Atheism is reasonable, and Christianity is not

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Matt Dillahunty has clarified the atheist position with the following gumball analogy, which I have paraphrased:

Suppose there exists a gumball machine, and we don't know how many gumballs are inside it. If you told me that there were an even number of gumballs in the machine, then I would reject your assertion. Your assertion is rejected on the grounds of insufficient evidence, and I am not claiming that there is an odd number of gumballs. The fact of the matter is that we don't know and can't know how many gumballs there are, and so any positive assertion is unreasonable.

This is why most atheists are the "lack of belief" type of atheist. Some of these atheists might positively assert that Jehovah cannot exist, but this is usually because of the fact that Jehovah is often saddled with self-contradictory properties. Make Jehovah's properties self-consistent, and most atheists will not positively assert that he does not exist.

Those atheists who do assert that no gods exist are (hopefully) operating under the null hypothesis. For example, we might say that adding racing stripes to a vehicle will not make it go faster. This is not a declaration that experiments have been performed to conclude this, but rather that, by the null hypothesis, this is the default position. So, in that sense, when atheists say that there are no gods, they are (hopefully) speaking formally under the null hypothesis.

If an atheist were to say that there are definitively, absolutely, positively no gods, then they would be unreasonable. For if they were not saying this under the umbrella of the null hypothesis, then they must be declaring it as some conclusion. But most of us can agree that there is no argument which will soundly and validly conclude that there are positively no gods.

But now that we've clarified this, we should turn our attention to the Christian and see that they are unreasonable. The vast majority of theistic arguments are only suited to advance deism, which allows for the existence of one, many, or infinitely many deities. While all of these arguments are flawed, they are at least deductive, whereas Christian-specific arguments are rarely, if ever, deductive. Proving to the satisfaction of an atheist that Jesus rose from the dead does not definitively disprove the existence of Zeus or Thor.

So if a Christian cannot argue beyond the existence of potentially many generic deities, then - just like the atheist - the Christian would be unreasonable to positively assert that Zeus, Thor, and the countless other deities definitively do not exist. Yet, Christian creed demands that this declarative statement is made.

Even if the Christian were to successfully prove the existence of a supreme deity, there is nothing that can be done to show lesser deities do not exist. And gods like Thor certainly are lesser deities, since they are not said to be omnipotent or omniscient. Their existence cannot be disproved.

This means that Christianity is fundamentally unreasonable. Christianity cannot be defended logically, but must be believed by faith. And faith is not a path to the truth: just look no further than Islam.
 

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Matt Dillahunty has clarified the atheist position with the following gumball analogy, which I have paraphrased:

Suppose there exists a gumball machine, and we don't know how many gumballs are inside it. If you told me that there were an even number of gumballs in the machine, then I would reject your assertion. Your assertion is rejected on the grounds of insufficient evidence, and I am not claiming that there is an odd number of gumballs. The fact of the matter is that we don't know and can't know how many gumballs there are, and so any positive assertion is unreasonable.

This is why most atheists are the "lack of belief" type of atheist. Some of these atheists might positively assert that Jehovah cannot exist, but this is usually because of the fact that Jehovah is often saddled with self-contradictory properties. Make Jehovah's properties self-consistent, and most atheists will not positively assert that he does not exist.

Those atheists who do assert that no gods exist are (hopefully) operating under the null hypothesis. For example, we might say that adding racing stripes to a vehicle will not make it go faster. This is not a declaration that experiments have been performed to conclude this, but rather that, by the null hypothesis, this is the default position. So, in that sense, when atheists say that there are no gods, they are (hopefully) speaking formally under the null hypothesis.

If an atheist were to say that there are definitively, absolutely, positively no gods, then they would be unreasonable. For if they were not saying this under the umbrella of the null hypothesis, then they must be declaring it as some conclusion. But most of us can agree that there is no argument which will soundly and validly conclude that there are positively no gods.

But now that we've clarified this, we should turn our attention to the Christian and see that they are unreasonable. The vast majority of theistic arguments are only suited to advance deism, which allows for the existence of one, many, or infinitely many deities. While all of these arguments are flawed, they are at least deductive, whereas Christian-specific arguments are rarely, if ever, deductive. Proving to the satisfaction of an atheist that Jesus rose from the dead does not definitively disprove the existence of Zeus or Thor.

So if a Christian cannot argue beyond the existence of potentially many generic deities, then - just like the atheist - the Christian would be unreasonable to positively assert that Zeus, Thor, and the countless other deities definitively do not exist. Yet, Christian creed demands that this declarative statement is made.

Even if the Christian were to successfully prove the existence of a supreme deity, there is nothing that can be done to show lesser deities do not exist. And gods like Thor certainly are lesser deities, since they are not said to be omnipotent or omniscient. Their existence cannot be disproved.

This means that Christianity is fundamentally unreasonable. Christianity cannot be defended logically, but must be believed by faith. And faith is not a path to the truth: just look no further than Islam.
Are you seeking to be corrected by saying this?
 
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cloudyday2

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I think the better model would be to imagine ourselves as intelligence analysts. We aren't scientists working with test tubes where we can repeat experiments, but we have data. One agent might report word of a miraculous Catholic vision of Mary. Another agent might know of a pastor who sometimes has words of knowledge that help identify problems for his parishioners.

It's not too different from trying to determine if the Chinese have developed a new radar system. It's about evaluating fuzzy evidence to reach an educated guess.

Another issue is to consider the implications of different possibilities. If a scenario has very significant implications then it might make-up for low probability and force us to take action on the possibility.

EDIT: Another possibility to consider is the "many paths to God" viewpoint. We might satisfy ourselves that some key point of a religion is false, but the true God might reach-out through that religion in spite of its foolishness, and we would be missing an opportunity to know this true God by rejecting this false religion on a few technicalities.
 
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Soyeong

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Matt Dillahunty has clarified the atheist position with the following gumball analogy, which I have paraphrased:

Suppose there exists a gumball machine, and we don't know how many gumballs are inside it. If you told me that there were an even number of gumballs in the machine, then I would reject your assertion. Your assertion is rejected on the grounds of insufficient evidence, and I am not claiming that there is an odd number of gumballs. The fact of the matter is that we don't know and can't know how many gumballs there are, and so any positive assertion is unreasonable.

This is why most atheists are the "lack of belief" type of atheist. Some of these atheists might positively assert that Jehovah cannot exist, but this is usually because of the fact that Jehovah is often saddled with self-contradictory properties. Make Jehovah's properties self-consistent, and most atheists will not positively assert that he does not exist.

Those atheists who do assert that no gods exist are (hopefully) operating under the null hypothesis. For example, we might say that adding racing stripes to a vehicle will not make it go faster. This is not a declaration that experiments have been performed to conclude this, but rather that, by the null hypothesis, this is the default position. So, in that sense, when atheists say that there are no gods, they are (hopefully) speaking formally under the null hypothesis.

If an atheist were to say that there are definitively, absolutely, positively no gods, then they would be unreasonable. For if they were not saying this under the umbrella of the null hypothesis, then they must be declaring it as some conclusion. But most of us can agree that there is no argument which will soundly and validly conclude that there are positively no gods.

The problem is that atheism is the negation of theism, so it is the equal and opposite position, not the null position, so you are erroneously conflating atheism with the null position. For example, the position that adding racing stripes to a vehicle will not make it go faster would not be atheism because atheism is a stance on theism, and any stance on any position is not the null position. Now to whether to whether the null position is reasonable is dependent entirely on whether it is reasonable for someone to consider there to be insufficient evidence for something. For example, if someone who lacked the belief that Trump is President of the USA because they thought there was insufficient evidence would be considered unreasonable by most of our population because we have sufficient evidence and there is something wrong with them for not recognizing what they ought to recognize, which is why many theist consider atheism or a lack of belief to be unreasonable. Naturally, no one considers any of the positions that they hold to be unreasonable, but that does not necessarily mean that they are correct.

But now that we've clarified this, we should turn our attention to the Christian and see that they are unreasonable. The vast majority of theistic arguments are only suited to advance deism, which allows for the existence of one, many, or infinitely many deities. While all of these arguments are flawed, they are at least deductive, whereas Christian-specific arguments are rarely, if ever, deductive. Proving to the satisfaction of an atheist that Jesus rose from the dead does not definitively disprove the existence of Zeus or Thor.

So if a Christian cannot argue beyond the existence of potentially many generic deities, then - just like the atheist - the Christian would be unreasonable to positively assert that Zeus, Thor, and the countless other deities definitively do not exist. Yet, Christian creed demands that this declarative statement is made.

Even if the Christian were to successfully prove the existence of a supreme deity, there is nothing that can be done to show lesser deities do not exist. And gods like Thor certainly are lesser deities, since they are not said to be omnipotent or omniscient. Their existence cannot be disproved.

This means that Christianity is fundamentally unreasonable. Christianity cannot be defended logically, but must be believed by faith. And faith is not a path to the truth: just look no further than Islam.

It is is much easier to convince someone who believes in the existence of the God of classical theism of the Christian identity of that God than to convince someone who believes that God doesn't exist that Christianity is true, so the argument is usually divided into two stages. For example, in William Lane Craig's debates, he usually gives a number of arguments for the existence of God of classical theism, but always includes an argument for the resurrection, which is for the Christian identity of that God. Aquinas' Five Ways are more good examples of sound arguments that conclude the existence of only one God in principle, but if there were argument that allowed for the existence of many or infinite gods, then that would simply require an additional argument for why we should believe that only one exists, and in particular the God of Christianity. Arguments for the God of Christianity depend on establishing the historicity of actions that are attributed to Him, such as establishing the resurrection of Jesus. The God of Christianity is incompatible with other deities, so someone who establishes the existence of the God of Christianity as no need to establish the non-existence of other deities. At the very least, it would be perfectly reasonable someone could consider there to be sufficient evidence for the God of Christianity and insufficient evidence for other deities, though it is not clear to me why you think there is nothing that can be done to establish their non-existence. For example, establishing that God is immaterial would rule out other deities that are material. The truth of Christianity is not dependant on the need to disprove the existence of other deities, so even if they couldn't be disproved, that wouldn't mean that Christianity can't be defended logically. Believing someone on faith is trusting them when we have been given sufficient evidence, so I agree that Christianity must be believed on faith, though just because faith in Islam is misplaced doesn't mean that nothing is trustworthy.
 
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This means that Christianity is fundamentally unreasonable.
There are scientists adopting dualism when looking into the nature of consciousness. Two common views: (1) consciousness or mind is a hitherto undiscovered property of matter, and (2) consciousness is non-material and is created in certain brain structures when the quantum mechanics wavefunction collapses.

Some propose the observer needed to trigger the collapse of the quantum mechanics wavefunction is consciousness. This makes no sense because it collapses all the time with no observer; any interaction with another particle is all that is needed.
 
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2PhiloVoid

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Matt Dillahunty has clarified the atheist position with the following gumball analogy, which I have paraphrased:

Suppose there exists a gumball machine, and we don't know how many gumballs are inside it. If you told me that there were an even number of gumballs in the machine, then I would reject your assertion. Your assertion is rejected on the grounds of insufficient evidence, and I am not claiming that there is an odd number of gumballs. The fact of the matter is that we don't know and can't know how many gumballs there are, and so any positive assertion is unreasonable.
Matt just needs to realize that there are 666 gumballs in the machine ... (an even number, by golly) and once he takes this as a working axiom, then many other things will begin to start making sense too. ;)

This is why most atheists are the "lack of belief" type of atheist. Some of these atheists might positively assert that Jehovah cannot exist, but this is usually because of the fact that Jehovah is often saddled with self-contradictory properties. Make Jehovah's properties self-consistent, and most atheists will not positively assert that he does not exist.
The attributes of God (i.e. Christian God) are only self-contradictory if the extent of each attribute is fully understood. Unfortunately, no one has ever measured the attributes of God, or placed God under a microscope or into a psychiatrist's easy-chair for observation. So, the supposition that self-contradictions are inherent to God's person is moot, at least it is to me. I think it always has been, but people on both sides of the belief/non-belief divide tend to believe what they want to believe about God more often than not. Logic and analysis don't decide whether God is consistent in His being; human feelings do.

Those atheists who do assert that no gods exist are (hopefully) operating under the null hypothesis. For example, we might say that adding racing stripes to a vehicle will not make it go faster. This is not a declaration that experiments have been performed to conclude this, but rather that, by the null hypothesis, this is the default position. So, in that sense, when atheists say that there are no gods, they are (hopefully) speaking formally under the null hypothesis.

If an atheist were to say that there are definitively, absolutely, positively no gods, then they would be unreasonable. For if they were not saying this under the umbrella of the null hypothesis, then they must be declaring it as some conclusion. But most of us can agree that there is no argument which will soundly and validly conclude that there are positively no gods.
ok.

But now that we've clarified this, we should turn our attention to the Christian and see that they are unreasonable. The vast majority of theistic arguments are only suited to advance deism, which allows for the existence of one, many, or infinitely many deities. While all of these arguments are flawed, they are at least deductive, whereas Christian-specific arguments are rarely, if ever, deductive. Proving to the satisfaction of an atheist that Jesus rose from the dead does not definitively disprove the existence of Zeus or Thor.
Has anyone actually "proven" to the satisfaction of an atheist that Jesus rose again from the dead? ...if not, then it's kind of hard to say that proving such a thing would not thereby bring about the reasonable preclusion of other gods that are incompatible with Christian theology. You might be jumping the gun here on this conclusion of yours, NV.

So if a Christian cannot argue beyond the existence of potentially many generic deities, then - just like the atheist - the Christian would be unreasonable to positively assert that Zeus, Thor, and the countless other deities definitively do not exist. Yet, Christian creed demands that this declarative statement is made.
?

Even if the Christian were to successfully prove the existence of a supreme deity, there is nothing that can be done to show lesser deities do not exist. And gods like Thor certainly are lesser deities, since they are not said to be omnipotent or omniscient. Their existence cannot be disproved.
Nothing can be done? This is simply an incoherent premise, as per what I stated above about 'jumping the gun.'

This means that Christianity is fundamentally unreasonable. Christianity cannot be defended logically, but must be believed by faith. And faith is not a path to the truth: just look no further than Islam.
Christianity can be defended reasonably, just not logically. Moreover, faith is not an epistemology (as you know I've stated elsewhere before). Rather, faith is a positive response to that which God has provided an individual person.

[Philo buckles into the go-cart for yet another race around the same ol' race track with all his atheists buddies ...] :cool:

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Peace,
2PhiloVoid
 
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Nihilist Virus

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The problem is that atheism is the negation of theism, so it is the equal and opposite position, not the null position, so you are erroneously conflating atheism with the null position.

Wrong. For example, consider the word "moral."

We can say that people with good morals are moral, but people with bad morals are not amoral - they are immoral. To be amoral, you'd have to be something that lacks morals altogether. Rocks, trees, and all things which lack consciousness are amoral because they are neither moral nor immoral.

So this is just an issue of the prefix "a-" and the word "theism." Theism is the belief in a deity. Atheism is the lack of a belief in a deity.

You are wrong, and this is quite clear. Please stop perpetuating this falsehood.

For example, the position that adding racing stripes to a vehicle will not make it go faster would not be atheism because atheism is a stance on theism, and any stance on any position is not the null position.

I'm not convinced that you understand the null hypothesis, which is to say that you don't understand the null hypothesis.

Now to whether to whether the null position is reasonable is dependent entirely on whether it is reasonable for someone to consider there to be insufficient evidence for something. For example, if someone who lacked the belief that Trump is President of the USA because they thought there was insufficient evidence would be considered unreasonable by most of our population because we have sufficient evidence and there is something wrong with them for not recognizing what they ought to recognize, which is why many theist consider atheism or a lack of belief to be unreasonable. Naturally, no one considers any of the positions that they hold to be unreasonable, but that does not necessarily mean that they are correct.

It would be unreasonable to say that there is insufficient evidence that Trump is the president. I agree with you there. How you intend to shoehorn God in there is beyond me.

It is is much easier to convince someone who believes in the existence of the God of classical theism of the Christian identity of that God than to convince someone who believes that God doesn't exist that Christianity is true, so the argument is usually divided into two stages. For example, in William Lane Craig's debates, he usually gives a number of arguments for the existence of God of classical theism, but always includes an argument for the resurrection, which is for the Christian identity of that God.

As I said in the OP, proving the resurrection does not disprove the existence of Thor. If you disagree, show me the argument.

Aquinas' Five Ways are more good examples of sound arguments that conclude the existence of only one God in principle, but if there were argument that allowed for the existence of many or infinite gods, then that would simply require an additional argument for why we should believe that only one exists, and in particular the God of Christianity.

Once again, I already said in the OP that I could tentatively grant the existence of a supreme being and that would still not disprove the existence of a lesser deity. Did you even read what you're responding to? If you object, you need to explain why I'm wrong. Simply reasserting the position that I already argued against is just aggravating to anyone who is reading this thread.

Arguments for the God of Christianity depend on establishing the historicity of actions that are attributed to Him, such as establishing the resurrection of Jesus.

Again, I don't care. You can have the resurrection. Now prove there is no Thor.

The God of Christianity is incompatible with other deities, so someone who establishes the existence of the God of Christianity as no need to establish the non-existence of other deities.

You can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jehovah exists, and you can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he indeed said, "I am God and there is no other." But that still does nothing to disprove the existence of Thor. Even if you prove that Jehovah is always correct, the most we can possibly establish is that there is no other supreme being.

Satan, for example, is more or less a lesser deity, and I would wager that you think he exists. He has powers far beyond that of a human, he is immortal, and there are some who worship him - he is a lesser deity. So, again, the existence of Jehovah and all that it entails does nothing to disprove the existence of Thor. If you think you can connect these dots, then please explain it to me.

At the very least, it would be perfectly reasonable someone could consider there to be sufficient evidence for the God of Christianity and insufficient evidence for other deities,

True... in principle.

though it is not clear to me why you think there is nothing that can be done to establish their non-existence.

This thread is specifically about the notion of null hypothesis vs proving a negative. Please go back and re-read the OP.

For example, establishing that God is immaterial would rule out other deities that are material.

Please explain. Are you once again asserting the existence of a supreme being and simultaneously denying the existence of all possible lesser deities? This response is getting frustrating - please read the OP.

The truth of Christianity is not dependant on the need to disprove the existence of other deities, so even if they couldn't be disproved, that wouldn't mean that Christianity can't be defended logically.

As a Christian, do you allow for the possibility that other gods, such as Thor, exist? If so, then do you agree that the term "false god" is nonsensical? Or do you definitively deny the existence of all such gods? If so, what is your supporting argument?

Believing someone on faith is trusting them when we have been given sufficient evidence, so I agree that Christianity must be believed on faith, though just because faith in Islam is misplaced doesn't mean that nothing is trustworthy.

I would love to discuss your evidence that is positively indicative of Christianity, but I insist that you first read the OP and respond appropriately.
 
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Nihilist Virus

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There are scientists adopting dualism when looking into the nature of consciousness. Two common views: (1) consciousness or mind is a hitherto undiscovered property of matter, and (2) consciousness is non-material and is created in certain brain structures when the quantum mechanics wavefunction collapses.

Some propose the observer needed to trigger the collapse of the quantum mechanics wavefunction is consciousness. This makes no sense because it collapses all the time with no observer; any interaction with another particle is all that is needed.

I think the better model would be to imagine ourselves as intelligence analysts. We aren't scientists working with test tubes where we can repeat experiments, but we have data. One agent might report word of a miraculous Catholic vision of Mary. Another agent might know of a pastor who sometimes has words of knowledge that help identify problems for his parishioners.

It's not too different from trying to determine if the Chinese have developed a new radar system. It's about evaluating fuzzy evidence to reach an educated guess.

Another issue is to consider the implications of different possibilities. If a scenario has very significant implications then it might make-up for low probability and force us to take action on the possibility.

EDIT: Another possibility to consider is the "many paths to God" viewpoint. We might satisfy ourselves that some key point of a religion is false, but the true God might reach-out through that religion in spite of its foolishness, and we would be missing an opportunity to know this true God by rejecting this false religion on a few technicalities.

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Nihilist Virus

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Matt just needs to realize that there are 666 gumballs in the machine ... (an even number, by golly) and once he takes this as a working axiom, then many other things will begin to start making sense too. ;)

You always go off the rails at some point in a post. At least you're getting it over with early here.

The attributes of God (i.e. Christian God) are only self-contradictory if the extent of each attribute is fully understood. Unfortunately, no one has ever measured the attributes of God, or placed God under a microscope or into a psychiatrist's easy-chair for observation. So, the supposition that self-contradictions are inherent to God's person is moot, at least it is to me. I think it always has been, but people on both sides of the belief/non-belief divide tend to believe what they want to believe about God more often than not. Logic and analysis don't decide whether God is consistent in His being; human feelings do.

The properties of God are self-contradictory, and that's not really up for debate. However, you seem to forget that I'm a nihilist. If God truly does exist, I see no problem with his properties being self-contradictory because I don't believe God would be bound by, or subject to, logic. Even electrons do not seem to be subject to logic, so why would God? Logic is a human construct.


OK.

Has anyone actually "proven" to the satisfaction of an atheist that Jesus rose again from the dead?

No, absolutely not, and all attempts I've seen thus far have not been very good.

...if not, then it's kind of hard to say that proving such a thing would not thereby bring about the reasonable preclusion of other gods that are incompatible with Christian theology. You might be jumping the gun here on this conclusion of yours, NV.

You seem to be foregoing logic here. Granted, I said above that logic is not the final arbiter of reality, and I stand by that, but if we are going to have a rational discussion - which is what this thread is all about - then we are obligated to play by the artificial rules of logic. And as these artificial rules go, proving something about X doesn't disprove something about something else entirely unrelated to X. So, no, logically speaking, proving the resurrection of Jesus to an excruciating degree of certainty does not directly or indirectly prove or disprove the existence of Thor.


Which part of that quote block makes no sense to you?

Nothing can be done? This is simply an incoherent premise, as per what I stated above about 'jumping the gun.'

Yes, nothing can be done because there is no method for proving a negative when it comes to physical reality. In mathematics, sure, I can prove lots of negative statements for you. I can prove there are no primes of the form n-2, n, n+2 aside from 3, 5, 7. That's proving a negative. I can do that all day. But in reality? No, we can't do that. So unless you want to say that gods aren't real, and we're operating in some axiomatic pantheon comic book, we have to say that proving a negative is off the table.

Christianity can be defended reasonably, just not logically.

Go on...

Moreover, faith is not an epistemology (as you know I've stated elsewhere before).

Yes, I know you said that. You were wrong then and you're wrong now.

Rather, faith is a positive response to that which God has provided an individual person.

Go on...

Philo buckles into the go-cart for yet another race around the same ol' race track with all his atheists buddies ... :cool:

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Peace,
2PhiloVoid

Yep, there goes 2PV again, racing counterclockwise in a clockwise race.
 
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Matt Dillahunty has clarified the atheist position with the following gumball analogy, which I have paraphrased:

Suppose there exists a gumball machine, and we don't know how many gumballs are inside it. If you told me that there were an even number of gumballs in the machine, then I would reject your assertion. Your assertion is rejected on the grounds of insufficient evidence, and I am not claiming that there is an odd number of gumballs. The fact of the matter is that we don't know and can't know how many gumballs there are, and so any positive assertion is unreasonable.
That is not the case here though. Suppose someone came around and said he had counted the gumballs or knew the manufacturer, and asserted a number from him?
It now becomes do we believe this man or not? It is not unreasonable to accept evidence given by someone else on authority, if no contradictory evidence is given. We can't go counting out the gumballs of everything in existence, but have to accept authority and other's previous experience on some points.
A positive or negative assertion thus morphs into if we trust this man or not, which is faith based in either case, for if we assert merely that we have insufficient evidence as criterion, then we cannot make any claim for anything whatsoever.
Religion is not in isolation, but built up by intersubjective and claimed revelationary means, by the body of human experience. It is thus denial of others' authority, as much as claiming insufficient evidence.
This is why most atheists are the "lack of belief" type of atheist. Some of these atheists might positively assert that Jehovah cannot exist, but this is usually because of the fact that Jehovah is often saddled with self-contradictory properties. Make Jehovah's properties self-consistent, and most atheists will not positively assert that he does not exist.
I would term this an agnostic, but I don't really want to go in to the sophistry of Atheist naming practices, so this is the last I'll say on this.
Those atheists who do assert that no gods exist are (hopefully) operating under the null hypothesis. For example, we might say that adding racing stripes to a vehicle will not make it go faster. This is not a declaration that experiments have been performed to conclude this, but rather that, by the null hypothesis, this is the default position. So, in that sense, when atheists say that there are no gods, they are (hopefully) speaking formally under the null hypothesis.
Historically though, all human societies were theist. The majority of modern humans are theist. The default position is thus Theism, and to assert the null position here would not cut it. It would require adding information, experiment, etc., to overthrow it, as the null position for human ideas on existence clearly involves some form of mythology.The null position of a Naturalistic Materialist would perhaps be your claim, but this is hardly the basic position of humanity, but involves quite a few assumptions itself.

But now that we've clarified this, we should turn our attention to the Christian and see that they are unreasonable. The vast majority of theistic arguments are only suited to advance deism, which allows for the existence of one, many, or infinitely many deities. While all of these arguments are flawed, they are at least deductive, whereas Christian-specific arguments are rarely, if ever, deductive. Proving to the satisfaction of an atheist that Jesus rose from the dead does not definitively disprove the existence of Zeus or Thor.

So if a Christian cannot argue beyond the existence of potentially many generic deities, then - just like the atheist - the Christian would be unreasonable to positively assert that Zeus, Thor, and the countless other deities definitively do not exist. Yet, Christian creed demands that this declarative statement is made.

Even if the Christian were to successfully prove the existence of a supreme deity, there is nothing that can be done to show lesser deities do not exist. And gods like Thor certainly are lesser deities, since they are not said to be omnipotent or omniscient. Their existence cannot be disproved.

This means that Christianity is fundamentally unreasonable. Christianity cannot be defended logically, but must be believed by faith. And faith is not a path to the truth: just look no further than Islam.
You first show the necessity of God, then try and see who this God is. Atheist/Theist debates seldom go further then the debate on the first point.
The second stage has good arguments, in my opinion, for the reality of God as the Christian one. These are mostly based on the Incarnation and the idea thereof as the crystallisation of mythology and its historic factors surrounding it, but is a fairly moot point if the first stage is not established.

Everything is ultimately believed on faith, whether this is religion or the lack thereof.
 
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2PhiloVoid

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You always go off the rails at some point in a post. At least you're getting it over with early here.
... it's not really "off" the rails; rather, it's a completely different train of thought that moves on a parallel track. :rolleyes:

The properties of God are self-contradictory, and that's not really up for debate. However, you seem to forget that I'm a nihilist.
... then I would think that "self-contradiction" would lose meaning for you and thus be something that may not mean anything from a human point of view, and if it doesn't mean anything from a human point of view, it may still mean something from a non-human point of view. :cool:

If God truly does exist, I see no problem with his properties being self-contradictory because I don't believe God would be bound by, or subject to, logic. Even electrons do not seem to be subject to logic, so why would God? Logic is a human construct.
... and then? This means that you're still 'open' to the existence of God since it isn't determined by logic???

No, absolutely not, and all attempts I've seen thus far have not been very good.
....the funny thing is, this sounds like a reverse No-True-Scotsman. So, do we want to say that people like....mmmm..... C.S. Lewis, Josh McDowell, Lee Stroble, or any other person...even brighter ones like Quid est Veritas here on CF...were not 'REAL' atheists before they became Christians? And that when they moved from atheism to Christian faith, they had no 'good' reason to assume that Jesus really was the Life, and the Truth, and the Way and that no one comes to the Father (the only God) except through Him?

You seem to be foregoing logic here. Granted, I said above that logic is not the final arbiter of reality, and I stand by that, but if we are going to have a rational discussion - which is what this thread is all about - then we are obligated to play by the artificial rules of logic. And as these artificial rules go, proving something about X doesn't disprove something about something else entirely unrelated to X. So, no, logically speaking, proving the resurrection of Jesus to an excruciating degree of certainty does not directly or indirectly prove or disprove the existence of Thor.
This will depend on which epistemological framework you are working your magic....er, um, I mean 'logic'...in. Logic as it relates to the human brain doesn't really stand by itself if it is a construct of the human brain..........unless you want to go all Platonic on me here. We also have to decipher which logic it is that you think applies.

Which part of that quote block makes no sense to you?
...the part that if one accepts Christ as risen that this doesn't at the same time automatically preclude other pantheons, because if there is one thing that logic can do, is indicate to us that not everything can be true, even IF said logic ends up in tautologies of definition and tells us what we already essentially know.

Yes, nothing can be done because there is no method for proving a negative when it comes to physical reality. In mathematics, sure, I can prove lots of negative statements for you. I can prove there are no primes of the form n-2, n, n+2 aside from 3, 5, 7. That's proving a negative. I can do that all day. But in reality? No, we can't do that. So unless you want to say that gods aren't real, and we're operating in some axiomatic pantheon comic book, we have to say that proving a negative is off the table.
I'm also not sure that the obverse of proving a negative, as it deals with God, actually would end up being a citation of a 'positive' presence of God. To do so would be to imply that God is empirically detectable at our whim, and the fact is, God isn't at our whim. So, if part of 'detecting' and 'measuring' God in a positive, demonstrable way would ALSO involve our affirming that He does not condescend to our probings at our whim, then this situation throws the whole dichotomy between proving either a negative or a positive out of whack. :rolleyes:

....going on, by 'reasonable' I mean that whatever we do have as evidence of God and of Christianity isn't some intangible thing, but that what we have--historically speaking--isn't enough to clinch the aesthetic response toward God all by its self. God has to step in and offer His portion of the epistemic structure within the mind of any one individual.

Yes, I know you said that. You were wrong then and you're wrong now.
...if faith were an epistemology, then we could try to use it as a framework to connect all we know; with it, we could still claim that we can build a space-craft to get to the Moon (or to Mars). But, Christian faith IS NOT this, and it has nothing to do with building anything other than a conception structure for what is apparently a cognitively dispersed interaction with a Supreme Being. So, faith is a response, not an epistemology. It emerges FROM one's overall epistemology, but it in and of itself is not an epistemological framework.

Yep, there goes 2PV again, racing counterclockwise in a clockwise race.
... whoever said the goal was to 'win'? :D

Peace,
2PhiloVoid
 
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cloudyday2

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That is not the case here though. Suppose someone came around and said he had counted the gumballs or knew the manufacturer, and asserted a number from him?
It now becomes do we believe this man or not? It is not unreasonable to accept evidence given by someone else on authority, if no contradictory evidence is given. ...
The gumball analogy is deficient in so many ways that it's not a very good model IMO. A model needs to be complicated enough to catch the essential features otherwise we will reach the wrong conclusions. Christians do have reasons for believing, but many of them are subjective anecdotes. Atheists also have reasons for disbelieving. (@Nihilist Virus mentioned some of those to be fair to him.) Whatever I guess... :)
 
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Serving Zion

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I seek the truth, so if you see fault with what I've said then I'd be interested in knowing where I went wrong.


And happy birthday.
You appear to have committed the false-cause fallacy in your reasoning here:
This is why most atheists are the "lack of belief" type of atheist. Some of these atheists might positively assert that Jehovah cannot exist, but this is usually because of the fact that Jehovah is often saddled with self-contradictory properties. Make Jehovah's properties self-consistent, and most atheists will not positively assert that he does not exist.
A person who expresses his knowledge of scripture by the spirit of Jehovah does not express any contradiction in their representation of Him. That one's views are always consistent with what scripture has already expressed, and he can show that there is no contradiction within scripture regarding Jehovah's properties.

An atheist might not be of the spiritual disposition to handle scripture for the same purpose as the ones who wrote scripture, thereby they receive a meaning from it's words that is different to the meaning that the writer placed in those words. In this way, they are not receiving the meaning of the scripture that the writer intended to convey. Saint John wrote of this phenomenon in 1 John 4:6.

This shows that there is a bias in the reading of one who does not find the consistency in the scriptures that is inherent. That bias prevents the reader from listening to what the writer of the scripture means to say. His intention by reading scripture, is to look for an opportunity to twist the meaning of the words so that he might be comfortable to view them as supporting his predetermined position. Whereas a person who is reading the scriptures in holy spirit has already resolved to humble himself and receive a correction to his position in the sight of Jehovah if he should encounter that the meaning of the words challenges his present position (understanding, belief, lifestyle etc).

In this way, the one who reads scripture in holy spirit is finding consistency rather than contradiction, because their spirit is that of truth (hearing the writer) instead of error (arguing against the writer).
 
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paul1149

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Analogies are always fun, and this one doesn't disappoint. But while we're all standing around staring at a gumball machine, the larger question hasn't been posed. How did the gumball machine get here?

The natural mind can only go so far. Beyond that we rely on special revelation, and historical proofs. The chances of a ancient small tribe surviving 4000 years until this day are more than daunting. The chances of a small start-up sect from within that tribe surviving and converting much of the world to itself are equally so. And then there is the unbroken string of personal miracles and changed lives down to our day.

Believe what you will, but the Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Happily, it doesn't end there, because perfect love casts out fear, but it does start there.

For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.
But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;
God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are,
so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption,
so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” -1Cor 1:18-31​
 
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Nihilist Virus

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That is not the case here though. Suppose someone came around and said he had counted the gumballs or knew the manufacturer, and asserted a number from him?
It now becomes do we believe this man or not? It is not unreasonable to accept evidence given by someone else on authority, if no contradictory evidence is given. We can't go counting out the gumballs of everything in existence, but have to accept authority and other's previous experience on some points.
A positive or negative assertion thus morphs into if we trust this man or not, which is faith based in either case, for if we assert merely that we have insufficient evidence as criterion, then we cannot make any claim for anything whatsoever.
Religion is not in isolation, but built up by intersubjective and claimed revelationary means, by the body of human experience. It is thus denial of others' authority, as much as claiming insufficient evidence.

This is a thought experiment. You can't just go whimsically changing the parameters. And even still, your objection utterly fails when we consider actual reality. We wouldn't have one person claiming to be the manufacturer. We would have many people claiming to be the manufacturer, all of whom contradict one another, and many of whom contradict themselves regularly as well. Is it reasonable to pick a name out of a hat and go with their authority? This changes absolutely nothing about the gumball analogy except that you're making it even more unreasonable to make a positive declaration, because instead of having 50/50 odds of being correct on the odd/even proposition, you now have vanishingly small odds of picking the correct manufacturer.

I would term this an agnostic, but I don't really want to go in to the sophistry of Atheist naming practices, so this is the last I'll say on this.

No, you can't just do a drive-by like that. You're wrong, and I covered this not more than a couple posts above. Let me copy/paste:

For example, consider the word "moral."

We can say that people with good morals are moral, but people with bad morals are not amoral - they are immoral. To be amoral, you'd have to be something that lacks morals altogether. Rocks, trees, and all things which lack consciousness are amoral because they are neither moral nor immoral.

So this is just an issue of the prefix "a-" and the word "theism." Theism is the belief in a deity. Atheism is the lack of a belief in a deity.

You are wrong, and this is quite clear. Please stop perpetuating this falsehood.


Historically though, all human societies were theist. The majority of modern humans are theist. The default position is thus Theism, and to assert the null position here would not cut it.

That's not how the null hypothesis works.

It would require adding information, experiment, etc., to overthrow it, as the null position for human ideas on existence clearly involves some form of mythology.

Again, that's not how the null hypothesis works.

I think you're just assuming you know what the null hypothesis is without having looked it up.

The null position of a Naturalistic Materialist would perhaps be your claim, but this is hardly the basic position of humanity, but involves quite a few assumptions itself.

Null hypothesis - Wikipedia


You first show the necessity of God, then try and see who this God is. Atheist/Theist debates seldom go further then the debate on the first point.
The second stage has good arguments, in my opinion, for the reality of God as the Christian one. These are mostly based on the Incarnation and the idea thereof as the crystallisation of mythology and its historic factors surrounding it, but is a fairly moot point if the first stage is not established.

I'd like to see these good arguments.

Everything is ultimately believed on faith, whether this is religion or the lack thereof.

No.
 
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Quid est Veritas?

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This is a thought experiment. You can't just go whimsically changing the parameters. And even still, your objection utterly fails when we consider actual reality. We wouldn't have one person claiming to be the manufacturer. We would have many people claiming to be the manufacturer, all of whom contradict one another, and many of whom contradict themselves regularly as well. Is it reasonable to pick a name out of a hat and go with their authority? This changes absolutely nothing about the gumball analogy except that you're making it even more unreasonable to make a positive declaration, because instead of having 50/50 odds of being correct on the odd/even proposition, you now have vanishingly small odds of picking the correct manufacturer.
Introducing multiple people asserting how many gumballs there are, changes nothing. You still need to take on authority whether we know the amount thereof or to deny that authority otherwise. It is not the simplistic picture you presented in the OP of merely asserting that we don't know. This is a quite silly analogy, in my opinion.

No, you can't just do a drive-by like that. You're wrong, and I covered this not more than a couple posts above. Let me copy/paste:

For example, consider the word "moral."

We can say that people with good morals are moral, but people with bad morals are not amoral - they are immoral. To be amoral, you'd have to be something that lacks morals altogether. Rocks, trees, and all things which lack consciousness are amoral because they are neither moral nor immoral.

So this is just an issue of the prefix "a-" and the word "theism." Theism is the belief in a deity. Atheism is the lack of a belief in a deity.

You are wrong, and this is quite clear. Please stop perpetuating this falsehood.
That is etymological, and is not what I am talking about at all. I am talking of the original meanings and definition of the terms. You are the great lover of definition, yet happily abuse it here. To assert atheism, is to assert lack of belief or disbelief in God or gods, not simply the position of no evidence. The latter position denotes by nature that it may be possible, but cannot be shown either way - which is what agnosticism entails. To say that lack of evidence provides plausibility for or assert disbelief thereby, is a claim itself, not an intellectually neutral position. As I said, I am not going to be drawn into such a patently dumb argument again, as anyone with even the slightest knowledge of semantics can show this to be the case. So, I am done in this regard.

That's not how the null hypothesis works.



Again, that's not how the null hypothesis works.

I think you're just assuming you know what the null hypothesis is without having looked it up.



Null hypothesis - Wikipedia
Yes, I was thinking of the null position, not a term from inferential statistics. This does not fit your racing stripe analogy at all though, from the OP. That seemed to be based on parsimony, but this asserts from statistical inference of data that either the observed data fits the hypothesis or significantly does not, in which case it is rejected; or two hypotheses are contrasted based on the data.
Parsimony is not advantaged here, for in Atheism, there is no data to support it at all. In fact, the atheist position is based on lack of empirical data being present as to the question of God's existence. The Theist position, uses the data of accrued human experience, in the form of centuries of claimed revelations, spiritual experiences and religion. Thus we have data for, on the one hand, and no data at all, on the other. To contrast the two, Theism is better supported by the one model of the Null Hypothesis; by the other, the data does not significantly contradict it either, as Atheism is based on lack of supposed data.

So yes, Theism seems to be the Null Hypothesis.


I'd like to see these good arguments.
I'd suggest reading the essays Myth became Fact and The Grand Miracle by CS Lewis for starters. GK Chesterton's Everlasting Man is another good example of such arguments.

We had this discussion in your previous thread. To assert a position on anything, whether you would justify it by observation or reasoning or whatever, eventually boils down to asserting a belief therein - even if this is via belief in the axiomatic assumptions from whence it is derived.
 
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Nihilist Virus

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... it's not really "off" the rails; rather, it's a completely different train of thought that moves on a parallel track. :rolleyes:

If you say so.

... then I would think that "self-contradiction" would lose meaning for you and thus be something that may not mean anything from a human point of view, and if it doesn't mean anything from a human point of view, it may still mean something from a non-human point of view. :cool:

Right, we covered this already. But unless you have devised a way of having a conversation which is detached from the human point of view, we will have to work with what we have.

... and then? This means that you're still 'open' to the existence of God since it isn't determined by logic???

Yes. But since an illogical (or, perhaps more appropriately, alogical) God cannot be logically derived, we must rely on physical evidence. Do you have any?

....the funny thing is, this sounds like a reverse No-True-Scotsman. So, do we want to say that people like....mmmm..... C.S. Lewis, Josh McDowell, Lee Stroble, or any other person...even brighter ones like Quid est Veritas here on CF...were not 'REAL' atheists before they became Christians? And that when they moved from atheism to Christian faith, they had no 'good' reason to assume that Jesus really was the Life, and the Truth, and the Way and that no one comes to the Father (the only God) except through Him?

Lee Stroble was involved in the production of the film version of his book, The Case for Christ, so I can address the film rather than his book. I thoroughly dismantled the film on my thread, here. As for the others you mention, I would presume that their conversions were equally illogical.

This will depend on which epistemological framework you are working your magic....er, um, I mean 'logic'...in. Logic as it relates to the human brain doesn't really stand by itself if it is a construct of the human brain..........unless you want to go all Platonic on me here. We also have to decipher which logic it is that you think applies.

Here's what logic is:

Assumptions, definitions, and the conclusions that follow.

You cannot demonstrate anything about reality starting just from assumptions and definitions. You need to have some observational data.

...the part that if one accepts Christ as risen that this doesn't at the same time automatically preclude other pantheons, because if there is one thing that logic can do, is indicate to us that not everything can be true, even IF said logic ends up in tautologies of definition and tells us what we already essentially know.

Maybe spell this out for me. I don't see how the existence of a lesser deity contradicts the resurrection, and vice versa.

I'm also not sure that the obverse of proving a negative, as it deals with God, actually would end up being a citation of a 'positive' presence of God. To do so would be to imply that God is empirically detectable at our whim, and the fact is, God isn't at our whim. So, if part of 'detecting' and 'measuring' God in a positive, demonstrable way would ALSO involve our affirming that He does not condescend to our probings at our whim, then this situation throws the whole dichotomy between proving either a negative or a positive out of whack. :rolleyes:

I'm not suggesting that you should be able to conjure God. I merely insist that you have physical evidence for some event in which he participated. If you don't have that, you have nothing.

....going on, by 'reasonable' I mean that whatever we do have as evidence of God and of Christianity isn't some intangible thing, but that what we have--historically speaking--isn't enough to clinch the aesthetic response toward God all by its self. God has to step in and offer His portion of the epistemic structure within the mind of any one individual.

So then you are openly saying that belief in God based on the current body of evidence is unreasonable.

...if faith were an epistemology, then we could try to use it as a framework to connect all we know; with it, we could still claim that we can build a space-craft to get to the Moon (or to Mars). But, Christian faith IS NOT this, and it has nothing to do with building anything other than a conception structure for what is apparently a cognitively dispersed interaction with a Supreme Being. So, faith is a response, not an epistemology. It emerges FROM one's overall epistemology, but it in and of itself is not an epistemological framework.

Many say, "I believe by faith." So that is an epistemological framework.

... whoever said the goal was to 'win'? :D

Peace,
2PhiloVoid

Even in suicide chess, the goal is to win.
 
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There are scientists adopting dualism when looking into the nature of consciousness. Two common views: (1) consciousness or mind is a hitherto undiscovered property of matter, and (2) consciousness is non-material and is created in certain brain structures when the quantum mechanics wavefunction collapses.

Some propose the observer needed to trigger the collapse of the quantum mechanics wavefunction is consciousness. This makes no sense because it collapses all the time with no observer; any interaction with another particle is all that is needed.

Even if an observer is required to collapse the quantum wave-function, it still seems that consciousness would be a physical system.
 
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Here's what logic is:

Assumptions, definitions, and the conclusions that follow.
Actually, Logic is the systematic study of inferences and relation within arguments and between propositions. The goal being to determine the soundness or validity thereof.
You seem to confuse the adjectival sense of something being Logical, with Logic itself. You did the same in your previous thread.

You cannot demonstrate anything about reality starting just from assumptions and definitions. You need to have some observational data
This is itself an assumption, that observational data is required and that it is inherently useful or valid. So if you say you cannot demonstrate anything starting just from assumptions, then you cannot demonstrate anything.
 
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