Atheism Undermines Knowledge

[Neo-Scholastic]

The supernatural must be ruled out until it can be demonstrated to exist, and a lack of a natural understanding of a process is not evidence for the supernatural. Unless you can demonstrate that a natural explanation is impossible, the supernatural must be dismissed.

Robert Heinlein said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Natural and supernatural are relative terms and tend to shift around much. Natural, to my mind, does not mean subject to the laws of physics. To me the fact that words can refer to both actual and abstract things seems perfectly natural. But I do not think an understanding of this reduces to physics.

Now if you mean a scientific explanation then you are on the wrong track. By itself, the scientific method is structurally incapable of generating a true Theory of Everything. It intentionally excludes qualitative descriptions from its methodology. If there is to be a solution you have to work both ends against the middle.

At the quantum level, matter and energy are probabilistic, at our scale that results in reliable laws of nature…whereas a single pair of virtual particles is wholly unpredictable, that a certain number of them (give or take a few decimal points) will appear in a given time in a given volume is nearly certain...because random things follow the laws of probability.

Your answer is begging the question. The question is about laws known by induction, including the law of probability. I accept the idea of statistical inertia, but only because I think there is a reason for statistical inertia. Even if the probability becomes near infinitesimal at the macro level, there is still a chance, however small, that things could suddenly get very strange indeed.

Funny, I hadn't heard existential nihilism precluded one from talk of meaning, intentions, value, and rationality. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've heard existential nihilists discuss them. Perhaps this is a subject you don't fully understand.

I can assure you that I fully understand existentialism. To some extent I am one and understand that even if you talk about those things you still recognize a point where one must freely choose without any possibility of rational support.

Actually it would be the fallacy of composition to assume contents and container must have all the same properties. If a wall is made of unbreakable bricks, that doesn't mean the wall is unbreakable.

Not in any monist theory in which everything has the same underlying nature. The material properties manifest at the macro level are still dependant on the fundamental material properties.

Good. If it's not impossible to identify, how do we go about identifying it?

That is a very good question. And it is the question that proponents of physicalism want to ignore and pretend does not exist. For me to answer now would be highly speculative, although I have some ideas. But I remain curious and willing to use all the tools at my disposal.

Atheists who are rationalists provisionally accept the current best scientific explanations for phenomena.

Really? Many here seem to think it is a lack of belief in deity and nothing more. If those participants don’t howl at you then they are hypocrites. But to some extent I agree. Atheism constrains thinking along certain paths: nihilism or rationalism. Is the rationalist position internally consistent? Not if it restricts its understanding to scientific explanations of certain phenomena and pretends the rest do not exist.

As rationalists, observing that there is randomness at the quantum scale doesn't cause us to disregard our observations of reliable natural laws at larger scales.

That is fair enough, if your only concern is knowledge obtained by induction which you assert to work as a brute fact and doing precludes you from understand whole segments of reality.

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Apparently the capacity for language and discursive thought had utility because we've sure gotten a whopping big share of that by comparison with other animals.

Yes, reason has utility. However, reason works because the world is reasonable.

Now if you don't accept evolution (i.e., natural selection), then this point will be lost on you since you won't accept the premise. Do you accept the premise?

I accept natural selection. I also accept that we have evolved to recognize features of reality not all of which are lunch. And we can do so because reality has an inherent order to which we can be attuned. If the only 'purpose' of reason is to get lunch then there is no reason to assume it works for abstract ideas.