Is There More to Atheism than Lack of Belief?

[Ken-1122]

Absolutely!

Rape is an evil whether people judge it to be an evil or not. It would be a moral issue even if people are unaware that it qualifies as one.

Are you seriously saying that rape would not be an evil if no one thinks that it is?


eudaimonia,

Mark

I am saying it would not be a moral issue if it were never discussed.

Ken

 

[variant]

I am saying it would not be a moral issue if it were never discussed.

Ken

I must whole heartedly disagree.

Morality/values are based upon how we act not thought or words.

The way we think about morality is abstract but the practice is not abstract.

 

[Ken-1122]

I'm not sure it is possible for people not to make value judgments.

In most cases I would consider it reflexive and automatic. Any time we take an action that prioritizes anything we value with regard to something else we have made a judgment. For instance, If I saw a rape and forcibly stopped it I have made an implicit value judgment about my safety, and the proper use of force and a dozen other things. If I saw one and let it go I would have as well.

Values come from valuing, the way someone values is to act. This makes value judgement pretty much automatic in any thinking thing.

Are you suggesting we must be aware we are making a value judgment to make one?

I agree with you, people make value judgments all the time without thinking about it. I am saying right and wrong do not have a physical existence by themselves; they come into being via value judgments. If it were possible to refrain from making value judgments, right and wrong would not be an issue.

Ken

 

[variant]

I agree with you, people make value judgments all the time without thinking about it. I am saying right and wrong do not have a physical existence by themselves; they come into being via value judgments. If it were possible to refrain from making value judgments, right and wrong would not be an issue.

Ken

I do not think it is possible to refrain from making value judgments. I think they are implicit in living.

I might disagree about the physical too.

 

[Ken-1122]

I must whole heartedly disagree.

Morality/values are based upon how we act not thought or words.

The way we think about morality is abstract but the practice is not abstract.

When I said "discuss" I also meant thoughts as well. My point is, right and wrong exist in your head, it does not have an actual existence outside of our thoughts

Ken

 

[variant]

When I said "discuss" I also meant thoughts as well. My point is, right and wrong exist in your head, it does not have an actual existence outside of our thoughts

Ken

I see the ideas of "right" and "wrong" as abstract extensions of value judgments, a description of them, an attempt to categorize and systematize them.

I think the value judgments themselves are rooted deep inside our physical existence, so, I think they are descriptions of things that are rooted in physical realities.

I value my life for physical reasons at the core for instance. Morality is how I describe this.

The values can exist without thinking about them, it just means the morality isn't conscious or described.

 

[Ken-1122]

I do not think it is possible to refrain from making value judgments. I think they are implicit in living.

I agree!

I might disagree about the physical too.

So you think right and wrong might be physical? Like an evil fog that might affect your behavior if you come in contact with it? If different, how do you suppose good and bad might be physical?

Ken

 

[Ken-1122]

I see the ideas of "right" and "wrong" as abstract extensions of value judgments, a description of them, an attempt to categorize and systematize them.

I think the value judgments themselves are rooted deep inside our physical existence, so, I think they are descriptions of things that are rooted in physical realities.

I value my life for physical reasons at the core for instance. Morality is how I describe this.

The values can exist without thinking about them, it just means the morality is nondescript.

So you agree with me that right and wrong do not exist by themselves; independent of value judgments?

Ken

 

[variant]

So you think right and wrong might be physical? Like an evil fog that might affect your behavior if you come in contact with it? If different, how do you suppose good and bad might be physical?

Ken

I think our values come out of the action of living, making morality a subjective description of how we organize our ideas and experiences of this.

 

[variant]

So you agree with me that right and wrong do not exist by themselves; independent of value judgments?

Ken

They would be the description not the object of it, the values themselves are what I think exists physically.

For example in the rape case you specified earlier, the people in the society that never invented the concept of rape would still take actions when it happened, and thus would have values regarding it.

Someone may have to invent the concept of rape and describe why they think it is good or bad, but this happens because of societies dealing with things like rape and needing the concepts to go along with it.

 

[ThinkForYourself]

Yeah, that too. But your expectation is rooted in the confidence (or trust or faith) in the thing you have expectations about.

I consider faith to mean belief without evidence, and I have no use for that in my life.

I want to make the best decision I can, every time. Clearly making decisions based on faith isn't going to allow that to happen. Rather it will lead to making poor decisions. Like invading Iraq.

 

[quatona]

If we're talking about faith as trust or confidence (rather than the much more cognitive "believing stuff without evidence"), this trust or confidence is broken down to inclinations of the will. You can't have faith without your will being proportionately in line with the thing or person you have faith in.

So, since I told you I think my car will either work or not work,
a. what is it that I have trust or confidence in, and
b. how does that trust or confidence manifest?

If I say I have faith in your ability to do math but come the calculus exam I cheat off of someone else, then I don't have faith in you.

To be precise, you don´t have faith in my math abilities, or to even be more precise, you don´t have faith that my math abilities match this particular challenge.

But more importantly: You haven´t been telling me what I don´t have faith in. You have been telling me that I have faith in something - without even knowing my behaviour.

It's the instances of will relating to the thing in which you have faith that determine the quality of the faith in question.

Ok. Please make a chart concerning the car issue, with three columns:
1. the different degrees of the "inclinations of the will",
2. the correspondent behaviours,
3. the resulting insights of the quality of faith.

I suspect that, in order to make your point, you will even ascribe some sort of faith in the car to the guy who has lost all hope that it will work, but occasionally tries to start it, just in case.

On another note, and since this thread is about atheism, if you don´t even believe there is such an entity to have faith (trust, confidence) in, your definition simply doesn´t apply.
An instance of "faith" - if not used in a very loose way for purposes of equating all qualities of inclinations - would be to plan to drive to work tomorrow even though I don´t have a car.

On yet another note, it seems to me that "trust, confidence" in a fellow human being and "faith, confidence" in an inanimate object are two completely different concepts.

But since you are free to define words any way you like, language gives you the power to make all differences go away.

 

[quatona]

That difference in behavior is, IMO, the stuff of faith.

Ok. Seeing how I usuaslly can´t tell whether someone is a theist or not from their real life behaviours (apart from occasional verbal affirmations)...

 

[Received]

Ok. Seeing how I usuaslly can´t tell whether someone is a theist or not from their real life behaviours (apart from occasional verbal affirmations)...

Then they're lacking in faith. It's a continuum thing, not a dichotomous thing. To my thinking (which is reflected in the biblical notion of faith rather than the post-enlightenment popular one), there's a difference between belief as conceptualization and faith (trust, confidence). And I think it's interesting how the Bible really doesn't place emphasis on conceptualization when it talks about faith; typically faith is mentioned in relation to a person's heart or spirit, which are aspects of action and character.

 

[Received]

I consider faith to mean belief without evidence, and I have no use for that in my life.

I want to make the best decision I can, every time. Clearly making decisions based on faith isn't going to allow that to happen. Rather it will lead to making poor decisions. Like invading Iraq.

Then your definition of faith isn't biblical but the more popular post-Enlightenment one. For all purposes when we're both using the term "faith", we're only overlapping if at all on a very small area.

 

[keith99]

Even though there is a tendency for atheists to follow certain routes, like a rejection of the supernatural, they are usually a result of some higher ideology. That is, atheism is always a component of a belief system, never a belief system itself.

To say atheism is a belief system is to say theism is a belief system; it only plays a part in the overall belief system of a person.

I'm atheist. I do not reject the supernatural.

BUT I expect evidence.

That means I reject the fantastic version of the supernatural that many others fixate on.

 

[Ken-1122]

They would be the description not the object of it, the values themselves are what I think exists physically.

For example in the rape case you specified earlier, the people in the society that never invented the concept of rape would still take actions when it happened, and thus would have values regarding it.

The physical people would take action because of their values; but the values themselves are not physical, they only exist in their heads. If the people died, their values would die along with them because values cannot exist on their own.

K.

 

[Chany]

I'm atheist. I do not reject the supernatural.

BUT I expect evidence.

That means I reject the fantastic version of the supernatural that many others fixate on.

Define "supernatural", please. Could you give an example?

 

[variant]

The physical people would take action because of their values; but the values themselves are not physical, they only exist in their heads. If the people died, their values would die along with them because values cannot exist on their own.

K.

Just because something is subjective (can die) doesn't mean it isn't a physical reality.

Humanity can be wiped from existence, but that doesn't mean there was never a physical reality of the process of say human pain.

 

[Ken-1122]

Just because something is subjective (can die) doesn't mean it isn't a physical reality.

Humanity can be wiped from existence, but that doesn't mean there was never a physical reality of the process of say human pain.

So if values exist independent of mankind, where do they exist?

Ken