Is Atheism Reasonable?

[Xrikcus]

Then my entire life must one hell of a highly elaborated illusion, because there is no rational reason for me existing, nor for existance to exist.


Why would there being no rational reason for your or existance' existing make life an illusion?

[Helen]

Perhaps I would take atheism into higher reguards and perhaps even consideration if ...

So that you can do what? Replace your theism with atheism? Are you thinking that atheism is another form of religion? Atheism is not an alternative approach to god. It is non-god. It is godless. To be an atheist is to NOT believe in god. It is not a belief in something else.

If you ever in your life have occasion to question your belief in god, only then will you know what it is like to think like an atheist.

[Apikorus]

I identify myself as an atheist because I find no rational cause to believe in God or gods. I would think the onus is on the theist to (i) carefully delineate what he or she means by "God" or "god" and (ii) argue for the existence of such a being.

The Universe may have existed indefinitely, nucleating as a bubble in an even larger "Multiverse" as in the inflationary scenario.

[Joe Bloe]

Perhaps I would take atheism into higher reguards and perhaps even consideration if some here can explain the issue of ethics and metaphysics, and do this without making one reference to "God", "gods", or any appeal to thiesm whatsoever in their claim.
Ethics:

Humans are a particular sort of animal. Some things help us out, some things hurt us. Some actions help us to be healthier and happier (i.e. better off both objectively and subjectively), some actions harm us. We are better off if we do the sorts of things that tend to make us better off. So it is better for us to act in certain ways and not in other ways.

The question of what specific actions lead to what consequences is another, and more difficult, matter, but those questions can still be answered without appealing to anything divine. Sometimes it is easy to figure out, such as concluding that going around raping and plundering is likely to get us in a heap of trouble because others will defend themselves against us. Further, if we care at all about others (and, for whatever reason, humans have a natural ability to learn to care about others), then we don't want to harm them anyway. Even if we don't care and can get away with it, that still doesn't change the fact that the actions cause lots of harm, i.e. we can reasonably evaluate them as bad actions. For other matters, it can be very difficult to figure out what are better or worse ways to act, and people can have legitimate disagreements about their conclusions.

There: ethics without gods. In fact, if there is a god, I would assume this is the sort of thing he would appeal to to figure out what commands to give us. Being so smart and all, he could do a better job of figuring out what actions are better or worse in those situations we find so difficult. But still he would be appealing to these naturalistic reasons. What is the alternative, God's groundless arbitrary whims and his power to enforce them, i.e. "might makes right"? That sounds like moral nihilism to me. As I said before, I've never seen a theistic account of morality that does not either appeal to naturalistic standards or end up resorting to "might makes right" moral nihilism. Can you provide an account of ethics that appeals only to God and does not make any appeal to the natural world and natural goods whatsoever, and which doesn't resort to "might makes right" moral nihilism? No? I didn't think so.


Metaphysics:

What do you mean by this? Do you mean asking a question such as "Why is there something rather than nothing?" There isn't a reason. Nor can there be. Whatever you try to appeal to, you can ask "well, what about that something? why that rather than nothing? The only other alternative is to have nothing to appeal to. Stuff, whatever it is, just is.

There, metaphysics without God. Even if there is a God, he doesn't provide any better answer to the question of "why is there something rather than nothing." Is God something? Then why that something rather than nothing? Is God nothing? Then the atheist is right. He is his own reason for being? So if he doesn't exist, there is no reason for him to exist? How is that different from saying that he just exists, no reason for it? Sort of like the universe just existing, no reason for it?


Note that these answers do not come from atheism. Atheism, again, is just saying that religions are inadequate to answer these questions. These answers come from the way some people have combined reason and evidence. Not finding evidence of a god, these people don't appeal to a god (an unknown hypothetical entity) to "answer" these questions, since they recognize that appealing to a mystery to answer a mystery does nothing but push the mystery back one step. Ultimately, nothing still gets answered. We work with what we have, and come up with what we can. This is a very brief sketch of the conclusions I have come up with. Others have come up with other conclusions, or concluded that they don't have enough information to make a responsible conclusion at all. Still others don't care whether their conclusions are intellectually responsible, they just come up with them anyway.



Or do you mean that you will take it into consideration only if you like the answers?

[Helen]

At that exact point, those that did not believe, whether they knew about theism or not, were automatically Atheists.
Was it instantaneous? Or was theism necessarily first? Could a person have been sitting in a yurt and thought.. "Ah hah. I do not believe in god!" without first having conceived of god?

Lack simply means "without". The word in no way connotes any type of need and in those that do not have a religion, it is an entirely appropriate word.

The connotation is clear in light of the synonyms and related words:

lack - deficiency, deficit, inadequacy, insufficiency, meagerness, paucity, poverty, scantiness, scarceness, scarcity, shortage, skimpiness; deprivation, loss, necessity, need, needfulness, omission; privation; vacuum, void.

[Spenser]

Many of you see "religion" as some sort of "logical devil", but a worldview without religion is not practical within a society. Christianity, as well as the other Abrahamic religions, has influenced you and the rest of western society wheather you reject the label or not.

So what? When people realized that Mount Olympus wasn't real (the pantheon that is) they dropped that. It doesn't matter what it done up till now, whats the point if its BS?

There are reasons you view something as "good" or "bad" and "honorable" or "disrespectful".

Yeah, subjective ones. Many learned from friends family and society.

If atheism had it's way as a worlview, logically, it would not matter what you did or believed in because nothing would be of consequence or principle, but merely advice at best.

What a crock of shit yet again. Amazing all these atheists on this board and probably not a murderer or rapist among them, though I bet many masturbate and have sex out of wedlock. Everything still has consequence and principle; to our own lives and society. We are atheists that live in a country with a secular government and function quite fine. You couldn't be more embarrassingly wrong with this crude assertion.

Instead of looking at all the different religious beliefs and concluding "all are crazy", take a little consideration and try to find consistency and differences within them.

If there are inconsistencies within them then they are not true. Whats the fucking point in believing in bullshit?

[el dub]

I see atheism as just another form of religion. An alternative approach to god, if you will.

Me? I believe in the wind whipping through my hair while sitting in this mustang convertable rolling along the pacific coast just south of PV, Mexico.

Look at that pod of whales passing in the bay......

lw

[Spenser]

I see atheism as just another form of religion.

How? Where is the dogma? Do we goto a church or rely on a specific book? Do we all believe the exact same things?

No :down:

[Helen]

I see atheism as just another form of religion. An alternative approach to god, if you will.

I most certainly will not. Atheism is not an approach to god. It is the polar opposite of an approach to god. God is a constrained answer to monumental questions. Atheism is everything that exists outside of that narrow view. Once the mind is free of god, there is limitless possibility for expansion and learning.

[EnterTheBowser]

Regarding the "problem of evil" - I generally call it the "problem of evil" because it's generally called the "problem of evil" though "problem of suffering" works just as well. We don't really need to come up with an ethical theory to run the argument. Just take a moment and try to understand the argument before you reject it out of hand (believe me, there's a reason every theistic philosopher who ever lived tried to answer this question, as opposed to just saying that if atheism is true there is no morality).

P1: If there were an all-powerful, all-knowing, loving God, then God would eliminate unnecessary suffering
P2: There is unnecessary suffering
C: Therefore such a God does not exist

Pretty much all responses attack P2.

The "free will defense" is one of the most common; it essentially states that to reduce suffering, God would have to stop people from committing evil deeds ("evil" as in "causing suffering"), and that would interfere in free will. Two major problems: natural evil - suffering not caused by humans but through natural events (eg earthquakes). Second, it seems to me that if a human can reduce suffering without interfering in anyone's free will, God could as well (eg placing anonymous calls to the police).

Another common defense is to argue that without suffering, there can be no pleasure, because we'd have no contrast. This might be true. But there could certainly be pleasure - at least as much pleasure - with less suffering.

Another defense is the "maturity" defense - the idea that we need to suffer to attain some kind of desirable state. Again - could we attain this state with just a little less suffering, given that six million children starve to death each year? [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4459348.stm]

A more general objection to any sort of theodicy (that's what these attempts to explain the necessity of suffering are called) is that an all-knowing God could have figured out a way to make either the world or humans differently such that God could accomplish the purpose purported for suffering with less suffering, and an all-knowing God could have caused things to be so (and an all-loving God would have done so).

I want to point out perhaps the stupidest possible objection to P2: Well, since we know that P1 is true, and that God exists, we can conclude that there is a purpose for suffering, since otherwise God would have eliminated it. I hate it when people say that... though I don't mean to imply that you have/will.

[Silent Dave]

I want to point out perhaps the stupidest possible objection to P2: Well, since we know that P1 is true, and that God exists, we can conclude that there is a purpose for suffering, since otherwise God would have eliminated it. I hate it when people say that... though I don't mean to imply that you have/will.



If I might be allowed to plagiarize myself for a moment . . .

There are actually two kinds of the problem of evil. There's the atheistic approach, where the question is, "Does the existence of horrendous evil and suffering in the world provide good reason to disbelieve God's existence?" This approach requires a great deal of objectivity and level-headedness; otherwise it slips quickly into the second approach to the PoE, the aporetic approach, where the question is, "I already believe in God, so that's settled, but how do I reconcile this belief with the existence of horrendous evil and suffering?" With this approach, any schmuck can come up with an answer like the one above, and be entirely satisfied with it. Don't ask me how, because I haven't the foggiest idea.

If you take the aporetic approach to the PoE, then it's like playing a collectible card game -- Magic: The Gathering comes to mind -- without ante. You can have a fun match, and emotions may run high or low, but nothing is really at stake (except perhaps bragging rights). But when you tackle the atheistic approach, that's different. That's playing with ante, where you put one of your cards -- perhaps even your most valuable card -- at stake. You are putting the truth of your beliefs on the line. It's not as safe, and there is the possibility of a real feeling of loss.

I get a kick out of amateur Christian apologists, who are basically asking me to put my worldview on the line without being willing to take the same risk. That's like asking me to ante up a $50,000 card without themselves being willing to ante up so much as a five-cent mana card. When they take the issues seriously, I will take them seriously. Until then, I will continue to get a laugh out of them.

[openeyes]

Many of you see "religion" as some sort of "logical devil", but a worldview without religion is not practical within a society. Christianity, as well as the other Abrahamic religions, has influenced you and the rest of western society wheather you reject the label or not. There are reasons you view something as "good" or "bad" and "honorable" or "disrespectful".
Haven't humans really been doing the figuring out all along about "good" and "bad"? If not, why do we now accept that it is "good" or "fair" to allow women to vote and that owning slaves is "bad" or "immoral". This obviously wasn't the case a few centuries back and Christianity has been around long before that. That is just two relatively recent examples. We could look to the old testament to see examples of "honorableness" and "goodness" that few follow anymore. Seems like "God" changes the rules all the time or leaves them open for human interpretation anyway, since even Christians often disagree on what is right and wrong.

Humans learned that we must work with other humans for our survival, but that we are also likely to be in competition for scarce resources. We have to be a friend to have friends, but we must also have a veneer of distrust. I think that explains much more about our moral behavior than attributing it to "edicts from above".

[Mountain Man]

Was it instantaneous? Or was theism necessarily first? Could a person have been sitting in a yurt and thought.. "Ah hah. I do not believe in god!" without first having conceived of god?It was instantaneous since no action was required. One does not have to declare a lack of belief to lack a belief.The connotation is clear in light of the synonyms and related words: lack - deficiency, ......So you admit your argument is based on an equivocation. We all know that when the word is used in the prhase; lack of theism, the meaning is "the absence of" and nothing else. Any argument based on any other use of the word is a strawman argument.

[Smith_87]

Humans are a particular sort of animal. Some things help us out, some things hurt us. Some actions help us to be healthier and happier (i.e. better off both objectively and subjectively), some actions harm us. We are better off if we do the sorts of things that tend to make us better off. So it is better for us to act in certain ways and not in other ways.

That's sort of a rather vague interpretation (What connects these universal healthy/happy actions?). Also, why is it that humans and no other specie has a system of morals, and at what consequence are at stake if these morals are violated?


The question of what specific actions lead to what consequences is another, and more difficult, matter, but those questions can still be answered without appealing to anything divine.

Curious, by "divine" what context are you putting that in?


Sometimes it is easy to figure out, such as concluding that going around raping and plundering is likely to get us in a heap of trouble because others will defend themselves against us.

Okay, but what makes either of those more significant than razing havoc upon an innocent ant hill?


Further, if we care at all about others (and, for whatever reason, humans have a natural ability to learn to care about others)

Natural? How so? Why are there little boys fighting over toy cars and finding it worth the effort of obtaining that toy over the other boy's feelings?

then we don't want to harm them anyway. Even if we don't care and can get away with it, that still doesn't change the fact that the actions cause lots of harm, i.e. we can reasonably evaluate them as bad actions. For other matters, it can be very difficult to figure out what are better or worse ways to act, and people can have legitimate disagreements about their conclusions.

It's natural not to do harm, but sometimes it's not? I don't follow.

There: ethics without gods. In fact, if there is a god, I would assume this is the sort of thing he would appeal to to figure out what commands to give us. Being so smart and all, he could do a better job of figuring out what actions are better or worse in those situations we find so difficult. But still he would be appealing to these naturalistic reasons.

I don't know if your argument of "natural good" actions and "natural bad" actions add up, but all "natural" means is "known", BTW.

What is the alternative, God's groundless arbitrary whims and his power to enforce them, i.e. "might makes right"? That sounds like moral nihilism to me.
As I said before, I've never seen a theistic account of morality that does not either appeal to naturalistic standards or end up resorting to "might makes right" moral nihilism. Can you provide an account of ethics that appeals only to God and does not make any appeal to the natural world and natural goods whatsoever, and which doesn't resort to "might makes right" moral nihilism? No? I didn't think so.

FYI, ethics havn't existed outside of relgious influences. Would you perfer the aztec cultural influences better, and be sacrified to the sun god?

Metaphysics:

What do you mean by this? Do you mean asking a question such as "Why is there something rather than nothing?" There isn't a reason.

Okay, logically, if the universe doesn't have a reason for existing, what else could potentially have reasoning?

Nor can there be.

Quite a confident statement. Mind explaining?


Whatever you try to appeal to, you can ask "well, what about that something? why that rather than nothing? The only other alternative is to have nothing to appeal to.

You could appeal to nothing if only nothing existed.


Stuff, whatever it is, just is.

This is the most annoying and senseless statement that I hear so commonly from atheists (one of the big things that convinced me into thiesm). First all, "whatever it is, just is", flat out makes no sense. You're basically rationalizing that "they are because they are". It's completly belittling to what "is". I'm sorry if this universe somehow doesn't impress you in comparison to nothing.

Not only that, it's a complete insult to all the major philosophical questions. The meaning of life, existance, time, space, can not be logically justified by "is".

Even if there is a God, he doesn't provide any better answer to the question of "why is there something rather than nothing."

That is exactly what religion explains, actually.

Is God something?

Yep.

Then why that something rather than nothing?

Because God "is" something.

Is God nothing? Then the atheist is right.

If God was nothing, nothing would exist. If nothing existed, atheism would be right.

He is his own reason for being?

So if he doesn't exist, there is no reason for him to exist? How is that different from saying that he just exists, no reason for it? Sort of like the universe just existing, no reason for it?

Think about it. The universe is made up of an assortment and arrangment of mindless energy and matter. Did the "universe" itself decide to let you take a tempoary break from nonexistance and decide to introduce you to "something"?

Another question atheists have quite hard time answering is, "How could no intelligence formulate intelligence?"

Note that these answers do not come from atheism. Atheism, again, is just saying that religions are inadequate to answer these questions. These answers come from the way some people have combined reason and evidence. Not finding evidence of a god, these people don't appeal to a god (an unknown hypothetical entity) to "answer" these questions, since they recognize that appealing to a mystery to answer a mystery does nothing but push the mystery back one step. Ultimately, nothing still gets answered. We work with what we have, and come up with what we can. This is a very brief sketch of the conclusions I have come up with. Others have come up with other conclusions, or concluded that they don't have enough information to make a responsible conclusion at all. Still others don't care whether their conclusions are intellectually responsible, they just come up with them anyway.

Present me with one of these evidential and reasonable philosophies, if their evidence and reason is so well creadited.

Or do you mean that you will take it into consideration only if you like the answers?

I do appricate an actual direct response than the vein responses of the other atheists who can do nothing more than whine and moan about theism. However, again, your explanations only lead to more questions. So perhaps you should explain a bit more in depth with much more philosopical reasoning.

[EnterTheBowser]

"Perhaps I would take atheism into higher reguards and perhaps even consideration if some here can explain the issue of ethics and metaphysics, and do this without making one reference to "God", "gods", or any appeal to thiesm whatsoever in their claim."

"FYI, ethics havn't existed outside of relgious influences."

I don't mean to support it, but Kant's categorical imperative certainly seems to fit the bill. Now, Kant might not have been an athest, but with regards to morality, he tried to formulate a moral system that appealed neither to emotional judgments or God. The whole "universalizabilty" bit is solely based on reason.

[Mountain Man]

.....If God was nothing, nothing would exist. If nothing existed, atheism would be right.....This "god" is nothing. It's just a character in a mythology. Stuff exists without your god existing. But now that you made your claim that a god exists; you may now prove it.

[Helen]

It was instantaneous since no action was required.

No action? Action as in conception? If you refer to the conception of the words, there were definitely actions and in a definite order. Words and meanings do not blink into existence. Somebody has to create them. Theism is the root of Atheism. Root means origin. First, a person conceived theism. Subsequent to that, a person rejected theism. Therefore, atheism developed in response to theism.

So you admit your argument is based on an equivocation. We all know that when the word is used in the prhase; lack of theism, the meaning is "the absence of" and nothing else. Any argument based on any other use of the word is a strawman argument.

Equivocation? Where? Do you use dictionaries at all? Equivocation is deception and avoidance of the point. I'm talking about clear definitions.

When lack is defined in reference materials, it means without, yes. But its a very particular quality of being without. A word's usage can legitimately stand for only part of its documented definition, but lack is consistently specifically defined as deficiency, want, missing, need, etc.

Tellingly, definitions of atheism still include references to archaic meanings such as wickedness. Obvoiusly a theist viewpoint. I think the use of lack is a similar holdover from those times when theists designed atheism's definition.

[Mountain Man]

No action? Action as in conception?.....Again, no action or thought needed.Equivocation? Where? Do you use dictionaries at all? Equivocation is deception and avoidance of the point. I'm talking about clear definitions.....Never mind. I see we are speaking different languages. I don't play the dictionary game.:wave:

[EnterTheBowser]

Look, guys, questions about what exactly atheism means do not belong in this thread... there are many threads, may they rest in peace, where people have debated what exactly this general label means. We don't need to get technical here; by and large the general/intuitive understanding is going to be enough to debate a theist.

[John A. Broussard]

How surpraising, trying to "back the theist into the corner" tatic. I have no position which to defend. You are hypocritically attempting to use a theistic moral viewpoint against theism, but unfortuantly it just won't work and contradicts itself. YOU must provide the system of ethics which you are basing your moral accusations upon.

Your statement, "I have no position which to defend," says it all.

No moral accusations were made. You simply admitted that your god is neither all-powerful nor all-loving, yet you are unable to describe the god you do believe in.

I can't very well argue about the existence of something which you are totally incapable of describing.

Since you have no position to defend, there's little point in my trying to have you present a position.

Thanks for reading my posts, though you made no meaningful response to any of them.

[lenrek]

... When did this become an attempt to provide a "positive morality case for atheism"? I thought this was about proving atheism is reasonable ...

Haven't you noticed that he continually move his goal posts.

as much as I like to debate topics of this sort I must admit that I am starting to get worn out by Smith. He follows the classical traditional theist of goal post shifting, ad hominems, being very assertve but never providing a shred of evidence and ignoring any posts he doesn't like or find hard to answer and only respond to those he thinks are easy to respond to and always with the attitude "I am still waiting" as if he has asked for anything and not gotten any yet. He asked for reasons why atheism is reasonable and he has got it in manyfolds. However, he ignore all those and just continue trotting on asking for proof of atheism and proof that theism is false and evidence that atheism is right. Oh yes, I should also meantion shifting the burden of proof - it also appear to be one of his favorite.
...


Actually, for anyone who is rational and reasonable, when read such shifting in the point of discussion, and continue to refuse (or in denial?) to address the points that have been raised, is just a sign that this individual has been defeated (since he is unable to address them, this mean he has lost the debate).

He is just looking for new angle to start a new debate. That is OK, I think.

His failure in addressing the points raised, as well as unable to present coherent and reasonable rebuttal is (I would say) absolutely unsurprising and absolutely predictable. I guess, these are the absolutely truths that can be expected. :D

... He also appear to lack the most basic knowledge of logic .

I must say I am very disappointed with Mr. Smith...

Nah... Don't be disappointed, just be entertained (that is the fun of debate, exposing the ignorance and the silliness). :D

PS: My logic is not that good either... Reading some of your post, just let me realize I need to refresh my knowledge of logic.

[EricK]

Another question atheists have quite hard time answering is, "How could no intelligence formulate intelligence?"

Smith_87 makes long rambling posts, but this one sentence seems to me to provide the key to his worldview. It is that old bugaboo of essences.

"Intelligence can't arise from non-intelligence, so there must be an original intelligence."

"Purpose can't arise from non-purpose, so there must be an underlying purpose to the universe."

"Meaning can't arise from non-meaning, so there must be some fundamental meaning to the universe."

"Life can't arise from non-life, so there must be a living entity which created the universe."

"Complexity can't arise from simplicity, so the creator must be complex."

These, and maybe other, similar, beliefs give Smith_87 all the characteristics of his god and his justification for belief. It is a pity, then, that they are all wrong. For the theory of natural selection in its most general form not only shows that X can arise from non-X, but it also shows how.

Eric

[PoodleLovinPessimist]

"Intelligence can't arise from non-intelligence, so there must be an original intelligence."

"Purpose can't arise from non-purpose, so there must be an underlying purpose to the universe."

"Meaning can't arise from non-meaning, so there must be some fundamental meaning to the universe."

"Life can't arise from non-life, so there must be a living entity which created the universe."

It should be noted that these statements are superficially reasonable (in the sense of not logically contradictory). They state that intelligence, purpose, meaning, and life are fundamental, nonreducible entities or properties.

I have one little quibble:

"Complexity can't arise from simplicity, so the creator must be complex."

This statement is probably analytically confused, since the ordinary definition of "complexity" is "made up of several parts"; a complex system is, by definition, reducible to its parts and their relationship. But, as I said, this is a quibble; there's nothing logically contradictory with any of the other assertions.

I have another quibble that we have definitively shown that life is reducible to chemistry; animism is simply not a plausible philosophical position any more.

However, none of the remaining assertions are self-evident, either. It might be the case that intelligence is fundamental, but it might be not the case that intelligence is fundamental. It might well be possible that intelligence, purpose, and meaning are complex, emergent properties, and can indeed be reduced.

There seems to be a fair amount of confusion about reductionism, even in the professional philosophical literature; some philosophers (notably Searle) take issue with the entire concept of reductionism (at least where it suits them). But of course if we take metaphysical issue with reductionism, or even relegate reductionist accounts to pure imaginitivism, we have much bigger problems with naturalism than just finding any particular quantity (intelligence, purpose, etc.) are nonreducible. Everything is nonreducible, or at least is not really reducible.

This is, I suppose, more-or-less metaphysically respectable, but only in the sense that there's really no evidential way to compare metaphysical systems; metaphysical "respectability" comes close to vacuity in saying only that our metaphysics should at least be logically consistent.

90% of the argument between naturalists and supernaturalists is at the metaphysical level; 100% of Smith_87's objections are purely metaphysical. He arbitrarily privileges a set of metaphysical assumptions, finds that naturalism and atheism outrageously contradict his metaphysical assumptions, and thus considers naturalism and atheism to be outrageously irrational.

To a certain extent, nontheists do the same thing; we arbitrarily privilege certain metaphysical assumptions, find that theism outrageously contradicts these assumptions, and consider theism to be outrageously irrational. However, the naturalist position is at least a little stronger in that the metaphysical principles we privilege are usually also privileged by theists (even Pat Robertson probably eats his cornflakes with a spoon, and does not pray to God to levitate them to his mouth*); our stance is not to argue that theists should privilege our metaphysics as opposed to our own, but rather that all the extra stuff that theists have to add to make their conception of God coherent is simply unnecessary.

The nonreducibility argument, though, is inept. To reduce something in the philosophical sense is to describe that something in other terms. By definition, when you describe something in other terms, you "lose" the original terms you used to describe it. When I describe a bus in terms of its component parts and their relationship, I "lose" its busness; none of its parts are buslike. But that's not an argument, it's just an observation about the character of reductionism. I can still describe everything that a bus actually does by talking about only its component parts. Reductionism, when operated correctly, doesn't lose any actual facts, it just changes the terminology.

Well, this is the complaint of consciousness anti-reductionists. That a reductionist account of consciousness, intelligence, purpose and meaning loses the terminology. Well, so what? That's what reductionist accounts are intended to do. It is not definitively proven that we can indeed reduce these terms to neurological activity--neurobiology and the study of consciousness and intelligence are still nascent sciences--but the logical argument that they cannot be reduced because such a reduction would dispense with the original terminology is simply inept. If we can create a reductionist account which explain all the facts, then the loss of the original terminology proves only that the original terminology named complex things.

The metaphysical alternative is to take the stance that reductionism is pure fictionalism and imaginitivism. Well, there's nothing logically contradictory about that metaphysical stance, but the reductive materialist notes that under this metaphysical system, we can describe everything that's evidentially determinable, we can account for all actual facts, using this reductionist "fiction"; even if we never leave this fiction, we have no reason to believe that we cannot describe everything we experience. There is simply no reason to believe that fictionalizing reductive materialism does anything except preserve the speaker's vanity. If he wants to, that's fine, but the argument that reductive materialism is false only because it fails to preserve the speaker's vanity is not particularly persuasive.

Smith_87's metaphysical "arrogance" is more or less understandable. It's very tempting, even for naturalists and atheists, to consider one's metaphysical assumptions to be foundationally self-evident. Being self-evident, their denial appears to be simple perversity and obviously irrational. Since he believes his assumptions are obvious and irrefutable (after all, he has examined the issue for four whole years), the only technique he can conceive of is to slap all us sleeping atheists in the hopes of waking us to the obvious reality of his self-evident premises.

Of course, young Smith is very very naive. He simply has not discovered that millions people have been thinking about these issues for almost three thousand years, and everything is vastly more complicated than he imagines (athough it is my opinion that philosophy is not nearly as complicated as some philosophers would make it; it's possible to go overboard in the other directu). Furthermore, he appears vastly more interested in being right than he is on being thorough. He wants to win, not understand the subtlety and complexity of the game. And until he switches his attitude, he will simply have to consider most of the world breathtakingly stupid and blind to the obvious truth to his profound wisdom (which he has, of course, spent four whole years constructing).


*I'm shamelessly ripping off PZ Myers here

[Alf]

How? Where is the dogma? Do we goto a church or rely on a specific book? Do we all believe the exact same things?

No :down:

We all go to the atheist church every wednesday and read the holy scriptures like the Origin of Species and similar works and hear the preacher tell about the prophets Darwin, Dawkins and so on. Then we sing hymns about our non-belief.

Oh, and don't forget the evil atheist conspiracy. It does not exist all atheists knows that and will tell you as much but they don't fool the theist. He knows they are there with the black helicopters and the men in suits and what not.

It is amazing what some theists believe. :devil3:

To the theist: If you believe what I wrote above I have this amazing bargain for you. Very cheap. Please send cash in small bills to me. Send me a PM to find out how to contact me :Cheeky:

Alf

[achristianbeliever]

In other words, we can prove that god is not real to the same degree of certainty that we can prove that fire-breathing dragons are not real. If you don't think that that standard is high enough for things in general, you are going to have a very hard time in life distinguishing fact from fiction. If you think that this standard is applicable to most things but not to god and other select beliefs, then you really need to explain why the standard of evidence we should use for judging the existence of god should be so much lower than the standard of evidence we use for judging the existence of even the most mundane and everyday things.


I do disagree with the assertion that proving God is the same degree as fire-breathing dragons. Because Christians claim God literally walked on this planet was born and died. And I'm sorry but I don't accept the idea that disbelief in Jesus having lived is the default position and unless the Christian proves he existed we must conclude he didn't. To be truly honest you would have to start out agnostic about his existence and then say, "After studying the evidence this is the conclusion I've come to". Now whether or not you believe Jesus is God may be a different story but all Christians have to do is say that their God walked on this earth and that makes the standard of evidence different from dragons.

[SkyDancer_0202]

I am awaiting any good arguments that a positive position of Atheism is at all reasonable. If any one thinks they have a sound proposal, I would be more than eager to hear out such a case.

I am quite sure your OP has been thoroughly debunked by far better minds than mine by now, but since when has that ever stopped me from saying my two cents worth :D

Your subject header asks: Is Atheism reasonable. The answer is "yes" It and agnosticism are the ONLY reasonable answers with regard to deities. All other answers require faith/belief, which by definition is not "reason"

Your OP then goes on in a clearly intentionally provoking manner about "positive position of Atheism" You've been on this board long enough to know that "atheism" is a response to "theism" - it is not and never will be a "positive position" on anything. And this is not a *bad* thing no matter what anyone tries to imply to the contrary. If you want positive position statements regarding philosophical or ethical frameworks - ask about Humanism or something like that.

But, I know you know this already. Enjoy your thread. :rolleyes:

[John A. Broussard]

all Christians have to do is say that their God walked on this earth and that makes the standard of evidence different from dragons.

Good point.

All I have to say is that fire-breathing dragons walked on this earth and now it's up to you to prove that they didn't.

I'm waiting.

[SkyDancer_0202]

No action? Action as in conception? If you refer to the conception of the words, there were definitely actions and in a definite order. Words and meanings do not blink into existence. Somebody has to create them. Theism is the root of Atheism. Root means origin. First, a person conceived theism. Subsequent to that, a person rejected theism. Therefore, atheism developed in response to theism...

While I generally hold the pov that Mountain Man is presenting, I do understand your point on this. It is a matter of perspective. For the word to exist at all, we MUST have some concept of "theism" first in order to answer to it with "A-theism"

Yet, stepping outside of the frame of reference that has created the word, atheism is the default position. Like the quote says: we are born atheists while theists are created. Were there no theists anywhere ever, we would all be atheists - but we wouldn't have that particular word nor the need for that particular word.

(sidetrack - I think about this inherent language contradiction a lot when trying to discuss 'rights' too :D )

[Helen]

To be truly honest you would have to start out agnostic about his existence and then say, "After studying the evidence this is the conclusion I've come to".

Exactly! So agnosticism is the "truly honest" beginning. Conclusions are based on studied evidence. Without leaps of faith, all evidence points to natural explanations rather than supernatural ones. And so atheism is the inevitable result of all theistic study. Cool.

[Alf]

That's sort of a rather vague interpretation (What connects these universal healthy/happy actions?). Also, why is it that humans and no other specie has a system of morals, and at what consequence are at stake if these morals are violated?

They don't? Have you studied a group of chimps lately? Gorillas? Dolphins? Pack of wolves? A group of lions?

They all show that they have a certain morality and ethics they follow and if an individual do not follow those rules he get booted out of the group very fast.

You have much to learn young man.


Curious, by "divine" what context are you putting that in?

What he said was that you do NOT have to appeal to anything divine in order to figure out what is right from wrong. The context is clearly the theistic context. They generally claim that the only moral can come from God. We say that moral does not have to come from god and in fact cannot come from god. Not only because there is no god but also because even if God existed, his morals would not be our moral. In particular the christian god is so immoral that his morality is worthless to us. The moral teachings of the bible may have been of use during the bronze age but it is useless to us in modern times. We don't need a rule that says we should stone our children if they speak up against the parents. Yes, if a child is disobedient we do not need to cheer it on but neither do we think stoning it would solve the problem. The moral teachings of the bible is simply of no use for modern man. No, I don't think about the "thou shalt not kill". That rule is sort of ok enough. The problem with that rule is that the christians hasn't been more eager to follow it than people who are not christians, so the effect of the bible on making people kill less appear to be non-existent. Nor am I thinking of the "do unto others as you want others to do unto you". It is a fine rule and a rule the christians learned from east where they had that rule written down about the same time as the jews wrote down their stories of killing and slaughter of the OT. The christians got it as part of the NT but it is a fine rule = a rule that can be justified without appealing to any god. It is right because it is right, not because some god says so. Well, that is simplified. Justification for it can be given but I won't go into that here.

No, I am saying that the moral teaching's of the bible is useless to us because they are either wise and good as the golden rule - in which case we don't have to justify them by virtue of them being in the bible. The golden rule is not wise because it is in the bible. It is perhaps in the bible because it is wise. The rule is wisdom period. Even if it were not in the bible, it would still be wise. The other types of rules are not wisdom at all. The "genocide is ok if god orders it" is not a wise rule at all and is best left out from any modern morality. It is immoral and god is immoral if he preaches this form of morality.

So the bible is useless because the only pieces of wisdom of the bible that is of any use are those that would be wise even if you got them from other sources than the bible. The very rules that are only found in the bible and can only be justified by the bible are exactly those rules that are immoral and we do not want.


Okay, but what makes either of those more significant than razing havoc upon an innocent ant hill?

If you follow the golden rule you do not raze havoc upon that ant hill. As long as those ants do not cause you any harm, you should leave them alone.

This can be thought of as 'respect for life". Something some christians claim they have. I guess not all of them have but I also have very little respect for those who doesn't. If you want to earn my respect you must also respect me and others.


Natural? How so? Why are there little boys fighting over toy cars and finding it worth the effort of obtaining that toy over the other boy's feelings?

Because we have both things. We both learn by nature that we must care for one another. As a species, we evolved in groups and learned that the group's survival was of value to us. Thus, we learned to take care of our buddy because in the next moment that buddy might take care of me.

The little boys haven't learned those things yet and so they go to more primitive moral where "I want it, I take it" is the rule. Of course, it is exactly and precicely because the other boy resist this that they eventually learn that just because you want something doesn't mean you can take it without care. As they grow up they learn that that other boy resisted and it was his right to do so and they learn to respect other people's property etc.

Of course, some people never learn and they grow up to become thieves and gangsters.

However, as a species, we generally learn these things relatively early and so we do not go around grabbing things that doesn't belong to us.


It's natural not to do harm, but sometimes it's not? I don't follow.

It is natural not to cause harm in most cases but there are cases where it is not so clean cut. If someone comes into your home and is about to rape and murder your sister.

If the only way to stop him that is available to you is that you shoot and kill him, is it right and moral of you to do so?

True, you probably could find a way to prevent the crime without killing him if you had lots fo time to consider your options etc. However, time is exactly what you don't have a lot of when youare in that situation. Thus, killing that guy might be justifiable.

This does not mean you have the right to then go home to the rapist's brother and kill him also.

So, there are situations where it is morally acceptable to take some other person's life. However, these situations are rare and people are supposed to not find themselves in such situations often. Thus, with this moral principle we won't have a society where people go around killing each other a lot. This means a happier and better society.

What is so hard to understand of this?


I don't know if your argument of "natural good" actions and "natural bad" actions add up, but all "natural" means is "known", BTW.

No. The "natural" here means it has naturally evolved. Without any supernatural god giving us any worthless tablets with some worthless scribble on it.

Yes, I say it is worthless. Did you know that people in that region already had those "rules" before God gave them to Moses. I would guess Moses was an illiterate idiot since he just stood there and gaped without notifying god that "Err, God, we already know that killing and so on is bad, you don't actually have to give us those rules, we already got those". Either he was illiterate and didn't know that or he was so amazed by seeing god that he lost his mind and was unable to think clearly. Whatever it was, it is clear that the tribes around the jews at that time already followed those rules long before that event. We have archeological findings documenting as much.

Did people occationally break those rules and kill other people before the tablets was given? Yes. Did they know it was wrong before the tablets was given? Yes again.

Do people occationally break those rules and kill other people after the tables was given? Yes again, read any newspaper if you don't believe me. People kill each other all over the world.

Do people know it is wrong to kill each other after the tablets was given? Yes and not only from the bible. Even people who has never head of the bible also knows it is wrong to kill other people.

So, the conclusion is and must be that this event had ZERO IMPACT on humanity. Well, it has had impact of course. It is a good story to tell children in sunday school and so on but it has zero impact on people's morality and that was what I was discussing here.


FYI, ethics havn't existed outside of relgious influences. Would you perfer the aztec cultural influences better, and be sacrified to the sun god?

No, I would prefer the cultural influence I have of today and abolish all form of sacrifices. These gods does not exist - including your god , no matter how much people claim there is a holy book where he proclaim that roast meat gives an odor that is pleasant to him.

I prefer to eat the roasted meat myself and give to friends and famiily instead of "sacrificing" it to rats and whatnot.


Okay, logically, if the universe doesn't have a reason for existing, what else could potentially have reasoning?

This sentence doesn't make sense. If the universe does not have a reason for existing, what else cuold potentially have a reasoning??? Do you mean what else COULD have a reason for existing?

Well, let us see. I exist because my mom and dad humped in bed several years ago. Approximately 9 months later I was born as a result.

Is that the kind of reason you are looking for?

Or maybe you are looking for a purpose? Why am I here? Well, let's see, I am a sentient being so I create my own purpose. I have made a career and try to be as good as I can in that profession. At some point I will retire and I will create new goals for myself and pursue them. Some day I will die and that's it. Whatever I haven't been able to do before then is too late.


Quite a confident statement. Mind explaining?

There cannot be a reason to "why are there something rather than nothing". What would that reason be? If I ask you why are you here? You will refer to something outside of yourself as the reason. You might as I do refer to your mom and dad or you might refer to some "god" that you imagine created you or some such. The point is, that reason cannot be in yourself. You cannot be your own rreason.

Now, consider the question "why are there something rather than nothing"? This "something" is everything there is. You cannot refer to anything outside of it because it includes everything. Therefore there cannot be any reason for answering that question.

Further, we can say that this "nothing" is incoherent. There cannot ever be "nothing". However, that is by itself not a reason as to why there is something.

If you think that there can be "nothing" then I will assume you haven't really thought about it or perhaps you don't know enough about physics. The point is that if there is nothing - no time, no space it is meaningless to assume anything at all. The point is that at all valid times in the past, there has always been something and it had to be necessarily so. If there were nothing it wouldn't be a valid point in time.


You could appeal to nothing if only nothing existed.

No. Nothing is not a thing that can be called "nothing". Besides, it cannot ever be the situation that nothing existed. There has to - always exist something.


This is the most annoying and senseless statement that I hear so commonly from atheists (one of the big things that convinced me into thiesm). First all, "whatever it is, just is", flat out makes no sense. You're basically rationalizing that "they are because they are". It's completly belittling to what "is". I'm sorry if this universe somehow doesn't impress you in comparison to nothing.

I think you misunderstood what he meant. The point is that you simply cannot ask for a reason why the universe is. We see the universe is all around us and we can only take it as given. Whatever reasoning you would have to cook up would necessarily be outside of the universe. The problem is of course that nothing can be outside of the universe. The universe include everything there is. Thus, it is impossible to provide any reason for it.

We see it all around us. You can take it as given. The initial truth. The first truth upon which you can build all other truths. The universe exist.

There is no belittling here.


Not only that, it's a complete insult to all the major philosophical questions. The meaning of life, existance, time, space, can not be logically justified by "is".

The point is you have to start some place and the universe is the natural starting point. Wherever you look around you, you see the unvierse. Thus, there should be no doubt that the universe exist.

Why does it exist? As explained above that question doesn't make sense to ask. Therefore we take it as given. The universe exist. This is the firth truth the basic building block. The truth you build everything upon.

True, Descartes thought the "I think therefore I am" was that building block. He was wrong. "The universe exist" CAN be such a basic building block.

Just think about it. EVERY thing you take as truth depends on the truth that the universe exist. You believe there is a god, right? Well, what makes you think there is a god? Because you read about it in a book? Where is that book? In the universe! So, how can that book exist if the universe did not?

True, as you can see, not only all truths but also all things you think is true but isn't necessarily have their basic justification in the basic truth "there universe exist".


That is exactly what religion explains, actually.

Actually, it doesn't. It says "God did it". What kind of "explanation" is that? It doesn't explain a thing. Who is this god? Who created god? Oh, he just is, right? Oh, didn't you say that was "belittling". I guess you are belittling your god here. Or maybe you have a reason or justification as to why god is? Some god-god created him? Is God an atheist? Does god pray to his god-god? Questions and questions. For each "answer" you come up with there are just more and more questions. Instead of understanding and enlightenment we just get confusion. What kind of "answer" or "explanation" is that?


Yep.

So why is there something instead of nothing then? Why is there god? Note, you cannot just say "God is" because you just said that "X is" is "belittling" X.


If God was nothing, nothing would exist. If nothing existed, atheism would be right.

Almost. If God was nothing, the universe would just be and atheism would be right.


Think about it. The universe is made up of an assortment and arrangment of mindless energy and matter. Did the "universe" itself decide to let you take a tempoary break from nonexistance and decide to introduce you to "something"?

Is your theory that each of us spend our happy days in this place called "non-existence" until we suddenly are pulled away form this happy place and pulled into this dreary world with earthquakes and misery called "existence" and then when we die we will once again be pulled away from here and sent to heaven or hell depending on how we behaved ourselves?

Non-existence means exactly that. It means we do not exist. It is not that we spend some millions of years in a place called "non-existence".


Another question atheists have quite hard time answering is, "How could no intelligence formulate intelligence?"

Why is that hard? Do you know what intelligence is? I have no problem answering this question. It is actually to quesitons disguised as one.

On the individual level, my mom and dad humped in bed and a sperm cell met an egg cell. They merged and the merged cell started dividing and multiply into a lump of cells. At some point some of these cells developed into brain cells. At yet another later point this brain became sufficiently advanced that I was able to think. I got born and I learned about the outside world. I met and saw the face of my mom and dad and some other strange people around me. As I grew and got older I learned more and more and at some point you can say that I have some form of intelligence. Not exactly sure that is, it partly depend on what you mean by intelligence. Some people might say I was intelligent even before I was born while some people might say I am still not intelligent.

On the species level. Some biochemicals got together and managed to form a moleule that was capable of creating a duplicate of itself given suitable other molecules nearby. It could not only form duplicates of itself but could also form useful molecules around itself. One of these even managed to create some of the molecules that was used for that duplication process and that increased the chance of it being duplicated and so it spread around. The duplication was never perfect but there was always chance for some errors here and there and thus the duplicates was either worse or the same but a few were in some cases better than the original. That they were better, meant that they would spread out more. One such advantage came when it developed molecules to separate itself from the water around it. Thus, keeping all those important molecules used for duplication and other things near itself and prevent them from floating away by a current or random bad luck. Thus, we have a cell. Probably a very crude and primitive at first but because it had that wall and could make sure that all the important molecules were nearby and not floating away it would have a huge advantage over other molecules and so would spread around. Many cells appeared slightly different form one another.

Then one day something bad happened. Cells divided every now and then in order to spread around and in order to renew themslves because they had a tendency of sucking in molecules to get energy they would bloat unless they divided. So when a cell acquired the ability to divide itself you had a breakthrough. However, one day that division went wrong. The two cells stuck together. When those two divided again, the four cells stuck together. This thing grow to a big blob probably. This was bad for the inner cells that suddenly got no food unless they started to cannnibalize their neighbours. However, it was good for the blob as a whole because it was bigger and could bully around and have no problem getting food for itself. Multi cellular organisms was a fact.

Also, because there were several cells, the individual cells could specialize. So you got one cell that formed the structure of the blob while others were concerned with transporting oxygen around to the other cells and you got some that did other jobs.

It is generally believed that the spunges are among the most primitive multi cellular organisms we have that are still living. They are amazingly simple and yet even in those you find some crude specialization.

Of course, life developed further and some cells developed that could transport sensory information to other parts of the body. So if the creature had a tentacle it could make itself move towards the food so that the mouth was close to the food even if it was not the mouth that sensed the food. Thus a nerve system developed. Now, a whole new world opened up for the organisms. It could sense the outside world in a better way than before.

Some of these nerve cells formed a nerve central where a lot of signaling went back and forth - it formed a brain.

Eventually, animals with brains took over the planet. The animals split into insects and fishes and what not and we got fishes that could breathe oxygen using lungs - amphihians. Later amphibians develoepd into reptiles. Reptiles into mammals. Some mammals developed into monkey like creatures and then the ape like animals developed. Humans is one such ape like animal. Chimps are anotther. In some species the brain developed a lot and has all the marks of intelligence. Essentially all mammals and most reptiles exhibit this form of advanced brain. We some times say that a bird brain and imply that it is stupid but the truth is that many birds are quite intelligent. Ravens for example. This is no big surprise since they develop from reptiles also and reptiles are smart.

So, the long story short. It is a gradual process with minute changes all the time and in sum they all contribute to what we call "intelligence".

It isn't hard at all.


Present me with one of these evidential and reasonable philosophies, if their evidence and reason is so well creadited.

Well, since their explanation is not "god did it" which isn't any explanation at all, you generally are better off trying to get hold of a book that explains the things in more depth than you can get here.

Go to your local library and try to find books about these subjects written by atheists or people who do not appeal to god or uses "god did it" as a long winded "I don't know" answer.


I do appricate an actual direct response than the vein responses of the other atheists who can do nothing more than whine and moan about theism. However, again, your explanations only lead to more questions. So perhaps you should explain a bit more in depth with much more philosopical reasoning.
Just because you don't understand the responses doesn't mean we just moan and whine.
I think you have got lots of input on this very thread that should give you food for thought. If you want ot know more I really suggest you check out a library and read some books by famous thinkers. You could start out on reading some info on internet also even although for in depth reading I suggest a book rather than internet. However, for quick info the internet might be ok. Read up on some famous atheists. Mark Twain has a writing style I think might come to your liking. He has a tendency of hitting the nail on the head without using complicated words.

His definition of faith: Faith is believing what you know ain't true.

It also have the proper grain of humor in it and you might just appreciate reading some of his writing. For example some letters from Satan - a good read. True, he lived a couple of years ago before our scientific age and some things was different back then. However, he is amazingly up to date with modern thinking - far more than most of his contemporaries.

Alf

[Alf]

Smith_87 makes long rambling posts, but this one sentence seems to me to provide the key to his worldview. It is that old bugaboo of essences.

"Intelligence can't arise from non-intelligence, so there must be an original intelligence."

"Purpose can't arise from non-purpose, so there must be an underlying purpose to the universe."

"Meaning can't arise from non-meaning, so there must be some fundamental meaning to the universe."

"Life can't arise from non-life, so there must be a living entity which created the universe."

"Complexity can't arise from simplicity, so the creator must be complex."

These, and maybe other, similar, beliefs give Smith_87 all the characteristics of his god and his justification for belief. It is a pity, then, that they are all wrong. For the theory of natural selection in its most general form not only shows that X can arise from non-X, but it also shows how.

Eric

You are absolutely correct. However, apart from that there is another problem with the line of reasoning he shows here. If X can only come from X in some form then how can a non-physical god create a physical universe?

Following the same line of logic gives you:

The world is physical, hence some physical entity has created it.

However, this is something they won't accept. Thus it not only is fallacious and wrong but it is also a case of special pleading without justification for the special ness other than "we prefer it this way".

Alf

[Joe Bloe]

That's sort of a rather vague interpretation (What connects these universal healthy/happy actions?). Also, why is it that humans and no other specie has a system of morals, and at what consequence are at stake if these morals are violated?
But some other animals do have at least a rudimentary system of morals. Read what Jane Goodall and Frans de Waal have learned in their studies of chimpanzee societies ("Good natured: the origins of right and wrong in humans and other animals" is a good start). As for consequences, I assume you mean punishments. If you avoid natural unfavorable consequences, unfortunately, ain't nobody but other people (or other chimps) to punish you if you do something bad. Sometimes people get away with it. Doesn't make it any less wrong for them to have done it, though.

By the way, I didn't say anything about universal. But I agree that some matters in ethics are "universal", at least within the human "universe", which makes sense because we are, after all, all members of the same species, so we share a lot in common. However, we also have our differences, so there are some legitimate differences in ethical conclusions about different individuals or situations. And there is a lot we don't know or are uncertain of, so it makes sense that some of our ethical conclusions are uncertain and legitimately debatable.

Okay, but what makes either of those more significant than razing havoc upon an innocent ant hill?
As far as we know (and, knowing about how brains and minds work, we do know a good bit of relevant info), ants aren't aware of what's going on or able to consciously experience pain. Some other animals, however, can, and I think that does have moral consequences.

Natural? How so? Why are there little boys fighting over toy cars and finding it worth the effort of obtaining that toy over the other boy's feelings?
I said we have an ability to learn to care for others, not that we are born caring already or that we will inevitably learn to.

It's natural not to do harm, but sometimes it's not? I don't follow.We're obviously able to do either. And we're obviously able to choose between the two. What's not to follow?

FYI, ethics havn't existed outside of relgious influences. Would you perfer the aztec cultural influences better, and be sacrified to the sun god?
Of course not. And that's a prime example of where religion has had very bad influences on ethics. Natural goods and bads have also always influenced ethics. Since religions can say things like painful human sacrifices are good (because it appeases some hypothetical entity) whereas it is obviously bad for the sacrificee (whom we know exists) and there is no obvious natural benefit, I'm much more comfortable going with just looking at verifiable natural goods and bads for making moral judgments rather than to appeal to some unknown entity that somehow hypothetically benefits from our actions.

Note that unknown entities and hypothetical benefits have also been appealed to by nontheists, such as those who sacrificed millions for the sake of the hypothetical "dialectical materialism." The problem here is not religion per se, it is appealing to hypothetical entities and hypothetical goods. That can cause real harm whether the hypotheticals are natural or supernatural. But at least some naturals are known; pending any verifiable objective evidence of their existence, all supernaturals remain hypothetical, and thus all moral systems that appeal at least in part to these hypotheticals remain at least potentially dangerous in actuality.

This is the most annoying and senseless statement that I hear so commonly from atheists (one of the big things that convinced me into thiesm). First all, "whatever it is, just is", flat out makes no sense. You're basically rationalizing that "they are because they are". It's completly belittling to what "is". I'm sorry if this universe somehow doesn't impress you in comparison to nothing.
But it's fine to say "God just exists." Okay, whatever.

Not only that, it's a complete insult to all the major philosophical questions. The meaning of life, existance, time, space, can not be logically justified by "is".
Why do you think it needs to be logically justified at all? Logic is a tool humans have developed. It is subject to reality. Reality isn't subject to our logic. If we reason (as did Zeno some two and a half thousand years ago using the best logic available at the time) that motion cannot logically be accounted for so it must not really exist, the motions we think we perceive must be illusions, well, so much the worse for logic, because reality ain't changing just because we think it is supposed to be different from what it is. It wasn't until Newton and Leibnitz came along and developed systems of calculus that anyone could make logical sense of motion. (Read about Zeno's Paradox if you aren't familiar with this example.)

That is why, as I have said earlier, we must always test the results of our reasonings against reality to see whether our reasonings are accurate.

That is exactly what religion explains, actually.
No, that is what religion postpones explaining. All it does is push the question back one step. Why God rather than no God?

Because God "is" something.
Oh, that annoying answer that theists keep bringing up: "God just is"! That just flat out makes no sense. (One of the big reasons I dropped theism) [note that I'm not being facetious here; this is an accurate statement about part of why I dropped religion]

If God was nothing, nothing would exist. If nothing existed, atheism would be right.
So, by "god" you just mean "ultimate reality", or "the ground of being", or some such vague, undefined term as that? Well, as I said before, if that's all you mean by "god", then, sure, "god" exists.

But I would be very interested in seeing how you get from there to any particular alleged deity, whether Thor or Ra or Yahweh or Allah or whomever. Or even to a conscious, personal being who has any interest at all in us and our lives.

Think about it. The universe is made up of an assortment and arrangment of mindless energy and matter. Did the "universe" itself decide to let you take a tempoary break from nonexistance and decide to introduce you to "something"?
I did think about it. A lot. And the more I thought about it, and the more I learned in science and philosophy, the less the assumptions behind this sort of thinking and these sorts of questions made sense to me. I began to think that maybe I was barking up the wrong tree: maybe there really wasn't anything up there after all, maybe I was mistaken in assuming that there must be something up there and refusing to look anywhere else or in any other way.

Another question atheists have quite hard time answering is, "How could no intelligence formulate intelligence?"
That is only hard to answer if you insist on the impossibility of intelligence arising from nonintelligence. Evolution provides an answer that fits with all the actual evidence we have. I won't go through the whole thing now, but I will ask one question for you to think about:

Where does water's wetness come from? Water is nothing but hydrogen and oxygen atoms configured in certain ways and interacting in certain ways. But none of those individual atoms is wet. The interacting is just actions, its not a thing, so it's not wet. How did wetness come from nonwetness?

Hmm, maybe there are such things as "emergent properties", properties of entities that exist at the level of that entity but not at the level of its component parts.

Present me with one of these evidential and reasonable philosophies, if their evidence and reason is so well creadited.
You're in college now, right? Why not introduce yourself to some? Take some philosophy courses, some science courses, some logic courses, and see what you think.

I do appricate an actual direct response than the vein responses of the other atheists who can do nothing more than whine and moan about theism. However, again, your explanations only lead to more questions. So perhaps you should explain a bit more in depth with much more philosopical reasoning.
I disagree. Yes, I agree that my explanations lead to more questions, but I disagree with your claim that they lead only to more questions. They also lead to at least some answers, answers that are verifiable. And those new questions lead to more answers, and then even more questions that will lead to still more answers, and on and on.

I think your explanations lead only to shutting out remaining questions, a refusal to ask questions, which in turn leads to a stunting of intellectual and moral growth. I'd much rather ask the questions that really are there than to shut them out and ignore them. Really asking questions is the only way to get real answers. To "really" ask a question, you must be open to the possibility of any answer. You cannot put artificial restraints on reality, insisting, for example, that there can't be emergent properties (such as wetness, or intelligence), thus cutting off a whole range of possible answers. If the real answer is among the set of possible answers you have put off limits, you'll never get to the truth.

But you also have to test the answers you come up with, to verify whether your reasoning has been accurate. Again, reality does not need to bow to our reasoning; quite the opposite is the case. If, to get answers to your questions, you want to hypothesize that there must a god, you then have to go on to test that hypothesis to see whether that god really is there. If you cannot verify your hypothetical, you don't have a sufficient reason to conclude that it exists. That according to your reasoning it just has to exist is insufficient: reality need not, and does not, bow to your reasoning. Personally, I have not put a god off limits for a possible answer. But, pending any evidence of its actual existence, I have concluded that the evidence we have indicates that, whatever "the answer" may be, "god" isn't the answer.

Even if you do really ask questions, you still might not get to the truth, there's no guarantee that we will or can know everything. But if you don't really ask questions, you can guarantee that you will not really know the truth.

[Ulrich]

I do disagree with the assertion that proving God is the same degree as fire-breathing dragons. Because Christians claim God literally walked on this planet was born and died. And I'm sorry but I don't accept the idea that disbelief in Jesus having lived is the default position and unless the Christian proves he existed we must conclude he didn't. To be truly honest you would have to start out agnostic about his existence and then say, "After studying the evidence this is the conclusion I've come to". Now whether or not you believe Jesus is God may be a different story but all Christians have to do is say that their God walked on this earth and that makes the standard of evidence different from dragons.

There are many legends indicating that Dragons walked on this Earth, and many of those were subsequently slain by mortal men, just as with Jesus. Of course, we are discussing God, not necessarily Jesus, so this analogy only applies if you are a Christian theist who believes in a triune God. Not all atheists disbelieve that a man named Jesus lived, and some will even grant you that the stories in the Bible are possibly based on the life of an actual person named Jesus. It is the assertion that this person was a God, or the son of a God that we would all disagree with.

[Joe Bloe]

Logic is subject to reality. Reality isn't subject to logic.
I think I should explain more what I mean here to try to ward off potential confusions or misunderstandings.

Logic, or reason, on its own is not enough to teach us about reality. Logic says that if this set of premises is true, then these conclusions must follow, these other conclusions may follow, and these conclusions over here cannot follow. But reason alone cannot tell us whether those premises actually are true. For that, we need evidence: empirical, testable, reliable evidence.

This is why I say that there is, and can be, no answer to the question of "why is there something rather than nothing." It is why I say that whatever ultimately exists just exists, no reason for it. Reason needs reality to work with for it to get anywhere. On its own, it can go nowhere. We start from something that just is, and then we can reason from there. Without that starting point, though, reason can only tell us what might be, but not what is.

Reason can tell us what can't be the case (no square circles, no married bachelors, etc). Reason can tell us what can be the case. Reason can tell us that if A is the case then B must be true, C may be true, and D cannot be true. But reason alone cannot tell us what is the case. For that, we need evidence.

So, Smith, where is your evidence, your empirical, testable, reliable evidence, of your god?

[achristianbeliever]

Good point.

All I have to say is that fire-breathing dragons walked on this earth and now it's up to you to prove that they didn't.

I'm waiting.


Wrong. Point to the specific time and place they existed and how you came to this conclusion. Christians can do that believers in Dragons can't.


Exactly! So agnosticism is the "truly honest" beginning. Conclusions are based on studied evidence. Without leaps of faith, all evidence points to natural explanations rather than supernatural ones. And so atheism is the inevitable result of all theistic study. Cool.


Wrong. You would have to stay agnostic. Atheism would also be a leap of faith. Any person who looks at the question of God only through science must HONESTLY end up as an agnostic and NOT atheist or theist. You have to use metaphysics to go any further and in my opinion theism has the advantage over atheism with metaphysics.


There are many legends indicating that Dragons walked on this Earth, and many of those were subsequently slain by mortal men, just as with Jesus. Of course, we are discussing God, not necessarily Jesus, so this analogy only applies if you are a Christian theist who believes in a triune God. Not all atheists disbelieve that a man named Jesus lived, and some will even grant you that the stories in the Bible are possibly based on the life of an actual person named Jesus. It is the assertion that this person was a God, or the son of a God that we would all disagree with.


I disagree. You have a point with Islam saying its no different than the legend of Dragons. But unlike Dragons Christians can point to a specific individual at a certain time and place and say, "that's God". You can't do that with Dragons. Now of course anyone can say, "that person wasn't God" but it doesn't change the fact Christians can point to things about their God that Muslims can't and an atheist rejecting the divinity of Jesus is not the point. Those legends about Dragons would have to mean that a Dragon existed in the first place and only the stories of what they did are legend.

This is my perspective (And yes I'm taking the assumption that a person named Jesus really existed like most scholars and historians do)
Jesus=existed but we don't know for sure what he did.
Dragons=don't know if they existed nor do we know what they did.

That's the difference.

[Biff the unclean]

Wrong. You would have to stay agnostic. Atheism would also be a leap of faith. Any person who looks at the question of God only through science must end up as an agnostic and NOT atheist.
That's not true at all. Looking a God through science one must weigh all the evidence for and against God. The only conclusion one can scientifically reach about God is that since He has all the attributes of a fictional character and none of non-fiction then He's fictional. No leaps of faith required.

[Biff the unclean]

But unlike Dragons Christians can point to a specific individual at a certain time and place and say, "that's God".
No, you don't do that at all. You point to a character in a story book.

[fjripit]

Atheism would also be a leap of faith. Any person who looks at the question of God only through science must end up as an agnostic and NOT atheist.
You misunderstand, atheism does not require a leap of faith.

Faith, by definition, is believing in something despite there being no good reason or evidence to do so.

Atheism on the other hand, is a lack of belief in theism, precisely because there are no good reasons and/or evidence to believe in theism.

Faith-based beliefs are not useful for perceiving the realities of our existence. If you disagree, please provide some examples of how believing something when there are no good reasons or evidence would be useful, practically and philosophically.

As for science, agnosticism or atheism is a quibble. The reasoning and facts should properly determine the level of belief in anything.


You have to use metaphysics to go any further and in my opinion theism has the advantage over atheism with metaphysics.
The above also applies to metaphysics, i.e. the topic at hand needs to be supportable based on rational principles. Otherwise, the advancement of knowledge cannot occur.

[Silent Dave]

Smith_87's metaphysical "arrogance" is more or less understandable. It's very tempting, even for naturalists and atheists, to consider one's metaphysical assumptions to be foundationally self-evident. Being self-evident, their denial appears to be simple perversity and obviously irrational. Since he believes his assumptions are obvious and irrefutable (after all, he has examined the issue for four whole years), the only technique he can conceive of is to slap all us sleeping atheists in the hopes of waking us to the obvious reality of his self-evident premises.

Of course, young Smith is very very naive. He simply has not discovered that millions people have been thinking about these issues for almost three thousand years, and everything is vastly more complicated than he imagines (athough it is my opinion that philosophy is not nearly as complicated as some philosophers would make it; it's possible to go overboard in the other directu). Furthermore, he appears vastly more interested in being right than he is on being thorough. He wants to win, not understand the subtlety and complexity of the game. And until he switches his attitude, he will simply have to consider most of the world breathtakingly stupid and blind to the obvious truth to his profound wisdom (which he has, of course, spent four whole years constructing).


What's interesting is that, if this was late 1997 or early 1998, you would be describing me very accurately.

It wasn't until I switched my attitude, as you suggested, and concentrated on being thorough instead of right that I matured in my beliefs -- but the ironic part is that I was doing it in order to become a better Christian and a better apologist. It didn't go quite as planned, obviously . . . and maybe that's precisely what Smith is afraid of.

[Mountain Man]

This is my perspective (And yes I'm taking the assumption that a person named Jesus really existed like most scholars and historians do)Most scholars and historians do not make that giant leap of faith. There is no basis for your assumption that the biblical jesus ever existed.Jesus=existed but we don't know for sure what he did.
Dragons=don't know if they existed nor do we know what they did. That's the difference.There is no difference. There is no proof, or evidence, that either dragons or jesus existed. If you make the blind leap that jesus existed then you must also make the same leap for manticors, dragons, faeries, sprites, nymphs, and anything else humans made up.

The difference is the burden of proof. You are claiming that something extra ordinary exists, a god, and specifically a god we are supposed to base our lives on. You have to do some extra ordinary proving.

[achristianbeliever]

That's not true at all. Looking a God through science one must weigh all the evidence for and against God. The only conclusion one can scientifically reach about God is that since He has all the attributes of a fictional character and none of non-fiction then He's fictional. No leaps of faith required.


What evidence are you talking about? Science no matter what cannot begin to answer questions about whether or not you go to Heaven when you die. There is no evidence for or against it either way. To say that there is some conclusion means that there must be some proof one way or another. Lack of evidence doesn't work.

If I'm an agnostic and I ask an atheist prove to me God doesn't exist the only honest answer can be, "I can't do that." Simply because any question of God goes beyond the realm of science. You can't use lack of evidence for God as evidence for atheism. You would have to prove the non-existence of God using science.

If he has all the attributes of a fictional character and none of non-fiction then he's fictional? That's the lamest thing I ever heard. Any question of God must be beyond the realm of science. Otherwise do you have proof he doesn't exist? Just so you know I don't have the burden of proof here. You are the one that has to prove that questions of God's existence are within the realm of science and I don't think you want to do that.


No, you don't do that at all. You point to a character in a story book.


Wrong. You can't point to Jesus without even looking at the Bible if you want to. We can look at all the non-biblical passages that talk about him if we want to like Josephus. (Remember I'm taking the assumption that Jesus was a historical person and I'm also assuming the Josephus passage is authentic.)

By your logic I can say any person in history is a fictional character and anything written about them is a story book. I'm looking at Jesus himself not necessarily about the stuff he did.


As for science, agnosticism or atheism is a quibble. The reasoning and facts should properly determine the level of belief in anything.


Not if you want to be honest. And looking through only science towards God one can only respond with, "I don't know"


The above also applies to metaphysics, i.e. the topic at hand needs to be supportable based on rational principles. Otherwise, the advancement of knowledge cannot occur.


Like what science? That doesn't make any sense. Metaphysics is about things that go beyond science. So you can't use science for metaphysics. Take for example the god-of-the-gaps argument. Atheists always say a Christians can't use it because it goes beyond the realm of science. But once you get into metaphysics a Christian is welcome to use god-of-the-gaps all they want. What are you gonna say, "You can't use god-of-the-gaps because it goes beyond the realm of theology"?


Most scholars and historians do not make that giant leap of faith. There is no basis for your assumption that the biblical jesus ever existed.


Oh for crying out loud. You can't be serious. It was for the purposes of this thread I was having the assumption. Not for the question of his existence in general.

[Mountain Man]

What evidence are you talking about? Science no matter what cannot begin to answer questions about whether or not you go to Heaven when you die. There is no evidence for or against it either way. To say that there is some conclusion means that there must be some proof one way or another. Lack of evidence doesn't work. In this case it does. There is absolutely no reason to view this heaven and afterlife as nothing but an ancient mythology that has refused to die.If I'm an agnostic and I ask an atheist prove to me God doesn't exist the only honest answer can be, "I can't do that." No the only honest answer would be to point out your dishonest shifting of the burden of proof.If he has all the attributes of a fictional character and none of non-fiction then he's fictional? That's the lamest thing I ever heard. Any question of God must be beyond the realm of science.....Now THAT is the lamest thing I've ever heard. That's a logical fallacy called "special pleading." Using such fallacies is further evidence that these gods do not exist.Wrong. You can't point to Jesus without even looking at the Bible if you want to. We can look at all the non-biblical passages that talk about him if we want to like Josephus. (Remember I'm taking the assumption that Jesus was a historical person and I'm also assuming the Josephus passage is authentic.)Those are not logical assumptions. Josephus, nor any of the other writers were eye witnesses. They are all writing what other non witnesses told them. Other than a strong emotional desire to believe, there is no reason to believe those sources since they've all been proven to be unreliable.Like what science? That doesn't make any sense. Metaphysics is about things that go beyond science......That's right. You can make up anything you want in metaphysics.

[Boro Nut]

come on people grow up there are no gods, no devils, no angels,no ghosts,no genies,no mermaids,no tooth fairy,no easter bunny,no santa claus...

Piss off. Do you think for one minute I'd have risked being sent to Borstal for knocking kids' teeth out in the playground if the tooth fairy didn't exist? I've got the savings account to prove it mate.

Boro Nut

[Ulrich]

I disagree. You have a point with Islam saying its no different than the legend of Dragons.

Then you do not understand how related Christianity and Islam actually are, both religions are based on Judaism, diverging at the point of Abraham, so any event taking place before that which you feel provides evidence of the existence of the Christian God, of necessity aslo provides evidence for Allah.


But unlike Dragons Christians can point to a specific individual at a certain time and place and say, "that's God". You can't do that with Dragons.

So your Bible actually provides dates for the times that God was sighted? Perhaps you can enlighten me by providing scriptural reference, starting with the Garden of Eden.

If you cannot do so, then your religion has nothing more going for it than do the legends of Dragons, as all you can do is point to an approximate date for when the tale was written, and provide an educated guess for who wrote it. Whether or not the events they depict actually happened is an entirely different story, and in some cases we know that the events either did not happen, or did not happen as described in the Bible.


Now of course anyone can say, "that person wasn't God" but it doesn't change the fact Christians can point to things about their God that Muslims can't and an atheist rejecting the divinity of Jesus is not the point. Those legends about Dragons would have to mean that a Dragon existed in the first place and only the stories of what they did are legend.

Why do you feel this is true? Why can't the legends of Dragons and legends of Jesus both depict people and creatures that never existed? What is the extra-biblical evidence for your position?


This is my perspective (And yes I'm taking the assumption that a person named Jesus really existed like most scholars and historians do)

The number of people who believe a thing to be true is no indicator that said thing is, in fact, true. There are many examples in history of millions of people believing things that simply were not true (i.e. geocentric universe, flat earth, moon made of green cheese).


Jesus=existed but we don't know for sure what he did.
Dragons=don't know if they existed nor do we know what they did.

That's the difference.

Only in your opinion, and for the former, the burden of proof is on you, as I personally do not believe that the man named Jesus depicted in the Bible existed any more than Dragons do. I do, however, find it fascinating that you do not believe in the existence of Dragons, as your Bible makes reference to them existing several times. Also, depending on the sect of Christianity to which you ascribe, one of the books in your Bible directly references Dragons in its title "Bel and the Dragon".

[fjripit]

Not if you want to be honest. And looking through only science towards God one can only respond with, "I don't know"
Atheism/Agnosticism have nothing to do with science. I will agree with you that "I don't know" is a reasonable scientific position. This leaves open the possibility that, given good evidence and reasoning, an understanding of something is subject to change. Is this true of your position?

Like what science? That doesn't make any sense. Metaphysics is about things that go beyond science. So you can't use science for metaphysics.
If you wanted to convince someone of your metaphysical beliefs, I would be interested to know how you would validate any metaphysical concepts if you did not approach it scientifically or rationally.

Atheists always say a Christians can't use it because it goes beyond the realm of science. But once you get into metaphysics a Christian is welcome to use god-of-the-gaps all they want.
Sure they can but, this is a presuppositonal cop-out. Additionally, this position does not allow for the consideration of alternative explanations.

What are you gonna say, "You can't use god-of-the-gaps because it goes beyond the realm of theology"?
Anybody can use any epistemology they want, but if what it produces doesn't hold up to rational analysis, then what is there really to consider? Irrationality, fantasy, wishful thinking, insanity?

My point was that regardless of whatever metaphysical topic under consideration, it would still need to make sense.

[John A. Broussard]

Wrong. Point to the specific time and place they existed and how you came to this conclusion. Christians can do that believers in Dragons can't.

Chinese records are replete with mention of these Dragons. There are even Dragon festivals to this day.

The dates are right around the year 7982 by Chinese reckoning. A comet showed up in the sky right around that time, somewhere in Hunan province. Now, I will grant that there are no writings left by actual observers. But there are copies of copies of copies of the oral legends.

All (or almost all reputable scholars) agree that the Dragons existed.

The evidence is solid. There can be no question but that these Dragons existed, and it's up to the adragonists to sift through the records and demonstrate unequivocally that these Dragons are a myth.

[John A. Broussard]

If I'm an agnostic and I ask an atheist prove to me God doesn't exist the only honest answer can be, "I can't do that."
Nope!

The honest answer would be a question. "What god are you talking about?"

I've been asked the question you ask many times and have responded with my own question.


Some of the answers I've received and my then answer to the question you asked:

"God is love. Love is god."

Answer: That's fine with me. If you want to define love that way, it pretty much settles the argument. I believe in love, so I believe in god


"God and the universe are identical.

Answer: Right on. If that's what you want to call the universe, then I believe in god.


"God is the yhwh of the bible.

Answer: A vengeful, genocidal, jealous maniac who goes around mooning his followers? No thanks. I most certainly do not believe in that creature. I can't prove that god doesn't exist and don't even want to try.


"God is an all-powerful being who is also all-loving."

Answer: I most certainly do not believe in that god. If that god were all-loving, then there would be no Kashmir earthquakes, Indian Ocean tsunamis, Gulf hurricanes, malaria, dysentery, chidlren dying in agony, etc. That god doesn't exist, unless you want to define love as the inflction of these cruelties on human kind. If so, more descriptions of your sadistic god are essential for me to determine whether or not I believe in your god.


I have more answers to your question, but just remember you have to clearly define what you mean by "god" first. I'll then let you know whether or not I can prove your god's non-existence.

[achristianbeliever]

In this case it does. There is absolutely no reason to view this heaven and afterlife as nothing but an ancient mythology that has refused to die.


But that's not proof. And science requires proof. Otherwise your doing nothing more than Philosophy and theology.
No one is paying attention to anything I'm saying. What Jesus did has nothing to do with my arguments in this thread. I can say every single thing mentioned in the Bible about what Jesus did is wrong and still say hold my position in this thread.


No the only honest answer would be to point out your dishonest shifting of the burden of proof.


What are you talking about? I'm taking the position of an agnostic here.


Now THAT is the lamest thing I've ever heard. That's a logical fallacy called "special pleading." Using such fallacies is further evidence that these gods do not exist.


Oh ok so you know the test tube experiments to be used to showing whether or not God exists?

(as an aside: Its pretty funny that I'm defending the agnostic view. But kind of fun. I'm realizing that agnosticism is more logical than atheism)


Those are not logical assumptions. Josephus, nor any of the other writers were eye witnesses. They are all writing what other non witnesses told them. Other than a strong emotional desire to believe, there is no reason to believe those sources since they've all been proven to be unreliable.


Once again it doesn't matter.
The point I'm making has nothing to do with whether or not Jesus really did exist or what he did. I don't know why you think that's what I'm doing.

You people are getting what I'm proposing on this thread totally wrong.


That's right. You can make up anything you want in metaphysics.


Well....yeahhhh. You don't have to have science in theology or philosophy after all.


Then you do not understand how related Christianity and Islam actually are, both religions are based on Judaism, diverging at the point of Abraham, so any event taking place before that which you feel provides evidence of the existence of the Christian God, of necessity aslo provides evidence for Allah.


But you can't point to Allah as to where he walked the earth. Show me where you can say Allah walked the earth at this point in time. That's the point.



So your Bible actually provides dates for the times that God was sighted? Perhaps you can enlighten me by providing scriptural reference, starting with the Garden of Eden.

If you cannot do so, then your religion has nothing more going for it than do the legends of Dragons, as all you can do is point to an approximate date for when the tale was written, and provide an educated guess for who wrote it. Whether or not the events they depict actually happened is an entirely different story, and in some cases we know that the events either did not happen, or did not happen as described in the Bible.


I can say the Bible is completely wrong and still hold my position on this thread.


Why do you feel this is true? Why can't the legends of Dragons and legends of Jesus both depict people and creatures that never existed? What is the extra-biblical evidence for your position?


You really have no idea what my post is about do you?


Only in your opinion, and for the former, the burden of proof is on you, as I personally do not believe that the man named Jesus depicted in the Bible existed any more than Dragons do. I do, however, find it fascinating that you do not believe in the existence of Dragons, as your Bible makes reference to them existing several times. Also, depending on the sect of Christianity to which you ascribe, one of the books in your Bible directly references Dragons in its title "Bel and the Dragon".


I don't have to prove anything. Not for the purposes of this thread. I can also believe that the Bible was wrong about Dragons for the purposes of this thread.

No one is even close to paying attention to my thread. I'm gonna try one more time.

There are two things I have been discussing.
1.
For the purposes of this thread I am going to assume that Jesus existed. I don't care whether or not he actually existed. That is a different thread. I don't care what the Bible says about him or really what Josephus or anyone says about him. I'm just taking the assumption that somebody named Jesus existed whether he did miracles or was just a regular guy who lived and died.

Let us say (HYPOTHETICAL in case someone wants to complain) that some ancient document was found showing somebody named Jesus existed in the 1st century. It doesn't say what he did. It just says that the Bible's account of Jesus is based on a real guy. Now I can say the Bible is completely wrong about Jesus but still believe Jesus existed based on this document.

Oh, ohhhhh! I got it. ASSUMMING that Jesus existed then my analogy is the same as me claiming Abraham Lincoln was God. And a belief that he is God has nothing to do with what he did while Lincoln walked this earth.

You all believe that Abraham Lincoln existed right? If I said Lincoln was God then that is on a different level then dragons having existed. Because you all believe that SOMEONE named Lincoln existed whether he was God or not.

So in my analogy me saying God existed because Jesus was God is on the same level as saying God existed because Lincoln was God but not on the same level as saying dragons existed.

Ok then:
2.

When it comes to science and God and atheism I have been taking the position of an agnostic.

I personally believe that if I was an agnostic and I was looking at the question of God ONLY through science I would have to end the search as an agnostic.

Because I would go to the Christian and say, "Can you prove the existence of God?" Their most honest answer would be no. I then go to the atheist and ask them, "Can you prove God doesn't exist?" Their most honest answer is no. I am equally putting the burden of proof on both of them. I am not shifting it to anyone in particular. In fact I am not really putting a burden of proof I'm just asking both of them a question. The main question I have is what is the most honest answer either of them can give if I ask about proving or disproving God?

I believe that lack of evidence for the existence of God is not evidence against the existence of God. If you don't believe this then fine I don't care but taking the position of an agnostic I don't see how it works.

I personally believe that you cannot use science to prove or disprove God. If anybody claims otherwise they hold the burden of proof to show why the question of God can be placed in the realm of science. Cause my claim that you cannot question God's existence in science is a...are you ready for this?...."lack of belief that you can question God in science" so the burden of proof is on those who believe you CAN question God in science. You must prove why God can be questioned in science.

[John A. Broussard]

There are two things I have been discussing.
1.
For the purposes of this thread I am going to assume that Jesus existed. I don't care whether or not he actually existed. That is a different thread. I don't care what the Bible says about him or really what Josephus or anyone says about him. I'm just taking the assumption that somebody named Jesus existed whether he did miracles or was just a regular guy who lived and died.

Let us say (HYPOTHETICAL in case someone wants to complain) that some ancient document was found showing somebody named Jesus existed in the 1st century. It doesn't say what he did. It just says that the Bible's account of Jesus is based on a real guy. Now I can say the Bible is completely wrong about Jesus but still believe Jesus existed based on this document.

Whoops!

How can you know anything about the truth value of this first century document?

Could it be a forgery?

Could the document be misdated?

Could it be referring to Zacharias Jesus, and not Jesus Christ?

There are a lot of answers needed before we can procede beyond point #1.

Please clear up the above ones.

Thank you.

[RPS]

This is my perspective (And yes I'm taking the assumption that a person named Jesus really existed like most scholars and historians do)

Most scholars and historians do not make that giant leap of faith.

Actually, they do (though they don't think it's a leap of faith at all). Indeed, there is virtually no academic support in recent times for the idea that Jesus didn't exist. Anyone remotely familiar with the literature (which I assume many here are) or who has undertaken even a little research (I assume that most here aren't ignorant) knows this. I understand the fun of dogpiling, but the lack of honesty in not conceding the obvious academic consensus (I'm not expecting a concession on the merits) is more than a little disappointing.

[achristianbeliever]

Whoops!

How can you know anything about the truth value of this first century document?

Could it be a forgery?

Could the document be misdated?

Could it be referring to Zacharias Jesus, and not Jesus Christ?

There are a lot of answers needed before we can procede beyond point #1.

Please clear up the above ones.

Thank you.


Oh my gosh!!!!!! I am not even going to be responding to this junk. It was a hypothetical scenario assuming that the document was authentic and speaking of the Jesus of Nazareth. In fact my whole post was a hypothetical scenario. I can't believe this insanity. I'm not responding to this. If people are not able to look at a hypothetical scenario without bringing up straw man questions like John then please don't bother responding.

[Joe Bloe]

What evidence are you talking about? Science no matter what cannot begin to answer questions about whether or not you go to Heaven when you die. There is no evidence for or against it either way.
Science can certainly at least begin to answer that question. The extent to which it finishes answering it is up to judgment, but it certainly does at least begin an answer. Given all we know about how minds depend on brains, it seems quite reasonable to me to conclude that when the brain stops functioning, there is no more mind. Absent any evidence of minds working without brains, what can one reasonably conclude but that, given the evidence we have, death must be death.

To say that there is some conclusion means that there must be some proof one way or another. Lack of evidence doesn't work.
A lack of evidence of minds working without brains combined with positive evidence of minds' dependence on brains does point to a specific conclusion.

If I'm an agnostic and I ask an atheist prove to me God doesn't exist the only honest answer can be, "I can't do that."
Substitute "leprechauns" for "God." Is there a difference?

Simply because any question of God goes beyond the realm of science.
Science deals with objective reality. Anything that objectively exists and can make any actual, detectable difference in the universe is within the realm of the scientific method of investigation. If God makes any difference anywhere in the universe, then God is subject to scientific investigation. If God exists but makes no difference at all anywhere in the universe, then what difference does it make whether God exists at all? There's no difference between that and God not existing.

You can't use lack of evidence for God as evidence for atheism.
You can if you can reasonably expect evidence if God does exist. Or, can I not use the lack of evidence that there is an elephant here in the room with me to conclude that there is no elephant here? Must I remain agnostic on the question of whether there's an elephant in the room with me? Is God so small and irrelevant that his existence would lack any evidence? I think of God as the elephant that's not in the room. But your idea of God may be of a much smaller, much less significant or noteworthy, being.

Any question of God must be beyond the realm of science.
Then God must be beyond the realm of reality. Sort of like fantasy is.

Not if you want to be honest. And looking through only science towards God one can only respond with, "I don't know"
Or, one can say, if God doesn't make any detectable difference anywhere in the universe, we can conclude at least that for all practical purposes he doesn't exist. How is that different from concluding that he doesn't exist?

Metaphysics is about things that go beyond science. So you can't use science for metaphysics.
I.e. it goes beyond detectable reality, it is in the realm of things that make no difference in the real world. Metaphysics, like fantasy literature, can be a fun mind-game, but what does it have to do with the real world? Nothing, otherwise it would be science rather than metaphysics.

[achristianbeliever]

A lack of evidence of minds working without brains combined with positive evidence of minds' dependence on brains does point to a specific conclusion.


Terrific can you show me the scientific journal that supports this or is it just your personal opinion?


Substitute "leprechauns" for "God." Is there a difference?


Nope with only science you would have to be agnostic as well for leprechauns. And I am.


Science deals with objective reality. Anything that objectively exists and can make any actual, detectable difference in the universe is within the realm of the scientific method of investigation. If God makes any difference anywhere in the universe, then God is subject to scientific investigation. If God exists but makes no difference at all anywhere in the universe, then what difference does it make whether God exists at all?


Wow that would be....exactly the point I'm making. Science by itself shouldn't care about the existence of God. Which is why atheists shouldn't or can't use science to disprove God. You seem to make it sound like agnosticism and atheism are the same thing and I don't think anyone would claim that.


Then God must be beyond the realm of reality. Sort of like fantasy is.


Depends on your default position on metaphysics. If you believe metaphysics is beyond the realm of reality then your probably right.


You can if you can reasonably expect evidence if God does exist.


Why do you have to? Why can't I not?


Or, one can say, if God doesn't make any detectable difference anywhere in the universe, we can conclude at least that for all practical purposes he doesn't exist.


You have to prove this hypothesis. Why must God make a detectable difference in order to change the view that he doesn't exist? Why must not existing be the default position.


I.e. it goes beyond detectable reality, it is in the realm of things that make no difference in the real world. Metaphysics, like fantasy literature, can be a fun mind-game, but what does it have to do with the real world? Nothing, otherwise it would be science rather than metaphysics.


You mean like....God?...You mean like...exactly what I've been saying this whole time?

Your whole post only works if you can prove that after not proving God your default position should be concluding he doesn't exist rather than, "I don't know".

There is a difference between just saying I don't know and concluding you have reason to believe he doesn't exist. You haven't proven the latter over the other which you must do.

[Xrikcus]

Sorry to interject but:


But that's not proof. And science requires proof. Otherwise your doing nothing more than Philosophy and theology.

It really doesn't, science doesn't require proof at all. It does require evidence though.

[Ulrich]

You people are getting what I'm proposing on this thread totally wrong.

It would be less confusing if you actually argued from the position of your own belief, but I can go with your "agnostics advocate" position if you like.


Well....yeahhhh. You don't have to have science in theology or philosophy after all.

True, however, it helps if your theology or philosophy is at least rational, and science is very good at determining what is rational.


But you can't point to Allah as to where he walked the earth. Show me where you can say Allah walked the earth at this point in time. That's the point.

I don't believe in Allah, so why should I? Ask a Muslim, and I am sure they can enlighten you. Anyway, you have dodged my question, you have not provided scriptural reference for any passages in the Bible that provide us with a date (using any known dating system) for when God actually walked on the Earth.


I can say the Bible is completely wrong and still hold my position on this thread.

Fair enough, now that we know you are taking the position of an agnostic.


You really have no idea what my post is about do you?

I wouldn't say that.


I don't have to prove anything. Not for the purposes of this thread. I can also believe that the Bible was wrong about Dragons for the purposes of this thread.

No one is even close to paying attention to my thread. I'm gonna try one more time.

OK, I am willing to work with you.


There are two things I have been discussing.
1.
For the purposes of this thread I am going to assume that Jesus existed.

What would be the point of the discussion if we assume what we are arguing over? I know of many agnostics (as well as theists) who do not assume that Jesus exists. I will, however, tentatively grant you the existence of Jesus, just to see where you are going with this.


I don't care whether or not he actually existed. That is a different thread. I don't care what the Bible says about him or really what Josephus or anyone says about him. I'm just taking the assumption that somebody named Jesus existed whether he did miracles or was just a regular guy who lived and died.

OK, I am with you, we are assuming that some cat named Jesus lived at some point in time, and he was not necessarily the Son of God (TM), and that the stories in the Bible or any of the extra-biblical sources actually refer to this Jesus who lived. Not only can I accept this as and tentative assumption, I will go so far as to say I truly believe that this assumtion is 100% true (I actually have a friend named Jesus who recently moved to Las Vegas, but he pronounces the name a bit diferently).


Let us say (HYPOTHETICAL in case someone wants to complain) that some ancient document was found showing somebody named Jesus existed in the 1st century. It doesn't say what he did. It just says that the Bible's account of Jesus is based on a real guy. Now I can say the Bible is completely wrong about Jesus but still believe Jesus existed based on this document.

Sure, no problems there.


Oh, ohhhhh! I got it. ASSUMMING that Jesus existed then my analogy is the same as me claiming Abraham Lincoln was God. And a belief that he is God has nothing to do with what he did while Lincoln walked this earth.

Huh? You lost me there. Are you still providing your "agnostics advocate" viewpoint, or have you now switched to a caricature of the statements I made previously (when I thought you were arguing from a Christian viewpoint)?


You all believe that Abraham Lincoln existed right? If I said Lincoln was God then that is on a different level then dragons having existed. Because you all believe that SOMEONE named Lincoln existed whether he was God or not.

I do not 'believe' Abraham Lincoln existed, I know he existed, as there are mountains of evidence from thousands of independent sources attesting to his existence (we even have photographs). I also do not agree with your depiction of these two statements, as I find them both to be extraordinary statements requiring extraordinary evidence to back them up.


So in my analogy me saying God existed because Jesus was God is on the same level as saying God existed because Lincoln was God but not on the same level as saying dragons existed.

And I do not buy it for the reason indicated above.


Ok then:
2.

When it comes to science and God and atheism I have been taking the position of an agnostic.

So in part 1. you were not doing so? What position were you taking there that allowed you to discard the Bible?


I personally believe that if I was an agnostic and I was looking at the question of God ONLY through science I would have to end the search as an agnostic.

Your personal beliefs are irrelevant, as you are not an agnostic, why don't you ask and agnostic and then get back with me.


Because I would go to the Christian and say, "Can you prove the existence of God?" Their most honest answer would be no. I then go to the atheist and ask them, "Can you prove God doesn't exist?" Their most honest answer is no.

This is incorrect, and I feel qualified in saying so, as I am an atheist. I would respond that the burden of proof is on the theist to prove their assertion that God exists, as non-belief is always the default position when assertions are made without evidence.


I am equally putting the burden of proof on both of them. I am not shifting it to anyone in particular. In fact I am not really putting a burden of proof I'm just asking both of them a question.

Then you are being unfair. The burden of proof truly is on the person making the statement that X exists.


The main question I have is what is the most honest answer either of them can give if I ask about proving or disproving God?

I have already answered you honestly.


I believe that lack of evidence for the existence of God is not evidence against the existence of God. If you don't believe this then fine I don't care but taking the position of an agnostic I don't see how it works.

I personally believe that you cannot use science to prove or disprove God. If anybody claims otherwise they hold the burden of proof to show why the question of God can be placed in the realm of science. Cause my claim that you cannot question God's existence in science is a...are you ready for this?...."lack of belief that you can question God in science" so the burden of proof is on those who believe you CAN question God in science. You must prove why God can be questioned in science.

There you go again, injecting your personal beliefs, that doesnt work here, you are the 'agnostics advocate' and you must represent their beliefs.

[John A. Broussard]

Oh my gosh!!!!!! I am not even going to be responding to this junk. It was a hypothetical scenario assuming that the document was authentic and speaking of the Jesus of Nazareth. In fact my whole post was a hypothetical scenario. I can't believe this insanity. I'm not responding to this. If people are not able to look at a hypothetical scenario without bringing up straw man questions like John then please don't bother responding.
Thank you for your sensitive response to my questions.

I tend to agree with you. If you can't answer the questions, it's best to not even attempt to do so.

Refering to the questions as "insanity" is also conducive to rational discussion.

Thanks, again.

[Minnesota Joe]

Actually, they do (though they don't think it's a leap of faith at all). Indeed, there is virtually no academic support in recent times for the idea that Jesus didn't exist. Anyone remotely familiar with the literature (which I assume many here are) or who has undertaken even a little research (I assume that most here aren't ignorant) knows this. I understand the fun of dogpiling, but the lack of honesty in not conceding the obvious academic consensus (I'm not expecting a concession on the merits) is more than a little disappointing.
Good grief, if it isn't the merits that we ought to agree with, then what is it?

Correct me if I'm wrong (seriously), but aren't most Biblical historians Christians? If so, then given that Christians are sort of emotionally invested in the idea that Christ was real, doesn't that give us a prima facie reason to doubt the consensus of "experts" here? And the consensus of experts is only prima facie reason to hold something provisionally true to begin with!

It is a bit like picking beauty pagent judges and the audience mostly from one of the contestant's family. It is much easier to sell a product when most people are with you, they are emotionally invested in the result, and the audience is full of shills.

By the way, what is the consensus of the experts when it comes to Jesus turning water into wine? Raising the dead? Ascending to Heaven?

[Joe Bloe]

You seem to make it sound like agnosticism and atheism are the same thing and I don't think anyone would claim that.
Well, based on this conversation it seems that the difference between atheism and agnosticism is that an atheist thinks that it matters at least in some way whether or not God exists, that God's existence would make at least some sort of a difference, whereas an agnostic doesn't think so.

[Mountain Man]

But that's not proof......Lack of evidence for the existance of gods is enough proof to know that it's not worth the bother to worship them or assign them any relelvance other than pure myth.What are you talking about? I'm taking the position of an agnostic here.What gods do agnostics believe in?(as an aside: Its pretty funny that I'm defending the agnostic view. But kind of fun. I'm realizing that agnosticism is more logical than atheism)The funny part is that you actually believe that.But you can't point to Allah as to where he walked the earth. Show me where you can say Allah walked the earth at this point in time. That's the point.You can't show me where any god walked the Earth. Your point is?I don't have to prove anything......If you claim a god exists, you have to prove it.There are two things I have been discussing.
1. For the purposes of this thread I am going to assume that Jesus existed.....There is no logical reason to make that assumption.Let us say (HYPOTHETICAL in case someone wants to complain)......Let's not. Anyone can make up any hypothetical nonsense and argue from that point. It's a waste of time.You all believe that Abraham Lincoln existed right?We got the body.So in my analogy me saying God existed because Jesus was God is on the same level as saying God existed because Lincoln was God but not on the same level as saying dragons existed.No. It isn't.Ok then:2. When it comes to science and God and atheism I have been taking the position of an agnostic.Not from what I've seen. Maybe if you defined what you believe an agnostic to be it would help.I personally believe that you cannot use science to prove or disprove God......Of course not. A god cannot be proven, or disproven, until there is some kind of evidence or proofs presented. So far, there has been a quite obvious absence of evidence for any kind of god.

[Mountain Man]

Actually, they do (though they don't think it's a leap of faith at all). Of course not, christians don't see it as a "leap" of faith, just faith. Indeed, there is virtually no academic support in recent times for the idea that Jesus didn't exist. Anyone remotely familiar with the literature (which I assume many here are) or who has undertaken even a little research (I assume that most here aren't ignorant) knows this. I've done some research, and found that there is quite a bit of academic support for the MYTHOLOGY of the bible. They don't actually claim that jesus existed as described in the bible. I understand the fun of dogpiling, but the lack of honesty in not conceding the obvious academic consensus (I'm not expecting a concession on the merits) is more than a little disappointing.It is obvious that among CHRISTIAN scolars that jesus was real. Once you go outside of their closed little world, there is little support.

[Mountain Man]

Wow that would be....exactly the point I'm making. Science by itself shouldn't care about the existence of God. "Science" doesn't. Which is why atheists shouldn't or can't use science to disprove God.Ah, another equivocation. Which "science" are you talking about? "Science" as a body of knowledge? Or "science" as in a method. Both can be used to show that gods are mere myths. You seem to make it sound like agnosticism and atheism are the same thing and I don't think anyone would claim that.Since Atheism is nothing more than an absence of belief in gods, which gods do you claim that agnostics believe in since you claim they are different?

[Ulrich]

Terrific can you show me the scientific journal that supports this or is it just your personal opinion?


Dynamical Psychology (DynaPsych), An International, Interdisciplinary Journal of Complex Mental Processes 2004: A General Theory of Emotion in Humans and Other Intelligences Ben Goertzel (http://www.goertzel.org/dynapsyc/2004/Emotions.htm)


Much of human emotional life is distinctly human in nature, clearly not portable to systems without humanlike bodies.

DynaPsych 2003: The One Mind Model: Virtual Brain States and Nonlocality of the ERP Mark Germine, M.D., M.S. (http://www.goertzel.org/dynapsyc/2003/onemind.htm)


It has been previously proposed that conscious process involves the collapse of quantum, dynamical brain states through conscious observation. It has been further proposed that the brain process has an active role in selecting the status of uncertain stimuli. On the basis of these proposals it was predicted that event-related potentials (ERPs) would differ under unobserved versus pre-observed conditions. This has been found to be the case.

The Journal of Mind and Behavior , Autumn, 1985, Vol. 6, No. 4, Pages 469-514, ISSN 0271-0137: Awareness I: The Natural Ecology of Subjective Experience And the Mind-Brain Problem Revisited Mark W. Ketterer, Oklahoma College of Osteopathic Medicine and Surgery (http://www.umaine.edu/jmb/archives/volume6/6_4_1985autumn.html)

Advances in neurobiological technology and the growing consensus in the behavioral and brain sciences on a dual-aspect monist position. (Russell, 1921) for the mind-brain problem are making the "black box" increasingly available to examination. The primary determinants of entry of psychoneural events to the subjective field appear to be: the structure of the nervous system; the figure-ground phenomenon in attention; and overlearning/automatization.

The Journal of Mind and Behavior , Autumn, 1985, Vol. 6, No. 4, Pages 515-552, ISSN 0271-0137: Preserved and Impaired Information Processing Systems in Human Bitemporal Amnesiacs and their Infrahuman Analogues: Role of Hippocampectomy Paulette Donovan Gage, University of Maine at Orono (http://www.umaine.edu/jmb/archives/volume6/6_4_1985autumn.html)


According to the model, the hippocampus is critically involved in an integrative cognitive process termed chunking, which mediates propositional learning, complex conditioning, and cognitive mapping.

The Journal of Neuroscience, May 26, 2004, 24(21):4912-4917: Encoding-Specific Effects of Social Cognition on the Neural Correlates of Subsequent Memory Jason P. Mitchell, C. Neil Macrae, and Mahzarin R. Banaji (http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/24/21/4912?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=mind+brain&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1132853729186_5183&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=1&journalcode=jneuro)


These data inform two interrelated cognitive issues. First, results underscore the neuroanatomical distinctiveness of social cognition and suggest that previous psychological theories may have neglected important functional differences in how the human brain instantiates social and nonsocial cognitive processes. Second, by demonstrating that activity in different brain regions correlates with subsequent memory as a function of the orienting task performed at encoding, these data provide evidence of the neural basis for encoding specificity, the principle that memory is critically determined by the cognitive process engaged by the initial study episode.

The Journal of Neuroscience, January 19, 2005, 25(3):550-557: Linking Out-of-Body Experience and Self Processing to Mental Own-Body Imagery at the Temporoparietal Junction [i]Olaf Blanke, Christine Mohr, Christoph M. Michel, Alvaro Pascual-Leone, Peter Brugger, Margitta Seeck, Theodor Landis, and Gregor Thut (http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/25/3/550?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=mind+brain&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1132853729186_5183&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=1&journalcode=jneuro)


The spatial unity of self and body is challenged by various philosophical considerations and several phenomena, perhaps most notoriously the "out-of-body experience" (OBE) during which one's visual perspective and one's self are experienced to have departed from their habitual position within one's body. Although researchers started examining isolated aspects of the self, the neurocognitive processes of OBEs have not been investigated experimentally to further our understanding of the self. With the use of evoked potential mapping, we show the selective activation of the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) at 330-400 ms after stimulus onset when healthy volunteers imagined themselves in the position and visual perspective that generally are reported by people experiencing spontaneous OBEs. Interference with the TPJ by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) at this time impaired mental transformation of one's own body in healthy volunteers relative to TMS over a control site. No such TMS effect was observed for imagined spatial transformations of external objects, suggesting the selective implication of the TPJ in mental imagery of one's own body. Finally, in an epileptic patient with OBEs originating from the TPJ, we show partial activation of the seizure focus during mental transformations of her body and visual perspective mimicking her OBE perceptions. These results suggest that the TPJ is a crucial structure for the conscious experience of the normal self, mediating spatial unity of self and body, and also suggest that impaired processing at the TPJ may lead to pathological selves such as OBEs.

Ask and you shall receive.

[Smith_87]

But some other animals do have at least a rudimentary system of morals. Read what Jane Goodall and Frans de Waal have learned in their studies of chimpanzee societies ("Good natured: the origins of right and wrong in humans and other animals" is a good start). As for consequences, I assume you mean punishments. If you avoid natural unfavorable consequences, unfortunately, ain't nobody but other people (or other chimps) to punish you if you do something bad. Sometimes people get away with it. Doesn't make it any less wrong for them to have done it, though.

I'm curious to if you have any sources to this research. An online article on this will do.

By the way, I didn't say anything about universal. But I agree that some matters in ethics are "universal", at least within the human "universe", which makes sense because we are, after all, all members of the same species, so we share a lot in common. However, we also have our differences, so there are some legitimate differences in ethical conclusions about different individuals or situations. And there is a lot we don't know or are uncertain of, so it makes sense that some of our ethical conclusions are uncertain and legitimately debatable.

Uncertainty? I thought it was all "natural".


As far as we know (and, knowing about how brains and minds work, we do know a good bit of relevant info), ants aren't aware of what's going on or able to consciously experience pain. Some other animals, however, can, and I think that does have moral consequences.

A dog knows pain; why can't a human be sent to for lifetime in prison for mutilating a dog?


I said we have an ability to learn to care for others, not that we are born caring already or that we will inevitably learn to.

Again, you claimed it was all "natural".

We're obviously able to do either. And we're obviously able to choose between the two. What's not to follow?

Yes, but how is one more "wrong" than the other. One also may view what is more commonly thought to be "harmful" as innocent as well.


Of course not. And that's a prime example of where religion has had very bad influences on ethics. Natural goods and bads have also always influenced ethics. Since religions can say things like painful human sacrifices are good (because it appeases some hypothetical entity) whereas it is obviously bad for the sacrificee (whom we know exists) and there is no obvious natural benefit, I'm much more comfortable going with just looking at verifiable natural goods and bads for making moral judgments rather than to appeal to some unknown entity that somehow hypothetically benefits from our actions.

What are you talking about? The aztecs didn't abided by "natural" morals or benefits. Ethics are learned through experiance within a enviroment. Human sacrifices were everyday business for cultures such as the aztecs.

Don't you get it? The "obvious" or (as you call it) "natural" ethics have not been established since the origin of mankind. Today we see things such as human sacrifices to be "bad" because of the events that happend yesterday. Movements such as Christianity are reconized as a social breakthrough in modern morality.

Note that unknown entities and hypothetical benefits have also been appealed to by nontheists, such as those who sacrificed millions for the sake of the hypothetical "dialectical materialism." The problem here is not religion per se, it is appealing to hypothetical entities and hypothetical goods. That can cause real harm whether the hypotheticals are natural or supernatural. But at least some naturals are known; pending any verifiable objective evidence of their existence, all supernaturals remain hypothetical, and thus all moral systems that appeal at least in part to these hypotheticals remain at least potentially dangerous in actuality.

Do know what you're saying? If someone has just given their life to Jesus Christ and was walking to the alter after a sermon, would you shout at them as if they were about to fall off a clifff? Any social realist can reconize that Christianity as a moral goldmine. Even the skeptical darwin and Thomas Jefferson weren't blind to that.

But it's fine to say "God just exists." Okay, whatever.

And it's fine to declare the universe as "just randomly generated choas"?


Why do you think it needs to be logically justified at all? Logic is a tool humans have developed. It is subject to reality. Reality isn't subject to our logic. If we reason (as did Zeno some two and a half thousand years ago using the best logic available at the time) that motion cannot logically be accounted for so it must not really exist, the motions we think we perceive must be illusions, well, so much the worse for logic, because reality ain't changing just because we think it is supposed to be different from what it is. It wasn't until Newton and Leibnitz came along and developed systems of calculus that anyone could make logical sense of motion. (Read about Zeno's Paradox if you aren't familiar with this example.)

That is why, as I have said earlier, we must always test the results of our reasonings against reality to see whether our reasonings are accurate.

Logic is what humans use to interpret reality. Logic only exists because the universe isn't a bunch of random choas, but a consistantly formulated realm.


No, that is what religion postpones explaining. All it does is push the question back one step. Why God rather than no God?

If you take God out than you might as well take away all reasoning with it. Why did the big bang decide to expand rather than just burn out? To say the conditioning and composition of the universe "just happend to be" is neither scientifically, philosophically, nor reasonably an explanation of any worth.

Oh, that annoying answer that theists keep bringing up: "God just is"! That just flat out makes no sense. (One of the big reasons I dropped theism) [note that I'm not being facetious here; this is an accurate statement about part of why I dropped religion]

Hmm....

Did God freely decide to create rather than not create, or did the universe just spontaneously expand from nothing because it felt like it?


So, by "god" you just mean "ultimate reality", or "the ground of being", or some such vague, undefined term as that? Well, as I said before, if that's all you mean by "god", then, sure, "god" exists.

Sigh... For the third time.

God = an extraordinary phenomenon of infinite proportions, and is the variable necessary to conclude the origin and operations of all energy and existence.


But I would be very interested in seeing how you get from there to any particular alleged deity, whether Thor or Ra or Yahweh or Allah or whomever. Or even to a conscious, personal being who has any interest at all in us and our lives.

Yes, a bird named Ra created the sun, and then decided to create actual birds thereafter.

Oh, there's no personal being? Than we are all mistakes meant to just fill a little vaction time during our void of nonexistance, yet, are sadly doomed to die. And "mother nature" (bless her heart) sputtered the whole "consciousness" phenomenon upon some specie called the human being (just dodging the apes and the dogs), but of course for no particular reason whatsoever. Just to make our insignificant existance a bit more memoriable I suppose.

I did think about it. A lot. And the more I thought about it, and the more I learned in science and philosophy, the less the assumptions behind this sort of thinking and these sorts of questions made sense to me. I began to think that maybe I was barking up the wrong tree: maybe there really wasn't anything up there after all, maybe I was mistaken in assuming that there must be something up there and refusing to look anywhere else or in any other way.

And the tree of atheism fulfilled all the wonderous anwsers you could ever imagine?


That is only hard to answer if you insist on the impossibility of intelligence arising from nonintelligence.

Indeed, slightly below the possiablity of an ant creating a NASA spaceshuttle.

Evolution provides an answer that fits with all the actual evidence we have.

Evolution makes no explanation for consciousness. It's not even factor of within the field of evolution. I'm am curious of the source which gave you that idea.

I won't go through the whole thing now, but I will ask one question for you to think about:

Where does water's wetness come from?Water is nothing but hydrogen and oxygen atoms configured in certain ways and interacting in certain ways. But none of those individual atoms is wet. The interacting is just actions, its not a thing, so it's not wet. How did wetness come from nonwetness?

Water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen configured in certain way (I wonder how "choas" figured the formulation of that one). Wetness is just byproduct or an abunadance of water (Ex: my shoes are "wet"). Nice try, but why attempt to beat around the bush and waste time with these mind games?

Hmm, maybe there are such things as "emergent properties", properties of entities that exist at the level of that entity but not at the level of its component parts.

So intelligence and the rest of the universe can "emerge" from nothing?

You're in college now, right?

Does this have to do with you explaining your highly evidenial and reasonable philosophical solutions or are you just trying to change the subject in order to make an excuse?

Why not introduce yourself to some? Take some philosophy courses, some science courses, some logic courses, and see what you think.

An excuse as predicted. How surpraising.

I disagree. Yes, I agree that my explanations lead to more questions, but I disagree with your claim that they lead only to more questions. They also lead to at least some answers, answers that are verifiable. And those new questions lead to more answers, and then even more questions that will lead to still more answers, and on and on.

I think your explanations lead only to shutting out remaining questions, a refusal to ask questions, which in turn leads to a stunting of intellectual and moral growth. I'd much rather ask the questions that really are there than to shut them out and ignore them. Really asking questions is the only way to get real answers. To "really" ask a question, you must be open to the possibility of any answer. You cannot put artificial restraints on reality, insisting, for example, that there can't be emergent properties (such as wetness, or intelligence), thus cutting off a whole range of possible answers. If the real answer is among the set of possible answers you have put off limits, you'll never get to the truth.

But you also have to test the answers you come up with, to verify whether your reasoning has been accurate. Again, reality does not need to bow to our reasoning; quite the opposite is the case. If, to get answers to your questions, you want to hypothesize that there must a god, you then have to go on to test that hypothesis to see whether that god really is there. If you cannot verify your hypothetical, you don't have a sufficient reason to conclude that it exists. That according to your reasoning it just has to exist is insufficient: reality need not, and does not, bow to your reasoning. Personally, I have not put a god off limits for a possible answer. But, pending any evidence of its actual existence, I have concluded that the evidence we have indicates that, whatever "the answer" may be, "god" isn't the answer.

Even if you do really ask questions, you still might not get to the truth, there's no guarantee that we will or can know everything. But if you don't really ask questions, you can guarantee that you will not really know the truth.

If only that was the actual view of atheism. If atheism made the slightest effort to accuratly answer the questions that theism answers in a practical manner and for a good cause instead of playing debate games with theists in such prideful way; I might have more respect for atheism. But they are obsessed with wasting efforts for the sake of slandering theists by such childish means instead of being truly open to possiablities.

Most atheists acknowledge at least the potential for the existance of God. But what do they do.... Mock it! They don't want ultimate truth and meaning to life, they want to boost their pride and tear down the beliefs of others. All they want to do is WIN WIN WIN.

If you have something "truthful" to offer than present it with a true belief, instead of trying to crush the beliefs of others for a change.

[Mountain Man]

....Any social realist can reconize that Christianity as a moral goldmine......That has to be nominated for some "ironic post of the year" or something like that. :rolling: A religion that claims it's proper to stone kids to death for sassing back to their parents is a "moral goldmine"? A religion that endorses slavery is a "moral goldmine"? Come on.... give me a break.:rolleyes:

[John A. Broussard]

Any social realist can reconize that Christianity as a moral goldmine.
The moral goldmine of Christianity produced, the Inquisition, the Crusades, the religious wars of the 16th Century which killed about ten percent of the European population, the Sicilian Vespers, pogrom after pogrom conducted by Christians in Europe, Bloody Mary, the recent killing of Catholics by Protestants (and vice versa) in Ireland, the killing of Catholics by Orthodox Christians (and again vice versa) in what used to be Yugoslavia--to say nothing about the genocidal acts condoned and even conducted by the Christian god in the bible. That's the same god who ordered a father to kill his son, by the way, and who spared the virgin girls in one of those genocidal escapades so the Israelite soldiers could rape them after the gore of battle.

This is a moral goldmine?

How can you possibly be so obtuse?

[EnterTheBowser]

I'd like to note that you've repeated a definition of God that is both incredibly obtuse and worded so God exists, by definition; what makes this worse is that these problems were previously pointed out.

Additionally, the fact that a belief system helps a person act more "morally" (given that you probably define morality using this particular belief system) is absolutely no evidence of the truth or falsity of the claims of the system (eg God exists).

Furthermore, questions about whether or not atheism can reasonably provide "objective" morals have nothing to do with the discussion of whether God exists. There's no valid argument for the existence of God that takes this as a key premise.

[Alf]

A dog knows pain; why can't a human be sent to for lifetime in prison for mutilating a dog?

Why shouldn't he? In fact here you open a can of worms asking a question why do we have a prison system? Why do we punish people who doesn't follow laws in society?

One argument is that we punish them because they break the law. They broke the law, they must pay the price.

According to this argument, you go to prison simply because you broke a law. It doesn't matter which law and under what circumstances. This is in practice what most countries follow. However, this rule does not say how long a prsion sentence should be depending on a law. If a law dictates that you get 6 months in jail, this rules dictates you go 6 months in jail but it doesn't help legislators who are making a new law figuring out how long the jail sentence should be for this new law. As such this thinking is inadequate.

Another argument is revenge. You stole my money, now I want you to pay. Pure revenge motive in other words. This is not necessarily a good thing. Yes, we do accept that "justified revenge" or "justified anger" is acceptable to some degree but there are also limits to how far you can go. If a person hold a knife up at your face and take away your wallet you don't have right to go and kill him, his sister and his parents afterwards.

Another argument is trying to prevent people from breaking the law. If there were no punishment, many people would simply break the law. What would be the point of having a law if there were no consequences of breaking it? However, it turns out that severe punishment can only work so far in preventing crimes. Even in countries like the US where you have death penalty for some crimes, does that stop people from comitting these crimes? Well for some yes, but there are always some who think they can get away with it, they won't get caught or even if they do get caught they don't care. Also, in countries like norway where prison terms are generally laughably low, it might scare otherwise law abiding citizens from comitting crimes but it does absolutely nothing to stop hardnened criminals from continue their life of crimes.

Another argument is trying to improve people. Prison terms should be served in such a way that people learn how to become law abiding citizens while in prision and they should come out as law abiding citizens.

Hardly ANY nations really believes in this. According to this philosophy you might get a life time sentence for stealing a piece of bread - if it was deemed that you would not improvbe while a mass murderer would go out after one week in jail if you could somehow be sure he would not repeat the crime. People would scream at legislators making such a practice, they would deem the system unfair. Also, who are these people who should make these judgements? What if they released that guy who appeared to have improved and then 2 weeks later he commit a crime again? Aren't then these people partly responsible for the crime and should serve in prison together with the offender?

The point is that most people and worst of all hardly even any politicians or legislators really think through these issues.

In my opininon, a man who visciously kill a dog or inflict pain on a dog is no better than a man who visciously kill another man or inflict pain on a man. He should serve the same prison term. It is the visciousness and intent that I would put weight on here. That one guy let it go out on a human and another let it go out on a dog makes very little difference to me in the grand scheme. True, if the dog killer never did it to a human and did it to a dog precisely because he did not want to harm another human, you might say that for us humans he is sort of "better". The dogs would not agree but the dogs don't have the right to vote in our society. However, I would be inclined to think that a person who can be so viscious to a dog can also be viscious to a human and it was just accidently that he let it go out on a dog this time. Consequently, I would have no problem sending him to maximum punishment as if he had killed a human.

I am against death penalty though so I wouldn't send either of them to death sentence. 50 years in prison, OK, death sentence? No, never.


Again, you claimed it was all "natural".

Natural does not mean we are born with it. It can also mean that we learn it as we live.
Natural just means it is not supernatural. It is not god given or given by some other supernatural entity.


Yes, but how is one more "wrong" than the other. One also may view what is more commonly thought to be "harmful" as innocent as well.

What are you talking about here?


What are you talking about? The aztecs didn't abided by "natural" morals or benefits. Ethics are learned through experiance within a enviroment. Human sacrifices were everyday business for cultures such as the aztecs.

They followed a belief in some supernatural non-existing gods- just like you.

Fortuantely, your god only want the odor of roast meat from animals as sacrifice. Well, he also want the blood of the amalakites or whatever they are all called and other heathens but fortunately most christians don't go around killing heathens any more. They did in the past though. Now, they mostly go around killing other christians like in Ireland.

Well, they do want to kill many of those heathen muslims though. Not sure what the future will bring. Will GWB start a new crusade?


Don't you get it? The "obvious" or (as you call it) "natural" ethics have not been established since the origin of mankind. Today we see things such as human sacrifices to be "bad" because of the events that happend yesterday. Movements such as Christianity are reconized as a social breakthrough in modern morality.

Breakthrough? Only among christians is it considered a breakthrough. Christianity has been dragged kicking and screaming into human rights, democracy, women's rights etc. They have opposed each of them fiercly and only embrace them later whne they realize that the battle is lost and usually long after the battle has already been lost a long time.

Christianity has never been a breakthrough for anything other than stupidity. Christianity was at its height at a time when the average man could not read and the only book he got access to was the bible and the only way he got access to this book was through the priest telling him what was written in it (since he could not read it himself). This age that is known as the dark age was the time when christianity was at its height. IT has been on decline ever since.

Even today, the places where christianity grows is among the uneducated and those who does not know. In all countries, there is a negative correlation between high IQ and being religious.


Do know what you're saying? If someone has just given their life to Jesus Christ and was walking to the alter after a sermon, would you shout at them as if they were about to fall off a clifff?

Not really the same. Falling off a cliff leads most likely to instant death. Going to church and become christian just leads to intellectual death - not quite the same thing.


Any social realist can reconize that Christianity as a moral goldmine. Even the skeptical darwin and Thomas Jefferson weren't blind to that.

This quote have to earn it's place in the humor section. Doesn't it? What can I say? It is laughable. However, I am not laughing. I find it just utterly sad that a person who one might otherwise consider a semi-intelligent person can get himself to say this. It proves my point of intellectual death though. Smith's rational capabilities are already dead. Not sure when the funeral was held. I mourn over the loss.


And it's fine to declare the universe as "just randomly generated choas"?

Where did you get that idea from? I know that many creationists tried to say that evolution is wrong because it claims that everything just happened by random chance.

This is so wrong and it is a strawman that we are all tired of hearing and we are tired of tearing it down.

The unvierse just is does NOT mean that it is just randomly generated chaos.

For one thing, the universe has repeatability and stability. If you drop a rock, it falls down towards the grown. Lo and behold, if you drop another rock it will ALSO fall down. In fact, you can drop 100 rocks and they ALL fall down. Not ONE of them will fall sideways, fly up or stay where you left it. Does that appear random to you? Does it appear as chaos to you? True, randomness and chaos also exist in the universe but it would be a grave error to say that the universe is nothing but randomness and chaos.

Did it ever occur to you that the unvierse is a combination of randomness and chaos and lawfulness and order? Not only that, but it is that combination combined with nature's ability to form feedback loops that makes the "heart" of the unvierse and makes it all tick.

Again, I mourn over the death of your intellectual capabilities.


Logic is what humans use to interpret reality. Logic only exists because the universe isn't a bunch of random choas, but a consistantly formulated realm.

You are wrong. The universe is not ONLY a bunch of random chaos but it is also not ONLY a bunch of non-random orderliness. It is a healthy mix of both.

Logic is an expression of some of this order and is the basic manner to understand that order. Logic can also be used to even understand the randomness and chaos because the randomness and the chaos appear randomly in a non-random manner and chaoticly in an ordered manner.

What I mean is that randomness form random distributions and there is nothing random about random distributions, they are very predictable. If something is randomly according to a uniform distribution then it IS uniform distribution and there is nothing random about that, it might not suddenly change into a Chi-square distribution.

Similarly with the chaos. If something is chaotic, there is some order in that chaos and the chaos cannot suddenly change to a different chaotic system.

So, even in the randomness and chaos, there is order and predictability.


If you take God out than you might as well take away all reasoning with it.

Another attempt at stand-up comic? Don't think many people will laugh at this. It is in fact sad that a person can get himself to say these things and it is even sadder if he actually believes it. In any case, you have yet to show this assertion of yours.

I rather think it is opposite. If you include God there is no room for rational reasoning. If there is a god then "God did it" explains everything finally. You cannot go beyond that and you have to accept everything and anything on the basis of "God did it". It takes away every method we have of reasoning and provides no grounds to use reasoning at all.

Anyway, you provide lots of input for the humor section on this board in this post.


Why did the big bang decide to expand rather than just burn out?

Perhaps the big bang is not a sentient being capable of making decisions?

Why do the rock "decide" to fall down to earth rather than just stay hanging in the ear. Why did it go through the work of making itself to speed up towards the ground? For what purpose did the rock have of seeking the ground? Is that such a much better place for it than hanging in the air?

You obviously don't understand what makes the universe tick. I urge you to go to the local library and get some books on physics and read them. It would do you well.


To say the conditioning and composition of the universe "just happend to be" is neither scientifically, philosophically, nor reasonably an explanation of any worth.

Read some physics.


Hmm....

Did God freely decide to create rather than not create, or did the universe just spontaneously expand from nothing because it felt like it?

Please. Please. I have previously told you that you have no reason to assume that there ever was this "nothing". Yet you still just bluntly assumes it.

Can you please explain to me how you got to the conclusion that there ever was this "nothing" that the universe had to spring out from? From where did you get that idea?


Sigh... For the third time.

God = an extraordinary phenomenon of infinite proportions, and is the variable necessary to conclude the origin and operations of all energy and existence.

There are several problems with your definition.

1. Parts of it appear problematic. For example you say "extraordinary" - why? On what basis do you claim this thingy to be "extraordinary"? What do you mean by "extraordinary"?

When you make an initial premise or axiom or definition we try to keep problematic terms away from it. Partly because this is supposedly a basic premise. Theists usually operates from the initial premise that "God exist". This is their basic initial premise and therefore it should be kept as simple as possible. Yet, you complicate it by introducing a bunch of adjectives such as "extraordinary" and "infinite" and so on. This will generally cloud the matter rather than clear it and will generally just make what is really a bunch of premises be disguised as one single premise.

Secondly, you haven't verified that there is at all a "variable" that is "necessary" to condlude the "origin" and "operation" of energy and existence.

Energy just is - in fact we have a natural law that says energy cannot disappear or appear, the amount of energy in a closed system is constant. True, it is hard to hold unto that law when you come down to a quantum mechanical level since every measure has an uncertainty and you cannot claim a quantity is constant if you cannot measure the exact value of it. However, the idea that energy just cannot appear and disappear on average - yes, I know particles appear and vanish in vacuum but they appear and vanish in such away that the overall average remain constant and so energy cannot just appear and vanish just like that.

Above all, there is no reason to believe that any entity is required in order to keep energy as it is. Once it is there there is no need for a god to keep it there. This "sustainer" is just not needed. He is based on an ancient philosophical argument that has been proven false over and over again. Please try to read some more RECENT books on the subject.

So this 'sustainer" is simply not necessary. That you assert he is, doesn't make it so. Thus, this definition is useless unless you first prove to us that such a sustainer is necessary - and you haven't done so.

About the "creator" bit. How DO you know that there ever was this nothing of yours? There never was a time when the universe did not exist, how can you then claim that it ever needed a creator? The creator is just as useless as the sustainer is.

Thus, there is no need for this "variable" of yours at all.

Unless you can show us both (or if you drop one of them you only need to show one) that a creator and sustainer is really necessary, this definition of yours of god is meaningless.


Yes, a bird named Ra created the sun, and then decided to create actual birds thereafter.

Oh, there's no personal being? Than we are all mistakes meant to just fill a little vaction time during our void of nonexistance, yet, are sadly doomed to die. And "mother nature" (bless her heart) sputtered the whole "consciousness" phenomenon upon some specie called the human being (just dodging the apes and the dogs), but of course for no particular reason whatsoever. Just to make our insignificant existance a bit more memoriable I suppose.

Add problems with reading comprehension to Smith's list of problems.

He didn't say there are no personal beings. You are a personal being, he is and so am I. The question is - is there a need for a personal being to explain why the universe is?

No - nope - not at all.

And your god who created the world in six days and blah blah is just as unlikely as the Ra story you just told us about. You have exactly as much evidence in favor of your god as the egyptians had in favor of Ra - exactly zero.


And the tree of atheism fulfilled all the wonderous anwsers you could ever imagine?

We want knowledge not to confirm our imagination but to get the truth. Imagination helps to some degree but when we see things that indicates that what we imagined was wrong, we see no point in insisting on believing in the imagined - we favor the truth.

I can see that you appear to think that the imagined beliefs is better than the veifiable trruth.


Indeed, slightly below the possiablity of an ant creating a NASA spaceshuttle.

You are wrong as usual. This line however, isn't even funny. It is just sad. I will not recommend this line to the humor section of IIDB.


Evolution makes no explanation for consciousness. It's not even factor of within the field of evolution. I'm am curious of the source which gave you that idea.

It doesn't? Darn! I thought it did! I see an explanation compatible with evolution and it makes a lot of sense. Are you saying it is all false? Do you have proof of that?

Give me a proof that conssciousness is impossible if evolution is true and I will believe you.


Water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen configured in certain way (I wonder how "choas" figured the formulation of that one). Wetness is just byproduct or an abunadance of water (Ex: my shoes are "wet"). Nice try, but why attempt to beat around the bush and waste time with these mind games?

You clearly do not understand the concept of "ermegent properties". I suggest you try to read up on it.


So intelligence and the rest of the universe can "emerge" from nothing?

We never said that. The idea that there ever was this "nothing" is your claim - not ours. In fact we claim that this nothing can never exist, there never ever was a time when this nothing existed.


Does this have to do with you explaining your highly evidenial and reasonable philosophical solutions or are you just trying to change the subject in order to make an excuse?

Is your sign of being pesky a sign that you are starting to understand that you are losing this debate and that you are shown wrong on all important points and are running out of arguments?

I assume he asked if you were in college in order to figure out on what level he should try to explain this to you. It appears we are "talking over your head" at times and so it apperas it is difficult to explain certain matters to you. Trying to lower myself to your intellectual level might be hard but possible but it also means I have to explain things in a slower and more elaborate way and I cannot take as many things for granted as when I talk to other people who have studied the subjects more in depth. I guess Joe Bloe feels the same way.


An excuse as predicted. How surpraising.

Not an excuse. I think he really gave you a good suggestion there. Read some more, study some more. Get wiser before you start asserting things which you are clueless about. Yes, I know you are young and you think you know everything there is to know and you feel that you have it all figured out.

That should actually be a warning that you have NOT figured it all out yet. The fact that everything apperas to be figured out, is a good sign that you haven't figured it out yet.

So, read some more, get some books - no, not those fundie books, they do you no good.
Get some science books, learn some logic, learn some physics. Get yourself educated!


If only that was the actual view of atheism. If atheism made the slightest effort to accuratly answer the questions that theism answers in a practical manner and for a good cause instead of playing debate games with theists in such prideful way; I might have more respect for atheism. But they are obsessed with wasting efforts for the sake of slandering theists by such childish means instead of being truly open to possiablities.

Projecting never gets you anywhere.


Most atheists acknowledge at least the potential for the existance of God. But what do they do.... Mock it! They don't want ultimate truth and meaning to life, they want to boost their pride and tear down the beliefs of others. All they want to do is WIN WIN WIN.

As I said, projecting never gets you anywhere.


If you have something "truthful" to offer than present it with a true belief, instead of trying to crush the beliefs of others for a change.
It really doesn't. I am serious.

Alf

[fishbulb]

But some other animals do have at least a rudimentary system of morals. Read what Jane Goodall and Frans de Waal have learned in their studies of chimpanzee societies ("Good natured: the origins of right and wrong in humans and other animals" is a good start). As for consequences, I assume you mean punishments. If you avoid natural unfavorable consequences, unfortunately, ain't nobody but other people (or other chimps) to punish you if you do something bad. Sometimes people get away with it. Doesn't make it any less wrong for them to have done it, though.

I'm curious to if you have any sources to this research. An online article on this will do.

I'm no expert, but I suspect that Good natured: the origins of right and wrong in humans and other animals by Frans de Waal might be what you are looking for. :rolleyes:

[fishbulb]

Sigh... For the third time.

God = an extraordinary phenomenon of infinite proportions, and is the variable necessary to conclude the origin and operations of all energy and existence.

By this definition (if it even means anything) the Bible could be 100% bullshit and it is still possible that God could exist. Heaven and eternal life for humans could be 100% fantasy and God coult still exist. God, by this definition could exist and not care a whit about you or anything else on this planet, let alone have a plan for it or the Universe.

Is this really the definition of God that you want to embrace and defend? A definition that says that, even if God is real, all of Christianity and every other religion on Earth is as maybe?

So many theists retreat to a deistic concept of God when trying to argue that God exists, pretending that the specifics of their religion are optional when arguing that their God is real, but then trying to sneak them back in afterwards. Ironically, it is impossible even in principle to prove the deistic god for the exact same reason as it is impossible to disprove it. At least the Christian God, or certain concepts thereof, can be evaluated according to the evidence and, as it happens, rejected on the grounds that the evidence tends to contradict and certainly does not support such a being.

[Prof]

What "truth"? I don't see the light at the end of the tunnel that atheism provides.

That's too bad then. Or perhaps you've cherry-picked yourself a nice warm 'n fuzzy version of Christianity (or whatever). However, many, many people who have de-converted are, in the end, extremely happy to finally be relieved of the burden of thinking how they are going to please a Big Ghost who is liable to torture them (and/or their family) forever if they don't abide his will.

There's also the clarifying breath of fresh air of seeing religious nonsense for what it is, and being thankful you made it out of that mind-trap.

You also mentioned that atheism leads to more questions than does theism. In once sense you are right, in that theism does not encourage questioning - it encourages belief. But you are wrong in a major sense in that theism in fact adds a whole unnecessary layer of questions that do not appear for atheists.

When something happens -say a tsunami destroying hundreds of thousands of lives - you and I both share the question of "how?" In other words: How do tsunamis form and how do they come to do dangerous things like destroy people's houses?

On top of that your world view, the view that a God created this universe and, I presume, cares for human beings adds another question: "Why?"
Why do tsunamis happen? What purpose do they serve? Why would a God design both humans and tsunamis, and let tsunamis kill the humans?
And guess what? Your every attempt to answer will often lead to another "but why then..." question.

This doesn't merely pertain to disasters - it pertains to everything in the universe. We can walk through a forest, both asking the "how" questions for what we see, but for every "how" question I can throw on top a "why did God do that?" question, whereas you can not (because I do not posit that there is a sentient being who had a purpose for everything - therefore the "why" questions don't pertain to my world view).

There isn't any subject about the world you can ask me that your world view doesn't also have to solve. So you have everything to answer for, only more. Can you see, then, how your world view in fact adds an entire other level of questions that my world view does not?

Many of you see "religion" as some sort of "logical devil", but a worldview without religion is not practical within a society.

Boy, you haven't been too attentive to the news, have you? You think religiosity is necessary, or even beneficial, to societal health? Here you go, a study that directly refutes your claim:

http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html

From the conclusion of the study...read closely please Mr. Smith:


If the data showed that the U.S. enjoyed higher rates of societal health than the more secular, pro-evolution democracies, then the opinion that popular belief in a creator is strongly beneficial to national cultures would be supported. Although they are by no means utopias, the populations of secular democracies are clearly able to govern themselves and maintain societal cohesion. Indeed, the data examined in this study demonstrates that only the more secular, pro-evolution democracies have, for the first time in history, come closest to achieving practical “cultures of life� that feature low rates of lethal crime, juvenile-adult mortality, sex related dysfunction, and even abortion. The least theistic secular developed democracies such as Japan, France, and Scandinavia have been most successful in these regards. The non-religious, pro-evolution democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens ardently believe in a moral creator. The widely held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted. Contradicting these conclusions requires demonstrating a positive link between theism and societal conditions in the first world with a similarly large body of data - a doubtful possibility in view of the observable trends.

Christianity, as well as the other Abrahamic religions, has influenced you and the rest of western society wheather you reject the label or not. There are reasons you view something as "good" or "bad" and "honorable" or "disrespectful".

Sorry, pick up a history or philosophy book. Those concepts were around long before the Abrahamic religions.

If atheism had it's way as a worldview, logically, it would not matter what you did or believed in because nothing would be of consequence or principle, but merely advice at best.

"Not matter" to whom? Think about it. Don't get it the first time? Think about it again and perhaps you'll start to understand.

I'm an atheist and a great many things matter to me - from the many things I value in each day, to my family, my society, the human race, the health of our world, and the quest for understanding the universe and our place in it. I find the universe utterly fascinating, awe-inspiring and unfathomable...all on it's own. I don't need a Big Ghost to make it any more interesting.

And it's absurd to argue that atheism entails no consequences. Consequences RULE our existence, and since we value our existence, and we understand how consequences affect our existence and well-being, we care about consequences. You don't think I care if the planets resources aren't going to be around for my child? I suggest you actually think about what you are saying, instead of repeating facile, theistic sound bytes about atheism? (Or at least provide an argument to support such a wild claim, instead of just asserting it).

Further, implicit in your post is the idea that a universe without God means an existence "without meaning." There is a false theistic premise that for life to have "meaning" it must come from outside of us. (At least, that is typical of theistic thought and arguments). You couldn't be more wrong, if this is how you think. For the reasons stated above, humans have lots to care about. And whatever we value becomes meaningful to us. We needn't have someone else -a God or an alien or whatever - tell us something is meaningful to us. Humans are "meaning generators" and hence a world full of humans is a world full of meaning.

That there is no particular privilege to a type of "meaning" applied to human life by a Super Powerful Being can be seen in this thought experiment: If a Super Powerful Being showed up, convinced us through feats of miracles that He was our creator, and then explained to us that he'd created everyone on earth so that he could torture us and dine on our bodies, would that be "meaningful" to you? Of course not. You don't privilege some "derived from a Creator" meaning simply because it came from a purported Creator and not from us. You don't have meaning foisted on you, and merely accept whatever comes. That's not how humans work. Rather, you pick ideas that are meaningful to you. YOU decide if something is meaningful, not the other way around. Once you understand this, you can perhaps see why, when you talk of a deity adding meaning to our life, we just shrug our shoulders. Your deity doesn't add meaning to our life, because to us it's just a concept we don't believe and we have our own meanings that we value. You think perhaps you have the meaning for our life. But we feel as "deprived" in rejecting your meaning-of-life, as you would feel deprived in rejecting my meaning-of-life, or my assertion that the REAL meaning of your life is to serve Isis or Zeus. We both shrug our shoulders at what makes the other person's life worth living. You got yours, I got mine, and your argument for meaning is no stronger than mine.

Prof.

[Joe Bloe]

Not that I think it will do any good, but ...

I'm curious to if you have any sources to this research. An online article on this will do.
As fishbulb pointed out, I gave you sources. I listed two specific researchers and one specific book. If you want another, there's an online version (http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/0591-2385.681997068) of an article on "Psychological Realism, Morality, and Chimpanzees" in Zygon, a peer reviewed academic journal which "focuses on the questions of meaning and values that challenge individual and social existence today. It brings together the best thinking of the day from the physical, biological, and social sciences with ideas from philosophy, theology, and religious studies," but access is by subscription so you need to be at a college or other institution that subscribes. (In case you can't even get to the citation online, it's in volume 32 Issue 1 [March 1997]).

Uncertainty? I thought it was all "natural".
Um, do you think we know everything about nature, that there is nothing in nature we are uncertain about?

A dog knows pain; why can't a human be sent to for lifetime in prison for mutilating a dog?
If we judge it to be worthy of that punishment, we can pass laws that would do so.

Again, you claimed it was all "natural".
Um, what do you mean by 'natural'? Do you think that learning is not natural? What is it, unnatural, supernatural? Whatever it is, even my old dog can learn new tricks, so if you think learning isn't natural then how do you explain how animals do it?

Oh, wait, by 'natural' do you mean something like 'automatic', that things that happen naturally are those that happen automatically and with invariant regularity, such as rocks always falling when dropped? No, that's not what I mean, or at least far from all I mean. In addition to 'natural' stuff in that sense, I mean all the stuff that is here in nature, which includes not only the automatically falling rocks but also stuff like physical and emotional pains and pleasures people experience, things and situations that are beneficial or harmful to our bodies and minds.

By a 'naturalistic' basis for morality, I mean that in making moral judgments we take those natural, i.e. this world, benefits and harms into account, and not any assumed benefits for any alleged deities. I don't mean what we automatically do without thinking. I mean the stuff on which we base our thinking about morality. To the extent there are things we do not know or are unsure about what is beneficial or harmful to us, our moral judgments are uncertain. And as we learn more about the real world we live in and what actually does benefit or harm us, we can make better moral judgments.

What are you talking about? The aztecs didn't abided by "natural" morals or benefits.
Precisely my point: they abided by a theistic system or morals and benefits according to which it was good to painfully sacrifice humans because it appeased the gods. Had they stuck with a naturalistic system of morality (i.e. one based on this the natural world we live in here and what we can learn about benefits and harms we find here), they would never have accepted painfully killing real people for assumed benefits of alleged gods.

Ethics are learned through experiance within a enviroment. Human sacrifices were everyday business for cultures such as the aztecs.If ethics are learned through, and only through, experience within an environment, how in the world did the Aztecs get the idea that painfully killing other people would be a good thing? In this world, in this environment, we learn that such killing causes all sorts of bad things. It is only when you bring in hypothetical entities from a supernatural world that you can possibly get the idea that this sort of killing would be good.

Don't you get it? The "obvious" or (as you call it) "natural" ethics have not been established since the origin of mankind.
Don't you get it? Naturalistic ethics have not been establised precisely because supernaturalistic, theistic ethics have kept getting in the way.

Today we see things such as human sacrifices to be "bad" because of the events that happend yesterday.
And the ancient Yahwist Israelites were one of the groups in the ancient world who took a second look at human sacrifices and decided it was bad. They did it at least in part for theological reasons (though I have to wonder on what basis they decided that God doesn't like human sacrifice), so, sure, I admit that not everything coming from theology is necessarily bad, and I don't think I ever claimed that it is. But it has only been in those cultures where humanism (i.e. caring about the well-being of humans and making that a priority; I do not mean "worshipping humans" or thinking that humans are gods or some other such silly anti-humanist false caricature) has flourished that significant progress in establishing and defending human rights has been made.

Movements such as Christianity are reconized as a social breakthrough in modern morality. ... Any social realist can reconize that Christianity as a moral goldmine.
Others have laughed at these comments, but actually I don't think it is all that silly. In its time, it did bring improvements to people's moral outlooks. Little, if any, was actually original with Christianity (the "golden rule," for example, is much older than Christianity) but it did end up giving a significant extra push to spread them around more. For one example, at a time when slaves were typically treated as property, early Christians taught that slaves should be treated as people. Still, though, they didn't go so far as to say that there shouldn't be slavery in the first place, and they did tell slaves who were abused by their owners that they should stay in place and take the abuse. So, yes, Christianity did provide some social breakthroughs in the ancient world, but it was Renaissance humanism and the Enlightenment that have brought the significant breakthroughs in modern morality (quite often against the resistance of Christians).

And it's fine to declare the universe as "just randomly generated choas"?
But you would be wrong if you made such a declaration. The universe isn't all random. In fact it isn't even mostly random. For the most part, it is invariantly regular. As Alf pointed out, drop a rock a hundred times and see how much randomness you get in the results. How much do the results vary?

Logic is what humans use to interpret reality. Logic only exists because the universe isn't a bunch of random choas, but a consistantly formulated realm.
What do you mean by "formulated"? Drop that term, and you are right. The universe isn't a bunch of random chaos. It is mostly a bunch of invariant regularity, with a bit of randomness and chaos thrown into the mix.

But suppose what could happen if there are a bunch of supernatural entities (such as God, angels, demons) who can switch things around at will and do things, like turn water into wine, make donkeys talk, float an ax head, keep a pitcher of oil from ever being empty no matter how much you pour out of it, or feed thousands of people with the contents of a single picnic basket ... Why, you'd have to throw the reliable regularity of nature, and the logic that depends on it, right out the window.

If you take God out than you might as well take away all reasoning with it.
As I just pointed out, its quite the opposite. Logic and reasoning depend on an invarying regularity in nature to work. Supernatural beings throwing monkey wrenches into the system would undermine the invarying regularities that reasoning needs to get anywhere.

Why did the big bang decide to expand rather than just burn out?
Do you mean "why" as in "for what purpose"? To ask that question presupposes that there was a purpose, that the big bang had a purpose at all. You are assuming that the big bang, or at least something, must be such that it can "decide" anything. But that is an open question. You can't ask "why" until you can show that there was a "why" to ask about in the first place. If there was no "for what purpose" then it is pointless to ask "why," because you will never get anywhere. That is what we atheists are saying: there is no reason to conclude that there must be a "why" in the first place, so by assuming it must be there you are jumping the gun, you are barking up the wrong tree.

To say the conditioning and composition of the universe "just happend to be" is neither scientifically, philosophically, nor reasonably an explanation of any worth.
It might not be emotionally satisfying, and if your philosophical premises insist on there being a "for what purpose" behind everything then it wouldn't be worth anything to your philosophical outlook, but there's nothing wrong with it scientifically, and if there really is no "for what purpose" behind it all then that sort of a philosophical outlook itself would not be of any worth (at least not in terms of finding truth; it might be of worth in terms of finding emotional satisfaction).

Did God freely decide to create rather than not create, or did the universe just spontaneously expand from nothing because it felt like it?
As far as anyone can scientifically, reasonably tell, the universe is not such that it could "feel" like anything.

Sigh... For the third time.

God = an extraordinary phenomenon of infinite proportions, and is the variable necessary to conclude the origin and operations of all energy and existence.
As I said, a "vague, undefined term." Care to operationalize this "definition"? What constitutes 'extraordinary'? 'Necessary' according to what standard? (Is there some standard above God which makes God necessary?) And, again, (as fishbulb also asked) how do you get from this to a personal God who gives a rat's hairy patoot about any of us?

Oh, there's no personal being? Than we are all mistakes meant to just fill a little vaction time during our void of nonexistance, yet, are sadly doomed to die. And "mother nature" (bless her heart) sputtered the whole "consciousness" phenomenon upon some specie called the human being (just dodging the apes and the dogs), but of course for no particular reason whatsoever. Just to make our insignificant existance a bit more memoriable I suppose.
Please point it out if I am missing it, but I don't see anything but emotional objections here: "without God, we would not have any cosmic significance, and I just won't accept that!"

There's a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon where they are sitting under a tree and Calvin says "What if there's no afterlife? Suppose this is all we get." And Hobbes looks around and then says "Oh, what the heck. I'll take it anyway."

There's a lot of wisdom in that.

And the tree of atheism fulfilled all the wonderous anwsers you could ever imagine?
For the, well, I've lost track of how many times this has been pointed out to you: atheism does not, nor does it aspire to, answer anything; all it does is say that theism doesn't work to get you true answers.

I don't need to know what solution, if any at all, would permanently eradicate poverty to reasonably conclude that a one-time payment to everyone currently in poverty would not work. I don't need to know all the right answers to reasonably conclude that theism won't get them.

Evolution makes no explanation for consciousness. It's not even factor of within the field of evolution. I'm am curious of the source which gave you that idea.
Oh, I don't know, maybe it was all those articles I've read on evolution of minds and brains in journals such as "Behavioral and Brain Sciences."

Water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen configured in certain way (I wonder how "choas" figured the formulation of that one). Wetness is just byproduct or an abunadance of water (Ex: my shoes are "wet"). Nice try, but why attempt to beat around the bush and waste time with these mind games?
I may be wrong about this, but I didn't think that appealing to relevant analogies to illustrate a point is a "mind game." I thought it was a standard pedagogical technique. But, as Alf recognized, you clearly don't understand the concept of "emergent properties."



Now, here's something in your response I really didn't understand:

I said:
You're in college now, right?

To which you responded:
Does this have to do with you explaining your highly evidenial and reasonable philosophical solutions or are you just trying to change the subject in order to make an excuse?
??? Uh, Wha??? I really have no clue what you mean by that. Apparently, you completely misunderstood my comment. You are in college now, right? Your profile says you are 18 and lists your profession as "college student." As a college student, you have access to far more than I could possibly say in a few posts on an online bulletin board. You keep complaining that what I've said here doesn't answer all your questions, and you are rejecting the answers I am giving to some questions on the basis that they don't answer all the questions. Do you really think I can give a full account of life, the universe, everything in a few posts on this message board? I pointed out Frans de Waal's book on morality among chimpanzees, but you ignored it. In this post, I've pointed out a few more places you can look. Will you ignore those, to? Are you going to go through college ignoring everying that does anything other than just reinforce what you already believe?

Well, your profile does say you are 18 years old. One essential characteristic of 18 is that it is utterly incapable of grasping just how young it is. 18 wouldn't be 18 if it were possible for it to realize how young it is. I recall going off to college and looking at a sequence of math courses and seeing that there were three calculus courses that came before a bunch of others. "But I already took calculus in high school! How much more can there possibly be to know about the subject! For that matter, I've already 'done' US history, biology, chemistry, all sorts of other things. Just what do people actually do in college?" Well, I learned: there's a lot I didn't know; and as the saying goes, the more you learn, the more you realize how much more you don't know. And I had a lot of growing to do, emotionally and morally as well as intellectually. Over the next several years, I grew in amounts and ways I could not possibly have imagined when I was an 18 year old freshman. (By the way, when I started college, I was a fervent born-again Bible-believing evangelical Christian, interested in science and philosophy and the "big questions" of life. I don't mean to scare you, Smith, but in a lot of ways you remind me of myself from way back then.)

So, take lots of classes. Realize, to the extent you can, that you are young in so many ways, the world is a lot bigger, enormously bigger, than you can now imagine. Be open to it. Learn and grow. Please don't stunt yourself and ignore everything that doesn't just reinforce your current self. I've seen many people who have done that, who just stopped growing because, well, I don't know why, because they didn't want or were afraid to challenge themselves, they had too much emotionally invested in where they were, they didn't realize their potential, they were afraid of or didn't know how to deal with the real uncertainties that are in life so they pretended they had all the answers to provide ultimate truth and meaning and the uncertainties weren't still there? Whatever the reason they stopped, it makes me sad to see people like that.

If only that was the actual view of atheism. If atheism made the slightest effort to accuratly answer the questions that theism answers in a practical manner and for a good cause instead of playing debate games with theists in such prideful way; I might have more respect for atheism. But they are obsessed with wasting efforts for the sake of slandering theists by such childish means instead of being truly open to possiablities. ...
Look in a mirror, Smith. Look in a mirror.

If you have something "truthful" to offer than present it with a true belief, instead of trying to crush the beliefs of others for a change.
I've been trying. You apparently don't want to listen.

But I understand. Intellectual growing pains can be as painful as physical growing pains. But the growth is worth it.

[EnterTheBowser]

Regarding the supposed inability of atheism to answer certain questions (whatever they may be): anyone can answer any question. On the other hand, not everyone can answer a given question correctly. And sure, theism might have answers to a lot of "big questions." And atheism might not have obvious or clear answers to these questions. But just having answers isn't enough - they need to be the right answers. And if they're dependent on a false premise, then they're wrong answers.

[Joe Bloe]

Speaking of intellectual and moral development in college, Smith, you may be interested in the work done on this topic since William Perry did studies at Harvard on this subject. He wrote several books and articles, and many more have done further research in this area, but if you can get the book "The Modern American College" edited by Arthur W. Chickering (published in 1981) and read Perry's essay in there on "Cognitive and Ethical Growth: The Making of Meaning" you may find it quite interesting as well as revealing of the journey you are undertaking. Who knows, you might even see yourself in there somewhere. You can also look at an online essay on Intellectual and Ethical Development in the College Years (http://www.learning.ox.ac.uk/iaul/IAUL+1+2+4+main.asp) or a brief outline (http://www.perrynetwork.org/schemeoverview.html) of his findings, but I think the essay in the Chickering book is the best summary of his work.

To outline it very briefly here, he found that students tended to go through a roughly similar series of developmental stages. Though they didn't all start or end at the same places, or change at the same rate, or respond in the same ways, there was a generally common pattern and direction to it. Students tended to come to college thinking or expecting that there are definitive right answers and that legitimate authorities know them. Then they realize that there is some legitimate uncertainty and disagreement, at least in special cases. Then they realize that these aren't "special cases", but rather they are par for the course: uncertainty is everywhere.

They typically hit some degree of an intellectual "crisis" around this point. Some sort of rebel against not being in a comfortable world with definitive and at least findable if not already found right answers. They go back to their dogmatic ways, but now with a sort of angry and defensive edge rather than their previous naive happiness. They perceive those who disagree with them, or worse yet who disagree with their fundamental expectation that there are definitive answers out there to be found, as threats, even as moral threats: they are actively undermining the foundation of knowledge and society, and they must be stopped.

Others go with the lack of previously expected definitiveness and say something along the lines of "everyone has their own opinion and they're all equally valid." A lot of people call this "relativism" or "extreme relativism" but Perry labels it "multiplicity" because it really isn't related to anything; instead of facts and knowledge of facts being right and absolute, ungrounded opinions are absolute. By embracing this "multiplicity," they avoid having to take responsibility for their beliefs and positions: it's all equally valid so it doesn't matter, I can't be blamed if I'm wrong because there isn't a "right or wrong."

But others stick it out and see that, well, yes, disagreements are legitimate and we don't seem to be able to get certainty in our answers, "the right" answers don't seem to be "out there" for us to find ... but, some answers still do seem somehow to be better, to make more sense, to be more easily defended than others. We do seem to be able to make reasonable judgments about different opinions and have good reasons for concluding that they are not all equally valid. Yes, some of the different opinions seem at least roughly equally valid, but for others we seem to be able to reasonably say they aren't all that good, and still others really bad.

So they move to what Perry labels real "relativism," where, rather than there being lots of discreet facts out there to be known individually, knowledge is contextual, facts are known and understood by how they relate to other facts. Facts are understood in their wider context, which keeps getting wider and so we can never know it fully. Rather than answers being "right or wrong" and "out there" to be found and passively received, answers are "better or worse," judged in their context to how well they make sense of a whole set of interrelated facts. Knowledge isn't something we passively receive from teachers or from observing nature. Rather, knowledge is something we construct. But the "multiplist" view that "all opinions are equally valid" doesn't hold, because the knowledge we are constructing is of the real world out there, and can be measured and tested against that world.

Doubt and uncertainty are real and, as far as we can tell, inescapable parts of our attempts to understand the world we find ourselves in. That doesn't mean that we cannot in many cases achieve knowledge beyond a reasonable doubt. But it does mean that, as far as we can tell, we don't seem to be able to achieve knowledge beyond a reasonable doubt in all areas, nor can we achieve knowledge beyond all possible doubt in any area.

Along with realizing that we actively create rather than passively receive knowledge, they realize that we actively create rather than passively receive meaning and purpose in our lives. One of the students Perry interviewed was a soon-to-be-graduating senior who was just accepted into medical school. But rather than being happy about it, he was terrified. In his interview he said "but I never decided to be a doctor!" He had gone through life, gone to college and studied pre-med, because he just felt that was what he was "supposed" to do, it was what was expected of him, that was his assigned role in life. But he got his medical school acceptance right at the time he was realizing that there isn't a "what you are 'supposed' to do," there aren't any assigned roles for us to follow. Rather, life is what we make of it. And we have to figure it out. Refusing to decide, or letting someone else (parents, preachers, culture, tradition, whatever) decide for you is to make a decision: you decided to go into the family business, to follow the dictates of your parents' religion, etc. You can't escape responsibility for what you make of your life, and you can't escape the uncertainty inherent in making those decisions.

Many people find that disappointing, or even maddening, threatening, frightening. When they look into what appears at first to be an abyss, they withdraw in horror or anger and retreat to their previous comfortable certainties, but now with some degree of an underlying awareness at some level that the certainties aren't really necessarily all that certain and can be threatened by seemingly dangerous ideas from others. But those who dare to venture forth into what at first appears to be an abyss find that instead it is an adventure.

[PoodleLovinPessimist]

Joe Bloe: Fantastic! :thumbs:

[Joe Bloe]

Joe Bloe: Fantastic! :thumbs:
Thanks, Dawg.

But I think I should add that by my post about intellectual development I do not mean that this necessarily leads to atheism, or necessarily to any other specific conclusion. Intellectual development is about how you believe rather than what you believe. I know plenty of religious people who exhibit the sort of intellectual maturity Perry et al talk about (as well as nonreligious people who don't). The difference is in how they believe, and in realizing that though they have what they judge to be good reasons for their beliefs, they are fallible and their judgments could be in error. And they realize that these are their own judgments and decisions; they don't try to pass off their responsibility on to parents or preachers or traditions or "God's will" or anything else. They are both committed to their beliefs and the judgments and decisions they have made, and open to the possibility that they are wrong about at least some things and may have to revise or even reject some of their current beliefs, judgments, and decisions, always open to and looking for more growth. They remain both open to and critical of others' and their own beliefs, judgments, and decisions ('critical' in the sense of rigorous, reasoned judgment, careful and exact evaluation, not in the sense of "oh, that sucks" criticizing). Rigid fundamentalism, of whatever stripe, is a hallmark of intellectual immaturity.

[y-chromo kid]

I am awaiting any good arguments that a positive position of Atheism is at all reasonable. If any one thinks they have a sound proposal, I would be more than eager to hear out such a case.


To my mind, in order to disprove god, you would first have to prove his existence, which to my mind no one has ever managed to do. I think you will find people have come to the atheist conclusion because no one has ever presented them with a logical reason to think otherwise. Agent Smith, this could be your moment: the floor is yours...

[John A. Broussard]

To my mind, in order to disprove god, you would first have to prove his existence, which to my mind no one has ever managed to do. I think you will find people have come to the atheist conclusion because no one has ever presented them with a logical reason to think otherwise. Agent Smith, this could be your moment: the floor is yours...
The point you make here is so self-evident that I've never been able to understand why anyone who gives it any thought doesn't immediately agree with it.

How can anyone reject "god" unless they know what the "god" under discussion consists of?

Imagine arguing against the existence of an omnipotent god when it turns out that that god can't violate the laws of logic or natural laws.

A lot of time and effort is wasted if we can't agree on a god's alleged qualities to begin with.

[Silent Dave]

The difference is in how they believe, and in realizing that though they have what they judge to be good reasons for their beliefs, they are fallible and their judgments could be in error. And they realize that these are their own judgments and decisions; they don't try to pass off their responsibility on to parents or preachers or traditions or "God's will" or anything else. They are both committed to their beliefs and the judgments and decisions they have made, and open to the possibility that they are wrong about at least some things and may have to revise or even reject some of their current beliefs, judgments, and decisions, always open to and looking for more growth. They remain both open to and critical of others' and their own beliefs, judgments, and decisions ('critical' in the sense of rigorous, reasoned judgment, careful and exact evaluation, not in the sense of "oh, that sucks" criticizing).

In a private conversation prior to the start of our formal debate, Smith claimed that he was exactly that kind of person: the kind that is open to the possibility of being wrong, and critical of his own beliefs and judgments. Other than his say-so, however, I have found nothing to support this claim. He acts like someone who accepts the claims of the most superficial apologists of his particular worldview (William Lane Craig comes immediately to mind, as Smith seems to have been personally mentored by Craig) and regurgitates them more or less uncritically. He may say that this is not the case, but his actions show that it is; his attempt at a "contrast defense" in response to the problem of suffering in our formal debate is one good example of this.

Smith has been utterly predictable throughout the debate, and I would be tempted to pull out, citing the fact that the whole thing is simply a waste of my time, were it not that the minimal effort required to defeat his arguments (I spent, literally, less than 90 minutes constructing my response to his first rebuttal, and I have already written part of my closing statement in anticipation of what he is going to say there) is little compared to the thought of giving Smith the satisfaction of my withdrawl. I would certainly have given Smith's "challenge" a serious amount of time and resources had he presented a case that merited such; as it stands, he has given me a somewhat amusing diversion, no more.

For all their outward confidence and all their bluster, no Christian has yet presented a worthy case. Smith should consider this fact, and consider the possibility that it may be due to something other than the non-Christian's "sinful intellectual pride" or whatever he wants to call it. But of course, he will ultimately be convinced by nothing we say -- conviction will come, if at all, by his own pursuits, his own research and his own willingness. As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink -- and heaven knows we've been leading (and will likely continue to lead) Smith to the water. The rest is ultimately up to him.

[Kosh3]

To my mind, in order to disprove god, you would first have to prove his existence.

That of course would be contradictory. You cannot disprove the proven, as it is proven.

[Biff the unclean]

Technically you can only disprove what has already been proven. If you haven't proven something there is no need to even take it under consideration because it is already not proven.

[EnterTheBowser]

By any meaningful definition of proof that which is proven cannot be disproven. If something which was thought to have been proved is later disproved this indicates that there was something wrong with the original "proof" and hence it was not a proof at all.

[Alf]

Technically you can only disprove what has already been proven. If you haven't proven something there is no need to even take it under consideration because it is already not proven.

I guess the problem is what does it mean to prove something?

True, in a mathematical proof then it is proven and end of story. You cannot disprove it period.

For all other proofs they are not terminal. Proven beyond reasonable doubt? Later something may turn out that gives you reasonable doubt. So yeah, you CAN disprove something that has been proven provided the proof is not a mathematical/logical proof.

Also, in the case of mathematics or logic you cannot disprove something that is proven but you can disprove something that has been attempted to prove. If someone make an assertion and they try to prove it by giving an argument. If there are holes in that argument you can poke those holes and thus give an argument against. If you can disprove it, you have essentially given a proof of "not P" and thus proven that not only is this argument faulty but it is impossible to come up with a working argument as the assertion is wrong.

Outside of mathematics and logic you can always disprove something that has been proven provided you get new evidence that indicate otherwise than the original proof.

Alf

[Alf]

By any meaningful definition of proof that which is proven cannot be disproven. If something which was thought to have been proved is later disproved this indicates that there was something wrong with the original "proof" and hence it was not a proof at all.

Outside of math and logic that is the only types of proofs that we have available to us.

Alf

[Xrikcus]

I would say that that would be a misuse of the word proof. "Proof beyond all reasonable doubt" is putting a caveat on the word proof to say "proven... well, not really, but close as we can get" and avoid real proof completely. Of course... that's a personal view, I realise most people would define the word rather more loosely, hence these "science hasn't proven evolution" comments, which way do you argue on that? They are false if you use a legal style use of "proof", but true if you use it in a strict sense.

[RPS]

Correct me if I'm wrong (seriously), but aren't most Biblical historians Christians? If so, then given that Christians are sort of emotionally invested in the idea that Christ was real, doesn't that give us a prima facie reason to doubt the consensus of "experts" here? And the consensus of experts is only prima facie reason to hold something provisionally true to begin with!

I don't know the religious status of those who study the life of Jesus, but I'd be willing to assume that most are Christians. However, some very prominent ones (e.g., Vermes; Fredriksen) are not. If there was such a good argument that Jesus didn't exist, I'd expect a reasonable number of academics to be advocating it.

By the way, what is the consensus of the experts when it comes to Jesus turning water into wine? Raising the dead? Ascending to Heaven?

I don't think there is any. The range of views is extremely diverse, which is more reason to expect a fair number Jesus-myth claimants if there were a decent argument for it.

[RPS]

Speaking of intellectual and moral development in college....

Excellent post.

[John A. Broussard]

I don't think there is any. The range of views is extremely diverse, which is more reason to expect a fair number Jesus-myth claimants if there were a decent argument for it.
Are you saying that the "experts" can't decide on the truth of the documents which describe at length the things that Jesus did, but nevertheless agree that this individual (whose behavior is entirely in question) actually existed?

How do you explain that?

[wiploc]

How do you explain that?

The story about the census that sent Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem is just stupid. I reason that it was an attempt to deal with the how-can-you-say-Jesus-is-the-messia-when-the-messia-has-to-come-from-Bethlehem-but-everyone-knows-Jesus-is-from-Nazareth problem. Thus, the patently-false census story is some evidence that there is a real person at the core of the myth, but no evidence at all as to whether he turned water into wine.

crc

[RPS]

How do you explain that?

For some things experts deem the evidence conclusive; other issues are less so. Do you question evolution because of the Dawkins/Gould disputes?

[John A. Broussard]

The story about the census that sent Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem is just stupid. I reason that it was an attempt to deal with the how-can-you-say-Jesus-is-the-messia-when-the-messia-has-to-come-from-Bethlehem-but-everyone-knows-Jesus-is-from-Nazareth problem. Thus, the patently-false census story is some evidence that there is a real person at the core of the myth, but no evidence at all as to whether he turned water into wine.
I don't follow that.

If we can demonstrate that the claim that Peter Pan's ability to fly is completely false it would then demonstrate that PP was a real person?

Isn't this a non-sequitur.

Maybe I missed something. Please clarify.

[John A. Broussard]

For some things experts deem the evidence conclusive; other issues are less so. Do you question evolution because of the Dawkins/Gould disputes?

Your analogy limps, to say the least.

Dawkins and Gould disagreed about details which were not fundamental to evolutionary theory.

Your experts, as you yourself admit, are disagreeing about the very core of the Jesus myth--a miraculous figure who flashed across the screen of Roman occupied Palestine, for which there are no original records by contemporary witnesses, and whose existence is unsupported by authenticated impartial sources.

Quite a difference.

[RPS]

Dawkins and Gould disagreed about details which were not fundamental to evolutionary theory.

Last I checked, punctuated equillibria were more than mere details.

Your experts, as you yourself admit, are disagreeing about the very core of the Jesus myth--a miraculous figure who flashed across the screen of Roman occupied Palestine, for which there are no original records by contemporary witnesses, and whose existence is unsupported by authenticated impartial sources.

Quite a difference.

They don't disagree about the core -- Jesus' existence. They disagree about some of what he did and said. Given the inherent difficulty of "doing" ancient history, that's not surprising in the least.

[Illandur]

I don't follow that.

If we can demonstrate that the claim that Peter Pan's ability to fly is completely false it would then demonstrate that PP was a real person?

Isn't this a non-sequitur.

Maybe I missed something. Please clarify.

I think the point is to demonstrate that Peter Pan is not the Peter Pan we read about in the books.

[ThorsHammer]

Simple. The default response to an extraordinary claim - without verifyable proof is "Prove it". goddidit is an extraordinary claim.

[John A. Broussard]

Last I checked, punctuated equillibria were more than mere details.


It is a detail. It most certainly didn't reject the core concept of evolution, viz., natural selection.

They don't disagree about the core -- Jesus' existence. They disagree about some of what he did and said. Given the inherent difficulty of "doing" ancient history, that's not surprising in the least.

Again I refer you to the lengthy list of available works on the Jesus myth in Amazon.

I don't question the difficulty of "doing" ancient history. I do question this business of claiming immutable truth for some of the scriptures, and questionable "truth" for other portions.

You say there can be all sorts of doubt about what a hypothetical character named Jesus did, but that there is absolutely no question about the reality of that being's one time existence.

You give no scholarly support for what, on the surface, appears to be a rather eccentric view.

[RPS]

Again I refer you to the lengthy list of available works on the Jesus myth in Amazon.

Again I remind you that popular writing isn't the same as academic scholarship.

I don't question the difficulty of "doing" ancient history. I do question this business of claiming immutable truth for some of the scriptures, and questionable "truth" for other portions.

You're of course free to do so.

You say there can be all sorts of doubt about what a hypothetical character named Jesus did, but that there is absolutely no question about the reality of that being's one time existence.

I didn't (and don't) say there's "absolutely no question." But I repeat, if the Jesus-myth claim were such a good one, why aren't there a fair number of academics making it? It's really a simple question, you ought to be able to provide a simple answer.

[wiploc]

I don't follow that.

If we can demonstrate that the claim that Peter Pan's ability to fly is completely false it would then demonstrate that PP was a real person?

Isn't this a non-sequitur.

Maybe I missed something. Please clarify.

Okay, let's take the time that Jesus didn't fly. The devil tempted him, invited him to throw himself down from a high place and save himself with his special powers, but Jesus resisted the temptation to show off.

If Jesus was a real person, then he really didn't fly, and, since that is embarrassing to those who claim he could do miracles, they came up with this awkward non-explantion of why he didn't do more miracles.

But if Jesus was entirely made up, they wouldn't have needed this lame excuse for his non-performance. If Jesus was made up, they wouldn't have explained away why he didn't fly; instead, they would have said that he did fly.

This is scintilla-weight evidence. Don't think that I think I've made a persuasive argument. All I've done is show that there is some (more than none) reason to think there was a real person named Jesus at the core of the Jesus myth.

crc

[NZSkep]

Okay, let's take the time that Jesus didn't fly. The devil tempted him, invited him to throw himself down from a high place and save himself with his special powers, but Jesus resisted the temptation to show off.

If Jesus was a real person, then he really didn't fly, and, since that is embarrassing to those who claim he could do miracles, they came up with this awkward non-explantion of why he didn't do more miracles.

But if Jesus was entirely made up, they wouldn't have needed this lame excuse for his non-performance. If Jesus was made up, they wouldn't have explained away why he didn't fly; instead, they would have said that he did fly.

This is scintilla-weight evidence. Don't think that I think I've made a persuasive argument. All I've done is show that there is some (more than none) reason to think there was a real person named Jesus at the core of the Jesus myth.

crc

while I agree with you, I don't think that is a very valid example.
I think the story about jesus refusing to fly is supposed to teach christians that it is wrong to test god. i.e. it gives christianity an excuse when it comes to prayers not being answered in the positive.

Christian: I prayed to God to restore my missing limbs and nothing happened
Priest: You shouldn't test god, look at he story of jesus on the cliff etc

[wiploc]

while I agree with you, I don't think that is a very valid example.

I admit it's weak, but I still think it is more than nothing. It is some reason to think Jesus existed.




I think the story about jesus refusing to fly is supposed to teach christians that it is wrong to test god. i.e. it gives christianity an excuse when it comes to prayers not being answered in the positive.

Christian: I prayed to God to restore my missing limbs and nothing happened
Priest: You shouldn't test god, look at he story of jesus on the cliff etc

I like your example. If prayers were really answered, they wouldn't need a story saying not to test god. And if Jesus didn't exist, they wouldn't need a story explaining why he didn't do miracles.

crc

[PoodleLovinPessimist]

I admit it's weak, but I still think it is more than nothing. It is some reason to think Jesus existed.

Not really. Verisimilitude in fiction is well established enough; the presence of verisimilitude by itself is not evidential for actual existence.

And if Jesus didn't exist, they wouldn't need a story explaining why he didn't do miracles.

But Jesus does do miracles. That's the problem. That he doesn't do a miracle at one particular point doesn't even establish verisimilitude, much less offer evidence for his actual existence.

Regardless of the reality or fictionality of Jesus, the authors must establish why Jesus doesn't just wave his magic wand and cure the ills of the world. An instance of not performing a miracle establishes this just fine.

[NZSkep]

Murderer: Your honour, if I killed these women do you think I would have been stupid enough to shoot them with my own gun in front of all those witnesses who say they saw me do it? that makes no sense
Judge: Ah the chewbacca defense. Case dismissed.

[Alf]

They don't disagree about the core -- Jesus' existence. They disagree about some of what he did and said. Given the inherent difficulty of "doing" ancient history, that's not surprising in the least.

The problem is that how do you identify "Jesus"?

By birth? We have no evidence of Mary having a virgin birth.
By parents? We have no evidence of Joseph having a wife Mary and a son Yoshua.

His actions? We have no evidence of any particular action he did and those actions reported in the new testament are miraculous and fantastic. Even if we accept that some people believe that a person walked around and did those miracles, it merely prove that SOME PERSON did things that APPEARED to be miraculous to ignorant gullible people. In fact, Jesus is identified by christians as someone who performed GENUINE miracles as opposed to all those fake miraclle workers who were in abundance in that region at that time.

So, what evidence do we have that this historical jesus ever performed one single tiny little genuine miracle? None whatsoever.

By events that happened to him? He was crucified? Many people got crucified in those days, it was a common roman way of punishment. However, there are several details that doesn't ring true in the crucifiction of Jesus.

1. Jesus was tried for blasphemy - this indicate a jewish court and so stoning would be a more reasonable punishment. When did jews replace stoning with crucifiction?

2. Pilate ordered the crucifiction - what interest would he have in jews accusing another jew for blasphemy? His interest was the general law and order of the city and the region. It doesn't make sense that he ordered any such crucifiction unless he was convinced that it would be a riot if he didn't do it. The bible doesn't really indicate that there would be such a riot. True, many people were appearantly calling for Jesus to be punished but again, if it were jews that wanted him punished they would more likely want him stoned rather than crucified.

So, there are several problems with the "historical Jesus" picture. It is one thing to claim that "a guy named Yoshua or Yeshu walked around in palestine as a rabbi and performed feats that some people believed was miracles while teaching some ethics to people around him". This is most likely the "historical Jesus" that historians can accept and is on the whole believable - there are actually SOME evidence in favor for this jesus.

1. There were people who got reputation as miracle workers - one of these might happen to have the name Yoshua or Yeshu or some such.

2. Some of these miracle workers were rabbis teaching ethics.

True, it does not give evidence for Jesus but it make it "not unlikely" that he existed.

However, the christians who talk about "historical Jesus" does not mean the above. They mean:

1. A guy born by a virgin - evidence for this is NIL.
2. That he performed genuine miracles - again, the evidence is NIL.
3. That he got crucified - again. the evidence is NIL but we can extent them that it might have happened even if not exactly as explained in the bible. The problem is that this makes the story resemble the myths and legends that went around at that time of a son of god or a demi-god born by a virgin who got sacrificed himself to atone for man's sin, thus it is far more likely that it is a mish-mash of the myths in order to "prove" that their Jesus was the genuine thing - the christ, the son-of-god who came to earth to give man redemption for his sins.

So, when we claim "no historical Jesus" it is not the historian's versions of "historical Jesus" we are saying no to, it is that christian version of the "historical Jesus" we reject based on the lack of evidence. I hope this clear up a bit.

Alf