“What a load of bollocks. Atheism is simply the non-belief in religion, not a page full of crap.”While this has the markings of a drive-by superficiality, I will address it. It is a common assertion amongst those Atheists in need of sound bites to support their belief system in lieu of concentrated thought.
Atheism is not non-belief in religion, it is a specific belief that there is no deity. Non-belief in religion would be an-ecclesiasticism, and is usually expressed in hostile terms rendering it to be Anti-ecclesiasticism. And in fact, to a high degree, I fall into those categories myself.
I think what anonymous meant to claim is that Atheism is non-belief in a deity. That is the usual Atheist claim, and that claim is false also.
The analysis of that claim goes like this:
If a person has not heard of the possibility of a deity (or first cause of the universe), then that person likely has non-belief in a deity.
If a person has heard the assertion that there exists a deity, there are three possible reactions:
a) belief that the assertion is true;
b) belief that the assertion is false;
c) belief that the assertion cannot be known to be either true or false.
It is not possible that the person who has heard the assertion that there is a deity has no theory on the subject at all, unless he is short of memory and walks off without remembering the assertion at all.
Asserting “non-belief” in a deity is superficial; it indicates that an answer which is convenient to the Atheist has been chosen without thought, or possibly it has been chosen to cover for the Atheist inability to prove his belief, which is that there is no deity. But the cover story is false, and the Atheist, who fails this cover is forced to see that his belief is an unprovable statement of faith, not a rational, empirical, scientific finding.
UPDATE
This post has undergone a critical analysis at Barefoot Bum, an analysis which I print here in its entirety:
"After this, I'll be retiring Stan to the same category as Ray Comfort: too consistently stupid to merit continued mention in this series."This incisive critique from B'Bum should provide much meat for debating the issue. And I have to thank B'Bum for highlighting the typing error, which I have corrected.
44 comments:
Hence the common retreat to a form of atheistic agnosticism when atheists get called out on their redefining what atheism is. This includes lack of belief, positive claims bear the burden of proof, can't prove a negative, etc.. This is usually followed up by an appeal to ignorance saying there is no evidence of God's existence which is also self-refuting since that statement requires omniscience. I love quoting their fellow atheists such as Carl Sagan - "The absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence" and Christopher Hitchens - "That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." Even then, the belief that God doesn't exist is taken on blind irrational faith. Atheism is never valid.
Good points...thanks for the comment. You obviously have had these discussions before.
Stan
Anonymous, Stan,
Isn't what the atheist is saying is that for him the entire question itself of a deity (or not) is a total non-issue; irrelevant? He believes not only that b) the assertion is false, but that the assertion itself is of no meaning; in fact, absurd.
And what of positive claims bearing the burden of proof? This is a valid statement, is it not? And if it is valid, where is then the need for an atheist to prove his negative claim? Or do you consider atheism itself to be a positive claim?
And when an atheist says there is no evidence for the existence of God does he not mean no evidence so far and that were this to change he would then change his views?
Ah yes, I see, this is the retreat to agnosticism. But I'm not clear on what's necessarily irrational or illogical about this agnostic position. I don't see how it's a belief or statement of faith, it seems to be more of a philosophical position.
I see now how atheism can never be valid. But what is agnosticism? Not much either. It is still atheism.
Hi Fred,
You seem to be answering your own questions as you go, good for you.
The burden of proof argument is another dodge. "Burden of proof" is a debate term and it is accompanied with a "burden of rebuttal" for the opposition. The burden of rebuttal is governed by the same rules as the burden of proof. This means that if the assertion, “there exists a rational first cause”, requires physical, material evidence that conforms to empirical, replicable, experimental standards, then so does the rebuttal. This means that the Atheist counter assertion, "there is no rational first cause", requires empirical, replicable, experimental validation also, if it is to be considered a valid assertion under the Atheist rules of argumentation which they apply to the original theist assertion.
Atheists in general do not accept this, and take the position that they need to prove nothing. So their rebuttal is just this: the theist assertion cannot be proved empirically, materially, so it is false. They will not accept that their rebuttal requires the same standards which they place on the original assertion. This is intellectually dishonest, to say the least.
Atheists, at least the vocal and aggressive ones that populate the web, do not believe that the existence of a deity is a non-issue. It is an issue that angers, even enrages them. There is an incendiary debate amongst Atheists right now concerning whether to be civil to non-Atheists, or to attack them at every opportunity. The camp of attackers are even attacking the other Atheists who endorse tolerance of religious people, calling them accommodationists, and questioning their integrity and intelligence. A significant number of influential Atheists are in the attack camp. They claim that theism is evil, that it is against rationality, meaning science, meaning evolution. They claim that it is evil, as is shown by the pedophilia in the Catholic Church and the failure of the Church to address and eradicate it, and here they have a definite point, but it is an ecclesiastical issue, it does not address the question of whether there exists a rational first cause. It is common for Atheists to attack the weakest and acknowledged irrational portions of religious fundamentalism, and then to extrapolate that to all who are not Atheist. That is an intellectual fallacy and a basic dishonesty… in other words, irrational and immoral. Equating all non-Atheists with Fred Phelps or with Muslim killers is an indication of both intellectual and moral turpitude. But one can see this every day on Atheist sites, a great many of which are commmpletely intolerant of theism, period.
All this to merely say that, no, the question of the existence of a deity is not a non-issue to the Atheists who populate the web in numerous sites. It is a source of much angst and anger for them.
As for agnosticism, that is a belief that also demands physical, material proof for an assertion of non-material existence (a rational first cause). But for some reason, agnostics seem not to have the courage to admit to the actual Materialist, Atheist basis for agnosticism. As you say, it is still Atheism.
As for agnosticism, that is a belief that also demands physical, material proof for an assertion of non-material existence
Or, you can be someone who hasn't decided which one is true or not. Like me. :)
Martin,
Which begs the question: what would it take for you to decide that the existence of a deity is true?
And would a personal (subjective and unprovable) experience or encounter with such deity (or the divine) be enough to satisfy your indecision?
Hello Stan,
Thank you again for your answers.
Ok. Deists cannot prove their claims materially/rationally/logically but then neither can atheists. Deists are honest(?) about this, atheists are not. So, what of it? Is it not then just a long unending argument which can never resolve itself decisively since both claims are unprovable and statements of faith/opinion rather than fact?
Yes, it is a big and important point that atheists are in fact following a belief system as much as deists are and that therefore their position is false and hypocritical, but this doesn't resolve anything towards pointing to a larger reality than the materialist worldview, "...an unnecessary, rationalized contraction of total reality, a self-enforced myopia".
So perhaps it is as religionists and religious texts say: one cannot arrive at knowledge nor comprehension of the divine, the unseen world, Truth, "total reality" etc through reason and logic alone but only through a leap of faith; a surrender of self to something unseen, unheard, immeasurable and unknowable, if not unfelt - against all one's basic and trusted senses and faculties; the ultimate in irrational and illogical acts. In other words, God enters one's soul through the heart, not the mind, etc. I'm sure you know the drill.
I have no problem with this view, however I am interested in your blog because you say you've arrived to an understanding of "total reality" through purely logical and rational means, by slowly and carefully deconstructing your own previous atheism using the tools and principles of rationality and logic you've come - I presume - to a position of deism.
So far, what I'm getting is you're mainly debunking atheism. I'm curious and interested in the next step: realising through logic and rational means there is a total reality greater than material reality (and presumably the creative product of an intelligent being). Or did these two occur simultaneously? As you debunked the one the truths of the other revealed themselves, self-evidently?
I think this is yet another one of those questions which should probably be asked after I've read more of your blog but they sprung to mind and I thought it better to let them out. I appreciate your understanding.
Yes, Fred Phelps... I console myself in the knowledge I also share the name with one of the greatest dancers of stage and screen of the 20th century!
Thanks again for your time, Stan.
Fred,
Several members of my family have the name Fred or Frederic, it’s an honorable name.
You said,
“Yes, it is a big and important point that atheists are in fact following a belief system as much as deists are and that therefore their position is false and hypocritical, but this doesn't resolve anything towards pointing to a larger reality than the materialist worldview, "...an unnecessary, rationalized contraction of total reality, a self-enforced myopia".”
The existence of an expanded reality is easily demonstrated by the necessity of some other form of existence for the entire universe before the Big Bang, and existence outside and beyond space-time and mass-energy. I.e. non-material. It is also being seen in quantum studies, with entanglement and equation collapse. It can be seen in gravity, operating at a distance. It can be inferred from the inability to remove physical lumps of consciousness or thoughts from our brains as material things to be analyzed. It can be inferred from the non-causal-chain that produces skyscrapers, automobiles and microprocessors – intentionally.
”So perhaps it is as religionists and religious texts say: one cannot arrive at knowledge nor comprehension of the divine, the unseen world, Truth, "total reality" etc through reason and logic alone but only through a leap of faith; a surrender of self to something unseen, unheard, immeasurable and unknowable, if not unfelt - against all one's basic and trusted senses and faculties; the ultimate in irrational and illogical acts. In other words, God enters one's soul through the heart, not the mind, etc. I'm sure you know the drill.”
I do not accept this line of thought. There is nothing irrational about a rational First Cause, nor about the existence of dimensions outside our ability to sense, nor about the possibility of communication between dimensions. While such things are not irrational, they also are not empirically testable, so the “trusted senses” when used to artificially limit knowledge (via empiricism and materialism), should not be endowed with more power than they actually have.
However, one of the “trusted faculties” is the faculty of reason, a faculty that cannot be predicted from Materialism, and a faculty that is useful in the rational analysis of the limitations of human trusted senses, and subsequently their false applicability to limiting knowledge to the material world. Even materialists and Atheists are forced to admit that symbolic math is valid knowledge; that empirical science is based on logic which is valid knowledge. Neither math nor logic are material entities.
(continued in next comment)
(Continued from previous comment)
In answer to your next question, did I realize that Atheism is false and that reality is larger than Atheists allow it to be, simultaneously: no, the process of logical analysis is sequential, not simultaneous. And it takes time, especially when one realizes that the entire process of thought that one has been using is incorrect and that the process needs to be correctly re-established and then validated somehow. If one has no idea how to do this – it is not taught in schools, even engineering school – it takes a lot of study.
I had bought a logic text by Copi at a yard sale many years earlier and never read it. But at that time I devoured it, along with books on thought and thinking as I could get them. I have acquired and read a number of logic books. John Locke wrote an important book, “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding”, which illustrates thought processing. One of my favorite philosophers, Bertrand Russell (a cur in life, but an honest philosophical thinker for the most part) wrote a number of things which brought to light a process for analysis. I then read all the philosophy I could get my hands on, especially philosophy of the mind. Much of it is obviously bunk, materialist first, objective last or not at all. But this is the course of discovery, the journey of learning which I hope that everyone will pursue, rather than passively accepting sound-bite conclusions foisted by half-educated, rationalizing peddlers of dogmatic agenda, which is created out of juvenile emotional rebellion.
There is so much to learn that a lifetime is not enough, much less the years spent in school (especially if focused on the minutiae of PhD’s). But the journey should start with how to know that a thought is valid. With that knowledge and the discipline to use it, a valid worldview can be constructed. There is no reason that a valid worldview should be restricted to material items.
Thank you, Stan, for your answers. I will mull over them and continue to read your Compendium, perhaps disengaging critical thought a little while doing so just to get to the end of it and to get a sense of the total picture presented here.
All the best.
Fred,
Critical Thought is not a good thing to disengage; take your time and ask any and all questions that you wish.
Stan
A quick logic puzzle by way of demonstration:
(1) I have in my possession a SIMPLE boolean statement, I will call it G. It is either True or it is False, there are no other options.
(2) As you have no other knowledge of G so you cannot PROVE that it is False by any attack of logic or reason or deduction or induction.
(3) You CANNOT therefore assume that G is True
You must remain undecided on the truth value of G -- even though, in this case, we are CERTAIN that G exists.
(a) You have in your possession a definition of God, which you assert exists.
(b) I have no other knowledge of your God, therefore I cannot prove that he does not exist.
(c) I cannot therefore assume that he does exist.
Now the problem here is that there is an infinite class of God-like propositions that I am necessarily undecided on. So I give yours a 1:infinity chance of being the right one; unless YOU can demonstrate your claims in some way.
I now ask that you differentiate your claimed God from the parsimonious assumption of no God. If you cannot do that then you have a problem. Someone else might come along and claim God'(prime) and compete with your God -- since neither of you can prove your claims they are on equal footing with you. OR, if you happen to believe in the biblical god, you could try out 1 Kings 18 and do the old 'Baal' test.
Atheism is disbelief in a god, which is statement about the STATE of the person making that assertion. It cannot be an "argument from ignorance" unless the person has somehow failed to have access to their own beliefs.
And when I say that my 'atheistic' position against your God is based on the fact that You have not demonstrated your claims TO ME, I am not claiming that your god Does Not And Cannot Exist based on my lack of knowledge of your evidence to the contrary.
Uranium existed LONG before any Earth person 'believed' in it but someone had to make a successful argument FOR the ontological status of Uranium before it was REASONABLE to believe in it [until it was firmly established any belief would have been a false proxy for the real thing].
Agnosticism, on the other hand, is a POSITIVE claim about the epistemological value of reason and empirical demonstrations (at least in its proper usage as a noun as defined by T Huxley, rather than as an adjective).
You also seem to assume that everyone who forms any conceptualization of a 'god' are necessarily imagining the same thing. I absolutely do NOT grant this premise.
When I imagine 'god' I imagine a being that has lots of sex with Earth women and devours his own offspring out of fear and jealousy -- don't you? I refer, of course, to Jupiter -- one of the Gods the Romans called early Christians 'atheists' for not believing in -- I mean clearly Jupiter is real (as every enlightened person knows) and this YWblah-blah is a poseur. Right?
The "Burden of Proof" is not merely a device used in debates. There is also a Philosophic burden of proof (from wiki): "obligation on a party in an epistemic dispute to provide sufficient warrant for their position ... This burden of proof is often asymmetrical and typically falls more heavily on the party that makes either an ontologically positive claim, or makes a claim more "extraordinary", that is farther removed from conventionally accepted facts."
It is ridiculous to ponder the reverse which would be that all claims made are assumed true until demonstrated to be false. I would HOPE that such a position would be clearly ridiculous to all but apparently not to some in this crowd?
011011 answer to propositions.
I am very happy to see this sort of argumentation being made, and I am happy to answer it. I will address the numbered argument last, for reasons that I hope will be evident.
You said,
”Now the problem here is that there is an infinite class of God-like propositions that I am necessarily undecided on. So I give yours a 1:infinity chance of being the right one; unless YOU can demonstrate your claims in some way.”
This is an incorrect understanding of probability. As with an infinite coin flip sequence, every flip has a 50% probability. It is incorrect to presume that the history of flips prior to this next flip prejudices the outcome of that flip. In the same manner, a history of incorrect propositions does not prejudice the validity of the next proposition.
I now ask that you differentiate your claimed God from the parsimonious assumption of no God. If you cannot do that then you have a problem. Someone else might come along and claim God'(prime) and compete with your God -- since neither of you can prove your claims they are on equal footing with you. OR, if you happen to believe in the biblical god, you could try out 1 Kings 18 and do the old 'Baal' test.
There is no logical problem with presuming the necessity of a first cause, one with the ability to create rational structures including a law-driven universe, which contains rational creatures. Your presumption of parsimony is premature (and you give no argument for making the assertion); the existence of what we see and experience is less parsimonious in the absence of a cause that is necessary and sufficient to produce such effects. In fact the absence of such a cause is a violation of universal principles such as Cause and Effect (apt subject for another time). Parsimony is seriously in favor of such a cause.
”Atheism is disbelief in a god, which is statement about the STATE of the person making that assertion. It cannot be an "argument from ignorance" unless the person has somehow failed to have access to their own beliefs.”
This cannot be the case; the subject is a category of belief, a worldview: Atheism. The predicate / object is a general criterion for holding that belief. Any person, including deists, theists or pagans, can make that assertion. The assertion is independent of the originator.
At any rate, Atheism is a positive statement that there is no deity.
”And when I say that my 'atheistic' position against your God is based on the fact that You have not demonstrated your claims TO ME, I am not claiming that your god Does Not And Cannot Exist based on my lack of knowledge of your evidence to the contrary.”
This is not Atheism, it is agnosticism. Atheism is a positive statement that does not profess an inability to decide, it professes a positive belief that there exists no deity. The Uranium argument is predicated on Materialist foundations; a materialist disbelief in undemonstrated material existence is warranted. This does not apply to a Materialist disbelief while demanding material empirical evidence for non-material entities – including mathematics and logic. Materialists seem to accept the validity of mathematics (if not logic) without material evidence of its Truth. The Uranium argument is a Category Error.
(continued in next comment)
“Agnosticism, on the other hand, is a POSITIVE claim about the epistemological value of reason and empirical demonstrations (at least in its proper usage as a noun as defined by T Huxley, rather than as an adjective).
From Webster’s Deluxe Unabridged Dictionary, 2nd Ed:
Agnosticism: n. 1.The doctrine of an agnostic: distinguished from atheism.
2. in theology the doctrine that God is unknown and unknowable.
3. In philosophy, the doctrine that a first cause and the essential nature of things are unknowable to man.
“By agnosticism, I understand a theory of things which abstains from either affirming or denying the existence of God; all it undertakes to affirm in that, upon existing evidence, the being of God is unknown.” G. J. Romanes. [this statement is in the dictionary]
atheism, n. the belief that there is no God.
atheist, n. one who believes that there is no God.
There is nothing ambiguous about these definitions, and there is no reason not to use them, unless some other agenda is in play.
”You also seem to assume that everyone who forms any conceptualization of a 'god' are necessarily imagining the same thing. I absolutely do NOT grant this premise.
When I imagine 'god' I imagine a being that has lots of sex with Earth women and devours his own offspring out of fear and jealousy -- don't you? I refer, of course, to Jupiter -- one of the Gods the Romans called early Christians 'atheists' for not believing in -- I mean clearly Jupiter is real (as every enlightened person knows) and this YWblah-blah is a poseur. Right?”
You are right. I usually refer to an intelligent first cause rather than to a deity, and I should have done so in this case. However, referring to Jupiter is an obfuscation because when taken in the modern, western sense, the deity to which reference is made is clearly the Judeo-Christian first cause which has many names, but which is first of all, the first cause. Atheists who argue against Jupiter are not arguing the proposition that is being made. Whether or not you grant the premise does not damage the argument, which is being made in its contemporary, western sense.
” The "Burden of Proof" is not merely a device used in debates. There is also a Philosophic burden of proof (from wiki): "obligation on a party in an epistemic dispute to provide sufficient warrant for their position ... This burden of proof is often asymmetrical and typically falls more heavily on the party that makes either an ontologically positive claim, or makes a claim more "extraordinary", that is farther removed from conventionally accepted facts."
It is ridiculous to ponder the reverse which would be that all claims made are assumed true until demonstrated to be false. I would HOPE that such a position would be clearly ridiculous to all but apparently not to some in this crowd?”
The positive claim, “there is no God/deity/first cause” is an ontological claim. Should this be considered true until it is demonstrated false, as both Atheists and agnostics wish it to be? Positive claims come with a burden of proof, and according to your wiki reference (unannotated), there is an obligation on a party “to provide sufficient warrant for their [sic] position”. So where is the evidence that supports the positive claim that there is no God/deity/first cause? Under the materialist understanding of knowledge, any and all evidence to support an assertion must be physical, subjectable to empirical, experimental, replicable verification. Addressing the subject of a non-material entity is outside and beyond the capability of materialism to either confirm or disconfirm. So there is no possible material, empirical evidence to support the positive assertion that there is no God/deity/first cause. Thus the assertion is a purely metaphysical speculation and cannot be anything other than that – until it becomes a religious dogma.
What are we to make of positive materialist claims that if I cannot see it, or sense it somehow, it does not exist? This claim cannot be verified empirically, and falls into the same metaphysical category as Atheist claims. And it is also subject to becoming religious dogma – to be deeply believed without any proof. It is a claim that, as you state, “is the reverse, which would be that all claims made are assumed true until demonstrated to be false.” The blind spot in Materialists and Atheists is that their positive ontological positions cannot be demonstrated using their own criteria for producing knowledge: empiricism. Moreover, their ontological positions become epistemological Truth statements without any valid, demonstrable cause.
Your Boolean exercise works thus:
”(1) I have in my possession a SIMPLE boolean statement, I will call it G. It is either True or it is False, there are no other options.
(2) As you have no other knowledge of G so you cannot PROVE that it is False by any attack of logic or reason or deduction or induction.
3) You CANNOT therefore assume that G is True
You must remain undecided on the truth value of G -- even though, in this case, we are CERTAIN that G exists.”
This series is confusing due to the intermixing of pronouns, I, you, we. For example, “we” are certain of the truth of G? How so?
There is no statement of the theory of evidence that is allowed; under the prescription of dogmatic materialism, one must presume empirical evidence to be the only allowable “proof”.
However, moving on,
” a) You have in your possession a definition of God, which you assert exists.
(b) I have no other knowledge of your God, therefore I cannot prove that he does not exist.
(c) I cannot therefore assume that he does exist.”
This is an interesting demonstration of why Atheism is false (part b). It is true that you cannot prove that God/deity/first cause does not exist, within the constraints of your evidence theory, which is Materialism : empiricism. The positive assertion of non-existence is false, so the Atheist position which makes that positive assertion is false.
It is also vulnerable to the solipsistic skepticism argument which concludes that all I can know is that I exist and that my mental states exist. Radical skepticism concludes this based on the weakness of empiricism due to the possibility of errors in sensory input, or even the possibility of being a brain in a vat, deceived by programmed neural inputs into believing in a reality that is not actual (similar to The Matrix). Disbelief, if it is the only alternative, leads to rejection of all inputs:
(Rewriting in an objective sense, without pronouns, and made into a general sense):
(1)A SIMPLE boolean statement, S, exists. It is either True or it is False, there are no other options.
(2) There exists no other [material, empirical] knowledge of S so it cannot be PROVEN that it is False by any attack of logic or reason or deduction or induction.
3) therefore, it CANNOT be assumed that S is True.
Premise (2) asserts obliquely that [empirical] knowledge of S is required in order to provide Proof. Premise (2), under the materialist understanding of evidentiary theory, cannot itself be proven materially, as a truth statement. There can be no empirical proof of the assertion that there is no knowledge outside the empirical, experimental knowledge of materialist empiricism; this is because empiricism is voluntarily self-limited to mechanical investigations due to its inability to measure non-material entities due to its physical restrictions of using mechanical, material tools. Empiricism does not ever declare philosophical limitations on reality or existence that restrict them to material existence.
Therefore premise (2) cannot be accepted, under its own conditions, which are that evidence [material] is required for it to be considered valid or PROVEN. This renders premise (2) to be internally self-contradictory, i.e. non-coherent, a paradox, a logical failure.
If the proposition sequence is allowed to stand regardless of its logical demerits, then there are consequences other than denying a first cause. It cannot be assumed under these strictures that mathematics is true, that logic is valid, that historical and forensic sciences produce truth, including evolution, anthropology and psychology. I suspect that these are unintended consequences, and at any rate, the basic argument fails anyway.
How exactly is saying God doesnt exist a positive claim when it is stating something to be false? Dont you mean affirmative? Also how exactly do you escape solipsism when the only thing we can have absolute certainty of is "I exist". Any attempt to justify your five senses being accurate would lead to question begging. Maybe this existence exists in a not so law-driven physical existence where Logic is just an inherent property of existence itself (something is what it is and isn't what it isnt).
Positive statements:
I positively know [ X ];
where X = your claim is false.
“I positively know that your claim is false”, is a positive statement.
" how exactly do you escape solipsism when the only thing we can have absolute certainty of is "I exist".
If you need that level of certainty then you are stuck with not knowing anything, because nothing can be known with absolute certainty. The question becomes what can I reasonably think that I know. In other words, what is the criterion for knowing, with reasonable certainty?
Even more basic is the question of what it is that constitutes "knowledge". Materialists insist that there is no knowledge that is not empirically derived. That eliminates mathematics and logic as well as many non-experimental sources, as was stated earlier.
For certain worldviews such as Atheism and Philosophical Materialism, these questions are dictated dogmatically, not by rational, discriminatory analysis. The limits of reality are dictated, without substantiation, to exist at certain points; any venture beyond those points is declared non-valid, delusional, and so forth, even though there is no evidence to support that position.
”Maybe this existence exists in a not so law-driven physical existence where Logic is just an inherent property of existence itself (something is what it is and isn't what it isnt).”
While I’m not certain that I completely understand this statement, I will agree with at least part of it. There is much knowledge, or what most of us might agree to call knowledge, which is derived from non-experimental sources. If we take higher mathematics or symbolic logic as examples, we can trace their source to at least two realities, first the law-driven universe, and second, the abstract discriminatory functioning of the human mind, which discerns and judges non-material relationships that are extrapolated from the observation of the universe.
For example, the Principle of Non-Contradiction is derived by observing that, within our universe, no thing can both exist and not exist simultaneously. This observation is not final evidence. A test can be made by asking, “what would the universe be like if the Principle of Non-Contradiction were NOT true?” At this point, discrimination against the likelihood of the falsity of the Principle of Non-Contradiction renders it a highly likely validity. So it is rendered an axiom, without proof or possible proof. It becomes a First Principle of logic, a basis for consistency in thought.
And it is a principle of ontology (existence) which is also useful in epistemology for the same reasons: There is no true proposition that can simultaneously be false.
These things we can “know” without having any ability to prove them with total certainty. And yes, these are inherent properties of existence itself. Even further, they are an indication of non-material knowledge, and therefore of non-material existence, unless knowledge is not an existence (doesn’t exist). Since we think that knowledge does exist, then it follows (without proof) that existence is not limited to, nor totally defined by, material existence.
No one is obligated to accept this, and Materialists do not since the certainty is not absolute, although they might get nervous when the issue is stripped to the core as is shown here.
Those three responses arent the only possible responses. There is a difference between saying I believe the assertion is false and saying I dont believe the assertion. One is a belief the other is a lack of belief or non-belief. So if I was to say I dont believe in God, that means I lack belief and have a non-belief in God. No positive beliefs are being made.
Honestly, this type of rationalizing should make anyone blush. Atheists reject the proposition that there is a deity, a first cause. It is irrational to claim that this is not the case. There is no debate where an Atheist makes the single claim, "I have no opinion; all I have is a non-belief".
The pursuit of this false word play is so obvious that it makes its proponent appear transparently dishonest: the Atheist doesn't wish to defend his actual belief - which is indefensible - so he plays this little word game instead. No one is fooled by this, except possibly this Atheist himself who heard this on the internet and didn't think it through.
Atheists reject God. Period. They do not have a hole in their belief system, where "God-theory" slipped out and escaped.
Arguing trivial falsities is a waste of time. Atheists should defend their rejection of a first cause honestly. But they can't.
Stan,
I find it useful to just strip out the terminology. Theism is a proposition. It's either true or false. Someone has justification to think it's true, or justification to think it's false, or they don't think the justification is strong enough either way.
The word "atheism" has become holy and precious to them, and so it's become a useless term. Not that you can change your entire blog title, but at some point we will all have to abandon the term as it's become so useless.
Whats so embarrassing about it? Not having a belief in God or not believing God exists is a rejection of the thiest's claims that there is one. Whats unhonest or irrational about agnostic atheism which is someone who doesn't claim to know whether a deity exists and doesn't believe? I dont understand what is so false about it where the term lack of belief correctly fits this view that you state is impossible.
Martin,
That is an excellent point. If a term means everything then it differentiates against nothing. And the True / False proposition degrades into a mushy spectrum, none of which is really true or really false. Such a term might be thought to be difficult to argue against since it means everything, but in reality it demonstrates that the argument has fallen outside of the bounds of logic, and into the bounds of fantasy.
Anonymous, I don't know if you are the same anonymous that posted before, but I doubt it. I answered that anonymous' question, please read what I answered to him, thanks.
Stan
Stan whats is your opinion regarding atheists who say the null hypothesis needs to be employed with God? Where it is to assume that something does not exist until there is sufficient evidence to accept that it does.
Under Philosophical Materialism, to which all Atheists subscribe de facto, every effect requires a cause. The universe is an effect which requires a cause. So the null hypothesis can't apply. What applies is the question: What is the cause of the universe?
Stephen Hawking has fought this issue for the better part of his life, issuing two books with speculations on the cause for the universe. Even many physicists reject his "conclusions" though.
To apply the null hypothesis to the cause for the material effect that is the universe is to allow
for something to be created out of nothing. This is not observed, ever, in our universe, including at the quantum level. There is no reason to accept this solution, and scientists would never do so. So proponents of the null theory leave empiricism behind in their quest to justify their belief system.
I have found that many Atheists are in fact shallow thinkers in the sense that when they come across a concept that seems to support Atheism, they grab it and wield it like it actually means something. But they stop thinking about the ramifications and consequences of taking that concept as valid. Virtually all Atheists do this, because Atheism is a dogma that is unsupportable logically. So they must support their belief system using rationalization of support premises on the one hand, and automatic rejection of contrary evidence on the other.
[Honestly, this type of rationalizing should make anyone blush. Atheists reject the proposition that there is a deity, a first cause. It is irrational to claim that this is not the case. There is no debate where an Atheist makes the single claim, "I have no opinion; all I have is a non-belief".]
Agreed. Also, whenever I find an atheist militant asserting "I simply lack the belief that God exists", I'm going to ask them if they also lack the belief that God doesn't exist. A 'yes' answer means that they have no grounds for being so militant, a 'no' answer means that contra their claims, their atheism is not a simple lack of belief.
It astonishes me that they cannot see how badly they paint themselves into a corner with their glib "lack of belief" gambit.
Maybe just for laughs I'll try gently explaining to them that theism is nothing more than a lack of belief in the nonexistence of God, and that by insisting that theism involves positive belief they're disingenuously misrepresenting theism, and really, it is up to them to demonstrate the nonexistence of God, since they're the ones making a positive claim about something theists lack belief in.
Matteo, please ask your 'theist' friends who merely "lack belief in the non-Existence of god" to please stop flying planes into buildings, murdering and denying rights to gay & lesbian human beings, and so forth on the supposed command of this alleged being. And God must REALLY enjoy human beings murdering each other because he seems to be on BOTH sides of just about every conflict - funny how that works.
We simply oppose your insane beliefs on the basis of being human beings with a brain - we don't need a magical imaginary friend to tell us what to do. We see the harm that religion does to society and the human mind and the consequences of allowing it to continue so we take action. Sorry if that is too complicated for your brain to understand, but that is the reality.
Of course, Religion is not the ONLY source of harm in the world, it's just one and it frequently joins up with other irrational beliefs, such as Nationalism as it is doing here in the United States.
Atheists, as thinking human beings, have plenty of OTHER beliefs and thoughts and hopes -- but we do not BASE those beliefs ON Atheism. We base them on the evidence available.
I also enjoyed your Special Pleading that God is the First Cause because there MUST be a first cause (right?) but God is exempt and doesn't need a First Cause. And not just ANY God of course, but exactly the God that you imagine exists. Certainly not that Allah fellow right? Those guys CLEARLY have it all wrong (right?)
So you go right ahead laughing while your own "logic" (and I use the term loosely) lies in tatters and rags.
What Thinking, Sane, and Rational Human Beings DO NOT DO is assume some conclusion is true without the required evidence to support it. We don't burn women to death for being a witch (Exodus 22:18), we don't torture people to death to get them to confess and convert to Christianity(Inquisition), we don't land on islands, declare rights to the land by Gods power and demand (in a language the natives don't even speak) that they convert to Christianity immediately or be murdered (Requerimiento), and we don't take land from the those who have occupied it for thousands of years (Manifest Destiny).
We also would NEVER worship a being that supposedly commanded a man to murder his own child, who can command the Genocide of the seven nations but fails to mention that germs cause disease, etc.
And your absurd idea that one of the three Gods that are really just one God came down as man for a scapegoating blood sacrifice of himself to himself and he died (but he didn't really die did he?) and came back 3 days later to rule in Heaven (where he supposedly already ruled). If God is omnipotent he ALREADY KNEW what the experience was like and there was no sacrifice at all.
I don't want anyone to sacrifice anything for me, I refuse it, I deny it. It's disgusting and immoral to wish it, much less worship such a horrific action. I'll suffer my own consequences for my own actions - thank you very much.
Damn, a hailstorm of atheist invective unleashed instantaneously in a defunct year-old comment thread, almost as if some obsessive were waiting in ambush.
All sorts of very hard-line claims made (with zero supporting logic), which absolutely puts the claim maker on the rhetorical hook if he wishes to be taken seriously.
Your assertion that theism is insane and that your position in so stating is rational contains the following implications:
1. You have studied deeply and seriously on both sides of the question.
2. You are familiar with the theistic arguments and evidences as offered in their strongest form, and are able to explicate them in their strongest form.
3. You can calmly explicate fatal flaws in these evidences and arguments and can show that the vast bulk of them are so obviously erroneous that it is rationally justifiable to regard those who hold them as insane.
I invite you to make good on these requirements.
While you are at it, I would also ask you to please calmly delineate for me what sorts of things can validly count as evidence on this question.
I also caution you that your denunciations of Christianity, Islam, and Old Testament Judaism have no bearing on the question of theism, since, while these religions logically depend on theism, theism does not logically depend on them.
Over to you.
LOL, I think you're projecting as you're the one that posted in the thread on Nov 5th - I just replied to your post.
>>"please calmly delineate for me what sorts of things can validly count as evidence on this question"
Woah, look at that burden of proof getting shifted like a PRO! And no "Burden of proof" is NOT solely a debate term (as someone earlier in the thread falsely asserted). It's also a legal principle, a scientific and logical principle (that positive ontological claims have burden, related to parsimony) and has a related logical fallacy.
But since you haven't proven that invisible pink unicorns don't fart universes into existence, then clearly they do until proven otherwise by the IPUFU skeptics. Over to you (of course I assume you are intimately familiar with all the sophisticated arguments for IPUFU's and have studied deeply and seriously on them). Because we must take all barkingly absurd claims seriously, no matter how many thousands of years people have failed to substantiate them.
Having put some clothes on that line of argument, I will say that I have, in fact, seen many such arguments, from Thomas Aquinas through William Craig, they simply do not hold up to scrutiny. Not the cosmological, nor teleological, nor ontological, nor from reason, nor from Will, nor qualia, history, mystery, transcendental, degree, anthropic, morality, beauty, consciousness, nor the non-existence of the Babel Fish, and certainly not from testimony.
I'll take the Sāṁkhyapravacana Sūtra over Aquinas any day of the week: http://www.archive.org/stream/thesamkhyaphilos00sinhuoft/thesamkhyaphilos00sinhuoft_djvu.txt
Identity of Cause and of the Identity of Cause and Effect: what is called the cause is the umnanifested[sic] state of what is called the effect, and what is called the effect is only the manifested state of what is called the cause ; their substance is one and the same ; differences of manifestation and non-manifestation give rise to the distinctions of Cause and Effect. The effect, therefore, is never non-existent ; whether before its production, or whether after its destruction, it is always existent in the cause. For, nothing can come out of nothing, and nothing can altogether vanish out of existence.
And I don't say all this lightly, I am apostate. I was brought up in a religious family, going to church, reading the Bible. It's not a trivial matter to come to grips with the fact that almost everyone you knew growing up was essentially lying to you. Not out of malice of course, but out of ignorance.
No, not out of malice, but because they actually believe things like, that if they don't tell these lies then you will burn in hell forever. If that is the truth then what actions would you NOT take to "save" someone? Wouldn't just about anything be justified if you KNEW that someone would suffer in Hell FOREVER if they didn't accept Jesus? Wouldn't that justify torturing them, to death if need be? So what if it cost you your own salvation? Wouldn't that be your own ultimate sacrifice? That argument worked well enough for the Inquisitors and the Popes who commanded them. Do you know the bible better than they did? Could they have been wrong?
(cont in next post)
Looking at one key point, of one of these oft-repeated arguments...
"Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence"
Can you give me an example of something ACTUALLY "beginning to exist"? Do constantly shifting patterns of already existing matter-energy in a spacetime REALLY "begin" to exist in any meaningful way? Aren't they already there? aren't they just shifting around? What does it mean for a pattern of already existing things to "being to exist"? He PRETENDS that this beginning of a pattern/configuration/state is equivalent to the STUFF ITSELF beginning to exist. This is clearly an equivocation. So the argument fails right there; unless you are blinded by presumption of biblical proportion.
What of Quantum virtual particles? Do they "begin" to exist or are they "caused"? And how do you KNOW this?
What is time? How does spacetime come to exist? Can you show me EXACTLY where in the "Big Bang" theory it postulates how spacetime came to exist? [hint: you cannot, because it does not - the earliest we think the "Big Bang" Theory could apply is about 1 Planck second after the expansion began and before that it is postulated that there was a singularity - which is not the same kind of nothing as absolute nothingness, or creation ex nihilo] These are all unknowns. To make arguments for "God" based on this ignorance is deplorable.
Try something easier, something we already know. Using this same approach of logical reasoning, IN THE ABSENCE OF ACTUAL EVIDENCE, show me an argument that proves the universe will be both relativistic and quantum mechanical. No peeking! You have to argue from the same sort of pathetically simplistic drivel that Craig (et al.) is using to pretend to "prove god". Can you do it without resorting to things that SCIENCE has measured and demonstrated about the universe that led us to these conclusions? Both are deeply counterintuitive conclusions about the universe. The point here is that reason does not operate on itself or in a vacuum, it requires correct measurement as input to derive correct conclusions. Craig and these other clowns are completely devoid of the raw grist that logic demands and they deliver up nothing but nonsense derived from their own imagination.
I really could care less what your "intuition" tells you about the universe, our intuition has been proven wrong time and time again based on... EVIDENCE. When you have the evidence that there is a personal First Cause then come talk to me again and I'll try not to laugh so hard then.
Can you demonstrate with any conclusive argument that the very STUFF of the universe isn't the STUFF that first existed without resorting to Special Pleading? Why do you need to postulate a different GODSTUFF when you don't understand the STUFF of the universe beyond the level of a maggot postulating how my computer works? We're ignorant human beings with absolutely NO clue how the universe works beyond the ~22 orders of magnitude that we have measured (that leaves about 24 orders of magnitude more that we don't understand).
And in the depths of that ignorance you want me to accept that not only is there a magical First Cause but it's exactly the one postulated to exist by YOU?
Insane: a state of mind that prevents normal perception, behavior, or social interaction
"have no bearing on the question of theism"
Right, because it's not Odin, it's not Zeus, it's not Mbombo, it's not Atum, it's not Ptah, it's not Unkulunkulu, it's not Nanabozho, it's not Viracocha, it's not El or Elohim, it's not Esege Malan, it's not Kamuy, it's not Izanagi and Izanami, it's not Marduk, it's not Vishvakarman, it's not Borr, Rod, Ranginui or Papatuanuku, and surely it's not Allah, Yahweh, or Jesus the Christ and his two pals.
No, it's not any of THOSE silly Gods. It's the God YOU happen believe in.
”Wouldn't just about anything be justified if you KNEW that someone would suffer in Hell FOREVER if they didn't accept Jesus? Wouldn't that justify torturing them, to death if need be? So what if it cost you your own salvation? Wouldn't that be your own ultimate sacrifice? That argument worked well enough for the Inquisitors and the Popes who commanded them. Do you know the bible better than they did? Could they have been wrong?”
This interpretation flies in the face of the New Testament: Jesus specifically instructs the disciples that when the “Good News” is refused, they are to “shake the dust off their sandals” and move on.
Passing judgment without knowledge of that which is being judged is not rational.
”"Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence"
Can you give me an example of something ACTUALLY "beginning to exist"? Do constantly shifting patterns of already existing matter-energy in a spacetime REALLY "begin" to exist in any meaningful way? Aren't they already there? aren't they just shifting around? What does it mean for a pattern of already existing things to "being to exist"? He PRETENDS that this beginning of a pattern/configuration/state is equivalent to the STUFF ITSELF beginning to exist. This is clearly an equivocation. So the argument fails right there; unless you are blinded by presumption of biblical proportion.”
Do thoughts exist? If not then why do your thoughts count for anything? If so, then the meaning contained within your thought had a beginning. If it preexisted, how do you know that? If it preexisted the cooling of the earth, how do you know that? If all thoughts are merely passed on, one to another, what is the source of the orignal thoughts? For example if Einstein didn't think of Relativity, then what was the original source of the thought which Einstein "inherited"?
It is a hard sell to claim that Einstein had no thoughts, or that his thoughts had no meaning, or that the thoughts existed a priori, as physical lumps in some undetermined carrier, waiting to Einstein to come along and inherit them.
On the other hand, if your thoughts do not contain meaning, or if meaning doesn’t exist due to lack of material content, or if meaning is accidental alignment of ripples in the fabric of mass/energy, space/time, then there is no value to your thoughts.
An original thought comes as a result of applying induction to observations to produce consistent categories, or to apply deduction to those categories to predict the characteristics of members of that category. In other words, original thought requires discipline (or infrequently serendipity), which is a product of agency, which is able to produce unprecedented intentional actions which are not governed by natural laws of physics.
So the denial of coming into existence is a blinding by the unprovable rules of Philosophical Materialism, which itself is a concept which came into existence.
Denial of existence to non-material entities leads to the idea that ideas cannot exist, since they cannot be extracted as physical lumps from the brain. So that concept is self-refuting: an idea that no ideas exist.
”Can you show me EXACTLY where in the "Big Bang" theory it postulates how spacetime came to exist? [hint: you cannot, because it does not - the earliest we think the "Big Bang" Theory could apply is about 1 Planck second after the expansion began and before that it is postulated that there was a singularity - which is not the same kind of nothing as absolute nothingness, or creation ex nihilo] These are all unknowns. To make arguments for "God" based on this ignorance is deplorable.”
First, the origin of the singularity, if it existed, will remain unknown to physical science. And the origin of the forcing function which caused the singularity to release into mass/energy and space/time will also remain unknown to physical science. To deplore considering the nature of the source of these things because they are unknown is a moral attitude without moral authority. In fact, it is anti-science, because hypotheses (such as string theory) begin with considering things which are unknown. As does philosophy.
”Try something easier, something we already know. Using this same approach of logical reasoning, IN THE ABSENCE OF ACTUAL EVIDENCE, show me an argument that proves the universe will be both relativistic and quantum mechanical.”
Since you seem to be arguing that physics is ignorant of much of the universe, there is no argument with that: dark matter and dark energy are proof enough of that.
”No peeking! You have to argue from the same sort of pathetically simplistic drivel that Craig (et al.) is using to pretend to "prove god". Can you do it without resorting to things that SCIENCE has measured and demonstrated about the universe that led us to these conclusions? Both are deeply counterintuitive conclusions about the universe. The point here is that reason does not operate on itself or in a vacuum, it requires correct measurement as input to derive correct conclusions. Craig and these other clowns are completely devoid of the raw grist that logic demands and they deliver up nothing but nonsense derived from their own imagination.’
Actually reason does not derive from science. Science, reason, logic and mathematics all derive separately from the same set of First Principles. They are parallel disciplines, in the axiomatic sense. Your attitude is called Scientism, which is a derivative of Philosophical Materialism. Because Philosophical Materialism cannot prove that its own tenets are valid, materially, it is false; and Scientism is false for the same reason: science cannot prove that it is the only source of knowledge, or that material existence is the only existence.
Knowledge is not material, and it is not validated solely materially. It also must be tested for logical validity and for grounding against the absolutes of the first principles, specifically the principles of Non-Contradiction (for coherence) and Excluded Middle (for truth value).
Your rant about apologists not conforming to Philosophical Materialism or Scientism is not valid, since neither of these are valid positions to take.
”I really could care less what your "intuition" tells you about the universe, our intuition has been proven wrong time and time again based on... EVIDENCE. When you have the evidence that there is a personal First Cause then come talk to me again and I'll try not to laugh so hard then.”
More false appeals to Philosophical Materialism which fails to provide evidence for its own premises. And couched in undeserved self-superiority which is based on false, and ungrounded philosophical ideologies. With the added bonus of a Fallacy of False Association: Some X is false so your X is false.
(continued)
” Can you demonstrate with any conclusive argument that the very STUFF of the universe isn't the STUFF that first existed without resorting to Special Pleading? Why do you need to postulate a different GODSTUFF when you don't understand the STUFF of the universe beyond the level of a maggot postulating how my computer works? We're ignorant human beings with absolutely NO clue how the universe works beyond the ~22 orders of magnitude that we have measured (that leaves about 24 orders of magnitude more that we don't understand).”
Your measurements for 22 orders of magnitude (surely you meant "dimensions") would be appreciated; how did you measure them? Surely you have rulers which exist in the extra dimensions? Do you just stick your material (x,y,z) hand into the other dimensions to work non-physical micrometers?
String theory is based on canceling infinities in speculative equations: unreliable under the standards of mathematics.
EVIDENCE. That is what is needed, right? So your physical evidence of these 22 non-physical dimensions would be very interesting indeed.
”And in the depths of that ignorance you want me to accept that not only is there a magical First Cause but it's exactly the one postulated to exist by YOU?
I have no need for you to accept anything. My purpose here is to demonstrate the lack of logic in Atheist theorizing, and its lack of grounding in absolute principles of logic. This series of comments has been quite successful in that regard.
”Insane: a state of mind that prevents normal perception, behavior, or social interaction”
An oblique accusation without any material evidence for support. An insult which demonstrates lack of actual argumentation ability.
”"have no bearing on the question of theism"
Right, because it's not Odin, it's not Zeus, it's not Mbombo, it's not Atum, it's not Ptah, it's not Unkulunkulu, it's not Nanabozho, it's not Viracocha, it's not El or Elohim, it's not Esege Malan, it's not Kamuy, it's not Izanagi and Izanami, it's not Marduk, it's not Vishvakarman, it's not Borr, Rod, Ranginui or Papatuanuku, and surely it's not Allah, Yahweh, or Jesus the Christ and his two pals.
No, it's not any of THOSE silly Gods. It's the God YOU happen believe in.”
The idea that one theory is falsified by the existence of other false theories is the Fallacy of False Association. It is very common amongst Atheists who claim logic, yet have no concept of what logic is, much less what illogic is. Since they do not ground in any absolutes, their own logic free-floats and accepts all ungrounded accusations as valid arguments, especially if they are presented with vigor and vitriol.
By ending up this comment in this Fallacy, this argument series from top to bottom is seen to exist only under fallacious conditions of false worldviews (Scientism and Materialism), and false logic spewed sarcastically as valid arguments. Even worse it is presented as Truth, and not to accept it is insane. So the opponents are “insane”, having not tumbled for the falseness being presented. If you disagree, you are insane, regardless of your counter argument: Ad Hominem Abusive, rather than logic.
(back to you)
"This interpretation flies in the face of the New Testament"
It's really too bad all those Popes over more than a thousand years didn't have you around to reinterpret the Bible for them. I mean, they only had the benefit of direct knowledge handed down by Apostolic succession and you have...?
The Bible very CLEARLY thinks it's ok to kill people, it's just not ok to murder them. It's very clear on the difference. I mean a book in which the protagonist (God) is directly and indirectly responsible for the deaths of MILLIONS of men, women, children, and oxen would have to be careful to point out that it's ok to kill people if they have the wrong God. Look at the followers of Ba'al, their god couldn't set some Bull meat on fire so hundreds of their priests ended up gutted by the sword. The seven nations were supposedly wiped out, if slicing open a suckling infant with a sword isn't MURDER then clearly Christians have a unique perspective on the matter and I'm simply going by their own words. Do not suffer a witch to live... Pretty clear on that point.
So, your interpretation is clearly wrong.
On "thoughts" and "leads to the idea that ideas cannot exist"
Thoughts are shifting patterns of already existing matter-energy within spacetime so I've already covered that. As far as anyone has EVER been able to measure matter-energy is neither created nor destroyed. If you have any evidence to the contrary I suggest you win yourself a Nobel prize. If you don't have such evidence then you are wasting my time.
"So the denial of coming into existence"
I did no such thing - try again to grasp the actual point as you have missed it by a country mile.
Shifting around of state is fundamentally of a different nature than STUFF actually coming into existence. This results in a blatant and glaring equivocation in the argument.
I suspect that you have no real grasp about how simple physical motions result in universal computation being possible. About how physical matter can give rise to storage and retrieval of information of nearly arbitrary complexity and the computations based on that information that result in decisions being made. These are facts that we know, we understand how these things arise from the underlying physics. Even TINKER toys can be used to perform computation but that's not good enough for you, you are special and require a magical plane of existence where your soul exists and pushes around physical matter with absolutely no evidence of this.
I'll pass.
Bah, Blogger lost my rather long follow-up so I will have to be extremely terse.
No, orders of magnitude are not dimensions. You completely botched that. Go study. Look up Planck. Look up LIGO.
Most of things you are calling out as "logical fallacies" are not, simply because they are not part of even an informal logical argument. And if they WERE, you are falling prey to Argumentum ad Logicam.
You've failed to refute my central point, the equivocation in Kalam and other similar arguments.
You have to present some valid and compelling argument FOR God before I have anything to worry about.
Dark Star:
So, your interpretation is clearly wrong.
But you have a problem: Christianity started with Christ. No Christians participated in any of the things you reject. I’m sure you’ll find other things which you are too moral to accept, though. However, your morality is without any moral authority: it is merely your opinion and is neither binding nor interesting to anyone else.
” Thoughts are shifting patterns of already existing matter-energy within spacetime so I've already covered that.’
No, you are pretending to cover something about which you have no evidence to present. Your materialism is causing your personal "shifting pattern of mass/energy" to go awry from actual logic. But that is no matter because you don’t believe in “meaning” anyway – just meaningless shifting patterns.
”As far as anyone has EVER been able to measure matter-energy is neither created nor destroyed. If you have any evidence to the contrary I suggest you win yourself a Nobel prize. If you don't have such evidence then you are wasting my time.”
Then why are you here? Why not just go where your friends think like you do? Your argument is a Category Error. Like it or not.
” "So the denial of coming into existence"
I did no such thing - try again to grasp the actual point as you have missed it by a country mile.
Shifting around of state is fundamentally of a different nature than STUFF actually coming into existence. This results in a blatant and glaring equivocation in the argument.”
You didn’t deny “coming into existence”? My. My. My.
It’s interesting, this argument you make, because evolutionistas make the argument that complexity comes into existence. As well as new features. Your argument is hopelessly restricted to a concept that even materialists don’t make, generally speaking.
To state that everything is either mass or energy ignores that mass/energy composes something like 15% of the known universe, with dark mass and dark energy composing the remainder. There is material evidence for this. And its existence as non-mass and non-energy refutes your claim, scientifically.
To state that if it is not mass then it is vibrations suggests a universal knowledge which you cannot possibly have. Plus it indicates that you wish to pursue an argument which is based on non-scientific, non-evidentiary presuppositions which you assert as fact.
” I suspect that you have no real grasp about how simple physical motions result in universal computation being possible. About how physical matter can give rise to storage and retrieval of information of nearly arbitrary complexity and the computations based on that information that result in decisions being made. “
I suspect that I know as much about it as you do. And I suspect that your arrogance comes not from knowledge but from the desire to appear to have knowledge.
<
”These are facts that we know, we understand how these things arise from the underlying physics. Even TINKER toys can be used to perform computation but that's not good enough for you, you are special and require a magical plane of existence where your soul exists and pushes around physical matter with absolutely no evidence of this.”
Now I’m sure that you don’t know what you are talking about. A real physicist or engineer would express actual knowledge, not just the appearance of knowledge. Your attempt at insult falls absolutely flat because it has no bearing in reality. To be effective, an insult needs to at least resemble the insulted.
“Most of things you are calling out as "logical fallacies" are not, simply because they are not part of even an informal logical argument. And if they WERE, you are falling prey to Argumentum ad Logicam.”
If you are not making arguments, then why all the arrogant bluster? And how can you make the following statement claiming to have refuted other arguments? You appear to be so wrapped up in your personal superiority and uncontrolled arrogance that you are contradicting yourself.
” You've failed to refute my central point, the equivocation in Kalam and other similar arguments.”
But you are not making arguments, are you? But if you were to make arguments of refutation, would they be the pink unicorn argument? Or the “effect” always exists, pre-existing the cause, argument? Or does your refutation consist of “I’ll take the sutra over Aquinas”, or is it that “nothing ever begins to exist”? None of these arguments are supportable as material evidence, much less universal truths. So none of these could be your refutation sans argumentum.
Or perhaps I missed your refutation completely; maybe it was buried too deep in the bluster to be recognizable as a (non-argument, of course) refutation. So maybe if you would repeat your refutation, this time as an argument, say in actual syllogistic format, then we would have something to discuss. But be aware, logical fallacy does apply to such argumentation. And it applies to regular, informal reasoning as well, like it or not.
” You have to present some valid and compelling argument FOR God before I have anything to worry about.”
The arguments made here are valid in the sense of disciplined syllogistic argumentation rules. “Compelling” is only in the mind of the beholder, and one locked into false ideologies is not likely to feel compelled to leave those ideologies for mere logic. And it makes no difference to me what it is that worries you.
Again, since you don’t think you are making arguments, yet you claim to be refuting theories, why not put your refutation into logical format? You can include insults if you wish, since that is your style.
your morality is without any moral authority
No more or less so than yours unless you can demonstrate otherwise. You pretend to have authority, those following Allah pretend to have authority, the followers of thousands of other Gods all pretended to have authority.
Can you demonstrate your authority? Here is my suggestion, go here: http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html and win the 1 Million by using "1 Kings 18" and I will accept your moral authority. Until then, I consider you on par with Harold Camping (aka a Laughing Stock).
On "thoughts": No, you are pretending to cover something about which you have no evidence to present.
Other than all of physics and the computational sciences along with hundreds of trillions of measurements and tens of thousands of referred journal papers.
You didn’t deny “coming into existence”? My. My. My.
A Reading Comprehension failure on your part.
Why would I do that when my ENTIRE point depended on it?
My point being that STATE CHANGES "coming into existence" are FUNDAMENTALLY of a different nature from a violation of conservation of mass-energy "coming into existence". Nobody has said that states don't "come into existence" - that is the source of the Equivocation.
It’s interesting, this argument you make, because evolutionistas make the argument that complexity comes into existence. As well as new features. Your argument is hopelessly restricted to a concept that even materialists don’t make, generally speaking.
A continued Reading Comprehension failure on your part.
To state that everything is either mass or energy ignores that mass/energy composes something like 15% of the known universe, with dark mass and dark energy composing the remainder. There is material evidence for this. And its existence as non-mass and non-energy refutes your claim, scientifically.
NOTHING reputable claims Dark Matter/Energy is non-mass and non-energy - the ONLY reputable claim is that exactly what causes the observed measurements is unknown (aside from a few % of the original difference having been accounted for by known sources).
However, that Dark Matter MAY be non-BARYONIC doesn't, in any way, mean that it isn't mass-energy. The prevailing postulates are either cold-matter (brown dwarfs/neutron stars), or exotic matter (axions or WIMPs), or some combination of them (which is most likely). See, for example, http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/teachers/galaxies/imagine/dark_matter.html Dark Energy is likewise postulated to be a property of spacetime such as negative pressure, lamdba, or quintessence scalar field.
”your morality is without any moral authority
No more or less so than yours unless you can demonstrate otherwise.”
Another Tu Quoque, followed by a Category Error. The subject is your moral authority, and the problem you have is that you cannot defend it.
”On "thoughts": No, you are pretending to cover something about which you have no evidence to present.
Other than all of physics and the computational sciences along with hundreds of trillions of measurements and tens of thousands of referred journal papers.”
That is the most unsupportable statement that you’ve made so far, and that is saying a lot. You have no evidence that “meaning” is anything whatsoever in terms of mass/energy. You are making an unsupportable appeal to anonymous authority. And you become more outrageously out of the bounds of rational discussion with every statement in this progression.
”My point being that STATE CHANGES "coming into existence" are FUNDAMENTALLY of a different nature from a violation of conservation of mass-energy "coming into existence". Nobody has said that states don't "come into existence" - that is the source of the Equivocation.”
And where is your physical evidence that meaning is a state of energy? Oh wait I forgot: it’s hundreds of trillions of measurements, and every paper ever written on any subject… Got it.
But seriously, where is your actual material evidence?
”NOTHING reputable claims Dark Matter/Energy is non-mass and non-energy - the ONLY reputable claim is that exactly what causes the observed measurements is unknown (aside from a few % of the original difference having been accounted for by known sources).”
That’s right: unknown, using all the mass-energy detection techniques available. You don’t know what it is, and your claims of knowing what everything in the universe is, is false.
(continued)
”However, that Dark Matter MAY be non-BARYONIC doesn't, in any way, mean that it isn't mass-energy. The prevailing postulates are either cold-matter (brown dwarfs/neutron stars), or exotic matter (axions or WIMPs), or some combination of them (which is most likely). See, for example, http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/teachers/galaxies/imagine/dark_matter.html Dark Energy is likewise postulated to be a property of spacetime such as negative pressure, lamdba, or quintessence scalar field.”
According to your own link, WIMP is a category of “Weakly Interacting Massive Particles” (not a particle itself), which includes axions in the WIMP category. So your comment of “(axions or WIMPs) or some combination of them” does not even recognize what a WIMP is. The WIMP category of "massive particles" contains merely proposed mechanisms, and axions as well as neutralinos are fictitious particles which are thought to be the most likely source for Dark Matter. (Not brown dwarfs, not neutron stars, not neutrinos, not MACHOs). In short they don’t know and neither do you. Furthermore, you are not an expert in physics or astronomy/cosmology, as you have adequately shown.
Dark matter is not formed of atoms, does not carry charge, does not interact with known matter via electromagnetic fields. Nor does dark matter contribute to the formation of elements. It’s only known interaction with regular matter is via gravity. It does not emit light at any wavelength including infrared, which indicates an absence of energy content. It is not mass in any ordinary sense, but it exhibits gravity nonetheless.
Now that that is out of the way, it is obvious that you didn’t even read your own link, and that you do not understand what you pretend you do. Your entire blustering, arrogant tirade is based on a pretense of knowledge which you do not have.
Your claim to know the composition of everything in the universe is rejected.
Reason: You have no universal material evidence which supports your universal claim. You are pretending. You do not have the knowledge you pretend to have.
Your accompanying Scientistic and Materialist theories are also rejected.
Reason: (a) You have no material evidence to back them up; (b) they depend on the accuracy of your claim to have knowledge of the composition of everything in the universe, which claim is demonstrably false.
This phony pretense is becoming tedious. And a waste of my time.
Your commitment to intellectual dishonesty surpasses that of the typical #Liar4Jesus. Case in point, your wild declaration that a "Weakly Interacting Massive PARTICLE" is, and I quote "(not a particle itself)".
So a PARTICLE that interacts through the Weak force and gravity is NOT, in fact, a particle. The scientists will be stunned by this shocking revelation. They will all have to get new jobs, not to mention rename the particle... oh wait, I mean the not-a-particle-particle.
As this is typical of the type of nonsense you are spewing I will formally give up on attempting to have an actual discussion with you. Other readers can plainly see what you are doing so I leave it to you and the remainder of your non-audience. Your irrationality is more than exposed, the Emperor is downright jealous.
Dark Star,
Your attacks are intellectually fraudulent right down to the end.
If you were going to leave, you would have done it. But what you wish to do is to continue to spew invectives.
Any further comments you make will be removed.
Get Help.
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