Atheism is reasonable, and Christianity is not

[Hawkins]

That’s fine and dandy, but the authors of the gospels are pseudonymous, and weren’t eye witnesses.

How do you know?

Do you know how human history is written?

The Chinese have around 5000 years of written history. They are examined this way,

1) The credibility comes from the belief of faith that the written information is ultimately coming from the eye-witnesses which the writers of books can legitimately approach.

2) By following the token in 1), some parts of the ancient history were written some 1500 years after the occurrence by yet another legitimate writer who lived 1500 years after the events/figures he put in the history books which are deemed legitimate. In this case, we trust with faith that back then this legitimate writer had the necessary information at hand for him to grant the credibility to those information to write his own history book legitimately.

This is so because under a lot of circumstance, we can't grant credibility without faith, or we won't have history at all! The information is scarce and rare, if we don't trust its credibility it only means that we don't have that part of history. It means that when facing ancient history, sometimes (or most of the times) we don't have the option to disregard the credibility of the book, simply because it's out of human capability to trace back to confirm the credibility to a "beyond doubt" precision, and if we choose to disregard it only means that we don't have that part of history.

This is the nature of ancient human witnessing/testimonies.

You don't need to apply a double standard to the gospels as long as you expect that the gospels are valid human accounts of witnessing/testimonies. To put it another way, if you would like to apply a double standard here, it only means that you don't expect that they are valid accounts of human witnessing/testimonies!

 

[Hawkins]

lol...



Plenty of theists do exactly that.



if "testimony" is your foundation of belief then.... that is exactly "believing what people tell you".



I'm not claiming to remember what I said back then.
But it's funny that you should mention that.... just the other day I had an argument with a client who claimed that over a year ago, I said a certain thing that I would do which he claimed I didn't do.

I went digging in my inbox and found the email he was talking about, where it's clearly written what I actually DID say.

That certainly shut him up............

Evidence: it trumps "memory" and "anecdotes" every single time.



Sure. But those would be rather trivial claims.
Obviously, if some guy comes up to me saying that he saw a great movie last night....
I'm not gonna tell him "ow ya? PROVE IT"!

It's a trivial claim. People exists. Movies exist. People watch movies. Nothing particularly ordinary.

However, if the guy would proceed that the main actress crawled out of the TV and made love to him, then returned into the TV to finish the movie.... that's the point where I won't just accept what he says.

So the amount of evidence I require, is directly proportional to how out of the ordinary the claim is, and in some other case how impactfull the claim is. As in, when there are consequences attached to accepting or rejecting it.



1. how would you determine credibility in this case?

2. you can have 100 of the most honest people known to mankind saying X... if then physical evidence pops up that says Y instead, the "testimony" of those 100 people will be instantly discarded. Because people can be wrong.




Nope.

You put a lot of junk in your post. Why don't you just answer the following questions.

1. Do you have the evidence of your own deed or not?

2. How do you give credit to those who wrote for humans to consider as history?

3. What credits do you expect for those who wrote the gospels to be valid?

In a nutshell, you build your reasoning on an ideal which is actually a delusion while other human witnessing documents are compared.

 

[HitchSlap]

How do you know?

Do you know how human history is written?

The Chinese have around 5000 years of written history. They are examined this way,

1) The credibility comes from the belief of faith that the written information is ultimately coming from the eye-witnesses which the writers of books can legitimately approach.

2) By following the token in 1), some parts of the ancient history were written some 1500 years after the occurrence by yet another legitimate writer (who lived 1500 years after the events/figures he put in the history books which are deemed legitimate).

This is so because under a lot of circumstance, we can't grant credibility without faith, or we won't have history at all! The information is scarce and rare, if we don't trust its credibility it only means that we don't have that part of history. It means that when facing ancient history, sometimes (or most of the times) we don't have the option to disregard the credibility of the book, simply because it's out of human capability to trace back to confirm the credibility to a "beyond doubt" precision, and if we choose to disregard it only means that we don't have that part of history.

This is the nature of ancient human witnessing/testimonies.

You don't need to apply a double standard to the gospels as long as you expect that the gospels are valid human accounts of witnessing/testimonies. To put it another way, if you would like to apply a double standard here, it only means that you don't expect that they are valid accounts of human witnessing/testimonies!

All we have are copies of copies of copies of the gospels. They weren't signed by the authors, and are written in third person narrative, in a language Jesus never spoke, from a country Jesus never traveled to, by unknown authors Jesus never met. They are addled with irreconcilable contradictions, and only loosely agree where it's obvious they were copied from each other, and they were written decades after the supposed death of Jesus. Apart from the gospels, there is zero evidence to even draw a reasonable conclusion that the Jesus described in the gospels even existed.

BTW, eyewitness testimony is among the worst kinds of evidence. Human brains and recollection of memory is wrought with problems. Forensic, photo and video evidence is infinitely better.

 

[Hawkins]

All we have are copies of copies of copies of the gospels.

What do you have about history books written 2000 years ago? You have copies of copies of copies of history books!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't know why you even ask this question! This is the exact nature of what valid human witnessing/testimonies are!

 

[anonymous person]

That's really just an argument from ignorance.

The phrase, "in the absence of a defeater", is not an argument at all; rather, it is a description of a sufficient epistemic condition that if satisfied, would render a belief rational to hold.

Not being able to disprove an idea, does not give it more credibility.

I agree.

I can give you an inumerable amount of nonsense ideas, none of which you will be able to disprove. That doesn't make these ideas true or likely.

I agree.

you don't know it, if you can't show it".

A person may know they are innocent of a crime they are accused of committing and yet may not be able to prove they are innocent. The evidence may even be stacked against them, and yet they know they did not do it.

Not being able to show it, means that it would be just an assertion with no evidence.

To someone else maybe, but to the person in the aforementioned scenario, it would be evidenced to them by their immediate knowledge that they really didn't commit the crime they are accused of committing. Of course people may not believe the accused, but the accused still know that they are innocent.

You could be wrong and how could you know? You wouldn't.

The possibility that I am wrong is not a strong enough defeater for my properly basic beliefs. It is possible I am right.

Speaking of logical possibilities, it is possible that I am nothing more than a brain in a vat or a body lying in the matrix; however, the mere possibility that that may be the case is not a strong enough defeater for my beliefs that I am not just a brain in a vat or a body lying in the matrix

And, perhaps more importantly, not being able to show it, means that other people will not have a rational reason to believe your claims.

Well this is where a cumulative case for Christianity would come in.

 

[HitchSlap]

What do you have about history books written 2000 years ago? You have copies of copies of copies of history books!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't know why you even ask this question! This is the exact nature of what valid human witnessing/testimonies are!

Exactly my point. Beowulf was written approximately 1,000 years ago, but no one believes it to be nonfiction, or that Grendel actually exists. When a proper scholarly historo-critical analysis is applied, the gospels fall apart as literal. Sorry. If you were more familiar with real scholarship, you'd know this.

 

[HitchSlap]

The phrase, "in the absence of a defeater", is not an argument at all; rather, it is a description of a sufficient epistemic condition that if satisfied, would render a belief rational to hold.

This approach unwittingly allows every belief system in human history to be a "rational belief to hold." The real question is, how would we determine which one is correct. And we know they all can't be right, but they could all be wrong.

 

[DogmaHunter]

You put a lot of junk in your post.

Maybe because it's junk I'm replying to?

Why don't you just answer the following questions.
1. Do you have the evidence of your own deed or not?

What deed? The hypothetical imagined one you mentioned? No, I don't have evidence of a deed I actually never claimed.

2. How do you give credit to those who wrote for humans to consider as history?

By crossreference.
And the amount or type of corroborating evidence I would require, would be contrasted to how extra-ordinary the claims are in the writings.

3. What credits do you expect for those who wrote the gospels to be valid?

Same as 2.
And at least some amount of internal consistancy would have been nice as well.

Unfortunatly, the gospels fail on both points.

In a nutshell, you build your reasoning on an ideal which is actually a delusion while other human witnessing documents are compared.

Did I just catch you assuming which answers I would give?
In any case: nope. There's nothing delusional about not simply believing whatever people write down at face value.

 

[DogmaHunter]

What do you have about history books written 2000 years ago? You have copies of copies of copies of history books!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't know why you even ask this question! This is the exact nature of what valid human witnessing/testimonies are!

So, do you accept the writings of Plato, the companions of Mohammed,... as well?
Why not?

And in contrast, do you accept the diary writings of Julius Ceasar while he was conquering Gaul?

 

[DogmaHunter]

The phrase, "in the absence of a defeater", is not an argument at all; rather, it is a description of a sufficient epistemic condition that if satisfied, would render a belief rational to hold.

Not at all.

I'll demonstrate with an "explanation":

The origins of the universe are best explained by the extra-dimensional 7-headed dragon laying a cosmic egg, which in the case of 7-headed dragons comes in the form of a singularity of near-infinite mass and energy. When it cracked, it cracked with a big bang and from it, the universe was born. And I know this, because it was revealed to me by one of the heads in a vision.

So, this "explanation" accounts for the origins of the universe and for the big bang. So, if you can't come up with a "defeater" of this, does that mean that it would be rational to accept this claim?

Clearly, not being able to come up with a defeater adds NOTHING.

I'll agree to the opposite though... that holding to a position for which a defeater actually exists... that would be irrational.

The opposite however, is not true at all.

The only things that makes accepting a claim a rational position, is if there is sufficient positive evidence in support of that claim. The mere absence of a defeater means nothing at all.

A person may know they are innocent of a crime they are accused of committing and yet may not be able to prove they are innocent. The evidence may even be stacked against them, and yet they know they did not do it.

Proving you are innocent, would certainly help your case.
However, it is not a requirement. It is guilt that needs to be demonstrated, since in a court one addresses the question of guilt, not of innocense. Which is why a jury will rule "guilty" or "not guilty". And not "innocent".

Having said that, whatever you know or think to know, is not "knowledge" to other people, if you can't demonstrate it.

If you can't show it, then as far as other people is concerned, that which you say you know is no more or less then a claim.

To someone else maybe

Obviously.... that is the whole point. It IS about others, because this is off course analogy number i-lost-count concerning theism-atheism.

One makes a knowledge claim and the other is responding.
I am the "other" in that conversation. So if you tell me that you "know", I'm going to ask you how do you know. And if you can't give an answer that makes it possible for me to know as well, then as far as I'm concerned, you do not have knowledge. You have beliefs and claims which aren't supported by evidence.

, but to the person in the aforementioned scenario, it would be evidenced to them by their immediate knowledge that they really didn't commit the crime they are accused of committing.

But the whole point is for that person to convince the others of his innocense.........
Are you saying that the others should "just believe" the guy?

Of course people may not believe the accused, but the accused still know that they are innocent.

Let's roll with this one.
Is it possible that this person that is so convinced of his innocense, is actually wrong? That his memory is faulty? That he was under the influence of something (not necessarily voluntarily) and actually just has memory loss?

Let's go to some other people that also really "know" something they can't demonstrate to others: alien abductees. They really really really KNOW that they were abducted and experimented on. Put them on a lie detector test and they will pass.

So what is the value of this kind of "knowledge" that can't be shared, really?

The possibility that I am wrong is not a strong enough defeater for my properly basic beliefs. It is possible I am right.

You're not answering the question.
The question is, IF you are wrong (and you seem to admit that his possibility exists)... how would you know? How could you find out?

Speaking of logical possibilities, it is possible that I am nothing more than a brain in a vat or a body lying in the matrix; however, the mere possibility that that may be the case is not a strong enough defeater for my beliefs that I am not just a brain in a vat or a body lying in the matrix

lol.... you thought you were scoring points by turning it around, but you just made my case for me.

Replace "we are brains in vats" with "a god exists".
There you go.

Indeed, you are the equivalent of an "atheist" when it comes to a "brain in vat world".
It can't be demonstrated that we are NOT brains in vats, but there is no reason to consider/believe/accept that we are either.
And if some guy would come up claiming that he KNOW that we are brains in vats, you will ask him how he knows and to demonstrate it. Or you won't accept it and assume the guy is wrong for a variaty of potential reasons.

I don't accept theistic claims for the exact same reason.
Wonderfull.

Well this is where a cumulative case for Christianity would come in.

No idea what you mean by that.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Hey hey friend

Please excuse me. I do not remember this particular occasion - as evident from my reply and mix up hehe.

Would you like closure?



I like to know your position and where you are coming from. I like to ask questions, it leads to conversation

Cheers

If you swear before these witnesses that you will follow points to their logical conclusion, then we can have this conversation.

 

[Willis Gravning]

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.

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.

I wholeheartedly agree that Christianity is unreasonable. For proof of this one need look no further than the Good Samaritan Parable. The priest and Levite were perfectly reasonable to pass by the injured stranger. There was nothing at all to be gained by stopping to aid someone who obviously cannot possibly repay the kindness. The Samaritan would never regain his time or treasure. To those who heard the story the Samaritan would have been considered a godless sort of person. In a modern context it may have been called 'The Good Atheist'. It doesn't get much more irrational than that.

 

[HitchSlap]

I wholeheartedly agree that Christianity is unreasonable. For proof of this one need look no further than the Good Samaritan Parable. The priest and Levite were perfectly reasonable to pass by the injured stranger. There was nothing at all to be gained by stopping to aid someone who obviously cannot possibly repay the kindness. The Samaritan would never regain his time or treasure. To those who heard the story the Samaritan would have been considered a godless sort of person. In a modern context it may have been called 'The Good Atheist'. It doesn't get much more irrational than that.

Compassion is an evolved emotion. Elephants, chimpanzees, gorillas, dogs, and humans all show compassion. You miss the forest for the trees.

 

[Silmarien]

How could I falsify that claim, if it is an accurate claim?
Your request also is very strangely worded. To the point that it makes no sense.

You need to provide a test that would prove it false.

Falsifiability of claims is rather about the merrit of said claim and how to justify accepting it as accurate. How it can be verified.

If a claim is not falsifiable, then how can you find out if it is accurate or not?
Can you give me an example of an unfalsifiable claim, that CAN be verified?

Mathematical axioms are not falsifiable. Of course, they are also not quite verifiable.

Falsification, at least in the Popperian sense, is an interesting concept, and it's about more than justifying claims as accurate. It plays into how we get scientific progress at all--every piece of information that you get which doesn't fit with your theories gives you additional data to work with. This makes it more about expanding the bedrock that empirical science is built upon than justifying specific claims.

Applying scientific tools to non-scientific problems doesn't really work, though. Nor is it necessary for the goal of scientific progress unless people are trying to pass off their theological or political theories as science.

No, sorry, claims like "x exists in objective reality" is an empirical claim.
How can you verify if X indeed actually exists in objective reality, if not empirically?

God doesn't exist in objective reality.

Many others do.
But I'm not talking about Kalam. I'm talking about "moderate beliefs" vs "fundamentalist beliefs" and things like that.

As I clarified twice. And which you, apparantly, ignored both times.

You said that moderate beliefs were less irrational than fundamentalist beliefs. This implies that all theistic beliefs are to some extent irrational. This is a strange claim to make when you neither understand nor wish to understand what religious scientists actually believe and why.

Nope. If you would actually make the effort to read the clarification I wrote down, you'll see that that is not the reason why I call the beliefs (not the people that hold them) irrational.

Theism is not an irrational belief. If anything, the most powerful arguments in its favor, like the Leibnizian Cosmological Argument, are too rational.

If you would like to call it a non-empirical belief, I would certainly agree to that.

 

[_-iconoclast-_]

Compassion is an evolved emotion. Elephants, chimpanzees, gorillas, dogs, and humans all show compassion. You miss the forest for the trees.

How is sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others and evolved emotion?

Could you please give us an example re dogs?

Cheers

 

[Willis Gravning]

How is sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others and evolved emotion?

Could you please give us an example re dogs?

Cheers

I can give an example with dogs. I used to live on an acreage on which we had two larger dogs, Tiny and Ben. They were buddies and stuck together all the time. One day I came home from work and saw Ben alone which struck me as somewhat odd. Then I got out of the car and could hear Tiny's distant barking from a grove of trees. Then Ben started behaving strangely as though something was wrong and he wanted me to follow him. (If you are old enough to remember the Lassy TV show, it was almost exactly like that) So I followed him and he lead me directly to Tiny who had his rear paw ensnared in a loop of fence wire.

 

[_-iconoclast-_]

If you swear before these witnesses that you will follow points to their logical conclusion, then we can have this conversation.

Wow legalistic!

I would be delighted to behave in the most civilized manner that i consider appropriate. As far as possible i will do my best. Keeping in mind that this is the season of good will and peace to all men.

"But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one."

I cannot say yes or no. I do not know what ill be doing tomorrow.

Bear in mind i do not ask you to swear to anything. Would you still like to continue?

 

[_-iconoclast-_]

I can give an example with dogs. I used to live on an acreage on which we had two larger dogs, Tiny and Ben. They were buddies and stuck together all the time. One day I came home from work and saw Ben alone which struck me as somewhat odd. Then I got out of the car and could hear Tiny's distant barking from a grove of trees. Then Ben started behaving strangely as though something was wrong and he wanted me to follow him. (If you are old enough to remember the Lassy TV show, it was almost exactly like that) So I followed him and he lead me directly to Tiny who had his rear paw ensnared in a loop of fence wire.

Hey hey friend.

Do you believe that the dog showed empathy or sympathy?

Cheerd

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Wow legalistic!

I would be delighted to behave in the most civilized manner that i consider appropriate. As far as possible i will do my best. Keeping in mind that this is the season of good will and peace to all men.

"But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one."

I cannot say yes or no. I do not know what ill be doing tomorrow.

Bear in mind i do not ask you to swear to anything. Would you still like to continue?

So is that a no?

 

[_-iconoclast-_]

So is that a no?

Hey hey.

I cannot commit to swearing such an oath. So it will be a no. Does this impede our conversation?

Indulge me friend?