That doesn’t qualify: a prime mover is that which must persist else everything else stops moving.
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So you’re complaining about things that haven’t happened here.
As for theodicy, its an obvious question that doesn’t have an obvious answer.
I think there is a worldview at play in both options.
The difference may be that the first one is ‘only’ subjective while in the latter case, there is an attempt to generalize from a subjective worldview to a more general claim about the reality.
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I’m not sure what you specifically mean by a bare negation, but I would characterize my atheism as an honest answer to the question of whether I believe in God/s. The answer would be no. That’s the extent of my atheism. The rest of my worldview is derived from things I do believe in instead of what I don’t believe in. As to the problem of suffering, that’s really not an issue for atheists. From what I can tell, we live in a universe that is indifferent to our suffering, and there doesn’t appear to be anyone else but ourselves to stop that suffering.
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I took at as what is sometimes labeled weak atheism, which is “lacking belief.” I don’t see a significant difference between “lacking belief” and agnosticism though. Not sure why we needed to parse atheism as such.
Vinnie
I found a good reference for differentiating between the two.
“Agnostic isn’t just a “weaker” version of being an atheist. It answers a different question. Atheism is about what you believe. Agnosticism is about what you know.”
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Not all atheists would agree with the first sentence. There is strong and weak atheism or positive and negative. Though strong atheists certainly lack belief in God since they deny God’s existence altogether.
Personally, if someone said invisible fairies cause gravity, I wouldn’t describe my own views as lacking belief in them. But maybe this definition these atheists use is built on the notion that the existence of God is a respectable question?
Vinnie
I would agree. Weak and strong atheism have distinct positions.
At least for me, it is a respectable question. Religion has been around since there has been humanity, and it is an important part of many peoples’ lives, including many of the people I care about the most.
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As usual, you’re assuming there is only one religion and only one ‘God’.
There are plenty of atheists who are ‘weak’ regarding some concepts of ‘God’ and ‘strong’ regarding others; ‘weak’ regarding some religions and ‘strong’ regarding others.
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The problematic question: “Which God?” Can one connect the dots from the generic to the specific? An ‘unmoved mover’ is a long way from the Sodom and Gomorrah smiting God of the Old Testament. One could find the debate over an ‘unmoved mover’ respectable but simply lack belief in the Greek Pantheon or the God of Judaism.
That said, I would agree that disbelieving in any God is a belief. As some may quip, strong atheism is believing in one less God than a monotheist. Weak atheists and agnostics may perhaps overlap, but bear in mind that the agnostic position is that the existence of God is unknowable or impossible to demonstrate. So, these are somewhat orthogonal concepts. One can be an agnostic theist, for example.
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I wouldn’t call it problematic. I would call it a personal question. I don’t think there is a way to arrive at belief without faith, so it is going to be a personal journey, IMHO.
As the old saying goes, if (weak) atheism is a belief then bald is a hair color.
The semantics of what atheism is or isn’t has been beaten to death in other threads, so I don’t know if we can find anything new here. As I hinted at earlier, I do think there are differences between belief and knowledge. You rightly say that there can be agnostic theists because one can believe in things they can’t fully understand or have knowledge of. I have always thought it is important for mystery to be a part of religion for this very reason, and I think this also plays into faith.
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It’s a very sill quip and egregious category error as God is sui generis. There are a number of strong metaphysical arguments for a prime mover whereas no one really claims there are any arguments for Thor, Quetzalcoatl or insert any other being that is not pure act. From Feser:
The God of classical theism is not a member of any species or genus—including the species or genus “gods”—because if he were, he would be composed of parts (such as genus and specific difference), and he is instead absolutely simple or noncomposite. He does not share an essence with other members of some class of things called “gods”, because if he did, then there would be a distinction in him between his essence and his existence, and in fact he just is existence itself. He is not merely one unusual cause among others but rather the purely actual actualizer and thus the source of the causal power of all things other than himself (including gods like Zeus, Venus, Thor, Quetzalcoatl, if they existed).
To suppose that the God of classical theism is “a god” or “a being” alongside Zeus, Venus, Thor, Quetzalcoatl, and so forth is like supposing that triangularly in the abstract is one triangle alongside the others one finds on chalkboards, in books, and so forth . . . It is to commit a crude category mistake.
Vinnie
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Was just curious if you were ever a Christian or had some faith and if in the process of realizing that it’s probably just some sort of delusion if there was any books or podcasts that you listened to that helped tease all of that out?
I believe the God of philosophy is a sterile, bland one: Necessary, perfect, unchanging, immutable. Very hard to turn into something like Jehovah. I suspect the nearest to a ‘personal’ version of the Philosopher’s God would be something like Pantheism.
I appreciate Feser’s writings and arguments in the area, along with philosophers debating over the past 2-3 millennia, but confess that I’m not convinced he can stick the landing of ‘proof’.
The god of classical theism is no more equivalent to the god portrayed in the Bible than it is equivalent to other creator deities.
The argument Feser uses to distinguish the prime mover from Venus, Thor, etc - that they’re one deity among others - don’t work for Ptah, Mbombo, etc[1]. There is no more reason to associate the prime mover with Yahweh than there is to associate it with Ptah or Mbombo, and the arguments of Anselm and Aquinas work can apply as well (or poorly) to Ptah etc as to Yahweh; the reason they were applied to Yahweh and not Ptah is just historical accident. Aristotle didn’t connect the prime mover to Yahweh.
Feser refers to deities like Venus, Thor, Quetzalcoatl, who are not singular creator deities who created from nothing, rather than to Ptah, Mbombo etc who are. ↩︎
Propose one what? An atheist? A god concept? A religion?
So you agree that the God of classical theism is a metaphysical fact? I am happy to hear you have renounced your atheism in favor of a generic theism that comes with the divine attributes.
They don’t intend to. There is one God with a number of demonstrable metaphysical attributes but there are different, fallible human understandings of that one God. Monotheism is the only option and comparing the prime mover or actus purus to polytheistic deities and magical beings is a category error. It has the intellectual rigor of a wooden fundamentalism.
You seem to be plagued by some sort of cartesian dualism when it comes to God. Most of us Christians believe in general revelation: “Ever since the creation of the world God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been seen and understood through the things God has made.” I would never say Jews, Muslims or followers of Ptah get everything wrong anymore than I would say the Biblical authors get everything right. In fact, there are countless experiences with God (as opposed to doctrinal understandings) that I would say are completely genuine, even if I would disagree with their overall dressing. Some religious systems get things more correct than others but “a rose under any other name smells just as sweet.” The God of the Bible (just not the ignorant fundamentalist version you are used to) is certainly consistent with classical theism. But the Bible is not univocal in its portrayal of God. It certainly has anthropomorphic conceptions of God that we recognize as such. Are you being disingenuous or do you not recognize there seems to be only one recurring fundamentalist on this board who is on a vacation at the moment?
Some Christians think we are supposed to prove (with science, history or whatever) that Jesus is God and that He Rose from the dead and then people will believe in Him. That is not how it works. God incarnate called many people and some followed and some rejected. Historical apologetics is for comforting believers, consoling doubts and building a fence around the faith. To be sure, the pivotal details of our faith are completely consistent with the historical record and removing barriers is important. But in the end, you and everyone else has a choice when it comes to Jesus: Liar, Lunatic or Lord. If the words of Jesus and His sacrifice don’t compel you call Him Lord and savior, the babble I think I mean has no chance. I can only point out the mindless skepticism you are entrenched in is wrong. God actually does exist and the evidence for this is extremely strong and compelling. You seem to agree and have moved on to the next question. I can only hope you experience God in some other way, through some other form, since you’ve rejected the clearest path. “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”
Vinnie
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I suggest that viewing the beliefs or lack of belief (‘nones’) through the concept of worldviews may help.
Worldviews are subjective. In that sense, atheists are a diverse group, especially because they come from different backgrounds. We get building blocks for our worldview from our surroundings during growth and learning - parents, teachers, culture, friends, all affect our worldview. Atheists coming from different backgrounds have assimilated differing incredients for their worldview.
Although the worldviews are basically subjective, humans have a tendency to group and classify matters to increase understanding. In those classifications, ontological questions play a major role. The essence of reality is perhaps the most fundamental question that groups worldviews. A belief in God or gods leads to a different kind of ‘packet’ of answers to ontological questions than a belief that there are no god(s). If you do not like to call atheism a belief, maybe you could call it a philosophical standpoint/system.
Most classifications of worldviews separate atheism to one class, comparable to monotheistic belief in Christian God or polytheistic belief in Hindu gods. In this sense, atheism is a category that is comparable to the different belief systems among theists.
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A “religion”….. a religion of merit that we hear would do well to
include in our considerations.
G.Brooks