5 reasons atheism is irrational

[MrFungus420]

"So here is my contention: you and I each work from presuppositions."

That's why you're failing here. You don't discriminate between facts and assumptions.

Startle me then. Use facts to disprove the existence of God and no excuses about the absence of any good methodology to prove a negative

We don't have to disprove any god. You have to prove your assumptions are actually fact.

I'll take that as saying you can't do it then.

Of course not.

It is impossible to prove a universal negative.

No surprise - you are as locked into requiring presuppositional bias (faith) as I am. But I''ll admit to it.

So it takes faith to not accept a claim that is not supported by evidence...doesn't it hurt having your buttcheeks on your shoulders?

[Theophilus]

Are you under the delusion that every experiment operates like a biology statistical survey?
That is not the case.)

No, but I think you must see the problem colubridae. Christian theology proposes that the universe is sustained by and through God. You can demonstrate whatever you want scientifically (and jolly useful it is as well) but it simply doesn't tackle that central question of whether God is sustaining what you and I are examining or not. If I am right, and God exists, then all the science we do is on a universe sustained by and through God. From a scientific point of view because God is sustaining everything we can actually eliminate God from our science just as a mathematician may remove a constant that is present on both sides of an equation. And so for my science it makes no difference to me whether I say there is no God or I say everything is created by and sustained through God; the science is the same for both those scenarios (unless God disappears in which case in my scenario we all disappear as well).

That is shifting the burden of proof.

Indeed, to show how different subjective starting points confound the question. We (theists) don't share your starting point and to convince us we are wrong you need to begin from where we stand and demonstrate the error in our position (of course I accept that I have the same problem in reverse, you will understandably want me to begin with your starting point and disprove your position). The problem we're faced with is that we'd prefer to use each other's toothbrushes before we use each other's presuppositions.

Ho hum.

[MrFungus420]

you can't create your own playground.

Well, I actually did. It shows that that the default position (the null hypothesis if you will) is entirely dependent on the subjective starting point. No null hypothesis is more valid than another - you can pick anything you wish to as a null hypothesis. My null hypothesis is "there is a God".

No. That is a claim. You are claiming that a god exists.

The hypothesis is the active claim. The null hypothesis is that it is wrong.

O.K. I've been deliberately provocative.

Not really. Unless you want to claim that obtuseness is provocative.

But hopefully you get the point - where you end up depends on where you start, and both theism and atheism build internally consistent paradigms around a certain starting point (our presuppositions).

First, theism is not internally consistent. It is not consistent in any way.
Secondly, atheism is nothing more than not accepting theism. It is not making a claim.

Presuppositions are very powerful - they are where we each start and what we each take for granted, and we challenge others that they must work from our own presuppositions (our own null hypothesis) in order to convince us to change our minds. You hunker down in your own presuppositions (that there is no God until proved otherwise)

Well, in one sense you are correct about presuppositions. And this is yours.

I do not claim that there is no god. I do not accept the claims of a god existing because there is no evidence supporting that claim.

Are you capable of understanding that?

Theism is the claim that a god exists. Atheism is not accepting that claim.

Some atheists do claim that there is no god, but that is not atheism. For those who make that claim, it is just as incumbent upon them to provide evidence as it is for a theist.

and I hunker down in mine (that there is a God until proved otherwise) and we talk across each other.

Do you honestly think that a claim is true until proven otherwise?

You owe me $10,000. Pay up unless you can prove that you don't owe me the money.

[colubridae]

[youtubeuk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPONTneuaF4[/youtubeuk]

I knew in my heart of hearts the pink unicorn existed...


If only someone like theophilis believed in reality like the P. unicorn, instead of that blatant fraud, jebus...

[MrFungus420]

Congratulations. You just demonstrated that God is unproven and unprovable. SO, why should we believe in such?

Yes, but if you go over my posts that is my consistent stance - that God cannot be proved empirically but there is evidence that supports a presuppositional belief in God. I always maintain that belief in God requires faith (though I would also say that belief in God is reasonable and is an internally consistent world view).

Make up your mind.

Is there evidence, or is it faith? The two are incompatible. Faith is belief without evidence.

And, if there is evidence, then present it.

[Theophilus]

The hypothesis is the active claim. The null hypothesis is that it is wrong.

Actually to be pedantic the null hypothesis is what you are seeking to reject (in favour of the alternative hypothesis) or not. The alternative hypothesis is not directly proved true, but rather accepted if the null hypothesis is falsified (the null and alternative hypotheses should be mutually exclusive and contain all possible outcomes so that rejection of one leads to necessary acceptance of the other). And so you and I will choose different null hypotheses, mine would be that there is a God and I stick with that hypothesis unless I can reject it. But the critical thing is that we generally assume our current paradigm is correct unless falsified, so all of us have a bias to our starting position (our presuppositions). So I won't accept your view unless you can prove me wrong, and vice versa. Of course we each have different experiences which have led to where we each are at now (our own experiences will usually trump others, for obvious reasons), and so I need to be careful about assuming you should think the way I do now, and vice versa.

Is there evidence, or is it faith? The two are incompatible. Faith is belief without evidence.

I would say faith is belief without proof. And I think that is often where some confusion creeps in, that people use "evidence" when they actually mean "proof" and vice versa (lots of vice versaring today!). I have always maintained I believe there is evidence, but not proof.

Oh well, enough of this frivolity. Back to work. Have a nice afternoon Mr Fungus.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

First thedistillers, now Theo. Is this the best they've got?

[MrFungus420]

Are you under the delusion that every experiment operates like a biology statistical survey?
That is not the case.)

No, but I think you must see the problem colubridae. Christian theology proposes that the universe is sustained by and through God. You can demonstrate whatever you want scientifically (and jolly useful it is as well) but it simply doesn't tackle that central question of whether God is sustaining what you and I are examining or not. If I am right, and God exists, then all the science we do is on a universe sustained by and through God. From a scientific point of view because God is sustaining everything we can actually eliminate God from our science just as a mathematician may remove a constant that is present on both sides of an equation. And so for my science it makes no difference to me whether I say there is no God or I say everything is created by and sustained through God; the science is the same for both those scenarios (unless God disappears in which case in my scenario we all disappear as well).

And the same arguments can be made for Last Thursdayism. Everything was created last Thursday with the illusion of having been around much longer.

That is shifting the burden of proof.

Indeed,

So you admit to resorting to a logical fallacy.

to show how different subjective starting points confound the question. We (theists) don't share your starting point

My starting point is neutral: I don't know.

From there, the only thing that I have to go on is evidence.

My "starting point" is that I do not accept your claims without evidence.

[Rob]

I would be interested to hear the exact difference between proof and evidence in a non-mathmatical context. I don't think there is a bit of difference to be honest. Unless you claim personal revelation to be proof whereas there is no evidence. In any case I want to know what you call proof.

[Chinaski]

"I cannot prove that the earth is not flat.

I cannot prove it is flat."

Yes, you can, with science. Ride the space shuttle, for example.

Underdeterminism. Observed phenomena could possibly be explained by a multitude of conflicting theories. We see that the earth is round- maybe it is in fact round, or maybe it's flat and we're just suffering mass delusion. Or something. Or viewing from space warps our perception some how.

Sorry, but the radar confirms it's round. The signature of the return is spherical.

That's not the point. There's a logical fallacy in assuming that what we perceive is 100% accurate. Sure, we have instruments, we can measure, we can amass evidence beyond rational refutation. But from an epistemic perspective, nothing is ever 100%.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

That's not the point. There's a logical fallacy in assuming that what we perceive is 100% accurate. Sure, we have instruments, we can measure, we can amass evidence beyond rational refutation. But from an epistemic perspective, nothing is ever 100%.

I won't assume perfection, but the results I have are nearly perfect, so that's what I go by.

[Coito ergo sum]

1) Human beings aspire to be happy. The logical consequence of atheism is despair and nihilism. If atheism is true, there is no reason to care about truth, or anything else, so even if God doesn't exist, it's more rational to believe and hope God exists, to live a happier life.

It does not logically follow from atheism that a human would suffer despair and adopt nihilism. Many Buddhists, for example, are atheists and they definitely do not ascribe to Nihilism, and many atheists are quite happy.

It is also not logical to state that "if atheism is true, there is no reason to care about truth or anything else." We care about truth for reasons quite apart from whether a god or gods exist. We care about truth because we need to know what is true and not true to do many of the things we do on a daily basis, and to interact with other humans.

2) The universe had a beginning.

Maybe, maybe not. We don't know for sure.

It is irrational to believe a universe can start to exist without a cause, for ex nihilo nihil fit. Only what we call "God" can be the cause for the universe, for the cause of the universe has to be personal and immaterial. Therefore atheism is irrational.

There is no basis for the statement that the "cause for the universe has to be personal and immaterial." Why can't it be impersonal or material?

If the universe had a beginning, there was a cause, but that doesn't mean that the cause was a god or an unnatural cause. Just as a solar system had a beginning, but had natural causes, so too can a universe have had a beginning and a natural cause.

3) You can only make sense of the universe if it behaves in a predictable way. If atheism is true, there is no rational reason to believe the universe will continue to behave in a predictable way. We cannot make sense of the world we live in if atheism is true. Therefore atheism is irrational.

Actually, this is the opposite of reality. If theism is true we can't be sure that the universe will continue in a predictable way because the god or gods may intervene at any time to make it behave in arbitrary ways. Atheism removes that avenue for arbitrariness by removing god or gods.

4) There is no rational explanation for the Gospel accounts, unless Jesus really rose from the dead. Only God had the power to raise Jesus from the dead. Therefore God exists, and atheism is irrational.

There is most certainly a rational explanation or explanations for the gospel accounts that would involve Jesus not really rising from the dead. One example would be that the gospel accounts are myths, just like the accounts of Hercules descending into Hades or Zeus impregnating Danae as a shower of gold. Someone wrote them down, perhaps sincerely believing them to be true, but they aren't. There is a rational explanation for you.

5) Atheists can't even prove their position, using evidence and logic. Therefore atheism is irrational.

Sure they can. Atheism is in its broadest sense a lack of any belief in a deity - it's a suspension of belief awaiting evidence from those asserting that one or more deities exist. The latter having failed to prove their case, atheists simply do not accept the assertions of any of the individuals asserting the existence of a deity or deities.

In other words, it is just as rational as a christian rejecting Islam because of Islam's failure to prove its claim. An atheist rejects both.

[Coito ergo sum]

I would be interested to hear the exact difference between proof and evidence in a non-mathmatical context. I don't think there is a bit of difference to be honest. Unless you claim personal revelation to be proof whereas there is no evidence. In any case I want to know what you call proof.

There really isn't much difference, except perhaps how people use the terms.

Sometimes people use the word "proof" to mean that something is "irrefutable" or "conclusive" - case closed. However, to say there is proof for something, especially in science, does not mean it can't later be proven wrong. There are degrees of proof - we can say that we have "some proof" for something and a lot of proof, or strong proof, or conclusive proof. The same goes for "evidence."

[Coito ergo sum]

"So here is my contention: you and I each work from presuppositions."

That's why you're failing here. You don't discriminate between facts and assumptions.

Startle me then. Use facts to disprove the existence of God and no excuses about the absence of any good methodology to prove a negative, not being able to do something doesn't mean the opposite must be true.

I would be happy to do this. However, can you provide a bit of clarification. By "disprove the existence of God" can you specify which god you mean?

Or, do you mean the existence of any god or gods at all in whatsoever form? Are you referring to the existence of a supernatural creator(S) of the universe?

But, let me take a crack at this, based on your requests to "use facts to disprove the existence of God."

1. Fact: we have many different religions (thousands) positing many different ideas about the nature of God. Many of these religions propose a God that are inconsistent with many other religions' concepts of God. At most, one (or a few) of them can be right. They all could be wrong. There is no way for me to distinguish which religion's god-concept, if any, is correct. Therefore, I am not justified in arbitrarily choosing one over another. To arbitrarily pick one over another would be irrational, therefore, my only rational decision is to suspend belief and wait for one of them to produce a persuasive case.

2. Fact: There was a point in time where humanity ascribed supernatural causes to many things in the world, and not just the creation of the universe and the origin of life. The planets were messengers of the gods, the stars were angels, gods controlled the thunder and the lightening, the wind and the rain. Gods caused volcanos to erupt, earthquakes to shake the ground, and tidal waves to crash into the land. Gods caused tornadoes and hurricanes - gods cause famines, droughts, pestilence as well as times of plenty, safety and health. Gods were in the rocks and the ground and the waters and the flames. Over time, as man's knowledge of the world around him increased, we began to eliminate where these gods were located. We eventually learned that the planets were orbs like Earth, that the stars were suns like the Sun, that thunder and lightening were controlled by natural processes, as were the wind, rain, volcanoes, earthquakes, tidal waves, tornadoes, hurricanes, famines, droughts, pestilence and times of plenty, safety and health. We learned how the Earth and the celestial bodies operate and change over time all naturally and without the day to day intervention of any deities. Now we are asked by the clerics and the priests, and the devotees, to believe that there are still gods but they are now "outside the universe" and they are what the caused the universe "came to be" and how "life first started." Isn't it quite a coincidence that these are areas where man, like thunder and lightening in ancient times, has no natural explanation? So, given the long history of events and occurrences being attributed to gods, and then later being determined to be perfectly natural processes, is it not rational to surmise that the universe itself will have an explanation that is natural and that the origin of life will have a natural explanation?

3. Fact: an atheist basis his lack of belief on the fact that nobody has been able to demonstrate that any god or gods are distinguishable from make-believe. Given that you are unable to distinguish your god from make believe, is it not rational for an atheist to refrain from believing in your god?

Is that what you were looking for?

[FBM]

"So here is my contention: you and I each work from presuppositions."

That's why you're failing here. You don't discriminate between facts and assumptions.

Startle me then. Use facts to disprove the existence of God and no excuses about the absence of any good methodology to prove a negative, not being able to do something doesn't mean the opposite must be true.

You're the one stating that bullshit is true. It's up to you to prove it.

Nope. Still nuthin'.

Maybe tomorrow...