Now I'm a Liar, According To Jeffry Jay Lowder

JJ Lowder has called me a liar. So I'll print a refutation of that right here and now. He made two accusations; first, that I did not respond to his analysis; second that I did not respond to his list of empirical proofs that there can exist no deity. Here is his first charge:

Jeffrey Jay Lowder: I produced an actual case for atheism based upon empirical evidence, but you never responded to it. If you don't find it convincing, that's one thing. But for you to declare that there is a "lack of interest in producing an actual case for atheism" is not only false, but mildly amusing.

As I see it, the following summary describes our interactions.

1. I devoted an entire post to responding to three (3) claims you made on Randal Rauser's blog. In response to claim #3, I provided a bulleted list of sixteen (16) independent lines of evidence which favor naturalism over theism. You've never responded to any of the individual items of evidence on that list.

Furthermore, you haven't argued that there is theistic evidence which outweighs the naturalistic evidence. In fact, you haven't provided any opposing evidence which favors theism over naturalism. If an impartial reader knew nothing whatsoever about the topic and were to read our exchanges as they stand, they would conclude that the evidence decisively favors naturalism over theism.

2. I devoted another entire post to advancing the discussion with you on materialism and morality. In the final section of that post ("My Reaction"), I provided four objections to your claims regarding materialism and morality. Those four claims have also gone unanswered.

Here is his second charge:

Stan won't see this reply because he's said he won't return, but everyone else will, which is fine with me.

Stan has written a brief post summarizing his experience at the Secular Outpost:

"What I Learned at Patheos"

He continues to outright ignore my posts and comments which directly respond to him. For example:

After I posted a number of comments with various commenters requesting the standard evidence and logic for support of their beliefs, everyone but two of them just went away: vanished. The two who remained educated me on the actual purpose of the forum, and then went into silly mode, as do most atheists who are challenged with producing the actual evidence and logic which they claim is their domain.

This is an outright lie. Again, I refer interested readers to the comment I posted above two days ago. Stan may be fooling himself, but I doubt he's fooling anyone else.

Both accusations are untrue. Here's a copy of my response to his analysis, made 3-26-13:

It has been alleged below that I have not responded to the analysis provided above; I had thought that I had done that via the several threads, but let's make a specific response here.

Claim #1. In general atheists claim that atheism is based on evidence and logic. Were that the case, and were atheism a robust truth, then there would be both empirical, experimental, falsifiable and not falsified, replicable and replicated, peer reviewed with open data, physical evidence (under physicalism); and/or a disciplined deductive argument which is of valid construction, grounded and demonstrably true premises, which passes the test of Argumentum Ad Absurdum.

If that is the case, then I have not seen it; what I have seen, even from philosophers is arguments regarding why they don't need to do that, and deductions which do not pass the standards for viable deduction.

If there exists either the material evidence or the deductive argument required to support the necessity of atheism, then please provide it here, thanks.

Claim #2. The fact that claim #1 seems valid until proven otherwise, claim #2 then follows, especially given the preamble to this blog which arbirarily and capriciously limits reality to the non-existence of diety (a necessary creating agent for the universe). And such is the case with the term "nontheism", which also creates an arbitrary limit without apparent reasons or reasoning. Reasons or reasoning have been requested below, to no avail. This seems to confirm that atheists do not wish to present arguments for which the conclusion they find desirable to emerge, does not actually emerge. Thus, they seemingly are more attached to the conclusion than to the process of deductive reasoning, which entails accepting a conclusion based on the argument. This appears to be universal amongst atheists.

Claim #3. Jeffrey Jay Lowder said this:

"Even if Stan were correct that atheists have no good arguments for believing that God does not exist, it doesn’t follow that atheism is the result of an emotional position. Think of all the people who have gotten the wrong answer on a multiple choice geometry test. Would anyone claim that the people who got wrong answers did so for emotional reasons? Of course not!"

Getting wrong answers for something they are charged with knowing is not the same thing as making up wrong answers and declaring that they are necessary and sufficient to obviate the actual answer. So the analogy, like all analogies which fail at some point, fails.

Next he says,

"Along the same lines, even if we assume that (4) and (5) are true, his conclusion still wouldn’t follow. It would still be possible that atheists simply made an error in reasoning, in which case they would be guilty of sloppy argumentation but not of rejecting theism for emotional reasons."

It is their refusal to accept any criticism of their reasoning as valid, even under specific instances of blatant fallacy, that is the first problem with this claim. Second, the reasoning does not even do what is necessary, which is to prove conclusively, as discussed above, the claim that there actually is no deity (again, necessary agent for creating the universe). The reasoning seems invariably to entail Just So Stories from which is inferred the possibility of naturalism, rather than empirical evidence which determines conclusively the non-necessity of agency. Further, in most cases around the internet (possibly not here, although it remains to be seen) the non-existence of deity is declared and the burden of proof is refused; no arguments are made, not even mistaken arguments.

It is not necessary to advocate for creating agency in order to show that atheism and atheists do not address the issue straight ahead. The usual approach is not rational, i.e. irrational, which can be seen to be emotional, since they are not detachable from their position.

Further, the idea that arguments Xn favor a natural (physical?) explanation still does not change the fact that the above challenges to atheism are not answered (although I will read through the articles to see what is there). However, I suspect that if definitive proof of the claim of non-existence were succinct, robust and available, that it would have been presented as such.

Feel free to comment on my response here, and I will peruse your literature as I have time.

Addendum: I'll clarify a little: the task with which atheists are faced is to prove conclusively both that a deity does not, in fact, exist; and that a deity cannot possibly exist.

And his claim of not responding to his analysis on "Stan on materialism and morality" is without merit, because all that is there is a confession of not understanding what I was saying. So I said it more clearly on 3-22-14:

To all who dwell here:

Despite using English words and sentences with subject/predicate/direct object, it seems that I am not understood well here, since I don't use the language which is applicable to this forum. I'll try to keep my sentences properly structured and use more common English words, and attempt for better communication.

Perhaps I can simplify the moral realism challenge for physicalism and atheism to a more succinct series of statements. At least I’ll try.

1. Physicalism is defined by the Patheos Secular Outpoost home page claim, thus:

“Naturalism is the “hypothesis that the natural world is a closed system” in the sense that “nothing that is not a part of the natural world affects it.” As such, “naturalism implies that there are no supernatural entities,” such as gods, angels, demons, ghosts, or other spirits, “or at least none that actually exercises its power to affect the natural world.”[1] And without miraculous interventions into nature from a spiritual realm, neither prayer nor magick are more effective than a placebo.”

This statement excludes by definition “supernatural entities” which would seemingly include “metaphysical entities”, since metaphysical means supernatural, and both mean non-physical:

Merriam Webster:
http://www.merriam-webster.com...

Full Definition of METAPHYSICAL

1: of or relating to metaphysics

2a : of or relating to the transcendent or to a reality beyond what is perceptible to the senses

b : supernatural

2.Any claim for metaphysical naturalism is internally contradictory.

3. Any claim for metaphysical atheism is outside the Secular Outpost naturalism belief, as defined above.

4. If moral realism is valid and true, then moral facts exist undeniably.

5. If naturalism is the case, an moral realism is the case, then moral facts exist undeniably as natural, physical artifacts.

6. If moral facts exist undeniably as natural, physical artifacts, then (a) where in nature are they found, and (b) what are they?

Lowder responded to neither of these. Instead, he accused me of lying about their existence. Now it is true that I have yet to respond to his list of empirical proofs; but I told him that I was looking at it. But then I was invited - and instructed - to leave their verdant valley of enlightenment, because: induction and Bayesianism only. So, it is apparent that the civility is over with, and that there is still no worldview defense from them other than that I should go elsewhere, which I have done.