Exposing the Intellectual Bankruptcy of Atheists Criticizing Religion

[IATIA]

Most of us have read and contributed to threads about what evidence would suffice to convince an atheist that God exists. The stand taken by Esquilax against the 5W and his reasons for opposing them demonstrates that for many, no form of evidence would ever suffice.

I will repeat again for the hard of hearing.  Show us just one piece of evidence, not opinion, evidence.  To date, not one single theist has offered any shred of evidence.  The only thing presented by every single theist is opinion, anecdotes and hearsay.  Well, they are all full of shit.  Santa told me so and the Tooth Faerie agrees.  (can't prove they don't exist, can you?  i have presents under the tree and a dollar under my pillow.  that's more evidence than you have for god.)

Science has a plethora of evidence to the contrary of theist belief systems.  Granted, evidence is not proof, but it is all we have until a theist steps up to bat.

I do not stand by "extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence".  I will settle for just one tiny, eensy, weensy, teeny, weeny, shred of evidence.

So as they say back home, "Put up or shut up".

[robvalue]

Logical arguments are not evidence. They simply announce a conclusion which is as true as its initial assumptions. And if the logic used is fallacious, as is the case with Aquaman, it doesn't even do this much.

The way such apologetic arguments "model" reality with their initial assumptions are at best overly simplistic and at worst totally wrong. The result would only be true in a reality that really did follow the extremely simple rules that are suggested.

[Esquilax]

The way such apologetic arguments "model" reality with their initial assumptions are at best overly simplistic and at worst totally wrong. The result would only be true in a reality that really did follow the extremely simple rules that are suggested.

For example, Wooters' position: "You can know things just by knowing them, a priori, with no referent to the objective reality such knowledge applies to, because I find the principle of non-contradiction to be self evident. Therefore, I know that Aquinas was perfectly correct, therefore Aquinas was correct."

His entire thing boils down to "I know it because I know it," and he's gonna chastise me for a lack of intellectual rigor? I was thinking about this last night and it ended up pissing me off way more than it did when I first responded to it.

[The Grand Nudger]

All I can say is, wow! How can you say with a straight face that the PNC is false?

There are examples on the boundaries, such as the strengthened liar's paradox and Godel's theorems which show that straightforward acceptance of the PNC as an unqualified truism is problematic.

-because I couldn't help but elaborate

The PNC is one rule of an algorithmic  game which has shown itself capable of ferreting out what we accept as truth regarding statements and their relationships, provided we constrain ourselves to a very specific set of circumstances.  This does not make the PNC a law of the universe, or true in any other context than the game in which it is contained. We use it because it works, in that context, not because we can demonstrate that it is a truism, as Jorg explained.

[Neo-Scholastic]

To avoid a word wall, I have elected to hide much of the content yet avoid the accusation that I have maliciously edited your writing. While it may seem a waste, a thorough reply requires me to address our exchange in the most comprehensive fashion.

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I write only for the sake of those who find themselves swayed by Esquilax’s rhetoric, although I wish nothing for him but the best. While you may share with him an inclination to disbelieve in God, he has hardened himself against reason and hopefully my reply below will demonstrate more fully his errors.

I love that you have to do this in every thread you reply to me in. You try to poison the well against anybody who dares disagree with you; in your last post you asserted that I could only possibly disagree with you because I have a "darkened intellect," and here apparently I've "hardened my heart against reason."[1] Are you really so terrified that people won't know that you think the only possible reason anybody could ever think you were wrong is because of dark forces conspiring against it, that you've presupposed that you can never be wrong, that you have to resort to this ridiculous rhetorical grandstanding every time? [2]
And for that matter, do you really think that people are going to read your completely baseless, self serving accusations and think "you know, he's right. Esquilax disagrees with Chad, and therefore he must be influenced by evil. Never mind the contents of his arguments or anything, Chad says that dark forces have swayed him, and there can't possibly be any other reason for a person to disagree with Chad, so Esquilax must be wrong."? Is that really what you think is going to happen? [3]
And if you don't think your silly little jabs are going to convince anyone, why are they there? Just to make you feel better? [4]

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Here is how I understand your points: 1) I say those who disagree with me have darkened intellects, 2) I presuppose I can never be wrong, 3) I malign you so that others will agree without considering my arguments, and 4) I must think either my jabs will convince others or make them to feel better.

Reply to 1) – I believe that with respect to the proposition “God exists”, atheists such as yourself do not earnestly seek to know the truth. I think that not because simply because they disagree with me per se but because the 5W are sound and well supported arguments. I think therefore that the failure to accept them must be something other than rational evaluation. Despite having been shown how to understand the 5W consistent with the informed opinions of Aquinas scholars*, many atheists continue to reiterate objections to arguments Aquinas never made. If such atheists truly sought to know, they would present serious and relevant objects instead of being satisfied with irrelevant objections such as the following:

If things cannot move by themselves then God also requires a mover. (No premise of the First Way says that everything is in motion.)

The universe can exist from eternity with no need for a first cause. (The Second Way refers to an essentially ordered sequence and not an accidentally ordered one.)

The physical universe satisfies as the necessary being. (No compound of merely possible parts could exist necessarily.)
If God is perfect in all ways then He is also perfectly evil. (Not understanding that imperfection is privation and evil is the lack of the good that ought to be there.)

Evolutionary theory refutes the Fifth Way. (The Fifth Way is not a modern intelligent design argument.)

There is no observable phenomena support the Five Ways. (The demonstrations of the Five Ways are based on everyday observable effects common to all sensible things.)

Even if the proofs were valid they would not reveal a specifically Christian god. (The link is revealed in Exodus 3:14 which succinctly describes the perfect union of His Divine Existence and Essense as “I AM WHO I AM” and Jesus used that reference to Himself in John 8:56-59)


*…such as Dr. Edward Feser, James Brent, Gavin Kerr, Dr. Candace Volger, Peter Kreeft, and others. I have personally interacted with some of these to confirm my understanding of Thomistic philosophy. I am by no means an expert; I only stand on the shoulders of giants.

Reply to 2) – First, experience should have taught you otherwise. In some threads I admitted to being wrong. Second, were I so certain of my infallibility, I would never have challenged my previous atheism and would have remained one.

Reply to 3 & 4) – I try to keep the debates lively and playful; taunts and jabs are par for the course on AF and I am willing to go along with forum culture. However, I have not done so here without an accompanying argument or pointing back to one.


About empirical data and a priori knowledge:

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[quote='Esquilax' pid='1116730' dateline='1447866469']

Most of us have read and contributed to threads about what evidence would suffice to convince an atheist that God exists. The stand taken by Esquilax against the 5W and his reasons for opposing them demonstrates that for many, no form of evidence would ever suffice. He has ruled out beforehand rational reflection as a source for a priori knowledge without realizing that in so doing he has contradicted himself. How does one go about empirically proving that only empirical knowledge is valid? And how can he dismiss a priori knowledge known by rational reflection without using a priori knowledge?

You test that. What, did you think that was impossible?  

You take claims made based on empirical evidence, and you take a priori claims made without reference to objective reality, and you see which ones bear out most consistently with the world around us. [1] Of course, then comes the question of how one judges the consistency of claims about reality: you would need- oh no!- empirical evidence for that. [2] What you couldn't do, to determine the truth of a claim, is just go by a priori certitude; no amount of "because I said so!" will ever demonstrate a claim about reality. Your "rational reflection" is insufficient from the get go. [3]

Why would you even want to rely on just reflection anyway? That kind of thinking, apart from evidence, has caused so many wrong beliefs, and only ever been right by accident. Every single big discovery that was true, was made and confirmed by empirical evidence, not just thinking about it really hard. [4]

I mean, you're also just strawmanning me, since I never said that only empirical knowledge is valid, just that the type of claim you're making necessarily influences the ways it can be demonstrated. For claims about objective reality, which all the five ways are, if those claims are true, there will be empirical evidence to support them. [5]Unfortunately for you, all of the evidence we currently have demonstrates that Aquinas was severely mistaken in how he thought the world works [6], and frankly, I'm pretty amused that you think that objective evidence should change or disappear just because you've reflected on an issue and come to a different conclusion. You're literally saying that reality must be wrong because you've gotta be right. [7]

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Here is how I understand your points: 1) a priori knowledge needs to be tested with empirical evidence, 2) consistency with experience is the test for all truth claims about reality, 3) rational reflection cannot determine the truth of a priori knowledge, 4) “Every single big discovery that was true, was made and confirmed by empirical evidence, not just thinking about it really hard,” 5) if a claim about reality is true there will be empirical evidence to support it, 6) natural science has proved Aquinas wrong about many things, and 7) “You're literally saying that reality must be wrong because you've gotta be right.”

Reply to 1) – No some a priori truths are self-evident. http://atheistforums.org/thread-38331-po...pid1109685

Reply to 2) – In the Summa Theologica, Question 1, Article 9, Aquinas clearly states “Now it is natural to man to attain intellectual truths through [experience with] sensible things because all our knowledge originates from sense.” That idea is what informs the Five Ways found in Question 2 and would already be known to his readers anyway. The Five Ways are all cosmological arguments. The demonstrations follow from known effects and could be falsified if any contrary observable effect was found.

Reply to 3) – Rational reflection cannot determine the truth of a priori knowledge because rational reflection would be impossible without it.

Reply to 4 & 5) –Observing effects allows us to deduce the causes of those effects. This is true in the natural sciences and it is true of the process used by Aquinas. He applies reason to experience. He looks at the world of sensible things and draws conclusions about the nature of their causes.

Reply 6) – True, but only about his examples and analogies. No discovery of natural science has ever run contrary to the substance of the arguments themselves.

Reply to 7)- All the conclusions of the Five Ways follow from observations of reality and none of them have been contradicted by an observed phenomena. If you think otherwise I challenge you to name a single phenomenon that definitively rules out the possibility of any of the following: Unmoved Mover, First Cause, Necessary Being, or Guiding Intelligence.


Style of Argumentation:

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[quote='Esquilax' pid='1116730' dateline='1447866469']

Because I have regular e-mail exchanges with notable contemporary Thomist scholars, like Dr. Fesser who wrote the article referenced by the OP, I can say with confidence that the views I present reflect not only my interpretation but that the best thinkers in the field.

How am I not surprised that you're a Feser fan? Your styles of argumentation are almost identical: no substance, just empty grandstanding and the presupposition that if somebody really understood your position, they'd agree with it.  

Besides, when I pointed out the problem with what you were asserting, the "I" in the sentence was not the objectionable part.

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Here is how I understood the above: 1) Dr. Feser’s style of argumentation is empty grandstanding with no substance and 2) I presume that people disagree with me only because they do not understand me.

Reply to 1) – So you say.

Reply to 2) See above.


Accusations repeated:

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[quote='Esquilax' pid='1116730' dateline='1447866469']

In the case of Esquilax, he will employ all the resources of his intellect to direct attention away from valid demonstrations. When he finds himself unable to do so, he hand-waves and inserts rolling eyes emoticons as if his incredulity were enough to justify his opinions.

Ha ha, let's just roll this back a bit, shall we? I responded to all of your assertions, in full.[1] In response to that, you said you weren't going to play anymore and quit the thread, asserting that I had a "darkened intellect."[2] So just to begin with, your accusation that I hadn't offered anything substantive in support of my position is hilariously hypocritical, since I did that, and then you waved me off as under the influence of dark forces.[3] Secondly, you're kinda quote mining me here, since what you quoted of mine for this section was specifically in reference to your habit of asserting that anybody who disagrees with you does so for other, supernatural reasons unrelated to their stated objections. I was taking you to task for poisoning the well, not offering a justification for my disagreement with the five ways overall.  4)

No, you'd have to go back to the reply you haughtily said you wouldn't respond to, for that.

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Here is how I understand the above points: 1) you responded to all my points, 2) I gave up, 3) my objections to your replies are not substantive, 4) I’m poisoning the well again, again.

Reply  to 1) – Maybe you did, but that doesn’t make them valid.

Reply to 2) – At the time I saw little point in continuing with you (and wonder why I still do.) If you truly sought to know, then you would confront the actual substance of the Five Ways and not repeat the same irrelevant objections that everyone uses and that I listed above.

Reply to 3) I do not attribute your attitude to supernatural influences any more than everyone else is.

Reply to 4) – If I did quote mine it was only by mistake. Notice how I take great care to include the entire text in this post because you make that argument when it is convenient for you to do so.  I’m not poisoning the well for anyone except you. I truly believe you are clinging to falsities because your personal identity is wrapped up with being an atheist.

I accept that not all will be convinced because not all can be convinced. For those who have confirmed in themselves an ardent disbelief no amount of evidence or rational demonstration will lead them to the truth.

See, this is exactly what I was talking about: you can't offer a substantial argument, so you're reduced to impugning the character and motivation of anybody who won't just take you at your word. Breathtakingly dishonest.

I said what I believe to be true. That is the definition of honest. I said not everyone wants to be convinced. That is true. You apparently also believe that because you accuse me of presupposing that I can never be wrong. My second statement is also true. On another thread I asked if finding the words “Made by Jesus” engraved on every living cell would be sufficient evidence? Someone replied No, because it could have been put there by an advanced race of mischievous aliens.

The following is simply too good to hide any portion:

Many of you have heard that before: arguments are not evidence. Since my initial reply fails to satisfy then I will call on a greater authority than myself. In Book 4, Chapter 3 of his Metaphysics, Aristotle presents the Principle of Non-Contradiction (a.k.a. the PNC) which states that nothing can be and not-be simultaneously and in all ways. The PNC shows conclusively that 1) human being have the capacity to know fundamental truths and 2) humans can have certain and true a priori knowledge that transcends sensory verification, i.e. it lies beyond empirical knowledge.

... And if we found something tomorrow that both was and not-was at once, you know what'd happen to the PNC? It'd be rendered untrue.

That is the most illogical thing you have ever said. Anything you can find obviously ‘exists’ and it cannot be said to ‘not exist.’


Anyways, I’ve already invested too much time in this thread. If you want to accuse me of avoiding your remaining points, you have that right. But I think anyone can see that I’ve given you more than enough time already.

[Esquilax]

Reply to 1) – I believe that with respect to the proposition “God exists”, atheists such as yourself do not earnestly seek to know the truth. I think that not because simply because they disagree with me per se but because the 5W are sound and well supported arguments.

An argument cannot be sound, nor well supported, if basic premises within it are either contradicted by, or at the very least not in evidence with, what we currently know about the universe. An argument with, at best, no evidence behind it is not supported at all.

Go and read the cosmology. Go and learn what we've actually discovered about the universe in the eight hundred years between Aquinas' time and our own. It's not my problem that your understanding of the things the five ways discuss is stuck in a time when people could not possibly have been in a position to know, nor is it my fault that I'm not willing to ignore whole centuries worth of advancement just because you happen to think that an argument that aligns with what you already believed is the bees knees. All this is is you projecting your own ignorance onto us: you won't learn the things that demonstrate the weakness in Aquinas' position, the verifiable, objective science that has been done that shows that the very terms Aquinas is using are inappropriate for the subject, and then when people who are willing to learn those things come along, you accuse them of not honestly seeking the truth because they won't wallow in the same self-inflicted blindness that you are.

I think therefore that the failure to accept them must be something other than rational evaluation.

No, my failure to accept them came from the fact that I didn't just stop at an evaluation of Aquinas' work. I realized that Aquinas was making claims about the real world, claims that fall within science's ability to investigate, and so what I did was, I didn't stop at the one damn book. I moved on and checked to see if Aquinas' claims actually align with what we've discovered about the universe using technologies that would have been unthinkable during Aquinas' days, and do you know what I found? Why, Aquinas' claims are so misinformed that they aren't even using the correct frame of reference to be considered wrong!

The problem is that you want to evaluate Aquinas' claims without bothering to understand anything more about the topics Aquinas discusses. You want to just evaluate them based on your intuition and embrace the fallacy of composition at the heart of the claims, you don't want to actually know anything that secular science has demonstrated about the topic. Again, not my problem: your exact same reasoning would lead you to conclude the earth was flat if Aquinas said so, because that makes an intuitive degree of sense and you refuse to look further into the science on the matter before forming your conclusion.

Despite having been shown how to understand the 5W consistent with the informed opinions of Aquinas scholars*, many atheists continue to reiterate objections to arguments Aquinas never made.

... And then when I point out that Aquinas isn't even working within the correct frames of reference, making his entire theology reliant on a non-applicable model of reality, you just ignore this and focus on other things. So hey.

If things cannot move by themselves then God also requires a mover. (No premise of the First Way says that everything is in motion.)

If the first way allows for there to be things that are not in motion, but are capable of conferring motion, then there is no need at all to install a god into the picture, because there is no longer a problem for the first way to resolve.

The universe can exist from eternity with no need for a first cause. (The Second Way refers to an essentially ordered sequence and not an accidentally ordered one.)

Then why assume the former over the latter with regard to the universe?

The physical universe satisfies as the necessary being. (No compound of merely possible parts could exist necessarily.)

Arbitrary philosophical labels are irrelevant to objectively real things: you can demand by fiat that the universe is "merely possible parts," all you want, that doesn't make it so.

If God is perfect in all ways then He is also perfectly evil. (Not understanding that imperfection is privation and evil is the lack of the good that ought to be there.)

Given that I've never made that argument, it's irrelevant. My actual objection to the fourth way is that it's entirely unjustified and arbitrary.

Evolutionary theory refutes the Fifth Way. (The Fifth Way is not a modern intelligent design argument.)

Modern or not, the fifth way does posit design without ever demonstrating it, which is problem enough on its own.

There is no observable phenomena support the Five Ways. (The demonstrations of the Five Ways are based on everyday observable effects common to all sensible things.)

Two objections here: if the five ways are demonstrable via evidence, why all that bluster about how evidence isn't necessary and the five ways can be known a priori in your last response?

And also, fallacy of composition: the five ways may be demonstrable within everyday causality within the universe, but as I've pointed out maybe five times now, the very basis of that causality does not apply beyond the boundaries of the universe, including before it. Your argument here is no more sound than "things within the universe are tin, therefore there is tin outside the universe." The conclusion is absolutely not justified based on the premises.

Even if the proofs were valid they would not reveal a specifically Christian god. (The link is revealed in Exodus 3:14 which succinctly describes the perfect union of His Divine Existence and Essense as “I AM WHO I AM” and Jesus used that reference to Himself in John 8:56-59)

Are you serious, right now? For all your pretenses to intellectual superiority, your whole position really is very anemic.

Reply to 2) – First, experience should have taught you otherwise. In some threads I admitted to being wrong. Second, were I so certain of my infallibility, I would never have challenged my previous atheism and would have remained one.

If your only response to people not accepting the five ways is that they "just don't want to know the truth," then you have presupposed the five ways to be absolutely truthful, with no possible means of disagreement other than malevolent personal motivations.

Reply to 3 & 4) – I try to keep the debates lively and playful; taunts and jabs are par for the course on AF and I am willing to go along with forum culture. However, I have not done so here without an accompanying argument or pointing back to one.

There's an appreciable difference between a jab, and imputing motivations to those who disagree with you in order to reduce their credibility.

I said what I believe to be true. That is the definition of honest. I said not everyone wants to be convinced. That is true. You apparently also believe that because you accuse me of presupposing that I can never be wrong.

The difference is that when I talk of your presuppositions, I'm doing so on the basis that the only possible reason you can produce that someone might disagree with you is that they personally are biased against your position. When you tell me that I only say what I do because I have a darkened intellect, you are doing so on the basis that I don't agree with you, not on anything that might actually lead you to the conclusion you'd come to. The former is a conclusion based on observation, the latter is a conclusion made without any such observations, to preserve the integrity of a prior conclusion.

Only the former is rationally justifiable in any sense.

My second statement is also true. On another thread I asked if finding the words “Made by Jesus” engraved on every living cell would be sufficient evidence? Someone replied No, because it could have been put there by an advanced race of mischievous aliens.

Are you saying that aliens aren't an equally valid explanation? Or that it isn't a far more parsimonious one than the god explanation, in that it requires far less additional claims be accepted than the christian god? What actually is your objection here, in an epistemological sense?

The following is simply too good to hide any portion:

... And if we found something tomorrow that both was and not-was at once, you know what'd happen to the PNC? It'd be rendered untrue.

That is the most illogical thing you have ever said. Anything you can find obviously ‘exists’ and it cannot be said to ‘not exist.’ [/quote]

I didn't assert that it was possible that something could both exist and not exist simultaneously. I asserted that, were we to find such an object, it would render the idea of non-contradiction untrue. The point I was making was that empirical evidence overrides our intuitions, not that I literally believe the principle of non-contradiction to be untrue.

[Neo-Scholastic]

No, my failure to accept them came from the fact that I didn't just stop at an evaluation of Aquinas' work. I realized that Aquinas was making claims about the real world, claims that fall within science's ability to investigate

Since you fail to provide any examples I will repeat my challenge:

All the conclusions of the Five Ways follow from observations of reality and none of them have been contradicted by an observed phenomena. If you think otherwise I challenge you to name a single phenomenon that definitively rules out the possibility of any of the following: Unmoved Mover, First Cause, Necessary Being, or Guiding Intelligence.

[Minimalist]

I will repeat again for the hard of hearing.  Show us just one piece of evidence, not opinion, evidence.  To date, not one single theist has offered any shred of evidence.

And apparently we are fated to suffer one more lap around Chad's unevidenced circle of silliness.

[Thumpalumpacus]

No, my failure to accept them came from the fact that I didn't just stop at an evaluation of Aquinas' work. I realized that Aquinas was making claims about the real world, claims that fall within science's ability to investigate

Since you fail to provide any examples I will repeat my challenge:

All the conclusions of the Five Ways follow from outdated and obsolete observations of reality and none of them have been contradicted by an observed phenomena except what we have seen from testing quantum mechanics. If you think otherwise I challenge you to name a single phenomenon that definitively rules out the possibility of any of the following: Unmoved Mover, First Cause, Necessary Being, or Guiding Intelligence.

FIFY

You do not get to pretend that this point wasn't addressed. Attempting to do so in a thread complaining of the intellectual bankruptcy of your interlocutors is ironic at best. If you have to defend your faith with dishonest tactics, perhaps your faith is not worth defending -- or holding, for that matter.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Since you fail to provide any examples I will repeat my challenge:

All the conclusions of the Five Ways follow from outdated and obsolete observations of reality and none of them have been contradicted by an observed phenomena except what we have seen from testing quantum mechanics. If you think otherwise I challenge you to name a single phenomenon that definitively rules out the possibility of any of the following: Unmoved Mover, First Cause, Necessary Being, or Guiding Intelligence.

FIFY

You do not get to pretend that this point wasn't addressed. Attempting to do so in a thread complaining of the intellectual bankruptcy of your interlocutors is ironic at best. If you have to defend your faith with dishonest tactics, perhaps your faith is not worth defending -- or holding, for that matter.

You keep forgetting how simply referencing QM in a vague and general way can justify everything from precognition to Idealism. I'm asking for one specific QM experiment that makes impossible an umoved mover/first cause/necessary being/guiding intelligence.

And while you're at it, maybe you can name an outdated observation about reality in the Five Ways other than those examples used for illustration.