The Case for Atheism

[frasierc]

Thanks for the thoughtful responses.

I think the main point of disagreement between us remains that you still think I have the burden of proof. Your main argument I think is that naturalism is inherently more plausible and therefore the default rational worldview for humanity which ought only to be abandoned with strong evidence for the alternative.

But I don’t think you’ve really shown why that’s the case. To convince someone like me who doesn’t share that assumption you’d have to show why it’s more plausible.

We all have worldviews – it’s more or less impossible to live our lives without having some basic assumptions about the world we live in. Clearly if naturalism is true this has different implications to our lives than if theism is true. You’re clearly a thoughtful person, so it’s hard for me to understand why you would assume your worldview to be true until someone proves otherwise. Isn’t that the essence of your burden of proof argument?

I’ve argued from a Bayesian perspective, interpretation of evidence involves our prior beliefs about the world reconsidered and updated in the light of empirical evidence. Since we both hold prior beliefs isn’t the rational thing to do to examine what explanation of the world most plausibly fits the world? Rather than just assume one’s right until proved wrong by the other.

I guess we will probably have to agree to disagree on the matter of burden of proof. I've responded below to your comments:

I'm not a scientist, but my criteria for evidence is a: a detectable effect that is preferably replicable, for which b: we can determine a cause. I don't think these are crazy strict criteria: without detectability there's nothing to test, and without a determination of a cause there's no reason to attribute this effect to any one thing in particular.

I don't require laboratory conditions for evidence, but I do require something, which is often a bridge too far for those willing to make supernatural claims.

How would you determine the cause of a being who doesn't have a cause? Its by definition impossible.

It's a pretty simple position: don't consider supernatural explanations for things unless there's a reason to consider supernatural explanations for things. Is it that controversial a position that one should expect the mundane before they consider the exceptional?

Again this reflects your presupposition that the naturalist worldview is inherently more plausible than the theist one. Why is a naturalist view more mundane - most cultures in the world would consider it less plausible. I don't really see any evidence for this claim - sure as a believer in naturalism I understand why you would hold that view. But as a Christian I think its more plausible that the world can be explained using theist assumptions.
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Whoa, whoa! Hold on there, you've made a leap that I don't accept. Scientific methods are not able to examine the existence of god? How did you determine that?

There's so many problems with this, but I can boil it down to two main ones: first of all, if god has any effect on physical reality then those effects can be tested the same as any other, and the causes of those effects eventually determined. If he doesn't affect reality, then how is one supposed to detect him?

Ok I can understand how that could be misinterpreted. My argument is that its not possible to design a study that could conclusively show theism or naturalism are the most valid explanations for the world. But I agree you can use a combination of scientific and philosophical methods to examine the extent that naturalist and theist assumptions reflect the world.

As a Christian my view is that not that we detect God - how could we if he's distinct from the material world we live in- its primarily that he makes himself known. One way that he does that is become human and reveal what God is like. He justifies these claims by dying and being raised from the dead - with 500 witnesses to confirm this.

Does this form of evidence fit within your admission criteria for evidence for the existence of God?

Secondarily, I would say something like the big bang combined with Kalam/Cosmological argument suggests the theist worldview is more plausible than naturalism. Sure there are counter arguments such as we'll find naturalistic explanations in the future - but on balance theism is the more plausible.

Could also look at the fine tuning argument which again combines evidence from physics and chemistry with philosophical argument. Once more I think this suggests naturalism is very unlikely. You could counter with a infinite worlds argument, but as its pretty much untestable and hence no empirical evidence for it, once more I'd still conclude naturalism is very unlikely.

There's lots of other combinations of empirical evidence and philosophical arguments (e.g. transcendental argument such as Bahnsen vs Stein debate, Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism) which also suggest theism is a more likely explanation of the universe.

I'm without doubt you could come back with responses to each of these arguments. None ultimately show naturalism to be false but on balance taking these arguments and empirical observations cumulatively I think its unlikely naturalism is a valid explanation of the universe. Do you disagree?

So when I look at the empirical evidence I think my theist assumptions better explain the world than naturalist assumptions.

Now, you might be inclined to argue that when or if god does affect reality, he does so through means that are indistinguishable from natural ones, but that just demonstrates the thing I find most troublesome about this whole claim you're making. You're proposing a god that you cannot test, and who interacts with the only world we can observe in ways that are indistinguishable from if he were not to interact with it at all... and then you try to somehow make it our problem that your god is unfalsifiable.

I think I'm actually arguing something quite similar to your justification for naturalism. I look at the world around me and the empirical evidence about the universe and theism makes more sense to me. I think fine tuning and the cosmological argument make it at least pretty unlikely that naturalism is true. If you take all the other philosophical argument for God's existence cumulatively - naturalism in my opinion is very unlikely.
Jesus becoming a man and providing evidence such as the resurrection to me is strong evidence that God exists.

It's insane: the fact that you believe in a god that doesn't offer evidence for his existence doesn't mean we possess unfair presuppositions, it just means that we have no reason to believe your god exists. If you have some reason to believe, it shouldn't be hard to explain that, but so far all you've done is blindfire about presuppositions.


But to be clear, you have the burden of proof here. It's not up to us to disprove any claim you care to make, and we're not being unfair by not accepting your claims just because you make them. Stop trying to make an end run around just showing the things you think are true, and just present your evidence. If it's not sufficient... again, how is that our problem?

We're both making claims. I'm claiming a theist foundation for the universe your claiming a naturalist one. Why from your perspective is it not insane to not provide evidence for your naturalist claims?

Would you agree that thus far naturalistic explanations have a far greater track record of proven results than supernatural ones? Furthermore, I'm happy to accept things based on your idea there, but that raises a much more important question: what evidence for the supernatural have we ever had?

No I wouldn't conceed that naturalism has a greater track record. As far as I can see the only evidence you've cited for naturalism is your belief there's no evidence for the existence of God. I would disagree, and in addition I think there's lots of reasons I've cited above why I think naturalism is unlikely to be true.

And I've told you that I don't presume naturalistic methods are the only ones that work. But someone would need to propose another method and demonstrate that it's effective at doing what it purports to do before I'll start using it: I don't think "what is it?" and "does it work?" are an insanely high barrier of entry for new epistemological tools.

Again this is still trying to switch the burden of proof. You'll continue to intrepret the world from a naturalist worldview until someone will show you different. But why do you hold that worldview in the first place? Isn't that a fair question?

I even asked you above what evidence for the supernatural do we have: I'm not assuming anything, but I need something to go off of before I just start floating in a world of magic and wonder.

I asked the same and haven't yet had a response other than the burden of proof argument which I don't think is valid.

I didn't say it was the only way. But wouldn't you agree that if I have something with a proven track record of success on one hand, and an unproven thing on the other that might not even exist, that it would be smarter to start with the former? Again, I'm happy to consider supernatural explanations when I have reason to, I just find it bizarre that, instead of presenting reasons, you're just going on about how we're all biased against the reasons you haven't presented because we won't leap to the conclusion you want without those reasons. You're really putting the cart before the horse here, and in this case there might not even be a cart.

Hold on a minute, where's your proven track record of success that naturalism is a valid way of using the universe. Isn't your stated basis for naturalism that its the default for humanity? That isn't particularly persuasive evidence in my opinion.

If god is immaterial then how can you even detect it in the first place? And what methods would you propose we use to investigate it?

See that? For a person that "presumes naturalism" I sure as hell did just immediately start asking you investigative questions rather than just dismissing you out of hand, didn't I?

That's a great question, how I as a Christian evaluate whether God exists is to examine the evidence he has provided about his existence.

Primarily from a Christian perspective we evaluate the evidence that God provides by revealing himself in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Secondarily you can do that by looking at the world - this includes a combination of empirical methods to study the universe, philosophy, and whether we like or not we interpret that evidence within our presuppositions. I think we differ in our evaluation of the evidence - I think from fine tuning, cosmological argument, transcendental argument, evolutionary argument against naturalism etc that data about the world is more consistent with my Christian worldview than a naturalist worldview.