do so — if one’s metaphysics always “infects” or “contaminates” one’s understanding of the epistemic condition — the implications are quite dire. Relativism, for one thing.
hotshoe,
To Mung’s credit, he does seem to be embarrassed by his Christian beliefs, judging from his continued refusal to answer questions about them.
It’s too bad he won’t admit that he’s embarrassed.
I think that’s an equivocation between “reasoning” and “make up reasons”.
Not that I deny people do as you say, Mung: I think all humans do things and make up reasons – which should more properly be termed “rationalizations” – for what they have decided. I’m sure that happens, a lot, surely more than I wish to admit in my own life.
But that doesn’t mean you’re correct to say Neil’s got it exactly backwards. I think it’s quite clear that the behavior Neil describes does exist – I figure if you stop and think about it, you would wish to be credited with your own behavior matching what Neil defines as “reasoning behavior”, because that kind of “reasoning behavior” is a good thing.
Don’t you think you ever exhibit “reasoning behavior” the way Neil defines it?
Subjective keiths.
Well, if that’s true (that Mung is embarrassed), then it’s fitting and proper Mung should not respond in order to avoid exposing any more of his possibly-ridiculous ideation about god.
And if it’s not true (that Mung is embarrassed) then it’s fitting and proper Mung should refrain from dignifying your conjecture about him with any response other than totally ignoring it.
So, either way, Mung’s likely best course of action is refusal to be prodded into responding to your repeated question. And you can’t draw any valid conclusions, based merely on the non-response, as to what internal state of Mung’s leads to non-response.
Ask me once, get no answer, maybe I just missed the questions altogether.
Ask me twice, get no answer, maybe I just need a little reminder.
Ask me three times, get no answer, you surely can be smart enough to realize for yourself that you never will. And it’s proper to let it go at that point – if not sooner.
I mean, thank Maude this is not actually the Inquisition; thank Maude we don’t have the power to compel people to answer, not even the power to shame them into it.
Although, as you can see from my comments, if I do have any power to shame people, I will generally use it to shut them up rather than to compel them to admit things — so I am prejudiced here, as always.
No, I don’t. Behaviors are observable. You cannot observe Neil’s “reasoning behaviors.” I doubt that Neil can observe Neil’s reasoning behaviors.
When someone wants to know why you behave the way you do, they don’t expect you to say, that’s just the way I behave. And when someone wants to know why you think the way you do, they don’t expect you to say, that’s just the way I behave.
My actual point, was that Neil was claiming that reasoning just is decision-making, without giving reasons to think that is so. Also suspect is his claim that reasoning or decision making always involves juggling of probabilities.
Yes, that’s very much the point.
The social constructionists have given the expression a bad name, by claiming too much (with talk of “social construction of reality”). And perhaps that makes the expression confusing.
You are using it more broadly, probably because that’s what philosophers talk about. Perhaps I should have used “thinking behavior”.
Fair enough. But I would still call that “biological”. The ecological niche to which we are adapted is part of our biology, at least as I use that term.
In any case, I’ll thank you for a thoughtful response.
I don’t recall making such a claim.
Mung: Also suspect is his claim that reasoning or decision making always involves juggling of probabilities.
Perhaps I misunderstood.
Here’s what you actually wrote:
Possibilities then, so conceived, are certain or they are not.
If they are not certain, then they are probabilities.
There is no certainty.
Therefore, they are probabilities.
Of course, that bit of logic depends upon certain truths.
hotshoe,
Your “ask three times at most” rule is silly, arbitrary, and ineffective. To follow it is to turn your opponents’ evasions into a winning tactic.
Regarding my interpretation of Mung’s silence, those who have observed Mung at any length know that if he were confident of his views, he’d be sharing them — as the Bible commands, by the way — and hassling us repeatedly to respond, as he does whenever he thinks he has the advantage.
By the way, I think this is the third time you’re asking me to stop asking. Does that mean that I won’t be hearing this from you again?
That’s a weird misreading.
Possibilities just means possible choices that I could make — what suit to bid at bridge, what number to enter into what cell with sudoku, what flavor ice cream, etc. Somebody observing my choices might want to assign probabilities to model my choosing. But my own decision will typically be made on different grounds.
An admission. Subjective keiths. An “interpretation.” An “argument from silence.”
Let’s follow the keiths logic:
Sometimes Mung says nothing. Obviously, in those cases, Mung has nothing to say. But, if he was in fact confident of his views in those cases, he would have spoken up. For in all cases where he was confidant in his views, he has spoken up.
But he did not speak up, therefore he was not confident. Therefore, when Mung remains silent, it must be because he is not confident of his views. For in all cases where he was confidant in his views, he has spoken up.
Unassailable. Nonsense.
Signature. keiths.
Whatever.
I don’t recollect that I’ve “asked” you anything, keiths.
I think you’re equivocating on “ask”. There certainly wasn’t a question to you in the comment to which you’re responding, so it certainly can’t be the “third time [I’ve} asked”. Maybe by “ask” you mean something which other people would call “suggest” or “opine” or “state” or “point out” – but not “request” or “question” since that’s not what I did.
But in any case, you’re actually going to get the result you implied you should get. You’re making it clear you’re in it for a kind of result using a kind of method I don’t find sensible, and it’s entirely within your right and capability to feel that way. I’ll happily get out of your way now. Please do carry on.
I would say “peace” but …
in honor of fifthmonarchyman …
No peace.
The Gospel is necessary for God the bridge the ontological gap and reveal stuff to us.
We need to be “entangled” to the Logos that requires the gospel.
peace
You are making my point for me
peace
No I’m not asking about specific truths.
I’m asking if you can know that truth itself exists. IOW according to your world view can you say for certain that truth exists.
If the universe is not fully comprehensible how can you know that truth itself exists?
In your worldview is it not at least possible that it is both raining and not raining outside your window right now? Perhaps the universe just this instant became incomprehensible.
peace
Umm, yeah, iwhen you’re making the point that you’re a silly person who has deluded yourself into thinking – err, presupposing — that you have access to Truth when you don’t.
Nice of you to admit it.
Now go home and think about the implications of what you’ve just admitted: that there is no Capital-T-Truth in your religion, in your bible, in your belief in Jesus, in the supposed Incarnation, in the Logos …
maybe some little-t- truth, and you can come to grips with that and actually turn into a decent human being for a change.
This is called avoiding the question and hand-waving. All you’re doing is re-stating your assertion in increasingly vague terms.
I’m not asking about the entire Gospel (the conceptual boundaries of which are no doubt elastic) just one element of it.
It’s not a trick question; there are preconditions for knowledge. For instance you might agree with Plantinga’s line that only theism can guarantee reliable cognitive function. So with that in mind….
Is the death and resurrection of Jesus, specifically, a necessary precondition for knowledge?
And if so why?
fifth, I didn’t see a response to this:
If God can’t communicate across the “infinite ontological gap” except after incarnating, then how does he incarnate across the infinite gap?
Mung,
My logic makes sense, but your paraphrase is a mess. Ditch it and refer to my original comment.
hotshoe,
I’m very glad that Jorge Ramos didn’t follow your rule in dealing with Donald Trump, and instead kept asking his question.
hotshoe,
I see. So if I “suggest” twenty-five times that Mung answer my questions, that’s fine with you. But if I want to “ask” or “request”, well, then three is the hard limit.
Interesting rule, hotshoe.
You guys are totally misunderstanding FFM. His very point is to get rid of logic. No matter what you try, he wins, because logic does not apply.
walto,
Did KN ever respond to this? If he did, I overlooked it.
Fine with me.
He wins a lifetime addiction to fantasizing about a genocidal father and a zombie son.
I’d rather lose, personally.
So before the bible existed we knew nothing? Support your claim, preacher man.
Fifth,
Given that you can only guess at “Animal, Gate, Rope” despite your talk about “revealed truth” do you really think you are in a credible position to “explain” how god can communicate with it’s creation?