(October 23, 2012 at 12:40 pm)Rhythm Wrote: There's a fairly hefty current of non-cog in the way I approach the subject. Some things are very easy to approach from that position, others are not.
Consider the statement;
-You have a soul-
From the cognitive approach (essentially granting them a laundry list of strange shit for the sake of discussion) I might say;
"Where? Why can't we find this thing? If you can't even demonstrate that you personally have such a thing how could you possibly begin to tell me that I do?"
Raises the second good point. I've 'become' capable of cognitive evaluation of statements. But personally I made the the decision very early on emotional grounds. I began as an atheist due to a non-cognitive position, while most publishing/talking are the opposite.
If you told me at 9 you had an automobile that got 200MPG I might have thought it was a great event for humanity; so useful. Today I know enough about the chemistry and physics of internal combustion to know it's not possible. Skepticism requires acquisition of data and we've variable in our ability to do that - both generally and at life stages. At 9 I would like to think something good happened, now I know too much.
It was emotion, and a long time ago, but the best aspect I can note in my 'non-cog' origin is that I've never had an emotional need to be immortal. Even young I was comfortable with my mortality and fallibility. So when the religious offering was presented giving me immortality I declined it out of absence of need first and did not (had not) had any care or reason to pay specific attention to the factual credibility of the underlying mysticism. Later I could see the arguments, but still had no need to pay much attention. There are other dimensions to this but this is the 'clearest'. I declined the spiritual/emotional/community offering and the incidentally associated God construct went with it.
This describes an atheist origin as 'non-cognitive' - the fact that I later learned skepticism doesn't change the truth of my origin. It's a challenge for a rational non-cognitive like myself in candor and the reason for example: Saying to a Theist/Christian "You've committed yourself emotionally to a community and emotional 'value pack' but are foolish for failing to pay careful attention to the problematic embedded God construct" is not a statement I can make, as I'd declined the offering on an emotional basis in the opposite direction also without ever (or even having the tools) to challenge factual aspects of it. If for some reason I had died before say; 15-20 or so, I would have done so a fully non-cognitive atheist never having questioned the specifics. Now into my 40's I'm capable of the cognitive position but my 'heart and beliefs' must still accept the truth of my origin.
In contrast; most cognitives are what I'll call 'late skeptic onset' atheists. Generally they relate stories in their teens or early 20's where they saw/read/experienced something that caused them to question the factual specifics of the constructs and that's where they 'fell out'. Which is fine, but still leaves me approaching the questions and issues from a very dissimilar perspective - bit of an outsider.
If nothing else I will say that ya'll have definitely helped me organize my thinking around this. Thanks!
