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.
As Glen Davidson pointed out, our ability to comprehend the universe is shaped and bounded by our history of evolutionary success as part of it. It’s not a presupposition, to whatever extent it exists, it’s a derived trait.
It means we can understand Newtonian mechanics, but maybe not so much quantum mechanics.
What’s in those brownies?
Just asking.
Even Newtonian mechanics leads to noncomputable system behavior.
Yes, I understand that. 🙂
Speaking of noncomputable system behavior…
Have you ever looked at quantum entanglement? I mean really looked at quantum entanglement?
Yeah, and every time I did, the frikkin’ wavefunction collapsed.
keiths,
Come to that, isn’t there some unfinished business here?
I’m still waiting for Part II of Moderation!
What’s your field, Bill?
Clinical psychology. My internship was in a forensic practice.
Uh-oh.
May I just say that I’m not always like this?
Or, put another way, is my dosage level mybe not ideal? 🙁
who is we?
Humanity! Are you always this obtuse?
Which is the complement of my earlier question to those who claim the universe is fully intelligible:
Intelligible to who, or what?
You do understand that according to Christianity the Logos became flesh and therefore there is at least one human who understands everything about the universe?
keiths comment is effectively a claim that Christianity is false. My question is how does he know this.
it’s not about being obtuse it’s about making sure we are not treating unsupported claims as fact.
peace
Intelligible to the Logos at the very least.
peace
I’m not sure it’s been noted, except by Walto, that “fully comprehensible” is a modal category: it says that reality can be fully comprehended. It says that the world and the mind have the right sort of relationship, such that there are no epistemic barriers to everything real being understood by some mind.
In other words, it could be read as saying:
(1) There exist cognitive agents who can understand some things.
(2) Therefore, it is possible that there exists at least one cognitive agent that can understand everything.
But is that valid? I suspect it isn’t but I’m not sure. I don’t have the chops in modal logic to assess it, but I worry that regimenting (2) would expose an illegitimate introduction of a universal quantifier.
One could say, however,
(1) There exist cognitive agents who can understand some things.
(2) One of the things that cognitive agents want to understand is (1).
in other words, think of (1) as a fact calling for an explanation rather than a premise in an argument.
The problem with treating it as a fact that needs an explanation is that, as several of us here have pointed out, any explanation can be contested by another explanation.
In this case, our ability to understand some aspects of some of the objects that we experience can itself be understood — to some degree, in some respects — using cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary theory.
In other words, we have a partial, limited understanding of our capacity for partial, limited understanding.
I’d say that ‘what it is’ is a brazen burden shift.
As I see it, FMM is saying that the Incarnation is the presupposition that the universe is fully intelligible. That’s why he has no argument for this claim. Presuppositions (if there are any!) aren’t conclusions from further premises. If they were conclusions from further premises, they wouldn’t be presuppositions!
And that’s why FMM is not, in fact, trying to argue, from the fact that human beings and other cognitive agents can understand some things, to the further claim that all of reality is fully intelligible. The latter is a presupposition, and as such, it isn’t grounded in any other claim in the first place.
fifth,
You mean, like the claim that Jesus is God and that he understands everything about the universe?
Keiths, I wanted to say, on a personal note but open to all, that I deeply appreciate how hard you push me on the claims I was making about religious language. I think I have a reply but I want to explore it further before posting it here. You push in the right ways, in the spirit of genuine philosophy, and that’s extremely valuable and also extremely rare. Thank you.
Right like that,
except I acknowledge that that statement is an assumption on my part.
We both have presuppositions you know mine I want to know yours
peace
No, I do not understand that.
I’ve always read John 1 as metaphor (and rather poetic metaphor). It at least makes sense that way.
yet:
But that’s exactly what you are doing.
If it’s a fact, it’s a fact. Facts “according to” some organisation are not facts. They are claims or beliefs. If it was a fact I WOULD ACCEPT IT. After all, who can reject a fact? It’s just a fact!
I thought it was a “fact”?
You appear to understand what I’m saying.
I don’t often reply to you. That is not because I’m ignoring you it’s because usually I agree with you.
peace
Once again it is not what I’m doing, I am assuming it, I acknowledge that . keith’s has yet to do so with his claim. That is why I keep asking him how he knows it to be true.
Something can be an assumption and a fact at the same time. the terms are not mutually exclusive
peace
Thank you, KN.
I appreciate the consideration you give to my comments, especially when they are critical. That, too, is in the spirit of genuine philosophy.
quote:
The Word of God can take care of itself, and will do so if we preach it, and cease defending it. See you that lion. They have caged him for his preservation; shut him up behind iron bars to secure him from his foes! See how a band of armed men have gathered together to protect the lion. What a clatter they make with their swords and spears! These mighty men are intent upon defending a lion. O fools, and slow of heart! Open that door! Let the lord of the forest come forth free. Who will dare to encounter him? What does he want with your guardian care? Let the pure gospel go forth in all its lion-like majesty, and it will soon clear its own way and ease itself of its adversaries.
and
There seems to me to have been twice as much done in some ages in defending the Bible as in expounding it, but if the whole of our strength shall henceforth go to the exposition and spreading of it, we may leave it pretty much to defend itself. I do not know whether you see that lion—it is very distinctly before my eyes; a number of persons advance to attack him, while a host of us would defend the grand old monarch, the British Lion, with all our strength. Many suggestions are made and much advice is offered. This weapon is recommended, and the other. Pardon me if I offer a quiet suggestion. Open the door and let the lion out; he will take care of himself. Why, they are gone! He no sooner goes forth in his strength than his assailants flee. The way to meet infidelity is to spread the Bible.
The answer to every objection against the Bible is the Bible.
end quote:
Charles Spurgeon,
peace
It’s an evil book full of justifications for the most abhorrent acts imaginable.
I can only imagine this is why the numbers of believers are on the decline. Once you actually open it up and look you are generally repelled by what you find.
fifth:
keiths:
fifth:
Okay, then you aren’t trying to “make sure we are not treating unsupported claims as fact.”
I try to keep mine to a minimum (see this).
The problem with presuppositions is that they might be wrong. When you commit yourself to a presupposition — especially if you declare it ‘non-negotiable’ — then you run the risk of committing yourself to an untruth.
Far better to back off from your assumptions, instead treating them as hypotheses. Then you are not committed to them and can discard them later if they clash with evidence or logic.
It depends on whether you’re interested in uncovering the truth versus rationalizing a premature commitment to a particular set of beliefs.
It is hard to conceive how the human mind can give assent to such terrible ideas, or how any sane man can read the Bible and still believe in the doctrine of inspiration.
— Robert Green Ingersoll, The Gods
Well anyone can quote, and doing so means nothing per se. But I think it comes rather closer to the experiences of those who have read it for what it is, rather than for what they wish it to be.
Glen Davidson
OMagain:
For all the importance that Christians ascribe to the Bible, it’s amazing how few of them actually read it. instead, their exposure is limited to the cherry-picked verses presented to them by their pastors.
I’ve often thought that atheist organizations should sponsor a “Read Your Bible” campaign. Getting Christians to read their Bibles cover-to-cover, and to think about what they’re reading, might be one of the most effective ways of turning them into ex-Christians.
Consider the Lily: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjrn4dXE2yI
Watch them all, v.funny.
Alan,
You already took quite a beating in that discussion, so I was willing to let things lie. But since you insist, I’ll respond sometime this weekend.
P.S. Are you a masochist?
The same way we know that ghosts don’t exist and the devil does not possess people.
I suspect that it is logically impossible to understand everything because there will always be another ‘why’ question. This would lead to an infinite regress.
fifth,
No, my comment — that we don’t know that the world is fully comprehensible — is effectively a claim that we don’t know Christianity to be true. Which is correct, of course.
What you did to the simple phrase is not valid. You put again quantifiers into where there were none. It’s not a legitimate move.
I suggest that “fully comprehensible” means something rather commonplace. For example, “The universe is fully comprehensible. I know, because I did that yesterday.” Simple.
Erik,
I think you might have done something else.
(I don’t want to say precisely what out loud, though.)
A quick argument that the statement “the universe is fully comprehensible” has indeterminate truth-value — we cannot know whether it is true or false.
Imagine the following scenario:
(1) the conceptual abilities of Homo sapiens are, unbeknownst to us, so deeply tied up with our sensorimotor abilities in their terrestrial deployment that our conceptual abilities are not reliable in remote regions of the universe, or even all too far from Earth;
(2) there are no other sapient beings in the universe;
(3) There is no God,
Under those three conditions, it would be false that the universe is fully comprehensible. But do those conditions obtain? It seems to me that for all three conditions, we have no way of knowing if they obtain or not. I should think it pretty clear that we have no way of knowing if (1) and (2) are true or false. I myself think that (3) is also indeterminate in truth-value, but I also recognize that that’s highly contentious, to say the least.
Point is, if the statement “the universe is fully comprehensible” would be false if all of those conditions obtained. And we have no idea if any or all of them obtain. So the statement “the universe is fully comprehensible” should be regarded as indeterminate — we do not know if it is true or false.
Why doesn’t brownian motion cause them to fall apart?
Let me suggest that you make things up about what KN believes and ask him to defend those made up beliefs and then ridicule him for not defending them.
I want to see how that works out.
Hash brownian motion just sort of sits on the couch, looking at its hand or watching TV.
Glen Davidson
Yeah. Especially all that stuff about love. Yech.
Subjective keiths
If atheists, like keiths, actually read the bible they would know that Adam and Eve were only instructed to not eat of one single tree, and they were not actually prevented from eating from that one, as we all ought to know.
If atheists, like keiths, actually read the bible they would know that Matthew and Luke do not actually disagree with each other on things such as how many wise men there were. good grief. really?
If atheists, like keiths, actually read the bible, they would find it more difficult to believe all of the books of the bible should be interpreted in the most literal manner possible because that’s “the most obvious and plain reading.”
When you actually find people posting here who get something wrong about what the bible actually says please let us know. Until then you’re just posturing for the home crowd.
I find walto to be at least partially comprehensible. 🙂
Mung,
You apparently can’t even be bothered to read and understand someone’s comments, much less the entire Bible.
Not one of your criticisms applies to anything I’ve written.