An agnostic and an atheist critique "popular athiesm"

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lebowski

True, but that's not my point (Lebowski pauses here to wonder why he ever gets into discussions with attorneys who can easily kick his ass in any argument). My point is: it seems like one of the first things a rational person would concede is that there are countless things that are beyond one's direct experience. It just seem odd to me to conclude that "if I can't see it, it can't be." I still maintain that the agnostic viewpoint seems more defensible intellectually. To me, anyway.

I guess that's the point of my post. No intelligent atheist really is as you say. As James Wood notes in his article, even Richard Dawkins, about as hard core an avowed atheist you'll find anywhere, and a pissed off one at that, acknowldedged in a recent Time Magazine piece what you are saying:

"In a recent conversation in Time with the geneticist Francis Collins (who is a believing Christian), a conversation in which both men spoke eloquently, Dawkins was pushed by Collins to admit that, in Dawkins's words, 'there could be something incredibly grand and incomprehensible beyond our understanding.' That's God, said Collins. Yes, but it could be any of billions of Gods, replied Dawkins: 'the chance of its being a particular God, Yahweh, the God of Jesus, is vanishingly small.' In other words, the God of a particular scripture and tradition is a parochial and inherently improbable notion. But the idea of some kind of creator, said Dawkins, 'does seem to be a worthy idea. Refutable--but nevertheless grand and big enough to be worthy of respect.' To which one should add: by definition, then, this 'grand and big' idea is not analogically disproved by referring to celestial teapots or vacuum cleaners, which lack the necessary bigness and grandeur."

So we see that what Dawkins is really dismissing as extremely improbable and inherantly parochial is "the God of a particular scripture and tradition," which is my point. So atheists aren't as arrogant and as you presume. Really it's more admitted ignorance.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

I don't really see irony because saying all you know is what you can physically sense is the antithesis of faith.

And this is where I struggle with atheists.

How does really trust one's senses to be the perceiver of truth?

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by Archaea

And this is where I struggle with atheists.

How does really trust one's senses to be the perceiver of truth?

An atheist does not deny the possiblity of being deceived by senses. That only reinforces, I assume an atheist would argue, the importance of not going beyond the senses.

[BarbaraGordon]

Originally Posted by Archaea

And this is where I struggle with atheists.

How does really trust one's senses to be the perceiver of truth?

Wasn't it Socrates that believed that not only can we not trust our senses, they actually distract us from the pursuit of truth?

[MikeWaters]

Believers *do* use their senses. They use their spiritual sense.

I don't expect everyone to understand or believe that spiritual sense exists. I guess people born blind have to accept on faith (or not accept) that sight exists.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by BarbaraGordon

Wasn't it Socrates that believed that not only can we not trust our senses, they actually distract us from the pursuit of truth?

Plato. That is what the Epicurans found nuts about him. Yes, they acknowledged senses CAN deceive, but they're all we've got in any event, they claimed. Again, see Lucretius' On the Nature of the Universe.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by BarbaraGordon

Wasn't it Socrates that believed that not only can we not trust our senses, they actually distract us from the pursuit of truth?

Socrates said all I know is that I know nothing.

[BarbaraGordon]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

Plato. That is what the Epicurans found nuts about him. Yes, they acknowledged senses CAN deceive, but they're all we've got in any event, they claimed. Again, see Lucretius' On the Nature of the Universe.

It was a rhetorical question. It was Socrates, but of course later quoted by Plato, as well.

" 'the view of things by means of the eyes is full of deception, as also is that through the ears and the other senses; persuading an abandonment of these so far as it is not absolutely necessary to use them, and advising the soul to be collected and concentrated within itself, and to believe nothing else than herself, with respect to what she herself understands of things that have a real subsistence; and to consider nothing true which she views through the medium of others, and which differ under different aspects; for that a thing of this kind is sensible and visible, but that what she herself perceives is intelligible and invisible.' "

From the Phaedo of Socrates.

[All-American]

Here comes the greek:

The word "atheist" comes from the greek word "theos" (Θεός) and the prefix "ἀ" meaning "without." Agnostic attaches the same prefix to the word "gnosis" (γνώσις), which is greek for knowledge.

By definition, then: an atheist is one who believes there is no god. An agnostic is one who has no knowledge of a god.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by BarbaraGordon

It was a rhetorical question. It was Socrates, but of course later quoted by Plato, as well.

" 'the view of things by means of the eyes is full of deception, as also is that through the ears and the other senses; persuading an abandonment of these so far as it is not absolutely necessary to use them, and advising the soul to be collected and concentrated within itself, and to believe nothing else than herself, with respect to what she herself understands of things that have a real subsistence; and to consider nothing true which she views through the medium of others, and which differ under different aspects; for that a thing of this kind is sensible and visible, but that what she herself perceives is intelligible and invisible.' "

From the Phaedo of Socrates.

No. I think that was Plato's own view, which differed from Socrates'. I know we really only know what Socrates said via Plato. Still, Plato held his own views which rejected the senses. I think Socrates went the other way, even though Plato revered him. They were not the same person, even though Socrates lives only as dramatized by Plato.