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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35506 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 20, 2023

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I find it interesting that The Motte tends to treat atheism with kid gloves that are not reserved for other belief systems. For example, the idea that there is no difference in intelligence between different genetic groups of humans is widely called out here as being simply wrong. Which it almost certainly is, in my opinion. But consider the idea that methodological constraints actually are a metaphysical theory, or further implying that shoes are atheists. These ideas are, I think, even less likely to be true than the idea that there is no difference in intelligence between different genetic groups of humans (at least the latter can be empirically shown true or false; the former is just a category error). But atheism on The Motte is usually not met with accusations that it is as absurd, indeed perhaps more absurd, as any flavor of wokeism. Nor is the history acknowledged that New/Internet Atheists almost certainly led to a willingness to embrace relativism everywhere and ultimately wokeism by the masses of "laypeople". Wokeism gets often and in my opinion properly pilloried on here for being nonsensical on the level of correspondence to objective reality, but atheism typically gets a free pass. Even the philosophers on here mostly refuse to really call it out as being absurd when the topic comes up.

Does this happen because atheism is largely not viewed as a threat anymore (since its birth of wokeism is already in the past) and because since wokeism is this community's main out-group and atheism is vaguely internet-weirdo-aligned in the modern West, people here tend to follow the principle of "the enemy of an enemy is my friend"? Or, to be more charitable, maybe it is because wokeism can fairly easily be criticized on the level of normal scientific investigation, whereas the claims that atheism makes go so far beyond typical constraints of the scientific method that one actually does just quietly make an exception for it because its claims are fundamentally viewed as being orthogonal to scientific investigation (and people just fail to ever mention such)?

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But consider the idea that methodological constraints actually are a metaphysical theory, or further implying that shoes are atheists. These ideas are, I think, even less likely to be true than the idea that there is no difference in intelligence between different genetic groups of humans (at least the latter can be empirically shown true or false; the former is just a category error).

whereas the claims that atheism makes go so far beyond typical constraints of the scientific method that one actually does just quietly make an exception for it because its claims are fundamentally viewed as being orthogonal to scientific investigation (and people just fail to ever mention such)?

I think this is the crux of it. Though I admit I don't quite understand what you're saying here. What are the specific claims that you believe that atheism makes, and what do shoes have to do with it?

I think the first one is straightforward: they confuse methodological constraints for a metaphysical theory. That is, science has methodological constraints; it makes certain assumptions and speaks only to things within the constraints of those assumptions. But instead, folks want to claim that those are not constraints on the method; they're constraints on reality. Rather than building an actual metaphysical theory, they just declare that their constraints handwave the whole problem away.

What shoes got to do wit it.

they confuse methodological constraints for a metaphysical theory. That is, science has methodological constraints; it makes certain assumptions and speaks only to things within the constraints of those assumptions. But instead, folks want to claim that those are not constraints on the method; they're constraints on reality.

Sorry, this just seems to be restating the part I quoted before, just in more words. Could you please be specific about what specific methodological constraints and specific metaphysical theories and specific assumptions and specific constraints on method versus reality are being involved here?

What shoes got to do wit it.

Sorry, the post in that link was more muddled and confusing than enlightening. It seems to write about "shoe atheism" as if the reader already understands what that refers to, which is specifically the thing I don't understand. Who's saying or implying that shoes are atheists, and what does this have to do with the above statements about metaphysics versus methodology?

specific methodological constraints

For example, science takes as constraints certain assumptions on observability, repeatability, testability, etc. There are different ways of formulating these assumptions, but they are constraints on what types of things the method can speak to.

Metaphysics, uh, kind of is? The core error is that we can just do away with any metaphysical questions, we can just boldly declare that the only one true possible metaphysical theory, must just be exactly the things that are within the constraints of this one particular tool. Now, this proposition can and has been argued for/against, but it's messy. Of course, beliefs of Christians have been argued for/against, and they're messy, too. It's better to not worry about those details; we have ridiculing to do on the internet!

the post in that link

Read the specific comment I linked to. I know it's long, but it very completely describes the problem long before it even uses the word "shoe".

For example, science takes as constraints certain assumptions on observability, repeatability, testability, etc. There are different ways of formulating these assumptions, but they are constraints on what types of things the method can speak to.

Metaphysics, uh, kind of is? The core error is that we can just do away with any metaphysical questions, we can just boldly declare that the only one true possible metaphysical theory, must just be exactly the things that are within the constraints of this one particular tool.

Thank you, there's a lot more meat on this bone now. I think this "core error" - "that we can just do away with any metaphysical questions, we can just boldly declare that the only one true possible metaphysical theory" can't be ascribed to atheists (or theists) to a meaningful extent, though. I don't see atheists saying we can do away with such questions and that there's only one true possible metaphysical theory.

Read the specific comment I linked to. I know it's long, but it very completely describes the problem long before it even uses the word "shoe".

I did read that specific comment, and it was that specific comment to which I was referring. It's highly muddled and goes all over the place, and, again, it doesn't answer the actual question I had, which was about what this whole deal about "implying shoes are atheists" is all about. My best guess is that it has to do with some sort of claim that people are declaring that shoes are atheists, but this seems like a largely random statement that has little relation to what actual atheists say. I mean, I'd guess that somewhere someone ran into an atheist who said that, but that's not very interesting when we're talking about atheism or atheists in general.

From what I've gathered, I think the answer to your original question is that people here generally try not to engage with weakmen (try being the operative word), and the stuff you're describing are so much weakmen as to border on strawman territory.

I had the same problem as you until I read the question that the comment was responding to. It reads:

I've seen the idea of "shoe atheism" brought up a lot: the idea that "shoes are atheist because they don't believe in god". I understand why this analogy is generally unhelpful, but I don't see what's wrong with it. It appears to be vacuously true: rocks are atheists because they don't believe in god, they don't believe in god because they are incapable of belief, and they are incapable of belief because they are non-conscious actors.

I've seen the term ridiculed quite a bit, and while I've never personally used this analogy, is there anything actually wrong with it? Why does something need to have the capacity for belief in order to lack belief on subject X?

The comments generally argue that atheism isn't merely the lack of belief in God but the active disbelief in God. Atheist apologetics often likes to deny the fact that atheism is a distinct belief system like any other by insisting that it is a sort of default position. Hence, the term is defined negatively, not by belief but by lack thereof, and therefore, since inanimate objects are incapable of belief, inanimate objects are atheists. The commenter here argues that this argument is disingenuous since virtually everyone making it actively believes God doesn't exist, and isn't merely staking a default position based on ignorance.

As Torquemada would put it: Those heretics pretend to be pagans!

I mean, I'm not sure what I can say besides that I disagree? That I lived through the internet wars? That the OP attached to the comment I linked mentioned how shoe atheist was brought up "a lot", because it was a pretty massive thing that was seen all the time?

If anything, one could say that you don't see people say such things anymore, mostly because atheists don't get pressed on their beliefs anymore. They mostly don't have to explicitly say much of anything.

OK, so there's your answer to your question then: the people here likely didn't live through whatever internet wars you did and as such, their perception of atheists is different from yours. Specifically, when they read your stuff about "they confuse methodological constraints for a metaphysical theory," they perceive this as a strawman - a weakman at best - not worth engaging with, and as such they don't engage with it by, e.g. pushing back on it.

I mean, people still do that, tho. They just don't have to say it anymore. Do we use kid gloves on Christians because Christians aren't often in the forums saying that they believe in the resurrection? I mean, it's been at least as long since I've actually seen that.

More comments

I think the first one is straightforward: they confuse methodological constraints for a metaphysical theory. That is, science has methodological constraints; it makes certain assumptions and speaks only to things within the constraints of those assumptions. But instead, folks want to claim that those are not constraints on the method; they're constraints on reality.

Ok, this may be a bit easier to follow. Are you alluding to conflations of absence of (scientific) evidence with evidence of absence?

Not really. It's more that science is built with assumptions that make it only relevant for certain types of evidence, certain types of objects, certain types of physical theories, etc. Within those constraints, the tool is extremely useful. The problem is that many people casually mistake those constraints on a particular tool as being the same thing as a complete theory of everything.

Could you try explaining without going meta? You're talking about assumptions, evidence, and objects, but there's no actual object level example for idiots like me.

Ok, um, what do you think counts as "science"?

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