The Definition of Atheism

I’m happy to respond to any detailed arguments on the Five Ways. They are better treated as a guide for how believers might understand God than as a tool for evangelists, from what I’ve seen. The devil is in the detail, so to speak.

Copy Count Timothy in. He knows this material. (So to does EQV and Leontiskos although I haven’t noticed the latter around since the Great Transition.) I’d be happy to participate in the discussion but I don’t know nearly enough to initiate it.

Although no sooner I say that this this thread is posted although haven’t had a chance to take it in yet.

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CC: @Wayfarer

I am more than happy to discuss with you the Five Ways: feel free to message me anytime, my friend. Classical theism is much more interesting than the mainstream apologetics I have seen.

As noted by others, count is a good source too: they know more than I do.

I’m not sure Leontiskos will be back with the developments that occurred back when; but who knows: I keep in touch with them, and they would be a good source on this and are a great person to discuss with in general. I’ve only been recently pardoned and resurrected from the dead from those past disputes myself, although a pardon was never required in their case.

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Very good. I’m a babe in the woods with Thomist philosophy, my main interest in it that it is representative of the broader ‘perennial philosophy’ of which I’m a lifelong student. You will notice that I’ve also responded to the thread I mentioned.

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Yet more Thomism.

Flys at a picnic. :grin:

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Atheism is a biased POV because agnosticism is a real entity, perhaps the only one among the 3. . So is theism. It’s not going to hurt to know one’s biased. What’s an atheist but a prejudiced agnostic.

Another string of assertions.

Perhaps an atheist has recognised the incoherence in the description of god, and realises that an incoherent being cannot exist.

Perhaps.

Of course atheism is biased. So is theism.

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God’s not incoherent. He maybe something but he’s definitely not incoherent. If anything we’re incoherent, we as in h. sapiens. Evidence for that is in great abundance, you just have to watch the news or visit your neighbor or join some community, etc.

God has been accepted by millions all over the world and some of these have been giants like Newton. Are you saying you’re smarter than Newton? :thinking:

A benevolent, omnipotent and omniscient being is at least prima facie inconsistent with the way the world is.

Then there are the incoherences of omnipotence - can he construct an immovable object? Can he construct a key for an Inescapable cage?

Then the arguments around S5, such that a necessary being collapses modality.

And so on.

And seven fallacies in such a short post. Impressive.

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We’re the ones incoherent. That’s what you’re forgetting/ignoring. The various inconsistencies you mention are minor/trivial compared to atheism’s own panoply of logical crimes. Can you prove, for example, that God doesn’t exist? I won’t hold my breath.

Why would, the real question is, someone who invented an entire field of mathematics, someone who decoded celestial motion, be a devout Christian? I’m talking about Newton, and Leibniz. The scientific revolution wouldn’t have happened without them?

You’re not made for doing philosophy.

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Now that is a flat assertion. Atypical of a true philosopher. Join the club of not-meant-for-philosophy.

Also proves my point: we’re incoherent.

It’s because as Hegel said: “man is this night”. Scientific certainty apply only for Matter. Thought by itself is an intimate complete mystery and you have to do Metaphysics to include Thought in the Totality of all things.

An immediate and very low-Q way to do it is adding back-world to Reality: this is exactly what God is, very bad metaphysics, simple projection of the Thought category to the rest of Reality. Idealism is a non-supernatural way of low-Q totalizing. Materialism is an ultra low-Q idealism, totalizing with the idea of Matter. etc.

A working way that add nothing to Reality but shows it as a logical Totality is the MCogito system
(Part censored by post-modern death of Thought…)

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No. But then I can’t prove the non-existence of unicorns or fairies either. In general, it is not possible to conclusively prove that a given something does not exist.

I am aware however, that some Christian circles think that it is a clever move to put the burden of proof on the other side, thus avoiding the tedious arguments against their position. I suspect that it may lead to a quieter life for them, but will be largely ignored by those seeking to convert the unconverted.

This is unusual. I often have to remind people that being a scientist does not necessarily mean being an atheist. Are you really saying that someone’s understanding of science indicates a better than normal understanding of religion? That’s not at all obvious to me.

If you do, you might like to consider the following:-

Einstein used many labels to describe his religious views, including “agnostic”, “religious nonbeliever”, and a believer in “Spinoza’s God”. He was an active participant in various humanist and Ethical Culture groups. He disliked labels like “atheist” and “pantheist”. Clearly he gave the matter serious thought, but was not a “devout Christian”.

For more names, see Wikipedia - Non-religious Nobel Laureates
and Wikipedia - Atheists in science and technology

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That’s right. However, I suspect that there would be a general consensus around what is at stake in, for example, this thread. What disappoints me is the narrow focus on the question whether God exists; no attention is being paid to the rather important question whether the consensus idea of God makes any sense.

There is a third alternative. “God exists” might be meaningless, incoherent. It follows that “God does not exist” is also incoherent. For me, that’s the position of an agnostic and quite distinct from an atheistic position. (I admit you nearly get there in your OP.)

Yes. One of the complications in the case of God is that the concept is the lynch-pin of a whole way of life and of understanding the world. It’s all very well to argue about whether there is an immanent and transcendent being that created and controls the world. But what makes the question bite is that if there is such a being, we do well to live in the various specific ways suggested by the relevant religion. There is also the suggestion that our decision may have severely practical consequences, if only after we die.

To fill out the list, there’s also a Wikipedia list of Christians in science and technology.

List of atheists in science and technology

What’s your point?

It was an addition to the lists @Ludwig provided upthread.

An old, old Huffington Post article by Bishop Pierre Whalon titled God does not Exist. It might surprise you to see such an article written by a bishop of the Episcopal Church, but read on for an explanation.

@Ludwig

Yes, David Bentley Hart makes a similar point about what we mean by “exists”. A discussion about God almost always ends up moving down various tributaries of understanding: what is meant by God, what is meant by exists, what is meant by belief, what is meant by being. It can all start to sound a bit like Jordan Peterson. A discussion about God is, by necessity, an exploration of various, sometimes irreconcilable, ideas.

I watched an interview with David Hart in which he said something along the lines that the New Atheists, though terrible philosophers, were often correct in their critiques of folk Christianity and folk religion. It is true that, as widely practiced, religions are often counterproductive to human flourishing, as may be witnessed in forms of Christianity associated with figures like Trump. Hart considers many of the popular expressions of Christianity in the United States today to be Calvinist inspired heresies. This is not a small problem.

In these discussions we probably need to separate arguments against fundamentalism and theistic personalism from those directed at classical theism.