Proselytizing

[steve_bank]

OK If an all powerful deity created everything, then what is the big deal? Being all powerful it probably did not take much effort on his, hers, or its part now did it?.

 

[bigfield]

Like me, he is asking the atheist to explain - in rational terms - why an uncaused, deterministic natural event would cause a lump in your throat. Secular tears of joy.

You're asking atheist to rationalise their feelings. The likely answer is some variation of "I don't know".

Where does your argument go from there?

 

[fta]

Back to John Allen Chau - the latest media speculation is that he may have been trying to bring about the Second Coming/Armageddon because his missionary society believes this can't happen until everyone on the planet has heard the name of Jeezus.

 

[PyramidHead]

Lion IRC's "gratitude deficit" argument turned out to be a fizzer.

1. Accuse the atheist of illogically feeling gratitude.
2. ???
3. Atheist converts to Christianity.

I agree completely with Tigers. If none of it was intentionally designed/caused then I see no reason to be impressed by entirely natural phenomena that happen for no reason in a past-eternal, uncaused universe.

Clearly you don't understand how irreligious people feel about the world.

It's not a gratitude deficit argument. It's more about inexplicable gratitude.
See Tigers' post - no strawman has said atheists cannot express (apparent) gratitude.
Quite the opposite. Some do.

And it's those vestiges of seeming gratitude and existential awe shown by folks like Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking and Brian Cox which stands out like a sore thumb.

The biblical theist knows why atheists feel the secular, quasi-pantheist equivalent of grateful awe when they look into the microscope or telescope. They can't help it. They are made in God's likeness just the same as everyone. God particle, hallowed be thy name.

But the ideological tension consists in saying, on the one hand, gratitude is neither owed nor deserved because there's no God and teleology (design intent) is nothing more than some... Trompe L'oel. Yet, meanwhile on the other hand, cherry picking individual praise worthy aspects of the natural landscape and singling them out for special mention. You drive thru a barren desert for miles bored out of your brain by all that undesigned geology and evolutionary lifelessness. Then you stop and take selfies at the scenic road stop where there's a spectacular/awesome undesigned canyon or river or herd of bison.

I think your problem is you're thinking of all awe, all positive feelings of emotional insignificance, in terms of literal gratitude toward a specific person. It's a language thing; the fact that we use the word 'gratitude' to describe that lump in the throat tricks you into concluding that (since gratitude must be directed toward a party that provided the object of said gratitude) there is an implicit theism to be found. But it's really just a quirk of the word.

In reality, awe and wonder are entirely explicable in terms of a simpler thing: something is observed that enriches or enlivens one's view of what exists in the world, in a way that doesn't pose an immediate threat. There's no cognitive component when it happens, nobody is looking under a microscope and thinking "I'm so amazed at the tiny goings-on of the cellular world, invisible to the naked eye, if only I had a singular individual of infinite power to thank for it." He or she is just struck, in a purely emotive way, by a strangeness that is not usually noticed, and the ways it is both similar and different to what is familiar. That's a charming sensation that people enjoy experiencing.

By the way, you keep using examples of things that aren't just objects of awe and wonder, but confirmed products of natural forces. I mean... you know that we've figured out how sand dunes form, right? And it's not like the grand canyon is a mysterious phenomenon. People don't take selfies there because they are glorifying the process that created it, they do that because it's huge and bizarre compared to what they normally experience, and can be taken in at a safe distance, as an object of contemplation into things they don't usually think about (the scale of nature, the passage of eons, stuff like that). The desert they drove through to get there is more commonplace, aesthetically. It's not tall, it doesn't have pretty lines stratifying it, there's not a lot to chew on philosophically. Although, the desert at night takes on an alien quality sometimes that does the job, and in those instances people will react to it.

It's like... if you're right, and the proper response to anything not intentionally designed by an intelligent being is ho-hum, that leaves no room for generalized responses to novelty, stuff that makes us reconfigure our mental picture of the reality, which is something humans crave.

 

[skepticalbip]

Tigers said he would find it hard/impossible to explain what could be 'wondrous' about about nature if it wasn't caused by God.

Like me, he is asking the atheist to explain - in rational terms - why an uncaused, deterministic natural event would cause a lump in your throat. Secular tears of joy.

He didn't say atheists can't burst into song...The Hills Are Alive With The Sound of Music. He just wants atheists who do, to explain what the big deal is about few mountains in Switzerland.

The irony is there are millions of theists (who are scientists) and for whom scientific discovery reinforces their thanksgiving and worship of The Creator.

DNA is God's intellectual property. He deserves praise. But if you claim DNA is the unintended, accidental result of random/spontaneous evolution then why get excited?

That is actually fairly well understood. It is a matter of brain chemistry and neural connections.

The human brain is always busy categorizing and interpreting sensory input to make sense of the environment. New inputs are interpreted with respect to past experiences. When something novel is encountered, it can only be understood by fitting it into our previously created mental map of reality. Sometimes new information will not neatly fit into that map so a conflict is created. The brain is uncomfortable with mental conflict so struggles to redraw the mental map of reality to accommodate this new information. When a major redrawing of that mental map happens the conflict is resolved, a new and deeper understanding of reality is gained, and a powerful emotional surge is experienced. This is called an ‘AHA moment’ in science. Later sensory inputs that reinforce this new understanding will be less intense than the AHA moment but will still be awe inspiring. My first major AHA moment was in a calculus class.

Apparently theists experience the same awe when they sense something that reinforces their mental map of reality which is of a god that is responsible for anything that they can’t explain any other way. The scientist's AHA moment would be similar to what the theists' would call a revelation.

 

[Rhea]

Tigers said he would find it hard/impossible to explain what could be 'wondrous' about about nature if it wasn't caused by God.

Like me, he is asking the atheist to explain - in rational terms - why an uncaused, deterministic natural event would cause a lump in your throat. Secular tears of joy.

He didn't say atheists can't burst into song...The Hills Are Alive With The Sound of Music. He just wants atheists who do, to explain what the big deal is about few mountains in Switzerland.

The irony is there are millions of theists (who are scientists) and for whom scientific discovery reinforces their thanksgiving and worship of The Creator.

DNA is God's intellectual property. He deserves praise. But if you claim DNA is the unintended, accidental result of random/spontaneous evolution then why get excited?

I’m trying to decide, but I think you’ve just claimed that heroin use is just god doing something you should be grateful for?

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Like me, he is asking the atheist to explain - in rational terms - why an uncaused, deterministic natural event would cause a lump in your throat. Secular tears of joy.

You're asking atheist to rationalise their feelings. The likely answer is some variation of "I don't know".

Where does your argument go from there?

It doesn't go anywhere because the argument is ridiculously stupid. Emotions are not based on rationality. Human beings cannot be 100% rational.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

"Everything is arbitrary to an atheist, therefore they must commit suicide" wait, I thought everything was arbitrary?

Pick one.

 

[Lion IRC]

Like me, he is asking the atheist to explain - in rational terms - why an uncaused, deterministic natural event would cause a lump in your throat. Secular tears of joy.

You're asking atheist to rationalise their feelings. The likely answer is some variation of "I don't know".

Where does your argument go from there?

Nowhere.
That, as Greg Koukl would say, is the little stone in the shoe. It's enough.
The defense rests.

 

[bigfield]

Like me, he is asking the atheist to explain - in rational terms - why an uncaused, deterministic natural event would cause a lump in your throat. Secular tears of joy.

You're asking atheist to rationalise their feelings. The likely answer is some variation of "I don't know".

Where does your argument go from there?

Nowhere.
That, as Greg Koukl would say, is the little stone in the shoe. It's enough.
The defense rests.

All tip and no iceberg.

 

[couch_sloth]

Like me, he is asking the atheist to explain - in rational terms - why an uncaused, deterministic natural event would cause a lump in your throat. Secular tears of joy.

You're asking atheist to rationalise their feelings. The likely answer is some variation of "I don't know".

Where does your argument go from there?

It doesn't go anywhere because the argument is ridiculously stupid. Emotions are not based on rationality. Human beings cannot be 100% rational.

Yes, we are more emotional than rational creatures. Emotions are important to atheists too. It’s a big chunk of what makes life worth living.
I’m not sure I understand the point Lion is trying to make

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

It doesn't go anywhere because the argument is ridiculously stupid. Emotions are not based on rationality. Human beings cannot be 100% rational.

Yes, we are more emotional than rational creatures. Emotions are important to atheists too. It’s a big chunk of what makes life worth living.
I’m not sure I understand the point Lion is trying to make

Lion is simply towing the party line. He obviously accepts that people experience joy, wonder, happiness regardless of religious affiliation. He just won't admit it.

 

[steve_bank]

Someone reminding on Bush said he once asked him if he experienced the presence of god. Bush replied when I hear the Navy anthem.

Subjective interpretations of an emotional experience.

 

[Politesse]

Someone reminding on Bush said he once asked him if he experienced the presence of god. Bush replied when I hear the Navy anthem.

It is rather hymn-like.

Someone call St. Robert Bellah back from the grave, stat... this demands analysis!

 

[abaddon]

It doesn't go anywhere because the argument is ridiculously stupid. Emotions are not based on rationality. Human beings cannot be 100% rational.

Yes, we are more emotional than rational creatures. Emotions are important to atheists too. It’s a big chunk of what makes life worth living.
I’m not sure I understand the point Lion is trying to make

His apologism strategy is to "critique atheism rather than defend religion". So, while reasoning people will expect it lead to God... it's Lion, he just wants to get across that atheists suck.

Lion thinks awe and joy come from gratitude. With no gratitude to God for causing the universe, an atheist cannot rightly wonder at an absurd/godless universe. So the atheist is mistaken in feeling whatever little "grateful awe" he might squeeze out. Therefore you should believe in God and thereby fill the universe with meaningfulness atheists suck.


"Emotions are important to atheists too. It’s a big chunk of what makes life worth living."

Yes, a pretty big chunk. How a person experiences his one-and-only brief life is pretty important. Awe and wonder infuse life with a sense of meaning. So it's rational to embrace them, even seek them. It would be like vivisecting one's own being if anyone dismissed them as "too religious" or not "rational". But there's no good reason to define just exactly which object persons "should" feel these emotions towards. Especially if it's an utterly undetectable object like God.

 

[Lion IRC]

It doesn't go anywhere because the argument is ridiculously stupid. Emotions are not based on rationality. Human beings cannot be 100% rational.

Yes, we are more emotional than rational creatures. Emotions are important to atheists too. It’s a big chunk of what makes life worth living.
I’m not sure I understand the point Lion is trying to make

Lion is simply towing the party line. He obviously accepts that people experience joy, wonder, happiness regardless of religious affiliation. He just won't admit it.

Admit it? Wut?
You haven't been paying attention.

I've been saying all along that quasi-spiritual quasi-religious awe displayed by atheists is perfectly understandable - to me - because we are spiritual beings made in God's likeness.
But it is inexplicable why atheists exhibit these vestigial expressions of 'Saganism' (religiosity) when/if they themselves disavow any teleology.

 

[bilby]

“I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this.” - Emo Phillips

"Woah!" - Keanu Reeves

People love to think of themselves as rational, reasonable, thinking beings. But the central nervous system is only one part of our processing equipment, and it exists only in a sea of hormones.

The endocrine system is arguably as powerful as the brain; And it's a massive shitstorm of weird and complex feedback loops, that interchanges information in the form of 'feelings' with the brain. No person's brain is in complete control - but the 'other party' in your existence isn't a god; It's a collection of glands distributed around your body.

The endocrine system is exactly the kind of thing we should expect of an evolved system - it's a complicated mess that survives because it usually works well enough to do so. That many people mistake it for an external and mysterious force is hardly a surprise. Most people never study even the rudiments of endocrinology - it's a difficult subject, and it flies in the face of our desire to imagine ourselves as reasonable and rational actors.

If we disregard the endocrine system, and try to comprehend our responses to the world without reference to this powerful and important aspect of our physiology, then it's unsurprising that our results would include some mysterious entity that we cannot explain.

Oh mighty glands, without whom we are naught, forgive us our ignorant disregard of your glory...

 

[hurtinbuckaroo]

But it is inexplicable why atheists exhibit these vestigial expressions of 'Saganism' (religiosity) when/if they themselves disavow any teleology.

It's not inexplicable at all. You just don't like the explanation.

 

[abaddon]

I've been saying all along that quasi-spiritual quasi-religious awe displayed by atheists is perfectly understandable - to me - because we are spiritual beings made in God's likeness.
But it is inexplicable why atheists exhibit these vestigial expressions of 'Saganism' (religiosity) when/if they themselves disavow any teleology.

There's nothing religious or quasi-religious about awe, wonder, joy or gratitude. Everyone naturally experiences them.

If the object you direct your gratitude towards is religious, like God, then that alone is religious. God's the religious element here. The emotion is not.

The only reason anyone ever came to think awe, wonder, joy, ecstasy, gratitude or similar are religious or spiritual, is tradition. Traditionally, when society was more completely religious, the main place people experienced awe or wonder or expressed a cosmic (or "existential") gratitude was at religious services. Back then, the most grand thing people could think of was God.

So it's rather a "guilt by association" situation. If people went to church to pick their noses and always exclaimed "Praise God!" while picking their noses, then nose-picking would be called religious for the same reason. From being associated with religion for a long time, it would have come to be thought of as religious itself.

The fallacy in your thought is to see similarities and then misidentify what the similarity is. Religious people feel awe sometimes. Irreligious people feel awe sometimes. Similar! So the atheists are doing something religious! No, the common denominator here is that religious people and irreligious people are both people who feel awe sometimes.

Is that too fine a point for you to be able to understand?

 

[abaddon]

Here's an interesting article about awe. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-mind-bending-science-of-awe

It touches on how some people seek agency to explain something bigger than their comprehension. That'd relate to your idea that an emotion like this has something to do with teleology. "Random" seems too threatening, so people need to put this big scary thing "universe" into order. Everyone does. But they do it in different ways. As the article says: "You gravitate towards whatever explanatory framework you prefer".

A couple years back, he and a colleague looked at how people deal with the uncertainty inherent in awe. They found that awe seems to nudge people towards “agentic explanation”—they’re less likely to accept that something happened randomly.

Instead, they attribute it to an agent, like a god, a supernatural force, or a person. “There’s something about awe that seems intimately related to that,” says Valdesolo. In their experiments, people in a state of awe were more likely to report belief in supernatural forces, and to believe that a random series of numbers was created by a human. His recent work indicates that awe also makes people more likely to report that science explains all natural events.

“It generally increases this desire to explain what’s in front of you,” says Valdesolo. “You gravitate towards whatever explanatory framework you prefer.”