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.
So knowledge is possible without the Gospel.
For if the elect and unregenerate alike can be granted knowledge then that only demonstrates that the death and resurrection of Jesus is not a precondition for knowledge.
That will come as a relief to quite a few pre-Gospel folk….e.g. Noah, Abraham, Moses, David etc!
KN said:
Yeah. Because being pro-legalization of all personal use drugs and prostitution is such a conservative cliche. Being for the ability for people to end their own lives is such a conservative cliche. Being against all corporate welfare and tax breaks is such a conservative cliche.
Firstly, the debate between a Platonic and a Wittgensteinian conception of norms is not a debate between kinds of norms; it is a debate between different conceptions of norms. It should be perfectly obvious that I accept the authority of epistemic, semantic, and ethical norms. I just have a different conception of what that authority is.
Secondly, the “why should I care?” rhetorical gesture can be turned about quite easily. One might just as well ask, “why should I care about violating a norm under the theistic conception of norms?” The theist response would seem to be, “because violating a norm has necessary consequences“. But then one could always say, “why should I care about the necessary consequences?” and so on. The “why should I care about _____?” gesture can always be re-iterated.
Well, since human beings are the kind of animal that depend on long-term successful cooperation to function and flourish, and no system of cooperation can function over the long-term without a means of punishing free riders, it all comes down to the fact that flourishing is intrinsically normative for living things.
That’s true for all of us, though. I think one would have be quite badly self-deceived to imagine that their political views do not affect their metaphysics, because conduct and belief are not separable. Though we sometimes do act because of what we believe, we also sometimes arrive at a belief by reflecting on how we have acted.
Firstly, I’m not a progressive, I’m a libertarian socialist. Get it right!
False. I don’t dismiss the authority of logical principles, but your conception of that authority.
However, just because the norms of reasoning are authoritative for each individual thinker does not mean that they must have a source that transcends all thinkers.
This is just getting absurd. Of course I think that my wrong-doings matter. They just don’t matter necessarily. This is the same conflation you always make — you always conflate objective with absolute, and normative with necessary. There’s no room in your picture for the idea that someone can hold that there are objectively valid norms that are not absolutely necessary.
Anyone who understands the words “postmodernism” and “deconstruction” (by the way: “deconstructivism” is not a real word) will know that my views are not at all aligned with that.
Yes, I might say the same about yours.
Ah, so your “objective morality” is fine with prostitution? Interesting, as most people who claim that there is an objective morality would not include that.
Have you checked lately with the giver-of-morals to make sure you are on the right side of that issue?
Ok, that’s fair — but then again, I support a lot of policies that the typical progressive doesn’t.
You can’t be pigeon-holed, either of you!
You’re both too too, very very! 🙂
KN said:
That’s an entirely false equivalence.
Just because the question can be re-iterated like some adolescent repeating “so what” to their parents doesn’t mean that re-iteration denotes a valid case of question-begging. The difference between “no necessary harmful consequences” and “necessary harmful consequences” is a valid answer to the question of “so what”.. Being harmed is a substantive, valid answer to the “so what” question. It gives a valid reason why something should not be done. If being harmed or causing harm is not enough to prevent the behavior, that not because “being harmed” is not a valid distinction between doing X and not doing X.
This is all non-substantive semantics. What does “cooperation” entail given the historical and current nature of human societies? Are you assuming that “cooperation” doesn’t mean slavery, deceit, political tyranny, ownership of women and children, rape, etc? Can “punishing the free riders”, outside of your progressive-informed ideal, not also mean beheading apostates and infidels or burning witches at the stake?
What does “flourishing” mean, and who gets to define it? Didn’t the culture of Genghis Khan “flourish”? Didn’t the Christian and Muslim cultures “flourish”? This are all words that I’m sure refer to some set of libertarian-socialist values in your mind, but they can mean and have meant entirely different things in different cultures, and you have offered no means other than your personal, political perspective to act as an arbiter of which ones refer to “essential human nature” an which ones are just artifacts of mistaken social conventions.
If there are no necessary consequences for violating or ignoring “the norms of reasoning”, in what meaningful way are they “authoritative”?
IOW, your wrong-doings don’t necessarily matter, even to you. Well, there you have it.
I’m not conflating anything. My argument is that (1) unless we are talking about conditions that are absolute and consequences that are necessary, there’s no significant reason for me – or anyone – to give a crap about it, and (2) that’s not how people actually have discourse and behave. They behave as if their rational/moral conditions are absolute and as if their rational/moral behavior has necessary consequences.
I think your political views about proper human behavior are as absolute to you as mine are to me, only you cannot justify that sense of the absolute because to you, such absolutism is “oppressive”. Everything you have written here is an attempt to find some way where your political perspective is absolutely correct without admitting what it actually requires.
At the end of the day, KN, dealing with “outliers” is still employing oppressive violence against those with inconvenient metaphysics. Whether you admit to absolutism or not, you are still willing to employ (or justify) absolutist tactics to accomplish your goals. It will require defining other views, in some way, as “incorrect”. What difference does it make if those norms are considered “absolute” or “non-absolute”? You still have to act as if they are absolute to get anything accomplished and deal with “outliers” and cultures/societies that don’t share your political/social views.
There’s no room in my head for re-defining the term “objective” to mean “inter-subjective” or “consensus”. I agree that there are intersubjective norms that are not necessary nor have necessary consequences. My point is that when it comes to rational discource and moral behavior, people do not act nor have discourse in a manner reconcilable with that perspective. They act as if morality and logic are absolute and binding on all others, even those outside of their intersubjective borders such as entirely different societies.
KN said:
Like what?
Okay, I laughed out loud at that one. But only after I walked into the kitchen and started running water to wash the dishes and then thought, “Wait, WTF … did he just say “libertarian socialist”???”
Breibartian ammosexual!
Ever heard of Emma Goldman? How about Noam Chomsky?
Just believe them to be clean, no?
Yes it does.
A link to the comment that Alan moved.
As I remarked to Mung,
Plus there’s Peter Kropotkin, Guy Debord, Chris Hedges, Naomi Klein, Glen Greenwald, Howard Zinn, Morris Berman . . . and many other libertarian socialists. (Personally I see the historical roots of libertarian socialism going to back to Spinoza.)
Just as soon as you figure out how to make socialism voluntary, everyone will be happy.
I do not think this is impossible, by the way.
But I think top down economic design is every bit as silly as biological intelligent design, and for the same reasons.
OMG! I thought you were being facetious! Please tell me you’re being facetious?
No knowledge is not possible with out the gospel. Knowledge is possible with out you believing the gospel. The gospel is still necessary revelation is not free
There are no pre-Gospel folks
quote:
but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you
(1Pe 1:19-20)
end quote:
peace
NO, I’m not interested in what you do.
I’m interested in how truth can exist in your worldview. If I’m not mistaken you have already acknowledged that you have no way of knowing for certain if truth actually exists or not.
So it’s entirely possible that you know nothing.
With out truth knowelege is impossible, that much should be obvious.
As far as claims I’m really only responding to spesific questions about how I can know that the Bible is true.
If the Bible is not true knowledge is impossible according to my worldview. I would hope that that much is clear by now. As far as I know if truth exists the Bible is true that is my presupposition.
Dispute my answers the questions keep coming it’s as if folks don’t believe me.
You do not hold my worldview so perhaps for you the bible can be false and truth still exist. I’m fine with that as long as you explain how you can know it to be the case.
What I’m interested in knowing how knowelege is possible in your worldview
peace
So when you say consciousness is the brain what you really mean is Consciousness is the brain when it is alive.
What about a brain in a coma?
peace
I’ll say this one final time. Knowledge is possible just in case there is truth, justification and belief. Nothing more is needed. Yes, if one of those doesn’t exist, there’s no knowledge, but if all do, there is.
You don’t seem to realize that you’re asking for more than that, but I can’t make you understand this and I’m tired of trying.
You have my sympathy. I’m tired just from reading it. 🙂
Better luck with the next, err, umm, well I was going to say “deluded presuppositional idiot”, but I’m sure you can come up with a more acceptable term.
fifth,
It’s clear that you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. I asked an important question about the possibility of incarnation, and your response was
And it isn’t just that you’re “not sure on the details”. The broad strokes aren’t there either.
You swallowed the dogma without questioning it, and now that someone is asking you about it, you’re struggling to justify your belief.
Why not ask questions before accepting something as truth?
So you agree with me that it’s possible that your worldview could be entirely correct and you still not know anything.
On the other hand If my worldview is correct truth necessarily exists and knowelege is possible for certain.
that pretty much settles it for me
That makes two of us. I hope this irreconcilable difference in worldviews will not stop us from being able to discuss other topics from time to time.
Maybe we can get to that at some point if the Bible questions will ever stop
peace
Actually, I was too hard on my position there. I should have said that knowledge is actual just in case there’s belief (that p), justification (that p), and (that p is the) truth. For knowledge to be possible, those only need be possible.
Have you even been paying attention?
Presuppositions are the assumptions that you start with. The way to test presuppositions is to look for inconsistencys and to compare them with other presuppositions.
Thank you for your opinion. I really like rootbeer floats.
peace
How can the Bible questions stop, when, “If the Bible is not true knowledge is impossible according to my worldview”?
Again, this is an argument, Fifth. (Not a good one, but still.)
Logically possible, yes. Epistemically possible, (i.e., consistent with everything I know), no.
Truth necessarily exists on your worldview, yes. Knowledge is possible on both of our worldviews. Certainty is also possible on both worldviews, although, in mine it either never or almost never occurs.
I think it’s obvious that it was always pretty much settled for you.
I don’t see why it should. We might even agree on stuff sometimes. I mean, like, I hate Bud Light. Where are you on that issue? 🙂
By acknowledging that worldviews that are different than your own might be valid and finding something else to discuss
peace
not a fan 😉
peace
possible knowelege is not actual knowelege.
Actual knowelege requires actual truth
peace
fifth,
Your presupposition is inconsistent unless you can explain why communication without incarnation is “logcally impossible” across the “infinite ontological gap”, but incarnation itself is not impossible across that same gap.
You clearly don’t have an answer, but I predict that you’ll cling to your presupposition nonetheless. Dogma trumps rationality for you.
That wasn’t quite clear, I don’t think. I should have said (I think) that if your worldview is correct, truth necessarily exists and you necessarily know some of it. If my worldview is correct, truth (again) necessarily exists, and I also know some of it, but I don’t necessarily know any of it.
There’s a lot of modal complexity in trying to put that stuff right, and I probably didn’t.
Right. But actual knowledge doesn’t require necessary anything.
fifth,
We believe you. It’s just that your worldview is irrational, and our questions are designed to show that.
And judging from your eagerness to change the subject, they’re succeeding.
Well, if the Bible is true, then truth exists. That’s not much, because if Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm is true, then truth exists. But it’s SOMETHING!
https://www.headway.org.uk/glasgow-coma-scale.aspx
It’s a continuum. Hence why apes appear to have lots of “it” and stick insects not so much.
walto,
Wait… you’re not suggesting that Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm might be fiction, are you???
Patrick, please tell me that Riverboro is real.
Agreed on all points.
I wonder if perhaps FMM is simply not interested in the question keiths and others think he should be interested in.
Keiths and a few others think that FMM should be asking the question, “how do you know that your worldview is true?” FMM isn’t interested in that question. He’s interested in the question, “according to the worldview that you hold, how is knowledge possible?” That’s why he’s insisting on the Incarnation — the Logos made flesh. That’s how the possibility of knowledge is explained within a Christian worldview — or so FMM is claiming. (I have no idea if other Christian epistemologists would make the same claim or put it the same way.)
The question, “how do you know that Christianity is true?” is not a question that FMM is interested in dealing with. One might fault him for that — or not. (I don’t.)
The question he’s asking y’all is: “according to the non-theistic/atheistic/naturalistic worldview, how is knowledge possible?”
Either the naturalist is a skeptic or accepts that some knowledge is possible. But since presumably no skeptic could be a naturalist, we can discount that option. So either she accepts JTB or rejects it. If she rejects it, she owes us an alternative. If she accepts JTB she requires a naturalistic theory of belief, a naturalistic theory of truth, and a naturalistic theory of justification.
All this can be done quite easily — in fact I believe that between Glen Davidson, Neil Rickert, BruceS, walto, and myself, we’ve sketched a naturalistic theory of knowledge quite nicely in this thread.
On my conception of norms, the consequences of transgression vary depending on the norm on question — from being shunned, to being sanctioned, to being prohibited from contributing to certain activities — and of course, it must not be forgotten, every great revolutionary violated some norm.
But the consequences of failing to conform to epistemic and semantic norms is that one simply fails to be understood by others, which means that one’s attempts to interact with them will not be successful.
The consequences of failing to conform to ethical norms are quite different. But let’s keep focus here: we got started down this conversation because I took issue with your claim that the most generic, most fundamental description that one can give of our epistemic condition is one that necessarily presupposes the existence of God, freedom of the will, and the ontological priority of mind over matter.
In other words, we got started down here because you wanted to turn the water of epistemology into the wine of metaphysics. That is what I took issue with, and I still do.
Oppression, domination, violence, and injustice all require cooperation — cooperation between the oppressors. Cooperation is a two-headed sword. I never asserted or implied otherwise. I brought up cooperation in order to explain the nature of authority of norms, not to say that cooperation is a panacea.
As I see it, determining what is conducive to flourishing depends on thinking hard on the question, “what does every human being need, regardless of whatever else she or he wants?” This leads, I think, to the capability approach as a framework for thinking about human rights.
They matter deeply to me. But there is nothing in the nature of reality which determines to me what must happen to me if I fail to atone for my wrongdoings.
We all behave as if rational and moral norms are objective, yes. And we all behave as if there will be predictable consequences for violating those norms, yes. But you’re making this clam that “people behave as if they believed that rational and moral conditions are absolute and their behavior has necessary consequences” and — well, I simply don’t think that’s true. And I’m not thinking here about sociopaths — I’m thinking here about, well, myself and people I know and love who simply recognize the distinction between objectivity and absoluteness, and the distinction between normativity and necessity.
I hate to break it to you, but no, they really aren’t.
I’m not saying that we must tolerate all views. Neo-Nazis and other fascists don’t get a seat at the table. Of course I do think that fascists and racists are wrong — I just don’t think that “absolutely wrong” gets me anything, or means anything that isn’t already there in “wrong”.
That’s true, but just because they have a conception of the authority of those norms which permits them to do so, doesn’t mean that that conception is the correct one to have.
LOL – it’s like trying to communicate with Humpty Dumpty.
“The Gospel means what Fifth wants it to mean, nothing more, nothing less.”
Earlier in the thread I made the offhand comment that the meaning of Gospel was elastic and boy are you proving it! The only thing your bible passage says is that God knew Jesus before the foundation of the world….it doesn’t help your case any. It’s just obfuscation. More hand-waving.
Noah knew nothing about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
Abraham knew nothing about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
Moses knew nothing about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
Therefore either….
a) The Gospel (the account of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus) is not a precondition of knowledge.
or….
b) Noah, Abraham and Moses (and everyone else who lived prior to Jesus) knew absolutely nothing.
what???
Communication is incarnation it’s definitional.
Logos is a word comprehended rhema is a word uttered. Logos is thought rhema is speech
With out rehma logos is just thought. You can’t have communication with out rhema.
It’s illogical to think communication is possible without incarnation just as it is illogical to think we could talk by just thinking about it without speaking or an analogue of speech.
Just because communication is impossible without speech or an analogue there is no reason to think speech is impossible.
peace
geeze
quote:
Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.”
(Joh 8:56)
and
Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.
(1Pe 1:10-12)
and
You search the [OT] Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,
(Joh 5:39)
end quote:
peace
And that’s where I think he goes wrong.
I don’t have a problem with him having his own presupposition. But he has failed to explain what it is about his presupposition that makes knowledge possible. Now, that would be okay if he were not asking us what makes knowledge possible for us. That is, he is asking us to say what it is that makes up for some unexplained secret thing that he won’t tell us about.
I appreciate the effort. I must have missed the actual sketch. When I get time I’ll go back and reread.
Is it possible for a proposition to be consistent with everything you know and still be false?
In other words how do you know that consistent propositions are true propositions?
peace
It’s not unexplained or secret
God is truth. God, if he exists could reveal stuff to me if he wanted to.
Therefore if God exists knowelege is possible
pretty simple I think
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
You are still trying to promote your personal religious beliefs to the status of a “worldview” in order to insulate them from critical thinking and the need for supporting evidence. I understand why, really. When you’ve been indoctrinated in those beliefs from childhood and when your entire adult familial and social support system depends on maintaining them, you don’t want the internet hoi polloi getting their grubby fingerprints on them.
None of that changes the fact that you are simply trying to avoid defending your unfounded beliefs. It’s transparent, more than a little pathetic, and quite intellectually dishonest.
If you’d just repeat the bumpersticker theology provided earlier instead of pompously pronouncing presuppositions, you’d save typing time, communicate exactly as much, and be less disingenuous.
I feel like we are going in circles.
As I have said repeatedly I would be happy to evaluate my individual beliefs if we start from a position that did not begin with an implicit assumption that Christianity is false.
All I am asking is you share a set of presuppositions that allow for knowledge and do not rule out Christianity a priori.
The closest we’ve got so far is from walto. However I think it fails on both accounts.
It does not seem to yield knowelege IMHO and it seems to rule out Christianity a priori because it takes truth to be a contingency and not a necessary feature of the universe.
Do you have a different set of presuppositions that might work?
peace
That doesn’t explain anything. Assertion is not explanation.
This is not a logical consequence of the prior assertion.