At the risk of extended tangent, that's a reasonable premise, but not one that leads to atheism.
Joel Send a noteboard - 21/09/2011 12:55:57 AM
Just ready to take a jump of faith that I would not take.
Could be crazy, but not necessarily. Atheists are also not all rational and sane for that matter.
Agnostics, sure; they often seem the most rational and sane as a group, but positive atheism just takes the same leap of faith rt referenced; it simply leaps in the other direction. Saying you're undecided, or there's not convincing evidence or even that the balance of evidence indicates there's probably no God is rational (though I dispute the veracity of that last example, obviously). The inability to prove a negative, however, is a cornerstone of logic, so claiming to have done so is automatically irrational.
I've struggled with this myself and yes of course being agnostic is the purely rational and scientific approach. I used to always call myself an agnostic. However, no scientific experiment has ZERO error. There's always some uncertainty, abut that doesn't mean we can't make conclusions. Basically, if you're 99.9999% sure of something it's kind of ok to round up and drop that epsilon for the purposes of discussion. No, I don't 100% know that the Bible or the Koran or Joseph Smith's plates are not the word of God, but I'm preeeeetty sure and that's good enough.
There's a good case, IMHO, for "unreasonable doubt" but as a practical matter it can usually be ignored. Whether a given religious text is the word of God is a separate debate from whether God exists, however. The latter almost inevitably comes down to a matter of faith even when the text in question is internally consistent and makes rigorously logical arguments, but the latter can be evaluated in rational terms without resort to a text arbitrarily chosen as authoritative.
Let's consider the universal singularity subjected to the Big Bang, since its only detractors are religious fundamentalists who obviously aren't atheists. It's static matter; it has no internal motion (since it's a 0 dimensional singularity there's no space in which anything can move) nor external motion, and can acquire none from any source because it contains the entire universe, by definition. Anything with kinetic energy that MIGHT be present must simply be absorbed by the singularity, its energy of motion transformed into additional matter, per the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The First Law of Thermodynamics precludes spontaneous generation of a kinetic energy source to put the universal singularity in motion. Consequently, the Big Bang cannot be the result of a natural cause and therefore must be the result of a supernatural one; when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
We don't have to call that supernatural First Cause "God" if that makes people uncomfortable; we can simply call it "a supernatural force responsible for setting in motion all of existence." However, I think any reasonable person would agree that's what's generally understood by "God" whether we're willing to admit it or not. Even if we posited some as yet unknown exception to the Laws of Thermodynamics, it wouldn't be because of supporting observational evidence, but solely because we irrationally dislike what all observational evidence DOES support. It would be positing, on the basis of faith alone and in defiance of all known facts, a violation of established natural law, and thus still something supernatural; indeed, that it's supernatural is about the only thing we COULD say about it with certainty. So our rational evaluation of the evidence leads inescapably to one of two places:
1) The conclusion beyond reasonable doubt that something fitting the definition of a deity exists or
2) Outright rejection of fundamental physical laws.
Unless we ignore the principles that matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed (the First Law of Thermodynamics) and/or that entropy within a closed system always increases (the Second Law of Thermodynamics), existence itself defies a purely natural explanation. We can get a pass on the idea that an object at rest (like the singularity that preceded the Big Bang) tends to remain at rest unless acted on by an outside force (Newtons First Law of Motion) only because Relativity has demonstrated exceptions to the laws of Classical Mechanics, but Thermodynamics is still inexorable. No one else claiming to have discovered a perpetual motion machine is taken seriously, so I fail to see why those who claim the WHOLE UNIVERSE is one merit an exception.
Denying the first two laws of thermodynamics or Jovian moons for the sake of a cherished belief are both dogmatically irrational. When that's compounded by claims to have proven a negative we're far into the realm of fantasy. While everyone is entitled to whatever fantasy they wish to indulge, that doesn't make it credible, and no one is entitled to inflict their fantasies on others. Deism vs. theism seems to me a far more plausible and constructive debate than atheism vs. either; neither deism nor theism inherently imply a particular religion, but both naturally (and, IMHO, accurately) SOME religion.
Agnosticism has ample room for both, a typical example of why I find agnosticism far more reasonable than atheism, as well as the reason I suspect the term "positive atheism" was created: It's a great way to coopt reasonable positions like skeptical and "non-denominational" agnosticism while maintaining a repudiation of them. If all agnostics are treated as a subset of atheism, atheism as a whole instantly becomes far more reasonable, and religious belief as a whole far less so. Unfortunately, that's a transparently cynical and grossly inaccurate representation. From where I sit, there are three general groups of people:
Religious People
People who recognize and admit they accept, to varying degrees, a given religion, usually informed, again to vary degrees, by observation and reason.
Agnostic People
People undecided about the existence, function and/or identity of a deity or deities.
Atheist People
People whose rejection of any and all deities is as much an article of faith as affirmation of one or more is for the first group.
If you want irrational, compartmentalized, cognitive dissonance, that last group is probably the best place to look, because atheists invariably insist their core religious beliefs are an unavoidable consequence of core scientific beliefs, despite fundamental and insoluble contradictions between the two. The principal difference between them and (other) religious fundamentalists is not denying what others affirm, but that they neither recognize nor admit basing their position at least as much on belief as the first group does.
Honorbound and honored to be Bonded to Mahtaliel Sedai
Last First in wotmania Chat
Slightly better than chocolate.
Love still can't be coerced.
Please Don't Eat the Newbies!
LoL. Be well, RAFOlk.
Last First in wotmania Chat
Slightly better than chocolate.
Love still can't be coerced.
Please Don't Eat the Newbies!
LoL. Be well, RAFOlk.
Jon Huntsman, the No-Drama Conservative (he speaks like a diplomat but he is no moderate)
03/09/2011 05:11:12 PM
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I haven't had a chance to read the entire article yet
03/09/2011 09:00:22 PM
- 212 Views
Do we need two catholics in the race? *NM*
03/09/2011 11:24:19 PM
- 128 Views
I'd settle for one real one.
04/09/2011 09:44:03 PM
- 195 Views
Santorum is not a real catholic? Furthermore Gingrich converted to Catholicism *NM*
05/09/2011 12:39:38 AM
- 86 Views
Real Catholics, especially educated Latin-mass types should understand just-war morality *NM*
14/09/2011 12:47:28 AM
- 97 Views
Personally I think the left spends way to much time focusing on relgion
06/09/2011 02:04:54 AM
- 264 Views
Religion is an indication on whether or not a candidate is rational-minded or not.
06/09/2011 11:11:43 AM
- 342 Views
I agree the left does use religious prejudice to disqualify candidates
06/09/2011 02:04:02 PM
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How is it any different than Islam?
06/09/2011 05:00:30 PM
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Good point, they're all crazy.
07/09/2011 06:30:32 AM
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I am an athiest, but they are not all crazy
08/09/2011 02:19:38 AM
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The religions are crazy. The people believing in them are not necessarily crazy.
08/09/2011 06:33:46 PM
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I've yet to meet a rational sane atheist.
12/09/2011 10:01:59 PM
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Did you just call yourself irrational and/or insane? *NM*
12/09/2011 10:38:24 PM
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It's late, so you may have to spell it out for me: Did I claim to prove a negative in there?
13/09/2011 12:09:09 AM
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That's a good point!
14/09/2011 04:34:36 PM
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At the risk of extended tangent, that's a reasonable premise, but not one that leads to atheism.
21/09/2011 12:55:57 AM
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To cite a pop culture figure, Ken Jennings seems pretty rational
06/09/2011 10:09:25 PM
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They can compartmentalize.
07/09/2011 06:33:42 AM
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Everyone does that
07/09/2011 06:59:02 AM
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So, you don't think that religiosity in american politics is increasing?
07/09/2011 06:56:12 PM
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No, absolutely not
08/09/2011 03:25:49 AM
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Why the hostility?
08/09/2011 03:36:37 PM
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That would be my question for you
08/09/2011 05:01:42 PM
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Ay.
08/09/2011 06:27:17 PM
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Honestly, I had the same reaction as Isaac, which is why I responded as I did.
12/09/2011 10:12:36 PM
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why do you think America is becoming more religious?
07/09/2011 03:07:58 PM
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I said religiosity is increasing in american politics, and because it is. *NM*
07/09/2011 06:57:35 PM
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spoken like a true believer, who needs facts when you have faith and righteousness *NM*
07/09/2011 09:36:45 PM
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Just based on my observations. I haven't written a report on it.
08/09/2011 03:38:40 PM
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Gallup has looked into it
08/09/2011 04:44:25 PM
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Again, that's not what I said.
08/09/2011 06:04:13 PM
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There's an odd line halfway the article...
03/09/2011 10:39:42 PM
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Which lines are you referring to? *NM*
04/09/2011 10:03:06 PM
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This part:
04/09/2011 10:25:57 PM
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really? I didn't read this as a neutral article
06/09/2011 02:07:22 AM
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If you read it as a positive pro-Huntsman article, that only makes the contrast weirder still. *NM*
07/09/2011 10:26:30 PM
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I think the problem may be your prospective
08/09/2011 05:09:31 AM
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Seriously? That quote parodies and mocks things that matter to conservatives.
08/09/2011 08:39:21 PM
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That actually sounds like a joke conservatives would say to each other where no media could hear
14/09/2011 12:52:18 AM
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Well, I certainly like him better than any other Republican candidate I have heard about. *NM*
06/09/2011 10:34:36 PM
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That actually managed to alarm me a lot more than it reassured me.
12/09/2011 09:52:31 PM
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