Ah, time to deal with canards again.
First of all, drop the spurious notion that there is an “atheistic vision”. Atheism concerns itself solely with suspicion of mythology fanboy assertions. That is IT. Any questions about such topics as the origin of the universe, the origin of life, or the origin of ethics, are left to the scholarly disciplines constructed to answer them. The origin of the universe is the remit of cosmological physics, the origin of life is the remit of organic chemistry, and the orign of ethics is the remit of philosophical ethics (though recently, biology has had some interesting input into this question).
Being suspicious of unsupported assertions, whatever their source, is the foundation of rational thought, I don’t need to have read Quine (though it helps) to know that any assertion, when first presented, possesses the status “truth value unknown”. That an assertion has a truth value isn’t the issue - assertions that purport to be descriptive of the observable universe, or which are statements in a suitable formal system, possess a truth value virtually by definition. But until an assertion its tested to determine its truth value, that truth value is, and will forever remain, unknown.
The moment an assertion is subject to a proper test, to determine its truth value, that epistemological deficit is remedied. Assertions that are found to be false, are kept purely for pedagogical purposes in order to educate students on the proper process of avoiding error. Assertions that are found to be true, become part of our body of substantive knowledge.
Of course, one has to be careful with the use of the words “true” and “false” here. Within the world of formal systems, such as pure mathematics, a statement is true if it is consistent with the axioms of the construct being studied. The history of geometry provides some useful insights here, which I shall leave for another time. On the other hand, a statement about the observable universe is true if that statement is in accord with relevant observational data.
Thus far, the above two versions of “true” have proven to be the only reliable ones we have. Anyone wishing to propose an alternative to these two, has their work cut out for them.
In short, the role of knowledge is to provide you with a sound basis for understanding the universe and its contents. Its role is not to validate personal prejudice or provide an emotional boost, though I’m minded to note that those for whom learning is a joyful process tend to be better at advancing our knowledge, than those who regard learing as a chore. If this sounds harsh at first reading, be aware that the veterans here have vast experience with the usual suspects among the mythology fanboys, who routinely demonstrate that they think knowledge does exist to validate their personal prejudices, and furthermore, routinely engage in mendacity such as treating science dishonestly as a branch of apologetics, which it isn’t.
Now, returning to the matter of mythology fanboys and their unsupported assertions … assertions which in some cases are deliberately designed to avoid testing, and which, as a corollary, are safely discardable precisely on this basis. Other assertions which are in prinicple testable, even if doing so is enormously difficult in practice, but which haven’t been tested, are again safely discardable on this basis.
Indeed, I’m minded to note at this juncture, that mythology fanboys are incapable of agreeing among themselves on a global scale, which of the numerous mythologies humans have invented is purportedly the “right” mythology, and adherents of a particular mythology cannot agree among themselves what said mythology is purportedly telling us. Yet, on the basis of this rampant and comical anti-consilience, the same mythology fanboys arrogantly presume to be in a position to coerce the rest of us into treating their mythologies, along with whatever apologetic fabrications are erected in desperate attempts to prop up said mythologies, as enjoying a special, privileged status in the arena of discourse that is manifestly unwarranted.
Quite simply, atheism isn’t about “feelings”, it’s about honest conduct of discourse and intellectual integrity.
) As for being less determined, that is totally inaccurate. If anything, I am even MORE determined now to be as lazy as possible.
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