You make me feel as if plunged into a dream. What is this theism that you suppose covers all reality--theism and its contradiction a-theism? That's like saying the world consists of burgers, and a-burgers--everything else. That's so strange. But I see it's an inherited usage. How about empirical-rationalism vs theism? Or rationalism vs "doctrines-derived-from-Christian-orthodoxy"? That makes rationalism seem like the default, instead of theism.
I see logic in summoning into existence a god to account for everything one doesn't understand, but what that is will change over time. The Christian God reflects ignorance of two thousand years ago. Today I think we’re refer to consciousness as god. That makes Bernardo Kastrup seem up-to-date. But even what he invokes to account for mystery I find too far-fetched.
Making the problem of evil the focus loads discussion in favor of godism. As a rationalist I rank evil with ghosts, as something supernatural. I do see ideas as being real, sharing in some kind of reality, but doing so doesn’t discount other kinds of reality such as physical matter.
“Theism, by contrast, yields many predictions, as we can confidently infer what a perfect being would do.” An excellent counter-argument for itself. “I hope this exercise models how worldview assessment should be conducted.” I think it is way off base. “I also hope to have shown that atheism has little to recommend it.” But you’ve said nothing about a third option, dualism, or trialism, multiple forms of realities, only one of which is physicalism.
Do you really think the most plausible atheistic answer to abductive arguments for theism is to posit either necessities or brute contingencies? Aside from the question of, "Why does anything contingent exist at all?", which I think is a brute contingency by necessity (i.e., it's logically necessary that if anything contingent exists, the existence of all of contingent reality combined is a brute fact), it seems like a much better response to all of these arguments is, "We don't know yet, but given the problems with theism, there's probably a better non-theistic explanation." Some arguments already have non-theistic explanations available based on your best version of atheism. For instance, an atheistic worldview that already allows for teleological laws and non-natural moral facts could incorporate teleological laws that say that things tend toward goodness, and this could explain why consciousness exists (including fine-tuning), why the universe is intelligible, and psychophysical harmony.
Well said, sir. Thanks for this. 👍🏿
You make me feel as if plunged into a dream. What is this theism that you suppose covers all reality--theism and its contradiction a-theism? That's like saying the world consists of burgers, and a-burgers--everything else. That's so strange. But I see it's an inherited usage. How about empirical-rationalism vs theism? Or rationalism vs "doctrines-derived-from-Christian-orthodoxy"? That makes rationalism seem like the default, instead of theism.
I see logic in summoning into existence a god to account for everything one doesn't understand, but what that is will change over time. The Christian God reflects ignorance of two thousand years ago. Today I think we’re refer to consciousness as god. That makes Bernardo Kastrup seem up-to-date. But even what he invokes to account for mystery I find too far-fetched.
Making the problem of evil the focus loads discussion in favor of godism. As a rationalist I rank evil with ghosts, as something supernatural. I do see ideas as being real, sharing in some kind of reality, but doing so doesn’t discount other kinds of reality such as physical matter.
“Theism, by contrast, yields many predictions, as we can confidently infer what a perfect being would do.” An excellent counter-argument for itself. “I hope this exercise models how worldview assessment should be conducted.” I think it is way off base. “I also hope to have shown that atheism has little to recommend it.” But you’ve said nothing about a third option, dualism, or trialism, multiple forms of realities, only one of which is physicalism.
It's lonely out here, being a dualist.
Please find five related references on this topic
http://www.adidam.org/teaching/aletheon/dogma-atheism
http://www.adidam.org/teaching/gnosticon/religion-scientism
http://beezone.com/current/sciencemysticismlove.html
http://beezone.com/current/truereligionevolutionhumanexistence.html
http://www.integralworld.net/reynolds6.html The Seven Stages of Life
Do you really think the most plausible atheistic answer to abductive arguments for theism is to posit either necessities or brute contingencies? Aside from the question of, "Why does anything contingent exist at all?", which I think is a brute contingency by necessity (i.e., it's logically necessary that if anything contingent exists, the existence of all of contingent reality combined is a brute fact), it seems like a much better response to all of these arguments is, "We don't know yet, but given the problems with theism, there's probably a better non-theistic explanation." Some arguments already have non-theistic explanations available based on your best version of atheism. For instance, an atheistic worldview that already allows for teleological laws and non-natural moral facts could incorporate teleological laws that say that things tend toward goodness, and this could explain why consciousness exists (including fine-tuning), why the universe is intelligible, and psychophysical harmony.