RE: What is an atheist?
September 8, 2012 at 7:10 am
(This post was last modified: September 8, 2012 at 7:29 am by Whateverist.)
I voted for two options: the second one and agnostic/other.
I call myself an atheist on the basis of the second option. No operational belief in any gods going on in me as near as I can tell and certainly no conscious belief either. On the other hand, it is pretty tough to know just what all might be included in the god category.
The boundless omni-ness of the Christian god seems an absurd notion and an easy one to reject. How do finite, limited we even take the measure of any god's power or knowledge or anything else? Would a creature with all the perceptual and physical abilities of every creature on earth qualify as a god? It would know things by way of smell about our emotional state which we ourselves can only guess at. It would be a lot more powerful than we puny humans. So is that godlike enough? If not, I wonder what exactly is the threshold of attributes by which we will recognize a god? Without an answer to this question it is hard to know really what is being asked. I can't see losing sleep over whether or not ... I don't know what ... exists.
I'm agnostic about a lot of things. I guess you could say I'm pro-agnostic. I have no desire to adopt a stance of complete certainty toward propositions for which I have only provisional support. At the same time I am willing to and indeed have no choice but to act on provisional beliefs all the time. Hell, I probably act all the time on beliefs so basic that I've never even considered how much justification I have for believing them.
I like being agnostic because it fits with what I know about what I know about the world. It also allows me to enjoy the company of more people in the world.
I forgot to mention my problems with "supernatural" as a category. If this is a category about what we know about what is in the world, then there should occasionally be movement from the supernatural to the natural category. But if gods are defined as necessarily supernatural then I'm closer to being certain they do not exist at all. For if gods are only supernatural then that is to say they have no place at all in the natural world. To my mind that is tantamount to saying they just don't exist - unless we are to suppose there are parallel dimensions. But if there is no exchange or influence possible between these hypothetical dimensions, how can it matter whether or not they exist? If God is thought of as existing in another dimension then it must be explained to me how He is capable of moving between dimensions and exactly what is existence consists in when He pays us a visit.
I call myself an atheist on the basis of the second option. No operational belief in any gods going on in me as near as I can tell and certainly no conscious belief either. On the other hand, it is pretty tough to know just what all might be included in the god category.
The boundless omni-ness of the Christian god seems an absurd notion and an easy one to reject. How do finite, limited we even take the measure of any god's power or knowledge or anything else? Would a creature with all the perceptual and physical abilities of every creature on earth qualify as a god? It would know things by way of smell about our emotional state which we ourselves can only guess at. It would be a lot more powerful than we puny humans. So is that godlike enough? If not, I wonder what exactly is the threshold of attributes by which we will recognize a god? Without an answer to this question it is hard to know really what is being asked. I can't see losing sleep over whether or not ... I don't know what ... exists.
I'm agnostic about a lot of things. I guess you could say I'm pro-agnostic. I have no desire to adopt a stance of complete certainty toward propositions for which I have only provisional support. At the same time I am willing to and indeed have no choice but to act on provisional beliefs all the time. Hell, I probably act all the time on beliefs so basic that I've never even considered how much justification I have for believing them.
I like being agnostic because it fits with what I know about what I know about the world. It also allows me to enjoy the company of more people in the world.
I forgot to mention my problems with "supernatural" as a category. If this is a category about what we know about what is in the world, then there should occasionally be movement from the supernatural to the natural category. But if gods are defined as necessarily supernatural then I'm closer to being certain they do not exist at all. For if gods are only supernatural then that is to say they have no place at all in the natural world. To my mind that is tantamount to saying they just don't exist - unless we are to suppose there are parallel dimensions. But if there is no exchange or influence possible between these hypothetical dimensions, how can it matter whether or not they exist? If God is thought of as existing in another dimension then it must be explained to me how He is capable of moving between dimensions and exactly what is existence consists in when He pays us a visit.
