RE: Is atheism self-contradictory ?
June 27, 2017 at 9:45 am
(This post was last modified: June 27, 2017 at 10:16 am by Mister Agenda.)
Parsim0ny Wrote:Zen Badger Wrote:If that's the case, how can you trust your thinking when it tells you there's a god?
I don't. I need to assume that my brain is the creation of an absolute power, otherwise my judgment about the matter is untrustworthy.
Without this basic assumption i.e. my brain is created by a perfect being, no logical statement can be proved or rejected, at least this is what I think.
Our brains are piss-poor shoddy workmanship if they're the product of an absolute power. They're prone to be easily fooled by optical illusions, politicians, and preachers.
How can one infer a perfect creator from an imperfect creation?
Parsim0ny Wrote:Minimalist Wrote:Ah. You mean aside from whoever wrote it the first time?
Whatever you think about the prophet of Islam, you'll probably agree with me that he cannot be naive enough to challenge every single Arab tribe in the region on the one thing they master the most : their language. If he was really a false prophet, lots of books similar to the Qur'an would exist today made by all the brilliant minds that encountered Muhammad.
So you agree that the Hadiths are unreliable? You don't think they're perfect too, do you?
Argument 501: Only God could have won this writing contest, which all who believe God was the author agree is the best writing evah!
Parsim0ny Wrote:Fireball Wrote:An axiom is a statement that is taken to be true, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments. It isn't taken as a FACT. I trust my thinking (for the most part) because I can base it on the physical reality I see/feel/hear around me. Yes, those transducers can give me false information. How have you lived to your current age, with your "untrustworthy" brain?
Actually, you should trust the physical reality only if it is consistent and logical, not the other way around. When you see a mirage before you, you immediately reject its appearance based on your inner knowledge that it is a natural optical phenomenon.
That's not 'inner knowledge'. You have to learn what a mirage is in order to not be fooled by it. Because our brains aren't perfect. 'Inner Knowledge' would be if no one ever got fooled by a mirage because knowledge that a mirage is a natural optical phenomenon and it's tell-tale signs would be instinctive. We learned about mirages through trial-and-error; a precursor to the scientific method.
Parsim0ny Wrote:The problem I'm talking about concerns agnostics as well, everybody seems to agree with me that we NEED to trust our brains and trust their ability to attain truth. What's the source of this trust ? Is it mere belief or hope ? What's your position on this ?
The source of this trust is experience. I trust chairs not to collapse when I sit on them because my experience is that they almost never do that. If they did, I'd start sitting on the floor. I trust my brain because whatever it's doing, it's simulating actual reality well enough to keep me alive so far and achieve some success in life, despite coming from a background of grinding poverty. I've also learned some ways my brain isn't very reliable through experience. I know I'm too soft a touch for needy people, a symptom of codependent tendencies. I'm terrible at estimating distances despite being a fairly good marksman. I have experience in what ways my brain is reliable and what ways it is not; and I rely on trial-and-error or science to teach me when I'm wrong.
Parsim0ny Wrote:I firmly believe that without assuming that some absolute power created our mind, nothing can be said or done, nothing can be proved or refuted. Therefore the fact that I can demonstrate logical statements and discern between sound and unsound arguments is proof of this power's existence. Where am I mistaken ?
You can firmly believe anything you want, but what you've said is mere assertion, and can be dismissed as such. You keep saying 'therefore' and making a conclusion without having made any argument to get you to a 'therefore'. There needs to be a step between the premise and the conclusion.
Steve Jobs is rich.
I am rich.
Therefore, I am Steve Jobs.
It's wrong, but at least all the steps are there. You're just saying the equivalent of 'Steve Jobs is rich, therefore I am Steve Jobs'.
Parsim0ny Wrote:mh.brewer Wrote:Nobody asked for your baseless thoughts regarding atheism.
You're right, nobody asked me to post this. But since you came to my post you're compelled to reply with something related. What does the thread have to do with Islam for God's sake ? And yes, his thoughts about this religion specifically are at best unfounded.
Besides, you still didn't answer any of my questions.
No one is compelled to respond in the way you like. You don't own this thread. If you don't want to talk about Islam, don't talk about Islam.
Parsim0ny Wrote:mh.brewer Wrote:We've (the forum, note it is more than just I) discussed all of those arguments that you site and I have found them lacking. You might try a search here in the forum for past threads that address them. And yes, if not absurd, I find them flawed. However, if you'd like to discuss them yet again and add your own perspective feel free. You might want to start individual threads for each.
If god exists it would not need assumptions of logic, debate or argument. This simply indicates that god(s) was made by man for mans own purposes.
You found them lacking in what sense ? I'll take the cosmological argument as an example, which is based on two premises :
(1) Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
(2) The Universe began to exist.
To refute the argument you need to reject one of its premises. The relationship between causes and effects is fundamental to all natural science. The second premise is based on the empirical observation that our universe is expanding. So what am I missing ?
That's easy enough. The only thing we've come close to observing 'beginning to exist' are virtual particles, and they begin to exist without a cause. Everything else we observe is matter and energy transforming, never 'beginning to exist'. Therefore there is no basis to assert that everything that begins to exist has a cause.
The second premise assumes that the universe did not always exist in some form or another, which has never been established.
But assuming that the premises are sound, it still doesn't get you to a conscious being intentionally creating the universe, it only gets you to 'a cause' and a natural phenomenon fits the role of cause just as well, and has the advantage of not being an exception to the rule that the only causes we've ever found for anything have been natural.
Parsim0ny Wrote:And if all kinds of proofs are lacking from your point of view ? What kind of proof do you require in order to accept that a divine entity exists ?
I'm easy. Bottle a jinn and prove it really exists scientifically and I'll convert to Islam because at least one supernatural claim by Mohammed will have been proven to actually be true.
I'm not anti-Christian. I'm anti-stupid.