Any time an Atheist mainstay reevaluates the intellectual and moral roots of Atheism and finds them lacking, and then... gasp ... converts publicly, the abandoned followers go ballistic. Rather than debate the logical ins and outs of such a decision, the decider is attacked instead of the decision. This is so common that it is de riguer and not at all questioned by the rationalizing crowd.
To rationalize such an event requires that the decision be declared an artifact of senility or insanity, regardless of the content of its arguments. The fear of being dragged out of one's materialist worldview becomes virtually hysterical in its accusations, and not a drop of logic is incurred in arguing against the conversion.
It was just so when Antony Flew rejected Atheism in favor of a new-found deism. Now it is so in the case of the "raving atheist".
The Atheist/materialist crowd is never long on logic. Their presumption is that whatever they say is rational, and whoever disagrees, is not. Devolving to the underlying principles of rational thought and logic is not EVER a feature of their arguments, as I have posted before in "Why you and I cannot understand Atheists". The Atheo-materialist arguments are inversions of standard rationality; that is why no Atheist argument refers to Non-Contradiction, paradox or coherence.
My intent with this site is to inject basic rationality into the Atheist arguments for all to see and discuss. I will answer all questions in this vein.
The past year has been most productive for this. In the next year I hope to organize things a little better, for access to subjects as well as comments on current events.
I welcome any suggestions and comments, and as always, all questions.
Here's to a productive new year for all!
5 comments:
You wrote: Any time an Atheist mainstay reevaluates the intellectual and moral roots of Atheism and finds them lacking, and then... gasp ... converts publicly, the abandoned followers go ballistic. Rather than debate the logical ins and outs of such a decision, the decider is attacked instead of the decision.
The vast majority of the world's one billion atheists could care less what any other atheist does, and they have never heard of the senile Antony Flew or the "raving atheist".
Whenever I read about these atheists who throw out their common sense I just assume they were never "real" atheists. I'm an atheist because I think a belief in a magic god fairy is equal to a belief in a tooth fairy. Equally childish. I can't imagine ever throwing out all my knowledge of science to invoke supernatural magic, unless I had a lobotomy.
bobxxxx, thanks for your input, it is a revealing comment. It reminds me of a blog I read a year or more ago, where the writer was demanding proof that a converted Atheist had written sufficiently on Atheism before his conversion to prove his "understanding" of Atheism.
The theory is the same as yours: no person sufficiently imbued in Atheo-materialism could ever find enough material evidence to prove the existence of a god. And without material evidence, believing something is magical thinking.
But that is not the relevant point. What is relevant is that Atheo-materialism is an artificial construct, a mental constriction that is not, at its base, rational. When the roots of rationality are sought out, explored, and found to be both credible and non-material, it becomes no longer possible to blindly accept Atheo-materialism at its surface-level value. Here's why:
Science has rightly and voluntarily set its limits at the material (mass/energy, space/time) boundaries, enabling empirical experimental testing processes to determine the factoids of the material existence. Science does not produce truth, it produces contingent factiods, and only about material entities.
Truth is found only in subjective space, not in objective space; it is impervious to empirical maunderings. Subjective space is non-empirical; claims to the contrary are unjustified and unjustifiable.
So your world of science is not endangered by actual truth. The validity of science is in fact engendered by the truth contained in the First Principles of logic and rational thought, which are axiomatic because first, they are foundational to logic and science, and second, they cannot be proven by logic or science.
Another way to think about this:
Let (M) be the set of all material things. Can we search (M) rigorously and completely, then declare that there is no (!M)? It is not possible to find (!M) when only searching in (M). So since science is restricted to (M), it will not reveal anything whatsoever about (!M).
So claiming that there is no (!M) based on (M) evidence is a false claim, because that cannot be shown to be true.
It is clear that science is impotent to make claims about a deity. And that those who make such claims do so from a base of ignorance of the foundations of logic and rational thought.
Your claim of lobotomization for those who have thought beyond you is also unjustified, and it is arrogant in the form you presented. Your presumption of intellectual superiority is not warranted by your statements.
I was where you are now. It is a small price to pay to learn more about the basis for science: Study and internalize The First Principles.
Keep this in mind: every finding of science is contingent, not absolute. Is and always has been and always will be. AND: It is possible that science itself will require you to "throw out all your knowledge of science". If you are not prepared to do so, then you do not understand science.
Best wishes on your learning process.
bobxxx,
I would mention that your facts on the worldwide atheist population are incorrect. Whereas their may be one billion people worldwide who do not fit into a specific religion, your reasoning is faulty to assume that they somehow must then be atheists.
Estimates from mid-2008 suggest that there are approx. 147,766,000 people worldwide who would identify themselves as "atheist." Of course, there is another crowd of 767,470,000 worldwide who would identify as "non-religious" or more appropriately "not-specifically religious." If every individual in this group were actually atheist, then the number would near your total of one billion (the estimate would actually be 915,236,000).
Unfortunately for your claim, whereas the bulk of this number may in fact be skeptics or agnostics (which atheists attempt to include in their group under the name "weak atheists"), it also includes many of the non-religious in Japan and China (where I live), who weekly offer incense to ancestors and are highly religious in practice. They may be non-specific in their choice of religion, but they are very religious and "superstitious" in their lifestyle.
I'm sorry if this seems nitpicky, but if you claim to only believe in facts and empirical evidence, then you should be honest in your use of statistics.
Some guys said that objective Truth was only found in things like mathamatics. Is this correct. Cos you said that all truth is done in a subjective space. I was a bit confused about that!
Ben
Hi Ben,
Stick with me while I set up some basic concepts...
Objective space includes only the material universe. That is where science (empiricism) is done, and it is self-limited to the material universe. The amount that we know about the material universe is contingent upon the state of current technology and the amount of research that has been done. Science produces no truth, it merely produces factoids that continue to pile up. All knowledge of material existence is contingent upon the next research not overthrowing the current paradigms. So our objective knowledge of the material universe is tentative, not absolute.
There does exist absolute truth. It exists in the subjective space, and it is not material. Your example of math fits this category. Consider seeing a cow. Then you see another cow. What exists there in the objective space is an instance of (cow) and an instance of (cow). The relationship of "two" cows is not out there in the field with the cow; we construct that in our subjective space as a model to help us understand.
Math and logic and rational thought are all extant only in subjective space. These can be codified and communicated using physical, material symbols (ink on a page), but the meanings are purely subjectively held. There is no archaeological discovery that can produce a pile of logic; there is no particle accelerator that can produce rational thought.
So math is not objective in nature, but it can be about objective, material objects. But even that is not necessary, as some math becomes very abstract and without material counterpart.
Another way to think about it is that math - simple math - is a subjective construct that is devised to model objective characteristics and behaviors.
But very complex math starts to feed off of itself, operating on its own constructs; this operation and its meaning remain in the subjective space.
If math were an objective, material entity, then math could be handed out to every young person in a bag; it would not have to be learned.
But it is not a physical thing; it must be "understood" in the sense that mathematical relationships have meaning, and the meaning must be comprehended.
And "meaning" has only a subjective existence. As a responder once said, "I wish I had a jar full of meaning...".
Again "meaning" can be communicated using physical symbols. But symbols are not "meaning" in and of themselves, they must be comprehended in the subjective space, where meaning is derived from the symbols.
In other words, symbols are arranged to convey meaning that originated in subjective space, then meaning is derived from the symbols using the faculties of apprehension and comprehension that exist in the subjective space.
Symbols are like a pipe that transfers liquid from point A to point B. The pipe is not the liquid, but it is necessary for the transfer to occur.
(This got a little messy, if it is not clear we'll try again!)
Stan
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