Is an agnostic a cowardly atheist?

Interbane · Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 2:03 am Post subject:

RT: "Geo mentions Dawkins' belief scale in The God Delusion, in which Carl Jung is put at one extreme for his claim that he knows God exists. I think this illustrates the shallow grasp Dawkins has of theology, because Jung is a highly complex and scientific thinker, and in saying he knows God exists he is recognising a divine presence rather than a divine entity."

Are you basing your criticism of Dawkins off the fact that someone with good credentials believes differently? Perhaps you could say that the difference in belief instead illustrates the shallow grasp Jung has of science. I wouldn't make either claim, it's bad reasoning.

Robert Tulip · Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 3:48 am Post subject:

Chris OConnor · Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 10:29 am Post subject:

Dissident Heart · Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 11:55 am Post subject:

Psychologizing belief is tricky business: because it opens oneself to the same tool usually applied only to those we disagree with.

We are simply following reason and behaving logically, while others are weak, in denial, escaping reality or simply too cowardly to face the facts...the issue is not simply lack of evidence and poor reasoning...no, the issue is a defect of character and a lack of integrity.

We are strong, brave, courageous and willing to face the truth no matter what it means: bold, noble, daring and free...unconstrained by authority or fear of consequence...we simply want to know the truth and pity those who lack our will power and strength.

geo · Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 12:22 pm Post subject:

Interbane · Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 12:42 pm Post subject:

DH: "We are simply following reason and behaving logically, while others are weak, in denial, escaping reality or simply too cowardly to face the facts...the issue is not simply lack of evidence and poor reasoning...no, the issue is a defect of character and a lack of integrity."

None of the reasons you give hold any worth other than lack of evidence and poor reasoning. I commend your attempts at psychologizing your own beliefs, however.

DH: "We are strong, brave, courageous and willing to face the truth no matter what it means: bold, noble, daring and free...unconstrained by authority or fear of consequence...we simply want to know the truth and pity those who lack our will power and strength."

As long as the 'we' doesn't apply to me, I won't criticize your position. The one part I'd agree with is that I'd care about the truth, but the matter isn't simple.

Robert Tulip · Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 3:15 pm Post subject:

Interbane · Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 3:35 pm Post subject:

RT: "However, this mockery avoids the point that Jung was making, that knowledge is qualitatively different from belief."

Dawkins was referring to the strength of belief, where Jung is mistaken in calling it knowledge since his belief is so strong.

RT: "My understanding of this idea is that Jung observed that all nature is connected in ways that we do not understand, and God is our name for this connectedness.."

Is there any evidence for the idea that all nature is connected in some supernatural way? I dismiss this idea without evidence! There is no reason for Jung's belief if your assumption of what he is talking about is correct. It doesn't illustrate anything regarding Dawkin's understanding of theology either. Your criticism is unfounded.

Robert Tulip · Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 5:50 pm Post subject:

Interbane · Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 8:24 pm Post subject:

Your mistake is to reclassify what he's proposing. He's showing a scale of strength of belief, not a scale of types of belief. The scale, from what I can remember of the book, was only applied to a belief in God. All the things you mention are tangential. But your suggestion, though different, could apply in some other fashion as a method of comparison.

RT: "IB, I was not saying that the connectedness of nature is 'supernatural' to use your term, just that we do not fully understand it."

Sorry, I knew using that word would be a mistake. It doesn't exactly capture what I was thinking. Connectedness in some undetectable manner is more accurate.

RT: "Clearly, we do not understand the nature of the unity of all things."

There is quantum entanglement. There is cause and effect. The four forces, matter, antimatter. Our macro perception of the quantum world, which tends to blur the mechanics into a unified whole. Everything in our universe is said to have started at a singularity. Apart from these things, I'm not sure what you are talking about when you mention unity.

RT: "For example, all matter emerged from the big bang and retains the character of its origins in ways that science has only partially discovered."

The charater of it's origins? Do you mean the characteristics of matter are the same now as during the big bang, as long as you're comparing apples to apples? I'm not understanding fully what you're saying Robert, sorry. Expand on the idea for me if you will.

Robert Tulip · Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 10:53 pm Post subject:

Interbane · Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 11:58 pm Post subject:

RT: "Well Dawkins is wrong about that too. His scale suggests that Jung has strong belief, but in fact Jung's belief is far weaker than that of a fanatical fundamentalist."

Are you referring to religion, or theism? Dawkins scale of belief applies to a belief in God, without any baggage such as scripture. How much stronger of a belief can you express than to say "I do not believe, I know."

RT: "Jung as I read him is a highly scientific thinker, and entirely amenable to dialogue about evidence. It is just that his appraisal of the evidence leads him to consider it is fair to say he knows that God exists. Dawkins' problem is that he cannot understand what Jung means by this."

You are making assumptions that Jung, being scientific, also has evidence for his belief in a god. If that is true, the evidence should be easily found in a book from Jung or on the internet. Find that evidence and we can discuss that, I think it would be interesting.

RT: "Hence we have the character of our galaxy, which as the flower of the earlier galactic buds, also shares their character."

I don't mean to sound rude Robert, but I honestly don't know what you mean when talking about character. Are you talking about a characteristic, a definable attribute that can be found in each stage of the development of our galaxy?

RT: "the exact path of nature was not determined from the start, but freedom is always freedom within constrained options, within the causal limits of matter."

You may also have to explain that sentence, I read it a couple times and came up with a couple different meanings. I don't want to put words into your mouth and make assumptions.

Robert Tulip · Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2008 11:54 pm Post subject:

Interbane · Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2008 2:29 pm Post subject:

RT: "By this light, character is the karmic totality of internal influences that shape the path of an entity."

Your sentence here is interesting. It's as if you're grouping all that is not yet known about our universe into a single concept, applying the blanket of 'karma' upon it, and labeling this obscure whole as 'character'. Humans have small brains. We can't understand within our brain at the same time how all the influences in our universe coexist to shape it's path into the future. I'm not sure that I would label this mystique as 'character', since that goes too far toward personfiying the universe. But I do understand what you mean. One point I'd clarify is that even though we do not yet understand all factors contributing to the evolution of our universe, it doesn't mean that we in time won't. The further we shine the light into the darkness, the less power words like karma have.

RT: "In this sense Jung is rather atheist, considering God as a law of nature rather than a supernatural being, which is ironic considering how Dawkins reads him."

This has the same subtextural feel as the above. We know what we know, and we know what we don't know. So we classify that which we don't know with respect to analytical depth psychology as God? I think Jung was giving far too much credit to the possibilities of what we don't know. I know little of Jung, so I won't comment too much.

RT: "Jung’s view that God exists by definition makes his claim analytic rather than synthetic."

Jung thinks God exists by definition? How does he define God then? God is math! God is God! Again, sorry if my view is off center since I haven't studied Jung, but it seems Dawkin's criticism of him is justified if he stretches the definition of 'God' that far. There are other words to use in that case, with far less baggage.

RT: "Knowledge and belief are qualitatively different and cannot be laid along a single scale."

Sure they can, with respect to internal verisimillitude.

RT: "because matter is likely to have a randomness which when collected to the level of the human synapse enables freedom of choice"

I highly doubt this. It seems most likely that free will is an illusion, whether or not determinism is true. How would we harness the power of randomness collected to the level of the human synapse? First of all, the difference we're talking is massive. I'm not sure of the scale, but even underestimating it, it would be like a gnat changing the decision of pilot of a 747 when the 747 splatters it. A gnat versus a 747.

The other thing is, how would we harness randomness? Wouldn't our actions in effect be random? We would likely see many more people driving off the edges of cliffs or stepping out into traffic or punching their bosses.


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