Indeed. But its inanity isn't always obvious, which is where the FSM comes in. It's so obviously ridiculous that we can all have a chuckle about it, but the Pastafarian can then turn around and go, "If this is ridiculous, then so why not your god?".
There once was a very tiny noodle. Apparently, somehow, it was an infinitely dense noodle, and of its own accord the tiny noodle decided to quickly become many billions of light years big, perhaps even infinite, and it did so very orderly and proactively, creating within itself matter and energy, and logical forces and laws to govern itself, and eventually created thinking and feeling clumps of matter which could observe, describe and ponder the noodle and themselves.
If this is ridiculous, then why not your atheism?
It encourages scrutiny of one's own beliefs, because so many are just held for the sake of holding.
Fair enough, but then apply the same type of scrutiny to other beliefs too.
Not necessarily. All you have to do is show that (the Christian) God is more probable than the FSM.
The Christian God is not made of matter (is not "made" period). The FSM is. Matter cannot be created, and matter cannot create itself. (Are you really going to make me keep going with this?)
Someone had to be the first Christian, the first Jew, the first Scientologist. Why not the first Pastafarian?
That's true, but I'm just saying it's not going to be me.
Why not indeed
. But you don't believe it, do you?
What, that's there beer in heaven? I don't know, possibly. Or maybe something equivalent but better. (Hmm, what could better than beer?
Free beer!)
True, but I've still yet to see anything which can explain or make sense of something which reason cannot.
And the first thing any scientist learns is that correlation most certainly does not imply causation: the causal link has to be demonstrated by evidence and rigorous testing before the scientific community will even touch it.
One of my biggest objections to atheism is the problem of determinism. How do you yourself get around that? Have you ever heard the Haldane quote:
"For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms."
If there's no Intelligence behind the universe, then everything, including your mind, is a mindless, purposeless, ongoing chain reaction of cause and effect. Every thought you and I will ever think, in chronological order, was determined the instant the singularity began to expand. If you use reason to arrive at atheism, it seems like you've sawn off the limb you were sitting on. Personally I think the contradiction here is inescapable in a way that the contradiction mentioned in your OP is not: if reason tells me that atheism is true, atheism in turn tells me that reason is unreliable, an illusion even.
Because we're hormonal bags of water.
Sure, but even the most basic biological feature such as a hunger pang is
reasonable in the sense that it's there for a reason. It's telling us "eat food", which makes very good sense if we want to live.
We can reason, sure, but we have 3.5 billion years of evolved instinct telling us, say, bash the head in of that man who slept with your wife. But we don't use these instincts to make sense of things.
I'm not sure I exactly understand you, but if you're using "instinct" as the idea of programmed or hardwired, then the example you give above is still in a sense reasonable, even though you don't mentally reason it out. As a Christian, I could agree that the urge to violence is reasonable according to nature (our sinful nature), but as a Christian I believe we've been given a glimpse of a higher reason (through Christ) which says all violence is wrong. I guess what I mean is that we are sinners in a corrupt world; even war may be reasonable if it's necessary, but then it's just reasonable and wrong at the same time.
That's because of the society we've been brought up in. In days gone past, it would be expected that you would kill me to save yourself - any notion of nobility would be laughed at.
Depends on the time and the place I guess. Nazi Germany had a very ignoble idea of what was noble, but what men say (or try to excuse) may differ from what they really know in their hearts.
That said, you would eventually attempt to kill me: whatever reason you used to condemn violence would be overwhelmed by the urge to eat.
Or insanity.
Whichever came first.
Morality tells us what we
should do, not what we
would do. So, yeah, I'd probably kill you, but I'd feel just awful about it.
We agree on something? Crikey...
So, how do you think we look for truth? Or to put it another way, what do you think is the best way to determine the probability that a given statement is true?
You said you hate epistemology, but you want to inflict it on me, eh?
I hate it too. I think it depends on the statement in question, because we use different standards of proof for different types of questions, e.g., a scientist may use a different standard than a judge in a courtroom, and a judge a different standard than a skydiver preparing to jump from a plane.
Some statements are in a class all their own, such as a man saying "I am the Truth". What can you do but examine what else he said and did, and what came of him saying it, and examine it in the context of everything else you know.
My understanding of Hell is that it's identicle to Heaven - except it's void of God. The wailing and gnashing of teeth is of those Christians who go to Hell and must spend eternity without God's presence. Presumably, to the Christian, this is eternal punishment. It would probably be eternal punishment to the Muslim, Sikh, Jew, etc, as well.
But to the atheist it's a breeze.
Just my thoughts.
The orthodox understanding is that Heaven and Hell are in fact the same "place". (Of course this isn't science, but I'm just making a connection here): if Heaven and Hell exist in eternity, and if spacetime is one interwoven "thing" as you guys say it is, then in eternity, where there is no time, there's also no place. When this reality is ended for us, there is only the foundational God; there's no "place" else for anyone to be. So Heaven and Hell are both in the presence of God, and it's the attitude of the soul which makes it paradisaical or painful.
An analogy sometimes used is: "'For our God is a consuming fire', (Heb. 12:29). The very fire which purifies gold, also consumes wood. Precious metals shine in it like the sun, rubbish burns with black smoke. All are in the same fire of Love. Some shine and others become black and dark. In the same furnace steel shines like the sun, whereas clay turns dark and is hardened like stone. The difference is in man, not in God. The difference is conditioned by the free choice of man, which God respects absolutely. Gods judgment is the revelation of the reality which is in man." (from Dr. Kalomiros.)
And don't we already see this beginning to happen in a minor way in our own world? A man who chooses to be happy and loving will say "Life is good". A man who chooses to be miserable and hateful will say "Life is bad".
Indeed. But I think that, if reason cannot justify something, nothing can justify it. There's no back-up or alternative method that can do something reason cannot.
Do you mean justify or prove? I think Reason can justify God, even if it can't prove or comprehend Him.
Hmm... perhaps he's talking about a time when we know everything? When empirical deduction has told us everything it can?
Do you think that's possible?
I'm an agnostic atheist, so I should
.
I'm agnostic in that I don't think we can ever prove or disprove the existence of any particular, and I'm an atheist in that I don't affirm the existence of any particular god.
I'll leave this alone. I'm weary of arguing with people about what the word "atheist" means.
. I've heard explanations for things like why the Bible says pi is 3, that the Moon is a light source, etc, and I don't ask those questions any more.
Got it? 
)
