Is atheism self-contradictory ?

[Astonished]

I just want to know why objectivity is dependent on the existence of a creator. Seems like a pretty stupid means of declaring objectivity, since we exist and that apparently isn't enough. What is it intrinsically about existence that creates objectivity that nothing else seemingly can? And how can we know that a deity, regardless of other characteristics, is responsible for or the author of objectivity? Or that one is even necessary for it? It's just another arbitrary characteristic you choose to describe your favorite flavor of god with and it's as meaningless as all the others without evidence (and since all logic and evidence seem to also discount the possibility of these characteristics individually, that's even worse than just being neutral).

I mean, it's like saying that we can't have objectivity without that statue of a pissing cherub in my backyard fountain. If that wasn't there, we couldn't have X, Y or Z. Fuck off with that ridiculous shit, and feel ashamed of yourself for being that damned simple.

Indeed it's arbitrary as fudge and ultimately his whole case is a giant Tu quoque. And it's worst a certain elements like logic if objective and external cannot rely on god. And even characteristics like omniscience are ultimately circular . To a point where I could simply declare myself all knowing .

I mean, it's like when someone says, "I couldn't get up out of bed in the morning without god", and yet if you asked what motivates god to do the same, there either is no answer or god doesn't need a reason. Well fuck-a-doodle-doo, what do you know, doesn't seem like that is a necessary ingredient.

[Amarok]

Indeed it's arbitrary as fudge and ultimately his whole case is a giant Tu quoque. And it's worst a certain elements like logic if objective and external cannot rely on god. And even characteristics like omniscience are ultimately circular . To a point where I could simply declare myself all knowing .

I mean, it's like when someone says, "I couldn't get up out of bed in the morning without god", and yet if you asked what motivates god to do the same, there either is no answer or god doesn't need a reason. Well fuck-a-doodle-doo, what do you know, doesn't seem like that is a necessary ingredient.

nd ultimately Ad Hoc And even more arbitrary . Hell even appealing to natures does not imply specific relations . Especially when one can assert otherwise. Even if you could relate it to things in reality there still is the question of justifying it every bit as much as the atheist. This ultimately fails.

[Astreja]

Don't worry, Parsim0ny -- first the monkey has to learn to read, write and speak a human language, graduate pre-med university with a high GPA, get accepted to medical school and pass all the exams, do a 5-year residency in Cardiac Surgery, do a 3-year Fellowship, and get hired by a hospital.  I for one *would* trust any simian that could achieve all that.  Because of the educational time required, the comparatively long-lived white-headed capuchin and the Guinea baboon are the most likely candidates.

More likely we'll see cardiac robots long before that happens, though, and ambitious monkeys will have to content themselves with other careers (parkour coach; rigger, roofer or skywalker; Shakespearean transcription) or explore entrepreneurship.

That's for cardiac surgery, but what about our preparedness to state/demonstrate objective facts about life and the universe ? I can safely assume - and nobody can refute my assumption - that the human mind must first survive ten thousand years of continous genome alterations and countless life-threating situations to begin ascertaning truths of any kind, wait 15 thousand more to consider our reasoning strong enough to start thinking about discovering objective facts. And even then, nothing indicates that our mind is reliable enough and we can never demonstrate it, it follows that nothing anyone can say has any objective value whatsoever.

Well, since Homo sapiens has been around for about 160,000 years, your hypothetical time requirements have been met more than sixfold.

Our minds are reliable enough when they enable us to survive and learn -- which they do.  We don't need great precision in our facts, either; all we need is a good supply of useful information.  I won't starve to death if I don't know the exact distance from my office to the kitchen downstairs, or if I go down there to make a sandwich at 3 in the morning instead of an arbitrary "lunchtime" of 12 noon.  I won't keel over dead if I only get 7 hours of sleep tonight instead of 8.  The speed limit on the road in front of my house is 50 km/h, but I can drive safely on it at various speeds.  I won't get thrown out of the band for playing A at 439.85 Hz instead of 440 Hz.

Life is messy.  That's why it's so much fun.

[downbeatplumb]

What's contradictory about, "I don't believe in gods"?

What's contradictory about it is that if you can't prove your own mind reliability to state objective truths , anything you say about such profound philosophical problems is at best subjective. Therefore hearing someone saying "I don't believe in gods" and hearing my pet dog barking in my bedroom are equally empty and irrelevant.

But it is true that I don't believe in god or gods.
Saying I'm an atheist is just a way to express that.

Saying I don't understand why I would have to put any caveats on that, I don't believe that you were fathered by a pink horse that has fine understanding of mid 2nd century roman art either do I have to add caveats to that belief as well?

[YouOnlyLiveTwice]

I'm almost certain that somebody's already said this, but it's perfectly fine logic to disregard the existence of God as nothing more than an unproven assumption on the grounds that it lacks any objective, empirical evidence. It's not just that God can't be proven by logic; he can't be proven by any consistently reliable objective means.

It can be assumed that we possess the elementary skills necessary to distinguish between reality and fantasy, or else this discussion is pointless (not to mention the same logic calls theists' claims into question as well).

So no, there's nothing self-contradictory about the logic of atheism, but there is something self-contradictory about your own logic, OP.

[TheBeardedDude]

Hello everyone ,

This is my first thread on the forum, and I hope to get convincing responses to a question I stumbled upon concerning atheism.

Assuming no God can be proven by logic, how can one trust his judgment about religions/existence of god if his mind itself cannot be trusted ? How can I trust any atheist/agnostic's claim that all kinds of proofs that have been given by scholars or philosophers of religion throughout history are false ?

Therefore, rejecting belief is in itself belief that your mind possesses some kind of an absolute power that makes you distinguish between good arguments and fallacies. I don't want to talk about evolution in this thread, but since the brain is the product of random alterations of our genome, how can it be trustworthy ? 

You'll say to me that this power is simply logial reasoning, but, you see, logic is based on axioms, i.e. basic FACTS taken for granted. What are you taking for granted to refute any logical argument whatsoever ? And why do you TRUST your thinking in the first place ?

What reason do I have for doubting my own mind and/or thought process? You assert that we can't trust our minds (presumably because some people aren't sane and/or rational), but how do you know our minds are unreliable for observing reality and drawing conclusions from it?

[Whateverist]

Hello everyone ,

This is my first thread on the forum, and I hope to get convincing responses to a question I stumbled upon concerning atheism.

Assuming no God can be proven by logic, how can one trust his judgment about religions/existence of god if his mind itself cannot be trusted ? How can I trust any atheist/agnostic's claim that all kinds of proofs that have been given by scholars or philosophers of religion throughout history are false ?

Therefore, rejecting belief is in itself belief that your mind possesses some kind of an absolute power that makes you distinguish between good arguments and fallacies. I don't want to talk about evolution in this thread, but since the brain is the product of random alterations of our genome, how can it be trustworthy ? 

You'll say to me that this power is simply logial reasoning, but, you see, logic is based on axioms, i.e. basic FACTS taken for granted. What are you taking for granted to refute any logical argument whatsoever ? And why do you TRUST your thinking in the first place ?

What reason do I have for doubting my own mind and/or thought process? You assert that we can't trust our minds (presumably because some people aren't sane and/or rational), but how do you know our minds are unreliable for observing reality and drawing conclusions from it?

Indeed, what choice do any of us have but to trust our minds?  Hell, the OP trusts his even to the point of placing his greatest faith in things supernatural.

[TheBeardedDude]

What reason do I have for doubting my own mind and/or thought process? You assert that we can't trust our minds (presumably because some people aren't sane and/or rational), but how do you know our minds are unreliable for observing reality and drawing conclusions from it?

Indeed, what choice do any of us have but to trust our minds?  Hell, the OP trusts his even to the point of placing his greatest faith in things supernatural.

My mind may very well not be sane, but I'm going to need an explanation as to how the OP knows this since everyone I know seems to consider me of sound mind and competent intellect.


Cheers
TheBeardedDude

[Amarok]

There is 100 percent no serious reason to think god should care about reason. Or make rational beings. Nor any serious reason we could not have been made  totally irrational and ignorant . There is no need for accurate senses in theism or why senses at all?. It simply devolves into ad hocs.

[JackRussell]

There is 100 percent no serious reason to think god should care about reason. Or make rational beings. Nor any serious reason we could not have been made  totally irrational and ignorant . There is no need for accurate senses in theism or why senses at all?. It simply devolves into ad hocs.

And if we are fundamentally flawed, because--God, how could anybody, theists included, have a rational understanding of God, because...God.

If I can't understand coz'..flawed, how can a theist trust their own judgement as well.

Well, I guess because they have access to the Bat Phone and I don't.

WHY GOD WHY?