Atheism
From: at
Date: Sun Feb 22, 2004 1:18 pm
Subject: Atheism
Out of curiosity, I checked my Encyclopedia
Britannica (2002 Edition):
atheism
in general, the critique and denial of metaphysical beliefs in
God or spiritual beings. As such, it is usually distinguished
from theism, which affirms the reality of the divine and often
seeks to demonstrate its existence. Atheism is also distinguished
from agnosticism, which leaves open the question whether there
is a god or not, professing to find the questions unanswered
or unanswerable.
...
Atheism, however, casts a wider net and rejects all belief in
"spiritual beings," and to the extent that belief in
spiritual beings is definitive of what it means for a system
to be religious, atheism rejects religion. So atheism is not
only a rejection of the central conceptions of Judeo-Christianity
and Islam, it is, as well, a rejection of the religious beliefs
of such African religions as that of the Dinka and the Nuer,
of the anthropomorphic gods of classical Greece and Rome, and
of the transcendental conceptions of Hinduism and Buddhism. Generally
atheism is a denial of God or of the gods, and if religion is
defined in terms of belief in spiritual beings, then atheism
is the rejection of all religious belief.
...
Atheism is a critique and a denial of the central metaphysical
beliefs of systems of salvation involving a belief in God or
spiritual beings, but a sophisticated atheist does not simply
claim that all such cosmological claims are false but takes it
that some are so problematic that, while purporting to be factual,
they actually do not succeed in making a coherent factual claim.
The claims, in an important sense, do not make sense, and, while
believers are under the illusion that there is something intelligible
to be believed in, in reality there is not. These seemingly grand
cosmological claims are in reality best understood as myths or
ideological claims reflecting a confused understanding of their
utterers' situation.
[The full entry is several pages long]
By this definition I have my doubts as to
whether Steiner was ever an "athiest". Steiner himself
claimed that in the 1880's and 1890's he was anti-clerical, not
anti-spirit, and his objection was to salvation from without
and not to the basic existence of a spiritual world. A critical
review of his writing does not, to my knowledge, find evidence
to contradict this claim. Clericalism and Anti-Clericalism were
significant trends in Austria during that time, and I do not
think that every person who was Anti-Clerical was pro-athiesm,
especially since many who were Anti-Clerical were Protestant
ministers.
Daniel Hindes
http://wn.elib.com/Steiner/Books/GA028/TSoML/GA028_c26.html
"INDIVIDUAL assertions
regarding Christianity which I wrote or uttered in lectures at
this time appear to be contrary to the expositions I gave later.
In this connection the following must be noted. At that time,
when I used the word "Christianity," I had in mind
the "beyond" teaching which is operative in the Christian
creeds. The whole content of religious experience refers to a
world of spirit which is not attainable by man in the unfolding
of his spiritual powers. What religion has to say, what it has
to give as moral precepts, is derived from revelations that come
to man from without. Against this my view of spirit opposed itself,
desiring to experience the world of spirit just as much as the
sense-world in what is perceptible in man and in nature. Against
this likewise was my ethical individualism opposed, desiring
to have the moral life proceed, not from without by way of precepts
obeyed, but out of the unfolding of the human soul and spirit,
wherein lives the divine."
Rudolf Steiner. "The Story of My Life."
Chapter 26.
...................................................................................................................................
From: at
Date: Tue Feb 24, 2004 10:43 am
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Atheism
Here is the entire article, for clarity:
2002 Encyclopedia Brittanica:
Athiesm
in general, the critique and denial of metaphysical beliefs in
God or spiritual beings. As such, it is usually distinguished
from theism, which affirms the reality of the divine and often
seeks to demonstrate its existence. Atheism is also distinguished
from agnosticism, which leaves open the question whether there
is a god or not, professing to find the questions unanswered
or unanswerable. The dialectic of the argument between forms
of belief and unbelief raises questions concerning the most perspicuous
delineation, or characterization, of atheism, agnosticism, and
theism. It is necessary not only to probe the warrant for atheism
but also carefully to consider what is the most adequate definition
of atheism. This article will start with what have been some
widely accepted, but still in various ways mistaken or misleading,
definitions of atheism and move to more adequate formulations
that better capture the full range of atheist thought and more
clearly separate unbelief from belief and atheism from agnosticism.
In the course of this delineation the section also will consider
key arguments for and against atheism.
Atheism as rejection of
religious beliefs
A central, common core of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is
the affirmation of the reality of one, and only one, God. Adherents
of these faiths believe that there is a God who created the universe
out of nothing and who has absolute sovereignty over all his
creation; this includes, of course, human beings-who are not
only utterly dependent on this creative power but also sinful
and who, or so the faithful must believe, can only make adequate
sense of their lives by accepting, without question, God's ordinances
for them. The varieties of atheism are numerous, but all atheists
reject such a set of beliefs.
Atheism, however, casts a
wider net and rejects all belief in "spiritual beings,"
and to the extent that belief in spiritual beings is definitive
of what it means for a system to be religious, atheism rejects
religion. So atheism is not only a rejection of the central conceptions
of Judeo-Christianity and Islam, it is, as well, a rejection
of the religious beliefs of such African religions as that of
the Dinka and the Nuer, of the anthropomorphic gods of classical
Greece and Rome, and of the transcendental conceptions of Hinduism
and Buddhism. Generally atheism is a denial of God or of the
gods, and if religion is defined in terms of belief in spiritual
beings, then atheism is the rejection of all religious belief.
It is necessary, however,
if a tolerably adequate understanding of atheism is to be achieved,
to give a reading to "rejection of religious belief"
and to come to realize how the characterization of atheism as
the denial of God or the gods is inadequate.
Atheism and theism
To say that atheism is the denial of God or the gods and that
it is the opposite of theism, a system of belief that affirms
the reality of God and seeks to demonstrate his existence, is
inadequate in a number of ways. First, not all theologians who
regard themselves as defenders of the Christian faith or of Judaism
or Islam regard themselves as defenders of theism. The influential
20th-century Protestant theologian Paul Tillich, for example,
regards the God of theism as an idol and refuses to construe
God as a being, even a supreme being, among beings or as an infinite
being above finite beings. God, for him, is "being-itself,"
the ground of being and meaning. The particulars of Tillich's
view are in certain ways idiosyncratic, as well as being obscure
and problematic, but they have been influential; and his rejection
of theism, while retaining a belief in God, is not eccentric
in contemporary theology, though it may very well affront the
plain believer.
Second, and more important,
it is not the case that all theists seek to demonstrate or even
in any way rationally to establish the existence of God. Many
theists regard such a demonstration as impossible, and fideistic
believers (e.g., Johann Hamann and Søren Kierkegaard)
regard such a demonstration, even if it were possible, as undesirable,
for in their view it would undermine faith. If it could be proved,
or known for certain, that God exists, people would not be in
a position to accept him as their sovereign Lord humbly on faith
with all the risks that entails. There are theologians who have
argued that for genuine faith to be possible God must necessarily
be a hidden God, the mysterious ultimate reality, whose existence
and authority must be accepted simply on faith. This fideistic
view has not, of course, gone without challenge from inside the
major faiths, but it is of sufficient importance to make the
above characterization of atheism inadequate.
Finally, and most important,
not all denials of God are denials of his existence. Believers
sometimes deny God while not being at all in a state of doubt
that God exists. They either willfully reject what they take
to be his authority by not acting in accordance with what they
take to be his will, or else they simply live their lives as
if God did not exist. In this important way they deny him. Such
deniers are not atheists (unless we wish, misleadingly, to call
them "practical atheists"). They are not even agnostics.
They do not question that God exists; they deny him in other
ways. An atheist denies the existence of God. As it is frequently
said, atheists believe that it is false that God exists, or that
God's existence is a speculative hypothesis of an extremely low
order of probability.
Yet it remains the case that
such a characterization of atheism is inadequate in other ways.
For one it is too narrow. There are atheists who believe that
the very concept of God, at least in developed and less anthropomorphic
forms of Judeo-Christianity and Islam, is so incoherent that
certain central religious claims, such as "God is my creator
to whom everything is owed," are not genuine truth-claims;
i.e., the claims could not be either true or false. Believers
hold that such religious propositions are true, some atheists
believe that they are false, and there are agnostics who cannot
make up their minds whether to believe that they are true or
false. (Agnostics think that the propositions are one or the
other but believe that it is not possible to determine which.)
But all three are mistaken, some atheists argue, for such putative
truth-claims are not sufficiently intelligible to be genuine
truth-claims that are either true or false. In reality there
is nothing in them to be believed or disbelieved, though there
is for the believer the powerful and humanly comforting illusion
that there is. Such an atheism, it should be added, rooted for
some conceptions of God in considerations about intelligibility
and what it makes sense to say, has been strongly resisted by
some pragmatists and logical empiricists.
While the above considerations
about atheism and intelligibility show the second characterization
of atheism to be too narrow, it is also the case that this characterization
is in a way too broad. For there are fideistic believers, who
quite unequivocally believe that when looked at objectively the
proposition that God exists has a very low probability weight.
They believe in God not because it is probable that he exists
- they think it more probable that he does not - but because
belief is thought by them to be necessary to make sense of human
life. The second characterization of atheism does not distinguish
a fideistic believer (a Blaise Pascal or a Kierkegaard) or an
agnostic (a T.H. Huxley or a Leslie Stephen) from an atheist
such as Baron d'Holbach or Thomas Paine. All believe that "There
is a God" and "God protects humankind," however
emotionally important they may be, are speculative hypotheses
of an extremely low order of probability. But this, since it
does not distinguish believers from nonbelievers and does not
distinguish agnostics from atheists, cannot be an adequate characterization
of atheism.
It may be retorted that to
avoid apriorism and dogmatic atheism the existence of God should
be regarded as a hypothesis. There are no ontological (purely
a priori) proofs or disproofs of God's existence. It is not reasonable
to rule in advance that it makes no sense to say that God exists.
What the atheist can reasonably claim is that there is no evidence
that there is a God, and against that background he may very
well be justified in asserting that there is no God. It has been
argued, however, that it is simply dogmatic for an atheist to
assert that no possible evidence could ever give one grounds
for believing in God. Instead, atheists should justify their
unbelief by showing (if they can) how the assertion is well-taken
that there is no evidence that would warrant a belief in God.
If atheism is justified, the atheist will have shown that in
fact there is no adequate evidence for the belief that God exists,
but it should not be part of his task to try to show that there
could not be any evidence for the existence of God. If the atheist
could somehow survive the death of his present body (assuming
that such talk makes sense) and come, much to his surprise, to
stand in the presence of God, his answer should be, "Oh!
Lord, you didn't give me enough evidence!" He would have
been mistaken, and realize that he had been mistaken, in his
judgment that God did not exist. Still, he would not have been
unjustified, in the light of the evidence available to him during
his earthly life, in believing as he did. Not having any such
postmortem experiences of the presence of God (assuming that
he could have them), what he should say, as things stand and
in the face of the evidence he actually has and is likely to
be able to get, is that it is false that God exists. (Every time
one legitimately asserts that a proposition is false one need
not be certain that it is false. "Knowing with certainty"
is not a pleonasm.) The claim is that this tentative posture
is the reasonable position for the atheist to take.
An atheist who argues in this
manner may also make a distinctive burden-of-proof argument.
Given that God (if there is one) is by definition a very recherché
reality - a reality that must be (for there to be such a reality)
transcendent to the world - the burden of proof is not on the
atheist to give grounds for believing that there is no reality
of that order. Rather, the burden of proof is on the believer
to give some evidence for God's existence; i.e., that there is
such a reality. Given what God must be, if there is a God, the
theist needs to present the evidence, for such a very strange
reality. He needs to show that there is more in the world than
is disclosed by common experience. The empirical method, and
the empirical method alone, such an atheist asserts, affords
a reliable method for establishing what is in fact the case.
To the claim of the theist that there are in addition to varieties
of empirical facts "spiritual facts" or "transcendent
facts," such as it being the case that there is a supernatural,
self-existent, eternal power, the atheist can assert that such
"facts" have not been shown.
It will, however, be argued
by such atheists, against what they take to be dogmatic aprioristic
atheists, that the atheist should be a fallibilist and remain
open-minded about what the future may bring. There may, after
all, be such transcendent facts, such metaphysical realities.
It is not that such a fallibilistic atheist is really an agnostic
who believes that he is not justified in either asserting that
God exists or denying that he exists and that what he must reasonably
do is suspend belief. On the contrary, such an atheist believes
that he has very good grounds indeed, as things stand, for denying
the existence of God. But he will, on the second conceptualization
of what it is to be an atheist, not deny that things could be
otherwise and that, if they were, he would be justified in believing
in God or at least would no longer be justified in asserting
that it is false that there is a God. Using reliable empirical
techniques, proven methods for establishing matters of fact,
the fallibilistic atheist has found nothing in the universe to
make a belief that God exists justifiable or even, everything
considered, the most rational option of the various options.
He therefore draws the atheistical conclusion (also keeping in
mind his burden-of-proof argument) that God does not exist. But
he does not dogmatically in a priori fashion deny the existence
of God. He remains a thorough and consistent fallibilist.
Atheism and metaphysical
beliefs
Such a form of atheism (the atheism of those pragmatists who
are also naturalistic humanists), though less inadequate than
the first formation of atheism, is still inadequate. God in developed
forms of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is not, like Zeus or
Wotan, construed in a relatively plain anthropomorphic way. Nothing
that could count as "God" in such religions could possibly
be observed, literally encountered, or detected in the universe.
God, in such a conception, is utterly transcendent to the world;
he is conceived of as "pure spirit," an infinite individual
who created the universe out of nothing and who is distinct from
the universe. Such a reality - a reality that is taken to be
an ultimate mystery - could not be identified as objects or processes
in the universe can be identified. There can be no pointing at
or to God, no ostensive teaching of "God," to show
what is meant. The word God can only be taught intralinguistically.
"God" is taught to someone who does not understand
what the word means by the use of descriptions such as "the
maker of the universe," "the eternal, utterly independent
being upon whom all other beings depend," "the first
cause," "the sole ultimate reality," or "a
self-caused being." For someone who does not understand
such descriptions, there can be no understanding of the concept
of God. But the key terms of such descriptions are themselves
no more capable of ostensive definition (of having their referents
pointed out) than is "God," where that term is not,
like "Zeus," construed anthropomorphically. (That does
not mean that anyone has actually pointed to Zeus or observed
Zeus but that one knows what it would be like to do so.)
In coming to understand what
is meant by "God" in such discourses, it must be understood
that God, whatever else he is, is a being that could not possibly
be seen or be in any way else observed. He could not be anything
material or empirical, and he is said by believers to be an intractable
mystery. A nonmysterious God would not be the God of Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam.
This, in effect, makes it
a mistake to claim that the existence of God can rightly be treated
as a hypothesis and makes it a mistake to claim that, by the
use of the experimental method or some other determinate empirical
method, the existence of God can be confirmed or disconfirmed
as can the existence of an empirical reality. The retort made
by some atheists, who also like pragmatists remain thoroughgoing
fallibilists, is that such a proposed way of coming to know,
or failing to come to know, God makes no sense for anyone who
understands what kind of reality God is supposed to be. Anything
whose existence could be so verified would not be the God of
Judeo-Christianity. God could not be a reality whose presence
is even faintly adumbrated in experience, for anything that could
even count as the God of Judeo-Christianity must be transcendent
to the world. Anything that could actually be encountered or
experienced could not be God.
At the very heart of a religion
such as Christianity there stands a metaphysical belief in a
reality that is alleged to transcend the empirical world. It
is the metaphysical belief that there is an eternal, ever-present
creative source and sustainer of the universe. The problem is
how it is possible to know or reasonably believe that such a
reality exists or even to understand what such talk is about.
It is not that God is like
a theoretical entity in physics such as a proton or a neutrino.
They are, where they are construed as realities rather than as
heuristically useful conceptual fictions, thought to be part
of the actual furniture of the universe. They are not said to
be transcendent to the universe, but rather are invisible entities
in the universe logically on a par with specks of dust and grains
of sand, only much, much smaller. They are on the same continuum;
they are not a different kind of reality. It is only the case
that they, as a matter of fact, cannot be seen. Indeed no one
has an understanding of what it would be like to see a proton
or a neutrino - in that way they are like God - and no provision
is made in physical theory for seeing them. Still, there is no
logical ban on seeing them as there is on seeing God. They are
among the things in the universe, and thus, though they are invisible,
they can be postulated as causes of things that are seen. Since
this is so it becomes at least logically possible indirectly
to verify by empirical methods the existence of such realities.
It is also the case that there is no logical ban on establishing
what is necessary to establish a causal connection, namely a
constant conjunction of two discrete empirical realities. But
no such constant conjunction can be established or even intelligibly
asserted between God and the universe, and thus the existence
of God is not even indirectly verifiable. God is not a discrete
empirical thing or being, and the universe is not a gigantic
thing or process over and above the things and processes in the
universe of which it makes sense to say that the universe has
or had a cause. But then there is no way, directly or indirectly,
that even the probability that there is a God could be empirically
established.
Atheism and intuitive knowledge
The gnostic may reply that there is a nonempirical way of establishing
or making it probable that God exists. The claim is that there
are truths about the nature of the cosmos neither capable of
verification nor standing in need of verification. There is,
gnostics claim against empiricists, knowledge of the world that
transcends experience and comprehends the sorry scheme of things
entire.
Since the thorough probings
of such epistemological foundations by David Hume and Immanuel
Kant, scepticism about how, and indeed even that, such knowledge
is possible is very strong indeed. With respect to knowledge
of God in particular, both Hume and Kant provide powerful critiques
of the traditional attempts to prove the existence of God (notwithstanding
the fact that Kant remained a Christian). While some of the details
of their arguments have been rejected and refinements rooted
in their argumentative procedure have been developed, there is
a considerable consensus among philosophers and theologians that
arguments of the general type as those developed by Hume and
Kant show that no proof of God's existence is possible. Alternatively,
to speak of "intuitive knowledge" (an intuitive grasp
of being or of an intuition of the reality of the divine being)
is to make an appeal to something that is not sufficiently clear
to be of any value in establishing anything.
Prior to the rise of anthropology
and the scientific study of religion, an appeal to revelation
and authority as a substitute for knowledge or warranted belief
might have been thought to have considerable force. But with
a knowledge of other religions and their associated appeals to
revealed truth, such arguments are without probative force. Claimed,
or alleged, revelations are many, diverse, and not infrequently
conflicting; without going in a small and vicious circle, it
cannot be claimed, simply by appealing to a given putative revelation,
that the revelation is the "true revelation" or the
"genuine revelation" and that others are mistaken or,
where nonconflicting, mere approximations to the truth. Similar
things need to be said for religious authority. Moreover, it
is at best problematic whether faith could sanction speaking
of testing the genuineness of revelation or of the acceptability
of religious authority. Indeed, if something is a "genuine
revelation," there is no using reason to assess it. But
the predicament is that plainly, as a matter of anthropological
fact, there is a diverse and sometimes conflicting field of alleged
revelations with no way of deciding or even having a reasonable
hunch which, if any, of the candidate revelations is the genuine
article. But even if the necessity for tests for the genuineness
of revelation is allowed, there still is a claim that clearly
will not do, for such a procedure would make an appeal to revelation
and authority supererogatory. It is, where such tests are allowed,
not revelation or authority that can warrant the most fundamental
religious truths on which the rest depend. It is something else
- that which establishes the genuineness of the revelation or
authority - that guarantees these religious truths (if such there
be), including the proposition that God exists. But the question
returns, like the repressed, what that fundamental guarantee
is or could be. Perhaps such a belief is nothing more than a
cultural myth. There is, as has been shown, neither empirical
nor a priori knowledge of God, and talk of intuitive knowledge
is without logical force.
If these considerations are
near to the mark, it is unclear what it means to say, as some
agnostics and even atheists have, that they are sceptical God-seekers
who simply have not found, after a careful examination, enough
evidence to make belief in God a warranted or even a reasonable
belief. It is unclear what it would be like to have, or for that
matter fail to have, evidence for the existence of God. It is
not that the God-seeker has to be able to give the evidence,
for if that were so no search would be necessary, but that he,
or at least somebody, must be able to conceive what would count
as evidence if he had it so that he (and others) have some idea
of what to look for. But it appears to be just that which cannot
be done.
Perhaps there is room for
the retort that it is enough for the God-seeker not to accept
any logical ban on the possibility of there being evidence. He
need not understand what it would be like to have evidence in
this domain. But, in turn, when one considers what kind of transcendent
reality God is said to be, there seems to be an implicit logical
ban on there being empirical evidence (a pleonasm) for his existence.
It would seen plausible to assert that there is such a ban, though
any such assertion should, of course, be made in a tentative
way.
Someone trying to give empirical
anchorage to talk of God might give the following hypothetical
case. (It is, however, important in considering the case to keep
in mind that things even remotely like what is described do not
happen.) If thousands of people were standing out under the starry
skies and all saw - the thing went on before their very eyes
- a set of stars rearrange themselves to spell out "God,"
they would indeed rightly be utterly astonished and think that
they had gone mad. Even if they could somehow assure themselves
that this was not in some way a form of mass hallucination -
how they could do this is not evident - such an experience would
not constitute evidence for the existence of God, for they still
would be without a clue as to what could be meant by speaking
of an infinite individual transcendent transcendent to the world.
Such an observation (the stars so rearranging themselves), no
matter how well confirmed, would not ostensively fix the reference
range of "God." Talk of such an infinite individual
is utterly incomprehensible and has every appearance of being
incoherent. No one knows what he is talking about in speaking
of such a transcendent reality. All they would know is that something
very strange indeed had happened. The doubt arises whether believers,
or indeed anyone else in terms acceptable to believers, can give
an intelligible account of the concept of God or of what belief
in God comes to once God is de-anthropomorphized.
Comprehensive definition
of atheism
Reflection on this should lead to a more adequate statement of
what atheism is and indeed as well to what an agnostic or religious
response to atheism should be. Instead of saying that an atheist
is someone who believes that it is false or probably false that
there is a God, a more adequate characterization of atheism consists
in the more complex claim that to be an atheist is to be someone
who rejects belief in God for the following reasons (which reason
is stressed depends on how God is being conceived): for an anthropomorphic
God, the atheist rejects belief in God because it is false or
probably false that there is a God; for a nonanthropomorphic
God (the God of Luther and Calvin, Aquinas, and Maimonides),
he rejects belief in God because the concept of such a God is
either meaningless, unintelligible, contradictory, incomprehensible,
or incoherent; for the God portrayed by some modern or contemporary
theologians or philosophers, he rejects belief in God because
the concept of God in question is such that it merely masks an
atheistic substance - e.g., "God" is just another name
for love, or "God" is simply a symbolic term for moral
ideals.
This atheism is a much more
complex notion, as are its various reflective rejections. It
is clear from what has been said about the concept of God in
developed forms of Judeo-Christianity that the more crucial form
of atheist rejection is not the assertion that it is false that
there is a God but instead the rejection of belief in God because
the concept of God is said not to make sense - to be in some
important way incoherent or unintelligible.
Such a broader conception
of atheism, of course, includes everyone who is an atheist in
the narrower sense, but the converse does not obtain. Moreover,
this conception of atheism does not have to say that religious
claims are meaningless. The more typical and less paradoxical
and tendentious claim is that utterances such as "There
is an infinite, eternal creator of the universe" are incoherent
and that the conception of God reflected in such a claim is unintelligible,
and in that important sense the claim is inconceivable and incredible - incapable
of being a rational object of belief for a philosophically and
scientifically sophisticated person touched by modernity. It
is this that is a central belief of many contemporary atheists.
There are good empirical grounds for believing that there are
no Zeus-like spiritual beings, and as this last, more ramified
form of atheism avers, if there are sound grounds for believing
that the nonanthropomorphic or at least radically less anthropomorphic
conceptions of God are incoherent or unintelligible, the atheist
has the strongest grounds for rejecting belief in God.
Atheism is a critique and
a denial of the central metaphysical beliefs of systems of salvation
involving a belief in God or spiritual beings, but a sophisticated
atheist does not simply claim that all such cosmological claims
are false but takes it that some are so problematic that, while
purporting to be factual, they actually do not succeed in making
a coherent factual claim. The claims, in an important sense,
do not make sense, and, while believers are under the illusion
that there is something intelligible to be believed in, in reality
there is not. These seemingly grand cosmological claims are in
reality best understood as myths or ideological claims reflecting
a confused understanding of their utterers' situation.
It is not a well-taken rejoinder
to atheistic critiques to say, as have some contemporary Protestant
theologians, that belief in God is the worst form of atheism
and idolatry, since the language of Jewish and Christian belief,
including such sentences as "God exists" and "God
created the world," is not to be taken literally but symbolically
and metaphorically. Christianity, as Reinhold Niebuhr, a theologian
who defends such views, once put it, is "true myth."
The claims of religion are not, on such account, to be understood
as metaphysical claims trying to convey extraordinary facts but
as metaphorical and analogical claims that are not understandable
in any other terms. But if something is a metaphor it must at
least in principle be possible to say what it is a metaphor of.
Thus metaphors cannot be understandable only in metaphorical
terms. There can be no unparaphrasable metaphors or symbolic
expressions though, what is something else again, a user of such
expressions may not be capable on demand of supplying that paraphrase.
Moreover, if the language of religion becomes simply the language
of myth and religious beliefs are viewed simply as powerful and
often humanly compelling myths, then they are conceptions that
in reality have only an atheistic substance. The believer is
making no cosmological claim that the atheist is not; it is just
that his talk, including his unelucidated talk of "true
myths," is language that for many people has a more powerful
emotive force.
Agnosticism has a parallel
development to that of atheism. An agnostic, like an atheist,
asserts either that he does not know that God exists - or, more
typically, that he cannot know or have sound reasons for believing
that God exists - but unlike the atheist he does not think that he is
justified in saying that God does not exist or, stronger still,
that God cannot exist. Similarly, while some contemporary atheists
say that the concept of God in developed theism does not make
sense and thus that Jewish, Christian, and Islamic beliefs must
be rejected, many contemporary agnostics believe that the concept
of God is radically problematic. They maintain that they are
not in a position to be able to decide whether, on the one hand,
the terms and concepts of such religions are so problematic that
such religious beliefs do not make sense or whether, on the other,
though the talk is indeed radically paradoxical and in many ways
incomprehensible, such talk has sufficient coherence to make
reasonable a belief in an ultimate mystery. Such an agnostic
recognizes that the puzzles about God cut deeper than perplexities
concerning whether it is possible to attain adequate evidence
for God's existence. Rather, he sees the need to exhibit an adequate
nonanthropomorphic, extralinguistic referent for "God."
(This need not commit him to the belief that there are any observations
independent of theory.) Believers think that, though God is a
mystery, such a referent has been secured, though what it is
remains a mystery. Atheists, by contrast, believe that it has
not been, and indeed some of them believe that it cannot be,
secured. To talk about mystery, they maintain, is just an evasive
way of talking about what is not understood. Contemporary agnostics
(those agnostics who parallel the atheists characterized above)
remain in doubt and are convinced that there is no rational way
of resolving the doubt about whether talk in a halting fashion
of God just barely secures such reference or whether it, after
all, fails and that nothing religiously acceptable is referred
to by "God."
Intense religious commitment,
as the history of fideism makes evident, has sometimes gone hand
in hand with deep scepticism concerning man's capacity to know
God. It is agreed by all parties to the dispute between belief
and unbelief that religious claims are paradoxical. Furthermore,
criteria for what is meaningless and what is not or for what
is intelligible and what is not are deeply contested. It is perhaps
fair enough to say that there are no generally accepted criteria.
Keeping these diverse considerations
in mind in the arguments between belief, agnosticism, and atheism,
it is crucial to ask whether there is any good reason at all
to believe that there is a personal creative reality that is
beyond the bounds of space and time and transcendent to the world.
Is there even a sufficient understanding of such talk so that
such a reality can be the object of religious commitment? (One
cannot have faith in or take on faith what one does not at all
understand. People must at least in some way understand what
it is that they are to have faith in to be able to have faith
in it. If a person is asked to trust Irglig, he cannot do so
no matter how strongly he wants to take something simply on trust.)
It appears to be a brute fact
that there just is that indefinitely immense collection of finite
and contingent masses or conglomerations of things and processes
the phrase "the universe" refers to. People can come
to feel wonder, awe, and puzzlement that there is a universe
at all. But that fact, or the very fact that there is a world
at all, does not license the claim that there is a noncontingent
reality on which the world (the sorry collection of things entire)
depends. It is not even clear that such a sense of contingency
gives an understanding of what such a noncontingent thing could
be. Some atheists think that the reference range of "God"
is so indeterminate and the concept of God so problematic that
it is impossible for someone fully aware of that reasonably to
believe in God; believers, by contrast, think that, though the
reference range of "God" is indeterminate, it is not
so indeterminate and the concept of God so problematic as to
make belief irrational or incoherent. It is known, they claim,
that talk of God is problematic, but it is not known, and cannot
be known, whether it is so problematic as to be without a religiously
appropriate sense. Agnostics, in turn, say that there is no reasonable
decision procedure. It is not known and cannot be ascertained
whether or not "God" secures a religiously adequate
referent. What needs to be kept in mind, in reflecting on this
issue, is whether a "contingent thing" is a pleonasm
and "infinite reality" is without sense and whether,
when people go beyond anthropomorphism (or try to go beyond it),
it is possible to have a sufficient understanding of what is
referred to by "God" to make faith a coherent possibility.
Finally, it will not do to
take a Pascalian or Dostoyevskian turn and claim that, intellectual
absurdity or not, religious belief is necessary, since without
belief in God morality does not make sense and life is meaningless.
That claim is false, for even if there is no purpose to life
there are purposes in life - things people care about and want
to do - that
can remain perfectly intact even in a godless world. God or no
God, immortality or no immortality, it is vile to torture people
just for the fun of it, and friendship, solidarity, love, and
the attainment of self-respect are human goods even in an utterly
godless world. There are intellectual puzzles about how people
know that these things are good, but that is doubly true for
the distinctive claims of a religious ethic. The point is that
these things remain desirable and that life can have a point
even in the absence of God.
Kai E. Nielsen
Copyright © 1994-2002
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
...................................................................................................................................
From: at
Date: Tue Feb 24, 2004 12:13 pm
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Atheism
Another, more concise definition:
The OXFORD WORLD ENCYCLOPEDIA
2003 Edition
atheism
(from Greek a theos, `not god') The denial of the existence of
any god or supernatural being. It should not be confused with
agnosticism, which holds that as the existence of god cannot
be proved or disproved, it should not be subject to belief or
disbelief. The atheist maintains, on the other hand, that the
very notion of god is meaningless, a view also subscribed to
by some Asian religious traditions such as theravada Buddhism.
In the 19th century marx based his atheism on materialism, and
argued for the abolition of religion, which he saw as upholding
an unjust socio-economic order. Communist theory, developed from
Marxism, is strictly atheist. Nietzsche proclaimed the `death
of god' and encouraged man to seek for the meaning of life in
himself alone, a position also taken by 20th-century Existentialists
such as Heidegger and Sartre. The modern philosophical school
of logical positivism is also atheist, arguing that religious
speculation is logically ill-founded, since knowledge can only
be derived from observation and experience.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism:
"Atheism is generally
defined by most dictionaries and encyclopedias as the "denial
of the existence of God or gods and of any supernatural existence".[1]
Some atheists [2] additionally distinguish between a narrow,
strict category "strong atheism" (the explicit rejection
of the existence of any deity) and "weak atheism" (a
lack of belief in any deity but no explicit rejection)."
From: http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/a1/atheism.asp
atheism
Related: Philosophy
(a´the-Iz&180;em), denial of the existence of God or
gods and of any supernatural existence, to be distinguished from
agnosticism , which holds that the existence cannot be proved.
The term atheism has been used as an accusation against all who
attack established orthodoxy, as in the trial of Socrates. There
were few avowed atheists from classical times until the 19th
cent., when popular belief in a conflict between religion and
science brought forth preachers of the gospel of atheism, such
as Robert G. Ingersoll. There are today many individuals and
groups professing atheism. The 20th cent. has seen many individuals
and groups professing atheism, including Bertrand Russell and
Madalyn Murry O'Hair.
From: http://www.bartleby.com/65/at/atheism.html
The Columbia Encyclopedia,
Sixth Edition. 2001.
atheism
(´th-z´´m) (KEY) , denial of the existence
of God or gods and of any supernatural existence, to be distinguished
from agnosticism, which holds that the existence cannot be proved.
The term atheism has been used as an accusation against all who
attack established orthodoxy, as in the trial of Socrates. There
were few avowed atheists from classical times until the 19th
cent., when popular belief in a conflict between religion and
science brought forth preachers of the gospel of atheism, such
as Robert G. Ingersoll. There are today many individuals and
groups professing atheism. The 20th cent. has seen many individuals
and groups professing atheism, including Bertrand Russell and
Madalyn Murry O'Hair.
[a duplicate, I know]
...................................................................................................................................
From: at
Date: Tue Feb 24, 2004 12:19 pm
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Atheism
Peter,
It seems that every definition of atheism
that is longer than 10 words includes some variant of a disbelief
in spirits of any kind:
"The denial of the existence
of any god or supernatural being."
"Atheism is generally defined by most dictionaries and encyclopedias
as the
"denial of the existence of God or gods and of any supernatural
existence"."
"denial of the existence of God or gods and of any supernatural
existence"
I should note the point made in Britannica,
that atheism is not just the opposite of theism.
Now you are perfectly within your rights to
have a personal definition of atheism that includes a belief
in the supernatural but (somehow) not in any divinity or God.
However, I feel that you owe it to your readers to clarify that
when you speak of atheism, you do not mean what is commonly understood
by the term. Much of what you write leads me to believe that
you are someone who values clarity and precision in writing (at
least, you demand it of others), so I'm sure you will agree that
such a clarification is necessary. In the future, should I read
something of yours that refers to Steiner's 'atheism' without
clarifying that you mean something different with this term than
is commonly understood, I should feel that it was somewhat disingenuous.
Daniel Hindes
...................................................................................................................................
From: Peter Staudenmaier
Date: Tue Feb 24, 2004 12:49 pm
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Atheism
Hi Daniel, you wrote:
I should note the point made in Britannica,
that atheism is not just the opposite of theism.
But that is exactly what I meant by it: the opposite of theism.
I have no idea whether this is how the term is "commonly
understood". I really don't spend much time thinking about
the topic.
However, I feel that you owe it to your
readers to clarify that when you speak of atheism, you do not
mean what is commonly understood by the term.
What readers? I didn't introduce this topic, Tarjei did. I made
it abundantly clear, over a series of several posts, that in
my view atheism simply means disbelief in god, nothing more and
nothing less. I think I said so roughly half a dozen times. If
any reader of that exchange managed to get the impression that
I think atheism means anything other than disbelief in god, I
don't see what I might be able to do to make my stance clearer.
If you have any suggestions along those lines, I will gladly
entertain them. Thanks very much,
Peter
...................................................................................................................................
From: dottie zold
Date: Tue Feb 24, 2004 1:04 pm
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Atheism
Peter
I made it abundantly clear, over a series
of several posts, that in my view atheism simply means disbelief
in god, nothing more and nothing less.
Again we have your 'view' of a thing that
does not add up to the common understanding of a thing. And you
obviously have not made it abundantly clear. And on the critics
list you did the same thing. These people and my self are thinking
that because of your great intellectual skill you are very clear
about definitions and so forth. And actually you are not. It
is all your own person view that lines up with your own personal
world view outlook.
You do owe it to the readers to be clear Peter
on these kinds of issues. Is it an interpretation or is it a
known fact?
Dottie 'glad we are now getting down to the
realization that this is all Peters interpretation and not neccessarily
facts' Zold
I think I said so roughly half a dozen
times. If any reader of that exchange managed to get the impression
that I think atheism means anything other than disbelief in god,
I don't see what I might be able to do to make my stance clearer.
If you have any suggestions along those lines, I will gladly
entertain them. Thanks very much,
Peter
...................................................................................................................................
From: at
Date: Tue Feb 24, 2004 1:14 pm
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Atheism
Peter,
I have sent not less than six definitions
of the term "atheism". One writer wrote at length about
how "atheism" is more than anti-theism; it is a negation
of all supersensible or spiritual beings. I am pointing out that
your definition goes against every other definition of more than
10 words. If you profess ignorance as to how a term is used,
I suggest you either look it up or stop using it entirely.
My reference to your "readers" is forward looking.
You will be writing on the subject in the future. I am attempting
to help you ensure the clarity of your future writing. You have
stated that your purpose in coming here is to have your opinions
examined, so that you might learn. Well, here is an opportunity.
Daniel Hindes
----- Original Message -----
From: Peter Staudenmaier
Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 3:49 PM
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Atheism
Hi Daniel, you wrote:
I should note the point made in Britannica,
that atheism is not just the opposite of theism.
But that is exactly what I meant by it:
the opposite of theism. I have no idea whether this is how the
term is "commonly understood". I really don't spend
much time thinking about the topic.
However, I feel that you owe it to your
readers to clarify that when you speak of atheism, you do not
mean what is commonly understood by the term.
What readers? I didn't introduce this topic,
Tarjei did. I made it abundantly clear, over a series of several
posts, that in my view atheism simply means disbelief in god,
nothing more and nothing less. I think I said so roughly half
a dozen times. If any reader of that exchange managed to get
the impression that I think atheism means anything other than
disbelief in god, I don't see what I might be able to do to make
my stance clearer. If you have any suggestions along those lines,
I will gladly entertain them. Thanks very much,
Peter
...................................................................................................................................
From: winters_diana
Date: Tue Feb 24, 2004 1:44 pm
Subject: Re: Atheism
I'd have to agree Daniel has won the dictionary
war on the definition of "atheism."
Still, Daniel, you wrote somewhat more tolerantly
of differing terminology previously. May I quote your own post (message 2300):
This does bring up the interesting question
of whether, when two people use the same terminology, they necessarily
mean the same thing. Especially in the area of spiritual beliefs,
and involving authors whose work is prolific, it may actually
be that they refer to different concepts under the same name.
In the whole area of spirituality, these days
especially, people redefine these things for themselves all the
time. In fact being free to make up one's spirituality as one
goes along seems to be part of the point of most things "New
Age."
If you doubt that these terms are fluid and
their meanings being continually stretched, try typing the following
into google:
Atheists for Jesus
pagan atheists
atheist Jews
atheist Buddhists
atheist Wiccans
etc. (Warning, some of this will be scary
garbage, i.e., people making slanderous remarks calling Jews
all atheists as an insult, etc).
I propose a new working definition for identifying
new religions or spiritual proclivities: If there's a yahoo group
calling themselves that, it's a real religion. :)
Diana
...................................................................................................................................
From: at
Date: Tue Feb 24, 2004 3:05 pm
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Re: Atheism
My point, if I have not been sufficiently
clear, is that when a term is used in a manner that is not standard,
then this fact needs to be mentioned. A term may be freely employed
however the writer chooses. Should he or she mean something different
from others that employ that term, he or she ought to state so
when writing. I am all for clarity. If it can't be achieved in
one word, then use more. If you mean, "anti-theist but with
a belief in or direct perception of a spiritual world" then
say so. Don't say, "Atheist" and mean "anti-theist
but with a belief in or direct perception of a spiritual world"
and expect your readers to understand what you mean. This, of
course, relies on the assumption that you want your readers to
understand what you later say that you actually meant. In polemical
writing clarity is usually not the goal.
Steiner was at pains to describe how his conception
of Lemuria, for example, differed from Blavatsky's, explaining
himself repeatedly in articles and books. Some readers have grokked
this fact. Others can see only that they Steiner and other authors
employed the same term. Steiner almost never relied on a word
alone to carry his meaning, and you do not have to read far in
Steiner to become aware of this. He used many words against their
standard meanings, but always said so up front.
Daniel Hindes
...................................................................................................................................
From: winters_diana
Date: Tue Feb 24, 2004 3:29 pm
Subject: Re: Atheism
Daniel wrote:
My point, if I have not been sufficiently
clear,
Daniel, I never fault you for not being sufficiently
clear. :)
If you mean, "anti-theist but with
a belief in or direct perception of a spiritual world" then
say so. Don't say, "Atheist" and mean "anti-theist
but with a belief in or direct perception of a spiritual world"
Getting off-topic here, but although I think
you won the point regarding the dictionary definition, I have
a feeling the term really has been stretched beyond its original
meaning. Don't really know - just speculating because of the
structure of the word. The prefix "a" usually just
means none, without, there isn't any of this, roughly speaking,
of the thing it modifies. The terms theist/atheist ought to be
parallel, like moral/amoral. One believes in a god of some sort,
the other doesn't. This is why I was not surprised to hear a
stricter usage of "atheist" than the general sense
we have that an atheist is not a religious or spiritual person.
The latter ought to be "areligious" which to my ears,
has a different sense that "nonreligious" and is certainly
different from "anti-religious." (Is there a word "aspiritual"?
Hm. There ought to be.)
But I freely admit I am just spouting off
here :)
In polemical writing clarity is usually
not the goal.
That doesn't seem correct to me, but oh well.
Incidentally, Daniel - and Paulina - I really
do mean to read the article Paulina sent on left-handedness
more closely, in addition to Daniel's critique, which I thought
had many valid points (both the article and the critique).
Diana
...................................................................................................................................
From: Peter Staudenmaier
Date: Tue Feb 24, 2004 9:10 pm
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Atheism
Hi Daniel,
My reference to your "readers" is forward looking.
You will be writing on the subject in the future.
No, I won't be. I don't write about atheism, except when asked
for my views on the topic. I write about lots and lots of topics,
but this just isn't one of them. The only reason this came up
is that Tarjei mentioned my position that Steiner wavered between
disbelief in god and mystical christianity in the late 1890's.
I used the word "atheism" to denote disbelief in god.
It is hard for me to see why you consider this an egregious error.
You have stated that your purpose in coming here is to have
your opinions examined, so that you might learn. Well, here is
an opportunity.
I don't know what I might learn here, except that lots of people
think atheism is not the opposite of theism. I am genuinely indifferent
to this question. I can see that it is very important to you
and several other listmates, and I encourage you to pursue the
matter, for future readership or simply for your own edification.
I will keep your advice about clarity in mind. Thanks,
Peter
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