Atheism does not require one to believe that God does not exist, and things like love, meaning, and purpose are not part of the spiritual.
Atheism is a lack of a positive belief in Gods, not a belief that God’s don’t exist. It is similar to my position on Bigfoot. Could there be a large primate wandering around in the Pacific Northwest? I guess it is possible. I won’t say that they positively, absolutely don’t exist. However, I have yet to see strong evidence for Bigfoot so I don’t have a positive belief that they do exist.[quote=“Relates, post:36, topic:36642”]
If atheists are saying that the “spiritual”- love, meaning, and purpose, that which is not physical- does exist, how can they say that God does not exit?
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You haven’t shown that those are non-physical or spiritual. You need to do that first.
I said that the spiritual is evidence for the existence of God, just as the nonexistence of the spiritual is evidence for the nonexistence of God. Since there is agreement that the spiritual exists, that is one for God and one against atheism.
I keep hearing that atheists say that there is no evidence for the existence of God, and some theists agreeing with them. Here is clear evidence that there is more than the Natural in this world. Indeed, not only does the spiritual exist in this world, so does the rational. If you have any evidence that the spiritual and rational comes from anywhere but God, please share your evidence.
Nowhere did I say that. Please don’t put words in my mouth.[quote=“Relates, post:44, topic:36642”]
Then you say that there is no agreement that the spiritual exists, that it is not just a figment of our imagination.
Which is it?
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I am saying that we have no agreement that the spiritual exists as defined as a non-physical entity.
First of all we are talking about cosmology. the structure of reality. Atheists, at least Dawkins, Dennett, & Co., claim that reality is solely physical- matter and energy. This precludes the existence of the spiritual and the rational. Fair enough.
However the way to test this theory is to find an error. If one says that this precludes God because it says that there is no spiritual aspect to reality, and this is not true, because there is a spiritual aspect of reality, then the theory is wrong.
Second, Love is not an emotion. Love is a spiritual relationship. It is not physical, so it blows a hole on the claim that reality is purely physical, unless it is not real or imaginary, which it is not.
Third, Disproving the claim of New Atheism that Reality is strictly physical does not per se prove the fact that God exists as I say above. However atheists have made the claim that atheism must be true because there is no proof that God exists, which I have demonstrated is false, so it is very tempting to go the other way.
Fourth, the existence of love does not give people per se knowledge of God, but it does give them the possibility of knowledge of God and Reality. Anyone and everyone can know love and can love others and love God. This is spiritual knowledge.
If knowledge of reality must be through scientific knowledge, then everyone would need to receive a college education in science to understand how life works. Spiritual knowledge is not elitist knowledge. It is open to all.
That’s a good reminder. Of course whether your spouse divorces you after heated disagreement or else after drifting away due to lack of interest may be academic. Either way a relationship may be lost and/or your marriage gone. How God may distinguish (if God does) between hatred, or strong disbelief, or apathy may be an interesting question. And you are right that the church has great concern regardless.
Yes you did. [quote=“Relates, post:44, topic:36642”] Atheists have real meaning and purpose in their lives,
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[quote=“T_aquaticus, post:45, topic:36642”] I am saying that we have no agreement that the spiritual exists as defined as a non-physical entity. [/quote]
Are we in agreement that love, meaning, and purpose are non-physical? I thought we were.
Are we in agreement that love, meaning, and purpose are real? You said they were.
If spiritual realities are real, then they must have being and thus be entities, even though they are non-physical. Now may be it is not entirely obvious that the spiritual and God are the same thing, but everyone knows that God is the Source of the spiritual. Again I am open to discussion if you care to offer a different point of view.
I watched the debate yesterday. I thought McGrath was more eloquent, but never addressed the central question: “Is God a figment of our imagination?” He seemed at a loss when Shermer compared a fictitious or imaginary God to things like fiat money that “bring us meaning and purpose” but are not “real.” In contrast, Shermer stumbled in his opener and seemed to struggle to do more than string together meme-like sound byte clichés.
What I liked about it was the tone–conversational, respectful, and positive.
Once again, we do NOT have an agreement on that point. If you want to present evidence that those things are non-physical now would be the time to present it.
Where did you demonstrate that they are not composed of matter and/or energy?[quote=“Relates, post:52, topic:36642”]
Can they be measured and studied by the tools of the natural sciences? No, so they are not physical, so must be non-physical entities.
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Why can’t they be measured and studied by science?
I think the physical manifestations of those things can be, but that the significance or meaning they have to us cannot be. I’m with Roger on this one though I have a lot of differences with the way he states some things about it. But essentially I think a lot of us who are open-minded on this agree that science hasn’t [most likely can’t] address some of the best parts of love or beauty or purpose or meaning. Just like science can tell us all about ink and paper composition and patterns of ink placement on that paper. But none of that touches on the actual significance of the poem written there. Science just doesn’t go there; leading some of you to deny that any objective [i.e. --read “material”] significance actually exists, and leading others of us to say: “That’s fine if science doesn’t go there … I nevertheless choose to include those concepts in my life anyway because I don’t like missing out on those things, and I see meaning in them, even if that meaning is essentially immaterial as far as science is concerned.”
I would agree that we may not have the tools right now, but if emotions are the result of brain activity I don’t see why science couldn’t study how the brain is functioning including the emotions of significance that events provoke in a person.
Well, sure … let science do all that and whatever it can. Let me know the moment you can make any pronouncements about a new objectively-based ethics or beauty, or any of that. Noting which part of our brain lights up when do engage in any particular activity – even if we went on to understand vastly more about the neurons and specific electro-chemical communications happening, still doesn’t get us from “is” to “ought” or from ink markings (stuff lighting up in our brain) to poetry (our human interpretations and reactions).
Maybe not, but you could say the same about “hopelessness” or “rancor” etc etc. All these things are explainable as feelings or constructs produced by our material, animal brains. We may not currently have great scientific explanations for why they exist, but they don’t seem to be any kind of unexplainable phenomena either. I’m not concerned that there’s no crystal-clear scientific explanation or if they’re scientifically meaningful; I know what they are and my knowledge of such concepts regularly shows itself to be reliable.
What I really don’t see is how any of it lends itself to a belief that any particular God exists.
It usually comes down to two common logical fallacies that many people commit, including myself.
First, the argument from ignorance. We don’t know how something works, therefore God/supernatural must do it.
Second, shifting the burden of proof. It is claimed that emotions are non-physical spiritual things, and the attempt to support this claim is to demand that someone disprove the idea, even though the claimant never produced evidence to support it to begin with. A Google search for “Russell’s Teapot” or “Sagan’s Dragon in My Garage” should find a couple of good examples of this fallacy, if others are interested.
If people want to believe that love et al. are part of some spiritual realm through faith then I have no problem with that. However, once the claim of evidence is used I tend to want to see it. I suspect that this discussion is going to end up on the faith side of the discussion sooner than later.
Well, sure! I want to see it too. But meanwhile I (like you) am going to believe on faith and hopefully even live by a whole lot of very worthwhile things (such as the inherent dignity and value of each human being) without demanding that the evidence be found first.
I’m not foreclosing on science the same way that you are foreclosing on spirituality. When it has evidence to present, I’ll be in attendance. But I’m not putting my spirituality away in some sort of suspension [as if that were even possible] until science finds its way through to be everything you want it to be; especially when some of these issues don’t even lend themselves toward scientific methodologies for that kind of examination. In short, I’m not holding my breath.
Of course! It always ends where it started (for all of us, whether you see that or not) --with faith.
I would in fact say exactly the same kinds of things about all of those. Sure they have chemical components. That has been well established I think. I believe they also have spiritual aspects.