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Michael DeBusk
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| Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2004 11:43 am
Post subject: Re: Seeking a philosophical label. |
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On Wed, 21 Jul 2004 16:50:26 -0400, meirman <meirman@invalid.com> wrote:
| Quote: | It never occurred to me that an atheist might believe in these other
things.
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Taoism is a fine example of a very old religion that does teach of
reincarnation amd does not teach of deities. One branch of that
religion does teach of "immortals", but I've yet to hear that they
believe those immortals are fact.
| Quote: | Agnostics are ones that don't know if there is or isn't a life
after death, that it is unobtainable information, and are not
taking a stand either way.
I probably wouldn't have been prompted to comment on this paragraph
if the first hadn't been here too. I never heard that agnosticism
was centered around life after death.
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It isn't. "Agnostic" refers to the existence of deities. I'm agnostic
and I believe reincarnation is quite likely. I don't know, and won't
claim to know, but I've seen enough and read enough that is strongly
suggestive of it that I consider it worth believing.
--
Michael DeBusk, Co-Conspirator to Make the World a Better Place
Did he update http://home.earthlink.net/~debu4335/ yet?
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Michael DeBusk
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| Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2004 11:49 am
Post subject: Re: Seeking a philosophical label. |
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On 21 Jul 2004 10:57:23 GMT, CyberCypher
<cybercypher@19-16-25-13-01-03.com> wrote:
| Quote: | The school of philosophy that comes to my mind when one claims the
belief that there is no afterlife is "Nihilism".
That seems to be a misunderstanding of the meaning of the word:
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I agree, and didn't mean to imply that I thought that the absence of an
afterlife was a central teaching of Nihilism. To my understanding, the
central teaching of Nihilism is, "nothing matters, so feel bad." I
always wondered what was so bad about the idea that nothing matters.
Seems to me there's a tremendous freedom in the idea. Just because
nothing matters doesn't mean it can't matter to me.
It's been my experience that Nihilists tend to believe that we're
nothing more than animals and that when we die, it's the end. While it
may not be a teaching of Nihilism, it does seem (to me) to be a natural
conclusion to reach when starting from the Nihilistic position.
--
Michael DeBusk, Co-Conspirator to Make the World a Better Place
Did he update http://home.earthlink.net/~debu4335/ yet? |
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Michael DeBusk
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| Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2004 12:32 pm
Post subject: Re: Seeking a philosophical label. |
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On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 06:01:40 +0100, Mike Stevens
<michael.stevens@which.net> wrote:
| Quote: | I've always had difficulty with the concept of the "supernatural".
If somebody believes, for example, that God exists, I would have
thought it follows that in their mind God is part of the natural
order. So does "supernatural" refer to things that other people
believe in but I don't?
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Pretty much. :)
It's possible, though, that something can be outside nature and still
exist, depending on the parameters you offer for "nature" and
"existence". If it's true that a deity created nature, then it
follows that that deity cannot be part of nature. Not really
SUPERnatural, but meta-natural.
I like the Hindu idea, myself. When God falls asleep, he dreams the
universe. So we're all thoughts in the mind of God. I've met a
sufficient number of people who may be an undigested bit of beef, a
blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, or a fragment of an underdone
potato to lend credence to the idea, anyway.
--
Michael DeBusk, Co-Conspirator to Make the World a Better Place
Did he update http://home.earthlink.net/~debu4335/ yet?
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Matthew Huntbach
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| Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2004 3:26 pm
Post subject: Re: Seeking a philosophical label. |
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In uk.culture.language.english Michael DeBusk <m_debusk@despammed.com> wrote:
| Quote: | On 21 Jul 2004 14:31:08 GMT, Matthew Huntbach <mmh@dcs.qmw.ac.uk> wrote:
I am rather puzzled by Scott's question, since I would have thought
that most people who don't believe in a god or gods also don't
believe in other supernatural phenomena such as the concept of an
afterlife.
There are atheistic religions. Taoism, for one. And most of the other
religions in the world don't teach that their deities are real.
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Well, perhaps the word is used differently in your part of the world to
mine. In my experience, most people who call themselves "atheists" are people
who will reject anything that is not scientifically proveable. Thus they
would regard the mystical energy forces etc of Taoism as equally invalid and
superstitious as the Christian/Jewish/Islamic concept of God.
I am prepared to concede that in other parts of the world or other circles,
perhaps ones you and Scott move in, "atheist" has a more technical meaning
and is used to distinguish between various classes of belief in supernatural
phenomena.
| Quote: | Those religions that do teach of reincarnation do not teach it as
SUPERnatural, but as entirely natural. We have all learned that energy
cannot be created or destroyed, after all, so we are free to wonder
what happens to what we think of as our life energy after we die.
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This is no different from Christians who would claim their concept of God is
an entirely natural one.
Can the "life energy" of which you speak be measured in physics experiments?
When we learn that energy cannot be created or destroyed, this is something
from physics and can be shown experimentally. The "life energy" of which you
speak has no connection with the concept of "energy" as used in physics.
Can a proof be made that any of us have lived before as something else? No,
at least no more than revelations and miracles claimed by Christians mystics
and the like are offered as proofs of their beliefs.
One might use the term "soul" instead of "life energy". One might suggest
there is a natural process whereby a soul is judged worthy of passing to one
place or another, one might term the process "God", but one might equally
term the process "God" whereby it is decided into which physical being this
"life energy" is placed if one believes in reincarnation.
Matthew Huntbach |
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Matthew Huntbach
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| Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2004 3:28 pm
Post subject: Re: Seeking a philosophical label. |
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In uk.culture.language.english Michael DeBusk <m_debusk@despammed.com> wrote:
| Quote: | I've often wondered why, if there is a creator-deity, he/she/it would
endow us with a capability for logic and then get pissed off at us for
using it.
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Is this any different from the way those of us who have children help endow
them with various qualities we then get pissed off at them for using?
Matthew Huntbach |
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Matthew Huntbach
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2004 3:39 pm
Post subject: Re: Seeking a philosophical label. |
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In uk.culture.language.english Michael DeBusk <m_debusk@despammed.com> wrote:
| Quote: | I've done some training with a guy whose specialty is the structure of
belief systems and decision strategies. He used to be a developer of
expert systems, but now he works with people instead of computers. This
guy is astounding. He can take a belief apart and put it back together
before you know what he's done.
He tells me that he's found two "classes" of religious believer. One
type, if you ask them, they will tell you that they believe it because
that's what they were taught, that's what the Bible says, that's what
their parents believed, that's what The Preacher tells them, and so on.
The other type will tell you that they believe because, in short, they
were there when it happened. They have had *some* experience which
verifies *some* aspect of their belief system.
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Don't most Evangelical Christians claim to have had "born again" experiences
which verified their belief in a religion which is based on belief in a
literal interpretation of the Bible?
Your friend seems to have missed a whole class of people who find religious
rituals comfortable and a satisfying peg on which to build a life, but are
probably happy to conceded that their particular rituals are just an attempt
to put a human face on something beyond human comprehension or on general
human yearnings, and therefore would not inists that they are completely
right and everyone else is completely wrong, or attempt to enforce their rituals
evangelically upon others.
Matthew Huntbach |
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LarryLard
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| Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2004 3:55 pm
Post subject: Re: Seeking a philosophical label. |
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"Scott T. Jensen" <stj@charter.net> wrote in message news:<10fs9ghbid3p76d@corp.supernews.com>...
| Quote: | Atheists are ones that believe there's no god(s), but may believe there's a
life after death, reincarnation, cosmic existence, or such.
Agnostics are ones that don't know if there is or isn't a life after death,
that it is unobtainable information, and are not taking a stand either way.
What do you then call someone who knows they're just an animal and that when
they die, that's it? I'm looking for a formal term for such a person and
one separate from the above two.
I've posted the above to talk.philosophy.misc newsgroup and they didn't know
of a label for such an individual. They whipped up a couple, but that was
their own inventions.
Anyone know of such a label?
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Long thread, but no one has yet offered 'materialist', for which
dictionary.com offers
(AHD) Philosophy. The theory that physical matter is the only reality
and that everything, including thought, feeling, mind, and will, can
be explained in terms of matter and physical phenomena.
(M-W) One who denies the existence of spiritual substances or agents,
and maintains that spiritual phenomena, so called, are the result of
some peculiar organization of matter.
(Wordnet) someone who thinks that nothing exists but physical matter
Furthermore, 'The Ism Book - A Field Guide to the Nomenclature of
Philosophy' (http://www.saint-andre.com/ismbook/ism3.html) offers
Materialism (Principle and Tradition in metaphysics) — Materialism is
the idea that the only thing that really exists in the world is matter
in its various states and movements (commonly atoms or other physical
particles). Thus materialism is the opposite of idealism. Materialism
considers any talk of, say, the soul to be complete nonsense and a
throwback to the bad old days of spiritualism and vitalism (i.e.,
idealism) in philosophy. Note that because matter can be completely
known by means of physical laws and mathematical description (see
reductionism), materialism tends to be used to lend heavy support to
determinism.
Finally, Wikipedia offers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism)
| Quote: |
Materialism expresses the view that the only thing that exists is |
matter; if anything else, such as mental events, exists, then it is
reducible to matter.
"Materialism" has also frequently been understood to designate an
entire scientific, "rationalistic" world view, particularly by
religious thinkers opposed to it and also by Marxists. It typically
contrasts with dualism, phenomenalism, idealism, and vitalism.
**Materialism has also developed as a pejorative label for a lifestyle
pursuing wealth, money, and objects rather than spiritual or mental
development.**
The definition of "matter" in modern philosophical materialism extends
to all scientifically observable entities such as energy, forces, and
the curvature of space. In this view, one might speak of the "material
world".
The sentence I have highlighted is also reflected in the dictionary
entries, and fear of possible confusion with this sense might stop you
wanting to use this term to describe yourself; the philosophical sense
seems to describe what you have said, though.
--
Larry Lard
Replies to group please |
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Matti Lamprhey
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2004 3:56 pm
Post subject: Re: Seeking a philosophical label. |
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"Michael DeBusk" <m_debusk@despammed.com> wrote...
| Quote: | Matti Lamprhey <matti-nospam@totally-official.com> wrote:
Do you not see a difference between "not believing that there is a
god or gods" and "believing that there is no god or gods"?
Can you explain the difference, in respect of a person to whom the
concept of god(s) has occurred?
Believing is something we do. It's a behavior. We decide (on some
level) to do it or to refrain from doing it.
I do not believe there is a god or gods. I also do not believe there
is not a god or gods. I refrain from believing either way. It is my
opinion that there is insufficient evidence to make a decision. I've
had some experiences in my past which lead me to believe in the
possibility -- but not the probability -- of such a thing.
I've met people who believe there is one. I've met people who believe
there isn't one. Neither group can seem to establish for me a
sufficient evidence base for their position. I'm open for it.
To me, though, I think the theists have the edge. All they have to do
is produce a deity. The not-theists, to prove *their* position, would
have to be everywhere at once, know everything there is to know... in
short, they'd have to be a deity to prove there isn't one, and I
wonder if being a deity would change their perspective on their
existence.
Until I have a reason to choose a belief, I'm going to refrain from
it.
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I distinguish between "I believe in God" and "I believe there is a god".
It seems to me that you're discussing the former type of believing,
which is more like "knowing" or "trusting in". For you, then, there is
a gulf between believing in God and believing in No-God, a no-man's land
where knowledge or trust either way is absent.
For me, on the other hand, "believe" means more like "consider it
likely"; there is no significant gulf between the positions of
considering the existence of a god to be likely and unlikely -- there
might be an overlap rather than a gulf, in fact.
Matti |
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David
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2004 6:33 pm
Post subject: Re: Seeking a philosophical label. |
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In article <cdo1bd$ph2$2@beta.qmul.ac.uk>, Matthew Huntbach
<mmh@dcs.qmw.ac.uk> wrote:
| Quote: | In uk.culture.language.english Michael DeBusk
m_debusk@despammed.com> wrote:
I've often wondered why, if there is a creator-deity, he/she/it
would endow us with a capability for logic and then get pissed off
at us for using it.
Is this any different from the way those of us who have children help
endow them with various qualities we then get pissed off at them for
using?
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Yes; we're not supposed to be all-knowing, etc.
--
http://www.dacha.freeuk.com/zodiac/acap-0.htm
Capricorn (December 22nd - January 20th)
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