the "disbelief is a belief" question again

[sophiaserpentia]

Does it take faith to disbelieve that breaking a mirror is bad luck? What about not believing that a black cat crossing your path is bad luck?

If not, how is this different from the same question applied to God?

If yes, what distinguishes a "valid" superstition like the ones listed above from "invalid" ones like the Flying Spaghetti Monster? What about supersititions from other cultures, like the belief that taking a picture steals your soul?

Is the difference that people in this culture were exposed since early childhood to believe in the superstitions listed above?

Comments

[neitherday.livejournal.com]

There is a difference between disbelief in specific things more (i.e. Jehovah, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or Ra) and belief that there is nothing more. The former is disbelief, but the later is belief.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Only if someone has ever had an unexplained experience in their life.

[neitherday.livejournal.com]

Life is an unexplained experience.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Life is its own explanation.

[neitherday.livejournal.com]

How so?

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Well, you've proposed the classic cosmological argument for the existence of God. I've seen it suggested in response that the "necessary condition for cosmic existence" is the cosmos itself. IOW, why is it any more absurd to propose that existence is its own necessary condition, than to propose that someone or something "must" have created it?

[neitherday.livejournal.com]

A) There is a difference between existence and life. My question still stands: how is life its own explanation?

B) I am not arguing the existence of God here. Life having no provable or definitive explanation does not necessarily mean that there was any consciousness involved in its creation. However to believe that advent of life (or the universe or everything for that matter) is due to the laws of physics and nature is just as much a belief as believing that a consciousness (or consciousnesses) was involved.

Science has done a pretty good job explaining the evolution of life, but still offers no explanation about its origin. In fact, within the sciences their is an embarrassment of riches in regards to the number theories about the origin of life.

C) Many of your arguments seem to be tangled in the perception of Atheism as a disbelief in the Judeo-Christian concept of God. Atheism is much more than that.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

My question still stands: how is life its own explanation?

What is an explanation, beyond something that leads us to greater clarity in the face of a mystery? If humans did not have curiosity, we could not perceive the "big picture" as something which needs of an explanation beyond that offered by the senses.


However to believe that advent of life (or the universe or everything for that matter) is due to the laws of physics and nature is just as much a belief as believing that a consciousness (or consciousnesses) was involved.

Sure. But the question is whether disbelief in any hypothesis is itself a belief.


Many of your arguments seem to be tangled in the perception of Atheism as a disbelief in the Judeo-Christian concept of God. Atheism is much more than that.

There are not inexhausibly many possible supernatural beings. In fact, there is a remarkably small set of "possible supernatural beings" in which humans are inclined to place any sort of credence. That is why i feel comfortable taking all possible supernatural beings as previously posited. There are no new supernatural beings that can be proposed which are not variations on something people conceived of many generations ago.

[neitherday.livejournal.com]

What is an explanation, beyond something that leads us to greater clarity in the face of a mystery? If humans did not have curiosity, we could not perceive the "big picture" as something which needs of an explanation beyond that offered by the senses.

That still does not explain how life is its own explanation, it just goes to why we might seek an explanations.

There are no new supernatural beings that can be proposed which are not variations on something people conceived of many generations ago.

That is very much a belief! And it is a belief that I very much disbelieve. It reminds me of a senator in the early nineteenth century seeking to abolish the patent office because everything that could be invented had been invented.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

That still does not explain how life is its own explanation, it just goes to why we might seek an explanations.

Yes, i apologize i misunderstood what you were saying before now; i was misreading "life" as "what it is like to be alive."

This goes back to my original point. The idea that life has a supernatural origin comes from human culture. Suppose there's a culture where this idea never arose. Would it be an act of belief from someone of that culture if they did not believe the assertion, once it is made to them, that life has a supernatural origin?


That is very much a belief! And it is a belief that I very much disbelieve. It reminds me of a senator in the early nineteenth century seeking to abolish the patent office because everything that could be invented had been invented.

I do not think this analogy holds, because there's evidence that people are inclined to believe in gods, ancestor spirits, ghosts, vampires, witches, and so on, because of the way our brains work. Any supernatural being which is not a variation on those already conceived of by various human cultures will seem to us very much like the Flying Spaghetti Monster does -- as an arbitrary creation not deserving of creedence.

[daoistraver.livejournal.com]

I don't agree with that, but I do think that life may not have an "explanation" such as we have come to desire from phenomena.

In other words, shit happens. We might be stuck with that.

The nature of mathematics sort of proves that science can never answer every question, but that doesn't mean we should throw it out. Because anything that can answer every question is inherently self-contradictory.

We can call the force that makes shit happen something, but perhaps we can never know "what it is" in the sense that we know what a cheeseburger is.

[herbalgrrl.livejournal.com]

Even unexplained experience doesn't nec. lead one to the leap it takes to believe in some supernatural / divine causation.
& I'm frankly truly puzzled as to statements I've heard here & elsewhere about *belief that there is nothing more*.
I'm sincerely not trying to be snarky but ... nothing more than what?

AFAIK, my senses feed me as much information about the universe as I can ever encompass-- they may well be able to feed me information about everything in the universe. What *more than everything* is there? & how can *everything* not be enough to satisfy me?

I don't mean to offend, but what if the "longing for connection" that some people feelin in regards to their spiritual drives isn't much more than the unresolved emotional longings from childhood seperation anxiety?
Need for human love that went unfulfilled that gets interp. as "I feel a longing for something more, therefore there must be something more".

I admit quite openly here, my own bias as someone who deeply explored spirituality for years & eventually came to a place in myself of contentment such that the known & knowable universe has more than enough beauty & wonder to satisfy me, so I may just not be able to *grok* the place of spirituality in others lives...

[neitherday.livejournal.com]

I don't mean to offend, but what if the "longing for connection" that some people feelin in regards to their spiritual drives isn't much more than the unresolved emotional longings from childhood seperation anxiety?
Need for human love that went unfulfilled that gets interp. as "I feel a longing for something more, therefore there must be something more".

The difference is here: To say something may be the case (like you have here) is not necessarily a belief. To say it is the case, however, is a belief.

Again, I will say, I am not arguing about the validity of any specific belief, just about what qualifies as a belief.

[herbalgrrl.livejournal.com]

To say "there is no god" is to posit a belief (can't be proved one way or another, even if def. of "god" didn't range so much as to make it a hugely problematic concept to attempt to communicate to another).
I agree with that.
I still consider aethism more & even other than a disbelief in god. Aethism, to me, is a recognition that a belief in God can be detrimental, esp. when people organize such beliefs into dogma or formal religion.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

To say "there is no god" is to posit a belief

If you say, "taking your picture will NOT steal your soul!" are you positing a belief? Or simply indicating lack of belief in someone else's assertion?

[herbalgrrl.livejournal.com]

I do see your point, but in talking about anyrhing that can't be proved empiracally (like whether there are such things as souls) I think all we have are beliefs. It may be more sensible to disbelieve in things that can't be sensed, either directly or with our instruments. That's just Ocham's Razor.
But it's damn hard to prove a negative.
"There is no evidence for..." is an accurate statement of facts. "There is no..." is a statement of belief.

[herbalgrrl.livejournal.com]

An interesting question to me is: "Why do so many people feel compelled to believe in something they can't sense?"
That's a tree I'd bark up.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Yes, a very interesting question, that! It produces many meaningful answers, too, whether one believes in God or not.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

"There is no evidence for..." is an accurate statement of facts. "There is no..." is a statement of belief.

As long as there remains no evidence for X, it is inductively valid to say "there is no X."

It is a statement that many people dislike making, i'll grant you that. But then there are people who deny the validity of inductive reasoning altogether...

[herbalgrrl.livejournal.com]

Nods. Thank you very much for the link. I've learned something (love when that happens).

[neitherday.livejournal.com]

I will state that the "inflation field" does not exist, because the only evidence we have of it in the early universe is that something made the Universe expand very very rapidly at the very beginning. There is no evidence to support the idea that this is a mysterious inflation field exists and the expansion of the early universe was not instead evidences of God's rapid creation.

I will also state that the chemical reactions that are claimed to have sparked the first life do not exist either, since the only evidence we have that life began as chemical reactions is that something must have initiated life. It might as well have been God.

Both are just as inductive valid as saying there is no God.

If we travel around the inductive reasoning road, we will find that it is inductively valid to accuse chronic pain suffers of having no pain, because they can provide no evidence of their pain. Indeed this is very often the logic used to deny those suffers the medication they need.

[daoistraver.livejournal.com]

actually, your last point is valid existentially.

That is, if you experience pain, then there is pain.

If you experience God, then God exists. For you.

But that says nothing about her existence for others.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

A doctor who refuses to treat pain is being an asshole, certainly.

But, taking this back to my original point. If the inflation field and the chemical origin of life have not been hypothesized to your satisfaction, it is not a 'positive belief' on your part that these things did not happen. It is simply a lack of belief in someone else's assertion.

[azaz-al.livejournal.com]

"what if the "longing for connection" that some people feelin in regards to their spiritual drives isn't much more than the unresolved emotional longings from childhood seperation anxiety?
Need for human love that went unfulfilled that gets interp. as "I feel a longing for something more, therefore there must be something more"."

Wow. There's food for thought for me personally.

[herbalgrrl.livejournal.com]

It might serve to explain the prevalence of religion (most humans are raised in fairly dysfunctional families that might engender a wish for connection with the perfect parent- all powerful & all seeing means never having to fear Nobodaddy will abandon you or might be *wrong*. It also explains why so many projections about Nobodaddy paint him as an abusive monster-- it's the only model of parenthood that too many people have to work from.)