A Dozen Reasons NOT To Engage Atheists
I have found #12 to be particularly true:
"12, Atheism is dull - Atheists themselves may be exciting, charming, entertaining and vivacious people. It is not the atheists I object to as much as atheism. I say it is dull because it is, at its essence, it is a negation and a denial. There can be nothing festive about it. There can be nothing intriguing or mysterious about it. It is not fecund. It is a reduction not an addition. It is a negative not a positive. It is something empty, not full. I wrote further about this earlier this week here. It is therefore as motivating as a yawn… and as interesting."
Atheism is exactly nothing, in the sense of intellectual contribution. It is purely negation via denialism. The problem, though, is that after that anti-intellectual beginning in a person's worldview, the remainder of the worldview becomes intellectually corrupt as well. This is due to having lost the need for logic in support of one's worldview, any manner of irrational premises are easily adopted and claimed as Truth, including the premise that it is true that there is no truth.
While Atheism is dull, taken by itself, it is as exciting as any psychopathic adventure when extended to other elements of a worldview.
Posted by Stan at Monday, May 25, 2015
Labels: Atheist Beliefs, Atheist Logic Loops and Lapses, Principles of Atheism
I like numbers 6 and 9
6.Evidence?What evidence?
That's so true,no amount of evidence will satisfy the dogmatic Atheist.So he just keeps raising the bar to impossible standards.
9.I usually don’t believe in the God they don’t believe in
Me neither.The God that Atheists hate commits genocide,is responsible for natural disasters,won't conjure up a cheeseburger on demand and refuses to leave his abode on the clouds to reveal himself to Atheists here on earth.Well I reject this God too but unfortunately Atheists just cannot let go of this primitive portrayal of God.
Good day! While the arguments presented here are accurate, this doesn't answer any questions regarding gods' existence. Atheism is a 'thing' only because Theists exist. So of course Atheism is 'dull' just like not collecting stamps is... Sorry for not addressing more points just now but this of the most important point, as we can kindly discuss anything related to gods only as long as people discuss gods, which Atheists do not believe in. Phoenix points is what we call a 'red herring' where the subject is some false gods nobody believes in, including the Theists. What gods you believe in is of the utmost importance, not what the Atheists reject. I myself rejected the gods of my ancestors but cannot comment much on the 'American gods' so this list is interesting only in its information purpose on why the Theist think he she owns the truth about gods without really defining gods or God in US. An easy way for the majority to keep their power and being lazy when it comes to the demonstration of said god.
Sorry... Comments need approval here?
Yes, sorry for the inconvenience, it is necessary to have moderation on.
So, you claim to have no responsibility for explaining your rejection of "belief in gods"? And why would that be, other than that you have no actual reasons which are intellectual in nature? Perhaps you are amongst the majority of Atheists, those who reject without reasoning, those who reject without logic, those who reject purely out of emotionally driven rebellion and/or emotional neediness? It is not the case that a proposition can rationally be rejected without having a reason, and it is intellectually lazy not to be able to give the reason for rejecting the proposition.
Perhaps you will need more "evidence" to convince you of the existence of a non-material agent for the creation of the universe - and that evidence is to be material in nature? Early warning, that excuse is the logic fallacy of Category Error. I'll be happy to discuss any other reasons you have for your rejection, just lay them out.
It is total intellectual malpractice to claim merely a "lack of belief" as if you are completely ignorant of theist propositions, when every earth dweller has been exposed to beliefs and thus has to reject those beliefs before he can claim NOT to have a belief.
So either you have a reason for your rejection which you would share, or you do not wish to share any reasons because you have none.
It's up to you to divulge your situation in that regard, of course. And judging from your tone, you seem to have taken the road to personal, self-anointed elitism, despite not having reasons which might support that. But your message is not that long and perhaps I have misread it, and you can clarify that point should you wish.
This is interesting: I was unaware of "American gods" in the US. Have you guys been holding out on me?!?
@anam: First, welcome and thank you for NOT engaging in the typical Ad Hominem (abusive) rhetoric which seems to be de rigueur for a considerable number of the Atheists commenting here.
Second, the God which is most often cited among Atheists as being non-existent and therefore, having no belief in, seems to be the following God (described by one of the most brilliant Atheist apologists, Dr. Antony Flew, subsequent to his change from Atheist Apologist Extraordinaire to Deist - neither Christian nor American):
A Recovery of Wisdom
As for my new position on the classical philosophical debates about God, in this area I am persuaded above all by the philosopher David Conway's argument for God's existence in his book The Recovery of Wisdom: From Here to Antiquity in Quest of Sophia. Conway is a distinguished British philosopher at Middlesex University who is equally at home with classical and modern philosophy.
The God whose existence is defended by Conway and myself is the God of Aristotle. Conway writes:
In sum, to the Being whom he considered to be the explanation of the world and its broad form, Aristotle ascribed the following attributes: immutability, immateriality, omnipotence, omniscience, oneness or indivisibility, perfect goodness and necessary existence. There is an impressive correspondence between this set of attributes and those traditionally ascribed to God within the Judaeo-Christian tradition. It is one that fully justifies us in viewing Aristotle as having had the same Divine Being in mind as the cause of the world that is the object of worship of these two religions.
As Conway sees it, then, the God of the monotheistic religions has the same attributes as the God of Aristotle.
In his book, Conway attempts to defend what he describes as the "classical conception of philosophy." That conception is "the view that the explanation of the world and its broad form is that it is the creation of a supreme omnipotent and omniscient intelligence, more commonly referred to as God, who created it in order to bring into existence and sustain human beings." God created the world so as to bring into being a race of rational creatures. Conway believes, and I concur, that it is possible to learn of the existence and nature of this Aristotellian God by the exercise of unaided reason.
I must stress that my discovery of the Divine has proceeded on a purely natural level, without any reference to supernatural phenomena. It has been an exercise in what is traditionally called natural theology. It has had no connection with any of the revealed religions. Nor do I claim to have had any personal experience of God or any experience that may be called supernatural or miraculous. In short, my discovery of the Divine has been a pilgrimage of reason and not of faith.
There IS a God, Antony Flew with Roy Abraham Varghese, pp 92-93, Harper Collins, ©2007, ISBN 978-0-06-133530-3
Please note carefully: this may or may not be the Judaeo-Christian God, and may or may not be chief among the American gods, especially in light of the comments above by two British philosophers explicating on a Greek philosopher's concept of God as the Unmoved Mover, the Uncaused Cause, or the Unconditioned Reality. It may be properly described as the God of the classical philosophers, including the Scholastics Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus and many others in a very long tradition.
Others (including the blog owner) may wish to define, discuss or debate the existence of some other God(s). I respect that, and have no wish to argue minor theological points.
Simply put: if the existence of God can be rationally supported via philosophy, then the onus is on the one denying God's existence to provide positive argumentation against God's existence.
anam said:Phoenix points is what we call a 'red herring' where the subject is some false gods nobody believes in, including the Theists
You don't know what a red herring is,do you?It's when the opponent brings up an unrelated issue into the argument,which contains neither proof nor disproof.I attacked the false and outdated concepts of God which Atheists insist on perpetuating,which was what no.9 refered to.In fact it is the Atheist who violates the principle of charitable interpretation when forcing his opponent to defend such primitive notions when there are actually much stronger arguments favoring the opponent's position.
BTW,what is this "is what we call a 'red herring'"
Are you implying that a)Atheists are fond of charging false fallacies or b)fallacy terms were invented and only used by Atheists.
And please don't run away yet.Atheists are fond of bailing at round 1.That's when they discover their theist opponents may actually be educated in the discipline of logic.
Stan says:It is total intellectual malpractice to claim merely a "lack of belief" as if you are completely ignorant of theist propositions, when every earth dweller has been exposed to beliefs and thus has to reject those beliefs before he can claim NOT to have a belief"
Yes,I think the "lack of belief" implies that Atheists are apathetic towards religious issues,when in fact they are actively anti-God and religion.So it's just another deception to make themselves appear less militant.Also by using that definition we could apply that to all inanimate objects too,such as rocks are Atheists because they lack belief,so is my watch,cellphone and toilet.
"Others (including the blog owner) may wish to define, discuss or debate the existence of some other God(s)."
My purpose here is, and always has been, the analysis of Atheist claims, concepts and behaviors, using Aristotelian rules for deductive and inductive logic, and I personally limit my religious posts to that realm. So I don't promote any deity. My inclinations can, in turn, be deduced by the lack of discovering any positive analyses of Atheist positions which produce logical and insurmountable proof for Atheism.
However, that is just my personal position, and everyone else may provide whatever theodicies they wish, just as Atheists are encouraged to provide any atheodicies that they might think are pertinent. Those would be interesting and make for good conversation.
Antony Flew is a good example of two contrary behaviors of Atheists. First, Flew, celebrated as the 20th century's ultimate Atheist, is truly intellectually open to evidence which counters his opinion (Atheism has no evidence for its support, so it is an opinion, only).
But that behavior, intellectual openness, is not common amongst Atheists, as was shown by the reaction of the Atheist community when Flew changed sides. The Atheist community all but publicly disemboweled Flew; they called him every name in their sizeable vocabulary of Ad Hominems. The viciousness of their invectives was startling, even though expected. But they did not refute his statements. They didn't even address them other than to belittle them without substance.
From what I heard about Flew, he believed in God, but not an afterlife, and not a personal God because of the Problem of Evil. Here is a good blog entry that tackles that:
Religious A Priori: Answer to Theodicy & Soteriological Drama
Also, on the Christian CADRE Yahoo Group, there were some other good responses about that. One person said that the objections go away when you properly define evil. Another said that, when atheists accept the definitions of evil that are found in the Bible, they saw off the branch that they are sitting on.
Yes. The concept of evil is a great topic for engaging Atheists. it immediately turns on Atheist cartoons of several subjects, cartoons which they will not relinquish because it is the cartoon which is their enemy.
My apology if I was misunderstood. I was NOT attempting to ascribe any particular religious belief or viewpoint to anyone. I was merely trying to leave open the possibility that God as described above by Dr. Flew might not be the God that others might (or might not) believe in, OR view as the embodiment of the concept "God" to be discussed. I merely point out that one can arrive logically at the necessary existence of God without reference or appeal to any particular revealed source or "holy book" (which are anathema to atheists). Of course, in all fairness, appealing to logic as a route to establish the necessary existence of God is anathema to many "true believers." I personally don't see a contradiction between the two paths, but that's just me and (perhaps) only me.
Assuming that the term "theodicy" has the meaning (in its most common form) that it "is "the attempt to answer the question of why a good God permits the manifestation of evil," [Ref.: Wikipedia link Kalām cosmological argument] I do not appeal to a theodicy in demonstrating God's logically necessary existence. Instead, I prefer to use the Kalām cosmological argument (sometimes capitalized Kalām Cosmological Argument or KCA) as articulated by Dr. William Lane Craig, for a "short" argument for God's existence. For a detailed step-by-step argument covering every possible contingency, I prefer Dr. Robert Spitzer's argument regarding the Unconditioned Reality.
An interesting counter-argument to the various "God in the docks" (a C. S. Lewis term) arguments can be found in the following book (for those with an interest in such arguments):
The Atheist's Fatal Flaw: Exposing Conflicting Beliefs, Dr. Norman L. Geisler and Daniel J. McCoy, ©2014, Baker Books, ISBN 978-0-8010-1646-2
Kalām Cosmological Argument (Short form, without argumentation pro and con)
Obviously, there are various pros and cons addressed in Dr. Craig's book.
[Ref.: On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision, Chapter 4 pp 73-104, Dr. William Lane Craig, ©2010, David C Cook, ISBN 978-1-4347-66488-1]
The most detailed step-by-step development of the rational basis for God's existence as an Unconditioned Reality (essentially, the same idea as the Aristotellian Uncaused Cause or the Thomistic Unmoved Mover) is found in Dr. Robert Spitzer's book. I cannot think of a "short" way of presenting all of his detailed argumentation in a comment box, so I'll just make reference to the book instead.
[Ref.: New Proofs for the Existence of God: Contributions of Contemporary Physics and Philosophy, Dr. Robert J. Spitzer, SJ, ©2010, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., ISBN 978-0-8028-6383-6]
Good day! As per above, it was said that I claim to have no responsibility for explaining rejection of "belief in gods". This is obviously false but does not relieve the gods believer of their burden of the proof either! The gods of my ancestors are not gods you believe in. Can you disprove them?
Maybe that "enemy" is holding their hate up. Some of them may need that hatred of Christianity in their everyday lives.
I was watching an old Geraldo interview with Charles Manson on You Tube (I know that this guy isn't the ideal example), but Manson said something similar about a Jew he met that hated Hitler. He said that Hitler was holding his hate up, and without it, he didn't exist (although, Jews have a real person to direct hate to, and the Atheists just direct hate at a strawman).
Robert, the Kalām Cosmological Argument makes assumptions about the nature of reality, that it necessarily 'started' in the common sense of the word, when nobody can possibly know, and also commit the fallacy of 'special pleading' by implying that the gods or God per William Lane Craig is eternal and not requiring a cause itself. It's a dishonest philosophical shortcut. The physicist Sean Carroll debated the topic with Craig and even if Craig has debating skills of the utmost quality, his failure at updating his views per modern physics made him lose the debate. Please find the above on YouTube, most easy to find...
"The gods of my ancestors are not gods you believe in. Can you disprove them?"
There is no need to disprove minor gods when one is discussing the logical need for a single agent capable of creating the universe. Whether that results in minor gods or major delusions is of no consequence. (This, btw, is a tenet of JudeoChristianity, which merely says "worship no other gods before me", and does not deny any existence of minor gods or false gods or god-like men or materialism-as-god, etc.
The question will remain, despite all attempts at diversion:
Can you disprove the logic which insists that there must be an agent with the capability and incentive to have created the universe?
This is the fundamental belief of theism, which all Atheists reject, but no Atheist to date has refuted, using either disciplined deductive logic or empirical experimental evidence (both of which Atheists claim to be their domain).
If there were no such agent, the null hypothesis would be either (a)stasis of existence for infinity (no big bang); (b)the existence of exactly nothing (defined as "no thing" meaning no mass/energy, no space/time, no quantum field and no other existence either, contra Laurence Krauss). Theists acknowledge these positions and still claim that the weight of Aristotelian logic belongs to the existence of an agent, pre-existing material existence. Perhaps you can deduce an alternative that is not merely a denial, using grounded and true evidentiary premises which are valid in structure and pass Reductio Ad Absurdum and coherence tests.
For further exercise, you might produce a deduction for the emergence of self-awareness, intellect, agency, and assembly of increasing biologic information complexity within an open system receiving only solar photons, all having emerged deterministically from minerals.
I'm interested in your refutations.
I should have pointed out that "infinite universes", "orbiting tea pots", "evil", along with many other hypotheses of this sort, are not deducible, are not sustainable with empirical, replicable experimental data, and are not useful. I hope that saves some time and effort.
Already we receive an evasion of providing argumentation to support the stated position.
If there is ONE logical Creator Being, by definition that excludes the multiple unidentified "gods of your ancestors" from being that ONE specific Being. Until you address and refute the logical necessity of ONE AND ONLY ONE Unconditioned Reality (Uncaused Cause, Unmoved Mover) as the ONLY agent responsible for the creation of the universe, you can consider your multiple ancestral "gods" disproven linguistically - or not, since you don't seem to be interested in engaging the central question.
Do we now get treated to the "I just believe in one less God than you do" trope?
We will gather no moss from this stone rolling.
I dont know what is the logical argument is which insists, as per above, that there must be an agent with the capability and incentive to have created the universe. What makes you think that an agent like a human created the universe?
The theist proposition has been made. It's up to you to officially reject it using the vaunted Atheist resources of logic and evidence. When you do, then we have something to discuss.
Answering a question with another question is a rhetorical device to avoid actually providing an answer. When you provide an answer, then we can discuss it. Otherwise, there is nothing to discuss and the thread here is dead.
And no one said that a human was involved.
When you claim fallacy, you must show why it is a fallacy; otherwise, merely claiming fallacy is without merit.
I should add that Sean Carroll is a poor example of the use of physics for the purpose of defending the ideology of Philosophical Materialism (aka Naturalism). Do you wish to debate the video? If not, then I won't bother watching it.
DOXA: Against Infinite Causal Regress
In that article, Mathematician David Hilbert indicated that a beginningless series of events with no higher cause is impossible.
Good day Stan! It's seems to me that asking questions is a normal part of any discussion... if you are not interested in clarifying some points as per my question above, I shall agree there's no need to waste our time. Here I would add that an agent is defined as a human thinking for all I know so what makes you think it can be something else? We have fables talking of gods, a kind of fantastic agent, but why should we assume these exist by default, isn't it the believer's task to explain why such godly agent exists?
I should also add, per your above comment, that the Carroll-Craig debate doesn't support any kind of hard Naturalism, but does definitely show why Craig's arguments fail. Craig even quoted someone wrongly to support his point! Carroll showed video proving that. I forget the name... but yes I would kidla discuss the video more if you want.
JB, yes I have seen such example as what you presented above, but mathematics is within our reality, created by human agents and is thus not helping in proving anything regarding the nature of reality. What's within a set cannot tell you about what the set is made of if you want to continue using your above analogy. This is precisely what using mathematics to attempt justifying a finite universe does.
But it gets worse! Because who said gods cannot create infinite universes, why impose such limit on your gods or God? In my culture it is in fact accepted that the universe is eternal but created by a god whose essence is the source of all other gods and reality itself. The analogy goes to say that that 1 Essence God is like an ocean in which the other gods flow to, or from.
So perhaps you see why your point doesn't help justifying why such essence God actually exists?
Well, I believe that God is being itself, and I also believe that God is an eternal necessary being. No other gods flow from that one being. Also, an ICR (Infinite Causal Regress) can't really exist in actuality. Some being outside of time created the universe.
An agent is not necessarily human; many material agents exist which are not human. I’ll define agent for you:
1. Possesses self-awareness;
2. Possesses awareness of externals
3. Possesses cognition of objectives, of tactics necessary and sufficient to achieve objectives, and of consequences of exerting the cause necessary and sufficient to achieve the objective effect. (discrimination, discernment, and intentionality).
4. Possesses autonomy of action, including choice.
5. Possesses sufficient functional and causal resources to initiate causes intended to produce effects.
6. Possesses information awareness and ability to create and use it.
7. Makes decisions based on information.
Perhaps you won’t like this definition. It is a definition, not a discovered or revealed truth, so it is negotiable to a minor extent.
Next, your comment just above borders on radical skepticism; is that the path you intend to take? We can discuss that approach if you wish.
I know this is going to be a waste of time, but. . .
Anam: "In my culture it is in fact accepted that the universe is eternal. . ."
I previously provided the short version of the Kalām Cosmological Argument.
This is based on the best scientific explanation currently available, and is supported by all empirical evidence for the so-called Big Bang. Space, time, space-time, matter and energy, and all the laws of science, in short, the entire material universe began to exist concurrently at the so-called Singularity. This empirical physical data contradicts the notion of the universe being past eternal.
How do you resolve the paradoxes inherent in an actual past eternal universe, charitably presuming you are aware of them? Pick one, please, and elucidate logically how you can resolve the paradox.
Additionally, that the universe began to exist, and therefore has a cause, provides vital clues to the nature of that cause.
The cause is logically necessary and is eternal. Nothing begins to exist without a cause. This cause does not begin to exist; that is the meaning of an Unconditioned Reality; an Uncaused Cause, an Unmoved Mover. Arriving at such a cause is the logical argumentation that has been made for over 2,000 years. The usual atheist retort "Oh yeah? Then what is the cause of the Uncaused Cause? Yuk! Yuk! Yuk!" is logically incoherent.
The cause must be immaterial, because the entire material universe did not exist prior to the Singularity.
The cause must be rational, because the physical laws of the universe are rational. It also must be considerably more intelligent than we can imagine, because with all of our scientific searching, we are still scratching for explanations of how everything fits together.
The cause must be powerful beyond anything we can imagine, because of the capability to induce a controlled "explosion" from the Singularity into the known physical universe within an incredibly small amount of time without destroying it in the process.
I will be off-line for the next two days.
I can hardly wait to see how many more evasions and diversions will be posted during that time.
Take this as a lesson. It is not an adequate approach for the understanding of theism, to think about a god or gods, in a literalist, anthropomorphist contruct. Even some christian fundamentalists disagree with such a thing.
It seems you have quite a lot to learn about what you, yourself are rejecting. It depends on your character, if you want to give some good, adequate arguments for your rejection, or launching the typical, emotional diatribes of the ignorant folk, theists, agnostic and atheist alike. This is not about DISCRIMINATION of people who think differently, besides, it is the ego stroking of many atheists, that discriminate people who think differently to them, and some of them develop the same behavioral profiles of serial murderers.
The people who are fervent believers of the philosophical materialism extraordinaire... they make the same mistakes, they do not like that, they resort to emotion, then they make their own religions and shun the others, like any other fundamentalist and extremist, everywhere in this universe.
Stan and JB, thank for clarifying some definitions. However, as per your above comments, all I see are just that, definitions. Why believe that God is being itself? It's mixing the usage of being with something else that is supposed to 'be' yet is 'to be' itself. Regarding agents, defining more types doesnt prove they exist. I still don't understand what a non human agent is, besides the ones in fables, which is the point of contention here. Why believe they actually exist?
Robert, what is being avoided? There are many people talking to me here, sorry if not everything gets addressed, but your comment sounds more like Ad hominem attacks than reasoned arguments, as per your above comment, which ignores what scientists like Caroll can actually explain. Repeating doesn't prove points.
Yonose, are you laughing at my signature?
This blog feels less and less serious and more and more like juvenile attacks...
You are merely dodging having to answer anything by the vacuous claim that the issues have no meaning. You cannot prove that your Atheism is valid, so you dodge by using Radical Skepticism, which is the refuge of fools, those who wish to stroked yet return only gibberish.
A prime example: rejecting a definition because is doesn't "prove" the argument. This is irrational; all terms in an argument need definitions that all parties agree on; then the actual argument can proceed. Since you reject the definition on the "proof" basis, you indicate a lack of honest intellectual approach.
I am being blunt because we are attempting to present you with logic-driven intellectual and science-driven cases for discussion, but you present only deviational excuses as your rebuttal. No actual philosopher or scientist would shrink from answering the issues presented, under the conditions presented. Since you do not return any logic, but merely rejectionism rather than any logic for rebuttal, you have proven by default that (a) you have no rebuttal; (b) you are not interested in either science or logic; (c) you will refuse to engage with any issue directly, and instead you choose to question words and motives rather than concepts.
That approach places you into the troll camp. Now that your intellectual approach, lack thereof, has been established as trollism, there is no need to address your comments any further.
So at this point you may either engage with an honest intellectual argument, or you will merely be ignored, at least by me. The other commenters here can do as they wish.
Anam, when I talk about "being itself", I am referring to God as the Eternal Necessary Being. This explains it more:
DOXA God Argument 1: Being Has To Be, or Eternal Necessary Being
Good day Stan. I didn't reject the definitions, I was asking to explain more what you mean by 'agent' when not referring to humans as per the comments above. I am neither a philosopher nor a scientist. If you are, please kindly refer to your publications and I will gladly take a peek. If not, then you are just like me, someone trying to have a discussion, except thaf you decided to be blunt as you said, what I would actually label as rude, impatient, arrogant and unwilling to converse. You are no different than the fundamentalist Hindus of my parents' generation. You all believe in different gods but assume you are right and ask others to prove you wrong, on your own terms, because of tradition, not reason and logic. You start with assumptions about what an agent is and called me a Radical skeptic for not accepting your conclusiond as an assumption, which is that an agent exists in non human form, gods. As per above you clearly want to start with the notion that an agent is not necessarily human, which automatically supports your conclusion that such agent exists, this is what you should be proving, not assuming. Show me your book justifying that claim, if not, best regards and goodbye.
Same with JB, no conversation, just claims and a link. Sorry, not interested, this is better done in person then, where you cannot gish gallup or avoid hard questions like you do here. In person, you wouldnt have this refuge.
Anam, I would like you try to debate your beliefs with the person who wrote the material that I linked to. He would wipe the floor with you (although now isn't a good time because he has been having trouble with his kidneys, and he has been back and forth between ICU and a rehab center).
I didn't reject the definitions, I was asking to explain more what you mean by 'agent' when not referring to humans as per the comments above. I am neither a philosopher nor a scientist. If you are, please kindly refer to your publications and I will gladly take a peek.
The explanation of the requirements for the necessary ability to perform acts of agency, for purposes of this discussion, is clearly given.
Your refusal to accept the terms of the discussion serves only to stop any rational debate about whether they can or cannot be a necessary and sufficient factor in causality. FYI, I was a career R&D Electrical Engineer in the design of logic circuits, processor emultors and networks; my intellectual property was in the form of patents (which I will not list because I do not release my name due to prior stalking).
So if you wish to challenge logic and/or science and/or the philosophy of science, then do so – but do it rationally and without placing absurd conditions on a mere definition.
If not, then you are just like me, someone trying to have a discussion, except thaf you decided to be blunt as you said, what I would actually label as rude, impatient, arrogant and unwilling to converse.
Your comments so far are nothing but circumlocution, which have all the earmarks of being designed to waste time by avoiding addressing the actual issue which has been presented to you in full.
You are no different than the fundamentalist Hindus of my parents' generation. You all believe in different gods but assume you are right and ask others to prove you wrong, on your own terms, because of tradition, not reason and logic.
Ah. So you are a youngster who “knows” that his wisdom supersedes everyone else’s. That statement explains a lot.
You start with assumptions about what an agent is and called me a Radical skeptic for not accepting your conclusiond as an assumption, which is that an agent exists in non human form, gods.
I made no assumption. I gave you the starting conditions for an argument. Anything you attach to it is of your own derivation, not mine. In fact, it is YOUR assumption that all agents must be human, and that is a presupposition which you cannot prove, either deductively or with empirical, scientific, experimental evidence. So you are asserting an unprovable blind belief based on neither logic nor evidence as your stumbling block to even addressing the issue. And you demand that your blind belief be disproved, when there is no rational reason to believe it in the first place. Next you have attached that blind belief to a definition which does not even say anything about the source of agency, but merely defines the characteristics of the act of agency and the prerequisite necessary capacities required. No mention is made in the definition regarding the “thing” which is an agent.
Those two errors, to which you insist are not errors but are essential before addressing the argument, show that you are not in any manner predisposed to applying disciplined logic to the argument which you have been given.
You obviously do not want to address the issue that a specific effect could not have happened under Naturalist, deterministic circumstances, but have all the earmarks of the causal product of an agent. So you derail the conversation with objections which are clearly absurd.
As per above you clearly want to start with the notion that an agent is not necessarily human, which automatically supports your conclusion that such agent exists, this is what you should be proving, not assuming. Show me your book justifying that claim, if not, best regards and goodbye.
And this statement is clearly absurd, since there is no mention of the “thing” which bears agency in the definition, as pointed out, clearly, above. This is merely a deviation tactic, i.e., a Red Herring Fallacy. And if you only believe in books, then you don’t need to be on the web, wasting others’ time, do you?
You have been given several chances, even to modify the definition. But you don’t do that. You attack your own phony claim that only humans can be agents, because, apparently you know that… somehow. You can either deal with the concepts in the definition, or not. But I will not pursue claims of meanings which are neither explicit nor implicit in the definition, nor intended in an way to be in the definition.
I do not need to make fun of anybody. Those are the facts. Fundamentalism is precisely the same intended ignorance and shallowness of thought and enquiry, by definition. It is clear and simple. It may sound weird to you, but it is irrelevant if a person is religious/theist, agnostic, or atheist, if they have the common behavioral traits which may classify a person, as a fundamentalist.
Now that things have been somehow categorized, it is important to understand that some people deliberately choose to be ignorant of such matters, and they get richer by selling lies to sycophant, unsuspecting people. If she/he is not a religious fundamentalist posing as a television evangelist, is an atheistic scientist who imposes her/his religion, while rejecting and hating the rest of them. Neither a fundy evangelist, nor a scientistic scientist, are experts in the topic, nor either are some theologists of the "deconstructive" type.
The logical fallacy you are constantly making is known as Appeal to Authority.
Yes I still young compare to you Stan I suppose. I am still in my 20s finishing my masters, for which I moved to the USA recently. Good for you to have patents! Impressive and most certainly not like many patent trolls of recent years... but I fail to see the relevance in supporting philosophical views on eternity and agency or scientific notions of the beginning of the universe. Scientists clearly agree that we cannot confirm or disprove that there was indeed a beginning in a causal sense as we use in our everyday life. Time itself appears to not exist at the Big Bang moment so any causation claims are hypothetical at best.
As per above no I don't think I better than anyone attempting the same humble quest. It actually seems pretty obvious per the above comments that I am not the one insisting that he has special knowledge of the intricacy of the universe. But you people here do! You make strong claims about what is the cause of the universe, what an agent is and how agency can exist without humans. Just like my ancestors who have tradition and culture on their side you become very emotional when questioned on the reasons why your beliefs must be true. You dislike questions and become angry, attacking the next generations for not being gullible. This is purely exploratory on my part so it would help me to get convinced if you were trying instead of attacking, but I understand if you prefer not to. The idea of the Blog per the title is more about analyzing atheism so perhaps this is not the place for me to ask questions.
As I expected. . . boldly going where we have gone so many times before: nowhere.
but I fail to see the relevance in supporting philosophical views on eternity and agency or scientific notions of the beginning of the universe.””
So you apparently cannot relinquish your Appeal to Authority Fallacy, your need for Credentialism, as a source of truth, to be taken over actual logic, actual science which is based in, and dependent upon logic, deductions which can be made from that.
Of the three things you mention above, one is a concept, one is a definition, one is based on observations. It appears that you confuse their types.
” As per above no I don't think I better than anyone attempting the same humble quest. It actually seems pretty obvious per the above comments that I am not the one insisting that he has special knowledge of the intricacy of the universe. But you people here do! You make strong claims about what is the cause of the universe, what an agent is and how agency can exist without humans.”
No, you are the one demanding special knowledge which conforms to your specifications, rather than attempting to follow a grounded deductive argument, which you effectively kill by rejecting a simple definition for no reason or reasoning whatsoever. That is irrational. If you cannot accept a simple definition as the starting point for a discussion, it Is yourself which is making a claim about the logical underpinnings of discussion of scientific claims and their validity: all terms start with definitions of their meanings.
You do not question the meanings; you question the act of defining a term, which you seem to think is an act of arrogance, when it actually is a necessity of logic.
” Scientists clearly agree that we cannot confirm or disprove that there was indeed a beginning in a causal sense as we use in our everyday life. Time itself appears to not exist at the Big Bang moment so any causation claims are hypothetical at best.”
Scientists also agree that the evidence is so heavy in the direction of a universe expanding away from a point that it would be delusional to claim that there was no beginning, given that gravitational pull would condense it into a planck nugget, and then into essential non-existence.
If you are asserting that the universe is an effect without a cause due to the lack of time at its creation, and you seem to demand evidence for every word, then give evidence that there was an effect without a cause at the point of the big Bang. If there was an effect with no cause, then all science is suspect, because science is based on the notion there is a cause for every effect, and that it can be deduced and reproduced experimentally and can be replicated at will, and further, that all objective knowledge is obtained through this empirical procedure. That actually is reductive logical positivism, now long since rejected as the sole source of knowledge, or as a useful construct for restricting knowledge.
” Just like my ancestors who have tradition and culture on their side you become very emotional when questioned on the reasons why your beliefs must be true.”
You misinterpret my terseness, which is impatience with those whose personal illogic is vaunted above actual Aristotelian principles – specifically to avoid the necessity of discussing the rational basis for their own claims. Which is what you are doing. You do NOT provide any evidence for any of your conclusions, you do NOT provide any deductive approach for your conclusions, you merely make off-the-cuff accusations with no basis at all. And that in a tone of arrogant superiority of personal knowledge that you are correct in your assessment, with no need for any evidence or logic whatsoever. That places your position in the camp of self-enamored ideology with no basis other than personal self-satisfaction.
” You dislike questions and become angry, attacking the next generations for not being gullible.”
My criticism concerns the avoidance of rational discussion by making claims of being skeptical, without any basis whatsoever.
” This is purely exploratory on my part so it would help me to get convinced if you were trying instead of attacking, but I understand if you prefer not to. The idea of the Blog per the title is more about analyzing atheism so perhaps this is not the place for me to ask questions.”
Exploratory? I suggest that you take a course in Logic 101; a course in the Philosophy of Science; perhaps that would help you in exploring the art of rational pursuit of an issue.
Attacking? Rejecting the concept of a definition by claiming that I have no right to define a term under your concept of authority is attacking. And I reject your logical ability to pursue any actual analytical path. That is not an attack, it is a conclusion based on this conversation.
It's seems amazing that Atheist rhetoric and tactical fallacies don't work over here.I bet you were so absolutely certain Atheists have the monopoly on knowledge,logic and science,until you met Stan that is.
From where I'm sitting it is so fascinitaing to finally watch Atheists get chewed up with their own principles of logic and scientific evidence.
Here's a crazy idea for you when you finally stop your evasive tactics.Why don't you attack Stan's age and tell us how young you are because that would make you seem like a prodigy of some sort (but not in logic and science of course).Honestly,that don't impress me much.It's just another dodge to avoid your intellectual responsibilities.
Ii is already known to you, how to approach with motivation, and be persistent with what you like to do.
As an advice, you should be thinking about an heutagogical approach. Not everything said in academia is useful and/or true, because many of the faculty members working for higher education, tend to subliminally apply much of their personal bias when teaching, or designing curriculums, and so, you will only be successful with them, if you like what they do, and do as they say, almost never as they do.
The rest is up to you. But when the fundamentals are lacking, it is more difficult to have a systematic, methodological and/or axiomatic approach, to question and enquiry further, into any particular, specific topic, with its own touch of creativity.
Have a good day and thanks for passing by.
Good day all! It's strange to see so much strong reactions to so little comments from my part. This seems to indicate utmost preconceived judgment most likely due to previous encounters with the Atheists. Most importantly how can Atheism be analyzed if any or all Atheists are quickly ascribed labels such Radical Skeptics, AtheoLeft, chronic dodger and rejectors of reason and logic so quickly on this blog? Per my comments, I see no reason to use the above. I barely said anything and don't even know what these labels mean exactly to be honest!
On the above issues what I can only repeat is what is obvious: emotional reactions and ad hominem are not strong support for your positions. I never pretended to have special access to truth nor presented any dogmatic views. Yet you all did, Stan, Robert, Phoenix, yonose... did I miss anyone?
For instance, it's a strong statement to pretend that the universe necessarily was caused by an external agent. This is way beyond the understanding of anything science tells us. It's not the argument from authority I am making above, as I am claiming that you are the ones making knowledge claims about things we don't know about, and arguably being offended when one points out that per above neither you nor I nor anyone does know.
Regarding agency, just as a mere matter of definitions, again as per above the emotional reaction from Stan is strong! I am merely asking to explain why we should believe that a conscious agent can be non human? The answer is that by definition it can be and I am a radical skeptic to not believe. But again why would I believe such human agent, or agents, or gods exist? Defining agency without referring to humans is defining gods into existe existence from the start. Just like my ancestors this belief is so strong that the Theist forgets that agency is utmost important aspect of humans first, and that humans talk about their idea of other agents they believe exist. They project their own agency on spiritual realm beings they believe exist. Closing that circular reasoning, Stan then gets on the defensive and claim the only rational position must be to accept his above definitions of agency which already include gods implicitly by defining agency as just human, when the goal of Theistic arguments is precisely about explaining why we should believe the above claims of non human agency. Starting with a conclusion and then attacking the non believer for not believing is utmost irrational and dishonest it seems, as the burden of proof is moved unfairly to the non believer, like me who again only ask to understand why such agent is even possible, not even yet probable!
P.s Sorry if a double post appeared above, my wifi was spotty and making browser freeze... and while a sorry is written, so another one if I offend anyone, I don't pretend to know more, just asking questions!
” Good day all! It's strange to see so much strong reactions to so little comments from my part. This seems to indicate utmost preconceived judgment most likely due to previous encounters with the Atheists.”
It’s interesting. We will see how this holds up as we go along through your response.
”Most importantly how can Atheism be analyzed if any or all Atheists are quickly ascribed labels such Radical Skeptics, AtheoLeft, chronic dodger and rejectors of reason and logic so quickly on this blog?”
You, as a person, are not being labeled as anything. Your behaviors in your comments here are called out for what they are. You don’t like that, so you respond with this sort of deviational rhetoric. You are still here, contributing nothing of a logic or scientific nature. You refuse to even address a simple terminology issue. For the act of trying to define a term, you have accused that act of being an argument, which it obviously is not. That accusation is irrational.
”Per my comments, I see no reason to use the above. I barely said anything and don't even know what these labels mean exactly to be honest!”
If you cannot understand these things, why are you so upset by them? Do they trigger you? Never mind, we’ll get to the real issue momentarily.
” On the above issues what I can only repeat is what is obvious: emotional reactions and ad hominem are not strong support for your positions. I never pretended to have special access to truth nor presented any dogmatic views. Yet you all did, Stan, Robert, Phoenix, yonose... did I miss anyone?”
You make the following truth claims:
1 .It is true that to make a definition of terms prior to using the term in a deductive hypothesis, is itself an irrational act by your own definition.
2. it is true that referring to your behaviors as what they are, as observable by your responses, is emotional and therefore this is an offense against you.
3. It is true that you make no dogmatic statements, except for #1 and #2 above (and #3 here), which are demonstrably (a) dogmatic, (b) false, (c) a deception attempt to cover for not making any argument except for denialism, which prevents any argument from actually being made. That is a handy device of disruptive rhetoric which prevents you from having to actually use science and logic to disprove any argument you don’t want to be made.
4. You have made the statement several times that your youth gives you the intellectual advantage of skepticism, and then you bristle at the classification of your position as radical skepticism, which it is.
So far, you have committed to two untruths, and one non-coherent statement, one circular denial (actually another non-coherence), plus a handful of incorrect analyses of objections to your behaviors.
” For instance, it's a strong statement to pretend that the universe necessarily was caused by an external agent. This is way beyond the understanding of anything science tells us.”
You have not even heard the argument and you immediately reject it based on “science”, which you claim by default to be arbiter of all possible knowledge. You label an argument which has not even been made as “pretense”, an Ad Hominem in a failed attempt to belittle the argument before it is made. It is apparent that for you, science has no limitations, and is the source of all truth (Scientism, the ideology). This means that you do not understand the limits of science and the actual sources of true arguments. But your own dogmatism is again the dominant factor.
” It's not the argument from authority I am making above, as I am claiming that you are the ones making knowledge claims about things we don't know about, and arguably being offended when one points out that per above neither you nor I nor anyone does know.”
And here is the clinching dogmatic claim:
(a) You are not dogmatic; (false, as shown above)
(b) You make no Appeal to Authority; (false, as shown above and below)
(c) There is, and can be, no knowledge which is not scientific; (both dogmatic and Appeal to Authority)
(d) Therefore any criticism of (a), (b), (c) has to be emotional. (False conclusion, necessary Ad Hominem to deflect attention from fleeing from a deductive argument).
” Regarding agency, just as a mere matter of definitions, again as per above the emotional reaction from Stan is strong! I am merely asking to explain why we should believe that a conscious agent can be non human?”
If you would have read the definition and allowed the hypothesis to be taken through the logic, it would be apparent; but you will not do that, it is too dangerous for you, given your ideology of blind science worship (Scientism). Had you even looked at the definition you would have realized that there are non-human agents everywhere, from software agents to robotic agents to molecular agents running around in every cell of every living body, etc.
You are the one defining, dogmatically that agents must be human. You have no proof for this position of denialism, and such a negative assertion cannot be proven “scientifically”, so you violate your own standards egregiously and irrationally by insisting on such. If you were consistent in your Scientism you would insist that you show us your data for support of your dogmatic claim that no non-human agents exist. (even the concept of that notion is irrational) But you assert your dogmatic Scientism unilaterally, only for attack but not for supporting data for your own position. That is irrational and logically flawed, plus rhetorically unfair, which is, of course, the whole point of such rhetoric.
” The answer is that by definition it can be and I am a radical skeptic to not believe. But again why would I believe such human agent, or agents, or gods exist? Defining agency without referring to humans is defining gods into existe existence from the start. Just like my ancestors this belief is so strong that the Theist forgets that agency is utmost important aspect of humans first, and that humans talk about their idea of other agents they believe exist.”
You have hereby created your own concept of the argument which in reality you refuse to allow to be made. That is a blatant Straw Man Fallacy, used to deflect any future argument which contains logic – which again is dangerous to you - because of your blind rebellion against your elders, than which you are “smarter”.
In fact, you seem to “know” that science is capable of proving or disproving every possible hypothesis, regardless of its non-physical content. How do you know that? Science itself did not and cannot tell you that, because that position, your position, is not a physical entity which can be experimentally verified or falsified in order to provide objective knowledge. So science fails you immediately, before you even get started. Look up Karl Popper and falsification.
” They project their own agency on spiritual realm beings they believe exist. Closing that circular reasoning, Stan then gets on the defensive and claim the only rational position must be to accept his above definitions of agency which already include gods implicitly by defining agency as just human, when the goal of Theistic arguments is precisely about explaining why we should believe the above claims of non human agency.”
This is a continuation of your false Straw Man. And it is the argument that every argument which is not Naturalistic and amenable to physical testing by science is automatically false. You cannot prove that with any scientific experimental verification data, so you are making an ideological prejudgment based on biased, obviously rebellious, anti-logic and therefore anti-intellectual premises.
” Starting with a conclusion and then attacking the non believer for not believing is utmost irrational and dishonest it seems, as the burden of proof is moved unfairly to the non believer, like me who again only ask to understand why such agent is even possible, not even yet probable!”
You were asked to follow and disprove an argument which started with a definition of terminology. You refuse on the basis that it cannot be true because all agents are human - because you say so. This indicates a high probability that you hold beliefs which you cannot prove either with science (even about science) or with disciplined logic. Thus you must attack first with ideology rather than allowing the hypothesis to be built and then disproving it with disciplined logic or science.
So now you are free to provide your scientific evidence which supports your dogmatic claims as follows:
1. Prove that all arguments which are not scientifically supported are false.
2. Prove that all agents must, under all circumstances, be human.
3. Prove statement #1, using empirical science to form a testable hypothesis, experimentally testable, falsifiable and not falsified, open data which is peer reviewed, as is all respectable science. Then do the same for #2.
4. If you choose the ignorance approach (we cannot know anything which science doesn’t tell us), then prove that statement to be true, using science.
If instead you choose rhetoric over logic, as you have done up until now, you will have demonstrated that your beliefs (and they are just beliefs, not truths) are not supportable with either logic (which you avoid) or with empirical science (with which you imbue powers which do not exist in real life empirical science).
And if you charge “emotion”, you will also demonstrate your attempt to deflect your intellectual responsibility for performing the tasks above by making false claims as Red Herrings.
It’s up to you. You made these truth claims; it’s up to you to support them.
Explanation for post-modernists:
The Fox and the Grapes is one of the traditional Aesop's fables and can be held to illustrate the concept of cognitive dissonance. In this view, the premise of the fox that covets inaccessible grapes is taken to stand for a person who attempts to hold incompatible ideas simultaneously. In that case, the disdain the fox expresses for the grapes at the conclusion to the fable serves at least to diminish the dissonance even if the behaviour in fact remains irrational. The moral to the story is "It is easy to despise what you cannot get."
Good day again Stan! Thanks for the detailed response but let me get to the 2 core issues as per above: agency and the universe. It's fairly simple in my opinion and your above comment shows some obfuscation.
Agency now defined seems very broad since per above it includes purely chemicals things like molecules. This implies that even if you were to convince me that an "agent" is behind the universe, that kind of agent could be completely blind, unaware of what it's doing. Now that's not the type of gods you believe in obviously so you are dodging. The actual agent you want to prove is literally like a super human, or like a powerful thinking conscious entity of some sort. Therefore per your definition, which I can accept for the sake of argument, the argument fail from the start.
Regarding the universe it's even simpler as per my above comment I am not making any claims that are out of the ordinary for 2015 science, but you are.and try to shift the proof burden onto me! We know the universe is expanding, we can then extrapolate back and even see back in time by lookinh far and conclude that all that we see around was condensed in a tiny point, even time itself, even causation itself in the common sense of the word. It is thus om faith alone that you take a step more per your above commments and conclude something else, something stronger. But you dont know, nobody does! Time becomes meaningless pre Big Bang and so does causation. Why do you claim knowledge of a required 'cause' then? This argument fails too, and you are at odd with uter most physicist. This is no argument from authority, this is like a survey, and choose to go against it. I choose to believe them!
You could still build other arguments, using valid starting points... so far nothing even starts and you are dodging while accusing of dodging to ironically dodge even furthermore.
” Agency now defined seems very broad since per above it includes purely chemicals things like molecules. This implies that even if you were to convince me that an "agent" is behind the universe, that kind of agent could be completely blind, unaware of what it's doing.”
Didn’t read the definition, did you? You are wasting my time.
” Now that's not the type of gods you believe in obviously so you are dodging. The actual agent you want to prove is literally like a super human, or like a powerful thinking conscious entity of some sort.”
You have no idea what I am trying to prove because you haven’t seen the argument. You are making your own argument which you then “destroy” as a Straw Man. You have been advised. You are now nothing but a troll, as far as I can tell.
” Therefore per your definition, which I can accept for the sake of argument, the argument fail from the start.”
Since you do not know what the argument consists of, you cannot know this. You are now lying.
” Regarding the universe it's even simpler as per my above comment I am not making any claims that are out of the ordinary for 2015 science, but you are.and try to shift the proof burden onto me!”
Absolutely false. You cannot prove your Scientism and Materialism are true by using science. You have dodged once too often. Your claims are beyond ignorant, they are merely intended to be as disruptive as possible by making irrational claims and statements. Having just banned Hugo under a different pseudonym, I am about to ban him again under your pseudonym.
” We know the universe is expanding, we can then extrapolate back and even see back in time by lookinh far and conclude that all that we see around was condensed in a tiny point, even time itself, even causation itself in the common sense of the word. It is thus om faith alone that you take a step more per your above commments and conclude something else, something stronger.”
Since you cannot discriminate against your own logic errors, you are in no position to declare my logic to be “faith”. Especially since you refuse to look at a hypothesis which is deduced logically.
” . But you dont know, nobody does! Time becomes meaningless pre Big Bang and so does causation. Why do you claim knowledge of a required 'cause' then? This argument fails too, and you are at odd with uter most physicist. This is no argument from authority, this is like a survey, and choose to go against it. I choose to believe them!”
Physicists deduce and speculate all the time. You know nothing about science and its practices, or if you do, you certainly don’t show it. Most of what passes for science is, in fact, speculative hypotheses.
” You could still build other arguments, using valid starting points... so far nothing even starts and you are dodging while accusing of dodging to ironically dodge even furthermore.”
You cannot prove any of the positions you take using science. Therefore, your position is either ignorant; ideologically Scientistic; or merely obnoxious trolling. By ignoring the issues in the post just above, you prove that you are merely a troll, although you still might be both ignorant as well as Scientistic, too. Either way, your obtuse position and lack of addressing your obvious fallacies puts you off my radar.
I am done with you. I will not respond to any more of your ridiculous avoidance.
I just wonder, without prejudice, how well versed are you about Philosophy of Science and science in general?
There are some of your arguments, that seemingly do not match up, because of a projective behavior from your part. Projective behavior is one of the big stepping stones which lead to a poisonous romantic affair with any ideological, totalitarian pursuit.
Read up more, complain less. Too many catchy phrases and sloganisms. Never cutting to the chase.
If you EVER want to read something outside of ideological biases, you may as well read this:
Good day Stan, sorry to see you react in this surprising manner. As per my above comments, I am not making claims as much as possible as I try to inquire what beliefs the Atheist is lacking that the Theist strongly believe. I am not certain if Atheist is an accuracy label for my own views being most new to this. I wish emotions wouldn't get in the way as I see lots of frustration and usage of labels not familiar to me, now troll and hugo per above: other persons?
Wishing you good luck with uter most respect anyway!
A troll is a person intent on disruptive behavior. On this blog it is someone who refuses to respond to issues presented to him. That is your behavior.
Sorry again to hear Stan and a bit shocked that you replied to my question but decides to not post it and label me as someone who is avoiding issues, which is absolutely false. Per above, this sounds more emotional than rational. You completely acoided the agency discussion and universe topics by forcing your views, which is what we usually call a dogma support.
The issues were presented, then listed, you have avoided them. It's an empirical fact, available for all to see. And it is contrary to your false claim, just above.
Per my intial response to you,where I asked you not to runaway at round 1,I was at fault.You should have bailed (I apologize for not putting a "per" in that sentence).I am now able to see,per retrospect,those Atheists who ran away in the past did the relatively smart thing.
Perhaps (cool,there's a 'per' in that word) you should take sometime off,educate yourself some more on the philosophical issues per Atheism/Materialism and Theism/Dualism,then come back and we can tackle your objections together,per agreement of course.
Good day. I think it's very telling that people here call me names, pretend I am avoiding topics and even laugh at my writing as per Pheonix comment above. Are you all teens who like to point and laugh instead of adult coversation?
Stan, I have not avoided topics as per my above comment where I ask you more questions on agency and what it means to you, as a non philosopher, just like me. You chose to just call me a 'troll' and even hide 1 of my above comment. Now I don't know if you really are done or not per your above comments since you do reply... so utmost confusion on my part honestly!
I can thus ask again: why believe a self-aware agent can be bon human? Perhaps a machine built by human could become that? I would accept that I guess, but that's still well within the boundaries of the universe, built by humans. You introduced confusion with cells as I already above mentioned since these are chemicals non-self-aware things, not at all 'agent' in the human sense, which gods usually are, but much more powerful and somehow universe creators and somehow existing outside the universe and somehow 'causing' time but without time for causing effects with... lots of gaps per above. Yet acceptance should be granted at the first step of the argument, a non argument that is, as I still see no argument here, except the fallacious Kalam, already disproved and contradicting physics.
Merely declaring the Kalam disproved does not make it so.Here it is once again and show me which premise is false,and why the argument is invalid?
P1) Everything that began to exist has a cause
The first premise seems obviously true,since effects do not cause themselves.The second premise is proven by modern cosmology,the universe indeed has a beginning.And the conclusion follows necessarily from the premises.The Kalam is a valid modus ponens argument with true premises,therefore it is sound.
Phoenix, I am not particularly inclined to talk to you per your insulting comments above, but your comment is so wrong that I will at least say this: merely declaring that premise 2 is true does not make it so. Modern cosmology does not claim that the universe had a beginning in any meaningful causal sense that the Kalām Cosmological Argument requires. Nobody knows what it means to talk about 'before' the Big Bang in the way we discuss causation. The argument is so wrong you might one day realize how embarrassing it was to use it today. Since you prefered to insult my above writing style there is nothing more to tell you I think.
Modern cosmology does not claim that the universe had a beginning in any meaningful causal sense that the Kalām Cosmological Argument requires
The KCA makes no other claim except that the universe had a beginning and therefore a cause.Any meaning attached to it is extrapolation on the theist part,albeit a justified inference when one considers the moral,teleological,ontological arguments that support the KCA.However,regardless of any meaning that may or may not be explicitly contained in the KCA it is still a sound argument and you have done nothing to refute that except to attack an implicit extension of the argument.Do you or do you not accept that the universe has a cause?
Nobody knows what it means to talk about 'before' the Big Bang in the way we discuss causation
Actually Atheist and Theist philosophers discuss possible prior cause(s) for the Big bang all the time.It seems you are attempting to plead gross ignorance to avoid having to provide an answer,while merely lampooning your opponent's arguments.
The argument is so wrong you might one day realize how embarrassing it was to use it today
Ah,I see you've decided to evoke Promissary Materialism.In other words,one day science will eventually come rescue us from theist logic.Well,it's been centuries now since various cosmological arguments have been formulated,from antiquity,to the popular medieval times,up until modern times and still the sound deductions of the KCA,etc has been irrefutable.Perhaps it's time to relent your superfaith in a method that is voluntarily limited to the material plane.
Phoenix, no, per my comment above, perhaps you will get it one day. It's already wrong but you don't get it. Your interpretation is wrong and science is not on your side.
You may not be good at logic but at least you know how to dodge while claiming not to dodge.I have given you a valid deduction and I have presented arguments in support of the premises.You have not attacked the validity of the argument nor the soundness of the premises.
As said elsewhere as well, Anam is a troll; he exhibits all the characteristics of a troll; engages in infinite loops which disengage the conversation from a rational course; in this case he refuses to use any discernment in any analysis of the deduction presented. probably another Hugo sock puppet.
Future Anam submissions will be deleted without being read.
A Dozen Reasons NOT To Engage Atheists
I have found #12 to be particularly true:
"12, Atheism is dull - Atheists themselves may be exciting, charming, entertaining and vivacious people. It is not the atheists I object to as much as atheism. I say it is dull because it is, at its essence, it is a negation and a denial. There can be nothing festive about it. There can be nothing intriguing or mysterious about it. It is not fecund. It is a reduction not an addition. It is a negative not a positive. It is something empty, not full. I wrote further about this earlier this week here. It is therefore as motivating as a yawn… and as interesting."
Atheism is exactly nothing, in the sense of intellectual contribution. It is purely negation via denialism. The problem, though, is that after that anti-intellectual beginning in a person's worldview, the remainder of the worldview becomes intellectually corrupt as well. This is due to having lost the need for logic in support of one's worldview, any manner of irrational premises are easily adopted and claimed as Truth, including the premise that it is true that there is no truth.
While Atheism is dull, taken by itself, it is as exciting as any psychopathic adventure when extended to other elements of a worldview.
Posted by Stan at Monday, May 25, 2015
Labels: Atheist Beliefs, Atheist Logic Loops and Lapses, Principles of Atheism
I like numbers 6 and 9
6.Evidence?What evidence?
That's so true,no amount of evidence will satisfy the dogmatic Atheist.So he just keeps raising the bar to impossible standards.
9.I usually don’t believe in the God they don’t believe in
Me neither.The God that Atheists hate commits genocide,is responsible for natural disasters,won't conjure up a cheeseburger on demand and refuses to leave his abode on the clouds to reveal himself to Atheists here on earth.Well I reject this God too but unfortunately Atheists just cannot let go of this primitive portrayal of God.
Good day! While the arguments presented here are accurate, this doesn't answer any questions regarding gods' existence. Atheism is a 'thing' only because Theists exist. So of course Atheism is 'dull' just like not collecting stamps is... Sorry for not addressing more points just now but this of the most important point, as we can kindly discuss anything related to gods only as long as people discuss gods, which Atheists do not believe in. Phoenix points is what we call a 'red herring' where the subject is some false gods nobody believes in, including the Theists. What gods you believe in is of the utmost importance, not what the Atheists reject. I myself rejected the gods of my ancestors but cannot comment much on the 'American gods' so this list is interesting only in its information purpose on why the Theist think he she owns the truth about gods without really defining gods or God in US. An easy way for the majority to keep their power and being lazy when it comes to the demonstration of said god.
Sorry... Comments need approval here?
Yes, sorry for the inconvenience, it is necessary to have moderation on.
So, you claim to have no responsibility for explaining your rejection of "belief in gods"? And why would that be, other than that you have no actual reasons which are intellectual in nature? Perhaps you are amongst the majority of Atheists, those who reject without reasoning, those who reject without logic, those who reject purely out of emotionally driven rebellion and/or emotional neediness? It is not the case that a proposition can rationally be rejected without having a reason, and it is intellectually lazy not to be able to give the reason for rejecting the proposition.
Perhaps you will need more "evidence" to convince you of the existence of a non-material agent for the creation of the universe - and that evidence is to be material in nature? Early warning, that excuse is the logic fallacy of Category Error. I'll be happy to discuss any other reasons you have for your rejection, just lay them out.
It is total intellectual malpractice to claim merely a "lack of belief" as if you are completely ignorant of theist propositions, when every earth dweller has been exposed to beliefs and thus has to reject those beliefs before he can claim NOT to have a belief.
So either you have a reason for your rejection which you would share, or you do not wish to share any reasons because you have none.
It's up to you to divulge your situation in that regard, of course. And judging from your tone, you seem to have taken the road to personal, self-anointed elitism, despite not having reasons which might support that. But your message is not that long and perhaps I have misread it, and you can clarify that point should you wish.
This is interesting: I was unaware of "American gods" in the US. Have you guys been holding out on me?!?
@anam: First, welcome and thank you for NOT engaging in the typical Ad Hominem (abusive) rhetoric which seems to be de rigueur for a considerable number of the Atheists commenting here.
Second, the God which is most often cited among Atheists as being non-existent and therefore, having no belief in, seems to be the following God (described by one of the most brilliant Atheist apologists, Dr. Antony Flew, subsequent to his change from Atheist Apologist Extraordinaire to Deist - neither Christian nor American):
A Recovery of Wisdom
As for my new position on the classical philosophical debates about God, in this area I am persuaded above all by the philosopher David Conway's argument for God's existence in his book The Recovery of Wisdom: From Here to Antiquity in Quest of Sophia. Conway is a distinguished British philosopher at Middlesex University who is equally at home with classical and modern philosophy.
The God whose existence is defended by Conway and myself is the God of Aristotle. Conway writes:
In sum, to the Being whom he considered to be the explanation of the world and its broad form, Aristotle ascribed the following attributes: immutability, immateriality, omnipotence, omniscience, oneness or indivisibility, perfect goodness and necessary existence. There is an impressive correspondence between this set of attributes and those traditionally ascribed to God within the Judaeo-Christian tradition. It is one that fully justifies us in viewing Aristotle as having had the same Divine Being in mind as the cause of the world that is the object of worship of these two religions.
As Conway sees it, then, the God of the monotheistic religions has the same attributes as the God of Aristotle.
In his book, Conway attempts to defend what he describes as the "classical conception of philosophy." That conception is "the view that the explanation of the world and its broad form is that it is the creation of a supreme omnipotent and omniscient intelligence, more commonly referred to as God, who created it in order to bring into existence and sustain human beings." God created the world so as to bring into being a race of rational creatures. Conway believes, and I concur, that it is possible to learn of the existence and nature of this Aristotellian God by the exercise of unaided reason.
I must stress that my discovery of the Divine has proceeded on a purely natural level, without any reference to supernatural phenomena. It has been an exercise in what is traditionally called natural theology. It has had no connection with any of the revealed religions. Nor do I claim to have had any personal experience of God or any experience that may be called supernatural or miraculous. In short, my discovery of the Divine has been a pilgrimage of reason and not of faith.
There IS a God, Antony Flew with Roy Abraham Varghese, pp 92-93, Harper Collins, ©2007, ISBN 978-0-06-133530-3
Please note carefully: this may or may not be the Judaeo-Christian God, and may or may not be chief among the American gods, especially in light of the comments above by two British philosophers explicating on a Greek philosopher's concept of God as the Unmoved Mover, the Uncaused Cause, or the Unconditioned Reality. It may be properly described as the God of the classical philosophers, including the Scholastics Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus and many others in a very long tradition.
Others (including the blog owner) may wish to define, discuss or debate the existence of some other God(s). I respect that, and have no wish to argue minor theological points.
Simply put: if the existence of God can be rationally supported via philosophy, then the onus is on the one denying God's existence to provide positive argumentation against God's existence.
anam said:Phoenix points is what we call a 'red herring' where the subject is some false gods nobody believes in, including the Theists
You don't know what a red herring is,do you?It's when the opponent brings up an unrelated issue into the argument,which contains neither proof nor disproof.I attacked the false and outdated concepts of God which Atheists insist on perpetuating,which was what no.9 refered to.In fact it is the Atheist who violates the principle of charitable interpretation when forcing his opponent to defend such primitive notions when there are actually much stronger arguments favoring the opponent's position.
BTW,what is this "is what we call a 'red herring'"
Are you implying that a)Atheists are fond of charging false fallacies or b)fallacy terms were invented and only used by Atheists.
And please don't run away yet.Atheists are fond of bailing at round 1.That's when they discover their theist opponents may actually be educated in the discipline of logic.
Stan says:It is total intellectual malpractice to claim merely a "lack of belief" as if you are completely ignorant of theist propositions, when every earth dweller has been exposed to beliefs and thus has to reject those beliefs before he can claim NOT to have a belief"
Yes,I think the "lack of belief" implies that Atheists are apathetic towards religious issues,when in fact they are actively anti-God and religion.So it's just another deception to make themselves appear less militant.Also by using that definition we could apply that to all inanimate objects too,such as rocks are Atheists because they lack belief,so is my watch,cellphone and toilet.
"Others (including the blog owner) may wish to define, discuss or debate the existence of some other God(s)."
My purpose here is, and always has been, the analysis of Atheist claims, concepts and behaviors, using Aristotelian rules for deductive and inductive logic, and I personally limit my religious posts to that realm. So I don't promote any deity. My inclinations can, in turn, be deduced by the lack of discovering any positive analyses of Atheist positions which produce logical and insurmountable proof for Atheism.
However, that is just my personal position, and everyone else may provide whatever theodicies they wish, just as Atheists are encouraged to provide any atheodicies that they might think are pertinent. Those would be interesting and make for good conversation.
Antony Flew is a good example of two contrary behaviors of Atheists. First, Flew, celebrated as the 20th century's ultimate Atheist, is truly intellectually open to evidence which counters his opinion (Atheism has no evidence for its support, so it is an opinion, only).
But that behavior, intellectual openness, is not common amongst Atheists, as was shown by the reaction of the Atheist community when Flew changed sides. The Atheist community all but publicly disemboweled Flew; they called him every name in their sizeable vocabulary of Ad Hominems. The viciousness of their invectives was startling, even though expected. But they did not refute his statements. They didn't even address them other than to belittle them without substance.
From what I heard about Flew, he believed in God, but not an afterlife, and not a personal God because of the Problem of Evil. Here is a good blog entry that tackles that:
Religious A Priori: Answer to Theodicy & Soteriological Drama
Also, on the Christian CADRE Yahoo Group, there were some other good responses about that. One person said that the objections go away when you properly define evil. Another said that, when atheists accept the definitions of evil that are found in the Bible, they saw off the branch that they are sitting on.
Yes. The concept of evil is a great topic for engaging Atheists. it immediately turns on Atheist cartoons of several subjects, cartoons which they will not relinquish because it is the cartoon which is their enemy.
My apology if I was misunderstood. I was NOT attempting to ascribe any particular religious belief or viewpoint to anyone. I was merely trying to leave open the possibility that God as described above by Dr. Flew might not be the God that others might (or might not) believe in, OR view as the embodiment of the concept "God" to be discussed. I merely point out that one can arrive logically at the necessary existence of God without reference or appeal to any particular revealed source or "holy book" (which are anathema to atheists). Of course, in all fairness, appealing to logic as a route to establish the necessary existence of God is anathema to many "true believers." I personally don't see a contradiction between the two paths, but that's just me and (perhaps) only me.
Assuming that the term "theodicy" has the meaning (in its most common form) that it "is "the attempt to answer the question of why a good God permits the manifestation of evil," [Ref.: Wikipedia link Kalām cosmological argument] I do not appeal to a theodicy in demonstrating God's logically necessary existence. Instead, I prefer to use the Kalām cosmological argument (sometimes capitalized Kalām Cosmological Argument or KCA) as articulated by Dr. William Lane Craig, for a "short" argument for God's existence. For a detailed step-by-step argument covering every possible contingency, I prefer Dr. Robert Spitzer's argument regarding the Unconditioned Reality.
An interesting counter-argument to the various "God in the docks" (a C. S. Lewis term) arguments can be found in the following book (for those with an interest in such arguments):
The Atheist's Fatal Flaw: Exposing Conflicting Beliefs, Dr. Norman L. Geisler and Daniel J. McCoy, ©2014, Baker Books, ISBN 978-0-8010-1646-2
Kalām Cosmological Argument (Short form, without argumentation pro and con)
Obviously, there are various pros and cons addressed in Dr. Craig's book.
[Ref.: On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision, Chapter 4 pp 73-104, Dr. William Lane Craig, ©2010, David C Cook, ISBN 978-1-4347-66488-1]
The most detailed step-by-step development of the rational basis for God's existence as an Unconditioned Reality (essentially, the same idea as the Aristotellian Uncaused Cause or the Thomistic Unmoved Mover) is found in Dr. Robert Spitzer's book. I cannot think of a "short" way of presenting all of his detailed argumentation in a comment box, so I'll just make reference to the book instead.
[Ref.: New Proofs for the Existence of God: Contributions of Contemporary Physics and Philosophy, Dr. Robert J. Spitzer, SJ, ©2010, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., ISBN 978-0-8028-6383-6]
Good day! As per above, it was said that I claim to have no responsibility for explaining rejection of "belief in gods". This is obviously false but does not relieve the gods believer of their burden of the proof either! The gods of my ancestors are not gods you believe in. Can you disprove them?
Maybe that "enemy" is holding their hate up. Some of them may need that hatred of Christianity in their everyday lives.
I was watching an old Geraldo interview with Charles Manson on You Tube (I know that this guy isn't the ideal example), but Manson said something similar about a Jew he met that hated Hitler. He said that Hitler was holding his hate up, and without it, he didn't exist (although, Jews have a real person to direct hate to, and the Atheists just direct hate at a strawman).
Robert, the Kalām Cosmological Argument makes assumptions about the nature of reality, that it necessarily 'started' in the common sense of the word, when nobody can possibly know, and also commit the fallacy of 'special pleading' by implying that the gods or God per William Lane Craig is eternal and not requiring a cause itself. It's a dishonest philosophical shortcut. The physicist Sean Carroll debated the topic with Craig and even if Craig has debating skills of the utmost quality, his failure at updating his views per modern physics made him lose the debate. Please find the above on YouTube, most easy to find...
"The gods of my ancestors are not gods you believe in. Can you disprove them?"
There is no need to disprove minor gods when one is discussing the logical need for a single agent capable of creating the universe. Whether that results in minor gods or major delusions is of no consequence. (This, btw, is a tenet of JudeoChristianity, which merely says "worship no other gods before me", and does not deny any existence of minor gods or false gods or god-like men or materialism-as-god, etc.
The question will remain, despite all attempts at diversion:
Can you disprove the logic which insists that there must be an agent with the capability and incentive to have created the universe?
This is the fundamental belief of theism, which all Atheists reject, but no Atheist to date has refuted, using either disciplined deductive logic or empirical experimental evidence (both of which Atheists claim to be their domain).
If there were no such agent, the null hypothesis would be either (a)stasis of existence for infinity (no big bang); (b)the existence of exactly nothing (defined as "no thing" meaning no mass/energy, no space/time, no quantum field and no other existence either, contra Laurence Krauss). Theists acknowledge these positions and still claim that the weight of Aristotelian logic belongs to the existence of an agent, pre-existing material existence. Perhaps you can deduce an alternative that is not merely a denial, using grounded and true evidentiary premises which are valid in structure and pass Reductio Ad Absurdum and coherence tests.
For further exercise, you might produce a deduction for the emergence of self-awareness, intellect, agency, and assembly of increasing biologic information complexity within an open system receiving only solar photons, all having emerged deterministically from minerals.
I'm interested in your refutations.
I should have pointed out that "infinite universes", "orbiting tea pots", "evil", along with many other hypotheses of this sort, are not deducible, are not sustainable with empirical, replicable experimental data, and are not useful. I hope that saves some time and effort.
Already we receive an evasion of providing argumentation to support the stated position.
If there is ONE logical Creator Being, by definition that excludes the multiple unidentified "gods of your ancestors" from being that ONE specific Being. Until you address and refute the logical necessity of ONE AND ONLY ONE Unconditioned Reality (Uncaused Cause, Unmoved Mover) as the ONLY agent responsible for the creation of the universe, you can consider your multiple ancestral "gods" disproven linguistically - or not, since you don't seem to be interested in engaging the central question.
Do we now get treated to the "I just believe in one less God than you do" trope?
We will gather no moss from this stone rolling.
I dont know what is the logical argument is which insists, as per above, that there must be an agent with the capability and incentive to have created the universe. What makes you think that an agent like a human created the universe?
The theist proposition has been made. It's up to you to officially reject it using the vaunted Atheist resources of logic and evidence. When you do, then we have something to discuss.
Answering a question with another question is a rhetorical device to avoid actually providing an answer. When you provide an answer, then we can discuss it. Otherwise, there is nothing to discuss and the thread here is dead.
And no one said that a human was involved.
When you claim fallacy, you must show why it is a fallacy; otherwise, merely claiming fallacy is without merit.
I should add that Sean Carroll is a poor example of the use of physics for the purpose of defending the ideology of Philosophical Materialism (aka Naturalism). Do you wish to debate the video? If not, then I won't bother watching it.
DOXA: Against Infinite Causal Regress
In that article, Mathematician David Hilbert indicated that a beginningless series of events with no higher cause is impossible.
Good day Stan! It's seems to me that asking questions is a normal part of any discussion... if you are not interested in clarifying some points as per my question above, I shall agree there's no need to waste our time. Here I would add that an agent is defined as a human thinking for all I know so what makes you think it can be something else? We have fables talking of gods, a kind of fantastic agent, but why should we assume these exist by default, isn't it the believer's task to explain why such godly agent exists?
I should also add, per your above comment, that the Carroll-Craig debate doesn't support any kind of hard Naturalism, but does definitely show why Craig's arguments fail. Craig even quoted someone wrongly to support his point! Carroll showed video proving that. I forget the name... but yes I would kidla discuss the video more if you want.
JB, yes I have seen such example as what you presented above, but mathematics is within our reality, created by human agents and is thus not helping in proving anything regarding the nature of reality. What's within a set cannot tell you about what the set is made of if you want to continue using your above analogy. This is precisely what using mathematics to attempt justifying a finite universe does.
But it gets worse! Because who said gods cannot create infinite universes, why impose such limit on your gods or God? In my culture it is in fact accepted that the universe is eternal but created by a god whose essence is the source of all other gods and reality itself. The analogy goes to say that that 1 Essence God is like an ocean in which the other gods flow to, or from.
So perhaps you see why your point doesn't help justifying why such essence God actually exists?
Well, I believe that God is being itself, and I also believe that God is an eternal necessary being. No other gods flow from that one being. Also, an ICR (Infinite Causal Regress) can't really exist in actuality. Some being outside of time created the universe.
An agent is not necessarily human; many material agents exist which are not human. I’ll define agent for you:
1. Possesses self-awareness;
2. Possesses awareness of externals
3. Possesses cognition of objectives, of tactics necessary and sufficient to achieve objectives, and of consequences of exerting the cause necessary and sufficient to achieve the objective effect. (discrimination, discernment, and intentionality).
4. Possesses autonomy of action, including choice.
5. Possesses sufficient functional and causal resources to initiate causes intended to produce effects.
6. Possesses information awareness and ability to create and use it.
7. Makes decisions based on information.
Perhaps you won’t like this definition. It is a definition, not a discovered or revealed truth, so it is negotiable to a minor extent.
Next, your comment just above borders on radical skepticism; is that the path you intend to take? We can discuss that approach if you wish.
I know this is going to be a waste of time, but. . .
Anam: "In my culture it is in fact accepted that the universe is eternal. . ."
I previously provided the short version of the Kalām Cosmological Argument.
This is based on the best scientific explanation currently available, and is supported by all empirical evidence for the so-called Big Bang. Space, time, space-time, matter and energy, and all the laws of science, in short, the entire material universe began to exist concurrently at the so-called Singularity. This empirical physical data contradicts the notion of the universe being past eternal.
How do you resolve the paradoxes inherent in an actual past eternal universe, charitably presuming you are aware of them? Pick one, please, and elucidate logically how you can resolve the paradox.
Additionally, that the universe began to exist, and therefore has a cause, provides vital clues to the nature of that cause.
The cause is logically necessary and is eternal. Nothing begins to exist without a cause. This cause does not begin to exist; that is the meaning of an Unconditioned Reality; an Uncaused Cause, an Unmoved Mover. Arriving at such a cause is the logical argumentation that has been made for over 2,000 years. The usual atheist retort "Oh yeah? Then what is the cause of the Uncaused Cause? Yuk! Yuk! Yuk!" is logically incoherent.
The cause must be immaterial, because the entire material universe did not exist prior to the Singularity.
The cause must be rational, because the physical laws of the universe are rational. It also must be considerably more intelligent than we can imagine, because with all of our scientific searching, we are still scratching for explanations of how everything fits together.
The cause must be powerful beyond anything we can imagine, because of the capability to induce a controlled "explosion" from the Singularity into the known physical universe within an incredibly small amount of time without destroying it in the process.
I will be off-line for the next two days.
I can hardly wait to see how many more evasions and diversions will be posted during that time.
Take this as a lesson. It is not an adequate approach for the understanding of theism, to think about a god or gods, in a literalist, anthropomorphist contruct. Even some christian fundamentalists disagree with such a thing.
It seems you have quite a lot to learn about what you, yourself are rejecting. It depends on your character, if you want to give some good, adequate arguments for your rejection, or launching the typical, emotional diatribes of the ignorant folk, theists, agnostic and atheist alike. This is not about DISCRIMINATION of people who think differently, besides, it is the ego stroking of many atheists, that discriminate people who think differently to them, and some of them develop the same behavioral profiles of serial murderers.
The people who are fervent believers of the philosophical materialism extraordinaire... they make the same mistakes, they do not like that, they resort to emotion, then they make their own religions and shun the others, like any other fundamentalist and extremist, everywhere in this universe.
Stan and JB, thank for clarifying some definitions. However, as per your above comments, all I see are just that, definitions. Why believe that God is being itself? It's mixing the usage of being with something else that is supposed to 'be' yet is 'to be' itself. Regarding agents, defining more types doesnt prove they exist. I still don't understand what a non human agent is, besides the ones in fables, which is the point of contention here. Why believe they actually exist?
Robert, what is being avoided? There are many people talking to me here, sorry if not everything gets addressed, but your comment sounds more like Ad hominem attacks than reasoned arguments, as per your above comment, which ignores what scientists like Caroll can actually explain. Repeating doesn't prove points.
Yonose, are you laughing at my signature?
This blog feels less and less serious and more and more like juvenile attacks...
You are merely dodging having to answer anything by the vacuous claim that the issues have no meaning. You cannot prove that your Atheism is valid, so you dodge by using Radical Skepticism, which is the refuge of fools, those who wish to stroked yet return only gibberish.
A prime example: rejecting a definition because is doesn't "prove" the argument. This is irrational; all terms in an argument need definitions that all parties agree on; then the actual argument can proceed. Since you reject the definition on the "proof" basis, you indicate a lack of honest intellectual approach.
I am being blunt because we are attempting to present you with logic-driven intellectual and science-driven cases for discussion, but you present only deviational excuses as your rebuttal. No actual philosopher or scientist would shrink from answering the issues presented, under the conditions presented. Since you do not return any logic, but merely rejectionism rather than any logic for rebuttal, you have proven by default that (a) you have no rebuttal; (b) you are not interested in either science or logic; (c) you will refuse to engage with any issue directly, and instead you choose to question words and motives rather than concepts.
That approach places you into the troll camp. Now that your intellectual approach, lack thereof, has been established as trollism, there is no need to address your comments any further.
So at this point you may either engage with an honest intellectual argument, or you will merely be ignored, at least by me. The other commenters here can do as they wish.
Anam, when I talk about "being itself", I am referring to God as the Eternal Necessary Being. This explains it more:
DOXA God Argument 1: Being Has To Be, or Eternal Necessary Being
Good day Stan. I didn't reject the definitions, I was asking to explain more what you mean by 'agent' when not referring to humans as per the comments above. I am neither a philosopher nor a scientist. If you are, please kindly refer to your publications and I will gladly take a peek. If not, then you are just like me, someone trying to have a discussion, except thaf you decided to be blunt as you said, what I would actually label as rude, impatient, arrogant and unwilling to converse. You are no different than the fundamentalist Hindus of my parents' generation. You all believe in different gods but assume you are right and ask others to prove you wrong, on your own terms, because of tradition, not reason and logic. You start with assumptions about what an agent is and called me a Radical skeptic for not accepting your conclusiond as an assumption, which is that an agent exists in non human form, gods. As per above you clearly want to start with the notion that an agent is not necessarily human, which automatically supports your conclusion that such agent exists, this is what you should be proving, not assuming. Show me your book justifying that claim, if not, best regards and goodbye.
Same with JB, no conversation, just claims and a link. Sorry, not interested, this is better done in person then, where you cannot gish gallup or avoid hard questions like you do here. In person, you wouldnt have this refuge.
Anam, I would like you try to debate your beliefs with the person who wrote the material that I linked to. He would wipe the floor with you (although now isn't a good time because he has been having trouble with his kidneys, and he has been back and forth between ICU and a rehab center).
I didn't reject the definitions, I was asking to explain more what you mean by 'agent' when not referring to humans as per the comments above. I am neither a philosopher nor a scientist. If you are, please kindly refer to your publications and I will gladly take a peek.
The explanation of the requirements for the necessary ability to perform acts of agency, for purposes of this discussion, is clearly given.
Your refusal to accept the terms of the discussion serves only to stop any rational debate about whether they can or cannot be a necessary and sufficient factor in causality. FYI, I was a career R&D Electrical Engineer in the design of logic circuits, processor emultors and networks; my intellectual property was in the form of patents (which I will not list because I do not release my name due to prior stalking).
So if you wish to challenge logic and/or science and/or the philosophy of science, then do so – but do it rationally and without placing absurd conditions on a mere definition.
If not, then you are just like me, someone trying to have a discussion, except thaf you decided to be blunt as you said, what I would actually label as rude, impatient, arrogant and unwilling to converse.
Your comments so far are nothing but circumlocution, which have all the earmarks of being designed to waste time by avoiding addressing the actual issue which has been presented to you in full.
You are no different than the fundamentalist Hindus of my parents' generation. You all believe in different gods but assume you are right and ask others to prove you wrong, on your own terms, because of tradition, not reason and logic.
Ah. So you are a youngster who “knows” that his wisdom supersedes everyone else’s. That statement explains a lot.
You start with assumptions about what an agent is and called me a Radical skeptic for not accepting your conclusiond as an assumption, which is that an agent exists in non human form, gods.
I made no assumption. I gave you the starting conditions for an argument. Anything you attach to it is of your own derivation, not mine. In fact, it is YOUR assumption that all agents must be human, and that is a presupposition which you cannot prove, either deductively or with empirical, scientific, experimental evidence. So you are asserting an unprovable blind belief based on neither logic nor evidence as your stumbling block to even addressing the issue. And you demand that your blind belief be disproved, when there is no rational reason to believe it in the first place. Next you have attached that blind belief to a definition which does not even say anything about the source of agency, but merely defines the characteristics of the act of agency and the prerequisite necessary capacities required. No mention is made in the definition regarding the “thing” which is an agent.
Those two errors, to which you insist are not errors but are essential before addressing the argument, show that you are not in any manner predisposed to applying disciplined logic to the argument which you have been given.
You obviously do not want to address the issue that a specific effect could not have happened under Naturalist, deterministic circumstances, but have all the earmarks of the causal product of an agent. So you derail the conversation with objections which are clearly absurd.
As per above you clearly want to start with the notion that an agent is not necessarily human, which automatically supports your conclusion that such agent exists, this is what you should be proving, not assuming. Show me your book justifying that claim, if not, best regards and goodbye.
And this statement is clearly absurd, since there is no mention of the “thing” which bears agency in the definition, as pointed out, c
learly, above. This is merely a deviation tactic, i.e., a Red Herring Fallacy. And if you only believe in books, then you don’t need to be on the web, wasting others’ time, do you?
You have been given several chances, even to modify the definition. But you don’t do that. You attack your own phony claim that only humans can be agents, because, apparently you know that… somehow. You can either deal with the concepts in the definition, or not. But I will not pursue claims of meanings which are neither explicit nor implicit in the definition, nor intended in an way to be in the definition.
I do not need to make fun of anybody. Those are the facts. Fundamentalism is precisely the same intended ignorance and shallowness of thought and enquiry, by definition. It is clear and simple. It may sound weird to you, but it is irrelevant if a person is religious/theist, agnostic, or atheist, if they have the common behavioral traits which may classify a person, as a fundamentalist.
Now that things have been somehow categorized, it is important to understand that some people deliberately choose to be ignorant of such matters, and they get richer by selling lies to sycophant, unsuspecting people. If she/he is not a religious fundamentalist posing as a television evangelist, is an atheistic scientist who imposes her/his religion, while rejecting and hating the rest of them. Neither a fundy evangelist, nor a scientistic scientist, are experts in the topic, nor either are some theologists of the "deconstructive" type.
The logical fallacy you are constantly making is known as Appeal to Authority.
Yes I still young compare to you Stan I suppose. I am still in my 20s finishing my masters, for which I moved to the USA recently. Good for you to have patents! Impressive and most certainly not like many patent trolls of recent years... but I fail to see the relevance in supporting philosophical views on eternity and agency or scientific notions of the beginning of the universe. Scientists clearly agree that we cannot confirm or disprove that there was indeed a beginning in a causal sense as we use in our everyday life. Time itself appears to not exist at the Big Bang moment so any causation claims are hypothetical at best.
As per above no I don't think I better than anyone attempting the same humble quest. It actually seems pretty obvious per the above comments that I am not the one insisting that he has special knowledge of the intricacy of the universe. But you people here do! You make strong claims about what is the cause of the universe, what an agent is and how agency can exist without humans. Just like my ancestors who have tradition and culture on their side you become very emotional when questioned on the reasons why your beliefs must be true. You dislike questions and become angry, attacking the next generations for not being gullible. This is purely exploratory on my part so it would help me to get convinced if you were trying instead of attacking, but I understand if you prefer not to. The idea of the Blog per the title is more about analyzing atheism so perhaps this is not the place for me to ask questions.
As I expected. . . boldly going where we have gone so many times before: nowhere.
but I fail to see the relevance in supporting philosophical views on eternity and agency or scientific notions of the beginning of the universe.””
So you apparently cannot relinquish your Appeal to Authority Fallacy, your need for Credentialism, as a source of truth, to be taken over actual logic, actual science which is based in, and dependent upon logic, deductions which can be made from that.
Of the three things you mention above, one is a concept, one is a definition, one is based on observations. It appears that you confuse their types.
” As per above no I don't think I better than anyone attempting the same humble quest. It actually seems pretty obvious per the above comments that I am not the one insisting that he has special knowledge of the intricacy of the universe. But you people here do! You make strong claims about what is the cause of the universe, what an agent is and how agency can exist without humans.”
No, you are the one demanding special knowledge which conforms to your specifications, rather than attempting to follow a grounded deductive argument, which you effectively kill by rejecting a simple definition for no reason or reasoning whatsoever. That is irrational. If you cannot accept a simple definition as the starting point for a discussion, it Is yourself which is making a claim about the logical underpinnings of discussion of scientific claims and their validity: all terms start with definitions of their meanings.
You do not question the meanings; you question the act of defining a term, which you seem to think is an act of arrogance, when it actually is a necessity of logic.
” Scientists clearly agree that we cannot confirm or disprove that there was indeed a beginning in a causal sense as we use in our everyday life. Time itself appears to not exist at the Big Bang moment so any causation claims are hypothetical at best.”
Scientists also agree that the evidence is so heavy in the direction of a universe expanding away from a point that it would be delusional to claim that there was no beginning, given that gravitational pull would condense it into a planck nugget, and then into essential non-existence.
If you are asserting that the universe is an effect without a cause due to the lack of time at its creation, and you seem to demand evidence for every word, then give evidence that there was an effect without a cause at the point of the big Bang. If there was an effect with no cause, then all science is suspect, because science is based on the notion there is a cause for every effect, and that it can be deduced and reproduced experimentally and can be replicated at will, and further, that all objective knowledge is obtained through this empirical procedure. That actually is reductive logical positivism, now long since rejected as the sole source of knowledge, or as a useful construct for restricting knowledge.
” Just like my ancestors who have tradition and culture on their side you become very emotional when questioned on the reasons why your beliefs must be true.”
You misinterpret my terseness, which is impatience with those whose personal illogic is vaunted above actual Aristotelian principles – specifically to avoid the necessity of discussing the rational basis for their own claims. Which is what you are doing. You do NOT provide any evidence for any of your conclusions, you do NOT provide any deductive approach for your conclusions, you merely make off-the-cuff accusations with no basis at all. And that in a tone of arrogant superiority of personal knowledge that you are correct in your assessment, with no need for any evidence or logic whatsoever. That places your position in the camp of self-enamored ideology with no basis other than personal self-satisfaction.
” You dislike questions and become angry, attacking the next generations for not being gullible.”
My criticism concerns the avoidance of rational discussion by making claims of being skeptical, without any basis whatsoever.
” This is purely exploratory on my part so it would help me to get convinced if you were trying instead of attacking, but I understand if you prefer not to. The idea of the Blog per the title is more about analyzing atheism so perhaps this is not the place for me to ask questions.”
Exploratory? I suggest that you take a course in Logic 101; a course in the Philosophy of Science; perhaps that would help you in exploring the art of rational pursuit of an issue.
Attacking? Rejecting the concept of a definition by claiming that I have no right to define a term under your concept of authority is attacking. And I reject your logical ability to pursue any actual analytical path. That is not an attack, it is a conclusion based on this conversation.
It's seems amazing that Atheist rhetoric and tactical fallacies don't work over here.I bet you were so absolutely certain Atheists have the monopoly on knowledge,logic and science,until you met Stan that is.
From where I'm sitting it is so fascinitaing to finally watch Atheists get chewed up with their own principles of logic and scientific evidence.
Here's a crazy idea for you when you finally stop your evasive tactics.Why don't you attack Stan's age and tell us how young you are because that would make you seem like a prodigy of some sort (but not in logic and science of course).Honestly,that don't impress me much.It's just another dodge to avoid your intellectual responsibilities.
Ii is already known to you, how to approach with motivation, and be persistent with what you like to do.
As an advice, you should be thinking about an heutagogical approach. Not everything said in academia is useful and/or true, because many of the faculty members working for higher education, tend to subliminally apply much of their personal bias when teaching, or designing curriculums, and so, you will only be successful with them, if you like what they do, and do as they say, almost never as they do.
The rest is up to you. But when the fundamentals are lacking, it is more difficult to have a systematic, methodological and/or axiomatic approach, to question and enquiry further, into any particular, specific topic, with its own touch of creativity.
Have a good day and thanks for passing by.
Good day all! It's strange to see so much strong reactions to so little comments from my part. This seems to indicate utmost preconceived judgment most likely due to previous encounters with the Atheists. Most importantly how can Atheism be analyzed if any or all Atheists are quickly ascribed labels such Radical Skeptics, AtheoLeft, chronic dodger and rejectors of reason and logic so quickly on this blog? Per my comments, I see no reason to use the above. I barely said anything and don't even know what these labels mean exactly to be honest!
On the above issues what I can only repeat is what is obvious: emotional reactions and ad hominem are not strong support for your positions. I never pretended to have special access to truth nor presented any dogmatic views. Yet you all did, Stan, Robert, Phoenix, yonose... did I miss anyone?
For instance, it's a strong statement to pretend that the universe necessarily was caused by an external agent. This is way beyond the understanding of anything science tells us. It's not the argument from authority I am making above, as I am claiming that you are the ones making knowledge claims about things we don't know about, and arguably being offended when one points out that per above neither you nor I nor anyone does know.
Regarding agency, just as a mere matter of definitions, again as per above the emotional reaction from Stan is strong! I am merely asking to explain why we should believe that a conscious agent can be non human? The answer is that by definition it can be and I am a radical skeptic to not believe. But again why would I believe such human agent, or agents, or gods exist? Defining agency without referring to humans is defining gods into existe existence from the start. Just like my ancestors this belief is so strong that the Theist forgets that agency is utmost important aspect of humans first, and that humans talk about their idea of other agents they believe exist. They project their own agency on spiritual realm beings they believe exist. Closing that circular reasoning, Stan then gets on the defensive and claim the only rational position must be to accept his above definitions of agency which already include gods implicitly by defining agency as just human, when the goal of Theistic arguments is precisely about explaining why we should believe the above claims of non human agency. Starting with a conclusion and then attacking the non believer for not believing is utmost irrational and dishonest it seems, as the burden of proof is moved unfairly to the non believer, like me who again only ask to understand why such agent is even possible, not even yet probable!
P.s Sorry if a double post appeared above, my wifi was spotty and making browser freeze... and while a sorry is written, so another one if I offend anyone, I don't pretend to know more, just asking questions!
” Good day all! It's strange to see so much strong reactions to so little comments from my part. This seems to indicate utmost preconceived judgment most likely due to previous encounters with the Atheists.”
It’s interesting. We will see how this holds up as we go along through your response.
”Most importantly how can Atheism be analyzed if any or all Atheists are quickly ascribed labels such Radical Skeptics, AtheoLeft, chronic dodger and rejectors of reason and logic so quickly on this blog?”
You, as a person, are not being labeled as anything. Your behaviors in your comments here are called out for what they are. You don’t like that, so you respond with this sort of deviational rhetoric. You are still here, contributing nothing of a logic or scientific nature. You refuse to even address a simple terminology issue. For the act of trying to define a term, you have accused that act of being an argument, which it obviously is not. That accusation is irrational.
”Per my comments, I see no reason to use the above. I barely said anything and don't even know what these labels mean exactly to be honest!”
If you cannot understand these things, why are you so upset by them? Do they trigger you? Never mind, we’ll get to the real issue momentarily.
” On the above issues what I can only repeat is what is obvious: emotional reactions and ad hominem are not strong support for your positions. I never pretended to have special access to truth nor presented any dogmatic views. Yet you all did, Stan, Robert, Phoenix, yonose... did I miss anyone?”
You make the following truth claims:
1 .It is true that to make a definition of terms prior to using the term in a deductive hypothesis, is itself an irrational act by your own definition.
2. it is true that referring to your behaviors as what they are, as observable by your responses, is emotional and therefore this is an offense against you.
3. It is true that you make no dogmatic statements, except for #1 and #2 above (and #3 here), which are demonstrably (a) dogmatic, (b) false, (c) a deception attempt to cover for not making any argument except for denialism, which prevents any argument from actually being made. That is a handy device of disruptive rhetoric which prevents you from having to actually use science and logic to disprove any argument you don’t want to be made.
4. You have made the statement several times that your youth gives you the intellectual advantage of skepticism, and then you bristle at the classification of your position as radical skepticism, which it is.
So far, you have committed to two untruths, and one non-coherent statement, one circular denial (actually another non-coherence), plus a handful of incorrect analyses of objections to your behaviors.
” For instance, it's a strong statement to pretend that the universe necessarily was caused by an external agent. This is way beyond the understanding of anything science tells us.”
You have not even heard the argument and you immediately reject it based on “science”, which you claim by default to be arbiter of all possible knowledge. You label an argument which has not even been made as “pretense”, an Ad Hominem in a failed attempt to belittle the argument before it is made. It is apparent that for you, science has no limitations, and is the source of all truth (Scientism, the ideology). This means that you do not understand the limits of science and the actual sources of true arguments. But your own dogmatism is again the dominant factor.
” It's not the argument from authority I am making above, as I am claiming that you are the ones making knowledge claims about things we don't know about, and arguably being offended when one points out that per above neither you nor I nor anyone does know.”
And here is the clinching dogmatic claim:
(a) You are not dogmatic; (false, as shown above)
(b) You make no Appeal to Authority; (false, as shown above and below)
(c) There is, and can be, no knowledge which is not scientific; (both dogmatic and Appeal to Authority)
(d) Therefore any criticism of (a), (b), (c) has to be emotional. (False conclusion, necessary Ad Hominem to deflect attention from fleeing from a deductive argument).
” Regarding agency, just as a mere matter of definitions, again as per above the emotional reaction from Stan is strong! I am merely asking to explain why we should believe that a conscious agent can be non human?”
If you would have read the definition and allowed the hypothesis to be taken through the logic, it would be apparent; but you will not do that, it is too dangerous for you, given your ideology of blind science worship (Scientism). Had you even looked at the definition you would have realized that there are non-human agents everywhere, from software agents to robotic agents to molecular agents running around in every cell of every living body, etc.
You are the one defining, dogmatically that agents must be human. You have no proof for this position of denialism, and such a negative assertion cannot be proven “scientifically”, so you violate your own standards egregiously and irrationally by insisting on such. If you were consistent in your Scientism you would insist that you show us your data for support of your dogmatic claim that no non-human agents exist. (even the concept of that notion is irrational) But you assert your dogmatic Scientism unilaterally, only for attack but not for supporting data for your own position. That is irrational and logically flawed, plus rhetorically unfair, which is, of course, the whole point of such rhetoric.
” The answer is that by definition it can be and I am a radical skeptic to not believe. But again why would I believe such human agent, or agents, or gods exist? Defining agency without referring to humans is defining gods into existe existence from the start. Just like my ancestors this belief is so strong that the Theist forgets that agency is utmost important aspect of humans first, and that humans talk about their idea of other agents they believe exist.”
You have hereby created your own concept of the argument which in reality you refuse to allow to be made. That is a blatant Straw Man Fallacy, used to deflect any future argument which contains logic – which again is dangerous to you - because of your blind rebellion against your elders, than which you are “smarter”.
In fact, you seem to “know” that science is capable of proving or disproving every possible hypothesis, regardless of its non-physical content. How do you know that? Science itself did not and cannot tell you that, because that position, your position, is not a physical entity which can be experimentally verified or falsified in order to provide objective knowledge. So science fails you immediately, before you even get started. Look up Karl Popper and falsification.
” They project their own agency on spiritual realm beings they believe exist. Closing that circular reasoning, Stan then gets on the defensive and claim the only rational position must be to accept his above definitions of agency which already include gods implicitly by defining agency as just human, when the goal of Theistic arguments is precisely about explaining why we should believe the above claims of non human agency.”
This is a continuation of your false Straw Man. And it is the argument that every argument which is not Naturalistic and amenable to physical testing by science is automatically false. You cannot prove that with any scientific experimental verification data, so you are making an ideological prejudgment based on biased, obviously rebellious, anti-logic and therefore anti-intellectual premises.
” Starting with a conclusion and then attacking the non believer for not believing is utmost irrational and dishonest it seems, as the burden of proof is moved unfairly to the non believer, like me who again only ask to understand why such agent is even possible, not even yet probable!”
You were asked to follow and disprove an argument which started with a definition of terminology. You refuse on the basis that it cannot be true because all agents are human - because you say so. This indicates a high probability that you hold beliefs which you cannot prove either with science (even about science) or with disciplined logic. Thus you must attack first with ideology rather than allowing the hypothesis to be built and then disproving it with disciplined logic or science.
So now you are free to provide your scientific evidence which supports your dogmatic claims as follows:
1. Prove that all arguments which are not scientifically supported are false.
2. Prove that all agents must, under all circumstances, be human.
3. Prove statement #1, using empirical science to form a testable hypothesis, experimentally testable, falsifiable and not falsified, open data which is peer reviewed, as is all respectable science. Then do the same for #2.
4. If you choose the ignorance approach (we cannot know anything which science doesn’t tell us), then prove that statement to be true, using science.
If instead you choose rhetoric over logic, as you have done up until now, you will have demonstrated that your beliefs (and they are just beliefs, not truths) are not supportable with either logic (which you avoid) or with empirical science (with which you imbue powers which do not exist in real life empirical science).
And if you charge “emotion”, you will also demonstrate your attempt to deflect your intellectual responsibility for performing the tasks above by making false claims as Red Herrings.
It’s up to you. You made these truth claims; it’s up to you to support them.
Explanation for post-modernists:
The Fox and the Grapes is one of the traditional Aesop's fables and can be held to illustrate the concept of cognitive dissonance. In this view, the premise of the fox that covets inaccessible grapes is taken to stand for a person who attempts to hold incompatible ideas simultaneously. In that case, the disdain the fox expresses for the grapes at the conclusion to the fable serves at least to diminish the dissonance even if the behaviour in fact remains irrational. The moral to the story is "It is easy to despise what you cannot get."
Good day again Stan! Thanks for the detailed response but let me get to the 2 core issues as per above: agency and the universe. It's fairly simple in my opinion and your above comment shows some obfuscation.
Agency now defined seems very broad since per above it includes purely chemicals things like molecules. This implies that even if you were to convince me that an "agent" is behind the universe, that kind of agent could be completely blind, unaware of what it's doing. Now that's not the type of gods you believe in obviously so you are dodging. The actual agent you want to prove is literally like a super human, or like a powerful thinking conscious entity of some sort. Therefore per your definition, which I can accept for the sake of argument, the argument fail from the start.
Regarding the universe it's even simpler as per my above comment I am not making any claims that are out of the ordinary for 2015 science, but you are.and try to shift the proof burden onto me! We know the universe is expanding, we can then extrapolate back and even see back in time by lookinh far and conclude that all that we see around was condensed in a tiny point, even time itself, even causation itself in the common sense of the word. It is thus om faith alone that you take a step more per your above commments and conclude something else, something stronger. But you dont know, nobody does! Time becomes meaningless pre Big Bang and so does causation. Why do you claim knowledge of a required 'cause' then? This argument fails too, and you are at odd with uter most physicist. This is no argument from authority, this is like a survey, and choose to go against it. I choose to believe them!
You could still build other arguments, using valid starting points... so far nothing even starts and you are dodging while accusing of dodging to ironically dodge even furthermore.
” Agency now defined seems very broad since per above it includes purely chemicals things like molecules. This implies that even if you were to convince me that an "agent" is behind the universe, that kind of agent could be completely blind, unaware of what it's doing.”
Didn’t read the definition, did you? You are wasting my time.
” Now that's not the type of gods you believe in obviously so you are dodging. The actual agent you want to prove is literally like a super human, or like a powerful thinking conscious entity of some sort.”
You have no idea what I am trying to prove because you haven’t seen the argument. You are making your own argument which you then “destroy” as a Straw Man. You have been advised. You are now nothing but a troll, as far as I can tell.
” Therefore per your definition, which I can accept for the sake of argument, the argument fail from the start.”
Since you do not know what the argument consists of, you cannot know this. You are now lying.
” Regarding the universe it's even simpler as per my above comment I am not making any claims that are out of the ordinary for 2015 science, but you are.and try to shift the proof burden onto me!”
Absolutely false. You cannot prove your Scientism and Materialism are true by using science. You have dodged once too often. Your claims are beyond ignorant, they are merely intended to be as disruptive as possible by making irrational claims and statements. Having just banned Hugo under a different pseudonym, I am about to ban him again under your pseudonym.
” We know the universe is expanding, we can then extrapolate back and even see back in time by lookinh far and conclude that all that we see around was condensed in a tiny point, even time itself, even causation itself in the common sense of the word. It is thus om faith alone that you take a step more per your above commments and conclude something else, something stronger.”
Since you cannot discriminate against your own logic errors, you are in no position to declare my logic to be “faith”. Especially since you refuse to look at a hypothesis which is deduced logically.
” . But you dont know, nobody does! Time becomes meaningless pre Big Bang and so does causation. Why do you claim knowledge of a required 'cause' then? This argument fails too, and you are at odd with uter most physicist. This is no argument from authority, this is like a survey, and choose to go against it. I choose to believe them!”
Physicists deduce and speculate all the time. You know nothing about science and its practices, or if you do, you certainly don’t show it. Most of what passes for science is, in fact, speculative hypotheses.
” You could still build other arguments, using valid starting points... so far nothing even starts and you are dodging while accusing of dodging to ironically dodge even furthermore.”
You cannot prove any of the positions you take using science. Therefore, your position is either ignorant; ideologically Scientistic; or merely obnoxious trolling. By ignoring the issues in the post just above, you prove that you are merely a troll, although you still might be both ignorant as well as Scientistic, too. Either way, your obtuse position and lack of addressing your obvious fallacies puts you off my radar.
I am done with you. I will not respond to any more of your ridiculous avoidance.
I just wonder, without prejudice, how well versed are you about Philosophy of Science and science in general?
There are some of your arguments, that seemingly do not match up, because of a projective behavior from your part. Projective behavior is one of the big stepping stones which lead to a poisonous romantic affair with any ideological, totalitarian pursuit.
Read up more, complain less. Too many catchy phrases and sloganisms. Never cutting to the chase.
If you EVER want to read something outside of ideological biases, you may as well read this:
Good day Stan, sorry to see you react in this surprising manner. As per my above comments, I am not making claims as much as possible as I try to inquire what beliefs the Atheist is lacking that the Theist strongly believe. I am not certain if Atheist is an accuracy label for my own views being most new to this. I wish emotions wouldn't get in the way as I see lots of frustration and usage of labels not familiar to me, now troll and hugo per above: other persons?
Wishing you good luck with uter most respect anyway!
A troll is a person intent on disruptive behavior. On this blog it is someone who refuses to respond to issues presented to him. That is your behavior.
Sorry again to hear Stan and a bit shocked that you replied to my question but decides to not post it and label me as someone who is avoiding issues, which is absolutely false. Per above, this sounds more emotional than rational. You completely acoided the agency discussion and universe topics by forcing your views, which is what we usually call a dogma support.
The issues were presented, then listed, you have avoided them. It's an empirical fact, available for all to see. And it is contrary to your false claim, just above.
Per my intial response to you,where I asked you not to runaway at round 1,I was at fault.You should have bailed (I apologize for not putting a "per" in that sentence).I am now able to see,per retrospect,those Atheists who ran away in the past did the relatively smart thing.
Perhaps (cool,there's a 'per' in that word) you should take sometime off,educate yourself some more on the philosophical issues per Atheism/Materialism and Theism/Dualism,then come back and we can tackle your objections together,per agreement of course.
Good day. I think it's very telling that people here call me names, pretend I am avoiding topics and even laugh at my writing as per Pheonix comment above. Are you all teens who like to point and laugh instead of adult coversation?
Stan, I have not avoided topics as per my above comment where I ask you more questions on agency and what it means to you, as a non philosopher, just like me. You chose to just call me a 'troll' and even hide 1 of my above comment. Now I don't know if you really are done or not per your above comments since you do reply... so utmost confusion on my part honestly!
I can thus ask again: why believe a self-aware agent can be bon human? Perhaps a machine built by human could become that? I would accept that I guess, but that's still well within the boundaries of the universe, built by humans. You introduced confusion with cells as I already above mentioned since these are chemicals non-self-aware things, not at all 'agent' in the human sense, which gods usually are, but much more powerful and somehow universe creators and somehow existing outside the universe and somehow 'causing' time but without time for causing effects with... lots of gaps per above. Yet acceptance should be granted at the first step of the argument, a non argument that is, as I still see no argument here, except the fallacious Kalam, already disproved and contradicting physics.
Merely declaring the Kalam disproved does not make it so.Here it is once again and show me which premise is false,and why the argument is invalid?
P1) Everything that began to exist has a cause
The first premise seems obviously true,since effects do not cause themselves.The second premise is proven by modern cosmology,the universe indeed has a beginning.And the conclusion follows necessarily from the premises.The Kalam is a valid modus ponens argument with true premises,therefore it is sound.
Phoenix, I am not particularly inclined to talk to you per your insulting comments above, but your comment is so wrong that I will at least say this: merely declaring that premise 2 is true does not make it so. Modern cosmology does not claim that the universe had a beginning in any meaningful causal sense that the Kalām Cosmological Argument requires. Nobody knows what it means to talk about 'before' the Big Bang in the way we discuss causation. The argument is so wrong you might one day realize how embarrassing it was to use it today. Since you prefered to insult my above writing style there is nothing more to tell you I think.
Modern cosmology does not claim that the universe had a beginning in any meaningful causal sense that the Kalām Cosmological Argument requires
The KCA makes no other claim except that the universe had a beginning and therefore a cause.Any meaning attached to it is extrapolation on the theist part,albeit a justified inference when one considers the moral,teleological,ontological arguments that support the KCA.However,regardless of any meaning that may or may not be explicitly contained in the KCA it is still a sound argument and you have done nothing to refute that except to attack an implicit extension of the argument.Do you or do you not accept that the universe has a cause?
Nobody knows what it means to talk about 'before' the Big Bang in the way we discuss causation
Actually Atheist and Theist philosophers discuss possible prior cause(s) for the Big bang all the time.It seems you are attempting to plead gross ignorance to avoid having to provide an answer,while merely lampooning your opponent's arguments.
The argument is so wrong you might one day realize how embarrassing it was to use it today
Ah,I see you've decided to evoke Promissary Materialism.In other words,one day science will eventually come rescue us from theist logic.Well,it's been centuries now since various cosmological arguments have been formulated,from antiquity,to the popular medieval times,up until modern times and still the sound deductions of the KCA,etc has been irrefutable.Perhaps it's time to relent your superfaith in a method that is voluntarily limited to the material plane.
Phoenix, no, per my comment above, perhaps you will get it one day. It's already wrong but you don't get it. Your interpretation is wrong and science is not on your side.
You may not be good at logic but at least you know how to dodge while claiming not to dodge.I have given you a valid deduction and I have presented arguments in support of the premises.You have not attacked the validity of the argument nor the soundness of the premises.
As said elsewhere as well, Anam is a troll; he exhibits all the characteristics of a troll; engages in infinite loops which disengage the conversation from a rational course; in this case he refuses to use any discernment in any analysis of the deduction presented. probably another Hugo sock puppet.
Future Anam submissions will be deleted without being read.