(March 25, 2014 at 6:04 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Atheistic stances place a larger number of phenomena into the “brute facts” category. Naturalistic philosophies have a few more ‘brute facts’ that many atheists feel need no further explanation. Such phenomena include: the link between efficient causes and their effects, the world’s apparent ability to ‘self-organize’...self-organize? Did you make that word up yourself?
Nothing wrong with that. But think of it this way -- the universe begins, evolves, life appears on earth, and then we become sentient and able to reflect and reason. One day one of us draws a pattern in the sand and says, 'Look, this is everywhere in nature! Nature can order itself, and therefore it must be sentient! Nature must be God!'
We observe what we believe to be patterns, but in fact it is just us observing and copying matter following the path of least resistance and calling this a pattern. Patterns are important to us, because if we can recognize them it helps us survive. That is why we sometimes think clouds look like hearts, or faces, or whatever. We look for patterns and the reason behind them all the time. But if a cloud looks like a pig, is it a pig?
To me, the flying pig in the sky is about as real a concept as this 'self-organization' that you speak of, because I am an atheist.
