Re: From Atheism to Islam

[Brent Meeker]

On 2/1/2017 3:10 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:

I agree with the video. You might also like this:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/a6/a9/9f/a6a99fb6a3ad81cefc08ba8a67dab9e0.jpg

The narrator says: "putting god ahead of humanity is a terrible
thing". I agree, but what I meant from the beginning is even more
general. I would say:

"putting absolute belief ahead of humanity is a terrible thing"


But that is exactly what theism demands - God is the ultimate arbiter of 
all morality and is to be worshipped and obeyed.




This includes organised religion but also stalinism, the Chinese
cultural revolution and other horrors. These were also done in the
name of absolute belief. I don't think that it matters if absolute
belief comes with the label "god" or something else.


But they didn't claim revelation from a supernatural being and they 
didn't demand faith as the basis of morality.  They made arguments for 
their position, which implies that they recognized the importance of 
facts and reason - even though they lied about what they were.  It is 
only theism which says, "It's a mystery.  You must accept God on faith."




Science and atheism are different things. The first is a method of
inquiry, the second is a belief system (which is not coherent, because
the thing that it opposes is also not coherent).


Sure they are different.  But, no, atheism is not a belief system. It's 
no more a belief system than failing to believe there are fairies in the 
garden is a belief system.  Atheism is failure to believe in a certain 
class gods: Supernatural eternal beings who created the universe and who 
judge human behavior.  I partly agree with Sam Harris when he say 
"atheism" is an unnecessary word; we don't have a word, "a-fairiest", 
for those who don't believe in fairies, or "a-yetist" for those who 
don't believe in yetis.  But only partly, because theism is (a) common 
and (b) demands faith (absolute belief independent of evidence); which 
is different from belief in fairies and yetis.  Even the advocates of 
fairies and yetis don't say you should believe in them by faith.


You are accepting the theists framing of atheism as an absolute belief 
that there is no god of theism.  But that's wrong.  Atheism is just 
saying that based on the evidence theism is no more likely true than 
fairies in the garden or yetis in the Himalaya's.  When Dawkins, who is 
often castigated as a radical atheist, was asked, on a scale of 1 to 7 
how certain was he that there is no God, he said "6".  And since you 
like to credence original usage of words over current usage you should 
know that agnosticism was originally just considered a form of atheism - 
since it implies not believing in God.  And even deists, like Thomas 
Jefferson and Tom Paine, were considered atheists because they didn't 
believe in the god of theism.


Brent
"Atheism is a belief system the way "Off" is a TV channel."
--- George Carlin

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Re: From Atheism to Islam

[Bruno Marchal]

On 01 Feb 2017, at 12:10, Telmo Menezes wrote:


I agree with the video. You might also like this:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/a6/a9/9f/a6a99fb6a3ad81cefc08ba8a67dab9e0.jpg

The narrator says: "putting god ahead of humanity is a terrible
thing". I agree, but what I meant from the beginning is even more
general. I would say:

"putting absolute belief ahead of humanity is a terrible thing"


Yes, that's the point. The problem is the use of authoritative  
argument. When done in biology in the ex-USSR, it led to the most  
starving problem due to human decisions.


Then the fact that we tolerate (and been forced to tolerate) the use  
of authoritative argument (argument per authority) in religion and  
theology is part of our history. It means that we have not yet  
compeletely succeeded in closing the Middle-Age period. The most  
important science remains in the hand of the institutionalized  
charlatans. To be fair, some charlatan in some religion are aware of  
that problem, and some churches do evolve.


Institutionalized religion have install solid tools to prevent the  
research in theology. Pagan, non confessional religious people and  
theological researcher have been banned or killed systematically. The  
gnostic atheists continue that work very well, making an important  
catholic bishop saying that atheism is the most faithful ally of the  
Church.






This includes organised religion but also stalinism,


In science, we often redefined the terms, and here I would say that it  
is a useful pedagogical idea, so as to circumscribe well the problem.  
Stalinism was based on the materialist faith in the second god of  
Aristotle: primary matter. Communisme in the East of Europa was a  
religious tyranny, and most people daring to try to conserve their  
religion were killed.




the Chinese
cultural revolution and other horrors. These were also done in the
name of absolute belief. I don't think that it matters if absolute
belief comes with the label "god" or something else.


I use God in the sense of the thing we believe should explain  
everuthing, and that we feel or assume to exist despite we can't have  
any rational justification. Then we can show that all ideally correct  
machine looking inward develop such a belief (even if lacking any  
senses or perceptions). All machine looking inward develop the  
intution that truth about them is larger than what they can eventually  
justify. There is a surrational corona extending the rational, with  
respect to all machine. The most famous proposition/sentence belonging  
to that corona is Gödel's self-consistency statement. A machine can  
bet correctly that she is consistent, but will become inconsistent if  
she adds this as axiom. G* did warn us: <>t -> ~[]<>t.







Science and atheism are different things. The first is a method of
inquiry, the second is a belief system (which is not coherent, because
the thing that it opposes is also not coherent).



I agree, with some proviso, since now many atheists consider that  
agnosticism is part of atheism, and which forces me to distinguish  
between gnostic and agnostic atheism. But some "propagandist" plays on  
that confusion. many people confuse indeed the absence of belief in  
God(s) with the belief that there is no God(s).


If g means God exists, in the large sense of "creative principle" or  
even "explanatory principle", or "reality", I take the believers to  
say "[]g", the gnostic atheists to say []~g, the agnostics to say ~[]g  
& ~[]~g.


Then in the computationalist theories, the faith can be restricted at  
the meta level to Church-thesis and to the medical practice personal  
bet, and at the scientific level it can be restricted to some part of  
the first order arithmetical truth/reality.


But people must be aware that even a question like the will or  
awareness of the arithmetical reality (the "small" God of the ideally  
correct machine) is very difficult, both to enunciate, and to solve  
(it extends in the analytical reality). I suspect the presence  
(assuming computationalism) of absolutely undecidable proposition,  
like plausibly computationalism itself)


I can explain more on this if people are interested, but there are  
also excellent books, like Rogers.


Are there people who have still a problem with understanding what is  
an arithmetical sentence and proposition?


To put it bluntly, mathematical logic *is* the theology of the correct  
machine, and even of the correct small gods (but there are big gods  
with too much arithmetical knowledge which have richer theologies!).  
Here by god(s) I mean simply a non computable set of (Gödel number of)  
belief/sentences.



Bruno

Only bad faith fears reason,
Only bad reason fears faith.




Telmo.

On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 11:14 PM, smitra  wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN9sw7kbMGE

Saibal

On 30-01-2017 04:44, Samiya Illias wrote:


These videos might be of interest to some 

Re: From Atheism to Islam

[Telmo Menezes]

I agree with the video. You might also like this:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/a6/a9/9f/a6a99fb6a3ad81cefc08ba8a67dab9e0.jpg

The narrator says: "putting god ahead of humanity is a terrible
thing". I agree, but what I meant from the beginning is even more
general. I would say:

"putting absolute belief ahead of humanity is a terrible thing"

This includes organised religion but also stalinism, the Chinese
cultural revolution and other horrors. These were also done in the
name of absolute belief. I don't think that it matters if absolute
belief comes with the label "god" or something else.

Science and atheism are different things. The first is a method of
inquiry, the second is a belief system (which is not coherent, because
the thing that it opposes is also not coherent).

Telmo.

On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 11:14 PM, smitra  wrote:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN9sw7kbMGE
>
> Saibal
>
> On 30-01-2017 04:44, Samiya Illias wrote:
>>
>> These videos might be of interest to some (the first one is by a Math
>> professor):
>>
>>
>> https://www.quora.com/What-reasons-have-made-an-atheist-convert-to-Islam/answer/Shau-Sumar?srid=s5B1=215c99a7
>> [1]
>>
>> Samiya
>>
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>>
>> Links:
>> --
>> [1]
>>
>> https://www.quora.com/What-reasons-have-made-an-atheist-convert-to-Islam/answer/Shau-Sumar?srid=s5B1share=215c99a7
>> [2] https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list
>> [3] https://groups.google.com/d/optout
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Re: From Atheism to Islam

[Telmo Menezes]

On Wed, Feb 1, 2017 at 3:50 AM, Brent Meeker  wrote:
>
>
> On 1/31/2017 9:32 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
>>>
>>> Are you really agnostic about the god of theism?
>>
>> Quoting from wikipedia:
>>
>> "The term theism derives from the Greek theos meaning "god". The term
>> theism was first used by Ralph Cudworth (1617–1688).[5] In Cudworth's
>> definition, they are "strictly and properly called Theists, who
>> affirm, that a perfectly conscious understanding being, or mind,
>> existing of itself from eternity, was the cause of all other
>> things".[6]
>> Atheism is commonly understood as rejection of theism in the broadest
>> sense of theism, i.e. the rejection of belief in a god or gods.[7] The
>> claim that the existence of any deity is unknown or unknowable is
>> agnosticism.[8][9]"
>
>
> So the existence of any deity, say Yaweh or Zeus or Baal, is unknown or
> unknowable?
>
>>
>> I would say that, under these definitions, the correct scientific
>> stance is to be agnostic.
>
>
> And exactly why would you take a definition from a 17th century theologian
> and Platonist as authoratative?

Because he invented the term...
As you know, in my opinion "god of theism" is an ill-defined entity.
In my view it could refer to a number of different things, some more
unbelievable, or at least inconsistent, than others. But I know you
don't agree with me on this, so I resort to the original definition.

>  Are you also agnostic about polytheism and
> pantheism and deism?  Does agnostic mean you think nothing can be known
> about these questions - or does it just mean you're not absolutely certain
> about the answer.

Means that I am not absolutely certain. Of course, I have a landscape
of likelihoods in my mind. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to make a
living performing intellectual work. Well, I wouldn't even be able to
go to the supermarket. I apply the scientific method. Maintaining
intellectual honesty requires me to admit that there is a non-zero
probability that I am crazy or highly delusional. Notice that Trump
does not seem to have that capability. See where it leads... That is
what I mean by intellectual humbleness.

Atheism as an ideology seems sterile to me. It doesn't solve any
problems. It does not add to scientific knowledge, nor those it
resolve the problems created by organised religion. Nor those it make
a sincere effort to understand why organised religion and bizarre
beliefs are still popular in the year 2017.

Telmo.

> Brent
>
>
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