Suspending Reality

[Cypress]

Blinked into existence or items over 50K didn't survive the glaciers?

Again, all we know is that the oldest items recovered are that old.

Art is a product of visualization. Visualization is the ability to see in one's mind something that doesn't exist in reality such as planning to kill a tiger by digging a pit and putting sharp sticks in it. There's clearly an evolutionary advantage to intelligence. Human intelligence has the ability to visualize the future, project ahead. If I can draw out a battle plan in the sand for you, how much of a stretch is it to draw something else?

Africa was never glaciated by ice sheets, and the earliest symbolic rock art found in Africa is from the upper Paleolithic. That's 150k years after the appearance of the first homo sapiens.

Absent any new discoveries, we are on fairly secure ground that symbolic art and ritual shamanistic practices blinked into existence in the upper Paleolithic for Homo Sapiens, but not for other human lineages.

I don't think this comes down to a matter of simple visualization - e.g., art for art's sake. A gorilla can taught to doodle and paint. The consensus seems to be that cave art and clay figurines had transcendental significance that played a role in shamanistic ritual, and that homo sapiens of the upper Paleolithic believed in a transcendent reality beyond the physical world our senses percieve.

 

[Cypress]

It's possible that the earliest humans did have spiritual beliefs but did not exhibit them via carvings, paintings, or other craftwork that has survived through the ages. Neanderthal remains have been found with flowers/pollen and artifacts. We can speculate that this means they believed in an afterlife, or it could merely be a sign that the individual was loved and cared about.

Neanderthal Burials Confirmed as Ancient Ritual

ETA: I forgot about this rock art, estimated to be at least 77,000 years old, found in Africa.

The Ancient Rock Art of Africa

Thanks, good point and I have heard of those.

The Neanderthalis burial as I understand it is controversial, not secure science. Some researchers think pollen could have been introduced by burrowing animals after the burial.

The Blombos cave painting is hard to interpret. It's just a geometric cross hatch pattern of ocher. Hard to say if that's just a doodle, or if it has any real shamanistic significance.

I agree that there are things yet to be discovered about archaic humans, but for purposes here I am mostly invoking secure and established science, and not conjecture or controversial science.


The Neanderthal site and the Blombos cave drawing are very cool though!

 

[Cypress]

Agreed. Zero evidence of magic, miracles or anything that defies the laws of physics.

I think there are some questions that are not resolvable by scientific experiments, visual observation, or mathmatical equations.

That doesn't mean they aren't legitimate questions.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

No, he is not agnostic, which IMO is defined as "Yeah, there could be god/heaven/hell/soul/afterlife but I don't know for sure." He flatly states that there are no such things, based on the fact that there's no evidence for them. He's the same with the Loch Ness monster, "Champie," Big Foot, Area 51, and other beloved myths.

Agnostic is "I don't know. There's no evidence either way". Atheist is "I know there's no god or anything beyond the physical. When you're dead, you're dead". Theist is "There is a god, afterlife". Then there's a lot of in between.

Most atheists I've met are really "in-between". They don't believe in a god, but can be pantheist or panentheist and believe in existence beyond mortality. Even Mr. Militant Atheist himself, Dr. Richard Dawkins hedges on his own believability scale.

Agreed with Mr. Owl; there is no evidence of magic, miracles, Big Foot, etc.

 

[Cypress]

"Militant atheist" is a cliche like "angry negro."

Holy roller is a cliche too, but I use it without mercy!

Unless I am mistaken, Richard Dawkins embraced the concept of militant atheist. As did the New Atheist movement. The Soviet Union definitely embraced the term.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Thanks, good point and I have heard of those.

The Neanderthalis burial as I understand it is controversial, not secure science. Some researchers think pollen could have been introduced by burrowing animals after the burial.

The Blombos cave painting is hard to interpret. It's just a geometric cross hatch pattern of ocher. Hard to say if that's just a doodle, or if it has any real shamanistic significance.

I agree that there are things yet to be discovered about archaic humans, but for purposes here I am mostly invoking secure and established science, and not conjecture or controversial science.


The Neanderthal site and the Blombos cave drawing are very cool though!

Animals don't doodle unless taught like Koko. Doodling paint on a cave wall is, indeed, significant since, as you often put it, "it serves no evolutionary purpose".

 

[Kafka]

Hummm...I wonder how that bolded part plays out with regard to my contention that you DO either "believe" there are no gods or "believe" it is more likely that there are no gods than that there is at least one.

Would you be so kind as to inform us.

I have been clear on this, I thought. I don't understand what your point is.

I simply fail to believe in God or any gods whatsoever.

If you wish to call this a "belief" then I suppose we must dispense with the word "belief" altogether as it no longer has any definition.

I fail to believe. Why is this problematic? YOU fail to believe it when I tell you there is a 1' tall invisible giraffe in your pantry. Or do you only BELIEVE this?

 

[Cypress]

Animals don't doodle unless taught like Koko. Doodling paint on a cave wall is, indeed, significant since, as you often put it, "it serves no evolutionary purpose".

A doodle is definitely significant, but it's hard to interpret whether it has any higher spiritual or transcendent meaning. Or whether it was just doodling or aesthetic adornment.

I definitely think the Homo Sapiens even of the lower and middle Paleolithic were more cognitively advanced than other archaic humans like Neanderthal, Homo eragaster, etc

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Holy roller is a cliche too, but I use it without mercy!

Unless I am mistaken, Richard Dawkins embraced the concept of militant atheist.

As does she. BP often uses cliches against those with whom she disagrees.

He did. He was one of the "Four Horsemen of New Atheism" AKA militant atheism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Atheism

New Atheism advocates the view that superstition, religion, and irrationalism should not simply be tolerated. Instead, they advocate the antitheist view that the various forms of theism should be criticised, countered, examined, and challenged by rational argument, especially when they exert strong influence on the broader society, such as in government, education, and politics.[3][4] Major figures of New Atheism include Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett, collectively referred to as the "Four Horsemen" of the movement, as well as Ayaan Hirsi Ali[5] until her conversion to Christianity in 2023.[6]

Dawkin's speech at the Reason Rally in DC expressed their militant views: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason_Rally

 

[Dutch Uncle]

A doodle is significant, but it's hard to interpret whether it has any higher spiritual or transcendent meaning

I definitely think the Homo Sapiens even of the lower and middle Paleolithic were more cognitively advanced than other archaic humans like Neanderthal, Homo eragaster, etc

I see it as a beginning. An evolutionary step.

Agreed. IMO, there were other nascent human species having the beginnings of spirituality, but our species killed off the competition.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

I have been clear on this, I thought. I don't understand what your point is.

I simply fail to believe in God or any gods whatsoever.

If you wish to call this a "belief" then I suppose we must dispense with the word "belief" altogether as it no longer has any definition.

I fail to believe. Why is this problematic? YOU fail to believe it when I tell you there is a 1' tall invisible giraffe in your pantry. Or do you only BELIEVE this?

It is a belief. Call it disbelief or whatever.

If you ask me "are there teapots orbiting Mars", I'd say "I don't know, but I doubt it" not "I don't believe teapots orbit Mars". See the difference, Obten?

 

[Cypress]

Mr. Owl sounds more like an agnostic than an atheist. No evidence is correct. It's a matter of faith either for or against.

Agreed on defensiveness. Most militant atheists are young, male and Euro-American. There's a good link between militant atheists and anarchists too.

To me the distinction is whether or not one is at least open to the possibility of a transcendent reality beyond the physical reality we percieve.

Anyone who has written off the possibility seems to atheist to me.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Africa was never glaciated by ice sheets, and the earliest symbolic rock art found in Africa is from the upper Paleolithic. That's 150k years after the appearance of the first homo sapiens.

Absent any new discoveries, we are on fairly secure ground that symbolic art and ritual shamanistic practices blinked into existence in the upper Paleolithic for Homo Sapiens, but not for other human lineages.

I don't think this comes down to a matter of simple visualization - e.g., art for art's sake. A gorilla can taught to doodle and paint. The consensus seems to be that cave art and clay figurines had transcendental significance that played a role in shamanistic ritual, and that homo sapiens of the upper Paleolithic believed in a transcendent reality beyond the physical world our senses percieve.

Agreed. So what was under those ice sheets? We don't know.

I still disagree with your "blinked into existence" idea since you are positing that nothing existed before. I'm saying that we only lack evidence of previous existence. What manmade objects last longer than 50,000 years? IDK.

Do apes doodle in the wild or are they taught in captivity? My understanding is it's only the latter, but I could be wrong. Still, doodling indicates an ability to visualize. That's an ability required to look forward and plan; see something that doesn't exist, visualize it, then make it happen. IMO, that's an excellent evolutionary trait.

 

[Cypress]

As does she. BP often uses cliches against those with whom she disagrees.

He did. He was one of the "Four Horsemen of New Atheism" AKA militant atheism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Atheism


Dawkin's speech at the Reason Rally in DC expressed their militant views: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason_Rally

The world needs people like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Pope Francis, and the Dalai Lama.

I believe I need to hear all sides to synthesize information and decide what makes sense to me.

Where it goes overboard are things like the Spanish inquisition, or communism's attempt to forcibly eradicate religion.

 

[Ross Dolan]

I have been clear on this, I thought. I don't understand what your point is.

I simply fail to believe in God or any gods whatsoever.

If you wish to call this a "belief" then I suppose we must dispense with the word "belief" altogether as it no longer has any definition.

I fail to believe. Why is this problematic? YOU fail to believe it when I tell you there is a 1' tall invisible giraffe in your pantry. Or do you only BELIEVE this?

You claim you have no "beliefs" regarding the existence or non-existence of gods...and you claim you do not meet the criteria I mentioned, namely: You do not believe there are no gods...and you do not believe it is more likely that there are no gods than that there is at least one.

But you wrote, "There is no difference. God is merely one of many gods. All equally unlikely."

You are lying...flat out lying about not having any beliefs on the subject.

YOU DO, AT VERY LEAST, BELIEVE THAT IT IS MORE LIKELY THAT THERE ARE NO GODS THAN THAT THERE IS AT LEAST ONE...or you could not have written that "all equally unlikely" part.

Why not just acknowledge that...rather than trying the bullshit you are trying to sell?

 

[Dutch Uncle]

To me the distinction is whether or not one is at least open to the possibility of a transcendent reality beyond the physical reality we percieve.

Anyone who has written off the possibility seems to atheist to me.

Agreed. Atheists say it doesn't exist. Theists say it does exist. Then there's many in between. I had an NDE so I'm inclined to believe there is something beyond existence, but I don't understand its nature. I didn't see God, Jesus or Siddhartha.

BTW, there's a great movie titled "The Quiet Earth" you might like that relates. It's New Zealand's first SF movie: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089869/
It's on Plex and Tubi.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

The world needs people like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Pope Francis, and the Dalai Lama.

I believe I need to hear all sides to synthesize information and decide what makes sense to me.

Where it goes overboard are things like the Spanish inquisition, or communism's attempt to forcibly eradicate religion.

It's one thing to have different views, but it's another to shove those views down the throats of others as the Catholics did in the colonial past or Jerry Falwell. The Four Horsemen advocated shoving.

A good POV.

Agreed on "overboard".

 

[Kafka]

It is a belief. Call it disbelief or whatever.

If you ask me "are there teapots orbiting Mars", I'd say "I don't know, but I doubt it" not "I don't believe teapots orbit Mars". See the difference, Obten?

Someone has now said there is a teapot orbiting Mars. That thought is out there now (since Russell). So are you agnostic about it? There is literally no way to know one way or the other.

Science has a really good system for operating like this: it's called testing against the null hypothesis. The null would be that there are no teapots orbiting Mars. That would be the "baseline". Is there any evidence for a teapot orbiting Mars? Nope. None. Right now the ONLY reason to even consider it would be that someone (Russell) said it is there. Are you now required to consider the entire concept up in the air?

In reality given that we cannot know ANYTHING with perfect knowledge then ALL things have "doubt" in them. Science, when testing against the null hypothesis, NEVER says that they are 100% perfectly sure of the decision to reject the null or fail to reject the null. But I am completely comfortable to simply fail to believe that there is a teapot orbiting Mars.

That is my position with regards to God. I am hence "without God" and per the definition an atheist.

Is it TRULY a "belief" if you fail to believe something some rando just told you? Do you believe the homeless guy talking to the streetlights MIGHT actually be communicating with the streetlight? No, of course you don't. But now you tell me this is merely a "belief" you have.

 

[Kafka]

You claim you have no "beliefs" regarding the existence or non-existence of gods...and you claim you do not meet the criteria I mentioned, namely: You do not believe there are no gods...and you do not believe it is more likely that there are no gods than that there is at least one.

But you wrote, "There is no difference. God is merely one of many gods. All equally unlikely."

You are lying...flat out lying about not having any beliefs on the subject.

YOU DO, AT VERY LEAST, BELIEVE THAT IT IS MORE LIKELY THAT THERE ARE NO GODS THAN THAT THERE IS AT LEAST ONE...or you could not have written that "all equally unlikely" part.

Why not just acknowledge that...rather than trying the bullshit you are trying to sell?

Because I don't consider a lack of belief to be a belief. Anymore than I consider my lack of collecting stamps to be a hobby.

 

[Cypress]

Agreed. Atheists say it doesn't exist. Theists say it does exist. Then there's many in between. I had an NDE so I'm inclined to believe there is something beyond existence, but I don't understand its nature. I didn't see God, Jesus or Siddhartha.

BTW, there's a great movie titled "The Quiet Earth" you might like that relates. It's New Zealand's first SF movie: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089869/
It's on Plex and Tubi.

Thanks for the recommendation!

Most of those polls we see showing dropping church attendance, also show that an abstract belief in spirituality is as strong as ever. That's why it seems instinctual, and that's the thread I drew back to the shamanistic rituals of early homo sapiens.

Rejecting the God of Abraham doesn't seem atheistic to mer. It seems to just be reaction against Christianity.

Things like pantheism, Taoism, Buddhism don't neccesarily have a Creator god in the way Americans concieve of it. But they all assume a transcendent reality beyond what we can percieve in the physical world.

So that seems to be the dividing line between atheism and agnosticism to me, whether not one rejects the possibility of a transcendental reality