Atheism and agnosticism thread

[Travis B.]

Use some logic here: if everyone cribbed the idea of god from somewhere else, where did it start? Time travelers?

The de novo development of the concept of God is something that extends sufficiently back into prehistory that do we frankly know? While one could posit people who are either high or mentally ill as a source of God, can we actually rule out that they may have heard of the idea of God from someone, somewhere?

Um what? Is it that hard to understand that "idea X always comes from someone else" simply doesn't work? Who did that someone else get idea X from?

Also, is it that hard to understand that a human being coming up with an idea is absolutely normal and not mysterious? Do you posit an infinite regression for every human statement, or only for the idea of gods?

The answer is we don't know, just like how we simply don't know how human language developed. A controlled experiment would be to have an entire population that grows up completely isolated from any notion of divinity or spirituality, and see if they develop the concept of God de novo, but I'm afraid such an experiment would probably be quite unethical.

[keenir]

. some of the claims are true, like, I don't know, there was a troy,

Nine of them, at least.

lI can improve my odds a bit, though perhaps what follows is less solid an argument: myths are diverse in the degree of verosimilitude of their claims: if a myth says something like "invaders from the north came and burned our fields", well... we know that kind of thing happens in general, so yeah, sure, maybe that content of that myth is true. but when myths say stuff like "and the waters of the river black were magical and cured all illness" well... we know of no such river, and it doesn't resemble what we do know about rivers: what kind of medicine could cure *all* illness anyway?

Well, if you're looking for a universal cure, the odds of a river providing it, are low, yes...but if you posit that it cured the ailments of that time and place, or of the person recording it, then it becomes more plausible - yes?

and travis makes an excellent point: most kids one encounters are theists because most humans one encounters are theist, not telling stories about gods to children they probably won't come up with them on their own. not that many of em anyway.

but like language, kids pick up religion from hearing it.

I haven't found one person who believes in gods who didn't get the idea from someone else.

well, with the exception of you (and maybe Rotting Bones), every agnostic and atheist I've ever encountered (online and IRL) has come to that conclusion from discussion with other people - sometimes with atheists and agnostics, sometimes with other religious individuals.

[TomHChappell]

well, with the exception of you (and maybe Rotting Bones), every agnostic and atheist I've ever encountered (online and IRL) has come to that conclusion from discussion with other people - sometimes with atheists and agnostics, sometimes with other religious individuals.

You don’t know me. I came to that conclusion because of repeated and significant failures on God’s part.

[Torco]

myths come after the gods? like... actual gods come, and then people tell stories about it ?

Well, if you're looking for a universal cure, the odds of a river providing it, are low, yes...but if you posit that it cured the ailments of that time and place, or of the person recording it, then it becomes more plausible - yes?

yes! the river that cures arthritis is much more verosimile than the river that cures *everything*, just like, I don't know, a dude who throws lightning" is more verosimile than the omnipotent omniscient omnibenevolent transcendental principle of reality who is also a person and also three people at the same time and has a poor view of eating pork.
_
of course some people come up with the idea of gods. all i'm saying is, most people don't (and most people aren't shamans) and if you leave them alone (don't try to convert them) they become less into god stories than normal people subject to conversion etcetera: this is a claim so conservative I take it directly from the medieval clergy: conversion works. the religious system requires a lot of such labour to keep functioning, just like the system of internacional finance, or SWIFT payments. the rate of spontaneous god ideation may be so low as to have happened only a few times in the entirety of human nature, since for as far back as we have known the concept has been quite prevalent, but we also know that the notion does not come fully formed a priori into the mind. but yeah, someone somewhere came up with it idependently, most likely a bunch of times. the vast majority of people do not, I think.

but like language, kids pick up religion from hearing it.

hmmmm... kids learn that religion exists from hearing about it, this is true. and some people who hear about it freely go into it. I don't have stats, but it seems extremely likely to me, however, that most kids become religious as a result of a softer or harder form of outright being told to be religious: nasty words when expressing desire to skip church that day, beatings when going outside the house without a veil, loving and well intentioned but nevertheless explicit instructions of "okay it's time to pray now kids, repeat after me our father who art in heaven", etcetera. i'm not saying this is evil, ofc: how else are you to raise your own kids, other than in your own beliefs and traditions? but it is still more than hearing about it. I like this expression in english, being raised catholic... or mormon, or sikh.

well, with the exception of you (and maybe Rotting Bones), every agnostic and atheist I've ever encountered (online and IRL) has come to that conclusion from discussion with other people - sometimes with atheists and agnostics, sometimes with other religious individuals.

fair enough, we do get most of our ideas from conversations with other people. but yeah, TomHChappell's experience seems to me more representative of atheists I've met: they first stopped believing in the sense of "I believe in you", and only then came to losing belief as in "i believe you exist".

[keenir]

well, with the exception of you (and maybe Rotting Bones), every agnostic and atheist I've ever encountered (online and IRL) has come to that conclusion from discussion with other people - sometimes with atheists and agnostics, sometimes with other religious individuals.

You don’t know me. I came to that conclusion because of repeated and significant failures on God’s part.

I apologize; you did not come to mind, either as an example of the above, or as any other category's membership.

[Ares Land]

I think I met both kinds of atheists: a) people who were simply never brought up religious, b) people who were brought up religious or sort of and decided the whole thing didn't make much sense.

I expect that - for instance - in the US you'd meet a lot more of the second category, US society as a whole being rather religious.

I don't think people are likely to come up spontaneously with the idea of God or gods, as in, the Abrahamic God or Jupiter.
Coming up with ideas about the supernatural - or a spiritual world seems very likely though.

As far as we know, 'Jupiter'/'Zeus' started out as 'sky (father)'; I think it's pretty natural to perceive the sky as numinous and holy -- doubly so when you're a subsistence farmer and whether it rains or not is a matter of life and death. Myths -- at least most of them -- came after the gods: the Greek and Romans shared the basic idea of Jupiter/Zeus, but until the Roman upper class took a liking to Greek culture, the myths were different.

[Travis B.]

I think I met both kinds of atheists: a) people who were simply never brought up religious, b) people who were brought up religious or sort of and decided the whole thing didn't make much sense.

I expect that - for instance - in the US you'd meet a lot more of the second category, US society as a whole being rather religious.

My parents, and especially my mother (who is an ex-Catholic), fall in the latter category, and my mother is much more militantly atheist than I am. I frankly don't care if other people have religious beliefs, or if they raise their children in them just like they raise their children to speak their native language (provided they permit them to abandon said relligious beliefs if they so see fit), where my mother is against the idea of God rather than simply not believing in any god or gods.

I don't think people are likely to come up spontaneously with the idea of God or gods, as in, the Abrahamic God or Jupiter.
Coming up with ideas about the supernatural - or a spiritual world seems very likely though.

I agree here - general spiritual or supernatural beliefs are far more likely to appear de novo than organized religion.

As far as we know, 'Jupiter'/'Zeus' started out as 'sky (father)'; I think it's pretty natural to perceive the sky as numinous and holy -- doubly so when you're a subsistence farmer and whether it rains or not is a matter of life and death. Myths -- at least most of them -- came after the gods: the Greek and Romans shared the basic idea of Jupiter/Zeus, but until the Roman upper class took a liking to Greek culture, the myths were different.

That is a good guess as to the origins of religion, but as far as we know it is merely a guess, just like we can guess about the origins of human language, but in the end we really don't know.

[Ares Land]

That is a good guess as to the origins of religion, but as far as we know it is merely a guess, just like we can guess about the origins of human language, but in the end we really don't know.

Oh yes, of course. It certainly was nowhere as simplistic as that... Whoever the ancestors of the Indo-Europeans were, they must have believed in something too!

[zompist]

myths come after the gods? like... actual gods come, and then people tell stories about it ?

When we can check, yes, stories come later, and also are not that important. We have the library of the last Assyrian king; the bulk of the tablets are omen texts, used in divination. We can see the myths themselves getting more elaborate over time. The Chinese did rituals and divination without doing much in the story department. The Vedas have a cast of characters but no story— the epics came later.

How do you get gods? Because we're humans, we anthropomorphize. Cats and dogs, our computers, the noisy stair near the kitchen, the weather, Covid— you can hear people talking about their motives and cussedness any day. Maybe you guys are all strict, emotionless logical positivists, but listen to the mere humans around you.

[Torco]

I'll take your word for it, I have read neither the oracle bones nor the omens of the last king of assyria. that's pretty interesting, tbh. to my discredit i hadn't considered a cast first approach to mythogenesis.

How do you get gods? Because we're humans, we anthropomorphize. Cats and dogs, our computers, the noisy stair near the kitchen, the weather, Covid— you can hear people talking about their motives and cussedness any day. Maybe you guys are all strict, emotionless logical positivists, but listen to the mere humans around you.

wait... does that not mean that it's possible for no one to have come up with the idea of gods and yet for it to exist? like okay, dad talks about how the sea is generous, metaphorically of course: plenty of muzzles and fish, but it won't be if you start polluting or overfishing it, and we'll have to move to a different cove. son understands this, but his children are young: don't take the baby muzzles, the ocean doesn't like it he says. he dies, and the kids are left with this idea that the sea likes things and doesn't like other things. climate change happens to the descentants of those kids, who suddenly are left without muzzles: something must have angered the sea. the people are now farmers, but they still remember the stories about the sea that withdrew its generosity in wrath. damn, now the sun is not coming out, maybe it's like that? we all sing a song asking the sun to come out, and it does! we now sing it every monday to propiciate better crops. maybe we drown the guy who doesn't like the songs, and oh, look! the sea is generous again! the muzzles are back, rejoice! truly I say unto thee, the sea is content with the blood sacrifice of the heretic. and if you all feed me and make sure i'm confortable, i'll talk to the sea so that he won't take the muzzles away again. quick, build me a temple!

still, mythological characters first or stories first, the point is the same: myths are generally not true, and less likely to be true the more wacky they get so i still think my base argument is good. indeed, the story about the origin of the cult of the sea god above suggests another argument for why religions are false: they may be simply what happens when psychological biases and misunderstandings accumulate in a group... kind of like a great attractor in the phase space of playing telephone, i guess

[zompist]

still, mythological characters first or stories first, the point is the same: myths are generally not true, and less likely to be true the more wacky they get so i still think my base argument is good. indeed, the story about the origin of the cult of the sea god above suggests another argument for why religions are false: they may be simply what happens when psychological biases and misunderstandings accumulate in a group... kind of like a great attractor in the phase space of playing telephone, i guess

There's a lot to be said for human pattern-matching as a source of ritual. I can see it happening when my (quite intelligent and non-religious) friends play Overwatch, and try to understand why queue times vary so much, or how the peer rating system works, or why certain characters unexpectedly one-shot you. They come up with theories on what affects these. Admittedly we're bored between games, so it's a time for idle speculation.

But sure, you do action X and the world does Y. Sometimes only one repetition is enough to make us think it's causal, possibly because event Y is really big. ("A crow woke me up by cawing outside the window, and then I learned that my mother had died.")

Still, I suspect you're overestimating the propositional content of polytheistic religions. The Romans didn't worship Jupiter because they were really into the stories about the Trojan War, or his constant adultery. They sacrificed to Jupiter as responsible civic officials, to continue the prosperity of Rome. (And sacrifice may be "irrational", but the idea of appeasing a king with tribute certainly isn't.)

[keenir]

Still, I suspect you're overestimating the propositional content of polytheistic religions. The Romans didn't worship Jupiter because they were really into the stories about the Trojan War, or his constant adultery. They sacrificed to Jupiter as responsible civic officials, to continue the prosperity of Rome. (And sacrifice may be "irrational", but the idea of appeasing a king with tribute certainly isn't.)

*nods* And, from the perspective of a peasant or even a merchant, a monarch isn't neccessarily more rational than a god...think of the people who spent their lives under the rule of Henry VIII of England or Wu Di of China - if you did everything right, maybe you'd get rewarded, maybe you'd coast along...if you offended them or broke the law, maybe you could coast along or escape, maybe you'd be struck dead.

[Torco]

hell, think of us! modern politics, with its web of lobby, PACs, the CIA, secret shit we all know goes on, or even just the out-in-the-open, legal, public record stuff, public opinion, the media setting the agenda, it's all unthinkably complicated. we also don't understand our rulers, and medieval peasants didn't have the internet!

and absolutely, there's also metaphor, ritual, religion-as-therapy, gesture, religion-as-etiquette, whole social aspect of it where people go to religious events to be a part of a community, catholic priests saving dissidents from the secret police in the eighties because they genuinely think god expects them to, it's a whoooole big thing, religion is.

[rotting bones]

I'm not agnostic about God for the same reason I'm not agnostic about solipsism.

?
You don't understand the concept of letting a program run and do things?

Not when there is nothing for the program to run on, no I don't understand it.

[keenir]

I'm not agnostic about God for the same reason I'm not agnostic about solipsism.

oh thats a whole 'nother kettle of prawns.

?
You don't understand the concept of letting a program run and do things?

Not when there is nothing for the program to run on, no I don't understand it.

the...universe?

(and before you ask "well whats the universe running on?", bear in mind that, according to the models I'm familiar with, the universe is not and has not grown on or from anything that was not part of the universe - so the question needs no answer beyond "itself")

[rotting bones]

the...universe?

(and before you ask "well whats the universe running on?", bear in mind that, according to the models I'm familiar with, the universe is not and has not grown on or from anything that was not part of the universe - so the question needs no answer beyond "itself")

The argument presupposes that God made the universe. The universe is not an idea. An algorithm is not the same as the machine it is running on. My confusion is not related to God coming up with an algorithm. It is related to God "making" the machine the algorithm is running on.

What? Why does god/God have to be simple? I've seen lots of explanations for all sorts of things (such as syntax) which are complex.

Definition of explanation. Definition of God in theology.

PS. A grammar is simpler than the collection of sentences it explains.

[Travis B.]

I'm not agnostic about God for the same reason I'm not agnostic about solipsism.

oh thats a whole 'nother kettle of prawns.

?
You don't understand the concept of letting a program run and do things?

Not when there is nothing for the program to run on, no I don't understand it.

the...universe?

(and before you ask "well whats the universe running on?", bear in mind that, according to the models I'm familiar with, the universe is not and has not grown on or from anything that was not part of the universe - so the question needs no answer beyond "itself")

The idea that the universe is a cellular automata program running on a computer is unfalsifiable, which is why I personally do not believe in it even though I think it is probably the most plausible way to have a God, just like humans create computers and software which runs on them which run cellular automata.

[rotting bones]

I'm not agnostic about God for the same reason I'm not agnostic about solipsism.

oh thats a whole 'nother kettle of prawns.

Not when there is nothing for the program to run on, no I don't understand it.

the...universe?

(and before you ask "well whats the universe running on?", bear in mind that, according to the models I'm familiar with, the universe is not and has not grown on or from anything that was not part of the universe - so the question needs no answer beyond "itself")

The idea that the universe is a cellular automata program running on a computer is unfalsifiable, which is why I personally do not believe in it even though I think it is probably the most plausible way to have a God, just like humans create computers and software which runs on them which run cellular automata.

It's incomprehensible to me because a cellular automaton is an idea in need of an implementation, whereas the universe is not an idea.

[Travis B.]

The idea that the universe is a cellular automata program running on a computer is unfalsifiable, which is why I personally do not believe in it even though I think it is probably the most plausible way to have a God, just like humans create computers and software which runs on them which run cellular automata.

It's incomprehensible to me because a cellular automaton is an idea in need of an implementation, whereas the universe is not an idea.

How so? One in our universe could create a universe simulator running on a computer, simulating a universe just like ours except necessarily on a far smaller scale.

[rotting bones]

The idea that the universe is a cellular automata program running on a computer is unfalsifiable, which is why I personally do not believe in it even though I think it is probably the most plausible way to have a God, just like humans create computers and software which runs on them which run cellular automata.

It's incomprehensible to me because a cellular automaton is an idea in need of an implementation, whereas the universe is not an idea.

How so? One in our universe could create a universe simulator running on a computer, simulating a universe just like ours except necessarily on a far smaller scale.

1. The "God" theory is not intended to explain how this particular world was created. Rather, any possible world.
2. The design of the universe simulator is different from the machine that runs it.

For "God" to be a simplifying explanation, it must explain the creation of the machine that is capable of running the universe simulator. But the creation of this machine cannot be represented as any elementary process I understand.

Let's say you come up with cellular automata. These cellular automata don't do anything until you code it on some hardware. But the creation of this hardware is a complex process, not an elementary one.

The creation of the cellular automata might be a simple process if you assume that minds are simple (questionable), but the creation of the machine that executes the cellular automata remains complex under this assumption.

Possible solution: You could say that the machine executing the cellular automata is God's imagination (once again assuming that minds are simple rather than that humans evolved to imagine minds easily), but that would put the whole universe in the mind of God, turning it into an idea. This is Berkeley's idealism, Advaita Vedanta and possibly Yogacara Buddhism.