Thanks for creating a forum with real debate!

[Angrboda]

The man's name is Hippocrates. (Though I can understand why you might have the notion of hypocrisy on your brain. Freudian slip much?)

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It doesn't appear clear that Hippocrates ever even said this. But I'd have to research the matter more thoroughly. Is "First Do No Harm" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">

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Like I said, I have average intelligence, if you are trying to prove that I'm basically average, that is unnecessary. There are millions of people smarter than me. If you want to actually argue about ideas, that is a different story.

Actually, your original claim was that you probably had above average intelligence. Your decision to revise your estimate of your own abilities downward is likely wise. Kudos to you for that.

[fr0d0]

Actually, your original claim was that you probably had above average intelligence. Your decision to revise your estimate of your own abilities downward is likely wise. Kudos to you for that.

So many put downs. So little else

[Angrboda]

Actually, your original claim was that you probably had above average intelligence. Your decision to revise your estimate of your own abilities downward is likely wise. Kudos to you for that.

So many put downs. So little else

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You were doing so well up to the last sentence! An atheist with principles is like off is a TV channel.

Troll much?

It's called fun cthulu, you should try it

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And the above constitutes your entire contribution to this thread.

Perhaps you'd like to refer back to the post about "Hypocrites" which spawned this little tête-à-tête.

[jstrodel]

Very insightful. The same thing can be said of theism. It's not a flaw. They are words that descibe beief in one or more gods, or the lack thereof. Different people have different reasons for the positions they hold. Theism doesn't defend the position of theism, theists do. Atheism likewise.

Theists seldom identify themselves as theists in order to escape epistemological issues. Some theists subscribe to fidism, but I think that is a bad position.

Or you can just not believe in God. There's no rule that says you have to justify your position. And I doubt most atheists have eliminating religion as a goal. Who has that kind of time? I think you overestimate how energetic, goal-oriented, and anti-religion most atheists are.

I don't overestimate it. It disgusts me how atheists can make the incredibly destructive, nihilistic, evil claims that they do, using the mocking, derogatory, demonic language intended at teaching youth it is ok to blaspheme and then have this pathetic and cowardly fidism which is just the same that they accuse intellectually immature Christians of. Some Christians do accept fidism, which is similar to the atheist rejection of Christianity, but this position is typically reserved for those whom God does not gift with the ability to defend their ideas rationality. This is not necessarily a mark of poor character, so long as they are guided by those who have a sense of justification.

It is incredibly irresponsible to fail to justify any belief in a rigorous and comprehensive method. While it is true that most Christians do not do this as individuals, the Christian church DOES do this.

Did you not read my post about swapping the words 'theist' for 'atheist' in a post to see if it makes equal sense?

Agreed, but have you ever been to a seminary library. There are tons and tons and tons of books devoted to this question. Theists certainly must, at some level, ground their entire worldview in responsible views of epistemology, but some do this, and most theologians do this. I wish more did, at a popular level.

Are you willing to wear both those shoes or do you want to kick off the one where theism carries the same weight you say atheism must carry?

Theistic critiques of atheism proceed out of the internal ethical understanding of theism (sometimes interpreted through atheistic concepts).

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In order to defend your default position, you need to rely on some sort of external ideology.

Which would be...external. In order to defend your theism, you need to rely on some external theology. So what?

Not intended to refute atheism, only to refute the definition of atheism, as a sufficient expression of rational belief, as mere non belief in theism. I would put this non-rational rejection of theism at the same level ignorance. Atheism that sees "atheism is not belief, atheism is nonbelief" as a sufficient expression of a rational belief has the same level of rationality as ignorance because the statement "I do not believe your claims about theism" require either a complex chain of heavily ideological criticisms of religious belief to plausibly fit into the category of K=JTB or something similar.

Saying that "atheism is not belief, atheism is non-belief" is about as authoritative as saying "I do not believe atheism is true because I am ignorant of theism or ignorant of atheism". For the statement "atheism is not belief, atheism is non-belief" to justify the proposition "A certain claim about theism is false", a large amount of evidence for the entire epistemic chain required to support the atheist critique of Christianity.

The statement "atheism is not belief, atheism is non-belief" is as justified as "I do not believe in Christianity because I don't believe it" or "I do not believe Christianity because I am ignorant of it". If the content of the proposition merely refers to the assent of the person making the claim, it is a non-rational fidist claim, equally justified as "I do not believe the earth is round" because "I do not affirm the position that the earth is round" and then seeming to claim that the belief "I do not believe the earth is round" is rational because it is not affirming a specific proposition about the earths roundness. Of course this is all sophistry, and it is completely obvious why someone would intend to make the impossible claim that to withhold assent implies some sort of justification given to the assent being withheld.

Christianity acknowledges that it is a propositional religion, affirms the need for rational justification of Christian belief, places Christian belief in the same universe as other beliefs and using similar standards (though some Christians do not do this) and justifies Christianity using a very wide variety of epistemological approaches ranging from the early church's immersion in the neo-Platonists and Greek and Roman rhetoric (see Augustine), Aquinas's natural theology which uses Aristotelian philosophy, the monastics quest for mysticism and the miraculous through prayer and contemplation, Anselm's reasoned defense of theology, Descartes rationalistic skepticism, Berkeley's idealism, Pascal's aphoristic apologetic, Newtons fusion of science with Christian mysticism, other early scientists and philosophers like Bacon and Locke, who contributed substantially to the modern scientific understanding of epistemology, the Jesuits and their scholastic and neo-scholastic approaches to the defense of Christianity, the Protestants Biblical approach to apologetics, often versed in Aristotle as in the works of Theodore Beza, figures like Jonathan Edwards who intercepted intellectual currents at Princeton which he was an earlier leader, early Christians at Harvard University, initially trained to instruct ministers and also to integrate and understanding of the world not to mention the medieval universities and non-Jesuit approaches to intellectualism, 19th century Calvinist followers of Edwards such as BB Warfield at Princeton and Charles Hodge, John Wesley and his revival preaching and manifestations of the power of God in holiness to prove the veracity of the Christian faith, Count Zizendorf and the moravians who prayed and embraced a form of pietiesm to quicken the heart to understand God, the American Scientific Affiliation a protestant organization designed to explore the relationship between science and the Christian faith, the modern Neo-Evangelical Association the the modern Christian colleges, Catholic Universities such as Georgetown, Boston College, Fordam, Notre Dame, Catholic University of America which perform rigorous research that costs billions of dollars, English apologists like CS Lewis, NT Wright, Alaisdair MacGraph, modern Reformed epistemologists such as Alvin Plantiga, Nicholas Wolterstaff, contentential philosophers such as Kierkegaard, and many, many, many, many other figures.

Christianity has never shied away from the question of rational defense of Christianity, what it has shied away from is the requirement that every single Christian must provide a rational defense of their beliefs. Why is this? Because Christianity is a life and death issue, that is tied to to the believers sense of right and wrong and the knowledge of God, the most important topic in that there is. This does not make the Christian faith irrational, it only means that for some Christians, the rationality of their faith depends on non-rational factors. In actuality, this is not very much different from the way that figures in academia rely on each other for insight into the nature of the world without necessarily being able to check every single issue due to lack of professional specialization. It is an argument from authority, but there are ways for Christians to still test the fidelity of what is being taught, to the scriptures, to their own witness of the Holy Spirit and to their conscience.

There are thousands upon thousands of books written on the intellectual justification, aimed at a wide variety of cultures and philosophies. The church has been defending Christianity for two thousand years, and that process of defense has led to the creation of the modern universities.

Atheism as a default position is really more of an argument from authority.

I don't need to appeal to authority to say I don't believe in God. Saying so doesn't involve me telling you that you should agree with be because I have the support of an inappropriate 'authority'. Are you just slapping random concepts together?

No, I am not slapping random concepts together. If you are arguing that it is rational to believe that God does not exist, not as a justified epistemological proposition but as a default argument, that belief is sort of like an argument from authority to yourself -"I do not believe theism" would seem to imply - "Theism is false because I do not believe it". This is obviously a logical fallacy.

p - "I do not believe theism"
q - "Theism is false"

if p then q

If the truth of atheism can be verified similarly to the truth of other things, try and substitute something else:

As mentioned above, look at the form this takes:

if p then q

p - "I do not believe the earth is round"
q - "The earth is not round"


Obviously this is extremely basic logic, not even undergraduate level. It is an extremely foolish thing to believe that p > q for p is a non self evident belief. It is an argument from authority, and a completely arbitrary authority, unless p has some reason why their belief of p would have any bearing on the truth of q.

You need to know the origin of the universe to justifiably believe you know that it was created by a being, you need to know that being's attributes to justifiably claim to know about that being. You do not know the origin of the universe and you do not know anything about the cause of it. All you know is that you don't want it to be 'not God'.

I don't think you need to know the origin of the universe to have justified beliefs about God. Where does this requirement come from? Why the origin of the universe? Why not the number of hairs on the head of an ostrich?

It pretty much is, which is why most of us are weak/agnostic atheists rather than stron/gnostic ones. It leaves the mystery of why so few theists are (or will admit to being) weak/agnostic theists, but I suppose that's their problem.

I appreciate your honesty and your willingness to yeild to the truth. It shows that you are serious about philosophy, which is much more than a debating, ego centered game and is more like a spiritual exchange between honest people both commited to the truth.

When I first became a Christian, honestly I couldn't say that I knew that God existed or not, I was told to have faith and I had some evidence for the existence of God and felt that God had done some things in my life. Now, I do not have any doubt that God is real. I have seen God hundreds of times. I am positive that God is real.

I would have thought you've been here long enough to have a better grasp of our actual positions: one, that they're diverse; and two, that most of us don't claim to know atheism is true.

If you don't know if atheism is true, why blaspheme God? Why say Christians are idiots.

I know that there are a lot of scientists who are agnostics, who are pretty convinced that Christianity isn't true. But a lot of the time, they don't shout it from the rooftops. They don't define their movement by blasphemy and by ridicule and using non-rational persuasion techniques to advance a culture war. They just don't believe in God. I respect people like this, who are weak atheists not only as a title, but weak atheists in practice, and the language that they use refers not to words and phrases that signify strong atheism but weak atheism.

The only default position that people can have is ignorance, does not follow the form of K = JTB, is not knowledge. How is this an argument from authority? Because the certainty of justification is not based on rational considerations, such as knowledge = justified true belief or something similar, but it is based on invoking the authority of atheism as it has been transmitted from some other source or as it exists in the mind from non-rational sources. In this sense it is similar to religious belief, as good as the authority that it relies on.

Atheism is not an authority, has no authority, and no one is invoking it as an authority. We ARE ignorant. Everyone is. We're just making the best guess we know how to with the information we have. We can say that you don't seem to be aware of a reason to believe in God that isn't flawed in its premises or fallacious (or both).

I appreciate your humility.

Sounds fair, but in order to say that you must argue for what is presupposed in the ground of the justification of the rejection of theistic evidence. I would argue that this will be very difficult for atheists to ground all of their reasons for rejecting theistic arguments, as well as their assumptions about what the nature of belief should be, if they can talk about should at all.

We can say that we are justified in holding the null hypothesis until it is overcome. We are not justified in saying that we have justified true belief/knowledge that there is no God...so we don't. Why is this so hard for you to grasp?

I understand what you are saying. But the way that you use the terms "null hypothesis" presupposes that this is a valid method for knowing whether God exists. How do you know that you should not hold the null hypothesis concerning the applicability of the null hypothesis to theism until the null hypothesis concerning the applicability of the null hypothesis is overcome.

Let me say that another way because it is complicated:

The proposition:
1. p - The null hypothesis method is suitable for arriving at a concept of God
2. ~p - The null hypothesis method is probably not suitable for arriving at a concept of God
3. q - God exists
4. ~q - God does probably does not exist


To believe ~q presupposes p. But this violates the method of the null hypothesis, which is obviously cultural and is not a self evident method.

Everyone has to do a Kierkegaardian leap of faith somewhere, whether it is to the null hypothesis or some other philosophy of science or epistemology, or it is to Christianity.

I made my leap of faith to Christianity and became a mystic and I can promise you that it is real. I have no doubt that there is value to science as well, as virtually everything around me is tied to science. But that does not demonstrate the relevance of modern science to understanding theism, anymore than scientific achievements 200 years ago demonstrated the relevance of science for the problems it was unable to understand then.


I do not believe that atheism is the default position. I believe the default position is that people have intrinsic, objective morals that are a result of some feature of the universe, based on a human priority placed on these morals that transcends all other priorities and has embroiled all of human history in intrigue surrounding their application. I would argue that universality of morality defeats atheism as the default position, and would affirm that atheism is the proposition that not only "I do not believe your claim that God exists" but "I believe it is likely that ethics are reducible to opinions".

The first claim - "I do not believe your claim that God exists" seems on the face of it to be a default position, and that is fair enough, to withhold assent until some burden of evidence is met (though the nature of that burden should be questioned, and proved and defended, if it is to be rational, some faith is required to avoid circularity). I would not accept the claims of theists without some sort of standard of epistemic justification, although I would not judge them based on superficial characteristics (he is not using the standards of chemistry in his analysis of theology, obviously this would not fit, an easy mistake to make though in assessing what a good standard would be to judge theological claims by, there is a lot written about this).

a. "I do not believe your claim that God exists"
This is different from, but often reduces a sufficient expression of weak atheism (a is not a sufficient expression of weak atheism, only a specific belief):
b. "I do not believe any claims that God exists"

When you look at B, take a look at this syllogism:
b. "I do not believe any claims that God exists" -
b. "To disbelieve any claims that God exists is to believe that it is likely that ethics are reducible to subjective claims"
c. "I believe that it is likely that ethics are reducible to subjective claims"

You could look at the issue of the null hypothesis as a matter of perspective.
Why not take the null hypothesis of c - "I believe that it is likely that ethics are reducible to subjective claims'. This is startling radical, powerful and subversive claim that has been rejected in virtually every society in history, and yet it is widely taken seriously among academic atheists. In addition, ethics is not something that people have distance knowledge of, it is something that people have direct experience of. The moral argument for God's existence was the reason that Francis Collins, the man who sequenced the genome became a Christian. It is a powerful argument, although it does not demonstrate the existence of God (as much as things can be demostrated, not much can be), it casts serious doubts about whether atheism can be seen as a default position.

Without assessing the validity of the claim "I believe that it is likely that ethics are reducible to subjective claims", I think a null hypothesis could easily form around this just as easily.

I believe I have demonstrated that weak atheism is not a more suitable default position than weak theism, and I welcome any challenge.

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Can you give an example of an atheist using atheism to argue for the non-existence of God?

"Christians R a bunch of idiots, the Bible was written by Satan's penis. BTW I am a weak atheist, fuck ur bullshit religion. "

Sounds like strong atheism to me. Somebody convinced all these little ones that God's existence was proven false by science, or it was reasonable to think of something very close to that as so. Not meant to characterize all atheists of course.

So I can't argue that it's unlikely that you have a skunk in the trunk of your car unless I know you don't have a skunk in the trunk of your car? Your position seems awfully tailored to the convenience of someone who wants to assert something for which there is no evidence.

The relevance of the existence of God to human understanding is of a different quality than an arbitrary claim. Also, it is not the case that there is no evidence for the existence of God, arguments for the existence of God have been widely accepted among people even if you select only from that group that have had a dramatic influence on atheist thought (see: Aristotle, Newton, Bacon, Descartes, Occam, Kripke, Mendel, etc).

There is plenty written about "great pumpkin type objections". This has already been refuted a million times and is pure propaganda. God is not the great spaghetti monster, God is a serious idea that all people have wrestled with.

We're not arguing anything from our lack of belief. Our not believing in God is in no way an argument against the existence of God, and not only do we not do that, it's kind of silly to think that we would.

We are in agreement. I have seen a lot of atheists do that.

I would also argue that the statement 'I believe some god or God exists' is inconsistent and does not capture the rhetoric of the theist movement which is almost always in actual practice saying a particular God exists (even though they can't agree on which god or how many).

They agree on quite a bit. Most of the world accepts Christianity, Judaism or Islam. These three agree on a vast number of things. Other religious systems are more or less true, but the largest ones tend to agree on a great number of things.

There is no 'atheist movement'. I know there are atheists who refer to one, but they are just as wrong as a Ba'hai who claimed there is a 'theist movement' would be. You repeatedly argue with us by making assertions about what the 'atheists out there' are saying without (or likely, to avoid) addressing what the 'atheists in here' are saying. You're just going to have to live with the heartbreak of our not conforming to your sweeping generalizations about atheists, and I have a faint hope that, years from now, you may realize the problem is not with us but with your stereotyping of us.

I see no way to distinguish the negative category of stereotype from the positive category of impartial assessment. To bias an impartial assessment to avoid the appearance of stereotyping would create an artificial perception of atheism, politically correct as it might be.

It's morally wrong to use rhetoric to poison the well of debate. Do you know that an asteroid the size of Mongolia isn't going to hit the earth in the next 72 hours? Then apparently, it would be wrong for you to make any argument that we'll still be here in 73. I'm trying to take you seriously, but you're not making it easy. I recommend thinking of possible counters to your claims before you make them. I don't know where you're getting your stuff, but you should consider another source.

What was not serious about what I said? You just agreed with me "it's morally wrong to use rhetoric to poison the well of debate". Why is that not an important question to address?

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Like I said, I have average intelligence, if you are trying to prove that I'm basically average, that is unnecessary. There are millions of people smarter than me. If you want to actually argue about ideas, that is a different story.

Actually, your original claim was that you probably had above average intelligence. Your decision to revise your estimate of your own abilities downward is likely wise. Kudos to you for that.

I think it is all the same.

[Angrboda]

I'd always heard that Collins was converted by a kami in a frozen waterfall. Oh well, I suppose that's a mere technicality.


“Many much-learned men have no intelligence.” — Democritus

"Much learning does not teach understanding." — Heraclitus

[jstrodel]

I like what AW Tozer the Christian mystic says when he talks about how a single moment in the presence of God is worth more than years and years of book knowledge. It is true.

[fr0d0]

So many put downs. So little else

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Troll much?

It's called fun cthulu, you should try it

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And the above constitutes your entire contribution to this thread.

Perhaps you'd like to refer back to the post about "Hypocrites" which spawned this little tête-à-tête.

What has me making a joke got to do with your consistent put downs please tell me.

Did someone call you a hypocrite?

[Mister Agenda]

Theists seldom identify themselves as theists in order to escape epistemological issues. Some theists subscribe to fidism, but I think that is a bad position.

This seems to be a non-sequitur.

I don't overestimate it. It disgusts me how atheists can make the incredibly destructive, nihilistic, evil claims that they do, using the mocking, derogatory, demonic language intended at teaching youth it is ok to blaspheme and then have this pathetic and cowardly fidism which is just the same that they accuse intellectually immature Christians of.

Since you're indulging yourself in bigoted ranting, it's going to be a little harder than usual to be polite in my responses. First, generalizing from the few to the many is the essence of stereotyping and your focus on the negative marks you as hateful. Second, 'fidism' is not a word. I suppose you're talking about 'fideism'. I don't think you can coherently explain how the atheists in this site are engaging in fideism.

Some Christians do accept fidism, which is similar to the atheist rejection of Christianity,

Mere bigoted assertion, unless you can demonstrate it by sound reasoning.

Agreed, but have you ever been to a seminary library. There are tons and tons and tons of books devoted to this question. Theists certainly must, at some level, ground their entire worldview in responsible views of epistemology, but some do this, and most theologians do this. I wish more did, at a popular level.

I am unable to process your comment as anything but non sequitur.

Theistic critiques of atheism proceed out of the internal ethical understanding of theism (sometimes interpreted through atheistic concepts).

From the repeated non sequiturs, I have to wonder if you were high when you were posting this. Your replies would make equal sense if you selected them by throwing darts at a wall of sticky notes with bits of theistic rhetoric on them.

Not intended to refute atheism, only to refute the definition of atheism, as a sufficient expression of rational belief, as mere non belief in theism.

The definition of atheism has nothing to do with a sufficient expression or rational belief, nor does the definition of theism. You have failed to refute atheism as mere non-acceptance of theism to such a degree that your effort is unrecognizable as an actual attempt to do so.

I would put this non-rational rejection of theism

The reasons for rejecting theism are not a part of the term 'atheism'. The reasons for rejecting atheism are not part of the term 'theism'.

at the same level ignorance.

An atheist who is such because they are unaware of the propositions of theism would be an atheist because of their ignorance. If you run into one of those who is mentally competent to comprehend you, I doubt they wil be an atheist based on their ignorance for long.

Atheism that sees "atheism is not belief, atheism is nonbelief" as a sufficient expression of a rational belief has the same level of rationality as ignorance because the statement "I do not believe your claims about theism" require either a complex chain of heavily ideological criticisms of religious belief to plausibly fit into the category of K=JTB or something similar.

Speaking of atheism or theism as things that can 'see' anything is nonsensical. Atheists can see things, atheism cannot. You may not have met someone from Missouri if you think 'a complex chain of heavily ideological criticisms' is required to reject someone's claim.

First theist: The things we don't understand are caused by invisible beings.

First religious follower: Can you intercede with them, oh wise one?

First explicit atheist: How do you know that?

Saying that "atheism is not belief, atheism is non-belief" is about as authoritative as saying "I do not believe atheism is true because I am ignorant of theism or ignorant of atheism".

Trying to penetrate your rambling, it sounds like you're obsessed with statements being authoratative. 'I don't believe in God' is authoritative, because no one has more authority than me in being able to report what I do or don't believe. Atheism is not believiing in a god or God. I'm not saying I don't believe theism is true because I'm ignorant of it, I'm well-aware of it, I just don't believe it's true.

For the statement "atheism is not belief, atheism is non-belief" to justify the proposition "A certain claim about theism is false", a large amount of evidence for the entire epistemic chain required to support the atheist critique of Christianity.

The statement 'atheism is not a belief' doesn't justify the proposition 'a certain claim about theism is false'. The statement 'theism is a belief' doesn't justify the proposition 'a certain claim about theism is true'. Do you have a source for this idiocy? I can't believe you're stupid enough to come up with a line of reasoning this pathetic on your own.

The statement "atheism is not belief, atheism is non-belief" is as justified as "I do not believe in Christianity because I don't believe it" or "I do not believe Christianity because I am ignorant of it".

There is no 'because' in the defintions of atheism or theism. They're just terms that distinguish between people who believe in a god and people who don't.

If the content of the proposition

It's not a proposition. It's a position. Propositions may be used to justify a position, they aren't contained within the position.

merely refers to the assent of the person making the claim, it is a non-rational fidist claim,

It's perfectly rational for a person who does not believe in God to claim they don't believe in God, which is the only claim build into the word 'atheist'. It has nothing to do with fideism, it has to do with direct experience of the internal workings of one's own mind. Theism is not different from atheism in this regard.

equally justified as "I do not believe the earth is round" because "I do not affirm the position that the earth is round" and then seeming to claim that the belief "I do not believe the earth is round" is rational because it is not affirming a specific proposition about the earths roundness.

I can't help but notice how focusing on re-defining atheism let's you avoid having to justify any of your theistic propositions. In your constant complaining that atheism isn't what you want it to be, you don't have to engage in any substantive arguments. You can just whine all day about how we define ourselves and pretend like you're stuck there and can't move on until we accede to your definitional demands. Seems like a great time waster.

Of course this is all sophistry,

If you feel the phrase 'I don't believe in God and that is what makes me an atheist' is deceitful, I assure you that you've done all the work of being deceived in your own head.

and it is completely obvious why someone would intend to make the impossible claim that to withhold assent implies some sort of justification given to the assent being withheld.

It's certainly completely obvious why a weasel would want to assert that people who aren't using their lack of assent as a justification for witholding assent are doing so.

No, I am not slapping random concepts together. If you are arguing that it is rational to believe that God does not exist, not as a justified epistemological proposition but as a default argument, that belief is sort of like an argument from authority to yourself -"I do not believe theism" would seem to imply - "Theism is false because I do not believe it". This is obviously a logical fallacy.

Do you know the name of the logical fallacy that involves attributing claims to your opponents, like 'theism is false because I do not believe it', never made? I've communicated with a lot of people on this topic, including some who arguably were profoundly irrational, perhaps mentally ill, but you're the first one who has managed to get 'theism is false because I do not believe it' out of 'I don't believe in God'.

p - "I do not believe theism"
q - "Theism is false"

if p then q

No one but you has made this argument.

If the truth of atheism can be verified similarly to the truth of other things, try and substitute something else:

As mentioned above, look at the form this takes:

if p then q

p - "I do not believe the earth is round"
q - "The earth is not round"

That IS a stupid argument, but it's yours, not ours.

Obviously this is extremely basic logic, not even undergraduate level. It is an extremely foolish thing to believe that p > q for p is a non self evident belief. It is an argument from authority, and a completely arbitrary authority, unless p has some reason why their belief of p would have any bearing on the truth of q.

Imagine how foolish one must be to think anyone who doesn't believe the earth is flat is implying that they don't believe it's flat because they don't believe it's flat.

I don't think you need to know the origin of the universe to have justified beliefs about God. Where does this requirement come from? Why the origin of the universe? Why not the number of hairs on the head of an ostrich?

Put down the bong. We're talking about God as the being who created the universe, nothing to do with ostriches. When you say you know God created the universe, you're saying you know the origin of the universe. You may think you do, but that's not information you have access to. It's not justified true belief. You're holding theism and atheism to different standards. You might want to think about why that is.

I appreciate your honesty and your willingness to yeild to the truth. It shows that you are serious about philosophy, which is much more than a debating, ego centered game and is more like a spiritual exchange between honest people both commited to the truth.

Sometimes I wonder how you can write something like that and also write something like this in the same post: "It disgusts me how atheists can make the incredibly destructive, nihilistic, evil claims that they do, using the mocking, derogatory, demonic language intended at teaching youth it is ok to blaspheme and then have this pathetic and cowardly fidism which is just the same that they accuse intellectually immature Christians of." You know I'm an atheist, right? What you just said, you were saying about me.

If you don't know if atheism is true, why blaspheme God? Why say Christians are idiots.

I'm not aware of having blasphemed God. I suppose we all look alike to you? Christians aren't idiots as a population. I'm nearly certain they average close to average. Some Christians are idiots, and some Christians are bright and some Christians are geniuses, and some Christians are geniuses who use idiotic reasoning anyway.

They just don't believe in God. I respect people like this, who are weak atheists not only as a title, but weak atheists in practice, and the language that they use refers not to words and phrases that signify strong atheism but weak atheism.

The 'weak' in weak atheism refers only to an atheist who is unwilling to state categorically that there is no God. It has nothing to do with any practice other than not claiming knowledge that there is no God. Since you seem to have calmed down, I'm going to expose you to another layer: a weak atheist can be a strong atheist regarding a specific version of God. For example, I'm definitely a weak atheist regarding the god of deism, but I'm a strong atheist regarding the God of theodicy, whose attributes are contradictory, so that version of God can be dismissed as one would the existence of a married bachelor.

I appreciate your humility.

Sounds fair, but in order to say that you must argue for what is presupposed in the ground of the justification of the rejection of theistic evidence. I would argue that this will be very difficult for atheists to ground all of their reasons for rejecting theistic arguments, as well as their assumptions about what the nature of belief should be, if they can talk about should at all.

We're not presuppositionalists, or at least I've never met an atheist who used presupposition as a justification. Many of us started out as theists. I did not presuppose there was no God, I presupposed there was, but gradually realized my presupposition was unjustified. Not that I was formally a presuppositionalist, I'm not sure it's possible to climb back out of that logical hole once you've crawled into it, but I was raised to believe and it didn't occur to me not to until I was older. I'd say atheists weren't much of an influence on me, the mental pretzels some theists twisted themselves into trying to prove God had a significant impact, though. As far as grounding our reasons, I've heard hundreds of arguments for God, and although you can't argue God into existence with a valid argument (logic has its limits, else we wouldn't need empricism), it would be a treat to finally see a credible one.

I understand what you are saying. But the way that you use the terms "null hypothesis" presupposes that this is a valid method for knowing whether God exists.

I'm a rational skeptic. I regard the null hypothesis as the minimum hurdle that must be overcome before you you can start to claim belief that something exists is justified. And it's a very low hurdle. I'm not a rational skeptic because I'm an atheist, I'm an atheist because I'm a rational skeptic. Be very careful here, you're in danger of learning there are different kinds of atheists.

How do you know that you should not hold the null hypothesis concerning the applicability of the null hypothesis to theism until the null hypothesis concerning the applicability of the null hypothesis is overcome.

The simple answer is that it would no longer be the null hypothesis if used that way. But...because that would require me to accept all theistic claims as true until proven otherwise, which is cognitively impossible, or arbitrarily select among tens of thousands of theologies to believe one is true, which is intellectually bankrupt. The null hypothesis isn't applied arbitrarily.

Let me say that another way because it is complicated:

Oh, dear.

The proposition:
1. p - The null hypothesis method is suitable for arriving at a concept of God

It is not a suitable method for arriving at any concepts. Concepts are fine. The null hypothesis is a tool for paring the infinite possible concepts (not just of God, concepts of anything) down to the ones that are most likely to be true. We have to use some standard for what to believe, else we all just believe what we want to. I won't bother quoting the rest of your syllogism.

To believe ~q presupposes p. But this violates the method of the null hypothesis, which is obviously cultural and is not a self evident method.

Think of the thousands of superstitions that would never have been seriously entertained if the null hypothesis was self evident. Eventually we realized it's impossible to do much science without it. With the null hypothesis you get to send messages on the internet. Without it I'd say no technology that depends on discoveries made after the 1920s would be around yet.

Everyone has to do a Kierkegaardian leap of faith somewhere, whether it is to the null hypothesis or some other philosophy of science or epistemology, or it is to Christianity.

Christianity regards the length of the leap a virtue. Rationalism regards making as few leaps as possible and having them be as short as possible a virtue.

I made my leap of faith to Christianity and became a mystic and I can promise you that it is real.

It's very easy to be certain something you already believe is real, is real. You could have lept to any religion at all and returned with the same promise.

I do not believe that atheism is the default position. I believe the default position is that people have intrinsic, objective morals that are a result of some feature of the universe, based on a human priority placed on these morals that transcends all other priorities and has embroiled all of human history in intrigue surrounding their application.

Humans having intrinsic morals is not the same thing as humans having intrinsic belief in God. For theism to be the default, humans would have to have an intrinsic belief in deities, they wouldn't have to be taught such creatures exist. Atheism being the default in the absence of knowledge of theism is not a strength or weakness, anymore than being apolitical in the absence of knowledge of politics would be.

I would argue that universality of morality defeats atheism as the default position,

Maybe you would, but you haven't yet.

and would affirm that atheism is the proposition that not only "I do not believe your claim that God exists" but "I believe it is likely that ethics are reducible to opinions".

Because you want atheism to claim more than it does so you can have a strawman to joust with. Atheists have widely differing opinions on ethics. Most here would probably claim that their ethics are derived from many sources, including our evolved innate moral sentiments, such as reciprocity, fairness, and sympathy.

When you look at B, take a look at this syllogism:
a. "I do not believe any claims that God exists" -
b. "To disbelieve any claims that God exists is to believe that it is likely that ethics are reducible to subjective claims"
c. "I believe that it is likely that ethics are reducible to subjective claims"

You spend a lot of time on syllogisms about atheism that you could save by asking yourself first if any of your premises are something you've never heard an atheist say. b is what you need to prove, and you're just assuming it.

You could look at the issue of the null hypothesis as a matter of perspective.
Why not take the null hypothesis of c - "I believe that it is likely that ethics are reducible to subjective claims'.

Because a positive claim is not a null hypothesis. The null hypothesis would be to not accept the claim that 'ethics are likely reducible to subjective claims' without sufficient evidence to show that it is more likely than other alternatives. The null hypothesis isn't arbitrary, you can't set it wherever you like.

This is startling radical, powerful and subversive claim that has been rejected in virtually every society in history, and yet it is widely taken seriously among academic atheists.

Maybe, but it's not a claim or implication of atheism. Many atheists believe in objective morals.

It is a powerful argument, although it does not demonstrate the existence of God (as much as things can be demostrated, not much can be), it casts serious doubts about whether atheism can be seen as a default position.

The only thing that could cast doubt on atheism being a default postiion would be if people never exposed to theism were still theists.

Without assessing the validity of the claim "I believe that it is likely that ethics are reducible to subjective claims", I think a null hypothesis could easily form around this just as easily.

Have you thought about the validity of putting claims in other peoples mouths so you can defeat the positions you're pretending they have?

I believe I have demonstrated that weak atheism is not a more suitable default position than weak theism, and I welcome any challenge.

You have not done so, and furthermore, you're laboring under some sort of notion that the default status that atheism has is something that would give you some sort of advantage were it on your side. If theism were hardwired into every human brain because theists had a significant reproductive advantage, it would be irrelevant to whether or not it's actually the case that some creator God is real. You're the one that can't get past whittering over definitions and on to more substantive discussion, not us. You could be arguing for the existence of God, but look where you are.

"Christians R a bunch of idiots, the Bible was written by Satan's penis. BTW I am a weak atheist, fuck ur bullshit religion. "

I'll take those examples as another way of saying 'No, I can't give an example of an atheist using atheism to argue for the non-existence of God', since they don't contain any such arguments.

Sounds like strong atheism to me.

Sounds like strong anti-theism to me. Strong atheism is being sure there's no God. Anti-theism is being opposed to people believing in God. You can start using anti-theism as an eptithet if you like, at least you'll have some accuracy on your side, though I suspect you find it unsatisfying if you call someone something that they agree they are.

Somebody convinced all these little ones that God's existence was proven false by science, or it was reasonable to think of something very close to that as so. Not meant to characterize all atheists of course.

Generally atheists come to their position in a solitary way, without anyone in our lives encouraging us. Anti-theists have usually come to their position with the help of theists.

The relevance of the existence of God to human understanding is of a different quality than an arbitrary claim.

Would it be helpful if I point out that I disagree with this point? It's vital and relevant for humanity to know if the universe is going to destabilize next week. The degree of relevance to humanity is irrelevant to the probability of the claim that the universe will change state and wipe us all out next week being true.

Also, it is not the case that there is no evidence for the existence of God, arguments for the existence of God have been widely accepted among people even if you select only from that group that have had a dramatic influence on atheist thought (see: Aristotle, Newton, Bacon, Descartes, Occam, Kripke, Mendel, etc).

Wide acceptance of an argument is also not relevant to whether it is true. The only things relevant to whether an argument is true are the merits and flaws of the argument. Arguments aren't evidence, by the way, but it's great if there is evidence to support them.

There is plenty written about "great pumpkin type objections". This has already been refuted a million times and is pure propaganda. God is not the great spaghetti monster, God is a serious idea that all people have wrestled with.

The probability of an idea being true is not proportional to the seriousness of it or how many people have wrestled with it.

We are in agreement. I have seen a lot of atheists do that.

I never have, but I have noted a tendency on your part to add things to what people say in your head.

They agree on quite a bit. Most of the world accepts Christianity, Judaism or Islam. These three agree on a vast number of things. Other religious systems are more or less true, but the largest ones tend to agree on a great number of things.

Yes, they agree on quite a lot if you don't count that ones that don't agree.

I see no way to distinguish the negative category of stereotype from the positive category of impartial assessment. To bias an impartial assessment to avoid the appearance of stereotyping would create an artificial perception of atheism, politically correct as it might be.

I see no indication that you care in the slightest if your generalizations about atheists are justified or not.

What was not serious about what I said?

What do you base your conclusion that I think you weren't serious about something on?

You just agreed with me "it's morally wrong to use rhetoric to poison the well of debate".

I agreed that's what you're doing when you're making arguments that we shouldnt' argue with you.

Why is that not an important question to address?

It is, and it would be nice if you would, so you can stop doing it. And bear in mind that it's importance has nothing to do with what answer to the question is correct.

[Ryantology]

Run-on sentence alert.

No, an irrationalist worldview undermines Christianity because Christianity teaches that God is knowable

Which, in blindness and ignorance, you assume is true.

and belief in God is justified along very specific criteria such as the moral character of God (morals being presupposed first in assessing the nature of knowledge, pointing to God, and good actions including what a sense of a good account of knowledge being grounded in a creator - a chicken and egg problem)

Good actions such as rape, murder, slavery, torture, genocide, etc justify belief in God?

miracles which are common in devout believers

Confirmation bias.

and historically form an unbroken stream of supernatural (only fantastically impossible if you have no skill in the spiritual)

Demonstrate proof that anyone has skill in the spiritual.

the resurrection of Christ (attested by many eyewitnesses)

And independently confirmed by no one, ever. The only kind of testimony more worthless than that of the eyewitness is the 'personal revelation'. There are so many reasons not to trust this eyewitness account, and they should be face-smacking obvious to someone of average intelligence such as yourself.

the confirmation of prophecy

Suffers from even more problems than the last issue.

the moral authority of the church

Do you mean the International Man/Boy Love Association in Rome, or the 40,000 conflicting and contradicting strains of the Christian religion?

the evidence of good fruit in sincere Christians lives

Rendered meaningless by equal evidence of 'good fruit' in the lives of non-Christians.

the evidence of Christian societies which have existed for 2000 years

Appeal to longevity. There are religions with societies far older.

the explanatory power that Christianity has in dealing with competing claims of revelation

There isn't a single reason to consider any such claims as valid, no matter who makes them.

the coherence and explanatory power of theism, etc.

Entirely nonexistent.

It is possible to know that Christianity is true, although that knowledge comes through seeing the historical reality of Christianity manifest in believers lives. This is something I have had personally happen to me.

It is not possible to know that anything untrue is true, and if you think it is true, it is only because you want to think it is and you have convinced yourself of it. All religions have followers every bit as devout as yourself and are every bit as convinced that they've had spiritual experiences every bit as 'real' as you think yours was. If you think that they are delusional madmen, you understand why we think you're a delusional madman.

I can assure you that I do not want to place all beliefs on equal footing. I want to show, on the contrary, that only Christianity has the ability to shed light on the human experience with clarity and authority, and that apart from Christianity people are sort of confused as to what their life means and where they fit into everything. They think that they have to make it all up.

If your time spent here has been to demonstrate this, you have not yet even begun to do so to anyone's satisfaction.

[Angrboda]

Epistemotautology?


It occurs to me that the Eleusinian mystery cults make a powerful and useful counter-point to his argument from longevity.
By most accounts, the mystery cults were popular for a roughly comparable length of time, and consisted, among other things,
of getting together and taking powerful psychotropic drugs.

Hunh. Imagine that.

During the early imperial period some very famous non-Greeks showed their deep interest in the mysteries at Eleusis, among them the Emperor Augustus himself. Though normally not attracted by foreign religions, he was initiated at Eleusis in 21 B.C. Later, according to Suetonius, he gave signal proof of his reverence for the mysteries.

"He was hearing a case at Rome which involved the privileges of the priests of the Attic Ceres. When some of the mysteries of their sacred rites were to be introduced into the pleadings, he dismissed those who sat upon the bench with him as judges, as well as the bystanders, and heard the arguments upon these points himself."