I hope that you will bring in an atheist to further state their case. I argue with one sometimes and he assures me that the premises he rests upon are more complicated than a collection of empirically tested certainties.
HI Deborah, I would love to but to be honest I don't know any straightforward atheists. If you know any please do not hesitate to ask them to come on here and share their perspective. Debate (as long as its respectful of course) is the heart of good philosophy. A good opponent is sometimes the best way to refine our own thinking.
We've been corresponding recently on reddit on this topic (or, closely related ones at any rate) and I would be happy to react/respond. I don't know about anything so involved or so formal as a debate, but I can confirm that I am a "straightforward atheist", in the sense that I believe atheism is a substantive proposition (not "the default" state) which bears a burden of proof, a burden it can successfully meet.
Oh and there's the bonus that my BA was in philosophy, and that I was raised Christian (my mother was literally a pastor) so I've some useful background knowledge and potentially relevant life experience as well. And we've spoke at some length, so you know more or less what you're going to get.
Hi Enai! If you don't mind going through the trouble, I would love you to leave a comment with your position. Even though we've already had a back and forth it's good for any readers to able to scroll down and see counter positions, as this will present them with more perspectives and hopefully provide encouragement for them to compare our positions and think through what makes sense for them.
OK sure, sounds like fun. Just give me a day or two to write something up. Would you want me to just post it in full as a comment in the comment section under the article, or some other way (say, post it as a reddit post and just post the URL here in the comments)? Its your blog, so you're calling the shots here.
Thanks enai. Yes I at least find this stuff fun. I hope others do too. If its just a paragraph two it's fine to post it here, if it is longer feel free to post a link. I don't really care that much either way though, whatever you prefer is fine.
Hi Daniel - I’m Jeremy (Deborah K’s atheist friend). I very much appreciate your thoughtful approach to this topic and I’m interested to read more and see how you continue to develop these concepts. My initial thoughts are as follows: if I understand you correctly, part of your point is that in order to function, empiricism must rely on certain claims axiomatically. I agree with this. Indeed every framework in which we function must presuppose certain axioms, must take certain truths for granted. In my opinion then, the most parsimonious approach is to use the framework with the fewest axioms and that makes the least untestable assumptions. I’m personally open to the possibility of god, but currently see no reason to add that untestable assumption on top of the others I must already accept. We can hypothesize about deeper underlying metaphysical realities, but without a mechanism for testing and falsification how would we ever confirm if our hypothesis is accurate? Claiming god is unable to be compared seems to be a logical impossibility and self-refuting - how can we assess something as incomparable without by definition contrasting it with something else?
As an aside, I agree that the “God vs Flying Spaghetti Monster” argument is simplistic and in some ways reductive of theist positions. However the positions taken and arguments made in “new atheism” are more nuanced and complex than I think you may give them credit for. Russell’s proverbial teapot and its philosophical successors stand as a useful litmus test for unfalsifiable claims.
Thanks so much for the comment. I am pleased to see all the discussion on this one! This is the most fun part of philosophy.
Let me just get right into the content of your comment. I am trying to suggest that knowledge of God is a different type of knowledge, that it lies in a different category than knowledge we come to making use of axiomatic systems. When we make use of an axiomatic system to study a particular domain of objects it may initially seem as if that domain is given but I would argue that if we look deeper we find that our axioms determine the nature of the domain itself. Take science as an example, when Einstein changed our understanding of space and time, he also changed the fundamental way we understand the objects we are studying in that domain. This is also true in other fields, the way an economist defines an individual’s fundamental motivations will change how they analyze the functioning of the economy. This is why Hegel argues in the Science of Logic that mechanism is embedded in human purposiveness; he claims that any system of objects governed by laws (this would be mechanism) gains its significance within the context of a human community that is trying to accomplish something with that axiomatic system; and that we can’t abstract the results we get from the study from this larger context.
The way I understand God is somewhat similar, following Hegel God would be the widest and most comprehensive context in which all of experience happens. As Hegel himself mentions, his system is an attempt to give a philosophical articulation of the mystical perspective; what I have in mind is a mystical conception of God. As I said in the initial post, we know things through contrasting them with other things (and you rightly point out there are always axioms functioning in the background when we do this), if God is not an object in the world he can't be known with the intellectual faculty in this way, because the claim is that he is the original source of everything, including this faculty itself. The question that points towards the conception of God I have in mind is not “Where is God out there in the world of objects?” but “What is it that looks out of my eyes and sees a world of objects?” As the ancient Indian texts the Upanishads say of Brahman (their word for God) “I am not what you see but that by which you see. I am not what you hear but that by which you hear.” Another way to put this is we arrive at God not through investigating objectivity, as science does, but through investigating our own subjectivity. I apologize if these vague hints aren’t satisfying. I do admit that in the sense verification Russel uses this cannot be verified. However, I do think it can be verified with certain practices (like meditation and self inquiry) that point us back to an investigation of our subjectivity. Feel free to tune in for part 2 next week. I'd love to hear your thoughts. I will analyze some religious myths suggesting that they are pointing to this notion of God so it will probably flesh out the notion more.
"By positing God we posit something beyond and behind this realm of contrastivly determined particularity and finitude that is its source. God cannot be put into contrast with anything else, because God is the unitary source from which all these discrete, particular objects in the realm of contrast and separation arise."
This definition of God is also burdened by Western assumptions. Informed by Abrahamic philosophy, the notion of "God as carpenter" remains the metaphysical equal to your atheistic hypothetical counterpart which would simply replace the God of creation with "automatic, spontaneous, random, stupid chance" as being the monolithic source.
A true break from Western philosophy avoids the need to provide a creator in the first place. For example, the Taoists, Hindus, Buddhists, and Confucians all provide alternative understandings of the "universe as construct". In those cases, to ask about a creator, to inquire about events before time, or to frame oneself as "separate from" everything else are all nonsensical questions.
The atheism you describe is really just monotheism without the godhead. All other properties are preserved. Alan Watts called it, "there is no God and Jesus was his only son"!
For Eastern philosophers who are grappling with these questions we see a fundamentally different angle of analysis. They would say, God didn't create you. There is no separate God. You are God. The trees are God. The stars are God. The cosmos, in this case, is free of God, but more importantly, free from the need to create.
Thanks for this comment. Really good points, especially the connection to eastern thought. As I will explain in part two, the conception of God I am starting to build here is a mystical conception of God; not a God that started the universe a certain amount of time ago but rather something more like the unified consciousness out of which time itself arises out of every moment. I write a lot about contrast and separation in the post. Time requires contrast and separation. For a person to move from point A to point B there needs to be a seperate point in time or space to move towards. If God is prior to separation than God is also prior to time; and not prior to a linear timeline but rather prior to the perception of time in each moment. I am aware this is not the God of most everyday religious folk but I do think it is the God of the Christian mystics, the Sufis, and even some of the fathers of the Catholic Church such as St. Augustine.
I am glad you mention eastern thought. In a certain sense, eastern thought might point to the conception of God I have in mind more clearly. I don't disagree with your claim that we are not separate from God but are God. (or we could call it Buddha Nature or the Tao, it doesn't matter to me) I would just nuance this a bit. If God is prior to separation that everything necessarily is God as you point out, including us. However, insofar as we identify with our individual bodies and minds we do not truly remember we are God. This is where things like meditation practice come in; they encourage us to disidentify with the thoughts and feelings we are used to identifying with and trace back to the source of that energy of identification. If we do this we may find that we are God, but we also find that everything else is equally God, as you point out.
I encourage you to tune in for part 2 next week. I'd love to hear more of your thoughts!
Yes, thank you for the response Daniel. I will tune in for part 2.
I've seen the word "atheist" thrown around in a few places here. I have found that the word itself is really unhelpful, and perhaps it contributes to confusion rather than illumination. There was a skeptic who said (I wish I could remember who) "if people would stop making new gods, I wouldn't have to keep inventing words that deny them". The definition of an "a" theist has become extrapolated to include a denial of much more than the God of Abraham. I, too, don't feel any affinity to the word atheist, although I do not believe in the God of the Bible, but that fact does not preclude me from other conceptions of God that I would not deny.
You said,
"I would just nuance this a bit. If God is prior to separation that everything necessarily is God as you point out, including us. However, insofar as we identify with our individual bodies and minds we do not truly remember we are God"
For me, this is the crux of the issue. I love your observation that all of us can uncover our divinity, but that the knowledge is somehow hidden from us. You further point to meditation as a tool for dispelling the illusion, which I see as being a necessary first step in the larger journey of discovery.
I would argue (and have, elsewhere) that Jesus understood this as well, but he lacked a broader context that would come from knowing about China and India, both of which had been developing similar cosmic consciousnesses 800 years before Jesus was to grace the scene. I would include him in your list of folks who understood this fact and wanted to spread the word.
Thanks for the response. I love the discussion on this post. Yes please tune in for part 2. I am actually working on it right now. I will release it Monday or Tuesday. I agree with everything you say except that I do try to show that a charitable interpretation of Christianity suggests that they have a similar notion of divinity as eastern traditions (I say similar because of course there are differences, but I think these are more in emphasis than essence) I'd love to hear your thoughts!
I hope that you will bring in an atheist to further state their case. I argue with one sometimes and he assures me that the premises he rests upon are more complicated than a collection of empirically tested certainties.
HI Deborah, I would love to but to be honest I don't know any straightforward atheists. If you know any please do not hesitate to ask them to come on here and share their perspective. Debate (as long as its respectful of course) is the heart of good philosophy. A good opponent is sometimes the best way to refine our own thinking.
Hi Daniel/re-contexualize,
We've been corresponding recently on reddit on this topic (or, closely related ones at any rate) and I would be happy to react/respond. I don't know about anything so involved or so formal as a debate, but I can confirm that I am a "straightforward atheist", in the sense that I believe atheism is a substantive proposition (not "the default" state) which bears a burden of proof, a burden it can successfully meet.
Oh and there's the bonus that my BA was in philosophy, and that I was raised Christian (my mother was literally a pastor) so I've some useful background knowledge and potentially relevant life experience as well. And we've spoke at some length, so you know more or less what you're going to get.
Hi Enai! If you don't mind going through the trouble, I would love you to leave a comment with your position. Even though we've already had a back and forth it's good for any readers to able to scroll down and see counter positions, as this will present them with more perspectives and hopefully provide encouragement for them to compare our positions and think through what makes sense for them.
OK sure, sounds like fun. Just give me a day or two to write something up. Would you want me to just post it in full as a comment in the comment section under the article, or some other way (say, post it as a reddit post and just post the URL here in the comments)? Its your blog, so you're calling the shots here.
Thanks enai. Yes I at least find this stuff fun. I hope others do too. If its just a paragraph two it's fine to post it here, if it is longer feel free to post a link. I don't really care that much either way though, whatever you prefer is fine.
(I'm "Ok_Meat_8322" on reddit)
He went to nationals in Lincoln-Douglas and has retained his reason even into our elder years 💫.
Hi Daniel - I’m Jeremy (Deborah K’s atheist friend). I very much appreciate your thoughtful approach to this topic and I’m interested to read more and see how you continue to develop these concepts. My initial thoughts are as follows: if I understand you correctly, part of your point is that in order to function, empiricism must rely on certain claims axiomatically. I agree with this. Indeed every framework in which we function must presuppose certain axioms, must take certain truths for granted. In my opinion then, the most parsimonious approach is to use the framework with the fewest axioms and that makes the least untestable assumptions. I’m personally open to the possibility of god, but currently see no reason to add that untestable assumption on top of the others I must already accept. We can hypothesize about deeper underlying metaphysical realities, but without a mechanism for testing and falsification how would we ever confirm if our hypothesis is accurate? Claiming god is unable to be compared seems to be a logical impossibility and self-refuting - how can we assess something as incomparable without by definition contrasting it with something else?
As an aside, I agree that the “God vs Flying Spaghetti Monster” argument is simplistic and in some ways reductive of theist positions. However the positions taken and arguments made in “new atheism” are more nuanced and complex than I think you may give them credit for. Russell’s proverbial teapot and its philosophical successors stand as a useful litmus test for unfalsifiable claims.
Hi Jeremy,
Thanks so much for the comment. I am pleased to see all the discussion on this one! This is the most fun part of philosophy.
Let me just get right into the content of your comment. I am trying to suggest that knowledge of God is a different type of knowledge, that it lies in a different category than knowledge we come to making use of axiomatic systems. When we make use of an axiomatic system to study a particular domain of objects it may initially seem as if that domain is given but I would argue that if we look deeper we find that our axioms determine the nature of the domain itself. Take science as an example, when Einstein changed our understanding of space and time, he also changed the fundamental way we understand the objects we are studying in that domain. This is also true in other fields, the way an economist defines an individual’s fundamental motivations will change how they analyze the functioning of the economy. This is why Hegel argues in the Science of Logic that mechanism is embedded in human purposiveness; he claims that any system of objects governed by laws (this would be mechanism) gains its significance within the context of a human community that is trying to accomplish something with that axiomatic system; and that we can’t abstract the results we get from the study from this larger context.
The way I understand God is somewhat similar, following Hegel God would be the widest and most comprehensive context in which all of experience happens. As Hegel himself mentions, his system is an attempt to give a philosophical articulation of the mystical perspective; what I have in mind is a mystical conception of God. As I said in the initial post, we know things through contrasting them with other things (and you rightly point out there are always axioms functioning in the background when we do this), if God is not an object in the world he can't be known with the intellectual faculty in this way, because the claim is that he is the original source of everything, including this faculty itself. The question that points towards the conception of God I have in mind is not “Where is God out there in the world of objects?” but “What is it that looks out of my eyes and sees a world of objects?” As the ancient Indian texts the Upanishads say of Brahman (their word for God) “I am not what you see but that by which you see. I am not what you hear but that by which you hear.” Another way to put this is we arrive at God not through investigating objectivity, as science does, but through investigating our own subjectivity. I apologize if these vague hints aren’t satisfying. I do admit that in the sense verification Russel uses this cannot be verified. However, I do think it can be verified with certain practices (like meditation and self inquiry) that point us back to an investigation of our subjectivity. Feel free to tune in for part 2 next week. I'd love to hear your thoughts. I will analyze some religious myths suggesting that they are pointing to this notion of God so it will probably flesh out the notion more.
You write,
"By positing God we posit something beyond and behind this realm of contrastivly determined particularity and finitude that is its source. God cannot be put into contrast with anything else, because God is the unitary source from which all these discrete, particular objects in the realm of contrast and separation arise."
This definition of God is also burdened by Western assumptions. Informed by Abrahamic philosophy, the notion of "God as carpenter" remains the metaphysical equal to your atheistic hypothetical counterpart which would simply replace the God of creation with "automatic, spontaneous, random, stupid chance" as being the monolithic source.
A true break from Western philosophy avoids the need to provide a creator in the first place. For example, the Taoists, Hindus, Buddhists, and Confucians all provide alternative understandings of the "universe as construct". In those cases, to ask about a creator, to inquire about events before time, or to frame oneself as "separate from" everything else are all nonsensical questions.
The atheism you describe is really just monotheism without the godhead. All other properties are preserved. Alan Watts called it, "there is no God and Jesus was his only son"!
For Eastern philosophers who are grappling with these questions we see a fundamentally different angle of analysis. They would say, God didn't create you. There is no separate God. You are God. The trees are God. The stars are God. The cosmos, in this case, is free of God, but more importantly, free from the need to create.
Hi Jeffery,
Thanks for this comment. Really good points, especially the connection to eastern thought. As I will explain in part two, the conception of God I am starting to build here is a mystical conception of God; not a God that started the universe a certain amount of time ago but rather something more like the unified consciousness out of which time itself arises out of every moment. I write a lot about contrast and separation in the post. Time requires contrast and separation. For a person to move from point A to point B there needs to be a seperate point in time or space to move towards. If God is prior to separation than God is also prior to time; and not prior to a linear timeline but rather prior to the perception of time in each moment. I am aware this is not the God of most everyday religious folk but I do think it is the God of the Christian mystics, the Sufis, and even some of the fathers of the Catholic Church such as St. Augustine.
I am glad you mention eastern thought. In a certain sense, eastern thought might point to the conception of God I have in mind more clearly. I don't disagree with your claim that we are not separate from God but are God. (or we could call it Buddha Nature or the Tao, it doesn't matter to me) I would just nuance this a bit. If God is prior to separation that everything necessarily is God as you point out, including us. However, insofar as we identify with our individual bodies and minds we do not truly remember we are God. This is where things like meditation practice come in; they encourage us to disidentify with the thoughts and feelings we are used to identifying with and trace back to the source of that energy of identification. If we do this we may find that we are God, but we also find that everything else is equally God, as you point out.
I encourage you to tune in for part 2 next week. I'd love to hear more of your thoughts!
Yes, thank you for the response Daniel. I will tune in for part 2.
I've seen the word "atheist" thrown around in a few places here. I have found that the word itself is really unhelpful, and perhaps it contributes to confusion rather than illumination. There was a skeptic who said (I wish I could remember who) "if people would stop making new gods, I wouldn't have to keep inventing words that deny them". The definition of an "a" theist has become extrapolated to include a denial of much more than the God of Abraham. I, too, don't feel any affinity to the word atheist, although I do not believe in the God of the Bible, but that fact does not preclude me from other conceptions of God that I would not deny.
You said,
"I would just nuance this a bit. If God is prior to separation that everything necessarily is God as you point out, including us. However, insofar as we identify with our individual bodies and minds we do not truly remember we are God"
For me, this is the crux of the issue. I love your observation that all of us can uncover our divinity, but that the knowledge is somehow hidden from us. You further point to meditation as a tool for dispelling the illusion, which I see as being a necessary first step in the larger journey of discovery.
I would argue (and have, elsewhere) that Jesus understood this as well, but he lacked a broader context that would come from knowing about China and India, both of which had been developing similar cosmic consciousnesses 800 years before Jesus was to grace the scene. I would include him in your list of folks who understood this fact and wanted to spread the word.
Thanks for the response. I love the discussion on this post. Yes please tune in for part 2. I am actually working on it right now. I will release it Monday or Tuesday. I agree with everything you say except that I do try to show that a charitable interpretation of Christianity suggests that they have a similar notion of divinity as eastern traditions (I say similar because of course there are differences, but I think these are more in emphasis than essence) I'd love to hear your thoughts!