How to beat a presupp at their own game

[Rahn127]

When talking about the passage of 10 seconds of time, one would need to acknowledge that everything happens in the present moment, even if the relative rate of time passing is different throughout the universe.

Time is change.

On a sandy beach, I can take 1 step toward the ocean as someone takes a picture of each step, at one second intervals.

My physical position has changed from standing next to a person to standing 10 steps away. We have a digital confirmation of each step in picture format and we have step impressions in the sand.

And when I ask you "what question did you ask me 10 seconds ago ?" You can give me independent confirmation of what I heard and what we both remember.

[The Architect Of Fate]

When talking about the passage of 10 seconds of time, one would need to acknowledge that everything happens in the present moment, even if the relative rate of time passing is different throughout the universe.

Time is change.

On a sandy beach, I can take 1 step toward the ocean as someone takes a picture of each step, at one second intervals.

My physical position has changed from standing next to a person to standing 10 steps away. We have a digital confirmation of each step in picture format and we have step impressions in the sand.

And when I ask you "what question did you ask me 10 seconds ago ?" You can give me independent confirmation of what I heard and what we both remember.

Not to mention if I were asked this. I would simply point to the security camera in my house and rewind the tape ten seconds to a time before he asked the question, And again it doesn't matter if a person could prove the last ten seconds as they could nonetheless demonstrate 10 seconds passing with the stopwatch and those ten seconds would be the last ten seconds.

[The Architect Of Fate]

Always remember Apologists like Dawkins don't debate in good faith. They're not debating you their debating their self-doubt and trying to stave off the lie they know their beliefs to be. So debating them is pointless you can only validate their delusions. Let them suffer in their lies.

[Mister Agenda]

I don't see how 'God did it' proves the last ten seconds any more convincingly than 'I experienced it, I remember it, and I have a record of it.' There's a point where questioning inference just becomes obstinancy.

[Pat Mustard]

So I had a debate with a Christian presuppositionalist and I don't think I did particularly well. I haven't debated Christians in a while so I'm pretty rusty, but they were trying to poke holes in my naturalistic framework.

He kept insisting that because I don't KNOW everything about gravity that there is nothing in my system that would prevent gravity from operating differently tomorrow. Just because gravity has observable patterns today or yesterday doesn't mean it will be consistent tomorrow or the next, so in my worldview anything can change. What regulates gravity or the laws of physics? What is the absolute etc - so I naturally said that I don't know.

His point was that God is the ground of all things yadda yadda - so I told him that just because I don't know EVERYTHING doesn't mean I don't know ANYTHING, and he, funnily enough said the opposite. Theists.

I seriously need to learn how to deconstruct these theist arguments because I am so weak right now - he then went to Modus Pollens, which I've never even heard of. When asking for evidence for God, he says that God has revealed himself to everyone but as an atheist that I have suppressed the knowledge. No I haven't. That is the Christian line of reasoning - that I just don't WANT there to be a God.

I need to learn how to defend my beliefs.

He's wrong. Scientific theories don't control phenomena, they describe them. We change scientific theories not because we are changing phenomena but because we are finding moreaccurate ways to describe them. Gravity didn't change when we switched from Newtonian equations to Einstein's relativity, just our understanding of it.

In actual fact, your interlocutor describes in his god centric system exactly the kind of gravity changing system he derides. If god controls gravity, what is there to stop him from deciding, on a whim, to reverse its effects in the morning?

[Belacqua]

He's wrong.  Scientific theories don't control phenomena, they describe them. We change scientific theories not because we are changing phenomena but because we are finding moreaccurate ways to describe them.  Gravity didn't change when we switched from Newtonian equations to Einstein's relativity, just our understanding of it.

I don't think anyone is arguing that a change in theory leads to a change in nature. 

The argument, as I understand it, is that we have no way to explain why nature behaves consistently. (We call these consistencies "laws," but I agree that's misleading.) 

In actual fact, your interlocutor describes in his god centric system exactly the kind of gravity changing system he derides.  If god controls gravity, what is there to stop him from deciding, on a whim, to reverse its effects in the morning?

I suspect that they would agree: if God wanted to change everything he could. 

Their point is that because nature doesn't change overall, and its consistencies remain, there must be (in their view) something which holds things to be consistent. And that thing which holds things consistent is God. 

They have no trouble with the fact that our understanding of nature improves. The Copernican Revolution doesn't affect this at all. This is a metaphysical argument, not a scientific one. They have a metaphysical argument to say that the actual consistencies of nature, and in fact its simple existence, is held in place by something very basic, not in itself a physical object. It is a Ground of Being. 

Another way of thinking of it is as the end of the chain of questions "what is necessary for X to exist?" 

So "what is necessary for the sun to exist?"
"hydrogen, etc." 
"What is necessary for hydrogen to exist?"
"subatomic particles, etc." 
"What is necessary for those subatomic particles to exist?" 
"Space/time." 
"What is necessary for space/time to exist?"
"The Ground of Being -- existence itself" (which for them is God)

[Mister Agenda]

Do the things that physical laws describe really require an explanation for their consistency? We're not aware of any reason they ought to change in the first place; and lacking that isn't it unsurprising that they don't?

[Superjock]

Do the things that physical laws describe really require an explanation for their consistency? We're not aware of any reason they ought to change in the first place; and lacking that isn't it unsurprising that they don't?

Well this is interesting to discuss, because Christian presupps need a justification from atheists regarding the laws of logic, or laws of nature. What grounds the laws of physics? Since their God basically is the ultimate foundation for the intelligibility of facts, that's how THEY can reason. But since we do NOT reference God, who is all-knowing, all-powerful etc, we can't know anything at all.

That is their argument. There is nothing preventing the laws of nature from changing in 5 seconds, so it's all arbitrary.

I don't know if it's necessary for us to know what the justification is, as long as we have a justification. We don't need to KNOW it, in order to have knowledge. I've been listening in on the discord discussion debates, and in the server I go to, Reformation, many theists bring this up.

But I've learned a few things since we I started this thread. I've learned about internal and external justification and internal and external critique. What they are doing is demanding an external critique of our worldview (how do you know, how do  you know you know?) while demanding an internal critique of their worldview. It's a double standard, that's what I've picked up from listening to these debates.

I just would like to defend my worldview as much as possible. However I know now that you can't justify reason using reason as that would be circular reasoning, so in order to get out of that you just can't justify your presuppositions. They are assumptions, articles of faith. However then the Christian will say "so you CAN'T justify anything at all in your worldview since it's all just assumptions on your part".

But they also can't justify their presuppositions without arguing in a circle.

[Angrboda]

One thing to note about presuppositionalism is that it is basically a hypothesis which explains the evidence. Being consistent with the evidence and explaining it doesn't show that it is true. It can be consistent with the facts about the world and still be wrong.

[HappySkeptic]

Do the things that physical laws describe really require an explanation for their consistency? We're not aware of any reason they ought to change in the first place; and lacking that isn't it unsurprising that they don't?

Well this is interesting to discuss, because Christian presupps need a justification from atheists regarding the laws of logic, or laws of nature. What grounds the laws of physics? Since their God basically is the ultimate foundation for the intelligibility of facts, that's how THEY can reason. But since we do NOT reference God, who is all-knowing, all-powerful etc, we can't know anything at all.

If a "ground of being" is needed, then a "ground of being" exists.  Otherwise, it likely doesn't.  If one exists there is 0% chance that the "ground of being" is a god, as imagined by current religions.