Is ‘Freethinker’ Synonymous with Nontheist? Well, no. It isn ‘t. Atheists need to drop the sham; I am a freethinker by definition, and am positive that there have been numerous deists, theists, supernaturalists, pantheists and polytheists that have come to their conclusions on metaphysics as freethinkers. There were long expanses of time when pre-scientific answers were reasonable (case in point, animism at the ‘Dawn of Humanity’) or when the existence of a philosophical First Cause/Unmoved Mover God as ‘essence’ (think deism at the turn of the 18th century) just worked. Of course, being an atheist, I think those arguments have been undeniably refuted as science has continued to explain much of the mysteries of the universe. But still, if you embrace theism as a freethinker and can demonstrate how you came to your conclusion, I salute you. Isn’t that a good part of what this site is about? Discussions on matters of truth, critiques of argument, debates on important questions, tentative vindications of worldviews? Yet, I think the disparity of belief between scientists and the public (.pdf) says a great deal about free thought and science.

I realize now that my past few posts have been a bit off. Here’s one that begins at the limits and hopes to bring it back to a basic point.

I.

I hope it’s clear from what I initially wrote that in a tradition of poetry, the audience loses itself. One cannot pull back and see with a critical eye. What is required is a distance. Thus, this becomes a meta-conversation about distance and observation. We rely on eyesight, not listening. We don’t listen to the poet tell a story of a triangle and imagine; we discuss the triangle, an open conversation. We observe triangles, close our eyes, and think. This does not mean that listening or empathy is irrational while eyesight and discussion is rational, but this distance is one of critical thought and analysis. This is the Socratic method.

In modern physics textbooks, there usually is in the introduction a definition of ‘physics.’ It usually goes along the lines of, ‘Physics is…’ and then there is a list of things the class will cover, such as the study of light, sound, or movement. This means that physics is generally considered to be what physics do.

Continue reading The Outer Banks: A Follow-up

In the post Do Atheists Have Faith?, I agrue that they do not according to my defintion of faith. (Readers, please note that I do define faith as relational trust using Abraham in that post, and as such many of your comments may be missing my point.) I freely admit that my arguement is dependent on my particular defintion, and does not hold if you define faith differently. According to the comments on that post and drunkentune’s RESPONSE: Do Athiests Have Faith, it is clear that I use ‘faith’ differently than many of the readers here, so I will explain my sources of my definition in hopes of clarifying what I think ‘faith’ should refer to. While people are free to disagree, of course, I hope that this will be informative and will limit the criticism of my post at least to my working definition.

Continue reading My Definition of Faith

The late U.S. Senator Daniel P. Moynihan once said that if you began using terminology created by your political adversary, the battle was over. I care how words are used, and their implicit messages that shape the debate. Thus, I begin a short story: Some time ago, a young man spoke privately with a philosopher. He asked the philosopher the first action he would take if he became the king. The man scratched his beard for a minute in thought, then spoke clearly: Rectify the names.

The young man was startled, but regained composure to scoff: This is your first action? Absurd!

The philosopher answered, correcting the young man: When the names are faulty, speech is not reasonable; when speech is not reasonable, actions are not conducted properly; when actions are not conducted properly, society begins to falter; when society begins to falter, the punishment does not fit the crime; when the punishment does not fit the crime, the people are at a loss. ‘The thing about the gentleman is that he is anything but casual when speech is concerned.’ (Confucious, Analects, Book XIII)

Continue reading RESPONSE: Do Atheists Have Faith?

UPDATE: My view here is conditional on my definition of faith. Due to comments on this and other posts, I have added My Definition of Faith as a separate post to clarify the definition given here.

I would like to give my opinion on this idea which has appeared on this blog, primarily in back-and-forth comments on Me Arguing with No One in Particular, especially between Dave Armstrong (who recently departed this blog) and beepbeepitsme (the charming lady from Down Under) (numbers 42-44). Drunkentune already responded to this assertion and several others in his post Red Dust, which is worth your reading.

Some people, believers especially, would like to think or to be able to say that all humans have faith, but differ in what they have faith in or upon. This is applied especially to atheists, and in particular in those conversations when atheists assert that they do not need or wish to resort to living by faith, as believers do (sometimes, blindly some atheists might also add). I disagree with this idea that atheists have faith and here’s why:

Continue reading Do Atheists Have Faith?

Drunkentune and I (soulster) thought we’d like to send each other some questions via email and share the answers with the readers of this blog. Here are three questions by drunkentune concerning my understanding of Christianity:

Drunkentune: Dominionism [wiki] is in part control of all parts of being: the control of the mind within congregation, the control of the dominionist’s body and the bodies of those that violate the dominionist’s rules of conduct, be them homosexual or abortionist, and ultimately, control over the environment. Calvinism [wiki] is the requisition of control to a higher power and absolving all responsibility. I see that all classes of Christianity have different interpretations of scripture that seem to pull from different worldviews existing independently of the Bible or their belief. A Christian may find any message he chooses in the Bible to fit his worldview, or a verse may reinforce such a worldview that had only begun to grow. Is it possible to learn what Jesus meant, or is it that, since Jesus’ words have been used historically for any purpose, is it worth it to even attempt such an endeavor?

Continue reading Drunkentune’s Christianty Questions

Aaron Kinney from Kill the Afterlife is wondering about my thoughts on the origin of morality.  He wanted my take on the Euthyphro Dilemma [wiki].  I told him that I didn't know what that was, so he pointed me to the appropriate wikipedia article.

In short, Euthyphro is a dialogue authored by Plato where Socrates works with Euthyphro on the nature of the "pious".  Socrates enters into discussion with Euthyphro because he is the preeminent religious persona of the day, and Socrates has been accused of corrupting the youth by causing them to question the gods.  Since such a charge bears the penalty of either exile or death, the matter is pretty serious.

Here's a bit of the wiki to summarize the problem:

Socrates asks Euthyphro: “Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?” In monotheistic terms, this is usually transformed into: “Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it's commanded by God?”.

Continue reading The Euthyphro Dilemma

On the post Faith and the Bible, drunkentune asked one of our readers, ben, this question:

If you don't mind, I'd like to ask you two personal questions: 1. Why did you choose the particular form of theism you practice now over other forms of theism? 2. Why in the end did you choose faith? To me, that sounds like a false dichotomy. The choices seem to me to be instead of religion vs. atheism, it's more fitting to be all reigions vs. each other, vs. atheism.

To which ben answered:

Answering #2 first, I chose faith partly because atheism depressed the hell out of me and seemed unlikely, and as long as I was 50/50 on what the truth was, I might as well go with the one that seems real on an intuitive level. Not exactly up to the standards of science, but life moves fast and I needed to begin.

Continue reading Believers: Why do you believe?

One cannot play chess if one becomes aware of the pieces as living souls and of the fact that the Whites and the Blacks have more in common with each other than with the players. Suddenly one loses all interest in who will be champion.
(Anatol Rapoport)

The social psychologist and game theorist Anatol Rapoport said that to ‘win’ a debate, you must be able to first clearly define your opponent’s position.

1. You must re-express the points made, creating a brief overview of the ‘heart of the matter,’ if you will. The overview must be done fairly, and without use of fallacious arguments. You must do this so exquisitely that your opponent begins to nod his head in agreement.

2. Then, you should point to any points both you and your opponent agree with.

3. Then, you should express anything you have learned from your opponent.

4. Only then are you permitted to rebut, refute or criticize.

I think this should help for both the atheist and the believer.

Christianity is a reform ethic

Several atheists on this blog have pointed out that the origins of morality (and perhaps ethics) is evolutionary at its core [see Can Atheists be Good?].  In other words, people, being social organisms, cannot help but develop morality of some sort, even in such situations where religion may or may not be present.  I, as a Christian, would basically agree with this.  After all, Paul says, “Even when Gentiles, who do not have God’s written law, instinctively follow what the law says, they show that in their hearts they know right from wrong” [Romans 2:14].  Without special revelation – in this case divine law-making – people will develop a natural sense of right and wrong.  Paul views this as a simple fact drawn from observation. Continue reading Soulster’s Christian Ethic