...Truth?

[LadyForCamus]

Oops; didn't realize he flew the coop.

That's some truth I could have used.

No kidding.  I can't get those brain cells back, damnit!

[brewer]

bold mine

That they did it in the name if god. The book makes it pretty clear that was the minions motivation. 

What point?

A person can eat pizza, kill people, or rape in the name of anything. Again, what's your point? Is that it?

Yeah you want to interact with my original point now or are you done?

Sure they can, but your's is directed by divine message. I doubt I'd put much stock in the other motivations either.

OK, copy/paste for your point (I think)

Under atheism, the brain is the product of cold and mindless natural processes and there is no mind driving them. How atheists can believe their brain is reliable for ascertaining truth while also believing the above is mind boggling. Often atheists respond to this charge by saying our brains are good at ascertaining truth because we wouldn't have survived if they weren't. That may sound like a good response at first, but it isn't. False beliefs can increase survivability. Evolution may give me the false belief that the boogeyman is inside every McDonald's Big Mac, causing me to stay away from Big Macs. This would save me from harming my health by eating Big Macs, increasing my survivability, but through the power of a false belief. This is a comedic example, but there are multitudes of other examples you could conjure up that are more serious. Even if evolution alone gave people true beliefs when it came to things like "don't go near that animal or it'll eat you," or "don't touch fire because it harms you," what about more abstract things like mathematics or philosophy? Does being good at math or metaphysics increase or decrease survivability? Probably not or probably by not much. So maybe our mind is good for basic things like "fire is hot" but it isn't good for complex ideas.

However, under something like Christianity, the brain is the product of an omniscient, omnipotent, and all-good immaterial mind. So the Christian has good reason to believe their brains are good at ascertaining truth.

Atheism and evolution have little to do with each other. Your position that the brain is the product of cold and mindless is unfounded, but natural process you got right. Part of that natural process is development of a social animal that is anything but cold and mindless. Your evolution/belief/food analogy is also unfounded. What does evolution have to do with math or philosophy. Math can increase your surviveability. I'm sure other people are applying it in your everyday life and you don't even realize it (designers of cars is an example).

Exactly what complex ideas? 

There was not a whole lot here to rebut.

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OK, so you just didn't comprehend the killin and rapin part. Good for you Christian human adult male who is white and straight.

So not only are you unable to engage people civilly and rationally, you also seem to hate straight white men. Interesting.

Is this forum like the Mississippi of the atheist community or something? Lmao. Are you guys going to run me out of your community with shotguns and pitchforks? Bahahaha. Looks like you already did it with the other fellow.

bold mine

If you don't think that's civil and rational don't put it in your website or tell us about your website. No hate, just quoting you.

Makes me wonder what Cheetos is?

[Court Jester]

Hey guys. I'm trying to find truth. I feel like it's worth finding. I'm currently agnostic. All I really want right now is to hear people legitimately defend their position. I'm pretty fed up with worldviews in general. I've got a few questions here that I'm just barely opening up. I'm not trying to be terribly profound; this is my first query post here and I just want to get some ideas flowing around that I can look into.

I've noticed that a lot of atheists pride themselves on not being "duped" or of not "living in a fantasy world," presumably referring to theism, deism, pantheism, or anything that accepts a supernatural element to the world of any sort. I'm just wondering, where in an atheistic worldview is there any impetus for this search for truth? From an atheistic point of view, truth has no intrinsic value (if I'm wrong here, I'd love to hear an argument for an intrinsic value of truth from an atheistic perspective), so in an isolated world, there's no reason to search for it apart from whim, and your search for truth on a whim would hardly be a reason to criticize someone else for arriving at a conclusion you deem false. An atheist'd have to go Nietzsche's direction along with the other postmodern philosophers and say that truth has no worth and that it doesn't matter whether we believe this or that—the thing that makes something worth believing is simply whether or not we believe it. I've also heard this facet of the issue argued further as "I'm concerned that wide swaths of humanity are duping themselves," but I fail to see from an atheistic perspective why there's any reason not to dupe yourself along with 'em or why you should care if others do, from a logical standpoint.

Another clear aspect of this issue, more related to this last point than to the intrinsic-value-of-truth part of the question, is the social problems associated with religion—i.e., the public practice of it. Granted, a good portion of Christians, Muslims, and many other religions cause harm in the world, but I would argue that, certainly in the former case and I hear in the latter case as well (although I'm not well-versed in Islam), those who cause harm to other people directly through their religion aren't living as their religion demands. In other words, the social issues in the world arising from religion seem to rise from an imperfect practice of religion, not the religion itself. (Once more, if you have an argument to the contrary, I'd love to talk about it.) It's the classic cliché: "I have nothing against Christianity. Christians, on the other hand...." Regardless, this is a different issue from what I'm talking about and springs from the first, so please don't begin a conversation about not liking religion because the religious infringe on your postmodern right to believing whatever you want. If that's the only reason you care, please just move on to the next topic. I'll ask about that later. What I'm concerned with here is why atheists care so much about finding the truth about the world from a philosophical perspective.


- Caleb

No one knows the truth, and as long as we're alive, we won't. It's a game of best logical guess based on the facts that you know/believe.

[ignoramus]

CJ, are you implying that we'll find the truth when we're dead?

[The Valkyrie]

CJ, are you implying that we'll find the truth when we're dead?

Excellent.

So, technically, I'm NOT murdering people, just helping them discover the Truth sooner!

[ignoramus]

Correct! Kill 'em all and let God sort them out!
It's not like he's busy helping humanity....

[The Valkyrie]

Correct! Kill 'em all and let God sort them out!
It's not he's busy helping humanity....

I've always loved the saying, "God helps those who help themselves."

Then what the bloody hell is he there for?



It makes me feel like the Hulk in The Avengers: "Puny god!"

[ManofYesterday]

A person can eat pizza, kill people, or rape in the name of anything. Again, what's your point? Is that it?

Yeah you want to interact with my original point now or are you done?

Sure they can, but your's is directed by divine message. I doubt I'd put much stock in the other motivations either.

OK, copy/paste for your point (I think)

Under atheism, the brain is the product of cold and mindless natural processes and there is no mind driving them. How atheists can believe their brain is reliable for ascertaining truth while also believing the above is mind boggling. Often atheists respond to this charge by saying our brains are good at ascertaining truth because we wouldn't have survived if they weren't. That may sound like a good response at first, but it isn't. False beliefs can increase survivability. Evolution may give me the false belief that the boogeyman is inside every McDonald's Big Mac, causing me to stay away from Big Macs. This would save me from harming my health by eating Big Macs, increasing my survivability, but through the power of a false belief. This is a comedic example, but there are multitudes of other examples you could conjure up that are more serious. Even if evolution alone gave people true beliefs when it came to things like "don't go near that animal or it'll eat you," or "don't touch fire because it harms you," what about more abstract things like mathematics or philosophy? Does being good at math or metaphysics increase or decrease survivability? Probably not or probably by not much. So maybe our mind is good for basic things like "fire is hot" but it isn't good for complex ideas.

However, under something like Christianity, the brain is the product of an omniscient, omnipotent, and all-good immaterial mind. So the Christian has good reason to believe their brains are good at ascertaining truth.

Atheism and evolution have little to do with each other. Your position that the brain is the product of cold and mindless is unfounded, but natural process you got right. Part of that natural process is development of a social animal that is anything but cold and mindless. Your evolution/belief/food analogy is also unfounded. What does evolution have to do with math or philosophy. Math can increase your surviveability. I'm sure other people are applying it in your everyday life and you don't even realize it (designers of cars is an example).

Exactly what complex ideas? 

There was not a whole lot here to rebut.

---

---

So not only are you unable to engage people civilly and rationally, you also seem to hate straight white men. Interesting.

Is this forum like the Mississippi of the atheist community or something? Lmao. Are you guys going to run me out of your community with shotguns and pitchforks? Bahahaha. Looks like you already did it with the other fellow.

bold mine

If you don't think that's civil and rational don't put it in your website or tell us about your website. No hate, just quoting you.

Makes me wonder what Cheetos is?

1. "Your position that the brain is the product of cold and mindless is unfounded"

You believe that evolution and the other natural processes that produced your brain are not cold and mindless? Explain. I don't know of any biologist that invokes consciousness and emotion when they explain how evolution works.

2. "Part of that natural process is development of a social animal that is anything but cold and mindless"

Yeah, you seem to not understand the point I made, despite it being crystal clear. So I don't know if that's a reading comprehension thing or if you're trying to create a strawman. The point is evolution and all other natural processes do not possess any consciousness or emotion. They're as mindless and cold as a watch. And it's these processes that have ultimately produced our brains (if atheism is true). Now, one of the driving forces behind evolution is survivability. Species that thrive get to reproduce and pass on their genes. What this means is your brain, that is a product of evolution, is the end result of millions of years of mutations and survival. However, an organism can possess a brain that produces false beliefs and still have high survivability. A false belief can even increase the survivability of an organism. What this means is at the end of evolution isn't necessarily a brain that will produce true beliefs. What's more, what increased surviability in the the anscestors of humans were people who were good at reproducing, fast, strong, hardy, and intelligent in the sense that they would stay away from danger and hunt prey. No where would there be philosophy, metaphysics, abstract thinking, and mathematics. In other words, the genes that control this kind of thought wouldn't be a driving component behind surviving like "do not dance in fire" would be.

3. "Your evolution/belief/food analogy is also unfounded."

You're going to have to be more specific in your criticisms from now on.

4. "I'm sure other people are applying it in your everyday life and you don't even realize it (designers of cars is an example)."

In terms of evolution, your brain is the product of the choices of the ancestors of humans and ancient humans, not humans living in 2017. Do you not know how long evolution takes?

5. "If you don't think that's civil and rational don't put it in your website or tell us about your website"

You're not just repeating what's on my website though. But let's say you were just doing that. Why would you? That would be odd, unless you were trying to imply something or some larger point was being made. My guess is you hate men who are Christian and white and straight. But maybe you're just odd. You tell me.

[DogmaticDownSouth]

@Definately Dellusional
Too bad you decided to disengage. I think some of the response, particularly early on, were on point.
If you are still around, here are my few cents
Atheism only asks the question do you believe in god? That's it
It is not a world view, it is a question view. Now that question may spider out to effect other questions, but inherently so do most others, some have bigger impacts then others on our OVERALL worldview, but that one question does not DEFINE the entirety of a worldview.

Anyway, my belief is that if you mean intrinsic value as having value independent of our belief then you have an oxymoron. Value is a product of the mind, so without any consciousness capable of valueing something, there would be no value. The universe does not value gold more than it values hydrogen because near as we can tell the universe has no consciousness to value anything. Therefore truth or anything else you put in the equation has no intrinsic value. There is no such thing.
I don't go to seek "truth." As a species we try to seek that which allows us to succeed in the reality that we inhabit.
Coming from an Asian background, Ayervedic medicine is will known in my household. Some of these remedies do actually have some empirically demonstratable value, not because the rituals and combinations that support them are true, but as we learn more, the ingredients may have anti-inflamamtory or anti-oxidant properties. This does not mean my ancestors were not seekig truth or they didn';t find it. They found something that worked. They may not have understood why (and our current understanding is also likely incomplete) but they found what they needed in a practical manner and if helped it was functionally true. Was there a more accurate or specific truth? probably. But their reasoning was not arbirtray but functional

In my opinion that's how it is for many of us, cerntainly my self. As the T shirt says I want to believe as many true things and not believe as many not true things as possible. Not because of an inner drive, but for purely practical sake, the more things I believe that comport to the reality in which I live, the more likely I am to be successful in that reality. It has functional value, but again there is nothing intrinsic about.

Anyway I'll take 3 cents for this nickel I just gave

[Whateverist]

@Definately Dellusional
Too bad you decided to disengage. I think some of the response, particularly early on, were on point.
If you are still around, here are my few cents
Atheism only asks the question do you believe in god? That's it
It is not a world view, it is a question view. Now that question may spider out to effect other questions, but inherently so do most others, some have bigger impacts then others on our OVERALL worldview, but that one question does not DEFINE the entirety of a worldview.

Anyway, my belief is that if you mean intrinsic value as having value independent of our belief then you have an oxymoron. Value is a product of the mind, so without any consciousness capable of valueing something, there would be no value. The universe does not value gold more than it values hydrogen because near as we can tell the universe has no consciousness  to value anything. Therefore truth or anything else you put in the equation has no intrinsic value. There is no such thing.
I don't go to seek "truth." As a species we try to seek that which allows us to succeed in the reality that we inhabit.
Coming from an Asian background, Ayervedic medicine is will known in my household. Some of these remedies do actually have some empirically demonstratable value, not because the rituals and combinations that support them are true, but as we learn more, the ingredients may have anti-inflamamtory or anti-oxidant properties. This does not mean my ancestors were not seekig truth or they didn';t find it. They found something that worked. They may not have understood why (and our current understanding is also likely incomplete) but they found what they needed in a practical manner and if helped it was functionally true. Was there a more accurate or specific truth? probably. But their reasoning was not arbirtray but functional

In my opinion that's how it is for many of us, cerntainly my self. As the T shirt says I want to believe as many true things and not believe as many not true things as possible. Not because of an inner drive, but for purely practical sake, the more things I believe that comport to the reality in which I live, the more likely I am to be successful in that reality. It has functional value, but again there is nothing intrinsic about.

Anyway I'll take 3 cents for this nickel I just gave

Well said.  We definitely evolved to pursue dinner, not the truth.  Philosophic truths in particular are extracurricular tangents.