A Modest Proposal Regarding Debating Religious Claims

[Uber Genius]

MIchael Martin, Philosophy of Religion Professor at Boston University and an atheist said,

"The aim of this book is not to make atheism a popular belief or even to overcome its invisibility. My object is not utopian. It is merely to provide good reasons for being an atheist. … My object is to show that atheism is a rational position and that belief in God is not. I am quite aware that atheistic beliefs are not always based on reason. My claim is that they should be."
(Martin, M. (1989) Atheism: A Philosophical Justification. Philadelphia: Temple University. ISBN 978-0877229438)

He was also the philosopher generally credited with engaging the theistic argument "You can't prove the non-existence of anything, especially God."

Now I will engage why this oft-repeated theistic phrase is both fallacious and ignorant of how theism has been rigorous defended historically, in another post.

My aim here is to get people engaging the topic with propositions and inferences based on evidence. And defeaters to that evidence from both sides.

Having been largely disappointed by the astonishing proliferation of rhetorically brilliant, yet philosophically ignorant (I'm being kind here), approaches I want to propose a format suitable for both sides to engage there views free of tricks.

The quote below is from a resource developed of help K-12 children understand how to use philosophy especially in the context of debating opposing propositions.

"Debate begins with research. If it is possible at your site, consider devoting class time to research in the library. Although more time and labor intensive than providing students with pre-selected research material, conducting their own research (with your supervision) will give students both the opportunity to hone their research skills and a greater sense of responsibility for the arguments they put forward in the debate.

Based on their research, students should construct cohesive arguments in support of their positions. It is important to understand that a position is what each team is assigned (either as the affirmative or negative in relation to the topic) but arguments are a way of supporting the position."

As we have seen in the previous post "Tricks New Atheists Play - 1"

There is a strong desire "the negative" team to argue that they aren't obligated to do their homework, research or present the evidence in support of their claims.

I provide a long list of resources that encapsulate a plethora of defeaters (undercutting, opposing, and knock down arguments).

However, instead of researching those sources and arguing the negative we are muddled in equivocations and conflation of the term atheism.

I will poison the wells to such foolishness, I hope, by defining atheism historically so as to maintain logical coherence.

P - God Exists
Not P - God Does Not Exist

We will define P as theism and Not P as Atheism (for arguments sake..please no red herring comments here)

Given the above my claim, made in New Atheists Tricks 1, was that both the claim "I believe God exists" and the negative claim , "I don't believe God exists," require research and evidence.

If you don't want to do the homework, then drop the class don't jump into the conversation and try and distract others who want to debate the proposition from doing the research.

Notes:
1. As previously mentioned both theists and atheists must present evidence.

2. Abductive arguments are most helpful given our epistemic limits.

3. By all means ask good questions, but asking to provide an link to something like why in general we don't define properties by "lack of other properties," or "In a few sentences tell me why one should be a fictionalist I terms of the ontological status of play call forms," are going get ignored or given extra assignments due to tricks."

4. TRICKS ARE FOR KIDS (saw some equivocations, strawman logical extension, and sweeping generalization fallacies from both sides in "Tricks 1"


My suggestion for theists pro-side are:

Cosmological arguments
Teleological arguments
Moral arguments
Argument from desire (transcendent)
Evidentiary (fulfilled prophecy and minimum facts case for resurrection)

Atheist con side:

Defeaters for arguments above
Problem of evil
Problem of suffering
Problem of hell (con Christian Theism)
Hiddenness of God

 

[PloverWing]

I feel obliged to clarify: I have not read the entirety of the Summa Theologica, just portions of it. It's rather lengthy. I have, however, read other scholarly primary source material, in my college philosophy courses and on my own since then, so the last option seemed closest.

 

[Monk Brendan]

What about other authors? St. Thomas Aquinas is quite scholastic in nature, and I've never read it. But St. Augustine, St. Athanasius, or St. Ignatius, Polycarp, St. Justin Martyr, and quite a few others should be mentioned.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

I will poison the wells to such foolishness, I hope, by defining atheism historically so as to maintain logical coherence.

P - God Exists
Not P - God Does Not Exist

We will define P as theism and Not P as Atheism (for arguments sake..please no red herring comments here)

 

[Uber Genius]

So you have gone from following the errors of New Atheists in conflating

A something exists
B something doesn't exist
C I don't know
D humans can't know into

2 propositions

And as a reference you get a clown on the internet that is a new atheist wannabe.

This trolling has to stop.

Did you read my post?

I said defend God exists, or God doesn't exist, or it is impossible to know.

What do you do? A red herring.

I even gave those responding a roadmap. But no...more new atheist rhetorical flourish.

Hope you chose option one on the survey.

 

[Uber Genius]

Responders please state a position (God exists, God does not exist, no one can know) and defend that truth claim.

Example:

God does not exist

God doesn't exist due to his hiddeness.

Nietzsche framed it "a god who is all-knowing and all-powerful and who does not even make sure his creatures understand his intentions — could that be a god of goodness?"

Premise 1 - If there is a God, he is perfectly loving
Premise 2 - If a perfectly loving God exists, reasonable nonbelief does not occur.
Premise 3 - Reasonable nonbelief occurs.
Premise 4 - No perfectly loving God exists (from 2 and

Argument - Therefore, there is no God (from 1 and 4).

To further support 3 quotes can be tied to not only non-theists but quotes from David in Psalms, Augistine, and Anselm can all be marshalled as evidence that believers struggle to perceive God.

For more on this argument see Anony Flew circa 1970s, and this particular argument was developed in the 1990s by Schellenberg.

 

[PloverWing]

I misunderstood your original post. I thought you were just polling the general philosophy background of CF readers. I do not know of any proofs for the existence of God that I consider to be sound arguments, so I withdraw from the discussion.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

MIchael Martin, Philosophy of Religion Professor at Boston University and an atheist said,

"The aim of this book is not to make atheism a popular belief or even to overcome its invisibility. My object is not utopian. It is merely to provide good reasons for being an atheist. … My object is to show that atheism is a rational position and that belief in God is not. I am quite aware that atheistic beliefs are not always based on reason. My claim is that they should be."
(Martin, M. (1989) Atheism: A Philosophical Justification. Philadelphia: Temple University. ISBN 978-0877229438)

He was also the philosopher generally credited with engaging the theistic argument "You can't prove the non-existence of anything, especially God."

Now I will engage why this oft-repeated theistic phrase is both fallacious and ignorant of how theism has been rigorous defended historically, in another post.

My aim here is to get people engaging the topic with propositions and inferences based on evidence. And defeaters to that evidence from both sides.

Having been largely disappointed by the astonishing proliferation of rhetorically brilliant, yet philosophically ignorant (I'm being kind here), approaches I want to propose a format suitable for both sides to engage there views free of tricks.

The quote below is from a resource developed of help K-12 children understand how to use philosophy especially in the context of debating opposing propositions.

"Debate begins with research. If it is possible at your site, consider devoting class time to research in the library. Although more time and labor intensive than providing students with pre-selected research material, conducting their own research (with your supervision) will give students both the opportunity to hone their research skills and a greater sense of responsibility for the arguments they put forward in the debate.

Based on their research, students should construct cohesive arguments in support of their positions. It is important to understand that a position is what each team is assigned (either as the affirmative or negative in relation to the topic) but arguments are a way of supporting the position."

As we have seen in the previous post "Tricks New Atheists Play - 1"

There is a strong desire "the negative" team to argue that they aren't obligated to do their homework, research or present the evidence in support of their claims.

I provide a long list of resources that encapsulate a plethora of defeaters (undercutting, opposing, and knock down arguments).

However, instead of researching those sources and arguing the negative we are muddled in equivocations and conflation of the term atheism.

I will poison the wells to such foolishness, I hope, by defining atheism historically so as to maintain logical coherence.

P - God Exists
Not P - God Does Not Exist

We will define P as theism and Not P as Atheism (for arguments sake..please no red herring comments here)

Given the above my claim, made in New Atheists Tricks 1, was that both the claim "I believe God exists" and the negative claim , "I don't believe God exists," require research and evidence.

If you don't want to do the homework, then drop the class don't jump into the conversation and try and distract others who want to debate the proposition from doing the research.

Notes:
1. As previously mentioned both theists and atheists must present evidence.

2. Abductive arguments are most helpful given our epistemic limits.

3. By all means ask good questions, but asking to provide an link to something like why in general we don't define properties by "lack of other properties," or "In a few sentences tell me why one should be a fictionalist I terms of the ontological status of play call forms," are going get ignored or given extra assignments due to tricks."

4. TRICKS ARE FOR KIDS (saw some equivocations, strawman logical extension, and sweeping generalization fallacies from both sides in "Tricks 1"


My suggestion for theists pro-side are:

Cosmological arguments
Teleological arguments
Moral arguments
Argument from desire (transcendent)
Evidentiary (fulfilled prophecy and minimum facts case for resurrection)

Atheist con side:

Defeaters for arguments above
Problem of evil
Problem of suffering
Problem of hell (con Christian Theism)
Hiddenness of God

You'll have to excuse my slightly post-modern bent, but isn't Logic but one sub-field of philosophy that could be chosen as a tool of evaluation and by which we decide to make evaluations about things of Theological substance? (i.e. we also have to consider that Christianity is claimed to be mediated by mysticism, visions, intuitions, spiritually imparted insights, etc., etc.) If so, I don't think we should reduce the various positions of belief or non-belief in the Biblical notion of God and His Messiah down to the mere outcomes of singular Logic(s).

I do think that, all things considered in a more wholistic fashion, faith in Christ is subject to some level of perceptual and conceptual relativity even as we move along with our human attempts at rationality. Add to this the fact that God intervenes in human perception, for both good and bad, and "poof"...we no longer have a logically linear path of deliberation by which faith in Christ can be produced.

In fact, it seems to me that the epistemological indices within the Bible prevent us from directly asserting that faith is a mere outcome of the human application of logic(s) or that it is a result from building upon foundational principles to arrive at conclusions we "think" clearly point to God.

Just sayin'

And by the way, I didn't cast a vote in your poll because I didn't see an option that fit me.

 

[KCfromNC]

There is a strong desire "the negative" team to argue that they aren't obligated to do their homework, research or present the evidence in support of their claims.

Seems you want to be presented evidence that scientific approaches are superior to philosophy for determining facts about reality. That is, that it is more effective to work with testable, falsifiable models of the world rather than logical deductions from made up assertions? OK, easy enough. I'll start with all of modern agriculture, medicine and technology.

Atheist con side:

Let's start at the beginning : a lack of a proper testable definition for god. Without this, claiming to believe in god(s) is logically impossible. After all, what does it mean to say you believe in something that isn't properly defined?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Did you read my post?

I said defend God exists, or God doesn't exist, or it is impossible to know.

We are aware of your "demands".

The problem is that they reflect a falsehood concerning what atheism really is.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Responders please state a position (God exists, God does not exist, no one can know) and defend that truth claim.

My position as an atheist is a simple response to the claims of theism.

As an atheist, I don't make claims myself. Instead, I respond to claims that theists make.

That claim being "god exists".
As an atheist, I don't accept that as a true-ism.

How I defend that?
Simple: I have not been presented with sufficient evidence to justify accepting it as a true-ism.

 

[Moral Orel]

Example:

God does not exist

God doesn't exist due to his hiddeness.

Nietzsche framed it "a god who is all-knowing and all-powerful and who does not even make sure his creatures understand his intentions — could that be a god of goodness?"

Premise 1 - If there is a God, he is perfectly loving
Premise 2 - If a perfectly loving God exists, reasonable nonbelief does not occur.
Premise 3 - Reasonable nonbelief occurs.
Premise 4 - No perfectly loving God exists (from 2 and

Argument - Therefore, there is no God (from 1 and 4).

Premise 1 makes a huge assumption. Of course, when presented with the argument, theists will agree because they believe their God is perfectly loving, and atheists will agree because they like the argument. But there's no reason that the universe couldn't have been created by an evil god.

Premise 2 needs to be established first as well. What connection does belief and a loving a god have? If we're talking specifically about the Christian God, sure. But maybe believing in a god serves no purpose. Or, from the other direction, maybe a god exists that is perfectly loving but is incapable of letting us know beyond a reasonable doubt that he exists. Maybe he existed and was perfectly loving and capable of letting us know beyond a reasonable doubt that he exists, but he died (just because time as we know it looks as though it began to exist for us at the Big Bang doesn't mean it is the only arrow of time, of course).

I think I'd have to agree with @KCfromNC on this. You need to start with a definition of a god, establish why belief in said god is important, and then you can write a proof about him. But then we aren't talking about the existence of god(s) anymore. We're talking about what qualities said god(s) can have.

Notice as well that I take special care in my capitalizations between the Christian God and hypothetical gods and He/he and Him/him, respectively. Your quoted question of Nietzsche uses lowercase, but your proof uses upper case and I don't know for sure if that distinction is intentional or not.

My stance: I don't know and I don't know if anyone can know.

 

[KCfromNC]

I think I'd have to agree with @KCfromNC on this. You need to start with a definition of a god, establish why belief in said god is important, and then you can write a proof about him.

The alternative is letting non-believers define god(s). But that runs into the problem I call "you don't believe in the wrong god" : we end up discussing a god neither of us believes in, and any objection to that god is deflected away because it isn't the really real god. So despite the assertions of the OP, there really is an asymmetry here and a burden on the believer that isn't there for a non-believer. That is, if the believer wants their claims about god(s) to be taken seriously.

I'll also continue to point out the unstated assumption in this thread that philosophy has any value in determining what actually exists in reality. I'd be curious to see a defense of that assumption.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

So you have gone from following the errors of New Atheists in conflating

A something exists
B something doesn't exist
C I don't know
D humans can't know into

2 propositions

And as a reference you get a clown on the internet that is a new atheist wannabe.

This trolling has to stop.

Did you read my post?

I said defend God exists, or God doesn't exist, or it is impossible to know.

What do you do? A red herring.

I even gave those responding a roadmap. But no...more new atheist rhetorical flourish.

Hope you chose option one on the survey.

You obviously didn't watch the video. But yet you ramble on as if you're making some kind of response to it.

How about watching the video?

 

[Ana the Ist]

MIchael Martin, Philosophy of Religion Professor at Boston University and an atheist said,

"The aim of this book is not to make atheism a popular belief or even to overcome its invisibility. My object is not utopian. It is merely to provide good reasons for being an atheist. … My object is to show that atheism is a rational position and that belief in God is not. I am quite aware that atheistic beliefs are not always based on reason. My claim is that they should be."
(Martin, M. (1989) Atheism: A Philosophical Justification. Philadelphia: Temple University. ISBN 978-0877229438)

He was also the philosopher generally credited with engaging the theistic argument "You can't prove the non-existence of anything, especially God."

Now I will engage why this oft-repeated theistic phrase is both fallacious and ignorant of how theism has been rigorous defended historically, in another post.

My aim here is to get people engaging the topic with propositions and inferences based on evidence. And defeaters to that evidence from both sides.

Having been largely disappointed by the astonishing proliferation of rhetorically brilliant, yet philosophically ignorant (I'm being kind here), approaches I want to propose a format suitable for both sides to engage there views free of tricks.

The quote below is from a resource developed of help K-12 children understand how to use philosophy especially in the context of debating opposing propositions.

"Debate begins with research. If it is possible at your site, consider devoting class time to research in the library. Although more time and labor intensive than providing students with pre-selected research material, conducting their own research (with your supervision) will give students both the opportunity to hone their research skills and a greater sense of responsibility for the arguments they put forward in the debate.

Based on their research, students should construct cohesive arguments in support of their positions. It is important to understand that a position is what each team is assigned (either as the affirmative or negative in relation to the topic) but arguments are a way of supporting the position."

As we have seen in the previous post "Tricks New Atheists Play - 1"

There is a strong desire "the negative" team to argue that they aren't obligated to do their homework, research or present the evidence in support of their claims.

I provide a long list of resources that encapsulate a plethora of defeaters (undercutting, opposing, and knock down arguments).

However, instead of researching those sources and arguing the negative we are muddled in equivocations and conflation of the term atheism.

I will poison the wells to such foolishness, I hope, by defining atheism historically so as to maintain logical coherence.

P - God Exists
Not P - God Does Not Exist

We will define P as theism and Not P as Atheism (for arguments sake..please no red herring comments here)

Given the above my claim, made in New Atheists Tricks 1, was that both the claim "I believe God exists" and the negative claim , "I don't believe God exists," require research and evidence.

If you don't want to do the homework, then drop the class don't jump into the conversation and try and distract others who want to debate the proposition from doing the research.

Notes:
1. As previously mentioned both theists and atheists must present evidence.

2. Abductive arguments are most helpful given our epistemic limits.

3. By all means ask good questions, but asking to provide an link to something like why in general we don't define properties by "lack of other properties," or "In a few sentences tell me why one should be a fictionalist I terms of the ontological status of play call forms," are going get ignored or given extra assignments due to tricks."

4. TRICKS ARE FOR KIDS (saw some equivocations, strawman logical extension, and sweeping generalization fallacies from both sides in "Tricks 1"


My suggestion for theists pro-side are:

Cosmological arguments
Teleological arguments
Moral arguments
Argument from desire (transcendent)
Evidentiary (fulfilled prophecy and minimum facts case for resurrection)

Atheist con side:

Defeaters for arguments above
Problem of evil
Problem of suffering
Problem of hell (con Christian Theism)
Hiddenness of God

I'll be honest, Uber, I'm a bit lost...

Just based upon your OP, it looks like you want to address specific philosophical arguments related to god or atheism...but instead you chose to come to a rather pedestrian forum instead of one that's more philosophy based. Why?

Secondly, with regards to P and Not P....

P= Slish exists.

Not P= Slish does not exist.

It would be almost beyond absurd for me to ask you for some well reasoned, let alone well researched argument for either of those two positions...and the reason why seems rather obvious, it's a made up term for a concept I just held long enough to give it a name.

Can we start with a definition of God?