When Atheists Can't Think Episode 1: No Evidence for God?

[Delicate]

You believe in plenty of things you can't prove.

You believe your experience of the external world is not an illusion of your mind.

So your refutation of my plea for proof is to posit we are in the matrix and it could all be a lie. Do you realise that that particular argument is either used by stoners or people who have lost any hope of winning an argument based on actual reality.
So I declare myself the winner of our exchanges based on the fact that you have shifted the nature of reality to make your position reasonable.
I win.

This sounds like a very immature response.

My response is actually to reject your evidentialism for foundationalism.

But if you are desperate to win rather than explore, think, and learn about these issues by having a meaningful discussion, feel free to take the paper crown.

I don't care about a victory so much as stimulating discussion.

[Exian]

Read up to about page 20 (when that JBK weirdo showed up) before seeing this was nearly 50 pages long. Can someone give me the cliff-notes on all the evidence that proves God's existence, or haven't we gotten that far?

[robvalue]

Sure, he we go, I'll put it in spoilers to avoid a huge post:

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http://youtu.be/iIIuR-HjFho

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[downbeatplumb]

So your refutation of my plea for proof is to posit we are in the matrix and it could all be a lie. Do you realise that that particular argument is either used by stoners or people who have lost any hope of winning an argument based on actual reality.
So I declare myself the winner of our exchanges based on the fact that you have shifted the nature of reality to make your position reasonable.
I win.

This sounds like a very immature response.

My response is actually to reject your evidentialism for foundationalism.

But if you are desperate to win rather than explore, think, and learn about these issues by having a meaningful discussion, feel free to take the paper crown.

I don't care about a victory so much as stimulating discussion.

What you did was to move the basis for knowledge.
You posited a reality that we cannot possibly know because it could all be a lie. If that was true then all bets are off and we might as well give up now. But that is not how I view reality I base my view on what can reasonably be proved assuming that reality is in fact real and not some sort of computer simulation, I don't think this is an unreasonable stance and if in the end I am just a brain in a jar or character in an advanced version of the sims well well done to the programmer a I am convinced that I am real and base my view on the assumption that I am a real person.
Where as what you suggested was that ultimately we can't be sure this is all unreal so you may as well believe in god. Or to put it another way, you conceded that the only way your god makes any sense is if you change the nature of reality to make all things possible or unreal. Then you claim that MY view is the immature one when yours is the view of stoned thirteen year olds postulating on the nature of reality during lunch break.
You are good at asking us questions so explain your idea of what god is I notice you ignored my last bunch. I must think that you are arguing for a god you don't really understand.

[Delicate]

This sounds like a very immature response.

My response is actually to reject your evidentialism for foundationalism.

But if you are desperate to win rather than explore, think, and learn about these issues by having a meaningful discussion, feel free to take the paper crown.

I don't care about a victory so much as stimulating discussion.

What you did was to move the basis for knowledge.
You posited a reality that we cannot possibly know because it could all be a lie. If that was true then all bets are off and we might as well give up now. But that is not how I view reality I base my view on what can reasonably be proved assuming that reality is in fact real and not some sort of computer simulation, I don't think this is an unreasonable stance and if in the end I am just a brain in a jar or character in an advanced version of the sims well well done to the programmer a I am convinced that I am real and base my view on the assumption that I am a real person.
Where as what you suggested was that ultimately we can't be sure this is all unreal so you may as well believe in god. Or to put it another way, you conceded that the only way your god makes any sense is if you change the nature of reality to make all things possible or unreal. Then you claim that MY view is the immature one when yours is the view of stoned thirteen year olds postulating on the nature of reality during lunch break.
You are good at asking us questions so explain your idea of what god is I notice you ignored my last bunch. I must think that you are arguing for a god you don't really understand.

I suggest you look up foundationalism and basic beliefs.

It will connect the dots with much of what you're saying so you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

[downbeatplumb]

What you did was to move the basis for knowledge.
You posited a reality that we cannot possibly know because it could all be a lie. If that was true then all bets are off and we might as well give up now. But that is not how I view reality I base my view on what can reasonably be proved assuming that reality is in fact real and not some sort of computer simulation, I don't think this is an unreasonable stance and if in the end I am just a brain in a jar or character in an advanced version of the sims well well done to the programmer a I am convinced that I am real and base my view on the assumption that I am a real person.
Where as what you suggested was that ultimately we can't be sure this is all unreal so you may as well believe in god. Or to put it another way, you conceded that the only way your god makes any sense is if you change the nature of reality to make all things possible or unreal. Then you claim that MY view is the immature one when yours is the view of stoned thirteen year olds postulating on the nature of reality during lunch break.
You are good at asking us questions so explain your idea of what god is I notice you ignored my last bunch. I must think that you are arguing for a god you don't really understand.

I suggest you look up foundationalism and basic beliefs.

It will connect the dots with much of what you're saying so you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

I think I have explained my position so please don't try to give me home work.
Oh and I see you have dodged my questions again about the nature of god which makes me think you don't know.

[Nay_Sayer]

Read up to about page 20 (when that JBK weirdo showed up) before seeing this was nearly 50 pages long. Can someone give me the cliff-notes on all the evidence that proves God's existence, or haven't we gotten that far?

It's an impasse at delicate only accepting definitions that he personally approves of and people trying to explain why that's the problem.

[Fake Messiah]

. Just like a toddler might say "I see no evidence of the validity of Quantum Mechanics" or a blind woman might say "I see no evidence of the existence of colors" the problem might be with the person and not the evidence. 

Wow you really got us! I pull my hat down! It's true all of it! This means Mohammed really rode on a flying horse and Jesus was born of virgin. NOT!!!

The truth is children need to be armed with knowledge to face this world. Much more knowledge then we had in their age. It is scary but alternative is worse.
I would tell toddler evidence is all around you without quantum mechanics there would be no transistor, and hence no personal computer; no laser, and hence no Blu-ray players.

I see, Delicate, you don't understand what reality is. Reality is everything that exists.  Our five senses – sight, smell, touch, hearing and taste – do a pretty good job of convincing us that many things are real: rocks and camels, butterflies, ice creams, marbles... When it comes to things that are too far away to be seen with the naked eye like distant Galaxies or  a bacterium, too small to be seen without a microscope we don't say that these do not exist because we can’t see them.  We can enhance our senses through the use of special instruments: telescopes for the galaxy, microscopes for bacteria. How about radio waves? Do they exist? Our eyes can’t detect them, nor can our ears, but again special instruments – television sets, for example – convert them into signals that we can see and hear. As with telescopes and microscopes, we understand how radios and televisions work. So they help our senses to build a picture of what exists: the real world – reality.
Or take dinosaurs. They don't exist anymore, but we have fossils of them we can work out that they must have existed, using indirect evidence that still ultimately reaches us through our senses: we see and touch the stony traces of ancient life.
Blind people are surrounded with people who can tell them there are colors and although they can't see them they can understand that they exist because of nature of light and how it refracts.

Or what about are there aliens in outer space? We’ve never seen or heard them so we don't know if they're real. Nobody knows; but we do know what kind of things could one day tell us if they are. If ever we got near to an alien, our sense organs could tell us about it. Reality doesn’t just consist of the things we already know about: it also includes things that exist but that we don’t know about yet and won’t know about until some future time, perhaps when we have built better instruments to assist our five senses.

Atoms have always existed, but people became sure of their existence only recently and it is likely that our descendants will know about many more things that.

BUT this doesn’t mean we should believe just anything that anybody might dream up: there is infinite amount of things we can imagine but which are highly unlikely to be real – flying penis, fairies, gods, giants, leprechauns... We should always be open-minded, but the only good reason to believe that something exists is if there is real evidence that it does.

[paulpablo]

You gave this as a link as to the reasoning behind why atheism and being agnostic are mutually exclusive.  There's no reasoning in these paragraphs it's just you making the same statements.  Starting a sentence with the words "Properly speaking," isn't reasoning, it's still just a statement.  And you saying the definition of atheism is inconsistent doesn't make it inconsistent.

Even if someone is incompetent and incapable or competent and capable of seeing evidence it makes no difference to the definitions of atheism or being agnostic.

This is the third link you gave me in reply to me asking for reasoning behind you saying that the definition of atheism and being agnostic are mutually exclusive and again these are just statements.
There's no reasoning to the statements or any use of definitions from a dictionary or Wikipedia or use of any logic, it's just you repeating the claim that you're right about this topic with no explanation.

I think it's best to start from a more basic place. Presumably we can start off by agreeing on some common ground. Namely,

1) regardless of which definition one prefers, the lack of belief definition is new. It's a revision of the established, historically prevalent definition.

2) incompetent atheism is irrational and ought not to be taken seriously.

3) someone who is informed about epistemology will find it nonsensical and self-refuting to have knowledge and belief as distinct categories and take both seriously because belief category is missing either justification or fails to take a truth value.

If the above views are reasonable, then everything I've said in the links follows.

So naturally the first question for you is which of the premises you have a problem with? And then, based on your answer, I'll explain how they lead to my conclusion.

1) I prefer the definition which is correct and most up to date.   I won't agree with this unless some historical reference given that shows the definition of atheism has changed from including a lack of belief in gods to not including a lack of belief in gods.

2) Let me just try and understand this sentence.   Incompetent = Not having or showing the necessary skills to do something successful.
Atheism = disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.

If you can explain to me what incompetent atheism is then I'd be grateful and I might agree with you on this point.

3) The first time I heard about epistemology is in this thread, I don't consider myself well informed about it enough to agree with you on this either.

1) The JTB account entails that if a belief is justified and true, it is knowledge.
2) Your belief (atheism) is not knowledge (agnosticism)
3) Therefore your belief (atheism) is not both justified and true. (modus tollens)

If this is anything to do with your informed opinion based on the fact you have knowledge of epistemology then I already replied to this before by telling you that atheism is not necessarily a belief, it's a lack of a belief, disbelief and can also be a belief that there is no god.

The only circumstances in which these three things would be correct is where atheists believe there is no god and claim to know there is no god and for theists who claim there is a god and they know there is a god.

[Crossless2.0]

CROSSLESS1:  No argument from me on that point.

Whether you deem my question immaterial is irrelevant to me. In one of your threads, you were the one who posted the link to Plantinga's lecture notes, in which he lists both non-belief in solipsism and belief in a god or gods as properly "basic" (not irrational to believe even if it can't be rationally demonstrated). I assume you endorse that position, or else there would have been little point in referencing Plantinga in the first place.

I'd like to know if, in fact, you agree with Plantinga and, if so, how you justify the linkage between belief in god(s) and acceptance of an external reality as "basic" in his sense.

DELICATE:  I personally do find Plantinga persuasive, within his larger project.

Belief in God is indeed properly basic, in my view.

And I can lay out my reasons for why. But to do so requires groundwork.

For instance, I can't hope to convince downbeatplumb, who is convinced all legitimate knowledge must be provable. That kind of hardcore empiricism is rejected in epistemology but is popular among new atheists.

But once again, that's a different conversation than the one downbeatplumb and I are having.

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This must rank among the most disingenuous responses I've ever received at AF, which is saying something considering some of the world class bullshit and master ninja evasiveness I've encountered from some of your fellow theists. Do I really need to remind you of the title of your own thread?

When Atheists Can't Think Episode 1: No Evidence for God?

Just to refresh your memory, here's your OP:

One of the standard mantras atheists are taught to say is "I'm an atheist because I have seen no evidence for God."

This is not a convincing reason to be an atheist. Why?

It's possible for someone to be too blind or too ignorant to see or understand the evidence. Just like a toddler might say "I see no evidence of the validity of Quantum Mechanics" or a blind woman might say "I see no evidence of the existence of colors" the problem might be with the person and not the evidence.

Clearly, if the atheist wants the public to believe that there is no evidence, they have to be able to respond meaningfully to purported examples of theistic evidence. (bolding added)
 
Atheists here, for the most part are not competent enough to do this. 

And hence, when someone says they are an atheist because they have seen no evidence, the best response seems to be to send them to an optometrist.


Then, in the third post of this thread, you provided the link to Plantinga's lecture notes, and I knew then where this was heading. Here's what I wrote on page 14, thirteen days ago:

We need to be clear about the nature of the game Delicate is playing, aside from the delight he/she takes in being a douche. Plantinga and his ilk assert that belief in "God" is basic in much the same way that belief in other minds is basic, i.e., that one is not irrational for believing either position even if one is unable to rationally demonstrate them (what the connecting thought between belief in God and rejection of solipsism may be escapes me -- but no matter). So that list of "arguments" is superfluous for purposes of determining whether belief is "rational" or not. By embracing Plantinga, Delicate has already asserted by fiat that it is.

The arguments that follow aren't really meant to prove anything or even provide evidence as the word is usually understood. It's more of a cumulative case that you're either predisposed to accept as largely true (as the Protestant thinkers toiling in Plantinga's wake do) or you're not, in which case the entire edifice will appear ridiculously weak. The reason it's pointless to pursue knocking down each argument in turn -- at least as it applies to Delicate -- is that when you're done, you're still going to be left with a person who crows that belief in God is basic, i.e., not irrational -- even if that's all he has left of his "argument".

It's a waste of time.


So here we are nearly two weeks later. I agree with you that there are certain beliefs that are "basic" in the sense that they can be reasonably held even if they can't be rationally demonstrated (e.g., an external reality, other minds) and ask you to clarify in what sense a belief in a god can possibly be basic in the same way that believing and acting as though the world we experience is real and external to us. Your response? Deflection: "Oh, but this isn't what my discussion with downbeatplumb is really about."

Bullshit.

My question goes to the heart of what this sorry excuse of a thread is "about". You start the thread by likening atheists to toddlers who cannot understand quantum physics (like you do ) or to a blind person who doesn't experience color because we don't "see" the evidence for a god -- evidence that you seem to think is blindingly obvious (pun intended). Then you say that atheists must be able to respond meaningfully to purported examples of theistic evidence. Then, for page after page (here and in other threads), you simply ignore multiple members' requests for this "evidence". You dodge that by getting into a dung flinging contest about "evidentialism" -- as though that represents the epistemological stance of all atheists in relation to all questions. It doesn't. I'm an example of someone for whom it doesn't apply across the board. And when I try to engage you on your own chosen turf regarding the idea that belief in god is "basic" (reasonable to hold if not rationally demonstratable), you actually have the balls to say (1) you could lay out your reasons why but that would require some groundwork (thus giving the lie to the notion that the belief is properly basic), and (2) that the fucking question is irrelevant to the discussion.

It looks like my post from the 14th was spot on, though I admit that I didn't go nearly far enough in overestimating you and your sense of intellectual integrity. I won't make that mistake again.