Atheism, 21st century-style. New? Militant?

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Originally Posted by BienvenuJDC

True...it is your belief that...
...everything came from nothing
...life came from non-life
...consciousness came from unconsciousness
...intelligence came from non-intelligence
...morality came from amorality

But NONE of that comes from facts. There are NO facts that support evolution. Science does not support your beliefs. But you'll just deny it...that doesn't really make your case though.

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........er......


Tea, anyone?



Actually, while the kettle's boiling, I would like to ask a question. Given that so many of us believe that science does support evolution, solidly, consistently and pretty much definitively, then - if you're right, Bienvenue - all of us are either gullible or in some way involved in the promotion of this nonsense.

The latter group - those perpetuating the falsehood - would have to be quite small in order to keep it quiet, so do you suggest that the vast majority of us are stupid?

I mean, you've seen through it all, so we must at the very least be less bright than you.

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Originally Posted by BienvenuJDC

True...it is your belief that...
...everything came from nothing
...life came from non-life
...consciousness came from unconsciousness
...intelligence came from non-intelligence
...morality came from amorality

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Nope, I don't have any belief in those things. As I say consistently, the only belief I have is that reality exists.

By evaluating the evidence available, I think they are most likely true - except for the top one - it's theists who believe a god made the universe from nothing, most rationalists think the big bang had some substance behind it.

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Originally Posted by BienvenuJDC

There are NO facts that support evolution.

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That is so wrong I won't bother arguing against it - there have been thousands of textbooks which detail the physical evidence of evolution.

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Originally Posted by OrphanPip

If we're talking about philosophical materialism, obviously this is a worldview many atheist are likely to support, but this has nothing to do with the accumulation of wealth. It just means that you believe the world around us is real and understandable and there is no supernatural.

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Good spot - it never occurred to me that that was the problem.

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Originally Posted by OrphanPip

If we're talking about philosophical materialism, obviously this is a worldview many atheist are likely to support, but this has nothing to do with the accumulation of wealth. It just means that you believe the world around us is real and understandable and there is no supernatural.

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As with The Atheist's "It isn't a matter of opinion, it's a matter of fact vs belief...." there are hidden postulates in this statement.

The "real" world might be most completely “understandable” through fasting and meditation, or it might be “understandable” through observation, induction, and experiment. What OrphanPip and The Atheist mean to say (I think, correct me if I’m wrong) is that the world is “real” and that it is “best understood through observation, induction, and experiment”. In other words, it is best understood through the use of scientific methods and techniques.

If that’s what they are saying, I agree with them both (although I don’t necessarily distrust non-scientific approaches as much as the do). However, if they are saying that everything in the world IS understandable through the scientific method, then they are either mistaken, or making a gigantic leap of faith. Obviously, there are plenty of things that we don’t understand, and some that we may never understand, or that may not lend themselves to scientific explication.

Let me give an example of what I’m talking about:

The Christian says, “Who can know the Mind of God?” He means that the Mind of God is incomprehensible to puny humans, we can only approach knolwedge of it through stories and metaphors.

Ths materialist might reasonably say, “Who can know what lies beyond the boundries of the known universe?” After all, those things moving away from us at the speed of light are not only unknown, but unknowable. Does this mean they are not “real” (as OrphanPip’s comment would suggest)?

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Originally Posted by Ecurb

Let me give an example of what I’m talking about:

The Christian says, “Who can know the Mind of God?” He means that the Mind of God is incomprehensible to puny humans, we can only approach knolwedge of it through stories and metaphors.

Ths materialist might reasonably say, “Who can know what lies beyond the boundries of the known universe?” After all, those things moving away from us at the speed of light are not only unknown, but unknowable. Does this mean they are not “real” (as OrphanPip’s comment would suggest)?

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The premise is a bit more nuanced than that though, if something is immaterial, in the sense of the supernatural, then it is never measurable and has no effect on the material world, thus the question of its existence is inaccessible and can be effectively ignored.

The philosophical materialist would say that all that meaningfully exists for us is discernible through observation of its effects, either directly or indirectly. This doesn't say that things which we haven't measured don't exist, but it postulates that things which we haven't found to exist that do exist should still have effects that would be observable if we knew how or could get to them.

I suggest that there are a great many things that are “immaterial” (so in one sense they are “supernatural”, although I doubt that OrphanPip would call them “supernatural”). Among them are such things as “consciousness”, “ideas”, “beliefs”, etc. Of course, as OrphanPip suggests, these immaterial things do have observable effects, although it’s difficult to tell what those effects are, since it's difficult to observe connections between the abstract concept of “consciousness” and how it affects observable reality. So while scientific approaches often offer the most enlightening methods of looking at things, other approaches (philosophy, literature, religion, etc.) may be more enlightening methods of looking at some things.

Here's one example: Philosoher differentiate between "experiential knowledge" and other forms of knowledge. A scientist may be able to describe the physics behind one's ability to ride a bicycle, but his "knowledge" of how to ride a bike is different from that of the Tour de France professional (who may know nothing about physics). One has the "experience" of bike riding, and "knows" something the other does not. Similarly, the religious mystic, who spends his life meditating and flagellating himself may “know” something about the religious experience that is a complete mystery to the student (scientist) of religion. The mystic may not be able to measure this knowledge nor the scientist observe it, but the mystic has a form of experiential knowledge that a great many people have said is “enlightening”. Even if it is not particularly enlightening, at least from Orphanpip's and The Atheist’s point of view, it remains a form of knowledge they do not have – just like the bike rider’s knowledge of bike riding is a form of knowledge that non-riders don’t share.

(p.s. I couldn't resist the "flagellating himself" bit.)

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Originally Posted by BienvenuJDC

True...it is your belief that...
...everything came from nothing
...life came from non-life
...consciousness came from unconsciousness
...intelligence came from non-intelligence
...morality came from amorality

But NONE of that comes from facts. There are NO facts that support evolution. Science does not support your beliefs. But you'll just deny it...that doesn't really make your case though.

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I think the biggest problem with this line of reasoning is that invoking a deity to fill these "knowledge gaps" if they are in fact gaps, is actually more problematic than an explanation sans deity, for the simple reason that it always generates the question of where/how the deity originated. Therefore the atheistic explanation is still preferred.

Beyond this though you attempt to tie the existence of emergent properties or hierarchical structures with a need for belief in god (or maybe just a non-atheistic explanation).

A single person in a stadium cannot perform the wave by standing up. Even two or three people couldn't pull it off. However a whole stadium full of people, standing up at the correct time can. Here a wave comes from a non-wave, yet most of us would not find this metaphysically mind-blowing. Likewise organs come from tissues which come from cells etc.. A heart is not made of little hearts, yet it has properties absent from the individuals cells of which it is composed. Likewise for the examples you've listed (minus the ex nihilo thing), so I just don't find those leaps ontologically troubling.

I think the universe coming from nothing is really the "Big" question. The debate of the existence or non-existence of a More Powerful Being is really I think at the heart a question of "Why is there stuff rather than no stuff." A question which the big bang doesn't exactly answer either.


edit - Also can you elaborate on what you mean when you say that there are no facts that support evolution.

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Originally Posted by Ecurb

I suggest that there are a great many things that are “immaterial” (so in one sense they are “supernatural”, although I doubt that OrphanPip would call them “supernatural”). Among them are such things as “consciousness”, “ideas”, “beliefs”, etc. Of course, as OrphanPip suggests, these immaterial things do have observable effects, although it’s difficult to tell what those effects are, since it's difficult to observe connections between the abstract concept of “consciousness” and how it affects observable reality. So while scientific approaches often offer the most enlightening methods of looking at things, other approaches (philosophy, literature, religion, etc.) may be more enlightening methods of looking at some things.

Here's one example: Philosoher differentiate between "experiential knowledge" and other forms of knowledge. A scientist may be able to describe the physics behind one's ability to ride a bicycle, but his "knowledge" of how to ride a bike is different from that of the Tour de France professional (who may know nothing about physics). One has the "experience" of bike riding, and "knows" something the other does not. Similarly, the religious mystic, who spends his life meditating and flagellating himself may “know” something about the religious experience that is a complete mystery to the student (scientist) of religion. The mystic may not be able to measure this knowledge nor the scientist observe it, but the mystic has a form of experiential knowledge that a great many people have said is “enlightening”. Even if it is not particularly enlightening, at least from Orphanpip's and The Atheist’s point of view, it remains a form of knowledge they do not have – just like the bike rider’s knowledge of bike riding is a form of knowledge that non-riders don’t share.

(p.s. I couldn't resist the "flagellating himself" bit.)

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Thoughts are in no way immaterial, they are a result of cognitive processes determined by electrochemical reactions.

Subjective observations tell us little about anything other than the individual making the observations.

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Originally Posted by Ecurb

This reasoning is not "fallacious" at all, although it may be incorrect. Not all arguments that are incorrect are fallacious. Obviously, if God is properly the "AUTHOR" of all moral rules, than his "authoritative statements" of what those rules entail ARE the best way to discover moral truths.

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Also, I might as well respond to this now.

No, it's still fallacious. Such a conception then becomes a prescriptive discussion of the moral rules, rather than a justification of them. If God is the source of moral truth, then the appeal to the authority merely tells us what the prescriptions are and not why something is morally true.

Then even if we were to accept the premise that God was the source of moral truth, we're back to the problem of subjectivity and the issue of the inaccessibility of authorial intent.

The main idea I was/am trying to promote is a healthy dose of humility on all sides.

Characterizing those who have the gift of faith as
intellectually inferior-- or conversely, condemning non-believers to hell-- is incredibly arrogant. It doesn't help one's argument if the person promoting it is insufferably smug, or believes his mind is greater than the likes of Teilhard or Martin Buber or Paul Tillich, among other great scholars of the twentieth century.

Some-- some!--of the so-called "militant" atheists give this condescending impression with their zealous quest to pronounce those whose open minds allow for a possibility -- a possibility of a reality beyond the limits of the here and now and beyond the current abilities of human perceptions. Many scientists, including Einstein, took similar position in their respective theories-- quantum theory, string theory,parallel universes, and the like, as none of these can be "proven" through the senses.

Faith, by its very definition, is "the substance of things hopeful, the evidence of things unseen." If indisputable empirical evidence, measurable and perceptible by the senses, is right in front of us, and we therefore "believe,"
then what we have is no longer "faith."

"Characterizing those who have the gift of faith as
intellectually inferior"

I dont think anyone does that, I mean lets face it only an intellectually inferior person would think that. Newton and Darwin two great minds of science were not only religious but deeply religious, very deeply.

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Originally Posted by BienvenuJDC

True...it is your belief that...
...everything came from nothing
...life came from non-life
...consciousness came from unconsciousness
...intelligence came from non-intelligence
...morality came from amorality

But NONE of that comes from facts. There are NO facts that support evolution. Science does not support your beliefs. But you'll just deny it...that doesn't really make your case though.

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The part that I found interesting I put in bold.

I don't know about the facts supporting evolution. I suspect that theory will advance and improve, but I think I found a fact proving that Creationism is not what happened.

Here are my assumptions: Creationism maintains that the Genesis account was literally true and the amount of time from that initial creation to the present was also calculated to be something under 10,000 years. That means, the universe is only 10,000 years old.

The Andromeda galaxy is 2.5 million light years away. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_Galaxy ) Since we can see it, light must have been traveling longer than the assumed lifetime of the universe to reach us.

At this point I should state the obvious, but I will refrain from doing so.

I don't want to sound like an "atheist". From my perspective, consciousness came first; we are part of it; and we can relate to that consciousness from either an atheistic or a theistic perspective. Either way is fine. But the idea that the Genesis account of creation is literally true does not make any sense and there is more than evolution that stands in its way.

No doubt consciousness IS the “result of cognitive processes determined by electrochemical reactions.” However, just because something is caused by material processes does not mean that thing is material itself. You might as well say that God is the “result of cognitive processes determined by electrochemical reactions.” Can we thus infer that God exists as a “real” thing?

Also, the word “fallacy” (as used in this context) means “logical error." Such fallacies are often referred to as “logical fallacies”. I’ll grant that there’s another, more colloquial use of the word "fallacious" that means, “unsound or incorrect”. To rephrase my objection to your claiming that arguing morals based on the word of God is “fallacious”, such an argument may be “unsound or incorrect”, but it is not necessarily “illogical or invalid”.

Premise 1: God is the infallible and correct author of all moral rules.
Premise 2: The Bible is the infallibly true and accurate Word of God.

Conclusion: Moral rules stated in the Bible are the infallibly correct ones.

You may not agree with the premises (or the conclusion), but the logic is valid.

No, it's fallacious in the sense of formal logic. That conception is tautological because you are saying the moral rules in the Bible are the same moral rules stated by God.

If the Bible is the true word of God.
And the true word of God makes moral truth.
Then the true word of God makes moral truth.

It's circular.

Secondly, it doesn't explain why murder is wrong. If I were to accept the premise that God's word is accurate for determining moral truths, it still doesn't explain why murder is wrong.

If the question is why is murder wrong, the use of a prescription from an infallible authority is still fallacious.

Otherwise we are discussing morality as prescription, either morality has reason for why it is right or wrong, or morality is a prescription, merely things you should or shouldn't do because someone in authority says so.

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Originally Posted by Ecurb

No doubt consciousness IS the “result of cognitive processes determined by electrochemical reactions.” However, just because something is caused by material processes does not mean that thing is material itself. You might as well say that God is the “result of cognitive processes determined by electrochemical reactions.” Can we thus infer that God exists as a “real” thing?

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No, but the idea of God is a real thing.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

The part that I found interesting I put in bold.

I don't know about the facts supporting evolution. I suspect that theory will advance and improve, but I think I found a fact proving that Creationism is not what happened.

Here are my assumptions: Creationism maintains that the Genesis account was literally true and the amount of time from that initial creation to the present was also calculated to be something under 10,000 years. That means, the universe is only 10,000 years old.

The Andromeda galaxy is 2.5 million light years away. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_Galaxy ) Since we can see it, light must have been traveling longer than the assumed lifetime of the universe to reach us.

At this point I should state the obvious, but I will refrain from doing so.

I don't want to sound like an "atheist". From my perspective, consciousness came first; we are part of it; and we can relate to that consciousness from either an atheistic or a theistic perspective. Either way is fine. But the idea that the Genesis account of creation is literally true does not make any sense and there is more than evolution that stands in its way.

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I don't find arguments of this ilk particularly persuasive. First you are limiting your argument against the existence of a deity to relatively few religions. Secondly, within those religions God is seen as all powerful, so this fact scarcely offers any opposition, as the believer will always point out that God could have just made the universe appear that way.

All logic is circular. The premises can always be restated as the conclusion. That's how logic works.

In logic, a “circular argument” has a specific meaning: the conclusion restates ONE of the premises. In all logical arguments the conclusion restates two or more premises.

Also, Religion does explain why murder is wrong -- because obedience to the Law of the Lord is His first commandment, and His will determines right and wrong. In addition, there is no scientific way to determine "evil". "Bad", yes; "evil" no. Neitzsche once said, "I have destroyed the distinction between good and evil, but not that between good and bad."

As far as "God" vs. "Consciousness", it’s probably not a good analogy. My point is simply that there are many things that “exist” (we sense them and can talk about them) but cannot be readily observed or measured, or if they can, cannot be as well understood in that way as in more subjective and personal modes of understanding. Consciousness is one of them. For anyone who is interested, here’s a link:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/

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Originally Posted by OrphanPip

Thoughts are in no way immaterial, they are a result of cognitive processes determined by electrochemical reactions.

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While I'm not exactly ready to commit to calling them immaterial, saying they are simply the result of cognitive processes is a little dismissive.

When 510nm wavelength hits your retina it causes a conformational change in your cells which sends a signal through your optic nerve to areas in your brain associated with vision creating a unique neuronal pattern..... then you see green.

But where is the green if it is material. The greeness or qualia you are aware of occupies no spatial dimension. Nor could you find greeness by opening up someone's head and looking at their brain while you flooded their retina with 510nm light

If you say that green is your a specific brain pattern it seems to be missing the point. If this were true I might be equally valid in calling the reactions taking place in your cone cells green, or calling the light itself green. While it seems clear that greenness occurs by an intricate interplay of light and nervous system pattern, calling the light and pattern green, doesn't seem sufficient.