Sure, because your "empirical evidence" is capable of defining and determining what does and does not.
So what is?
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Why atheism and atheists are just wrong
- Thread starter dfnj
- Start date
So what is?
ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
Lack of evidence - what is it with theists and proof? Anyway, lack of belief is justified by lack of any evidence but that isn't the same thing as thinking that if gods existed there would definitely be evidence. All sorts of things might be true and leave no evidence but people don't generally believe them because doing so would just be a guess from zero information.
You don't seem to get the difference between being able to falsify something, and therefore be sure it's false, and simply having no reason at all to take it seriously - which is often the atheist view about gods.
Phaedrus
Active Member
Oh, yes, except the imaginative concept of something means it exists from the imagination. It does not mean it holds any sway in our reality of existence. If the imagination is all that is needed for something to exist realistically, no wonder theists are fundamentally and cognitively lost.
Yes, I am biased against saying figments of our imagination actually exist.
The senses in which unicorns exist (as a literary and social phenomenon) are NOT what it means for unicorns to exist. It is what it means for a *myth* of unicorns to exist.
Everyone here agrees that religions exist. They are common. That is equivalent to unicorns 'existing' as social phenomena. But when we ask if God/deities exists, we mean it in the sense that unicorns do not: do they actually exist independent of our human psychology, or not?
PureX
Veteran Member
We don't know what it means to exist, as we are not omniscient.
Welcome to the human condition. Where we humans don't get all the answers. But that certainly does not make the question of existence "completely meaningless"!
Well, that we know of. But we just established that we don't know the parameters of what can and can't exist. So ...
Well, that's a very limiting and blinding bias you've got there, then, isn't it. But I guess if it makes you comfortable ...
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Lack of *evidence*. I can imagine any number of mythical creatures for which there is no evidence. And I see no reason to believe in any of them.
For example, perhaps our universe was created by a child of a race of high dimensional beings. The four dimensional manifold (complete with time internally) was formed, played with for a while, and then discarded. Now it is forgotten in a pile of forgotten toys.
There is *just* as much evidence to believe this story as there is to believe any other story concerning deities. I don't believe in any of them for *exactly* the same reason: lack of evidence.
It is trivially easy to spin wild fantasies about how things could be. The trick is figuring out how they actually are. And when *that* is the goal, a lack of evidence is certainly a very good reason to not have belief.
PureX
Veteran Member
You can't seriously be posing the idea that human imagination has no effect on reality!
Without human imagination (cognition), there would be no "reality". Realty, itself is an idea generated by imagination. "Phaedrus", (you) are an imagined concept, just like God and the unicorn. And so is the elaborate "reality" that you see yourself living in.
We don't need to be omniscient to be able to define a concept. Knowing all that exists is different than knowing what it means to exist.
I agree. And the first thing we learn about that question is the difference between imagination and reality.
Sure, it is *possible* that unicorns that fart rainbows and poop ice cream exist on some distant planet. But they certainly don't here
I see it as a limitation to seeking truth as opposed to falsities.
Phaedrus
Active Member
Well, if you want to go off on an unrelated secular tangent, then I have to state that the imagination can create that which can be proven to realistically exist in our world. Unfortunately, despite your error in attempting to be disingenuous, I understand that god is not even in the same ballpark.
Only because humans take that imagination and turn it into reality.
OK, here we definitely disagree. Reality and imagination are *very* different things. That is something so basic that I thought most people knew it by age 10.
OK, so let's put it this way.
Does God exist in the same sense as unicorns?
Or does God exist in the same sense as the sun?
Or does God exist in the same sense as the number 2?
Does God exist in the same sense as unicorns?
Or does God exist in the same sense as the sun?
Or does God exist in the same sense as the number 2?
PureX
Veteran Member
So don't. I don't see any reason to "believe in them", either. But the myths still exist, and so does the artifice they employ, and so do the ideas they were created to convey. Why would I dismiss all these just because the myth is mythical???
The "what if" possibilities are endless. So the question becomes; how can we use these "what if's" (possibilities) to our advantage?
I see no reason to "believe in" any of them, either. But the possibilities remain, and the possibility of them being of use to us remains, as well. Which is why people explore those possibilities with their imaginations, and why they adopt some of those possibilities as a hoped for reality. Because they find this useful.
We aren't going to figure out how things actually are. As limited humans, we do not possess that capacity.
Phaedrus
Active Member
You're giving us less credit than we deserve, which is a sad non-humanitarian tactic. If we had not had scientists to understand our place in the universe, we would still be illiterate church following opiates.
I don't. I put them in their appropriate place: as literature and fiction. As opposed to science and truth.
Write good literature about them.
No, many actually believe that deities exist in the same sense that unicorns do not. They think their deity is real in essentially the same sense as that this chair is real.
If all you are doing is creating fun myths and meaningful stories, go for it. Fiction is a wonderful human endeavor.
Hmmm...And I think we have made great progress on precisely that over the last 4 centuries.
PureX
Veteran Member
We still can't know how God exists, or even would exist, if God exists. Why are you finding this so difficult to accept?
WE DON'T KNOW. WE AREN'T GOING TO KNOW. NO ONE ELSE CAN TELL US. The question of God remains a question. And will remain a question. Looking for evidence and not finding it doesn't mean anything. The question remains exactly as it was. And so do the endless possibilities that it embodies. So the question to you is: are any of those endless possibilities of particular positive use/value to YOU? Could they be?
Theology begins, here ....
Phaedrus
Active Member
I would say that a positive claim of fact would demand proof. "Belief" is more in the realm of "opinion," where there wouldn't necessarily be a demand for proof.
Why wouldn't they be people? What about prehistoric humans who lived before any religion ever existed?
"Ignorant" of what, though? Someone else's imaginings?
Suppose 100 people from 100 different religions came to me and each said "my religion is true, but all the others are false" (and none of them have any hard, direct evidence). If I refrain from choosing any of them, is that the same thing as "choosing to be ignorant"? I don't see how.
I can still take it into consideration, so it wouldn't necessarily be "ignorance" if one makes oneself aware of a religion or its concepts of God.
But to take that extra step and say "I believe this to be true" is something different. One can still know about a subject and be aware of it, without necessarily proclaiming it to be "absolute irrefutable fact."
I often think that it's more ignorant to simply pick a religion just to pick one - just because one feels the need to believe in "something." It's as much as saying "I've given up the search," finding contentment with choosing something one perceives as "truth," while simultaneously rejecting all other possibilities of what might be.
Some people don't even bother searching. They just blindly accept what they're told as children and believe it their entire lives, and they tell their own children and grandchildren in an endless cycle.
I was raised by parents and grandparents who believed in God, and as a kid, it didn't even dawn on me that there was a possibility that what they were telling me was not true. I just accepted it as fact. It didn't even occur to me to think otherwise, not until many years later.
I can see that, but I wouldn't consider it to be relevant regarding an objective search for knowledge. Trusting in the possibility we find most appealing might be a valid coping mechanism for enduring the trials and tribulations of life, but that would be more relevant to satisfying an emotional need, in my opinion. It's not actual "knowledge" or a genuine attempt to reduce one's own ignorance.
I don't know if this is a fair characterization of atheists or atheism. I will acknowledge that there are more than a few atheists who may exude a certain bitterness towards religion. I've heard plenty of horror stories of kids growing up in religiously abusive families, so it's perfectly understandable if they express bitterness and anger towards religion in general later in life.
As for having "no imagination," I strongly disagree. In fact, one can see that by removing the shackles of religion from the human mindset, it has the effect of freeing the imagination and enriching human culture.
For example, in the area of music, music controlled by the church was very dry, boring, dull, uninspiring. They referred to jazz as "devil's music," but jazz and blues would eventually evolve to some of the greatest music ever produced in the rock-and-roll era. That just shows what human imagination is capable of when unfettered by religious dogma and draconian restrictions on what people are allowed to think and feel.
Well, because so many people insist that they know God exists and that I am a fool for not having a belief in such an entity.
Since I don't write literature, not particularly. I do like reading and discussing literature, so that is one option.
Nope. It doens't even get started: the object of its study isn't even known to exist.
Phaedrus
Active Member
Furthermore, most agnostics are the silliest bunch of people next to many theists.
Oh, we don't know, we don't know.
You can cry that till the cows don't come home, because as far as our knowledge of what does and does not exist is concerned, most agnostics should be expending the same energy they do with god toward all things that cannot be proven to not exist.
PureX
Veteran Member
WOW! You really can't see any truth in literature and fiction? Man! I feel bad for you! And by the way, no scientist claims truth, or even to be seeking it.
I have no control over what other people choose to believe, and neither do you. But I can explain to you WHY they choose to believe these things. Something that seems to totally frustrate and perplex you.
We wouldn't even be human, without it. Yet you seem to feel that it's a silly and pointless pursuit. That scares me.