"But they nevertheless took great offense that I dared to question the messed-up mental processes that led them to their present beliefs,"
I must have missed your explanation of what's messed up about atheist beliefs. If you can't demonstrate the existence of a deity, then atheism is the logical default position. And remember that you yourself are an atheist with respect to thousands of deities whose existence is attested by others. Just employ the same standards of evidence across the board. It's really not so difficult.
I agree with many of these arguments, especially the cosmological, teleological, and the fact that He took out of Egypt, brought us into the Land, performed many signs and wonders, and guided us throughout history.
You must be aware that cosmological and teleological arguments have been subject to many critiques. My opinion is that they do not fare well at all, and certainly do not get you anywhere near to the God of the Bible. But why don't you tell me in brief what your *evidence* for a deity is, and I will tell you why it is not compelling. As far as the Exodus, miracles, etc., etc., you are telling me that your evidence is stories from an ancient book. Whatever you personally think of their historicity, you cannot fault atheists for being indifferent to such claims. There are many ancient books and stories about gods and demons and whatnot, and you yourself dismiss almost all of those as nonsense. If you are going to fault atheists for dismissing ancient fairy tales, then fault yourself as well.
I believe you are claiming that atheism is irrational, the result of "messed-up mental processes". I want you to tell me why it's irrational to withhold belief from something that is not demonstrated.
And you must also be aware that there are many responses to those critiques. The cosmological and teleological arguments are independent of belief of the God of the Bible, but they are still very important. Even for somebody who doesn't know about the Bible or doesn't believe in it, it's still important to know about God. And on the flipside, even for somebody who does know about the Bible, it's important to understand these arguments.
Most of the history you believe in is from ancient books. Nobody thinks that ancient books can never be used as evidence. I can fault Jewish atheists at least for not being more circumspect with their own history books, comparing them to fairy tales the way you did.
You didn't tell me why atheism is not a logical position. Withholding belief in the absence of evidence seems eminently rational to me. And it's exactly what YOU do as well regarding thousands of gods, demons, magical creatures, etc. Why do atheists have "messed-up mental processes" when they are doing same as you and withholding belief in absence of sufficient evidence?
Atheism means you don't believe in a deity. How would you describe your own default position regarding, say, Zeus or Marduk? Wouldn't you say "I don't believe in Zeus or Marduk?" I find it hard to believe you would say, "Well, I just don't know. Could be." You tell me.
I see that since I left off others have offered good responses. Along the same lines, in my days agnosticism and atheism were two distinct things. Not, to use your words, "atheism means you don't believe in a deity", but something sharper, that you DO BELIEVE that there's no deity. In other words, naturalism. In other words, arguing from Russel's teapot or for you, Z & M. But according to google searches for "what's the difference between atheism and agnosticism", nowadays the two are compatible. Well, a watered-down version of atheism might qualify as a default, along with agnosticism. Ditto if all your looking for is an "attitude".
Then there is the ambiguity of what "default" means. Would it mean stripping yourself of societal influence and leaving only what's common to people in Meah Shearim, Dizengoff, and the Congo? Then why would Z& M come into the picture?
Or does default mean being bombarded by all the arguments from all sides and then landing somewhere either definitively or tentatively?
I also find your bringing up Z & M to be guilt by association. Since one type of theism doesn't make sense hence none of them make sense. So if Darwinian (gradual) atheism makes no sense therefore Eldredge and Gould's punk eek should also be tossed.
As others have pointed out, the contestant against atheism (particularly if you use the sharper definition) is theism. (If a particular team gets eliminated from the playoffs, other teams in the league remain.) Is physical existence self-made, or did something outside of it make it. Without weighing any evidence, and correctly framed, that's a good question. Hence, agnosticism.
Hi. Default position means "what degree of belief do I assign in the absence of evidence." Since I presume no one has provided adequate evidence for you to belief that Vishnu exists, your default position is to withhold belief. Am I right in assuming that? That's what I mean by "default". Same as if I told you there is a leprechaun living under your front porch. You withhold belief unless I can provide evidence. I don't see anything tendentious about this.
If there is no particular deity with adequate evidence in favor of their existence, then the result is that you don't believe in any particular deity. That also seems fairly simple. Now, it seems you are saying, "Yes, the default position toward the existence of Yahweh should rationally be the same as the default position toward Vishnu, Marduk, and a thousand others. BUT the existence of a GENERIC Creator has better evidence in its favor."
Perhaps so. Perhaps not. But the default position is STILL to withhold belief until evidence is sufficient. You have to present the evidence and see if it points to an intelligent being and whether that being should be considered "God" to be worshipped, or a monster to be hated and feared, or whether it might have been some advanced alien just messing around in his spare time, or a school project, or who knows what. If you don't find compelling evidence for any of these things, then you stick with the default that there is no intelligence behind the cosmos.
If you want to frame it as "I don't know whether there is intelligence behind the cosmos, and I will probably never know," that's fine with me. But it's not like you are hedging your bets or something. This is practically the same as saying "I don't have reason to believe in an intelligent creator, so I don't." But if one approach helps you lead a better life than another, go for it.
>>"Default position means "what degree of belief do I assign in the absence of evidence...." "
>>"...BUT the existence of a GENERIC Creator has better evidence in its favor. Perhaps so. Perhaps not. But the default position is STILL to withhold belief until evidence is sufficient."
This is also true for Believing A Negative Such As That there's no deity.
===
"Since I presume no one has provided adequate evidence for you to belief that Vishnu exists, your default position is to withhold belief. Am I right in assuming that?"
No. Firstly, I don't know him/her/it well enough to know what we're dealing with. Secondly, a detailed belief in Hashem precludes his/her/its existence. Having thus eliminated h/h/i, you're asking what I would have believed before then?
====
"You have to present the evidence and see if it points to an intelligent being and whether that being should be considered "God" to be worshipped, or a...."
We aren't up to those things. First we want to see if we can determine whether, as I said in the last comment, physical existence is self-made, or did something outside of it make it.
===
I see that others have also made these points generally, but you don't see them. So why am I responding? But the important point that negativity is also a belief, I don't recall them mentioning.
If someone doesn't believe in leprechauns or unicorns or dibbuks, do you say they have a "negative belief" and consider that therefore to be irrational? Or do you say, "Yes, it's rational not to believe in those things without evidence." If so, you agree that disbelief should be the default position in the absence of evidence. If we can agree on that, I don't see what our point of disagreement is.
I don't know who else responded to me. I only see your responses.
I believe that atheism is much further of an intellectual stretch than agnosticism. One can say they don't have enough evidence but to be certain there's no divine source for life? That's a bit much.
Atheism is simply the attitude that "I don't believe that a god or gods exist." That's it. That's the definition of atheism so far as I am aware. It's not "I am absolutely certain that XYZ cannot possible be." It's just "I don't believe that XYZ." If you want to call that agnosticism, it's fine with me, but really that's the definition of atheism.
Think of it this way. If I told you that the Moon is being pushed around the Earth by an invisible pink unicorn, you would say, "I don't believe that. And you're going to have to show me some serious evidence before I will." That's basically it. You don't believe it because there's not enough evidence to believe it.
Right but I do maintain that atheists do need to grapple with the question of how such complex of a system can be just a mere coincidence.
I do believe that the more we limit G-d ( for example by giving him the physical properties of Jesus or a pink unicorn etc) the easier it is to say that there's no evidence to say such a being exists. Same if we say he must conform to our views of morality for example "A kind G-d would never allow suffering". Same with a very literal interpretation of מעשה בראשית imo.
We all have to grapple with why things are the way they are, complexity and all the rest. Believers don't get a free pass on that. If you want to say that complexity was deliberately created, you still have to grapple with the complexity of a creator who could create something so complex. You can't just say, "I know the answer, God did it." That's not an answer.
Evolution answers a lot of questions about complexity, but not all, and there's always going to be a point where you have to say, "I don't know". Why is there a universe? Why is there something rather than nothing? Does this question even make sense? Does *any* question make sense outside of a framework for yielding answers? At some point we have to say "I don't know." There's no way around it.
What is mocking of the sages ? Some ( R@L ) would say the Rambams allegorical interpretation of chazal and Tanach is Ch v Sh mockery . Some of what Chazal said about the natural world we now know to be innacurate. Even the Rambam’s calculations of the moled. And the Rambam said Shaidim are allegorical . So it’s fine and good that you quote the Rambam but hard to know what is the line and how to avoid it. We certainly don’t want to boil in real or metaphorical excrement!
Rambam answers that question in his introduction to perek chelek. He really breaks it down to 5 groups of people but his basic point is that there is nothing wrong with seeking an understanding as some statements are inherently obvious there is deeper meaning, or based on a secular source. But when ones attitude is that the sages were dumb or sloppy, that's mockery.
Anybody who doesn't believe that the only authentic Judaism is shtetel Judaism as further developed in the dorms of Lakewood Yeshiva Gedola, or Mir, or Brisk or places like that.
There are however different interpretations that say that this is not speaking about Jesus of Nazareth, the man worshiped by the Christians, but rather to someone with a similar name.
And no need to apologize for calling atheists messed up and mentally ill. That, they are.
In a Jewish sense, anyone who doesn't have their middot in order will suffer everything from mild neuroses to full blown mania, all in accord with the imbalances that they've yet to address.
Needless to say, atheists are not humble people. Any claim to be dispassionately searching for truth is a bromide, tossed out to make themselves feel legitimate in their closed minded egocentricity.
A recent offline discussion with Yehuda Michaelmas proved this to me beyond any doubt.
Can't speak to the personalities of individual atheists you may know, but the position of atheism is actually quite a humble one. It's just to say, "I don't believe in a deity, because the evidence for one is not compelling." On many questions where believers rush to say "I have the answers" without any justification or even possibility of justification, atheists are agreeable to say "I don't know," which to my mind is the most humble statement possible. It's "I don't know" unless I have evidence. That is humility.
It is believers who are constantly telling us they know what God thinks, what God wants, who God supports, what happened before time, where we go after we die, what the angels are doing, what the ultimate meaning of the universe is, and so on and so on. That is not humility.
But Orthodox Jews are no less arrogant. Both sides insist that they have "The Truth". Do you see intellectual honesty in the overall Orthodox community?
No there is a difference. I do believe in the Torah and its divinity. I was reffering to intellectuall honesty. I don't see how nonbelievers are any more arrogant for assuming they have the truth as they are no more confident than the believers. Obviously if they dismiss wisdom without even looking into it they're just as intellectually dishonest as science deniers in the Orthodox world but if someone does look into arguments for and against I don't see how they are arrogant for just stating that they don't have a compelling reason to believe. Wrong? Yes. Bad for our national goals and mission? Yes. But not necessarily intellectually dishonest.
You would never say this about a Palestinian who thinks Israel doesn't have a right to exist. You would never say that they are just as intellectually honest as the Zionist who thinks he has a right to the Land of Israel. Why are you being more favorable to atheists?
Because the former wants to kill or displace me. It's us or them, no middle ground. The Jewish atheist is my brother despite his theological shortcomings.
So the way you evaluate whether somebody is intellectually honest is if he wants to benefit you or hurt you? Really? Do you think this way of evaluating is itself intellectually honest?
No. Strong convictions and beliefs are not arrogance. Truth is objective (I'm far from a postmodernist). I was responding to those who have a double standard and call the convictions of the atheists and agnostics arrogant for claiming they know the truth while the convictions of believers as humbly following those who are wiser. Each side thinks they have the truth. Neither has a moral highground of humility.
But how can say that we "dispassionate search for truth" if there's the tremendous נגיעה of our entire lives being based on the Torah being true? Most work with an assumption of the menorah being correct. Very few start bottom up from first principles like Avraham Avinu or Yitro.
"But they nevertheless took great offense that I dared to question the messed-up mental processes that led them to their present beliefs,"
I must have missed your explanation of what's messed up about atheist beliefs. If you can't demonstrate the existence of a deity, then atheism is the logical default position. And remember that you yourself are an atheist with respect to thousands of deities whose existence is attested by others. Just employ the same standards of evidence across the board. It's really not so difficult.
???? We can demonstrate the existence of a deity with several arguments
Go for it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence_of_God#Arguments
I agree with many of these arguments, especially the cosmological, teleological, and the fact that He took out of Egypt, brought us into the Land, performed many signs and wonders, and guided us throughout history.
You must be aware that cosmological and teleological arguments have been subject to many critiques. My opinion is that they do not fare well at all, and certainly do not get you anywhere near to the God of the Bible. But why don't you tell me in brief what your *evidence* for a deity is, and I will tell you why it is not compelling. As far as the Exodus, miracles, etc., etc., you are telling me that your evidence is stories from an ancient book. Whatever you personally think of their historicity, you cannot fault atheists for being indifferent to such claims. There are many ancient books and stories about gods and demons and whatnot, and you yourself dismiss almost all of those as nonsense. If you are going to fault atheists for dismissing ancient fairy tales, then fault yourself as well.
I believe you are claiming that atheism is irrational, the result of "messed-up mental processes". I want you to tell me why it's irrational to withhold belief from something that is not demonstrated.
And you must also be aware that there are many responses to those critiques. The cosmological and teleological arguments are independent of belief of the God of the Bible, but they are still very important. Even for somebody who doesn't know about the Bible or doesn't believe in it, it's still important to know about God. And on the flipside, even for somebody who does know about the Bible, it's important to understand these arguments.
Most of the history you believe in is from ancient books. Nobody thinks that ancient books can never be used as evidence. I can fault Jewish atheists at least for not being more circumspect with their own history books, comparing them to fairy tales the way you did.
You didn't tell me why atheism is not a logical position. Withholding belief in the absence of evidence seems eminently rational to me. And it's exactly what YOU do as well regarding thousands of gods, demons, magical creatures, etc. Why do atheists have "messed-up mental processes" when they are doing same as you and withholding belief in absence of sufficient evidence?
You "demonstrated" your faith, not the existence of God.
Atheism is "the logical default position"? Why? Why not agnosticism?
Atheism means you don't believe in a deity. How would you describe your own default position regarding, say, Zeus or Marduk? Wouldn't you say "I don't believe in Zeus or Marduk?" I find it hard to believe you would say, "Well, I just don't know. Could be." You tell me.
Why do you think that there is any basis to compare false idols to the Creator?
Right on. So tell me how you know some gods are actual and some gods are fiction. What is your method?
I did not write that "some gods are actual and some gods are fiction".
What I wrote is that all "gods" are false idols, and only the one true God is הקב"ה
I see that since I left off others have offered good responses. Along the same lines, in my days agnosticism and atheism were two distinct things. Not, to use your words, "atheism means you don't believe in a deity", but something sharper, that you DO BELIEVE that there's no deity. In other words, naturalism. In other words, arguing from Russel's teapot or for you, Z & M. But according to google searches for "what's the difference between atheism and agnosticism", nowadays the two are compatible. Well, a watered-down version of atheism might qualify as a default, along with agnosticism. Ditto if all your looking for is an "attitude".
Then there is the ambiguity of what "default" means. Would it mean stripping yourself of societal influence and leaving only what's common to people in Meah Shearim, Dizengoff, and the Congo? Then why would Z& M come into the picture?
Or does default mean being bombarded by all the arguments from all sides and then landing somewhere either definitively or tentatively?
I also find your bringing up Z & M to be guilt by association. Since one type of theism doesn't make sense hence none of them make sense. So if Darwinian (gradual) atheism makes no sense therefore Eldredge and Gould's punk eek should also be tossed.
As others have pointed out, the contestant against atheism (particularly if you use the sharper definition) is theism. (If a particular team gets eliminated from the playoffs, other teams in the league remain.) Is physical existence self-made, or did something outside of it make it. Without weighing any evidence, and correctly framed, that's a good question. Hence, agnosticism.
Hi. Default position means "what degree of belief do I assign in the absence of evidence." Since I presume no one has provided adequate evidence for you to belief that Vishnu exists, your default position is to withhold belief. Am I right in assuming that? That's what I mean by "default". Same as if I told you there is a leprechaun living under your front porch. You withhold belief unless I can provide evidence. I don't see anything tendentious about this.
If there is no particular deity with adequate evidence in favor of their existence, then the result is that you don't believe in any particular deity. That also seems fairly simple. Now, it seems you are saying, "Yes, the default position toward the existence of Yahweh should rationally be the same as the default position toward Vishnu, Marduk, and a thousand others. BUT the existence of a GENERIC Creator has better evidence in its favor."
Perhaps so. Perhaps not. But the default position is STILL to withhold belief until evidence is sufficient. You have to present the evidence and see if it points to an intelligent being and whether that being should be considered "God" to be worshipped, or a monster to be hated and feared, or whether it might have been some advanced alien just messing around in his spare time, or a school project, or who knows what. If you don't find compelling evidence for any of these things, then you stick with the default that there is no intelligence behind the cosmos.
If you want to frame it as "I don't know whether there is intelligence behind the cosmos, and I will probably never know," that's fine with me. But it's not like you are hedging your bets or something. This is practically the same as saying "I don't have reason to believe in an intelligent creator, so I don't." But if one approach helps you lead a better life than another, go for it.
>>"Default position means "what degree of belief do I assign in the absence of evidence...." "
>>"...BUT the existence of a GENERIC Creator has better evidence in its favor. Perhaps so. Perhaps not. But the default position is STILL to withhold belief until evidence is sufficient."
This is also true for Believing A Negative Such As That there's no deity.
===
"Since I presume no one has provided adequate evidence for you to belief that Vishnu exists, your default position is to withhold belief. Am I right in assuming that?"
No. Firstly, I don't know him/her/it well enough to know what we're dealing with. Secondly, a detailed belief in Hashem precludes his/her/its existence. Having thus eliminated h/h/i, you're asking what I would have believed before then?
====
"You have to present the evidence and see if it points to an intelligent being and whether that being should be considered "God" to be worshipped, or a...."
We aren't up to those things. First we want to see if we can determine whether, as I said in the last comment, physical existence is self-made, or did something outside of it make it.
===
I see that others have also made these points generally, but you don't see them. So why am I responding? But the important point that negativity is also a belief, I don't recall them mentioning.
If someone doesn't believe in leprechauns or unicorns or dibbuks, do you say they have a "negative belief" and consider that therefore to be irrational? Or do you say, "Yes, it's rational not to believe in those things without evidence." If so, you agree that disbelief should be the default position in the absence of evidence. If we can agree on that, I don't see what our point of disagreement is.
I don't know who else responded to me. I only see your responses.
I believe that atheism is much further of an intellectual stretch than agnosticism. One can say they don't have enough evidence but to be certain there's no divine source for life? That's a bit much.
Atheism is simply the attitude that "I don't believe that a god or gods exist." That's it. That's the definition of atheism so far as I am aware. It's not "I am absolutely certain that XYZ cannot possible be." It's just "I don't believe that XYZ." If you want to call that agnosticism, it's fine with me, but really that's the definition of atheism.
Think of it this way. If I told you that the Moon is being pushed around the Earth by an invisible pink unicorn, you would say, "I don't believe that. And you're going to have to show me some serious evidence before I will." That's basically it. You don't believe it because there's not enough evidence to believe it.
Right but I do maintain that atheists do need to grapple with the question of how such complex of a system can be just a mere coincidence.
I do believe that the more we limit G-d ( for example by giving him the physical properties of Jesus or a pink unicorn etc) the easier it is to say that there's no evidence to say such a being exists. Same if we say he must conform to our views of morality for example "A kind G-d would never allow suffering". Same with a very literal interpretation of מעשה בראשית imo.
We all have to grapple with why things are the way they are, complexity and all the rest. Believers don't get a free pass on that. If you want to say that complexity was deliberately created, you still have to grapple with the complexity of a creator who could create something so complex. You can't just say, "I know the answer, God did it." That's not an answer.
Evolution answers a lot of questions about complexity, but not all, and there's always going to be a point where you have to say, "I don't know". Why is there a universe? Why is there something rather than nothing? Does this question even make sense? Does *any* question make sense outside of a framework for yielding answers? At some point we have to say "I don't know." There's no way around it.
What is mocking of the sages ? Some ( R@L ) would say the Rambams allegorical interpretation of chazal and Tanach is Ch v Sh mockery . Some of what Chazal said about the natural world we now know to be innacurate. Even the Rambam’s calculations of the moled. And the Rambam said Shaidim are allegorical . So it’s fine and good that you quote the Rambam but hard to know what is the line and how to avoid it. We certainly don’t want to boil in real or metaphorical excrement!
Rambam answers that question in his introduction to perek chelek. He really breaks it down to 5 groups of people but his basic point is that there is nothing wrong with seeking an understanding as some statements are inherently obvious there is deeper meaning, or based on a secular source. But when ones attitude is that the sages were dumb or sloppy, that's mockery.
I'm curious. What is your definition of an atheist?
One who requires a definition of the term.
You mean, like Happy, anyone that doesn't believe in what you believe in?
I mean like a joke, funny.
Anybody who doesn't believe that the only authentic Judaism is shtetel Judaism as further developed in the dorms of Lakewood Yeshiva Gedola, or Mir, or Brisk or places like that.
Or the hilltops of the Shomron, with an M16 strapped to one's back, grazing ones goats above an Arab village. Places like that, too, right?
There are however different interpretations that say that this is not speaking about Jesus of Nazareth, the man worshiped by the Christians, but rather to someone with a similar name.
But there's definitely an אמונה פשוטה element there.
This is great.
And no need to apologize for calling atheists messed up and mentally ill. That, they are.
In a Jewish sense, anyone who doesn't have their middot in order will suffer everything from mild neuroses to full blown mania, all in accord with the imbalances that they've yet to address.
Needless to say, atheists are not humble people. Any claim to be dispassionately searching for truth is a bromide, tossed out to make themselves feel legitimate in their closed minded egocentricity.
A recent offline discussion with Yehuda Michaelmas proved this to me beyond any doubt.
Keep it up!
Can't speak to the personalities of individual atheists you may know, but the position of atheism is actually quite a humble one. It's just to say, "I don't believe in a deity, because the evidence for one is not compelling." On many questions where believers rush to say "I have the answers" without any justification or even possibility of justification, atheists are agreeable to say "I don't know," which to my mind is the most humble statement possible. It's "I don't know" unless I have evidence. That is humility.
It is believers who are constantly telling us they know what God thinks, what God wants, who God supports, what happened before time, where we go after we die, what the angels are doing, what the ultimate meaning of the universe is, and so on and so on. That is not humility.
Bit of a red herring here, sir.
Atheists don't say "I don't know."
They say "I know it aint so".
That's not humble.
You're confusing with agnostics.
But Orthodox Jews are no less arrogant. Both sides insist that they have "The Truth". Do you see intellectual honesty in the overall Orthodox community?
It sound like you are saying there is no difference between good things and bad things, yes?
No there is a difference. I do believe in the Torah and its divinity. I was reffering to intellectuall honesty. I don't see how nonbelievers are any more arrogant for assuming they have the truth as they are no more confident than the believers. Obviously if they dismiss wisdom without even looking into it they're just as intellectually dishonest as science deniers in the Orthodox world but if someone does look into arguments for and against I don't see how they are arrogant for just stating that they don't have a compelling reason to believe. Wrong? Yes. Bad for our national goals and mission? Yes. But not necessarily intellectually dishonest.
You would never say this about a Palestinian who thinks Israel doesn't have a right to exist. You would never say that they are just as intellectually honest as the Zionist who thinks he has a right to the Land of Israel. Why are you being more favorable to atheists?
Because the former wants to kill or displace me. It's us or them, no middle ground. The Jewish atheist is my brother despite his theological shortcomings.
So the way you evaluate whether somebody is intellectually honest is if he wants to benefit you or hurt you? Really? Do you think this way of evaluating is itself intellectually honest?
I see intellectual honesty in those who possess it, regardless of race, creed, color, or sexy orientation.
You equate arrogance with believing in a “Truth”? Methinks you have some explaining to do.
Would that mean humility = confusion? or a constant state of uncertainty?
Or that just an outlook that promotes relativism, where everyone has his own truth, and no one should be judged, is the ideal?
After all, Hitler was only trying to get the trains to run on time.
No. Strong convictions and beliefs are not arrogance. Truth is objective (I'm far from a postmodernist). I was responding to those who have a double standard and call the convictions of the atheists and agnostics arrogant for claiming they know the truth while the convictions of believers as humbly following those who are wiser. Each side thinks they have the truth. Neither has a moral highground of humility.
Yes. I mostly do.
But how can say that we "dispassionate search for truth" if there's the tremendous נגיעה of our entire lives being based on the Torah being true? Most work with an assumption of the menorah being correct. Very few start bottom up from first principles like Avraham Avinu or Yitro.
There is no reason for us to do what they did, דווקא because we have our מסורה.
Exactamundo.
Whats wrong with a passionate search for truth?
Let it be passionate or dispassionate, but let it be honest.
And not just an effort confirm existing biases.