>There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else has a responsibility to give your life meaning and point… The truly adult view, by contrast, is that our life is as meaningful, as full and as wonderful as we choose to make it.
>We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
>There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else has a responsibility to give your life meaning and point… The truly adult view, by contrast, is that our life is as meaningful, as full and as wonderful as we choose to make it. What did he mean by this?
Oliver Barnes
He has a toddler's understanding of the teenage philosophy known as existentialism, and doesn't know what 'atheism' means.
There's a reason why deists are not technically atheists.
Michael Ortiz
Are you a deist, user?
And if so, what convinced you of the deistic position?
Tyler Barnes
>Some of us >us
Speak for yourself goddamnit.
John Morris
No, just an example.
I'd even argue that Pastafarians aren't even atheists.
One cannot be an atheist if they even hold an ironic perception of a god.
Austin Clark
I'm not acquainted with Richard Dawkins's books, but this is not philosophy at all. >There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else has a responsibility to give your life meaning and poin Loaded statement. Also concludes that a God does not exist. How did he arrive to this conclusion? >The truly adult view, by contrast, is that our life is as meaningful, as full and as wonderful as we choose to make it. It ignores the debate between individualism and collectivism It assumes that free will exists without providing arguments that support this statement. It is his responsibility to robustly support this claim since the burden of proof is on him. It assumes that, in the case that free will exists, it guarantees a "wonderful life". Does not define what makes a life "wonderful". Does not take into account that people with religious beliefs can have a "wonderful" life.
Landon Wood
>I'd even argue that Pastafarians aren't even atheists. >One cannot be an atheist if they even hold an ironic perception of a god. Failure to reason.
Caleb Anderson
>Also concludes that a God does not exist. How did he arrive to this conclusion? Occam's razor and the complete lack of evidence for the God hypothesis.
The fact that religion can make people behave better, or religious people can be x or y or z is not an argument for the existence that the deity of said religious person believes in.
>It assumes that free will exists But free will doesn't exist, user.
Adrian Robinson
le reason xDDDDDDDDDDDDDD i dont like this post for extremely ambiguous reasons and post pictures from reddit >Occam's razor Invalid; only the archaic-minded scum known as empiricists take this seriously. >But free will doesn't exist, user.
Caleb Wood
>Occam's razor and the complete lack of evidence for the God hypothesis. None of them constitute irrefutable proof for the absence of a God.
Kevin Long
Seems kind of life affirming.
Thomas Young
pic related
occam's razor cannot be used to prove or disprove anything at all
it's nothing more than a rule of thumb what to choose among the unverifiable possibilities if you want to apply the scientific method to the situation, it cannot and doesn't make any claim whichever of the possibilities is true (and obviously the chosen possibility is often wrong, hence science corrects itself when it gets more evidence, occam's razor is used for many mundane tasks)
to make a statement that the god doesn't exist always means to make a leap of faith pretty similar to what you need to do to make a statement that the god exists
Levi Cooper
That isn't an argument.
Burden of proof is on the claim-maker.
It's not up to everyone else to disprove whatever nonsense you decide to "reckon".
But none of this matters, since you are free to believe whatever you want.
To use a programming analogy, the function yourGod() has the $deity variable declared within the local scope.
Pic related cause I'm an ex-Hindu
Charles Walker
also >But free will doesn't exist, user.
if dawkins thinks so it's pretty funny and inconsistently on his side to write something like:
>our life is as meaningful, as full and as wonderful as we choose to make it
who choose? you don't choose anything, dawkins, you said it yourself
Ayden Rodriguez
>Burden of proof is on the claim-maker. dawkins made the claim that the god doesn't exist therefore the burden of proof is on him
actually smart atheists don't make such claims
Parker Thompson
Dawkins technically is an agnostic, and he doesn't claim that god doesn't exist in that quote, just that "some of us go one god further".
Jordan Edwards
It's philosophy in the same way pop-math books are mathematics.
Chase Rivera
>Burden of proof is on the claim-maker. Jesus Christ, how many times has this phrase been misused?
Ethan Butler
>That isn't an argument. Why are arguments needed >Burden of proof is on the claim-maker. Why?
WE ON AN ULTRA LIGHT BEAM THIS IS A GOD DREAM THIS IS EVERYTHAAAANG
Hunter White
So he doesn't even make clear what his philosophical stance is. Some profound thinker he is.
Aaron Miller
>jumps on occam's razor >ignores the literally (L I T E R A L L Y) zero evidence in support of the God position You can't prove a negative. By restating this claim you are not supporting the God position any more than the Tooth Fairy position.
>to make a statement that the god doesn't exist always means to make a leap of faith pretty similar to what you need to do to make a statement that the god exists [X] False
Despite what self-professed "agnostics" (i.e. atheists who hate the word atheist) claim, the atheist position is at most neutral on the //possibility// of their being a God, however unlike the theist/deist position an atheist does not assert that there is one. An atheist is someone who does not believe in a God.
An atheist is a person who believes in a God (any God) precisely as much as the flying spaghetti monster or tooth fairy.
The atheist would change his mind given evidence for a God. Until that evidence is presented, an atheist conducts himself assuming there is none.
So Dawkins steals quotes and passes them off as his own then? Not to mention the ambiguity of his philosophical stance.
Julian Carter
>You can't prove a negative. Thanks for misunderstanding what this statement actually means.
Parker Thomas
>Dawkins technically is an agnostic This word is misused.
Atheists now call themselves "agnostic" if they take the "I don't believe in God because there is no evidence" position, and assume the atheist position is "I have evidence there is no God", which it isn't.
Most thinking people who claim to be "agnostic" are in fact "agnostic atheists" or to use the correct term "atheists".
The alternative is allowing all statements an opinions to be presumed true until someone disproves them.
Joshua Flores
>Very low probability, but short of zero. De facto atheist. "I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there".
Caleb Torres
No, thank you for this riveting conversation.
Lincoln Lewis
I'm not disagreeing that he's a bit of troll though.
Joshua Smith
>Atheists now call themselves "agnostic" if they take the "I don't believe in God because there is no evidence" position, and assume the atheist position is "I have evidence there is no God", which it isn't.
Atheists have nobody to blame but themselves for that distinction. With the Atheism + movement, negative connotations have been attached to the word.
Christopher Price
>Atheists have nobody to blame but themselves This is partly true, however don't forget that it is the theists who (necessarily, for how else do they have?) "defend" their position by claiming that their interlocutors can't "prove" there isn't a God
This argument confuse those who are soft of mind, and has the potential to trick them into thinking that the atheistic position is one which depends on "proving" the non-existence of God (which isn't actually possible, just as you can't prove that this isn't all an elaborate computer simulation, or disprove the solipsistic position)
Liam Adams
>literally (L I T E R A L L Y) zero evidence in support of the God position Thousands of years of culture? Miracles including the resurrection of Jesus? The universe and life actually existing?
>Nothing turned into everything >Makes more sense than a creator created creation That requires a lot of faith. Apply your razor to that claim.
Jack Young
>You can't prove a negative.
it's wrong. if anything, jurisprudence does it all the time science tries to avoid it though
>[X] False
wrong again, it's true. you can use as many attempts to mock those who have an unverifiable claim opposite to the unverifiable claim of yours (all your tooth faries, pink unicorns and pasta monsters are a variant of ad hominem) mocking their claim doesn't make your claim less unverifiable. if you say an unverifiable claim is the actual truth you are making a leap of faith
hence why you either admit the possibility that the god exists or you made a leap of faith yourself
Nathan White
>people are defined by dna haha this nigga srs?
Asher Peterson
I like this kitty.
Noah Reed
What?
Joseph Smith
>The truly adult view, by contrast, is that our life is as meaningful, as full and as wonderful as we choose to make it. Make believe is false so you should make believe. Thanks, Dawkins!
Jace Morris
Where does it say that?
Owen Allen
Been reading Feser and Aquinas lately, will get into other scholastics soon. What I've learned is that it's a school of thought incomprehensible to most modern minds, we are so deep in Hume/Descartes/Kant/Mill/Marx that now you'd have to really think outside the box to get Aquinas. It's completely coherent and doesn't have the problems of modern philosophy at all, but getting into it is quite a task. Interestingly enough, most proofs of God, which we now use such as causality or intelligent design or something like that is nothing alike to the five ways which are just summaries of massive metaphysical proofs that are actually nothing like what you'd interpret them now.
Jaxon Ramirez
Where Dawkins tries to prove his claim by comparing the set of actual people to the set of DNA combinations resulting in people. Logically, we must conclude that Dawkins thinks that the defining factor of an individual is their unique set of DNA.
Jacob Sanders
Well dna obviously isn't the sole factor in becoming a human, but it is necessary for all humans to be human.
Also biology is "the exception that proves the rule" the field, see Identical twins.
>No man is an island
Eli Jones
>dna obviously isn't the sole factor in becoming a human
Sebastian Johnson
You seemed to think that Dawkins was overlooking this?
Blake Watson
>he fell for the conscious deity meme >he doesn't know about based PLOTINUS
John Turner
Also, try to see the evolutionary perspective this is coming from.
Jack Adams
right, dawkins clearly believes that there are just as many "possible people" and there are combinations of dna. so someone with some fucking G to T in a trillionth of their junk dna is a different person. okay richard btw sjg was right you dumb fuck
Ayden Cooper
You do know that Dawkins is basically trying to trigger people with the God delusion? good job making him successful :^)
Blake Wilson
yes because ive read god delusion let alone bought it!
Xavier Mitchell
Knock the god delusion all you want, but don't knock the biology as a proxy without understanding it.
Evan Roberts
i do understand the biology. im not a layman in genetics. not an expert either. that doesnt matter though. dawkings i literally shitting out of his mouth that "haha, most people dont exist because there are so many combinations of dna, so we're really lucky we exist but also we're not lucky because of the problem of evil and also because luck doesnt exist the reason people with our dna exist is because of evolution but also if youre not existentialist your a child lmao and also the difference between someone who believes in X gods and someone who believe in one god is X times larger than someone who believes in one god and someone who believes in no gods so monotheists are almost atheists haha thats logically sound! also philosophy is shit but here's my shitty philosophy look at me give me money"
give me a fucking break man
ps sorry for sperging out like that
Jack Gray
He's not after money, but he is a public figure, and that entails a different approach yes?
Xavier Davis
so you focus on just the last three words of that rant? kk
Ethan Bailey
jesus h. this fucking thread again just fucking look at it
stick to your worship of suicide bandana man and leave the clever stuff to other people
>One cannot be an atheist if they even hold an ironic perception of a god.
it's funny you should say that user. i don't have any medical training, but i have an ironic perception of dentistry, therefore i am a dentist.
Aiden Mitchell
I'm not that guys but at most you would be an ironic dentist. Which could be described as a dentist that doesn't know anything about medicine, just like pastafarians don't actually know anything about religion. So yes, technically you are an ironic dentist
Adrian Russell
>i don't have any medical training, but i have an ironic perception of dentistry, therefore i am a dentist. False comparison. You have to have schooling in dentistry to be recognized as a dentist by most people. To be religious, you just have to have some sort of belief. Like that guy said, even if it's ironic, it's still a belief.
Jace Butler
Dawkins is the Evangelion of anime
Oliver Gonzalez
>Miracles including the resurrection of Jesus? Oh shit, I forgot about that.
Cameron King
Of course there is a possibility of god existing, just like there is a possibility for any arbitrary claim you make. But for an argument to have any worth, it has to be verifiable and have tangible effect on the world. Otherwise you could make millions of arguments for imaginary things that have no apparent effect on anything. With the amount of arguments increasing, their individual worth quickly approaches zero.
For claims of deities, no deities seem to have any kind of effect on any of the aspects of the world we live in. Arguments for them are thus of about the same worth as the claims for all these teapots, spaghetti monsters and dragons in garages. I simply find no reason to believe in them.
I have no quarrel if you do though. But, I'm actually kind of interested. What is your rationale for the christian faith, as opposed to any of the other religions out there?
Jace Hall
Evidence is a dated meme, get over it you filthy empiricism. Dentistry is a profession, not a state of being. Don't post retard analogies when you know they are retard analogies.
You can be an ironic dentist though, like pastafarians are ironic theists.
You cannot be without dentistry, though, since you hold a positive perception on dentistry; that is, you are not ignorant of dentistry and it is not out of your grasp.
An atheist is ignorant of theism and only exists to be contrary to it. >no deities seem to have any kind of effect on any of the aspects of the world we live in. hurka durka everybody should live by my irrelevant ideology
Ryan Davis
That he is a normie.
Kayden Williams
>For claims of deities, no deities seem to have any kind of effect on any of the aspects of the world we live in.
Yeah, that's a dubious claim. "Any kind of effect" is too broad. What initially looks like coincidence or bad luck might be something more when all circumstances are accounted for.
Christian Edwards
>We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in.
Not if we're intellectually honest, we're not.
Kayden Clark
>The truly adult view, by contrast, is that our life is as meaningful Makes sense
>as full and as wonderful as we choose to make it. Oh so human delusion still makes life meaningful. So life isn't meaningless, as long as you have euphoric intelligence?
Angel Scott
>But for an argument to have any worth, it has to be verifiable
you claim it arbitrary basing on your arbitrary sense of worth. it's true only if you want to apply the scientific method to the argument, then indeed the argument should be verifiable. claiming that non-verifiable arguments have no worth means claiming that anything outside of science has no worth i.e. it's completely arbitrary
>and have tangible effect on the world. Otherwise you could make millions of arguments for imaginary things that have no apparent effect on anything. >For claims of deities, no deities seem to have any kind of effect on any of the aspects of the world we live in. Arguments for them are thus of about the same worth as the claims for all these teapots, spaghetti monsters and dragons in garages.
here is a typical mistake which the fans of celestial teapots do, they pretend that any unverifiable argument is equally important. btw afaik it was not how russell intended to use his teapot, he simply introduced it to illustrate the burden of proof, not as an attempt of argument by mocking. they also sometimes make ridiculous verifiable arguments and pretend that those are not verifiable (the aforementioned tooth fairy in her classical definition is verifiable), but that's a different matter. you can make many unverifiable claims but most of those wouldn't matter and therefore can be ignored, meantime the claim about the existence of god is very important for the world-view and therefore has a great worth for many people. if you dismiss their right to think it as important, you again use your arbitrary sense of worth as an absolute measure when you have no grounds for it. it's neither logical not smart to do it, people always tried to understand the world they live in and some of attempts to do it cannot be made without applying unverifiable conceptions since we can't verify some things which we would like to know, but we can apply an unverifiable concept and try to elaborate it in a logically consistent conception. hence also why some of the religious concepts are thought to be more important than others, it's both personally and on the basis of the philosophical conceptions
Carter Murphy
yeah it's true to it's possible for them to have a great but unverifiable (either at all or at this moment) effect
Jaxson Ramirez
Kitty when did you get into Edward Feser?
Robert White
hm, it's the basics of epistemology which they taught me in the college
Landon Martin
Dawkins is garbage. Read the Greeks, Hegel, Ludwig Feurerbach, and also Kant. I also recommend psychoanalysis, such as Lacan.
Benjamin Fisher
>"Ha ha you believe in something I don't, how CHILDISH is that?" >"WHAT? YOU'RE A GROWN PERSON AND REFUSES TO SUFFER? Only kids are happy, grow up." >"You can't prove it so you're wrong" >"What is faith"
This thread
Jonathan Johnson
He's written a few books which broadly deal with the internet type of shit, pretty interesting too.