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.
I love some hymns. “I Vow To Thee My Country” – Holst’s lovely tune, the stirring sentiment that I do not for one moment subscribe to … “Fight the Good Fight” I used to love as a kid … “Jerusalem”, “All Things Bright And Beautiful”. And many carols, of course.
One of my favourite songs is Prefab Sprout’s “God Watch Over You”, which I sing, and mean, without believing there is such an entity.
“I’ve no time for religion –
Maybe doubt’s a modern disease.
Then I look at you, and here’s what I do:
I wear holes in both my knees”
You’d read about the people who sat around and edited it and think “it’s therefore not the word of god”
Or if you think it is then so is every book ever written in that case.
mung, Fifth has explicitly said, not once, but repeatedly, that his argument hinges on the assumption that the world is “fully comprehensible.” keiths didn’t make that up.
The thing is, when I asked Fifth what “fully comprehensible” means, he indicated something that suggests that he either doesn’t know or won’t tell. He said that we would “tease out” what full comprehensibility means as his argument proceeds.
It strikes me as weird for him to ask keiths whether keiths agrees with his presupposition at the outset that the universe is fully comprehensible, while he cannot or will not say what it means for the universe to be fully comprehensible. Don’t you agree?
Neil has suggested above that keiths need not know what “fully comprehensible” means to deny that when he makes some argument or other he is presupposing that the world is fully comprehensible. That’s kind of right: it’s like me saying I’m not presupposing that my language is dermischfarblikeit (or as KN might say “deeply dermischfarblikeit”) when I ask for more soup. But it’s obviously safer to say “Beats me!” since, if I don’t know what it means, for all I know I actually AM presupposing it–I just didn’t realize it. It’s a matter of whether we think presuppositions may be subconscious.
Anyhow, I guess nobody is going to tell me what “fully comprehensible” means. It’s apparently more fun to argue about whether or not the world is fully comprehensible when one does not know what the hell one is talking about.
FMM:
Here is your opportunity to model the provision of a clear response to a simple question.
Do you accept that there was a species ancestral both to Homo sapiens and Pan that existed on the order of five to ten million years ago?
(While remaining open to new information, of course.)
It is your obvious reluctance to explicitly state whether you do or do not accept that specific proposition, despite my several requests for that specific clarification, that prompts me to wonder whether you accept that specific, central component of the current scientific consensus on human origins.
Walto:
You must be a full on skeptic.
I’m not asking what you would think but what how you would know
peace
My presupposition is as comprehensive and multifaceted as the Logos itself. I expect to be teasing out the precise definition for the rest of my life
At this point however I’m not really asking for Keiths to agree with my presupposition he has already rejected it as “an open question”. He did this quickly with out inquiring about specific definitions. In fact he is pressing me to move on and get to my argument. He seems to think he understands what I mean enough to wave it off with a single sentence. to further define it would be superfluous at this point.
Since he has rejected my presupposition out of hand I’m inquiring what his presupposition is. We need to have a foundation with which to argue. He needs to tell me how he knows things.
I’m guessing that when he thinks deeply about it his presupposition it will if it is coherent be similar to mine. But I can’t read his mind. That is why we are waiting. right now
peace
fifth,
Since you are obviously a presuppositionalist, why not direct us to a website that presents something close to your version of presuppositionalism? That way we don’t have to wait for you to “tease out” your argument.
Or, if you prefer, name someone prominent (Van Til, Clark, etc.) who espouses a presuppositionalism similar to yours.
ETA: And while you’re at it, how about finally answering Reciprocating Bill’s question?
You are obviously impatient.
I expect this is because you are only interested in critiquing my argument rather than defending your own presuppositions.
Sorry to disappoint but there is no article you can read that gives you 5 simple bullet points of my worldview that you can quickly scan and look for loopholes. The closest you will get to a synopsis is the first chapter of John
I don’t have any desire to engage in a one sided discussion in which you can attack my assumptions while never defending your own
If you change your mind and actually want a dialog tell me what your presupposition is and we can continue.
peace
Why would he need a presupposition?
Why would a foundation be needed? Why isn’t evidence sufficient?
fifth,
The idea that there must be A Single Presupposition underlying all arguments is itself a goofy presupposition.
Intelligent people understand that’s its unnecessary and counterproductive to state every single assumption during every single argument. When I’m explaining to someone that binary strings can be converted to hexadecimal and back, it isn’t necessary for me to state that I accept the laws of physics, believe that computation is possible, and know how to do radix conversions.
If our assumptions differ, that will come out in the course of the argument. For example, suppose that in arguing with a presuppositionalist I say “if we examine the Bible, we can clearly see that it is not the infallible word of an omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent deity.” The presuppositionalist might respond “But your very ability to rationally examine the Bible depends on its truth.” I would disagree, of course.
We could then proceed to debate that issue. I would defend the idea that rational criticism does not depend on the truth of the Bible, and the presuppositionalist would defend the idea that it does.
All of this without ever discussing our shared assumption that the laws of physics hold, that communication between humans is possible, etc.
See how that works?
Then you haven’t thought things through. You’ve indicated that you find this stuff difficult, but basic presuppositionalist ideas are quite simple and should be easy to state. (Trying to justify them is a different matter, of course, but we can address that after you’ve stated the basic argument.)
Likewise, I’ve given you a brief synopsis of my argument:
There’s a lot more to be said in defending that argument, but the basic idea is quite simple.
See if you can provide a similar brief synopsis, or point to one on the Web, or tell us which prominent presuppositionalist has a view most similar to your own.
What?
Jesus fuck.
Can you lay off this bullshit even for one comment, Gregory?
Well, suppose one were to think that our very ability to detect evidence, classify it as such, and evaluate it as to how well it confirms or disconfirms some hypothesis depends on a suite of cognitive abilities that must themselves be justified as reliable.
On this line of thought, without that “foundation”, we wouldn’t be able to determine what evidence is and how to use it. In other words, all a posteriori knowledge depends on some ‘bedrock’ of a priori knowledge; empiricism depends on rationalism.
I mention this because I suspect that Fifth will want to argue that the Incarnation of the Logos in the Gospel of John will somehow explain how it is that we can know that our cognitive capacities are reliable when we use them correctly. What he hasn’t yet explained is how the connection works. I can dimly envision a way of making the connection but I don’t want to presume to speak for him.
Well, right, don’t speak for him – but if someone doesn’t speak for him, quite likely he never will speak for himself. Apparently, he can’t.
Or won’t.
It’s a tedious Presuppositional tactic to try to force their “opponent” into defending one’s point of view instead of them actually explaining their own point of view and laying out an actual argument.
Maybe that’s because none of the Presuppositionalists can actually explain their own argument since it’s so bizarre.
Or maybe that’s because they’re wankers who enjoy the feeling of superiority they get when they try to control the conversation.
What do you want to bet that fifthmonarchyman feels that turd Sy Ten Bruggencate is a hero?
I thought I’d done that very scrupulously. Would you be willing to adopt the following principle of interpretation: that whenever you see me slip into assertoric discourse, assume it is a communicative failure on my part, point it out to me, and I’ll happily revise the comment?
Yes, I see your point here, and it’s a good one.
I think this is a bit unfair, to be honest. I’ve made it pretty clear that I don’t want my language to be taken assertorically. If you find me slipping into assertoric discourse, it’s not because I want to make any assertions but because I’m not being careful enough in how to express my spiritual yearnings and sensibilities.
keiths,
Indeed. This pseudo-Socratic approach would be insultingly condescending if it weren’t so blatantly a rhetorical ploy to assume a superior position in the discussion.
Scratch a fundamentalist, find an authoritarian.
My only personal encounters with presuppositionalism were with the good folks at Uncommon Descent. I’ve found that my use of Sellarsian concepts throws a spanner in the works of presuppositionalism.
Presuppositionalism, as I dimly understand it, requires that there be presuppositonless knowledge as well. After all, if all presuppositions rested on further presuppositions, we’d have an infinite regress. The presuppositions (whatever they are) must themselves be presuppositonless, to avoid the regress.
But, as I think Sellars argues convincingly, there is no such thing as presuppositionless knowledge. Put better, we can never isolate any stratum of knowledge that (a) must be necessarily presupposed in order for us to know anything else and (b) does not rely on any further knowledge of any kind. For there is no such stratum: even the most general and seemingly unquestionable assertions require knowing how to use language, how to make claims.
We need to be initiated into the space of reasons, and though Sellars doesn’t put the point quite this way, I think that imitation plays a big role here, in how our innate predispositions are shaped and sculpted and trained by others so that we can come to make assertions, understand what one is doing in using concepts, and so on.
As for the origins of the space of reasons itself, it is here that Tomasello and Sterelny have something to say about how the space of reasons evolves from more primitive forms of primate cognition and communication.
Not “would be, if”. Is.
Is both insultingly condescending and a rhetorical ploy.
IMNSHO.
I would simply say that Fifth’s position is boring. He is free to judge me as shallow. Then we can get on with our lives without wasting time on discussions guaranteed to go nowhere.
This particular kind of discussion is in my catalog of useless philosophy.
Piotr, who has been absent from these environs for a while, has posted on Moran’s site, the hidden joke in Genesis.
God designed humans without the ability to synthesize vitamin C — a distinctive feature — and then forbad them to eat fruit.
I share the frustration noted by some others above about what “the universe is fully comprehensible” is supposed to mean and imply.
It is perfectly true that human beings, like other sophisticated primates, use concepts to structure their exploration of their surroundings and their interactions with in both causal and social domains. All the great apes and several monkeys do this, and as we learn more about the conceptual abilities of carnivores and cetaceans, the more we understand about the conceptual structure of their behavior. Increasingly sophisticated experiments have disclosed how great apes reason.
And it is also perfectly clear that human beings, unlike any other primate or animal, can share their conceptual frameworks with one other, expose them to mutual correction, and devise increasingly more sophisticated ways of testing those frameworks through systematic experimentation and rigorous observation — a process that, for scientific realists like myself, consists of slowly teasing out the modal structure of reality.
But, to reinforce a point that Neil already made, the fact that we can and do find much of our experience of reality to be mostly intelligible doesn’t mean that all of reality is perfectly intelligible. Intelligibility isn’t an all-or-nothing term — it comes in degrees, and some aspects of reality are much more readily intelligible than others.
If the fact that we can often make good sense out of much of our experience is supposed to entail that that the universe is fully comprehensible, then I’m getting off the bus before the first stop.
I can’t think of a meaning of “fully comprehensible” that could be applied to the universe or to existence.
Are any of the physical constants rational numbers?
But those abilities should be subject to investigation, too. And if they are subject to investigation, then they are not presuppositional or foundational.
You might be right about what fifth wants to argue. However, that wouldn’t actually explain anything. It would merely provide a story.
petrushka,
You’d classify irrational numbers as incomprehensible?
Gregory,
Yes.
Can anyone here imagine Gregory making a substantive argument without flinging shit at those he regards as insufficiently theistic?
I’ll admit that I can, though it’s hard to find real-world examples.
FWIW, I find the “angry at God” suggestion more annoying, myself. It’s also funnier, though, and I figure you’ve got to take the bad with the good.
Seriously, I find this stuff about presuppositions both interesting and important. I just wish Fifth would/could define his terms.
walto,
I find the “angry at god” stupid, frankly. It makes it very clear that the person saying it doesn’t understand atheism at all.
I might find his argument interesting if he’d actually make it. I blame it on religion — people who subject themselves to a preacher in a pulpit every week train themselves to only communicate in that way. Laying out your full argument rationally and clearly is the next thing to heresy.
They simply cannot be rationalized….
Glen Davidson
I’d would think relationships cannot be fully deterministic if the relating numbers are not rational. Probably a silly idea.
Yes, that is quite right; we can and do empirically inquire our cognitive capacities, which is why foundationalism cannot work. (As Peirce, Dewey, and Sellars all recognizably completely and lucidly.)
That’s also quite true. Though I myself would like a bit more of an account as to how explanations differ from “mere” stories.
petrushka,
The length of a hypotenuse, even if irrational, is determined by the lengths of the other two sides.
Anyway, I’d say that indeterminism, even if unpredictable (by definition), is still comprehensible.
KN,
Besides your use of assertoric language, I think another thing that’s tripping you up is your idea that assertions necessarily belong to a public “space of reasons”.
Beliefs remain assertoric even if privately held, and the refusal (or acknowledged inability) to offer reasons for them doesn’t strip them of their assertoric nature.
You’re bristling at my suggestion that you actually want your language to be assertoric, so let me explain why I think so. Let’s take your two statements as examples.
You wrote:
If you merely have the experience of a divine presence, but don’t think it says anything about reality, then why is it deeply important to how you live? In describing it as non-assertoric, I think you are acknowledging that you can’t demonstrate its truth to others, but if you regard it as “deeply important to how I live”, then I think you are — at least privately — still taking it as assertoric (and veridical).
Likewise for your other statement:
You obviously can’t demonstrate this to others, which is why you exclude it from the “space of reasons”, but I think you are still taking it as assertoric (and veridical). If it were just a passing thought, but not one that you regarded as true, then why would your spiritual attitude and practice turn on it?
walto,
We can still discuss this even if fifth fails to present a case. There’s plenty of presuppositional material out there to examine, and like you, I find the concept interesting.
It would be a neat trick if it actually worked. It’s reminiscent of Plantinga’s attempt to classify belief in God as “properly basic” and therefore unneedful of supporting evidence.
For sure, scientific explanations do have a story content.
What makes them not “just stories”, is that they define what counts as data — which, of course, is why it is unavoidable that data is theory-laden.
I haven’t met Plantinga, but Fifthmonarchyman is no Plantinga.
(Not saying I am, either. 🙁 In fact, if I believed in God, I’d be angry at Him/Her/It right now. 🙁 )
Doesn’t the very term “mid air” presuppose a number of things? For keiths to make any assertion or ask any questions presupposes not just a little.
Yet I laid out the “paper trail” as it were. keiths was the first to bring it up.
It’s like keiths asking me to defend my belief that the bible is the infallible word of God even though I never made such a claim.
[ETA:
first use of comprehensibility (fifth)
first use of comprehensible (KN)
first use of fully comprehensible(keiths)
]
walto,
True, but no one is claiming that fifth invented presuppositionalism.
And this is what this thread is really about. Lack of ability to reason by the very sorts of people who are supposed to be so much better at it than us backward dogmatic unreflective religious hicks who never bother to question a .single word in THE BIBLE.
To assert that no presupposition is needed is self-refuting. It presupposes the very thing it denies. It begs the question. Someone who being here is probably not the best person to attempt to engage in any sort of meaningful dialogue.
Sure, you can claim that your foundation is that there is no foundation. If that makes sense to you.
Why isn’t evidence sufficient for what, and how would you know?
walto:
Mung:
No, I wasn’t. It was fifth:
Good grief, Mung.
Where did God forbid humans to eat fruit?
Here:
Genesis 2:16
Or here:
Genesis 3:2
Maybe it’s time to stop taking your bible lessons from other atheists.
I made up the generalization to all fruit. But not the part about the malicious design.
Drop your subjectivity for just a bit keiths and put on your objectivity.
What I said was true and I defended it.
You were the one who introduced both “partially comprehensible” and “fully comprehensible” into the discussion:
Then you asked fifth to defend something you had just introduced.
Now you are certainly free to argue that by introducing the comprehensibility of the universe fifth actually meant to say the universe is fully comprehensible. But that would still be you injecting “fully comprehensible” into the discussion.
And all if it is, by the way, a red herring. fifth stated his presupposition and it was quite simple:
Would you consider the comprehensibility of the universe to be a valid presupposition to build a worldview on?
All you had to do was say no.
Fully or only partially comprehensible is irrelevant.
petrushka,
Thanks. I’m glad I resisted calling Piotr an idiot and am glad I quoted the whole text, because I didn’t want to make it appear if had come from you and not Piotr. It seems to have worked out.
Go away, OldMung. We like NewMung better.
Not according to fifth:
Good grief, OldMung.
Is it just my imagination, or are people who ought to know better confusing foundationalism with presuppositionalism? Are they not different?
Objective keiths would post the link to his source. And then I would point out how it came after his post, not before.
But I have to say I like the subjective keiths better. Subjective keiths is more believable. More human. More like the rest of us.
You might be surprised to find that I agree that these sorts of conversations are boring I would much rather discuss science stuff.
I would not get into this stuff at all but folks just seem to follow me around demanding that I justify my assumptions all the time for some reason it’s a broken record It makes me yawn.
I could care less if you share my assumptions and I have no desire to get you to change yours. I’m not trying to get you to change your behavior in anyway except perhaps get you to leave folks like me alone to live our lives
I would only wish that we could live and let live. It seems that that is impossible with some folks.
Therefore if a person is so bound and determined to challenge my presuppositions I would like to know theirs. That is all.
Is that so hard?
peace
Mung,
Which wouldn’t help your case, because you claimed that
What have you done with NewMung?