An Essay about Atheism in Latin

[EgoDeath]

I do not love any wishy-washy type of Christianity. And I don't know why you would say I do.

Look, you don't have to know what I think or like. There's no reason in the world why you should know or care. 

But what you say about me is false.

What do you love?

[LastPoet]

I get all that. I said all the same things about 15 years ago, before I started studying.

What exacly did you study?

[EgoDeath]

I get all that. I said all the same things about 15 years ago, before I started studying.

What exacly did you study?

He made a reading list just for me. You can see it here.

Personally, I've read two of the books on this list, and don't really see how they gave him such a sympathetic view of Christianity, but I plan to read the rest of the books on the list, and actually recently purchased a copy of Jospehus' complete works. Link here.

I also have a theology course I plan on taking bookmarked on my laptop... Not sure about the quality of the course, but you can see it here.

The thing is, the more I study Christianity, the more convinced I am that I do not believe in god or believe in the ways of Christians. Bel seems to get quite the opposite effect. Regardless of whether or not I think I'd be swayed by the materials, I do not shy away from studying religion because, for me, I like to know what it is that I'm in opposition to, even if the history of, let's say Christianity, for example, is pretty irrelevant.

[FlatAssembler]

The questions that belonged to metaphysics once now belong to science. The question of whether time had a beginning is not a question of metaphysics now, it belongs to physics. The questions about whether reality, locality and causality exist once belonged to metaphysics, they now belong to physics (Bell's Theorem, interpretations of quantum mechanics...). The questions about whether geometry is entirely based on reason or whether it's partly empirical once belonged to metaphysics and epistemology, today they belong to mathematics (non-Euclidean geometries) and physics (special and general relativity).

Once again you've changed the subject rather than follow through on what was said before.

I pointed out that there are arguments -- philosophical, metaphysical -- which don't operate in the way science operates. And that you were misapplying standards.

Rather than acknowledge that, you've now made a number of different claims. As it happens, I disagree with your conclusion here, too, but from experience I know that if I take the time to type out an argument, you will respond with yet another subject. 

I think you aren't interested enough to focus on the conversation, so I'll stop here.

I don't think I changed the subject. You said that what Spinoza was talking about belongs to metaphysics, and not to physics. I said that, although it did belong to metaphysics back then, it probably belongs to physics today.

[GrandizerII]

Once again you've changed the subject rather than follow through on what was said before.

I pointed out that there are arguments -- philosophical, metaphysical -- which don't operate in the way science operates. And that you were misapplying standards.

Rather than acknowledge that, you've now made a number of different claims. As it happens, I disagree with your conclusion here, too, but from experience I know that if I take the time to type out an argument, you will respond with yet another subject. 

I think you aren't interested enough to focus on the conversation, so I'll stop here.

I don't think I changed the subject. You said that what Spinoza was talking about belongs to metaphysics, and not to physics. I said that, although it did belong to metaphysics back then, it probably belongs to physics today.

Why not both? In metaphysics, you can intelligently speculate about potential explanations/accounts of such things as how this universe came to be based on the discoveries of physics, and some well-thought out metaphysical views might even help in guiding scientists to do the right research to answer certain questions about the way the world works.

[Belacqua]

Why not both? In metaphysics, you can intelligently speculate about potential explanations/accounts of such things as how this universe came to be based on the discoveries of physics, and some well-thought out metaphysical views might even help in guiding scientists to do the right research to answer certain questions about the way the world works.

Years ago on the old Amazon forums I was chatting with a guy about politics, and I realized he was using the word "capitalism" in an odd way. So I spent the next couple of days asking questions and teasing out what he meant by the word. 

In the end it turned out that he just used "capitalism" to mean everything that is good and honest, and "communism" to mean everything that is bad. It was no longer an economic term, where the means of production are owned by money-people, as opposed to feudalism. It was just a synonym for "everything I approve of." 

I think people sometimes use the word "science" in the same way. Any approach which they find reasonable and believable is science, while everything else goes into the "other" category. Metaphysics goes in with astrology and phrenology and anything else that's bad. 

This is related to the good article you linked to in the shout box just now. 

https://theconversation.com/why-atheists...ink-103563

Science is actually damaged if the term gets fuzzy. Science works extremely well because it is limited to repeatable testable methodological naturalism. But that leaves lots of other questions which can't be addressed that way, which are still valid questions. To pretend they're science instead of metaphysics actually does both fields a disservice. 

FlatAssembler has extremely strong metaphysical convictions, which he doesn't know are metaphysics. The belief, for example, that only science tells us what is true is a metaphysical issue, not resolvable through science. 

Sorry I'm addressing this to you, even though you're the one most likely to already understand all this. But I don't think Flat is willing to get it.

[The Grand Nudger]

People have asserted that the existence of gods is unfalsifiable. No one can say that they know that this is true, and, in each and every case so far, it has been demonstrably false.

Even as an empty assertion, it can only be floated about some nondescript god that no one believes in. The abrahamic god, the various pantheons of the pile of dead religions..all of them, falsified. The nondescript "created it all and set back to watch" god is falsifiable..even if we insist it hasn't been falsified.

Human beings aren't very good at creating unfalsifiable statements or concepts. It's just not how we think about things. Go ahead, try it. Try to say something that can't be falsified.

[EgoDeath]

There seems to be a want by many to convince everyone that we cannot know whether or not god is real. That even if they personally do not believe in a gods existence, that there is simply no way we can know whether or not it exists.

This seems to be base pandering to the religious demographic. I.e., "I don't believe, but I believe in belief"

[The Grand Nudger]

Its a negotiation, just like non overlapping magesteria is a negotiation. Between reality and those who would would make it shitter on account of their beliefs.

They know they can't prove them....so as a consolation prize that keeps their game running, they'd like to insist that no one can prove them false.

Even when they have been.

[FlatAssembler]

People have asserted that the existence of gods is unfalsifiable. No one can say that they know that this is true, and, in each and every case so far, it has been demonstrably false.

Even as an empty assertion, it can only be floated about some nondescript god that no one believes in. The abrahamic god, the various pantheons of the pile of dead religions..all of them, falsified. The nondescript "created it all and set back to watch" god is falsifiable..even if we insist it hasn't been falsified.

Human beings aren't very good at creating unfalsifiable statements or concepts. It's just not how we think about things. Go ahead, try it. Try to say something that can't be falsified.

I almost completely agree with you. Belacqua says that I am rejecting theology because of my metaphysical conviction that science is the only way of knowing and that only natural world exists. Well you don't need to believe that to think that theology isn't a way of knowing anything. And even that science is the only way of knowing doesn't need to be a metaphysical conviction, we can come to that notion empirically: things that don't follow the scientific method rarely, if ever, produce useful answers. I like how Antun Gustav Matoš said: "If all those guesses made by philosophers of aesthetics went into oblivion, we wouldn't really lose anything. They are useless to the actual artists.". Richard Feynman made similar remarks about how philosophy relates to science.

BTW, what do you think about my video about atheism?