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Interbane 
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 Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 10:23 pm Post subject: Fundamentalist Atheism
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| Can such a phrase be coined? Is there not a movement that has extensive literature on this? You can't claim that non-belief is fundamental. The mental intrusiveness of delving deep into the details of belief has no parallel in non-belief. It's simple and straightforward. Belief entails an encyclopedia worth of information. Disbelief entail the rejection. The burden of proof rests on the shoulders of the believers. |
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Penelope
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| Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 12:01 pm Post subject:
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If we were just like the other animals on this planet....we could just dismiss the belief system......because we would never ask....'Why am I here? What is this all about?'
But we are....we are thinking critical beings......we have got it all wrong somewhere along the line...I know. It must drive you all crazy in America with the fundamentalist Christians.......preserving a 'creed' which we have all grown out of. Of course, I understand why they are afraid and feel the need to hang on to 'the rules'.
The religious sect in this Country, which is growing....is the sect of 'Jehova's Witnesses' and people are joining that because it provides answers.....pigeon-holing and categorising God...but that just isn't how it works.
In times of uncertainty it is tempting to join in with the ones who provide answers....even if they are the wrong answers.......
But, dear Interbane...that doesn't mean that there are no answers.....that there is no 'outside help'. The trouble is, that we can only make judgements from our experiences.......and we all have such different experiences. |
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Mr. Pessimistic
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| Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 12:22 pm Post subject:
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Whoa! Welcome back Interbane!!
Mr. P. |
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Penelope
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| Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 12:49 pm Post subject:
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Oh Yes, Mr. P.....Welcome back.....you are saying...
You club member.....of team.
We are all members of the same team. Please.....I pray.... |
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Mr. Pessimistic
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| Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 2:58 pm Post subject:
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| Penelope wrote: |
Oh Yes, Mr. P.....Welcome back.....you are saying...
You club member.....of team.
We are all members of the same team. Please.....I pray.... |
Well, if you pray, we are not members of the same team in that regard. But I am a member of any team that has players that are willing to go above petty beliefs and dogma to see that there is another level of humanity that is more important than any supernatural appeal. |
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Penelope
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| Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 3:28 pm Post subject:
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OK Mr. P.
:box: |
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Lilith
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| Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 10:00 pm Post subject:
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Interbane, I agree with you in that the burden of proof of belief lies with the believer. However, I disagree that belief entails "an encyclopedia worth of information" - quite the opposite in my opinion. Belief seems to be, in many cases, acceptance without information. It's the non-believers that sift through the scads of information to refine and eliminate and determine that there is nothing to believe in (or at least, determine that none of the traditional belief systems hold up under scrutiny and fact checking).
Why don't you think non-belief isn't or can't be fundamental? That may be true in some cases/groups/societies but certainly not all. I believe we come into this world with no beliefs other than in ourselves, and society forces us to believe in "something." And belief in oneself does not make you a believer, per se, but perhaps a pragmatist. Or is that just an argument based on semantics?
Interesting topic. I am curious to hear more.
L |
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Chris OConnor
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| Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 10:12 pm Post subject:
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Welcome back Interbane!  |
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Robert Tulip
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| Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 10:47 pm Post subject:
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| Lilith wrote: |
| Interbane, I agree with you in that the burden of proof of belief lies with the believer. However, I disagree that belief entails "an encyclopedia worth of information" - quite the opposite in my opinion. Belief seems to be, in many cases, acceptance without information. It's the non-believers that sift through the scads of information to refine and eliminate and determine that there is nothing to believe in (or at least, determine that none of the traditional belief systems hold up under scrutiny and fact checking). Why don't you think non-belief isn't or can't be fundamental? That may be true in some cases/groups/societies but certainly not all. I believe we come into this world with no beliefs other than in ourselves, and society forces us to believe in "something." And belief in oneself does not make you a believer, per se, but perhaps a pragmatist. Or is that just an argument based on semantics? Interesting topic. I am curious to hear more. L |
This opens the closely related philosophical questions of scepticism, solipsism and nihilism. Rene Descartes, with his groundbreaking modern philosophical statement cogito ergo sum – I think therefore I am, said non-belief is fundamental, in that the only logical certainty is that I am a thinking thing. Martin Heidegger argued against this Cartesian idea of the cogito, saying it leads to solipsism, the absurd belief that only I exist. The alternative method he proposed is to start from belief that the world exists. Belief “in ourselves” is mostly socially constructed, as is our concept of the world. However, there is a planetary reality which provides a context against which these constructions can be tested. The claim that non-belief is fundamental leads to the absurd proposition that the existence of the world is open to question.
The tabula rasa (blank slate – Locke), the claim we come to the world with nothing, is a modern capitalist invention, suited to the atomistic psychology of individualism. The connection with nihilism, the belief that nothing matters, is that the Cartesian assumption that only I exist creates a logical method for the doubting of all facts and values, rejection on principle of the possibility of divine revelation, and loss of all transcendent meaning and purpose in life. |
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Penelope
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| Posted: Fri May 09, 2008 9:43 am Post subject:
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Robert said:
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| The connection with nihilism, the belief that nothing matters, is that the Cartesian assumption that only I exist creates a logical method for the doubting of all facts and values, rejection on principle of the possibility of divine revelation, and loss of all transcendent meaning and purpose in life. |
Bloomin' Heck Robert - you are a brainbox. I thought St. Augustine was a clever clogs until I met you.
Is nihilism like existentialism? Is it the same theory as Albert Camus and friends were proclaiming?
What were the Bloomsbury Group doing? Virginia Woolf's search for truth and beauty seems to be more psychologically healthy to me.
Of course, they were a very privilidged lot. But I do have a lot of affection and respect for William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites - only having read about William Morris in various biographies....I have never studied the code of ethics or philosophy involved.
I did want to point out to Mr. P that he said, 'If I prayed, I was not in the same club' but I never said to him 'If you don't pray, you can't be in my club'. So who is the fundamentalist here?
I am very aware that my posts sound very childishly worded compared to Robert and Will's and Constance et al.....if I am lowering the tone/quality of the discussion. Do tell me to shut-up. I promise I won't be offended and will still read your posts carefully. |
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Mr. Pessimistic
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| Posted: Fri May 09, 2008 10:17 am Post subject:
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| Penelope wrote: |
I did want to point out to Mr. P that he said, 'If I prayed, I was not in the same club' but I never said to him 'If you don't pray, you can't be in my club'. So who is the fundamentalist here?
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Oh now I said MUCH more than that in my full post. Lets not make me seem like I excluded anyone. What I did was strip away something that causes exclusion and elevate our sameness to a level that is more pure and true.
I said the same thing as you Penelope. The only club that matters to me is the Human club...any regional myths and distinctions just do not matter to me.
Mr. P. |
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Penelope
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| Posted: Fri May 09, 2008 11:12 am Post subject:
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OK Mr. P |
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Ophelia
Embodiment of Reason
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| Posted: Fri May 09, 2008 3:27 pm Post subject:
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I see that the EU flag has appeared below "Cheshire, England."
Well done Penelope!
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Robert Tulip
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| Posted: Fri May 09, 2008 3:33 pm Post subject:
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| Penelope wrote: |
Robert said:
| Quote: |
| The connection with nihilism, the belief that nothing matters, is that the Cartesian assumption that only I exist creates a logical method for the doubting of all facts and values, rejection on principle of the possibility of divine revelation, and loss of all transcendent meaning and purpose in life. |
Bloomin' Heck Robert - you are a brainbox. I thought St. Augustine was a clever clogs until I met you. Is nihilism like existentialism? Is it the same theory as Albert Camus and friends were proclaiming? What were the Bloomsbury Group doing? Virginia Woolf's search for truth and beauty seems to be more psychologically healthy to me. Of course, they were a very privilidged lot. But I do have a lot of affection and respect for William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites - only having read about William Morris in various biographies....I have never studied the code of ethics or philosophy involved. I did want to point out to Mr. P that he said, 'If I prayed, I was not in the same club' but I never said to him 'If you don't pray, you can't be in my club'. So who is the fundamentalist here? I am very aware that my posts sound very childishly worded compared to Robert and Will's and Constance et al.....if I am lowering the tone/quality of the discussion. Do tell me to shut-up. I promise I won't be offended and will still read your posts carefully. |
Good morning Penelope, and thank you for your very kind comments. All this stuff is very interesting for me, as I have not previously found anyone able to engage in conversation about these themes. My academic career was stillborn, with my thesis received like David Hume’s book on human nature, ‘falling stillborn from the press.’ Perhaps it is because discussion on topics like the relation between nihilism and atheism is too hard for people. Nihilism has a strong cultural link with existentialism and atheism, as each have been entwined cultural memes for modern thought. As a formal movement of the philosophy of despair, nihilism has its roots in Russian anarchism, where the absurd dogmas of the Tsarist regime found an equally absurd antithesis which eventually produced the Bolshevik tragedy. Our friend Conrad discusses these themes at length in The Secret Agent, which would be a great fiction book to read here. Existentialism, for Sartre and Camus, was the theory that only the present moment exists, and was in my view an absurd logical product of Cartesian rationalism. Existentialism has a drifting meaning, also applying more broadly to human finitude, eg in the concept of existential threats, as well as to Dada. The link between existentialism and nihilism is that if we say only the present is real, following Sartre's celebrated theory that existence precedes essence, we directly deny the existence of eternal values. This is understandable where claimed eternal values involve serfdom, absurdity and political reaction, but is not coherent as a theory of time. My view is that to understand time we must proceed from the Platonic assumption that essence precedes existence. You know, I have never read any Virginia Woolf. Perhaps the closest I have come is Sartre, Camus, Hemingway and Doris Lessing. My mum, Marie Tulip, is a keen ‘Room of Her Own’ feminist theologian, although getting old now. She did her MA at Northwestern on the love poems of Paul Clodel, and I have picked up some Bloomsbury ideas on truth and beauty from her. Apropos, you may have heard of John Keats' poem Ode on a Grecian Urn. Existentialism, in its modern degenerate relativist presentation, is a form of atheist fundamentalism, with its withering politically correct scorn and censorship of any discussion of higher values. This scorn about values is precisely why existentialism, and its bastard brothers atheism, relativism and positivism, is nihilistic – they are all devoid of a theory of value.
Positivism, via Carnap and Popper, is an uva bruva in this motley crew. Their Vienna School held there is no meaning outside science, attacking Plato for his essentialist claim that we can understand ultimate ideas through hermeneutics, and rejecting the possibility of a theory of historical meaning. Hence, following Keynes’ penetrating observation that men of action are applying second-hand philosophy, atheist science proceeds on Carnap’s road to nowhere by collecting facts, constrained by its dogmatic presuppositions into acting like a stumbling adolescent – see for example Dawkins on ‘The Enemies of Reason.’ The refutation of positivism, drawing from Plato and Keats, is that without an essentialist hermeneutic, viewing time as the moving image of eternity, we cannot bring facts together into a coherent narrative.
Relativism is the theory that it is impossible to formulate a coherent doctrine of truth, and I should explain why I see it as a form of fundamentalist atheism. It goes back to Protagoras’ claim to Plato that man is the measure of all things. Relativism is a key theory of modern anthropology, with its observation that many claims about truth are highly contestable. Like nihilism, existentialism and positivism, relativism is an absurd toxic antithesis of a flawed original idea, and is refuted by Aristotle’s logical observation that a claim cannot be true and false. In Hegel’s terms, the task in assessing these historical movements of thought is to define a synthesis, recognizing the validity in both the thesis and the antithesis through a transformative synthetic integration. |
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Penelope
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| Posted: Fri May 09, 2008 4:25 pm Post subject:
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Robert said:-
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| we cannot bring facts together into a coherent narrative. |
Oh dear, dear Robert. I somehow know that you and I are on the same wavelength. But how can we bring facts together into a coherent narrative (make a pattern) when you so obviously come from educated and academic stock, and I, had a father who was a coal-miner who quoted Shakespeare and a very socially aware mother who was 'in service'?
That is what I always thought was so grand about the Gospels. They could speak to people like you, and to people like me and even to little children. I understood what Jesus meant when he said, that he was God's Word.....because what is 'Word.'.....but communication.
I have no scientific understanding in my head. I have a lot of intuitive understanding. Let us keep trying please.
I know I could look up the difference between nihilism and existentialism on the internet; But it would take a lot of time to read and digest and I just don't have that amount of time at my disposal. So forgive me if I ask you for info.
Many thanks. Pen |
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