(January 23, 2012 at 12:51 am)Ryft Wrote: Is that true?

and that's where philosophy gets us.

(January 23, 2012 at 12:51 am)Ryft Wrote:

(January 23, 2012 at 12:39 am)Perhaps Wrote: A priori knowledge has no truth value past the person who believes them to be either true or false.

Is that true?

Depends on whom you read. So far, I've yet to come across a universal truth. (or moral absolute)

I understand this is also Wittgenstein's position, although he is more emphatic. I guess Void will correct me if I've misunderstood.

Is this true? Hell, I don't know or care especially.

I realise this explanation will probably not satisfy the average believer.The Abrahamic faiths especially are replete with absolute claims and rules (dogma) based on nothing more than the unprovable assertion that "God said so" to diverse prophets and mystics.Today such people would be called paranoid schizophrenics,frauds or just nutjobs.

(January 23, 2012 at 3:18 am)padraic Wrote: Today such people would be called paranoid schizophrenics,frauds or just nutjobs.

How about atheists with emergent technology?

Using their hearts as auxiliary brains to communicate simulation and emotional context with pulses of electromagnetic energy.

That's my hypothesis. If the Living Word of Gwynnite becomes a nexus of religious nonsense in central Massachusetts this year, you know what happened.

So, I guess this 'new way of looking at atheism' that the OP speaks of, is squinting your eye until it's not atheism anymore.

(January 23, 2012 at 7:34 am)DoubtVsFaith Wrote: So, I guess this 'new way of looking at atheism' that the OP speaks of, is squinting your eye until it's not atheism anymore.

Basically ...??

Yes. It is also safe to assume (I am thinking) that theists have no conception of atheism and therefore are incapable of arguing against it or a life without their sky-daddy watching over them which does lead one to consider the possibility that theists are VERY insecure.

meh

Many theist members here, namely the most crazy, sometimes give me the impression that they can't imagine how we can be atheists, as if somehow there could be a dichotomy: There is a god or there is nothing. I think this is something from the psychology realm. In the end theists are only lying to themselves.

They seem to enjoy compartmentalising their duplicity

(January 23, 2012 at 7:56 am)LastPoet Wrote: Many theist members here, namely the most crazy, sometimes give me the impression that they can't imagine how we can be atheists,

I actually had a theist on another message board find it impossible that I could go through my day without worshiping anything.

(January 23, 2012 at 12:39 am)Perhaps Wrote: A priori knowledge has no truth value past the person who believes them to be either true or false.

I could say that applesauce is mushroom and claim a priori reasoning. That doesn't mean it's true.

To say logic produces truth, or specifically that the law of noncontradiction is true, is simply to state a belief (most likely based on utility).

To make a claim of absolute truth is to assert human arrogance.

I have to disagree here. I suspect this is somewhat similar to the discussion on intuition we had earlier. While I can declare some things to be true a-priori, such as in mathematics, there are a category of apriori knowledge without which no knowledge would be possible.

I think that if there could be any absolute truths, those would be the knowledge of the apriori facts. I don't think that there can be any statement concerning knowledge that can be made without accepting these axioms as true and therefore, any knowledge that denies these axioms would be self-refuting.

For example, the law of non-contradiction is not merely a belief. It is identification of the way this universe works and without such an identification no knowledge or beliefs can be held.

(January 22, 2012 at 5:33 am)Ryft Wrote:

(January 19, 2012 at 2:23 am)Perhaps Wrote: An example of modus ponens is as follows ...[snip example]... This aspect of logic is used to both explain the existence of God, and to disprove the existence of God by means of evidence of absence.

Please provide a modus ponens argument that disproves the existence of God by means of evidence of absence.

(January 19, 2012 at 2:23 am)Perhaps Wrote: We can scientifically verify ...

No, we cannot. Science is not in the verification business. (Consider the problem of confirmation bias.) With regard to the criterion of demarcation, a proposition or hypothesis is a matter of ordinary science to the extent that it is falsifiable in the main and at least in principle. As Kuhn might say, this is the currently accepted paradigm of the scientific community.

Moreover, the existence of some x is a matter of metaphysics, specifically ontology, not a matter of science. And some things exist which are not, and cannot be, a matter of scientific inquiry; for example, the law of noncontradiction, which is normative and a priori knowledge.

Hi, Ryft!

Would you please provide a definition for the God you're referring to so I can be sure I'm talking about the right one? I don't mean just Christian God, that's obvious, but is it omnipotent and omniscient and so forth?