Is atheism self-contradictory ?

[Mister Agenda]

First, one has to define what they mean by reliable. Reliable with respect to what?
 

Reliable with respect to interacting with reality sufficiently well to achieve reproductive success.

Under atheism, evolution is unconscious, mindless, cold, etc. It's a mechanism; and there's no consciousness behind the mechanism.

Evolution is a scientific theory. It isn't 'under' atheism any more than quantum mechanics or plumbing is. It's just a description of how organisms come to speciate in the way that they do, based on the available evidence.

What's more, it's a mechanism that didn't have to exist.

The list of things that have to exist is pretty short.

The natural world could have came into being--or could have existed for eternity--without a mechanism like evolution. Evolution just happens to exist and it functions in a particular way. And the way it functions could have been different.

Really? How could the mechanism have been different?

Nevertheless, it functions in our world through mutations and reproduction. If a mutation increases a species’ chance of surviving and reproducing, then it will be passed down to later generations. A brain that is tuned for ascertaining truths and falsehoods doesn't necessarily follow from this process. For instance, a mutation could be introduced that negatively affects the cognitive faculties but nevertheless dramatically increases the survivability of the species through a different means. This would then be passed down to later generations. Or a mutation could be introduced that produces a false belief, but the false belief increases survivability. Finally, it may be that our brains are very good at things like "stay away from spiders" or "don't jump off cliffs" but they aren't good at abstract concepts like mathematics and philosophy. For example, maybe there was a mutation that increased our chances of understanding Calculus or Quantum Mechanics, but since being good at Calculus or Quantum Mechanics doesn’t increase your chances of surviving millions of years ago, it was left behind for simpler things like “don’t stay under water for too long.”
 

Never the less, our brains evolved to interact with reality well enough for us to survive to reproduce. Trial-and-error or the scientific method can reveal the ways in which our brains are unreliable or inadequate.

This is why it should be difficult for the atheist to reconcile their belief that their brains are ultimately the product of natural processes—nothing more or nothing less—and the belief that their brains are reliable for ascertaining truth.

They're pretty unreliable for ascertaining truth, but we've come up with a few ways to work around that unreliability. It's possible that there's some crucial blind spot in our ability to ascertain truth that our brains will never overcome in any way; in the same way that it's possible that magical pixies are real. It's also possible that if we were designed by a conscious, warm, fuzzy mechanism; that there is some crucial blind spot in our ability to ascertain truth that our brains will never overcome in any way...built into us by our designer. In the same way that it's possible that magical pixies are real.

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I can't believe how stupid all of you people are... it's fucking nuts.

Someone who can't understand how people could possibly honestly and intelligently disagree with them or fail to be impressed with their arguments is lacking a faculty of the sort that would be useful to ascertaining truth.

Many of you don't believe in God or dislike religion for emotional reasons--and all of you have been brainwashed by contemporary society into thinking religion/God = Harry Potter. And when a person presents you with evidence or a good argument, you either ignore it completely, respond with snark, or talk amongst yourselves about "Sky Daddies," hand wave, or cheer lead: "You really got him good when you mentioned sky daddies!" Guys, you do realize that none of this is funny or amusing? You just make yourselves look stupid. All you're doing is demonstrating that you can't hang; you're unable to defend your world view.

Do you not think straw-manning makes someone look stupid?

Mix all of this with a subculture of people who do not read science or philosophy while pretending that they read science and philosophy--and you have the Atheist Forum.

You know we have actual scientists on this forum, right?

And after everything that has been said, most of you still do not understand that evolution doesn't necessarily lead to brains that are predisposed to producing true beliefs. Part of the problem is you guys don't seem to know what "necessarily" means in logic.

It certainly doesn't mean that if it's not necessary, it didn't happen.

A brain that is tuned for ascertaining truths and falsehoods doesn't necessarily follow from evolution. For instance, a mutation could be introduced into a species that negatively affects the cognitive faculties but nevertheless dramatically increases the survivability in that species through a different means. The mutation would then be passed down to later generations. Or a mutation could be introduced that produces a false belief, but the false belief increases survivability. "If you don't drink enough water, you'll explode" That's a false belief, but it would result in higher survivability. Moreover, a mutation could be introduced that would produce a false belief in the brain, but since the false belief doesn't affect the survivability of the species, it persists. So, millions of years later, a species may have numerous false beliefs--none of which negatively affected their surviability. Finally, it may be that our brains are very good at things like "stay away from spiders" or "don't jump off cliffs" but they aren't good at abstract concepts like mathematics and philosophy. This is because there's no chance for evolution to prefer or disprefer such abstract concepts. How could it? A caveman that is good at metaphysics isn't going to be able to run any faster from predators. If there is a positive effect in terms of surviability it would be negligible compared to a mutation that would, for instance, strengthen the legs allowing for a faster sprint.

We do not have beliefs as a species. Our brains aren't wired with beliefs, just wired to acquire them. We can literally believe anything at all. Evolution doesn't seem capable of acting on such abstract concepts, so we have to derive them from sensory input and reasoning. The way humans adapt to their environment is by figuring it out. We're not ambush predators or prey animals specialized for fast escapes. We're humans, and our brains need to be able to approximate reality closely enough for the things we figure out to allow us to survive. Our schemes to acquire food, mates, status, shelter, and so on, require the ability to model reality fairly accurately in the 'middle realm' in which humans exist. Our technological advancement is a testament to our ability to do so. It wasn't necessary for us to evolve this way, but it's the way we did. It's not necessary that I wound up living in SC but here I am. That something isn't necessary is not an argument against it having happened.

Are none of you intelligent enough to follow the aforementioned points? Are none of you intelligent enough to rebut them?

Lack of patience with pretentious bullshit is not a sign of low intelligence.