but the point is that threatening total nonexistence is very hard once you have even an informal understanding of what it is you are talking about, at most you get loss of relevance
True, it’s hard, but it does happen. As evidenced by the many of us who actually have become apostates of our native religions. After becoming convinced that the central thesis of the faith was in error, the jig was up.
EDIT: I think your way of phrasing it is descriptively the most accurate, because it’s psychologically quite possible to resist the act of apostasy despite not actually believing in the truth of your own beliefs. However, for many of us, we would consider such a person a non-believer and hence a de facto apostate, even if they didn’t think of themselves that way.
True, it’s hard, but it does happen. As evidenced by the many of us who become apostates
You are misplacing the referent if “it”. I was talking of abstract total nonexistence, not loss of worship. These are different things.
Loss of worship doesn’t witness total nonexistence, it’s possible to stop worshipping a thing that exists even physically, and to care less about a thing that exists abstractly. The fact that something is not worshiped is not any sort of argument for its abstract total nonexistence.
The argument whose applicability (not validity) I was contesting was that abstract total nonexistence implies loss of worship. I talked of how abstract total nonexistence of something previously informally motivated is unusual, doesn’t normally happen, only quantitative loss of degree of relevance (generic moral worth). And so the argument rarely applies, because its premise rarely triggers, not giving the conclusion of loss of worship.
The loss of worship itself can of course happen for other reasons, I wasn’t discussing this point.
Yes, I agreed in my edit that “worship”/”loss-of-worship” are possible necessary and sufficient correlates of “non-apostate”/”apostate” depending on your definition. However, one might say that worship is not sufficient; what is also required is belief.
However, one might say that worship is not sufficient; what is also required is belief.
Not sufficient for non-apostasy? What is “belief”? Some things abstractly exist, as coherent ideas. They don’t exist in the physical world. They matter or not in some way. Where’s “belief” in this, existence in the physical world specifically? Surely not, since then what is the relevance of talking about abstract total nonexistence?
What I would call “belief” or even “existence” in a sense that generalizes beyond the physical is moral relevance, things you care about and take into account in decision making. There is another thread on this point under this very post. In these terms, deities more strongly exist for believers and weakly exist for non-believers, with relevance for non-believers gained from their channeling via imagination of believers.
True, it’s hard, but it does happen. As evidenced by the many of us who actually have become apostates of our native religions. After becoming convinced that the central thesis of the faith was in error, the jig was up.
EDIT: I think your way of phrasing it is descriptively the most accurate, because it’s psychologically quite possible to resist the act of apostasy despite not actually believing in the truth of your own beliefs. However, for many of us, we would consider such a person a non-believer and hence a de facto apostate, even if they didn’t think of themselves that way.
You are misplacing the referent if “it”. I was talking of abstract total nonexistence, not loss of worship. These are different things.
Loss of worship doesn’t witness total nonexistence, it’s possible to stop worshipping a thing that exists even physically, and to care less about a thing that exists abstractly. The fact that something is not worshiped is not any sort of argument for its abstract total nonexistence.
The argument whose applicability (not validity) I was contesting was that abstract total nonexistence implies loss of worship. I talked of how abstract total nonexistence of something previously informally motivated is unusual, doesn’t normally happen, only quantitative loss of degree of relevance (generic moral worth). And so the argument rarely applies, because its premise rarely triggers, not giving the conclusion of loss of worship.
The loss of worship itself can of course happen for other reasons, I wasn’t discussing this point.
Yes, I agreed in my edit that “worship”/”loss-of-worship” are possible necessary and sufficient correlates of “non-apostate”/”apostate” depending on your definition. However, one might say that worship is not sufficient; what is also required is belief.
Not sufficient for non-apostasy? What is “belief”? Some things abstractly exist, as coherent ideas. They don’t exist in the physical world. They matter or not in some way. Where’s “belief” in this, existence in the physical world specifically? Surely not, since then what is the relevance of talking about abstract total nonexistence?
What I would call “belief” or even “existence” in a sense that generalizes beyond the physical is moral relevance, things you care about and take into account in decision making. There is another thread on this point under this very post. In these terms, deities more strongly exist for believers and weakly exist for non-believers, with relevance for non-believers gained from their channeling via imagination of believers.