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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)?
I think it's just an age thing. Atheism forces you to remain ignorant of substantial parts of human experience. It would be difficult to hold that level of ignorance for a very long time, especially with the internet. I think it's just hard to enforce that level of blindness in the age of the internet.
There do seem to be a few people in my life that never grew out of their atheism phase, but they seem generally uncurious.
Maybe I'm just way off? My suspicion is that there are very, very few atheist rationalists. I don't think that the curiosity involved in rationalism would be able to also support being an atheist. The cognitive dissonance would be too strong.
To expand on this: a religious person asks the question "what if there is no god" and spends a life exploring it. An atheist asks that question when they're a teenager (usually), figures that they know the answer, and then refuses to explore further.
Is...is this a troll? It pattern matches way too well to what an atheist might say about Christians if you replaced the term in your post. Like, down to the actual words and sentences.
No this is definitely not a troll. I actually sortof hate the (blatantly inverted) myth that religious people can't be scientists, but I think it illustrates my point really well, so here goes:
You can have a devout Catholic particle physicist, astronomer, biologist, etc. These things are completely compatible with each other. Consider the breadth of experience that a devout Catholic astronomer has. They are able to tap into both the beauty of the universe, as well as integrate this into a broader (in my opinion richer) understanding about how humans and our morality fit into that universe. They get the "stars are cool" side of things, but they also get the divine "this is bigger than me" philosophical side of things.
To a devout Atheist, only part of this is available. You certainly get the "stars are cool" part, but you have to remain intentionally ignorant of the rest of the human experience.
Another example could be: I am a musician, and because of my understanding of music, I hear a drastically different thing when listening to it than somebody who isn't. Things which are "clever" in music just aren't apparent to a person who doesn't understand what is happening. Because I am willing to explore the idea that music is more than just patterned noise, my experience is richer. It's why the listening experience is richer for a musician than it is for a non-musician.
The same is true for cooking, painting, sculpting, etc. If you're a chef, you get to tap into a better understanding of what another chef is making for you and why it is interesting.
An atheist sees thousands of years of human history, art, and philosophy and (to stay in my metaphor) they just see the patterned noise that a non-musician hears when listening to music. It's pretty colors on a canvas, but that's kindof it.
A Catholic visiting Saint Peters Basilica sees something more than an atheist.
But the Catholic misses out on nothing.
The Atheist retort to this is, of course: but what if its all fake? Okay that's a fine question, but that starts driving into a question that I think causes the snake to sort of eat its own tail: what's real? Is the love I feel for my wife and children "real"? etc. etc. (this is a well trodden discussion that I don't think I need to remap)
Actually, the Catholic misses out on an awful lot. An accomplished buddhist monk who visited the Basilica would doubtless experience something more than a purely materialist perspective - and all of those doors would be closed to the papist. A practicing Christian hermeticist would see entire extra layers of meaning and teaching contained within the art as well, to say nothing of an orthodox Christian.
Your argument only really works if Catholicism is the One True Faith, but when you take into account the diversity of religious experiences and perspectives that can be found in the world it falls apart. From my personal perspective, your faith keeps you intentionally ignorant of vast swathes of human experience in much the same way that you claim atheism does.
Maybe the Buddhist seems more (although I don’t think so), but the Buddhist, the Muslim, the Jew, and the Catholic certainly see more than the atheist.
I recently spent some time in Abu Dhabi, and visited The White Mosque there. Because of my willingness to explore or accept the validity of the divine, I see more there than an Atheist would.
I am Catholic, and won’t lie about my biases. To the general point about the necessary ignorance of Atheists, however, the specific religion is irrelevant. Somebody elsewhere made a comparison to a nationalist visiting a national monument and feeling differently than a globalist. I think that approaches the same point I’m making
Actually, it is relevant. In this case you made the claim that the Catholic misses out on nothing, but that's absolutely not true. The Catholic misses out on multiple different interpretations of the same root phenomena - he has no appreciation for the ways that the eternal Dao reveals and unfolds itself in the construction of the Basilica, no understanding of how it serves as an expression of Krishna's glory, nor does he understand how it is a reflection of the sublime beauty of Melek Taûs. You haven't made an argument against atheism, you've made an argument against all religions. My own spirituality views Catholicism as a partial revelation, a single perspective that, while valuable, does not contain the entirety of the truth. To me, your own understanding of the beauty of the basilica is just as flawed and limited as that of the atheist in your original argument, and I simply do not accept Baruch Spinoza (whose work was actually banned by the Catholic church for 'atheism' among other things) necessarily had a lesser capacity for the appreciation of beauty than Fred Phelps. Again, your argument is only valid if the other person already accepts that Catholicism is true - it might be convincing to people who are already papists, but that's not going to actually convert or win anyone over. As a weapon of persuasion, it isn't going to reach anybody who you haven't already won over, because it relies on them accepting your premises already.
No you do not undertake my point, or are willfully misinterpreting it.
Yes he does. Yes I do, and that is my point.
No, he actually doesn't, and I do not believe you do either - how can you claim to be a Catholic while simultaneously appreciating the Dao? Daoism makes a series of claims about the universe that are fundamentally incompatible with Catholicism... which means that if you can appreciate the divinity of the Dao without being a Daoist, then nothing stops an atheist from doing the same to your Catholic understanding of the divine. There are real and serious differences between Buddhism, Catholicism, Daoism, Hinduism and Yezidism - they paint very different pictures of the nature of the underlying reality. The Buddhist draws different lessons from the Basilica than the Daoist who draws different lessons again from the Catholic, and while they are all religions, "the divine" means incredibly different things within each of them, and if you want to put them all into a generic category then you cannot actually keep atheism or pantheism from joining that category as well (see Spinoza once again).
If I've continued to misunderstand your point, please explain it to me in simpler terms.
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