Is atheism self-contradictory ?

[Mister Agenda]

If that's the case, how can you trust your thinking when it tells you there's a god?

I don't. I need to assume that my brain is the creation of an absolute power, otherwise my judgment about the matter is untrustworthy.

Without this basic assumption i.e. my brain is created by a perfect being, no logical statement can be proved or rejected, at least this is what I think.

Our brains are piss-poor shoddy workmanship if they're the product of an absolute power. They're prone to be easily fooled by optical illusions, politicians, and preachers.

How can one infer a perfect creator from an imperfect creation?

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Ah.  You mean aside from whoever wrote it the first time?

Whatever you think about the prophet of Islam, you'll probably agree with me that he cannot be naive enough to challenge every single Arab tribe in the region on the one thing they master the most : their language. If he was really a false prophet, lots of books similar to the Qur'an would exist today made by all the brilliant minds that encountered Muhammad.

So you agree that the Hadiths are unreliable? You don't think they're perfect too, do you?

Argument 501: Only God could have won this writing contest, which all who believe God was the author agree is the best writing evah!

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An axiom is a statement that is taken to be true, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments. It isn't taken as a FACT. I trust my thinking (for the most part) because I can base it on the physical reality I see/feel/hear around me. Yes, those transducers can give me false information. How have you lived to your current age, with your "untrustworthy" brain?

Actually, you should trust the physical reality only if it is consistent and logical, not the other way around. When you see a mirage before you, you immediately reject its appearance based on your inner knowledge that it is a natural optical phenomenon.

That's not 'inner knowledge'. You have to learn what a mirage is in order to not be fooled by it. Because our brains aren't perfect. 'Inner Knowledge' would be if no one ever got fooled by a mirage because knowledge that a mirage is a natural optical phenomenon and it's tell-tale signs would be instinctive. We learned about mirages through trial-and-error; a precursor to the scientific method.

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The problem I'm talking about concerns agnostics as well, everybody seems to agree with me that we NEED to trust our brains and trust their ability to attain truth. What's the source of this trust ? Is it mere belief or hope ? What's your position on this ?

The source of this trust is experience. I trust chairs not to collapse when I sit on them because my experience is that they almost never do that. If they did, I'd start sitting on the floor. I trust my brain because whatever it's doing, it's simulating actual reality well enough to keep me alive so far and achieve some success in life, despite coming from a background of grinding poverty. I've also learned some ways my brain isn't very reliable through experience. I know I'm too soft a touch for needy people, a symptom of codependent tendencies. I'm terrible at estimating distances despite being a fairly good marksman. I have experience in what ways my brain is reliable and what ways it is not; and I rely on trial-and-error or science to teach me when I'm wrong.

I firmly believe that without assuming that some absolute power created our mind, nothing can be said or done, nothing can be proved or refuted. Therefore the fact that I can demonstrate logical statements and discern between sound and unsound arguments is proof of this power's existence. Where am I mistaken ?

You can firmly believe anything you want, but what you've said is mere assertion, and can be dismissed as such. You keep saying 'therefore' and making a conclusion without having made any argument to get you to a 'therefore'. There needs to be a step between the premise and the conclusion.

Steve Jobs is rich.
I am rich.
Therefore, I am Steve Jobs.

It's wrong, but at least all the steps are there. You're just saying the equivalent of 'Steve Jobs is rich, therefore I am Steve Jobs'.

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Nobody asked for your baseless thoughts regarding atheism.

You're right, nobody asked me to post this. But since you came to my post you're compelled to reply with something related. What does the thread have to do with Islam for God's sake ? And yes, his thoughts about this religion specifically are at best unfounded.

Besides, you still didn't answer any of my questions.

No one is compelled to respond in the way you like. You don't own this thread. If you don't want to talk about Islam, don't talk about Islam.

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We've (the forum, note it is more than just I) discussed all of those arguments that you site and I have found them lacking. You might try a search here in the forum for past threads that address them. And yes, if not absurd, I find them flawed. However, if you'd like to discuss them yet again and add your own perspective feel free. You might want to start individual threads for each. 

If god exists it would not need assumptions of logic, debate or argument. This simply indicates that god(s) was made by man for mans own purposes. 

You found them lacking in what sense ? I'll take the cosmological argument as an example, which is based on two premises :

(1) Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
(2) The Universe began to exist.

To refute the argument you need to reject one of its premises. The relationship between causes and effects is fundamental to all natural science. The second premise is based on the empirical observation that our universe is expanding. So what am I missing ? 

That's easy enough. The only thing we've come close to observing 'beginning to exist' are virtual particles, and they begin to exist without a cause. Everything else we observe is matter and energy transforming, never 'beginning to exist'. Therefore there is no basis to assert that everything that begins to exist has a cause.

The second premise assumes that the universe did not always exist in some form or another, which has never been established.

But assuming that the premises are sound, it still doesn't get you to a conscious being intentionally creating the universe, it only gets you to 'a cause' and a natural phenomenon fits the role of cause just as well, and has the advantage of not being an exception to the rule that the only causes we've ever found for anything have been natural.

And if all kinds of proofs are lacking from your point of view ? What kind of proof do you require in order to accept that a divine entity exists ?

I'm easy. Bottle a jinn and prove it really exists scientifically and I'll convert to Islam because at least one supernatural claim by Mohammed will have been proven to actually be true.

[The Grand Nudger]

Ad hom.


Ad hom.

You keep saying that word, but it doesn't mean what you think it means.  I insulted you.  That's not an ad hom.  It's a rare pleasure to find a person I couldn't insult with pedo jokes...but that I could with gay jokes. A person who would rather be a child molester, than queer. Is this the product of a perfect beings guidance? Is such a creature the creation of a perfect being? A perfectly what being?

I'm not obliged to post in any other thread to prove my point.

Right, you're not obliged to contribute..so long as all you intend to do is queen around the boards. Go right ahead Susan.  

[Mister Agenda]

Trust me on this, mon ami.  You do not want to know what I think of the "prophet of islam."

I talked to many atheists before joining this forum and I know exactly what you think of him, but here's the thing : you cannot condemn anything he did or anyone's wrongdoings since nothing is "immoral" outside belief systems.

So go ahead, tell me exactly what I think of Mohammed. I mean you talked to many atheists, and learned that we all think alike, so you should be able to back up your claim that you know exactly what I think of Mohamed.

And I have a belief system, and I don't see any problem condemning anything he did that was immoral, if he actually did anything immoral.

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Also if objective moral truths exist - and you are compelled to believe that at least one does exist because only then you can say Muhammad violated moral codes because he did this or that - this would immediately warrant a supernatural explanation - according to the atheist philosopher J.L. Mackie, and this directly leads us to the famous argument from morality.

That objective moral truths require a supernatural explanation is a claim, not an argument. And, as usual, it's a claim you haven't bothered to even try to support.

There's lots of atheist philosophers...a LOT of atheist philosophers. Why should I agree with Mackie? If you say 'because we're both atheists', you need to reexamine your whole life.

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Ask yourself this, if it weren't for the extremely repressive and autocratic governments of the Arab world, would you be following the "biography" of a self confessed child rapist?

As a nit, not 'self-confessed'. The story of Aisha's underage marriage is from a hadith, and the Shia vigorously contest its authenticity.

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You didn't answer my question. Also, it seems that nothing can be said or done to talk you out of any stereotype you hold against Islam. If your mind is already made up about this religion, you're wasting time by coming here and stating unproven allegations and/or talking about how Islam should like according to your tastes. Finally, it's marriage, not rape ; even the most extremist interpretations of Islamic history rule out the possibility that Muhammad actually forced Aisha to marry him. 

You know, you don't have to believe Aisha was nine when she was married. It's just a hadith, not claimed to be perfect or authored by God. There were political reasons for wanting Aisha to be very young when she married Mohamed, since it would make her being the transmitter of Islam seem more miraculous. You don't have to believe that hadith to be a good Muslim.

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Also note that the assertion "There's no such truth as objective truth" is self-contradictory, since the assertion itself is either objectively true or not, if it is true, the it contradicts itself, if it's not, then there is actually an objective truth.

Get back to us on that 'gotcha' when someone here actually says it.

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 How embarassing for me to despise inserting one's sexual organ in where shit literally comes from   

How embarrassing for you to consider it worse than child rape, or to consider your personal disgust to be a justification for oppressing homosexuals. And btw, a lot of heterosexuals insert their sexual organs into the same orifice.

[Cyberman]

Empirical science cannot prove nor disprove the existence of a being independent of matter itself, if you're exclusively relying on empiral science to acquire facts about the world, then I'm afraid you need to enhance your proofs toolkit.

A being, independent of matter or not, either affects reality or it doesn't. If it does, it must necessarily leave evidence on that reality (otherwise how could you possibly know anything about it at all?); that evidence can be at least detectable, which falls squarely in the purview of science. If it doesn't affect reality, why should we even care about it? As far as our universe is concerned, it's indistinguishable from non-existent and we can safely ignore it.

 How embarassing for me to despise inserting one's sexual organ in where shit literally comes from   

Your mouth?

[Parsim0ny]

I see you're no exception to the rule that theists who come here wanting to know about atheism tell us what atheism is and what we must think. In fact, you're the second person with the 'question I stumbled upon concerning atheism' person we've had in the last week.  Not very refreshing, but I did not have much of an expectation. At any rate, welcome to the forum, I hope you like it here. 

I'm sorry I have to say this, but it seems to me that everybody has the right to insult and disregard any argument we make because they think they are too smart to answer. You are actually the second or third person to reply in this thread without directly neglecting the thread and attacking Muslim beliefs.

It does not follow from the fact that a god cannot be proven with logic, that the mind itself can't be trusted. You seem to have skipped some steps in making that claim. But the claims are not necessarily false in their conclusions, they are unsound. That is, if there is a God, none of the arguments presented thus far successfully establish that. There's no 'proof' given by a scholar or philosopher that both contains no logical fallacies and rests on sound premises that any reasonable person would assent to. 

If there is a God, who is by definition absolutely fair, he must make his creatures capable of knowing him and follow the right path. Therefore, I know my mind is reliable because God made it that way. Assuming no God exists, nothing tells me that my mind - as a product of long-term alterations of genome - is reliable enough to discover objective truths about life and the universe. Our minds can produce science, but science itself is merely cumulative experience and an endless trial-and-error process, and everything we know about the universe via scientific investigation can break down at any moment and become history. Producing science DOESN'T mean our brains are reliable, it only appears that way.
Also, I can't say for myself that I'm brilliant about anything. I can't claim that I have a good and natural voice unless someone else hears me singing and assures me of that. Humans cannot say about themselves that their minds possess any great ability without an "exterior consciousness" telling them that.

You say therefore, but no argument preceded that conclusion. You're claiming not believing something is believing something, that's a strange claim to make. If you asked us what we think instead of telling us, you'd find that most of us just aren't sold on the deity you're trying to sell. There might be ghosts, but I don't believe in them. I'm not going to believe in literal ghosts (or Bigfoot, or alien abductions, or Amway) until I'm presented with sufficient evidence to convince me. Do you believe in things without sufficient evidence to convince you?

The initial variations in our genome are random within a certain range of possibilities, but which variations are conserved isn't random, evolution is (vastly oversimplifying here) a process of culling disadvantageous variations while conserving advantageous ones. I can reasonably infer that my brain has evolved to deal with the environment that actually exists, and while it may be imperfect, it does the job. And we've come up with science to help us with our blind spots (and there are many of them). 

I'm not trying to sell you anything. I'm simply requesting for a reasonable explanation about our minds being presumably reliable. This is, of course, not sufficient to summon any supernatural creator, but means that If our minds aren't the work of a consciousness, THEN they are not reliable. If this previous statement holds, then by contraposition : If our minds are reliable, it follows that they are the work of a concsiousness, regardless of its nature.
I should also repeat that selective alterations of the genomes aren't sufficient to resolve the issue, since we don't know whether we reached a mind sophisticated enough to demonstrate objective truths.
So here's a formal version of my argument you're requesting for :
(1) My mind isn't the work of a consciousness. 
(2) No unconscious process can generate a reliable consciousness. A  product can't have attributes superior to its designer.

It clearly follows from the two premises that our minds ARE NOT reliable as we claim they are.

[paulpablo]

I know god exists because my mind is reliable, I know it's reliable because god made it.

That's legitimate logic.

90 percent of convo about objective truth is bullshit.

It's religious people saying you can't know something is true unless an ancient book says so.

And that's not even exaggeration. That's literally what the convo usuallly leads to.

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm not trying to sell you anything. I'm simply requesting for a reasonable explanation about our minds being presumably reliable.

-and you got that immediately, pages and pages and pages ago.

Evolutionary procesess selectively favor reliable brains.

 If an evolved brain possessed This is, of course, not sufficient to summon any supernatural creator, but means that If our minds aren't the work of a consciousness, THEN they are not reliable. 

It's like you put two thoughts and mashed them together midsentence without any indication as to where one led into the other........

Our minds are reliable -regardless- of whether or not they are the work of a conscious.  Regardless of the existence of a "consciousness" our brains are the reliable product of evolutionary pressure.   There -is- no need to summon any supernatural creator.  

If this previous statement holds, then by contraposition : If our minds are reliable, it follows that they are the work of a concsiousness, regardless of its nature.

The reliability of a mind doesn't appear to be remotely related to the existence of your, or any, god.  Our minds are reliable..we know how they ended up that way, and they have no need of a supernatural creator.

I should also repeat that selective alterations of the genomes aren't sufficient to resolve the issue, since we don't know whether we reached a mind sophisticated enough to demonstrate objective truths.

Who cares, it obviously can produce a reliable mind..which is what you asked for, what we have..and what you got. That you doubt that your own brain is sophisticated enough to demonstrate objective truths is your own problem. I have doubts about your brain as well.

So here's a formal version of my argument you're requesting for :
(1) My mind isn't the work of a consciousness. 
(2) No unconscious process can generate a reliable consciousness. A  product can't have attributes superior to its designer.

It clearly follows from the two premises that our minds ARE NOT reliable as we claim they are.

Your premises are demonstrably false, and your conclusion simply a restatement of those premises. That you refuse to acknowledge that those premises have already been shown to be demonstrabnly false, however, is an indicator of how reliable -your- brain is. Did the perfect being do that to you, or his guidance?

[Astreja]

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I am merely saying that without an exterior force you cannot trust your own thoughts about anything, that's about it.

The physical environment and the sensory input that it provides are adequate data for my needs.  (Adding a god to the mix doesn't necessarily increase the accuracy of one's thoughts anyway, because the god could be trying to mislead someone.)

So you're claiming that God cannot be proved with reason alone ? Empirical science cannot prove nor disprove the existence of a being independent of matter itself, if you're exclusively relying on empiral science to acquire facts about the world, then I'm afraid you need to enhance your proofs toolkit.

No, all I have to do is ignore and dismiss your entire god-concept as unfalsifiable, of no practical use in the real world, and of no relevance to my life.  I am under no obligation to go chasing after your imaginary friend in the unlikely chance that it might be out there somewhere.

I actually thought you mean by plagiarism that the Qur'an literally quoted sentences from the Bible.

Taking an existing story and rewording it is still plagiarism.  The copying does not have to be exact, and I never claimed that it was exact.  It's the content that has been misappropriated.

The story of the Prophet Solomon coming upon a valley of ants and being able to understand their language is a mere divine miracle narrated by the Qur'an, and there isn't something contradictory about it even if its sounds weird and likely to be a manufacture, we cannot prove that it is false.

I don't have to prove that; I merely have to consider it too childish and stupid to take seriously, and to question the sanity and maturity of people who *do* believe it.

[Amarok]

What do they say mark of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result . You have asked your question we have answered it so stop asking the same question.

[Pat Mustard]

According to the Principle of Non-Contradiction, a thing cannot be its own opposite and have existence.  Thus, a Being cannot have, as you've put it, 'all the absolute attributes'.  God, therefore, cannot be absolutely good and absolutely evil, absolutely just and absolutely merciful, absolutely ordered and absolutely capricious, and so on.  You've just defined God out of existence.

And this, I think, is the primary reason why some of us find it impossible to belief in God - the definitions are incoherent.

Boru

You're right, It would've been more accurate to say that this supernatural being possesses all positive absolute attributes, thus ruling out the contradiction.

First of all I very much doubt the stories told in the qu'ran and the hadiths are a biography, as they are clearly written long after the alleged Mohammed's death (yes he is alleged because we've no independent evidence of his existence. The only things which say Mohammed was a living person are things asserted by muslims, i.e. the claim). Secondly a man who can seriously believe in fairies and goblins and demons and supernatural spirits guiding his ever move is both crazy and talking nonsense.

Ask yourself this, if it weren't for the extremely repressive and autocratic governments of the Arab world, would you be following the "biography" of a self confessed child rapist?

And what this evidence of the existence of Muhammad should look like ? How do you know that Galileo existed 5 centuries ago ? How can anyone possibly prove the existence of any historical figure whatsoever ? But still, everybody is sure that Galileo existed. And why is that ? Because so many people witnessed his existence and wrote books and biographies about him.

Similarly, an "independent evidence" of Muhammad's existence is simple the incredible amount of literature written about the man throughout centuries. 

You're not the first one to wrongly call the Prophet "a child rapist", child marriage was common in his time, even Muhammad's enemies - who would immediately notice anything that can inflict damage to his credibility as a messenger of God - didn't find anything particularly remarkable or wrong about any of his marriages. Also, Aisha was already engaged to marriage by Jubayr ibn Mut' im, a companion of the Prophet.

Regarding evidence for mohammed contemporary documents of his exitence. You cite Galileo and in his case we've plenty of correspondence, books written by his own hand and court records in relation to his legal roblems with the Vatican. We have nothing for mohammed other than a qu'ran which first appears 200 years after the alleged fact. The "incredible evidence" of mohammed's existence is no better than the "incredible evidence" of Gaspode the Wonder Dog's existence, ie a third hand account which is largely, if not completely fictional.

And as to your assertion that the man you worship wasn't a child rapist, by definition any man who engages in sexual activity with a nine year old girl is a child rapist. So either your "prophet" is fictional, a child rapist or your holy book is telling a lie about its main focus.