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.
Well, that explains why you are so prickly.
quote:
he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.
(Luk 1:15b)
and
For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.
(Luk 1:44)
end quote:
Can you not see how you are assuming Christianity is false from the outset?
peace
Neil Rickert,
Have you never held a hedgehog? We’re not porcupines! 😉
Lets break this down. There are two different claims
1) it’s impossible to talk with out speaking or an analogue
2) it’s not impossible for a non-material things to interact with matter.
Number one is impossible because of the law of non-contradiction
Number two not so much. There is no logical reason that matter and information can not interact in some way for example
That you would consider your lack of imagination to be of equal logical weight as the law of non-contradiction says a lot about what you think of yourself
peace
I’m still trying to figure out how to be objective about my own internal subjective beliefs. How does that work? Does the hedgehog know?
No. The quoted verses don’t seem particularly relevant.
I assume Uri Geller is fake from the start.
What would be irrational about assuming miracle stories are false?
You say it is impossible for an infant to know stuff about the outside world or the Glory of God
I quote verses describing infants (and fetuses) knowing stuff about the outside world and expounding the glory of God and you don’t see the relevance
interesting
peace
Your quote was about one infant, not infants.
That was supposedly a very special infant, so the relevance is not obvious.
Maybe that was just a colorful description of gas pains and indigestion.
Maybe my own basis for pragmatic judgement is the same “glory of God” — especially if that’s just a colorful way of talking of gas pains and indigestion.
No, that’s wrong. I’m not going to bother to try to explain again, though.
Yes, that’s been erroneous each time you’ve posted it.
It could be the cogito eliminates that possibility. If not, pretty much everything that seems reasonable to me (and to you) could be false.
You mention a couple of different views there–some I’m OK with, some not.
From your mouth to god’s ear.
Live long and prosper!
Nothing irrational at all.
Given that miracles are by definition things that don’t normally happen – really can’t happen at all without some kind of supernatural cause – then we should be always assume that miracle stories are false until demonstrated to be true.
But the odd thing about this kind of fanatic christian, is they should not need miracles at all to legitimize their religion. Once we accept the minimum premise of god, everything else could have happened with perfect normality without miracles: god sends a special person to remind us to love god, obey the commandments, not lust in our hearts, wait for the resurrection … Jesus didn’t need to do any of that hocus-pocus, faith healing, and that frankly ridiculous demon-infesting of those poor pigs. People would still have believed. Obviously, people believe preachers all the time who work no miracles and don’t even do the hokey faith healing bit. For christians, it’s supposedly the message which is important, not the miraculous sideshow — except when they suddenly need to point to all the alleged miracles (including the unwitnessed and unevidenced resurrection after death) to bolster their superiorty over other religions and atheism. Neener, neener, we’ve got resurrection and miracles, you don’t, nyah nyah.
And they wonder why we don’t believe their self-serving stories.
Everything about the world is miraculous.
Brown paper packages tied up with string!!
Um-hmm. But that kinda spoils the claim that changing water into wine is anything special.
Everything’s special; nothing’s special; it’s all the same.
Here dude, have a glass of water. It’s a miracle!
Here dude, have an empty glass. It’s a miracle!
Here dude, have a dirty diaper. It’s a miracle!
Here dude, have a clean diaper. Wait, that’s not a miracle, that’s because the women did the laundry.
Here dude. Have another drink. It’s a goddamned miracle!
There were actually two quotes. the first one was Jesus’ response to the children in the temple who were worshiping him. It was a quote from Psalms 8 this psalm specifically mentions the plural infants and the glory of God.
I’m not sure what indigestion has to do with it unless you feel that mockery is a good substitute for actually understanding what others are saying
peace
Your basic problem is that you were claiming that Neil, et al., reject revelation before they begin to reason. That’s your unsupported assertion.
Once Xianity or other revelation shows itself to be contrary to reality, without the sort of conclusive evidence that overcomes that difficulty, then one does well to reject said “revelation.” Not rejecting it before thinking about it does not entail not rejecting it after one has thought about it.
See if you can figure that out.
Glen Davidson
You are making strong assertions, and providing no support for those assertions.
1: You claim that I cannot have knowledge;
2: You claim that I have enough knowledge to believe Christianity is false, based only on statements that I have made that make no mention of Christianity.
3: You assert that it has to do with revelation, but you don’t explain revelation nor how an infant could have revelation.
It’s all a hodge podge of poorly considered ideas.
I’m not mocking your beliefs. I’m mocking your complete failure to present them in a way that makes sense.
keiths:
fifth:
fifth, you’re not thinking. You yourself likened incarnation to moving a finger, which according to you works like this:
If a spiritual God can move the equivalent of a physical finger across that vast “ontological gap”, why can’t a spiritual God move the equivalent of physical lips, tongue, teeth, larynx, and diaphragm? (Or a burning bush?) You have no idea, and you are clearly just making up (poor) explanations on the fly.
One form of magic is possible, the other isn’t. Why? Because dogma requires it.
For you, the gullible acceptance of dogma comes first. The frantic search for reasons happens only later when your beliefs are challenged.
You’re good at believing, but not so good at thinking.
fifth, do you have many books on ID etc?
He can that is exactly what incarnation is!!!!!
quote:
From the writings of Moses also this will be manifest; for thus it is written in them, “And the Angel of God spake to Moses, in a flame of fire out of the bush, and said, I am that I am, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of thy fathers; go down into Egypt, and bring forth My people.” And if you wish to learn what follows, you can do so from the same writings; for it is impossible to relate the whole here. But so much is written for the sake of proving that Jesus the Christ is the Son of God and His Apostle, being of old the Word, and appearing sometimes in the form of fire, and sometimes in the likeness of angels; but now, by the will of God, having become man for the human race,
end quote:
from here
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.viii.ii.lxiii.html
peace
a few. Why do you ask?
peace
I never made such a claim. I only asked how you know stuff in your worldview, In mine if Christianity is false knowelege is impossible
No I claim that you assume Christianity is false based on your clear statement that that we must start with internal knowelege which is a rejection of revelation.
from here https://www.google.com/search?q=reveal&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
reveal -make (previously unknown or secret information) known to others.
God could reveal information to an infant the same way he revels stuff to you and me.
It’s you who claim revelation to infants is impossible you need to explain why this is not just an assumption on your part.
peace
When he said prickly, I don’t think he implied sharp.
So it’s gas pains and indigestion?
fifth,
When God showed his butt to Moses (Exodus 33), was it Jesus’s butt that Moses saw?
As am I — though I might seem to know a lot of things, I’m really a hedgehog in fox’s clothing. (I believe Rorty described himself the same way.)
I’m a scorpion, but I’m on the bicuspid….I mean, if that’s better.
I just hope it wasn’t one of my kids’ butts. I’ve talked to them about this. x>{
by jove i think he’s got it
peace
So to eliminate any ambiguity, you believe it was Jesus’s butt — the same physical butt that eventually hung on the cross — that Moses saw?
Probably not the Reverend Moon.
If so, I think we’ll need to revisit the literal meaning of “burning bush.”
Speaking of literal meaning: I suspect a lot of kids started wondering about their religion after seeing Cecil B DeMille’s Ten Commandments. Seeing that horse shit on the big screen has to make any sane person wonder.
Ooh, snap!
The ID community’s goal (the community you pretend not to know about) seems simply to be to sell books. Not do research. Not follow ID to “where it leads”.
Just to sell books. And it’s working, by Jove!
Are you asking if it was exactly the same cells that hung on the cross?
Was it the exactly the same cells that sat on your toilet this morning and on the changing table when you were a baby?
check it out
http://www.livescience.com/33179-does-human-body-replace-cells-seven-years.html
Does the fact that it was not exactly the same cells mean it was not your physical butt in both instances?
peace
I’m sure god could have had
A) the same cells
B) different cells
had it so desired. So what’s your answer? A or B? Or is it what you said, that the cells were N generations different? How do you know time continued to flow like that in the meanwhile?
So many questions…..
This is the Star Trek transporter problem. My take is that if you are reconstituted, you are not the same person. the original person is dead.
But you cannot have any knowledge that you are not the original person.
Similar logic applies to you as you age and your molecules are replaced. You are not the molecules. You are the origination of the molecules.
My take is that you are more than the sum total of your molecules.
I’m my worldview something like what happened with Jake Sully in avatar is theoretically possible.
peace
I never said I was the sum of my molecules. Please don’t change my words.
One could argue that mathematicians choose axioms based on whether or not they produce fruitful and interesting mathematics. There are many possible consistent axiom systems, but few are studied.*
That is real, or at least objective, in the sense that it picks on something about human mathematicians.
There is a comparison, I think, to the moral principles as discussed at the other thread. Not a perfect analogy by any means, of course.
BruceS,
The choice of axioms expresses the social practices of mathematicians, and yes they resort to various meta-mathematical criteria in doing so — what is likely to lead to interesting mathematical systems.
However, I wouldn’t want to push the analogy with morality too far, since in my view there are facts about human nature which genuinely constrain the choice of which ethical systems are most conducive to individual and collective flourishing.
One could take an analogous view in philosophy of mathematics if one were a Platonist about mathematical objects, but I don’t see how one could do if one were a fictionalist.
I seem to have found myself in a position where I regard ethics as more objective than mathematics. I’m not sure how I feel about that!
The past few days I’ve a lively exchange with WJM about how to characterize what I’ve been calling “our epistemic condition”: what is essentially involved in characterizing the lives of beings to whom reason-giving matters.
This debate was occasioned by my objecting to WJM’s characterization of the epistemic condition, since on his view the epistemic condition necessarily presupposes the existence of God, libertarian freedom, and the ontological priority of “mind” over “matter”. I’m (strongly) agnostic about the existence of God but I think that both libertarian freedom and the ontological priority of “mind” over “matter” are utterly false.
In defense of my general position, I’ve started reading In Praise of Reason: Why Rationality Matters to Democracy (Amazon; NDPR). A key quote from early on in the text (actually not Lynch, but another philosopher he cites):
In other words, Lynch argues, democracy is a space of reasons, and requires shared epistemic principles. I think that is completely true, which is the main reason why his accusation that I am some sort of postmodern skeptic is wholly erroneous.
My principal objection to WJM is that he insists on conceptualizing the epistemic principles as necessarily involving his own specific religious, moral, and metaphysical commitments. Those who don’t share his religious, moral, and metaphysical commitments are therefore not recognized as sharing his epistemic principles (or indeed, as having any epistemic principles at all).
And that is why I think that WJM’s conception of epistemic principles is a kind of normative violence that is antithetical to democracy.
I finished reading Dobbs-Weinstein’s book on Spinoza and his influence on Marx, Benjamin, and Adorno. I found it to be very uneven and I can’t say that I recommend it. But I will share one quote that spoke to me:
At least he didn’t change your molecules!
fifth,
You tell us. This is your batshit belief system we’re discussing, remember?
So you get to answer the obvious questions, like:
1. Where was the physical Jesus hanging out during all of the time from creation to his ‘birth’?
2. Was the body living the entire time, or did God only animate it when he wanted to moon someone or otherwise muck around with his creation?
3. If looking at the face of God was fatal (Exodus 33:20), and God’s body was really Jesus’s body, then why didn’t the disciples all die from the sight of Jesus’s face?
4. If Jesus already had a body, why did the Holy Spirit bother to impregnate Mary?
5. How did the Holy Spirit — a spiritual being — impregnate Mary? You’ve told us that it is “logically impossible” for a spiritual being to interact with the physical.
6. If incarnation is required before physical interactions can take place, as you claim, then it must have been Jesus, not the Holy Spirit, who impregnated Mary. So Jesus impregnated Mary to produce Jesus the Fetus. Setting aside the incest, would you care to explain how that worked?
7. Did Jesus’s body — the one he used to moon Moses — somehow get shrunk and implanted into Mary?
8. Why haven’t you asked these questions yourself? Why are you so gullible?
Oh, keiths, you make me laugh. 🙂 🙂 🙂
This is true, though there is no good characterization of what it takes to produced fruitful and interesting mathematics.
I see that KN has already addressed your other points. I just wanted to add a mathematicians perspective.
I do that all the time. How is this different from the question asked by AI theorists? The one where you replace a brain one neuron at a time by something non-biological, but which has the same electrical characteristics as a neuron.
My answer — all it’s worth — is that we are the behavior of a particular assemblage of atoms. We are akin to a river or a flame. We are constantly being replaced.
I’m referring to the phyio-cultural nature of mathematicians as human beings trained and skilled in mathematics. Nothing to do with the metaphysics of mathematical entities. Perhaps the choice of axiom systems human mathematicians make differs from what some alien species would make? A similar outcome is possible for morality.
On the relative objectivity of the two: The process for doing mathematical proofs seems to be much more likely to lead to a single, agreed outcome than moral discussions. But it is not true that proofs are universally accepted. Think of controversies about whether computer-aided proofs are reliable. Or about the intuitionist school and the limits it puts on proofs. Whether proofs are considered adequate also changes with time: think of the early proofs accepted for topics in calculus.
But overall, if I were to rank objective process by likelihood to lead to a single outcome, I would say math then science then morality. But it’s not a qualitative difference among the three, as long as we consider objectivity as a property of a process and separate from considerations of realism.
I am tempted to say math, then engineering, then science, then morality. I might be tempted also to put engineering first, because it is subject to purifying selection.
As long as I am babbling, I might also ponder the possibility that these are inversely related in time. If we think of morality as the art of maximizing satisfaction and minimizing pain, then moral thoughts lead to thoughts about how things work, which leads eventually to inventions, both physical and social.