Relying strictly on the application of reason to the evidence of the senses to decide what is true about the world around us is what defines empiricism, which inevitably leads to agnostic atheism.
Why would you claim that? Isn't that kind of a no true Scotsman argument? "If he were a true empiricist, he would inevitably be an agnostic atheist too". You don't see it possible for an empiricist to come to any other conclusion than your own?
BTW, I don't understand this combination of agnosticism and atheism like this. Why not just say agnostic, which is a term created to distinguish it from atheism? If we can allow for that, can we then allow for saying I'm a theistic atheist? I don't see why not. That actually might describe me pretty well; a theistic atheist!
I disagree that having faith in the thinking of others is relying on reason. It's still unjustified belief.
Not according to them its not. It's justification in their minds may not be sufficient justification in yours, or mine for that matter, but that does not mean that it is without support in their thinking. The support they have is that "the Bible says it". They view that as a source of authority outside of themselves, which makes it "objective". It's the same thing in how you or I may justify our beliefs about say, evolution. We justify those beliefs through our trust in the sciences. They justify their beliefs through trust in the Bible.
It's the exact same process of justification, just with different sources of authority. The only difference is that we think science is more reliable than the Bible. They think the Bible is more reliable than science.
Once again, your notion of faith as unjustified belief, is itself an unjustified belief. I have many times explained the difference between faith and beliefs. Do you recall my arguments I have presented? Can you restate them to me if you understand the point I was making showing how they are not the same? That "unjustified belief" is something other to faith itself?
Bottom line, my argument that what they are doing is itself relying on reason, and therefore it's just another expression of rationalism, and therefore
not faith, is that it relies on external sources of authority as justifications for their beliefs. It is relying on "right ideas", as opposed to sensed, felt, inuited, and firsthand experiential data of their own.
The entire world of apologetics is all about using reason to justify religious beliefs rationally. That's my point. It has nothing to do with actual faith. It has nothing to do with experiential information.
Are you sure that you don't mean empiricism?
We may be talking past each other in our language. If you were to read this article, can you explain what you see reflects your understanding of empiricism as opposed to rationalism as I hear in the neo-atheist camps which constantly cries for 'evidence', yet reject subjective experience as valid evidence.
Rationalism vs. Empiricism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
And yes, interpreting internal mental states as experiencing an external reality is a subjective judgement.
All interpretations of any experience whatsoever is a subjective experience, even if it is a direct experience of the external world. You touch the handle on your car door, your mind interprets that as your car door. That is a subjective interpretation. All of it is.
Where it becomes "objective reality", is when your subjective understanding or translation of the external world through your subjective interpretive mechanisms, matches others' understandings of the same experience for themselves. And that is facilitated through shared, common frames of reference, or system of symbolic meaning, carried through language. "Door handle". A "door handle" is a mental reality. A door handle is not something that exists outside of our minds. It's not a door handle outside of ourselves. It's just "x", that we label door handle because of the meanings we attach to it. It isn't objectively a door handle, but it is
intersubjectively a door handle - to us.
So simply saying "oh, that's just a subjective experience, it isn't real evidence", as a great many atheists I have encountered a great many times, is a vacuous argument. If it is part of a shared or collective system of symbols and meaning, it's not just purely subjective. It is "objective" in that others with similar experiences share the same interpretive frameworks, therefore making it greater than just one individual. Once it's outside that individual and is a shared reality, it is for all intents and purposes "objective reality" to those who share that experience and that interpretive framework.
This is no different for our understanding of reality through the scientific framework. Again, this is a 30,000 foot view of these things, rather than a view looking out through any one particular framework as reality. Our ideas of reality, are an illusion of the mind, is this way.
I've also experienced moments of euphoria, connection, mystery, and gratitude, but I resist calling it experiencing a god or anything else other than my own mind.
If I thought of God as a wholly external entity that has form, outside of creation and myself, I would resist calling it God as well. But since I don't understand "God" that way, that excludes my own subjective nature, I have no problem calling it God, as I don't make that other disction you do in thinking of my own mind as other to the objective world.
You are correct in your thinking, from a dualistic perception of yourself as other to the world. But is dualistic thinking really reality itself? Not in my experience it isn't. It's a perception of reality, as reality to us.
I don't need to. I don't benefit by so doing. It's a mistake made by many. The ancient Greeks didn't think that their own minds could create art, and so when they had an inspiration, they credited a muse with whispering it to them.
My thoughts to this aren't all that well formed, but to take a stab at it anyway. When we experience something of ourselves that surpasses our own realizations about ourselves that we hold to be true, they are often interpreted by our minds as "other" to ourselves, or coming from somewhere else. A "miracle", or supernatural even. The internal subconscious mind externalizes it as 'foreign' or 'from above', or 'from below', etc, rather than from within. The reason is because it falls outside our sense of self-identify, things about ourselves we know and recognize.
So very much so, someone having a peak experience, a high-level state of consciousness that abruptly happens to them, something far beyond their own developed or integrated self-sense, that can be manifested as encountering "God", or some other angelic form or another. Heck, there are times in my writing music I surprise myself and find mindself saying "Where did that come from?!?" So, I can see how easily someone, like the Greeks you mentioned, see that as supernatural.
In a sense it is, and in another it is not. It's really relative to our own sense of the depths of reality, both within us and outside us, of which we are all participants within. If we step out of dualistic thought, dualistic reality, dualistic perception of ourselves as other to the world or the universe, or God, then the better way is to to understand it as simply as of yet unrealized potential that is there all the time available to us. This is difficult to put into words.
And many have decided that their endogenous psychological states suggest the existence of gods and spirits.
I'm going to share a quote that reflects my views about what God is, which is a reality, which is us, but the unrealized Self. These states, are hardly a "just" or a "mere" state. They are in reality, the gateways to realize that Potential that is us, that is "God". Spend a few moments processing this: (Emphasis mine)
"But this is not God as an ontological other, set apart from the cosmos, from humans, and from creation at large. Rather, it is God as an archetypal summit of one's own Consciousness. John Blofeld quotes Edward Conze on the Vajrayana Buddhist viewpoint: " 'It is the emptiness of everything which allows the identification to take place - the emptiness [which means "transcendental openness" or "nonobstruction"] which is in us coming together with the emptiness which is the deity. By visualizing that identification 'we actually do become the deity. The subject is identified with the object of faith. The worship, the worshiper, and the worshiped, those three are not separate' ". At its peak, the soul becomes one, literally one, with the deity-form, with the dhyani-buddha, with (choose whatever term one prefers) God. One dissolves into Deity, as Deity - that Deity which, from the beginning, has been one's own Self or highest Archetype."
~Ken Wilber, Eye to Eye, pg. 85
BTW, if you'd like to get a better of understanding of where I am coming from in what I am trying to communicate, I'd highly recommend that book I just referenced.
https://www.amazon.com/Eye-Quest-New-Paradigm/dp/157062741X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=eye+to+eye+ken+wilber&qid=1676828638&sprefix=eye+to+eye+ken,aps,113&sr=8-1
Here's a quick blurb on the book from Amazon to maybe peak your interest:
In this book Wilber presents a model of consciousness that encompasses empirical, psychological, and spiritual modes of understanding. Wilber examines three realms of knowledge: the empirical realm of the senses, the rational realm of the mind, and the contemplative realm of the spirit. Eye to Eye points the way to a broader, more inclusive understanding of ourselves and the universe.
You see how it is I do embrace empiricism, yet don't limit understanding to just that mode alone? It is really more with an epistimological pluralism that I approach understating reality from; one that includes the eye of flesh (empirical sense data), the eye of mind (interpretive hermunical), and the eye of spirit (contemplative, gnostic).
