(July 6, 2012 at 9:55 am)Metonymie Wrote: Ladies and bruces,
I have a question about atheism.
As we know, being an atheist doesn't imply anything. It just means that someone doesn't believe in god (any god).
But is this true? Can you be an atheist and anything you like (except a believer in god, of course).
It seems to me, that you have to be a materialist and therefore can't be an idealist. (maybe in constructivist epistemology, but I'd doubt that)
(True/Untrue?)
If this is true, how do you deal with Hume's "is-ought problem" and naturalistic fallacies?
(David Hume
could out-consume
Schopenhauer and Hegel)
I'm somewhat interested in this line of questioning, because you see a certain collection of Christians arguing very loudly that denying God means rejecting things like objective moral values, etc.
I'm inclined to think that as long as the axioms of your belief system are consistent (do not entail contradiction), then it's a valid belief system. So, for example, Joe the Philosopher might only have this one belief: "Triangles exist as immaterial objects."
Now, unless this somehow entails the existence of God, it seems to be that Joe is an atheist, and something of a Platonist. QED.
“The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Catholic, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false.”
