For the Thinking Man.

[Artur Axmann]

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Atheism is a close ended belief system where everything is explained in terms of the natural order of things.

Atheism is not necessarily a belief (it can just be, and often is, mere lack of belief in any God or gods). It is not a system, which is an entity composed of interlocking parts. As soon as you add something to 'doesn't believe in God' you're no longer talking about mere atheism.

And so ,no god or gods , only nature.

As far as anyone can demonstrate, anyway.

But in nature all things are linked together and everything has precedence which can be traced back to the big bang.
But the problem for the godless is how to explain rational thinking.

Yes, explaining rational thinking to people who think faith without evidence is a virtue is often a struggle.

Since thoughts are events, all of our thoughts should be fully explainable in mechanical terms, and not to a person’s free-will .. But any thought which is not guided by what is “true” but only by mechanical , physical needs ,is not rational.

That's an assertion, not an argument.

And if one comes to his beliefs and thoughts not because he chose it, but because it was all that the total universe would allow, then the" nature is everything"is, basically , self-defeating.

That's an assertion, not an argument.

No belief is rational if it can be fully explained in terms of non-rational causes.

That's not an argument, it's a double assertion: that no belief is rational if it can be fully explained, and that explainable causes are non-rational. Something fully explainable is rational by definition. Causes that are inexplicable, even hypothetically, could reasonably be called non-rational.

If all there is ,is materialism , then all beliefs can be fully explained in terms of non-rational causes.

I dare you to find a materialist writer who would use 'non-rational' in that sentence.

so if materialism is true, then no belief is rational.

That's your claim. Why should I take your word for it? You haven't supported it at all.

If any belief is based that no belief is rationally derived , then it should be rejected ... Therefore materialism ,atheism and nothing but nature should also be rejected ..

If would hope that no one is stupid enough to accept your straw man caricature of materialism as true. If I reasoned so poorly about it, I would still be a theist, too.

but there's more : any notion of good and evil, right and wrong, love and hate, etc., must also be treated as mythical. nothing more than helpful ideas , but ideas with no existence ( ontology) of their own.

What's wrong with helpful ideas? Ideas don't have existence on their own, they only exist when they're being thought of or considered.

Life would then be essentially meaningless

An assertion, not an argument.

since its ultimate goal is mere survival, an unattainable goal in a world where death is guaranteed and final.

An assertion, not an argument. What you want now are arguments for thinking your (many) assertions are true.

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You can...Try painting..

Trying painting on the canvas of your mind..

What are your perceptions of the world around you.

What ideas ,what beliefs , what feelings are you experiencing?
none of this would be possible if you did not possess the capacity for consciousness..

Since no one disputed that they have the capacity for consciousness, and you have no reason to assume anyone would, this is a nonsequitur. I notice you do that a lot.

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Yes, rational thinking can exist without believing in god ,but up to a point.

What point? How do you know that?

Rational thinking cannot be totally explained in materialistic terms because it's evolution cannot be explained soley on a purely natural basis.

This is an assertion. How do you know this is true?

Perception by evolutionary principles, must evolve from sentient being or beings.

Must it? How do you know this?

Human consciousness must serve the evolutionary process in ways other than the mechanical process of instinct.

What does it mean 'to serve the evolutionary process'? Why must it?

Good and evil come about as a result and thusly form the religion basis to human existence.

Religion is observably not the basis for human existence, clearly it's the other way around.

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pick up a brush and paint something.. do a self portrait.

and label it accordingly. make it accountable ..

You seem not to have understood the question.

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You mean" nuanced "as in the approach that atheism takes?

Chad's a Christian. It's unlikely that he means 'nuanced' as in the approach atheism takes. For one thing, he's been around long enough to understand that it doesn't make sense to say that atheism has an approach to nuance. For another, like I said, he's a Christian.

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sorry, how did you refute my argument.. ? I somehow missed it..

"That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." --C.H.

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Rational thinking lies outside the realm of evolutionary biology.
And that's true no matter how it develops.

And that is yet another bare assertion.

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I just ruined the keyboard by spilling my heineken .. you owe me a new one.

Why not ask me if i beat my dog ..

I think you're thinking of the question 'are you still beating your dog', for which a simple yes or no answer will not suffice. You can certainly answer yes or no to the question of whether you consider yourself misogynistic or chauvinistic...unless you consider yourself one but not the other.

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instinct ,in a purely biological sense ,doesn't exist in humankind.

So how does a newborn human know how to suckle?

Everyone is a blank slate at birth.

Then why do identical twins separated at birth tend to have similar interests and life experiences?

Everyone is a product of their environment and education [upbringing]

And genetic tendencies.

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I don't run .. I still don't know what the point is..

The point is that your argument doesn't require any effort to refute because you never actually made one, you just posted a series of bare assertions, some of which were loosely connected to each other.

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All Im saying is for you to explain rational thought in purely materialistic terms .

If you can't ,then that opens the possibility that there exists a reality beyond the physical.

you're overthinking this and getting too worked up over it.

Do you know what an 'argument from ignorance' is? Here's a hint: someone else not knowing the answer to a question does not increase the probability that your answer is correct at all.

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Evolved adaptation ,but evolved from what?

Our distant ancestors.

Beaks became noses , fins became arms , wings became legs ,but where and why and from what did human reasoning and self perception evolve ?

Um, it's noses became beaks and arms became wings. Do you really think you know enough about this subject to argue your position effectively? What do you think we evolved from? My impression is that we evolved from a common ancestor we share with chimps. Are you familiar with the reasoning ability and self-perception of chimps?

can you explain this. i don't think you can..

It's not even that hard. The great apes are among the few animals that demonstrate self-awareness. They can learn to recognize themselves in mirrors. Likely a heightened sense of self-awareness has selective value for a large animal that climbs trees a lot.

And ,how can you say god doesn't exist for lack of empirical evidence.

How can you say God exists lacking such evidence? Most of us don't say God doesn't exist, we just say we don't believe God exists. I don't believe 'real' leprechauns exist, but I could be wrong and if I ran into one, I'd have to either start believing in leprechauns or stop believing in my sanity.

Have you travelled from one end of the universe to the other and you've peeked behind every planet and photographed behind every star and you can now say with certainty :god doesn't exist because you saw none.
WOW! what an ego!

WOW! See what an ass assuming you know what other people think makes you?

I don't believe in any gods at the same level I don't believe in Yetis. If one ever verifiably turns up, I'll start believing, it would be silly for me to believe in advance of having the evidence...there's no end to the amount of silly crap I would have to believe if the standard was 'believe it until you can prove it doesn't exist'.

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I'm not claiming anything. you must think there's a good chance that tooth fairies exist or you wouldn't ask me to advise you.

You can't disprove a negative . unless you have an oversized ego..

You can't disprove a universal negative...with the exception of something that's omnipresent. If an omnipresent being isn't in the first place you look, it doesn't exist at all.

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Why are my assertions wrong but your assertions ,not assertions?