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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)?
Because the atheists are right. /thread.
It took me longer than I'd like to realize this wasn't a copy of @Goodguy's post, and I still can't tell how sincere it is. So I guess I'm left resorting to honest engagement.
I think the analogy falls apart when you pick examples. Atheist shoes aren't exactly the central claim. Sure, '00s atheism built up a bunch of weird cruft, universalized arguments, etc. But Goodguy wasn't attacking the cruft. He was clumsily mocking the big, central point of doctrine that Christians agree on. That allows dodging your version by saying "yeah, that whole shoes thing is weird, isn't it?" Or, in my case, "what? shoes?"
Likewise, you're off base with "acknowledging the history" of atheism -> progressive politics. I assume the social-justice framing is intentional, but it's also absent from last week's post. There's also a gap in the causal chain, since a lot of old-school atheists got really uncomfortable about "atheism+" or "New Atheism", and those are the steps that really defined the transition. I could also argue that this confuses correlation and causation if 2010s atheism was really just a corpse piloted by SJWs.
You might have missed the line about mistaking methodological constraints for a metaphysical theory. That's pretty darn close to the central claim of most atheists, especially the ones 'round the internets who would be most apt for not-kid-gloves treatment.
But that's kind of the whole point. They created the corpse! They knew what they were doing when they killed it. But like any social fad, they shrugged it off, thinking that nothing could possibly go wrong. Only after they saw the fruits of their labor did they start feeling uncomfortable about the whole thing. Let's put it this way, I've seen arguments that Christianity is to blame for wokeness, and some of those arguments are actually not all that bad. But if you look at, like, a random Protestant 'barely believer' church that is now headed toward wokeness, you probably wouldn't say that they caused the rise of wokeness. You certainly wouldn't use that in particular to claim that Christianity in general caused the rise of wokeness. But you might say something like, "Look at these churches who have basically abandoned any real faith, are honestly basically agnostic already, don't even really believe in any sort of real morality. Those choices have left a corpse of a church which was just too vulnerable to 'woke mind virus'." In a sense, those choices caused wokeness to rise up in those churches rather than in others. In the same sense, that's what a lot of the 2010s atheism did to large portions of the masses.
What does this mean?
Why would it matter? The truth value of a statement or belief stands independent of whatever it may engender.
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.
To be as flippant as the commenter two posts up in this thread, because the atheists are wrong. /thread
It's only bonus badness that their wrongness led to one of the very things the OP was complaining about.
It boils down to the fact that it is incoherent to assert that only what is empirically verifiable can count as knowledge. To demonstrate this, simply attempt to apply the proposition's criterion to itself.
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Aaaaand here we have one in the wild, folks. This is like maybe five comments away from someone saying this is a weak/straw man.
Listen man, see Entelecheia's comment. Then go back to rippin' your bong all you want.
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Are you sure the constraints on science are not actually constraints of reality? How could you tell from the inside? You say thats what they do, but you haven't made that argument.
Are you sure that in a world with magick, science could not quantify the heat of a fireball and trace where the energy came from? and in a world with djinn, science could not measure how many wishes they can give and when?
And are you sure that in a world with a God, science could not see Him? Perhaps Hubble would see His face in the sky or microscopes would indeed see angels dancing on the head of a pin?
Can we not prove God because He is unprovable or because He does not exist? What evidence (scientific or "other") would sway you?
Yes? If only what is scientifically demonstrable is knowable, then we have no way of knowing that science is a valid source of knowledge, because a scientific demonstration of the validity of scientific knowledge would be circular.
That means we can't be sure that they ARE actual constraints of reality. Not that we can be sure they are not. Those are not the same thing.
It means that if we have any knowledge of anything, then we can be sure those are not the actual constraints of reality. Either our item of knowledge K is not scientifically verifiable, in which case the point is proved, or it is scientifically verifiable, in which case in order to count as knowledge, the scientific method must be known to be reliable, which cannot happen by scientific verification.
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I'm sure that the irrational confidence in the converse is irrational.
Given how incredibly low-effort and standoffish nearly every one of your comments in this thread have been, why should any of us engage more charitably with you? Do you believe that you’re presenting the best possible face for your position right now, given that - as you correctly identified - your position is a minority one in this space? Or did you just want to use this whole thread to indulge your smug and petty side, since you seem to perceive that this is the way many people here treat your beliefs, and you want to have a “two can play at that game” kind of lark?
I mean, I'm mostly gathering comparative data, and I can now include the way you've responded here as part of that data set.
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But you haven't made any arguments it is irrational? You are assuming it is. Is it irrational to focus on the measurable and observable?
It MIGHT be but i think you have to make that argument.
There's a difference between "focusing on" and "mistaking it for a metaphysical theory".
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I'm still not clear what you mean when you say that people are claiming science's constraints are constraints on reality. Do you mean something the thermodynamic laws? The evidence supports them fairly strongly from what I can tell.
The assumptions science makes can be wrong, but they're often intended to bring us as close to reality as possible (though in some cases, simplifying reality makes for easier work).
I again don't follow. You argued in the OP that atheists are not criticized for leading people to a place where "wokism" was able to thrive. I am asking why you think it makes any difference in the first place. The religion arguments of the late 2000s and early 2010s were carried out on the atheism side by people who were not part of an organized movement. It was an informal group which was united by its rejection of religion, not by its affirmation of any particular creed or organization. There was no Church of Atheism because the people within were too disunited to ever go for it.
They simply handwave away the possibility of any form of being/existence that is not squarely within the purview of one specific tool: science. That tool has significant methodological constraints, like observability, repeatability, testability, etc. There are others, and they can be presented in a variety of ways.
I mean, I'm left asking, "Who cares," in return? Like, does the diversity of Christianity and the fact that there are a bunch of disparate groups somehow change things?
What exactly do you mean by "science"? Is it the bunch of institutions and traditions known as "science"? In this case there are obviously things beyond its purview and you won't find many (any?) people who'd deny it here. This could explain the lack of mockery you find so puzzling.
Or do you use "science" more generally to mean pursuit of understanding through the examination of experience and use of reason to build models with explanatory and predictive power? In this case, what would atheists need to do so you'd get off their back about handwaving the possibility? Do they need to write long soulful posts about how they can never know the eldritch truth beyond the limits of their experience? The problem is that seems super irrelevant and a waste of time. Why would you expect people who don't see any reason to believe in your religion to pay tribute to it?
Sure, maybe a guy who had an ecstatic vision of Jesus and the angels really got into contact with the incomprehensible Divine and he knows the good stuff, but what does this have to do with me? If I got directly blasted with the holy light, I'd likely join him as a fellow devout co-religionist. But I haven't, so best I can do is conclude that people can be very strongly affected by trippy hallucinations.
Your hypothetical God created a universe in which salvation is conditioned on faith in him, following some precepts, performing rituals, whatever. Then he put people in this world made it look really mechanistic and explainable by reason from the inside, creating strong incentives for using reason as a primary tool of understanding what's going on. He didn't elaborate and left. Very chad of him, but what am I supposed to do about any of this?
Maybe instead of trying to restart obsolete flamewars on Internet forums, you could use the direct line to God you seem to have access to, and humbly ask Him to be less cruel to those less fortunate than you, those who are trapped in this vast soulless machine? Tell him to grant us eyes and deliver us from our beastly idiocy.
Nah, basic engagement with metaphysics would probably be sufficient.
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That's how belief works, right? As far as I can tell, even the religious cannot actually prove that the gods of others don't exist, they take it on faith. Facts about the supernatural or morality seem unobservable, as far as I can tell. Though maybe I'm engaging in the same thing right now.
It sounds like your problem is with materialism, not atheism, because science is fairly broad and accepting of materialist explanations for anything. Existing paradigms can and will be changed as new materialism-based evidence comes in.
I don't see how the inversion does anything for you. In this scenario, people would be blaming Christianity at large for...something that only a portion of its variants did?
When atheists attacked religion, they were going after (for the most part) beliefs that are central to those faiths. It doesn't matter if you are a progressive American church or a conservative Ghana church, the belief in the existence of God is the same.
But you're not doing the same. You're not arguing against atheism's core belief (the idea that there is no god), you're arguing that they were wrong because they enabled a worldview you see as wrong. Or, if you want to say you want to see more criticism, then you should reframe your question to be about that, because then we could have a discussion about the role of New Atheism in facilitating the spread of social progressivism.
Christianity and atheism have truth values that stand independent of whatever they engendered. In a world where, for example, Islam was destroyed online by a diverse set of Christians, only to be replaced by something worse, I would argue that attacking Christianity's truth value would be wrong.
I think mistaking methodological constraints for a metaphysical theory is pretty darn near to the core belief for most atheists.
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